#it also makes sense why he looks slightly different in that promo compared to the other promo stuff at the time

[the-kipsabian]

..looking at this now

this was posted in march 2022. this is a shot from the promo about him being underrated and inevitable and what have you, that aired after his return in august 2022

thats. thats a long time fellas wow

THE BOX IS OFF I REPEAT THE BOX IS OFF

[ectonurites]

Conner Kent in Suicide Squad/the Infinite Frontier era: wtf is going on

Alright lads hello I just need to type out some theories/thoughts about what’s going on with my boy Kon right now. This is more for myself than anything else (just trying to organize my thoughts) but since some of y’all like to hear me talk about comics (and some of this discussion has already been happenin in my inbox) I figured i’d format it and put it on here too! its like 4k words and written over the last few days mostly at 3am. sorry <3 

this is basically just me going like

Also fair warning that like, I can be wrong and misinterpret things just as much as anyone else can, like I use panels to support why I think what I do but a lot of this stuff is subjective/complicated to understand so like... in general somethings should be taken with a grain of salt, especially because exactly what changes to the universe were made by Death Metal/Infinite Frontier haven’t been super super clearly defined yet. Also sometimes comic writers make the most random nonsensical shit happen, so I as a fan am also allowed to theorize about random nonsensical shit.

But to start: let’s backtrack!

Many months ago when Infinite Frontier was first announced they dropped some promotional art, and I remember being a little confused because. Well:

(Variant Cover spread for Justice League (2018) #59)

(Variant Cover spread for Superman (2018) #29)

Notice how Conner is back to his Teen Titans 2003 look up top, but in his YJ 2019 look at the bottom? This seemed weird to me! But then they announced that Conner would be part of the Suicide Squad ongoing title, in the T-shirt look, so I wrote this discrepancy off in my brain as ‘oh I guess that cover was just the last hurrah for punk Kon’ and moved on with life.

In Suicide Squad right away we learn he’s very much so there against his will:

(Suicide Squad (2021) #1)

Which corroborates more or less what we were also shown in Future State: Suicide Squad, although admittedly it tells... a slightly different version of the events. When I first saw both of these together I just chalked it up to being a bit inaccurate as it’s shown as a memory in Future State:

(Future State: Suicide Squad #2)

Issue 2 we saw him in action with the Squad, trying to do his best to still be a hero despite the team, but things get a little more interesting in the following issue. It starts off with an account of his history

(Suicide Squad (2021) #3)

This page gave me a few immediate red flags, mostly minor things that had to do with coloring, so more irl problems than things to take seriously in-universe (Kon’s pants are the wrong color in the first Superboy shot, and Bart’s Impulse costume is in Kid Flash colors instead of the correct Impulse ones) but then also it just bugged me the phrasing “he joined Young Justice” when he was a founder of the team, he didn’t join it he made it with Tim and Bart.

But again, chalked that stuff up to just.... writers/artists being inconsistent/unaware of things that they should be aware of, or even Nocturna just not being specific with details. But it did still strike me as a little odd considering the very accurate use of villains in those same shots, Scavenger who was a reoccurring bad guy from Kon’s solo days and showed up basically nowhere else (even holding the Spear of Lono and everything!) and Billy/Harm (Greta’s brother) from Young Justice.

But then a few pages later we got this:

(Suicide Squad (2021) #3)

Which is interesting. My first instinct was to think he’s being drugged w kryptonite or something thats leaving him hazy/out of it, but my thoughts on that have kinda changed, we’ll get there in a bit. But in general the context of ‘something’s wrong’ made the slight discrepancies on some details of his own history make more sense.

I also want to then bring up the next part to this story, the crossover issue in Teen Titans Academy.

(Teen Titans Academy #3)

So a few things. Does it feel weird to anyone else that Conner Kent, a known previous Titan who literally has a framed picture of himself in a case there, would set off alarm sensors like that? Wouldn’t he be... recognized as a Titan not an intruder by their sensors? Interesting! Anyways.

He looks really pained looking at that picture, and sad, and almost frustrated, which ya know makes sense and hurts my heart because he misses them! He misses his friends and being happy. 

But, importantly for a criticism I wanna make thats less theory related and more just me bein annoyed at Tim Sheridan, that’s a picture of Conner. Right there. That’s Superboy, on display at Teen Titans Academy, so the people who frequent this building would know who he is and what he looks like and be able to recognize him, he’s even in the same outfit and everything. Alinta recognized him at the end of Suicide Squad #3. 

