#one studio should have picked up all the books for the sake of consistency and cameos

[x0401x]

Hey miss wonderful taste in everything, can you recommend us some of your favorite KyoAni productions?

Sure! I love doing recs and I’m literally taking any sort of positive content related to KyoAni lately because we truly need it at the moment. Long post alert, though. Here goes my top 10:

1. Hyouka

This one will probably be my first choice forever. It’s KyoAni’s most brilliant work so far and easily one of the best animes I’ve ever watched, hands down. It’s also their finest novel-to-anime adaptation in my opinion, and one of the very few animation series that actually turned out better than their source material.

The books are extremely interesting, but they’re also bland. The alterations made to the anime added visual value to it in order to make it more alluring and appealing, turning ordinary situations into rather unique and thought-provoking settings, while managing to never deviate from its novel counterpart. The changes on the characters’ designs were also a very good choice in my opinion, as they fit more into the character archetypes and the impressions they give off.

This one is honestly an example for the whole anime industry and a timeless gem. I’m pretty certain that it was one of the studio’s turning points in terms of animation style. Surely will become a classic in the future.

2. Koe no Katachi

KyoAni’s most well-done movie, as far as I can tell. I’m specially fond of the symbolism of every scene and the effort put on the scenery, which gave an effect of depth to the frames. The studio managed to portray the mangaka’s art style while staying true to its own trademark traits as well.

Animation quality and sound design aside, it’s also loyal enough to the manga. There were cuts in order to fit the story into the time limit, but KyoAni made up for the gaps with later released specials. The movie is also considerably less dramatic than the original, yet I’m certain that the alterations in that regard were made so that the transition between the phases of the story wouldn’t feel rushed. Albeit in a much more uplifting way, it nevertheless managed to transmit the characters’ essence and emotions.

What caught my attention the most in this movie was the soundtrack, though. There was a lot of care in its production, and it was clearly made to be gentle and almost imperceptible, with glitch-like repetitions here and there, as if it means to put the viewers in the shoes of the deaf heroine. It certainly did its job well.

3. Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu!

First anime from KyoAni I’ve ever watched, aside from the Inuyasha movies. Easily one of their funniest series, if not the actual funniest. It has a very special place in my heart. I dropped Amagi Brilliant Park on the first episode, but I’d cry internally every time I saw Bonta-kun in it. The nostalgia is strong, kids.

It’s got excellent animation for the year it was made, and I dare say it’s more decently animated than many current animes. The pacing is dynamic and the jokes vary from over-the-top to smart and witty in a smooth way. I also give this one kudos for not relying nearly as much on fanservice as more recent titles.

For the people who didn’t watch the first Full Metal Panic, I suggest doing so before trying this one out. Anyone who enjoys the two should also watch the second season, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, which comes right after Fumoffu and was also animated by KyoAni.

4. Clannad

This one I deem as the best out of KyoAni’s most notorious classics. I also recommend the other titles related to this one, such as Clannad: Another Story.

Much like Hyouka, it’s a masterpiece in every aspect. It has a very non-cliché and unconveninent plot that deals with delicate themes in a sensible way and tears your heart apart at the same time. Frankly exemplary to the drama genre and exceptional as a visual novel adaptation.

5. Free!

The franchise became lackluster after the first director left, but the first two seasons were fun enough in their own right. Unlike most novel-to-anime adaptations, Free! started with original content through creating a future for the main story, which was turned into the not-so-distant past in the anime. This is unusual enough, but it worked out well as the anime maintained itself as loyal as possible to the first book and never went off the rails with the plot. The main characters’ personalities did suffer many alterations, yet it’s obvious that they meant to make the two more charismatic and likeable. As far as fan responses went, it worked.

I find very interesting that the creators were aware the story took itself too seriously at times, and they made this clear by compensating the heavy melancholy with heavy comedy. They also compensated the overdramatic atmosphere of the first season by picking up the pace and getting a little more serious in the second season. Everything was intentional and designed to be a hit amongst women, which I think had served the purpose until the first movie came out.

To be honest, I’m not fond of the exaggerated fanservice, but it gets easy to ignore it after a while if you only pay attention to the storyline. I don’t consider myself a fan of Free!, and I actually took very long to start liking it. I only did get into it at the last scene of episode 8, back when the first season was still airing. It was only by this time that I could see the true value of the series, so I recommend anyone who tries it out to go at least that far with it. I know it might be a lot of work, but in my honest opinion, it’s worth the trouble.

I deem the High Speed! novel awe-inspiring because of its nostalgic tone and the awfully realistic depiction of childhood crises. The most serious situations of it are a little out of reality, but the rest is absurdly relatable in levels that I myself don’t know how to put into words. Yet I also appreciate Free! for its strong tone of encouragement. It feels like the creators are trying to cheer up the viewers.

6. Kyoukai no Kanata

It starts becoming a mess from episode 4 onward, yet the beginning was quite promising. This one relies heavily on fanservice, often makes use of nonsensical tropes for the sake of comedy and sometimes goes overboard with the jokes. However, it doesn’t fail to deliver emotional value and the action is pretty neat. Anyone who hasn’t read the novel will definitely be able to enjoy it as a standalone.

I don’t think I need to mention it, but the animation is stellar. I in particular love the blurry movement effects of when the characters draw their weapons and the geometrical spectrums in the colorful power barriers. I also recommend the OVA, as well as the second movie I’ll be Here, although the latter is 100% original content. It was actually cute and fun to watch. The first movie is merely one huge recap.

7. Hibike! Euphonium

Truly dazzling take on slice-of-life. It’s healing and heartrending at the same time. The way that characters are portrayed allows the viewers to feel their passion and dedication without it occasionally feeling unrealistic. Everyone has their own problems, but none of them are taken out of proportion. Miscommunication happens, just not in a frustrating shoujo manga way.

The soundtrack and scenery are breathtaking, yet the forte of the animation in this one was the huge amount of detail put into the eyes and hair. Everyone’s hairdos are remarkably glossy without ever looking weird, and I especially like how their eyes all glinter in different colors.

The author published another volume of the novel after the anime, saying it had inspired her to write more, and it’s no wonder. I also recommend season two and the OVA. The first two movies are just recaps and the third was to me a disappointment, so I leave those to people’s own discretion.

8. Tamako Market

Rather odd but nice story. It blends iyashikei elements with a peculiar plot and actually manages to do that in a cute way. All of the characters are likeable and the visuals do a good job in transmitting what they have to transmit in a very relaxing manner.

This show caught me off-guard by how unproblematic it was. It has trans, gay and dark-skinned characters, but none of them is ever used for fanservice or jokes and their respective circumstances are portrayed as 100% normal, which is sadly still rare in anime even nowadays. The romance is pretty not-dramatic and filled to the brim with fluff, and I very much like that the main guy treats his female love rival as a serious threat.

I recommend the specials and the movie as well. Especially the movie, which is basically the same as direct sugar injestion and gave me diabetes.

9. Munto

Also has a special place in my heart. Cheesy but good, actually. I’d be lying if I said there aren’t some surprises in it, though, but I’ll refrain from giving too much info on the story itself.

It was firstly an OVA, but then got adapted into three movies. The animation was done finely enough, but there’s a drastic change in style from the first to the second half, though I myself didn’t really mind it. The characters are all well-stablished and the plot is consistent. There’s a present quality of feminist shades in it and the relationships are very endearing.

10. Nichijou

Not really one of my favorites but certainly one that I recommend for people who are in need of a laugh. It’s got some pretty creative and iconic humor. Its imaginative retakes on routinely affairs manage to transform the most trivial real-life situations into Oscar-worthy wit. It also gets nonsensical every so often, but this fits within the show’s own narrative.

It has a very unique animation that sometimes mixes different styles of art, which only makes every scene a hundred times funnier for being so soft and adorable. It varies from hyperrealistic to surrealistic at the speed of light and sometimes even becomes abstract as hell. It’s full of notes on Japanese culture, not only about daily life but also about media, which adds up to the fun.

[daemyiel]

prompts 36 & 3? :)) angst to fluff?

I'm so sorry it took so long but I decided to do this with Roger and I didn't want to rush the story I had in my head.

It was late. You had put your son Chavez to bed hours ago and had tried yourself to fall asleep. But your stupid mind wouldn’t let you rest. You were worried about your boyfriend, Roger. He had gone out drinking with his band. Again. You didn’t usually mind, he deserved to have fun, he worked hard, but he’s been going out quite a lot recently. Between going out and work you had only seen him drunk or nursing a hangover. His son had seen him less. That last thought made you angry at Roger. Chavez idolized his father. When Roger was on tour Chavez would get so upset if he missed one of Roger’s calls. On the last album Chavez cried so much that Roger ended up taking him to the studio almost everyday.

It was half three in the morning when he stumbled through your bedroom door. “Why are you awake?” He asked when he realised you wasn't asleep.

“Because I was wondering when you’d decide to come back.” You said with nearly no emotion in your voice. He managed to strip to his boxers and get into bed without causing any serious harm to himself.

“Are you mad at me?” He asked, crawling in her the covers. You were but if you said anything now he would apologise way too much and not go to sleep for a while, only to forget about it completely tomorrow when he is sober.

“No. I was just worried.” You lied.

“I didn’t mean to worry you.” He mumbled into your hair and wrapped his arms around you.

Roger had to be in the studio again, they had booked it for dinner time so everyone had enough time to get rid of their hangovers. The sun was shining and a soft summer breeze drifted through the air, it was perfect, so you decided to take Chavez to the park. But first you had to talk to Roger.

When you got up to make breakfast he was still in a deep sleep. When you were dressing Chavez you could hear him being sick in the bathroom. He came down stairs at eleven, looking like a zombie. “You missed breakfast.” You stated. Roger could tell something was wrong. He knew you were mad at him but you were trying to stay calm for the sake of your son.

“I’m not hungry.” His voice was raspy . His throat sore from being sick. He poured himself a big mug of coffee and mixed some sugar in before heavily sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs.

“Have you had any Paracetamol?” you asked getting the toaster out again and putting two slices of bread in for your hungover boyfriend. You thought about letting him do it himself but decided not to.

“yeah.” He had both hands wrapped around the coffee mug like is was the only thing keeping him alive. The next few minutes was spent in silence as you waited for the toast to pop, then you buttered it and placed it in front of him . You even cut both slices in half.

“come on little man,” you said to your son, breaking the silence. “Why don’t you go play with the new toys uncle Freddie got you.” And you led him into the living room. Now Roger knew his was in trouble. Big trouble. You only took Chavez into another room because you wanted to talk to Roger. And not the nice kind of talking either. He sighed and continued eating his toast, there was no way out of this, he just had to wait for you to come back.

You walked back into the kitchen to find Roger finishing off his toast. He had been hungry, you were right. You sat down after him wondering how to start the conversation off. “Are you going out for drinks tonight?”

“Not that I know of.” Roger had no idea What you wanted to talk about. He thought you were going to row with him but this seemed normal, too normal.

“Look Rog,” there it is, he thought, he didn’t know what he done wrong. The best thing was just to let you say what you had to, and see what he could do, come to a compromise or something. “I know you’ve been working hard and you deserve to relax and go out and enjoy yourself with the boys. But does it have to be so often.” Your voice was soft but with seriousness woven in. “You can have a drink, but do you have to drink so much? You don’t have to get absolutely shitfaced to have a good time, you can have a few and still enjoy yourself. I feel like I barely see you, and when I do I’m only taking care of you, either helping you get to bed because your so drunk, or trying to help you with your hangover. And it’s worse for Chavez. He loves you so much and he rarely see’s you now.” Roger looked down embarrassed. You took a deep breathe and ran you hand through you hair. “I know we had Chavez young and neither of us were prepared. And I knew you were the type to go out and have fun, and that energy is what drew me to you,” Roger’s eyes met yours again. “But when I told you I was expecting you told me. You promised me you’d look after us. I love going out with you, I love the wild parties. But I haven’t been to many because I have responsibilities now, we both do. Chavez is the most important person in our lives right now, and he really misses you . For his sake just cut down on the parties, please.” You practically begged him.

“I didn’t realise. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.” Roger looked you in the eye and you could see how sorry he was. “I’ll do better I promise. How about I blow off the studio and come with you to the park?” Roger half smiled a thing he dose when he’s request something like this. Like the time he told the boys he couldn’t meet them because he was ill when he actually took you out.

“Roger no you can’t do that. See if you can get tomorrow off or something.” You smiled back. As much as you wanted him to come he couldn’t let the band down.

You were in luck however, not twenty minutes after, John rang to tell Roger not to bother to come because Freddie said he was too hungover and Brian had only just woken up.

Chavez never left Roger side all day. He didn’t let go of Roger’s hand on the way to the park, and they had a consistent conversation the whole journey. At one point they giggled at something said (their laughs almost similar) and when you asked what they were laughing about they responded with a nothing in unison in a tone that you knew meant the were planning something mischievous.

They were walking slightly ahead of you holding hands. Chavez looked so small in comparison to his father. You took this moment to take a photo with your trusty camera that you have with almost everywhere. Your memory tended to fail you and you find that pictures helped keep them securely in your mind.

When the trio reached the park Chavez instantly ran to the slide and Roger was in pursuit. They run around for ages , switching from one thing to another. They have too much energy, you thought as Roger was now chasing the mini version of himself to the climbing frame.

When it got to dinner time none of you wanted to leave the park so you ventured off and bought back some sandwiches, drinks and some crisps from the shops. You had to tell the boys to stop and eat and then they could run riot again. You watched with love as Roger helped Chavez eat and opened his crisp packet for him, all the anger you felt towards Roger had dissolved now. Within fifteen minutes they were up and running about again, leaving you to clear up the rubbish. You picked up their empty crisp packets and noticed that they both left the crust of their sandwiches.

You ended up spending the whole day at the park. Sometime after dinner Roger walked back to the shop to buy a loaf of bread to feed the ducks while you convinced your son to drink some more juice.

