Viewing Blog 3

I actually just saw "The Avengers" a few days ago for the first time. Although it is not sci-fi, it has a whole bunch of fantasy and meets a lot of the fantasy expectations. For example, it is a high fantasy. Although, there is a lot of action there are a lot fantasy aspects. For example, the world is a secondary world. So the fantasy world is within our current world. However, this movie has a little twist within the setting because there is the knowledge and acceptance of a world beyond our world and is not our world (also having the capability to interact within both worlds). Not only that, there are portals as well. For example, there is a part of the movie where Loki used his staff as kind of a portal to interact with some group he was plotting evil plans with (I cannot remember the name of that sinister group). Also, the portal to the Earth's atmosphere when the evil army was invading the Earth Another thing is that there is a source of magic within the movie. Multiple examples are Loki's staff, the Hulk's power, Thor's hammer. So the magic element was there. Also, unlike  Falling Kingdoms that has protagonist (hero) development from multiple perspectives, "The Avengers" has an omniscient point of view (as most movies do because it's a movie); however, the character development was a group character development instead of an individual character development. I suppose this week for me was a fantasy week. Well, if you haven't seen this movie yet (although I highly doubt it because I'm always the last person to see a movie), I would recommend it. It's pretty entertaining, and you'll be able to watch the sequel coming out this summer!

Blog Post 13

On the syllabus, there weren't any stories for as to read out of any of the anthologies. So I just presumed we were to do our blog on the story or stories  we're are doing for our reader's choice presentations. Anyhow, I was really bummed out that we bare;y talked about fantasy. I think we only spent one class time on fantasy. In my mind,  I was like, "Fantasy is my favourite genre!" So what better opportunity to go more in depth about fantasy than now? So instead of reading two to three short stories from our anthology, I read the first book to a fairly new series. It was published about two years ago. The story is called Fallen Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes. It that type of book you'd find in the teenager section of Barnes&Nobles. I don't to give too much away without actually doing my presentation. However, it is an epic fantasy (or could also be high fantasy) and takes place in a world other than our world. In the story, there's these three kingdoms named: Limeros, Palesia, and Auranos. So, the idea of the way the world works in terms of natural law is still there; however, these islands do not exist. So it's a world that is our world, but it's not in actuality our world. I think I'm not making sense, but it makes sense. Typically in high fantasy there is a hero who has to rise up against the circumstances that beyond his control and develop as a character. However, this book takes that particular expectation of the sub-genre and flips it. For example, this story is told in multiple point of views (four main points of view that all intertwine and gets pretty intricate). In a sense, there are multiple heroes and multiples bad guys. The bad guy and the hero differs depending on which perspective is being perceived in that particular chapter.  Overall, this story is pretty good, and I don't want to give away too much without my presentation.

Blog Post 12 (Lesson Learned)

           Well I'm going  start off with "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs because I was so excited to read this story since the beginning of the semester when I saw that we were going to read it. I absolutely love this story, it brings back feelings of nostalgia since I read it in elementary school for a Halloween segment we had in class. Also, as I was re-reading, I noticed it used the word tumblers, and I love the using the app Tumblr (it's how I waste my life away)-- so why not love the short story solely on for that reason? While yes it's great to like it for those reasons, I like the story because it has so many lessons learned and themes that play into it. Such be careful what you wish; money cannot buy happiness, and there is no love like a mother's love for her child. A quick synopsis of the story is: A man find a magical paw called the money's paw that allows for three wishes. His first wish was to be rich (in essence), and he gets his wish through his son dying at working by getting caught in machinery. After ten days, the man's grieving wife convinces him to use the second wife to bring the son to life. As the son was knocking and tapping at the door and the mother was trying to open the hatchet of the door, in fear of what his resurrected son (Herbert) might look like, the man wished his son dead. One thing I wish that would be explained in this story is what happens to the monkey paw after this event? Does it just disappear, or is it just rendered useless and will make a nice key chain? It is mentioned that the monkey's paw only works for three people to make three wishes and the main character Mr. White was the third man.  Another thing that puzzled me was why was there a recurrence of the number three? Only 3 men could use the paw, only three wishes could be made, only three people lived in the house. I did some research and found that three has a representation of completion. It's ironic because at the end of the story, the White family was left more incomplete than ever and filled with more solemn than ever, with only money to fill the void,
          The story "Premature Burial" by Edgar Allan Poe was an interesting read. But what really stood out me was not the lesson learned, but in the beginning of the story (where there a multiple stories of people bring mistaken for dead and buried). There was a part of the story where Poe was describing the symptoms of death and how people would mysteriously rise back to life. Well, in modern science there is thing called The Lazarus Effect (the name deriving from the Biblical story where Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead). What it means is that a patient exerts all the symptoms of death and would be pronounced dead; however, they would rise mysteriously from slumber. And I immediately thought of the movie "The Lazarus Effect" that just came out a few months ago, It basically just contorts this and plays on our fear falling into the uncanny valley.  Anyhow, the story only made me think of that horror movie (and we all know how I don't mix well with horror things) so all I could say is, "Thank you, Poe."

update:

Watching "The Monkey's Paw" short film was very interesting. When it first started I thought it was going to be scary (I literally was holding onto a teddy bear); however, it wasn't that bad and was pretty over dramatic. The zombie section we talked about as well was pretty cool; however, I wished we could have talked about the popular tv series "The Walking Dead" and "The Strain" more. But it was still cool.

