#has anyone ever read the my side of the mountain trilogy?

[shego1142]

Death tw, Blood tw

Hey peeps!

Uhm, I don’t know where to begin with this nicely so just...

basically my grandpa is in the hospital and the doctors have said he’s likely dying today

It happened pretty unexpectedly, he just went in to have his foot looked at because he had a severe ingrown toenail that was hurting him

But then when he got to the hospital he fainted and was bleeding internally and they were trying to find the bleeding and stop it but he was in a lot of pain last night so they said he’s probably not going to make it through today...

I’m not going to the hospital to see him because I know I’ll either meltdown or shutdown and that’s not good for me or anyone else involved

Honestly I don’t know how I feel. I mean, my grandma and grandpa basically raised me.

Like this isn’t someone I barely knew or only visited on the holidays... he’s the reason I have a nick name instead of my full name. He took care of me and loved me my whole life.

And I’m sad. Like... I’m going to miss him sad, but I’m not... angry? Or in denial? Or guilty? Or... idk?

I feel like I went through the five stages of grief really quickly?

And I’ve always been like this... when my hamster died when I was little, when my cousin died, when my great aunt (who I was also extemely close to) died...

I sort of skipped to acceptance... which is weird? Is it weird? Idk...

But I just wanted to talk about it anyway... I don’t even know if I’m going to be inactive for a while or not?

Honestly I feel as though I just want everyone to be okay... everyone around me is very sad and it makes me feel like I’m not doing enough to help them...

Anyway... idk what else to say? I guess I just wanted to let you peeps know, since I know many of you care about me and I about you.

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

[shanie-the-toyaddict]

1, 9, 15, 17, 21, 25, 26, 29, 33, 41, 46, 48, 54, 59, 68, 73, 81, 96, 98

😊

Oh my word! That's a lot!

Ok, here goes.

Behind cut for length

1. Name - I prefer Shanie but my parents call me “Mis”. Well, my mom calls me “Mis” my father calls me “Pooch” which I despise. Just stick with Shanie.

9. What did you study - I changed majors midway through college. I started out as an art major focusing on computer animation. That didn’t work out at ALL. Turns out I sucked ass at computer animation. Too much math involved. So I switched to a major in teaching with minors in history and popular culture. Unfortunately I failed at that too and, while I did graduate, it was with a degree in “Planned Program” which is a polite way of saying “General Ed”. I did earn my two minors though, so I guess that’s something!

15. Relationship Status -  Single. Very Very Single. I haven’t had a single date in about 10 years. By the looks of it, I’m going to stay single.

17. Do you have a crush - Do celebrities count? If not then no. I don't even know anyone IRL to have crushes on. I legit have nobody in my IRL life outside of my parents and my case manager. Kind of hard to have a crush when you don't have any friends or even acquaintances.

21: How was your day -  Well, today I got nothing accomplished. I did have a meeting with my case manager, so that was nice. It’s nice to have someone to talk to and infodump on (which she lets me). Outside of that I woke up, had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, had a nap, and went to Dairy Queen for ice cream on the way home. Unfortunately, DQ is on the far side of town and by the time I got home, it was melted. So it went in the fridge to eat later once it refreezes. Outside of that it was a pretty boring day.

25. Your fears - Whoo-ee. Ok. So coming in with the borderline I’d say my biggest fear is abandonment. That just comes with the territory. After that I have a huge fear of storms and waking up in a fire, both brought about by recurring nightmares. I also have a fear of flying (too much Air Crash Investigations) and I hate elevators. I’m not claustrophobic mind you, I just have a fear that they will fall on me. Anything over 3 stories and I’m having an anxiety attack. There are other, lesser fears but those are some of the big ones.

26. Your dreams - Well, in a literal sense, my dreams are wild, crazy adventures that I get most of my fanfics from. From a metaphorical standpoint I really don’t have any. I’ve given up on hoping for anything good in my life. I’m too busy trying to get from day to day to indulge in long term planning. I know it seems terrible, but it’s the truth.

29. Hobbies - Obviously action figures, that much is clear. I collect and customize them to display in my apartment. I also like making digital art (sometimes) and am starting to get into illustrations/artwork. However, I don’t have a tablet/pen for the computer so everything is done with the mouse and GIMP (which makes it difficult). I’m an avid collector of digital media. Some of my big ones are Doctor Who DVDs, Wrestling Entrance Themes, and Official Xena Photos (not the physical ones, jpeg scans). I used to be big into Wizard101 and, while I don’t really play anymore, I still like following the game on YT and on here.

33. Languages you speak – Only English, except it’s a very specific English. I usually speak what’s called the “Yinzer” dialect which is a dialect that is unique to the Pittsburgh region. That’s why you see me use the word “Yinz” a bunch. That’s our word for “You guys” or “Y’all”. However, while most of my speech is Yinzer, I have watched enough British TV in my lifetime to have picked up some Brit speech. It confuses the hell out of people when I use it because you’ll have me say things like “My apartment needs cleaned” and then follow it up thirty seconds later with, “I’m rubbish at cleaning.” My mother has picked up on this and sometimes calls me her “British Daughter” because of it.

41. Your Device Background – My phone’s lock screen is a picture of Shane in his Roman Centurion outfit from the one Royal Rumble photo shoot. My phone background is a checkered wallpaper with “SZ” on it for Sami Zayn. (That one might be getting changed if he stops being Sami.) And my computer background is just a night sky over the mountains. I rarely ever see my computer wallpaper so I don’t mind that it is a generic background.

46. The most dangerous thing you’ve done – You know how Lucy breathes fire on Xena? I taught myself how to do that. That wasn’t bright to begin with but it was made so much worse that I was underage and couldn’t buy Bacardi and was using lamp oil instead. I was young and dumb.

48. Some things you’ve tried in your life – Funny thing, I’m a sucker for strange foods. There was a list going around that said “How many of these weird foods have you eaten” and I think I had eaten all but six of them and that was only because I didn’t have access to them. I’m proud to say that, since then, I’ve knocked Quail Egg off the list! Turns out the local Japanese restaurant served it. So that knocked it down to five. Still need to get ahold of some gator meat and haggis. I’d love to try Foie Gras but it’s just so damn unethical that I don’t know if I could bring myself to eat it. Pheasant is another one that I’d love to try but I can’t convince my parents to buy me one (and I’m far too poor to afford it myself). But, yeah. I love strange foods. I’ll pretty much try any food once if I know it’s safe to eat.

54. Any tattoos or piercings – Unless you count partially pierced ears then no. And my ears are only partially pierced because after I had them done they got infected so I tried to let them heal shut. They ended up not closing fully and now, if I’m not adverse to a bit of pain, I can still wear earrings occasionally.

59. Song you wouldn’t normally admit you like – Judas is my guilty pleasure song. I know Jericho is a douchebag and I have tried to hate the song but I can’t. I end up singing along every time.

68. Favorite Movie/Series - Hmm... well, my all time favorite movie is definitely “The Towering Inferno”, hands down. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen that. I’m a sucker for disaster movies and, in my opinion, that one is the cream of the crop. I actually like it better than “The Poseidon Adventure” simply because I think the movie is inferior to the book. That said, I’ve also read both of the books that “The Towering Inferno” is based on and I like the combined movie better than them. Favorite series, however, I don’t think I have one definitive favorite series. I’ve had favoriteS like Xena, Buffy, Sherlock, Doctor Who, etc, but I’ve never had one all time favorite.

73: Favorite Greek God – Oh geez. Hmmm... You know, I’m going to have to go with Hermes here, primarily because I have this theory that he is the god of the internet. I know there was no internet in ancient Greece but, frankly, Hermes is the god of commerce, communication, travelers, and thieves. While it’s true that Hephaestus is the god of technology and would probably be the god of computers, I fully believe that Hermes would be the patron of the interwebs.

81 Favorite Books – In all honesty, going to college for 8 years burned me out for reading and now I can barely bring myself to read a comic book. For this reason, most of my favorite books come from childhood. My all time favorite book as a kid was “Flight #116 Is Down” by Caroline B Cooney. It was a disaster story about plane crash in a young woman’s back yard. Somehow, everyone didn’t die – a fact which was called out in the final pages when a fireman says that the crash was extremely odd because “usually they’re all dead.” That book might be another reason I’m terrified of flying. Other favorite books of mine was the “Fear Street Saga Trilogy” (Not the Fear Street Series, the trilogy that served as the origin story). I also like the Hitchhikers Guide saga but when I found out that Douglas Adams died before he could finish the saga, I stopped reading after book 4 so that the story had a happy ending. Novelizations in general are a big thing for me too, I’ve read some really good ones over the years and it’s fascinating to see how they differ from the movies they’re based on.

96. Hero or Villain – Well, if my dreams are anything to go by, I’m a villain at heart. I know, weird right? You all think I’m such a nice person but really, I have a huge dark side to me IRL and, if I was in a world where superheroes were real and I had superpowers I would almost certainly use them for evil. Or, at the very least I would use them to force social change ala Dr. Horrible.

98. Shapeshifting or Controlling Time – SHAPESHIFTING! Oh my goodness shapeshifting! I would love that so much! First of all, I wouldn’t be this huge anymore. I could be as heavy or a skinny as I want. Also, I wouldn’t have to worry about looking old or losing my hair! Plus, can you imagine the cosplay potential!? Forget dressing as the 13th Doctor, I AM THE 13th DOCTOR! That would just be the best!

PHEW! That was a lot! Thanks so much for the ask! This was fun. I love ask games.

[hotel-japanifornia]

Can we all agree Morgan is a Karen?

Ok, so I really hate Morgan, alright? And it’s not the kind of hate I have for villains like Von Karma or Dahlia where it’s like, “Oh yeah! I want to take them down!” No, it’s “This person is so horrible and isn’t even charismatic.” The thing about villains is that they can be charming and rather interesting. A well-written villain makes the audience intrigued; getting to know the villain through their motivations and who they are as people can in a sense, make a villain more well-rounded and intriguing. Obviously, you don’t want your audience to root for them, but you don’t want your villain to be uninteresting; the more interesting a villain is, the more you want the heroes to take them down. It’s a great concept  and one that AA usually executes well with its main villains. And four of the five big bads of the AA trilogy (Matt, Dahlia, Gant, and Von Karma) execute this really well and are better villains because of it. They’re interesting, they’re well-written, and everything I know about them makes me want to take them down.

Morgan, on the other hand, does not get this treatment. Actually, she gets hardly any treatment at all because she disappears after 2-2 and masterminds 3-5. The problem with Morgan lies in that we only see the results of her plans, we don’t necessarily ever confront her and that’s what makes her fall short in comparison to the other villains. We don’t even learn of her eventual fate: while I personally think she got executed for both being an accomplice to murder and later plotting a conspiracy to assassinate someone which ended up killing someone else, it’s never officially confirmed.

Regardless, Morgan honestly just doesn’t have any redeeming characteristics in the slightest. Her husband abandoned her when he found out that she would never become the Master. But who’s to say that she even wanted them that much? Remember, Morgan was willing to murder so her children could inherit the position of Master of Kurain. With Iris and Dahlia having no spiritual power at all, I can see Morgan just tossing them off to the side.

She’s not even a good mother either. If Pearl’s attempt at fixing the Sacred Urn are anything to go by: Morgan never taught her how to spell, and that’s quite disturbing considering that Ami isn’t exactly all that difficult. Also, when Dahlia talks about meeting Morgan in the detention center while on death row, she mentions that Morgan wanted to murder her alongside Maya which is pretty disturbing. I mean, Dahlia’s a murderer sure, but killing your own kid is just something you don’t do.

Either way, back to my real point: Morgan is such a terrible person for what she was willing to do. Morgan was willing to traumatize her daughter, a sweet and innocent nine year old, by having her assassinate the cousin that she loves so much. And like, she was willing to have her channel the spirit of her psycho killer cousin to do it who was probably going to leave Pearl’s body right when Maya died leaving her to see the body of her beloved cousin. And it’s like, to me, how was this woman not thinking that her daughter wasn’t going to get caught for this? If Pearl gets arrested for Maya’s murder, she probably goes to jail for a long time.

If she somehow never goes to jail, Pearl is left traumatized for life after  murdering her cousin. She never becomes the Master, she likely abdicates and abstains from spirit channeling from that point on; so Morgan’s plan is a failure regardless. And guess what, if Maya dies, Pearl’s left without anyone to take care of her. Iris doesn’t know they’re related, Phoenix will probably offer to do it but Pearl probably won’t show her face to him ever again, and Morgan sure as hell isn’t getting out of jail anytime soon. She was willing to leave her nine year old kid, traumatized for life without anyone to look after her and that’s fucking disgusting.

