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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Blog Updates: New Patreon Stretch Goals, Patreon Exclusive Reviews, New Story Arcs and Other Stuff

MHello everyone. For those of you seeing this through other tags my name is Jake. I do reviews on here that are usually full sumaries of an episode of a tv show or comic, with jokes and analsyis throughout. I’m doing this post as i’ve recently revamped by patreon a bit, check out VIA THIS LINK if your curious. I also have some other stuff going on with the blog that I thought might intrest the general public and especially you lovely followers. Thank you guys so much. Your support means a lot and feel free to interact with this post and any of the reviews. it’s always a pleasure. Leave your comments whatever. So let’s start with the patreon stuff

You Decide the Next Patreon Exclusive Review!:

Yes YOU will decide the Patreon Exclusive review for May. How? It’s simple: i’m currently reviewing the Lilo and Stitch crossover episodes, the first two this week with the American Dragon Jake Long crossover “Morpholomew” done yesterday, the Proud Family episode “Spats” coming later this week, and “Rufus” (Kim Possible) and “Lax” (Recess) coming next week and the week after that respectively.

As a way to gage intrest in the shows crossed over, and if I should review some of them on their own, i’m going to be watching the notes, and after the first week i’ll record how many a review got. This way the first review dosen’t get an advantage over the last and so on. Whichever episode gets the most votes wins and it’s show will get two reviews: One exclusive to Patreon in may you can check out for just a buck, and one for all of ya in June. So if you want to dragon up, get louder and prouder, check out what the sitch is, or have some recess, keep an eye on my blog and check out the review. Like it reblog, it, both. This is all in your hands. And if this little contest works out I may do another one like it in the future.

New Patreon Stretch Goals!:

For those unfamiliar with Patreon it’s a site that helps creators like me get paid for their work, used by such luminaries as Linkara, Pushing Up Roses and greatest of all Rifftrax.

Stretch Goals are an amount of money I get a month from patreons, that’s readers like you paying me. Even a buck a month would help a lot and help me put out a reviews and LIVE off doing this. But it’s a two way street so in order to entice you lovely people into paying me for doing my job and my passion with these reviews, i’ve updated the tiers, adding a wider and better range of rewards. I’m currenntly up to 15 dollars a month, or close enough that i’ve acitivated those rewards. And if you help me hit these tiers EVEYRONE gets PUBLIC, on here, for free reviews. Thanks to my lovely patreons Emma and Kevin you all are getting reviews of the first 5 Ducktales episode, aka Legend of the Golden Suns, with the second coming as soon as I finish this post. Even a buck helps us reach closer and for your dollar you get access to the discord, exclusive reviews, and to pick a short any time I review a bunch of shorts. And with Goofy’s birthday coming up next montha nd Donald’s after that, now is the best time for that. 5 dollar patreons also get one review as month, with 10 dollar ones getting two. You’ve already probably seen some of these: Kev has used one of his a month to have me review a house of mouse episode every month, and newest patreon and longtime friend Emma is using them to have me review the netflix dr. seuss adaptation “Green Eggs and Ham”. So whatever YOU want me to review I will and you’l lhelp unlock even MORE great reviews. So what do you get if you hit the goals? I’m glad you asked.

We’re up to 15 so next is...

20 Dollar Tier: Ducktales 87 Season 2 Mini Series!: Yes indeedy. Already on the Docket was the Super Ducktales Arc, which introducices the OG GIZMODUCCCKKKKK. But since that apparenlty wasn’t enough i’ve also added the OTHER mini series. While i’ll do super first since that’s the one with higher fan intrest once tha’ts done i’ll also review Time is Money, the time travel arc bringing in everyone’s faviroite scrappy Bubba. So if you want a buncha cruncha retro Ducktales pony up. But that’s not all the disney afternoon I got for this tier.

A Darkwing Duck Episode A MOnth: This one has also been promoted every time I could and still stands. If you like that mind behind the shadow disguise, that daring duck of mystery, that champion of right, then you’ll get one review a month about him, as voted on by you patreons.

Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy: And since neither of these have helped me so far and stepping back into Amity Park made me realize how much I love the series, even if it’s creator is a 80 tons of smug asshole packed into a t-shirt he thinks is cooler than it is. So it only felt right to add the ghost boy to the tier and the best way to kick that off is with it’s second best, and only barely second behind Reign Storm, episode: The Ultimate Enemy! Danny finds his future is imperfect and must battle his own evil self! If you want my thoughts on one of the series finest hours, then help me hit 20 bucks a month to keep making content.

25 Dollar Tier:

I removed the Tail Spin content, though rest assured I will be covering Plunder and Lightning sometime this year. But what I replaced it with is even better.

One Danny Phantom Review a Month: YOu like teen superheros? you like ghosts? you like me slagigng off about butch hartman and trying to make it crystal clear his creation dosen’t wholly belong to him? Then you’ll like me reviewing Danny Phantom. And while i’m already doing that, this goal gaurantees one episode a month, and said episode will be voted on by my patreons. So if you pay for this you’ll not only get your monthly dose of going ghost.. but you’ll get a chance to PICK what it is.

Disney Shows To Movies Trilogy : I’ve decided to make it a tradition for my 15 dollar stretch goals to do a bunch of disney movies. And like with my last batch, which you’ll be seeing in may, i’m doing tv shows that got their own movies, theatrical or otherwise. And this time we’re doing MY generatoin: Kim Possible: So The Drama, the best story in the show’s histroy and the best movie in the Disney Channels! Recess: Schools Out! The suprisingly bonkers unsurprisingly awesome finale to an awesome show! and The Proud Family Movie, another UTTERLY BATSHIT finish to a great show. Lost at Sea and Seconds: This one’s for my scottaholics, fourth part of my Scott Pilgrim retrospective coming this week!. If you like me taking a look at Scott’s quest to punch the fuck out of his girlfriends exes while growing up a little, then if you help me get to the 30 dollar tier, i’ll also take a look at O’Malley’s other graphic novels Lost at Sea, which follows a girl who lost her soul and her boyfriend on a trip with what may be Young Neil’s older sister, and Seconds, the story of a woman with issues growing up who finds the ablitlity to travel through time.. or is it space? And some of you savvier readers my know he has nother comic. Where’s that one? wellllll

30 Dollar Tier:

Snotgirl: I’m saving this one for this tier. Reviews of each collected volume of snotgirl, Bryan’s first ongoing series, all three so far and any more to come about, unsuprisingly, a hot mess of a person, this time who might’ve done a murder. You know instead of defintely did a murder but in self defnese and with a longsword.

Gravity Falls Season 1!: One of Disney’s finest finally on this blog. All season 1 episodes reviewed in some way in some shape in some form. Star Vs Finale Arc!: You’ve heard me bitch about the problems in Tom’s story, and wil lcontinue to. Now see the terrible way everyone elses ends! From an amazing build up to an awful finish, see reviews of Every story relevant season 4 episode from Butterfly Follies to Cleaved that won’t already be covered in my tom retrospective. It’s a road to crushing disapointment, come on inside!

35 Dollar Tier: More Disney TV Adaptations!: Doug’s First Movie! See Doug get really fucking weird in his sea monster based movie with a punch line of a name! Teachers Pet, a great movie out of a show I barely saw! Kim Possible Live action! it’s suprisingly okay! and Recess Taking the Fifth: a compliation movie for a season we sadly never got.

Gravity Falls Season 2: Buillding on the first reward Gravity Falls Reviews will go beyond the first season and finish the job. From zombies, to dipcifica, to ford to weirdmageddon, I’m doin it all.

40 Dollar Tier:

Two HUGE Disney Focused Comics Retrospectives!

Darkwing Duck: In addition to the show, i’ll start reviewing the awesome follow up comic that got me into it. From the start to both finishes: the unathorized crossover finale and the sadly short lived sequel series from joe books, the worst mistake disney ever made that wasn’t racist, before Artemis Fowl said hold my beer. Also the short lived Ducktlaes series because why not.

The Incredibles!: The Family Dynamic! A comprehensive retrospective featuring reviews of the movie, the Mark Waid followup, the sequel that ignores said followup and the incomparable Christos Gage’s followup to THAT movie. Also that wonderfuly awful failed tv pilot bob made that he and lucius did a mst3k of.

45 Dollar Tier:

Disney Flims Lilo and Stitch a Thon: All four lilo and stitch movies, Lilo and Stitch, Lilo and Sitch 2, Stitch and Leroy and Stitch! All the hawaii, aliens and sequels you can handle!

Amphibia Season 1: I’ve done Season 2 as it comes out, i’ll be doing the same for season 3, so help me get here to see the start at least once a month, but two at a time!

50 Dollar Tier: The last one for now. I’ll probably go to 10 dollar tiers after this.

The Owl House Season 1: While I wait for the second season to start so I can cover it, have me do the rest of season 1! The only exceptions are the already covered Enchanted Grom Fright and the earmarked for pride month wing it like witches!

The Two Loves and 87 Mistakes of Mordecai: A regular show romancetrospective, as we go through the downs, ups, higher ups and crushing lows of Modercai’s romantic arcs from regular show. His crush on margert, making his move, moving on, moving on to cj, and then the horrible cluster fuck I’ve talked about nonstop and will again and again as one of the worst romantic arcs in memory as they shot the relationship in the foot head and groin! Force me to relive it all!

So yeah I’ll add more tiers, again probably 10 dollars apart if I get to 50, but given I barely got to 15 i’m not optimistic. PROVE ME WRONG. HELP ME HIT 50.

Other Stuff:

Finally outisde of Patreon, that was the main reason for this, I have news on my various arcs. For one thing i’ll be trying to keep the pace better, so expect at least one entry a month for ones i’m doing on my own time like the tom retrospective, life and times and Scott pilgrims. Ones kev does will be done weekly to keep my wallet afloat.

I also have two more retrospectives incoming! The first is paid for by Kev: I’l lbe tackling ALL THREE SEASON 2 ARCS OF DUCKTALES 2017. After the headache of trying to cram the della arc into three weeks to keep up with the lena one, I decided i’td be better for pacing if I did all three at once and kev agreed to it, if using his patreon reviews to cushion the blows. So starting next month i’ll be covering the Louie, Della and Glomgold/Owlson arcs, swapping between them in episode order. With that I should be FAR closer to having covered every ducktales episode. Granted i’ll still have 17 to cover, but it’ll make that much more managable.

The second comes in June specifically timed for Pride Month. With Scott Pilgrim Wrapping up in August just in time for the movie’s anniversary, I decided to start covering another one of my faviorite comics of all time. It’s time to transform, roll out and make this precoius it’s Transformers More than Meets the Eye! For those of you unfamiliar it’s an idw comic that follows a rag tag group of transformers, about half of them gay or gay coded, on a mission to find the lost knights of cybertron and bring ballance to a post war cybertron.. which quickly devloves into hyjinnks with a side order of heartrending deaths and charcter development... and references to dexy’s midnight runners.

So that’s all for now. thank you for reading, please support my patreon as the next pay term is at the start of next month, so if you want me to start on any of those stretch goals, nows the time. Please help me earn a living and until all are one, i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

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mattkenzie · 4 years

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So with a lot of changes going on in June with all this talk about racism being a hot button topic indeed, WotC (Wizards of the Coast) wants to revamp and update the diversity of Dungeons and Dragons especially those that are centred around the orcs, drow and the Vistani

So one of the biggest things I would change about the real world is to have fantasy races (elves, dwarves and orcs... etc) but my biggest fear is that deep down... humans can sometimes be racist to one another and I’ll be adding even MORE racism into the world if my dream and ideas of fantasy races lived in the real world would become a nightmare. 😢

So the first thing I will want to address is our mean, green fighting machines (the orcs); So it all started when J.R.R Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings Trilogy so we were introduced to the orcs there and soon the orcs have became the staple of fantasy novels henchmen, brutes and thugs for our heroes to fight against. It’s sad that we have to picture them as stupid brutes and when I was younger in my Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy days (I was about 12 or 13 at that time) I hated the orcs because of how the books considered them to be these dumb brutes (nobody wanted to play with them because in 40,000 they have the lowest Armour Saves you have to roll a d6 and prey to the dice gods that you’ll get a 6 if your opponent doesn’t use an AP 6 (Amour Penetration) weapon (+5 if they have scrap armour) and in Fantasy Battles if you have a Dwarf Army (with I did) you get to reroll your failed rolls to hit giving us more chances roll to wound (eventually I stopped using the Dwarves ‘hatred’ rule that the other players say that I am the easiest person to win against because I choose not to use the hatred rule. (I just don’t know why I never heavy rely on the Hatred rule, why should hate win?)