Blog Set 11 (Madness and Lost Love)

          The short story "Berenice" by Edgar Allan Poe was interesting one. Egaeus grew up in a large gloomy mansion and was sick with an illness in which he called "the attentive." When I did some research it Egaeus suffered from some type of monomania-- an impulsive and fruitless observation of trivial things. When Berenice came down with an illness, her cheerful demeanor became solemn and morbid, and for that, Egaeus was now intrigued with her, deciding to marry her (not that he love her). When she came strolling into the library where Egaeus dwells mostly, she smiled at him and he formed an immense obsession for her teeth. But the dark twist was when people thought she died but she really didn't; when Egaeus snapped and took her teeth out and finally realized later when he saw the claw marks on himself and how muddy he was and when her 32 teeth fell out of the black box he was holding along with dental utensils. This story plays on some themes of horror with the gloomy house, the narrator believing he is reincarnated, and dental misuse. I wouldn't be surprised if Poe caused the immense fear for the population to the dentist because of this story.
          I haven't read many stories from O. Henry; however, in comparison to the stories I've read by him and this story "The Furnished Room," "The Furnished Room" is so bleak and dark it is practically ridiculous. I find it ironic that the story title is "The Furnished Room" when it seems so vacant and empty. The story is so sad: a man searching for his love commits suicide in the same room his love.
         "The Boarded Window" by Ambrose Bierce was so crazy and left me with so much anxiety when Murlock hears the noises and shuffling from the table after he wrapped his wife and prepared her for burial. Now so many questions are running through my head with this story. Where in the world did this panther come from? No matter that, it is pretty obvious Murlock's wife wasn't dead just yet from her illness, because she had a piece of the animal's ear in her mouth; also her hands were tightly clenched.If she was dead she wouldn't have been able to fight back the animal biting at her neck, It was a super suspenseful story to me in the latter half of it.

Blog Post 10 (Hauntings)

      It is crazy how in the previous blog post, I mentioned "The Fall of the House of Usher"by Edgar Allan Poe. I didn't realize that it was our reading for this week (I guess I'm just cool in that sense or I know what the Professor is thinking- I prefer the former). Well this is my second time reading "The Fall of the House of Usher" and again, it scared the socks off of me, and I'm most likely am going to have to sleep with a nightlight (not that I own any or anything). So a quick synopsis of the story is: narrator gets invited by his sickly (mentally ill- super sensitive senses), superstitious, friend Roderick to Roderick's house. Long story short, Roderick's sister is also sick, she has a seizure, dies (so they thought), and Roderick and the narrator entombs her. One night, the narrator wakes up unable to sleep; Roderick joins him. The narrator tries reading a book aloud to calm Roderick's nerves; and as this happened, they heard noises from below the room, Roderick jumps and announces that his sister is returning (which she did). When she opened the door she collapses into Roderick and he dies also. The narrator (freaked out) fled the scene; and as he was leaving, the house split into two and crumbled. Everything about this story was creepy. The house was creepy; Roderick was creepy; the sister (Madeline) was creepy. I guess I'm just overly sensitive to anything remotely scary or hinting towards something scary. But I was able to prove myself not a coward (in my twisted defense). I was going to add a photo to be nifty and cool, but when I Google searched images of "The Fall of the House of Usher," it was awful. Hence, no picture.
          "Afterward" by Edith Wharton was five times scarier than "The Fall of the House of Usher." Remember in my introduction blog post when I said ghost, demons and paranormal things are a no-no? Well, this story went well past my no-no zone. I was so creeped out by it. When Mary came to the realization that the ghost took her husband and she remembered what her sister said (mentioning that she wont realize that there is a  ghost in the house until afterwards). Boy did Mary find out too late, and she came to the realization that she will probably never see her husband again. This story just rang with an ending of tension. I can't even deal right now to right a proper analysis.

Update:

The show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was pretty interesting. It was so old and there was a few scary parts that gave a me anxiety. However, the part when that random girl found the dead body in the locker and she screamed...it was hilarious! Anyhow, I think I saw this show when I was younger but I don't remember seeing it but it seems fairly familiar. 