It doesn’t hurt that in the anime version of 2-2, they take a different direction with the culprit and Morgan’s role. While it’s never stated explicitly whether or not Morgan headed the plan to frame Maya for murder in the games, I always assumed it probably was her idea. In the anime, Mimi Miney just wanted to do a fake channeling. She didn’t want to hurt anybody at all and Morgan pretty much blackmailed her into murder under threat of her identity being leaked. I honestly don’t think Mimi was ever going to hurt Grey; she probably just wanted him to leave her alone so that she could live a completely new life on her own.

Morgan’s reason for doing this could be probably chalked up to that she wanted Maya out of the way for sure. True, a prank channeling would have called Maya’s abilities into question and Grey may have even called her a fraud knowing him. It would’ve been much harder to prove that Maya was framed but Morgan definitely would have wanted to ensure Maya was out of the way. By sentencing her to prison for the rest of her life, Morgan would have been able to get what she truly wanted with Pearl being the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique.

Episode 14 of the Ace Attorney anime also gives us scenes with Morgan hurling abuse at Maya for daring to take her cousin out to see the ocean and calling the main family a disgrace to the Fey bloodline. Pot, meet kettle. And if Maya’s reaction is anything to go by, this probably has happened before. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Morgan did abuse Maya: the woman decided to forgo teaching her daughter to read and spell in order to plan to murder her niece after all. 

And, Pearl lived a relatively sheltered life in Kurain to the point that she didn’t think there was anything outside the village besides mountains. If Maya wasn’t around, and Pearl continued to live under Morgan’s thumb even when she became the Master, how was Morgan expecting her to complete her duties as Master? Was she just expecting Pearl to let her handle them herself or something? 

Honestly though, Morgan is just a horrid human being. She was willing to sacrifice as many lives as she needed to achieve her own goals and doesn’t have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. You don’t even get the satisfaction of confronting her on the horrible things she does and taking her down for the last time, I almost wish she WAS the killer of 2-2 so we would get at least that much. There’s just nothing redeeming about her: the other villains are at least fun to take down and interesting characters. Morgan isn’t, plain and simple.

[poemsforpersephone]

This is part two of this list here HANGED MAN PROMO REC LIST. I’m going to split these up in a slightly different way than the other list, but I will still go into a bit of detail as to why I think a fan of The Last Sun would enjoy these books too. 

Fey Novels

I’m going to start with basically anything and everything by Holly Black, because she knows how to build fantastical, beautiful, scary worlds that are detailed and fleshed out in a similar way to how the world of The Last Sun is. 

The Folk of the Air series is comprised of three books, The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing, and I devoured all three as soon as I got my hands on them. I’m typing this fresh off of having read the third and last book of the trilogy in fact. In terms of LGBT rep the main character’s sister has a female love interest and there are other characters scattered throughout who are very obviously not heterosexual. Lots of political intrigue and power moves between the courts too, which is another reason why TLS readers might enjoy!

The Darkest Part of the Forest is a stand alone novel (sadly). “Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.” It’s just really good in all honesty, kick ass characters, strong friendships and family bonds, great plot and one of the main characters is gay and another is bisexual.

Tithe and the sequel Ironside are both very good and a more ‘urban’ fantasy than Folk or Forest which, to me at least, are more pure fantasy in a way although all of them take place in the modern world. It’s been a while since I read these two specifically, Tithe has a gay main supporting character who I really liked, and he’s also in Ironside too.

Moving away from Holly Black but staying within the realm of fey magic the Wicked Lovely series is a beautiful mix of urban and fey magic. Each book in the series stays within the same world and plot line but generally delves into a different character’s POV. Ink Exchange is technically the second book in the series but my favourite and IMO can be read alone, but I would recommend the entire thing. Two of my favourite bisexual characters are heavily featured in this and pop up through out the rest of the series, sometimes only a little and sometimes a whole lot. 

Prince of Air and Darkness by M.A. Grant. “The only human student at Mather’s School of Magick, Phineas Smith has a target on his back. Born with the rare ability to tap into unlimited magick, he finds both Faerie Courts want his allegiance—and will do anything to get it. They don’t realize he can’t levitate a feather, much less defend the Faerie Realm as it slips into civil war.” I MEAN how could you read that description as a TLS reader and NOT want to give this one a go???? 

Abhorsen Series

In another realm entirely the Abhorsen series is a stunning example of world building which starts with the novel Sabriel, then Lirael and then Abhorsen. I can’t remember there being any lgbt characters in these three, I read them like ten years ago and they were published in 1996 so that kind of explains that, but I love them so much, they’re so well written and I really think fans of TLS will like these. They aren’t urban, but they’re very fantasy and the magic system is super interesting. Possibly one of my favourites in any book ever. 

“Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him.”

Comics

I recommended the Batwoman series last time, this time the rec I’m making is for a comic series called The Wicked & the Divine. The art work is beautiful and concept is unique and intriguing: “Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead.” It’s also lovely and diverse in it’s cast. I think fans of TLS will enjoy the characters in this especially. 

Saga is also very popular with sci fi fantasy fans, so I think a lot of TLS fan will be into this if they wanna give comics a go. “When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe.” I’ve only personally read the first issue of this but I enjoyed it a lot. The art is really pretty and it’s quite diverse from what I’ve heard/seen, but I’m not 100% sure about lgbt characters. I know there are some in but I’m not sure how prominent they are.

DRAGONS

Dragons. That’s all i’m saying. If Rune could turn into a dragon or ride a dragon... ahh the possibilities are endless. If anyone asks why this rec section is on the list i’m just gonna say its part of my shiny new determination to see Rune turn into a dragon in a sequel later down the line. I think we only see a dragon once in The Last Sun right at the start but man. It got me hankering for more you know? K.D. Edwards if you’re reading this... you know what to do ;) .

The King’s Dragon by W.M. Fawkes and Sam Burns. “Lord Tristram Radcliffe has a secret—he is the only dragon at the king’s court in Llangard. It’s a secret he’s kept from the knights he’s fought beside, from the ladies who bat their lashes at him, and from his closest companion, Prince Reynold. If it were to get out, he’d be banished to the Mawrcraig Mountains along with the rest of his kind, but the kingdom of men is the only one he’s ever known, and his heart lives in the stone halls of those who’d count him an enemy.” 

Silk & Steel by Ariana Nash. “A tormented dragon prince. A captured elven assassin. Duty demands they fight for their people, but love has other plans.” 

Other

Spellbound by Allie Therin. “Arthur Kenzie’s life’s work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects. This time, in order to succeed, he needs a powerful psychometric…and the only one available has sworn off his abilities altogether.” Another disclaimer: I haven’t read this one yet but the reason it’s on my list in the first place is because it gave me some TLS vibes so I thought i’d bring it to everyone else’s attention too!

Black Dog Blues by Rhys Ford. “Ever since being part of the pot in a high-stakes poker game, elfin outcast Kai Gracen figures he used up his good karma when Dempsey, a human Stalker, won the hand and took him in. Following the violent merge of Earth and Underhill, the human and elfin races are left with a messy, monster-ridden world, and Stalkers are the only cavalry willing to ride to someone's rescue when something shadowy appears.”

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan. THIS BOOK. oh my god. “Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honor they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead of paper, she's made of fire.” Such a beautiful, well crafted fantasy world. Such rich characters. Ugh i love it and the f/f romance it brings to the table. 

[inwintersolitude]

- November 2nd 2019 -

Have you ever been to a Chinatown in any of the cities you've been to? Yeah, I've been to the Chinatowns in both London and San Francisco.

How old was the oldest person you've dated? My husband is the only person I've ever been in a relationship with. He's 32 now, and was 22 when we started dating.

Do you know anyone who has their own podcast? Apparently one of my former flight instructors now has an aviation podcast, but I've never listened to it. Nor do I really want to listen to it, because he was a narcissistic ass, haha.

Who is the first person under C in your phone's contacts? How old are they? My friend Collin. He's 30.

Have you ever been to couple's counseling? Nope. Never needed it.

How often does your employer ask you to work overtime? I'm not working now. But at my most recent job, I ended up working overtime at least once or twice a week. And it was always a case of me being told (rather than asked) to work overtime. If a flight was due back late, then I'd simply have to stay. Or if a flight was schedule for very early in the morning before my shift, then I'd have to be there at like 4-5 a.m. to get the plane ready. I couldn't just say "nah I'm not working overtime." I had to be there.

What did you have for dinner last night? Eggplant parmesan.

How many children do you want, and how did you decide on this number? I don't want any children. I have zero maternal qualities and I know I would severely hate being a parent. I value having free time, a quiet and clean home, and the freedom of being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want.

Where did your last kiss take place? In the front foyer.

Did you often read for fun when you were a kid? Yeah, quite a bit. I was a total bookworm when I was a kid.

^ What were some of your favorite books? The Magic Treehouse series, the Redwall series, the Island trilogy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and My Side of the Mountain.

When and why did you last feel lonely? It's been so long that I don't even remember. I enjoy solitude, I'm not at all prone to loneliness.

Are you more of a visual learner or an auditory learner? Definitely more of a visual learner.

Do you have any dietary restrictions? I don't have any food allergies, but I'm not able to eat a lot of really chewy or hard foods, like bagels, almonds, raw carrots, etc. because of my jaw problems.

Do you prefer Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, or something else? Google Maps.

What is your favorite coffee brand? I don't drink coffee.

What is your favorite tea brand? Harney and Sons.

Have you ever worn false eyelashes? Nope.

How old does someone have to be for you to see them as an adult? Maybe 20 or 21, as long as they have their shit together and aren't just living the life of an overgrown teenager.

Do you ever 'manspread' when you sit down? Haha, sometimes.

Have you ever broken a friend's trust? Not that I'm aware of. I've never had a friend tell me that.

Which of your good habits has made the biggest positive difference in your life? Not comparing myself to others. And rarely drinking soda, juice, or other sugary drinks.

Have you ever dated someone who was very lazy? No.

When was the last time you were in a crowded place, and where was it? A week ago, at a steakhouse that my husband and I went to for dinner. It was a weekend night so it was rather busy.

Have you ever turned down a job offer? Yes.

What was the last medical appointment you scheduled? It was my appointment with my dentist for my occlusal analysis, to start phase two of my TMJD treatment. And holy hell did my jaw hurt after over an hour of holding my mouth open and having scanners and impression trays shoved in there. I couldn't eat solid foods the rest of the day, haha.

What are some of your favorite alcoholic drinks? Gin and tonic, and riesling.

Have you ever taught an elderly relative how to use a computer/smartphone? Yes, I've taught my Granny how to do a lot of things on her iPhone. And my husband and I have taught his mom how to do things on her computer, phone, and iPad. She's not elderly, she's in her 60's, but she's rather tech-illiterate.

Where did you get the shirt you're wearing? Calvin Klein.

How many people can be seated at your kitchen table? Six, but we only have four of the chairs at the table. The other two are upstairs, one in the lounge and one in the master bedroom.

Have you ever had a dream in which you died? Yes. I had a nightmare several years ago that my husband and I died in a car accident. And I had another nightmare where I didn't necessarily die in the dream, but I was looking at my own dead body.

What are your favorite vegetables? Spinach, eggplant, and zucchini.

[art-of-a-diffrent-color]

Pink Castles and Lord of the Rings: A Look at the Color of Fantasy Castles From a an Archaeological Perspective

(alternatively titled I Though Way Too Much About This and I Need Sleep)

Because exterior castle walls faces the elements of all seasons they had to be weatherproofed with some regularity. Traditionally this would have been done with a lime-based sort of paint which worked well to protect the stone of the building. It also had the fun side effect of being a salmon pink color as seen in the photo of the 17th century Craigievar Castle in Scotland, which underwent restoration in 2007.

As it was not uncommon for castles to be built on high points in the local geography both to bee seen and to have good visibility of the land around them, the pink color had the added benefit of making the castle easier to see. The lime base also allows the castle to breathe more then the modern concrete that many restoration projects use.

Now what does this mean for Tolkiens iconic landscape, gleaming White castles and massive stone wall fortresses?

