Category: Senior Literary

Have I done a blog on this before? Yes. I have. But I’m also still building aliens and discovering new things about it. I’ve also been sharing my progress with friends, and that’s naturally brought up a lot of questions, which has provided a lot of answers, so… yeah. I’ve figured all these tips I’ve given might help someone out there, so why not share them? Some might be old, but they’re good. At least to me. These are only tips from my personal experience and methods- what works for me won’t work for everyone, and that’s good! Expand and explore and create. It’s fun. But onto the notes:

The hardest part about creating aliens is consistency. See what I mean in an obvious example. I created a sit and wait predator at one point, then proceeded to make them incredibly agile- but that doesn’t make sense. Why would a sit and wait predator need agility? It’s evolutionary niche is to sit and wait. So I had to go back and revise that to make it all coherent. I went about removing the agility. This applies to pretty much everything in alien creation. The biggest question to ask yourself with every feature is “Why?”, social, biological, psychological, and everything else.

Don’t be afraid to make your aliens utterly alien in shape. You could make an alien a sphere if you wanted to. Or a two dimensional circle. Honestly the more unearthly you make their biology, the more fun it can get. They’re aliens. I have an alien species that is made of fumes. Different materials work as long as you can convince your reader. Not everything needs to be flesh, or even plant matter!

Pronouns. Do your aliens even have pronouns? Does their language only account for name? Do they only speak in third person? What if their pronouns weren’t even based on self expression, but based on some kind of emotion? Like a language with an “i’m busy” pronoun, and a “I’m happy” pronoun? There’s so many things you can do with language. They can affect the dialects your aliens have when they speak in another language, too, like a common language.

Reproductive cycles. A lot of media marks alien reproduction as something within human perception, like egg laying, live birth, or even parasitic stuff- but they’re aliens. You can go so much further. You can have your aliens be born as microorganisms from the teardrops of their parents and grow as they’re stewed together in a vat. Throw in food and mix until you have baby. You can make them have entirely different forms depending on their life stage. They’re aliens.

What technology they don’t create. There’s a lot to say in what a species does create, but there’s also a lot in what they don’t create. Think of it like this: if a species doesn’t have computers, maybe they just don’t have the tech. But they could also have photographic memory and lightning quick thoughts, or maybe they’re connected by a hivemind. Maybe they don’t need computers. Anything a species doesn’t have speaks easy exposition. A lot of media will use this in a way that’s like… they use what the aliens don’t have to highlight what they aren’t, but to me it’s super fun to use what aliens don’t have to highlight what they are.

Evolution is incredibly important to species building in my mind. It makes it easier to figure out anatomical traits and behaviors, all the while fleshing out the world. Then, when you have traits and behaviors, you get a better idea of what that species’ society looks like. How would hibernation effect a government? Does family structure matter? There’s a lot more I could put to this, but I struggle to word it. How a species acts defines their customs. 

 

Part 1 of Part 2: Black Friday 

 

Ok, so my last blog was a review/non-sensical babble about the first part of Team Starkid’s Hatchetfield Trilogy, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals. So, it’s only natural that I cover the second part. I’ll try to make this one not so long.  

 

Black Friday, the second part of the Hatchetfield Trilogy created by Team Starkid, opens up with a bunch of people, not named, adorned in green costumes singing a song about the new toy that’s all the rage and will be hitting the shelves at the Hatchetfield Mall this Black Friday, the Tiggle-Me-Wiggly. The song ends opening credits roll and then boom, Emma and Paul(yes from the last show, I know they died but…moving on) Paul makes his disdain for the musical commercial known Emma hushes him, while dropping to the audience that she’s heading to Tom Houston’s the widowed husband of her deceased sister Jane, where she imagines they’ll be having family time. 

 

Once they arrive, Tom “greets” them at the door and drops that he just needs them to watch Tim, Jane and Tom’s son, her nephew. While he goes to the hardware store. Much to Tim’s dismay, this news causes him to storm off once he’s out of earshot. Tom reveals to an irate Emma that he’s actually going to the mall to get Tim a Tiggle Me Wiggly Doll. He is then struck with the harsh reality that given the high demand of those dolls it’s unlikely that he’ll get that doll after only getting there an hour before opening, but regardless of Emma and Paul’s logic, he’s determined to get this for Tim. 

 

Once he arrives at the mall, he sees an old student of his, Lex Foster, out back smoking. He expresses his disappointment towards her quitting high school, to which she responds by doing the same, as Tom quit teaching after Jane’s passing. Their conversation is halted when he runs to get into the lengthy line in front of the toy store. 