So why does only one person during this big fight then comment on his presence?? Why doesn’t it get a bigger reaction???

(Teen Titans Academy #3)

And after the fight we don’t see any on panel moment of Wallace going up to the staff Titans (who weren’t present for the fight) and saying like “HEY NIGHTWING UHHH SUPERBOY WAS WITH THE SUICIDE SQUAD?” we just see him talking with his friends upset about Crush leaving. We see Alinta talking to them but we don’t see the exact dialogue. So I do just wanna take the writer by the shoulders and shake him a little bit and ask WHY because that just feels like... something you’d wanna address on panel! This is like the first time since joining the squad that Kon’s at all in contact with people from his life before Waller got involved, I feel like not addressing those people’s reactions to it/not discussing it at least a little bit on panel (especially when Conner CAME UP in the previous TTA issue, Dick brought him up and everything!!!) is a really odd choice. Maybe it’ll happen next issue and i’m just impatient, but who knows. Anyways, gripes with Sheridan aside, lets move on.

I wanna bring up how Conner... doesn’t really respond to Wallace’s question? At all? Except to just fight him off, not even an attempt at a ‘Sorry’ or anything? (the ‘Ha! That all you got?!’ seems to be coming from Culebra not Conner, although the placement of the bubble is vague enough it could be that it was supposed to be Conner? but it seems more like what she’d say, especially as she’s grabbing Emiko like that) That just feels weird. It feels off. In general he speaks so little in Suicide Squad #3 and this issue. Tbh it almost feels like he doesn’t really recognize Wallace which I mean I suppose they never exactly met (they would have theoretically during Death Metal, basically all past/present Titans were together for a while during that), but Kon’s been back in existing long enough he’d have a sense of who current heroes are anyways.

But right, so, lots of little things that feel weird... that gets us caught up to the most recently released comics... but in this household we look at solicits as they drop. Which gives us some info on what’s coming up a few months ahead of time, albeit without full context obviously. Issues #4 and #5 don’t mention Conner in their descriptions or show him on the covers at all, because there’s just other plot things going on, so ya know seems things will be quiet for him for a bit.

But then we got the August solicitations and oh BOY it’s a doozey for him! And some things start to kinda connect perhaps!

I want to just take a moment to look at that specific wording. “The teen calling himself Conner Kent” I’m probably reading too much into it but that feels deliberate, like why wouldn’t you just say ‘Conner Kent’? Usually these kinds of descriptions are trying to keep a low word count, not add in extra words that don’t need to be there. It makes it feel like that’s a name he’s using that... doesn’t actually belong to him.

So the theory I want to propose (that has been floating around already) is that based on these covers and the description, and how the Conner we’ve been seeing in Suicide Squad apparently talks about his own personal history like he’s ‘reading a wikipedia entry’ and had little response to people he should be aware of like Wallace and apparently isn’t recognized as a Titan through a bio-scan and also bearing in mind those initial promo arts with two separate looks at the same time for him... I think we're looking at a situation where the Conner in Suicide Squad so far has actually been a clone of original Conner (like... like he’s Match 2.0 or somethin) the whole time, that’s just not aware he’s not the original. 

Now that’s the base theory I wanna work with and build off of, but there’s MANY different directions that could go in/ways that could work.

For example, one idea is that the Conner we saw in #1 who was chained up is the original Conner, and he’s been being cloned and held captive, so everything else with Conner in Suicide Squad so far has been this Match 2.0 

Another idea could be the original Conner in #1 is also the Conner in #2 who Waller had then commented wasn’t ready during the mission in Arkham and had zapped with a lil Kryptonite, and after that moment she took him off the field because his spirit hadn’t been broken enough to be obedient (as he was a lot quieter in Issue #3 & the TTA crossover compared to #2, and #3 is when the Nocturna thing with the history happened)

Or it could even be original Conner in #1, then in #2 was one clone that wasn’t ‘ready’ that after that point she stopped using him, and switched to a diff clone for #3, because like that first cover did show a LOT of clones. That could be more just ‘artistic interpretation’ or something, covers sometimes do exaggerate/mislead, but it also could indicate we’re looking at a lot of clones.