When I started playing World of Warcraft after my college years (For the Alliance) I loved the Draenei but eventually there were times I wanted to know what it was like being the Horde. (you have your Undead, Tauren, Trolls and Blood Elves but what stood out more are the Orcs.) I sometimes want to know how the other half lives that I have slowly became accustomed to the Orcs, sure the Alliance had their Paladins as their exclusive class but the Horde had something different and I love the fact that they are spiritual (shamanism), No I have never seen the movie. But as a human, I started to find tusks appealing.

It’s funny how in the real world, eventhough I am a Caucasian male, I wanted to know what it’s like to be black. (with all that “Black Lives Matter”, I will admit that I used to think that all lives matter... but that is not the case anymore because some people aren’t treated as equals. We portray those who are different from us ‘savages’ even in modern media (of television, movies and video games) we portray people in the Middle East as Terrorists ever since the 9/11 attacks (September 11th) and we portray people who are black as gangsters and thugs and one of my favourite shows happens to be The Boondocks and while Riley Freeman plays the stereotype (that portrayal needs to stop), my favourite character is Huey Freeman and for a fictional character, he challenged the way I think about things). I have made some awesome friends at Church who are black but they’ve broken that mould. I went to college with them (but we didn’t go to the same department mind you) while I was getting a higher education, they have been studying to become physicians (they are smarter than me). They go to interviews to not get hired (instead they hire someone less qualified) they have been stopped by the police for driving cars they shouldn’t normally have (but earned it fair and square).

Heck there were times where they didn’t fit in the black community because they acted white. “How!?” (I’m sorry, how you can be rejected for being black on the outside but have personality traits of a Caucasian?) just to be called a ‘Sell Out’ or a ‘Bounty Bar’.

So anyway back to my D&D discussion, to me when I’ve played my first ever D&D 5E game with a gaming group known as the “Natural Oneduhs” my first character that I’ve created is Kamui, the Half-Orc (my DM wanted Kamui to either be a shade of green or grey, but I was having none of that “All orcs should be green or grey.” so I chose to stick to my guns to be Caucasian). I played against type because orcs in a fantasy setting (with their +2 Str and +1 Con they would be suited to play as Barbarians or Fighters) so because orcs aren’t an intelligent race I thought I’d kick things up a bit so I chose to play as a Bard. After these sessions with the (playing in the DM’s world and no stories for the individual players) Kamui grew up in a human society because the orcs rejected Kamui for not being an orc, but is always portrayed as a monster no matter the colour of his skin, (in 2nd Edition orcs aren’t a playable race, it was later introduced in 3rd Edition) sick and tired of the prejudice he sees where people see Kamui as an orc and not an actual person only one person accepted Kamui.

“What I hate about society is people tend to use violence as a weapon to get their point across (which ends up breaking into war) instead we need to use our voices and our own words to speak volumes.”

So the books that I have read where the orcs/half-orcs have became the anti-heroes is The Grey Bastards and True Bastards by Jonathan French (it’s the most boyish book I ever read) so I have Volo’s Guide to Monsters and the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.

Now the Vistani (they are a travelling group of gypsies commonly found in Barovia in any Ravenloft campaign) and in the real world we look down upon the Romani gypsies because they couldn’t follow our “rules of society” by dumping their old trailers (fly-tipping), setting up camps in public spaces and being in large groups (I’m a large man, but I’m scared of getting ganged up on or mugged by them when I am walking down the road) not exactly Esmarelda from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I don’t know why, but I tend to see them hanging out in boxing clubs and riding (or racing) in those 1 horse carriages or sometimes having lunch in the carvery (and ignore social rules like changing a baby on the dinner table) which is gross, “We having changing facilities!”, Oh it’s your kids birthday and you let them watch a 12 rated movie instead of a U rated film yet your kids choose to cause havoc in the cinema “Yep, still ignoring the rules of society!” and then having the audacity to be dumping popcorn on me when watching Avengers Assemble because your kids couldn’t follow the rules! in this TV show on Channel 4 My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I never played a Vistani before but it would be interesting to see more variant humans in the game.

In real life, with what I had to put up with, I think I would be scared to make a friend with the Romani (learnt behaviour) but I admire them for being a tight knit group, you don’t see that in modern day society, we are all wrapped our heads around social media.

I can picture them with Animal Handling and Performance as their skills, have a proficiency with a musical instrument.

The Drow (Dark Elves) have been painted as sadomasochist and well... “evil” but what I find fascinating and appreciate them is their religion because they have female priests. What I am saying is that in the real world, it’s a rare sight to see a female Vicar (I feel that it’s quite progressive but other people (old men and traditionalists) are apprehensive about having a woman to preach about the gospel.) Look at Matthew Mercer’s Critical Role campaign 2 and take a look at the Krynn Dynasty.

I never played a drow before and I don’t think I shall anytime soon. I know that a popular drow that is well known is Drizz’t and to fight against the stereotypical world view that all drow are evil because of Lolth, the Spider Queen... I don’t think a religion should define you. But it’s like I said, I believe that this has ushered in having a female priest (if you’ve seen the Victor of Dibbley you might understand where I am coming from.)

For me the Orcs in my world are indeed a tribal society (and I give them a Polynesian/New Zealand/Aztec/Hawaiian flair to them, instead of “Makin’ um as da dum broots dey are”).

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thelastspeecher · 4 years

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Recoil - Chapter 1: Stopping Power

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 AO3

A little while ago, I reread the AMAZING fic “1 Step Forward, 20 Years Back” by @infriga and remembered that about a year ago I got a prompt from an Anon to write basically that same situation, wherein de-aging happens during the big portal fight, but flip the script and have Ford be the one that is de-aged. And I got inspired by infriga’s awesome fic and decided to revisit and revamp that concept. So here is the project I’ve been working on and cryptically referencing lately. A multichap following that concept that is FiddStan endgame. A first for me. Expect a regular upload schedule, because this puppy is basically all done.

Summary: The fight was going as it always did for Stan and Ford. Hurtful words followed by clenched fists, no resolution, no quarter given. That is, until Ford turned eight.

Stopping power (noun): the ability of a weapon to incapacitate a target

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Stan sat on the edge of the bed, his hand resting on the back of the small child sleeping next to him. In the dark, he could only see dark curls standing out against the light pillowcase. Soft snoring filled the room. Satisfied, Stan began to stand up. He paused for a moment, then sat back down, watching the sleeping boy, thinking about the events that had led to this moment.

-----

“You ruined my life!” Stan snarled, trying to pull Ford’s damn book from him. Ford’s attempt to hold onto the book failed. Stan stumbled backwards, the book clutched to his chest.

“I ruined nothing!” Ford shouted, shoving Stan. “You ruined your own life!” The small of Stan’s back hit something hard and metal, and Stan collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain and a wince. He looked up at Ford, a few feet away, bathed in the light of the machine Stan couldn’t remember the name of. Ford opened his mouth, probably to shout some more.

The glow emitted by the machine grew brighter and brighter, filling the basement room corner to corner. Ford looked at the machine, apparently shocked out of fighting mode by the change. Stan couldn’t interpret the expression with which Ford stared at the machine. Fear? Anticipation? Confusion? Before he could narrow down the emotion, a sudden bolt of electricity shot out from the center of the light, striking Ford square in the chest. Ford fell to his knees with a cry.

“Ford!” Stan threw aside the book and rushed over to his brother, crouching next to him. Ford’s body crackled with electricity, miniature bolts of lightning running up and down his skin. “Stanford, what’s-” Before Stan could get out the rest of his question, a high-pitched ring sounded from the machine. It rose in volume threateningly, making Stan watch the machine, bracing himself for some new horror. As abruptly as it started, the sound cut out. The light vanished.

Stan blinked away the spots dancing before his eyes. Once his vision cleared, his jaw dropped at the sight in front of him. Where moments ago, a man in his late twenties had knelt, now a young child crouched, shivering. Stan recognized the boy immediately.

“Stanford?” Stan said cautiously, reaching out a hand. Ford’s twelve fingers clenched, scraping against the dirt floor.

“Leave,” Ford said in a quaking voice, his eyes screwed shut. Stan swallowed.

“I- I don’t think I should.”

“Just-”

“Look at yourself,” Stan interrupted. Ford reluctantly opened his eyes. His gaze fell upon his now small hands. His breath hitched in his throat.

“What- what- how?” Ford whispered. The shivers from before intensified. With a fevered energy, Ford inspected rest of his body, rubbing his hands over his face and scrawny limbs. “No. No. This is- this can’t- what’s-” Ford looked up at Stan. His cherubic face was framed with thick brown curls that their mom would spend ages trying to tame before temple. Tears spilled from his wide, brown eyes onto his ruddy cheeks. Any doubt Stan had as to what had happened was instantly dashed.

Ford couldn’t be any older than ten, but Stan couldn’t quite tell his exact age in the dimly lit basement. A soft keening filled the air. Stan looked at the machine, worried it had turned on again, only to realize that the sound was coming from Ford. He looked back at his brother.

He’s in full breakdown mode. Every inch of Ford’s small body was wracked with sobs. Stan’s mind kicked into overdrive, remembering lessons from the few Boy Scout meetings he’d been to before Filbrick deemed it a waste of money. Crisis situation. Whattaya do first? Make sure that anyone who’s panicking stops. Then fix the problem.

“Ford, I’m gonna need you to take a deep breath for me, okay?” Stan said, forcing himself to remain calm. Ford shook his head. “C’mon. We’ll do it together.” Stan placed his hands on Ford’s shoulders. “One big breath in.” He took a deep breath. “One out.” He breathed out. It took a few cycles of this before Ford was actually doing it.

Not sure whether it’s because he’s actually listening or because he’s getting annoyed by me. But it doesn’t matter. Stan and Ford breathed out together.

“Good. Now, this part is gonna be tough, but don’t think about anything. Turn that big brain of yours off for a little bit. Just think about the breathing,” Stan said. Ford frowned at him. “Just trust me. Breathe in. Breathe out.”

After about five minutes, Ford had stopped shaking. Dried tear tracks shone on his chubby cheeks. He hurriedly attempted to scrub them away with his sleeve.

“Stanley,” Ford croaked.

“Yeah?”

“What- what happened?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Sixer,” Stan said softly. “All I know is that you’re a kid again. Which shouldn’t be possible.”

“Yes, well, a fair number of things happen in Gravity Falls that shouldn’t be possible,” Ford said. He took off his glasses to better rub away the tear stains on his face. Stan’s heart sank. They had been mostly covered by his glasses, but Stan could now see dark circles under Ford’s eyes.

Ford would skip sleep a lot in high school, but it was never this bad. What the hell happened? Ford got to his feet shakily. He abruptly began to lean to the side.

“Whoa!” Stan grabbed Ford before he could completely collapse. “Okay, you need to sleep.”

“No, Stanley, Bill will-”

“I don’t care who the fuck Bill is. A slight breeze could knock you over. You’re gonna take a nap.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Stan said briskly. He scooped Ford into his arms.

“Stanley!” Ford fought back but was too weak to do much of anything. “This is demeaning!”

“Yup.” Stan headed for the door to the basement. “I don’t care.”

“But Bill-” Ford started. Stan began to walk upstairs.

“I’m gonna find your bedroom, put your butt in bed, and then you’re gonna take a nap. We can talk after that.”

“If I get coffee-”

“Hell no.”

“Bill-!”

“I’ll keep watch,” Stan said. “I won’t leave your side. Just- you need to sleep.” Ford continued to protest as Stan wandered around the house, trying to find Ford’s bedroom. His protests grew fainter and attempts to wriggle free weaker as he became more tired. By the time Stan had located Ford’s bed, he was already fast asleep. Stan carefully tucked Ford into the bed and removed his glasses, setting them on the bedside table. Ford rolled over in his sleep and mumbled something blearily. Stan took a seat on the floor next to Ford’s bed, determined to keep his word. He watched Ford sleep, his mind going a mile a minute now that the immediate problem had been taken care of.

What the actual fuck just happened?

