...The F&*^!? (Hey, I'm back.)

I've been busy writing feature stories. There's no time for that. I'll link it later; LOOK AT THIS.


They are using SHOCK TREATMENT on people with disabilities, mainly Autism.


THE HELL!? Oh, they better be damn proud of themselves-this Betty Fry and Randy Lee Williams for their wonderful book they are trying to put out. Trying to place this tripe on people within Canton, MA who shock residents, withhold food, and STRAP residents to a wooden board. People have died from this. Children have died from these hacks for doctors and nurses who have absolutely no idea what they are doing-You know, outside the physical harm-and call themselves capable of handling the responsibilities of the Hippocratic Oath.

Make no mistake I'm gonna boycott this book. I'm saving this page, and its getting sent around. Make no mistake that if this were to happen in New York, that I wouldn't bring a damn firestorm upon whomever had the gall to abuse psychiatric and medical practice in such a way that it would not stop. And make no mistake that if some loony were to support this, what I wouldn't bring down upon them. There is NO reason to treat those with disabilities this way, there is NO reason that I would allow such support in my presence, and I will NOT hear otherwise. IT IS WRONG.

So....Writing Again.

This time on Wordpress for blog, but not for my own needs, but for a gaming blog. Love writing about the industry when I'm not looking at other things to talk about. So, I will link it up soon, so you can read my stuff there as well...there will be more.

Gaming Time.

I'm gonna do reviews again, and starting with getting my DS Emulator up and running. I'm gonna be around at times to put them right here. Nice.

(Review) Disney's Princess and the Frog.

Alright, this is my first movie review, but as it is my first, I decided to start with something simple.

Oh, and you'd think that because the subject matter is Disney and an animated movie, that'd be the simple part. No no, the simple part comes in when we're doing the writing. Disney's return to hand-drawn animation with a stylized, well-cut fashion of 1950s New Orleans is far and away from the conventional Disney storyline.

I'm going to take a break from all the discussion about the new Disney Princess which will be sufficiently marketed to hell and back, and skip to something important. The character of this movie is charming and sufficiently lighthearted surrounded by a lesson about life which every person should follow right from the get-go; work hard for what you have. This is a bold and risky move, using Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) as a foil for a hardworking, independent young woman when the culture and the times were sufficiently against a business owner, much less them being a woman and black. Her appropriate foil Lottie (voiced by Jennifer Cody), is your blonde pseudo-princess who serves the high-society and riches angle, but is also well-meaning and friendly....just a bit diabetically obsessed with the color pink.

Throw in a dash of Anastasia-equse art direction, and you have the making of a pretty good titular conflict displayed in soft, vivid lines and more jazz than the bayou can muster as love interest-to-grow Prince Neveen of Maldonia (voiced by Ricardo Mon-I mean, Niptuck-star Bruno Campos.) becomes too engrossed with the culture and makes a deal with the Shadow Man, Dr.Facilier (voiced by the epic voice talents of Keith David.), who is sadly bog-standard for a Disney villain sthick. I will admit that he oozes class and style out of every pore, though.


Come on! Look at the guy. Guy has one hell of a ridge with a quite prominent jaw, but he is just class in every way.

Nearly every formulaic Disney narrative device is subverted to wonderful effect; the love takes time instead of quick. The too-perfect Princess already has a good mindset, but she still needs to live her life too. Wishing is secondary. A main character DIES. Period. Full stop. Top that, former generation (excusing Fantasia. I applaud your candor.)

This lovely movie sparks a whole new realm of animated displays back to the hand-drawn times of yore, accomponied with vivid and stylized colors with narrative context. I am expecting far more from this....except I will never accept a sequel. Mark my words: No more crappy sequels.


4/5

Comics.....oi, Comics. (Rant with Great Feeling: Please Forgive.)

Here, watch this. This is one of my favorite web series, Atop the Fourth Wall, talking about something which should never be used.

The fact that rape had to be used in this fashion is appalling, sickening and completely unacceptable. If I EVER find the person who wrote this piece of schlock, I would bash his head in with a tire iron.

No....I'd either give it to Linkara to do, or give it to my best friend. She would really let him have it.

Any work like this is meant to be derided, insulted, and totally criticized. This trope-used in any media as a simple plot point-is FORBIDDEN in my book. I will not read anything with this trope used in such a callous manner, much less any other manner without proper depth used otherwise.

Be warned, fellow writers, be warned. I don't care what you think about one man saying no, but I'm watching you now.

The fall of Puzzle Quest

Hmm...this game is way too different than Puzzle Quest: Let my good friend Chazdragoon explain.