Viewing Blog 2

          All in all I think I watched about the semester's worth of viewing hours in one viewing blog post but that's fine because I'm and anime junkie and plus the incorporation of movies we have to watch in class also helps as well.
Code Geass              This anime is amazing. I watched about 4 hours' worth of this anime (which is approximately 9 episodes). This story is about a kingdom named Britannia took over the country of Japan and left it in shambles. Japan is now called Area 11 and the citizens of Japan lost their right to self-govern and the people are called Elevens. In order to keep power of Area 11, Britannia enforces their rules through its deployment of new mobile robotic humanoid armor vehicles that are super destructive and large called Knightmares. This kid named Lelouch is super smart and an exiled Imperial Prince of Britannia posing as a student. He ends mingling in the middle of this war and conflict between Area 11 and Britannia. When Lelouch meets this girl named C.C., he gains his geass (the power of the King) and has the authority to have complete dominance of any person he choose. He then is inspired that in order to defeat Britannia, it as to be defeated from within. These few episodes that I saw was just showing the background information, character development for Lelouch and explains how he got his powers. It hasn't revealed what his powers are specifically but only certain aspects of his powers. That he could only use it once on the same person and etc. The story has yet to explain who C.C. is and how she got where she is but I'm pretty sure they'll explain that later. So far, Lelouch is leading a rebellion group to fight against the Britannian army under the alias Zero.
      This story works perfectly into the science-fiction because it entails the aspect of war and conflict, and robots for human advantage. It's a great story and I can't wait to watch more of it.The Hobbit: The Fellowship of the RingSince everyone watched the Hobbit as a required movie in class, I will spare the plot summary and just immediately start on my rant. I thought was a fantasy, so why did this movie scare the socks off of me? The Shadow Kings  scared me so much  and I practically hated seeing when they come up because they give me so much anxiety. There was this one part when Frodo was talking to his successor (I can't remember his name) and for a second his face flashed into a monster. I couldn't take this movie. I guess I'm just a scary cat but someone should have told me that this wasn't a movie to watch alone. 

Blog Post 9

          When I looked at the syllabus and saw that we were moving on to the Horror section of our readings, I was terrified. In my introduction blog post I mentioned that I am terrified of horror and try my best to avoid and stay away from it, and I expressed my dislike for the entire genre itself (however, there are some exceptions to how scary things are).Although in my introduction blog Ms. Geerling reassured me that the horror  reading we'd be doing in this class weren't going to be that scary, just creepy, I was still anxious about reading these stories. However, it was to a pleasant surprise that we were reading "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe.
         Nothing can express my admiration for Mr. Poe. He's a writer of much controversy and brilliance. For example, it is well known that Edgar Allan Poe was an alcoholic; however, writing scholars debate whether or not he was a drug addict as well because in his story "Fall of the House of Usher" he well expounded on the usage of opium. Or his other controversy of him losing his manuscript (the lost manuscript of Poe) that in actuality was never lost because he had a copy of it. Edgar Allan Poe by far was an interesting character,  and his life (for lack of better words) pretty much sucked. However, his brilliance, eeriness, and dreariness shone through his works, that are very depressing, Going back to his story "Fall of the House of Usher"  most writing scholars marvel at how his story perfectly reflects. The first half of the book reflect the other half, the house reflects the family. It was just so precisely and amazingly structured, Poe get major recognition for his writing abilities.
         Okay that's enough of my rant about how I love Edgar Allan Poe. I was excited to read "The Raven." The plot is very simplistic a man was half awake, half asleep was awoken by a knocking not by his door but by his window. When he opened, his window, in came a bird who only uttered the words "Nevermore." The protagonist takes a little while to become aware of the raven's capability to only say one word and continues to ask the bird questions that increasingly get more personal-- eventually going insane. "The Raven" is one of Edgar's most famous works  and he coined the term "forevermore" once this poem went viral,
          The poem "Annabel Lee" was one of Edgar  Allan Poe's last works. At the time, it was a mainstream concept of a beautiful woman dying. I've read this poem a few times in my life when I'd get bored and go on poetry splurges, stumbling across "Annabel Lee." Every time I read it, I'm always left with questions I'm way too lazy to Google. Does Annabel Lee and the speaker speak and communicate on a supernatural basis or did the speaker kill himself to be with Annabel Lee?

Update:

Well it was cool having the author for The Culling. I learned a lot of what went on in the processing of the book and it gave me a new insight which was interesting, Also,  that mini trials we had in class gave me so much anxiety! I literally forgot who The Lady was and the entire last trial was based on The Lady. I couldn't deal with this conflict of emotions in my chest. Surprisingly, I ended up winning the trials and winning his second book. I was super shocked and that trials made me way more nervous than I should have been.