#the reason the images are of inconsistent size is because i start with a traditional sketch

[rizardofether]

I've been drawing headshots of my GW2 characters for a while now. Got a little burned out though so posting all the ones I've done so far and take a break. Don't worry about the inconsistent sizes..

[tigerkirby215]

5e Skree, the Mechanical Shaman build (Awesomenauts)

(Artwork from the Microsoft Store.)

Reject modernity; embrace indie.

Basically screw you my birthday is on the 28th (🥳) so I wanted to do a build for one of my favorite games of all time. And it was basically either Awesomenauts, an Atlas Reactor build (for a game that’s essentially dead btw check out Atlas Rogues it’s great and I love it), or like... an XCOM build? Unless I wanted to make a Killing Floor character build instead. (Also a possibility.)

Oh also: the game is free, so if you want a new MOBA to try out I highly recommend it. It may not be as popular as it was in its hayday and it may be dated, but the characters and gameplay are still top-notch.

As for why Skree? I had a few mains in Awesomenauts and Skree was my... second most played character. My most played was Chucho but believe it or not Chucho is simultaneously too easy and too difficult to make a build for. Like getting a turret and sticky bombs is easy (Artificer lol) but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to get him to ride Ramona. So you get Skree because he’s easier to make. Also because I get to stick every spell with the word “wall” into this build which is fun.

GOALS

I ascend, inta' da 'eaven! - Awesomenauts isn’t your standard top-down MOBA, which means we’ll need to be able to hover for some advanced movement in a platform fighter!

Uhhh... Dat make a big mess - Skree’s a master of continuous damage, with a lightning wand that will bounce to nearby targets... oh and a giant sawblade.

Dey is after me lucky shrines! - Not a day goes by that you shouldn’t pray to your lord. So set down a massive wall to block your foes!

RACE

The great thing about Awesomenauts (as opposed to League) is that since everyone’s an alien I can choose just about any race I want within reason. The downside of this is that it makes choosing races really hard. There’s only one trait that’s well defined about Skree and it is this: he is small.

So how about we powergame like an asshole? Tasha’s has made Mountain Dwarf one of the strongest races in the game for a number of reasons! You can get a +2 in two ability scores of your choice: Charisma and Intelligence will both be key in this build, so increase both of those to start out. You also get Dwarven Combat Training but seeing as we’ll be using magic a lot more than weapons I opted to take Origin Proficiencies instead: this means you’ll get a ton of different tool proficiencies, on top of Mason’s Tools from Dwarven Tool Proficiency. I’m not going to tell you every tool to take (because my god you get 5 total) but I’d recommend Drums and Carpenter’s Tools as those are some of Skree’s upgrades in Awesomenauts.

Of course on top of all of that you have Dwarven Resilience for advantage against poisons and resistance to poison damage, and Stonecunning for expertise on History checks related to shrines! (Or other stonework.) And finally as a Mountain Dwarf you get Dwarven Armor Training, for Light and Medium armor proficiency!

ABILITY SCORES

15; INTELLIGENCE - Even if Skree doesn’t make it known he built all his tools and weapons out of the scrapped Starstorm station. Accidental genius of turning the entire station on is still genius.

14; DEXTERITY - Skree is known for flying around constantly in a game where you constantly have to move to dodge attacks. Also “something something Medium Armor” from our race.

13; CHARISMA - Weazel’s a good voice actor, and even if Skree is a little... stoned out of his mind he’s still got the lovable 80s cartoon personality that Awesomenauts is famous for.

12; WISDOM - You mostly work with machines and a lot of the Awesomenauts are machines, but you still need Wisdom to read that Book of Medicine or to convince a Skroggle to let you harvest their weedlings.

10; CONSTITUTION - Skree is hardly a tank, focusing on backline damage dealing with magic.

8; STRENGTH - See above. Even if you’re fighting with heavy metal it does all the fighting for you.

BACKGROUND

Religion is still religion, even if it’s not accepted universe-wide. The Acolyte background will let you do whatever crazy ritualistic shaman stuff you wish (within reason.) You get proficiency in Insight and Religion as well as two languages of your choice: there’s tons of languages in the universe so pick whichever ones you think will help you communicate with your allies!

Your feature Shelter of the Faithful will let you find others who believe in the god of the machines. (You should probably pick a god from your DM’s setting instead of just worshiping robots.) You and your party can receive service from others in your faith, and you can lead ceremonies in honor of the mechanical gods!

(Artwork by Katonator on DeviantArt.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - WIZARD 1

Starting off this build as a Wizard because if there’s one thing I am it’s inconsistent, so of course I’m starting the “easy fun build for my birthday” with one of my least favorite classes to build. But the main reason for the Wizard starting level is to get access to the Medicine skill thanks to your Book of Medicine, as well as the Arcana skill because you understand the spirit in the machines.

Regardless Wizards get access to spellcasting at level 1. You learn 3 cantrips and 6 spells from the Wizard list:

CANTRIPS

For a close-ranged zapping wand Shocking Grasp will let you taser your foes to keep them away.

Mage Hand will let you make sure that you aren’t losing any solar pickups.

If you need to hide in a bush Minor Illusion can make a bush to hide in. Consider it a tiny totem!

SPELLS

You fly around on a floating disk but unfortunately Tenser’s Floating Disk won’t let you do that. It will give you an easy way to carry either loot or your tools around, however.

To launch either a sawblade or some scrap at your foes Catapult will give you the option to do so!

For some damage overtime look no further than Tasha’s Caustic Brew to cover your foes in acidic Skroggle spit that will Gnaw away at them!

Knockback is a big thing in Awesomenauts; if you need some space then use Thunderwave!

People don’t really like blinds in ‘nauts but Color Spray is still useful if you’re in a pinch.

Silent Image will let you make a bigger illusion, such as a large totem that your enemies will hesitate to run past. It won’t be solid yet but it’s a good place to start with wall creation.

You also get Arcane Recovery, letting you recover spell slots equal to half your Wizard level. The exact details of how this works are detailed in the ability’s description so read that for more details.

LEVEL 2 - WIZARD 2

Second level Wizards can choose their Arcane Tradition and when in space gravity... is a harness. We’ll be going for the Graviturgy subclass from Wildemount to harness that harness! As a Graviturgy Wizard you can Adjust Density of objects (and creatures!) as long as they’re size Large or smaller. You can make an object either twice as heavy or half as heavy: when a creature is twice as heavy they move 10 feet slower and can’t jump as far but have advantage on Strength checks and saving throws, and the opposite is true if they’re light: 10 feet faster and greater jumps but they’ll have a tough time when it comes to Strength. Using this feature does require Concentration however, and will only last for a minute if you manage to concentrate on it for the full duration.

Yeesh that’s a mouthful to say “you can make things light or heavy.” How about some more spells then? The dunamancy Wizards unlock new spells based on their school, so we should probably grab Magnify Gravity since it’s a subclass-specific spell. You should also probably grab Shield seeing as I didn’t give you any ranged cantrips yet. Oops?

LEVEL 3 - WIZARD 3

Third level Wizards can learn second level spells like Misty Step for Fla... right Flash is a League thing... Well you can also grab Flaming Sphere to finally have a “sawblade” that you can move around! Be careful not to hit your allies though!

LEVEL 4 - WIZARD 4

4th level gives us our first Ability Score Improvement: you may notice that we have two uneven Ability Scores, so increase both your Charisma and your Intelligence by 1 to round those numbers up!

You can also learn another cantrip along with two more spells! For your cantrip Sapping Sting is a dunamancy-specific cantrip that can make you trip! It does very little damage but it knocks people prone, finally giving you a ranged damage option! As for leveled spells Levitate is a good way to start making yourself (or others) hover around, and Immovable Object will allow you to turn a nearby object into an unmovable totem to block your foes!

LEVEL 5 - WARLOCK 1

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(Video by denkles on TikTok. Twitter link.)

What? Did you really not expect it? Warlocks get to choose their subclass at level 1 and to zap with some Magic Sunballs go for none other than The Genie patron. There’s four different Genie Kind you can choose from, which will alter your powers in various ways. Since you’re zapping people go for Djinni, because Thunder damage is the closest we can get to Lightning.

Regardless you get two benefits at level 1 thanks to your Genie’s Vessel. Firstly you carry around a container of some sort that’s meant to contain your patron; I don’t think saying that they’re contained within a little gem atop your staff is too out of the question. Regardless Bottled Respite will let you teleport into your vessel as an action. The inside of the Drop Pod is cozy, if admittedly a little tight. While inside, you can hear the area around your vessel as if you were in its space.

