#i love how we can see how fed up team meteor is with us

[girlindemonshade]

The glasswork part of reborn cracks me up every time xD

Thanks lol

[team-heavenly]

Chapter 26 - Part 3

You know the drill by now. Part one is here, part two is here...

Yeah, so uhhh, fun fact! In all my years of playing this game, I never once tried to leave Aegis Cave apparently, because this genuinely surprised me. THERE'S AN INVISIBLE WALL. YOU CAN'T LEAVE. YOU CAN ONLY FINISH THE STORY LINE, FAINT, OR USE AN ESCAPE ORB.

And this kinda upset me because, y'know, for the first time this entire damn run, I finally had a pile of Orans and Apples and other basic things, and I wanted to drop them off in storage to make room for more.

The good news: I did in fact pick up an Escape Orb, so we said SEE YUH!

While we were back in town, I fed a Wonder Gummi to Celebi via Rotom's juicebar, and we got two surprises packed into one!

WUH- OKAY THEN.

And now, some moments that nearly gave me a freaking heart attack.

Damage runs deep </3 Hell of a line.

Also, moments that nearly make your eyeballs fall out of your head until you remember your Garchomp has Huge Power.

Speaking of, here is a non-inclusive list of the moves and abilities I remember seeing from the Unown (either in dungeon or from recruits):

Moves:

Ice Ball

Faint Attack

Thrash

Hyper Beam

Luster Purge

Lunar Dance

Gunk Shot

Dark Pulse

Extrasensory

Hammer Arm

Spit Up

Flash Cannon

Abilities:

Sturdy

Illuminate

Truant

Aftermath

Natural Cure

Serene Grace

Bad Dreams

Drizzle

Cloud Nine

Snow Warning

Heatproof

Filter

A true grab bag, which was honestly kind of fun when it wasn't trying to kill us.

Anyway, we only had to go through three times before getting all the stones we needed and then some! IYKYK.

When we return to the waypoint, we do a funky little dance just kidding, we only close our eyes.

So, here I am, entering the Nonsensical Expanse, getting pumped we get to find out who the first of the three Regis are, right?

But then I have something so unexpected happen that my 3DS nearly falls from my hands.

Wh-

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT ISN'T HERE?!?!?!

No, but I was legitimately upset over this. I consulted my friend @exploring-the-sky to see if love knew anything about it.

Well, this is what happens when you use a build from nearly two years ago, I guess.

At every portion of Aegis Cave, I left at least once and came back, and it was always the same. There was no one to fight. So now we'll never know who Regice is! That beautiful guidepost I put together to translate every character and place from their canon counterparts? You know, my actual pride and joy? I literally CAN'T put anything down for Regice now except ??? or ERROR 404.

THANKS A LOT, GAME!!! >:l

Or just replace it with any Pokémon you want, I don't make the rules here.

Next stop: Neat Creek.

We already have C and K so this shouldn't be too painful... I hope.

Nevertheless, when we inevitably come back around, we find what looks like a letter...

Wait, did y'all actually run into a boss? DID Y'ALL ACTUALLY FIGHT A BOSS?? PLEASE, TEAM CHARM, I'M BEGGING YOU-

Ugh, well. Guess we're about to find out, anyhow. We enter the Colossal Rift and hold our breaths...

OH THANK ARCEUS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY I AM TO SEE YOU!!

...Words said before disaster, Part 21,894-

Despite our one-two punch of Meteor Mash and Powder Snow on Celebi, Rhyhorn wouldn't go down easy. In fact, he got off some Dragon Dances , which made me kinda nervous! And Seed Flare missed, like, 4 times in a row?? Then I REALLY started to panic when he used Mirror Move! But in the end, we persevered.

Ohhhh, I see... so, Not Regice just granted us the guardian's permission pre-emptively and went "lol bye losers, I'm out"? That's the explanation I'm going with, anyway :P

When we approach the Nonsensical Trench, there seems to be no sign of Team Charm...

We picked up two E stones in the last segment of the dungeon, so all we're missing is S, T, and L.

Why, hello there! This one even gave us a stone right away :)

It turns out Unown S and T also spawn on this very first floor! I stuck it out as long as I could and, lo and behold, we didn't have to go through more than once! \o/

Okay, now you gotta do the ritual thing to move on to Part 4.

[wits-writing]

Ultraman Z Ep. 21: “D4” (TV Review)

(Original Air Date: November 21, 2020, Director: Masayoshi Takesue, Writer: Satoshi Suzuki)

In this episode of Ultraman Z: since Baraba’s sword was left behind when the monster was defeated two episodes ago, the GAF have utilized its interdimensional properties to develop a devastating new weapon, the D4 Ray.

With the weapon set to be added to King Joe’s already impressive arsenal, Team STORAGE are left conflicted about whether they have any right to utilize a weapon with such devastating potential. However, there’s no time to debate the issue as a legion of monsters known as Kelbim start falling from space, attracted by D4’s power. So it turns into a race against the clock to see whether they can stop the Kelbim at their source or will be forced to fire a weapon they don’t fully understand.

[Full Review Under the Cut]

Many of the seeds planted throughout the series so far start coming into bloom this time with the dilemma Team STORAGE face. We’ve seen officials from the GAF pushing for the ability of the giant robots to keep up with Ultraman in fighting monsters as early as episode 3. Yoko herself questioned whether anyone should have that level of power at all soon after King Joe STORAGE Custom was completed. Now that they have a weapon like the D4 Ray, everyone’s on edge about whether it needs to be used and if they do, whether they can contain it. The dilemma gets brought up to another level when the threat faced from the Kelbim spreads rapidly as more of them fall from the sky. Making the situation more a question of “pick your poison” regarding what will ultimately do more damage to the city.

The answer is clear for STORAGE from the start; the D4’s not worth using on the little data the GAF have about whether it will remain contained once fired. However, the episode introduces a new face to from the GAF to argue on behalf of the other side, Mai Yuki (Maya Hayashi), a scientist eager to see what the D4 can do in the field. She’s there with GAF Director Kuriyama to oversee the addition of D4 to Joe’s arsenal and the one arguing hardest for its practicality in the field. Between overriding Bako’s commands about how to handle Joe’s maintenance with the new weapon, basically acting like she owns the place two seconds after walking in. After Yoko finally fires D4, Mai’s less concerned with how its interdimensional power went out of control than with how the weapon could be perfected in the future. Her eye set on how they could replicate Ultraman Z’s power especially.

