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into-september · 3 years

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I’ve been reading posts in reaction to the Penalteam trailer, including yours, and I don’t want this to come across as salt or anything, but I think I finally realized my biggest issue with the conversations older fans of this show are having.

Not to sound like a boomer, but modern media consumption has evolved to rely heavily on binging, like Netflix originals that drop a whole season at once. This is the new standard, and I feel like that may have a hand in causing this problem:

People reaaallly want instant gratification. Miraculous airs about two episodes per month on average with hiatuses between seasons and a few in the middle. The show is currently renewed for seven seasons, and we’re only just finishing the fourth. Season five and six are in the works right now. When people discuss Miraculous, I think the biggest nuance that they’re missing is the stuff that simply has not happened yet. Obviously, there’s some things in the story that were clearly not planned for in previous seasons, but there are also things that were clearly planned way ahead of time, even from the very beginning.

I’m annoyed by Tom of Ass Truck as much as the next person, but I can’t help but agree with him on a couple of the comments he makes frequently. 1) pay attention to everything that happens and 2) just sit down and wait. Don’t complain about things that you simply haven’t seen yet. He’s a huge man baby about it, but if I were him I’d be annoyed, too.

The show takes a very long time to come out, but from the in-universe perspective, it hasn’t been a long time at all, and the story is only a bit over halfway over.

“This supporting character is underdeveloped” they’ve been steadily growing as a person from the start until now, but their arc isn’t done yet. “This character is being sidelined” it’s on purpose. It’s for an overarching plot line. It will be resolved at the end. “This new character has no appeal” they were just introduced. They haven’t had any development yet. “The writers clearly hate/don’t care about this character” just because they’re in a rough patch for plot reasons doesn’t mean the writers are cathartically torturing them for fun? “This character is irrelevant and I’ve never cared about them. Why are they suddenly getting focus instead of the characters I already like?” Because their story is really only just starting. “This change came out of nowhere” it’s been subtly building up for a long time. “They’re retconning development” the character is responding to the things happening around them. People don’t magically mature with no ups and downs.

I understand that the writers do stupid stuff that makes no sense on occasion, but a lot of the time I find that people have comically little faith in these grown, educated adults with jobs writing the story for a children’s cartoon. They say things like, “oh, the writers are way too stupid to come up with *the most obvious thing ever*” or “they suck at their jobs so they steal stuff from the fandom” and then the example is something that the fandom only came up with in response to a clear canon setup for the event, which was already written in advance anyways. They don’t sit down and think about what could happen next each episode like fans do, they write at least general plot points that span seasons.

What I’m saying is, I wish that when people complained about the story, they didn’t complain about things that simply haven’t happened yet. Think about it. Some of the most widely salted long-term writing things are clear setups for permanent change... in the future. The season isn’t over yet. The show is far from over, but everyone wants each problem solved in the episode it started from, and everything to happen at once. Each character needs to have one life-changing development in a short period of time. They need to get angsty, but not too angsty for too long, so they have to fix it fifteen minutes later. If a subplot is only referenced at a “convenient” time, it’s bad writing. The characters need to be nuanced people who mess up sometimes, but they can’t mess up too bad or else they’re bad people or the writers hate them. But if they do everything right then they’re Mary Sues and they’re the writers’ favorites who get away with everything. If the writers don’t read my mind and make the story go in the direction I’ve been imagining in my head, it’s bad.

I wish that big part of the fandom had a little faith in the story, especially the things that are obviously in progress at the moment. If only they considered how little time it’s been in canon and how long ago in real time the writers came up with it. If only they listened to Thomas exactly once and waited, paying attention to the subtle details in the meantime, for episodes to actually come out. For things to happen, change, become permanent, become the new normal, and start for the first time. Please don’t let the desire for instant gratification distract you from a show a long time in the making.

On the one hand: Yes, and I absolutely hear this, and I absolutely don't like that this season ended up being aired out of all and any order after the writers had gone and especially stated that this was the one where chronology counted. And as I hope I've made clear before (I mean, at least to people who follow me here), it's not that I think the show in general is poorly written, because it's excellent at being an episodic action rom-com.

But on the other hand: Zoé being introduced out of thin air and given a miraculous the very next episode will never be a thing that's going to "make sense in the end". Zoé's existence? Yes. Zoé being Vesperia? I'm sure. But the way she entered the story will NEVER be objectively good writing, and going by what we now know about "Penalteam", it wasn't a standalone accident.

I specifically complained about this because second only to Chloé herself (and arguably Adrien), Sabrina is the character who above all would have to prove herself worthy of using a miraculous. Not only because of Sabrina's in-series relationship to Chloé which by all logic would have to change by this development, but because the way the show has always treated Sabrina until now has been as "pitiful Chloe lite", an extended laughing stock to Chloé's comedy. But unless "Quilin" and "Kuro Neko" have some very unexpected things happening, that development never happened, and the girl who helped Chloé try to get Adrien taken out of school gets a miraculous because Marinette was running out of classmates.

The show is excellent at the singular episodes. But if it's going to make the claims at longer storylines, these longer storylines need some logic as they happen, not just explode all at once in the finale.

#miraculous ladubug #mlb meta #blah #storytelling

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babiekeiji · 4 years

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Yamaguchi is so underated,,,, I'll take anything. First date hc's, crush hc's, whatever you have in mind idc,,,,,just show him some love,,,, thabk you

omg man at this point anything tadashi is priority on the list

Gravity (Always Brings Me Back To You) — Yamaguchi Tadashi

You’ve known Yamaguchi your whole life

No, it’s not that whole cliché your-parents-are-best-friends trope nor is it that boy-next-door type of friendship

You’re Tsukishima’s best friend!!!

So after Yamaguchi starts hanging out with Tsukishima, the three of you instantly become inseparable

The summer before high school starts, and all three of you are attending Karasuno

You spend most of your summer outside of Japan, living your best life

Tsukishima doesn’t even bother asking how you’re doing, he just asks you to bring him back food

Yamaguchi, however, texts you everyday and always asks how you are and what you’ve been up to; probably sends pictures of Tsukishima and him everyday

Always up to greet you good morning and good night, always mentions how much he misses your company and that hanging around with Tsukki w/o you just isnt the same

Though you look at Yamaguchi as a friend, you can’t help but feel special whenever he mentions that he wants you back in their company

You don’t see each other until the first day of high school, and boy

Tadashi???? Has gone from boy to MAN

The amount this dude has grown over the summer is just?????? You used to be at par in terms of height, now he’s a whole 12000 feet taller than you

His features are a lot more prominent too not that you’re complaining

But this obviously is like the grounds for when you start thinking of Yamaguchi Tadashi as a man

These days as you hang out with Tadashi alone you really, really get to take a good look at his face, and wow—his face isn’t “that bad”

One time on the way home Kei had ditched the two of you since his mother picked him up

So it was just the two of you walking home alone; it was still fun even without Kei

He held your hand the whole way home; and though you didn’t know what that meant you still got butterflies just thinking that Yamaguchi Tadashi, man candy, Mr Good Looking, held hour hand and was conscious of doing it—wanted to do it too

Though with Tadashi suddenly hitting puberty also comes new feelings and perspectives for him

So the day Tadashi suddenly starts distancing himself from you you’re left confused and anxious

What did I do wrong? He seems fine whenever he’s around Tsukishima...have I changed ever since I came back?

Despite the sudden distance Tadashi never forgets to let you know he still cares

Buys you that bread you like from the caf whenever you forget to bring your lunch

Helps you study sometimes

Walks you home when Tsukishima can’t be bothered to

Lends you his jacket

But always looks away when you make eye contact

Stops talking to you outside of school (unless its for homework)

Gets awkward whenever you talk to Tsukishima and him

And you just can’t figure out why he’s being like this

So you decide to distance yourself too and start hanging around Yachi and Hinata instead of Tsukishima and Yamaguchi

But of course, we can always count on the reliable Tsukishima Kei, jack of all trades, master of none to patch things up when he’s tired of your bullshit

One day Tsukishima invites you over to his place

And of course you go, because you nd tsukki are still good friends

You do nothing but laze around with him the whole afternoon

Suddenly he pipes, “What is up with you and Yamaguchi? It’s starting to annoy me how distant you guys are being”

You give him a pointed look. “Nothing is going on between the two of us,” you sigh, and its only then that you realize how much you miss the freckled boy, “Yamaguchi just doesn’t like me anymore, I guess.”

He snorts and rolls his eyes, “You got that right.”

“Y’know if you invited me over just to insult me I might as well leave,” you stay sternly, and suddenly Kei is panicking, “I don’t know what the fuck you and Tadashi have been up to these days but if it’s shit like this then maybe I’m glad to have left the two of you alone.”

“What the fuck,” he says, and chases after you as you leave, “No, yn, jesus—yamaguchi just had some feelings he needs to sort out”

“He didn’t have to put that on me”

“Can you stop being difficult”

“No, let me go, I wanna go home”

“You literally live right next door”

“Exactly, I wanna go home”

“Hey.”

You turn to look him in the eye and soften once you realize he’s actually pleading for you to stay

“Listen to me,” he explains. “You can go home and be a brat and bitch and moan all you want—”

“i WILL”

“—but remember this,” he continues, “Yamaguchi has good reason for trying to avoid you...for now. He just needs to sort some of his feelings out.”

“Well, whatever feelings they are,” you pull your hand from his grasp, “you can tell him I don’t care about them at all.”

Great, you think to yourself, I’ve made things awkward for me, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima now.

One day you’re coming back from lunch with Yachi, and you make eye contact with Yamaguchi in the hallways

He tries his best to wave to you in the least bit of effort to say hey, we’re still friends—but realizes it might be too late when it’s you who finally decides to look away first

From that point on just tries his absolute best to reconcile with you

Leaves you little candies on your desk before school starts

Sometimes little notes like “You’re beautiful!” And “I love seeing you happy :)”

One day a note comes that says “You’re still my best friend” and you just start bawling

You just don’t know what you did wrong and you miss your friends

That same afternoon, when everyone leaves and it’s only you left to pack up in the classroom, Yamaguchi approaches you (albeit quite cautiously)

“Hey,” he starts, and it’s obvious he’s flustered by the way he rubs his nape, “Can we talk?”

“Oh,” you scoff, still keeping your stuff, “You wanna talk to me now?”

“Yn,” he calls, and looks you right in the eye as he says, “Don’t make this any harder than it’s supposed to be.”

“Motherfucker this is supposed to be hard on YOU??????????? you left ME, Tadashi! Remember that!!”

“Which is why I’m trying to make amends!” He explains, hands flailing nowhere. “Please. Let me explain.”

You look to the clock. It’s 5:25 pm.

“You have five minutes of my time.”

“You don’t need to worry,” he replies, “I only need two.”

lowkey your heart was THROBBING LIKE WHEN DID THIS SOCIALLY AWKWARD BOY LEARN TO MAKE MOVES LIKE DET DMFMFKEOWKE

“Ever since you came back home from Bali, or the Bahamas—wherever you went for summer—I started to look at you differently,” he starts, “I...I thought you were glowing, and suddenly every feature of yours was just so attractive to me I couldn’t handle it.

And you know, being without you for almost three months just made me realize that I really do like your company, and your stupid laugh and your lame jokes—it made me realize that I needed you in my life, yn. But all these feelings were just so weird—how could I be seeing my childhood best friend like the most beautiful person on earth?

So i tried to run away from them; I tried to run away from them by running away from you, in all hopes that they’d pass and we could go back to normal. But obviously; I was wrong. Being away from you just made my heart grow fonder, because whenever I saw you laugh I just thought to myself, that could have been something so good with me.

I like you, yn,” he states with all confidence he can muster, his olive tan skin glowing as it bathes in the evening sun, freckles dancing on the apples of his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, and in that exact moment you can’t help but wonder how even after all this time, Yamaguchi Tadashi is the sweetest man of all. “I like you enough to think I actually love you.”

You blink; you feel like you’re about to cry.

Yamaguchi looks towards the clock, looks back to you and shrugs, “I’m sorry. I took three minutes.” He looks to you for a few moments before he clicks his tongue, and looks away. “Yeah, that’s all. You have every right to be mad at me, by the way—”

“Tadashi.”

“Hm?”

“Kiss me.”

His eyes widen, and a blush now develops on the apples of his cheeks, but Yamaguchi doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you and bring your lips to his.

Everything about Tadashi is just as you remembered; his cologne still smells like him, his skin soft and bouncy to the touch, his hair still the same smooth it once was, and Tadashi’s lips taste just like the ice cream you had when you first held his hand

Though a lot about Yamaguchi Tadashi has changed, you know in your heart that he’s still the same, sweet boy he always was.

He pulls away, but not exactly; his lips are still on yours, eyes still closed, his face close enough for you to feel his breath on your skin,

“I love you, yn,” he mumbles against your lips, “I want you to be mine,” he kisses,

“Today,” another,

“Tomorrow,” another,

“And all the days after that...”

Needless to say, that same afternoon Tadashi’s lips are swollen and his chest almost physically hurts from the fast beating of his heart,

But that’s okay, since he’s headed home with a heart and a hand full of you, you, only you.

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amillioninprizes · 5 years

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An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars

So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:

Fire Rob Thomas

While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?

Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff

A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.

Bring back Logan (alive)

You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.

Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.

Bring back Veronica

As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car? (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:

Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director

This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).

Make an effort (and do your fucking research)

Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.

Know your audience

A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.

Bring back the mystery of the week

This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.

Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”

Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place.

Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.

Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).

Kill your darlings

It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny.

Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.

Improve Neptune’s gender ratio

Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.

Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project

A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff.

I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants.

Recourt the fanbase

What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).

Map out an endgame

Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.

#Veronica Mars #still angry #mainly written for personal catharsis #need to stop being angry about this and focus more on studying synaptic transmission #Burnt Marshmallow #we use to be fans

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amydancepants-peralta · 5 years

Text

(all I wanna do) is grow old with you

A probably-too-long Peraltiago soulmate AU where your body stops ageing until you’ve met the one you’re destined to spend the rest of your life with. Inspired by this post, and encouraged by @fezzle because her mind is amazing and we both fell down the rabbit hole on this one 😅

You can find the rest on AO3, because it’s waay too long to post on Tumblr. 🍕

(all I wanna do) is grow old with you

Amy’s breath fogs up the glass of the mirror she’s facing as she lets out a heavy sigh, eyes taking one more scrutinising look over her appearance. Same olive coloured skin, same dark brown hair. Same smile, same shrug of her shoulders. Once again, nothing had changed.

