#Well this is a fan art website first and foremost so it makes sense I guess

[alaynnah]

I’m getting out of art block by drawing something fun: outfits!

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Syntax6

Syntax6 has 17 stories at Gossamer, but you should visit her website for the complete collection of her fics and to see the cover art that comes with many of the stories (and to find her pro writing!). She's written some of the most beloved casefiles in the fandom. I've recced literally all of them here before. Twice. Big thanks to Syntax6 for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I’m delighted but not surprised because I’ve written and read fanfic for shows even older than XF. Also, I joined the XF fandom relatively late, at the end of 1999, so there were already hundreds of “classic” fics out there, stories that were theoretically superseded or dated by canon developments that came after them, but which nonetheless remained compelling in their own right. That is the beauty of fanfic: it is inspired by its original creators but not bound by them. It’s a world of “what if” and each story gets to run in a new direction, irrespective of the canon and all the other stories spinning off in their own universes. In this way, fanfic becomes almost timeless.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

(I feel these are similar, at least for me, so I will combine them here.)

First and foremost, I found friends. There was a table full of XF fanfic writers at my wedding. Bugs was my maid of honor. I still talk to someone from XF fandom pretty much every day. Lysandra, Maybe Amanda, Michelle Kiefer, bugs…these are just some of the people who’ve been part of my life for half my existence now. Sometimes I get to have dinner with Audrey Roget or Anjou or MCA. Deb Wells and Sarah Ellen Parsons are part of my pro fic beta team. I have a similar list from the Hunter fandom, terrific people who have enriched my life in numerous ways and I am honored to count as friends.

Second, I learned a lot about writing during my years in XF fandom. I grew up there. Part of this growth experience was simply due to practice. I wrote about 1.2 million words of XF fanfic, which is the equivalent of 15 novels. I made mistakes and learned from them. But another essential part of learning is absorbing different kinds of well-told tales, and XF had these in spades. Some stories were funny. Others were lyrical. Some were short pieces with nary a word wasted while others were sprawling epics that took you on an adventure. The neat thing about XF is that it has space for many different kinds of stories, from hard-core sci-fi to historical romance. You can watch other authors executing these varied pieces and learn from them. You can form critique groups and ask for betas and get direct feedback on how to improve. It’s collaborative and fun, and this can’t be underestimated, generally supportive. The underlying shared love of the original product means that everyone comes into your work predisposed to enjoy it. I am grateful for all the encouragement and the critiques I received over my years in fandom.

Finally, I think a valuable lesson for writers that you can find in fandom, but not in your local author critique group, is how to handle yourself when your work goes public. Not everyone is going to like your work and they will make sure you know it. Some people will like it maybe too much, to the point where they cross boundaries. Learning to disengage yourself from public reaction to your work is a difficult but crucial aspect of being a writer. You control the story. You can’t control reaction to it. It’s frustrating at first, perhaps, but in the end, it’s freeing.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I participated in ATXC, the Haven message boards, and the Scullyfic mailing list/news group. For a number of years, I also ran a fic discussion group with bugs called The Why Incision.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I started reading XF fanfic before I began watching the show. I had watched one season two episode (Soft Light) and then seen bits and pieces of a few others from season four. I’d seen Fight the Future. Basically, I’d seen enough to know which one was Mulder and which one was Scully, and which one believed in aliens. An acquaintance linked me to a rec site for XF fanfic (Gertie’s, maybe?) so that I could see how fic was formatted for the web. I clicked a fic, I think it was one by Lydia Bower dealing with Scully’s cancer arc, and basically did not stop reading. Soon I was printing off 300K of fic to take home with me each night. I could not believe the level of talent in the fandom, and that there were so many excellent writers just giving away their works for free. I wanted to play in this sandbox, too, so I started renting the VHS tapes to catch up on old episodes (see, I am An Old). After a few months, I began writing my own stuff.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to The X-Files. I’m not a sci-fi person by nature. I think my main objection is that, when done poorly, it feels lazy to me. Who did the thing? A ghost! Maybe an alien? I guess we’ll never know. You can always just shrug and play some spooky music and the “truth will always be out there…” somewhere beyond the story in front of you. You never have to commit to any kind of truth because you can invent some magical power or new kind of alien to change the story. I think, by the bitter end, the XF had devolved into this kind of storytelling. The mytharc made no kind of sense even in its own universe. But for years the XF achieved the best aspects of sci-fi storytelling—narrative flexibility and an apotheosis of our current fears dressed up as a super entertaining yarn.

What eventually sold me on the XF as a show is all of the smart storytelling and the sheer amount of ideas contained within its run. At its best, it’s a brilliant show. You have mediations on good versus evil, the role of government in a free society, is there a God, are we alone in the universe, and what are the elements that make us who we are? If Mulder and Morris Fletcher switch bodies, how do we know it’s really “them”? The tonal shifts from week to week were clever and engaging. For Vince Gilligan, truth was always found in fellow human beings. For Darin Morgan, humans were the biggest monster of all. The show was big enough to contain both these premises, and indeed, was stronger for it. The deep questions, the character quirks, the unsolved mysteries and all that went unsaid in the Mulder-Scully relationship left so much room for fanfic writers to do their own work. As such, the fandom attracted and continues to attract both dabbling writers and those who are serious craftspeople. People who like the mystery and those who like the sci-fi angle. Scientists and true believers. Like the show, it’s big enough for all.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I look at it like an old friend I catch up with once in a while. We’ve been close for so long that there’s no awkwardness—we just get each other! I love seeing people post screen shots and commentary, and I think it’s wonderful that so many writers are still inventing new adventures for Mulder and Scully. That is how the characters live on, and indeed how any of us lives on, through the stories that others tell about us.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I ran the Hunter fandom for about five years, mostly because when I poked my head back in, I found the person in change was a bully who’d shut down everything due to her own waning interest. A person would try to start a topic for discussion, and she’d say, “We’ve already covered that.” Well, yes, in a 30-year-old show, there’s not a lot of new ground…

Most other shows, Hunter included, have smaller fandoms and thus don’t attract the depth of fan talent. I don’t just mean fanfic writers. I mean those who do visual art, fan vids, critiques, etc. The XF fandom has all these in droves, which makes it a rare and special place. But all fandoms have the particular joy of geeking out over favorite scenes and reveling in the meeting of shared minds. It will always look odd to those not contained within it, which brings me to the part of modern fandom I find somewhat uncomfortable…the creators are often in fan-space.

In Hunter, the female lead joins fan groups and participates. This is more common now in the age of social media, where writers, producers, actors, etc., are on the same platforms as the rest of us. Fan and creator interaction used to be highly circumscribed: fans wrote letters and maybe received a signed headshot in return. There were cons where show runners gave panels and took questions from the audience. You could stand in line to meet your favorite star. Now, you can @ your favorite star on Twitter, message her on Facebook or follow him on Instagram. In some ways, this is so fun! In other ways, it blurs in the lines in ways that make me uncomfortable. I think it’s rude, for example, if a fan were to go on a star’s social media and post fanfic there or say, “I thought the episode you wrote was terrible.” But what if it’s fan space and the actor is sitting right there, watching you? Is it rude to post fanfic in front of her, especially if she says it makes her uncomfortable? Is it mean to tell a writer his episode sucked right to his face?

