#also my designs are getting a revamp which makes me a little sad since this one has the old ones

[someonestolemyshoes]

Stuck

My entry for @levihan-drabbles Smut Sunday event! My prompt this time was "Hange, why are you stuck there?". I might have gotten a little carried away, so this is uh...on the long side, but please enjoy anyway! 

Warnings: dubious consent, if you squint. Explicit consent talks, too, but if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable please be careful! 

Her toes barely scraped the floor. The ladder had fallen too far away for her to reach, and without the use of her legs, Hange couldn't find purchase on anything to pull herself out of the loop.

She was stuck. In a trap for titans.

By all counts, Hange was having a terrible day.

She had been late to the morning's budget report, too wrapped up in her research notes and the blueprints for her new titan trap to notice the time. Erwin had chewed her out thoroughly for her tardiness, and, to add insult to injury, had denied her request for new materials to build the trap. She had argued as vehemently as she dared that the materials were a necessity in ensuring the sturdiness of the improved design and that, built correctly, the new apparatus would reduce risk to their soldiers by over 50%. Despite her best efforts, Erwin had been resolute in his rejection.

She had also missed breakfast. After the meeting, incensed by Erwin's refusal, she had taken straight to her lab to revamp the design, ignorant of the time until well past 10am. Breakfast had been cleared long before the growling of her stomach pulled her out of her focused scribbling.

And then she had spilled a cold mug of tea, who knows how old, onto her research notes from the last experiments. The dark liquid sank into the fabric and blurred the ink faster than Hange could react, leaving every scrawled graph and table and footnote completely illegible.

Hange should have known, then, with her run of luck, that today was not a day to take risks. She should have anticipated that more would go wrong, that something disastrous might happen. But each instance had only served to anger her further, and Hange felt resolved to solve something. To get one thing right.

Starting with the titan trap was evidently a mistake.

It was a risk to try toying with the thing all alone at the best of times. Clunky chains and thick, heavy ropes, intricately looped and knotted for strength, cross-hatched to make them more structurally sound. Hange was up on her ladder with her torso threaded through one of the giant loops, stomach braced on the rope as she leaned over to adjust the bolts in one of the chains, when part of the structure gave an ominous creak. Something, somewhere, snapped with a crack, and Hange's foot slipped off the ladder.

The ground rushed up to meet her. Hange braced herself for impact, but a few feet from the floor, she jerked abruptly to a stop. The rope punched roughly into her stomach, knocking the air out of her. She took a second, gasping, to catch her breath.

In a stroke of uncharacteristic luck, Hange had chosen to wear her goggles while working. Her glasses, she knew, would have fallen from her face and shattered to pieces. Another expense for Erwin to pay. Luckily, her goggles held firm--no extra cost for the Scouts, and wonderfully clear vision to take in the remains of the trap.

As it stands, she'd gotten very lucky indeed. A section of rope had snagged on one of the hooks on the wall, breaking her fall. Her stomach felt tender, and would no doubt bruise horribly, but she could only be thankful that it wasn't worse.

Now, though, she had a problem.

Her toes barely scraped the floor. The ladder had fallen too far away for her to reach, and without the use of her legs, Hange couldn't find purchase on anything to pull herself out of the loop.

She was stuck. In a trap for titans.

Hange let herself hang over the rope and puffed her hair out of his face. The lab was out of the way, no chance of anyone incidentally passing by—it would be a waste of energy to try calling for help. All she could do was hang here and wait until someone—Moblit, probably—came searching for her.

She hung there for what felt like a lifetime. The rope had been plenty uncomfortable in the beginning, but had long since become painful. She was desperately considering her possibilities for the millionth time, when she heard the sound of feet stomping in the corridor outside, and the door abruptly burst open.

"Oi, shitty glasses, you missed lu—"

Levi stopped short. The click of his boots scuffed to a halt. His fingers slipped off the door handle, the hinges squeaking loud in the otherwise silence. The click of the latch rang as loud as a gunshot.

Hange waved a hand. "Yo, Levi. A little help?"

"The hell are you doing?"

"There was an incident. It's not important—can you help me down?"

Levi, overcoming his surprise, managed to take a few more slow steps into the room. He walked a full circle around her, ducking rope and stepping over loose chains, taking in the sight with the same scrutiny he examines bookshelves for dust.

"This," he announced, after completing his examination, "is fucking ridiculous."

"It's not my finest moment," she conceded.

"What even is this shit?" Levi touched the rope, running his palm over it. His voice sounded a little distant, contemplative. Hange didn't for one second entertain the idea that he was curious about the mechanics of her titan trap, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was that intrigued him.

"Does it matter? As you can well see, I need some help."

Levi hummed. He gripped the rope a little harder, followed it down to where it was digging into her waist. He gave it a little tug; Hange coughed out a breath when the movement jostled her. She suspected that Levi was trying to figure out how exactly she had gotten stuck. When his gaze travelled up to the hook, she assumed she was correct, and hoped that, armed with this knowledge, he might try freeing her. He stepped a little further behind her, out her direct line of sight. Hange waited impatiently for him to help get her out of the trap.  

But then, he did something Hange hadn't expected him to do at all.

He touched her leg.

To an outsider, it might have been an innocent thing. Something designed to soothe, maybe; nothing more or less than the simple touch of one's palm to another's thigh.

But Hange knew Levi. Hange knew that Levi was not one for casual touch. There were very few instances in which Levi touched anyone, and most were unfavourable--upon grievous injury, commonly, or else holding a comrades hand when death comes calling. But there is one other occasion in which Levi will touch her, at least. One other scenario where his hand might find itself on her leg, or her hip, or her waist. Up her shirt. Down her pants.

It's not all that often. Maybe a dozen times, give or take, over the years they've known one another. But it follows a very strict pattern: they have a shitty day. They drink. They get too close. They drink some more. Smoke, maybe, if they've ventured to a bar where they can snag a cigarette to share. Drink again, though at some point they give up ordering their own, and start passing the same goblet back and forth. Levi's leg will nudge up against hers. Hange leans heavily into him. She blames it on the drink, giggles a half assed apology into his ear. He lets her. They search for somewhere private—their quarters, if they're patient enough. Close enough. A back alley has done fine on more than one occasion.

And then, they fuck.

Sex, Hange had once thought, was a rather romantic notion. Two becoming one and all that. Something couples did, an act of feeling so absolute, so all-encompassing, that making love was the only way to truly express it. Older, and wiser, Hange knows now that sex can be many different things. Sex can be romantic, but it can also be rough, animalistic. Sex can come from frustration, from desperation, from an itchy beneath the skin that nothing else will scratch. Sex with Levi, more often than not comes from anger and sadness and manifests in a clash of lips, grabbing, yanking hands, the sharp bite of teeth. It comes from a desire to do something, anything, to relieve the helpless, hopeless feeling when they've done all that they could and somehow, it still isn't enough. A guilty, sordid undertaking, high on fumes with the dark of the night to hide them.

Sex with Levi has never begun like this, with Hange hanging from a makeshift harness in her lab in broad daylight.

It's not that she's against the idea, per se. There are times when Hange feels that restless ache without the weight of grief sagging her bones—times when she thinks it might be nice to find Levi in his room, or invite him into hers, close the doors and let loose. Enjoy the pleasure of it without the bite of pain.

But now, she thought, shivering when Levi's hand slid around to the inside of her thigh, was not the time.

Levi seemed to have other ideas.

His thumb brushed back and forth over her leg.

"Not that this isn't nice," she said slowly, "but is now really the best time?"

Levi, standing behind her now, gave a noncommittal hum. His other hand came to rest rather boldly on her ass, thumb running lightly up the centre seam of her trousers. Hange sucked in a sharp breath.

"Can it wait? I'm a little uncomfortable here."

Levi acted as though he hadn't heard her. It made Hange huff. Either he was deliberately ignoring her, or he was too preoccupied to listen and respond appropriately. Hange suspected the former, though when she shot him a look rather awkwardly over her shoulder, she did find him gazing quite intently at his own hand on her backside.

Hange had never really considered that Levi might be receptive to the idea of sex outside their current, unofficial arrangement. He never seemed all that interested—in her or in anyone else. His disinterest was so pronounced, that it had shocked her the first time he had touched her—she had reciprocated with equal ferocity, but the initial hunger of his touch had surprised her. Even then, when she had grown accustomed to the uninhibited way he would touch her during their meetings, he had seemed perfectly indifferent whenever they were together in any other circumstance. He retained his perpetual, bored expression, and gave her no indication that he even found her attractive, let alone had any interest.

And yet, here he was. Eyes flitting over his view of her ass and legs, his hands roving almost reverently over her. Hange blew out a loud breath.

"My legs are going dead, Levi. Help me down."

Levi ticked his tongue at her. "Oi, all trussed up like that and you expect me not to look?"

For a second, shock quieted her pleading. Her mouth snapped shut and her cheeks grew uncomfortably hot. Levi's tone had been low, gravelly. The kind of voice he used when he hissed filth in her ear, hand at her throat and cock driving into her fast and hard. To hear something so calm from him, in that voice, sent a rush of warmth straight to her crotch.

"You've looked plenty," Hange said. She squirmed when his hand slipped higher still between her legs, finger running back and forth along the seam of her pants. The pressure against her clit made her writhe, forced a groan from her. She shifted her legs restlessly, searching desperately for some purchase, but found nothing. Levi, face inexpressive, cupped her fully, letting his thumb push against where he knew her opening was. Hange choked.

"Levi," she gasped, toes scrabbling at the floor. "Levi, c'mon—at least—nngh—at least let me d-down first." It was embarrassing, the way her voice grew higher with each word, until she was almost squealing.

"You look good here," he said plainly.

"Well, that's swell," she wheezed. "But I—ah—am a little uncomfortable."

Levi's hand was still cupping her. Her fingers rubbing lazily at her clit, his thumb threatening to press into her through the thick fabric. Hange let out a high whine and wriggled.

"Levi," she implored. "It hurts—the rope, its—digging in." She finished with an embarrassingly loud moan, because Levi chose that moment to let his mouth replace his thumb, pressing over her. Hot air bled straight through her trousers, right onto her cunt.

"It's painful?" He asked. Hange felt his words vibrate against her. For one incredibly stupid moment, she considered telling to forget about that, to keep his mouth on her instead—but it did hurt, and as good as Levi's every puff of breath felt, as the pressure of his tongue poking out to rub at her felt, she needed to get down.

"Yeah," she breathed. Hange suspected then that Levi truly hadn't considered that her position would hurt. They were used persistent press of the 3DMG belts, all held scars and bruises from the leather where it took the brunt of their weight during use—Levi likely hadn't expected the rope to be too different. But it was much bigger, and Hange had slammed down onto it with enough force to wind her. She told him so with great difficulty, for he was seemingly fixated on touching her with his fingers and his mouth. At length, however, he pulled away.

"Fine, hold on."

With an arm hooked around her upper thighs, Levi hefted Hange up a little higher, taking her weight off the ropes. Hange let out a relieved sigh as the pressure on her waist eased—blood rushed to the flesh where the rope had pinched and dug into her, making the tender skin throb. Levi used his other hand to yank at the restraints until the section that had been snagged to the hook came loose, then steadied Hange with a palm pressed flush to the flat of her stomach, and lowered her to the ground.

Hange knew Levi was strong. Humanities strongest, after all. But that title was in awe of his titan killing abilities. It spoke nothing of his brute strength. The ropes and chains were heavy, moving them usually took a couple of people at least. Levi had managed to hold her up and shake the ropes loose like they weighed nothing at all. The thought sent an embarrassing thrill of heat through her.

Hange's toes hit the ground first, but she made no effort to get her feet firmly beneath her. They sank down together until Hange's knees hit the floor. She straightened her torso up, spine popping in several places as she did.

"That's better," she breathed. Levi only hummed as he helped her disentangle herself from the mess of rope and chain. He heaved it aside once she was free, and crouched behind her. Her shirt had ridden up during their manoeuvring, revealing a thin strip of pale flesh at the bottom of her back. Hange could feel a cool draught blowing over the exposed skin, but it was followed swiftly by something a hair more solid, the ghost of a touch that made goosebumps pinch at the back of her neck. Levi's fingertip, trailing featherlight above the waistband of her pants.  

Hange sucked in a quick breath. She'd thought that Levi was done tormenting her, now that he'd freed her from her confines; she'd expected to be left flustered and frustrated on the lab floor, but Levi, it seemed, wasn't finished with her yet. He hooked his finger into one of her belt loops and yanked up and back. Hange jerked forward, slapping her palms into the ground to keep her balance as Levi raised her hips up. The fabric of her trousers, already a little tight, pulled taut—the seam pressed painfully against her sensitive clit. She whimpered through clenched teeth and gathered her knees more solidly under her in an effort to relieve the pressure.

"Fuck, Levi," she hissed. She glared over her shoulder at him to find his gaze sweeping over her. The thing with Levi was, he never looked impressed. It was impossible to tell, in moments like this, with his sharp eyes travelling over her, whether he was pleased with what he saw or simply satisfied that his view wasn't terrible. "Do you have to be so rough?"

"You've never complained before."

Hange flushed. She tried to form a suitable response, something biting to retort with, but her mind could focus only on one thing; Levi's hand, gliding up the length of her spine now, pushing the fabric of her shirt until it bunched beneath her shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

Levi said nothing. He skimmed both palms, this time, from her upper back to her hips, and back up again, fingers curving to follow the contour of her waist, her ribs. With her breath held, it was quiet enough for Hange to hear the way Levi's callouses caught the bandage binding her chest. His thumbnail scratched lightly at one point where the wrappings met her skin, hooking beneath it. Hange tensed, and Levi's movements ceased abruptly.

"Can I take this off?"

Hange shook her head. "Not today," she said. And then, quiet and a little guilty, "sorry."

"It's fine."

He withdrew his hands from near her chest. One hit the ground beside her, while the other sunk to her hip, fingers digging into her groin. He pulled her back towards him until her ass was flush to his hips, and at the same time, Hange felt his torso rest against her back, the buttons of his shirt pressing cool into her heated skin. His mouth settled open and hot at the base of her neck. Hange shivered as his tongue laved over the skin there, a choked out little sigh stuttering out of her—she felt hot, trapped; prey pinned by a hungry predator. It sent a tremulous thrill zipping up her spine.

Levi's teeth sunk into the back of her neck. "Down."

Hange obliged without thought. Arms folding, back arching, she sunk low until her chest met the hard floor.

"Good," Levi hummed, pleased. His voice was deep, hoarse, and barely loud enough to register, but Hange could feel the rumble of it shudder right up her spine. The change in her position made it harder for him to reach the bare skin of her neck, but she could feel, acutely, the heat of his breath billowing through the layers covering her upper back. He always had an aura of calm about him, and an unreadable expression that bordered on indifference, but there was something in the heavy pant of his breath that exposed his excitement. It was gratifying to know she wasn't the only one. 

When she was settled, Levi straightened up. Hange could feel his eyes roving over her, but flat to the ground as she was, with her face tucked into her folded arms, she could see nothing. She jumped when his hands cupped her waist, almost tenderly; he stroked his thumbs over the skin where the rope had been. It hurt, aching in the way heavy bruises do, but when Levi's fingertips pressed a touch deeper into the welts stretching over her stomach, she squirmed, and not altogether from discomfort.

"Is it painful?" He asked, almost absently.

"A little," Hange wheezed. Levi made a thoughtful little sound, brushing his thumb and fingers back and forth over the wounds, and then he shifted back—cool air flooded into the space between their hips, and Hange almost cried out in disappointment—but before she could complain about the absence of his touch, she felt instead his impossibly soft lips, smoothing over the spot his hands had been. First one side, then over to the other.

Hange's muscles flexed and twitched beneath her skin as Levi kissed her. In the handful of times they had fucked before, tender kisses had never been a part of the equation. Everything was rough, biting, scratching, choking, gripping so hard they left fingerprint bruises on each others skin. Hange had never walked away without a limp in her step and a satisfying ache in her hips, the kind that lingered for days on end, as a reminder of what they had done. In their handful of whirlwind encounters, Levi had never kissed any part of her like that. As though she were something fragile. Something precious.

Hange almost straightened herself up to look at him. He lingered so long with his gentle ministrations that Hange thought, for a moment, he might have abandoned their romp in favour of laving her in his silent apologies. But then he shifted, lips dragging to the centre of her spine and down, down, until he found her waistband, and his hands looped around to the front of her pants, finding the buckle and deftly unfastening it.

He was in no particular hurry. He took his time, running his tongue across the bottom of her back as his fingers worked open the buttons on her fly, and explored the newly exposed skin at his leisure. The tips of his fingers, at first, dipping just beneath the elastic of her underwear, running from hip to hip and eliciting shivers and huffed out breaths from Hange as he went. And then he pressed lower, until his fingers found coarse hair. He took his time here, too, allowing his touch to stray near to where she wanted it before dancing away again. Hange grit her teeth in frustration, her hips swaying of their own accord, curling and wriggling, trying desperately to meet his idle fingers. His spare hand brushed up the outside of her thigh, soothing at first, and then he gripped her tight, limiting her motion.

She could feel his smile press against the bottom of her back.

Hange hadn't wanted to give him the satisfaction of begging. She tried what she could to keep her mouth shut; bit her lip, bit her knuckles, bit into the sleeve of her jacket, huffing panting, needy breaths through her nose in an effort to stifle the whines and pleading moans that threatened to spill out. And she had thought, for a moment, that she had succeeded—Levi finally graced her with the touch she desired, rough fingertips grazing over her clit, swollen and aching now, desperate for attention. Her hips bucked and she moaned, knees instinctively spreading wider. But then, the touch passed. Levi's fingers brushed along her groin instead, withdrawing. Hange's throat tightened, a frustrated lump forming, choking her.

"Levi." She had hoped to sound more angry, but her voice came out high and tight. Desperate. She bit hard at her lip.

"Hm? What?"  

"You know what," she hissed. It was absurd, how badly she felt like crying. Her need was bordering on painful; a throbbing, pulsating kind of desire, hot and heavy between her legs. She felt almost dizzy with it.

Levi had never teased her before. Sex was perfunctory; a means to an end. A quick, rough fuck, just another way to burn off steam, like sparring, or running. Feeding a specific hunger; scratching a persistent itch. Drawing things out was never a part of the equation. Hange didn't know how to handle the building tension—her body screamed for relief, release, anything, but Levi seemed perfectly at his leisure. Unhurried.

"Touch me," she grit out, splaying her legs wider still. Levi rubbed his hand against her lower belly. "Please."

"You said now was a bad time, before," he said. He must have anticipated Hange's indignance, for he closed over her and pinned her chest down with a hand between her shoulder blades before she had a chance to straighten up.

"That was before," Hange ground out. "You've started something now. Finish it."  

Levi made a quiet, thoughtful sound. Hange twisted her face to one side, flushed cheek pressed to the cool floor, and tried to gauge his expression. It was as unreadable as ever. He looked down at her with hooded eyes, face impassive.

And then, without preamble, he sunk his hand deeper into her pants, and pinched her clit between thumb and forefinger.

Hange swore loudly. Her hips jerked at the sudden touch. It was bordering on painful. Usually, rough was fine. Rough was good. Sex for them was often something like fighting, so Hange was no stranger to these aggressive touches. Usually, she delighted in it. Levi had learned her body well, toed the line between pain and pleasure with the same innate expertise he had for killing titans. Quick and efficient.

But this, for some reason, was too much. Hange twitched painfully and gasped his name, freeing one of her arms and reaching beneath herself, gripping tightly to Levi's wrist.

"Levi—too much."

Levi's touch stopped. His fingers splayed over her lower belly again, thumb rubbing back and forth as Hange released a shuddering breath.

"Did I hurt you?" He asked plainly. He sounded unbothered, almost bored, but Hange knew him better; the fact that he had even asked spoke volumes of his concern.

"A little," she said. Levi curled over her and dropped a kiss to the middle of her back. He mumbled a sorry so quiet Hange barely heard him.

"It's fine," she said. "Just...not so rough, next time? I'm too sensitive."

Levi ran his tongue up the trench of her spine, between the hard ridges of muscle, and hummed quietly. He let his fingers wander back to her clit again, but they settled over her far more gently. She gasped, and moaned quietly. Levi rubbed light circles over her, eliciting more soft little sounds. Hange was used to being vocal, and Levi was used to trying to shut her up, with a hand clamped over her mouth or his fingers depressing her tongue, but he made no move to quiet her this time. She bit her lip and breathed, harsh and uneven, through her nose as Levi's strokes found a rhythm. The weight of his chest rested fully on her back.  

Hange could easily imagine the same weight pressed against her as he fucked her, pinned her down and buried himself deep within her. She could imagine the way he'd grind into her, barely withdrawing an inch but still punching the air from her lungs when he pushed all the way back in.

He was shifting over her now, his body twitching in quick, jerky motions that didn't match up with the way his fingers were rubbing her. Belatedly, Hange realised that the hand not playing with her clit was nowhere to be found; he wasn't bracing on the ground, nor touching any part of her body. Raising herself up a little, Hange turned to look behind her, and let out a low, guttural moan.

Levi's spare hand was down the front of his own pants. He stroked himself off with quick, uneven strokes, his face pressed against her back. Hange could feel his hitching, panted breaths against her skin.

She breathed his name and pushed her hips back, seeking him. Searching for the pressure of his cock against her cunt, something to ease the heavy need there. She bumped against him once, twice, before Levi withdrew his hand from his pants to grip at her hip, pulling her back.

"Fuck, Hange," he rasped. He pressed his forehead into her back and ground his hips forward, pressing desperately against her. He must be able to feel her, how wet she was, even through the layers she still wore, for she could easily feel the heat radiating from his cock as it strained against her trousers. Hange whimpered, resisting every urge to shove back onto him. She wanted him to inside her, wanted to feel the stretch as he fucked her open; wanted the delicious ache as he buried himself to the hilt within her, the satisfaction of being full.

Levi curved himself over her, craning until his lips and teeth nipped at the back of her neck. The head of his cock nudged right at her opening and Hange let out a quiet, needy moan, pushing her hips back towards him.

"Hange," he said. Hange gave a shaky hum in acknowledgement. "When did you last bleed?"

Disappointment and a deep, loathing kind of frustration washed over her. Her face twisted in a grimace and her hands, balled into fists, smacked against the stone. She dropped her forehead to the floor, swearing under her breath, and mumbling her response. Levi pinched her hip, brushed his lips over her skin.  

"I can't hear you, stupid."

Louder, she moaned, "Last week."

"Ah."

Too recent. Hange could hear the pang of disappointment in Levi's tone, too. He was just as worked up as she was, hard and straining, and it must be torture for him to feel Hange so ready for him, wet, tight, eager. Inviting. But the timing was off. Too soon after her last bleed. Not worth the risk. Levi knew it, and Hange knew it too, but that didn't stop her from wriggling against him, hips easing back, searching for him, desperate for his length to split her open.

Levi let out a low growl and ground against her. Hange half wanted to resign herself to an unsatisfying release, to guide Levi's attention back to her neglected clit and get off quickly, but before she could regain his attention, Levi withdrew his hand from her pants completely, and instead yanked them over her ass, and worked them a little way down her thighs. His breath felt hot and fast gainst the back of her neck as he tugged at the tight fabric. Hange felt his cock bare against her. She shivered and sucked in a quivering breath.

"What are you doing?"

"I wanna fuck you," he said simply. Hange whimpered. She wanted to spread her legs wider, make room for him between them, but her trousers, wrapped around her thighs now, prevented her from opening them, and besides—

"We shouldn't—Levi, we can't."

He made a gruff sound against her. Hange could feel his fingers trembling as he gripped the outside of one thigh, pushed her legs closer together. Hange shuffled the other further in to keep her balance, head spinning. Levi shifted so his knees, either side of hers, kept her thighs pinned together.

They couldn't—it wasn't worth the risk, she knew, and every logical part of her screamed that they should stop now, before they made a mistake. Levi dug his face between her shoulder blades and his hand reached between them, wrapping around his cock and giving it a few jerky pumps. He guided it close; Hange felt the smooth head nudge against her dripping entrance.

"We can't," she said again, weakly. "Levi, we—"

Her breath hitched as Levi applied a little pressure. She could feel herself beginning to stretch for him, opening up as he pressed a little into her. She gasped, groaned, shifted her weight; she meant to move forward, away, but her hips sank helplessly back instead. She almost sobbed in relief as the stretch increased, the sensation dizzying, delicious. She tried again to spread her legs, but Levi's legs locked her in place.

"Levi—Levi, please—" Hange wasn't wasn't sure what she was pleading for. For him to stop, before they went too far, or for him to drive into her, fuck her until she couldn't stand. She felt him hiss against her back.

"Wanna be inside you," he breathed. "Fuck, Hange—you feel so good."

Hange could barely keep herself still. It took every ounce of strength to keep some presence of mind, to hold her trembling hips in place, but it felt like a losing battle. She wanted to feel full, fucked out and satiated. She wanted to feel every inch of him spreading her open, wanted him to fuck and fill her until he was spent, until he had nothing left to give. They shouldn't, they couldn't—but Hange had never wanted anything more in her entire life. To deprive herself was the cruellest thing.

Levi came to his senses before she did. He growled loudly, teeth bared, frustration evident, but he pulled his cock away from her opening and drove instead between her legs, right up against the apex of her thighs. The head of his cock bumped her clit and Hange let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a wail. He tightened his knees against hers, wedging her legs as tight together as he could. He let out a low moan, pulling back slowly, savouring the tightness of her thighs pressed around him. Hange squirmed and squeezed her legs together, desperate to keep his cock pressed up against her. She ground her brow into the ground and let out a harsh, ragged breath. Levi brushed his lips against the edge of the coarse bandage, over the nearest patch of skin.

"What I'd fucking give to be inside you now," Levi breathed, strained. He drove his hips forward at a slow, building pace. Hange squeezed her eyes closed and pushed her hips back to meet him. "Fuck you just like this."

Hange whimpered out her yes, and reached down to pull one of Levi's hands from her hips, guiding it to her clit. He applied a dizzying pressure there, pressing down and rolling his fingertips against her, and the combination of that, plus the length of his cock gliding so temptingly against her, was enough to make her thighs tremble.

"Next time," he grunted. Once or twice he pulled back a little too far and for a moment the head of his cock nestled back against her entrance before popping free and sliding between her thighs again. Each time, Hange guiltily hoped he would slip inside, that they would ignore the consequences, leave it as a problem for another time. It made her twitch, and whine, and fuck her hips back harder against him.

His fingers rubbed rougher circles over her. Hips bucked harder. Hange felt the tension winding low in her gut, in her thighs--her breathing, already ragged, began to hitch and hold, punching out short little mewls and sucking in quick, uneven gasps.

"Close—Levi, I—hah—I'm gonna come—"

Levi gave an affirming grunt against her shoulder blade and fought to keep his pace even. Levi wasn't much of a gentleman in any common sense of the term, but no matter what they did, how quick and harsh sex was between them, Levi always made sure Hange finished first. It was chivalrous, in a way. She might have laughed at the thought if her orgasm didn't cut her off, choking the sound in her throat. Her mouth opened in a silent moan as her body drew impossibly tight, impossibly tense—and then the tension broke, and she was left shuddering, incoherent, disjointed sounds bleeding out of her, eyes watering with relief. Levi rode her through it, and then followed after her, with a few hard, jarring thrusts and a grunt muffled against her back. Hange felt him spill up her belly and onto the floor beneath them.

Without his hands to hold her hips up, Hange sank down to lie flat on the floor. Levi followed her down, pressed to her back, and together they lay there, gathering their senses and catching their breaths.

After a moment, Levi rolled off of her, and sat up. Hange pushed herself upright on shaking arms. She took in the mess—on her front, on the floor, between her legs. Heat rushed through her, sweeping into her stomach. In her lab, of all places.

"Stupid Levi," Hange said. She tugged up her pants and sat on her backside, levelling a kick at Levi's knee. He had already tucked himself into his pants with a grimace, but he was too sluggish post-orgasm to dodge her. "Anyone could have walked in here!"

"They didn't."  

"They could have! What if Erwin had come looking for me, huh? Or Mike? What about poor Moblit!"

For a second, Levi looked like he might smile. "Wouldn't be the first time."

Hange flushed hot at the memory. Poor Moblit, she thought, guiltily recalling their first needy fumbling in Hange's office. She had been drunk—they both were, probably too drunk to reasonably consider the consequences of their actions—and Moblit, ever the loyal sidekick, had only come to check Hange had made it to bed. He'd hoped to find her sleeping soundly. He certainly hadn't expected to find her sprawled back on the desk with Levi's face between her thighs.