She had been five years old when her mother had explained the Rule of Life as they knew it - that once you reached your 30th birthday, your body simply stopped ageing, and the only way to kick it back into gear, was to meet your soulmate.

To a young and idealistic Amy, it had seemed like the Ultimate Romantic Notion - that you couldn’t possibly grow old until you’d found the right person to grow old with. And in her early twenties, when appearances and vanities paid more value than they should, she had been in no hurry to find The One. Until she’d reached her Age Limit of 30, and realised that beauty lay within those who had found their other half. Wrinkles and streaks of grey in heads of hair were enviable, not feared. The lucky ones would walk the streets with pride, unable to bridle their joy as they gripped their partner’s hand with their own.

Watching her family and friends grow older while she remained stagnant never seemed to get easier for Amy. Standing in the sidelines as the next phase of their life would begin, she couldn’t deny that it stung a little when her youngest of brothers, Luis, had salt and pepper flecks of colour in his previously jet black hair at the last Santiago family gathering. Or that her best friend Kylie now tried her best to conceal the crows feet that had begun to appear around her eyes, sunglasses framing her face whenever she and Amy met up for lunch.

Try as they might to hide the changes in their appearance - which she knew was out of love for her, to not rub in that they had found what she hadn’t - the only thing that the people surrounding her couldn’t conceal was the overwhelming exuberance that radiated from each and every one of them. That sense of completion - the elation that finally, the rest of their life can begin.

Amy turns her head in profile one last time, a discerning eye tracing her hairline before giving up with a shake of her head. Last night she had been on a date with a man named Gabe (a match from an online dating app that she’s definitely going to delete), and at the end of the night she honestly had felt as though things could be … kind of promising. He was handsome, with similar interests to her, and while he spoke about investment banking maybe a little more than Amy would have liked, he certainly seemed like a worthy option when it came to her soulmate. And so, with the freshly risen daylight’s sunbeams streaking through the windows of her apartment, and her alarm buzzing incessantly beside her, Amy had jumped out of bed, making a beeline for the mirror.

However, it would appear Gabe was not a match. Her appearance had not changed in the slightest. And today was just going to be another day, like all the others, without Amy knowing her soulmate.

She gets ready for work with the clocklike precision that only a life uninterrupted can bring, casting one last downcast glance at her reflection as she turns to leave. Perhaps the universe had a point - Gabe was definitely not the one for her. But … he had to be out there, somewhere.

It’s another ten hours before Amy is shuffling into her apartment again, finally home after what can only be described as a less than mediocre day.

As a detective for the 99th precinct, she and her partner Rosa had developed a finely tuned friendship that had resulted in an impressively high arrest rate. And today, they had been given the case of a jewellery store robbery - a robbery that had unfortunately turned rather high profile, as one of Brooklyn’s most well known residents, a celebrity chef named Cadi Nicholls, had been robbed in broad daylight, from the inside of a jewellery store.

Ms Nicholls had, despite several requests from various officers, been overly vocal about her ‘traumatic’ experience on social media, and in an effort to have the case closed before things turned ridiculous, Captain Holt had put his best two detectives on the case.

They had been so confident they would catch the thief. Until they watched the security footage.

The perp appeared as if from nowhere, sliding Nicholls' diamond tennis bracelet right off her wrist without her even knowing, before yanking the sapphire ring she had just purchased out of her hand and running like hell.

Frustratingly (or conveniently, depending on who’s perspective you looked at it from), the security cameras outside had been out of order for days leading up to the robbery, so when it came to the getaway car the two women had absolutely no clues.

Instead, they had spent the entire day interviewing countless witnesses, knocking on apartment door after apartment door until they tracked them all down. All of which felt like a reprieve after finally escaping their interview with the chef herself; an hour long ordeal that she had insisted on live-streaming to her ‘concerned followers’.

By late afternoon they had returned to the precinct, feet throbbing in protest, spreading out the case file over Amy’s desk as they re-examined all of the information. The witness statements had been vague at best, and until they found a different camera that might have caught the getaway car they were officially out of leads.

Exhausted, she had been on her way to Rosa’s desk to see if her partner wanted to get a drink of commiseration after their shift ended, when she noticed something that stopped her in her tracks. Rosa Diaz was not a vain woman by any means, but right at that moment she had ducked her head down on the monitor, carefully shifting the strands of her hair into a specific position. And as she moved them into place, Amy saw what Rosa had been trying to hide.

She had greys. Only a few, and still ashy enough that it wasn’t immediately noticeable.

But she had greys. Which meant that she was ageing. Which also meant that she had found her soulmate.

Her partner had looked up, eyes turning apologetic as she noticed Amy watching her, and began to explain. “Her name is Jocelyn. I didn’t expect to - ” Amy raised her hand, halting the conversation as she plastered a smile onto her face.

“It’s fine, Rosa. Great, actually. I’m really happy for you.”

And she was happy. Honestly. Detective Diaz was a hard nut to crack, but underneath the leather-bound exterior was a kind, caring soul who genuinely deserved the best. And obviously, this Jocelyn was it for her. So Amy was happy for her partner.

And also a little bit jealous. Kinda defeated. And almost certain that her soulmate simply didn’t exist.

But mainly, happy.

Now that she is home, Amy dumps her bag onto its respective hook, kicking off her shoes near the doorway and shedding her blazer before heading towards the kitchen. She’s desperate for a glass of wine to take the edge off her less than average day, and had a Bordeaux stashed away in her cupboard laying in wait for the night that she could finally raise a toast to the person she is meant to spend the rest of her life with. Clearly, that was never going to happen to her (and tonight was as good a night as any to enjoy a glass of red), and once she finally yanks out the cork with her cheap corkscrew, she abandons the tool on the counter, sauntering over to her couch with the bottle in one, and a glass in the other.

Less than an hour later, Amy has changed into her cosiest clothes and is perched on the couch, tipping the bottle upside down and frowning as no more wine seems to come out.

Damnit. Somebody’s been drinking my wine. She cranes her neck, surveying the room with narrowed eyes as she searches for suspects, only to come up dry.

Clearly, the perp has already fled the scene.

Her stomach growls as it protests at the lack of food - and abundance of wine - it had been given. With only a slightly steady hand, Amy pulls out her phone from it’s position amongst the couch cushions, opening up a webpage to search for delicious food near me + quick delivery. She had only moved into this apartment three months ago, after saving her hard earned money for far too long, and was still slightly unfamiliar (and yes, perhaps a little too drunk) to know what takeout options were nearby.

The swirling symbol of a loading webpage disappears in a blink, the flashing logo of Sal’s Pizza taking its place. She nods enthusiastically, because pizza is great and she doesn’t eat it enough, scrolling her way through the options before settling on the perfect combination and adding to cart.

When this story gets told in the years to come, Amy will blame the empty bottle of wine for making her do this, but in the comment section of the order, she remembers a meme that her niece had recently shown her and types: send your cutest delivery boy. Giggling loudly, she presses send before another thought could be made, and as the digital countdown comes onto her screen she stumbles into the kitchen, in search of another bottle.

Jake Peralta rolls his shoulders against the stainless steel panels attached to the kitchen wall, legs feeling heavy as they dangle off the counter he’s perched on.

It was nearly at the end of his shift at Sal’s Pizza, and the later hours of the evening always seemed to drag, but he’s thankful for a moment of peace.

Sharing the delivery role with two other guys that he only knew as Scully and Hitchcock, he had spent the better part of the dinner rush covering their jobs as well as his own, both men claiming that they had gotten lost in the supposedly complicated streets of Brooklyn before returning to the restaurant several hours later, the pizza sauce stains still obvious on their chins. Jake’s responding eye roll had been poorly concealed, and he had retreated to the familiar company of his buddy Charles, the chef, in the kitchen before he ended up saying something regretful.

That in itself had turned out to be a risky move, having to instead listen to Charles talk on and on (and on) about his recently discovered soulmate, Genevieve.

And he’s happy for his best friend - really, he is. But every single mention of their chance encounter, sparked by mixing up their specially ordered local delicacies at their nearby deli (his octopus ring pâté, hers rare eyeball soup, both horrifying) was just another reminder that Jake himself was no step closer to finding his. Not that he’s even sure he wants to find his, but … still.

(Also, he was one more TMI conversation about their subsequent love making from taking the handle of both spatulas in the utensil jar and jamming them into his ears.)

The computer in the corner lets out an obnoxious ding! as an online order comes through, the attached printer grunting as it spits out a faded version for the chef. Jake shuffles along the counter, butt squeaking against the steel as he rips the paper free, sneakers hitting the tiled floor with a slap as he slides it into place. “Chet’s up, Charles.”

“It’s a chit, Jake.” Charles looks up from his position on the counter opposite, hands concealed as he kneads out a heavy pile of dough. “Do me a favour, read it out for me? I’m a little tied up here. Not as much as Genevieve was tied up last night, but still - ”

“One large deep pan, extra cheese, extra salsa!” Jake cries out quickly, desperate to drown out the sound of whatever Charles was about to describe. His friend nods in response, dusting off the extra flour from his hands as he heads over to another bench, the process of putting together a Sals Pizza so familiar it has become second nature.

He glances back up at Jake, right hand mixing in the hot sauce. “Any special requests on it?”

Right. The special requests option, a relatively new addition, had been the catalyst for some truly strange demands. After the horrifying command last week for the delivery boy to sing out the ingredients like a show tune upon arrival, Jake had been doing his best to avoid ‘special requests’ altogether. With a hesitant glance, he narrows his eyes at the bottom of the receipt before letting out a laugh. “Charles my good man, I believe I have been summoned.”

“Huh?”

Jake pulls the receipt off it’s holder with a flick of his wrist, brandishing it high in the air as he turns towards his friend with a smile. “Says so right here. Send your cutest delivery boy. Clearly, that’s me. I’m adorable.”

His friend gasps, spinning around to read the chit himself before turning to Jake in glee. “Jakey! This isn’t just any order. This is fate!”

Tipping his head to the side, Jake scratches the side of his cheek as he studies Charles’ reaction. “Fate has come in the form of a deep pan pizza? Honestly, I’m not surprised … but I think I always imagined it would be meat supreme?”

Charles’ hands freeze on top of the pie, a few shards of grated cheese slipping from his fingers as he shakes his head at Jake. “No, silly. The person who’s ordered the pizza is your fate. Not the pizza itself. Your soulmate is on the other end of this delivery. I’m sure of it.”

“Oh come on. That’s ridiculous. You don’t even know if this is for a person, or a company, or even some kind of robot that’s managed to gain sentience ..”

The chef’s head appears suddenly over Jake’s shoulder, peering at the details printed along the bottom of the receipt before giving him a solid side-eye. “Says right here, Amy Santiago. Sounds like a pretty great name for a soulmate, if you ask me.”

Rolling his eyes, Jake walks towards the oven, picking up the pizza peel from it’s holding place and lifting the next order into the grill. “I keep telling you, Charles. Not everybody is going to end up with their soulmate. The whole thing is flawed. It didn’t exactly work out for my parents, did it?”

“You’ve just gotta have faith, Jake! The universe has greater plans than you or I could ever imagine, and sometimes you just have to let the signs guide the way.” Charles countered, ripping the receipt from the order holder and shoving it into Jake’s shirt pocket, pointing towards the oven once his hand is free. “Order will be up in eight minutes, Mr. Cutest Delivery Boy. Don’t be late, destiny is waiting.”

It’s close to twenty minutes later before Jake is standing in the hallway of an unfamiliar apartment building, double checking the address on the receipt before raising his hand to knock (people are very willing to accept pizza when it is delivered, even if they haven’t ordered any - a fact he had to learn the hard way). The pizza box in his hand keeps sending wafts of deliciousness in his direction, reminding himself that he’d unintentionally skipped dinner this evening, and he makes a deal with his stomach to fill up after this delivery.

There’s a muffled sound of the Jeopardy theme song playing through the doorway when Jake knocks, and he hears the clank of glass against a surface before the door begins to swing open. Twenty bucks says this is some nerdy professor, Jake thinks to himself, drawing on his biggest smile, ready to play the role of Cutest Delivery Boy to a tee.

And then, his heart stops in his chest.

The woman that answers the door is crazy beautiful. Beautifully warm toned skin with the most expressive eyes, her dark hair scraping her shoulders as she opens the door a little wider.

“Heyyyyy, the pizza guy is here!” The mystery woman smiles, leaning heavily against her doorframe as she gasps, pointing. “And he brought PIZZA!”

If this was what nerdy professors looked like, I DEFINITELY would have paid more attention in class, Jake thinks to himself as he continues to smile, handing over the pizza to the woman’s outstretched hands. “One deep pan, extra cheese, extra salsa.” His voice switches into automatic pilot, reciting the line that had been forced into his memory, hands landing on his hips in the signature pose as he forces a too-wide smile onto his face. “I hope we managed to fulfil your special request, ma’am, and it’s a good evening now that you’ve got a Sal’s Pizza.”

Her dark eyes blink dazedly for a moment before a deep blush rushes over her cheeks. “Oh right, my uh … special request.” They travel down Jake’s frame before heading upwards again, holding his gaze until she bites her lip. “Yeah, I’d say you did, Pizza Guy.”

Now it’s Jake’s turn to blush, sweaty hands dropping from his waist and dangling uselessly by his side. He’s always been a connoisseur of the Art of Flirtation, but tonight he finds himself more than a little tongue tied. Inconveniently, Charles’ voice creeps into Jake’s mind. Your soulmate is on the other end of this delivery. She giggles at his obviously embarrassed reaction, shoulders bouncing as a squeaky hiccup escapes.