 

We then follow Lex, meeting her cranky, greedy boss Frank as she enters her job, the very toy store Tom was rushing to. Frank is just getting a new shipment of the dolls,, and is ecstatic it is here We see the delivery guy for the first time, identical to the main guy from the commercial, Uncle Wiley. After he leaves, Frank degrades Lex, giving the audience some information about her: she lives in a trailer with her drunk mom and her little sister, who is referred to as “crazy” in the musical. Once Frank leaves, Lex opens the box to begin shelfing but quickly shoves one in her bag, We learn here that she intends to steal and sell the Wiggly-Doll to run away to California with her boyfriend Ethan and her little sister Hannah. Ethan was mentioned far before cluing us in on the fact that he’s a troublemaker, henceforth not really allowed around the mall. He’s watching over Hannah, who is in a tizzy saying a whole bunch of things about “Good-Blood and Bad-Blood” and “The black and white.” We learn a lot of what Hannah can see is shown to her by Webby, an “imaginary” spider who lives in her head. Ethan manages to calm her down and get her to wear Lex’s backpack by giving her a hat, swearing that it could protect her from anything.

 

After this, we are taken to the toy store line, where citizens are currently waiting to purchase a Wiggly-Doll. A blonde woman, who reveals herself to be Linda Monroe, is a highly wealthy Hatchetfield Boating Society member and wife to the most well-renowned plastic surgeon in Hatchetfield. She doesn’t wait in lines, so she writes a check to a man to get him to trade with her. Catching the attention of Becky Barnes, a nurse at the Hatchetfield Hospital’s pediatric wing. She catches the attention of the rest of the line, who mutter to themselves in annoyance, but no one takes a stance. It is here that we are revealed the truly sadistic, evil personality of Linda Monroe. Not only does she tear down Becky’s hunger for justice, but she twists the knife about the situation surrounding her abusive husband, Stanley, and his recent disappearance, which has been believed by many as him leaving Becky for a younger woman in Clivesdale.

 

All of a sudden, Tom Houston comes rushing in front of the people behind him, about to ask Becky for her spot before he notices who she is. The two of them were high school sweethearts back in the day, before Becky met Stanley and before Tom got enlisted. We can tell by the interaction that they are far from over each other. 

 

The doors finally open at the toy store, and Sherman Young, the first man in line, immediately requests to buy every Wiggly they have in stock. The line groans and whines about the price; the idea of limiting the purchase amount to one is not on board for Linda as her four little perfect blonde boys all deserve their own Wiggly. This crowd soon gets violent, physical altercations take place. We move on over to the CineaPlex, where Ethan and Hannah are trying to see a movie. We get a true peek into how much Ethan cares for Lex, and Hannah expresses her fear about an upcoming disaster that’s emerging. The sweet moment is soon cut short when shoppers, deluded by the idea that Ethan has a doll, beat him to death. Leaving Hannah to fend for herself. 

 

Tom and Becky come across Ethan, but it’s too late. Ethan is dead, and the brief act of kindness gets Tom stabbed by another crazed shopper. Becky takes him away to bandage his wound.

 

Cut again, we are now following Linda, distressed on the phone with Gerald. Soon, she is approached by Wilbur Cross, who we have seen as Uncle Wiley. He reveals that though Linda doesn’t know him, he knows her; he knows enough about her to know that only two of her four children actually belong to her husband. He preys on her only want in life, which is to be adored. He tells her that she needs to help bring about the birth of a “god”.

Alrighty, so as of lately I have had a lot of writers block however there has been one thing that has been stuck in my mind. A piece that I have been working on to this day have consumed a lot of my time and I just wanted to share it here for a bit of feedback, this is only the first half of the piece, but I digress. Mostly if it is something that I think I can work with in the future.

The sound of piano tiles was the only thing that came to mind for Dmitri when he tried to think about his mother. It was the only thing that he could remember. At least until the ‘before nights,’ the before nights were the nights that were blurry for him, but nights that he remembered, nevertheless. They were the nights he would hide in dimly lit alleyways and the nights where the sleeves of his jacket would be littered with holes and scraps found from bistro dumpsters. The before days were the days spent ducking behind crowds and waiting for the sun to set, but most of all they were the days that Dmitri spent making sure he never had to go back to the home where he had lived before. Ever since the day that the flu had grasped its hands around Dmitri’s mother and refused to let go, Dmitri would not come back home. His mother was all that he had left, and for all he knew she still sat motionless in that same bed with a throat void of sound and skin void of color.

However, when it came to the before days, there was one day that stood out far beyond the confines of what people understood as a start. It was the day that would create Dmitri’s life. Shape it into the form of a being that sat behind an army of marble.

