#also i typed this directly in tumblr and almost hit the power screen on my computer instead of backspace

[redrobin-detective]

because I could not stop for death

because I could not stop for death / he kindly stopped for me / the carriage held but just ourselves / and immortality ~ Emily Dickinson

Danny Fenton was dying, properly this time.

Somehow, in the back of his head and in his worst nightmares, he knew it would end this way: bleeding on the floor of his parents’ lab where it had all began. He was so hot he felt like his skin was on fire, blood and ectoplasm were dripping all over him and his lungs and heart were working overtime to try in vain to keep him alive a moment longer. He’d imagined at the time that there would be more screaming but death, in the end, was turning out to be a quiet little affair. A lonely table set for one.

“Danny, Danny come on, you-you gotta slow down your breathing, just relax, for me, please,” Sam moaned, more than making up for his lack of noise. She was shaking and touching him all over, his chest, his face, his hair. Normally she jumped right into action but she had to know, deep down, that there was nothing she could do. All that was left was to watch her panic and cry, it wasn’t his favorite image. 

“Vlad!” He heard Tucker scream cry into the phone, “please it’s Tucker, Danny’s dying I think. The Fentons had some new invention, something about his core, please we don’t know what to do!” 

Ugh Vlad, he was probably going to be so happy Danny was on his way out. He wasn’t looking much forward to his last images being his archenemy gloating. Tucker hung up and reached down to grasp Danny’s hand so hard it hurt. “Don’t worry dude, Vlad’s coming. He knows so much about you half ghosts that you’ll be fixed up on no time.” Right, Danny was already dead. If calling Vlad, feeling like he did something, helped Tucker move on then he’d deal with it.

Danny tilted his head to the side where Sam’s fingernails were carding through his hair. It was getting harder to see with the blood pouring out of his eyes but he looked at her, and tried to memorize her face. He’d never been able to tell her how much he loved her, that any day spent with her was a blessing. Tucker too, his best bro and a part of his soul. His best friends in the whole wide world, through thick and thin. God, he was going to miss them.

“Glurk,” he said, trying to convey those feeling but the fluids in his mouth and airway made it impossible. “Blerh.”

“Shh shh shh,” Sam soothed, “it’s okay, don’t try to talk.”

“Daniel!” He heard Vlad’s voice shriek as he materialized in front of the portal. Sam and Tucker were violently pushed out the way. Danny wanted to be angry at his loved ones being taken away in his final moments but anger was for the living, he barely had the energy to breathe. This death was too long and too short all at once. He made eye contact with Vlad who all at once lost the frantic edge to his tone and and instead knelt on the floor. “Oh my dear boy. What did they do to you?”

“What is going on?” Sam demanded, shoving her way back in. Danny was glad, he could see again like this. “Why aren’t you doing something!”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Vlad said in a flat, monotone, he picked up one of Danny’s hands and patted it gently. “His core is dying, it’s like a ghost’s heart. It contains their very essence, it is from which everything they are comes from. If Jack and Maddie somehow disrupted it then there’s nothing anyone can do to save him.”

“But he’s human too,” Tucker defended, grabbing Danny’s other hand. His human warm skin burned but the contact felt so good, he twitched his fingers closer to his friend’s. “He-he doesn’t need a core, he’s already got a heart. So, so he doesn’t have powers, we can do normal again.”

“You-” Vlad hissed before taking a calming breath. “The accident that made Daniel like this irreparably altered him. His core was as much a part of keeping him alive as his other organs, without it, his body is shutting down.” Vlad turned down to look Danny in the eye and saw true, genuine grief in those hateful red eyes. 

“I cannot imagine the agony you are going through, I’m so sorry. I’d say it will be over soon but,” a hitch that sounded almost like a sob if it was coming from anyone other than Vlad. “But you’ve hovered on the edge of death for years, son, and you’ve always been such a fighter. You have minutes at most but those minutes are an eternity when you’re suffering.”

Sam and Tucker’s sobbing blended together in the background, Vlad was saying something with a miserable, stunned expression. The swirling of the portal in the background seemed louder than anything, louder than his heart beat pounding and pounding as it ran it’s last race. 

“Daniel, Danny,” he focused his eyes back on Vlad who had a stubborn, unhappy set to his brow. “Do you want me to make the pain stop? An ectoblast to your chest will end your life instantly.”

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Sam shrieked, coming back into view and looking like she was trying to fight Vlad off. “You do anything to him and I’ll kill you!” Tucker just sat and stared at him, like he too was trying memorize Danny’s face.

“It’s a mercy, Samantha or do you want his last moments on earth to be drowning on the blood in his lungs.”

“Sam, he has a point. I don’t- I don’t think we can fix this.”

“No! No we always fix things, I’ll do it myself if I have to!”

Danny’s vision was starting to go, more black than anything else. He closed his eyes and readied himself for the inevitable. 

“Time Out,” Danny opened his eyes and found he was no longer in pain. He was standing up and apart from where he’d previously been lying. Sam had her hands in Vlad’s face and the older hybrid was snarling something at her. Tucker was midmotion trying to stand up, presumably to get Sam but the three of them were frozen in the moment. Danny turned and found Clockwork floating, looking very out of place in his parents lab. “Good evening, Danny.”

“You that short on cash that you work part time as a grim reaper?” Danny quipped out of habit. He looked down at his body and grimaced a bit, that wasn’t a pretty sight. No doubt traumatizing for Tucker and Sam. God how were they going to explain this to his parents? “Gonna ferry me across the River Styx? I don’t have two pennies but I think I have a bloodied $10 on me.”

“You’re core is dying and you have 17 seconds left in this world before all your organs give out and finish the process you began when you turned on your parent’s ghost portal,” Clockwork explained as he changed into child form. 

“O-okay,” Danny said shakily, trying to be brave even when he was so, so scared. He was going out whether he wanted it or not but he refused to leave crying. “Nice of you to come say goodbye then but, uh but unless you have something to say then you should let me go back. No one knows better than me that you can’t outrun death. Thanks but I’m uh I’m ready.”

Clockwork stared at him for a bit, not sure how long, time was weird like this but he changed forms a few times. “You’re quite the remarkable young man, Danny Fenton.”

“Uh thanks,” Danny added, once more looking at his body which had, according to Clockwork, a 17 second expiration date. “What’s going to happen? Am I going to become a ghost? Does heaven or hell exist for someone like me?”

“I don’t get to decide what happens, I merely see options,” Clockwork stated easily, taking his time. “If you die naturally you’ll become ghost, a mere shadow of who you are now and one who would fade fairly quickly. You don’t have strong enough anger or regrets to tie you in the real world for long.” Not great but okay he supposed, hell for his friends and family though. “You could let Plasmius deliver his mercy kill, destroying what’s left of your ghost core and ensuring you do not come back.” Better, probably won’t help the Fruitloop’s instability but he can’t save everyone.

