Friday, October 27, 2017

Eight Literally Zero-Effort Halloween Costumes

Don't have a costume this year and don't have the time or energy to make one? Is buying a premade costume a tad pricy? Doesn't matter, I'll give you some of mine.  Here you go:

1. Lord Voldemort using polyjuice potion to disguise himself as a muggle
2. A boggart
3. A secret agent disguised as you
4. A sailor scout using the transformation pen
5. A clone of yourself
6. Your long-lost identical twin
7. Your time-traveling descendant from the future
8. A superhero's secret identity

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

A Tale of Four Moralities

This is a children's story I wrote today, about four children with four different moral philosophies. There are some subjects discussed in this story that some might consider mature subjects, but I made sure that there was no cussing, no violence, no sex etc, and did my best to handle the subject matter in a manner appropriate to children's ears. Please feel free to tell me what you think of it. Thanks!

__________

Eye-for-an-Eye Ivan was very angry.
His teddy was stolen.

Ivan decided.
He would catch the thief and steal from them.

"This will pay them back," said Ivan. "Serves them right."

Golden-Rule Goldie was very happy.
It was her birthday.
Her papa gave her a teddy.

Goldie decided.
She would give a gift to her papa in return.

"It was nice of him to give me a teddy," said Goldie.
"This is the least I can do."

The next day, her teddy was gone.

Minimize-Suffering Minnie was very sad. Someone was stealing teddies from her friends.
She looked at her teddy.
Would she be next?

Minnie decided. She would find the stolen teddies.
And she would return them.

"It's the right thing to do," said Minnie.
"This way, no one will be missing their teddies. Not anymore."

The next day, her teddy was gone.

Maximize-Flourishing Maxie felt guilty, but hopeful.
Earlier, his mama told him something sad.

"The other neighborhood is poor.
Kids there don't have teddies."

So Maxie decided.
He would steal teddies from his friends. He would give them to the other neighborhood.

"It's the best thing I can do," said Maxie. "My friends can afford new teddies. But the poor kids can't."

So Maxie stole teddies from his friends,
and gave them to the other neighborhood.

This made the kids there happy.
But his friends were sad, because now THEY had no teddies.

The next day,
the sad kids went with their parents to the teddy store,
to buy them new teddies.
But the store was all sold out of teddies.

"It's been hard to sell teddies in this town," said the store clerk. "Many poor people can't afford them. And many rich people already have teddies."

"Why not give teddies to the poor?
For free?" asked Maxie.

"We tried that before," said the clerk.
"It didn't work.
A long line of people came for teddies.
Many poor people can't afford cars.
When they got here, they were last in line. Then they got to the front of the line.
But by then, we were out of teddies."

"Then why give teddies to the rich?" asked Minnie.
"Can't you tell them no?"

"Other rich people paid us to give teddies for free.
They can't do that all the time.

"We have to sell to the rich, too.
Otherwise, we can't afford to make teddies.

"At all."

"Why not?" asked Goldie.

"We have to pay for the stuff to make the teddy," said the clerk.

"Why can't you just get that stuff for free?" asked Maxie.
"Then you could give teddies, without being paid."

"Maxie," said Maxie's mama. "There aren't enough teddies for everyone.
There isn't enough stuff to make that many."

Maxie began to cry.
"I wanted to make more people happier," he said.
"I thought by giving teddies to poor kids, I could make more of the town happier. There are more kids in the poor neighborhood.
And they had no teddies."

"YOU stole our teddies!" Ivan accused. "You should be punished.
Someone should steal a teddy from you."

"I'm sorry!" said Maxie.
"I don't have any teddies.
I gave them to the kids in the other neighborhood."

"Maybe if you asked nicely, they would return our teddies?" asked Goldie.

"No," said Minnie.
"They would feel the same way we did, when the teddies were stolen from us.
They don't know the teddies were stolen.
If we tell them, they won't know we're telling the truth."

No one was sure what to do.

Finally, Maxie said,
"We need to find a way to make more stuff.
That way, there will be enough to make teddies for everyone."

