#used some of the dialogue from the podcast for the image description

[nonbinarymothmanrights]

“It’s waiting until we’ve given up. Waiting until we’ve stopped trying. It knows we will. It’s smiling, Arthur. Starving.”

[valerianinc]

Our podcast is currently in an active preproduction state. The episodes are being written, the team is being formed, the unbearable animal fear of telling the story to more than two people which feels like holding the whole world on your shoulders like a titan but you are a proud spaghetti-handed fella and are standing on the nails of your own expectations– is being spread slowly... And all the other joys of the creative process! So, to lighten the mood, here's a small list of media we take inspiration from and why:

– Camp here & there

One of our biggest inspirations dialogue-wise. Blue Mayfield once said that one of the hardest things, while creating a podcast, is to make people sound like... people! And we totally agree with that! We look up to Mayfield&Co. and hope to reach the level of writing brilliance which is "Camp here & there".

Art done by @vranart

– La La Land (2016)

"Here's to the fools who dream" – we say. "Road to Moscow" is a lot of things and it is definitely a story about love and dreams, and about how one can harm the other. We could spend hours talking about the artistic genius of "La La Land"! While our budget, unlike the uppermentioned, is an astounding zero of money, it doesn’t stop us from dreaming big.

Art done by @jewishgayrat

– BoJack Horseman

We'd love to be able to talk about serious matters like this show did. Although we also hope to bring more diversity to it. So, BoJack Horseman, but with a lower age rating (note: "Road to Moscow" is aged for audiences sixteen and up) and queer! Like extremely queer! Like.. Everyone Is Queer!

Art done by @valerijworlds

Image description:

1. A digital drawing of Vlas Danchenko depicting him from the waist up. The piece is done in colder, muted colors. Vlas is a tall, broad young man with brown skin, long curly black hair, dark brown eyes, some facial hair, visible body hair, a dark scar on his palm and numerous scars on his wrist and forearm. He is wearing a dark blue t-shirt with the Camp Here and There logo on it: a teal hourglass with white sand, a yellow crescent moon in the top half of it, and a yellow forest landscape in the bottom half. He is looking to the side with a neutral expression and holding up a tape recorder with his left hand, seeming to speak into it. The background is solid grey with a white dotted line circle behind Vlas's head.

2. A stylized ink and pencil drawing of Zhivago Vita Oberon depicting him from the waist up. Zhivago is a thin young person with lilac skin, wavy purple hair that goes slightly past her collarbones, red eyes, fangs and pointy ears. He is wearing an oversized white t-shirt. Zhivago is disheveled and wide-eyed, raising one of her hands, aggravated as he says, "what do you mean you don't like jazz?", the text written in messy cursive handwriting.

3. A cartoonish digital drawing of Chanel Bojko depicting him in side view from the chest up. Chanel is a fat young man with freckled light skin and blond shoulder-length hair cut in layers. He is wearing a light green off-the-shoulder top and silver infinity sign earrings. He is pressing a bottle of space-looking liquid to his lips, throwing his head back with his eyes closed as he drinks from it.

Chanel himself is colored in soft, slightly pinkish hues, while the background is a vivid halo of orange, purple and teal.

[kenndowell]

ADD TITLE HERE | AStrategicMove.com

ADD TITLE HERE | AStrategicMove.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akqxhECLG70 ADD SHORT DESCRIPTION HERE 🔔Gain exclusive access to top influencers, regional revelations, and growth strategies by subscribing to our insightful conversations now: https://www.youtube.com/@KennDowell/?sub_confirmation=1 ✅Important Links to Follow 🔗Linktree https://ift.tt/lKos3Zn ✅ Stay Connected With Me. 👉Facebook:https://ift.tt/GmT1i4f 👉Instagram: https://ift.tt/gVW29cq 👉Threads: https://ift.tt/MAPCEbh 👉Linkedin: https://ift.tt/7BMwmkf 👉Website (Strategic move Podcast): https://ift.tt/UL5ZD2f 👉Website (Strategic move): www.astrategicmove.com ✅ For Business Inquiries: kenn@astrategicmove.com ============================= ✅ Recommended Playlists 👉 Strategic Moves Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P56oGqhLCSo&list=PLfxFUWF43lznckqneiYQcLAk36a8agNP-&pp=iAQB 👉 Resource Mondays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l-dZp8EPsI&list=PLfxFUWF43lzn9ut0SqCmq4fzajlCDvOK7&pp=iAQB ✅ Other Videos You Might Be Interested In Watching: 👉 Avoid This Career Mistake: Insights from Kenn Dowell 78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNQhwxURVhY 👉 "Roots and Wings: A First Daughter's Journey from the Gisi Tribe to Indiana" Sia Nyorkor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJDuC_QsBUA 👉 Embracing Authenticity: My Journey to Celebrating Natural Hair in the Newsroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVvHsD1rbLY 👉 Tri-C: Discover the People's College https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-QC1O8XQRY 👉 Inside the Mind of a Business Leader Renee Rashard, President and CEO of Corporate College at Tri-C https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBXMulv6qyk ============================= ✅ About Strategic Moves With Kenn Dowell. Strategic Moves with Kenn Dowell is a place where art, culture, business, and politics intersect. I’m your host, Kenn Dowell. As a political consultant and a government, public, and community relations specialist for over 20 years here in Cleveland, Ohio, I’ve met and built relationships with some amazing and interesting people. Because I want to help, you make your next move, “A Strategic Move,” this show is an opportunity for me to introduce you to some of these people, talk about some of the exciting things happening across the region, and even eat at some great places. I hope you’ll hear something to help you learn and grow as a person and professional. Kenn Dowell is the senior principal and president of Strategic Resources & Consulting, a Cleveland-based firm coordinating political campaigns, public relations, and marketing, with over 20 years of experience. For Collaboration and Business inquiries, please use the contact information below: 📩 Email: kenn@astrategicmove.com 🔔 Get ready for exciting conversations with top influencers, regional revelations, and growth strategies! Don't wait; subscribe for insightful conversations and strategic advice. https://www.youtube.com/@KennDowell/?sub_confirmation=1 ================================= ADD HASHTAG HERE ⚠️Disclaimer: I do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of watching any of my publications. You acknowledge that you use the information I provide at your own risk. Do your research. Copyright Notice: This video and my YouTube channel contain dialogue, music, and images that are the property of Strategic Moves With Kenn Dowell. You are authorized to share the video link and channel and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to my YouTube channel is provided. © Strategic Moves With Kenn Dowell via Strategic Moves With Kenn Dowell https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuR0qSitL0BzCbd9I16VOoQ May 23, 2024 at 08:24AM

[screadingchallenge]

Behind the Keyboard: Volume 5

Behind the Keyboard is a series of interviews with different Schitt’s Creek fanfic authors. The series will last as long as there is interest (from authors) and capacity (from me). If you are an author from the Schitt’s Creek fandom who would like to participate, send a DM to this account.  

Each author was given ten questions. The first five questions are the same for every author, the last five will vary.

Remember, this year’s Reading Challenge begins July 15, so polish up those MFL lists.

Let’s meet our next author:

Surreal / @surreal666​

How many fics have you written? 

Literally hundreds over 20+ years. No way to know!

When did you publish your first fic on AO3?

2012 when it was created by friends from fandoms I was in at the time. At that time, the only way to get an account was through invitation and we all had to pass them along to each other. Our Profile number is what number user we were - one of my friends from fandoms of old has #8, as she was one of the builders. Some fics have older dates as they had been migrated from other archives.

Describe your writing process from “Oh, I have an idea” to pushing publish on AO3. 

Usually starts with one scene, piece of dialogue, or visual image that I can’t get out of my head. I work it through in my head first, let it grow. Embarrassingly, if I’m alone at home, I’ll even act out things out loud and practice facial expressions to understand how they could sound, look, within a scene. Let scenes develop, and once things start building into something solid I start a Word document for notes. Nowadays Google Docs is helpful for this part. Document consists of an outline of scenes in vague order, along with any dialogue that I want in that part. Anything that requires research will have descriptions and links for my own reference. For shorter fics, it’s less extensive. Longer ones, I’ll create two documents: one with the story notes, the other with the actual story. As I write the story and complete scenes, I will delete them from my notes page so I know it was completed. When I feel like I covered everything in my notes page and that it’s complete, I read it over several times for grammar, characterization, consistency, etc. Once I feel like it’s ready, I copy/paste the whole thing into AO3. If there’s any formatting required, I generally put in my own HTML tags (italics, bold, etc) in the original text. Images, links, and skins are handled once it’s in AO3. When posting, think about the whole story and put in any tags that will draw readers for specific interests but not give any spoilers. Use the “Preview” option and make sure all the formatting looks good, and do general clean-up until everything is perfect (formatting-wise) and publish.

Tell me about your most recent fic? What do you love about it? Is there anything you think you could have done better? 

“All Things Being Equal” I absolutely love this fic. It started with one scene in my head - David meeting Patrick at Ray’s, not realising Patrick didn’t stand up to greet him because Patrick was in a wheelchair (hidden behind his desk) and thought Patrick was being rude. It took me a year to get up the courage to write it because it was a story about someone who was paraplegic - an experience I don’t have. It wasn’t my story to tell so when I decided I couldn’t let it go, I reached out to the Schitty Book Club on Facebook for people who did have experience in one way or another. Crowdsourcing, as it were. I did my own research as well, and spent a LOT of time on YouTube, listening to podcasts, etc. When I was ready, I asked one of those people who helped with resources to beta the fic since she had experience in this area. She absolutely made it so much better through her amazing support of some choices I made and correcting one full scene where I had an important reality totally wrong. I felt like it was an important story to tell - that disabled people can and do have healthy relationships that include sex and it’s not scary to talk about it. And after posting, I received the most incredible comment from a reader who felt represented in a way she had never had before and that alone made everything worth it. As for doing anything better - always. There is so much more I could have included but it was already at 30k words which is a very high word count for me. I may consider revisiting that ‘verse in the future with short follow-ups.

What advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about publishing their fic for the first time? 

Consider who you wrote the story for. You should always write the story YOU want to read, the story that you wrote for yourself. And use a beta!!!

Plot vs vibes - pick one. 

Vibes

What parts of writing are easy for you? What parts are hard? 

Dialogue is easy, sometimes they just won’t shut up! Hardest is plot. I’m not the most creative person, though in previous fandoms I’ve had much better luck with original concepts than I do in Schitt’s. It really depends on the fandom, honestly.

  In your mind, what’s the most important element of good writing? 

Patience. Learning to stop, even in the middle of a scene, and really listen to the character’s voices. Consider what they’re saying, what they’re feeling in the moment. Take the time to pause and listen to them. It will make any scene so much better when you give it time to breathe.

Tell me about one of your favorite headcanons. 

David is a recovering addict and has the self-awareness to face his weaknesses. The drug addiction issue is canon, mentioned in the first episode by Johnny in reference to the whole family, and we hear David mention using E another time, so it’s implied that it was an ongoing thing. This was the idea that brought me to write my first SC fic - “I say thank you, for pulling me through” - https://archiveofourown.org/works/24971566. There’s a moment where David defers all handling of his prescription pain medication to Patrick and Patrick’s mom asks him about it later. Patrick explains about David’s history and the trust David has in Patrick to keep him in line.

What are your three favorite tropes? 

Hurt/Comfort all the way. Forever!!! Two others: There Was Only One Bed, and what we called way back in the day “The Canadian Shack.” Canadian Shack is anything where the characters are forced to shelter in a tiny, isolated place (usually due to extreme weather and hypothermia) and it forces them to face their feelings.

[rq-described]

hey is it ok if i ask for a bit of advice with writing ids? /gen. i've seen quite a few posts about people over-describing in their ids, and i have a feeling that i do that (i tend to overcomplicate everything i do skdsksjd). what kind of information is unnecessary in an id that i can try to cut out in future? thank you so much!

Hello! It’s totally okay to come to us with questions, we’re always happy to try and help!

To be completely honest this topic is something that a lot of us are still working on. The line between under and over-describing can be a bit hard to place, especially since it differs depending on the piece, and the person using the IDs. It’s impossible to make it perfect for everyone, but here are some tricks we’ve found helpful.

1) Ask yourself what the purpose of the piece is.

Art showing off a character design will have very different priorities than a comic or a meme. A drawing of a character just standing in a cool outfit suggests more in depth descriptions of their design whereas a long action filled comic should center the action or dialogue. Trying to describe characters and actions in the same part when a piece has multiple characters and/or significant action will often bog it down.

For example writing:

"X enters the room. They have blonde hair and pale freckled skin, and they wear a sweater vest over a white collared shirt and a pair of dangly cherry earrings. They are drawn from the waist up. They say to Y, 'What’s up?'"

doesn’t flow as well as writing:

“X enters the room and says to Y, 'What’s up?’”

Understanding the purpose of the piece often means being succinct for the sake of comedic timing, too. Putting the punchline of a comic in the middle of a paragraph of description makes it less impactful than saving it until the end, and breaking up dialogue with several sentences describing a background or outfit means people may lose the thread of the comic.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t describe the character design if you can find a way to significantly shorten the description or include it separately. We’ll go over one possible way of including them in the line breaks section.

2) When dealing with complex settings, backgrounds, or clusters of items, ask yourself what needs to be described individually, and what can be generalized.

Complex and/or cluttered surroundings can get incredibly wordy when describing each component as it’s own thing. If certain components are not individually important to the viewer’s understanding the piece, generalizing or sometimes even leaving them out can significantly cut down on words. For example, writing:

“A mahogany shelf sits above his head. On it sits a blue mug with a spoon sticking out, a ceramic container filled with utensils, and a set of salt and pepper shakers.”

is significantly wordier than writing:

“A shelf holding various utensils and kitchen items sits above his head.”

Sometimes you can bear to cut individual details entirely if they aren’t particularly relevant to understanding the image. For example, if describing a drawing of characters at the beach, and there’s a buoy in the ocean way out in the distance, you probably don’t need to describe it unless it plays an active role in the piece.

3) When describing the appearances of characters, keep in mind what features are important to understanding the artist’s depiction.

Certain aspects of a character’s appearance can say a lot about how the artist wants them to be interpreted. Things like body frame, hair and clothing style, and especially race can vary drastically by artist, and in result change how the character is understood.

Other things like eye color, nose shape, or specific body proportions often do not change the general understanding of the character, and can cause the character description to become bloated. They typically should not be included.