(Suicide Squad (2021) #2)

With all of those in mind I also wanna bring up this little bit from Future State Suicide Squad:

(Future State: Suicide Squad #2)

Again Future State is a ‘possible future’ so stuff from it isn’t set in stone, but the idea of ‘she still has his YJ 2019 outfit somewhere’ makes me think it could be something along the lines of like, Clone!Conner finds original Conner and frees him and he gets back his YJ outfit, which could lead to like the imagery on that variant cover/the idea from my very first part of this post where I was talking about Kon being shown in both outfits in different places.

Alternatively entirely from all that, another option is that she maybe got ahold of what was needed to clone Kon, but doesn’t even have the original Kon in her possession. (again with the Future State thing, she could be lying since elsewhere in Future State we did also see a copy of YJ 2019 Kon’s costume in one of the Jon-focused Future State comics in a display case 🤷‍♂️) Which could also lead to that confrontation on the variant cover & the promo art thing... and could also explain why we have seen nothing about anyone looking for him, because in that sort of scenario he wouldn’t have even been missing in the first place.

There’s a lot of possibilities! It’s still too early to solidly know anything, but I feel pretty confident we’re entering another cloning related plot with our Clone Boy so it’s... ya know. Clone time. On the one hand it’s annoying because god we have done clone/multiple Kons plots before. We’ve done them so much.

BUT on the other hand, I think it could be interesting to use this situation to tie into some older stuff from pre-reboot that I can see some connections to, because due to Infinite Frontier altering the world and people’s memories it’s all technically fair game storytelling-wise again (and like, the use of Scavenger specifically in that flashback way above, who’s not a super well known villain in general, makes me think maaaaybe the writer did do some of their Kon homework)

Something also just dawned on me that i’m not quite sure what it means but still is worth mentioning: The Conner here in Suicide Squad is back in his Teen Titans Vol. 3 outfit, and his history as he tells it stops during Teen Titans Vol. 3. And doesn’t... mention when he died? It feels like it... stopped before that, because like I feel if he was telling his life history (even the wiki version LMAO) the part where he died and came back would be pretty important to bring up?? And Nocturna specifically says that he didn’t explain how that stuff from TT Vol. 3 then led to him in his current situation. That’s a pretty big gap (like uhhh everything from resurrection until he got lost on Gemworld + all the rest of the Young Justice 2019 stuff?) So like.. there could be something funky going on here that has to do with that. 

Similarly when he flashes back in Future State: Suicide Squad to his past it also goes right from Teen Titans Vol. 3 to the current Suicide Squad run? Like I get it’s one page so they can’t show that much, but the fact that there’s now two places that flash back to that same specific time period and nothing past it until the Suicide Squad feels just... noticeable! Not concretely indicative of something, but noteworthy.

(Future State: Suicide Squad #2)

Like...this almost has me thinking maybe it could be something where like, they tampered with his dead body and cloned from that? BECAUSE, for those of you who may not be familiar with how Kon’s resurrection (during Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds) worked, when he came back there was time travel involved! He was brought back to life in the future (like. Legion of Superheroes era) because it was a process that took that thousand or so years to work/heal him (essentially because of his hybrid dna the process that healed Clark when he had died back in Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen in the 90s just took a lot longer, but its the same Kryptonian healing chamber thing) meaning when he came back to the present alive again, his dead body was still also in the present just in it’s process of healing. Meaning especially if we’re bringing back stuff from before the reboot, Kon likely has his dead body just vibing out there while he’s goin around living life 🤷‍♂️

SO them doing something related to that could explain the choice to put him back in the T-shirt (since thats what he wore in the era his brain would be caught up to if we’re relating this to when he died) and why he’d recognize himself in a group photo with Bart, Cassie and Tim but maybe not someone like Wallace who didn’t exist back then. I don’t know, this branch of thought is still half baked. Will maybe come back and elaborate on this later. But I’m now really thinking there might be a connection to the early Teen Titans Vol. 3 era specifically because of it being referenced twice in stuff with this Suicide Squad.

ANYWAYS moving on, this is probably a shot in the dark and I only thought of it because I just was reading 90′s Superboy, but right away when thinking about ‘Amanda Waller’ and ‘Cloning Kon’ I was reminded of some stuff about the circumstances around the first clone that was made of Conner: Match.