Shuffling his feet, Jake’s brain switches into overdrive as he frantically tries to think of the perfect pickup line to make, but before anything incredible can be formed he begins to really take in his client’s appearance. Her glazed over eyes, the vice like grip of her hand on the doorframe …. “Uhh, I’m always up for a bit of flattery, but … I think you might be a little intoxicated. Do you know how much you’ve had to drink?” he asks, brows furrowing slightly as he watches the woman sway.

She shrugs, turning the movement into a dorky little side-to-side boogie as the ads begin playing on the TV in the background, an annoyingly catchy song about paper towels taking centre stage. “Only a couple of glasses.”

Jake looks past her, taking in the incriminating evidence of two empty wine bottles sitting on the table next to the couch. “Just a couple, huh?”

She follows his gaze, swinging her head back to him as a giggle escapes. “Well, I mean … the bottles are made of glass, right?”

He can’t help but laugh, nodding at her observation. “Yes. Yes, they are.”

“See?” She laughs along with him, holding onto the pizza box with one hand as she begins stepping backwards, moving her feet into what he thinks is an attempt at the moonwalk. Her feet, which may actually both be left, are dangerously close to tripping over each other, and just as he reaches out a hand in warning the two lefts connect - pizza box flying out of her hands as her arms begin to flail about, desperately searching for something to grab onto as she begins to fall.

Jake’s feet can’t move fast enough, and she hits her head on a small side table, landing on the ground with a thud before he can get to her. She stays still, head twisted to the side and moaning loudly as he kneels down on the ground, paying special attention to her extremities in case she’s actually hurt herself. “Are you okay, ma’am?” he asks. Her receipt is still in his pocket, and he really wants to grab it out right now to remember her name, but it’s way too late for that now. Damn my goldfish memory!

“I’m … I’m fine.” She swings out an arm, letting it slap against the hardwood floor near Jake’s crouched position as she turns to look at him. “The floor is just a little spinny, that’s all.”

He stifles a grin as he looks at her determined face, already knowing that there was no point in explaining to this woman that the floor was, in fact, not spinning (or ‘spinny’, as it were). Instead, he responds with “Yeah, spinny floors are the worst.”

She smiles at him, and his heart skips a beat just like the first time, and he kinda really wants to know her name. “He gets it! Thisguygetsit.” She slurs, pointing an intoxicated finger at Jake. And he knows that she’s drunk … and he knows that she probably doesn’t have any idea what she’s saying … but tiny little butterflies begin to flutter in Jake’s stomach, gaining traction the longer she lays there, pointing her finger at him. She’s adorable, he thinks to himself.

But, she might also be injured, and so he offers her a hand up, pretending not to notice the tingling sensation when her palm meets his. She groans as he helps her up, right hand clapping onto her scalp, wrinkling her face and looking at him accusingly. “How did I end up on the floor, anyway?”

Jake grins at the woman, pointing with his free hand towards the discarded pizza box, explaining - “You were dancing away with the pizza, and tripped over your two left feet.”

Her eyes look at the box warily, looking to Jake, then back to the pizza. “That makes sense. I am left handed, after all.” She nods, a movement quickly thwarted as her head obviously throbs in protest.

Jake’s eyebrows knit together as he watches her clutch her hand to her head, and as she moves towards the couch, he clears his throat. “Uhh, listen - I’m no expert, but I think you might be in danger of having a concussion. Is there somebody else here, who can watch over you tonight?”

The woman’s head drops as she shakes her head slightly. “No. I live alone. All alone.” Realising the gravity of what she’s just said to this stranger, her head shoots up quickly, and Jake pretends not to notice her reactive wince. “But I’m a cop. A badass cop, in fact. And I could kick your butt from here to next Sunday, Pizza Guy, so don’t you go trying anything.”

He raises his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa there, officer. My intentions are honourable, I swear. I just think you might have hurt yourself a little bit, and you shouldn’t go to sleep until someone has made sure you’re okay.” Pausing, Jake lowers his hands a little as the woman’s gaze turns less accusing. “Is there somebody you can call?”

She shrugs. “Rosa, I guess.” Picking up an empty bottle, she shakes it, willing more wine to appear. “Yeah. Call Rosa. Tell her to bring booze.” She giggles, her face dropping just as quickly. “Probably won’t come, though. Too busy with her soulmate or whatever.”

There’s an odd mix of sadness and hope that comes from this woman speaking of her friend’s soulmate. It was hard not to hear her bitterness, and Jake could feel himself beginning to reconsider his own opinions. If someone as sweet as this woman is hasn’t found her match, maybe this whole soulmate thing wasn’t as ridiculous as it seems. Clearing his throat, he twists his mouth to the side slightly before speaking. “I’m sure if she knows you’re hurt, she’ll come over.”

Another shrug, the light from a nearby lamp catching onto her hair and making it shimmer a little. You’re falling, Peralta. “Maybe.”

He waits for a pause, and she looks up at him expectantly. “Um, I … I don’t have Rosa’s number.” His tone is apologetic, which is crazy, because if anything it would’ve been weirder if he had known this Rosa’s number. He wipes a hand across his face, trying to push some sense into his brain, and as he rubs his eyes the woman begins fishing around her couch cushions, pulling up throw pillows until she thrusts her phone into the air in triumph.

“I do! I have Rosa’s number.” She unlocks the screen, handing the device over to Jake without hesitation. He takes grip of it, watching with confused eyes as the woman shouts an answer to the game show host still on her screen before grabbing the remote control on the coffee table, fumbling at buttons until the TV switches to mute. Turning her attention back to Jake, the woman’s eyes light up when she realises he’s still holding her phone in his hand. “Hey! I’ve got a great idea. Let’s call Rosa!”

If this had been anybody else, Jake is pretty sure by now he would have given up and left this crazy client to their own devices. But there was something so wholesome about her vulnerability, so open to the complete stranger that he was, that he really wanted to make sure she had someone take watch over her tonight. So with a grin taking over his face, he scrolls through her contacts until he finds (thankfully, only one) titled Rosa, pressing the call button before handing the phone back to the giggling beauty covered in crumpled sweats on the couch.

She takes it from him with a smile, a surprised gasp escaping when the line connects and she calls out “Heyyyyy, Rosa!”

His heart squeezes a little as her face crumples into confusion, shaking her head in a futile response to the voice on the other end of the phone. This woman is adorable.

“Whaaat? Noooo I’m not mad I’m not - I just got pizza and hit my head with it and now Pizza Guy thinks I shouldn’t go to bed and I know you can fix it so canyoufixitRosa?”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Jake takes a quick glance around the room while the conversation continues. It was a stark contrast to his own hole in the wall apartment, to say the least. But oddly, he felt comfortable here, with the warm coloured tone painted on the walls, plush couches with ample throw pillows and the sweet smell of vanilla coming from … well, coming from somewhere.

“Honestly, I’m fone - I mean, I’m fine. It’s just … this pizza has stars on it and the couch won’t stop spinning and okay maybe I hurt myself?” Jake watches as she drops her head into her free hand, voice lowering slightly as she mumbles, “Bring Joss .. Joz … Jocelyn over too if you want. You totally should. I’m fine. Really.”

As though suddenly remembering Jake’s presence, the woman looks up and gives him a thumbs up, smiling in victory. “You’re the besssst, Rosa! I totally owe yo-” stopping abruptly, she looks at the phone in her hand with another giggle. “She hung up.”

He laughs along with her, watching as she flips open the lid to the pizza box and digs out a slice, taking a step back towards the doorway, suddenly very aware that he’s been standing in a relative strangers living room for longer than normal. “Well, as long as somebody is coming, I should leave you to enjoy your pizza ma’am.”

Her hand pauses mid-way from her mouth, several ropes of cheese forming a bridge between pie and human as she turns her attention towards Jake. The words are masked by a mouth full of pizza, but he makes out the words thank you, Pizza Guy! as he turns to leave.

And even though there is still a part of Jake that thinks this whole ‘waiting for your soulmate before your life can begin’ is a little ridiculous, he still sits in his car near the front of the woman’s apartment, waiting until a leather clad figure with dark curly hair appears, stomping up the staircase and slamming her finger on the same apartment number that he had half an hour ago before being buzzed into the building. He tells himself that he’s just being a good person, making sure that a patron of his employer was safe, but there’s a tiny part of him that already knows that he cares more for this mysterious woman than he should.

** this thing is 16k long, so find the rest on AO3! **

#my 30th fic y'all!#my first soulmate au #b99 fanfic #sleuth sisters #Jake x Amy fic #Rosa and Amy working together to solve a case #peraltiago fanfiction #b99 fic #I know that AUs aren't everybody's jam #but I dig them #inspired by tumblr

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feuilly-cakes · 4 years

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The Maze Runner (series) - review

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one. My thoughts on the series as a whole is that it’s an alright one, and you’ll soon see why the praise isn’t higher there. I’ll go book by book with my thoughts on each, so you can know exactly the way my feelings progressed to this point.

Book 1: The Maze Runner - 5*

I gave this book a 5 star rating, but honestly it's been nearly 2 months since then and I'm still not sure on that rating. Ideally, 5 stars for me means I got so attached to the characters I cried or had some other emotion, but that didn't happen here. Instead, I got a fantastic plot with a ton of mystery and a lot of terror, all with amazing writing but uninteresting characters. I won't say they are flat characters, because they aren't, but I didn't really feel a connection with them. There is only so much you can relate to a character who has no history.

Thomas is obviously the main character and so we see everything from his perspective, and we do see his emotions, his personality, his struggle. He spends a good portion of the book confused, angry, sad, frustrated. He's not a flat, boring character by any means, but for some reason I just didn't feel that connection I usually do with main characters. Maybe it's a side effect of the third person limited narration, or maybe he just isn't a character I can relate to, but I wasn't really interested emotionally in his character. I didn't need to be really, because the plot more than made up for it.

When it comes to the plot, I found no faults. It was fast paced and had me asking questions the whole way through, and most of them even got answered. Most of the questions pertained to how the Maze worked; How was it so high up that the box rose for half an hour? What was really around The Cliff and how were they seeing stars below them? How did the walls move? Was it actually indoors or not and how would that even work anyway? I love when I’m constantly asking questions and coming up with theories while reading, and this book was one huge question mark. Just the memories plot alone had me on the edge of my seat, and I wanted to know more.

If you only read books for the characters and their personal arcs, this might be a bit weak on that for you. If you love a good mystery mixed in with a bit of horror and sci-fi elements, plus a dash of dystopia (which I’m sure will become a big dollop in the next book) then this is absolutely the best thing to read. It’s definitely a 5 star quality, just in my personal opinion not a 5 star emotion.

Book 2: The Scorch Trials - 3*

Honestly, this was not anywhere near as enjoyable as the first book. Technically speaking it was a well written book, but personally I didn’t find it great, simply okay - average. Enjoyable to an extent but irritating to a certain degree. I kept reading because I expected something to be answered but all I got was confused. After watching all the films and powering through the first book I genuinely expected so much more from this and I was let down.

It’s darker and more gory than the first book, with some shocking scenes that kept me going. I did appreciate all the dream flashbacks from Thomas that helped put together what exactly he had to do with the Maze. Outside of these dreams I just didn’t know what was going on half the time and I felt frustrated by it all. His backstory was legit the only reason I was interested at all. I didn’t really care where they were going or their journey, l just wanted to know about his missing memories.

I understand this one was to set up the world a bit more and go into character development, but this was the most mediocre of middle book syndrome books. I can honestly say here I preferred the film.

Book 3: The Death Cure - 4*

Oh boy with this one. I have a very immediate reaction with lots of spoilers here on my goodreads if anyone wants to see that, but I'll summarise with the good spoilery bits cut out.

Well, my brain hurts.

This book honestly started out kinda meh, with some interesting tidbits thrown in. Then it got less meh, but more disturbing. Whether all of it was really that bad or whether it was bad because of the real world parallels right now I do not know, but I got a little bit messed up by everything that happened in Denver. The worldbuilding became more relevant here, we learn more about the Flare, the way people are living alongside it and/or with it, and the way Cranks are really treated. We get to find out about The Purge too, which I'll leave as a lovely surprise for those of you who haven't yet read, but what happened and my loud opinions are through that goodreads link if you want entertainment.

And on that note, let's talk Teresa. Full disclosure, I went into this trilogy already loving the films, and I still stand by that love. The treatment of Teresa in those films, however, was abysmal, and to read her actual character arc, well, I was enraged. Her arc in these books is fantastic, and the way she grows and realises the consequences of her actions is actually realistic, especially after all the trauma of the trials. We barely even see her and yet we see most of her character arc in this book. Simply getting her memories back wouldn't make her forget all the horror and go back to Wicked, and the way it was all handled was super satisfying. It does all make me wonder if perhaps she knew about the Brain thing, though. I won't know until I read that prequel story so until then I'll just have to speculate [currently reading that, still don't know]. On a similar note the Chancellor Page storyline was bizarrely different, and I had a shock when we get to interact (?) with her in the capacity we did.

Chapter 56 can choke. I knew it was coming okay, yet it still made me feel like I was punched in the chest. Especially after the previous scenes where we see things happen with a certain character in a scary way.

I can't talk about the Brain thing. It's disturbing to think about and I will be repressing the memory of that whole section of the book as soon as I can. It also kicks off a series of horrifying imagery and tragic events that hurt my emotions. All I can really say is that it's a strong ending to a trilogy, and if you're here you probably got past the travesty that was The Scorch Trials so this book will be a breeze compared to that, just be wary of the medical horror and the horror in general, since it's pretty graphic.

You may notice I haven't discussed Thomas, and that is because I'm too messed up by the Brain thing. The medical horror plus his reaction to the knowledge of what was about to happen knocked me flat emotionally and I may never get past that in terms of these books. No one has ever mentioned the Brain thing in any fan space I've been in, and that's for a good reason. Just know Thomas grew on me slowly just in time to cause me great distress. That is all.

