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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 4 years

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I hate to be an asshole, but I see this a lot and I'd like your take because while we have differing opinions on some things, your metas are spot on (and I binged half your stories last weekend, oops) and I know you'll be straight up with me on this. What "chemistry" between Zuko and Katara? I keep seeing that and not getting it? The chemistry when he roughed up her grandmother and threatened her village? The chemistry when he tied her to a tree and violated her boundaries? (1/3)

The chemistry when he hired a trained assassin to stalk her good friend and if collateral damage happened, oopsie? The chemistry when he stabbed her in the back after she was nice to him in the crystal catacombs? The chemistry when he demanded that she accept him? Or the chemistry when he showed he didn’t know her at all? The chemistry when both of them were grossed out being thought a couple? Or is it the chemistry when he saved her and Katara couldn’t wait to kiss another guy? (2/3)

I dislike r/eylo from Star Wars fandom. I think it sends the wrong message. But as much as I hate it, there was chemistry there from the first. Rey is attracted to him and Kylo is attracted to her. They don’t want to be, but they are and it plays out in the next two movies. There was none of that in ATLA and I can understand z/ks saying it but other people? What am I missing? Where am I not looking? I’m not even that huge on Katara/Aang but Zuko/Katara chemistry where? (3/3)

Obligatory disclaimer: this is my personal response to anon’s questions and my personal thoughts on Zvtara’s chemistry. I’m not going to put this into the main tags - much less the Zvtara tag! - because while I believe this is a genuine question, I don’t doubt there’s at least one person out there who will misconstrue it as “hate” because the A:TLA fandom is, uh, aggressive in its ship wars lol. However, if I have any Zvtara shippers following me, I encourage you to reblog this post with your own thoughts! Please refrain from sending your commentary on anon unless you’re going to be friendly about it, lol; I like to keep my blog positive and welcoming! Thank you :)

Firstly, I am EXTREMELY flattered that you enjoy my metas so much and binged half my fics!! I was grinning so gleefully as I read that part of your asks,, y’all are too sweet to me. 💛

Okay. Moving on.

So, the main question here seems to be this: What chemistry exists between Zuko and Katara in A:TLA?

Short answer? None, in my opinion.

Longer answer? For all the reasons you outline in your asks, I do not perceive any romantic chemistry between Zuko and Katara within the series run of A:TLA. Note the qualifiers: “romantic” and “within the series run.” I’ll try to break down what I mean!

“no romantic chemistry”

For one, a romantic interest with anyone in the Gaang would have undermined Zuko’s entire redemption arc, full stop. Yes, I mean anyone. For Zuko to have joined the Gaang because of romantic interest* would have been… counterproductive. Zuko joined the Gaang because he realized - to put it very simply - that the Fire Nation was wrong. He realized how he’d been indoctrinated since birth. He realized that he could help the Avatar (instead of trying to, uh, kill him lmao) by teaching him firebending. He realized he could help Aang defeat the Fire Lord and bring peace to the four nations. Zuko realized he could help end the war. He could help break the cycles of violence and abuse that had in part made his own life so miserable. For him to join the Gaang because of romantic interest? Completely takes away from all of that. A key theme of A:TLA is dismantling imperialist power, propaganda, rhetoric, etc. Zuko’s decision to fight against Fire Nation imperialism is crucial to his redemption. He could not have been redeemed without making that choice. Thus, if Zuko had joined the Gaang because of romantic interest, it would have been completely counteractive to his redemption.

(*That is, the relatively popular [? I think?] implication that Zuko and Katara’s moment in “The Crossroads of Destiny” was romantic-coded and thus Zuko should have joined the Gaang at the end of Book 2 because he had romantic interest in Katara and she in him. I genuinely am clueless how people interpret that moment as romantic - like to me it’s honestly heartbreaking! Katara offers Zuko tentative sympathy only for him to stab her in the back minutes later - so if someone would like to share some thoughts, please feel free to do so!!)

On a similar note, for Zuko to take the lightning for Katara at the end of the series because of romantic interest would also undermine his redemption arc. Please note: this does not mean Zvtara shippers cannot interpret the Agni Kai as being romantic-coded. Of course they can! That’s what fanon is for! Transformative works! But in terms of canon, Zuko did not try (and fail, rip) to redirect Azula’s lightning because he was romantically interested in Katara. (I mean, in terms of canon, Zuko and Katara were both romantically interested in other people, too, so… Moot point, lol? But I digress.)

Zuko taking the lightning is about him learning to earn forgiveness and accept unconditional love from his family (both Iroh and the Gaang). It is a selfless act, and it directly parallels Zuko’s selfish act in “The Crossroads of Destiny” to stand silently while Azula strikes Aang with lightning, thus becoming complicit in Aang’s death. The point of his “sacrifice” is that Zuko would have taken the lightning for anyone (and don’t get me wrong - the moment is doubly powerful with Katara, as she’s a primary protagonist!). Zuko did not attempt but fail to redirect the lightning because it was Katara he was protecting; he took it because it was the right thing to do. Zuko has learned to differentiate between “right and wrong” on his own. To at last put others before himself. To make his decision about romantic interest? To make Zuko’s most selfless act in the series (not to mention one of his only 100% selfless acts!) about out-of-the-blue “romantic love”? That not only lessens the impact of his decision, but it is also reductive to Zuko’s entire character and arc. There’s no romantic chemistry there.

Again, of course, fanon exists for purposes such as interpreting Zuko’s failed misdirection of the lightning to protect Katara as romantic. Go wild!! I’m talking strictly about canon.

So that pretty much summarizes why romantic interest with anyone in the Gaang would have been detrimental to Zuko’s redemption, hence why Zuko doesn’t have any canon romantic chemistry in the Gaang. It just ain’t there! It would have screwed over his arc! And again, because of all the reasons you outline, I cannot comfortably interpret any romantic chemistry between Zuko and Katara within the series run of A:TLA. Personally, romantic Zvtara would have been too sudden, too unexpected, and too… well, as I said: uncomfortable. Why would Katara have romantic interest in a guy who’d hurt her so many times? Who she’d only just forgiven? Why would Zuko have romantic interest in Katara, a girl he barely knew for most of the series? Especially when he already had feelings for a childhood friend? I, personally, just don’t get it.

But. You know what Zuko and Katara do have in canon?

A phenomenal platonic bond.

It develops very late, admittedly; Katara has only forgiven Zuko for the last five episodes of the series (5 out of 61… Katara was only on good terms with Zuko for 8% of the series, lmao). But Zuko and Katara are very, very similar personality-wise, so it follows that (eventually) they’d be great friends! Yeah, Zuko acts like an entitled dick for a good portion of “The Southern Raiders” lmao, but he ultimately respects Katara’s decision to spare Yon Rha (love that scene so much 🤧). Katara recognizes that Zuko is trying his best (if sometimes falling short) to redeem himself and earn the Gaang’s trust, and she also understands how - while she is completely justified in her anger! - holding that hatred close to her chest isn’t good for her. So she offers him a third chance (and honestly, Zuko should be forever grateful for that lmao!).

So what can a strong platonic bond lead to? Well, if it’s in your taste, a romantic relationship!

“within the series run”

As aforementioned, I don’t see any romantic chemistry between Zuko and Katara within the series run of A:TLA. I think Zuko has hurt Katara in too many ways - and again, she has only just forgiven him by the end of the show - for there to realistically have been any blossoming romance between them. I think romantic interest for anyone in the Gaang would undermine Zuko’s redemption. I also think M@iko and K@taang are well-implemented romances into A:TLA, so romantic Zvtara would not have fit into the narrative. (Doesn’t mean someone has to ship them!! I just mean they made logical sense and had narrative purpose within canon. That’s all.) But again, Zuko and Katara have a great platonic bond. So while I don’t see romance within the series run, I can understand why people might be attracted to Zvtara in post-canon!

Post-A:TLA (disregarding LOK, which I haven’t even seen lol) Zvtara has some solid potential. I’m personally intrigued by the idea of how they’d navigate their relationship amidst all the politics! Basically, any relationship with a strong platonic bond can have potential for “more.” That’s why people ship T@ang, that’s why people ship Zvkaang, Zvkka, M@ilee, etc. So while Zvtara may not have romantic chemistry within the show - in my opinion! - they’ve got one of my favorite platonic bonds, so I can totally get people wanting to explore that bond in post-A:TLA and possibly translating it to romance.

So for some people, then, it might be less about “chemistry” in A:TLA itself, but more how their relationship could grow and change after the end of the series!

Quick sidebar: I mentioned that while I do not interpret the final Agni Kai as romantic, I’m fine when other people do. It’s fanon! Ain’t no big thing! But also, Katara has forgiven Zuko by that point. I, personally, am not comfortable with reading any of Zuko and Katara’s TSR-and-earlier interactions as romantic because of the imbalanced power dynamic. Example: I don’t think Zuko tying Katara to a tree and manipulating her with her mother’s necklace was romantic, and I don’t like the resulting implications when people do treat it as such. Zuko was still so indoctrinated by Fire Nation propaganda… Yeah, from Book 1 to about halfway through Book 3, I personally don’t feel comfortable shipping Zuko with anyone outside of the Fire Nation. Pre-redemption Zuko was not the most fun person to be around if you were non-Fire Nation.

But as I’ve said, these are all just my opinions! Again, if I have any Zvtara shippers following me, please feel free to reblog with your own thoughts! I would love to know where the idea comes from that Zvtara had chemistry within A:TLA, since I personally don’t see any romantic vibes (though platonic chemistry, of course, abounds.)

(For the record, I don’t know anything about Star Wars, which is why I haven’t brought up R.eylo, lol.)

TL;DR - To me, there isn’t any canon romantic chemistry for Zvtara. Narratively, I think it would undermine Zuko’s arc. Logically, because of how Zuko treated Katara for 92% of the series, I personally cannot interpret any of their interactions as romantic. But their platonic bond? Beautiful!! Thus, if people want to explore post-A:TLA, fanon Zvtara, I am all for it.

#hope this at least partially answers your question anon!#anon #amy answers #amy analyzes

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schneesisterss · 4 years

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Into Stone- Part 1

this prompt is for @sparrowhawk-station

I actually had a really fun time writing this and I’m thinking about making this a multi-part fic if anyone is interested

anyway here you go! hope you enjoy :)

Part 2 Part 3

________________________

Yang brought her machete down with a grunt, cutting through the thick jungle ahead of her.

It was just her luck. Of course she had to crash-land in the thickest part of the jungle. Now she was wandering aimlessly, trying to find any sign of human civilization, with only her machete and her water bottle tied to her hip. It was just supposed to be a scouting mission, she wasn't prepared for this.

Yang stopped to wipe the sweat from her brow, it was so hot. She had tied her long-sleeve explorers button up around her waist a long time ago, leaving her arms exposed in her tank top.

The journalist was lucky that she had many years of flying experience under her belt, or else that crash-landing wouldn't have been so successful.

Well, Yang thought, as successful as a crash-landing could be. Her plane was totaled, it would never fly again, and unfortunately for her, the radio had gotten completely smashed in the process as well.

Yang had been flying over this region to see if she could gain any information on the weird happenings here, before her plane jolted and alarms started blaring. Engine failure.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Yang said, frantically flipping the switches above her head to divert the power to the one remaining engine.

It wasn't enough, she was losing altitude fast. She had no other choice but to deploy the landing gear, not that it would do much, but the parachute that had been deployed out of the back would hopefully slow her descent.

Seeing the top of the canopy rapidly closing in, she braced herself for impact. Her plane crashed through the tops of the trees, making Yang's head smash into the control wheel. The plane's left wing then hit a thick tree, sending it spiraling towards the ground. Yang blacked out before she landed.

Yang shook her head of the memory and refocused. She looked around to try and get her bearings with no success. Everything looked the same in every direction. Yang felt the beginnings of panic swell in her chest, it'll be dark soon. She took a deep breath to try and quell her uneasiness, and started in the same direction she'd been going. East. That’s the way she flew here from after all, and plus, she didn't really see a better option.

Yang hiked for the better part of an hour, cutting through leaves and vines when they got too thick. Her boots crunching on the forest floor as she walked.

I should start looking for food, she thought, Or maybe shelter? Yea shelter would be nice. Yang raised her hand to her forehead to feel the bump that had formed there and winced. She definitely had a concussion.

Yang, distractedly, cut through the next layer of vines, coming suddenly face to face with another human being. She screamed loudly and promptly fell on her ass, raising her machete in front of her defensively.

Chest heaving, she looked closely at the other person before furrowing her eyebrows. “Wait a minute.” She muttered, and got up to her feet. That wasn't a person...

It was a statue.

____________

A scream echoed through the jungle and the girl shot up from her spot on the branch she had been relaxing on, high in the treetops. Her ears twitching on top of her head, trying to identify what direction it came from.

Her heart raced with worry.

Intruder.

She grabbed her spear and took off through the trees towards the sound.

____________

That's weird. Yang thought, looking around as if to find the answer as to why there's a random statue in the middle of the jungle.

Finding nothing, she turned her head to look at it more closely. It's so detailed, realistic. It made the hairs on the back of Yang's neck stand up. She wished she had her camera.

Instead, she pulled a little notebook out of her pocket along with a small pencil. She needed to take note of this, she was a journalist after all.

After taking some time to write about the statute and it’s detail, she pocketed the notebook and grabbed her machete again. Yang took one more look at the stone figure before continuing on.

Another twenty minutes passed before she caught sight of another statute off to her left.

What is going on? This one looked completely different from the first one she saw. This one looked female. It had its arms out in front of it as if it was blocking an attack.

Yang was about to make her way over to the statue to get a better look, when her feet were kicked out from underneath her. Her back hit the ground roughly and before she could even think about raising her machete, there was a foot on her wrist keeping the weapon pinned to the ground and something sharp pressing against her neck.

“Who are you?” A voice said.

Later, Yang will look back on this moment impressed. She had no idea she was being followed, this person, whoever they were, moved through the forest so silently she didn't even know they were there until she was at their mercy.

“Please don't kill me!” Yang's eyes were shut as she begged, “My plane crashed in this jungle and I'm lost, I have no idea where I am!”

The pressure on her neck increased, any harder and it would break skin. “Who are you?” The voice said again, firmer this time, but not louder.

“My name is Yang Xiao Long,” She tried again, “I'm a journalist who was flying over this area to gain information about the strange happenings here before my plane crash-landed.”

That was obviously the wrong thing to say because the machete was kicked from her hand and a knee was brought down onto her chest, knocking the wind out of her. The pressure on her neck not letting up.

“You are trespassing on our lands, you are not welcomed here.”

Yang cracked her eyes open. A girl was kneeling on her chest, holding a spear to her throat. She was tan and wore a mask that covered the top half of her face from the eyes up. She had long black hair that was pulled back into intricate braids. But the most curious thing however, was the extra set of ears the girl had perched on top of her head that were currently pinned back defensively.

“Look,” Yang started, more calmly this time, trying to ease the girl on top of her, “I-I’m not here to cause trouble or hurt anyone, I'm just trying to find a way back home.”

The pressure on her neck eased up a fraction. “You’re not a hunter?” The girl asked.

“No! No, I'm here by accident, I swear.”

“Then why did you say you’re here to gain information, what do you want with my family.”

“Your family? You live out here?”

The girl said nothing, waiting for Yang to answer her question.

Yang took a breath, she needed to tread carefully. “Apparently, the people who enter this area of the jungle never come back. There have been over thirty cases of travelers who have gone missing in the past twenty-five years.”

“Travelers?!” the girl snarled, “They were murderers and thieves. Your kind only comes here to hurt this forest and my family, you shouldn't be here.”

Yang's eyes widen. “You know what happened to them?”

The girl tilted her head in confusion, “You really don't know who we are?”

Bewildered by everything going on, Yang raised her voice, “No!!”

In an instant the spear was lifted from her neck and a hand was covering her mouth.

“Shut up, you're being too loud.” The girl was leaning in close. Close enough that Yang could see the little freckles on the girl's cheek as she turned her head to look around.

The girl turned her head back to look at Yang through masked eyes. “There is a village about an eight days walk from here. Your kind set up camp there a few months back.” She spat out the words like it left a bad taste in her mouth. “I can take you there but only if you do as I say and keep your mouth shut. This forest is cruel to those who do not know it.”

With wide eyes, Yang nodded, and the girl slowly lifted her hand from her mouth and got up to her feet. She picked up Yang's machete and tied it to her own waist. “We have to move quickly, it'll be dark soon.” She said, already walking away.

Yang scrambled up to follow her, “Where are we going?”

“I have a shelter built not far from here,” She said, keeping a brisk pace. “But, with you making so much noise there's no doubt the forest already knows you're here. We have to hurry.”

“Wait!” Yang said, stopping the girl in her tracks as she turned slightly to look at her. “What uh.. What’s your name?”

The girl turned her body fully in the direction of Yang, her chest puffing up to make herself look bigger as she planted her spear in the ground with a thud. Yang was definitely not intimidated.

“My name is Blake Belladonna, and my family and I are the guardians of this land.”

#rwby #rwby fanfiction #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #bumbleby fanfic #bumbleby #yang x blake #blake x yang #my writing #mine

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ick25 · 4 years

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What I think about Inuyasha’s writing.

I used to be a huge Inuyasha fan because I watched it in my teen years (The Latin Spanish dub, not the English dub where I find their voices to be pretty annoying). I would stay awake until eleven o’ clock just to watch a new episode on Cartoon Network and sing along with the translated versions of the intros. My early submissions on Deviantart were fanarts of Inuyasha, I used to draw him like crazy, and the show is even one of my original comic’s main inspirations. So what happened?

I love Inuyasha’s character, but as I grew older, I started hating or not caring about the other characters of the show (Except for Sesshomaru, of course) and grew tired of the story because I felt it wasn’t going anywhere. Inuyasha has good writing, but the pacing and how sometimes you can’t really take it seriously ruins it for me.

I want to talk about this now since I just heard about the sequel that is gonna happen soon with Inuyasha’s Lina Inverse of a daughter and Sesshomaru’s very confused twin daughters, and I’m thinking to myself: “How is Rumiko gonna ruin this story even more”. Don’t get me wrong, the creator, Rumiko Takahashii, is a very talented manga artist and writer, and I respect her, at one point I even saw her as my heroine, but now I want to surpass her.

How can Inuyasha, a story about a half demon, who falls in love with the reincarnation of his ex-girlfriend who can travel through time whenever she feels like it, has a hot demon brother that tried to kill him several times, wields a powerful magical sword forged from the fang of his deceased yet very famous demon father who I want to know more about, a dead human mother who may or may not have been a princess... Where was I going with this? o_o

As an aspiring storyteller/ animator, I want to talk about the problems with Inuyasha’s story, the things I love about it, as well as the bad things in it, and see why Inuyasha isn’t the writing masterpiece everyone likes to believe it is. And by the end, talking about what I would do to improve the story.