Dmitri did not know the name of the game that the men in the park were always playing, all he knew was the way that they sat in beholden of the way their opponents played always met his gaze. There was one man in particular who he would always find himself focused upon. It might have been due to the fact that there were always men that sat around him as he played, closely looking in on the games that he would play. However, Dmitri liked to think that it was because of the silver tooth that sat in his mouth that were already littered with crowded teeth. Every time that he would play, he would relentlessly lick at the silver tooth, as if he was trying to polish it bright enough to a point where it would distract the other player. But as Dmitri continued to watch the man play, he realized that it was instead his eyes that distracted the other player. Dmitri had always watched the games from afar, so he was never sure of what color the man’s eyes truly were, however, all he knew as that they were dark. At first, he was offput by the darkness, but with the cold nights spent huddled in dumpsters and under awnings, he had begun to find comfort in the impending darkness that were the nights of Moscow. Even when the streetlights finally cut off in the early hours of the morning Dmitri had realized he was no longer afraid, this was due to the fact that the lights had done nothing for him but block out the light of the stars. This was one of the few things that Dmitri had begun to find comfort in, this was due to the fact that no matter what happened on the harsh streets of a Soviet Jungle of concrete, no matter how many games the man one, no matter how many times the lights would flicker off, and no matter how many times mothers died, the stars in the sky would not go out, they would continue to shine every time that the streetlamps began to flicker.

January had turned to February, and to March soon after. A nine-year-old boy who stood behind alleyways to watch men play a game that he knew not the name of turned into a ten-year-old boy who would cower behind the crowds of people who walked the sidewalks, just so that he might be able to get a better look at the board. Even though the nights had begun to warm up, this did not make things easier for Dmitri. Nights spent easier outside did nothing but create more places for others to take the spots Dmitri would call home. “Dumpster Scum” he had heard one of the men at the park say one morning when a man Dmitri had recognized had crossed through the park.

Yeah, okay it's like. Unoriginal or whatever BUT I'm working on something a little cool that I wanted to show off which is basically, Mr. Peabody and Sherman meets Bill and Ted EXCEPT Mr. Peabody and Sherman is one person (Shawn) and so are Bill and Ted (Sid). I wrote  a couple hundred word skits as well as like. 400 hundred words of a pilot episode and that seemed better than my original blog idea so here!

SID: Oh man, you ever seen Da Vinci paint? That guy has the worst brush holding technique I have ever SEEN, dude.

SHAWN: What are you talking about—You’re supposed to LEARN from Da Vinci.

SID: Yeah, dumbass, how to paint.

SHAWN: No, NO, the mountains of history he carries? It’s literally fucking Leonardo Da Vinci. What— I—What are you doing with that machine?

SID: Well. Last week, I rewatched the original Dracula—As far back as I could go. I didn’t even pay a quarter for that movie. I paid a nickel, dude! A nickel.

SHAWN: Stop talking, stop talking! Oh my God!

SID: Jesus was real.

SHAWN: What the fu—SHUT UP! JUST BE QUIET!

SID: God’s not.

SHAWN: OH MY—(face behind hands) MMHMPH.. 

-------

SID: A timetraveller from the 70s who’s definitely lost. Very chill and tries to use timetravelling to enjoy life as much as possible. Went back in time six years to visit Woodstock. He balances out Shawn’s paranoia but frustrates him endlessly.

SHAWN: A wannabe timetraveller who’s built a portal and plans to use timetravel as a resource for the good of the universe and to gain knowledge lost to man. Then Sid shows up.

SHAWN is sitting at a long desk that stretches from wall to wall, covered in red string and papers. He’s muttering to himself, growing more and more wide-eyed. A loud crash sounds behind him, where his non-working time machine stands. SID exits a time machine, coughing and waving away clouds of smoke. SHAWN, stares in horror and quickly starts muttering prayers.

SHAWN: (complete horror) What the fuck is that what the fuck is exiting my portalllll I THOUGHT IT WASN’T WORKING my god I’m gonna die where’s that fucking gun holy shit this is it—

SID: Let me tell you, Joan Baez can have my…my… This is not my. Hey. Stevie? Stevie, where are— (He finally notices SHAWN, in the room) Hey.

SHAWN turns around, shaking. SID stepped out of the time machine awkwardly.

SID: Hello. You’re not… There’s been a—Oh, please don’t grab that gun…Okay.

SHAWN points the gun directly in SID’s face, who raises his arms.

SHAWN: Who are you?

SID: I’ll answer that politely—

SHAWN: (more desperately) NAME.

SID lets the answer sit on his tongue, weighs its believability, and answers confidently.

SID: Sid.

SHAWN: (lowers gun) The sloth?

SID: Sure, the sloth, put the gun down. I’ll tell you whatever information you need just put the gun down.

SHAWN isn’t sure, backing away and tightening his grip on the gun.

[part here I haven’t quite figured out let’s move on]

SHAWN: You don’t know? 

