#i have another pretty big update to write so i figured id include some of it here

[chaosbcrne]

[text]: Hey! Hope youre havin a good day!! :D

      The first thing he was concerned with when stepping back into his studio was getting warm. Without the sense of purpose and adrenaline that had carried him through his mission, the freezing temperatures were even more noticeable. It didn’t just render him numb anymore; the cold was biting right down to his bones everywhere his nerves weren’t already unresponsive.

     He discarded everything he was wearing as soon as he came inside, for it seemed the cold had attached itself to even his clothes. He lit up a fire to get some warmth spreading in the little apartment, and disappeared into the bathroom, eager to shake off the snow and frost accumulated in his fur, and hopefully get rid of this lasting chill with a lukewarm shower.

     He stopped in his tracks when he caught a glimpse of himself in the tiny mirror hanging over the sink - or more specifically, of his bloodied muzzle. Oh. Right. It was no wonder it had slipped his mind, with how cold it was, the wound had frozen within a minute. The scratches weren’t very wide, but they were deep; it was obvious he would have gotten blood all over himself if the chill hadn’t coagulated it so quickly. 

     While it might have scarred someone else for good, he knew it’d be completely gone in a week. Two, at most. But right now, it looked pretty messy.

     His encounter with Stellar had been brief, but it’d left more than those three scratches behind. The implication that some former Resistance members were going rogue with custom weapons and causing trouble, and the fact that he’d had to clean up one of G.U.N.’s messes for the umpteenth time, it all left him feeling rather… pointless. For all that he believed, on a good day, that he was well-positioned to make a difference, it was coming down from the high of missions like this that his faith faltered.

     The sting of his injury slowly reared itself back as he wiped his face with a wet towel, getting rid of both the cold and the dried blood, sense of feeling returning to that general area simultaneously. His motivation for a shower slipped away, and he found himself sliding down to a sitting position in the corner of the bathroom instead, reaching for his phone that he’d left untouched since taking off for the assignment.

     That’s when he saw the text. He wasn’t sure when it had come in. He wasn’t even sure what time it was now - he’d lost track, and the dark, cloudy ceiling that had burdened the region for days now didn’t help in giving any indications.

     He tried to let it be a good distraction. Tried to let that familiar name and the emotions tied to it cheer him up, in some way. It had been weeks since he’d heard anything from the blue blur himself. He should have be happy to get some sign of life, right ?

     But he came up empty. He just stared at the words, reading them over and over, and failing to let the well-wish make its way. I’m really not, he thought in response. He couldn’t bring himself to actually answer, so he just thought it, like if he did so hard enough, his growing despair might be heard. But it wasn’t. The screen stayed the same, and no one, nowhere, would know how miserable he was feeling right now.

     Just as it should be, he decided, and he swallowed thickly, strangled by the overwhelming feeling of isolation. But he managed one last thought, before his mind went blank, catching a glimpse of the message again. I hope you’re doing better than me.

[trashboatprince]

I had another idea for Tentoo and Rose, and I had to write it up.

Summery: Clearly, if you’re going to be living in a new world where you can’t just always get away with psychic paper to get into places, you’re gonna have come up with an identity for yourself.

And that includes a name.

So, Rose and the Doctor have an afternoon to kill, why not figure out what works best for the guy?

The name I give Tentoo is pretty much my headcanon name for him, do with it what you will. Also, the names suggested are mostly for fun.

On with the fic!

--

To Name a Doctor

--

A thwump sound caught the Doctor’s attention from the banana he was peeling, and his attention was drawn to the puce folder in front of him. It was still weird that puce was the color for folders rather than manilla in this universe, but it was the little things that seemed to catch his attention more than the big things.

Like how the chips here were terrible and he was working on genetically modifying a root vegetable in order to make actual, good chips.

The Doctor looked up at Rose who sat on the opposite side of the kitchen’s bar, gently pushing the folder closer to him. “Dad wanted me to give you these yesterday, but I forgot them in the car last night.”

“And they are…?” He asked, opening it up to see documents that required him to fill out information.

“Well, they’re identification papers that Dad and I wrote up yesterday over lunch. You’ve been here for over a week now and you’ve done a number of things but have not given yourself an identity here.” Rose replied and the Doctor set down his banana, giving this a little bit of thought.

Yes, in just his ten days here in Pete’s World, he’s built himself a screwdriver, bought himself some clothes, pretty much moved into Rose’s room (though he technically had his own in the Tyler estate until he and Rose found their own place), and had gotten on Jackie’s nerves at least thirty nine times. Oh, and he was able to properly identify and disarm an alien gas bomb that Torchwood had discovered through a phone call with Pete.

But Rose was right, he had yet to do anything about giving himself ‘official’ documents here. Rose had her own made forever ago, excellent fakes, no one could tell that they weren’t real, which means he’d have to get himself some too.

“Hmm… do we have anything planned today?” The brunet asked as he looked over the papers.

“Nope.” Rose spoke, popping the P. “So, wanna lie on some documents?”

The Doctor’s grin rivaled the one his girlfriend shared, and he took the pen she offered him. She got up from her seat, saying she was gonna make them some tea and he nodded, looking down at the papers in front of him.

“Alright, let’s fill out the easy stuff.” He commented, quickly writing down his weight, height, hair and eye color for IDs and ‘updated’ information, before hitting the roadblocks. “Birth date… hmmm, what do you think works best? Christmas Day, or when the meta-crisis happened?”

Rose looked over her shoulder, confused. “Christmas Day?”

“You know, when…?” The Doctor raised his right hand, wiggling his fingers.

This got a laugh out of the blonde as she put the kettle on the stove. “Oh, that’s a good one! I’d say Christmas, I mean, technically it was the day you were born, both as the hand and as the new Doctor.”

“Well, actually, I was regenerated on that day in the Game Station, and we arrived back on Earth on Christmas Eve, but still, close enough!” The part-Time Lord wrote down December 25th on the document before frowning. “Okay, parents… technically myself and Donna.”

“Then put down John Smith and Donna Noble.” Rose snickered. “Oh, I bet they’d have real laugh about that.”

“Donna might! Before she’d get angry about it. ‘Oi, spaceman! I am not gonna be your mother, even if I did help make you’!” The Doctor spoke, putting on his best impression of the fiery redhead, which sounded way too much like her, so he quickly shut his mouth. Rose burst out laughing at this and he scowled, before laughing as well. He quickly wrote down the names before pausing.

“I do have to give myself a name. John Smith won’t work. I mean, it’s worked a number of times, but some people are so suspicious of how generic it is, ya know? And I’m technically another version of the Doctor, still him, but upgrade, in a sense.” Like Hell he’d say he was downgrade.

Rose shrugged. “You could be a junior, or a second.”

The Doctor made a face. “Hmm… I dunno… maybe I could try for a new name? Something a bit different. What do you think of David?” He asked, saying the first name to come to mind.

“Hmm…” Rose thought, looking him over. “You sort of look like a David, but we’ll put that in the maybe pile. What about Matt?”

“Nah, don’t look much like that. Peter?”

“No, not that. Alec?”

“I feel like that name would make me ruder than I already am. Anthony?”

Rose snorted. “No, that’s my brother’s name! Though, if you were ginger with that name… Crowley?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Don’t think I could pull that off. Corin?”

Both paused and made faces. “No, no, terrible name, you’re right.” He shook his head. “Somehow that sounds ruder than Alec! Cassiopeia?”

“Doctor, I know I probably won’t call you these names except around people who don’t know you’re the Doctor, but there is no way in hell I’m callin’ you that.”

The Doctor looked at her funny. “What’s wrong with naming myself after a constellation?”

Rose just looked at him, raising an eyebrow, crossing her arms with an expression that basically shouted ‘are you seriously asking that question’.

“Right.” He sighed, scratching his head. “Jack?” He joked and she laughed. “Nah, good point. Oh! Wait, I’ve got one! Wilfred!”

This got Rose to raise an eyebrow. “Donna’s grandpa?”

“Yes! He’s a good man, really enjoyed his company, got to spend some time with him. Did you know he got a star named after him after he discovered it? Amazing, real proud of that man.” The Doctor smiled softly, toying with the pen in his hands. “I hope he’s doing okay.”

Rose knew there was a quiet, unspoken addition to that, but she didn’t bring it up. “Wilfred is a good name; do you want that?”

“I was thinking that’d be my middle name. I might go with John as the first, for old time’s sake, but Wilfred is the middle name. And… Noble, for the last name?”

The blonde gave this a bit of thought, tapping at her chin. “John Wilfred Noble… I like it.”

“Sounds good enough to tag on Tyler to it in the future?” The half-alien grinned and Rose walked over, giving him a little shove before a kiss on the cheek.

“John Wilfred Tyler-Noble? I think that’s an excellent name. Just don’t be writin’ that down on that paperwork! Don’t want Dad asking us a million questions!”

“Oh come on, it would be hilarious to show my ID card to your mom and watching her reaction!” He got a punch to the arm, making him wince. “Alright, alright, I’ll save that for later.”

Rose smirked and kissed his cheek again. “Right, so, for now you just leave the Tyler part off until we get that far. But this looks pretty good, now, onto figuring out your birth year.”

“Oh, that’s gonna be a challenge.”

END

--

Just something short and sweet. I’m in that group of Tentoo fans that loves the idea that he took on Wilfred’s name and Donna’s last name, especially cause I’ve been looking into the side content involving Ten and Donna and how much he seems to enjoy the Noble family (yes, that includes Sylvia, to a smaller extent, I mean, he even pretended she was his mother-in-law in an audio adventure). And yes, Wilfred does have a star named after him, its from one of the novels.

I might make this a little series of one-shots of Tentoo adapting to Pete’s World, spending time with the Tylers, and exploring this universe.

Thanks for reading! 

[babygirlkiki1016]

The Hunt Begins

When we got to Stanford Dean told me just to wait outside by the Impala. About twenty minutes later I hear voices coming from the building. I see Dean take a glance at me to see if I was still there. Sam was saying something but Dean just rolls his eyes.

"The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors." I heard Sam say as they cross the parking lot to the Impala.

"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" Dean growls.

"No. Not normal. Safe." 

"And that's why you ran away." Dean looks away.

"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Sam is silent.

"I can't do this alone."

"Yes you can." I joke, making both of the boys look at me. 

"Yeah, well, as Y/n pointed out earlier which you weren't here for, I don't want to."

"Wait, that's Y/n? Y/D/N's kid?" Sam asked surprised. "You brought his kid here?! Do you know what he's going to do to us when he realizes she's missing!?"

"Uh I believe he already knows." I interrupt.

"Look, she wanted to come so I didn't stop her besides she's eighteen." Dean points out. Sam sighs and looks down, thinking, then up.

"What was he hunting?" Sam asked as Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, then the spare-tire compartment, it's an arsenal.

"Holy crap this is cool!" I exclaimed as Dean props the compartment open with a shotgun and digs through the clutter.

"I know right? All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?"

"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam asks.

"I was working my own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Dean looks over at Sam.

"I'm twenty-six, dude."

"And then you went to Y/D/N for help?"

"That's about right, she offered to help cause her father wouldn't." Dean pulls some papers out of a folder. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy." Dean hands one of the papers to Sam, I look over his shoulder to see. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA. The paper is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald, headlined Centennial Highway Disappearance and dated Sept. 19th 2005; it has a man's picture, captioned Andrew Carey MISSING." Sam reads it and glances up.

"So maybe he was kidnapped."

"Yeah. Well, here's another one in April." Dean hands me a Jericho Herald article for each date he mentions. "Another one in December 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." Dean takes the article's back from us and picks up the rest of the stack, putting them back in the folder. "All men, all the Same five-mile stretch of road." Dean pulls a bag out of another part of the arsenal. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." He grabs a handheld tape recorder. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday." He presses play, the recording is staticky and the signal was clearly breaking up.

"Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger...and if you can...Y/D/N's kid." Dean presses stop.

"Wait...he mentioned me." I say silently.

"What does dad want with Y/n?" Sam asks.

"I don't know that's why I went to your dad. So whatever is going on, obviously your part of it."

"Well other than the creepy message involving me, you know there's EVP on that?" I said.

"Not bad, Y/n. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Sam shakes his head. "All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." He presses play again.

"I can never go home..." Was the voice that was heard, Dean presses stop.

"Never go home." Sam comments, trying to think what it could mean. Dean drops the recorder, puts down the shotgun, stands straight, and shuts the trunk, then leans on it. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." Sam looks away and sighs, then looks back. "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him." Sam submits, Dean nods. "But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here." Sam turns to go back to the apartment but turns back when Dean speaks.

"What's first thing Monday?" 

"I have this...I have an interview."

"What, a job interview? Skip it."

"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean smirks.

"So we got a deal or not?" Dean says nothing, Sam turns back around and heads back into the building.

"Your brother is certainly...not happy." I look over at Dean who shrugs.

"Eh he'll get over it." Dean smirks and gets back in the car, Dean maybe be smiling but I have a bad feeling about this.

~

Dean comes out of the convenience mart carrying junk food. Sam is sitting in the shotgun seat with the door open, rifling through a box of tapes as I was sitting in the back with the window down. I don't know what he's looking for but it must be important.

"Hey!" Dean says with a smile on his face. Sam leans out and looks at him. "You want breakfast?"

"No, thanks."

"Y/n? I got you coffee, along with some biscuits." He hands me the food.

"Thanks...." I say and take the food from him. "So how'd you pay for that stuff?" Sam  asks. "You and Dad still running credit card scams?" 

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." Dean puts the nozzle that he left running while he went inside back on the pump. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."

"Yeah? And what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam swings his legs back inside the car and closes the door.

"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean gets into the driver seat and puts his soda and chips down.

"And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."

"That's pretty smart, man I wish I thought of that. Then I wouldn't have had to get a job." I joke as Dean closes the door, Sam looks back at me then at Dean.

"Only a few days and your already a bad influence on her." Sam chuckles. "I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." From what I could see there are at least a dozen cassettes in the box on Sam's lap; some have album art, others are hand-labeled.

"Why?" Dean asked.

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two." Sam holds up a tape for every band he names. "Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?" Dean takes the box labeled Metallica from Sam. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"And that's probably why he has them." I interrupt while sipping my coffee.

"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean pops the tape in the player. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." Dean drops the Metallica box back in the box of tapes and starts the engine.

"Wait." Sammy looks back at me as Dean drives off. "Why does she get coffee?"

"Well I asked her what she wanted and she told me."

"You didn't ask me...."

"Suck it up Sammy." Sam made a pouty face, I look down at my coffee then back at him. I reach forward and politely offer him some which Dean notices.

"Aw look at that she's willing to share."

"Shut up." Sam said with a blush on his face as he slowly took my cup.

~

   Sam is talking on his cell phone. "Thank you." He says then closes his phone. "All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue."

"Well at least we know he's ok." I said, making Sam nod in agreement.

"That's something, I guess." Dean glances over at us, then back at the road. At a bridge ahead of them, there are two police cars and several officers. 

"Woah, I wonder what happened." I wondered as Sam leans forward for a closer look, Dean pulls over. We take a long look before Dean turns off the engine. Dean opens the glove compartment and pulls out a box full of ID cards with his and John's faces. Visible ones include FBI and DEA. He picks one out and grins at Sam, who stares.

"Let's go."  Dean gets out of the car and me and Sam follow pursuit. On the bridge, the lead Deputy, leans over the railing to yell down to two men in wetsuits who were poking around the river.

"You guys find anything?" He yells.

"No! Nothing!" The other man who was below us replied. The deputy turns back to the car in the middle of the bridge. Another Deputy, is at the driver's side looking around inside the car. The three of us walk into the crime scene, I felt out of place but the brothers acted like they belong there.

"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean asks as the first Deputy looks up when he starts talking and straightens up to talk to him.

"And who are you?" Dean flashes his badge. "Federal marshals."

"You three are a little young for marshals, aren't you? Especially the girl." Dean laughs. "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you." Dean goes over to the car. "You did have another one just like this, correct?"

"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."

"So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam questioned, Jaffe, as it says on his name tag, nods.

"Town like this, everybody knows everybody." Dean circles the car, looking around.

