#of course i re read them in the biggest target audience

[beboped1]

Moving Pictures

One thing I'm really enjoying about this project is the opportunity to really consider each book. Most of these I've only read once, as part of one whirlwind hyperfocus dash or other, but the reviews force me to focus on each book one at a time.

Moving Pictures

First Read: High School

Verdict then: Good book, now where's the next one?

Verdict now: A funny, loving, and well executed parody/takedown/homage to Hollywood and movies. You can see a lot of growth as a writer since the conceptually similar Wyrd Sisters.

Despite having read it before, I didn't have any real expectations coming into Moving Pictures. It was one of those books that I read in my first dash through Discworld, borrowing from a couple friends who had them, and got lost in the middle of the dozen or so volumes I devoured in hyperfocus. But I really enjoyed Moving Pictures. Guards, Guards still stands as my favorite so far, but Moving Pictures gave it a run for its money.

I'm a terrible sucker for meta-narrative fuckery, and Moving Pictures has that in spades. The concept of movie reality leaking into the real world, and horrors from beyond being bound by the rules of that manufactures reality is basically catnip for me. Several of the characters are also amazing: Gaspode, Throat, Soll, Bursar, Ridcully all get some great lines and moments. The biggest weakness is ultimately the two leads: Victor is (intentionally, I think) that very bland kind of movie star archetype, and Ginger shows that he still hasn't quite figured out how to write women yet. They don't really seem to have chemistry outside of the set, Victor's attraction to Ginger doesn't seem to go any farther than skin deep, and Ginger has little agency for much of the story. I end up not really believing in their romance.

But oh man, this book is really funny. I mean, I did write a research paper on movies between sound and color in the 8th grade, and haven't lost my love for movies of all eras since, and so one could accuse me of being squarely in the center of the target audience for the humor. But so much of the humor transcends the subject matter. Did I get a good chuckle out of the twisted inversion of a giant woman carrying an ape up a tower and getting shot by two wizards on a broom? Yes, absolutely. But the visuals of the handleman, Ginger, and a dozen wizards frantically riding a giant wheelchair moving at the speed of travel montage? Pure comedy, no additional context needed.

The true heart of this book lies with Gaspode. He carries such human trauma, of one who has been rejected so much that he invites it, almost requires it of those around him. How he grows, learns, and ultimately chooses who he really is over the course of the story. The healing that his unlikely friendship with Laddie brings him. The climactic moment in the theater. He got me at the end too - I really thought Pratchett was going to go through with "the dog dies at the end", but I'm glad he didn't. It wouldn't have fit right with the rest of the story.

Moving Pictures is also a masterclass in how to be broad and focused at the same time. There's a lot that goes on in this book beside the A plot of Victor, Ginger, and Osric - Silverfish & Throat, Throat & Soll, Detritus & Ruby, Gaspode & Laddie, the wizard council, Bursar & Ridcully, the movie palace owners, the troll actors whose names escape me, more I'm sure that I'm forgetting. And yet, the singular frame of "speedrunning Hollywood history through Gone with the Wind" allows all of these pieces to come together into a greater whole. The side stories don't feel like diversions, they feel like valuable asides, painting a richer and more nuanced picture of the humanity & Trollanity behind the dreams of Holy Wood.

Speaking of Trolls, he starts here what I know will be a slow project over several more books, of taking Dwarves and Trolls and turning them into object lessons in the harm of stereotypes. Not by preaching, but by the route of giving them depth & humanity while retaining the pieces that caused them to be stereotyped in the first place. To my eye, his treatment of Trolls here has also maintained a useful distance from reality that the Tecumen in Eric or the Klatchians in Sourcery or Twoflower didn't - the Trolls aren't coded as a specific Earth culture, and so there's less baggage brought in by the reader. It lets the messages of complexity and variety slip under the defenses better.

Moving Pictures is a tremendously successful send up, homage, and skewering of Hollywood culture. With great characters, a breadth that lenses into a singular focus, and with the best physical comedy scenes yet in the series, it really feels like Pratchett is starting to hit his stride. Two decades after my first Discworld book, I'm still so excited to read the next one.

#book review #books #discworld #fantasy books #terry pratchett #long post #moving pictures

[elorastory]

Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans--A Conspiracy

Tales of Arcadia/Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans—A Conspiracy

I’m expecting some pushback from this. Yes, it’s my opinion based on my personal understanding of the current state of society and the world. No, it is not intended to be offensive; merely thought-provoking and releasing for me personally.

Preface: Tales of Arcadia is still one of my very favorite shows ever. SO much good came from its existence. Nothing, not even a less-than-satisfactory ending, can take away what this series contributed to my journey.

Trigger warnings (yes, my rant has trigger-warnings): this post confronts the possibility of malevolent agendas and secret societies for which Netflix and Hollywood and Disney could be mouthpieces/mediums for mass brain-washing. This post also mentions transgender/gender-queer/gender-dysphoria in a neutral way (does not diss, but mentions possibility of using its acceptance for sterilization purposes), so lovely sensitive beautiful souls, please be prepared. Alludes to but does not outright mention Netflix’s “Cuties” documentary. Harsh and vulgar language ahead. Scattered and incomplete thoughts galore. Read between the lines and do your own research (if you still can in today’s cancel-culture).

The creators of Tales of Arcadia set out to revolutionize animation and push graphics to their limit. Congratulations to them. They absolutely, indisputably achieved their goal (seriously, guys—GORGEOUS visuals).

Unfortunately, instead of applying their passion and talent toward telling beautiful stories with empowering morals to children (the show’s target audience), the creators chose to “step back” and permit the existence of Rise of the Titans (from which the original writers are a little too quick to distance themselves, in my opinion).

It began with Jim’s INCREDIBLY disappointing transformation at the end of Trollhunters, season three. His metamorphosis recanted the show’s original moral of “you, a human, have everything you need inside of you to conquer your greatest fears and darkest demons BECAUSE you are human,” and instead, taught us we do not; we require intervention and enhancement to be worthy.

At first, I didn’t pay too much credence to the idea that this creative choice could have been tied to a trans-humanist agenda (or even a push for mass-acceptance of surgical/hormonal alterations for transgender/gender-dysphoria); however, after watching RotT, I’m drowning in paranoia.

Steve getting pregnant and giving birth on screen was positively treacherous. I am DAMN PROUD of our fandom’s overwhelming pushback against this particular aspect of RotT and I want all of you speaking out to know that you are the REAL Trollhunters here.

Not only is he HOW old (Aaron had enough foresight to make a comment on Twitter a few weeks ago that magically absolved the characters underage status and the writers of their responsibility—how convenient for them), but it’s not like the adults DON’T know (or, at least, suspect) what this concept (probably) parallels in reality.

It’s important to note, ToA as a fandom has expressed a high need for LGBTQ+ space and acceptance (and I am among the individuals requesting this need be met). I believe the creators included enough subtext for the audience to reasonably conclude that Steve is, more than likely, a bisexual himbo, especially for Eli (whom I hoped would come back from A5 a total babe and make Steve question everything he ever thought he knew about himself—especially when Aja (in my opinion) should have realized she had too much responsibility as Queen of a PLANET to maintain a healthy long-long-distance relationship with a boyfriend like STEVE). But the writers just jumped from the lesbian-end-of-the-world-last-chance-first-kiss in 3Below to “boys can have babies, too.”

MAYBE, in today’s political climate, it would have been prudent to save the mPreg for fanfiction (a safe space to process fantasies and triggers alike)—unless, of course, the writers WANTED to plant those seeds in the minds of their intended audience? (I know, rich coming from the chick who writes the Jamie/Blinky fanfic—I promise, it has meaning beyond the nasty.)

As a mother, this was my very biggest complaint about the finale. My children watch this show with me. Of course, after seeing Steve squirt blue all over Eli, my autistic daughter asks, “Can boys have babies, Mommy?”

Warning: Vicious, Accusatory, Conspiracy-Theory-Laden Rant Ahead

*middle fingers galore* Fuck you and your child-sexualizing/human-sterilization agenda, Netflix. Do I want to have to have the transgender talk with my malleable kids right now? Fuck no, I don’t. I do not think it’s bad to be transgender or queer. Y’all will always get love from me and will always be treated the way YOU want to be treated. I do think there’s a rise in rates of transgender/queer individuals because it’s getting a lot of attention and it makes doctors a lot of money, so there are a lot of vulnerable people being taken advantage of right now (especially kids--imagine how the spectrum ones are gonna sponge this shit). I do not want that for my children. I want them to have a comprehensive and complete understanding of all the forces affecting their relationship with their bodies and minds before they decide during puberty (a notoriously uncomfortable and confusing time of life) to chop off body parts and mess with hormones (and, by proxy, mental functioning). My children are not old enough to fully comprehend the shift occurring in our society right now, let alone WHY it’s even happening or what it means for them (how convenient for the proponents of depopulation by self-sterilization).

And on the subject of such agendas… Blinky. What were they thinking using him as a mouthpiece for ANY human-hating philosophy? When he stated outright that wiping the planet of humanity was SAVING the earth, I about shit a brick. HE LOVES ALL THINGS HUMAN! He’s supposed to be FASCINATED by them! He LIVED as one! He considers Jim his son! Not only was this the WORST example of the movie’s complete inability to maintain his character (besides MISSING A PAGE IN THE BOOK, being SCARED of FLYING (yeahfuckingright), and NOT reading horoscopes (bitch, please, of course Trolls read horoscopes—it’s cosmic feng-shui with giant space-rocks)), but he’s a CONSPIRACY THEORIST! He’d be SO onto this bullshit.

Wrapping up the agenda-pushing shenanigans: “For the good of all???”Are you KIDDING ME?! The four most dangerous words in history are, “For the greater good” (followed closely by “this time it’s different”), and y’all are just gonna rephrase it and use it to convince us that anyone fighting for the “greater good” is obviously the GOOD GUY? Of course, Jim IS the good guy and has the benefit of our loyal viewership and support, but acclimating the younger audience to this phrase, to the very concept that there is a “one size fits all” sort of “good” is dangerous and manipulative. What happens when “the greater good” isn’t good for you? Are you gonna be able to fight back and be heard?

Am I reading too much into this? Maybe. Is this my way of processing the steaming pile of propaganda my favorite show became without needed to re-watch RotT to leave a more comprehensive review? Probably. If I get cancelled for this post, am I gonna know I’m right? Absolutely.

If you made it this far, thanks for indulging me in my spazzy rant. As always, I am curious to hear your thoughts.

 Yours,

Elora Story

#TalesOfArcadia #Trollhunters #riseofthetitans #toa rott #spoilers #rott spoilers #conspiracy #trigger warnings #possible trigger warning #rant #newworldorder #agenda #netflixbashing

[blastoisemonster]

Marmalade Boy

Before talking about today's spinoff, I'd like to take a step back for better context and briefly describe the interesting relationship Italy has with japanese culture: the two countries, despite being so distant and having developed from very different histories, have been called similar in their habits and in many aspects of the daily life, to the point of showing mutual affection for eachother’s society and products; in our case, we’re especially talking about entertainment.

Which takes us to the slice-of-life anime genre: true animated soap operas originally maybe only targeted at an audience of female teenagers but that, once in italian territory, end up catching interest of the whole family with its intrigues and linked episodes. 1980/1990s Italy clicked perfectly with them; not only a great amount has been brought in Europe thanks to our translations, but a selected few have been taken as inspiration for completely original work based on that universe. Basically, yes, our television companies have produced anime fanfiction dramas. One striking example is Love Me Knight - Kiss Me Licia, which became something like a pre-Pokèmon nationwide phenomenon: not even Japan (which produced only one season and then called it quits) understood how or even why the average italian loved this saccarine shit so much, and still today the girl who originally sang our Kiss Me Licia opening basically owes her whole career and popularity lasting more than three decades (she's still singing anime openings and even doing concert tours) thanks to the leading acting role she played in four live action Kiss Me Licia sequel series. You've read it right, four. All met with huge success from 1986 to 1989 for a grand total of 144 episodes. Original mangaka Kaoru Tada knew nothing about this and the studio responsible for the animated adaptation of the manga, Toei Animation, had not even been contacted for the rights: truly, our entertaining industry was making fanart just as the average kid on DeviantArt likes to post his not-so-traced Goku drawings for everyone to see.

The second most remarkable big shojo love Italy had is the subject of this post, Marmalade Boy, known in Italy as "Piccoli Problemi di Cuore" (literally translated: Small Heartaches). The Mediaset adaptation team wanted to create another big Licia phenomenon but, this time, instead of producing live action spinoffs, they went and actually contacted the original author, Wataru Yoshizumi, for permission on modifying the anime's plot. Piccoli Problemi di Cuore has been one of the biggest and most coherent works of animation "cut-and-paste" the team has done during that late 90s, resulting in a completely new italian anime series of 70 episodes (out of the 76 original ones) inspired by Marmalade Boy's plot. And as expected, this became a huge hit: it started airing at the beginning of 1997 and it captivated the audience so much that after a while they had to move it to another channel and time block because people were watching it more than the news. This also allowed Italy to export their own Marmalade Boy inspired creation as a whole different anime with the international name "A Little Love Story". Piccoli Problemi di Cuore was the anime all the big sisters and more romantic girls of the class followed almost religiously at the time of its original broadcast. Of course I wasn't part of that audience at the time, but after having researched the very interesting backstory of our adaptation, I'd be more than curious to at least take a look at it. And the manga? The original 8 tankobon got translated in my country by Planet Manga several times: the first publication was split in 16 volumes, the second one had 8 issues, and then there's the "Gold" edition of 8 volumes with alternative covers. Oh, and just to be sure everyone had bought it, a fourth edition has been published as recently as 2015. Be it manga or anime, Piccoli Problemi di Cuore was always absolutely famous and great.

And then there's the Game Boy spinoff, that instead is exclusive for Japan. How come? Released by Bandai in 1995, this title had been originally conceived for the Game Boy and only three months later a Super Famicom version showed up, making it a unique strange case of an handheld exclusive coming second for home console, and not the other way around. Also, it’s a dating simulator! Personally, this is the first of this genre I see on the small screen.

Adorned with cute checkers patterns all around and predictably nice-looking sprites and background scenes, this game has the player assume the role of female protagonist Miki Koishikawa and flirt with three suitors: Yuu Matsuura (technically Miki’s main love interest in the original anime), Ginta Suou (long time Miki’s classmate and secret -even corresponded- crush, but too proud to admit it), or Kei Tsuchiya (a talented yet troubled pianist, also Miki’s coworker at Bobson’s ice cream parlor). A lot of places from the anime, such as the protagonist’s school, workplace, and house, can be visited, and there’s many more characters to interact with; all in run-of-the-mill dating sim fashion, Marmalade Boy features tons and tons and tons of dialogue and, as rewards, special cutscenes featuring Miki and the boyo of her life. I really don’t like dating sims at all, so I’m not sure if I could judge it fairly, even if I understood japanese. >.> But as far as I researched online, the general public and fans of the original source do seem to enjoy it, meaning that at least it does justice to the anime. The game seems programmed with passion as well, as it can be used along with a Super Game Boy for an exclusive border and more colorful pixelwork; it also has a password system, in case one screws up an answer and ends up with an undesired ending.

Unfortunately, no one has yet provided a translation patch neither for the Game Boy nor the SuFami version, and it’s clear that back in the day of its release, which is two years prior to Piccoli Problemi Di Cuore’s television airing, there was absolutely no interest in seeing it marketed to a western audience. Though, just imagine if an italian developing house would have taken interest into this spinoff as much as the television companies did with the cartoon! We’d have an italian translated Marmalade Boy’s videogame re-adapted to follow our own version of the story. An exorbitant cost for surely meager earnings, yet unmatched peculiarity... and probably, pride!

#Photography

[slytherin-team]

On Petunia Evans Dursley, or how I imagine & re-imagine her character

So, I re-read HP and Snape’s memories of Lily and Petunia really stood out to me. 

Since re-reading the whole series, I’ve become a bit obsessed with Snape and Petunia.

I want to talk about Petunia’s character.

Now, I like starving-her- nephew- and -locking- him -in- a- cupboard Aunt Petunia as much as the next person (which is to say, not at all)

However, Petunia’s character has to be one of the things that bothers me most about HP or one of the things that I see as the biggest missed opportunity on JKR’s part.

Now, I don’t entirely blame JKR for making Petunia a one-dimensional villain. HP started out as a children’s book and the Dursleys are very much like Matilda’s family. They’re just there to be entirely awful and also to contrast muggle “ordinariness” with wizard “specialness.” Additionally, everyone is familiar with the fairytale evil stepmother and Petunia fills that cliched trope as well.

But as the series becomes darker and less for children and as we learn more about the complicated history between muggles and wizards, the presence of only one-dimensional (Dursleys, at least the parents) or barely present (the Grangers) muggles becomes rather irksome, considering how the war is all about prejudice towards muggles and muggle-borns.

These things didn’t bother me or even occur to me so much as a kid reading the series and that’s why I can’t entirely blame JKR on this one thing. She knew her target audience (kids) would identify with the witches and wizards, see the muggles as boring and dull like the adults around them, and not care so much about the broader picture. 

I don’t know if my new way of looking at the series comes from simply re-reading it, or more specifically, from being an adult re-reading it, but I find myself super interested in examining what it means to be a muggle who is aware of the magical world and this what draws me to Aunt Petunia.

If I could make any change to the series, I would make Petunia a more gray, nuanced and fleshed out character, much like Snape (who I actually think she is very similar to and I’ll get into that). She would still give preferential treatment to her own son, but she would not outright abuse Harry by starving him or locking him up. She would ensure he’s well-fed and healthy but she would not be affectionate with him, but rather cold and distant, so similar to how she already acts but minus the serious abuse. 

 I would pepper in moments where Petunia stares at Harry with empty eyes or glances at him while he’s not looking. I would have Harry notice these small moments from time to time and wonder why his Aunt takes care of him yet is so cold towards him. He would unravel this mystery of her behavior, just as he unraveled Snape’s and Petunia would get a redemption arc, like Snape. I haven’t thought of all the details but I like the idea of her getting more involved later in the series and being a useful muggle character. Eventually, she would open up about Lily as well and reveal her regrets. She would also have a heart to heart with Harry and wish him luck before going into hiding.

Vernon would still be a jerk but not outright abusive because Petunia wouldn’t allow for that. Dudley would still get away with his bullying, particularly when Petunia is out of sight, but maintain the growth he did show in the series, perhaps taking it a bit further.

As much as I prefer my version of Petunia, the actual Petunia we get, while not a good or redeemable person by any means, is still really great as a character and as a villain, she has a good origin story.

Hate adult Petunia all you want, but child Petunia, in my opinion, is nothing but sympathetic and probably one of the most relatable characters in the series, and I will go through this.

We all wish the HP world was real, but of course, if it was, we’d all want to be witches and wizards. We all want to go to Hogwarts. 

Severus tells Lily, “It’s real for us, not for her.”

He’s right and he’s wrong. It’s real for Petunia, she just can’t be a part of it.

Now, personally, I think being a squib would feel a lot more unfair than being a muggle with muggle parents whose sibling just happens to be a witch and even if Petunia’s parents did favor Lily for being a witch, they can’t be prejudice towards Petunia for her lack of magic when they lack magic themselves. 

But squibs might actually be looked down upon by their magical parents and they seem to have no choice but to enter the muggle world even though they grew up in the magical world, and if they do stay in the magical world, they’re seen as lesser and I can’t imagine there’s much for them to do. Maybe they could work in Muggle relations but that’s not given much prestige (even though it should be an important thing) Petunia feels barred from the magical world but at least she doesn’t have to leave her own world. 

Still, Petunia is just a kid and she doesn’t know about all the intricacies of the magical world or about squibs. She just sees that her sister has abilities that she doesn’t and access to a really exciting world that she doesn’t. So, her jealousy and feelings of inferiority are totally understandable. 

Of course, in her jealousy of Lily, lack of knowledge about the intricacies of the magical world, and overall myopic view because of her youth, I think there’s something that Petunia doesn’t realize.

Lily is also in a difficult position, perhaps in some ways more difficult than Petunia. At least Petunia has a clear line. She’s a muggle and can fit into the muggle world.

Lily is a witch, so despite being born into the muggle world, she’s different, but that doesn’t mean she can fully integrate into the magical world. In some ways, the prejudice against muggle-borns and the specific slur for them makes them seem more hated and distrusted by certain segments of the wizarding world than even muggles themselves. 

And Lily graduated Hogwarts at the time of Voldemort’s rise and we’re told that the first wizarding war was much more intense than the second. Marlene Mckinnon and her entire family were killed. Voldemort had a bunch of creatures on his side. Petunia could be blissfully ignorant of all this and cocoon herself in her safe “ordinary” world at least. Safety didn’t seem like a choice for Lily, although she certainly had agency and chose to fight for the Order. But it seems that muggleborns would be hunted regardless.

Perhaps if Petunia had realized this, she would have had more sympathy for her sister and also realize that she herself  is lucky in some regards. Maybe she could have cultivated her own talents and focused on them instead of putting all of her energy into being jealous and petty.

I also have this other idea I like, of Petunia developing healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her jealousy and then finally embracing the magical world - instead of turning away from it entirely to be as “ordinary” as possible- and then becoming the muggle version of Arthur Weasley- that is, a muggle who is a bit of a “magicphile” 

Getting back on track, Petunia’s ordinariness could be her strength, at least as a character, it makes her relatable. Young Petunia, like young Severus, is the underdog, and that sort of makes you want to cheer for her or at least see her get a slice of the cake at least once in her life.

While I’ve grown to like Lily as a character more because of my re-analysis of her situation - which makes her an underdog too- I used to really hate her, for the same reason Petunia hated her. Like really? This girl has powerful magic, is beautiful, gregarious, kind, brave, strong, loved and desired by everyone...yadda yadda yadda...gimme a break! 

And so many fans who love Lily don’t realize that they’re probably Petunias, not Lilies.

Even looking at the flowers themselves- petunias are actually really beautiful and come in such a wide variety (the night sky petunia is my favorite) - and yet they’re often overlooked because they’re so common.

James is an awful bully but at least that counteracts his perfectness in every other area (looks, school, sports, etc) What are Lily’s flaws? What does she struggle with other than being muggleborn? It seems that maybe both she and James were too naive and trusting (not to victim-blame her for her own death or anything) but what else? We’re not told and so she just seems perfect, not very interesting for a character.

A lot of the things Petunia says as a child that fans interpret as mean or revealing of her hatred of magic from a young age, are actually things she seems to regurgitate from the adults around her. 

For example, when Lily is flying from a swing, Petunia chides her by saying, “mom, told you not to do that!” Although we know Petunia’s parents favored Lily, I get the sense that their favoritism and even awareness of Lily’s magic didn’t come until after the Hogwarts letter, which is when a representative would have come to the family to explain things. Before then...I’m not sure but maybe her parents didn’t realize what was going on and just didn’t want her jumping out of swings? Anyway, I think Petunia is just trying to be the responsible older sister and is repeating her mother.

I’m pretty sure when Lily makes the flower grow, Petunia gets a bit freaked out and maybe also says something about how she shouldn’t be doing that but she’s also described as asking Lily how she does it, with “longing” in her voice. So she’s juggling trying to be the responsible older sister with being totally weirded out because how the heck is her sister making flowers grow in her hand, to being curious, and this is when her burgeoning envy (totally understandable) starts to emerge as well.

Then little Snape enters the picture to unintentionally erode the sisters’ relationship even further. It’s also here that Petunia makes another comment that fans point to as proof of her snobbery and cruelty from a young age, but actually, it’s just proof that she took what adults told her to heart, and since she was older than Lily, she probably heard more gossip and knew more about their town in general.

After Snape pops out to tell Lily she’s a witch and that he’s a wizard, Petunia is the first of the sisters to speak.

