Parents in Stories

I think I wanted to make another list beause I finished watching Tiger and Bunny. I started thinking about characters who are parents.
And yes, I like makign lists.
I know there are plenty of parent characters in literature, but there aren't that many among the books and movies that I get most into.
Well, there are a lot of parents, but not a lot of cool parents. A lot of main characters are orphans, so parents don't get mentiond. Or in some movies the parents are ignored completely. You know they're there, but they don't show up. Or they only show up briefly. Like in Charlie Brown, where the adults never show up and only squawk off screen.
Or the parent characters don't get interesting roles.
Or characters become parents at the very end.
I haven't encountered many characters who are parents from the beginning, but are also awesome and get decent roles.
So this list is me picking out some interesting parent characters from my favorite movies/books/series.


Like I said, Tiger, from Tiger and Bunny. Tiger is great. He's the main character, and he's a lot of fun.
Hughes, from Fullmetal Alshemist. He's rather similar to Tiger, in how he dotes on his daughter. XD

Willow. Will has two chldren. He decides to leave his home and his family, in order to save the world he lives in, and another child that needs protection.
In August Rush, both of August's parents have their own stories, and finally at the end, all of them come together.
Indiana Jones. Indie's dad is great.
Jean Valjean. I suppose he's not technically a father, but he becomes one to a little girl that needs him. And he goes through extraordinary lengths to keep her safe, even thought his own crazy troubles.
In the Mask of Zorro, the first Zorro (Elaina's dad) is an awesoem mentor figure.
Marlin, from Finding Nemo.
Once Upon a Time, with Snow and Charming.
Stoick + Valka from How to Train Your Dragon 2. Valka was freakign awesome.
Ponyo's parents. Heheh. Fujimoto still makes me laugh every time he's on screen.
Wolf Children. It's mostly about the mother, and the challenges she faces tryign to raise a couple wolf/human children. I wish there was more of the dad though. He was cool.
In the Disney Hercules, Zeus was cool.
The Incredibles is about the entire family, parents and kids.
Yohei's parents, from Chi's Sweet Home. The dad is funny.
Hohenheim, from Fullmetal Alchemist. He's another one who had to leave his family behind in order to protect them. But without him, they could never have won that final battle.
The parents in Totoro.
Well, in You are Umasou, Heart is a dad, right? ^-^
Animal Land has another parent who adopted a kid. Monoko, the Tanuki.
Yotsuba's dad.
In Little Women, the mother is a great source of wisdom for her three daughters.

Let Me Help O__O

During creative writing last night, I was talking to a friend of mine - Clair. She was having trouble with the ending of a short story.
I ran some ideas past her. I hadn't read any of the story, and didn't know a thing about it except for a couple details about the failed ending, but I was pretty much working blind. I gave several suggestions that didn't work, and then I gave her an example from the Wind Rises. I talked about the ending, how it was sad, but it had that hope of "I will live on."
And that was just what Clair needed to finish her story. She cut out the last couple pages and finished with a nice paragraph about him continuing to fight on, even after losing an important person.

This might be strange, but I felt incredibly excited that I was able to help.
Maybe because I never seem to be able to give helpful advice about filling in a story. At least, I can't think of any previous successful attempts... Have I?
I do seem to get very excited if I'm able to really help someone. Like when I helped Nicole with some weird school stuff. And then later I ranted to her about "I wanna heeelp people!"


Yeah. Is that strange?

Master Rall and Kulin

I don't think I ever posted the picture of Noni Rall, and Kulin here.
Although I finished it a long time ago.

Kulin is a Lion dragon. But until I drew this picture, I had no idea what colors to make her. XP I guess she is a relatively recent character though.
I wonder if there are too many characters in this story who have names that begin with "K"...

And next I shall draw Katani's two mentors. I know generally what Kakao will look like. But I just changed the guy again (including his name - it's his third name), so I'll need to think about his appearance.

Seraphina

I just finished a book called Seraphina. And it was very good.