Anyone who has read The Lord of the Rings trilogy knows that Tolkien was heavily inspired by his native landscape: Ring Forts, Barrows, Passage Tombs, Castles and Bogs all show up in the novels. And anyone who has ever lived in England, Scotland and Ireland can tell you that these features positively litter the landscape. One of the favorite games of my Archaeological Group (which is studying a Castile in Co. Roscommon Ireland) is "Mound or Monument?". Pre Norman invasion, most buildings would have been made from wood and earth, the exception being passage tombs where the dead would have been burried. But even after the Norman's came, purely stone buildings were rare and the construction was both time consuming and costly. Which makes Tolkiens stone castles and fortresses both impressive and a little impractical. I will give Tolkien the credit of simply having his castles such as Minas Tirith being built from the mountain itself instead of having stone brought to the site. One could imagine that Gondor would have exported the scrap stone to build places such as Ithilian and perhaps have sold it to other places as a form of trade. Which is one possible explanation as to how the White Tower was built and funded.

There is a question of the geology of the region. When I mentioned to a friend that I was writing this post, they expressed the idea that perhaps Minas Tirith was carved from marble and that this was possible due to it's close proximity to a volcano. Marble is formed when limestone is exposed to tremendous heat and pressure and it's color is determined by the amount of certain impurities in the mix. Now looking at the geology just a little further away from Gondor at Helm's Deep, we know that there are great Caverns in the mountain. These would either be calcium or limestone based. While it is not nessicary for a mountain to have a consistent geological makeup, it does tend to happen. While I do not know the odds of an entire mountain having consistently colored marble through its entire structure, I do know that the impuritys in the rock would vary which means that there would be portions of the mountain that might be naturally pink or dark grey. As Minas Tirith is called "The White Tower" I therefor find it unlikely that the entire mountain was mad of marble. But then again, this is a fantasy building and the rules of the real world no not need to apply.

But I find it much more likely that Gondor has a limestone base and that the architects of Minas Tirith did the same thing that the Romans did and simply lined the outside of the building with Marble. So it is conceivable that Minas Tirith would be white, and not subject to the pink lime wash that medieval castles used. The marble would need to be protected somehow or constantly maintained as it is not immune to the effects of weather. What color this would have turned the tower, I cannot say. Now this all assumes that there is a little bit of hand waving in regards to geology going on.

This is not to say that Tolkien purposely threw out historical findings. Archaeologists have only recently made this discovery through a combination of chemical analysis and trial and error. I believe that Tolkien did what many great authors have done: write what they want and pull insperation from what they know. He probably was inspired by the great stone building that he could see around him. The painted record of medieval castles show grey stone, and not the pink lime wash. Why? Because many of these castles had been left unattended and without maintenance for hundreds of years. In fact it was quite fashionable for a time to have a delapidated castle on ones property , and many of the stone building were neglected on purpose. None of the pink facade would have been left for painters to capture.

Helm's Deep however would not have been so lucky as to escape being a pink fortress. While not the main living place for the people of Rohan, (meduseld and it's surrounding building being a wonderful example of an absolutely MASSIVE Ring Fort) it is an important location to the kingdom. And a leaky fortresses that is crumbling does not match the description of the stronghold. Because the lime wash would do more then keep weather out, it would also keep water and ice from coming into the mortar of the walls and cracking it apart. Cracked walls are easier to destroy, and we know that Helm's Deep is said to be nigh impenetrable. Well what if, because it is not the primary place of habitation, it has fallen into a bit of neglect? It is true that Helms Deep would be a last resort location, a place where people would evacuate to when they have no other options, basically and emergency bunker by today's standards. Such bunkers are maintained, as they serve little purpose if they are damaged.

So I put forth to you: a Pink Helm's Deep.

(I am in no way an expert, I am still a student, and everything I have written above is speculation with a bit of science thrown in at best. This has been fuled by sleep deprivation and way too many energy drinks and in no way should reflect the archaeology community as a whole)

[buildarocketboys]

Books read in 2018

It's been a pretty good year for reading for me, and I actually kept a list of all the books I read, so I thought I'd make a list and write a mini review about each one. I've read 22 (and a half) books this year in full - this doesn't include any that I just started, or have read bits of.

1. When The Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

Magical realism + gay and trans characters! Pretty great although I wouldn't necessarily read it again. Mostly read in lunchtimes at work.

2-4. LOTR trilogy by J R R Tolkien (started somewhere between 17 and 29 March) (first book finished 4 April) (finished 30 May)

Dates on this one as I spent most of the first half of the year reading the Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring was almost certainly my favourite, got a bit bored towards end of Two Towers/start of Return of the King, and the long descriptions and battles (and long descriptions OF battles) are something I generally prefer to do without. But they're really good books with a lot of cool (and gay!) stuff in them, and though the films don't include everything from them, they're pretty damn good adaptations. (I only wish the films had kept Beregond).

5. The Inescapable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

By the author of Aristotle and Dante, I actually can't remember much of this book, I remember it being pretty good though. It may have made me cry?

6. Cloudbusting by Malorie Blackman (REREAD)

Easily the shortest book here, this book used to make me cry. It's a simple story told through different types of poetry, but it's so beautifully done. Didn't make me cry this time sadly, but still good. Read it sitting by the river taking a break from working on a job application.

7. Nation by Terry Pratchett (REREAD)

I reread this pretty much every year (I found myself a few weeks back wanting to reread it again) and it's brilliant every time, enough said. Think this is the only Pratchett novel I've read this year, which is a shame. Thoroughly recommend it though, even though it's not part of Discworld.

8. And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Bought this from a stall in Bristol, at the time it was the only one of his I hadn't read. It was one of those novels I just ploughed through, really quickly. Really good, really sad (and a gay character where you least expected it).

9. Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Borrowed this from my girlfriend after having seen the musical in May. The book is...really weird, but really good. A lot more of an obvious dystopia than the musical is, right from the get go pretty much and Elphaba is an icon - grumpy, traumatised, irritable, angry, hopeful, guilty, revolutionary. I love her. Oh, and her and Glinda are still really gay.

10. Harry and the Wrinklies by Alan Temperley (REREAD)

Now we come to the books I reread in August when I had some time off work. Harry gets orphaned and is sent to live with his elderly relatives and their elderly friends (hence the title). Little does he know, they're all ex-cons and pretty much modern day Robin Hoods. Also, badass. Still a great book, even if it's technically for kids. I need to reread the sequels sometime.

11. Maximum Ride by James Patterson (REREAD)

Edgy as fuck but I still kind of love it. Ngl the younger kids and Iggy are a lot more fun than Max and Fang though.

12. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (REREAD)

This one I reread every couple of years or so. One of my favourites, the way the non-chronological (by design and necessity) plots works so well, in both building and retaining suspense, the prose is beautiful (if a little pretentious at times), the characters are...mostly kind of dicks, but in a real, multifaceted kind of way. I kind of love all the references to various books/authors/bands, even if it is kind of pretentious. I discovered Rilke through this book. Jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

13. Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Read this a little while after seeing the film. Obviously they changed a fair amount, but I love them both. Really easy to read in about a day.

14. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Read this on the same weekend as Simon. Loved it a LOT. I relate to both Leah and Abby a whole lot and it just felt so real to the experience of being a (bi) teenage girl. Wish there'd been a bit more to the ending maybe? But maybe that's just me being greedy. Still trying to persuade @judasisgayriot to read it. This might well be my book of the year.

15. Vox by Christina Dalcher

After I finished Leah on the Offbeat I was looking for something else to read. Picked this up in Waterstones because it sounded like an interesting concept for a dystopia (women are only allowed to say 100 words a day - if they say more, they get electrocuted by a bracelet attached to their wrist). The main character is white, straight and middle class, so that's definitely the majority of the experience we get to see, but there is some examination of being gay and/or a poc in this dystopian culture. Overall an interesting examination on how language can be used as a weapon, and to control people. A Handmaid's Tale with a difference and (spoiler!) a happy ending.

16. The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

I didn't get/read this one at the same time as Leah and Simon because I was put off by how het it sounded, lol. The main character is straight (afaik) but it's still a pretty great book and she's pretty relatable.

17. My Mum Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

Tracy Beaker all grown up! As told through the eyes of her (much quieter and less troublesome) daughter. Pretty great and interesting to see Tracy all grown up but still very much Tracy. Lots of drama and Justine Littlewood ruining everything as usual. Complete with an implausible happy ending (but it's great anyway, and tbh we all need those sometimes). Also, Cam is a #confirmed lesbian.

18. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (REREAD)

I'm not sure how many times I've reread The Book Thief now, but it must have been at least ten. I reread it at least every year but often it's been more than that. Still amazing, obviously, but I dunno, I didn't feel as into it this time? I didn't cry (for the first time ever!) while reading it, although that might have been because I read it at work. Mostly I was reading it to prepare for Zusak's new book, which I got for Christmas.

19. Holes by Louis Sachar (REREAD)

First time I've reread this since high school, and it's still brilliant. 'Nuff said.

20. The Bi-ble: An Anthology of Personal Narratives and Essays about Bisexuality edited by Lauren Nickodemus and Ellen Desmond

Bought this from Gay's The Word when I was in London back in May, only got round to reading it in December. Some really good stuff in here, I related hard to a lot of it (and not so much to other parts). Recommended reading for anyone who's bi or wants to understand more about bisexuality.

21. Call of the Wild by Guy Grieve

I picked this up on a whim from my pile of unread books because I wanted something to read before I got new books for Christmas. (Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I only finished it on Boxing Day). Really interesting, I'm so fascinated by life in very cold, harsh, unforgiving places (only partly because of the wolves) and this was a really interesting true story of how a guy (called Guy) from Scotland manages to build his own cabin and live out in the wild of the Alaskan Interior through the Winter.

22. Combat Magicks by Steve Cole

A Doctor Who novel (the first of three I got for Christmas!) and the last book I read in its entirety in 2018. At the site of a battle between the Romans and the Huns (which is why I chose it first, sounded really cool), so-called "witches" manipulate everything both sides do. Surprise! They're aliens. The Doctor calls Yaz her bestie a lot and it's adorable. Ryan gets a girlfriend who stans the Doctor (she's basically part of Roman Torchwood and she's awesome). Graham has a bath with a witch (well, nearly).

Currently reading:

Eat Up! by Ruby Tandoh

I'm about half way through this, so it doesn't quite count as a book I read in 2018, but I thought I should include it. Anti-diet culture, embracing food for what it is, everything it is, while examining the different things (gender, race, class) that affect our relationship with food.

[killscreencinema]

God of War (PlayStation 4)

So I missed out on God of War. 

Back in 2005, when the first game was released by Santa Monica Studios for the Playstation 2, I was finishing up college.  I remember reading about the game’s development and being fascinated by the concept - a Spartan warrior who decides he wants to kill the Greek gods?  Cool.  I never got a chance to play it upon its initial release because I was a broke college student and had probably spent what little money I had on some other game.  I considered renting it, but no, no, this was a game I needed extensive time on and didn’t want to binge in order to get it back to the video store on time. 

Before I could get ahold of it either way, some college buddies of mine bought the game and so began playing the ever loving crap out of it.  Every time I came over to hang out, they were playing God of War, which bugged me because the whole game was being spoiled for me.  When my friends played a game, they had this sick compulsion to REPLAY it over and over and over (whereas I finish a game and move on, like a sane person).  This went on for at least 2-3 months before my desire to play the game myself was replaced with resentment for the entire series. 

I had always meant to play the trilogy at some point, but other games took precedence.  So when the 4th entry into the series, simply titled God of War, was released this year, and it was clear that the game was a kind of soft reboot/sequel (in the way that Resident Evil 4 was a soft reboot/sequel), it seemed like a perfect jumping on point for a newb like me. 

Now I want to say normally I’m very uncomfortable just jumping into the the middle of a series like this.  I don’t like to say things like, “I’m OCD”, because I feel it trivializes an potentially serious mental illness in order for people to make themselves sound less boring, but... I think I have mild OCD, especially in that I’m incredibly resistant to watching movies and TV shows out of order or playing video games out of order.  It’s not just a preference thing - I get physically out of sorts when someone insists I watch something like The Raid 2, but I haven’t seen the first one.  They might be like, “It’s an entirely new story with different characters, you don’t need to see the first one” to which I’m like, “No, you don’t understand, I NEED to see it.”  However, I don’t think I’m actually OCD because many times I’ll break down and just get over my weird fixation on watching/playing things in order.  My introduction to the Elder Scrolls series via starting with Oblivion and never looking back (Morrow-what?) is evidence enough to me that I am perfectly capable of skipping games in a series without feeling terribly bad about it.

The point of this dumb tangent is that I was dead set against playing this new God of War until I played through the first three, but it seemed to me like the developers went out of their way to make this game accessible to people who are new to the franchise, so I pulled an Elder Scrolls and blew caution to the (Morrow)wind.  I’m kind of glad I did too, for reasons I’ll explain further when I discuss the story. 