The wrinkle in whether the D4 Ray being fired off was necessary to deal with the Kelbim is that those monsters only arrived on Earth to fed off the interdimensional energy it gives off. Juggler pieces that together when he recognizes the first of the monsters to land on the decimated island where D4 was tested (though it does prompt Yuka to ask how “Hebikura” already knows about this alien monster.) It’s basically a microcosm of the cycle an escalating arms race creates, things only become more dangerous because someone assumed they would. The Kelbim threat growing as they fall from beyond the atmosphere spawning off the massive Mother Kelbim ends up being a further example of a threat STORAGE couldn’t deal with had Ultraman Z not been there, since none of their robots can fly that far or fast.

The fight King Joe, Windom, and eventually Zett put up against the waves of Kelbim has an appropriate wave of rising tension, not just around the monsters but if they’ll be forced to use D4. Each Kelbim can emit a sound that wakes up two or three more from their dormant meteor form, all while they keep falling from the sky by the dozen. The other angle of the conflict comes from Kuriyama’s aggressive assertion of his authority as Director to fire the D4 Ray, while Hebikura keeps insisting it’s still a STORAGE operation and they’ll deal with the threat their way. So he goes against orders, not only telling Yoko to hold off on firing the experimental ray but also sending Haruki into the fray in Windom when they were told the GAF wanted King Joe to handle it alone. When they figure out the connection between the Kelbim falling to earth and the gargantuan mother in space, Zett and Haruki fly up there to deal with it. However, leaving Yoko alone and overwhelmed on the ground gives the Director an excuse to force the issue on firing the D4 Ray.

Even after Ultraman Z manages to destroy the mother, we still get the most intense scene of the episode as Yoko fires the weapon, causing the same distortion and cracks in the sky we first saw when Baraba showed up in “The Last Hero.” The weapon clearly puts stress on King Joe to fire as well, as Yoko appears to be in pain from backfire after pulling the trigger with the giant robot barely able to stand. While Mai insisted the weapon was safe to use since civilian evac had been completed, it’s clear that if Zett hadn’t made it back from space in the nick of time the civilians wouldn’t have had much to go back to.

After the stress and back and forth between STORAGE and the GAF officials throughout the episode, we end on the note marking this episode as the clear final act turning point for the season. Since they deliberately disobeyed orders from the GAF every step of the way during this operation, Director Kuriyama declares STORAGE is to be shut down, effective immediately, leaving our main cast in shock.

Which also calls to a plotline that mostly happens in the background of this episode’s intense A-plot. There’s a marked shift in Kuriyama’s attitude this episode, early on he expressed his own concerns about the D4 but remark he’s under orders from his own bosses to oversee its implementation. Any sympathy he expressed at the start vanished after the Kelbim threat takes priority in the episode, where he’s suddenly the most insistent that the D4 absolutely must be used. The one moment dividing this shift being where he passes a Celebro possessed GAF soldier in the stairwell. The implication is clear though never outright stated, that Kuriyama has become the alien parasite’s latest host (and there are more hints of it in the next episode, but I’ll get to that when I’m discussing it.)

If it’s not clear by how much I dug into the central thematic content of this episode, I really loved this one. I’ve brought up the little moments and character beats that could be building to something like this throughout these reviews. Seeing them start paying off as we enter the final five episodes of Ultraman Z is a major treat and, as I’ll dig into with the next episode, the momentum only picks up from here.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[willow-salix]

Isolation update! I was planning on doing the prompt of "Sight" for @gumnut-logic challenge for the next chapter of the big fat fic (which I'm still gonna do) but this came out too. So I let the boys roll with it.

Day 76 of Isolation on Tracy Island

“Scott?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know anything about this?” I held up my headphones, which had been previously missing for maybe the last eight months and that I had just found in the cutlery drawer.

“Yeah, they’re headphones.”

“Thank you Captain Obvious, I meant why are they in with the knives and forks?”

He shrugged. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because you were hiding socks around the place for over three weeks.”

“Only because it took you so long to give them back to me. I started after we watched Half Blood Prince, I thought it would make you laugh but you just kept ignoring them.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t realise you needed to be freed!”

“Of course I did! I was your house elf!”

“House elves do chores! They don’t sit around being fed and demanding attention!”

“I’m a progressive house elf that is fighting for elf rights!”

“No you aren't, you’re a lazy bum!”

“Lazy? Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“I will never understand the conversations you two have,” John muttered as he pushed past us to fill his mug with the coffee I had just brewed.

“It’s affectionate arguing,” Scott laughed, sliding his mug over to John for a top up.

“So no one knows why my headphones have just suddenly turned up from wherever they vanished to and magicked themselves into the kitchen?”

“Nope,” Scott gave up waiting for John to pour him a drink and stole mine. I narrowed my eyes in his general direction. John slid a fresh cup over to me. Such a great guy.

“You know,” John mused. “I found one of my world geography books in the bathroom cupboard.”

“I found my utility knife in the piano stool,” Virgil added, wandering over to snag some toast that had just popped up.

“I just made that,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he continued to butter it. I stared at his plaid clad back for a few seconds but when he failed to burst into flames I gave up and dropped some more bread into the toaster.

“Now that I think about it,” Scott mused, “I found my guitar pick in the fruit bowl, the one that I got from that little shop in Texas. I thought I lost it for good years ago but it just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Something strange is going on,” Virgil declared. “If stuff we lost is returning there has to be a reason for it.”

“Parallel universe,” I answered confidently.

“I don’t think that's a thing,” Scott said gently.

“Apports then?” I offered.

“No, I don’t think...what’s an apport?” Virgil asked.

“An object conjured out of nothing by a ghost, obviously.”

“I don’t think this is the work of a ghost, love," John said, squeezing my shoulder as he passed by to take a seat. “There’s only one person that borrows things without asking and that’s Gordon.”

