#I have like 5 books in my Amazon cart that I can’t seem to find anywhere else but I really want but I told myself I was on a no buy until

[heloisedaphnebrightmore]

i can’t with wine either, which I hate because for me it’s the pinnacle of adulthood, chillin’ in your flat sipping on a glass of wine with a face mask on, yk? So Shonda Rhimes, so Hollywood…. But it makes me bloated and the last time a gave it a go I ended up blurting to my best friend that i’d had a crush on him for the past 4 years and it almost ended our friendship. so there’ll be no wine for me.

Yeah, this laser-focus on just experience it’s strange and it frightens me a bit not gonna lie but the reason I chose to pursue the MA program is because I’ve majored in an area that’s completely unrelated which means I have zero experience in anything books related so I decided to go for the masters in an attempt to learn of course but also to be able to gather volunteering and internship experiences. *fingers crossed to the point they break in half* but also because I’ve been dreaming of moving to the UK since I was about 5 and while all my friends wanted to celebrate their sweet sixteen in Disneyland, I wanted to go to London.

and heck yeah will!!! The other day a video of waterstones account popped on my FYP on TikTok so thanks to the algorithm it’s now the second item on my bucket list. I better start saving up already hehe

Okay, so, right off the bat I’m gonna tell you that there’s zero smut, no filth, no steam. There is romance though – otherwise I don’t think I’d read past the first book. I feel like it’s right up your alley because the main focus of the books is character development and the romance is used the tool for said development, so there’s loads of it. It’s just a gem. Particularly, what I love most about the romance is that there’s no pining, there’s chase which is SOOOOO much sexier. The love interests of both sisters are mysterious and sexy which kinda makes up for the lack of sex scenes.

i get you, I do…… currently, however, I’m leaning more towards irredeemable arcs – that’s definitely not a thing but I didn’t know how to word it. I’m on the search for stories in which the characters become bad instead of becoming good, yk? Specially anti-hero FMCs which is all Wanda Maximoff’s fault. And for me redemption arcs are anticlimactic because most of the ones i’ve i read are poorly written, so they become a big turn-off (such as Snape). I want the bad guy and the good-turned-bad-girl set the world on fire together

Wow this TikToker was an imbecile jeez, you’re right about suggesting them to buy a new personality. I mean why the heck do people need to shove their nose up on people’s business???? They’re reading a book not stabbing people on the subway, go take a nap for goodness sakes.

I’m adding Neon Gods to my Amazon cart right freaking now so that I can jump to Electric Idol (do you hear that?? this is my TBR running down the drain) hahahaha Loved your reviews by the way, no spoilers but giving me the overall vibe of the book and with that it’s easy to decide whether or not I wanna read it.

I mean, in a rational level I get that we’re all unique and that’s truly awesome but I’ve always felt lesser or guilty for wanting that as tough I’m not enough of a woman, not a true feminist or that I’m doomed to be co-dependent because I want that. And also because this voice inside of me keeps nagging me that I’m never gonna find someone I think it’s easier not to tell anybody that I dream of a white-picket fence because when I don’t get that I also don’t get my friend’s pity looks. Probably makes no sense, sorry.

11 months and he threw you this bullcrap???? i can’t believe this!!!! well….. sadly I can, because dating men gets more insufferable by the second, still wanna low key punch him though. but really relationships seem like so much work jeez, it reminds me of those tourist scams where there are 3 cups and a tiny ball inside one of them and the guy keeps shuffling the cups for you to guess where the ball is, after much watching you pick a cup thinking you hit jackpot only to find an empty cup. The ball was under the other one and you just lost 50 euros. I’ve never had a true monogamist long term relationship (I’m 23 for the sake of context) which is mainly because it’s become a herculean task, a side hustle with all the apps and terrible straight men and the blatant sexism that still exists (which doesn’t cease to leave me flabbergasted adding the fact that men refuse to learn basic home skills while also reducing us to pans and spoons gosh it’s pathetic!!!!!) how will we ever even try to find somebody??? And that’s leaving our all emotional trauma and baggage aside.

first thing about the Hungary rant, I’m really sorry. Despite how much my country frustrates me and all the years I’ve wasted trash-talking this place, I now feel like this is my home, the culture, the music, the language, I feel embraced by my country, my people and I can’t imagine how painful it must feel to hate that much to go back to where you came from. and please don’t apologize!!! I totally get that, truly. Politics rile me up like almost no other topic does. I agree with you wholeheartedly, even though I’m not Hungarian but because the time I spent there was unforgettable and it contributed to the person I’ve become what’s happening there gets under my skin every time I check the news. And I guess there’s some sort of implicit complicity between people who live/come from countries led by right-extremists, so imagine me holding your hand. for me it’s simple, really, privatization is almost always stupid, people who follow politicians blindly push countries towards ruination and leaders like Orbán, Bolsonaro and Trump are anything but stupid, if they were, they wouldn’t be so damaging. ~goodreads anon

Nooooo, alcohol is your worst enemy when you have secrets that you never want to tell :D Not always, but most of the time, you just spill the tea without wanting!

I completely get you. London is amazing! People can say whatever they want about all the rubbish, pollution and over-occupancy and what not, but it's beautiful, it's full of different cultures, languages, it's literally a multi-cultural city. I love it! I'm sure you'll do well. If you do what you like, it will feel like a refreshment, because what you study and work is what you also enjoy doing. :)

What's your first item on your bucket-list, if you don't mind me asking. :D I'm curious.

"I feel like it’s right up your alley because the main focus of the books is character development and the romance is used the tool for said development, so there’s loads of it.... there’s no pining, there’s chase which is SOOOOO much sexier. The love interests of both sisters are mysterious and sexy which kinda makes up for the lack of sex scenes."

If you are trying to sell me Caraval to get me to read it earlier than planned then you are doing hell of a good job! Chase, mysterious love interests and loads of romance used as a tool for character development?! Sounds like my kind of book actually. But I learned not to get too excited so I'll try to keep my head cool :D

To be honest I don't necessarily need spice if the romance is well written. I'd say most of the times I read spicy books because writers somehow express the physical and emotional connections better in spicy books, whilst YA generally keeps emotions flat, like nothing intriguing enough. Of course, this is a generalisation, it doesn't mean every YA book is the same.

Not gonna lie, I've never read a "irredeemable arcs" trope before. The closest I got was Cruel Prince, but even in that Jude is already a morally grey character from the beginning-ish so rather than good-girl-turned-bad, she is just morally grey and so is Cardan.

The internet gives people access to platforms where they can express their opinions, which I think is quite a good thing, up until you are hurting others for no reason. These type of people are the ones who say "Oh I'm a nice person" but can't take no for an answer. Like no offence, but if you find it fun to bring down others, you are simply a bully and clearly have a boring life to resort to judging others for literally having fun.

Excuse me, but you are destroying my TBR with Caraval so don't complain about Neon Gods and Electric Idol because I'm simply returning the favour xD

Thanks, but honestly, I always try to write reviews and they never quite feel right. I want to mention tropes, character development, romance, world building, but in a short review. But each time I do that, I end up with a novella. Book reviews are not my strength.

"It reminds me of those tourist scams where there are 3 cups and a tiny ball" "It’s become a herculean task, a side hustle with all the apps and terrible straight men and the blatant sexism that still exists"

Oh my god, that's so accurate xD

To be fair, what I find more and more annoying is that men are still sexist as hell (not all men, yes, we get that), they still come up with stuff like women's place is in the kitchen and their job is to raise the kids and what not. But at the same time, they forget that they don't provide for women anymore, women work just like men now. So according to their ideas they want a mother not a wife which is just lowkey disappointing. Besides, nowadays, men are incapable of such things as changing the lightbulb or drilling a shelf on the wall. I personally don't mind if the men cook and the women drill or the other way around. I really don't care what roles people take up on. What I mind is that men diminish women's worth, but still women has to work just like men, raise their kids, cook for the family, clean the house, etc. whilst men get home from work and have the audacity to say "I'm tired, where's the food?". In the shop man, get your ass up and get it yourself.

Besides, lots of men are manipulative and try to control women all the time. And unfortunately many women are in vulnerable positions or grew up in unhealthy environments and don't even realise the signs. Even I fell into a relationship like that, regardless of how strong I am. The difference is that I realised in time the toxicity and many women don't. And to top it off, even little kids are sexualised for wearing not even revealing clothes. Women are blamed because man can't get their sick minds out of the gutter. Like I'm lowkey sometimes ashamed that I'm heterosexual. Like I wish I could be bi or lesbian because men are disappointing most of the times. Especially with this Andrew Tate guy becoming more popular. He literally says that women over 30 and single mothers are worthless because of their emotional, mental and physical baggage. I just... I... I can't even understand how these people are alive and people pay to listen to him. PAY!

And to be fair I get why you say you don't want to tell someone that you dream of marriage, kids, family and a cute little house, because being vulnerable is like offering a weapon to someone. It's hella scary because more and more people find some absurd enjoyment in bringing others down and hurting them wherever they can. Nowadays you don't even know who you can trust.

Regarding Hungary, sometimes I do feel some sort of homesickness only to remember that I don't actually miss Hungary, only the country itself. It's beautiful, it's stunning, it's full of culture and amazing places, but that's about it. I quickly remember how much I actually hate being there. I envy people who feel at home in the country they were born to. My parents do and they always scold me for not feeling the same way. But it's not like I can control what I feel.

To be honest, at this point I don't think I could name one country, or maybe New Zealand if I recall correctly, that has a good government. Even the UK is a sh*t show now with the new temporary prime minister election. Boris stepped down, but like the new options for PMs are even worse. At this point I believe only selfish b*stards become politicians all around the world. Eastern Europe is a mess, all of it, USA is a joke, UK removed a clown to possibly gain a fraud, France is scared of teenage girls. The world is sh*t show that we have a front row seat to watch it go down.

Ps.: I think I know who you are. I think I know your tumblr name. I might be wrong, but I just have a feeling and last time I did with an anon, I was right :D

#Heloise's inbox #goodreads anon

[pfenniged]

3, 7, 9, 15, 18

booknet ask game (Apologies for the delay!):

3. what was the last book you rated 1/5? 

Probably this horrific and justifiably priced 0.25 cent paperback I got from the library book sale. I care so little about the title I’m not even going to bother getting up to look at it, but basically it was somehow involving a mystery on a liner heading to New York, and The Kennedys circa 1941 when Joe (’God what a terrible person’) Kennedy was ambassador to England (And casual Nazi supporter/isolationist, lovely).

But the book promises you that it will mostly talk about Rosemary Kennedy as a character. Which I liked, because in case you don’t know, Rosemary Kennedy was JFK’s sister who was considered the ‘prettiest’ of all the Kennedy girls, but also constantly was on a diet because she ‘put on weight easily’ (Poor girl), and because she was seen as ‘simple.’ Supposedly when she was in her early twenties, she had the mental capacities or a naive thirteen year old/ writing level of an eight year old. They kept basically shoving her into boarding schools to try to push her forward in terms of education, but obviously when she most likely had something like a severe case of autism, there weren’t exactly many programs that directly addressed those who were learning disabled, and being a Kennedy, they most likely were like PUSH HER THROUGH IT AND SHE’LL BE FINE (Great, thanks guys).

All this being said, there is proof in terms of letters that basically everyone was afraid, because once she became a teenager, she started running away from these schools or sneaking out late at night, and they were literally worried because of how ‘naive’ she was, that she’d end up getting pregnant by some weirdo guy forcing himself on her/ convincing her to have sex. What most normal people/historians think now, is that she saw her brother being John F. Kennedy, El Primo Playboy of the World 1941, dating movie stars and having a buttload of friends (As my older brother used to say), and she obviously wanted to be involved in this glamorous, fun life with the rest of her family, rather than shoved away at some crappy boarding school with nuns the age of time immemorial (Understandable). (Also, for what it’s worth, JFK basically WAS a great older brother, for what I’ve heard, and wanted his parents to loosen up on her. He involved her in his social groups if she was around and never pushed her into anything that someone with her ‘limitations’ might be hurt by).

So of course the natural thing would be to do is to give her a lobotomy so she doesn’t run away, and of course, it had some horrific side effects and basically killed her personality entirely from all accounts, making her basically a human vegetable with only a shadow of the person she’d been before. After that Joe ‘I’m the Worst’ Kennedy carted his daughter off, and debatably, depending on who you ask, she was basically ignored by most of the family for 60+ years of her living in a care home, or embraced in private (The Kennedy message/propaganda/nice try guys). There’s really only consistent public photos of Ted Kennedy visiting her, because besides the whole ‘I accidentally murdered a woman I was having an affair with’ thing, Ted was the baby and seemed actually like ironically the most ‘Christian’ in the most broadest sense of the word besides Bobby Kennedy (Yes, I know they’re Catholic, it’s an analogy).

So bringing this back to this awful book, the ‘mystery’ on the cruise liner shit basically seemingly revolves around Rosemary pre-lobotomy and how she wants to get married to a ‘coloured jazz man.’ BUT THIS NEVER FACTORS INTO THE PLOT. NONE OF THE HISTORICAL FIGURES ABOARD DO EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE ‘POV’ CHAPTERS ASIDE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS.

You heard me right. xD I KNOW IT’S THE 1940S IN THE BOOKS AND THERE’S FAR WORSE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE AND THE JAZZ MAN IS NICE AND ALL BUT DAMN IT’S SORT OF THE WORST, BECAUSE THEY BASICALLY MAKE THIS THE ENTIRE REASON FOR HER LOBOTOMY AND WHILE THEORETICALLY IT WOULD FIT IN WITH JOE’S MOTIVATIONS HISTORICALLY, IT JUST CAME OFF AS SUPER SKEEZY AND UGH. Mostly the book A) Actually did a considerable job giving Rosemary a sweet and loving personality that you like, but considering what you know if you’re probably reading this book and how they’re just dropping bread crumbs the entire way through, it’s just incredibly morbid and bleh. 

If you’re going to write historical characters and fiction well, at least have something more to back it up than ‘Racism was more (outwardly) prevalent back then so she was going to be in an interracial relationship so lobotomy.” It just came off as conflating two important issues (The rights of the learning disabled to date and have families of their own, and interracial romances versus status in society), and just came out to justify it for a lobotomy we never even see. (Trust me, I’m making it sound far more interesting than it is).

Plus the mystery on the liner is the main aspect of the story, and I think that’s what makes it the worst: This author just chose to have these random historical figures on BECAUSE, and considering Rosemary’s background and what we know happened to her, it just seemed like a pretty desperate ploy to reel people in (like myself), and have them go, “Wait, this is just a sub-par mystery book, not a historical mystery book: She used that whole actual living person who existed and who was screwed over by her own family as ‘shock value’ and a ‘hook’ for the audience.” Double EW.

7. what was the last book that made you cry? 

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, who is unfortunately no longer with us but a BEACON of Canadian Literature, and I'm SO sad he didn’t get to write more books, because his writing style is BEAUTIFUL and poetic.

“Saul Indian Horse is an alcoholic Ojibway man who finds himself the reluctant resident of an alcohol treatment centre after his latest binge. To come to peace with himself, he must tell his story. Richard Wagamese takes readers on the often difficult journey through Saul's life, from his painful forced separation from his family and land when he's sent to a residential school to the brief salvation he finds in playing hockey. The novel is an unflinching portrayal of the harsh reality of life in 1960s Canada, where racism reigns and Saul's spirit is destroyed by the alienating effects of cultural displacement.”

What you also don’t get about the book from this review, is the role hockey plays as being central to the narrative. In that moment, and when Saul is young, inside his own head, he is just what we as the reader see him as: A young boy who loves a sport and finds it freeing. A PERSON. A kid who loves hockey. 

He’s so good that he has a chance to make it to the NHL. He’s good enough to play on the ‘white teams,’ but when he starts beating white players, grown men and women throw things at him, like plastic ‘Indians’ from a ‘Cowboy and Indian’ set. 

He is a skilled player. He has raw talent. But to make it to the next level, and because they won’t let him be on the team in any other role, because a Native man can’t become a skilled star in 1960s Canada, he has to become a ‘goon.’ There’s actually a moment in the book where he snaps, and it’s so well written and heartbreaking, where it’s like this Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde dynamic inside of him, where he literally just goes, “Okay? You want me to be a bloodthirsty ‘Indian’? Then I’ll be that for you.”

There’s also a movie I haven’t had the guts to watch all the way through, because I tried watching it on a plane ride from Australia to Canada without actually having read the book first, and having no idea what the movie was about aside from hockey and Indigenous culture, and Jesus Christ IT KILLED ME. I’m terrible at flying, had been throwing up and thoroughly miserable for about three hours at that point on the plane, tried to turn on a movie to distract myself, and within ten minutes, I was like “No, I think sticking to the vomiting is justified.” (To give you an idea of the directing style, it’s bizarrely produced by uber-Republican yet ‘weirdly-obsessed with Indigenous people’ movie star Clint Eastwood. If you’ve seen his other films and how sparse and depressing they can be, you can only IMAGINE what this material lends itself to. So I’d really stick to reading the book first. Because Wagamese’s voice is so much stronger within the book, and the pain and horror poor Saul is exposed to serves a purpose within the larger narrative much more clearly, and even when he is an alcoholic, he still is able to find hope within himself and returning to his people, and that’s a beautiful thing that I think was lost in the portions of the film I was able to catch.) Check it out: It was only written in 2012, but it’s already being heralded as a ‘classic’ in Canadian Indigenous Literature.

9. do you actually check out books that have been recommended for you?