There are certainly exceptions to this however, for example, if a character has unnatural features like glowing eyes or a snout, it changes how the character is meant to be perceived and should be described.

4) Play around with line breaks.

Sometimes pieces are just too complex to avoid having a long description. In order to make sure all important details are included while also including action, consider breaking the description up into chunks. Putting the action first and then writing out the character designs allows the people who want to know what’s going on in the image but don’t particularly care about designs to skip to the next post after the first paragraph, while still providing the descriptions for the people who do.

5) Be aware of what your audience already knows.

When there’s a reasonable expectation that your audience might already know something, it’s okay to use some shorthand. This comes up often when describing memes.

For example, writing:

The Spiderman pointing at himself meme, where one Spiderman is labeled X and the other is labeled Y.

is much more succinct than writing:

A screencap of a cartoon. Two people in identical Spiderman costumes are standing in front of an NYPD vehicle, with one facing away from the viewer and one facing toward the viewer. They are both pointing at each other in identical poses. The Spiderman facing away from the viewer is labeled X in white text. The Spiderman facing toward the viewer is labeled Y in white text.

You’re writing for an audience of Tumblr users, so you can assume most Tumblr users are familiar with the meme. If they aren’t, you’ve given them enough information to look up more about it.

This is also something to consider when describing fanart. Most podcast characters by nature don’t have canonical appearances, so the choice of how to portray a character is often intentional on the part of the artist and something worth paying attention to when considering the purpose of a piece. This isn’t the case for all media, though, and re-describing characters with canonical appearances over and over again isn’t necessary unless those appearances differ significantly from the norm.

-

We hope this was able to help! If anyone sees this and would like to add anything, please feel free to do so, and as always, if you have any more questions, feel free to reach out.

~The Mods

[harmonyindark245]

Murder at Velaris [Chapter 2]

Welcome to The Velaris, one of the most prestigious buildings in Manhattan. Here we have famous artists, rich businessmen, royalties, topnotch doctors and lawyers as well as a murderer hidden amongst them.

When one of the residents of The Velaris is found dead, three fans of a true crime podcast decide to take it up to themselves to solve the mystery. Rhysand, a forgotten actor, Cassian, a stage director in great debt and Elain, whose past is just as suspicious and mysterious as the murder they’re investigating.

Will they be able to uncover the murderer’s identity before they become the victims themselves?

An Only Murders in the Building AU.

AN : All characters are owned by Sarah J Maas. The story is based on the tv show 'Only Murders in the Building' A lot of scenes and dialogue are directly from the source. There is usage of mature language and slightly graphic descriptions of violence because, well, murder. Enjoy reading!

MASTERLIST

Who is Tamlin Wrose?

It started with the opening theme song and a man handcuffed to a chair.

“You’ve got the wrong guy. I’ve got 20 eye witnesses saying that I was at my niece’s baptism last night.” The man started tearing up. “It was a beautiful service. Only wish my mother were alive to see it.”

“Spare me the bullshit.” A voice came from the corner of the room. Out of the darkness emerged a young Rhysand wearing baggy faded denim jeans and a white button up shirt. “I’m not some loner teenager looking out for a little bit of adventure. I’m the Death Incarnate. You can’t fool me.”

Elain rolled her eyes as she sat on her couch going through the episodes of Rhys’s detective show. She was also drawing on her iPad while fiddling around with the ring they found from Tamlin’s package.

“You think you’re so tough just because you had a rough father?” Young Rhys spat out. “Well let me tell you something about my father. He was a highly functioning alcoholic.”

Hearing this, Elain sat up straight and listened intently to the dialogue.

Young Rhys continued on. “My father and I are alike in many ways. We’re both right handed, but use scissors on the left. Can play any instrument by ear, but basic algebra, huh, forget about it.”

“You’re the spitting image of your father.” The man in handcuffs told him.

“People used to tell me that as a compliment. It wasn’t to me. He treated my mother awfully. He made her feel small, it made him feel powerful.”

“The fuck?” Elain said as she remembered her conversation with Rhys while breaking into Amren’s apartment. She shut her laptop in anger.

—---------------------

“Who is Tamlin Wrose?” Rhys said into the microphone, standing beside Cassian in a stuffy closet. “We know he lived on the ninth floor at the Velaris. We know he had a mailbox.”

“We know he had manicures done, or he just had a very naturally pleasing nail bed.” Cassian added.

Rhys sighed. “This is really bad.”

“I know.” Cassian said sympathetically. “I can feel myself aging while listening to you speak.”

Rhys looked affronted. “What? This is your writing. It’s terrible. You don’t know anything about the guy.” Rhys fanned the paper near his face. “It’s so hot in here. Do we have to do it in the closet?”

Cassian smirked. “Now you just sound like my ex-girlfriend.” Rhys gave him an unimpressed look causing Cassian to sigh. “Yes we do, the acoustics are much better here. And trust me, you need the acoustics.”

“I’m claustrophobic. I’m out of here.” Rhys walked out of the closet and saw Mabel entering the apartment. “How did you get in here?” He asked her.

“The door was unlocked.” She simply answered, holding a sheet of paper in her hand.

“Oh yeah,” Cassian answered. “I never lock my door. It’s neighborly.”

Elain raised one eyebrow at him. “I mean yeah, there’s probably a murderer roaming around here but I guess old men like you are just afraid of societal change and colon cancer.” She walked away. “Sad.”

Both Rhys and Cassian looked at her with their mouths open and eyes wide. Rhys recovered first. “There is definitely a murderer in the building because the security footage shows that no one from outside the building entered during the time of Tamlin’s death.” He folded his hands. “So, Elain, tell us what you found from the online world of Tamlin Wrose.”

She tilted her head. “I swear to god, you act like a 70 year old rather than your actual 35.” She shook her head, “Anway, there wasn’t much to find in his online world. He was a loner who had a sad, quiet life.”

“Well okay. And before I forget, we should keep all our evidence in the same place, so give me the engagement ring, I’ll hang onto it.” Rhys said, extending his hand.

Elain frowned. “Why do you get to keep it? Don’t you trust me, Rhys?” She said his name weirdly causing Rhys to frown at her. She sighed. “It’s at my apartment, I’ll give it to you later.”

Cassian snapped his fingers. “Guys, guys, guys. Our podcast isn’t going to pop until we figure out who is Tamlin Wrose.”

“Who was Tamlin Wrose.” Elain corrected.

Cassian shrugged. “Yeah, well I’ve already named the episode ‘Who is Tamlin Wrose’.”

“When did we finish the first episode?” Rhys asked.

“Dude, it’s called a work in progress.” Cassian said exasperatedly. “We need to make our episode in such a way so that the listeners can get to know the victim. Make them either sympathetic, sexy or interesting, none of which I feel towards Tamlin Wrose.”

Rhys clapped his hands together. “Someone had to know him in this building. We find that one person and question them.”

Elain was quiet as she remembered an encounter from a few weeks prior.

“Back off Elain.” Tamlin said as he got out of the elevator. “You can’t just vanish for 7 years and then randomly show up, bringing up shit from back when we were kids.”

Elain followed him angrily. “Az is getting out soon.”

Tamlin snorted as he started unlocking his door. “Good for you then. You could go back to eye fucking him from a distance. Or maybe you might take your chance because Gwyn’s no longer here to stop you.”

Elain narrowed her eyes at him “You can make things right. You know what happened that night, yet you didn’t say a thing.”

Tamlin sighed and turned towards her. “Look Elain, if this is all you’re here for… I don’t want to think about that time, okay. I’m a different person now.”

Elain shook her head in disbelief. “Jesus, we are different. And I don’t need people like you in my life anymore.”

Tamlin nodded his head. “Fine. Good. So, if you ever see me around the building, act like you don’t know me.” He opened his door and was about to walk in when he added, “Because you don’t.”

Elain scrunched her face in fury. “Happily. Fuck you.”

“What if Tamlin was a dick?” Elain said as she came back to the present.

Cassian shrugged. “Hmm, that is a definite angle. I mean, I wouldn’t want him to be dickier than Steve Carell in The Office. I’d still care if he got murdered, you know. Or would I?”

Rhys just rolled his eyes at Cassian’s statement. “We need to find someone who knows him.”

Elain got up from her seat. “I have an idea. It may be a long shot, but they’re holding a memorial for Tamlin Wrose. Maybe we’ll find something down there?” She walked off handing Cassian the pamphlet in her hand. Both of the men stared at her in astonishment.

“God, she’s good!” Cassian commented.

—-----------------

The three of them entered the lobby to see a bunch of people gathered.

“I don’t know anybody here.” Rhys commented as he looked around.

“Ooh, there’s food. Thank God.” Cassian rushed towards the food table. “Mmmm, Helion Day lives on the sixth floor. He owns DAY’S DELI. Great guy, great dips. One son. Doesn’t speak much.”

“I’m gonna go look around.” Elain said, walking off, leaving Rhys and Cassian alone.

“I’m gonna leave you alone with your food, okay?” Rhys said as he moved ahead. His attention was caught by a young woman with brown and golden hair, drinking coffee. He went to stand beside her and she offered him a smile when she saw him. She looked exquisite with gray eyes and pink lips.

“Good morning.” Rhys said awkwardly. Her smile turned into an amused one.

“Good morning.” She replied back.

Rhys looked down at the floor. “Um, did you know him?” She looked at him in question. “Tamlin Wrose.” He clarified.

The lady shifted uncomfortably. “Um yeah, kind of. We dated a long time ago.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Rhys offered.

The lady scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be. Trust me, the world’s a better place with him dead.” She mumbled under her breath. “I’m Feyre Archeron, by the way.” She said, offering her hand.

Rhys took it and pressed a kiss to it, causing her to blush. Rhys felt a wave of pride go through him. “I’m Rhysand. Nice to meet you.”

“I’ve never seen you before.” Feyre said questioningly.

Rhs brought his hand to the back of his neck. “Yes, well I don’t really leave my apartment unless there’s an absolute necessity.”

“Ahh” Feyre nodded in understanding. “An introvert. I get it. So, I’m guessing you didn’t know Tamlin either?” Rhys just shook his head. “And the memorial of a guy you didn’t even know seemed to be a necessity?” She chuckled.

“Not exactly.” Rhys answered. He moved closer to her. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually investigating him.” At her confused look he continued. “I- along with two other people, we don’t believe that this was a suicide. So we’re investigating the murder.”

Feyre instantly frowned. “I think you should let things be the way they are.” She whirled around, moving away from him. “Word of advice, don’t put your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Rhysand was left confused and slightly suspicious by this encounter. He decided to find Elain and Cassian and tell them what he found.

—-------------------

Instead of going to find a place to sit, Elain ended up near the superintendent of the building’s office. She knocked on the door twice and waited.

The door opened to reveal an old man. He was about to slam the door back close when he saw Elain but she kept her hand on the door preventing him from closing it.

“Sir, please.” She pleaded. The man just sighed but didn’t close the door. “Is he in there?” She asked him but the man didn’t answer.

“Sir, I know you’re the only family he has left, but please let him know that he’s not alone. I really want to talk to him. Just please tell him that.” She knew she wouldn’t get any other answer so she turned to walk away when she heard him call her name. “Miss Archeron, you know you were the only one of Az’s friends that I liked. What happened with Gwyn that night and now Tamlin, I would suggest you be aware of your surroundings. And please let Azriel move on from his past.”

She was about to speak but he held his hand up to stop her. “I know you only want good for him. So please, leave him alone. Let him start off with a clean slate.” The man then closed the door leaving her alone and dejected.

—-------------------

Cassian found both Elain and Rhysand standing near the chairs, looking gloomy.

“What’s up with you two? Who died?” He asked, then at Elain’s stern look he added, “Sorry, bad timing.”

“What the fuck are you all standing for?!” A loud voice came from the front of the room. Amren, a really short but terrifying lady standing in front of them all. “Come on people, see these fucking chairs? They’re meant to be sat on.” She started clapping her hands to urge them on. “This won’t take long unless you make it take long.”

All the people hurriedly took a seat, not wanting to anger the short woman.

“Now-” Before Amren could continue, a man sitting at the front stood up.

“Um, Amren if I may?” He asked politely. Amren rolled her eyes and gestured at him to continue. He turned towards the crowd and started. “Hello, I’m Dr. Jurian, and I know we are all grieving the death of Tamlin Wrose. If any of you need to talk privately about Tamlin or whatever, I live on six and I take venmo.” With that he sat down and Rhys made a disgusted face.

“Oh, a therapist is always a fun suspect.” Cassian informed the two.

“Anyway,” Amren continued, “Due to the shocking nature of this incident, we are mandated to do this for some bullshit insurance purposes. The family’s in Australia where the body has already been flown.” Elain looked down towards her lap with a sad look. “So, does anybody have anything to share?” After a brief pause, she clarified, “About Tamlin Wrose.”

“Here we go.” Rhysand whispered. “Time for the killer to make himself known.” He leaned towards Elain and whispered, “That was from my show.” He said proudly. Elain closed her eyes in annoyance as Cassian started recording on his phone.

There was silence amongst the people. “A loving memory? A kindness?” Amren urged.

Pin drop silence.

Finally one woman raised her hand. “Does this mean we get to use our fireplaces again?” She asked.

“Yeah, he was the guy with the bad asthma, right?” The lady sitting beside her, Ianthe, added. “He’s dead right, so we should be able to use our fireplaces again.” Others around her started to agree with her.

“We’ll talk about fireplaces in the next board meeting.” Amren interjected.

“Wait, Tamlin was the reason we couldn’t use our fireplaces?!” Rhys asked. “I hated that guy!”

“He once yelled at me.” Ianthe claimed. “He yelled at me for smoking outside!”

Amren sighed. “Look, no one liked him anyway. Can’t we just be glad he’s gone and move on?”

“Shit.” Elain widened her eyes at the bluntness.

“Um, excuse me.” A lady with platinum blonde hair stood up. “That apartment is mine, hmm. I lived next to that miserable man for 8 years and I need the extra rooms.”

Amren nodded. “Yes Viviane, we have you on our waiting list-”

“Ah, ah, ah, ah.” She waved her finger. “There is no waiting list. The apartment is mine.”

“Wouldn’t be the first New Yorker to kill for real estate.” Cassian whispered to Rhys, causing him to softly laugh. In front of them, they noticed a man sobbing into his handkerchief.