This is how I analyze Inuyasha. I never read the manga, so I’m gonna focus on the anime.

1. Inuyasha is a romantic comedy?

Rumiko Takashii is a successful manga artist and considered “The queen of anime”, because her art Style and humor have inspired many of the anime cliches we know today such as the nose bleeds shots, the beach episodes with fan service, and good o’l scenes where the girl calls a boy a pervert before comically sending them flying. She is the creator of another famous work called Ranma 1/2, an anime I used to love as a kid, but now...

I studied how to draw and create mangas and I have learned how to make a good story. After returning to Ranma recently, I have figured out the problem with Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashii’s style is repetitive. Rumiko is capable of writing a good plot and creating very good characters from time to time, but now many of her main characters feel very cliche. In her stories there is always gonna be a pervert, there is always gonna be a bad parent, a rivalry, crazy and or exaggerated situations, goofy looking characters, wise old men or women, beautiful female characters, Japanese or Chinese folklore, fighting, but most importantly, a girl with a love/hate relationship with a dumb, rowdy tsundere boy, where they argue so much that the girl ends up physically abusing the boy and the show passes it for something funny; and those are the ingredients for making a Rumiko Takahashii styled manga/anime.

Rumiko’s forte is in Romantic comedy, sometimes mixing different genres makes a story good and very realistic... If done right, which brings me to my next point.

2. Time travel just for fun.

What is Inuyasha about? It is about a half-demon teenage boy that has to partner with a teenage girl from the modern times, who accidentally travels through time via a magical well that has been in her family’s shinto shrine for generations, to find the shards of a powerful magical jewel that said girl accidentally shatters and scatters all over feudal Japan. This idea alone makes it a very interesting series, either for a book or a TV show.

What went wrong then? I believe the problem started around the third episode were it was shown that Kagome can easily go back to the present, have dinner with her family, take a bath, gather provisions, and even take her god damn bike with her to the past every time she wants without caring about creating a time paradox.

This is played for laughs because of the romantic comedy element, but if you do this in an show with action, deaths, and evil spirits wanting to take over the world, then that fact alone makes the entire story lose credibility, I mean, what is stopping Naraku or any other demon from finding a way to travel to the future through the well to take over a world where demons and magical powers are basically extinct? The fact that only Kagome AND Inuyasha are the only ones who can go through the well? How convenient!

If the time travel well was taken more seriously it could’ve lead to a much more interesting story, but apparently nobody cares about time travel and the effects it could have in the history of Japan. I think there were two instances that I recall from the anime (Before Inuyasha Second Act, because I already stopped caring about the show when it came out) where time travel was or could’ve been relevant; the episode about the man eating mask that had a Shikon shard for hundreds of years, and the second movie of Inuyasha where the whole group was immune to a time stopping spell because Kagome’s medical kit and necklace from the future created some kind of time barrier around them.

And nobody cared about any of those things afterwards! Not the fact that there could’ve been one extra shard, or that Naraku was present during the time barrier incident and never wondered about it. Both the episode and movie scene were just ways to have Inuyasha being the only one who can come to Kagome’s rescue because their love is the main focus. Speaking of love...

3. Frustrating love drama.

Part of Inuyasha’s tsundere personality comes from the fact that he had his heart broken by everyone’s favorite b***, Kikyo.

Kikyo was the young priestess who sealed Inuyasha in a tree for 50 years, at first it looked like the typical holy person trying to protect her village from a dangerous demon, but in reality, she was in a relationship with him and thought that Inuyasha tricked her so he could steal the Shikon jewel from her. This was because everyone’s favorite a**h*** , Naraku, shape-shifted into both of them to trick them into killing each other.

It’s easy to blame Naraku for this, but that actually shows how they didn’t really “love” each other because of how quickly they turned against the other.

I take this as a cautionary tale for first love. Inuyasha was just infatuated with Kikyo because of her beauty and kindness towards him, and when someone falls in love for the first time they don’t think straight, they don’t know what a real relationship entails, and not knowing that is exactly what happened to these two.

There was a special episode in the anime where we see how Inuyasha and Kikyo met and fell in love, in it we get a scene where Kikyo told Inuyasha that she was gonna give him a gift, which was gonna be the subduing necklace that Kagome tends to abuse a lot, however, Inuyasha decided to give her a gift as well, his mother’s lip balm she left him after dying. A very sweet gesture, right? How does Kikyo react to this?

That’s not a look of love, that’s a look of pity. RECIPROCATE, WOMAN! HE OPENED HIS HEART TO YOU AND YOU JUST FEEL SORRY FOR HIM?!

She does end up changing her mind about the subduing charm, but before this, she didn’t saw him as a person, and she was considered a saint by everyone in the village, but I guess that feeding the poor, nursing people, and playing with children is alright as long as they are humans, that’s almost racist. I hate Shippo, but I bet she wouldn’t be so caring about him or his dad if she saw them.

Kikyo absolutely sucks as a romantic partner! She doesn’t express anything, she doesn’t talk about her feelings, she doesn’t show any emotion apart from anger and slight contentment, and based on what we saw after Naraku set them up, I believe she never told him ANYTHING about herself. Unlike Kagome who he got to know very well as a person, Inuyasha didn’t even questioned her motives for attacking him, he automatically assumed that she manipulated him the whole time, and ran to the village to get the Shikon Jewel.

Rumiko wanted to make Kikyo more relatable so we could feel sorry for her and pass Naraku as an evil monster who destroyed what could’ve been a beautiful relationship, by having Kikyo wanting to live life as a normal girl, but can’t because she is the only one who can keep the Shikon jewel from being corrupted, and ultimately falling in love with Inuyasha because he saw her as a normal person (Unlike her with him). Well, it didn’t work, at least not for me.

I did feel sympathy for Kikyo... When she was alive! The series had a witch bring her back to life in a body made out of clay and using part of Kagome’s soul because she is the reincarnation of Kikyo. Why do this? To create drama by adding a love triangle into this romantic comedy of a show.

Feels like Rumiko doesn’t understand how reincarnation works because I think Kagome would’ve died during that ritual, and I really doubt Kikyo would’ve become such a B just out of jealousy; she wanted to take Inuyasha to hell with her, and he was not even dead yet! If this Kikyo really loved him, she would’ve let him go on with his life instead of roaming Japan feeling sorry for herself, taking advantage of a situation to keep Kagome away from Inuyasha, and barely doing anything to stop Naraku which was supposed to be her main goal. All of this made Kikyo unlikable instead of a relatable character trying to fix her past mistakes before going back to the grave.

4. Inuyasha’s background.

Something I absolutely love from Inuyasha’s story is the fact that it is set during a historical time period in Japan but with magical elements incorporated since many of the Japanese myths and folklore originated during those dark times. I love the fact that since everything was so dark back then, people would often see things that weren’t really there and made up stories to explain certain phenomena or just to keep children from misbehaving.

Inuyasha is full of Japanese folktales and magical creatures, and it clearly took inspiration from “Journey to the west”, a classic Chinese novel that’s one of the best adventure/ fantasy stories of all time, and that’s also been the main inspiration for many mangas and animes; it’s one of my favorites too.

Inuyasha’s background is one of the most interesting ones I’ve ever seen, it’s something common in fairy tales and myths where a human falls in love with a being from a magical race, like fairies, mermaids, gods, or in Asian folklore’s case, spirits or demons. In Inuyasha’s case, his mother was a human named Izayoi who fell in love with a powerful dog demon named Toga who was known as Inu no taisho (Dog general), animal spirits or demons can take human form, and the dog spirits are very common in Japanese folklore.

The third movie of Inuyasha shows us what Toga looked like before and how he died, and I’m actually more interested in how Inuyasha’s parents met more than his love triangle drama. In fact, Toga’s story sounds much more interesting because he was built up as this great demon lord who fought countless enemies, he was a gigantic dog monster that stopped a demon invasion from China, he could destroy multiple armies with one swing of a sword he forged from one of his fangs, he had disciples and loyal subjects, but he ultimately lost his status, he let his reputation be destroyed because he fell in love with a woman from a race that was considered inferior, and had a half demon child with her.

One of Inuyasha’s motivation’s (the main one being killing Naraku) is proving that he is stronger than his father who was a full demon, while Inuyasha himself is considered a weak half human who is unworthy of the tittle of being a descendant of Inu no taisho. Every time Inuyasha hears about a demon that his father couldn’t defeat in the past, he gets excited because, with the powerful sword his dad left him, he now has a chance to prove to everyone that he is not weak and that he is stronger than his father was.

Inuyasha never met his father because Toga died the very day he was born, so he was raised by his mother who died when he was still a child. His older brother, Sesshomaru, is a full demon that never really forgave his father for throwing his reputation away because of a human woman, and leaving him a magical sword that can also resurrect the dead instead of the one that can destroy numerous souls in one blow.

I’m not really sure, but I think the Sesshomaru from the beginning of the third movie looked like he was around Inuyasha’s age when Toga died.

Before:

After:

I like to think that’s the case.

Inuyasha’s background alone can hold up the entire series, as well as his tense relationship with his only living relative, however, the main focus is something else, something that I personally find very repetitive, boring, and even lame.

5. Is Naraku really worth it?

Note that I am not defending Naraku, he is unlikable, mainly because of all the bad things he’s done to the main characters, but the truth is that I don’t really hate him as much as I should, granted, he is a manipulative b*st**d and I don’t like him, but he is just evil for the sake of being evil in the story. If anything, I see him as pathetic.

Let’s see his main crimes: He cursed Miroku’s family, for some reason, killed Sango’s entire family by using her inexperience demon slayer little brother as a puppet, he basically conned Sesshomaru in hopes of killing Inuyasha, but most importantly, he is the reason Inuyasha and Kikyo broke up! :0

To me, Naraku is just a coward that likes to manipulate others for his own personal gain, he was born from a bandit named Onigumo who was burned in a fire after betraying the leader of his group of thieves so he could take his place, and allowed his bodied to be consumed by demons in order to get... Kikyo! The gross part is that Kikyo was like 15 at the time while he could easily be in his 20′s or 30′s. Kikyo, being a “saint”, found Onigumo’s burned body and nursed him in a cave, this ultimately made the bandit fall in love with her and allowed his body to be devoured by evil spirits in exchange for power, he was then reborn as Naraku who is basically a half demon like Inuyasha.

I heard that the manga didn’t really mentioned Naraku’s past life, but I think that’s for the best. Naraku became Inuyasha’s group’s ( and other characters’s) main target, but every single time they find him and think they got him cornered, he manages to escape in some way because of how much of a coward he really is. Because this happens over and over and over and over again in every season, it get’s tiresome and frustrating, to the point where I even ask myself: “Is this MF even worth it?!” Anyone would’ve just given up a long time ago. I liked it when they focused on fighting other demons and enemies with different motives, but after a while it was just Naraku, Naraku, Naraku!

At some point I even forgot what started this adventure in the first place, the Shikon Jewel shards that were accidentally shattered and scattered through out Japan! One shard alone can power up a demon, this idea alone makes it an interesting story, collect the shards before Japan is destroyed by overpowered demons and evil spirits, but no, turns out Naraku is collecting the shards too to the point that he already has a nearly complete jewel, well, that saves a lot of time!

I know, killing Naraku will get rid of Miroku’s wind tunnel curse, free Sango’s undead brother from his control, and Sesshomaru and other demons wanting revenge because he tried to use them, but what’s really Inuyasha’s beef with Naraku? Is he just mad because Naraku showed him just how totally incompatible he was with Kikyo? That’s what pisses me the most, to be honest.

As for Kagome, she definitely has no reason to be there, Naraku is the main antagonist and yet, he is kinda indifferent to Kagome. I don’t remember seeing Naraku doing anything bad to her or her family living in modern times that can be accessed through a magical well where he could easily... You know what? I’m done here.

Conclusion.

Inuyasha’s story has so much potential and yet it doesn’t take itself too serious. As I mentioned before, Inuyasha is treated more as a romantic comedy than a fantastical adventure kind of story. there is so much dept to the world building, but when focusing only on Inuyasha and Kagome falling in love, nothing else seem to matter. This could’ve worked if it had better writing. A simple or silly premise for a story can work if it has clever writing, something that Inuyasha really needed at times.

I liked to be surprised with clever writing in movies and shows, but if it was up to me, I’d definitely change a few things.

1. If you want a serious story, make Kagome be stuck in feudal Japan until the shards of the Shikon Jewel are recovered, or if this has to stay, don’t make the the stakes in the adventure so dire, either its a fantastical journey with two teenagers falling in love as the main focus, or a very serious adventure where their love is the only thing that can save the day.

2. Make Inuyasha and kikyo just friends, the love drama is unnecessary, specially since kikyo has almost no personality what so ever, unless you re-write her entire character. Or make Inuyasha fall in love with Kikyo, but Kikyo doesn’t feel the same and just sees him as a good friend, that at least would create some drama instead of the jealous ex-girlfriend that wants to kill everyone because she lost her chance in life.

3. Get rid of Naraku, the ultimate villain troupe gets tired very quickly, specially in a very long show that takes like 8 seasons to end. Or at least write him better and not turn the show into an endless chase for just one guy, specially since the main goal is to collect the shards of the Shikon jewel to destroy it once and for all.

This is just my opinion of course, and if you like the show just the way it is, then that’s alright, but seeing things you like with a critical eye, makes you appreciate them even more.

#Inuyasha #anime #my review #ick25

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sdpafanblogofsupremefunk · 4 years

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Season 1, Episode 1: A Different Place

Where better to begin talking about a show than the beginning? Like most shows, Sítio do Picapau Amarelo has a pilot episode.

...Okay, in this case, “pilot episode” is just a fancy way of saying “first episode”. Much like Rick & Morty and DT17, SDPA doesn’t really have a pilot episode that isn’t just the first episode (unless you count Doc and Mharti as R&M’s pilot, which I’d rather not), so to begin the series, we kinda have to jump right into the mess of things.

It’s like A Quiet Place, but not stupid.

As the episode begins, we are introduced to a two men on a horse-drawn cart. The man in the red box is a book salesman who’s a little down on his luck in terms of profits.

A little.

This guy isn’t really given a name, and I don’t want to call him “The Salesman” the whole time because that’s stupid. So I’m going to give him a name. Mr. Simmons will do nicely.

Anyways, Mr. Simmons falls out of the cart when it hits a patch in the road, and when he picks himself up, he sees a quaint little house on a farm, with an old woman knitting on the porch.

Here, we are introduced to the first of our main cast, Dona Benta, a kind elderly lady who owns this little patch of heaven known as the Yellow Woodpecker Farm. Yeah, didn’t take us long to get there, huh?

So Mr. Simmons sees this old woman in the middle of (what he believes to be) nowhere, and decides it’s the perfect opportunity to make a quick buck believing that:

Which, I dunno, man, she seems pretty comfortable just sitting in her rocking chair, knitting. Like, even as an outsider who doesn’t know a lick of what goes on in this farm, I’d say she’s content as she is, but anything to make some cold hard cash, I guess.

Also, I would not ever call this place a desert, even for the sake of exaggeration. There’s grass everywhere, bushes, trees, flowers, the works. If this where anything like a desert, I do not think this woman would be here, to put it simply. But, I digress. And I hydraulic press, but we won’t be seeing that.

So, Mrs. Benta goes inside to call for the kids, and here we meet 3 of our other actors:

Here, we see Pedrinho (or Little Pete, the boy in the blue overalls) and Narizinho (or Lúcia “Little Nose”, the girl in the red dress), cousins and Mrs. Benta’s grandchildren. They’re playing tag, I think, but they’re stopped in their tracks with their Grandma in the way, and-

Hang on, I feel like we’re forgetting something.

Oh, right. I almost forgot Emilia. She’s basically the reason I watch this show, no biggie.

Anyway, she’s in a race with the kids, when they’re blocked by Grandma. Emilia makes the smart move and cuts right under Mrs. Benta. It looks like this:

Another reason I like this show so much, it’s rife with smears, which I feel like any good cartoon should have. Like here, where Emilia friggin’ nyooms right under Mrs. Benta like a comet.

Emilia reaches the finish line at the bookshelf, where we see the Viscount of Sabugosa, a puppet made out of an ear of corn who’s very smart and polite. (His name is a pun, “sabugo” means corncob in Portuguese, and it’s a parody of the Count of Sabugosa, of which there were 9, the first being Vasco Fernandes César de Meneses in 1729- but everybody calls him Viscount and so will I because blah)

In this show, the Viscount is the actual size of an ear of corn, which makes sense, he is, after all, a puppet made out of one. I think it’s really funny that the cartoon is slightly more realistic than the live-action show it’s based on in this regard, because in the 2001 series, for whatever reason, the Viscount towers over everyone:

And he has a sick mustache.

Like, I don’t get it, out of all the characters, you made the guy made out of corn the tallest one in the cast? I get that the technology to make him actually small probably wasn’t all there yet, Grandpa in My Pocket was still 8 years off, but you really couldn’t find a guy that wasn’t the same height as Shaq?

Yeesh, only 2 minutes in and I’m getting sidetracked this often. Well, I guess it’s better than having nothing to talk about.

Anyway, Emilia wins the race, but the other two kids run into her, smooshing her against the bookshelf-

-and pwning her so hard she briefly grows fingers on her hand (and turning it into a left hand apparently, because the thumb is on the wrong side)

Mrs. Benta explains that Emilia and the other mystical beings must hide from the impending salesman.

Oh brother, I was wondering when we’d get to this guy. This is Marquis of Rabicó (Portuguese for Short-tail). Literally the first thing you read about him on the show’s Wikipedia is that he’s fat (which you think would be a given cuz he’s a pig), and his part of the Characters section isn’t much better, stating that he’s a “gluttonous, selfish, cowardly and lazy pig” and most of his episodes involve him getting himself and/or others into trouble by being a gluttonous, selfish, cowardly and lazy pig. He’s only ever onscreen to cause problems, either directly or by proxy. If I were to sum him up in one meme, it would be this:

Now, I don’t hate Rabicó, I’m actually quite indifferent towards him, but he does bring down a lot of the episodes that he’s a major part of. Thankfully, there aren’t too many episodes featuring him in the first 2 seasons, but from what I hear, Season 3 goes ham with that shit (pun intended) and it brings down the quality of the season as a whole, so it’s a good thing that’s as far off from now as it is. I want to enjoy the lack-of-pig while it lasts.

But hey, at least he doesn’t look like this:

Don’t do drugs, kids.