"...And that is why I hate small towns." I state. "Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?"

"Uh N-No. Not so far as we can uh tell."

"So what's the theory? I'm thinking insane hitchhiker." Sam goes over to Dean as I keep the deputy busy.

"Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"

"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys." Dean insults, Sam stomps on his foot.

"Thank you for your time." I say and the three of us head back to the Impala. Jaffe watches us go but I could the two talking.

"She's a pretty one ain't she?" Jaffe mentions, I ignored him, pervert I thought. Dean smacks Sam on the head, catching my attention.

"Ow! What was that for?" Sam grumbled.

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Dean looks at Sam and moves in front of him, forcing Sam to stop walking.

"Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." Sam clears his throat and looks over Dean's shoulder. Dean turns to see a Sheriff and two FBI agents.

"Can I help you boys?" The sheriff asks.

"No, sir, we were just leaving." I smile at them, giving them some reassurance and walk past the three men. Dean and Sam head past the Sheriff, who turns to watch us go.

~

Later we decided to go talk to this young woman, the second deputy's daughter I believe. As we walk up the street the marquee on the Highland Movie Theater reads in big bold letters: EMERGENCY TOWN HALL MEETING SUNDAY 8 PM BE SAFE OUT THERE. Below that a young woman is tacking up posters with Troy, the missing boy's face and the caption "Missing Troy Squire". The three of us approach.

"I'll bet you that's her." Dean says

"Well no shit sherlock, if course it's her." I joke, the boys turn towards me.

"Listen sweetheart you may be helping us, but that doesn't give you the right to curse."

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say shit, fuck, crap. Sorry!" I giggle, making Sam smirk. Dean ignores me and walks up to the young woman.

"You must be Amy." Dean points out.

"Yeah." She says as she looks towards us. "Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy and that's-" Dean was saying, trying to think on what I should be. "-my girlfriend Y/n." I give him a weird look and so does Sam, girlfriend? I thought. He couldn't have gone with sister or something?

"He never mentioned you to me." Amy walks away as the three of us tag along.

"Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."

"We never really talk to Troy much, teenager's these days. Never wanna hang out with the adults." I chimes in as another young woman, comes up to Amy and puts a hand on her arm.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asks, while eyeing the three of us.

"Yeah." Amy replies.

"Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions?" I asked. "You probably know my nephew to be better then I do."

"Woah trying to get married already babe" Dean jokes as he puts an arm around my shoulder. "I thought the man asks the woman?"

"Well, 'darling' technically I am the one who is the man in this relationship." Sam and the two girls try not to giggle.

~

The five of us are sitting in a booth, Dean and Sam opposite Amy and Rachel while I'm sitting at the end of the table with a normal chair. The chair was turned away from the table as I was facing the four if them.

"So...Amy." I start. "What happened the night Troy disappeared?"

"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and...he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange?" Sam asks, Amy shakes her head.

"No. Nothing I can remember."

"I like your necklace." I state, Amy holds the pendant she's wearing, a pentagram in a circle, and looks down at it.

"Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents-" Amy laughs. "-with all that devil stuff.

"Do you know where he got it?"

"Um...no actually."

Sam laughs a little and looks down, then up.

"Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing." Sam says.

"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries."

Dean jokes, takes his arm off the back of Sam's seat and leans forward. "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." Amy and Rachel look at each other. "What is it?"

"Well, it's just... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk." Rachel, the other girl says. Dean and Sam speak in chorus. "What do they talk about?"

"It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago." Dean looks at Sam, who watches Rachel attentively, nodding. "Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."

"So let me guess you believe in this so called legend?" I ask.

"It's a possibility, you never know." Sam and Dean look at each other.

Considering that Rachel mentioned this legend, we made a trip to the library. Dean was in the computer with a web browser open to the archive search page for the Jericho Herald. The words "Female Murder Hitchhiking" are typed into the search box. Dean clicks go; the screen tells him there are "(0) Result". Dean replaces "Hitchhiking" with "Centennial Highway" with the same response.

"Your not gonna find anything in the internet. You gotta go old school." I point out.

Sam sighs, who is sitting next to him, watching.

"Let me try." He offered, Dean smacks Sam's hand.

"I got it." Sam shoves Dean's chair out of the way and takes over. "Dude!" Dean hits Sam in the shoulder. "You're such a control freak."

"You two are definitely brothers." I giggle, the boys just shake there heads. I push both of them out of the way "If you want to find a spirit, you gotta go dark. Angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"

"Yeah." Dean agrees.

"Well, it's not murder." I replace "Murder" with "Suicide" and find an article entitled "Suicide on Centennial". Both if the boys seemed surprised. I open the article, dated April 25, 1981, I read what the article had to say. "A local woman's drowning death was ruled a suicide, the county Sheriff's Department said earlier today. Constance Welch, 24, of 4636 Breckenridge Road, leapt off Sylvania Bridge, at mile 33 of Centennial Highway, and subsequently drowned last night. Deputy J. Pierce told reporters that, hours before her death, Ms. Welch logged a call with 911 emergency services. In a panicked tone, Ms. Welch described how she found her two young children, 5 and 6, in the bathtub, after leaving them alone for several minutes. I continued to skim the article. " Here this is what the husband said, What happened to my children was a terrible accident. And it must have been too much for my wife. Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it. Now I ask that you all please respect my privacy during this trying time."

"So she committed suicide." Sam says. "Good job Y/n."

"Quiet there's more. At the time of the children's death and Ms. Welch's subsequent suicide, Mr. Welch was at the Frontier auto salvage yard, where he works the graveyard shift as associate manager. Connie might have been quiet, but she was the sweetest, most caring girl I ever knew, said Deanna Kripke, a neighbor. She just doted on those children."

Dean raises his eyebrows.

"Hm. The bridge look familiar to you?" Dean asks.

~

The three of us walk along the bridge, then stop to lean on the railing and look down at the river.

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." Dean states.

"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asks.

"If your dad was here then he would've stopped the spirit right?" I wondered.

"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him."

"Okay, so now what?"

"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." Sam stops and looks at Dean.

"Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday-" Dean turns around.

"Monday. Right. The interview."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some Lawyer? Marry your girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" Sam steps closer, I could tell a fight was about to break out.

"No, and she's not ever going to know."

"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

Dean turns around and keeps walking, Sam follows.

"Guys c'mon we got more important things to do." I state.

"Stay out of this Y/n!" Both of them say at the same time.

"Who am I really Dean?" Sam says.

"You're one of us." Sam hurries to get in front of Dean.

"No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"You have a responsibility to-"

"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back." Dean grabs Sam by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. Instantly I push Dean back, he begins to protest.

"Y/n-"

"No enough out of both of you. Focus, look if San wants out if this life then so be it. You can't change that, I may not know much about what you guys do for a living but I know damn well I wouldn't want to be hunting monsters all the time."

"What do you mean don't know much about what we do?" Sam questioned, clearly aggravated. "You brought her into this!"

"She decided this not me! I gave her the offer to walk away!"

"That wasn't her decision to make! If Y/D/N kept her out if this then you shouldn't have brought her with you!"

"She's eighteen! She can do whatever the hell she wants!"

"No Dean she's not eighteen! She's seventeen! She doesn't turn eighteen till (your birthday)." Dean looks at me, clearly surprised that I lied. However I wasn't paying attention, the spirit of Constance was standing at the edge of the bridge.

"Uh guys." The boys forget there argument and stand infront of me, like I'm something to be protected. Consance looks over at them, then steps forward off the edge. We run to the railing and look over.

"Where'd she go?" I asked.

"I don't know." Sam said, then behind us, the Impala's engine starts and its headlights come on, catching our attention.

"What the-who the fuck is driving your car!?" Dean pulls the keys out of his pocket and jingles them. The car jerks into motion, heading straight for them.

"Run!" I yell. The car is moving faster than we are, when it gets too close, the boys dive over the railing but it was to late for me.

The New Hunter Masterlist

[zzapzzaptasers-a]

Important Headcanons

or things about my Darcy that probably maybe aren’t super important but which may come up and don’t really have another appropriate place under the “about”. I’ll probably end up linking this in the about for easy access in the future and probably update it as things go along.

- Darcy was present at Culver for a campus tour during the Hulk’s second world appearance.  This lead to a deep fear of the Hulk (of which she’s over to varying degrees depending on the verse and exposure) and was also the precursor to Darcy’s dad, Ben (I named him before I took it on as my name when I came out ok I know its weird), being diagnosed with cancer and ultimately dying I figure this simply because Darcy is a year younger than me, I graduated in 07 and therefore Darcy would have been in her junior year in 07 and her senior year in 08 (when the Incredible Hulk movie was released), so, timeline wise, it’s feasible.

- This isn’t a headcanon but it IS important to note -- Culver is the MCU Ivy League school. It’s not easy to get into. It’s the school Jane, Erik Selvig, Bruce Banner, and Betty Ross went to/worked with/through/for. Therefore, Darcy is intelligent, and yes that includes “book smart”. She might not always be observant and, yes, she’s not an astrophysicist nor a PhD, but she is capable. Any stupidity shown here is either purposeful, absent-minded, or my own fault as a mun because I am not smart or educated and I end up doing a lot of research but sometimes man I just don’t know a thing

- Darcy is sort of a magnet and a battery for otherworldly energy and magic. It collects on her, as a friend said, like a bunch of velcro straps or like burrs stick to clothing. She is largely unaware of it and is unable to manipulate or utilize it, but others might be able to????

- Darcy’s Jewish. I’m p sure that’s on her about but I just wanna make it super clear.

- Alignment-wise, Darcy is mostly good, but her inherent goodness is overpowered by her loyalty. I’ve explained it this way before, but if Jane had popped out of the aether pocket with the aether and was like “okay we’re bad guys now” Darcy would have been like “sweet, cool. great.” This can make her easy to manipulate, provided you can get her attached to you in the first place. Darcy is constantly in need of having a “person”. For most canon, that’s Jane. In the Post IW AU with facemypast, where Darcy was gone with the snap and appeared in the stone with Bucky, Bucky is that person. She needs an anchor, romantic or not, whenever she’s in a new or uncomfortable situation.

- Darcy is pretty handy with technology. We know from Thor 1 that she’d made the fake ID Selvig had presented to SHIELD for Thor and while it didn’t pass muster there, it would have with any regular cop or bartender or whatever. Also, she broke through the firewall SHIELD had put up in Tromso during Avengers 1. I write her as being interested in coding and repairing/refurbishing old radios, and while she isn’t as talented in this area as Tony Stark or other comparable heroes/villains, she is passionate about it and quick to pick up on instruction 

- pacifist. I don’t have any real background reasoning for this, but I figure, like, why would she carry a taser instead of a gun? And ran with it.  Darcy isn’t capable, emotionally or physically, of killing anyone and refuses handgun training, making her ineligible for real SHIELD field work. She has, however, been training physically with @anyilherron for fitness and CJ’s no-longer-around Bill @harkthestormbreaker (who’s been teaching her how to punch) Recently in my canon, she accidentally killed a man who was mugging her. He had a heart issue and the taser did not help. It was a traumatic experience for her and she’s working through some PTSD.

- Darcy is CHUBBY. Sorry, not sorry. 

- Darcy’s future aspirations (MCU wise) are either political or public relations based. 

- While enjoying a mild popularity on youtube, Darcy was wildly popular on the short lived Vine app and is currently running Thor’s Instagram account (boasting 100m followers) and Jane’s twitter (which does not have as big a fanbase as Thor’s IG but which is being touted as one of the meme-ist, funniest accounts currently active)

- Darcy’s first crush as a pre-teen was on Tony. As an anti-capitalist adult, her feelings on him are complicated and a little *handwavey*

- She is the reincarnation of @intolerablexsacrifice‘s Flint. It doesn’t come up super often outside of asks and threads with Malakh, but those aren’t super infrequent so it’s good to know about.  It’s why she dislikes the ocean.

[theonyxpath]

Going to make this one a taaaad bit shorter than last week’s. While I’d like to say it is in the interest of giving you loyal readers a break, in fact it’s because I really didn’t sleep well last night and my brain is mush.

For example, without my going back and really concentrating, most of the writing I’m doing right now looks like this:

Mopst oif tHr wrttiomg I”n dopIngh lokks L1je tyhjiis.

As you might imagine, it’s put quite the damper on my writing this blog.

No worries, though, the reason for the crappy sleep isn’t something important, or connected to Onyx Path, or anything like that. As near as I can figure, I was having anxiety dreams because my kids are all going back to their various schools starting yesterday and finishing next weekend.

They were expressing their concerns and had last minute this and thats, and all of that seeped into my head and I dreamed what I thought were three hour epic searches for classrooms only to wake up and note that 15 minutes had passed. Over and over again. I never even knew that my high school was built by the same architect who designed Hogwarts, but all those Mobius Strip escalators to the same floor, and doors that led to nowhere logical, were all there at dear old Central High.

Apparently.

  Promethean: The Created Tormented art by Tilen Javornik

    Although, the particular manifestation was pretty benign and keyed to my personal “can’t find the class and the bell is ringing” freak-out, what I went through is pretty common. We take in so much stuff from others and chew it up, internalize it, and some of us can let those anxieties escape via dreams, which is pretty cool, but other stuff stays in and does affect us.

Plus, if you are doing “creative work”, a large part of that process is to open yourself up and not just absorb input from outside yourself, but to grab that stuff and use it. To use it and create something with it. It’s what we do in a very basic sense. Some do it with creative processes that have discrete stages that build towards the end creative result, others have a more intuitive process that may not even seem like there’s a creative process so much as spontaneous creation. To an outside observer.

It so happens that our business, like so many, relies on constant communication; between our in-house folks, between all our freelance creative teams, between us and our Onyx Path community, and the gaming community as a whole. That’s a lot of input, and as with so much of social media, a lot of it is not helpful – whether by intent or accidentally. It is exhausting to weed out so much extra noise to get to the signal you need for your project.

Which is why I encourage, and sometimes order, our Onyx Path crew to take vacations. Gotta let the brain absorb different input. It’s tough, though, because we do have so many projects all going at different stages for different game lines, so there’s no “good” time for a vacation, usually. Nevertheless, it is so very necessary.

And it so happens that post-Gen Con is a great time to decompress and get revved up for pulling things together as we head towards the new year, so we’ve been blinking away one at a time and popping back so another one of our Onyx team can get away for a bit.

    Monarchies of Mau art by Pat McEvoy

    In fact, the time between Gen Con and Fall also sounded like  a good time to reconfigure our Onyx Path website. After all, every site Impish Ian looked at said it was a five minute change. Liars! A big apology from us to everyone who couldn’t log in, or post, or get emails (that may have just been me) during the process of changing over, realizing it wasn’t working, and changing everything back. If we had known it wasn’t actually as easy as it said on the tin, we would have warned everybody.

Fortunately, Kickstarter is not connected directly to our website, so we were able to launch the Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter and fund within a day. Which is awesome because that means we can get to move quickly into creating some of the also awesome Stretch Goal projects.

We also have some equally awesome reward tiers that include getting your character into both the text and the visuals, yourself done up as one of the zombies in the art, and artifacts from the early days of the Dystopia Rising LARP. Like all of our KSs, we’ve tried to add fun and flavorful rewards that connect directly with both our new edition and the previous incarnations of the setting. Check out the link in our BLURBS! section below!

In this stretch leading up to the Labor Day Weekend, our sales partners at Indie Press Revolution are wrapping up the wildly successful 40% sale they’ve been running on our Deluxe W20 and M20 printer overrun books. If you’ve missed out on these beauties, this may be your best chance at getting them at these sorts of prices! Only until the end of the month: https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/

In their continuing efforts to open up more Community Content sites, White Wolf will be adding Exalted to their Storytellers’ Vault site on DTRPG.com. All three editions will be opened, but if you want to create something for any of the three, please carefully read the info provided on the site detailing what is and isn’t allowed.

It’s a great opportunity to create, publish, and get paid for your unofficial Exalted material, and as Matthew Dawkins likes to point out, the Community Content sites are also a super way to “audition” for writing for official projects with us at Onyx Path.