“That was going to be my next guess,” I admitted.

“Yet you went straight for ghosts and different universes?” Scott asked, clearly bemused.

“Well, maybe, just for once, I wanted something interesting to happen around here that I could actually deal with,” I huffed. “Sue me.”

“Only you could think ghosts and different realms were something that’s easy to deal with when you were the one that screamed and climbed me like a monkey because a crab ran over your foot on the beach last night,” John laughed.

“Crabs have pincers, any sane person would get away from one of them,” I pouted, reaching for some toast off Virgil’s plate. Honestly I don’t know why we don't just have communal plates in this house, no one seems to eat their own food.

“So what are we going to do about Gordon being a kleptomaniac?” I asked.

“We’ll deal with him after breakfast,” Scott decided, leaning over and biting the corner off my toast. See? No boundaries whatsoever.

***

The klepto in question was sneaking suspiciously around the lounge when we tracked him down and we caught him in the act of leaving a magnifying glass behind a book on the bookcase.

“Busted,” Scott yelled, making Gordon jump about a foot in the air.

“So it was you that’s been leaving our belongings scattered around the house,” Virgil sighed.

“Why are you doing this?” John asked, although his tone said he was debating the wiseness of even posing the question and was unsure he actually wanted an answer.

“Can’t a guy do something nice for his family?”

“He can when he’s not the one thats been stealing things in the first place,” I shot back, arms folded, foot tapping.

“I’m offended!” Gordon gasped dramatically. “A Tracy doesn’t steal unless its Virgil and a bell takes his fancy-”

“That was one time and it was an accident!”

“I may borrow things,” Gordon continued.

“For three years?” Scott snorted.

“I borrow on extended loan-”

“Without permission,” John added.

“But you always get them back eventually,” Gordon finished triumphantly. “I got bored and cleaned my room and it was like unearthing buried treasure. I may have forgotten that I borrowed a few things but you’ve got them back now, so no harm no foul.”

“Is that all you needed to return?” Virgil sighed.

“There might be a few other things scattered around,” Gordon admitted.

“Go and get them,” Scott ordered.

Gordon staggered in half an hour later weighed down by a massive box overflowing with his plundered loot.

“Seriously?” Scott gaped as the box thumped down on the table.

“All of that?” Virgil couldn't believe his eyes.

“Not surprised,” John muttered.

“How did you manage to borrow all that?” Alan asked in awe, having been summoned from his pit to claim any lost items that may have fallen into Gordons possession. “I’m not even allowed to borrow a pen.”

“It’s because he doesn’t bother asking,” John told him.

“That’s where I’ve been going wrong!”

Gordon shooty finger winked at him.

“No!” I yelped, intervening for the first time and grabbing Alan, pulling him into my arms. “Do not corrupt this precious bean.”

“Too...late,” Alan wheezed, trying to escape my python like grasp.

“Oh, sorry,” I let go and Alan took a dramatically deep breath.

“What’s in the box, Squid?” Scott asked.

Gordon tipped the box up and out tumbled a mass of things that shocked even me.

“That’s my baseball cap,” Scott snagged it.

“My gloves,” Virgil claimed them.

“That’s my camera,” John snatched it up. “I thought I left that behind on the beach and the sea took it.”

“Well, technically the sea’s representative did,” I giggled, then noticed something in the middle of the pile. “Why do you have my headscarf? You know that I use that when you guys force me to get in a boat, it makes me feel fancy.”

“Are those my sunglasses?”

“Yes, I broke mine and was going fishing.”

“Is that my lipstick?”

“Yeah, I used it to draw blood on my neck so I could be a zombie at halloween.”

“There’s my ocarina.”

“It was so weird I had to try it.”

“Is that my belt?”

“Yeah, remember that date I went on with Penny? It went really well with those navy pants.”

“I thought I lost that harmonica.”

“I was going through a depressed week and wanted to play the blues.”

“Is that my cologne?”

“Same date.”

“Why do you have my toothbrush?”

“I used it to clean the sand out of one of Four’s filters.”

“My playing cards!”

“Yeah, I wanted to learn card tricks.”

“My travel chess set!”

“Four of the pawns are missing now, sorry.”

“Seriously, my drill?”

“I wanted to put up a picture.”

“Why did you need my tie?”

“That's classified.”

“That’s my favorite pen.”

“Yeah, I’ve got no excuse for that, I used it, put it in my pocket and forgot about it.”

“Gordon, why do you have my flip flops?”

“Mine broke and your’s were nearest.”

An endless stream of lost objects had suddenly returned home and it was a tad overwhelming but along with his more recent acquisitions were items that hadn’t been seen in forever.

“I remember this game!” Alan exclaimed, grabbing the box. “John and I used to play it all the time when I was little. You had to be astronauts and fly through the meteor showers and land on different planets and fight aliens. It was great. We had the best scores, no one could beat us.”

“Actually, I had the best scores,” John corrected him.

“No way, it was a team effort, we played that together every night after I got home from school.”

Virgil chuckled.

“What?” Alan looked confused. “Why are you laughing?”

“I may have taken the batteries out of your controller and just let you think you were playing.” John admitted.

“What! That was one of my greatest achievements in life!”

“Alan, you went into space when you were thirteen,” John pointed out.

“Oh yeah!”

Virgil spotted a book and picked it up. “I haven’t seen this since we were little.”

“Oh, I remember that one,” Scott smiled. “Mom had it when she was small and she used to read it to us every thanksgiving.”

John was busy sifting through the pile. “Hey, my first star globe, why do you have this?”

“Remember when I used to get upset when Dad went away? Well you used to point out all the different stars to me on it and where the moon was near them.”

“Oh yeah,” John smiled, “I remember that, I let you borrow it to keep beside your bed so you could see where Dad was every night.”

“That’s my old teddy bear,” Scott smiled, picking it up and sitting it on his lap. “I left him with you when I went to college.”

“I know, I told you that I was too old to have a plushie in my room but you insisted. I passed him on to Alan and when we moved I guess he got packed up with my things.”

