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I've had a few American Indian names in my stories.
Several of my stories take place in America. And in my worlds, the American Indians weren't wiped out. They continue to live in their tribes, or in cities or towns. Whichever they prefer.

But I face a dilemma while naming them. Do I use the original American Indian word?
For example, in Arrin's story, Huyana means Falling Rain.
Or do I use the translation of the name? In Evva's story, there's a character called Striding Bear.
In Evva's story, I've used all translations.
But in Arrin's story, there's some of each. Is it better to use one over the other? For the American Indian words, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of languages and dialects. Which is overwhelming. But there are some lovely names too. Which is why I chose Huyana.
Is it dumb to use both?


Chilean flamingo

Spinel

So I saw the Steven Universe Movie a couple days after it came out.
(I just went back and rewatched the last season, because I wasn't as thrilled with the episodes starting when Greg got kidnapped. But I wanted to see how those episodes line up with the movie.

There are a lot of songs in the movie, to the point where it's kind of tacky. But when I went back and listened to the soundtrack, I really liked almost all of them.
I really liked the music and the emotions of the movie. The plot was probably pretty expected.
It's awesome to see a Steven Universe story that doesn't have to fit into 10 minute segments.


Spoilers from now on.


Steven's voice actor must be happy to be able to talk in his normal voice XD

Dude, he's good at singing high notes.

Shortly after the arc where Blue kidnaps Greg, I told my friend a theory I had. That Steven was getting so many gem allies that he could form his own army to fight the diamonds. In hindsight, that's ridiculous. Steven doesn't win by war. He wins with compassion.
That's what so great about him. He's not like almost all other male characters that have to prove their power to win - not their caring. Steven's plenty strong physically, but that's not his greatest strength.


The Diamonds used to be pretty evil. But they were funny in this movie. They're trying to be better but they still don't have a full grasp on how it works XD


I hope Steven and Lars have an understand about when Steven can come through his hair. I'm sure there's plenty of times Lars doesn't want someone popping up out of nowhere. You know, if he happens to be carrying a plate with a full cake on it.
In this case, Garnet may have given Lars a heads up about Steven's arrival. Hopefully.

It's cool to see all the little details in the background. The stuff in Steven's room includes the Sea Spire statue, the remnant's of Rose's sword, and that crazy painting of Garnet and Steven (there are times during the series where you can even see a bottle of Lon Lon milk in the house! I flipped when I noticed that).

Garnet has a great new song. And a sweet new song. She's awesome as always. (Still my second favorite character ever XD )



Oh my god, Spinel.
Her animation is great. And the voice actor is amazing at being cute and nasty. Spinel flip-flops back and forth between both, pretty dramatically. Maybe just because she's rather imbalanced (And Steven doesn't handle it very well when Spinel starts to get upset after disabling the injector. Which is understandable. He's confused and stressed and exhausted). Most of the changes in her personality are understandable. Though the last one could have been smoother. You can kind of see her resolve cracking during the battle, but it still seemed like an abrupt change.
Despite that, the moment where she stops wanting to fight is powerful.


Pink Diamond has obviously done some not-so-great stuff in the past. She seemed like she was trying to act for the greater good, which required some big sacrifices.
But what she did to Spinel is dropped my opinion of her more than anything else.
If I 'm attached to something, I always try to justify or explain the stuff that is off. So I'm going to try to look at this from Pink's point of view. Here's my speculation:
Spinel was basically made as a toy for Pink. Pink really wanted a colony, and instead the other Diamonds just gave her a "little playmate" to keep her entertained. Since Pink was lonely, she played with Spinel. Maybe she liked her at first and ended up getting bored of her. To Pink, Spinel may have seemed like an insult from the other Diamonds. They gave her something not remotely close to what she wanted - a seemingly empty-headed little gem toy. You can see during the flashbacks that Pink looks reluctant about Spinel.
And if you go by the Jungle Moon episode, Pink looks like she was a bit bratty before she got her own colony (it seems like the colony helped her grow in many ways).
When Pink finally got her colony, she was relieved to leave behind the "little playmate" (even the way they call Spinel a "little playmate" shows how childish a toy Spinel was thought to be). Spinel is kind of annoying too.
Maybe Pink thought someone would come and get Spinel later.
But I think this is more likely. When Pink first got her colony, she didn't care as much about bringing out the full potential of other gems. By the time she realized that Spinel deserved to have more of a chance, it was too late to go back. Just like they were never able to go back to help the people in the human zoo.
So yeah. That's the only way I can justify what Pink did to Spinel.

Oh man. That Drift Away song. That hit hard. When I first watched it, something in the back of my head thought it felt familiar. But I kind of pushed it away, saying that it affected me because it was so sad.
Then I realized that it is familiar. It's like what happened a couple years ago.


You keep on turning pages
For people who don't care
People who don't care about you

And still it takes you ages
To see that no one's there
See that no one's there
See that no one's there
Everyone's gone on without you
--
Isn't that lovely
Isn't that cool
And isn't that cruel
And aren't I a fool
To have Happily listened
Happy to stayed
Happily watching her drift drift drift away

Yeah, it took me far too long to realize that nothing I did was going to let me keep one of my best friends. That I'd drawn out that torture for no reason at all.
It's not like I want to destroy her and her home, but I sometimes want to make her feel as bad as I felt. And then I have to tell myself that I can't let her make me that nasty.