The game takes place years after the third, with the legendary “Ghost of Sparta”, Kratos, having retired into the mountains far away from his homeland of Greece.  When we meet Kratos, he is in the process of building a pyre with which to cremate the remains of his dead wife so that he and his son Atreus can take her ashes to the “highest peak in all the realms”, according to her final wishes.  At first Kratos is reluctant to bring Atreus on the journey, believing him to not be ready, but his hand is forced after a god named Baldur, brother of the Nordic god Thor, unexpectedly shows up to pick a fight with Kratos.  After barely surviving the encounter, Kratos realizes that he and Atreus both would be more safe on the move than staying in one place long enough for Baldur to show up for round two.  However, along the way, Kratos uses the journey as a opportunity to continue training his son to become a man, while Atreus is insatiably curious to learn more about his stoic badass of a father, but Kratos ain’t talking because he doesn’t want his son to know about his true godly nature.

So yes, the new God of War game is, at its core, a story about an estranged father and son bonding during a journey.  Cue “Cats in the Cradle”:

Kidding aside, I absolutely loved this aspect of the game and I enjoyed the back and forth between the characters throughout the story.  This was helped by excellent voice acting by Sunny Sulijic as Atreus and Christopher Judge (of Stargate SG-1 fame) as Kratos.  Evidently, Judge took over the role because the game developers needed someone who was physically closer in size to Kratos in the game for animation purposes.  While I’m sure this was regrettable for fans of Carson’s work with the character, Judge is no slouch, and does such a great job even diehard fans of the series have to give it up to him as worthy of the mantle.

Fans of the series may be quick to point out that I may not feel that way if I were more familiar with the series, and that’s fair.  Like I mentioned before, though, I’m glad that I’m coming in fresh, because not only does that make me a little more open to a different sounding Kratos, but not being as familiar with mythos of the series makes me just as eager as Atreus to hear more about his bloody past.  One might say it takes on a... mythical quality?

No, wait, please keep reading, I apologize!

The game plays like a brawler in the style of Bloodborne or Dark Souls, though certainly not as difficult as those games are infamous for being.  That being said, God of War ain’t a cake walk either!  The game has a respectable bite to it challenge wise, forcing the player to learn how to deal with individual enemy types beyond repetitive Dynasty Warriors style hack-n-slashery.  The optional boss fights with the Corrupted Valkyries is an absolute treat in which to test one’s skills, leading up to a hell of a brawl with the Valkyrie Queen (whom I couldn’t beat... dammit).  That being said, epic boss battles like that are way too sparse and the same enemies get overused a little too much. 

While Kratos eventually regains his iconic Chaos Blades from the previous games (spoilers), his main weapon is an axe called Leviathan and ohhh what a fun weapon it is too!  Similar to Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, Kratos can hurl the axe at enemies, and call it back at will.  This spices up battles a lot, allowing you to pull off awesome moves like throwing your axe at an enemy to freeze them with its ice powers, and beating another enemy with your bare fists, before calling your axe back to you, which slices up or trips enemies in its trajectory back to you.  Meanwhile, your son isn’t just sitting on the sidelines cheering you on (or warning you of attacks from behind, which is helpful) - Atreus jumps into the fray to help either by shooting baddies with his bow and arrow or he’ll often leap on their head and keep them prone long enough for you to deliver powerful, but slow, cleaving blows with your axe. 

And anyone with traumatic memories of GoldenEye 64 escort missions need not worry - Atreus cannot die!  Yay!

Besides the main story quest, the game offers a nice variety of side quests to keep you busy without being so overwhelming that you totally forget there even IS a main quest (which is something that often happens to me A LOT with games of this type).  Fortunately, besides killing all 50 of Odin’s ravens, the side quests are actually a lot of fun and don’t involve insipid fetch quests.  While some of them can be fairly time consuming, like the labyrinth in Niflheim, none of them ever felt tedious. 

If my ramblings haven’t made it clear, God of War is amazing game, which delivers a compelling “cinematic experience”, but without sacrificing substantive gameplay (a formula a lot of AAA developers named after badly behaved canines have trouble balancing).  However, you don’t have to take MY word for it...

[booksbeyondimagining]

The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1), by S. A. Chakraborty

Publish Date: November 14, 2017 Published by: Harper Voyager Pages: 528 Genre: Fantasy My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars)

**I received this as an egalley from the publisher through Edelweiss in return for an honest review.**

Synopsis:

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles. But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass?a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound. In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences. After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for . . .

My Review:

This was a book that took me some time to get through (so much, in fact, that I didn't finish it until almost a month after its release). I wish I could say that it was because of outside factors like work, but it is sadly not so. This book was just long. And I don't know if it's just because I had to take a lot of time understanding the world-building, or if I just didn't feel extremely compelled to constantly be reading it. Either way, despite that, I came away from it feeling mostly enchanted and eager for the next installment. The book drew me in right off the bat, and I immediately fell in love with Nahri as a character. There was something about her that pulled at my interest and held onto it. The plot moved quickly with her and had me eager to turn the page - only to find myself suddenly facing Ali's perspective in the City of Daevabad and finding it kind of losing its momentum. It wasn't that I disliked Ali or anything (in fact, by the end of the book I was almost as in love with him as I was with Nahri), it was just that his scenes were so chock full of politics and basically setting the scene for the reader to understand the dynamics of the population of Daevabad, particularly concerning the shafit (part-djinn, part-human). Somehow this just felt like a lot to take in all at once, and it took me several chapters between his and Nahri's perspective before I felt that I understood it all well enough to actually start reading it at a more decent pace. The world-building was good, just long and full of so much information that I sometimes felt like I had forgotten something or mixed something up. I loved the magic of everything, and the plot definitely had a lot of intirigue and emotion behind it. I did feel some reactions seemed a little strange or convoluted, but I think by the end I had already started forgetting minor things that weree mentioned once or twice prior that would have helped me understand those incidents better. What mostly drove the story for me were the characters, particularly Nahri and Ali. Like I said, at first I was only mildly interested in Ali, who, despite being kind and pro-shafit, had the unfortunate tendancy to also think that the religion of the Daevas was wrong and that only his was right. I honestly can't even tell if he ever changed his stance on that. And while I did not agree with the Daevas, either, who believe that all humans and shafit are evil and no better than dirt, I don't agree with Ali's presumption that they're religion is wrong either. Nahri, on the other hand, was wonderful from the start. Her main goal in life is to study to become a physician, and is willing to do anything to do it. I love her intelligence and wit, as well as how much she cares for those close to her. I don't, however, understand how she still loved Dara by the end. Dara, who is one of those thousand-year-old love interests who suffered for millenia and is quick to temper, started off decently, but slowly became someone I did not like by the end. He became angry, possessive-but-distant, and just overall kind of douchey. Like I said, the plot was extremely interesting if not a little slow to understand at first, and the characters full of great depth and intrigue. I feel like I don't fully agree with either "side" of the overall conflict, nor do I fully disagree either, and I like that that reflects reality because no one is always fully right or wrong when it comes to things. It definitely kept my attention the entire time I was reading it, despite the fact that I didn't feel the extreme need to always have my face in it.

[scifrey]

Get To Know The Writer

 Get to Know the Writer Tag

Rules (always post the rules): answer the questions given to you, write ten questions of your own, tag ten people.

@rosecorcoranwritessaid anyone who wants to do it can, and it looked interesting.

1.) Where did the title(s) of your latest project(s) come from?

 The titles for The Accidental Turn Series were sort of decided by a committee of my agent, my editor, my publisher and me. I’m rubbish at naming books, so through a series of emails a list of about a hundred throw-them-out-there titles were whittled down (mostly by Googling them and seeing if any other book had that title already) to a few themes. From there we narrowed down and named the first book (The Untold Tale, where I had been calling it That Feminist Meta Thingy), and then the other two books dominoed into place after that (The Forgotten Tale, and The Silenced Tale.)

These titles are because in book #1, the fantasy is being told from a side character who in fantasy-novel tropes is often overlooked. In book #2, other fantasy stories start vanishing, forgotten by the readers, and in book #3,someone is trying to silence the writer of these fantasy books forever.

 City By Night, one of my novellas, is also being reissued next month. Its original title was The Dark Side f the Glass, which was both an allusion to Alice Through The Looking Glass, as it’s about a woman who falls into a TV instead of through a mirror, and a tip of the head to the song of the same title from the soundtrack of one of the television shows the novella satirizes, Forever Knight. However, my agent thought the reference was too obscure, and after another big round of back-and-forth, it was decided to name the novella after the fake-TV show I made up for the story.

 The titles of the to books in The Skylark’s Saga (#1 The Skylark’s Song, and #2, The Skylark’s Sacrifice) are because I do love alliteration when I can get away with it! These are the only titles of the recent projects that I decided on my own and the rest of my team liked! Score!

2.) Do you have any rhyme or reason behind your character names?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For the Accidental Turn Series fantasy books, I stole a lot of street names or snipped letters out of traditionally “European” names, like Kintyre, Forsyth, and Bevel to make them look suitably fantasy-esque on the page. But when the characters come to the “real world” I made a point of surrounding them with characters who had distinctly non-white, no-European names like Ahbni, Ichiro, and Juan just to really emphasize how much more diverse the “real world” is over traditional fantasy. 

In Triptych, every friend who helped me with edits got a character named after them. And in The Skylark’s Saga I got a bit silly - the Sealies all have surnames inspired by pagan gods, the Saskwayins are colors, and the Klonn are plants.

3.) What is your writing routine, if any?

When possible, I like to write at night, in silence, and with only my desk lamp on.  I try to keep my desk area very tidy, too, with only notes about the project I’m immediately working on written on my whiteboard wall. I need the only mess to be what’s in my head.

I’m more of a pantser who has, by virtue of writing series, been forced to learn how to plan. But even then, my planning is pretty rudimentary. I often do this in a notebook on transit (I tend to come up with ideas when I’m in liminal spaces), and run that by my editor. If she approves the vague outline, then I often write whatever scene is foremost in my mind - whichever has really grabbed my imagination, and allows me to figure out who my characters are, what the voice is, who the narrators are.

From there I often write chapter one, and then usually skip straight to the climax of the book and write that. This way I know where I’m aiming before I properly knock the arrow. Even if the target eventually shifts, I still have a sense of its shape and location.

From there I tend to skip all over the narrative and write whatever arrests me or I have in the front of my mind. Once that’s done, I go back to the start and begin the process of filling in the gaps. If I get another idea, I’m always happy to jump ahead and do that.

Using Scrivener has made this process a thousand times easier than when I had to scroll-scroll-scroll through Word.

When I don’t have to go to my dayjob, I try to write about 4000 words per day. When I do, I am for 500-1669, which keeps me limber for NaNoWriMo.

4.) Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever written?

I actually wracked my brains on this one, and I was going t say something like “a 400 year old house on the top of a mountain in Japan” or “in the shadow of the Great Pyramids in Giza”, but honestly, the real answer is on my BlackBerry while high off my face on morphine in the emergency room. Apparently I wrote a GREAT short story, which I emailed to all my friends, and emailed them. Without telling anyone that I was in hospital with Organ Death ™. And without remembering at all that I’d done it.

5.) Do you prefer to write by hand or type?

Typing, hands down. I type way faster than I handwrite, and I get frustrated that my pen can’t keep up with my brain. If I get an idea when I’m away from the computer, I usually only jot down enough to remember the scene/idea/mood/exchange without writing it out. I despise having to do the work twice, and that’s what transcribing from paper to computer feels like.

6.) Ideally, where would you like to see your writing take you in five years?

I’d like to break this barrier there seems between me and the Big 5. My agent and I have been working at it, but there seems to be some strange gap. Lots of editors at the Big 5 like my work, but no one seems to want to sign it. I get compliments on my voice, on my word crafting, but no contracts. It’s so frustrating to be so close to the possibility of working with a team with more resources than I have so far. 

7.) Which character is most fun to write and why?

Now that Triptych is complete and being serialized on Wattpad, any opportunity to revisit Kalp is a delight. I love looking at the world through his eyes. Olly, from The Maddening Science was a lot of fun too, again because of the way I have to shove aside my own assumptions about how and why the world works and see it through the lens of his own intelligence and lived experience. And Bevel will never not be a hoot, because there’s something just so great about getting to be that crass, and to come up with dirty jokes that fit in a fantasy world.

8.) What advice would you give writers just starting out?

Read widely outside of the genre you want to write in. If you want to write fiction, read non-fic, pop sci, and academic papers. Read the news. Read blogs. Read things that are in your wheelhouse, but then randomly grab something from the library that looks cool. You never know where the next idea will come from. Let your imagination wander.