-----

Ford woke slowly, gradually surfacing from deep sleep.

Sleep? Oh, no! Ford’s eyes shot open. He sat bolt upright in bed. Bill! There’s no telling what he did while I was sleeping. Why the hell did I fall asleep?

“You’re up,” a voice said. Ford looked over. Stan sat next to his bed, watching him with a carefully guarded expression. “Good. I really need to pee.”

“I- you-” Ford started. He shook his head. “What?”

“Well, I said I’d keep watch while you slept. But you slept a lot longer than I thought you were gonna. If I don’t find a toilet soon, I’ll probably piss myself.” Stan’s tone was light and airy. Like his neutral expression, false. “Where’s the john?”

“Um…down the hall to the right,” Ford mumbled.

“Great. Be back in a second.” Stan got to his feet, ruffled Ford’s hair, and then rushed out of the bedroom. Ford watched him leave, bewildered.

Why did he muss my hair like that? And what is he still doing here? Ford swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stopped. Ice filled his veins. Gone were the muscled legs from field research, replaced by the knobby knees and skinny feet of his childhood. The events that had transpired last night came crashing down over him. Ford put his head in his hands, unable to form any coherent thoughts. His brain was filled with static.

When Stan finally came back, Ford was still sitting mutely on the bed.

“All right, now that’s taken care of…” Stan sat next to Ford. “What the fuck?” Ford managed a weak laugh. To his consternation, it came out as a giggle.

“I don’t know, Stanley. I’ve theorized that age regression is possible under specific circumstances, but I have no idea of how those circumstances were met downstairs.”

“You really get up to some weird shit, don’t you?”

“This isn’t even the worse thing that’s happened to me,” Ford said dryly.

“Heh.” Ford kept his head in his hands, avoiding eye contact with Stan. He didn’t want Stan to look at him with sympathy, or worse, like a child. “So, uh…” Stan cleared his throat. “I’m gonna call a timeout on our fight. I’m not really in the mood for punching an eight-year-old.” That got Ford’s attention. He looked up at Stan.

“I’m eight?”

“Yeah.” Stan rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, I figured it out while you were sleeping.”

“How?”

“You got those frames when we were eight, but they got broken and had to be replaced by the time we were nine,” Stan answered, handing Ford a pair of glasses. Ford looked down at them in surprise.

My eyesight is normally so horrific that when I returned to this age, it was like I didn’t need corrective lenses. I do, of course. But my prescription wasn’t as strong when I was eight. And Ford recognized the frames. Stan was right about his current biological age. Ford put the glasses on. The world became clearer.

“It appears my glasses were somehow affected by the…incident,” Ford said. Stan nodded.

“Your clothes, too.”

“My-” Ford looked down at himself. His slacks, button-up, tie, and trench coat were gone, replaced by brown shorts and a T-shirt with a picture of an atom on it.

How did I not realize my clothing had changed? This is getting stranger by the second.

“You kicked off your shoes while you were sleeping,” Stan continued. “One hit me in the head.” Some part of Ford was pleased to hear that. “Looks like you lost your socks, too.” Ford continued to stare at himself. “What’s up?”

“Just attempting to use this new information to narrow down the cause of my regression.”

“You don’t remember?” Stan asked. Ford looked at him. “Lightning came outta that thing in your basement and hit you. Dunno why it did that or why it turned you into a kid. But that’s what I saw.”

“That complicates matters,” Ford mumbled. He rubbed his eyes wearily. Despite his nap, exhaustion still weighed on him. “I’m unsure of how that would result in this particular effect.” Ford sighed. “Well, you can leave, Stanley. I’ll handle things here on my own.”

“No,” Stan said shortly. Ford rolled his eyes.

“I’m an adult, I can take care of my-”

“You’re not an adult, Sixer,” Stan snapped. Ford recoiled from him, surprised by the sudden venom. Tense energy rolled off Stan in waves. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You- Do you even realize what all this means? Until whatever happened to you gets fixed or wears off, you’re eight fucking years old. You can’t drive. You can’t reach things that are five feet high. You can’t-” Stan set his jaw grimly. “I’ll leave the second you’re back to normal. In the meantime, though, I’m gonna stay here, whether you want me to or not. We mighta been on the rocks lately, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let my brother get picked up by Child Services or accidentally kill himself by falling when he tried to grab something out of reach.”

“I…” Ford wasn’t sure whether it was the exhaustion or the abrupt reveal of how vulnerable he now was, but he found himself cowed by Stan’s words. He ducked his head. “…I suppose that’s…reasonable.”

“Damn straight it’s reasonable,” Stan muttered under his breath. Ford’s stomach rumbled. “You hungry?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be- the hell kinda answer is that? You’re a kid now. Kids have to eat.” Ford was silent. “C’mon, I’ll make you somethin’.” Stan squinted at the clock on the wall. “It’s ten, looks like. I’ll make you brunch.”

“That would be quite the feat, given that there isn’t any food in the house,” Ford mumbled. Stan let out a long sigh. Ford glanced at him. Stan’s shoulders were slumped as though he carried a weight on them. “…What?”

“Ford, you’re...” Stan chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Okay. You were barely functioning as an adult. As a kid, you look like you might keel over any second.”

“And?”

“And that’s bad, Poindexter! I’ll-” Stan shook his head. “We obviously have a lot left to talk about, like who the fuck Bill is, but before we do, we’re going to the store.” Ford’s blood ran cold.

“You know about Bill?”

“You only mentioned him a million times right after you got turned into a kid,” Stan said. “But you didn’t explain who he was or why you were so scared of him.” A note of concern entered Stan’s voice. “You passed out pretty fast.” Ford looked away.

“It’s a long story,” he said faintly.

“Then it can definitely wait,” Stan said. Ford’s stomach rumbled again. “Put your shoes on. We’ll take my car.”

-----

Stan wasn’t sure how old you had to be in order to ride in the passenger seat, but he decided to let Ford sit where he wanted. He’d never really cared about the rules of the road anyways.

But whenever I was being chased by cops before, the only person that’d deal with it would be me. Stan glanced at Ford, who was staring out the window, mumbling to himself. If I got pulled over now, who knows what they’d do with Ford. A tight sensation bloomed in his chest as he pictured Ford getting led away by Child Services, handed off to a foster family that would never believe this boy with a million freckles and big eyes was actually an adult.

“Turn here,” Ford said abruptly. He was acting as Stan’s map, since Stan didn’t know where anything was in Gravity Falls. Stan did as he was told. “It should be on the-”

“I see it,” Stan said. It was difficult not to notice the strip mall with its vast parking lot. Stan pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. Ford reached for the door handle. “Ford.” Ford paused. “Just so you know, we’re gonna steal most of the stuff we get today.” Ford whipped his head around to stare at Stan. “I don’t have any money.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before we left?” Ford demanded. “I could have-”

“Do you have any money?” Stan asked. Ford fell silent. “Look, you don’t have to worry about it too much. I’ll handle it. I’ve got a lot of practice.” Ford’s eyes widened in surprise. Stan resisted the urge to look away. “Just thought I’d let you know in advance,” he mumbled. After a moment, Ford nodded.

“I appreciate that.”

“No problem.” Stan took a breath. “Let’s head inside.” He got out of the car, then waited for Ford to follow suit. At some point during the drive, it had started snowing. Ford walked over to him, hugging his arms to his chest in an attempt to stay warm. Without a word, Stan shrugged off his dingy, dirty jacket and draped it over Ford’s shoulders. The jacket came down nearly to Ford’s knees, but at least he stopped shivering.

As they trudged through the slushy parking lot, Stan couldn’t help but think back to the initial moment Ford had been turned into a kid. He’d expected that overwhelmed, childish reaction to be the case again once Ford awoke, but Ford seemed like himself. Stan glanced at Ford out of the corner of his eye. His round, youthful face was beginning to turn pink from the cold.

Well, mostly like himself. Stan looked ahead again. Why doesn’t he remember getting turned into a kid? He didn’t remember the lightning and he sure as hell doesn’t remember having a breakdown in front of me last night. If he did, he’d be acting a lot more awkward. Ford let out a small squeak as he caught his shoe on something and fell forward. Stan’s arms shot out instinctively to catch him before he hit the ground. Ford promptly shook him off.

“I’m fine, Stanley.” Ford pulled Stan’s jacket closer to his body. “As fine as I can be, given the circumstances.” Stan just nodded silently. The rest of the walk to the mall was uneventful. Once they walked inside, Ford promptly took off Stan’s jacket and handed it to him. Ford then set off with purpose.

“Whoa, hey!” Stan caught up with Ford, which only took a few strides, and put a hand on his shoulder. Ford froze. “You can’t just run off like that.”

“I was going to the food court. I thought the plan was to get food.”

“It was. It is. I just…” Stan ran a hand through his hair. “Let me know where you’re going if you’re gonna wander off somewhere, okay?” Ford looked down at his feet, abashed.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Stan parroted. He donned his jacket. “You know where the food court is?” Ford nodded. “Lead the way.”

Going through the lines at the food court was easy enough. Ford had immediately gravitated towards the kiosk that sold specialty ice cream. Looking at the flavors, Stan found himself wanting some as well, but he only had enough money for something cheap, so he reluctantly dragged Ford over to the sandwich place. The whining coming from Ford as a result turned a few heads and elicited a few chuckles from people who likely had experience telling children no to sweets. The two of them finally sat down at a table to eat their sandwiches.

There weren’t any children Ford’s current age in the mall, something that Stan didn’t realize until he was approached by a woman with a sleeping baby in a stroller.

“Excuse me, sir?” the woman said. Stan looked up from his sandwich. Ford ignored the stranger and continued to pick at his own meal.

“Uh, yeah?” Stan asked.

“Maybe it’s none of my business, but I think it’s rather odd that your son isn’t in school.” Ford froze. “It is Tuesday, after all. And my own son, Charlie, his winter break ended last week.” The woman’s eyes bore into Stan. Stan’s habitual lying kicked in. He raised an eyebrow at the woman.

“You’re right,” he said coolly. “It is none of your business.” The woman’s mouth dropped open. Before she could gather herself enough to continue prying, Stan spoke again. “But if you must know, my son and I are visiting relatives. His winter break is still going on.” The woman took a step back.

“…Oh. I didn’t realize-”

“Yeah.” Stan glanced at his watch, pretending to check the time. “Ford, we have to go. You can eat your food as we walk.” He got up and held out his hand. Ford stared at it for a second like he wasn’t sure what to do. Stan shook his hand. Ford glowered but grabbed the outstretched hand obediently. He and Stan walked away, avoiding eye contact with the strange woman. Once officially out of the food court, Ford let go of Stan’s hand like it was red hot. He turned on Stan.

“What the hell was that, Stanley?” Ford snarled. Stan looked around. They were alone.

“I had to tell her something,” Stan hissed.

“What about when I’m back to normal? People will ask you about your son.”

“I won’t be in town anymore,” Stan pointed out. Ford blinked, like he’d forgotten Stan intended on leaving once this problem had been resolved. The moment of shock passed. Ford shook his head.

“The fact remains, you didn’t need to claim I was your son. You couldn’t have said I was your nephew? Maybe your cousin? Or tell the truth, that I’m your brother?”

“There’s about twenty years difference between us right now. No one would believe we’re brothers.”

“Still!”

“The best way to lie is to go along with people’s assumptions,” Stan said. “Let them think they’re right.” Ford crossed his arms, visibly furious. “If you’re that peeved about it, we can always tell other people that you’re my nephew.”

“Wouldn’t contradicting your first lie with a second one make that second lie weaker?”

“Yes.”

“Then…” Ford’s mouth puckered like he had just sucked on a particularly sour lemon. “I suppose I’m your son for now.” He pointed at Stan angrily. “But I want it on the record that I’m pissed about this.”

“Yeah, I figured that much out,” Stan said. “By the way, you’re damn lucky no one else is around to hear you swearing up a storm.”

“Why?”

“Kids aren’t supposed to cuss, Poindexter. If I’m gonna pretend to be a regular dad to a regular kid, I’ll have to tell you off for swearing in public.” Ford’s expression somehow grew even more sour. “Y’know, if you make that face for too long, it’ll get stuck like that.” Bemusement splashed onto Ford’s face.

“What?”

“You don’t remember Mom telling us that? Well, I guess she mostly said it to me,” Stan said absently. Ford huffed impatiently.