"You wanna scar the poor bastard again?" Hange hissed. Levi shrugged. Hange narrowed her eyes at him; perhaps she was imagining it, but she could have sworn she saw something in his expression that looked almost smug. Hange huffed at him.

They fell into a strange silence. Hange busied herself kicking and dragging the remains of the titan trap to the side of the room. She piled the ropes up as neatly as she could manage, while Levi used a napkin to wipe up the mess on the floor. Then he simply sat back and watched her. After a moment, he spoke.

"Did you mind? Me touching you like that."  

Hange looked over at him. His face gave nothing away, no hint of guilt or trepidation at all, but there had been something in his tone; a hesitance to voice the question out loud.

"You're asking me that now?"

Levi turned his eyes away from her.

"I figured you'd let me know. If you really hadn't wanted to."

"Most people just ask before they start feeling someone up, you know. Saves all the confusion."

Hange had meant it in a teasing way, with her tone light and her lips turned up in a wry smile, but Levi paled after she'd spoken, eyes a fraction wider than normal.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Screwed up his face, then said, "I don't—I never want to—" He let out an annoyed huff, and ran a hand back through his hair. It was perhaps the most flustered Hange had ever seen him. "I'm not into that shit. I don't get off on making people do shit they don't wanna do."

There was something imploring about the way he looked at her, after that, as though he needed her to listen. As though it were important to him that she understand.

"I know," Hange said, struck by the sudden need to soothe him. He had lost all colour, and looked oddly distressed. "I know. And you're right, I'd have let you know if I didn't like any of it."

It took a long moment, but the tension in Levi's shoulders relaxed a fraction. Hange plopped down to sit next to him and nudged her shoulder to his.

"Maybe we should get a safe word for next time." She grinned, then laughed when Levi weakly elbowed her. "How do you feel about titans."

Levi scowled at her. His eyes looked dark and broody as ever, but there was a pinch to his cheeks, as though he was trying not to smile. "How do you feel about fuck off."

"Nah, you say that too much. What about Erwin's toupee."

"I don't wanna think about Erwin when I'm fucking you."

Hange's face heated a little at the brazenness in which he said it. She laughed, and said, "how about eyebrows?"

Levi grimaced. "Still Erwin."

Hange laughed a little harder. She leaned into him, so close that when he twisted his head to look at her, his fringe tickled her face.

"I kinda like it. Nice and snappy."

Levi tipped closer to her. His nose brushed against hers.

"How about stop talking shit," he said. Hange felt his breath blow hot over her lips, smelled the rich, perfume scent of the tea he'd drunk at lunch. Their brows bumped clumsily together. Levi pressed closer, more solidly to her.

"Too long," she breathed. Levi hummed quietly, tilting his face up so his nose nudged along hers. "Can we go back to titans?"

"Whatever. Use whatever shitty word you want." His voice had gone strangely low, and just a touch breathless. Hange felt her own breath catch somewhere in her chest.

"Titans it is," she said. Levi's lips were so close, Hange could feel them brushing against hers when she spoke. She and Levi had kissed a few times. The sloppy, biting kind of kiss, hot and furious. It was always part of the process—A to B, kissing to fucking. It was never something sweet, or gentle. They never kissed for the simple sake of kissing.

Hange found herself wanting to, now. She wanted to close the breath of distance between them and feel Levi's soft lips against her own. It was an outrageous thing to want, really. Kissing without the promise of something more, it strayed into unfamiliar territory for them. Dangerous territory. Hange had sworn her heart to humanity, same as Levi had—but right now, hers was beating out of her chest for him.

Levi let his mouth touch barely against hers. Hange's eyes fluttered closed and she waited, heart pounding, for him to make some kind of move. To pull away or press closer, either, something.

Instead, he said, quiet and rasping, "this safe word. How does it work?"

Hange rolled her brow against his. "You just say it, if there's something you don't want to do, or if you want to stop."

Levi made a thoughtful sound. Hange felt his fingers graze over hers where her hand was braced on the floor.

"So you'd say titans, if you didn't want me to kiss you now?"

Hange let out a long breath. She nodded, but said nothing more. Levi waited. Hange made no noise at all, and after a moment, Levi tipped his face up and kissed her sweetly. Simple, chaste, his lips pressed against hers. He sighed out a trembling breath through his nose.

They stayed like that for too long, for a kiss so simple, but Hange hadn't wanted to pull away. It was warm, comfortable. She felt pleasantly content. Levi was the first to move, and when Hange opened her eyes she caught sight of his own eyelids fluttering, blinking rapidly, as though he had just awoken from a dream. He licked his lips.

"Not bad," he said. Hange rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder.

"I'll take whatever compliment I can get, coming from you," she said. She dragged herself to her feet, dusting the back of her pants. She grimaced at the tacky, drying wetness in her underwear. "C'mon. I need a shower. And you said I missed lunch, right? No wonder I'm starving!"

Hange held out her hand for him. Levi took it, climbing to his feet while Hange hefted him off the floor. He looked equally uncomfortable with the situation in his own clothing, tugging at the sticky fabric with an angry frown. Hange hooked her arm through his and pulled him out of the lab, pausing only to lock the door behind them. Levi kept step with her as they walked down the corridor. If her closeness, or her happy, out of tune humming bothered him, he didn't show it. They were approaching the end of the hallway when Hange dug her elbow into his ribs lightly.

"Next time," she said, "if you insist on fucking me somewhere inappropriate, we're doing it in Erwin's office. I don't want to put poor Moblit at risk again."

Levi pulled a disgusted face, shoving at her. Hange teetered out of his reach, gleeful.

"On his desk, maybe. Or in his chair. His room is attached, right? Maybe even in his bed—”

"Titans, Hange. For fucks sake, titans."

[butwhatifidothis]

I did it! Finally fucking did it! I 100% the support log for 3H….Holy shit, that took longer than I was expecting, lol. 

(Long rant, so heads up.)

I came in thinking “Oh they finally time-locked the supports, so I don’t have to have the damn cursor mocking me every time I open the menu like in Awakening and Fates, hurr hurr”. No no no no no. At least for Awakening and Fates, it was on my dumb ass for pressing the S-support and saving when I knew I shouldn’t. First off, if they wanted us to regain supports for Byleth in NG+, why the heck are supports for characters like Edelgard, Rhea, Dorothea and Lindhart locked? I don’t mean time-locked like the post-TS supports in a regular playthrough, I mean deadass “you can’t buy this, period” locked. “Oh it’s because you haven’t advanced that far in the story yet”. I can buy post-TS supports for the other characters, what makes El and Rhea exceptions?! The only thing that would be lost is that I don’t have to replay their entire route to get their S-support twice. It’s not like there’s enough differences between Bylad and Bylass to warrant the supports being locked, none of the characters specify a specific gender in their dialogue, and as far as different models go, changing models during a cutscene is coded into the game, so that should be no issue.  

After going through the monastery option enough times, the hubworld is in this weird limbo state where it feels like it was made specifically for Byleth’s benefit (faculty training, recruiting party members, etc,) but the rest of the party seems to benefit from it instead (Instructions, Motivation points, etc). The Explore vs Battle options just don’t mix well, which feels like poor design choice. You can focus on auxiliary battles to raise your party’s level, but at the cost of potentially missing out on more party members. You can instead focus on the monastery to recruit party members, but at the cost of Byleth falling behind due to splitting activity points between recruiting and faculty training, and being in the monastery means less time grinding for levels. This isn’t as much of a problem in NG+, but if a game needs NG+ to lessen a design problem, then that’s more of a sign to me that the idea itself needed more ironing out. 

 As far as using the monastery to raise support points goes, the hubworld definitely needs a revamp. The only (good) options available are Meal Time and Choir Practice, with the latter being limited to once per week and the former making me think that the monastery must eat their own weapons to survive due to how fucking scarce food ingredients are. Getting meat and fish isn’t too big of an issue so long as you have enough money, but produce might as well be an urban legend. There were too many times where I had 60+ fish/meat, but produce was at fucking 1. I get that they wanted to be “realistic” in having seeds grow once per week, but if it’s at the cost of a gameplay element being nigh unplayable, then some more thought needs to be put into it. Sothis is a goddess of life and time, maybe her powers allow Byleth to make plants grow faster. Just something to make this section actually playable. 

The final thing I wanted to talk about when it comes to the monastery is that, for some baffling reason, it is entirely possible to lock yourself out of key events like S-supports or being able to choose CF, simply by skipping to the end of the month. I’m not sure why this is a thing. It’s not like the game was designed with speedruns in mind (I mean, it is possible to beat a route in an hour, but fuck me if I ever succeeded in that), and nothing happens like a prompt popping up that you have to explore the monastery during that month or even limiting your options to just Explore (which the game has done before). This is especially weird for the quest in getting Jeralt’s ring (how to access S-supports), since Byleth is supposed to be sad in this month, so not being able to do seminars or Byleth being undeployable during auxiliary battles would make sense. 

The option to choose CF is even worse though, because at least for Jeralt’s ring it’s a Red Quest that doesn’t allow you to finish exploring unless you complete it. For Edelgard, however? A dime-a-dozen quest prompt you can entirely look over and skip. No prompt by the game, no indication to talk to Edelgard, nothing. FFS, Rhea’s tea time quest was given more thought. At least her quest marker is a unique color. 

(End of rant…sort of) 

…So anyways, that was my experience with the game, lmao. Now you or someone else may be thinking, “nonnie, if you had this many problems completing the game, why did you bother?”, and the answer to that good question is…I’m not completely sure, lol. I know there’s more than one reason why, so bear with me here. I know part of it is due to sunk-cost fallacy (“I’m already this far into the game, I might as well fully complete it”), but I think a bigger reason is because I knew ahead of time that the routes were so similar to each other that there was little point in having a route split to begin with (except for CF, but who gives a fuck about that?). Despite all of my bitching, I do really like 3H even if I admit that it’s my least favorite FE game that I’ve played so far. I guess a part of me just wanted to like the game more despite my issues with it. 

Now that I think about it, maybe the main reason was for fear of future mainline games. People are fear to like whatever part of a game that they wish, but I do think that 3H introduced some fundamental storytelling flaws that I’d rather not see repeated in the future, with me focusing on 3 in particular: 1) The Monastery, 2) Route Splits and 3) Byleth. 

Aside from what I already talked about in regards to the monastery, if we are going to get another hubworld in the new FE title, have it to where it doesn’t conflict with how the rest of the story is presented. Is it better to simply tell us that the Western Church is xenophobic in an easily skippable side quest early on, or is it better to show us? Enemy Western Church NPCs going after foreign party members like Dedue or Petra more aggressively and calling them “animals” or the like, the map having Duscari NPCs locking themselves indoors for fear that the Western Church will persecute them, things of that nature. Is it better to tell us that there has been civil unrest in the Empire and the citizens revolting against Edelgard, or is it better to show us? Enemy Adrestian Civilian NPCs, assassins specifically going after Edelgard in a map, maybe one where a large farmland has been stripped bare. Things like that. 

I’d rather do away with the Persona-calendar/Monastery hubworld, but if they are here to stay then they need enough content in it to keep the player engaged for 20-odd chapters, because there isn’t enough content in Garreg Mach to even hold up 12 chapters. Speaking of more content, if there’s going to be another route split in the next title, then there needs to be enough differences in the routes that actually warrants having a route split. Fates already did this well in having the route split be early in the game, along with the plot and story maps of each route being different, you could even skip to the route split moment on subsequent playthroughs, so 3H’s approach in having to play the same 12 chapters 3-4 times just felt like a massive downgrade. Playing multiple routes should feel rewarding rather than tedious, is what I’m trying to say. 

Finally, and most importantly, I know that no one at IS is reading this but on the off chance that someone is - please, for the love of God, do not make another blank-slate/self insert main character like Byleth. Or at the very least, don’t have them be the focal point of the story, it’s a big reason why AM just works better than the other routes. For a game like FE, “self-insert” and “protagonist” goes as well as oil and water. Now, out of those three flaws listed, the Byleth one is what I’m hard set on. The monastery and route split flaws, my opinion might be flexible within reason, but the Byleth one…not so much, lol. If we really do get another self-insert doll for a main character, that alone is going to make the next game a hard sell for me, because seeing all the praise Byleth got (and has been getting) makes me fear that IS is going to take the wrong lesson from this and think they don’t have to put effort in making their protagonist anything resembling an actual person and their audience will still lap it up. It would be one thing if I just hated the character, but I don’t. I’m disappointed, which is even worse.

…With that said, it’s still better than whatever the heck Cap’n’Crunch is doing. Okay, rant over. For real this time.

—

I agree with a lot said here! But I do have a few disagreements, though they’re mostly my opinion than anything else lol

And this first one is probably like, extremely unpopular given how much shit I’ve seen flung at this aspect of 3H, but like… I actually really like the Monastery? Like yes, absolutely, it should have done more to not shelter the player from how bad the war is and it should change more with the world instead of being in this mostly limbo state where apparently seasons don’t real. I definitely also have those complaints, but to me, the Monastery was fine for the most part. A lot of the issues you brought up, like supports and Faculty Training and supplies for eating, weren’t a problem for me almost at all. My only real gripe is with how hard it is for Byleth to get training in Flying, Mounted and especially Heavy Armor without NG+ unlocking weapons ranks, since they don’t have access to Weekly Chores. I do believe I still managed to recruit everyone while only unlocking C in Faith on my Maddening playthrough of GD, but it certainly wasn’t easy. But I feel a lot of the problem people have with it are on subsequent playthroughs where they’re trying to do things like 100% any aspect of 3H, which yeah is gonna exacerbate the issues tenfold. Cuz like, while those three weapons ranks I mentioned are hard for Byleth to raise, on Normal mode you have unlimited auxiliary battles to help with all the other ones. 

Like, I wanted to get Claude’s Dex to the max amount right? Just cuz I felt like it. And in doing that I found out just how tedious it is to get levels once a unit gets to a certain point, just cuz while Normal Mode gives you the Retreat option that lets you keep exp so you can drop a unit down on a yellow spot and get a decent boost in exp… you can do that like, twice or thrice on a story chapter. Once if it’s auxiliary (and not the freebie one). And that’s if you even have internet. And using the greenhouse to get Ailiell Pomegranates was a pain because they weren’t really guaranteed even if I used nothing but the right seed - doing that is more consistent, but not always, and I usually only got one anyway. It was annoying! But I was also doing a specific thing that’s gonna heighten the flaws in the system that I never would have noticed - didn’t even notice - unless I did that. The flaws are still there, don’t get me wrong! The Monastery definitely still needs improvement, battles still need to be a little more streamlined for future playthrough, but the flaws can seem a bit bigger than they are once you do certain things outside of a casual playthrough, know what I mean?

But, for example, when replaying 3H on hard mode and looking to recruit everyone after my no recruitment run, I didn’t come across any dilemma over “recruitment or Byleth being good, pick one.” That was the run my Byleth was usable, in fact - my first blind run that was no recruitment (save for Shamir) had my Byleth be pretty much completely useless while literally everyone else was fine. Also never came across problems with supplies for cooking (or at least not any big enough to comment on). So like, while these (and the above stuff) can certainly be problems for players trying to do everything everything in 3H, at least from my experience I just haven’t come across them. The monastery itself definitely needed a better story implementation, but yeah. I could’ve just been lucky tho lmao

I don’t mind how they implemented trying to get on CF at all tho lol. If you’ve been playing the game like it suggests you do - supporting characters and exploring the monastery  there’s no reason for players to have missed getting on CF. If players wanted to ignore one of the biggest aspects of the game I don’t really feel that bad for them when they miss out on very achievable things. Plus, CF’s requirements are nothing in terms of FE’s madness when it comes to getting on a route. It may be more specific than any other route, but like I said, playing the game as the game tells you to would naturally land you in it (the only thing that might be a bit unfair is that I think if you talk with Edelgard at all that month you have to decide right then and there, and then the whole month is lost. Kinda ass). 

Binding Blade, for example, requires you to do specific things that few first time players would think to do in multiple, random chapters in order for you to get the best ending. With absolutely no warning as to when these chapters happen and what to do in them. And some of these requirements are not fun lmao, I’d prefer how they did it with CF than with how they’ve handled ~secret~ stuff before personally

Pretty much agree with everything else though! While 3H is actually one of my more favored games in the series, I’ll be the first to admit that its storytelling is in dire need of improvement. Having the story and lore of the game just be spat out in lore dumps and this or that NPC just isn’t that good. Or if they are going to do that, at the very least give some visuals to go along with it! Imagine how much impactful Rhea’s story would have been if it was in a visual format, like CGs and/or a cutscene. It still would be an info dump, but at least we can see for ourselves how horrific the Red Canyon was for her! And I do not want another avatar in whatever next mainline game we get, personality or not. We’ve evolved past the need for self-inserts that all the characters Just Like lmao

But thanks for sharing your thoughts!! And sorry that it took so long for me to get to answering ;w; 

[viostormcaller]

I have some complicated thoughts about this (especially because I have very limited knowledge on social systems) and I've only seen this argument around here maybe once or twice a year or so ago so idk how actually common of an argument it is but like...

Idk. It makes me kinda... uh, not uncomfy, but more concerned to see people actually stand by communism. Like... yeah karl marx made some good pointers about the dangers of capitalism (that actually came true and are actively coming true) but that doesn't mean communism is automatically a good system because of that. I know we'd rather have anything else that seems like even a LITTLE bit better than capitalism but that's not really the way to go either I don't think. And I'm not talking about people who like communism for the meme because there are plenty who are only memeing and don't actually think that's the way to go. I'm talking about those who genuinely believe that's how society should be, bc I know those people are out there.

From what I've learned (and correct me if I'm wrong because 11th grade was a few years ago), don't people no longer get to own property? And doesn't everyone get paid the exact same amount no matter your job? Like... some jobs already kinda do that and it's a form of being cheap so managers can take advantage of their employees and make them do more work for less pay. I just don't agree with that. The harder the job is/the more work you have to do, the more you should be paid (which is why teachers should be paid a fuck ton bc without them we'd be literally nowhere).

But also like... jobs should be EXTRA. They should be an extra thing people do, and it should not be mandatory to work to survive. Which is why a UBI is important. If everyone gets enough to live super comfortably without needing a job, people will need to work less, more people will move on to pursue the arts resulting in a massive creative boom, technology would be made to be efficient and last longer (bc no planned obsolescence) meaning less resources used... add sustainable, clean energy to the mix and we have a recipe for a real banger of a society.

There are so many people in the world who WILL do the hard jobs, who WANT to do that work bc they know it's necessary. Anything else that needs to get done? Automate it, because a loss of jobs won't be an issue since no one will need to work to live. And then people will need to design, create, oversee, maintain and upkeep the robots so it's not like there will never be a job available for someone who wants to work.

And like fuck, the people who don't wanna actually teach but only do it for the money can quit and people who are actually passionate about teaching can take over, making schools better environments and get kids more passionate and enthusiastic to learn, which in turn would create people who will go on to pursue their dream job. There's no profit incentive so schooling will be free and accessible to all. There wouldn't be an incentive to get the best scores to recieve the most funding so school cirriculums could be entirely revamped to adapt to children of all learning types, meaning neurodivergent kids will no longer fall through the cracks and be failed later on, and no more standardized testing and "teach to test" methods means we can teach kids about not only important things and proper history, but REALLY COOL THINGS like STEM classes! Because science is really an underrated class.

We'd literally live in a world where people only do things they're passionate about, those who can't/don't want to work won't ever have to, mental health will improve on a worldwide scale because everyone will have enough to sustain themselves, healthcare and medicine will be free and accessible worldwide, people will be able to escape abuse with a lot more ease because they have the resources to do so, the economy would boom and the arts will have priority and be coveted again, no one will be homeless and everyone will have food (and corporate greed and selfishness won't cause excess amounts of food to be wasted)...

like, what makes me the most sad about the world is that we have the power, resources, and ability to take this planet and all its inhabitants and turn it all into something truly, truly wonderful. We have so many opportunities that we could take that could benefit literally every human being on this earth. And yet the people in charge don't take it solely out of selfishness and greed when they're truly just blind because imposing these changes would benefit them, too.

I'll never understand it, but I hope I'm alive to see the day when we start making these changes. It's only a matter of time, considering I don't know anyone my age who isn't sick of every adult in charge. And sure, not every single problem in the world will be solved, but a good majority of them WILL, and from there we can focus on the issues that actually do still need work.

[holographic-bone-jester]

Hey, I’ve been looking for a some sort of dinosaur game with accurate representations of dinosaurs for a while now. I’m wondering if you have any suggestions? I like the idea of ARK but obviously it’s.. ark. I’d like something at least a little more scientific. Also, have you heard of the fossils and archaeology mod for minecraft?

I do have the fossil and archaeology mod actually ! I like it a lot but i dislike that you have the option to have oldschool dinosaurs instead, to me this shouldn’t even be an option in the first place.

I’ve actually worked, and am still working on revamping some of ARK’s designs, with the wild dream of making a mod someday, but that would probably never happen since i am piss awful at programming and none of my close friends who would like to work on such a project can program either.

From my experience most people i’ve played ARK with mostly play it in this kind of sad idea that “god this could have been so good”, and so do i.

ARK could have been a great game, had they hired a paleoartist for their creature designs, stuck with the “mostly prehistoric animals” theme instead of branching out into out of place fantasy creatures, and paid more attention to the game and gameplay elements rather than rushing everything to launch DLC after DLC.

The creature designs look boring and ugly, and those that don’t look as boring are just ripped off of something else. The sizes are completely messed up even when it comes to the scale of creatures between themselves. The dossiers look like absolute garbage and the writing has no consistency at times.

Hell everything in this game is ugly: The male model, the female character on the official art, the outfits, the building elements, the costumes, the atmosphere and colors, literally nothing looks good in this game (aside from the female model which can sometimes look more like a real woman than like 90% of video game female characters, although that’s not saying much). They literally had to steal make mods official so that the game could have maps that don’t look like absolute garbage !

[Here is a comparison between the lara croft ripoff we got on the cover art compared to the surprisingly normal looking female model ingame (she is customized here and is skinny by default, but she’s still got modeled abs and no makeup, and her armor is the exact same as the male counterpart rather than a gross sexualized version, which is already miles ahead of anything Blizzard’s ever made, and certainly far better than the cover art)]

The story is confusing and very hard to grasp due to even the important dossiers being so scattered about all over the map. If you were completely new to the game you’d surely think there is no story until you get into some random cave and find a boss. Not to mention most of the game’s story is behind a paywall due to the bulk of the lore being in DLCs.

The game is glitchy, poorly optimized, and literally unplayable sometimes (my boyfriend legit cannot play ARK currently, it gets stuck in a loop upon loading the game). This is a 60$ game ! And it’s more even unstable than a Bethesda title !

And the cool RP gameplay elements such as building, painting and breeding are barebones and often don’t work properly either. Not to mention all of the game’s gameplay elements are mostly aimed at PVP, and the devs clearly only ever care about the PVP, they have several creatures that are ONLY useful in PVP, not to mention the official servers are unbearable trollfest mayhem because of their focus on PVP gameplay over everything else. The game is also barely playable without cheats in singleplayer because of all the creatures being so op and often almost requiring several players to take down, not even counting the bosses.

My perfect dinosaur game would honestly be ARK but with actual care put into it and more focus on PVE and singleplayer gameplay.

IDK if that helped, i kind of went on a rant here, sorry :’^(

But don’t hesitate to tell be via PM if that didn’t help, i’ll try to help more

[teaandgames]

Revisited - Spyro Reignited Trilogy (2018 - 19)

It’s my fond hope that the Sypro Reignited Trilogy is part of a renaissance of 3D platform games. We had the excellent Hat in Time year before last, for example. Before that we had Yooka-Laylee which, while not brilliant, was still good enough to relight the spark in my heart for the genre. One which only really flared when Nintendo got involved. My love for Mario Odyssey is well documented, after all. It’s odd, because outside of Nintendo I can’t think of any recent big 3D names that are older than a few years. It’s a genre that’s been floundering in awkward controls, annoying cameras and Sonic the Hedgehog.

And yet, I never really played Spyro, beyond a long forgotten title on the Gameboy Advance. It belonged to the console crew and I came to that quite late (the Xbox 360 to be precise, if you don’t count an N64 emulator). As such, a lot of the platforming classics slipped me by. Which is why these revamped trilogies are fantastic for me. Hence, Spyro Reignited. I went into it not expecting much and was pleasantly surprised when I was greeted by a fun, if somewhat loose, platforming trilogy.

Spyro himself is a wisecracking purple dragon, who is a pair of sunglasses and a leather coat away from being a physical embodiment of the nineties. He’s been given a new coat of polish since his PlayStation days but keeps his simple, charming design. More protagonists should be bright purple. They’ve also brought back the original voice actor from the second and third games and had him re-record his lines. It’s a faithful redesign, through and through, which was refreshing to see.

All three games follow a similar plot structure. Everything is fine and dandy in the Dragon Kingdom until the enemy of the hour swans in and begins making trouble. In the first game (Spyro the Dragon), they freeze all the dragons in Crystal, in the second (Spyro 2: Ripto’s Revenge) they try and take over the world and in the third (Spyro: Year of the Dragon), they steal all the dragon eggs. You’d think they’d leave the world alone after the first time Spyro got involved. Still, these plots, albeit as thin as you might expect, serve as the stepping stones for some platforming action.

Honestly, given that this was a remake, I was expecting some slapdash, frustrating gameplay. Instead, I got buttery smooth platforming with an evolving array of skills. You start just being able to jump and breathe fire. By the end you can hover, slam, climb, swim, you name it. The sequels evolve a little less but this core complement of skills makes for some satisfying gameplay and is combined well with the collectathon element. Whether you’re collecting eggs, gems or what have you, it’s good fun just getting to them.

The camera is also surprisingly well behaved. While it did make the odd jump here and there difficult, they wisely put full control of it into the player’s hands and I didn’t run into any issues with it refusing to cooperate, except in one specific circumstance that we’ll touch on in a minute. The whole jumping and exploring part of Spyro is great, helped by the bright, beautiful graphics.  I can’t remember many doom and gloom moments, it was either bright greens or blues, or the bright red of lava. In fact, there were only a few moments that let it down.

The first being the boss fights. These are nearly always the achilles’ heel of platforming games, something we’ve seen time and time again. It’s a consequence of reducing this free, open platforming down a small arena then giving us one specific target to boot. As such, the free camera becomes a hindrance rather than a help as we try to dodge projectiles that we can’t see. Spyro is no exception, making its boss fights literal arenas and requiring us to dodge projectiles that predict where we’re going to be. It’s not that difficult, grant you, but it’s also not that fun.

It’s not helped by the archaic lives system, something that should have been left in the past. Some things are symptoms of when they come from, after all. As, I suspect, is Spyro’s odd level design. The original isn’t so bad. It’s split into hub worlds, with levels scattered throughout. Each level has an objective, along with other bits to collect. As the series goes on, these levels seem to get smaller. They end before they really get going. A shame really, as Spyro’s characters are pretty damn creative throughout. You may be talking to a robot one second, a Tiki statue the next.

In truth, Spyro Reignited Trilogy makes me feel a little sad. It’s almost the opposite of nostalgia - it’s a sadness for a lack of memories. I would have loved to play this back in the day. Even revamped for the modern era, it still made me feel like something of a kid again. It’s good simple gameplay; platforming with beautiful graphics and a deep well of creativity. If nothing else, it goes to show why Spyro was a well loved character. Sass and all.

Spyro isn’t the only old school platform character that’s gotten a revamp, mind you. Crash Bandicoot, another one that slipped me by, has also been revamped. I’ve also got a copy of that, so I’ll be interested to see if the level of polish has been maintained. Either way, I’m hoping that brushing the dust off these old platforming greats will help kickstart this genre a bit more. Platforming is a genre that I’m very fond of and, for a long time, the 3D circuit was dominated by a red Italian plumber. Hopefully, things are changin’ ‘round here. Pros -Pretty damn smooth platforming -Looks great -Lots of imagination running throughout -Three games in one, can’t sniff at that Cons -Maintains its lives system -Boss fights are a chore -Levels seem to shrink as the series progresses Spyro Reignited Trilogy Developers: Toys for Bob Publisher: Activision Release Date: November 13th 2018, September 3rd 2019 Play it on: Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Played on: Windows

Think of any 3D games that are worth mentioning? Let me know in the comments!