9.) Do you have any “writing heros”? (This could be published writers or non.)

Anyone giving it a go! It’ hard, and it’s disheartening when people don’t love something you’ve put so much work and heart into. It’’s easy to give up on. Don’t.

Otherwise, I love Dianne Wynne Jones’ blatant subversion of stereotypes and tropes, which has really informed my writing, an Jane Austen’s ability to create such diverse, thoughtful, and complex characters.

I also super appreciate fanfic writers, cause they do it out of sheer love, and work for years to hone their craft. Among my faves are @bendingsignpost @sheafrotherdon, and @madlori.

10.) Tell me about your work-in-progress.

 Oh lord, is this a can of worms you really want to open?

 The Silenced Tale & The Accidental Collection  - books #3 and #4 of The Accidental Turn Series  are done. They just need to be line-edited and then the editor can lock the manuscript and it’s out of my hands and into the typesetter/designer’s. (And then of course I need to ramp up to marketing machine.)

 Book #3 is the conclusion of a trilogy of books about a secondary character in  fantasy epic who becomes self-aware and slips the pages of his book.

 The Skylark’s Saga - The two books are written, but one of the relationships is changing dramatically and I need to go in and shift that. I have no idea how much writing/rewriting this is going to entail. However, I do know that I want to get it done by the end of the year. As soon as the manuscript for The Silenced Tale is locked, I’ll be moving onto this.

 This duology is a steampunk-adventure-romance book about a girl vigilante and her ornery rocketpack who gets trapped behind enemy lines after being shot down in a dogfight.

 The Austen Hollywood AU  - I’ve written the first book of the series, and my agent is shopping it now. It’s possible that it may only get signed as a one-book deal, but ideally I’ve developed it as a six-book series (one for each of Austen’s). At some point I’d like to write the first three chapters of the remaining five books, to demonstrate what the voice and tone of each is gong to be like. (Possibly for NaNoWriMo this year??)

 These books are modern adaptations of Austen’s work, but they will all intertwine as characters from different aspects of the entertainment industry cross paths, work together,  and as they do in the originals, find love and contentment.

 The Maddening Science  - at some point I’d like to develop my short story of the same name into a full-length novel, but it would take a lot of research on my part, and a lot of buy-in on a publisher’s. I’m not quite ready to tackle this one yet, though I have pitches and synopsizes and the like written.

Henrietta - This idea is relatively new idea, born from watching a documentary and then reading the non-fic biography that inspired it (see, reading outside your genre helps!), but I think I’d really like to take a swing a writing a historical romance based on the life of a certain historical mistress, something like The Other Boleyn Girl. It would take a massive amount of research as well, but I think would be really interesting and engaging. The woman’s life was fascinating.

The Neridis - I wrote this book about four years ago and it’s been trunked. I’d like to pull it back out and give it a spit-polish and a steam-up, then self publish it sometime next year under my erotica pseudonym. It’s a time-travel lesbian romance story that can easily be punched up into erotica.

And of course, there are three other books that are sort of hovering in the back of my mind, but I’m not ready to write them, or even really a pitch for them yet. The vampire one might be a screenplay instead, I’m not sure.

 Oh, and I am looking to place a script, too - I wrote it under spec for a company that later decided not to shift from distribution into development any more, so I’m not sure what do with 228 pages of cute lesbian comic-book creators falling love over lattes and superheroes. I keep thinking that it would make a great webcomic/graphic novel, but I have no idea how to find an artist willing to commit to like a 500-page graphic novel, and more importantly, find the money to pay them.

I tag whomever wants to jump in. No pressure.

[attract-mode-collective]

Dat Genesis Aesthetic

Welcome to the next level of the Attract Mode blog! As explained last time, every Monday or Tuesday (or Wednesday) I’ll be sharing all the wacky game culture goodness that crossed my path the previous week (mixed with bits and pieces that I’ve long wanted to share, but haven’t, cuz I didn’t think it worked as a stand alone post or some other reason).

And kicking things off is Studio SUPER’s “Lives & Times”, in which they created eight different animated scenes, all running in tandem on a CRT monitor (i actually discovered this in a post in a CRT enthusiasts group I belong to on Facebook, which is a private, so I’ll say no more), and all of which screams dat Genesis aesthetic. Each of the ten monitors displays a letter, spelling out “Lives & Time”; the above are actually animated gifs, but due to Tumblr’s technical constraints, they’re simply still images, hence why I’m not going to bother to share the individual monitors (so please check out the source to see everything in action).

But yeah, it once again warms this old school fan of Sega’s 16-bitter that the kids today are embracing the look and feel of the platform, whereas those used to be punching bags, primarily among Super Nintendo devotees. Though, to be honest, the above actually reminds me of 32X’s aesthetic; the other night was my yearly attempt at giving Knuckles Chaotix another shot, and dear God does it ever look like someone attempt at making a game based upon found internet art and vaporwave album art that’s all been inspired by the Genesis, which means I absolutely adore AV, but dear God is it unplayable or what.

Back to the Genesis/Mega Drive real quick; here’s your new desktop wallpaper, courtesy of @SEGAotaku; you’re welcome…

With the new way of doing things around here, bits of randomness that had been the basis of semi-regular gags will be folded into the new weekly format. Like the Please Enjoy entries. So, please enjoy this wonderful mash-up of Sonic and Totoro, with a dash of the Iron Maiden font… on a t-shirt (courtesy of twosatans)…

It’s that time again, in which I really wish I had a PC. And GDC has barely gotten under way! By the end, I’ll no doubt see some new game that I’m dying to play, but cannot, unless it gets ported to the PS4. Though in this instance, I’m talking about DESCENT, which Prosthetic Knowledge describes as “Part music video, part demoscene production, part art history remix”. At least I can enjoy this video in the meanwhile…

Sorry, can’t say I agree with this statement. As for my choice for top FF, you’ll have to see what I wrote on the wall of the men’s room at Grassroots Tavern (located on the sound side of St. Mark’s between 2nd and 3rd Ave) in person….

Yet another “feature” of this blog, one that was only recently proposed, are semi-arbitrary comparisons. And they too will be part of the package every week, starting with; which do you prefer, this old photo of a young boy, proudly showing off his newly unwrapped Galaxian tabletop arcade cab, courtesy of ausretrogamer…

Or this somewhat more recent pic of young girl, one who is to ecstatic to have gotten a Game Boy Advance SP, courtesy of 2000ish…

Classic Gaming Quarterly just posted another Let’s Read, its in-depth, page at a time analysis of a classic gaming mag. In this instance, it’s Electronic Gaming Monthly #6 from early 1990…

Among the more interesting questions asked and observations made…

- Yeah, what exactly was the deal behind Fester’s Quest? Why in the heck was there an Addams Family game in the year 1989 (and not 1990 as stated in the video) for the NES? Then again, the same could be asked of Midnight Mutants, which was based upon the Munsters for the Atari 7800 in 1990. Is there a connection between the two?

- Not only did I have no idea that there was an arcade board based upon the PC Engine, I also never made the assumption myself that the SuperGrafx was perhaps originally destined for the US, given that the name of the PC Engine follow-up is more closely tied to the name of the US version, the TurboGrafx!

- Though I do recall people not being all that impressed with Super Mario World’s visuals upon release, as well as how the original Game Boy was considered a disappointment for a long while there. In fact, in EGM’s end of the year assessment for gaming hardware, for many years there, the GB was constantly scoring super low numbers.

One can never understate how important Pokemon’s arrival was for the platform in the US, which is actually 21 years ago today BTW/FYI!

Speaking of Game Boys, yet again, I really wanna play Kimutaku vs Predator; according to obscurevideogames, Takuya Kimura is from the J-pop boy band SMAP, but I bet most of you knew that already…

And back to the subject of video games rags; which cover featuring a shmup do you prefer, the one with Xevious…

Or Radiant Silvergun? BTW, both were found over at the shmups Tumblr, naturally…

Remember my round up of classic video game music on vinyl? Well here’s a clip that I wanted to include but couldn’t cuz I hit the limit of YouTube embeds in a single Tumblr post, plus it’s of a re-release on CD; it’s the third disc of a trilogy box set, of classic Namco tunes, and perhaps the best of the bunch (since I realize straight up Xevious audio ain’t for everyone)…

Sticking with the subject of music, Kotaku actually posted a real oldie but goodie, and since it was on a Sunday, there’s a good chance many may have missed it, so…

And back to shmups, as well as something else that one of the major outlets recently posted that’s definitely worth a look for anyone who may have missed it, is The Verge pointing out a rather intriguing part of a Fast Company write-up on Atari head honcho Nolan Bushnell’s early 80s high-tech incubator. Which is how the triangle in virtually every GPS system out there is actually the ship from Asteroids!

Which do you prefer, this old pic of Mexican wrestlers from Lucha Underground playing Mortal Kombat X on the PS4….

Or this recently release image of the WWE’s John Cena playing... I dunno actually... on the Nintendo Switch….

Speaking of the Switch, my aforementioned personal fave angry video game nerd recently shared his thoughts on Nintendo’s forthcoming hybrid home console/handheld. The title pretty much says it all: “NINTENDO SWITCH CAN SUCK IT!!!” is pretty much all you need to know. Still worth watching though! As is his recent follow up…

Said it before, and I’ll say it again; I don’t have to agree with BitHead1000 to find him hilarious.

As you may have heard, a Dreamcast signed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst was recently up for grabs on eBay. The original auction ended without a winner, which means everyone out there still has a chance to be one! One of six; I want to know the circumstances that led to Durst signing a Dreamcast, let alone several. Though I have to wonder if the seller will actually go through them all, let alone the first…

This animated gif by mazeon really makes me wish that there was a video game based upon The Black Hole. Actually, it’s ripe for a LucasArts/Double Fine-esque adventure! What do you fellow fans of the movie think? All six of you…

And finally, one last comparison; which do you all prefer; this Virtual Girl, who I found via posthumanwanderings…

Or this Virtual Boy wearing and Mountain Graphics’s STAR SOLDIUS shirt, which you can nab in the Super Attractive Club shop, along other things…

Don’t forget: Attract Mode is now on Medium! There you can subscribe to keep up to date, as well as enjoy some “best of” content you might have missed the first time around, plus be spared of the technical issues that’s starting to overtake Tumblr.

[fowlerconnor1991]

How To Quit Smoking With Reiki Best Cool Ideas

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Reiki And How It Works

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Reiki Healing Orange County

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[goodra-king]

Transcript of How Giving Back Can Create Business Success

Transcript of How Giving Back Can Create Business Success written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Sam Ashdown. She’s a UK based property marketing coach to independent estate agents, we would call them in the US real estate agents. But I think it’s about the same thing. So, Sam, thanks for joining us.

Sam Ashdown: Hey John, it’s great to be here.

John Jantsch: So you and I have known each other for a long time because you were one of those people that got out there and said, “I need to go learn about this new marketing stuff” and so you went to conferences and came across the ocean a few times. We bumped into each other there, didn’t we?

Sam Ashdown: Oh we did, yeah. I was your first fan girl, John. Your first fan girl from the UK and my first ever marketing book and I’m sure you hear this all the time and I know you did because I even heard you say this to other people or people say it to you that Duct Tape Marketing was their first marketing book and it absolutely changed my life from that moment on. It was amazing really, so thank you for that.

John Jantsch: I need to have people like you follow me around and tell people all about me. So tell me a little about your journey then because you talk about my first fan girl, that was 2005-06, so you have been doing this a little while. Tell me a little about your journey, you started out as an independent agent, I’m guessing, and things have evolved haven’t they?

Sam Ashdown: You know, you’d think so, because that would be very sensible, but I didn’t. I started off developing houses, I flipped houses as you Americans call it. I bought them, I flipped them, I sold them. I was a single mom, with three kids under 10 and I had no other way to earn money. What happened is I started being asked by friends and family, that’s what happens isn’t it? Then you start to build the business that way.

Sam Ashdown: But you know what you wrote Duct Tape Marketing at the right time for me, because I started my business in 2004. I hit “go” on my website and expected the crowds to flock, and they didn’t. I thought “Oh, there must be something I’m missing.” Then I read Duct Tape Marketing and found out what it was I was missing so I literally followed your book to the letter. I built my business on a consultancy basis really, helping people sell what actually turned out to be high value homes for the most amount of money in the shortest time.

Sam Ashdown: So I became a consultant to homeowners then following the crash, our crash was just a little later than yours, so about 2008 the property crash I started being approached by real estate agents saying “Can you help us build our business?” And I’m thinking “I need to go and read Duct Tape Marketing again. So I did and I followed the principles again and helped them build their businesses. That was really, really enjoyable to me.

