Hufflelumps

Kristie's return to the Springs allowed us to solve a long standing mystery....

What house would she be sorted into at Hogwarts?

Shauna, Jason, and I had all taken the official Pottermore quiz and fully embraced our houses with pride (once we got over the initial shock of not being Gryffindors). Can you guess what we are?

I'm a very proud Hufflepuff. :) To us, the most important trait is being nice... and that's a philosophy I can stand behind! It's also very important to us to be loyal and hard working. Other houses look down on us sometimes, thinking that since our most important trait is kindness... we are dumb without anything else going for us. But hey, what else is new? There's a reason there is a widely accepted (and not true) expression, "Nice guys finish last."

Shauna and Jason are both Ravenclaws, which of course, is the house for the smartest students are Hogwarts.

And today, we discovered that Kristie is a Gryffindor, just like Harry Potter! :) No surprises there. Gryffindors' most important trait is bravery... that fits her to a T.

We made Mom take the quiz too. She is a Ravenclaw (so that's where Shauna and Jason get it from). She's not a Potterhead like we are, and it's been a while since she's read the books/seen the movies.... so she got it into her head that my house is called the "Hufflelumps" (a slight variation off the Heffalumps Winnie the Pooh talks about... you know, Heffalumps and Woozils?). Several times today she cheerfully called me out for being a Hufflelump, and she said that we all must be fat if everyone calls us lumps. XD I laughed pretty hard. The truth is, Heffalump is a clever nickname for us Hufflepuffs. ;)

Dad watched all the Harry Potter movies with us growing up, but he never read the books, and I can't imagine him ever taking the quiz..... so we've decided he is a Muggle.

And there you have it, the basics for your very own McAllister family Harry Potter fanfiction. :) A Ravenclaw married a Muggle, and produced a Hufflepuff (assumingly to everyone's slight dismay at first), 2 Ravenclaws, and a Gryffindor. We would have had a great time at Hogwarts, it's a shame our letters never arrived!

Fanfiction

Oh man, guys... This grant app is making me crazy or something. I'm smashing through all kinds of walls.

First, TVTropes, and now.... Fanfiction.

I've always been a casual fan of fanfiction. When there's a book or movie or TV show I'm particularly passionate about, sometimes I'll seek out fanfiction. It's hard to find good ones, but sometimes I'll find ones that expand the stories I love so much in new and exciting ways.

I've never tried writing fanfiction. On occasion I've let myself daydream about alternate plots to things, or what characters must have been thinking. But I've never tried fanfiction.

Until.... this morning, from 1 to 2 am, when I wrote a (fairly awful) first chapter of a fanfiction piece.... and POSTED IT ONLINE.

The craziest thing is that I've since added another chapter to it.

Probably no one will ever read it, which is probably for the best. I won't tell you what it is exactly, but it's a fanfiction of something that means it will probably quickly be buried in the archives of fanfiction.net.

It's a really rough thing that I just threw together (did I mention I wrote the first chapter... basically imagining the thoughts of a particular character and exploring his motivations throughout the main story. A lot of the real plot is rehashed. It's nothing to be proud of, but for some reason I am so proud of myself for writing it up and putting it out there.

I should be working on my novel outlining instead. But even though this is just a silly fanfiction piece... It's probably good for me to just be writing something! Exercise those creative muscles. Who knows, maybe it will help me with my book. It can be my warm-up lap to some real writing.

TV Tropes

Good news! I'm achieving my goal of blogging more and sharing more of my real thoughts and feelings, rather than just generic airbrushed things sanitized for public consumption.

Bad news: I am hardcore revealing how much of a dork I am through my honesty. :)

So today's nerdy topic: TVTropes. One of my favorite websites. Basically, TVTropes is a catalog of tropes: that is, a catalog of storytelling devices encountered in film, literature, video games, etc., etc. For example, one of the tropes is called a "Disney Death." This is a scene, usually occurring at the end of a story, where it appears that a character has died. Other characters mourn, the reader/viewer gets upset... and then we learn that everything is okay and that character is alive after all! Disney movies are notorious for this--we see this in Snow White, Pinocchio, and Frozen, among many others.

That's an example of a plot trope. There are many, many kinds of tropes, examining things like characters, setting, and even dialogue, not just plot points.