Rant over, Mrs. Benta explains that she wants things to look normal because the Yellow Woodpecker Farm is a very peculiar place, where all kinds of weird and wacky stuff goes on, and if word gets out about it, the place will be filled with tourists wanting to get a peek of the action.

Something that Mrs. Benta probably didn’t consider is that there’s a bigger threat to being exposed than just filthy tourism. That’s right, I’m talking about the GOVERNMENT.

I mean, think about it. How many movies have you seen where the government tries to hunt down an unnatural being? E.T., the Sonic Movie, a third one I can’t think of right now, etc. (Lilo & Stitch does not count) Now, I can’t speak for Brazil’s government compared to the U.S., but I know there’s gotta be a division dedicated to dealing with unnatural things that would no doubt arrest Emilia, Rabicó, Viscount, etc. and run experiments on them. Then again, maybe this cartoon takes place in a world where the government doesn’t even exist. I mean, we never really see any urban settings in the show (aside from a brief mention of “the city” in the finale), so for all I know, the world of Sítio do Picapau Amarelo is run by Vermin Supreme.

Real talk, you should all be ashamed of yourselves for not voting for this guy back in 2016.

Initially, Emilia won’t go into her box, but then she gives in and is dragged there by Aunt Nastácia, the housemaid of the farm with a knack for making dolls (so she’s essentially Emilia’s mom). She doesn’t really do much in this episode, but the Fat Bastard does even less, and I still mentioned him.

So Mrs. Benta lets Mr. Simmons into the house and he does this whole spiel about how great the books are, how they can take you to worlds you never imagined, fantasy and action, yadda yadda.

Meanwhile, the kids are off to the side and they’re all like “Well, we met the actual Hercules, get on our level scrub”. And of course, Emilia is watching with them, instead of in her box.

As Simmons keeps on rambling, Emilia is being a little peeping tom, not realizing that one turned head could lead to her being dissected like a high school frog.

Apparently, Emilia thinks she’s a regular Bart Simpson, with shit like spitballs and pulling out the man’s leg hairs. She’s really pushing her luck here, and for little reason. Sure, Simmons called the place boring, but that’s how it’s supposed to be to him.

Of course, Pedrinho and Narizinho are nice enough kids that they bail her out on this one and pretend it was them.

And before Simmons can ask what the hell is going on, Mrs. Benta gives him the money for the books and sends him out the door. And once he’s out...

I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with go.

Of course, they’re not out of the woods yet, cuz Simmons is getting a little suspicious.

Busted. The truth is revealed, all laid out for Simmons to see. A talking rag-doll? Inconceivable! And yet, there it is.

Come on, Viscount. I would expect you of all people to uphold what Mrs. Benta said and stay hidden. You’re smart enough, you should already know what’s at stake, or at least that something is at stake. I mean, I understand that the cat is already out of the bag, but you’re not helping.

Also, you’re thumb is clipping into your bowtie, you should get that checked out.

Rabicó, I hope you get turned into salami. Not out of spite or anything, but just because I like salami.

Naturally, Simmons believes he’s struck gold and found the ultimate tourist trap. But when Emilia points out that if he tells anyone, he’ll sound like a crazy person-

-he straight up Villager Neutral B’s her,

hails a horse, and books it.

Wow, Viscount. Dick move mangling Mrs. Benta’s glasses like that. And all for an impromptu magnifying glass, which is pointless-

-because we can see the horse tracks perfectly fine without them.

(The Viscount isn’t this much of a jerk in the rest of the series, I swear.)

So, the gang follow the tracks until there are no more, which leads them to a corn store.

Wait, a... corn store? As in, a store that mainly, if not exclusively, sells maize and maize accessories? Compared to vegetables in general, that’s quite a niche market, I can’t possibly imagine finding a success in building an entire business around one type of vegetable. Corn is simply not as versatile as something like chocolate or cheese.

Oh no, wait, it’s just a bar. I guess this cartoon takes place in the middle of Prohibition 2: Return of Jafar, and the whole “corn store” thing is just a set up for a speakeasy. (I mean, you could also argue that it’s a diner, but I’mma go with bar because it’s funnier.)

And I’m guessing Simmons expects the place to put all of the meals on his tab, considering he’s going to get the money later with all the tourism. But then, why doesn’t he just pay with the money he got from selling Mrs. Benta those books? So he pulls Emilia out of his bag to show everyone that he has a talking doll and...

Hm. Probably should have put some air holes in that bag.

Anyway, the gang comes in, and Mrs. Benta asks for the doll back, with Narizinho hamming up her Oscar-worthy performance:

So everybody’s giving Mr. Simmons a mean glare:

Including this gentleman who looks like someone just insulted his favorite MHA character (it’s probably Tsuyu):

So Mr. Simmons desperately tries to convince everyone that the doll indeed does talk, and that she comes from a wacky place, but Aunt Nastácia intervenes and says that it’s just a normal doll.

She just straight up roasts Emilia, who (big surprise) does not take it very well. To the point that she is very visibly angry, which you think the barflies would notice.

I mean, look at that and tell me that you wouldn’t notice anything weird.

But anyways, they get the doll back and we get this cute group hug.

D’awww.

So they leave with Emilia-

as Mr. Simmons is beaten to death offscreen for stealing from a little girl.

As the gang walks home, Viscount bends Ms. Benta’s glasses back to normal. Took you long enough, ya jerk.

Not even close, my dear. This is only the beginning.

Well, that was a very good first episode. It introduces the world and many of the main characters very well. And while there were a few issues I had with it, they’re really just nitpicks that don’t detract from the episode as a whole. Overall, a good effort, 8/10.

So, yeah, that’s the first episode down. Join me next time when we watch episode 2, and meet a very vile villain.

Very vile indeed.

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dzamie · 5 years

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I watched the live action Jungle Book! I’d say it was disappointing, but I set appropriate expectations going in. So, imma get into it:

So, the good parts first, in no particular order:

I really like Kaa’s hypnosis effect. The Disney animated movie’s swirling colors always looked really, really goofy to me, but the live-action’s waves of light and dark were very well done and legit alluring.

There are a lot of little jokes here and there that I feel were written in case they wanted to use them in a commercial. “You have never been a more endangered species than you are at this moment” is actually pretty darn funny.

The bodies moved well. King Louie was really the only animal I thought was straining realism too far; the positioning of limbs and torsos and stuff was pretty spot-on. Tails were a bit wonky, but you have to be looking for something like that, as someone with a slight tail fetish might.

This is definitely unintentional, but Mowgli makes an “oof” sound whenever something bowls into him or he leaps roughly against something. It sounds like the Roblox hurt noise. Tone-breaking, but HILARIOUS.

Having Mowgli seem to fear the bonfire was a nice touch.

As was having the final fight seem to take place at the watering hole, this time during wet season. Far from dry, the exact opposite of the Water Truce occurs - everything is in conflict.

Now, the less pleasant bits.

I mentioned the Water Truce callback was neat? Yeah. What a shame they took multiple minutes to repeat over and over that the Water Truce was that there was a truce around the watering hole. I’m glad they used all that time to explain why it was that Shere Khan wouldn’t attack anyone so he could conveniently see the man-cub. Also to set up the schtick where Mowgli has been Inventing Things because he is a Man.

Elephants are now a religion. I don’t like it, especially because it’s used to set up Mowgli rescuing a baby elephant from a hole, so that Baloo and Bagheera can see that Man Is More Powerful Than God.

The wildebeest herd exists only for shakycam purposes. There really isn’t much reason for Mowgli to not go directly into the river and escape Shere Khan on a log that way.

Oh how they ruined Kaa. I do rather like how she has a more cloying, sweet personality (it’s not better or worse than the animation’s rather goofy fellow, just different), but they whole-ass saw a snake character and thought “hey wouldn’t it be cool if she never wove around him or approached him from different angles? Let’s make sure to never show her for more than 8 seconds at a time, too; we MUST cut between her and Mowgli. There’s simply no way to shoot a scene where they’re both in the shot, talking.”

I hope you like snakeless ScarJo voiceover, because that’s literally half of Kaa’s appearance, from first line to last. It’s great that the man who hurt Shere Khan with fire just happened to be Mowgli’s dad, because I guess it’s not enough that Shere Khan wants to kill all humans in the jungle; he must have a Deep Personal Connection with the man-cub.

I can sort of understand coming out of the hypnotic vision to see Mowgli entirely in her coils, from a “this is Mowgli’s perspective” point of view, but wow it’s really unsatisfying. Look, the animated version had Mowgli slide into pre-coiled snek body, but at least we saw them interact. Kaa is pretty much a static prop here. What a waste of a serpentine character.

For someone who is afraid of heights and doesn’t know Mowgli, Baloo sure is eager to climb a big, tall tree and risk his own life against a giant, hypnotic snake.

Minor note: with all the focus on seeing Kaa from Mowgli’s point of view, Disney sure chickens the fuck out when it’s time to be snake chow. C’mon, you stupid mouse, show us what Kaa looks like inside.

It’s kinda weird that Bagheera and Baloo are so familiar with each other, considering that Mowgli has been in close contact with Bagheera all his life and neither met nor heard of the bear.

Shere Khan is almost comically evil to the wolves. Makes it hard to take his “I’m actually justified in my desire to kill you” thing seriously.

I feel like Disney hasn’t grown out of its “haha imagine SONGS in a CHILDREN’S MOVIE. What a stupid fucking idea” phase. Baloo and Mowgli sing off-tempo and off-key, and King Louie does a weird half-speaking thing that lets you know they want to do a song, but haven’t the slightest clue how to transition into one, and they still want to pretend to be a gritty serious realistic movie with no singing because that’s too silly.

King Louie Is Twenty Five Goddamn Feet Tall Because We Watched King Kong The Other Day

They set Louie up to be a mob boss, calm and composed for like a minute or two, and that goes out the window in no time flat. They try to bring back that structured “I help you you help me bada bing bada boom" thing back in the chase scene, but literally nobody cares what the chaser says in the chase scene. If they did, it wouldn’t be a chase scene.

“No, they don’t fear me, they fear you.” Except clearly they fear you because your MO this entire time has been “let’s kill and threaten animals and see if Mowgli comes back faster.”

Baloo, the laziest bear you ever did see who heard the wolf pledge exactly one (1) time and immediately dismissed it as propaganda, can recite it from heart because Shere Khan needs to be directly confronted with The Power Of Friendship

Can’t be a climax without fire. It’s a good thing that Mowgli can always find a safe path through this raging inferno that’s been burning steadily through the forest for the last few minutes or more.

Mowgli’s entire strategy hinges on many things that could go wrong at any moment:

a) the vines don’t catch on fire as he’s running through the burning forest

b) the vines and branch don’t catch on fire after he suspends them in the air in the middle of a huge forest fire

c) the dead tree, notably made of dead wood, which some may know to be extremely flammable, is not on fire nor does it catch on fire as he’s climbing it

d) Shere Khan follows him onto the branch

e) Shere Khan leaps at him on the fragile branch that Shere Khan seems to notice is weak

f) the vines and branch don’t catch on fire while he’s climbing them in the middle of a huge forest fire

g) he finds a way back out of the woods literally filled with fire

h) Shere Khan even follows him all the way in rather than going “nah the little bitch is gonna burn. Let him.”

i) the animals forgive him for setting the trees ablaze

They let ScarJo sing Trust In Me during the credits. Minor suggestion: don’t.

I choose to interpret Mowgli not seeing what happened with Kaa and Baloo to mean Kaa is still alive, and the monkeys trying to dig Louie out of the ruins to mean that he’s dead. This is entirely because of favoritism.

Compared to the animated version, this movie is much more based around Shere Khan, compared to around Mowgli and the jungle. Rather than “Mowgli won’t be safe here; send him to the Man Village so Shere Khan won’t kill him,” it’s “Mowgli won’t be safe here, but Shere Khan is going to threaten and probably kill us until Mowgli returns anyway, which he surely will because Shere Khan said so.”

They tried to do a grey-morality sort of thing by justifying Shere Khan’s fear of fire and hatred towards Men. But it kind of backfires because Shere Khan keeps being incredibly evil for no particular purpose aside from making his death be a good thing for everyone, and the one crime Mowgli commits (big fire) would not have happened if Shere Khan hadn’t announced his plan to kill the man-cub.

I really miss the allegories to different kinds of philosophies towards society from the animated version. The live-action replaces them with examples of different abusive relationships (Baloo is a manipulative fast-talker, Louie is supposed to be a mob boss, Kaa’s comfort is genuine but overshadowed by a desire to do harm), which is... nice, but not really my cup of tea.

Holy shit there is SO MUCH SHAKYCAM. You can barely see some of the scenes from all the shaking around. “Did we inspire adrenaline in you? Don’t you wanna go fast?” Yes, of course, but what am I doing this about? “...SHAKYCAM!! LOUD NOISES!!” It’s overstayed its welcome.

Realistic CGI animals are actually terrible at emoting.

This felt like yet another action film. Every opportunity they had, they threw in another fight scene or chase scene. You could take most of them out, cut off about 15 minutes from the movie, and still not have removed anything important.

All in all, I’m glad I now have 22 seconds of Kaa saying things. They really shouldn’t have given ScarJo so much coverage in the commercials, though. She’s in the movie for about 4 minutes, and she’s a visible snake for much less. I don’t think I’d pay to see this, and really this just gives me more reason to not watch other Disney live-action remakes.

Shakycam should have died eight years ago. Bring back shot composition.

#text #long post #The Jungle Book #reviews

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theficdoctor-blog · 8 years

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Creative Writing Do’s and Don’t’s

Warning: This is the Editor in me that’s speaking. It’s going to be harsh, but when you’re writing, harsh is what you need.

My first creative writing instructor gave us an exercise on the first day of my Intro to Creative Writing class. I swear on my life this exercise will improve your writing instantly. If you just want the list, click the “keep reading”. Open a word document. Write down a few genres. Write down some clichés that makes those genres what they are and include a highly-genre’d example with it. Write as many as you can. Here’s a small example to build on:

Romance (Twilight)

The love triangle

“Their tongues battled for dominance”

The inevitable misunderstanding as a final attempt to inject drama before the resolution

Fantasy (Jupiter Ascending)

A highly detailed world/history

The chosen one

A super special important treasure/artifact/prophecy

Mystery (Scooby Doo (the live action movies))

The ”dun dun DUUUUUN” moment

The film noir style

The assistant who contributes just enough to the mystery so the detective can have all the glory and figure everything out in its entirety

Done with your list? Good. Kiss those vapid love triangles goodbye, send your needlessly convoluted history away, and dump the “dun dun DUUUUN” moment. They’re all USELESS until you learn how to properly twist them into something you can stomach. Relying on clichés kills creativity and promotes laziness. This list is highly condensed and should be used as a bare-bones reference.

When you write your stories...

DON’T:

Use clichés.

Unless you can mutate a cliché well enough to make it original (/make it your own), avoid them at all costs. They are writing suicide.

Fall in love with your work.

It’s important to feel pride in your work, but every word, every sentence, every phrase has to earn its keep. If something isn’t helping the story, cut it out; it’s useless and wastes the reader’s (and your) time.

Drench your work in purple prose.

Purple prose and excessive imagery are for prose poetry, not fiction writing. Purple prose doesn’t do anything but stroke your ego. Take, for instance, this sentence: “Luna felt her gasp caress her dainty trachea similarly to how her father cradled her in his strong, loving arms on her blessed and most anticipated day of birth, making her also remember the way, Reggie, her first boyfriend would lovingly embrace her under the moonlit glow and the cherry trees deep in the sticky, heavy summer nights of her teen years.” Chill. If you can’t say a sentence in one breath, it’s not worth keeping. This is an exposition dump. The reader has to drag their feet through it. It slows the narrative down to an agonizing pace. Just say “she gasped.” There’s no shame in using simplistic language if you know how to use it. For instance, gasping is a fast movement. You want the reader to feel the fast movement—that’s why it’s best to just say “she gasped.” She shouldn’t be stuck in a gasp for ten minutes.

Put your first draft on a pedestal.

I don’t care if you’re Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Shakespeare, Karen Russell, or Anne Rice; your first draft is always awful. Edit it, polish it, love it, commit to it. If that sounds like “too much,” then you’re gonna be stuck with writing crap, and I don’t ever wanna hear “I wish I was a better writer,” because I’m telling you right this second that you’ll never improve if you always accept your first draft as gospel.

Dump exposition on the reader.

There’s always going to be at least one writer that forces their character into a soliloquy about how “their entire village was burned down by thieves and murderers, and only they were left standing because their sainted mother tucked them away in a magical tree trunk which was blessed by whatever deity is in charge of this world.” OR, alternatively, “James climbs into Reggie’s window one day while Reggie is working at the coffee shop, finds Reggie’s diary, and reads about how Reggie was tragically in love with his twin sister before his abusive father killed both his twin sister and his mother before his eyes, and that is why Reggie is always so determined to find happiness in everything around him because he can’t bear to think back on the horrors of his past without going into seizures or spasms.” Let things unfold organically and at their own pace. Let characterization tell the story, not your general plan.

Rely on misunderstandings.

I swear that misunderstandings can be a whole sub-genre in itself for how often they’re abused. Usually, misunderstandings are used so James and Reggie will get angry at each other, Luna has to point out that they were both wrong, and James has to run through the airport after Reggie’s train (security be damned) with tears pouring down his cheeks in a desperate attempt to get Reggie back (who also dramatically brushes tears from his eyes) before he flies back to Idontknowwhereizstan for forever.

Focus on death (for the pure enjoyment of making your readers shriek “NOOOO”).

It’s lazy. It skews the stakes of your story, making all the other stakes boring. EVERYONE kills off their characters. No one’s “evil” or funny for doing it. It’s become cliche. Either start a story with death or eradicate it altogether because what’s important is the aftermath—the character development. Never ever focus on death. I don’t care what a saint little Suzie is; she’s not allowed to die from her terminal cancerheartattacklupusitis until you’ve made her human. And even then you’re not allowed to end the story with her dying either—Reggie has to be there at her bedside with the chocolate cake she’s been dreaming about having for six years. And you have to show that aftermath.

Use the same voice for every character and the narrative.

I know it’s very tempting to use the long-winded, intricate tone of The Whimsical Author, but I assure you that giving all your characters and narrative that voice will indeed hammer the final nail into the coffin on your writing career. I don’t care how smart The Author of Whimsy sounds, the Monty Python Babbling is way more interesting and varied. Your characters are ideas. You breathe life into them. They take on life of their own. If you use the same voice for everything, you’re telling your readers you can’t write worth a damn but you know what sounds kinda pretty.

Shove your characters in a corner.