No guarantees, of course. And better I stress it now, yes, we still hold the license to create official Exalted material, and WW is the company that runs the site and determines what is allowable, not Onyx Path.

    Cavaliers of Mars art by Nate Pride

    In fact, since this is the last week of the month, two things happen here at Onyx Path. One, we put up the latest monthly installments of EX3‘s Hundred Devils Night Parade and Adversaries of the Righteous on Wednesday. We’re getting to the point where we’re looking to assemble at least the Hundred Devil monthly releases into a single book, although we actually still have a lot more to go.

Would you folks prefer us to get the current batch assembled into a book now, and then create a second book later, or hold off and create one big book? I’m probably going to ask the EX3 backers this in the monthly Backer Update too.

What’s a Backer Update, you say? Why that is an update for one of our Kickstarted projects that we send out every month to those who backed that KS. Since we have a lot of KS’d projects, James and I send out a lot of Backer Updates each month.

We send them monthly because after long experience we’ve decided that once a month is a good reliable pace to get the on-going status for the KS you backed, and if something happens that backers need to know about, like a PDF going out or a book shipping, we’ll send more updates.

Now, if you’ve backed a few of our KSs, that means you get a lot of very similar Backer Updates, particularly since we also include a notice about whatever our current Kickstarter is. We realize that hearing about a new KS while waiting for yours to progress, or getting a bunch of repeated notices, can get tedious, but please bear in mind that we also always used to get complaints that previous backers didn’t know about our current KS.

With the dearth of strong centralized communication in this business, we chose to notify our previous backers about the current KS rather than have folks miss out on it. YMMV of course, but those “Why didn’t I hear about this KS?” messages have dropped off dramatically and we sure hope those folks have had a chance to jump into the latest KS.

After all, our KSs run the same range of game worlds as our game lines: WoD, CofD, Exalted 3rd, our Storypath and 5e based settings and more – there are a lot of interests out there and we’re trying to keep the communication flowing about our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

    The Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter funded in less than a day, and has already passed one Stretch Goal!

The next Stretch Goal is where we start building the Threat Guide companion PDF which is a first-person guide with mechanics to the various threats facing survivors in the DR:E world, so we’re pretty excited to get started with that!

Dystopia Rising is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game that quickly grew into a live-action sensation. Now, Onyx Path is pleased to update the live-action setting with Dystopia Rising: Evolution, a tabletop roleplaying game that presents a fresh and exciting take on the post-apocalypse genre.

Dystopia Rising: Evolution will be powered by Onyx Path’s Storypath system, and includes all the rules you need to play as a survivor in the post-apocalypse, including rules for creating characters for up to 24 different Strains, variations on humanity that survived the Fall. It also has details on the powers of faith and psionics, along with advice on running action-adventure stories, webs of personal intrigue, or procedural investigations. And, finally, dozens of antagonists, including a variety of zombies and raiders to use in your series.

Throughout this Kickstarter campaign, we will be posting complete previews of the Dystopia Rising: Evolution manuscript as backer-only updates.

  ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

  ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

  OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

SPECIAL W20 and M20 SALE! Huge savings on our Deluxe printing overruns until 8/31!

4 DAYS LEFT!

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

    This week we have the next two installments in our monthly Exalted 3rd Edition releases for Hundred Devils Night Parade (Steel Eater and Gem Seeker) and Adversaries of the Righteous (Adeimantus) in PDF on Wednesday!

    CONVENTIONS!

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will be speaking at Broadleaf Writers Conference (September 22-23) in Decatur, GA. He’ll be there to talk about writing for interactive fiction, and hanging out with other writers who have far more illustrious careers. http://broadleafwriters.com/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference-speakers/

Eddy will also be a featured guest at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

  Dixie Cochran will be at High Level Games Con in Atlantic City October 12-14, running a Women in Game Design panel, Eddy’s RPG Developer Bootcamp, and possibly making a surprise appearance at another event!

    And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

  Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

  Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Fetch Quest (Pugmire)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Jumpstart (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

  Manuscript Approval:

  Editing:

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau) (With Eddy)

  Post-Editing Development:

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Guide to the Night (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

  Indexing:

Changeling: The Lost 2e 

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

  In Art Direction

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – KS is going.

VtR: Guide to the Night – sketches and some finals rolling in.

M20: Gods and Monsters – AD’d and Contracted, Leblanc already has sketches in.

Geist 2e

The Realm

Trinity Continuum (Aeon and Core)

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Chicago By Night – Most of the KS art is divided up. Sending out notes and contracts Monday morning.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Lost 2e Screen 

Fetch Quest

  Proofing

Scion Hero – Putting in Neal’s changes

PTC: Night Horrors: The Tormented

Scion Origin – Neall inputting errata changes… then it’ll come back to me to firm up.

  At Press

Monarchies of Mau – Printing. Dice and buttons printing.

Cavaliers of Mars – Shipping to Studio2.

Wraith 20th – Prepping the Deluxe files, still poking printer for cover specs.

Monarchies of Mau Screen – Shipping to Studio2.

Cavaliers of Mars Screen – Shipping to Studio2.

Wraith 20 Screen – Printing.

Scion Dice – At fulfillment shipper.

Cav Talent cards – PoDs proofing.

SL Trilogy Pt 1,2,3 – PoDs proofing.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Folks enjoying vacations as the summer heads to a close and lots of folks go back to school!

[1400762-personal-showcase]

Weekly Journal

Week 1 (September 26th -30th)

Over the summer holidays I got a headstard on my idea. I want to do a story about a little Prince trapped in a tower who gets rescued by a female knight. I was thinking how sad it must be for princesses that are trapped in towers and how alone and depressed they must be, and I thought that their struggles must be as tough as the struggles that the knight endures to find her, but no-one ever thinks about how the princess feels. The gender reversal happened just because I thought 'why not? What's stopping it from being a prince instead?' then I thought it would be a sad twist that the reason why he doesn't get rescued is because he is not a princess. All the strong knights want pretty princesses that they can marry and flaunt, not a little boy to save. So I stated to make an animatic for it very early on in the summer, because I knew that this would be a big project. I really want to do an animation which tests my storytelling skills and the point of that is having enough time to create a story and tell it. I don't just want to rush everything and tell the story, I want to learn the best ways to tell it, concerning visuals, sound, timing, 'show don't tell', all of that. From the briefing it seems as though I wont have enough time to do the full animation but I will see what I can do, I really want to create something that can test my narrative skills, not just the animating skills.

Week 2 (October 3rd – 7th )

I went to see Peter to show him my animatic and see what he thought about it. I don't think I will be able to animate the whole thing for the deadline. I didn't realise that only half of the year was dedicated to our personal showcase so I'm a little disappointed that I don't have the whole year to focus on it. Peter really liked the animatic I had so far and really liked the story, but he felt that something emotional was missing. The basics were there, showing the princes lonliness but I wanted it to be more sad, darker, I really want my audience to sympathise with this prince. He advised I go see Helen Schroeder as she has a lot of knowledge on storyboarding and is working on the storyboards for Watership Down. Helen mainly had questions, which is a good thing because if I'm to learn how to tell a story to an audience, I don't want the questioning things they don't need to. The first thing she thought was 'where is his food coming from?' I'd thought about this but didn't bother to think about it because I hoped people wont notice, but I suppose that if I noticed then anyone could. If I figure out a way to show how he gets food then it will likely make the character and the story feel a lot more real. She also said I should come up with a backstory about why he's there and where he's from. The audience doesn't need to know this but it will help me understand my own character better. Nice advice, I will have to think about it and improve my story.

Week 3 (October 10th – 14th )

While thinking about my animatic I've also been working on a walk cycle of my prince. I'd also like to do one for my knight but I will have to see if I have enough time. I like it so far, I love animating a characters sketch work, I have so much fun and I can really feel the movement. But I struggle so much with the clean up and colouring, something about my animation syule feels inconsistent. I don't know if it's me being sloppy or it's normal but I want to work on it because every animation that I've done, I've loved until I've gotten to the colouring, and then I just feel as though I mess it up because I'm an incompetent colourist. It's strange through because I love colouring still images and comics, I'm actually quite proud of my line art and colouring when it comes to comics, I don't know why I struggle so much with animation. I went to see Lynsey to talk about my dissertation thoughts and look at the kind of chapters I want to write. She said I should get down what I want my chapters to be and then start writing the first one just so that I have some words down. My essay is about cartoons and other pieces of media sending bad messages to an audience so I'll look at what things I want to discuss specifically and see if I can put them into relevant chapters.

Week 4 (October 17th – 21st )

I showed Helen my walk cycle and she also agreed that I need to work on the consistency of my animation. She said that things like the legs were thicker in other frames and thinners in others. She also said that his head is bobbing up and down too much. She said that it was good, though, which is why she is 'nitpicking', so that's reassuring. I went in to see Phil Archer in the sound room also and asked him for some advice on music. I have never touched music writing in my life, I once tried to play guitar in year seven but never kept up and I have no idea how to make music, I don't know what chords are, I don't understand how people put notes together in a way that sounds appealing, but apparently I thought it would be a good idea to write my own song for my animatic. I think knowing the basics of making music is a really good skill to have, especially in animation where sound can go a long way, and I feel as though one of the things that could hold me back from making more films is the fact that I can't make backing music. So the idea of making my own music for this animatic is really exciting to me and I hope will give me some good skills. I went in to see Phil and he was kind enough to give me a lesson on the beginning of the basics, he explained chords and notes to me and I really enjoyed myself learning something completely new to me. I went back home and now I'm actually trying to write my own song on FL Studio. So far it's very basic but it has the kind of 'happy' Disney tune to it that I want and considering I've never made a song before, I'm proud of myself. I will go back to Phil again for another lesson and hopefully he can take a look at what I have so far.

We had our briefing for the Collaborative project and have decided our group. I worked with Tia and Adzie last year for the final project and we had so much fun and really loved what we created, so we agreed to working together again, but we have included Jordan and Catherine. Tia, Adzie and myself are all 2D artists, Catherin is stopmotion and Jordan is 3D, so we were thinking about creating something with mixed media similar to 'The Amazing World of Gumball” style. We are hoping to meed up often so tat we can discuss our idea and our job roles.

Week 5 (October 24th – 28th )

I changed up my animatic. It focuses a lot more on the Prince growing up in the tower and trying to cope than the knight finding him. I realised that the majority of the last animatic was time spent having the knight take the prince away, when more focus and time needs to be on the prince himself. I've resolved the issue of food and created an outside presence that sends him food under a hatch in his wall which he gets daily. I showed this update to Peter and he felt this was a lot better, he felt he connected better with the character in this animatic and that it shows his struggle, isolation and loneliness in more detail. I'm so much happier with this version, I still have yet to finish the new ending but so far I find myself also being more attached to this character than I was before. I haven't shown Helen yet, but I hope to soon, when I went to see her she suggested that I start work on an animation test. I've decided to animate the clip where the prince picks up the opened lock and looks at it in shock. I've chosen this clip because I feel as though something simple means that I can pay closer attention to the character acting and expression. I went to see Phil again to get advice on my song and so far he thinks it's a good start. I told him I wanted it to derail into something sad, so that as the animation goes along and gets darker the music goes with it, but I was struggling to understand how to put chords and noted together to make it sound sad. He helped a lot and I've managed to find a musical rift to go to the sad moments of the animatic.

We went in to see John about our collaborative idea. At the moment we had this idea about creating a world that leads to different dimensions, which would mean we can add different types of media easily. I thought the idea of a hotel would be good, in the kind of style like 'Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends'. Sort of wacky, funny, quirky and strange. Adzie would like to do the character design but overall we like the ides of this character being a small monster who is on vacation, he gets given his room for the hotel and then goes to explore the other rooms. We have yet to decide on an idea or a reason for him to look around the hotel, but we are piecing the world together.

Week 6 (October 31st – November 4th)

I've updated my new animatic and went to shot Helen, she much preferred it but there are still some things she picked up on. She felt that the introduction could be shortened if I needed to save time, I could cut out the part where he pulls the lantern under the sheets, the scene where the books are piling up doesn't make much sense. I said that it meant he was leaving them untidy and abandoned but I suppose it still shows his depression with the plates piling up. And then there were a lot of things concerning the screen direction and film language that need to be tweaked which I have written about on my blog. She said that the general story comes across well, but there are areas of detail that could make it a lot better is fixed. I feel really greatful and honoured to have Helen's advice, she has taught me so much and I am so willing to change anything in the storyboard to make it perfect. I really want to learn how to execute a visual story successfully, I knew from the beginning that I would be changing a lot of my storyboard so I had no worries about being given criticism. (That's why I wanted to get the basic storyboard done before I came back to the first term, so that I had time to change it). This project to me is more about progressing my narrative skills as well as my animation skills, so the majority of my focus in based on all of the development I'm putting into my storyboarding rather than focusing so much on one animated clip. Having Helen around to criticise my storyboarding is so beneficial to me, I feel like I am learning so much from showing her what I have, receiving her comments, and then changing it. I can see it in my work that from the first animatic, I have improved the feeling of the story so much more with her help and perspective. I'm starting to figure out what I want to specialise in in animation, I think I want to specialise in storyboarding and character animation. Helen also recommended that I start working on my animation test, and as I've started to do so, I realise how much I also love to do character animation. Story and character is where I want to go. I also went to see Helen Piercy later this week to show her both animatics and see what she thought. She felt more emotional towards the second animatic but she preferred the ending to the first animatic. I then sat with her and showed a classmate, Lila, to get her thoughts also. Lila felt a lot more connected to the second one and also preferred the ending.

There was a Narrative and Character workshop for the Collaborative project. I wanted to go in but overslept and so I turned up later to meet with Adzie and Catherine during the second half. They were doing a character design activity, and weren't focused much on the collaborative project, just on creating their own characters. I said that I would meed them next week for the Narrative workshop, then we could discuss the story for the project more in detail.

Week 7 (November 7th – 11th )

I finished the sketchlines of my animation test and went to receive feedback from Helen and Robin.

Firstly they felt it was a well made animation with great expressions. Robin really liked the way the eyebrows were drawn and said they moved well as a unit with the eyes and face, which pleases me because expression is really important to me and one of my favourite things to draw. Helen felt that I needed to look more on my overlapping and secondary action, and a lot of it moved at the same time and it would look better for it to almost go in a wave, the whole general motion moving in an arch. I'm pleased with this advice but she also said I need to watch my time and that I should try to get it finished. I want to hopefully finish this test soon then get straight onto animating my showcase. As the animatic is far too long to make into a full animation, me and Helen discussed the idea of taking just a segment of the animation to animate. Most likely a part that has a basic beginning, middle, end to it. I wanted to make a trailer possibly but I think I would be able to show my still better if I took a scene from the animatic and animated that. I can't decide which part though, because I don't want the scene to look out of place without a story to it. I might do the end scene or a part where he's growing up.

We spoke more about our Collaborative idea and we are still trying to give the character a reason for leaving his room. We're unsure of the ending as we feel that it's too simple, or is not the right moral for the character to go back to his comfort zone. We are planning to go into the Narrative Workshop next week so we can get some advice from Helen on it.

Week 8 ( November 14th – 18th )

For my animatic Helen felt that I needed some scenes of the prince trying to escape, which makes a lot of sense. It's so clear to me now that after he realises he's not being rescued, he'd try to escape the tower himself, anyone would. So I'm going to add two scene, I've got one where he tries to bang on the door and get whoever is there to let him out, but then food just comes in and he is ignored. Them I'm going to do one where he escapes the window. I couldn't decide what to do with him, because he needs to not actually get out of the castle so I'm thinking that either he is too scared or it's too high for him to get down safely, or there's some kind of spell keeping him trapped in, like an invisible wall or something. I'd like to do the invisible wall but when I suggested it to a few people who had seen my animation, they felt it might be difficult to portray, including Helen.  I'm going to go with a magical chain that suddenly appears on his arm when he tries to escape, so that his efforts to muster up his courage proves to be pointless. I finished colouring my animation test but I'm not sure I like it. I really struggled with colouring. I managed to find a tutorial to draw clean lines with the polyline tool and then use the paint bucket tool to fill but the animation looks too jumpy at the same time. The shape of his face is inconsistent and seems to change in every frame, making it look quite jarring and jumpy. I think what I'll do in my actual animation is have more layers and leave unmoving parts still, but hopefully I can still animate the whole thing overall to not look too still.