I do. I might not actually READ them, but I’ll at least check out a snippet on Amazon to see if it’s my cup of tea. So if anyone has any recommendations, go right on ahead <3

15. how do you feel about reading buddies?  

I would love a reading buddy! <3 Feel free to message me if you’re keen. <3

18. what was your favourite book when you were 10?

Probably something by Roald Dahl or The Hobbit, if we’re talking sheer escapism or enjoyment (Or the original run of Harry Potter). My Dad is an English teacher, so I was always reading older books than were probably age-appropriate (I was placed at a college-reading level at twelve on an assessment test), so other than that, a lot of classic literature: Just name it, I’ve probably read it. 

I also was a nerd who decided to read the entire dictionary back to front somewhere around this time and copy down all the words I actually didn’t know on a list, so that was a hobby. xD I guess I could count that as a ‘favourite book.’ (-Insert Homer Simpson “NEEeeeRRRddddd” gif here-).

#asteriah #sorry this took too long bb! <3 #answers #personal #literature

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi and thank you for taking my question. I usually write fanfic but I really want to get started writing a novel. But I never have any ideas. How can I come up with plot ideas for a novel????

Where to Find Story Ideas

Thank you for writing in!

Plot ideas can come from lots of different places, and as writers, we should always be on the lookout for inspiration. It helps a lot to keep a “plot bunnies” notebook or document on your desktop, so that you’ll always have someplace to write down new ideas, and someplace to go when you need ideas.

In the meantime, here are some places you can start looking for ideas:

1) Your favorite books, movies, and TV shows can provide great inspiration. What elements do your favorites have in common? You can also try making a list of your three favorite books, TV shows, and movies, then choose three favorite elements of each and write them in a long list. Now, look at all of those elements and see if there’s a way to combine them into a new and interesting story.

2) Writing prompts are another great way to find story inspiration. The internet is full of writing prompts, or you can find writing prompt books in stores, libraries, and Amazon. You can even find entire tumblrs dedicated to writing prompts. Try choosing a few prompts from a few different sources. Write a little flash fiction or short story for each one and see if any of them open up to a bigger story. If not, isolate your favorite elements of each story and see if they can be combined into a new story.

3) Memories and family stories can provide a unique source of inspiration, no matter what type of stories you like to write. This is a great opportunity to talk to older family members and learn about family stories and history. Bring a notebook so you can take notes, and see if you can suss out the oldest existing story in your family. Ask about childhood memories,or if people remember any childhood stories belonging to their parents or grandparents. Often, at the heart of these stories, you can find a kernel that can be spun into a whole new story. For example, my grandfather grew up in a big city in the 1920s, and he said he used to ride the trolley all over the city, all by himself, when he was just four or five years old. Can you imagine the adventures he must have gotten into? Now, imagine someone else in his shoes–perhaps a boy in a fantasy version of feudal Japan, catching a ride in a hay cart over to the next village. What happens to him there? What about space station dwelling teenager who hops aboard a shuttle and ends up in a city on a whole new planet. How does she get home again?

4) Current events and history are also good sources for story ideas. Try watching some interesting-sounding documentaries on YouTube or Netflix. A TV show about the gold rush might inspire a sci-fi story. A documentary about some crazy conspiracy theory might inspire a medieval fantasy version of a similar conspiracy. An intriguing bit of data or a mystery in a current news story might serve as an interesting plot element in a whole new story.

5) Songs and song lyrics end up being a major source of inspiration for me and a lot of other writers I know. While you can’t use the exact elements, plot, or imagery of a song, you can use them as inspiration for new ideas. Maybe the imagery in Taylor Swift’s “End Game” lead you to the story of a futuristic heiress who is romantically (and ideologically) torn between the rival heiress who wants to bring her father’s empire to its knees, and the ruthless business woman who is vying for a seat at her father’s table, hoping to sway him to her own sinister plans for his company’s future.

6) Plot inspiring tools are not all that hard to come by, and they can be really helpful when you need plot ideas, or you have a plot idea that needs to be fleshed out. Some of my favorites are: inspiration dice (these seem to be no longer made, but if you can get your hands on some, they’re great!), Rory’s Story Cubes, The Storymatic, The Writer’s Toolbox, Writer Emergency Pack. You can also find “prompt generators” and “story idea generators” online. The ideas they offer up are usually kind of out there, but sometimes they’ll inspire whole new ideas to form in your head!

Good luck!

#writing tips #writing help #writing advice #writing questions answered #writing #wqa #wqaadvice

[metawitches]

In episode 5 of Snowpiercer, LJ goes to trial for her part in the murders of Sean and Nikki, Josie goes uptrain to search for Andre and Miss Audrey takes action to ensure that Melanie will get Nikki the justice she deserves. The Folgers pressure Melanie to go easy on LJ. Bess moves in with Jinju and gets a 2nd class chip implant to go with her bourgeois 2nd class privileges.

It’s a tough episode for Melanie, but she manages to find some stress relief.

Recap

We begin with Andre, who is sealed up tight in a drawer. He normally looks so robust, despite 7 years in the Tail, but now he has a grayish cast to his skin. The version of kronole used as a suppression drug is so poisonous that it gives the entire body a death pall, while turning the insides jet black, which can be seen externally by viewing the gums.

As Nikki claimed, it’s not like sleep. He’s having a combination of flashbacks and dreams. He’s back in the Tail, reliving memories of subduing the cannibal cult. That story was real, and largely happened the way he told it, if these dreams reflect reality. But he killed the cult leaders alone, at the insistence of the rest of the Tail, using a shiv they’d created, instead of the story about group solidarity overcoming an evil villain that Andre told in the Drawers.

The Tail leaders did all share in eating the heart, including Josie, Pike, Last Australian, Z-Wreck, Strong Boy, Big John and Lights.

Interspersed with his memories, Andre hears Nikki singing Sealed with a Kiss, the Bobby Vinton song that LJ played for him. He repeatedly sees Nikki’s bloody, mutilated body standing at the end of an aisle in the Drawers, singing the song, staring at him as if she’s the evil little girl in a horror movie.

Was it trading away the ring that doomed him?

Andre knows that he hasn’t really gotten justice for Nikki. He’s gotten an errand boy killed as a literal sacrificial lamb and sent a 1st Class designer accessory out to take the fall, so the mob can feel like someone uptrain paid for the murders of Thirdies.

The person or people who are really responsible, the ones who ordered all of the murders, are still untouchable, free to order more murders when someone gets too close to their business dealings or secrets.

Layton thought he could put his revolution above individual justice, but his dreams are keeping him honest. The bodies of the victims have probably gotten progressively more gruesome with each murder because they’re being used to send harsher and harsher warnings.

Has his subconscious mind figured out who’s ordering the murders, and who they’re warning off?

Miss Audrey’s spoken voiceover: “I see now that as the Freeze killed everyone I ever knew, I mistook my survival for freedom. But justice never boarded and Wilford doubled down with a jackboot on our throats and a fat finger on the scales. Now, some of us are ready to change his terms. It will be perilous, filthy work. More precious souls may be lost. But we didn’t come this far, suffer this much, to give in to the same tyranny that destroyed us in the first place. Even on a frozen dead planet, humanity needs hope. For these are our revolutions on Snowpiercer, 1,001 cars long.”

Audrey is in the empty Night Car, holding a photo of Nikki from before the Freeze. Did they know each other then? Audrey looks ten years older than she does when she’s performing, onstage or otherwise, as she silently weeps for Nikki.

Snowpiercer has taken its toll on her, as it does on everyone.

Her assistant pokes his head in to signal they’re ready. She nods to confirm that it’s time to enact their plan. In 1st Class, one of the Night Car staff switches places with a busboy from the 1st Class dining car. He pulls out a covered dish from the underside of the cart and places it on top.

It’s lunchtime again for Lead Brakeman Roche. LJ is in the cell and she’s as fascinated by his perfectly formed and packed lunches as I am. She asks him questions about himself, but gets no respect. He remains silent, until he finally tells her that anything she says to him is admissible in court.

LJ doesn’t care, because she’s innocent, so she can’t incriminate herself. Since he won’t tell her how he and his wife met, she tells him that her parents met in St Moritz on a chair lift.

Of course they did. The frozen Swiss playground of the rich and amoral.

She’s just getting around to threatening him a little when Melanie brings the Folgers in. It’s LJ’s trial day, so she gets to go home and prepare. Melanie makes sure she understands that she’s on trial for murder, will be judged by a tribunal of ticketed passengers and will be expected to testify.

Melanie says that Wilford will be following along with the trial. Robert is glad, so that Wilford can see how silly the accusations against LJ are. Roche gets angry, since the Thirdies are taking the trial very seriously. They want justice for their 3 victims. Guess that first victim from years ago, when LJ was 12ish, is back on the table.

Lilah reminds Melanie that LJ is a minor child and the actual murderer is dead. Melanie says this was just the required pretrial detainment.

There’s no provision for a judge or Wilford to determine whether she should stand trial as an adult or a minor then? Because it seems like she’s being treated as an adult, but she was arrested based on evidence that only pointed to Erik, not her. Andre made up the rest of the story and she didn’t argue with him, allowing him to persuade her into becoming a public sacrifice.

Rewatch the scenes if you don’t remember it that way. Layton does the talking and LJ never admits to anything, beyond recognizing the J-hook and being close to Erik, neither of which was a crime. She fully cooperates with the investigation. Layton makes up a scenario he finds plausible, then exaggerates it further to make sure 3rd Class will hate the spoiled 1st Class suspect.

He turned her into another Nikki, so Nikki is haunting him. As a cop, he knows the murders aren’t over.

On her way out of the garrison, LJ tells Melanie that she doesn’t belong in the drawers and she just wants to thank Mr Wilford for the chance to prove it.

Roche and Melanie agree that there’ll be trouble in 3rd if she isn’t convicted.

Josie treats the remainder of Suzanne’s arm, which has developed a serious infection. It’s revealed that Josie was a vet before the Freeze. She’s qualified medically to help Suzanne, but has no supplies to work with and no way to keep a wound clean. Winnie brings Josie a new message from Astrid, asking Josie to meet her in sanitation today.

Bess and Jinju are moving in together, which means that Bess gets a shiny new 2nd Class chip inserted in her hand. The Notary and the Doctor go through a little ceremony with them, in which Jinju promises she’ll be responsible for Bess during the probationary period. If Bess makes a mistake, Jinju will be punished too.

With that, Bess is granted access to 2nd Class and all of its entitlements. The officials offer congratulations, then leave the lovebirds to their celebration. They’re both sure about their relationship and very happy. Three months is the longest Jinju has waited to move in with someone.

Still Snowpiercer’s most adorable couple, with no serious competition.

Back in their own car, the Folgers worry that something could go wrong during the trial, leading the tribunal to convict their daughter. Lilah wants LJ to rehearse her testimony again. LJ is distracted, playing a game, then wondering what it’s like in the drawers. Finally she asks Robert if she can… pop out his glass eye and mess around with it, putting it in her own mouth and pretending it’s a mouth-eye.

Robert chuckles, but Lilah is impatient and insists they get serious. She tells LJ to remember to tell the jury, “He forced me.”

LJ: “He did force me. You do know that, right?”

Robert: “We know that, sweetheart. We know.”

Lilah silently walks away. Maybe because she doesn’t believe LJ, maybe because she feels so helpless.

As the breakfast rush empties out of the 1st Class dining car, Ruth orders her assistant, Tristan, to stop staring out the window. He explains that he used to dream of seeing the Amazon, so he likes to watch it when it goes by. As lacking in imagination as ever, Ruth snaps that now it’s just a frozen lump. She tells him to set the car up for the Tribunal once everyone is gone, using the usual floor plan.

Weren’t we led to believe that there had only been one tribunal, Nikki’s? Or did they just mean there had only been the one murder trial, but there have been trials for other, lesser crimes? If there are regular trials, that makes it even more important to root out unfairness in the system.

Audrey’s replacement busboy wheels his cart into 1st Class and over to Sharma’s table. He says to enjoy the dish, complements of the Night Car, then leaves the dining car while the dish is still covered.

Ruth has taken notice of this unusual display- Sharma didn’t order anything and breakfast service is over anyway. Sharma lifts the cover just as she’s telling him not to. Inside, the dish is live bugs served on top of dead bugs. While everyone screams, Ruth sends Tristan to get Melanie.

Melanie visits Miss Audrey in the Night Car and says, “That stunt was beneath you, Audrey.”

Audrey: “No, it really wasn’t.”

If Melanie won’t play fair, neither will Audrey.

Melanie expresses her condolences for Nikki’s death. But she doesn’t understand Audrey’s anger, when there’s one suspect in custody, waiting to stand trial, and another is dead. What more does Audrey want?

Audrey says that the trial is a joke, since it takes place 5 miles uptrain, with a jury made up of passengers from 1st and 2nd, who are judging whether another upper class passenger killed three of her people from 3rd. They have no motivation to find one of their own guilty.

Melanie: “The Night Car is supposed to be Switzerland. Why are you politicizing it?”

Audrey has a thick book open on the counter. She points to it now: “Third has the right to petition Wilford in labor disputes and matters of jurisprudence. We want a new tribunal drawn. One representative from each class. And a delegation to observe the trial.”

Audrey says that Melanie used to try to make a difference, but working closely with Wilford has hardened her. Melanie remembers when Audrey told Wilford she wanted the Night Car to be more than the brothel he envisioned. Melanie backed her up when she explained that she thought the train would need a place to work through their grief. Now the train depends on Audrey and her vision of the Night Car as that place. If Audrey overtly takes sides, her club will no longer be a place where everyone feels welcome.

But Audrey sees her role as the caretaker and voice of the needy on the train, the ones Wilford and Melanie might forget. She might have been separate from 3rd class in the beginning, but she’s seen how much more they suffer than 1st and 2nd. She’s not the type to stand by and do nothing.

Melanie walks the train everyday, so she’s no stranger to its conditions. But people share their inner lives with Audrey in a way they never will with Wilford’s mouthpiece.

Audrey: “We depend on you… On your voice to Wilford’s ear. Recommend a new tribunal.”

Melanie tries to call Audrey’s bluff, the way she did with Lilah, but this isn’t a bluff. Audrey reminds her that Thirdies work in every department of the train and they can make life very difficult.

And with one significant pause, Audrey hints to Melanie that she knows the truth about Wilford.

Melanie’s next stop is the Drawers, where she asks Klimpt what his autopsy showed about how the suspension drug affected Nikki. He says she had necrosis of her adrenal tissue and hepatic insufficiencies, but he didn’t have enough time to find out whether she would have regained her normal mental state. She wasn’t fully detoxed when she died.

In other words, in addition to all of the obvious side effects of the drug, Nikki’s liver and adrenal glands were severely damaged. This is a terribly unethical situation to continue to keep the other Sleepers in.

Jinju asks if the Sleepers have Locked-In Syndrome, a rare disorder in which patients are fully conscious but unable to move or communicate. Klimpt says they might. He insists that the Sleepers need to be awakened more slowly than Nikki was.

That won’t cure the damage to their internal organs.

Melanie says they have 400 drawers, which someday might all hold Sleepers. They have to make sure the Sleepers won’t wake up traumatized. Klimpt says he’s trying.

That’s a lot of prisoners and experiments and a lot of concern for their welfare when they wake up. Something else is going on here. Is she hoping to eventually sell spots in stasis to the highest bidder, so Firsties can sleep through the rest of the ice age instead of using up resources and growing old?

They should start by using a drug that doesn’t turn sleepers’ mouths black.

Jinju has heard the rumor that the Thirdies want a spot on the Tribunal. Melanie is considering giving in. She tells Jinju that LJ may get what she deserves. Jinju doesn’t look as certain as Melanie that it’s a good idea.

Up in the engine, Ben and Javi are also skeptical about upsetting the status quo, especially Javi, who thinks pushing the Firsties too hard will aggravate the train’s class divisions too much.

Which leaves Melanie stuck, since 3rd is already aggravated. She asks Javi to take the wheel while she speaks to Ben privately.

Melanie and Ben go to her cabin, where they have an afternoon quickie on her desk, not even pausing to move Mr Wilford’s paperwork.

What will the boss think???

Afterwards, Ben lies in Melanie’s tiny single bed and says they haven’t had sex since the bees died. He’s sensing a pattern.

You think??? The woman really is a death goddess.

They briefly indulge in remembering what they miss most- Melanie wishes she could open a window or go for a walk. Ben misses the sound of rain. When he asks if she’s really going to change the rules for the tribunal, she says she just wants to breathe.

The tribunal is chosen using ping pong balls randomly drawn from a cage, the way bingo numbers are chosen. Each passenger is assigned a number. The Voice of the Train announces that Mr Wilford has agreed to allow a 3rd Class member on the Tribunal, so one name has been chosen from each class.

Ruth’s face makes it clear that this decision is sure to bring on the general downfall of civilization.

The tribunal members are Firstie Edith Gusterfeld, 2nd Class primary teacher Mary-Elizabeth Gillies, and Thirdie papermaker Walter Flemming. 3rd Class cheers their representative as he makes his way to Hospitality.

Josie has joined the sanitation crew again so she can search for Andre. At break time, Astrid knocks on the second door in the break room and tells the Tailie crew that Josie should meet Terence the Janitor in the Market, at the symbol of the yellow butterfly. She and Josie switch clothes so that Astrid can take Josie’s place until the next break.

Melanie greets the tribunal members as they arrive in the hospitality office. The tribunal members are friendly and open with each other as they get acquainted, even the Firstie, Edith Gusterfeld. She laments that she doesn’t get to mingle with other classes more.