Rhys tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, were you close to Tamlin?”

“And do you consent to be recorded?” Cassian added. “Just say anything to agree.”

The man shook his head. “No, please.”

“Perfect, thanks.” Cassian once again started recording.

“Last night-” He broke off before sobbing once more. “I’m so sorry, it’s just that last night my cat, Amarantha died. I’m sorry, I don’t like doing this.”

Cassian waved his hand. “Time. Okay we’re gonna cut.” He placed his hand on his chin. “I love the emotion. Keep that, but I need you to enunciate better.” He turned towards Rhys. “Do you have anything?”

“Yeah, the crying is covering the dialogue.”

“Right, so I need you to work on that.” Cassian snapped his fingers. “So, it’s kind of an upbeat story in it’s weird way. Whenever you’re ready…and action.”

“My cat. My beautiful Amarantha. She died last night.” The man said without crying.

Elain tilted her head. “Your cat?”

“Hybern?” Ianthe called from ahead. “Did you say your cat died last night?” Hybern nodded his head ruefully.

Ianthe gasped. “What's wrong?” Someone asked.

“Amarantha died. The ginger tabby that used to come through the windows.” The people gathered there looked sad.

“Amarantha! Oh no!” “That’s so sad!”

Dr. Jurian stood up once again. “Yes I am sure we are all grieving the death of our beautiful Amarantha. I would just like to remind everyone, I live on sixth and venmo.” He smiled reassuringly.

Elain, Rhysand and Cassian all shared a look of disbelief. “Maybe we should make a podcast on Amarantha.” Elain piqued. Rhysand grunted in acceptance.

—-------------------

Cassian started keeping the unused dips in his pockets as Rhys and Elain stood there watching him.

“So, our victim is less likable than a dead cat.” Rhys said unhelpfully.

“You know what I think? We should ask Emerie.” Cassian told them. “She’s the building manager. I’m willing to bet that if anyone knew about Tamlin it would be her.” Behind him Amren came up to him.

“Cassian, can I have a word?” She asked.

“Sure Amren.” They moved away from the other two. “Let me tell you, you look like a cute little snowball in that outfit.” Cassian complemented.

“Mhm. Your building fees are eight months past due.” She informed him gravely. “This is your final notice before the board will be forced to take drastic actions.”

“Amren, we’re friends -”

“That’s why I’m using a friendly tone. Don’t fuck with me Cassian.”

Cassian shook his head. “Can’t think of anything less pleasant.”

“Well, that makes two of us.” She said as she left him standing alone. On the other side of the room, Rhys and Elain were distracted by Hybern’s crying.

“I didn’t even cry that much when my mother died.” Rhysand said.

Elain turned and looked straight at him. “Is that true or are you lying?” She folded her hands across her chest.

Rhysand gave her a weird look. “Why would I lie about something like that?” She just continued to look at him, distrust written across her face. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do right now.”

Elain let out a sigh. When Cassian came up to them, she told them that she wasn’t feeling well and left them.

“What did you do?” Cassian accused Rhys.

“Nothing!” Rhys defended. “Just making conversation.”

Cassian hummed. “Not really your thing.”

----------------

Elain laid down on her couch, staring up at the patterns on the ceiling, the image of Tamlin’s dead body flashing in her mind.

She sat up and opened her laptop and started recording herself.

“Hi. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Maybe it’s because nobody gave a shit about Tamlin. I just want to leave something behind just in case…”

She picked up her iPad, showing a sketch of Tamlin. “Who is Tamlin Wrose?” She started swiping, changing into sketches of a younger Tamlin Wrose. “Who was Tamlin Wrose.”

“I met him here, at the Velaris, when we were 12.”

A young Tamlin Wrose was walking along the edge of the water fountain, coming across a young Elain, sitting there and sketching. “Who are you?” He asked in an Australian accent. “I know everyone in this building and I’ve never seen you.”

Elain looked up towards him. “I don’t live in this building, my sister does. Nesta Archeron.”

“12A” Tamlin said and Elain nodded. “She’s okay. A bit young, but okay.”

“She’s a banker at Goldman Sachs. She’s amazing.” Elain said childishly.

“She’s the one that gives out whole candy bars on Halloween.” Tamlin told her.

“I live in Long Island where they give out cigarettes and lighters.” Elain informed him.

Tamlin looked her over once and nodded. “Yeah, you do look pretty poor.” He sat down next to her. “What are you drawing?”

Elain handed the paper to him. “It’s the garden near my house.”

Tamlin looked at it for a moment before returning it to her. “It’s bad.” He said bluntly.

“It’s true, Tamlin didn’t get along with many people. He was direct, but he never lied. Maybe that’s why I liked him. We would spend weeks together, whenever my sister let me come visit her. I would pretend that I lived at the Velaris, and we would be our own Hardy Boys, looking for mysteries to solve. For years it was just me and Tamlin. Sometimes Feyre would tag along. Then we met Azriel and Gwyneth.

“Azriel was the nephew of the superintendent of the building. Gwyn convinced him to copy his uncle’s keys so that we could Hardy Boy in whatever apartment we wanted when the owners were out of town.

A teenage Elain entered the dark apartment, Tamlin coming up behind her with a flashlight. Behind both of them, a girl with copper hair and teal eyes entered holding a bunch of keys.

The last one in was a tall, tan skinned boy with dark hair and hazel eyes. Gwyn dropped the keys onto his open palm and pulled him in for a kiss. Elain instantly looked away from them, ignoring the hurt she felt.

“Gwyn’s parents owned an apartment on the 11th floor, but that wasn’t enough for her. She was the life of the party. But sometimes, she took things too far.

Gwyn went into the bathroom and screeched excitedly. “Full med cabinet! We’re camping down here tonight people!” Elain smirked at her antics. Azriel came up behind her and placed his arms around Elain’s shoulders. From the other side she could see Tamlin smirk at her.

“It was fun mostly. Until the end.”

Elain slammed her laptop shut, unable to think of the night when everything had gone to shit.

----------------

Cassian and Rhys were on the elevator, making their way downstairs to the building manager’s office.

“Okay, Emerie always has some sort of side hustle going on. So try not to sign up for any subscription box, timeshare or complimentary mammogram, while you’re down there. They are incredibly difficult to cancel.” Cassian informed Rhys.

“I always thought her name was Emily.” Rhys said.

Cassian looked at him with wide eyes. “How is it that you don’t know anyone?” He asked in disbelief. Rhys just shrugged. “So, you what? Put Emily on her envelope when you tip at christmas?”

“I don’t tip.” Rhys said plainly. Cassian gasped. “I think it’s elitist. I send out autographed photos instead.”

“And that is definitely not elitist.” Cassian said sarcastically. The elevator door opened with a ding and Cassian moved out, blocking Rhys. “You know what, I think you should go back upstairs.”

Rhys frowned in confusion. “Why?”

Cassian sighed. “Because I’m starting to think people like you less than Tamlin Wrose.”

Rhysand stood agape and watched as Cassian went off. He got out of the elevator and followed Cassian.

Cassian reached the building manager’s booth and announced his presence. “Emerie! My beloved. Even from here, you smell like a field of lavenders and french fries.” Cassian told her enthusiastically.

Emerie laughed. “My two favorite things.” She told him with a wide smile. “What brings your fat ass down here?” She enquired.

“Well, it’s just that I didn’t see you at the memorial for Tamlin Wrose and I thought I’d check in.” He made a glum face. “It was a tragedy.”

Emerie scoffed. “Was it really? Dude didn’t want to be at the party anymore so he left. Do you know how many complaints I got about him?” She brought out a very thick file labeled Tamlin Wrose with a small image of his.”

Cassian looked at the file with glee. “I would really love to take a peek at that file.”

“Emerie!” Rhys popped his head beside Cassian. “It’s me! Rhysand from 14!”

Emerie’s expression instantly soured and she took the file away. “Is he with you?” She asked Cassian.

Cassian waved his hand. “Not at all-”

“I am. I see you have my pho- oh.” Rhysand paused as he saw his autographed photo taped to the wall with a devil’s horn and mustache added onto it.

Emerie smirked. “Yeah, it’s a personal favorite, can’t you tell?”

“Look, the only reason I didn’t tip you is out of respect for you.” Rhys explained as Cassian let out a groan.

“Please don’t respect me so much.” She snarked.

“Emerie, please. I would really love to look at that file of complaints regarding Tamlin Wrose.” He shushed Rhys as he opened his mouth to say something. “Can’t we work something out here?” Cassian negotiated.

Emerie raised an eyebrow. “Well if you really want it.” She picked up a large carton box which made a sloshing noise as it moved. She placed the box in front of them.

“‘Gut Milk’?” Rhys asked as he read the words written on the box.

She nodded. “It’s a beverage and a business. First case is 250. Buy two, I’ll throw in the file. Three and I’ll fill you in on the stuff that was too juicy to write down.”

“That seems steep.” Rhys informed.

Emerie shrugged. “It’s up to you. But after tomorrow, this,” She showed them the file, “And everything else about that guy, gone.”

“Why, what’s tomorrow?” Cassian asked.

----------------

Elain opened her door as she heard a knock. She found Rhys and Cassian standing with wide smiles, one holding a plastic bag, the other a mic.

“They’re cleaning out Tamlin Wrose’s apartment tomorrow, so we’re gonna go down there and look for clues before everything’s gone.” Rhys said. He held out a pair of gloves. “Do you wanna come?”

Elain looked at the gloves with one brow raised. “Do I wanna break into a dead guy’s apartment and go through all his shit?” She shrugged. “Sounds like an afternoon.” They started moving out when Rhys asked, “Ooh, do you have the engagement ring?”

Elain nodded. “Yeah, it’s in my apartment.” She closed the door of her apartment and started moving ahead.

“Do you appeal to anyone?” Cassian asked.

Rhys shook his head. “Not for years.”

The three made their way down to the ninth floor, entering Tamlin’s apartment with Rhys’ lock picking set. “This is it, our one chance to know the dead guy.”

“Oh, that was a very nice high drama line” He brought the mic in front of Rhys, “But I need you to repeat that.”

“Why what was wrong with that one?” Rhys asked.

Cassian tilted his head. “You don’t want to know.” Rhys ignored him and showed the other two his bag as he started moving forward.

“I brought luminol and a blacklight just in case we find-”

“Ah! Blood! Blood! Oh my gosh so much blood!” Cassian screamed as he stepped into a pool of blood on the floor.

“Stop yelling blood.” Rhys reprimanded him.

“Oh my god, is it his blood? Is it my blood? Are my feet bleeding through my shoes?” Cassian asked dramatically.

“That’s just your brain leaking out of your foot.” Rhys told him. Elain walked up to the pool of blood, her breath stuck in her throat as she took in the pool of blood and the splatter of blood on the wall behind her. “Here, take these booties, they’ll prevent you from slipping.” Rhys handed them a pair of blue plastic booties.

“And remember to keep your eyes open, anything could be a clue.” Rhys told them.

Elain turned to look at the bookshelf that was filled with blue hardbound Hardy Boys books.

“Whoah.” Elain let out.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, it's just, really weird to be in here.” She informed them.

“Okay, well look out for any laptops or cell phones.” Rhys said.

“The cops probably took those.” Elain told him.

“Look at all these past due bills.” Cassian said as he went through the letters he found on the fireplace mantel. “Didn’t the detective say he was facing financial problems?” Cassian read out the different letters. “Rent, utilities, he’s behind in his building fees, poor guy.”

Rhys shook his head in disgust. “People who don’t pay the building fees are the worst. Ours goes up because of them. Now I really don’t like this guy.”

Cassian had a sheepish look on his face. “I don’t think it’s a sin to be slow to write a check.” He let out a nervous laugh. “I’m gonna go look in there.” He pointed deeper into the house.

“Well, no pictures of any girlfriend.” Elain said as she finished checking around the room.

“No? That seems strange.” Rhys wondered. Elain just shrugged in response.

“Sex toys!” Cassian came out waving a riding crop in his hand. “We got sex toys people!” He said excitedly. He placed a box on top of the center table. “Okay, remember, no judging. There’s nothing shameful about deviant sexual pursuits.” Elain scrunched her face in disgust as he took one toy out. “Ooh, looks like Mr. Vanilla took a turn down Rocky Road, if you know what I mean.” Cassian smirked.

“I don’t think you know what you mean.” Rhys said as he looked at the thing in Cassian’s hand with distaste.

“Goodbye snoozing, hello cruising” Cassian said as he took out another toy. “You know, we might be able to get DNA evidence out of this.”

“I just say, bag 'em up and maybe take a Z-pak.” Rhysand said. Elain ignored the both of them and walked further into the apartment. She couldn’t help but remember the last time she was in that house.

“Hey lady!” Elain turned to look at Gwyn in a dark green sleeveless dress, showcasing the whale tattoo, similar to the one Elain had on her shoulder. She smiled at her. “You look hot.” Gwyn informed her as she came to place her hand over her shoulder, playing with the pink strand in Elain’s hair.

“I hate New Year’s.” Elain informed. “It means that winter break is over.”

Gwyn frowned. “Yeah, and you have to return to shitty Long Island to get finger fucked by your cousins.” Elain scrunched her face as both of them laughed.

“You are so gross.” Gwyn smiled at her.

“You know you love me.” Elain noticed the carved rose necklace Gwyn was wearing and felt her heart break.

“Where’d you get that?” She asked Gwyn.

Gwyn just smiled as she looked at the necklace. “It was a gift.”

“Hey guys.” A voice came from the other room. Both the females turned around to look at Azriel walking in with a tie in his hand. “How are we feeling about this tie? I-” He broke off as he took in Elain’s cobalt dress. “Wow.” He whispered in awe. Elain bit her lip and looked down in awkwardness as Gwyn raised her eyebrows at Azriel. He instantly turned towards Gwyn. “What, I already told you. You look great.” He told Gwyn.

She walked away from Elain and moved towards Azriel, “Just don’t even.” She then kissed him and walked off, leaving both of them alone.

Azriel looked back at Elain and raised his hand helplessly, showing her the tie. “Help me?”

Elain softly smiled at him and held her hand out. She wrapped the tie around his neck and started tying it, her having to step onto her toes and him bending down slightly. As soon as she was done, she looked up to find him looking at her. Her breath hitched as she looked at his lips, desperately wanting to lean forward. Azriel started moving towards her but Elain instantly moved back.

