‘Onward’ Assures Wholesome Fun for Whole Family

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Are you looking for a movie that you’re sure your kids will enjoy? Why not pick one that you’ll enjoy too? Disney and Pixar have provided an experience that’s sure to be fun for the whole family with “Onward.” It’s no surprise that Disney and Pixar have created another fun story, but in addition to that, “Onward” showcases wonderful characters, fantastic and healthy character relationships, and teaches a wonderful life lesson about wants and needs, and does this all in a way that kids will understand and enjoy.

Characters

Two brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, are on a quest to retrieve a magic gem so they can spend a day with their deceased father. If they don’t within 24-hours, they’ll lose their chance forever. In addition to Ian and Barley, “Onward” offers a cast of other colorful, mythical characters accompanied by an imaginative, suburban fairy tale setting.

Ian Lightfoot
  • Ian Lightfoot – An anxious 16-year-old elf who lacks confidence, and wants nothing more than to meet his dad.
Barley Lightfoot in his faithful steed Guinevere
  • Barley Lightfoot – A loud 19-year-old elf who isn’t afraid of anything. He’s very outspoken about his love for the magic of the old days, and immerses himself in a role-playing fantasy game known as Quests of Yore.
  • Wilden Lightfoot – Ian and Barley’s deceased father. Due to a mishap while performing the spell to bring him back, Wilden comes back as only legs, but this doesn’t stop him from showing his fun and affectionate side to his sons.
Laurel Lightfoot, accompanied by Corey, off to save her sons
  • Laurel Lightfoot- Mother of Ian and Barley, Laurel is a hardworking, driven woman who stops at nothing to save her kids.
Officer Colt Bronco, half man/ half horse boyfriend of Laurel
  • Officer Colt Bronco – The boyfriend of Laurel Lightfoot, Bronco is strong, commanding, and respects authority. Despite this, he also has a softer side and seeks to connect with Laurel’s sons.
  • Corey – A fierce, adventure-loving, manticore warrior turned overworking, stressed out, restaurant owner. Corey is a fun character who accompanies Laurel on her quest to rescue her sons.

Character Relationships

Just as important as having good characters is having good character relationships. “Onward” presents healthy and positive relationships between the unlikeliest of characters.

Brothers

Ian and Barley are the first, and most prominent, example of character relationships. Just as Disney’s “Frozen” was acclaimed for its wonderful themes of the love between sisters, “Onward” offers younger boys that same experience by making brotherly love the major theme of the movie. Ian and Barley’s relationship isn’t perfect. In fact, they’re almost complete opposites, but over the course of the story, they learn to trust, rely, and appreciate each other in a way that is very mature, and is valuable for young children to learn.

Ladies

While the Lightfoot brother duo is off on their own adventure, another dynamic team is hot on their trail. This team would be their strong, determined mother, Laurel, and the ever-fierce manticore Corey. Laurel and Corey’s relationship offers a refreshing change of pace to female friendships in media. Both are middle-aged women with full-time, busy schedules, but they meet, due to incidents caused by Laurel’s sons, and set out together to rescue the boys.

Over the course of their journey, Corey helps Laurel to connect with her wild side, Laurel helps Corey learn to fly again, the two become friends, and by the end of the movie they’re meeting regularly for ladies night. It’s a wonderful detail to touch on the importance of adult friendships. Especially those formed in adulthood and between women.

Bronco

“Onward” does a fantastic job at normalizing the step-parent relationship. Bronco isn’t (yet) their step-father, but it’s clear that he really wants to connect with the boys. Ian and Barley don’t have a bad relationship with him, but they aren’t close either. Bronco pursues the boys over the course of the movie, trying to keep them safe and return them home. He’s never painted as a villain for doing this, only as an concerned guardian looking out for their best interests.

After learning the purpose of their quest, Bronco is never distraught over the idea of their father coming back. In fact, it’s even something he wants for them. It’s a really nice quality to his character that he isn’t jealous of their father, or in any way trying to replace him. By the end of the movie he has a better relationship with the boys and he comes to be even more a part of the family than before.

The Moral

What Ian wants more than anything is a chance to meet his father, who passed when he was too young to remember. By the end, he realizes Barley has always been there for him. So, instead of meeting his dad, Ian gives Barley the opportunity to, since Barley needs closure from the death.