SID: Me and my friend, Stevie were travelling the timestream, and we stopped at a movie in the 80s, because like future movies and all that—

SHAWN: Future? Wait, what year do you think it is?

A look of dawning realization strikes SHAWN as his mouth drops. He turns to SID, almost fully dropping his gun, and his face goes pale. He surveys SID from head to toe.

SHAWN: No… No way. Holy shit. You’re actually a—No. No—No—(muttering) Does my portal actually work?

SID: I don’t think it does, man. 

Picture this: you wake up early on a weekend. It isn’t late in the day, but it’s early. I-have-school-today early. I am gripping your shoulders with foam falling from my mouth. There is a corkboard behind me.

Houseki no Kuni, English translation being Land of the Lustrous, created by Haruko Ichikawa. A manga I can best describe as a psychological horror with symbolism down to the very chairs and enough details to feed you into an entire new year. Yes, it’s the new year. It’s been the new year. I arrive here today with even more conclusions on this story; even more info to share. I still haven’t been able to get the final translated volume, but when it releases- when it releases. You will be waking up early again.

I woke up early on day whatever of whatever and immediately spiraled into this. I grabbed volumes off my shelf, splayed them open, and by god- MAJOR SPOILERS- I realized a detail so major it was PUT IN A VOLUME’S COVER.

 

 

THE RIGHT EYE

(as depicted in the manga. I know it looks like the left but the manga says its the right.)

+ EYES OVERALL

 

Eyes have always had an important part in Houseki no Kuni. In fact, what I realized was both more eye-related details, and the symbolism of the right eye itself. Both of these are intertwined though. They’re both still eyes. I’m going to tell you all of this information I have between my scrabbly little claws. To even get to the right eye we have to understand what eyes in Houseki no Kuni symbolize. Generally in art, eyes are considered gateways to the soul. Fitting for Houseki no Kuni, but there’s more here.

Eyes, pretty much stated, are symbols for happiness.

“Happiness.”

“I want…”

“…To be happy.”

This is a page after Kongo tells Phos to take his right eye. It is a climax of everything. It is the feeling of exhaustion washing from your bones. This symbolism in eyes doesn’t just show up here, either. There’s panels depicting sadness where eyes are purposefully hid, over and over again. There’s Dia flinging back arrows with their sword, hair covering their eyes, only to be revealed when they think it may be over. Cinnabar is a character who’s steeped in loneliness and worthlessness, and their design consists of flowing hair over their face, often obscuring their eyes, which may be held downcast. When Rutile is thrown into turmoil over the loss of Padparadscha, their neatly done hair falls loosely over their face. Even Amethyst styles their hair to show both their eyes when they’re made distinct from their twin. Kongo tells Phos to take his eye for happiness, and Phos slams it into their skull. 

You can see it vaguely in this shot, and it doesn’t resurface. Maybe it has the potential to in the final volume, but this shows how happiness isn’t something so easily gained, especially in Phos’ case. But take care to note that this is Phos’ right eye (according to the manga), taken from Kongo’s right eye, which he specified. He didn’t just tell Phos to take his eye. He told Phos to take his right eye specifically. 

I could be all leagues of wrong with this, but Houseki no Kuni has integral aspects in its heavy themes of Buddhism. The right eye in this story could extremely easily be linked to Right View, also known as Samma Ditthi, in Buddhism. Right View is the first, crucial step in the Noble Eightfold Path. From Dhamma Source: “In essence, Right View is the understanding of the true nature of things, which leads to the eradication of ignorance, the primary cause of suffering.” Right View “Is essential for understanding the nature of reality and achieving liberation from suffering.”

Do you hear that?

Understanding of the true nature of things? The eradication of ignorance? Liberation from suffering? I said the right eye symbolized happiness in Houseki no Kuni, but it could very well be some literal representation of Right View. Phos’ whole character arc is based in finding the truth; shaking off ignorance to find out what everything means. Phos was, too, assigned the job of creating a nature and natural histories encyclopedia, way, way back in volume one. That task set all of this off. Do you hear that (again)? They were tasked. With making. An encyclopedia. Of nature and things. Of nature and histories. Of na. of.f of LIFE. RIGHT VIEW IS THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS> IM GOING OY SDCRE<S

And that’s not all!

God. There’s just. There’s so much to this series. Hold on a moment while I reel and collect my thoughts. We still aren’t even to Phos losing one of their eyes to be replaced with a pearl, then ultimately losing their ‘original’ right eye altogether. Should I make another blog on that? There’s so much more. There’s so much to explain and too little words. You will wake up early another day.

 

Starkid’s Hatchetfield trilogy!!!

 

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals

PREPARE TO BE SICK OF ME!! 