“We can’t” She shook her head at him.

He let out a sigh. “I’m sorry Elain.” He raised his hands to hold her but she moved a step back. “I promise, I’ll break up with her. After New Year’s, I’m yours.”

Elain shot him a cold look. “After New Year’s, I’m gone.”

“Hey what are you guys waiting for?” Feyre’s voice came as she looked towards the both of them.

“What are you doing here?” Elain asked Feyre as she took in her state of dress.

Feyre shrugged. “Tamlin invited me.” At that Tamlin came out of his room wearing a three piece suit.

“Yes, I did. And, if we don’t hurry, it’ll get dark and no one will be able to see how fucking awesome we look.” Elain smiled at his antics, ignoring the empty feeling inside her.

“We need a picture. Feyre can you take it for us?” Azriel asked.

“Why don’t I get to be in the picture?” Feyre asked while smiling.

“Because you are here as eye candy Feyre, just for Tamlin to get laid.” Gwyn informed her somewhat harshly.

All the others present frowned at Gywn’s rudeness. She looked at them and smiled. “It was just a joke.”

Elain still frowned but posed for the picture as Feyre took it.

A few hours later, the party on the rooftop was in full swing. Music playing, people dancing and getting drunk.

Gwyn and Azriel were having a fight. She pushed Azriel away from her as he tried to talk to her. “You’re a goddamn asshole. What the fuck is wrong with you?” She exclaimed.

“I didn’t do anything!” He told her in equal anger.

“Oh, really?” She asked rhetorically. She moved inside near the staircase. “No, that’s like textbook cheating!” Azriel followed her inside, continuing his fight.

On the other hand, Elain was busy drowning her sorrows and feelings in alcohol. Feyre came towards her, her eyes red and filled with tears. “I’m going back downstairs, don’t be late.”

Elain reached out for Feyre. “Hey, what happened?” She asked, slurring a bit.

This irritated Feyre. “Nothing Elain! Just enjoy your stupid party with your stupid Hardy Boys!” She jerked her hand out of Elain’s hand and left.

Very soon, she heard a female scream which she was pretty sure was Gwyn. As she moved towards the source, she found Tamlin rushing away from there.

“Tamlin! What was that?” She asked.

Tamlin looked shocked with wide eyes. “I saw someone fighting with her.”

“Was it Azriel?” She asked, scared of the answer.

Tamlin shook his head. “No, it was someone else.”

“Bingo!” Cassian’s voice brought Elain out of her reverie. “Paw prints.”

Both Rhys and Cassian were crouched behind the sofa. “Bloody cat prints.” Rhys said, looking towards Elain as she walked towards them.

“What was that dead cat’s name? Amanda?” Cassian asked.

“Amarantha.” Elain told them.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Rhysand told them.

“Oh no, it’s perfectly normal for people to name their pets human names.” Cassian told him. “I once had a parakeet whom I named Bryaxias. It was female but it had very masculine energy.”

“No.” Rhysand said sternly. “The cat was here after Tamlin died.”

“And the cat died that night too.” Elain added. The two men lifted their heads in realization.

“Hybern. That was the owner’s name, right?” Rhysand asked. Cassian nodded. “I think our list of suspects just got longer.” Rhysand flashed a bright smile towards Elain. “That was from my show.” Elain just rolled her eyes in annoyance.

----------------

The three of them entered Rhysand’s apartment, holding bags filled with important things they found from Tamlin’s apartment. Elain paused as she noticed the stack of ‘Gut Milk’ cartons. “What’s that?”

Rhysand entered, closing the door behind him. “It’s a beverage and a business.” They moved further into the apartment. “All in all, not a bad day. We got a list of potential suspects from the file that the photo lady from the basement gave us.”

“Emerie!” Cassian interjected.

“Yes, her.” Rhysand said as he placed his bag on the countertop.

“You know, I think we have enough to paint a clear picture of Tamlin Wrose.” Cassian told them.

Rhys shrugged. “Yeah, he was broke.”

“He liked dirty sex.” Cassian added.

“Asthmatic. No one liked him-”

“Can we not?” Elain asked abruptly. She leveled the two men with a look. “I don’t think being unlikable means he deserved to die.”

“Well no. I think what Rhys is trying to say is that for the podcast, we are still looking for a way to care.” Cassian said elaborately with hand gestures.

She gave them both looks of disbelief. “He was alone. Isn’t that reason enough to care?” She looked straight at Rhys. “You of all people should know how fucking sad that is.”

Rhys looked ashamed. “Look, I didn’t mean to-”

“His blood is still on your shoes.” Rhys looked down to his bloodstained shoes that he held in his hands.

“You’re right.” Rhys said. “We should be more sensitive. Tamlin Wrose was a person. He was a neighbor. Maybe a man in love. It’s easy to lose sight-”

“What episode is that from?” Elain asked innocently. “Can I just stream it later and spare myself?” Rhys looked confused. “The speech you gave me about your dad? I saw that bullshit on youtube this morning.”

“Whoah, whoah. Wait a minute.” Rhys said as he raised his hands.

“I am so confused here. Can someone fill me in?” Cassian asked. “Unless it’s boring. Then don’t.”

“I wrote that speech.” Rhysand said, slightly angry at the accusation. “That was the only thing they let me write for the show and every word is true.”

Elain looked unsure. “You just… said it verbatim?”

“Maybe.” Rhys shrugged. “Is that weird?”

“I can’t tell if you’re acting or not.” She said with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, trust me.” Cassian said loudly. “When he’s acting, you can tell.” Rhys frowned at him. “But let me tell you, when I direct a new show, the hardest part is to get the actors to trust each other. And you know what? That's what we’re doing here. We’re starting a new show.” He chuckled.

“We should just promise to not lie and trust each other.” Rhys suggested. “I can do that.”

“Me too.” Cassian supplied with a smile.

Elain folded her hands. “Yeah, okay.”

“You know what?” Cassian started. “How about we all try a trust exercise?”

“Yeah, no fucking way. Bye.” Elain walked out of the apartment.

As soon as the door closed Cassian leaned towards Rhys. “I so don’t trust her at all. She’s shifty.”

----------------

Elain walked back inside Tamlin’s apartment, the old camera sitting on a side table.

“Tamlin!” Elain ran towards him, who was entering the elevator. “They’re taking Azriel away! You said you saw someone else with Gwyn! You have to tell them!” She told him in a hurry.

Tamlin shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tamlin!” The elevator door closed with her standing all alone, slightly drunk and completely distressed.

“Aren’t you a little too old to be playing Hardy Boys?” She heard a familiar male voice ask. She turned to see Tamlin sitting on the floor, a hole through his head, wearing the same clothes he wore when she last saw him.

“Why did this happen to you?” Elain asked even though she knew that he was just a figment of her imagination.

“Why are you hanging out with a couple of old weirdos?” He questioned back.

“They’re trying to help me find someone who cared about you.” She answered as she walked towards him, sitting down beside him.

“Good luck with that.” Tamlin said with a self -deprecating smile.

“Tamlin, who was the ring for?”

He looked at the ring on her hand. “You want to know if I ever found someone to love me?”

She looked at him sadly, her attention drawn to his gunshot wound. “I’m just trying to figure out who you were. If you were a good guy or not. Should I even be sad that you’re dead?”

“Ouch that hurts.” Tamlin looked affronted. “Almost as much as this.” He pointed towards the hole in his head.

Elain laughed slightly and Tamlin smiled at her. “Why didn’t you tell the cops what you saw that night?” She asked. “And does this have anything to do with what happened that night?”

“I always enjoyed watching you figure things out.” And with the blink of an eye, Tamlin was gone, once again leaving Elain all alone.

Elain got up and moved towards his bookshelf, once again observing the Hardy Boys book collection. As she took one off the shelf, she heard objects clattering towards the ground. She opened the book to find it hollowed out and filled with rings. She took out more books and found them all filled with random pieces of jewelry.

“What the fuck?” She whispered as she saw the collection of jewelry that was now on the floor. She found one book that had two folded pieces of paper in it. She opened one to find the drawing she had made of her garden when they first met.

----------------

“Tamlin was always the kind of guy that made the sensible choice. That’s why none of this made sense. Which brings us back to right where we started.” Elain sat in front of her laptop, recording herself, as the floor around her was littered with jewelry.

“Who is Tamlin Wrose? He liked running across the courtyard fountain. He was observant and robotic, but also kind if you looked at him the right way. He never lied. Except once.”

An image of Gwyn’s mangled body on the ground after falling from the roof flashed in Elain’s mind.

“Who was Tamlin Wrose?”

Elain sighed as she stopped the recording and saved it, naming it as ‘IN CASE I’M NEXT.’

“I’m gonna fucking find out.” She said as she slammed her laptop shut.

----------------

AN: So, we got a Feysand interaction as well as a bit of Elriel past. As the story progresses, we'll be moving away from the original tv show story.

Also, almost every single character is going to be asshole-ish, nothing personal, just the way it is.

Taglist : @sakurakittypeach @devilorfling @sleepyyhead21

[hooklineandpodcast]

Podcatch of the Week

[Image description: The Wooden Overcoats Logo. There is a blue square with a lighter blue circle. Inside the circle is the silhouette of a coffin in light and dark blue almost making a heart shape. Over that is WOODEN OVERCOATS in white \description]

Wooden Overcoats - by David K Barnes

The Hook:  RUDYARD FUNN RUNS A FUNERAL HOME ON THE ISLAND OF PIFFLING.

It used to be the only one. It isn't anymore. 

Rudyard Funn and his equally miserable sister Antigone run their family’s failing funeral parlour, where they get the body in the coffin in the ground on time. But one day they find everyone enjoying themselves at the funerals of a new competitor – the impossibly perfect Eric Chapman! With their dogsbody Georgie, and a mouse called Madeleine, the Funns are taking drastic steps to stay in business…  - Their Website

Favourite Line:

Rudyard: Oh, Antigone?

Antigone: What?

Rudyard: Did you find out why Chapman’s been stockpiling flowers?

Antigone: No.

Rudyard: No? What you mean no?

Antigone: I mean no Rudyard! I mean no! N-O spells no!

Rudyard: Very inefficient.

Antigone: You flooded our home with fluid and corpses!

Rudyard: Yes well, chalk one up to experience. 

- Season 1, Episode 2 - Flowers for Chapman

Thoughts: I think the best way to explain Wooden Overcoats is if you cross Faulty Towers with a funeral home and then have a rival funeral home that is better in all ways move across the way. The series is hilarious, but will constantly pull at your heartstrings. The dialogue is quick and clever and I’ve never gone an episode without laughing out loud. The Funns are miserable people, but you end up caring about them and pulling for them, even when you know they’re outgunned by the likable, popular Chapman. If you need a laugh and maybe a good cry give this one a shot. 

Patreon: No, the best way to support them would be reviews, especially on Itunes. They usually fund themselves with kickstarters and indiegogos, but they’ve already funded their last season. 

LGBTQA+ Characters: Yes

Transcript Available: No, from what I understand, because there are multiple writers on some episodes there are copyright issues which they are working on. There are no fan transcripts that I know of. 

If you liked: Death by Dying, Victoriocity, The Amelia Project, or the Magnus Archives (Sounds like a weird pull but I find a lot of people that like one like the other), you might like Wooden Overcoats. 

Podcast Info: Their Website is woodenovercoats.com and you can find them here on tumblr @woodenovercoats​

Enjoying Wooden Overcoats? Please reblog and spread the word. Podcasts are usually passion projects and need the support of their listeners to get the word out. Catch you next week!

[irracionxl-blog]

Are you using Instagram to promote your business?

Want to increase your exposure?

Making a few simple tweaks to your Instagram marketing can generate more engagement and increase the visibility of your content.

In this article you’ll discover how to get more exposure for your brand on Instagram.

Listen to this article:

Where to subscribe:

iTunes/Apple Podcast

|

Android

|

Google Podcasts

|

Google Play

|

Stitcher

|

TuneIn

|

Spotify

|

RSS

#1: Embrace the Hashtag

Descriptive hashtags on Instagram will help expose your content to more people. This will lead to more engagement and ultimately grow your followers.

For anyone who doesn’t already know, hashtags are short, descriptive keywords, preceded by the hash sign (#), which enable users to find content they’re looking for with a simple click. Relevant hashtags in posts help create a dialogue between your business and other users.

There are a number of things you can do with hashtags to get the ball rolling on Instagram.

First of all, add hashtags relevant to your industry or niche to every post your business makes on Instagram. Remember, you can use as many hashtags as you want, which will help you attract a wider audience. Note: Research has found even small accounts that use 11 or more hashtags receive an average of 77.6 interactions.

So if you’re an online retailer specializing in women’s clothes, include the hashtag #womensfashion, among others, in your photo description. This will help users find inspiration, as well as help you land more followers, improve brand awareness and increase sales.

Plus, spend some time commenting on relevant photos from other Instagram users with a hashtag you’re targeting. Your brand will be exposed to users who are already interested in that specific hashtag, which will also help increase followers and engagement. There are a few more things you can do to get the most out of hashtags.

First, be as specific as possible when choosing your hashtags. This will help your brand connect with other like-minded users on Instagram. You’ll have a much better chance of converting them, since they’re highly targeted prospects.

Also, be relevant. Make sure you use applicable hashtags on your posts, so people who are interested in what you do are able to find you.

Finally, keep your eyes open. Pay attention to which hashtags other users are including on their photos. You may find a new, popular hashtag that will help you reach more people.

#2: Engage With Your Community

To make the most of your efforts on Instagram, it’s vital to spend time engaging with your community and other users on the platform.

See what photos and hashtags attract the most comments and likes, and jump on the bandwagon. You can also re-post exceptional images from your followers.

https://chrispalmermarketing.com

Also, determine where people from your target demographic hang out. Find out which accounts they follow and then engage with them. Comment on their photos and like their posts. Remember to add value with your comments and don’t be spammy.

If you’ve done your research and interact with the right people, these users are likely to engage with your brand and follow your account. Your brand will also start to show up on their followers’ radar.

#3: Launch a Contest

The prospect of getting something for nothing has always been alluring in the world of marketing. Use the reach and popularity of your Instagram account to host competitions and attract more followers. An Instagram contest is a great way to drum up excitement and get people talking about your brand.