“That’s the children’s guitar that Mom taught us to play,” Virgil picked it up and strummed a few cords but the tuning was terrible.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Alan said quietly. “In fact, I don’t remember much of any of this stuff.” He gestured to the pile of things that still remained scattered on the table top. “I don’t know that pencil sharpener, that snow globe or those shell bracelets, I don’t know any of it.”

“Neither do I,” I reminded him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“I don’t have any memories of them so they don’t mean anything to me.”

“But that’s what’s so great about things and why I keep telling your brother that not everything has to have a use all the time. Things are there to remind us of the good times, just the sight of them can conjure up images, but they are also there to encourage us to share those memories. I used to love looking through my Nan and Grandad’s cupboards because I discovered so many things that were interesting,” I told him. “I’d ask them about them and they would tell me where they got them or who they belonged to before they got them and it was so nice to see the joy that the memories brought them. Pick something and ask about them, let’s share memories.”

Slowly Alan reached out to touch the small pile of shell bracelets.

“Where did these come from?”

“We were on a trip to the beach,” Scott started.

“Gordon was running all over picking up little shells and bringing them back to Mom,” Virgil continued.

“She ended up with a huge pile of them,” John laughed. “But Gordon didn't want her to put them back.”

“She ended up asking Dad to drill a tiny hole through each of them and she made them into bracelets for us as a reminder of the vacation,” Scott picked up the story.

“We wore them for a few days but Gordon kept stealing them because he loved the shells,” Virgil added.

“I remember that,” Gordon smiled. “There’s a picture in the album of me wearing them all, I don’t look any older than five.”

Alan picked them up, rubbing one of the shells between thumb and finger. “Why are there five of them?”

“Because Mom was pregnant with you at the time and said that you were there too so you should have a bracelet,” Scott smiled, reaching over to take one. “This was mine.”

One by one the others each claimed a bracelet, leaving Alan with just one.

“You’re right, that’s a nice story to hear,” he admitted, slipping the bracelet over his hand.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” I suggested. “This has been a mad few months, how about we start a new memory box and in ten years time we’ll look back in it and remember the longest vacation ever.”

“Yeah,” Alan nodded. “That could be cool.”

The box slowly filled up with bits and pieces.

Here are some of them.

-Some of our finished colouring pages.

-Gordon’s tablet that hadn’t recovered from its unscheduled dip in the bath.

-Brains’s broken glasses and a broken piece of his microscope that fell off of Alan when we played human buckaroo

-A small pile of post-it’s which Scott had used on April fools day to label everything in the lounge.

-The rubber spider John had pranked me with.

-A pair of the bunny ears the boys wore to deliver Easter eggs.

-The empty bottle of ‘Chill Pills’ Scott got for his birthday.

-A selection of our pictionary artwork.

-The beauty blender Virgil ruined on Gordon’s face.

-An empty popcorn bag Alan found stuffed between the couch cushions from one of our many movie nights.

-One of Scott’s socks that hadn’t been found before.

-A gaudy necklace from our lip sync battle

-A clue list from our scavenger hunt

-A shell I picked up on the beach the day they taught me to surf.

-The evil Furby

-The purple wig we made John wear (he was very glad to donate it to the memory box)

“OK, so, we don’t take anything out but we can add more for as long as isolation goes on?” Alan confirmed.

“Yep,” I nodded. “Who’s going to be in charge of keeping it safe?”

“Gordon should,” Alan said. “Since he seems to be the keeper of everyone’s things.”

“Even without permission,” John muttered, tucking his pen into his pocket in case it went walkies again.

“Actually,” Gordon said, “I think Alan should look after it for us.”

“Really? You mean that?” Alan grinned.

“Sure, kiddo,” Scott agreed. “After all, they’re your memories too

[furederiko]

Recap time!!! And I'm not just talking about this post being a recap-view, because really, Kyuranger episode 27 is indeed a RECAP-episode! A journey back in time, both literally and figuratively...

