#generally speaking i find the earlier seasons more interesting in terms of overarching story and character building

[au-where-spn-is-good]

i genuinely don’t get ppl who like supernatural but reduce either sam or dean to being just good or bad like to me the most interesting thing abt the show is their dynamic as two fucked up people who do both good and bad things and can’t let go of each other i just really don’t see the appeal in “one brother is good the other is bad”. and that goes both ways im a sam lover but i don’t agree with ppl who think dean is evil and sam is a perfect innocent baby boy ! i mean if nothing else they both kill people LMAO like a lot !

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Satellite City

So we all know Nostalgia Critic’s review of The Wall, right? I even did a foul-mouthed review of it a while ago, one that had me so legitimately angry I posted it early under the Michael in the Mainstream label. One criticism in particular I had was the nature of the sequence parodying “The Trial,” in which what I thought were a bunch of weird furry OCs made for the video began to espouse poor criticisms and opinions of the film.

As it turns out… this was not the case. Those creatures are the creations of Sam Fennah, and are the stars of his series Satellite City. This review, while reviewing something a little too off the beaten path for me to necessarily call “mainstream,” is one I wanted to approach in a respectful manner as an apology for jumping the gun and being far too harsh on these creations, though this could have been avoided entirely if Doug Walker had made it more clear what, exactly, the cameo was. Regardless, the cameo did its job, and got me interested, and I will say that the series does show a lot of promise. It’s not over, nor is the first bit of the overarching story even complete, so think of this as my initial thoughts on what has been shown so far.

The show has a simple premise – Sam Fennah plays Sullivan, a very strange man who lives in a manor in rural England that is host to a crazy cast of alien refugees called Kivouachians. Hijinks frequently ensue as they go about their daily lives, though here “hijinks” means “Lucy Lacemaker decides to decapitate someone and recline on their headless corpse.” It’s certainly not a show for those with clean senses of humor, that’s for sure. Also, I know I don’t usually do summaries anymore, but I think this show needs it due to its relative obscurity.

It’s interesting watching through the show from when it began a couple years ago to today; you can see the animation on all of the aliens improving, as well as the voice acting. I have to say a lot of the animation in the earlier episodes was a bit stiff and unpolished, though certainly not bad, with it always being remarkable work for a small nonprofit indie project like this. On the other hand, the voice acting tended to be awkward and poorly done. Lucy especially had a pretty weak voice until much later, I believe around the 2018 episodes, when Rikki Leigh Tiffurelli took over and gave her the best voice to date. In the more recent episodes, though, the voice acting is much improved in general; frankly I find it hard to give too much flak to indie internet shows for having weak voice acting early on. I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series had some seriously weird delivery and voice acting for a while, with things only really kicking into high gear in the second season (in particular once Marik’s voice settled into what we all know and love). What I’m trying to say is that the series has found a nice place to settle into in terms of production quality, I feel, though of course seeing it improve would be great.

There is a bit of an overarching plot at the moment, involving the sinister Grand Voice Locket returning and some political strife among the aliens, all while Sullivan kind of just does his thing and curses up a storm. There also seems to be some interesting character stuff being built up with the genetically modified squirrel Hyzenthlay, but as of yet no character arcs have really culminated into anything yet, which is fine, no need to rush into it or anything. I think for now it’s fun to just spend time around the characters that are already here.

Which brings us to the best part of this show: the characters. Each character has a unique and creative design; hell, even if a lot of the base designs for the creatures seems to be “Dragon,” Fennah always manages to add some creative spice to them so as to not make them feel samey. And there are plenty of creative, unique designs, with Locket, Ludwig, Wexle, Fontaine, and of course Lucy standing out among the crowd. Speaking of Lucy, she is easily my favorite character, though I’m sure this is a rather uncontroversial opinion as she’s practically the face of the series at this point. She’s just so amusingly depraved and sadistic with light touches of civility and compassion here and there underneath her extremely harsh and psychotic exterior. Honestly, there’s not really a bad character that can be singled out yet, as each of them has something going on, and there’s a lot of lore detailed on the official website that fleshes things out and gives even more insight onto what the deal with these guys are.

Overall, I find myself enjoying this series so far. Most of the episodes are relatively short, with them ranging anywhere from forty seconds to twenty minutes, which is not too much of a time investment. If you like weird, offbeat, dark comedies with a focus on character development and plenty of strange sci-fi trappings, well, this is the web show for you. I’m seriously looking forward to where this show goes from here, and going forward it’s going to have my wholehearted support.

So yes. I am extremely sorry for the negative remarks I made towards Fennah’s work in my review of Doug’s review. I’ve never been happier to be wrong about a show in my life, and I really regret jumping the gun and bashing the work without context just because it was encased in a horrible review.

[fadedtoblue]

Why do you think S2 was less well-received than the other seasons (in terms of maybe plot or character development etc)? S1 or 2 are my faves, and 2 has a special place in my heart cos of Elektra.

A great question, anon!

It’s interesting looking at it from where we stand now now because I’ve always felt there was some revisionist history going on regarding the general perception of S2 within fandom, though it might be because we have more entries in the Netflix Marvel showverse to judge it against. I don’t actually think it was actually that less well-received than S1 - in fact, when I decided to re-read discussion threads, reviews, and press from S2 on a lark a few months back, I was rather shocked at how positive people were overall. You wouldn’t think that now.