This is one of the most common causes of writer’s block. If you’ve shoved your characters in a corner, you’ve stripped them of their organic movement. Characters will move and function on their own. You have to let them breathe and meander; that’s what will ensure that you’ll get a great story out of them. I don’t care how much you want James to sob and throw himself into Reggie’s arms so Reggie will save him from the school bully and also kiss James. James isn’t that kind of person. James is too prideful.

Use “(s)he felt…”

The best way to kick your reader away from their screen and scream “YOU’RE READING A STORY WRITTEN BY ME, SOMEONE. I EXIST. THESE ARE JUST CHARACTERS. YOU’RE READING SOMETHING FAKE” is to use “(s)he felt,” or “(s)he heard,” or “(s)he smelled.” It’s best to just outright state the feeling, sound, or smell rather than insist the reader see everything through the characters’ eyes. You want to draw the reader in. How can you do that if you constantly remind them they’re scrolling through AO3, trying to find more fics specifically about James and Reggie ignoring the canon and falling into each other’s arms five sentences in? “Heat radiated from his hand,” “The oven timer shrieked,” and “The scent of charcoaled biscuits filled the room” yank the reader into the scene to stand beside the characters and watch them up close.

Rely on adverbs.

The adverb is the lazy writer’s way to generate description. Take, for instance, this sentence: “Reggie scarily placed his hand by James’s head and glared at him.” Yeah, you shoved Reggie’s anger in our faces, and we have no idea what James is doing. Instead: “Reggie smacked his hand against the wall, snatching James’s attention away from Luna.” We don’t even need Reggie’s glare to know he’s mad in this context. This way, we can explore a greater range of emotions by carefully selecting our words based on connotations and speed. Jealousy, panic, varying attentions, varying reading speeds, and so on.

Use the “dun, dun, DUUUUN” moment.

I’m serious about this one. Nothing makes your story quite so flimsy, clichéd, and cartoony as the “dun, dun, DUUUN” moment. I’ve seen this moment plenty of times in workshops, and every time I have to struggle to be nice and say “maybe that makes your story seem a little clichéd. It’d give it more depth if it were open-ended or more realistic.” Don’t get me wrong. These were not incompetent writers by any stretch of the imagination. They just didn’t know what to stay away from sometimes. Writing this infamous moment into your story is the equivalent of euthanizing it and ensuring it looks like Floops’s Fooglies from Spy Kids as it goes down.

Use whatever tense or POV you want whenever you feel like it.

You can absolutely use 2nd person present tense for your story, but realize that, that sort of craft element is best kept to flash fiction-length stories. A reader (unless they’ve read Homestuck) will have a hard time reading 2nd person present tense for 12 chapters. 3rd person is nice and easy. 1st person allows you to cheat your way towards better inner-reflections for characters. Present tense indicates a sense of panic (it disallows moments for reflection). Past tense allows you to take your time. Whatever you decide to tackle, make sure you choose the right tense and point of view and stick to it. You cannot jump to whatever tense you feel like every other paragraph; there has to be a reason.

DO:

Let the characters lead the story

Time and time again I’ve seen writers get frustrated because their characters won’t conform to what they’ve planned. We forget that our characters are not dolls to play with. It’s good—GREAT, even—when your characters create a clear path for themselves! Your character knows their story. Let them guide you through it.

Remember that a writer records their characters, not forces them.

It’s hard to get a story to feel natural, yes, but if you just sit and watch your characters, they’ll tell you what to write. You don’t have to put a ton of brain power into it; it’s instinct. Keep your hands off that steering wheel. Just scribble down exactly how James’s nail taps against the wheel in frustration as Reggie leans his entire upper body out the window to demand the name of that corgi sitting on the sidewalk.

ALWAYS write literary realism.

You’re banned from genres. You have to write literary realism now. Literary realism is a record of characterization and of life progressing naturally. No clichés allowed unless you can spin them. If you can realistically see your character fitting in a Saturday morning cartoon, you’re doing it wrong.

Give your characters idiosyncrasies.

“Idiosyncrasies” boils down to odd habits and gives a lot of character with little effort on your part. This is an example of letting the character lead the story. If you don’t know enough idiosyncrasies off the top of your head, go people-watching. Why do they act the way they act? Why would Reggie cry when presented with chocolate cake? Why would Luna click her car lock button precisely four times every time she leaves it? How does James drink his soda? Why would a chin lift from Reggie make his dog instantly protective?

Be patient.

The tools you have at your disposal are versatile and vast. You have so much more to work with than you know; it’s overwhelming. Take some time and get familiar with your style. Be patient, you’ll get it.

Set deadlines.

It’s hard for me to write every day so I write one chapter every week. You must do this to keep your tools sharp and strong. It also helps to look up writing exercises (specifically from The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley; obey that word count.)

EDIT. ALWAYS EDIT. ALWAYS. EDIT. ALWAYS.

I can’t stress this enough. I don’t care if that sentence is the best one you’ve ever written. Take it out if it doesn’t help your story. I don’t care how nice the word ‘paraphernalia’ is, your 5-year-old character won’t know how to use it appropriately; it’ll throw off the reader. It’s not gonna make the kid seem smart; it’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb and announce that you have no idea how characterization works. If you’re not gutting and re-gutting your drafts, you’re not doing it right. Sometimes you have to break it down to dust and rebuild in order to make it perfect—in order to make it something you can be proud of.

Remember that every first draft is garbage (don’t worry about it).

If you can’t start your story or chapter, just write garbage (this works for school papers, too). Just write the worst first draft you can. It’s always easier to edit a physical document than it is to write something perfect from the ground up. It’s also a huge time-saver.

Write when you feel inspiration hit (because there’s no guarantee it’ll stay or come back).

Write your story from the final scene all the way back to the beginning if you must. The order doesn’t matter (of course this is why you always edit). You’ll never be in a constant state of inspiration for a scene. Write it while you can. You can adjust it to fit in your story when you get there.

Use active voice (don’t fear the simple sentence).

Passive voice makes the reader drag their feet. Using “Reggie was placed on the bed,” “James was stopped by the door,” and “I’ve been told by Luna that my writing has been lacking punch because taking my time is what I insist on doing so I have the ability to show everyone how annoying it is to read slowly” will absolutely burden your reader. It’s okay to use passive voice when you do want things to slow down (maybe during sensual scenes or silence/drama-heavy moments), but using active voice makes it easier on the reader and picks up the pace. “James placed Reggie on the bed.” “Luna smacked the door in James’s face.” “Luna said my writing lost its punch, but I just wanted to show the active voice’s benefits.”

Start your story at the beginning.

Whenever I open up a story, I scroll past the first few paragraphs because the author spends that long telling me what happened with James’s beloved pet cat he had when he was two and how it coughed up hairballs in his tiny shoes, and it is never mentioned again. Or, the author will spend the entire first chapter dumping all the history of their universe on me, so I’ll have to skip to the next one in order to get started. I don’t need your history in the form of a textbook—I don’t want it like that. I want to see it expressed through the characters. I want James to say, “Reggie, you can’t park your bike there. It’s illegal on west-facing streets” rather than see a full chapter with this kind of detail: “Back in the crisp Fall of 1952, there was a gang of 15-year-old bikers who kept the town soaked in fear. Eddie Haskell, the Two-Faced Town Tattler, was the ring leader, picking off people he saw unfit for the image he had for his town. Always, they’d park their bikes along west streets, facing their handlebars towards the sunset to indicate the day when they’d finally burn the place to the ground. This is why it is illegal to park your bike on west-facing streets.” Sure, it’s interesting, but it’s got nothing to do with Reggie and James, you’re never going to bring it up again, and you’ve wasted a paragraph (These things take up like 5 paragraphs usually). If you wanna talk about Eddie Haskell, then tell the story about Eddie Haskell, but if your story is all about Reggie and James getting over their pride and fessing up to each other, then start it there.

Incorporate the three imperative questions:

What are the stakes? Death? No. Get death out of your mind. Think deeper. What happens if the characters don’t get what they want?

What do these characters want? Ice cream, the world, Reggie. Anything. If you develop proper motive, it won’t matter what they want.

What’s the character’s motive? James wants ice cream because it’s hot out.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve exited out of a fic because I just didn’t care. “James killed Eddie.” Okay. So what? I’m supposed to care because James did something shocking? That’s it? How about: “In a fit of fear, Reggie smacked the offered chocolate ice cream cone from James’s hands. The two stared down at the wasted dessert as Reggie’s mind edged back to reality. James looked to Reggie with eyes filled with worry.”

We’ve got stakes (Reggie’s suffering), wants (James wants to give Reggie something nice and keep him comfortable; Reggie doesn’t want chocolate anywhere near him), and the motive (James and Reggie are friends; they care about each other). Every character needs a want, a drive, and stakes in order to be a decent character—a character worth caring about.

Write flash fiction.

Writing flash fiction (stories varying from 100-800 words in length) has helped me tremendously with cutting out any word, phrase, or concept that doesn’t earn its keep. A flash fiction is not a chapter of something. It is a complete story. A flash fiction is a smack of a story or a blast of fireworks. The reader will only have enough time to feel the burn on their cheek or stare in awe as the fireworks disappear into the night sky. Do not use the “once upon a time” 794 words “the end” structure. Flash fiction doesn’t work like that. You can only write enough to get the idea out and developed. Write lots of flash fiction.

Read flash fiction.

Reading flash fiction (since it’s designed to be short) is easy and fast. Flash fiction is filled to the brim with symbolism and interesting concepts (which is what this specific writing form is for). I recommend snatching up Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. The longest flash fiction in there is probably just three pages long. The shortest, I believe, is just over half a page.

#This is just a basic overview #dos and donts of creative writing #advice #writing #creative writing #fan fiction #how to #how to write #how to write creatively #how to write fan fiction

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juliamulders · 8 years

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Nine weeks down. 6 to go.

Thoughts and analysis:

From a central point moving outwards - as I want to continue with this ‘inside-outside’ approach that branches outwards from the centrally placed water point, I have used the spatial diagram and overlapping flower image as a guide to sketch over. Whilst sketching I thought about how the spaces need to be separated according to the function of each space. In most cases the main spaces are divided into 4 with the numbers indicating how each could be divided.

Very similar to previous experimentation with Moringa leaf - although I used an image of a Moringa flower this time, I found the outcomes very similar to what I did last week with the leaf. Both items branch outwards from a central position, so although this affects the circulation route, the spaces which ‘grow’ from this position remain the same. The flower shape as an inspiration for spatial layout could lead to multiple circulation routes (entrances & exits) whereas the leaf shape provided a more linear/ ‘direct’ route. I will need to further experiment with this to be able to decide which would work more effectively.

Nutritional ‘message’ - after doing this experimentation and realizing the similarities of the spatial layout produced, I feel it would make more sense to use the leaf as an inspiration for the configuration of the space. As it is the leaves that are dried into a powder and used as a nutritional supplement, it would be appropriate to use this to inform the design, rather than the flower (which is also edible, but not as nutritionally-rich). This is how I intend to incorporate nutrition into the design.

In preparation for my tutorial this week, I experimented further with the moringa-inspired spatial layouts, hoping to come up with a final one (this unfortunately didn’t quite work out as planned). Although I have an idea of which works best from an ‘inside-outside’ perspective, I keep on branching outwards (excuse the pun) rather than narrowing the concept down. New ideas, routes and compositions evolve and I can’t help but explore them! I need to keep reminding myself of my aims and intentions, and allow myself limited time for this design development stage. It’s difficult to juggle so many things at the same time - then again, this is the life of a designer.

Tutorial feedback and reflection:

Make a decision on the number of patients/visitors/staff based it on what is being done at the moment i.e. how current under-5 clinics are done - How many staff members do they have at a session? How long does a session take?

Take examples of how current NGO’s run clinics - make a list of pro’s and con’s and use these ‘real facts’ as the parameters for this project. e.g. How do Save The Children run their clinics/workshops/presentations?

Remind yourself of the local materials and the community-based factors. These are the most important factors that should be the driving force, although there are also many other factors contributing to this clinic project (identity, progress, belonging). As the community is going to be involved in the making, maintenance and running of the facility, remind yourself what they know - What do they already know about the materials you intend to use? How can their skills help deliver this project? Is there a way I can adjust ‘what they know’, to help realize the design? Juggling this all at once is the challenge!

Pick a scenario to get a sense of how the space will function. Hypothetically, what will be happening in each space during a clinic session? How will they co-ordinate with each other? Will it work as more of a ‘process’ where patients/visitors go from one to the next in a parallel manner? Think about the logistics of how the space will work.

Finalize and make a firm decision on the requirements of each space (I could possibly do this by creating something similar to an FF&E for each).

This is a student project - so although you want it to be as realistic as possible, it is important to keep in mind that it is the research and personal experience that will justify your reasons for making certain decisions.

I have been developing my CV. I am not sure if I am entirely happy with it yet, but I have decided not to include examples of work in it, as I feel this is what my website is for. I have gone for a simple, minimalist approach which is easy to follow and only contains the necessary information. This is what my digital version could (potentially) look like:

Things to adjust:

Photograph - does this fit with the overall layout?

The logo and name - logo too big? name is possibly not bold enough?

The ‘about me’ section - less words could be used for the same description.

The bottom half of the layout - I wanted to incorporate the circles as this would reflect the main layout of my website design, but I think these might distract from the information that is most important on the document.

I have gone through the list of feedback/advice that was given to me at Tuesdays tutorial - it’s time to start ticking things off the list!

I started by clarifying (in as much detail as I could) the functions & capacity of each space. I feel I should have done this a while ago, as I would have been further along in the design process if I had made these decisions more quickly. Below, are examples of how I categorized the information, which will be accompanied by visuals in my design report:

In order for my design to be as realistic as possible, I contacted several people to help with the clarification of my facts and figures (which I initially acquired through research & conversations with my parents and local farm workers). Having lived in Zambia all my life I understand much of the local peoples’ culture, but there is also a lot I have never experienced for myself. e.g. been present at an under-5 clinic. Unfortunately, I am not able to keep traveling back home to find this out for myself, so I have contacted Save The Children Zambia, and four Peace Corps volunteers to help me gain a better understanding of this in particular. This is an example of the e-mail correspondence:

I also contacted Moringa farmers in Zambia. Again, I would like confirmation that I’m not ‘barking up the wrong tree’. And it would be great if I can get some hold of photos that are not on the internet!

The following two precedents have been major influences in my design:

Artists Residency & Cultural Center, Senegal - I chose to include this project primarily because members of the local community and local materials were used in its construction process. It is also a brilliant example of how local knowledge, material and technique can be used in combination with contemporary design innovations.

I take inspiration from the simple ingenuity of its architecture. Basic materials have been used here to create a form that 'celebrates' them, which I believe is very important in my own project. A structure that represents progress (by combining local materials and techniques with modern design solutions), but which also belongs within the African landscape and provides a local identity, is key to the design of the clinic.

Images taken from: http://www.archdaily.com/608096/new-artist-residency-in-senegal-toshiko-mori (accessed: 10th March 2017).

Women’s Opportunity Center, Rwanda - The design of this women's center focuses on the use of the community itself and local materials which influences how it belongs within this rural society and gives these women a sense of ownership. Similarly, in the rural Zambian culture, these two elements are very important to consider in order for it to be successful. In the same way, I would like to use the community of women in each 'catchment area' to gather and manipulate local material in order to be used in the construction of a facility that they will eventually benefit from.

Design-wise, I would like to incorporate circular design elements (taking inspiration from the traditional mud hut), so it is reassuring to see that curved walls can be made using clay in this brick form. They have created a 'clustered' design which is something I have proposed in my design (inspired by the physical layout of rural villages in Zambia). They have deliberately left gaps in between the bricks for natural ventilation, incorporated different levels of seating on the inside and outside curved walls, and have access to small-scale farming 'beds' - all of which I hope to incorporate into my own design.

Images taken from: http://www.archdaily.com/433846/women-s-opportunity-center-sharon-davis-design (accessed: 10th March 2017).

Because I enjoyed working on the Surface Pro, I thought to try out another gadget from the studio: a Cintiq Wacom Tablet. It took some getting used to, but it makes work more exciting! I have been using it to sketch and visualize idea development, hoping to be able to come to a final layout soon, one that I can start drawing up in AutoCAD to get dimensions (as no doubt, sizes of the rooms in the sketch layouts will need to be manipulated & adapted to suit realistic scenarios). I took the concepts from the previous moringa-leaf-inspired 2D diagrams & used case studies to influence the next stage of sketch development. I tried to think creatively whilst still keeping the functions, capacity, circulation & probable materials in mind. I also began sketching in 3D to help with visual perception, annotating and reflecting as I went along.

During the weekend, I worked on updating my website. I have shown my progress below. I am almost finished with it! I will be sending my updated link to family and friends to ask for feedback on whether or not it’s as user-friendly as I had hoped. When you work on something for a length of time, you get used to the way it works; I now need some outside perspectives.

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writingguide003-blog · 5 years

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9 short stories from female British writers you badly need to read

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/9-short-stories-from-female-british-writers-you-badly-need-to-read/

9 short stories from female British writers you badly need to read

Nothing beats a good book.

Image: bob al-greene

Short stories may not take as long as novels to put together, but that doesn’t make them any easier to perfect.

SEE ALSO: I tried to write a novel in a month and now I have a publishing offer

Crafting a short story that really sings off the page — one that stays with the reader after the book’s been slotted back on the shelf — is no easy feat.

There are plenty of people who have one hell of a talent for it, though.

From libraries and hospitals to pressed roses and foot fetishes, here are some short stories from female British writers you badly need to check out.

1. “When the Door Closed, It Was Dark”, by Alison Moore (published in The Best British Short Stories 2011)

What’s it about?

A young woman in a foreign country starts a new job with an unsettling family.

Why should you read it?

Alison Moore is the type of writer who can communicate a whole atmosphere with just a few well-placed sentences. This story is the perfect example of her skill. It’s one of those ones that creeps up on you — there’s a kind of ominous, claustrophobic subtext to everything, and you know something is going to go horribly wrong without being able to tell exactly what, or why you feel that way. The ending, when it comes, is as grim as expected — but it’s not what you expect.

2. “Books and Roses”, by Helen Oyeyemi (published in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours)

What’s it about?

A baby is found abandoned at a chapel with a note and a mysterious golden key on a chain around her neck.

Why should you read it?

This one has the kind of otherworldly, mysterious quality to it that will appeal to fans of His Dark Materials. Oyeyemi has a way with description that immediately pulls you into the world she creates — a world full of secret gardens, libraries, hidden doors, and more symbolism than you can shake a pressed rose at. It’s also one of those stories that’s like a puzzle you need to put together yourself; as soon as you finish — at least if you’re anything like me — you’ll want to skim back through and look for clues you might have missed.