We attended the Narrative Workshop this week to discuss our ideas and learn some things. We answered some questions about our project, and found answers for what the character does and his motives for doing it. We did have the idea of him being bored with the 2D room he was given so he goes to look at the other rooms, then he becomes so creeped out by what he doesn't understand that he goes back to being happy with his comfort zone. When we spoke to Helen she suggested that that might not be a very good moral to a story and we should think up something more. We started thinking that maybe he takes something back with him from one of the rooms, so that he's happy with his comfort zone but is not opposed to exploring and the unknown. One of us suggested that he should be a kleptomaniac and steal things from the hotel, it would start with mini shampoo's and a shower cap and a dressing gown, then he would explore the other rooms and leave the hotel with his back full of weird objects. I like this idea, because I find it funny in the context of being a hotel guest and how we all take the mini shampoos and stuff, but I'm not sure about it completely because I really liked the innocence of the little monster character.

Week 9 (November 21st – 25th )

I've had to change some other parts of my animatic and decide on what I'm animating. I've decided I'm going to do the scene where he gets caught by the magic chain while trying to escape. Firstly Helen felt as though I need a better angle to establish the hight with he's on the window ledge. I changed the angle so that the camera is from outside of the tower, below the prince and pointed up at him while he looks down. I also went to see Sarah Harris earlier where she suggested that the character needed a closer acting scene. He needed to show his disbelief that the chain appeared, so I added a scene where he inspects his hand where the chain appeared. I changed a few other bits in my animatic where Helen felt the camera direction could have been improved, such as the scene where the scene where the plates pile up, I've combined that scene with the scene of him in his bed. Now the plates pile up and the camera cuts to show him in his bed, clearly ignoring the food, suggesting time has gone by. This is to cut some time short. I've started working on my animation. I've been taking some video references for myself, one of my tying something around my waist, one of my pulling something tied to a post and one of me stepping up onto something as if onto a window ledge. All of these references have been so helpful to my animation and have made my first scenes look so realistic. It's made me realise how important taking reference is, I know that I would have been very frustrated if I was to animate that all from my head.

We mainly focused on our personal work this week but we did meet up to do wome collaborative work together. I created a style frame, Adzie created the character sheet, Catherine worked on the PDF and Jordan began work on the appearance of the hotel. We had a good day that day and got a lot of work done.

Week 10 ( November 28th – December 2nd )

I've done more for my animation, including the first scenes and the scene where he's out on the window ledge with his clothes and hair blowing in the wind, then he cowers in fear at the side of the wall. So far I'm really pleased with, I love doing the under-sketch work for the animation. I feel a lot more free when I'm sketching and I feel that comes across in the character movement. Helen had some suggestions for changing my animation to make it a bit better. We discussed some different camera angles and felt that when he puts his hand out of the window, there should be an outside profile view. I kind of wanted to keep the camera inside the tower to keep the audience 'trapped' with the prince also, which she understood, but I think this is a much more dynamic camera angle than what I had before, so I'll go with it. She also suggested I add a last frame of him from inside of the tower, showing him collapse on his bed in defeat, framed in the centre of it. I think this is a good idea to end on, I can try to make it quite dynamic, which is good because she felt that I did not have enough wider shots in my animation, which I agree with. I went back to see Phil Archer in the sound room, this time for help in my sound design for my animated scene. I said I really wanted a nice sound to go with the chain appearing so that it could sound all sparkly and mystical, basically to make the point that it's a magical chain caused by a spell. He put together some cool sounds. He reversed the sound of a chain clinking, so that it sounded unnatural and a bit mystical, then he added a kind of reverb and 'sparkling' effect to it to make it sound shiny and magical. I'm really pleased with that he helped me come up with. He also helped me get together some basic sounds like the wood creaking on the bed post and the wind blowing.

Me and Catherine went in to speak to Jon this week about our updated idea. I explained that I liked the kleptomaniac idea but I was also unsure as I wanted the character to remain fairly innocent, and not as though he had a mental disorder, I wanted the animation to be about the wacky hotel, not the monsters mental disorder. We started thinking from a different angle and came up with the idea of the Hotel actually being a simulation that the monster can go into to experience a holiday. It would be a twist that the weird and wonderful hotel didn't actually exist and almost be a statement on our entertainment. The Monster takes the VR helmet off when the experience gets too weird for him, he goes home to his boring room and wonders whether his reality is better or not. At first we were going to make it a human, who uses the monster as an avatar in the VR but we realised that would include finding an actor, filming, sets and props, which we wont have time for.

Week 11 ( December 5th – 9th )

I've changed my animation, adding shots of Helen's suggestions, not the animatic shows him leaning out of the window from a profile view and there is a last shot of him in his room. I've also updated my animation. I've essentially finished the first half of the sketch work, getting up to the shot where he jumps out of the window. I've also painted some backgrounds for all of these scenes. I'm really pleased with my backgrounds. Last year I did a lot of colouring practise for comics and backgrounds and I've really been trying to improve my paintings so that I can create better colours and perspective. From doing the animation test, I'd found the best way to make backgrounds so that they still look good but don't take too long. These backgrounds aren't as detailed as the one in the animation test but I feel that I have been able to produce more in less time by painting them this way and they still look acceptable to me. Aside from the lines and colouring, the first half is done.

The rest of the group seems okay with the idea me and Catherine had for the ending. We've decided Job roles. Catherine is the producer, I will be storyboarding and creating the animatic, Adzie will continue with the character designs and expressions, Jordan will create his 3D room and Tia will create her room. Catherine is also making a model puppet for the stop motion scene. I'm excited to keep working on this, although I also have a lot to do. This idea and concept excites me and I really hope that we can pull it off with quality. I started the storyboard during our meet up on some post-it notes, I will digitally re-draw them later.

Week 12 ( December 12th – 16th )

I've updated my sketched animation to him leaning out, all of the movements of the body are completed but I have yet to include his clothes, hair and face. The final frame is just his tiny body collapsing onto the bed so I only have a few frames there to show that, that won't be a difficult scene to complete. I also added a bit to a previous scenen. Helen said that when he's is about to jump, that would be the point where she would check the tie again to make sure it is still sturdy. I think she make a good point, so I added a action where he does that and suddenly he seems so much more real. I've been working on the background for when he falls back onto his bed, camera from out side of the window. Previously I'd made some floor plans so that while doing the storybaord I'd be able to know where everything is positioned in every frame. For this shot, with the camera being from the outside looking in, taking reference from the floor plans I made was a really big help for painting this background. Once I get the animation sketches done, which shouldn't be long, I'm going to start thinking about colours.

I began to digitally draw over my storyboard but I'm worrying about finishing both my dissertation and personal animation, so I am currently focusing on that. Catherine has offered to do some storyboarding but I assured her that I would be fine to continue after Christmas. I feel as though I know exactly how to storyboard this, the shots and everything, as I've spent a lot of time on my personal project storyboarding, I can see this in my head so well. I'm excited to start.

Christmas Break ( December 19th – January 9th )

Over the Christman break I focused mainly on my dissertation but did also get much animation done. I was able to finish a background where he leans out of the window to look at the chain appear and I started working on my colouring. In Toon Boom I discovered that you are able to make more than one palettes so that if you use a specific colour, then change that colour from your palette, it will also change it in the animation. This is good because it means that if colours need to be changed then I don't need to refill every frame with the bucket too, I can just change the colour from the palette. I realised that it would be cool to have a slightly different chade of colours for when he is outside of the tower and for when he is inside, just to give a bit more atmosphere to his environment. I updated the colouring to where he is when he is standing on the ledge.

We mainly focused on our personal projects over Christmas, as we all had a lot to do, we agreed to leave the collaborative work for when we were back in Norwich.

Week 13 (January 9th – 13th )

I've continued to colour but also have been focusing a lot on my dissertation and trying to get that done. Lynsey has been a big help and has been able to review my work when I've needed her to. As for the animation, I've really just been trying to get colouring done as soon as I can, I don't know how much time I'll have left to get it all done but I still need to finish my blog and complete my Research Report. I'm not sure what else to update on, really, I can just feel myself clicking into overdrive and I feel very determined to get all of this done.

This week I completely finished the animatic for our collaborative project. I had more fun doing it than I thought I would and I realise that after doing this storyboard, I really would like to specialise in storyboarding, as well as character animation. I'm really pleased with what I've created, I feel as though I can present it as something professional. Keeping the title safe zone for each frame was very helpful also, I was able to see it all in perspective and I think I've created something that reads very well. The responses I got from the group were good also. I really wanted it to come across as quirky, even a little funny, and the group felt I'd achieved that. Mt plan was to create the beginning and end of the storyboard so that we could fit in the sections where we have individually made our rooms, but I needed some more transition shots of the character walking through the hallways and looking into doors. Catherine was a big help with this and she offered to make some of these connecting shots, we also discussed the best angles to shot it. Me and Jordan put the animatic together with everyone's work and we're very pleased with it.

Extension ( January 16th – 27th )

I've requested an extension due to some struggles and depression over Christmas. I'd spoken to Peter about it and after having been open to him about my feeling and situations throughout the years he agreed to an extension. I am using this extension to really push what quality I can under the pressure I'm feeling. I was able to finish my Research Report and I'm quite pleased with it. If I have time to go back I would like to add a section about Bojack Horseman but it already took a lot of cutting to achieve the wordcount and not go over, so I think it would be difficult to add extra information. I really don't know the best way to colour. I'm not sure whether it's just better to draw the whole frames on one layer and use the bucket tool to fill, or whether I should do a layer for the body, layer over the body for the clothes, layer for the face, layer for hair (etc) so that I can look at the overlapping and secondary actions separately. I'm doing it with the separate layers to be safe but I feel as though it's coming out a bit messy. I think the movement itself looks fine and I think that I've fixed the problem with it looking too jumpy by having the different aspects on different layers (the problem I had with the animation test) but the painting feels a bit messy in some places. Such as when he is standing on the window ledge his clothes wave in the wind but the colouring looks messy. Whenever I try to clean it up on the layers, there always seems to be a problem. I think I've made the right choice in having each aspect on separate layers but I think that I may have created too many layers and now I've confused myself. With the extension I've been able to finish the animation. I've done the colours so that when he is outside of the tower the colours are brighter and when he is inside they are darker. I want this to create more of a subtle sad reality to his situation, he can't even get to the light. I had some problem with the chain. Firstly I discovered that in Toon Boom I'm able to create a glow affect, which is fantastic because it's exactly the effect I want. I was able to do this with the first chain I drew but then I wasn't able to recreate it with the rest of them. It seemed as though the drawing of the chain wouldn't show and instead there was just a transparent glow in the shape of the chain. I was frustrated at this to begin with but I'd resolved it by learning that I had to duplicate the layer and keep one of the layers normal and the other with the glow, this is what I'd done with the previous chain. It proves my point that I had created far too many layers in this file for me to keep track of. I've finished my entire animation now and all that's left to do it put the sound together. I'm really pleased with what I have created. I'm mainly pleased with the undersketch animation but that is what I prefer to do and is in my comfort zone. The colouring came out better than I thought it would, and better than it did in the animation test in my opinion but I felt that it could be cleaned up in some places. I will probably clean this up after submission. My plan after submission is to continue with my full animatic story and create a short film of a few minutes that is partly finished and partly WIP. I would like to come away with a piece that shows my skills in character animation and storyboarding, so I really like the idea of keeping the majority of it as professional storyboarding and sketched character animation, with only a few parts looking completely finished.

[buriedonpage3]

Tyranny Goes Viral

By Phill Orphan

Hand washing, social distancing, face masks. These are all good ideas under the current pandemic situation. But be on the lookout for something far more sinister than any virus. I’m talking about tyranny. Covid-19 should absolutely be taken seriously, which is why I previously wrote about the irresponsibility of the Gen Z party crowd. But don’t give up your rights.

We’re living in some worrying times. It’s natural to want to turn toward some sort of authority figure for reassurance. But the snakes in power know this is the perfect opportunity to take even more power. Just give up some of your freedom and we’ll keep you safe. I may have gotten an abridged copy, but I don’t remember the Bill of Rights having any exception clauses.

The Department of (in)Justice wants the “emergency power” to detain you indefinitely without trial. This violates the 6th Amendment. Once the government takes power in any form, does it ever give up that power? If anyone can give an example, I’d like to hear it, but I guarantee this is an extremely rare occurrence.

Nation-wide we have been banned from gatherings over a certain size. This outright ban is a direct slap in the face to the 1st Amendment. Given the nature of the pandemic, it is certainly good advice to follow. After all, with rights come responsibility. But it is not up to the government to enforce this.

Vermont has banned the in-person sales of all “non-essential” items. Who are they to determine what is essential and what is not? The State cannot know the needs of every individual. Particularly baffling is that this seems to include the sale of seeds. First, the economy is ground to a near complete halt. As a result, people are out of work and not receiving a paycheck. This means that soon enough, there will be no money for food. You would think the responsible thing would be to allow people to grow their own. But we all know the government absolutely hates the idea of people being self-sufficient in any manner at all.

Rhode Island has effectively shut down its borders, particularly to New Yorkers. Checkpoints have been set up requiring anyone from New York to stop. They are then forcefully quarantined whether sick or not. This goes against U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, also known as the Privileges and Immunities Clause. They’ve even started searching door to door in some areas looking for rogue New Yorkers. This is in opposition to the 4th Amendment. But in Rhode Island this is nothing new. It works like this. 4th Amendment rights are not quite absolute at national border crossings. The government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that “the border” includes anywhere within 100 miles of the actual border, including international borders and coastlines. Anyone living within this “100-mile zone” doesn’t have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. This includes 9 whole states! Rhode Island is one of those states. In fact, nearly 2/3 of Americans live within this zone.

I’d like to add an update. After writing this article I found out that Rhode Island has updated their ban on New Yorkers. Now, no one from out of state is allowed in, and natives are not allowed out. If you live in-state but work in another state, you must work from home. If you can’t work from home and must travel, you must be quarantined every minute you are back in-state. I’m sure something more Draconian will come along by the time I publish this. Are you hiding New Yorkers in your attic?

Despite this, the National Guard and state police conducting these searches and checkpoints insist that this is a request rather than a demand. I’m sure the residents of Watertown, MA understood the difference in 2013 despite the gun barrels in their faces.

Then there’s the corporate bailouts. The government has forcefully shut down most of the economy, and much of it will not survive the interim on its own, particularly depending on how long the shut-down lasts. But don’t worry. Our benefactors in the government have taken on the responsibility of deciding the winners and losers. Your average mom-and-pop shops are pretty much on their own to sink or swim. They can apply for assistance if they spend it in exactly the way the government tells them. The big corporations who should be wise enough to have money to weather the downturn? Of course they don’t have it. But don’t worry. Here comes Joe Taxpayer to bail them out! Joe Taxpayer, of course, gets a one-time payout of $1200 to shut up and be happy about it. $1200 that Uncle Scam will be taking back in the not so long run, of course.

I’ve also heard the idea of requiring a form of ID that certifies the carrier is immune or vaccinated in order to be allowed back into normal society. Hey, why not take this a step farther? We can have Covid IDs sewn to our clothes, so we stand out. Or if we want to be high tech about it, we can use implantable ID chips.

On the bright side, the companies that operate red light cameras are taking a massive revenue hit with fewer people driving. Another plus, the Democrats hate Orange Julius enough that they’d never dream of handing the reins over to him like the Hungarian National Assembly did for the Hungarian Prime Minister. And the order hasn’t been given to shoot quarantine violators on sight like in the Philippines. Unless you’re a minority, of course. But how is that different than other times, right?

[sheminecrafts]

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra is a lot of phone for a lot of money

Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology. It’s a tough calculus, but that’s the price of innovation.

The rising cost of smartphones is largely regarded as a major contributing factor to flagging smartphone sales. Phones have gotten better and last longer, and with four-digit prices, users are far less compelled to upgrade every two years or so.