TVTropes lists tropes in two ways--1) by trope (so you can go to the Disney Death page and see examples of this posted from all kinds of media), and 2) by story. So, for example, you can go to the Pinocchio page and see all the tropes in that film that TVTropers have identified and labeled.

Basically it is a nerdy writer's paradise.  I love analyzing the stories I read and watch and hear, and with TVTropes, I have trope names I can use to label the different deconstructed pieces of the story.

TVTropes is a wiki of sorts. About a year ago, I tentatively made an account and made less than a handful of contributions. Well, I don't know if it's the grant getting to me or what, but tonight I went CRAZY. I've probably added a good 20 trope examples all over the place on the site. It's really fun! We'll see if other people have to go back and clean up my work since I'm a newb, but I'm encouraged because my contributions from a year ago are still there, untouched and even expanded upon.

Finally, a healthy way to channel my overanalyzing of everything I read and watch! Look out, internet, I've got a lot to say about this stuff and apparently I'm not afraid to say it anymore.

Caution: Star Wars Spoilers Abound!!!

Having been to see Star Wars VII twice this week, and having indulged in reading many many articles on various theories about the movie... I finally decided to indulge in writing my own theories. Obviously, spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen Star Wars. If you haven't, DON'T read this. Just don't. And go see the movie, unless you're one of those crazy people that really doesn't like Star Wars for some reason.

I mean, just look at this epicness:



Don't you want to see that?!?

So the big question on my mind (and many others) is... who the heck is Rey? The other characters all react to her as if she's very significant, but we never learn why. I fall into the camp that thinks she's likely Luke's daughter, but... I'm not totally sold on that either. All I know for sure is that Luke seems to recognize her when she shows up at the end.

With that said, let's dive into some of the clues in this movie. Seeing it the second time, I picked up on a lot more. I'm desperately wishing I had it on DVD already so I could rewatch some key scenes and make more headway in understanding who she is.

The evidence we have so far:

• Rey's appearance: Rey just looks like a Skywalker woman. Put her next to Amidala and Leia and she'd fit right in--a brunette who likes to tie her hair back in funky ways.
• Luke's voiceover in the trailer: "The force is strong in my family. My father had it. My sister has it. I have it. You have that power too..." because you're my daughter and therefore in my family. BOOM.
• Rey's ATAT: We see a brief shot of her home as she's eating dinner, and there's a crudely made doll on a shelf, designed to look like an X-Wing pilot. So, clearly Rey has seen X-Wing pilots before and she thinks highly of them. She's also got that helmet she keeps.
• The old dude who died at the beginning: Is it really a coincidence that a close friend of Leia's, someone who apparently holds the last missing piece of map to find Luke, lives so close by to Rey? Especially considering how well he knows Kylo Ren--it would seem that he knew Ben Solo before he fell to the dark side, and that he knows Kylo still feels the pull to the light, partially because of who his family is.
• "They were assisted by a girl..." The way Kylo Ren reacts to this suggests he knows who Rey is... and all he hears is that she's a girl on Jakku, who steals a freighter with Finn to help get BB-8 back to the Resistance. What does that mean? Is he the one who put her there? How did Rey end up at the same place as the stolen Millennium Falcon?
• Han Solo: At first, I was convinced Han and Leia were Rey's parents. It seemed set up that way, the way she was able to finish his sentences and what not. By the end of my first viewing, I had changed my mind, and the second viewing cemented it even more. If Han had a daughter out there somewhere... he would have recognized her when they first met (instead of planning to dump her and Finn on the nearest inhabited planet). But... and this is why I need to see it a third time! Sometime happens between him finding Rey and taking her to meet Maz, where I swear he realizes who she is. I'm not sure what could have triggered this.
• "I thought Luke Skywalker was just a myth!" A very weird thing for Rey to say if he is, in fact, her father. So not sure what to make of that.
• Han Solo part 2: As they land on Maz's planet (whatever that's called), Rey says something like, "I never knew there was so much green in the whole galaxy!" Han looks stricken when she says this. Sad for her, maybe even a little guilty... I don't know what's going on, but that line impacts him. Then they land on the planet, watch his eyes as he asks for her name... His eyes are so twitchy! Why? Is he figuring out who she is? Or is he just nervous to be offering a job? Is he doing it because of her mad skills and because he feels a little bad she's spent her life as a scavenger on Jakku, or is he reaching out to a long lost niece/daughter of a friend/etc etc? I swear he comes off as a little bit guilty there.
• Han and Maz: I might be inclined to think Han just liked Rey, no backstory required, if it weren't for his conversation with Maz. At Maz doesn't take much notice of Rey, but after Rey goes after Finn to try and convince him to stay with her, Maz asks Han, "Who's the girl?" And the scene cuts immediately. We don't know what he says, but it seems to be significant because the next time Maz sees Rey, she calls her by name and encourages her to take up Luke's light saber... the light saber that belonged to Luke and his father before him. The only thing we know Han told Maz for sure is that Rey wants to go back to Jakku, because (if I remember right) Maz says Han told her about that. She then counsels Rey not to go back, because the people who she is waiting for are never coming back. (Is that Maz being perceptive, or did Han say something? Rey hasn't told Han about her family, so... if he knows about them, he must know more about Rey's abandonment than she does). That next line confuses me... something along the lines of "They aren't coming back, but someone else could." "Luke Skywalker?" "Yes. The sense of belonging you seek lies not behind, but ahead of you." So... right there, Maz seems to imply that Luke is not Rey's family. She speaks of them separately.
• Rey's "Flashback": Okay, but now let's talk about what Rey sees when she touches Luke's light saber. First, she finds herself in the hallway where Luke and Darth Vader fought, immediately prior to Darth Vader's classic line "I am your father." This is also the scene where Luke loses the light saber. So, are we seeing the light saber's memories?!? Don't know. The next scene is Luke Skywalker, reaching out to touch R2D2. And... they are next to a fire!! Is it a Jedi funeral pyre? Then we flash to Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren, surrounded by dead bodies (presumably the other Jedi Luke was training)... and then we're in Rey's childhood, watching her be abandoned.
• So... what's going on here? I don't know. It's interesting, the sequence of events... I am curious, is it possible Rey was there when Kylo Ren did his slaughter? Did the slaughter lead to her abandonment? It's interesting that we see Luke and Kylo Ren in these "forcebacks"... more evidence that she is a Skywalker? I don't know. 
• Han again: The clincher for me on my first viewing that Rey couldn't be Han's daughter is how he reacts when Kylo Ren takes her. He freezes up, you can feel his pain at seeing his son... and that's his focus, not Rey. Compare his reaction to Finn running after her and screaming and trying to say her. (Although maybe Han just realizes it's already too late).
• Kylo Ren: He totally tries to seduce her to the dark side. No sibling vibe there... not even sure there's a cousin vibe. One of the most interesting developments at this point is that he reads her mind and sees that she puts herself to sleep by thinking of an ocean and an island... the very same place we find Luke at the end of the film. (Shauna caught that, not me.) Why is this? Does she remember that place? Has she been seeing Luke is force visions all her life? If that's how she goes to bed every night, it's not something she just picked up from touching the light saber. Also, he makes a comment that she views Han as the father she never knew. Rey never specifically talks about her parents, just about her family (I think, if I'm remembering right). Maybe she really never did know her father? And that's why she thought Luke was just a legend?
• Leia: Han and Leia talk about Rey off screen. We know this because when Finn runs up to her to ask for help rescuing Rey, she says, "I know, Han told me." They must have had this discussion while they were talking about Kylo Ren. What did he tell her? My theory is that it's something significant about her identity, which is why Leia greets her with a hug when they meet. Yes, they're both mourning Han, but they've never met. Why does Leia go to her instead of Chewy? It's because Han has told her who Rey really is...
• Poe: My friend Hayley pointed out that Poe and Rey never meet, which is sort of weird because typically in the first act, you want to introduce all the main characters. It may have just been cut for time, but I'm wondering if it was intentional. Would Poe recognize Rey? Does he know something about her that random old dude told him at the beginning of the film? Is their meeting going to be hugely significant? I'm very curious. If they just meet up and say "hi" in VIII, I will be disappointed.
• Going to Find Luke: Leia sends Rey instead of going herself. This seems like a big deal to me.
• Luke: We only get like two seconds of Luke and Rey together, but there's a bit to analyze. He knows someone's behind him, he turns around, and his eyes get big. It looks like he recognizes her and he's surprised to see her... and was it just me, or did he get a little bit teary? Even if she's not his daughter, I think he knows who she really is.

So... who knows? I'm hoping we learn more about Rey in episode VIII and they don't wait until IX to reveal her identity. It makes sense for them to tell us in the middle of the story, right? That will set the stakes for the conclusion of the story.