“That one comes with it’s own caveat but I’ll get to that in a moment,” Clockwork explained. “There is a third option where you get up off the floor and walk away.” Danny blinked then looked back at his body which certainly wasn’t walking anywhere but into a plush casket. Clockwork opened his hands and the Ghost King’s Crown materialized in his hands. “If you accept your claim to the King’s Cown, it will revitalize your core and your life would be saved.”

Danny blinked.

“By sealing Pariah Dark, you won by proxy and established a legitimate claim to the throne. The Zone has been without a king for millennia, most have forgotten the old rules. Those who remembered were not too keen on a half-ghost child assuming leadership and kept you in the dark. If Plasmius ends your life then your claim transfers over to him, which he is aware of. It had been his plan all along to trick you into defeating Pariah so he could steal the Crown from you at a later date, a much easier opponent.”

Danny’s mind was overloaded with information, he didn’t know what to focus on first. He stared at his 17 seconds from death face and tried to process it all. Crown? Claim? Vlad?

“Of course,” Clockwork tutted, “he didn’t plan on your dying and in such a gruesome fashion. If he kills you and takes your claim, he would spend his remaining years ruling the Ghost Zone in a just, controlled fashion for your memory. He destroys all the stable portals and keeps the ghost and human worlds separate.” Clockwork became and old man and titled his head, “it’s not a bad timeline, all things considered.”

“And if I take it?” Danny asked quietly.

“You’re compassionate, brave and motivated, you have all the makings of a revolutionary king,” Clockwork smiled. “The Zone would experience and unprecedented era of peace, there would be positive interactions between human and ghosts for the first time since life and death split into two. Your name would spoken with reverence for the rest of time.”

“But I don’t want to be king,” Danny frowned.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Clockwork stated. “Which is why I am giving you the choice. If you pass peacefully there will be no one to claim the Crown and life will continue on, ghost attacks and all. If Plasmius kills you, he becomes an effective but unmemorable king. If you take the Crown, you can get the chance to tell Sam and Tucker how much you love them.”

Danny rubbed at his face, he didn’t want to die but he’d be sealing away his entire future with a move like this. He didn’t even know if the Crown would let him go with death, maybe he’d die and be stuck as the Ghost King until his core finally gave out lord in who knows how long. Eternity was an awful long time to carry such a responsibility. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, too afraid of the answer.

“Is there ever a timeline I became an astronaut?” He asked instead. Clockwork hummed, seemingly unsurprised by Danny’s non-sequitur. 

“Yes, in one of the few universes where you never walked into the portal. You never go into space what with human politics putting a halt on the programs but you work for NASA. You leave Amity Park at 17 and don’t come back save for your parents’ dual funeral.” He paused and Danny felt read down to his very bones, “from the moment you became half ghost you were always heading for this moment. The circumstances varied but it always came down to you and the Crown. Time is straining to continue, to see how this drama plays out. Will you accept it and all the joy and grief that comes with it?”

Danny looked over at Vlad, still mid-sneer but there was a scared desperation in his face. He and Vlad sniped at each other all the time but Danny didn’t really hate him and he didn’t think Vlad did either. Leaving him alone, plus making him be king was a heavy burden to put on his enemy. 

Sam and Tuck probably wouldn’t recover from this, he’d put them through so much already but he just knew that they’d never be the same. Could he do that to them? Take the easy way out and leave them to suffer? Mom and Dad didn’t deserve to come home to a dead son, the truth would come out and they’d never forgive themselves. Jazz certainly wouldn’t, she was 2 states over at University but he could already hear her angry, grief-stricken screams. 

Death, death was quiet. It was quiet and merciful and sad, but it was also easy. And Danny Fenton had never once taken the easy route. He reached out and took and the crown before shakily placing it on his head. He gasped, throwing his head back as his core swelled, taking up residence once more right next to his heart. Clockwork smiled, looking like the cat who ate the canary. 

“The Crown of Fire, pardon me the Crown changes with each core, the Crown of Ice is now yours as is the Zone. Your reign begins now but so too does the rest of your life. People are waiting for you. Time in.” Danny slammed back into awareness on the floor of his parents’ lab, the floor he’d almost died on twice. 

He sat up as cold radiated off his body, causing frost to crawl down his arms and along the floor. Sam, Tucker and Vlad, who’d been frozen up until now, jumped back to life. There was a new, familiar weight on his head that he didn’t dare acknowledge. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent goodbye to a quiet, normal life. It wouldn’t be all bad, he could be happy like this but the Crown still felt like a iron manacle around his neck. But he got used to the ghost powers, he could get used to this too. Maybe one day he won’t look at the stars and say ‘what if?’

“Danny!” Sam shouted, throwing herself into his arms soon followed by Tucker. Their warm weight, their relieved sobs, their shaky breaths in his air, now this was something worth living for. He squeezed them tightly.

“But how dude, you were at death’s door!” Tucker asked, still not letting go.

“You accepted the Crown,” Vlad said evenly, “I wasn’t aware you even knew about your claim. Who told you?”

“You don’t know everything, Vlad,” Danny sighed, sitting himself upright. Ugh his shirt was covered in blood and ectoplasm. He needed to trash these clothes before his parents freaked. And find a way to hide the floating ice crown on his head. 

“Even an old man can be surprised every now and again,” Vlad said wearily. He stood up to his full height before startling Danny by dipping down to one knee. “Then allow me to be the first to welcome my new king and wish him well.”

“I thought you wanted this,” Danny questioned.

“I do, I did,” Vlad said, unusually off balance. “To be quite honest, I’m not sure how to feel about it but, right now, I’m just immeasurably happy you’re alive, little badger. Now I best be off, enjoy your kingdom, my liege, I’ll be sure to come bother you some time soon.” Vlad disappeared in a swirl of pink leaving just him, Sam and Tucker still clinging to him.

Danny may have a kingdom, a job he didn’t want and his whole life decided in a spur of the moment choice, but he also had something very important. He squeezed his friends tightly.

“I love you guys, thank you for being my friends even though I have the worst ideas for activities. Dying? On a Sunday night? How lame is that?” Sam laughed, a bit hysterical but it was real and it made Danny feel weightless. 

“Don’t do that again, buddy,” Tucker breathed into his shoulder. “So you gonna explain what just happened and why you’re apparently the Ghost King or something?”

“Yeah, yeah I will but let’s get changed first. Mom and Dad will be home soon and I think I’m going to need to have a conversation with them about my new job.” 