Sam Ashdown: There is a third element to this trilogy of property businesses, because I am collecting them I still have business one and two. Business two is coaching for real estate agents. Business three, two years ago, my son-in-law who is married to my daughter Molly, came to me and said “Why don’t we open up a real estate business?” And I said “Because they work really, really hard.” And he goes “Yeah, but we’d be great.” I go “Yeah, but it’s a lot of hard work.” So anyway, we started selling real estate from my dining room with two laptops and not much else and have built it into a really credible business. We’ve got 8 staff, a beautiful office in the English lake district, which is kind of like a mini Canada, full of lakes and mountains. Two years later we’ve just had our second anniversary last week and it has been an incredible journey and one I’ve been really proud to be part of.

Sam Ashdown: So that is kind of my trilogy of three real estate companies in various different ways. Two B2Bs and one B2C. No, two B2Cs and one B2B. That is really how we built it.

John Jantsch: I would have to think, maybe there are other people, I’m sure there are other people because it’s a big world out there. There is probably very few people in the real estate business that are coming at the customer and market from those three distinct positions. In some ways, your business where you are consulting with homeowners could be to send them to your real estate business, so they can sell their home.

Sam Ashdown: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

John Jantsch: Then you are coaching a real estate agent. It’s like you are going to corner the market at some point.

Sam Ashdown: It’s like I planned it that way. Actually, no I didn’t. I wish I could say I had, but each one has been accidental. Each one has a beautifully harmonious relationship with the other two. I have lots more planned as well, so maybe in a future broadcast episode I can tell you about the other plans. But so far, so good. They all work together in harmony and it has been fantastic.

John Jantsch: That is a principle a lot of people underestimate the power of. I mean when you say they work together in harmony, you also have leverage. You have multipliers with that. I think that is similar to my business. I teach small business owners, that’s grown. We consult and coach small business owners that’s grown to then coaching and consultants themselves. Everything we do for one business works for the other or supports the others. I think a lot of people have that opportunity to find those other leverage points. It’s not like going after a new market, per se, and it’s not the same as an expansion. It’s more of finding those leverage points in doing more with what you are already doing.

Sam Ashdown: Absolutely! Not only that, but you have such a deep insight into your clients minds and motivations. I can sit in front of a real estate agent and tell them exactly how their homeowner is feeling because I have sat in front of thousands of homeowners as a consultant that have told me A) why they chose that real estate agent, B) why they think the relationship has gone bad or well C) why they are moving in the first place and how that is going to effect their decision making process over the next weeks, months, and years. So all of those insights going toward a big jumbled strata of information allows me to be able to give the best advice to whoever my client is at that particular time knowing it is based on the best outcome for that client.

John Jantsch: I think it is interesting and probably a little backward, at least in the traditional sense, that you developed a knowledge for how the seller/homeowner feels and you turned that into coaching a real estate agent, although you have never been a real estate agent. Then you backed into being a real estate agent. I think it’s certainly not wrong, but not the path a lot of people take, is it?

Sam Ashdown: No. It’s kind of back to front. I think what it did give me was for years I’d be saying “Look, it doesn’t matter that I haven’t been where you are, because actually I can give you an outside perspective that you haven’t necessarily had before.” But actually now I have both sides of that. I have the consumer perspective and I’ve got running an agency and trying these ideas every single day. So I literally, as you do John, I try and I teach, and I try and I teach. It’s beautiful. It’s like a little dance.

John Jantsch: I’ve told people that all the time. All I do is I try stuff and I go tell people what worked.[inaudible 00:07:38] So one of the things that you did, and this maybe just supports the global picture I suppose, you created a pretty unique idea that you called the Success at Marketing Club. Those of you that are following along closely know that my guest’s name today is Sam and Success at Marketing spells SAM, a bit of brilliant branding there. Tell me about that. I mean obviously, we want to get in to what it is, but I’d like to hear your thinking on why you thought it was even a good idea.

Sam Ashdown: Absolutely. It started off purely selfishly, and has had two [inaudible 00:08:17]. The first time, I had just come out of a really difficult divorce. I had just moved with my three kids and everything was up in the air. I was moving to an area that although I’d lived in the past, I had only been around school gate moms. As much as I love school gate moms, I’m looking for entrepreneurial friendships and relationships to help me grow as a person, somebody that is not going to be bored to death as I tell them my hundredth story of my marketing successes that day.

Sam Ashdown: I wanted a place where I could come and meet other entrepreneurs and this very often happens, there is a gap for me therefore, there must be a gap for other people. Therefore, I create something to fill the gap. That is really what I did with the SAM club. It grew out of that and it grew very, very slowly for the first 2-3 years. It literally was me meeting up with entrepreneurial sort of solo preneurs once a month to talk about marketing. As my skills as a marketer grew, then so my teaching grew and I started being the teacher of the group.

John Jantsch: At that point it was no longer real estate, right? It was just anyone that had a business, right?

Sam Ashdown: No, it was nothing to do with real estate. Nobody there had anything to do with real estate at all which is why I learned what to cross with different businesses. I know you, John, have crossed all businesses, but I haven’t really done that before. I only really understood about property and marketing.

Sam Ashdown: So that was about six years ago, and I let it lag for a couple of years, much to my chagrin because I wish now I hadn’t. What happened when we decided, my co-director and I, to open up the estate agency, I said “I need some kind of networking system.” I had read your referral network, another plug for you. Referral Engine, sorry. I listened to it on Audible, which is even better and I thought “Well, what can I do to have a system? Not necessarily automated, I don’t mind doing it manually, but what is my system. What is my end result that I am looking to achieve?” I thought “I know, I’ll revive the SAM club, that will be a really good referral engine for me.”

Sam Ashdown: I launched it again, the first time we launched it was February two years ago, so two years and two months ago as we are recording this now. I had eight people then. I thought “Woo! That’s good. That’s exciting!” Then slowly, slowly it grew. We did a different topic every month and what was unique is that I let them choose the topic. I said “If there is ever a time that I don’t know enough about this topic to teach, go figure, I will bring in an expert.” A couple of times I’ve done that, but most of the time these are people running shops, restaurants, very small businesses that I am probably enough ahead of them to teach them. They are a bit of a workshop environment so as long as I do a bit of research I get to kind of be able to teach it.

Sam Ashdown: This is now two years later, so we’ve gone from eight people to the last time we met we had sixty-three people in the room, which just blew me away. We’ve got over two hundred and sixty people in the Facebook group. Every single one of them is a local business owner. Our referrals have gone through the roof. Just in the last one we had four people there that were either selling or had sold their house with us out of sixty-three people.

John Jantsch: Right, because every business owner owns a house, go figure, right?

Sam Ashdown: Every business owner owns a house. Every business owner has a great online profile and they are trying to make it better that is a win-win. So this builds. You are the master of the know, like, trust, try, repeat. That is exactly what this is. I think networking in somebody else’s group is never going to be as powerful as me standing in front of the SAM club as Sam and teaching them something I am passionate about. As I’m seen as a leader, seen as an influencer, and that then attracts other leaders and other influencers in my area. It becomes this self building entity that is bigger than me, which is fantastic.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and again another sort of leverage tool that is feeding, serving several purposes at once.

Sam Ashdown: Yes.

John Jantsch: So let’s get into the logistics.

Sam Ashdown: Sure.

John Jantsch: You mentioned that you come, and you have a topic. How often do you meet? How long is it? I’m assuming people pay a little money to be in it?

Sam Ashdown: No, absolutely. First the money that I charged was [inaudible 00:12:48]. I wanted just to meet as many entrepreneurs and local business owners as I could and I thought I’m going to lower the barrier so it’s so low they can’t say “no.” Five pounds, which is about seven dollars is what I charged at first. I just put the price up, only because we moved to a new venue. Venue is my most difficult challenge, only because we live in a tourist area and all the hotels that would let us have a room in the Winter would not let us have the same room in the summer because of weddings and tourists.

Sam Ashdown: We are actually in a golf club and that brings a whole[inaudible 00:13:18] benefits because of the type of people that play golf. So the referral network to high value homeowners is fantastic. I’m talking about high value homes with the owners, not high value homeowners. We meet every month on a Friday morning. Something I did accidentally and if anyone is listening to this and wants to [inaudible] this. I am very happy to have messages about this and help set these up, because I am amazed at how well this has done and I’m passionate about people doing this in their local communities.

John Jantsch: Before we give away your email address, which we will do in the show notes. I was going to ask you, so save this question. This seems like something maybe you could teach as an offering.

Sam Ashdown: If I wasn’t running three businesses, John.

John Jantsch: I’m going to steal the idea then and do it.

Sam Ashdown: Please have it! Call it the John Club.

John Jantsch: Alright, so Friday morning. And we will put your contact information in the show notes. What was the sort of stroke of luck thing that you said?

Sam Ashdown: Yeah, the stroke of luck was I did it in school mom friendly time. Bear with me here, I don’t know if you have BNI there, I’m sure you do. Six thirty, seven o’clock start, nine o’clock finish. You get a lot of people suited and booted so the professionals with the ties. Some of them, sorry about this guys, have egos to bring to the rooms. The ladies get a little pushed out if they are in softer kind of industries, sometimes that is what happens.

Sam Ashdown: What I found was that I started club at half past nine in the morning because that was what suited me. Our school drop off time is just before nine so I got loads and loads of school moms and it was just accidental. The best thing about school moms is they refer like crazy and they are all great on Facebook. You ask a question on Facebook and you get one hundred answers and they are all women. They just are, that is what the ladies in my group are like. So, we are probably about 9 to 10, sorry, one out of ten people will probably be a guy and the other nine will be women. I’ll give you a picture of our club last month if you want to put it on the show notes, because you’ve got to see the mixture.

Sam Ashdown: Two and a half hours in the morning, so the moms can do drop off. They get there, have a coffee, have a little chit chat, then they sit down learn about marketing for two and a half hours and they go and evangelize to everybody about how great the SAM club is. Obviously, by definition some of that spotlight falls on me, which is fantastic. I’m referring them, they’re referring me. A whole little referral engine.

Sam Ashdown: Something else that came out of it, just an accidental spark was we did a competition for AshdownJones on Facebook, just before Christmas 2018 to boost our likes a little. I needed twelve businesses to get to do a giveaway. Who am I going to approach? My SAM club members. So we do a little spotlight video every day for twelve days, they all get a big boost on their Facebook likes, we get a big boost on our Facebook likes. They love us, we love them, everybody loves each other. It’s just win-win-win. That group keeps getting bigger and bigger. I’ve gotten fantastic friendships out of it, fantastic referrals out of it. I couldn’t be more grateful for what I have received personally, but everybody seems to think that I’m giving to them.

John Jantsch: The beautiful thing is you have probably never asked once for a referral have you?

Sam Ashdown: No, never. Actually, when they bring referral to you, and I probably feel the same to them, they bring it like a gift. They are so excited. “Sam! Sam! I’ve got a referral for you!” It’s just lovely! I’m like “Oh, thank you! That’s so exciting!”

John Jantsch: Obviously, in the early days, like a lot of things, it was not paying off at all probably. You put in the effort, you went, you did your meeting for two and a half hours, and you went “Where did that day go?”

John Jantsch: Again, that’s like all things. That’s why it works, because that is the point where a lot of people give up. Like blogging, I wrote five blog posts and it’s not paying off so forget it.

John Jantsch: So today, other than the residual benefits that you have talked about, it’s pretty much self funding, even at seven pounds or whatever that pays for the coffee.

Sam Ashdown: Yeah! Well, now it’s ten pounds, about thirteen dollars, and it costs me about two thirds of that for the venue et cetera. I just give the rest to charity at the end of the year, that’s fine. To me as long as it’s cost neutral roughly either way then I am happy with that. After about a year Phil said to me, that’s my son-in-law, “Look, do you think this is worth it?” Friday morning two and a half hours, about four hours by the time I’ve chitchatted, had coffee et cetera. It’s only fifteen people, then seventeen people, then twenty people. It was painful.

Sam Ashdown: We reached about fourteen months and there was a tipping point and I actually suggested to everybody we had a bring a friend meeting. Because I thought every meeting is a bring a friend meeting I’m going to make it an official thing where they’re free and they’re friend is free and we swelled the numbers by about twenty percent on that day. It has never stopped since. It just keeps building momentum. We have a new member request every single day now.

John Jantsch: Talk a little about the topics you cover.