Book 4: The Kill Order - 4*

I kind of loved this book, but as a friend. It basically shows the story of the Flare virus' bad beginnings in the world, with flashbacks to the solar flares that caused all the initial devastation. It was one hell of a page turner. It read like it was just meant to be a film, if you know what I mean. It does stand alone if you don’t read the prologue.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to get quite so many tidbits of information about the actual Flares event itself; to be honest I was expecting this to be a typical zombie kind of story that starts after the beginning and ends before the end, but it actually starts at ground zero on day 1 of the Flare (outside of the control group that is). I thought it was horrifying and fascinating to see how quickly it mutates and the effects changes, and also how the characters react knowing that they’ve probably been exposed to it from the beginning. Seeing the inside of the mind of one the earliest Cranks as they become infected was amazingly interesting after seeing how Newt acted in the Death Cure when he got sick.

The flashbacks to the Solar Flares and its aftermath were just terrifying. The imagery was horrifying and the whole concept of sun flares and then massive floods of boiling hot water put me right on edge even though obviously they were alive at the start of the book. Something that massively surprised me as I read was that the Flare virus had only been around for 13 years before the start of The Maze Runner, and it only took the government 1 year after the solar flares to decide to kill off part of the population. No other dystopian I’ve read can top that level of evilness from governmental systems.

Aside from the horror aspect, I was also mightily confused and a bit amused-but-also-horrified at the cult. If you’ve read it you know. If you haven’t yet then you’ve got a storm coming let me tell you. Although we see in Death Cure that Cranks form mobs with a common purpose and of course they they lose their minds, I wasn’t at all expecting to see an actual cult just casually thrown in. It just adds to the madness of the story and actually fit right in among the other craziness of what went down.

My one question is: is DeeDee Teresa? (She was! It was implied in the next book.)

The reason I didn't rate this higher despite my enjoyment was that it just isn't a book I would reread. It's like an action film or horror film that you really enjoyed and appreciated but won't stick around for too long.

Book 5: The Fever Code: 3* on Goodreads, 2.5* in my heart

This one was a slog to get through. It goes over Thomas' life in Wicked, from the first few days to the day he goes into the maze. I didn't like it very much at all. My biggest problem was the torture of a 4 year old only a few pages in. It ruined the rest of the book for me. My second biggest problem is that we never learn Newt’s name. The betrayal of it all is astounding.

I’ve got to be honest, I was only pushing myself to read this because I wanted to know about the purge. It doesn’t happen until pretty late in the book and nearly everything before that is terribly boring. Everything after that happens pretty quickly.

I appreciated that we get added context to some things that happened in the main trilogy, however, some things that happen take away from the story in a bad way. Dr Paige is one example of this, where in the main trilogy she only appears in a positive context to save Thomas and the other immune, while in this she does some truly evil things behind the scenes unrelated to the context of the trials (or so she tells Thomas. We don’t know how much of that was truth and how much was intended as a Variable but either way it contradicts what we know of her in the Death Cure). The huge reveal at the ending regarding Teresa is also out of nowhere and seems contradictory to the main books. How much of her actions were planned and how much were real? Why would she lead the gladers to escape if she was as this book said she was? Was it a change of mind or was this particular aspect a retcon that wasn’t intended with the original books?

This one felt like an unnecessary addition to the series and I’m disappointed by how it turned out. I expected more and got less. If it hadn’t picked up in the last 150 pages this would’ve been a 2* simply for the disappointment that equalled that of The Scorch Trials. This may be a bit harsh but I do believe the books should have ended after The Kill Order, and the rest be left to the imagination.

To end on a semi-positive note: it turns out The Brain Thing was actually mentioned to them, but it's unclear if Teresa picked up on it, as we know Thomas didn't. It all came out at a very inopportune time while they were killing a crank who knew about it. The Brain Thing isn't positive at all, but I was very excited to learn if they had any inkling and that was sort of answered!

#the maze runner #james dashner #book review #book blogger #books and literature #a salty review

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fragmentsofchaldea · 6 years

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I know the title is ominous and borderline click-baity, but I don’t wish to mislead at any point with this. So, I’ll get right to the point about the long-awaited announcement.

The Fragments Series’ Tentative Future

To put it simply, FoC’s routine update schedule will probably be breaking apart as the best possible outcome. Even with all the revisions, finishing spring cleaning, and future plans I’ve had, this is all just a hobby in the end. (Kinda feel like Agravain at the end of Camelot).

Better explanation below the line.

I’ve been talking with SKYS about this for a bit before raising it with everyone, but the time has come to be very forward. My career has always taken priority for obvious reasons, but in all honesty, I’ve been letting it ‘stay level’ for a bit too long. If FoC’s development and update routine as a hobby wasn’t big enough of an indication, allow me to put it bluntly: I’m a very ambitious person who throws a ridiculous amount of energy into anything I feel is worthy of my investment.

Obviously, the career sits at the top, but it’s been sitting mellow compared to earlier years. It’s partially because I found very stable work for my freelancing, but it wasn’t going to be enough. I’m too ambitious for my own good and get restless when change doesn’t happen for one reason or another. At this point, I’ve come to terms that blockade was me holding myself content, but I could be doing far better than I am. So I’ll be ramping up my career’s former activity considerably.

That’s really bad news for anything considered a hobby/interest, especially one that takes up a lot more time than most that can’t be multi-tasked (FoC). To put things into perspective, the long time (or decently recent) fans would know how sporadic my update schedule was in March before I left on a big trip. It would be like that, except far more often due to trip frequency. In 2014 alone I did eight separate trips and spent over 3-4 months away from home working internationally. That’s what I’m looking to be doing again, except for more stints.

Obviously, that comes at a cost of time, which means I’ll be looking into anything that can be thrown aside that may put unnecessary strain on that. To be absolutely honest, the only reason FoC isn’t being pushed aside immediately with little regard is because I know it has a very, very silent but fairly sized fanbase. It’s because of you all and the fun I have that I’m actually considering salvaging its continuation.

However, that comes down to fans.

As I’ve also talked about with SKYS, my motivation for FoC gets pretty topsy-turvy even though I’ve made absolutely no mention to it for appearance’s sake. It’s a hobby that I enjoy doing most of the time. I like sharing a world that’s built in my head that many have come to enjoy, but I also weigh my time heavily. There are plenty of times I stare at the rather silent statistics and wonder just how many are taking my update schedule for granted, or that this would just continue on forever like a serial comic. From fav/follow/like growth to feedback, I weigh it all heavily. I don’t get paid (and don’t want any sort of monetary donations), so those are the only form of currency/assurance that what I’m doing is appreciated.

Yet, usually only a few voice for the many, as is sadly the case with most things. So, as I said, I have to leave the ball in your court, because you’re the one that often keep me motivated to write. I’m currently piecing together a good chunk of my schedule and am fitting the puzzle together for free time in 2019, and likely even quarter 4 this year if some contracts look manageable. In that undisclosed amount of time it takes me to do so, this is your opportunity to convince me to try and make at least some time for FoC.

If the response is good, I’ll see about salvaging uploads here and there on a sporadic basis. If it’s really great, I’ll even see if I can’t keep it the way it is while I’m home ‘on break’. And if it fails to influence me, then the abrupt end of the series is very likely going to be within the next two or three months. As a note, regardless of what happens, this is very likely a death sentence for future Supplements and their rapid upload schedules. There’s no way I can fit the time for that, so I’d need to figure out how to best handle those so the singularities could be enjoyed at least in some way.

This isn’t a threat or attention-whoring/pandering request to “like, subscribe, and leave a comment below the video.” This is a courtesy and show of appreciation to the fanbase so you have a chance to act on something I’d otherwise decide completely on my own. I weigh my time heavily: If the results aren’t worth my time, it’ll just be axed. The world can always continue to grow in my head, but sharing had always been optional.

So consider this your opportunity to save something you enjoy and convince me its steady updates were not being taken for granted. Feel free to use the Discord, tumblr messenger, or ff.net reviews/messages to do so, though it’s best to find a medium where you’re not exactly limited on space. The tumblr anon ask box is easily the worst method, to be honest. It’d be nice if you left some name/tag too.

As a tiny update for the next month, though, after September 10th’s update, FoC should be back on its usual weekly upload schedule for a month or two.

P.S - Sorry if it sounded pretty dramatic or grave, but it’s simply what it is: Fragments’ boom and bust is that my career is successful and keeps me floating. I look forward to hearing from you should you choose to do so.

#fragments of chaldea #scheduling conflict #author announcement #fanfiction #fanfic

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philly1000 · 3 years

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The most effective method to Monetize Your YouTube Channel - A Beginner's Guide By Philly Frost This post is about how you can adapt your substance on YouTube to begin producing income. The are four brilliant standards to bringing in cash on YouTube, and they are: You need to have 1,000 endorsers on your YouTube channel Your recordings have created 4,000 Watch Time hours in the course of the most recent a year You follow every one of YouTube's arrangements and rules You have an AdSense account set up 1 The YouTube Partner Program Requirements Normally known as the YouTube Partner Program, or YPP for short, you'll need to hit each of the four necessities before your channel will be acknowledged. We should begin with the 1,000 endorsers. This one is quite clear, it doesn't make any difference how it requires for you to get to 1,000 supporters, when you hit that achievement, you've arrived at that prerequisite. Just as 1,000 supporters, you likewise need 4,000 hours of Watch Time on your recordings in the course of the most recent year. There is some disarray with this one, so let me attempt to explain that. Most importantly, this isn't about how much video content you, the YouTube maker, watch. This is about how much video content is watched on your channel from individuals the whole way across the world. It's every one of those long stretches of video that individuals have watched on your direct over the most recent year (from some random date). You could well have well 4,000 hours of Watch Time over the lifetime of your channel, yet it's just the most recent a year that means YouTube Partner Program prerequisites. Several things to enlighten you regarding Watch Time. Live streams do check towards that absolute. Unlisted recordings additionally check towards that absolute. Yet, in the event that you erase any recordings, that Watch Time will be eliminated from your channel Watch Time hours. What's more, one more last thing, on the off chance that you are now in the YouTube Partner Program, and if your channel falls under 4,000 hours of Watch Time, YouTube will not consequently eliminate you from the accomplice program, however they can do it at their watchfulness. On the off chance that you need a considerably more itemized video on the subject of 4,000 hours explicitly, look at this video: In the event that you need to check the advancement of above necessities, you can do as such by tapping on your logo in the upper right-hand corner of most YouTube pages, and afterward tapping on YouTube Studio Beta. You can see the entirety of your examination here, however to rapidly check progress on adaptation, float your mouse over "Different highlights", and afterward click on "Status and Features". On this screen, you should see an adaptation box, and in the event that you click "Find out additional", it will advise you precisely where you at present remain with supporters and Watch Time hours. Yet, assuming the entirety of that seems like an excess of difficult work, we have a free apparatus that will do the entirety of this a lot faster and all the more proficiently. On the off chance that you download and introduce the vidIQ programming on practically every YouTube screen, you will see an assortment of ongoing details about your channel. It will show you your channel's perspectives each hour, sees throughout the most recent 48 hours, and your endorser check. However, the truly cool thing is that it will keep tabs on your development to 4,000 hours of Watch Time as well! When you hit 4,000 hours, that number will become green to show you you've arrived at that adaptation prerequisite. 2 Following YouTube Rules for Monetization Following up is the standard book. On the off chance that you need to adapt your substance, you need to ensure you stick to it, as YouTube state: At the point when you apply for the YouTube Partner Program, you'll go through a standard audit interaction to see whether your channel meets YouTube's approach and rules. Just channels that meet them will be acknowledged into

the program. YouTube additionally continually checks directs in the program to see whether they keep on gathering YouTube's arrangements and rules. These approaches and rules are thorough, given the entirety of the developing agonies YouTube has had of tracking down the correct harmony between makers, watchers, and promoters. I strongly suggest acquainting yourself with these strategies and rules in the event that you need to adapt your substance later on. Nonetheless, on the off chance that you are in a TLDR disposition, to sum up, apply presence of mind. In the event that you figure a video may be unseemly, odds are it is, and you make such substance at your own danger. My #1 recommended way for Youtube monetization 3 Copyright and Monetization Policies on YouTube Among YouTube's arrangements and rules is the tremendous subject of protected material. Basically, assuming you utilize others' work, you could be utilizing protected material without their consent, and YouTube doesn't need you to do that. It will very likely get you demonetized or keep you from entering the YouTube Partner Program. We should take a gander at this in somewhat more detail. For the greater part of you, this is the main adaptation strategy. You need to ensure that you're enhancing any outsider substance you adapt, and that your substance has critical unique critique, instructive worth, or editorialized proclamation. What's more, let's get straight to the point, that actually probably won't be sufficient. This doesn't give you a permit to utilize others' substance in your recordings constantly, since, supposing that you do, YouTube may utilize this as a contention not to adapt your substance. YouTube affirms that assuming all or the majority of your channel is committed to reused substance, and you're not changing the first work by adding your own extraordinary worth, at that point your channel isn't qualified for the YouTube Partner Program. The soul of this strategy is to ensure that YouTube is boosting extraordinary and unique substance into the YouTube Partner Program, and that YouTube is securing and compensating the makers who buckle down on unique substance. Presently, some may see YouTube's soul of a strategy as a pardon to demonetize diverts they don't need in the adaptation program, yet we should have a glance at it starting here. You went through days, hours making a radiant piece of substance, and it circulates around the web on YouTube. And afterward twelve irregular video makers take that content, transfer it, produce a huge number of perspectives, and wind up benefitting liberally from it. How might you feel if that occurred? That is the thing that YouTube is attempting to shield - unique substance from video makers. In fact, reused, copy substance, and copyright content is a wide hazy situation on YouTube, and they don't generally take care of business. What's more, you may see a few channels on YouTube and see that they're obviously displaying these principles. Indeed, you don't have the foggiest idea what their individual conditions are, they may have authorization to utilize that substance, or they may get trapped later on, and you would prefer not to follow the instances of channels that are doing this. It is anything but a street to progress. At last YouTube is the guardian. They hold the entirety of the keys. You are on leased ground, and in the event that you display these standards, and break them, don't be astonished when YouTube comes after you. 4 Linking a Google Adsense Account with a YouTube Channel In the event that you will bring in cash from your recordings, YouTube needs an approach to pay you, and at any rate in the first place, this will be done through an AdSense account. A couple of things you need to think about this, in the event that you as of now have an AdSense account, you can utilize that. You can interface various channels to one AdSense account, and on the off chance that you haven't got an AdSense account, you can set one up during the YouTube Partner Program application