This may be well known to anyone who has talked to me about media for over 15 minutes but Starkid Productions itself has plagued my brain since the end of the first semester of junior year. Now they have done much more than Hatchetfield-related work and were well established for the musical they put on in college by the name of “A Very Potter Musical”. Youtube and virality and the time being basically unheard especially by a couple of theatre majors at the University of Michigan. So when this launched them into success it took them by quite a surprise. They went on to release two more of these musicals which were equally as beloved by their increasingly blossoming fanbase. Starkid also played a role in launching Glee’s Darren Criss into stardom. 

 

But that’s a whole other blog, we’re here to specifically discuss the Hatchetfield trilogy starting with the first Musical in the trilogy. 

 

Spoiler Warning Ahead. Also this is going to be a long one. 

 

This trilogy was started by the 2018 show, “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals”. The show follows Paul Matthews a run-of-the-meal tech worker at a company named “CCRP”. Paul is gloriously boring, and he likes it that way. We meet some of his co-workers Ted Spankoffski, the office sleaze-ball, Bill Woodworth, a divorced father yearning for his daughter’s approval, Charlotte Sweetly, a woman having an affair with the aforementioned Ted Spankoffski and stuck in a loveless marriage with her husband who is also not the most admirable. Paul is enamored with a barista by the name of Emma Perkins at the local coffee shop “Beanies”. Emma is very snarky and sarcastic, Paul witnesses her get into an altercation with a customer when she refuses to sing after she tipped him. After the man barges off and Emma is scolded by her manager, Paul walks up to the counter asks for his usual, black coffee then drops a five-dollar bill in the tip jar. Much to Emma’s chagrin she starts singing to which he quickly stops her informing her of his hatred for watching people sing and dance. They engage in brief pleasant conversation before a young boy with low blood sugar has an outburst about his delayed hot chocolate.  

 

Paul rushes off with a smile, and heads in for the night. The next morning, there’s a news announcement about a meteor that hit the Hatchetfield theatre, much to Bill’s dismay he had planned to take his daughter there to see Mamma Mia with her girlfriend. Paul turns off the tv ignoring it completely. He goes outside and sees the Greenpeace girl, a climate-concerned protester he’d run into the day prior but instead of carrying on their snippy conversation from yesterday she is singing, joined by an entourage of other citizens including kids from Hatchetfield High’s smoke club and the local Homeless man. This freaks Paul out he rushes to work where he tries to explain what happened but sees a distraught Charolette struggling to pour herself coffee. He asks her what’s wrong and she recounts her morning to him listening to her usually pitchy husband sing the same song Paul had heard from the protester except with perfect pitch. 

 

Paul is called into the office by his boss who has a song of his own, which serves as a kind of fourth wall-break where he enquires about Paul’s wants as the main character must have something to motivate him. Once the song is over he rushes over to Beanies where after a brief scare he sees Emma is still normal. He tries to explain to her what is going on but she obviously has a hard time believing him, they are then interrupted by Emma’s co-workers who pull Emma into this elaborate dance, and she half-heartedly dances along with them as Paul watches mortified. Emma meets her breaking part when there is an entire other eight-count added to the dance. She quits dramatically throwing off her apron in the process it is then revealed to her the gravity of the situation Paul was trying to warn her about. Here it is revealed that a blue substance put into the coffee of the customers causes them to cough and sputter before joining Emma’s coworkers in song and dance.  

 

Paul and Emma make a run for it and meet Ted, Charlotte, and Bill in an alleyway where they are hiding from the commotion. It is there they inform Paul that their boss has been turning their other coworkers into singing zombies. After a moment of banter, Charlotte’s husband shows up after she calls him for help but unfortunately for them, he has already been turned. Amidst his musical performance, Ted cracks him over the head with a trash can lid and his brain falls out, completely blue and covered in the same blue goo that was in the customer’s coffee. Charlotte seldom leaves her husband in the alley until Emma mentions her professor who has a panic room using his doctorate to convince Charlotte to come along with them, taking Sam along. Once they arrive at Professor Hidgen’s house which is behind the gates, he allows them in disgusted they dared bring “one of them” into his home. He has them tie Sam down and he runs experiments on the blue goo he pulls from Sam’s brain. We also find out that Hidgens theorized this exact scenario twenty years ago. 

 

Sam and Charolette are left alone for a period of time in which he wakes up and sings a ballad convincing her to untie him. Once she uncuffs him from the chair he picks her up, plunges his hand into her abdomen, and rips out her guts.

 

 Cut to Paul and Emma getting to know each other better, finding out they went to opposing high schools and Emma’s high school’s showing of Brigadoon’s head started his hate for musicals. Emma confides in Paul about her sister who passed away in a car accident and was the reason she returned to Hatchetfield after leaving to backpack in Guatemala. We learn more about Emma’s upbringing, always having to live in her “perfect” sister’s shadow and having her life be put on display for the first time after her death. We learn about Paul that he loves Hatchetfield and never dreamed of living and in spite of recent events still doesn’t.

