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