Friendly Encounter

 

 

 

One of my favorite moments in the gospel features Christ making a surprise appearance shortly after his resurrection. In the last chapter of the book of Luke, Jesus appears to a couple of disciples walking to Jerusalem.  They were discussing the recent crucifixion of Jeshua of Nazareth, and The Christ Himself asks them what the heck they were talking about.  Incredulously, they recollect the rise and apparent fall of the supposed Christ, He who was to be the King of the Jews.  They walked all the way home without recognizing Jesus, recounting the events and miracles of the Messiah.  As they sat down to dinner Christ broke bread.  It was at this instant that they immediately recognized Him, and just as quickly he disappeared.

I like to think that he was purposefully messing with them the whole time for fun.

It shows a temperament and humor to Christ. While Jesus in pop culture is often oh-so-perfect and precise, people forget that His perfection came from his lack of sin, not lack of humanity.  He wasn’t some boring robot with nice things to say, He had an attitude, He would get upset, angry, He would mourn and scream just like anyone else.  The gospels show a Jesus who was patient with those who truly wanted to be better, but would take no crap from those who were trying to trick Him.  He’d sass and snap back at pretentious scholars and tax collectors, often interrupting people and taking the podium to speak His mind.  He’d read out scripture of the prophets and would finish by letting listeners know that He was the prophecy come true. HE WAS A MASTER OF THE MIC DROP BEFORE IT WAS A THING.

This whole rant is to show that often both Christians and non-Christians forget about Christ’s humanity in his divine actions, and then wonder why it is that they have a hard time relating to the guy.

ALSO if I ever do my drama series/comic of Jesus’s life, instead of a resurrection I want to keep the audience guessing until the last minute, and then end with this scene.

Friendly Bunnies

                                Last year, my dear grandmother was given two new bunnies for companions. I love bunnies, since I used to own a couple long ago, and they were a big part of my childhood. That’s why I got excited over my Grandma’s new pets. They were a male and a female; we called the male Poi and the female Pia. Poi was really calm and tame, he’d let you carry him without a fuss, but Pia was a nervous wreck! She was too fearful. However, I liked that challenge and wanted to befriend her, try and show her that there was nothing to fear. So each time I picked her up, I wouldn’t pet her, let her roam on my lap. When I let her out, I wouldn’t follow her, except when I had to put her back on the cage. But what really allowed me to gain some of her confidence was the key to any animal’s: FOOD. These two bunnies were some real fatsos. So one time while they were running about, I crouched a little far from Pia and stretched out my arm towards her with a piece of lettuce, which she really liked. She approached and happily munched on it from my hand without fear. Next I held out pieces of the typical food bunnies are always given, and again she ate from my hand without a problem. It was a very nice moment. I really do enjoy friendly encounters with these kinds of harmless animals. 

Tren Urbano

                      

J’aime prendre le train à l’université. Des personnes m’ont dit qu’ils n’en trouvent pas rien d’amusant quand on le prend quotidiennement pour quatre ans pour aller à l’université, mais même a ma 5^e année de baccalauréat, je le prends avec la même illusion de la première fois. Je le vois avec des yeux d’artiste et de réalisatrice. J’aime l’atmosphère urbaine qu’il transmet. Je trouve fascinant ses mécanismes et son mouvement. J’aime le jeu d’illusion quand on observe le passage rapide du train de l’autre rail à la fois que le train où on se trouve marche ; quand on arrive à une station à la fois que l’autre train sortit ; ou quand on observe dès la fenêtre les personnes qui restent dans la station pendant que le train la quitte. Puis, le trajet lui-même est un peu comme un tour de montagnes russes. J’aime quand on entre le tunnel, et les fenêtres deviennent obscures. J’aime comment, dès l’intérieur, on peut s’imaginer que les portes peuvent être des portales magiques vers différents destins, donc la voiture ne marche pas ; ce qui marche est l’extérieur. Ce que j’aime le plus sont les vues dès la fenêtre. Une opportunité de voir où se déroule ma vie dès haut. Tous les toits des maisons, des urbanisations, les postes d’électricité, les roues, les bâtiments, l’embouteillage a l’autoroute. Voir comme chaque arrête est diffèrent. Le train offre tous sortes des jeux pour l’imagination, et je les prends avec le soin de ne pas manquer un seul, de les apprécier bien. Pour quoi ? Pour deux raisons principales. La première, parce qu’ils font la vie un peu plus interessante, si on le permet. La deuxième, parce qu'ils servent de source d’inspiration pour l’art, pour l’écriture ; il faut les explorer pour voir tout ce qu’ils peuvent offrir pour une bonne création. Je pense que c’est important aussi de capturer ces choses pour faire les personnes conscientes d’eux. Enfin, je veux partager avec les autres comment le train peut être une thérapie pour l’âme, pour réfléchir sur la vie et savourer sa beauté.