(Superboy (1994) #35)

Match was created by an organization called ‘The Agenda’, that was after a while primarily under the control of The Contessa, Lex Luthor’s ex-wife, aided by Amanda Spence who had a personal grudge against Kon bc her dad was Paul Westfield the guy Kon was originally cloned from (before the Lex/Clark retcon). They were the big bad guys of an arc called The Evil Factory in Superboy (where Cadmus personnel got replaced with clones) which also then tied into the Sins of Youth event over in Young Justice (Remember how Match was posing as Superboy for a while there? yeah). After those plot lines finished the Agenda was pretty defeated (Amanda Spence was still out there and came back later but still) and... who got their hands on the remaining Agenda tech?

(Superboy (1994) #87)

Why none other than Amanda Waller herself!

If they re-canonized pieces of this (which also tied into Young Justice which ya know, YJ 2019 was all about re-establishing stuff from YJ even before Death Metal happened soooo) it would totally make sense for Waller to have complete access to the exact technology used to clone Conner before. 

Now, a thing to consider here though is what happened to Kon after he’d been cloned that first time, where his DNA got all destabilized by the process (and he needed to go through a procedure with Roxy as a genetic template to keep him together, which was how he got stuck at age 16 for a while). This was something where he was fine for a period of time before the side effects began to kick in. Now, I think it’s worth mentioning that was also back in the days where he was not yet Lex & Clark’s clone, but still Paul Westfield’s. So there could easily be a ‘now that certain Kryptonian genes have kicked in as he got his newer powers it doesn’t destabilize him the same way’ reasoning or something along those lines to avoid this problem. Alternatively, it could be an interesting thing to embrace rather than retcon away, especially if we’ve been seeing Clone Conner in action and Original Conner hasn’t been in our focus, things could be wrong with him that we just don’t know about.

Another branch of thinking that I think is even MORE a shot in the dark but could be interesting (or again even related to what I just said, could be a combo of things) is if this somehow ended up related to those clones that were reverse engineered from the remains of Match from the very end of Teen Titans Vol. 3

(Teen Titans (2003) #99)

All of them were then taken down with Kryptonite and killed in battle (by Rose & Damian) 

(Teen Titans (2003) #100)

But like... idk man if Waller got her hands on those corpses or even just the data from Dr. Caligan that he extracted from Match to make them... that could also be a potential way to make some new Conner clones, and that could be why the bio-scan thing at Titans Tower wouldn’t work properly because of the thing he says above about it not being a “complete match’

One thing I don’t think is the case, but has been brought up to me, is stuff with New 52 Kon. I’ve talked extensively about New 52 Kon in recent weeks because I read through all his stuff, but the thing that makes me shy away from him being part of this situation is the fact that... he’s not interchangeable with Kon the way I think some people think he is. He wouldn’t visually be recognized as Original Kon because he is literally on a genetic level a separate person. They’d prob look related, sure, like they’d pass for brothers because they both have Clark’s DNA, but New 52 Kon has Lois’ DNA and Original Kon has Lex’s. New 52 Kon would likely look more like Jon, rather than Kon. Lois specifically commented in an Action Comics issue that Kon had some resemblance to Lex, even. So like, things like Wallace recognizing him or him looking at his own matching reflection alongside the group picture at the Tower... those wouldn’t happen the same way if this was New 52 Kon.

Now I think it coooould theoretically be possible for Waller to have gotten her hands on that future N.O.W.H.E.R.E. cloning tech that had been used to make New 52 Kon, like I wouldn’t rule that out. Because she knows where the remains of their bases are as shown in Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #16-17, and like, Harvest is dead so she could easily just send teams out there to gather shit if she wanted. 

Onto some other things I don’t think are actually related but that I was reminded of/wanted to address:

I feel i’d be a bad timkon fan if during all of this discussion of past stories with cloning Kon I didn’t even bring up Tim’s cloning attempt stuff, but I think it would ultimately be unrelated. His tech was stolen from Luthor, and his attempts didn’t succeed because he was trying to build from scratch without Cadmus’ the data about how they altered the DNA from the original process. 

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #34)

Then that initial cover for the annual really reminded me of part of the Hollow Men story from Superboy Vol. 5 just with like... Kon in a room full of copies of himself. I don’t think this story would be related either because it was more magic Tannarak stuff rather than regular cloning, but ya know. It’s the imagery.

(Superboy Vol. 5 #9)

It also really reminded me of the stuff from Hyper-Tension which was hypertime stuff not cloning but again just... visually.