So yeah. I get how Spinel feels.
I like her a lot. And I did cry along with her a couple times.

It's so great that she ended up with the diamonds. They were exactly what the other needed.


Okay, one more thing. Did Rebecca Sugar play Undertale? Because there are so many things that feel similar between this series and the game.
For example, "your best friend Flowey."
And "Your new best friend Spinel."

They Have Everything they Need

Here's a weird one.
I told you that I went back and added another chapter to the middle of Evva's story.
The main team has the opportunity to speak to someone who can tell part of the future. Which is a great opportunity for Evva to get some kind of hint to help her through the last half of the book.
Except that the characters kind of have access to everything they need. They have to team up and use their brains and all of their resources, but they make it work. Mostly. I've been digging through the ending, and it's hard to find some kind of advice they can use that's not tacky and doesn't make the characters seem imept.
I've got this wise woman, and all her advice is just vague and basically says, "you can to it!"
So yeah. I'm still trying to fix that.
The new chapter helps with world and culture development, but it should give them something tangible too.


Mom and son playing

Into the Ashes

The story I wrote for my graduate project was called "Into the Ashes." I was proud of that title, and it was quite easy to come up with compared to other story names.
So when I went to a movie store a couple days ago and saw a movie on the counter, I flipped out. Because the name of the movie was "Into the Ashes."


I've no idea what the movie is about. But I guess I'm going to have to change my title somehow.
Sigh.

Birds

I'm having too much fun with birds in Arrin's story.
First I have a character-Ana- with wings of a white-tailed kits. She even hovers like a kite.

And for a while, I've been thinking about giving some character from some story a tiny flock of swifts. Swifts fly beautifully. And we had a nest of them at the wildlife center one year. They're cliff-nesting birds, so they hang off of vertical surfaces. To feed the baby swifts, we'd take them out and hook them on our shirts. They'd hang there like a row of feathery badges while we fed them.
Ever since, I've wanted to have them in a story.
Plus a couple months ago, some white-throated swifts flew overhead at the zoo. It's so nice watching them move.

It occurred to me that I could slip some of these birds in Arrin's story. But then I thought it might not fit. Then I said to myself, "well, would Ana have five swifts?" And I told myself, "yes. She definitely would."
So now I get five little swifts to write about. They'll just be a minor role. Ana isn't even there for about half of the story. But I think the swifts will serve a purpose. They're not just decorations.


Mom and son playing

The Lion King

I saw the new Lion King a couple weeks ago.
I still don't find it super interesting that they're just remaking the same things they've already made.
But that animation. Up until now, whenever there's an animal that isn't real, I've been able to tell immediately. There's always something off about it.
But I couldn't tell this time. If the animals weren't talking, I would have thought they were real.

It's actually kind of disconcerting. I like knowing that I'm looking at something fake.

It's awesome that they got Mufasa's voice actor back.
For several of the remakes, there's been one character with an iconic voice that you can't really replace. Like Mrs. Potts, or the Genie. This time they didn't try to replace it. They got the same actor back XD

Although to be fair, the new Genie was very good. He didn't try to copy the Robin Williams Genie. He did his own thing.

I liked the Aladdin remake. Although both Abu and Iago are animals from South America. How did they end up on Agrabah?
Also, Jafar looked and sounded kind of too sweet?

The Dark Side of Pokémon

For this first time in a very long time, I actually watched some of the original Pokémon episodes.
There's an episode where the Pokémon themselves say that there's no such thing as an evil Pokémon. That it's just bad trainers.
And in a lot of the games and such, the Pokémon don't seem that dangerous except in unusual circumstances.

But there's some pretty dangerous stuff about Pokémon! The Pokémon Adventures manga goes into this some, especially Red's arc. For example, he's almost eaten by a bunch of Weepinbell.
But there's also some crazy stuff in the anime episodes. Like that overpowered Gastly that poses as a lady's ghost. It seems like it can do anything, and it almost takes Brock and James for who knows what purpose.

Also, Aerodactyl almost eats Ash.


When you look at some of the Pokédex entries, there's some pretty creepy stuff.
For example, Banette is the spirit of a doll that was thrown away, and it's always searching for the child the trashed it.
Phantump are spirits of children that died in the forest.
Alolan Persian torture their prey instead of eating it.
Trevenant eat people that hurt the forest.
Kadabra was once a boy with psychic powers, who woke up and found himself turned into this Pokémon.
Palossand sits on top of the bones of its victims.
Beheeyem can change people's memories.
Of course there's Cubone, who wears the skull of its dead mother.
If you're burned by a Houndoom, the pain never goes away.
There's several that drain people's life, like Honedge.
Others can control people, like Malamar
There are the Ultra Beasts that are pretty crazy to begin with. Guzzlord?
And yes, Pokémon eat each other.

There's plenty more, but I'll stop there for now.

Pokémon may seem sweet and cute, but not when you look under the surface @_@
But that's also pretty true with nature. There are a lot of strange, creepy brutal things out there in real life too.