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I own the first seven seasons on DVD and will pull them out from time to time to rewatch old faves. I’ve shown a few episodes over the spring and summer to my ten-year-old daughter, and it’s been fun to see the series through her eyes. We’ve mostly opted for the comedic episodes because there’s enough going on in the real world to give her nightmares. Her favorite so far is Je Souhaite.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don’t have much bandwidth to read fanfic these days. My job as a mystery/thriller author means I have to keep up with the market so I do most of my reading there right now. I also beta read for some pro-fic friends and betaing a novel will keep you busy.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I read so much back in the day that this answer could go on for pages. Alas, it also hasn’t changed much over the past fifteen years because I haven’t read much since then. But, as we’re talking Golden Oldies today, here are a bunch:

All the Mulders, by Alloway I find this short story both hilarious and haunting. Scully embraces her power in the upside down post-apocalyptic world.

Strangers and the Strange Dead, by Kipler Taut prose and an intriguing 3rd party POV make this story a winner, and that’s before the kicker of an ending, which presaged 1013’s.

Cellphone, by Marasmus Talk about your killer twists! Also one of the cleverest titles coming or going.

Arizona Highways, by Fialka I think this is one of the best-crafted stories to come out of the XF. It’s majestic in scope, full of complex literary structure and theme, and yet the plot moves like a runaway freight train. Both the Mulder and Scully characterizations are handled with tender care.

So, We Kissed, by Alelou What I love about this one is how it grounds Mulder and Scully in the ordinary. Mulder’s terrible secret doesn’t involve a UFO or some CSM-conspiracy. Scully goes to therapy that actually looks like therapy. I guess what I’m saying is that I utterly believe this version of M & S in addition to just enjoying reading about them.

Sore Luck at the Luxor, by Anubis Hot, funny, atmospheric. What’s not to love?

Black Hole Season, by Penumbra Nobody does wordsmithing like Penumbra. I use her in arguments with professional writers when they try to tell me that adverbs and adjectives MUST GO. Just gorgeous, sly, insightful prose.

The Dreaming Sea, by Revely This one reads like a fairytale in all the best ways. Revely creates such loving, beautiful worlds for M & S to live in, and I wish they could stay there always.

Malus Genius, by Plausible Deniability and MaybeAmanda Funny and fun, with great original characters, a sly casefile and some clear-eyed musings on the perils of getting older. This one resonates more and more the older I get. ;)

Riding the Whirlpool, by Pufferdeux I look this one up periodically to prove to people that it exists. Scully gets off on a washing machine while Mulder helps. Yet it’s in character? And kinda works? This one has to be read to be believed.

Bone of Contention (part 1, part 2), by Michelle Kiefer and Kel People used to tell me all the time that casefiles are super easy to write while the poetic vignette is hard. Well, I can’t say which is harder but there much fewer well-done casefiles in the fandom than there are poetic vignettes. This is one of the great ones.

Antidote, by Rachel Howard A fic that manages to be both hot and cold as it imagines Mulder and Scully trying to stay alive in the frosty wilderness while a deadly virus is on the loose. This is an ooooold fic that holds up impressively well given everything that followed it!

Falling Down in Four Acts, by Anubis Anubis was actually a bunch of different writers sharing a single author name. This particular one paints an angry, vivid world for Our Heroes and their compatriots. There is no happy ending here, but I read this once and it stayed with me forever.

The Opposite of Impulse, by Maria Nicole A sweet slice of life on a sunny day. When I imagine a gentler universe for Mulder and Scully, this is the kind of place I’d put them.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Bait and Switch is probably the most sophisticated and tightly plotted. It was late in my fanfic “career” and so it shows the benefits to all that learning. My favorite varies a lot, but I’ll say Universal Invariants because that one was nothing but fun.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I never say never! I don’t have any oldies sitting around, though. Everything I wrote, I posted.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I write casefiles…er, I mean mysteries, under my own name now, Joanna Schaffhausen. My main series with Reed and Ellery consists of a male-female crime solving team, so I get a little bit of my XF kick that way. Their first book, The Vanishing Season, started its life as an XF fanfic back in the day. I had to rewrite it from the ground up to get it published, but if you know both stories, you can spot the similarities.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

The answer any writer will tell you is “everywhere.” Ideas are cheap and they’re all around us—on the news, on the subway, in conversations with friends, from Twitter memes, on a walk through the woods. My mysteries are often rooted in true crime, often more than one of them.

Each idea is like a strand of colored thread, and you have to braid them together into a coherent story. This is the tricky part, determining which threads belong in which story. If the ideas enhance one another or if they just create an ugly tangent.

Mostly, though, stories begin by asking “what if?” What if Scully’s boyfriend Ethan had never been cut from the pilot? What if Scully had moved to Utah after Fight the Future? What if the Lone Gunmen financed their toys by writing a successful comic book starring a thinly veiled Mulder and Scully?

Growing up, I had a sweet old lady for a neighbor. Her name was Doris and she gave me coffee ice cream while we watched Wheel of Fortune together. Every time there was a snow storm, the snow melted in her backyard in a such way that suggested she had numerous bodies buried out there. How’s that for a “what if?”

What's the story behind your pen name?

I’ve had a few of them and honestly can’t tell you where they came from, it’s been so long ago. The “6” part of syntax6 is because I joke that 6 is my lucky number. In eighth grade, my algebra teacher would go around the room in order, asking each student their answer to the previous night’s homework problems. I realized quickly that I didn’t have to do all the problems, just the fifteenth one because my desk was 15th on her list. This worked well until the day she decided to call on kids in random order. When she got to me and asked me the answer to the problem I had not done, I just invented something on the spot. “Uh…six?”

Her: “You mean 0.6, don’t you?”

Me, nodding vigorously: “YES, I DO.”

Her: “Very good. Moving on…”

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My close friends and family have always known, and reactions have varied from mild befuddlement to enthusiastic support. My father voted in the Spookies one year, and you can believe he read the nominated stories before casting his vote. I think the most common reaction was: Why are you doing this for free? Why aren’t you trying to be a paid writer?

Well, having done both now, I can tell you that each kind of writing brings its own rewards. Fanfic is freeing because there is no pressure to make money from it. You can take risks and try new things and not have to worry if it fits into your business plan.

(Posted by Lilydale on September 15, 2020)

[hedgehog-goulash7]

These Sherlock Holmes films have gone missing. UCLA and Robert Downey Jr. are on the case

LOS ANGELES TIMES, September 5, 2019

Text under the cut if you can’t link due to paywall...

                                                                                                                                    By Christi Carras,                                                                                     Sep. 5, 2019                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

More than a century after Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes mystery, a new investigation is afoot. But this story features more local detectives.

The UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Baker Street Irregulars, America’s foremost Sherlockian society, are on the case with “Searching for Sherlock: The Game’s Afoot,” a mission to recover and restore missing Holmes films from the silent era and beyond. The project, honorarily chaired by “Sherlock Holmes” franchise star Robert Downey Jr., reflects a continuing ongoing global fascination with Conan Doyle’s amateur detective that has spurred countless onscreen adaptations, lost and found.

“Sherlock Holmes is really an international phenomenon,” said Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. “We decided that it would really be worthwhile to, first of all, do a research project and find out how many of these Sherlock Holmes films survived and in what condition, and what we at UCLA Film & TV archive could then do to preserve some of them.”

Horak estimates that more than 80% of American films from the silent era alone have been lost because of eroded prints, mislabeling, fires and other causes. Because the circumstances of their disappearances are so varied and unpredictable, it’s hard to say exactly how many Holmes adaptations wait to be discovered. But they are aware of some that may still be out there based on evidence of prints of long-lost films.

“It’s not like there’s a list anywhere,” Horak said. “I’m assuming that the great majority of the films from the silent era, when the most were actually made, are actually completely lost. But there are films that survived — that we know have survived.”

Finding the bygone works will, appropriately, require a bit of sleuthing, starting with contacting the Library of Congress and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, as well as historians, collectors and national film archives in Britain, Germany, France and other countries. Such efforts have seen previous success, particularly in the case of the missing 1916 Holmes production starring American actor William Gillette, which later turned up in 2014, mislabeled in Paris.

Like the best Holmes stories, the odds are daunting — but not impossible.

“Many of those hundreds [of films] are lost in the sense that there are no known copies,” said Baker Street Irregular and Malibu resident Leslie Klinger. “We know about the film, but nobody’s seen it for a generation or more. And we’re hoping that copies exist out there.”

While the hunt for Holmes officially kicked off last month,   obsession with Conan Doyle’s neurotic private eye is hardly novel. Conan Doyle’s page-turners were wildly popular when they debuted in late-1800s literary magazines. They’ve since inspired hundreds of books, TV series, movies, plays and even college curricula — as well as around 300 Holmes societies worldwide, from Canada to Japan.

“There aren’t many works of fiction — in English, at any rate — that are still read after over 100  years because people want to read them, not because they’re told to,” said Roger Johnson, a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. “When I was at school — even when I was taking my degree in English — the idea of studying Sherlock Holmes would have been considered almost unthinkable. But people do now. ... It’s an extraordinary phenomenon, and it’s gotten bigger with the increase in Holmes onscreen.”

Klinger, known as “the world’s first consulting Sherlockian” for his advisory work on projects including the Downey Jr. movies, has some hunches as to why the Victorian-era detective continues to capture the imaginations of readers, viewers and artists to this day.

“I like to call him an attainable superhero,” Klinger said. “We don’t have to find a radioactive spider to bite us or be born on another planet. We just have to work really hard and study so that we can be like Sherlock Holmes.”

But like all heroes, even the great Holmes has his kryptonite, whether it comes in the form of substance abuse (cocaine was his drug of choice), red herrings or sharp-witted femme fatales such as Irene Adler.

“He’s not perfect,” Johnson said. “Even as a detective, he’s a great detective but he’s not perfect. He gets things wrong — occasionally — but it makes him more human, and that’s something we can relate to.”

In addition to Holmes’ appeal as an accessible yet fallible beacon of justice, some Sherlockians speculate that nostalgia also plays a role in luring audiences back to Baker Street. If anyone can deduce why Conan Doyle’s creations continue to inspire, it’s Nicholas Meyer, who authored and adapted the screenplay for “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” — Oscar-nominated Holmes fan fiction — and is currently working on another Sherlockian caper titled “The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols.”

“Holmes exists — or at least initially existed when Doyle created him — in a world that was long enough ago to seem like a kind of fairy tale place or a fairy tale time,” Meyer said. “Perhaps, a time we like to tell ourselves was a saner time.”

That logic only stretches so far, however, when it comes to more recent small-screen adaptations such as “Sherlock,” the Emmy-winning BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, or “Elementary,” a CBS hit featuring Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes and — notably — Lucy Liu as a rare female version of Dr. Watson. Both shows update the timeline of their source material to modern day, trading hansom cabs for subways and limousines.

“It turns out that you can put these two people into almost any landscape,” Meyer said. “You can make Watson a woman; you can call them Batman and Robin — it doesn’t make any difference. It’s the same idea of heroes who are fighting against anarchy and trying to be right.”

Liu isn’t the only woman to portray Watson. “Miss Sherlock,” a Johnson-approved Japanese series, flips the genders of both the titular detective and his loyal companion. In fact, according to Johnson, discussions have even swirled among Sherlockian societies as to whether Conan Doyle intended Watson to be female all along.

“There is no real reason why Watson shouldn’t be a woman,” Johnson said. “You have to ignore things like his mustache ... but when you translate the character into a woman for dramatic presentation, it works.”

With all the changes and updates the Holmes stories have successfully adopted over time, it’s not easy to pinpoint the fundamental elements of a good Sherlock Holmes adaptation — even for film and Holmes scholars.

“I can think of a time when I would have said fidelity to the original story,” Johnson said. “It’s fidelity to the spirit of the originals. I think that’s what it is.”

With “Searching for Sherlock,” Horak hopes that the archive can screen and upload some newly restored Holmes material to its website within the next few years. Despite all the witty modernizations and computer-generated bells and whistles that have since embellished the Holmes canon, Sherlockians and film historians agree that the earliest Holmes films — should they be recovered — still have great potential to teach and dazzle 21st century audiences.

“It doesn’t really matter whether it’s silent or talkie; it doesn’t really matter whether there were fancy special effects or not,” Klinger said. “We’re going to be gripped by the personalities and intrigued by the mysteries and also be satisfied that reason has prevailed. Evil has been conquered.”

###

[devontroxell]

Critical Elements to Making Great Memes

So what is a “meme” by definition —

A meme (/miːm/ MEEM) is an idea, behavior, or style that becomes a fad and spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.

Memes – you love them, and you hate them, you share them, and you save them. It got me wondering why it seems that in a day where we can so easily create video content, quick animations, and sync everything to our favorite music that we seem to circle back to (by and large) static imagery with a contextual narrative.

That said I contest that (by definition) MANY content types qualify as memeable:

Animated GIFS

Static images

Looping GIFS

“Stories” platforms (e.g. Instagram and Facebook)

Short-form video

Rips, Clips, and Snippets

ASCII art

Emoji configurations

#hashtags

As much as I would like to say that Memes are this silly little byproduct of the Internet, I believe it to be something larger. I believe it to be a way for people to convey their emotions in an expressive way when perhaps they may not have the ability to do so. Memes also share commonality, desires, anger, all the colors of the emotional rainbow if you well. So the next time you are in a thread and see people “dropping “or reply utilizing a meme or animated GIF, you might ask yourself, “is it simply a clever reply, or perhaps the best way they know how to express themselves? “Because outside of the message that the meme sans it also provides an amount of anonymity, not to be written in the hand of the poster. and just like any good legal document, it gives a sense of, “well, I didn’t say that “, but the meme expressed it for me.

Memes as a pertain to marketing actually hold a lot more hand-in-hand than one might think. First and foremost is you can’t just use any meme anywhere. Most often you’ll find them supporting some type of topical spotlight. For instance, something in the news is trending — perhaps a celebrity or something that might be indicatively branded of the individual poster for a call to action. For instance, for me, it might be a post about heavy metal music or my love for cats. What makes Memes so magical when it comes to marketing is that they do what so many creative advertisements cannot express a particular point, often with very little copy, and in many cases, the meme is shared forward to your friend’s fans and followers.

The great advertising mind and Author Luke Sullivan talks about how great advertising is a distillation of emotion that triggers a response – for instance, something humorous, something naughty, something scary, And so on. The same emotional triggers can be said for the funniest Memes and what makes one better than another. In essence, this is actually taught me is that a meme is; much like an advertisement. It’s a compartmentalized message shift with exponentially less care for design and your opinion.

That said, advertising and marketing often have certain boundaries; boundaries that create a particular call to action but do so in a way that will minimize any adverse backlash to the brand it is representing. On the other hand, memories are often a more visually raw expression of a particular point that in many cases, is used to agitate or confront conversation within the social media spectrum.

And while I once thought it was absolutely insane that someone could be on the news speaking on behalf of themselves as an emoji language expert, now I see that I have over years and years of collecting, creating, distributing. Re-distributing memes see that there is a bit more to it than simply posting the right thing at the right time.

This whole article felt silly to begin with until I fell down the rabbit hole and realized the endless complexity and layers that we go to to make one another trigger a feeling.

https://ift.tt/37t4mKs — we have such sites to show you!

You start a step back and see that memes are like a single pixel in a much larger image. Contrary to the humor built into the vast majority of Memes, it’s the sharing and distribution of Memes that make them powerful. For instance, even the polarizing Democrat versus Republican styles of media bias and content won’t get the sharing and distribution that a meme might.

When you share an article, unless you overtly intend to pre-qualify it with abstinence in your personal positioning, you’re connecting yourself with an opinion of the content. With memes on the other hand, it allows the ‘sharer’ the gift of anonymity in that the humor often tends to beguile the real truth behind the intent of the image.

How many of you have purchased a product that has a meme on it? It’s hard to image that we’d be skewed to purchase anything from a meme? But it’s also hard to imagine that product launches, ranging from sports teams to movies, create a series of C&Pable giphy loops for your social media lexicon. Think about it, how many times have you been motivated to find a post about “Hot Pockets” when describing how badly you burned your mouth over the weekend? Does that make it an ad? Indirectly, yes!

Think about it, creating an ad, and creating a meme require:

Timing

Topics

Emotion

Commonality

Understanding

Call to action

How many of you have visited a meme generator to make your own? Part of the virality of a meme is that meme “generators” exist. These are online tools that allow you to caption or create new or preexisting images, thus creating even more memes. How? For each meme created (even if it’s been derived from an image that’s known for a specific reply, such as “Y U NO ____?) the generator generates and posts the next version you created into the internets ecosystem. As you would, most are garbage and not worthy of sharing, but the multiplier of mathematics still shows that any given meme has an ebb and flow. Yes! Old memes come back with a vengeance dependent upon the trending factors that derived the content.

Did you have any idea that there are actual e-zine publications that focus on Internet trends? The following list doesn’t even begin to touch websites that are forum (specific topic) focused on animated GIFS collection.

Know Your Meme – https://ift.tt/2LatJms

(Since 2008) r/Memes – https://ift.tt/1HhhznZ

Sub Reddits r/BRGS/ – https://ift.tt/3dM1j1b

Arguably the 800-pound gorilla to online satire is https://ift.tt/1gKvWAr and while not known for it’s memes is instrumental in showing us just how far you can push content to make a point and get a laugh.

Meme Insider – https://ift.tt/37wzpVy

And a shotgun approach to introducing you to the world-o-memes:

Memes — https://memes.com/ (I mean, go figure right?)

The Chive — KCCO https://ift.tt/3koDzT2

Me.me — https://me.me/

Rabbit Ramblings — https://ift.tt/2t5S4Ed

etaTV — https://etatv.net/

Ruin My Week — https://ift.tt/37ufpmu

Bots of New York – https://ift.tt/3n2JMpI

Medium (various related content) – https://ift.tt/3dQszva

Woken News Network – https://wokennews.com/

Barstool Sports – https://ift.tt/2d42ngO

Obvious Plant – https://ift.tt/3mcL4Nq

Awkward Family Photos – https://ift.tt/2Bt30Ar

Millions of Dead Posers – https://ift.tt/3kkYYMV

People of Walmart – https://ift.tt/2O1hSJv

ClickHole (much in the same vein as TheOnion) – https://clickhole.com/

PostSecret (often insanely impactful and human; proven not all memage must be funny in nature) – https://postsecret.com/

http://replygif.net/

YTMND: You’re the man now dog! — https://ytmnd.com/

The Best Page In The Universe – https://ift.tt/xcDWuT

Cracked (much like the onion and others, it still delivers various meme-like content) https://ift.tt/31ZaG6M

Dogshaming – https://ift.tt/2GMLNQf

Everything is Terrible! – https://ift.tt/2gztYIw

Cuánto Cabrón – https://ift.tt/2yKTMdM

Cheezburger – https://ift.tt/NLcR7k

And possibly my favorite — https://ift.tt/37t4n0Y

And before you get all been out of shape that I didn’t put your favorite within the list, please know that I realize there literally thousands of meme aggregates and E-zines is online. And there’s a good reason to; memes don’t necessarily have to be a standard square image, with (all too common misspelled) punchy copy leveraging the latest topic, celebrity foible, or political gaff.

Share a meme. Make a meme. I’d love to see what makes you tick.

Critical Elements to Making Great Memes published first on https://wabusinessapi.tumblr.com/

[feliciaharder-blog1]

New Blog, New Year?

Greetings Earthlings!

👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽

First and foremost, THANK YOU for checking out my blog. It does mean a lot to me that you took the time to peek into the portal of my life here. The site is still fairly new, and I am experimenting with what type of content I want to present here. (AKA which personality of mine am I going to introduce). A lot of people have this ideal image of me, someone who comes across as a sweet, soft-spoken, baby-faced blessed angel that was sent from the heavens above. Which is all ENTIRELY true. However, like everyone else, there are layers to me that I do not tend to showcase to the general population. Again, I’m a little lost with how to start a blog so I guess I am going to just type this vomit introduction....

I guess let’s start with WHY I want to do this.  

PART I: WHY

The biggest risk is not taking any risk. -Mark Zuckerberg

Today, we live in a world that is all about social media, and it is a facet of both our personal and professional lives. To achieve my goals, it seems imperative for me to develop a strong social media network.

As the old saying goes “it’s all about who you know” and it is very important to know how to network in the film industry (or for any career for that matter). Today, we have such a useful tool for being hyper-connected with our fans. It is such an effective way of connecting with people all over the world, and it is easier to stay in touch and maintain the relationship you have with them. 

I would like to use this blog to market myself, showcase my work and use it as a platform to share my friend’s projects.

PART II: WHO IS FELICIA?

I yam what I yam, an dat’s all I yam, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man - Popeye the Sailor Man

(Haha, now the awkward part of trying to figure out how to modestly speak about myself……)

I would like to think that I am cool, comical, semi-collective yet a curious little cat. I am a dreamer with a caring heart. Currently, I am attending film school at Academy of Art University. One of the positive things about being young is that I have freedom for self-discovery. At this moment, I am starting off with a blank canvas as I begin my future endeavors in the film industry.  My mind and creativity require copious time for research, to be curious and to narrow down my aspirations. Finding my passion leads to motivation, which leads to dedication and success. 

When I was younger, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the film industry, for I grew up in a world of timeless films such as Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Clueless, Toy Story,  Austin Powers, Fight Club, and so much more. I was the child who checked out the soundtrack cassette tape to Lion King and later performed a whole play with my sister, stuffed animals and used the recliner chair in replacement for Pride Rock. I knew the passion thrived inside of me, I just needed to learn how to channel it and turn it into my ultimate reality.

PART III: THE FUTURE

I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. -Pablo Picasso

As I continue my education, I cannot be retained of the idea of fear. Through experience, I know I will develop my own set of unique skills and someday will accomplish all of my goals. I must write as much as can. Write. Write. Write! The more prepared I am, and the more knowledge I obtain the stronger I will be when fulfilling my endeavors. I must learn to be collected when things go haywire and recognize people’s boundaries and be willing to speak up and note when things are not okay. 

My goal is to write the stories I want to share. I need to continue my curiosity of the world around me.  I want to be happy, strong, wealthy, trustworthy, respected, and unique. I yearn for the days where I wake up to a career that I have fallen in love with and go to bed with total utter depletion (with a smile on my face). I want to give myself totally to my work —mentally, psychologically, physically and have an ecstatic sense of having committed myself to my absolute limit.

In order for me to fulfill my goals, I must have an open-mind and indulge in my interests. I need to develop a personal identity and build my production with a brand signature. I must use my energy wisely and continue to learn and ask questions. I cannot be afraid to explore and take “the one less [road] traveled by [because it may make] all the difference” -Robert Frost

Nonetheless, a career in the film industry is my ultimate objective. I have an ambitious appetite for success and to achieve all my aspirations.

PART IV: THANK YOU.

To the world you may be one person; but to one person you made be the world -Dr. Suess

DAD: Thank you for always being my #1 fan, teaching me how to love myself and push for the things I want in life. I think I will be posting a blog dedicated to you later….there are too many things that I can say about our relationship….

JANETTE: Thank you for being a blessing in my life. I treasure the relationship I have with you. You are the person I seek for advice confidently knowing you will always have an answer. I have always looked up to you as a role model. You have taught me so much about what it means to be a woman.

MOM: Thank you for being a not-so stereotypical mother, in a funny way, you have taught me a lot. I would say the most important thing you have taught me is to not care what people think about you because at the end of the day you will always have your loved ones.  Thank you for having a wild side.

MEGHAN: I have come to terms that you are my partner in life. We may have our quarrels, but you never have made me question your love and support. Thank you for being part of my life even though you were forced to be my sister. As the Kardashians would say, “We are sisters by blood, but best friends by choice.” …..yep I just quoted the Kardashians…..

ELLEN: Can you believe we have been best friends for over a decade!? Our childhood friendship is the most mischievous beautiful memory. Thank you for always having fun with me and being there for the MANY stages of my life. Cheers to the many more to come!

JULIETTE: My awesome writing partner/ best friend. Thank you for being so committed to our dream. I am so lucky to have a friendship that meshes into both my personal and professional world. You make me feel strong, confident and driven! I am so excited for the many projects we have been working on! Ugh!! It has been quite the journey!

THALIA: To be honest, I don’t know what happened that made us become great friends. You and I are both strong powerhouses that are destined to kick-ass in the world. I love having you as a sassy best friend. Together, we embrace our inseparable weirdness. We are like two opposing poles of a magnet. Love you.

STEPHANIE H-T: Our friendship has reminded me to not judge other people. Our first interaction was more of us repealing each other and avoiding any real interaction (which is weird because we are awesome together). It wasn’t until a year later, we became friends, and I cherish our friendship very much. In many ways, you remind me of myself, but you are way cooler than I am. Also, Thank you for being Selena’s second mom. I am #soblessed to be your Maid of Honor! 

STEPHANIE M: You truly are a blessed angel sent from above. I have NEVER met someone who is so sweet, caring, and thoughtful. You can make the devil seem like a good person. You truly do have a gift. Every time I am blessed with your presence I seriously feel like all of my sins have been forgiven. You help me reevaluate my life and assure me to never give up! Thank you for being you.

MICHELLE: My goofy Michelle. Yes, you made it to the list (for now)…. Damn girl, I care about you so much. I love how open and honest you are about EVERYTHING! You are another friendship I cherish. You have taught me to not worry about what other people think….even though I sometimes get embarrassed by certain things you say. “We is closing”. Thank you for being my goofball.

TYLER: Thank you for being my rock in life and letting me take up most of the bed. We don’t have the perfect relationship, but I love our imperfections. That’s what makes us --well us. We are a little weird and do things differently, but I am not asking for the perfect fairy tale love story. I want to be with someone who accepts my flaws, challenges me, and supports my dreams. Thank you for being brave, loyal and understanding. I chose you and I will choose you all over again. I am so lucky to have a love story like ours. <3

PART V: GOALS/ 2017

You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it -Robin Williams

Short Term Goals:

Submit my screenplays into a contest

Adopt a Mentor

Produce more short films.

Finish writing feature films.

Finish writing my book with Juliette.

Keep developing new ideas

Create website/blog

Attend events that filmmakers, writers, and casting directors attend.

Engage with industry professionals online.

Add value to people’s lives.

Spend more time outside.

Be consistent.

Long Term Goals:

Start my own Production Company

Write, Produce, Direct my feature films

Win an Academy Award

Become a Showrunner

Win an Emmy Award

Become a Mentor

Add value to people’s lives

Keep developing new ideas

So, that sums up my first official post. I hope some of your are actually excited to see what I have to bring to the table. Like it or not, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts and what kind of content I should post.

Love,

Felicia

PS. I will be posting another blog about my trip to Bali! :)

[rogerdscotts]

How to Start Collecting Vintage Watches with Eric Wind

from He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

Starting Your Vintage Watch Collection

For those of you who don’t know him, Eric Wind is a rockstar in every sense of the word. Not only can he shred a drum set, but to some he’s considered one of the foremost experts on vintage watches in the world. His passion for vintage watches has transformed the forgotten hobby into a profitable and flourishing business.

Now solely focused on his own online shop, Wind Vintage, Eric spends his days scouring the world for the finest examples of dead stock watches. His customers know that Eric’s acute eye for the smallest details and search for a watch with character, ensures them a piece that’s both beautiful and mechanically sound. I was extremely lucky to meet Eric and talk about life and what his advice is to starting a vintage watch collection.

First off thank you for meeting with me. For the sake of our readers, could you briefly tell them the story about how you got started in vintage watches?

I was always interested in watches. It started first with my grandfather’s watch, which was a vintage Hamilton I inherited after he passed. He received it from my grandmother for their wedding in 1947. It was the first mechanical watch I have ever seen, which was mind blowing that a watch didn’t run on a battery. Once I started to learn more about watches, I stumbled upon Hodinkee and eventually started writing for them. After that, I started buying more vintage watches and selling them on the website and it just grew from there.

Starting from your early years of watch collecting, could you give our readers a few tips to get started collecting?

The most common mistake new collectors make (myself included), is buying for a particular reference or a rare example. I always tell people to buy a watch for the condition first. Regardless of what’s popular, your tastes will change over time. Imagine buying or receiving a really high-end piece of art and not knowing anything about it or the artist. Educate yourself, study the nuances of that piece and make an informed and educated purchase.

What should you look for or avoid before buying a vintage watch?

Evaluate the whole watch. The dial is certainly the most important. Inspect closely if it’s original and in good condition. Next, the case. My personal preference is for an untouched or unpolished case. I feel like it makes the watch more honest, original and tells a story. I die a little inside when I see a vintage watch that’s been over polished. Crystals can oftentimes be replaced or polished (if acrylic). This is to the discretion of the buyer. Lastly, check if the watch has any type of waterproofing. I make sure the watches I sell have some sort of water resistance, if possible. I’ve had clients who have lost money because they flew somewhere and during the flight their watches developed condensation inside the crystal. It’s fairly easy to put rubber gaskets and it’s worth the extra money to protect your watches.

For the casual observer, it seems like vintage watch collecting is an expensive hobby. Watches like the Paul Newman Daytona, that sold for $17.75M, can cause a little hesitation to get started. Do you need to have money to get into vintage watches?

Not necessarily. I love less expensive watches just as much as the expensive ones. I’ve actually helped curate a bunch of watches under $1000 dollars recently, at Rowing Blazers here in NYC. The one thing I do caution new collectors about buying watches under $1000 dollars is the expectations of maintenance. You should expect that yearly maintenance on a watch will be somewhere in the $300-450 dollar range depending on your watch repairman. This is on the low end so if you’re thinking about a saving up for a vintage Rolex or Omega, expect that number to jump to almost $1000 dollars for service.

Could you give our readers 3 watches ($500-$2000) that beginners can look to buy when starting their collection?

Yea, I think the Vulcain Cricket is a great watch under $1000 dollars. I own a few of them. Great construction, solid case, some presidential history and a cool complication. Omega, which is a great prestige brand, has the Seamasters from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. They come in both hand-wound or automatic, easy to maintain, classic sizing and found for under $2000 dollars. Lastly, Enicar is a brand I’ve been a fan of recently. Really well-made and have a bunch of variations from divers, chronographs and even dress watches. They sell anywhere from $250 to $2000 dollars.

What’s the current state of your personal collection? Are you searching for something particular or are you only looking for your clients?

My collection is always evolving. I have a pretty wide-ranging collection of watches. I obviously love brands like Rolex and Omega, but I’ve collected the best examples of a lot of different brands. The metric for me has always been, if this was my one watch, would I still be happy? Secondly, Will I ever see something like it in the market or better? There’s a charisma to a watch, it either speaks to you or it doesn’t. That’s how I typically go about buying and selling watches.

What is your most treasured watch, regardless of its price? Do you still wear it today?

I like watches with different stories. I visited the Fortis factory a couple years ago and while I was there, bought a vintage model. It always reminds me of visiting the factory before they went through bankruptcy. Most recently I purchased a Seiko 6139 Pogue from a gentleman who wore it during his time in the Vietnam War. He was a pilot and all of his fellow pilots had purchased the same blue Seiko Pogue. We spoke over the phone and he told me some incredible stories of his time in service. When he shipped it to me it came with his ration card, the original bracelet and box. Its moments like those that I treasure the most.

You’re a student of vintage watches. Do you have any great books or references that could help young collectors learn more about watches?

There definitely are some great books. The Watch by Gene Stone which was revised recently by Stephen Pulvirent. There’s a new book from my friend at Hodinkee called, Watches: A Guide by Hodinkee. If you prefer reading from a tablet, I recommend John Goldberger’s, Patek Steel or Vintage Rolex Book. Books can get expensive so you can download those versions for about half the price of the physical book.

What’s your opinion on high-end watch collecting? Is it more about purchasing watches as investments or a display of wealth? Are the people you are selling to enjoying the watch for their beauty or locking them away for financial gain?

The biggest trend of the last 10 years has been the information being readily available. 2011 was the first time a Rolex hit one million dollars at auction and as you’ve seen over the last few years that number has jumped with the sale of the Paul Newman at $17.8 million. That side of the market has caused the value of some of the older GMTs and Submariners to climb in price. On the flip side, the positive is that buyers have a better understanding of the importance of condition. Some of my buyers only buy 1 vintage piece and they’re happy. Others buy 20 or more watches over the course of a 5-10 year period. I generally work with clients who love vintage watches, have studied them and are looking for something specific.

You are undoubtedly one the premier suppliers of one-of-a-kind vintage watches. Has the rise in popularity and profitability of selling watches left you feeling jaded or concerned about the future of the business?

There’s a new dealer popping up every week, just about. I’m actually close with a lot of the dealers here in New York City. We’re all pretty close and I frequently buy watches from them and resell them. I also make sure to send people to them who are looking for watches between $500 – $2000 dollars. Once I even brought Fred Savage to a local meet-up and a bunch of them freaked out. To answer your question, no. I think we all have the same understanding and the same passion for watches and if we can help each other out, we’re glad to do so.

Lastly, what kind of effect do you think the media (movies, pop culture and now social media) have on the availability of watch models like the Rolex Submariner, Explorer (1016), Daytonas, Patek Philip Nautilus and the AP Royal Oak?

Personally, I worry about the overhyping of any vintage watch because eventually the market corrects itself. Particularly with Heuer a few years back, which at one point went up almost 500%. Working at Christy’s, there are only so many people that can spend $200k on a watch and when the market readjust, they’re fine with losing the money. I’ve seen dealers buy up a particular model in hopes to hype the market up and sell it at higher prices, but that’s not something I condone. The media certainly can move the market, but it usually always corrects itself once the supply outweighs the demand.

Eric, thank you so much for taking time to speak to our readers. It’s been a pleasure to meet with you and talking about how you started collecting watches. I hope our readers will have a better idea of just how fantastic collecting watches can be.

Anytime. If your readers have any other questions, be sure to reach out to me at Wind Vintage.

Thanks for reading.

Stylishly Yours,

Steven D. Elliott He Spoke Style

The post How to Start Collecting Vintage Watches with Eric Wind first appeared on the men's style blog He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

from Wellness http://hespokestyle.com/vintage-watch-collection-budget-affordable/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[operationrainfall]

Title Double Cross Developer 13AM Games Publisher Graffiti Games Release Date January 10th, 2018 Genre Platformer Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Fantasy Violence Official Website

One of the benefits of being a hardcore fan of indie games is I’m more tapped into projects that might not be on everybody else’s radar. Case in point, the latest title from 13AM Games, Double Cross. I’d been following it for a little more than a year after discovering it thanks to the magic of the internet. At first glance I could immediately tell this project was a big step up from the relatively young company. While they had great success with iterations of Runbow and charmed many when they published the delightfully retro Pirate Pop Plus, Double Cross promised to be something on an even larger scale. This action platformer has interdimensional travel, tight platforming and a colorful cast of characters. Keep reading to see if it was able to cinch the place as my favorite experience yet from 13AM Games and Graffiti Games.

The story revolves around an interdimensional police agency known as RIFT. They’re charged with keeping exotic technology out of the hands of dangerous or primitive forces. Like their name suggests, they do so via portal technology that lets them travel to and police different worlds. On occasion, RIFT finds new recruits on these worlds, as is the case with our hero, Zahra Sinclair. She’s a spunky upstart with a lot of heart, and her usual approach is to tackle things head on. She’s supported by an eclectic team, including a hulking plant man that could put the Jolly Green Giant to shame, a sweet master of disguise and many more. While the diversity of the team is an asset, it also quickly becomes a problem. After the game starts, RIFT is suddenly under attack from a mysterious masked individual who seems to have insider knowledge about the security of RIFT headquarters. In other words, one of your comrades is a traitor. Thus, Zahra’s job is to look for clues as to the identity of Suspect X, and find evidence of their dangerous activities.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You do this by traveling to three vastly different worlds with three levels a piece. Upon beating each stage, you’ll be rewarded with a clue. Once you get one, you’re required to talk with your RIFT crew to find someone to shine a light on them. Once you’ve retrieved and deciphered all the clues from any of the worlds, you’re able to put together and submit a case to your boss, Valery Wiseheart. She’s a no-nonsense merwoman with a chip on her shoulder. Once you submit a case, you’re given a warrant for arrest, which opens up the boss fight in that world. Eventually you’ll piece together a picture of who Suspect X is, and once you do, you’re able to tackle the final mission. I will say, though I figured out their identity relatively early, I’d be lying if I said I knew what the final boss fight was going to be.

It’s a lot of fun to interact with all the characters in Double Cross. They all have a distinct personality and quirky traits. Good examples are your right-hand guy Skip, who loves collectables and helps monitor problems from the base. Or take the cat girl Ada Lovepaws, a premier tech girl with some mild maniacal tendencies. Then there’s one of my favorites, Sam Squatch, a sasquatch scientist with a goofy sense of humor. Put together, they all do a good job of coloring the flavor of the game universe. This is a lighthearted place where darkness hides beneath a veneer of normalcy. Whether you’re fighting through a goo-filled swamp, playing games in a robotic arcade or fighting dinosaurs in a barren wasteland, you’re sure to have a smile on your face. And that’s not just because of the plot, it’s also because of the gameplay found in the game.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

All the platforming in the game revolves around a nifty device called the Proton Slinger. It’s a bit like an electrical grappling hook, and it serves a variety of functions. First and foremost, you can use it to zip from grappling points. Your positioning determines the angle you’ll go flying, and you can use it midair. The only catch is you only can bring up the targeting reticle for a few seconds, so you’ll want to get the timing down quickly. The other use for the Slinger is to grab projectiles and toss them at things. This is very handy. Sometimes you can use the technique to defeat foes, other times you can open up new paths with it. It’s pretty diverse, and I appreciated the novelty of it. Though it did remind me a bit of the egg toss in Yoshi’s Island, it was different enough to stand out.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Besides using the Slinger, Zahra can also defend herself with punches and kicks. When you start, you’re only able to do a combo of light punches or a spectacular heavy punch, but as you progress you’ll unlock new moves via the Upgradium system. Essentially these are purple colored crystals that are well hidden in every level. By collecting enough of them, you’ll level up and be rewarded with new skills. Some are permanent and always active, such as an aerial kick, while others can be equipped at your discretion from save points. There’s a wide variety of them, giving effects such as increasing the time you can have the Slinger active to improving your starting energy. There’s a ton of them, but you’ll only get them all by collecting every scrap of Upgradium. I got close to 80 percent in my playthrough, but I missed out on a couple really useful optional skills like a double jump.

Double jump would have been handy here.

If that wasn’t enough, whenever you defeat an enemy you’ll get rewarded with energy that fills up your meter. You can use different increments of meter for a few extra moves to help you out. For example, by holding A you’ll heal Zahra, or by pressing L you can emit a shockwave, pushing foes back for some breathing room. The coolest is using R to shoot a devastating fireball at foes, though I generally reserved that one for larger, more intimidating threats. Tying all the combat together is a handy dodge move that not only avoids damage but also fills up your energy meter a bit. While it may seem tricky that most every button on the Switch is used, in execution it all felt pretty natural.

What really drew me to Double Cross, as much as the platforming hook, was the presentation. Visually this is a lovely game, with bright, anime-styled art that wouldn’t look out of place in a WayForward title. Everything is bubbling with personality and style, most especially the character art and tremendous boss fights. I won’t spoil them, but every boss encounter is a treat and makes good use of the mechanics. There were only a couple of areas the art faltered. First and most importantly, I’m pretty certain Double Cross doesn’t run at 60 FPS, or if it does, it isn’t all the time. While this rarely caused performance issues, it was a bit jarring to the eye, giving things a blurry sensation. Another area was the background art. For a game this colorful and well designed, the backgrounds often felt flat and lifeless. And while that didn’t ruin the game by any stretch, it was one factor which prevented it from getting a perfect score. On the musical side of things, the game has a lot of high-energy tracks which do a good job of keeping you invested. Though I can’t think of any standout tracks, some of my favorite tunes came from the prehistoric Reptarria stages.

Pillar Panic almost made me lose my mind.

Though I enjoyed the game, there were a couple areas where it missed the mark. Firstly, though I loved the constant banter and humor that happens as you play each stage, it’s irritating that it pops up every time you replay a stage. This made Upgradium hunting a chore. All that I really wanted was a button to skip dialogue after playing a stage the first time. A much worse example is in the second stage in the Funderdome. It requires you to go through an arcade and get scores high enough to get onto the in-game leaderboards. The problem is, one of the mini games you need to excel at is called Pillar Panic. It forces you to swing in midair, avoiding the walls and floor spikes which instantly kill you, and swing through several checkpoints. You need to do this at least six times in a row. Exacerbating it is that once you start the mini game, the wall behind you starts chasing you, and it will crush you if you’re too slow. Worse, if you die, you have to start over from the very beginning. Suffice to say, this forced mini game almost made me give up in despair, but thankfully the other five you need to play were much easier, and I eventually got past it. Also, while I do thoroughly enjoy the platforming in the game, the combat is less satisfactory. Not because it’s poorly done, but more that it feels kind of tacked on. I would have been fine with Zahra only using the Proton Slinger to fight, not punching or kicking at all. I’ve seen some games have great success formulating all the combat around a simple mechanic, and I guess I just hoped for something similar here. That said, the combat does the job, it just doesn’t hold up when compared side by side with the platforming.

Overall, I was really impressed by Double Cross. It was an ambitious project from 13AM Games that succeeded in raising expectations for what you can expect from the team. While I’ve enjoyed the other titles from them, this one stood out, thanks to the clever plot, the characters and the platforming. Yes, it has some minor issues, but those can mostly be overlooked. For $9.99 you get at least 5-7 hours of game, and that’s if you just rush through. If you’re a completionist, there’s even more fun to be had, collecting all the Upgradium and achieving the various Commendations (basically in-game achievements). If you enjoy platformers and a quirky cast, you’ll enjoy this one. I’m impressed by 13AM’s latest outing, and hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Zahra Sinclair and the RIFT!

Keep on floating, Zahra!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Double Cross Title Double Cross

[dorothydelgadillo]

5 Companies with Great Multi-Brand Websites

If you’re like me, you’ve spent hours digging into what makes a website stand out.

You have your preferences when it comes to colors, design elements, the right and wrong use of video. Lately, however, I’ve been taking notice of a very different type of company and their websites.

Yes, that's the plural.

Multi-brand companies have a unique challenge when it comes to their web presences -- How to feature all of their brands in a way that provides a great user experience.

It’s hard enough to promote a single brand, so how are companies engaging audiences across their brands?

The Challenges

Let’s start by looking at the specific challenges that multi-brand companies have. Awareness

First and foremost is the reality that the average consumer may not even aware that a company has multiple brands.

If they are aware of the individual brands, they likely have no idea that they are part of the same corporate family. The challenge here is, very simply, awareness. Cross-brand Loyalty

Another challenge is engaging loyal customers and enticing them to extend their brand loyalty throughout the company.

It’s great to have a customer who shops at your high-end retail division a few times a year, but it would be even better if they also shopped at your price conscious division for their more frequent shopping sprees. Cohesion

It can also be difficult to showcase multiple brands in a cohesive way, especially if those brands are geared toward different consumer demographics. Companies have to find a way to differentiate, but also seamlessly transition their audience from one brand to another.

These are daunting challenges for companies to overcome, but there are quite a few who have found creative and intuitive ways to do so.

Is Any Company Mastering Multi-Brand Websites?

When I think about some of the websites I’ve visited with multi-brand strategies, the retail fashion world quickly comes to mind.

These days, most clothing companies have multiple brands under their umbrella.

It seems as though this industry has managed to successfully create websites that create awareness of their multiple brands, but also creates a seamless user experience when it comes to exploring and shopping across them.

Furthermore, while retail fashion does seem to lead the pack when it comes to multi-brand websites that work, there are some notable companies outside of that industry that are making impressive strides.

5 Companies Winning Multi-brand Websites

Of course, talking about "great" websites is certainly subjective. However, the five examples I am about to provide are sites that stood out to me for their ability to overcome the challenges listed above.

1. Gap Inc. 

Gap may be the most recognizable multi-brand company to the average shopper.

For one, it seems to be that most people are aware of the fact that Gap Inc. owns not only Gap but Banana Republic and Old Navy as well. Even so, the company is also made up of Athleta and newly formed Hill City.

Much of this brand awareness can likely be attributed to some key features on their websites.

For instance, regardless of what brand website you visit, you are always met with the same navigation on the top left of your screen., highlighting all of the Gap Inc. brands.

Another area where Gap Inc.’s website is great at handling its multiple brands is in the overall user experience when it comes to buying the products.

Not only can you toggle between each brand page, but you can add items to your shopping cart across brands, making for a much more convenient checkout experience. They even offer cross-brand promotions. 

2. American Eagle Outfitters

Like Gap, American Eagle is a clothing brand in itself, but in recent years, its other brand, Aerie, has gained momentum, offering a more comfort-based line of apparel, geared toward the "athleisure" trend.

AE.com has done something similar to Gap Inc., featuring both of their brands in the top left navigation of the website.

However, while each Gap brand website looks different, AE has utilized similar structures, color themes, and features that highlight each brand’s uniqueness while making it clear that they are related.     

   3. Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn is a company that is taking multi-brand to another level.

Within the Pottery Barn brand, there are three sub-brands, PB Apartment, Pottery Barn Kids, and PB Teen.

On top of that, they also have five other brands that make up the Williams Sonoma organization, Williams Sonoma, WS Home, West Elm, Rejuvenation, and Mark and Graham.

When it comes to a multi-brand website, Pottery Barn has managed to highlight all of the brands in the WS family in the site navigation.

Plus, it does so in a way that ensures the visitor is recognizing that while the parent organization has many brands, Pottery Barn itself has brands for the entire family.

4. NBCUniversal

There are plenty of multi-brand retailers I can talk about, but I think it is really great to see how different types of organizations are highlighting their multi-brand status.

One organization that does this particularly well is NBCUniversal. 

Obviously, as a media company, they have plenty of engaging content to work with, but it is in how they feature this content from their various brands that is worth noting.

The website lets its popular and critically-acclaimed shows shine, but also makes sure you know which brand within the organization that it comes from with a subtle category tag.

Incorporating the individual logo or channel name into featured box ensures that visitors know where to tune in to watch.

This is powerful because it addresses the many brands while maintaining the overall message that all of this amazing, diverse content comes from NBCUniversal.

5. EA (Entertainment Arts)

EA is a video game company that is not a multi-brand company in the traditional sense, but what gains them a spot on this list is how they handle their catalog of popular games, which some may argue are each a brand on their own.

With titles including Madden, FIFA, The Sims, and the Mass Effect series, each game “brand” has its own loyal fans and even culture.

Where EA utilizes the top of the page for their featured game, the rest of the site focuses on the various game brands, with content targeting each brand’s fans.

The content targets the specific audience while highlighting other games in a way that could generate interest from someone unfamiliar with the entire EA catalog.

A Great Multi Brand Website Is Within Reach

When it comes to creating a great website for a multi-brand company, these are great examples to look to, but, creativity and individuality goes a long way.

Keep these key things in mind when developing your own, unique multi-brand website strategy:

Feature your brands in one place, such as the navigation, so that everyone knows about them.

Ensure that the cross-brand user experience is easy and intuitive. If your selling products across brands, let your users check out in one place.

Where appropriate, create engaging cross-brand content, that can be attributed to the individual brand without taking away from the brand family.

Do you have a favorite multi-brand website? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/great-multi-brand-websites

[tanmath3-blog]

I am, first and foremost, a storyteller and an artist–words are my palette. Fantasy is my genre of choice, and I love to explore the darker side of human nature through the filter of fantasy heroes, villains, and everything in between. I’m also a freelance writer, a book lover, and a guy who just loves to meet new people and spend hours talking about my fascination for the worlds I encounter in the pages of fantasy novels.

Fantasy provides us with an escape, a way to forget about our mundane problems and step into worlds where anything is possible. It transcends age, gender, religion,race, or lifestyle–it is our way of believing what cannot be, delving into the unknowable, and discovering hidden truths about ourselves and our world in a brand new way. Fiction at its very best!

Andy Peloquin is an amazing guy. He has the best sense of humor and will make you laugh till you cry. He was recently a guest on The Panic Room Radio Show where he did a reading from his new book and involved both the hosts. It was priceless. The link to the show is below and I highly recommend you listening. The man can write. If you love the fantasy world then he is your man. If you don’t know him or haven’t had the chance to read his work you are missing out! Please help me welcome Andy Peloquin to Roadie Notes ………

1. How old were you when you first wrote your first story?

I think I was 9 or 10 when I sat down to pen my first story—a totally rubbish thing called “Tally the Tigermaster”. I didn’t actually complete anything until I was in my mid-teens. Most of what I wrote at that time was short fiction/prose. My first novel was completed in late 2014.

2. How many books have you written? To date, I have published 6 novels, with a 7th on the way in late October.

3. Anything you won’t write about? I’m not a huge fan of Happily Ever After. As wonderful as it is, I feel it’s a bit unrealistic. As a married man myself, I know how much work goes into keeping a relationship alive. THAT is what I want my readers to understand about the romance I write.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc… Age: 29 (hitting the big 3-0 this year!) Married: Yes Kids: 4 (ages 13 to 18) In addition to being a novelist, I supplement my income by doing copywriting and blogging.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written? I’d have to say I LOVED writing Thief of the Night Guild (Queen of Thieves Book 2) and Queen of the Night Guild (Book 3). The antagonistic relationships between my main character Ilanna and so many of the people around her was just such a fun dynamic!

6. Who or what inspired you to write? An elementary school teacher instilled in me a love of writing from a very young age. His passion and enthusiasm for all the arts rubbed off on me, and it just so happened I wrote well. Given that I come from a very artistic family, it was a joy to find a creative outlet that I could use to express myself.

7. What do you like to do for fun? In addition to writing, you mean? I LOVE the time I spend bringing my stories to life. I also enjoy video games, reading great books, and watching TV. I’ve gotten some of my best ideas while watching TV shows, in fact.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book? I take a week off between projects to sort of clear my brain and make room for the next book. I’ll usually spend that week catching up on projects that went uncompleted during the final stages of finishing the previous book, and I often come up with the story lines for the next book I’m going to write. Really, by the time that week is done, I’m champing at the bit to get started with something new.

9. Where do you write? Quite or music? MUSIC! I have a playlist with about 350 songs: techno, trance, pop music, heavy rock, dubstep, a few quieter instrumental songs. You’ll find Selena Gomez, Five Finger Death Punch, Simon and Garfunkel, and Skrillex all mixed into my list.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? I wish I could write shorter stories! Heh. A lot of authors put out more books than I do because they know how to tell smaller, shorter stories. It seems everything I write just gets bigger and bigger.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer? I don’t know about famous. I would like to know my books are changing people’s lives or helping them cope with the hard times, just like books have done for me. But I feel that earning a comfortable living and being able to dedicate myself to telling stories and writing great books is my perfect life.

12. Where do you live? I live south of the U.S. border, in Baja California.

13. Pets? Children. Teenagers, actually—ages 13 to 18.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing? I love being able to bring a character to life. Whether it’s a blind assassin, an autistic savant, or a competent thief girl, it’s a thrill to see a new person born into the world through my stories.

15. What is coming next for you? After finishing Queen of the Night Guild (Queen of Thieves Book 3), I’m going to be moving on to something new—but what, I’m not sure. I’ll be putting out feelers to my newsletter list to see what they want me to write about. I’ve got romantic fantasy, military fantasy, a prison novel, a series of urban fantasy stories, and so many other things I want to write. I can’t wait to find out what my readers want to read!  

You can connect with Andy Peloquin here: Please include any links you want added Website: http://www.andypeloquin.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyPeloquin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andyqpeloquin Fan Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1383986274994456/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8KnIEoUDWRJkAhJ16CN5Dw Reader List Sign-Up: http://andypeloquin.com/join-the-club/ Fantasy Fiends Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFantasyFiends/ Follow on BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/andy-peloquin  

Some of Andy Peloquin’s Books:

  Getting personal with Andy Peloquin I am, first and foremost, a storyteller and an artist--words are my palette. Fantasy is my genre of choice, and I love to explore the darker side of human nature through the filter of fantasy heroes, villains, and everything in between.