Crystal got Ellen, Nicole and I to read it. And I was the last one to do so XD
And now I'm trying to remember the last good book I read before this... And I just realized, I haven't done a book update in a while. I really should do that. Except I'll have to find the last one I wrote so I can pick up where I left off...
Well, the last book that I liked enough to want a copy was called Ship Breaker. It was a good book, but admittedly I mainly want it because it's the closest thing I've found so far to my graduate project. So I'll definitely need to read more of this author's books.
But Seraphina was just a high quality book. Good characters and world and writing.
I don't think I've been reading very many good books recently... But it looks like the second book to Seraphina is coming out next month. Cool~

Actually, I ended up liking the romance part of the book (spoilers coming up). When Kiggs appeared, it seemed like they were setting him up to be a romantic interest. And as often happens, I heave a sigh when I see that, because it usually isn't satisfying in the end (at least to me).
But I actually liked this relationship. Maybe it was because of how Seraphina had to fight it, for multiple reasons. Kiggs fought it too. And in the end they accepted the fuzzy future about their relationship.
Kiggs also was cool. The first time I realized that was when Seraphina insulted him, and he took off. But the next day he came back and was acting all normal. When Seraphina asked why, he said ,"well, you insulted me and I got angry. That's how things go. But I thought about it and realized that you made a good point." Aah, what a great response. And a great way to think about things too!
I also think that I understood the relationship. I got why they would be attracted to each other. And they also tried to be realistic about how their relationship would affect them.

And one more thing. I like to read the glossaries at the end of books. And the one at the end of Seraphina actually made me laugh a couple times.
Who the heck can make a glossary funny?
Wow. Kudos.

"Health Food"

This was an amusing thing that happened at school. I wouldn't have even noticed probably if I hadn't recently read through that Nerd Fitness website.

There was a little booth set up for the students, where they were giving out healthy snacks for free.
They had a few fliers about eating healthy.
And they were giving out little tubs of flavored yogurt, granola bars, little bags of carrot sticks, trail mix, fruit, water, and iced tea.

Except I don't think half of the stuff they gave out was actually healthy...
For example, granola bars are often full of sugars and calories.
The yogurt had that fruit flavoring, which is sugary and can have fake sugar in it.
The trail mix had m&ms in it.
I've heard that those little carrot sticks that you buy pre-packaged are doused in chemicals to keep them from going bad.
The fruit was probably good. And I don't know what was in the iced tea. And water is good too.

I don't really have anything against these foods (except the packaged carrots). I just found it amusing that this was the school's attempt to teach people about healthy food.
Granted, it's probably better than what a lot of people eat, and might be a step up for them.


And earlier that morning, at a differed part of school, a club was giving out free juice. I took one because I like juice. And then I saw in the label "contains 10% juice."
Great. What's in the other 90% of the drink?
It was one of those drinks that makes your mouth feel funny after you've had half of it...
And I didn't finish it.



(In case you're wondering why I have dinosaurs on this post, it's because this part of Fantasia always made vegetables look really tasty to me when was a kid.)

Get to the Point

(Belated post @__@ )

I was at my aunt and uncle's house during the super bowl. Not because I wanted to watch sports, but because I was making mosaics with my aunt at the time.
Dad called me in because Idina Menzel was singing the national anthem, which was exciting. I do love her voice.
And she sang it well. But she stretched the song out longer than she needed to.
And I think that happens all the time when someone sings a national anthem at an event.
Probably because, a lot of the time, the singer knows they're in the spotlight, and they want to milk it for all it's worth. ^-^'

Now, in high school, our band had to play at a bunch of the football games (which is a big reason for my dislike of football). And our conductor told us, "don't play the anthem slow. Play it faster, and with energy, because people don't care about the anthem. They want to get to the game.
This could to relate to a lot of things, probably. like opening speeches, or introductions.
Though it's not universal. Sometimes you want the intro/song to last a long time, because it's so good.

And another thing, when you play something too slow, it looses its energy. This is another thing I've experienced in band. When you play a piece too slow, even by a little, it becomes more sluggish. But when you bring it up to tempo, it comes to life.
This is good to keep in mind about writing too. Get to the good stuff, and don't drag along.