VILLAINS

When it comes to creating villains, I’m out of my comfort zone. It’s probably because of my extra positive personality. It’s not my thing to deal with negative stuff. I don’t like hard feelings, I don’t like bad, mean people, don’t know too much about them, either; I don’t get their psychology so much. It’s like, it’s hard for me to understand why people can be that way. Well, I actually do understand overall, life is not beautiful for everyone, depending on their circumstances. The problem is that getting in their shoes, empathizing with them, going into a deeper level—THAT is harder for me. That’s why, if I create a villain, it would feel forced. They tend to stress me out, in general, when I’m watching or reading them, especially when it comes to super hero villains. I find tiresome how writers have to be always coming up with how their villain will outwit the hero, and how the hero will overcome him anyways, but keeping it believable at the same time. I also find annoying and pretty childish how these super villains tend to have a motif which influences how they do their bad stuff.

However, there are villains who, even though they might stress me because of their evil, I respect and sometimes even enjoy. For example, Amon from The Legend of Korra. He really did spark fear in me, but I liked how he also inspired awe, there was some majesty to him. Even though he did not—apparently—have the power of bending (the power to control the elements, really useful in battle), he had remarkable skill in the martial arts that matched any bender, PLUS he had the power to actually remove that power. This made him feel truly unstoppable, and even more of a threat as a leader of an equality campaign against benders. The creators did a really good job with this villain, not to mention that his character design was really cool.

Now, there is one type of villain that I like best and with which I’m more comfortable as a writer, and it’s the kind that has a hard past, the kind that used to be good but changed due to a tragic or hard event. These tend to be more real, more believable, and more interesting as it’s more psychological. It’s the idea of a villain who’s got some good mixed within him. There are very popular examples, one being Snape from Harry Potter. The main reason why I like them is their passion and drama, which make them more romantic and thus entertaining. However, I don’t think that a villain should be given much merit because of how entertaining their story is. I think that the complexity of their psychology gives more weight, because that way it is more realistic, more solid, as human beings ourselves are very complex. Recently, I read about a villain who shares both of those qualities: it’s Shadar, from the video game Ni No Kuni. This character was once a wizard who served a powerful kingdom. One day, he was ordered to destroy an entire village, but he decided to rescue a child as he was horrified by the act. As a punishment for disobeying orders, his home village was burned in turn, not sparing anyone. This led Shadar to believe there was no good in the world, and thus become eee-vulll. HOWEVER, one interesting fact is that the purpose behind all of his dark acts afterwards was to end war—a noble goal, but through bad deeds. He became a fanatic. I was impressed by the powerful emotions and drama of this backstory as well as the complexity of the motivation behind this character.

Finally, there’s one other kind of villain which I find interesting, and it’s when you can’t tell on which side he’s on, or when he’s actually on no one’s side, OR when he switches from one side to another. I’m guessing that most people reading this would think of Deadpool as he’s extremely popular right now, but I’m not familiar enough with his character to talk about him. The only villain so far who—at the beginning—has left me very puzzled, was Axel from the video game series Kingdom Hearts. The main antagonists of the series is a group of entities, called Organization XIII. In one part of the story, Sora, the protagonist, has to go through a small group of members of this organization, Axel being one of them. However, he helps Sora eliminate them, but you learn later that they were actually a group of traitors who wanted to take control of their organization, and that Axel sought to eliminate them on the orders of the organization’s boss. So in the end of that chapter, Axel was really helpful, but was still on working on the bad guys’ side…or was he? Even though he gradually fell onto the good guys’ side, his actions and motivations weren’t very predictable, and I enjoyed the confusion he caused as an interesting hook onto the story.