Ruth: “Doesn’t Mr Wilford understand that you can’t just change the rules?”

Melanie: “I guess they’re his rules to change. He chose the will of the people.”

Ruth: “We don’t have will. We have order.”

Ruth walks out. Her assistant opens and closes the door for her.

Guess Ruth missed the page in the Big Book of Snowpiercer’s Rules of Order that Audrey pointed out earlier.

Till and Oz are tasked with bringing the delegation from 3rd to the 1st Class dining car. He accuses her of having joined the bourgeoisie. She retaliates by asking if he’s still trading drugs for sex. He says his probation is almost over. She says she wants to stay at the trial long enough to hear Jinju’s testimony. They achieve a truce of sorts.

He gathers the delegation and makes a speech instructing them to act like people rather than animals while they’re uptrain, then he and Till lead the delegation the 5 miles from the Night Car to the 1st Class dining car, accompanied by a unit of jackboots.

As the delegation moves uptrain, Robert tries to convince Lilah that everything will be fine. But Lilah understands the truth: “You don’t see what’s happening, do you? There’s an idea traveling uptrain, Robert. It wants to live, this idea. It wants to set the train ablaze and all it needs is a spark. All it needs is to wrap its thick fingers around your daughter’s throat and choke her out for the working man.”

Lj enters the room and Lilah tells her they should continue working on her testimony. Lilah must have gotten through to Robert, because he tells her he’ll take care of it.

From Lilah’s prediction to Layton in the drawer, having nightmares about the cannibals in the Tail. It’s not clear if these are accurate, if jumbled, memories, but I’m assuming they are. If so, it’s a strange story, since everyone else made Layton face the cannibals alone. When Layton told the story, he made it sound like most of the Tail had fought the kill cult.

He looks like he might have been drugged into taking the job, as if the rest of the Tail tried to send him back to the cannibals to be their next sacrifice and got lucky when he killed the cannibals instead. He puts Miles up in a bunk to keep him safe. Everyone wishes him luck as they insist he has to save them. Mama Grandé gives him a weapon, then he charges the cannibals’ lair.

Josie finds the Market, then one of the janitors finds her and brings her to Terence at knifepoint. Terence hasn’t been paid for this meeting and is only interested in how it might benefit him. Josie explains that they think Layton is in a drawer. Terence suggests that Layton might have made Wilford mad and have gotten “his head stuck out a port.”

There’s a fun thought. That would certainly make it hard to identify his body, unless you knew him really well.

Terence and Annie were considering taking a trip to the drawers themselves, so they decide to go along with Josie that afternoon, while the train is distracted with LJ’s trial.

Robert and a delegation of Firsties, including Sharma, Eugenia and Martin Colvin, meet with Commander Grey to discuss a regime change. Robert makes it clear that he’s not a bigot. He’s just a conservative attempting to maintain order. It doesn’t do anyone any good for Thirdies to get ideas above their station.

Grey asks if Robert is speaking as a citizen or LJ’s father. Robert says both. The rest of the delegation stand behind him. They’re all afraid that 3rd will come for their children. Grey says his job is to uphold the rules. He doesn’t make them.

Eugenia says that since Wilford has locked himself away, he’s grown out of touch with the needs of the people. Grey points out that Wilford has “the skills to keep us all alive.” He asks what Eugenia brings to the table. She says she has hundreds of millions of dollars in early investor status and “a whole world of pain when it comes to my survival.”

What does that threat mean? She’s talking to the man who commands the only remaining standing army. How does she think she’ll physically harm him? Does she have nuclear codes that she thinks will still work? A mobster shadow army?

Sharma interrupts Eugenia’s rant and explains that they’re fine leaving Wilford to himself. They’re more concerned with the day-to-day aspects of running the train- everything that isn’t military and infrastructure- and feel they’d do a better job in charge of those aspects. Grey asks about Melanie. Robert says she’d be the first to go.

Grey nods slightly, but stays silent.

I thought Grey hated Melanie and wanted her out, but something about that conversation makes me think he knows she’s Wilford and supports her. Kudos again to Timothy V. Murphy. He kills it in this role.

Martin Colvin turns out to be one of Melanie’s spies and runs straight to her with the story. She asks how Grey reacted. Colvin says the Commander just stared at them, coldly.  She tells Colvin she’ll speed up his renovations.

As they leave for the trial, Lilah gives LJ a few last minute reminders: cry contrite tears, make eye contact and be sincere. Robert pulls his Lilahs in for a family hug. A jackboot escorts LJ to the trial.

In the dining car, Ruth acts as judge to keep order during the trial. She says that tribunals are called to handle cases of crime, conspiracy or negligence. LJ is accused of 2 counts of murder.

Roche is the first witness: “Once the accused was apprehended, the brakemen did a full and thorough search of the Folgers’ quarters. There we found the most striking evidence in the case. Hidden in Lilah Junior’s jewelry box were the particularly preserved, severed penises of two male victims.”

Tristan brings out a jewelry box with the souvenirs in it and shows the Tribunal and the crowd.

I hate to discredit Roche, but every witness in this trial has serious issues. LJ looks shocked when the jewelry box is brought out. If it was found in her room, shouldn’t she and her parents have known and been prepared for this testimony? More importantly, it would have been simple for one of the brakemen who searched the room (cough *OZ* cough) to plant the souvenirs in the jewelry box or even just in the evidence file later, in order to falsify evidence.

Most importantly, no teenage girl hides severed penises in her jewelry box, where her mother might find them while looking for a pair of earrings. The souvenirs would have been hidden more carefully. A jewelry box is the kind of place a man would think a woman would put them and would have easy access to during a search when he wanted to plant evidence. Roche may or may not know the evidence was planted.

Erik could have also known he was in trouble and have planted them there to implicate LJ.

Let’s remember how many men have died in recent episodes, from Tailies to butchers to Erik. Penises to preserve and use as false evidence aren’t hard to come by on Snowpiercer. But my guess is that they found the appendages when they searched Erik’s hidey hole in the storage closet, then planted them to ensure LJ’s conviction. Erik was the serial killer and collector, not LJ.

Next up is Dr Pelton, who did her very first autopsy on Sean Wise. She was led through it by Layton, but now she’s an expert, embellishing her findings as well. As she discusses her findings, Tristan shows the J-Hook around, which now has LJ’s fingerprints on it.

That would explain why LJ sat in front of Layton and made the chopping motion with it.

Sometimes I’m extra slow on the uptake. This why I write 10k word recaps instead of 1 page police detective reports.

Dr Pelton: “Sean Wise was bound and choked multiple times with a thin ligature. He was very much alive when his genitals were chopped off.”

Moving on, the Tunnelman who found Sean’s body plays up the horror of finding such a coldly mutilated human being. If you’ll recall, when Layton and Till interviewed him at the cannibal lunch counter, his only emotion was impatience at having to tell the story a second time, since he’d already told everything he remembered to the brakemen.

Then it’s Jinju’s turn. She sells LJ up the river as the criminal mastermind who controlled Erik, her serial killer puppet and partner in a wicked conspiracy.

Jinju: The whole time, Erik’s focus was Lilah Junior. I was as much her hostage as I was his. (Jinju takes a long look at LJ.) That was what they wanted, Erik and LJ, to kill us all in a nihilistic rage. But the Eternal Engine is still here.”

In fact, Erik said “she” had predicted something and Jinju asked if he meant his girl. Erik ignored her. A little later, Jinju repeatedly asked him his name, which he ignored. But Erik was careful to make sure Jinju wasn’t harmed, even when he shot at the electrical box and knew he was about to die. There’s no evidence that the “she” he referred to was LJ and there was no way for Jinju to know what he was thinking about, unless she’s psychic.

Miss Audrey testifies on behalf of Nikki. She tells her listeners that Nikki was a beautiful person who’s been ignored by the upper classes, just like 3rd Class always is. But it’s time for them to start caring, because they depend on Thirdies for their lives to run smoothly. Meanwhile the Thirdies suffer physical hardships 2nd Class and Firsties don’t experience. Miss Audrey says that she hasn’t come to her current political stance easily. In the beginning, she agreed with Wilfred’s order. But after 7 years, the train needs compassion and justice for more than just the rich.

She says Nikki’s name, in a nod to the “Say Her Name” movement, as the crowd erupts. Ruth calls a recess, after which LJ will testify.

Annie the janitor stops Klimpt as he’s on his way back to the trial and pickpockets his keys to the drawers. Josie, Terence and Annie break in, then the two janitors quickly steal large quantities of chemicals, probably the suppression drug or its precursors, and leave. They toss Josie the keys to the individual drawers on their way out and wish her luck, assuring her this isn’t personal, just business. Josie also pockets a few tubes of medication, likely including an antibiotic for Suzanne.

Melanie pulls Lilah aside in the corridor and warns her to stop her political machinations.

Lilah: “Let me tell you a Folger family story. When LJ was 7, she put out Robert’s eye. Lashed out with a fork and punctured it all over his face. And even as the jelly was running down his cheek, he held her through the tantrum, protecting her. So you go ahead with your Hospitality show trial and prepare to suffer the consequences. Because you’re messing with my bloodline.”

Lilah walks away. A group of passengers is standing several feet behind Melanie, undoubtedly eavesdropping, ready to spread the story of LJ’s history. Rather than proclaim Lilah Junior’s innocence to the train, Lilah’s defense strategy is to turn her daughter into a force to be reckoned with, just as LJ wished for in her conversation with Layton about cannibalism.

As always, the eye story may or may not be the whole truth. It doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter with the testimony against LJ. The point is that Lilah claims royal privilege for her daughter and has already proven in words and deeds that she’ll back it up with a scorched earth war against Melanie if her child comes to any real harm.

Josie frantically searches the files and open surfaces in the Drawers, hoping to find something that will indicate which drawer Layton is in. She knows she doesn’t have time to open 400 drawers.

LJ swears to tell the truth, then goes straight for the contrite tears her mother suggested. She says she loved Erik, but he had a power over her that left her afraid and confused. She’s unsure whether that was really love, but Erik said it was.

She looks straight at Melanie when she gets to the important part.

LJ: “He made me watch him do terrible things and I can still hear those men begging for it to end. Uh, but Erik said fear makes people honest. I think that’s true. Sean Wise, just before he died, said he was an informant, a spy for Mr Wilford. Sean said that shadows and lies were taking over our beautiful train, from tip to Tail, from Ag-Sec to the Drawers. “400 hundred secrets that rock us to the rails,” he said. But he would never spill them. (LJ speaks to Ruth) Can I say this part to Mr Wilford?”

Ruth: “Yes, he’s following along.”

LJ: “I am so sorry for the part that I played in this tragedy. I was silent when I should have spoken, but Sean Wise gave his life to save humanity from the darkness that almost swallowed me whole. If the train shows me mercy, I promise to do my part for her, too. That’s all I can say.”

She stops crying to make her promise and looks Melanie directly in the eye. Melanie has been visibly distressed during LJ’s testimony, since she understands that Sean knew and spilled her deepest secrets. LJ offered to trade her silence for her life and help she could give Melanie in the future. Melanie has to wonder how many other people know her secrets and whether LJ wrote anything down and hid it, maybe in a letter sealed with a kiss. This is a turning point in Melanie’s strategy of violently silencing anyone who finds out that isn’t already a close ally.

Ruth calls another break while the Tribunal deliberates.

Josie seems to develop some sixth sense for which drawers hold Tailies and opens a few. The first two hold children who’d been chosen for the apprenticeshop program, Mia and a young boy. Layton is in the third.

Melanie and Jinju retreat to the Hospitality office and discuss LJ’s testimony.

Melanie: “Maybe he told her the drawers are experimental. Maybe he told her about the list.”

Jinju: “Well, that changes the calculus, doesn’t it?”

Melanie sends a note to Ben and Javi through the vacuum tubes. Javi doesn’t like what it says. He’s mad that he’s even working in the engine. He confronts Ben about his relationship with Melanie.

When Josie can’t wake Layton up, she removes a wrist cuff which results in his heart stopping. Oz and Bess are outside in the hall and notice that the Drawers have been broken into. They investigate and find Josie hiding in the drawer with Layton. Oz pulls her out and brutally beats her until Till knocks him out with her baton.

Till, like everyone else, thought Layton had gone back to the Tail. He’s convulsing and barely has a heartbeat. Josie injects him with something which begins to bring him around. Till tells her they have to get out of the Drawers before they get caught.

The Tribunal finds LJ guilty on all counts, by unanimous vote. Jinju and the teacher look especially pleased. In the engine, Ben tells Javi that he has to follow Melanie’s orders for the worst case scenario. Javi doesn’t think Melanie should interfere with the results of the Tribunal. Ben sends a message to the 1st Class dining car.

Ruth reads the message, which says Mr Wilford is commuting LJ’s sentence due to her status as a minor. The 3rd Class delegation explodes into a riot as the Folgers and the rest of 1st Class are rushed out of the dining car.

Till helps Josie drag Layton to Zarah’s place in the Chains. Josie tells Zarah that Layton was drawered and the Tail needs to be able to trust her now. Zarah pretends she doesn’t know about the blue chip. Josie rushes back to sanitation to relieve Astrid. Zarah helps Layton up to one of her hiding spots.

Melanie has a chat with LJ in the Hospitality office about discretion and secrets. Jennifer Connelly earns her pay with some excellent line delivery, as she tries to convince LJ to play by her rules from now on. LJ promises to keep Mr Wilford’s secrets and look out for his well being, but she also seems overconfident. She thinks she’s safe, but she’s now also a very important pawn, since she’s been exposed as the Folgers’ greatest weakness and as a danger to Melanie. She might not go to the drawers, but accidents can happen to anyone.

Till returns to the Drawers for Oz. He’s gone, but the wall next to where he was lying is marked with red blood and black scuff marks, as if a fight took place. It’s not from his fight with Josie. Who found him there and who won the fight? The jackboots?

Layton continues to convulse, with Zarah holding him down so he doesn’t hurt himself. He remembers bringing a heart out from the cannibals’ section of the Tail and slicing it up. Everyone took a piece and said, “Never again,” before eating it. He remembers Strong Boy, Mama Grandé, Santiago, Josie, Lights, Z-Wreck and Last Australian. No one says OneTail.

Then he wakes up and opens his eyes. He doesn’t know where he is, but Zarah is curled around him and kisses his forehead.

Commentary

Will try to add more screen caps soon.

Cannibals, Sacrificial Lambs and Switzerland

The themes of this episode are cannibals, sacrificial lambs and Switzerland. Sacrificial lambs in the sense of a symbolic sacrifice made by a group which is meant to take the place of the group itself. LJ takes the place of 1st Class. Suzanne’s arm took the place of all of the other rebels who escaped, most especially her own lamb, Winnie. Layton may have unknowingly entered the cannibals’ lair as a sacrifice rather than a protector. The shot of him placing Miles out of the way symbolizes Miles as the potential lamb he’s replacing/protecting.

In the film, children tasted the best, so the cannibals went for them first. People place great value on their children, so they would make the best sacrificial lambs. Curtis gives up cannibalism and eventually sacrifices himself for the children in the film. Layton defeats the cannibals in the Tail. But Melanie makes a deal with the 1st Class cannibals uptrain in order to protect her secrets, though she tells herself it’s to protect the train.

The cannibals and the Swiss are nearly equal symbols in Snowpiercer, with the cannibals admitting that they are motivated by their worst impulses, while the Swiss pretend they are neutral. They have situational morality and thus define what is right as whatever is good for the wealthy and powerful, sacrificing the moral beliefs that drive most of the world’s great religions on the altar of greed and ambition.

As Audrey pointed out, though Melanie defines herself as separate from 1st Class, in her actions she is actually no different from them. It becomes more clear with every episode that Ruth considers herself a de facto member of 1st Class, though it’s not clear yet why she believes she’s above the rest of the senior staff. Ruth enjoys every bit of class based injustice she hands out.

The irony of this episode is that 3rd Class was looking for real change, but would have accepted LJ as a sacrificial lamb, had she received a punishment commensurate with her alleged crimes. The problem is, no one would willingly allow their only child to be sacrificed to appease an angry mob, not even the most amoral of gangsters. By convincing LJ to let herself be caught, Layton hit 1st Class in the one place they couldn’t easily defend. They might have abandoned another adult to their fate, but not a child. Now 1st Class doesn’t trust Melanie to protect their children and 3rd Class doesn’t trust her to give them the justice they deserve.

I suspect that the discovery of Mia and the other boy in the drawers will have the same effect on the Tail. I don’t know how Layton could have planned for Josie to find them or if he saw clues while he was in the Drawers as an investigator that led him to believe Mia was in one. But now the Tailies have another reason to rebel, since their children are being taken, experimented on and left to die. Since no new babies are being born in the Tail, in a sense they have nothing left to lose. The apprenticeship program was the one beacon of hope for the Tailies. If they think that’s a lie, there’s no reason for them not to tear everything down.

Lilah is a bit of a Cassandra. with a very strong sense of  where things stand on the train. I think she’s more than just a classist Firstie interested in staging a coup, though she is that. She also wants to preserve the status quo for the safety of her daughter more than anything else and can see how badly a class war would affect the train as a whole. While she’s willing to make the threat of war to protect her daughter and to go through with it, she’d rather win with a bloodless coup.

Lilah and Melanie have called each other’s bluffs now and made the other back down. They’re testing each other’s limits, and sooner or later, they’re going to hit the point where neither will back down.

