Week 15 Story

Spongebob and his snail Gary were very poor. One day during the winter Gary grew deathly ill and passed away. Spongebob was devastated. He asked his friends to help him dig a grave, but none of them could becasue they were too busy. He asked his boss Mr. Krabs, but he said he could only help him for money. Spongebob was devastated and needed to bury his beloved pet. He decided he had to take matters into his own hands and bury Gary himself.

So he got a shovel and started digging a hole. Once he had dug a good bit his shovel hit something hard. He uncovered it and it was a treasure chest filled with gold. He took it home with him, and bought enough food to have a feast for himself. After he was good and full he went back to Mr. Krabs to ask for his help with the grave.

When he got there Mr. Krabs said "I thought I already told you if you don't have any money I'm not helping you."

This time though Spongebob did have money. He gave Mr. Krabs a gold coin. Mr. Krabs agreed to help bury his precious snail. After the funeral Spongebob invited Mr. Krabs to his house. Mr. Krabs asked Spongebob how he got the money. He asked if he robbed Squidward. Spongebob told him that he found a treasure chest when he was digging a grave.

Mr. Krabs was incredibly jealous. He went home to his daughter Pearl and devised a plan. He had her make him a ghost costume, and she fastened it on him so it wouldn't slip or fall off. Then in the dead of night he went to Spongebob's house.

He knocked on the window, and Spongebob asked who's there. Mr. Krabs told him he was a ghost and he was going to haunt him unless he handed over the treasure he had found. Spongbob thought about it, and becasue he used to be poor he decided he would be fine without the treasure. He gave it all to Mr. Krabs.

Mr. Krabs returned home and had Pearl take off his costume. But when she tried to take it off she couldn't. The adhesive she had used was permanent. Mr. Krabs was stuck like this.

The treasure

Author's Note:
The story I read was the Russian short story The Treasure. In the story a man's wife dies and no one will help him bury her. He goes to the pope, but he turns him down because he doesn't have money. He digs the grave himself and finds a pot full of ducats. He enlists the help of the pope, and the pope grows envious when he finds out about the ducats. He kills a goat and has his wife sew it on him. He tells the man he is the devil and he hands the ducats over to him. When he returns home the wife cannot get the goat hide off him.
I changed it to Spongebob to make it a little less dark, but everything else is more or less true to the original.

Bibliography:
Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).

Week 14 Story Lab

This week for my story lab assignment I watched the TED Talks: Copyright is Brain Damage by Nina Paley and A New Theory of Human Intelligence by Scott Barry Kaufman

I thought what Scott Kaufman had to say was right on the nose. I think our society puts far too much emphasis on predictors and predictive measurements as a way to gauge intelligence. Kids are told they are either gifted or not when they are young and that shapes their whole learning experience.

I thought he had an awesome story to tell. It was hilarious how he was clever enough to get in to Carnegie Melon in a department that didn't care about SAT score. That just goes to show you how true the point he's trying to make is. He beat the system. He didn't cheat it. I hope we can keep working to implement some of the new ways of measuring intelligence that he discussed.

Copyright is brain damage. What a title. I really enjoyed what Nina had to speak about. I am not a creator so I can't even imagine what its like dealing with copyright on that end, but just as a consumer copyright is already frustrating enough.

I liked how she explained how copyright often isn't even doing anything to help the person whose work is being protected. I hate how much business and profits have ruined our world. People should absolutely make money off of their work, but copyright law has become increasingly predatory.

I hadn't heard about copylefting before this video, but now that it has been brought to my attention I think that it is pretty cool. I hope the movement has had good luck with trying to subvert copyright. I hope they have not been sued to death or worse.

Story Lab

This week for the story lab assignment I watched the two TED talk videos. I thought the videos were really insightful and thought-provoking.

The first woman was a great storyteller and orator. I think I could listen to her talk for hours on end. I thought she did a great job at making her speech funny at times to. I had never given much thought to the characters I know. I grew up in the western world so it was something I never had to worry about. I thought it was particularly funny when she brought up how badly she wanted to try ginger beer.

The second video was also super informative. I thought it was really cool how she was a psychology professor at OU. It was surprising to hear how much people consumer Harry Potter, but it made sense. I was surprised how attached people felt to fictional characters, but I also wasn't that surprised. Bridge to Terrabithia is still the most emotionally scarring I have ever seen. That death hit me harder than any other fictional death. I didn't know kids could die at that point in my life.

Week 9 Story

Long ago in the far off mountains of the east there lived a man and his daughter. The man loved his daughter very much. He wanted to give his daughter a gift for her birthday, but they were very poor. However, he had the ingenious idea to make a sock monkey for her. He used the nicest sock they had. The daughter loved her gift, but as she grew old she played with it less and less. One day the man and his daughter packed up their belongings and moved, and the daughter left the sock monkey behind.