 

This heartfelt moment is interrupted by a singing Charolette who busts into the room guts hanging from her abdomen now the same blue as Sam’s brain. She performs a song, detailing how she’ll make them join her if they won’t do it willingly. Which she’ll do by puking goo into their mouths, causing their organs to renew and be enhanced. Her and Sam’s performance is cut short by Hidgens who saves the dead killing both Sam and Charolette with a shotgun. He reveals to the survivors that the Charlotte they knew was gone the minute she sang her first note, this goo which was connected to the meteorite that hit the Hatchetfield theatre earlier that day. This goo had genetically constructed its victims from the inside out. 

 

Bill gets a call from his daughter revealing that she had never actually got on the bus to Clivesdale she was supposed to this morning and was trapped in Hatchetfield High surrounded by the singing doubles. He talks off to save her with the help of Paul and the shortcut Emma used to use back in high school. The two men leave but when they find Alice it is too late she is one of them and Bill meets his demise at his daughter’s hands. Paul is almost killed before a man by the name of General McNamera and his army break in and rescue him before also knocking him unconscious. 

Back in the panic room, Emma forms a theory that the musical doubles are all controlled by the meteor and by destroying this hivemind it could destroy the clones too. But Hidgens, enraptured by the idea of a new musical race knocks her and Ted unconscious. 

 

Cut back to Paul and General McNamara who gives the opportunity to leave the island which Paul refuses to do without Emma. The General gives Paul his gun and tells him to go save Emma. 

 

He finds Emma and Ted being serenaded by Professor Hidgens performing a song and dance from the musical he spent his years in solitude writing along with musical doubles he let in by opening the gates. These doubles soon turned Hidgens into one of them, but in the distraction Paul, Emma, and Ted were able to escape. At least till the doubles appear out of nowhere to which Ted throws Paul in their direction, and Emma chases after him. Ted is met with the General who he thinks will save him but it’s revealed that he has also been turned, dooming Ted along with the rest.

 

Emma saves Paul and they make it onto the Helicopter but soon they realize that the woman operating it is also a musical double, in a struggle with the gun, the helicopter crashes still in Hatchetfield. Emma having been impaled by a piece of the helicopter can’t go anywhere, it is up to Paul to save them. He arms himself with grenades and follows Emma’s instructions to try and destroy the meteor. 

 

Once he gets there, these doubles taunt him urging him to sing along with them Paul tries his best to refuse but his proximity to the hivemind causes notes and dance moves to come out of him against his will. With the last remaining bit of his humanity, he pulls the pin to the grenade and throws it into the meteor. 

 

The last scene of the musical takes place at the hospital where Emma has had her leg patched up and is in the process of being given a new identity and being moved to a remote plot of land in Colorado, Emma Perkins will be believed to have died in the Hatchetfield catastrophe. After the colonel leaves Paul walks in but Emma’s joy quickly shifts to fear once he begins to sing. An entourage of town folk come from behind the curtain and the play ends with Emma screaming to the audience for help.

 

You would think that an ending like that wouldn’t lend to another musical but you would be surprised because next along came Black Friday. Which will need its own blog. 

 

But TGWDLM was well-liked when it came out and is still known as one of Starkid’s most popular pieces at the time of its release, besides the Harry Potter trilogy. This musical does a great job of balancing strong emotions with humor. Emma’s monologue about her sister is heartbreaking but it’s perfectly sandwiched between moments of comedic relief but not in a way that doesn’t allow the audience to sit in these emotions and recognize the depths of these characters. Another instance of this is Bill’s daughter Alice’s death, her double performs a heartbreaking song about the two’s strained relationship confronting Bill with the mistakes he made wracking him with guilt. Watching him confront this while also realizing he had lost his daughter was so beautifully depressing. 

 

Overall it’s a beautiful piece of work, and I recommend it to anyone who likes horror or apocalyptic media and musicals. Also, the songs don’t take away from the story at all and add to the story whether it reveals characters’ inner-emotions, make revelations to the audience in a playful way, or make moments that would be less entertaining with dialogue more entertaining. 

Eldoria is a world is filled with many magical creatures called Mystics, these creatures have many different powers and abilities that make them great companions to Fledglings or baby witches. There are many different Mystics that can control or manifest an arrange of powers to help their human companions. Mystics are strange animals that the people of today still don’t understand the depth of their power. All they know is that whenever a Fledgling forms a bond whether it was a forced bond like some Fledglings with a darker craving of power do. Throughout the game you will gather Mystic companions and grow your power and theirs. As your story continues you will notice that some Witches and their Mystic companions have either gone missing or are missing. You will slowly discover who is doing this and try your best to stop them. And it wouldn’t really be a good story/game if there weren’t a few characters that you could romance to spice things up. 