measure. 5 Applying to the YouTube Partner Program We should help ourselves to remember those necessities once again: You need: 1,000 endorsers on your YouTube channel 4,000 Watch Time hours on your recordings throughout the most recent a year To agree with every one of YouTube's strategies and rules Have an AdSense account set up At the point when you've applied for the YouTube Partner Program, it might take as long as a month for the stage to settle on a choice. That is on the grounds that genuine people will audit your channel so it's a manual cycle. A few directs have been endorsed in days, so it very well may be speedier. In any case, assuming it takes longer than a month, your channel will typically be set in an additional survey. At the point when this occurs, lamentably, the stand by times can get extremely long. Three, six, conceivably even a year. In some sad cases, YouTube never appears to go to a choice, leaving the maker in adaptation limbo. We like that this can be a baffling situation to end up in as a video maker, as a large number of you have remarked about this on our recordings here at vidIQ. Sadly, we ourselves can't help push the cycle forward for you, so what we prescribe you do is to converse with TeamYouTube on Twitter, ensuring that everyone realizes that you disapprove of your adaptation choice. YouTube says that this won't ever accelerate the interaction, yet in any event having some choice is something you ought to merit as a video maker. My #1 recommended way for Youtube monetization 6 Being Rejected from the YouTube Partner Program: Next Steps Presently suppose that you've applied for the YouTube Partner Program, yet you've been dismissed. How would you be able to respond? At the point when you are dismissed from the YouTube Partner Program, YouTube will give you an overall motivation behind why. Shockingly, they will not advise you explicitly what video or substance is causing the issue, so you might be left indiscriminately changing your channel. Nonetheless, the uplifting news is you can reapply for the program in 30 days' time. Once more, this is the place where you should utilize your sound judgment. On the off chance that you think there are recordings that are strolling the local area rule and strategies tightrope, at that point they probably are and you need to change them. Assuming there are recordings that have copyright content on them, those are presumably causing an issue with YouTube too, so you should erase them. Makers have asked when they apply for the accomplice program, will having a local area rule strike or a copyright strike against my channel keep me from getting into the program? The appropriate response is most likely no, it unquestionably will not forestall you, however it will have an effect. My #1 recommended way for Youtube monetization https://bit.ly/2QnSH9v #youtubemonetization #makemoneyonline #makemoneyonyoutube

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wineanddinosaur · 3 years

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Next Round: Knotfest Beer Pit Is Bringing Heavy Metal and Craft Beer Together

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter and VinePair’s senior editor Cat Wolinski chat with Adam Zuniga, advanced cicerone and creator of Knotfest Beer Pit. Knotfest Beer Pit is a direct-to-consumer beer subscription club inspired by heavy metal culture. Zuniga explains why, for him, heavy metal and craft beer are synonymous.

Zuniga also explains the month-to-month box that Knotfest Beer Pi customers receive. Each box contains eight beers from four state-of-the-art breweries around the United States. Finally, Zuniga details the creation of his show “The Six Most Metal Breweries,” an award-winning series that showcases the crossover between craft beer and heavy metal music.

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Adam Teeter: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a VinePair “Next Round” conversation. We are bringing these conversations between our regular podcast episodes to give a better picture of what’s been going on in the alcohol beverage community. Today, I’m really excited to be joined by Adam Zuniga, advanced cicerone and the creator of the Knotfest Beer Pit. Adam, thanks so much for joining me.

Adam Zuniga: Adam, thank you for having me. It’s always good to know another Adam.

A: Yes, always. Also, we have a special guest, which is beer lover, senior editor at VinePair, and all-around beer cheerleader Cat Wolinski. I mean, you crashed my interview.

C: I did. Is this weird? I’m here. I’m here on a “Next Round” episode, breaking the rules.

A: We’re going to co-interview Adam, which I’m pretty excited about. Adam, can you chat with us a little bit about what Knotfest Beer Pit is?

Z: Absolutely. The Knotfest Beer Pit is a direct-to-consumer beer subscription club that is sent monthly. It is meant to represent the highest-quality craft beers on the market, as well as the most metal craft beers available on the market and a collection that you won’t find anywhere else paired together.

A: So what do you mean by the most metal?

Z: Well, it’s an interesting question you ask. My background is often working in craft beer sales and in marketing. In doing so, I found a way to incorporate a lot of my own personal interests into it, which of course includes heavy metal. The more I look for it, the more you will find brewers in any given brewery, whether they’re a declared metal brewery or not, have a background, a love, and a passion for hard rock, heavy music, or heavy metal that helps them get through the day and influences their work. When I say metal beer, I believe they’re bringing the same ethic and the same attitude to their beer as if they play in a band, as if it’s their own passion product, as if it expresses their own DIY ethic. That quality, first and foremost, is what translates into the beer. Yes, it can be big, boozy, and aggressive, but it can be lighter, fashionable, and intended for a show and day drinking. They can bring the aesthetic into the label art, into the name, their recipe development, and thought process. To me, all those things represent a metal beer, and I’m trying to bring them all into the Knotfest Beer Pit, into this box people receive monthly in such a way that you’ll never have available anywhere else. All at one time, all in one place.

A: Wow, that’s really awesome. Had you ever attempted a subscription service like this before? Did you know anything about what this was going to take going in? What was your plan to launch a beer subscription service?

Z: One of the few positives after a year of negative, obviously craft beer, as has every industry, been struck hard on account of Covid and during the pandemic over a year now. As a result, people had to get crafty. Breweries had to get even more crafty. We’ve seen a lot of traditional distribution laws not fail, but at least become more lax during the pandemic while breweries figure out how to reach the consumer directly. It’s been much the same for artists, bands, and musicians because they’re not able to tour. They’re not able to perform live right now. In this case, 5B Artists + Media, who represents Slipknot and a variety of heavy bands on their roster, was trying to see how they could continue to reach their fans even though artists can’t play live right now? I had originally met them at Kings County Brewers Collective when they were collaborating on a beer for another one of their bands called Behemoth, and you never know how these little things are going to come back, so it really just circled around. They were looking to get more invested in the beer business to find out how to monetize their artists when live music is not happening. They approached me with the idea of a direct-to-consumer beer club. It was the perfect storm because we’re living in a state right now where there is nothing more important than direct-to-consumer. They said, “We want to work with you, we want you to lead this project. You select the beers, you work with the breweries. We’ll try to incorporate our bands and our branding, and it’ll be the perfect storm.”

A: Nice. How many breweries are taking part in the club and how many bands?

Z: As of right now, each box, month-to-month, is going to include four different breweries, and you get two beers from each brewery. One box, eight beers, and four breweries. In each box, I’m going to try to include at least a nod to some of the band beers that have come before or the longest-standing band beers out there. In this month, for instance, we have a Belching Beaver Phantom Bride IPA included, and that’s a collaboration with Deftones, who is one of 5B’s artists. In addition to that, we have Morbid Hour black pilsner, which is my beer made in collaboration with Kings County Brewers Collective and St. Vitus Bar, which we shot a pilot episode for and released as the first episode for a series called “The Six Most Metal Breweries.” Then, we also include Gashadokuro Double IPA and then WayFinder Hell. That’s from Wayfinding Beer in Portland, Ore. Every month, it’ll be at least four different breweries from four different states, and then we’ll try to have one band beer involved.

A: OK, so all the beer is coming to you first in New York, etc. and then you’re boxing them out, and selling them? Are they coming individually from the different breweries? Obviously, you have a brewery from Portland, here from Brooklyn, one from Virginia, one from Oceanside, Calif. How’s this all working?

Z: It’s a vast network. I am currently based in California, and 5B Artists + Media is based in both California and New York. I am working with all the breweries to arrange a one-time drop and temporary distribution to the state of New Jersey, believe it or not, unless they’re already distributed there. They ship their beer to New Jersey and it’s received by a large retailer called Roselle Park Wines and Spirits, who also ships all Slipknot Whiskey nationally. When you really dig into this, it’s unbelievable that traditionally, it has been easier to mail-order wine or whiskey than it has beer. I don’t know the full extent of the reasoning behind that. As I said, thankfully, those laws are starting to change a little bit, or at least people are turning a blind eye during Covid. I get all these breweries to ship their beer to New Jersey for just a one-time, nonexclusive, temporary drop. From there, it is shipped to about 30 states by Roselle Park Wines and Spirits. Those 30 states are eventually going to grow to hopefully 40, possibly 50. There’s a couple outliers, the blue states, you know who you are. Then, we might start shipping internationally to a couple of additional countries as well.

A: Cool. How are you getting the word out about this, and how has it been so far?

Z: So far, so good. Anything that starts small inevitably has to grow. That is the nature of life and music and beer. Primarily, the word has been through knotfestbeerpit.com. We are promoting it on social media. That’s also why I reached out to Cat, because originally with VinePair when we did the collaboration with Morbid Hour, with KCBC and St. Vitus Bar. VinePair was thankfully one of the publications out there that’s big enough to explore a world that is potentially off the beaten track or morbid as craft beer and heavy metal. I really appreciate VinePair for that. I reached out to you if there was any interest. It’s a great thing, Cat, because on the beer side of things, a lot of people want to say, “Metal is too gimmicky, it’s quirky, it’s not serious enough, craft beer still wants to be taken very seriously.” On the metal side, people might want to say, “Well, craft beer is not metal enough. It’s too niche and specific with the strain of metal breweries out there.” I love it when someone like VinePair will explore this world and acknowledge it.

C: Totally, I love covering those cross-sections of the beer world and the other worlds surrounding it like a Venn diagram. Metal is obviously one of them, beer has always been a part of the metal lifestyle and shows. I think it makes sense to approach that from a branding perspective, too. I have a question about the service itself. I am often asked for recommendations for beer subscription services or gifts, and I don’t usually have any recommendations that I can feel really good about. Can you tell us how Knotfest Beer Pit is different and why it’s worth the subscription compared to others in considering the price point as well?

Z: First of all, it’s month-to-month, so there is no required commitment. You can go as you want to go. Month-to-month, take it or leave it, you can choose. In addition to that, the beers are chosen by me. They’re curated by an advanced cicerone. A lot of thought and effort goes into the beers you’ll be drinking every month. There is no dud, as I said, quality first. To me, the idea of metal represents quality. So you have a beer subscription club that you can choose month-to-month. It’s guaranteed to be the highest quality, curated by an advanced cicerone. Then, of course, with a unique point of view, when you have an agency behind it, like 5B Artists + Media, it’s the seal and stamp of approval that these beers represent our artists. These beers represent the heaviest, most metal beers on the market. If you take all that combined, no commitment, highest quality, and most metal attitude and aesthetic that you will not find anywhere else. I haven’t seen anyone else out there doing something even remotely similar yet.

C: That is true. Most of the subscription services that have existed over the last few decades are either distributor-run, or you’re getting the dusty things off the shelves that weren’t selling so well. I do have another question about the freshness. Obviously, these are all quality beers, but if they’re coming from around the country and then New Jersey and then back out to wherever they’re being sent around the country or even internationally, how can we know — something like a black lager or any lager will survive decently overseas — but if it’s something like the Adroit Theory EBK, which is, I think, 8 percent Imperial IPA. it’s chock full of all sorts of different hopped varieties. How are you guaranteeing that it can be enjoyed fresh?

Z: Yeah, absolutely. I’m putting a lot of thought and effort into freshness because, as you said, I want every box to include at least one, if not two lagers. As we know, lagers are more prone to survive shipping. They’re more prone to stay fresh longer because they’re not highly hopped. I think every box is going to include at least one to two lagers, specifically with freshness in mind. Also, when it comes to imperial territory with stouts, as there will always be a bigger beer that they can only improve with age, even something like oxidation might bring out more wanted flavors. If it does have a little bit of time to when it reaches the consumer, it’ll still be a valued experience, highest quality, and great taste. With IPAs, I have to pay very, very special attention to them because, as you know, they’re the most volatile and the most perishable. What we are going to do moving forward is make sure that IPAs, in any given box, are only canned and shipped at the very end of the month prior to that box. This is the first box that just went out, and it was shipped at the very end of March. What I’m going to try to do going forward, for example, for the April box that’s coming, the IPA was just canned literally the last week of March for the April box. Then, we’re going to keep pushing forward to get that April box out, maybe mid-month instead of the end of the month. The bottom line is the absolute goal is to make sure that an IPA will be canned within 30 days of being received by Roselle Park and shipped out to consumers. Then it will be consumed most definitely within 60 days of reaching the consumer. That will go for all beers, not just IPA. We are really trying to make sure when this is rolling perfectly out to market, that no beer in there will have more than 90 days on it at the absolute most. I would say that is a reasonable representation of freshness from any brewery, as long as conditions are kept under control.

A: Right now on the site, the subscription is $50 a box. Will the prices change, or are you trying to keep it $50 every month? How does that work?

Z: If anything, we’d love to get the prices down a little bit. As I said, it’s still a work in progress and we are figuring that out right now. It’s important to emphasize that you’re getting eight beers total, two of the same beer from each brewery. When you write down costs, you can tell me what’s going on in New York City right now. If you were to order eight beers from any of the breweries doing a direct-to-home delivery, what does that amount to with tax and delivery fee included? I don’t know if $50 is relatively in the ballpark, but I can tell you definitely just from having ordered from beer subscription services in the past, that’s not outlandish, given the cost of shipping and all things considered. Then, we’re going to reevaluate after three or four months and decide if we want to include more beers. Do we want to include fewer beers? Ultimately, how does that take the price down or add further value?

A: Very cool.

C: I was going to say that $50 might seem a lot for eight beers, but it’s also important to consider that you’re getting things that you probably don’t have access to, considering that they’re coming through this crazy distribution setup that you have going. Of course, I can get KCBC in Brooklyn, but I don’t think I can ever get Wayfinder, Adroit Theory, or even Belching Beaver. That’s pretty rare around here, so I think it’s cool to be able to try these beers that you’re aware of but don’t get to drink too often.