As time passed and the monkey sat on the floor collecting dust he began to be able to move his limbs. Over time he became able to crawl, walk, and eventually leap and perform impressive acrobatic feats. The monkey’s button eyes, which had been old and faded now gleamed gold.

His golden eyes shined so bright that even the God of the Universe noticed them and he sent two of his servants to investigate. They reported back to their king that it was just a harmless sock monkey having fun by himself. He presented no danger at this time.

The monkey continued to play by himself until one day he came across a pack of real monkeys. The monkeys were hesitant to hang out with the sock monkey, but once they saw that he could do anything that they could they became friends.

It was a particularly hot summer and the sock monkey and his friends were all cooling off by a secluded pond. One of the monkeys felt adventurous and did a cannonball into the pool. Another monkey had an idea and said, “Whoever can make the biggest splash will be king of us all.”

The sock monkeys turn came, and he mustered all his strength. He prayed to the gods that gave him life. When he jumped, right before he hit the water his sock body became as hard as stone. He produced a splash so giant that all the other monkeys were completely soaked. And from that time on he was known as the King of the Apes.

 

Our fearless hero

Author's Note:
I took the story of how Sun Wu Kung got his name and made it more absurd. I changed a monkey made of stone into a sock monkey. In the original story Sun Wu Kung jumped off a cliff into a waterfall and finds a heavenly cave. In my version he just makes a big splash.

Bibliography:
The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

Week 7 Story

Once upon a time, before King Arthur was King Arthur, he was just a young knight. One day he was hunting in the woods when he came across a man, a woman, and a dazzling damsel. As he approached them he noticed that they were all weeping.

"Why are you crying? What is troubling you?" Arthur asked.

The man explained to Arthur that they were crying because all eight of his other daughters had been killed. He told Arthur about a great eight-headed dragon. This dragon was the most powerful beast in the land. He explained that every year the beast has come and taken one of his daughters from them. He is terrified of losing his last daughter.

The father explained that they had tried moving or hiding, but it was all in vain. The dragon was inevitable. Arthur saw the family's pain and asked if there was anything he could do to help. He offered his protection, but the father declined because he said it would be to no avail. No human or being could take on the dragon head on. It was too powerful.

However, Arthur was not one to give up. He deliberated and then he spoke too the man.

"I will defeat the dragon for you do not worry. No man or creature has ever been able to conquer me. However, when I return from battle I want your daughters hand in marriage. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

The man gladly obliged. He said he would do anything if it meant his daughter wouldn't be taken from this world. So Arthur set off to go defeat the dragon.

Arthur knew he would have to set a trap to best the beast. He gathered a herd of cattle, and he fetched several barrels of wine. He set them out as bait, and he waited. As he expected the dragon came and devoured the herd and drank all the wine. Then the dragon passed out.

Arthur cut off each of the dragons head, and then he cut the dragon into 1000 pieces. He returned to the family and married the daughter.

The beast

Author's Note:
I took the story of Susa-no-wo and the eight-forked serpent of Koshi. I adapted it to be in medieval times and our protagonist is King Arthur.

Week 6 Story

Alex was the smartest kid at day care, and everyone knew it. Alex's dad was always telling him that he would be something great one day. He believed in his son so much that on his fourth birthday he told him,

"One day even the gods will be amazed by you."

To keep Alex on the path for greatness Alex's dad ensured that Alex would never encounter any of the bad things in life. He could never let his son feel pain. He had to protect him just as much as he had to nurture him.

Alex loved the outdoors, and his nanny loved to take him out into the garden. They would go into the garden and Alex would marvel at the beauty of nature. At such a young age he already had a great appreciation for our world and the life in it. Not many four year-olds can even sit still, and they especially couldn't meditate like Alex would. But he wasn't aware he was meditating. To him he was just having a good time.

Alex was a curious child who needed knowledge to be happy. One day his father had his nanny take him downtown to experience city life for the first time. But he made the nanny swear that she would protect Alex from anything that could cause him harm.

Young Alex was blown away by the city. He hadn't known life could be like this. His nanny had even gotten him an ice cream cone, and many good times were had.

The day turned sour when Alex saw a backpack in the street. He asked his nanny what it was and she told him it was for. Alex learned about school. He learned that Monday through Friday for 3 seasons of the year he would have to be in school. He learned that he would spend 13 years of his life in  school, and if he did well enough he would get in to university. And for the first time in his life, Alex felt sadness.

The nanny realized something was wrong with Alex so they started heading home. But on their way home they came across a math book. Alex learned about homework. He learned that school wasn't just school. It was going to invade his home life too. And Alex fell deeper into despair.