Someone else pointed out online that however they reveal Rey's identity, they will have to do it in a way that makes Episode VII just as captivating as it is now when we don't know. Like watching the original trilogy knowing all along Darth Vader is Luke's father. Even though we don't have the same shock and surprise as people watching back in the 80s... Darth Vader's true identity only adds to the story, knowing that he is Luke and Leia's father as he does all this horrible stuff to them. So... going back and rewatching knowing who she is should add all sorts of new intrigue and insight into her relationships with all the characters she meets in Episode VII. I hope that ends up being the case.

Who do you think Rey is? 

Star Trek Beyond

Yes, I'm going to go see the new Star Wars movie and I'm looking forward to it... But this is really what I want to see!



Which is kind of funny because I am a Star Trek purist and I don't like the new Star Trek movies that much... I've never quite forgiven J.J. Abrams for blowing up the planet Vulcan (THE MOST PEACEFUL planet in the franchise!) in the first one, and the second one is too much of a Wrath of Khan rehash...

Wrath of Khan is awesome, by the way. The Director had never seen Star Trek before. He dealt with its cheesiness and plot holes by deconstructing the franchise and making the characters face consequences for their actions... and it's brilliant. Almost universally hailed as the best Star Trek movie of all time. J.J. Abrams deals with the cheesiness and plot holes by playing them up in a way that's basically a parody.

But, even though the new Star Trek movies aren't my fave, I do like them. When I was a teeny little elementary school kid, I'd pretend that the characters were my age and that'd we'd play together. As an adult, it is kind of fun to see my favorite fictional characters changed to my own age. This time I hope they let Dr. McCoy have more screen time.

My Sister's Awesome Sewing Skills

My sister Shauna is incredibly talented at anything related to knitting, crocheting, or sewing. She can make just about anything you could ever come up with.

And this year she made me this awesome Halloween costume!!

Those of you who know me know I am a total Trekkie, and I like the original series with Kirk and Spock the best. :) But I never could find a decent uniform from that era, because that was back when the women were all rocking teeny-tiny mini-skirts, and I didn't want to try to fit into a guy's uniform... that never goes well.

So, Shauna made me this beautiful uniform comfortably extended to knee length. :) I am very pleased with it and in awe of my sister's awesome skills. If you ask her nicely she might make something for you too at a good price. ;)

Back to the Future Day!

Has anyone else been looking to this day basically forever? There is a reason it's a cult classic! Tonight my family and I watched Back to the Future part II... This is something I've planned on since I was a kid!

I got goosebumps when Doc announced they'd travelled to Wednesday, October 21, 2015. I bet when they made the movie, they figured anyone would have forgotten about it by the time October 21, 2015 came around. So glad I watched this today.

I almost died laughing when I saw Marty McFly Jr. stopping to use a futuristic phone booth. There are a few things they got right, but so, so much they got wrong... and it's hilarious to see it now. But right or wrong, those movies are classics and people will be watching them for years and years to come.

So... the White House made Back to the Future Day an official thing. We have May the Fourth every year to celebrate Star Wars, plus this year there was that crazy Force Friday Star Wars marketing thing... When do we get to have a Star Trek day?!?

Indiana Jones victory

So I've pretty much always been an Indiana Jones fan. It was one of the three franchises my daddy got me into when I was a little kid (the other two being Star Trek and Star Wars, naturally--but don't worry, my mom got me into chick flicks too). I've seen all the movies... but it's been probably 10 years, so I am a little fuzzy on all the details.

When we went to Disneyland, we went on the Indiana Jones ride a TON. It's one of our favorites--but Kristie can barely remember the movies. So when I came home this weekend for Kristie's farewell, I snagged a copy of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" to bring with me (my favorite Indy movie!). I watched it with my sisters last night. I forgot how campy and how wonderful these movies are. I was cracking up the whole time over the cheesy 80s effects and the way vehicles blew up at the slightest touch and just... everything! :) My sisters seemed to be loving it too, but I wasn't sure if they were really into it, especially Kristie, since she's not a nerd like the rest of us haha.

But tonight Kristie came to tell me she LOVED it and she wants to rent the other movies before she leaves on her mission! At first I was afraid she was just saying it to be nice, but she reminded me that 90% of the time she falls asleep during movies, and she was wide awake for the whole thing last time. 

This makes me almost as happy as when she admitted she likes Star Trek too. :)