I have never claimed to be a 
“gamer.” Given that I only ever 
truly played “Super Mario,” 
I didn’t feel deserving of the 
same title that people fluent 
in “Minecraft,” “The Legend 
of Zelda” or “Halo” held. I was 
only familiar with one tiny 
corner of the gaming world, but 
I was completely and utterly 
immersed in it. 
Every Saturday morning I’d 
wake up before sunrise and 
quietly race to the living room. 
I wanted guaranteed access 
to the TV, and I wanted to be 
alone in the dark and quiet 
space. In spite of the serenity, I 
was wired, eagerly waiting for 
the Wii to load and bring me 
my favorite sound: the “Mario 
Kart” theme music. Though 
I enjoyed every game in the 
Super Mario universe, “Mario 
Kart” was my favorite; it was 
more intense than the Super 
Mario Nintendo DS game and 
gave me more control than the 
Super Mario Galaxy games (the 
Wii steering wheel had nothing 
to do with it).
I would play “Mario Kart” 
until my parents woke up and 
I was forced to clock out. For 
hours on end, I would play 
Grand Prix after Grand Prix 
— 
four-game 
tournaments 
against the computer — only 
moving on to the next after 
scoring first in each round. 
Maybe this should’ve been a 
sign of my later struggles with 
perfectionism, but at the time, it 
wasn’t really winning that kept 

me playing, but having so much 
uninterrupted fun. (OK, maybe 
winning was a contributing 
factor to my addiction). 
As I grew older and out of 
my “Lion King 1½” phase, 
neither movies nor television 
really held my attention — at 
least not in the way Mario 
Kart did. I wasn’t racing to 
finish my homework in time 
to watch the newest episode 
of “Victorious” or “Good Luck 
Charlie”; no, I was rushing to 
get in a race or two before bed. 
I did have something to show 
for my unwavering devotion 
to the game — I unlocked 
every possible character and 
vehicle, as well as the other 
miscellaneous 
rewards. 
Rosalina, one of the most 
difficult characters to unlock, 
was my favorite player. I was 
both proud of and stubborn 
about 
my 
achievements; 
I 
wouldn’t let anyone else play 
in my saved file in case they 
messed up my stats. Instead, 
I’d play in my sibling or dad’s 
save to unlock their desired 
characters before moving back 
into my own. 
Though 
the 
Grand 
Prix 
tournaments were my favorite, 
I would log several hours doing 
Time Trials as practice for the 
computerized competitions — 
it was all incredibly serious to 
me. I’d compare the speeds of 
different vehicles, (I always 
preferred the bikes to the karts 
— they’re faster and easier to 
maneuver), their accelerations 
and their drift types (inward 
drifting 
was 
the 
best), 
to 
determine which vehicle was 
the best overall choice and 

which ones were better for 
certain terrains, like ice or 
sand. Mario Kart had my full 
attention, and it has kept my 
attention for years. 
Playing “Mario Kart” is the 
only art that brings me back 
to this nostalgic state of mind. 
When I rewatch old TV series 
or even reread books (the art 
form I am most partial to), I 
don’t feel anything beyond 
amusement 
concerning 
my 
past 
taste. 
Video 
games, 
though, transport me back to 
those early quiet mornings in 
my living room, adrenaline 
pumping, eyes wide open. 
Over Thanksgiving Break, I 
had the luxury of playing my 
sibling’s Nintendo Switch after 
begging them to download 
“Mario Kart.” I itched to play 
it throughout Thanksgiving 
dinner; I counted down the 
minutes of The Game until I 

could get my greedy paws on 
its controls. Just as I did when 
I was young, I played the Grand 
Prix tournaments one after the 
other, following my respective 
first-place trophies. I jumped 
up and down when the confetti 
rained over the characters 
and shoved the screen in 
my parents’ faces when my 
highlight reels rolled. I needed 
them to bask in my glory with 
me and give me an approving 
nod, which is exactly what I 
asked of them back in 2010. 
“Mario Kart” brings me both 
relief and joy when I play it 
today. I can vividly remember 
how good it felt to win, to 
dodge turtle shells and banana 
peels and be granted with a 
bullet boost in times of strife. 
Though I still don’t think I 
qualify as a gamer, I know I’ll 
be a “Mario Kart” player for 
life. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