Here’s the direct quote from Petunia: “Wizard! I know who you are. You’re that Snape boy! They live down Spinner’s End by the river,” 

This little statement is endlessly fascinating to me, it raises so many questions.

Why does Petunia know who Snape is? Why does she recognize him? How does she know his name and what he looks like? We know adult Petunia is nosy and loves watching all the neighbors. Was child Petunia snooping around, if so then how close did Snape live to the sisters? How close is the sisters’ house to Spinner’s End and the river? 

If she was snooping around, then it’s kind of ironic that she was spying on Snape while he was spying on her and Lily ( he says he’s been watching Lily but Lily is always with Petunia outside so even if it’s not intentional, he’s watching Petunia too) Even if she was snooping around, why would Petunia wander to Spinner’s End? Does she share Harry’s deathly curiosity and adventurous streak? She says “they” so does she know what Snape’s parents look like? How much does she know about the family and his home life?

My first thought actually wasn’t that she was snooping around but rather, that she was regurgitating the nasty things that adults had said. But this raises another question, which adults? We’re told later that Snape and Lily sneak into Petunia’s room to read her letter to Dumbledore, which means that Snape was in the Evan’s family’s home, and we also know that the Evans parents are impressed by witches and wizards, so it would seem that they approved of Snape. 

So then, who would have told Petunia about the Snape family? Did she just hear rumors and gossip about them from older townsfolk? I always imagine Lily as either 9 or 10 and Petunia as either 11 or 12 in this scene, only a two year difference between them but at that age, it’s enough for Petunia to be more involved in what adults are saying and for Lily to be oblivious.

From here, Petunia asks Severus why he’s been spying, and again, she seems like the protective sister. I really like her in this scene. I don’t interpret her as snobby or classist. She’s too young. I see her as a kid influenced by the adults around her and as sort of a gryffindor/slytherin hybrid, bravely stepping between her sister and the strange boy calling her a witch, while also being judgemental of outsiders.I think she possesses a lot of the qualities of both Lily and Severus.

This scene is also when Sev spitefully calls Petunia a muggle, a word she had never heard before but immediately recognizes as inferior. 

“Haven’t been spying. Wouldn’t spy on you any. You’re a muggle.”

It’s shown later that all three of these kids love to spy and snoop around (not unlike the golden trio - except they’re not spying with each other but on each other) but Sev and Petunia definitely share a heightened nosiness, a certain degree of haughtiness, a superiority complex coupled with an inferiority complex, and a strong sense of self-preservation and pride that is very slytherin. Opposites may attract but I think it’s the couples with common ground that last, and enemies-friends-lovers will never go out of style, so the potential set-up for Snetunia is just too good to pass over and plays a big role in why I love shipping them together.

Okay, and after this, Petunia then spies on Lily and Sev. The “she’s jealous. You're special. She’s ordinary” line is in the movie not the book but I love it because it encapsulates Petunia’s insecurities perfectly and also shows how Sev puts Lily on a pedestal, and the magical world as a whole on a pedestal. It’s sad that he gets abused at Hogwarts after being abused at home but it also just goes to show that wizards, witches and muggles are all just people and not necessarily inferior or superior to one another.

Petunia overhears Sev telling Lily about the dementors and that’s when she loses her footing and gets caught spying. Sev then shouts, “Who’s spying now! What d’you want?” I find it interesting how Sev and Petunia mirror each other so much.

This is when Petunia insults Sev by saying “What are you wearing anyway? Your mother’s blouse?” She obviously has nothing to say in regards to the spying accusation because she was so obviously spying, so she tried to deflect it with an insult. She’s just as defensive as Sev. After she says, the infamous tree branch incident happens, in which Sev gets revenge by making a tree branch fall over her head. This is what prompted Petunia, years later, to refer to Sev as “that awful boy” when she reveals to Harry that she knows what the dementors are because she “overheard that awful boy talking about them.”

Okay, onto the Hogwarts letter, which raises many questions as well.

“You shouldn’t have read – ”  Petunia had whispered, “that was my private – how could you – ?”.

Lily gave herself away by half-glancing toward where Severus stood nearby. 

Petunia gasped. “That boy found it! You and that boy have been sneaking in my room!” 

“No – not sneaking – ” Now Lily was on the defensive. “Severus saw the envelope, and he couldn’t believe a Muggle could have contacted Hogwarts, that’s all! He says there must be wizards working undercover in the postal service who take care of – ”

Okay, so this is soooo interesting. 

Adult Petunia is presented as a woman with a long neck who always has her nose in other people’s business and she’s not much different as a child. But despite this trait being used to amplify her villain role, it seems the “good guys” and the “grey guys” love meddling in this way as well. 

I really feel for Petunia in this scene. I think that Hogwarts letter and Dumbledore’s reply rejecting her (even if it was kind) was one of the biggest moments of failure, disappointment and embarrassment in her life and remember, she’s probably about 2 years older than Lily so she would be 13 here and that’s just not a nice age either and I think that makes losing her sister and being rejected hurt even more. Privacy is such a big deal when you’re 13 too, that’s like peak private diary age, so to have your little sister and her gross friend sneaking into your room at that time, what an invasion that must feel like.

But….what the heck was going through Sev’s mind?!?

I doubt Lily suggested that she and Sev sneak into Petunia’s room. Why would Sev want to go into Petunia’s room? She’s just a muggle after all. He sees the letter, but how? After going into her room?

He couldn’t believe a muggle contacted Hogwarts? Was he secretly impressed by her? He thinks there must be wizards undercover in the muggle postal service...well we’re never told how Petunia sends the letter but it’s often said that there’s more to her than meets the eye. I like to think she was cunning, determined, smart and slytherin enough to find out how to send the letter on her own and that’s probably what made Dumbldore even reply. I think she’s someone who always had a lot of potential but was crippled by feelings of inferiority and self-doubt, much like Severus.

Petunia and Severus both obsess over Lily to the point that it destroys them. Petunia, in her jealousy, deep down worries that Lily is better than her and compensates for this by calling her a freak. Sev never takes Lily off the pedestal even as they begin to grow apart and just as Petunia sinks deeper into her “ultra ordinary” prejudiced persona, Sev sinks deeper into his half-blood prince persona. He hates muggles because of his father, while Petunia hates magic (or pretends to) because of her sister. Sev and Petunia are two sides of the same coin then. They both also never go on to reconcile with Lily and they go on to resent her son while also protecting him.

I said it at the beginning of all this rambling, but I’ll say it again - I wish Petunia had been as layered and grey as Sev, instead of just the bland evil stepmother figure.

So, just to be clear, the adult Petunia we get in the actual books is deplorable but I still love her character because I love how many more satisfying ways there are to re-imagine her and what she could have been. Snape’s memories - the only time we see Petunia’s past - are so rich and revealing and just have me endlessly fascinated about Petunia’s potential.

This was super long but I’ve been dying to word vomit about this character - and I’ll probably do some more word vomit meta about Snape & Petunia later on ~

Oh and regarding what it means to be a muggle in the magical world or adjacent to the magical world - don’t even get me started on the statute of secrecy! Maybe one of the reasons Petunia did turn out so awful was because she had to bear the burden of knowing about magic but not being part of it all by herself, like she couldn’t just tell her friends her sister is a witch and vent. So, maybe she had to bottle everything up.

She also mentions in the book, her sister bringing home frogs and turning them into tea cups - to an outsider maybe that looks like animal abuse or raises ethical questions.

Obliviating muggles certainly seems unethical to me and the ministry does it with great abandon.

I wish this was explored more in the series.

Petunia has a right to be skeptical it would seem, and naturally fearful as well.

#aunt petunia #petunia evans dursley #severus snape #lily evans potter #harry potter #meta #analysis #muggles #pro-snape #slytherin #statute of secrecy #interpretation #word vomit #long post

[mysterylover123]

Top 10 Reveals I’m Excited for in My Hero Academia

mysterylover123

Now first let me clarify what I mean by reveals: There are basically two types of reveals in the story, the Mystery and the internal reveal. Internal reveals are when a character learns something the audience already knows. There is a lot of hidden information I want the characters to learn about, as well as mysteries even the fans don’t know yet.

Also spoilers up until the most recent manga chapter!

#10. JUST WHAT IS BAKUGOU’S HERO NAME?

The fandom has written approximately 20,000 different meta on the question of just what Lord Explosion Murder’s real hero name will eventually be. Recently, Katsuki confirmed that he does indeed have one and has “someone he needs to tell”. Whozat? What is the name, dammit? The answer to this one is probably coming pretty soon, since it’s been brought up in-universe, but we’re all getting pretty impatient to finally learn what it is.

My theory: A play on Bakusatsuo/Ground Zero, or a play on Kacchan that connects the latter to his future goals. The person he wants to tell is...Jeanist! (sorry, Bakugou).

#9. THE LOV’S POWER-UPS

This one’s an internal reveal. Namely, the League has Overhaul’s bullets, the Meta Liberation Army, Gigantomachia and an army of high-end Nomus....but no one knows about this besides the PLF. The kids at UA don’t know. The Pro heroes and cops don’t seem to know, the public as a whole has no idea what a nightmare is brewing behind the scenes for them as the League plots and plans. It’s about time they all learned just what a powerful, dangerous force they’re truly up against in spectacular, horrifying fashion.

My Theory: The League will use their resources (the bullets) to wipe out the Top 10 Pros by erasing their quirks in fights with all their warriors, but the UA kids interning with the Pros will hold their own, showing some hope for the future of heroism.

#8. HAWKS=TRIPLE AGENT=JEANIST KILLER

Another internal reveal, though mixed with a few audience reveals. Namely, did Hawks actually kill Best Jeanist or is this some kind of a bluff? Hawks’ status as a triple agent is something that can serve for some pretty dramatic revelations later on in the narrative - mostly for Endeavor, Tokoyami, and Dabi, learning about his various statuses and having a big “You? No, it couldn’t be!” moment. This one will probably also come soon; he’s been teetering on the edge for way too long. 

My Theory: Hawks’ reveal will come during the aforementioned LoV attack arc, and this will initiate the reveal of Kacchan’s hero name. Basically, the first 3 all tie together into a potential future arc that may be coming up sooner than we think. And tie into the next one...

#7. DABI=?

This one is a big mystery, and one that pretty much the entire fanbase has a solid theory on the answer to. Basically, if Dabi is not somehow Toya Todoroki then we’ve all got nothing. The most prominent LoV member to have received no backstory flashbacks in the MLA arc and no real name during the Hideout Raid, the mysterious firebender is a giant enigma...and yet everything about him dovetails nicely with the theory of him being a re-animated version of the allegedly dead Todoroki sibling. He even looks like Toya, so odds on this one are pretty high.

My Theory: The Toya reveal could come out in this very next arc, given all the Nomu/long lost friend drama of the recent chapters and the Todoroki angst arc of the previous ones. Otherwise, it’ll probably wait for a while to finally be unveiled. And the impact on Endeavor and Shoto will be devastating.

#6. WHAT ARE THE OTHER 5 QUIRKS?

Unlike the Avatar state where we know all the powers ahead of time, Midoriya’s future quirks inside of OFA are a complete mystery. Aside from Super Strength and Black Whip, what are the other 5 wielders’ powers? The fact that we have no answers on this one at all yet is really baffling to me, because DIDN’T ALL MIGHT AND GRAN TORINO KNOW NANA’S QUIRK?!!?! Why hasn’t All Might told Deku what quirk he’ll be getting from her yet? We need this information, dude! Also why does one of the silouhettes look like Bakugo? Are you an immortal timelord Kacchan?

My Theory: I think Nana’s quirk must be related to Tomura’s (Maybe a reversal of decay, like a healing power?). As to the other 4, those are complete mysteries. Maybe super senses, some kind of shield, an elemental power, and a wildcard quirk?

#5. TENKO=TOMURA=NANA SHIMURA’S GRANDKID

This is a great big internal reveal that I’m really impatient for more information on. Namely: 1. All Might needs to tell Deku that Tomura is Nana’s grandson. 2. Tomura needs to find out that his grandmother was All MIght’s Master, and 3. to find out that her spirit exists within Midoriya. All of this needs to go down, because that big fight between Tomura and Deku we have to get eventually is going to need some more personal stakes, and anyway why doesn’t Deku know this yet already? Tell him All Might! He needs to know!

My Theory: All Might will tell Deku, who will let this info slip at a crucial moment when fighting Tomura, calling him “Tenko” maybe at some point; this reveal, which Deku will cop to, will send Tomura into a self-searching spiral.

#4. WHO IS DEKU’S DAD?

It’s pretty much grand Shonen tradition for the protagonist to have a completely absent dad, whose identity becomes a major reveal later on in the story. Deku’s dad is perhaps the most absent father in all of fiction, as we have almost zero information about the guy and Deku never even thinks about or mentions him. There are many, many prominent fan theories about who he is, and technically just a brief picture, appearance and characterization would do the trick, but most fans are convinced he must be someone important.

My Theory: Dad for One theorist here. Plenty of evidence/potential reasons it could be true to work with. All for One has some kinda plan that relates to Deku and OFA, and the reveal will come then. 

#3. UJIKO=TSUBASA=AFO’S DR=DEKU’S DR?!?

One of the biggest reasons I’m a Dad for One theorist is because of AFO’s doctor being Deku’s doctor from Chapter 1. Ujiko, the mad scientst of the League, is Dr. Tsubasa. He took his relative, Kacchan’s childhood friend, and turned him into the winged Nomu that kidnapped Deku during the Hero Killer Arc. Right now he’s turning Tomura into a butterfly or something. Deku and Kacchan need to learn about this connection, and dole out some sweet justice to this guy. (BTW is it my FMA eyes or does he look a lot like the gold-toothed doctor?)

My Theory: Dad for One hired him to supervise Midoriya, and deliberately picked Tsubasa as an experimentation subject to punish him for picking on Deku (which is also why he’s so cool with going after Bakugo), and Deku and Kacchan will find out by seeing him during a future LoV confrontation.

#2. WHO IS THE UA TRAITOR?

The golden question, indeed? Who, exactly, is the UA traitor? Is there a traitor? How did the league find them if not? Is it confirmed there is a traitor, most likely? And if so, who is it? There are so many prominent theories as to who it could be and how this would impact the story; I’ve read decent arguments from all over the board for every single possible candidate, and while there are plenty that have some solid evidence, only one really appeals to me from a characterization standpoint.

My theory: I’m down with the Uraraka traitor theory, because I love the idea of what it could do with her character, the ways it could affect her relationship with Deku, and the possibilities of the Toga/Ochaco parallels. Of course, I’ll be happy as long as it makes sense and crafts some good drama.

Hon Mentions: Eri will learn Nighteye died (she still doesn’t know); Other characters learn Todoroki’s backstory; Kirishima learns he and Mina fought Gigantomachia; Just freaking tell him you like him already Uraraka

#1. DEKU HAS OFA

This seems like a strange thing to list as a “Reveal”, since Deku got OFA in Chapter 1. But when I say this, I mean Other characters learn about it. Obviously, Kacchan already learned and that was great. So think of the possibilities of other characters finding out! In order of who needs to know: 1. Inko, 2. Tomura, 3. Mirio, 4. Todoroki and his family, 5. Uraraka, Oddly enough, the series could probably progress with nobody but Tomura out of that list learning the truth, but still, the possibilities of the drama worth exploiting from the 9th wielder reveal are almost endless. It’s a bomb under the table waiting to go off to craft neat conflict in the future.

My Theory: Tomura and Ujiko know about OFa. They’ll tell PLF and go on a hunt for the 9th wielder among the likely candidates at UA; the first years and Lemillion, Nighteye’s intern. In the process they’ll figure out it’s Deku and the truth will be revealed to all pertinent characters, making Deku the target of PLF trying to harvest OFA for their own control.

#my hero academia #midoriya izuku #katsuki bakugou #bakugou's hero name #tomura shigaraki #shigaraki tomura #hawks #mha hawks #best jeanist #one for all #all for one #nana shimura #tenko shimura #ua traitor theory #dad for one #ujiko

[pynkhues]

Since you're a writer, I'm hoping you can shed some light on this. IMO the writers were chasing viewers in S2 and trying not to get canceled. Personally, I hate when writers toy with their audience, it means they don't have a clear picture of their characters and narrative. How do you feel about writers making it up as they go?

Ah, this post got really long, anon! Since you asked me as a writer, I’m answering as one (I hope you don’t mind! I also hope this doesnt come out as too Creative Writing 101 for people either. This is just lessons I’ve learned and use in my own practice, so I’m applying them here.) 

(Also I have drawn horrible diagrams on my very pink notebook paper - I am so sorry, haha)

So first thing’s first - no. I don’t think the writers were chasing viewers (at least not beyond the way any writer is wanting an audience), and I don’t think they were making it up as they go really, but I can understand why you would think that way! 

It won’t be a surprise to anyone that I love this show a lot, but coming from it as both a writer and editor - this show does have narrative problems, and the biggest ones, particularly in s2, are in execution, escalation and pacing. 

I think heading into the season they had certain character arcs they wanted to follow which married well with the story they wanted to tell. In particular, I actually think the writers have a very strong handle on the girls (I will say that I’ve had a few asks telling me Beth’s characterisation is all over the place, which I’m curious about, just because I personally find her very consistent, and when I’ve asked for clarification, I’ve never gotten any reply, so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

I mean, look at their s2 arcs on paper, right? 

Ruby tries to negotiate Stan’s lowered opinion of her after the reveal of what she’s done, then has to negotiate him telling her to turn Beth and Annie in. She manages the situation painfully but pulls them through and they’re close again as Ruby navigates the increasingly lower depths of their crime life. When Stan acts to save Beth for Ruby and is arrested, it only escalates – the case on him driving Ruby to extremes to try and save him, including robbing a Quick Cash and using counterfeit money to bribe a lawyer. On top of that, she’s being targeted by an FBI agent who’s after her best friend who she gives up and then saves and then who tries to sacrifice herself for them. Ruby finishes the season the most morally compromised she’s ever been.

Annie gets back together with her ex only to find out that he’s gotten his not-quite-separated-wife pregnant. She splits up with him, but is heartbroken and it’s only amplified by the fact that they’ve been given a job by their Crime Boss to murder a man who tried to rape her but who’s grandmother she has a relationship with. Her sister can’t kill him, and Annie doesn’t get the chance as MP beats her to it. Upon disposing of the body though she endures a whole lot of pain as a result of both her ex’s new family and knowing she’s robbed a woman of her own. Annie goes on a guilt tour – tells her son, helps Marion, helps Nancy only to eventually find an absolver of her guilt in Noah, who builds her up and tells her she’s more than what life has given her. She lets herself have it for a while, before realising he’s FBI and there to trap her, and Annie tries to use him only to realise she can’t, and she finishes the season in a lot more hurt than she started it.

Beth struggles with guilt after getting Dean shot, gets the job to kill Boomer from Rio, can’t do it, gets support and encouragement from him (in various states of animosity), but in the end doesn’t have to find out if she can do it because MP does it instead. She’s rewarded by Rio in a way she probably never has been by anyone, her husband further subjugates her, so she has sex with Rio, starts to entertain a future with him, but he undermines her, so she seizes control from him. They work together. Dean forces her to break up with him due to jealousy, she struggles, goes back, but Rio’s stung, so unhelpful, and they play a little cat and mouse before he bails then kidnaps her and she shoots him.

With the exception of that very last sentence, I think all of those are narratively really strong pathways to have explored. Like I said above though, the issue is in execution, escalation and pacing.

But to talk about those things, I think I probably need to talk about story. 

SO!

Stories have a shape.

Kurt Vonnegut talks extensively about this, and while he’ll talk about a few different types of story shapes, they really all boil down to this bad boy here:

Look at this guy.

What a beautiful thing.

He’s a story.

It doesn’t matter if you’re reading Dr Seuss or Charles Dickens, when you read a story – when you strip away its words and its characters and its settings – this is what it looks like.

Or, well.

Not quite.

Really, it’s this guy:

But we’ll talk about him in a sec.

Right now, let’s talk about that first little inch: 

The Beginning

The fact that stories have a beginning is not a surprise to anyone. Stories need them. In some ways, they’re the most important part of your story. After all, the job of the beginning is to set up the world your protagonist is about to leave behind. That is essential in grounding a reader / viewer – orienting them to the world that they’re in, and getting them invested in the story you’re about to tell, if not the protagonist.

Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones are all excellent example of this (and frequently used in teaching) because in each of these cases it’s literal. Frodo leaves Bag End, Harry leave Privet Drive, Luke leaves Tatooine, the Starks leave Winterfell. There is a literal departure from the world before the crux of the story, and that departure is what signifies the start of the ‘hero journey’ aka the main part of your narrative.

Of course, it’s not always literal – in fact, it’s usually not. Usually that world is symbolic – it’s the single, uncertain world before the Bingley’s buy the house next door in Pride and Prejudice or the dry domestic sphere of Breaking Bad before Walt decides to make meth. It’s a marked shift, whether that’s internal or external.

In Good Girls, it’s internal.

The beginning is actually pretty perfect. The world it sets up that we’re about to (try to) depart is one of struggle and invisibility.

Beth’s in a loveless marriage promptly discovering that her husband is not only cheating but about to leave them destitute, Ruby’s getting ignored by the healthcare system and can’t afford to pay for her daughter’s wellbeing, and Annie is in a dead end job about to lose custody of her child.

Writing-wise – as a beginning, I honestly think 1.01 is close to perfect.

It sets up who these characters are, their personal conflicts, and the story world they share together, and the worlds they have on their own i.e. Ruby at the hospital and the diner, Annie at Fine and Frugal, Beth with Dean and Boland Motors.

Then:

BOOM

Inciting Incident.

The inciting incident is also often called The Point of No Return.

When I’m teaching, I personally like to call it the “You’re a wizard!” moment.

It’s when something happens that means everything set up in the beginning will be changed forever. It’s Romeo meeting Juliet, it’s Katniss volunteering for Prim, it’s Frodo deciding to take the ring to Mordor, it’s Jaimie pushing a child out a window, it’s Beth – deciding to take her little sister’s joke seriously and rob a grocery store.

(Again, I like to use Harry Potter because it’s literal – there is no return for Harry after hearing Hagrid tell him he’s a wizard. Everything is changed forever).

Inciting incidents are probably the most singularly important narrative moment, because they’re what everything else tumbles out of. Pretty much everything that happens in the story should be a direct or indirect result of the inciting incident. The inciting incident is ultimately the key of the story and what should unlock the overall arc.

When it comes to a series – whether that be a TV series, movie series or book series, each individual instalment (see: season of a show) should have its own inciting incident which – preferably – builds off the one established in the first instalment.

The Hunger Games does this really well. Katniss and Peeta being brought back into the games in Catching Fire is both an imitation inciting incident which allows the author to explore the story world further in an exciting way, and also an inciting incident that’s directly borne out of the first book / film – aka Katniss pissed enough people off during the first games that they’re going to try and kill her for real this time, which in turn gives us the opportunity to explore Katniss’ trauma, the ramifications of her actions in the first book on the broader story world, and to generate a new, compelling chapter based off of both.

Good Girls has a terrific inciting incident in s1 – which is Beth realising she’s about to lose everything.

That is our narrative point of no return.

And it works on a lot of levels – it establishes Beth as the driving engine of the story, fuelled by the chorus motivations of Annie and Ruby, rounding off both their collective and individual stakes, it sets us up for a strong narrative spine and solid characterisations.

Good Girls actually also has a terrific inciting incident in s2, which operates strongly on its own while also building firmly off the character arcs of s1.

The s2 inciting incident is Rio showing up on that park bench with Marcus, a gun and an order.

