Captain Q

    Anyone can make as many wishes as they want, but they never get to decide how the wish works.  Everyone knows that.

You made a wish anyway.

    Having obtained the power to control people around you, you soon realized you were above them.  Stretching forth your sacred hand, you said the magic words that would cause them to do your bidding.  Oh, the rage and blinded fury of your opponents, crushed beneath a simple thought!  Fled like the cowards they were, that would not even dare to leave their quaking mire to join in the higher thoughts, the noble truths you obtained with but a word.  And what a word it was!  They could not know or understand, no, the simpler and feebler minds would dance and perish in flames of their own making.  It's too bad they would never feel the rush, the fantastic dream and divined (though not divine, of course not) energy, pulsing through your correct knowledge of self.  This power was luscious, this knowledge was Good.

    What would the magic words be on any given day?  You did not know, but you were sure they would be good ones.  No, great ones!  Why would you limit yourself?  The words would rise to the very heavens themselves, (though not to a God above, who obviously does not exist) and if no one was there, why not put someone else there?  Why couldn't it be you?  It should be.  It must be.  To sit on a misty throne--of your own making, of course--which was designed for you.  Of course it was.  You deserve it!  You were sacred, after all.  And this wouldn't hurt anyone!  It shouldn't.  You were perfect, how could it have?

    There are some people, SOME people who the words didn't work on, for some reason.  Perhaps they were just THAT stupid?  Maybe, but more likely it was because they had magic words of their own.  Of course it was!  And so they needed to be stopped, because yours were perfect, obviously.  So you found new magic words to stop theirs, even made theirs your own, because that's how magic power works.  Anyone who didn't love you was wrong, and you knew who didn't REALLY love you.  You just knew.

    You even got to decide who was a person, and who was not!  You were in control!  You were in charge of everything until your friends used their own words on you.  You couldn't say that those people weren't people anymore, because you still wanted them to be people.  They were your friends and lovers!  They definitely were wrong, though, so they couldn't actually be friends, and they never really loved anyone.  Obviously.

    It's too bad you didn't see, either.  Magic words don't have power in themselves, that comes from somewhere else.  The words would work on you, too, unless you didn't let them.  You couldn't let them, so you had to be the most driven.  The strongest, the fiercest, like you already were.  Of course you were, and you didn't need anyone who would hurt you.  You didn't need anyone!  No fans, no friends, no lovers, no family, and no one had to love you (though they should have and that was the real source of their flawed natures, of course) in order for you to be mighty.  And perfect.  And invincible.

And alone.

    The world can be overbearing, and you just wanted to be yourself, so you asked for so much pain that you couldn't see anyone else anymore and called it light.  Eventually your magic words stopped working, you could not push yourself any more, and your scars were no longer bright enough to conceal the carnage in your wake.  You were supposed to be happy and free, and this was supposed to be paradise!  Granted, that's all you really wanted in the first place, it's why you made the wish.  It cost you your soul.

    There are new gods now, having been granted wishes that aren't new, but using new words that you aren't allowed to speak.  You see who is giving them out.  You know you can't stop them, just like no one could stop you.  Maybe you could get in the way and protect those they want to hurt?  They can't hurt you anymore, after all.

    Will you choose humility and try to save others from such pain, or will you cling to your self-asserted divinity and damn the entire universe for spite?  Claim to be God, and destroy everything?  Or humble yourself, and perhaps rescue some from your fate.

    No matter how hard you wish, there is no third choice, but you can still wish to do a kind of good that isn't defined by you.

Someday, perhaps, you might even embrace forgiveness.  Now that, that would be divine.

Of course it would be.

Of course it would.

I liked "Turning Red." It spoke very strongly to me about my own childhood.

It's not for young kids.

Some say that it has bad messages for the kids it appears to be meant for. I think they misrepresent it in their arguments, so I have some thoughts.

Spoilers, probably.