[isla-rosessong]

(My) Character/NPC Update Wishlist!

Hi all!

So Star Stable has been killing it lately with the NPC Updates with the Soul Riders, Andy, Ydris, Maya, and even some shop vendors! I love the new designs so, so, so, SOOOO much- as an artist myself they make me happy :) 

But these updates take time and there are still some citizens of Jorvik in need of one of these new makeovers. And as I ride around Jorvik I can’t help but think to myself when I come across these people “Man, I love you, buuuuttttt...... ..............................

.....

 .....I still love you though!!” XD 

Its because I love these characters that I’d love to see them updated in the near future! So as time goes on and we patiently wait for these character updates, I thought of who I would like to see get redesigned. I’m excited to see either these people or any of the characters get a new do when they happen! Please note these are my opinions (though I know almost everyone wants these characters updated XD ) and be respectful! Also there may be some possible spoilers ahead so keep that in mind if you are not too far in the game! :) 

Let me know what your dream NPC updates are too! I’d love to hear them!

Number 1: This Wonderful Family

I will protect this family. They are such a cute and sweet little bunch living on Paddock Island. They have the prettiest Shires and Clydesdales for sale and one of the best jumping races in my opinion. I would love to see them get an update! Especially because the the little girl kinda creeps me out a little... 

Her face is a little creepy to me....

Why won’t she blink?

That onsie and farm shoe combo is not working for me honey. 

I feel like with an update the Star Stable Team could make her look SOOO adorable!!! And I won’t feel creeped out everytime I talk to her. Did I mention she scares me a little yet? :D

Number 2: The Silverglade Romeo

AKA: Lance

I thought his quest was incredibly cute! I’d love to see a revamp on his design since the neckline of the shirt looks off and his design hasn’t aged well with the new look of the game. I would love to see this guy get an update just because that quest was adorable and he deserves it. 

Plus, I’ve always liked him because I think its cool that they have an NPC sitting on a barrel. Something different. Weird opinion? Why yes, thank you for noticing :)

Number 3: That Lovable Yet Really Bad Postman

Yeah.... the world’s worst postman has not aged well, especially when standing next to the newly updated Soul Riders. His shirt hangs weird on his body and movements are a little stiff which kind of looks off now when he is standing next to the Soul Riders or Evergray. 

As a character from the original Starshine legacy series, one of Anne’s friends, our friendly neighborhood postman, and just as one of the nicest but clumiest characters in SSO, I think the fans would love to see this guy get an update! 

Number 4: The Guy Who Loses Giant Boxes of Saddles.

Srsly Stein- you had one job with the saddles at the Open House. 

Anywho, Stein is that guy who works at Jorvik Stables under Herman. He’s diligent though he gets us to do his chores for him... 

I can’t help but think he would look really good with a makeover and smoother animations especially since his character design is pretty good to begin with. 

Number 5: The Moorland Heir 

Justin Moorland. The first person we meet in SSO and our in game tutorial. Not to mention part of our adventure on Jorvik. But tbh... when I first started playing as a noob I really did not like Justin’s design XD He grew on me and now I imagine Justin as one of Isla’s closest friends. 

Although is has been hinted at the Midsummer Festival that Justin may be getting a new look soon! 

So I feel like this resilient and horse loving dude could use a little makeover to be up to date with the game and story. We love you Justin!! :) 

Number 6: The Trash Bag. 

UGGGGGGGHHHHH. Mr. Kembell is so mean and evil! Sorry dude, but not even a flower crown will help! 

Despite my deep dislike of this guy, and how I think Isla would feel about this monster, I feel like a good antagonist needs a solid villainous appearance. 

Just think how cool the SSO team could make him look! They could REALLY make him evil looking like they have for Darko!

Although I will admit, his shape and some features of him do remind me of a Cog from the old Toontown Online game I used to play. So I get that whole heartless, money obsessed business man vibe from him now because of it. Am I the only one who sees this or Nah? Just me? XD  

Number 7: The Captain. 

This guy has been important to the Keepers of Aideen and in my opinion, just plain awesome. Seriously, I love a random character who you think is not going to be important, and then suddenly is! What can I say? It’s a lovely surprise, because I totally thought he was just some grumpy sea captain who just chilled out in Cape West to give me random side quests. 

But he has not aged well, especially next to the other Druids and such. I have faith that the SSO team would give him a wicked cool makeover! 

Number 8: The Horse. 

They updated Bjorn and Agathe’s horse so why not update the horse next to the Captain? Logic. 

Number 9: The Other Trash Bag

He also hasn’t aged well and doesn’t look as evil in my opinion anymore.  Which is a little sad to me :( 

I would love to see Mr. Sands get a new look in the near future with awesome animations and a new sinister look! 

Number 10: His ex wife!?! DUH DUH DUHHHHH!!!

I love the Baroness. She is so strong. So regal. So resilient. So poised. And has the coolest daughter (Anastasia Silverglade) 

I’d love to see what she would look like updated :)

Number 11: Mr. Fancy Pants. 

I loved this quest- it was hilarious and such a blast! I would love to see this guy get an update (and get an extra fancy outfit that maybe keeps his iconic monocle perhaps?)

The Debatable One:

The Iconic Break Dancing Old Man. 

This is debatable. We all love Jasper and want the best for him like a new look. 

Yet, we all think his break dancing is iconic. Plus that design of his is iconic. I guess I wouldn’t want him updated for a looonnnnggg time. 

I leave this one up to SSO.

And there you go! NPCs I hope get updated in the near future! Let me know which NPCs you want updated soon or dream updated people/places/things around Jorvik you’re hoping for! Is there anything specific for a character design you have in mind? I’d love to hear about it!

Thanks for reading and see you around Jorvik! 

[faces-and-morefaces]

Talking about the cartoon I used to watch and reasons why did I stop:

Winx Club

[Talking about RAI’s version]

[Seasons 1,2 and 3]

Ok, I’ll first tart of why did I loved  used to be a great cartoon and it had great background music. Music that could deeply describe situation character is in it. And one of my favorite background music (from seasons 1, 2 and 3) are:

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Sombre - I really really love this one, it’s beautiful yet sad! And it really described character’s saddness in scene. It also feels like it’s describing the situation that happened long time ago, that’s one of the reasons why I love it so much.

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Victory! - This is a great background music, like it quite alot!

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Charmix Theme 1 - Like it beacuse even if charmix was only accessories, it had that special feelings like it wasn’t only just accessories but good power ups as well!

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Daphne 1 (full) - Love this one quite alot like Sombre, It has such a soft and relaxing tone!

Ending song - Always loved the ending music!

Also Italian version sounds nice!

And the rest: 

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Bloom gets kidnapped

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Scary Tunes (compilation)

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Cloudtower Theme 1

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Hard Feelings

Winx Club 1-3 OST - Dance Party

Like I said above all this music described situation,place or a character/what character felt in certain moment in a great way.

Since this is going to be a long post, for people who are interested they will read more about it under this:

Also what I liked in Rai’s version of Winx is that there were different fairies that attended Alfea even the one’s that looked like they could be witches:

But I like that they were all different:

But they were all different as well, even the Winx they had their differences and they were unique as well:

Different personalities, but yet a great team!

Also we see some new fairies in season 3 that made appearance later in other seasons such as:

Clarice:

Alice:

Emma:

Cornelia:

Marzia:

Maybe there are more, but I’m not making full list of it, there is a list on wikipedia!

Also I think Rai version also had great expressions:

(This Stella’s expression was only for 1 sec, but it’s still funny one.)

I know almost all characters from Winx are skinny,but the inspiration for them were mostly fashions models so yeah...

But there is one thing that kind of bothered me before,but later it didn’t matter too much to me since it’s usually smaller details:

Like this guy:

Don’t you ever wonder what happened to him?

He was only shown like 1 or 2 episodes in season 1 and never again.

[Season 4]

or them:

I understood they were especially for season 4,but i thought Winx would keep them later in other seasons as well, since Roxy started going to Alfea as well.

[Seasons 1,2 and 3]

As for Pixies I really liked them alot in season 2 and 3.

I liked how Chatta and Amore had totally different personalities from Flora and Stella.

First time when I saw them I thought Amore would be perfect Pixie for Flora and Chatta for Stella.

But I understand why Flora was connected with Chatta since Flora is quite shy person.

What I didn’t like was this change [Season 5] :

I didn’t mind the outfists, but how they changed Techna and Musa’s Pixies and put the ones that were from spinoff series Pop Pixie, since in that spinoff they made Digit male. But what bothers me is the fact that Digit isn’t Techna’s bonded Pixie, even if she is male she could have stayed Techna’s bonded Pixie. I don’t know why they changed Musa’s bonded Pixie as well!

[Seasons 1,2 and 3]

I talked about the music in these seasons and the reason why I love them so much, and hearing them again is so nostalgic.

I really loved first 3 seasons of Winx

They did copy paste characters in some scene,but you could barely notice that, since that was actually quite rare.

I like charmix (Rai version) and Flora’s charmix was my favorite.

I love enchantix alot because it showed fairies personalities and abilities. I I really love design for enchantix:

It’s really a beautiful transformation!

[Season 4]

I liked season 4 but a little less than the first 3 seasons,but I can’t point out why is that.

Season 4 was actually quite refreshing since Winx finished school and had new mission in Gardenia and all, new background music wasn’t that bad, but there were less moments where music made atmosphere more exciting/sad/etc. 

But I do have my favorite music from this season and it’s:

Superheroes - Ending song

Sophix Theme - Beautiful theme

Lovix Theme - Really love this one!

But there were some moments such as Roxie’s first transformation/ when Wizards of the Black Circle captured Arthur (Roxy’s pet dog)

I like Believix transformation after Enchantix it’s refreshing and modern transformation and I always had a feeling it’s excursively made for the plot of season 4 since the one of the purpose of this transformation is to make humans believe in magic in general.

Also like the designs as well.

I didn’t like the idea of Nabu dying at all...He was a great character, but the decision to kill such a great character was kind of stupid idea for me. But eh, it happened long time ago,so yeah...

Also I don’t remember animation used to be this bad???

[Season 5] [The Start of Nickelodeon Era/Version]

I don’t know if season 4 was also part of Nickelodeon, that is when Nick took over Winx Club.

First when I saw images of Bloom in harmonix form I was sooo excited for fifth season of the series:

But when the season 5 started to air I didn’t started to watch it right away, but waited a little so I would have more episodes to watch and I think that’s the time when Winx started to air on Nickelodeon, I don’t know if season 4 was also part of Nickelodeon or not.

But that’s when Winx started falling apart in my opinion when I started to watch season 5.

I don’t even remembered if I finished watching season 5 at all, animation looked great, but I didn’t like the story.

I expected Roxy to become part of the team, she has great qualities to become one of the Winx, but since she’s actually younger than Winx and she attends Alfea in this season is understandable, Roxy was 16 years old in season 4, so in this season she should be 17, like Stella in season 1 when she attends school second time after what she did last year.

But it could have been awesome if Roxy was with them helping atleast in few episodes,atleast seeing her get harmonix would have been great!

As far as I remember Bloom had the most screen time and I’ve seen people talking about it alot past 5-6 years.

Techna and Musa had so little of screen time (excluding the group screen time). Also I think their personalities weren’t much shown in this season (excluding Aisha in this matter).

Aisha had decent (I think I’m not sure) screen time in this season, but I think that’s because of the fact that Tritannus was her cousin.

I understand that Bloom is leader of the group and all, but I don’t know I kinda feel that other Winx didn’t much cooperate since Bloom was always the one on the screen.

As I said above I really liked how harmonyx looked on Bloom, but seeing on all the Winx:

was kinda meh to me because they all looked similar if not almost the same in the dresses, the top of the dress sure is different, shoes are basically the same only recolored could have atleast a detail or some kind of a symbol on them.

Hairstyle was ok I guess? Flora’s bangs stayed while the others did change.

I feel Bloom,Stella and Flora are more well designed than Musa,Techna and Aisha here as well.

Also their wings look smaller compared to their dresses. Maybe it’s probably hair, I don’t know...

As for sirenix...

Again almost same outfits with little differences, which I don’t like. at. all. 

Recolored same wings are just no.

[Season 6]

I can’t talk much about this season, because I only watched few clips and maybe and episode or 2, because I REALLY REALLY didn’t like it at all and that’s when I stopped watching Winx.

[Season 7]

Can’t talk much about this season as well.

But I can tell you about what I think of transformation Butterflix:

What I’m actually glad about is the wings are not same, they are similar but not same and that’s good.

Dresses are cute and I like them even if they look similar. What got my eye is Bloom and Musa’s bottom part of the dress looks identical only different color.

Same recolored shoes!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My favorite is Flora’s design, and Techna’s looks nice as well.

The only thing I know about seasons 5,6,7 even 8 and what I find annoying is seeing Trix in these seasons... It’s basically Tom and Jerry every time they bring them back.

[Season 8]

I don’t know how much did they change story line is previous 2 seasons, but I did watch few clips of season 8 and I have something to say about this season.

First of all starting with new designs of all characters, or better said revamped for new season.

Looks:

They really didn’t have to go that far to change the characters tho...

What I really don’t like about these designs are eyes, they all have same doll like eyes and they look kind of creepy in promo images.

 I liked how Flora and Musa had different eyes and how all of them had different tan, as I said above they didn’t had to go that far really...

I did heard they were bringing enchantix back, but i shouldn't expect it to be the same. Knowing how they changed the male characters from this:

To this:

Which in my opinion they could have stand alone show/spinoff as teenagers (13-14 years), because they look like that.

They look really young knowing for a fact that they are supposed to be young adults by now. I don’t have anything else to say about them...

And few days ago I watched clip about Icy’s backstory:

So you’re saying to me that this is not connected???:

(This is from season 3 where Icy, Darcy and Stormy didn’t knew each other as kids - When one of them asked “You looked like that!?”)

Season 8′s Icy.

But yeah in season 3 she is a kid in that scene and here she was shown probably as teenager, since she does look older than Bloom and other fairies in original (Rai’s version of) series.

As for her hair if her hair, if she’s natural blonde how we see in season 8, then maybe she used to change her color as a kid sometimes,but if her natural was light blue like in season 3 then she probably just dyed her hair blonde with magic. 

And if there was Nick Special for season 3, I bet they wouldn’t include this scene with them as kids, like how they didn’t include Rai’s Charmix and put the title Charmix as the base fairy form. 

In my opinion this is plot hole they made this season. Why’s that? Because her backstory doesn’t explain how did she got in contact with the Ancestral Witches. How did she got in contact with Darcy and Stormy (maybe it will be expalined?? Who knows.) What is Darcy and Sormy’s backstories?

After she/they (the Trix) got in contact with them is explained why she/they started hating Bloom, I think...

I see that Icy kept a secret that she’s a royalty and that she had a sister. But there’s no way no one heard of Kingdom that was destroyed or took by a witch or it was never known about the princesses of that kingdom.Or what happened to that royal family of that certain Kingdom! Domino was known for it’s story! 

I’ll be back to transformations for season 8, what I forgot was a certain characters from the show:

Diaspro:

She never changes. I’m surprised that she’s even in season 8, waaay too annoying character. 

She used to be Sky’s fiancé, but that was long time ago and seeing her again is kinda ugh...She shouldn’t be too much important at all.

Overused character and her arc should have been done long time ago as well.

Selina:

Putting Selina as Bloom’s childhood friend was kinda weird, since we don’t see any backstory before Bloom started going to Alfea/met Stella nor any friends or classmates she used to have. Which is also kind of a plot hole in my opinion Because if they showed backstory (school she attended before Alfea) they would certainly show some friends she used to have as a kid. (They did show her ex- boyfriend in season 4, the guy that never made appearance in seasons 1-3, they showed her in class in Gardenia,but that’s only in comics and I don’t know if that’s canon o not, they did show her childhood in the movie but with Vanessa and Mike only.) Selina is nowhere to be seen as a kid so far till in season 6. That’s how their story goes I guess. 

Since she’s character from season 6 and I only watched few clips from season 6, they probably showed some backstory with her and Bloom.

She’s nowhere to be seen in season 7 and season 8 so far.

Chimera:

Seems Chimera was a character excursively for season 3, but she could have made 1 or 2 more appearance, since they are forcing Diaspro even in season 8.

She made appearance in Season 4 Winx Club Book, to take revenge on Stella, but as I said I don’t know if any of comics or books are canon to the original story.

Now back to those season 8 transformations:

Cosmix:

Since season 8 is space-themed, they could at least except all those glitters and shiny stuff on them really put some space like design on them.

Same wings, no comment.

I feel like they were going for space suit dress design for Cosmix and it could be seen here.

Enchantix:

Oh boy...

Left: Enchantix (Season 8) 

Right: Enchantix  (Season 3)

(Sorry for the bad quality of image,but here’s the link)

Original is still my favorite. Newer version is meh, I don’t like it. at all.

Sirenix

Winx Club - Sirenix Season 5 Vs Season 8 [COMPARISON]

Made their dresses more colorful, they probably wanted to make more sea/ocean themed.

Everything I said about sirenix above goes same for this one.

They sure look like kids...

Butterflix

Winx Club - Butterflix Season 7 VS Season 8 [COMPARISON]

There wasn’t much of a difference except makeup and heels mostly.

What got my eye when I was watching this was how their hands and feet have smaller proportion than the original as well. 

But doll like eyes are still there!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nick Specials:

I’m not gonna talk about them separately, there’s no need.

I’m just gonna say, it was unnecessary really.

They cut alot of scenes and other stuff from seasons 1 and 2, and they tried putting season 1 and 2 in 1 or 2 hours, i don’t know and I don’t care really because I know they were trying to make a connection between other seasons such as season 5 to 8, since there are alot of plot holes when Nick took over the cartoon/series.

They never showed Charmix as a separate transformation with power ups from season 2. Instead they named base fairy form Charmix...As far as I knew power ups were there for a reason in season 2,but nevermind I guess...

They changed Stella’s speech from:

“Stella, Fairy of  of the Sun and the Moon”

to:

“Stella,  Fairy of  of the Shining Sun “

Which I don’t blame them because we never actually saw Stella using any of the moon powers or any moon spells.

Comparasion of 1 scene fom Rai and Nick version:

When Bloom screams her speech (I know it sounds weird I didn’t know how to write it, you know what I mean.) 

Right: Rai    Left:Nick

As far as I know you need to open your mouth wide to be able to scream loud that’s for sure and you see here in Rai’s version she has an expression, she’s angry and that stays even when she screams whereas in Nick’s version she kind of looks angry but that only sticks around few minutes and then she looks expressionless (or not changing her face at all, I don’t know right word for that.)

I’m not planning to watch season 8 as well as season 6 and 7.

Since they changed story too much, and they have a lot plot holes they left, they probably/maybe fixed it with Nickelodeon english dub,but then again I highly doubt that.

I understand they changed art style probably because Winx as a cartoon right now is aimed for kids, where originally was aimed for teens and kids back then I think, but I could tell for sure that story is aimed for kids now when you compare season 1,2 and 3 to season 5,6,7 and 8.

I thought of including spin offs and movies into this post but it’s not relatable to the title of this post so I will do it separately and there are some stuff I left that are connected with series and the movies,but I will write it in the next post when I get to write about Winx movies.

[sineala]

What short series a la Bullet Points or Man out of Time would you recommend (as in, short and self-contained instead of long, interconnected-through-different-titles story-lines), specifically about Tony?

Ooh, this is a really good question! Thank you!

I have several recs for Tony-centric miniseries but unfortunately they’re pretty much all a little longer than either Bullet Points or Man Out of Time. They are definitely self-contained storylines, though, which is what you want.

Iron Age: Not to be confused with Iron Man: The Iron Age (which is a different miniseries), this is a five-issue miniseries from 2011. It’s a little uneven in that every issue contains multiple stories, all of which are written and drawn by different people, telling one continuous story. But it mostly works. It’s a time-travel story in which Tony is basically thrown back through his own past and has to revisit some of his weirdest and/or most painful times as a superhero. Features a lot of great superhero cameos, Tony naked and crying in the rain (always good times!), and also Tony accidentally hitting on his past self. I wouldn’t say it’s the definitive Tony miniseries but it’s a lot of fun.

Iron Man: Extremis: Okay, so this isn’t actually a miniseries, it’s the opening six-issue arc of Iron Man volume 4, but it can absolutely be enjoyed without reference to any other comics. It’s from 2005 and it’s a good introduction to more modern characterizations of Tony. It revamps and slightly updates his origin story, bringing it to Afghanistan where it has remained. It also introduces transhumanism as an element of Tony’s character, which is a character note that has become pretty important to him over the past decade. Also the art is beautiful. And it’s available in animated form, if you’d like to watch some comics!

Iron Man: Fatal Frontier: Released in 2013, Fatal Frontier is probably still my most recent favorite IM comic. It’s thirteen issues, by Ewing and Gillen, and it is just wacky and amazing in the best way. Tony befriends sad Communist robots on the moon, becomes sheriff of the moon, plays all the parts in his own heist movie, and defeats a villain with hurt/comfort fanfic. It’s great. If you’re going to read it, I would suggest reading it digitally if you can – it was designed and formatted as an “infinite comic” and it works really well that way.

Iron Man Noir: Since you mentioned Bullet Points, I’m just gonna toss in a rec for my favorite canon historical AU setting for Tony, and that’s Noir (2010), in which it’s 1939 and Tony is basically Indiana Jones and it’s a lot of pulp adventure fun. Four issues.

Iron Man: Legacy: Also from 2010, this is an eleven-issue series split into two arcs. The first arc, “War of the Iron Men,” puts Tony up against some of his most classic villains and also features a lot of flashbacks to Tony’s childhood, including Tony building himself a robot dog. The second arc, “Industrial Revolution,” is set during the second drinking arc, so that automatically gets it all the points from me, but it will probably still make sense if you haven’t read that arc. The guy who wrote this series is the same guy who wrote Marvel Adventures: Iron Man and it kind of feels like MA:IM but for adults – there are a lot of really great Tony character moments in it. (I would actually also rec MA:IM if you haven’t read it; it is for kids, but it’s lovely, and all its issues are standalone, and there are only thirteen of them.)

I know these are all pretty recent but honestly character-focused miniseries are a relatively recent thing at least when it comes to Tony – everything else I’d want to rec from earlier would be part of an ongoing series, like Demon in a Bottle or Doomquest or whatever.

If what you’re looking for is a modern retelling of Tony’s origin story the way that Man Out of Time was for Steve, I think you’ll probably be happiest if you read Extremis, which handles it briefly in flashbacks. There is a modern graphic novel retelling Tony’s origin story, Iron Man: Season One, but I can’t really recommend it unless you find it somewhere for super-cheap. If you find it for super-cheap, I would buy it, because it’s fully-painted and the art is absolutely stunning, but the actual story is basically a mess that attempts to combine Tony’s alcoholism – not canonically a major problem for him yet at this time – with his origin story and it’s just… it’s just not a thing that works for me. There’s him building the suit drunk, him fighting drunk, him getting drunk and bemoaning the fact that no one will have sex with him again now that he has the chestplate. You get the idea. But your mileage may vary.

I hope that gives you somewhere to start!

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The Bold Type 3x09 “Final Push” and 3x10 (Finale) “Breaking Through the Noise” Review 

Before I say anything — they put “Wasabi” by Little Mix on the soundtrack for the finale. Please, everyone, do yourself a favor and start listening to Little Mix. That is all. 

Welcome to the last two episodes of The Bold Type Season 3! I’ll confess that due to traveling, work, and being in a wedding I’m getting this out late, so I figured I’d do a joint review. It wasn’t that difficult to manage, honestly: with these two episodes being the penultimate and the finale, they certainly have the same themes and conflicts driving them. Let’s start with 3x09, “Final Push.” 

At face value, the title could be interpreted as a “final push” for the season, but the episode also sees our core three each have a “final push” of their own, the cumulation of a season of storytelling. 

Kat’s “push” is both the end of the election and the mounting pressure to decide between Adena and Tia. Pressure is certainly mounting for her campaign, and she’s just starting to realize what this means for her time at Scarlet — sure, she has big plans if she’s elected, but gaining a council seat would mean not working at Scarlet anymore. Patrick certainly isn’t helping by forwarding her options for her replacement, and seeing Adena didn’t make her choice between her and Tia any less complicated. 

Much like Kat, Jane is being “pushed” both professionally and personally — she’s struggling at a time when she should be thriving. Pinstripe is still on his book tour, getting on her nerves every time he gives an interview where he puts on the playboy act, not unlike the main character in his book. Her Pamela Dolan story with Jacqueline has the potential to be a career defining, groundbreaking piece, but she’s dealt a huge blow when Jacqueline is forced to give the story over to Patrick at the dotcom. Apparently Pamela Dolan, as soon as she was informed of the Scarlet story, decided to launch her own version at another magazine. If they had any hope left of publishing first, they couldn’t wait for the fall issue. The only way to publish would be on the dotcom, still making a splash but handing Patrick most of the influence.

Next is Sutton, who is…putting on a fashion show? I guess that would be considered a push, since apparently an influential designer will be there and this could be the start of a potentially successful career for her. 

I want to be able to write more about Sutton — she’s doing well, she’s happy, but her story lacks oomf. She’s not getting the complex storylines that Jane and Kat are. Sure, her and Richard have had the occasional conflict or misunderstanding, but that and her foray into a design seminar (which we’ve barely seen) are the only things they’ve given the incredibly gifted Meghann Fahy to work with. They did give her a moment with Carly after she opened up to Sutton about how insecure she feels when compared to the models at Scarlet and the girls on instagram, but it fell flat. 

Her side story with Carly this episode did little to improve Sutton’s lack of depth; it seemed like an afterthought when the show suddenly remembered they needed to give Sutton some kind of inspiration for her designs. It is pretty on-brand for The Bold Type to touch upon body image, but it came on too quickly and from a character that doesn’t have a lot of influence (sorry, Carly, you’re still adorable). Sutton is supposedly not good with children and hardly even knows Carly, but she manages to get her to open up about her insecurities and gives her a touching speech nonetheless. To say this seems forced would be an understatement. 

The very end of the episode is perhaps the final “push” for everyone — in the closing minutes we find out that Richard got a job offer in San Francisco, Ryan returns to tell Jane he kissed someone else, and Kat loses the election. Seriously — if you shut off the episode one second before the ending you would have missed it. 

Alyssa’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝.5

That leaves the finale to pull everything together, to help our core three “break through the noise.” (See what I did there?) The problem is, while this was a good episode, no one actually broke through any of the noise that the previous episode created. It certainly created more noise by the end, leaving everyone on a massive, show-changing cliff hanger. 

A prime example of this was Sutton’s sudden change of heart — the fashion show she put on was nice, and everyone looked great. The message was there, and despite the quick decision of adding Carly to the mix, it was still really touching to see Carly being able to watch everyday women in the fashion show. 

Sidebar one — I’ve never liked when people say “REAL women should be in fashion shows, not models.” I get what they’re saying, I really do, but REAL women come in all shapes and sizes, including skinny. Please don’t take that to mean that skinny women face the same hardships that other women face, because they don’t, but I think we need to remember that there are people who are naturally skinny. I like the term “everyday” women much better, since that implies that fashion models don’t represent women that aren’t, well, fashion models. Anyway, moving on. 

I will say (sorry, Sutton), the fashion was not good. I really hoped that they’d spend a little more time developing Sutton’s style; it would be a lot more convincing to see her as passionate if her work had a little more pizazz to it. Instead it ended up looking like the outfits of a 1970’s American Girl Doll (again, sorry Sutton). 

Sidebar two — can The Bold Type make it so I don’t have to apologize to Sutton all the time? It’s exhausting. Work on that, please. 

All of this, only for Sutton to realize she didn’t want to be a designer. Now, that I’m fine with — but leaving that for the finale was pretty lackluster, the result being a bit of a wasted season if Sutton was going to end up right where she began, kind of like Jon Snow back at the Wall (don’t @ me).  If they wanted Sutton to explore design and in doing so discover it wasn’t for her, that’s fine, but keeping that to a half season arc would have been much better. 

The build up for Jacqueline and Jane’s Pamela Dolan story also resulted in a bit of a let down — giving the story to the dotcom certainly made sense for the story, but not for the show. After a season of buildup, which I was pretty excited about, the story was published pretty unceremoniously. Jane’s dealing with Pinstripe was also a bit of a bore. I’ve maintained that I think that Jane and Pinstripe are good together, but we only see that when they’re amicable. When they’re fighting there isn’t any romantic angst, and if Pinstripe were to take off I don’t think he’d be missed. Compare that with Adena, whose presence was definitely missed after her breakup with Kat. 