Oh, this is one of the greatest rants I've seen in awhile, even over the fact that it's only from a simple Skype Chat and forum post. Give it a look, and don't play Puzzle Quest 2. Play Puzzle Quest 1. It's much better.

Steampost plox!

What I saw on Devart today: Donkey needs some therapy.

(Of course, all work is the author's own. I personally just take an interest, and go with it.)

http://brokenteapot.deviantart.com/art/Donkey-Kong-175777455?q=&qo=


Yeah. Either therapy or pills. This is not the smart monkey we know and love for his hints in DKC, and I already miss his tie. Pauline does have that lovely little ladder right there though. Could just climb and hop down. There are always more high-heels dear.

Gaming Time - RPGs.

In the advent of looking for jobs, and all other consistent craziness (like cooking over a fire pit last night....yeah, that was pretty surreal) I am returning to a regular gaming schedule while also looking for jobs before November, when student loans start being needed to be paid....sigh.

On other news, a few RPGs have caught me, mainly in the RM2k and Playstation realms, as well as Indie. I won't mention names for RM2k since I don't wanna give anything away, but if anyone is interested, I would suggest heading here for anyone with interest.

I am also playing a number of roleplaying games with friends-either something I'm running, or someone else-but I run things a little different. I take a simple single-player game and run through it with my friends in the roles to let them in on the fun. It's exciting, I let them roleplay and play around and I reward them for it. Its strange, but my players have gone along with it, and I'm having a blast. Notable games are Avernum , Geneforge , and Disgaea on a more strategic bend.

Outside that, I play some Team Fortress 2 and talk with people when I can. As it is, reviews will come out soon as I get through more games, but for right now, I got some playing to do.

Aura's Introspective: The extent of defense.

Today, I got rather defensive towards people that I care about, and this is not the first time I have done so. Far from it; I am generally able to count down my own defensive and angry episodes-even when I myself do not feel angry-to at least once-a-month at times. While I am generally a person who tends to be well-meaning, friendly and a little wacky, I do not mean to get mad. On many occasions, I do not even sense my defensive nature until it is too late.

This cycle must stop. These emotions are causing me to remain in a comfort zone of limited apathy and more defined damage to myself on a physical and mental level, not to mention to my family, where despite the fact that they have their own demons, it does not excuse me from my own actions and development as a human being, which is a never-ending process.

The first thing to do with any situation is to explore the basic areas through analysis; whilst I have been looking for jobs and currently do have a part-time one, I still enjoy having bad foods. I have mentioned this before; I enjoy both good and bad food, and that will not stop despite any changes I make. I refuse to let that happen because I do enjoy my life-I do not have self-esteem issues and I do work hard-and removal of those things that do help me to enjoy it are accounts of where I attempt to defend myself. Removal of such things that I enjoy-friends, food, games-is a account of my defensive nature. It is also a removal from my comfort zone, which I have talked about at length with my closest friend, and am trying to broaden.

The reason I got defensive was because of that feeling that the things I enjoy in life were threatened-much like a King in chess being checked. My initial response is to enter a defensive stance out of two motivations:

1) The person who has said/did those things is trying to hurt me, by my mindset. (I am willing to admit that I may be unable to recognize that they are not by either not listening or that they read my thoughts/actions wrong, but it is clear that my mindset matters as much as theirs.)

2) A preventative measure designed to prevent such feelings from happening again. This is usually successful, only because I recognize they are not trying to hurt me in the first place, but that latter strategy is one I have yet to devise.

This tends to lead to yelling and bad feelings all around. While many things are unclear about this, there are some clear answers.

a) Only eat bad foods-which I may still enjoy-on Wed.
b) Like times before, attempt to recognize that people are not attempting to hurt me, and while I might not be hurting them, either my inaction or action may be doing so without my knowledge.
c) Learn to breathe and take things less seriously. There is too much in this world that we have to take seriously that we'll burn ourselves out trying. ^__^

That being said? PIE.

Or.....

Take you pick, friends.

Aura writes about something: Animaniacs and the evolution of cartoons.

(First, I will get to my analysis of personal drama within the next week or so. I do not believe it is wholly important to talk about, but nothing has stopped me from mentioning things before, so I will consider such things in the long run.)

See this?