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There were mystical and even religious elements to the supernatural events that take place, yes. The girl turns into a giant red panda, though, and it's obviously only referencing the real world for a setting. Any mysticism portrayed is to enable the fantasy.

The main character, Mei, misbehaves. A lot. After a life to-that-point of NEVER misbehaving or even WANTING to, ever, ever-ever. Perfect little child up to then.

It's eventually revealed that this follows a tradition of repressed emotion and character, passed down through generations.

Mei's mother gets Mei in a lot of social trouble and deprives discussion (or even punishment, at times) because they could not and would not imagine Mei EVER making mistakes or being enamored by the wiles of society without some sort of harmful influence.

She is wrong about that.

Mei clearly takes after her mother. She is enterprising! Mei will do whatever it takes to accomplish the things she thinks is right.

She is wrong to lie and misbehave, of course, and should be held responsible in an appropriate way. But Mei's mother is shown to break rules too.

The movie's resolution isn't to continue misbehaving. Mei doesn't quit responsibilities, and in part helps raise funds to repair damage caused by her and her family.

Instead it's to live as herself, which is not everything her mother wants, including doing things that are part of being a kid at that stage of her life, which she tells her mother the truth about.

That can go too far, of course. The point is that it can go too far both ways.

One objection I've read is about one of the early parts of the movie, where the line is "be careful...honoring your parents sounds great, but if you take it too far, well? You might forget to honor yourself." It's not wrong, though, and is presented in contrast to doing EVERYTHING Mei's parents tell her. What parents demand can be wrong, and there's no honor in following a bad example.

Children need to start becoming their own person, and make their own choices, at some point. That's different for every kid, and it's up to parents to determine when and where that is. It's not up to the kid, not up to me, and not up to society itself either.

It does need to happen.

Parents in general know this. Most are not nearly as controlling as Mei's mother.

Loving yet over-restrictive and controlling parents do exist, though, and are a partial source of such misbehavior.

Some of Mei's misbehavior follows how she was raised and how her mother acts. Her not being punished for it results from her mother's denial and perpretual catastrophizing of the world, then protecting Mei from it.

A recipe for a monster.

When is a good time to talk with kids about certain biological changes? Again, that's up to parents to decide.

It's not clear if that's part of what was happening to Mei, though, but her mother sure made things worse, and the biology of it is only a small part of what the movie is about.

One list of objections I saw suggests that some illicit activities Mei does are metaphors for things worse than are actually portrayed in the movie. There's no actual grounds for that, and the accusation ironically reflects the kind of catastrophizing that the movie is about.

The movie does not glorify the lying and sneaking out like I've seen suggested, either, nor does it pretend that any of the misbehavior is itself good. Mei clearly is troubled when doing so, too. In the end, the deception is part of the bigger problem and results in great cost.

Pretending that kids won't or don't do those things unprompted is not wise, and is again itself part of what the movie is about.

One of the more important messages in the movie was how refraining from telling the truth can be just as bad and hurtful as lying, something Mei becomes guilty of.

Her rebellion doesn't itself end up fixing problems either, and has its own consequences. After all the deception and hustling at the expense of her school work, Mei doesn't ever get to properly attend the concert she wants to attend in spite of her parents. This is because of even more trouble, that she helps to cause.

Mei's bad behavior DOES expose the problems she and her family as a whole have. If she had avoided even one of the lies or deceptions or abdications of truth, she might've avoided the rest of the ordeal. That much IS what often happens in the real world.

There's some things about the movie I don't like that brush the edges of disrespect, and some social commentary that seemed inserted and had little to do with the story. Frankly, these are surprisingly few.

Because of that, as I've said elsewhere, I believe that "Turning Red" is "an almost completely good movie anyway."

I understand the desire to avoid the company and studio behind this movie, too.

If you do see this one, prepare to laugh at yourself. Many of us have been to at least some of the places where this movie goes.

If you want to see it with your kids that you think are old/mature enough, see it before your kids do and make an informed choice, then decide for yourself if they are ready for the discussions that might follow. I expect parents reading this probably already do that, especially these days, but I say it anyway to share my own perspective on the matter for this one.