Whether you go with a tag, hashtag, like to win, share or other type of promotion, your Instagram contest will certainly be a hit.

#4: Build Awareness of Your Instagram Handle

Even though this is fairly obvious and straightforward, it’s still worth mentioning. The first step in Instagram marketing is to promote your handle to your customers. Then they’ll know you have a presence on Instagram and where to find you.

There are various ways to spread the word that your business is on Instagram. If you have a storefront, print out an Instagram badge along with your username. Laminate it or put it in a frame and display it in your store. This is something you can share virtually on your social platforms as well.

You can write a blog post on your Instagram presence, and share it on your different social platforms. Be sure to link to your Instagram account from your website as well.

#5: Cross-Promote Visual Posts on Other Social Media Channels

Part of the reason Instagram is so popular is that people love visual content.

Don’t limit your visual posts to Instagram. Share them on all of your social channels, such as Facebook and Twitter. That way you can leverage the fan bases of all of your social accounts.

Cross-promoting is yet another way to raise awareness of your Instagram account.

Final Thoughts

Instagram now has more monthly users than Twitter, which makes it one of the most popular social media networks out there.

A visual platform like Instagram is the perfect social media channel to convey your brand’s personality to your audience. Use these tips to effectively market your brand. You’ll increase your audience, as well as your visibility, and in turn grow your business.

What do you think? Do you use Instagram to market your business? How have you increased your following? What types of posts get the most engagement for you? What tactics work for you? Please share your experience and recommendations in the comments.

Get more help @seopalmer Twitter

or reach out contact

[shirlleycoyle]

Documents Show Police Virtual Reality Training for ‘Mentally Ill Subjects’

Police forces are using virtual reality experiences to try and train their officers to respond to active shooter and mental health incidents, according to internal lesson plan documents.

The news shows the increasing use of virtual reality among law enforcement agencies, and the growing industry of firms willing to offer it. As well as VirTra, the company mentioned in these plans, government contractor Axon has also launched its own virtual reality training product.

"VirTra created immersive science-based training simulations designed to teach a variety of cognitive and psycho-motor skills ranging from de-escalation to judgmental use of force to situational awareness," the website for Arizona-based VirTra reads. "Whether your department is interested in a new firearm training simulator or police scenario training system, VirTra provides a variety of training solutions."

Do you know anything else about virtual reality and police training? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Some of the scenarios that VirTra offers to customers include "Hot tub trio," where an officer encounters people "in the backyard hot tub, playing loud music and possibly smoking marijuana," and has to decide how to respond to someone confronting them with a liquor bottle, according to scenario descriptions found online. Another is "School Mayhem," where an officer has to respond to shots fired at a school. Some of the "EDP (emotionally disturbed person)" scenarios are called "Mad Bomber," "Suicide By Cop," and "Bag Man." In practice, officers stand in front of a circular set of large monitors that play footage of the acted out incident; officers can then make decisions on when and whether to fire their weapon, for example.

The documents, lesson plan outlines obtained from the Orlando Police Department via a public record request, lay out in more detail what trainees will be asked to do.

A section of the one of the lesson plans. Image: Motherboard.

"Develop a better understanding of how to interact with an Emotionally Disturbed Person," one of the plans reads under the heading "learning goal." They are asked to demonstrate proper de-escalation techniques such as "communicating calmly and clearly with the individual and reducing the immediacy of any threat so they more time, options and resources are available to the officer to resolve the situation with the least amount of force as possible." They are also asked to show the "deployment of less than lethal tools."

In one scenario described in the lesson plans, "The trainee(s) should recognize that they are dealing with an emotionally disturbed person that keeps referring to himself as an astronaut for NASA. During the initial encounter the suspect will become agitated at the trainee(s) presence. The instructor can choose if the dialogue will be escalated or de-escalated, depending on the trainee(s) interaction. The instructor can also have the suspect comply or turn hostile depending on the trainee(s) actions. The suspect will respond to (spray, electronic control device, or lethal force)."

VirTra also has contracts with federal agencies such as Customs and Border Protection and the Secret Service, according to online contracting records viewed by Motherboard.

"I am happy to see the highlight of how agencies are using the system. We support and encourage the use of it as a highly effective tool for teaching and emphasizing de-escalation," Lon Bartel, VirTra’s director of training and curriculum, said in a statement.

Earlier this year Orlando launched a pilot program in which mental health professionals would be sent to nonviolent calls for service.

Subscribe to our new cybersecurity podcast, CYBER.

Documents Show Police Virtual Reality Training for ‘Mentally Ill Subjects’ syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[aion-rsa]

Animorphs: A Panel By Panel Comic Breakdown of Adapting a Scene From The Visitor

https://ift.tt/39BH5q6

Reading the first Animorphs graphic novel was a delightful shock. Not only had one of the greatest sci-fi novels for kids finally returned in a new form but it was also extremely faithful to the original book. Every scene was lifted from the novel and almost all of the dialogue was kept intact. A few small changes were made to remove dated pop culture references or to better fit the visual medium but overall it’s easily one of the closest adaptations of any piece of media out there.

So how is it done? Taking a whole novel and turning it into a graphic novel isn’t a smooth process, especially for a sci-fi series like Animorphs that features a ton of internal first-person narration.

Covering the adaptation of a whole book would need a book of its own to cover so instead artist Chris Grine gave us detailed insight on adapting a specific scene from the second Animorphs novel, The Visitor. Armed with an original copy of the novel, we really got into the nitty gritty of changes, Rachel’s stink face, the horrors of morphing, and even got a few never before heard pieces of info about the upcoming graphic novel.

(For anyone who wants to compare the comic pages to the original novel, the scene these pages are adapting are pages 33-36 of The Visitor.)

DEN OF GEEK: Before we get to these specific pages, I want to talk about the process at the very beginning, which may impact how these pages are handled. So you sit down, you’ve got a copy of The Visitor. Do you first read through the whole thing and figure out how you want to tackle it and what you may want to throw out?

CHRIS GRINE: So here I finished the first Animorphs graphic novel. Then I moved to the first book in this other series I’m working on. While I’m doing that, I’m listening to the audio book for the second Animorphs book. I’m listening to podcasts and I’m doing my research thing. It gives me time to be in my head while I’m trying to think of the different scenes. It’s nice that I didn’t have to just rush right into the next book because I just had time to give it more thought.

That’s basically how I do it. Just as much time as I can to be thinking about it beforehand.

Once I saw the finished comic pages I sat down and really compared them to the book and that really helped illuminate what you have to do for every page of this graphic novel. You’re not just reading a page, drawing a page, you’re taking in the context of the whole scene. Like here, it’s raining but as I’m reading the book it only mentions it’s raining after the scene is done.

That’s how a lot of these things go. I’ve got to really read the whole thing several times before I can even start penciling, because sometimes they drop the warnings after the chapter.

So once you’ve read the original novel several times, do you print out the pages and make notes? You mentioned you also have a spare book to make notes in. 

Well, basically I go chapter by chapter, and since the chapters are anywhere from five to 10 pages or so, I’ll make sure I have a full idea what the environment is. Like in that particular scene she’s going to be walking down the street that’s kind of a boulevard. There are guys that are bothering her in the car, it’s probably a storefront type thing. That’s what I had in my head, that there’s alleys, this is definitely a small downtown. I get that in my head. Then within the book I take a highlighter and I’ll highlight all the dialogue, just the dialogue.

Read more

Movies

ThunderCats Movie Director Promises “The ‘80s Cartoon Brought to Life”

By Shamus Kelley

TV

Avatar: The Last Airbender – What Can We Expect From the New Avatar Studios?

By Shamus Kelley

I’ve got the book next to me while I’m penciling the pages and I’ll jot down little bits and pieces of the dialogue. So at least I know where I’m at on the page. I start doing panels, putting in dialogue, and try to see how the page goes. I know a lot of people probably give it a lot more thought than that, but I just go and then if I hit a wall, then it’s pretty easy to just back up and come at it from a different angle. But that’s the general idea of how I do a lot of it.

In the book, this is a very internal scene for Rachel as this guy is chasing her. She’s having a lot of thoughts about it but in a graphic novel you’ve got to sell most of that in a look. When you read, say, a paragraph of internal thought do you think about how you can sum that all up in a look? How do you make sure it conveys all the thoughts that can’t be put on the page?

Well, with Rachel, it’s pretty easy because I love giving her a stink face. She gets pissed. I really enjoy giving her that little snarl on her face. But if Marco says something that’s obviously out of line, all she’s got to do is look at him and he shuts up. We don’t need half a page about why Marco is so immature and why he needs to keep his mouth shut. Like you said, it’s all in that look. I try to do that as much as I can because it cuts down on word count. 

So let’s get to the morphs on the second page where the guy chasing Rachel says he’s not gonna hurt her. We see the elephant in the shadows and then she jumps out. In the original book, there’s a whole description about Rachel thinking about morphing and the whole process of morphing is described. Here though you cut it down to that one shot of the tusks in the darkness. When she jumps out and is that big half morphed version of herself, it’s very accurate to the description in the books. Was the half morphed image the most important thing you wanted to convey here?

Yeah, I knew that that was going to be important, but I was trying to think of it more like a movie scene. If you’re watching a movie, some dude runs and follows this girl who you know is going to kick his ass. If you’ve read the earlier book you know that she’s not messing around, but he follows her into a dark alley.

Then she goes way back into shadow where you can’t see her. He thinks he’s got the upper hand. I was trying to think timing wise that he can’t see her. He thinks she’s scared and she’s hiding from him. There’s that moment where he thinks he’s definitely in charge. Then she just explodes out of there and he drops his wallet and basically turns into a baby and runs away. I played up the comedy after that. That part wasn’t in the book but I definitely wanted to make him look like an idiot right after that.

I was going to ask about that. In the book, he’s just scared. He runs away. Here he talks with his buddy a bit and they both drive off. Adding that comedic element and making him look like a complete fool, that’s such an interesting change to me. And you give him someone to talk to, because again, you don’t have that internal monologue.

I knew even before I started the book, that this was one of the scenes I was going to have to change. What you don’t know, because you’ve only seen these pages, is the opening of the book where it’s those two hunters that are shooting at them? The same guys.

They’ve had a really bad day. They’re shooting stuff and the bird show up and take the dude’s gun and throws it in the ocean and take the other guy’s drink. Obviously they’re not drinking beer like they were in the book, they’re drinking soda. His buddy spills his soda all over his good shirt. His buddy is constantly going, “It’s not right for the birds to be stealing your guns,” so they’re really mad.

Then I picture the next day, they’re trying to pick up chicks out here [in this scene]. They’re getting ready to have another bad animal day. I just love that. It might be an ongoing joke. Just these two idiots are always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and animals are constantly attacking them. They just don’t know why. So that’s what I was tying it together with.

Having them be 16 probably since they’ve got a truck but not very smart either, it kept the situation in this scene the same but it wasn’t quite as scary.

Obviously, the original books took kid readers seriously and these graphic novels are doing the same thing. But with a visual medium where you’re depicting a real world horror instead of sci-fi horror, you don’t want to completely terrify the kid readers.

And book two, there’s a lot of emotional stuff going on with the cat and with Melissa being just destroyed basically. She thinks her parents hate her. Then at the end with Chapman in the construction site where he’s reduced to a sniveling, crying person laying in the mud, begging. It’s awful. There’s just so many heart wrenching moments in the story that I thought playing up some comedy when I could, or add just a little bit more, especially at the beginning, would maybe lighten it up just a little bit.

Hopefully that’s the consensus after the book comes out. 

On the final page of this preview, we see Rachel morphing back. That image of her morphing back from elephant feels like it’s right out of the original covers of the books. When you draw morphs, are you taking inspiration from those covers, especially the mid morph faces?  

Yeah, absolutely. In the first book with the first two or three morphs, I tried to make sure I showed as much as I could. Then it was easy to do a shorthand later when they needed to morph because it could almost be like it was off camera. You don’t have to see it. Sometimes it’s more exciting if a tiger just bursts out of somewhere and you didn’t see it happening but you were expecting it anyway. It also saves me time and saves page count.

But there are a few scenes at the beginning of the second book when they’re birds and they’re morphing back. There are like two or three pages of just them morphing back and it’s awful (laughs). So I think people are going to get their fill of body horror pretty quick.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Fans have always known about the body horror but in recent years there have been all these memes about the mid morph face from the covers. Now it seems like the graphic novels are leaning right into that.  

It’s still my style, but I still try to make them as terrible as I can. There’s a description in the second book when they’re turning back from birds and one of the description is like, “There’s teeth. The beak is becoming teeth.” It’s awful. So I was like, I’m drawing that for sure. That sounds terrible and that’s definitely going in the book. So I try to have as much fun with them as I can.

Is there anything else you can tell us about the second book? I know it’s not going to come out for a while, but anything that you’re excited for the fans to see?

The first book felt like, if it was a movie, it was a popcorn blockbuster summer movie, right? Lots of big set pieces and stuff. The second one feels smaller and more intimate, and there are a lot more opportunities for character development, or just some conversations. I’m so proud of some of the scenes where I felt like I really got to nail those scenes. Like I did justice to those scenes. 

The scene with Chapman towards the end? It’s terrible. He’s crying and he’s a mess. Since it’s been raining all day, it’s not really mentioned in the book, but that construction site is just mud. He’s falling down in the mud. So he’s also half covered in mud and he’s crying and he’s just a mess, and Visser Three’s just being a total ass to him. 

Those are scenes I was really looking forward to doing, but when I got to them, I slowed way down. I was like, okay, this is an important scene and I got to do it. I know it’s not really telling you anything new about the second book, but I just felt like the stakes were raised on more of an emotional level. That’s something that I was really excited about.

In case you missed it, make sure to read the first part of this interview with Grine where he more broadly talks about adapting the challenges of adapting the books and what’s to come in the future. The Visitor (Animorphs Graphic Novel #2) is now up for pre-order on Amazon.