BUT there were issues with S2 that became much more apparent once we made it to the Defenders team up, and that’s probably one of the biggest reasons people look back at S2 with such a critical eye, myself included tbh, and that’s speaking as someone who would choose to rewatch S2 over S1 almost any day simply for Elektra and the unabashedly and exuberantly comic book feel of the season (though S3 obviously gives THAT feel a run for its money :)). 

But you’re asking why, so let’s dig into that. Things felt kind of stacked against S2 from the get go - these two points jump out to me:

It was rushed into production after the sudden success of S1, which meant a lot less time to write / prep / plot, etc

It had SO much heavy lifting to do as a series in order to help set up the overarching plot lines that would eventually lead into Defenders. And it had to do that while moving its own pieces for an eventual S3. 

S2 accomplished some pretty amazing things: it introduced iconic DD characters that were adapted and acted so wonderfully by Jon and Elodie respectively, incorporated really cool-on-paper DD mythology from the comic books, and gave Matt a fresh struggle that felt like a natural evolution from what we’d seen previously (i.e. not just rehashing all of the same beats of S1). But still - for the reasons I stated earlier, the sum of all these parts just felt uneven. The writing choices were rather inconsistent, which makes sense in light of the fact they apparently rewrote half of the season while shooting. And you can see the strain of the schedule and directives from the higher ups to make sure it all leads to Defenders. Imagine if we’d gotten a S2 more like S3 - completely free and unfettered from those expectations and allowed to fully own its story and go wild with the characters. But alas, that wasn’t the situation for this S2, and I believe they did what they could with what they had. It’ll just be forever unfortunate that the part of the season nearest and dearest to my heart - Elektra and her story with the Hand - ended up being the part of the show most damaged by the underwhelming payoff in Defenders. I really wish the promise of those stories had been better fulfilled. 

But look, even after saying all that, you’d find it difficult to pry S2 out of my greedy little hands. It will always be one of my top seasons for obvious reasons and I really do believe that even when DD isn’t at firing at 100%, it’s still a much more entertaining and thoroughly engrossing show than most other options in the MCU. 

I hope I sufficiently answered your question somewhere in there :). 

[analysis-by-vaylon]

Animation reviews, criteria for analysis, and the scope of this blog.

Hello, there. I’ve recently been browsing Netflix for animated features and series to watch, and I thought I would share some brief thoughts about these with you; however, it’s not my intention to turn this blog into a review blog -- I’d rather stick to lengthy analysis. I’m simply using these reviews as a starting point to discuss some things that have been on my mind lately.

I want to accomplish multiple things with this post: I’ll talk about some of the animation I’ve seen recently, discuss why I’m not going to post longer analyses for these, and then go into some detail about what sort of things you can (and can’t) expect me to talk about when I discuss animation.

Reviews for Recently-Watched Animation

Only one of these is recent; I basically just browse Netflix, look for something with an interesting premise, and watch it. It’s not a very complex process.

April and the Extraordinary World. 2015. Origin: France. I found its premise silly. The dialogue is uninspired at best and its characters unsympathetic. Many critics praised its animation, but because I don’t like steampunk, I found the scenery and designs to be dull. Not recommended.

The Little Prince. 2015. Origin: France. I’ve never read the book, but I sense that this film does it justice, as it effortlessly weaves imaginative fantasy-adventure together with a story about the pressures of adulthood. There’s a great deal of mystery and symbolism in it that was, for me, a breath of fresh air. Recommended.

My Life as a Zucchini. 2016. Origin: France. This is a stop-motion animation whose characters have a wonderful amount of life and vibrancy in their designs and dialogue. Despite being on the shorter side (at a mere 65 minutes!), this film still manages to pack a whole lot into its charmingly-told love story. Recommended.

A.I.C.O. -Incarnation-. 2018. Origin: Japan. 12 episodes. I wanted to like this -- I really did -- but despite its intriguing premise and the promise of pure science fiction themes, I ultimately found this anime to be lackluster in its storytelling, concepts, and designs. It seems to focus more on action than on execution. The dialogue is especially bad -- rife with what I call “anime-isms”. Not recommended.

In This Corner of the World. 2016. Origin: Japan. This film takes us back to World War II-era Japan with faithfully-reconstructed depictions of both Hiroshima and Kure. The scenery is gorgeous, and the characters’ victories and struggles are as palpable as the looming horror which ultimately waits for Hiroshima. Despite the cheerful face the characters bravely put on, the film reminds us that no one escapes unscathed from war. Recommended.

Remember: just because I enjoy something and you don’t -- or vice-versa -- does not mean that one of us is wrong and one of us is right. There is such a thing as personal taste; April and the Extraordinary World, for instance, was widely acclaimed by critics, but I personally dislike it.

Criteria for Analysis

When it comes to writing analysis, I am mostly interested in longer works that have complex overarching themes, intriguing concepts, or an engaging use of language. I don’t intend to write about anything that I wouldn’t recommend to others for their own enjoyment. Films are nice -- and some of them do indeed offer enough complexity to warrant bringing them under the critical eye -- but I have found that the series format is most suited for allotting time for the development of themes, symbols, and so on. I believe in the power of structured meaning; by this, I don’t mean that the work needs to follows a formulaic structure, but rather the work creates, through association and recurrence, an idiomatic framework of meaning.