Setup 

1. Create Your Avatar: When creating your Avatar, you can also choose what type of Fledgling you want to be. The types of Fledglings are: 

• Kitchen/Hearth-Uses herbs, cooking, potions, and any other type of recipe to concoct spells.  

• Hedge- These Fledglings have a closer connection to animals and nature. 

• Elemental- Has a strong connection with many of the elements in the world and can cast and create many different spells.  

• Crystal- Has a connection to the energy/power that certain rocks/gems have. 

• Cosmic- These Fledglings look to astrology, astronomy, and the stars and moon to give them strength. 

Each class has a unique set of spells and a synergy bonus with Mystic of the same element. 

2. Explore the World: 

The game spans diverse zones volcanic wastelands, frozen tundra, and enchanted forests each filled with creatures to tame, resources to gather, and bosses to conquer. 

Gameplay 

1. Encounters: 

Each zone offers a mix of combat, exploration, and puzzles:

Combat: attack, defend, or cast spells using your Mystic’s abilities.

Exploration: Search for items or hidden creatures. Mystic can aid with their unique skills, like a Flame Lynx burning obstacles or a Wind Hawk scouting ahead.

Puzzles: Solve challenges with spells or Mystic abilities, such as freezing water with the Aqua Otter to form bridges. 

2.

Taming Mystics: 

To tame a Mystic:

Depending on how powerful you are you can use your own powers to attract Mystics

Meet specific taming conditions (e.g., calm a frightened Aqua Sprite with a healing spell). 

Trade resources to earn its trust. 

Tamed Mystic level up, unlocking powerful new abilities. 

3. Boosting Powers: 

Mystic enhances your character with:

Active Skills: Mystic cast spells like Fire Claw (Flame Lynx). 

Passive Bonuses: Improve stats, like a Wind Hawk boosting movement speed. 

Combo Moves: Combine Mystics’ abilities for unique effects, like a Fire and Earth Mystic creating a Lava Wave. 

4. Quests and Rewards: 

Complete NPC quests and environmental challenges to learn new spells and level up your companions. 

Winning the Game 

The final challenge is defeating the corrupted Witch. This battle requires you to:

Strategically using your Mystics’ and your own powers combined. 

Counter the Fledgling’s spells.

Survive waves of summoned beasts. 

Victory depends on how well you’ve built your team and combined their powers with your magic. 

Story Aspect: Experiment with new Mystic combinations, explore different zones, and tackle harder difficulties for endless fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading this month’s blog and I hope y’all enjoyed my concept. Also, if anyone knows anyone who’s good a coding and could help me possibly make this game a reality that would be so appreciated.

Lots of Love 😉 

                   -Crislance  

As we all know, every story that is created is just another version of a once classic story.  

We all watch TV shows that come from a cliche plot, or we read books that have the same overused trope. You know what I mean.  If you have ever watched one Hallmark movie, then you have seen them all.   

Well in this case, these two movies I’m talking about have the same plot, but the way they were executed, MAJORLY DIFFERENT. Well maybe except for the ending. But most movies have the same type of surviving character, so that was a given.  But besides that, there were extreme differences that left me viewing each movie as if it was a readaptation of an original.  But the new version is better!  In my opinion.   
This post will have spoilers, so if you think you may want to watch these movies one day, here’s the warning. 

FROZEN 

I honestly feel like I’ve talked about this movie before. Just in case I didn’t though, here’s a summary.  Frozen is a horror movie about survival, not a distressed sister.  In this Frozen, there’s a man who takes his girlfriend and his best friend to a ski resort.  At that ski resort they cause some problems on their final night after convincing a ski operator to let them go down a cliff one more time before it closes (they did this in bad weather by the way, who’s fault? let me be quiet) and the first operator leaves and tells the second operator that there is only one group left.  Which is wrong, because there was a family before the friends got on, meaning there were only TWO groups left! Two I tell you!  With that misinformation, the second operator shuts down the ski lift, because it’s the final ride of the week. Yep, you heard me.  It’s the weekend now, which means the ski resort will be closed over the weekend. Now the three friends must survive. 

With that out of the way, this is the part where I start contrasting the two movies. 

