#is this a good advertisement? probably not

[novasintheroom]

Ghost who, under “orders” from his army therapist (and with Price’s encouragement), starts looking around for hobbies when he’s on leave.

Not sure what to do at first. Tries gaming but gets bored of it and the PS4 stays gathering dust in his flat. Plants don’t appeal to him because he won’t be around enough to take care of them. Thinks about knitting, but is a bit too embarrassed to walk into the local craft shop to start making doilies.

Finally goes to the library after seeing a flyer advertising a painting class and thinks, “Hell, why not.”

Shows up in his hoodie, black face mask, and black baseball cap. Gives most of the old ladies attending the painting session a good scare

Until he rolls up his sleeves to avoid getting paint on his good hoodie. Then those old ladies are ogling his forearms and the tattoos painting his skin.

Is very attentive to the hired artist leading the session. Hasn’t got an artistic bone in his body, but dammit, he’s going to report back to his therapist that he tried if it’s the last thing he does.

Two little old ladies, Mrs. Levine and Ruby, pluck up the courage to sit beside him and start chatting him up. Compliments his painting, talk about their grandkids, how one of Ruby’s grandsons is into heavy metal (assuming Ghost is as well). Ghost listens half-heartedly, just trying to get the brown right for the deer he’s putting on paper. They manage to weasel out his name:

“Simon,” he announces gruffly.

“Oh, what a good name,” Mrs. Levine says.

He goes to the next activity as well: polymer clay creations. His hands are big and meaty and he has to take more clay than is probably reasonable to make the little pig he’s got going.

Mrs. Levine and Ruby are there too and sit right next to him to chat with him again. They love his idea of a pig and make a cow and sheep to go with it. When the hired artist comes around to see how everyone’s doing, Mrs. Levine announces that the three of them “have a little farm going” and that “Simon’s the farmhand.”

He's glad he's got his face mask on. He can feel his ears going red at the look the artist gives him.

Again, he’s very attentive to the hired artist, watching her hands carve into the soft clay with her nails to get texture on her dinosaur. He tries to do the same, giving whispy little hairs to his pig. It’s not pretty, but he feels a smidge better about going when it’s all done.

Mrs. Levine and Ruby get more information out of him as time goes on and he attends more activities. Soon their friends join in on the conversation, and Ghost – Simon – is well-known at the library for being the military guy who attends every Saturday when he’s not deployed. The little old ladies love him, even if he “doesn’t say much.” He’s helped them carry their bags of books and crafts to their cars, listens to them prattle on about activities and their aches and pains, and even scared off some hooligans who were trying to disrupt their library activity.

(They’ve all got little old lady crushes on this big man who takes time out of his day to better himself, and they love his dry/dad jokey humor)

(And he won't admit it, but these are his little old ladies now. Clarice brought him brownies that he absolutely devoured when he got back to his flat they were so good, and he can't help but laugh at how often they try to set him up with their granddaughters. And how they "trip" often just to hang on to his big arms. Birds are birds, no matter their age.)

[aroaceleovaldez]

Part 2 response to this ask / [this post]:

For recent books, I think that it's less of a consideration of the audience and more a reflection of the general state of the publishing world currently. Disney as a company (which owns the publishing house through which Rick's works are published) is also in a weird spot right now and that is probably also lending itself heavily to why recent franchise stuff is the way it is:

A.) The franchise is basically guaranteed free money. Disney does this a lot with their properties. Star Wars and Marvel are great examples. They don't need to make something good, they just need to make literally anything and because it's such a massive franchise it'll sell regardless.

B.) One of their main focuses right now is clearly that JKR is in a bad spot and if they can fully dethrone Harry Potter as The de-facto middle grade fantasy series (cause PJO is fully number 2) that's going to be really good for them. Because it basically guarantees that PJO will be even MORE free money. That's probably part of why we got the show when we did, because HP was trying to move forward with an HP show. (And the HP show was probably announced when it was to directly try to compete with PJO) (Also don't forget, Disney also owns the PJO movies now. They don't need to do better than the movies because they're competing with themselves. In fact, by constantly pitting the show against the movies, they're basically doubling advertising for themselves by drawing attention to both.)

B.5.) Another thing is that if they dethrone HP, that's gonna not only hurt Universal, but SEVERELY hurt Universal PARKS, which is the Disney Parks' number one competitor. And the Disney parks are also in a tight spot right now and they REALLY want breathing room. (You might have heard that the Disney parks are doing a TON of cuts and reshuffling right now.) They don't need to actively put PJO stuff in their parks (yet), because just by taking out HP they'd massively injure what is basically the number one draw to the Universal parks (which is probably also why the Universal parks is expanding right now, particularly in similar avenues to how the Disney parks are expanding, re: more fantasy-focused areas and an emphasis on animated/Dreamworks franchises - Universal needs to be able to continue competing with Disney in the absence of HP, and it seems like they're panicking a little bit - so they're leaning more on their Dreamworks properties as Dreamworks becomes a significant competitor to Disney re: animation and otherwise just copying Disney's homework and also making more fantasy-focused park areas right now) and thus Disney would totally kneecap their primary competitor. That would increase draw to their own parks in the absence of a significant competitor and also then if they add literally any PJO stuff to the parks (which would be INCREDIBLY easy just due to the nature of PJO - especially as they cycle out older and less profitable IPs from the parks) then they'd basically IMMEDIATELY get a massive draw from what used to be the HP crowds - because a lot of those casual crowds do not particularly care about HP itself. It's entirely just that HP is the number one mainstream middle grade fantasy series. If PJO takes that spot then they'll just go to wherever PJO stuff is, because they're a passive audience, not an active audience (though Disney is also VERY much known for it's active audience and being partially responsible for making fandom as a concept mainstream and directly advertising to that market - tying back to the first post, lmao).

C.) Disney is DESPERATELY trying to save their streaming service. That's why it's so emphasized that PJO TV is a Disney+ series. Disney is kind of in hot water with investors because streaming services all across the board are tanking and Disney+ is a big one that's going down. That's why they're pivoting so much towards streaming and throwing literally whatever Marvel and Star Wars at it, because they know those are massive franchises that practically support themselves and any kind of draw to the platform is good. PJO is part of that - it's a massive well-established mainstream franchise with a passionate audience. It's practically a default classroom choice for assigned reading and that's free advertising/publicity. They know they can make a mediocre PJO adaptation and throw it on Disney+ and it will have a draw and that's all they need. They just want more eyes on the platform period to try and prove that it's profitable. Not to mention how we just explicitly know the CoTG trilogy only exists as marketing for the show. The recent books are not meant to be a continuation of the story. The actual content within them is literally irrelevant. CoTG trilogy only needs to exist so that it can bring more attention to the show (which is why it's being grouped in with the first series, because search engine optimization). TSATS only needed to exist to get people to stop being mad at Rick/get distracted from his little PR disaster.

Disney has also been doing a lot of cost cutting with their media recently, particularly also relying on their own brand to make new stuff profitable because they're actively looking for cheap solutions instead of making new things. They don't do 2D animation anymore because 2D animation is more expensive because it's unionized. 3D animation has also since become unionized and yknow what they're doing now? Shifting to live action. Shifting to CGI, which is only starting to become unionized because it's newer. They're making one billion live action remakes of existing properties because those properties are profitable and a live action remake is cheap. They don't need to worry about making it good because press is press and they know it will sell regardless. They can cast some popular actors for some default attention and leave it at that (Hi LMM cameo). Even with their newer animated movies - Wish was entirely reliant on the fact that it was heavily drawn from other Disney properties and they used that as an active selling point. Meanwhile they're intentionally tanking other new projects (see: Strange World) because they want to be able to turn around and say projects like that aren't profitable and aren't worth making. (This isn't a conspiracy theory btw, they do intentionally flop certain movies. This is a regular thing Disney does and they've been doing it for a while.) This type of cost-cutting strategy is very clear with the PJO show - they have this absolutely massive budget that isn't reflected in the end project at all. It's extremely clear to anyone with anyone with eyes that they're majorly cutting corners all the time (blatantly avoiding even slightly more complex CGI cause that'd cost money, CGI that is shown is often extremely cheap looking or rushed, reusing assets for Olympus, speeding through certain scenes, very little done with costuming - ever notice how all the costuming in the show looks way too new? The costuming department is supposed to weather even just basic outfits to make them look worn-in and they don't seem to have done that. - poor lighting to obscure details because actually making it look good costs more, etc etc) and the show is poorly produced. They have the money to do it properly. Someone is pocketing that. Usually it's executives. This is not unusual behavior! I would not be surprised at all to hear if it was the case with PJO TV too!

Tl;dr: I don't think the quality of recent books going down is because they expect the books to have a shorter pop culture lifespan, i think it's just a combo of the current publishing industry overall dropping in quality and Disney being Disney and not caring beyond saving their own butts and making a quick buck.

[danieandflars]

What's terra ignota?

It's a science fiction series by Ada Palmer about a 25th century Earth which thinks itself a peaceful utopia, and its descent into chaos as the cracks in that utopia start to appear. It is somehow both deeply profound and the most bonkers, complicated thing to explain and I love it so much, it's my favourite series.

Features:

18th century larping

Magic 13 year old with Toy Story powers

The worst and most pathetic guy imaginable

Extremely serious discussions about religion, gender, freedom, peace, politics etc. etc.

Pokemon are real

It's definitely not for everyone and very stylistically weird, which some people are going to love and some are going to hate. I recommend taking the first chapter at face value, I find it a pretty accurate snapshot of how the story will feel to read, and if you're offput by it from the beginning, it's probably not going to get better for you.

But if you *like* that shit. :) get ready.

[elftwink]

to preface this post i am anti-advertising i think we should explode the entire industry but it's sooo funny when you people make posts like "and they don't even work!!" like. sorry to be the bearer of bad news but yes they do. that's why we have to put up with so many despite everyone hating them and thinking its annoying. because they actually work really well and make a shit load of money

[miusato]

Drawing them like this feels so so wronggggg

[add1ctedt0you]

The Untamed - Episode 19

Throughout the night, he [Jiang Cheng] had somehow managed to sleep a couple of times. The first reason was that, having been too tired from crying himself weak, he couldn't help from passing out. The second reason was that he still had the hope that this might be a nightmare. He couldn't wait to wake up after some rest and open his eyes to find himself lying inside of his room back in Lotus Pier. His father would be wiping his sword in the main hall. His mother would be angry again and complaining, scolding Wei Wuxian who winked in a funny way. His sister would be in the kitchen, thinking as hard as she could about what to make today. His shidi would be refusing to do their morning lessons properly and jumping around.

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Chapter 59, Poisons- Part Four

[alexturner2005]

Nick O'Malley's old band, The Dodgems via omalley_yellamo & yellamo0

[waywardsalt]

picked up a copy of and read the king in yellow (signalis reasons) and going in was like hmmmmm this probably wont end up being something i take inspiration from for the fic it’d be too on the nose to take inspiration from the king in yellow and i dont want much horror inspiration haha. and then like half of the book is romance anyways im so fucked either way yayyyy

[steelycunt]

‘gay retelling of a classic!’ ‘feminist sapphic twist on this greek myth!’ why don’t you write a better book than that. i think we deserve better books than that

[illiana-mystery]

Anyone else see this?

Shout out to my lovely mutual @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky for bringing this to my attention.

[ducktracy]

It's kind of sad how they've finally made an excellent Looney Tunes revival, and just... Nobody noticed.

YEAHHHH… much of that stems from WB’s shoddy marketing of it too!! so many batches within the past year or two have been dumped off without warning. the initial batch in May 2020 seemed to have some actual publicity behind it, but i think they may have shot themselves in the foot with their sporadic airing schedule… the second batch delivering in January 2021, MONTHS after the first, with little comparative fanfare i think shook a lot of the first time viewers away who, by that time, had likely forgotten about the series. it soon just sort of melted into the reality that most of the people watching were those who were there to watch the shorts in the first place. i know it was very frustrating to the crew, who were just in the dark about it as we were

i guess, if anything, there’s no such thing as “too late”! talk about episodes and bits you love! share ‘em with friends! hopefully more people will begin to catch on and develop an interest, even if the actual run of shorts has since ended. it is disheartening, but the shorts ending shouldn’t mean that all discussion of them should end either—just turns into an infinite feedback loop

[salora-rainriver]

We're talking about Ads Again

Context for those followers of mine who weren't there: I made a post about tumblr ads being weird back in 2016 and it's literally still getting notes to this day. People responded GREAT to it. honestly, despite being like. ass old at this point and written by a literal high schooler, it's still pretty good! I thank my dad being in advertising helped significantly. I had an expert witness.

Tonight, I'm writing the sequel to that post. the sequel is this post.

let's just fucking dive into it or whatever.

why am I doing this?

okay for starters I made that post in goddamn 2016 and I refuse to believe my insights into the marketing world have not improved since then.

Also, the marketing world has CHANGED. Huge swaths of my old post are no longer relevant. What we saw with tumblr ads in 2016 was in some parts a passing fad, and in other parts the harbinger of a new wave of influencer marketing and corporate parasociality (I coined that term just now).

Honestly I've been thinking for a while that I should make an update post, but what with, yanno, adulthood, that's been kinda hard!

Well, I've missed a train, and it's Christmas, so I've finally found the time to do that.

What has Changed?

in my personal life... dad got fired! yeah it fucking sucks. the good news is he and his wife are working towards their retirement now, shifting away from the industry overall. Good news as far as life is concerned, but it does mean I no longer have as clean a connection to the Industry as I used to.

but more importantly, why he got fired. The fact is, dad's old! I know, shocker. More than just being old, though, his field (and my stepmom's field - they both did the same work) represents an older paradigm of advertisement. he did TV spots and posters, not ad reads for Raid Shadow Legends. He was great at his work, but we're in an era of data-driven, maximalist, google adsense, low-barrier-to-entry, super-fast and super-cheap digital advertisement.

Well, more specifically,

We're on the cusp of an extinction event poised to bring said era crashing to the ground.

Pictured: the current vibes in the ad world

Siberia is on Fire and Everything is Dying

So given that my typical source on stuff like this is currently unemployed, I decided to hit good ol google (well, google and duckduckgo. fitting given what we're talking about) to see if I could get any insights into what the current state of advertising is.

and the short of it is that everyone says the end is nigh. check this out:

Digital is dead, and so is TV. God fucking damn. BY THE WAY, I loved these two articles. Chris Gadek, a man I only learned about today, is clearly an excellent writer and his professional insights are probably gonna be way better than my amateur synthesis of the half-dozen different articles I read today, including his.

blatant shilling for random article writers aside, let's get on to my half-baked synthesis, starting with:

What Set Siberia on Fire

In small part, it's the same issues facing most major companies and industries in our late capitalist world: Hubris.

As this New York Times article points out, we've got a low barrier of entry into a gargantuan industry that's increasingly pumping out slop to follow a strategy of 'more is more'. And we've all seen the bizarre mobile game ads and shady scams that have resulted from THAT.

On top of that, we've also got the fucking digital privacy issue shaking up the entire world as consumers increasingly don't like being spied on (imagine that), and the EU starts rolling out heavy restrictions on the data harvesting that was fueling a bunch of this advertisement bubble.

There's also the ad fraud. Oh, you didn't hear about that? Well, it's nothing much, just that lots of bots are clicking ads to falsify click metrics, artificially inflating the effectiveness of said ads. look, it even has a wikipedia article

oh and Facebook did it. Facebook did ad fraud. :)

and I'm not even getting into everything that works to shake up or demolish basically every advertisement channel out there - the decline of cable tv and print newspapers, the increasing use of ad blockers, the crisis of consumer trust, etc etc.

In short we are looking at a multitude of micro-crises all working together to make the environment unlivable for most current forms of advertisement.

in other words: an extinction event!

Who's Gonna Survive

And just like in a real extinction event, whether or not you survive depends on how good you can adapt to the brave new world you've found yourself in. Old school advertising needs to drastically rethink their everything if they're gonna stay afloat, and every field of the industry needs to recreate itself. As my new favorite writer Chris Gadek says,

"These crises show that there are no safe havens. You can’t substitute one advertising medium for another. Rather than pivot, the advertising industry must adapt and learn to effectively use the channels at their disposal (TV included), factoring in the seismic societal and technological changes that have occurred over the past decade and beyond."

and what is that going to look like? what's going to be the new face of advertising?

The field seems torn, at first... but also aligned, at least when it comes to the core principles:

privacy is a big issue. Seems like a lot of advertisers are seeing an end to wanton consumer surveillance, and looking into less invasive ways to gather important and meaningful data

companies that rely on selling ad space and propping up their engagement metrics are going to be relied on less, probably, because the metrics themselves are being seen as less reliable (for good freaking reason)

regaining consumer trust is going to be a massive priority in the future.

overall, we're probably going to look at a massive downturn in ads, as people turn to a quality-over-quantity strategy in an attempt to stop flooding the attention marketplace.

that's the gist I'm getting from reading oh so many different articles of varying quality from so many different sources.

So, yanno, there may be some hope out there. If smart people start leading this industry (lol), we may get to actually enjoy ads.

Yeah. Enjoy ads.

Unironically.

I know, it's crazy.

PS: if you start seeing affiliate links on mainstream TV ads, thank our lord of excellent business analysis Chris Gadek for calling it early. God, that's such a crazy left-field idea and I really want it to actually happen.

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[helpmyinterestsareverywhere]

True enjoyment of interests™ means subtly wearing something in a way that someone might kinda go "🤨? - that's kinda familiar" but not be confident enough to actually call you out on it for each one

(Source: ME, who owns zip-at-the-front boots like Cloud Strife/buster sword earrings & keychain/Kirby earrings/Legend of Zelda earrings/white gloves that give off the strongest Sonic vibes ever/anklets for Cove/green & gold nail polish for Lloyd etc)

[namakes]

Not really sure where to go with this but I realized (when looking at the wiki for text) that the logo for Takoil (aka “The Octopus Oil Company”) looks a lot like the logo on the Eye of Justice helmet (Team Order headgear from Splatoon 2).

They’re not identical, so could be a coincidence, BUT it did make me think of how Side Order looks like it will have a heavy theme of pollution and its effects on coral/oceans/life in general. The fish enemies are also covered in a black substance which, tying into the theme, could be supposed to look like petroleum (made of decomposed marine organisms); a crude oil used to make gasoline.

[starbuck]

this morning i was just living life as usual and now i have applied for one of my dream (seasonal) jobs and have mountain goats tickets so like. :))