An example of what I mean can be found in The Lord of the Rings in the symbolism of the One Ring. Historically, in fiction and everyday metaphor, rings were used as symbols of love, commitment, power, wealth, and greed. In The Lord of the Rings, however, the One Ring -- though it certainly carries this ancient symbolism with it -- takes on additional symbolism through its association with actions or feelings: compulsion, for instance, in being compelled to wear and desire it; hardship, in that the Ring is a heavy psychological burden for all who bear it; treachery, in that the Ring seeks to return to its true master and always threatens to escape or betray those who wear it; and malice, in that the Ring represents Sauron’s power-hungry desire for dominion over all beings and for the ability to cruelly inflict suffering upon them. It’s thanks to the widespread appreciation of The Lord of the Rings that these meanings have entered into the wider consciousness of symbolism associated with rings -- though, of course, love and commitment remain today the central ones.

Obviously, the longer a series is, the more it can add to its personal grammar of meaning: take, for instance, Star vs. the Forces of Evil and the Blood Moon, a recurring symbol -- throughout all three seasons -- of love and destiny. Each additional appearance of the symbol offers a chance to further enrich its meaning.

By borrowing cultural symbols and constructing personal ones, writers can elevate their work, tapping into powerful ideas much greater than themselves; presenting those ideas in an intelligible way can hopefully lead the reader to some sort of epiphany or greater awareness. This is as true of animation as it is of literary fiction, which brings me to my next point.

The Scope of This Blog

I started this blog in order to bring the same critical approaches used for writing about literature to animation. You won’t hear me often discussing frame rate, color grading, or other technical elements of visual design -- despite animation being primarily a visual medium. To people who work in the animation industry, that may seem odd, but I’m simply not trained in film, animation, or art theory, and anything that I know about those subjects (which is not much) is from reading about them in my own personal time. I just don’t consider myself qualified to comment on the finer technical points of visual media.

My academic training is in English literature and critical theory, and I’m more interested in ideas and their conveyance than in visual impact, as you may have gathered from the previous sections. Elaborate animation can be impressive, yes, but my personal opinion is that visual achievement is a hollow victory if it lacks complex meaningfulness. The example that always comes to mind for me is the Nichijou anime: yes, some of the animation in the series is, without a doubt, exemplary in terms of technical effort and stylistic experimentation, but without any intellectual complexity to support the series, it simply feels pointless -- even downright mean-spirited. Perhaps an animator would find the series interesting, but it’s not what I’m looking for.

Part of that, too, is due to my own limitations. I am visually impaired, so I tend to de-emphasize visuals and give primacy to written and spoken language. I simply can’t see well enough to make critical judgments on the visual aspects of animation. Hence, you will often hear me speak instead of narrative, dialogue, characterization, and so on -- elements of literary fiction as applied to animated storytelling.

I’ve often thought about whether or not I should even be running a blog like this; it is entirely possible I don’t belong in discussions about animation. I think animators who believe in the supremacy of board-driven animation (like John Kricfalusi, for instance) would agree with that: animation, they might say, is the realm of artists and not writers -- and especially not writers who have no background in art whatsoever. They would have a point. Animation is, as I said earlier, primarily a visual medium, whether that involves ink, paint, clay, cardboard cutouts, or computer-generated drawings. What right do I have to intrude into the world of color and movement? And my answer is none. I have no right. I am a trespasser.

And I am comfortable being one. I expect no one to listen to me; I would still be saying the things I have said even if no one were. Perhaps it is foolish to think so, but I believe that animation can have the same things in it that literature does: that it can be both intellectually complex and fun, that it say something about the human condition, that it can challenge its audience. I don’t want people to lose sight of what is important about storytelling -- no matter what format it comes in.

[ais-n]

Hello! I love love love ICOS and was wondering if I could ask a few questions. Namely, what were yours & Santino's inspirations for the series? For example, the Neo-Tokyo setting in Akira strongly reminded me of ICOS, but that could be my own perception of the world in ICOS. Were there any books, movies, anime, manga, etc, that helped to inspire ICOS?

Aww, thank you! I’m happy you like it!

As for inspiration... hmm, I’m trying to think. Honestly, we didn’t really have a specific inspiration from what I can recall. I think a lot of things were just what made sense to us or sounded like fun, and then otherwise inspiration or ideas leached together from lots of sources or everyday living and we put it in from there. Sometimes it was real life stuff, sometimes it was maybe just watching shows and thinking, “That could be cool.”

I have examples beneath the cut of things that either inspired us in parts or else ended up having some cool similarities even if we thought of them separately, but one thing I did want to mention is I’m always on the lookout for characters in shows or movies who could be a nice media representation of ICoS characters. I had started compiling some ideas of that a few years ago and found the link in case you are curious or bored:

ICoS character inspirations: (note, not that the ICoS characters were inspired by these characters, but that these characters seem like cool representations of ICoS characters -- i probably should have said ICoS character representations instead of inspirations, come to think of it...) Anyway that’s here:  https://aisness.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/icos-character-inspirations/ 

And here are some adorable baby Boyd representations from Criminal Minds:  https://aisness.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/baby-boyd/ 

Inspiration examples below!

For example, I used to love the hell out of Fringe and I watched it every week. One episode they had this whole thing about how this one character was kidnapped and the way they found out where they were held or where stuff was happening was by finding out that there was an excessive amount of electricity that was being used in a seemingly abandoned warehouse. Also, that character wasn’t content to just sit there waiting to be rescued; they tried to escape but couldn’t due to reasons, but that came up later in the episode. I liked that it didn’t diminish the character’s strength even in being captured but it also didn’t make it like suddenly they were superhuman and could do anything. Then, completely separately from that and probably years apart, I was doing research on human experimentation and watched things like the documentary Philosophy of a Knife and did a lot of research on Unit 731, and I got some ideas from that. Also completely separately from that and years apart, I’ve always been interested in psychology and psychiatry and I’d also read the book Rape of the Mind by Dr. Joost A.M. Meerloo which is a book from 1956 that talks about brainwashing of POWs and also whether or not brainwashing actually exists in reality or if it’s something else that’s happening with similar results. Plus I’ve done lots of research totally separately from all of that for trafficking etc.