Samsung skips nine numbers, announces the Galaxy S20

Samsung knows this as well as anyone. Along with its usual array of budget phones, the company’s gone to great lengths to offer “budget flagships,” a relatively new category that aims to find the sweet spot between high-end features and less-impressive components, first through the S10e and now its new lite devices.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is decidedly not that. It’s a picture of smartphone opulence in an era of declining smartphone sales. It’s yet another new tier in the company’s ballooning flagship smartphone line(s) designed to reestablish Samsung’s place in the bleeding edge of mobile technologies, while appealing to those with a little extra money to spend in order to future-proof their devices.

“A little more” here being defined as starting at $1,399. Or $1,599, if you’re, say, feeling extra flush after your tax returns and looking to upgrade to 512GB from the default 128GB. As for what top of the line means these days, that, too, has changed. Samsung was ahead of the curve by introducing multiple 5G phones last year. At the time, the handsets were, understandably, confined to the top tier, due to both cost of hardware and the general lack of global coverage.

For 2020, it’s 5G across the board, on all S20 models, so the kitchen sink Ultra needs to find ways to further set itself apart from the S20+. There are a few keys areas in which the Ultra sets itself apart. First and most immediate is size. Along with increased prices, the other thing you can count on, like clockwork, is bigger displays. The good news is that Samsung’s hardware advances have kept the footprint roughly the size of the last generation of devices.

Samsung continues to impress on that front, this time sneaking a roomy 6.9-inch display into a 166.9 x 76 x 8.8 mm; compare that to the 162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm on the 6.7-inch S10 5G. The thick profile is almost certainly due to a larger battery. The 4,500 mAh found on last year’s device and this year’s S20+ is upgraded to a beefy 5,000 mAh.

Samsung remains conservative with its own expected battery life, owing to power-hungry features like the big AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and the 5G radio. The company rates the phone as “all-day battery.” It’s a pretty nebulous phrase, all things considered. I suspect there’s still research to be done on the adverse impact of next-gen radios on battery life. With the default settings on (and little to no 5G, owing at least somewhat to some network issues), I found I got about 28 total hours on a charge.

[gallery ids="1951109,1951110,1951111,1951112,1951114"]

That certainly qualifies for the “all-day” mark, even if it’s a bit disappointing given the massive battery size. But it should definitely get you through a day and then some, with no issues. The other good news on that front is super-fast charging if you use the included wall adapter. I was able to go from zero to fully charged in just under a minute.

The design language is pretty much identical on all three S20s, and honestly, largely unchanged from last year’s model, though Samsung has moved to a hole-punch camera (a generous 40 megapixels for selfies) up front. Flip it around and the biggest difference is immediately apparent. The camera module on the Ultra is, well, ultra. There are four cameras back there, in a lip that occupies about a sixth of the phone’s total surface area.

The S20+’s more than adequate 12MP, 64MP telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight sensor have been bumped up to a 108MP main, 48MP 10x telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight. The ToF, mind you, is absent on the plain-old S20, bringing an added sense of depth for bokeh effects and fun tricks like 3D scanning. One also gets the sense that Samsung is very much laying the groundwork for an even stronger play in the AR world, extending beyond the current selection of AR emoji. Though, as with the rest of the industry, mainstream implementation is still slow going.

The biggest thing here — both figuratively and literally — is the telephoto. The camera features a folded telephoto, which is essentially turned on its side to fit the form factor. The camera is capable of a solid 10x hybrid zoom. Using a combination of the hardware and software, the company is able to achieve the 100x “Space Zoom,” versus the other models’ 30x max. It’s impressive all around, but important to note that the claims of “losslessness” only extend to 10x.

Beyond that, things start to degrade. And honestly, by the time you get to 100x, things start looking like a digital Monet painting. You can generally make out the objects, but in most cases, it’s probably not something you’re going to rush out to share on Instagram. For things like nosebleed seats at concerts or sporting events, however, sometimes it’s just enough to remember you’re there.

Honestly, though, I think Samsung is laying the groundwork for future updates, as it is with the ToF sensor. It’s easy to imagine how a 100x zoom coupled with some future imaging AI could lead to some pretty impressive telephoto shots, without the need for an external, optical lens. For now, however, it feels like more of a novelty. Honestly, a number of the upgrades over the S20+ feel a bit like excesses, and none but true devotees need to go all in with the Ultra.

My only momentary hesitation in recommending one of the lower-tier devices over the Ultra are questions of what happens to battery life when you dip below 5,000 mAh. The 120Hz screen is great for things like gaming, but for most users, I’d recommended keeping it off most of the time. That should buy you an extra couple of hours of life, switching to 120Hz when needed and back to 60 the rest of the time.

Ditto for the 108-megapixel camera. For most photos it makes sense to utilize pixel binning, which makes for a small 12-megapixel shot, but allows for a lot more light to be let in on a per pixel basis. Photo are brighter and sharper and the phone does better in low light. Also, the image isn’t gigantic — I forgot to swap the setting for a few photos and didn’t realize how massive they were until I sent them.

The best new photo feature, however, isn’t hardware at all. I’ve long posited that the key to a good imaging feature is simplicity. Cameras keep getting better and offer more features for those who want to shoot more professional photos on their mobile devices. That’s great, and if you’re Google, it means that the legendary Annie Leibovitz will show up to your launch event and sing your device’s praises.

But unless something works out of the box, it’s going to be of little use to a majority of consumers. Single Take is a clever addition to default camera settings that takes a whole bunch of different types of photos at once (provided you can stand still for 10 seconds). You get Live Focus, Timelapse and Ultra-Wide all at once. The camera saves everything to the roll, where you can choose the best image. It’s a larger file, but not huge in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t want to be a digital hoarder, you can always just go in and manually delete them.

The biggest updates to the S20 line feel like future-proofing. Elements like like 5G, 100x zoom and 8K video record don’t always make a ton of sense as of this writing, but much of Samsung’s biggest plays have been centered around getting out in front of the curve. With 5G, for example, there are still coverage barriers, but with users holding onto their handsets for longer, it’s almost certain that the next-gen wireless technology will be ubiquitous before the time comes for many users to upgrade.

In its current state, however, charging $1,399 and up for the Ultra is a pretty hard ask. Thankfully, however, Samsung has more than enough options for users looking for something a little cheaper. It’s a list that now includes the S10 Lite line and newly discounted standard S10 devices. Features like 100x, on the other hand, are novel, but it’s hard to justify the premium.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2SZrQza via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology. It’s a tough calculus, but that’s the price of innovation.

The rising cost of smartphones is largely regarded as a major contributing factor to flagging smartphone sales. Phones have gotten better and last longer, and with four-digit prices, users are far less compelled to upgrade every two years or so.

Samsung skips nine numbers, announces the Galaxy S20

Samsung knows this as well as anyone. Along with its usual array of budget phones, the company’s gone to great lengths to offer “budget flagships,” a relatively new category that aims to find the sweet spot between high-end features and less-impressive components, first through the S10e and now its new lite devices.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is decidedly not that. It’s a picture of smartphone opulence in an era of declining smartphone sales. It’s yet another new tier in the company’s ballooning flagship smartphone line(s) designed to reestablish Samsung’s place in the bleeding edge of mobile technologies, while appealing to those with a little extra money to spend in order to future-proof their devices.

“A little more” here being defined as starting at $1,399. Or $1,599, if you’re, say, feeling extra flush after your tax returns and looking to upgrade to 512GB from the default 128GB. As for what top of the line means these days, that, too, has changed. Samsung was ahead of the curve by introducing multiple 5G phones last year. At the time, the handsets were, understandably, confined to the top tier, due to both cost of hardware and the general lack of global coverage.

For 2020, it’s 5G across the board, on all S20 models, so the kitchen sink Ultra needs to find ways to further set itself apart from the S20+. There are a few keys areas in which the Ultra sets itself apart. First and most immediate is size. Along with increased prices, the other thing you can count on, like clockwork, is bigger displays. The good news is that Samsung’s hardware advances have kept the footprint roughly the size of the last generation of devices.

Samsung continues to impress on that front, this time sneaking a roomy 6.9-inch display into a 166.9 x 76 x 8.8 mm; compare that to the 162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm on the 6.7-inch S10 5G. The thick profile is almost certainly due to a larger battery. The 4,500 mAh found on last year’s device and this year’s S20+ is upgraded to a beefy 5,000 mAh.

Samsung remains conservative with its own expected battery life, owing to power-hungry features like the big AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and the 5G radio. The company rates the phone as “all-day battery.” It’s a pretty nebulous phrase, all things considered. I suspect there’s still research to be done on the adverse impact of next-gen radios on battery life. With the default settings on (and little to no 5G, owing at least somewhat to some network issues), I found I got about 28 total hours on a charge.

[gallery ids="1951109,1951110,1951111,1951112,1951114"]

That certainly qualifies for the “all-day” mark, even if it’s a bit disappointing given the massive battery size. But it should definitely get you through a day and then some, with no issues. The other good news on that front is super-fast charging if you use the included wall adapter. I was able to go from zero to fully charged in just under a minute.

The design language is pretty much identical on all three S20s, and honestly, largely unchanged from last year’s model, though Samsung has moved to a hole-punch camera (a generous 40 megapixels for selfies) up front. Flip it around and the biggest difference is immediately apparent. The camera module on the Ultra is, well, ultra. There are four cameras back there, in a lip that occupies about a sixth of the phone’s total surface area.

The S20+’s more than adequate 12MP, 64MP telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight sensor have been bumped up to a 108MP main, 48MP 10x telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight. The ToF, mind you, is absent on the plain-old S20, bringing an added sense of depth for bokeh effects and fun tricks like 3D scanning. One also gets the sense that Samsung is very much laying the groundwork for an even stronger play in the AR world, extending beyond the current selection of AR emoji. Though, as with the rest of the industry, mainstream implementation is still slow going.

The biggest thing here — both figuratively and literally — is the telephoto. The camera features a folded telephoto, which is essentially turned on its side to fit the form factor. The camera is capable of a solid 10x hybrid zoom. Using a combination of the hardware and software, the company is able to achieve the 100x “Space Zoom,” versus the other models’ 30x max. It’s impressive all around, but important to note that the claims of “losslessness” only extend to 10x.

Beyond that, things start to degrade. And honestly, by the time you get to 100x, things start looking like a digital Monet painting. You can generally make out the objects, but in most cases, it’s probably not something you’re going to rush out to share on Instagram. For things like nosebleed seats at concerts or sporting events, however, sometimes it’s just enough to remember you’re there.

Honestly, though, I think Samsung is laying the groundwork for future updates, as it is with the ToF sensor. It’s easy to imagine how a 100x zoom coupled with some future imaging AI could lead to some pretty impressive telephoto shots, without the need for an external, optical lens. For now, however, it feels like more of a novelty. Honestly, a number of the upgrades over the S20+ feel a bit like excesses, and none but true devotees need to go all in with the Ultra.

My only momentary hesitation in recommending one of the lower-tier devices over the Ultra are questions of what happens to battery life when you dip below 5,000 mAh. The 120Hz screen is great for things like gaming, but for most users, I’d recommended keeping it off most of the time. That should buy you an extra couple of hours of life, switching to 120Hz when needed and back to 60 the rest of the time.

Ditto for the 108-megapixel camera. For most photos it makes sense to utilize pixel binning, which makes for a small 12-megapixel shot, but allows for a lot more light to be let in on a per pixel basis. Photo are brighter and sharper and the phone does better in low light. Also, the image isn’t gigantic — I forgot to swap the setting for a few photos and didn’t realize how massive they were until I sent them.

The best new photo feature, however, isn’t hardware at all. I’ve long posited that the key to a good imaging feature is simplicity. Cameras keep getting better and offer more features for those who want to shoot more professional photos on their mobile devices. That’s great, and if you’re Google, it means that the legendary Annie Leibovitz will show up to your launch event and sing your device’s praises.

But unless something works out of the box, it’s going to be of little use to a majority of consumers. Single Take is a clever addition to default camera settings that takes a whole bunch of different types of photos at once (provided you can stand still for 10 seconds). You get Live Focus, Timelapse and Ultra-Wide all at once. The camera saves everything to the roll, where you can choose the best image. It’s a larger file, but not huge in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t want to be a digital hoarder, you can always just go in and manually delete them.

The biggest updates to the S20 line feel like future-proofing. Elements like like 5G, 100x zoom and 8K video record don’t always make a ton of sense as of this writing, but much of Samsung’s biggest plays have been centered around getting out in front of the curve. With 5G, for example, there are still coverage barriers, but with users holding onto their handsets for longer, it’s almost certain that the next-gen wireless technology will be ubiquitous before the time comes for many users to upgrade.

In its current state, however, charging $1,399 and up for the Ultra is a pretty hard ask. Thankfully, however, Samsung has more than enough options for users looking for something a little cheaper. It’s a list that now includes the S10 Lite line and newly discounted standard S10 devices. Features like 100x, on the other hand, are novel, but it’s hard to justify the premium.

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2SZrQza ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[anneedmonds]

Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets

I always have such good intentions for this monthly life update post (in fact even writing the first part of this sentence seems very deja vu), but however hard I try to do things in advance I always end up compiling it at the nth hour on the 3rd day of the month. (It has been on the 3rd day of the month since Ted was born; before that it was the 17th of every month, Angelica’s birthday. I have never failed to publish my post before midnight on the right day – I’m borderline superstitious about it now.)

Many people would have thrown out the whole “stick to the same date every month” rule years ago, no doubt finding it ridiculously restrictive and unnecessarily stressful. But I seem to be at my most productive when life is ridiculously restrictive and unnecessarily stressful so go figure – if I didn’t have a set date for my life updates then you probably wouldn’t be reading these very words. I’d just never get around to it, like my cookery videos and the post about sunscreens that’s been languishing in drafts since May 2013.

(By the way, if you want to catch up on all of the life updates – and there are almost four years’ worth now – then you can find them by clicking here and browsing backwards to reach the older posts.)

After that semi-apologetic introduction, which is now pretty much mandatory, let’s get down to business. Or pleasure. Or a mixture of both. I can tell you what hasn’t been a pleasure and that is the twelve days (and counting) of suffering from minor ailments that have been popping up with almost comical regularity. It’s become a standing joke, almost, that every morning brings a new gripe and I can’t tell whether I’m missing some sort of vital nutrient or mineral and need urgent fixing or if this is just what it feels like to get older.

Do I moan and demand that the GP takes my ailments seriously (“but how do you know that my stomach acid isn’t something to do with my eye strain and my running nose and they’re not all related and I have one great big super-illness?”) or do I moan (default setting) and accept that multiple ailments, aches and pains are just an inconvenient way of life. And be grateful that I’m generally well. And alive.

I mean I am always acutely grateful to be alive and not have any serious illness or disease – I’m actually very mindful of checking myself in that respect and reminding myself that every day is an absolute blessing, but by God it’s hard to keep perspective when you can’t breathe through your nose, isn’t it? If there’s one thing that makes me furious with the world it’s a blocked-up nose. Few things are more cruel. Being forced to mouth-breathe through the night, as the inside of your throat dries into something resembling an ancient piece of parchment from Caesar’s journal and then feels as though it’s been set alight, is one of life’s great injustices. Why someone hasn’t invented a sort of irrigation/misting system for the mouth I do not know; a little tube, perhaps, that just spritzes the tongue and throat with water when you have a cold – or better still, a glycerin/honey kind of affair that stops tickly coughs in their path and provides lubrication.

Coming soon on Dragons’ Den.

Anyway, the toothache/headache/stomachache/bottomache/throatache/cough has been exhausting and I would just like a whole week off. To reset. Preferably somewhere hot but not too hot (Greece? Spain?) and with a kids’ club run by Mary Poppins. Or the Greek/Spanish equivalent. Maria Haciendo Estallar. (Google translate has possibly let me down there.)

But enough of me, I must leave some time to talk about Headstrong Ted (two years and four months old) and Pre-Teen Angelica (turning four in a couple of weeks). They are chatting away to one another now, Angelica in perfect, surprisingly crisp English and Ted in his own strange little alien language that likes to elongate vowels and completely miss off the beginning consonants from words. “Ooooo!” is zoo. “Armer!” is farmer. “Iraffe!” is giraffe. But we now have sentences, sort of, or at least the seeds of sentences – the intention’s all there.