Sam Ashdown: They are just basic. Again, I just take a vote and I do it actually when we are in the club. That gets buy-in. I say “Okay, what do you want to know next time?” They just shout out all of these ideas. Then we take a vote and we go “Alright, next month we are going to do Facebook marketing.” Or Facebook Live, or Linked In, or blogging. This month, which is on Friday, we are doing one of your favorite topics, John. In fact, I need to get you to come over and speak if that’s okay, which is how to get Google to find your website in brackets SEO. Which they haven’t heard of.

John Jantsch: That’s great. I was doing a presentation one time to a group of business owners one time that probably should have known better and I was telling them “You need this element and this element. And SEO is so important because…” and about ten minutes in someone raised their hand and said “What is SEO?” Oops.

Sam Ashdown: Teaching really brings you down to Earth doesn’t it? It really does. When they say “Why’d you do it like that?” And you think “Why do we do it like that? That’s a really good question.” I really try to teach to the lowest in the room, but also give some really good tips for the highest in the room to go after. What I’ve also had to do is put together some advanced workshops for certain topics, Facebook ads for example. I’m pretty good at Facebook ads so I want to have a little advanced group. I charge separately for that, that’s fine. Mostly, it’s the main socials and content. All the stuff you and I talk about all day long. I do a bit of direct mail, because direct mail is one of my hot topics and I think it’s very underused. Content, I don’t really do website design, but I kind of do the customer journey. We did do campaign planning, that was a really good one because campaign planning can bring everything in.

John Jantsch: Yeah, absolutely. Have you ever considered or with all the technology we have now, brought anybody in via Skype or something like that?

Sam Ashdown: No. You know why, the wifi in the golf club is terrible. If you’re offering, John, I’ll see if I can get them to upgrade.

John Jantsch: No, no I want the first class plane ticket.

Sam Ashdown: I’m sure something can be arranged.

John Jantsch: What’s funny is, you are doing this for a specific purpose and it is serving its purpose, but I can envision somebody out there going “Okay, I’m going to do the seven pound one and the seventy pound one and then they’ll be a seven hundred dollar group.” It wouldn’t be that hard to do it would it?

Sam Ashdown: No, it wouldn’t. Actually, I think that is absolutely credible to build up a business like that based on a club, but I think if every single local business owner thinks about how they could use this, it doesn’t matter if you are a restaurateur, shop owners, any kind of services owner they could do this. They don’t have to call it a marketing club, it could be a business club, and it could bring an expert each time. They could top and tail it, do the intro and outro, and it would be their club. They’re bringing everybody together and it’s not a networking club, it’s a learning and discovery club.

John Jantsch: I think that is a real key. Like you mentioned BNI, BNI serves a purpose for a lot of people, but a lot of people also feel like I don’t want to go there and be beat to death if I didn’t bring referrals.

Sam Ashdown: I think you have to be a very outgoing person to make BNI work for you effectively. You don’t have to be a very outgoing person to come alone, sit at the back, be shy with a notebook, and not even raise your hand and learn about Facebook marketing for two and half hours. You get a huge amount of value after that.

John Jantsch: I will say, I know you better than my listeners do at this point, but you bring a couple attributes to make this work. You are terribly giving, you are a connector, you chitchat for an hour and a half after the thing with some people that want to and that is really what made it work. I think if someone is listening and thinking “This is brilliant. I’ll put together a club and just get a bunch of people together and make money for me.” You invested significantly before it ever made any money for you.

Sam Ashdown: I think even if somebody does want to make money out of this, it is possible. I think that they are going to have to put the leg work in it first and it will feel like it’s not working. Suddenly, as long as you give, give, give, give, it will just work. You’ll like this John, you are a very generous person. You give, give and you don’t ask for anything back, but those things come back to you anyway.

John Jantsch: I do think that it’s one of those sort of non intuitive facts of life that you are going to make a bunch of money if you don’t try to make a bunch of money off of this.

Sam Ashdown: I know. When will people realize this? I’m fifty it’s taken me till forty-nine and a half to realize this truth. The people that I really respect and listen to, like your podcast, the marketers that are really successful on lots of levels, they are all givers. It’s not coincidence.

John Jantsch: I bet you’re going to listen to this episode.

Sam Ashdown: Oh yeah.

John Jantsch: So Sam, tell us where people can find out more about you? As I said, we’ll put the contact info in the show notes because I do know that your offer to tell anybody about how to do this is genuine.

Sam Ashdown: Absolutely, thank you!

Sam Ashdown: If you are in the North of England and selling your house, please come to AshdownJones which is my little agency. Although, that seems probably a little bit unlikely. I suggest that if you are a real estate agent you follow me on Marketing Magic for estate agents, which is on Facebook.

Sam Ashdown: My main site is home-truths.co.uk, unlike your dot coms, I couldn’t get the dot com, and that is where you will find all manner of home selling advice. One of those three places is where you will catch me, but you’ll put the best email address in the show notes for people. I’d love to hear from people thinking about doing this in their area.

John Jantsch: AshdownJones sounds like a car that James Bond would drive.

Sam Ashdown: Well, it is. That is exactly what it should be. No, I’m the Ashdown and he’s the Jones. It’s a beautiful partnership.

John Jantsch: Sam, thanks so much for joining and sharing so willingly. Hopefully we’ll see you somewhere out on the road, or I’ll get to the UK, who knows.

Sam Ashdown: Oh I really hope so John. It’s been my pleasure, thank you so much!

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John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Sam Ashdown. She’s a UK based property marketing coach to independent estate agents, we would call them in the US real estate agents. But I think it’s about the same thing. So, Sam, thanks for joining us.

Sam Ashdown: Hey John, it’s great to be here.

John Jantsch: So you and I have known each other for a long time because you were one of those people that got out there and said, “I need to go learn about this new marketing stuff” and so you went to conferences and came across the ocean a few times. We bumped into each other there, didn’t we?

Sam Ashdown: Oh we did, yeah. I was your first fan girl, John. Your first fan girl from the UK and my first ever marketing book and I’m sure you hear this all the time and I know you did because I even heard you say this to other people or people say it to you that Duct Tape Marketing was their first marketing book and it absolutely changed my life from that moment on. It was amazing really, so thank you for that.

John Jantsch: I need to have people like you follow me around and tell people all about me. So tell me a little about your journey then because you talk about my first fan girl, that was 2005-06, so you have been doing this a little while. Tell me a little about your journey, you started out as an independent agent, I’m guessing, and things have evolved haven’t they?

Sam Ashdown: You know, you’d think so, because that would be very sensible, but I didn’t. I started off developing houses, I flipped houses as you Americans call it. I bought them, I flipped them, I sold them. I was a single mom, with three kids under 10 and I had no other way to earn money. What happened is I started being asked by friends and family, that’s what happens isn’t it? Then you start to build the business that way.

Sam Ashdown: But you know what you wrote Duct Tape Marketing at the right time for me, because I started my business in 2004. I hit “go” on my website and expected the crowds to flock, and they didn’t. I thought “Oh, there must be something I’m missing.” Then I read Duct Tape Marketing and found out what it was I was missing so I literally followed your book to the letter. I built my business on a consultancy basis really, helping people sell what actually turned out to be high value homes for the most amount of money in the shortest time.

Sam Ashdown: So I became a consultant to homeowners then following the crash, our crash was just a little later than yours, so about 2008 the property crash I started being approached by real estate agents saying “Can you help us build our business?” And I’m thinking “I need to go and read Duct Tape Marketing again. So I did and I followed the principles again and helped them build their businesses. That was really, really enjoyable to me.

Sam Ashdown: There is a third element to this trilogy of property businesses, because I am collecting them I still have business one and two. Business two is coaching for real estate agents. Business three, two years ago, my son-in-law who is married to my daughter Molly, came to me and said “Why don’t we open up a real estate business?” And I said “Because they work really, really hard.” And he goes “Yeah, but we’d be great.” I go “Yeah, but it’s a lot of hard work.” So anyway, we started selling real estate from my dining room with two laptops and not much else and have built it into a really credible business. We’ve got 8 staff, a beautiful office in the English lake district, which is kind of like a mini Canada, full of lakes and mountains. Two years later we’ve just had our second anniversary last week and it has been an incredible journey and one I’ve been really proud to be part of.

Sam Ashdown: So that is kind of my trilogy of three real estate companies in various different ways. Two B2Bs and one B2C. No, two B2Cs and one B2B. That is really how we built it.

John Jantsch: I would have to think, maybe there are other people, I’m sure there are other people because it’s a big world out there. There is probably very few people in the real estate business that are coming at the customer and market from those three distinct positions. In some ways, your business where you are consulting with homeowners could be to send them to your real estate business, so they can sell their home.

Sam Ashdown: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

John Jantsch: Then you are coaching a real estate agent. It’s like you are going to corner the market at some point.

Sam Ashdown: It’s like I planned it that way. Actually, no I didn’t. I wish I could say I had, but each one has been accidental. Each one has a beautifully harmonious relationship with the other two. I have lots more planned as well, so maybe in a future broadcast episode I can tell you about the other plans. But so far, so good. They all work together in harmony and it has been fantastic.

John Jantsch: That is a principle a lot of people underestimate the power of. I mean when you say they work together in harmony, you also have leverage. You have multipliers with that. I think that is similar to my business. I teach small business owners, that’s grown. We consult and coach small business owners that’s grown to then coaching and consultants themselves. Everything we do for one business works for the other or supports the others. I think a lot of people have that opportunity to find those other leverage points. It’s not like going after a new market, per se, and it’s not the same as an expansion. It’s more of finding those leverage points in doing more with what you are already doing.

Sam Ashdown: Absolutely! Not only that, but you have such a deep insight into your clients minds and motivations. I can sit in front of a real estate agent and tell them exactly how their homeowner is feeling because I have sat in front of thousands of homeowners as a consultant that have told me A) why they chose that real estate agent, B) why they think the relationship has gone bad or well C) why they are moving in the first place and how that is going to effect their decision making process over the next weeks, months, and years. So all of those insights going toward a big jumbled strata of information allows me to be able to give the best advice to whoever my client is at that particular time knowing it is based on the best outcome for that client.

John Jantsch: I think it is interesting and probably a little backward, at least in the traditional sense, that you developed a knowledge for how the seller/homeowner feels and you turned that into coaching a real estate agent, although you have never been a real estate agent. Then you backed into being a real estate agent. I think it’s certainly not wrong, but not the path a lot of people take, is it?

Sam Ashdown: No. It’s kind of back to front. I think what it did give me was for years I’d be saying “Look, it doesn’t matter that I haven’t been where you are, because actually I can give you an outside perspective that you haven’t necessarily had before.” But actually now I have both sides of that. I have the consumer perspective and I’ve got running an agency and trying these ideas every single day. So I literally, as you do John, I try and I teach, and I try and I teach. It’s beautiful. It’s like a little dance.

John Jantsch: I’ve told people that all the time. All I do is I try stuff and I go tell people what worked.[inaudible 00:07:38] So one of the things that you did, and this maybe just supports the global picture I suppose, you created a pretty unique idea that you called the Success at Marketing Club. Those of you that are following along closely know that my guest’s name today is Sam and Success at Marketing spells SAM, a bit of brilliant branding there. Tell me about that. I mean obviously, we want to get in to what it is, but I’d like to hear your thinking on why you thought it was even a good idea.

Sam Ashdown: Absolutely. It started off purely selfishly, and has had two [inaudible 00:08:17]. The first time, I had just come out of a really difficult divorce. I had just moved with my three kids and everything was up in the air. I was moving to an area that although I’d lived in the past, I had only been around school gate moms. As much as I love school gate moms, I’m looking for entrepreneurial friendships and relationships to help me grow as a person, somebody that is not going to be bored to death as I tell them my hundredth story of my marketing successes that day.

Sam Ashdown: I wanted a place where I could come and meet other entrepreneurs and this very often happens, there is a gap for me therefore, there must be a gap for other people. Therefore, I create something to fill the gap. That is really what I did with the SAM club. It grew out of that and it grew very, very slowly for the first 2-3 years. It literally was me meeting up with entrepreneurial sort of solo preneurs once a month to talk about marketing. As my skills as a marketer grew, then so my teaching grew and I started being the teacher of the group.

John Jantsch: At that point it was no longer real estate, right? It was just anyone that had a business, right?

Sam Ashdown: No, it was nothing to do with real estate. Nobody there had anything to do with real estate at all which is why I learned what to cross with different businesses. I know you, John, have crossed all businesses, but I haven’t really done that before. I only really understood about property and marketing.

