Somehow in the last five big stories I've written, I've ended up with these three protagonists:
Arith, Arrin, Ashlyn
How the heck did I let that happen? It took me so long to realize that the names are so close. TT^TT
I'll have to rename Arrin. And that's going to confuse me so much.
I listen to a lot of audio books during my work commute. It's quite jarring when a CD jerks to a halt. Sometimes I can take it home and clean it. Sometimes that doesn't work, because the disk is too damaged. I just missed a chunk out of the beginning of a book. I could kind of piece together what happened, but it was an important part that got scratched out. Sigh. Sometimes I'll try to get ahold of a copy of the book to see what I missed. But by then, it's usually too late to really help.
Plus, I can't listen to anymore of the book during my commute, if I want to try taking it home to clean it. TT^TT
If my next CD audio books haven't come in at the library yet, I use the library's digital library. The system kind of confuses me. It seems that since it's digital, there shouldn't be much limit to how many people can listen to an audio book at once. But a lot of these books have only one "copy." So it takes a while to wait for some to be available.
I wonder what the reasoning is behind that.
As I was watching Beauty and the Beast, I was thinking about how much I loved the final battle, and Beast's transformation. It got me thinking about all of my favorite Disney scenes. I started trying to figure them out, and it turns out there's quite a few. There seem to be three main reasons I like a scene.
1- it makes me laugh
2- it's beautiful
3- it's exciting
And it's often a combination of two of them (though I'll just put them in one category).
Why am I listing these? @_@ Because it gives me ideas for writing scenes! What are your favorite scenes? Why do you like them?
Spoilers, for many different movies.
Laugh-out-loud:
Poco Loco (Coco):The build-up, and the actual song. Not only is it a funny song with awesomely silly animation, but this is also the first time Hector shows that he's willing to help other people. He lets Miguel perform, because it's so important for the boy.
Baymax (Big Hero 6): When he appears in Hiro's room, and and all the way up through his low battery stage.
Dory's introduction (Finding Nemo): When we meet Dory for the first time, and poor Marlon has no idea what's going on.
Beautiful and awe-inspiring:
Let it go. (Frozen): First time I saw this scene in theaters, I was awe-struck. Then it proceeded so become popular that people got sick of it. But I still love it.
I see the Light (Tangled)- Good song, and the lantern scene is so beautiful and dream-like. And the lantern Rapunzel catches is the one her parents sent out. TT^TT
Colors of the Wind (Pocahontas): One of my favorite songs with beautiful animation.
Kiss the girl (Little Mermaid): I've always loved all the different sound effects Sebastian brings together to make music.
Marahute (The Rescuers Down Under): One of my favorite flying scenes. She's such a gorgeous bird.
Firebird (Fantasia 2000): Beautiful music, and so incredibly powerful. The fire, the destruction, and then the return of life. Volcanic soil is very fertile, after all.
Lilo opening song (Lilo and Stitch): Largely because it's such a nice song, with scenes of Hawaii.
Circle of life (Lion King animation): Great song, beautiful animals.
Carl goes up (Up): Such a whimsical, pretty scene.
Try everything (Zootopia): Great montage showing a city full of animals and building up Judy's try everything attitude.
Edge of the Seat:
Fight and transformation (Beauty and the Beast animated film): Largely because the animation of Beast is so amazing. Him fighting, and then the change of his expression as he decides not to kill Gaston. And of course the transformation itself (apparently one of the animators studied Michelangelo sculptures to get ideas for human forms emerging from stone).
Forest fire (Bambi): The fire scene is so powerful. And there's one scene at the very end where the fire is torching high up into the sky. I've seen that once. For only a moment, but it's burned into my mind.
Saving Atlantis (Atlantis): At the ending, when the crystal flies above Atlantis and saves the city from lava.
Escaping the planet (Treasure Planet): An awesome scene where you see Jim show how bright he can shine.
Te'Ka (Moana): This is one of the only surprise endings that got me in many years. When I saw that spiral on Te'Ka's chest, it blew my mind. And the animation of the flames and ash as she charges toward Moana is so intense.
The door chase (Monsters Inc): Such a creative, fun chase scene.
Avalanch and ending (Mulan): A couple great scenes. Mulan uses her smarts to defeat an army, and then to defeat the leader of that army.
Two worlds (Tarzan): A great opening montage. So much emotion, on so many levels.
This is an idea I've had for a while. Singe is a character from Katani's story. He's one of the Betas, and he has a bunch of tattoos. So I wanted to try drawing them. I like how they turned out! Though they ended up overlapping on the page.
The dragon and koi each go down one of his arms. The dragon is wrapped around the forearm. The koi has iris flowers.
The beta fishes are on the shoulder blades.
And the sharks go down either side of his back. One with hydrangeas, the other with camellias.
A couple weeks ago, I found a beautiful shop full of alebrijes. They're the statues that inspired the bright spirit creatures in Coco. I knew about them before the movie came out. My Grandma collected them for a while. So I was thrilled to stumble upon this shop (especially considering there was a Coco banner hanging in the corner).