Or Melanie will find that she’s hit Audrey’s limit on the other side, if she didn’t do it with her pardon of LJ. Audrey wanted a show of justice and Melanie gave her hollow spectacle. Now Layton is waking up to further stir the pot in 3rd and the Tail.

Amidst the talk of cannibals, there’s also been talk of eating utensils. Now that he’s an apprentice, Miles has his own fork. LJ put out her father’s eye with her fork. There are knives all over the place on the train. Jinju’s are some of the sharpest. Roche’s lunches and Melanie’s dinners are precisely made but don’t require a utensil.

Don’t be fooled by 1st Class with their love of money and jewels. On Snowpiercer, food and emotional ties are the true valuables and the best weapons.

  Zarah was very affectionate with Andre once Josie was out of the way, giving hope to my shipper heart. Andre seemed to melt into her more than he did with Josie as well.

I missed Andre in the present day in this episode. At least they found a clever way to include him and he was only sidelined for one episode.

Now that LJ is free and clearly had what she needed to free herself, I can forgive him for his part in her arrest and trial and be angry at Melanie for experimenting on children instead. What the heck are Melanie, Jinju and Klimpt up to? It seems like they’re attempting long term stasis, but Nikki’s results should be enough to stop the drug trials and pull everyone out.

How on earth does Melanie justify doing such dangerous experiments on children when there are so few left in the world? We knew she was cold and classist, but I had hope that she wasn’t as bad as she seems. Apparently, she’s worse. So is Jinju, though she always seems like she might have no choice but to go along with whatever Melanie wants.

And what is the list Melanie and Jinju mentioned? Is it a naughty list or a nice list? Is stasis solely for criminal and political prisoners, or is Melanie afraid it’s the only way humans will survive the Freeze?

Please, can a Tailie computer hacker walk by those server banks and get curious? Or can Javi defect to the rebels and explain what they’re for? We’re shown them multiple times an episode. That’s not a coincidence.

Josie tells Terence that Layton isn’t the dying type. Is this another hint that he was sent into the cannibals alone as a sacrifice but unexpectedly survived?

Wow, Ruth is really invested in the system and the rule of unchanging order. Like to a pathological degree. Maybe Erik was her hitman.

I bet Ruth loves the Big Book of Snowpiercer’s Rules of Order. Where did that book come from? Is it a covenant between Wilford and the passengers?

So Josie is actually a medical professional. The visuals were confusing me. Sometimes it seemed she was just comforting the patient while someone else was doing the doctoring.

Now that Josie’s seen what’s happening in the drawers, will she be instrumental in solving the detox issue or improving the stasis drug? As a vet, she might have a slightly different knowledge base to work from than Klimpt and Jinju. Plus, she has some real world experience with kronole that they don’t have.

Why on earth has Melanie left so many professionals with valuable skills back in the Tail? I’m never going to get over that. Plus, if the train is emptying out cars that were used for food storage, why can’t the Tail expand into some of those?

Melanie could incorporate the Tailies into the rest of the train much more quickly than she is. It’s hard to guess how much she’s dragging her heels because she likes having the example of the Tail to use to scare the rest of the train into doing what she says, so they don’t end up starving and in rags; and how much she needs to integrate the Tailies slowly to keep the resentment of the ticketed passengers to a reasonable level.

Miss Audrey Is Much More Than a Pretty Face

Miss Audrey’s look during the opening sequence is the result of a masterful blend of cinematic techniques which are used to add depth to her character. Audrey (and Lena Hall, the actor who portrays her) is a beautiful, glamorous woman. But in this scene, she looks older and harsher than we’ve ever seen her. Instead of a pampered star, she looks like an aging working class night club manager.

Miss Audrey also looks like a survivor with the moxie to take on 1st Class and Melanie. She’s fought a few wars of her own and isn’t afraid to get down in the dirt. She may work in show business, but she’s not Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard. She’s Rick Blaine, the world weary café owner from Casablanca. She knows who she is and who her people are.

She’s chosen her side, because there is no true neutrality, even in the real world.

Switzerland is actually a wealthy country which caters to the wealthy of the world. It’s far from neutral; it simply chooses to protect the wealthiest class rather than taking sides in politics, as Melanie attempted to persuade Miss Audrey to do. Switzerland chooses to remain neutral in political disputes between the factions of other countries and regions not out of some moral position, but rather because choosing sides would interfere with its business transactions. Far from promoting morality, the country facilitates the high crimes and safeguards the fortunes of some of the most morally corrupt people in the world.

Melanie tries to argue that if Audrey takes the side of 3rd Class, she’ll inconvenience the upper classes, who then might feel uncomfortable in the Night Car, affecting business and affecting the mental health of the train, since the Night Car functions as a therapy car. It’s a circular argument which doesn’t take into account the mental health or physical wellbeing of 3rd Class, by assuming the wealth of 1st Class is what keeps the Night Car in business.

Miss Audrey’s look in this scene is achieved through several techniques, such as lighting, hair, makeup and camera work. The lighting is deceptively golden, tricking the eye into thinking it will soften her features, but there’s an underlying clarity of tone to the color and a harshness to the contrast that the shadows bring.

The camera is also in such sharp focus that it brings out every fine line in Miss Audrey’s face, probably because of the lens that was used, but I’m no cinematographer. It’s hard to see this in a screen cap, but if you have a good TV or other screen, pause the scene in a few spots and take a look at how they worked to make the lighting and focus unflattering to Lena.

Lena also positions herself to make her face look sad, old and unhappy by gritting her teeth and tensing her jaw and neck. Her makeup, which is perhaps meant to look like stage makeup, is too intense to be flattering up close, especially her lips and eyebrows, and also helps to emphasize the fine lines in her face. Her hair, which is normally perfect, is dull and bordering on frizzy.

She has a fake (?) tattoo and glitter on her chest and shoulder which almost look like a rash or burn scars at first glance. I thought of this later during her testimony when she brought up the diseases in 3rd Class that don’t get treatment and wondered if the decoration hides something else, like a scar or skin cancer.

Taken together, all of these pieces show us that Miss Audrey may be able to pull herself together to put on a good public show in her widow’s weeds, but she’s privately devastated by Nikki’s death. If you thought the widow’s weeds in episode 4 were simply a dramatic performance, you were wrong.

When her look is combined with the photo and the voiceover, we can guess that Nikki symbolizes everything Miss Audrey has lost. She was the one who Audrey had held onto through the Freeze and the inequality of the train. Now she’s been unfairly taken away and Miss Audrey will be sending some messages of her own. The words of the song resonate for her as well.

Though we’ve gotta say goodbye for the summer,

Hey, I’ll promise you this,

I’ll send you all my love in a letter,

Sealed with a kiss.

Sealed with a Kiss

The way Sealed with a Kiss was emphasized in episode 4 kept nagging at me, since it suggested that the song was more than just a random choice by the creators. This episode makes me certain of that. Layton knows he’s missed something in the case and it’s nagging at him, even in the drawer, in the form of a song stuck in his head.

Nikki sings the same lyrics from Sealed with a Kiss that were emphasized by LJ in episode 4, except for changing “baby” to “hey”: “Though we’ve gotta say goodbye for the summer, hey, I’ll promise you this, I’ll send you all my love in a letter, sealed with a kiss.”

The lyrics, by themselves, suggest a few possibilities.

“Say goodbye for the summer” has obvious significance on Snowpiercer. They’ve all said goodbye to the summer, forever. Movement from summer to fall and winter is also a reminder of the power structure on the train. For example, Roche shook hands a few times with Wilford before they boarded the train, but hasn’t seen him since he holed up in the biosecure engine after the permanent winter journey began. Saying goodbye to the summer was also saying goodbye to the original, accessible Wilford.

In this episode Miss Audrey reminds Melanie that they were once united in convincing Wilford to do the right thing for the lower classes. She hints that she knows Melanie is Wilford, but keeps it ambiguous.

Nikki and Audrey were close. Layton only spoke a few words with Nikki in life, but if there’s some sort of shared consciousness happening between residents of the drawers, courtesy of those endless server banks, he may be haunted by an upload of her mind or seeing and hearing a leftover echo.

“I’ll promise you this” I have a few thoughts here. First, it’s time to mention that Sealed with a Kiss was used in the 2006 cult slasher film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. In the film, Emmet and Mandy, a pair of bullied high school students, get revenge on their classmates while keeping her involvement a secret. They have a suicide pact, which Mandy reneges on. At the end, Mandy and Emmet fight each other to the death, she wins, and then rides off into the sunset with Garth, a 2nd, cuter boy, who thinks she’s a heroic victim. The film turns the Final Girl trope on its head by revealing that she survives because she’s a villain, in addition to fulfilling the usual characteristics of the trope. Plus she also kills the slasher when he turns on her, suggesting their alliance was tenuous all along.

I’m not sure what the “Mandy” filmmakers were trying to say and I’m not sure where Snowpiercer’s showrunners are going with LJ’s arc, but there are some obvious similarities between these two stories. It rarely occurs to male writers when they write women’s stories like this film or LJ’s arc on Snowpiercer that women are frequently coerced by their violent, abusive boyfriends into cooperating with the boyfriends’ violent crimes. It’s as if Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t exist.

Male creators have often observed women’s behaviors very closely and can write women accurately from an external point of view. But they don’t understand the potential motivations behind the behaviors at all, as if it’s never occurred to them to just talk to a few women who’ve been in similar situations.

They write these shows in such a way that the only understandable motivation for the characters, as written, is that they were coerced and abused. But in the shows, the woman is the femme fatale, the criminal mastermind, the evil Eve or Lolita who led the poor, unsuspecting male astray. And of course an evil woman deserves a harsh punishment. Eve was thrown out of Eden. Lolita was thrown out of the Eden of childhood, passed between men and finally left a single teenage mother. The show becomes nothing but another male fantasy.

Our culture, as a whole, trains us to be oblivious to so many forms of everyday abuse, whether its racism or ableism or sexualized violence or abuse of power by an authority figure. The higher your natural position in the power structure, the less you notice what’s going on around you, unless you’ve been a victim of that particular form of abuse. This is true of everyone. We all live in our own bubble.

The lover in the song promises to send love in a letter, sealed with a kiss. Promises can be coerced. During torture, promises are broken.

A promise is also form of consent, which a minor child like LJ can’t legally give to an adult man like Erik.

This song is associated with both Nikki and LJ. 3rd Class still wants the justice they were promised for Nikki’s death, while LJ has promised to keep Wilford’s secrets and make herself useful in exchange for her pardon. Those two promises are about to start a class war, unless Melanie does some quick thinking. Layton was in the drawer for these developments, but he knew something like this would happen. He helped create Nikki as the ultimate 3rd Class victim and LJ as the ultimate symbol of 1st Class privilege, with both as symbols of broken promises.

“I’ll send you all my love in a letter” I have a few ideas for this one and very little evidence. Something must be tickling the back of Andre’s mind. Maybe Zarah sent a message to the Tail telling him about Miss Audrey’s giant book of Snowpiercer’s rules and regulations. That would be something he could use if they went for negotiation and a less violent revolution. That book will be important in some capacity, that’s for certain.

Maybe he realized the implications of something he read and pushed to the side in the Folgers car. Or another message he received from uptrain when he was still in the Tail. Or maybe Melanie slipped up somehow. Maybe something about her Fight Night message from Wilford clicked in his brain. Was that a message to Erik or another of her minions?

There’s also still that puzzling quote from Erik to Jinju, “She said this was coming.” Was Melanie sleeping with Erik, too? Humbert Humbert sleeps with Lolita and her mother, so the precedent is there.

“Sealed with a kiss.” That can only be secrets and/or poison. Poisonous lipstick, the Judas kiss, the Kiss of the Spider Woman, the kronole stuck in the cheek: there’s just no other way this is going. Betrayal is in the air. Every witness at the trial lied or seriously embellished the truth. Even those we thought were honorable. I’d bet a lot that a brakeman, probably Oz, planted the penises in the jewelry box. That’s just not where LJ would keep them.

The cop in Andre knows he needs to look into the connection between the black market, kronole and the murders. Just as the Tail couldn’t be safe until the cannibals were gone, kronole will cannibalize the entire train unless it’s eliminated. Terence and Annie showed us in this episode that they are far from benevolent.

In her testimony, LJ said that Sean Wise told her and Erik that “Shadows and lies were taking over our beautiful train.” and “Sean Wise gave his life to save humanity from the darkness that almost swallowed me whole.” She’s talking about kronole. That second quote suggests that she was threatened somehow. She also says his death helped save humanity from kronole. How? Was he selling it as well as informing? Did he try to get LJ hooked?

Nikki’s Body and LJ’s Guilt

LJ has an airtight alibi for Nikki’s murder. The entire train saw LJ in the Night Car for the fight, right up until the very end, when the Folgers were forced to leave at last call. That was the period of time when Nikki was being murdered.

When he was done with Nikki, Erik stayed in public for hours, where he’d be seen, in the 3rd Class dining car, perhaps so that LJ couldn’t be implicated. He only left when he knew Nikki’s body was about to be found. Then he went to the bee storage unit, and stayed there until Till and Oz found him.

Was he leading the brakemen to his hiding place, so they could find something important he’d hidden there? The J-hook that he left among his possessions in the Folgers’ car also leads back to the storage unit, providing another tip off to search that area. As LJ basically says in her trial, Erik is the one who tortured and questioned Sean. He heard the secrets Sean spilled. That’s likely why Erik was targeted for death next, after Nikki and Sean. (Remember, someone told him this was coming.)

But whoever Erik works for, or whoever put the hit out on him, didn’t count on him carving up Nikki so thoroughly. Her throat isn’t just slit (well, it might be when he leaves her). By the time Melanie and Andre get to her it’s opened wide and something electronic, with a flashing light, has been inserted inside.

Is that a message for Melanie, the Voice of the Train? Is it a medical implant Nikki had due to a previous injury or illness? We’ve already been shown that Klimpt violates the bodies of the living. He’d have no problem violating the bodies of the dead.

Whoever wanted Erik dead also thought that his secrets would die with him. Melanie was honestly floored to realize how much LJ knows, which means she didn’t think LJ was actually the mastermind who ordered Erik around, or even involved in the crimes at all. She knew the trial was a sham. As did virtually everyone involved in it. They were all playing out a piece of theatre meant to appease 3rd Class so they could get back to their normal lives as soon as possible.

Melanie would never have allowed LJ to take the stand if she thought LJ could reveal her secret. Since Sean was her informant, he had a high likelihood of guessing the truth. Layton guessed that was the real reason why he was brought out of the Tail- because Melanie was afraid Sean told the killer her secret.

Melanie thought her secret died with Erik and that LJ had no involvement, so putting her on trial would show Melanie’s own power over 1st and gain her some favor with 3rd. But either Layton or Erik shared the truth with LJ, or she was really present when Sean died. My money is on Layton giving her the ammunition she needed, but Erik also fed her pieces of the story.

Graphic photos of Nikki’s injures from episode 4 follow. Fair warning if you want to skip them.

Layton is dreaming about Nikki singing LJ’s song with a mutilated neck , with lyrics about sealing letters with a kiss. He knows he’s missed something with this case, and that Nikki’s throat holds a key clue.

Layton must have caught the tiny flashing light inside Nikki’s mutilated neck, but was distracted from processing it by all of the anger and regret in the room. Roche helped heap blame on everyone, extending the argument. That’s not the only time I’ve questioned Roche’s motives lately. Maybe he’s not as  honest as he seems.

No idea what’s causing the light.

  This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  Screen Caps from Opening Credits

Collider interview with Daveed Diggs

Interview with Snowpiercer Production Designer Barry Robison– Includes an in universe explanation of how the chains came to be.

Snowpiercer Zoom call backgrounds

    Essential viewing: Explore the Train

This might be the greatest fan theory of all time.

Images courtesy of TNT.

Snowpiercer S1E5: Justice Never Boarded Recap-Layton is in a drawer, Melanie is stressed out, LJ is on trial & Josie uses the chip again. But Jinju & Bess find some happiness & Melanie & Ben find some stress relief. #Snowpiercer In episode 5 of Snowpiercer, LJ goes to trial for her part in the murders of Sean and Nikki, Josie goes uptrain to search for Andre and Miss Audrey takes action to ensure that Melanie will get Nikki the justice she deserves.

#Daveed Diggs #dystopia #Jennifer Connelly #Justice Never Boarded #lena hall #metacrone #post apocalypse #recaps #review #science fiction #Snowpiercer

[welovefunassyi]

Current and Upcoming Funassyi Events, Week of November 27 2017

The latest rather infrequent roundup of all that’s going on in the World of Pear Fairies!

Funassyi 5 Year On Earth Anniversary Project

More details in in this post.

Live events/appearances by Funassyi

December 1: Act Against AIDS 2017: THE VARIETY charity concert at Budokan, Tokyo (website)

December 10: Akiba Entertainment Marathon (AEM) Chara Supo Festival, Health Square, Hibiya Park, Tokyo - a gotouchi chara festival connected with the running of a marathon. The best place to get up to date info on this event is their Twitter account.

December 16: Funassyiland Web Store 2-year anniversary event at Toho Cinemas, Lalaport Tokyo Bay, Funabashi; at 16:30 and 18:00. Details on the Funassyiland site.

December 28 Hanshin Racecourse, Takarazuka, Hyogo: talk show with Chicchai Ossan, 12:30~; photo session at 16:30  (website)

January 17: Gotouchi Chara Bunkasai during the Furusato Festival at the Tokyo Dome, 18:00 - 20:00 (website; the festival itself is from Jan. 12 - 21; show schedule)

Live events/appearances by Funagoro and/or Funyassyi

These are appearances by Funagoro and Funyassyi only.　Since there are Funagoro and Funyassyi fans too, I’ve listed all of their appearances here, so some may duplicate the listings above.

