So... it's the Nowhere King?

I'm researching Celestial stags for the short story about the plum trees. "Celestial stag" seems to be a poor translation, as they are found in underground mines. And there doesn't seem to be much solid history for where this creature came from. It may just belong to a class of undead demons in Chinese folklore. But they're dangerous - they will do anything to escape the mines and get above ground. And bad things will happen if they do.

So, undead beasts named for stags, and trapped in a place they try to escape imprisonment..

It's the freaking Nowhere King! 

All the Same Snags

I've been writing a few short stories, so I can alternate writing them and editing Evva's story. 

I'm trying to start a new one. I know how it ends. And I think I even know the danger they're fighting. But I have no idea what causes the danger... 

Anyway, this short story explains why the Dayspring Mage Temple is surrounded by a thicket of plum trees, which are not native to the area. Or at least, this story will explain that. When I have all the pieces together.

Why Can't They be Entertaining?

I mention in my last reading update how painfully boring all of my Europe travel books are (the ones I bought about specific locations, such as Blarney Castle in Ireland). 

I know I've mentioned something similar a long time ago, but why can't these writers try to make their books interesting to read? It felt almost like a deliberate attempt to make them as dry and uninteresting as possible. Especially those books that talked about the art. I know there are better things to say about art and artists that what those museum books scratch out. 

And I know it can be done. I just finished John Green's new book about the history and current state of Tuberculosis. A kind of book I don't think I've ever read before. And it was good. It was entertaining, and touching. 

(And fitting - one of my characters had TB as a kid, which is an idea I had before John Green got invested in the topic. I finished the first draft of that story a few months before Everything is Tuberculosis was released. So now I can do it better justice in my own story). 

Why can't there be more educational books that are just good to read? It would make learning so much more fun to so many people.

Something Seen Mostly in Movies

Sometimes in movies, people will stop and stare at someone who's supposed to be beautiful. 

I kind of always assumed that was an exaggeration. Until I saw it happen in person. 

My cousin is literally registered as a model. He has shoulder-length curly hair. I've always thought my cousins are cool, but I never really thought beyond that. 

For Christmas, he came to visit with his son and fiance. We were walking down the street, past a target-shooting game/ride. It's pirate themed. So there was a lady dressed as a pirate on the street, drumming up business. Instead of holding a parrot on her arm, she had a plush octopus on her arm. As she was calling out to potential customers, she stopped and stared at my cousin as we walked by. Then I guess she snapped back to her senses because she said, "I got distracted by that mane. It's gorgeous." 

My aunt says that even when he was 15, people would stop and stare at him.

See, I told you I have cool cousins. They can get reactions out of people you usually only see in movies.

Reading Update

The Red Badge of Courage, by Crane

I think this is the most musing book I've ever read. Most of it happened in the protagonist's head. And most of it was lengthy discourses with himself about the nature of bravery. I think I'd need to read it again to get a better opinion.

 

Shaper, by Haas

This one was fascinating. It's the story of a boy who blames his family for the death of his dog. The new neighbors that move in are animal trainers. The good kind, who really know their stuff. I was impressed with how well the book worked that into the story, and it was a good story too.

Black Horses for the King, by McCaffrey

A different sort of King Arthur story. Because no one thinks about needing special horses to carry knights in their heavy, shining armor.

The Bald Eagle, by Davis

An amazing history of the US's national bird. 

 

The Last Monster, by Garrett

A story of a girl who becomes the guardian of the world's monsters. She has a sad history, but learns to be a good guardian. 

Trail to Heaven, by Ridington

The author spent a long time with the Dunne-za people (from an area known today as Canada). This book does a great job teaching about their culture, and special people like the Dreamers.

 

Ishi: Last of his Tribe, by Kroeber

The story of the last Yahi man, after the rest of his people were wiped out. Some of them managed to live in hiding for a while, but when Ishi was the last, he came down out of the mountains and ended up as more or less a living museum exhibit. I've heard some mixed things about how he was really treated by the museum. It was a good book though.

 

My Neighbor Totoro, by Kubo

I was amazed to discover that there was a novelization of the movie. Apparently it was only translated into English somewhat recently. Some of the book was quite different than the movie. Even the finale of finding Mei. It was cool to have some more pieces to the story. Like I never considered that the guy that helps them move in at the beginning is the uncle! And the girls go back to visit their family for a little while.