Image: riverhead books/pan macmillan/mashable composite

3. “Feather Girls”, by Claire Massey (published in The Best British Short Stories 2011)

What’s it about?

A mysterious village populated by women who live in the lake as swans until they meet a partner.

Why should you read it?

This is one of the shorter stories on the list, which makes the vivid world Massey manages to paint all the more impressive. “Feather Girls” is like a dark, adult fairytale — there’s a magical quality to the girls who transform from swans when they leave the water, but it’s tainted by the threat of the men who catch and hide their coats to keep them from going back.

4. “Footer”, by Irenosen Okojie (published in Speak Gigantular)

What’s it about?

A woman with a foot fetish posts an advert on Craigslist.

Why should you read it?

You could make a strong argument that the first and last lines of a short story are among the most important — and the opening to “Footer” (“She wanted her feet fucked”) is certainly one that grabs the attention. This story is a good example of something Irenosen Okojie does very well in her writing, which is seamlessly weaving a kind of dark humour with something altogether more tragic and poignant. Another thing Okojie does well is hiding nasty little shocks right at the end of her tales. “Footer” is one of those ones that’ll make you want to go back over the final few paragraphs to make sure you read them right the first time.

5. “I Arrive First”, by Emma Jane Unsworth (published in The Best British Short Stories 2012)

What’s it about?

A student who sends a guy in her university’s library messages using books.

Why you should read it?

The best thing about this story is the way the tone subtly shifts and tilts as it progresses: we start off thinking it’s a quirky little love story about two students who are courting through the medium of library books; but the further in we get, the less reliable the narrator seems. Ultimately she’s not so much an unreliable narrator as an ambiguous narrator, though — is she the participant of a light-hearted, ongoing game, or a fantasist who’s manufactured an entire scenario in her own mind? We don’t get a straight answer, and I think the story is all the better for it.

Image: salt/jacaranda books art music ltd/mashable composite

6. “Then Later, His Ghost”, by Sarah Hall (published in Madame Zero)

What’s it about?

A man struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where gale-force winds never stop blowing.

Why should you read it?

I’ve always had a soft spot for a good ol’ post-apocalyptic tale, but more often than not they can be a bit samey. Zombies, plague — you know the type thing. The best thing about Then Later, His Ghost, though, is that it feels like a very original little story. The detailed descriptions of the wind’s nightmarish, destructive force give the whole thing a realistic, could-this-actually-happen vibe which makes the story constantly tense, and the relationship between the main character and the pregnant woman he’s helping adds an undercurrent of poignancy.

7. “Doctors”, by Anneliese Mackintosh (published in The Best British Short Stories 2013)

What’s it about?

A woman’s dad falls ill as she studies for a PhD in literature.

Why should you read it?

This is one of those stories that catches you totally off guard. It’s written in upbeat, skippy second person which makes it read like an email to a friend, and the effect is disarming. You start off thinking it’s going to be an amusing, relatable tale about a young woman struggling to find the right path post-university, and then everything suddenly gets a whole lot darker and more poignant. It’s jarring, and brilliant.

Image: faber & faber/salt/mashable composite

8. “Fractures”, by Irenosen Okojie (published in Speak Gigantular)

What’s it about?

The lives of two damaged twins are shaken by the arrival of a mysterious man.

Why should you read it?

There’s so much going on in this unsettling little story that the one-line description above really doesn’t do it justice. The whole thing starts off with the potential for a budding romance in a cafe, and then the story completely goes off the rails: there’s a dark backstory about kidnapping and assault; there’s family bereavement, stolen identity and — wait for it — even the brow-furrowing hint of something extraterrestrial right at the end, just to really catch you off guard. The thing is, though, it works. Okojie’s style of writing — which melds realistic settings with surreal metaphor — allows her to sprinkle speculative elements throughout her story in a way that makes them feel bizarrely natural.

9. “The Not-Dead and the Saved”, by Kate Clanchy (published in The Not-Dead and the Saved and Other Stories)

What’s it about?

A mother sits by the hospital bed of her ill son at various stages throughout his life.

Why should you read it?

I could tell you this story didn’t make me cry a single tear, but frankly that would be a stone cold lie. Fair warning: it’s a sad one. But it’s also brilliantly written — Clanchy manages the story’s large time jumps perfectly, and the realism of the characters and the description makes the whole thing all the more emotional. Oh, and the story’s also won a couple of massive awards: it earned Clanchy the VS Pritchett Memorial Prize and the BBC National Short Story Award, which is pretty incredible.

WATCH: This futuristic library is an architectural marvel, but its walls are lined with fake books

Read more: http://mashable.com/

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i-amusemyself · 6 years

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All Lets Get Personal.

Thanks anon!! My depressed ass needed something to do

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

It really depends on my mood tbh. But judging by my YouTube playlists:

Church- Fall out boy; Hopeless Wanderer- Mumford and Sons (its a jam okay?); Summertime- my chemical romance; so cold- ben cocks; this is me- keala settle and killing in the same- rage against the machine

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Lmao idk I dont have much of an interest in anyone atm. I still think itd be cool to meet kaitlyn alexander ig

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

You recognise each other the moment your eyes meet. It’s a question and answer book and the question is about soulmates or something

4: What do you think about most?

What it is I need to do to stop feeling anxious or stressed since it’s a daily battle

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

“it was hillarious but I couldn’t say “lmao I’ve seen women take bigger” so I just let the conversation die but I was urging to show him a savage video and ruin him just to be right but then I stopped myself”

Yes, it is as bad in context as out of it.

Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Depends how warm it is tbh

What’s your strangest talent?

Talent? What’s that?? Idk I’m quite good at picking up languages super fast for some unknown reason (but i can forget them just as quick soo

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

Girls are hot hot hot they make me gay

Boys are hot hot hot they make me gay

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Nah, but I’m not major sad about it since that’d be so awkward

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

Oh gosh um probably in the car the other day, canny remember which song it was tho

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

I seriously hate water like to the point I chose my uni based on where the lakes were. I also hate stuffed toys with voice boxes.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Probably but I don’t remember

13: What’s your religion?

I’m an athiest

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Walking between indoor places

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind it! I’m not photogenic

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Ummmmmmm idk. I genuinly don’t know. I probably listen to five finger death punch most atm?

17: What was the last lie you told?

I said I was feeling good lmao

18: Do you believe in karma?

I don’t know, but I like to hope it does to make myself feel better

19: What does your URL mean?

I think it’s pretty self explanatory

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

My greatest weakness? Probably my low opinion of myself or my associated jealousy.

My greatest strength? A few years ago I mightve said my resilience but I’m not sure I ever have that anymore. Idk, maybe my need to always keep improving as a person

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

See number 2 tbh

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

Yah every time I have a bath

23: How do you vent your anger?

I send massive long rant paragraphs to my closest friends and try not to do anything stupid or unhealthy

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

I have a pretty big collection of reaction images and memes

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

I hate both but video chatting is slightly better

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

I suppose. I’m closer to being happy with them than I ever have been and that’s what matters.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

At this point I hate the sound of my alarm more than most things and I love... idk music. Does that count?

28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

What if I’d stood up for myself more?

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

I don’t know as I believe in ghosts but I’m fascinated by the people who do. As for aliens ofc they exist.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

I touch sofa. Both times. I’m sat on a sofa.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

I smell rabbit since he’s currently sat with me in a box. I got lonely.

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

Gosh I don’t know. I can’t really think of anywhere I’ve hated being, besides home sometimes. I don’t know, no where has been that bad since I always try to make the best of it.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

East coast

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Opposite eh? Lmaoooo

Okay I actually have quite a thing for the lead singer of motionless in white. Make of that what you will.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

To be happy, to go good and to die with as few regrets as possible

36: Define Art.

Fuck. Something visual this is made to be aesthetically pleasing or convey a message. I guess.

37: Do you believe in luck?

I’m not entirely sure what luck is. Maybe?

38: What’s the weather like right now?

Fekkin horrible, you wouldn’t know it’s spring. It’s grey and wet and windy and cold.

39: What time is it?

17:51

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

I have a full license but haven’t actually driven since my test, so I haven’t had a chance to crash.

41: What was the last book you read?

When breath becomes air. It’s about being a doctor.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

I adore it yaas

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Char, (wholemeal) chorlo and Thot lmao

44: What was the last film you saw?

Love, Simon

Go see it, it’s gay and beautiful!

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

Idk, I broke my humorous after dislocating my elbow once. But that was ages ago

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

Hundreds lmao thats my childhood right there

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

I’m too depressed to have much of an interest in anything tbh. Even when I’m not I don’t tend to get That Invested.

48: What’s your sexual orientation?

Bisexual, ig. Though saying it never feels right for some reason.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

A few, a few. One being that I was a lesbian years before even I knew I wasn’t straight.

50: Do you believe in magic?

Not really but who knows

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

The threshold for grudges is pretty high but if I have one I’ll be bitter til the day I die

52: What is your astrological sign?

Libra

53: Do you save money or spend it?

I swing wildly between saving loads and spending loads. Healthy.

54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

Um I mean I paid the deposit on a house, does that count?

55: Love or lust?

Love, for sure

56: In a relationship?

Yeah XD

57: How many relationships have you had?

This is like my third proper one

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

Nope

59: Where were you yesterday?

At home on my tod again, revising

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Nah

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

Yuup

62: What’s your favourite animal?

I love all the animals I can’t pick a favourite. I love alpacas, chimps, gorrillas, orangutans, lizards, elephants, octopuses etc etc

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

Excessive praying and reblogging lucky posts

64: Where is your best friend?

Tbh I have multiple, one in the next village, one 6 hours south and one 4000 miles away

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

Christ um, people I spam with likes most are probably @oneshappyplace @apricot-el @only-slightly-dangerous @succeeding and @setheverman

66: What is your heritage?

I’m white as a toilet so my family probably murdered a lot of innocent people

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Umm I was skyping my boyf and playing a game online with him

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

Trump

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

Yeah, haven’t most people?

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

I like to think so yeah. Though I do have a lot of breakdowns so maybe without that part. @ my friends I apologise

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Help the dog. Though realistically I probably couldn’t do it alone, so would call someone over to help and leave asap to not be so late.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

I think I’d tell the people closest to me, yeah. I don’t know what I’d do though. Probably book as many flights as possible and visit all the countries I’ve always wanted to go to. I guess I’d probably write my will and organise a funeral too. I don’t think I’d be too afraid, just, idk, sad? I don’t want to disappear to nothingness yet, even if I won’t know when it happens.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

Argh that’s horrid. I mean trust is essential for all relationships imo. But if I had no love at all in my life I doubt I’d live very long at all. So... love? No wait,,, trust. Yeah trust.

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men. It reminds me of a school trip years ago to Belgium that was such a good time

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

8008

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Well, trust ig, being able to talk about anything, a good balance of affection and roasting. Idk

77: How can I win your heart?

Be kind, be funny and have layers.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

I suppose so

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

The decision to reply to the message that appeared in my inbox right before I was going to end it. There were plenty, but I only opened that one. The person who sent it changed my life.

80: What size shoes do you wear?

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

Either a pun or something ominous. Maybe both.

82: What is your favourite word?

Probably sorry since I say it a lot

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Love, followed quickly by the mental image of a dissected heart

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

I amuse myself. Gotta keep up that brand sponning.

85: What’s the last song you listened to?

Don’t feel like dancing by the scissor sisters lmao

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

Black, red and purple

87: What is your current desktop picture?

Just a galaxy

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald. Trump. When in close proximity to Mike Pence too.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

Besides “what are your credit card details”? Idk, perhaps a question about the flaws of the people closest to me, since they’re something I wouldn’t want them to read.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Lie there still for a good 5 minutes just to make sure. Maybe chuck a pillow across the room to see if they attack it. Then go fetch my phone and call whoever will pick up to ask wtf to do.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

The ability to fly probably. It’d help stop me being late and transport is so expensive these days.

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

A half hour period of the time me and my friend spent outside laughing our heads off and covered in glitter when I visited her in the states last summer

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Damn, only one? Lmao catch me ranking my traumas to try to answer this question. I’ll erase getting flooded and being made homeless I think lmao

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Probably P!nk since she was low key my gay awakening

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

I quite fancy going to amsterdam rn, or failing that, copenhagen

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

Not that I know of

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

Only as a little kid

98: Ever been on a plane?

Plenty of times yeah, I love it

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

I wish there was some way I could convince all the dictators, extremists and right wingers to just fekkin stop tbh. Centrists can stay but theyre on thin ice.

0 notes

tube-thoughts-blog · 7 years

Text

tube thoughts vol. 5

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star- dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

Hanna-Barbera present Hillbilly Bears - "Woodpecked" *To stop Maw from nagging his lazy ass, Paw hatches a plan that involves hooking two woodpeckers up, only it backfires, when their screwing reproduces.* 3 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: "The Robot versus The Aztec Mummy" *Bring me the head of Montezuma, and make it snappy. MOOVVIIEE SIGGGGNNNNN!* 2 1/2 stars with riffing 2 stars without

Scare Tactics: ---- *Gorilla with a Fist: A slacker goes apeshit during an animal rights activist holdup at a crazy testing lab.* 2 1/2 stars

Anger Mis-Management: Aggression therapy gone wrong.* 2 stars

Fear Antics - The Mandroid: An idiot is convinced to act like a robot and wishes he hadn't when a slow thinking human goes crazy with a crowbar.* 3 stars

World's Scariest Flowers/Smell of Fear: A stalker's special delivery.* 3 stars

----

I'm Alan Partridge: The Talented Mr. Alan *"I was repellant, to women, for two years."* 3 stars

The Prisoner -- 1967 - 1968 -- "Arrival" *A Brit spy awakens in a sickly serene and isolated village from which there is no escape or cerebral evasion.* 3 stars

Shock 'Em Dead (Traci Lords) *A pizza slicin', and always being picked on, poindexter succumbs to the temptation of glowing green goo voodoo in order to become a 'rock god' in a prissy 80's hair-band.* 2 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Judy Miller Come On Down *A bitchy yuppy's boulevard of boring dreams.* 1/2 a star *Gameshow good fortune forces a 'days of future past' visitation experience.* 2 1/2 stars

Rifftrax presents J.J. Ambrams "Lost" (pilot episode) *"When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout."* 3 plus stars with riffing 3 stars without, and zero stars for the vomit vision use of shaking camera

Hanna-Barbera present Jonny Quest: Arctic Splashdown *The team travel to the North Pole to play around with whales, seals, walruses, and the coca cola polar bears. They also try to stop a Ruskie submarine crew from tampering with a crashed, in the ice, rocket.* 3 stars

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" *I was a stubborn human, refusing to give "Rise" a fair chance. I wanted humans, in ape costumes, acting ape. "Dawn" is smarter, and more well made, than any modern "Apes" movie has any right to be. Also, the scene where the villain ape rides horseback, through flames, firing twin machine-guns, during an all out ape-assault, on the human stronghold fortress is the most fun, and satisfying, thing that I've seen, in one of these "Apes" movies, since I first witnessed apes, on horseback, net a fleeing savage-human in the Charlton Heston' "Apes" classic.* 3 stars

Stargate -- Atlantis: "Rising" *Cracking through the ice to find the ancient city of the 'Gate Builders.' Genetically dialing into the unknown. Angels with ugly appetites.* 3 stars

Z Nation: Die, Zombie, Die... Again *Zombie Groundhog Day* 1 star

The Mothman Prophecies *An "It's A Wonderful Life" George Bailey type sad-sack goes chasing a shadowy figure through his own personal Unsolved Mysteries story.* 3 stars

Rifftrax presents "Paranormal Activity" 2007 *Uninspired. for the immature,'shock' end similar to those trick internet videos where a Linda Blair face pops up and screeches when you're staring at something bland for a while.so uncreative that it's more of a threat to the art of filmmaking than digital piracy.* 1 1/2 stars with riffing 1/2 a star without

Swamp Thing: Spirit of the Swamp *Green thumb for a black rose.* 2 1/2 stars

Thundarr, the Barbarian: Challenge of the Wizards *A wacky race, on horseback and roadwarrior vehicles, through a destroyed sin city, for the prize of the ultimate wizard's helmet.* 2 1/2 stars

American Horror Story -- Freakshow: "Pink Cupcakes" *Small screen jealousy. Picnic poisoning attempt. Girl with a goober gynecological visit. Gay bar American Psycho. Strongman finger torture. Missing maid's daughter. Lobster Boy looking for true love. Morbidity fame dreams. More David Bowie.* 3 stars

Bob Clampett's "Beany and Cecil" 1962 *"Your obedient serpent" a cartoon dragon handpuppet searches for a treasure in goldfish, solves an illegal eagle's bald shame, and screws up looking after the taco bell dog. Complete with commercials for Chatty Cathy, Matty Mattel, and Casper dolls, along with a Beany toy helicopter hat, plus the kid from 'Lost in Space' gets his own Dick Tracy official snub-nose revolver and tommy-gun (so realistic, modern parents' groups would be up in arms, ha.)* 3 stars

Silent Hill: Revelation *Ned Stark, and his bastard, try to protect Alice from underland. Flawed, but a better frightmare than its cousin series, Resident Evil.* 2 stars

Dr. Caligari 1989 *New-Wave Psycho-Sexual DADA Expressionism* 3 stars

Max Headroom --pilot episode-- "Blipverts" *Network 23's hotshot reporter is serious about getting a story, even if the higher ups are willing to snuff him out to stop it. That story being that subliminal sales messages cause slovenly viewers to suddenly 'splode.* 3 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: "Mad Monster" *Long in the tooth, and low on thrills, tale of a lobo named Petro.* 2 stars with riffing 1 1/2 without

Amityville 2: The Possession *Building on burial ground. Basement from hell. Blasphemy. Bad ideas coming from the voice in the headphones. Big, mean daddy. Bad parenting. Beating the kids. Blessing a bloody bed. Bellybutton penetration. Body horror. Bad touch with sister. Blue confession. Black mood birthday. Bullets for loved ones. Batshit defense in court. Bureaucracy of the church. Boy saved by sacrifice. Being forsaken.* 3 stars

Heart She Hollers: And So It Begends *The "Boss" of a grotesque backwoods town tries to continue to micro-manage from beyond via a surreal video-will and his idiot son that he kept secretly bricked up until now.* 2 1/2 stars

"Born Innocent" (Linda Blair) *Cold, mechanical 'justice' for juveniles. Few caring influences. Peers that are jealous hurtful monsters. Disinterested or damaging parental figures. Yearning and underdeveloped 'wards' of whoever is forced to deal with them, and it's unfortunately a system drained of any constructive compassion or intelligent humanity.* 3 stars

