Joe's Myths

The reading starts with several stories describing the labors of Yamato. It starts with his hunting down a siren. I like sirens because even though everyone knows that they just want to kill and eat you, no one is able to resist them. It's like irony built right into a character. So Yamato just woke a dragon by accidentally stepping on it, thinking it was a rock, and it wanders off and he continues on his journey. Neither of them cared about the other. One thing I like about how this story was written is that, whenever it is describing something specific, it changes from generic narration to poem format. It helps break up the monotony of the wall of text the story would otherwise be. He waited for 100 years on the island before returning with the apple. This man is patient. This boar, whom everyone is scared of and whose weakness is known, shouldn't be killed while he's asleep. Because that's boring. Yamato on his way to get the Golden Apple of Immortal Youth. Lin...

 It's nice to get a start at the very beginning. Now I don't have to worry about any backstory that could come in to play later. I also like this idea of having a god devoted to a single thing. It makes it easier to keep track of them and more or less defines their personality, which is great for storytelling. Stories could always use some irony, and that comes in double with the death of Izanami. She gets stripped of her immortality and cast down to Earth, then she dies in child birth while giving birth to two opposing sons. I like the phrase "abode of eternal gloom," and think I might use it somehow. The rest of this is going to be great, I'm assuming, because it's just going to be a bunch of overpowered siblings duking it out. So this serpent wants this girl to marry and offers to slay a beast to earn her from her parents. As soon as they agree, he decides the best course of action is to turn the girl into a comb. Because who can fight a monster when your h...

I recently read the voyages of Sinbad the Sailo r and was curious to see where I could get with that. One of the treasures Sinbad finds is ambergris , which I wasn't entirely sure about, so I wanted to learn more about it. I learned that it is found in the digestive tracts of whales to help them break down things such as the beaks from giant squids . I am a fan of giant squids so I wanted to learn a little more about them, and found out the have deep-sea gigantism . This is basically just the tendency for animals that live deep in the ocean to be larger than those that live closer to the surface. This giant squid is 4 meters in length, without its longest tentacles. Link

I explored the many features of the Canvas dashboard and have found several of them to be very useful. The sidebar is very useful for being able to quickly navigate to specific parts of the site without getting lost or confused. I feel like there is just the right amount of stuff in the dashboard as it is. It has a lot of shortcut to get you to the important stuff but not too many as to make it look cluttered and just as confusing.

 Rasalu had been traveling the countryside for a while now, always accompanied by his trusty companion Alexa. Alexa generally just made sure they were going the right general direction, but occasionally spouted useful trivia. As he came out of the gas station, only staffed by an old man who seemed too fragile to still be able to move, Rasalu showed his car's AI his new trinket. "The old man gave me this laptop," Rasalu began. "He said that it was it could counter curses, should I ever find myself in a competitive game of pinball on someone else's cursed computer." "Wow," said Alexa, "that's an oddly specific item to be given just before meeting our mysterious contact." "Maybe," replied Rasalu, "but who am I to refuse the gift of a strange old man?" The traveling duo continued toward their destination without another distraction. As they entered the building, they saw one man, sitting in the middle of a busy roo...

The story resumes shortly after our hero has essentially stolen a child, hid them until they were 12, then married them. Let's keep going! So immediately I'm intrigued by the hunter, he has an interesting style and I like the juxtaposition of the calm musical side of him immediately followed by the more expected killing side. Also, it turns out he does whatever he wants, despite having made promises to a person that has been prophesied for him to meet. The rest of the story turns into some Hamlet knockoff where literally every living thing within 50 feet of the story dies in some weird connected way. This story ends with a riddle, which falls into the same category as prophecies for me, in that I enjoy them. So, this king is apparently the only person who decides any dispute, including those among animals. A crow comes in, claiming to be married to a swan. The swan's husband obviously objects. The king decides the crow is right, because reasons. He is then convinced he was...

The first part of the story is interesting enough. It sets up a good back story, filled with deceit and trickery. It even had my favorite story telling element: irony. It had it multiple times too, which I am a big fan of. The story gets better, because as soon as the cursed prince is old enough to not be stopped (11 by the way, who can't stop an 11 year old?) he goes to the city and immediately starts acting like a brat. The story then sets up Rasalu as a true hero, capable of taking out mighty beasts without even waking up his comrades...while he's still 11. Well, at least I can stop complaining about an 11 year old doing all these ridiculous things. Now there are inanimate objects performing incredible tasks. My least favorite thing about all the stores I've read so far is how unbelievable they are. Sure, have your magic and good luck, but some of this is nonsense. Although One redeeming factor is that I do like the idea of prophecies, so this story has some merit to it...