Rather than the catharsis of achieving his goal, Ian learned that he didn’t need it how Barley did, and sacrificed his want. Sacrifice isn’t an uncommon theme, however in most movies the character still gets what they wanted somehow anyway. It’s done so well in “Onward” because Ian does not receive it as a gift for growing. Instead, he accepts it the way it is, and learns he can still be happy and fulfilled with what he has.

By-standing “The Fight”

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It is no secret to anyone that knows me that Parks and Recreation is my all time favorite show. I even got my mom hooked on it, and the two of us just watch through it over and over again. As soon as the finale finishes, we just start the pilot and keep on going. Today, on April 20th, 2020, Mom and I were on our, possibly, 17th viewing of the show, and we were right in the sweet spot of season three, which is claimed by most to be the best season. Tensions are high in the office over a coffee maker incident, Leslie and Ann get into a major fight, Tom’s dream comes crashing down! This is episode 3 season 13, “The Fight.”

4:50 – Ann got the job!

4:49 – Ann shows up for an interview with Leslie and Ben. Leslie and Ann apologize to each other and make up.

4:47 – Andy throws up on Kyle’s shoes and my mom is totally caught off guard. She always reacts at this part as if she doesn’t see it coming, despite the fact she’s seen it a million times. Ben goes to Ann’s house to convince her to make amends with Leslie. Ben finds out that Leslie likes him from Ann.

4:44 – Everyone, besides Ron is hungover from the night before. Ben and Leslie have to interview candidates for a new Health Director. Leslie regrets her fight with Ann and confides in Ben.

4:43 – Everybody, besides Chris and Donna, are completely wasted off of “Snake Juice” – the drink Tom made.

4:39 – Chris makes it to the Snake Hole and tells Tom that he’s gotten in trouble for sending an email to everyone in City Hall and inviting them to the bar. He informs Tom he’ll have to sell his shares. Leslie and Ann’s dialogue turns into a full blown fight.

4:38 – Leslie and Ann start a very passive-aggressive dialogue. Tensions get high between them.

4:34 – Leslie is shocked to find that Ann is at the Snake Hole rather than at home studying.

4:33 – Andy convinces April that going to Tom’s event could be fun if they think of it like role play.

4:31 – Chris, City Manager, asks Ben and Leslie to find a new Health Director, and Leslie suggests Ann. Ann is less than enthused to hear this news.

4:30 – My mom laughs really hard when Jerry gets abused by the other characters. She continues laughing harder with a mouth full of water, and I had to pause it momentarily.

4:27 – Tom invites the gang to The Snake Hole Lounge, a club he part owns, to promote a drink he made. Ann and Leslie catch up with each other.

4:25 – The episode begins. The cast argues over a broken coffee maker in the cold open. They try to get to the bottom of who broke it, when suddenly Ron confesses he broke it and pitted them against each other.

Developing Websites… With Style

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I had never even considered that something such as a style guide would ever exist, but it certainly makes sense that it does. It’s like how if a soundtrack accompanies a movie really well you don’t even notice it’s there, but if there were no music at all you would definitely be able to tell. After going through a few examples of the style guides we were given in our class to use, I find it even more intriguing that each style guide is so different based on what it puts emphasis on.

Now there are some constants that seem to appear in most of them like a word list. The word list is an interesting concept, because there are some words I don’t know how to spell, simply because they seem to have a million variations. I thought there was just one correct way of spelling them, and I just didn’t know it, but as it turns out, when it comes to those words a certain website will decide how they’ll spell it and put it in their style guide so every article stays consistent.

Getting into the differences, I’m going to use BuzzFeed’s style guide and compare it to the Google developer documentation style guide. At their core, they both share the same purpose. Where they diverge comes from what they put emphasis on. BuzzFeed’s style guide layout and content emphasizes how they structure the article and less on the content of their article. For the most part, their rules are for punctuation and for citation. On Googles style guide, it appears that the emphasis is on how the sentences are structured. There are many grammar rules on things that you are and aren’t allowed to use, not because they’re grammatically incorrect, but because Google prefers them differently, e.g., anthropomorphism or contractions.

Not only does this effect what content the style guide chooses to include, but how it’s laid out. I think Google’s layout is way better than BuzzFeed’s and its because of its emphasis on content. Google has only one item per page, and an interlinking table of context on the side, making it easy to get to anything at any time. It breaks up content based on things like grammar, punctuation, or organization, and has individual links for each specific item. BuzzFeed has their style guide as one massively overwhelming page with a table of context at the top. The table of context only shows the categories, so once you go to that section, you still have to search through it and hope that what you’re looking for is in it.