Town of the Living Dead: *Zombie Baby: The crew think they have a great idea, a zombie baby (rolls eyes). And they keep screwing up the gross birth scene and nervous kiss scene.* 1 star *Stunt-Double: The chubby mama's boy can't be thrown out of a window, so... a black guy has to take the plunge, instead.* 1 star

The Walking Dead: Self Help *Abraham scares people. He scares his family into fleeing from him, in a flashback, resulting in their deaths. He's about to commit suicide when he meets Eugene and finds his new purpose in life. Eugene needs to watch Abraham and Rosita have sex. He also needs people to believe he's smart. It's been tearing at him and he must confess his dark secret, but this might tear Abraham, and everyone else in the group, apart.* 3 stars

Hill Street Blues --pilot episode-- "Station" *Happy go lucky until it gets heavy and hits with a hard left hook.* 3 stars

Joe Bob's Drive-In: The New Kids *Two orphaned army brats go to live at their uncle's rundown carnival/petting zoo in backwoods Florida where a gang of good ole boys (lead by a creepy James Spader), who won't take no for an answer, decide to make their lives a living hell. Hicksploitation from the creator of the original Friday the 13th.*3stars

William Friedkin's "The Guardian" *A wood nymph (is that what she is?) who frolics & forest bathes nude. A killer tree, like from Evil Dead, that rips people apart. Fairytale like wolves devouring human flesh. Nice modern architectured home. Beautiful wind cinematography like an Andrei Tarkovsky film. Skinemax levels of eroticism. Hansel & Gretel. Hand That Rocked the Cradle. Jeep Wrangler to the rescue. A little ham-fisted. Fun gore fx.* 2 1/2 stars

Kolchak, the Night Stalker: Legacy of Terror *For a year, Erik Estrada's character, PEPE, gets to hangout in a high-end hotel, play a flute, and be pawed over by beautiful blondes. That is if he willingly sacrifices his heart to an Aztec mummy. The fifth sacrifice in an every fifty two year ritual where the heroic are skewered so the blood god will someday rise again.* 2 1/2 stars

Sam Raimi's "Darkman" *Liam Neeson channels Lon Chaney & Boris Karloff doing Tex Avery & Chuck Jones cartoon stunts meets a macabre moody Bruce Timm & Paul Dini cartoon story in one of the first truly good comic style movies.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: Corner of the Eye *A dying priest, suffering from demonic visions, is all out of bubblegum, and patience, with his alien overlords, even though they've given him a seemingly miraculous gift.* 2 1/2 stars

Rifftrax presents: The Bermuda Triangle -1978- *"Annoying sounds and boring repeatitive visuals, Bermuda Triangle, you spoil me."* 3 stars with riffing 1 1/2 stars without

Adult Swim, Newsreaders: *Motorboating Dads: Bros give parental advice for sons.* 2 stars *The Negative $100,000 Question: Smug,unfunny Children's Hospital"celebrity."* zero stars

The Simpsons: Itchy & Scratchy *"So television is responsible!" For the problems with the youth, today, that is. Ahead of its time in pointing out how media protests groups are misguided, could be making better use of their time, and hypocritical. Though it doesn't go easy on the media, either, which is why shows like Simpsons & South Park can be such good satires.* 3 stars

"Wavelength" 1983 *Sublime, stranded and subdued Navi 'children' send out strong signals that they'd like to unobtain our stringent hospitality in this low fi sci fi forgotten classic.* 3 stars

Town of the Living Dead: Zombie Fun Run *The town asses (Thr33 Days Dead) organize a run-from-zombies-a-thon, and the town's assclown (Ben Farley) causes one of the town's jackass mascots (a mule statue) to get ran over, leading to the town's asshole authorities going out and catching Thr33 Days Dead with their pants down and their ass hanging out when they ask them to stop being a zombie pain in the ass all over town and ban them from filming in Jas(s)per.* 2 stars

Twin Peaks: The Path to the Black Lodge *"We are all God's fools, more or less, but you will learn, as I have, the value of hate."* 3 stars

Joseph Zito & Tom Savini present "The Prowler" 1981 --Veteran's Day Movie-- *I'll be seeing you in all the old, familiar places that this heart of mine embraces... I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be slashing you... and pitchforking too...* 3 stars

Chuck Jones' "Yankee Doodle Cricket" *Call it macaroni* 2 1/2 stars

Sam Peckinpah's "The Osterman Weekend" *A cynical, Cold War, conniving version of 'The Big Chill.'* 3 stars

"Thr33 Days Dead" (Why not two e letters instead of two of the number 3? It doesn't look 'cool' and it becomes possible to mistake the title for a 'The 33 Days Dead,' at a glance.) *Plague of the 'People of Walmart'* 2 1/2 stars (It's more entertaining than Birdemic) or 1 1/2 stars (It's almost as poorly made as Birdemic) ---(((this movie is just asking to be riffed by rifftrax)))---

Scare Tactics------------ season 2 episode 6 *: A plumber's helper stumbles onto (Silence of the Lamb's) Buffalo Bill's messy bathroom secret.* 3 stars

*: "Are you kidding me, bro?... WTF, bro?..." Late night, middle of nowhere, construction site, strange cult terrorizing a bro scenario.* 2 1/2 stars

*: "You got me trippin'... I watch 'shit' on t.v." A goofy girl gets going- going- gone, when Mummyhotep begins to step.* 2 1/2 stars

*: A telekinetic tween's tantrum.* 2 stars

----------------------------------------------------

X Files ---pilot episode--- *A logical, lady FBI agent gets assigned to keep tabs on the guy, in the basement, lurking in the unexplained phenomena cases.* 3 stars

Bizarre Foods -- Ireland: Ancient Bog Butter *Waxing poetic over 3,000 year old marsh gunk.* 2 1/2 stars

A Return to Salem's Lot --1987-- *Diverges, almost entirely, from the mood and suspense of Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot. I don't even see this as being the same Salem's Lot setting as that first tv movie. That one was quirky, to an extent, but this one is really quirky. It's a Larry Cohen style (It Lives & The Stuff) 'American Gothic' fatherhood/son struggle and a secret society / corrupt small town stake to the heart of a movie. Featuring a young Tara Reid as a Lucy Westerena type, an old bitter Jewish man as a nazi hunter turned Van Helsing, and a cultural anthropologist who ironically has to try to destroy one of the oldest fabled civilizations.* I give it between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Swamp Thing: Blood Wind *A mason jar filled with murderous moonshine mist that puts everyone in a killer rage. Mr.Butterfingers, Swamp Thing, accidentally lets the lid off of it to hilarious results. The craziest, best episode yet.* 3 stars

Farscape: DNA Mad Scientist *On a rock, covered with giant dinosaur bones, floating in a cold corner of space, a grotesque menagerie of lab workers now serve one of their experiments gone wrong. A stilt stepping, kinky outfit wearing, feline-esque Dr. Frankenstein seeks out all the best traits of every living creature, in the known universe, in order to further advance its own twisted evolution.* 3 stars

BBC All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace: Love and Power *The speculative power of computer systems versus the supreme success of global forces like the Chinese. The desires of self superior people like Ayn Rand versus the so called weak and in need. Also, for some reason, a lot of looking back at Monica Lewinsky on her knees.* 2 1/2 stars

American Horror Story -- Asylum -- "Welcome to Briarcliff" *There are none so blind as those who will not willingly receive electroshock treatment and give morning confessional.* 2 1/2 stars

Bob & Margaret: A Tale of Two Dentists *Neglecting needs of his customers and wife leads to Bob losing them both, and both being diddled by a bogus dentist & real looney known by the alias Harry Ramsbottom.* 3 stars

I'm Alan Partridge: "The Colour of Alan" *"I am happy. That may vwwewy wewwl be because I'm on morphine."* 3 stars

Paranormal State: Season 1 Episode 5 *A shaken teen girl, from Sin City, is seeing the scarred and strangled spirit, of a San Antonio teen girl, who died around the same age as she is during the paranormal state investigation of the situation.* 2 1/2 stars

Stephen King's 'Kingdom Hospital' season 1 episode 2 *"Inside the skull is another universe. The strangest, scariest haunted house of them all." Or in Lars Von Trier's and Stephen King's cases, a silly sausage factory featuring surgeons with unzipped flys, creepy ice cream man demons, aardvark assassins, and candle light dinners in the morgue.* 3 stars

--- Hanna-Barbera --- Hillbilly Bears: "Modern Inconvenience" *Paw gets mangled by Maw's flirtation with the new-fangled.* 3 stars

Thundarr, the Barbarian: Valley of the Man-Apes *To protect the village of the Lollipop Guild, a group of stinky simians must be stopped from reassembling an abandoned movie studio's animatronic King Kong.* 3 stars

Joe Bob's 'Drive-In Theater' presents "The First Power" *Another dime-a-dozen body hopping demonic serial killer thriller. Lou Diamond Phillips' idea of playing a hardboiled detective is to pass an unlit cigarette between his lips and his fingers, constantly, and to wear a heavy, black trenchcoat, during the heat of the day, in downtown Los Angeles. The Richard Ramirez type, "Pentagram Killer," has satanic powers of a super human variety. Also, a lot of side characters' stunt doubles doing unintentionally comedic acrobatics and kicks to the groin.* 2 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Women of the Prehistoric Planet *Time paradoxes. Stereotype sneaky "Japs." Toasted thunder-lizard. Rubber snake attack. Tropical set design studio setting. Rodney Dangerfield wannabe comic relief. Death by "plush toy" hopping spider on a wire. A boy, 'all alone,' named Tang. Blue Lagoon romance picnic. Red hiney monkey. Racist astronaut shoots the first minority he sees. Feel good ending where the two minority lovebirds are abandoned, by the spaceship, on a paradise planet, with an extremely active volcano and killer cavemen.* 2 1/2 stars with riffing 1 star w/out

Hanna-Barbera -- Jonny Quest: The Curse of Anubis *Hadji's Hindu whack a mole magic, flute serpent charming, and Jonny's motorscooter camel-jockey skills help stop a doomed thief from uniting the Arab world against the West via insinuation involving iconography and superstition.* 3 stars

Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead" *Vengeance is mine, said the Lady to the Lord. A Sharon Stone western shouldn't work, but it does.* 3 stars

Space Rage: Breakout on Prison Planet --1985-- *There aren't any spaceships firing at each other in asteroid storms, though there is a arcade asteroids machine in a bar. This is a space frontier, corrupt penal/mining colony western. There are no laser blasters, only traditional western handguns, shotguns, and rifles. Replacing spaceships are dunebuggies. Replacing an otherworldly planet is the California desert. There's a great, constantly playing, punk-western soundtrack, and Richard Farnsworth, Michael Pare, and John Laughlin are badass as usual.* 2 1/2 stars

Cowboy Bebop: Sympathy for the Devil *Harmonica playing, mystical gem having, ageless child of evil -who needs to be and deep down wants to be put at rest.* 3 stars

Transformers: Fire in the Sky *Christmas/New-Ice-Age in July, when the Decepticon grinches try to turn the earth's core into a cold day in hell. Luckily for earth and the Autobots, an unfrozen, gigantic robot makes the right decision and sacrifices itself for its love of science and all creatures, including humanity.* 3 stars

South Park: The Magic Bush *"Jennifer Lawrence's butthole didn't take a picture of itself."* 2 1/2 stars

Comic Book Men: Brony Con *Grumpy forty-something comic nerds attempt a Vaudeville two-man horse act at a convention for twenty-something male hipster fans of a little girls' pony cartoon.* 2 stars

Adult Swim ==off-the-air== "Seramthgin" *Nightmarishly surreal art video garbage played, mostly, in reverse.* 2 1/2 stars

Z Nation: Going Nuclear *Citizen Z's paddle ball dexterity. Mt. Rushmore defaced. Glow in the dark zombies. Stealth until a zombie alert fart. Radiation sickness. Stopping a nuclear meltdown in the Black Hills. Twirling, Donatello-esque ninja staff that's actually a really long handled hoe. Hazmat suits & ammo. Radio controlled drone robot named Robbie who has a lazer cutter for mowing down zombies. Fueling up on vodka. Fleeing from fallout in a small aircraft and of course crashing. Citizen Z 'checks' zombiepedia (lame joke.) Zombie sign language? Murphy wearing a little girls' pink & cute spikes backpack. Zombie puppy love. What really is mercy?* 3 stars

--- Paul W.S. Anderson's "Soldier" starring Kurt Russell

*Thematically like Stallone's 'First Blood' mixed with Terminator 2 and other outerspace and post-apocalyptic genre movies.

Finger painted in the most broad, obvious, hack ways possible.

Supersoldier has never seen a pretty lady, so he daydreams about the one time he saw her nipples under her shirt.

Supersoldier is suffering ptsd, so he freaks out over Santa at Christmas party.

Supersoldier doesn't know how to deal with kids, so he tries to teach a kid to bash a poisonous snake's brains out.

Supersoldier is feeling sad for the very first time, so we zoom in close up on a tear streaming down his face.

Supersoldiers need to be tested, American Gladiator competition is orchestrated.

Married couple is getting romantic on a planet with limited supplies and garbage everywhere, hundreds of lit candles love scene.

Thin mustached military commander villain's gotcha moment is pissing down his pants leg in fear...*

1 1/2 stars

---------------------------------------------------

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs "The Stepfather" *There were no real Freddy Kruegers running around in suburbia, in the 80s, but there were actually psychos like this. A Fox News fan type dad is a little too into 50s era family "perfection," and when things don't go his way, he heads down to the basement to beat on his workbench with a hammer, and when he can't take it anymore, he heads upstairs and bangs on the family with the hammer. When he's done there, he catfishes the "perfect" next family.* 3 stars

Friday the 13th, the series: Cupid's Quiver *When you're skeezy, it's love made easy. The poor, wretched bastard, in this one, oozes, and then drips desperation from his every pore.* 3 stars

ABC's Selfie: A Little Yelp From My Friends *I expected this to be another obnoxious sitcom like Big Bang Theory or 2 Broke Girls, but it's more like Ally McBeal. A real bait and switch. The topic as it has been thrown out there in the media would make one think it would be about a total social media whore with constant references to current social pop culture, but it's really more of a show about a pathetic weirdo and her bizarre, unsocial behavior, and the one genuine person (Harold from Harold & Kumar) who actually cares about helping her cross that bridge back into the real world.* 2 1/2 stars

E! Total Divas: The Double Cross *One diva trades her vibrator for a date with an NFL hunk. Another diva gets jealous when her man's (pro wrestler John Cena) ass is going to be shown in a movie love scene. Also, at a movie premier for a comedy flick, starring the twin divas, the big muscled pro-wrestler puts on a blue monkey suit, and the butt and breast implant diva, along with her man, sit stoned-faced during a supposedly funny scene. Odd and insipid reality show trash.* zero stars

MTV's True Life: I Have A Strange Phobia *One Italian-American young man can't even pee in a public restroom. He has to get in his car, get on the freeway, and drive all the way home and scrub the toilet with cleaner and antibacterial products before the act. (Why not pee outside, in public, behind a dumpster or building or car? It's not really polite behavior, but it would save the trouble of going home and cleaning. And, why not just aim really well when you pee at home or not care if you pee on the seat?) The next, unfortunate, case is about a young woman who is deathly afraid of pigeons. I think there's some other attention issues there, or maybe a bit of deceit going on where the girl just wanted to get on MTV.* 2 stars

American Horror Story -- Murder House -- "Murder House" *As much a love letter to true crime history of Los Angeles as it is a ghost story. And the haunted people and haunts themselves have more personality and poignancy than most ghost stories.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: Under the Bed *A child psychologist struggles with a cryptozoology related child abduction.* 2 1/2 stars

The Walking Dead: Consumed *Getting the drop on crash test dummies.* 3 stars

Adult Swim --fake infomercials-- "Smart Pipe" *Taking smartphone app use to its inevitable pinnacle by having the waste management of the world's pipes turned into an opportunity to scan shit and then use that information to in turn sale more shit to the masses.* 3 stars

Squidbillies: Sheriff-in-Law *Daddy don't come around here anymore, and we're all glad he doesn't.*3 stars

MTV's "Slednecks" episode b (b because the "writers" were lazy) *Bros go Go-Go dancing. 4 wheel drive pickup truck versus airboat in a tug o war match. Drunk skanks pissing in the snow. Feeding buttered toast to the wildlife. Tundra wookies at tha club. You know, typical Alaska stuff. Saddening that this kind of stupidity is going on in one of the last frontiers. I've never more wanted a moose to kill someone since back in the day when Fox would air those 'When Animals Attack' videos.* zero stars

American Horror Story: Freakshow -- "Bullseye" *Desert butterflies* 2 1/2 stars

Game of Thrones --Season 3-- Episode 2-- *Lions, piggies, crows, wolves, and a hound.* 3 stars

USA network's --Chrisley Knows Best-- "Jugs and Ammo" *Boob cake for 100 dollars. Boob job for your daughter 30,000 dollars. Protecting your sixteen year old beauty pageant girl's "vag of honor" untold dollars. Making your redneck son-in-law uncomfortable because he thinks that you're a closet homosexual is priceless.* either zero stars or 2 1/2 stars

Animal Planet's --Finding Bigfoot-- "Turtleman's Bigfoot" *for some unknown reason, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and 30 Rock's "Bobo" travel to Kentucky to holler hunt a primate with Jim Varney's nephew Ernie the "Turtle Man."* 2 stars

rifftrax presents The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers *Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.* 3 plus stars with riffing 3 stars without

Adult Swim -- "Too Many Cooks" *Never ending 80s tv theme song intro video parody turned massacre.* 3 stars

Kolchak, the Night Stalker: The Knightly Murders *Balefully back, from the Black Ages, with a big axe to grind.* 2 1/2 stars

Gargoyles: Temptation *Goliath's former piece-of-tail tries to put him back under her spell.* 3 stars

Stargate --Atlantis-- "Hide and Seek" *You're not yourself when you're hungry, or an energy entity. Eat a Snickers, and be like Doug Flutie.* 2 1/2 stars

"The Babadook" *Illustrating one's insecurities into isolation, insomnia, and insanity.* 3 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Saturday Night Special *Yuppy dating schemes and dreams come apart at the seams.* 1 1/2 stars *Springwood beautification project leaves a plain jane feeling numb.* 2 stars

South Park: Freemium isn't Free *Temptation. Addiction. Boring Gaming. Gambling. Micro-Transactions. Trendy drinking. Denial drinking. Pussy advertising. The Prince of Canada. The Canadian Devil.* 2 stars

Tales from the Crypt: Loved to Death *More than a minute of seeing man-sized-shaped Mariel Hemingway in lingerie is like an eternity in hell.* 3 stars

Joe Bob's Drive-In presents "Night Angel" *So bad it's good, succubus-slasher softcore-skinemax-style flick.* 1 1/2 stars