All those things coalesced and then changed into inspiration for a particular situation that shows up later in the series that I don’t want to go into specifics of for spoilers for people who are earlier in the series, but you might know immediately what I’m thinking about. And if not and if you want me to specify with spoilers just let me know and I can do so behind a cut :) 

(PS: Philosophy of a Knife is violent as fucking hell--seriously, seriously graphic. Do not watch it if you are faint of heart. I say this so no poor soul is like “Oh yeah Ais mentioned something about this maybe I’ll watch it! :D” and then is traumatized for life. They went all out on it. It’s actually kind of controversial because of that...)

Then there was other inspiration like sometimes I would dream about something and then wake up and be like, “Oh hey, cool plot idea!” or we would just think through what is likely to happen for that character based on their story line or their personality or human nature or etc and it developed from there.

I would say probably the closest thing to ICoS I know of for a series is La Femme Nikita, specifically the TV show that was on 1997-2001. I had actually never seen it or possibly even heard of it when we started writing ICoS -- I didn’t see the first couple of seasons until years into us writing ICoS. Santino had seen it years prior, iirc, but he hadn’t thought of it for a while. Anyway there are some interesting similarities between ICoS and LFN, a lot of which developed separately and was not inspired by LFN because I hadn’t even seen it so I knew nothing of it and I don’t know Santino’s inspiration or not but we decided things together so I know there are definitely a number of things I suggested with no knowledge of LFN. 

The one thing I know that was inspired by LFN was the term ‘valentine’ which Santino suggested and which I think he got from LFN, but I think everything else is pretty coincidental, which makes sense because they’re such similar themes that there’s bound to be overlap in ideas. What was really interesting to me was when I did finally watch it, I was like, “Hey!! Michael is how I imagine early Boyd to be!!” in terms of his seeming lack of emotion, the way he has such minimal facial expressions and intonation, the way he seems so cold and sometimes a bit ruthless but then other times is bad ass. But Michael is like what Fade-level Agent Boyd would be in skills but with early Evenfall Boyd personality. Anyway, that was super exciting finding someone who represented that minimal emotion I imagined. (Also there’s a character in an anime who fights like how I imagined Fade Agent Boyd fights... I forgot the anime but I can track it down if you want)

You should totally watch that TV show if you haven’t. I never finished it but I need to ^^;; I think I saw through Season 2, maaaaybe s3?, but I never watched all of it and always meant to. I liked what I saw of it from what I recall but I have no idea about how it ended. (I’m a spoilerphobe) I also haven’t seen the original movie it was based on (I don’t think? uggh can’t remember) and I definitely haven’t seen the reboot they did more recently. No idea how much ICoS and those LFNs are similar but the 1997 tv show might be fun for ICoS fans to watch, just keeping in mind it has all the cheesiness of late 90′s/early 2000′s shows lol

I guess the last thing I’d say is I’m generally always inspired in terms of storytelling by my absolute favorite series ever, One Piece by Eiichiro Oda. The layering of his storytelling is masterfully done, and I also really love as a reader/viewer the way he can make me fucking bawl my eyes out and then a page or two later burst out laughing. I’ve always really valued the depth and range of emotions he elicits in his story, and the way he layers super minute details that have massive impact later on the plot, interwoven with the usual character development and on-page normal plot development, so that when you’re reading the first time there’s plenty of interest but that series also makes a phenomenal 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 20 billionth reread, because I swear every time I reread I notice new things I never noticed before because I didn’t have enough information about that plot. 

I love to do the same thing in writing anything I have a hand in--for any sort of significant story at all, I don’t like to write for the first read; I like to write for the second, third, fourth reread. I mean obviously it needs to be interesting enough the first time around, but I personally like to add little details or character development or whatever which is more evident the second or more time of reading when you know everything you need to know, so when you go back to the start you can be like “OHHH! So THAT’S why--!” I got to do that a bit in ICoS but I’m going even more crazy with that in the book I’m working on now independently, because I am a nerd and it’s super fun to me. But anyway that way of writing a story over the course of the entire series rather than writing it solely book by book is something that definitely inspired me in writing Boyd for all of ICoS and all of my characters in it, and I don’t know what inspirations Santino has but whatever has inspired him also complements that inspiration of mine nicely, so that we both ended up being interested in writing that longer-form story built by shorters stories in between, rather than doing stories book by book with transitions in between but less of an overarching arc. If that makes sense? Hopefully it does. 

Also we had made Sin and Boyd and some other characters as RPG characters in separate RPGs so I think we pulled some of that stuff over too, so in a way the original characters they were in those original other worlds probably gave some inspiration for their initial personalities.

btw, Neo-Tokyo in Akira is really interesting as a connection you made in your mind! I haven’t watched Akira in foreverrrrr so I can’t recall it well enough to be able to say either way but my memory of it makes sense for why you thought of that, so that’s cool! I should watch Akira again, or maybe it read it this time... Thinking of Akira is making me nostalgic for all those series that are older but still great, like now I want to watch again Cowboy Bebop, or Trigun, or even Yami no Matsuei, or... Oh actually! Totally unrelated but speaking of! Recently I found the whole series for Kare Kano (Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou/His and Her Circumstances) and omggggg having that sitting on my shelf without me watching it all over again is making me diiiiieeeeeee I’m dyingggggggg but I know I’ll get super into it again for nostalgia’s sake so I’m trying to make myself hold off until I can devote time to it.