When people ask me what my 
favorite book series is, I still say 
it’s Percy Jackson.
Now, I know you’re probably 
thinking that I must not read a 
lot, or that if I do, I have the taste 
of a very nerdy seventh grader. I 
mean, there are so many amazing 
books in the world, and my 
favorite series is “Percy Jackson 
and the Olympians?” Lame. But 
the thing is, I do read a lot. I read 
all the time, actually, yet no book 
or series has managed to have the 
impact on me that Percy Jackson 
did when I was a wee 10-year-old, 
and I think I finally understand 
why. 
I don’t remember the first time 
I picked up “Percy Jackson and 
the Olympians: The Lightning 
Thief,” but I do know that by the 
time I finished the whole series, 
Camp Half-Blood felt like home, 
and its inhabitants — Percy, 
Annabeth and Grover — felt like 
my old friends. The series was 
like a warm safety blanket I knew 
I could fall back on, no matter 
what was happening in my life. 
This isn’t entirely surprising. 
Since I was young, I’ve always 
clung to the fictional words I 
read about and watch, holding 
onto them like they are lifelines. 
When I find a series that I love, 
I immerse myself in it, absorbing 
every detail until I know it like the 
back of my hand. That book, TV 
show or movie becomes not just a 
form of entertainment, but a way 
of life. Still, there was something 
undeniably special about the way 
Percy Jackson drew me in. 
For those unfamiliar with 
the series, the story begins 
when Percy discovers that his 
father is actually the Greek sea 
god Poseidon, and he is thrown 
into a world of Greek gods and 
magical creatures. It’s a fast-
paced adventure, but it wasn’t 
the monsters or the bloody 
combat that stuck with me. It 
was 
the 
relationships 
Percy 
forged along the way, specifically 
his 
friendship 
with 
Grover 
Underwood, who stuck by his side 
through it all, and his relationship 
with his reluctant ally, turned 
friend, 
turned 
girlfriend, 
Annabeth Chase, a friends to 
lovers arc that set the romance 
bar way too high. In the midst of 
his life-threatening quests, Percy 
found the people who would stick 
by his side forever — a group of 
friends who became his family.
 A found family, you might say. 
I’ve 
become 
intimately 
familiar with this trope. From 
the golden trio in “Harry Potter,” 
to El and Hopper’s precious bond 
in “Stranger Things,” to the hit 
sitcom “Friends,” the found family 
trope — forging familial bonds 
with the people you choose — 
infiltrates a large chunk of media, 
and the impact it had on me as a 
little kid cannot be understated. 
Seeing my favorite characters in 
the world surrounded by people 
who supported and loved them 
through it all set my expectations 
for what I thought friendship 
should look and feel like. It made 
me believe that one day I would 
find my people — my family — 
because if Percy could do it while 
fighting off Titans, I could too. 
Growing up, I was lucky to have 
a biological family who loved and 
supported me unconditionally. 
I didn’t need to search for a 
family, because I already had 
one. I did, however, have a very 

