Author Archives: Cinder

Minecraft: Cherry Blossom Vacation Villa

When I need a break from my busy life I go relax in my Cherry Blossom Villa in Minecraft. Yes, you read that correctly, Minecraft. I created this beautiful pink home with a tranquil aesthetic in mind. From a gorgeous wrap around balcony on the top floor to the glass floors with a waterview. There’s intricate detail no matter where you look in this house and I am ready to explain every step of the way. So let the tour begin!

Material Used

  • Cherry Blossom Wood
  • Dark Oak
  • Glass
  • Sheared Cherry Blossom Leaves
  • Pink Glass
  • Cobblestone
  • Pink Carpet
  • Cherry Blossom Saplings
  • Dark Oak Stairs
  • Dark Oak Trap Doors
  • Dirt Blocks
  • Sandstone Block
  • Water Buckets
  • Flowers: Azure Bluet, Lilac, Lily of Valley, and Daisy

Elegant Entrance

Taking the first steps down my pretty pink path bordered by cobblestone, flowers, and cherry blossom trees, the first thing that catches your eyes in my frilly pink flower arches that greet you to enter. They give off nice spring vibes that give a grand entrance to the house. Before entering I’m sure you noticed the cute window boxes overflowing with cherry blossom saplings! They’re an adorable touch I included to the triangular windows. The home’s overall vibrant pink is a nice contrast to the villa’s dark wood border and roof, and let’s not forget the cobblestone foundation. But before heading in I want to add that the glass balcony overlooking the path above was made to resemble a vacation home, and even the flowers below were chosen in a neat pattern to look well manicured.

Gorgeous Foyer

Walking through the double doors the overall atmosphere screams ELEGANCE! The entire bottom level is an open layout with the balcony overlooking from the top. Dark wood frames the borders to give a nice finished look including the pillars. The whole floor is entirely glass with a pool of water beneath that’s sitting atop cobblestone. In the center lays a giant lush pink rug to make the glass floors pop out more.

Pink Paradise

Heading up stairs you are instantly hit with my favorite part of the house, THE CHERRY BLOSSOM CEILING! Yes! The entire ceiling is made completely out of cherry blossom leaves that drop pink petals on you as you go down the hall. The whole top floor is an open-air layout with a glass balcony view over the beautiful cherry blossom forest. It is a gorgeous sight whether looking at the house interior or outdoors. The floor is pink! The ceiling is pink! Even the walls are pink! Which is why I call it my pink paradise!

The Inspiration

Thanks for visiting my Cherry Blossom Villa! I hope you loved it as much as I do. I would also like to give thanks to Jonah Helbling for his post from the assignment bank called Back to Basics where he gave the idea of building a house in minecraft. He gave complete freedom to build your house any way you want so I chose to make mine cherry blossom themed. It was originally supposed to resemble a really girly dollhouse, but while building it I thought it would look prettier with more of a tranquil resort aesthetic which is how I ended up with this gorgeous pink creation!

Empire State of Love

In a world where you can now design your perfect companion, artificial love will steal your heart. This is the future where New York City is one of the first places to accept robo-lovers. If you want a funny boyfriend, you can have it! If want a athletic girlfriend, she’s all yours. There is over 24 enjoyable personalities to choose from to fit anyone’s lifestyle. Not only that, but you can customize your own robot to match the person of your dreams including height, body shape, voice, and even their interests. Owning a robo-lover is easy, just charge their battery while you sleep and by day you have endless hours of fun. So skip the hassle of dating and come to New York to get yourself a robo-lover.

The idea for this post was to showcase how ads like this might exist one day in the future if we keep advancing with technology. If you ever been to build a bear then you know how easy it is to make a stuffed animal, so imagine if in the future people could just walk in a store and create their own lovers. To me, this idea is insane and problematic. Not only would the cost be similar to owning a luxury car, but imagine the amount of people trying to find alternatives like stealing one for themselves or selling counterfeits. This leads to the cyberpunk theme of highly advanced robots becoming too normalized as crime begins to sky rocket. The use of robots would end up ruining relationships and destroy human social skills. If someone’s robo-lover ends up breaking or having an irreparable problem then wouldn’t the person still experience grief and depression from the loss due to their strong bond. Also don’t forget the type of people who would become addicted and end up owning multiple of them. Robo-lovers seems like an easy fix for people who struggle with dating but looking at the idea overall, it seems like the bad outweighs the good.

This post was inspired by Patricia Albert’s post in the assignment bank called Stay Home – Living is dangerous which was about making a graphic based on a theme with contradictory texts. For mine I chose to do the cyberpunk theme based on New York because Times Square with all its illuminated buildings already looks really high-tech. For my graphic I wanted to make it look like it was advertising something which is how I thought of the idea of robo-lovers. I used Canva for the first time to create it, and besides the amount of content locked behind a paywall, I think it was still useful. I learned how to create on it pretty easily and was able to find the images of a robot reaching for a humans hand oddly fast for my vision of this idea. Since it was based on finding love I made sure to add hearts especially to make the New York picture and the hands pictures above look connected. Lastly, I wanted to push more of the New York inspiration so I used the famous saying, “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” because the advertisement is about being able to create your own dream lover in this high-tech problematic future. Also for those unfamiliar with New York sayings, this post’s title is also a play on the phrase, “Empire State of Mind.”