Hillbilly Bears: Courtin' Disaster *Haltin' hatin' the Hoppers, like they's was Hatfields, in hopes of havin' Hottiebear hitched.* 3 stars

Scare Tactics --Season 2-- episode 7 *Meat locker scab wishes he hadn't swept the salt off the floor after he meets the one armed mangler who had the job before.* 2 stars *"Pretty big, probably around 5 foot 9 or 6 foot 2" webcam show babehouse psycho slasher that ruins a horny, dumb guy's first night on the peep job.* 3-stars *Digging a hole, in the desert, for a lazy mobster.* 2 stars *Poltergeist -heather o'rourke- style closet scare* 2 1/2 stars

Paranormal State season 1 episode 6 *This haunted place is for the dogs...* 3 stars

"Intruders" CBS 1992 *Abductee: I was taken aboard a spaceship, by little grey men, and experimented on. / Psychologist: No, you were molested, in a barn, by your cousin.* 3 stars

American Horror Story -- Freakshow -- "Test of Strength" *"Come as you are" as ruined by the folks from GLEE. Strong Man vs. Amazon Lady. You're my dad, dad. Earl (Dell) had to die - Carnival Dixie Chix. Two-Headed blackmail. Dreadful Penny. Penny's dreadful dad. Tattoo nightmare. Dandy not feeling dandy. Surgeon suicide. Blonde ambition makeover.* 2 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Crawling Hand *"Eat, drink, and be merry. Tomorrow, you die." Then, it's all fingerwalking on the darkside, you dig?* 3 stars with riffing 2 1/2 stars without

Jonny Quest: Pursuit of the Po-Ho *Lost tribe lunar sacrifice lunacy.* 3 stars

Swamp Thing: Grotesquery *A case of toxic swamp ass lands ST in a two-bit big top, where it's all soggy tater chips and being caged while being poked with a stick with the rest of the misbegotten misfits.* 2 stars

"The Shuttered Room" 1967 *Hostile Arkham homecoming. Where the isolated islanders hold strong to ignorant superstition, when they're not trying to tear someone to shreds.* 3 stars

Z Nation: Sisters of Mercy *Survivors of a Utah Mormon "sisters wives" style society form a militant lesbian ladies only cult. No "Ah, not the bees!" moment or bearsuit disguise, but similar to Nic Cage's predicament. Story focuses on the two least interesting characters, the crazy redhead chick and her wannabe boyfriend, and not enough Murphy moments, though his getting "pie" scene is hilarious. False advertisement with the unfortunately underused zombie bear. I was hoping that it would maul the Sisters of Mercy.* 2 stars

Phantasm 3: Lord of the Dead *A Home Alone orphan vigilante brat and a Grace Jones / Pam Grier -esque kung fu sista join Reggie to fight Return of the Living Dead style zombies with attitude. The actors playing Mike & Jody almost seem out of place in their own series, but Reggie excels in a more Sam Raimi plus Bruce Campbell horror-comedy environment. I think I figured out who the Tall Man is supposed to represent, Sam Walton, the founder of WalMart.* 2 1/2 stars

Thundarr, the Barbarian: Stalker from the Stars *It twas a simple sinus sniffle twitch kill't the strigoli at that snowy eskimo carnival.* 3 stars

Cowboy Bebop: Heavy Metal Queen *ride the lightning and chase the thunder with a prairie oyster.* 3 stars

The Prisoner: The Chimes of Big Ben *There's not enough hours in the day to sail away. So, pick up a required hobby.* 3 stars

Max Headroom: Rakers *Taking a stand against mindless television violence with a sport of "refined aggression." Risking everything professionally for a personal bond of obligation with an estranged and wreckless loved one.* 2 1/2 stars

Larry Cohen's "The Ambulance" 1990 starring Eric Roberts *A sinister old school style ambulance stalks the streets of NYC picking up sick people and then not taking them to the hospital but instead to an insane doctor who experiments on them and sells them to shady medical labs. Spooky.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Adult Swim's "Sit Down and Shut Up" --pilot episode-- *animated with the whimsy of nickelodeon or cartoon network kids cartoons but with the right amount of offensive humor for the slacker 3am audience.* 2 stars

SyFy's "Ascension" --preview-- 'Building the World' *Nice to see SyFy actually spending some money on a show's elaborate production.* 3 stars

CMT's "Redneck Island" Dec 2014 -season preview-

with host "Stone Cold" Steve Austin *"I wouldn't even introduce you to my dawg! MY DAWG, YA HEAR!"* 1 star

Hill Street Blues: Presidential Fever *A matter of pride. Two partners struggle with the distance between each other after being shot on duty. An undercover gets 'ruff' with rape suspects. Lady attorney holds her own with police chief lover. Gangleaders precinct meeting to hold a truce during Presidential visit. NYPD Blue's David Caruso as a top-hat wearing Irish gangbanger. Hick cop hassles the wrong barrio & almost goes vigilante to heal a wounded ego.* 3 stars

"Open House" 1987 starring Adrienne Barbeau *John Tesh is trying to reason with a rabid dog when Charles Bronson walks up and shoots it between the ears. Los Angeles, the land of broken dreams. there's only so many options for the down on their luck to vent. one is to call in crazy to the talk radio stations. another is to act like an obnoxious slob. then, there's the nutbags who'd like to find absurdly creative ways to kill the chippy sales people of that broken dream.* 3 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Crawling Eye *Slight fever in the Swiss Alps, with cyclops brainball tentacle aliens who like things frigid and hate telepaths.* 1 1/2 stars with riffing 1 star without

X Files: Deep Throat *Aim high, in the Air Force, and be an alien spacecraft test pilot. Side effects may not be worth it. It's 2 the xtreme, says 90s stoner, Seth Green.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: Dark Matters *Melodramatic ghost brother space catastrophe* 2 stars

Michael Crichton's "Runaway" 1984 starring Tom Selleck *Jargon, jargon, household robots gone haywire. Jargon, jargon, science dept. mustache cop. Jargon, jargon, spider assassin robots. Jargon, jargon, Gene Simmons techno-terrorist. Jargon, jargon, magic heat-seeking bullets. Jargon, jargon, vertigo-tinged thriller climax.* 2 1/2 stars

Joe Bob's Drive In Theater presents "Steel and Lace" *Willard's Bruce Davison creates a cyborg out of his sister, Shannon Tweed (Gene Simmons' long-time girlfriend), years after her suicide resulting from a non-conviction for a group of corporate buddies who raped her in an alley. The sexy cyborg seduces then performs gruesome fatalities on the slimeballs.* stars 2 1/2

Freddy's Nightmares: Sister's Keeper *Freddy turns the twin daughters, of the cop who was a thorn in his side in life, against each other.* 2 stars *Freddy is determined to make one of the twins an only child.* 2 1/2 stars

Hammer Films' "Vampire Circus" 1972 *A morose quarantine livened with a sanguinary shadow puppet sex show.* stars 3

American Horror Story -Asylum- "Tricks and Treats" *Sticky caramel on the mossy banks of a Stygian river.* 3 stars

I'm Alan Partridge: Brave Alan *"The worth of boast worlds."* 3 stars

Bob and Margaret: A Night In *Boring and barren, but better off than the dead.* 2 1/2 stars

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace: The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts *make like a tree and be a leaf / a cog in the machine or don't because it's a false belief.* 3 stars

"Dreamscape" 1984 *David Patrick Kelly is a creepier dream demon than Robert Englund.* 3 stars

South Park: Grounded Vindaloop *The boys try to figure out which one of them is actually stuck in virtual reality limbo. Real world Butters is cutely portrayed.* 3 stars

Squidbillies: Hybrid to Hell *"Hawt Rawkin' Santy Claus in a bubble globe."* 2 1/2 stars

Swamp Thing: Natural Enemy *ST beats science to the punch, when he swats and splats Beelzebub.* 2 stars

--- Scare Tactics -season 2 -episode 9

*Party van fails to take police warning and runs into vampire bikers on a desert highway.* 3 stars

*Hysterical hissie over a hybrid dwarf-critter.* 3 stars

*"You ever step on a landmine, before?" nervous and shaken response "Nah, I'm from Cleveland." 2 1/2 stars

*The show's new host, a Baldwin brother, is traumatized when he's not recognized after shedding the disguise of a scary mob boss.*

1 1/2 stars

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Paranormal State -season 1 -episode 7 *A cemetery caretaker stews and his wife claims to suffer after sticking in a hole, and covering with cement, an urn of unclaimed cremated remains that had sat on their shelf for years.* 2 stars

Insidious: Chapter 2 *That's not my husband. That's the spirit of a crossdressing serial killer. Again with the Ed Gein/Norman Bates mommy issues killer and somehow crossed with the crazy killer dad -like the Shining. Also, I could do without the lame antics and shaking camera ghosthunting of the two paranormal hipster nerds. Still, I very much enjoy the eerie astral projection limbo world.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Friday the 13th, the series: A Cup of Time *Old age is wasting the youth, when youth aren't wise enough not to drink from its cup.* 2 stars

The Walking Dead: Crossed *Rick Grimes used to be a cop. Emphasis on used to be. Now, he's cold blooded. Come to think of it, then again...* 2 1/2 stars

American Horror Story --Murder House-- "Halloween" *"find my nest of salt, everything is my fault... choking on the ashes of our enemies..."* close to 3 stars

Tales from the Crypt: Dead Right *It's a given that grotesque Jeffrey Tambor will gore gorgeous gold-digger Demi Moore.* 3 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Corpse Vanishes *"A cockeyed nightmare or a nighteyed cockmare?!"* 1 1/2 stars with riffing 1/2 a star without

Tex Avery's "Jerky Turkey" 1945 *"Don't eat at Joe's"* 2 1/2 stars

"Thankskilling" 2009 *"No more pumpkin pie, no more cranberry sauce, just turkey..."* 1 star

Twin Peaks: Miss Twin Peaks *Which way to the castle? Where there's a key, there's always a lock. Fear and love open the door.* 3 stars

"Dreamchild" 1985 (with Jim Henson creature shop puppetry) *Ian Holm makes a better Jack from the Titanic, for Alice in Wonderland's elderly Alice, than Leo DiCaprio ever could. Also, Peter Gallagher is certainly more charming than Billy Zane. He's more of a sly weasel too.* 3 stars

Game of Thrones -Season 3 -episode 3 *"In the grave, there are no masters."* 3 stars

Joe Bob's Drive In Theater presents "Posed for Murder"

with special guest host Elvira *A generic softcore thriller about an adult magazine centerfold being stalked by a psychotic motorcycle glove and every meathead who wants to screw her. It's one of those bad movies where the lyrics of the songs, playing throughout, sync up with the on screen stupidity.* 1 1/2 stars

Tales from the Crypt: Cutting Cards *Compulsive rivals go head to head til the last stump standing.* 2 1/2 stars

"Paradise" 1982 *A very Biblical man, Willie Aames, watches his parents get murdered by bandits, then flees and gets stranded with a beautiful maiden, Phoebe Cates, in a desert/tropical oasis where he sneaks peeks at her sinful nudity, tries to keep a chimpanzee from self pleasuring, destroys dirty medical texts, and tries to keep an Arab jackal from stealing his woman and deflowering her.* 2 stars

Farscape: They've Got A Secret *Space whale calf care is killing the crew, and crossbreeding with the empire's clone troopers is strictly forbidden and must remain emotionally hidden.* 2 1/2 stars

Cowboy Bebop: Waltz for Venus *Lacking one quality but heightening another's fluidity.* 3 stars

Hillbilly Bears: Stranger than Friction *monkeying around with hospitality can get ya head blown't off* 2 1/2 stars

Z Nation: Murphy's Law *Every ridiculous thing this show tries to do somehow works. Drug addicted zombies, check. Viagra sex zombies, check. Murphy having telepathic control over the infected, check. The most surprisingly effective show of the year. Each new episode is something new. Rarely boring or stagnant in an all too boring and stagnant apocalyptic / zombie / survival horror genre.* 2 1/2 stars

"Walking Tall" 1973 *Landmark hicksploitation with Buford on par with Leatherface in terms of legend. A yarn that satisfies in its visceral exaltation of justice, while still having enough subtext about the road of revenge being a ragged one.* 3 stars

Kolchak, the Night Stalker: The Youth Killer *sucking the life out of the singles scene* 3 stars

USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear presents

"Fright Night" 1980s version -------------------------------

*Necking with your girl while watching late night vampire horror hosted by a faux vampire slayer from such movies.

USA network has the world's hottest show 'Baywatch' five nights a week.

For the girls of paradise call 431 Girl at 2.50$ a minute.

Psychic Talk USA... are you astounded?

La Femme Nikita, Sunday Nights on USA the cure for the common show and the common boner.

Has your neighbor committed homicide? this horror obsessed kid thinks so.

Having a horrific mental breakdown? don't turn to the town Beavis for understanding.

99cent psychic encounters. It sounds dangerous. But damn affordable. 800 Predict. I predict that if you call, you'll be out 99cents.

Rhonda is at her wedding reception, where she's trying out two potential hubbies. One is a morose long haired artsy guy and the other is a big, fat cowboy with his big, fat mama who thinks that Rhonda has child bearing hips enough to produce fifteen younguns

"Someone knows their secret." I Know What You Did Last Summer, now playing in theaters everywhere.

back to the ‘’up all nite’’ movie,

the fearless vampire slayer gets fired from his job and vents on his hatred for 80s slasher monsters like Jason.

Apparently vampires yawn in the evening and are groggy when they take phone calls.

Stephen King's "Thinner" available now at videostores everywhere.

You never thought it possible, the Motorola Wordline Pager with streaming text updates in the palm of your hand in black and grey text. It will never get more advanced than this, says the 90s business professional yuppy.

No rules, no ring, no exit, and not place to hide 'Fighting Force' for the playstation.

The legend is here, the time is now, Chuck Norris is Walker Texas Ranger, weeknights on USA.

I'm all alone pick up the phone, sluts are standing by on another phone sex commercial.

Macho Man says REST IN PEACE and SNAP INTO A Slim Jim, OH YEAH! Halloween Havoc, Dig it!

Peter Vincent is like the Alan Partridge of the occult.

What do you do when a David Bowie type douche wants to do your girlfriend?

Hollywood's hottest stuntmen use bodyheat activated degree deodorant.

USA's Sunday Night Heat with Pacific Blue, Silk Stalkings, and The Big Easy. Turn it on and turn it up.

I miss sleazy USA network programming.

Magic the Gathering, all you need is a brain, a deck, and a friend, and an intact virginity.

Rhonda is a runaway bride when she realizes she doesn't have to be married to shop.*

3 stars

-----------------------------------------

Gargoyles: Deadly Force *"Movies, television, videogames...(sigh) it's hard to tell what's real anymore." A lesson about how our culture ignores the real drama of the consequences of gunplay.* 3 stars

Stargate - Atlantis - "Thirty Eight Minutes" *The perils of dealing with stubborn parasites, wormhole constipations, lifeboat malfunctions, and bruised egos.* 3 stars

Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital" -season 1 -episode 3 *Solid cold oldies* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: The Conversion *The future's not ours, you see...* 2 1/2 stars

Max Headroom: Body Banks *Eternal sunshine of the sober mind that refuses to sell out to corporate swine who think they can harvest the poor & healthy in order to buy more time.* 3 stars

Tales from the Crypt: 'Til Death *Fated to the fetid* 2 stars

Swamp Thing: Treasure *Little Jim has a long lost relative dying on his bathroom floor, a Swamp Thing trapped in his attic unable to sneak away, and an evil blonde beauty who wants to shoot him, or his mom, with a small pistol -if he doesn't cough up the location of stolen money hidden in a junkpile out in the swamp.* 3 stars

Jonny Quest: Riddle of the Gold *The smite of the tiger.* 3 stars

Scare Tactics -season 2 -episode 10 -------------------

*Cleaning the ham bones out of a creep's croc pond.* 2 1/2 stars

*Maids stumble onto a bloody, and active, crime scene.* 2 stars

*A ladies man looks at the wrong farmer's naked daughter.* 3 stars

*Carny folk forget and leave a horned dwarf troll in the walls of a rental home.* 2 1/2 stars

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Roger Corman presents "Streets" 1990 *For skid row kids, like Christina Applegate's homeless teenage prostitute character, it's a symbiotic game of staying ahead, and also in reach, of their constant pursuers and abusers, but sometimes the bleak circumstances highlighting the literal dead ends make it even more painful if a glimmer of hope happens to also be there.* 3 stars

American Horror Story - Asylum - "Nor'Easter" *Pontius Pilate wept at the end of E.T.* 3 stars

Paranormal State -season 1 -episode 8 *Remodeling the home of a early 20th century sawbones stirs spirits.* 2 stars

Bob and Margaret: Blood, Sweat, and Tears *stretching thinly to feel the burn and avoid the fine line of permanent injury in the process of healthy activity and friendly civility* 3 stars

I'm Alan Partridge: Never Say Alan Again *pass the Sunny D and STOP TALKING ABOUT AMERICAN THINGS!* 3 stars

X Files: Squeeze *Spooky versus mutie (aka mutant).* 3 stars

The Walking Dead: The Coda *Rick Grimes drives a hard bargain, but compromises and evasively dangerous behavioral maneuvers, of others involved, put everyone back on the road of loss.* 3 stars

House 3: The Horror Show -1989- *"An electricity of evil." Lance Henriksen is a straight current running parallel to an unsteady moronic shocker.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Mother's Day *You gotta fight or flight for your right to party with Fredddy.* 2 1/2 stars *Weepy Wendy can't get any affectionate attention from her radio shrink mom, a seriously Selfish Sherry.* 2 1/2 stars

Ultimate Scooters: Featuring the Hot Wheels Shocker -2000- *Video time capsule documenting how turn of the 21st century bro-men took to the streets, with tots, riding toy scooters.* 1 star

Popeye the Sailor Man: ----------

*Me Musical Nephews: Runts rockabye a restless Popeye.* headache inducing zero stars

*Spooky Swabs: Ghostly mutiny.* 3 stars

*Patriotic Popeye: Safe n' sane U.S. n' A. holiday or party explosives?* 2 stars

*Ancient Fistory: Disney Princess Cinderfella Queer Eye for the Popeye.* 2 stars

*Taxi-Turvy: Scat cab skidoo.* 3 stars

----------------------------------------------------------

Fleischer Studios presents Betty Boop: -------------------------

*Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions: Spunky sales pitch for quirky products.* 3 stars

*and the Little King: Calamity Betty* 2 1/2 stars

*Pudgy in Ding Dong Doggie: Hot doggy, Betty spank.* 2 1/2 stars

*Grampy in the Candid Candidate: Mayoral mishap calls for thinking cap.* 2 1/2 stars