This was one of those crowning moments of awesome for American-style Cartoons. With each and every iteration of the initial 70s-80s cartoon genre, it developed from sitcoms to slight action to the advent of anime within American shores, to this crowning moment of American animation. This had jokes that got past so many censors, it was unreal, the writing was second to none and featured zany humor, dramatic moments with their own touch of gold, and even musical numbers that made children not want to groan derisively and change the channel.
Animaniacs is a random assortment of Warner Bros. Cartoons which, by themselves, started a whole franchise of cartoons with incredible quality: the well-honored predcessor: Tiny Toon Adventures, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, and Hysteria! served as the foundation for at least the next five years, when they're not action-oriented cartoons. Look at things nowadays, like Chowder or Adventure Time: They attempt more sequential, story-based comedy without randomness....while still being random. So where I stand, they are taking their inspiration from Animaniacs for their humor potential, and another source for their story-driven plots. I can think of only one man-and his team of gifted animators and storyboardists-who is to credited for something like this. He made this lovely classic.


As well as many others before certain companies I'd rather not speak about shut him down on a epic that never should have ended. Drawing a lot from Japanese Anime (which in turn, drew a great deal from early cartoons and comics.), Genndy Tartakovsky was a genius that many different people have a great deal to thank him for, inculding Michael Dante DiMartino and those who consist of Man at Action.

Back then, when WB took its fist out its bunghole and decided to give the writers free reign, the only thing that didn't make children seem like idiots were Power Rangers, Heim Saban's poster child filled with Japanese Sentai and filled with continuity potential the likes of which children had never seen unless they started watching Doctor Who at an early age.

New cartoonists, I'm looking at you. I'm not sure what this Total Drama Island or this Sixteen or Surf's Up-whosiwhatsit is all about, including all this stuff from France. (Except for Code Lyoko. That was pure action gold....except for the novels, which seem to like to degrade canon....but yeah, Totally Spies-outside of some okay fetish fuel at very limited times-strikes me as a poor man's Kim Possible.) This kind of stuff has to stop because it is uninteresting and shallow for younger audiences and older cartoon/anime watchers who love this stuff they still watch it.

You wanna have a good, close-to-modern day example? Here's two.

Transformers Animated

Batman: Brave and the Bold

Watch. And LEARN.

High School Drama is Dumb, but important (Part 1)

My sister has been complaining about boyfriends and stuff like that. I really don't see the point in it if there is no point when people only think with their dolittles and continue to pester just based on the guy's mother being in the hospital...when the mother is pretty bad as is.

More on this with analysis tomarrow.

I'm back....again.

And this time, I do plan to stay as much as possible. The blogosphere is getting quite big, and due to the crappy recession, I only have a part-time job as a Pharmacy Technician right now. I'm writing a book, and we'll see how that goes.
Either way, I got plans. Hopefully, I'll start doing casual reviews again for other sites while I also maintain a semblance of writing and reaction to experiences, news and any other events I deem interesting to the World of Aura. I will continue, and I will persevere!
Things that have gone on as of late.

1) Obama speaks about college dropout and work related rates, and his plans to improve them though the young people. That's all well and good, man, but its not to say there isn't work for high-school dropouts. Hell, I got my master's in English Writing, and I'm still looking like crazy. Clearly, having an education is important, but it's not the only factor these people are looking for. I'm also led to believe that corporations and their subsidiaries are sitting on their collective money piles and screwing the pooch. These people should be hiring as well, but they can't risk the moneypile and it's expensive doghouse and treats, so they simply lay off.
Gahh....And this is why I don't give up. Hard Work alongside some talent yields results down the line eventually. Humanity has been working hard since infancy for their historical developments, what is to say this is any different, no? Strive forth, humanity! Bring back the strength of our jobs and restore of lives in some meaningful way.
2) Kekkaishi and Black Lagoon.


These are the two latest anime/manga (outside my small list of still-preceding anime/manga I'm reading but not have to find a new place to read it, thanks a lot Onemanga...though I do understand...I miss you One Piece.) that I am involved with. Latter is a atypical shonen about moonlighting temple priests who fight with boxes, while the other is a seinen with the dopiest Magnificent Bastard in the history of ever (except for one hell of an AU-Harry Potter....worry not, fair readers, I only link good fanfiction on my blog, and that's a promise.) with a ragtag bunch of suave mofos, jewish hackers, and gun-toting sociopaths. Internet Cookie for whoever can tell which is which. ^_^

Both do great storytelling. Both have expressive and emotional contexts which are unique and interesting for flavor purposes as well as their own plots, and they are easy to find online. I highly recommend both these series.

3) Roleplaying has been made available to me in new ways with a new group and wholly new experiences associated with them. Hell, I'm even adapting certain "single-player" videogames to play with dice systems for more action and interactivity. I believe in getting my friends involved.


Anyone who happens to come over here from any significant streams I'm a part of, welcome! I WILL BE UPDATING. If I do not, remind me to do so. I have a lot to talk about, and I really should be talking about it.

Happy revitalization to me. KAMPAI!