black and white idea of what a 
family looked like: A mom, a dad, 
a couple kids, a dog — the nuclear 
family. Now, we know that the 
concept of a family is far more 
expansive than this, and it was 
reading and watching the found 
family trope that opened my eyes 
to this complexity. Series like 
Percy Jackson and Harry Potter 
pushed the boundaries on what I 
perceived to be a family. Reading 
about 
groups 
of 
drastically 
different 
individuals 
coming 
together and leaning on one 
another, I realized that family is 
not just marked by blood relation, 
but by an unconditional love and 
support that is rare and magical. 
By immersing myself in these 
stories, I discovered that who we 
turn to for love and support is not 
limited by the words on our birth 
certificate, but can be defined 
and constructed by us and us 
alone. A person’s support system, 
I realized, did not need to follow 
a strict dictionary definition, but 
could be made up of whomever 
they choose to have in their lives. 
Sometimes — like Harry making 
a family for himself at Hogwarts, 
or Percy finding his best friend 
in a satyr — support comes from 
unlikely places and people, but 
that does not make it any less 
valuable. 
I began to carry these lessons 
into my life, allowing them to 
guide me. As a kid, I struggled 
with social anxiety that I still 
cope with today. At a young age, 
I cycled through a lot of friends. 
Most of them didn’t stick around, 
and a lot of them hurt me, but the 
found family trope had a funny 
way of making me feel a lot less 
alone. When I was sad, I knew I 
could flip open Percy Jackson, 
reread a favorite scene and be 
reminded of the kind of love and 
friendship I deserved in my own 
life. Suddenly, my definition of 
family was not black and white, 
but bright and colorful and 
vibrant. 
Now, as a 20-year-old away 
at college (who is thankfully a 
much more confident version 
of herself than she was at 10), 
rereading Percy Jackson feels 
like a warm hug. It’s an instant 
remedy to anxiety and stress, 
and — even though I know the 
story by heart — reuniting with 
its characters feels like coming 
home to old friends. Flipping 
open my well-worn copy, I’m 
reminded again that my circle of 
love and support is not limited 
or defined by anyone but me. My 
family can be made up of whoever 
I choose. I guess that’s why, years 
later, the series is still nestled in 
the center of my bookshelf, on 
display for anyone who saunters 
into my room. It’s both a source of 
comfort and a reminder that I’m 
not alone, that I have the power to 
surround myself with people who 
care about me. 
To find my family. 
Needless to say, I’m still 
working on it. I’m incredibly 
lucky to have friends who I love 
more than anything in the world, 
and a family who has my back, but 
support systems are constantly 
evolving and changing. I have a 
funny feeling that, even 20 years 
from now, I’m going to need to 
keep revisiting these stories, to get 
that gentle nudge on the shoulder 
from Percy and Annabeth and 
Grover and all the characters who 
filled my childhood. They will 
always remind me that I deserve 
loving, supportive family and 
friends, whatever that may look 
like.

Finding my family in 
the found family trope

Wednesday, December 7, 2022 — 7

REBECCA SMITH
Daily Arts Writer

Mario Kart is a blast to the past

LILLIAN PEARCE
Managing Arts Editor

Arts

Writing myself in and out of childhood

At a family reunion last 
summer, 
my 
grandmother 
gleefully presented me with 
a manila folder. Inside were 
several sheets of paper, all 
different sizes, each filled with 
my childish scrawl. They were 
stories I had started — and 
never finished, to her dismay — 
while staying at her house over 
the years. I couldn’t have been 
more than 8 or 9 years old when 
I wrote most of them; likely 
they were parts of make-believe 
games I had started with myself 
before getting called to dinner. 
But regardless of how old I was, 
I knew even then that I wanted 
to be a writer.
The books I read and movies 
I watched clearly influenced my 
writing, whether it was a story 
about a girl befriending a wild 
tiger due to my obsession with 
“Free Willy” or a full-length 
movie script set in a wizarding 
school that was eerily similar 

to Hogwarts. Writing came 
to me easily as a kid because I 
loved it. It was this love that 
first drew me to the University 
of Michigan. In fourth grade, a 
classmate’s parent who worked 
at the University gave my class 
a presentation about the school, 
which is how I first learned that 
I could study creative writing in 
college. 
As I got older, the stories I 
wanted to write became less 
fantastical and more rooted 
in my personal experiences. I 
wrote down almost every idea 
I had in my diary, alongside boy 
troubles and frustration with 
my parents. I brainstormed a 
coming-of-age story about a 
group of middle school friends, 
inspired by the girls in my own 
friend group. When I struggled 
with anxiety and depression, I 
wanted to write a character that 
faced those same struggles and 
overcame them. I had started to 
recognize the power of words 
and how they could make a 
difference in the lives of many. 
But when it came time to go 