You can remain inside the vessel up to a number of hours equal to twice your proficiency bonus. You exit the vessel early if you use a bonus action to leave, if you die, or if the vessel is destroyed. When you exit the vessel, you appear in the unoccupied space closest to it. Any objects left in the vessel remain there until carried out, and if the vessel is destroyed, every object stored there harmlessly appears in the unoccupied spaces closest to the vessel’s former space. The vessel’s AC equals your spell save DC, and its hit points are equal your warlock level plus your proficiency bonus. Do note that you can only enter the vessel once per Long Rest, even if you only go inside for a few minutes to buy Space Air Max and some Power Pills.

The more important benefit however is Genie’s Wrath. Once on each of your turns when you hit with an attack roll, you can deal extra damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus. Since you have a Djinni patron the damage type is Thunder.

Speaking of attack rolls: Warlocks get access to Pact Magic! Eldritch Blast is an Eldritch Blast which lets you roll an attack roll for a blast of Eldritch. Since it can hit multiple targets at higher levels you can consider this your lightning bouncing between targets. For a close-range Sawblade Sword Burst will slice up anyone near you, but it isn’t an attack roll so do note that Shocking Grasp will be able to benefit from Genie’s Wrath, even though it’s a Wizard spell.

As for leveled spells Hex is a good way to amp up the damage, and Distort Value from Acquisitions Incorporated can be a good way to get a bit of solar off your next purchase.

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations like Agonizing Blast to agonize your blasts. You can also get Eldritch Mind because hey we’re multiclassing two spellcasters so advantage on Concentration would be nice; thank you Tasha!

You can also learn another spell like Protection from Evil and Good, because you are still a priest (well, Shaman) who needs to ward off dark spirits.

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks get to choose their Pact Boon and honestly... the only one that makes sense is Pact of the Tome for even more freaking cantrips. To start off Sacred Flame will attack your foes with the light of God, even if they’re hiding behind their turret. Thaumaturgy will let you spook some folk with thunder and lightning as you praise the spirits. And channeling good vibes with Guidance is always helpful.

You can also learn second level spells like Phantasmal Force from the Genie Warlock list, for a totem that only one foe can see. But for that one enemy they’ll believe it to be real!

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 4

Level 4 earns you another Ability Score Improvement. Seeing as we’re doing Warlock stuff more Charisma would help.

But even without Charisma you can still cast spells like Mirror Image to keep yourself safe. And you can also cast Prestidigitation for more small magic tricks. "I and I is gonna find ya man!"

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks can learn another invocation. Sitting around in base to chat isn’t a good idea, but you can chat with your allies regardless of where they are thanks to Far Scribe. You can write names in your Book of Shadows, and write messages to those people through Steam Chat to cast Sending on them!

You can also pick up third level spells and we’ll be getting the first of many walls with Wind Wall from the Djinni list to block projectiles!

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 6

As a 6th level Genie Warlock you can finally fly! Elemental Gift will let you activate flight for 10 minutes as a Bonus Action. You can fly up to 30 feet and can activate this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. Oh and you get to resist Thunder damage, which is always nice.

You can also learn more spells: to perform more Shamanistic duties Remove Curse will let your friends help themselves.

(Sun Wukong Skree artwork owned by Ronimo Games.)

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 7

7th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation but there honestly isn’t much I want from the 7th level. We’re probably going to swap this out later but for now take Undying Servitude to Animate Dead. Who doesn’t love having a couple of zombies?

But are you sick of your teammates never being around to help you? Then make your own! Summon Aberration will let you summon either Nibbs (Slaad), Max Focus (Beholderkin), or Snork Gunk (Star Spawn) to help you! They’ll stick around as long as you keep your concentration, and have a variety of abilities that you can read in the spell’s description. Just remember that money makes the world go around, and mercenaries don’t fight without being paid in Solar first. (What I mean is you need a 400 gold component.)

LEVEL 12 - WARLOCK 8

Level 8 will get you another Ability Score Improvement, so you should max out that Charisma since the majority of your levels are in Warlock! There actually isn’t much I want from the Warlock spell list anymore, so for now you’ll have to wait until...

LEVEL 13 - WARLOCK 9

Hey would it be redundant to get a 20 foot fly speed when we already have a 30 foot fly speed? Well Ascendant Step lets you cast Levitate on yourself at will. While this can be used an unlimited amount of times it does also require your Concentration, so be mindful of that. I’d also suggest replacing Undying Servitude with Otherworldly Leap, because jumping is easy in low gravity! (Unless you’re on AI 404.)

You can also learn 5th level spells like Creation to make an actual real totem! Though it’ll only be 5 feet tall... You can also pickup Seeming from the Djinni list. Skins for everyone! "Shopping Skree!"

LEVEL 14 - WARLOCK 10

10th level Genie Warlocks can send everyone to the shop in their Sanctuary Vessel. When you use Bottled Respite you can now choose up to five willing creatures that you can see within 30 feet of you, and the chosen creatures are drawn into the vessel with you.

Anyone (including yourself) who remains within the vessel for at least 10 minutes gains the benefit of finishing a short rest, and can add your proficiency bonus to the number of hit points they regain if they spend any Hit Dice as part of a short rest there. You can eject any number of creatures from the vessel as a bonus action, and everyone is ejected if you leave or die or if the vessel is destroyed. 

Did you want more spells as well? Too bad; you get the Mind Sliver cantrip. What do you mean we have too many cantrips?

(Skree Announcer artwork owned by Ronimo Games.)

LEVEL 15 - WIZARD 5

Finally hopping back to Wizard to maybe use that Intelligence modifier of yours. 5th level class means third level spell slots, and third level spells in your book! Part of the reason we got rid of Undying Servitude is because you can just get Animate Dead from the Wizard spell list. Other than that I did say I’d grab every spell with “wall” in the title so go take Wall of Sand! People can walk through it, but it blocks vision!

LEVEL 16 - WIZARD 6

6th level Graviturgy Wizards can grab some Pills for the Mind and apply some slows. (Or well, technically knockback.) Gravity Well will cause anyone you affect with a spell to be moved 5 feet wherever you wish! Sure it doesn’t sound that impressive, but this does affect your Warlock spells too!

Speaking of spells: ha ha wall spells go brrrr. Wall of Water is, as the name implies, a wall of water! It slows projectiles, stops fire, and can be frozen solid! If you want to play more with knockback however Pulse Wave is a Dunamancy spell that can either knock enemies away from you or pull them closer!

LEVEL 17 - WIZARD 7

7th level Wizards can get some 4th level spells but I’m going to quickly grab Slow from the third level for a Voodoo Doll... or an Alien Hula Girl. And of course I’m going to take Wall of Fire because... wall.

LEVEL 18 - WIZARD 8

8th level Wizards can get another Ability Score Improvement which means finally you can max out your Intelligence modifier! This means you can prepare more spells like Gravity Sinkhole from the Dunamancy list for a deadly “sawblade” with the pull of a phone booth, and Dimension Door for a quick escape back to base!

LEVEL 19 - WIZARD 9

Hey look at that more spells! 5th level spells too like Wall of Stone and Wall of Force, both of which will be quite a challenge for enemies to get past!

LEVEL 20 - WIZARD 10

Our final level is the 10th level of Graviturgy Wizard for a few things. Firstly your Adjust Density ability from level 2 can now affect Huge objects and creatures, but more importantly you now have Violent Attraction. When another creature you can see in 60 feet hits with a weapon, you can use your reaction to amplify the damage to do an extra 1d10! Alternatively, if someone falls you can actually enable fall damage and make them take 2d10.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Is this a little weak for a capstone? Maybe, but what we’re really here for are spells! You can learn your final two spells... and one more cantrip! So why not grab Mold Earth, for a tiny totem you can spring from the ground at any time. For leveled spells we’ll be grabbing our last wall: Wall of Light... and the other spell with “wall” in its name: Passwall!

There are other spells at 5th level that are probably stronger but I’m sure you can spend some time consulting the spirits to let you learn more spells... as long as you’ve got the Solar for it.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Ah, it be time to get Jammin - Do you like having a lot of options? Well with tons of spells you can prepare, plenty of options for movement and utility, and 12 different cantrips you won’t ever be lacking in an option for any situation.

I want to kill you, everyday and every night - You are easily the king of Short Rests. Warlock slots and Arcane Recovery can allow you to get a lot of your magic back whenever you see fit, so you can adjust your magic as needed.

Dat be epic wit da Capital Epic - You’re sturdier than the average spellcaster too. Good saves for all 3 mental saves and good AC thanks to being a Dwarf.

CONS

I don't remember dat being part of the Metal! - You’ve got a rather silly amount of Concentration spells, notably with some at-will abilities like Guidance and Levitate. Options are nice and all but you can only have one wall up at a time.

Dem play a card on me! - Speaking of walls: we took at lot of spells (especially at 5th level) that were more for flavor than actual practicality. Sure you can pick up new Wizard spells as you adventure along but... Look I’m not saying I’d prefer to cast Haste over Wall of Sand; just that Wall of Sand isn’t exactly an impressive spell.

Weakless fools, why ya makin me do everyting alone? - Half your levels being in Wizard plus a 0 Constitution modifier means your health is likely somewhere around 100. One-shots are cheap and Power Word Kill isn’t fun, so maybe buy some Power Pills Turbo before heading out.

But you can bring a great deal of mechanical magic to any adventuring party or band of mercenaries. Consult the spirits and let your foes see the voodoo you do! Put up walls to protect your friends as you cut through your enemies; if battle is what you need, you’d best see da Skree! And happy (soon to be) birthday to me!

(Skreelator promotional artwork from the Microsoft Store. Artwork owned by Ronimo Games.)

[ladililn]

What Rogue One taught me about the Jedi, despite no Jedi actually appearing in it

So I initially started writing this for @rogueoneanniversary last year, and then Real Life happened and I disappeared from Tumblr and then Tumblr disappeared from me and now here we are, a full standard year later, and guess who still has (now very belated) Thoughts she wants to share? This girl! Because guess who still hasn’t gotten over this movie? This me! (Not sure whether @celebraterogueone is the correct place for this now?)

The first time I saw Rogue One, I completely missed the fallen colossus in the sands of Jedha. I just thought it was an overhead shot of some weirdly-shaped mountain. The second time, it took a moment for my brain to register and make sense of the image, and then I wondered how I'd ever missed it.

This one object, one blink-and-you-miss-it set piece, tells us so much about Jedha and the "ancient religion" of the Jedi and themes that run through the entire saga and even, I think, characters who aren't even in Rogue One (there's a reason the fallen Jedi statue looks exactly like Old Ben). It immediately calls to mind Shelley’s Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land 

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 

Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand, 

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies[…]

[…]Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

To return for a moment to Admiral Motti’s “ancient religion” line in ANH—I’ve seen people point that out as a plot hole, or at least an early inconsistency, given that the Prequels show the Jedi faith alive and well a mere nineteen years earlier, which doesn’t seem very ancient. I find that charge specious for several reasons—first of all, “ancient” doesn’t mean “dead." I think you could easily and accurately refer to Judaism or Christianity as “ancient religions,” and both of those are alive and well now. The religion began a long, long time ago; thus it is “ancient.” I’d also argue that we hardly needed the Prequels to belie the idea that the Jedi Order was beyond human memory. We know in ANH that Obi-Wan used to be a Jedi Knight, and although Alec Guinness looked (and was) older than Obi-Wan’s actual age, there was nothing in that movie or the other two OT movies to indicate human lifespans differ significantly in the GFFA.

Still, I see the disconnect. On the one hand, we have a not-that-ancient man who was once one of the “guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.” On the other, you have Luke, who’s never even heard of the Jedi, and Han, who doesn’t believe in the Force. Again, some see these as errors, considering Han was already ten when the Republic fell, meaning the Jedi were still getting up to their incredible and well-documented feats when he should’ve been old enough to be aware and remember.

Explanations for this seeming disconnect can be found across the franchise, and they boil down to two main points: the Jedi’s (relative) lack of reach throughout the galaxy, and Order 66. 

Here’s a fun figure: how many Jedi were there in the galaxy before Order 66? 10,000. Ten fucking thousand. That’s a ridiculously tiny number. A laughably tiny number. A Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale number. An entire galaxy, all those planets and star systems, billions and billions (trillions? quadrillions?) of sentient beings, and you could name every single Jedi in a few hours. Put them all in the smallest NFL stadium, and they couldn’t even fill half the seats. 

Sometimes I find the Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale-ness of the GFFA frustrating (although IMO the “why is this galaxy filled with the same 10 people?!” complaints fans like to toss around ignores the history of the mythic storytelling tradition Star Wars is very much a part of and how the franchise fits into/plays with those genre conventions, but that’s a rant for another day). But in this case, I fucking love how ridiculous a number 10,000 is. I think it’s perfect. Our view of the Jedi’s relative size and stature in the galaxy is warped by the lens through which we see the galaxy; up until Rogue One, we’re pretty much just hanging out with Jedi. Not only that—in the Prequels and TCW, we’re hanging out with the best of the best, the council members and the freaking Chosen One. They’re the elite among the elite. The 1% of the 1%, only more like the .001% of the .0000000000000001%.

There’s an excerpt from the Rogue One novelization that I think illustrates my point perfectly. This comes from a section of the book that’s meant to be “supplemental data [from the] personal files of Mon Mothma,” a document entitled “Short Notes on the History of the Rebel Alliance Navy” (side note: how much do I love in-universe archival material? a whole fucking lot) (all emphasis mine):

What worked in the Clone Wars cannot work again: the partnership of Jedi Knights and Kaminoan clone armies constituted a peerless weapon that no longer exists. 

Consider a brigade of clone troopers served by a Jedi commander: Such a unit might penetrate a world’s orbital defenses and seize control of the entire planet while taking (and inflicting!) minimal casualties… [W]hat blockade could be thorough enough to keep out a handful of determined star fighters and a single clone drop ship? 

...With the Clone Wars’ end, the destruction of the Jedi Order, and the decommissioning of the Kaminoan cloning facilities, the self-proclaimed Emperor and his military advisers determined that the future of warfare was in large-scale naval weaponry—in a fleet of battleships and battle stations that could atomize any enemy, whether on a planet’s surface or among the stars. They rebuilt a military not for precision strikes but for hammerblows… No potential rebellion could dare eschew infantry altogether, but—lacking the elite support of the Jedi or clones—the cost in lives would be abominable…

From an in-universe perspective, the Jedi are OP as shit. Guys, these are a tiny handful of beings with the ability to move shit with their minds! They can run and leap insane distances at inhuman (yeah, I know that’s an impossible term in the context of a galaxy filled with humans and aliens, but you know what I mean) speeds, they can move in ways other people could never imagine, they have the sort of reflexes that allow Anakin to participate in a sport other members of his species, the most populous in the galaxy by far, physically cannot. They can manipulate the environment around them telekinetically. They can manipulate people telepathically. Their weapons can cut through anything. It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: they are literal space wizards. I know this is all obvious, but think about it from the perspective of your average galactic citizen: here is a microscopically tiny group of people who can literally do magic.

Why are there so few of them? Well, the Force moves in mysterious ways. But also, there don’t really need to be more. Talk about casting an outsized shadow: 10,000 people holding the entire galaxy together. Like Mon Mothma says, one Jedi (and their handful of trusty clone troopers) = an entire fucking battle station in terms of military power. And with the Sith so long in hiding (side note: the Rule of Two makes the Order look positively overpopulated), the Jedi have had no real opponent of their own stature and ability level to contend with for a long, long time. (We see, especially in TCW, how difficult it is for a non-Force user to be made into a credible threat for the Jedi in any circumstances. Those plotlines almost always require characters to be nerfed, either by having to hide their powers (because undercover), being restrained by the Code and not wanting to harm civilians (a Jedi’s primary weapon—though obviously not their only weapon—is hard to make nonlethal, or at least non-maiming), or conveniently forgetting most of their powers.)

Now, it could be argued that there do “need” to be more, because are they actually doing such a great job guarding peace and justice? Are they successfully holding the galaxy together? Even before the Clone Wars, we see in TPM that their power doesn’t extend all the way into the far reaches of the galaxy. Of course, you could also argue that the lawlessness of the Outer Rim has less to do with the Jedi’s inability, in terms of sheer forcible (sorry) power, to do anything about it, and more to do with the politics of the Republic, and you could be right. But that’s part of the point. The Jedi are enforcers of peace, not rulers. They’re not supposed to be making decisions on galactic policy. (That “supposed to” is key, but again: a story for another day.)

So my point is: sure, on Coruscant in the year 20 BBY, you’re not going to have anyone blinking and saying “Jedi who?” It’s a Core World—the Core World—and most of the characters we’re familiar with in the Prequel Era are by necessity among the upper echelons of galactic society, or at least moving in circles that bring them into contact with the upper echelons. High-ranking politicians, rulers of various worlds, heads of planetary militia—people who have reason to be interacting with the Jedi. (Even the criminals they interact with are top-level, crime bosses and legendary bounty hunters. You’re not going to call a Jedi to arrest a petty thief.)

99.999% of the galaxy’s citizens have never seen a Jedi in person. (We’re going to leave beside the issue of the media in the GFFA, because that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of, uh, mynocks?) The farther you get from Coruscant, the farther removed you are from galactic high society, the less you probably know about the Jedi. Han, growing up on the streets of Corellia, has no reason to be an expert on Jedi. I’m sure he’s heard rumors, but he is perfectly justified in being a skeptic, particularly once the Jedi disappear seemingly easily.

Which brings us to the Jedi Purge. Here’s the thing: Order 66 wasn’t just about literally killing all the Jedi and burning their Temple down. It was a planned cultural genocide as well. A revision of history. We all know the line from 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Palpatine destroyed the memory of the Jedi as surely as he destroyed the Jedi themselves. We’ve met, in various canon sources, history professors who lost their jobs because any mention, scholarly or otherwise, of the Jedi Order had become verboten. We’ve seen kids studying for their galactic history class in which one of the questions concerns Mace Windu, leader of a “criminal gang that interfered with a legal execution on Geonosis and sparked the Clone Wars.” Talk about revisionist: that goes against everything Palpatine himself said and did during the Clone Wars, a not-insignificant timespan of at least three years of his own personal history he has to revise, but in his role as Emperor, he can pull that off. This is what totalitarian governments do. We already see it begin in RotS, when Palps tells the Senate all about the Jedi Order’s attempt at a coup. And it’s effective! Five years on, Tarkin himself says the Jedi already feel like a distant memory.

And of course it’s fairly ludicrous (though not, I suppose, impossible) to assume that the statue on Jedha fell and was partially buried in sand within the last 19 years. But that’s one of the things I love most about Star Wars, something it’s particularly famous for: its Used Future aesthetic, the continued reminders that this is a galaxy with a history, one as complex and mysterious and tangled in its own legends as our own. That fallen colossus is one of many clues throughout canon that the Old Republic, the Jedi Order, belief in the Force—all were in decline long before the events of the Prequel Era.

Similarly, it’s clear that Jedha itself, once among the most holy sites in the galaxy, was also only a shadow of its former glory long before it got wiped off the map entirely. From Wookieepedia (again, emphasis mine):

As more of the galaxy was mapped, more direct hyperspace routes were discovered. These new passages made the old, winding routes, such as those connecting with Jedha, obsolete. The once-popular Jedha became an antiquated curiosity rather than a relevant destination, a location for those who desired spiritual guidance, a deeper purpose, or to simply exile themselves from the larger galaxy.

It’s typical Imperial excess to take the idea of Jedha’s long-buried secrets lost to the sands of time and literalize it by blowing the damn thing up. Horace Smith’s Ozymandias is less famous, but as (if not more) relevant to our discussion (“The City’s gone,” anyone?), and I leave you with its last stanza:

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express

Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness

Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,

He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess

What powerful but unrecorded race

Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

[hudsonespie]

No Fish, Lower Subsidies – Where Next for China’s Coastal Fishermen?

[By Yu Yani]

Here on the Bohai Sea, Tianjin’s central fishing harbour is welcoming tourists again after being quiet for months due to the coronavirus. Liu Cuibo waves off one group and his phone rings again and again with others arranging boat trips. “Everyone’s sick of being cooped up,” he says, his mood bright.

Liu, 56, started working in fishing after graduating from high school. He was a fisherman for the first 20 years, but in 2013 started taking tourists on fishing trips.

In 2011, residents of the fishing village he was born in were moved into apartment buildings to make way for the high-rises that sprung up by the harbour, and the village was demolished. Once, 160 fishing boats sailed from here – now, only 30 do. Fishing communities all along Tianjin’s 95-mile coastline have similarly disappeared. The other fishers he knows have either sold their boats and found other work or moved into tourism like him.

Tourists in Shandong’s Yantai take photos while they wait for a speedboat ride (Image: Liu Yuyang / China Dialogue)

Liu told China Dialogue they have no other option: fish populations have been shrinking, while subsidies have incentivized boat-building, increasing overall numbers and limiting the space for fishing.

China catches more fish from the ocean than any other nation, landing over 10 million tonnes every year since 1995. This is more than the maximum 8 or 9 million tonnes that experts say is safe for the coastal fisheries, which have been depleted by decades of overfishing.

To stem the loss, China has been implementing closed seasons on the Bohai, Yellow and East China seas since 1995, giving some protection to fisheries by preventing boats from operating during critical fish growing and spawning periods. In 2017, those closed seasons were lengthened to up to four months in some places.

According to the China Fishery Statistical Yearbook, in 2008 there were 7.6 million traditional fishers in China. With fish populations depleted, from 2015 the government has acted to reduce fishing subsidies and apply increasingly stringent closed seasons. By 2018, the number of fishers had fallen to 6.2 million.

Meanwhile, the WTO has been working to conclude a deal banning harmful fishing subsidies this year, as part of efforts to reach UN sustainability targets. China’s fishers have little choice but to make changes.

Searching for a way out

Over a decade ago, homestyle fish restaurants became popular along the Tianjin coast, and Liu noticed diners taking an interest in his boat. Seeing an opportunity, he added a seating area to the deck and started fishing in the mornings and taking tourists out on boat trips in the afternoons. His income increased and stabilised.

He remembers that fishing was becoming less profitable back then. “There was no good fishing season. Now you might get a bit of a good season, but only for mantis shrimp.” Good fishers can still make a bit of money, he said, but others are struggling.

But with living standards on the rise, there are more people taking holidays and huge potential for leisure fishing.

Tourists pay 200 yuan ($29) each for a day’s boat trip and seafood meal, with up to 12 in a group. A good year can see Liu earn 100,000-200,00 yuan.

The local government is encouraging fishers to shift into tourism, organizing a fishing festival and designating a marine tourism zone, with sea fishing one of the attractions.

In 2017, the Tianjin government also toughened safety requirements for leisure fishing that necessitated boat upgrades. Liu, planning to expand his leisure fishing business, spent tens of thousands of yuan replacing his wooden boat with a new steel one.

He also started marketing his business. He filmed short videos, just like he’d seen youngsters do, on how to cook seafood. In time he became popular online, and some viewers became his clients.

He’s glad he changed as it’s now more expensive and the government approvals aren’t as easy to get. “You couldn’t make the shift even if you wanted to,” he says.

Gao Mingjun, 51, had fished from Dandong, Liaoning for over 20 years, until five or six years ago when he switched to clam-farming. He was required to hand his boat and its certificate to the government.

Aquaculture involves big initial investments. Gao and eight or nine others each chipped in 500,000 or 600,000 yuan and rented 2,000 mu (330 acres) of shallows. Clams take two or three years to grow, and Gao says the operation was quite profitable in the early years, making an average of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan a year.

When he was fishing, his annual earnings amounted to only several tens of thousands of yuan, even after receiving 30,000 or 40,000 yuan in fuel subsidies. The aquaculture business pays better and is easier work. He and his partners have bought a boat together for maintaining the clam farm.

Aquaculture farms near Shandong’s Yantai. (Image: Liu Yuyang / China Dialogue)

While other local fishers must buy feed for their shrimp and sea cucumber farms, clams feed on plankton and other microscopic organisms already present in the sea.

The work might be easier than fishing, but Gao Mingjun is still busy keeping an eye on the young clams and dealing with customers. There are risks too: algal tides, typhoons and disease.

The good times didn’t last long though. Gao told China Dialogue that clam prices have fallen since October last year. He’s not sure why, but suspects the market has become saturated as more fishers switch to clam-farming.

The coronavirus epidemic also hurt sales, while clam seed prices went up. Gao is not confident about the future but the lease on his 2,000 mu runs for three years, so he and his partners have to keep going. In late April, with the pandemic easing, he travelled to Fujian to buy clam seeds. He will decide what to do when the lease ends – if the clam trade isn’t working out, he says he’ll grow strawberries, a local speciality.

Livelihoods reliant on subsidies

Jiang Xialiang, a fisher in Xiangshan, Zhejiang, saw about four-fifths of the fishers he knew quit around 2008 – the work simply wasn’t profitable, and high fuel costs were only making things worse.

Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture show the price of diesel fuel rose above 7,000 yuan ($1,000) a tonne in the first half of 2008 – a 23 percent increase. With a third of boats in some key fishing grounds becoming unprofitable, the central government quickly responded by boosting fuel subsidies 133 percent.

Jiang estimates one third of fishers he knew made it through only because of that subsidy. He says the payments, which started in 2006, reached their peak in 2014, when he received 300,000 yuan for his 270-horsepower vessel.

The sudden increase made fishers’ lives easier but caused new problems. In 2015, the ministries of finance and of agriculture announced that the industry was becoming over-reliant on the subsidies.

There has long been international concern that fuel subsidies increase the number of motor-powered fishing vessels, and that the more intensive practices made possible by subsidies are worsening the depletion of fish populations. The WTO started exploring ways to reduce fishing subsidies as early as 2001.

In their 2015 announcement, the finance and agriculture ministries said they would aim to reduce, by 2019, the fuel subsidy for domestic fishing (that is, excluding distant-water fishing) to 40 percent of 2014 levels, and to encourage both a reduction in the size of the fishing fleet, and job changes.

By 2019, Jiang received a fuel subsidy of only 120,000 yuan, rather than the 300,000 of 2014. He grew up by the sea, has been working on fishing vessels since he was 15 and can’t imagine a new career. Now, at 57, “I can’t change direction, I’m like a train on its tracks,” he said.

But shrinking subsidies are forcing some to consider alternative work. Despite his 26 years of fishing experience, Wang Xinyuan, of Dandong in Liaoning, is one of them.

With costs going up and catches in decline, there are very few options for China’s fishers. (Image: Jiang Yifan / China Dialogue)

At 46, he has two options: to captain a distant-water fishing vessel working off Africa for a salary of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a month, or to work on marine ranches off Liaoning. He’s worried about healthcare if he falls ill in Africa, and would risk not getting paid if for any reason he had to return midway through a two-year contract. As for marine ranching, that would involve long stints at sea, only returning home for two or three days a month, and a salary of 7,000 to 8,000 yuan a month.

Wang purchased a 150-horsepower boat in 2016. As a licence for a vessel that size would cost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan, like many other local fishers he opted to skirt the rules and get one for a 12-horsepower boat. But this means smaller subsidies – only 9,000 yuan a year for the last two years.

How can fishing be sustainable?

The subsidies are reducing, but coastal fishing will continue. How can the remaining fishers ensure that fish populations are used sustainably?

Fujian, where Gao Mingjun went to buy clam seed, is trialling catch quotas as part of fishing reforms. Closed seasons haven’t stopped fishery depletion, so other methods are being used to reduce catches but increase incomes.

Li Wei, China fishery policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told China Dialogue that all coastal provinces are now trialling catch quotas, following on from initial trials in Zhejiang and Shandong in 2017.

China’s Fisheries Law establishes such quotas as a fundamental part of the country’s management of fisheries. Put simply, the aim is to keep fisheries sustainable by catching less than is naturally replaced. The government determines a total allowable catch, and that is allocated across fishing vessels as quotas.

But a lack of data on fish populations, due to inconsistent surveying, makes it hard to set that total allowable catch.

Li Wei explained another problem: “There are too many fishing vessels currently. If a scientifically determined total allowable catch was divided across those boats, each would receive only a very small quota, perhaps too small to be practical. That means pressure on fishers’ earnings. Vessel numbers need to come down as the quotas are implemented, and fishers helped to find other work.” 

In early 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture said it aimed to reduce the number of motor-powered fishing vessels to 20,000 lower than a 2015 baseline by 2020 – a reduction in total engine power of two million horsepower. But even if achieved, at the end of 2020, China will retain over 180,000 motor-powered fishing vessels with total engine power of over 13.4 billion horsepower.

Li Wei also pointed out that China’s coastal fishers usually catch a range of fish species, and that China isn’t yet restricting where they can work. This will make it harder to allocate quotas based on historical fishing data.

These quota trials, which are still in the early stages, aim to monitor and gather data on fishing activity. This includes persuading fishers to fill in logs, designating specific locations for offloading and selling catches, and experimenting with different quotas. But progress across provinces has been uneven and problems have arisen. Li Wei said: “Monitoring quotas is costly and involves significant change in regulatory thinking and models. A lot of resources will be needed to support this process.” That means financial help, government assistance, research and even public education.

The fishers themselves are key to the trials. Li Wei explained that at this early stage the trials cover less than 100 vessels in each province and only apply to jellyfish, shrimp, crab and shellfish – which only take a year or two to grow. Research carried out in Zhejiang and Fujian by an NRDC team found that current quotas are relaxed enough that catches have neither reduced nor market prices increased. The trials, then, appear more targeted at practising the operation of a quota system rather than delivering substantive, long-term changes to fishery resources.

A fishing vessel gets ready to set out to sea from a Fujian province harbour at the start of the fishing season. (Image: Jiang Yifan / China Dialogue)

Already facing reduced fuel subsidies, the busy fishers now must fill in logs and can only land and sell their catches at designated locations. This makes their lives more difficult, they’re basically making sacrifices to cooperate with the government’s new approach. Li Wei says this is an essential process which will have long-lasting significance: “Quotas will finally give us a way to manage the ecological balance in coastal fisheries. Many countries have seen resources recover and quality and prices of seafood improve after implementing quotas, with greater profits for the industry as a whole, and in the end the fishers benefit. In the long-term, we can reduce catches and increase incomes.”

It will take some time for fisheries to recover and there is no telling who will last that long – but for many fishers, more change is inevitable.

Wang Xinyuan is a pseudonym to protect the subject’s identity.

Yu Yani is a freelance journalist based in Beijing, focusing on environmental issues. This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/no-fish-lower-subsidies-where-next-for-china-s-coastal-fishermen via http://www.rssmix.com/

[emmanueloregon]

Blogging on Behalf of the Church

Seven Years Ago I proposed that Emmanuel could use a new website.  At the time, I didn’t think engagement with current members was all that important.  Small “family” sized congregations, with many members who don’t even own a computer wouldn’t see much benefit.  At least, the current membership wouldn’t see a benefit. Websites at that point were more like fancy phone book entries. The pendulum had already swung quite a bit away from phone books and towards Google.  It’s quicker and easier to get numbers, addresses, hours and more by simply typing the name in.

Those phone book entries come up in two ways.  

The first is the optimistic: church shoppers.  When someone new moves into the area and wants to find a church, they are most likely going to look online (or someone will look for them).  You want the character of your congregation to be made clear to those people.  In our case, “small,” Lutheran, rural, traditional, and so on.  (I mark small with quotation marks because congregations in the United States are mostly about our size, but people still call 60-70 weekly worshipers “small”)

At the time I decided it would be fun to try something a little different.  Rather than a Facebook feed that inundates members and community members who already “like” your page (and have probably made up their mind as to whether they will attend, have a relationship etc), put that sort of live feed on the website.  Use rolling updates instead of a static phone book entry.

That was the purpose of this tumblr page.  Tumblr, of course, has had its reputation as to which demographic will use it and what for.  It’s been during this time, in fact, that pressure from Apple (I believe it was) prompted Tumblr to remove pornographic images from the site.  Internet savvy people have raised an eyebrow at me when they noticed my choice of website host.

However, I’m not much of a mind to judge a whole platform by what some people put on it.  Informative newspapers have inflammatory and ill-informed ‘letters to the editor.’  Facebook has had its scandals in the same period of time.  Tumblr is a useful, free tool that addressed the task at hand.

It’s been more or less an unsuccessful experiment.  I’ve been inconsistent in posting (both in frequency and content), sometimes intentionally, other times not.  I was unaware that the automatic post-to-Facebook feature had stopped working, because I have months long periods where I don’t check Facebook.  There’s been no good way to get feedback on these changes, disruptions, etc.

At one point, I saw that the audio of an Easter sermon I had posted had over 500 listens.  That seemed to be the best indicator that SOMETHING was working.  Church shoppers, I assumed, would listen to a sermon or two on the websites of churches in their area.  So I switched to doing that.

That led to headache after headache.  File size and audio length restrictions meant I had to post in multiple places.  Posting online was always an after thought, so sometimes I would have to go back and re-record similar content without personal, private references.  With more than one or two sermons posted, the counter never got very high anyway.

Things are different now, of course.  In light of the pandemic related shut downs, I’ve had to post everything online.  I’ve done so on Anchor.FM (so it appears on Spotify) as well as YouTube.  That means the one thing this site seemed well equipped for is no longer serving that purpose.

There’s a second group of people who check the website though.  This is the less optimistic views, because they’re looking us up for a specific function.  Sure, sometimes that’s fine, like for a church dinner.  Those people really are just looking for the phone book entry though.  They aren’t researching a new church, most likely.

The evidence for that, for me, is when I get reports from Google on how many people searched our church, looked up directions, and clicked through to our website.  Most of the time, it’s only a handful of people.  Then, once or twice a year, because of a well attended wedding or funeral, the number skyrockets.  Hundreds of people might look us up in the same week.

Today

Times have changed, and boy have they changed a lot.

Smart phones went from niche use cases, usually centered around messaging (e.g. Blackberry and Danger) to more versatile machines (e.g. iOS and Android).  Mass market meant they got cheaper, simpler, and virtually everyone could find something these gadgets can do that their old gadgets could not.

I know that seems like a silly aside, a bit of a history lesson, but it means something changed for churches too.  That idea that you may as well not bother with the Internet because many of your members aren’t on anyway has faded.  “Many” may still be technically correct, but it’s misleading.  Of our something like 180 people engaged in the church throughout the year, I count about 15 that do not use e-mail and do not have access to YouTube.  If you expand the criteria to exclude those who text, the number gets down to less than 10.  Okay, technically I’m including some people as “Internet users,” because they live with someone who is an Internet user (either a spouse or child).

We are a small, rural, “older” (again, probably about average, but people consider average older), and yet we’re overwhelmingly connected to the Internet.

The writing’s been on the wall for a couple of years.  This way of doing the website may have worked if it was done right in the first place, but that time has passed.

The pandemic has forced the issue.  For congregations, for members, for church shoppers, and on and on because it has affected everyone.  My “maybe some day when I have the time...” aspirations about Internet use became “well, I have until Saturday to get this figured out.”  Then (and now) “well, now is the time to experiment and try new things on here.”

That’s what this is.

This is our attempt to be all things to all people for “netizens” (that’s a portmanteau of Internet and citizens, by the way).

Instead of loosely using Facebook and Tumblr exclusively, we’re adding to the list.

YouTube - eServices (recorded versions derived from Sunday morning worship)

Anchor.FM - A podcasting host, which distributes the audio of sermons to many places.  Look up “Paynes Point Pastor Preaching” on your platform of choice.

Weebly - Our landing page, www.emmanueloregon.com is now an aesthetically pleasing, relatively static, place to get just a glimpse into our church.

Going Forward

Church shoppers and those just looking for directions should have a more familiar experience.  They’ll see a site that looks like, works like, and serves them like so many other small organization’s sites.  There’s no scrolling through a variety of content, trying to “figure us out” from an audio sermon here, a picture gallery there, and a Pastor’s Piece newsletter article besides.

Emmanuel’s members and extended community can connect more extensively.  Really, about as extensively as they want.  When we begin to reopen, what it looks like exactly may change, but we will have something approximation of Sunday morning worship available online to those who are unable to be physically present.  Current and past sermons will be easily available for those who want to catch up, go back hear something a second time, or maybe got a recommendation from a friend to take a listen.

Then we have this.  

Since we haven’t had Bible Study, Circle, Confirmation, work days, and all the other gatherings, we haven’t had much room for conversations.  I like to talk to the folks at Emmanuel about my reasoning and planning, etc, and I like to hear their feedback.

While this won’t facilitate feedback terribly well, it can get the ball rolling.  The kind of things I would have taken the time to talk about throughout the week as I visited with the members, I am going to start posting about them here.  This is a very long, self-referential example of that.  It’s also the first installment of re-purposing this site as one of Tumblr’s intended purposes: a weblog.

At least for now, I will plan on writing something here about once a week or so.  Those who get the newsletter in physical form will get this content along with the newsletter.

Hopefully it helps.

Pastor Andrew

[torentialtribute]

MARTIN SAMUEL: The elite are in flux…this could be year of the outsider 

Football leagues didn't use tables before three games came in. What would be the point? First game, the club with the biggest win would be at the top, their opponents at the bottom. It meant nothing. It didn't inform.

Even freezing the action after the four games played this season offers no guaranteed insight. At this stage last season, Watford did not Tottenham belong to the places Champions League and none of the three lower clubs that eventually perished.

The year before, Watford was again in the top four, Huddersfield in the top six and in the seven bottom seven Arsenal . Some indications were nevertheless visible.

Brendan Rodgers and Leicester City try to gatecrash the elite clubs this season

Last season, after four games, the Champions League places were already occupied by three of the clubs that would qualify. This year? Maybe the same.

Liverpool, Manchester City, Leicester, Crystal Palace is the way the table currently stands. And after seeing the rest of the elite in action, there is no guarantee that what we are going to regard as normal service will be summarized.

Leicester inferior to those missing members of the big six? Not from what we've seen so far. Can they be accompanied by another member from outside the gilded band? It is far from impossible.

Leicester won the competition in 2016, we are always told because the big clubs were in transition. But that also applies this season. Manchester United and Chelsea are certainly on the move, Tottenham is evolving slowly, Arsenal is trying to make progress, despite a defense that makes squirrels confident and confident in traffic.

Major changes are going on during two-thirds of the traditional elite. Again, Leicester could be the beneficiaries. They look good under Brendan Rodgers. They have improved defensively, Jamie Vardy has another excellent nick, James Maddison is one of the best young players in the country. They also bought well and are intelligently organized.

It was no surprise at all that Leicester got a draw on Chelsea last month and maybe even won. In the current form, they were currently able to play four of the big six on evens, despite selling two of their best players in Harry Maguire and N & Golo Kante.

Looking further to the table, there are clubs such as Everton, West Ham, Crystal Palace and, in the distance, Wolves. Clubs that have invested, that have bought well, that have a strong philosophy and individual talents, such as Wilfried Zaha, that run competitions.

Manchester United are at their worst start of a competition week since 1992 -93 and are on the move

The top four may be too much, but the Europa League? Why not? The big six no longer look like the top six. Not this year. Chelsea can be anything, for example. Jurgen Klopp loves what Frank Lampard is trying to do, and he should, but there is no guarantee that it will be successful in his first season.

Same with United, who are also inconsistent. They defeated Chelsea on the first day 4-0, but after four games they have their lowest point total since 1992-93. They won the competition that year, but it won't happen this time. Liverpool and Manchester City are blocks away.

From now on they are their own escape competition. Burnley at Turf Moor would be a tough match for many of their peers, but Liverpool was no better. United drew 1-1 against Southampton team to 10 men for the last 17 minutes on Saturday, Liverpool traveled to the same site after a midweek UEFA Super Cup final in Istanbul against Chelsea who went to extra time and penalty & # 39; s, and won 2-1

When the Premier League meets again after this international break, Leicester visits Old Trafford. United should win on paper. Also in historical form, given that Leicester last won there in the competition on January 31, 1998. However, since 1989 Crystal Palace has not won in the competition at Old Trafford, so will home fans have confidence in what will unfold against Leicester? The gap has been closed by the collective wealth of the Premier League.

One of the reasons why the big six demanded a larger share of overseas rights was that they saw that medium-sized clubs had a greater impact on the transfer market. Caglar Soyuncu, Youri Tielemans, Ayoze Perez and, of course, Vardy, were all players who were linked to larger clubs in one phase, but when that opportunity did not come to light, they ended up with Leicester.

of those among the elite all have recruited talent that would not look out of place in a Champions League match: Richarlison, Zaha, Ruben Neves, Sebastien Haller.

Players like Richarlison emphasize the improvements chasing the pursuers

Jose Mourinho identified this change when he was Chelsea's manager and purchased Crystal Palace Yohan Cabaye from Paris Saint-Germain. Mourinho said that Cabaye was a player he might have signed that he had room in his team. Now, instead of going elsewhere in Europe, he was within the reach of Palace. West Ham, even Newcastle, has paid the equivalent price for a striker Liverpool paid for Mo Salah. It is no longer unthinkable for a player of his quality to be signed by a mid-table club if the elite are distracted. And the pressure increases again.

Of course, injury to an important player from the first team can cause greater damage outside the top six than in it. Manchester City won the title last season with Kevin De Bruyne who started less than a third of their league games. A similar injury as Vardy, Kante or Riyad Mahrez would have completely derailed Leicester in their wound season.

Yet few outside of Liverpool and Manchester City have given the rest of the Premier League reason to fear so far. Crystal Palace has won in Manchester United, Newcastle in Tottenham, Chelsea has lost points at home to Sheffield United.

The special clubs do not look too special.

Leicester to finish the top four, and one of the outsiders to invade the top six? Nothing in this first month suggests that it cannot happen.

No laws can ever prevent clubs from being run badly

Oldham, it is commonly said, is the next Bury – although their owner Abdallah Lemsagam denies this furiously. But there is another Bury. Whether in three months, three years or three decades, a poorly run football club goes bankrupt. And if so, there will be more cries that something must be done.

But what exactly? And we have to be very precise, because vague promises or ambitions have never solved a financial crisis, either in football or in the weekend before the payday. The competitions could pass rules that require each owner to show proof of funds last season before it starts. But how many clubs in Leagues One and Two have a float of that size?

Banning the sale of stadiums can also help, although that would be too late for many clubs and could lead to an exodus of owners who see such a move as a last-sob insurance policy. There may also be covenants that protect aspects of club identity, such as name, location, colors and badge.

This would prevent a new owner from turning blue to red or trying to make Hull Tigers, but it is window covering against the serious cause of survival. And that's at the core, because one of the reasons Oldham is in trouble is that they've burned through 30 managers – including caregivers and returning employees – since 1994. But what should the Football League do about this?

Oldham Athletic is generally considered the next club that neighbors Bury in trouble follows

There are laws to prevent a company from being led fraudulently or against regulations, but nothing can prevent a rotten business plan. How can it be? Should the competition intervene in decisions about managers and players? No club would support this.

Owners want space to maneuver, make mistakes and correct. Nobody thinks they run a bad store. Bury had nine attackers in one phase. It was madness. But what did the Football League do – assess recruitment? There must be freedom to run your business, even if you look from the outside.

The same applies to takeovers. Suppose the Football League had intervened in the purchase of Steve Dale from Bury for £ 1 and that the club had perished last season. The fans would have been furious. They would be convinced that Dale was a savior, a man with a plan.

All new owners step on that line. And because clubs are often bought in a state of emergency, fans don't want the new keeper, the one who sells the dream of the sun-drenched highlands, to be a charlatan.

So in the aftermath of Bury & # 39; s downfall the rhetoric will be colorful and the calls to act loudly, the reality is rather different. There are no laws to be bad at running a football club and no matter how sad we feel for Bury, it's hard to imagine that there will ever be one.

Why does VAR cheats run smoothly?

One of the most frustrating shortcomings of VAR is that it addresses problems that we did not have and ignored those that we found irritating.

No one was very concerned about the ball that shot a stray arm in the run-up to a goal – unless that arm finally put it into the net.

However, VAR is fully engaged in this, misinterpreting the rules and refusing charities for no good reason. In the meantime, cheating remains unpunished.

Andriy Yarmolenko of West Ham United plunged against Norwich, but VAR missed the simulation

on Saturday, Andriy Yarmolenko of West Ham clearly popped up. He was not alone & # 39; looking for & # 39; because Harry Kane was against Arsenal on Sunday, regardless of his protests. Kane was awkward, stopped and changed direction so that Sokratis could hardly avoid him. It was poor from the England captain, but he raised enough doubt that a yellow card seemed hard. Yarmolenko, in comparison, was blatant.

There was no one around when he took his tumble and it is incredible that Paul Tierney, the referee, missed it. He did not award a penalty, but did not warn Yarmolenko either.

VAR should have informed Tierney that he had missed a clear and obvious simulation, and advised a booking at the next break. Nothing instead.

That's why VAR gets bad reviews. We can get rid of this. We have to get rid of it. Instead, cheats flourish and decent goals are erased. No one has signed up for this.

High price for training in Carrington

Manchester City is looking for new tenants to take over the Carrington practice area released by Bury. The city had allowed Bury to use the rent-free facility, provided it was maintained, which was not the case. Now it will be available for around £ 80,000 a year, and Salford City is one of those interested.

Nevertheless, caution is required. Steve Parish, president of Crystal Palace, said last week that the difference with the modern transfer market is instead of prices being determined by where a player comes from, it is now his destination that dictates the market.

Bury certainly found this, once in possession of the chic environments that City had housed in the year of their first Premier League title. Karl Evans, the former chief executive officer of Bury, said it totally skewed the perception of how much money the club had.

Salford City wants to become the new tenants from Carrington training base of Man City

& # 39; It attracted the wrong type of player, & # 39; he said. "I felt that their agents would appear, see the set-up and think they should ask for another week a week."

Knowing Gary Neville & # 39; s attitude toward some of the dilettantes in Manchester United, one imagines this is the last thing he would want for Salford.

& # 39; Some talk has bothered me, but it has not taken me out, & # 39; Steve Smith said about Jofra Archer.

& # 39; Well, I can't get him out if he wasn't there, & # 39; Archer replied, after beating Smith upside down and forcing him to miss the last three innings of Australia. This looks more like it. Roll on Wednesday, roll on the axis. You don't get this in the white ball game.

Langford is in his final round

Kyle Langford has been accused of abusing a competitor in the 800 meters at the British Championships in Birmingham.

It is believed that he also acted aggressively towards James McCarthy in a previous race, and his position at the World Championships could now be jeopardized. This follows an incident in July when he received a written warning about attacking an elderly race officer.

Langford is currently in 29th place for his distance and finished eighth at the end of the test event. Without him it is fair to say that we will make it.

Kyle Langford (second from the right) is accused of abusing abuse of a competitor in 800m

Ben Stokes received a Tottenham shirt to mark his Headingley exploits and immediately declared himself a fan. What a shame that National Treasure stuff went so well. That is three quarters of the capital away, to begin with.

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[anthonykrierion]

Pain Point SEO: Converting Traffic to Leads

Last updated on August 22, 2019 at 06:02 pm

Revisit your current keyword strategy and take a look at Pain Point SEO. It is the act of finding customer problems and addressing them through bankable content. At the heart of it all, SEO is all about providing answers for people. However, there are those who make the mistake of thinking that SEO is a popularity contest, banking only on traffic and keyword volume for their research.

Honestly, I find this strategy archaic and unreliable. Keyword volume fluctuates which is why you should not rely on its inconsistency for your SEO efforts. As SEOs always say, content is key. That is how you win in this industry. Yes, traffic is great but aim for more, do not get stuck with it as your endgoal.

SEO coupled with a thorough understanding of the buyer’s journey is what can help you climb to the top and stay there for a very long time. Take a look at how you can achieve this with pain point SEO.

Avoid Traditional Keyword Research

When you get sick, do you ask for medicine or vitamin supplements so you can get rid of your symptoms? It’s most likely the former if you ask people because this is the wisest choice. This is exactly what pain point SEO is about.

It is rooted in addressing the awareness stage in the buyer’s journey so you can promote your business as their source of products or services for the consideration and decision stage. With this, you should also consider assigning a funnel stage per keyword so you can have a clear idea of how you can effectively promote your content based on the buyer’s journey.

If you are doing traditional keyword strategy, your worksheet will look like this:

I’m not saying that you should disregard these figures but keyword volume is not that deep of a metric to address customer pain points. Instead of being focused on the numbers per keyword, why not make a separate spreadsheet where you can take note of the long-tail keywords that can address customer problems.

Of course, in order to answer a question, you have to know how and why your customer is having difficulties. Keyword volume can help you increase traffic but pain point SEO will help you garner leads.

It’s one thing to have many users coming into your site and another to attract them because they NEED to come to your site to address a problem. Find out all the things that can go wrong with your product as well as the negative reviews that your customers are already putting out there, this can help you to your advantage.

To get you started on making a worksheet of long-tail keywords, you can start your research on the problems that your customers are having on:

List of Products/Services

Price

Location

Risks

Urgency

Quality

These long-tail keywords can provide a signal to users that you are aware of their problems and it is also a great way to dominate the SERPs through relevant terms aside from your target keywords. The best way to do this aside from using a keyword research tool is to look at the search engine pages and see what people also search for. At the bottom of the page, lies the potential long-tail keywords that you have to target. Additionally, you should also see the featured snippets of that particular keyword and build your long-tail keywords around them.

The typical way of getting a keyword list, prioritizing by search volume, then building your content around it is a weak strategy in addressing your customer’s needs. Why not grow and convert with pain point SEO? Generate content from customer pain points and then continuously find keywords centered around them.

This strategy was applied to one of my clients, Topbest, a pest control operator in the Philippines. As people are experiencing their pain points in terms of dengue and mosquito control, we have seen an influx of users who are searching for these terms:

As a result, people who found their business organically have turned into leads. Because people have a need for pest control in this life-and-death situation, they have flocked to the business to see how they can relieve the symptoms. This is precisely what Pain Point SEO is as a keyword strategy. Traffic into leads, that is what you should be aiming for. If you are mindful of the details, you can see this when you address your client’s pain points and turn these into their favor.

Potential Clients of the Business

To get to the root of customer pain points, you must have a clear idea of what your customer looks like. You have to take note of who they are and what are the probable reasons why they are going to seek out your business. This goes to show that you should strategize Pain Point SEO with these kinds of factors in mind:

A clear image of who you are talking to through your SEO content would be your best bet in addressing their needs. Say, for example, you have a real estate business and you are probably targeting those who need to upgrade their homes.

Pain point SEO goes deeper than the obvious prospects, you have to find out if your target market consists of young professionals, retirees, or small families, or something else to that effect. The good thing about this is that this strategy can be constantly rebuilt because you can be confident that it is not stagnant for your efforts.