My point is, just because I supported Jane choosing Pinstripe over Dr. Ben (ugh, remember that guy?) doesn’t mean the show has done the job of convincing me that Jane and Pinstripe are or should be endgame. Jane ends up going back with him, adamant that he has zero chances left, and they end in a really sad place. They admit they love each other, but I didn’t read that as a victory. It sort of read like an unfortunate fact — I love you, so I guess I have to give you another chance. Maybe Katie Stevens did too good of a job acting devastated. 

Everything sort of builds up, only to end in a disappointing drop off. For Kat, we see her deal with the loss of the election (bravo, Aisha Dee). I will say that I expected the loss — it would be a little too idealistic to give Kat a win, in my opinion, but the real reason for my expectation of loss was The Bold Type’s tendency to push characters out of their comfort zone only to pull them back again. It seems, much like Jane’s Incite and freelance storyline in Season 2, that no one can really be gone from Scarlet for too long. Much like her election story, Kat is hanging in limbo with Adena and Tia after deciding that she isn’t choosing anyone for now, and is instead going to focus on herself. This on its own isn’t disappointing, but combined with everything else that’s falling short, it contributes to the dragging down of the episode. 

Now, for the comfort zone point I made earlier — it seems like that is where this bummer of an episode is coming from. If Kat won, she’d have to quit Scarlet. If Sutton wanted to continue designing, she’d probably have to make some moves and go to fashion school and/or seriously cut back her time at Scarlet. If the Pamela Dolan story had more punch, maybe it would have catapulted Jane’s career and send her to bigger and better things outside of Scarlet. 

Despite The Bold Type being a great show, accuracy has never been a strong point. I don’t think anyone whose worked at a magazine or in journalism in general can look at this show and think “oh yeah, it’s just like that.” Keeping Scarlet at the center isn’t the mistake, it’s how they maintain it. We’ve seen all three of the girls take giant steps forward only to fall back on Scarlet, and it’s happened so many times that it’s a let down. It’s certainly possible to keep Scarlet around and let these characters grow, but it seems like The Bold Type hasn’t found that method quite yet. However, that giant cliffhanger might foreshadow some branching out at least — Scarlet is done, presumably shut down, and it’s not clear to me how they’ll manage to get it back. 

Of course, most of that has to do with how little we know about the situation — was it the Pamela Dolan story? It doesn’t make much sense to shut down a whole publication over a very popular article. Was it Jacqueline revamping the fall issue to be all inclusive? It would have been easier for them to fire Jacqueline in that case, and they DID just hire Adena has the in house photographer the night before, so clearly HR knew nothing. If either of those are the reason the magazine is shut down, it could easily be turned into a “Scarlet is a martyr for inclusivity and inconvenient journalism” story. 

Even if it’s (and it is, most likely) temporary, I think The Bold Type needs to make the world of Scarlet a little more harsh in order to make it more realistic, and not use the magazine as a crutch that the girls all lean back on. As soon as that happens, they could have their best season yet. 

Alyssa’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝.5

The Bold Type has been renewed for a Season 4, premiere date TBD, with Wendy Straker Hauser replacing Amanda Lasher as showrunner. 

[bkanvas-fairy]

Could you tell us a little about your characters?

Y E S !

but due to me having at least over a thousand characters I’ll just give a quick summary of the 25 I manage to dig up over 3 sketchbooks.

Y’all can pick and choose which of them interest yall or who you wanna hear more about!

Also because I’m extra, I made sketch icons for the 25 characters, info under the cut

I’ll talk a bit more about my actual Original Characters first, starting with

Aiko! Otherwise known as Echo

- A marked individual in a steampunk world that gets mixed with magic, because I like both of those things

- Echo runs an underground lab that does helps the underground world with replacing body parts, illegal surgeries etc etc

- Even though she marked, which puts a bounty on her head already, she is well respected by the community for not cheating for your money, stealing your cash, or shanking/killing you mid-surgery

- however, Echo does long for adventure and sometimes do get bored in the lab

oh yeah,, Echo like stealing eyeballs, so if you’re low on cash and wouldn’t mind losing an eye, you know who to call!!

Bonus:

Here’s Echo’s boring, undeveloped sidekick!! I don’t like her and I don’t know how to make her better. Yes, she doesn’t have a name.

here’s my god playboy that left “heaven” due to having an early mid-life crisis, I call him God boi cause;

- He goes by many names! 

tbh, he’s probably the closest character I have to being genderfluid/-neutral? I’m not sure,,

- The god has many powers, from lightning to shapeshifting

- The shapeshifting part allows him to change every part of himself, allowing him to change depending on his situation.

- God boyo, or originally Aristide, is obsessed with the idea of perfection. A god should be perfect, if a god is out of line, he is no god. 

- Same goes for him, which means whenever something is wrong with him, it affects him, extremely

However, leaving the land of gods to live among humans aren’t all perks

- Aris isn’t immune to diseases or injuries. In fact, he actually fell down and died on impact when he came to earth, being reborn into another child immediately.

- He doesn’t gain his memories back automatically tho!! He has to have a major shock to the brain in order for him to remember his previous lives

- Sometimes the shock isn’t enough either, when you have a thousand over lives, you won’t remember every single one of them. So forgotten lovers coming back to haunt because your brain hates you? That’s everyday for him!

i just,, i like playing with the concepts of god,,

Up next we got Ayeka Himura! A japanese student going to a neighborhood, but still a pretty good, school living close to poverty due to her father’s constant spending habits and obsession with art supplies. With the household lacking a mother due to wacky shenanigans, Ayeka takes care of her two younger siblings and the house, all while maintaining a very well-paid job and slowly loosing interest in actually studying for a good, honest job.

also she likes birds!!

Yes her design is heavily “based” off Toga but I love her current design too much to change it, h e l p

So like,, I suck at chinese and I made ocs that exclusively spoke in chinese to help with that but I’m still stuck at 40~marks

I forgot his scar but remembered his earring i hate myself

my og chinese kiddo! he was was first to come and I love his design ever since

he radiates fuck you energy except the girl below. He’s neighbors with her and they acknowledge each other existence ever since. he has a dumb cliche crush on her and is a bit protective of her because nothing says having issues than latching onto someone that makes you happy

Only this girl got named!! even tho she was the second character.

Li Shen, yes she doesnt have a surname, is apparently main ho now, according to my old oc chart of my “main” ocs

She’s the group’s resident sweetheart and really does not want you to do stupid shit, stop doing stupid shit. She tutors my son up there ^^ even though he’s actually smart and just refuses to do his work properly. But she still deeply cares for him.

As well as the girl below shdifhd

the last girl of the ching chong trio and the reason I had to switch up my son’s design is this girly over here! Her design was too business-y and formal so I enrolled all of them into college. A rich girl who doesn’t know how to deal with her g a y thoughts. Tried sending Li Shen some flowers once. She didn’t realize attaching her name would be a good idea and son got a good laugh.

i like paranormal stuff so they apparently look into that shit in their spare time. They’re all actually really fun characters to do prompts with I swear!! send some in and I’ll write them

I had a previous concept for son and Li Shen before last girl came and if yall want me to talk about it,,, i found my sketchbook with the old ideas,,

NEXT UP IS MY OLD GIRL ELORA!!

Elora herself used to be a fan character but I pulled her out and wow\

cant fucking believe she used to be straight for Vylad

shes the outgoing, fun adventure type! bit of mommy issues here and there tho,, I don’t want to say too much since I have an entire for her +

her now upgraded bro, Vincent

i really like the name vincent,,

also now he has mommy issues

Ead, the knight who used to have armor

I hate drawing armor 

he also have issues

AND IRIS MY SWEET GIRL IM SO SORRY

she doesnt have that much issues tho

basically I made elora and her bro have mommy issues, I’m sorry in advance if that spoils anything

I, sometimes, post about these 4 over on @eloradiesismydocsname​ and its a gay ol’ time

not that gay tho because uhh,, medieval times,, but I need prompts for a modern au of them and I am happy to talk about their personalities and even go semi in-depth for any of them!!

here we have ghoster.png,, which is her file name cause I didn’t name her,,

A horror enthusiast + film student that goes to a supposedly haunted shack to film her upcoming project with the boys. wacky shenanigans occur and the boys left leaving ghoster here to starve and eventually fall to her death. But because it’s my oc i get to bring her back from the dead, now hungry as ever and will fucking eat you, its not a kink thing, shes just that hungry and angry

tax fraud.png

a robo girl that i created during social studies cause they were talking about taxes and i just went, “what if,, a robo runs on taxes,,, and like,, she haunts you down for not paying your taxes,,” thus she was born! I don’t know what to name her but she is set in the future so-

Time to go future-apocalypse style because I love that setting too and was upset that I didn’t have any ocs in that style. So I created Alex A. ! A cybrog filled with memories of the previous generations as a sad attempt to preserve human life.

He’s accompanied by his sister/cousin idr i didn’t draw an icon for her, didnt like her design. they go on a hunt for food and to return with nothing. She gets to meet this other dude who has a plant arm im pretty sure i based him off someone’s elses oc but i cant remember. The 3 are forgotten. Kinda want to bring them back tho.

Neon! A character set in the future utopia of lazy people, where gamers rise up. its the best I can describe her story without getting too deep. She the new hacker on the block, joining the underground gang of elite hackers. She’s another one of those wacky characters that just has fun. I mean, when you know your way around codes and the world you live in is full of it, would you not take advantage of that?

as for fan characters,, uhh,, i have em

STARTING WITH MY WIFE!

Alexzandra Zara oh my god i forgot to draw her necklace and shirt

anyways,, Alexzandra is one of the more older ocs I have that didnt get a big revamp. Only an au I develop to the point I forgot the actual shows and the original cast are a little different from the source haha what? She’s the emotionally unstable german war veteran, yes the wife thing isn’t mutual, and haha shes only 27~. I cling onto her so much?? She’s hits a lot of “edgy” points but I still love her cause idk,, the story I made for her is something I hold dear cause Alexzandra was one of my first ACTUALLY DEVELOPED CHARACTER. Is it wrong to say I hold her really close to my heart? Is that weird? probably a little cringy sorry haha. I probably project a little into her which might have strengthened my love for her ack. Her story delves more into the depression very unstable needs to talk to someone side and i get scared talking about my wife’s story online so uhh, idk ask me specific questions about her, I’ll be more inclined to talk.

Dr Watts! The spoiled ass dick that stole dst Wilson’s house and yes this is a dst oc, yes im slightly sorry.

He’s just fun?? almost ran a blog with him and a friend’s oc. He’s your typical uptight old science gramps that took advantage of the fact that no one knows his real name that he calls himself a doc. He’s not. I put everything about him up to a 9-10? He’s one of those wacky characters and I love him for it! His story is really wonky tho so might need help solidifying that part 

and from the angry old man to my sweet man that will adopt you even if you’re noisy or call him ginger. Pilot here is a TF2 OC I made to interact with other tf2 OCs cause some of them are fun and i wanna join in :((

He’s the Canadian stereotype, and yes, he adopted scout, that was one of my character notes. 

Like the actual cast of tf2, there’s barely any real story to him. I only gave him a vague I don’t know my past but hey, i fly really really well. He participated in war unlike certain men but he’s still really nice and will only kill you if you hurt his family. Which he doesn’t know so he just considers the cast his family. He keeps mentioning a wife though, pretty sure he doesn’t have one but you do what makes you happy son.

Ai! an oc I HEAVILY revamped oh my god i hate her old vers. So if yall remember my random shouting of missing my og son, Aru. Here’s his bff. cause he barely has any actual friends that give a shit. And I just cant have that. but here’s your yandere revamped into a last minute addition. I actually feel like I did Ai a lot of justice. I don’t want to delve too deep cause I will start making charts. I’ll do that in a separate post if yall are keen

Isamu Aena! a mp100 oc I made by accident cause idk,, I was thinking about lolita fashion and all of a sudden, the actual oc I was going to make turned into a mob psycho oc. She’s one of my few ocs where her sexuality matters (she’s gay yeah) cause it plays a role in her storyline. She went from being “manipulated”/used to Mob’s wingwomen. She spots out things that can help him in the romantic department cause she’s into romance. A student of the school Mob infiltrated and a fantastic tailor, not to mention a pretty decent pyschic. wait where do models get their lolita stuff from,,

im gonna ignore that and move onto Lillian Yi! Who, i swear i did not meant for it, is very close to lloyd. I mean,, none of the ninjas were with him after s3, who you think he’d meet. Lillian is a survivor from the Great Devourour and yes I’m still pissed LEGO stole my backstory for Lillian to use for Harumi. FUCK YOU LEGO, i still love both of em tho,, The event did leave a big scar and it made Lillian job jumping for a bit, ending at Chen’s Noodles in S6~, where ya know,, stuff got better. She was a medalist for gymnastics and continue the activity, even after her parents’ death, to please others. She was already lost at the time so staying in the sport would help, right? Needless to say, after being rejected at a cop academy for youths, or something similar, she gave up for a while but got back into the idea of saving people by using her skills she already had. It helped with the weight and feelings and meeting the green ninja was a very big bonus. Also Lloyd dubbed her the “mysterious stranger” when she refused to speak in fear of her identity, slight shame, and maybe a bit of being star struck. It helped Lloyd too in a sense where he had something to distract him from Zane’s passing.

 Their relationship was eventually formed, strong and almost unbreakable, except for harumi but uhh thats a different story. Throughout the seasons, they stayed close and lloyd was always comforted by Lillian went times get ruff.

Also Lillian is my most light-hearted characters and I think that says a lot

Then there’s Nite “I don’t want to be your dad”. A character that is supposed to be in the ninjago world but barely interacts with the main story and only stays in his self contained plot. He was supposed to get a bf but uhhh idk. He’s the master of shifting and streams that online, taking out small crimes, and is actually really shy and doesn’t like interacting with people.

also haha fortnite

Nora Akino, the sin of despair! its an ad thing, I think. She speaks only in a foreign language that only Odin understands and is either big gay for Ava or Maggi, she can’t pick. And yes she did drink the vial, when TITAN attacks your planet and you accidentally die, how else can you meet your family again? also my grandpa walked in and said she looks like royalty. cool-

she wouldn’t leave my hand for like,, 3 days or something

Petri, a fellow troublemaker at camp campbell’s music camp. She managed to pick the camp because apparently a parent who doesn’t acknowledge your hard work don’t read the fine print! Please let David adopt her,,

LASTLY! Yukimaru Atsuko, hero name; Gummie. She goes by Yuki and is a big dick. She’s a studious student but gets more thrills on the actual battlefield. Living with her uptight grandma and her big bottom energy bro, she has the dom energy thing going. and apparently folks on G+, or the people who comment about her, thinks she’s really pretty, which was oddly a thing back before UA. She’s the dick you can like, not like Bakugou but she will definitely want to fight Bakugou. 

A gum-related quirk is not full of perks when its only your hands. I’d dive more into her like her insecurities and stuff but I’ve been here for probably 3hrs. Sorry anon.

Also I’m so sorry to anyone who reads this all the way through.

[xenetala]

The Pirate Mermaid Demo Review

I’d rather wait for the full game to do a review, but I have been waiting for several years for this game to come out and I’d like to generate some excitement around it to try garnering some support for the creators.

*Please note: All credit for the images goes to the Navigame team and their beautiful minds.

**Double note: This contains game play spoilers, but I tried to keep actual story content as spoiler free as humanly possible while still giving a review on the game.

That being said, The Pirate Mermaid is a game in development by @navigame-media and has come quite a ways from the original demo.  I still have the first demo on my computer and love seeing how the art style had progressed as well as the character designs.

To show you what I mean, here is the original opening still:

The above is the original game start screen and below is the revamped one.  You can probably see why I’m excited to see where this game will go. :D  I love when you can see how something progresses through time. 

The newer version is much cleaner and I love some of the character changes. P.S. that Shadow figure you see I’m hoping will be Mimi, but I’ll get to that in a moment. :D

GAME PLAY

The game follows like just about any Renpy Otome game does where it’s a choose your own adventure story setting.  The menus are pretty easy to follow and the skip function is a total life saver for replaying parts.  The basic concept for playing the game is to read through the story and make choices at varying points to control the outcome of the tale.

I left the menu for the game controls up on this (mostly because I like being able to see them) and you can see how there are several options for you during the game play itself.  Many of your choices in this game not only dictate the route you can chose to get the date-able characters, but they also affect the Main Character (MC or the girl you play as) development.

This is one aspect I enjoy very much about this game.  You can customize a few aspects of the MC.  As you can see below, you have the ability to name her (not uncommon, but always a plus) as well as choose the color of your pirate’s mermaid fins.  I was a little sad I couldn’t choose just a straight black tail (black is one of my favorite colors) or a few other colors, but at lease I can coordinate with my mer-outfit (which as we know is just as important).

Being able to customize the MC is something that I really love in this game, but there’s another tidbit that’s just as fun.  You have karma ratings!  As a huge fan of games like Infamous and Fable, I love stuff where you can choose to be good or evil (okay so I just like the option of being an evil person XD) and I’m so excited to see how this plays out in the full story.

The karma rating also adds a fun extra bit to the choices you make.  So, you can choose to romance one of the characters and you can create your own agenda.  I LOVE it. 

You can access your Karma rating at anytime by clicking on the heart icon in the menu options.  This also shows you your affection levels with the romance options (more on these in a bit).  For the demo, after you’ve completed it once you’ll get hits to view which choices will boost which karma type.  This is super helpful for those of us that want to complete EVERY achievement in the game and I’m hoping the full game will have this option open up after a full play through.

That’s really the gist of the game play.  It’s a pretty basic Otome style game and that’s fine. After all, who are we kidding?  We only play Otome games for the cute boys and girls you can dream date. :P

CHARACTERS

This is the best part of any Otome game; the who can I date choices. lol Right now there’s three male options open for dating and I’m hoping they’ll come out with a fourth and maybe fifth (though I know the more date options the more work so if there’s only three I’m still happy).

I’ll start this by introducing the MC a bit.

You play as a pirate girl who is searching for the mermaid’s treasure and are a pretty typical fantasy pirate, but not a typical Otome MC.  For those of you (like me) who detest most of the Otome MCs out there (Voltage Inc this is directed at you!); this one rocks.  For once we have a girl with sass and can hold her own.  She doesn’t need to have this unexpected menagerie of male companions to jump in and save her, she isn’t a super clutz all the time, she isn’t scared of her own shadow, and she isn’t some super dense naive damsel (yes I have issues with MCs).  lol You have no idea how ecstatic I am to play a game with a character that doesn’t make me want to rip my hair out.  Thank you Navigame team!

Next up is your companion pet.

Those of us who are Disney girls, you’ll love this.  What main girl is complete without her trusty animal sidekick?  I don’t really know why, but I love the fact that the MC has a funny pet that goes everywhere with her.  Mostly Jack is your trouble making comic relief, but he does have some moments of extreme usefulness.  Of course like any pirate, this bird is obsessed with shiny objects.

Here is date option number one.

This guy is the sorcerer that turns you into a mermaid. He’s a pretty typical Tsundere type and my second favorite of the boys. He’s got silver hair, magic, and is a bit of a stuck up grump like any good Tsun so he’s alright.  I have yet to learn his name (I’m just going to assume it’s Jack and he never tells you because it’s the name of your parrot), but he’s got a monocle so you can’t go too wrong with him.  I also want his coat.  It’s my favorite part of his character design for sure.

This is romance option number two.

This is the mer-prince Mikali and he’s true to his title. Long blond hair, charming, good manners, super nice, chivalrous, and an all around good guy.  This makes him my absolute least favorite option (I don’t like the sweet, innocent, or good guys).  That being said, as you play through the demo you find he’s got some mysterious power or something about him so there may be potential here yet.  Plus, he does have a pretty character design and I’m curious to see if there’s any correlation to the fact that he wears a necklace similar to the the one MC in mermaid form has.  Personal bias against nice guy options aside, who couldn’t love that luxurious blonde hair of his?  Long haired men for the win. 

The next character in the demo is a cute little maid.

This is Mimi.  She’s not a romance option in the demo (yet, but I’m hoping she becomes one), but you can gain her favor by choosing the right options and she is too adorable not to have some strong pirate take care of her (I know I have double standards here, but sweet and cute non MCs are perfect for the MC to romance).  Though, she does have some spirit once she’s over her shyness so I’d really like to see her character flesh out more.  I’m also hoping that if she’s a romance option, she’s a bonus one you can only get after completing the main story or something (only because I’m a sucker for bonus stuff like that).

And, the best for last.

This amazingly hot set of mer-pixels is Malik (yeah all of the merpeople so far have names starting with ‘M’) and is the entire reason I want this game so badly!  For those of you who know me and know the routes I like, you’ll know what that means. :D  He’s a complete ass and I love it!  You can just never go wrong with a hot headed, in your face, pushy, jerk.  You just can’t. Even since his original character design, this guy has been my ultimate goal for this game and I’m glad he’s in this demo.  Oh.  Did I mention they gave him the best voice in the game?

That’s it for the characters in the demo.  The fact that you have a merman like Malik to romance should be enough for you to go download the demo and take the survey at the end, but I guess if you still need convincing then read on.

STORY

(Yes I know this is vague and doesn’t lay out story points, but I do not want to spoil things even if all we have is a little bit of the story.)

Okay so this is demo and we only get a little slice of the story, but what’s important here is just how engaging that slice of story is.  Not only did I want to see the game play through once, but even with the replays I didn’t use the skip option as much as I normally do (usually skip is my life).  This game spins a tale that really makes you want to read it.

Yeah it’s a pirate and mermaids which let’s face it isn’t that unheard of and it’s like a spin on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, but it follows a much more in depth feel.  Between the different romance options alone, you have a complexity that only a choose your own adventure story can give you.  Add to that the karma options and you have the makings of a good tale.  The Little Mermaid is a rather dark tale of unrequited love and though you might be able to go this route in the game, it looks like you could shape up to be an evil queen. :D

As the MC you have a pretty well laid out backstory that you learn early on in the game.  I know treasure obsessed pirate seems really typical, but I like the backstory behind that obsession (I’m also hoping it explains her mermaid form necklace later on) and I like how the game uses that backstory to create a three dimensional character for us to play.

Though the story is really good thus far, I’m really curious to see all of the character’s progression.  The merpeople seem to have a pretty good correlation with each other from their childhood, but I have to know that story.  I am also hoping to see a few more characters pop in.  Not necessarily anything super fleshed out, but it’d be nice to see a guard captain, another maid or two, and a princess or two pop in on a consistent basis.  For one thing, what good romance doesn’t have a good love triangle? ;)

I figure the prince route will have some princess that ends up being your rival, but with the Sorcerer and Malik I don’t see any clear options for some romantic drama.  Not that I’d complain if there was a pretty straight forward conquer/save the kingdom story route instead of a typical romance route (Truthfully I’m not fond of romantic rivals), but considering the fan base for a game like this I’d expect some kind of tension.

Another thing I’d like to see in the story is more with the island that the Sorcerer is living on.  Having Mimi as a possible romance option is great, but I’d also like to see another ‘land path’ option as well.  Maybe a native on the island or some mermaid palace guard who catches you going to the surface one too many times.

That being said, the creators may have stuff like this planned and I have no idea about it because this is just a slice of the story, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to throw my two cents in.

Voices

Having a voice cast in a game always scares me a bit.  Mostly because of all extremely, detestfully, abhorrent, terrible, awful, voice acting choices (The voice actors do their best, but are all too often given the wrong role for their voice) from too many anime companies that end up making their way into games (VIZ, and FUNIMATION I am talking about your battle to see who makes the worst dubs!) I’ve become nervous anytime a game announces a voice cast.  But.  This game did a great job.  I haven’t listened to the Japanese cast, but the English cast is really well matched for the characters.  I was very happily impressed (Okay so I really only cared about Malik’s voice, but that’s not the point here!).

If you still aren’t convinced that you need to go download the demo and take the survey at the end, then perhaps I can tempt you with these few other tidbits in the game.

Chibis

Chibi characters are not something I’m a fan of.  I know in the anime world they are a part of life, but I really fail to see their appeal. :(  Yeah these scenes are kinda cute and at least a little amusing, but they really don’t need to be in chibi form. I get the company appeal to these things since they make easy pop figures (I can’t stand pop figures...), key chains, charms, and other small marketable items for fans, but I still don’t care for ‘em.  I know there are people that adore chibis so if they are your thing, you can rest assured this game will make you happy.

Battle scenes

I had to put that battle scene with Hodge in there. :D I love this place holder for him and only hope he gets eyes and a mouth.  Nothing more.  It just makes me smile to much to see him as a place holder figure. :D

Anyway, there are a few battle scenes and some of them are serious while others are humorous.  There’s not any controls you have like an in RPG, but these are still fun as you can see the battle poses of the MC and characters she’s fighting with/against.

Place holders (this section is more my hopes for the game than actual review)

I actually really like that the crew is drawn this way and I honestly hope they keep them like this.  I feel like the pirate crew is just a means to an end and seeing them as place holders like this just drives the point home that the MC is moving on from them.  Hodge could earn some eyes and a mouth, but i really hope these guys don’t change much.  For some reason the crew just fits best like this.  Maybe it’s because the original demo had the same crew format, but it feels right.

As for the guards, I’m hoping they do have a design for them.  Even if it’s just the same base and only different colored fins or something, I’d rather see some fleshed out guards.  Part of the reason they feel so awkward here is because Mikali and the background are so detailed, yet the guards are just plopped in there.  With the issues MC will run into with the treasury, I think the guards are a more important story plot so I’d like to see them fleshed out (and who doesn’t like merpeople in armor?)

I’m not going to lie, it took me about three play-throughs before I noticed these were place holder maids. DX Even with the detail on Mimi and that background, they don’t feel as out of place as the guards.  Probably because the composition of the image makes it work, but I would like to see another maid or two in the game.

This is another set of placeholders that I like. lol These are the princesses at the party you attend and I am a.o.k. with them staying like this.  Although, I do hope to see at least one with an actual design.  Like the ringleader of the group or something.  The rest can just stay silly little white figures. :D

Now if you still haven’t gone and downloaded the demo, do it right now.  And, don’t forget to take the survey at the end.  Also, go follow @navigame-media to show your support and keep up to date.

P.S. I hope I didn’t give away too much about the game or show more than the creators would like in a review post, but I really, really want to encourage them to keep up with the development.  I know this is a huge undertaking and I feel like this game has some ambitions goals, but I also really, really like it and want more. :D

[terryblount]

Ori and the Will of the Wisps PC Review

It is hard to believe five years have passed since Ori and the Blind Forest debuted on our screens. Developers Moon Studios crafted a momentous game that not only reinvigorated the metroidvania genre, but also reminded gamers how beautiful and intricate these titles can be. Now the long-awaited sequel is finally on our shelves, but how could any studio follow up on lightning in a bottle like this?

The answer is in Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I mentioned in my Rage 2 review that all good sequels have the ability to reach the full potential of their I.P’s. It is not just about more, bigger or prettier. Good sequels elevate themselves to those untouched areas of gameplay that their predecessors never reached, and this is precisely what Moon Studios achievedwith their second Ori game.

Enjoying the pleasures of home

If ever there was a write-up willing to criticise Ori and the Will of the Wisps (hereafter Ori 2), you will not find it here. Perhaps this will not be a review of Ori 2, but my best attempt to express what a masterpiece this sequel has turned out to be. Moon Studios maxed out every strength from their first game, and remind us once again why metroidvanias can be some of the most fulfilling experiences in our industry.

A picture is worth a thousand words

One of the highlights from Ori and the Blind Forest was Moon Studios’s incredible talent for using visual language. Like many other metroidvanias, the first Ori game could impart a lot to the player using only modest resources. There wasn’t much exposition, there were limited snippets of dialogue, and the game had a very conservative use of cut scenes.

Nonetheless, it was still an experience you could get lost in. The devs allowed their game itself to communicate with the player on a visual level, and this design philosophy spills over into almost everything in Ori 2. In short, Ori 2 is a game that shows rather than tells in that the visuals of Ori’s story are a fundamental bridge between both the narrative and the gameplay.

Take the eponymous (and very cute) Ori, for example. Even a noob taking a cursory glance at this little critter would immediately tell there is something agile, yet vulnerable about… it. Hold on a second, is Ori a boy or a girl? Only thing I know is that the name has a Hebrew origin meaning ‘my light’, so perhaps Ori is Jewish?