“Go! Go! Gaga’s ‘oom! ‘Ide! ‘Olf!” is, obviously, “Go! Go! Angelica’s room! Hide! Wolf!”

Apple is “pull”. Snack is “ack” and baby is “dee dee”. And all of this is monumentally boring to other people so I can’t quite believe I’m writing it. Next I’ll be telling you about the knee operation that my Mum’s brother-in-law’s friend had before Christmas and how he’ll always set off the beeper at the airport. I am turning into the woman I always dreaded, though I haven’t started wearing fleece tops or saving eggshells. Why do people save eggshells? I want to say it’s something to do with slugs but I’ve had a large glass of quite a fine Chianti (no fava beans!) and my brain has gone soft.

Oh but I do have to tell you about my favourite Angelica-isms. Can I? I promise I’ll be quick. She now  understands just about everything so I rarely have to stop to explain – in fact a lot of the time she can tell if I’m oversimplifying things for her and she pulls me up on it. So it makes it even funnier when she gets things wrong. My favourite is this one:

“Mummy I’m going to paint my face but not poke the brush in my eye bulbs.”

Eye bulbs! I think I prefer eyebulbs to eyeballs – I may adopt it. At any rate I can’t bear to correct her because it’s so sweet. She still says coldsnore for coleslaw, and then there’s the one that had me in stitches the other day: Muffin Puppets. Guess what Muffin Puppets are? She was desperate to watch a film we had saved on Amazon Prime and it was about Christmas with the Muffin Puppets. I had absolutely no idea what she was on about. “You know Mummy, the Muffin Puppets at Christmas. With Scrooge.”

She was talking about the Muppets. Muffin Puppets!

If someone doesn’t form a band and call it that I’ll be very upset. Maybe Angelica should form a band – her and Ted are becoming quite the duo when it comes to singing their little ditties and putting on dance performances. Granted, Ted just sort of spins about on the spot and then falls over, but Angelica is full-on Sylvia Young jazz-hand material. She even introduces herself in a (slightly creepy) man’s voice before she begins her show. “Ladies and Gentlemen, my performance is about to begin.”

One of the things that I wanted to write about this month was how intense it was all becoming, looking after two small kids. Sometimes I feel as though we’re on a treadmill and it’s stuck on the highest setting and we just can’t stop running, you can’t even shift your gaze to the control panel to find the slow-down button, let alone reach a hand towards it.  You’re desperate for someone capable to lean over and adjust the speed, give you some breathing space, but it’s relentless. I thought that the newborn phase was hard, and it is, but for such different reasons. Because it’s new, because you don’t sleep, because your brain and body are completely mangled. But then they get older and the guilt becomes a thing, and you have to try and navigate your way through disciplining and educating and trying to instil in them the values and behavioural traits that you find acceptable and it’s a BLOODY MINEFIELD!

Why is there not a course on this? Parenting? I mean for the love of God! You learn about algebra (haven’t needed it once) and you learn how to read maps (hello? Sat nav?!) and you do classes on 1066 at Hastings and the six wives of Henry VIII and all sorts of things that are inarguably interesting; but surely there should be some basic bits and pieces on kids? Like what you should do when you shout at them and they just laugh in your face, or what to do when NO, NO, I SAID NO! doesn’t work, or how to get yourself out of the black hole of doom that is the “using ice cream and treats as bribes for good behaviour” hole.

I’m sure it’s all basic psychology, but it’s the sort of stuff I needed drilled into me from teen years onwards; I don’t have the energy to learn it all now. It needed to be second nature. If I took my eye off the ball for long enough to read up about parenting now, the cat would probably have been shoved into the oven and the walls would be bright green with bits of dried pasta glued all over them. And we’d have no floor, because Ted would have picked the lock on the cupboard with the cleaning products in, managed to mix two highly flammable solutions together and blown a hole in the ground. All in the space of nineteen seconds, which is the time frame in which he can achieve pretty much anything, including climbing two flights of stairs, mounting a window sill ledge and unlatching a window that requires the skill and dexterity of a professional bank robber.

Right, I’m onto my second glass of red which is almost unheard of for me, but it has been a testing kind of week(s). Not that I’m going to make a habit of it – two glasses and I’m a felled woman the following day, I can barely tie my shoelaces. But I have a new book to read and it’s a sort of biography and I feel that it calls for slight tipsiness and perhaps some light weeping. I’m too embarrassed to tell you what the book is at the moment, it’s a daft sort of thing, but I do feel a separate post coming on. I have a weird connection with the woman in question – perhaps it’s a nostalgia thing – so I’m really looking forward to curling up and getting stuck in.

On that mysterious note, I bid you all farewell until later on in the week, which is how long it will take me to recover from my two glasses of wine! So it’s goodnight (or morning, depending on when you’re reading) from me and goodnight from the Muffin Puppets – if you have any funny malapropisms of your own then please do pop them into the comments below. They don’t even have to be kid ones – my parents still call memory foam mattresses the “Tempura Mattress”.

The post Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets was first posted on June 3, 2019 at 10:00 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[barb404gamings-blog]

Top 3 Ways To Buy A Practiced GAMING

Computer Gaming Weblog

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Taking a look at other aspects of mobile gaming, such as the surge in reputation of mobile smartphone and tablet controllers” that hook onto your device to give you a lot more control over your in-game character, and you have access to a comparable level of handle that you would encounter on a Pc or console. Gone are the days of mobile players trying to manage their game through touchscreen controls only, opening up even much more gaming space on devices whose screens are not only becoming larger but also clearer with more pixels than ever ahead of.

GAMING: This Is What Professionals Do

Get some good ideas for blog posts from these retro gaming posts Starting a gaming weblog is a wonderful way to pursue anything you happen to be interested in. Begin your gaming weblog currently and join a terrific on the web community. The French video game publisher Ubisoft has produced a spot for itself in the best gaming organizations through strategic acquisition of some of the most talented development studios. The corporation has a rich portfolio of renowned brands like Just Dance, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Rayman, and Watch Dogs.

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One more player tends to make a turn which is sub-par, it is not terrible, but also perhaps not optimal, and you can see there is one more move they could do. Just since you can see the ideal move, does not imply you have to point it out to the player. There is nothing at all incorrect with being quiet and letting other players make their moves. Continually pointing out the finest move, can take some sense of ownership away from other players, and dilute the gaming knowledge for them.

[reviewkidoodle]

Best Purchases of 2018

Here’s the post I’ve been meaning to write for a month and a half. Last year I started my now annual “Best Purchases” post from the previous year. I figure having certain items long enough warrants enough time to give them a fair review. Some of the items on this year’s list were purchased in 2018 although we didn’t start using them till this year but I’m still including them because I love them so much.

One || Our Patio Set

These pieces were individual purchases (two separate loveseats and a chair set which included the coffee table) so you could purchase as many or as few as the pieces as you’d like. After months of use they were very comfortable and I didn’t notice any adverse wear on the cushions (except from kids bringing food over to them). The cushions stayed the perfect firmness and we had only one or two spots where the wicker popped up… I was nervous there was going to be a lot more with four kids!

I’d HIGHLY recommend this set. I’d also highly recommend these covers for them, they are a little big which makes putting them on a breeze (no struggling to put ones that fit them like a glove on).

        You can read the full post about the patio set here.

Two and Three || Apron Front Sink and Bridge Faucet

While we bought these months ago we’ve only been using them for a few weeks but so far I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. They both feel really sturdy and well-made. The sink has SO MUCH ROOM IN IT and I love that it came with a grate to protect the bottom of the sink. The prices on these two items are really affordable in comparison to similar items.

Four|| DW Home Gardenia Candle

If my home had a signature scent this would be it. I find all my DW Home Gardenia candles at Marshalls but in case you can’t here is the link to the Amazon one. It’s about $8 more than you’ll spend on it at Marshalls.

Five || Therapedic Weighted Blanket

Therapedic sent me some products in October or November that they wanted help getting the word out about. I just needed to do an Instagram post and a stories about them but I can’t stop talking about them (you’ll see another one of the items made the list in the clothing section). This weighted blanket is so different from anything we’ve ever had but we love it. I think I sleep better and deeper, it keeps me SO warm and generally is one of my favorite blankets EVER. The first few nights are so weird and I hate when it’s laying on my throat but otherwise it’s INCREDIBLE. My guess is that it’ll be a colder weather item for our bed because it really keeps you warm. The downside to it is that it’s pricey but I’d say it’s highly worth it (we have the large size which weighs 20 pounds but I’d get the extra large if you are putting it on a queen bed like we are).

Six|| J. Crew Chambray Dress

I wore this dress on repeat all summer. This unfortunately isn’t the best photo but it was so comfortable and was great to transition from spring to summer and summer to fall. It’s 50% off now too. (There are a lot of dresses from J. Crew Factory that are 50% off now that I’m in love with…)

This dress is almost identical, it just has scalloped sleeves instead of a tie on them.

Seven || Make + Model Joggers

I asked my sister for these pants for my birthday. When she got them about four months ago they had different colors but I’m in love with them. I wear them constantly. They are ridiculously soft and comfy. There are two downsides: the ride pretty low (careful sitting down!) and they pill very easily (I think mine show the pills easily because they are a very light blue so I’d highly recommend the dark blue or black joggers).

Eight || Jo Malone Orange Blossom Perfume

You’ve read my ravings about this perfume before. My mom and dad gave this to me for my birthday this year because I finally ran out of my original bottle and I’ve been in love with it for about eight years since I started using it. The smallest sized bottle lasts me for years.

Nine || Therapedic Memory Foam Slippers

I have worn these slippers EVERY SINGLE DAY since I got them, including this very second. They are under $20, so comfy and really keep my feet warm! (Though Therapedic sent me these free of charge I do not have to promote them… I’m only doing it because they are easily one of my favorite new things from this year.)

Ten || Siblings without Rivalry and Crazy Rich Asians

The fact is not lost on me that I’m recommending two completely different books in the same sentence. Crazy Rich Asians is hysterical and fluffy and about so much stuff that doesn’t matter. There are a few trashy parts but for the most part it’s pretty clean. If you want a good book to escape in this is it… I loved it so much I just started Rich People Problems (also hysterical but haven’t read China Rich Girlfriend yet).

Siblings without Rivalry is amazing. It is making me rethink everything about how I interact with the kids, how I want them to interact together and what I saw in front of them and about them that might be hurting them.

        Eleven || Our Double Stroller(s)

This is the stroller that I take everywhere with us (it’s not our jogging stroller which I really adore though (sidenote: we have the single and double BOB jogging stroller and I cannot recommend them highly enough, they’ve last us YEARS, the expensive price is 100% worth it)). This is the stroller that gets us through Target and the grocery store. You’d be surprised at how many groceries you can fit underneath this thing… We chose it because it had great reviews and was pretty affordable!

Everyday stroller

Bob Stroller

Lastly, bonus item:

I got the a Mariposa platter just like this about two years ago and I am in LOVE with it and use it all the time. They are normally VERY expensive but I found the almost identical one to ours for $20 on Amazon, I don’t know if it’s a mistake Amazon made in pricing because they are normally $150ish but I just bought one for $20 this morning and there are only 10 left I think. It would make SUCH a good gift!

Have a great day and don’t forget to check out these posts (especially if you still have coffee in that mug to enjoy!):

2017 Best Purchases

Our Countertop Install

Our Updated House Tour

 The post Best Purchases of 2018 appeared first on Migonis Home.

Best Purchases of 2018 posted first on aireloomreview.blogspot.com

[philipfloyd]

Do Private Blog Networks (PBNs) Still Work in 2018? Should You Build One?

If you use SEO to promote your website, you most probably have heard of PBNs (Private Blog Networks). The concept isn’t very difficult to understand (although it is difficult to execute), but with the overload of information out there, you might be conflicted.

  Do PBNs still work in 2018? Are there any risks? Well, the short answers are yes and yes. So should you build one? That’s up to you. However, this article has to purpose to help you make an educated decision. This won’t be a guide on how to build one; however, if you’ve thought about building a PBN for your websites, then make sure you’re giving this a good read.

    What Is a PBN?

Do PBNs Still Work?

How Google tricked everyone and was always one step ahead

The fine line between PBN and owning multiple sites

PBN Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages

Disadvantages

Should You Build a PBN in 2018?

  Disclaimer: Just to get things straight from the start, we do NOT recommend building a PBN. They are risky and against Google’s terms of service. They also cost both time and money which you could be investing in safer and more efficient, evergreen tactics.

  What Is a PBN?

  PBN stands for Private Blog Network. Long story short, it’s a group of websites that a webmaster owns for the sole purpose of boosting the rank of other websites.

  These networks fall into the BlackHat SEO link building tactics category. Obviously, at first, they didn’t. But after people started abusing them, Google took action. Before 2014, PBNs were the stuff. The hype was high and everyone started building them. Everyone wanted to get in for the ride.

  That was until Google completely destroyed a few PBN services and some popular marketing bloggers’ PBNs. Here’s just one example of a single PBN service out of many that have fallen:

    The truth is that PBNs are nothing more than Web 2.0s on steroids. Instead of using subdomains from WordPress.com and Blogger, you use expired domains that already have authority built to them. If you purchase the right expired domains and build the network properly, you can get yourself a nice asset.

  In order to avoid getting caught by Google, BlackHat SEOs have to constantly hide their traces. What a tiresome struggle… This list of traces can contain:

  Whois Info: If you have 10 domains that all link to one another and are all registered publicly under the same name, everyone is going to know it’s a PBN. Now most of the time the details aren’t public and you can also purchase Whois protection for extra fees (sometimes offered for free) but I’ve heard stories of Google having access to Whois info anyway.

  IP Address & Hosting: If more websites are on the same IP, they’re definitely connected in some way. That’s why shared hosting accounts are dangerous. If someone spams that IP address, you’re also on the list. You can purchase dedicated IPs for each domain to fix this. (Not only for PBN sites. Do this for all your sites. It helps keep things safe.)

  Company name and contact details: Some countries legally require you to post this information if you monetize your site in any way (you do, since it’s part of your marketing strategy, so if someone reports you, you risk getting fined).

  Design, Code, Formatting, Content: Many times, people simply duplicate these websites by copy pasting and changing some basic aspects, like colors and logo. However, the platforms and themes they use are always the same.

  Analytics Accounts: Have 10 sites under the same Analytics Account? Good luck evading Google.

  Script IDs: If you have different tools that require tracking, you’ll need separate subscriptions for each and every one of them, otherwise anyone could figure out the connection between two sites.

  Now these are the most basic ones and they are often publicly available. However, some people say (including me) that Google might be looking at other things as well:

  E-mail accounts: Register anything under the same e-mail, especially if it’s a Gmail and you’ll end up linking everything to it. One mistake and you can compromise it.

  Location: Have you logged into the same e-mail account or worked on all your PBN sites under the same IP at home? Good job, you just told Google you own them. You need proxies and proxies to keep things clean.

  Doesn’t this sound sort of like a hacker or criminal hiding his !@% from the police? I actually never understood why Google doesn’t try to make these things illegal. I mean… if you’re spamming the internet and accessing the website with bots without the owner’s permission… If you’re constantly pretending to be someone else… Shouldn’t this kind of stuff be fined? I guess they either can’t or they just want people to keep doing them.

  Now call me paranoid, but we use so many services from Google, such as Chrome, Analytics, MyBusiness and Gmail. They’re all owned by Google. Am I saying that Google is reading your e-mail to figure out if you have a PBN or if you’re buying links? No. But… Maybe?

  Your Gmail account is probably connected to your smartphone. You have the internet connection on everywhere these days, so Google knows your location. You and another webmaster appear at the same location and 2 hours before your websites start linking to each other? Just saying…

  Those are just speculations but think of it: If you wanted not to be caught owning two different hosting accounts, would you register under the same e-mail? Most definitely not. I’m not saying that someone from Google is reading your private e-mails and spying through your webcam. I’m just saying that there is a possibility that some sort of algorithm is out there, tracing administrative relationships between websites.

  Do PBNs Still Work?

  You’re probably wondering if PBNs still work. How much has Google evolved and how good is it at catching these schemes in 2018?

  Well, despite what many people think after 2014, PBNs still work and they will work as long as backlinks are a ranking factor, something that won’t change very soon.

  How Google tricked everyone and was always one step ahead

  When PBNs started to become popular, I’m sure that both parties were somewhat terrified. The webmasters of getting caught and Google of people discovering the ultimate BlackHat SEO technique.

  However, Google was also one step ahead. I’ll explain:

  You see, as mentioned before, Google cares about backlinks. Link building is still a very important ranking factor. They’ve tried removing the links from the algorithm, but apparently, the search engine results are worse:

    A PBN can’t really be detected if it’s done properly. There’s simply no way of finding out, or at least being sure. Everybody links to other websites. People know each other, they talk and they give links. If you banned solely on patterns, innocent people doing White Hat SEO might get hurt. You might as well ban everyone, right?

  So what did Google do? How did they catch the ones that were truly thinking of building a PBN as a BlackHat way of ranking their money sites high? Well… they didn’t.

  Instead, Google targeted a few popular PBN services and some popular marketing bloggers that were using them and blogging about them.

  Today we took action on a large guest blog network. A reminder about the spam risks of guest blogging: http://t.co/rc9O82fjfn

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) March 19, 2014

  But how? How could Google possibly identify an entire network of private websites, built by professionals and experts in the BlackHat SEO industry? Well… it’s an easy answer. They bought the service. It’s that simple.

  I mean… everyone could. Even Matt Cutts. Just order the service and know exactly what PBN sites are used. Worst part? Many people and local business owners had to suffer. Their websites got penalized and they did not even know how, because their SEO companies acted as intermediaries and bought the PBN service instead. It happens all the time: “Guaranteed #1 position.” and also guaranteed “It wasn’t me boss” in case of penalty.

  How did Google get to the marketing bloggers? I have no idea, but I’m sure they were targeted. Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that immediately after, many popular marketing and SEO bloggers got their PBNs penalized, while hundreds of other unknown players kept saying that they worked? Had it been just a Google update and no manual verification, it could’ve been a disaster.

  After getting penalized, both Spencer Haws and Pat Flynn (two very popular niche site builders and bloggers, you should check them out) turned 180 degrees, writing about how much time and money they put into their PBNs just to lose everything in one second. And then the almighty phrase started showing up everywhere: “PBNs are DEAD!” No… they’re not. They’re just very risky. However, people stopped jumping head first into it.

  The fine line between PBN and owning multiple sites

  I collaborated with a pretty big nutrition and fitness company. It was really hard work as I did all the content and promotion (although I had nothing to do with bodybuilding). Anyway, I did a lot of research before writing anything and managed to pull up great quality content that increased the organic traffic of the website by 30% in under 6 months.

  Bragging aside, one thing that was really difficult about that particular project was that there were simply no websites to get links from. Why? Because almost all the websites were owned by 3-4 companies that were direct competitors. At least that’s what my boss told me, but I tend to believe him since he’d been in the market for over 10 years.

  I started doing some research to find link opportunities and found out that these websites were all linking to one another.

  See where I’m going with this?

  While the fact that I had nowhere to get links from was frustrating, the fact that I discovered a PBN was fascinating.

  There was just only one issue:

  This wasn’t really a PBN. Nobody was getting penalized. I even reported this to John Mueller but my request was completely ignored. Why? Well… probably because the websites were completely legitimate businesses, with their own phone numbers, teams and services. You could very well order products from them and they would send them to you under their name.

  And that’s when I started thinking that the PBN issue is much bigger than it seems. Is that really a PBN? Not sure… Can Google detect it and consider it a PBN? Probably. Should it penalize it? I don’t think so.

  I believe that multiple websites from the same company can create a network that dominates the first pages of Google. On multiple positions.

  I did a little research just to prove that this is the case for various markets and countries. While looking into the motorcycle niche, after only 2-3 searches, I bumped into this motorcycle news website (motorcyclenews.com) that ranks very well for some keywords.

  I then used SpyOnWeb.com to determine if any other websites are linked to it via IP or some code. Turns out that many are. The relationship has been established through the Google Adsense account.

    Then, I used cognitiveSEO’s site explorer to take a quick look at what websites are linking to it:

    I only searched some websites that are in the same niche, like performancebikes.co.uk, ride.co.uk, classicbike.co.uk and mcnsport.co.uk. They all link to motorcyclenews.com. These are only 4 sites, but there could be others that are not so easily correlated.

  Could this be considered a PBN? Maybe. But they’re all legitimate, authority sites that sell bikes or offer some sort of service. All of them generate organic traffic, offer interesting and good quality content and some even have physical, printed magazines.

  Is that unethical anymore? Should it be against Google’s TOS?

  Imagine that you build a very successful coffee shop. How do you expand? Do you make the same shop bigger and bigger until it eats up the whole city? No, you open a new one in another city and another city and so on. But do you make cheaper, worse coffee and just recommend people to your main shop in the primary city if they want to drink the good one? Of course not. You serve them the best you can if you want them to stay. And when they visit the initial city, they’ll know where to go.

  It’s the same with these websites. Sure, you can’t call them all Starbucks, but you can build new ones all the time when you want to expand and they’ll all survive and thrive as long as they all provide quality to the users. And not even interlinking or using the same IP will be able to get them penalized.

  Google’s only request is to provide quality to the users, so that they keep coming to Google to search and find YOU, because that’s how Google survives. If bad websites rank at the top because of some PBN scheme, people won’t like Google anymore.

  Most PBNs are websites that lack design, personality and usefulness. They just fill the web and use Google’s resources (for crawling, indexing and other things).

  However, if these websites are good, I don’t think anyone will have a problem. You can’t even call them a private blog network, at least not in the BlackHat SEO way of saying. In my opinion, it’s perfectly White Hat to have multiple high quality websites.

  However, you can still get penalized…

  PBN Advantages & Disadvantages

  Although PBNs do have advantages, in our opinion, the disadvantages overweight them so we do not recommend that you build a PBN.

  However, we will outline them, just to make sure you’ll get a good overview of things. 

  Advantages:

  More efficient with ranking: From all the BlackHat SEO techniques, PBNs are probably the most efficient. The better the expired domain names you purchase, the faster you’ll see the results.

Harder to get caught: Also, it will take some time until you get caught, if you get caught. You’ll have to be always looking over your shoulder and erase your every trace. It’s not an easy lifestyle, but it’s safer than blasting links with GSA Search Engine Ranker.

Easy in theory: Buy expired domains at a domain auction, build websites and put content on them, cover up all traces, link to money site. The part with covering up all traces is a little bit more difficult, but you’ll get the hang of it. That is if Google doesn’t hang you first.

Extra profit: You can also profit off PBNs by selling links to other websites. As long as they’re not direct competitors, it doesn’t really matter. However, keep in mind that this exposes you to risks. Someone could compromise your network.

Full control: This one is the best one. I have to admit…. don’t you just like it when you’re in control? No more “Here’s my nice content, will you link to it?”

  Disadvantages:

  High cost: At first it might sound cheap. Some shared hosting, a couple of IPs, some domain names and some content. Couple of hundred bucks? Well… make that double. Then multiply it by 50. If you really want to do this the right way, you’ll need good hosting, tons of IPs, proxies and tools. Sure, you could only be spending $1.000 on your network if you’re in a low competition market, but will the investment be worth? For high competitiveness you need to buy expired domains that have a high authority and you need a lot of them, at least 10-25. You also need to make sure they aren’t spammed. They can go for thousands of dollars each and we haven’t discussed the content yet. You think 500 word spinned articles will do the job? Think again, or the Panda’s gonna catch you.

Takes a long time: Although when you start linking the results are seen rather fast, the whole setup process is time consuming. You start with one site, then expand, but each takes time.

Difficult to manage: You’ll also have to constantly take care of your network. Excluding the content that you need to keep posting, each site comes with its own problems like SPAM, hackers, bills… and remember you have to do them all under a different name, IP and probably device as well, just to make sure.

Can get caught: The worst part is obviously that you always have the risk of getting caught. Is it worth investing all this time and money for it?

  Should You Build a PBN in 2018?

  This really depends on who you are as a person. Do you like taking risks? Do you care about Google’s TOS? Some people see Google as this evil entity that controls the internet and would love to profit off it.

  You see, the truth is that great websites on Google, that always rank at the top, don’t need to build PBNs.

Webmasters that provide great content, that network and connect, that promote their content, products and services properly don’t need to use any kind of schemes to get to the top.

They will always be there or at least they will get there at some point, because the users dictate this.

  So should you build a PBN? Probably not. We consider it to be wiser to spend all that money and time to develop one website first. Then you can expand to another website and another one and have your little legit network of high quality websites.

Spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on simply buying expired domains and filling them with content you don’t really care about instead of spending it into user experience, quality content creation, promotion and better services doesn’t seem very wise.

  At the end of the day, it’s a mix of time, skill and luck that decidess whether you’ll get caught with a PBN or not. You might get caught after the first 2 weeks. You might never be caught and even your grand grandchildren will use your PBNs to profit. However…

  If you’re in for the long run SEO game, you’d better stay away from PBNs and focus on evergreen White Hat SEO techniques.

  Search Engines are always evolving and getting better at detecting tricks every day. Why not focus on playing fair and actually improve the skills that truly matter? Why waste your time with learning how to hide when you can learn how to create better experiences?

  Whatever side you’re on, we’re curious about your experience with private blog networks. Have you ever owned one? Have you ever tried a PBN service? Have you got penalized? Do you still own one and does it still work? Let us know in the comments. 

The post Do Private Blog Networks (PBNs) Still Work in 2018? Should You Build One? appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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[1400762-collaborative-project]

Weekly Journal

Weekly Journal

Week 1 (September 26th -30th)

Over the summer holidays I got a headstard on my idea. I want to do a story about a little Prince trapped in a tower who gets rescued by a female knight. I was thinking how sad it must be for princesses that are trapped in towers and how alone and depressed they must be, and I thought that their struggles must be as tough as the struggles that the knight endures to find her, but no-one ever thinks about how the princess feels. The gender reversal happened just because I thought 'why not? What's stopping it from being a prince instead?' then I thought it would be a sad twist that the reason why he doesn't get rescued is because he is not a princess. All the strong knights want pretty princesses that they can marry and flaunt, not a little boy to save. So I stated to make an animatic for it very early on in the summer, because I knew that this would be a big project. I really want to do an animation which tests my storytelling skills and the point of that is having enough time to create a story and tell it. I don't just want to rush everything and tell the story, I want to learn the best ways to tell it, concerning visuals, sound, timing, 'show don't tell', all of that. From the briefing it seems as though I wont have enough time to do the full animation but I will see what I can do, I really want to create something that can test my narrative skills, not just the animating skills.

Week 2 (October 3rd – 7th )

I went to see Peter to show him my animatic and see what he thought about it. I don't think I will be able to animate the whole thing for the deadline. I didn't realise that only half of the year was dedicated to our personal showcase so I'm a little disappointed that I don't have the whole year to focus on it. Peter really liked the animatic I had so far and really liked the story, but he felt that something emotional was missing. The basics were there, showing the princes lonliness but I wanted it to be more sad, darker, I really want my audience to sympathise with this prince. He advised I go see Helen Schroeder as she has a lot of knowledge on storyboarding and is working on the storyboards for Watership Down. Helen mainly had questions, which is a good thing because if I'm to learn how to tell a story to an audience, I don't want the questioning things they don't need to. The first thing she thought was 'where is his food coming from?' I'd thought about this but didn't bother to think about it because I hoped people wont notice, but I suppose that if I noticed then anyone could. If I figure out a way to show how he gets food then it will likely make the character and the story feel a lot more real. She also said I should come up with a backstory about why he's there and where he's from. The audience doesn't need to know this but it will help me understand my own character better. Nice advice, I will have to think about it and improve my story.

Week 3 (October 10th – 14th )

While thinking about my animatic I've also been working on a walk cycle of my prince. I'd also like to do one for my knight but I will have to see if I have enough time. I like it so far, I love animating a characters sketch work, I have so much fun and I can really feel the movement. But I struggle so much with the clean up and colouring, something about my animation syule feels inconsistent. I don't know if it's me being sloppy or it's normal but I want to work on it because every animation that I've done, I've loved until I've gotten to the colouring, and then I just feel as though I mess it up because I'm an incompetent colourist. It's strange through because I love colouring still images and comics, I'm actually quite proud of my line art and colouring when it comes to comics, I don't know why I struggle so much with animation. I went to see Lynsey to talk about my dissertation thoughts and look at the kind of chapters I want to write. She said I should get down what I want my chapters to be and then start writing the first one just so that I have some words down. My essay is about cartoons and other pieces of media sending bad messages to an audience so I'll look at what things I want to discuss specifically and see if I can put them into relevant chapters.

Week 4 (October 17th – 21st )

I showed Helen my walk cycle and she also agreed that I need to work on the consistency of my animation. She said that things like the legs were thicker in other frames and thinners in others. She also said that his head is bobbing up and down too much. She said that it was good, though, which is why she is 'nitpicking', so that's reassuring. I went in to see Phil Archer in the sound room also and asked him for some advice on music. I have never touched music writing in my life, I once tried to play guitar in year seven but never kept up and I have no idea how to make music, I don't know what chords are, I don't understand how people put notes together in a way that sounds appealing, but apparently I thought it would be a good idea to write my own song for my animatic. I think knowing the basics of making music is a really good skill to have, especially in animation where sound can go a long way, and I feel as though one of the things that could hold me back from making more films is the fact that I can't make backing music. So the idea of making my own music for this animatic is really exciting to me and I hope will give me some good skills. I went in to see Phil and he was kind enough to give me a lesson on the beginning of the basics, he explained chords and notes to me and I really enjoyed myself learning something completely new to me. I went back home and now I'm actually trying to write my own song on FL Studio. So far it's very basic but it has the kind of 'happy' Disney tune to it that I want and considering I've never made a song before, I'm proud of myself. I will go back to Phil again for another lesson and hopefully he can take a look at what I have so far.

We had our briefing for the Collaborative project and have decided our group. I worked with Tia and Adzie last year for the final project and we had so much fun and really loved what we created, so we agreed to working together again, but we have included Jordan and Catherine. Tia, Adzie and myself are all 2D artists, Catherin is stopmotion and Jordan is 3D, so we were thinking about creating something with mixed media similar to 'The Amazing World of Gumball” style. We are hoping to meed up often so tat we can discuss our idea and our job roles.

Week 5 (October 24th – 28th )

I changed up my animatic. It focuses a lot more on the Prince growing up in the tower and trying to cope than the knight finding him. I realised that the majority of the last animatic was time spent having the knight take the prince away, when more focus and time needs to be on the prince himself. I've resolved the issue of food and created an outside presence that sends him food under a hatch in his wall which he gets daily. I showed this update to Peter and he felt this was a lot better, he felt he connected better with the character in this animatic and that it shows his struggle, isolation and loneliness in more detail. I'm so much happier with this version, I still have yet to finish the new ending but so far I find myself also being more attached to this character than I was before. I haven't shown Helen yet, but I hope to soon, when I went to see her she suggested that I start work on an animation test. I've decided to animate the clip where the prince picks up the opened lock and looks at it in shock. I've chosen this clip because I feel as though something simple means that I can pay closer attention to the character acting and expression. I went to see Phil again to get advice on my song and so far he thinks it's a good start. I told him I wanted it to derail into something sad, so that as the animation goes along and gets darker the music goes with it, but I was struggling to understand how to put chords and noted together to make it sound sad. He helped a lot and I've managed to find a musical rift to go to the sad moments of the animatic.

We went in to see John about our collaborative idea. At the moment we had this idea about creating a world that leads to different dimensions, which would mean we can add different types of media easily. I thought the idea of a hotel would be good, in the kind of style like 'Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends'. Sort of wacky, funny, quirky and strange. Adzie would like to do the character design but overall we like the ides of this character being a small monster who is on vacation, he gets given his room for the hotel and then goes to explore the other rooms. We have yet to decide on an idea or a reason for him to look around the hotel, but we are piecing the world together.