Wow I rambled like fuck in this, sorry XD I guess the tl;dr is it was getting bits of ideas or inspiration from random or various places and then other things just kind of developing naturally in our minds, and it all came together into the monster that is ICoS XD 

[qpjianghu]

“She decided to make her death count”

I wasn’t exactly thrilled with “The Six Thatchers,” but I have been totally enthralled by the Appointment in Samarra story that is woven throughout the episode. The idea of predestination is fascinating and obviously fraught with both theological and philosophical issues, but I want to discuss the notion as it relates to “The Six Thatchers,” a bit of “The Abominable Bride,” and Sherlock’s naive (possibly related: “The Final Problem” track “Always the Grown Up”) abdication of responsibility.

Here’s the story as it is narrated by Sherlock in TST:

There was once a merchant, in the famous market at Baghdad. One day he saw a stranger looking at him in surprise, and he knew that the stranger was Death. Pale and trembling, the merchant fled the marketplace and made his way many, many miles, to the city of Samarra. For there he was sure Death could not find him. But when, at last, he came to Samarra, the merchant saw, waiting for him, the grim figure of Death. "Very well," said the merchant. "I give in. I am yours. But tell me, why did you look surprised when you saw me this morning in Baghdad?" "Because," said Death, "I had an appointment with you tonight... in Samarra." [x]

Ok, buckle in, kids, because I’m about to go all Jewish seminary nerdy on you.

I was even more excited when I found out that one of the oldest renditions (and possibly the oldest recorded rendition) of the tale comes from the Babylonian Talmud – tractate Sukkah, page 53a, to be exact. So, naturally, I hit up my local synagogue for some Talmud study. I’ll restate it in plain English below, but if you’re interested, here’s the interlinear text: (Aramaic phrases from the text are followed by English translations, read from left to right – though Aramaic and Hebrew are both read from right to left.)

Earlier the Gemara [aka Talmud] cited Hillel’s statement that “to the place that I love, there my feet lead me,” which leads the Gemara to cite the following teaching of Rabbi Yochanan:

R’ Yochanan said: “A person’s feet are his guarantors; to where he is summoned, there they lead him.”

The Gemara recounts an incident which illustrates this principle:

There were two Cutheans [12] who attended King Solomon. They were Elichoref and Achiyah*, the sons of Shisha, scribes to King Solomon. One day [King Solomon] saw that the Angel of Death was downcast. He said to him: “Why are you downcast?” [The Angel of Death] answered him: “Because these two cutheans who sit here are demanded of me by Heaven, and I have not been able to take them. Upon hearing this, King Solomon, hoping to arrange their escape from death, handed them over to demons and sent them to the town of Luz [15]. But when they reached the gates of the town of Luz, the angel of Death was waiting for them and they died before entering the city. The following day [King Solomon] saw that the Angel of Death was happy. He said to him: “Why are you happy?” He answered him: “To the very place where they were demanded of me, there did you send them!” Immediately [King Solomon] opened his mouth and said, “A person’s feet are his guarantors; to where he is summoned, there they lead him.”

Some quick notes:

*If we literally translate the name “Elichoref,” it means “Wrath of God” (aka Divine retribution?), and “Achiyah” consists of the combination of the words “My brother” and “God.” I know, I know, “God is a ludicrous fiction, dreamt up by inadequates who abnegate all responsibility to an invisible magic friend,” but Sherlock very much believes himself to be a God (“Oh my God!” / “Not quite”, from “The Empty Hearse”) in terms of his infallibility. Ooooooooooooor, to play on “brother,” perhaps on a deeper level Sherlock believes Mycroft is a sort of God (“He’s never wrong”). Either way, “Elichoref” makes us think of Divine justice, humbling oneself in the face of the inevitable, and all that fun stuff.

[12] Irrelevant but hilarious, this footnote leads to a commentary that explains that “Cutheans” is “a euphemism for very comely people.”

[15] Medieval Jewish commentator Rashi says: “Luz was a city in which the Angel of Death held no sway.” Hmmm. Protection from Death? How egotistical! Yet this is essentially what Sherlock vows to Mary and John… Again, God Complex, much?

These two versions of the Appointment in Samarra story obviously share a moral: you can’t outrun the inevitable, and trying to do so will only lead to the inevitable. ‘Sup, Sophocles? This is a classic case of determinism, one that is often utilized in time travel tales.

According to a simple interpretation of “The Six Thatchers,” the tale is used to illustrate a) the inevitability of Mary’s death – both from an in-universe perspective, because she’s an assassin and people like her “tend not to reach retirement age,” and from a meta-narrative perspective, because Moftiss are adhering to the ACD canon in which Mary is eventually out of the picture – and b) Sherlock’s struggle with accepting the inevitable. “The game is never over,” he tells John at the end of HLV.  In TST, he hits us and John and Mary over the head with the fact that he made a “promise” or a “vow” to keep them safe, which he views as ironclad assurance that they will be safe. (Interestingly, it’s Mary who says the word “promise” most often in this episode, but of course this includes the exchange with John when she’s dying, that he promise to keep Rosie safe.) And then, of course, there’s that delicious exchange between Sherlock and Mycroft when Mycroft reveals that Sherlock re-wrote the Appointment in Samarra story to change the ending so that the merchant would escape Death. So often, Sherlock thinks he’s being clever, but he misses the whole point of the story. It’s like his very own Kobayashi Maru -- there is such a thing as a no-win scenario.