If you simply think your kids aren't ready to see it? I support that completely. What your kids see is not up to me, and I don't want it to be.

I know very well that the world we live in now isn't the world of the early 2000's. There's horrible stuff everywhere! Even on public TV, radio, and billboards, there are things that children should not hear or see. Being strict with access to various media, smart phones, and the Internet itself is mandatory. The world we have now is far worse than what we had 20 years ago, and is getting worse still. Parents now need to protect their children more, not less.

We must tell the truth if we want to fight this decline of culture with legitimacy, though, and much of what I read that objects to "Turning Red" is at best a misrepresentation. At worst simply not true.

What "Turning Red" IS...is a movie about a child just starting to become an adult, a mother who won't see or listen, the trouble rebellion, deception, and untruths of all kinds cause, and how burying "inconvenient" parts of one's self can be just as harmful as letting them get out of control.

It's not a perfect movie, no. And once again, it's not for young children. It should be handled with care.

I still think it's a good movie.

Almost completely good, anyway.

Cozy Grove. Verdict: Captain Not Recommended.

Overwhelming charm and entertaining activities create a "cozy" place to investigate important and dark subjects...but you might never get to that point.

This is more or less Animal Crossing, without debt.

Music, sounds, writing and atmosphere are 10/10. 5 Stars. Really, I'm not sure if the aesthetic could be more charming.

This game has references to the occult, though I've been able to avoid it in general--Aside from the whole "speaking to ghosts" thing. And a reference to "rituals."

As I've said in the past, I'm willing to ignore SOME mystical conceits. Cozy Grove hasn't quite crossed lines for me, at least not yet.

Anyway.

The idea behind Cozy Grove is that the island you're stuck on is VERY HAUNTED. You, a "Spirit Scout," are tasked with helping whatever spirits you may find...and find you shall. As you help, the ghosts open up and start telling you a little more about what they remember of their previous lives. Most every character seems to have a dark and sad past, and the light-hearted mood and tasks are a stark counterpoint to the troubles these bears have.

The first actual trouble for me is that I didn't feel like I would ever be able to help. One of the main ghosts even tells you to give up at one point!

At first, I made slow progress. The game admonishes me directly to "be patient" as a matter of course. I wasn't badgering any of the characters, it simply told me to be patient, and some things would take time. Repeatedly.

The other trouble is things being tied to the real-time clock. I know this is the case with games like Animal Crossing. The game does make this clear in its store description, too. Even so, this ends up, unfortunately, feeling arbitrary.

Crafting takes no time at all, while baking food takes a real-time hour, and other tasks take literal days. This also ends up the case for helping ghosts, eventually. Some things take repeated quests and tasks over the course of several days before the next step. Sometimes, the task given will have a time limit, and if I can't get back to it before those 12-14 literal hours are up, the task vanishes and whatever items I may have gathered become more junk that I don't quite have enough room for in storage, which is also just a bit too expensive.

Cozy Grove's stated goal is to have several months of gameplay. In this case, it means the game drags on. The tasks become repetitive, everything is just a little too expensive, and I felt punished when I'd sell something one day only to need quite a bit of it the next. This is fair enough too, I suppose. But at this point, after 26 hours of gameplay over close to as many days...it's not fun anymore. I want to see more of the story, and actually help these characters. But it will probably be literal weeks of my life before that will be possible.

Cozy Grove is available on Steam, and is worth the price of admission due to apparent sheer amounts of content. There are hundreds if not thousands of items in this game, and I can imagine them adding more over time.

If it's the only game you play, you might have more fun than I did. I didnt't want the game to be easier; I understand most of its decisions. But, I think I need to put Cozy Grove down. It's not a bad game. For me, it's become a chore with only vague promises of progress that have slowed to a crawl, with further promise to get even slower over time, which achieves the near impossible feat of dulling its charm.

I have other things I need to do.

Captain Not Recommended.