Name of the game (Image from Ori and the Blind forest Wiki)

Anyway, I digress. True to the sloping lines and gossamer-like luminance of the character model, Ori once again felt super smooth and an utter pleasure to control for the thirteen-ish hours I spent leaping and bounding throughout the various biomes. There is a weightless momentum in how Ori handles, which encourages the player to keep moving and to experiment with acrobatics.

It seems that virtually niggles and annoyances have been ironed out from the first game, and it is clear the devs wanted to push the boundaries of traversal in this series to the next level. Moreover, Ori’s revamped animations are equally slick in this sequel, both in the twirls or somersaults when leaping weightlessly through the levels, but also in the combat or ranged attacks against enemies.

A battle in spirit

Ori has been given quite a substantial upgrade in terms of how players will fight against the malicious bugs, slugs and even bosses scattered around the world. Combat is now closer to the metroidvanias that have followed in the interim from the first game’s release (for example, Hollow Knight) in that Ori can now swap on the fly between a spirit sword, ranged spirited projectiles, heavy weapons, and more.

The player will really have their reflexes tested on normal or hard difficulties since the combat is fast and frantic. I strongly recommend a first playthrough on ‘easy’, particularly since you cannot adjust the difficulty later. Nonetheless, this spirit bunny is every bit as agile and responsive during battle as he is with traversal, and there is a decent variety of ranged and melee attacks to make up your fighting strategy.

The spirit trees that give Ori his abilities

It is from the combat I noticed that Ori 2 now boasts a more varied menu and progression system. Moon Studious have swapped out the linear style of the previous game, and have implemented something closer to an RPG’s structure, which allows for abilites and weapons to unlock quicker, and thereby leaving the choice to the player on what to upgrade and define their own playing style.

The forest lives on

The reason why Ori possesses these abilities and, frankly, why he glows in the dark, is because he was one of several spirits inhabiting a mystical willow tree – the heart of the entire forest’s spiritual energy. The first game saw Ori being adopted by a creature called Naru after falling out of the willow tree during a great storm, and eventually setting out to rescue the forest dying from a malicious corruption.

With the forest now restored to its lavish glory, Ori 2 opens with a touching scene of the pair living a serene life, along with their new friends Guma and Ku. All is well until Ku, who is the cutest little owlet EVER, finally becomes overwhelmed by the desire to fly. Unfortunately, Ku’s tiny little wing got mangled, leaving the owlet grounded and very depressed as it watches the other birds go by.

First flight

Ori and co. therefore try to help Ku with a makeshift wing which seems to work quite well until, during its first flight, Ku is caught in an angry storm, not unlike the one that shook Ori from its tree. With Ori riding on Ku’s back, the duo crash land in a desolate area of the forest, and they become separated.

The stage is set for Ori to embark on a rescue mission, and as a surprise to no one, Ori finds that all is still not well in the deep, forgotten places of the forest. The mission to rescue Ku therefore becomes intertwined with restoring the forest’s life force to an abandoned and hostile world, and Ori soon finds that it is not only Ku’s life that hangs in the balance.

In certain segments there are chase sequences. You really feel Ori’s vulnerability here, and it is utterly terrifying.

Thanks to absolutely superb animation and expert use of potent imagery, the story in Ori 2 is nothing less than sublime. Without spoiling anything, I will just say that the narrative plays out as a riveting and engrossing mix of fairy tale tropes, which are interspersed with gut-wrenching climaxes of triumph and failure.

The hauntingly beautiful soundtrack is also a crucial component here. The melody is a beautiful reflection of the game itself in that the orchestral swells alongside dream-like notes are constantly tinged with an undertone of sadness and melancholia.

In all honesty, I was taken on a rollercoaster ride of emotions during my play-through, and it has been a long time since a game has had this effect on me. Seeing that poor baby owl frightened and alone in the dead forest wasteland brought me right to verge of tears, while I beamed like adoring parent during the more happy moments. This is really fantastic story-telling.

Breaking boundaries

Both the story and the gameplay is of course sustained by two immaculate pillars: The graphics and the level-design. You often hear about video games blurring the boundaries between art and entertainment, but Ori 2 utterly shatters this division. This game IS art. The visuals are so imaginative and aesthetically pleasing that it looks like you are playing through Bob Ross painting brought to life.

With Unreal dominating the source-available market at the moment, I am really glad Moon Studios showed us how Unity still has a lot more to offer

Running on the Unity engine, the devs have created a massive world rendered with more detailed textures, a much higher particle count, and a more complex lighting system than the first game. The forest feels alive and breathing with several different biomes for Ori to explore, and each area has been coloured with a very distinct palette to reinforce the player’s awareness of location.

I mentioned visual language earlier, and it is in environmental design that Moon Studios have really put this to work. The greens, browns and blues represent colours that guide Ori, that beckon the little critter to safety. The reds, yellows and purples on the other hand represent danger, and it is astounding to see how consistently the devs have endorsed this system throughout the entire game.

I simply could not get enough of this beautiful world. From races against the ghosts of other players, to doing small quests for animals that inhabit in the forest, to feeling that satisfaction of nimbly making it through heavily-spiked, narrow corridors, it is mesmerizing that all of this is functioning so well in one game. It is a model of excellence in environmental design.

Ori, the paragon

We often hear people complaining that ‘they don’t make games like they used to’ and I somewhat agree. I feel like modern studios tend to put money before their vision for making their game because of how alarmingly competitive the industry has become. As such, games rarely take risks, and the industry often faces something of an identity crisis.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps stands as a shining contradiction to this ethos. This game oozes creative energy, and was quite obviously made by people who really have a passion for this genre. It shows how we can use technology not just to enhance everything in a game, but also how complex systems can be made to function alongside one other.

It is so rare that we see excellence in our games these days, which is why Ori and the Will of the Wisps truly is a non-negotiable moment. This is not just a game: It is an education to what gaming as a medium can accomplish. You simply have to play this.

Breathtaking soundtrack

Gorgeous art style

Immaculate level design

Great story

Controls well

Good dev support

Some bugs

Long start up loading time

          PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Contoller

The post Ori and the Will of the Wisps PC Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps PC Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[dawnparker]

“Conversion Copywriting Ft. Joel Klettke” (Inbound Success Ep. 51)

What does it take for a company like HubSpot to double its website conversions and inbound call volume, increase demo requests by 35%, and increase product sign ups by 27%.

Joel Klettke

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, conversion copywriting expert Joel Klettke shares the process he used, along with a team from HubSpot, to achieve such remarkable results. Known as “the guy who 2x’d HubSpot’s conversions,” Joel is a world renowned conversion copywriting expert and the founder of Case Study Buddy.

Listen to the podcast to learn exactly what Joel and the team from HubSpot did and get specific takeaways you can use to improve the copy on your site and increase conversions.

Transcript

Kathleen Booth (host): Welcome back to The Inbound Success podcast. My name’s Kathleen Booth and I’m your host. This week, my guest is Joel Klettke.

Joel came to the podcast via a casual mention at first by Ian Cleary who was on a few episodes ago. And Ian, for those of you who don’t know, is the founder of RazorSocial and OutreachPlus, and a well known marketer and keynote speaker. He happened to mention the great work that Joel did at HubSpot and then lo and behold, Andy Crestodina, one of our past guests as well, commented, “Joel, you should come on the podcast.” I love when this happens!

So Joel, I’m so excited to have you on and I love that you came via Andy and Ian. Welcome to the podcast.

Joel Klettke (guest): Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I’m really pumped to get a chance to chat with you.

Kathleen: For my listeners, Joel is a conversion copywriter who has worked with some incredible brands and gotten really great results. I already mentioned that he did some work for HubSpot. He’s also worked for WP Engine, which is a platform that we love here at IMPACT, InsightSquared and others.

He is also the founder of Case Study Buddy. So Joel, I could probably talk a lot about you – you’ve got a long and interesting resume – but I’m going to ask you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Joel: Yeah. I mean, the quick and interesting, hopefully interesting version, is that I got my start kind of fresh out of business school. I knew more about the type of place I wanted to be than what I wanted to do. I sort of randomly found my way working agency side doing search engine optimization (SEO) and that was my whole world for about five years.

I really enjoyed the analytical side of it, but always had this sort of passion for writing. I just never thought there was a job in it for me. I didn’t want to be an author and that whole world of kind of writing websites and landing pages wasn’t on my radar until I started working on them for SEO and went, “You know what? Someone’s got to write these. And it’s not enough that they get found, they probably have to convert people.”

And so little by little, over time, I got to pick up more of those types of projects. And in 2013 I went out on my own focusing mostly on the content pieces at that point – so blogs and E-books – and then kept getting deeper into this conversion stuff and it finally became my whole focus by 2015.

So I’ve been doing it since then working with a lot of cool companies like you mentioned – HubSpot and WP Engine and InsightSquared – to get more customers to convert. And then about two years ago, I saw an opportunity to build a business product.

I was kind of working on making case studies available to these awesome agencies and software companies. This was an area I saw them really struggling in, struggling to capture these stories, share them, how do you use them. And so I saw an opportunity and created Case Study Buddy. I’ve got a team and we’ve been kind of stealthily moving along and this year it’s becoming increasingly part of my focus.

Kathleen: I think it’s really interesting what you’re doing with Case Study Buddy, because having been in this business for a long time and owned an agency and worked with just a ton of different companies, case studies seem to be one of those areas where we as marketers really phone it in. Like, there’s this formula like “This was the challenge. This was the solution. They came to us, and here’s what we did, and here’s the results.”

It’s that three part formula and I think we feel like as long as we’re following the formula we can say, “Check! I did a case study.”

I have to believe tremendous opportunity to innovate in that area because we know from experience that case studies are of huge interest to different audiences. Everybody wants to see examples of your experience. They want to see the proof that you know what you’re talking about. But for something that that is so valued by the consuming audience, it’s amazing how little effort we put into them.

Joel: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s funny too, because it is formulated. People always say “Well how hard can it really be?” and they go off and they slap these things together, but they don’t realize that there’s so much to capturing a story worth telling. And then telling it in a way that’s worth reading.

Even though the “problem – solution – results,” yes, that’s always going to be the heart and soul of it. But what’s different, what’s interesting, is how you tell that story and how you bring in the customer and how you weave it all together. And then increasingly too, how you use it. Where and how you wield that proof to make it useful.

So a lot of companies, the big problem, once they have a case study is it gets relegated to a little resources section. And maybe sales pulls it out once in a while, but they don’t have a plan for it.

Both in the creation side of things it kind of gets overlooked or neglected or slapdash, and then in the actual using it, we’re kind of like, “Well, okay. We’ll email it out.” Then we’re yelling, “We have it and resources section, good work for us.” And that makes me sad, because case studies are the one content asset that can play across the entire funnel. From acquisition, to nurturing, to upsells, to retention — you can use them everywhere, but we don’t. And so that’s why I’m so excited about that space.

Kathleen: Oh, I love it. Well before we dive too deeply into case studies, I really want to talk about the work that you did with HubSpot. Because as I mentioned, this came up when I had Ian Cleary on as a guest and I don’t remember the context of exactly what we were talking about, but he was like … he didn’t even mention your name.

He said, “There’s this guy who was at HubSpot and he 2X’d their conversions.” And it was so funny because HubSpot is a company that is known for being good at maximizing conversions. Like that’s what they’re all about is lead generation. And so, to know that there was an outside expert who came in and helped HubSpot take it to the next level – that immediately caught my attention and I was like, “Ooh, who is this guy?”

And that was when I think it was Andy who chimed in and said, “That guy happens to be Joel.” So, I would love to hear this story of what you did at HubSpot. We could start with what was it? Problem-solution-results or you tell a story that makes it interesting.

Joel: Yeah. Well, before I dive into that piece, I want to make one thing really clear, because I love the fact that people are talking about it. This was such a rare opportunity to come into a situation and work with a company who is known for their lead gen.

I want to make sure people understand that this is not something that I did alone. There’s a great team there. People like Pam Vaughan were really instrumental. Austin Knight who was doing their design at the time was so instrumental.

So this was definitely a team effort and I couldn’t have done it alone. And it was a fantastic kind of case study, I guess, as we’ll dive into here, in what can happen when you’ve got a whole team of people committed to doing this and committing to getting it right.

So with that as the backstory, I want to kind of lead up into how this happened. So I had known Matt Barby for some time outside of that context before he was even at HubSpot. And so Matt and I had kind of chatted on Twitter during my agency days and we just continued to have a casual friend relationship.

When Matt went into HubSpot, something he identified really quickly was despite the fact that yes, they are known for lead acquisition and they’re quite good at this whole inbound mentality, he saw opportunity for them to grow. Opportunity for someone else to come in and objectively look at what they were doing and make some recommendations.

And so because he’d followed me along, he knew where I was at in my career, which was I was working with one or more software companies on this type of thing. And so we decided, “Okay, well, we don’t have buy in for the full project from the outset.”

You can imagine that for a company like HubSpot, they’ve got this brilliant team and there’s a lot of moving pieces. So we thought, let’s just focus on doing one section at the beginning. So originally, I got to work with Matt on revamping the CRM page. So just that product.

What I introduced there with Matt was a very customer driven approach to writing copy. Customer driven research. So we were doing things like running a customer survey. And we were looking at things like, when people talk about the CRM out in the wild, what are they saying? What benefits are they mentioning? What pain points are they saying that it solved? And how does that stack up against how the company itself is talking about things on this CRM page?

And so as we dug into this customer research, and as we pulled in the data from these surveys, we learned a lot of things. We learned, for example, that there was some language customers were using about the outcomes they achieved that we could pull in and we could put into the headlines. We learned that the things that the company thought was really important as far as features to be emphasizing, didn’t necessarily align with what customers thought was important and the features they wanted emphasized.

So, we revamped that landing page, saw positive uptake and that was the buy in that Matt needed. So, from there, I got a chance to be brought in for the whole big website project, which as you can imagine was a big endeavor with a short timeline. HubSpot wanted to have a brand new site ready for their INBOUND Conference. So our timeline was about 2.5 to three months to do the whole thing.

Kathleen: What?

Joel: Yeah.

Kathleen: Oh, my God.

Joel: Yeah. And that’s why I say, you can imagine it took a village. I cannot pretend like I just was the hero riding in on the white horse. It took everybody being committed, and Kieran Flannigan and all those guys were there and present and so instrumental.

I want to break down the process we used a little bit more to get the result that we got and how we did this on a scale. We took what we did with the CRM page, but we took it some steps further.

So what we want to do when we’re working on conversion copy, you can only sell to a customer you really understand. Everyone talks about understanding your customer but hardly any companies actually put the rubber to the road and do what it takes to do that.

So again, we had a tight timeline, but thankfully HubSpot has got a huge customer base. So we ran some surveys to learn about how people were using it, whether or not they understood what the products could do for them and what the role of each was.

HubSpot had recently split into these three products and the historical perception was that it was one thing. It was just HubSpot Marketing, but now they had HubSpot Sales and HubSpot Marketing and HubSpot CRM. And these are just different products.

So we looked at customer surveys, and we asked questions like “What was going on in your life that led you to look for this solution?” And then we asked “How do you use this solution day to day?” to get them talking about the problems they solve with it. And then we got them to force rank the different features of the products they used by what was most important to them, again giving us a hierarchy for how we organize the page so people see that.

The second kind of interesting thing we did that I always, whenever I give a talk on this, I always recommend companies do because it’s so easy and it can be free, is we made sure that we went and looked at their chat logs. You can launch chat on your site tomorrow. It’s dead simple. A lot of people are hesitant, because they’re like, “Well, I can’t monitor it 24 hours.” You don’t have to. Just make yourself commit to making yourself or your team available to do chat for a two week period and I promise you’re going to be tempted to continue. After that point, you’re going to want to make it a priority.

But we looked at their chat logs, and we were looking for questions that came up again and again. Because those questions would be the things that the copy of their website wasn’t doing a great job of answering. So if people are constantly asking questions like, “Which of the three products do I need to accomplish X?”

Kathleen: Yeah.

Joel: We found out really quickly that there was some confusion in the market about which product was right for each and how they interplayed and that sort of thing.

So we started getting some insight into where people are at, what awareness level they’re at, and what they’re struggling with. We took all that information, combined it with the survey data and then worked closely with the internal HubSpot team and Austin — as I mentioned, just probably the best UX designer I’ve ever had the privilege to work with — and we started revamping the pages around addressing customer questions, around addressing features and benefits in a hierarchical way that met what the customer wanted to see and needed to see first.

And then probably the most impactful thing we did, and I think it’s still live on the site to this day (as you can imagine HubSpot’s continually evolving) was we found some great language for talking about the way that their new tool suite worked. And so that’s where the lines like “HubSpot tools are powerful on their own and even better together” come from. And we started being able to break down what each one was for and the benefits of each and then once you combine them, how they work well together.

So clarity just went up and up and up. People started to finally get the picture of what HubSpot is today.

Kathleen: That’s really interesting.

Let’s go back to how you gather data because what I find interesting is you had a 2.5 to three month time frame for this massive website redesign. And having been through enough of these projects, I mean, I know that lots of people would hear that and it would feel like their hair was on fire and they just had to start writing and building pages from the day that the project began. But you guys stopped and slowed yourself down and did some homework.

What I think is really interesting is not only did you do the surveys, which I feel like there’s definitely people out there who do that, but I love the notion that your data already exists and you can find it by looking at the chat logs and looking specifically at the questions.

Were there other existing sources of data that you drew upon?

Joel: Yeah.

Kathleen: And how long did this research process take? Because I can imagine you were under pressure to get it done pretty quickly.

Joel: Yeah, really, really great question.

I talked about surveys already and when you’ve got the customer base of a HubSpot, you can do that really quickly. But I should mention, you don’t need 2,000 responses. Our threshold online is if we can get 1,000 or sorry, 100 really good responses. After that, you start seeing kind of diminishing returns.

Chat logs were available to us, but other places that more companies who aren’t at HubSpot’s level can go are things like your testimonials, your reviews, and your case studies.

We talked to sales. We interviewed their internal team. We asked sales and support, like, “What questions do you get all the time? What do you find yourself constantly having to explain that you wish you didn’t have to constantly explain?

So, myself and Josh Garofalo — who I brought into the project to help me kind of cover the huge scope of it, because I couldn’t possibly write all the pages alone — interviewed that internal team.

Often what our role becomes or what my role becomes in projects like this, is I’m unifying departments. Because they’re all great at their own thing, and they all understand their own area, but sales might not have talked to customer support in a while. And marketing might not have talked to sales in a while.

We can pull all these perspectives together, and then present to them and say, “Here’s where you guys are actually at and where you’re creating problems for the other side or where they’re having an opportunity that you’re not capitalizing on.”

So talking to your sales team, looking at existing reviews and testimonials to see what are these people already talking about, how are they talking about it — those are existing data sources that are already there.

One thing I want to drop as well. If you don’t have a lot of these, go look at your competitors. And positive reviews are one thing for them, but go look at their negative reviews. Because those are things that you can exploit and position yourself against. So if, for example, people are saying, “Well, this solution is really slow and clunky.” You can emphasize that you’re agile and fast and easy to use.

So by getting kind of a landscape of what your competitors struggle with, it also helps you understand how you can position yourself against them.

Kathleen: That is a great idea.

It’s interesting because I feel like a lot of companies do the opposite, which is they look at the competitors but they look at the competitor websites. And they look at what the competitors are saying they do, as opposed to looking at what the customers feel that they don’t do well.

The result, when you look at your competitors and try to emulate them, is everybody starts to sound the same.

Joel: Totally.

Kathleen: And that actually suppresses conversions instead of improving them.

Joel: There’s this crazy fallacy that companies have that somehow their competitor knows what they’re doing. They don’t.

I’ve written for the competitors. I’ve come into situations where I have written for both sides, the people being evaluated and the people being … Often they’re starting from the same point.

Every company is just trying to figure it out. Just because someone launches a timer on their homepage, they didn’t necessarily do that because it works. They’re just trying stuff to see what works.

Kathleen: They’re throwing a bunch of darts at the wall to see what sticks.

Joel: Completely. I would say more companies don’t know what they’re doing than really do, because why I’m so excited about conversion optimization and conversion copywriting as a whole, is I very much see what I’m doing now as in the same vain as where SEO was eight to ten years ago or inbound marketing was five to eight years ago or whatever it might be. It’s still so young and so much opportunity and companies are waking up to the value of this.

The tools are getting cheaper, the methodology is getting very defined. It’s a fantastic time for companies to start thinking about this and to be moving ahead because we’re getting to the point where if you’re not, your competitor is.

But there’s still so much time to move and be the first to really measure and test and do this well.

Kathleen: Oh, I couldn’t agree more. CRO, conversion rate optimization, there’s so much buzz and interest around it but there are so few people who really can claim to be experts in it, with true experience.

One thing I want to talk about… so we start with all the homework you need to do before you can even sit down and put pen to paper or virtual pen to paper, however you decide to do it. Then there’s really understanding the audience. There’s the insights that come out of that. Obviously what you’ve talked about is to truly write for the audience but are there also certain universal truths or rules in terms of either how you structure copy on a page? I’m thinking of Joanna Wiebe who has her “problem-agitation-solution” formula or certain words that you should or should not use.

Are there those universal truths out there that we should know about?

Joel: Yeah. You know, everybody wants there to be this formula or this code. Plug in X, get out Y, but I think even Joanna would tell you the PAS, the problem agitation solution, that’s a fantastic framework that can do brilliantly in some contexts and miserably in others. Joanna uses it all the time for emails and email series and that kind of thing. It works great.

Let’s put it in this context. There’s different stages of awareness. So, if your customer already knows your brand and they already know they’re sold on you, then a problem-agitation-solution format is just wasting their time because all they want to know is the deal. So, they just want to see okay, $50 off, boom. I know the deal. I know the value. I’m there.

So, for that audience, a different formula entirely works. Whereas if someone is completely … You know, they don’t understand their pain even yet, they’re still coming into the point where they realize that they’ve got a problem, then that pain can be addressed better.

But there isn’t just this sort of absolute truth. I think there’s guidelines, there’s best practices.

For example, on language, there’s some misconceptions. You can go read a bunch of blog posts that say never use jargon or never use a cliché or never use an acronym. Well, even in my work for InsightSquared, their audience uses and loves and understands acronyms. If we don’t use acronyms, we’re the weirdo. We’re the ones who don’t look like we understand the niche.

If there is an absolute truth that I’ve found, if there are things that I can say every time, 100% of the time go and do this, it’s you cannot be in the business of conversion without being in the business of talking to customers and having structured, documented conversations with them. You can’t do it.

You can guess, you can pull levers on a wall, you can change button color aimlessly, but you can’t be in the business of writing conversion copy or optimizing your copy if you’re trying to cut customers out of the equation and not spend time talking to them or researching them.

It sounds so intuitive, but I guarantee there are companies listening to this where their methodology right now for how they come up with new copy is to huddle in a board room, copy up with a new tagline that they all feel is clever and represents management’s vision, and never talk to a single customer until it launches.

So, I wish I could tell you there are frameworks for these things, but there’s best practices. It’s more like a journey of well, if X, then Y. If you understand this piece then try this. But there’s no one black and white this definitely works or this definitely doesn’t work.

Kathleen: So, when you develop that understanding of the customer, at some point you do have to sit down and write. The way you write and the volume of writing you do has to also be in alignment with the actual visual design of the page.

Can you talk a little bit about how you think front end designers and content creators should work together on these projects? Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?

Joel: Yeah. I’m so glad that you’re asking about this because this honestly to me is what made the HubSpot project successful.

When you’ve got a timeline like that, first, let’s establish that if there is an absolute, its that copy should always lead design. You cannot just pop words into a pretty picture, otherwise you may be cramming a story into a frame it wasn’t fit for. We knew that. We also knew we couldn’t wait for copy to be done or design wouldn’t have time to do it.

So, the process that we used, and what made this successful, is that what you can do is you can iterate. So, when you understand the customer and when you’ve got a good understanding of “Okay, they’re pain aware or solution aware or brand aware,” then you know okay, you can define together with design.

You can say, “We know these are the types of sections we’re going to need to cover. We know this is the flow we’re going to need to cover them in. We don’t have specific copy yet but we know right now for example, we need a hero section. After that we need about a paragraph of narrative to agitate the pain. Then we’re going to need this section on emphasizing particular features that solve that pain.”

So, when you’ve got an understanding of the customer you can sit down with design. What we did is we came up with a base framework, a base wire frame for the different types of pages on the site. In some cases you can template this a bit.

So, one of the people that the project could never have been achieved without was Pamela Vaughan.

Kathleen: I love her. Can I just say? I have to stop you for one second. I’m a huge fan girl of Pamela Vaughan’s, because I’ve attended a number of her presentations and as a marketer, you can go to lots of conference presentations that are full of fluff and lots of “You should do this for this reason,” but not a lot of “And here’s how you actually do it.”

She gives the most detailed, useful, actionable information of … Probably she’s in the top three of anybody I’ve seen present. So, that’s the end of my fan rant on Pam Vaughan.

Joel: No, it’s well earned. I mean, literally we could not have done it without her. She wrote a huge swath of the copy that … You know, like the individual features pages. Those were Pam’s.

So, we worked together to define the template for common pages and then we were able to use that same template to kind of inform. So, we started with the base wire framed together with copy and design. Design was able to go away and mock something up while copy was working on our piece of the puzzle.

Then we converged together, sent our wires to design and they would make our wire frames better and send it back. So, it was an iterative, collaborative process.

That’s the way it has to be. I love Unbounce and I love these companies that have these templated landing pages. They’re great as a starting point, but if you’re switching your brain off and not defining who the audience is or what they need to hear and just picking a template because “Oh I like the way that looks,” you’re missing the point. I think Unbounce does a good job of educating people there.

Yeah, the design piece was a collaborative, iterative thing and for anyone listening who’s thinking “I want to get into conversion copywriting” or “I want to hire a conversion copywriter,” look for someone who’s not just going to hand you a Word doc. Learn to wire frame.

Josh and I both use Balsamiq. That was a common tool of communication so writing could be on the same page as design. It’s a skill that I didn’t anticipate ever having to learn as a writer, and it’s one I’m loving exploring because the more I understand how the design interplays with the words that I write, the more effective I can be, and the more designers are going to like to work with me.

So, the two are unbreakable, and actually Austin wrote a counter piece to my piece from design’s perspective, so you can go read my piece on the HubSpot blog and you can read his. You can see where we both came from and how we made it work.

Kathleen: That’s great. I love that you mentioned Balsamiq because my next question was going to be are there certain tools that you find are really helpful through this process?

It’s funny, I’m not a designer either but I’ve had to create wire frames. There are many wire framing tools out there. We have one that our actual design team uses. I don’t remember, I think it’s called Moqups and it’s super detailed. It’s amazing, but it’s too much for me. It would be like me going into InDesign and trying to create a webpage.

I like Balsamiq because it’s really streamlined and simple, and for a non-designer it’s a great wire framing tool.

Any other tools that you have used either in that project or in other projects that are really helpful for this kind of thing?

Joel: Yeah. Basically, so for mock ups and wire frames Balsamiq has been the tool that I’ve found easiest to use, most versatile for me. I know the platform inside and out.

I’ve also heard really good things about InFlow. So, inFlow is another one where you can experiment with that.

I’m not an affiliate for any of the tools I’m about to mention, so none of this is a paid ad but I genuinely love them.

Typeform is what we constantly use for surveys. Fantastic interface. Fantastic ability to use logic jumps to show different questions to different groups, which when you’re segmenting information like we were was totally invaluable to be able to just naturally do that. So, Typeform is great.

For chat, the one I always recommend to companies is Drift. Drift continues to innovate, continues to do really cool things and on their basic free plan you can get your feet wet, you can control manually the hours it’s live and not live so you don’t have to worry about being present at four in the morning.

So, Typeform and Drift. Balsamiq is really helpful.

These days I’ve been using Hotjar to look at both heat maps and recorded user sessions and I’ve been really pleased taht they just announced some innovations today where they can capture more in those recorded user sessions, so that’s really exciting to me. We can get a deeper look at how people are actually interacting.

So, those are kind of my old standbys.

Then I’m increasingly looking at Google Analytics, which you know, it’s kind of people are like … It’s been around forever but people still don’t have a clue the fraction of the power you can get out of Analytics.

One guy that I really admire in this space who is worth following and learning from is Michael Aagaard. He just knows the analytics piece really well. I think he would even tell you, he comes by it honestly, he’s not necessarily like a numbers and analytics guy but he’s found all these cool shortcuts and custom reports and ways to very quickly get at data that can highlight a problem so that you can respond quickly.