Either way, I think both style guides do a good job getting across what they want to. They are very clear on what they want their employee’s content to look like, and they are, for the most part, well structured and easy to understand.

Small Town Charm: Must Sees in Rockwood

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In East Tennessee there lies a small town where nothing much happens. There are no arcades, no amusement parks, and no tourists. What makes this town special then? It’s my home town, that’s what. Rockwood may not be a place that you would seek out in a travel brochure, but this quaint little skid mark offers more than meets the eye.

Live and Let Live Drug Store

A pharmacy? I’m going to take a vacation to see a pharmacy? Yes, you are! Live and Let Live is a local business that’s existed in this town ever since its founding some 150 years ago! Not only does it provide warm and personal service to its patrons, it also has a wide array of trinkets and knickknacks for sale. You can buy gifts for relatives, and have them wrapped at Live and Let Live’s wrapping station for no extra charge! Such gifts may include

  • Trendy Jewelry
  • Garden/ yard flags
  • Picture frames
  • Ornaments

That isn’t all. To top it all off, Live and Let Live also has an old-timey soda fountain complete with the original marble counter and 16 flavors of Mayfield ice cream. Nothing is quite as sweet as a homemade cherry coke made by hand, or the special milkshake of the week that’s always something exciting and new.

Brillo Miller Sports Complex

Rockwood may not have many big attractions, but the one it has sure makes a big difference! In Rockwood, you’ll find the finest sports complex in the county, possibly on this side of Tennessee! The Brillo Miller Sports Complex holds four baseball fields, one soccer field, a jungle gym, and a hiking trail that takes you two miles through the beautiful forestry it has to offer.

A sports complex alone is no big deal, but what makes this complex stand out is utilization. The Complex is commonly host to a myriad of town events, including in the last year alone:

  • A movie night
  • A carnival with rides, games, and even bubble soccer bubbles.
  • Trunk or Treat accompanied with a spooky hay ride.

Rockwood Star

If you were to travel up the mountain a ways, you would drive through a beautifully wooded area with rustic buildings sprinkled in every few miles and gorgeous overlooks that show the whole city. After driving between two fantastic rock walls, you would find a turn off on the right. This road leads to Mt. Roosevelt Scenic Overlook. This is the best view of Rockwood, and it is accompanied with a fantastical wooded area trickled with trail heads for you to explore.

Most importantly, the crown jewel of Rockwood sits atop Mt. Roosevelt. This is the Rockwood Star. The Rockwood Star is a massive light up star that is turned on only during the Christmas season. When the star is lit, it can be seen from anywhere in the whole town, Seeing the star light up the top of the mountain from down in the town is a wonderful thing to experience.

So next time you plan a rode trip, and you’re thinking of all the amazing places you’ll go, just remember that sometimes the memory you’ll cherish the most from your trip isn’t found at the destination, but at the ordinary town you thought would just be a stop along the way.

“Success-ability” with Accessibility

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Web Accessibility describes how easily a website or webpage is to use for an individual. Up until recently, I had only thought it was specifically about navigation, but after reading through the links in my class’s module covering accessibility I’ve learned that it has more to do with accommodating disabilities than anything else.

It’s interesting to think about because it seems like something that would be obviously present or needed, but I’d never even considered it until I read the words. I think, specifically, the alt text mechanic is neat. I had always figured that it was a source – like when you use an image linked to another website – but it’s actually an audio description of a visual component to help visually impaired people understand what’s on the page. They don’t get the full impact of the page, but they get enough context that they won’t be hindered from getting anything else out of an article.

I found all of this fairly interesting to ponder, but there was one detail that made me pause and say, “Huh? That’s really interesting.” This is the fact that there are laws prohibiting websites from making content that is inaccessible to disabled consumers. Which is, I think, a good thing, but begs the question: If I just put content out without thinking about it or considering every person that might see it, can I be punished?

It probably applies to corporations more than to bloggers, but It’s weird to think that there’s some organization out there that can regulate the way you deliver content. Not so much a violation of free speech, because they aren’t making you remove anything but add something. I’m not saying this is bad – I actually think it’s really cool – but it is definitely something worth giving a thought to. Can my content be removed from my own website if I fail to comply with proper delivery methods?

Star Wars: is Anakin Actually the Worst?