Young – The Anthem of a Corrupt Future

Young by Hollywood Undead

Nothing screams rebellion more than a rock song about revolting and making a change in the world. As technology advances and the world becomes more futuristic, the predictable downside is how the wealth gap will grow making those in power only stronger while the rest of the world is left to suffer. The energy of this song is passionately strong and flowing with rage as it speaks to the younger generation to open their eyes and fight back for their future. I personally think this is the perfect anthem for a cyberpunk world falling apart at its seams. The song emphasizes their struggles of being young and unfairly born in a dystopia. Having to fight for survival while watching others unethically die. The inspiration of the lyrics are overflowing with detail so lets take a deeper dive.

The song Young is about Hollywood Undead’s perception of the current generation and how they have the power to change the world in any way they want, according to Genius. The song starts out strong with, “We are young, but we have heart. Born in this world as it all falls apart. We are strong, but we don’t belong. Born in this world as it all falls apart.” The songwriter puts clear emphasis on the pain of being new to the world and already having the perspective of living in unbearable conditions. It is summed up as a world where you have to adapt just to survive.

In the first verse the song continues now pointing out the cause. They figuratively bring up the joy of children minds before they truly open their eyes to the twisted world around them. These same children see the corruption overtime. The use of the words “hate” and “hatred” are repeated to show how division is used amongst society. How the enemy, those in power, are causing all the pain and purposely oppressing people. The words hit home with their final line, “Medication for the kids with no reason to live.” Showing that their world’s corruption is so bad that even the children who need help already gave up on themselves.

The second verse focuses on the shift to fight back. Their once beautiful worldview is now tainted and the song tells them to stand up and make a change. The pain and frustration in the singers voice for the ending lines are done so well as they point out they never wanted all this. They never wanted all this hatred and fighting. They were just born in a world where it was the only way to survive. A corrupt world that takes the innocent hearts of children and turn them into merciless monsters who don’t have a choice.

The ending is what really ties the whole purpose of the song together nicely. It is repeated over and over that no matter what they will not stop fighting for change. For a better future. Even if the rebels, the children who were once innocent and carefree, die during this fight they still won’t give up. The push is until they can have heaven on Earth or be freed by the angels above.

I also would like to give credit to Madeline Hays for the inspiration behind this because of her post in the assignment bank about how does a song make you feel. These song lyrics were formed in the early 2000s as a call to action for the youth to rise up and fight back for a better future. We are currently now living in the future that they were warning us about and I believe the song could still apply to certain aspects of society now. But with how fast technology is advancing, Young could easily turn into a song about our world being a cyberpunk dystopia. That is when I believe it will truly become the anthem of a corrupt future.

My Creative Journey: Week 1

I am not going to lie, I was really excited when I picked this class because it looked really fun, but I struggled a lot this week and was overwhelmed. From setting up my website and blog to learning how to navigate everything was very confusing and sadly I am not fully sure if I completed all the assignments correctly. I am still trying to adjust to everything and hopefully become more familiar with all this new stuff I am learning so that I can fully understand and do everything correctly. The most interesting assignment this week though would probably be the film review of Cowboy Bebop. I have always had a fascination with stories, so having assignments where I get to fully share my opinions and reactions about them is such a fun activity. Since the current theme is Tech Noir and Cyberpunk I am very interested to see what other fun assignments will be given and I hope this will be a fun class that I will enjoy all semester.

Here is the link to my course goals: https://cinderswonderland.com/week1/course-goals/

Here is the link to my Cowboy Bebop Review: https://cinderswonderland.com/week1/cowboy-bebop-review/

Aim High with Goals

In this digital storytelling class I am hoping to create and evaluate digital media. If I reach my goal I believe I should be able to properly understand the creative process, successfully review in detail various forms of media, and be able to effectively communicate and discuss creative works. I am also hoping to have fun and share my fun creative ideas with the class while learning how to navigate using a website and post blogs for everyone to see.

The Thrilling Adventure of Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop is an adored 90s anime classic so rewatching one of my older sibling’s favorites was a joy! This is a show filled with action packed scenes, amazing humor, and fascinating characters. There is a lot of thought put into the writing of each episode and its noticeable throughout the whole series. The world is a wonderful blend of western and space themes, so if you like the bizarre idea of a space-cowboy bounty hunter then you will absolutely love this show.

The story follows my favorite character Spike Spiegel and his wild crew of bounty hunters as they travel through space hunting down criminals in a post-apocalyptic world. It has a perfect balance of serious themes like Spike’s dark past but also casual light humor mixed in between which I enjoyed. I feel like the show was very character driven and I personally loved the hilarious interactions between them and seeing their character development overtime, especially since you wouldn’t expect their varying chaotic energy to work together but yet somehow everything always worked out in the end. Also, with their contrasting personalities Spike and Jet were definitely my favorite dynamic. But all the characters like sarcastic Faye, mischievous Edward, and even Ein the genius dog who can somehow drive a car, answer phones, and even hack a computer shined in their own amusing ways.

Lastly, I want to point out that even with its old animation style the show’s overall aesthetic is really appealing to the eyes. It is simplistic yet stylish which matches the show’s theme very well. The inspiration of cyberpunk is shown in many elements of the show. It takes place in a futuristic dystopia where there’s a clear power imbalance in society and lots of poverty. Many episodes showcase advanced gadgets and how much technology has progressed with the use of cybernetic implants like Spike with his eye. Also the jazzy soundtrack is another point that makes this show really memorable for me and many others. Just the opening alone is easily recognizable for most anime fans. Personally, whether you watch this show for the characters like me, or if you watch the show for the storyline while connecting the pieces of each backstory, I think you will love this fun adventure.