The post Animorphs: A Panel By Panel Comic Breakdown of Adapting a Scene From The Visitor appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ujUsTM

[arplis]

Arplis - News: 20 Ways To Get More Views on YouTube

YouTube, launched in 2005, the second most visited website in the world. It’s available in 100+ countries, features videos in 80 different languages, and its users watch over a billion hours of content daily. Many businesses take advantage of the large number of users and daily viewership to advertise for their business. In fact, YouTube is the second most popular channel for businesses sharing video content. However, despite the sheer amount of hours watched every day, it can be challenging to hold up on YouTube. Creators sometimes struggle to get their channel off the ground, resorting to paying for YouTube views to generate engagement. The platform's algorithm has become better at detecting bots, and, as you can guess, fake engagement doesn’t do much in the way of meeting your business goals. Although it will take time, it is possible to generate views (for free) and grow your channel on YouTube. In this post, we’ll go over how to get more views on YouTube and how to continue growing your channel after reaching your first 1000 views. How To Get More Views on YouTube For Free Getting views on YouTube takes time and effort. But, if done right, it pays off (Forbes estimates that you can make anywhere from $3-$5 per 1000 views). Below, we’ll go over a few ways to get more views on your YouTube account. 1. Be mindful of SEO and organic search results.   YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world, only topped by Google. To get more views on YouTube, follow the same SEO tactics you use to surface your content in organic Google search queries. Since Google owns the platform, YouTube has similar algorithms for displaying the most relevant content. The video below goes into detail, but the tips that follow highlight the best steps you can take to obtain more views.   2. Use keyword-rich descriptions. Your viewers initially see the first 100 characters of your video descriptions (example below), so you should aim to use keywords in snippets that provide the most relevant explanations to your viewers. But using your keywords doesn’t mean an excuse to be dull. Get creative with your descriptions and aim to stand out. After all, the goal is to entice users to view your videos over your competitors. Your first 100 characters should also entice users to click ‘Show more’ to learn more about what you have to say. 3. Use business-relevant tags. YouTube’s algorithm determines 70% of what people watch on the platform. Using relevant tags for your business is key to surfacing your content in search results and obtaining more views. Opt to use a combination of long-tail and short-tail keywords that truly relate to your video, listing the most important keywords first. Be mindful of keyword stuffing, as it is against YouTube policy and doesn’t help you generate more views. 4. Create unique, enticing titles. Video titles are what people read first when browsing search results. So, aim to create compelling, unique video titles that clearly describe your video’s content and make people curious and interested in learning more. For SEO results, you can include your most relevant keyword in your video title. Be mindful of clickbait, though, when creating your titles. It can be a valuable tool for getting users to click on your videos (see this article from a HubSpotter who was effectively clickbaited), but it can also backfire. You don’t want to say your videos will be about one thing and have interested users find that you don’t touch on it at all. Ensure that your titles align with your content. 5. Use creative, relevant thumbnails. Just as titles are the first exposure to your video content, thumbnails are the first images. Creating thumbnail previews that are exciting but relevant to your content is an excellent strategy for driving views. High-quality, engaging thumbnails can attract users in organic search results. Your thumbnails can be screencaps from your videos or even text-based titles. Here’s an example of a thumbnail from popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee. He’s effectively created a thumbnail that depicts the content of the video: reactions to upcoming Apple product rumors. Image Source 6. Use closed captions and transcripts.  Subtitles and closed captions are another way to optimize your video SEO, as they highlight additional keywords and phrases for the algorithms to detect when indexing your videos. Most importantly, closed captions and video transcripts make your YouTube account more accessible. If you solely rely on audio and visuals, you’re probably going to lose a large portion of your audience that’s unable to interact with your content in that form. When you create content that is accessible, all audiences can enjoy what you have to offer. You should also opt for using closed captions instead of subtitles, as closed captions include dialogue and additional sound descriptions for actions like laughter or closing a door. Here are some resources that can help with understanding web accessibility and how to align your content with accessibility standards: Bureau of Internet Accessibility - Closed Captioning Guide Accessible Media Inc. YouTube Accessibility guide Google Accessibility Resource Database for Developers and Publishers 7. Encourage subscribers While organic search results can be great, the algorithms won’t always surface your videos.  Encouraging viewers to subscribe to your channel is another way to ensure that people can see your videos. This means that when you post, your videos will show up in their subscriptions tab (shown below). In addition to encouraging subscribers, ask users to turn on post notifications to get notified when you post a video. Notifications can be a valuable tool for generating excitement. Users may feel they want to stop what they’re doing to watch your videos so they can actively participate in conversations about your content. 8. Repurpose your existing quality content. Content repurposing is re-using existing content and presenting it in a new format to prolong its shelf life. Repurposing could mean creating a video from a high-performing how-to blog post (the bonus here is that YouTube users love how-to videos) or posting recording sessions from a popular podcast episode. You’re repurposing helpful content and sharing it with a new audience in a format you know they enjoy. 9. Create a unique introductory hook for your videos. It’s a unique tip, but it’s worth considering as many popular creators use this strategy. Mr. Beast is a famous YouTube persona with almost 52 million subscribers. Each one of his videos begins with a clip of an exciting moment that doesn’t usually play out until at least halfway through the video. Users must keep watching to see the moment unfold. Here’s an example:   10. Create a playlist. If you create content clustered around a relevant, related topic, create playlists to encourage video views. The image below shows the playlists on the HubSpot YouTube account, where videos are organized by topic. Image Source Playlists default to autoplay, so users can watch an entire playlist without taking action themselves. Playlists and autoplay allow your users to view subject-relevant content that they may not have found themselves. This gives them a well-rounded experience and increases your video views. 11. Lead users to other videos in end screens. End screens are the final 15-20 seconds of your video, sometimes called credits, used to recommend additional content on your channel as cards. Below is an example from the HubSpot YouTube account. Video Source Your end screens can feature cards for single videos or entire playlists, a subscribe button, links to your associated websites, or secondary channels your business has (we’ll touch on this below.) It’s important to note that end screens should recommend relevant content. 12. Enable embedding. Almost anything can be embedded these days, including YouTube videos. If you’ve created a YouTube strategy, you’ve likely identified your target audience on the platform. They’ll probably give you the most views, but enabling embedding can help you introduce yourself to additional viewers that may not have known your content would be relevant to them. Here’s an example of a YouTube video embedded in a blog post. Image Source You can embed your videos in your content, like blogs and email newsletters, but it’s also a valuable way to expose your content to new audiences. Other people can embed your content within their own pages and share your expertise with their audiences. These views still count towards your overall view count, even if they’re not on YouTube. 13. Promote videos on other platforms. YouTube probably isn’t your only social media profile, and you should use this to your advantage. Share new video announcements on your Instagram Stories, share links and clips on Twitter and Facebook, and share them in your blog posts and emails. You’ll expose new audiences to your content, and, as mentioned above, views on other platforms count towards your YouTube view count. 14. Leverage current trends. Leveraging YouTube trends is a valuable tool for obtaining more video views. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should create content that is exactly in line with a current, trending meme on YouTube, but you should pay attention to what types of videos get lots of views. For example, Mediakix released a list in 2019 of the most popular types of videos. Among them are how-to and Q&A videos. Suppose you’re a business hoping to utilize one of these trends. You could create a how-to video demonstrating how to use your product or service and a Q&A video where you troubleshoot consumer inquiries. You’re creating content that users want to see that provides value to them to generate more views. 15. Focus on creating relevant content. Leveraging trends is important for generating views, but you shouldn’t abandon your topic type to get views.   A YouTube channel filled with unrelated content can generate views but won’t be seen as a source of authority. Your content would be scattered, users might write you off, and algorithms won't know your niche. So, the two tips come together to leverage current trends to create content that aligns with your existing strategy. Also, relevant content outweighs video quality. YouTube found that, when deciding what to watch, content relating to a user's passions is 1.6x more important than the video’s quality (like visuals and camera quality), and 3x more important than whether it features well-known actors. This means that the most valuable content you can create isn’t expensive and high budget — it’s content that’s in line with your audience's needs. When you understand what they want, it’ll be easier to earn views. 16. Collaborate with similar accounts. One of the exciting aspects of YouTube is its community. There are people creating all different types of content, from gaming videos to exercise classes. You’ll likely find people who make content like yours, and collaborating with them is a valuable tool for generating more views. Collaborations usually involve creating two separate videos, one for your channel and another for the collaborators’ channel. When they’re posted, you’ll gain exposure to their audience group and them from yours. If you’ve collaborated with a topic-relevant channel, new viewers will likely already be interested in your content and may even subscribe to your channel. It’s also a valuable way to create more content, and more content always inspires more views. 17. Post at the right time. There is a right time to post on YouTube. The best times to post on YouTube are Thursday or Friday afternoons between 12:00 and 3:00 PM, and on Saturdays between 9:00 and 11:00 AM. You can certainly leverage these numbers and obtain views, but it’s also essential to create a posting schedule that aligns with your existing viewership. You can get this information from YouTube’s native analytics tool or your preferred service. If you’re a HubSpot user, you can connect your YouTube account to Marketing Hub and generate custom reports. Image Source Posting at the right time translates into views, because your subscribers are more likely to watch during a time that they’re free versus when they’re at work. 18. Use a multi-channel approach. If you’re a large business, consider creating multiple YouTube channels for different purposes. For example, HubSpot has five separate YouTube channels (shown below) tailored to different audience groups. Image Source Multiple channels ensures that content is accessible to different viewers, and it generates more views. This isn’t just a HubSpot thing — Interbrands says that the top 100 brands on YouTube have an average of 2.4 channels. 19. Optimize for mobile viewers. More than 70% of YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices, so create content that these audiences can enjoy. Optimizing for mobile viewers means creating videos that can adapt to different mobile device aspect ratios, video titles and thumbnails that don’t get distorted on smaller devices, and recommend videos in end-screen cards. 20. Remember to be patient. As marketers, we all want virality and immediate success for the content we create. While you may sometimes get lucky, generating more YouTube views takes time and patience. There’s not much concrete advice to give with this tip, but understand that if you’ve leveraged the tips on this list, you’ll likely gain more views to begin growing your channel. Next, we’ll go over how to keep growing your channel after reaching your first 1000 views on YouTube. How To Reach 1000 Views on YouTube and Keep Growing Your Channel Although it certainly would be nice, there is no equation to help you generate your first 1000 views on YouTube. Some people gain instant success, while others struggle to reach even 100 views after making hundreds of videos. In fact, 88.4% of YouTube videos generate fewer than 1000 views. This may be discouraging to hear, especially since you can only begin to monetize your videos on YouTube after having more than 4,000 public watch hours. Many creators, including Zac Snyder, have attempted to figure out the perfect formula. Snyder highlighted his mathematical approach in a Medium article recommended that a good start could be to make 300 videos a year at 10 minutes a piece. However, this strategy may not work for all creators. There are ways to generate more views sooner rather than later. First, you should use and reference the tips mentioned above when creating your videos. There are also four additional tips to consider to continue growing your YouTube channel after reaching 1000 views. 1. Increase your upload frequency. If it’s taken you a long time to reach 1000 views, it may make you nervous to risk your viewership by doing anything differently. However, it's easier to generate more views with more videos than to generate more views from one or two standalone videos. Pay attention to your channel analytics, understand when you generate the most views, and increase your upload frequency to match your engagement metrics. Once you’ve developed a schedule, identify time frames in which you’ll reassess your strategy. For example, maybe you’ll aim to upload three times per week until you reach 10k views, and then you’ll analyze your metrics and switch to uploading twice a week.   2. Keep introductions and opening credits short and to the point. Attention spans are short, so any unnecessary content in your videos can cost you viewers. Once you’ve reached 1000 views and generated an audience, you don’t want to lose them. Use analytics to understand their behavior and adjust accordingly. If viewers seem to stop watching after a certain amount of time, consider shortening your introductions so viewers get to the core of the content faster and feel more inclined to finish the video. 3. Optimize for ‘Suggested Video’ views. Suggested videos show up in the sidebar of a desktop YouTube screen, as shown below in the red outline. Image Source The algorithm recommends videos based on tags, so choose industry-relevant tags that your competitors are also using. When they match, you have a significant chance of showing up in suggested videos for the same tags. YouTube also doesn’t discriminate by subscriber count, so even if you don’t have as many subscribers as your competitors, it's still possible to be suggested after their videos. 4. Engage with subscribers in the ‘Community’ tab. The Community tab is built for YouTube creators hoping to interact with their audience outside of their video comments. You can create polls, feature images, and generate hype for upcoming videos. Post snippets to get subscribers excited about what’s to come, and they’ll likely be looking out for your video and ready to watch when it goes live. Image Source If you’re interested in learning more in-depth strategies for growing your channel, check out this HubSpot Academy YouTube Course featured resource. You’ll learn how to build your brand, develop an audience, and gain insight from YouTube influencers on creating a successful channel. Create Content That Inspires Subscribers and Encourages Views You’re creating YouTube videos because you know you can provide value to your audience. Remember, it may be frustrating if results aren’t immediately significant. But if you optimize your videos and channel for SEO, create consistent, relevant content, and engage with your audience, you’ll not only reach 1000 views but own a channel that just keeps on growing. #YoutubeMarketing

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/20-ways-to-get-more-views-on-youtube

[tastydregs]

Why it’s time to change the conversation around synthetic media 

The past few years have seen artificial intelligence reach a tipping point, fueled by record levels of investment and the growing availability of training data. Yet what we see today is still only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI’s creative potential.

Various incarnations of synthetic media — content generated or manipulated by AI, often through machine learning and deep learning — have already started to be adopted for commercial purposes. These include virtual assistants, fashion models, and chatbots that synthesize text and speech, and we’ve also witnessed a wave of virtual beings, including computer-generated Instagram influencer Lil Miquela, KFC’s virtual Colonel Sanders, and Shudu, the first digital supermodel.

However, synthetic media has also become synonymous with deepfakes — videos or images where the person depicted has been replaced with another person’s likeness.

Untapped opportunities

As a result, the conversation has been distracted from some of the more exciting opportunities that synthetic media holds. Synthetic media will transform the way we produce and consume media. For the most part, it looks like AI will actually democratize creativity, rather than replace human content creators, and allow for greater experimentation.

Individuals will be able to produce high-quality content on minimal budget. Potential use cases include being able to go back and make changes to lines of dialogue spoken in a video or podcast simply by editing a text script, such as offered by the podcast tech startup Descript. Going a step further, AI startup Synesthesia allows companies to create entire videos in multiple languages for purposes like staff training, simply by choosing from a selection of presenters and entering a script.

The COVID-19 pandemic will only accelerate the adoption of synthetic media. Restrictions on activities like video shoots may well become commonplace if we experience a second wave, giving way to the huge commercial opportunity for software that allows people to create deepfake-style videos. Additionally, synthetic media presents a way for influencers to scale their personal brand, with the ability to create digital twins that can represent them in films and commercials, etc.