- If you didn't see it coming, then well... you're not alone. Me neither! The show isn't even actually pulling off something 'new' here, because it IS that time of the year for mid-season recap (for comparison sake, Zyuohger had theirs in episode 27 as well). I guess Kyuranger has been so fast-paced and its plots are so tight, that I honestly didn't expect a clip-show to land on my feet. Especially following a melancholic cliffhanger that involves one of its member turning evil. - Then again, this IS TOEI we're talking about, so it's not like they're going to abandon their annual pattern, right? Inspite of that, the company almost always (mind you, not every year fares the same) finds a way to make a Super Sentai clip-show to be... FUN to watch. In the case of Kyuranger, it's through an unexpected occurence within the ORION, during its 'Time Travel' journey: stowaways onboard the spaceship!!! Fun fact: In my opinion, it's a fitting episode to do a recap. The team reviews their adventures so far, while onboard the ORION as they travel back in time? Coincidence? Not really. Clever writing, if you ask me. Oh and yeah, we're getting twice of them a year now. The second clip-show will usually take place later after the New Year break. - Just to refresh our memory, the 'Time Travel' team consists of (in numerical order) Stinger, Champ, Raptor, Spada, Commander Xiao, and Tsurugi. Everyone immediately splits up to apprehend these intruders. Who are they? The lesser Indavers, a.k.a. the Jark Matter cannon fodders. Oops, I mean grunts. How did they come onboard? Apparently, Akyanba told them to infiltrate the spaceship during that Barbeque moment. Yeah, another good proof of her cunningness. - Oh, before you wonder why ORION had such poor security, the answer is too obvious: Balance was alone in the spaceship at the time. And he was also tweaking the system to integrate Holorogium. That's probably why the security didn't alert their presence back then. Holy Moly indeed! Gotta love Tsurugi's 'holy moly'-s hillarious outburst though... XD - Stinger and Champs apprehend the Yellow-striped Indaver in what seems to be the Private/Training Room. Xiao and Raptor catch a White-striped one in the Small Engine Room. Tsurugi and Spada corner and interrogate the Blue-striped in the Kitchen. The fourth is a feminine-looking Purple-striped one. This one (he? she?) is chased by Xiao... who then clumsily hurts his back, forcing Stinger and Champ to take over, but is later chained-down by Spada using the #40 Andromeda Kyu Globe. - These Indavers bring their own surprise to the story. First of all, they can actually SPEAK. Turns out, they have been wearing masks/helmets all these time! So they are basically the show's equivalent to the... StormTroopers, right? With one key difference: these helmets prevent them from communicating, hence why we haven't heard them talking until now. Second, they are lifeforms called Inda. 'Blue' claims that they are fed up of being poorly treated by the Shogunate. That's the reason why they sneak into the ship and wants to join the Rebellion. Hmmm... is that the honest truth? Third, two of them have showed up in previous episodes before. A clever twist that provides an excuse to include footage from past episodes, even if it might merely be an afterthought. - Speaking of past episodes, here's a quick list of what the clip-show includes: 1) Kyuranger's debut episodes. The core ones are from episode 1 to 5. The extra members are from episode 9, 10, and 21. 'Blue' reveals he was one of the Indavers who got hit by Lucky's 'meteor shower' when he first used Leo Kyu Globe on Planet Jugjug. While 'Yellow' was among the Indavers who got kicked by Ursa Minor Skyblue when he utilized the 'giant' power of Ursa Major Kyu Globe for the first time. 2) Voyagers. Along with their various mecha combinations for Kyuren-Oh, Ryutei-Oh, Ryutei Kyuren-Oh, Gigant Phoenix, and of course Kyutamajin. 3) Kyu Globes. The Change and Skill varieties, including what categories they can be classified into. According to Spada, there are ones that can be used for attacks, for utilitarian purposes, for plain fun, as well as... strange ones. No kidding, that's his actual words! Oh, and yes, there are plot-related ones, like the Argo Navis components. 4) Random scenes from various episodes, including that small crossover with Gavan and Dekaranger, and 'Rivalry of the Reds'. Mainly the ones showcasing the tumultuous bond between the members. - Speaking of bond, we get to see briefly how team 'Save Naga' is doing as well. Hammy is still feeling guilty and down about Naga, Kotarou is looking concerned about that, Lucky and Balance are both annoyingly optimistic and carefree as always, while Garu is still unsure about Tsurugi. Oh yeah, that last one reminds me. This episode confirms that Tsurugi still retains his self-centered personality! It's more tone-down than before, of course. He still doesn't like to be ordered, and even thinks the Kyurangers are being too kind and naive to show sympathy for the four Indavers. He firmly thinks, that they deserve to be thrown into the time hole instead. Ouch!! - And well, about that? Turns out he's right. There's a fifth Indaver, 'Red', who has been hiding in the Main Computer Room all these time. He reveals (albeit hillariously ignored with the Barbeque talk) that the Indas are created by Jark Matter, so it's completely unlikely for them to rebel. Those other four was merely a diversion so he can mess around with the system, and sabotage the 'Time Travel' plan. - The ORION is forced to land... in the Cretaceous Era! As soon as they step out, the team even encounters the real Gabutyra (notice the hair? And how it just plain ignores them as they bicker? LOL). After a failed-attempt to sway Tsurugi into their side, these Indavers go ahead and challenge the team. With the hope that their victory earns them a promotion into Tsuyo-Indavers or Malistrates, that is. Completely forgetting how they are also... lost in time. LOL. They even have their own roll call sequence, as Jark Sentai, Go-Indaver. - Team (sans Raptor, who stays behind to repair the ORION) decides to deal with them... without even transforming into Kyurangers. Yes, we're getting a very early (and clearly incomplete) suitless roll call!!! In the end, Tsurugi ruthlessly and selfishly (should we be surprised?) breaks the rule, and transforms into Phoenix Soldier to wipe out all Go-Indaver with his Phoenix End. The others are occupied with Xiao's back issue anyway. LOL. - The fact that Jark Matter tries (and fails) to stop them from going back in time, proves that something big DID occur back then. Can the 'Time Travel' team uncovers the secret behind Don Armage's seemingly immortality? Will the 'Save Naga' team be able to rescue one of their own who was lost in the darkness? That my Toku-loving friend, is the story for another day...

Overall: I know what some of you are thinking. A recap/clip-show episode already?! Then again, one would easily admit, that it WAS definitely enjoyable. Part of it was our classic 'Bad Guys turn Good' trope of the season, but the rest of it was just plain having fun. And I'm not any bit complaining about that. After a doze of emotional rollercoaster, this was one of the lighter episodes that's obviously aimed to be that way. After all, we DO need to take a breather every now and then, right? Today's episode is excellent to those who haven't been keeping up with the show. But the good thing is, even for a clip-show, Kyuranger still manages to 'shake things up' (easily reminded me of Go-kaiger). This episode still offered something new to its world-building/mythology, and progressed the story even if not in a major way. Of course, things are expected to be heating up again real soon. So hold on to your horses, and prepare yourself for another round of wild ride... Next week: Balance vs Naga. Oh Nooooo....!! And Sir Orion makes his official debuts!!! PS: Yeah, feel free to call me inconsistent, but I've decided to change Sir Olion's name into Sir Orion once again. Because... well, we'll likely get the answer to that this Sunday. Also, the spin-off series "Kyuranger High School Wars" will be arriving very soon on September 9th, 2017. It is directed by Koichi Sakamoto, and will be exclusively available on TOEI Tokusatsu Fan Club app. You can check out its first official trailer online! Looks fun, doesn't it?

Episode 27 Score: 7,9 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: August 29th, 2017 - Version 2.12. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[dorothydelgadillo]

How to Measure the Success of Pillar Content (Reporting Examples & Tips)

After, "What is pillar content?" and "Wait, oh my God -- you really expect me to write all that?" the most common question I get about pillar content is, "OK, so uh, how do I actually measure the success of my pillar?"

It's a loaded question because -- despite what I've heard others say -- there is no single HubSpot report that will do the trick. (In fact, there are ways in which I find HubSpot reporting options infuriatingly limiting, when it comes to pillar content.)

So, what I am going to share with you today are the different ways you can track how your pillar(s) perform, based on how we do it here at IMPACT. 