Be sure to check the official Funagoro/Funyassyi Funassyiland schedule page here.

December 9: Funassyiland at Tenjin Loft in Fukuoka (Funyassyi only)

December 16-17: Cat City Cat Stage (Neko-shi Neko-za) Kobe KIITO Hall, Gallery A. This is an event for cat lovers. Details here. - Funyassyi only (of course)

TV, Radio, Live Webcasts, Movies, Music

Music: Available now: Spring 2017 Ketsugobou Tour DVD (release date: May 26). 274ch member order page. Also available from CDJapan, Amazon Japan, Funassyiland web store.

Music: Available now: Arukunashi Charamel CD Single (double-A side; on 274ch site also available now from Amazon Japan, CDJapan etc.

Online - Official music video for Charamel (details)  

Online - Official music video for Arukunashi (video link)

Online - Available for viewing now : Untouchable Shibata’s Animal Research Team program in 4 parts on 360.tv (details). Note that Funassyi will also be on the show and/or providing narration for the second season.

Movie: Last Cop The Movie, on Blu-Ray and DVD. Available now (Amazon Japan link to the various editions)

Special shopping events and exhibitions, restaurants etc.

November 27- December 25: Limited period Funassyiland in Fukuoka at Tenjin Loft, 5th floor (official page)

December 3: Deadline to order a Funassyi Christmas cake for delivery on December 20-21. It is delivered frozen. Japan only of course. (official page)

The Funassyi livery train has been extended until December 31!! Funassyi livery train, Shin Keisei Railway (details; official page on Shin Keisei Railway site). Don’t forget the ramen stamp rally!

Now there are Funassyi bus stops! From now until November 30, 5 of the bus stops on the Funabashi Shin Keisei route will be Funassyi-fied.

- December 31 The Misato station has been re-done in a Funassyi theme. In addition, in-station announcements are in Funassyi’s voice. Funassyi livery trains also has Funassyi-voice announcements during this period.

Products of note

At this point many of the new and cool Funassyi products are available exclusively at the Funassyiland stores, with the exception of books, calendars etc. Which is good I guess if you live in Japan, since it’s one-stop shopping, but somewhat inconvenient for overseas Funassyi fans, since Funassyiland does not ship overseas. If you don’t have a cooperative friend in Japan, I recommend using a shopping service.

Available for preorder from the online Funassyiland shop starting November 18: Funassyi Christmas Cakes! Includes a cookie printed with a quote from Funassyi, a chocolate deco pen to write on it, and a mini tote bag. (website)

Grey Parka Service has announced a 120cm tall Funassyi, retailing for 41,000 yen including tax. The first phase has already sold out - the next phase will be available sometime in January.

Available now : Minna de Aemen Funassyi themed noodles from Yamasa

2018 Funassyi Calendar and Planner/Agendas

Official site.  Available now from the Funassyiland online store, physical Funassyiland stores, bookstores nationwide, Amazon, CDJapan, etc. I have gotten mine and they are both fantastic! 

Reminder: Funassyi donates all of his share of the proceeds from calendar sales to the Michinoku Mirai Fund, which gives scholarships to children orphaned by the March 11, 2011 Tohoku Earthquake.

The 2018 weekly and monthly agenda/planners are also available. Both are very cute! 

2018 Funassyi Nengajo (New Years cards)

Available from the Japan Post online store - link

Also available (different designs) from Loft stores and physical Funassyiland stores (they seem to be sold out on the online store, but keep checking)

Apps, stickers and games

Illustrated Funassyi sticker set for the LINE app - they are adorable! Only available in Japan unfortunately. (link)

Available now: Funassyi stickers for iMessage (the Messages app), iOS only - but available worldwide! (link to US App Store - check your local App store)

Available now: Taiwan/Chinese version Funassyi LINE stamps (check in your LINE app; not available outside of Taiwan though)

274ch.com

274ch.com, Funassyi’s official streaming video channel/fan club, is the main outlet for Funassyi’s video appearances. Videos are uploaded every couple of days, and are very funny, with Funassyi appearing far more loose and relaxed than he is on broadcast TV. Highlights include a cooking show, Funassyi imitating various Japanese entertainers (his imitation of Beat Takeshi aka Takeshi Kitano is priceless), Funassyi going camping, Funassyi going go-cart racing, and much more. There are also frequent live streams of The Pear doing interviews and so on.

There are also fan-exclusive meets with Funassyi, and fan-exclusive concerts too, for an extra fee.

Membership is 600 yen per month or 6,000 yen per year. You can now join from outside of Japan too, although the site is in Japanese only (and so is customer support and so on). Details here. You will most likely need a Japanese mailing address to receive materials from the site for now.

Note: Sometimes someone at the streaming video provider seems to turn on IP checking/blocking of non-Japanese IPs. If you can’t access the videos, just wait a few hours and it will usually get fixed.

274ch official Instagram account

Link here

Last but not least…

I know the updates here have less frequent of late. I have some serious health problems which make it hard to sit at my desk for extended periods - and I find it very hard to update Tumblr via my phone. I will try to update here as regularly as I can, but if you are on Facebook please join the We Love Funassyi group, which is quite active, with many enthusiastic Funatomo. See you there!

Photo source - Funassyi and Red Busshaa enjoying the fall foliage.

#funassyi #monday update #ok so it's not on monday #weekly update #events #calendar

[academiablogs]

Shopping For a Brand? Why Not Write a Book Instead?

  I was once told by a writing instructor, “why should anyone read your work? That’s the question you have to ask yourself: what makes it new and irresistible?” Inevitably, as we showed her drafts of our stories she quickly tossed them aside with the remark, “not new, not interesting.” Without using the word “brand,” she was basically advocating that we find one. Every writer needs a hallmark that distinguishes them from every other writer in the world, or at least allies them with the one that matter. A writer or a story might not necessarily be new or innovative, but their brand, their image, should seem so. What a story is really selling, she told us, is the idea of novelty rather than any quality of novelty itself (and really, is anything new under the sun)?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years, since no matter how much I wrote or how much I progressed as a writer, I couldn’t put my finger on a ‘brand’ or market niche that my story possessed. I heard many writers say, “I’m like Stephen King, but darker,” or “I’m like a Harlqeuin Romance, but without the romance.” Those little witticisms always made people smile and many of them responded, “oh, I’d love to read that!” Nevertheless, it felt a little cheap to boil down an entire book or style of writing to a catch phrase; all the more so, as no one is going to read your book and say, “wow, you really are just like Stephen King, just darker!” Not likely.

So what does it mean to have a brand as a writer? How do you distinguish yourself from the millions of other writers trying to make their mark on the market? On social media in particular, everything is boiled down to tweet size. You can’t explain your book or your influences or philosophy; you need an instantly recognizable icon to catch the interest of readers or agents so they’ll take a chance on you. It’s like going to the grocery store: which granola bar do you buy? They all probably taste more or less alike. What determines which one you drop in your cart? In all likelihood, it’s the box—or whatever’s on it. The logo. The cartoons or images of nature. The mascot. The healthy buzzwords that promise rejuvenation and longer life.

But therein lies the dilemma, since the business of advertising is the artful lie. I know, I once worked for an ad agency and had clients tell me to outright lie about this or that, or to otherwise dupe their customers. Products make extravagant promises since they know you’re buying the promises, not the product. And promises can change the way you see (and taste) the product, too. I notice that a lot of authors basically sell their works like food as well: they make extravagant claims, tout themselves as “award winning authors” and quote effusive praise from people you’ve never heard of. Sometimes, it even works. The more “professional” the author, particularly for indie authors, the more they seem to imitate the lies of the best-selling authors.

Look at a typical page for a prominent book on Amazon—what do you see? The cover, of course, wrapped up like a Godiva chocolate; a series of stars—usually close to 5—with the number of reviews attached, and a “best seller” banner—again, just like something on the shelves of Wal Mart. Scroll down a bit, and you find multiple levels of advertising copy—first from Amazon, then from the publisher, and then a number of author/reader reviews which also sound like an ad agency wrote them (drowning in superlatives). We also get a slew of products “often bought together” which looks like the candy aisle even more—one sweet after the next, all of them indistinguishable. Even worse, we then get information that no one outside of the website actually needs: the seller’s rank in various categories. All this tells us is “why aren’t you buying it if everyone else is?”

If this sounds depressing, it should. Selling books has become just as corporate and just as cloying as buying food to stock your shelves. There’s just one problem: we don’t buy books to stock our shelves. We buy them to be transported—to think, to imagine, to believe, to frighten, to amaze, to transform. No cookie is going to do that for me, whatever the ad copy tells me (and nor do I expect it to). A book, however, stands a good chance of doing that, and that’s what I hope for when I buy one. A book doesn’t need to make extravagant promises or dabble in deceit; a book is good enough if it just tells a story. That’s why we buy them. It’s almost like publishers have forgotten what books are and why anyone buys them. I imagine they have meetings where someone exclaims, “how can we sell these odd, little square things? What makes them interesting? How about a cover that makes it look like an exotic tea company? Then at least they’ll be reminded of their favorite beverage...”

Are books a product or a unique work of art? Do they need help to seem worthwhile? Can’t a real lover of books tell the difference? Why do we have to resort to commercial chicanery when the only thing that sells a book is the story and the style itself? I would argue that what really makes a writer’s brand is how they write. As simple as that. When I think of Jane Austen, for example, I think of her characters and her style (and her characters could only exist within her style—her unique way of telling a story). No matter what beautiful cover you slap on Pride and Prejudice or whatever clever copywriting you add to the webpage, the work is always the same—and it’s always her. Let’s be honest, no one really reads Jane Austen because of a darling cover. It might catch your eye, but you soon forget it and when someone asks you to recount the story, you don’t say, “well, there’s this amazing cover, and the blurb was so exciting...”

Ultimately, I think many of us are writing backwards. That is, we’re trying to write to a market and establish a brand based on what sells rather than writing who we are and offering it humbly (but proudly) to the world. Too many writers and agents and readers tell me, “that doesn’t sell, you can’t do that anymore, no one will read that, that’s not where the market’s headed.” Thinking like that will create a brand but not a work of art—not a book that needs to be read. For example, how many new energy drinks do we need? We know that they all have the same ingredients—caffeine and sugar. Dress is up however you like, it’s the same damn drink. So why not sell something else? Something that you want to drink? We don’t all have to drink energy drinks, do we? Of course the publishers want us to, since it sells, but as writers and readers we have a stake in what sells, too. And I can guarantee you the next big thing won’t be an energy drink.

Obviously I write this from a position of weakness and can be accused of sour grapes. I’m an indie writer. I don’t sell many books. I only have a few dozen reviews and no one has heard of me or my novels. And yet, I’ve written my ‘brand,’ I’ve created a series of books that satisfy the reader within me. These are the books I enjoy reading and wanted to share with the world. They’re consistent and ‘new’ in the sense that it’s not another energy drink, not another superfluous product on the shelves. In that case, okay, maybe no one is desperate to buy it and display it in their fridge. Eventually, though, someone will, and when they drink it, they’ll realize that I make no extravagant claims for increased health or virility.

I market it exactly for what it is: a fantasy novel that takes you to another world, that deals in mystery, intrigue, humor, and romance. It doesn’t look or taste like your favorite tea, it hasn’t been consumed by any famous authors, and it hasn’t won any Taster’s Choice awards. I can only promise you it’s part of a grand tradition of fantasy novels written by someone who loves them, and to find out anything more, you’ll actually have to crack open a book. Because books should be mysterious...they shouldn’t reveal all their secrets on the back jacket. That’s where you, the reader, come in, and that’s what makes reading so exciting and unique. It’s not like shopping for groceries or like anything that happens in the workaday world. Let’s keep it that way.

#amwriting #marketing #books #bookstagram #bookish

[evnoweb]

Teaching Online During COVID-19

Teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic is challenging. We educators understand online learning, probably have taken classes this way, but we haven’t yet wrapped our brains around how to make it work in OUR classes. In fact, the biggest question I get from teachers in my online classes and on my blog is:

“How do I do it?”

I know–very broad–but teachers are worried. They are invested in teaching their classes and suddenly it seems impossible to meet yearly goals, build lifelong learners. What can they do to make that happen? To fulfill their personal goals of getting students excited about learning?

Here’s what I’ve heard this past week or so:

Issues

Pedagogies for distance learning

Curricula for online teaching

Links fellow teachers are using that work

These aren’t comprehensive, just what I’ve heard as most of us are only one-two weeks into this challenging education opportunity.

Issues

“The classroom teacher can’t be replaced by an electronic device.”

That’s not what happens in online teaching. The teacher is as critical or more in an online classroom as they are in the physical class. The old style of online class that was impersonally delivered has been replaced by an active teacher fully involved in the online experience. She is simply in the cloud rather than in the room.

How to I provide equity for those without computers or internet access at home is challenging?

Repurpose cart devices or class laptops to go home.

Access the required site through mobile devices. Most are more limited but might work for your purposes.

Provide mobile hotspots distributed by school.

Access community hotspots and open WiFi, often made available by local businesses who are eager to assist.

When you have internet access, download work from Google Classroom to work offline.

Check with your local broadband provider to see if they have free access programs.

How do I make online learning personal?

Add videos of you discussing a project or welcoming them in the morning. These can be done quickly and uploaded intuitively.

Include comments when listing work so students can ask questions. Or, have a backchannel that you monitor for the same reason.

Have a frequent virtual meeting via Google Hangouts Meet, Zoom, or an option through your LMS. This has the extra advantage of letting students see each other as they do at school.

If I am online, students can access me any time.

No–establish office hours. Online or via Google Voice

Pedagogies for distance learning

Online learning is different that the physical classroom. As I talk with fellow teachers, here are some of the pedagogies they are using that work. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, just what I ran into this week:

Take attendance with Google Forms.

Assign ereading and then have a virtual chat about what was read (either through the eread website/program or through your LMS).

Include regular virtual class meetings so students see you and each other.

If you put out screencasts, include the option for having your picture on the screen. Students want to see you.

Curricula for online teaching

If your school curriculum doesn’t translate well to online teaching, there are lots of options available that are (mostly) free and keep learning moving forward. Here are some choices:

Khan Academy

CK12

Google Computer Science for High School–free workshops (with application) for K-12 teachers

Learn to Code (for free)

Ted-ED Think Like A Coder–a 10-episode cartoon-based series to teach kids about coding in a game format

Common Sense media

Google’s Be Internet Awesome–abbreviated course

Keyboarding

Links fellow teachers are using that work

Here’s a partial list of the online tools my teaching community mentioned they are using with students in this online learning environment:

4 Tips for Teaching Virtually–from Learn, Lead, and Grow

Amazing Education Resources–sorted by topic and age group

Britannica LaunchPacks–free of charge to all US schools

San Diego Virtual Zoo

Biology simulations

Bozeman Science–Biology Curriculum

Common Sense–coping with COVID-19

GetEpic–Digital library for kid’s books

Go Nessy–learning resources for students, including special needs like Dyslexia

Home Learning Daily Schedule

LiveBinders Remote Learning resources

Mission US–5 simulations to immerse students in history

Moving to a virtual Classroom–from Microsoft

Navigating Uncertain Times: How Schools Can Cope With Coronavirus,”–from EdSurge

Study Ladder--lots of online resources for kids

Teaching during COVID-19–from CSTA

#coronaviruseducation

#coronavirus

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Teaching Online During COVID-19 published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[corpasa]

Teaching Online During COVID-19

Teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic is challenging. We educators understand online learning, probably have taken classes this way, but we haven’t yet wrapped our brains around how to make it work in OUR classes. In fact, the biggest question I get from teachers in my online classes and on my blog is:

“How do I do it?”

I know–very broad–but teachers are worried. They are invested in teaching their classes and suddenly it seems impossible to meet yearly goals, build lifelong learners. What can they do to make that happen? To fulfill their personal goals of getting students excited about learning?

Here’s what I’ve heard this past week or so:

Issues

Pedagogies for distance learning

Curricula for online teaching

Links fellow teachers are using that work

These aren’t comprehensive, just what I’ve heard as most of us are only one-two weeks into this challenging education opportunity.

Issues

“The classroom teacher can’t be replaced by an electronic device.”

That’s not what happens in online teaching. The teacher is as critical or more in an online classroom as they are in the physical class. The old style of online class that was impersonally delivered has been replaced by an active teacher fully involved in the online experience. She is simply in the cloud rather than in the room.

How to I provide equity for those without computers or internet access at home is challenging?

Repurpose cart devices or class laptops to go home.

Access the required site through mobile devices. Most are more limited but might work for your purposes.

Provide mobile hotspots distributed by school.

Access community hotspots and open WiFi, often made available by local businesses who are eager to assist.

When you have internet access, download work from Google Classroom to work offline.

Check with your local broadband provider to see if they have free access programs.

How do I make online learning personal?

Add videos of you discussing a project or welcoming them in the morning. These can be done quickly and uploaded intuitively.

Include comments when listing work so students can ask questions. Or, have a backchannel that you monitor for the same reason.

Have a frequent virtual meeting via Google Hangouts Meet, Zoom, or an option through your LMS. This has the extra advantage of letting students see each other as they do at school.

If I am online, students can access me any time.

No–establish office hours. Online or via Google Voice

Pedagogies for distance learning

Online learning is different that the physical classroom. As I talk with fellow teachers, here are some of the pedagogies they are using that work. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, just what I ran into this week:

Take attendance with Google Forms.