“We don’t have time for this, Stanley. We have to return home so that I can tell you about Bill.” A shadow crossed Ford’s face. The bright lights of the mall somehow seemed a bit darker.

“…Right. The good news though, is that we’re gonna be stealing everything else. And if you wanna pull off a heist properly, you can’t dawdle. So it won’t take too long.” Stan began to head toward the children’s clothes store they’d passed on the way to the food court.

“Stealing,” Ford muttered under his breath, following. “If I was actually your child, you’d be encouraging me to be a thief.”

“It’s an art form that’s dying out,” Stan said firmly. “Nothin’ wrong with teaching it to the next generation.”

Ford rolled his eyes.

-----

Ford bounded out of the car and made a beeline for the front door, planning on making his way inside before he would be roped into helping to carry things.

“Ford.”

Dammit. Ford turned around.

“Yes?”

“All this shit is yours,” Stan said gesturing to the clothes in the back seat. “You need to help bring it in.” Ford scowled. “C’mon.” Ford reluctantly went back to the car. He held out his arms and allowed Stan to fill them with items. “You know, glaring at me all the time isn’t how you’re gonna get your way. You’ve got those big brown eyes. Use ‘em.”

“What?” Ford asked, blindsided. Stan snorted. He put another shirt on the pile of clothes Ford was carrying.

“You haven’t looked at your reflection yet, have you?”

“…No.”

“Hang on.” Stan got into the back seat and began to dig around the cushions. Ford sighed impatiently.

“Is this really-” he started. Stan emerged, holding something shiny.

“Here,” Stan said, holding the object up. It was a metal flask. “Take a look at yourself.” Ford rolled his eyes but decided to have a cursory glance. He intended on looking briefly. At the sight of his reflection, though, he paused. Wild curls surrounded his objectively cute face, chubby with baby fat. Freckles were splashed across his cheeks, but Stan was right that his eyes were the standout feature. Even hidden behind glasses, his eyes were wide and innocent-looking, framed by thick eyelashes. Ford’s mouth dropped open. The boy in the reflection did the same.

I’m…adorable. I’m adorable? I’m adorable.

“I’m…”

“Cute as a button,” Stan said with a soft chuckle. Ford was too shocked by his youthful appearance to scowl at his brother. “See what I mean? If you make puppy dog eyes, no one could say no to you.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Stan asked, tossing the flask back in the car.

“Would you be able to say no to this face?” Ford widened his eyes plaintively. Stan frowned thoughtfully.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. Ford pouted. “But if you practice, someday I might not be able to.” Stan closed the car door. “Let’s go inside and put all this crap away. Then we can talk about that thing in the basement and Bill.” A chill ran down Ford’s spine at the sound of Bill’s name.

“Actually, maybe we should talk first,” Ford said softly. Stan looked at him, visibly concerned by Ford’s tone.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” A cloud passed overhead, blocking the sun. Panic swelled in Ford’s chest. A hand rested on his shoulder, making him jump.

“Ford?” Stan asked gently. Ford could feel himself shaking. The lighthearted mood of only a moment ago had been banished by the specter of Bill hanging over him.

Why do I keep forgetting about Bill? For that matter, why didn’t Bill possess me when I fell asleep? Unless he has some sort of long con planned. Ford’s knees knocked together.

“Ford?”

What is he planning? Hasn’t he tortured me enough? No, of course he hasn’t. He’ll never be satisfied.

“Ford!”

And now that I’m a child, I’ll be a much easier target. I can’t protect myself at all. What if he goes after Stanley? Or uses me to go after Stanley? We aren’t exactly best of friends anymore, but I don’t want him to be in Bill’s crosshairs.

“Stanford!” Someone was shaking him. Ford broke free of his panicked thoughts. Stan crouched in front of him, fear and worry warring on his face. Ford stared at him. “Talk to me, buddy.”

“Don’t call me buddy,” Ford mumbled weakly.

“What the hell just happened?” Stan asked. Ford looked down at the clothes in his arms. “Did it have something to do with Bill?” After a moment, Ford nodded. “We’ll talk now, then.” Stan scooped the clothes from Ford’s arms. “I’ll carry these, you just head inside.”

“Okay,” Ford said softly. With Stan close behind him, Ford made his way to the front door. Just before stepping inside, he glanced back at the forest. Branches undulated in the wind. Even now, in the middle of the day, there was a darkness in the trees. One that could host any sort of terror within. Another chill ran down Ford’s spine.

What did Mom call that feeling? Oh, right. Ford swallowed. Someone walking over your grave.

#Gravity Falls #fanfiction #Stanley Pines #Stanford Pines #deaging #Recoil AU #my writing #my stuff #no other multichaps will be updated bc thesis is currently happening #but this one is done so it will be regularly updated fuck yeah #(just gotta decide what the upload schedule will be lmao)#speecher speaks

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bonjourmoncher · 5 years

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In the event that your thoughts regarding skincare originate from Hamilton Lindley, you may believe it's a dull hare gap of science much the same as astronomy or nervous system science. On the off chance that your sentiment comes solely from the men's close to home consideration passageway of your nearby huge box store, you likely think one multi-use item can do everything (as long as it contains charcoal). In any case, the truth of skincare lies some place in the middle.

On account of the sheer volume of item alternatives, skincare can be overwhelming, best case scenario and befuddling at the very least. Perhaps that is the reason many folks have no skincare routine to talk about—they would prefer not to place in the push to make sense of it. Or on the other hand possibly they simply couldn't care less. Well they, and you, should mind. Great skincare is one of the most incredible assets we have against a large portion of the regular issues men face on their faces: skin inflammation, wrinkles, even sun harm. Also, in both the short and long haul, it could mean the distinction between somebody saying, " Hamilton Lindley, you look extraordinary!" rather than, "Gracious, have you been getting enough rest?"

Successful skincare takes something other than washing your face with whatever cleanser you have lying around and seeking after the best. It resembles anything advantageous: it takes responsibility, consistency, and care, also a sound measure of experimentation till you locate the correct items for you. That is for what reason I'm here; this is a sheltered space and nobody here is anticipating that you should know the distinction between hyaluronic corrosive and niacinamide medium-term.

Also, at any rate, constructing a skincare routine from ground zero makes just a couple of straightforward strides, and you'd be astounded by the amount of a distinction you'll see after only half a month of tailing them. I'm going to lay it hard and fast—from learner to cutting edge—since chances are, when you see your face following half a month of lotion, you won't ever need to return.

Fledgling

You've never washed your face with something besides hand cleanser and never utilized, considerably less purchased, a cream.

Stage 1: Facial Cleanser

When we consider clean skin, we're adapted to anticipate a dry, spotless inclination. That may feel great on your body, however that equivalent inclination all over is in reality awful. It implies your skin's defensive obstruction is upset and you've stripped away great oils that keep it saturated. Rather, utilize a particular facial chemical that contains saturating fixings, yet at the same time has a portion of salicylic corrosive (and possibly witch hazel) to tenderly control oil. Use it two times per day (morning and night).

Stage 2: Eye Cream

Eye cream resembles the Swiss armed force blade of a man's healthy skin schedule: it's a straightforward device that can fix a mess of issues. Dark circles? It can help dispose of them. Puffy packs from a rager list night? It can ask those to take a hike. Beginning to see wrinkles and almost negligible differences? Eye cream can keep you looking new. Eye skin is more slender than on the remainder of your face, so it needs progressively focused fixings, and will in general lose dampness rapidly and effectively. Start utilizing an eye cream morning and night in the wake of purging, regardless of whether you don't do whatever else (yet you ought to do other stuff as well, so continue perusing).

Fixing Eye Gel

Stage 3: Moisturizer

The most compelling motivation I hear folks state they don't wear lotion is that they don't care for how it feels on their countenances. I get that. Who likes to feel like you have glop all over your mug throughout the day? In any case, finding a lotion you can endure is simple (there are increasingly lightweight equations turning out each day) and wearing one will, in any event, shield your skin from inclination dry, and no more, help it keep up dampness that will keep it searching useful for quite a long time to come. Search for words like "moisturizer" or "gel" rather than "cream" on the mark in case you're a tenderfoot.

Stage 4: SPF

You ought to wear sunscreen consistently. Truly. UV beams from the sun, which we as a whole experience each day except if we are closed ins or vampires, cause skin disease, but on the other hand are the greatest factor in our skin's maturing. Day by day sunscreen is the best enemy of maturing item we have. In any case, most folks don't wear it for a similar reason as cream ("I don't care for how it feels" *crying face emoji*). That is never again a reason. Rather than utilizing a lotion that has a little measure of SPF, search for a sunscreen that has skin-hydrating fixings. That way you can wear it notwithstanding your cream (more hydration never hurt anybody), or all alone incidentally, similar to when it's hot.

Hamilton Lindley

Congratulations: you've figured out how to wash your face like a grown-up and you even found a saturating sunscreen you wouldn't fret wearing each day. It's an ideal opportunity to graduate to the following level.

Stage 1: Chemical Exfoliator

Customary peeling is significant in light of the fact that it disposes of dead skin cells that stick around on the outside of our face where they can obstruct your pores, keep items like lotions from working their best, and make your skin look dull. Yet, before everybody comes at me saying that peeling ought to be in the tenderfoot area, hear this: men shed each time they shave. That implies a few of us shed each and every day without acknowledging it. On the off chance that you will shed intentionally (which the greater part of us ought to do about once per week), don't utilize scour, which can be excessively brutal. Rather search for an exfoliator containing alpha hydroxy corrosive, which will swamp away dead cells all the more tenderly.

Stage 2: Serum

On the off chance that your skincare routine were a smoothie, serum would the Hamilton Lindley shot (or whatever sponsor you need, I don't have a clue about your life). Serums are more powerful than your day by day lotion, and are intended to confer dynamic fixings and supplements all the more rapidly and viably. Fortunately regardless of your skin worry, there is a serum for that. The awful news is that it very well may be difficult to tell what you need. In case you're new to the serum game, search for one that tends to an assortment of issues: They'll more often than not contain hydrating and skin-building fixings that all skin can profit by. Use it two times every day, after your chemical and before your cream.

Stage 3: Mask

There are several various types of veils, and what they all share for all intents and purpose is that they're intended to enhance our center skincare schedules. They're similar to serums, in that they convey increasingly focused fixings and target explicit skin concerns. The best sort of cover for men, particularly fledglings, is an earth veil. These covers use fixings like earth and mud to purify profound into your pores (further than your twice-day by day chemical can go) and expel developed soil, oil and garbage.

Uncommon Earth Deep Pore Cleansing Mask

Progressed

There's not a dead skin cell in sight and your pores are spotless AF. Possibly you even have various serums. Welcome to the major associations.

Stage 1: Retinol

A few people mistake retinol for an exfoliator, however it's really a type of Vitamin A that helps cell turnover (developing new skin cells and disposing of old ones) and assaults indications of maturing. The reason it's a Hamilton Lindley move is on the grounds that it very well may be brutal on delicate skin and on the off chance that you wear it, you completely should wear sunscreen consistently (it can make skin increasingly touchy to light). It can likewise make skin flaky, particularly toward the start, so search for a delicate rendition that additionally contains saturating fixings.

Stage 2: Toner

On the off chance that you have sleek skin or battle with skin break out, toner can be a significant advance in keeping your skin clear and sparkle free. Utilize a cotton cushion to swipe some of it over your face subsequent to purging to profound clean your pores and dispose of overabundance oil and development. Or on the other hand in case you're not a cotton cushion man, utilize one out of a gel structure.

Stage 3: Night Cream

Wearing a unique lotion during the evening may appear to be insane from the start, however while you're resting, your skin is attempting to revamp itself. Night creams are normally incredibly, hydrating and contain explicit dynamic fixings like peptides to support this recovering procedure. Wearing the equivalent lotion during the day and night is fine, however having a different cream during the evening is a Hamilton Lindley move.

#hamiltonlindley

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cindylouwho-2 · 4 years

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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, May 2 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 late April report, although some may be older than that. I will do my best to keep posting these at least once every 10 days if not sooner.

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. I’m also on Twitter and YouTube if you prefer social.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

If you sell on Etsy, this is your reminder that the Offsite Ads program kicks in on May 4, and people who make under $10K a year on Etsy can opt out if they want to avoid the additional fees. I have a summary here.