(Superboy Vol. 4 #62)

In general I don’t think we’re EVER gonna see Black Zero or any of these multiverse Superboys again LMAO.

To try to sum up all of this in a way that might make sense here’s kinda a... flowchart of some of my main ideas for what the cloning situation could be/how the logic could work. Again this is borrowing stuff from across continuities because Infinite Frontier means theoretically anything’s fair game. (Also I don’t think I mentioned this earlier but I do mention it in the chart, but I think it’s also reasonable that Waller could get her hands on Cadmus tech if Cadmus is like properly made canon again. She just has funky government connections!)

Also I just now thought of this now several hours after I already made the chart and I don’t wanna remake it so sorry not incorporating it there but I remembered there was also that bit during House of Kent where Clark took Kon to the Hall of Justice and they were running some tests on him, so I’m thinking it’s also possible Waller got ahold of that data/that might be how she found out about Kon in the first place for this timeline. And they indicated that there was something wrong with him there, where he might eventually lose his powers or something, so maybe she tried to do cloning stuff to be able to have a copy of Superboy in his prime or something??? before that started kicking in. I don’t know, just more things to consider:

(Action Comics (2016) #1028)

ANYWAYS in conclusion: there is clone fuckery of some sort happening, I’m curious where it’s gonna go, and I just want Kon to be okay.

If you actually read this uhm. props to you bc this probably makes no sense to anyone but me its just word vomit <3 

[fuckyeahscootmcnairy]

Scoot McNairy On Lightening Up In HBO Max’s ‘Love Life’ And The Making Of A Great ‘Narcos: Mexico’ Scene

By Kimberly Ricci

The first few times I interviewed Scoot McNairy, I got a little aggressive with rampant questions about his righteous mustaches. In my defense, these discussions of facial hair often lightened the mood as we discussed his recent heavy roles on True Detective‘s third season and the most recent round of Narcos: Mexico. Scoot’s always a good sport about answering the most bizarre of inquiries, but for his latest project — an HBO Max dramedy, Love Life, starring Anna Kendrick — no such lightening was required.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that there isn’t a mustache present with this Scoot project. There is one, although it’s not as plentiful as those that he sported in the above two projects and Godless. So, the Halt and Catch Fire actor was off the hook (this time) for any facial hair talk. Fortunately, he’s still gracious enough to discuss this latest role (a wealthy entrepreneur and slightly older man who plays a key role in helping Kendrick’s character develop) with us, including how much of a relief it is to step into the shoes of a less-stressed-out character. I also wished to discuss the latest Narcos: Mexico season finale, which ended with a fantastic, fictionalized, and quiet confrontation between his DEA agent character, Walt Breslin, and the drug lord (portrayed by Diego Luna) that he put behind bars, and Scoot was game for that, too.

Love Life is a nice piece of an escapism. Would you characterize it as a romantic comedy or dramedy?

I haven’t seen the project as of yet, but after reading and talking with [showrunner] Sam Boyd, it feels like it’s more of a dramedy, and also a sort-of slice-of-life over the course of ten years, well, basically a decade.

Even though it’s not 100% cheery, this role’s definitely more lighthearted than anything you’ve done lately. Did that feel like taking a load off?

You know, it was a lot of fun. I started in this business twenty years ago, and for the first ten years, mostly what I did was comedy, and I haven’t been able to do that in eight or nine years. So, I was really looking to try and find something to do, comedic-wise, and Sam had this project that I really liked. So yeah, I really enjoy doing comedy or dark comedy, so this was really fun to step back into that — a lighter role.

Whenever I think about artists switching up genres and entering different phases, I think of an old Ethan Hawke interview, where he expressed his surprise at how shooting horror movies was a lot more silly and less terrifying than he expected. Was making a romantic comedy the same or different than you expected?

That’s a really great question, but you know, it just felt familiar. Comedy is something that I’m somewhat uncomfortable with but obviously very, very scared of and stuff, and it’s also about challenging yourself with something that you haven’t really done in a long time and something you really enjoy doing. And also just moving around, switching it up, and trying not to get pigeonholed into a sort-of genre, just to stretch your wings, I guess.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but one of the Love Life promo shots zeroes in on your character, Bradley, with a martini. You’re playing a character who drinks martinis!