Before You Measure Anything, You Need to Keep 2 Things in Mind

There are three variables that will significantly influence how you go about pillar content reporting:

What goal(s) do you have for your piece of pillar content? While, for the most part, the keyword you're going after with a piece of pillar content have high search volume, there may be cases where you are choosing to go after a keyword you believe will have high search volume in the future -- meaning, you're trying to own a keyword now. If that's the case, you probably shouldn't be hyper-focusing on traffic and expecting meteoric growth. Instead, you may want to zero-in on promotional strategies and beefing up your topic cluster.

Are you measuring the topic cluster or the pillar content alone? Remember, as I alluded to above, a content pillar is not meant to be a standalone work of art -- it should be the beating heart that lives at the center of a much larger, strategically researched content framework called a topic cluster.  That means you're going to want to measure the success of both the topic cluster and the pillar content individually, as the onus behind this strategy is to spark growth for all of your interconnected content. However, there will be some cases where you may be building your cluster out over time, instead of "going live" with all of your content assets ready for publication. In which case, you may be focusing more on the success of an individual pillar to start, rather than the overall growth of a cluster.

Traditional Pillar Content (& Topic Cluster) HubSpot Reporting

As a disclaimer, while I know there are many different marketing automation platforms out there, we use HubSpot for marketing. If you don't use HubSpot, I'm sure many of the principles behind the reporting tactics that follow below can be applied to your situation.

Unfortunately, however, I'm not able to report on platforms I don't use. 

OK, with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let's dive in. 

Under Reports > Traffic Analytics > Topic Clusters, you are able to see a standard report for how all of your topic clusters are performing together, which you can then drill-down to the individual topic cluster level:

The green data represents global traffic, and the other colors denote the traffic to different topic clusters. (You can also change the view above from sessions to other metrics, like conversion rates, etc.)

There are two key caveats to this report that you need to know:

This only reports against organically-sourced (probably grass-fed) traffic. There is no report that allows you to have a multisource overview of the traffic your topic clusters are generating. 

The only thing I hate about this report is you can't track total number of page views. It only tracks page sessions -- a single visit to your website from one visitor that may include numerous page views. 

Broadly speaking, over time, you should see what I'm looking at above -- overall "hockey stick" (up and to the right!) growth with your topic clusters. 

I look at this report a lot over the first six months after I launch a new cluster. Assuming it's the usual keyword grab, I try to see how a new cluster tracks against those we've already published. If I see something "lagging behind," however that may be situationally defined, I know that's my signal to go back and evaluate the pillar individually, as well as the overall structure and scope of the cluster. 

Of course, I always need to maintain awareness around how much search volume a particular topic cluster was meant to generate -- some are naturally going to be higher performers than others, because of the keyword it targets.

In a global sense, I also like to look at how all of our topic clusters are performing together -- again, I want them to continue to grow together, month-over-month. 

In this report, you can also track page views per session, if you scroll down below the chart -- by default, it'll be the number in the last column. I love this, because it shows me how sticky a particular pillar or cluster is. 

We try to make them as sticky as possible by including a very visual CTA on related topic cluster blog articles to the related piece of pillar content, as well as eye-catching linked resources embedded within the pillars themselves: 

For example, you can access our marketing interview questions pillar from a recent article I wrote about hiring a content manager -- which you need to do, by the way. 

On our blogging tips guide, you'll find called out resources scattered throughout, to take you to relevant, more in-depth content about a particular related topic. 

Using the HubSpot Campaigns Tool to Track More Interesting Data

I want to thank myself from last summer, because I had the ridiculously smart idea to create a global HubSpot campaign that was attached to every single piece of pillar content I created. 

Not clusters, mind you -- just the pillars themselves. I wanted to see how influential these definitive guides were on their own.

Here is why I absolutely love what I did:

I've blanked out a few of the numbers, because a gal's gotta have a little mystery about her -- know what I mean?

Since our sales team uses the HubSpot CRM to manage their sales pipeline, I am able to track how much money we've brought in for deals where a piece of pillar content was part of the equation. 

Meaning, I can say definitively that $195,448 in revenue was closed where a piece of pillar content was part of the equation -- which is a powerful way to see the ROI of content. (I like content that makes money.)

In some cases, they may have looked at one or two pieces of pillar content, but in a lot of cases, I found scenarios like the one below -- where a deal that ultimately brought in more than $10,000+ in revenue across two deals was due to a single contact who spent a TON of time looking at and downloading multiple pillar guides:

In total, this one person looked at (and, in some cases, downloaded) four different ungated pillars -- content style guide, brand messaging, growth-driven design, and keyword research. (We give people the option to download a PDF version of every pillar we create for convenience, even though the entire guide is available to read without having to give us your email address.)

Undoubtedly, the pillars we created were a significant factor in this person's decision to work with us, which -- again -- I love, because I can say definitively that the amount of revenue associated with that deal ($10,000+) can be directly attributed to those efforts.

And that's just one of the deals out of that $190,000+ number of influenced revenue. But had I not created this holistic view in HubSpot campaigns, I would have never known. 

Finally, Don't Forget the "Soft" Victories

There are two other things I look for in pillar content to call it a success:

Someone from our sales team -- or multiple members from our sales team, ideally -- say that what we've created is an insanely valuable piece of sales enablement content they will start using immediately. 

The author of a particular pillar is able to use the link to the guide they built as a way to bring people to them that they connect with at events, speaking engagements, and so on. For example, IMPACT Client Success Specialist Myriah Anderson shared that -- after she participated in a SalesHacker webinar as a speaker, she had an influx of connection requests and messages on LinkedIn.  Since we always put an author box on each pillar, like so... ...Myriah was able to send a link to her video for sales guide as a follow-up to those who connected with her. It appeared more personal and relevant because her name and delightful face were on it, and it was directly related to the topic she was speaking on for SalesHacker -- using video to create wins for your sales team. 

"Wait, What About the Actual Topic Cluster Reporting Options in the HubSpot SEO Tool?"