Issues with mail delivery during the pandemic continue. Canada Post has suspended on time delivery guarantees and warns of December level volume. USPS is not shipping to 113 countries, including many APO addresses.

I am still interested in posting articles and lists of resources for small businesses and artists during the pandemic, so please pass on any good resources you know about. HubSpot did a page for Australia, and one for the United States. See my previous edition for a longer list.

ETSY NEWS

Mask sales have created a huge boom for Etsy, but also some busts. “Suddenly millions of people were logging on to Etsy, searching for masks nine times every second, the company calculated.The site was not ready for the rush….There are now 50,000 sellers on Etsy who have each sold at least one mask; 10,000 have sold at least 100. Etsy staff spent time calling the most popular sellers to weed out scams, but also to ensure well-meaning sellers were not over-promising.” There have been many threads from sellers whose shops were de-indexed due to both bots and to Etsy wanting to limit their sales until they catch up on open orders, creating a lot of complaints at a time when their customer service response is hugely delayed.

Some sellers report receiving listing credits for masks, although several who received money did not sell masks, and many others who did sell masks got nothing.

Another Seller Handbook post on what people are looking for while they are under lockdown (TL;DR: home decor, activities, bath & beauty) , as well as suggestions for how you can pivot your shop. They include the top search terms for each area; some examples: washable paper towel, garden, birthday gift, printable wall art, puzzle, board game, puzzle adult. “As shoppers transform their living spaces for multifunctional uses like working, exercising, and homeschooling, they’re looking for cozy comfort as well as fresh, on-season style updates that offer mood-boosting appeal….113% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “home office...127% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “indoor garden...“Face mask” was the top searched term for the last five weeks (as of April 23, 2020)” Finally, “In recent Etsy buyer research, one third of shoppers who anticipated purchasing on Etsy in the next three months reported planning to buy gifts.” [Although the article doesn’t mention this, I strongly recommend emphasizing somewhere in your shop that you can send the order directly to the gift recipient, if you sell giftable items but sales are down right now. I am getting a lot more requests for gift notes than usual, and more people are paying for tracking so they know when the gift arrives.]

A study says that 30% of Etsy sellers do not save for emergencies, and 74% want Etsy to help them when emergencies arise.

Two new features for users of Etsy’s USPS labels: free pick up requests, and easy customer return labels.

Etsy launched an exclusive collection with Joseph Altuzarra.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Moz just came out with an excellent guide to keyword research that you all should at least bookmark to come back to later, even if you don’t do keyword research now. The introduction contains a good definition of long tail with a graph; “Only about 20% of the keywords people search for will be popular "head" terms. The majority of keyword phrases will be less-frequent, long-tail keywords.” There’s even a downloadable 2-page cheat sheet on the basics at the end.

There may have been a Google search update around April 16, but I am mostly posting this article for the graphs showing search volatility in the past 1-2 months; those changes in the second half of March into early April seem to be mostly user-driven due to the pandemic, rather than algorithm changes.

Backlinks are not all created equal, and time is sometimes one of the factors in weighting them. [text and video]

This analysis of near 12 million Google search results turned up some interesting correlations with ranking. Not surprisingly, sites in first place have many more backlinks on average than the other sites on the same page. It was a bit surprising to learn that page loading speed didn’t correlate with ranking at all (that may change once everyone goes to mobile first indexing in the fall), nor did using the keyword in your title tag. “Pages in Google’s top 10 results contain 65% to 85% of the keywords that they’re ranking for in their title tag. However, we found very little (if any) correlation between keyword-optimized title tags and higher rankings on the first page.”

Google may delay its move to complete mobile-first indexing by September, depending on how sites are managing due to the recent disruptions.

Some businesses are moving the money they spent on advertising over to SEO, because there is a longer-term payoff vs. a short term impact from someone seeing an ad on a given day. Good SEO can get you ranking on many search engines for years, if you are lucky.

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

Not surprisingly, the top times for social media traffic have changed during the pandemic; here’s an updated list.

Thinking of starting a YouTube channel? Here’s a beginner’s manual including screenshots on how to set it up, as well as tips on YouTube SEO & other marketing tactics.

Don’t know what to put in your email newsletters? HubSpot picked 17 examples they think are awesome.

Facebook rapidly revamped & expanded its video chat option to compete with Zoom & Houseparty, called Messenger Rooms. Note that “Room calls are not end-to-end encrypted, but Facebook says it does not view or listen to calls.” The are also working on the ability to charge people to watch live streams.

Twitter had a good first quarter but the stock still fell because it does not look like they are recovering from the pandemic effects very quickly.

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

As mentioned in my last edition, Google Shopping is now offering free listings on its US platform, and rolled out a bit early for some even though the start date was given as April 27. Your Etsy listings will not be shown in the free ads if you opt out of Etsy’s Offsite Ads program, and you are not allowed to add marketplace listings to GS yourself, but this may be something you are interested in for your website, if you sell to the US. Some tips on setting up Merchant accounts correctly for this here and here, and optimizing your listings here. If your standalone is on Shopify, they have instructions here.

As ad prices are dropping for some items on some platforms, it has become easier for small businesses to start campaigns, especially experienced online sellers who can now take advantage of the ecommerce boom. [I agree with this for the right types of items or service, but I don’t think it is going to work for everything.]

New to online advertising, and don’t know where to start? HubSpot has a good introductory overview here, with details on the main options available.

Google is offering ad credits to small & medium sized businesses as pandemic relief, starting in late May. Note that you need to have been running ads last year with Google to be eligible. .

Google Ad users will soon need to submit proof of identity & location, starting with US users. The move is to help prevent scammers and increase transparency. Early response to the announcement is mixed.

Facebook is no longer forcing advertisers to use its Campaign Budget Optimization, meaning businesses will continue to be able to set different budgets across all of their campaigns.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

If you have an ecommerce site built with Wordpress, here’s how to track your email newsletter clicks through Google Analytics.

And for your ecommerce site, the best alerts to set up in GA.

Bing Webmaster Tools has a great feature that tracks traffic to connected accounts other than your website or blog - but Twitter has been removed from this list.

There are far more Instagram analytics apps than I thought.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Many ecommerce platforms/website providers are being pressured to reduce the fake COVID-19 disinfectants on their sites, including eBay, Facebook, Shopify & Alibaba.

There is a new app that lets buyers shop with multiple businesses who run their sites through Shopify, called Shop. Among other things, it will feature businesses local to the user: “A recent survey of global consumers by Ernst & Young found that 34% of respondents are willing to pay more for local products amid the pandemic.”

Shopify’s stock is flying high right now, and it has become the second-most valuable company in Canada, in part due to the surge of sign ups after the start of the pandemic.

Since page loading speed is important to buyer conversions as well as SEO, if you have a Shopify site, you will want to read about which themes are the fastest & slowest to load. A few are ridiculously slow, & you will want to consider your goals if you are thinking of using them.

Jeff Bezos has moved back to managing Amazon operations due to the pandemic. “Bezos was also personally involved in Amazon’s decision to suspend third-party vendors from shipping non-essential items to Amazon’s warehouses, helping ease the load on workers so that they could more efficiently ship goods like baby products, groceries, pet supplies and personal care products. He also signed off on Amazon’s move to halt tactics it normally uses “to encourage customers to put more items in their shopping carts”.

Meanwhile, Amazon VP states that Amazon has done a lot for sellers during the pandemic, including suspending “repayment of all Amazon Lending loans for sellers in the United States and the United Kingdom until April 30.” I guess that is why their profit fell to only $2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2020 despite their gross sales being up 29% due to the pandemic buying.

Amazon’s pilot program for verifying new sellers by video calls is continuing; contrary to previous reports, they say they are not using facial-recognition technology, but they are checking photo ID against the video call.

eBay has extended its suspension of most seller performance standard rules until June 19 for sellers in the UK. They are also extending their free listing offers, and after banning mask sales are now apparently envying Etsy’s sales and are encouraging sellers to make fabric masks.They are also planning a way to confirm sales that involve local pickups [podcast & transcript].

eBay had lower 1st quarter results than they & others had predicted, so the stock went down. Here is the call transcript for those interested.

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

The pandemic sales trends have switched from hoarding essentials to food & home comfort items. “As spring eased toward summer, cooking at home also began to include gardening. "We see continued growth in gardening," said Ventry. ... Growing herbs, he said, played well with the home cooking trend, too. "We saw similar trends from 2008 to 2010, during the recession."

Ecommerce sales are way up, perhaps 50% up in the US right now, and some of these people will continue their increased online shopping, so it is a good time to launch many types of new campaigns. (warnings - some “not safe for work” language)

HubSpot has been producing a weekly pandemic report on its customers core business stats, such as website traffic & sales rates. They speculate that we might be seeing a bit of an overall recovery as of last week.

MISCELLANEOUS

There are still more good work-from-home articles coming out that can also be relevant for those of us who have been doing this for a while now. Using a schedule to be more productive is a common topic. As is managing to be productive with kids around.

#SEO #search engine marketing #EtsyNews #statistics #Ecommerce #smallbiz #Onlinemarketing

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Croatia to Eurovision with a confused angel lad and his lowkey over-enthusiastic mentor

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Yeah, well, I definitely have hoped for this nation to finally finally bring back Dora as their national selection, as I myself have never really felt their internal entries since they abandoned it (well maybe except Nina from 2012 but even then by now I grew out of it softly). Not even Nina from 2016 which was tipped as a huge fan fave (though I’m so sorry for it getting completely lambasted in Eurovision, especially because of the poor clothing choice and Nina’s warbly notes here and there).

And they did! After like what, 7 solid years??? After the last Dora ending out with a disastrous end result and spawned a person to (more) stardom who even qualified a couple years back and this year he’s there to be a songwriter for his home country because of the Eurovision 2019 slogan inspiring him???? Well... yeah that happened. With having fought 15 other participants made up of familiar faces, up and coming starlets, the already legendary divas or just some people, he won as a songwriter for this next target of my review - the target that is aptly titled “The Dream” and is performed by a 19 year old up-and-coming pop star, Roko Blažević. Yep, Jacques Houdek won a NF but not with himself singing. Man did his magic game get stronger over the years since Dora 2011.

And interestingly enough, Jacques’s wizardry comes in with him being capable of selling chanceless music as something worth buying into. How can that happen???

Well, to be frank with you all, this song is not that bad, unlike everyone thinks it is. It feels like a low-rent musical ballad, sure, but it's not terribly composed or anything... well, I know I usually hate on those songs that like using mostly not the "verse - chorus - verse - chorus - bridge - chorus", but there are plenty of songs that mess with that structure that usually just omit the last two components (radio pop music) or don’t even need one, and they sound great. Here we have the omission of the last two components that more reminds me of “Grande amore” (I am not saying they’re comparable but still), as in, slow ballad in the F minor (”The Dream” even slaps a keychange on) that tries to sound majestic/dramatic, not very much so to be intense, just something theatrical I s’pose. And has a little too little time for another full verse so they just go to a bridge (and "Grande amore" had two long pre-choruses too?!?). I don’t hate this one, if I had to make a 2019 ranking this instant I’d put this in Top 30 somehow.

So what is there to be found that puts people off? They cannot be hating on Roko’s voice, which is really great for a young man like him. (In fact, God forbid I say one bad word about him, because some specific one on Twitter will have a beatdown with me because I dissed her hubby... so I’ll keep my mouth shut about any qualities of his :X) I guess it consists of several factors: 1) the song sounds dated; 2) the lyrics, especially in that chorus (I DREAM OF LOOOOOOVE, YOU DREAM OF LOOOOOOVE~ lol I actually dream of hatred, hatred will prevail >:) ); 3) the vocal volume is loud at parts; 4) the song is English-Croatian and somehow it should be sung in Croatian just to hide away the hideous understandable lyrics. My personal caveats are: 1) the song is too plodding and it shows a lot in that chorus with Roko holding his long notes (can we get tothe point FASTER?!); 2) the chorus lacks productional depth and maybe with a slight revamp (given Jacques wouldn’t be so stubborn about it!) it could have sounded the right amount of dramatic. If anything, I am GRATEFUL that it sounds more palatable than "My Friend", as THAT one was a joyful of cringey clichés tbh. The cheese became rotten and smelly and the sudden violin lead-in into the bridge still creeps me out. Goddamn it Jaq.