AI-generated avatars also have some exciting potential use cases beyond the world of celebrity. The recent HBO documentary Welcome to Chechnya, which explores the persecution of LGBTQ people in Russia, used deepfake technology to protect the identity of interviewees by overlaying their faces with those of actors. Digital avatars also hold promise as a means of reducing bias and discrimination, such as in the context of recruitment.

Above: The current breakdown of synthetic media companies by type of media produced. Source: Samsung NEXT.

Above: Where synthetic media companies are based. Note that the actual number for China could be higher; information wasn’t available for some China-based startups. Source: Samsung NEXT.

Above: Founding years for the current slew of synthetic media companies. Source: Samsung NEXT.

Above: The current landscape.

How can we move forward?

In recent research into the evolution of the synthetic media landscape, my team has observed a huge uptick in the number of startups being founded in the past five years, with speech and voice synthesis and avatar synthesis representing the two largest sectors. Yet, unfortunately, many of these creative new use cases remain almost entirely overshadowed by concerns about deepfakes and misinformation in the discourse around synthetic media. As a result, we are failing to realize the disruptive potential of these technologies, which look set to usher in a new age of media.

These ethical questions are perhaps the biggest obstacle to the progression of synthetic media today. Every company working on synthetic media needs to take the time to consider an ethical code of conduct that they stand by — this includes acquiring the explicit consent of any party whose image or voice they use, and putting in place a strict internal screening process before releasing content to the public.

Industry-wide standards based around consent and misinformation will need to be implemented in a way that doesn’t stifle innovation, which will take time and require ongoing conversations at a national and international level. In the meantime, many synthetic media companies are taking matters into their own hands and building strict ethical codes into their products and partnerships. These startups are unlocking the potential of this technology now and enabling people to take creative expression to a new level in a way that’s mutually beneficial. It’s time to start telling the positive stories.

Iskender Dirik is Managing Director at Samsung NEXT Europe.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

rabbit & like a bat family, for the ask meme, whichever questions you feel comfortable answering

(Questions)

Like a Bat-Family

(Elementary; Martha & Kitty & Joan & Sherlock; part of Rolling Remix)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I received my copy of “Like Family” for remixing and groused and whined and cursed its author, because like hell did I see a way into it. The obvious thing would have been to flip the pov to Kitty, but “Like Family” might already have been a pov-flip from whatever came before it and I didn’t want to risk just flipping it back again.

I finally decided on a slumber-party-like variation of the mutual nail-painting, probably featuring Martha. Then once I had Martha and Kitty in the same mental premise, I realized they had probably built some kind of relationship during their mutual time in the brownstone, and thus that Martha should be added to the list of people cheated of a proper good-bye with her. (And not just cheated of a good-bye, but of the entire history of their relationship!) So this became a reunion/closure story for not only Joan-and-Kitty, but also Martha-and-Kitty.

I set it during New Year’s at the brownstone mostly out of cussedness. I’d already remixed a story for the exchange, which meant I knew there was a cluster of NYE stories at the beginning of the chain. I thought it’d be hilarious to re-introduce the New Year’s theme at the tail end of the chain, too, in the hopes that it would mess up some of the guessers.

2: What scene did you first put down?

A scene that no longer exists: Joan on the roof New Year’s morning, ostensibly cleaning up after the party but mostly staring at the river, and being surprised by Kitty’s entrance. The energy was never quite right, somehow, and the whole story stalled there until I switched povs and began over with Martha. However, the scene still indirectly exists in the current version of the story, and the original image of Kitty appearing from nowhere like Batman was the genesis of the Bat-Family motif.

The only part of that now-deleted scene that I was really sad to lose was the color scheme:

[Joan stood at the roof edge, looking out at] the desaturated, wintry grays of the city, contemplating the rough slate of the East River and how it reflected back the platinum sky above.

Happily, I was able to salvage the bones of that description for Nostoi:

Beyond that streak of white, there was nothing but grey all around us: sky and rain and sea-water; iron and silver and slate.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Joan and Sherlock argued silently with each other, a flurry of mulish mouths, jutted jaws, and raised eyebrows.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

“Alfred,” she whispered, and all three of them cracked up into giggles.

5: What part was hardest to write?

Ugh, gah, cramming in the backstory and off-screen bits. Backstory and flashbacks are always a struggle to incorporate smoothly without overexplaining or messing up the narrative flow, and this story was written so quickly, with so little opportunity for editing… Meh.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

My first and only story from the pov of a trans character? More unusually, I didn’t have the time to ask someone who is trans to look it over – that’s usually something that I take care to do when writing a marginalized identity outside of my own experience. But once again, the turn around time was so fast… I hope I did no harm, and I own it if I did.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

I was going to bring back Joan’s accordion from the first two stories, which – when joined with Kitty’s clarinet and Sherlock’s violin – would be the foundations of a Klezmer band. (Martha would be on drums, because.) When I later saw that someone in the exchange had written a Band AU I kicked myself so hard that I hadn’t done it.

Rabbit

(TSCC; Jesse Flores; 5+1)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

The Terminator franchise centers itself so strongly on Southern California and the Connors, I craved to know what that franchise looks like if you don’t presuppose John Connor as the center of the universe. Further, I am fascinated with the way the timelines fold back on themselves in that franchise, the way Judgement Day is forever shifting, the way futures keep reaching back to rewrite the past-to-be based on whatever has been going on in the current timeline.

A 5+1 seemed a convenient way to explore what successive futures might look like when one is half a world away from the causes, experiencing only the after-effects; it also allowed me to build an argument that John Connor may not always be the single most important person in the future. That is, that there might be futures where other people become more strategically significant.

I also had the very misguided idea that a 5+1 would be a short, simple, and easy structure, and would get me out of having to build and plot a full-blown story. Ha fucking hah.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

There are a ton of narrative lines I love, mostly in the final section. But have this one out of the fifth section:

Jesse stared at the farmboy, her gaze flicking to where the dolphins should have been on his chest. Jesus Fucking Christ. A whole crew of nubs. They were running a deathtrap.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

“You are not a god, Derek. You made choices, I made choices, John Connor made choices. We all made choices. Hell, there’s a twelve-year-old Jesse out there somewhere, making choices. Whether to swim at the leisure centre or swim at the beach. For all you know, the war hinges on the choice she made today.”

Tied with:

“What do you want me to say, that it could have been anyone? That the only reason Skynet went after you—the only reason your family died—is because Goodnow tells a good story and Skynet fell for it?”

Because I have opinions about the Terminator franchise, and how everyone is running around making choices based on stories they were told. Skynet, the Connors, everyone from the future who gets their hands on a time machine, everyone they meet in the past: everyone has heard a story, and now they’re all making choices, and the entire future history of the world is gonna hinge on those choices. Talk about a universe that runs on fucking hearsay and gossip.

But mostly my favorite line is this:

“I’m Jesse!” she screamed at it, to make herself breathe. “I’m Jesse fucking Flores!”

Because Jesse fucking Flores. :-D

5: What part was hardest to write?

All the Australia bits. :-P

@lastwingedthing put in a good chunk of work on this story, correcting language and helping me with geographically appropriate choices for stuff. (That olive tree in the first section began life as a prickly pear, which is invasive in Australia – I wanted an invasive plant for thematic reasons – but it’s invasive in a different part of Australia.) However, the challenge with writing something that will later be Ozpicked (or Britpicked, or whatever) is that it’s not enough to eschew Americanisms in your draft, you have to put in geographically specific stuff, too, otherwise you’ll end up with a bland and non-specific story. And while a generous Ozpicker can and will help with that, you can’t expect them to do the bulk of that work for you.

For an example of what I’m talking about, consider my own The Case of the Six Marmalades against @scfrankles’ The Case of the Deceased Marmalade Thief: they’re nicely matched in terms of fandom, genre, and topic, and I consider Frankles a peer in terms of our respective skill. But notice that Frankles’ use of idiom in her dialog is much, much richer than my own (in part because she really is just that good with voices), but also in part because she’s English, and has a much larger mental catalog of appropriate idiom to select from. In contrast, I’m forever rejecting language as “too American” and then finding I have nothing interesting to replace it with. Consequently, my dialog has a linguistic blandness to it that hers doesn’t. This is the kind of thing I see a lot with American vs. British authors in British fandoms: the British authors have a vibrancy to them that American authors seldom manage to attain.

And this isn’t to run myself down, or to suggest that Six Marmalades is a failure of a story. (It’s not.) It’s simply an illustration of how it is with stories written by outsiders: even if they manage to eschew errors and stereotypes, they often end up with a generic, non-specific blandness that’s difficult to overcome. *shrug emoji* Either you never write outside your own specific cultural context, or you accept that you won’t manage the vibrancy that your story deserves. Choose your poison.

Anyway, back to Rabbit: I had to come up with Australia-specific stuff to put in, but I was starting from near zero. I watched all the Australian post-apoc films I could stomach; I played Australian talk and comedy shows in the background while I did chores; I listened to a series of Australian podcasts for English-language-learners during my commutes; I spent a fuckton of time browsing anAustralian slang dictionary (where I learned more usage via the crowdsourced definitions than in the nominal terms being defined)… Just, trying to pick up idioms and usage and rhythms and words, both to reduce the load on my very generous Ozpicker, but also trying to make sure that when she was done removing my Americanisms, my language didn’t end up blandly generic nowhere. (If nothing else, I could give her possibly-wrong Australian slang that she could correct to something more appropriate, yeah? And she did a bit of that: “yobbos” became “sad bastards,” for example.) So the language was a fair amount of up front work, even with her polishing and fine-tuning it for me.

And getting the Australian bits right was more than just language, of course; there was the usual ton of googling random shit. Who runs public swimming pools, the history and composition of the Australian submarine service, what plants are invasive, imports/exports from Perth… Again, she corrected and fine-tuned a bunch of stuff (and sometimes pointed out issues that I hadn’t thought to question), but there was still a chunk of work involved in giving her something that could be corrected and fine-tuned.

I wanted to set Rabbit in Australia, a place that is distinct from America, and that ultimately was the hardest part of writing the story.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

At the time, it was my only fic set in Australia, my only go at action/suspense, my only 5+1, my only “heroine against the world, framedaround a strong central metaphor, ending when the showdown begins in earnest” kind of story structure. I’ve since repeated all of those things, because I wrote this a long time ago, and I’m as repetitive as fuck.

As to what makes it still unique among my stories…

Um…

It’s the only one with submarines in?

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

I grew up in a Navy town, outside a nuclear submarine base, and one of the members in my origfic writing group served on a submarine, back in the day. So all the submarine stuff is strongly influenced by my hometown, the kids whose parents were in the Navy, my own dad who worked for the Navy, my schoolmates who went into the Navy themselves, the submariner who I dated when I was faaaaar too young for him (and the shit my dad pulled to scare him off), the tours I’ve taken on out-of-service submarines, the time I’ve spent fucking around in boats while sharing the same waters as submarines, plus all the time I’ve spent editing my friend’s submarine novels based on his own service.

None of which is actually the same as actually serving on a submarine myself, of course, but there are a number of submarine details that were inspired by spending a chunk of my life submarine-adjacent.

(Navy showers! My father enforced Navy showers on us when we were kids. Although not the same way that they’re enforced in the actual Navy, because that would have been child abuse. But you know. You run across random shit in your life, and it eventually ends up in a fic.)

[iyarpage]

Designing Mobile Websites for Voice Search

In January 2018 alone, consumers conducted over 1 billion voice searches. By 2020, it’s estimated that 30% of all online searches will take place without the use of a screen.

Needless to say, voice search is set to make serious waves in the not-so-distant future.

As more users seek out the convenience of using their voice to search online, you have to consider how this will impact mobile websites.

As of now, your main concern doesn’t need to be with designing a website that literally talks back to visitors. We have microinteractions and conversational UIs that can help with that. Instead, what you should do is consider the relationship between voice users and search.

Here are some things to think about as you approach the design of mobile websites in 2019 and beyond:

1. Place Answers to Common Queries at the Top

According to a Bright Local survey from 2018, 28% of voice users will call a business immediately after finding them in search.

So, while it’s important to have a well-designed website that appeals to local shoppers or customers, it’s just as important to get them the information they need right away. And when someone is using their phone and their voice to look up a website, chances are good they’re looking for a shortcut to get in touch.

But making a call isn’t the only kind of action a voice user might want to take in this instance. Think of other ways in which they’d want to engage with your client’s website or business:

To get the brick-and-mortar store’s hours of operation;

To find a live chat or support portal for help with a product or service;

To make a reservation or appointment;

To get information about current sales or free shipping offers.

Google/Peerless Insights provide some insights into the types of information most commonly sought out by voice users in search:

If someone has opted to use voice search over text, there’s a good chance they were trying to avoid the work of clicking and scrolling and taking other manual steps to convert. Instead, they engaged with their voice assistant or search voice widget in order to get a quick answer.

When it makes sense, place quick snippets of information in the header or navigation bar.

Take, for instance, this voice query I did for “when is the next marketing conference”:

Using this example of NEXT 2018, you can see that the answer is not provided in my search results:

However, upon opening the website, the answer is in the very top of the website:

As a voice user, I’d be mostly content with this. But I would’ve been even more thrilled if the answer showed up right in results. I’ll explain how to do that in the next two points.

2. Add Location to Your Content

When I wrote about how to design websites for a local audience, one of the things I suggested was that you localize content. This means using verbiage, visuals, and colors that resonate with residents in a certain area.

This point is especially pertinent when attempting to appeal to voice search users.

According to Bright Local, 46% of voice users searched for local businesses every day using a voice-assisted device.

If your website has been built for consumers in a specific geographical region, use this to your advantage.

Include the name of the region in your content and metadata;

Create location-specific pages when relevant;

Use visuals that are specific to the region;

Tag all images and videos with the name of the geographic area;

If video or audio content discusses a specific location, provide a transcription of it.