Yeah! He’s a New Yorker, really into art and very motivated and ambitious. That being said, there’s also a lighter side to the character. I just hadn’t done comedy in so long, so I was really itching to do it. And Anna Kendrick is genius, and incredible at what she does, and I was really looking to work with her on something that was comedic and in her wheelhouse. She’s incredible in this, and it’s such an amazing project for her and role for her, so I was really excited to just be a part of that.

And the writing feels realistic and without too much reliance upon clichés.

Sam Boyd, the creator, he’s a really really smart guy. He was incredibly great to work with and collaborative and all that, but he wrote an incredible story. Really heartfelt and funny and sad at times, so I think it should be a really fun, wild ride.

Do you have a favorite romantic comedy?

Some of the older ones like When Harry Met Sally and Richard Linklater’s earlier stuff, including Before Sunrise. I loved those movies and the big, broad comedies like the Will Ferrell stuff.

Producer Paul Feig’s helming of Bridesmaids might bring a lot of curious eyes to this project. There are some similarities.

Yeah, definitely, I hope so. It’s really special and unique and also brings us back to movies like Reality Bites. It’s kind-of like a version of that for the newer generation.

That newer generation has been embracing romcoms on Netflix. Do you have any take on why those movies are doing so well there?

I don’t, to be honest, I didn’t know that. But as of right now, in the position where people are in quarantine, romcoms are movies that make you feel good, so maybe we’re seeing a lot of that just because of the times we’re going through.

Talking about your Love Life character any more would lead to spoilers, so do you mind if I ask you about the Narcos: Mexico season finale?

Nope. You mean the one we last finished?

Yes, and specifically, the conversation between Walt Breslin and Félix Gallardo. I’ve been comparing it to other great confrontations like Pacino and De Niro in Heat and FX’s Justified ending.

Wow.

Did you draw inspiration from any movies or TV shows, or was it solely about those two characters to you?

Oh, I was terrified to do that scene, to be honest to you. A lot of what you’re seeing is just terror, but I know that there’s always, in these sort-of male-driven shows, there’s always this reference back to Heat. You know, Carlo Bernard, one of the creators of the show, he worked with Michael Mann and actually worked on Heat, so we’re always throwing that around and stuff, so yeah, in so many ways, it’s going to resemble that scene. But I don’t speak Spanish, and that whole scene was in Spanish. It was a long one, so I am very glad to hear you say that it turned out so great because it was a very nervous one for me.

Aren’t you a Texas native? I grew up in Oklahoma, and Spanish wasn’t required but strongly encouraged. I can’t imagine going into that scene dry.

I learned a little bit in the time that I had, but even as a kid, I never picked up much Spanish living in Texas.

So when you think about Walt and Félix, do you sense any admiration there as well as contempt? Or was I reading too much into that?

Oh for sure! You develop, in law enforcement, when you’re going after a case for X amount of time, I’m sure you develop a relationship with that person, and you know so much about them that there is a sense of admiration and respect when you’ve kind-of got your guy. The very thing I think about that scene is that, like, there’s this idea that Walt got his guy, and he’s won. And throughout that scene, he [realizes] that’s he’s only created a worse problem. And I love the sort-of dynamics that shift in that scene. And him going through what is to come because of what [he’s] done. Like, [he] didn’t do anything but cause a worse problem.

And on a personal level, Walt didn’t even get the closure that he wanted.

Yeah, neither one of them. It feels like they both lost.

Have you heard anything about another season?

No, I would gladly be open to doing more. I had a wonderful time on the show and loved working with the crew down there and all the people on the show, executives and Netflix. It was a dream job, so I would happily jump back down there.

The first three episodes of ‘Love Life’ premiere on May 27 with the launch of HBO Max.

[x]

[d00dt00nz]

Obligatory promo stuff at the top because it sucks and I hate it and let’s get it out of the way! follow me on twitter where I’m active, check me out on spotify for music, or like my facebook for sparse updates on music stuff. Thank you. The Cover art is by Ellie Tison

Okay!! Last song!!

Well, I say last song, but it's more like “last song”. There is one more song that I used as an epilogue, but I'm not going to get into that, and honestly if you've listened to 13 tracks without being sold (why would you do that?) one more track isn't going to sell you on it.

And would you look at that, the last song is a reprise of the first song. Wow, it's like Sgt Pepper... that's so cool. Now it makes sense why I didn't bother talking about that first song right? Not planned btw.