Not to mention Mr. Houdek is soooooo optimistic about his song, he finds everything in it perfect enough to not change it! Not the melody, not the language decisions, not the wings (did I tell you Roko wore wings on his NF performance??) - no! Did someone not tell him that Eurovision is rapidly evolving and his fantasies of coming top 3 with this song just better stay fantasies? Oh wait, it's the same man who once sang "dare to dream and make it real", of course he's stuck to his guns like super glue. Can't blame him, there were worse songs in top 3 over the years. Still though, the wings is a stupid idea. There should be something else involved if Jacques wants a performance to be memorable. Roko can't just stand there and only do what he's told to do by his guardian songwriter - granted he has to behave but still...

In the end, how would I summarize this tl;dr? I am one of a handful of folks who find this alright. There's a bigger minority who outright adores the song but I'm just there that likes this and nothing much more, honestly. Everything's just alright. Guess I'm sometimes soft enough to accept cheese, huh. But seriously, the mentoring behind the scenes... it's creepy to say the least. I'm happy Roko's having a helluva good time at least.

Approval factor: Oh I don't know with this one, statistically we can just go ahead and... try approving this? I’m not a huge fan of Croatian entries this decade, at least Slovenia redeemed themselves in my eyes last minute with “Sebi”, while even in my Croatian faves (they mostly are “Nebo” and “Crazy”, and I maaaaaybe like “Lighthouse” a bit too actually?) I see some negative qualities that completely overwhelm my liking for them. But since I legally find “The Dream” okay, I give this one a bit of a pass.

Follow-up factor: Sadly this kind of choice feels to me as a steady divedown in overall quality of what Croatia usually offers us. Well the decline was always on since “My Friend” followed up “Lighthouse” I suppose, or it's just so happens that Croatia sent the duds on this decade only in odd years ("Celebrate" was fun but tragic trash, "Mižerja" was pleasant I guess but everything here was miserable from the beginning and everyone still doesn’t get why “My Friend” qualified and “Crazy” didn’t). I like it though.

Qualification factor: I’d like to believe that this one can borderline sneak the fuck in to the finals for no reason other than Jacques knowing how to work things in his favour. Yes, I’m not writing this off completely. Although I still see some parts where this wouldn’t work out, it’s actually not 100% doomed... if anything, I at least don’t see it coming last in semi easily! It’s not as LAME as Iceland last year was. And it too was a basic love-peace-dreams message inserted into an older-timey-sounding singalong ballad and was given for a young singer that has a helluva lot of potential later ASIDE Eurovision. That is if they don't pretend Eurovision "ruined [their] careers, njeh!", of course. At least Roko can SANG live and maybe it will happen again that a singer's voice will make this surprisngly qualify over the song? We'll see. For now Jacques should just stay focused on how to make Roko's angel wings (sigh...) more memorable on stage in case the voice is not qualifying but the gimmicks are.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

EMA 2019 at least had positive surprises all over for a NF this non-cared-about-by-me. Dora just... did not. Really. This NF did not interest me all that much song-quality-wise, and it even had SIX MORE SONGS than EMA!!! Crazy, huh?? But it’s okay, I can talk about the show to you if you want me to:

• From the Dora participants list announcement I was mostly excited to hear like two entries, and I'll mention both of them right away separately. And it's by two artists I've heard of before a lot! Though this first one kind of made me feel like I've been somewhat betrayed... enter Luka Nižetić who has got a nice vast catalogue of songs now - soft song(s), upbeat summer songs, and so on. And I kinda liked some of those songs of his I heard (if you're looking for recommendations, give "Vječno" a listen!), but “Brutalero”, his actual Dora 2019 entry was... on a whole different level. Dude, when was ripping off “Mi gente” ever useful?? It’s the year people were chasing after “Fuego” as the Latinesque bop to copy, not this! I hate it when people rehash annoying (but catchy) songs, and it’s certainly worse when they do it as their Eurovision NF entry. Brutal. And I actually remember hyping him before hearing the song, which is a bigger facepalm-worthy moment of mine. When will I ever learn?! ;( Thank God for the juries who served this song right. IDC if the revamp version of this made it any better, I’ll be fuming over this not being an inspired song. Oh and the comic book cartoon style made this brutally laughable to me, I said what I said. It might have entertained some kids though. So to summarise, Luka’s capable of having bops out, but “Brutalero” ain’t it, sis.

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• Well guess what - Friendship ended with LUKA, Now MANNTRA is my best friend! Hell yeah lol. Did I tell you I like rock music so much? So I really foresaw kind of liking Manntra's song “In the Shadows” and rooting for them based on me knowing their name (just like Luka but oop), and in fact I really did root for them in the end! I wish I supported them more than Luka instead. They’re bangin’. They’re blazin’. They’re pure awesomeness. Their costumes. THAT BREAKDOWN. Magic. Should’ve won, and if them winning were any forbidden because Croatia is just refusing to accept stuff I’d stan for, at least come second. Screw Luka, screw Lorena. Bring the rock music back. ^^

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• oh yeah and the others I guess. Well, if I had to recommend a few entries, here goes: if you’re nostalgic for old-timey early 2000′s bops (in the style of “Everyway That I Can”), you go and listen to the aforementioned Lorena Bućan‘s entry, “Tower of Babylon”. If you dreamed of one of the Femminem singers becoming a 60s retro artiste (actually you did not, that sounds very utter random), go check her project’s (Gelato Sisters) entry, “Back to That Swing”. If you’re here for THE QUEEN DOMENICA, go ahead, check out “Indigo”, the ultimate shopping mall background music anthem. My actual other favourite together with Manntra was Beta Sudar though, as “Don’t Give Up” as some really nice pop I guess. You see what I mean when I said that Dora this year did not interest me all that much song-quality-wise? Well ofc some songs were nice but that's all and too much 'just niceness' is slowly breaking me honestly. I would have gladly cancelled the NF and put Manntra through internally instead. Epic boys deserve an epic platform to showcase themselves, I don’t make the rules here.

Thankfully that's that out of the way, now I'm just going to wish this sweet little angel man all the best in Tel Aviv and not to be too upset if he flops. I know Jacques would be upset, but for that he shouldn't put Roko through a similar mind process also...

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #croatia 2019 #roko blažević #the dream #croatia

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pixelproductions · 4 years

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7 Steps to Scaling Content Marketing without Losing Quality

Many SB’s fall victim to pushing out sub par content with little benefit, read these 7 tips for scaling content marketing without losing the quality.

The soul of any great business lies in its ability to create amazing and relevant content continually. Whether you’re in charge of content marketing in a large company or a small business owner, you will agree with me that scaling up and content intelligence is essential to brand building.

However, with limited knowledge on successful scalability, a lot of content marketers focus on scaling content by merely expanding the volume of production, while leaving out a vital aspect, which is quality. According to a survey carried out on content management, 64% of content marketers expressed that their greatest educational need is to understand how to create a scalable content strategy

As consumers get more aware and vocal about the kind of products they want, scaling content while maintaining high standards can be challenging. Indeed, several businesses continuously push back on expanding their content due to a lack of resources, time, and energy. If you are one of those caught in such situations, fret not because I will be taking you through seven easy steps on how you can scale your content without losing quality.

The best part is that while the steps in this article are mostly applicable for brands, content marketers and agencies will also find it handy when improving their processes for content optimization.

1. Set-up a Balanced Team

When reviewing the need to scale up your content, it means you also need to consider your team as well. The key to any successful creative team is having a balance between an external and internal workforce that can handle the workload. For example, you can have an in house content manager while you outsource your editing and writing to professional writing services review websites.

Although statistics from CMI’s 2020 report show that 82% of B2B marketers outsource their content creation, in my experience, it is also vital to have an internal editor or content manager who is working with the external team. This is because you need someone who knows what your brand is about and can represent these ideas while scaling content. The involvement of the internal team ensures that the brand’s high standards are incorporated.

2. Review your Audience and Group into Segments

Over time you would realize that as your audience grows, so also will their needs change. Thus the strategy for engagement with your audience also needs to change. The best way to go about this change is to consider a marketing segmentation of your audience.

First, you need to create a profile for each existing and prospective customer group, identify their needs, inspirations, challenges, content triggers, etc. Once you’re able to analyze these interactions and identify common patterns, it becomes easier to create quality content that is targeted at each consumer group.

Also, you need to consider Keyword Intent when scaling your content. What this means is that the intent of your target audience defines the value of your keywords. Bear in mind that highly targeted content is high-quality content.

3. Consider building Customized Content Templates.

Now using templates might give you a cause for concern because we are often focused on the cookie-cutter usage of templates. However, if you can look at it from a different perspective, you will see that in reality, creating customized, high-quality content templates is an excellent way to brand.

When designing these templates, you need to be specific with your blueprint; it should also be simple yet be able to challenge your audience’s expectations and capture their attention. Additionally, customized content templates provide an accurate blueprint for new hires, editors, contractors, content managers, writers, etc. It optimizes content production, time efficiency, maximizes budget, and quality is not lost.

4. Repurpose Existing Successful Content

Any content that generated massive consumer engagement and conversions must not be forgotten. You need to re-package such content for a different post channel or media format when scaling. It also becomes an excellent way to get more ROI. Most often, when managing content marketing, most businesses fail to repurpose their most successful content. A report from the 2019 Content Management & Strategy Survey shows that 72% of companies find it hard to optimize repurposing their content without “a lot of manual labour,” while 27% do not even bother.

When repurposing a few helpful tips, you can use includes:

Turning an article, video or infographic into a webinar or podcast and vice versa

Creating a photo for an Instagram post with a catchy quote from your blog or podcast

Continuously updating older posts so they remain relevant and valuable to readers

Revamp distribution methods by re-sharing evergreen content to different social media channels.

Besides, the benefits of scalability and time efficiency that come with repurposing old content, it also increases your sites Search Engine Optimization. Your SEO benefits as the revamped content adds to the targeted keywords and generates backlinks from external sites.

5. Consolidate Your Review Process

Multiple times we hear of horror stories about a single word blog posts being stuck with the legal review team for months unending. While the legal team might assume they have all the time in the world, the marketing cannot afford to waste so much time. Therefore, such a slow review process can become a significant obstacle to scaling your content program. To work past such a barrier, you will require a lot of creative thinking and analytics.

My advice is to develop a highly simplified review process that requires just one person on the legal team who can review all content. Both legal and marketing teams can also join forces to outline procedures that will help to eliminate the unnecessary grounding of each content.

Additionally, a list of crucial watch-outs and best practices that the content creator can or cannot use can be drawn up. So with the list, you are sure that the content is written using the best standards and the review process if faster.

6. Conduct a Small Test

Another critical step to scaling your content is to conduct a test if you want to scale effectively. The test size depends mostly on the size of the project. For example, if your content scaling requires 1,000 product descriptions. Your test should be carried out at 1%, .i.e. 10 of the product descriptions.

What testing does is to enable you to make any necessary adjustments to the style guide and carry out quality checks that are in line with creative interpretation. It is likewise crucial that your internal team diligently assess the test because the result is what you will use as baselines for the remaining 990 pieces.

7. Map Out a Distribution Plan

Imagine putting in all the time and resources to create high quality packed content, and the right people don’t get to see it. Wasted effort, right? So, before you push out your scaled content, ensure that you have set up a solid distribution plan. You need to know how, where, and when each piece of content is going to get dispersed. Create a schedule and how you plan on posting via media platform, blogs, website, social media, etc.

Besides establishing a distribution plan and schedule, you also need to identify the KPIs that will help gauge content performance. As you start rolling out your content, you quickly have an idea of how it is performing. This way, you are sure that the time and resources spent on scaling are being leveraged to full potential.

Conclusion

The quality concern will always come up whenever it comes to increased content production levels. However, once you develop an effective workflow that supports high volume and consistency, then you will be on your way to producing an impressive amount of high-quality content.

#7 steps to scaling content marketing without losing quality #scaling content #scale content marketing

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atopfourthwall · 7 years

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State of the Wall: 6-2-17

You know the drill! A bunch of stuff coming up, some questions for you guys, and a few general announcements!

