Disappointing Sequels

You know how people say too much of a good thing is a bad thing? Well, this is proven exceptionally well in several of the movies coming out of Hollywood. Sometimes movie makers strike gold with their creations and other times they are just misses. Movie making is really a gamble in many ways and whether a movie will be a success or not is hard to tell with even the most anticipated movies being disappointments. However, when these hits are made producers want to make as much money as they possibly can before the buzz dies down and it becomes a classic sitting in the corner gathering dust.

Source: http://www.popmatters.com/column/126567-sequels-we-were-denied/

What is one of the most lucrative ways of milking a movie franchise for all it is worth? Sequels of course. These sequels can often turn a good series bad and leave a bad lasting memory. There are many instances of this occurring throughout history (yes, I am getting deep here. Prepare your mind) where a movie's sequel has ruined the franchise entirely. Today I went to see Grown Ups 2 and was very disappointed. The first movie was great and so I went to this one with the same expectations. Sure, there were funny moments but that was all and it seemed like they just wanted to put in random gags and it was cohesive. It just came together messily and I really wanted my time back. Other disappointments include Spider Man 3 which is widely considered as a disappointing ending to the trilogy. The latest installment of the Die Hard franchise was also a kick-in-the-face to Die Hard fans across the world. It just goes to show that some good things just need to be laid to rest after they have had their time.

Don't let too much of a good thing ruin your good thing, see you tomorrow!

Fanfiction

Continuing on with the theme of writing I just want to point out fan fiction to you. Fan fiction is a story (often about well-known people like celebrities, books, movies or television shows) that is written by fans [just in case you did not get that from the prefix]. Some of them are really well-written and very descriptive. They can often give you an insight into someone else's interpretation of a book and may even shed light on something subtle you may have missed. Sometimes it even continues the story the way fans want it to. The best part about it is that these people who write it are doing it for free and so are writing what they are passionate about. It really is amazing.

Image Source: http://www.insomniverse.net/csifanfiction.html

Sometimes when I'm bored I might just Google Hunger Games fan fiction or something similar and thousands of results pop up. There are whole sites like http://www.fanfiction.net/ which are full of millions (literally millions) of stories written by fans. Sometimes they can continue a story you may have really loved. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are really bad. Fan fiction is just one of many ways for people to get their writing out there and some of it is publishing quality. The best part about it, as I already said, is that these people are writing it purely because they want to and are passionate about it. It really brings out the true creativity of a person because it isn't a chore and they can stop whenever they want because it is their writing, their rules and what they want. Some people do not like writing blogs and so turn to the casual writing of fan fiction.

Image Source: 

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/random/articles/200526/title/harry-potter-hunger-games-fanfiction-d

In the world of fan fiction anything goes. There are no publishers or editors telling you to change anything. It is purely what you want when you want it. It also allows people to express themselves in writing and enjoy writing stories about their favourite book characters. Stories like this would never otherwise be published because it would be copyright on the original author of the source series. Some fan fictions out-shine their original counterparts and can even create a mix of two different series others would not think of. A great example of this is "The Potter Games" (as pictured above) which is a mix of Harry Potter and  The Hunger Games. There is actually a site called The Potter Games (I'm not sure if it is the same thing as pictured above) where you read a paragraph and at the bottom there are choices you make and each choice continues on to a different story line so it is like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books. That is one of the advantages of the online world, you can easily do this just by creating a hyperlink to a new page. It is also one of the reasons I love fan fiction. If you have not ever read any fan fiction then I really recommend you should because they are fantastic!

Image Source: http://www.outpost-daria.com/fan_fiction.html

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Quirks

Quirks, we all have them. They are what separates us from the billions of others in the World. It is because of these quirks that a mother can tell between her two twins, or an owner from their identical dogs. Quirks are what separates us apart from those around us and what makes us who we are.

We all have quirks, some have more pronounced quirks while others have quirks you don't actually notice until they are pointed out to you. Sometimes we have quirks that we don't actually realise we have until someone comments on it. My family has all sorts of weird quirks which, at times, can make us hate each other or love each other. Sometimes even both, somehow. My mother, for instance, has a weird (and annoying) quirk of wanting to pay in exact change so she doesn't have so many coins while my Dad, on the other end of the spectrum, has so many coins that they're everywhere he has been. It's sort of like Hansel and Gretel with my Dad except instead of breadcrumbs, there's coins. I don't mean he drops coins when he goes into shopping centers but I mean, when he's at home and he's walking around he'll leave a pile on his bedside table, at the front door (on the bench, not the floor) or in my room (I'm not complaining, it's money in my room).

My brothers also have their own quirks. My middle brother, Joshua, gets hooked on TV shows and so when he gets hooked on one he will go out to the store and buy a season on DVD and then he'll finish that and go onto the next one. Or he'll re-watch a series we have at home and just spend weeks watching it. It really annoys my Mum because he's in Year 12 and doing VCE and he watches more TV than he does studying.  I mean, I do more studying than him and I am in Year 10 and only doing one VCE Unit 1/2 subject whereas his are all Unit 3/4 subjects because he is in Year 12. My eldest brother has his own quirk where he'll watch football (AFL, not that American crap) but he won't just watch it, he'll start screaming at the TV and you can understand what's going on down the other end of the house without having to turn the TV on. It gets really annoying though when you're trying to go to sleep. He can be a pain sometimes. I also have my quirks. One of them is the way I write in my books during class. Instead of facing the book Portrait like everyone else I turn my book sideways so it is landscape but I still write in portrait so instead of writing horizontally my arm is hooked around at a 90 degree angle and I write vertically up the page. I didn't actually realise this was a quirk until I got to high school and people were amazed at how I wrote. I say amazed because I couldn't think of a better word. I guess they were more confused rather than amazed.

So you see, we all have our quirks even if we don't realise it. Our quirks are part of what make up that 0.1% of DNA that is different to everybody else. The other 99.9% of our DNA is identical to the others around us but it is that 0.1% that makes all the difference, that makes up our skin colour, our eye colour, our personality and our quirks. So, however annoying our quirks may be we just have to remember that they are a part of us and without them the world be a worse place to be.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!