to college, my attitude suddenly 
changed. 
I was a bit pretentious when 
I first started looking into 
colleges. Originally, I wanted 
to go to NYU (yeah, I know). 
The University of Michigan 
then returned to its top spot, 
more for its reputation as a top 
university than for its creative 
writing program. But by the 
time I graduated high school, 
I was enrolled at a completely 
different university, planning to 
pursue a degree in psychology 
and become a therapist. I don’t 
exactly remember how I left 
behind my original dream, but 
my end goal was the same: I 
wanted to help people since 
I could connect with them. 
The idea of being an author 
still remained in the back of 
my mind, waiting in the wings 
until I realized, in 2020, that I 
couldn’t handle the emotional 
strain that would come with 
being a therapist for the next 
50 years or so. Psychology was 
interesting to me, but I needed 
creativity in my life.
I’m 
lucky 
enough to have 
a 
family 
that 
has 
always 
encouraged any 
career 
path 
I 
might take. My 
parents 
were 
understanding 
when I wanted 
to 
change 
my 
major. 
Yet 
whenever 
they 
asked me what 
I wanted to do 
instead 
and 
the 
thought 
of 
writing 
inevitably 
popped up again, 
it terrified me to 
say it out loud. 
Being an author 
would mean a 
different 
kind 
of 
stress 
than 
being a therapist 
— 
it 
would 
mean a life of 
unpredictability, 
which I’ve never 
been hardwired 
to 
handle. 
So 
why couldn’t I 
let the idea go?
We’re 
all 
familiar 
with 
the 
idea 
of 
the 
“starving 
artist.” A career 
in the arts is 
highly cutthroat 
regardless 
of 
which path you 

take: a writer, an actor, an artist. 
We’ll 
face 
more 
rejections 
than we can count. We have 
to take day jobs to support 
ourselves through that grueling 
process of our work just being 
acknowledged, and even if we 
are lucky enough to land a deal, 
it probably doesn’t pay very 
well. Once it’s time to enter the 
“real world,” our answers to 
“what do you want to be when 
you grow up?” don’t matter 
as much as how we’ll support 
ourselves. Why is money more 
important than happiness? On 
a practical level, I understand 
the answer to this question, but 
I hate feeling like my passion 
matters less as I get older. I hate 
how much of a risk it has to be to 
go after what I want.
The day I admitted to one 
of my closest friends what I 
really wanted to do with my 
life, I felt a weight being lifted 
off my shoulders. It hasn’t 
been without its challenges, 
including a nasty sense of 
perfectionism 
— 
since 
the 
competitiveness of the industry 
has me falsely convinced that I 
have to get it right on the first 
draft if I want to “make it” 
as a writer — which couples 
dangerously with my horrible 
habit of quitting anytime I can’t 
figure out a plot hole. But it has 
its blessings, because it brought 
me here to The Daily, where I 
not only have the opportunity 
to build a portfolio but am 
surrounded by people who want 
the same things I do. 
Now that I have returned 
to my dream of being a writer, 
I 
still 
find 
myself 
giving 
“disclaimers” whenever people 
ask me what my plans are once 
I graduate. “I want to write,” I 
say, “but right now I’m looking 
for a way to support myself 
while I do that.” Even as I write 
this article, I had to stop myself 
from writing “I had the courage 
to go back”; if this were a more 
technical career I was pursuing, 
I wouldn’t be called courageous 
or have to assuage family 
members that I promise, I have 
a plan. I want this path and all 
the stresses that come with it 
because it will make me happy. 
Days spent typing and deleting 
the same paragraph over and 
over again might not be the 
path 
to 
financial 
freedom, 
and landing a book deal might 
not catapult me to fame. But 
that’s okay with me, because 
the possibility of even one 
person reading my books and 
connecting with them matters 
more. That can only happen if 
I try.

HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI
Senior Arts Editor

Design by Leah Hoogterp

Design by Leah Hoogterp

Design by Leah Hoogterp