THE CHARACTERS 

In Frozen we have characters who are somewhat flat. They majorly stayed the same throughout.  If they did have their big development, it would probably be seen in just the last five minutes of the movie. There were just three of them, and spoiler, one of them died in the first ten minutes of the movie.  And yes, it was the boyfriend.  And yes, he started as the mediator and died as the mediator.   So, then we’re left with the best friend and the girlfriend.  I didn’t like any of those two honestly.  You know when movies usually give you someone who you want to live, I didn’t get nothing out of those two.  The best friend was really just being a jerk and wishing half the time that the girlfriend died instead.  And the girl, she was just complaining about a good share of the movie.   Also, they didn’t give me high stakes.  Whenever they were to talk about their lives, I was just thinking; is that a good enough reason for you to want to live though.  I know how that sounds, but we all know that in a story there should be some kind of goal.  A reason for them to truly want to escape outside of the fact that they just don’t want to die.  The best friend was just scared of death and the girl just really missed her cat.  I mean, not saying that those aren’t valid reasons, but will those things really motivate you to just survive?  So, to me, the characters in Frozen didn’t have much depth to them.  

THE SETTING 

The setting was a single chairlift in the middle of an abandoned ski resort.  It’s freezing and it’s slowly getting dark. That kind of setting should make you feel suffocated in a way.  It should keep your breath hitched throughout. For Frozen, I do remember keeping my hands clenched in a fist.  I think the setting was neat.  It also did seem as if it could be a likely scenario in real life.  So, the setting did add a lot to the story. 

THE DEATHS

These are survival movies, which means that the way the characters don’t survive is greatly scrutinized.  Their deaths could be symbolism.  Their deaths could tell stories, their deaths could be red herring or call backs. In Frozen, their deaths were very graphic and gruesome.  

This is a huge spoiler coming up.  

So, earlier in the movie, the friends were discussing what they feel would be the worst ways to die.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  And the boyfriend’s answer was being eaten alive. This, of course, comes back to bite him.  Literally.  In an attempt to escape and get help, the boyfriend jumps off the chair.  Note: The chair is about 40 feet above ground. So, when he falls, he breaks his legs.  The audience literally sees his bones poking out.  Then while he’s just accepting his fate, some wolves close in on him.  Then he’s eaten.  Yeah, that’s how that went.  Then after that, the other deaths are calmer.  There isn’t much importance in the other deaths.  To me, it just seemed like the movie needed some characters to die, so they were just written off.  

THE SURVIVOR 

Both movies had the same survivor.  It’s just one of them didn’t fight as hard as the other did.  

In this movie, the survivor closed the movie so easily and so quickly.  The whole time I was just thinking, “If it was so simple, why couldn’t the characters just do this in the beginning?”  It made no sense; it didn’t seem impossible to live.  Why did they set it up as if it was?  When the survivor did the bare minimum to live.  Then the movie had one of those open-ended endings.

I just shook my head in disappointment.

BREAK 

I’m going to go ahead and say it, but I think Break was better.  This may have nothing to do with it, but it was a Russian movie. Anyway, Break follows the story of five people, two women, three men who originally want to celebrate New Years Eve on top of a mountain, but instead it turns into a fight for their life after they get stuck in a gondola lift. To start off, I loved the fact that we got a couple again, but this time, they split up.  Yep, one of the friends gains some common sense (the inciting incident was the same as Frozen) and decides not to go up the mountain.  It was refreshing, because now I’m wondering, oh what’s his role if he’s not stuck? Then and there I know it’s going to be good, because we have someone on the ground.  Also, Break did seem a bit extreme, but the behavior seemed a little more realistic to me.  

THE CHARACTERS 

The characters are flat in here also, but at least this time their individual personalities are more diverse.  Only talking about three of the characters, we have an influencer (the girlfriend), the jerk (the villain basically) and the golden boy (the sad boyfriend) that all played their roles well.  

The characters actually stuck to me, I genuinely felt bad for some of them.   Also, the stakes! The stakes were so high.  I won’t go over all of them, but a huge one was that the girlfriend was pregnant and one of the men was going to propose!  They had something to go back to.  How they felt conflicted about some of these things were relatable.   I understood them.  I really didn’t want to like them because they did that to themselves, but I really wanted to see them live. 

THE SETTING 

The setting was so isolated.  It was that one lift 11,000 feet above ground! Even though it had more resources for the characters to work with, it was scarce and easily damaged because it was an old lift.  There wasn’t anywhere for any of them to go.  Then it didn’t help that there was an icy waterfall under them.  I know.  This whole set made me feel the chill, especially since it cut to the scenes where the one with the sense was driving in his warm cozy car.  The setting was full on body shivers. 

THE DEATHS

Won’t go into detail, but all the deaths had a purpose. They all had a cause and effect that kept amping the stakes.  Every loss had a contribution.  But I do want to note, unlike the sacrifices from Frozen, this movie had deaths that were a result from fighting based on human flaws.  If you would watch it, you would know what I mean. 

THE SURVIVOR 

This survivor stood on business. That’s all I have to say.  They did what they needed to do, all while keeping their morals.

 

But yea, go checkout Break.  I think a lot of you would love it.