Assign ereading and then have a virtual chat about what was read (either through the eread website/program or through your LMS).

Include regular virtual class meetings so students see you and each other.

If you put out screencasts, include the option for having your picture on the screen. Students want to see you.

Curricula for online teaching

If your school curriculum doesn’t translate well to online teaching, there are lots of options available that are (mostly) free and keep learning moving forward. Here are some choices:

Khan Academy

CK12

Google Computer Science for High School–free workshops (with application) for K-12 teachers

Learn to Code (for free)

Ted-ED Think Like A Coder–a 10-episode cartoon-based series to teach kids about coding in a game format

Common Sense media

Google’s Be Internet Awesome–abbreviated course

Keyboarding

Links fellow teachers are using that work

Here’s a partial list of the online tools my teaching community mentioned they are using with students in this online learning environment:

4 Tips for Teaching Virtually–from Learn, Lead, and Grow

Amazing Education Resources–sorted by topic and age group

Britannica LaunchPacks–free of charge to all US schools

San Diego Virtual Zoo

Biology simulations

Bozeman Science–Biology Curriculum

Common Sense–coping with COVID-19

GetEpic–Digital library for kid’s books

Go Nessy–learning resources for students, including special needs like Dyslexia

Home Learning Daily Schedule

LiveBinders Remote Learning resources

Mission US–5 simulations to immerse students in history

Moving to a virtual Classroom–from Microsoft

Navigating Uncertain Times: How Schools Can Cope With Coronavirus,”–from EdSurge

Study Ladder--lots of online resources for kids

Teaching during COVID-19–from CSTA

#coronaviruseducation

#coronavirus

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Teaching Online During COVID-19 published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[wildlyhardphilosopher-blog]

puppy training classes near me | puppy training videos online

New Post has been published on https://dogtraining.dknol.com/english/puppy-training-classes-near-me-puppy-training-videos-online/?utm_source=Tumblr&utm_medium=Tumblr+%230+Freda+K+Pless&utm_campaign=SNAP%2Bfrom%2BBest+Dog+Training

puppy training classes near me | puppy training videos online

For Clickertraining.com NewsRadio Hi, Guest! Sign In Home My Account Track Order Dogs Pharmacy Food & Nutrition Accessories & Apparel Cleaning & Grooming Crate & Furniture Toys Training & Behavior Travel & Outdoor Cats Pharmacy Food & Nutrition Accessories & Apparel Cleaning & Grooming Furniture Toys Training & Behavior Travel & Outdoors Flea & Tick Dogs Cats Heartworm Dogs Cats PetPlus Wellness 1-800-844-1427 Contact Us Small Pets * @namespace TraceKit $9.02 Autoship & Save Keep your puppy on a short leash. Keeping the dog on a leash, even while indoors, allows you to move more freely while still keeping a close eye on your puppy.[11] Western Washington The dog activities are all provided in PDF form so you can print and make a workbook for your personal use. I’ve written a detailed article on how feeding choices make a massive difference during house training which you can read by clicking here. Tethers are great for when you are home and able to supervise your dog (although you should still work on crate training your dog when you are home, so that being crated does not become a predictor of you leaving the house). Tethering means tying a leash to your waist so that the puppy or dog is leashed and with you as you move throughout the house; a six foot leash will do fine. Tethering allows you to spend more time with your dog than when he is in the crate, and is a great way to form a close bond with your dog. It also provides more opportunity to start noticing pre-elimination behaviors. Once he’s in the down position, say “Down,” give him the treat, and share affection. ↑ http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/dogs/tips/puppy_nipping_rough_play.html Books Advanced Search New Releases Amazon Charts Best Sellers & More The New York Times® Best Sellers Children’s Books Textbooks Textbook Rentals Sell Us Your Books Best Books of the Month Kindle eBooks The best food you can give your puppy is not in a bag, nor can you just go out and buy a can. Give your new puppy what she needs. 5/ Train a Dog When we go on walks, our puppy is trained to not only to “heel” but to also look up and frequently check in with us. When he does, he gets lots of praise and intermittent rewards, which reinforce to him that checking in is rewarding and fun. This simple trick keeps his focus more on us, and less on the countless distractions on the street of New York City or the squirrels in Central Park. The same must go for employees. Check in often to make sure you are all working on the same important priorities. Check in to see if something about the environment is dragging down their mood. Or just check in to make them feel that you really care about them. Most importantly though, make sure that your check-in is fun and rewarding, not micro-managing. Animals Work Downtown Pet Supply (2) Harrier Once enrollment is complete, tuition is non-refundable. Once you begin, you have access to the full course. Reference Find a Trainer Your Dog Could Benefit From a Training Walk With a Buddy Hi Nicole, 12. How To Feed Your Puppy Home Next page Older dogs can hold on for longer, so take him out after every meal, after waking, at bedtime, and every 1-2 hours when he’s awake. When inside, do not let the dog out of your sight, and at the first sign of sniffing to locate a toilet spot, take him outside. And by using the schedule as a diary as in step 5, you get feedback on how you and your puppy are performing, and are armed with the necessary info to make changes to your schedule over time. This helps you to truly match your puppy’s natural rhythms and their maturing and changing body. Tangles and Mats in Dogs BARK BUSTERS 60507 5810 Paradise Drive Saturday Lifetime Class Wantagh 10am (weather permitting)/li> Poison & Toxicity Reign Socialize with other dogs ShareTweetPin It 0:15 59 Simple Life Hacks for Dog Owners

dog training

puppy training

how to train a puppy

training a puppy

how to potty train a dog

fbq('track', 'ViewContent', content_ids: 'dogtraining.dknol', ); FORMER INTERIOR SECRETARY KEN SALAZAR ARGUES AGAINST BIGGER DRILLING SETBACKS IN COLORADO Nulo Should You or Shouldn’t You? How To House Train A Puppy: FAQ 9.49 Ways to Give Website Design by DigitalCoast Marketing Vet Authored Socialization Plans Because a puppy extracts more nutrients from high quality food and less cheap fillers flow straight through, their stools are firmer and this helps them in learning bowel control. Slumber Party The age at which most puppies can begin to learn appropriate potty etiquette is about 8.5 weeks. Younger puppies don’t have the neurological development necessary to control elimination, much like human infants. They aren’t yet able to control their bladder or hold urine in. I recommend you only use method 2 if you know you will have to leave your puppy for more than an hour or so in the first three months of his life, on a regular basis. You will find instructions in the article I linked to above,  to help you train your puppy to go happily into his crate and stay in there without whining until you let him out. Odd News Leave a message and one of our trainers will return your call. You can also email your questions to [email protected]. 6-week class includes: Using A Single Puppy-Proofed Room Go down to his level and say, “Come,” while gently pulling on the leash. There is too much buffering Costa Rica Our policy is that all trainers in our facility be supervised at all times and are approved through the American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen evaluator program. Bracciante says it’s important to not make a big deal out of the process of taking your dog outside to go to the bathroom, even if he seems to not enjoy it. “Don’t buy the drama,” he says. “Just clear a path and lead, and expect the dog to go out with you. If you accommodate them, they may manipulate you.” On the other hand, it’s important to be reasonable, Bracciante adds. Don’t expect your tiny puppy to wade through the snow. Instead, do what you can to make it as easy as possible for him to go outside, like clearing a path and creating a “restroom” area. “Be mindful, too that once the temperature dips below about 20 degrees, it can start to affect the dogs’ pads on their feet,” he adds. “Salt on the sidewalks or roadways can also affect them.” To keep your dog’s paws protected in the cold weather, make sure to pick up some dog booties like Pawz Waterproof Dog Boots.  Further Info: For a detailed discussion of paper training, pros, cons and some expert tips, please see the following article: How To Paper Train Your Puppy Or Dog The Easy Way PetCareRx Blog Seahawks Higgins Q: Can I update or change my email address? Do take your puppy to his toilet area very frequently to begin with Plan to train in a place that has as few distractions as possible, like the living room. You can add distractions later once he understands the new command, to “proof” the puppy and make sure the “sit-stay” is reliable under stressful circumstances. Make sure he’s not just eaten a meal so that he’s eager for treats but not starving. Register Your Dog 5 months ago from California Rope Toys Product Innovation Remember, very young puppy’s need a lot of rest, crate training takes advantage of this need. As soon as the pup awakens take it outside. Walk him on leash until he goes, then praise him happily. Encourage him with an expression, “Do your business,” “Go pee,”. Both are popular commands. Be consistent with your reward. The BEST dog training! We were so happy with the improvements we have seen with our puppy in such a short time. The training here is awesome, they truly care about the dogs and setting them up for success. Puppy Training Stages – Exclusions: Add-on items, out-of-stock items, Donations, Petco Gift Cards and eGift Cards; items shipped through white glove delivery or LTL delivery; orders exceeding the maximum weight limit of 300 lbs.; and applicable taxes. Additional exclusions may apply and will be noted on the Product Detail page and/or Shopping Cart. Live Plants Departments Just so you know, a puppy is never completely housetrained until they are 6 months old. For some breeds, even later. This means that though you may be making tremendous progress housetraining, there will be “mistakes”. Sometimes for reasons you can’t figure out! Don’t fret about it. Stay focused on the progress you are making. Your confidence in the techniques you are using to house train your puppy will ensure your success. Most dogs love being outside and will use any excuse to get out there and stay there. Fire Safety Tips to Keep your Dog Safe How to Raise a Puppy in an Apartment Password A suitable crate Grooming and Care Have someone hold your dog while you move away, and call out your cue when he is released. Obedience Take your first set of impulse control trainings to the next level by adding in distractions and increasing the distance or duration. Professor Donaldson also provides some alternatives if you find the loose leash walk to be challenging. x If you have any questions about how to potty train your puppy then please feel free to leave us a comment in the comments section below. german shepherd puppies training | house training your dog german shepherd puppies training | potty training regression 3 year old german shepherd puppies training | potty training dogs for dummies Legal | Sitemap

#house training your dog #What Nobody Tells You About Having a Puppy

[readingontheedge]

Tavish

Dunskey Castle Book 1

by Jane Stain

Genre: Scottish Time Travel Romance

 Tavish was the best boyfriend Kelsey ever had, but seven years ago he disappeared from her life. She coped with her heartbreak by finishing her doctorate in Celtic Artifacts, and now her career is taking off. But Tavish is back, acting like a stranger who knows more about Celtic artifacts than she does. He's been on staff at every one of her job sites in Scotland, wearing that stupid sexy kilt.

 Goodreads * Amazon 

Video Trailer:

https://youtu.be/VKXfPM6rYWE 

“You know me,” she reminded him. “Which way would I find more interesting?”

He pointedly looked at her Celtic University ring.

“I’m not really sure I do know you well anymore, but the Kelsey I remember, the adventurous one, she would have insisted on checking out the passage down to the secret doors.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said to him.

Wow. He gave her a soft look that she never thought she’d see again. It made her want to hug him…

“I’m listening,” he said.

Right. They were just talking. What was she saying, again? Oh yeah. The deal.

“I’ll be the Kelsey you remember, if you’ll be the Tavish I remember.”

Oops. What had made her say that?

The soft look left his eyes, replaced by wariness.

“You know what—” he started.

But she cut him off.

“Not for always, Tavish, just for this tour of the passageways, okay?”

He sighed heavily, and sadness filled his face while his posture relaxed as if he’d been ready for a big something and then just given up.

“Okay, but Kelsey, when this tour is done, promise me you’ll go into Mr. Blair’s trailer and stay in there until the sun comes up. Please, promise me.”

Taken aback by just how desperately worried for her he seemed, she agreed to his terms without any negotiation.

“I promise.”

He visibly relaxed.

“Thanks, Kelsey.”

And then his eyes were looking far away, and he started to reach out to her, and then let his hands drop.

She stomped her foot to get his attention, to make him look her in the eye. Okay, and maybe she was trying to get him to laugh a little, too. She’d always found foot stomping ridiculous.

“What’s wrong, Tavish?”

But it didn’t work. He looked away.

“I can’t tell you.” 

Seumas

Dunskey Castle Book 2

 Sasha just got her dream job in the highlands of Scotland. Where her friends ply her with celebratory champagne, throw a plaid cloak over her business suit, and take her to the 14th century to do original research on the dig site. She meets gorgeous highlander Seumas ("Shaymus") there, and — wait, is this a good idea?

 Goodreads * Amazon 

Tomas

Dunskey Castle Book 3

 Tomas was on top of the world. He had a hot girlfriend. She knew about time travel, so he didn't have to keep secrets around her. So why did the sight of his old friends Amber and Kelsey make him uncomfortable? His girlfriend kept telling him to forget about them. But he couldn't. He wished he knew why.

 Goodreads * Amazon 

Time of the Celts

Dunskey Castle Book 4

 Jaelle dons a Roman helmet left among her ex's things and is transferred to the Pictish Celt side of Hadrian's wall -- flat on the ground and tripped over by Breth. The naked woad-painted warrior is being chased by Romans who caught him scouting their fort. She earns his trust by grabbing an injured Roman's sword, fighting beside Breth, and saving his life. He takes her to his clan, where she sees druids in their sacred grove imparting magical protection by painting the warriors' nudity with muscle-activated woad pictures.

 Goodreads * Amazon 

Emboldened by the fact that everyone else had stripped and she wouldn't be alone in it, she did so, even putting the leather sack with the Roman helmet down on top of her pile of clothes. With her eyes on it in a bit of worry, she walked over to where the line of druids was decorating the line of laymen with woad grease they had brought along with them in earthenware jars.

Jaelle fell into the line between Breth and his mother. The grease was cold. The experience was anything but.

“But I know the woad decorations are needed according to your traditions, and of course I will go along with that—”

She broke off what she was going to say, because Breth’s eyes were mocking her playfully. He spoke in a teasing way, not as if he meant it.

“You’ll go along with that? Look, if you don’t want to be part of our traditions, then why don’t you just go home, future woman?”

In fact his eyes were laughing so much that she forgot everyone else was there for a moment and just stared at Breth’s glimmering blue eyes.

Deoord cleared his throat.

“Look, if you have… unfinished business to attend to, then I can come back later…”

Breth squeezed her around the waist. But then he looked toward the noon sky and sighed, then gently nudged her waist toward the druid.

“Tempting, but no. We really do need to get started.”

Jaelle tried again.

“Why don’t we just do the woad decorations tomorrow? There must be other things we could do today.”

Breth and Deoord shared a look that said she really was a future woman and they had their hands full trying to make her understand their way of life. But the future druids demanded it of them.

Deoord decorated Breth’s naked body just as complexly as it had been when she met Breth, but with different animals and creatures this time who were just as animated and fascinating and artful. Jaelle particularly liked the owl montage that now covered Breth’s back. When he flexed, the owls took flight.

And as the druid made all these wonderful woad markings on that beautiful man’s bare skin, he patiently explained.

“These markings are protective, not really decorative — although they are that as well. The drawings are infused with my magic, and my magic is the most strong when enacted here by these waters which feed our sacred grove…” 

Time of the Picts

Dunskey Castle Book 5

 Ignoring phone calls from Kelsey, Jaelle thinks her first time travel adventure was a dream, but a new museum display shows a stick figure she remembers drawing with her fingernail file on the top stone of Hadrian's Wall. Whoa, that means her time travel and meeting of the dazzling warrior Breth and their fight with the barbarians at the Roman fort really took place! She needs to get back to Breth!

Goodreads * Amazon 

Time of the Druids

Dunskey Castle Book 6

  Deirdre's first time travel assignment was challenging. Sure, she had her magic dagger, but he wasn't cooperating.

Talorac felt anxious about this meeting. A summons to the sacred grove had always meant the druids would perform their woad magic to prepare him for battle. So he was in no way prepared to make the acquaintance of the woman he found there with them. Deirdre was beautiful, and a warrior, and from the way she was flitting around the grove, she was the most powerful druid he had ever heard of in his life. 

Goodreads * Amazon 

Leif

Dunskey Castle Book 7

 Jessica's friend tricks her into time traveling to 15th century Scotland. A gorgeous highlander Jessica is sure is out of her league invites them to stay at his manor house. Leif knows he should keep his mind on training the militia for the battle that is sure to come soon. And after all, Jessica is just passing through his town. But she is so compassionate he feels his heart melting. 

Goodreads * Amazon 

Taran

Dunskey Castle Book 8

 Lauren has a magic dagger that gives her orders and sometimes stifles her speech. It wants her to find some artifact here in 1400s Scotland and give it to some druid friends.  She wants to get to know Taran. But the dagger whispers that Taran is in the way. Taran's life in a small town in Scotland was disrupted six months ago with the arrival of Lauren and the other two lasses. Lauren knew the way mechanical things worked in a way most astonishing. He never tired of hearing her explain. But to find out she has a magick dagger that she is in danger of losing her self control to? That shocks him. 

Goodreads * Amazon  

Luag

Dunskey Castle Book 9

 Luag and Katherine are two bullheaded people trying to "out stubborn" each other. They've been verbally sparring in Medieval Scotland for the past year. He's never met a headstrong woman before, and he is such a stubborn male! When chance throws them forward to Katherine’s time, he is the fish out of water. Understanding blooms, as does love.