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Up until recently, an overwhelming majority of the Star Wars fans have agreed that the prequel trilogy is awful. With the recent installment to the story, many have reconsidered this stance. Some even think the prequels are good. Ladies and gentlemen… no. Stop. They’re not good. It would be easy to pick apart any number of details about the prequels to prove my point, but one singular detail is all I need. One detail that embodies every sin George Lucas committed to film called Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is not the solitary problem with the prequels, but he serves as a Rosetta Stone, of sorts, to the issues found throughout.

The true menace

In The Phantom Menace, we are introduced to Anakin as a nine-year-old. Unprompted, he engages in exhausting conversations with Padmé who, rather than looking charmed, appears to wish she were anywhere else. He relentlessly berates her with anecdotes that she didn’t ask for and, she shows no interest in having him elaborate on them. She does what anyone talking to a child does. She nods and says, “Oh. Cool,” and waits for someone to save her. Rather than creating a good dynamic, all these scenes serve to establish Anakin as an annoying child.

Attack of personal boundaries

The second movie is, honestly, a shining example of Anakin’s poor writing and execution. In Attack of the Clones, Anakin is about 20, and you would expect him to have matured past being an annoying little kid. Yet, somehow, he’s even worse. He expects that Padmé has been thinking of him everyday since they met, even though he was just a kid she knew for a weekend 10 years ago, and is distraught to find out she hasn’t.

Regardless of this, he, unprompted, constantly complains to her or actively makes her uncomfortable. It would be fine to have a scene where he confides in her and vents his frustrations, but he does it without establishing an actual relationship with her or showing her he has likeable qualities which makes him seem whiny. Then, he’ll say something creepy to her that she clearly doesn’t take as flirting. 

His dynamic problems with Padmé are dwarfed in comparison to his dynamic problems with Obi-Wan. They try too hard to use every interaction as an excuse to tell you about their relationship rather than acting like two people with a relationship. Contrary to the relationship they describe, their actual on screen relationship consists only of Anakin whining and Obi-Wan unsympathetically lecturing him. They don’t even seem to like each other.

Revenge of poor establishment

Revenge of the Sith, the final movie, followed a plot that Anakin’s character couldn’t possibly execute, but George Lucas had already dug the grave so he had to do it anyway. What I mean is that the plot of the third movie revolves around the idea that Anakin is in a morally grey dilemma. The problem is Anakin was written in a way where he could only see things as black and white. Though he constantly complains throughout the movies, he never questions authority or resists his oppressors. Only through outside persistence does he ever break a rule. This makes his switch from the Jedi to the Sith jarring.

Watching the prequel trilogy is a chore. I can not fathom how anyone finds them entertaining. There are movies I like that have characters I don’t like, but when the audience spends the majority of their time with that character and that character is also all of the characters it is nearly impossible to get any joy from the experience. Every aspect tainted another like a virus trying desperately to implode, and at its center was Anakin, weak and disheveled. I don’t know if you can read George Lucas, but if you can – and you read this – then please don’t make movies like these again. Thanks.

Stuff about me

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Hello, my name is Logan Malicoat. I have no idea how building a website works and also where is the word counter on this post? Whatever, I’ll figure it out later probably. Oh wait, I found it. Okay good. We’re up to 42 words now. Righteous.

This is Art

That thing above is something I drew about 2 years ago in MS Paint. Not too bad for just using a mouse. It is art.

-Me, just now.

Alright. Let’s get into some actual stuff about me as a person. I’m 22 years old and I’m currently a senior at MTSU. I’m in Video and Film Productions, but honestly I don’t even know if I want to do it anymore. I’m really close to graduating so I’ll at least ride it out and see what happens.

I’m from a small town about a county over from Oakridge. It’s tiny an uninteresting. There’s nothing there except a bunch of antique stores that are never open. It’s almost like a tourist destination except it’s too small and there aren’t any sandwich shops or tourists. Just a bunch of nothing, but it’s home and I still like it. It’s set in the middle of a valley so you can see mountains in every direction you look, almost like they’re watching over the town. You can always find a tree. No matter where you are, you aren’t far from the woods. There’s a really nice man-made lake the runs through the whole county. It used to be farmland, but TVA flooded it all to create the lake. When you go out on your boat you can see silos shooting out above the water. You can swim to them, crawl inside, and see light leaking through the holes in the walls. You can climb up to the top of the silo and see the lake stretch out with only islands of woodland there to disrupt the water. And you can jump off the top of the silo down into the lake.

Also, my favorite show is Parks and Rec so talk to me about that.