#danny phantom #i was watching forever phantom and said 'i should kill danny' and then i fucking didn't #im obsessed with ghost king danny as end game #Im not sure this is the route I would want to go but I want him to end up woth tje crown #its bitter sweet bc its a *lifelong (possibly afterlife) commitment that he didnt get a choice in #he will be happy and he will be a good king but it wasnt his choice and he'll always regret it a little #i love clockwork but he's a bit shady and will always work in favor of the timeline #anyway happy fucking sunday bitches #have some homemade angst #also i typed this directly in tumblr and almost hit the power screen on my computer instead of backspace #god was trying to stop me from publishing but i overcame #Only did one quick edit Im too tired to care anymore #lmk if you want it on ao3

[scgdoeswhat]

Unpacking The Elementalists Finale

I’d like to dedicate this to my dear Kane anon (and other TE anons) who have been hitting my ask box up for the last several months. I’m sorry this took forever to get out and I know it doesn’t ease the fact that they ixnayed Kane, but hopefully this makes a little more sense of TE’s abrupt ending.

Without further ado...

I’ve been wanting to make this post since Book 2 Chapter 10, but life has been hectic. TE’s finale finally forced my hand and so here I am, with a bunch of theories, points, and thoughts I've had noted since the book came back from its hiatus. First off, now that TE is officially over (😭) we now know that the hiatus was primarily used to tie up all the loose story lines and to give us a tidy ending. The writing in the second half of the book was more solid, concise, and had a clear cut vision of what the writers wanted and where the plot was headed. As much as I hate to say it, the first half of the book may have been overly ambitious. They introduced the Moral Compass, potentially two villains in Kane and Alma, and a plethora of different storylines. I had a number of people tell me through the first five/six chapters of Book 2 that they were confused with the plot because it became too convoluted and hard to follow along. I think they introduced too many elements into the story, which dragged down the arc. Let’s break down some of these individually: The Moral Compass was something we were all excited to see implemented, because it gave us the potential to be an evil MC. In the end, we know it didn’t make much of a difference, save for dialogue and/or violent options. I think this was originally something intended to be greater than what it amounted to, and part of it is the limitations of the medium that the app is and simply, resources. This also ties into…. The plot involving Kane and Alma. I don’t believe having Kane as the Big Bad was supposed to be as defined as it ended up being. The two Sources were written far more ambiguous in the beginning, with the chance that depending on your choices, you could side with either one by the end of the book and/or series. The hiatus streamlined the plot, discarding elements that were difficult to pull off, including multiple MC point of views that may have held the possibility of being evil or choosing Kane, therefore placing Alma as the antagonist. In a narrative story app such as Choices (as opposed to Lovestruck, where the routes have the same players but different stories altogether), I just don’t think this advanced storytelling would have been doable. These plots are primarily linear, and MC being evil/with Kane/etc, it would present a different set of problems, including the fact that this becomes an entirely different story while there is supposed to be one solid ending. (For what it's worth, I enjoy the MC customizability of Choices more.) Looking at the group of friends, obviously Beckett was incredibly fleshed out while the others were not as much. I wanted to delve further into our friends’ backgrounds a bit more, and I think at the beginning of the book, we were on that path. Aster and her wood nymph family was a perfect example of table setting. We had two or three scenes before the hiatus to go to the forest, and I thought the Wand Wars and their involvement against Kane was slated to be more prominent. I think the writers had something bigger planned, but how would it all tie in if players started choosing the evil choices? Again, having too many choices causes a domino effect that makes it nearly impossible to navigate when the story is supposed to end with a particular goal in mind. The chapter where we can receive the wand was a symptom of ending the book early and I think the execution of the actual Wand Wars scene was lacking the emotional punch the initial introduction of it warranted. This is unfortunate because the setup they had in Book 1 made it seem much more violent, disastrous, and full of hate compared to what was shown (i.e. Attuned just being greedy bastards). We were introduced to Shreya's Serene & Sublime business and the potential of family disapproval and lack of support in the beginning, but everything was tied up with the gala chapter. Looking back, I was curious why it was so easy to get so many financial backers this early into the series, but knowing that TE only went for two books makes much more sense why we knew whether S&S succeeded or failed. (Tangent - for anyone who didn't secure backing, is S&S successful at the end of the book?) I think Griffin, his scholarship, and his decision between Natural Sciences and Thief was also slated to be a bigger subplot. We never met his parents, despite them being brought up very early in Book 1. If TE had gone the originally planned three or four books, I have no doubt his family would've been introduced and MC would have needed to help sway his parents (and the committee for the scholarship) whether Griffin continued on the NS or professional Thief path. Doing the Griffin scenes (even as platonic friends) influenced his standing for the scholarship and not doing them made him lose out to Amy, if I'm not mistaken. Question for everyone regarding Zeph and the Thief captaincy: Does he get it in everyone's playthrough? I wonder if the writers always planned for Zeph to get the captaincy or if Griff would have kept it depending on your playthrough if they had all four books to use. Another big plot point that resolved itself out of nowhere was Atlas and MC butting heads over their Sun Source mother. I was not a fan of this storyline at all. I felt like the disagreements between the siblings was unnecessary drama that came off as forced. They tried to explain Atlas' position, and I understood where they were coming from, but Atlas was very unreasonable with their constant “who cares about mom” shtick.

I think this was something that could have been more impactful if there weren't so many plotlines happening and more focus could have been given to it instead of a few screens of Atlas saying they were pissed off before storming away from MC. This was also a plotline that was directly influenced by the Kane/Alma decisions. If MC sides with Kane, it makes much more sense for MC and Atlas to be against each other as opposed to MC being good/siding with Alma.

Five major subplots were opened, but how do you seamlessly weave these elements into a 17-19 chapter book? In my opinion, you can't. Each time something new was introduced, I felt things were glossed over, despite big chunks of chapters being focused on whichever subplot the chapter was about. Throw in the romance and I think it is nearly impossible to resolve each aspect in a complete manner.

What also hurt was the pacing of the series. This was also seen in Book 1, where sometimes a chapter would span one or two days, only for a huge time jump to occur in the next chapter.

So many ideas could have been explored through the course of four books (which is what I believe they had planned), but all the different elements should have been introduced at different times. Instead, Book 2 was an amalgamation of so many ideas but not enough time, space, or resources to thoroughly hash out and have a satisfactory resolution. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was having too much Beckett that hurt the series. He obviously kept the series afloat and was one of PB's biggest moneymakers in recent history. Despite the constant complaints on tumblr, people fail to realize that the ENTIRE online fandom (FB, IG, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Wiki) comprises maybe 0.5% - 2% of the ENTIRE player fan base. It only made sense that PB capitalized on him because their numbers dictated that the resources should be spent in that manner. The fallout from this was that Beckett was the only one who had his storyline relatively complete, and that was due to the spending power of everyone who romanced him. I think what hurt them the most was the multiple storylines and the indecision of which direction they wanted to go. They had a grand idea of the direction through Book 2 (and Book 3, let’s not lie here) but in-game mechanics and the type of game Choices is made it difficult to pull off. The app wasn’t the correct medium for what they envisioned. In my opinion, the overall story arc had the potential to be brilliant, but again, the app wasn't designed for the type of story the writers wanted to tell.