*Language All My Own: Betty is super kawaii in the land of the rising sun.* 2 stars

*Grampy's Indoor Outing: homemade carnival play on a rainy day.* 2 1/2 stars

*Little Nobody: Stuck up pup and a blue ribbon baywatch doggy strut.* 2 1/2 stars

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adult Swim --off the air-- "Worship" *vacation bible surreal* 2 stars

Squidbillies 96: How did my worm get in your taco? *Early en Espanol, an all american buttthole.* 3 stars

Tim & Eric, Bedtime Stories: The Bathroom Boys *Dragging the viewer into the toilet with the non-humor painful shits & giggles of Tim, Eric, Zach Galifianakis and surprise guest, the beautiful, cleaned, and dolled up Maggie from the Walking Dead.* between zero and 1 star

Thundarr, the Barbarian: Portal into Time *Apple 2 defender of the Alamo. Beastmaster 2 culture shock. Thundarr, Ariel, Ookla are Earth's mightiest Avengers. Volkswagen Beetle dragon. Ookla, a cookie monster. An escalator can never be broken, it can only become stairs, so said Mitch Hedberg. Terminator 2 style skynet tech heist. Finally, a first ever victory at the Alamo.* 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: Politics as Usual *Bribery. blackmail. backstabbing. bargaining courts. boo-hooing. barking like a dog. busted. buttcheeks and butthole search. bathing lovemaking. break up.* 3 stars

Burn, Baby, Burn: Riots and Violence in the Modern World *unabashed ugliness* 1 star

Victor Salva's "The Nature of the Beast" 1995 starring Lance Henriksen & Eric Roberts-- *A serial killer plus a casino riches thief, both on the run, find homogeneity on a lost stretch of desert highway.* 3 stars

Paranormal State -season 1 -episode 9 *a spirit is shattering and nudging (the babypowder test, "thrilling") wine glasses in a, struggling to survive, sports bar.* 1/2 a star

The Outer Limits: Quality of Mercy *Hogan's Heroes meets Enemy Mine with an M. Night twist.* 2 1/2 stars

Cowboy Bebop: Jamming with Edward *A self activated spy sattelite is sad & lonely and so is a spunky hacker.* 3 stars

Swamp Thing: New Acquaintance *Jim brings home a misunderstood stray, and ST resurrects a rabbit.* 2 1/2 stars

Shaw Brothers: Iron Chain Fighter (aka Assassin) *There are no bonds that chop sockey can't break.* 3 stars

Game of Thrones: -season 3 -episode 4 *Climbing and falling. Losing a hand. Handing over a legacy. Protecting the virtue of an innocent. Hungering for insurrection. Dispensing the light of justice. Burning a path for freedom.* 3 stars

Friday the 13th, the series: HELLOWE'EEN *The awful uncle seeks offal flesh to slip into back to life.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Tales from the Crypt: Three's A Crowd *cuckold anniversary surprise* 3 stars

American Horror Story --Murder House-- "Piggy Piggy" *Growing pains. Raw brains. Oinking angst.* 2 1/2 stars

BBC All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace: "The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey" *We humans are something like a phenomenon or perhaps maybe an automaton.* 3 stars

"Beyond the Black Rainbow" --2010-- *Timothy Leary has gone too far this time.* 3 stars

Scare Tactics: season 2 -episode 11 ---------------

*Family killer in a scarecrow disguise puts a young carpenter in concern.* 2 stars

*Gold chain necklace wearing "Dr. Jeff" doesn't want his "molecules heated up" in a mad scientist's The Fly -esque matter transport experiment.* 2 1/2 stars

*A greaseball is hired to clean up "red wine" stains for a Sopranos sausage and refuses to wear a wire for an undercover sting.* 2 1/2 stars

*Fear Antics: A wannabe actor, in a slasher prank, gets pushed over the edge.* 2 1/2 stars

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Paranormal State: Season 1 -episode 10 *A Native American coyote spirit / chaos critter is an unwanted housepest, for a rural Maine mom & visiting daughter, when its vortex in the backyard is disturbed. So, the team calls in some Native elders to do a ritual at the rocks around a hole on the property, and Christian psychic medium Chip Coffey tells the howling haunt to hit the road.* 2 1/2 stars

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jeannejcooper76 · 7 years

Text

10 Things You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business

Hi, and welcome to the 1st of September monthly blog post on AidanBooth.com!

Since the birth of our son almost 11 months ago, I’ve been constantly reminded of the need to be incredibly effective in the ‘work time’ I have available… I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about effectiveness, and business growth for people with very little time available… all that thought lead me to write this blog post.

Below you’ll find ten tips, things you can do right now to help you grow your business. I became more and more aware of the importance of tips #1, #2, #3, #5 and #7 while traveling a couple of months ago, and in today’s bonus report (click here to access it), tips #12, #13 and #15 also very much inline with what BUSY people can do to accelerate results.

Here’s what we’ll cover in the first 10 tips:

Re-Evaluate Your Goals

Building A Plan

Focus On ONE Thing At A Time

Test Something

Terminate Distractions

Talk To Your Customer

Get Help!

Measure

Share Your Goals

Use Reward/Consequence

Our Final Thoughts

As with every business, you need to spend a lot of time and effort as you try to generate more leads and customers. That being said, the fact that you conduct your business online does provide you with some advantages.

Just applying one of these 10 things to your business is going to help your business grow, potentially quite significantly.

Let’s dive in and take a closer look…

1. Re-Evaluate Your Goals

If you’ve had a false start and things haven’t worked out for you, perhaps you’ve gone down the wrong track even? Maybe you just need to start again, here’s our advice:

Hit the reset button…

Set new goals based on what you think is working today

Make sure your goals are realistic and ‘S.M.A.R.T’

Here’s what ‘S.M.A.R.T’ stands for:

Simple

Your goal should be simple and well defined. Good: “build a $5,000/month white label income” Bad: “build a successful white label income”.

Measurable

Having a measurable goal is essential. Use concrete numbers… in the last example I used ‘$5,000’. This is measurable.

Attainable

Aim for the stars, but keep one foot on the ground… Not easy… but realistic and attainable in a shorter period of time.

Realistic

Does your goal make sense based on market conditions? If you sell cars in a small village, and half the population is leaving, should you expect to double your sales next year?

Timely

Choose a time frame.

For example; “Build a $3,000/month white label income before the 31st December 2017”.

TIP: Give yourself a second chance as things don’t always work out the first time!

2. (Re)Build Your Plan

It still amazes me how few people actually make a plan, for example on an excel spreadsheet, or even a piece of paper!

I recommend you break every single action item down into a spreadsheet, assign dates to each item, and then break the big tasks into small actions on an accountability sheet.

Not only would we recommend you have an accountability sheet, but you also need to know your numbers. Again, a simple spreadsheet containing the following information is key to building a plan and reaching your goals. Make sure you track ALL your financials, including all incoming and outgoing revenue.

Some things you might include on the spreadsheet:

Include revenue channels per month

Expenses

Incoming / outgoing revenue

Net profit / loss

Etc.

Ask yourself “where do you want to be in 12 months’ time?”

My advice? Dive in head first, you need a focussed drive.

ANYONE can get to 100K per year as long as you have the focus and drive.

Check out my blog post ‘Organizational Hacks To Turbo-Charge Productivity’ at: http://www.aidanbooth.com/organizational-hacks

TIP: Define your path on a spreadsheet, plot backwards, for example if you want to build a 100k business stream, what are the steps you need to take to get there? Determine your end goal and work out how to get there

3. Focus On ONE Thing At A Time

One of the most common reasons entrepreneurs fail is because they take on too much, and spread themselves too thin.

It’s best to do just ONE thing, and nail it!

Create a “some day” goal, what we mean by that is what would you like some day in your life? Whatever that may be, such as having a real estate portfolio worth $20,000,000 or having a piece of software with 10,000 users for example.

Your “some day” goal might happen for 10-15 years from now, so you need to work backwards and work out what your goal would be and how you would get there in 5 years, then backwords to 1 year, than backwards to 1 month, 1 week, today etc.

Ask yourself, “What are the 3 things you can do today to move closer to your goals?” Taking bite size chunks will help you move forwards.

Not only does this apply to your business but it can also apply to the following areas of your life:

Personal life

Relationships

Finances

Job

Etc.

Below is a photo from one of my all time favorite books, ‘The One Thing’. It shows this ‘work-backwards’ long term goal planning method:

TIP: If in doubt, do less, rather than do more, focus on fewer things…

4. Test Something

Testing is key when running your business, even a 5% increase can have a massive impact, check out the examples below:

A 5% increase in conversions on a website is a huge deal… that’s 5% more sales without spending a penny more on traffic

5% increase in sales on Amazon is also HUGE… That can dramatically improve your sales velocity and overall performance

Here are some of the tools we use for testing:

Landing Pages or Websites

https://vwo.com/ is an easy and cost effective way to split test landing pages or any website, which can be set up in 2-3 minutes.

You can use VWO to tweak, optimize & personalize your website with minimal IT help.

Amazon Pages

If you’re an Amazon seller, you can use http://www.blackbirdsuite.com/ to split test your pages and much more…

BlackBird is a total package of technology and training for growing an Amazon business.

TIP: Testing can be fast and easy with the right tools… There’s NO reason NOT to do it!

5. Terminate Distractions

Terminating distractions is an ongoing challenge, what we see time and time again is that when you’re in a desperate situation, the distractions disappear. If for example you have an upcoming deadline to meet, you’ll have no trouble eliminating distractions.

Remove distractions from your life and stay away from your TV, phone, social media, video games etc., or anything that will distract you from reaching your business goals. In addition, stop chasing the shiny objects that you just don’t need. Get off those peoples mailing lists, and choose 1-2 “mentors” to follow.

Remember, these things are not important compared to your goal… once you’ve got your online business humming along, you’ll have all the time you need to do whatever you want, but first you need to get things moving.

Also, if you’ve got negative people around you who pull you down, get them out of the way. To get insane results, you need to have everything working in your favor, and negative people will only drain your energy and pull you down. Get rid of them if you can (if you can’t, try to minimize the time you spend with them).

It’s time for you to take MASSIVE FOCUSED ACTION!

Focus, focus, focus

Eliminate threats and distractions

Know WHY you’re doing it

TIP: You need to be ruthless in how you eliminate toxic distrations!

6. Talk To Your Customer

Talking to your customer is a great way to improve your performance, the following can help anyone with the business they are working on:

Create a customer survey

Send personal customer emails

Understand WHO your customer is

Understand their concerns and what they really want

TIP: Thank your customers, unfortunately, not a lot of companies do this. Try to talk with your customers and let them know how much they mean to you, they’ll appreciate it!

7. Get Help!

Every business needs a support system, here’s are advice for getting help.

Get a partner

Involve your spouse

Outsource

Get a CEO

Get the hell OUT of the way!

Bear in mind that doing it alone is 10x more difficult… the most successful businesses that you will see are not built by people who are ‘alone’. There’s ALWAYS a partner or some kind of support system in place (which could simply be an amazing team)!

Check out my blog post ‘How To Find The Perfect Business Partner’ @ http://www.aidanbooth.com/business-partners/

TIP: Hire the smartest person you can, it will get results!

8. Measure

If you’re judging yourself on some goal you can’t get to, it’s a pretty useless measure. It’s important to ensure that you’re measures align with your goals.

Goals are used to help your business grow and achieve its objectives. If you’re unsure of how to set your goals check out ‘1. Re-Evaluate Your Goals’ above and always set ‘S.M.A.R.T’ goals, remember having a measurable goal is essential to your business.

Put a system in place to help you measure your goals and keep you on track, and don’t forget to reward yourself when you achieve your business goals (we’ll talk more about this later on)!

TIP: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” – Quote by Peter Drucker

9. Share Your Goals

Now we know how to set goals, and the crucial key that they need to be measurable, make your goals public, for example share them with your friends. This will put you on the spot to make sure you carry them out.

Get some kind of accountability partner

Shared goals are 70% more likely to be reached

TIP: Expose yourself to the possibility of humiliating failure… you won’t fail!

10. Use Reward/Consequence

It’s important to reward yourself, for example if you achieve a certain goal, build rewards into your planning. If you reach an objective, make sure you reward yourself in some way.

It might be a small purchase, a takeaway, or something as simple as watching your favourite TV program.

TIP: Celebrate the small wins on a weekly basis or more often if you wish

Our Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, all of these ideas can help grow your business. Even implementing just one of them TODAY can potentially grow your business quite significantly.

Your ultimate goal is to create and establish a powerful online business. The way you do that is solely up to you, but always try to re-evaluate and improve. Hopefully the tips in this blog post will go a long way into helping you grow your business and take it to the next level

Make sure you download the additional 5 tips in the bonus report, click the button below for access:

Thanks for reading!

Aidan

P.S. One of my top 5 marketing books of all times are ‘The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results’ by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. You can pick it up on Amazon for about $9

10 Things You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business shared from AidanBooth.com

10 Things You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business shared from Aileen Batts Blog

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aileenmbatts · 7 years

Text

10 Things You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business

Hi, and welcome to the 1st of September monthly blog post on AidanBooth.com!

Here’s what we’ll cover in the first 10 tips:

Re-Evaluate Your Goals

Building A Plan

Focus On ONE Thing At A Time

Test Something

Terminate Distractions

Talk To Your Customer

Get Help!

Measure

Share Your Goals

Use Reward/Consequence

Our Final Thoughts

Just applying one of these 10 things to your business is going to help your business grow, potentially quite significantly.

Let’s dive in and take a closer look…

1. Re-Evaluate Your Goals

If you’ve had a false start and things haven’t worked out for you, perhaps you’ve gone down the wrong track even? Maybe you just need to start again, here’s our advice:

Hit the reset button…

Set new goals based on what you think is working today

Make sure your goals are realistic and ‘S.M.A.R.T’

Here’s what ‘S.M.A.R.T’ stands for:

Simple

Your goal should be simple and well defined. Good: “build a $5,000/month white label income” Bad: “build a successful white label income”.

Measurable

Having a measurable goal is essential. Use concrete numbers… in the last example I used ‘$5,000’. This is measurable.

Attainable

Aim for the stars, but keep one foot on the ground… Not easy… but realistic and attainable in a shorter period of time.

Realistic

Does your goal make sense based on market conditions? If you sell cars in a small village, and half the population is leaving, should you expect to double your sales next year?

Timely

Choose a time frame.

For example; “Build a $3,000/month white label income before the 31st December 2017”.

TIP: Give yourself a second chance as things don’t always work out the first time!

2. (Re)Build Your Plan

It still amazes me how few people actually make a plan, for example on an excel spreadsheet, or even a piece of paper!

I recommend you break every single action item down into a spreadsheet, assign dates to each item, and then break the big tasks into small actions on an accountability sheet.

Some things you might include on the spreadsheet:

Include revenue channels per month

Expenses

Incoming / outgoing revenue

Net profit / loss

Etc.

Ask yourself “where do you want to be in 12 months’ time?”

My advice? Dive in head first, you need a focussed drive.

ANYONE can get to 100K per year as long as you have the focus and drive.

Check out my blog post ‘Organizational Hacks To Turbo-Charge Productivity’ at: http://www.aidanbooth.com/organizational-hacks

3. Focus On ONE Thing At A Time

One of the most common reasons entrepreneurs fail is because they take on too much, and spread themselves too thin.

It’s best to do just ONE thing, and nail it!

Ask yourself, “What are the 3 things you can do today to move closer to your goals?” Taking bite size chunks will help you move forwards.

Not only does this apply to your business but it can also apply to the following areas of your life:

Personal life

Relationships

Finances

Job

Etc.

Below is a photo from one of my all time favorite books, ‘The One Thing’. It shows this ‘work-backwards’ long term goal planning method:

TIP: If in doubt, do less, rather than do more, focus on fewer things…

4. Test Something

Testing is key when running your business, even a 5% increase can have a massive impact, check out the examples below:

A 5% increase in conversions on a website is a huge deal… that’s 5% more sales without spending a penny more on traffic

5% increase in sales on Amazon is also HUGE… That can dramatically improve your sales velocity and overall performance

Here are some of the tools we use for testing:

Landing Pages or Websites

https://vwo.com/ is an easy and cost effective way to split test landing pages or any website, which can be set up in 2-3 minutes.

You can use VWO to tweak, optimize & personalize your website with minimal IT help.

Amazon Pages

If you’re an Amazon seller, you can use http://www.blackbirdsuite.com/ to split test your pages and much more…

BlackBird is a total package of technology and training for growing an Amazon business.

TIP: Testing can be fast and easy with the right tools… There’s NO reason NOT to do it!

5. Terminate Distractions

It’s time for you to take MASSIVE FOCUSED ACTION!

Focus, focus, focus

Eliminate threats and distractions

Know WHY you’re doing it

TIP: You need to be ruthless in how you eliminate toxic distrations!

6. Talk To Your Customer

Talking to your customer is a great way to improve your performance, the following can help anyone with the business they are working on:

Create a customer survey

Send personal customer emails

Understand WHO your customer is

Understand their concerns and what they really want

TIP: Thank your customers, unfortunately, not a lot of companies do this. Try to talk with your customers and let them know how much they mean to you, they’ll appreciate it!

7. Get Help!

Every business needs a support system, here’s are advice for getting help.

Get a partner

Involve your spouse

Outsource

Get a CEO

Get the hell OUT of the way!

Check out my blog post ‘How To Find The Perfect Business Partner’ @ http://www.aidanbooth.com/business-partners/

TIP: Hire the smartest person you can, it will get results!

8. Measure

If you’re judging yourself on some goal you can’t get to, it’s a pretty useless measure. It’s important to ensure that you’re measures align with your goals.

Put a system in place to help you measure your goals and keep you on track, and don’t forget to reward yourself when you achieve your business goals (we’ll talk more about this later on)!

TIP: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” – Quote by Peter Drucker

9. Share Your Goals

Get some kind of accountability partner

Shared goals are 70% more likely to be reached

TIP: Expose yourself to the possibility of humiliating failure… you won’t fail!

10. Use Reward/Consequence

It’s important to reward yourself, for example if you achieve a certain goal, build rewards into your planning. If you reach an objective, make sure you reward yourself in some way.

It might be a small purchase, a takeaway, or something as simple as watching your favourite TV program.

TIP: Celebrate the small wins on a weekly basis or more often if you wish

Our Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, all of these ideas can help grow your business. Even implementing just one of them TODAY can potentially grow your business quite significantly.

Make sure you download the additional 5 tips in the bonus report, click the button below for access:

Thanks for reading!

Aidan

10 Things You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business shared from AidanBooth.com

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