And one slightly related note, because Idina Menzel links to Frozen.
In the last season of Once Upon a Time, I really loved Anna and Christophe. They were great. The both had lines that made me laugh out loud. Anna had a couple really great ones. I wonder if I can find them somewhere...
Well, no luck so far.
But the part where Anna is praising Elsa for tricking both her, and their aunt and says, "you did a great job! I was CRUSHED!"
And when she goes up to Hans and says "I sang with you!"
Aah, they did a great job. I liked Elsa, but Anna and Christophe were my favorites this time.

Adverbly

I thought I'd talk about this, because I've been hearing about it quite a lot recently. But it was only recently that I'd heard about it at all.
Adverbs.
Adverbs tell you how something is done.
He walked SLOWLY.
I wrote SLEEPILY.
And then dozed off LAZILY.

You get the picture.

It seems like adverbs would be helpful. They give you an image, without taking up a ton of space in the process.
But a lot of serious writers avoid adverbs at all costs.
Why?
I'll write an example:

Scene 1: He spoke sleepily.

Scene 2: His words were slow, and slightly slurred as though they hadn't woken up yet.

Which of those sentences gives you a more vivid picture? Well, the second one. At least, I sure hope so.
So, adverbs work. But they can be very lazy, and not nearly as strong. "Very" is one example of a "very" weak adverb.
And in the wrong hands, some adverbs can just be awful.
If you take the time to set up a strong scene, you don't even need that adverb. You can immediately tell that someone is in pain, because of the way they're limping, gritting their teeth, and watering at the eyes.

So, did I go and delete all adverbs out of my stories? Well, no. That seems a bit extreme at this point. But I am trying to notice all of my adverbs, and to get rid of those that I can replace.

kiriban fail XD

(Aahaha, so fail. The number before and the number after. I'll probably delete this soon)

Really Noisy Rakes...

Something I hate: Leaf blowers.
This week I was sitting on a bench on campus, eating lunch. And just as I start to eat, this guy stops right across the walkway from me and turns on a leaf blower and spends about 15 minutes blowing dust and leaves around and shattering the air with that awful noise as I'm trying to eat.
Could I have moved? Maybe. At lunch time, a nice bench can be hard to find. And I doubt the guy would have even noticed if I stormed off in a huff...
And a lot of the time when I'm sitting in my room with the window open, the disgusting blare of a leaf blower or electric lawn mower drives me crazy and makes me shut the window, even though it's such a beautiful day.
They seem so utterly and completely pointless, and torturous at the same time. What do they do that you can't do with a much quieter and energy-efficient method?
There are a couple lovely things called rakes and brooms. Do they take longer than a leaf blower? Maybe a little. And they may take a little more effort, but it's hardly intensive exercise. They're nice and quiet. And they don't need fuel. I've done lots and lots of sleeping and raking, in gardens and ranches. I also have a hand-pushed lawn mower, which I am in charge of using. So I say with complete confidence that they're a million times better than those obnoxious excuses for a substitute.

I tried to write this down as it ran through my head during lunch. ^-^ Venting is over~

Inefficient Communication

I've noticed that some people are very inefficient at communication.



That's true for everyone sometimes. I've done it plenty. I seem to do it a lot on the phone...
But last semester, one guy in my creative writing class would talk for an entire minute, and say almost nothing. His speech was half comprised of "like" and "um" and "sort of" and "you know." There were very few words of any content.
I wonder how he got to that point, where his speech was so inefficient. Maybe it's because he was nervous about talking during class?

And then there was one teacher that gave a few lectures during one course, and he used the word "um" in most of his sentences. And once you start to notice the "ums," that's all you hear. --_--
"Ums" are common when students have to present something. I do my best to keep them to a minimum, because they are really distracting.
And then there's the word "like." I wrote a post on this a long time ago. Sometimes "like" is effective. For example, "I like crunchy apples."
But when people talk (me included) we stick in all these random "likes" that have, like, no purpose at all.

I think "like" is the one I use the most. I should try to cut those out some more.
It would be good if we could think more about what we say, and how we word it. During presentations or talks, it's especially important to be clear and concise. I've gotten quite a bit of practice with that so far, so I'm fairly decent with it. I'd like to get better.
But even in everyday speech, it would be helpful too. And of course in writing.
I should think about that some more...