They were hurrying home when they drove past a school, and the sign out front read "REPORT CARDS MUST BE SIGNED BY MONDAY." His teacher told him about grades. She told him how his performance would be boiled down to just a letter, and that was what he would be judged on. And Alex became depressed.

Author's Note: I took an excerpt from The Life of Buddha and turned it into a sillier modern day version. Instead of finding out about aging, sickness, and death our young hero discovers the school system. 

The equivalent of death in our

young protagonist's eyes. Source

Bibliography

The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold. https://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-life-of-buddha.html

Story Lab

For my lab I went on TVTropes and shuffled through random tropes and these are some of the ones I found that were worth writing about.

Once Upon a Time Trope - It's exactly what it sounds like. It is the trope how every fair tale used to start with "Once upon a time" and end with "and they lived happily ever after." This trope is a pretty obvious one, but it is the first trope I read about so I felt compelled to include it. Every journey starts somewhere, even if it isn't the most interesting.

Sdrawkcab Name Trope - This is a trope where villains or whoever will go by their real name, but backwards. This allows for a shocking reveal. A good example of this trope is a vampire going by Alucard. Then at the climax of the story the villain can reveal his real name was there all along. This is similar to Lord Voldemort being an anagram of "Tom Marvolo Riddle." I haven't read or seen an Harry Potter movie in quite a while so I apologize in advance if I butchered that.

Unscrupulous Hero Trope - In stories there are heroes and there are antiheroes. The unscrpulous hero is an antihero with traits of an ideal hero. "They are usually defined by dark experiences that have made them cold and unforgiving, and due to the settings in which they exist, there will usually be no compunctions to using more extreme methods. They are as much about payback (or any assorted type of catharsis) as they are the greater good, and their targets will be deserving of it, more likely than not." I was not aware of this specific classification, but after learning about it I can think of a few unscrupulous heroes. Captain Jack Sparrow and the Blues Brothers are good examples of this trope in film. In comics Red Hood and the Punisher are great examples of unscrupulous heroes.

The Snark Knight - This is the winner of the most fun name award. The entire entry is hilarious and definitely worth the read. "This character has a world-weary disdain for everyone, themselves included. They might see themselves as the Only Sane Man, but only in the sense that they're maybe one full notch above everyone else while still falling miles short of where they believe everyone should be." There are so many examples of this trope! Some of my favorites are Meg from Hercules, Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, Juno from Juno, Kim from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Obi-Wan. I use way too much self deprecating humor in my day-to-day life so a lot of my favorite characters are very snarky.

This is probably my favorite assignment we've done so far. I've really enjoyed learning about all of these tropes I didn't know existed. I am at the beginning of my descent down the TVTropes rabbit hole. 

The famous four words. Source

Week 3 Story: Mafia Showdown

The two biggest mafia families in the 20s were the Valenzos and the Sorrentos. The eldest sons of the families, Vinny and Arnaldo respectively, both had their eyes on the same girl, Daisy. Daisy was the most sought after damsel in the entire city. Both boys showered her with lavish gifts, but she ended up engaged to Arnaldo. However, one day the Viiny and some of his henchment stormed Arnaldo's place and kidnapped Daisy so she would have to marry Vinny.

This angered Saul, the boss of the Sorrentos and Arnaldo's father. They had no choice but to wage war on the Valenzos. Tony was Saul's right hand man and favorite soldier. Saul put Tony in charge of leading the fight against the Valenzos. But the Valenzos were resilient and the war did not look like it would be over anytime soon. Because of this tensions ran high among the Sorrentos. Saul's second oldest son, Big-time Tommy, grew unhappy with Tony's efforts and questioned his leadership. This infuriated Tony and he said he was done with Tommy and the family. He raged and told Tommy he was going to retire from the family. Tommy was fine with this, but he said if Tony left he would have no choice but to take Tony's prized Jaguar Roadster away from him. Tony told him to buzz off, slammed the door behind him, and left.

Sure enough the next day a couple of Tommy's goons showed up at Tony's and said they were here for his car. Tony had been in the family his whole life, and these were his friends. He didn't want to fight any of them so he let them take his car without any commotion.

The war continued with no end in sight. The Sorrento's would hit the Valenzo's and the Valenzo's would hit right back. Eventually Tommy realized he needed Tony to win so he sent some of his best men to go to Tony and convince him to rejoin the family. He gave them money, jewelry and other expensive gifts to try to win him back. He even gave them the Jaguar to return to Tony. But when the men showed up on Tony's doorstep, Tony told them he couldn't care less about what Tommy or what he wanted. He was sick of Tommy and his antics. He told the men that they were some of his best companions and he had immense respect for them, but he could not go back to Tommy. He told them to take all their gifts and to tell Tommy there was no chance in hell he would come back.