Sam Ashdown: So that was about six years ago, and I let it lag for a couple of years, much to my chagrin because I wish now I hadn’t. What happened when we decided, my co-director and I, to open up the estate agency, I said “I need some kind of networking system.” I had read your referral network, another plug for you. Referral Engine, sorry. I listened to it on Audible, which is even better and I thought “Well, what can I do to have a system? Not necessarily automated, I don’t mind doing it manually, but what is my system. What is my end result that I am looking to achieve?” I thought “I know, I’ll revive the SAM club, that will be a really good referral engine for me.”

Sam Ashdown: I launched it again, the first time we launched it was February two years ago, so two years and two months ago as we are recording this now. I had eight people then. I thought “Woo! That’s good. That’s exciting!” Then slowly, slowly it grew. We did a different topic every month and what was unique is that I let them choose the topic. I said “If there is ever a time that I don’t know enough about this topic to teach, go figure, I will bring in an expert.” A couple of times I’ve done that, but most of the time these are people running shops, restaurants, very small businesses that I am probably enough ahead of them to teach them. They are a bit of a workshop environment so as long as I do a bit of research I get to kind of be able to teach it.

Sam Ashdown: This is now two years later, so we’ve gone from eight people to the last time we met we had sixty-three people in the room, which just blew me away. We’ve got over two hundred and sixty people in the Facebook group. Every single one of them is a local business owner. Our referrals have gone through the roof. Just in the last one we had four people there that were either selling or had sold their house with us out of sixty-three people.

John Jantsch: Right, because every business owner owns a house, go figure, right?

Sam Ashdown: Every business owner owns a house. Every business owner has a great online profile and they are trying to make it better that is a win-win. So this builds. You are the master of the know, like, trust, try, repeat. That is exactly what this is. I think networking in somebody else’s group is never going to be as powerful as me standing in front of the SAM club as Sam and teaching them something I am passionate about. As I’m seen as a leader, seen as an influencer, and that then attracts other leaders and other influencers in my area. It becomes this self building entity that is bigger than me, which is fantastic.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and again another sort of leverage tool that is feeding, serving several purposes at once.

Sam Ashdown: Yes.

John Jantsch: So let’s get into the logistics.

Sam Ashdown: Sure.

John Jantsch: You mentioned that you come, and you have a topic. How often do you meet? How long is it? I’m assuming people pay a little money to be in it?

Sam Ashdown: No, absolutely. First the money that I charged was [inaudible 00:12:48]. I wanted just to meet as many entrepreneurs and local business owners as I could and I thought I’m going to lower the barrier so it’s so low they can’t say “no.” Five pounds, which is about seven dollars is what I charged at first. I just put the price up, only because we moved to a new venue. Venue is my most difficult challenge, only because we live in a tourist area and all the hotels that would let us have a room in the Winter would not let us have the same room in the summer because of weddings and tourists.

Sam Ashdown: We are actually in a golf club and that brings a whole[inaudible 00:13:18] benefits because of the type of people that play golf. So the referral network to high value homeowners is fantastic. I’m talking about high value homes with the owners, not high value homeowners. We meet every month on a Friday morning. Something I did accidentally and if anyone is listening to this and wants to [inaudible] this. I am very happy to have messages about this and help set these up, because I am amazed at how well this has done and I’m passionate about people doing this in their local communities.

John Jantsch: Before we give away your email address, which we will do in the show notes. I was going to ask you, so save this question. This seems like something maybe you could teach as an offering.

Sam Ashdown: If I wasn’t running three businesses, John.

John Jantsch: I’m going to steal the idea then and do it.

Sam Ashdown: Please have it! Call it the John Club.

John Jantsch: Alright, so Friday morning. And we will put your contact information in the show notes. What was the sort of stroke of luck thing that you said?

Sam Ashdown: Yeah, the stroke of luck was I did it in school mom friendly time. Bear with me here, I don’t know if you have BNI there, I’m sure you do. Six thirty, seven o’clock start, nine o’clock finish. You get a lot of people suited and booted so the professionals with the ties. Some of them, sorry about this guys, have egos to bring to the rooms. The ladies get a little pushed out if they are in softer kind of industries, sometimes that is what happens.

Sam Ashdown: What I found was that I started club at half past nine in the morning because that was what suited me. Our school drop off time is just before nine so I got loads and loads of school moms and it was just accidental. The best thing about school moms is they refer like crazy and they are all great on Facebook. You ask a question on Facebook and you get one hundred answers and they are all women. They just are, that is what the ladies in my group are like. So, we are probably about 9 to 10, sorry, one out of ten people will probably be a guy and the other nine will be women. I’ll give you a picture of our club last month if you want to put it on the show notes, because you’ve got to see the mixture.

Sam Ashdown: Two and a half hours in the morning, so the moms can do drop off. They get there, have a coffee, have a little chit chat, then they sit down learn about marketing for two and a half hours and they go and evangelize to everybody about how great the SAM club is. Obviously, by definition some of that spotlight falls on me, which is fantastic. I’m referring them, they’re referring me. A whole little referral engine.

Sam Ashdown: Something else that came out of it, just an accidental spark was we did a competition for AshdownJones on Facebook, just before Christmas 2018 to boost our likes a little. I needed twelve businesses to get to do a giveaway. Who am I going to approach? My SAM club members. So we do a little spotlight video every day for twelve days, they all get a big boost on their Facebook likes, we get a big boost on our Facebook likes. They love us, we love them, everybody loves each other. It’s just win-win-win. That group keeps getting bigger and bigger. I’ve gotten fantastic friendships out of it, fantastic referrals out of it. I couldn’t be more grateful for what I have received personally, but everybody seems to think that I’m giving to them.

John Jantsch: The beautiful thing is you have probably never asked once for a referral have you?

Sam Ashdown: No, never. Actually, when they bring referral to you, and I probably feel the same to them, they bring it like a gift. They are so excited. “Sam! Sam! I’ve got a referral for you!” It’s just lovely! I’m like “Oh, thank you! That’s so exciting!”

John Jantsch: Obviously, in the early days, like a lot of things, it was not paying off at all probably. You put in the effort, you went, you did your meeting for two and a half hours, and you went “Where did that day go?”

John Jantsch: Again, that’s like all things. That’s why it works, because that is the point where a lot of people give up. Like blogging, I wrote five blog posts and it’s not paying off so forget it.

John Jantsch: So today, other than the residual benefits that you have talked about, it’s pretty much self funding, even at seven pounds or whatever that pays for the coffee.

Sam Ashdown: Yeah! Well, now it’s ten pounds, about thirteen dollars, and it costs me about two thirds of that for the venue et cetera. I just give the rest to charity at the end of the year, that’s fine. To me as long as it’s cost neutral roughly either way then I am happy with that. After about a year Phil said to me, that’s my son-in-law, “Look, do you think this is worth it?” Friday morning two and a half hours, about four hours by the time I’ve chitchatted, had coffee et cetera. It’s only fifteen people, then seventeen people, then twenty people. It was painful.

Sam Ashdown: We reached about fourteen months and there was a tipping point and I actually suggested to everybody we had a bring a friend meeting. Because I thought every meeting is a bring a friend meeting I’m going to make it an official thing where they’re free and they’re friend is free and we swelled the numbers by about twenty percent on that day. It has never stopped since. It just keeps building momentum. We have a new member request every single day now.

John Jantsch: Talk a little about the topics you cover.

Sam Ashdown: They are just basic. Again, I just take a vote and I do it actually when we are in the club. That gets buy-in. I say “Okay, what do you want to know next time?” They just shout out all of these ideas. Then we take a vote and we go “Alright, next month we are going to do Facebook marketing.” Or Facebook Live, or Linked In, or blogging. This month, which is on Friday, we are doing one of your favorite topics, John. In fact, I need to get you to come over and speak if that’s okay, which is how to get Google to find your website in brackets SEO. Which they haven’t heard of.

John Jantsch: That’s great. I was doing a presentation one time to a group of business owners one time that probably should have known better and I was telling them “You need this element and this element. And SEO is so important because…” and about ten minutes in someone raised their hand and said “What is SEO?” Oops.

Sam Ashdown: Teaching really brings you down to Earth doesn’t it? It really does. When they say “Why’d you do it like that?” And you think “Why do we do it like that? That’s a really good question.” I really try to teach to the lowest in the room, but also give some really good tips for the highest in the room to go after. What I’ve also had to do is put together some advanced workshops for certain topics, Facebook ads for example. I’m pretty good at Facebook ads so I want to have a little advanced group. I charge separately for that, that’s fine. Mostly, it’s the main socials and content. All the stuff you and I talk about all day long. I do a bit of direct mail, because direct mail is one of my hot topics and I think it’s very underused. Content, I don’t really do website design, but I kind of do the customer journey. We did do campaign planning, that was a really good one because campaign planning can bring everything in.

John Jantsch: Yeah, absolutely. Have you ever considered or with all the technology we have now, brought anybody in via Skype or something like that?

Sam Ashdown: No. You know why, the wifi in the golf club is terrible. If you’re offering, John, I’ll see if I can get them to upgrade.

John Jantsch: No, no I want the first class plane ticket.

Sam Ashdown: I’m sure something can be arranged.

John Jantsch: What’s funny is, you are doing this for a specific purpose and it is serving its purpose, but I can envision somebody out there going “Okay, I’m going to do the seven pound one and the seventy pound one and then they’ll be a seven hundred dollar group.” It wouldn’t be that hard to do it would it?

Sam Ashdown: No, it wouldn’t. Actually, I think that is absolutely credible to build up a business like that based on a club, but I think if every single local business owner thinks about how they could use this, it doesn’t matter if you are a restaurateur, shop owners, any kind of services owner they could do this. They don’t have to call it a marketing club, it could be a business club, and it could bring an expert each time. They could top and tail it, do the intro and outro, and it would be their club. They’re bringing everybody together and it’s not a networking club, it’s a learning and discovery club.

John Jantsch: I think that is a real key. Like you mentioned BNI, BNI serves a purpose for a lot of people, but a lot of people also feel like I don’t want to go there and be beat to death if I didn’t bring referrals.

Sam Ashdown: I think you have to be a very outgoing person to make BNI work for you effectively. You don’t have to be a very outgoing person to come alone, sit at the back, be shy with a notebook, and not even raise your hand and learn about Facebook marketing for two and half hours. You get a huge amount of value after that.

John Jantsch: I will say, I know you better than my listeners do at this point, but you bring a couple attributes to make this work. You are terribly giving, you are a connector, you chitchat for an hour and a half after the thing with some people that want to and that is really what made it work. I think if someone is listening and thinking “This is brilliant. I’ll put together a club and just get a bunch of people together and make money for me.” You invested significantly before it ever made any money for you.

Sam Ashdown: I think even if somebody does want to make money out of this, it is possible. I think that they are going to have to put the leg work in it first and it will feel like it’s not working. Suddenly, as long as you give, give, give, give, it will just work. You’ll like this John, you are a very generous person. You give, give and you don’t ask for anything back, but those things come back to you anyway.

John Jantsch: I do think that it’s one of those sort of non intuitive facts of life that you are going to make a bunch of money if you don’t try to make a bunch of money off of this.

Sam Ashdown: I know. When will people realize this? I’m fifty it’s taken me till forty-nine and a half to realize this truth. The people that I really respect and listen to, like your podcast, the marketers that are really successful on lots of levels, they are all givers. It’s not coincidence.

John Jantsch: I bet you’re going to listen to this episode.

Sam Ashdown: Oh yeah.

John Jantsch: So Sam, tell us where people can find out more about you? As I said, we’ll put the contact info in the show notes because I do know that your offer to tell anybody about how to do this is genuine.

Sam Ashdown: Absolutely, thank you!

Sam Ashdown: If you are in the North of England and selling your house, please come to AshdownJones which is my little agency. Although, that seems probably a little bit unlikely. I suggest that if you are a real estate agent you follow me on Marketing Magic for estate agents, which is on Facebook.

Sam Ashdown: My main site is home-truths.co.uk, unlike your dot coms, I couldn’t get the dot com, and that is where you will find all manner of home selling advice. One of those three places is where you will catch me, but you’ll put the best email address in the show notes for people. I’d love to hear from people thinking about doing this in their area.

John Jantsch: AshdownJones sounds like a car that James Bond would drive.

Sam Ashdown: Well, it is. That is exactly what it should be. No, I’m the Ashdown and he’s the Jones. It’s a beautiful partnership.

John Jantsch: Sam, thanks so much for joining and sharing so willingly. Hopefully we’ll see you somewhere out on the road, or I’ll get to the UK, who knows.

Sam Ashdown: Oh I really hope so John. It’s been my pleasure, thank you so much!

from Duct Tape Marketing https://ducttapemarketing.com/transcript-giving-back-creates-success/