You managed to get a really good photo of Roger and Chavez feeding the ducks. They soon realised that if a while slice of bread was thrown in the ducks would swarm in and try to get a hold of the biggest piece. The lucky duck that did manage to get it would swim away as fast as it could. Your son and boyfriend found this highly amusing.

“Do ducks have ears?” Roger thought out loud, after all the bread had been used up rather quickly as they both kept tossing whole slices in the water instead of ripping it apart. You was about to tell him that all birds have ears, you just can’t see them. “They must do, otherwise how could hear the other ducks.” He answered his own question.

You started heading back home just as the sun started to set. Just like the walk up Roger and Chavez was walking in front of you. Well Roger was walking, Chavez was sat in his father’s shoulders after complaining about how tired he was. You let yourself get lost in thought as you gazed at them. The setting sun in front of the duo reflecting off their blonde hair cast the illusion of the pair having golden halos. You laughed at this thought because you knew of all people that they could be devil’s if they wanted to. Nevertheless, you picked up you camera and took a magnificent photo, that would become one if your favourites.

It had been two days since your little family outing to the park. Roger had to go back to the studio. You felt happy. Since the talk you had with Roger everything was fine. It had simply been a small bump in the road and one you’d both probably forget about and replace with happy memories, like the ones you had from the park. Everything was right again.

You should have known it wouldn’t have lasted long.

8:30pm

You put Chavez to bed. Made yourself a cup of tea and continued reading Lord of the Rings. The pages were soft and there was many stains in various pages that told that the book was well read many times. There was even a stain in the cover where you accidently spilt tea on it.

Roger and the boys had a few things to wrap up at the studio it wouldn’t take them too long Brian had mentioned the pub, but they wasn’t sure if they were actually going or not.

9:45pm

You shifted in the arm chair as you had become uncomfortable and decided that you would read in bed. You figured that with the boys not being in the studio for so long they probably had a lot of work to get done.

The band had gone to the pub in the end, the Nags Head their favourite. Freddie said that he couldn’t have too many because he was taking Chavez and little Deacons out the next day. Roger had also said that he was going to go steady tonight, but didn’t say that is was because he got told off.

11:14pm

You had reached the end of another chapter and your eyelids grew heavy so you decided sleep was necessary and that Roger would be back soon. They should be finished or finishing up by now, but the studio wasn’t exactly just around the corner for you and Roger, so he was most likely to be back late. Although it already was late.

They were a few rounds in and starting to feel the effects of the alcohol. Freddie had now switched to soft drinks and starting to think about when he should leave. One of the other band members, Roger couldn’t remember who, had brought shots over to the table. “Rog weren't you going to go steady?” Freddie asked Roger, hoping that the would refuse the shot.

“I am, but one won’t hurt.” He downed the alcohol straight after saying this.

1:34am

You had been in a restless sleep all night. You rolled over to see Roger’s side if the bed untouched. Now you were beyond angry. You knew what he had done. He’d gone out and not even bothered to call you. You felt so stupid. He had tricked you into thinking that he would stick to his promise by being the ideal boyfriend and father for three days, then turns around and does what you asked him not to do.

Freddie had left to go home just before midnight. A couple of drinks for Roger had turned into many and if he continued at the pace he was going he probably wouldn’t be able to stand properly, let alone walk home.

4:23am

Roger finally makes it home. You were in a half sleep kind of trance, anger and worry not letting you fully rest. You heard your drunk boyfriend trip on his way up the stairs and curse. You heard his shoulder being dragged across the hallway, obviously trying to stay upright. You heard him fumble with the door handle before he was coordinated enough to actually open it. He stumbled forward nearly falling over. Kicked off his shoes. Pulled his shirt over his head. And passed out, face first on his side of the bed. You shook your head and managed to get some sleep now in the knowledge that he was home and safe. Well he wouldn’t be safe tomorrow when the felt the wrath of (Y/N).

You got up at nine. Chavez was tired so he had sleep longer in the morning. Freddie was coming soon to get him so you best get up. You glanced to your left to see Roger face down on top of the covers, in the same position he was when he stumbled home last night.

You got Chavez washed and dressed knowing that Freddie would be here any minute. (It was ten minutes past the time he said he would come, but you expected him to be late anyway) You was in the kitchen washing up breakfast, that once again Roger had missed, when Chavez run to his room to find the perfect toy to take with him today.

While Chavez was deciding between a red sports car that his dad got him or the fluffy duck that Freddie got him he heard his dad moving about in bed. The three year old didn’t see him at all yesterday, quickly making his decision he grabbed the duck and ran into his parents bed room wanting to see his dad.

Roger felt like someone had placed one of the massive speakers from tour in his head and any little sound was amplified way too loud making his head throb. The small amount of light sneaking in through the curtains was like sharp daggers adding to the pain in his head.

He heard Chavez coming. He could hear him running. He willed that he didn’t come in Roger just wanted to sleep some more and try and get better once the house was silent.

But it didn’t work. Chavez jumped on the bed next to Roger repeating his name. “Chavez stop.” Roger moaned at him. The three year old didn’t. “Chavez I mean it. Go to your mother.” Roger raised his voice slightly, getting annoyed.

“But daddy I haven’t seen you and wanted to sho-"

“CHAVEZ FUCKING LISTEN TO ME!” Roger’s temper had got the better of him, and for a moment there was complete silence. That was broke by the sobs coming from the small child that only wanted his father’s company.

You heard Roger shout from the kitchen. You knew Chavez could be a handful sometimes but Roger had never shouted like that at him. You opened the door to see Chavez crying his heart out and a guilty Roger trying to reach out for him. But Chavez ignored Roger and held his arms out to you. You glared at Roger as you picked up your son. He hurried his head into your shoulder as you carried him out.

He was sobbing whilst repeatedly apologising. Whatever happened it wasn’t Chavez’s fault. When he was in trouble he didn’t cry he tried to get out of it. He only cried if he was scared. “Chavez baby you didn’t do anything wrong okay, daddy didn’t mean to shout at you.” You lied. You had to he thought he done something terrible.

After a couple of minutes he stopped crying and Freddie rolled up to pick up his Nephew. He could tell something was wrong but decided against mentioning it.

Freddie had always said if you ever needed to you could stay at his, always. You never thought you would have to take him up on his offer. After Freddie took Chavez out you stormed up stairs with all the fury you would ever muster. You and Roger argued. And like any agreement things from way back in the past got dragged up, unnecessarily opening old wounds. You both cursed and screamed until You was blue in the face. The monstrous fight ended with tears from both parties and you with Chavez staying with Freddie still nearly two months later.

There had been a few calls from Roger that you ignored and he would ask Freddie about you when they saw each other, but the calls ceased and the meet ups with any band member became few. So much that the boys were worried.

Freddie had told you that he was going to Roger with Brian and John. You were fine with it, how could you not be. Freddie was still Roger’s friend after all, and you can’t control Freddie. But Freddie had been gone for a good few hours and you was starting to get worried.

When Freddie did come back he looked tried. He sat down next to you and sighed. Chavez was put in bed not long ago and silenced engulf the both of you. “Freddie what’s wrong?” you asked barely above a whisper, something had to be wrong, you had to know if it was this serious.

Freddie paused before answering, thinking over his words before speaking them. “He isn’t looking after himself properly.” He was looking everywhere but in your eye.

“What’s New? That was the problem, he doesn’t look after himself and doesn’t care about the effect on other people. People who care about him.” This time you adverted your gaze.

“No this is different.” You met Freddie’s eye. “it’s different this time.” He rubbed his eye and huffed out a breath. “He hasn’t been eating. He isn’t sleeping, I doubt he’s showered recently. We tried talking to him and he got upset and locked himself in the bedroom. Then he refused to co-operate .”

“what do mean refuse to co-operate?”

The conversation got interrupted by the phone ringing. Freddie stood up to answer it, almost glad for the excuse to stop talking. “Brian?” Freddie answered. “well that’s good... well, that’s not so good... just the one thing?... what’s he saying?... okay, give me a minute.” Freddie rested the phone on the table walked over to you. “(y/n) Brian stayed at Roger’s to keep an eye on him and he managed to get him out of the bedroom but he’s still not co-operating he keeps repeatedly asking Brian for...” Freddie was explaining this fast until this point.

“For what?” you were desperate to know.

“He’s asking for you.” Freddie watched your eyes, seeing the many different emotions run through them.

You had no idea What to do so many different thoughts was running through your mind that they were cancelling each other out. You acted on the only rational thought right now. You took a deep breathe and picked up the phone with a patient Brian waiting on the other end.

“Brian it’s (y/n) What's the situation?”

“I assume Freddie has already told you what happened when he was here?”

“Yes he has.”

“Well-“ there was a noise in the background, a muffled voice, “Roger just wait I need t-" Brian was interrupted by Roger snatching the phone from him

“(y/n)?” Roger’s voice was different. It wasn’t cocky or full of confidence, it was small and a little hoarse.

You hesitated. “Yes. Roger"

“Baby, please just listen, just once. I'm sorry, I am so sorry. I should have listened to you, I was stupid, I am stupid. You’ve always tried to do what’s best for me, for us and what I did was selfish. And I love you, I love you more than you’ll know. No, more than that I adore you and I’m a mess without you and Chavez. You two are my entire world. I miss you. I miss you so fucking much. I just... I’d love for you to come home, but you don’t have to I want to give you time, as much as you need. But please, please forgive me. Please.”

Freddie didn’t know what Roger was saying to you but he could see the tears forming in your eyes and threating to fall. He gently took the phone from your hand, told Roger not to worry, he’d sort things out, and wrapped you in a bear hug.

“What are you going to do?” He quietly asked after you had calmed down.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about him. It’s not just the drinking it’s so many different little things before. But, that’s all it was, little things. I, I just don’t know.” You desperately looked at Freddie hoping he would have the answers to your questions.

“I think you now what you should do.” Freddie advised. He didn’t know at all, but it was the safest option when his friend desperately needed help and he had absolutely no idea What to do.

“I miss him.” You stood up. “I have to go to him, I have to go home.” You started running around packing a bag, then suddenly stopped and gasped. “Oh, Chavez.”

“Darling don’t worry, I’ll look after him until you sort everything out with Roger.”

“You are an angel.” You missed Freddie’s cheek, grabbed your keys and drove home.

[thewakingcloak]

On Creative Burnout and How to Get Stuff Done Without It

Over the past week or two I’ve had a bunch of conversations with people who were burned out and having a hard time. And this is a bit lengthy, but it goes out to you guys.

I hit some pretty nasty burnout in early 2018. I couldn't create anything for months. Even just *thinking* about making something made me mentally cringe away. I'd not only used up all my fuel, but I was also up against some tough tasks that I didn't know how to tackle. AND I was stressed and frustrated because I didn't think anyone was noticing The Waking Cloak. I felt like I wouldn't be able to make it "good enough" even for what I wanted it to be. I felt guilty because I thought I was letting people down who were following along with the project... and I wasn't delivering.

Sound familiar? Let's talk.

I got past the burnout and am working in a much healthier way now, a year later. But this took a shift in how I thought about working on creative projects. I used to be constantly working on The Waking Cloak because I thought that’s what it was going to take to finish it. I couldn’t afford to stop, because what if I never picked it back up again? Now I see things differently.

Part of this came from the general internet, part of it came from years of experience writing and critiquing (and now, y’know, actually applying it to game development), and part of it came from learning project management at work.

0. Before we start...

You can do this.

You’re not alone.

If you’re burned out, it gets better.

I’m around to talk if you need it.

1. The Creative Cycle AKA PLEASE REST OR YOU'LL HAVE A BAD TIME

This is a principle I learned from @emcheeseman on Twitter with this diagram:

To quote her: “Creators feel pressure to spend every second creating, but CREATIVITY IS A CYCLE between active productivity and dormant recovery.”

So the two sides of creativity: Action and Recovery. Too much Action, you get burnout. Too much Recovery and... you’re not doing anything. These two absolutely have to be kept in balance. If you're burned out, you need to spend more time recovering. If you're procrastinating, you need to spend time building up the momentum and taking action.

(Note: it’s important also learn to recognize the difference between the two versions of procrastination: some can come from burnout, in which case you need to recover, not work more.)

This is a cycle that should take place every day. When you're in balance, you'll be working on something creatively every day, but you'll also be resting. If you neglect either, you'll be thrown off balance and have to take remedial action--especially in the case of burnout.

This is because the creative mind is like a muscle. Muscles gain strength essentially by being torn and reknit together stronger. If you continuously work out the same muscles without giving them a chance to knit back together, you won't get stronger. This is why strength workouts have alternating days between muscle groups.

You know all those articles and studies coming out about how crunch is bad? All those big name game studios that required crunch and burned out all their developers? Guess what, the same principle applies to your personal creative work too. Crunch is bad. Somewhat counter-intuitively, just doing "more work" will actually make you less productive, while taking time to recover every day makes you significantly more productive. So don’t make yourself crunch. Not even if you’re enjoying what you’re working on.

I'll talk about Action later, but how about Recovery? Well, congratulations, I have good news! Having fun is now part of your creative process. Do something passive you enjoy. Play video games. Read a book, watch a TV show or movie. Go outside for a walk. Take things in. Don't feel guilty: this is vital for your creativity. What if you always exhaled without inhaling? Would you feel guilty for breathing in oxygen?

If you are currently burned out, you need to spend a lot of extra time recovering. The more you’re burned out, the more time it’ll take. That’s the part that sucks, but trust me on this. It will get better. You'll be able to tell after time. This can be days or weeks or longer, but you need to take it until both of these conditions are satisfied:

You no longer feel yourself mentally cringing away from creating something.

The idea of not creating something is unbearable

2. Motivation: creating for yourself, not to satisfy others' expectations

It's super important to come at creative projects with the right motivation. Even if you have a pretty decent Action/Recovery balance, if you're trying to please others, if you're often jealous of others, if you're comparing your work often, you will still get burned out. Creating with these as your motivation is a bit like trying to drive on fumes. It’s not sustainable, and you will run out of gas.