The shopkeeper started telling me some of the meanings of the animals. For example, the dog is loyalty (although dogs aren't as loyal s bees are to their colony). The opossum brought fire to humans. That's why they have no fur on their tails - it was scorched off. Even the paintings on the grasshopper's back have meaning - the flower, the leaves, and the little white dots that represent kernels of corn.
I want to look up what all the different animals mean! But I can't find anything TT^TT
(I dragged a friend to see Coco in theaters with me. She recently went to Disneyland, and brought me a pair of Coco socks. I just happened to be wearing them that day, so I showed the shopkeeper)
Mars, Bova
I've read a few of his books, and the last two I've read have just felt prejudiced. It makes them hard to read. And in this book, it took me a while to realize I was supposed to be rooting for the main character. I guess because he was just so hyper-focused on getting money? Some of his flaws kinda of straightened out by the end. Because he got a girl. I dunno. I've heard he's a really good sci-fi writer, but I'm not sure if this improves with his later books. When I read Jupiter, I don't remember as much of this. (That was long ago though)
Molokai, Brennert
I like books that teach you about history. This one taught about the Leper colony that was on Molokai. Even after we learned how the disease spreads and how to treat it, people are still scared of it. For example, when I was a little kid and my family went to Hawaii, I asked about going to Molokai. I was told we shouldn't go there because of the lepers. Yeesh. Anyway, this book showed you what they used to do to the poor people who got the disease. And it makes you are about it.
The Year of the Unicorn, Norton
I'll bet anything that I wrote this book down years ago because I thought it was about unicorns. It wasn't. But it was an interesting premise.
Westward the Women, Ross
An old book of my Grandma's. It's a history of the first women pioneers. but what really got me was a little blurb in the front of the book. It said the book was printed by using as little paper as possible. They didn't want to waste paper, because it was printed during World War II.
The Black Company, Cook
There are a lot of stories with "the chosen one" who has to stop the bad guys. But this book looked that from an entirely different angle. I like it when stories do that.
Blade Runner, Dick
Jeez, talk about a frustrating ending. And I had so many questions about how the world got so messed up. Like how the androids could become so real. And why they would send only one guy to deal with such potentially dangerous things.
Tibet is my Country, Norbu
The story of the Dalai Lama's brother. It's an amazing account of how Tibet used to be. As well as how it was taken over.
The Bands of Mourning, Sanderson
Yeah, I already wrote a whole blog post about this @_@
Endangered, Giles
For some reason I thought this was about wildlife XD But it was about high school students, one of who has made it her mission to dig up dirt on the nastiest people in school. It doesn't turn out that great though.
Into the Wild, Krakauer
The true story of a boy who decided to go alone into the Alaskan wilderness. It's... depressing.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Calvino
This was kinda infuriating. It starts out by saying "at this point you should be thinking this. Then you'll feel that way." And I'm going, "I'm not thinking that at all." At one point he even scolds the reader for doing something, which irritated me even more because it was obviously geared toward a very different person. And yeah, I know I'm missing the point. But the way the book was written made me feel like I was eavesdropping or something.
Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Lasky
I'm not sure yet whether or not I like the series. It can be pretty hokey. But I like how they include real owl biology.
Tree Girl, Barron
First book I've read of his in a long time. I kind of gave up on his last books because the bullies were too irritating XD This book had a little of that, but not too bad.
The Good Dog, Avi
Heheh. Sometimes I don't really pay attention to the themes of the story because the set-up makes me cringe. Like people letting their dogs run wild all over town.
Uh-oh. I'm getting the urge to analyze another cartoon. This time Beauty and the Beast, maybe because I just watched bonus features about it. I've never been interested in analyzing movies I grew up with. I think it's harder for me to see them, sine they're so ground into my memory. But there hasn't been anything new that's hooked my analysis interest.
But I'm not going to analyze either the cartoon, or the live-action Beauty and the Beast. I've already talked about how I like the cartoon better. Though I do like the live action more after seeing it a couple times (it took me a while to warm to it, since I rarely like remakes. But finding out that Beast is Scarlemagne helped. I love listening to him sing. And I love that Hermione became Belle. The characters have such a similar heart to them).
Actually, I will say one thing about the live action. I wish they hadn't made the curse turn everyone into actual dead objects. It kind of distracted from the ending. It's supposed to be heartbreaking that Beast dies. But then they have to go and kill off everyone else too? It takes away from the tragedy that should be the focus. Plus, that would be a really evil witch, to basically kill everyone just because they happened to live near the prince that was a jerk.
So, what's making me stressed to want to start analyzing another movie?
Well, it's just the last problem flaring up again. The people who have been acting like jerks behaved for a few months. Now they're at it again. Which means that it's not going to stop.
It's not a good sign when you have to tell someone that they're being hurtful and insulting. Especially if it's someone you work with.
Now, there are all sorts of people you work with. Some closely, some distantly. Of course, this is the worst when it's someone you work closely with. And if it's more than one person? It doesn't feel nice to say it. But if a person is being hurtful and insulting, they need to be called out on it. Whether or not they realize that's how they're behaving. No one else is going to stand up for you.
Anyway, I just sent out another email (I think this is the third such email since this all started) calling them out on it.We'll see what happens tomorrow. Or if I'll be able to sleep tonight.