I want to take a quick look at something I glossed over: the quote in the Talmud that serves as the moral of the story: “A person’s feet are his guarantors; to where he is summoned, there they lead him.”  “Guarantor” is an interesting word. As you can probably guess, it means “one who guarantees something, someone who is bound by a guarantee.” Or...a vow! A vow is a loaded statement, and “guarantor” holds similar weight (legally, if nothing else). So if we slide Sherlock in here, what we come up with is this: Sherlock thinks he’s the one in charge of his fulfillment of his vow (and of his actions in general!) but there are larger forces at play here. And he will have to deal with whatever comes. Like an real live adult, dammit.

In the Talmud’s version of the story, King Solomon is the protagonist, the one who tries to outwit Death and learns a lesson when he fails. King Solomon is known for being “wise” – that is, Biblical characters are often known by a single defining trait, and Solomon’s is wisdom. (The classic story that demonstrates his wisdom is the story of the two women who each claim a certain baby is their own, and King Solomon declares that they should split the baby in half, correctly deducing that the real mother of the child will speak up and allow the other woman to have the baby just to avoid harming it.) Now, “cleverness” and “wisdom” have very different connotations. I do think it’s significant that John calls Sherlock “the best and wisest man that I have ever known” during what he thinks is the moment of his death in HLV. And I believe Sherlock’s touched expression is genuine, despite the fact that he orchestrated that moment by tricking John into it.

In Judaism, there’s a beautiful saying that goes: “Who is wise? Someone who learns from everyone.” That’s very, very different from “cleverness,” a one-sided, show-offy shrewdness that Sherlock has in spades. But wisdom? Not yet, I don’t think. He’s starting to gain it – he’s starting to take cues from other people, to understand what hurts them and what makes them happy. But he still has the final lesson of the Appointment in Samarra story to learn: he must learn to humble himself enough to accept that which he cannot change. He needs to accept his fallibility; he needs to accept his humanity. (BTW: @stephisanerd illustrated this point beautifully in this meta, which definitely influenced me.)

Most importantly, however, that doesn’t mean one has to sit around and twiddle one’s thumbs until Death knocks on the door. And that’s what we learn from Mary in TST, and from Emilia Ricoletti in TAB. As John points out in TAB, Emilia Ricoletti was suffering from consumption and wasn’t long for this world anyway. She knew she was going to die, sooner rather than later. So what did she do? “She decided to make her death count.” That’s exactly what Mary does in this episode: As a former secret agent, she has an expiration date on her forehead. Like the merchant and the two brothers, she tried to outrun her destiny. She tried to have a semi-normal, domestic, peaceful life. But it was not to be -- at least, not permanently. And so, when that bullet barrelled towards Sherlock, she sacrificed her life for his – making her death count.

We can weave in the case of Charlie Welsborough as well. It’s such a tragic case, and not a usual one for Sherlock Holmes – ie, it’s not a murder. There’s no overarching reason for Charlie’s death. There was no devious, criminal intent.  He just...died. The rest of the episode sort of brushes over this (“Ancient history, why are you still talking about it?”) but I think it’s significant for exactly the reason that, to Sherlock, it’s insignificant. There are some things you can’t predict or prevent. There are some things that are out of your control.

All this leads us to “The Final Problem,” which as well all know, is the ominous title of the season 4 finale. In TRF, Moriarty says “staying alive” is the Final Problem, so I think season 4 adds an interesting second part to that statement. What is the Final Problem? Not just staying alive, but staying alive in the face of death.

In Mary’s case, the “solution” was making her death count. Moriarty, in a sense, took that approach too. For Sherlock, perhaps he must find the meaning in his life, and he must help John find the meaning in his. I’m reminded of the saying that precipitated the whole story discussion in the Talmud in the first place: Rabbi Hillel’s teaching that a person’s feet naturally lead him wherever his heart desires. If all this means that Sherlock and John will find meaning in each other, then, hey. TJLC FTW. ;)

[dorothydelgadillo]

The 11 Most Common Mistakes You're Making with Keyword Research

Digital marketing is all about getting found online and when it comes to ensuring your website is front and center on the search engine results pages (SERPs), most marketers begin with keyword research.

A good keyword research strategy helps to focus your content creation efforts on the things that will deliver the greatest bang for your buck while also delivering higher quality traffic and leads.

Get this process right and you’ve struck gold. Get it wrong and you’ll be going nowhere fast with your online marketing!

via GIPHY

Search engine optimization is complex and the rules of the game change frequently, so it can be easy to fall behind the times or miss crucial steps when digging into the process of keyword research.

Below are eleven of the most common ways marketers get it wrong.

1. Not researching customer questions first

Even before you start the keyword research process, one of the first things that you need to tackle is developing your company’s buyer personas. These fictional representations of your ideal lead are the foundation of your marketing strategy and form the basis upon which you should select your target keywords or phrases.

Unfortunately, many companies either don’t take the time to develop buyer personas or don’t dive deeply enough into the persona research process to yield meaningful information.

If you don’t understand the needs, challenges, problems and goals of your customers - as well as the questions they’re asking - you’re simply not going to get the marketing results you desire. Period, end of story.

It’s tough to pull keyword research out of the sky when you don’t have a roadmap for your overall content strategy, and personas are the first step in building this roadmap.