This is incredibly important but difficult to put into practice. How do you shift your motivations?

Some principles:

Creating for its own sake is valuable.

Other people are not competition. They are friends.

Other creative projects are not competition either--similar projects can, and should, and do exist in harmony. You can learn from one another.

If you work primarily from a standpoint of pleasing others, you are going to be very easy to disappoint.

Make what you want to make, for yourself, for your tastes particularly if this is your hobby.

The “validation machine” is tricky. At first, you’d be over the moon to have a hundred followers and maybe ten likes. Then a thousand followers and fifty likes. And on and on, all the way up--your expectations of validation will scale up. Don’t expect to keep getting high off those likes and retweets/reblogs. Make an effort to value every one of the people who follows you, even if it’s only five people.

All games are held together by duct tape and prayers. You're not alone!

Some of these are easier said than done. Just keep an eye out for these thoughts/emotions in yourself. If you notice them, take a moment, take a few deep breaths, and remind yourself what it's all about. Do you feel yourself getting jealous? Don't take it out on yourself (or anyone else). Try encouraging that person you're jealous of instead. Tell them what they're doing well, and not in the mopey "I wish I could do this as well as you" way. Instead, the "This [specific thing] is so good! Keep it up!" way. It's hard for jealousy to exist in the same place as encouragement, even if it takes a little bit to ebb.

Another suggestion is to write down the things that excite you about creating, about the specific project you’re working on, etc. This can be broad (“I like bringing my ideas to life”) or specific (“I always love exploring caves in video games and seeing what secrets they hold”). Keep this around and remind yourself of it. For The Waking Cloak, I love working on exploration, lore, and maps!

3. How to actually work and get stuff done

This is going to be the biggest point, but it revolves around a few foundational principles:

Work INCLUDES rest. It's part of the deal. You're not allowed to skip it. (see #1)

Short term goals are more important than long term deadlines (aka Agile "sprints")

Task-tracking and manageable, bite-sized chunks

One Thing a Day/Momentum

Do it fast, THEN do it right

Most of this is stuff I learned from my day job when we got our new head-of-department and jumping onto what's broadly known as DevOps principles. DevOps involves a lot more than I'm going to talk about here, but I bring it up because these aren't things I'm just making up because they sound nice. They're tried and tested, and they work.

So first, let's talk about short term goals.

Years ago (and sadly still too often today), common practice in software development was to plan big projects spanning months at a time, build the entire thing, and then deliver it. Major problems occur with this: requirements change, the world changes, technology changes, the users wanted/needed something different and you didn't know until they got it in their hands, etc.

The core problem is that nobody knows what's going to happen in the future, not with absolute certainty. I'm not joking when I say this: it's best to focus on short term goals and skip out on long term deadlines altogether. This is commonly in the form of two-week "sprints" which are geared towards delivering some complete functionality, not the entire project/software/game/etc. Here's why these work:

You have something achievable now. Two weeks of work is so much nicer than... months? years?

You get quicker feedback and can quickly adapt to these in the next sprint

Sometimes project/features of higher priority get discovered that you couldn’t have planned for

You're consistently finishing some chunk of functionality every two week sprint or every milestone. Progress feels nice!

Two week sprints don't necessarily work for all game projects, but the principle is the same: plan short-term, time-based goals, NOT functionality-based goals. If you're getting close to the deadline, move that functionality to the next "sprint", don't crunch any more than a day.

If you don't have a long-term deadline for your game set by external factors (publisher, need food to eat, etc.), and especially if you're doing this as a hobby, my advice is to not set a final deadline until you're more or less done with the game. Know what your major functionality is and a general order that you’ll work on this functionality in, but long-term deadlines are almost always unsustainable. You don't know what's going to pop up, you don't know how long certain features will take, etc. You can't predict the future. But you can create milestones.

In normal game development, this generally includes pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and so on. But for our purposes, we’ll want to redefine this and break it down even further. An alpha could take many months. I’m more interested in defining sets of features that can conceivably take a few weeks to two months, closer to a sprint.

In The Waking Cloak, these milestones are the ProtoDungeons. Each has a set of functionality (I only know the broad strokes, not the specific functionality each will contain--that only gets planned at the beginning of the specific ProtoDungeon). There will be eight of these, one for each of the player’s items, and they will be a self-contained dungeon. This is to:

Get quick feedback on how the items feel

Get practice building dungeon maps

Build a lot of the “unknown pieces” that you don’t generally think about--doors, triggers, camera transitions, pits, z-coordinate levels, and so forth.

I’ve only completely planned out one ProtoDungeon. It included the item mechanic and all the functionality mentioned in the last bullet point, but it also included more, like enemies and a boss. But then I cut everything that's unnecessary for getting these into the hands of some testers--so that meant a lot of this extraneous stuff got bumped to ProtoDungeon 2. That way, the quicker I get this demo out, the quicker I can improve for the next ProtoDungeon. The result is that working on the game feels very light and extremely productive.

Now that we have milestones and short-term goals, that brings us to tracking tasks.

I don't really care how you do this so much as I care that you do it in the first place! Tracking tasks is extremely important. Without, it can be easy to get lost in where you’re at in development. You have to hold everything in your brain, which is extra wear and tear.

I use Trello, which is free! At work we use Microsoft's Azure DevOps/VSTS and Kanban boards. You can even just use a notepad if that's what you like (though I suggest something where it’s easier to move stuff around, even if that’s Notepad on your computer). Once you have a place to keep track of stuff, I recommend creating some sections (I use Trello columns):

Backlog - tasks you're doing this milestone

Bugs/issues - you'll find these all the time :)

Doing - this is the bug or task you're working on. Only work on 1-2 things at a time. If you're not working on it, it goes back in the backlog

Complete - just a pile of your accomplishments! :D

And then here’s how you create your tasks for your “milestone”:

List out your major functionality

Break those functionalities into chunks

Break them into smaller chunks

Smaller

Still smaller

Are they now tiny? Can you do these tasks in a day or two maximum? No? Still smaller!

Stop when you're basically at the "atomic level" of tasks. They need to be bite-sized (if they’re ridiculously small, you can include them as part of a checklist on a single task)

Take all these tasks and dump them into your backlog!

As I mentioned, plan for the current milestone only. You can have a bucket of general tasks for future milestones and even a general idea of the order you want to accomplish these tasks in, but you're only planning for the current milestone and a bit into the next one.

Prioritize your tasks. You can put a number next to each task (1 being highest, 4 being lowest is what we do at work). Or if you're using Trello like me, you can drag the highest priority tasks up to the tops of the columns to work on next. I occasionally switch these around depending on what I feel like working on next, so don't feel like you have to strictly adhere to a specific set of priorities.

If you're feeling really snazzy, "weigh" your tasks. How long is this going to take? You can do this by hours, days, a generic numbering system, etc. Enough to let you know what's going to fit into a milestone and what needs to be moved to the next one. I don't think this is strictly necessary for a hobbyist project, but it's pretty vital for our day-to-day at work.

Also, you will discover more tasks as you work. "Oops, to do this, I need to add that." That's fine. Add it as a task, prioritize/organize it, and keep going.

Like rest, planning all this stuff out is hugely important but often missed because it doesn't feel like you're getting stuff done. It's deceptive. Taking time to plan and maintain your tasks will actually make you more focused and productive.

If something isn’t necessary for the deliverable, move it to the next milestone and forget about it for now. This doesn’t mean you’re procrastinating or that you’ll never get to it. Your job is to keep things light and manageable for now.

Okay, so now you have a list of tiny, bite-sized tasks, and they're all organized. Time for the next principle: “One Thing a Day.”

I mean, with everything we’ve discussed, this is pretty easy now, right? You have a bunch of bite-sized tasks. Work on at least one thing a day! You don’t have to finish it, though the fact that you’ve got these small tasks means you’re more likely to get tasks done quickly.

Let's say you're me and you have a lunch break. Well, now I can try a task or two, or check off a few of my checkboxes on one of my tasks,  or at the very least get started on something I know I can finish in a few days. Or we just got the baby down to nap and she'll be asleep for an hour and a half (probably)--I can pick up another task and work on it there.

By having small tasks, you have a constant sense of progression, which is important for your morale. And by doing at least one thing a day, you develop momentum, which is extremely pivotal in countering procrastination.

For a while I logged these on the devblog, largely for accountability, but over time I haven’t needed to do that as much.

Also, keeping the creative cycle in balance is still important. Some days I absolutely did not have time, or just felt like it would be “too much.” So I didn’t do one thing that day. Instead I’d take that time to recover.

Finally, the principle of "Do it, THEN do it right."

This has helped me on so many occasions. My procrastination often stems from a feeling of being overwhelmed. I sit there thinking about a task and how long it's going to take, and all the different things I have to make in order for it to work well.

Beat the system. Hack that sucker in there in the cheapest way you can. Hardcode values. Tack code on to an existing object instead of creating a new one. All you have to do is add notes. //TODO is helpful--it doesn’t do anything automatic in GameMaker, but you can still do a project search for it to come back to it later. Then see if it works. See how it feels to play. Only after you've got it working and feeling nice, come back and polish it up a bit. Make it less hard-coded. Put it in a script so it's easier to call from multiple places. Create those objects.

For example, I just added some "Game Over" functionality. First I just whipped up the screen (draw black rectangle, draw text) and then made it show up at the press of a button. Looking good? Nope, the text is off. Let's fix that. Okay, now let's take it off this key binding and add it to the transition manager to trigger when the player dies. Shortcut: add a key that kills the player. Still triggers? Good? Okay, now make it reset the game (well, in my case, reset the room), and test with that kill key. Does that work? Remove the kill key (that would be a nasty surprise for a player if they hit the wrong key), polish (I’m summarizing, there was a lot more of this), and voilà! The important part was taking those shortcuts to blaze the trail before I paved it over (I know that makes no sense, just go with it).

This is the same idea as the rough draft of a story. No (good) book was written the way you pull it off the shelf at your bookstore. It was much rougher when it started and only got good by drafting over and over again. The point is to get your raw materials out there, like a big ol' block of stone if you were building a statue, create the vague shape (chisel off big chunks), then work on finer and finer details.

You cannot judge your work by its first draft. You'll absolutely be disappointed. Instead, come into it with the INTENTION of doing it fast and sloppy so that you have those raw materials to work with as quickly as possible.

4. In summary

It’s going to be okay.

Burnout can be avoided by taking time to rest.

If you’re burned out, it gets better by taking time to rest.

Good motivation helps avoid burnout and procrastination.

Plan generic long-term, specific in short term chunks, and work in bite-sized tasks.

Working in bite-sized tasks helps keep up momentum and morale.

Keep action and recovery balanced every day.

It’s going to be okay. :)

[thequeenofcronuts]

Uncertainties - A Royal Romance AU Story Chapter 3 No Rest for the Wicked

Uncertainties- AU The Royal Romance

Uncertainties main location Silicon Valley California.

AU Summary - Career life is busy for a group of six friends when they meet a captivating woman with a beautiful soul. New friendships are forged and new romances revealed. All the while hearts are torn and closets are cleared of skeletons. True love always wins in the end, right?

AU Warnings - This Stand Alone will include the following 18+ subjects: Language, NS*W, Verbal Abuse, and Abortion. If ANY of these subjects will cause pain or hardship in reading, please skip reading Uncertainties. That being said, each chapter will include its own specific warnings.

AU Uncertainties Pairings and Characters: Pairings and Characters: Drake x Riley /  Liam x Riley  /  Liam x Olivia  / Drake x Olivia / Maxwell x Savannah, including Hana, and Madeleine, and OCs

Chapter 3 Summary - What made Madeleine, Madeleine?

Chapter 3 Warnings - None

Chapter Word Count: 1,590

**All characters from the Choices Book: The Royal Romance are owned by Pixelberry Studios (Any other characters are the product of my brain…I probably should apologize now. 🙃😉)

—————

Madeleine’s First Grade Class Play

“Maddie, again from your first line.” Madeleine's father urges his daughter.

Stomping her foot Madeleine replies, “But father, I can't do this anymore. Amanda and the other girls went to the playground. Why can't I go with them?” Madeleine’s father has been drilling her on her lines for the upcoming school play while Maddie is invited by her friends after school to play everyday, and everyday she is told no.

“Madeleine dear, you know your mother wants you to be perfect in this play. We can't embarrass your mother, can we now?”

“But father, I want to play. Katie said at school today we can't be friends if I don't play with her anymore.” Madeleine’s little tears begin to fall as her father’s heart aches for his child. Unfortunately, during this exchange, Madeleine’s mother walks by her room.

“Madeleine, I have told you everyday that the more you whine the more you will practice. You can't possibly be memorizing your lines through your consistent refusal. You will not embarrass me in front of the entire school in which three generations have attended. Do you understand, my daughter?” Her mother scolds with a cold, stern tone.

Madeleine, with arms behind her back, looks down at her feet and replies “Yes.”

“Try that again. Eyes on me this time. And for heavens sake stand up straight.” As more tears fall, Madeleine looks up to her mother.

“Yes, ma’am. I understand that I will not embarrass us in front of the family's alma mater.”

Pointing at Madeleine before she turns on her heel, “Good. Remember that before you whine again.” Madeleine begins to recite the last words she was working on, as her father follows his wife, Allison, into the hallway.

“Allison, she's only in first grade. Our friends all have children Maddie knows and could be playing with. Let her enjoy this time with her first grade and pre-school friends. I know we talked about how important this is, but everyday Madeleine is forgetting things due to the pressure we are putting on her. She needs at least a break.”

“Richard, you’re correct in that we’ve spoken about this before, but you are incorrect when you tell me she needs a break. What Madeleine needs is to get her lines correct. I work each day so you can stay at home with her since you think a nanny is inappropriate. I make that sacrifice, you will be sure she is perfect in this play.”