"And if we can't do that?" asked Minnie.

"I don't know," said Maxie.
"But we have to try!"

"Why should we help everyone?
The poor kids have never helped us," said Goldie.

"What else can we do?" asked Minnie. "We can't steal the teddies back."

"The poor kids didn't do anything wrong!" said Ivan. "We shouldn't punish them!"

"Maybe if we find a way to make more stuff," said Maxie.
"the poor kids will have enough to give you something, in return."

"Okay," said Goldie. "I'll help."

The kids talked.

The parents looked at each other.

"Do you think they can do it?" asked Goldie's papa.

Ivan's mama laughed.
She thought it was a joke.

Minnie's papa sighed sadly.

And Maxie's mama turned to the kids and said,
"If you're kind and just,
understanding and giving.
If you listen to each other, and to others.
If you work hard and do your best.
If you learn, grow and become stronger.
If you are brave, and never give up.
Then, maybe, you will find a way."

They would find a way to make more stuff. Someday.

And so they began their quest.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Link has ADHD

Screenshot taken from Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, found here. Person who originally uploaded screenshot unknown. Legend of Zelda franchise is legally the property of Nintendo. 



"Link! Listen!"

"Omigosh I got a big one!"

The Hero of Time started reeling in his fishing rod, ignoring his faerie's plea.

"Link!"

"Almost done, Navi, I'll be right there."

"LINK!"

"Dammit it got away."

"Link, stop wasting time, you've got a kingdom to save!"

"Can't I have just five minutes to relax and catch some fish? Five minutes isn't going to make the difference between saving the kingdom and losing the final battle against Ganondorf."

"It hasn't been just five minutes Link! You've been out here for twenty, and it would have been a lot more if I hadn't interrupted you!  At this rate you might not show up for the fight against Ganondorf until seven years after he's already won!"

"Ganondorf isn't THAT powerful. He's just some thief from the desert. I'm sure the Goddesses have contingency plans to stop him from obtaining the Triforce if I don't show up in time."

Later...

Link yawned and stretched. "That was a nice, short nap. Time to go face Ganondorf..." he paused.

"My body feels REALLY weird."

"Welcome back, Hero of Time. After your seven year slumber—"

"What!?" Link gasped. And then...

"You mean to tell me that I seriously slept through Ganondorf's takeover of Hyrule?"

"It would have happened anyway," the Sage told him. "The Goddesses forsaw that you would sleep as Hyrule screamed, and so devised a plan to make sure you could still save the kingdom even if you forgot to show up to the final battle. As the Hero of Time you have lived many lifetimes, many of them remarkably similar. So it is natural that sometimes you would have trouble paying attention or keeping track of it all. It is for this reason that the Goddesses sent Navi to you, just like they sent you Fi long, long ago."

Link stared at the old sage.

"And whenever you want to go back in time to your younger self's body, just return to the Temple of Time and play the Song of Time on your ocarina to open the Door of Time, then place the Master Sword back in the stone."

That was kinda creepy, now that Link thought of it. He'd been asleep for seven years, so he shouldn't feel seven years older. And yet he did, as if his mind was replaying the wisdom of his past lives while he was sleeping.

Maybe he'd been through it all before, and so his mind was filling in the blanks in his memory from age ten to seventeen and maturing his physical brain without newer, more recent (and therefore more fresh in his mind) experiences to reinforce the life lessons.

He wondered if going back in time to his younger body while sleeping would be equally disturbing to the point where it distracted him from all the life lessons he'd relearned? That would surely make him forget the wisdom of his past lives.

On the one hand that seemed kind of like dying, but on the other he was sure he'd been through it SO many times before he wasn't sure that really mattered to him as much as it should.

He figured he would remember it all eventually either way. Probably. Still, he thought that he might as well try to get used to the transition, since he was going to be traveling through time a lot.

Hero of Time indeed. The Goddesses had a sick sense of humor.

"I think I'm going to head back in time now," Link told the sage. He reached into his pockets.

"Shit! Where'd I put my Ocarina?"