Do everything you can to ensure that voice searches for “near me” or “in [name of location]” pull up your clients’ websites first. Let me show you why this is important:

I did a side-by-side comparison between a text (left) and voice (right) search for “Find a spa in Newark, Delaware”. Already, you can see a slight discrepancy between the two search results:

Scroll down to the map and you’ll see that search results continue to differ between text and voice:

Take note of the discrepancy between the same Yelp result’s description in the text results and in the voice results. Further down on the page, I encountered a similar issue:

Yes, results continue to differ slightly, but it’s the differing descriptions of the same pages that I find the most interesting. Notice how the one on the left (text) for Massage Envy appears to be a straightforward explanation of the spa’s services while the one on the right (voice) sounds more personal. I don’t think that’s a mistake.

I’ll explain how you can provide these types of robust answers in the next point.

3. Answer Their Questions in Callouts

According to Google, 41% of voice users say that their search queries feel more like a conversation than a one-sided dialogue. As user comfort grows with this type of discourse, it’s going to affect how well your clients’ websites perform in search.

While it might not be up to you to write content that appears on the website, you certainly can frame it in a way so that it’s sure to show up in voice search results.

To start, figure out what kinds of questions the audience is most likely to ask as it pertains to your client’s business.

If you’re unsure, you can use a tool like Answer the Public to identify related questions:

Then, use KWFinder to confirm the popularity of them among your target users:

If the site has been around awhile, I’d also suggest looking at your Google Analytics data. You can find a list of search queries under: Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. You should be able to find the voice queries easily enough as they’ll sound more natural and be longer in length.

Once you’ve identified likely candidates for long-tail voice search queries, it’s time to place them in areas of your content that make sense.

To start, add them to your metadata. This is the easiest way to get your website front and center in voice search.

Also, add answers to common queries in featured boxes on your website. This’ll be beneficial to the end user in a couple ways: for one, it highlights the answer on your website and keeps voice users from having to do too much work to locate it; second, if you mark it up properly with structured data, they won’t even have to go to your website to get the information as the featured snippet will show up in voice search results.

Here’s an example from my voice search for “how do I groom my dog”:

This featured snippet from petMD actually provides me with a graphic and list of steps to take:

This helps me get started right away. It also lets me know if this is a link worth clicking into.

Further down the page, I also ran into these video clips which autoplayed (on silent):

I found this to be helpful as well since I didn’t have to waste any clicks or much time sifting through content to find my answer.

Summary

As consumers take control over how they engage with the web (i.e. predominantly using smartphones and executing more and more queries with their voice), web design must change as a result. No longer are visitors willing to sit by, passively consuming content. They want websites to respond to their queries more naturally and effectively.

And voice search optimization is going to be the way to do it.

  Featured image via Unsplash.

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;} .alignleft {float:left;} p.showcase {clear:both;} body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;} Designing Mobile Websites for Voice Search published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

[funtubeweb]

The Best of 2018: The Top Sites, Apps, & Products Of The Year

All My Faves presents our favorite 11 weekly faves of 2018.

2018 was, like every year, a time of rapid growth and change in the tech industry. Products came and went. Some of them were helpful distractions, to cope with the trials and tribulations of a challenging year. Some of them were revolutionary, and show promise to help transform the world in 2019 and beyond. Many of them were just fun. In every week of 2018, All My Faves curated the best and most exciting apps, games, products, and websites. The only requirements are that the products must truly impress us and add some positive benefit to society. The following list is a collection of the best products that we came across in 2018. It includes a career aptitude quiz, an ASMR site, a site that lets you fly drones around the world, and multiple sites that utilize AI in innovative ways. It showcases the depth and breadth of tech innovation in 2018, and contains apps and products that will remain useful in 2019. Happy New Year from All My Faves. We look forward to continuing providing you with recommendations for world-changing (and just plain entertaining) tech in the new year.

Sokanu

If your resolution is to change careers in 2019, or discover the job that best suits your personality, you should visit Sokanu. Even if you think you’re set in your career path, the site’s career quiz is both accurate and entertaining. It’s lengthier than most career quizzes you’ll find online, but that’s only because it asks highly specific questions that tailors the results to your interests. The career options update in real time, listing results from more than 800 options. The test is also entirely free. It’s almost difficult to explain why a career quiz site was the best of 2018, but once you start exploring the site and learning more about your career options, you’ll understand.

Stoop

Some of the best editorial content online can be found in newsletters. Unfortunately, many of those newsletters get lost in spam folders or ignored among more important emails. Stoop has re-imagined the newsletter-reading experience, compiling all of your newsletter subscriptions into one easy-to-read app. Stoop describes itself as “like a podcast app, but for newsletters,” which is a fairly accurate description. You can easily search for new subscriptions, browse your existing ones, and read through all of your newsletter content in one location. If you’ve subscribed to a lot of newsletters but don’t end up reading them enough, perhaps 2019 is the year you should break free from your inbox and download Stoop.

Otter

Otter is one of the smartest voice recognition apps available, and the company demonstrated its numerous uses for people of all types throughout 2018. The site and its accompanying app let you record conversations, lectures, interviews, or speeches in real time. It then transcribes them in real time, and offers an interface that lets you easily search for, edit, and organize your recordings. Otter’s free plan offers 600 minutes of transcription per month, a number which jumps to 6,000 minutes per month for just $9.99 per month. It’s a smart, practical use of AI that can have a positive impact on many different people as they work and play throughout 2019.

Back Market

New technology is expensive. In 2019, buying a new iPhone, Macbook, or even a drone doesn’t have to be as cost-prohibitive as it is when you buy directly from the manufacturer. Instead, you can visit Back Market. The site sells refurbished products that it guarantees to be “good-as-new” at a fraction of the price. All kinds of tech products are featured on Back Market, although the site does definitely favor Apple items. The best part about Back Market, aside from the lower costs on tons of otherwise expensive things, is that it’s well-designed and trustworthy. Despite its name, Back Market doesn’t feel shady at all. Shopping on the site is a pleasant experience, and it could be worthwhile if you’re looking to buy some new products at a lower cost in 2019.

Tingles

ASMR enjoyed a huge increase in popularity during 2018, with the tingle-generating experience entering the mainstream. One of the best, most comprehensive sites of ASMR videos is the aptly-named Tingles, which is essentially a YouTube-like platform specifically designed for the YouTube subgenre. On Tingles, you can watch playlists of ASMR videos, subscribe to ASMR artists, download videos, and watch without ads. You can also let videos play in the background with a sleep timer, so you can fall asleep to the tingly sound of someone crinkling a potato chip bag, or whatever the ASMR artist might have done. It’s no longer strange to be into ASMR, so check out Tingles as soon as you get the chance.

Ada

AI technology makes significant advancements each year, and 2018 was no different. Ada is one of the most promising use cases of AI for the average consumer. The company, which was founded in 2011, launched globally in 2016, but expanded rapidly in 2018, created an AI-driven health platform that’s useful for both doctors and patients alike. Using the app is like visiting a virtual doctor, as Ada asks questions that help the company better gauge your symptoms and lead it to providing better health recommendations. Like any real doctor, the more practice Ada gets, the better it will become. So give it a chance if you want an easy alternative to visiting the doctor this upcoming year.

FlyThere

Do you want to visit Cancun, Mexico in 2019? How about Bali, Indonesia or Thailand? With FlyThere, you can visit all of those places for just $4.99 each, and you never have to leave your couch. FlyThere is a super innovative site that launched into beta in 2018, offering visitors the chance to explore locations around the world via remote controlled drone. You become the pilot from wherever you are, flying a drone in beautiful and exotic locations. Many of the flights are even free, if you choose to fly standby. It’s a crazy experience that demonstrates a unique utilization of technology, and it must be seen to be believed.

PopCorn TV

Did you watch TV in 2018? If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you did. Even if you haven’t watched TV in years, there’s a good chance you’ll still enjoy PopCorn TV. The site contains an interactive game in which 66 references to various TV shows are hidden in one large image. To play, you simply type the name of a television show once you’ve spotted the reference and hit enter. Each show that you guess correctly earns you points and unlocks an additional quiz about that show. Each incorrect guess lowers your score. It’s tough to find all 66 references, but it’s a challenging and entertaining way to spend an afternoon in 2019. The site also contains a mesmerizing design that makes it worth the visit for that alone.

Nuclear Dissent

In 2018, Hawaii received a false alarm scare that a ballistic missile was inbound. Nuclear proliferation remained a hot button issue in countries around the globe. Although a nuclear weapon hasn’t been used in an attack since World War II, it remains as relevant today as it was then. Nuclear Dissent is an interactive documentary about the history and future of nuclear weapons. The site voices its support for the UN’s 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which aims to ban the production of nuclear weapons but wasn’t signed by all countries. It’s a slightly terrifying yet informative and ultimately optimistic look forward at the future, in 2019 and beyond.

Dinogen

Our favorite flash game of 2018 was Dinogen, a top-down shooter that has a fairly comprehensive story mode. The game, created by Amor Games, contains several bit of dialogue that relate to the various objectives and assignments. You can click to shoot on the screen. Although people who have become accustomed to more advanced first person shooters may have a difficult time adjusting, the controls eventually feel natural and offer a fun throwback alternative to other shooters out there. It’s a dark but fun game that will have you enjoying killing dinosaurs in 2019.

Fortnite

It wasn’t difficult to determine the best mobile game of 2018. Fortnite was ubiquitous throughout the year, with children, parents, and basically everyone at least hearing about the cartoonish battle royale alternative to PUBG. One of the coolest things about Fortnite is that it’s cross-platform, playable on Xbox, Playstation, PC, and on the phone, and equally as entertaining everywhere. 2018 made Fortnite players like Ninja superstars, and the game amassed a global reach. Epic Games inspired other manufacturers to take the “free to play” model. Although the game is known for its continuous updates to the gameplay, it will be interesting to see whether the Fortnite hype extends into 2019.

The Best of 2018: The Top Sites, Apps, & Products Of The Year posted first on http://film-streamingsweb.blogspot.com

[modernfablepersonalshowcase]

So now I have ideas on how to storyboard and how to express what I want on a storyboard, I decided to give it another go. I also decided to do it on paper with pencil rather then digitally as I find it much easier to express movement and be more loose with my drawings. I took inspiration from the incredibles storyboard particularly this one: 

I really loved this storybaord and that its just very quick looking rough sketches with no colour, yet the story is told very clearly and the story is effectively explained. 

So I decided for my idea that I would follow the pattern of:  

train station- car rushing past- digby the octopus- trash of the pavement- cancer research run- waking towards christchurch park- obtaining hedgehog from stranger- walking into christchurch park- walking past ‘hipsters’- walking past christchurch park- buying ice cream- walking to and up ‘hippie hill’- sitting on top- end. 

So the reason I went with these was because mainly these specific locations and events are things I remember most fondly and talk about the most when I talk about Ipswich, and I’m not the only one- for example the every shit thing you’ll find in ipswich where the writer talks about the speed racers of Ipswich, digby the octopus etc. However I feel that there needs to be more explained in detail of why I chose them: 

I’ve also made it very simple, simple structure where a character (me) just walks across the screen in a straight line as the structures and events move past me. This is because whilst researching fables before, the most important parts of telling a fable is to keep it Very short in nature and Simple, direct language.

The ultimate purpose of a fable is to teach the reader a lesson or moral.  Fables often use satire to get across or point out flaws in man or human experiences.  

We experience the story through the eyes of protagonist, he is our avatar into the story world.

The Hero

The Hero is the protagonist of a story. Vogler explains that every other archetype is designed to serve, challenge or otherwise influence this character. Always typified by a search for identity and wholeness, the Hero represents our own struggles, obstacles and triumphs. 

‘call to adventure’ Vogler’s hero journey. 

What’s the first thing your audience will experience? The title? The first line of dialogue? The first image? Where in the lives of your characters will the story actually begin? Do you need a prologue or introduction, or should you jump right into the middle of the action?

QUESTIONING THE JOURNEY

1. What is the Ordinary World of Big? Fatal Attraction? The Fisher King? Look at a film, play, or story of your choice. How does the author introduce the hero? Reveal character? Give exposition? Suggest the theme? Does the author use an image to foreshadow or suggest where the story is going?

2. In your own writing, how well do you know your hero? Do a complete biographical sketch, specifying personal history, physical description, education, family background, job experiences, romances, dislikes and prejudices, preferences in food, clothes, hair, cars, etc.

3. Do a timeline, specifying what the character was doing and where he was at every stage of life. Find out what was going on in the world at these times. Wha t ideas, events, and people have been the greatest influences on your character?

4. How is your story’s hero incomplete? Get specific about the character’s needs, desires, goals, wounds, fantasies, wishes, flaws, quirks, regrets, defenses, weaknesses, and neuroses. What single characteristic could lead to your hero’s destruction or downfall? What single characteristic could save her? Does your character have both an inner and an outer problem? Does she have a universal human need? How does she characteristically go about getting that need met?

5 . Make a list of all the points of backstory and exposition that the audience needs to know to get the story started. How can those be revealed indirectly, visually, on the run, or through conflict?

6 . Do different cultures need different kinds of stories? Do men and women need different kinds of stories? How are the heroic journeys of men and women different?

The mythological approach to story boils down to using metaphors or comparisons to get across your feelings about life.

RAISING THE DRAMATIC QUESTION

Every good story poses a series of questions about the hero.

This raises the point of what I said earlier, that questioning everything about the story I create will be crucial to whichever idea I decided to take on. If it is my podcast idea- what will I animate myself to look like? Will the message that I want to come across be clear to the audience? Is the message I’ll be telling clear enough?  

INNER AND OUTER PROBLEMS

Every hero needs both an inner and an outer problem.They need an inner problem, a personality flaw or a moral dilemma to work out.

INTRODUCING THE HERO TO THE AUDIENCE

This is not to say that heroes must always be good or wholly sympathetic. They don’t even have to be likeable, but they must be relateable.

This point was very interesting to me and made me realise there are many stories that use this. For example Severus Snape from Harry Potter at first is a very suspicious character who we don’t like or trust, but at the end of the film franchise we realise that he is just a flawed and hurt character just like Harry himself which I think we can all relate to. Having an outer self but being completely different in our inner selves.

IDENTIFICATION

The opening scenes should create an identification between audience and hero, a sense that they are equals in some ways. Create identification by giving heroes universal goals, drives, desires, or needs. We can all relate to basic drives such as the need for recognition, affection, acceptance, or understanding.

TRAGIC FLAWS

Tragic heroes are often superior people with extraordinary powers but they tend to see themselves as equal to or better than the gods. They ignore fair warnings or defy the local moral codes, thinking they are above the laws of gods and men.