Soon after that Tony's best friend Paulie, who left the family with Tony, pleaded with Tony to let him go back to the fight. He said that one of his friends got jumped and put in a coma, and that he had to avenge him. Tony begrudgingly told Paulie to go, but to come back right after he had avenged his friend. He told him not to go back to the life of never ending war. Tony gave Paulie his favorite switchblade to use as good luck and a sign of brotherhood.

Saul's favorite son and the leader of his forces, Joey, was the one ordered the hit on Paulie's friend. Joey's best foot soldier, Benicio, is the one who carried out the hit. Paulie knew where Benicio stayed and pulled up on him with a couple other Sorrentos. Paulie lead the charge and they easily handled all of Benicio's goons, and they made their way to Benicio. Paulie told the guys to let him handle it and pulled out the switchblade Tony had given him. Benicio put up a good fight, but because of his righteous anger Paulie came out on top. Against Tony's wishes, Paulie stuck around to decide who to go after next. The rush of it all had corrupted Paulie's thinking.

However, Joey got word of what was happening and sped over to Benicio's place. When he got there he saw his friend on the ground, lifeless, in a pool of blood. Paulie standing over him, and menacingly smiling ear-to-ear. He was taking in what he had just done, and pure adrenaline was coursing through his veins. An immense hatred rushed over Joey, and he drew his switchblade and charged Paulie, landing a nonlethal blow to his stomach. Paulie fought back valiantly, but he had used up a substantial amount of energy in his fight with Benicio. After a long fight, because of the wound Paulie sustained Joey eventually overtook him. Joey lit up a cig and gravely stood over Paulie while he watched him die.

Joey after taking Paulie's life. Source

Author's Notes:

This is a retelling of Part A of the reading on Homer's The Iliad. Instead of ancient Greece my story takes place in the time of Al Capone and other gangsters. Instead of Helen, Daisy is the beautiful girl. Instead of the Greeks and the Trojans it is the Sorrentos and the Valenzos who are doing the fighting. Tony's Jaguar is the woman that Agamemnon took away from him after he left the siege of Troy. Benicio is the Trojan hero Sarpedon. Instead of Hector killing Patroclus, Joey kills Paulie.

Bibliography:

A.J. Church, The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer (Published 1967) https://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-homers-iliad-retold.html

Week 2 Story: The Four Brothers

Once upon a time there were 4 brothers that lived in an ancient kingdom. The brothers were simple farmers who lived quiet lives. Every year their was a festival where the people would present gifts to the king.

Before the festival the brothers pondered what they could offer to the king.

The first brother was a cattle farmer. He looked over his animals and decided he would offer the king the best of his herd. However, he reconsidered and decided he wanted those to himself. He was going to offer his next best instead.

The second brother had a flock of sheep. He made the decision to present the king with wool, but he did not know how much. After he thought about it he decided he had to save some of the wool to sell at the market, but he still set aside a great offering off his finest wool for the king.

The third brother worked in the fields. He had much respect for the king so he decided he would present him with the best harvest of his crops. He gathered what he needed and was ready to go before the king the next day.

The final brother helped his brothers with their animals and crops, but he himself did not specialize in anything. He could not figure out what gift he could bring that would be fit for a king. After much reflection the brother decided that he would offer his own life to the king, the ultimate sacrifice.

The day of the festival arrived, and all the brothers lined up to present their gifts to the king. The first brother approached the king, but the king declined the gift because he knew the man had not given his best.

The second brother presented the king with the fine wool, but once again the king declined the gift. He said he had no use for the wool, and that his stores were already full.

The third brother approached the king and offered up his finest crops. The king turned down the gift because he had no need for them. He told the farmer to go and feed his family with it.

Finally, the last brother went up to the king empty-handed. The king asked where his gift was, and the brother told the king all he had to offer was his life. This made the king curious. He asked the brother if he was serious, and the brother assured the king he was. The king called for his executioner to come take the man up on his offer.

The brother closed his eyes and was waiting for the sword to come down, but the executioner just stood there. After time had passed the brother asked the king what was wrong. The king replied that he did not want to take his life, he just wanted to test him.

The king recognized his conviction and made him an advisor and gave him a position in his palace. The brother lived there the rest of his life and maintained a close relationship to the king.

The brother waiting to be executed. Source

This story was a retelling of The Hare that Was not Afraid to Die. I changed the animals to brothers and Sakka to a King.

Bibliography
Marie L. Shedlock, The Hare that Was not Afraid to Die from Eastern Stories and Legends (1920) https://sites.google.com/view/mythfolkloreanthology/origins?authuser=0