Together with your prospects, you also have to consider what type of voice you are going to use to relate to them. Your ticket in knowing more about your customers is through social media channels. Look at their feedback through the comment section, take note of their questions, and see what their social media is like.

Search Intent

I cannot stress this enough but search intent does go a long way in helping you attract visitors and leads organically. Once you have a clear mental image of the target market you are addressing, you have to plan how you can highlight your site as their primary source of answers.

To address this, you can make a persona for yourself that will align with the potential clients of your business. So if your target audience is SEO newbies, then you have to be an expert in the field to bridge them to you or you can also sell yourself as another beginner that can help them in educating themselves on this particular field.

This is a great way of highlighting search intent since you now have a hold on how you are going to present your content. Build your keywords around customer pain points and answer them accordingly:

Navigational – site visibility and brand terms that will lead users to the site

Informational – product details, accessories, features, benefits, how your services will attract potential clients

Commercial Investigation – a clear description of the product (color, size, weight, height), reviews, comparisons

Transactional – pricing, purchase information, sales, deals, coupons, discounts

Key Takeaway

Improving customer experience through Pain Point SEO is your best bet for converting that meaty traffic into leads. By being the point person to address potential problems that may arise from products or services, you have the advantage of promoting your brand more effectively.

Gone are the days when you rely on keyword volume to rank. This is the age of SEO when you have to stay competitive, especially with Google’s algorithm updates. In-depth customer research is one way to prevent getting hit by these changes in a negative manner.

What are the other pain points that customers may have? Comment down below!

Pain Point SEO: Converting Traffic to Leads was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

[stupendodog]

How To Make Comics: Industry Standard Comic Book Paper Size!

How to make comics:

Paper Size, and the annoyance of store-bought selections

- - - - - - - - - - 

The 2018 UPDATE! Hello fellow comic artists!

Image Comics Paper

Strathmore Comics Paper

The Elusive Canson Artist Series Boards

Canson Artist Series paper and tools

Canson Fanboy Art Boards

Not a whole lot has changed since this article was written. I still go into Michaels, or AC Moore, or Hobby Lobby and they sell the same types of paper with the same inconsistent borders. So I got fed up with it all and used made my own. I researched every comic book art board I could find, Marvel, DC, Image, everything from the Silver Age to now, and created some good comic book art board templates that work great. These boards are available for two bucks ($2.00) at this link - everything digital on my website it sold through Payhip - and come as files that are ready to either load into your favorite drawing, art or page layout program, or print out and commence drawing. I use these comic art templates every day, and I hope anyone who stops by this article and is as frustrated as I am, and was, at the inconsistencies of buying art boards at the store, will find them useful. - - - - - - - - - -

If you go to the local art supply store, such as Michael's (the only one around me) you can now, for the first time in aspiring-comic-book-creating history, buy pre-lined comic art boards! But, from my extensive research on that topic that spans decades, the choices might not be as professional as presented.

Over on the Image Comics message boards, Erik Larsen has posted this as the standard image size:

From everything I've ever read, this look about right. It's an 11x17 tabloid-sized page with a 10x15 image area and a roughly 8.875x13.5 image area. Seems pretty cut and dry, right? Sure.

IF THIS IS COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY STANDARD PAPER SIZE, which it seems to be, WHY CAN'T THE REST OF THE WORLD GET IT RIGHT??

I spent my whole young life trying to figure out how comics were made. I had no idea how big to make the paper, or how small. It was a huge revelation when I found out they were drawn on bristol board and I could get that at the local art store. BUT, all the paper was 14x17, and pretty darn hard to find. I would always buy it and run to Kinkos and cut it down to 11x17.

Cut to the future, which is the present:  The local Michael's has started selling comic paper, which is pretty cool. Nice pre-lined boards that should (SHOULD) be awesome. It's amazing that they have a couple varieties with competitive prices. The problem is the art size.

All of the paper they sell is 11x17 and they all have a 10x15-ish image area in 'em. This is good. They sell Canson Artist Series, which I'd never heard of, and a new line by Strathmore. Awesome! The Strathmore is way cheaper than the Canson Artist Series. WIN? Nope.

The safe area on the Strathmore is something like 9x16. Huh? Yeah. I measured it in the store.

The Canson Artist Series is the has the 9x13.5 image area. Definite WIN there, it matches up with what Larsen said in his post. Awesome.

This is also, like the other Canson paper I'm about to confuse you with, very nice to draw on with any kind of pencil, markers (Which I've been using lately) or brush and ink. Hopefully they're going to be around for a while because I fully endorse them.

So that should be it. Done. This is the right one and you can find it in the store. Brush your hands off and call it a day. BUT, the only place in all existence I can find the Canson Artist Series Paper so far is Michael's. I might have seen it at A.C. Moore, but it's been a while since I've been there so I can't remember. This elusive paper can't even be found on the internet. It's almost like Michael's has made some kind of pirate paper and illegally put Canson's name on it. It's really strange. How can a Google search, of all things, not find "Canson Artist Series?" It's not even available on the Michael's website.

And this brings us to another problem: Canson Fanboy Comic Book Art Boards.

Keep in mind Larsen's advice and example and you'll find this paper just about everywhere online. And it's good paper, very easy to use and won't give you a hard time about anything.

The image area is 9x13.75. A whole quarter inch bigger. Who made this? Why do the Artist Series and this one have to be different? Here's another problem, the center vertical guides on this paper seem to match the 9x13.5 paper. So, vertically, the center tier is the same size on each, but the top and bottom tiers are at 1/8 taller.

(I confirmed this, by the way. Stupendo-Dog #3 was started on Canson Fanboy Comic Book Art Boards, and finished on Canson Artist Series. Luckily I was the inker and I had my 9x13.5 template in Illustrator, so it didn't slow me down. I just drew the pencils outside the top and bottom guides and pretended it never happened.)

It's possible that this paper is set to more of a Manga size, and I'll accept that, but I really don't understand why they'd have this, and also have the mystery Artist Series paper. My whole life I've wanted comic paper, then I spent a good long time getting the 14x17 Strathmore Bristol and cutting it down, and ruling out my own guides.

Now the market seems to be flooded, but I feel like the problem is worse. Blueline Pro seems to have it down, and from the example that's what Larsen and Image use, but it's more expensive. You don't seem to get the deal you get with the Canson, or even the Strathmore papers. But there's still that professional problem.

The bottom line is this: There seems to be a set standard for comic book pages, but for some reason it is very elusive and hard to find. No one in the real world seems to know what that size is, and no one in the paper-making industry can seem to decide which way the want to go.

Professionally, I would say that if you're going to create a gold ol' standard American comic, the Canson Artist Series is the way to go (If you can find it). Everything seems right, and if you get published you'll be everyone's favorite artist. The Canson Fanboy Comic Book Art boards are the only other logical choice, and they're a little cheaper than the artist series. The only problem is that they're a little off, but the discrepancy is well within the cut area of any book, and unless you're like me and has a little bit of OCD about getting this stuff right, you won't have any problems at all.

The Strathmore paper just boggles my mind. I'm not sure they did any research into it at all. I think they just took the standard knowledge that there's a 10x15 box inside an 11x17 page and worked the image area down from there. They took it from more of a print graphic design perspective, rather than the comic book world reality. Or it's sized to Manga, which it doesn't seem to point out.

So go out and make comics! Just make sure that if you're at the end of a pad of paper, and you still have pages to go, the next pad you pick up is the same. Otherwise, you'll have a nicely illustrated story that is noticeably different.

(Naturally, everything here but the measurements are my own dumb opinion.) August 2018: I've drawn a few things on my handy templates. Here's a list if anyone would like to check 'em out: The Stain (digital only, via PayHip) Space Goat: Art Edition (print only via Amazon) Remarkable Duck #1 (digital only, via PayHip) Dan the Exploding Bunny (via Amazon) Santa Lost His Silly Ol' Reindeer (via Amazon) I Don't Want to Poop on the Pot (via Amazon) Waiting for Her to Call (via Comixology)

This is a 2011 list of some of the comic book boards that Amazon sells:

Canson Comic Book Art Boards- 11x17 Inch Pad

Regular Comic Book Art Board

Pro Traditional Comic Book Art Boards

Ruled Pro Comic Book Art Boards 11x17

Premiere (Strathmore 400 2ply) regular Comic Book Art Boards

Pro Full Trim Comic Book Boards

Ultimate Comic Strip Art Set

Canson Comic Strip Boards- 5x17 Inch Pad

Comic Book Cover Boards

Small Pro Comic Book Art Boards 8.5x14

Canson Fanboy Comic Book Art Boards - 11"x17" 24 Sheet Pad

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