Week 6 (October 31st – November 4th)

I've updated my new animatic and went to shot Helen, she much preferred it but there are still some things she picked up on. She felt that the introduction could be shortened if I needed to save time, I could cut out the part where he pulls the lantern under the sheets, the scene where the books are piling up doesn't make much sense. I said that it meant he was leaving them untidy and abandoned but I suppose it still shows his depression with the plates piling up. And then there were a lot of things concerning the screen direction and film language that need to be tweaked which I have written about on my blog. She said that the general story comes across well, but there are areas of detail that could make it a lot better is fixed. I feel really greatful and honoured to have Helen's advice, she has taught me so much and I am so willing to change anything in the storyboard to make it perfect. I really want to learn how to execute a visual story successfully, I knew from the beginning that I would be changing a lot of my storyboard so I had no worries about being given criticism. (That's why I wanted to get the basic storyboard done before I came back to the first term, so that I had time to change it). This project to me is more about progressing my narrative skills as well as my animation skills, so the majority of my focus in based on all of the development I'm putting into my storyboarding rather than focusing so much on one animated clip. Having Helen around to criticise my storyboarding is so beneficial to me, I feel like I am learning so much from showing her what I have, receiving her comments, and then changing it. I can see it in my work that from the first animatic, I have improved the feeling of the story so much more with her help and perspective. I'm starting to figure out what I want to specialise in in animation, I think I want to specialise in storyboarding and character animation. Helen also recommended that I start working on my animation test, and as I've started to do so, I realise how much I also love to do character animation. Story and character is where I want to go. I also went to see Helen Piercy later this week to show her both animatics and see what she thought. She felt more emotional towards the second animatic but she preferred the ending to the first animatic. I then sat with her and showed a classmate, Lila, to get her thoughts also. Lila felt a lot more connected to the second one and also preferred the ending.

There was a Narrative and Character workshop for the Collaborative project. I wanted to go in but overslept and so I turned up later to meet with Adzie and Catherine during the second half. They were doing a character design activity, and weren't focused much on the collaborative project, just on creating their own characters. I said that I would meed them next week for the Narrative workshop, then we could discuss the story for the project more in detail.

Week 7 (November 7th – 11th )

I finished the sketchlines of my animation test and went to receive feedback from Helen and Robin.

Firstly they felt it was a well made animation with great expressions. Robin really liked the way the eyebrows were drawn and said they moved well as a unit with the eyes and face, which pleases me because expression is really important to me and one of my favourite things to draw. Helen felt that I needed to look more on my overlapping and secondary action, and a lot of it moved at the same time and it would look better for it to almost go in a wave, the whole general motion moving in an arch. I'm pleased with this advice but she also said I need to watch my time and that I should try to get it finished. I want to hopefully finish this test soon then get straight onto animating my showcase. As the animatic is far too long to make into a full animation, me and Helen discussed the idea of taking just a segment of the animation to animate. Most likely a part that has a basic beginning, middle, end to it. I wanted to make a trailer possibly but I think I would be able to show my still better if I took a scene from the animatic and animated that. I can't decide which part though, because I don't want the scene to look out of place without a story to it. I might do the end scene or a part where he's growing up.

We spoke more about our Collaborative idea and we are still trying to give the character a reason for leaving his room. We're unsure of the ending as we feel that it's too simple, or is not the right moral for the character to go back to his comfort zone. We are planning to go into the Narrative Workshop next week so we can get some advice from Helen on it.

Week 8 ( November 14th – 18th )

For my animatic Helen felt that I needed some scenes of the prince trying to escape, which makes a lot of sense. It's so clear to me now that after he realises he's not being rescued, he'd try to escape the tower himself, anyone would. So I'm going to add two scene, I've got one where he tries to bang on the door and get whoever is there to let him out, but then food just comes in and he is ignored. Them I'm going to do one where he escapes the window. I couldn't decide what to do with him, because he needs to not actually get out of the castle so I'm thinking that either he is too scared or it's too high for him to get down safely, or there's some kind of spell keeping him trapped in, like an invisible wall or something. I'd like to do the invisible wall but when I suggested it to a few people who had seen my animation, they felt it might be difficult to portray, including Helen.  I'm going to go with a magical chain that suddenly appears on his arm when he tries to escape, so that his efforts to muster up his courage proves to be pointless. I finished colouring my animation test but I'm not sure I like it. I really struggled with colouring. I managed to find a tutorial to draw clean lines with the polyline tool and then use the paint bucket tool to fill but the animation looks too jumpy at the same time. The shape of his face is inconsistent and seems to change in every frame, making it look quite jarring and jumpy. I think what I'll do in my actual animation is have more layers and leave unmoving parts still, but hopefully I can still animate the whole thing overall to not look too still.

We attended the Narrative Workshop this week to discuss our ideas and learn some things. We answered some questions about our project, and found answers for what the character does and his motives for doing it. We did have the idea of him being bored with the 2D room he was given so he goes to look at the other rooms, then he becomes so creeped out by what he doesn't understand that he goes back to being happy with his comfort zone. When we spoke to Helen she suggested that that might not be a very good moral to a story and we should think up something more. We started thinking that maybe he takes something back with him from one of the rooms, so that he's happy with his comfort zone but is not opposed to exploring and the unknown. One of us suggested that he should be a kleptomaniac and steal things from the hotel, it would start with mini shampoo's and a shower cap and a dressing gown, then he would explore the other rooms and leave the hotel with his back full of weird objects. I like this idea, because I find it funny in the context of being a hotel guest and how we all take the mini shampoos and stuff, but I'm not sure about it completely because I really liked the innocence of the little monster character.

Week 9 (November 21st – 25th )

I've had to change some other parts of my animatic and decide on what I'm animating. I've decided I'm going to do the scene where he gets caught by the magic chain while trying to escape. Firstly Helen felt as though I need a better angle to establish the hight with he's on the window ledge. I changed the angle so that the camera is from outside of the tower, below the prince and pointed up at him while he looks down. I also went to see Sarah Harris earlier where she suggested that the character needed a closer acting scene. He needed to show his disbelief that the chain appeared, so I added a scene where he inspects his hand where the chain appeared. I changed a few other bits in my animatic where Helen felt the camera direction could have been improved, such as the scene where the scene where the plates pile up, I've combined that scene with the scene of him in his bed. Now the plates pile up and the camera cuts to show him in his bed, clearly ignoring the food, suggesting time has gone by. This is to cut some time short. I've started working on my animation. I've been taking some video references for myself, one of my tying something around my waist, one of my pulling something tied to a post and one of me stepping up onto something as if onto a window ledge. All of these references have been so helpful to my animation and have made my first scenes look so realistic. It's made me realise how important taking reference is, I know that I would have been very frustrated if I was to animate that all from my head.

We mainly focused on our personal work this week but we did meet up to do wome collaborative work together. I created a style frame, Adzie created the character sheet, Catherine worked on the PDF and Jordan began work on the appearance of the hotel. We had a good day that day and got a lot of work done.

Week 10 ( November 28th – December 2nd )

I've done more for my animation, including the first scenes and the scene where he's out on the window ledge with his clothes and hair blowing in the wind, then he cowers in fear at the side of the wall. So far I'm really pleased with, I love doing the under-sketch work for the animation. I feel a lot more free when I'm sketching and I feel that comes across in the character movement. Helen had some suggestions for changing my animation to make it a bit better. We discussed some different camera angles and felt that when he puts his hand out of the window, there should be an outside profile view. I kind of wanted to keep the camera inside the tower to keep the audience 'trapped' with the prince also, which she understood, but I think this is a much more dynamic camera angle than what I had before, so I'll go with it. She also suggested I add a last frame of him from inside of the tower, showing him collapse on his bed in defeat, framed in the centre of it. I think this is a good idea to end on, I can try to make it quite dynamic, which is good because she felt that I did not have enough wider shots in my animation, which I agree with. I went back to see Phil Archer in the sound room, this time for help in my sound design for my animated scene. I said I really wanted a nice sound to go with the chain appearing so that it could sound all sparkly and mystical, basically to make the point that it's a magical chain caused by a spell. He put together some cool sounds. He reversed the sound of a chain clinking, so that it sounded unnatural and a bit mystical, then he added a kind of reverb and 'sparkling' effect to it to make it sound shiny and magical. I'm really pleased with that he helped me come up with. He also helped me get together some basic sounds like the wood creaking on the bed post and the wind blowing.

Me and Catherine went in to speak to Jon this week about our updated idea. I explained that I liked the kleptomaniac idea but I was also unsure as I wanted the character to remain fairly innocent, and not as though he had a mental disorder, I wanted the animation to be about the wacky hotel, not the monsters mental disorder. We started thinking from a different angle and came up with the idea of the Hotel actually being a simulation that the monster can go into to experience a holiday. It would be a twist that the weird and wonderful hotel didn't actually exist and almost be a statement on our entertainment. The Monster takes the VR helmet off when the experience gets too weird for him, he goes home to his boring room and wonders whether his reality is better or not. At first we were going to make it a human, who uses the monster as an avatar in the VR but we realised that would include finding an actor, filming, sets and props, which we wont have time for.

Week 11 ( December 5th – 9th )

I've changed my animation, adding shots of Helen's suggestions, not the animatic shows him leaning out of the window from a profile view and there is a last shot of him in his room. I've also updated my animation. I've essentially finished the first half of the sketch work, getting up to the shot where he jumps out of the window. I've also painted some backgrounds for all of these scenes. I'm really pleased with my backgrounds. Last year I did a lot of colouring practise for comics and backgrounds and I've really been trying to improve my paintings so that I can create better colours and perspective. From doing the animation test, I'd found the best way to make backgrounds so that they still look good but don't take too long. These backgrounds aren't as detailed as the one in the animation test but I feel that I have been able to produce more in less time by painting them this way and they still look acceptable to me. Aside from the lines and colouring, the first half is done.

The rest of the group seems okay with the idea me and Catherine had for the ending. We've decided Job roles. Catherine is the producer, I will be storyboarding and creating the animatic, Adzie will continue with the character designs and expressions, Jordan will create his 3D room and Tia will create her room. Catherine is also making a model puppet for the stop motion scene. I'm excited to keep working on this, although I also have a lot to do. This idea and concept excites me and I really hope that we can pull it off with quality. I started the storyboard during our meet up on some post-it notes, I will digitally re-draw them later.

Week 12 ( December 12th – 16th )

I've updated my sketched animation to him leaning out, all of the movements of the body are completed but I have yet to include his clothes, hair and face. The final frame is just his tiny body collapsing onto the bed so I only have a few frames there to show that, that won't be a difficult scene to complete. I also added a bit to a previous scenen. Helen said that when he's is about to jump, that would be the point where she would check the tie again to make sure it is still sturdy. I think she make a good point, so I added a action where he does that and suddenly he seems so much more real. I've been working on the background for when he falls back onto his bed, camera from out side of the window. Previously I'd made some floor plans so that while doing the storybaord I'd be able to know where everything is positioned in every frame. For this shot, with the camera being from the outside looking in, taking reference from the floor plans I made was a really big help for painting this background. Once I get the animation sketches done, which shouldn't be long, I'm going to start thinking about colours.

I began to digitally draw over my storyboard but I'm worrying about finishing both my dissertation and personal animation, so I am currently focusing on that. Catherine has offered to do some storyboarding but I assured her that I would be fine to continue after Christmas. I feel as though I know exactly how to storyboard this, the shots and everything, as I've spent a lot of time on my personal project storyboarding, I can see this in my head so well. I'm excited to start.

Christmas Break ( December 19th – January 9th )

Over the Christman break I focused mainly on my dissertation but did also get much animation done. I was able to finish a background where he leans out of the window to look at the chain appear and I started working on my colouring. In Toon Boom I discovered that you are able to make more than one palettes so that if you use a specific colour, then change that colour from your palette, it will also change it in the animation. This is good because it means that if colours need to be changed then I don't need to refill every frame with the bucket too, I can just change the colour from the palette. I realised that it would be cool to have a slightly different chade of colours for when he is outside of the tower and for when he is inside, just to give a bit more atmosphere to his environment. I updated the colouring to where he is when he is standing on the ledge.

We mainly focused on our personal projects over Christmas, as we all had a lot to do, we agreed to leave the collaborative work for when we were back in Norwich.

Week 13 (January 9th – 13th )

I've continued to colour but also have been focusing a lot on my dissertation and trying to get that done. Lynsey has been a big help and has been able to review my work when I've needed her to. As for the animation, I've really just been trying to get colouring done as soon as I can, I don't know how much time I'll have left to get it all done but I still need to finish my blog and complete my Research Report. I'm not sure what else to update on, really, I can just feel myself clicking into overdrive and I feel very determined to get all of this done.

This week I completely finished the animatic for our collaborative project. I had more fun doing it than I thought I would and I realise that after doing this storyboard, I really would like to specialise in storyboarding, as well as character animation. I'm really pleased with what I've created, I feel as though I can present it as something professional. Keeping the title safe zone for each frame was very helpful also, I was able to see it all in perspective and I think I've created something that reads very well. The responses I got from the group were good also. I really wanted it to come across as quirky, even a little funny, and the group felt I'd achieved that. Mt plan was to create the beginning and end of the storyboard so that we could fit in the sections where we have individually made our rooms, but I needed some more transition shots of the character walking through the hallways and looking into doors. Catherine was a big help with this and she offered to make some of these connecting shots, we also discussed the best angles to shot it. Me and Jordan put the animatic together with everyone's work and we're very pleased with it.

Extension ( January 16th – 27th )

I've requested an extension due to some struggles and depression over Christmas. I'd spoken to Peter about it and after having been open to him about my feeling and situations throughout the years he agreed to an extension. I am using this extension to really push what quality I can under the pressure I'm feeling. I was able to finish my Research Report and I'm quite pleased with it. If I have time to go back I would like to add a section about Bojack Horseman but it already took a lot of cutting to achieve the wordcount and not go over, so I think it would be difficult to add extra information. I really don't know the best way to colour. I'm not sure whether it's just better to draw the whole frames on one layer and use the bucket tool to fill, or whether I should do a layer for the body, layer over the body for the clothes, layer for the face, layer for hair (etc) so that I can look at the overlapping and secondary actions separately. I'm doing it with the separate layers to be safe but I feel as though it's coming out a bit messy. I think the movement itself looks fine and I think that I've fixed the problem with it looking too jumpy by having the different aspects on different layers (the problem I had with the animation test) but the painting feels a bit messy in some places. Such as when he is standing on the window ledge his clothes wave in the wind but the colouring looks messy. Whenever I try to clean it up on the layers, there always seems to be a problem. I think I've made the right choice in having each aspect on separate layers but I think that I may have created too many layers and now I've confused myself. With the extension I've been able to finish the animation. I've done the colours so that when he is outside of the tower the colours are brighter and when he is inside they are darker. I want this to create more of a subtle sad reality to his situation, he can't even get to the light. I had some problem with the chain. Firstly I discovered that in Toon Boom I'm able to create a glow affect, which is fantastic because it's exactly the effect I want. I was able to do this with the first chain I drew but then I wasn't able to recreate it with the rest of them. It seemed as though the drawing of the chain wouldn't show and instead there was just a transparent glow in the shape of the chain. I was frustrated at this to begin with but I'd resolved it by learning that I had to duplicate the layer and keep one of the layers normal and the other with the glow, this is what I'd done with the previous chain. It proves my point that I had created far too many layers in this file for me to keep track of. I've finished my entire animation now and all that's left to do it put the sound together. I'm really pleased with what I have created. I'm mainly pleased with the undersketch animation but that is what I prefer to do and is in my comfort zone. The colouring came out better than I thought it would, and better than it did in the animation test in my opinion but I felt that it could be cleaned up in some places. I will probably clean this up after submission. My plan after submission is to continue with my full animatic story and create a short film of a few minutes that is partly finished and partly WIP. I would like to come away with a piece that shows my skills in character animation and storyboarding, so I really like the idea of keeping the majority of it as professional storyboarding and sketched character animation, with only a few parts looking completely finished.