————— Madeleine, Age 16

“Mother, I don't like him. Why must I be dating him?” Madeleine asks her while stomping her foot.

“Madeleine, quit acting like a spoiled child. You are dating him because he is currently in line for valedictorian and you are for salutatorian. You are dating him because he is the most accomplished son of the most important family friend of ours. You are dating him because I tell you to do so. No more talking about this!” Madeleine slams the front door on her way out of the house.

Twenty minutes later she’s in an argument with her boyfriend Kyle. “I’m done Kyle, were done. I can't remember the last time we went on a date where you didn't leave me to be with your friends. Then you pick me up and suck up to my mother when you drop me off at home like we're actually on a date? No more.”

“Fine Madeleine, except you know we can't breakup. Trust me, I would have broken up with you ages ago. Your mother and my father will kill us if we ever did.” Kyle now paces. He always paces when he's mad. Meanwhile Madeleine's mind is plotting.

“Kyle, why do they have to know? If they can play games with us, why can't we do so as well?”

“Hmm. Huh, true. It's just a few lies.”

“We'll been seen together in public when the occasion calls for it.”

“And we're done when we go off to college. Madeleine, it's an easy plan. Let's do it.”

Madeleine looks Kyle in the eye as she reaches out her hand out to him. “Shake on it. Deal?”

“Deal.”

————— Madeleine’s Collage Acceptance

“Madeleine, explain to me why I am holding this acceptance letter from the University of South California.” Madeleine’s mother raises the paper into the air while shaking it towards her.

“Simple, mother. I’m attending USC. You know, I’m surprised it took this long for you to find out. You’re loosing your touch.” Madeleine gives a bitter laugh, “You should have snuck into my room much sooner and found this letter.” Madeleine shrugs, “Now it is too late.”

“Hell it is, child! What do mean it's too late?! You can't go if I don't sign the admission papers.”

“Oh, but mother you did. Just like you've signed so many other things you don't know about. You see, mother darling, I perfected your signature quite a while ago.” Madeleine's mother tries to keep her stoic facade, “Is that so, you insolent chid? Well then, do really think you can get away with it this time, once I prove it was you.” Madeleine’s shrill laugh just excites herself more as she looks her mother in the eyes because Madeleine knows she has won.

“Oh mother, mother, mother. That would be problem, except the final paperwork was notarized and also signed by ‘Kyle’s’ mother as the witness. You have friends, well I have friends too. Friends that want out from under their parents thumb as just as much as I do. It's amazing the plans our little group is able to execute. We simply learned from the best, our parents. You should be proud.” Madeleine scoffs as she folds her arms in front of her, while her mother finally loses her composure and throws the nearest vase to the floor.

“Then share with me your perfect plan to pay for four years at a university which you cannot afford since I will cut you off from any financial support, dearest.” Her mother takes an aggressive step forward, accentuated by the crunch of the glass.

“Oh, mother. Just a few minutes ago you called me a child. I do believe eighteen is considered an adult, correct? Fortunately for me my trust fund from farther’s parents only required me to be eighteen on withdrawal. You know how much they left me, more than I need for this, actually. I thank you and father so much for signing the funds over to me.” Now Madeleine takes a step towards her mother.

“Your father wouldn't dare.”

“You are correct, but” as she speaks Madeleine rolls her eyes. “really mother think through this. If I can forge your signature what about father’s and others…” Madeleine trails off.

“You couldn't without us actually being at the bank. It's impossible!” Madeleine takes another step toward her mother, with a smug smile.

“I guess we children have outsmarted the masters. See, wielding your name everywhere whilst demanding the same kind of special treatment your…” Madeleine pauses as she looks for the word, “….flavor of speech to those below you majorly worked against you. Karma's a bitch, isn't she. It was too easy. Just a notarized letter from you and father, an unsuspecting newer bank employee, and the promise of your wrath so easily did the trick.” Smirking, Madeleine continues.

“You remember the account you opened for the transferring of funds to me as payment for following along with your schemes? Well once the trust funds were transferred into that account, I wired them to a new account. A new account I opened at a different bank in SoCal where you don't know anyone. Banks just make opening accounts online so easy these days.” Madeleine shrugs and walks past her mother looking over her shoulder with a wide grin, stopping when just behind her.

“So, Mother dearest, thank you for teaching me these life ‘lessons’ I’ll take with me wherever I go.” Madeleine’s mother stands in shock as her daughter turns to give her a sarcastically loving pat on her shoulder.

“Oh, and mother dearest, you may want to look over some of the changes you faxed your lawyer in your upcoming divorce from Daddy. Again, it's amazing the hoops and laws your friends will break when threatened by ‘you’.”

————— Madeleine’s Freshman Year at USC - End of Fall Term

Madeleine just finished her last final exam when she walks to her dorm room to find mismatched boxes in the hallway in front of her room. A smirk crosses her face as she sees her roommate furiously packing up all her belongs.

“Madeleine, I can't take being around you as you design all your plots while your little henchmen, er, hench-girls, fall at your feet. I’ve been a target way too many times as well.”

Madeleine’s smug smile is accented by her tone. “Aw, but Kasey, I have had so much fun with you.” Her shrill laugh fills the room. “Although it's true the fun I love most is with my roomie at her expense. None the less, I will be so sad to see you go.” With a new serious tone Madeleine continues.  “Ugh, a new roommate to break in now.”

“Except, Madeleine,” Kasey flashes a winning smile, “no one will room with you.”  Once again, Madeleine's shrill laughs fills the room.

“Oh Kasey, Kasey, Kasey, even better. That's one goal I’ve been working toward. Think of the things I can plan now that I'm alone.”

“You know what, Madeleine? Someday all your skims will catch up you. The wicked never truly find rest.”

Tags - @client-327 @dcbbw @carabeth @drakensworld @purplegreyshrimp @ownworldresident

It's been ages! Sorry! This is the last tag list I have for Uncertainties. If you would like to be removed or added, please just message me. 😊

[bibhabmishra]

Ghostbusters

I’ve read a lot of film books and they’ve taught me a few things about how film books should be written if they are to be taken seriously, and these are lessons that I feel are as useful in life:  1. Drop in random French phrases wherever possible so it looks like you’re quoting from the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, because even if you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, nobody will be able to tell; 2. When in doubt, start waffling on about Godard; 3. Never describe a film as your “favorite film.” This looks unprofessional and childish. Instead, claim—in ringing tones comme les écrivains de Cahiers du Cinéma—that it is the Greatest Film.  Zut alors! Malheureusement, not all the French in the world could convince any- one that I am more interested in Godard than The Goonies, so that’s a non- starter. But I shall make use of one of these handy life lessons and state that the best, most brilliant, most extraordinary, the most deftly created piece of au- teur film work of all time is Ghostbusters. For pretty much most of my life, I’d assumed that this was a fact accepted by everybody: Ghostbusters is the greatest movie ever made. Sure, people tend to say random words like “Citizen Kane!” and “Vertigo!” when asked by Cahiers du Cinéma for their favorite film.

But I thought they did this just as, when asked who they’d like to have at their dream dinner party, they say, “Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela!” as opposed to who everybody would actually like, which is, obviously, Madonna and Bill Murray. Now, one could take my massive assumption that my tastes reflect those of everyone else on the planet two ways:  1. I have an ego the size of Asia coupled with a narcissist’s complex and incipient sociopathic tendencies; 2. Ghostbusters is so good that even if it’s not everyone’s FAVORITE movie, it is probably in their top ten and so whenever I mention my love of Ghostbusters people say, “Oh yeah, everyone loves Ghostbusters.”  For the purposes of this chapter, we will go with option 2. I never thought of my Ghostbusters obsession—and it is, I fully admit, an obsession—as remarkable. If anything, I saw it as a perfectly natural response to a great work of art. Devoting an entire shelf to books and articles by or about the people involved, however tangentially, in the making of this movie? Com- mendable intellectual curiosity. Spending two hundred dollars on a book about Ghostbusters that came out the year the film was released, just because it finally explains why the character of Winston is squeezed out of the movie? Hey, that’s an investment piece! Refusing to go on a second date with someone be- cause they failed to recognize a completely random (and not, to be honest, wildly relevant) Ghostbusters quote over dinner?I Well, why waste time with losers? It wasn’t until I found myself awake at 2 a.m. at the age of thirty-three on a Tuesday scrolling through eBay in search of a rumored copy of Bill Mur- ray’s original Ghostbusters script, which obviously was not going to be on eBay, that I felt it might be time to look at what, precisely, was going on here and why, after all this time, Ghostbusters still feels so special, maybe even more spe- cial, to me. There is sentimentality, for sure, not exactly for my childhood but for the city of my childhood. Ghostbusters is as much a love letter to New York as any- thing by Woody Allen, and a less self-conscious one at that, showing New Yorkers reacting with relative normality to an invasion of the undead.II Many of the jokes in Ghostbusters stem from the idea that, ghosts aside, Manhattan it- self is an out-of-control Wild West place, a Gotham city where a man could collapse against the windows of the Tavern on the Green, the ritzy restaurant that used to be in Central Park, and the diners would simply ignore him. Trash is piled on the sidewalks and Checker cabs whizz around corners: this re- creation of New York, 1984—the New York of my childhood—is still how I think of the city, even though it has, for better or worse, changed a lot since then. Even the hilarious anachronisms give me a sentimental frisson: Louis being mocked for his love of vitamins and mineral water; Ray and Peter snarfing down cigarettes while toting nuclear reactors on their backs; Larry King in a cloud of cigarette smoke while chatting drily on the radio; the bad guy being the man from the Environmental Protection Agency. These all look particularly out of date in the Manhattan of today, and I can’t help but feel the city is a little poorer for it. But my absolute favorite New Yorky moment in the film is at the end, when a doorman brings Ecto1 round after the Ghostbusters have saved the world—or at least Central Park West—from destruction. Despite having battled a giant marshmallow man, Dan Aykroyd still has a couple of dollar bills in the pocket of his ghost uniform with which to tip the doorman. You cannot get more New York than that. But there is something else in Ghostbusters that makes me sentimental, something else that I love in it that doesn’t exist anymore. That is, its depiction of how a man should be.  •  •  •  Just in terms of sheer variety, one could do a lot worse than turn to eighties movies for lessons in how to be a man. When most people think of mas- culinity in eighties movies, they probably think of that strange genre that sprouted and bulged up in that decade like Popeye’s biceps after eating spinach, consisting of men who look like condoms stuffed with walnutsIII speaking their lines in confused accents and emphasizing random syllables, strongly suggesting they’d learned the words phonetically: Schwarzenegger, Lundgren, Stallone,IV and, toward the end of the decade, Van Damme. Chuck Norris, too, can be included here, despite his lack of walnutness, but he earns membership in this group with his similar lack of obvious acting talent and strong fondness for right-wing messages in his films.V But there is more to eighties men than that. For a start, there are the men who raise babies and children (Mr. Mom, Three Men and a Baby, Uncle Buck), which some feminist critics argued at the time was a backlash against femi- nism because the films seemed to mock the idea of feminized men. In fact, in retrospect, these films look more like movies awkwardly coming to grips with feminism (Tootsie, too, can be included here, with a man pre- tending to be a woman, and occasionally looking after a child, and becoming a better person for it). Mr. Mom (1983), in which Michael Keaton loses his job and looks after the kids while his wife works, is clearly none too sure what to make of this “feminist” thing: the movie’s message is that the swapping of traditional gender roles will probably destroy the marriage and almost certainly the house (somewhat dismayingly, the film was written by John Hughes). But by 1987, Three Men and a Baby was getting much more of a handle on things. The men (Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson) are unex- pectedly lumbered with a baby girl and, by the end of the film, very much want her to stay with them in their bachelor shag pad, even after the baby’s dippy English (foreigners—tchuh!) mother turns back up. It turns out that, unlike Mr. Mom, they are capable of looking after a baby without causing havoc to domestic appliances (men—amirite??). The men in Three Men and a Baby are

notably much less obnoxious than les mecs in the original French version, Trois Hommes et un Couffin, who have a pact never to let a woman stay more than one night in their flat and have a tendency to call the baby “a swine” when it has an accident on the sofa. Ahh, les Français—ils sont tres masculins, ooh la la!VI Which is not to say that the American version is without its anxieties. Three Men and a Baby goes to such lengths in order to reassure audiences of the übermasculinity of the three guys, despite their TERRIFYINGLY FEMINIZED baby-raising skills, that they become hilariously camp. Peak camp is reached, for me, when Selleck goes out jogging wearing little more than a tiny pair of shorts and an enormous mustache, and he picks up a sports magazine full of photos of muscled-up half-naked men. Now, if that isn’t the definition of throbbing heterosexual masculinity, I don’t know what is. Yes, the eighties were a different time and American movies in that era seemed to think that homosexual was merely Latin for “psycho killer or flouncy interior decorator.” But nonetheless, whenever I watch this movie (which is more often than I’m going to commit to print) I think it’s a shame the director (who was the late Leonard Nimoy, very pleasingly) didn’t just go with the obvi- ous option here and make the guys gay, living in a happy yuppie ménage à trois. After all, this would explain why three apparently very solvent guys in high- flying careersVII in their thirties would choose to share an apartment in mid- town Manhattan as opposed to getting their own American Psycho–style bach- elor pads. And for heaven’s sake, have you looked at that Broadway-themed mural Steve Guttenberg paints of the three of them in the atrium of their apart- ment? No amount of references from Selleck to his love of sport can obscure the fact he and his two friends are living in the campiest New York apartment north of Fourteenth Street. These guys—the actor! the architect! the car- toonist!—are basically the eighties yuppie version of the Village People. And let’s talk about that homoeroticism! Accidental homoeroticism is yet another one of the great joys of eighties movies, and it was the last decade that would be blessed with the pleasure because from the nineties onward, gay cul- ture and references would be too mainstream and recognizable to slip past studios unnoticed. The plethora of eighties buddy movies easily and frequently tip into acci- dental homoeroticism, with the female characters being explicitly excluded from pretty much the whole film and all sorts of intense emotion between the two male leads. Lethal Weapon is one example and an even more obvious one is Stakeout, in which Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss spend an entire movie living together in faux domesticity and, in the case of Estevez, voyeuris- tically spying on his male partner’s sexual encounters. The Lost Boys is the most blatantly homoerotic mainstream movie ever made for teenage boys. In this film, young Michael (charisma vortex Jason Patric) is initiated into the manly life of a new town by going into a cave with Kiefer Sutherland and his male buddies (none of whom seems the least bit interested in the fact that a half-naked Jami Gertz is wandering around drunk- enly in front of them) and drinking their body fluids. Sure, why not, right? Vam- pires are inherently homoerotic and the director Joel Schumacher (who later homoeroticized Batman—not difficult, admittedly—by sticking nipples on the batsuit) revels in the connection in this movie in a way Twilight later deter- minedly, somewhat dismayingly avoids. Michael does at some point have what looks like deeply unsatisfying sex with Jami Gertz, but the person he gazes at with the most intensity is young Jack Bauer. And I haven’t even mentioned that Michael’s little brother Sam (Corey Haim), who dresses like he’s trying out for Wham!, has a poster on the door of his closet of Rob Lowe lifting up his shirt. Because sure, why not, right?