The Return of the Wolf, by Grooms

A great book about the history of wolves in the US. 

 

The Odyssey, by Homer

I read (at least most of) this book in school. But it was so long ago that I only remembered bits and pieces. I completely forgot that the actual journey is a small section of the book. Odysseus is telling people what happened to him during the ten years he was lost at sea. Much more of the book is about getting revenge on the suitors.

 

In Europe, I bought a bunch of books about the sites I visited. When I got home, I had plenty of time to read up on the locations and art I'd seen. I'll lump all of these together. And all of them are about as bland as you can get. It's like the authors were trying to take all of the excitement out of some amazing places and history. For example, for the museum books they'll have little blurbs about some of the artwork. And it will say the year it was made, who made it, what's it's made of, and the fact that it has an amazing use of light or color, etc. But it doesn't give the art any life. 

Exposition Overload

A little while ago, I had a random thought about Evva's story. Near the beginning, she and her teacher help solve a problem in a town that they're passing through. At one point, I wondered what would happen if someone from the town made a mistake, and the problem resurfaced. So I've been writing a short story about that. I've nearly finished.

It's more sad than I expected, but it has a nice ending. 

As usual, I don't often know much of what will happen when I start a story. I know I have to redo the whole beginning. And two pages in, there is suddenly an entire page of exposition. That will need to be streamlined and mixed in, of course. But that page of exposition really helped me figure out what I was actually doing XD

 

Red ruffed lemur

Marvel Assembled

I've been finally catching up on the Marvel (MCU) films. I'm mostly there. But I stumbled across a show that explains how some of the movies are made. It's called Assembled. It looks like there are more episodes that I haven't found yet, so I'll need to track them down. But for now, here are some highlights. 

Watch me be annoying, and refer to actors by their character names instead of their real names.

I liked Eternals, but after watching the Assembled episode about it, I like it even more. My favorite part was Phastos telling the story of how he got his suit. He wasn't impressed when he saw the finished product. But he tried it on, and then looked at himself in the mirror. That was all it took to trigger the excitement of, "look at me! I'm a superhero!" 

Man, I hope he got to keep the suit. 

 

Then shortly after, I stumbled across an interview of an actor who appears in both Marvel and Star Wars. In Star Wars, you would know him as Master Windu. He had wanted to be in a Star Wars movie, so for Episode 1 they brought him in and gave him a costume. As he's putting it on, he starts to realize, "I'm a freaking Jedi!" And they let him pick out a lightsaber, and he was so excited. 

Then he said that just because Master Windu was blasted out of a window doesn't mean that he died (After all, Luke fell down a shaft). But even better, he said that his character in Jurassic Park wasn't dead either. Just because a velociraptor took off his arm doesn't mean that it got the rest of him. He says that his character is still out there in Jurassic Park, taming the velociraptors. Hell yeah, I want to see that. 

 

In Thor Love and Thunder, it turns out that the director also plays the big, tall rock guy. While he's acting, he has motion capture dots all over his face to capture speech and expressions. But there's also a mask hanging from a pole above his head, so that the actors know where the characters face would be. This meant that he would have to switch back and forth between acting and directing, and his directing was done with strange stuff all over his face. 

They got kids to draw things that frightened them. And then they turned those drawings into monsters for the movie. What a great idea.

In Dr. Strange, I find it far too fun that two of the main actors are named Benedict. What are the odds?

In the scene where Dr. Strange goes to visit Wanda, they were supposed to be in an apple orchard. But a late frost delayed the blooming of the trees. So they wired flowers onto the trees. Holy crud, that's dedication right there. 

There's also a person on set who's the "magic choreographer." What an awesome job title. I want a magic choreographer. 

 

Aah, the Wakanda Forever one was sad. So was the opening of the movie. I remember finding out what had happened to him. I was leading a summer camp, and one of the kids told me. 

 

I knew ahead of time that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 would be rough to watch. I'd accidentally watched a Youtube video (Cinema Therapy) with major spoilers about Rocket's past. That was probably a good thing, because I was prepared going in (I was not prepared with Isle of Dogs). But being prepared didn't stop me from crying a lot. And that poor, nice bat family. I guess they got wiped out too. They made tons of masks for all the animal people. Very impressive. But the poor animal people TT^TT

I stumbled across a newer Marvel movie called Werewolf by Night. I don't think I would have even noticed it, except that the main character is played by none other than Hector Rivera (my favorite character ever). So I watched that and had some good laughs. One of the characters is named Elsa. And at one point, she lets the monster escape, pretending as though it was an accident. One of the other characters shouts, "Elsa, you let it go!" 