As you conduct persona research and speak with your customers and prospects, ask them about the questions they had when they began their buying journey. What was the first thing they Googled?

You can also update this on an ongoing basis by asking your customer-facing team members (especially your sales reps) to document the questions they’re getting.

IMPACT's own Marcus Sheridan literally wrote the book on this - it's called "They Ask, You Answer." Put simply, the idea is to document the questions that your customers are asking, and then create content (website pages or articles) that answers them.

Pro tip - I like to create an email such as “questions@xyz.com” for just this purpose. Anyone in the company that is answering a customer or prospect question by email can simply BCC that address and the inbox becomes a repository rich with customer questions that marketing can tap into at any time.

In addition to the tips above, you can use tools like answerthepublic.com as well as industry discussion forums and LinkedIn groups to get a feel for the topics that your audience is talking about.

The best thing about this approach is that it is simple, easy, and completely free. IMPACT’s content marketing consultant Kevin Phillips provides a great blueprint for gathering customer questions in this post.

2. Focusing only on long tail keywords and phrases

Most marketers who are up to date with modern SEO practices know that long tail keywords are where it's at. These phrases (think “women’s blue nike running sneakers” as opposed to “sneakers”) are easier to rank for, produce higher quality leads, and generally face less competition.

While it's tempting to jump right into developing a list of long tail keywords and customer questions as the basis of your content strategy, this approach can do more harm than good if you don’t have a plan for staying focused on certain overarching topics.

Why are topics important?

The way that Google (and other search engines) rewards websites is based on the degree to which they show thought leadership on an entire topic area based on both the breadth and depth of the content provided on that topic.

The easiest way for Google to approximate this is to look at content grouped on a website by internal links containing similar or related keywords (translation: pages on your website that are linked together that talk about the same subject).

These groups of content are called “topic clusters” and they are most easily understood by Google when they roll up into one larger piece of content focused on the overarching topic or theme (called a “pillar”).

Long tail phrases are used to create the topics in the cluster and short tail keywords are used to identify the pillars. Without a pillar, the clusters won't have nearly the SEO impact.

3. Not looking at what your competitors are ranking for

In addition to identifying the questions your customers are asking, it is also important to understand whether and how your competitors are answering those same questions.

Understanding where your competitors are ranking for important terms and phrases will enable you to identify quick wins while at the same time signaling whether a competitor is directly targeting some of the keywords or phrases that are most important to you (and giving you time to take action to prevent that from happening before its too late!).

There are several easy ways to do a competitive keyword analysis. Two of our favorites include using the SEO Gap Analysis Sheet from Moz and SEMRush’s Keyword Gap Tool.

4. Not picking keywords with enough search volume

Keyword search volume refers to the number of people that are searching for a specific keyword on a monthly basis.

Why is this important?

Higher search volumes mean more chances to drive traffic to your website. Conversely, often keywords with high search volumes will be harder to rank for because so many of your competitors are already targeting them. 

There are a number of free and paid tools that you can use to measure keyword search volume including Google Adwords, SEMRush and Moz Keyword Explorer.

Another handy tool that can provide insight into the relative search volume over time of one or more keywords is Google Trends. For example, here at IMPACT, we talk a lot about both inbound marketing and content marketing. Google Trends offers interesting insights into how the volume of searches for each term is evolving over time.

The data from Google Trends can be used to spot opportunities (keywords that currently have low search volume but show signs of dramatic growth), prevent future SEO issues (keywords that are declining in search volume) and understand seasonal search trends.

5. Not looking at keyword competition levels 

Keywords with high search volume are great, but keywords with high search volume and low competition are the holy grail of keyword research.

Competition is a measure of keyword difficulty that tells you how many other websites are trying to drive traffic using that same keyword.

The more competitive the keyword, the harder it will be to rank for, the longer it will take to see results, and the greater the effort that will be required to get those results.

For companies with limited budgets and bandwidth, having this information helps to focus resources (both financial and human) where they will produce the best results.

Data on keyword competition is readily available through a variety of free and paid tools like Google Adwords and SEMRush.

6. Focusing only on exact match keywords

The way that search engines rank content has changed a lot over the years, but the goal of the search engines themselves remains the same - to deliver the best answers as quickly as possible.

To do that well, search engines such as Google have to understand what searchers are looking for and find the online content that best matches their intent. Until recently, they relied exclusively on mathematical algorithms that scored content according to proprietary formulas to determine how to rank content.

Recently, artificial intelligence has made it possible for search engines to use machine learning and natural language processing to evaluate online content in a way that more closely approximates how a person would do it. In technical terms, this is called “latent semantic indexing” or LSI.

In plain English, it means that Google’s artificial intelligence engine (dubbed “Rank Brain”) will scan your content and identify hidden (latent) relationships between the words (semantics) in order to improve its understanding of the information (indexing).

Why is this relevant for keyword research?

Because too many marketers try to stick closely to the exact keyword or phrase they are targeting and neglect to include those related keywords or phrases that help Google understand what the content is all about.

The good news is that there are easy solutions to this mistake. The first is to simply write like a human rather than an SEO. If it feels right to use certain terms, do it even if means deviating from your keyword plan.

You can also use a tool like LSIGraph.com to identify LSI keywords (those related keywords or phrases).

7. Not looking at what the current search results are for the keywords you want to target

Like I said earlier, the goal of search engines is to deliver the best results as quickly as possible. That means that if you create a piece of content and there is another piece of content that is better, search engines will show that one first. 