[yasbxxgie]

Superman should be black.

By that I mean he should have dark skin, and not that he's African-American or any other person of color. After all, the Man of Steel is from the planet Krypton, not Earth. That said, Superman could indeed be played by a black actor in future superhero movies.

My argument for why Superman should be black is based on science. Before I explain the reasoning, however, we need to address a sensitive subject: race. Many people use skin color as shorthand for ethnicity, but 'race' has little meaning in biology – it's a social concept that describes recent ancestry.

Race matters for superheroes because it contributes to their identity. And over the past few decades, comic book publishers and movie studios have increasingly changed characters to reflect a society's ethnic diversity.

While that should be applauded in principle, identity changes are often short-term publicity stunts. It might sound cynical, but if publishers and studios had pure intentions, changes would be permanent. As long-time comic fans know, major heroes almost inevitably revert back to their original identities.

Rather than promoting diversity just for diversity's sake, I believe the case for changing a character's identity is made stronger if the rationale makes sense based on origins and powers. The change is more likely to be welcomed – and become permanent – if it's based on logic, not gimmick. And that brings us to Superman.

Because most superpowers break the laws of physics, explaining why they're impossible is a pointless exercise. For the science of superheroes, it's more fun to focus on what's plausible. So while Superman's powers probably require unrealistic amounts of energy to work, we can at least imagine how to maximize the energy he'd need.

Solar-powered cells

In the movie Man of Steel, Superman asks his biological father why he's different from humans. As Jor-El explains: "Earth's Sun is younger and brighter than Krypton's was – your cells have drunk in its radiation, strengthening your muscles, your skin, your senses."

The fact Superman is powered by solar radiation – light – is also shown in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In one scene, he regenerates after bathing in the Sun's rays, paying homage to the comic that inspired the film, 'The Dark Knight Returns', when he tells Mother Earth: "The Sun's power... fuels us both."

Almost all life on Earth is ultimately powered by the Sun via photosynthesis: plants and other organisms use light to make food (carbohydrates) from CO2 and water. Their photosynthetic cells also release oxygen, which can be used to burn the energy-rich carbs that fuel metabolism.

Superman's cells would carry out a process similar to photosynthesis. Instead of making carbs, maybe he synthesizes fictional molecules that store even larger amounts of chemical energy.

Light rays consist of photons, subatomic particles that behave as both waves and pure energy. The length of a wave determines a photon's energy: short wavelengths – gamma rays, x-rays and UV light – are at one end of this spectrum, long wavelengths like infrared at the other.

High-energy radiation such as UV damages living tissue and can trigger genetic mutations (potentially causing cancer), whereas low-energy radiation is harmless but has low energy. As a consequence, Superman would absorb photons from the visible spectrum.

In complex organisms, photons are harvested by specialized compartments, such as the chloroplasts in plant cells. Chloroplasts contain proteins that funnel photons toward pigments, which convert energy from light.

When photons hit a pigment molecule, its electrons gain enough energy to leave their associated atoms. Electrons are then passed along chain reactions to produce molecules that can later release the energy stored in their chemical bonds, which is used to synthesize carbs.

Colored pigments

On Superman's home planet of Krypton, the best pigment color for absorbing solar radiation would be black.

Light-capturing pigments act as antennas tuned for picking-up photons with a particular energy, and their colors – how they look to our eyes – is determined by which photons they absorb. Blue photons have more energy than red photons, but few manage to reach our planet's surface.

Air and water filter-out certain wavelengths. On Earth, land plants have evolved to use the red-absorbing pigment chlorophyll, which looks green. Not all photosynthetic organisms are green, however: some plants have red leaves, while purple bacteria can even absorb infrared.

Photosynthetic organisms on distant worlds would use whichever pigments are most appropriate to the available wavelengths of light. Green may be common on Earth, but other colors could be more popular on other worlds. This could be exploited to detect signs of extraterrestrial life, as described in a brilliant article in Scientific American by biometerologist Nancy Kiang of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

As Kiang explains in her article, 'The colour of plants on other worlds': "The limiting factor is not the feasibility of novel pigments but the light spectrum available at a planet's surface, which depends mainly on the star type."

While the light that reach the surface is affected by which wavelengths penetrate the atmosphere, it's ultimately dictated by which rays are emitted by nearby stars.

And as comic fans know, Krypton orbits a red star and Superman gains his powers thanks to Earth's yellow Sun.

In Man of Steel, Jor-El sends his son to a planet "orbiting a main sequence yellow star." What does that mean? Many stars have a lifespan lasting billions of years, which often includes a 'main sequence' – the period when it carries out nuclear fusion, forcing hydrogen atoms together to create helium. This generates massive amounts of light energy.

Sun of Krypton

Astronomers classify stars according to 'spectral type' – basically, temperature and luminosity. There are 6 types (O, B, A, F, G, K and M). Rare O-type stars are hot, bright and look blue, whereas M-type stars – such as red dwarfs and red giants – are relatively cool and dim. Our Sun is somewhere in-between, a warm and yellow G-type star.

After accounting for atmosphere, the peak wavelength of light reaching Earth's surface is around 685 nanometers. For an M-type star like Krypton's Sun, it's about 1045 nm. In Man of Steel, a Kryptonian soldier says atmospheric conditions on their spaceship isn't compatible with humans, so the peak wavelengths would be slightly different due to filtering by air and water vapor.

Photosynthetic species – including a Kryptonian like Superman – living on a world orbiting a relatively inactive star would therefore need dark pigments to harvest light.

As Dr Nancy Kiang explains in her Scientific American article: "A planet around a quiescent M star would receive about half the energy that Earth receives from our Sun... Evolution might favour a greater variety of photosynthetic pigments to pick out the full range of visible and infrared light. With little light reflected, plants might even look black to our eyes."

Dark skin

The dark pigment that Superman's cells would need to absorb sunlight has a different function to melanin, the brown pigment that humans and other mammals use to protect against damaging UV radiation.

After humans migrated out of Africa 200,000 years ago, those populations exposed to less light would have been under weaker evolutionary pressure to spend metabolic resources on making UV-blocking pigments, which is why their descendants now have white skin.

Characteristic features of species are usually the result of natural selection, adaptations to their local environment. Because Superman has powers, light-capturing pigments must be useful to the survival of Kryptonians.

How did superpowers evolve? One possibility is that abilities were favored by evolution on Superman's home planet, and his ancestors lost their powers when the star turned red. Alternatively, they never evolved super-strength or super-senses – light was simply an energy source for ordinary metabolism – and Earth's yellow Sun artificially boosts their abilities.

Will we ever see a black Superman? In fact, Kryptonians of color already feature in comics. On an alternate version of Earth, for example, Calvin Ellis is not only Superman, but President of the United States (the character was modelled on Barack Obama).

But ethnic diversity hasn't always been politically correct. One issue of Superman describes Vathlo Island as 'home of a highly developed black race'. Such cringeworthy statements were typical back in the 1970s, but as comics writer Mark Waid points out, "A lack of ethnicity was an error of omission, and I'm not sure given the time that it's fair to call that 'racist'." It's less forgivable that the Kryptonians in Man of Steel (released in 2013) were all white.

DC Comics regularly relaunches its continuity, but it's unlikely the company would make Superman black, partly because he has so much history. A hero's race influences whether people identify with that character too.

But there is a precedent for changing ethnicity. Most famously, Nick Fury – traditionally depicted as white – was reimagined as Samuel L Jackson in comics. Life then imitated art as the actor was cast in the Marvel cinematic universe. Fury is a relatively minor character, however, and changing a major superhero might be met with more resistance from long-term fans.

The companies that own superheroes – publishers and movie studios – could follow the example of their heroic characters and make brave decisions. Henry Cavill will play Superman in Warner Bros' Justice League films, but what about the inevitable reboot in a few years' time?

Science says Superman should be black. Hopefully the next time we see him on screen, the Man of Steel will be a more realistic, solar-powered superhero. [h/t]

[soaker87]

A Spider Riders guide for beginners (mainly anime-centric)

Sort of a sequel to my guide for getting into Battle Spirits, but yes, I wrote a massive essay on a much smaller and easily digestible franchise. And it was fun.

Honestly, half of this is me ripping on things, but yes, I honestly love this show and wish it was more popular. And it’s my main interest when Battle Spirits is bad/on hiatus and I’m in denial about Code Geass.

Put it here instead of my SR blog, since established fans probably don’t need a guide. And I think it’s only fair when I don’t shut up about it.

1)The first pressing question that seems to bug people. Is Spider Riders a “real” anime? Not that it particularly matters, but the answer is yes. Spider Riders is officially a Japanese/Canadian co-production. But, based on official statements made by both the Japanese and western staff, the actual production went something like this. A book (which was meant to be the first in a series of 5) was published in English, and at the same time, the Japanese studio Bee Train was commissioned to make an anime based on the same general concept. The show was completely crafted in Japan. That is, the animation, writing and directing was done there. The English side of things got to make specific requests and got a minimal amount of creative control, but it was largely left in Bee Train’s hands. The people on the English side of things consider the series Yosuke Kuroda’s vision, and admitted to not really knowing any more about the characters and world than what the viewers know. So it’s just as much a “real” anime as The Big O season II, Bakugan, Dimension W and the like.

2)Now, the deal about those books I mentioned above, which were the “source material”. Well, as anyone who’s read them can tell you, they have almost nothing in common with the anime. There are characters with the same name and alliances, and the very basic setting is the same. Other than that, you can hardly compare the two. So while the books came first (at least the first one did) they are in no way a pre-requisite for watching the anime. But still very much recommended. Without spoiling anything, they’re certainly darker than the anime (while still remaining kid-friendly). Anyway, there are three canon books total, because the publisher never ordered the planned five. Thus, the story is never fully resolved. Additionally, an unfinished 4th book exists on Tedd Anasti, the main author’s website. This book can not be considered explicitly canon, because it’s basically a re-write of the 3rd book with some added plot points, and it mixes things from anime canon that contradict the previous books. However, it is highly recommended for Buguese and Aqune fans, as the added plot points concern them.

For the record, if you want to read the novels and can’t buy them (because they’re rare and expensive if you want to buy them new) I can point you to download links. And you can read the 4th one here: http://teenovels.webs.com/spiderriders.htm

3)A Spider Riders manga also exists. It’s interesting if you’re a fan, but really not suggested as a good starting point for the franchise. While the manga has more in common with the anime than the books, it’s also a very different take on things. The manga is probably the most comical entry in the franchise, only becoming serious on occasion. It also includes more violence and fanservice (especially panty shots)  than the very tame anime. The art style is considered rather unattractive by most people.

Like basically every other entry in this franchise, the manga is unfinished. 10 chapters exist total, but only 9 were released online, the 10th appearing exclusively in Shounen Fang magazine. Of these 9 chapters, only the first 6 were published in tankouban format, and only those 6 were scanlated, as the online releases of chapters 7-9 were not high quality.

Translated scans for chapters 1-6 here: http://spiderridersftw.tumblr.com/tagged/sr-manga

4)Getting back to the anime, another thing that trips people up in exactly how many seasons the anime has. Theoretically, it only has one season, consisting of 52 episodes. A series which yes, I’ll admit right here, ends with a heck of a lot left unresolved. I’ll get back to that point later. However, most anime encyclopedias list Spider Riders as having two series of 26 episodes each. The first is called “Spider Riders ~Oracle no Yuusha-tachi~” and the second is called “Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~”. Why? Because the series tanked in ratings when it aired in Japan. And this is starting from the very first episode, so very few people gave it a chance. It probably wasn’t on many people’s radars, due to the show getting virtually no publicity before airing in popular anime magazines, and due to the stigma it carried being a “co-production”. Because the series tanked, TV Tokyo, who was broadcasting it, stopped airing Spider Riders after 26 episodes. Another network, Kids Station, picked it up and re-aired the first 26 episodes. After that, they continued with episode 27. But they gave the series a new title. It was outright advertised as being a second season. This is most likely because of the reputation the first “season” carried. So there you have it. Spider Riders, a 1 season show, had two seasons when it aired in Japan, but the episodes were exactly the same.

However, the saga thickens. What I mentioned above about the ending being rather a non-ending? It’s because the staff hoped for a true second season of Spider Riders. So they went out of their way to leave questions unanswered. You see, Spider Riders originally did have a true ending. Teletoon, the channel that broadcast the series in Canada, put out a press-release about the anime on their corporate website very early into the anime’s run. This press release contained character bios and episode summaries, which essentially spoiled the entire series. It became known as “the Teletoon Corp spoilers”. For the first 24 episodes, everything these spoilers said matched up with what happened in the anime. The second half of the series, the “second season” in Japan, did not. There were some things that matched, and others which didn’t. So yes, they changed a perfectly thought out second half to the series for the sake of leaving opening for a sequel. A sequel that was never going to happen with the ratings the series got in Japan. In hindsight, Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~ may very well be a “second season”. Because that’s when the series starts to diverge from its intended route.

Because of the convenient break, I’ve actually suggested to people to just watch the first 26 episodes and stop there. The story won’t be resolved, but you’ll still have a lot of questions even after watching the second set of 26. And ep. 26 is actually an epic one, so it makes a pretty great ending point. Better than episode 52 anyway.

Obviously, I don’t hate the second half. I just have very mixed feelings about it. There are severe pacing issues. Plot twists that don’t really make any sense (probably due to having no basis in the first half/original plans). Beerain/Buguese/Aqune/Hunter/Corona love triangle nonsense that goes nowhere. Yes,  I spoiled it. None of them end up with anyone. (Also, I am under the impression that love triangles are a plague and rarely ever done well.) Hunter and Corona becoming black holes in terms of focus, while other characters are mis-handled in various ways, especially Magma and Aqune. And Beerain’s handling is a whole separate issue I’ll talk more about later. But probably, the biggest problem with the second half is the forced portrayal of a certain character as sympathetic when I personally did not see them that way. (And no, I’m not talking about Beerain. This could apply to her too, but she didn’t cross the line like this character did.) Also, the writers go out of their way to make sure this character gets everything they want in the end, even when the more important characters have massive unresolved plot threads. Though, considering that I occasionally go to TV Tropes to try and prune some of the leather pantsing for this character, many other fans saw them as sympathetic too. So maybe it’s just my problem, but it still bugs me.

Now, the second half has some good episodes and scattered moments that were awesome or cute or funny or whatever. It has episode 49, which was very validating for me. I love what they do with Igneous in the later episodes, because it helps flesh out his character, even if he doesn’t actually get to do anything useful. Grasshop’s subplot in the second half is well regarded by fans for a reason. Buguese gets to pilot a giant robot, which is beautiful. Stags finally gets some time to shine. Corona gets some good development. So it’s not all a lost cause. It’s just not the second half that should have happened, and the executive meddling made it suffer in quality.

4) Now, if you still want to watch the show knowing all this, should you watch it subbed or dubbed? Coming from someone who never had any problem with dubs, this is one show which really should be watched subbed. While the dub (produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment, not 4Kids, contrary to popular belief) is not the most horrible dub ever, that does not by any means make it an acceptable dub. I’m going to break it down into a few aspects. And these are not the only flaws it has.

First, translation. The dub is not a straight translation of the Japanese script. Except for when it is. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Many times, they just take the Japanese footage and make something up that might fit with it. Even if it has nothing to do with what the characters actually said. Sometimes, this doesn’t really affect much. But other times, it’s created actual plot holes. Avoiding spoilers, the most glaring case of this occurs in episode 23, which is a very important episode about the villains and their motives. And the differences in the script are outright jarring. Especially factoring in that the dub goes back to the true story later on.

Second, the cheese factor. Yes, it is a show where people ride giant spiders. But this is anime. It’s far from the most absurd premise in the medium. And it’s also a premise that the show itself takes seriously, even in the dub. It’s not meant to be a comedy anime, despite having a fair amount of humorous episodes in the first half. So that poses the question of why the people writing the dub script decided to take the cheese factor up to eleven. The dialogue is outright cringey a lot of the time because of it. You have characters constantly shouting “Arachna Power”, a phrase which is never uttered once in the Japanese version. When every other line sounds like it was written by an 8-year-old trying to be hip, it makes the show very, very hard to take seriously. And, as I said, the anime takes itself seriously, even in the dub. So that’s why you have a problem.

Third, censoring. Now, like I said earlier, the anime is pretty tame. There’s no blood and gore. Nothing sexual. There’s not much that needs to be censored at all. Tell that to the people at Cookie Jar. When they decide to censor things like characters being grabbed by the arm (which they frequently cut), all while having other kinds of violence when the characters are fighting a war, you just have to wonder. When they cut a male and female character innocently sleeping in the same room. Characters who get absolutely no ship tease, I might add, and one of them is happily married to someone else, you really have to smash your head against something hard. There are probably two things in this show that could understandably be censored for western viewers, although I personally don’t believe in censorship at all. But the dub does not stop with those two things.

Fourth, name changes. Now, most of the main characters keep their Japanese names in the dub. This is probably to keep consistent with the books. But basically any secondary character has their name changed for no reason, even though their names don’t sound “foreign”. Even if their name is Melissa. The Insectors, the main enemies of the series, were changed to Invectids in the dub. This was apparently due to legal reasons. But due to the prominence of Insectors as a whole, it’s a notable change. Brade, called Quake in the dub, is probably the most important character who underwent a name change. (He isn’t in the books, so that probably contributed to the change.) And one character’s first name is actually their last name in the dub, in a world where no one even has last names. That’s a pretty weird one.

Fifth, the dub treats viewers like morons. Very frequently, the dub will take a scene where in the Japanese version, nothing was being said (the show has a lot of dramatic silence) and make a character whose face isn’t shown on screen state something obvious. It might not be something the Japanese script outright said, but it’s something that anyone paying half-attention would have figured out. Additionally, the dub will regularly add shots of Shadow in manacle space when he talks, assuming viewers won’t be able to pick up that he’s talking despite not being on screen. It’s really kind of insulting. Even if kids are the target audience, they’re not that stupid.

Sixth, the acting is terrible. People make fun of it for a reason. The dub has frequent awkward pauses between lines. Additionally, some of the voices do not fit the characters. And I don’t mean, because they’re not sound-alikes to the Japanese cast. I mean, it was gross mis-casting. The most glaring case is Beerain. Most fans, regardless of their opinion on her character, agree about her dub voice being horrendous, which makes her sound like an old lady, and is even worse during emotional scenes. In general, the actors also tend to change the tone of some scenes, which give off the very opposite impression that the same scenes did in the Japanese version.

And, I won’t link it in this post for reasons, but there’s a torrent for the subs on Nyaa, and it also includes a link for DDLS if you prefer (or if the torrent is dead, because it probably is.) If you must watch the dub despite reading all this, look it up on your own time. It’s definitely on some streaming sites.

5) So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, what is the show actually about? Well, the plot follows a 13-year-old boy named Hunter Steele. (11 in the dub.) He follows the notes of his deceased grandfather, in order to find a place called the Inner World that his grandfather used to tell him about. Naturally, he finds it within the first few minutes of the show, and the rest of the plot takes place in the Inner World, which is basically like some sort of pocket dimension inside of the earth itself. Hunter meets with Shadow, a spider, and the two reluctantly become partners. After Hunter joins up with the other Spider Riders, he takes part in a war to save the Inner World from the Insectors, a race of bugs with human-like qualities.

6)So what are the characters like? Okay, here goes. First, the main Riders and their spiders.

Hunter Steele- The hero. Typical shounen lead. He loves adventure, he’s a bit clueless, but he’s generally friendly and well-meaning. Which doesn’t make him perfect, either. He can be bratty and disagreeable, especially early on. And while he has a sense of justice, he’s actually incredibly self-righteous and sees everything in black and white. But he does get to develop as the series goes on. And he’s the true heart of the team, who keeps everyone in line. Unfortunately, he does get a disproportionate amount of focus, even for a main character, especially later on.

Shadow- Hunter’s spider partner. He’s cocky and prideful. He has a tendency to bicker with Hunter, and he’s usually the one who’s right. They actually become really good friends. Their bond is pretty cute and needed more focus. Out of all the spiders, he’s the only one who really gets much screentime.

Corona- The heroine. Of course she has a crush on Hunter. That’s obvious from almost the get-go. But she’s absolutely not a bland swooning cheerleader like some shounen heroines. She’s a genuine action girl. After Hunter, she’s the character who gets the most focus. Sometimes the show feels more like it’s her story than his. Corona is riddled with insecurities, but Hunter inspires her a lot, and she gets to grow and develop as well as him.

Venus- Corona’s spider. To be honest, she has the personality of a rock. Yet she will get occasional lines that are longer than one word, unlike most of the spiders.

Igneous- He’s a knight of Arachna. Very protective of his kingdom, and the royal family. At first, he comes off as very serious, but you see later on that he’s one of the biggest dorks in the show. Refreshingly, he doesn’t become Hunter’s rival, despite early episodes hinting towards that. He takes on more of a mentor role. At first. Then the writers kinda forget about that aspect.

Flame- Igneous’ spider. He doesn’t speak. Not even once.

Lumen- The prince of Arachna, but you’ll just have to take his word for it. He doesn’t act much like a prince. He’s super lazy, and he loves to flirt with girls. Every girl. Even if they’re his sister or an Insector. And did I mention he’s only 12?

Ebony- Lumen’s spider. He does speak, but only once.

Sparkle- The princess of Arachna. Yes, her name is Sparkle, but just deal with it. She’s cute. Super cute. Apparently, the writers had no idea what to do with her and changed her character like a million times in the pre-production. So at first, she seems sort of wise and mysterious, but really, her purpose is to just be really cute. Which doesn’t make her any less awesome.

Hotarla- Sparkle’s spider. Like Sparkle, her purpose is to be cute. All she can say is “kyu.”

Magma- He’s introduced as a brooding wanderer, looking for his spiders’ long-lost sister. That doesn’t last for long. He’s also a total dork. He also basically clings on all the other guys. And serves as obsessed fanboy to an old man. Like, Magma is as gay as possible without the writers actually going out and saying it.

Brutus- Magma’s spider. Because he’s a flat character, he doesn’t even seem to care about finding his long-lost sister as much as Magma does.

Now, the villains’ side. They actually get more character development than most of the good guys, for better or for worse.

Mantid- He’s the Insector emperor. The main villain. But saying much about him is spoiling.

Buguese- The leader of Mantid’s Big Four. He looks pretty human-like, despite being an Insector. Based on old information, he might be an artificially-created Insector, except that never made it into the actual show. He’s a cold and calculating person, who treats everyone around him pretty badly. He seems to think the ends justify the means, when it comes to making sure the Insectors win the war. He’s constantly brooding, also.  He absolutely hates Hunter, and is pretty much the rival character. He always uses various robots to attack the Spider Riders. He usually has Aqune accompanying him too. It’s clear that he cares about her a lot, but because she’s a human, he makes every effort to hide it, even from himself. He’s my favorite character, as you can probably tell since I don’t shut up about him. As I’ve put it before, a fascinating mess of contradictions, who flips between being a total jerk and the most sympathetic character in the show. He really needed to be in a better show.

Grasshop- Easily the most popular of the Insectors with the fandom. This is because he’s very much the butt monkey. He’s sort of like a one-man Team Rocket. Always coming up with crazy schemes to defeat the Spider Riders. Always failing epically. And even the other Insectors treat him badly. Even Aqune of all people isn’t particularly nice to him. Well, he’s actually a lot of fun, and more than that, he has a lot of depth. He might be the most well thought-out character in the show, to be honest. And his development is very satisfying.

Beerain- Another Big Four member, and the only female. She doesn’t really do much for the early part of the series. Mostly just summons flying insects to do her bidding. Kind of a flat character, to be honest. She makes a good comedy duo with Grasshop, at least. Later in the show, she gets more focus. I found what they did with her character one of the absolute worst subplots in the second half of the series, mostly because it came out of nowhere and felt like extreme character derailment based on the little we know about her, dragged out until it became a plot tumor. But saying much more counts as spoiling.

Stags- The last of the Big Four to be properly introduced. But he’s the strongest and most dangerous. Stags actually is an honorable villain. But at the same time, he’s absolutely crazy. This is the guy who bursts out into maniacal laughter for literally no reason. And later in the series, when he really gets some focus, woah. Well, his fight scenes are epic, and he’s a character who deserved more focus than he got.

Aqune- She’s a Spider Rider, but on the enemy’s side. However, she’s not a villain by any means. She’s an incredibly nice person who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to help others, whether friend or foe. Aqune is a very tragic character, and like Grasshop, is one of the most popular characters (though Hunter is the most popular of all.) She’s a favorite not just because she’s tragic, but because she’s incredibly tough. If Corona is an action girl, Aqune is even a step above that. She’s strong enough to take on multiple armed opponents alone, and she gets the most stylish fight scenes. It’s hard to talk too much about Aqune without spoilers, but she’s my other favorite character, and one of the best written, even considering she gets screwed over in the second half.

Portia- Aqune’s spider. She also has the personality of a rock.

There are other characters too, but like, watch the show and you’ll see.

7)Anything else? I ship Buguese x Aqune like it’s my job. Honestly, I’m much more fervent about them than I am my job. I would love more fic about them. Yes, I’m shameless.

8)Anything else else? There used to be an online game. It was a dice and card battle RPG with weekly quests. It was more popular than the anime. It was fun. It doesn’t exist anymore.

9)Final notes/warning- Okay, I’m straying from the point, but I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. The Spider Riders wiki is basically toxic and should not be treated as a good source. I don’t go and edit there because I know I’m not wanted, and I think it should be allowed to exist. Freedom of speech and all. But it hurts that people use it as a go-to source.

Basically, everything you might need to know about the anime is on the very detailed Wikipedia article. Go there instead. The reasons the wikia is so bad are as follows:

It is 100% dub biased. As I said above, the dub is not always accurate to the Japanese.

It is all about the anime with very little on the other canons. Yes, the anime may be the most famous, but it’s not all there is to the franchise, and a wikia should be more thorough. I say this as the owner of the Battle Spirits wikia.

Some of the information is outright wrong, even going by the dub. It feels like whoever edited it was throwing in their headcanons and misconceptions as if they’re fact

It’s super clear what pairings one writer does and doesn’t ship by what they wrote. That’s called bias, and doesn’t belong on a wikia. Friendly reminder that a one-sided relationship is not “close to canon” or however they put it. That would be like if I edited the Battle Spirits wiki to say Gilfam and Lucretia were probably lovers. Which they are as far as I’m concerned, but according to canon they were “friends.” Ship meta is an awesome thing, I love reading it, but keep it to your blogs and off encyclopedias.

A lot of the information was outright ripped off from my old fansite, then modified to fit the writers’ opinions. They did not ask me first. I might have even said yes, but the point is, if you’re going to copy someone else’s writing, you should ask them. I put my contact information on my site. On top of that, I don’t even consider my old website a great source for SR. It was something I threw together for a school project when I took web design, and had to follow particular guidelines on. So basically, they copied my half-assed schoolwork.

The wiki contains actual bashing of me. And my writing. I’m not kidding. That’s all the more insulting when my “writing” was good enough for them to rip off. Or at least it did have this at some point. I don’t really lurk around it, so I don’t know if it’s still there. That’s called bullying. And yes, I take it personally. Even if the wikia didn’t have all the other problems above, I would still loathe it just for this point alone.

[samuelpboswell]

B2B Content Marketing Lessons from 2019’s Nerdy Film & TV Franchise Finales

2019 may be remembered as the year we reached peak nerd. When I was growing up in the '80s and '90s, nerd culture was still underground, something for weird kids and weirder adults. Now our biggest entertainment franchises are what used to be nerd stuff: High fantasy, epic science fiction, comic book heroe,s and horror movies.  But 2019 was the year that cracks started to show in even the most lucrative franchises. Several high-profile series came to an end — and only one of them really stuck the landing. Let us take solace in the words of Jedi Master Yoda himself: Marketers can learn a lot from each of the year’s biggest nerdy swan songs.  (All opinions about nerd cinema are mine and not necessarily those of TopRank Marketing. I’m sure some of us loved the "Game of Thrones" finale.)

Content Marketing Lessons from 5 of 2019’s Biggest Film and TV Franchise Finales

#1: Star Wars: Have a Plan and Stay Consistent

The first three "Star Wars" movies told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. The prequel series, for all its faults, did the same. But the final three movies don’t have the same consistency in narrative and purpose. "The Force Awakens" hit the same plot beats as "A New Hope", the 1977 original film. The sequel, "The Last Jedi", threw away the rule book and aimed to surprise and challenge fans. Now the final entry is already being panned for returning to predictable fan service. What happened? Disney didn’t have a plan for the entire trilogy. There was no one keeping the tone consistent across all three movies, no agreed-upon plot points or even an ending in mind. The result: A bumpy ride for the end of a 40-year franchise. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson:  Every encounter with your brand should feel like it’s part of one ongoing story. That means coordinating your content marketing strategy between departments, and within your own team. It also means starting each campaign with a shared vision, shared objectives, and common KPIs across sales and marketing. [bctt tweet="Every encounter with your brand should feel like it’s part of one ongoing story. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#2: Game of Thrones: Respect Your Audience and Don’t Rush It

The "Game of Thrones" series was a cultural phenomenon. It pulled in record numbers for HBO, inspired countless imitators, and was one of the most-watched (and pirated) series of the 2010s. It seemed impossible that the show’s creators could squander that goodwill… Until the final season premiered. Longtime fans found the episode count reduced, the action rushed, and beloved characters reduced to caricatures. The plot seemed driven by an urge to finish up quickly than to provide a satisfactory resolution. Fans were furious, and even casual viewers could tell the difference. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson: Don’t put expedience ahead of experience. If you’re creating content just to fill the editorial calendar or hit a deadline, your audience will sense it. And they’ll move on to content that demonstrates care and understanding, rather than content for content’s sake. [bctt tweet="Don’t put expedience ahead of experience. If you’re creating content just to fill the editorial calendar or hit a deadline, your audience will sense it. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#3: Terminator: Know Your Audience, Don’t Chase Trends

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s "Terminator" franchise was unstoppable — for two blockbuster movies in the late '80s and early '90s.  Entries 3, 4, and 5 brought in steadily diminishing returns.  In 2018, another decades-old franchise, "Halloween", had a massive hit by bringing back the original cast for one more adventure. The "Terminator" series hopped on the trend, with a new installment featuring the original cast. But "Terminator: Dark Fate" bombed, with the lowest box office of the franchise so far.  It turns out, not every beloved franchise from the '80s and '90s has enough audience to support a $200-million new chapter. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson:  Are you producing content that meets a verified audience need? Does it offer the best answer to their most pressing concerns? Or is it just hopping on the next shiny trend, seeking to duplicate another brand’s success? It’s worth asking these hard questions during the planning stages.

#4: X-Men: Evolve to Stay Relevant

Director Bryan Singer invented the modern comic book movie with 2000’s "X-Men". The entire Marvel blueprint is there: Superheroes teaming up to fight seemingly unbeatable foes, wielding amazing powers, and quippy dialog in equal proportion.  Fast-forward 20 years, and "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" closed the franchise with a whimper, both from critics and at the box office. What happened? Well, essentially, the entire Marvel cinematic universe.  Superhero movies evolved dramatically between 2000 and 2019. They got smarter, more engaging, better-acted and scripted, with more coherent, better-directed action sequences. "Dark Phoenix" would have been state-of-the-art in 2000, but it was jarringly unsophisticated to modern audiences. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson: Best practices in marketing evolve faster than mutant DNA. Don’t rely on the same old messages in the same few channels and expect your audience to respond with enthusiasm. Keep your audience research current, explore new ways to connect creatively, and keep track of what’s state-of-the-art. [bctt tweet="Best practices in marketing evolve faster than mutant DNA. Don’t rely on the same old messages in the same few channels and expect your audience to respond with enthusiasm. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#5: Avengers: Practically Perfect in Every Way

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) features 23 movies (at last count) that represent over $20 billion in box office revenue. It's also the most elaborate shared universe that has ever been, with characters from each standalone film crossing over for adventures across the franchise.  "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame" wrapped up the first decade of MCU movies with nearly six hours of interstellar, dimension-hopping, time-twisting action. Both installments were beloved by fans and critics alike. What went right? The filmmakers followed every lesson in this post:

They planned the whole story in advance. 

They kept a consistent look and feel even as individual movies varied in genre and tone. 

They took the time to develop plot lines across movies, without rushing resolution.

They delivered what the audience wanted without aping what other studios were doing.

They evolved over time, picking up lessons in characterization and storytelling and applying them to the final films.

The B2B Content Marketing Lesson: In marketing, as in nerd franchises, there’s no substitute for thoughtful planning. That includes intensive audience research, strategizing and goal-setting, and continuous optimization over time. While your marketing may not have the visceral thrill of, say, Captain America swinging Thor’s hammer, it can still connect with your audience for blockbuster results. [bctt tweet="In marketing, as in nerd franchises, there’s no substitute for thoughtful planning. That includes intensive audience research, strategizing and goal-setting, and continuous optimization over time. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] Ready to rock content marketing in 2020? Check out our Content Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2020.

The post B2B Content Marketing Lessons from 2019’s Nerdy Film & TV Franchise Finales appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2020/01/b2b-content-marketing-lessons-film-tv-finales/

[ralphlayton]

B2B Content Marketing Lessons from 2019’s Nerdy Film & TV Franchise Finales

2019 may be remembered as the year we reached peak nerd. When I was growing up in the '80s and '90s, nerd culture was still underground, something for weird kids and weirder adults. Now our biggest entertainment franchises are what used to be nerd stuff: High fantasy, epic science fiction, comic book heroe,s and horror movies.  But 2019 was the year that cracks started to show in even the most lucrative franchises. Several high-profile series came to an end — and only one of them really stuck the landing. Let us take solace in the words of Jedi Master Yoda himself: Marketers can learn a lot from each of the year’s biggest nerdy swan songs.  (All opinions about nerd cinema are mine and not necessarily those of TopRank Marketing. I’m sure some of us loved the "Game of Thrones" finale.)

Content Marketing Lessons from 5 of 2019’s Biggest Film and TV Franchise Finales

#1: Star Wars: Have a Plan and Stay Consistent

The first three "Star Wars" movies told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. The prequel series, for all its faults, did the same. But the final three movies don’t have the same consistency in narrative and purpose. "The Force Awakens" hit the same plot beats as "A New Hope", the 1977 original film. The sequel, "The Last Jedi", threw away the rule book and aimed to surprise and challenge fans. Now the final entry is already being panned for returning to predictable fan service. What happened? Disney didn’t have a plan for the entire trilogy. There was no one keeping the tone consistent across all three movies, no agreed-upon plot points or even an ending in mind. The result: A bumpy ride for the end of a 40-year franchise. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson:  Every encounter with your brand should feel like it’s part of one ongoing story. That means coordinating your content marketing strategy between departments, and within your own team. It also means starting each campaign with a shared vision, shared objectives, and common KPIs across sales and marketing. [bctt tweet="Every encounter with your brand should feel like it’s part of one ongoing story. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#2: Game of Thrones: Respect Your Audience and Don’t Rush It

The "Game of Thrones" series was a cultural phenomenon. It pulled in record numbers for HBO, inspired countless imitators, and was one of the most-watched (and pirated) series of the 2010s. It seemed impossible that the show’s creators could squander that goodwill… Until the final season premiered. Longtime fans found the episode count reduced, the action rushed, and beloved characters reduced to caricatures. The plot seemed driven by an urge to finish up quickly than to provide a satisfactory resolution. Fans were furious, and even casual viewers could tell the difference. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson: Don’t put expedience ahead of experience. If you’re creating content just to fill the editorial calendar or hit a deadline, your audience will sense it. And they’ll move on to content that demonstrates care and understanding, rather than content for content’s sake. [bctt tweet="Don’t put expedience ahead of experience. If you’re creating content just to fill the editorial calendar or hit a deadline, your audience will sense it. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#3: Terminator: Know Your Audience, Don’t Chase Trends

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s "Terminator" franchise was unstoppable — for two blockbuster movies in the late '80s and early '90s.  Entries 3, 4, and 5 brought in steadily diminishing returns.  In 2018, another decades-old franchise, "Halloween", had a massive hit by bringing back the original cast for one more adventure. The "Terminator" series hopped on the trend, with a new installment featuring the original cast. But "Terminator: Dark Fate" bombed, with the lowest box office of the franchise so far.  It turns out, not every beloved franchise from the '80s and '90s has enough audience to support a $200-million new chapter. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson:  Are you producing content that meets a verified audience need? Does it offer the best answer to their most pressing concerns? Or is it just hopping on the next shiny trend, seeking to duplicate another brand’s success? It’s worth asking these hard questions during the planning stages.

#4: X-Men: Evolve to Stay Relevant

Director Bryan Singer invented the modern comic book movie with 2000’s "X-Men". The entire Marvel blueprint is there: Superheroes teaming up to fight seemingly unbeatable foes, wielding amazing powers, and quippy dialog in equal proportion.  Fast-forward 20 years, and "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" closed the franchise with a whimper, both from critics and at the box office. What happened? Well, essentially, the entire Marvel cinematic universe.  Superhero movies evolved dramatically between 2000 and 2019. They got smarter, more engaging, better-acted and scripted, with more coherent, better-directed action sequences. "Dark Phoenix" would have been state-of-the-art in 2000, but it was jarringly unsophisticated to modern audiences. The B2B Content Marketing Lesson: Best practices in marketing evolve faster than mutant DNA. Don’t rely on the same old messages in the same few channels and expect your audience to respond with enthusiasm. Keep your audience research current, explore new ways to connect creatively, and keep track of what’s state-of-the-art. [bctt tweet="Best practices in marketing evolve faster than mutant DNA. Don’t rely on the same old messages in the same few channels and expect your audience to respond with enthusiasm. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#5: Avengers: Practically Perfect in Every Way

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) features 23 movies (at last count) that represent over $20 billion in box office revenue. It's also the most elaborate shared universe that has ever been, with characters from each standalone film crossing over for adventures across the franchise.  "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame" wrapped up the first decade of MCU movies with nearly six hours of interstellar, dimension-hopping, time-twisting action. Both installments were beloved by fans and critics alike. What went right? The filmmakers followed every lesson in this post:

They planned the whole story in advance. 

They kept a consistent look and feel even as individual movies varied in genre and tone. 

They took the time to develop plot lines across movies, without rushing resolution.

They delivered what the audience wanted without aping what other studios were doing.

They evolved over time, picking up lessons in characterization and storytelling and applying them to the final films.

The B2B Content Marketing Lesson: In marketing, as in nerd franchises, there’s no substitute for thoughtful planning. That includes intensive audience research, strategizing and goal-setting, and continuous optimization over time. While your marketing may not have the visceral thrill of, say, Captain America swinging Thor’s hammer, it can still connect with your audience for blockbuster results. [bctt tweet="In marketing, as in nerd franchises, there’s no substitute for thoughtful planning. That includes intensive audience research, strategizing and goal-setting, and continuous optimization over time. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] Ready to rock content marketing in 2020? Check out our Content Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2020.

The post B2B Content Marketing Lessons from 2019’s Nerdy Film & TV Franchise Finales appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

B2B Content Marketing Lessons from 2019’s Nerdy Film & TV Franchise Finales published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[blairatkinsphotography]

Wedding Photography - Questions To Ask Your Photographer Before You Book

Like any seasoned Professional, Wedding Photographers are no different. We all come with our own individual strengths and weaknesses. Some Photographers will have worked their entire lives in a Studio environment, whereas others will have worked outside of the safe and secure, white washed halls of the Studio. When you begin your search for perhaps one of the most important key players at your Wedding you’ll want a sense of confidence that they have been there before. That this is not your Photographer’s first Rodeo.

As such, I’ve put together my condensed ‘David Letterman’ Top Ten Questions To Ask Your Photographer Before You Book.

What Photography Styles Do They Specialize In? We all seem to be a little bit different. Most if not all Photographers will prefer a Documentary style of shooting. Whereas we will follow you from spot to spot as you move - we move. This is refereed to as “Documentary Photography Styles”. This is the style that I as a Wedding Photographer employs. Other Photographer’s may prefer to set up their equipment and sit at their Station and wait for you for to come to them. Great if your in a Studio, not great for shooting a Wedding. Certainly, not an advisable approach. I prefer to be up close to my Clients but not sitting right under their noses either. We all need room to breath on the Wedding Day.

Is your Photographer experienced? Can they offer you a variation of photography style guidelines? Or is their Photography Style Guild a one style fits all approach?

Will The Photos Be Retouched or Color Balanced Before You See the Finished Images? This is a “Time Management” issue for busy Photographers. Is time management a skill? It sure is as in any Industry. Most active Photographers are constantly on the go from location to location. Professional Photography is a very competitive market in Southern Ontario. But your Photographer should at least be able to provide post production images that have been color balanced and ready for inspection. These images, in such a state are about 80% complete at this point. Now it’s only a matter of the right photo cropping and finishing off your selected images once so chosen.

How Many Weddings Do You Shoot A Year? And What Is Your Favorite Part Of A Wedding Day? This set of questions might just be the most important questions of them all. Portraying the experience and credibility of your Wedding Photographer. However how many Weddings your Wedding Photographer shoots in a year may be something of a deceptive quantitative measurement. Like most Photographers, we are busy year round with not only Wedding Photography but also Portrait Photography, Event Photography and/or Special Occasions Photography. But… and I say but, most Wedding Photographer’s will specialize in their chosen niche.

What is your Photographer’s favorite part of the Wedding Day? For me… it’s the First Dance of the newly minted Bride and Groom. Couple this First Dance with your choice of your favorite Weddings songs will have your favorite Shutter Bug jumping to keep up. This segment is pure magic. It’s the tears, the pomp and the pageantry of the Wedding Day. The stress of the morning Wedding is now long behind you and as a Couple your now celebrating all of your hard work that led up to your long awaited day of days.

Do You Shoot Both Digital And Film? If You Shoot Film, Do You Shoot Both Color And Black And White? Although Film Photography is still out there and preferred by an older generation of Photographers it is by and far long gone. The death of the Film Photography Industry was by and far put to bed with the shut down of the Kodak Eastman Factory here in Toronto in the late 2012 area. Today, Digital Photography is primarily the chosen means or avenue by which most Photographer’s work these days. Although Film Photography is still around and practiced, it is by far too cost prohibitive and time consuming. With today’s high end digital SLR’s producing superior and consistent results over the course of a long Wedding Day shoot. And as such an entire Industry has sprung up in the Toronto marketplace with digital photography classes, digital photography schools and digital photography online courses that an avid Photographer both novice and/or experienced can embrace to better their craft. And yes… digital photography can produce beautiful black and white images. So much so that there is a niche market of seasoned Photographers who only work and shoot in a black and white color space for their clients.

What Is Exactly Included In Your Packages? How Many Hours Does It Cover? How Many Images Do You Shoot? What Is The Deposit And Total Fee? Now this is a big one. And I want all of you (Brides and Grooms) to do your research before even picking up that Samsung or Apple Smartphone the first time. Take a Month or better to find out what the local marketplace offers in your area. There is such a VAST array of photography packages out there that you have to do your homework. Google such keyword terms like “Photography packages for weddings”, “Wedding photography prices and packages” and “Photography packages wedding”, that you’ll get a whole lot of information thrown at you rather quickly. If you’ve been planning just a smaller or “Intimate Wedding,” Google “Elopement Photography” or “Elopement Photography Packages” or “Elopement Wedding Photographer” or last but not least “Elopement Photographer Near Me.” These smaller wedding packages are intended for smaller groups or weddings and can literally save you thousands of dollars if you just want a smaller more intimate service on your day.

How many hours does your Package cover? And how many images will you shoot? Two big questions rolled into one! A great deal of your hard earned money will be sunk into this equation. If you don’t ask any of the other preceding questions, please ask this one. Ask how many hours does your package support? High end Photographers may be inclined to sell high and provide less. Whereas less experienced Photographers will sell low and produce high. Including throwing in the kitchen sink to add some meat and potatoes to their packages. It should be a good blend or mix in both respects.

The Deposit Fee. If your on a tight budget, which most if not all of my Customers past and present have been do ask this one. The Deposit fee can almost be considered on a percentage structure. At Blair Atkins Photography, I’ve had great success and saved my Clients as great deal of financial stress by structuring my Wedding Photography package fees into three tiers or rounds. The Initial Deposit fee - the first of three payments being requested at the time of the Booking. This locks in your day and makes sure nobody steals me away from you once you’ve decided I’m the right fit for you and your family. The second third being requested no later then the given Wedding Day. And the finale third being requested once I deliver the finished product or products to you. The Albums, the prints, the frames. I’ve found that this measurement of thirds has helped out all of my Wedding Photography customers in the past. The Good Lord above knows that your burning through money when your planning your Wedding day services.

Will You Be My Actual Photographer Or Will It Be One Of Your Associates? For the sake of brevity, this will be the last in depth question that I will answer in this article. But perhaps it may be one of the most important questions that I will answer!

100% yes. I am your Photographer. It wouldn’t make sense any other way. After all, you’ve been diligent and done your homework. You’ve spent countless hours on other Photographer’s websites. You’ve studied their work; their image styles. You’ve looked at their packages and prices and I’ve been blessed that you’ve come back to me as your chosen Wedding Photographer. So would I ever disappoint my Customers and Clients on their Wedding Day and send in some unannounced back up guy…. Heck no! We’re a team now. We’er doing your day of days together as a Team from start to finish!

Do I Have An Assistant? Sure do…. The one and only Manny Tavares. This Gentleman is attached to my hip from start to finish while we work. Not only endued with a unique sense of Customer Service skills but also fully appreciative of your Wedding day’s tight timeline , Manny helps to keep me organized and on top of things and organized during your day. Just be sure not to ask him if his Portuguese FC Team lost their last match. He might get a little ‘feisty.’ :)

Provided above is what I believe to be the most commonly asked questions that my Customers have posed. But having said as much there is an endless number of other questions that you may wish to ask of your Wedding Photographer. These I shall list below. In closing, please feel free to ask me anything and everyone before signing off on my Wedding Contract or Wedding Photographer Contract.

Additional Wedding Photography Questions You May Wish To Ask…

Do you have any backup photographers who will shoot our Wedding if your sick?

How long does it take after the Wedding to see our photos?

How do you co-ordinate with the Videographer?

How many Weddings do you do on a Weekend?

Have you ever shot at my Venue(s) before?

Will you follow a shot list or can I request additional ‘Special Request’ images?

What type of paper do you use to finish my prints and albums?

Do you bring your own lighting?

What will you wear to my Wedding and Reception?

[onebigfinemess]

How to drive people to your website

Experts Share the Most Effective SEO Tips to Drive Web Traffic to Your Website [Specialist Summary]

If you have a website, the idea is for people to visit it. A site s website traffic shows just how well a business is doing online. It is also a sign of client habits, as well as will assist you formulate an advertising approach that will get you a better position in the internet search engine results.  The basic idea of SEO optimization is obtaining extra web traffic to the web site. But with 1.24 billion web sites in the world, just how do you make certain that your web site gets great website traffic?  Right here are my top seven SEO tips that will certainly assist drive web traffic to your site:  

7 Search Engine Optimization Tips to Drive Web Traffic

 Keywords: In most searches, a minimum of 50% of people use 4 words or more. This indicates that simply keyword phrases are not important. You need long-tail keywords that specify to the search.  When it pertains to broad keywords, there is difficult competition around which means that you need to supply something more to stand apart amongst the crowd. A long-tail keyword phrase is essential so that individuals obtain particular outcomes for what they are looking for.  Top Quality Material: In this competitive world, there are lots of people that create on the exact same subject. What should you do different to obtain noted at the top of the search listings? The response is composing good, well-researched material.  The material on your website must likewise vary to avoid any internal competition amongst websites for online search engine listings. You need to organize your internet site in manner in which when individuals search for something certain, all associated details is conveniently available. Also ensure that your material is consistently upgraded as online search engine routinely check for updates to supply the best outcome to its individuals. Writing good content can increase up your website traffic as well as eventually influences your SEO.  Meta Description and also Title Tags: Title tags are similar to a book title. This is the clickable link that shows up on search engine result pages. If we take Google s example, an optimal title tag must be much less than 60 characters.  A meta description is what shows up listed below the title in online search engine results. This is what produces the impression on a user, and believe me, impressions issue. If you have a great and concise meta summary, there s a better possibility of people visiting your websites and additionally great for Search Engine Optimization.  Maximize Images: Pictures are what add shade to a websites and also make it less dull. I can t even think about a websites with pictures. For a much better online search engine listing, see to it that you maximize the pictures by adding summaries, alt tags, as well as titles. Its useful for your site SEO initiatives.  An online search engine can t determine a picture s web content. It is the text with a picture that helps them rate just how pertinent a web page is. For this, utilize initial, efficiently sized, high quality pictures.  Backlinks: For a search engine, backlinks are an endorsement of a site. A guest blog on another site that connects back to yours will drive web traffic to your web site.  Getting a listing in on the internet directories will certainly also drive traffic to your site. The description of your service in a e-directory will have a web link to your web site. See to it you constantly update your info in these directories to produce traffic and raise your SEO position.  SSL Certificates: For an internet search engine, an SSL accreditation is essential. What an SSL certificate essentially does is it transforms your site s http:// to https:// that makes it much more credible as well as secured. If you desire an internet search engine to trust you, a SSL certification is a must.  Mobile Kindness: According to Google, there are much more mobile searches than on desktop computers in 10 nations including Japan and also the United States. In order to profit from this growing trend, your web site requires to be mobile friendly.   Naturally, other than these fundamental SEO tips, there are lots of various other manner ins which Search Engine Optimization can help drive web traffic to your website. Below, 91 Search Engine Optimization experts share their finest Search Engine Optimization tips for traffic generation.

Barry Schwartz - Search Engine Roundtable

Construct something that Google would be humiliated not to place well in their online search engine.

Phil Rozek - Regional Presence System, LLC

The develop excellent content and also earn great links recommendations has been covered enough for now, consisting of by me. So my finest item of less-obvious Search Engine Optimization advice is: either specialize in a slim specific niche, or begin supplying a truly obscure service (or item or widget). The weirder as well as more specific niche, the better.  If you re the only service provider, or only local one, or the very first one, you can pick up some easy positions, traffic that includes individuals with a particular as well as instant need, as well as in some cases even a couple of simple web links. Likewise, some people will come for the unusual little service as well as remain for the more-mainstream service( s) you provide?? for which your positions as well as exposure perhaps aren t so excellent. Go a little off the beaten track.

Anna Lebedeva - SEMrush

Search Engine Optimization is an ever-changing principle. So to speak about seo, you truly have to see what s happening with Google and its formulas. If we utilized to discuss keyword phrases, alt tags, URL structure as well as link-building?? I put on t want to be misleading, these things do still issue, a great deal?? content is now obtaining miraculous importance.  Material is king, we ve all heard it. Yet, material utilized to be vital since it was the method to put the right key words, to obtain backlinks and so on. Yet, currently when Google is all about search intent as well as bringing the most appropriate web pages before the individual, material comes to be progressively vital to obtaining website traffic.  Besides, where does website traffic originate from? From customers discovering your material in less time than your rival s material. And that s when you need to optimize for # 1 or absolutely no placement. As well as you only get there if your material satisfies individual s intent. That s exactly how it works. That s actually the end point of all SEO tips, strategies as well as tactics.  So, I d state, instead of utilizing tips and also mere methods to optimize for online search engine, attempt to really get into the individual s head. What does he imply by inputting in elegant dining establishment for Valentine s Day. And also ensure your web content addresses his/her demands. People put on t requirement material for the sake of material, or for key phrases, or for back links, they require it for answers?? any kind of search inquiry is generally a question, also without the question words, so your actual work is to address that concern.  So, the most effective SEO suggestion is a fundamental material optimization to respond to the concerns your users have, and for that, you truly need to understand your audience and also expect any type of concerns they need answers for. It s like a great old focus team strategy utilized in conventional advertising?? prior to producing the end item, substantial business invest in purchaser perspectives as well as the requirements they need to be covered.  Hence, besides simple keyword/backlink research study as well as on-site optimization, concentrate on locating the concerns your prospective customers need responses for. At SEMrush, we tried to welcome this fad by introducing rather a distinct function for the SEO/content market?? we developed a tool that actually researches the most popular responses for the specific topic you are creating a piece of content on.

John Rampton - Schedule

It s important to enter the minds of your target audience by recognizing search intent. By recognizing why they looking and also exactly how they may search with that intent in mind, it assists raise the results of your keyword research and option which will eventually improve your seo ranking. There are informative searches, navigational searches, and also acquisition searches. Each can have their very own key phrases in mind while likewise sharing various other keyword phrases. Do this right and also you ll get the kind of traffic that transforms.

Andy Crestodina - Orbit Media Studios

Suggest significance. This is one of the most vital, most effective Search Engine Optimization strategy or pointers there is. If you anticipate to rank for an expression, you require to use that expression in the title, the header and the body text. It seems obvious, yet it isn t. Go back to any page that isn t ranking where you really hoped and also give it the Control + F Test. Simply utilizing the find feature of your web browser will reveal you if it s optimized or otherwise.    Bear in mind that although the expression might have shown up in web links, these put on t matter when you re suggesting significance for this web page. Hyperlinks suggest the significance of the web page they connect to, not the web page they re on. So utilize the phrase in the body text right here as well as in links there!