Yeah, about those... I uh... I don't really use them. I don't find them valuable. Generally speaking, I love that I'm able to "hack the system" a bit with HubSpot campaigns and in other ways. But overall, I find much of the de facto reporting for pillar content and topic clusters in HubSpot to be lacking. 

I still hate that there is no single view for me to see the number of organically-sourced page views our topic clusters bring in. You can get this number by going to each individual cluster in the SEO tool and calculating it, but it is exhausting. I shouldn't have to do that. 

That said, I am also really happy with some of the ways I've been able to track not only the traffic gains, but also the bottom-line impact ($$$) our pillar content is having on the business -- that last part is a big deal considering how much effort goes into building all of them. 

However, what works for me may not work for you -- although I hope it does. To find the right path of measuring pillar content (and topic clusters), remember to start with your goals first.

And never rely on a single metric to tell you the whole story.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/how-to-measure-the-success-of-pillar-content-reporting-examples-tips

[bobbuch-blog]

Love The Ones You’re With: Why Marketers Should Focus On Their Best Customers

Originally Posted in AdExchanger, March 14, 2017

Ten years ago, I learned an important lesson about how to treat your core customers when, as Digg’s VP of business development, I was part of one the web’s biggest success stories – and biggest cautionary tales.

Digg enjoyed a meteoric rise to become one the web’s biggest news and media sites – bigger than both Facebook and Twitter at the time. People have postulated many theories as to why the original iteration of Digg ultimately failed. I want to focus on one of those reasons: Digg lost sight of its best customers.

We’re all familiar with that moment when a musical artist comes out with that album that crosses over into the mainstream and they start playing stadiums instead of small clubs. “I like their old stuff,” true believers say. The same dynamic exists with brands – from a media site like Digg to retailers like Warby Parker or Gilt Groupe. Every successful company reaches the moment when it goes from serving a dedicated and loving user base to serving a more mass-market audience.

When we reached this moment at Digg, we sat in countless strategy meetings mulling over features that might appeal to a mainstream audience. We were looking to break out of the “nerdy,” juvenile male demographic clicking on our T-shirt ads into the Oprah-NFL-NASCAR folks who clicked on ads and are known to lay down their credit cards.

In the process, we started inadvertently neglecting our core user base – at times even developing an antagonistic relationship with them. We noticed our top users trying to get their friends and family members to Digg, or essentially “like,” their stories and give them more power within the network, which we saw as cheating the system.

It turns out that we had it backward. We should not have fought those top users – we should have embraced them. After all, they were trying to do our marketing for us. They were asking their Oprah-watching grandmothers to join our site and Digg their stories, and we were trying to stop them?

All those hours trying to figure out how to crack into the mainstream and the answer was right in front of us. Indeed, it was those same power users that ultimately torpedoed Digg’s plans to become a mass-market business when they got fed up with our changes to the site and migrated en masse to Reddit, our biggest competitor.

Retailers and commerce-driven businesses could learn a useful lesson from the Digg story. Many marketers I meet with are heavily focused on new user acquisition, often at the expense of showing love to their own best customers. Too often, they dedicate no advertising resources to talking with their existing base, leaving that to their email marketing teams and other free channels, such as organic Facebook posts.

With Gmail stuffing marketing emails into a separate inbox and Facebook becoming more pay-to-play about showing posts from businesses to their fans, fewer people than ever read marketing emails.

Consumers today are more attuned to authenticity than ever before. Between fake news sites and blurring lines between advertising and content, consumers must be vigilant with their trust meters.

The most trusted source of information is one’s own inner circle of friends. I personally just bought the same car that my friend owns after he recommended it, I have single-handedly sold three dozen Sonos sound systems with my relentless raving about it and my closet is increasingly homogenous to the brands that I know and love.

When I see new products or special offers from one of my favorite brands, whether it’s in my news feed or a targeted ad, it reinforces my connection with the brand and deepens my affinity. In turn, I talk about it more – both online and off.

Some of the savvier marketers I work with are going all-in on paid marketing to their existing user base because they are seeing incremental revenue by doing so. Facebook, Google and the open web, via LiveRamp, all have well-established methods for securely onboarding customer files into ad networks as targetable audience segments. If a brand can reach its customers by email, it can now reach those same customers with ads across the web. Campaigns that target customer lists may not perform as well as traditional site retargeting, but they often come close in terms of efficiency while driving incremental sales that might otherwise not have occurred.

Marketing strategies that target existing customers should also be considered a form of influencer marketing. Some of the smartest marketers I talk to are convinced that influencer marketing will be the next big thing. Affiliate networks, traditionally known for lower-funnel partnerships with loyalty and cash-back sites, are branching into upper-funnel partnerships with influencers who are an authentic fit for the brand and will agree to post on their behalf. These influencers have thousands, and often millions, of followers on social networks and can drive significant interest when they post about a product.

When marketers target ads to their own best customers, they may not get the same level of reach as using a paid influencer, but they make up for it with breadth and increased authenticity. There is no better person to be an evangelist for their brand than one of their best customers, and most marketers have thousands to millions of best customers.

Tapping into that passion does not require millions of dollars invested in a creative agency, but simply a paid marketing program to put relevant products in front of their best customers. Those customers won’t share something that looks like an ad, but they won’t hesitate to share a post featuring a product they love.

While marketers have the challenge of juggling multiple objectives aimed at growing long- and short-term growth opportunities, it is important that they remember they already have access to some of the most authentic influencers out there: their own best customers.