I also think the timing and having a very short turnaround hurt, as well. Players had high expectations and when you factor in the hype around the other books that were also released on Fridays, TE lost some of its sparkle. Most players didn’t get a chance to miss it for the regular 2-3 months we’ve been trained to wait for sequels. (I recognize that I’m an anomaly and the previous three sentences do not apply to me at all.)

Even with all this, I applaud the writing team for wanting to deliver a story that was worthy of a magical world. I love all the Pend Pals (‘Motley Crue’ for me), the familiars, the side characters, loved to hate the villains, and from someone who is not into Harry Potter lore at all, I was absolutely sucked into the magick universe that the writers built. (Metal Att for life ⚙!)

If TE does return in the future (and I REALLY hope it does), I think it will be even stronger than the first two books because the world building is complete. We know almost everything we need to know now. Instead of using a Book 3 to search for Sun Mama, the family is complete, MC and Atlas are attuned to all the elements, and there are so many open-ended questions that Book 2 left us.

If they implement a time jump where MC and the Pend Pals are all post grad/mid 20s, it also gives the writers a chance to move the story from the Young Adult genre to a more mature setting. We saw this in the later diamond scenes, where the writing appeared similar in their vividness (and coding in the final scene - THANK YOU, glorious writing team) to Open Heart, Bloodbound, and A Courtesan of Rome. This removes the restrictions placed on the group of being college kids, and therefore are almost fully developed with their magick, giving the possibility of moving the story out of a university setting.

If you've made it all the way here to the bottom, thank you for sticking with me and apologies for spelling/grammar since this has all been on my phone 😂 I think this comprises almost all my notes I've been keeping for the last 2 months. Feel free to agree or disagree; I just wanted to post my thoughts on this book and series that I love so much.

Now, I'm going to go back to my holiday (don't worry, I didn't write all of this while on vacay lol) and I'll try to answer asks when I have downtime.

#the elementalists #beckett harrington #shreya mistry #griffin langley #aster d'yew #playchoices #choices #beckett x mc #griffin x mc #shreya x mc #aster x mc #zeph hernandez #atlas ernhardt #te

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, May 24 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles I came across since the early May report, although some may be older than that. Due to a need to get my taxes filed, and a continued busy jewellery business, I don’t expect to be able to do another update for a few weeks. You can follow me on Twitter for important breaking news, though! 

Have any topics you would like to see me cover in more detail? Drop me a line here on Tumblr, or email me through my website.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Small businesses can survive the pandemic and beyond, if they learn to provide what customers are now looking for. From desks to 3-D printed face shields, to including toilet paper on your takeout menu, to moving online, acting quickly has given these businesses hope. ABC also did a piece on this topic. [text & video; mentions Etsy & masks] Here’s another article discussing adapting to pandemic ecommerce “new normal”, with interviews with staff from Etsy, TechStyle and Zulily.

Ecommerce is about to get way more competitive (it probably is already), & arguably the retailers who will succeed are the ones who already put plans in action, including advertising plans. (mentions Shopify, Google Shopping & Etsy.)

Facebook and Instagram will now have “Facebook Shops”, which are free to set up. Sounds like it will be a slow rollout, though. Many take this as direct competition for marketplace sites such as Etsy, but it will probably also have a large impact on small website builder sites such as Indiemade. 

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy’s first quarter for 2020 was good, but April was astonishing by any standards; I covered it all here. 

Etsy Payments will soon be available to sellers in Turkey, Malaysia, & Mexico. This will likely be welcome news to sellers in Turkey in particular, who haven’t had an easy way to accept payment for Etsy orders since PayPal left Turkey a few years back. It looks like this move will be optional at the moment for those 3 countries, unlike those of us who are forced to use EP if it is available in our countries. 

Etsy gave some listing credits and ad credits to shops who had substantially lower than normal sales in late March through April; the credits don’t kick in until July, though. 

Etsy is beta-testing a new listing video tool. You can join here; if you want more info first, here are some details. Note that the videos must be quite short, and will not include sound. 

Etsy is still getting some good traction from the face mask initiative: “I would argue they were just in the right place at the right time," says Kodali. "When you think of who is able to consolidate the power of a million sewers in the country, the only answer is Etsy."  However, they are also getting some criticism for masks taking forever to arrive, if at all. The slow customer support is also annoying many of these new customers that the CEO was so happy to attract, with little to no response from Etsy. 

The Wall Street Journal did a well-received article on people buying food (mostly baked goods) on Etsy [paywall]. Other sources have picked it up, although some are a bit skeptical about safety. 

More trend info directly from Etsy: first, summer at-home ideas with Dayna Isom Johnson [podcast links with transcript]. It also covers what to do for socially-distanced celebrations. “[P]eople are taking what they would typically do for a birthday, but then doing it virtually. So many people love paint night parties and I've actually seen quite a few paint kits that Etsy sellers are creating. It’s a wonderful way to celebrate your birthday and still have that experience of expressing your creativity and having fun with your friends, but just through a screen.” Also, “tie-dye is blazing hot right now.”

Second, craft supply sellers get their own trend article for a change. Supply searches close to doubled in April, with “346% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “diy”. Many buyers are making their own masks with supplies from Etsy; “2,089% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “elastic”. Do read the whole article if you want to spin your shop in this direction, as there is a lot of good info included. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google pushed out a core algorithm update starting May 4, which finished rolling out on May 18. It seems fairly large, maybe the biggest in some time, and may have hit more areas than other recent core updates. They did take some criticism for releasing it during a pandemic. Possible targets aren’t agreed on yet by the people tracking it, but could include cryptocurrency, travel, real estate, health, tech, finance & dating. Or maybe we shouldn’t rush to pick winners & losers so quickly? News media changes may be affected by the regular algorithm reaction to people reading a lot more news these days, and some ecommerce companies had a boom that could affect their rankings. This article discusses Etsy among other companies, who might have benefitted from the update. [I’m not sure on the Etsy complaints, as I have been seeing multiple links for some searches for well over a year now.]

Link building is generally the hardest part of Google SEO, in part because you aren’t allowed to do any of the obvious things that might get you easy links. Anyone confused about the rules & the benefits should check out this guide for 2020. 

While you can learn a lot from general SEO guides, if you have a Shopify site, this guide provides some specific SEO tips. 

LinkedIn managed to de-index itself from Google on May 6, at least for the United States. Here’s one theory. Well-paid webmasters for major internet companies can still screw up, it turns out. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

If you are one of those organized marketers who plans their campaigns ahead of time, here are 5 content marketing ideas for June. 

With so many people not working as much as usual, this might be a good time to start a podcast. Gizmodo has compiled instructions on doing it cheaply.  

The best time to send an email depends on the purpose of the email. For example, “General site traffic emails have always been most effective mid-week — mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Mondays and Fridays tend not to perform as well” while “A general awareness campaign can be sent almost any time to be effective.”

Refreshing your evergreen content can be more productive than producing new content. That has some really good ideas for many types of businesses produce

Facebook bought Giphy, and while it will still be available to people without Facebook-owned accounts, it will be integrated directly with Instagram. 

Instagram is testing new fonts in its Stories feature. 

Twitter is enabling users to see how many people quoted a tweet, but so far only on IOS. They also have a new test where you control who can reply to your tweets. 

LinkedIn is rolling out both video events and polls, but maybe it is too late to get a big bump from either change? 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Online advertising can be expensive; here are some stats on the cost of various search engine ad clicks as well as a bit on social media. 

Google Merchant accounts now let you compare your prices to other sites and also look at trends in clicks. 

Here is a good brief overview of the new free Google Shopping listings, including the 3 main reasons the author believes Google made this change. Here is another much longer overview, with screenshots for those not in the US, and info on how to set this up for your website. The PayPal integration is now available. 

Online advertising clicks seem to be bouncing back from the worst of the pandemic, according to several sources, including this one. It is still far too early to tell if this will last, however. 

YouTube has re-conceived its premium ad program, now called YouTube Select.  

If you have ads that slow down people’s computers or drain batteries by being too “resource-heavy”, note that Chrome is going to begin blocking those in August. “Chrome will filter ads based on the following thresholds: 4MB of network data or 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30 second period, or 60 seconds of total CPU usage.”

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

Seeing all hits to one page in Google Analytics is a lot easier if you exclude the URL query parameters (but note that sometimes they are useful, such as for various pages on Etsy.) If you like the idea of filtering your GA results in general, here is another tutorial on that. 

If you want to do A/B testing on your website, here is a fairly straightforward introduction to Google Optimize, which is free to use. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

Many online companies had a good first quarter despite the pandemic, including Shopify, which beat income estimates and saw its stock rise 5% after its first quarter report. “New stores created on the company’s online platform jumped 62% between March 13 and April 24 as many brick-and-mortar businesses migrated online.”

Shopify rolled out software that allows its users to more easily do curbside pickup orders. “...Shopify was already in the process of redesigning its POS before the coronavirus, but decided to accelerate the development of a few new features, namely fulfilling curbside pick-up orders and home delivery. Shopify said that by the end of April, 26% of its merchants with a brick-and-mortar presence were offering local delivery or buy online, pickup in-store, compared to 2% in February.”

Rolling out for the US first, Shopify is also getting into financial products, offering a new debit card which you can use to receive your sales income on the same day you earn it. Shopify Balance can be described as “a merchant account with no fees and no minimum balances.” It’s also setting up an instalment plan feature for customers. 

Also new with Shopify: a Pinterest app for turning all your products into shoppable pins. 

An Amazon VP quit - very publicly - over the company firing several whistleblowers and labour organizers. “Amazon declined to comment.” The company is taking heat for those issues as well as poor management of and information about how many employees have tested positive at various warehouses. Several employees are known to have died of COVID-19 so far. 

Amazon has extended its order performance suspension exceptions for the pandemic to May 31. Which is a good thing, because it seems that buyers are leaving more bad feedback than ever before [soft paywall] “More than 11 percent of reviews left for sellers in the past 30 days are negative. That’s nearly twice the level of frustration vented by shoppers regarding Amazon’s third-party sellers during the holidays, when customer anxieties spike over not getting presents on time”. eBay extended some seller protection changes until July 19. [note: if you sell on these platforms outside of the US, lease check for your own country’s rules, as some of them are different.]

Amazon Handmade sellers from the US got a boost from a new local makers page and the accompanying blog post. [I was unable to find any similar promotions for other countries; seems like a missed opportunity]

Buyers in Canada and the US are trying to get class-action lawsuits certified against Amazon for their policy preventing/discouraging its vendors from offering lower prices elsewhere. This article includes the US class action complaint paperwork. 

If you are wondering about Prime Day, Amazon is apparently going to try for September, but there is no official announcement yet. 

eBay will be changing the fee structure for sellers using managed payments, including charging one fee on the entire transaction instead of separate commission & processing fees. 

USPS, complaining of deficits and being pressured by Trump, is reportedly reviewing its package delivery contracts with large companies such as Amazon. “According to the Washington Post, over the last few weeks the USPS has been seeking bids from consulting firms to reexamine what the agency charges companies like Amazon, UPS, and FedEx. Contracts are generally reviewed on a yearly basis, and analysts have repeated warned that suddenly raising package prices that drastically would cause more bad than good, not just for the USPS or Amazon, but for small businesses and individuals too.”

Square has created an easy online checkout option that works without being connected to a website/shop. (US only)

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Google has introduced a new Trends-like tool that covers recent top product searches by the amount of growth. Yes, it is free!

Gen Z wants to see “fun and exciting advertising” during the pandemic, because they are bored. They are apparently not really fond of “things are different now” ads. Also: “A survey taken seven weeks ago indicated that younger consumers were more likely than older adults to say they wanted to see purpose-driven advertising that showed how companies were helping others.” Actually, Gen Z isn’t alone in wanting something different from commercials right now 

Consumers want to see companies taking positive action and supporting their employees during the pandemic - and claim they will remember who did a good job, so they know who to support with purchases. 

Not surprisingly, mobile usage is up during the day time since the pandemic was declared, and people are also staying online later during the week. Web browser usage is up, and more serious news and information is getting attention. 

There will likely be many more bankruptcies as the effects of COVID-19 ripple through the economy, but some businesses don’t have enough cash flow to go bankrupt. [text & video]

Canadian retail sales were down 10% in March compared to 2019, but many things went up, including general merchandise stores (6.4%) and online retailers (40%). Note that the online numbers didn’t include sales made from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca and delivered in Canada, so ecommerce was actually higher than that. In the US, March retail sales were down 8.7%, but April looks like it turned around for many ecommerce sites. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

So-called “cookie walls” are not enough to comply with the EU’s privacy laws. “[I]n order for consent to be legally valid under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) there are specific standards to meet: It must be clear and informed, specific and freely given.  Hence cookie walls that demand ‘consent’ as the price for getting inside the club are not only an oxymoron but run into a legal brick wall.”

Website layouts (and even other elements) are starting to look like each other more & more.

#search engine optimization #EtsyNews #content marketing #smallbiz #ecommercetips

[pushovermediacritic]

Smash Bros Moveset idea: Isaac (and Felix as an Echo Fighter) from Golden Sun

Since I started on Tumblr writing up my ideas for character movesets for Dragon Ball FighterZ, I figured I might as well also post my ideas for character movesets for Smash Bros.

Isaac didn’t get in Ultimate as a playable fighter, but he’s in the game as an Assist Trophy, a top-ranked Spirit, and a Mii Swordfighter costume. I think the odds of him getting in whatever the next game is (or a port of Ultimate, or a season 2/3 of DLC, there’s a lot of options) are fairly decent.

Much like how Simon Belmont also got Richter in, Felix being an Echo Fighter of Isaac is just obvious, since they play almost exactly the same in Golden Sun. Felix is also (superficially, at least) the dark brooding antihero type that you know a lot of people would much prefer to play over Isaac.

They wield the Sol Blade and have almost the exact same moveset.

Isaac is faster and has a weight of 100. Felix is slower but heavier, with a weight of 110, and he hits a tiny bit harder.

Isaac and Felix are fast fallers. They are fantastic at grounded combat, excelling at medium range with Psynergy. They don't do as well in the air, and some of their moves require the ground to even work.

Isaac's respawn platform comes with the Revive animation.

Isaac's aerials and jab combo are just standard sword swings.

Dash attack is a jumping slash, the exact same animation as his basic attack in Golden Sun.

Isaac's Tilts are all field Psynergy.

Up Tilt is Catch. A small hand grabs an opponent out of the air diagonally and pulls them closer to Isaac. Catch only does 3% damage, but it makes the opponent vulnerable.

Side Tilt is Move but unlike his Assist Trophy, the hand is only the same height as Isaac and it only pushes directly in front of him. Move does not do any damage, but it has a weak stunning hitbox.

Down Tilt is Scoop. A small hand grabs the ground in front of Isaac, digging it up and paradoxically burying any opponents hit by it (like Villager's Dig). Scoop does 3% damage.

Isaac's Smash Attacks are Djinn, and Felix's Smash attacks are different Djinn that function similarly.

Side Smash is Flint/Echo. Isaac uses Flint for a powerful forward sword strike. Felix uses Echo, which has a weaker first hit but follows up with a second hit that sends the opponent upwards.

Down Smash is Vine/Mud. Isaac uses Vine, which has wriggling vines grow out of the ground on either side of Isaac. Enemies caught in these vines take damage and they're slowed down temporarily, shown by having vines cover their bodies. Felix uses Mud, which shoots globs of mud out on either side of him and has a slightly shorter but wider hitbox. Enemies still take damage and are slowed down temporarily, shown by having mud cover their bodies.

Up Smash is Sap/Steel. Isaac uses Sap, which has him slash upwards. If he hits an enemy, yellow orbs of health come out and are absorbed into Isaac, healing him for a percentage of the damage Sap dealt. Felix uses Steel, which is the same except it's a stab, making its hitbox thinner but taller, and the orbs are orange.

Isaac's B moves are based on his main combat Psynergy, and they can all be charged.

Neutral B is Ragnarok/Odyssey. For Ragnarok, Isaac swings his sword down and a giant energy sword appears above him and stabs down diagonally in front of him causing an explosion and doing 10 damage. Odyssey stabs the enemy with two smaller crossing swords, trapping them before a giant sword stabs them horizontally causing an explosion for 18 damage total, 4 for each smaller sword and 10 for the big one.

Side B is Gaia/Mother Gaia/Grand Gaia. Isaac holds his hand out and a hole appears in the ground a set distance in front of him. Orange energy and rocks blast out of his hole for a bit. The center of the hole is always the same distance from Isaac, leaving a blind spot between Gaia and his body for the earlier levels. Gaia is a big hole, the energy reaches a bit into the air and does 10 damage. Mother Gaia is a huge hole that reaches higher and does 15 damage. Grand Gaia is a gigantic hole that has a huge height and does 20 damage. The edge of Grand Gaia reaches Isaac's body, eliminating the blind spot. Fails if there is no ground immediately in front of Isaac.

Up B is Spire/Clay Spire/Stone Spire. Isaac holds his hand out, stalactites appear in the air in front of him, and they fall down, doing damage if they hit the opponent. If Isaac uses Spire on the ground, the stalactites appear in a horizontal line before they fall. If Isaac uses Spire in the air, the stalactites appear in a diagonal line and Isaac runs on top of the stalactites to recover. Spire creates 1 small stalactite that does 7 damage. Clay Spire creates 3 larger stalactites that do 9 damage each. Stone Spire creates 5 large stalactites that do 11 damage each.

Down B is Quake/Earthquake/Quake Sphere. The ground below Isaac and on either side of him rises up into the air in blocks. The rising blocks go up in waves, starting from the center, where Isaac is standing and moving outward. Each block is a character width. The blocks of earth do damage to opponents when they rise and the blocks combo into themselves by bouncing the opponent. Quake is 3 blocks across and they rise up one time for 5 damage. Earthquake is 5 blocks and they rise twice for 7 damage each. Quake Sphere is 7 blocks across and they bounce three times for 9 damage each. Fails if there is no ground beneath Isaac.

Isaac's Grab is Carry. Two hands appear in front of Isaac and they grab the opponent on either side, holding them in place. Isaac's pummel is just the hands squeezing and crushing the opponent.

Isaac's Up Throw is Lift. Isaac lifts the opponent into the air, potentially KOing them off the top of the screen if they don't struggle out. It becomes impossible to escape at 150%.

Down Throw is Pound, which works like his Assist Trophy move.

Forward Throw is Force. Isaac shoots a beam of kinetic energy that launches the opponent forward.

Back Throw is also Force.

Isaac's dodge is Sand. His body dissolves into sand and he becomes a moving lump of sand on the ground before the reforms at the end of his dodge.

Final Smash is Megiddo. A textbox says that Isaac's Sol Blade lets out a howl, and he jumps high into the air with his sword glowing. He comes up next to a miniature sun and smashes it with his sword, sending it crashing into the stage with a massive explosion. The Smash Ball version does 50 damage. The Smash Meter version does 20 damage.

Not sure about most of the taunts, though I know that Felix's Down Taunt is him shaking each limb in sequence to check that they're fine.

#super smash bros #super smash ultimate #golden sun #golden sun the lost age #isaac #felix #moveset

[limitlessaustralia]

Nintendo recently launched the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo, which is a game emulator to play SNES games on 21st Century TVs.... and my recommendation is to not buy it. Why you ask? Well, it may be officially provided by Nintendo and it does look like a Super Nintendo but other than that you can literally do better for around the same price. Read on if you're interested....

The new Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo runs on exactly the same hardware as the NES Classic Edition (Check here), which is powered by a Allwinner R16 SoC chip (which includes four ARM Cortex A7s CPU cores with an ARM Mali 400 MP2 GPU), a 256MB DDR3 RAM module and 512MB of NAND eMMC storage. Now, this SNES Classic costs AUD$120 and includes 21 pre-installed games, which sounds all well and good...  until you learn that an Orange Pi Zero Plus 2 board (which runs an Allwinner H3 SoC, and is almost identical to the R16 but less restricted, has 512MB DDR3 RAM module and 8GB NAND eMMC Storage) costs just AUD$43.63! Add in two 8BitDo Bluetooth SNES Controllers for AUD$38.75 each + the free RetroOrangePi Operating System and the free and legal Super Nintendo ROMs (ie. digital copies of the games) from archive.org, and now you have a more capable Super Nintendo emulation system for about the same price as the SNES Mini but has wireless controllers instead of wired ones and can play the ENTIRE collection of Super Nintendo games, not just the 21 Nintendo selects for you!

TL;DR? Got confused by the big paragraph or want to know exactly how to get your (much) more capable Super Nintendo?

HOW TO GUIDE:

Buy a Orange Pi Zero Plus 2 from the manufacturer on Aliexpress here

Buy 1 or 2 8BitDo SFC30 Bluetooth SNES Controllers on Aliexpress here (these can also be bought locally from EB Games for $36ea on their mid-year sale or $54.95ea usually pickup or Core Electronics for $50.95ea including shipping). You can also get the SF30 Pro controller (which has analogue sticks and extra shoulder buttons for added compatibility with other console emulators for $30.75ea on Aliexpress)

Use a Micro USB 5V 2A Charger (ie. a Android phone charger) or purchase one from your nearest Altronics or Jaycar electronics shop

Download RetrOrangePi from here, plug a MicroSD card into your computer (using your Memory Card Reader, using a SD Card adapter or directly, or get Orico or Ugreen one for as low as AUD$4 from Aliexpress) and flash the downloaded RetrOrangePi image using Etcher

Download the SNES ROMs from Archive.org and extract the ones you would like to play to the /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes directory on MicroSD card (or if you have a MicroSD bigger than 16GB, you could extract all of them but I recommend keeping the total size used on the MicroSD under 6-8GB... we’ll explain that later)

Make sure your 8BitDo SFC30 Bluetooth SNES Controllers have been charged fully!

Plug your RetroOrangePi MicroSD Card into the Orange Pi Zero Plus 2, plug in the power and turn it on.

Emulation Station should load, at which point it will probably say it can’t find a controller. Plug in a USB Keyboard, then hit F4 to quit Emulation Station and then you’ll be presented the command line prompt. Type in this command: **sudo /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh**

Press the Start button on your SFC30 Bluetooth Controller (the blue light on the top of the controller should start flashing slowly) and then hold down the Select button for 3 seconds to place it in Bluetooth pairing mode. The blue light on the top of the controller will be flashing rapidly now.

Then go Configuration/tools > Bluetooth - Configure Bluetooth Device > Register and Connect to Bluetooth Device

The screen will change to “Searching...” and then come up with the found Bluetooth devices. It will either list your 8BitDo controller by name or it will likely be the first one on the list. Select it and then it will ask to choose the security mode for the Bluetooth controller, to which you should select “DisplayYesNo”. Your 8BitDo Controller should now be paired with your OrangePi and the blue light should be staying on solidly (ie. not flashing).

Now you should be back at the “Configure Bluetooth Devices” menu, select option U - “Set up udev” and select your 8BitDo controller on the next screen.

You’ll be back at the “Configure Bluetooth Devices” menu once again, so select option M - “Configure bluetooth connect mode”. Change the connect mode from default to boot. (this way when you hit a button on the 8BitDo controller and start your RetrOrangePi, they will both automatically reconnect to each other when they startup)

Repeat this process for EACH controller you have to ensure they all connect correctly like this every time (you won’t need to go through this pairing process again if you follow each of the previously mentioned steps).

Once all Bluetooth Controllers are paired, keep going back in the menu until you get to the main menu, the one that has the Perform Reboot option down the bottom, then select it to reboot your RetrOrangePi.

Once rebooted, you should be returned to Emulation station and now your 8BitDo controller/s should be detected correctly. You’ll need to configure your controllers (basically mapping the buttons). Tap the buttons as listed, or if your controller doesn’t have that button, hold down another button to skip the button your controller doesn’t have.

You should now be ready to rock and roll. Select SNES from the Emulation Station menu and provided you extracted your ROMs in the directory mentioned in Step 5, you should be presented with the games you loaded on the MicroSD. Select one and get ready to play any SNES game you want in glorious HD with your wireless controllers!

If you chose to put only the games you want to play on MicroSD and they total under about 6-8GB, you also now have the option to copy everything across to the OrangePi’s eMMC storage... so you can take out the MicroSD card and use it elsewhere! (or load it up with a bunch of secondary games) + the eMMC memory is faster than the OrangePi MicroSD slot so your games will load faster if you do this. ;) So...

While some of these steps might seem confusing, if you follow the guide it should be relatively easy enough and you’ll have your much more capable SNES device with Wireless Controllers up and running on your HDTV! :) If you have any problems, don’t hesitate to ask me here on Tumblr, on Twitter @iduyfken or on Instagram @iduyfken 

#snes #super nintendo #super nintendo mini #retrorangepi #retropi #8BitDo #retrogaming #aliexpress

[bynkii]

Being a Monk in D&D Online

It’s my tumblr and I’ll wank about DDO if I want :-P

For those who don’t know me that well, (which to be honest is all but a very, very small number of you), I play D&D Online. I have since DDO introduced the Monk class. I enjoy it a lot, and have found a small group of people, whom I have never met that I run around with. (On the Khyber, if you actually care.)

My play style is a bit odd, for many reasons, (a few call me an evolutionary dead end because I rarely reincarnate), one of which is that I only play one class: The Monk.

Not what you’d expect

The monk is an odd class, in that it’s as much of a “mile wide and an inch deep” class as the bard or the artificer. I can do a lot of damage, but on a per hit basis, a lot of class builds do more. I just hit really, really fast. Many people, most in fact, do what’s called “splashing”. They’ll take a small number of monk levels, to gain some basic abilities like evasion (which means that if someone takes a swing and they hit, but you make your reflex save, you take no damage. That’s kind of handy until it fails. Then you take it in the shorts. Hard.)

But it’s not a class that’s really good at one thing like tanking or dps (damage per second) or healing or crowd control. It is however a great support class, and I like that part. I like being a part of a team, and using my knowledge of the class and its features to be a bit of a healer or a dps, (nothing like Togwik. I can kill some stuff, but that dude just scythes through things), or occasionally, pretending to be a tank.

Which means that you can’t just sort of play a monk. You really have to be all in to do well. Multiclassing rarely works out well. It’s useful if you’re just going for completionist (wherein you max out your level in every class to get a +2 bonus to all ability and skill scores), but if you really want to play a monk, you have to go all in. All 20 heroic levels as a monk, and then your 10 epic levels done in a way that makes your monkness work for you. As I said, I’m a generalist. Specifically, a melee generalist with some effort put into healing and electrical damage. There’s other ways to play a monk. One I’ve been seeing more of is what is called a “shuricannon” or a monk that specializes in doing insane amounts of damage with shuriken.

For those of you amused by “shuricannon”, some of the other more amusing portmaneaus:

cleric/monk — “clonk”

ranger/monk — “monkcher”

fighter/monk — “fonk”

Let’s take a look at my basic stats on my current incarnation, a 30th level monk running in the Grandmaster of Flowers (GMoF — warning, DDO LOVES ACRONYMS) epic destiny (ED). But first, a pic of the character, (Bynkii. Which was actually where that name comes from. It’s what I’ve always named my D&D characters. This should be surprising to precisely no one.)

Let’s take a look at my basic stats on my current incarnation, a 28th level monk running in the Grandmaster of Flowers (GMoF — warning, DDO LOVES ACRONYMS) epic destiny (ED). But first, a pic of the character, (Bynkii. Which was actually where that name comes from. It’s what I’ve always named my D&D characters. This should be surprising to precisely no one.)

Aasimar Scourge Monk with the requisite pink mohawk and glowing eyes

I just like the idea of glowing eyes on a monk. So now for the stats:

clearly a wisdom build

So now, as a monk, Wisdom (WIS) is his most important stat. It fuels all his good tricks and is why the save against his stunning fist attack (aka DC) is a 101. Which when you’re operating on a 100-pt scale means that doesn’t miss often. It’s handy, it’s rather hard to fight back when you’re stunned. Hit points aren’t bad for a monk, I’ve had higher, but this build I added some Constitution Bonuses, along some careful gear selection which adds 85 to the hit point total. Given I how I play a monk, that’s a pretty high hit point count. I’ve also got a really good Armor Class for a monk. Not where it would be with high-end heavy armor and Paladin/FIghter/etc. bonuses, but given his armor is cloth, pretty good. If I change my stance to earth stance, then it goes to 230. But that also kills my wisdom, so I rarely do that.

The other important stat I have going is Constitution (CON). First, because it affects how many hit points I have (out of 1347 perm HP, 840 are my Con bonus), and secondly because it affects my Concentration, and that directly affects my Ki levels (yellow bar):

the blue bar is my magic points/mana, which I clearly don’t care about.

Ki is important to a monk because that’s what powers all the good monk attacks. Stunning Fist is 15, Tomb of Jade/Dismissing Strike/Kukan-Do are 25 each, Lily Petal is 10, and the creme de la creme of Monk attacks, Everything is Nothing, (EIN) is 50. EIN I alternately call the room cleaner or the Blue Light Special (when it goes off, the entire screen goes blue:

attention K-Mart shoppers: buh-bye

On an EIN one of two things happens to everything in range: they die, instantly, or they’re frozen for 6 seconds and then they take 500–1500 points of damage. It’s kind of handy when fighting large amounts of mobs. One of the folks I adventure with just sighs and tells me I’m cheating when I pop it off. I can live with that.

The thing is, a monk is a good team class. I can solo, although at higher levels, it gets tedious. Where I really do best is in a good party, where I can work the edges while the hardcore tanks and DPS folks wade in the middle. I also do well in the middle in specific ways. I can easily paralyze or temporarily take out a lot of enemies in small groups for a few seconds. That makes a difference. And I like that part. I really do like that DDO encourages team play, not PVP. In fact, there’s almost no PVP, and that fundamentally changes the game itself. From something my son wrote on that a while ago:

What I like about DDO is that a lack of serious PVP removes the requirement that all classes be individually competent. Take the Bard for instance. The Bard is kind of crap at everything. Fighting, sneaking, casting, healing, the Bard phones in on all of it. The only reason this class exists is for support. A Bard can make other characters two or three times stronger with an array of support skills, spells, and abilities no other class can come close to matching. A DDO Bard would never appear in WOW, since it would be a liability in team PVP, worthless in solo PVP, and simply unnecessary in a PVE raid.

Meanwhile in DDO, a bard is a glass cannon that can’t attack or take a hit and every raid group jumps at the chance to have one on the team. A Bard can’t do dick on its own and everyone is A-Okay with that since the point is to take the individual skills of each player and work as a group to overcome obstacles.

And that leads me to my final point (I have more really, but I’m getting tired of typing). A lack of PVP means that the point of the game isn’t to be competitive with each other, the point is to work with one another. When nobody can play on their own and the only way to win is to play nice with one another, that creates incentive to NOT BE A DICK. DDO has a remarkably low population of assholes the likes of which have forever tainted the reputations of WOW and Everquest since those people are remarkably shit at working nice with others (funny that). If you’re forming a group and some prepubescent hellspawn from the barren wastelands of Xbox Live gets into your party, the thought isn’t “He’s a good player, so it doesn’t matter if he’s an asshole”, the thought is “He’s an asshole, so it doesn’t matter if he’s a good player”. It makes grouping with random people less of a cringeworthy event when there’s no reason to put up with a social reject just to get your rare loot.

For a long time, I wouldn’t do pickup groups (PUGS) in DDO, because I’d seen what random people were like in WOW and other places, and I had neither time nor interest in that. But eventually, I gave it a try, and found that for the most part, actually, in almost every case, the people I randomly group with are all…well, okay. It’s not even unusual to have women playing as women, using voice chat, and I can say that in the years I’ve been playing DDO, I’ve never once heard “Tits or GTFO” or similar.

I’m not saying that kind of idiocy never happens, I’m just saying I’ve never encountered it, at least not on Khyber. DDO is inherently cooperative. Get a rep as a cockmonkey and you find yourself very alone, and unable to do a lot of the cooler runs. It also helps that Turbine doesn’t play. They have a rep for being rather banhappy, and I’m fine with that. It means that a lot of the problems with other players that you see in other MMOs don’t exist in nearly the same quantity on DDO.

So that’s a bit on my character. No, there was no point, I just felt like doing this. Oh, and my guild? Bored of the Rings. Because of course.

#DDO #D&D Online #Monks #movedoverfrommedium