Goodreads * Amazon 

Meehall

Dunskey Castle Book 10

  Sarah’s boss at Celtic University plonks an iron bracer on her desk. It brings up one of Kelsey's magic druid dreams. In it, Sarah's ex, Michael (Meehall in Gaelic), used this bracer as a time travel object. And was a kilted highlander in 1700s Scotland. At lunch, Sarah's friends say they’re calling in sick tomorrow to attend a local fair. They want her to call in sick too. Sarah isn’t keen on giving the bracer back. She wants revenge on Meehall for breaking up with her and decides to use the bracer to have a bit of fun. She tells her friends they don’t have to call in sick. She’s taking them back in time. “Good one!” they tell her, laughing. 

Goodreads * Amazon 

Ciaran

Dunskey Castle Book 11

 Ciaran arrives in the 21st Century with Eoin (John) in the darkness of the Celtic University night. Ciaran is delighted to run into Nadia and wants to stay and visit, but Eoin drags him away from her. Eoin is extra grumpy, saying the Murrays need an edge because the Cameron Clan is planning something big. Eoin sneaks the two of them into a storage basement and seems inordinately glad to find a particular halberd there. Nadia remembers the kilted warrior Ciaran from her experience in 1706 Scotland and secretly has a crush on him. Wherever he and Eoin are going, she bets it will inspire her story for Celtic University's historical society paper, especially if they are time traveling. She sneaks into the back of the cart Ciaran and Eoin are driving and hides under a blanket.

 Goodreads * Amazon 

Baltair

Dunskey Castle Book 12

 Ellie was captured during her last time travel adventure. But her friend's husband's life hangs in the balance. And this ring she found is giving her courage. Probably too much courage for a modern woman in 1706 to have.

Baltair is glad to see Ellie again. Her friend married his cousin and stayed, when Ellie went back to their time. But he keeps his distance. Many will die in the upcoming battle, maybe including him 

Goodreads * Amazon 

Time of the Fae

Dunskey Castle Book 13

Suellen and her friends ride a whirlwind onto a seacliff and panic. What happened?

The area is crawling with Highlanders who say they’re fighting the Romans. That guy. The one they met at the Renaissance faire. They need to find him.

Goodreads * Amazon 

Druids or Faeries

Dunskey Castle Book 14

 Marybeth frowned. "Dinna ye think it wrong, tae grab the faerie axe by force?” Ashley batted the air as if what Marybeth had said was dismissible. "The faeries gave it tae Ciaran, who gave it tae John. Kelsey stole it from John. 'Tis na wrong for John tae steal it back from her." Connell stuck his chest out and his chin up in a show of bravado. "Kelsey's gotten full o’ herself, syne she went off tae Celtic University. That, or she has been brainwashed by all those Druids. We used tae be friends, but now she's gone tae far. We wull be taking that axe back from her sae we can save Donnan. End o’ discussion."

Goodreads * Amazon 

Time for the Clan

Dunskey Castle Book 15

Ashley worries the faeries are about to kill her. She has to escape and warn Connell. His Highland clan could be separated by time forever. Can they make the druid curse help them?

Goodreads * Amazon  

Jane worked at the Renaissance Pleasure Faires at Paramount Ranch Agoura, Devore, and Black Point Forest from 1987 to 1993. She started as a peasant, then auditioned and made it into the Washerwomen, and then was a sea dog. She also hawked for Belle Star's perfume wagon and The Dye Spot clothing booth. Jane Stain is a pen name. She is in her fifties and has been influenced by the writing of Diana Gabaldon, Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Harry Harrison, Jane Auel, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K LeGuin, Robert Jordan, Stephenie Meyer, Terry Goodkind, and many more great authors. 

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads 

Giveaway

5 of these Celtic Knot rings that look like Celtic University graduation rings https://www.amazon.com/Sterling-Silver-Celtic-Knot-Eternity/dp/B00GU81TLU

 Follow the tour HERE for exclusive content and a giveaway! 

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/the-dunskey-castle-series-book-tour-and-giveaway

#romance #time travel #medieval #books #Amazon #KindleUnlimited

[antionetterparker]

ClickFunnels: Can marketing funnels really make you rich? [Review]

With promises of six-figure monthly commision checks and brand-new cars, the ClickFunnels affiliate program sounds a lot like an MLM convention.

But this is no MLM.

It’s a marketing software that’s taken the entrepreneurial world by storm.

ClickFunnels is a company that offers a suite of digital marketing tools for website owners and bloggers. The product is so popular, the affiliate program has turned out to be a massive success.

According to founder Russell Brunson, some affiliates have been able to earn a full-time income with just this one affiliate program. If that doesn’t sound like an MLM, I don’t know what does!

But Brunson has proven he’s something of an internet marketing genius. He knows how to make nearly everything his entrepreneurial hand touches turn to bitcoins. And you can’t help but believe him when he says you can too.

FAQ

1. What does ClickFunnels sell? ClickFunnels gives you just about everything you need to market, sell, and deliver your products and services online. That includes a web presence, landing pages, shopping cart with one-click upsells, email and Facebook marketing automation, affiliate software, membership software.

2. What are ClickFunnels’s most popular products? Their most popular product is the funnel builder. Their templates make building complicated funnels quickly and confidently. Their drag-and-drop webpage editor makes it possible to create attractive landing pages without a designer or coder. And you can use the tool to build a funnel for any outcome: generate leads, generate sales, or run an event.

3. How much does it cost to join ClickFunnels? ClickFunnels isn’t an MLM, so you don’t need to buy a starter kit to join. But you do need to be a member to join their affiliate program. There are two levels of membership in ClickFunnels: $97/month for the basic funnel functionality, or $297/month for everything.

4. Is ClickFunnels a scam? No, ClickFunnels is a legitimate business, providing a marketing tool that does many of the tasks that every business needs. It also provides marketing training and support tools that can help their users get better results on their own marketing. That said, only 76% of ClickFunnel users create trackable revenue through the platform. But the company is clear that their tool won’t make you rich by itself. It’s a tool that makes it easier to build a profitable business.

5. What is ClickFunnels’s BBB rating? A+

6. How long has ClickFunnels been in business? Since 2014

7. What is ClickFunnels’s revenue? ClickFunnels itself brings in $360 million. But what’s interesting is how much it brings in for its members. ClickFunnels has collected $477,411,717 in revenue in its member’s ClickFunnel Carts. This includes well-known marketers and beginners and doesn’t include members who don’t use ClickFunnels as a shopping cart.

8. How many ClickFunnels members are there? 52,677

9. What lawsuits have been filed? In 2017, ClickFunnels was hit with a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class-action suit over illegal text messages. [1]

10. Comparable companies: Wealthy Affiliate

ClickFunnels isn’t an MLM per se, but it is all about making money online. The marketing tools that ClickFunnels has to offer might be pretty helpful for some, but as far as passive income opportunities go, there are better options out there.

Click here for my #1 recommendation

Either way, here’s the full review on ClickFunnels.

Overview

If you’ve ever worked in digital marketing, you probably know who Russel Brunson is. He’s one of a handful of people who have revolutionized internet marketing as of late.

Dude has endorsements from Richard Branson and his company name slapped right on the side of one of Branson’s planes. [2]

Pretty badass, but do his products exist to help you get rich, or to help you help him get more rich?

Before ClickFunnels, Brunson wrote Dotcom Secrets, a book on internet marketing that was a total game changer and sold over 26,000 as an Amazon bestseller. [3] Overall, people found his advice super useful. The book has hundreds of reviews, almost all 5-stars.

His latest endeavor, a sales funnel software company called ClickFunnels, is blowing up. It already has over 12k users and has done over $63 million in sales. [4]

Huffington Post called it one of 15 best post-launch tools to grow your start-up. [5] Entrepreneur Magazine named it one of 9 business tools for working smarter instead of harder. [6]

Basically, Brunson has been brilliant at making money online for a while, but he was spending way too much time making sales funnels. He created ClickFunnels to solve that problem.

It seems to be getting ‘er done.

The program has been recommended on Forbes by an entrepreneur who scored 25,000 subscribers in 30 days using a landing page he created with ClickFunnels in only 15 minutes. [7]

Not only did he score a massive amount of subscribers, but his conversion rate is even more impressive…

Throughout that 30 days, he managed to get 185,000 people to his landing page. 25,000 converted. That’s a 13.5% conversion rate. [8]

The average conversion rate for landing pages? 2.35%. No joke. [9]

So, not only does he have 25,000 subscribers that he can now monetize, but he has a landing page that can keep bringing conversions in at almost six times the rate of your average landing page.

Products

Simply put, ClickFunnels is a sales funnel software. In exchange for a monthly payment, the software saves your business time and money.

According to their website, you can save over $1,000 per month using this software by not having to purchase web hosting, landing page software, designers, programmers, etc. It’s a bit of an overestimate, but with everything it includes, it probably does save you some money.

The basic membership costs $97/month and includes the following:

Website Hosting

Landing Page Software

Email Autoresponder Software

Split Testing Software

20 Sales Funnels

100 Pages

20k Visitors

The premium membership costs $297/month and includes all of the above, plus:

Unlimited Funnels

Unlimited Domains

Unlimited Pages

Unlimited Traffic

Backpack, an affiliate tracking software that helps you figure out how much to pay your referral partners

Actionetics, a custom smart action funnel software that includes a custom autoresponder, custom follow up sequences via email, text message, and more.

Either way, they offer a 14-day free trial period, so you can find out for yourself whether or not the product is worth it. [10]

The software is secure. You don’t have to install anything, and you never have to pay for updates.

There are also no contracts—the subscription fee is a month-to-month fee, so you can cancel at any time. You will lose all your data if you cancel, but you can download a CSV file of all your contacts and members, so you won’t lose their info.

Pros

The interface for their landing pages is a thing of beauty, as you can see from browsing their own website. Super simple, really engaging. It’s easy to see why their landing pages convert so well.

It’s got drag-and-drop functions, so it’s pretty easy to use even if you’re a non-techie.

Even though the templates are simple, they’ve got enough customizability to cover pretty much any basic need. You’ve got a lot of different funnels at your disposal, first of all: membership funnels, best seller book funnels, launch funnels, webinar funnels, physical product funnels, brick and mortar store funnel, and the network marketing funnel.

You can also include webinar registrations, opt-in forms, videos, and integrate the software with your current mailing and checkout systems. Clickfunnels integrates with Mailchimp, Salesforce, ConvertKit, Stripe, ClickBank, JVZoo, and more. [11]

This makes the software good for both beginners, who don’t need to know a single line of code to build professional funnels and landing pages, and more advanced internet marketers, who have better things to do than spend hours upon hours building sales funnels.

Cons

ClickFunnels software may save you time and increase your effectiveness, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to do all the work for you.

The truth of the matter is that you can have the most beautiful landing page in the world with an insane conversion rate but it doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t drive traffic. A website with a 100% conversion rate and 0 visitors gets you, well, nothing.

Driving traffic is the real meat and potatoes of internet marketing. Having solid landing pages and high conversion rates is only secondary.

Remember the success story above? The guy with 25,000 subscribers? Well, he had to get 185,000 people to visit his landing page first.

Nothing passive about that income.

On top of that, even after you get the traffic and the conversions, you still have to have either a solid product or service to sell, or a means of consistently monetizing your subscribers, if you want to make your profit sustainable.

It’s also a risky bet. Even though the data you host with them is yours, if you choose to cancel your membership or they go out of business, you’re essentially screwed.

Recap

ClickFunnels is a great tool if you specifically need a more effective sales funnel for a business you’ve already spent a good amount of time growing.

You’re going to be working long days no matter how perfect your sales funnel, and if you don’t already have extensive knowledge in internet marketing, the rest of your business will suffer.

If you’re more or less starting from scratch and looking to get rich quick, this is not your answer.

—

I’m not a ClickFunnels hater at all. In fact, there are a lot of great things about this company. But as far as money-making opportunities go, it’s just not nearly as sustainable as others.

I’ve been involved with network marketing for over ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

via https://mlmcompanies.org/clickfunnels/

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from Starter Story here with another interview.Today's interview is with Aaron and Lior, the founders of Hush Blankets, a brand that makes weighted, anxiety reducing blankets.Some stats:Revenue/mo: $50,000Started: January 2018Location: Toronto, OntarioFounders: 2Employees: 1Hello! Who are you and what are you working on?Hey there! We’re two young entrepreneurs from Toronto working hard to control this "side hustle" which is rapidly turning into our main business because of it’s fast growth.Our product, Hush Blankets, is a weighted blanket that when placed on you, helps instantly reduce anxiety, stress, and insomnia. Our customers are mainly people looking to buy this for their spouses that can’t sleep, or as gifts for other family members. Usually women above 40.We’ve grown fast, averaging 300% month over month growth, rapidly expanding into new ecommerce channels as well.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Who would have thought that a background in the software and restaurant space would lead to a health product. We’ve always been entrepreneurs, both dropping out of university and with the mindset that we can create more for ourselves than school would ever provide us.The idea for Hush started when my partner, Lior, worked at an overnight camp for special needs children. They had a room there called the "Stimulation Room" and it had all sorts of devices and tools that were sensory-related. One of them was a weighted blanket.If your current idea isn’t successful, don’t give up until you’ve hustled at it for 4 months straight.It was so effective that he kept going back there just to try it out. But it was ugly, and he knew it could be improved.A couple years later, the Hush Blanket was made into a premium product that any adult can enjoy the benefits from, outside of a hospital or rehab centre.We both have our own businesses, but we also struggle from stress and sleeping from time to time. Once we started trying our own product, we were in love.We threw up a quick Shopify site and started running pre-orders. Those flooded in, and we knew our first order was going to sell out quick.Describe the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.There is only 2-3 main manufacturer players in the market, but really they’re just textile companies that decided to perfect this and niche down. We are currently looking into keeping our options open by actually owning and controlling the entire manufacturing process from start to finish, which will give us the competitive edge.The trick is designing the product yourself to be superior and one that everyone will rave about. This consisted of late nights deconstructing prototypes, and even buying every competitor’s blanket until we were satisfied with our first version.I have limited experience in physical product design, except the odd t-shirt or product bag for our juice kitchen. In the beginning, we really had to learn from competitors and limited market research with real people trying our prototypes.We both funded our first production run ourselves (insanely expensive for textiles, super high barrier to entry), with a loan to the company we paid a lawyer to create.Describe the process of launching the online store/business.Shopify was a natural selection because it’s just so great at e-commerce. We only have one product at the moment, so it was easy to choose a theme based around that.We’re both marketers by trade, SEO and Social Media, so we knew we had that covered. We’re also lucky to be surrounded by very good friends that run our AdWords and Facebook ads.Everything was financed by us in the beginning. We pretty much poured everything we had into this, took out 3 credit cards and 2 lines of credits with 2 different banks to help with larger purchases along the way too. Over $80,000 spent, 1200 units on the way and we were ready to start rolling.The first sale was made the very next day after starting AdWords. Since then, every dollar we make we put back towards either inventory or growth through marketing.We don’t plan on taking a profit for the entire first year, and we know some of our competitors simply can’t afford to do that, so we’re blessed to have our other businesses that allow us to do that.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Our biggest growth factor has been AdWords for sure. Most people think it is too expensive, but if you have an A+ ads team, and a decently priced product, it can work well with a lot of room to scale.The reason it works so well is because people are searching for the unique product where they read about it elsewhere online. Their buyer’s intent leads them to clicking our ad and much more likely to convert. Our homepage is setup like a landing/sales page since we only have one product at the moment so that helped with conversions too.We’re now spending well into 5-figures a month on advertising, with Facebook for retargeting, and massive plans to use it for cold audiences as well. Every 2 weeks we try another paid platform and that seems to fuel growth even more.We have a campaign that "farms" new keywords that are “long tail keywords”. Once we know people buy through those super unique or buyer-intent keywords, they are moved to a winner campaign. The goal is to eventually have a massive campaign with only winner keywords that we bid on.Lead times (the time it takes from manufacturing to warehouse) completely blindsided us in the beginning. It can be incredibly difficult to estimate when and how many units to order.We are going heavy on video production for cold audience with FB traffic, and we even recently hired a salesperson to call our abandoned carts and give them a personal touch of customer service.As long as it’s profitable (or break-even in some cases), keep doing it. My biggest advice would be to have enough cash and a really good advertiser to be willing to test things for 3-4 months before calling it quits.We also hired a full time instagrammer to just do social media and find us influencers, which we plan to use as a big channel of traffic.Email has been huge for us too, which we know most stores don’t tackle. Automations, winback campaigns, retargeting, thank you follow-ups, etc, not only help drive branding but have increased sales dramatically.Connections are huge in this game as well. We’re lucky to have friends that can run our ads for cheap, do massive press releases for free, and that we can handle a lot of the marketing ourselves because of our expertise. Build connections, utilize them.How is everything going nowadays, and what are your plans for the future?On everything we do, we try to keep our profit margin at around 30% or more. Our biggest aim right now is to lower production costs as well as lead time so that we can go bigger with our marketing while knowing that we can deliver more blankets, profitably.We don’t see the need for an office yet, or anytime soon, since we are pretty much digital nomads, but we did set up a home office where we both work.In the coming weeks, we will be fully launched on Amazon, as well as expansion into USA and Canada with their own separate websites.The long term goal will be to have all of our channels running like a well oiled machine, at which point we will likely be at around $300,000/month (if SEO kicks in properly).More products, and variation, will lead to higher cart values and an increase in CLTV/repeat purchases.Brand plays a huge role here as well. As we attack from every angle, we also have a more premium look to our brand, which allows us to demand higher prices and win more customers when people are deciding or comparing us to competitors.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Lead times (the time it takes from manufacturing to warehouse) completely blindsided us in the beginning. It can be incredibly difficult to estimate when and how many units to order. If it’s too long, you run out of cash to purchase more inventory. So it’s always a delicate balance there.There’s also a huge amount of luck when it comes to SEO, which is by far the biggest driver for some of our competitors. We’re going full force on that, but it’s just one of those things you can’t fully control.It also really, really helps to focus on one business at a time. Since we each have our own businesses, this is only something we can focus on for half of the day. FOCUS. Keeping each other accountable has really helped us stay on track.What platform/tools do you use for your business?Shopify for ease of use and order managementDrip for email capture and automationDrift for customer emails/chat/targeted messagingAhrefs and Serpfox for SEOBeeketing for social proof on the websiteZapier for many of our connectionsGoogle Sheets for some advanced trackingXero for accountingScout Abandoned Cart Recovery - great tool that automatically sends you a Messenger bot reminder with options to follow up via phone/SMS/WhatsappA lot is also done manually (surprising, I know). If you have the time or money to manage ads and things yourself, you don’t need to rely on too many tools.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I’m not huge into consuming content. I’d rather look for a quick solution on Google when I need an answer.I follow Gary V for inspiration and Tim Ferriss from back in the day got me on the track to working for myself.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?I mentioned this before but: FOCUS.I see so many people hopping from one idea to the next, or trying to many things at once. If you have a business and want to move on to another idea, make sure your current one has systems in place to flourish without you.If your current idea isn’t successful, don’t give up until you’ve hustled at it for 4 months straight.It also helps to have cash. It just makes things move faster and keep the ball rolling quicker. Get a job, save up, get investors.Liked this interview? Check out more founders that shared their story on StarterStory.com

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

[welovefunassyi]

Current and Upcoming Funassyi Events, Week of November 13, 2017

The latest rather infrequent roundup of all that’s going on in the World of Pear Fairies!