[robertmcangusgroup]

The Daily Tulip

The Daily Tulip – International News From Around The World

Thursday 27th July 2017

Good Morning Gentle Reader….  Bella and I went to the top of the hill this morning, up by the Hermitage, and watched the meteors streak across the heavens.. we must have seen 10 in the brief time were there... I know all the facts behind what they are, bits of ice, dust, rock etc., that burn up when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, but I love to see them, it gives me my Spielberg moment to start the day.... so me and my faithful black companion set off back to the house, to write to you and drink coffee and water...The first for me the second for her and a couple of Rice cookies which we will share,

BRITISH MOVERS FIND MASSIVE AUSTRALIAN SPIDER IN FAMILY'S BELONGINGS…. Animal rescuers in Britain said a team of movers unloading a family's shipping container captured an unusual stowaway -- a massive huntsman spider from Australia. The RSPCA said movers unloading the shipping container of family belongings in Merstham, England, discovered the large spider after it apparently spent three months being transported the more than 10,000 miles from Brisbane, Australia. Dave Aldridge of Britannia Movers International told the BBC he captured the "handsome critter" after it startled one of his colleagues. "I had three guys unloading, one ran about two miles up the road when he first saw it," Aldridge said. "He's a handsome, furry guy. I caught him in a lunch box and took him home for my six-year-old son to see while waiting for the RSPCA to pick him up." RSPCA animal collection officer Annie Janes retrieved the spider from Aldridge. "This huntsman spider is quite the traveler, surviving a journey of over 10,000 miles inside the removal container," Janes said. "From the empty locust shells found in the container it seems he has thankfully been able to find food during that length of time, but it's a long time to go without water, and he's lucky he didn't get squished by any boxes or furniture. When I arrived he had been caught in a box and I carefully put a few drops of water down which he drank for some time, before confining him in a secure carrier. I carefully confined him and transported him to the Heathrow Animal Reception in Hounslow, who will arrange for him to be rehomed to a specialist. He was about the size of my two hands put together, roughly [7 inches], so quite something to look at! Thankfully I wasn't apprehensive, in my job I have to rescue all sorts of animals so I have had to learn to get used to dealing with spiders." Janes said huntsman spiders "are not venomous but they can give a nasty bite."

CROCODILE DRAGS ENTIRE COW WHILE SWIMMING IN AUSTRALIAN RIVER…. A group of anglers using a drone to spot fish in Australia captured video of a massive crocodile dragging an entire cow through a river. The video, posted to YouTube by user Trip In A Van, shows a crocodile -- estimated to be between 16 and 20 feet long -- swimming in a river in Western Australia's Kimberly region Friday while carrying a fully-grown cow in its jaws. "On a day out fishing for Barramundi in The Kimberley, Western Australia we spotted this massive crocodile drag a cow down the river bank,"the filmer wrote. "We followed him with the drone as it dragged the cow down river. It eventually got fed up with the drone buzzing over him and tried to pull the cow underwater." The angler described the scene as the "pure awesomeness of nature." https://youtu.be/7thN5IgvHr4

MAN SKIRTS 'NO DOGS' POLICY BY BRINGING PET SHEEP INTO STORE…. A shopper who turned heads at a Northern Ireland grocery store by bringing his leashed pet sheep inside said he wasn't violating the store's "no dogs" policy. The man drew a crowd of astonished onlookers at the Lidl store in Portrush when he took his sheep, which was wearing a leash, for a stroll through the aisles. Witnesses said the man was escorted out of the store by employees. John Junk, who was shopping with his family at the time of the incident, said the man wasn't worried about store policy. "As a female Lidl employee headed toward him, my wife and daughter warned the shepherd that there may be trouble ahead. He laughed and quipped: 'It said no dogs, so I'll be dead‐on love,'" Junk told the Belfast Telegraph. "After he'd been asked to leave we spoke to the urban shepherd outside. He claimed that his charge was one of triplets, and he'd had her from she was three days old, and had saved her from the abattoir," Junk said. "The lad seemed to have a genuine affection for the animal, and despite having some drink taken, it didn't look like the animal was in any need of rescue." Police said the sheep's owner was later arrested on charges of common assault and disorderly behavior stemming from what was described as an altercation at a supermarket. It was unclear whether the alleged incident was at the same store, or whether the sheep was present.

COLORADO VET SOOTHES DOG BY SINGING BEFORE SURGERY…. A veterinarian in Clorado used his musical talents to help soothe a nervous pet being prepared for surgery. Fox Hollow Animal Hospital shared video of Dr. Ross Henderson playing guitar and serenading a dog named Ruby with Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" to calm her nerves before she underwent surgery. "Sometimes your patient just needs you to go the extra mile to make them feel comfortable when they're here for the day to have surgery," the animal hospital wrote. "Dr. Ross has mastered the technique and sweet Ruby was so thankful for that." The video, which has been viewed more than 460,000 times, features Henderson performing the song while the 6-month-old puppy rests peacefully on his leg. Henderson, 28, told ABC News he has been singing to animals at the hospital for several months to help make their stay more pleasant. "Dogs spend 99 percent of their time at home and when they come into the hospital, we try to give them as pleasant an experience as possible," he said. "I think that's why attention and music, those two pieced together, causes a little bit of familiarity to them. It's the best part when they start to settle down and say, 'OK, I can relax now.'" https://www.facebook.com/foxhollowvet/videos/1602892713084801/

5-YEAR-OLD BRITISH GIRL FINED FOR RUNNING LEMONADE STAND…. A father in England said his daughter was left in tears after being fined for setting up a lemonade stand. Andre Spicer was initially excited at his 5-year-old daughter's request to sell lemonade outside their home, but said he "would have thought twice" if he were aware about the 150-pound ($194) fine that would eventually come their way. "The lemonade quickly disappeared and her little money tin filled up. A happy scene," he wrote in the Telegraph. "And then, after about 30 minutes, four local council enforcement officers stormed up to her little table." The officers read Spicer a legal statement explaining he would be fined for operating the lemonade stand without a trading permit and said the fine would only be 90 pounds ($116) if paid quickly. His daughter quickly burst into tears and asked "have I done a bad thing?" "She was very upset and had to watch Brave a few times to calm down," Spicer told The Guardian. Spicer felt the difference between his daughter's stand and an unlicensed street trader should have been obvious and sent a tweet to the Tower Hamlets council stating he "realized there were broader issues at stake, including how society treats children." Tower Hamlets eventually dropped the fine and a council representative offered Spicer and his daughter an apology. "We are very sorry that this has happened. We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense, and to use their powers sensibly. This clearly did not happen," the representative said. "The fine will be canceled immediately and we have contacted Professor Spicer and his daughter to apologize"

Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, Thursday morning… …

Our Tulips today are like an old "Who" song "I can see for miles and miles and miles...."

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Thursday 27th July 2017 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus