#instead of just a parenthetical rant

[hifi-walkman]

Thoughts on that kids show from the 2010s that changed the course of my life:

So, season 1 of Steven universe is really clever, because it shows the world from the perspective of a child in such an effective way. For example, the plot.

The viewers become aware of homeworld as a threat in ocean gem, but the crystal gems (other than Steven) know homeworld is coming from episode 2.

The red eye is the first thing homeworld does to check on earth, and the crystal gems are *powerless* to destroy it until the laser light canon is used (and that's *old* gem tech, not even the new stuff!)

In serious Steven, Coach Steven, and Steven's lion the gems are actively working to dismantle structures they had previously left untouched for thousands of years. Why? In case the diamonds try to use them.

Even after lapis' two parter the extent of why and how the gems are preparing for homeworld to attack isn't spelled out.

Pearl is trying to *escape* just like lapis did in Space Race, she knows it's possible... She knows if they leave earth they can be safe. Warp tour shows more explicitly that homeworld was already coming before lapis left, that even though she was Steven's introduction to the concept, homeworld was already interested in earth for other reasons. In rose's scabbard, they're clearly cleaning up the battlefield to keep extra weapons out of homeworld's hands, as it happens right between two major homeworld episodes, and just barely before the finale itself. Steven may not have known homeworld gems were coming for them, but the crystal gems did, the message only told them just how little time they had to prepare for it.

When you're watching Steven Universe for the first time, all this context slips past, you don't consider the reasons for the crystal gems going on certain missions, because the viewer doesn't have the information to even realize there was anything to consider (because the crystal gems are obviously keeping that info from Steven early on). Only on a rewatch does the exact level of urgency weigh in on the viewer, only when looking back do they realize exactly how much danger Steven was in even in the first season. It's a really clever set of details.

[jjnonken]

Been a while since I've posted. I've decided I hate Facebook again and for now I'm letting off steam here.

I said before that I'd deleted my long rant and just stuck to a mini-rant. Well, today I'm posting a long rant. Fair warning: This is a rant.

As far as I can tell, there's no good news about the Borderlands movie. They've changed Commander Knoxx's character to be Atlas's daughter instead of General Knoxx, so I guess she'll be Commander Atlas now. That... doesn't matter. Of all the issues I have with this movie, whose daughter she is is probably the least important. Actually, it's not an issue. Her EXISTENCE is an issue, but not which NPC is her parent. Atlas isn't even an NPC, it's just a gun manufacturer, presumably named after its founder. We never see the founder(s) nor, as far as I can remember, hear any backstory. I'm not sure which problem they were trying to solve by the rename.

First problem: We do have to rescue Lilith, Athena, and one other who I won't mention due to spoilers. I can only think of those three. Lilith tells you to kill her if you can't save her... "Better dead than a damsel." Athena engineers her own rescue; you're just the muscle. So there's kind of a dearth of damsels in this franchise. The movie's premise is that Commander uh... Atlas?... needs to be rescued. So, right. Damsel in distress. Kind of immediately contradicts the lore of Borderlands, who has strong women who generally don't need rescuing.

Second is: why General Knoxx's er, I mean, Atlas's daughter? She's a new character. It's like BORDERLANDS ISN'T CHARACTER-RICH ENOUGH, we have to add more just to get the plot started.

Edit: She still shows credited as Commander Knoxx in my web search, including on IMDB. I saw Atlas in the last article I saw on the movie. It's possible it was simply mistaken. I note parenthetically that Knoxx works for Atlas Corporation, and the DLC he's in is Atlas-heavy. Could just be a mistake. Edit to the edit: The Wikipedia article premise mentions her as Atlas's daughter. But she's named Knoxx. I'm fucking confused; which is she?

Next: They have Kevin Hart playing Roland. Kevin Hart is a comedian. Roland is a serious, somber, straightforward guy who never jokes and never laughs, or even smiles. Any humor that happens in relation to him works because it plays off his sober sincerity.

Roland: Oh good, you're not dead. Lilith: That's his way of saying "Hi". Roland: Sorry. Hi.

Why do they need a stand-up comedian to play Roland? Either Hart is trying to branch out and do some serious acting, or... they're making a comedy.

OK, Cate Blanchett is doing Lilith. I don't know if she's the best choice, but I don't know who else I'd recommend. I guess I'm OK with that.

As for Tannis... I love Jamie Lee Curtis, but she's a scream queen that also does comedies. Tannis isn't FUNNY, she's TRAGIC. Again, there's humor, but it plays off her personality, which is informed by her severe social awkwardness. (She's pretty much coded autistic. I don't know if it's canon.) No doubt the trauma she's suffered has exacerbated any existing personality deficits. Or caused new ones. Can Curtis do a sober Tannis? I mean, play her seriously, not deadpan. I don't know. Again, I don't think she's meant to -- this movie is looking more like a comedy every day. Could be worse, but I'm not sure I'd pick her.

Next, we have Claptrap, who is introduced as "The wise-cracking robot" and played by... Jack Black, a comedic voice actor. Thing is, Claptrap does not crack wise. He's hilarious, but that's because, similarly to Roland and Tannis, the game plays off his naive sincerity. He's funny because he's so serious, but clueless. I haven't memorized every line in the entire franchise enough to instantly recall everything that every claptrap robot has said, but as far as I can remember, Claptrap has told MAYBE three jokes on purpose. One is self-referential, spoken by a claptrap who is supposed to be programming the game: "Borderlands? More like Memelands, am I right?" One is spoken right after a hatch is automatically locked, trapping you in the first map: "I hear that getting eaten by bullymongs isn't such a bad way to go." Was that one a deliberate joke? Don't know, so that's my "maybe." And the third is from a side mission called The Iceman Cometh. It's a moderately silly pun that any 10-year-old would be proud of. When you (as a character) don't react, he then EXPLAINS THE JOKE. When you still don't react, he LECTURES YOU on the nature of humor. TWICE. Naive sincerity, not cracking wise. So again, this suggests the movie being a comedy.

So, we have two of the four vault hunters from the first game, Lilith and Roland. The roles of Mordecai and Brick are interesting, in that THEY AREN'T THERE. Why?

Tiny Tina is. She's a psychotic young teen with a penchant for explosives. She's got a connection to Brick, who -- for some reason -- isn't in the movie. She's not the kind of person who needs a bodyguard -- she's the kind of person against whom YOU need a bodyguard. I only bring this up because... ... Krieg is her bodyguard in the movie. Why? I already mentioned her connection to Brick. Krieg doesn't have a connection to Tina, he has a connection to Maya. I don't know when this movie is supposed to take place in the Borderlands timeline, but if Lilith is retired, it'll be between the first and second. Possibly around the time of the Pre-Sequel. We don't see Krieg until BL2, where he's added as the last playable character after the original four plus Gaige. So the timeline doesn't make sense and Krieg's connection to Tina doesn't make sense and Krieg being Tina's bodyguard doesn't make sense. I don't know anything about the actors, I may look them up and try to watch some of their stuff.

Tina doesn't show in the game until BL2, but there's no reason to think she hasn't been around since Borderlands, we just haven't seen her. (But only after the events of BL:PS, since it's Jack's slag experiments on Tina's parents that kill them and drive her into being a vengeful little psychopath.) But Krieg doesn't show up until he becomes a vault hunter? OTOH until then he was living as a psycho... probably on Pandora. So I suppose the timeline might be OK, technically. I'll give them that one. But I still object to the Tina/Krieg connection.

Gina Gershon as Mad Moxxi: Gina is an attractive woman, doesn't have Moxxi's curves, and she's 61. She's pretty hot-looking but I'm not sure she really fits the character, physically. Can she do Moxxi's va-va-voom? Don't know.

Charles Babalola: I don't know him. I try not to get upset at race lifts; I'm used to Sir Hammerlock being the "great white hunter" stereotype, but I suppose it doesn't hurt anything if he's black. At least he's British. This is a weak protestation at most. EDIT: Several people have pointed out that he's canonically black, which I never noticed. Well, OK then, that one's on me.

Bobby Lee plays Larry. He's another stand-up comedian. There sure are a lot of those for a serious film, eh? Also, who the fuck is Larry?

Ryann Redmond as Ellie: nobody's going to match Ellie's unrealistic proportions, but Ryann seems like a reasonable choice physically; basically, you just need a plus-sized woman who can act. I don't know anything about her acting but I presume she's competent, at least. Ellie is a smartass, so wise-cracking from her is welcome. So how come they cast a stand-up comedian as Roland but a serious actress as Ellie? The cognitive dissonance is making my brain cramp.

And Eli Roth has left the project and declared that he does not want credit for his writing. THAT bodes well.

This is supposed to be canon. Canon my ass. This is a TRAVESTY. EDIT: Somebody said it's not supposed to be canon. I read that it is. I'll try to dig up the reference when I get a minute. EDIT 2: Sorry it took me so long, I was busy procrastinating. Now, in my memory, when the first announced the movie they claimed it would be "true to Borderlands", but of course that's changed. I must have skimmed over the more recent "canon" phrasing, sorry. Apparently it's changed to "canon for the Borderlands Cinematic Universe", which is not the same as canon to the games. To me that's seems a bit disingenuous, considering that as far as I can tell, the Borderlands Cinematic Universe consists of one unfinished movie. (And calling it a "Borderlands Cinematic Universe" also seems a bit conceited since their first -- and so far only -- entry has been in Production Hell for 9 years and hasn't even finished.) So my apologies for getting the "canon" claims wrong, but I'm still unhappy and I think they're making excuses. They've taken an Action Movie script, grabbed some names from the Borderlands franchise, and pretended that the result is a Borderlands movie. They did that with Sly Stallone and the first Judge Dredd movie, remember? (Maybe you don't, but I was a fan of the comics. Fortunately the second movie was much, much better.) This makes me think of Stallone's Judge Dredd. (Also the anime version of the Lensman, but that one's pretty obscure.)

Anyway, I have more, but I think I've said what I need to. I may watch the movie out of morbid curiosity. I'm not going to dislike it out of spite, I'm not that hateful. I'll try to give it a chance. I just don't like the odds.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 19: Beneath the Dagger

Do you still remember the deal? Probably not, huh? It goes like this: this reread has spoilers for the whole dang series. Spoilers for book 1 (kind of expected), book 2 (not uncommon), book 8 (I already ran out of parentheticals), book 10 (just kidding nothing happens in this one), and even book 15 (the one that only super special fans get to read). If you don't want that, don't click Keep reading.

The icon for this chapter is the Horn of Valere as it is the object of Rand's quest and his prize. It's also what our favorite lady in white gets fixated on. They're all very straightforward.

Every day they had been there on the mountainside, watching the place where Hurin said the trail had been, in that other world—where Selene said the Darkfriends would surely appear in this world—he told himself it was time to leave. And Selene talked of the Horn of Valere, and touched his arm, and looked into his eyes, and before he knew it he had agreed to yet another day before they went on.

I suspect that Selene is using Compulsion here and that it's working as much because this is what fate needs to happen as it is what Rand wants to do anyway. He thinks this is all nonsense and a complete long shot but in his gut he knows it's the only way to keep Mat alive, so all Selene is really accomplishing is pushing his surface thoughts out of the way of his true nature. It's borderline therapeutic!

I was happy then, I think, even running for my life. Playing the flute for my supper.

That is not remotely how it was, Rand. You were stressed and exhausted and for every place you got to play for your supper there was another where you got scammed or threatened or worse. It's quite interesting how we romanticize our memories though. One of Rand's bigger problems is that eventually he gets to a point where there's nothing to work with for this delusion, so all the "despair debt" as it were catches up with him in a lump sum.

In the moonlight he could see the shape of Selene, bending over his saddlebags, her hands on the buckles. Her white dress gathered the faint light.

There's something intensely metaphorical about the fact that the woman who has betrayed both sides of the metaphysical conflict at play is herself betrayed by the things that she does claim loyalty to.

“It came to me,” she said, “that I’ve been wearing this dress too long. I could brush it, at least, if I had something else to wear while I did. One of your shirts, perhaps.”

Points to Lanfear though for always having a back-up plan to work her angles.

Her soft laugh sent a shiver down his back, as if she had run a finger along his spine.

Rand doesn't mention goosebumps specifically in this sequence but I bet she really is running weaves of Air around him. Makes her creepier.

“Think of the glory that will come to the one who finds the Horn of Valere. How proud I’ll be to stand beside him who holds the Horn. You have no idea the heights we will scale together, you and I. With the Horn of Valere in your hand, you can be a king. You can be another Artur Hawkwing. You. . . .”

Honestly if Hurin hadn't interrupted her here Rand probably would have rebuffed her pretty hard anyway. Glory is the least of this boy's interests and Lanfear literally can't bring it up without going into this long-winded rant which she almost certainly plans to cap off with "topple the Creator and the Dark One". It's not even all that likely that someone with the Horn could pull off Hawkwing anyway - the world is too divided and the Heroes won't be happy being used for petty political warfare.

No reason to be angry with her.

Here's some other Compulsion Selene pulls off successfully, though the stakes are super low. There's plenty of reason to be mad Rand, even with just the info you have! It's weird she's digging around in your stuff in the middle of the night instead of talking to you about it. It's weird that she's sexually harassing you instead of respecting your boundaries. It's weird that she's clearly lying to you about Portal Stones!

“You don’t know you cannot take it. How many followers does this man have? You don’t know that, either.”

I will give Lanfear credit for actually providing useful tactical advice. Even if her "Get the Horn now!" routine is based entirely in her delusional self-importance, she's not wrong to point out that they should be learning about the enemy camp while they have the chance and the element of surprise. Rand's really more of the big picture strategist in warfare than this kind of skirmish.

“I am capable of guarding myself, until you return to protect me. Take the alantin.”

Nothing suspicious about any of THIS at all. Literally any other Ogier in the world would have called out someone calling them an Old Tongue name only, I think. Loial just doesn't do it because he's so naive.

“Remember the glory,” she said softly. “Remember.”

I think it's pronounced "Memento mori", Lanfear. Someone really should have been whispering that to you.

He wished he could stop thinking, and before he realized it, the void had formed within him, making thoughts distant things, as if part of someone else. Saidin shone at him, beckoned to him.

Being caught between Lanfear and the tainted saidin makes rocks and hard places seem like vacation destinations. But being able to use the void at all means that Tam's training saved Rand from quite a lot of Lanfear's influence I think.

Loial’s huge hand settled over Rand’s mouth, and a good part of his face besides.

This is far funnier to me than it has any intention of being. Breaks up the tension of the scene, which is quite effective but difficult to quote because it builds up over time.

Tam had told him Trollocs were lazy, apt to give up any task but killing unless fear kept them to it.

Really just another demonstration of how the Shadow without the Light is entirely self-defeating.

The Horn of Valere and the dagger Mat needed, both almost within reach of his hand. Selene’s face drifted with the chest. They could follow Fain’s party in the morning, and wait until Ingtar joined them. If Ingtar did come, if he still followed the trail without his sniffer. No, there would never be a better chance. All within reach of his hand. Selene was waiting on the mountain.

Again, points to Selene (from the Light's perspective) because Rand would have utterly wasted this opportunity without her guidance. It really makes me wonder how she got to rise through the ranks to Forsaken at all considering how little she does for the Shadow's agenda. Literally less than the Trollocs and I just got done roasting them.

His hand touched something else, on the lid. The dagger, bare-bladed. In the dark, his eyes widened. Remembering what it had done to Mat, he jerked back, the void shifting with his agitation.

Lucky he didn't cut himself on it. Or perhaps unlucky; if he had cut his hand on it maybe Ishamael would have given him a matching wound there as well instead of any side wounds and it would have been much less miserable in the long run what with Semirhage's post-cleansing amputation of the poor boy.

Even in the night it was plain Loial’s eyes were as wide as they could go; they looked as big as saucers in the light of the moon.

It's these subtle touches that do a good job of emphasizing how uncommonly brave Rand is. Loial is absolutely a trooper for making it this far but even he's got limits.

“I know it is you, al’Thor! You’re hiding from me, but I know you are out there! Find him! Find him! Al’Thoooor!”

It's funny how in this book, which is mostly moving well away from the LotR inspiration that all 80s fantasy novels needed to have, Fain is acting more Gollum-like than ever before.

Rand moved without thought. He was one with the blade. Cat Dances on the Wall. The Trolloc screamed as it fell, screamed again as it died.

Frankly, CDotW sounds less like a standard sword form and more like what mentors joking call it when the new guys start panicking and waving their sword everywhere in a panic, but I guess it works.

The Courtier Taps His Fan. No scream, this time.

In contrast, this particular form sounds much more dignified and controlled. Jordan using these names to describe the action without describing it was a really great touch.

Lizard in the Thornbush. He rose smoothly from one knee as the second toppled, horns almost brushing his shoulder.

I like sword forms okay?

Fain was there, and Darkfriends, and more Trollocs. Too many to fight. Too many to face and live.

As awesome as the forms are, I do have to point out how unbelievable it sounds that Rand just single handedly killed eight Trollocs and is worried about fighting more. Like obviously he will eventually get exhausted but it really feels like he burned through a good chunk of the enemy forces. I'm not really sure how many there are at this point anyway and I'm not sure if that's the text being vague for tension or if I just forgot from earlier chapters because of the break.

“Sometimes I do not understand half of what you say,” Loial said. “If you must go mad, could it at least wait until we are back with the Lady Selene and Hurin?”

Again: Loial is painfully naive. Any other Ogier would have been well aware of exactly how alarming Rand's confession of going mad would be. I'm just gonna say it outright: the Elders were lowkey right not to approve of Loial wandering around in the world on his own. Look at the company he keeps.

As she stretched on tiptoe to put a hand inside, Rand reached over her shoulder and lifted out the Horn of Valere. He had seen it once before, but never touched it. Though beautifully made, it did not look a thing of great age, or power.

Normally I don't approve of tall people using their height to thwart shorties but for Lanfear I must of course make an exception.

And also, I'm sure again: how fucking old IS the Horn anyway? It can't possibly just be going through the whole of the Wheel over and over. Who made it? Why? When? What parts of interacting with the Heroes that the cast just assumes is the natural order of the worldl are in fact only possible because the Horn exists?

“You misunderstand me, Rand,” Selene said. “You cannot go back, now. You are committed. Those Friends of the Dark will not simply go away because you’ve taken the Horn from them. Far from it. Unless you know some way to kill them all, they will be hunting you now as you hunted them before.”

Ugh and now she's made another good point, even though again it's only in her self-interest. Lanfear you are supposed to be crazy. Stop challenging that by actually being helpful.

“Be careful,” Selene said. “Do not cut yourself.”

Once again, one has to wonder how the Forsaken are so familiar with something that was never contemporaneous with any of them except ol' Ballsac.

I am also now struck by the wondering if Lanfear's behavior makes her some third flavor of evil that might also be destructive against the Taint if it only existed in larger qualities than her. Probably not, but... she's closer to pulling it off than anyone else.

“The chest will surely shield us,” Selene said in a tight voice. “And now I mean to finish what is left of my night’s sleep.”

Since the chest is a stasis box, Lanfear is of course quite pissed that Rand has accidentally found a valid solution to their problem.

He gestured to the first Trolloc that had brought him word al’Thor was not to be found. It still snapped at ground muddied with its own blood, hooves scraping trenches as they jerked.

Poor Trolloc. Nobody deserves Fain.

“I am a dog no longer. A dog no longer!” He heard the others shifting uneasily around the fire, but he ignored them.

A fun contrast. Rand protests he will not be made a puppet and aptly demonstrates this by making his own choices whenever possible and wise. Fain protests that he's not a dog even as he plans to follow Rand's metaphorical scent, then he goes barking mad. The Shadow: Not even once.

That wraps up another chapter. Lanfear doesn't deserve any points so I'm taking them all away from her before the chapter break. She's back to 0, tied with virtually every other character! Next time: Fewer points awarded to Lanfear, hopefully. Also: saidin.

[moonfishlagoon]

Venetian language & gender-neutrality

Vèneto! Known colloquially as “dialect,” (e.g., “speaking dialect”) Venetian is nevertheless a distinct language still spoken in the Venetan region of Italy. My current writing project takes me to the centro storico of Venice in CE 2080. The centro storico is the historic center - where you think of when you think of Venice. Tourists, canals, etc.; the mainland being terreferma.

At this point in my worldbuilding, a third neutral gender is widely accepted across large swaths of the world. So, how to reconcile this with the distinctly gendered grammar of Vèneto while still being respectful of a language that is not my own?

The first question: are there resources discussing this online? No, of course not! That would be too easy! (if you have these resources, please send them to me posthaste.) A series of Reddit posts in my new favorite subreddits, r/linguistics, r/Veneto, and r/Venezia, have clued me in to the fact that:

Venetian speakers are largely conceptualized as elderly and rural, thus:

Presumably aren’t thinking about gender neutrality, and moreover:

Aren’t posting about it online if they are

This is clearly a biased and seemingly-ignorant point of view. Yet if there are Venetian-speakers out there talking about this, I’m probably largely out of the loop because, most significantly of all factors, I don’t speak Vèneto. Crushing.

Investigation in this direction thus stymied, I turned instead to Italian, which has in recent times been investigating that curious beast known as neutering your language.

Surprising no one, most of the English-language writing on this topic is horribly bigoted! Much bemoaning of the dissolution of the integrity of the Italian language. Sound familiar?

I gleaned enough from these rantings to understand that Italians are playing with a lot of gender-neutral options. I’ll use the word “tutti” (“all”) as an example. If you’re familiar with gender neutral efforts in Spanish, these will likely strike you as familiar. Our options, among others, are:

Just using the masculine - tutti

An asterix - tutt*

Leaving off the ending - tutt

A ‘u’ - tuttu

An at sign - tutt@

A schwa - tuttə

For even more, see Italian linguist Vera Gheno’s breakdown on Facebook. (And wow, I just found a bibliography about the schwa on her FB page, time for another deep dive ...)

Only one of the above options seems useable to me in a narrative context, and that’s the schwa. It’s easy on the eyes, it looks basically like a letter, and it makes a comprehensible and distinct noise. Furthermore, gendering in Vèneto and Italian seems to work in similar ways, so I feel fairly confident that I can apply the schwa to Venetian endings as I would Italian ones and not be making a mockery of myself. (Fairly confident, I said!)

Authorial side-bar - using the schwa will also signal to readers that I am doing something different with language; likely even those unfamiliar with Venetian and Italian.

Next question: what about singular nouns??? All the examples I’ve found with the schwa are for plural nouns, and googling (or duck-duck-go-ing) is getting me nowhere. After about half an hour of wishing I could just go to Venice, I found a Reddit thread that linked to a marvelous article:

Linguaggio inclusivo in italiano: guida pratica per chi scrive per lavoro (e non) by Ruben Vitiello

With some help from Firefox’s Simple Translate extension, I dove into this lovely, thorough, and most importantly not bigoted guide on the schwa. Not only does it talk about the schwa, but it has fantastic background on choosing ungendered language, speaking about trans people, and the history of gender neutral endings in Italian. This article is a goldmine.

It also contained one parenthetical that made all the research worth it: “sua forma semplificata (un solo simbolo sia per singolare che plurale)”.

“Its simplified form (only one symbol for both singular and plural)”.

That’s all I needed to know! The schwa is used for singular and plural endings. Ruben Vitiello, I owe you my life.

With hours of research under my belt, I now feel fairly confident in my choice to use the schwa for a hypothetical future Venetian that exists in a world which recognizes a third neutral gender.

If anyone reading this wants to share their thoughts, please feel free! If you speak Venetian, I’m actually begging you to chime in!

And now, on to the next research hole ... Adìo!

Further resources:

Lingua Veneta (dictionary)

Glosbe (dictionary)

Non-binary in Italian: Queering the Italian Language (article)

Gender neutral language (nonbinary wiki page)

Schwa (ə) and Inclusive Language, a Conversation Among Colleagues (article)

[20dollarlolita]

Hi Pink! I'm interested in potentially sewing my own jsk in the future -- do you have any recommendations in consideration to fabric for a jsk or op? Thank you~!

I get this kind of question a lot, but I don’t really mind, because I try to find a new way to answer it every time. However, if this answer feels incomplete, or if you want even more of my opinions, there’s probably five or six other posts on this blog where I go into different details.

Here’s one on prints: https://20dollarlolita.tumblr.com/post/130043329323/a-quick-guide-to-prints

Here’s a rant about plainweave cottons: https://20dollarlolita.tumblr.com/post/162773761473/what-kind-of-material-would-you-recommend-using

Places to get border prints: https://20dollarlolita.tumblr.com/post/177611593238/hi-where-are-some-good-places-to-get-fabric-for

Uncommon fabric choices beyond the basics: https://20dollarlolita.tumblr.com/post/165373112353/what-are-some-uncommon-fabric-choices-im

Rant about how Supima quilting fabric is actually a sateen: https://20dollarlolita.tumblr.com/post/183529644748/that-one-dress

Note: I’m going to list certain lines of fabric at Joann Fabrics because I know their current stock too well. If this means nothing to you as a reader, you can just ignore my parentheticals.

So, let’s start specifically with fabric, before I go into kinds of prints:

There’s two kinds of concerns with fabric for lolita. The first is how it looks, and the second is how it moves.

***

If you’re talking a lower thread count plainweave cotton (Keepsake Calico, Quilter’s Showcase, Novelty Prints, Country Classics), you run into two problems. The first is that the coarser fabric doesn’t have a good drape, and is crisp in ways you don’t want the fabric to be for lolita dresses. It ends up with a distinct way of hanging that many lolitas can spot as quilting cotton. The second is that the fabric has a very flat, non-lustrous quality, so it looks almost dead.

If you want to use these fabrics, you’ll need to find a print that gives it the appearance of texture or luster, instead of using solid colors. Solid colors of quilting cotton can start to make you look like a cel shaded cartoon.

You’ll also want to flat-line any structured components (like bodices) and do a slip-lining on a skirt. These will both add structure and body to the piece, and allow it to hang and move more like an apparel fabric.

***

If you’re talking a higher thread count plainweave quilting fabric (Specifically the Joann premium quilt cottons, which I think are currently being sorted by some weird system into Florals and Asian Inspired and whatever else the store feels like), you still have the concerns you’d have with a lower thread count fabric, but to a lesser extent. Being woven from finer threads improves the drape and luster. For this, you might be able to flat-line the bodice (or full line, if that’s your style) and just let the skirt be the skirt.

Note: I still don’t think Kona cotton solids are good for lolita. Despite their higher thread count, they still have very flat colors that start looking cartoony.

***

Moving right along to cotton sateens.

Cotton sateens might be the most lolita-appropriate fabrics in the quilting section. They’re still 100% cotton, but they’re woven with a satin weave, giving them luster and better drape. Joann currently has a line called Supima Cotton, which is a long-staple cotton combined with a satin weave. Supima wants you to think that it’s soft and shiny because their cotton’s special but fiber type is almost always less important than the way the fabric is woven, spun, or processed .

***

Into the apparel section: Cotton shirtings! They’re like quilting fabrics, but designed for apparel, so they have a better thread count, a tighter weave, smoother cotton, and (often) a little polyester content. I recently made a JSK out of a navy dot shirting, and it turned out very lovely, and notably visually different from a dress I recently made out of quilting fabrics.

It’s often not necessary to line the bodice with a shirting, especially for a JSK.

I’m about to run to work so I’ll stick a picture comparison here later, assuming I don’t mess up and post my cat again. 

***

Sportswear section: these are a little bit chunkier, but many of them are woven with a satin or twill weave. All my Brand dresses from before 2012 are made of a cotton twill, so these are great at getting that feeling. You’ll still want to look for a thinner one for a JSK or an OP.

Joann has a stretch sateen that’s very comfortable to wear. Watch out for any labeled “target”, because those are a poplin weave that doesn’t look good at that thickness.

***

Special occasion fabrics: When I got into lolita IN THE OLD DAYS lady getup>, fabrics that were obviously synthetic were frowned upon (we also never wore hooped crinolines). Now, AP is rereleasing prints on polyester fabric, and a drapier, thinner fabric is more common.

This means we’re allowed to play in the special occasion fabric section. Matte satins are great. The backside of satin with a chiffon overlay is great. If done well, raschel lace overlays are acceptable. Thinner, drapier fabrics are great for more classical and gothic styles.

You may need to line thing fabrics (stretch charmeuse specifically), so be careful and cautious with thinner fabrics for some genres.

Also, not all special occasion fabric is the same. Check out the section aimed at people making prom dresses, and watch out and don’t get caught in the section for making princess play dresses for small children.

***

I hope that somehow had some sense in it. I’m sure I’m missing some category and I’ll probably edit that in when I’m back from work (or make an attempt, and probably accidentally post Teensey Buttons again) .

[meowloudly15]

Stranded: Day 8 - SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW

WARNING: LONG RANT INCOMING

I got two very nice comments from The Evil Author on FFN and wanted to reply but couldn't cuz he's got the PM feature turned off. So, here are my replies. They contain info that you all would probably like to see.

First of all, thank you for reading and reviewing!

Second, yes, there are discrepancies between the canon and this fic, and I won't claim that this fic is set in canon. I misremembered some information from Spiderverse when writing this fic, before Netflix posted it. Three major differences come to mind:

1. In the movie, Miles was at Visions Academy for at least a couple months before Gwen showed up. In this fic, he shows up at roughly the same time that she does. Changing this element to make it canon would affect little to none of the plot.

2. In the movie, Kingpin's collider is at the basement of his penthouse, and the Alchemax facility is located a considerable distance away. It doesn't hold a collider. In this fic, the Alchemax facility is where the original collider is, and it's considerably closer, only about twenty minutes away as the spider swings. (The new one will be at Kingpin's penthouse.) Changing this element to make it canon would affect the plot pretty significantly. (E.g. how would Gwen know to be at Alchemax at the time at which Miles and Peter B. are there?)

3. In the movie, the spiders recognise each other upon first glance, or even when they are near each other, like when Gwen is at her locker and Miles passes behind her. (This is, however, not incredibly consistent, as the B-Team doesn't recognise the others until after their introductions are over.) In this fic, Spider-Pete doesn't recognise Gwen as a fellow spider when they meet face-to-face. Changing this element to canon would probably affect the plot.

And finally, I shall never abandon this fic. It will be completed, come hell or high water.

Thanks to everybody who has bore (beared? borne? boreded?) with me through these past few months. I hope the schedule slips haven't impeded your enjoyment of the fic. As always, enjoy!

First | Previous | Next

Gwen looked down at the two startled spidermen, sizing them up.

SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW

That could mean any number of confusing, conflicting things. She decided to judge them only on the basis of what she could see.

The spiderman on the left was dressed in the exact same style of suit that Spider-Pete had worn. However, he was wearing sweatpants and no shoes and otherwise looked considerably less dignified. (Of course, that could have been because he was trussed up like a snared insect.)

The one on the right was smaller and younger-looking. He wore a cheap Spiderman costume and basketball shoes and had dark skin. Could he be Miles?

"Gwanda?"

Yep, definitely Miles.

"It's Gwen, actually."

The guy on the left spoke up. He sounded like Spider-Pete, except his throat sounded like it was filled with sand. "Oh, so you know her. That's cool."

"Long story short, we met in school."

"The long story can wait. Are you gonna let us down?"

Gwen rolled her eyes. "I don't know, would you rather stay here?"

"Okay, enough sarcasm. Let us go."

She obligingly leaped to the higher branches and yanked the weblines free. Anti-Spider-Pete and Miles both plummeted to the ground.

It couldn't hurt to show off a bit more.

She tossed the computer to Miles, then dove backwards out of the treetop, intending to shoot a webline and slowly descend to the snowy surface.

JAMMED FINGERS

Rats. She'd forgotten to repair her webshooters last night.

Of course, both of Gwen's gloves misfired, and she plummeted headfirst to the ground. Served her right for trying to show off.

"You okay, man?" asked Miles, handing the computer back to Anti-Spider-Pete.

"That was completely intentional."

Anti-Spider-Pete nodded. "Sure it was."

Gwen smacked her gloves against her leg and dusted the snow off of her suit. "Let's get going before Alchemax shows up with bigger guns. Where are you guys headed?"

Anti-Spider-Pete shrugged. "Uh, I dunno, someplace where we can make another goober?"

Gwen blinked, then nodded. It was best to just play along. "Okay, I'm coming with."

"I, uh, I like your haircut," said Miles, his eyes looking anywhere but at her haircut.

Gwen furrowed her brow. "You don't get to like it. C'mon, let's go."

She took off, Anti-Spider-Pete hot on her heels.

Miles muttered, "How many other spider-people are there?"

"Save it for Comic-Con." Anti-Spider-Pete webbed the back of Miles' shirt and yanked him along for the ride.

What was Comic-Con? Was it like DashCon?

"Where are we headed?" asked Gwen.

"The bus station. We gotta find a lab or something."

Gwen was not opposed to the idea of taking the bus instead of using her dysfunctional webshooters, but she didn't know why Anti-Spider-Pete would do so.

"Why the bus?"

"'Cuz it's less exhausting. Plus, Miles isn't too good at this spider business."

Miles, still dangling from Anti-Spider-Pete's webline, nodded reluctantly.

Gwen nodded. Her suspicions were correct. Miles had gotten his powers very recently, possibly after she had arrived at Visions Academy. No wonder her spider-sense wasn't triggered as strongly by his presence in the beginning.

Speaking of which, there was a constant faint buzzing at the nape of her neck. Was it just because, as was repeatedly said, Anti-Spider-Pete and Miles were like her? Or was something more sinister at play here?

There was only one way to find out.

The bus station wasn't far from Alchemax. A small concrete terrace with a glass roof stood 80 yards from the parking lot. Anti-Spider-Pete and Miles ran to pick up two coats that had been unceremoniously discarded on the ground not far away.

Darn it. Gwen had left her street clothes in Alchemax. Well, it didn't matter at this point. She still had the school uniform at Visions, at least.

They all pulled off their masks and boarded a bus. Miles dumped a handful of spare change into the farebox. The bus driver muttered something about "nutty cosplayers".

Serendipitously, the bus was nearly empty, aside for the bus driver and a half-asleep middle-aged man at the front.

Was Anti-Spider-Pete actually named Peter? He looked enough like him, except he was older. Much older. Definitely a lot worse for wear. His nose looked like it had been broken and re-healed at least a dozen times. He also had a fading black eye and a five-o-clock shadow. At least his hair was brown. That was normal.

"What's your name?" Gwen asked.

"I'm Miles," said Miles.

"I know your name. I don't know his." Gwen gestured to Anti-Spider-Pete.

"My name's Peter B. Parker."

"Specifically with the B?"

Anti-Spider-Pete shrugged. "Yeah. The B stands for B-"

"You know what, it doesn't matter," Gwen interrupted. "Nice to meet you."

"You too. What's your full name again?"

"Gwen Stacy."

Peter B. blinked, and his smirk vanished. Coincidentally, the bus passed into a tunnel.

Why had her name turned his countenance so sour? Was it… wait. That was the same reaction that she had had upon seeing Spider-Pete for the first time.

Gwen decided to lighten the mood. "Or, if you're my dad when he's angry, it's GWENDOLYN MAXINE STACY, GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU WALKED IN HERE AT MIDNIGHT WITH TWO BLACK EYES AND A LIMP!" Gwen switched to the best impersonation of her dad that she could manage.

Miles laughed. Peter B. cracked a grin, though he still seemed uneasy, even wistful.

"What was it like?" asked Miles. "I mean, like, what was it like back in your dimension?"

"Well, uh, I've been Spider-Woman for the past 2 years."

Gwen mentally facepalmed. She was Ghost Spider now. Old habits were hard to break.

"And yeah, normal superhero stuff happened. Saved my dad. Joined a band. I don't know if that's normal, but still. But…"

Gwen hesitated. She needed to mention the really important moment, the moment that had truly kicked off her superhero career. But she couldn't bring herself to talk about it. She was supposed to forget about it! She couldn't just… tell people about it!

"... I couldn't save… my best friend. So, now I save everyone else. And I don't do friends anymore. You know, to avoid distractions."

Gwen parenthetically wondered if "everyone else" included herself. No, she was too far gone. She was a ghost. But back to the story.

"Then I got sucked into this portal, and it sent me here. I got blown into last week. Literally.

"Long story short, I got arrested, broke out of jail, beat up a gang, found my way to Visions Academy, impersonated a Russian, stole government files, broke into Alchemax, got sedated by Doc Ock, broke out of Alchemax, got a new haircut, broke into Alchemax again, broke in a third time, and now I'm here."

Miles and Peter B. stared at her.

"Could you say that again, but slower?" asked Miles.

Gwen facepalmed. "Okay, long story even shorter, my spider-sense told me to go to Visions Academy. Then I met you there."

"Oh. That's cool."

"So, uh, Peter, how 'bout you?"

She was genuinely interested in hearing about Peter B.'s experiences. Maybe he would hint at why her name made him so sad.

Peter B. sighed, as though he was sick of telling his origin story. "Where I'm from, for the past 22 years, I've been the one and only Spiderman. Pretty sure you know the rest. I saved the city, fell in love, saved it again, got married, saved it some more, maybe too much. Had some marital issues, made a couple dicey money choices. Never invest in a spider-themed restaurant.

"Then you know, typical superhero stuff over the next few years, kept saving the city, broke my back, a drone flew into my face. I buried Aunt May. My wife and I split up… but I handled it like a champ."

Peter B. started blinking hard to suppress his tears.

"Did you know that seahorses mate for life? I mean, can you just imagine being a seahorse and seeing another seahorse and making it work?

"She wanted kids. I… It scared me.

"Well, all of a sudden, I got pulled through this real weird portal thing one day. And weird things happen to me a lot, but this was really weird. Like, really. What was even weirder was that here, I was dead. And blond. Dunno why. Maybe I should dye my hair."

Miles chuckled a little. "Hey, wait a minute. What if Spiderman from here had dyed hair? I mean, think about it. He dyed, and then he died. You know?"

Gwen and Peter B. blinked.

"Yeah, that wasn't funny," said Peter B. He leaned back and rested his feet on the seats on the other side of the aisle.

"Okay, maybe a little. Good try," countered Gwen. "So, uh, what's your plan now?"

"We're gonna make another one of these," said Miles. He lifted a broken flash drive out of his pocket and held it out. "It's an override key, for the collider."

"A goober," corrected Peter B.

A what?

"Yeah, a goober, whatever. But Peter broke it."

Gwen examined the flash drive. "He did?"

"Yeah, but keep that between you and me." Miles switched to a confidential whisper. "He's embarrassed about it."

Gwen could have heard Peter B.'s eye roll from three counties over. She chuckled.

RELATIVE CHAOS

"Hang on, I think I know a place where we might be able to get help." She handed the "goober" back to Miles, who stowed it away.

"To make another goober?"

"Yeah. I hope so. Probably."

Gwen pulled out her notebook and flipped through it until she found Mrs. Parker's address. She tore out the page and handed it to Peter B. "This is the place."

"Neat. Then here's where we'll go."

After a minute of slightly awkward silence, Miles said, "Uh, I'm... sorry about your friend."

"Don't worry about it," Gwen replied. "But thanks."

That was nice of him. Miles seemed like a nice kid. Awkward and goofy, perhaps, but nice. Confused and weirded out by his powers, for sure, but nice nevertheless. Quite the opposite of herself. At least he had help. The poor kid deserved help.

"I know how hard it is, having to figure all this stuff out on your own," she said.

"Yeah, it's nice not being the only spider-person around."

"Definitely."

Miles hesitated before continuing. "You… wanna take a selfie or something? You know, two spider-people from different dimensions chilling together? In the same dimension?"

Gwen grinned. "Yeah, why not?"

She lifted her phone. She and Miles smiled for the camera.

"Wait, can I-" Peter B. started to say.

The camera clicked.

"C'mon! I wanted to be in it!" groaned Peter B.

"I mean, you're in the selfie. Just not your face. And, you know," Gwen smirked. "That might be a good thing."

Peter B. heaved a sigh. "Teenagers are the worst," he muttered under his breath.

"So now, like, how are you gonna get the picture to me?" asked Miles. "Can… uh… can I have your number?"

"Uh, I dunno if that'll work. You know, this phone's from another dimension and all that. So… huh." Gwen pressed her hand to her forehead and thought.

"Just air-drop it to each other," said Peter B.

Miles and Gwen exchanged a look. "What's air-drop?" they asked simultaneously.

"You're Gen-Z-ers, and you don't know what air… right. Different universe. Here." Peter B. sighed and sat upright. "I'll show you how it works."

Gwen hadn't realised how embarrassing it was to be taught how to use technology by a guy who was probably old enough to be her dad. Spoiler alert: it was very embarrassing.

Miles hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between the photo on his phone and Gwen. "Uh, if you ever want to do friends again, I'll keep a slot open."

Gwen froze.

She wasn't going to open up to Miles. Not so soon. Not here. Not now. Not yet.

At the same time, she did get lonely. Not that she would ever admit it.

He was a nice guy. He wouldn't make a bad friend.

No. Not a chance. Gwen wasn't going to open up just so she could get hurt again. Or hurt someone else again.

"I'll... keep you posted."

First | Previous | Next

[maxslogic25]

How to Scale Creativity for Exceptional Marketing With Jay Acunzo

As marketers, we’re always on the lookout for the next great thing to help propel our campaigns to profit and attract more of the right buyers. At the same time, while we’re obsessed with the thought of “doing something different, something creative” to reach our objectives, we’re not always sure about where to start. We’re almost afraid of parting ways with the status quo and ultimately concede to taking baby steps instead.

But what if one day we decided to take the road less traveled? Cliché, but bear with me. What if we were somehow inspired enough to think of “creativity” not as another tool that generates results, but as something we all can unleash from within to more naturally—in a way that’s our own—produce better marketing outcomes?

Jay Acunzo, an award-winning podcaster and dynamic speaker, attests that the lofty ideals we worship—creativity, innovation, prolific production—can actually be taught. As the former digital media strategist at Google and head of content marketing at HubSpot, he’s got me listening.

In this blog, you’ll find an interview with Jay exploring how to find your own creative ways to produce truly exceptional results.

Q: With all the noise buzzing in today’s digital ecosystem, how do you best filter through it to focus on what matters most to marketing initiatives? For instance, what are some of your favorite industry outlets?

I don’t think it’s about finding the best industry outlets (or gurus, or podcasts, or blogs, or books…) but rather understanding your own context first and foremost. There’s just SO much information out there—it’s like the Information Age has created a dark side: advice overload. And the best way to filter it is to understand and overtly articulate your own aspirations, the problems you’re out to solve for your customers, and the limitations of your own resources. If you know yourself, your customers, and your resources, you’re a master of your own context first and foremost. You’ve set up your “filter” through which you can vet all that advice out there. Then it’s a lot easier and faster to decide whether an industry outlet or individual thinker or piece is right for you or not.

Ultimately, the goal is to make all that overwhelming information serve you because you’re proactive, rather than drown in it because you’re reactive.

Q: What’s the one, seriously worn out best practice that makes you want to pull your hair out? Okay, go nuts, pick two if you must.

Every time someone asks how long a podcast or blog post should be, I start throwing chairs and flipping tables.

It’s like, how long do you have? Here’s an endless list of (A) why I can’t give you one simple answer and (B) why you’re thinking about the wrong things here. Marketers and salespeople refer to content as a container, but the audience is after what’s inside. And just like Tupperware, “podcasts” and “blog posts” come in all shapes and sizes. It all depends on what you want to cook up—or, more crucially, what your audience wants to eat.

So how long should the thing be? As long as it needs to be. No longer. No shorter.

Q: As a content marketer in a dense world of content, you work hard on honing and perfecting your writer’s “voice.” What role does voice play in your overall strategies and how do you ensure that it not only resonates as authentic, but that it also translates across various marketing channels?

Maybe this is weird, but I’ve never stopped to think about voice as a writer. I’ve never actually “worked hard” on my writer’s voice. It’s just MY voice. Like, me, the person, not me as a writer.

But maybe the lesson lies in why I love to write: it makes me feel stuff and makes others feel stuff too. That’s such a powerful thing. When you feel emotions, you’re a bit more raw. You stop the daily grind and reset a bit. The deck has been cleared, so to speak. And so now, you’re open to change and open to learning. So I guess the way I’ve honed my voice is to just write a ton of bad stuff, see what resonated emotionally with me and with others, and keep doing that stuff.

For example, I know that I have a casual, often sarcastic voice (with plenty of parenthetical asides)—but only because I enjoy that kind of style and others have told me they enjoy it too.

The goal is to find the overlap of this Venn diagram, with one circle being “resonates with me” and the other circle being “resonates with others.” To find the overlap, you have to put out a ton of work, and a lot of it will be bad. The business world doesn’t like to embrace this idea that launching something good requires being bad for a while, but that’s reality. There’s no shortcut or cheat here.

Q: What’s the first step to letting go of the status quo, of what’s being done again and again for reason unknown, and trusting your intuition to finally do something different?

I think things like the status quo or the best practice emerge when we aim to become experts in something. There’s a certain sense of “arriving” or final state of knowing when you want to be an expert. But I think it’s far more powerful, especially in the Information Age today, to act like investigators. Forget being an expert and act like a detective, always.

Investigators ask questions. They don’t earn a living by having the answers so much as knowing how to find them. And even then, they question whether or not the case is really closed.

On my show, Unthinkable, we tell stories of work that looks crazy…until you hear their side of the story. From the outside looking in, every individual and team that we profile seems to fly in the face of all the experts in their space. They break from the status quo. But really, they just investigated the details of their own context—their team’s abilities and beliefs, their customers’ reality, their resources, and limitations—and they plucked out an answer that seemed logical IN THAT CONTEXT. It looks like it’s countercultural or atypical, but to them, it’s really strategic and logical.

When you embrace that no context is identical to yours right now, and when you focus more on being an investigator than an expert, then really great, creative, or unconventional work only seems “unthinkable” to others.

After all, “the answer” will change. How many strategies, tactics, tools, and trends do we suffer through and claim as our savior before we realize the only constant is change? So if “the answer” will always change, imagine if we could throw ourselves into any scenario in this ever-changing world and know how to figure it out. We’d be unstoppable.

Want to break from the status quo? Act like an investigator, not an expert.

Q: Talk to us about the data you use to validate your approach; do you have a preferred way to measure success?

When I’m not traveling and speaking, I direct and host multiple podcasts about people who do meaningful work. The metric I use is something I call “URR.” It’s a completely made-up metric, and I had to give it an acronym so all the very important business people out there would take me seriously. URR stands for Unsolicited Response Rate. It’s been my experience that if you get a small number of people reacting in a big way to what you did, you should lean into it, because good things tend to happen afterward. URR is a way to measure resonance in a world too focused on empty reach, so in a way, it’s how I measure the hard thing: Did I create something memorable, some kind of “value payload,” that triggered a visceral reaction from others? If yes, I put it in more places and do more with the concept. If no, I kill it and move on. This applies whether I’m tweeting or writing or podcasting or speaking. I’m on a constant hunt for resonance, and then that forms the basis of all the rest of my work. (You can read more about URR in this rant I wrote about bad marketing.)

Want to learn more about taking your approach to the next, creatively exceptional level of marketing? Hint #1: Consider studying the INSIDES of what you created. Jay Acunzo will discuss his thoughts on brilliant marketing in “Guts and Spines: How Brilliant Marketers Start and Scale Their Creativity”—an inspiring webinar presentation in which Jay will partner with ZoomInfo to deconstruct what makes top creators so prolific. We love discussing creativity like it’s some mystical muse. But the world’s best know: It’s all about those tangible guts and spines.

What makes exceptional marketing in your mind? How have you been able to achieve creativity? Let us know your methods in the comments.

The post How to Scale Creativity for Exceptional Marketing With Jay Acunzo appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/02/scale-creativity-exceptional-marketing-jay-acunzo.html

[archiebwoollard]

How to Scale Creativity for Exceptional Marketing With Jay Acunzo

As marketers, we’re always on the lookout for the next great thing to help propel our campaigns to profit and attract more of the right buyers. At the same time, while we’re obsessed with the thought of “doing something different, something creative” to reach our objectives, we’re not always sure about where to start. We’re almost afraid of parting ways with the status quo and ultimately concede to taking baby steps instead.

But what if one day we decided to take the road less traveled? Cliché, but bear with me. What if we were somehow inspired enough to think of “creativity” not as another tool that generates results, but as something we all can unleash from within to more naturally—in a way that’s our own—produce better marketing outcomes?

Jay Acunzo, an award-winning podcaster and dynamic speaker, attests that the lofty ideals we worship—creativity, innovation, prolific production—can actually be taught. As the former digital media strategist at Google and head of content marketing at HubSpot, he’s got me listening.

In this blog, you’ll find an interview with Jay exploring how to find your own creative ways to produce truly exceptional results.

Q: With all the noise buzzing in today’s digital ecosystem, how do you best filter through it to focus on what matters most to marketing initiatives? For instance, what are some of your favorite industry outlets?

I don’t think it’s about finding the best industry outlets (or gurus, or podcasts, or blogs, or books…) but rather understanding your own context first and foremost. There’s just SO much information out there—it’s like the Information Age has created a dark side: advice overload. And the best way to filter it is to understand and overtly articulate your own aspirations, the problems you’re out to solve for your customers, and the limitations of your own resources. If you know yourself, your customers, and your resources, you’re a master of your own context first and foremost. You’ve set up your “filter” through which you can vet all that advice out there. Then it’s a lot easier and faster to decide whether an industry outlet or individual thinker or piece is right for you or not.

Ultimately, the goal is to make all that overwhelming information serve you because you’re proactive, rather than drown in it because you’re reactive.

Q: What’s the one, seriously worn out best practice that makes you want to pull your hair out? Okay, go nuts, pick two if you must.

Every time someone asks how long a podcast or blog post should be, I start throwing chairs and flipping tables.

It’s like, how long do you have? Here’s an endless list of (A) why I can’t give you one simple answer and (B) why you’re thinking about the wrong things here. Marketers and salespeople refer to content as a container, but the audience is after what’s inside. And just like Tupperware, “podcasts” and “blog posts” come in all shapes and sizes. It all depends on what you want to cook up—or, more crucially, what your audience wants to eat.

So how long should the thing be? As long as it needs to be. No longer. No shorter.

Q: As a content marketer in a dense world of content, you work hard on honing and perfecting your writer’s “voice.” What role does voice play in your overall strategies and how do you ensure that it not only resonates as authentic, but that it also translates across various marketing channels?

Maybe this is weird, but I’ve never stopped to think about voice as a writer. I’ve never actually “worked hard” on my writer’s voice. It’s just MY voice. Like, me, the person, not me as a writer.

But maybe the lesson lies in why I love to write: it makes me feel stuff and makes others feel stuff too. That’s such a powerful thing. When you feel emotions, you’re a bit more raw. You stop the daily grind and reset a bit. The deck has been cleared, so to speak. And so now, you’re open to change and open to learning. So I guess the way I’ve honed my voice is to just write a ton of bad stuff, see what resonated emotionally with me and with others, and keep doing that stuff.

For example, I know that I have a casual, often sarcastic voice (with plenty of parenthetical asides)—but only because I enjoy that kind of style and others have told me they enjoy it too.

The goal is to find the overlap of this Venn diagram, with one circle being “resonates with me” and the other circle being “resonates with others.” To find the overlap, you have to put out a ton of work, and a lot of it will be bad. The business world doesn’t like to embrace this idea that launching something good requires being bad for a while, but that’s reality. There’s no shortcut or cheat here.

Q: What’s the first step to letting go of the status quo, of what’s being done again and again for reason unknown, and trusting your intuition to finally do something different?

I think things like the status quo or the best practice emerge when we aim to become experts in something. There’s a certain sense of “arriving” or final state of knowing when you want to be an expert. But I think it’s far more powerful, especially in the Information Age today, to act like investigators. Forget being an expert and act like a detective, always.

Investigators ask questions. They don’t earn a living by having the answers so much as knowing how to find them. And even then, they question whether or not the case is really closed.

On my show, Unthinkable, we tell stories of work that looks crazy…until you hear their side of the story. From the outside looking in, every individual and team that we profile seems to fly in the face of all the experts in their space. They break from the status quo. But really, they just investigated the details of their own context—their team’s abilities and beliefs, their customers’ reality, their resources, and limitations—and they plucked out an answer that seemed logical IN THAT CONTEXT. It looks like it’s countercultural or atypical, but to them, it’s really strategic and logical.

When you embrace that no context is identical to yours right now, and when you focus more on being an investigator than an expert, then really great, creative, or unconventional work only seems “unthinkable” to others.

After all, “the answer” will change. How many strategies, tactics, tools, and trends do we suffer through and claim as our savior before we realize the only constant is change? So if “the answer” will always change, imagine if we could throw ourselves into any scenario in this ever-changing world and know how to figure it out. We’d be unstoppable.

Want to break from the status quo? Act like an investigator, not an expert.

Q: Talk to us about the data you use to validate your approach; do you have a preferred way to measure success?

When I’m not traveling and speaking, I direct and host multiple podcasts about people who do meaningful work. The metric I use is something I call “URR.” It’s a completely made-up metric, and I had to give it an acronym so all the very important business people out there would take me seriously. URR stands for Unsolicited Response Rate. It’s been my experience that if you get a small number of people reacting in a big way to what you did, you should lean into it, because good things tend to happen afterward. URR is a way to measure resonance in a world too focused on empty reach, so in a way, it’s how I measure the hard thing: Did I create something memorable, some kind of “value payload,” that triggered a visceral reaction from others? If yes, I put it in more places and do more with the concept. If no, I kill it and move on. This applies whether I’m tweeting or writing or podcasting or speaking. I’m on a constant hunt for resonance, and then that forms the basis of all the rest of my work. (You can read more about URR in this rant I wrote about bad marketing.)

Want to learn more about taking your approach to the next, creatively exceptional level of marketing? Hint #1: Consider studying the INSIDES of what you created. Jay Acunzo will discuss his thoughts on brilliant marketing in “Guts and Spines: How Brilliant Marketers Start and Scale Their Creativity”—an inspiring webinar presentation in which Jay will partner with ZoomInfo to deconstruct what makes top creators so prolific. We love discussing creativity like it’s some mystical muse. But the world’s best know: It’s all about those tangible guts and spines.

What makes exceptional marketing in your mind? How have you been able to achieve creativity? Let us know your methods in the comments.

The post How to Scale Creativity for Exceptional Marketing With Jay Acunzo appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

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[roinish]

It's definitely a good thing to be responsible and not adopt a dog who won't be happy living your lifestyle. But if the only problem with your lifestyle is that you live in a cramped apartment or small house without a yard, don't abandon hope so soon!Pros:1) Senior dogs tend to be low-energy dogs. Your dog will probably still enjoy walking, hiking, and playing, but will be much happier to sleep in between.2) Senior dogs are less likely than younger dogs to have behavioral problems. Many senior dogs are surrendered or abandoned for the sole crime of becoming old (I could go into an angry rant about that, but this parenthetical will have to suffice.) Throughout the course of their lives, they are likely to have been housetrained by somebody. Furthermore, they are usually more mellow than their younger selves.3) Senior dogs are less likely to be adopted. By giving one a chance, you are doing a damn good thing. Shelters are usually run by wonderful, caring people, but they're still miserable places for a dog to end up.Cons:1) Earlier death: So, yeah. If you adopt a twelve-year-old dog, it will only live a few more years. And you will be sad when it dies. For some people, though, the earlier death is paradoxically a perk. When adopting a puppy, you're committing to 12-18 years of dog ownership (and you will still be sad when it dies.) A 5-year commitment is generally much easier to make.2) Vet bills: Health problems pile up with age. If this is a reason not to adopt a senior dog, though, it's probably a reason not to adopt a dog at all. After all, that puppy will one day be fourteen, and if you drop it off at the pound the minute it gets a white muzzle, I will find you. (That said, you know your budget. If you can reasonably expect to pay for that kind of vet care in ten years but not now, then that's how it is.) If a dog ended up in a shelter at fourteen, though, it probably also didn't get the best preventative care, like weekly tooth-brushing. Before you adopt, consider what things you're willing to pay for and what you aren't. Personally, I love dogs, but I do feel that it's acceptable to put down a dog for some serious conditions that we would treat in a human.A few extra things to consider:When adopting, opt for a dog that has been in foster care. It's hard to gauge a dog's behavior from how it acts in a shelter, but its foster parent can give you a better idea of how it acts in a home. Don't worry that this makes your adoption less of a rescue. Speaking as a dog foster parent, when my foster dog gets adopted, I'll give myself a week or two to rest/mourn and then bring another one home from the shelter. That's what I signed up for! One adoption still means one less dog living in a kennel.My generalizations about dog behavior (old dogs are mellow, old dogs are housetrained) obviously don't apply to every senior dog. But I'm not suggesting that you line up all senior rescue dogs and pick one according to the roll of a die. You should still choose the dog according to criteria that determine whether it's a good fit for you... I'm just saying that old dogs are likely to be strong contenders for apartment-dwellers and others who have difficult caring for high-energy dogs. But when committing to take care of another sentient being, remember to do your research!Many apartments don't allow dogs. Obviously, this tip isn't aimed at those tenants. It's advice, not magic. Please don't try to sneak a living dog past your landlord! When you inevitably have to get rid of it, the poor thing is going to be heartbroken.Regardless of age, the smaller the dog, the happier it will be in a small home.Dogs very often lose hearing with age. This isn't the end of the world. Here is a resource for caring for a deaf dog, and I'd be happy to discuss it in the comments.Old dog tax. (Although Sasha is sixteen, this post refers to all senior dogs, which generally means dogs seven and older.) via /r/LifeProTips