Funassyi 5 Year On Earth Anniversary Project

More details in in this post.

Funassyi Bus Tour

274ch has announced a one day bus tour to take place in Hanyu, Saitama on November 27 - the Monday after the Gotouchi Chara event in the same town. The tour includes a Lunch Party Show starring the Pear(s), a tour of 274 video location spots (I’m not sure if this means you get to see them shooting a 274ch video) and so on. You must enter a drawing between now and 15:00 on October 30 for the right to purchase a ticket. If you are picked, the tour will cost 19,440 yen including tax. The tour is limited to 160 people or 4 bus loads.

See details on the 274ch site (Japanese only).

Live events/appearances by Funassyi

November 18: 2018 Funassyi Calendar 5th Anniversary event at Toho Cinemas Screen 4, Lalaport Tokyo Bay, Funabashi; 14:00 (details on official calendar site). Reserve either the wall or desktop calendar from any Funassyiland between now and October 22nd to receive an entry sticker for the event seat drawing

November 26: World Chara Summit in Hanyu, Saitama (official site). Note that the festival will be on November 25-26, but Funassyi will be there on the 26th only. Both Funagoro and Funassyi will be there on both days.

December 1: Act Against AIDS 2017: THE VARIETY charity concert at Budokan, Tokyo (website)

December 10: Akiba Entertainment Marathon (AEM) Chara Supo Festival, Health Square, Hibiya Park, Tokyo - a gotouchi chara festival connected with the running of a marathon. The best place to get up to date info on this event is their Twitter account.

December 16: Funassyiland Web Store 2-year anniversary event at Toho Cinemas, Lalaport Tokyo Bay, Funabashi; at 16:30 and 18:00. Details on the Funassyiland site.

Sometime in January: Furusato Festival at the Tokyo Dome

Live events/appearances by Funagoro and/or Funyassyi

These are appearances by Funagoro and Funyassyi only.　Since there are Funagoro and Funyassyi fans too, I’ve listed all of their appearances here, so some may duplicate the listings above.

Be sure to check the official Funagoro/Funyassyi Funassyiland schedule page here.

November 19: Funassyiland Funabashi - Funyassyi

November 25-26: World Chara Summit in Hanyu (see above) - both Funagoro and Funassyi

December 16-17: Cat City Cat Stage (Neko-shi Neko-za) Kobe KIITO Hall, Gallery A. This is an event for cat lovers. Details here. - Funyassyi only (of course)

TV, Radio, Live Webcasts, Movies, Music

TV: hi-IMAGINE Radio appearance, November 20 and 27 (or late night November 19 and 26), 1:25~ , Nippon TV, Tokyo/Kanto area only or via Nippon TV On Demand (although it’s called Radio, it’s a TV show)

Music: Available now: Spring 2017 Ketsugobou Tour DVD (release date: May 26). 274ch member order page. Also available from CDJapan, Amazon Japan, Funassyiland web store.

Music: Available now: Arukunashi Charamel CD Single (double-A side; on 274ch site also available now from Amazon Japan, CDJapan etc.

Online - Official music video for Charamel (details)  

Online - Official music video for Arukunashi (video link)

Online - Available for viewing now : Untouchable Shibata’s Animal Research Team program in 4 parts on 360.tv (details). Note that Funassyi will also be on the show and/or providing narration for the second season.

Movie: Last Cop The Movie, on Blu-Ray and DVD. Available now (Amazon Japan link to the various editions)

Special shopping events and exhibitions, restaurants etc.

November 2- November 23: Limited period Funassyiland in Sendai at Sendai Loft, 2nd floor (official page)

The Funassyi livery train has been extended until December 31!! Funassyi livery train, Shin Keisei Railway (details; official page on Shin Keisei Railway site).

Now there are Funassyi bus stops! From now until November 30, 5 of the bus stops on the Funabashi Shin Keisei route will be Funassyi-fied.

- December 31 The Misato station has been re-done in a Funassyi theme. In addition, in-station announcements are in Funassyi’s voice. Funassyi livery trains also has Funassyi-voice announcements during this period.

Products of note

At this point many of the new and cool Funassyi products are available exclusively at the Funassyiland stores, with the exception of books, calendars etc. Which is good I guess if you live in Japan, since it’s one-stop shopping, but somewhat inconvenient for overseas Funassyi fans, since Funassyiland does not ship overseas. If you don’t have a cooperative friend in Japan, I recommend using a shopping service.

Available for preorder from the online Funassyiland shop starting November 18: Funassyi Christmas Cakes! Includes a cookie printed with a quote from Funassyi, a chocolate deco pen to write on it, and a mini tote bag. (website)

Grey Parka Service has announced a 120cm tall Funassyi, retailing for 41,000 yen including tax. The first phase has already sold out - the next phase will be available sometime in January.

Available now : Minna de Aemen Funassyi themed noodles from Yamasa

2018 Funassyi Calendar and Planner/Agendas

Official site.  Available now from the Funassyiland online store, physical Funassyiland stores, bookstores nationwide, Amazon, CDJapan, etc.

The 2018 weekly and monthly agenda/planners are also available.

2018 Funassyi Nengajo (New Years cards)

Available from the Japan Post online store - link

Apps, stickers and games

Illustrated Funassyi sticker set for the LINE app - they are adorable! Only available in Japan at the moment unfortunately. (link)

Available now: Funassyi stickers for iMessage (the Messages app), iOS only - but available worldwide! (link to US App Store - check your local App store)

Available now: Taiwan/Chinese version Funassyi LINE stamps (check in your LINE app; not available outside of Taiwan though)

274ch.com

274ch.com, Funassyi’s official streaming video channel/fan club, is the main outlet for Funassyi’s video appearances. Videos are uploaded every couple of days, and are very funny, with Funassyi appearing far more loose and relaxed than he is on broadcast TV. Highlights include a cooking show, Funassyi imitating various Japanese entertainers (his imitation of Beat Takeshi aka Takeshi Kitano is priceless), Funassyi going camping, Funassyi going go-cart racing, and much more. There are also frequent live streams of The Pear doing interviews and so on.

There are also fan-exclusive meets with Funassyi, and fan-exclusive concerts too, such as the upcoming Zetsu Bushaa Tour (see schedule above).

Membership is 600 yen per month or 6,000 yen per year. You can now join from outside of Japan too, although the site is in Japanese only (and so is customer support and so on). Details here. You will most likely need a Japanese mailing address to receive materials from the site for now.

Note: Sometimes someone at the streaming video provider seems to turn on IP checking/blocking of non-Japanese IPs. If you can’t access the videos, just wait a few hours and it will usually get fixed.

274ch official Instagram account

Link here

Last but not least…

I know the updates here have less frequent of late. I have some serious health problems which make it hard to sit at my desk for extended periods - and I find it very hard to update Tumblr via my phone. I will try to update here as regularly as I can, but if you are on Facebook please join the We Love Funassyi group, which is quite active, with many enthusiastic Funatomo. See you there!

Photo source - Funassyi and Nyangostar at an event promoting the Justice League movie release in Japan. Funassyi is dressed as Batman.

#funassyi #events #monday update #calendar #funasshi #ふなっしー

[canaryatlaw]

alright. so today was overall pretty good. I woke up to my alarm at 10:15 because I was scheduled to get a call from the DV clinic about potentially interning there for a while at 10:30. So I more or less just got myself to wake up until they called. It was fine, mostly what I knew already, going over what the responsibilities would be and how I could get to court and all that good stuff. I was going to ask if there was a possibility it would lead to a long term job, but I was never given the opportunity to ask questions lol which I’m sure was an accidental oversight on their part, but they did say that they hoped to have all their hiring done by the end of June, so that sounded somewhat promising. I told them I’d keep them updated about news on the New York job and how that may affect me going back to NY, but I could potentially work through the end of June. So that was good. After the call I tried to go back to sleep because I’m lazy and I like sleep, but it wasn’t happening, so I got up and made blueberry pancakes being that I was out of m&ms and other suitable chocolate substitutes. I tried to make the batter a little thicker than I had previously so it would be able to support the blueberries more and not just fall apart, and it worked pretty well and there weren’t any uncooked middle parts which is generally my fear with thicker batter so that I was pleased about. I had cut down on how much batter I actually made, so it only made about three small to medium sized pancakes but that was a solid breakfast. After eating I decided I should get a jump on going to the store since I had the phone interview later, so I got ready and grabbed my cart and walked down to the grocery store. Just stocking up on some essentials like eggs and milk and getting some random stuff (like more m&ms) I needed for one reason or another. Didn't take too long, got checked out and the cashier gave me 17 of the little monopoly game pieces, which I’m pretty sure was way too many for how much I actually bought, but I mean I wasn’t complaining lol. Idk if I’ve mentioned it before, but the grocery store in connection with a bunch of other grocery stores in different states is doing the huge monopoly give away game like the one they did at McDonald’s a million years ago if you remember that, you get game pieces based on how much you spend, and each little piece has 4 property pieces, and if you get all the property pieces for a certain section of the monopoly board you win a prize. So she gave me 17 of them (I counted) and they had 4 each in them, which means I now had 68 new game pieces lol. I got back from the store and started to work on putting my civil rights final info together (as in what to take into the open book final). I had tried to upload some outlines to the outline depot site I was talking about so I could download some, but the ones I had hadn’t been approved yet, so I figured I’d wait until tomorrow to see if they can get approved so I could get the outline. Otherwise I could pay $20 for it, which kind of seems like a lot, but in reality it’s in line with what Quimbee and such would charge for their outlines. Once I had established that, I went through my case briefs and did some editing, just so everything lined up all nice and pretty and deleted some extraneous information, and I managed to cut it down from 66 pages to 58, so that was good. I then added page numbers to the table of contents I had made for each section and case. Once I had all that done I printed both docs, which took a lot of printing obviously, the amount of trees I’ve killed in the name of open book exams is....plentiful, at this point. I pulled a binder out of my closet (where everyone keeps their binders, you know) along with the massive three hole punch I acquired somewhere along the way (love that thing) and set it all up in the binder. At 4 I got the phone call for the longer phone interview, which ended up lasting about 50 minutes. Lots of questions, most of them going along the lines of “can you give me an example of a time when blah blah blah” meaning I had to come up with a story and I am the worst at doing that, but I feel like i managed to come up with mostly true stories, and the more fabricated ones were at least based on fact, so I was more or less satisfied with that. They said the next step was they were going to select like 2 or 3 final candidates and have them interview with their full team, so we’ll see where it goes with that. not gonna lie, I have somewhat of a feeling of dread regarding the job, just because I’m worried that I would be bored out of my mind, but I mean, it’d be a job and it’d be here, which is good....I have mixed feelings, obviously. but we’ll have to see where that goes. Hopefully I’ll have an answer on the NY job before I hear back from them so I’ll at least have a better idea of where I stand with that. After the phone call I spent an absurdly long time putting all the monopoly pieces on the board, lol. The game has been going on for months now, so I have like 3 out of 4 pieces for a lot of the different prize spaces, but of course the thing is they make 3 of them fairly common and just make very few of the last one. But hey, it’s fun, so it’s all good. When I finished up with that I looked at remedies flashcards for about 5 minutes before deciding I wanted to bake cupcakes instead. I had the cake mix I bought last week, but I wasn’t exactly wanting to bake 24 cupcakes, so I decided to get clever divide the necessary ingredients to make a smaller portion. the recipe called for 3 eggs, and since you can’t really divide eggs as well as other ingredients, I figured I’d do 1/3 of the recipe, so 8 cupcakes. so I used my super handy kitchen scale to weigh the cake mix (it was 15.6 oz) and then measure out 1/3 of that (5.2 oz), then mix it with one egg, and a third of the amounts of oil and water. A few times previously I had tried some of the pinterest suggestions for making boxed cake mixes better, mainly like add an extra egg, swap the oil for melted butter and double it (no, really) and use milk instead of water, but in my experience the cake would come out of the oven looking really great and puffy, then literally right away it would just shrink into it self and not be fluffy at all, lol. it still tasted great, but felt kinda heavy, so I decided to not do that. I had to run out of my building and get my amazon package off the front porch, because I had just ordered a new cookie dough scoop since I managed to somehow break my old one, which wasn't actually working well at all anyway, so that wasn’t much of a loss. But I used the scoop to divide out the batter, which was fairly mess free and worked well. Box said 12-17 minutes for cupcakes, I checked after 12 and they were good to go, so I let them cool while I ate some dinner. I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken from the store earlier and had stowed it in the oven for a while so it stayed warm, then kind of ate some of it throughout the afternoon. By the time I sat down in front of the tv it was 7:20, at which point I realized Supergirl started 20 minutes ago and I’m very bad at this whole watching tv shows live thing. So I started the episode from the beginning. It was interesting, probably one of the better episodes lately, so that’s good. The Sam and Lena stuff is getting very interesting, and I know I said this last week but everything Lena is doing is so VERY Luthor, not even in an evil way, but like Lex would do very similar things on Smallville long before he turned evil and back when he was actually a good guy. It’s just very in tune with how their family handles things. I feel so bad for Sam. she’s in such a hard position of course, and I feel like one way or another this season is gonna end in heartbreak. The Supergirl and Imra stuff I was kinda meh on, mostly because I don’t fully agree with Kara’s no kill policy, like if you can avoid it sure but it’s not always going to be avoidable and I could definitely see where Imra was coming on this one. Mon-El was meh, but what else is new. But yeah, overall not bad. I went straight into watching The Resident afterwards, which churned out another excellent episode. ah, it was all just so good with them dealing with their colleague who was suddenly in a dire state, and how they worked so hard to find the actual best way to save him. I totally loved the subplot with Mina and the new doctor, I love Mina so fucking much haha she’s totally brilliant and she knows it and I LOVE HER SO MUCH. That plot was pure hilarity, I very much hope the doctor guy chooses to stick around. All of the stuff with Nic was getting pretty creepy, but we’ve known that was the direction they were heading in since they’re up to some super sketchy stuff. The whole grocery confrontation thing was.....weird, very weird, but I guess it served its purpose of being creepy. After that I tried to get my roommate’s apple tv to work so I could watch Westworld, but it was not cooperating, so I decided to frost the cupcakes instead. I had gotten an icing bag a while back I wanted to try using, but it was being uncooperative and not letting me actually get the icing to the tip of it and I eventually just gave up and iced one cupcake by hand and figured I’d get to the rest of them when I actually want to eat them. So I ate the cupcake and some frosting out of the can because that shit’s good. I didn't want to jump into a long GoT episode, so I watched more of A Series of Unfortunate Events just as a filler show even though it hasn’t been my favorite lately. I think it somewhat has to deal with me not liking Neil Patrick Harris in this role?? Like I’ve always liked him before this but in this show he just kinda grates on me, and not in the way that like a good villain was, he just feels kind of ridiculous to me, even in a show that contains a lot of ridiculousness, it’s just not working for me. I do love the kids of course, they’re brilliant and lovely and even though I know this is the entire premise of the show I feel myself growing increasing frustrated that they still don’t have a safe place to live, which again I KNOW is the point of the show, but like, it’s getting old for me. So we’ll see how much longer I end up sticking with the show. After an episode of that I started to get ready for bed and now I’m here. Tomorrow I have an “evaluation” appointment with a new PT guy at a new PT place (it’s the same company as my old one, and it’s not even very far apart, they’re literally referred to as the [neighborhood name] North and [neighborhood name] South clinics, so it’s not that big of a change really. I’m getting moved to this one because they apparently have a person trained in the type of PT the doctor wanted me to try, so I guess we’ll see what comes of this. I should be doing better with my home exercises, so maybe this will help motivate me with that. and yeah, other than that I’ll hopefully get a civil rights outline and prep the rest of my stuff for the final on Wednesday, should be good. Alright, that’s all for now. Goodnight peeps. Stay chill.

#daily journal #April 2018 #APRIL'S FINALLY OVER YAYYYYY