Z: It’s very true. You’re supporting craft breweries around the country that still, traditionally, have limited distribution. As I said, this collection won’t be available in any one place, anywhere else, any time soon.

A: I think it’s very cool because I like the idea that this is a subscription club, but it’s based on a theme. Usually, I think people are wary of subscription clubs because then does it become the beer they got the best deal on this month? How does that work? I think it’s cool because it’s like, “No these are breweries that all share an ethos.” I think that’s super, super dope.

Z: Yeah, for sure. No, there is an ethos and an ethic guiding the selection of every beer that goes into this box.

C: If you check out The Six Most Metal Breweries, any of the interviews, Adam knows all these people, and you’ve been the most connected with all these breweries.

Z: Yeah, not to play favorites, but a lot of the breweries included in this box are really like best friends throughout the country and among this industry. It’s great to be able to continue working with them in this way while we still are on lockdown, and while the country is still partially shut down. Everyone is getting crafty. It’s just a way of, as I said, continuing to communicate this message of craft beer and heavy metal across the nation.

A: I dig it because I was not super aware of craft beer and heavy metal. I’m not going to lie. I always thought it was craft beer and jam bands. So I’m glad to have been informed. Cat has kept me in the know and told me that there are some metal people.

C: I mean, I wrote that story like three years ago.

A: Grateful Dead, people. This is cool. Adam, how do people sign up?

Z: OK, so, Adam, first of all, I’m just going to say that I am firmly committed to taking some of the “hippie” out of craft beer. You are right. There is this stigma and there are a lot of people working on my side of the industry that is definitely like hippies following Phish around the country. There is that image ever since the Sierra Nevada cobbled together their first brewhouse, but we’re taking it back.

C: There’s room for all music lovers in the craft beer world.

Z: That is ultimately what is most important, Cat. You are absolutely correct. OK, how do people sign up? They go to knotfestbeerpit.com. That is the single best source. You can go to the knotfest.com and there’s also a link to the beer pit. You can follow @knotfest on social. You can follow SixMostMetalBreweries on social. We both regularly push and plug this just to draw attention to it and get more people involved.

A: Amazing. Well, Adam, this has been really awesome to chat with you. Keep doing what you’re doing. I think it’s really, really cool. And Cat, thanks for joining me on this one.

C: Yeah, thanks for letting me in, guys. Adam and Adam.

Z: Cat and Adam, I am so thankful for the moment. Really appreciate you supporting craft beer and heavy music. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please leave a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair cofounder Josh Malin for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tasting director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who is instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Knotfest Beer Pit Is Bringing Heavy Metal and Craft Beer Together appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/knotfest-beer-pit-heavy-metal/

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johnboothus · 3 years

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Next Round: Knotfest Beer Pit Is Bringing Heavy Metal and Craft Beer Together

Listen Online

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Adam Zuniga: Adam, thank you for having me. It’s always good to know another Adam.

A: Yes, always. Also, we have a special guest, which is beer lover, senior editor at VinePair, and all-around beer cheerleader Cat Wolinski. I mean, you crashed my interview.

C: I did. Is this weird? I’m here. I’m here on a “Next Round” episode, breaking the rules.

A: We’re going to co-interview Adam, which I’m pretty excited about. Adam, can you chat with us a little bit about what Knotfest Beer Pit is?

A: So what do you mean by the most metal?

A: Nice. How many breweries are taking part in the club and how many bands?

A: Cool. How are you getting the word out about this, and how has it been so far?

A: Right now on the site, the subscription is $50 a box. Will the prices change, or are you trying to keep it $50 every month? How does that work?

A: Very cool.

Z: Yeah, for sure. No, there is an ethos and an ethic guiding the selection of every beer that goes into this box.

C: If you check out The Six Most Metal Breweries, any of the interviews, Adam knows all these people, and you’ve been the most connected with all these breweries.

C: I mean, I wrote that story like three years ago.

A: Grateful Dead, people. This is cool. Adam, how do people sign up?

C: There’s room for all music lovers in the craft beer world.

A: Amazing. Well, Adam, this has been really awesome to chat with you. Keep doing what you’re doing. I think it’s really, really cool. And Cat, thanks for joining me on this one.

C: Yeah, thanks for letting me in, guys. Adam and Adam.

Z: Cat and Adam, I am so thankful for the moment. Really appreciate you supporting craft beer and heavy music. Thank you.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Knotfest Beer Pit Is Bringing Heavy Metal and Craft Beer Together appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/knotfest-beer-pit-heavy-metal/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-knotfest-beer-pit-is-bringing-heavy-metal-and-craft-beer-together

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mercadosadaf · 4 years

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The Value of Swimming In Uncertain Times

Hi Swimmers

Firstly, apologies for the radio silence over the last few weeks on the blog - we've had the whole Swim Smooth team busily engaged in a complete revamp of the entire www.swimsmooth.com website and coaching interface, and whilst we are not quite done, we are getting very close and hope to resume the blog and our usual community engagement very soon. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Today, Head Coach Paul Newsome, has prepared a reflective piece for you on the value of swimming and what it means to us all, especially in these uncertain times. We hope it allows you to pause over a cup of tea or coffee and think a little bit about your own swimming and how your relationship with the water might have changed somewhat in the last 12 months.

Paul features three brief stories of some inspiring swimmers he has had the pleasure to work with and how their swimming journeys have been significantly altered by the coronavirus, mostly for the better. Paul summarises with some of his own take-home points on how this period has changed his own thinking on swimming somewhat and how his ordinarily extrinsic competitive goalposts have shifted to a place of intrinsic challenge and finding a new calm with that. So please, relax, put your feet up and let’s get a little zen for a moment.

The Value of Swimming in Uncertain Times

I was recently invited as a guest on the new An Open Water Swimmer's Podcast with host Will Ellis (release date: 28th February here) to discuss my love and passion for swimming - an easy topic for me! Will is a great host and someone I'd taken for a Swim Smooth analysis session as part of a group over a decade ago in the UK. Given my area of technical interest in swimming, many podcasts that we've done with other hosts have always centered on these elements, but Will took a very different slant, one which focused very much on the "why" of swimming.

Why do I swim? Why do I enjoy the water? Why swimming and not another sport? I came away with a headful of thoughts that I'd either never given due consideration to before, or maybe some that crystallized a growing appreciation I've started to foster of late?

Given the current state of play with COVID-19 restrictions on our sport over the last 12 months, I feel my own relationship with water has not necessarily changed per se but it's definitely evolved. Perhaps though, it's me who's changed and it's this period of intrinsic reflection that has heightened the "why" behind what we all love to do? For many of you, could the absence of being able to do the thing you love or the thing that perhaps challenges you the most (as a triathlete maybe?) be the necessary catalyst to kick your swimming to new heights of appreciation (however you measure that) when we do all come through this? I'm certainly seeing that in myself and my squad of very lucky swimmers over here in Perth, Australia.

Lady Luck

Over the last 12 months, Perth has been heralded as one of the best places on the planet with respect to the relatively few restrictions and impact of the coronavirus - many of us scarcely realizing how lucky we are. Next week will see 3,500 people start one of the largest open water swims on the planet, the Rottnest Channel Swim, in which I will be competing with a good friend over the 20km distance. We have, however, just come out of a heavily publicized (albeit very short) 5-day lockdown here in Perth which restricted access to the pools and saw us only being able to swim solo in the open water or with one other family member. This incident garnered international press on account of the very rapid and focused response to a single case in the community transferred between a quarantined hotel guest and a security guard. The whole state came to a grinding halt for just one case - everything ceased and panic was high. Despite extensive testing (myself included) of those who may have been in the vicinity of this one person, fortunately, no other community transmission has occurred. Consequently, life is returning to some form of normality again.

One of the hardest things I've personally struggled with over the last 12 months though is being able to fully appreciate and empathize with just how brutal this period must have been - and continues to be - for many of you from the perspective of being able to simply enjoy the pleasures of a nice swim. Lady Luck has shone down on me, and for why, I do not know? I feel a toiling mixed sense of guilt, of pure luck, and of umbrage at myself for the seemingly petty feeling of missing the ability to travel overseas and share my love of swimming with you all, wherever you might be. I miss it so much and yet feel I have no right to do so given where I have the good fortune to be right now.

I had a frank conversation before Christmas with my Mum about this. Many of you know Linda as "Mother Smooth" and if you've ever ordered anything from us, she'd have sent it to you. True to the adage that "Mum always knows best", I finally managed to pluck up the courage and expand on how excited I was to be taking my wife and two kids camping over the Christmas holidays to a beautiful town called Albany in the South West which we'd all visited together as a family a few years earlier. Mother Smooth couldn't understand why I'd not told her sooner, to which I responded that I didn't want to make her feel bad. "Feel bad?" she quizzed, "I am at my happiest when I know you are happy". Profound stuff - good old Mum!

The Changing Tide

So, what has this all really got to do with swimming? If you are in the northern hemisphere, chances are you are sick to the back teeth of hearing about the coronavirus and maybe even more so the thought that other pockets of the world are experiencing far fewer restrictions than yourself currently. Last week's swift lockdown gave me a rapid reminder though just how uncertain these times can be - the tide can change on a dime so easily. What has been remarkable for me has been watching how those of you who still continue in enforced lockdowns have survived this last 12 months and I'd like to recognize some of the cool - and crazy - things you've been doing, obviously simply for the joy of needing to get your swim in! Perhaps you can tell us more about how you've weathered this storm so far?

Helen Webster, UK

I met Helen in March 2014 at the 220 Triathlon Show in London. As the editor of the 220 Triathlon Magazine, Helen had taken it upon herself to learn to swim freestyle properly for an upcoming triathlon and I was tasked with assisting her with that goal in an Endless Pool and in front of hundreds of people. For someone with very little swimming experience at that point, Helen did amazingly well in front of such a crowd and it’s a testament to her bubbly “can do” spirit that she took on this challenge!

We spent a good hour or so filming her stroke, analyzing it (in front of everyone!), and then getting back into the pool to correct her issues which mainly centred around developing confidence in the water and improving the timing of her stroke, specifically her breathing. Back then, Helen was what we’d have described as a classic Bambino - someone very new to swimming with a relatively high level of anxiety in the water - so to see the following images circulating on Helen’s Facebook page in the last couple of weeks simply blew my mind! Helen’s gone all Bear Grylls on us and now is not happy unless she has to break the ice in her backyard pool just to ensure she gets her swim in! I’m so proud of her as a mate!

Here's Helen on what the last 12 months have meant for her swimming:

"Open-water swimming has been a key part of my training week ever since taking those first steps with Paul all those years ago! Lockdown had made me realise just how important swimming is to me though and in so many ways. Not living near the coast and with managed venues nearby forced to close I've realised how much I rely on swimming for lifting my mood, giving me a pause from a busy world and fully immersing myself in nature. I'm a pool swimmer too and with centres all closed I'm even missing the tang of chlorine and having to do kick drills!!

It sounds melodramatic but a tearful moment on the phone with a friend prompted her to gift me a garden pool and swimming tethered has given me a route back to the water (thanks to Swim Smooth Coach Jason Tait for the tethered swim sets!). It's also led me to a new swim community who are making the most of what they have and finding humour in sitting in ice baths and under hosepipes, or sharing tips for how to stop your garden pool freezing!

I can't wait to have my 'proper' swimming back and believe me, will never take it for granted again. I'm planning a swim challenge for September and keeping fingers crossed it goes ahead!"

Sue Allingham, Denmark

Sue attended one of our 3-day Swim Smooth Coach Education Courses in Mallorca, Spain back in May 2019 and was clearly a super-passionate swimmer and coach. We’ve remained in close contact via Messenger since and she frequently sends me crazy pictures of where she’s been swimming, however, nothing could quite prepare me for this one - her frozen Margarita experience (as she calls it)!

When I asked Sue about what the last 12 months have meant for her swimming, she said this:

"A year ago I entered the World Ice Swimming Championships in Bled Slovenia for a laugh. 2 weeks later I broke both my wrists and then Lockdown! By April I was going stir crazy and the day I had my casts removed, I got back into the sea, as the pools were shut. Little did I know that I would continue going in every day since! As my wrists got stronger, I could swim longer but the thought of trying to pull on a wetsuit was hanging over my head. By the time I probably could get one on I no longer felt the need. I continued to swim throughout the year and ended up becoming the Danish age-group champion in 25m & 100m Freestyle - Ice swimming and 5k Openwater.

A year on from Covid and we are still in the sea and simply just grabbing any opportunity to jump in the water, to try new beaches or temperatures. As you can see from the picture, we’ve started making our own frozen Margaritas!

What will I do when the pools open again? Dive in and just keep swimming! Never thought I’d miss the black line so much. Swimming as always is such a social thing & drinking coffee with friends after each swim has really made Lockdown actually enjoyable. Already looking at SwimRuns in Sweden, hopefully as it’s close by we may be allowed to travel. Otherwise lots of pre-paid events carried over from last year. I live in hope.

One thing is for sure, the sea is always open!"

Mark Turner, Switzerland

Mark also attended one of our other 3-day Swim Smooth Coach Education Courses in Mallorca, Spain (the week after Sue) and had just a few months prior completed the Rottnest Channel Swim here in Perth. Mark set up the world’s most prestigious multi-day cycling event for amateurs, the Haute Route, which is a brutally tough challenge in a breathtakingly beautiful landscape. Mark was also the man behind Ellen MacArthur’s sailing career (who set the world record in 2005 for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe), the Offshore Challenges/OC Sport business, and the Extreme Sailing Series, and is widely seen as a visionary in the sport of sailing. And, if all that wasn't enough, Mark led the Volvo Ocean Race series as CEO in 2016/17. Needless to say, Mark is not someone to do things by half and is always up for a (big) challenge!

Mark now lives in Switzerland on the banks of Lake Geneva and is fastidious about his swimming, especially a weekly completion of the infamous 10 x 400m Red Mist Endurance session! Like with many parts of the world, Mark has had unreliable access to his local pool over the last 12 months and so has turned to the great outdoors instead…even during the middle of winter! Hooking up regularly with like-minded souls in these freezing temperatures has been what has kept Mark going and will stand him in good stead when the world finally comes back to some sense of normality.

It Is What It Is

I think one of the most obvious things with each of these three swimmers - and yourself hopefully too - is that they’ve simply rolled with the punches that 2020 and beyond has brought their way. They’ve got on with it, adapted, pivoted, and thrived in a new environment and in doing so sought out other goals to keep them motivated and in the game. Resilience personified. We always talk so virtuously in training and racing about “control the controllable”, and clearly, none of this is in any of our control right now. Way back in April 2020 when we were still in lockdown and I was personally unable to coach, a very close friend and one of my athletes, Nolan McDonnell told me to “stop trying to save us all - we can look after ourselves!” in response to me frantically trying to work out how to keep everyone fit and engaged when I couldn’t be with them face-to-face. It really struck a chord with me, and whilst it didn’t happen overnight, I did begin to accept the situation.

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to travel and spread the Swim Smooth word - as has been my life over the last 16 or so years - was a real blow, but ever so gradually I started to move beyond this and to focus on what I could do, not what I couldn’t. For me personally, that’s meant plenty more time at home with the family, and as we are seeing on the pool deck at the moment, plenty of opportunities to be super consistent with our respective training schedules too. The squad here in Perth has never swum so quickly before, ever! Why? Everyone has their groundhog day schedule dialled in and they’re sticking to it because there’s nowhere else to go, and there’s something very centring about that, zen even.

Fancying a challenge myself - and recognizing the collective benefit of encouraging others to follow suit - I have even got myself back into doing a few triathlons, marathon swims, and even the odd SwimRun event too! Taking on a range of varied challenges was in an effort to not put all our eggs into one basket in case events got canceled or postponed.

Again, I’m super privileged to be able to do these things right now, and part of that appreciation brings a whole new angle on why we do what we do. For me, it’s all been about my shared experience of training up with one of my best mates Chris to do the Rottnest Channel Swim together as a Duo next week. With last week’s unprecedented lockdown it looked certain to be canceled but you know what, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest! The religiously attended Sunday morning swim with Chris in the river is what it’s all about - not the event itself. Swimming + Best Mate = Win.

Sure, the race will be a nice finale, but the old adage of “the journey is better than the destination” is what this whole crazy period has really taught me. We egg each other on even in the middle of winter and for me, this has seen a major step away from the profound sense of training for competition’s sake, to training for training’s sake, and for the social camaraderie that this has brought. I wouldn’t change that for the world.

Even if you haven’t had the opportunity (yet) to be quite so free in your activities, that time will come again, hopefully very soon, and in the meantime, just set yourself some little consistency of routine benchmarks to tick off. Get creative like our friends above (just maybe not quite so crazy!). How many swims in the river can you consistently do every Sunday? Can you always ensure you meet up with Bob for your Friday lunchtime jog in the park? Make sure you commit to that group ride on Zwift you booked in for on the Companion app etc. It’s the little things, done often that will keep you going and when the world opens up again, you’ll be ready!

Thanks for reading. Swim on!

Paul

from Sports http://www.feelforthewater.com/2021/02/the-value-of-swimming-in-uncertain-times.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

#sports

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bellamyblake · 7 years

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Got any headcanons for how the space crew commemorates those they left behind? Similar to Clarke carving the many names into her rifle. :) I like your brain, it's great

Requests are technically closed cause I’m swamped with classes but okay…lemme try and fuck this up:

Bellamy is the first one to come up with something since they assign Jaha’s office to him and after he finally rummages through his drawers and all the records that he kept, he finds a list of all the delinquents that were imprisoned and then sent to the ground;

his hand shakes and his eyes water as he stares at every name and remembers all the faces; at first he can’t bring himself to even finish reading it and he shoves it back in the drawer, but when he spends a few sleepless nights after that, he drags himself back to the office in the middle of the night, takes the list and goes back to his room;

rooms on the Ring are bigger than the ones on Farm station or any other and the rest of the space kru insisted he takes the most spacious one which he refused; he chose a smaller one at the end of the hallway, distanced from the others so that his nightmare screams don’t wake them up; (he wasn’t surprised to find that he could hear the others yell as well too and his heart broke because of it);

anyway, that night he comes back to his room, takes out one of the kitchen knives (Murphy was gonna kill him tomorrow for even being anywhere near close to them, but that was battle for another day), takes the list and starts carving every name; the first night he makes it to the eighteenth, the second he’s half done, on the third he finishes up;

he’s a little self conscious, feeling that if the others saw it, they might think he’s nuts, but still…he couldn’t spare a minute to give a fuck about it; he wrote the names of his closest people on the wall next to his bed and some nights when he woke up from gruesome nightmares or just felt incredibly sad, his hands would trace the names of Jasper, Monroe, Fox, all of the kids they lost back at the beginning and he doesn’t even register when he starts crying or how his pillow ends up half-wet;

he first thinks about writing clarke’s name on top of them all but then it doesn’t feel right because if he does, he’ll have to leave her name all alone, without his (without their “Together”), so he scribbles it closer to his head to serve as a reminder both of her last advice and so it can be easier for him to touch it whenever he wakes up from a nightmare with her asking why did he leave her behind;

he first shows his “wall” to Murphy of all people because he ends up (again first out of everyone) feeling really depressed and quite unmotivated, so on such a particular day when even Emori can’t seem to figure out a way to help him, Bellamy drags him to his room and says “This is why we keep going, Murphy. This is why we keep fighting.”

with Monty it’s different; while he spends the first months developing the algae farm, he notices a different kind of seed in one of the metal containers in the lab and plants it just out of curiosity; it turns out to be a pine tree; he has absolutely no idea why or how it ended up there, but he dedicates half of his time on making sure it grows and survives, much like they do; a few years later, they have a half-grown tree that they decide to decorate on unity day which is more like a memorial day for them because they sit around it, drink and talk about all the people that they’ve known and the way they changed their lives; personally, bellamy can’t wait for them to go back on earth and watch monty plant it;

at the end of the first year, raven breaks into all the secret files of the Ark and finds video tapes of the delinquents in lock up, short videos of them after being sentences, giving general information about them and then five or ten minute videos of them talking to a psychologist which is obviously a mandatory Ark policy of “we’re about to float these kids at eighteen, but let’s pretend we care about their mental well-being”;

Bellamy likes watching the ones of his sister because it gives him a different perspective and makes him realize how fucked up some things in the way their relationship were; monty repeatedly watches Jasper’s; Raven sometimes plays Finn’s but only rarely because it hurts too much and Emori and Echo are interested in seeing everyone and keep asking Raven questions about “what do you mean this is a video, how do you do that?”/”so you just watch it but you can’t talk to them?” they wonder at first;

there’s only one video of Clarke and it’s just a about a minute and a half long; apparently they thought she doesn’t need help in any way because of the valuable and dangerous information that she knew; Bellamy and Raven has watched it together a hundred times; on particularly bad days when Bellamy’s losing concentration and Raven lacks her usual drive that keeps them all going, they drag each other to the computer room and play it;

“My name is Clarke Griffin. My father is…was Jake Griffin. My mother is doctor Abby Griffin. I was born on October 20, 2131.” at that she stops, she looks younger, her face not marked by the stress from keeping a hundred delinquents safe, but her eyes are a darker shade of blue, a sadder one already. “And why are you here, Clarke Griffin?” asks the voice behind the camera;

“Because I wanted to save our people.” she says with a determination both Raven and Bellamy are too familiar with;

#the 100 #bellarke #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #raven reyes #monty green #headcanons #idk man idk #i love pain dont you

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aurelliocheek · 5 years

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How to navigate a career in mobile marketing

In my time as a consultant and in managing marketing teams, a career development step with which I’ve seen mobile marketers struggle is the transition from individual contributor into manager. Within the context of mobile marketing, an individual contributor is someone who doesn’t lead a team but owns some part of the marketing workflow and budget: maybe they exclusively operate a specific channel or maybe they are tasked with entire marketing program for an app. But they operate independently and don’t have any direct reports — and while some companies can grow to become very large with just one marketing person, most don’t. Building a marketing team is generally seen as a necessary step in a successful company’s journey, and most mobile marketers aspire to lead one.

But the metamorphosis from individual contributor to team manager is difficult and can be uncomfortable, even for the very best mobile marketers. The truth is that the skills that make a mobile marketer a very good or even exceptional individual contributor are necessary but not sufficient to becoming a great senior marketing leader (VP of Marketing / CMO). The purview is different and the terrain is different: even putting aside people management, there’s a wholly different mentality required in trying to make an app as big and successful as possible versus deploying budget as efficiently as possible.

In exploring this contrast, it’s important first to identify the traits of a phenomenal mobile marketing individual contributor. In my experience, the best mobile marketers exhibit some combination of the following set of characteristics:

They aren’t surprised. Mobile marketers oversee vast amounts of money — user acquisition is usually the largest or second-largest component of OpEx for a mobile-first company. It can be very scary when a mobile marketer is surprised by something: by campaign spend, by performance, by delivery, etc. A mobile marketer should always have cost controls and kill switches in place to ensure that campaigns can’t explode and waste tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars;

They pre-empt performance declines. It’s frustrating to an executive team when marketing performance declines because the marketing team didn’t pre-empt creative decay or geography saturation or some other issue that was foreseeable. Being proactive is important in mobile marketing: digital advertising is a mean-reverting system, and marketers need to be constantly looking for possible points of performance decline weeks or months ahead;

They are attentive to detail. There is nothing more exasperating than seeing a live campaign with a spelling error or with incorrect creative dimensions or localized for the wrong geography. When millions of dollars are being deployed per month, these errors can be costly, and frivolous waste makes an executive team very nervous and prone to micromanagement;

They don’t need to be told about problems. Most mobile marketing stacks, even the most sophisticated ones, are fragile given the number of external dependancies and third-party attachments (eg. to attribution systems, CRM systems, cost aggregation systems, etc.) they feature. It’s incredibly annoying to have to inform the marketing team that something is broken; these systems are expected to malfunction or crack every so often, but the marketing team should identify problems as they arise and fix them without prompting. It’s very relieving to hear about a problem only after it has been fixed; it is anxiety inducing to have to inform a marketing team about a problem, because it means they aren’t paying attention;

They are aware of their surroundings. Market forces are dramatically potent in mobile: the best marketers are aware of what their competitors are doing in terms of ad creative, product strategy, etc. and also of which apps are launching or buying aggressively at any given point in time. The best ad creative tends to come out of market analysis: looking for trends in what competitors are doing and innovating on those concepts;

They default to data. With the amount of data available to mobile marketers in decision making, it’s incredibly aggravating when a mobile marketer can’t justify a decision that was made with supporting data. The best mobile marketers default to data and analysis;

They pick the right companies to work for. Unfortunately not all companies build products that support impressive growth, and it’s hard to acquire the skills needed to become a great mobile marketer at a company that isn’t growing.

That out of the way, it’s easy to see that being great at mobile marketing is really just a matter of being disciplined, focused, and analytical. An individual contributor is generally given some amount of budget and is expected to make the most out of it; by putting in place the right cost controls and experimenting sufficiently, an individual contributor can iterate their way into marketing spend efficiency.

A marketing lead’s job is different: it’s to build sustainable processes that support both month-to-month marketing performance as well as the company’s larger strategic goals. There’s much less direction in work like this: it’s ambiguous, it’s far more assumption-based, and there are generally no “right answers” to the most important questions that need to be addressed, eg.:

How should we allocate budget across the portfolio?;

Should we run out-of-home campaigns to supplement direct response? If we do, how will that impact our direct response campaigns, and what’s the correct budget allocation?;

How can we repeatably build outperforming ad creative?;

Should we apply organic revenue to our paid campaigns? How much budget does that unlock for us, and what percent of that revenue should be thought of as brand value?;

How should we position our company vis-a-vis competitors?;

What’s the right level of resourcing on creative and testing?;

What level of growth should we model into our revenue forecast next year? How does that impact our finances and funding needs?

Note that this work isn’t more challenging or demanding per se, it’s just different, and some individual contributors struggle with adapting to the change in focus from very well-defined optimization problems to more nebulous strategy and growth problems. It’s common to see newly-promoted mobile marketing leads or executives revert to the work that they are comfortable with and neglect the process-oriented nature of their new job, creating a hectic environment that is mostly reactive and doesn’t settle into a natural cadence.

So how can individual contributors in mobile marketing prepare themselves for success as leaders? I believe there are a few skills and tendencies mobile marketers should acquire and develop as they progress toward a leadership role:

Understand the finances. It’s important as a marketing lead to understand how marketing spend today cascades into future revenues and what impact that has on the overall financial health of the company. This goes beyond thinking about LTV > CAC; it’s an exercise in building a forward-looking revenue model based on cost, retention, virality, etc. assumptions that will directly impact the company’s P&L;

Default to process. It’s important to apply intellectual rigor towards turning tasks and general labor into process-oriented workflow that settles into a cadence. Avoid thinking of things as one-offs: be skeptical of any work that only needs to be done once, and try to build a process for any work that needs to be done more than once. Make sure the team understands the logic and the purpose of processes; they should see why this repeatable set of guidelines makes them more efficient so they can settle into a streamlined routine that benefits from muscle memory;

Try to pre-empt the market. What new tools or ad formats or channels are coming to market in the next year? How is the company’s vertical evolving? What new players will try to enter the space? How will regulation impact the business? These are important things to think about as a marketing leader because they can directly affect the day-to-day work of the team at some point in the future. At the very least, a marketing leader should be aware of how market conditions could change so that they aren’t caught completely flat-footed if they do;

Manage up. A marketing leader is expected to not only direct their team to operate at peak efficiency but also to have input on the strategy and direction of the company. The things the marketing team sees about their competition and the general state of their vertical on a daily basis can be incredibly valuable for the strategic direction of the company when aggregated and distilled into a vision of the market. It’s important as a marketing leader to not only effectively manage the team but also to bring a market perspective to the broader executive-level field of vision;

Empathize and connect. Obviously people management is a requisite skill in any leadership role. I put this point last in the list precisely because it is so important; this topic goes beyond the scope of the article, but there’s enough general people management insight available for free on the web that I don’t need to specifically address it here.

The shift from individual contributor to team lead or executive is momentous: being successful as a leader requires deliberate, conscious effort at navigating that career transition (in other words: it’s hard work to be promoted). Given that the field of mobile marketing is fairly young and immature, most individual contributors haven’t actually worked with managers or leaders from whom they can take career guidance: there simply aren’t that many big mobile marketing teams operating efficiently at scale.

I believe that the above considerations can help a mobile marketer maneuver through a career evolution, but of course there are additional factors that come into play that are unique to every company. What’s more important than the general guidelines a marketer uses to grow their career is simply that they recognize the fundamental differences in the roles of individual contributor and leader.

Photo by Brad Knight on Unsplash

The post How to navigate a career in mobile marketing appeared first on Mobile Dev Memo.

How to navigate a career in mobile marketing published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

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summerspn · 6 years

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Life Sentence (2018)

Random TV show review...

[Spoilers]

Now that I’m done watching the series, I wanted to give my opinion on this. I’m not surprised it was cancelled after the first & only season. This show was a mess. Not all time time but more often than not.

You should know I have a unique perspective on this show as some of you also probably do as well. I have had several people in my family who had to battle various forms of cancer. *My sister was diagnosed at 15 and again 10 yrs later. She is happy, healthy & doing well now though. 👍

What I like about the show: 1) The actors. I really like Dylan Walsh, and I love Lucy Hale and this show introduced me to other actors which are pretty good. In the whole series the acting was great. 2) The small town setting was refreshing. 3) The potential & the premise of the show - which was advertised as something along the lines of learning to live again when your mindset was focused on not planning for a future.

What I have issues with:

1) The lack of research. Medically speaking - one doesn’t look fabulous when getting chemotherapy, radiation & other medication. They could have tried to make the flashbacks of Stella look less pretty. I love be in Canada with great healthcare. However, we still have to pay for certain drugs (especially clinical trials & certain bone drugs to prep for donating bone marrow.) We pay about $20-$30/day for parking at the hospitals. Even with my family’s health insurance (on top of government paid healthcare) we have to pay a lot out of pocket. I would assume I’m the USA it would be so much worse. Think of 8 yrs of tests, treatments, cost of a room at the hospital etc. Stella’s family seemed to be middle class but one would have to be Oprah-rich in order to afford it. But it’s a tv show so I actually didn’t mind it all that much. What I DID have an issue with was how Stella is ‘cured’. Doctors don’t throw that term around. Both times when my sister was ‘cured’ of cancer (and everyone else I know who had it) they called it ‘in remission’. There are tons of follow up appointments. Oncologist visits every 6 months for up to 5 yrs then once a yr for the next five. At 10 yrs they stop. But there are also The family doctor annual appointments, optometrist appointments (as radiation and chemo can damage the eyes). After my sister was in remission she had zero immune system and the doctors said no one recovering from cancer should even be around people and they urged her not to work for between 12-18monthd. prednisone was a drug to help fight off infections and people gain weight like crazy. My sister gained weight and her face blew up bigger than my giant head. With having no hair she had a huge hit to her self esteem. In this show Stella not only looks gorgeous during & after treatment, she has all her hair, no radiation burns, not even that pale. Some people don’t grow their hair back at all. And she goes off on a plane and gets a job. Not only is she chipper but she’s got energy. My sister, after being in remission for a year, had to take about 3 naps a day still and she was working part time. And sex? When you’re that tired, have no hair and your libido is gone, you don’t want sex. The show could have used that for drama but it was another missed opportunity. Also, people go to extremes (about their own health) when people are sick. My dad & I both had a 3 month long cold when my sister was sick (psychosomatic). As soon as she was in remission the colds miraculously went away. Other people ignore their own health (some don’t eat enough for eat right, some don’t get enough sleep). I also remember waking up with a sore knee once and was convinced it was a tumour. My paranoia also went away when I realized she was in remission. There are lots of opportunities the writers/creators missed out on. They could have at least tried.

2) The marriage. Cute idea. Not bad, but it was handled poorly. Every 2 seconds Stella goes on about the two of them having ‘problems’ which are basically a disagreement. Not real problems. Seriously...like, once she new she was so-called ‘cured’ she could have brought up the idea of ‘dating’ her husband. And have fun, supportive and all that. But instead they have one issue and she acts like their marriage is doomed. No, it’s called being an adult. People disagree so it’s not the end of the world. The marriage counseling but had potential but it ended up being a gimmick. You never really see Stella and Wes doing much to get to know each other. There are no fights over the cap being on/off the toothpaste or laundry etc. So their ‘marriage’ felt like a non-event to me and I could care less if they were together. Mostly though, they complained about their ‘problems’ in their marriage more than actually spending time together.

3) The family. I love that the family were supportive but there was very little about how Stella’s illness effected them. I liked when her brother Aiden tells her how he got in the car crash and how he tried to make money to help out. I feel like there could be more though. Jealousy between siblings for trying to get attention either from parents, friends or random people is very real. Years after my sister was healed I would run into someone from high school and they’d ask ‘how’s your sister’ before asking me how I was. I learned to deal with it but when I was 13 and she was ill the first time I did feel terrible like no one cared about ME. When you have no money because it’s going to hospital bills so you can socialize they way your peers are, and your parents are always with your sister and you’re only contacts with everyone is a quick hi/bye and hug before you’re left alone...it’s awful. Obviously not as bad as being ill but it does effect you. Some people even get traumatized & have PTSD as a result of watching their loved ones being tortured with treatment. So there could have been so much more here.

4) The love triangle. I felt kind of insulted that this was in the show. Like, she JUST got so-called ‘cured’. Couldn’t you wait I dunno a year first before bringing up that overused theme? The characters were fine but that’s such a boring & overdone plot device. I kept rolling my eyes at it. This show should have had Stella enjoying her marriage (with or without her sex drive) and then a year later she developed feelings for Will (or someone else). Then it would feel more organic and less forced. Plus we would all love Wes by then and be invested in them as a couple.

5) Stella’s friends. She met Sadie which I liked but where are the others? Friends from before she was diagnosed...flashbacks to them not talking to her would have been good. They might not be able to see someone they love, hurt which would cause them to feel bad. Some friends (at least one?) could stay by her side. OR she could have just made several new friends. Other cancer patients. I kept hoping for a scene or two where Stella meets another patient in the lounge at the hospital and they bond over a movie/tv show or one of the games left there. A friend could go into remission and leave her as would be expected (maybe keep in touch with one and lose touch with another) or a friend could lose the battle and die. This show wasted that entire part of her life.

6) School. I really liked when Stella found out she didn’t graduate but giving her an honorary diploma was a cop out. I really wanted to see that struggle for Stella to get her GED. She fought cancer but she couldn’t handle that? What?

7) Stella’s personality. Some people change dramatically because of major events like being ill. I would have found it interesting if she changed (a little) from it but she didn’t. Because of this Stella felt flat and boring.

8) Who is Stella? This question is asked a few times but never answered. One of the ads made it seem like the show would be about Stella learning to live but it wasn’t. This is actually my BIGGEST issue with the show. Tv shows omit things because they want everything to look pretty so I can understand things occasionally being glossed over. However, Stella doesn’t even TRY to find herself. I was hoping for little things at first. Like, a cancer patient at hospital is knitting and Stella’s bored so she learns to knit. She has no hair so she tries wigs of different colours or discovers a love for hats. You know, little things that she learns about herself or at least helps her develop a new skill. When she’s healthy she may not say...love knitting but makes her mom a lovely Christmas present or something. Healthy-Stella could have only $50 to her name so she goes looking for a productive way to use it. Like, taking one of those 1-day only pottery classes or does a paint night. Learns a new love for art and makes a friend etc.

Point is, she does NOTHING other than get the coffee shop job and complain about the not-so-problematic-problems in her marriage. It’s only the last 30 seconds of the series finale that hints to her trying to find herself. It’s pathetic.

**Overall the show was so-so but it’s mainly just missing opportunities left and right. If it weren’t for the strong actors I doubt it would have lasted the entire season.

#life sentence #cw #lucy hale #dylan walsh #elliot knight #jayson blair #tv series #tv show #drama

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chozobill · 8 years

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Switching Gears: 2017 and Why Video Games Worry People

My oldest son the first time he turned on Mario by himself.

Nintendo games have been a part of my life for most of what I remember of it. One of the first things I remember is playing Super Mario Brothers with my dad. I had to have been ...3? 4 at the oldest? I jokingly told a friend while we were discussing our most impactful Christmas & Birthday presents that the introduction of the NES altered the trajectory of my life forever from that point forward, but that isn't a joke.

There are people that contend that games rot your mind. This isn't true for me, and wasn't true for my friends growing up. I was friends with "the smart kids" all through my school years. I identified as "smart." My friends and I all played games to some extent. I admit that my desire and capacity to obtain and consume new games far outstripped many of my peers.

Nintendo's presentation of its new console, the Switch, has me at a crossroads. For the first time I've found myself considering the implications of continuing down the road I've been on literally as long as I can remember. It's not the quality of Nintendo's offering that has me thinking, but the stage of life I currently find myself occupying.

Video games have changed a lot since the 80's. Big budget AAA games have become an arms race of who can push the envelope even closer to photo-realism in both appearance and in actual interactions between the player and the game world. Games exist today that surpass 8-year-old Bill's wildest dreams. But instead of being filled with wonder, there is an undercurrent of obligation.

When I was 14 years old, a game that boasted hundreds of hours of gameplay would have blown me away. I would scramble to get a copy and play blissfully for hours and hours. And such a game would be rare. Today games are designed to be services that last as long as you are interested in them. Games like World of Warcraft, Destiny, Monster Hunter, Call of Duty, mobile Skinner-box style games, and even evolutions of old games like the latest Pokemon have systems in place to keep you coming back to that specific game. Player retention is a huge metric. While I may have played the games of my teenage years multiple times, it felt like re-reading a favorite book, or re-watching a favorite movie. Games today are more like years long spanning soap operas that give you just enough progress in each play session to keep you coming back again day after day after day.

Developers are getting really good at making you want to stick around! There's so much to fuss over that if I am really into an addicting game, I find myself thinking about it in the shower, sneaking some time searching a wiki or FAQ between meetings, and spending time away from the game planning what I want to do during my next play session. I used to think of this as a great feature of modern games. Today, one game can be so complicated that you could spend literally hundreds of hours on a single purchase. There was so much to do and think about that I didn't need to buy new games as often, generally spent less money on other forms of entertainment, and often could put the console to play these games (3DS, phone) in my bag and take it wherever I want to go.

Catching Pokemon with my daughter the day of the Pokemon Go launch

Then I started growing my family. Adopting my daughter when she was nine years old didn't do much to change my habits, and we often played games together. She could already make her own cereal and knew not to stick her finger in an electrical outlet. Adding two more boys to the mix really put some things in perspective that I didn't understand when I was a kid.

I have a handful of personal goals that I want to achieve sometime in my life. Some of them are far off dreams, but require daily practice to manifest anything worthwhile. Sometimes it is studying Japanese. Lately, it has been reconnecting with drawing and art. Every piece of advice I read on how to improve is to prioritize daily practice and keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.

Once you have a handful of kids, your days get pretty crazy. After volleyball, music class, dinner, bath time, and story time, bed time, you're left with 1-2 hours a day of personal time to accomplish everything you must and want to accomplish. After cleaning up the messes of the toddlers (and the now teenagers), you're usually talking an hour tops.

So how do you spend that hour? Obviously you could play games, and that hour would go by really fast. But what about that nagging voice that says "hey, didn't you want to put out another comic?" or "how long has it been since you studied new Kanji?" This feeling shows up in quiet moments alone: the shower, long drives, standing in line, or waiting to fall asleep. I've found that you can ignore the voice for awhile with new games or tv shows, but eventually the gentle reminder becomes a deafening chorus. Cynicism seeps into your entire outlook and makes everything you do feel like a futile, pointless waste of hours you will never get back. When I get bored of a super complicated game, I start to beat myself up for obsessing over something “trivial” and ignoring all the other development I said I wanted to pursue.

My youngest son rocking the PS4 gear

Now, let me go on record: games are not “bad.” I love games. I will never stop playing games. But I recognize that when I am actively playing games, my brain focuses on every minute detail of every system to crowd out the unease I feel about not making progress towards dreams I've had my whole life. Having kids wakes you up to the fact that "the rest of your life" is finite and very short. My youngest is one, and he was only a little new born baby for the first few months of his existence. He's already starting to piece a few words together. In a few months he will be more himself, more independent, and that 1-year-old toddler will never be the same again. Today matters. And if enough todays go by without change you will continue on the same path "for the rest of your life."

I love my family and want to be an active part of it, but I still have my own personal ambitions. That means, if they’re awake, I try not play games unless they're playing too. It also means that if I want to continue to grow my personal dreams and ambitions outside of family, I have to do it when they're asleep, while also getting enough rest myself that I don't get fired at work. I'm starting to wrap my head around the idea that, in the long term, I beat myself up less if I use that spare hour every day towards my dreams and ambitions instead of retrieving magical rocks for characters inside computer simulations.

All that said, I pre-ordered a Switch because I know that my kids and I are going to have a blast with Super Mario Odyssey, or 1-2-Switch, or, when they're old enough, Zelda. Just like playing with my dad in the late 80’s/early 90’s, Nintendo time is family time. But I have become increasingly critical of purchasing new games that only I will play. It's not that games are a waste of time, it's that if I ever want to create the things I've told myself I will make time for someday, someday must be today, or it will never happen. The last year slipped through my fingers faster than I ever thought possible. I vividly remember moments from 18 months ago that feel like yesterday. Playing games by myself in my free time accelerates the pace of time slipping by. If I don't use my time now, today, in a way that directs me towards the future I want, it will never happen. In 2017, my goal is to slowly course correct the ship that is my career, goals, and ambitions, even if it’s only an hour at a time.

#nintendo #nintendo switch #gaming #adulting #dreams #goals

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