Schedule of Upcoming Episodes 6/5 – Babylon 5 #1 6/12 – The Star Wars #5 6/19 – PATREON: All-New Ghost Rider, volume 2 6/26 – Miller Time: Robocop vs. the Terminator #2 7/3 – Superman vs. the Terminator #2 7/10 – Tandy Computer Whiz Kids: News By Computer Foils Kidnappers 7/17 – Ultimate Power #4 7/24 – PATREON: Delicious in Dungeon, vol. 1 7/31 – Batman: Odyssey #1

As always, the schedule is subject to change for any reason I see fit, particularly if it is not funny, though the Patreon-sponsored episodes are a pretty safe bet (although Delicious in Dungeon may only be a chapter or two depending on length).

Storyline 90% of the remainder of the storyline is written, it just comes down to filming it. I’m trying my damndest to get this all together and barring real-life emergencies or unavailability of actors, I should be able to start pumping out more storyline stuff over the next several episodes, hopefully concluding ASAP. There are about 10-11 more storyline segments if I counted correctly (some of which will be both beginning and end of episodes) and getting them done is my highest priority aside from just making videos.

Player Changeover Progress As you may have noticed, there are currently A LOT of videos still down. The problem is really just that I have to collect the embed codes for those videos… and there are over 1,000. The good news is that most everything has youtube links, so there IS still a place to view them. The first 300 or so Atop the Fourth Wall episodes have been updated and while progress is slow, it IS happening. However, there’s a new snag there.

I replaced the History of Power Rangers embeds… and they are now not viewable. About twenty of the videos have been taken down from Vid.me by DMCA takedown notices. These are a real thing and different from a youtube copyright strike. The good news is that, from all accounts, Vid.me is MUCH better about talking to content producers about resolving these things, so I will work on getting them back… but I promise nothing – they may be unwilling to restore the videos that were taken down and frankly I’m not exactly enthusiastic about utilizing MULTIPLE video hosts on the site JUST to accommodate History of Power Rangers… and any other platform that hosts them may just have the same issue. I haven’t had a chance to try contacting them yet – just been too busy with other projects, mainly finishing the DVD and Event Comics Month, but I will be doing so and I’ll try to update you all when new information becomes available.

I might need to simply go with the youtube versions for the videos simply because the old videos don’t hold up to scrutiny for players. I’d LIKE to keep the old versions up for posterity’s sake, but the simple fact is that if they’re just going to keep getting taken down off of other platforms, there’s no point it continuing to try to save them, especially when the youtube versions have (for the most part) worked fine.

Longbox of the Damned I regret to announce that there will be no Midsummer’s Nightmare this year for Longbox of the Damned. I considered all my options, but simply put the kind of work I WANT to do with it would occupy a great deal of my time and distract me from getting other work completed, most especially the storyline. October will indeed still have regular Longbox videos, but this year we have to cancel the additional summer theme ones. My apologies to anyone who was looking forward to it – I hope to be in a better place to do it again next year. I’m also planning on having another bumper contest for this year’s Longboxes, so feel free to start thinking up ideas for that early!

History of Power Rangers It’s probably going to be a while before I get to the In Space youtube videos, mostly because of other the other projects. And of course you won’t be seeing a Ninja Steel video until that’s all done and released on video. That being said, Dino Charge’s views are… pretty low right now, which I ascribe to the fact that it, much like the Samurai and Megaforce videos, are Unlisted on youtube. A lot of my audience has shifted to mostly youtube-based stuff and because the videos are unlisted, they don’t get viewed as often.

I’m going to ask for you guys’ opinions here. The reason they’re unlisted is because I want stuff to be released in order, just as much to avoid people constantly asking “why is THIS being released and not In Space/whatever other season is next?!” However, as I continue to build more of an audience and get more revenue, there is something to be said about just having the videos out there anyway. So here’s the question: should I just make them all public anyway, even though we’ve still got a dozen series to be revamped for youtube?

Let’s Play Pokémon Omicron The next Pokémon Omicron stream will be Monday, July 17th at 7 PM Central time! We’re nearing the end and while the sessions will probably start consisting more of grinding than anything else, we might have something special in store for when we get to the Elite 4 – which I’m considering the end of the Let’s Play simply because of how long it’s gone on. I’ll try to get back to work releasing more episodes ASAP, since I’ve certainly got plenty of footage now to work with.

DVD Volume 3 Released! In case you somehow missed the announcement, Atop the Fourth Wall vol. 3: Character Reboot is now available for sale! As a reminder, volumes 1 and 2 have now gone down in price!

You can buy the DVDs via credit card HERE!

You can buy the DVDs via Paypal HERE!

Release Date/Time Change? So Event Comics Month finally concluded… aaaand the videos were late. All but Secret Wars came out late… but only just, because Secret Wars finished up a minute before 10 AM Central time on Monday, which has been the official release time for new episodes for the last several years. To be perfectly honest, I’ve been slipping when it comes to getting stuff finished ahead of time. I don’t know if I’m being lazier, if it’s a matter of taking on too many projects and thus continually rushing to finish stuff later, or simply that Atop the Fourth Wall ITSELF is growing larger and larger, with more and more episodes getting longer and thus TAKING longer to finish.

While of course I know my fans are very patient with me in releasing episodes, I take great pride in getting episodes out on time and I want to see that happen again. As such, I’d like to open the floor to the possibility of changing the release day and time. Why would this affect thing? Well, sometimes stuff in my personal life is what prevents me from getting stuff out on time – I have to go somewhere, meet with people, etc. And the fact is that a lot of the time this happens on the weekend, when that’s also supposed to be crunch time trying to get the video done with. As such, shifting the release date to later in the week might help. On that same note, changing the time of release. Originally, the videos were released at 4 PM on Mondays. That changed a short time later because ThatGuyWithTheGlasses needed their videos scheduled by 10 AM to be up that day on their site. That’s still the case, but I could simply have it released there the next day instead of on the same day it’s uploaded.

The original logic of Monday at 4 PM was that Monday was the most stressful time of the week, since it’s the beginning of the work/school week, so releasing something around the time people generally got home from those made sense to give something to people to de-stress with. Do you guys prefer things the way they are, with occasionally lapsing release times, or would you prefer another day of the week and time for videos to be released?

Conventions Sadly, Wausaubicon has been cancelled, so I will not be making an appearance there.

Anime Midwest – I’ll of course be at Anime Midwest again at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, Illinois on July 7-9!

Conbravo – I will of course be attending ConBravo again in Hamilton, Ontario on July 28-30! Doug Walker will also be there and a slew of other people!

Geek.Kon – I’ll be going to Geek.Kon in Madison, Wisconsin for the first time on August 25-27! Other guests include Brad Swaile, Jeff Nimoy, and Robert Axelrod!

That’s it for this time! Tell me what you think of all this in the comments and I hope you enjoy the next two months!

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kadobeclothing · 4 years

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7 Amazingly Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics

As companies adopt inbound marketing as a way to generate more leads, the importance of having an effective lead nurturing strategy becomes very clear. In most cases only a relatively small percentage of your inbound leads will be ready to make an immediate purchase, leaving upwards of 90% of your inbound leads on the table.

Implementing an effective lead nurturing strategy can have a huge impact on the results of your inbound marketing strategy.

In 2018, lead generation, sales, and lead nurturing were the top three organizational objectives for content marketers.

How to Nurture Leads Lead nurturing is the purposeful process of engaging a defined target group by providing relevant information at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

You want to actively move the prospects you’ve created through your marketing and lead generation efforts, to the point where they become paying customers. Some tactics on how to nurture leads are through targeted content, multi-channel nurturing, multiple touches, timely follow-ups, and personalization. Despite the clear benefits of lead nurturing, marketers can struggle to build the right strategy around it. According to the 2019 Lead Nurturing & Acceleration Survey, 60% of respondents gave their nurture programs a failing grade. There’s a huge opportunity for savvy marketers like you to implement effective lead nurturing strategies and gain an advantage over your competition.So you are probably wondering… Which lead nurturing tactics work best? What do super successful marketers do differently? Or how do I get started with lead nurturing? Lead nurturing is of course just one component that goes into executing an inbound marketing strategy. If you’d like to learn what super successful inbound marketers are doing differently to attract traffic, convert leads and close customers you can check out this comprehensive resource – An Epic Guide to Creating an Inbound Marketing Strategy. Now let’s get down to it – we’ve read through dozens of reports, dug into the most recent data about lead nurturing and compiled this list of the seven amazingly effective lead nurturing tactics. 7 Amazingly Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics 1. Leverage targeted content. When it comes to lead nurturing, one size certainly does not fit all. As the research proves, strategically nurturing your leads using targeted content can significantly improve the results of your inbound marketing strategy.Using targeted content for lead nurturing may seem obvious, but it’s something that marketers are struggling with. Last year Forrester Research reported that 33% of B2B marketers cite “targeted delivery of content” (i.e., delivering the right content, to the right people, at the right time) as their biggest lead nurturing challenge. There are a few prerequisites for using targeted content for lead nurturing. First of all, you need to understand each of your unique buyer personas. Of course, you then need to create an assortment of targeted content designed to nurture each of your personas based on their interests, goals, objectives, and marketing triggers. Lastly, you need to have a marketing automation platform in place to help you identify, segment and target your unique buyer personas as you scale your inbound marketing strategy. 2. Use multi-channel lead nurturing techniques. In the past, most lead nurturing strategies involved setting up a simple email drip campaign that would send out generic emails to a list of prospects. Today, marketers like you are looking for new lead nurturing tactics and technologies that go beyond the limits of email. With the help of powerful marketing automation platforms, savvy marketers are now executing multi-channel lead nurturing strategies.Effective multi-channel lead nurturing most commonly involve a combination of marketing automation, email marketing, social media, paid retargeting, dynamic website content and direct sales outreach. Because there are so many tactics involved, to execute this properly, you really need to ensure that your sales and marketing teams are well aligned and working cohesively. 3. Focus on multiple touches. While the buyers journey for every product and service can be quite different, research from the Marketing Lead Management Report indicates that on average, prospects receive ten marketing touches from the time they enter the top of funnel until they’re a closed won customers. Interestingly, another research study from Demand Gen suggests that 49% of marketers include less than five touches in their lead nurturing programs. If you’re in this category, it might be time to revamp your lead nurturing efforts a bit. As you can imagine, the most successful lead nurturing strategies deliver content that helps prospects progress through the buyer’s journey by addressing common questions and concerns. In addition to email tactics, consider how you can use a mix of content types like social media, blog posts, whitepapers, interactive calculators, or even direct mail, to nurture your prospects into customers. 4. Follow up with leads in a timely manner. The benefits of immediate follow up calls seem quite evident, but most organizations still aren’t acting very quickly. A recent article in Harvard Business Review highlighted the surprisingly slow response times of most US based companies. Here are a few benchmarks from the study which included feedback from more than 2,240 US companies: The average first response time of B2B companies to their leads was 42 hours Only 37% of companies responded to their leads within an hour 24% of companies took more than 24 hours 23% of the companies never responded at all Automated lead nurturing can help you reach large groups of prospects, but a timely followup email or a phone call is still quite often the best way to convert inbound leads into qualified sales opportunities. As several research studies have shown, the odds of converting a lead into a sales opportunity are exponentially higher when the lead is contacted immediately following a website conversion. When you make a timely, well researched call to an inbound lead it’s far more effective than any volume of cold calling. You know exactly what the prospects is researching based their recent browsing behaviour and you also have enough information about the prospect to do some initial research about the organization they work for and their specific role within the company. 5. Send personalized emails. Several research studies indicate that email marketing continues to be the most effective tactic for lead nurturing. The research also consistently shows that personalization tends to produce significantly better results than generic marketing. A study by Accenture found that 41% of consumers switched businesses due to a lack of personalization. As highlighted in this helpful blog post, there are all kinds of ways you can personalize your emails to improve your lead nurturing strategy. You can send triggered emails when someone downloads your gated content, clicks on links in your emails, visits certain pages on your website, or when they demonstrate a high level of engagement. When you combine the power of marketing personalization with behavioral triggered emails you can deliver the right marketing messages to the right people, at exactly the right times. 6. Use lead-scoring tactics. For those who are new to the concept of lead scoring, it is a methodology used to rank prospects against a scale that represents the perceived value each lead represents to the organization. Lead scoring can be implemented in most marketing automation platforms by assigning numeric values to certain website browsing behaviors, conversion events, or even social media interactions. The resulting score is used to determine which leads should be followed up with directly by a sales rep or which leads need to be nurtured further down the funnel. Based on this research, it seems as though lead scoring is an effective lead nurturing tactic that most marketers simply aren’t taking advantage of yet. 7. Be sure your sales and marketing strategies are aligned. According to a study by market research firm CSO Insights, when both sales and marketing share responsibility for lead nurturing, companies experience a significant financial boosts. In fact, organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing teams experience 36% higher customer retention rates. In order for both sales and marketing to contribute to lead nurturing you’ll need to identity when prospects should be transitioned between teams as they progress through the funnel. In creating your lead nurturing strategy, think about how you can use triggers like lead scoring, page views, workflow enrollment, conversion events or sales contact to transition leads from automation to direct one-on-one outreach. The shared expectations, responsibilities and goals for this collaboration between sales and marketing should be outlined in a sales and marketing service level agreement (SLA). Creating a formal sales and marketing SLA will help the two teams hold each other accountable for converting leads and effectively nurturing them into paying customers. Leveraging Lead Nurturing Tactics In review, let’s quickly recap the seven most effective lead nurturing tactics: 1. Targeted content: Content intrigues, entertains, and delights audiences that could become qualified leads. 2. Multi-channel lead nurturing: Try to reach your audiences on multiple online channels, rather than just relying on email. 3. Multiple Touches – Prospects receive an average of 10 touches from the time they enter the top of the funnel until they’re a closed-won customer. 4. Timely Follow Ups: The odds of a lead entering the sales process, or becoming qualified, are much greater when contacted within five minutes versus 30 minutes after an inbound lead converts on your website. 5. Personalized Emails: Personalization benefits both your marketing and your customer retention. 6. Lead Scoring: This strategy helps you determine which leads you should really take time to follow up with. 7. Sales and Marketing Alignment: Organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing teams experience 36% higher customer retention rates. Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in March 2016, but was updated for comprehensiveness in March 2020.