When doing keyword research, you can learn a lot about what it will take to rank at the top of the SERPs by looking at what currently ranks at the top of the SERPs. 

Duh!

But seriously, this is a simple exercise. The key is to open an incognito tab in your internet browser so that the results you see aren't skewed by your location or past search history.

Once you've identified your target keywords, use that incognito search to see who ranks where for the term, and then click through on the top few results. If you're thinking of writing a blog on "Top 10 women's running sneakers" and the number one result in Google is "Top 25 women's running sneakers" then you know your homework is to come up with at least 16 more sneakers to profile! (ie. your content had better be better than the best)

8. Letting fear dictate your strategy

It's inevitable -- you’ll do your keyword research only to discover that some of the most important and relevant keywords for your business are also some of the most competitive.

It can be very easy to let fear or uncertainty take hold and fall victim to thinking “there’s no way I could possibly rank for that term so I’m not even going to try.”

I’m here to tell you not to give up! Sometimes, gaining the top spot in the SERPs for that highly competitive keyword is possible if you simply adjust your approach.

Here at IMPACT, our research has shown that your keyword strategy must match the search volume and competitiveness of the keywords you’re targeting. The higher the search volume and competitiveness, the longer and more in-depth your content needs to be to successfully rank in the SERPs.

There are 5 different content strategies you can use to try and rank for a keyword:

Uber Pillar: An uber pillar is a resources page listing that displays (and links to) content on a particular topic and includes at least one piece of pillar content in the listing. Plan on creating an uber pillar when your target keyword has a monthly search volume of 8,000 or more.

Pillar Page or Resource Pillar: A pillar page is a piece of premium content that lives all on-page that is typically between 3,500 to 4,500 words long. It is aimed at a large search-volume keyword topic and a linking strategy between that main topic and at least 8-22 subtopic pages is required. By contrast, a resource pillar is a resources page listing that displays (and links to) content on a particular topic. This is a great strategy to employ if you already have a ton of content around a particular topic area but don’t have a Pillar Page built yet. It can be a great first step that can be executed right away, and then you can eventually add a Pillar Page to the strategy and turn your Resource Pillar right into an Uber Pillar. Plan on creating a pillar or resource pillar for keywords with a monthly search volume of between 300 and 8,000.

Blog Series: A blog series is a collection of at least 2 blogs that targets the same short-tail keyword. The structure of the post titles is typically "[Keyword]: [Blog Topic]". Blog series are a good strategy for keywords with a monthly search volume of between 150 and 300.

Longform Blog: A longform blog is a blog post that is at least 1,000, more commonly 1,500, words long. This is a good way to target keywords with a monthly search volume of less than 150.

In addition to using the content-specific strategies above, you can also optimize the pages on your website (like a services or product page) for a specific keywords.

9. Only focusing on one type of SEO

There are 3 pillars to SEO: technical, on-site, and off-site.

Technical SEO refers to measures aimed at helping search engine spiders access, crawl and index your website. These can be optimizations on your site itself (ex. Increasing page speed, improving mobile friendliness, or adding structured data markup) or on the server on which your site is hosted (ex. Upgrading to a secure sockets layer or “SSL”).

On-site SEO is the process of optimizing individual website pages. The key elements to consider with on-site SEO are the content of the page itself, the page title, the URL, and the alt tags used for any images. Ideally, each of these should contain your target keyword.

Off-site SEO encompasses anything you do outside of your own website (or the server on which it is hosted) in order to influence your search engine rankings. One of the most effective off-site SEO strategies is to increase the number of quality backlinks to your site (especially when the anchor text used for those backlinks matches your target keyword). These links can come naturally through mentions by other websites, but you can also influence off-site SEO by guest blogging and social media marketing.

Keyword research is a major player in each category - not just on-site SEO (which is where most marketers tend to focus).

10. Ignoring your directory listings

Speaking of off-site SEO, one easy strategy to get more quality backlinks to your website is to ensure that your online directly listings are up to date and accurate, and that you have as many listings as possible pointing back to your site.

Leveraging tools such as Yext is a great way to ensure consistency with your company’s name, address, and phone number, as well as increase your ability to be found using relevant search terms.

The more thorough you are in filling out directories for completion, the greater the opportunity you have to be found.

11. Not doing it often enough

Think of your keyword research strategy like the oil in your car. After a while, it needs to be changed or it won’t do the job.

Plan on revisiting your keyword strategy every three to six months depending upon the speed at which you are able to create content and the volume of your website traffic.

You should expect to spend at least a few hours running through initial keyword research, a couple hours to work with your content team to put together a strategy around those terms, and an additional couple hours to dive deeper into subtopic research after you’ve got your initial topic ideas.

In between your quarterly revisits of the keyword strategy, you can expect to spend a little time here and there to add additional topics as they might occur to you.

What's The Big Deal?

So what if you make a few mistakes with your keyword research? What does it really matter?

I talk to a LOT of marketers in the course of my day-to-day job as IMPACT's Vice President of Marketing (after all, marketers ARE the buyer persona we're targeting) and every single one of them says lack of time is a major challenge. There's too much to do and too little time in which to do it.

Making mistakes with keyword research isn't the end of the world, but it will waste time and it will make it take longer for you to get the results you're looking for. And time is the one thing that marketers most definitely do not have enough of. 

If you're a marketer looking to make the most of the time you have -- and get the best results possible -- avoiding these 11 mistakes will kill two birds with one stone.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/the-11-most-common-mistakes-youre-making-with-keyword-research