So, that’s kind of my stack. That’s my toolkit.

Occasionally you’ll see things like FullStory or whatever, but I think that’s one thing I want to communicate, is you don’t need to have tens of thousands of dollars of budget to do this type of work. You just need to have the willingness to make the most of these free or basic plans for the period that you’re using them.

The barrier to entry to doing this stuff is only getting lower. The tools are only getting better. So, there’s really no excuse for companies to just be turning a blind eye to this and saying well it’s too complicated or too complex. No way. You can start doing this stuff tomorrow.

Kathleen: Yeah, you could do it all probably in Google Docs too if you really had to.

Joel: Totally. I used to wire frame in Word with like tables. I mean, it’s not as pretty as Balsamiq. It’s not as easy to communicate, but it gets the job done. If you’re going to start there, start there. Just go with what you know and evolve, but just get started.

Kathleen: Yeah. Absolutely. I love all the tools you mentioned. We use a lot of those.

On my team we use Drift. We have Drift on our site, so I’m absolutely going to go back and look at the chat logs after we stop talking.

You know, a number of those other tools … One of the other ones that we’re huge fans of, which if you haven’t checked it out you might want to, is GatherContent. It’s awesome. Our content manager has hacked it in a way that when we do website pages she’s able to create blocks for the different content pieces that are needed and she can add in background on personas and guidance on how it should be written. It’s really cool for content collaboration.

Joel: Yeah. That actually …

Kathleen: That was my addition to the list.

Joel: That reminds me, there’s one more. It’s funny I forgot.

The tool that I’m really, really excited about I haven’t had the chance to use it as much as I’d like but RightMessage. Brennan Dunn launched this tool. They continue to launch all these different sub tools, but RightMessage, if you believe in conversion optimization, if you believe that this is going to be important and integral for the future, RightMessage is what comes next. It’s personalization. I have yet to see a tool working harder to make that easier, working harder to make it more intuitive, to make it more accessible.

So, I’m really, really excited about what Brennan and his team are doing over there. I’m trying to bake it into my proposals more often because more people need to use this stuff.

Kathleen: Oh, I’ll definitely check that out.

Now, circling back to the project at HubSpot. You somehow got this website rewritten, you and the other team of people in this two to three month time period. The new site launched. I’ve heard lots of different numbers thrown around about the results you guys got. Can you break it down for us? What was the change?

Joel: Yeah. I’ll pull those numbers up here, but the biggest change was we effectively doubled site wide conversions. So, on the biggest broadest level across all of their conversions, we saw a doubling there.

Then, to we break down some of the more specific conversions, HubSpot started seeing two times the inbound call volume. So, not just conversions on the site. Twice as many people phoning in. They saw a 35% increase in demo requests. They saw a 27% increase in product sign ups.

For a company the size of HubSpot, with the traffic of HubSpot, those are some serious, serious numbers. So, the efficacy of having customer driven copy and really a design team who cares about conversion and about telling the story the right way, and then a support team and a sales team who are open about what’s working for them and how to nail that down, it all comes together to create impacts like that.

Kathleen: So, I have to ask. To what do you attribute that increase in inbound call volume? Because that’s an interesting stat that I was not expecting you to mention.

Joel: Yeah. That one was surprising to me too. You know, if you haven’t ever had Matt Barby on the program, having him come in to talk about attribution and tracking and that sort of thing I think would be fascinating.

Kathleen: Oh, I would love that. Matt, if you’re listening, call me!

Joel: Yeah. So, I mean, Matt. Matt would be the guy to really help pin that down.

Not only did we change the site, and the copy, and the way we presented their products, during this time they also started playing around with kind of a freemium model and looking at some of these more freemium-type calls, so it’s possible that maybe kind of having that angle correlated with more people being willing to check it out.

I really do think, though, that it was the clarity, it was the ability for people to understand on their own very quickly how the different pieces of the tool connected to feel comfortable enough to make that call so they wouldn’t feel like an idiot, or they wouldn’t feel they’d have to spend all day trying to just sort up with sales, getting a sales pitch on everything, they could ask more direct questions about the things they actually needed.

So, that’s my hypothesis, that’s what I would guess. But it would be fascinating for you to have somebody on the in-house side come in. And they continue to do some really cool and innovative things, and the site’s changed and grown since then, so I’m sure they’ll have even more stories.

Kathleen: Yeah, there’s so many very, very, very smart people on that team.

Joel: Mm-hmm.

Kathleen: I would take any one of them as a guest. So I assume that some of the lessons that came out of that particular project, or things you have applied in other places, fast forward to today and are there certain things that you’re really excited about when it comes to conversion copyrighting, or conversion rate optimization?

Joel: Yeah, two things in particular.

So the first is that personalization piece. With RightMessage, like I mentioned, that’s becoming more possible. What I’m really fascinated by is just before, if you wanted to have different conversations with individuals, it was clunky. You had to create a whole bunch of different stuff, just even pages upon pages, and you had to really do a ton of work to try to make it happen technically. So it wasn’t always possible, and I love that the bar for that is coming down. I’m really having a fun time learning more and more about how to segment and identify the differences in user groups. So, that piece, I think, is so important. It is the future of this stuff, and I’m really excited about that.

For me personally, where I’m seeing the most growth for myself, this year, interestingly, I’ve made more off of audits and reviews than any writing. So, I still continue to offer writing, but I’m doing more and more analysis and helping companies identify what’s going wrong and how they can fix it with copywriting, and UX exchanges, and things like that.

So for me, what I’m excited about and continue to grow in to, it’s nothing sexy, but Google Analytics. Just unpacking the power available on Google Analytics, and how to deploy that properly, and the types of things you can learn. I want to share … I’ll make it quick, but I want to share a quick story, just kind of the stuff you can learn when you’re paying attention.

So, I was working with a client, and I was doing a review of their site. They offer divorce packages in the UK. One of those stats we found that was fascinating to us through Google Analytics that sent up a little red flag was men converted better than women, and we know that more women initiate divorce than men. So it was kind of like, that’s an oddity. Something is amiss here.

So, long story short, through Google Analytics, a combination of looking at Google Analytics, the times people were actually on the site, combined with chat logs to learn what challenges were unique to women, we were able to come up with a cool hypothesis that women are in more financially vulnerable situations, they’re working multiple jobs, so they want to convert in later hours, but chat was off during those hours.

Kathleen: Oh, interesting.

Joel: So through that, we figured out well let’s test extending chat hours and see what the impact is. So, stuff like that just gets me pumped up because it’s … The amount of stuff you can learn when you’re paying attention is fascinating.

Kathleen: Oh, I love it. I love … I always say I’m a marketing nerd, and I feel a sense of kinship with you on this because when I discover the little nuggets like that, it does, it gets me super excited. And I’ll admit, I definitely am not as much of an expert in Google Analytics as I would like to be. I feel like every time I start to get really proficient, it’s like the grocery store when they reorganize it, and then you don’t know where the milk is.

Joel: Right.

Kathleen: Google Analytics likes to do that to us sometimes, too, but it’s like an ice berg, and we kind of see the tip, but there’s so much there under the surface, so much power and so much data. But I think I agree, there is so much to be learned.

Joel: Totally.

Kathleen’s Two Questions

Kathleen: So two questions that I ask all of my guests. I want to make sure I ask you before we wrap up today. One is, company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?

Joel: The women are crushing it. All of the people that I-

Kathleen: Yes.

Joel: Most admire doing this right now are all women, and they’re doing brilliant jobs in really different ways. So as an individual, someone who recently came on my radar and now I’m so excited to be able to collaborate with is a woman named Val Geisler. I’m not sure how you pronounce her last name. She does email onboarding series and optimizes those. What she’s done, you know, she’s a one woman shop, so she doesn’t have the ability to publish thousands of things, but she does such targeted, relevant content. She does these really cool email tear downs of companies people know and respect.

Her candor in those, you know, she’s not rude or mean, but she’s also very honest and very great at exposing it. “Here’s what they’re doing. Here’s what they could do better.” So Val is doing fantastic. Claire and Gia at Forget the Funnel, so they’ve launched this really … Like, they are, to me, a lot of people … we talk about blogs, we talk about e-books, but what we don’t often talk about as much is building yourself a platform, giving people a reason to want to listen to you and come to you, and see you as an authority.

That’s what Claire and Gia have done. Two extremely bright, very talented women, who have launched this thing, and created this avenue to get exactly the right customers that they want to work with, exactly the right sets of people to listen to what they have to say. They do these great webinars, and they do these great interviews. So those would be two examples. Then one group of fellows, I think who is doing is good, is Grow and Convert, and they’re putting out some really great case studies, and really great content, and really great pieces that are helping Mark [Rozano 00:38:06] and myself just stay relevant and level up what they’re doing.

Kathleen: Okay, what’s really cool about what you just said is those are three groups of people, places, brands, etc. that are totally new to me. I love when I get answers like that, and I have new places to check out. I’m particular interested in these email onboarding series right now, because we’re revamping ours, so I will definitely be checking that one out.

Second question, and I’m going to narrow it down. I usually ask people, with digital marketing changing so quickly, how do you stay up to date. But I want to get a little bit more specific than that with you, because I’m intrigued that you’re focused on conversion rate optimization. I want to ask you how you stay educated for yourself, and build your skills in the field of conversion rate optimization?

Joel: Yeah. So there’s some really important sources that I consult and I look to, just to see what they’re publishing. So, Joanna Wiebe, obviously. Anytime she’s publishing a case study, or puts out a course, that’s relevant to me. I’m almost always going to buy it. I’m really tuned in with her, and she’s got tons of free content, but even if you can find her legacy content. It’s just as relevant as it was then.

Conversion XL continues to publish really valuable things. So, that’s been really helpful. To me, in particular, and Michael Aagaard, like I said, he’s done some recent webinars and that sort of thing. Expanding beyond that though, what’s been really important for me in this field, and I think anyone coming in to should know, is that it is still young, and there is so much bad information out there where’s it’s like we change a button color and things would-

Kathleen: Yeah.

Joel: You can really educate yourself the wrong way, or you can educate yourself into a corner where you’re like, “Well here are the rules. And here’s what worked well in this situation,” and you can treat it like gospel and try to apply it everywhere. So what’s been really valuable to me is I’ve got Mastermind, just a little group of people in the same space, and we compare notes. We talk about what’s going on with each other, and what they’re learning, what they’re coming across. In this industry, I think in all industries, it’s valuable.

But in this niche in particular, being tuned into what’s going on with others, and what they’re learning, and the context they learn it in is really important. Then the last one I’ll mention is a site called GoodUI.com. He publishes a lot of, kind of tests and examples of stuff that people are trying out. Actually, one more that I really want to mention, and I’m excited to mention because it’s not going to be on hardly anybody’s radar, but I guarantee it’s about to be on everybody’s radar-

Kathleen: Ooh.

Joel: There’s a company called User Insights. They have launched just the best tool for user testing that I have ever seen. Small batch user testing, very targeted, way cheaper than the competition, just as good, faster, but that service aside, that’s really exciting. But they are doing some very interesting stuff. They haven’t launched it all yet, but they’re doing some very interesting stuff with case studies and actually testing in context a lot of different things that I know people are like, “Well should I have this? Or should I have that?”

They’re doing a lot of that practically now with … across multiple sites, and verifiable outcomes. So they will be on people’s radar because they’re doing it at a scale I don’t think anybody else is yet. So, I’m learning a bit from the people running that quietly in the background, and they’re about to blow up. I’m sure of it.

Kathleen: I can’t wait to check all of this out. I feel like that’s going to keep me busy for a while. That’s great. I assume that everything you’ve learned through all of these projects, these engagements that you’ve done, you are bringing to bear with Case Study Buddy to help people improve their case studies. And you have a team there, right?

Joel: Yeah, so Case Study Buddy is a different kind of a venture for me. Like I said, what excites me are these content assets that are easy to get wrong, super valuable when done well, companies struggle with the process, the strategy, the ownership of it. And so I’ve brought kind of all this stuff I’m doing in conversion. I’m trying to bring into the elements of how do we write something that appeals to multiple different scanners and readers and user groups, and how do we educate our clients on how to use these?

For example, something I learned recently that I found fascinating is lots of companies are doing cold outreach. They’re sending these cold emails. I can’t remember the name of the company who did this study, but they tested out what is the impact of mentioning a famous “customer”, so just a known customer in these cold outreach emails. And they’ve tripled the number of interested responses.

Kathleen: Wow.

Joel: So, the power is there, and if you can imagine attaching a case study, the impact that would have. Yeah, it’s a different adventure. I’ve gotten to build a team and work outside of myself, and all the joys and pains that come with that. Yeah, it’s been really fun, and that’s going to be, like I mentioned, I’m still going to be doing this conversion work and that will be my bread and butter, especially on the back half of this year, growing Case Study Buddy, and getting it in front of more people and growing that initiative is high on my priority list.

Kathleen: I can’t wait to see where you take it. It sounds like you’re on to something here.

Joel: Thank you.

Kathleen: Well, I know I’ve had a million questions throughout this, and I’ve had the opportunity to have you answer many of them, but if somebody’s listening, and they wanted to reach out to you and ask a question, or get more information on something you’ve talked about today, what’s the best way for them to find you online?

Joel: Yeah, so I’m very active on Twitter. I do my best to respond to everything that comes in, whether it’s a DM or a Tweet, or whatever. You can find me @JoelKlettke. That’s one way to get at me fast. You can also email me. You can check out my ancient and desperately-in-need-of-being-updated site at BusinessCasualCopyrighting.com. Don’t judge me. I built in 2013. It’s due for an upgrade, but you can email me through there. I’m happy to field questions and if there’s something you’re struggling with.

Then surprisingly, I always kind of shun the platform, but the past two months I’ve gotten a ton of value out of having conversations on LinkedIn. So, another space that you can see. I publish more there, actually, these days than my own blog. I do little snippets, and pushes, and tips and tricks there. I always try to make sure I’m responding to people who come through that channel, too.

Kathleen: Yeah, LinkedIn-

Joel: Those are kind of the three places.

Kathleen: LinkedIn’s making a comeback big time.

Joel: Oh, huge.

Kathleen: A lot of people are mentioning that on this podcast.

Joel: They went from being the platform nobody wanted to talk about, to the platform everybody’s publishing on.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Joel: It’s remarkable. Even begrudgingly, there’s still the joke about wanting to connect on LinkedIn, and after the apocalypse, only those emails remain. But joke all you want, they’ve become a serious contender. It’s amazing that that team has done.

Kathleen: Definitely. I agree. Well, thank you. This has been fascinating. I’ve learned so much. I have a feeling I’m going to learn a lot more when I go check out all those websites you mentioned. So I really appreciate you spending the time on the podcast. If you’re listening and you liked what you heard, you learned something, I’m going to ask if you would please take a moment and go on iTunes, or Stitcher, or whatever platform you choose to listen to the podcast on, and leave a review. It would mean a lot. Finally, if you know someone doing kickass inbound marketing work, Tweet me @WorkMommyWork, because I would love to interview them. Thank you so much, Joel.

Joel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

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[dorothydelgadillo]

"Conversion Copywriting Ft. Joel Klettke" (Inbound Success Ep. 51)

What does it take for a company like HubSpot to double its website conversions and inbound call volume, increase demo requests by 35%, and increase product sign ups by 27%.

Joel Klettke

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, conversion copywriting expert Joel Klettke shares the process he used, along with a team from HubSpot, to achieve such remarkable results. Known as "the guy who 2x'd HubSpot's conversions," Joel is a world renowned conversion copywriting expert and the founder of Case Study Buddy.

Listen to the podcast to learn exactly what Joel and the team from HubSpot did and get specific takeaways you can use to improve the copy on your site and increase conversions.

Transcript

Kathleen Booth (host): Welcome back to The Inbound Success podcast. My name's Kathleen Booth and I'm your host. This week, my guest is Joel Klettke.

Joel came to the podcast via a casual mention at first by Ian Cleary who was on a few episodes ago. And Ian, for those of you who don't know, is the founder of RazorSocial and OutreachPlus, and a well known marketer and keynote speaker. He happened to mention the great work that Joel did at HubSpot and then lo and behold, Andy Crestodina, one of our past guests as well, commented, "Joel, you should come on the podcast." I love when this happens!

So Joel, I'm so excited to have you on and I love that you came via Andy and Ian. Welcome to the podcast.

Joel Klettke (guest): Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm really pumped to get a chance to chat with you.

Kathleen: For my listeners, Joel is a conversion copywriter who has worked with some incredible brands and gotten really great results. I already mentioned that he did some work for HubSpot. He's also worked for WP Engine, which is a platform that we love here at IMPACT, InsightSquared and others.

He is also the founder of Case Study Buddy. So Joel, I could probably talk a lot about you - you've got a long and interesting resume - but I'm going to ask you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Joel: Yeah. I mean, the quick and interesting, hopefully interesting version, is that I got my start kind of fresh out of business school. I knew more about the type of place I wanted to be than what I wanted to do. I sort of randomly found my way working agency side doing search engine optimization (SEO) and that was my whole world for about five years.

I really enjoyed the analytical side of it, but always had this sort of passion for writing. I just never thought there was a job in it for me. I didn't want to be an author and that whole world of kind of writing websites and landing pages wasn't on my radar until I started working on them for SEO and went, "You know what? Someone's got to write these. And it's not enough that they get found, they probably have to convert people."

And so little by little, over time, I got to pick up more of those types of projects. And in 2013 I went out on my own focusing mostly on the content pieces at that point - so blogs and E-books - and then kept getting deeper into this conversion stuff and it finally became my whole focus by 2015.

So I've been doing it since then working with a lot of cool companies like you mentioned - HubSpot and WP Engine and InsightSquared - to get more customers to convert. And then about two years ago, I saw an opportunity to build a business product.

I was kind of working on making case studies available to these awesome agencies and software companies. This was an area I saw them really struggling in, struggling to capture these stories, share them, how do you use them. And so I saw an opportunity and created Case Study Buddy. I've got a team and we've been kind of stealthily moving along and this year it's becoming increasingly part of my focus.

Kathleen: I think it's really interesting what you're doing with Case Study Buddy, because having been in this business for a long time and owned an agency and worked with just a ton of different companies, case studies seem to be one of those areas where we as marketers really phone it in. Like, there's this formula like "This was the challenge. This was the solution. They came to us, and here's what we did, and here's the results."

It's that three part formula and I think we feel like as long as we're following the formula we can say, "Check! I did a case study."

I have to believe tremendous opportunity to innovate in that area because we know from experience that case studies are of huge interest to different audiences. Everybody wants to see examples of your experience. They want to see the proof that you know what you're talking about. But for something that that is so valued by the consuming audience, it's amazing how little effort we put into them.

Joel: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's funny too, because it is formulated. People always say "Well how hard can it really be?" and they go off and they slap these things together, but they don't realize that there's so much to capturing a story worth telling. And then telling it in a way that's worth reading.

Even though the "problem - solution - results," yes, that's always going to be the heart and soul of it. But what's different, what's interesting, is how you tell that story and how you bring in the customer and how you weave it all together. And then increasingly too, how you use it. Where and how you wield that proof to make it useful.

So a lot of companies, the big problem, once they have a case study is it gets relegated to a little resources section. And maybe sales pulls it out once in a while, but they don't have a plan for it.

Both in the creation side of things it kind of gets overlooked or neglected or slapdash, and then in the actual using it, we're kind of like, "Well, okay. We'll email it out." Then we're yelling, "We have it and resources section, good work for us." And that makes me sad, because case studies are the one content asset that can play across the entire funnel. From acquisition, to nurturing, to upsells, to retention -- you can use them everywhere, but we don't. And so that's why I'm so excited about that space.

Kathleen: Oh, I love it. Well before we dive too deeply into case studies, I really want to talk about the work that you did with HubSpot. Because as I mentioned, this came up when I had Ian Cleary on as a guest and I don't remember the context of exactly what we were talking about, but he was like ... he didn't even mention your name.

He said, "There's this guy who was at HubSpot and he 2X'd their conversions." And it was so funny because HubSpot is a company that is known for being good at maximizing conversions. Like that's what they're all about is lead generation. And so, to know that there was an outside expert who came in and helped HubSpot take it to the next level - that immediately caught my attention and I was like, "Ooh, who is this guy?"

And that was when I think it was Andy who chimed in and said, "That guy happens to be Joel." So, I would love to hear this story of what you did at HubSpot. We could start with what was it? Problem-solution-results or you tell a story that makes it interesting.

Joel: Yeah. Well, before I dive into that piece, I want to make one thing really clear, because I love the fact that people are talking about it. This was such a rare opportunity to come into a situation and work with a company who is known for their lead gen.

I want to make sure people understand that this is not something that I did alone. There's a great team there. People like Pam Vaughan were really instrumental. Austin Knight who was doing their design at the time was so instrumental.

So this was definitely a team effort and I couldn't have done it alone. And it was a fantastic kind of case study, I guess, as we'll dive into here, in what can happen when you've got a whole team of people committed to doing this and committing to getting it right.

So with that as the backstory, I want to kind of lead up into how this happened. So I had known Matt Barby for some time outside of that context before he was even at HubSpot. And so Matt and I had kind of chatted on Twitter during my agency days and we just continued to have a casual friend relationship.

When Matt went into HubSpot, something he identified really quickly was despite the fact that yes, they are known for lead acquisition and they're quite good at this whole inbound mentality, he saw opportunity for them to grow. Opportunity for someone else to come in and objectively look at what they were doing and make some recommendations.

And so because he'd followed me along, he knew where I was at in my career, which was I was working with one or more software companies on this type of thing. And so we decided, "Okay, well, we don't have buy in for the full project from the outset."

You can imagine that for a company like HubSpot, they've got this brilliant team and there's a lot of moving pieces. So we thought, let's just focus on doing one section at the beginning. So originally, I got to work with Matt on revamping the CRM page. So just that product.

What I introduced there with Matt was a very customer driven approach to writing copy. Customer driven research. So we were doing things like running a customer survey. And we were looking at things like, when people talk about the CRM out in the wild, what are they saying? What benefits are they mentioning? What pain points are they saying that it solved? And how does that stack up against how the company itself is talking about things on this CRM page?

And so as we dug into this customer research, and as we pulled in the data from these surveys, we learned a lot of things. We learned, for example, that there was some language customers were using about the outcomes they achieved that we could pull in and we could put into the headlines. We learned that the things that the company thought was really important as far as features to be emphasizing, didn't necessarily align with what customers thought was important and the features they wanted emphasized.

So, we revamped that landing page, saw positive uptake and that was the buy in that Matt needed. So, from there, I got a chance to be brought in for the whole big website project, which as you can imagine was a big endeavor with a short timeline. HubSpot wanted to have a brand new site ready for their INBOUND Conference. So our timeline was about 2.5 to three months to do the whole thing.

Kathleen: What?

Joel: Yeah.

Kathleen: Oh, my God.

Joel: Yeah. And that's why I say, you can imagine it took a village. I cannot pretend like I just was the hero riding in on the white horse. It took everybody being committed, and Kieran Flannigan and all those guys were there and present and so instrumental.

I want to break down the process we used a little bit more to get the result that we got and how we did this on a scale. We took what we did with the CRM page, but we took it some steps further.

So what we want to do when we're working on conversion copy, you can only sell to a customer you really understand. Everyone talks about understanding your customer but hardly any companies actually put the rubber to the road and do what it takes to do that.

So again, we had a tight timeline, but thankfully HubSpot has got a huge customer base. So we ran some surveys to learn about how people were using it, whether or not they understood what the products could do for them and what the role of each was.

HubSpot had recently split into these three products and the historical perception was that it was one thing. It was just HubSpot Marketing, but now they had HubSpot Sales and HubSpot Marketing and HubSpot CRM. And these are just different products.

So we looked at customer surveys, and we asked questions like "What was going on in your life that led you to look for this solution?" And then we asked "How do you use this solution day to day?" to get them talking about the problems they solve with it. And then we got them to force rank the different features of the products they used by what was most important to them, again giving us a hierarchy for how we organize the page so people see that.

The second kind of interesting thing we did that I always, whenever I give a talk on this, I always recommend companies do because it's so easy and it can be free, is we made sure that we went and looked at their chat logs. You can launch chat on your site tomorrow. It's dead simple. A lot of people are hesitant, because they're like, "Well, I can't monitor it 24 hours." You don't have to. Just make yourself commit to making yourself or your team available to do chat for a two week period and I promise you're going to be tempted to continue. After that point, you're going to want to make it a priority.

But we looked at their chat logs, and we were looking for questions that came up again and again. Because those questions would be the things that the copy of their website wasn't doing a great job of answering. So if people are constantly asking questions like, "Which of the three products do I need to accomplish X?"

Kathleen: Yeah.

Joel: We found out really quickly that there was some confusion in the market about which product was right for each and how they interplayed and that sort of thing.

So we started getting some insight into where people are at, what awareness level they're at, and what they're struggling with. We took all that information, combined it with the survey data and then worked closely with the internal HubSpot team and Austin -- as I mentioned, just probably the best UX designer I've ever had the privilege to work with -- and we started revamping the pages around addressing customer questions, around addressing features and benefits in a hierarchical way that met what the customer wanted to see and needed to see first.

And then probably the most impactful thing we did, and I think it's still live on the site to this day (as you can imagine HubSpot's continually evolving) was we found some great language for talking about the way that their new tool suite worked. And so that's where the lines like "HubSpot tools are powerful on their own and even better together" come from. And we started being able to break down what each one was for and the benefits of each and then once you combine them, how they work well together.

So clarity just went up and up and up. People started to finally get the picture of what HubSpot is today.

Kathleen: That's really interesting.

Let's go back to how you gather data because what I find interesting is you had a 2.5 to three month time frame for this massive website redesign. And having been through enough of these projects, I mean, I know that lots of people would hear that and it would feel like their hair was on fire and they just had to start writing and building pages from the day that the project began. But you guys stopped and slowed yourself down and did some homework.

What I think is really interesting is not only did you do the surveys, which I feel like there's definitely people out there who do that, but I love the notion that your data already exists and you can find it by looking at the chat logs and looking specifically at the questions.

Were there other existing sources of data that you drew upon?

Joel: Yeah.

Kathleen: And how long did this research process take? Because I can imagine you were under pressure to get it done pretty quickly.

Joel: Yeah, really, really great question.

I talked about surveys already and when you've got the customer base of a HubSpot, you can do that really quickly. But I should mention, you don't need 2,000 responses. Our threshold online is if we can get 1,000 or sorry, 100 really good responses. After that, you start seeing kind of diminishing returns.

Chat logs were available to us, but other places that more companies who aren't at HubSpot's level can go are things like your testimonials, your reviews, and your case studies.

We talked to sales. We interviewed their internal team. We asked sales and support, like, "What questions do you get all the time? What do you find yourself constantly having to explain that you wish you didn't have to constantly explain?

So, myself and Josh Garofalo -- who I brought into the project to help me kind of cover the huge scope of it, because I couldn't possibly write all the pages alone -- interviewed that internal team.

Often what our role becomes or what my role becomes in projects like this, is I'm unifying departments. Because they're all great at their own thing, and they all understand their own area, but sales might not have talked to customer support in a while. And marketing might not have talked to sales in a while.

We can pull all these perspectives together, and then present to them and say, "Here's where you guys are actually at and where you're creating problems for the other side or where they're having an opportunity that you're not capitalizing on."

So talking to your sales team, looking at existing reviews and testimonials to see what are these people already talking about, how are they talking about it -- those are existing data sources that are already there.

One thing I want to drop as well. If you don't have a lot of these, go look at your competitors. And positive reviews are one thing for them, but go look at their negative reviews. Because those are things that you can exploit and position yourself against. So if, for example, people are saying, "Well, this solution is really slow and clunky." You can emphasize that you're agile and fast and easy to use.

So by getting kind of a landscape of what your competitors struggle with, it also helps you understand how you can position yourself against them.

Kathleen: That is a great idea.

It's interesting because I feel like a lot of companies do the opposite, which is they look at the competitors but they look at the competitor websites. And they look at what the competitors are saying they do, as opposed to looking at what the customers feel that they don't do well.

The result, when you look at your competitors and try to emulate them, is everybody starts to sound the same.

Joel: Totally.

Kathleen: And that actually suppresses conversions instead of improving them.

Joel: There's this crazy fallacy that companies have that somehow their competitor knows what they're doing. They don't.

I've written for the competitors. I've come into situations where I have written for both sides, the people being evaluated and the people being ... Often they're starting from the same point.

Every company is just trying to figure it out. Just because someone launches a timer on their homepage, they didn't necessarily do that because it works. They're just trying stuff to see what works.

Kathleen: They're throwing a bunch of darts at the wall to see what sticks.

Joel: Completely. I would say more companies don't know what they're doing than really do, because why I'm so excited about conversion optimization and conversion copywriting as a whole, is I very much see what I'm doing now as in the same vain as where SEO was eight to ten years ago or inbound marketing was five to eight years ago or whatever it might be. It's still so young and so much opportunity and companies are waking up to the value of this.

The tools are getting cheaper, the methodology is getting very defined. It's a fantastic time for companies to start thinking about this and to be moving ahead because we're getting to the point where if you're not, your competitor is.

But there's still so much time to move and be the first to really measure and test and do this well.

Kathleen: Oh, I couldn't agree more. CRO, conversion rate optimization, there's so much buzz and interest around it but there are so few people who really can claim to be experts in it, with true experience.

One thing I want to talk about... so we start with all the homework you need to do before you can even sit down and put pen to paper or virtual pen to paper, however you decide to do it. Then there's really understanding the audience. There's the insights that come out of that. Obviously what you've talked about is to truly write for the audience but are there also certain universal truths or rules in terms of either how you structure copy on a page? I'm thinking of Joanna Wiebe who has her "problem-agitation-solution" formula or certain words that you should or should not use.

Are there those universal truths out there that we should know about?

Joel: Yeah. You know, everybody wants there to be this formula or this code. Plug in X, get out Y, but I think even Joanna would tell you the PAS, the problem agitation solution, that's a fantastic framework that can do brilliantly in some contexts and miserably in others. Joanna uses it all the time for emails and email series and that kind of thing. It works great.

Let's put it in this context. There's different stages of awareness. So, if your customer already knows your brand and they already know they're sold on you, then a problem-agitation-solution format is just wasting their time because all they want to know is the deal. So, they just want to see okay, $50 off, boom. I know the deal. I know the value. I'm there.

So, for that audience, a different formula entirely works. Whereas if someone is completely ... You know, they don't understand their pain even yet, they're still coming into the point where they realize that they've got a problem, then that pain can be addressed better.

But there isn't just this sort of absolute truth. I think there's guidelines, there's best practices.

For example, on language, there's some misconceptions. You can go read a bunch of blog posts that say never use jargon or never use a cliché or never use an acronym. Well, even in my work for InsightSquared, their audience uses and loves and understands acronyms. If we don't use acronyms, we're the weirdo. We're the ones who don't look like we understand the niche.

If there is an absolute truth that I've found, if there are things that I can say every time, 100% of the time go and do this, it's you cannot be in the business of conversion without being in the business of talking to customers and having structured, documented conversations with them. You can't do it.

You can guess, you can pull levers on a wall, you can change button color aimlessly, but you can't be in the business of writing conversion copy or optimizing your copy if you're trying to cut customers out of the equation and not spend time talking to them or researching them.

It sounds so intuitive, but I guarantee there are companies listening to this where their methodology right now for how they come up with new copy is to huddle in a board room, copy up with a new tagline that they all feel is clever and represents management's vision, and never talk to a single customer until it launches.

So, I wish I could tell you there are frameworks for these things, but there's best practices. It's more like a journey of well, if X, then Y. If you understand this piece then try this. But there's no one black and white this definitely works or this definitely doesn't work.

Kathleen: So, when you develop that understanding of the customer, at some point you do have to sit down and write. The way you write and the volume of writing you do has to also be in alignment with the actual visual design of the page.

Can you talk a little bit about how you think front end designers and content creators should work together on these projects? Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?

Joel: Yeah. I'm so glad that you're asking about this because this honestly to me is what made the HubSpot project successful.

When you've got a timeline like that, first, let's establish that if there is an absolute, its that copy should always lead design. You cannot just pop words into a pretty picture, otherwise you may be cramming a story into a frame it wasn't fit for. We knew that. We also knew we couldn't wait for copy to be done or design wouldn't have time to do it.

So, the process that we used, and what made this successful, is that what you can do is you can iterate. So, when you understand the customer and when you've got a good understanding of "Okay, they're pain aware or solution aware or brand aware," then you know okay, you can define together with design.

You can say, "We know these are the types of sections we're going to need to cover. We know this is the flow we're going to need to cover them in. We don't have specific copy yet but we know right now for example, we need a hero section. After that we need about a paragraph of narrative to agitate the pain. Then we're going to need this section on emphasizing particular features that solve that pain."

So, when you've got an understanding of the customer you can sit down with design. What we did is we came up with a base framework, a base wire frame for the different types of pages on the site. In some cases you can template this a bit.

So, one of the people that the project could never have been achieved without was Pamela Vaughan.

Kathleen: I love her. Can I just say? I have to stop you for one second. I'm a huge fan girl of Pamela Vaughan's, because I've attended a number of her presentations and as a marketer, you can go to lots of conference presentations that are full of fluff and lots of "You should do this for this reason," but not a lot of "And here's how you actually do it."

She gives the most detailed, useful, actionable information of ... Probably she's in the top three of anybody I've seen present. So, that's the end of my fan rant on Pam Vaughan.

Joel: No, it's well earned. I mean, literally we could not have done it without her. She wrote a huge swath of the copy that ... You know, like the individual features pages. Those were Pam's.

So, we worked together to define the template for common pages and then we were able to use that same template to kind of inform. So, we started with the base wire framed together with copy and design. Design was able to go away and mock something up while copy was working on our piece of the puzzle.

Then we converged together, sent our wires to design and they would make our wire frames better and send it back. So, it was an iterative, collaborative process.

That's the way it has to be. I love Unbounce and I love these companies that have these templated landing pages. They're great as a starting point, but if you're switching your brain off and not defining who the audience is or what they need to hear and just picking a template because "Oh I like the way that looks," you're missing the point. I think Unbounce does a good job of educating people there.

Yeah, the design piece was a collaborative, iterative thing and for anyone listening who's thinking "I want to get into conversion copywriting" or "I want to hire a conversion copywriter," look for someone who's not just going to hand you a Word doc. Learn to wire frame.

Josh and I both use Balsamiq. That was a common tool of communication so writing could be on the same page as design. It's a skill that I didn't anticipate ever having to learn as a writer, and it's one I'm loving exploring because the more I understand how the design interplays with the words that I write, the more effective I can be, and the more designers are going to like to work with me.

So, the two are unbreakable, and actually Austin wrote a counter piece to my piece from design's perspective, so you can go read my piece on the HubSpot blog and you can read his. You can see where we both came from and how we made it work.

Kathleen: That's great. I love that you mentioned Balsamiq because my next question was going to be are there certain tools that you find are really helpful through this process?

It's funny, I'm not a designer either but I've had to create wire frames. There are many wire framing tools out there. We have one that our actual design team uses. I don't remember, I think it's called Moqups and it's super detailed. It's amazing, but it's too much for me. It would be like me going into InDesign and trying to create a webpage.

I like Balsamiq because it's really streamlined and simple, and for a non-designer it's a great wire framing tool.

Any other tools that you have used either in that project or in other projects that are really helpful for this kind of thing?

Joel: Yeah. Basically, so for mock ups and wire frames Balsamiq has been the tool that I've found easiest to use, most versatile for me. I know the platform inside and out.

I've also heard really good things about InFlow. So, inFlow is another one where you can experiment with that.

I'm not an affiliate for any of the tools I'm about to mention, so none of this is a paid ad but I genuinely love them.

Typeform is what we constantly use for surveys. Fantastic interface. Fantastic ability to use logic jumps to show different questions to different groups, which when you're segmenting information like we were was totally invaluable to be able to just naturally do that. So, Typeform is great.

For chat, the one I always recommend to companies is Drift. Drift continues to innovate, continues to do really cool things and on their basic free plan you can get your feet wet, you can control manually the hours it's live and not live so you don't have to worry about being present at four in the morning.

So, Typeform and Drift. Balsamiq is really helpful.

These days I've been using Hotjar to look at both heat maps and recorded user sessions and I've been really pleased taht they just announced some innovations today where they can capture more in those recorded user sessions, so that's really exciting to me. We can get a deeper look at how people are actually interacting.

So, those are kind of my old standbys.

Then I'm increasingly looking at Google Analytics, which you know, it's kind of people are like ... It's been around forever but people still don't have a clue the fraction of the power you can get out of Analytics.

One guy that I really admire in this space who is worth following and learning from is Michael Aagaard. He just knows the analytics piece really well. I think he would even tell you, he comes by it honestly, he's not necessarily like a numbers and analytics guy but he's found all these cool shortcuts and custom reports and ways to very quickly get at data that can highlight a problem so that you can respond quickly.

So, that's kind of my stack. That's my toolkit.

Occasionally you'll see things like FullStory or whatever, but I think that's one thing I want to communicate, is you don't need to have tens of thousands of dollars of budget to do this type of work. You just need to have the willingness to make the most of these free or basic plans for the period that you're using them.

The barrier to entry to doing this stuff is only getting lower. The tools are only getting better. So, there's really no excuse for companies to just be turning a blind eye to this and saying well it's too complicated or too complex. No way. You can start doing this stuff tomorrow.

Kathleen: Yeah, you could do it all probably in Google Docs too if you really had to.

Joel: Totally. I used to wire frame in Word with like tables. I mean, it's not as pretty as Balsamiq. It's not as easy to communicate, but it gets the job done. If you're going to start there, start there. Just go with what you know and evolve, but just get started.

Kathleen: Yeah. Absolutely. I love all the tools you mentioned. We use a lot of those.

On my team we use Drift. We have Drift on our site, so I'm absolutely going to go back and look at the chat logs after we stop talking.

You know, a number of those other tools ... One of the other ones that we're huge fans of, which if you haven't checked it out you might want to, is GatherContent. It's awesome. Our content manager has hacked it in a way that when we do website pages she's able to create blocks for the different content pieces that are needed and she can add in background on personas and guidance on how it should be written. It's really cool for content collaboration.

Joel: Yeah. That actually ...

Kathleen: That was my addition to the list.

Joel: That reminds me, there's one more. It's funny I forgot.

The tool that I'm really, really excited about I haven't had the chance to use it as much as I'd like but RightMessage. Brennan Dunn launched this tool. They continue to launch all these different sub tools, but RightMessage, if you believe in conversion optimization, if you believe that this is going to be important and integral for the future, RightMessage is what comes next. It's personalization. I have yet to see a tool working harder to make that easier, working harder to make it more intuitive, to make it more accessible.

So, I'm really, really excited about what Brennan and his team are doing over there. I'm trying to bake it into my proposals more often because more people need to use this stuff.

Kathleen: Oh, I'll definitely check that out.

Now, circling back to the project at HubSpot. You somehow got this website rewritten, you and the other team of people in this two to three month time period. The new site launched. I've heard lots of different numbers thrown around about the results you guys got. Can you break it down for us? What was the change?

Joel: Yeah. I'll pull those numbers up here, but the biggest change was we effectively doubled site wide conversions. So, on the biggest broadest level across all of their conversions, we saw a doubling there.

Then, to we break down some of the more specific conversions, HubSpot started seeing two times the inbound call volume. So, not just conversions on the site. Twice as many people phoning in. They saw a 35% increase in demo requests. They saw a 27% increase in product sign ups.

For a company the size of HubSpot, with the traffic of HubSpot, those are some serious, serious numbers. So, the efficacy of having customer driven copy and really a design team who cares about conversion and about telling the story the right way, and then a support team and a sales team who are open about what's working for them and how to nail that down, it all comes together to create impacts like that.

Kathleen: So, I have to ask. To what do you attribute that increase in inbound call volume? Because that's an interesting stat that I was not expecting you to mention.

Joel: Yeah. That one was surprising to me too. You know, if you haven't ever had Matt Barby on the program, having him come in to talk about attribution and tracking and that sort of thing I think would be fascinating.

Kathleen: Oh, I would love that. Matt, if you're listening, call me!

Joel: Yeah. So, I mean, Matt. Matt would be the guy to really help pin that down.

Not only did we change the site, and the copy, and the way we presented their products, during this time they also started playing around with kind of a freemium model and looking at some of these more freemium-type calls, so it's possible that maybe kind of having that angle correlated with more people being willing to check it out.

I really do think, though, that it was the clarity, it was the ability for people to understand on their own very quickly how the different pieces of the tool connected to feel comfortable enough to make that call so they wouldn't feel like an idiot, or they wouldn't feel they'd have to spend all day trying to just sort up with sales, getting a sales pitch on everything, they could ask more direct questions about the things they actually needed.

So, that's my hypothesis, that's what I would guess. But it would be fascinating for you to have somebody on the in-house side come in. And they continue to do some really cool and innovative things, and the site's changed and grown since then, so I'm sure they'll have even more stories.

Kathleen: Yeah, there's so many very, very, very smart people on that team.

Joel: Mm-hmm.

Kathleen: I would take any one of them as a guest. So I assume that some of the lessons that came out of that particular project, or things you have applied in other places, fast forward to today and are there certain things that you're really excited about when it comes to conversion copyrighting, or conversion rate optimization?

Joel: Yeah, two things in particular.

So the first is that personalization piece. With RightMessage, like I mentioned, that's becoming more possible. What I'm really fascinated by is just before, if you wanted to have different conversations with individuals, it was clunky. You had to create a whole bunch of different stuff, just even pages upon pages, and you had to really do a ton of work to try to make it happen technically. So it wasn't always possible, and I love that the bar for that is coming down. I'm really having a fun time learning more and more about how to segment and identify the differences in user groups. So, that piece, I think, is so important. It is the future of this stuff, and I'm really excited about that.

For me personally, where I'm seeing the most growth for myself, this year, interestingly, I've made more off of audits and reviews than any writing. So, I still continue to offer writing, but I'm doing more and more analysis and helping companies identify what's going wrong and how they can fix it with copywriting, and UX exchanges, and things like that.

So for me, what I'm excited about and continue to grow in to, it's nothing sexy, but Google Analytics. Just unpacking the power available on Google Analytics, and how to deploy that properly, and the types of things you can learn. I want to share ... I'll make it quick, but I want to share a quick story, just kind of the stuff you can learn when you're paying attention.

So, I was working with a client, and I was doing a review of their site. They offer divorce packages in the UK. One of those stats we found that was fascinating to us through Google Analytics that sent up a little red flag was men converted better than women, and we know that more women initiate divorce than men. So it was kind of like, that's an oddity. Something is amiss here.

So, long story short, through Google Analytics, a combination of looking at Google Analytics, the times people were actually on the site, combined with chat logs to learn what challenges were unique to women, we were able to come up with a cool hypothesis that women are in more financially vulnerable situations, they're working multiple jobs, so they want to convert in later hours, but chat was off during those hours.

Kathleen: Oh, interesting.

Joel: So through that, we figured out well let's test extending chat hours and see what the impact is. So, stuff like that just gets me pumped up because it's ... The amount of stuff you can learn when you're paying attention is fascinating.

Kathleen: Oh, I love it. I love ... I always say I'm a marketing nerd, and I feel a sense of kinship with you on this because when I discover the little nuggets like that, it does, it gets me super excited. And I'll admit, I definitely am not as much of an expert in Google Analytics as I would like to be. I feel like every time I start to get really proficient, it's like the grocery store when they reorganize it, and then you don't know where the milk is.

Joel: Right.

Kathleen: Google Analytics likes to do that to us sometimes, too, but it's like an ice berg, and we kind of see the tip, but there's so much there under the surface, so much power and so much data. But I think I agree, there is so much to be learned.

Joel: Totally.

Kathleen's Two Questions

Kathleen: So two questions that I ask all of my guests. I want to make sure I ask you before we wrap up today. One is, company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?

Joel: The women are crushing it. All of the people that I-

Kathleen: Yes.

Joel: Most admire doing this right now are all women, and they're doing brilliant jobs in really different ways. So as an individual, someone who recently came on my radar and now I'm so excited to be able to collaborate with is a woman named Val Geisler. I'm not sure how you pronounce her last name. She does email onboarding series and optimizes those. What she's done, you know, she's a one woman shop, so she doesn't have the ability to publish thousands of things, but she does such targeted, relevant content. She does these really cool email tear downs of companies people know and respect.

Her candor in those, you know, she's not rude or mean, but she's also very honest and very great at exposing it. "Here's what they're doing. Here's what they could do better." So Val is doing fantastic. Claire and Gia at Forget the Funnel, so they've launched this really ... Like, they are, to me, a lot of people ... we talk about blogs, we talk about e-books, but what we don't often talk about as much is building yourself a platform, giving people a reason to want to listen to you and come to you, and see you as an authority.

That's what Claire and Gia have done. Two extremely bright, very talented women, who have launched this thing, and created this avenue to get exactly the right customers that they want to work with, exactly the right sets of people to listen to what they have to say. They do these great webinars, and they do these great interviews. So those would be two examples. Then one group of fellows, I think who is doing is good, is Grow and Convert, and they're putting out some really great case studies, and really great content, and really great pieces that are helping Mark [Rozano 00:38:06] and myself just stay relevant and level up what they're doing.

Kathleen: Okay, what's really cool about what you just said is those are three groups of people, places, brands, etc. that are totally new to me. I love when I get answers like that, and I have new places to check out. I'm particular interested in these email onboarding series right now, because we're revamping ours, so I will definitely be checking that one out.

Second question, and I'm going to narrow it down. I usually ask people, with digital marketing changing so quickly, how do you stay up to date. But I want to get a little bit more specific than that with you, because I'm intrigued that you're focused on conversion rate optimization. I want to ask you how you stay educated for yourself, and build your skills in the field of conversion rate optimization?

Joel: Yeah. So there's some really important sources that I consult and I look to, just to see what they're publishing. So, Joanna Wiebe, obviously. Anytime she's publishing a case study, or puts out a course, that's relevant to me. I'm almost always going to buy it. I'm really tuned in with her, and she's got tons of free content, but even if you can find her legacy content. It's just as relevant as it was then.

Conversion XL continues to publish really valuable things. So, that's been really helpful. To me, in particular, and Michael Aagaard, like I said, he's done some recent webinars and that sort of thing. Expanding beyond that though, what's been really important for me in this field, and I think anyone coming in to should know, is that it is still young, and there is so much bad information out there where's it's like we change a button color and things would-

Kathleen: Yeah.

Joel: You can really educate yourself the wrong way, or you can educate yourself into a corner where you're like, "Well here are the rules. And here's what worked well in this situation," and you can treat it like gospel and try to apply it everywhere. So what's been really valuable to me is I've got Mastermind, just a little group of people in the same space, and we compare notes. We talk about what's going on with each other, and what they're learning, what they're coming across. In this industry, I think in all industries, it's valuable.

But in this niche in particular, being tuned into what's going on with others, and what they're learning, and the context they learn it in is really important. Then the last one I'll mention is a site called GoodUI.com. He publishes a lot of, kind of tests and examples of stuff that people are trying out. Actually, one more that I really want to mention, and I'm excited to mention because it's not going to be on hardly anybody's radar, but I guarantee it's about to be on everybody's radar-

Kathleen: Ooh.

Joel: There's a company called User Insights. They have launched just the best tool for user testing that I have ever seen. Small batch user testing, very targeted, way cheaper than the competition, just as good, faster, but that service aside, that's really exciting. But they are doing some very interesting stuff. They haven't launched it all yet, but they're doing some very interesting stuff with case studies and actually testing in context a lot of different things that I know people are like, "Well should I have this? Or should I have that?"

They're doing a lot of that practically now with ... across multiple sites, and verifiable outcomes. So they will be on people's radar because they're doing it at a scale I don't think anybody else is yet. So, I'm learning a bit from the people running that quietly in the background, and they're about to blow up. I'm sure of it.

Kathleen: I can't wait to check all of this out. I feel like that's going to keep me busy for a while. That's great. I assume that everything you've learned through all of these projects, these engagements that you've done, you are bringing to bear with Case Study Buddy to help people improve their case studies. And you have a team there, right?

Joel: Yeah, so Case Study Buddy is a different kind of a venture for me. Like I said, what excites me are these content assets that are easy to get wrong, super valuable when done well, companies struggle with the process, the strategy, the ownership of it. And so I've brought kind of all this stuff I'm doing in conversion. I'm trying to bring into the elements of how do we write something that appeals to multiple different scanners and readers and user groups, and how do we educate our clients on how to use these?

For example, something I learned recently that I found fascinating is lots of companies are doing cold outreach. They're sending these cold emails. I can't remember the name of the company who did this study, but they tested out what is the impact of mentioning a famous "customer", so just a known customer in these cold outreach emails. And they've tripled the number of interested responses.

Kathleen: Wow.

Joel: So, the power is there, and if you can imagine attaching a case study, the impact that would have. Yeah, it's a different adventure. I've gotten to build a team and work outside of myself, and all the joys and pains that come with that. Yeah, it's been really fun, and that's going to be, like I mentioned, I'm still going to be doing this conversion work and that will be my bread and butter, especially on the back half of this year, growing Case Study Buddy, and getting it in front of more people and growing that initiative is high on my priority list.

Kathleen: I can't wait to see where you take it. It sounds like you're on to something here.

Joel: Thank you.

Kathleen: Well, I know I've had a million questions throughout this, and I've had the opportunity to have you answer many of them, but if somebody's listening, and they wanted to reach out to you and ask a question, or get more information on something you've talked about today, what's the best way for them to find you online?

Joel: Yeah, so I'm very active on Twitter. I do my best to respond to everything that comes in, whether it's a DM or a Tweet, or whatever. You can find me @JoelKlettke. That's one way to get at me fast. You can also email me. You can check out my ancient and desperately-in-need-of-being-updated site at BusinessCasualCopyrighting.com. Don't judge me. I built in 2013. It's due for an upgrade, but you can email me through there. I'm happy to field questions and if there's something you're struggling with.

Then surprisingly, I always kind of shun the platform, but the past two months I've gotten a ton of value out of having conversations on LinkedIn. So, another space that you can see. I publish more there, actually, these days than my own blog. I do little snippets, and pushes, and tips and tricks there. I always try to make sure I'm responding to people who come through that channel, too.

Kathleen: Yeah, LinkedIn-

Joel: Those are kind of the three places.

Kathleen: LinkedIn's making a comeback big time.

Joel: Oh, huge.

Kathleen: A lot of people are mentioning that on this podcast.

Joel: They went from being the platform nobody wanted to talk about, to the platform everybody's publishing on.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Joel: It's remarkable. Even begrudgingly, there's still the joke about wanting to connect on LinkedIn, and after the apocalypse, only those emails remain. But joke all you want, they've become a serious contender. It's amazing that that team has done.

Kathleen: Definitely. I agree. Well, thank you. This has been fascinating. I've learned so much. I have a feeling I'm going to learn a lot more when I go check out all those websites you mentioned. So I really appreciate you spending the time on the podcast. If you're listening and you liked what you heard, you learned something, I'm going to ask if you would please take a moment and go on iTunes, or Stitcher, or whatever platform you choose to listen to the podcast on, and leave a review. It would mean a lot. Finally, if you know someone doing kickass inbound marketing work, Tweet me @WorkMommyWork, because I would love to interview them. Thank you so much, Joel.

Joel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

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from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/conversion-copywriting-joel-klettke-podcast

[succorcreek]

Little Golden Book Art of the Steal NSFW Fantasies Well it had been one of those personal delays: I'd put off reviewing Donald Trump's books on his life and business. But I'm finally in them.....or since there is really nothing there but braggadocio in the books and out quickly. Reception and legacy The reviews of the books by professional writers: boyish see in the topic cloud below these 2 topics: age regressed 12 year old "ultra regression" and age regressed 17 year old teen goals language and ideas ((15 articles related to this and included in all 13 books in the catalog tab above) shows ignorance of his own life at the time of writing: repeated bankruptcies greed demonstrated and personified greed is the goal it is good and is morally good in his world view exaggerations and "alternative facts are good" boasting grandiose self-focused he feels he is better than others superficial relationships: others are to be used or if not useful ignored (marginalized) one called it a "morality play" meaning that it was like a play about darkness a lesson about immorality and not really anything moral or ethical Donald Trump based much of this book on the Stolen material from Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking. Trump's steps are: Think big Protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself Maximize your options Know your market Use your leverage Enhance your location Get the word out Fight back Deliver the goods Contain the costs Have fun How many times we've heard: "I love them (fill in blank) so so much". What is we borrowed our Little Golden Book fantasy and rewrote the Trump Art of the Steal in 21 points??? 1. Revenge is perty fun. This is how I'd like to get back at some of my enemies like McCain and Joe Biden . 2. Women can aspire to become nurses because they wear those cute outfit. 3. most people should have this in their home library . because and it's really really bigly sad: 3. Make lots of jobs for others and tell the media you did it 4. Dang another nurse pix. But it shows I do so like the womenes.... 4. Always tell the truth the awful alternate truth 5. Don't let others steal your own thunder. Act now. 5. Mind your own business and focus focus focus on your own work. 7. Use a big powerful and unabashed vocabulary. It'll make others think highly of you. 8. Meditate daily. Meditation is best without the noise of nature. 9. We're going to reduce the National Monuments and National Parks plus sell off Alaska. It's such a fire hazard. Keep your kids out. 10. I like to use simple guidelines to select my staff generals consultants and Supreme Court Nominees. I get my info from this entertaining book: 11. Wherever I go I find cats and dogs. Don't like those dogs. But pussies are every where. You can't love a pussy too much. If people in your past and Hillary accuse you of that just tell them we have secret photos of them to release to the media soon. That'll make them shake in their boots. 12. Be firm in what you do. Don't be a wet dish rag. 13. Tell them about your products and goods. They'll be impressed. They'll buy it. 14. Keep good notes on those who are helpful and those who are not. 15. Buy properties because it's a fun investment: 16. Choose your White Supremacy Racists buds well. 18. Indians blech. Keep away cause they have small pox. 19. Be realistic with dreamers and 99% of the population. The truth counts. 20. Communicate well and all the time. Tell people they better support your plans or there could be harm. 21. Give your wife and kids a balance of affection. There is always the risk of too much love. I only give Baron one of these Facehugs once a week so he doesn't become dependent on me. Here are the steps as writen earlier by Norman Vincent Peale in The Power of Positive Thinking. This is helpful information followed by millions. 1. Believe in YourselfIt is appalling to realize the number of pathetic people who are hampered and made miserable by the malady popularly called the inferiority complex. But you need not suffer from this trouble. When proper steps are taken it can be overcome. You can develop creative faith in yourselffaith that is justified. The combined use of holy mantras for immediate comfort and strength and psychological analysis to get to the bottom of why feelings of inferiority might plague us is Peales basic recipe for fostering self-confidence. He emphasizes that it is important to immerse ones mind in spiritual thought and Bible scripture in order to push out negative thoughts that stem from a feeling of insecurity. Deep analysis of ones psyche also must be done to pinpoint the root cause of an inferiority complex. There are various causes of inferiority feelings and not a few stem from childhood. Peale offers his own personal example of inferiority feelings that plagued him throughout his youth. From his early years he was insecure about being very thin and conversely when he reached age 30 years of over-consumption caught up with him and resulted in a weight problem. In the second place...I was a ministers son and was constantly reminded of that fact Peale wrote. Everybody else could do everything but if I did even the slightest little thingAh you are a preachers son. So I didnt want to be a preachers son for preachers sons are supposed to be nice and namby-pamby. I wanted to be known as a hard-boiled fellow...I vowed there was one thing I would never do and that was to become a preacher. (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking) He also developed a fear of public speaking because it was common practice by most of his family members who forced Peal to do it despite his fear and insecurities. Faith techniques found in the Bible brought Peale out of his low-self-esteem doldrums. The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex...is to fill your mind to overflowing with faith. Develop a tremendous faith in God and that will give you a humble yet soundly realistic faith in yourself. The acquiring of dynamic faith is accomplished by prayer lots of prayer by reading and mentally absorbing the Bible and by practicing its faith techniques. (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking) Deep meaningful and powerful prayer techniques subvert feelings of inadequacy. Surface skimming formalistic and perfunctory prayer is not sufficiently powerful Peale wrote. The larger the problem that confronts a person the deeper their level of prayer must be. If your mind is obsessed by thoughts of insecurity and inadequacy it is of course due to the fact that such ideas have dominated your thinking over a long period of time. Another and more positive pattern of ideas must be given the mind and that is accomplished by repetitive suggestion or confidence ideas...It is possible even in the midst of your daily work to drive confident thoughts into consciousness. Peale provides 10 rules designed to assist people in vanquishing thoughts that hold them back from happiness and success and promote low self-esteem: Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Immediately contest negative thoughts about ones personal powers with a deliberately placed positive counterpoint. Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. Depreciate every so-called obstacle. Minimize them. Difficulties must be studied and efficiently dealt with to be eliminated but they must be seen for only what they are. They must not be inflated by fear thoughts. Dont let people who impress you cause you to be awestruck and inclined to copy them because the reality is they are likely just as subject to fear and insecurity as you are. Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words If God be forus who can be against us? (Romans 8:31). Connect with a competent psychological counselor to help you understand the reasons for your self-doubt because the cure for insecurity is knowledge of its causes that usually begin during childhood. Ten times each day practice the following affirmation repeating it out loud if possible. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Philippians 4:13)...That magic statement is the most powerful antidote on earth to inferiority thoughts. Come up with an accurate estimation of your own ability then increase it 10 percent. Avoid egotism but be sure to develop a healthy sense of self-respect. Put yourself in Gods hands. To do that simply state I am in Gods hands. Then believe you are NOW receiving all the power you need. Feel it flowing into you Affirm that the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21) in the form of adequate power to meet lifes demands. Remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you. Believe that you nowRECEIVE power from him (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). 2. A Peaceful Mind Generates PowerThe Life of strain is difficult. The life of inner peace being harmonious and without stress is the easiest type of existence. The chief struggle then in gaining mental peace is the effort of revamping your thinking to the relaxed attitude of acceptance of Gods gift of peace. Peale outlines the technique of emptying the mind which involves releasing fears hates insecurities regrets and guilt feelings (The Power of Positive Thinking). During a religious service on a voyage to Hawaii Peale told attendees to drop their worries overboard and watch them disappear in the wake of the ship. Consciously letting go of negative thoughts inevitably brings relief. At intervals during the day practice thinking a carefully selected series of peaceful thoughts. Let mental pictures of the most peaceful scenes you have ever witnessed pass across your mind as for example some beautiful valley filled with the hush of evening time as the shadows lengthen and the sun sinks to waters or emember the sea washing gently upon soft shores of sand. Such peaceful thought images will work upon your mind as a healing medicine. (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking) Peale also suggests a technique called suggestive articulation. Audibly repeat words that carry peaceful connotation. Words have profound suggestive power and there is healing in the very saying of them. He suggests using words as tranquillity and serenity and to say them slowly and repetitively. Lines of poetry or Scripture passages have the same effect. Conversation speech is another conscious way to put the mind at ease. By our speech we can...achieve quiet reactions. Talk peaceful to be peaceful. Eliminating negative ideas from conversations will prevent them from producing inner tension. Although there is an appropriate time and place for confronting negative subjects in general ...to have peace of mind fill your personal and group conversations with positive happy optimistic satisfying expressions. The daily practice of silence is yet another path toward having a peaceful mind. Everyone should insist upon not less than a quarter of an hour of absolute quiet every twenty-four hours. Go alone into the quietest place available to you and sit or lie down for fifteen minutes and practice the art of silence. Do not talk to anyone. Do not write. Do not read. Think as little as possible. Throw your mind into neutral...When you have attained a quiescent state then begin to listen for the deeper sounds of harmony and beauty and of God that are to be found in the essence of silence. These techniques require steady practice and are not easy to instantly conjure into workable fruition for those who are novice to such meditation and conscious control of their conversational speech. Peale also observes that there are self-imposed obstacles to inner peace in the form of haunting guilt. ...[T]here is a curious quirk within the human mind whereby sometimes an individual will not forgive himself...Peace of mind under such circumstances is available by yielding the guilt as well as the tension it produces to the healing therapy of Christ. 3. How to Have Constant EnergyHow we think we feel has a definite effect on how we actually feel physically. If your mind tells you that you are tired the body mechanism the nerves and the muscles accept the fact. If your mind is intensely interested you can keep on at an activity indefinitely. Religion functions through our thoughts in fact it is a system of thought discipline. By supplying attitudes of faith to the mind it can increase energy. It helps you to accomplish prodigious activity by suggesting that you have ample support and resources of power. God isthe source of all energyenergy in the universe atomic energy electrical energy and spiritual energy; indeed every form of energy derives from the Creator. So tapping the infinite power and energy of the Almighty is the best means humans can utilize toward keeping themselves properly energized. When in spiritual contact with God through our thought processes the Divine energy flows through the personality automatically renewing the original creative act. When contact with the Divine energy is broken the personality gradually becomes depleted from the body mind and spirit. On the physical level maintaining a constantly rejuvenating energy supply requires a person is in tune with nature and their emotional stability. Stress angst and negativity all hamper this rejuvenation. This can lead to a feeling of being overwhelmed by ones workload or daily responsibilities. It is fear resentment the projection of parental faults upon people when they are children inner conflicts and obsessions that throw off balance the finely equated nature thus causing expenditure of natural force. The fast pace and chaotic habits of the modern age have a disastrous effect on emotional stability and thus ones energy level. Synchronicity with the natural tempo of Gods creation is the key to filtering out the distractions of overly fast modernity. Peal advice: lie down on the ground on a warm day and listen to the natural sounds of the earth. Get your ear close down to the ground and listen. You will hear all manner of sounds. You will hear the sound of the wind in the trees and the murmur of insects and you will discover presently that there is in all these sounds a well-regulated tempo. This divine tempo is present in the word of God and hymns sung in church and we can also find it in factory if so inclined to look for it. The trick is to feel your way into the rhythm of God and all his creations including machines and tools that mankind has devised. To accomplish this relax physically. Then conceive of your mind as likewise relaxing. Follow this mentally by visualizing the soul as becoming quiescent then pray as follows: Dear God You are the source of all energy. You are the source of the energy in the sun in the atom in all flesh in the bloodstream in the mind. I hereby draw energy from You as from an illimitable source. Then practice believing that you receive energy. Keep in tune with the Infinite. (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking) Boredom as well as monotonous daily responsibilities are other major causes energy depletion. It is important to develop interests that inspire us and make us passionate about life. This excitement and stimulation breeds energy as opposed to sitting around lamenting about lack of action. Clearly doing nothing is equivalent to stagnation which wholly coincides with feeling drained and listless. Finally getting a handle on emotional troubles namely fear and guilt is essential to maintaining a good energy level. The effect of guilt and fear feelings on energy is widely recognized by all authorities having to do with the problems of human nature. The quantity of vital force required to give the personality relief from either guilt or fear or a combination of each is so great that often only a fraction of energy remains for the discharge of the functions of living. The author claims putting the consequences of ones actions in Gods hands are the key to breaking the energy-sapping bonds of guilt and fear. 4. Try Prayer PowerPrayer power is a manifestation of energy. Just as there exist scientific techniques for the release of atomic energy so are there scientific procedures for the release of spiritual energy through the mechanism of prayer. Exciting demonstrations of this energizing force are evident. Peale claims prayer power is the greatest power of all. It can guide the outcome of everything from decision making to the aging process. When deeply ingrained into ones subconscious prayer power can transform an individual emotionally physically and keep energy freely flowing. In terms of prayer techniques it is essential to keep things fresh. It is well to study prayer from an efficiency point of view. Usually the emphasis is entirely religious though no cleavage exists between the two concepts. Scientific spiritual practice rules out stereotyped procedure even as it does in general science...Get new insights; practice new skills to attain greatest results...Any method through which you can stimulate the power of God to flow into your mind is legitimate and usable. The author provides a prayer-power formula devised by a friend of his who uses it to overcome problems and attain success: Prayerize: practice a daily regimen of creative prayer communication with God in an effort to solve problems and make wise decisions. Not the kind of prayer that places God on a far-off lofty pedestal but rather acknowledges his close presence everywhere we go and in everything we do. Picturize: When failure or success is picturized it strongly tends to actualize in terms equivalent to the mental image pictured. To assure something worth while happening first pray about it and test it according to Gods will; then print a picture of it on your mind as happening holding the picture firmly in consciousness. Continue to surrender the picture to Gods willthat is to say put the matter in Gods handsand follow Gods guidance. Actualize: Creative prayer and picturing success and positivity results in actualresults in real life. I have personally practiced this three-point prayer method and find great power in it. It has been suggested to others who have likewise reported that it released creative power into their experience. Another powerful creative prayer method is called flash prayers. Developed by Frank Laubach in the book Prayer the Mightiest Power in the World it involves bombarding random people in public places with prayerful thoughts of love and good will. Here are 10 rules for yielding effective results via prayer: Set aside a few minutes every day to silently think about God in order to make the mind spiritually receptive. Pray orally with simple natural language telling God whatever is on your mind. Pray throughout the course of the workday in public places. At times close your eyes to block out the worlds distractions and briefly concentrate on Gods presence. Dont always make requests of God. Instead give thanks and confirm your belief that He will undoubtedly grant blessings. Pray with the belief that sincere prayers can reach out and surround your loved ones with Gods love and protection. Never use a negative thought in prayer. Only positive thoughts get results. Always be willing to adhere to Gods will. Ask for what you want but be willing to take what God gives you. It may be better than what you ask for. Become practiced at putting all happenings in Gods hands by seeking the ability to do your best but trusting the outcomes to God. Pray for people you do not like or who have mistreated you. Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power. Create a list of people for whom you must pray. The more you pray for others the more positive results from praying will come back to you. 5. How to Create Your Own HappinessYou can be unhappy if you want to be. It is the easiest thing in the world to accomplish. Just choose unhappiness. Go around telling yourself that things arent going well that nothing is satisfactory and you can be quite sure of being unhappy. But say to yourself Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose happiness and you can be quite certain of having your choice. It is crucial to stay in touch with the childlike truly happy spirit which God has endowed in each person from youth to adulthood. Children are very adept at happiness compared with adults and their example of how to appreciate the simple most purely real things in life that are most important to happiness should be closely emulated by the grown-up population. In other words never get old or dull or jaded in spirit. Dont become super-sophisticated. In spite of social conditions that undeniably hinder personal happiness through our thoughts and attitudes about what life throws our way we manufacture our own state of happiness or unhappiness. ...[A] very large proportion of the unhappiness of the average individual is self-manufactured. Some have the ability to take things as they come and not let relatively small things upset them while others create a bad mood at the drop of a hat. How foolish to manufacture personal unhappiness to add to all the other difficulties over which you have little or no control! Once again the negative feelings of resentment jealousy fear ill will and hate enter the mix as major obstacles to happiness. They block the minds attempt to feel at ease and focus on the positive things that foster happiness. In order to encourage a state of personal happiness despite lifes challenges and stresses people must develop what Peale calls the happiness habit. This simply means systematically thinking happy thoughts. As previously noted picturization comes into play here this time referencing images that inspire joy as the minds-eye mantra for practitioners to utilize. Do this every morning when you awake and see how your mood is shaped for the rest of the day. When you arise say out loud three times this on sentence This is the day that the Lord has made;...I will rejoice and be glad in it. This follows suit with the power of suggestion that words naturally have. Continually affirm to yourself that happiness abounds and that Gods loving power is the force through which this is possible. It is astonishing how people can become inoculated with happiness through an inner experience of spiritual change. 6. Stop Fuming and FrettingMany People make life unnecessarily difficult for themselves by dissipating power and energy through fuming and fretting. This chapter keys in on how to avoid letting anger get the best of us as well as how to avoid the childish act of fretting which Peale describes as being ...reminiscent of a sick child in the night a petulant half-cry half-whine. It ceases only to begin again. It has an irritating annoying penetrating quality. To fret is a childish term but it describes the emotional reaction of many adults. Peales first bit of advice is to slow down. That means stop rushing stop being both physically and emotionally impatient. The pace of modern life must be reduced if we are not to suffer profoundly from its debilitating over-stimulation and super-excitement. This over-stimulation produces toxic poisons in the body and creates emotional illness. City dwellers should nurture and appreciation for the natural quiet and peaceful sounds of natural settings. The tempo of the woods and other undeveloped areas reflect the essence of God and should garner dedicated attention from those seeking emotional and physical peace. Regular peaceful thoughts are Peales prescription for quelling fuming and fretting. Even during the busiest time of the day it is highly advisable to take time out to practice serenity. Attention to avoiding fuming and fretting has beneficial health implications. Being high-strung nervous and perpetually in a rush can lead to many physical and mental health problems. So getting in control of ones emotions are very important to maintaining ones overall good health. ...[T]he body responds sensitively to the type of thoughts that pass through the mind. It is also true that the mind can be quieted by first making the body quiet. That is to say a physical attitude can induce desired mental attitudes. Peale offers six points to practice in the interest of putting an end to fuming and fretting: Sit in a chair and relax your body from head to toe. State out loud that your toes fingers and facial muscles are indeed relaxed. Imagine your mind is just like the surface of a lake during a storm full of rough waves and tumult. But now the storm has passed and the lake surface is calm. Allow two or three minutes to picture the most beautiful serene scenes from nature that you have ever experienced and relive these scenes in your memory. Slowly deliberately repeat out loud words such as tranquility serenity and quietness. Make a mental list of times in your life when you have been conscious of Gods watchful care and recall how when you were worried and anxious He brought things out right and took care of you. Then recite aloud this line from an old hymn So long Thy power hath kept me sure it STILL will lead me on. Repeat the following as many times a day as possible: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. (Isaiah 26:3)...This is the best-known medicine for taking tension from the mind (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). 7. & 8. Expect the Best and Get It & I Dont Believe in DefeatLearn to expect not to doubt. In so doing you bring everything into the realm of possibility. In reference to the quote above early on in the chapter Peale levies this disclaimer to guard against setting oneself up for disappointment if things dont turn out according to ones preconceived notions: This does not mean that by believing you are necessarily going to get everything you want or think you want. Perhaps that would not be good for you. When you put your trust in God He guides your mind so that you do not want things that are not good for you or that are inharmonious with Gods will. Faith in Gods infinite and creative will is the crux in expecting the best outcome and having it actually come to fruition. Start reading the New Testament and notice the number of times it refers to faith. Select a dozen of the strongest statements about faith the ones that you like the best. Then memorize each one. Let these faith concepts drop into your conscious mind. Say them over and over again especially just before going to sleep at night. Give your all to whatever you do in the professional realm dont hold back. Putting your whole hearts worth of drive and passion is the key to success. Failure unfortunately is borne of holding back of keeping a portion of the entirety of ones energy in reserve. As a wise teacher once told a struggling student: Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow. The Gospel of Mark chapter 11 is a significant reference point for accentuating the positive through faith in Gods benevolence and wisdom. Chapter 8 focuses on developing a spirit that perseveres and doesnt easily give up when the going gets tough. Obstacles are part of life and for those not armed with a sound spiritual foundation they can cause people to lose self-confidence and sight of their true abilities. So the first thing to do about an obstacle is simply to stand up to it and not complain about it or whine under it but forthrightly attack it. Dont go crawling through life...half-defeated. Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they havent half the strength you think they have. Conditioning the subconscious to reflect positivity rather than negative self-doubt is the way to defeating defeatism. One means to this end is to eliminate little negatives such as insecure expressions of self-doubt from everyday conversation. These add up and amount to a subconscious outlook that sets individuals up for defeat. 9. How to Break the Worry HabitYou do not need to be a victim of worry. Reduced to its simplest form what is worry? It is simply an unhealthy and destructive mental habit. You were not born with the worry habit. You acquired it. And because you can change any habit and any acquired attitude you can cast worry from your mind. Aggressive direct action is essential to eliminating worry says Peale. Confronting fear is the only way to conquer it. Otherwise it unavoidably builds up and causes significant mental and physical health problems. Many respected accomplished psychiatrists and physicians have observed that worry accompanies a plethora of physical health problems. These sufferers have been unable to expel their anxieties which have turned inward on the personality causing many forms of ill-health. To eliminate worry and prevent build-up a person should empty his or her mind every day preferably at bedtime. Creative imagination is Peales technique for mind drainage. Conceive of yourself as actually emptying your mind of all anxiety and fear...Repeat the following affirmation during this visualization: With Gods help I am now emptying my mind of all anxiety all fear all sense of insecurity...So the process isempty the mind and cauterize it with Gods grace then practice filling your mind with faith and you will break the worry habit. Peale concludes Chapter 9 with a 10-point formula: Say to yourself: Worry is just a very bad mental habit. And I can change any habit with Gods help (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). Start putting faith into action because just as worrying is ones own choice so is the antidote to it. Every morning say aloud I believe three times. Pray using this formula I place this day my life my loved ones my work in the Lords hands. There is no harm in the Lords hands only good. Whatever happens whatever results if I am in the Lords hands it is the Lords will and it is good. Speak positively especially about that which has been causing you to worry. Dont ever participate in a worry conversation with others. A group of people talking pessimistically can infect every person in the group with negativism. Because as a worrier your mind is full of negative thoughts to counter this you should mark every Bible passage ...that speaks of faith hope happiness glory radiance Develop friendships with positive hopeful people. Help other overcome worry. Every day of your life conceive of yourself as living in partnership and companionship with Jesus Christ...[S]ay to yourself He is with me. Affirm aloud I am with you always. Then change it to say He is with me now. Repeat that affirmation three times every day 10. Power to Solve Personal ProblemsPractice believing that God is as real and actual as your wife or your business partner or your closest friend. Practice talking matters over with Him; believe that he hears and gives thought to your problem. Assume that He impresses upon your mind through consciousness the proper ideas and insights necessary to solve your problems. Definitely believe that in these solutions there will be no error but that you will be guided to actions according to truth which results in right outcomes. Accepting Gods will as wholly positive and the right course of action is the most direct way to deal with ones personal troubles. A partnership with God allows humans to connect with the divine energy and wisdom that leads to successful problem solving. Peale strongly emphasizes his support for this spiritual technique aimed at fostering personal well-being and happiness in the long run. In addition to the method of two or three praying together in the surrender to God technique and that of establishing a partnership with God and the importance of a plan to tap and utilize emergency inner powers there is still another tremendous techniquethat of practicing faith attitudes. Faith attitudes is a term that refers to applying ones faith in God to the entire scope of their everyday life from basic morality to business decisions. Peale concludes this chapter with a 10-point list for solving problems: Believe every problem has a solution. Remain calm because tenseness prevents the flow of brain power. Dont try to force an answer. Keep your mind relaxed so that the solution will open up and become clear. Assemble all the facts impartially impersonally and judicially. Write a list of these facts which clarifies your thinking. Pray about your problem affirming that God will flash illumination into your mind. Believe in and seek Gods guidance on the promise of the 73rd Psalm Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel. Trust in the human abilities of insight and intuition. Attend church and allow your subconscious to work on the problem at hand as you tune into the spiritual mood of the worship service. Creative spiritual thinking has amazing power to give right answers. (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). If you follow these steps faithfully then the answer that develops in your mind or comes to pass is the right answer to your problem. 11. & 12. How to Use Faith in Healing & When Vitality Sags Try This Health FormulaIs religious faith a factor in healing? Important evidence indicates that it is. There was a time in my own experience when I was not convinced of this but now I am and that very definitely. I have seen too many evidences to believe otherwise. Peale connects bodily health with a persons mental state which is greatly affected by ones level of faith-driven peace of mind. This chapter features many anecdotal cases where faith in God and the associated release of hate and fear significantly aided a sick person through the healing process. Peale also quotes many medical doctors who prescribe spirituality as a treatment for patients in need of guidance on how to live a healthy life. Present-day medicine emphasizes psychosomatic factors in healing thus recognizing the relationship of mental states to bodily health. Modern medical practice realizes and takes into consideration the close connection between how a man thinks and how he feels. Since religion deals with thought and feeling and basic attitudes it is only natural that the science of faith should be important in the healing process. Fear resentment hate guilt and feelings of inferiority again resurface in Peales discourse this time as the culprits that cause psychosomatic illnesses. A clearer understanding of our own emotions and returning to faith in God seem to create the combination that provides the best chance of permanent help to any of us with health issues. In all of the investigations I have made into successful cases of healing there seem to be certain factors present. First a complete willingness to surrender oneself into the hands of God. Second a complete letting go of all error such as sin in any form and a desire to be cleansed in the soul. Third belief and faith in that combined therapy of medical science in harmony with the healing power of God. Fourth a sincere willingness to accept Gods answer whatever it may be and no irritation or bitterness against His will. Fifth a substantial unquestioning faith that God can heal. Another list concludes Chapter 11 this one on how to constructively deal with an illness that you or a loved one suffers: ...[B]elieve that spiritual forces as well as medical technique are important to healing. Pray for the doctor. Do not become fearful because this will create negative destructive thoughts. God has arranged two remedies for all illness. One is healing through natural laws applicable by science and the other brings healing by spiritual law applicable through faith. Completely surrender your loved one into the hands of God...This is difficult to understand and equally difficult to perform but it is a fact that if the great desire for the loved one to live is matched with an equally great willingness to relinquish him to God healing powers are amazingly set in motion. Spiritual harmony must prevail within the family. Disharmony and disease are apparently kindred. Mentally picture your loved one as being perfectly healthy. Be perfectly natural. Ask God to heal your loved on. That is what you want with all your heart so ask Him please to do it but we suggest that you say PLEASE just once. Thereafter in your prayer thank Him for His goodness. This affirmative faith will help to release deep spiritual poer and also joy through reassurance of Gods loving care. This joy will sustain you and remember that joy itself possess healing power. It has been variously computed that from 50 to 75 per cent of present-day people are ill because of the influence of improper mental states on their emotional and physical make-up. Therefore [psychosomatic] medicine is of great importance. Many people who are below par will find that there is a health formula which in addition to the services of their physicians can be of great value to them. Checking ones anger is the most important way to prevent sagging vitality. Peale suggests painstakingly identifying then rooting out with prayer each minute aspect of life that causes anger or irritation. Targeting prayers to each of these bits of anger will promote physical health and energy in addition to emotional well-being. 13. Inflow of New Thoughts Can Remake YouIt has been said that thoughts are things that they actually possess dynamic power. Judged by the power they exercise one can readily accept such an appraisal. You can actually think yourself into or out of situations...Conditions are created by thoughts far more powerfully than conditions create thoughts. Peale revisits the concepts of Chapter 4 with further elaboration on how to pray your way to success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Its all about mental pictures of desired outcomes when seeking the Lords assistance...visualize prayerize and finally actualize (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). The author stresses the need to change ones thinking in order to change present circumstances. People should seek to reduce the error within themselves and connect with an increased sense of truth. An inflow of new right health-laden thoughts through the mind creatively affects the circumstances of life for truth always produces right procedures and therefore right results (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). A list of seven steps toward changing ones mentality from negative to positive attitudes concludes the chapter: For the next twenty-four hours deliberately speak hopefully about everything about your job about your health about your future. After doing this continue for an entire week. Then allow yourself to be realistic for a couple of days and you will see that this realism was actually pessimism and negativity. Today begin to shift your mindset from negativity to positivity. Start at the beginning of the New Testament and underscore every sentence about Faith.Continue until you have marked every such portion of the four gospels and take special note of Mark 11:2224. Memorize the underscored passages one each day until you can recite all of them from memory. Create a list of friends and determine who is the most positive thinker. Dont desert your negative pals but strengthen your bond with those who have a positive outlook. Then return to being among your negative friends and share your newfound positive point of view without gleaning their negativity. Avoid argument but whenever a negative attitude is expressed counter with a positive and optimistic opinion. Pray often and be sure to thank God for the blessings he has and will bestow upon you. God will not give you any greater blessing than you can believe in. He wants to give you great things but even He cannot make you take anything greater than you are equipped by faith to receive. 14. Relax for Easy PowerOne of the simplest methods for reducing tension is to practice the easy-does-it attitude. Do everything more slowly less hectically and without pressure. As in Chapter 6 Peale reasserts the need to slow down and live life at a more natural tempo. This will free the mind and spirit to be more receptive to that which is right for us and enable the mind to better achieve wisdom that will lead to better choices. Peale also revisits the connection between science and Christianity. In explaining why his church has staff psychiatrists the author states: Why psychiatrists on the staff of a church? The answer is that psychiatry is a science...Christianity may also be thought of as a science...[because] it is based upon a book which contains a system of techniques and formulas designed for the understanding and treatment of human nature. The laws are so precise and have been so often demonstrated when proper conditions of understanding belief and practice are applied that religion may be said to form an exact science (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). Ten rules on how to work hard with ease and relax with easy power conclude Chapter 14: Dont overdo it and dont take yourself too seriously. Make it a point to enjoy your work. Plan your workwork your plan. Lack of system produces that Im swamped feeling. Dont try to do too many tasks at once. Get a correct mental attitude remembering that ease or difficulty in your work depends upon how you think about it. Work efficiently and know your job well. Practice relaxation. Dont force things take it all in stride. Dont procrastinate and allow job tasks to pile up. Keep your work on schedule. Pray about your work. You will get relaxed efficiency by so doing (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). Make God your unseen partner. It is surprising the load He will take off you (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). 15. How to Get People to Like YouTo be a master of popularity be artless. Strive deliberately after popularity and the chances are you will never attain it. But become one of those rare personalities about whom people say He certainly has something and you can be certain you are on the way to having people like you. While not everybody will like you due to the unfortunate often inexplicable fact of human nature that for whatever reason some people will never click there are techniques that can make you likable by most. This is essential because friendship and good relations with others are essential to remaining psychologically sound. The feeling of not being wanted or needed is one of the most devastating of all human reactions. Peale breaks it down simple: be easy-going as opposed to rigid and aloof and project a genuine love for other people with a propensity for boosting rather than deflating other peoples egos. Essentially getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them. Peal gives us 10 rules toward attaining popularity: Remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing. A mans name is very important to him. Be a comfortable easy-going person so there is no hassle involved with being with you. Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-goingness so that things do not ruffle you. Avoid egotism and coming off as a know-it-all. Be natural and normally humble. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so that people will want to be with you and get something of stimulating value from their association with you. Do an analysis of the unlikable aspects of your personality including those that may escape your consciousness. Wholeheartedly attempt to make right every misunderstanding you have or once had. Practice liking others until it becomes your genuine style of living. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyones achievement or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment. Gain a deep-seated sense of spiritual experience so that youll be able to give strength to others. They in turn will give affection back to you. 16. Prescription for HeartacheThere is indeed a prescription for heartache. One element in the prescription is physical activity...Muscular activity utilizes another part of the brain and therefore shifts the strain and gives relief...Another profoundly creative element in the prescription for heartache is to gain a sound and satisfying philosophy of life and death and deathlessness. Whatever ails your emotions one of the first steps toward resolution is to remove yourself from whatever defeatist situation has formed around yourself and get back into the regular swing of things. Immerse yourself in worthwhile activities but avoid those that are superficial such as feverish partying or drinking. Dont try to suppress grief. There is a foolish point of view...that one should not show grief. that it is not proper to cry or express oneself through the natural mechanism of tears and sobbing. This is a denial of the law of nature...It is a relief mechanism provided in the body by Almighty God and should be used. With regard to the philosophy of life and death and deathlessness the author states that while such a philosophical handle on things wont repel the sorrow that is the natural extension of losing a loved one and physical separation it will remove and dispel grief. Peales deep faith in the infinite nature of God inspires his advice that a loved one who has passed away is not gone from us but rather has transcended earthly bounds and is one with God. Live on this faith and you will be at peace and the ache will leave your heart. Read and believe the Bible as it tells about the goodness of God and the immortality of the soul. Pray sincerely and with faith. Make prayer and faith the habit of your life. Learn to have real fellowship with God and with Jesus Christ. As you do this you will find a deep conviction welling up in your mind that these wonderful things are true indeed (Peale The Power of Positive Thinking). 17. How to Draw upon That Higher PowerThere is a Higher Power that can do everything for you. Draw upon it and experience its great helpfulness. Gods power is always unfailingly available to anyone who seeks it with an open heart. It is such a powerful force that its sudden arrival casts out all negativity replacing what pains you with strength health goodness and happiness. Peale uses several examples of how the Higher Power delivered individuals from the depths of alcoholism as an example of Gods infinite strength. I cite these experiences to show conclusively that if there is a Power able to deliver a person from alcoholism this same Power can help any other person to overcome any other form of defeat he may face. There is nothing more difficult to overcome than the problem of alcoholism. The success stories revealed in this chapter indicate ...that if there is deep desire intensity of longing and a sincere reaching out after the Power that it will be given. Faith positive thinking and prayer is the simple triumvirate people can utilize to deal effectively with what pains them. This is Peales recipe for a happy healthy life filled with good energy and lots of love and personal satisfaction. 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