I started laughing and going, "oh no! They went there!" Because of course every time someone hears the name Elsa now, they think of "Let it Go." 

I didn't realize at first that Werewolf by Night was directed by Michael Giacchino. Yes, the composer for my favorite movie, and many others. There was also a great documentary about him making Werewolf by Night. It talked about all the movies he made as a kid. So cool that he finally got to direct an actual movie.

I love how the MCU films all link together. Though the multiverse thing kinda annoys me. Don't they already have a whole universe to work with? (yeah yeah, I know I'm a hypocrite. I always throw Fern around the multiverse, but don't like when anyone else does it). 

 

In Spider-man No Way Home, they were talking about how all the spiders (spiders?) had to get in really good shape since their costumes don't hide anything. Even the Green Goblin got into fighting shape so he could kick some butt (and thoroughly terrify some of the staff with his laugh). Then Doc was talking about how everyone else was doing these elaborate fight scenes. But because his mechanical arms did all the fighting, he'd only be swinging his fists and elbows a little, hardly moving compared to the others. The end result looks great though.

 

Now switching to some pre-MCU Marvel films. 

As I was watching the bonus stuff for Spiderman 2, Stan Lee (one of the main Marvel comic writers) said that he really wanted to play the nasty newspaper owner. He really loved the character. But then he admitted that the actor that played him was better. I thought it was hilarious that the news guy is who Stan Lee wanted to play.

Spiderman saves Aunt May in this movie. They were going to have a stunt double swing around in the harness with Spiderman. But she wanted to do it herself. So there she was, 80 years old, swinging around and having a blast. You go, lady! (Also, I love that she got a good hit on Doc. Poor MJ doesn't even get that. I wish MJ weren't such a damsel in distress all the time). 

Doc's mechanical arms apparently weigh 100 pounds. Jeez, and I thought Gimli's 70 pounds of armor was impressive. I wonder if the puppet strings took any of that weight off his back. I love watching the puppeteers move the tentacles though. They're like some combination of snakes and velociraptors.

Marvel makes a lot of use of CG. It can be so amazing when it's used to build alien worlds. I tend to like things that are made for real, but that doesn't mean I don't fall in love with some CG stuff. Marvel does both CG and real. As I've said, Doc's tentacles are real in much of Spiderman 2. But in Spiderman No Way Home, I think they're all CG. Wait, that's a bad example... Spiderman 2 is an older movie before effects had developed so far. 

I'd love to make a pair of wings that move similar to the tentacles. I know it's not feasible, but it's cool to think of. I already have plans to make wings.

I also ran across an interview of the actor that does Nightcrawler in X-Men 2. I love Nightcrawler, and I was sad that he didn't come back in X-Men 3. It took hours to get his makeup done, and he said it was too miserable for him to want to do it again. Which I get. But it looks sooo good! XD 

He also played Floop in Spy Kids. He said he got to keep the strange couch, and he still has it. Yeah!

Ok, The Sorcerer's Apprentice isn't a Marvel movie, but too bad. Dave's actor says he falls over all the time, so he might as well get paid for it. And indeed, there was plenty of footage of him getting electrocuted and then falling over (his teacher is kinda of a jerk). 

Yeah, this movie could do better with pacing and exposition. And the villains could have more depth (though the stage magician guy is definitely entertaining). But I still love The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I always love a good nerd character. In fact, I think his role as Hiccup helped make nerds cool (they weren't cool when I was a kid. Where were you in my youth, Hiccup?) 

I love that they used so many real effects in the movie. Like multi-colored flames. One of the effects people said, "We had Alfred come in early so we could set his finger on fire." And indeed, they coated his fingers on something, which I guess meant they could safely light his hand on fire. He's watching his flaming hand with great interest (I've actually done something a little like that, though not quite as cool looking. But my palm was on fire, and I didn't get burnt). 

And there were plenty of people swinging around in harnesses for this movie too. Like the bad guy shooting up to the ceiling, and hanging there grinning. I imagine it's like a roller coaster ride. They go fast in those harnesses! I want to try.