The story pivots here – giving Rio a lot of narrative thrust (get your minds out of the gutter kids), and making him a sort of secondary story engine. The core engine is still Beth, but her life is different now. She’s been traumatised and she’s exhausted, but Rio revealing his son to the girls (and tying their motivations up together in a neat little package) while forcing her to act, re-establishes her as the person who’s decisions are going to be the driving force of the narrative.

Ruby and Annie are, of course, story engines in their own right too, but they fall into line behind Beth usually, and their narrative push is actually usually away from the story throughline, but we’ll talk about that in a sec.

Rising Tension / The Middle

Okay, this is where things get a little tricky.

Do you remember this guy?

When we talk about stories, rising tension / the middle is the big guy. It’s the bulk of your narrative. It’s Where Things Happen. It’s where all the ugly stuff set up in your beginning and exploded by your inciting incident just - - grows a life of it’s own.

Or - -

Well.

Maybe not.

Forget about this guy.

Rising tension is this:

Rising tension is a series of ‘mini climaxes’ on the way to the main climax that raises the stakes, lets you know characters better, and pushes your characters onwards to the main climax.

Each of these little climaxes should be followed by a ‘narrative rest’. (that’s the dip after each spike)

Which - - I don’t know, might sound weird? I know when I started writing I was like ?? but it’s true! The closer you get to a big narrative climax, the more important rests are! Rests are – I personally think – one of the most important components of storytelling, because they re-ground an audience, remind them of what’s at stake, before thrusting everyone back into danger.

Again, Harry Potter is a gift in this sense because this is all really clearly paced out. Think about the first instalment – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s / Sorcerer’s Stone.

Harry and Ron save Hermione and Ron from the troll!!!

Then they become friends and enjoy school and quidditch.

Harry loses control of his broom during a quidditch game!!!!

He’s okay and then it’s Christmas and Harry gets the invisibility cloak and feels connected to his parents for perhaps the first time in his life.

Harry, Hermione and Ron go through the trapdoor to get the philosopher’s stone!!!

And - - okay, you get the point.

Each mini climax ups the stakes, but we feel those stakes upped because of the time we spend with characters during the ‘narrative rest’. For instance, while Harry and Ron saving Hermione from the troll might have sparked an interest in her, it’s the narrative rest scenes between that and her setting Snape on fire during the quidditch game that makes us invest in her as a character. 

This is where things get a bit hairy with Good Girls. Good Girls does a tremendous job of giving us both great climaxes and wonderful moments of narrative rest. The issue, for me at least, is that it’s not always the best at balancing them. When I talk about escalation and pacing, this is a big part of what I mean.

Remember how I said this was the shape of a story?

Well, I think Good Girls s2 looked more like this:

We had a lot of solid movement in the first half of the season that sort of flattened out into a lower stakes, more meandering middle (which gave us 2.08 through 2.12). Which - -

Look.

The story changed gear, and it didn’t work.  

Think of it this way:

2.01 – mostly character-based fallout from s1 + inciting incident of Rio handing them the gun

2.02 – almost entirely rising tension culminating with the girls bribing Boomer and Beth lying to Rio

2.03 – which thrusts us straight back into rising tension with the girls trying to kill Boomer and ‘succeeding’ via Mary Pat

2.04 – which gives us a very satisfying narrative rest as we explore Rio and Beth’s relationship outside of an overall narrative thrust – he gives her a key, she shies away from him, only to fall entirely back into him culminating in sex which itself brings about a new climax (no pun intended!) in the scene with Beth, Rio and Dean at the dealership. It’s also a strong character episode in closing certain plot threads – ending Annie and Greg’s relationship + ending Ruby lying to Stan about what they’re doing – while establishing major new threads – i.e. really colliding Turner and Mary Pat.

2.05 – and after the rest, we’re back to almost entirely satisfying rising tension! Building off of the threat of finding Boomer’s body and the new tensions that Rio and Beth’s intimacy brings.

2.06 – a mix episode! Very much building to the strong climax of Beth seizing power, but also an episode that plays around with character, has a lot of strong ‘rest’ moments i.e. the girls sorting pills and talking which gives us a lot of information as to state of minds, etc.

2.07 – again, very strong mixed episode which is focused on one single, extreme climax – Jane being missing, but building a very character-centric episode around it. Also introduces Noah though? Which is a mistake. He should have been introduced - I think, in 2.05, but that feels like a whole other post.

2.08 – narratively speaking the same as 2.07 in the sense of a single climax (the girls failing to get the money back / the Beth-Ruby confrontation), but has the added bonus of flashbacks.

2.09 – we have a slight narrative thrust with the robbery of the Quick Cash but it proves very quickly to be low stakes. This is an alllll emotional stakes episode, which means narrative tension is slowing.  

2.10 – again, a character-focused, narrative rest episode devoted to Beth struggling with getting square. A few small climaxes – Annie and Ruby in Canada and Turner at the dealership being the big ones, but both quickly prove toothless. The heft / strength of the episode again is in character moments, not narrative thrust. Again - slowing it down. 

2.11 – oh, what do we have here? Another character-focused, narrative rest episode? I love this episode – it’s one of my favourites of the show, but it’s intensely character focused. Very much centred in waving away the smoke around both Noah and Rio for Annie and Beth respectively. No dramatic climaxes. Slowing the story down even further. 

2.12 – another narrative rest episode. A lot of slow exposition of Mary Pat and Jeff, which is good to know, but I’d argue placed badly in the season. This season’s already been slowing down despite the narrative timeline tightening, but this episode only further pushes on the brakes for Dean’s new job, Beth and Dean’s divorce, Beth and Rio’s break up. Two very small climaxes - the lawyer telling Ruby he knows about the money and the Boomer reveal but - in the context of the season - actually pretty low stakes. Again. Slowing down the narrative. 

2.13 – A BIG CLIMAX EPISODE WHAT IS GOING ON???

What I’m saying in this is that the pacing in the back half of the season was, to me at least, fundamentally off. They hadn’t steered a strong enough narrative spine to take us through the season, and got heavily invested in character moments and not-entirely-thought-out-fallout in the back half of the season – it didn’t understand it’s own narrative thrust well enough to get us through. It also established a certain pacing with us in the first half of the season and shifted gears halfway through.

You can’t have your first three or six episodes be high-stakes-high-action, and then make the back end of your season same-stakes-low-action and top it all off with an explosive, poorly built-up finale in the way that they did.

There wasn’t enough thrust to push us through to the scene in Rio’s loft – neither narratively or in a character sense, and as a result, those last few episodes fall apart. Even beyond that though, the season escalated quickly then - - didn’t really know what to do with those escalations? It plateaued, which is indicative of bad pacing across the season. 

I actually do think it’d be a relatively easy fix? I’d bring the Noah arc forwards and actually fiddle with the Beth and Rio break ups - get one even closer the tinale and make it more painful. Make it a climax in itself. 

But anyway, haha: 

The Resolution

All stories have a resolution too of course.

The resolution can be 30 seconds or 30 minutes – it’s a time to tie up loose ends and to reassure your audience that the journey they’ve been on is worthwhile.

(After all – you’ll notice the story diagram is not symmetrical – we never finish where we began).

I’m not going to talk too much about resolutions because at the end of the day – resolutions should fall fairly naturally out of your beginning, your inciting incident, your rising tension. It should tumble out like the double wedding at the end of Pride and Prejudice, but I will say that the s2 resolution was...err, not good. In no small part because it didn’t fall out of what we’d been told all season. They’d established a certain throughline and then taken it back, and that was nagl to be honest. 

On the plus side though - it wasn’t a finale, so I have my fingers crossed they can fix it!

But yes, back to your ask, anon. 

No, I don’t think that the writers were pandering. I think they went in with a sketched outline and that they probably got lost in the back end of the season and weren’t quite sure how to drum up the final act, which meant that final act didn’t work.

Ah, this post got so long! I hope it wasn’t boring or too self-indulgent or silly, and that you got something out of it! I am, of course, always happy to answer writing questions, and I hope you liked reading my story ramblings ;-) 

#writing posts #gg season 2 #welcome to my ama

[brownstonearmy]

2020-09-25: Juiced! (Part 5)

August 7 (Friday midmorning)

After the events of the previous day, you'd think our lovely band of adventurers would catch a break. BUT YOU WOULD BE MISTAKEN! Messages, insights and calls to action proliferate throughout the party.

Lucky receives a letter from Miss Mavis asking for a favor:

"Lucky, can you and your friends help me find a crystalline energy amplifier? I need one for a restoration project. They're worth a hefty price, but I'll gladly reimburse if you find one."

Norm, meanwhile, has learned that Yance Elbereth is convalescing at SHART HQ. The time to strike against his assassination target is nigh!

Spleenifer has learned through meditation and spiritual attunement that the waterskin from the monk is a type of holy water and the decorative bowl is actually a bowl of Commanding Water Elementals. And on Spleenifer's first day of official work as Mayor Dunwall's assistant, she has been asked for her input how best to solicit donations to help the Mayor with reelection.

Q (going as Jay on this auspicious day) found a note under their door:

"From one bard to another, here's a piece of advice: never trust a Stout you can't drink. I have Stout problems of my own, if ever you want to meet for a pint at the usual bard hangouts. I'm easy to find, since the scales stand out. -Kadana Meristan"

Everyone splits up to start on their respective tasks, so let's follow one adventurer at a time and see where things lead!

Up first we have have Jay, and they strike out for the Juicy Lyre tavern to meet up with the mysterious author of the letter. Kadana, an attractive dragonborn, is nursing a pint while composing a song on the back of a playbill. After Jay takes a seat, she explains that Lawrence Stout was once her patron. But like Jay, she got into some hot water when things got a little too close between Kadana and Russell Stout. The younger Stout seems to have a habit of fraternizing with the arts (as the euphemism goes). But in Kadana's case, her arts funding got cut off as punishment.

Jay and Kadana muse for a bit on strategies to get back at Lawrence and/or Russell. The best way to strike back seems to be breaking up the Stout family businesses, but neither of them are quite sure how to go about doing that. Kadana excuses herself to attend to some other bardly matters, but it's clear that Kadana is playing this as a playful round of hard to get. Folks, we're seeing the beginnings of a beautiful friendship (and possible romance)!

But we must fade to black for now and pick up on Spleenifer's tale! She's back at the Mayoral Manor to discuss the upcoming election strategy. On the way over to the Mayor's place, she found a slightly-charred scrap of paper that probably fell out of someone's pocket during the events of last night. It reads: "You promised me I could use the ring to fix my problem. -Rooney"

Spleenifer stuffs the scrap in her pocket and focuses on the task at hand with the mayor. Since Zaribeth Quickfingers is mounting an unexpectedly strong campaign (though really, any campaign at all is probably unexpectedly strong against Dunwall), the incumbent mayor needs to take the special election preparations seriously. Spleenifer suggests mounting a spin campaign to solicit donations, but her methods are a bit... unorthodox:

"Make it say incontinent instead of incumbent!"

That'll surely take away from the discontent brewing about the mayor's presumed incompetence! What's a giant dung beetle to do? Approve the suggestion and blast it out across town, of course!

Now we switch POV to Lucky, who suggested at the start of the adventure that the party should investigate an unusual announcement in today's Brownstone Bugle where the Meyrick family was looking to hire someone to kidnap their daughter for ransom. But Lucky isn't abandoning Miss Mavis's task! In her words, she's gonna try to kill two stones with one bird.

Lucky is already familiar with crystalline energy amplifiers, and knows they can be found in certain naturally occurring crystal deposits. The catch is that only the biggest crystals (worth at least 1,000GP) can function as a proper amplifier, but she's got a lead on a potential source in a mine about 10 miles east of town. If Lucky can win the audition to kidnap the daughter, she could potentially stash her quarry in the mine while looking for crystals.

She knocks on the the door of the Meyrick estate, and the butler escorts her Mr. Meyrick's study. Mr. Meyrick is a skinny man with wild hair that is graying at the temples. If Gary Busey was a used car salesman and the characters knew what car salespeople were, that's what everyone would say the elder Meyrick looks like.

Mr. Meyrick asks Ms. Lucky Proudfoot what her plans for his daughter are, and she explains the plan. She also plans to scurry off to the mines in a mobile house on chicken legs for extra dramatic flair. The daughter can work in the mines hunting crystals while waiting for the ransom payment to arrive. Meyrick thinks this is an excellent plan and hires Lucky on the spot. He just needs some time to subdue his daughter before she'll be ready for the exchange. Come back later this evening, he says, and she'll be Lucky's problem for the next few hours.

Now's the perfect time to switch over to Norm, who's sneaking his way to where Yance is staying. The recently-concussed trader of illicit antiquities is laying on a cot staring at the ceiling. Norm applies some of the St. Ignatius's Re-Dead Juice to his dagger and moves in for the kill. But Yance rolls over just as Norm enters the room and makes eye contact.

All is not lost, though! Norm shifts into playing the part of an ally who is checking in on him after the concussion. "How many fingers am I holding up?" Norm asks. He goes through a series of simple tests and then "checks for bumps" on the back of Yance's head. That's when Norm makes a tiny nick at the base of Yance's hairline with his poison-coated dagger. Yance passes away seconds later, peacefully slumping back onto the cot.

Sounds of a loud scuffle erupt outside, and from Norm's vantage point, it appears to be a fight between five drunken sailors and a sober-seeming ship's officer. Despite being split up, the rest of the party is close enough to hear the sounds of the brawl and everyone converges on the scene.

Lucky triggers a wild surge and casts Suggestion on one of the sailors, telling him to "make love, not war." Every time she blinks, a duck appears nearby. The sailor under the influence of Lucky's Suggestion grabs a fellow sailor by the arms and pulls him over for a deep kiss. The sailor on the receiving end of the kiss is surprisingly receptive to the romantic gestures, and they stumble away from the fray to keep the passion burning.

Norm exits his building, dashing through alleyways so as to make it look as though he came from a completely different building. There's a drunken brawl and a separate manly make-out session and at least a dozen ducks by this point. What the heck is happening here?

Spleenifer, having been a sheltered woman of faith, has never seen men kiss before. She grabs a duck and announces to her newfound companion: "Let's watch together!" Regardless of the duck's opinion on the matter, it's along for the ride. The passionate pirates are flattered by Spleenifer's audience, but their ships don't really sail that way, if you catch their drift.

While all this chaos is unfolding, Lucky has a bit more fuel to add to the fire. She drops her suggestion and casts invisibility on two pirates and the officer. It's hard to fight when you can't see each other, right? Well, it does stop the fight for the most part, as the two invisible pirates stumble off to rob a bank with their newfound invisibility powers.

The remaining pirate is lifted up by an invisible force (spoiler: it's the captain) and slapped. Now the captain's visible again and orders him to return to the Rising Howl, their ship that is currently docked until the river rises high enough to let them sail. Spleenifer grabs another duck from the flock (now called Prongle), while still restraining the original duck (now named T'Pam) in her sturdy arms. She manages to coax them into pecking at each other like they're kissing.

Norm dashes over to where the sailors were fighting and is nearly overpowered by the stench of alcohol. He pulls out a match lights it to see just how much of a drunken cloud the sailors left behind. Lucky adds a little pizzazz to the situation with a little bit of flammable luck, and the cloud ignites in an impressive cloud of flame in the air that leads in the direction of the fleeing sailors. Jay leaps in front of the two kissing sailors to shield their love from the explosion.

Once things calm down (always only briefly in this town), the party swings by the general store for some pickaxes for their upcoming mining expedition. Not wanting T'Pam and Prongle to feel left out, Spleenifer fashions some miniature pickaxes out of twigs to give to the ducks. Lucky snags a caterpillar cocoon (foreshadowed magical purposes!) on the way to contact the lizardfolk to borrow their house.

At the Meyrick estate, Mr. Meyrick greets the party and directs them to a wagon containing a tied-up sleeping giantess (technically half-giantess, but still LORGE). Once their "hostage" is safely aboard the house, the party contemplates what to do.

"I've never done kidnapping before," asks Lucky "but is it reasonable to ask for her emancipation?" But that is soon answered once the giantess wakes up. Lucky is able to communicate with her, and learns that the giantess's name is Tina. She's well-spoken and her family loves her a lot. This whole kidnapping thing is a publicity stunt to get some sponsorship deals. The house gallops toward the mine, reaching the entrance after about 20 minutes.

Tina agrees to help the party mine for crystalline amplifiers and takes up a pickaxe along with the rest of the party. Lucky uses the cocoon to transform herself into an umber hulk with a sweet, sweet burrowing speed. But after some time has passed, a group of eight drunken brigands arrives at the mine's entrance to hide out.

Norm puts down his pickaxe and sneaks toward the boisterous brigands to assess the situation. One of the group has a rucksack full of books, while the rest carry sacks of more conventional treasure. As Norm listens in from the shadows, he learns that the treasure comes from their recent break-in of Salem's.

The sound of picks against stone catches the attention of the brigands, who drop their spoils and tread deeper into the tunnels. A massive chunk of crystal has just been unearthed, and it could function as a quality crystalline amplifier if it can be completely excavated. However, that's the time the drunkards show up. One of them makes obscene and probably physiologically incompatible advances at Tina and a fight soon breaks out.

Smites, spells, and sneak attacks smash into the metaphorically-smashed sailors. Lucky's burrowing triggers a small tunnel collapse, and her confusing gaze disorients even more of the sailors. Spleenifer smacks at the base of the crystal to uproot it before the tunnel collapses further, and soon the party emerges victorious.

Mr. Meyrick arrives to collect his daughter just as the last brigands flee into the night. He mentions that the sponsorship deal fell through, though he still brought the promised ransom. Maybe they'll be able to collaborate on another scheduled kidnapping in the future? Who knows!

The party searches through the stuff left behind by the brigands and finds wealth of many types. Material wealth in the form of gold and gems is most obvious here, but there is also informational wealth. Among the books that were stolen from Salem's is a copy of Zaribeth's accounting ledger. As in, the true version that depicts all the shady stuff going on with Zaribeth's businesses.

With that realization, the adventure concludes for the night and everyone advances to level 12. Stay tuned next time for more!

#Shits and Giggles #Dungeons and Dragons #Adventure Log #FishDavidson #Kidnapping

[btsdadd]

How to Gain Followers on Instagram?

If you have had lots of requests upon Instagram, we will come up with the money for you lots of clear and unmovable information. How to earn clear Instagram partners past it becomes more and more well-liked upon Instagram? The frequency of questions past that posed increased. In line past the feel and reliability of services, in addition to the paid follow-up tool, Instagram offers many tools for clear follow-up tool. As you know, Instagram has become one of the most preferred social media channels today. Instagram has become the most interactive and lively in many areas where its main try is to share photos and rude videos from our daily lives. Its multi-purpose use has attracted the attention of all the masses, especially for-profit organizations. Free Instagram Followers is especially approximately increasing the number of lively followers, that is, if you want to increase the number of users who actively past and comment upon your posts, and if you want to achieve your audience more, your first job will be to sever the privacy of your profile. Of course, the job doesn't end past secrecy. We come up with the money for you clear and secure tools you can earn clear Instagram followers. Thanks to these tools developed Instagram'da clear and reliable artifice to increase your followers.

If you want to attempt the method of gaining clear Instagram followers, is it secure to increase clear partners upon Instagram? you might think. Will this broken your account? First of all, it should be noted that none of the services offered for clear and paid for are subject to security problems or broken to accounts. You can earn clear instagram partners by using our article. In any application that you use or use, your Instagram account will not be damaged or you will not have security problems. Failure to come up with the money for your password in any of the services is one of the most important requirements for security. Tools are within reach for everyone to attempt out paid applications and use them clear of court case for reliability. Thanks to the clear instagram partners tool you can use for free, your partners will increase without damaging your account. If you want to make clear partners trick you can use upon Instagram for you, there are feel services that will exploit for you. It answers all your questions approximately social media, and many platforms enjoy providing feel and fast support to you. No password is requested from you in accordance past any support provided. In supplementary words, you will improvement from all our services without password.

There may be many reasons why you want to increase your partners upon Instagram, but what needs it most is the Instagram accounts of mass-profit organizations. Because the best artifice to prove you're reliable in Instagram is reliable, but it as a consequence depends upon the large number of people who follow you. Think of it as some nice of reference. However, expecting your partners to increase naturally can be a long and difficult process. For this reason, there is a clear and reliable support upon Instagram where you can exploit clear partners upon the basis of the reliability and feel of all the services provided to you. The excuse we accomplish not trust all site in this regard is the excuse that most of the clear aficionado increase sites want your password. We recommend that you accomplish not share your password past anyone. We attempt to answer all your requests in a reliable artifice to select platforms that accomplish not require password from you.

If you're wondering how to get clear Instagram followers, there are many tools to satisfy your curiosity. Moreover, the bot is not a follower, but it consists categorically of real person accounts. You can use the aficionado enhancement tool developed for you to get the opportunity to sum up your partners in bulk. You can as a consequence purchase instagram partners through these platforms at a categorically affordable price.

It's no dull that concern opportunities are speedily growing upon Instagram. approximately 80% of Instagram's 1 billion lively monthly users now follow a concern account upon the platform. though Instagram hasn't reported its current number of concern users, the platform reportedly hosted more than 25 million of these accounts in late 2017. As the platform continues to build up and fabricate more interactive features, such as Instagram Stories, businesses are regularly using it as a tool to humanize brands, recruit well along employees, showcase products and company culture, delight customers, and generate supplementary business. But here's the deal: Unless you're famous, it's really difficult to build up a huge past upon Instagram without some difficult work. The average person or business, growing your past takes time and attention upon a daily basis.

Luckily, there are a few things you can accomplish right away to sum up at least 1,000 feel partners for your personal or professional Instagram account. It's all approximately knowing where to invest your time and effort. Let's discuss a few strategies that will urge on you get those followers, from creating a follow-worthy Instagram profile, to using contests, to staying authentic to your brand. First things first: customize your Instagram profile to make it see good, tell your potential partners who you are, and come up with the money for them a excuse to follow you.

How? begin by making certain your username is recognizable and easily searchable  past your concern name. If your concern read out is already taken, attempt keeping your concern read out as the first share of your username thus that people searching for your concern are more likely to arrive across you. For example, the Australian activewear line Lorna Jane uses the username.

When youre just starting out past an online business, it can be daring to imagine how you can successfully sell your product through Instagram past you have built going on your aficionado base. But unmovable is, your first 10,000 Instagram partners are the hardest to get. Why? No one knows who you are yet. Youve yet got to prove yourself as a thriving brand and influencer. But that doesnt try its not possible. If you follow this guide upon how to get partners upon Instagram, you could hit 10,000 Instagram partners in as tiny as six months.

Are you just starting to learn how to get partners upon Instagram? This tactic is best for beginners. Some Instagram newbies have seen their Instagram partners increase fast. What did they accomplish differently? They allied amalgamation groups. though it can be attractive to member the biggest Instagram amalgamation groups, the unmovable is youll get a more targeted list of Instagram partners by sticking to your niche. You can find amalgamation groups for travel, beauty, fashion and more. In these groups, you can get partners and likes from people who have shared interests. But if youre enormous approximately getting the attention, you should as a consequence recompense the favor by past aficionado pages for people who member the group. Ive had contacts get 2,000 supplementary partners in solitary a couple weeks using this strategy. though it might not urge on past rude sales, it helps you get credibility in front upon thus your Instagram page doesnt exploit that you solitary have 38 followers. This is more of a short-term strategy for your first few weeks upon Instagram, not a long-term one for getting Instagram followers. You can learn supplementary amazing Instagram tricks past this in our clear Instagram course.

When I was starting out past social media publicity and building my stores Instagram account, my entire posting strategy revolved nearly reposting supplementary peoples content. The solitary artifice to accomplish this without getting flagged is to explanation the native personal ad in your description, all time. Instagram has now updated their policy and youre required to ask for entrance back reposting. past I first started, Id put up with screenshots and build up the pictures to my Instagram. What really helped my page put up with off was the Repost app. It allowed me to begin reposting video content upon Instagram. One of the biggest home runs I had was past I re-posted a video that sum up 52,862 views, got 1264 notes and 9,147 likes. At the time, I didnt even have 10,000 partners thus this was a huge freaking deal.