Princesss of the Nebula

In a distant hazy nebula, many light years away, lies a kingdom. It was prosperous but now and then there would be a disturbance in certain planets, attacks from outsiders or monsters or conflicts among citizens. In the center of the nebula was a wise star who provided protection to the entire kingdom. To her the kings would speak face to face for advice in very rare, grave situations. In some extremely rare cases, she would rise to fight large enemies or dangerous phenomena.

In this kingdom lived the Princess Andromeda. She had a very unique quality: she could speak with the stars. This was a great advantage for the kingdom, for the stars were the wisest beings in the universe, holding deep secrets, and they could acquire knowledge from any of them any time they wanted. However, the kingdom's star herself asked for the princess to be brought to her, so that she could give her special training and in certain mysterious arts as well as to foment good judgement in the use of her knowledge. 

Andromeda would come for her sessions in the round crystal capsule she used for traveling. Besides this, she enjoyed wandering through the kingdom, visiting planets and encountering her subjects. One time she flew too far away from the nebula, and encountered a black hole, which deeply appalled her, this colossal monster that swallowed all, but what frightened her most was that it swallowed light as well. Not even the power of light could withstand this terrible monster?

There came a point in her life in which she overcame a powerful, metaphysical obstacle, one that gave her maturity. The battle was so intense and profound that she acquired a new special ability: to fly about space without capsule nor suit. She used this power to further serve and preserve her kingdom.

Groovy

I belong to the seventies.

It's my kind of vintage. There are two things that I like most about it: music and fashion. I love the style of all of the music genres of that decade. There's something about the characteristic flourish of violins in the background of disco songs that always electrifies me; I think it must be the drama. And the congos going mad, giving good flavor. This brings me to remember the role African-American culture played in the development of seventies music, its soulful spirit, and this is actually the key aspect that makes me like it so much. Motown! That old sound and groove, it always gets me going! After that there's Bee Gees and ABBA...one last thing that I love is the little twinkle sound effect that was really common. Sparkle, sparkle!

I listen to seventies music, and I think of Old Navy (actually, music usually makes me think of clothes or brands). I don't remember if Old Navy was founded in the era, but at least I've often heard seventies-style music on the speakers at the store. Anyways, despite that fashion at the time was a little crazy--combinations of prints and textures that were maybe distasteful--there are many looks and pieces that I really like. I like the combination of orange with blue jeans, the big round sunglasses, the long necklaces. Right now, I can't remember much what else I liked...if I find photos, I'll add them here.

*Another example of the feel that I like about 70s music, but from a really weird movie that I don't recommend if you don't want to go on a spooky acid trip.

I'm so cool I can define hipsters

Hipster is all about CULTURE.

It likes to be stylish, by vintage standards. Looking like anything iconic from the past: 50s, 60s retro, up to the 90s. It cares most about the looks.

Its activities are all related to culture: the arts, photography (don't forget, it's gotta look vintage), writing, books, and anything that goes well with those, like coffee, for example.

Which brings us to food. It loves foods that look cool, like macaroons, frappes, soft-colored cupcakes or ice cream.

The last important thing is the entertainment part. It loves old, unpopular OR iconic movies, books, music, videogames, etc, (that sooner or later become popular cause now half the world is hipster). 

Sometimes, when people found someone into fandoms such as LOTR, Harry Potter, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Star Wars, even Legend of Zelda , or say, authors like Jane Austen, Lewis Caroll,etc.(note: here Geek comes in and intertwines with Hipster), they would answer "wow, that person's pretty hip!" as in saying "he's fun/cool!" And from that evolved the word.

One last thing! Internet. Lots and lots and lots of blogging and commenting on the internet.

Now the Hipster world has become pretty mainstream. It's hard to keep up, because that means getting into all those fandoms or cult followings.

On the whole, its attitude is cold and snobbish, even if the people who follow it don't intend it. 

The important thing is not to focus on this lifestyle so much. Life is not just about culture, though it is really important. Look at the people around you. Make sure they're happy. Now that's what life's about.