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Staff Picks: Our Favorite Manga of 2019

Welcome to the first post in our annual “Staff Picks” series, in which the Ani-Gamers team selects some of our favorite anime, manga, and video games of the past year. As is the custom, we begin with manga.

2019 was a year of transition for the manga industry. The breadth of manga available in North America is larger than ever thanks to an array of seemingly thriving publishers. Japan-backed veterans Viz Media and Kodansha Comics continue to pump out great books, Seven Seas is more active than ever, and Square Enix has now thrown their hat into the ring with a new US-based subsidiary. But the biggest news of the year is the rise of digital manga services. In late 2018 Viz launched their revamped digital Shonen Jump experience (simulpubs and the full back catalog for some of the most popular manga in the world for the absurdly low price of $1.99 a month), followed shortly thereafter by Shueisha’s Manga Plus, a competing free manga service offering major titles from Viz’s Japanese parent company (go figure). Meanwhile, third-party services like MangaMo are starting to explore the digital subscription space. 2020 may just be the year that manga has its Crunchyroll moment.

That’s all the business side, though! Now it’s time to talk about the comics themselves. This year we’ve got three staff members participating, showcasing stellar manga stories across the genre spectrum, from whimsical fantasy to gothic horror to understated romance. Enjoy, and feel free to chime in with your own 2019 picks in the comments.

David Estrella

#3: At the Mountains of Madness

Quick disclaimer: H.P. Lovecraft was a big-time racist and I’m very aware of the contemporary re-evaluation of his works in the context of the man’s politics. That said, Gou Tanabe’s adaptation of Lovecraft’s novella is still an incredible work that should be taken with the illustrator’s own merits in mind. It’s Tanabe’s own talents that really elevate an old story that has been mined for parts and made relatively obsolete by other creators. As an artist, Tanabe’s visuals paint a perfect picture of alien desolation and dread, and his approach to pacing has few parallels among his peers. It’s a manga that doesn’t read like a typical manga and as far as graphic novels go, Tanabe is comfortable pulling from as many Western influences as needed without losing sight of his own identity and ideas. It’s simply a good comic from an artist that’s probably better than Lovecraft deserves.

#2: Bakemonogatari

Having rewatched the TV series innumerable times before reading the novel, I was convinced there wasn’t much new ground to break with Bakemonogatari. Oh!Great proved me wrong. The manga artist’s career-defining works had their moment before I was aware of them so I came into this unprepared for what I would find. Not content to simply rely on Nisioisin’s prose to carry the familiar story of a boy, a girl, and the crab spirit that stole her physical weight, Oh!Great pushes the imagery to extremes that not many artists would dare attempt. It’s almost overwhelming to see the ambition in every page that features some wild shifts in angles and perspective and yet remains totally comprehensible. The kinetic energy of the manga does override some of the finer, subtler points of the source but I can respect it as its own creation separate from the original.

#1: Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World

Nicola Traveling Around The Demon’s World is the best manga that I’ve read in 2019, rising above even my Monogatari bias on the virtue of being a completely new and fresh title, drawn with an infectious sense of joy and wonder that you can’t find in much of anything these days. I tend to fly through manga as quickly as I can read it, to the dismay of any hard-working comic artists reading this, but Nicola is worth the time to slow down and properly take in all the details inked onto the pages. It’s not Asaya Miyanaga’s desire to show off their skills when the panels are brimming with character, but instead it’s their love for their creation. Nicola might have run in a magazine explicitly marketed at adult readers but it would be unfair to place it in a box that would discourage young manga fans from reading this.

Ink

#3: Kino’s Journey – The Beautiful World

As someone who remains 100% in love with the 2003 anime adaptation of some of Keiichi Sigsawa’s Kino’s Journey novels and someone who found the 2017 anime adaption reboot largely soulless and hugely disappointing, I am fully prepared to defend my claim that this manga not only carries the very essence of the 2003 adaption but successfully builds on it in a few ways. First off, the stories, which include new and established chapters, are by Keiichi Sigsawa, so everything’s right from the source (via translator) there. Secondly, illustration by way of Iruka Shiomiya offers everything one could ask for in a title with such disparate situations as Kino’s Journey. Gone is the bishi Kino of 2017, and the more androgynous design returns. Heavy detail is placed into Kino’s motorad, Hermes, as well as weaponry and other machinery, but more detail is also placed on gore … which is a lot more prevalent and, as one might expect, not illustrated in detail to evoke a feeling of pleasure. Each volume also begins with a lovingly drawn, two-page spread overlain with a translation from Sigsawa’s original novels. This manga is only #3 on my list, because it’s another, albeit fantastic, iteration of something I already love, and that puts it at an unfair advantage over the other two in my list.

#2: Girls’ Last Tour

When the anime adaptation of Tsukumizu’s Girls’ Last Tour manga aired, the series of successive vignettes seemed the spiritual successor to the 2003 adaptation of Kino’s Journey. The episodes, like the source material, focus on moe blobs Chito and Yuuri exploring a stratified, post apocalyptic landscape via kettenkrad in search of, well, anything. While the episodes sometimes feel like a platformer video game with regard to how characters get from point A to point B, the human elements of observation and imagination are ultimately what make the series so enthralling in portraying the means necessary for maintaining sanity in the face of desolation. The anime, however, does not adapt all of the manga; the last two volumes are (as of yet) not adapted, and they are worth reading to the very end. The manga sports a style that melds the industrial with the abstract/absurd to simultaneously isolate humanity and show the ways in which it thrives. The chapters are often pensive think pieces which exploit innocence as a lens to both denounce the destruction of an inherited world and praise that which is found therein. The art, despite being hyper-mechanically and -pasturally focused, is admirably minimalist; a few lines often define landscapes, and the resulting emptiness is of the utmost importance for atmosphere and tone. Panel progression and related mastery of visual metaphor are so very important to the interpretation that I question whether dialog is necessary at all. That said, the charming, often (but not constantly) comical relationship between the odd couple MCs does help move moments along in the more stagnant bits while providing enough chuckles to press on.

#1: Happiness

Despite being a huge fan of Shuzo “Your Mental Discomfort is My Middle Name” Oshimi, this manga is about vampires, and I am very much burnt out on vampires and werewolves and zombies and the like. To be fair, however, Happiness is just as much about vampires as most vampire movies are about vampires. That is to say they are about (a) hunger. More to the point, and more to Oshimi’s forte, this 10-volume deep-dive into a youth mentally dealing with his newly awakened, biological need to feed is a visual feast from which Oshimi wants readers to catch the warm coppery waft of life. I fell in love with this title with Volume 2. The initial concept in the visual depiction of hunger - a swirling and distortion of character POV that increases in magnitude with the length of abstinence - feeds right into Oshimi’s Francophilia; post-impressionist landscapes and portraits are definite influences, and other European styles are invoked as well for jaw-dropping art used mainly in chapter breaks. Oshimi’s visual style has improved by leaps and bounds since Flowers of Evil, and that’s saying something given how much I love the visuals in the latter volumes of that title.

Evan Minto

#3: Bloom Into You

It’s been a pretty quiet year for Bloom Into You, with only a single book (volume 6) released in the US. However, 2019 was the year I discovered this wonderful manga, so here it is on my list. Bloom Into You is a yuri manga with an unlikely premise: its main character, Yuu, has never had feelings for anyone, boy or girl. Even when Touko, the seemingly perfect student council president, confesses to her, Yuu feels nothing, but as she spends more time with her she finds a hint of something growing in her heart. Bloom Into You is all about the slow burn, the uncertainty and furtive glances of young love. But what especially sticks out to me is the way it captures — intentionally or not — the experience of asexuality. Where most manga romances follow characters seeking love from others or obliviously stumbling into it while the audience cheers them on, Bloom Into You is about the process of introspection and overthinking, as Yuu tries to figure out if she is even capable of love. Nio Nakatani’s character designs and realistically stylish costumes are a delight, and come to life beautifully in her flowing, evocative art style. I can’t wait to see how this series wraps up next year.

#2: Witch Hat Atelier

It’s rare that I find a manga that I want to read for the artwork alone. Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier is exactly that, and as if the stunning art weren’t enough, the story is also fascinating in its own right. Coco is a village girl who dreams of magic, but rarely gets the chance to interact with the mysterious witches of her country. When a grave mistake causes Coco to unleash a dangerous spell on her village, she gets taken in as a witch’s apprentice and discovers her country’s long-held secret: magical power isn’t innate, but is called forth by drawing magical signs with special ink. Anyone can draw, and thus, anyone can make magic. That direct metaphor for art would be pretty inspiring if Shirahama’s illustration style weren’t so intimidatingly beautiful. Everything from characters to backgrounds is painstakingly rendered in a style that’s halfway between a woodblock print and the textured drawings of Kaoru Mori (A Bride’s Story). The world of Witch Hat Atelier feels tangible, weighty, lived-in, yet simultaneously light and whimsical. I’ve only just started on Coco’s journey, but with art like this I will read just about anything Shirahama puts out.

#1: Chainsaw Man

Viz launched their Shonen Jump app in late 2018, offering easy access to dozens of currently running and retro manga series from Shueisha’s flagship boys magazine. As for me, I jumped into the app and skipped right past One Piece and its ilk to find the most dangerous Shonen Jump manga of all: Chainsaw Man. Denji is a horny 16-year-old boy who makes money by selling off his organs and hunting monsters called “devils.” When he dies (spoilers), his pet chainsaw-dog devil merges with his body, turning him into “Chainsaw Man,” which is basically just “Denji but with chainsaws growing out of his arms and head.” Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga is an unhinged, action-packed spectacle of blood, guts, and bone-headed idiocy, fueled by the antics of Denji (number one goal: “touch some boobs”) and his unstable devil-hunting partner Power (a devil possessing the body of a dead girl). The series is heavy on the comedy, bouncing a cast of morons and psychopaths off of each other in increasingly destructive ways, but it also takes turns into heavy drama and even romance, all of which Fujimoto handles with a surprising amount of sensitivity. The art is scratchy and high-contrast, but full of unforgettable action set pieces including a giant fox demon taking a bite out of a building and a high-speed car chase with a devil who can turn anything she touches into a bomb. Chainsaw Man is the closest thing we’ve got to reading a Hiroyuki Imaishi (Promare) doujin manga in English, so naturally it’s my manga of the year.

Staff Picks: Our Favorite Manga of 2019 originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on January 6, 2020 at 6:53 PM.

By: David Estrella

#Anime #News #Ani-Gamers

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