Whyd I repost supplementary peoples content instead of posting my own?

Because I knew that it was easier to repost content. Plus, my visual and video content would never be as good as someone elses. Hey, at least Im honest approximately it! How did I know what to repost? Id see at the numbers. Hashtags are a great artifice to get supplementary followers. I was beautiful lively upon Instagram thus Id browse the list of hashtags I came going on past and used daily to find the summit temporary posts that werent posted by supplementary aficionado pages (so not my competitors) but by individual people. Id next watch the videos and see at the pictures to see which ones I had the biggest reactions to. If I felt the urge to share someone elses post, I knew I had to repost it onto my page. thus if youre just learning how to get partners upon Instagram, this high-impact strategy is simple ample for a beginner.

If youve never had a customer before, achieve out to influencers in your recess past below 5,000 followers. I know the number seems low but influencers past few partners upon Instagram want to monetize their accounts and will be amenable to put up with pictures past your products at a much lower rate. You can as a consequence come up with the money for them an affiliate unity where theyll get a commission for all sale they score past their customer referral link. If youve already had a couple of sales, achieve out to customers and come up with the money for a clear present or cash incentive for taking feel images past the product they purchased. Offering incentives isnt going to be your long-term strategy but for the short-term, though you attempt to build your brand, this can urge on you grow. As more customers begin seeing customer photos upon your Instagram, theyll naturally begin tagging you in posts past they get their products. If you comment upon their post, repost the content and follow them youll likely get them to follow back. though some will follow you after tagging you in their read out upon their own.

Say you have a corgi aficionado page, all daylight you read out lovely corgi pictures and videos without fail. If Instagram users save seeing your posts eventually theyll accomplish that you always read out the cutest corgi content. thus they follow you past the expectation that your account will always be more of the same type of content. Having a consistent style or theme is more than just a branding play, its approximately creating an expectation for your Instagram account that your partners or potential partners can insert on. They want to see more of the same type of content, all day. If you can talk to that consistency past all post, youll build up your partners upon Instagram at a faster rate beyond time.

Many experts will tell you to solitary use 5 or 11 hashtags or some supplementary arbitrary numbers. But past I was building my stores Instagram account, I ignored their advice and ran wild past it. Id copy and glue a list of hashtags from my phone onto my app. Then, Id sometimes switch it going on to attempt oscillate hashtags but eventually, I knew which ones usually worked best. Usually, Id go as close to or right to the max number of hashtags possible. 30. Thats the magic number. unmovable is, you build up all those hashtags in the first comment. And as your page amalgamation grows, no one will ever see the first comment because theyre too energetic tagging their pal in your post. Sure, past youre starting out people might see it. But if the try is to increase visibility, the easiest artifice to accomplish it is to build up more hashtags. As you get followers, your posts will rank well along for those hashtag keywords giving you even more visibility. If your hashtags are recess specific, youll increase your likelihood of physical found by a relevant audience which will urge on you build up your partners upon Instagram as well. thus avoid generic hashtags past #love or #picoftheday if youre selling fashion, for example.

Say you have a fashion blog, you might write a blog read out approximately styling tips. You can choose posts from Instagram where you exploit pictures of your layered outfits or a accepted action look. Youd next go onto the Instagram website upon your desktop, go to your page, click the post, click the  icon and click Embed. next you copy that member into your blog posts code section. beyond time, more people will be visiting your blog and will be more likely to check out your Instagram account too.

I know that this is more of a long-term game. Especially if youre not getting traffic today. But extra your Instagram posts right from the arrival gives you a well along unplanned of visibility past six months from now you really begin seeing enormous returns.

To get that Instagram partners increase you need to find people who follow brands. Who are your biggest competitors upon Instagram? Write them down. Then, browse their posts to see whos commenting upon their posts. Follow them and engage past them.

Keep in mind that past choosing competitors upon Instagram its greater than before to go for the smaller brands. Why? Because if you were selling makeup brushes and maddening to get people who comment upon Sephora, theres a good unplanned that theyre not the right audience despite physical in a same niche. greater than before brands tend to have more customer loyalty.

However, if you have a competitor who has 100,000 fans upon their page, they may not have a loyalty to that brand.

When commenting upon posts of those you follow, dont apprehension them off past a sales arena or the same comment for all person you message. If they ask a ask upon their post, come up with the money for them an answer. see at the types of notes others are giving and use that as a guideline for what you can comment too.

As you save interesting and past people, youll begin to build up a strong past of your own.

If an influencer has a faithful following, they can come up with the money for you a shoutout thatll repercussion in supplementary partners for your account and possibly a few sales.

Be certain to write going on a harmony that prohibits the influencer from sending exploit traffic. We past worked past an influencer who gave us a shoutout and we got 2,000 exploit partners upon our account. It was obvious she used a bot. past you get a rude hurry of exploit aficionado upon your account you risk getting your account banned.

If youre looking for a more practicing gate to get supplementary followers, ask the influencer you exploit past to accomplish an account appropriation upon your Instagram Stories. That way, people will have to follow your page to view the story. Youll need to get him or her to let their audience know a few days in advance.

If you host giveaways upon Instagram and have a little audience, you might be dexterous to get more followers. But if you host giveaways upon your website and insert an substitute to follow you upon Instagram and supplementary social networks, youll have a much greater than before reach.

If your audience size is little you can read out your giveaway in certain giveaway facebook groups or upon giveaway blogs.

When I first started practicing in marketing, Id achieve out to giveaway blogs. Id send them some clear products in row for a evaluation post. Most categorically to it for the clear product though some did ask for payment as well. Theyd accomplish a product evaluation read out filled past pictures and their experiences past the product. At the end, their audience would enter to win the product below the condition that you send that customer the product. Wed get hundreds of supplementary partners upon all our social accounts. This is a great artifice to get supplementary partners if you dont have an audience. But it might not be as targeted than if you were to host a giveaway upon a relevant recess blog.

If youre just starting out, giveaways can urge on you get more partners upon Instagram. However, if you accomplish them too often, you might not get the right type of audience you want. If your try is to get sales, giveaways wont necessarily urge on you get more of them. though you can attempt this giveaway hack to get more sales. But if youre solitary looking to get Instagram partners fast, this strategy can exploit quite well.

If youre just learning how to get partners upon Instagram, a tricked I college though practicing upon my court case examination was to put up with my own product photos. instead of reposting supplementary peoples content, supplementary brands reposted one of my photos crediting me. back the brand has approximately 300k partners I over and done with going on getting a few supplementary Instagram partners from their audience. I didnt have to accomplish any in front exploit aside from taking my own photos. I didnt even have to achieve out to get supplementary partners upon Instagram. They reached out to me. And they werent the solitary brand to accomplish so.

When I first started building my stores Instagram account, I used a bot, an app to increase Instagram followers, called Instagress. It worked really competently at first which allowed me to easily build going on the first few thousand Instagram followers. Eventually, I stopped because I didnt need it anymore. Unfortunately, Instagress and supplementary apps to increase Instagram partners usually get shut down. And some people who use them can get their entire Instagram account shut down. though they can exploit well, the risk just isnt worth it.

The apps to increase Instagram partners that you can use insert publicity automation tools past Buffer, HubSpot, or Hootsuite.

Free Instagram aficionado apps include:

Discover Instagram accounts that have unfollowed you, those who havent followed you urge on and same accounts you should be past through partners for Instagram. This Instagram aficionado app is absolute to understand how to make your partners glad and what content to read out in order to get more partners upon Instagram. achieve out to those who unfollowed you to find out why and begin to insert your Instagram aficionado metrics today.

Inactive partners are a much talked approximately subject within any social media platform, and Instagram is no different. Inactive Instagram partners could be spam accounts or accounts from people who no longer engage upon the platform thus if you are looking to build up your past and amalgamation level, it would be a good idea to ax your list of inactive followers. Crowdfire identifies your inactive followers, recognizes past people unfollow you, and helps you find supplementary followers.

Get partners & get Likes is a clear Instagram partners app aimed at increasing both partners and likes. Providing assistance upon hashtags and followers, this app allows you to analyze assistance and make great decisions that will increase Instagram partners upon your account straight away.

Social Rocket gamifies social media amalgamation to put into action you to interact more. Although not a great long-term strategy this could be a great starting point. The basic premise is that all time you past someone elses read out you will get points to row for partners or likes upon your own posts.

There arent any practicing tools for Instagram unfollowing or past accounts in bulk. Tracker for Instagram gives you this substitute in their app. The app as a consequence provides analytics thus you can analyze how partners engage past your account. Want to become an Instagram master? Sign going on for the clear Instagram course taught by Instagram guru Gretta Van Riel. Whats been your dull to getting beyond 16k partners upon Instagram?

Engagement makes a difference. Its important that your partners know that you appreciate them just as much as they accomplish you. For increased engagement, users should search the hashtags used to attract followers, find users that stand out, past a few pics and comment. Youll get the curiosity of those youve engaged with, theyll follow your page, and tag their contacts upon your posts.

Did you use any apps to increase Instagram followers?

Initially, tools past Instagress were useful for engagement, but past the completion to try partners and sponsor content, theyre no longer needed.

What advice would you come up with the money for someone who asks you how to get partners upon Instagram?

Post, post, post! The more users [you have seeing] your content, the more up to date theyll become past your brand, causing them to like, follow, and share. The more you post, the more users feel past they know you.

Imagine if you woke going on at midnight to a noise in the kitchen. You manage downstairs to find Oprah drinking a cup of coffee. Most people wouldnt call the cops, why? Because theyve seen thus much of her content, they feel past they know her. Some would even feel privileged to have her in their kitchen. Thats the effect that constant content provides for influencers.

If you had to read out one concern you accomplish oscillate than anyone else upon Instagram, what would that be?

My account encourages, inspires AND informs. It influences the influencers past a brand voice that relates and educates. It attracts the SHE-E-O and the girl next door.

Talia Koren is the mastermind at the back the ever thus well-liked exploit Week Lunch which has an wonderful 114k partners and counting. We asked her what the best artifice to get Instagram partners is and this is what she told us:

workweeklunch meal prep InstagramWhats helped you build up your Instagram partners to a six figure number?

I listen to my audience and come up with the money for them what they ask for. It shows that Im invested in them and in recompense they come up with the money for me their time and attention. Also, consistency. I exploit going on all single daylight past necessary content in posts and in stories that helps them instead of just talking approximately myself. Lastly, I pay close attention to the changes to the platform. Using supplementary features past explanation highlights and harmony the changes to the algorithm helped me build up too.

Have you used any tools to urge on you build up the number of partners upon Instagram you have?

I dont use any tools outdoor of the analytics within Instagram. Theyre great! Analytics are important because they urge on you figure out whats practicing and whats not.

We often get asked how to get partners upon Instagram, what should someone starting out focus on?

When youre starting from 0 or less than 1,000 dont pay attention to the aficionado number thus much. Its going to go going on and down and its going to be slow. instead focus upon ways you can affix past and urge on others and get them talking approximately you.

What accomplish you think separates your Instagram account from others out there?

Well, my account isnt that oscillate from many out there but I dont read out any pictures of myself. Its not approximately me its approximately my audience! I as a consequence use stories as a vlogging channel which my partners love.

Gracie Parish is an Instagram influencer who grew her Instagram past to an impressive 41.3k. We asked her to share her advice upon how to get partners upon Instagram, heres what she said:

gracieparish coachella InstagramWhat steps did you put up with to get beyond 41,000 partners upon Instagram?

I put up with a lot of time to engage past my partners through Instagram, emails, Facebook, and Pinterest. I put up with time each week to answer to as many partners as I can as competently as I make certain to engage past my partners upon their posts as well. Through collaborations, I have been dexterous to cross-promote past many bloggers or brands that I feel fit my brand and this has really helped build up my following.

Whats had the biggest impact upon increasing your Instagram followers?

I exploit really difficult upon building realism upon my blog to make a more authentic association past my followers. To accomplish this I solitary publicize brands and products I really put up with in. Through five years of blogging, I really realized how to choose the brands that fit my blog and style best as competently as the brands that my partners enjoy seeing which has contributed to my success.

If someone asked you how to get partners upon Instagram what advice would you share?

Be yourself and dont lose confidence in yourself. Building a blog took years of difficult work, and if you are dexterous to maintain a brand and stay authentic to yourself, your partners will put up with proclamation of that. I would as a consequence advise someone to not get discouraged in the beginning, because it takes a lot of time and practice. No [influencer] was an overnight success.

Whats the one concern your Instagram does differently than supplementary Instagram accounts?

One concern my instagram does differently than supplementary accounts is I really attempt and come up with the money for partners keenness into my real life. though a lot of my content is sponsored, I really attempt to posts real, feel posts as competently to urge on my partners get to know me greater than before and come up with the money for them the content they are asking to see. A lot of bloggers get caught going on in the concern aspect and though a blog is a business, it is important to not lose your realism and to stay real past your followers.

How to get partners upon Instagram Summary Figuring out how to get partners upon Instagram is the hardest in the beginning. past youve passed your first 10,000 partners youll need to continue using some or all of the strategies in this article to save growing your account to 100k or even beyond one million. Dont forget to update your profile regularly, especially your Instagram bio to insert supplementary CTAs or interesting news. At the end of the day, youll need to put yourself out there more than you ever have before. maybe posting upon Instagram three time a daylight all daylight of the week to urge on you build up your visibility. But eventually, all that difficult exploit will pay off. And youll have gained an Instagram past you can be cold of.

Want to learn more Instagram hacks? Sign going on for Shopifys clear Instagram course today! In our first two weeks upon the platform, we went from zero Instagram partners to more than 10k followers. We achieved this by past a beautiful within reach process we hacked together during the relatively in front days of the platforms growing popularity (although the principles we used yet sustain up).

Then, past some experimentation and elbow grease, we went from 10k partners to store more than 1 million real Instagram followers, making us one of the summit Instagram accounts in our niche. Thanks to Instagram, weve as a consequence been dexterous to eradicate sales and conversions, drastically increase our online exposure to air and audience, and scale our concern at a rate thats exceeded the norm and even our own expectations.

In the past sum up post, weve outlined, step by step, exactly what we did to find such wild completion past Instagram. Now you can learn how to get more partners upon instagram. However, as Instagram and its audience have continued to evolve, thus have we. In order to continue scaling, weve had to put up with note and become accustomed to these shifting conditions past oscillate strategies.

Some didnt exploit out thus well, and others have been crucial to getting us to beyond 1 million partners upon Instagram in such a rude time of time. thus now were going to tell you all approximately the ones that worked the best. Without supplementary ado, here are our detailed results and findings thus you too can cultivate a enormous past and begin taking advantage of the capacity of this daring and ever-flourishing social network.

Heres a video from Nathan upon the summit five clear ways to build up your Instagram. In this video, Nathan talks approximately some of the strategies we discuss in this article that Foundr used to build up thus rapidly. This share is going to put up with some thought and effort. To get a huge past of real people upon Instagram, you have to fabricate content thats not solitary made specifically for Instagram, but as a consequence content thats the right fit for what your audience wants. Finding the right gate and style is crucial, because its going to become the artifice your partners put up with you.

Generally speaking, there are types of images that exploit competently past a lot of industries; posters past inspirational or hilarious quotes, feel food photography, or scenic images are secure starting points.

That physical said, on purpose believe to be what type of content it is that youre producing. You have to recall that Instagram is such a hit because its a wholly unique platform, and the experience it provides the user is categorically oscillate than something past Facebook or Twitter.

Consider things like: How are people going to find your content? What hashtags are you going to use? If someone searches one of these hashtags and finds your posts, are they going to be intrigued ample to click through to your account, or will they be disappointed that theres no correlation with your read out and the hashtag?

What is it approximately the images you fabricate that will make people accomplish more than just scroll upon by? According to Zabisco, humans process visuals 60,000 time faster than plain text. In less than a second, a person decides, based upon the images you share, whether or not youre worth their time. That means you need to stand out. past you be of the same mind upon your content type and strategy, its categorically important that you fix to that theme. The number one concern that keeps people coming urge on to any brand or concern is consistency, whether its a Starbucks Macchiato or a Snickers bar. Its exactly the same past the nice of content you produce.

The excuse Foundr has thus many real partners upon Instagram is because people can expect a consistently high level of feel from us. They know that upon Instagram, we fabricate a certain nice of post, and that trust is what keeps them coming urge on for more.

This is as a consequence why were severely selective of the type of accounts and posts we select for a share-for-share (S4S) (more upon this later). Were categorically protective of our brand and our audience, which is why we solitary ever want to be producing content were absolutely certain our recess wants. A common burden a lot of people slope past starting out upon Instagram is that theyre not categorically certain what type of theme or content it is they want to produce. Unfortunately, there really is no simple solution, because at the end of the daylight you dont want to be a copycat of a larger account. To be really thriving upon Instagram, you need to be a tiny unique.

The best artifice to get started is to accomplish some hashtag research (dont worry, were going to dig deep into hashtags in Section 6). Check out SaaSs (software as a service) past Iconosquare to find out what hashtags are trending and which one fits you best. find competitors who use the same hashtags as you do, or even find users who follow these hashtags and see what supplementary nice of content they like. From there, its just a concern of examination out your content. accomplish some A/B testing, attempt one type of content one week and attempt something else the week after. find out what works best, and really get to know your audience.

To get you started, be certain to check out apps past WordSwag and Typorama for text-focused Instagram posts. We use these categorically same apps for our own Instagram account! past you know what type of content is right for your brand, its time to really focus upon creating great posts that you know are going to affix past your audience. This might seem obvious, but we always see the content foundation itself getting neglected. find out what your customers enjoy seeing upon Instagram or what themes resonate past them, and populate your account past relevant images.

But youve got to affix past your audience, specifically. Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Thats why its thus crucial to fabricate a good association past your audience, thus you learn what type of content it is they like. There have been numerous time past weve posted something that we thought would absolutely eradicate it past engagement, but it turned out to be a dud. supplementary time weve been left scratching our heads as to why this one read out is thus popular.

One good artifice to find out what your customers past is by checking out what your competition is posting, or what nice of imagery is used upon the websites or blogs that are well-liked in your industry.

If youre in an industry where what youre selling is already visually appealing, photos of what you accomplish is not a bad idea either. However, save such images in the minority; posting a lot approximately yourself upon social media is just past physical the person at BBQ who solitary talks approximately themselves.

On that note, its really important that you dont manage the risk of oversharing. A celebrity can get away past it because a large share of their draw and brand is their personal life. Fans are genuinely eager as to what Beyonce is having for dinner or what exactly it is the stone is cooking. If youre handing out a personal account, thats as a consequence categorically fine, because its explicit and certain that this is an account for sharing your dull life.

However, if youre handing out a professional account, unless your personal photos actually fit in past the theme of your brand, its not a good idea. For example, as a CEO or founder, a personal photo of how youve organized your exploit desk would fit in past your theme. A personal photo of you in Vegas doesnt have the same effect.

Oversharing means that you lose out upon amalgamation because your content is just too off subject and wooly to build a consistent audience.

On Instagram, amalgamation is king. For best results, we found images that put into action an emotion or questions that elicit some thought exploit really well. For example, this image below got beyond 95% more amalgamation than our regular posts. For Instagram, were told that 1% amalgamation in terms of likes is a good metric to follow.

how to get more partners upon instagram People past Seeing supplementary People Include faces in your photos. Images past faces have been known to increase engagement, because our brains naturally want to interact past supplementary people. Also, images that dont insert faces, but using a point-of-view shot where the camera acts as the eyes of the audience can urge on them make them feel past theyre a share of the image. Despite having fewer likes, you can see how the past read out by Mecca Maxima has far more notes compared to their posts that dont insert faces.

how to get more partners upon instagram using faces Calls to Action Every read out should have a strong call to exploit or CTA (marketing speak for an assistance for your viewer to accomplish something) encouraging people to follow you or past the read out in the caption. By extra in a call to action, people are 25% more likely to follow through upon that exploit than without it.

This CTA should be relevant to the photo, and not the same as the one you used in your bio (more upon your bio later). Its a softer ask.

how to get more partners upon instagram Think of a CTA as a artifice to remind people that there is an exploit they could take. By extra a CTA to your image, all youre exploit is reminding your partners that they dont have to just scroll upon past, they can actually accomplish supplementary things, including liking your picture, or writing a comment.

Ask questions in your captions to urge on people to respond. This is a categorically simple tactic to make certain that your Instagram partners are interacting past your account.

Putting a ask in your caption always creates amalgamation and forces people to gate and hopefully respond.  Bianca Cheah, founder and MD of Sporteluxe

Remember, the one concern you want to achieve the most past your audience is engagementyou want them to be eager in and personally related to your brand and your account. Gently encouraging them to invest less than a second into each read out does wonders for cultivating that engagement.

Examples of CTAs are tag your contacts who are past this, or double tap if you agree. Always come up with the money for your fans something to do. This helps your account money up front past wildfire.

how to get more partners upon instagram Using member in bio Its Storytime! Develop a explanation past your posts. take possession of peoples attention by providing a narrative; dont just be of the same mind for a generic line of text. get people invested and exploit off how much value you can come up with the money for in one go. One of my favorite accounts to follow is cereal.entrepreneur. Each Instagram read out is accompanied by either a little bio, or interview past the featured entrepreneur thus you get a unplanned to know a bit more approximately them and what they do.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram 2018 cereal entrepeurner Developing a explanation as a consequence ties into emotion. Always see to elicit an emotion past your posts. Whether youre looking to inspire people, make them laugh, or stun them, your posts should always dream to put into action an emotion past your audience. A great example to see at here would be Chubbies, and note how theyre always looking to make their audience laugh by posting an assortment of jokes and memes.

how to get more partners upon instagram using user generated content User-Generated Content Post user-generated content whenever possible. Not solitary will this come up with the money for your brand social proof and make people far more likely to follow you, but itll as a consequence urge on you build a energetic and engaged community nearly your Instagram account. Frank Body have nearly built their entire Instagram strategy by curating user-generated content. This has helped them build a community of engaged Instagram followers, as competently as make hundreds of faithful brand ambassadors. To find out more approximately their social media strategy, accomplish make certain to check out our interview past the founders of Frank Body.

how to get more partners upon instagram frank bod how to get more partners upon instagram Using user generated content Here you can see weve got a photo of someone taking a photo past our coffee table compilation Foundr V1.0 Regularly use your posts to ask partners to share their content past you. make certain to come up with the money for them an incentive for exploit this, though, past handing out an Instagram competition or giveaway. You can easily curate their posts by asking them to use your branded hashtag.

how to get more partners upon instagram by reposting Your Instagram Theme Getting more people to interact past you as a consequence involves maintaining a consistent aesthetic theme thus that your Instagram feed reaffirms your brand identity. A simple artifice to accomplish that is to use the same filter. It makes your images more recognizable and your overall feed see more professional. proclamation how Herschel Supply maintains their aesthetic theme by every time making certain their posts have same tones and colors. Not solitary accomplish these posts see great, but because of the consistency you can see how their feed has a natural flow to it that builds familiarity and affinity.

how to get more partners upon instagram using an instagram theme Remember that feel always beats total past it comes to Instagram posts. Dont read out something for the sake of posting. Always make certain your content is providing value to your audience in some way.

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 3: Treat Your Community upon Instagram past Gold One of the biggest mistakes people make past building their Instagram account is that they solitary ever see their partners as numbers.

Followers arent the solitary metric that matters past it comes to Instagram, but you can get caught going on and become thus obsessed in growing your aficionado insert that you forget that each person who chooses to follow you is actually a living, energetic human being. It doesnt concern what nice of account youre running, whether its personal or business, the same is authentic everywhere.

You must always high regard your audience.

I really cant heighten that enough, and its become even clearer to us as weve gained experience past the platform. If youre not paying attention and listening to your audience, next youre no longer building something that has any sort of meaningful impact. all youre exploit is stroking your ego.

So how accomplish you know if youre connecting past your audience? though your aficionado insert may be the most important metric, our journey to 1 million partners taught us that you must as a consequence pay attention to your amalgamation levels. This means how many likes youre getting, how many people are bothering to actually comment upon your posts, how many people actually go through your Instagram sales funnel.

According to the famed Pareto principle, 80% of your results solitary arrive from 20% of your audience, or 80% of your revenue solitary comes from 20% of your customers. though more of a believe to be of thumb than a difficult scientific fact, the Pareto principle should make you accomplish that its not approximately having a large aficionado insert as much as it is approximately having a large core of engaged followers.how to get more partners upon instagram increase instagram engagement You dont want a huge aficionado insert because it gives you bragging rights; you want a huge aficionado insert because by increasing your achieve and exposure, you increase the likelihood of finding one authentic follower.

A authentic aficionado is someone who absolutely loves your content and what you do. Theyre the one that, if asked, will put down child support because you asked them to, or purely because its something that you made. Think approximately any time youve been faithful to a brand and chose them beyond something else.

If you ever want to fabricate any sort of impinge on or exposure, this should be your primary try in growing a huge aficionado count. Ten thousand partners isnt impressive unless you have at least 1,000 authentic followers.

Thats why we treat our community past gold.

For example, we are categorically strict upon making certain we answer to all comment possible.

how to get more 10k partners upon instagram how to increase amalgamation upon instagram You want to inspire notes that go beyond the generic nice pic, and awesome post! variety. Actually exploit that theres a human at the back the screen. Its a surefire artifice to make yourself stand out from the crowd.

Be as conversational as doable past interesting past supplementary users, and be authentic to how you speak in real life. heighten the personality at the back your brand and let people know that youre not just substitute robot. Again, put up with a see at how Frank Body uses their Frank persona to engage past their partners to great effect.

Its amazing how many brands forget the social aspect of social media networks. Its no longer a one-way communication model where the audience passively has to take what you have to say. If someone takes the time to actually write a comment upon your post, the categorically least you can accomplish is reply.

Its a simple recompense for those who to-do to engage past you in a dialogue. Something as simple as that goes a long artifice toward turning someone into a authentic fan. Well even send private messages to our supplementary partners past its appropriate. The key here is to make your Instagram partners feel welcomed and glad to be a share of your community.

As we discussed in the last section, youll find posts that have calls to exploit asking people to comment tend to garner the most shares and tags. By starting a conversation this way, you can exploit your audience that youre not some faceless corporation, but a person or people who actually care approximately others opinions.

how to get 10k instagram partners in 2018 It might even consent rude results, as we often find real jewels within our notes for ideas upon articles and oscillate people to interview.

Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 4: read out upon Instagram Regularly Aim to read out upon a regular basis, approximately past all three to four hours. However, dont bulk read out a sum up bunch of photos in one sitting; users will often regard this as spam and unfollow you. Think of it past sowing seeds. You dont want to just plug all your seeds into a hole in one go; you want to money up front them out.

Youre going for consistency. If your audience cant richly rely upon you to read out regularly, youre not going to find many people amenable to follow you upon the off unplanned that youre going to read out something all now and then.

Fortunately, you can schedule your content if you use a tool past Later. Unfortunately, Instagrams API doesnt let supplementary services read out for you, but you can pre-fill and batch them.

how to get more instagram partners best instagram tools 2018 *Please note you can solitary read out from the Instagram Mobile or Tablet app. You cannot read out via the well along website past you are logged in.

Use Iconosquare to exploit out the best time to read out to your account and maximize exposure. You can as a consequence use Instagrams native reasoned platform if you have an Instagram concern account.

how to get more instagram partners 2018 One supplementary posting tip is to always read out upon Sundays. Sunday is usually a beautiful silent daylight upon Instagram, making it the absolute opportunity for you to get ahead of the pack and get your posts in front of even more people.

Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 5: Theres Gold In Your Instagram Bio On Instagram, your bio is a crucial piece of real estate. You can best make use of this section by having a strong call to action. You can use going on to 150 characters, thus a rude snappy CTA works best.

A strong CTA should be an absolute no-brainer for your audience. You already know that they can see your content, thus make it worth their though to actually put up with a see at your bio by offering something that you know theyll love.

To make a strong CTA, you want to be as simple and no-nonsense as possible. Because you solitary get one conscious member past it comes to Instagram, which is in your bio, you want to be dexterous to get as much value as doable out of that link.

how to get more instagram partners Using member in bio to drive more sales using instagram Your bio should as a consequence be compelling. Your potential partners upon Instagram have a few seconds to believe to be whether or not they want to follow you. Your bio should take possession of their attention and make them want to follow you, or at the categorically least, scroll down supplementary to check out your content.

Notice how we bonus the tagline in our bio, Building a concern is hard. We bonus this to arrest the attention of people who visit our profile for the first time. We want to state a point of association and evoke some nice of emotional greeting thus Instagrammers follow us and continue the relationship.

Your bio should as a consequence be searchable. We included the keywords startup, entrepreneurs, and entrepreneur magazine thus past people search upon Instagram using these terms, our profile will exploit going on in their search results.

how to get more instagram partners use hashtags Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 6: Use Hashtags to get More Instagram Followers Hashtags (keywords preceded by #) might seem past something solitary irritating youth use, but trust us, thats not the case. They are a artifice for spectators to navigate easily to topics theyre eager in. Attaching #hashtags to your image, therefore, enables your content to be found more easily by those who dont already follow you.

First, research the most well-liked Instagram hashtags in your niche, and next compile them. For us, this practicing building a huge list of keywords that we found were relevant to what we accomplish and what our images generally are approximately (#entrepreneur, #business, #startup, for example).

Instagram Hashtag-Finding Tips Check out what the top-trending hashtags are past Tags For Likes. Use Hashtags, TagFire, and Grama to find hashtags relevant to your niche. Copy the hashtags that the summit influencers in your recess are using. Use this as a artifice to not solitary generate more exposure to air and get more Instagram followers, but as a artifice to get upon the radars of supplementary influencers. Users can use Instagrams investigate feature to find posts related to trending hashtags such as #LoveWins, #CanadaDay, and #FullMoon. If these trending tags are relevant to your brand, insert them in timely posts to aid discovery. upon the subject of search, Instagram as a consequence introduced the completion to search by emoji.  Jim Tobin, president of fan the flames of Social Media.

Round going on approximately 30 that insert a amalgamation of high-performing and low-performing hashtags. Use nearly 10 hashtags that have beyond a million posts, next substitute 10 hashtags that solitary have 10k to 50k posts, past substitute 10 anywhere in between. This artifice you make certain your posts get as much exposure to air as possible. Find out what the hashtag of the daylight is and use it. Whether its something past #motivationmonday, #fitnessfriday, or #trumpettuesday, get in be adjacent to past an even larger audience by participating in these hashtags. Create merged sets of hashtags to maximize exposure. Dont just be of the same mind for one set of hashtags, make nearly three oscillate sets of 30 hashtags each. Regularly oscillate them thus that your posts achieve a variety of people relevant to your niche. save them in a notes file thus all you need to accomplish is copy and glue them, and not have to distress approximately writing each one out all single time how to get more instagram partners use hashtags Instagram Hashtag Use Once you compile your hashtags, build up them to a comment below your post.

Dont put your hashtags into the explanation of the photo itself. Putting them in the comment section instead will conceal your list of keywords after others have bonus comments. You as a consequence wont unnecessarily bulk going on your photo description, allowing you to you save your explanation section clear for a compelling blurb approximately the photo.

how to get 10k instagram partners 2018 Reference each read out past a full 30 hashtags. Instagram allows you 30 hashtags per post, thus use each and all one of them to maximize your posts exposure.

Branded Instagram Hashtags Create a branded hashtag to make it easier for others to find you. native hashtags can urge on you support conversations, increase your brands reputation, and urge on you build credibility.

Use your custom hashtag to build a community nearly your brand, and to regularly engage past your Instagram followers. Its an incredibly simple artifice to make your partners feel past theyre a share of a larger community. You can see how customers and partners of Frank Body follow the custom hashtag #thefrankeffect, and how large a community has arrive together because of this hashtag.

how to get 10k instagram partners 2018 You can as a consequence use a hashtag in your bio thus that your account gets more exposure. This is a categorically simple artifice to make certain that your account shows going on in hashtag searches as well.

Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 7: Network, Network, Network: The capacity of Shoutouts Its not all approximately beautiful pictures and keywords. To flourish upon Instagram, youre going to have to achieve out and interact past some real, conscious humans. Networking can exploit wonders, not solitary IRL, but as a consequence in the social media sphere. It was a huge driver of Foundrs success.

When we started, we managed to get introduced to this huge network of entrepreneurs, all past accounts of beyond 20,000 Instagram followers. They helped us out huge time by sharing our content, and there are same networks for all kinds of industries, past users who are all amenable to urge on out, thus long as you recompense the favor of course!

Remember, if you urge on people and dont expect anything in return, not solitary is it good karma, but it comes urge on to you tenfold. thus dont gate joining and teaming going on past supplementary accounts past an attitude of, Whats in it for me? Rather, think of it as just helping your fellow person out, and you never know, good things may happen to you down the road.

Use Shoutouts To get More Instagram Followers When it comes to growing a huge past upon Instagram, youre going to have to get used to the idea of collaboration beyond competition.

This is where the incredibly powerful concept of S4S comes into play. For newcomers, S4S stands for share for share. If youre looking to home a million partners upon Instagram, or even tens of thousands, you need to get used to the idea of sharing supplementary peoples content.

The basics of S4S are quite simple. You ask substitute influencer in your recess if they would past to share your content, and in recompense you will share theirs.

This artifice youll be dexterous to let breathe each others brands to each others audiences, some of whom likely have never even heard of you before. The best share is that if you choose who you accomplish S4S past carefully, youll probably find someone past an audience who you know will past your content too. Youll speedily discover that one of the greatest things approximately Instagram is that it allows you to tap directly into a recess past certain likes, interests, hobbies, and needs.

how to get more instagram partners using share for share As you can see from the image above, it doesnt have to try directly sharing each others content; you can just come up with the money for a shoutout to someone elses account in the caption.

These types of transactions are unique to Instagram and absolutely invaluable for anyone who wants to cultivate a huge following. But recall that you should always see to be providing a mutual row of value.

Dont think of others in your recess as your competition, but as potential partners.

If youre afraid that someone is going to steal your followers and, as a result, refuse to exploit past others, next it is severely unlikely youre going to fabricate any nice of real traction upon Instagram.

So past that in mind, heres the next dull upon how to maximize your S4S potential: member a shoutout group.

A shoutout action is basically an informal action of Instagrammers who have arrive together in order to sustain each supplementary by exploit S4S for one another. thus instead of having to every time find someone supplementary to accomplish S4S past all single time, youll instead have a dedicated action of people who you can reliably depend upon to row shares.

Of course, shoutout groups arrive in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes youll find a action past going on to hundreds of people who are handily shopping for supplementary people to accomplish S4S with. nice of past an ad-hoc Instagram marketplace.

how to get more instagram partners using s4s share for share Other time you might find a more dedicated action of people who are categorically selective of their members and might have even created a set schedule for all members to follow.

how to get more partners upon instagram using a yell out action You might be surprised by how competently you get to know one substitute beyond Instagram, and even accidentally set going on your own mastermind group. You might accomplish more than just row tips approximately Instagram, and even begin helping each others businesses out more directly. You might even make a pal or two.

how to get more partners upon instagram past s4s But dont begin thinking that these are some sort of red triangle illuminati groups that require cryptic foundation processes.

Most groups, and Instagrammers in general, use Kik as the primary source of communication. However, Ive seen and been a share of groups that use Slack, GroupMe and even regular Facebook groups.

All it takes is having a friendly attitude though exploit S4S and looking to build a association beyond Instagram. back you know it, youll find yourself physical invited to an S4S action yourself. Or you might even want to make your own and invite others!

Types of Instagram Shoutouts When youre just starting out, it can be a tiny intimidating to ask supplementary accounts to accomplish a shoutout for you, but the support really accomplish outweigh the costs. Having a large account yell you out will accomplish more for your aficionado insert than anything else. But its super important to make certain that youre choosing the right accounts to get a shoutout from.

If youre choosing an account based upon unmovable partners and their theme or audience doesnt be of the same mind yours, next all youve over and done with is wasted time and money, because theres no guarantee that such a shoutout is going to get you a good ROI.

There are a few oscillate types of shoutouts you can pursue.

Caption solitary shoutouts: The page uses its own image and style that it usually would, and mentions your page in the caption. This works, but is not as practicing as your own image or branded image. Caption solitary can be a cheaper alternative. OR

Your own image past your product or support + caption. This works greater than before than just a caption-based shoutout, but you have to make certain the call to exploit is good. Some accounts will solitary let you put going on the image for a certain time of time, and others will let it stay up. Usually the well along traffic the page, the more you see rules and restrictions. The strategy at the back the shoutouts can as a consequence vary. What we recommend is extra a CTA to follow your page instead of one that leads people to subscribe or optin, as you can take possession of the audience and engage past them more. We have tried both pushing the Foundr subscription and getting the viewer to follow our page, and we have found its artifice more practicing to get them to follow you. You have to recall you cant put clickable contacts in the captions, thus it can be difficult to get people to exploit specific actions. It takes more time for people to go to the bio, find the link, click upon it, and next subscribe, than it does for them to click the follow button.

S4S Bargaining past Youre Just Getting Started Just past any supplementary transaction in the world, S4S is all approximately having a mutually beneficial exchange. You have to ensure that both parties are getting something of same value out of this exchange.

If you have an account past solitary a few thousand partners and ask substitute account past 500,000 followers, youre either going to be ignored, good-naturedly refused, or outright laughed at. What doable improvement could that larger account get from the smaller one?

Unless you have something equally necessary to leverage, next you shouldnt be asking someone to accomplish S4S for you. Thats beautiful much the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight (dont worry, nobody is really fighting).

That leads to one of the questions we get asked the most at Foundr, How accomplish I come up with the money for leverage in S4S?

A lot of people get discouraged by the idea of nearly greater than before accounts for an S4S, because it seems past they dont have a comparable aficionado count. But though your aficionado insert may be the most important metric upon Instagram, it doesnt try that it is the solitary metric upon Instagram. If it was, next anyone could be an influencer past a couple of bucks and few thousand bots as Instagram followers.

The best artifice to find leverage, in any concern deal, not just Instagram, is to put up with a step urge on and think approximately what it is that solitary you can offer. What is that unique aspect you can bring that the supplementary person might have a difficult time getting?

For one, you can compare your amalgamation levels. If you can guarantee a severely engaged audience past many authentic Instagram partners next you can easily use that as leverage in S4S. Because the level of high regard and loyalty you command from your audience is solitary something you can give, and that makes it a necessary commodity.

Beyond that, think approximately what else you can offer.

You can easily bring value and generate a ton of harmony by physical a regular commenter for a larger account. A necessary comment is something that is more than just the generic oh wow, this is great! statement. Stand out by taking the effort to be different.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram how to leverage s4s Start an interesting exposure to air and let your targeted influencer know that you exist. Who knows, you might actually catch them in a generous feel and maybe theyll come up with the money for you a shoutout just because they past your moxie.

Using Your Bio member as a Bargaining Chip One categorically simple artifice to come up with the money for leverage in a real and definite artifice is by offering supplementary accounts your bio link. upon Instagram, the solitary area you can put a conscious member is in your bio. This is vitally important if youre handing out any nice of sales funnel, but its as a consequence an categorically useful tool past maddening to build up your aficionado count.

Use tools past Bit.ly or beautiful member to track and monitor how much traction your bio member receives. This will come up with the money for you difficult data upon how much value you can come up with the money for them.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram get more share for share As long as you save the member short, spacious and youre certain that the landing page leads to something your audience wants next theres no excuse not to come up with the money for your bio member as a artifice to leverage value. Its a great artifice of establishing a concern association by becoming an affiliate, and by offering something necessary in your bio member there is no excuse you wont be dexterous to drive your aficionado insert up.

Paying for Shoutouts As in all walks of life, child support talks. That means you can purchase shoutouts. Prices for shoutouts will revise by account. We found that the pages past the best results are motivational or concern accounts, thus you need to find high-traffic pages that have good engagement. We constitute good amalgamation as at least 1-2% of likes per how many Instagram partners the account has.

Also be certain to stay lively in the comment section of all shoutout post. Itll significantly drive going on your own amalgamation levels and increase the chances people will to-do to click through to your account.

For an account past decent amalgamation and 200,000 Instagram followers, we wouldnt pay more than $50 per shoutout, and we would want to use our own image.

Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 8: practicing past Influencers To get More Instagram Followers This is by far one of the best ways to increase the number of Instagram partners you have. Youll be hard-pressed to find any supplementary tactic to generate as strong of an ROI.

Create a list of 10-20 influencers youd past to regularly engage with. Know exactly who it is you want to get in be adjacent to with, because these will be the people who can urge on put up with your Instagram account to the next level. get influencers to share your content or yell you out. Arrange for influencers to come up with the money for you a shoutout by participating in an S4S deal.

Its the #1 artifice to build up for free.  Jason Stone, founder of Millionaire Mentor.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram exploit past instagram influencer Use hashtags to find out who the summit influencers in your recess are. put up with a see at what the summit hashtags in your recess are and see if you can identify any particular account that consistently appears in the top or trending posts. You can beautiful much guarantee that theyre an influencer and someone you want to affix with.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram how to find and exploit past instagram influencers Paying Influencers You can as a consequence pay influencer pages to share your content. If all else fails, pay someone to come up with the money for you a shoutout. But back you do, make certain that you can get a guarantee upon ROI. What youre looking for is someone past an engaged audience, not necessarily a large number of Instagram followers. recall that 1-2% amalgamation is a minimum for practicing past someone. The higher, the better.

Influencer Account Swaps Do an account oscillate past supplementary influencers in your niche. put up with beyond someone elses account for a daylight and exploit off who you are to their audience and vice versa. This is a great strategy for anyone past a personal brand. Buffer would as a consequence sometimes let their employees put up with beyond their Instagram account for a day. This artifice their Instagram partners could get to know more approximately Buffer, their workplace culture, and what went upon at the back the scenes.

how to get more partners upon instagram using influencers Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 9: bonus Instagram partners increase Hacks Need some more increase hacks to supercharge your Instagram aficionado count? Here are 10 of our favorites!

Giveaways Hold giveaways upon Instagram that require users to follow in order to enter. Everyone loves clear stuff. https://www.socialpave.com/ get a bunch of partners overnight by handing out a giveaway, but make certain to publicize it, instead you wont be seeing many results.

Require partners to tag their contacts in order to enter. This is one of the best, and most organic ways to speedily build your Instagram followers. A general believe to be of thumb to follow, though, is to sustain your Instagram competitions past you have at least 10k partners in order to see the best results.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram using giveaways Instagram Ads If you have a budget, and an Instagram concern account, we severely recommend that you put up with advantage of Instagram ads as a artifice to take possession of supplementary Instagram followers.

Viral Images Create viral images encouraging your fans to tag their friends. get ideas for what types of posts tend to be well-liked by watching whats trending in your targeted hashtags. make same posts in your own style, and ask people to tag their friends.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram in 2018 using viral images Geolocation Targeting Use geolocation targeting to identify partners relevant to your recess in a certain area. If you happen to manage a brick-and-mortar business, this is an excellent artifice of getting the attention of local clientele.

Offline Marketing Take your promotional efforts offline and publicize your Instagram account through the use of physical products past branded stickers or pamphlets, for example. If you happen to have a custom hashtag youd past to promote, use these physical products as a artifice to get people more eager and excited approximately your accounts.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram using offline marketing Fan Pages Create aficionado pages and use them to drive partners to your concern pages. Instagram now allows you to manage merged accounts through their app, thus put up with advantage of this by creating substitute account meant to sustain your main account. Use it as a artifice to experiment past oscillate strategies and affix past supplementary influencers.

The Thunderclap Strategy Organize a thunderclap and get merged accounts to share a read out of yours at the same time. This is a wonderful strategy to drive more traffic to your account, especially if youre looking to sell a product. A shoutout from not one, but merged influencers in your recess will guarantee that several thousand potential Instagram partners will see your post.

Social Sharing Automatically share your Instagram posts upon Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. make a simple process past something past IFTTT thus your Instagram posts are automatically shared upon your supplementary social media accounts. come up with the money for your posts that supplementary bit of exposure to air though simultaneously growing your supplementary social media accounts.

how to get 10k instagram partners 2018 Lead Magnets Invest some time in creating Instagram-specific guide magnets within reach solitary upon your account, whether its an ebook, a webinar, or even a simple PDF. This will incentivize people to follow your account, and it should be an integral share of your Instagram publicity strategy if youre planning upon generating sales and conversions through your account.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram using guide magnets Like-for-Like Groups Join and participate in like-for-like groups to insert your posts organic reach. find and affix past a action of approving people who are in a same recess to yours. urge on each supplementary out upon Instagram by liking each others posts or leaving behind comments. These groups are a great artifice to supplementary your network, and fabricate stronger relationships past supplementary influencers.

Use your like-for-like groups to drop like bombs or engagement bombs upon posts to increase their chances of trending. make a custom hashtag that solitary you and your action are up to date of thus that its easier for you to find each others posts. Then, as a group, everyone past or comment upon one persons read out to come up with the money for it a huge boost in organic traffic.

how to get 10k partners upon instagram using a past for past action upon instagram 2018 Want To get Even More Instagram Followers? Sign going on For Our conscious Masterclass

Learn How to Go From 0-500K+ partners in 12 Months! member our clear conscious Instagram Masterclass! 10: Our Favorite Instagram Tools To get More Followers ink361  manage scans upon your competitors accounts and finds the most commented and liked images. Track your increase and your competitors increase using Social Blade. Use Iconosquare improvement for in-depth Instagram analytics. This is our personal assistance for anyone looking for an analytics platform for Instagram, but Iconosquare improvement can be categorically expensive, thus solitary invest in it if youre enormous approximately your Instagram account. how to get 10k partners upon instagram best instagram tools 2018 Check out apps past Wordswag, Rhonda, Snappa and Typorama to make fast and simple text posts. We use these apps to make the majority of the content upon our Instagram account. how to get 10k partners upon instagram best instagram tools 2018 We recommend VSCO to reduce your images and come up with the money for your account an aesthetic theme if youre not exploit quote images and using mainly photographs. Its a great app past a ton of functionality thats absolute for social media editing. For desktop users, categorically use Canva to make most, if not all, of your social media images. For royalty-free images go to Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay. Use Grum to schedule and automate your Instagram posts. put up with some of the exploit out of the equation by handily automating past your posts go out. Share well-liked posts past Repost and Instagrab. Whether its an image read out or a video, use these apps to download well-liked posts from supplementary accounts. But recall to always explanation the native creator. Plan out your Instagram feed past Planoly. This is great if you want to get an idea of what your feed would see like, or if youre planning upon creating a collage-type feed past merged posts. Id recommend using this for the first few months or thus of a supplementary account to urge on figure out what the aesthetic theme is going to see like. how to get 10k partners upon instagram shedule posts upon instagram If you have Hootsuite, make certain to attempt their TrendSpottr app to urge on you find out what the summit trending posts and influencers are. Use Kik to affix and communicate past supplementary Instagram users. If the supplementary user doesnt have their Kik publicly listed, you can always proclamation them directly through Instagrams native messaging tool. Apps past Hyperlapse are great for creating videos past tons of cartoon and fast-paced movement. Videos past a lot of pursuit sharply grab peoples attention and make interest. tell an entire explanation in a concern of seconds. Apps past Flixel or Pictoreo are great for creating subtle cinemagraphs. though fast-paced videos tend to grab more attention, the slower cinemagraph-type posts are more likely to generate well along engagement. how to get 10k partners upon instagram best instagram tools 2018 Create astonishing text animations past Legend. This is a great tool to urge on your quote images stand out even more. Go get More Instagram Followers! But First So those are the steps that we went through and some of the increase hacks we used to go from zero to 10k partners in two weeks, and next scale to 1 million partners and counting! back you go handing out off to accomplish all of that though, wed urge on you to think approximately why youre on, or want to be upon Instagram.

We cant guarantee this method will exploit as effectively for you as it did for us. It served our purposes because of our particular recess and what we wanted to get out of the platform. Instagram is categorically a powerful tool, but its not really for everyone or all business. A few questions you might want to ask yourself are:

Is my industry, or what I sell visually appealing? Am I amenable to share stuff that isnt directly related to what I sell? Do I have time to engage in a supplementary social media platform? If you answered no to one or more of these questions at https://www.socialpave.com/about-us , you might want to rethink why you want to jump upon Instagram marketing. You dont want to be wasting resources upon something that just isnt for you. Otherwise, wed urge on you to use this guide to boost your followers!

What are we missing, Foundr family? I know you all have a few Instagram tricks going on your sleeve. share your favorite, or let us know if you have questions upon any of these in the notes below.

#about #gain #free #followers #account

[esandcasg]

B Dog’s Ranking of Star Wars Films

Some months ago Big A challenged me to list my order of Star Wars films, from worst to best. Having re-watched a number now in recent months I felt it time to get this down on paper. Admittedly I haven’t watched all of them, so this might need updating in the months to come.

Let me know your thoughts or add a similar blog!

11. The Last Jedi

It is something of a tribute to Disney that it took me some time to decide my least favourite Star Wars film. There were two obvious candidates but in the end I went with the Last Jedi. Admittedly, I feel that The Rise of Skywalker is a worse film, but I give the honour of the shittest Star Wars film to this steaming pile of crap because it set the precedent for what was to follow. The whole film is based around the idea of doing something different with the force and the Jedi, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was done in such a bad way. I’ve recently re-watched it and it felt like 90% of the film is treading water whilst they develop the Reylo relationship. “What shall we do with the other characters?” I don’t know, stick them on a spaceship being chased by a Star Destroyer? “Fuck me, that’s brilliant.”  I recently read that Rhian Johnson’s biggest regret with this film was not being able to do his usual private showing to close friends before it came out due to security issues. I regret that too, cos they’d have told him what a big pile of crap it was.

10. The Rise of Skywalker

The true level of shittiness of this film has been discussed a lot; it was so bad that it even inspired a B Dog film rant blog. The first ever, if I am not mistaken? The fact that they have had to release information intermittently to explain the gaps in the story says it all really. A total turd. 

Don’t worry, my swearing will ease now along with my hatred.

9. Attack of the Clones

My ninth favourite (or perhaps more accurately, the third worst) Star Wars film introduces the prequels into the story with Attack of the Clones. I don’t hate this film like I do The Rise of Skywalker and The Last Jedi, so we start to move out of “hate” and more into “meh” with AotC. I don’t hate it, I don’t particularly like it. I nothing it (nod to #BigAsFilmReviews).

This film has a few things going for it, namely it features a young Hayden Christensen, who of course has a strong resemblance to a young B Dog, and it includes Anakin and Padme’s brilliantly written, acted and directed romance scenes. “You are in my very soul, tormenting me.” Beautiful. I jest of course, it was total cringe. But the issue that I have with this film is that it doesn’t feel like Star Wars. At least with The Phantom Menace there are elements that align with the prequels like the scenes of Tattoine. AotC just feels like a bit of a misfit. I wonder whether it was where George began to get a raging hard-on for green screen and prioritising wanky graphics above, you know, a decent storyline, and that impacts things? Or maybe he started flirting with the darkside long before this? But generally it is an entertaining enough film, just a bit shit.

8. The Phantom Menace

I struggled for a while with the order of Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace but in the end decided I preferred this one. But it’s a close one.

The issue that I have with this film – even above Jar Jar and the awful dialogue – is that I don’t get the target audience. There is loads of content for kids such as (the aforementioned) Jar Jar and the pod race, yet it is effectively a film about politics and features things like trade blockades. I mean, the opening crawl features gems such as “The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute... While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events.” 

I watched it with Sebastian and he didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he sat there patiently waiting for the arrival of arguably my favourite Star Wars character in Darth Maul. But as I mentioned above, TPM still feels like Star Wars and the lightsabre fight sequence at the end is enough to get it into 8th place. But we are still very much in “meh”.

7. Solo

But not for long as we start moving into “like” territory. I like this film. But the issue that I have is that it’s not really Star Wars. It’s a decent sci-fi film but I can’t associate Alden Whatshisface’s portrayal of Han to the original. It is largely forgettable mind; I have watched Solo once and couldn’t really tell you what it was about. Something to do with Solo and Chewie and Lando, and they went through an asteroid field, and Emilia Clarke got sold or became a slave, and the Falcon got wrecked. That’s all I remember. But I do remember feeling like the whole “Kessel Run” idea was totally different to what I had in my mind – I figured it was a famous smuggling run - and if they really had to do a backstory on Han then they could have come up with something better.

6. Revenge of the Sith

Probably the only prequel that I will stand behind. It is flawed, largely because of the overuse of green screen which can’t be easy for actors/actresses (exhibit A: Natalie Portman who is pretty wooden yet claimed an Oscar a few years later in Black Swan), but I feel like RotS is actually a fairly decent addition to the Star Wars portfolio with the actors starting to get used to the methods of Lucas or perhaps even pushing back a bit helping the script flow better. Hayden Christensen seemed a bit more comfortable playing a more complex and evil character than a loved up teenager, for example. However, there is still a large amount of Lucas “style over substance” going on still and the Darth Vadar “Noooooo” bit at the end is like something from an 80’s Arnie film. “I’ll be back, Kenobi.”

5. Rogue 1

I really enjoyed this film right up until the last few minutes when the arrival of Leia almost ruined it. I don’t quite know why, I think it just felt shoe-horned and unnecessary. There are other flaws that don’t align with the start of A New Hope and the characters lack any real depth, but overall I’ll let all this slide as it was a pretty exciting and well-made film. With Rogue 1 I am sensing stronger feelings… there is good in these films. I can sense it.

4. The Force Awakens

The first time I watched this film I didn’t like it. I think because I just expected too much – or something different - and I didn’t particularly like the way they killed off Han without the film or trilogy really getting going. What was the point? I thought Rey was totally wooden too. But I’ve watched it three times now and the last time – just before TRoS came out – I actually really enjoyed it, bordering on feeling that it was brilliant. I admit it is a fanboy tribute, but… if the cap or evil sith mask fits and all that.

3. A New Hope

It will come as no surprise that the podium spots are reserved for the original trilogy, and we move into love – of course - with A New Hope. It is slightly controversial to have this one in third place as I know a lot of people see ANH as the best of the lot, but I just prefer the other originals being honest. Whilst it is undoubtedly a great film, I find it more of a setting the scene kind of film: it’s a bit slow going in places and even as a kid I don’t feel it had the same levels of excitement as the other two. The toys that I played with weren’t the X-Wing and Tie Fighter from the Death Star scene, it was the AT-AT (I had two) and snow speeders from Hoth, for example. And re-watching them recently with Sebastian it has been the one that I struggled to sit through the most. I guess ultimately it is laying the foundations for the whole Luke vs. Vadar/good vs. evil element, which is what drew me into Star Wars as a kid.

2. Return of the Jedi

I know this film has flaws, but I love it. Well, the old version before Ol’ George started adding shit like the band in Jabba’s palace and another Vadar “Nooooooo”. But the whole film is great: the sequence at the start concluding with the fight over the pit of sarlaac through to the three phased fight sequence at the end. As I have said to you both, I have recently watched the original trilogy with Sebastian and he told me that he was exhausted at the end of the film, and I guess it’s that sort of excitement that I still associate with RotJ. One interesting thing is that watching the recently has opened my eyes to how hot Carrie Fisher was back then. I never really got it. No wonder my dad used to pop in for the Jabba’s Palace bit.

1. The Empire Strikes Back

And therefore the winner goes to the masterpiece that is The Empire Strikes Back. I don’t have anything negative to say about this film, and for me is in a league of its own compared to the other ten films, and up there with one of my favourite films ever. The Hoth fight scene, Yoda training Luke and the cave scene, Cloud City and then Vadar and Luke crossing swords for the first time. From start to finish it is exciting and so well made. But it’s also interesting to have a good vs. evil film finish on such a dark note, with the good guys going off to lick their wounds. In a lot of ways that is also what appeals about this film; it’s not just a straight up good guys win type of scenario.

[writeinspiration]

There are a lot of differences between self-published authors and those working with a publishing house, but when it comes to book marketing, we’re all in the same boat. At a time when many authors find their marketing stipend barely covers the basics, writers of every stripe need to know how to market their own work effectively. If you have some money to splash around, you have a few options (such as marketing services and book trailers), but if your funds are limited, you need to know about guerrilla marketing.

That’s why, in this two-part article, I’ll be taking a look at exactly that. Here in part 1, we’ll talk about what guerrilla marketing is and how it works, while in part 2, we’ll look at the tips and specific techniques you can employ as a guerrilla marketer. So, apply your camouflage, keep low, and let’s get started.

What is guerrilla marketing?

A guerrilla fighter is someone fighting a lopsided war with limited equipment and little backup from any larger organization. Self-publishing authors are definitely guerrillas entering the fight for readers, but authors working with publishing houses can also find that they’re handed limited resources and left to sort things out for themselves.

Guerrilla marketing is all about doing a lot with a little, and for authors that means an approach built on two core concepts:

Spending time and effort instead of money,

Choosing tactics that offer maximum reward for limited input.

When it comes to the first concept, there isn’t much to say that we didn’t cover in Nobody Beats The Triangle, But You Can Be Prepared For It: you can use time and effort to make up for a small budget, but you have to plan ahead to do so well. Of course, time and effort are limited, and that’s where we come to the second core concept.

Guerrilla marketing uses sparse resources to incredible effect.CLICK TO TWEET

It’s not enough to just plug away at your marketing. You can only do so much, and at a certain level, money can achieve a reach that one person’s maximum effort just can’t. That means that you need to be pouring the resources you do have into the actions that will give you the biggest reward. For example, getting forty random people to read your book is nothing compared to putting it in the hands of one prominent book blogger. Likewise, a marketing campaign targeted at a group likely to be interested in your subject matter has far more value than a bigger campaign with a more general focus.

In this way, it’s not enough to keep working and hope for the best; you have to work smart and hard, and neither really works without the other. But that assumes that guerrilla marketing works at all, so the question is… does it?

What guerrilla marketing does

Marketing doesn’t work quite how many people think, especially at different levels. For the biggest sellers, advertising isn’t about persuading someone to buy a product. When Coke advertise, they’re usually not trying to make you think Coke is a good product; they’re already big enough that they achieved that, so their advertising is geared more towards remaining ubiquitous. The big sellers just need to keep reminding customers that they exist – that they’re available for whoever wants them. Then, whenever the customer goes to buy that type of product, it’s their brand that comes to mind. Get big enough and potential customers don’t think ‘I want a soda’, they think ‘I want a Coke’.

This may sound specific to a certain type of product, but it’s also true for fiction. At this point, J.K. Rowling doesn’t need to advertise how good her work is. The brand is so big that it’s more effective to simply focus on telling people there’s something new under its umbrella (and if they can also attract potential new readers, that’s a good secondary goal). Rowling sold a huge number of scripts for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, even though it’s a medium with which many readers have no familiarity. As long as she keeps up a stream of new ‘products’ and the standard doesn’t dip enough to drive away her base, her marketing only ever has to say ‘remember me?’ This is why so many book adverts for established authors are along the lines of ‘The NEW book by X’; the brand is big enough that it’s doing the selling for them.

Different products rely on different types of marketing, and self-published authors shouldn’t be using the same tactics as bestsellers.CLICK TO TWEET

That’s not what guerrilla marketing is about, and it’s not something you’re going to be able to achieve on your own. Likewise, guerrilla marketing isn’t – and stick with me here – about finding individual readers.

This is the domain of mid-size marketing; people see your advert and they know your book is for sale, maybe they’ll buy it. This is the type of marketing where it’s worth putting billboards in train stations – with enough money, widespread marketing brings in enough readers to pay for itself.

This type of marketing isn’t usually that effective for books (unless they have a specific, unique role that lodges in people’s heads), and it’s not really feasible for guerrilla marketers. It’s hard for one person to advertise their book so widely that the number of readers they get back justifies the effort.

Instead, guerrilla marketing is effective as a cumulative effort. It doesn’t just net individual readers (though, again, that’s a good secondary goal), it creates an environment in which your book is being discussed. Ideally, it turns the people who encounter the marketing directly into your salespeople.

In marketing his book The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, the titular author held a reading in a train station bathroom. The aim wasn’t to advertise to the few people who attended, but rather to create the type of story that news outlets would be hungry to report, and report they did. Pollack reached a huge audience with his work, communicating its irreverent nature and setting it up as a talking point; a level of marketing success far in excess of his budget or even time commitment.

Modern marketing has more than one audience, and the first isn’t always the biggest.CLICK TO TWEET

A less creative example might be a carefully calculated competition. Offer an interesting prize, extend the competition long enough to get people talking about it (and your work), and you reach a host of people for the cost of rewarding one. Ideally, you’ll also have a compelling website to direct them to and be collecting the email addresses of entrants to form a mailing list. Maybe your prize, or the conditions of the competition, are even unique enough to get you some press.

This is where guerrilla marketing works; carefully considered, meticulously executed moves that make the most of your time, money, and effort. I’ll get on to exactly how you can apply that logic in part 2 of this article, but for now, let’s close by looking at a case study of great guerrilla marketing in action.

The success of Masquerade

In 1979, Kit Williams published Masquerade, a book of art that tells the story of a hare delivering a splendid necklace to the sun. Concerned that people didn’t focus on the details in art books, and challenged by publisher Tom Maschler to do something new, Williams created a book that was also a treasure hunt. With the release of the book, Williams declared that he had also created the golden necklace from the story, and that the book contained all the information anyone could need to find it.

The story of the treasure hunt itself, and how the book worked as a set of clues, is fascinating (and skillfully related here), but suffice to say that Williams’ announcement was a staggering piece of guerrilla marketing. Williams couldn’t have foreseen the interest that would be aroused or how long the story would remain in the public consciousness, with news reports (and thus more advertising) breaking out whenever someone had a wild theory. Indeed, even the controversy surrounding how the treasure hunt was eventually resolved catapulted it back into public consciousness. For his time, effort, and skill, Williams sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and books (like Bamber Gascoigne’s Quest for the Golden Hare) have even been written about the process itself.

Creativity doesn’t have to stop with the book itself – artistic marketing is both possible and effective.CLICK TO TWEET

In the computer age, this type of marketing is even more effective. Since fans can now communicate across great distance, ‘game’ marketing can create communities and arouse huge interest for comparatively little input, as was the case with Alex Hirsch’s Gravity Falls: Journal 3, which relied on a variety of code-breaking and treasure-hunting activities to create a vocal, close-knit community of fans. (Something I talked about in Want A Cult Following? Hide Secrets In Your Writing.)

With blogs, Youtube channels, and even major news outlets hungry for content, the right piece of guerrilla marketing can be an absolute game changer.

Guerrilla warfare

So, that’s why you should consider guerrilla marketing and the logic behind some of the most successful tactics in the marketplace. Next, check out Everything You Need To Know About Guerrilla Book Marketing – Part 2, in which we’ll dive into how you can design and carry out your own successful guerrilla marketing.

What’s the hardest part of marketing our book, and how have you worked around marketing constraints in the past? Let me know in the comments below, and check out our extensive marketing archive for more great advice.

#writing #writer #write #writeinspiration #writeblr #link post

[tlbodine]

Ableism, Mental Illness, and the Horror Genre

Horror has a problematic history with the mentally ill, and I think there’s a lot to unpack there in terms of ableism and deconstructing harmful tropes. 

* For purposes of this discussion, I’ll be using some potentially-triggering terms like “insane” and “crazy” and “lunatic” and “psycho” and I kindly ask that you don’t take that as any sort of endorsement or reflection of my values -- just as a bundle of terms familiar in the genre. Tread forward carefully. 

Loosely speaking, I think mental illness has three flavors in the horror genre: 

Stories where people with schizophrenia/DID/whatever are the villains 

Stories set in or using mental hospitals/asylums as scary plot devices

Stories about people going insane/losing their grip on reality (or thinking they’re going insane because of the supernatural shenanigans happening in the story) 

I don’t think that these three tropes are necessarily closely related, and I don’t think that any of them are inherently ableist if dealt with under certain circumstances -- but let’s go back to the beginning and try to break it down a bit.

What is Ableism? Why is it Harmful? 

Before we get started, let’s talk about why we should care about this at all. So what actually is ableism? 

Ableism --  The practices and dominant attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities. A set of practices and beliefs that assign inferior value (worth) to people who have developmental, emotional, physical or psychiatric disabilities.

(Source: http://www.stopableism.org/p/what-is-ableism.html) 

Ableism against the mentally ill stigmatizes people who have mental illnesses. It dehumanizes and “others” them. In horror media in particular, it promotes the concept that “crazy people” are dangerous, which can lead to acts of violence against them or an overall lack of compassion. 

I’m a firm believer that there are no bad tropes, and that people are always free to write the stories that speak to them - but I’m also a firm believer that you need to take responsibility for your creations and be aware of the effects your words may have on the world. So we’ll look at how mental illness is portrayed in horror media, why it can be problematic, and some ways to subvert it. 

Mental Illness, as a Concept, is Relatively New (and a lot newer than the horror genre)  

The concept of ableism is even newer. Many, many tropes are rooted in times when social concepts were different. Human behavior hasn’t changed much, but the way we talk about that behavior has -- and stories have a way of sticking around after the cultures that created them are gone. So we have a whole stack of tropes and narratives and ideas that are tied to older ways of thinking. 

So for example: At various points in history and across various cultures, mental illness as we know it today may have been viewed as demonic possession, fae magic, witchcraft, etc. In other words - a lot of the tropes we already associate with horror may in part have been used as an explanation for mental illness symptoms (and the mentally ill may have endured terrible punishments for it throughout history as well). 

Then, as more modern medicine started to be practiced, and psychology began to be developed, the concept of mental illness started to develop...and sometimes that, too, was horrifying. 

Here are some supplemental reading links on the topic you might find interesting: 

http://nobaproject.com/modules/history-of-mental-illness

https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-illness-overview/the-history-of-mental-illness

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1673/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills

Even in modern times, we still don’t fully understand how the brain works and what causes mental illness and the accompanying behaviors -- and the unknown continues to be scary. All of our fears live inside unanswered questions. And that is why these narratives continue to hold sway. 

Why Insanity is Frightening 

Let’s go back to my earlier assertion that there are three flavors of mental illness in horror, because I think at their core that each version preys upon entirely different types of fears: 

#1 The Psycho Killer Trope: 

As seen in: Psycho, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs

Falls under the TVTrope “Insane Equals Violent” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneEqualsViolent 

Many urban legends also deal with “escaped lunatic” or “dangerous madman” character tropes. The gist of it is that a mentally unstable person is violent, commits atrocious acts, does not feel remorse (or much of anything else), and may somehow possess superhuman strength. 

This scenario is frightening because: 

A crazy person has no motive and cannot be reasoned with 

Crazy people behave erratically and unpredictably 

An insane mind is harder to understand, effectively dehumanizing the villain 

People with hallucinations or delusions can experience a twisted view of reality, leading to abnormal behavior (and cool cinematic effects)

Essentially, if you want to turn a human into a monster, making them “crazy” is an easy (lazy) way to do it. 

Now, here’s the thing. Sometimes, the mentally ill really are dangerous, such as people who attack their families while experiencing delusions. And if you consider sociopaths to be mentally ill, then a good number of serial killers and other violent people count as mentally ill: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201409/the-sociopath-serial-killer-connection

All the same, there are many ways that this trope can become ableist and damaging: 

The overwhelming majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and are actually much more likely to be victims of violence themselves in real life. There are a lot of reasons for that. For one, many severely mentally ill people end up homeless (or homelessness exacerbates existing mental illness), and the homeless are a common target of violence. For another, people’s fear of insanity can lead to them perpetuating violence against the mentally ill. Nasty cycle, right? 

The other big problem with this trope is that it’s not portrayed realistically 99% of the time. Real-world psychopaths are generally not known for their cackling insanity and childish violence. Schizophrenics and people with DID/multiple personalities are statistically very rarely violent, and their violent tendencies are really overblown in media. And that is probably the biggest thing: If the only time we ever see a schizophrenic character in a story is when they’re a crazy killer, then we the audience are going to start thinking that all schizophrenic people are crazy killers. Because most people don’t know anyone with schizophrenia, and they’re not used to ever seeing positive or compassionate portrayals of those people in media. 

#2 The Haunted Asylum Trope: 

As seen in: The Ward, Session 9, American Horror Story: Asylum, and more video games than I can possibly count

Falls under the TVTrope: Bedlam House https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BedlamHouse

There are two flavors to the haunted asylum trope, and they can overlap or happen distinctly. The first is where the action takes place in a now-abandoned building that was once a mental institution and is now haunted as shit. The second is where a person is committed to a mental institution that may or may not be haunted and endures all manner of terrifying things up to and including: abusive staff, ghosts, violent patients, and torturous “treatments.” 

There are more examples of this trope than I can possibly list out, and its roots dig back real deep into our not-so-distant past. Stories like Poe’s short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” is an early treatment of the premise (compare and contrast with the film Stonehearst Asylum, which is basically a re-telling); Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while not precisely horror, is a trope codifier for a lot of things that show up in these stories. 

There’s a lot to fear in this setting: 

“Treatments” that were dangerous and brutal, like lobotomies and electro-shocks, being essentially forms of torture 

The idea of being locked up against your will (a justified fear in certain points of history, when locking up your inconvenient relatives was a viable option)

Being locked up somewhere occupied by those same murderous-madmen from the previous trope 

Ghosts and vengeful spirits who are really pissed about all of the above 

In some ways, the haunted asylum trope is actually anti-ableist, or at least inverts the ableism of the psycho-killer trope, in that the “madmen” are often sympathetic characters rather than the villains. However, it then creates its own set of problems. 

One of the worst issues with the “haunted asylum” trope is it is anachronistic. Modern mental health care isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was 100 years ago -- but people don’t have a lot of cultural touchstones for what a modern inpatient care facility looks like. Painting psychiatrists and other mental healthcare staff as sadistic torture-lovers isn’t exactly doing the profession any favors. 

If the public associates getting mental health care with the kind of things they see in media...well, they won’t be very supportive of that care, right? And that’s a big problem. 

And, of course, if your haunted asylum is also home to crazy psycho-killers, you have a two-for-one ableism problem. 

#3 The Am-I-Losing-My-Mind Trope: 

As seen in: The Shining, 1408, The Babadook

Falls under the TV Trope Through the Eyes of Madness: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThroughTheEyesOfMadness

The diverse sub-genre of “psychological horror” quite frequently utilizes some form or another of this concept -- “Are these things actually happening, or am I losing my mind?” I’m the first to admit that I’m a sucker for this trope. It’s probably my favorite thing about the horror genre. But that doesn’t mean it’s wholly unproblematic. 

There are a few sub-types of this trope: 

Gaslighting, where someone purposely manipulates a character to make them feel like they can’t trust their own perceptions of reality 

The “I think I’m going crazy but wait actually it’s a supernatural event” trope 

The “something happened and it made me go crazy (and possibly violent)” trope

Of these, the third one has the greatest risk of becoming ableist. It’s sometimes used to give a backstory to the psycho-killers in #1, and it has some troubling implications. For one, the idea that trauma can make you go crazy is...overly simplistic at best. We don’t fully understand mental illnesses, but we do know that they are often linked to genetics, brain injury, neurological disorders, childhood experiences, etc. etc. etc. In other words, it’s pretty fucking insensitive and reductionist to suggest that a single traumatic event can “drive someone crazy.” 

The other issue is that, in these cases, being crazy (or being viewed as crazy) is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to somebody, right? Like how often do we see the harmful trope of someone experiencing something, then being locked away in one of those mental institutions from #2, and then their life is effectively over? That has to feel pretty awful for the people who do suffer from mental illnesses in the real world. 

So, Okay, How Do We Fix It? 

All right. If you’re still with me after this long exploration, you’re probably wondering: OK, TL, I get it, but what am I -- a horror writer -- supposed to do about this? How do I tell scary stories without falling back on harmful tropes? 

Gee, I’m so glad you asked! 

Not every story is the same, and there is no single “do this and never be accused of ableism” formula, but there are some tips I think can make a lot of difference: 

Ask yourself: Why am I writing this story? What is it about the premise that intrigues and frightens you? Drill down to the core of your motives and mine the untapped potential of fresh ideas rather than regurgitating more well-worn tropes. If you want to write a story about being locked in a place with violent people, can I set it somewhere other than an asylum? If I want to write a story about a murderer, can I make him frightening without him being insane? 

Do your research and portray things realistically. Research here means original, real-life cases and events. If you want to write about a mental hospital, look at real mental hospitals and draw your inspiration from them rather than drawing from the stock tropes in other stories. If you have a psychiatrist character, learn about real psychiatric treatments in the time period you’re writing about. If you have a schizophrenic character, research the actual symptoms and behaviors associated with schizophrenia. 

Question what your thematic choices are actually saying. Consider the implications of a plot point or character, and decide whether you’re comfortable with them. Be self-aware about what you choose to include. 

Practice good representation. A lot of the harm from ableist narratives comes from the mentally ill character being the only representation of that illness - not just in their story, but in every story. Consider including sympathetic, non-villainous characters with (realistically portrayed) mental illnesses. If you have several such characters, it’s not so bad if one of them is indeed a villain. 

Get a sensitivity reader. Find somebody who is familiar with what you’re writing about, and get them to read it and tell you if you’re being an asshole. Ideally, get more than one. Someone who has first-hand experience with the topics you’re writing about can tell you whether or not you’ve missed the mark (within reason). 

Invert and avoid stereotypes: This goes hand-in-hand with doing your research. Study the tropes that are common in the type of story you’re telling, and think of ways to challenge or invert the most common stereotypes. Not only will you avoid falling in the same traps, you’ll also give your story a fresh and refreshing twist that the reader will enjoy. 

I hope this was helpful. If you have more thoughts, feel free to add them below! 

Enjoy what I’m doing here? Show your support by buying me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/A57355UN

#how to write horror #ableism #writing advice #mental illness #tropes #long post #i kind of wrote a treatise there #oops

[thecollectorsector]

Did you know...

That Danzig’s classic logo:

Was originally designed and created for a Marvel comic book cover?

Crystar

Today, not many comic book fans remember the Marvel character Crystar. This relatively obscure 80s character was originally created and developed for a line of toys. Crystar was a crystalline warrior who came from the world known as Crystallium-where everything was made of crystal and most characters had bad, rock-themed pun names like Ogeode, Feldspar or Stalax. Marvel Comics later created a Crystar comic book to accompany and promote Remco’s Crystar toyline. This is one of Michael Golden’s many classic comic book covers and is probably recognizable to any die-hard Danzig fan. I doubt Michael Golden imagined when he first created this cover, that someday one aspect of this image would be the identifying symbol of a major band. I’ve always wondered if Michael Golden receives any kind of compensation or recognition for creating the original comic cover that formed the basis of that now famous and highly-merchandised Danzig logo.

Marvel partnered with the now-defunct toy company Remco to produce a comic book series to expand the Crystar line of action figures and playsets. This was a common practice in the 70s and 80s. Marvel had also found success with such toy/comic crossovers like the Shogun Warriors, Micronauts and ROM: Spaceknight line of toys. Since the storytelling abilities of the toy industry were so limited, many toy companies benefited by having a comic book expand upon the characters and universe of a limited toy line. Companies like Marvel benefitted by having a large captive audience of kids who were familiar with the toys but would never have bought a comic book otherwise. This would not be the last time Marvel would create a comic series to promote a line of toys. G.I. Joe, He-Man, Transformers and even the beloved Secret Wars line of toys were all popular toy lines that Marvel published comic books to accompanying and promote. He-Man actually had the rare distinction of being one of the only toy lines to have a promotional comic book published by both Marvel and D.C. Toy companies like Remco used to view comic books as an advertising mechanism to draw in new kids while also being a cheap, easy way to create new characters that could eventually become new toys.

The Punk Connection

I’ve always loved the Misfits and by extension Glenn Danzig. Back in my punk days, The Misfits were always my favorite band, usually tied with the Dead Kennedys and the Germs (but I also loved T.S.O.L, the Buzzcocks, The Adicts, Crass and Minor Threat). As a fan of classic horror, sci-fi, and monster movies, I always appreciated The Misfits’ and Danzig’s use of horror and sci-fi imagery in their lyrics and album art. That was actually one of the things that I loved about the Misfits above all other bands; the imagery. All that Vincent Price and Plan 9 imagery really appealed to a kid like me. When I was a punk, comic books were the last thing on my mind. I hadn’t read or collected comics in years by that point. So I never made the connection between Danzig and comic books, despite being aware of Crystar as a character. I remember owning several issues of the Crystar Marvel series as a kid. After all, I am a child of the late 80s and early 90s who grew up owning many toys from some of the most iconic toy lines of the 80s. I was initially surprised that Glenn Danzig would show an interest in comics and co-opt the cover of a Marvel comic book series that targeted kids and was designed to promote a corresponding toy line. That fact is even more surprising looking at some of his later, solo-era imagery and lyrics.

Looking at that kind of album art, I don’t know why anyone would be surprised Danzig digs comics. As it turns out, Glenn Danzig has been into comics for years. This is why he used so much of that sci-fi/horror imagery in his early days in the Misfits and borrowed themes and concepts from comic books like Crystar and Conan. The misfits often used a comic book/Lichtenstein-esque pop-art art style as evidenced in their Bullet imagery with JFK and their Horror Business album art. Danzig also chose an HR Giger painting as one of his later albums. When you compare Frazetta-era “barbarian/warrior” artwork with Danzig’s comics or album art, you can see the obvious inspiration. In the 90s, Danzig actually began publishing his own line of comic books, Verotik comics (Verotik was a portmanteau of the words “violent” and “erotic”). It would be easy to looks at some of the comic books he’s published and dismiss them as immature or sophomoric. After all, they do feature most of the things pubescent boys are into-big pecs, bigger boobs and the biggest swords. It would also be easy to view Danzig’s foray into the medium of comics as a cash grab. This was the era that outsiders and speculators were coming into the comic book field en masse. Many people who had zero interest in producing quality comics came into the field with delusions of making a fortune based on the newfound popularity of comic books.

The Bubble Goes Burst

When the comic book speculator bubble burst in the mid-to-late-90s, many of these new imprints and comic lines went under; never to return to publication. Verotik has managed to outlive Homage, Wildstorm, Continuity, Legend, Malibu, Chaos!, Caliber, Comico, Defiant, Kitchen Sink Press and Eclipse (to name a few). It’s important to remember that those were among the most acclaimed indie comic companies during the 90s comic boom. All of those companies were either bought, closed or are otherwise now defunct. While it is true Verotik published way fewer comics than most of those other companies, Verotik still publishes comics today. Glenn Danzig outlasted them all. Surprisingly, Danzig’s line of Verotik comics have been continuously published since 1994, with Glenn Danzig himself still involved. While other, more mainstream comics have been adapted into the Hollywood Blockbusters we all know, Danzig adapted one of his comics, Grub Girl, into a porno that came out in 2006. Say what you will about adapting a comic book into pornography... it shows that Danzig has found a way to maintain an almost entirely adult audience while simultaneously promoting his line of comics and spinning those characters off into another medium (film).

Mainstream comic readers have not spoken kindly about some of Verotik’s offerings. I certainly don’t like everything that Dark Horse, or Marvel, or Image publish. Many comic fans have dismissed Danzig’s line of comic books for their perceived “low quality.” However, if you go back and examine some of his earliest works, you’d be surprised by some of the names you’d recognize. Many well known, popular writers and artists of today had work published in one of Verotik’s comic books. Grant Morrison actually had a story published in the first issue of Verotika, something he never mentions. Simon Bisley contributed some really solid artwork on many Verotik comics, as did Frank Frazetta.

Some of the most iconic Frazetta artwork (beyond his legendary Conan art of course) appeared in Verotik comics. The “Death Dealer” image has come to typify the classic Frazetta “barbarian” style. The Frank Frazetta style of heavily painted Barbarian/Warrior art has almost completely disappeared from the today’s modern comics. In my opinion, Danzig and his line of Verotik comics are almost solely responsible for the preservation of that kind of 80’s barbarian/sword-and-sorcery/heavy metal comic book aesthetic. By the 90s, that genre of comic and it’s associated art style had fallen out of favor with the general public and was considered dated by many critics and fans alike. This kind of hyper-masculine Barbarian imagery existed only on the fringes of pop culture and is virtually nonexistent today. What had been an industry staple was now relegated to a tiny niche audience. Fantasy artwork like that is sorely absent from today’s comic book marketplace. Rafa Garres, Eric Canete, Liam Sharp, Arthur Suydam, Dave Stevens and Kent Williams all contributed artwork to at least one of Verotik’s many comic books. When you re-examine some of the covers to Verotik titles like Jaguar God, Valkyrie or Weird Voodoo, they still look pretty damn good even by modern standards. Painted covers like these have withstood the test of time; good writing and artwork often endures and stays relevant for years.

Legacy of Brutality (and Comic Books)

It‘s a shame that Danzig doesn’t get more recognition for his contribution to comic books from the modern comic book community. I’ve never heard anyone mention Danzig and comics in the same sentence. For a guy who’s written songs for Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, owns his own label (Plan 9), had a long history with the Misfits, found renewed success with Samhain and again with his solo project Danzig...the guy has quite a resume. Even many punks don’t know that Samhain was essentially a punk supergroup, since their debut album featured former members of Minor Threat, Rosemary’s Babies and Reagan Youth. To switch gears entirely and begin writing and publishing comics shows how seriously he took his interest in comic books. He never compromised his artistic integrity and made exactly the kind of comics and music he wanted. Whether you personally like the results or not, you should respect that kind of commitment and discipline. It’s unfortunate for Danzig since many people in the punk/metal community would mock his comic book pursuits, and the comic industry often resents outsiders coming into the field from another medium, he rarely gets recognition from either community.

His contribution to music cannot be understated and his foray into comics cannot be dismissed as a mere cash grab or way to stay relevant. He put his money where his mouth was and was willing to invest his own money and time into his life-long love of comics. I honestly wish more people would do that. Danzig teamed with some of the best fantasy comic artists in the field at the time and wrote many of Verotik’s comics himself. He is also a graphic artist in his own right who is known to do sketches at signings and conventions. Danzig has created music for over 41 years and for 24 years he has also been involved in the production of comic books. That alone makes you a pretty cool guy in my book. His comics are about as “creator owned” as it gets and in that 24 years he has made the kinds of comics that he wants to make. You can’t dismiss that kind of artistic determination. For a guy who has always been known as the “Heavy Elvis” of punk music, his artistic portfolio is surprisingly diverse. Danzig should be accepted by the comic book community as being every bit as worthy of inclusion as any other, more accepted comic book creators.

Don’t sleep on @therealglenndanzig-blog, the dude might just surprise you.

-AG

#glenn danzig #crystar #comic writer #marvel comics #comics #comic art #comic books #did you know #punk rock #misfits #urban legend #article #comic book artifacts #fantasy #swords and sorcery #fun facts #random facts #horror #sci fi #frank frazetta #dave stevens #samhain #the misfits #comicmemes #comicart #comic book art #michael golden #factoid #its the truth

[when-will-mail-come]

I wanted to translate the Animedia Magazine 2018 July Issue’s Gundam W portion like ↑ with the translation surrounding the picture with arrows, but I don’t know how to. Please be satisfied with ↓. For those that want to read the original text (that I photographed), go here.

1

37(Everyone) 450(Welcome～) to the Animedia Carnival

2

　The next legendary anime to be introduced is the following;『New Mobile Report Gundam W』. This work is one of the many『Gundam』series, and from April 1995 to March 1996 the TV series aired. In 1997 the 3 episodes OVA 『New Mobile Report Gundam W Endless Waltz』continuation was created, and in 1998 the re-edited『Special Edition』version of that was released theatrically. Even now after 20 years have passed its popularity has not waned, rerunning since February 2018 on TOKYO MX. Gathering interest even from people exposed to this work for the first time, there has been a resurgence in popularity.

　One point that needs a special mention with this work is that, it is the forerunner of a『Gundam』series that won fanatical female fans. Though 『Gundam』series are now supported by many demographics regardless of gender,『Gundam』fans before this work were mainly children and men, who the related merchandise targeted. The biggest factor behind how this work managed to capture the hearts of women, in this situation, was that the 5 main characters were prominent. Not only were the 5 main characters beautiful boys, they had strong personalities that were unable to be described in one word. Some acted calm, cool, and collected to fulfill their missions, while others took flabbergasting actions that were mind boggling. The interactions between them, and the words and deeds that exceeded the viewers’ imaginations, continued to charm fans. Especially Heero・Yuy for informing the heroine「I’ll kill you」 in episode 1, and also by blowing up his beloved mobile suit Wing Gundam, having a strong impression not seen elsewhere, with his loony¹ actions and a number of out-there¹ famous quotes, he had a presence that could only be described as peerless. The threatened gazes directed by the 5 boys who are by no means absolutely perfect, continue to capture the hearts of fans and refuses to let go even to this day.

¹loony, out-there: The magazine uses the pretty strong expression ぶっ飛んだ

3

The strongness of their PERSONALITY and GAZE is LEGEND TIER! The GUNDAM PILOTS that are RESURGING IN POPULARITY

4

450(Welcome～) Special Guest

Heero・Yuy role HIKARU MIDORIKAWA

【He・kah・rue・Me・dough・ree・kawa】Born May 2. From Tochigi Prefecture. Affiliated with Aoni Production.

——What kind of work is『New Mobile Report Gundam Wing』, to you, Mr. Midorikawa? Furthermore, if you had to choose one thing that made you happy, from your memories during the first airings, what would it be?

　My dream since I was a child was playing the main character in a serious robot work like『Mobile Suit Gundam』, so my dream came true. That made me happy, as you can imagine. Of course, plastic models of Wing Gundam that Heero rides on went on sale, so as person who was crazy about Gunpla² when I was a child, those were really happy days ♪

²Gundam plastic model = Gunpla

——With his unpredictable words and deeds and such, Heero・Yuy was a character with many sensational episodes. If there was anything that you struggled with while playing him, please do tell.

　Heero’s silent, so I think that having to impress the character on the audience within the limited few lines is difficult. However, I gained quite a lot of experience with silent characters with the role of Kaede Rukawa from『SLAM DUNK』(aired 1993～1996), so I managed to not struggle that much（^^;;

——This year marks the 20th year since the release of『New Mobile Report Gundam W Endless Waltz Special Edition』. What do you think about the fact that it’s still loved by many fans, even after over 20 years have passed?

　Maybe it’s  the fact that interesting things are interesting, no matter how many years pass? I mean it is full of holes that can be poked fun at, even though it’s by no means a gag anime (laughter). Apparently, there are also tenacious fans in America even to this day, not only limited  to Japan, so I think it’s a real amazing piece of work.

——If you were to give a message toward the following five of Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei, right now, what would the contents of the message be?

　I am truly happy, that I was able to meet you all. There is also a work that paints yourselves after the end, so if a chance presents itself, I’d love to breathe life into your grown selves. Well, I think that I’ll be indebted to all of you through games or whatnot, from now on too, so I look forward to working with you all then（^₋^）

5

◍Original Drawing/Yoshihito Hishinuma  Finishing Touch/Michie Hishinuma

6

Chang・Wufei

張五飛

(Voice/Ryuzou Ishino)

Holds the belief that might is right, and dislikes the weak fighting. Takes independent action often, and uses the Shenlong Gundam which he calls「Nataku」to destroy evil.

7

Heero・Yuy

(Voice/Hikaru Midorikawa)

Pilot of the Wing Gundam. Educated to be a perfect soldier, he did not show human-like emotions in the beginning.

8

Trowa・Barton

(Voice/Shigeru Nakahara)

Pilot of the Gundam Heavyarms, and was fighting in the battlefield ever since he could remember. To hide his identity, he performed as a clown at a circus troupe.

9

◀The Gundam pilots in brisk summer attire. The 5, although participating in the same military operations, are not a team so there is no sense of comradeship. It is only at the end of the story that the 5 unite. These relationships were novel

10

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing

◍Currently rerunning every Tuesday night at 10:29 PM on TOKYO MX

◍『New Mobile Report Gundam Wing』Blu-ray Box Limited Edition Complete 2 Volumes, now on sale by BANDAI NAMCO Arts. Each 30,240 yen (tax included)

◍『New Mobile Report Gundam W Endless Waltz』Blu-ray Box Limited Edition Complete 1 Volume, now on sale by BANDAI NAMCO Arts. 18,360 yen (tax included)

STORY〔New Mobile Report Gundam Wing〕/Humanity has constructed space colonies, determining the year they commenced space development as the year 1 A.C. (After Colony). Starting to see the indications of decline due to the increase of immigrants to the colonies, the countries of Earth form the「United Earth Sphere Alliance」, and counter the colonies. Possessing overwhelming military power, the Alliance Army oppress the colonies. Communications between each colony are cut off. Year 195 A.C.「Operation Meteor」is initiated by underground organizations of the colonies rebelling against the oppression of the Alliance. It was to have 5 Gundam units land onto Earth, and unfold subversive activity against the secret society「OZ」(Oz) that controlled the Alliance. The 5 boys, who are the agents, descend to Earth without knowing each other, and try to fulfill the mission while at times cooperating with each other, and at times rebelling against each other.

〔New Mobile Report Gundam W Endless Waltz〕/1 year after the battle　between Earth and the colonies. Although it seemed that the world was following the path to peace renouncing all military force, the mastermind of the colony organizations plots the domination of the Earth Sphere. The 5 ride the Gundams once again, and dive into battle.

11

Quatre・Raberba・Winner

(Voice/Ai Orikasa)

The heir of an extremely wealthy man, as well as a boy who pilots the Gundam Sandrock. Although gentle and kind, in the later half of the story, he comes to do nothing but seek revenge for a harmed family member.

12

37(Everyone) Time to Shine Famous Scene

　Episode 1 was full of iconic scenes that symbolized the person known as Heero. From trying to shoot down a civilian shuttle that was interfering with accomplishing his mission during his descent to Earth, to hijacking an ambulance that rushed over due to Relena`s report, who found him injured, it was a succession of barbarity. Moreover, he whispers「I’ll kill you」in her ear after ripping a birthday party invitation that she sent, going undercover as a transfer student at her school, all just due to the reason that「his face was seen by Relena」.

13

Duo・Maxwell

(Voice/Toshihiko Seki)

A kind boy who laments the tragedies brought on by war, and understands the value of life more than anyone, despite having a perfect command of Gundam Deathscythe which is also known as「God of Death」.

14 Relena・Darlian

(Voice/Akiko Yajima)

#Mobile Suit Gundam WIng #Gundam WIng #Animedia #Midorikawa Hikaru

[toshiro-46]

On Ruby’s True Semblance

The general consensus amongst the fndm is that Ruby's semblance is speed, or bursting into rose petals, or something of that sort. This is somewhat understandable, as Pyrrha and Qrow both refer to her semblance as such, but I still don't get it. Because really, it simply doesn't make much sense ~~if you have half a braincell~~ when you look closely. Here's the facts:

Her "speed" is - as of the V4 Short - her literally turning into rose petals. If you don't believe me, rewatch it. At 2:04 she separates into 3 balls of roses, and at 4:05 she's basically a rose petal tornado. Qrow later on in V4C8 even refers to it as such. It's transformation no different from the Branwen's.

Transforming is established (by Weiss's, Nora's, Ruby's, and Jaune's reactions to it and then later the V5 commentary) as a very weird thing and definitely not something that a semblance could be.

This is enough to definitively say Ruby's ability to turn into rose petals is not her semblance. It's clearly magic. This is fact.

Two questions now arise: 1. Where did she acquire this magic? 2. What is her actual semblance?

1. Where did she acquire this magic?

Let's look at the possibilities, going over the three methods of transferring magic that we know of.

Granted by Oz: Ozpin didn't give her the powers personally, as he'd clearly never seen her before prior to V1C1. We can cross this off the list.

Last thoughts: Transformation could act like Maiden powers and transfer to the last person in the previous holder's mind. The most likely candidate would of course be Summer. Her last name - Rose - supports this idea, as currently 4/6 magic users (Cinder, Raven, Qrow, Ruby) have names that reference their powers. And she's probably the likeliest dead person to have thought of Ruby in her last thoughts. I must say though that despite all this, I find Summer's Last Thoughts unlikely. Summer already has SE, it's unlikely that Oz would give her something else (Ruby is a special case since Oz didn't give her the powers she just inherited them), especially since he doesn't mention it when asked by Ruby in V5C7. It just doesn't make sense, and making sense is the most important thing to me.

Hereditary: This is the only remaining explanation. It can't be Summer for reasons I've already stated, so it must be her father. We have no reason to believe that Tai has transformation magic (again, he's not mentioned by Oz), so her father must be Qrow. Surprising absolutely no one. The rock-solid and obvious reasons for why Qrow is definitely Ruby's father have been gone over on numerous occasions, so I won't waste time repeating them. And Qrow can transform, so that fits. One might ask why Qrow transforms into a bird while Ruby transforms into rose petals, and I'd just point to their affinities being different. Oz likely just gave the Branwen twins the ability to transform, and then they naturally went to what suited them best. Think Harry Potter's animagi/patronuses.

2. Ruby's true semblance

It's pretty obvious that Ruby and Qrow share a semblance, as Ruby's is clearly Bad Luck*. Unlike Qrow, though, she doesn't suck ass at using it. She's able to use it on people that mean harm to her (or that she doesn't care for, though this is rarer) instead of fucking over everyone around her. I'd say though that there's a good chance this is entirely subconscious, as it seems that Ruby actually believes her transformation is her semblance. Alternatively, she could be tricking everyone around her (as well as the viewers) and know exactly what she's doing. This is certainly a possibility, see the "Ruby is a sociopath" theory (basically almost canon imo).

Either way, let's look at a bunch of examples of her using her semblance. I'm sure I'm missing some, as I'm mostly focusing on in-battle uses. In those cases, her Bad Luck mostly takes the form of her enemies forgetting something or her being saved by very timely interventions. But I'm confident that 100% of the people reading this will be convinced, as there's simply no other explanation for such prevalent and consistent bad luck. If you're already convinced (as you should be), feel free to skip to the end from here.

*Yes, it's a hereditary semblance. Makes sense that the white-haired/blue-eyed and black haired/red-eyed families would be the two to have such semblances. To explain why Raven doesn't have it, I'd wager it's linked to the X Chromosome, and Qrow received it from his mother (but Raven got her other X). This would explain why Nolan Porfirio (who is clearly Qrow's son) doesn't display any signs of it. There's also the possibility that Raven does have it, and like Ruby she's faking her actual semblance (explaining why she's able to use portals after losing her aura - but then again this could also just be due to aura regeneration), but then you have the question of Yang.

V1:

Roman in V1C1 is unable to kill her due to the intervention of Glynda, a Beacon teacher who just so happens to be on the rooftops of Vale. Unlucky. It should be noted though that Roman seems to be resistant to Ruby's semblance effects as he still manages to escape, but we'll get to that later.

Weiss unluckily misses her target and sets the forest on fire due to Ruby in V1C6. Given how Ruby is annoyed with her, I think it's safe to say that such a comedy of errors from the normally perfect heiress was a manifestation of Ruby's semblance. In fact, I would go so far as to say that much and more of Weiss's later combat failings could be due to Ruby having subconscious (or conscious, malicious, and hidden - again see the sociopath theory) dislike of her.

Now you might question why Weiss succeeded against the Boarbatusk in V1C10, but that's easy: Ruby wanted to make herself (and RWBY as a whole, hence her saying "Represent Team RWBY!") look good, because she told Weiss how to kill it.

Roman in V1C16 manages to best Sun and Blake, but again is unluckily interrupted by Ruby, who just so happens to unluckily have an all powerful android girl with her, thwarting Roman's plans. But he manages to escape for a second time, adding evidence to his resistance.

V2:

Roman shows resistance in V2C4 yet again as though he unluckily loses his precious, newly-cleaned mech to a bullshit power up, he himself escapes unscathed.

Cinder when fighting Ruby in V2C7 is clearly about to overpower her, yet is unluckily interrupted by Ironwood and forced to retreat. Fortunately for her, she'd already accomplished her objective and established an escape route before Ruby came on to the scene and so wasn't otherwise affected.

The White Fang members and Roman in V2C10-11 were completely unaffected by her semblance. Now this might prove a barrier to my theory, but it's actually quite easily explainable: her aura was out from her huge fall and she thus wasn't able to use it. By the way this whole theory also explains how she's using her transformation/speed after that to briefly escape from Torchwick - magic isn't affected by aura levels.

Building off my previous mention of Weiss, she unluckily freezes in mid air for no apparent reason during her fight with Banesaw in V2C11, leading to him winning a fight she was otherwise stomping. Clear example of Ruby's semblance coming into play, since she's nearby.

In V2C12 her semblance affected roughly all of the Grimm in the Breach, rendering them unluckily unable to do anything but sit back and be killed. This is probably her biggest and most successful usage of it yet.

V3:

V3C1, the opponents weren't actually enemies and so they weren't subject to her semblance. Though Reese's sudden inability to land on her feet is rather questionable, so I could be wrong about this.

V3C5 has Ruby in the audience while Weiss is in the arena, and again Weiss completely and unluckily forgets how to fight, leading to her being destroyed by a trumpet weapon wielded by a living meme. Fortunately, after Weiss was knocked out, Ruby's semblance then went to affecting Neon, who - despite skating literally 24/7 - trips right into a geyser. Unlucky.

When it becomes apparent in V3C6 that Yang is about to lose to Mercury, it's clear Ruby takes matters into her own hands and uses her semblance on Mercury, seeing as he unluckily loses the ability to confirm that Yang is down and then unluckily forgets how to exist as anything except Yang's punching bag. This is really the only explanation for his actions (well, rational explanation. Some people will claim he threw the fight but that's fucking ridiculous lmao), and unfortunately it becomes a recurring theme with Mercury - he's never able to show his true potential due to Ruby's interference. Unlucky.

While it may not seem like Mercury is as affected in his V3C7 tussle with Ruby, he somehow forgets how to kick her out of her transformation despite doing so just seconds earlier, which allows her to escape him.

When Ruby isn't present Weiss actually wins against the Paladin in V3C11. She's competent when Ruby isn't around.

In V3C11, Neo's weapon (specifically how the blade functions) unluckily works completely differently from how it did in V2, and this change is in such a way that she's able to be flown off the ship by Ruby. Roman is then unluckily caught in the middle of monologuing while beating the shit out of Ruby and swallowed whole. I should note that Roman likely survived this: As I mentioned earlier, he's shown a remarkable resilience to Ruby's semblance in the past (quite possibly due to his own semblance - which Gray hinted we'd get. There's also a compelling theory out there that Roman is a cockroach faunus, which explains how he easily survives the train crash without aura up and how he survived this encounter with Ruby. It also makes his character much more compelling and puts his prior racism in an ironic light), and I don't see why this instance should be any different. I'd say it's safe to expect his return in V6 or 7.

The big one: In V312, Cinder is unlucky enough to kill Pyrrha right as Ruby appears, thus triggering her SE for the first time ever. That's true unluckiness.

V4:

The Geist in V4C1 is unlucky enough to fall for Jaune's genius strategy of "We hit it, harder." and is also unlucky enough to be the sole victim of Nora's new upgrade as she never ever uses it again even though it has very few downsides and buffs her considerably.

V4C4 - Ruby appears to affect herself for a second as she forgets how many people are with her despite traveling with them for 6+ months. Weird.

V4C6 - Another timely, out-of-nowhere intervention to save Ruby's life. Poor Tyrian.

In V4C7 Tyrian briefly forgets how to see, allowing Qrow to easily beat him up despite having no weapon at the time. Unlucky. And even though he earlier displays the ability to easily react to and block things coming from behind him (the bullets Ruby fires as well as Nora), he clearly forgets how to do so and as such gets his tail cut off. Poor Tyrian.

V5:

Weiss - when Ruby is far away - again manages to take a W against the Lancers in V5C2, further proving that she's actually competent when Ruby isn't there to fuck things up with her semblance. The Knight hitting the engine is curious - could just be standard unluckiness, or could be lingering effects after being around Ruby for so long.

Weiss unfortunately is again subject to Ruby's semblance in V5C11 and unluckily forgets that she has more options in her arsenal besides summoning, leading to her losing handily to Vernal.

Meanwhile, Emerald - while doing fine herself - is unlucky enough to have Ruby's eyes trigger while fighting her, putting Cinder in grave danger against even Jaune.

Next, in V5C13, Mercury unluckily forgets that he's primarily a kick-based fighter when facing off against Ruby and so gets headbutted.

Finally, in V5C13 Weiss gets back up and apparently off screen does fairly well for herself. If I had to guess, seeing her almost dead put shit in perspective for Ruby and she realized she actually cared for her. It'll be interesting to see if she has any bouts of unluckiness in the future.

Taking all this into account, Ruby's magic and true semblance should be clear. I mean, the only other explanation that would even sort of work is inconsistent writing... but lol that's obviously not it.

#rwby #rwby shitpost #ruby rose #please don't take this seriously #just have fun

[christinesumpmg]

Beyond Youtube: Video Hosting, Marketing, and Monetization Platforms, Compared

Posted by AnnSmarty

A few weeks ago I did a step-by-step article on building up your YouTube presence. When writing the article, I immediately had a follow-up idea on expanding my tips beyond YouTube. Since then, some of the comments have confirmed the need for this follow-up.

The increasing interest in video marketing and diversifying your efforts is not surprising: According to HubSpot’s research 45% of web users watch an hour or more of video per day. That’s a lot if time our customers spend watching videos! And it's projected that by 2020, 82% of all consumer web traffic will be video.

Obviously, if you are seriously entering the video marketing arena, limiting yourself to YouTube alone is not a smart idea, just like limiting yourself to any one marketing channel is probably never a good way to go.

With that in mind, what other options do we have?

More video hosting options

YouTube is not the only major video hosting platform out there. There are a few solid options that you want to consider. Here are three additional platforms and how they fit different needs:

YouTube

Vimeo Pro

Vimeo Business

Wistia

Cost

Free

$20 /m

$50 /m

$99 /m

What's included

Unlimited videos

20GB per week

5TB per week

10 videos a month

Lead generation

No

No

Yes

Yes

Customizable player

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Collaboration

No

No

Yes

No

Publish native to Facebook & Twitter

No

Yes

Yes

No

Clickable links

No(*)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domain-level privacy

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Analytics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes (**)

Video schema

No

No

No

Yes

Customer support

No(*)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cons

Crowded, no good way to send viewers to your site...

Often has issues with bandwidth; videos load slower. If you are looking for organic visibility, it's quite niche-specific (artists, etc.)

Most expensive

Best for

Anyone

Filmmakers

Agencies

Businesses

(*) Unless you become a YouTube Partner (which is next to impossible for new and medium-scale channels)

(**) I (as well as many reviewers) consider Wistia analytics much better than that of YouTube and Vimeo

Bottom line:

Choosing a video hosting platform is overwhelming but here are a few easy-to-digest takeaways from the above comparison:

YouTube is beyond competition. If you are into video marketing, you need to be there, at least for the sake of being discovered through their search and suggested videos. However, a YouTube account is only good for promoting the YouTube account. There's little chance to drive leads to your site or build solid income there. You do need to be there for branding, though. Besides, none of the other options will offer an opportunity for such a powerful organic spread.

If you are into creative film-making (artists and storytellers), you'll want to give Vimeo Pro a try. There's a big community there and you want to be part of it to find partners/clients.

If you are a video marketing agency, Vimeo Business may be your platform of choice (thanks to their collaboration and multi-user support)

If you mostly need videos to embed on your landing pages, Wistia will save you tons of time. It's the easiest to use and understand. No extra training needed. You don't have to be an experienced filmmaker OR marketer to understand how it works and use its analytics.

Video courses and on-demand video

These days, anyone can create their own on-demand video channel. Isn't it awesome? It's also a very smart way to monetize your videos without forcing your viewers into clicking any ads or buying any affiliate stuff you didn't create.

When consolidating your video marketing efforts into your own on-demand video channel, there are important goals to keep in mind (targeting at least several at a time being the smartest approach):

Creating a knowledge base around your product

Positioning your brand as a knowledge hub in your niche

Building up an additional conversion funnel (for those people who are not ready to buy yet)

To me, creating a video subscription channel seems to be a perfect way to monetize your video creation efforts for two very appealing reasons:

You create a product of your own which you are able to sell. With that comes an ocean of opportunities, from enhanced branding to an ability to expand your reach to many more platforms where you can sell your product from.

You build and nurture your own micro-community, which (if you do things right) are able to spread your word, refer more people to join and support you in your other endeavors.

With that in mind, which options do we have to create our own video course?

Not surprisingly, there are quite a few platforms that fall into two major groups:

Revenue sharing platforms. The power of those is that they are interested in selling your courses and there's usually a community to market your course to. That benefit also creates one major drawback: Expect these platforms to dictate you how to format and market your course. Udemy is the best known example here: I started using it mostly for branding and quickly got discouraged due to their multiple restrictions and poor customer support. Still, it's a good place to start.

VOD (video-on-demand) platforms. These will charge you a monthly fee but they will come with awesome marketing features and integrations, as well as total freedom as to what you want to do with your content and your audience. Like with anything, you get what you pay for.Uscreen is a big player here: You can choose your payment model, use your own domain, brand your course the way you want to, send email marketing emails to your students, and even create a custom smart phone app to give your students an alternative on-the-go way to consume your brand-owned content:

Bottom line:

Like with video marketing platforms, there's nothing preventing you from using both of the above options (for example, you can sell a lighter version of your course on Udemy and keep a more advanced, regularly updated version for your own domain) but just to give you an idea:

Udemy is best if you are very new to course creation and have no budget to start. It also makes it easy to keep an eye on competitors and understand your audience better by watching what and how they rate and review

Uscreen is a logical step further: Once you get more comfortable and have accumulated some videos you may want to bring it to the next level, i.e. create your own branded spot to engage your community better and build an alternative source of income.

Live streaming

Live streaming refers recording and simultaneously broadcasting your video to your audience in real time.

Live streaming has been getting bigger for a few years now and there's nothing that would signal an upcoming slow-down.

The biggest players here are:

YouTube Live

Facebook Live

Periscope

All the above options are very interactive and engaging: You can see your viewers' comments and reactions as you are streaming the video and you are able to address them right away.

In this case, your choice depends on your own marketing background: Stick to whatever channel currently works best for you in terms of follower/subscriber base and engagement.

Personally, Facebook is my preferred way to stream videos, not because of the actual audience size but because Facebook audience is more engaged. Besides, Facebook sends a notification to my friends whenever I go live which always results in more views.

But it's possible that we don't have to choose...

There are a couple of services that claim to stream "simultaneously" to several of the major platforms which is something I haven't tried yet but I am definitely planning to. If you like the idea, here's what I have been able to find so far:

Vimeo Live

Crowdcast Multistreams

Supported platforms

"Vimeo and Facebook, YouTube, or your favorite RTMP destinations"

"Facebook Live, Periscope, YouTube Live, and more"

Cost

$75 per month

$89 per month

Extra Pros

Comes with all Vimeo Business features (analytics, collaboration, hosting, etc.)

Comes with nice webinar hosting features

More tools to amplify your video marketing

In my previous article I listed lots of video creation and marketing tools and I didn't want to leave you with no tools here as well.

If you have read up to this point, you must be very serious about your video marketing efforts. So to award you, here are a few awesome tools you may want to take note of:

Create: Lumen5

Here's a nice tool I failed to mention in my previous post: Lumen5. If you are looking for an easy start for your video marketing campaign, take a look at this tool. It turns blog posts into videos and the result is pretty awesome.

I don't mean to say this tool is enough for a well-rounded video marketing campaign but it's definitely a nice way to re-package your text content and broadcast your articles to video-only channels, like Youtube and Vimeo.

Monetize: Patreon

Apart from selling your videos as a separate project, there's another cool way to monetize your video activity.

Patreon is nice platform aiming to help independent video creators: Set up your page and invite your social media followers to support your video creation efforts by a small monthly subscription. If you don't want to sell anything, that's a nice way to earn your living by engaging your supporters:

You can learn more on how it works from its current user here.

Monitor: Awario

There's never one perfect method of doing marketing. There's always a need to try different tools, formats and platforms. Monitoring your competitors is one great way to discover more of those tactics to play with.

Awario is a great solution to use for competitive multi-channel monitoring. They support all major media including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, blogs and more. You can easily filter out any channel to clear out clutter. YouTube monitoring is a life saver when it comes to keeping an eye on what your competitor is doing video-wise:

When it comes to video marketing, I am not aware of any other solution for monitoring video content.

Conclusion

You don’t have to limit yourself to YouTube for video hosting, but you cannot really do without YouTube altogether.

When it comes to YouTube, it’s a powerful video discovery engine but there’s not much you can do to direct those viewers to your own site. You need to be there to be discovered, though.

When it comes to other video hosting platforms, every solution serves its own purpose, so choose one that will serve your needs best.

If you want to consolidate your video marketing efforts (which is a smart and logical step further), create your own on-demand video channel. These days it’s pretty easy and affordable.

Video live streaming is a great way to earn organic social media visibility. Choose your platform to stream based on your current level of engagement and reach. Or, try paid solutions that allow to stream to multiple platforms simultaneously

Are there more tools and platforms you are using? Let us know in the comments!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2LsfKI3

#Beyond Youtube: Video Hosting #Marketing #and Monetization Platforms #Compared

[conniecogeie]

Beyond Youtube: Video Hosting, Marketing, and Monetization Platforms, Compared

Posted by AnnSmarty

A few weeks ago I did a step-by-step article on building up your YouTube presence. When writing the article, I immediately had a follow-up idea on expanding my tips beyond YouTube. Since then, some of the comments have confirmed the need for this follow-up.

The increasing interest in video marketing and diversifying your efforts is not surprising: According to HubSpot’s research 45% of web users watch an hour or more of video per day. That’s a lot if time our customers spend watching videos! And it's projected that by 2020, 82% of all consumer web traffic will be video.

Obviously, if you are seriously entering the video marketing arena, limiting yourself to YouTube alone is not a smart idea, just like limiting yourself to any one marketing channel is probably never a good way to go.

With that in mind, what other options do we have?

More video hosting options

YouTube is not the only major video hosting platform out there. There are a few solid options that you want to consider. Here are three additional platforms and how they fit different needs:

YouTube

Vimeo Pro

Vimeo Business

Wistia

Cost

Free

$20 /m

$50 /m

$99 /m

What's included

Unlimited videos

20GB per week

5TB per week

10 videos a month

Lead generation

No

No

Yes

Yes

Customizable player

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Collaboration

No

No

Yes

No

Publish native to Facebook & Twitter

No

Yes

Yes

No

Clickable links

No(*)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domain-level privacy

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Analytics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes (**)

Video schema

No

No

No

Yes

Customer support

No(*)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cons

Crowded, no good way to send viewers to your site...

Often has issues with bandwidth; videos load slower. If you are looking for organic visibility, it's quite niche-specific (artists, etc.)

Most expensive

Best for

Anyone

Filmmakers

Agencies

Businesses

(*) Unless you become a YouTube Partner (which is next to impossible for new and medium-scale channels)

(**) I (as well as many reviewers) consider Wistia analytics much better than that of YouTube and Vimeo

Bottom line:

Choosing a video hosting platform is overwhelming but here are a few easy-to-digest takeaways from the above comparison:

YouTube is beyond competition. If you are into video marketing, you need to be there, at least for the sake of being discovered through their search and suggested videos. However, a YouTube account is only good for promoting the YouTube account. There's little chance to drive leads to your site or build solid income there. You do need to be there for branding, though. Besides, none of the other options will offer an opportunity for such a powerful organic spread.

If you are into creative film-making (artists and storytellers), you'll want to give Vimeo Pro a try. There's a big community there and you want to be part of it to find partners/clients.

If you are a video marketing agency, Vimeo Business may be your platform of choice (thanks to their collaboration and multi-user support)

If you mostly need videos to embed on your landing pages, Wistia will save you tons of time. It's the easiest to use and understand. No extra training needed. You don't have to be an experienced filmmaker OR marketer to understand how it works and use its analytics.

Video courses and on-demand video

These days, anyone can create their own on-demand video channel. Isn't it awesome? It's also a very smart way to monetize your videos without forcing your viewers into clicking any ads or buying any affiliate stuff you didn't create.

When consolidating your video marketing efforts into your own on-demand video channel, there are important goals to keep in mind (targeting at least several at a time being the smartest approach):

Creating a knowledge base around your product

Positioning your brand as a knowledge hub in your niche

Building up an additional conversion funnel (for those people who are not ready to buy yet)

To me, creating a video subscription channel seems to be a perfect way to monetize your video creation efforts for two very appealing reasons:

You create a product of your own which you are able to sell. With that comes an ocean of opportunities, from enhanced branding to an ability to expand your reach to many more platforms where you can sell your product from.

You build and nurture your own micro-community, which (if you do things right) are able to spread your word, refer more people to join and support you in your other endeavors.

With that in mind, which options do we have to create our own video course?

Not surprisingly, there are quite a few platforms that fall into two major groups:

Revenue sharing platforms. The power of those is that they are interested in selling your courses and there's usually a community to market your course to. That benefit also creates one major drawback: Expect these platforms to dictate you how to format and market your course. Udemy is the best known example here: I started using it mostly for branding and quickly got discouraged due to their multiple restrictions and poor customer support. Still, it's a good place to start.

VOD (video-on-demand) platforms. These will charge you a monthly fee but they will come with awesome marketing features and integrations, as well as total freedom as to what you want to do with your content and your audience. Like with anything, you get what you pay for.Uscreen is a big player here: You can choose your payment model, use your own domain, brand your course the way you want to, send email marketing emails to your students, and even create a custom smart phone app to give your students an alternative on-the-go way to consume your brand-owned content:

Bottom line:

Like with video marketing platforms, there's nothing preventing you from using both of the above options (for example, you can sell a lighter version of your course on Udemy and keep a more advanced, regularly updated version for your own domain) but just to give you an idea:

Udemy is best if you are very new to course creation and have no budget to start. It also makes it easy to keep an eye on competitors and understand your audience better by watching what and how they rate and review

Uscreen is a logical step further: Once you get more comfortable and have accumulated some videos you may want to bring it to the next level, i.e. create your own branded spot to engage your community better and build an alternative source of income.

Live streaming

Live streaming refers recording and simultaneously broadcasting your video to your audience in real time.

Live streaming has been getting bigger for a few years now and there's nothing that would signal an upcoming slow-down.

The biggest players here are:

YouTube Live

Facebook Live

Periscope

All the above options are very interactive and engaging: You can see your viewers' comments and reactions as you are streaming the video and you are able to address them right away.

In this case, your choice depends on your own marketing background: Stick to whatever channel currently works best for you in terms of follower/subscriber base and engagement.

Personally, Facebook is my preferred way to stream videos, not because of the actual audience size but because Facebook audience is more engaged. Besides, Facebook sends a notification to my friends whenever I go live which always results in more views.

But it's possible that we don't have to choose...

There are a couple of services that claim to stream "simultaneously" to several of the major platforms which is something I haven't tried yet but I am definitely planning to. If you like the idea, here's what I have been able to find so far:

Vimeo Live

Crowdcast Multistreams

Supported platforms

"Vimeo and Facebook, YouTube, or your favorite RTMP destinations"

"Facebook Live, Periscope, YouTube Live, and more"

Cost

$75 per month

$89 per month

Extra Pros

Comes with all Vimeo Business features (analytics, collaboration, hosting, etc.)

Comes with nice webinar hosting features

More tools to amplify your video marketing

In my previous article I listed lots of video creation and marketing tools and I didn't want to leave you with no tools here as well.

If you have read up to this point, you must be very serious about your video marketing efforts. So to award you, here are a few awesome tools you may want to take note of:

Create: Lumen5

Here's a nice tool I failed to mention in my previous post: Lumen5. If you are looking for an easy start for your video marketing campaign, take a look at this tool. It turns blog posts into videos and the result is pretty awesome.

I don't mean to say this tool is enough for a well-rounded video marketing campaign but it's definitely a nice way to re-package your text content and broadcast your articles to video-only channels, like Youtube and Vimeo.

Monetize: Patreon

Apart from selling your videos as a separate project, there's another cool way to monetize your video activity.

Patreon is nice platform aiming to help independent video creators: Set up your page and invite your social media followers to support your video creation efforts by a small monthly subscription. If you don't want to sell anything, that's a nice way to earn your living by engaging your supporters:

You can learn more on how it works from its current user here.

Monitor: Awario

There's never one perfect method of doing marketing. There's always a need to try different tools, formats and platforms. Monitoring your competitors is one great way to discover more of those tactics to play with.

Awario is a great solution to use for competitive multi-channel monitoring. They support all major media including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, blogs and more. You can easily filter out any channel to clear out clutter. YouTube monitoring is a life saver when it comes to keeping an eye on what your competitor is doing video-wise:

When it comes to video marketing, I am not aware of any other solution for monitoring video content.

Conclusion

You don’t have to limit yourself to YouTube for video hosting, but you cannot really do without YouTube altogether.

When it comes to YouTube, it’s a powerful video discovery engine but there’s not much you can do to direct those viewers to your own site. You need to be there to be discovered, though.

When it comes to other video hosting platforms, every solution serves its own purpose, so choose one that will serve your needs best.

If you want to consolidate your video marketing efforts (which is a smart and logical step further), create your own on-demand video channel. These days it’s pretty easy and affordable.

Video live streaming is a great way to earn organic social media visibility. Choose your platform to stream based on your current level of engagement and reach. Or, try paid solutions that allow to stream to multiple platforms simultaneously

Are there more tools and platforms you are using? Let us know in the comments!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2LsfKI3

#Beyond Youtube: Video Hosting #Marketing #and Monetization Platforms #Compared