This song was one of the first songs I wrote for this album. I said this for a few. Truthfully I did four or so around the same time and they were all great. I had a few more tracks in the oven as well. Everything was going great. I was like “wow this album's gonna be done in no time!” Anyway that was like three or four years ago. I guess that's how these things tend to go.

This is back when I was trying to make a bit more of a straight ahead rock/indie rock sounding album. I'm pretty sure I wrote this song on guitar, lyrics and all, which is honestly (and sadly) pretty rare for me these days. I had this idea for repeated backing vocals and a call/response sort of song structure. I'm pretty sure this more energetic version of the song came first. I originally wanted a sort of Lou Reed feel to it, but once I wrote that groovy dancy bass riff it immediately lost that feel. Once I started recording electric guitars I accidentally did a grungy “brrroww” at the end of the phrase and really liked it. I replicated it throughout the track and in turn lost even more of that Lou Reed feel.

In my original recording process I had a damaged patchcord. I didn't realize it at first because I was trying out some new equipment. I just thought it was really quiet. That being the case, I had to turn it up way loud to get a good volume and that's actually where some of the guitar tone you can hear (mainly in the one playing a melody-line during the chorus) comes from. I actually really liked it, I thought it sounded like Pavement. Actually, my Tiff did too and that's probably the nicest thing she's ever said about any of my music.

At some point I added more guitar tracks to the track to make it sound fuller, and also replace some of the ones recorded with a broken patchcord. I honestly kinda liked the original tracks, which still had a little bit of that 70s glam grittiness to them, but I'm far too neurotic about this stuff to really sit with that. In the end it sounded less 70s and more mid 90s. It had a sound that I've actually been trying to get for a while, though not on this track – the sort of fuzzy swirling guitars with a groovy beat and bassline to it. Tiff described it as being “Like those music videos where everything is blue and everyone's got really baggy pants”, which, again, big compliment. I don't know if that one was actually a compliment, but I'll take what I can get.

The song had its genesis at that same party I mentioned last time. There's nothing specific really. We had my album on and it's got a pretty fun cool first half. The people there were enjoying it, but then it gets to the second half and it's a little bit more mopey. It's also completely sexless and uncool throughout. That being the case, one of the guys there was like

“Sorry Con-dog, the vibes are just not working with this right now,”

and I was like,

“Oh don't worry about it, I understand dude,”

And then he was like, “Right on man. I’m getting fucked vibes from those guys over there. Here, hit this for me.”

And then I did some coke off a Pulp Fiction VHS tape.

I thought to myself, “man it'd be nice to have music that you could put on at a party”. Which basically was the whole idea behind this album, conscious or not. I don't really know if it succeeded, but there's definitely a certain kind of party where this would play, and honestly I don't think I'd mind being at it.

The album was originally going to be more centered around the idea of the character described in this track. I mean, obviously he's me, but I'm trying to detach myself and make things a little more universal. I wanted to explore all the different traits and behaviors that this one person has. Some of them being mine, and some of them being not. Honestly, it didn't really pull through to the end. There's a little bit of that in here, but it's mostly just songs. I'm okay with that. They have some thematic cohesion. It's got this song bookending the album. Wow, it's like Sgt. Pepper.....

The ending is a little bit embarrassing for me because I do a bit of a scream voice, which, honestly I don't think there's anything actively wrong with it, I just cringe when I hear myself doing it because it's like “ah oh god I'm doing that”. I don't know. There's also the fact that, well, one of the things I yell is the word “Wasteman”, which is a little bit of an outdated slang right now, but when I actually recorded the song it wasn't. Whatever, this is an insanely white album from a white kid. I figure a lot of people who enjoy this type of music haven't actually heard that word. I wouldn't have, but I hang out with Tiff's cool friends sometimes. Honestly I think it's a cool term. I think the most embarrassing part though is I copy-pasted it so it repeats twice because I felt like I wanted more intensity. I don't think it's super noticeable, but the idea makes it a little disingenuous. During the outro I wanted to add a little more of that “90s blue and baggy” feel, so I plugged in a keyboard and freaked out on the organ setting. I think it really adds a lot.

The slower version of the song was written afterwards and I actually cheat because it uses some of the same midi tracks. I was super torn between the more exciting sound that I had and my original “vision” for the song, which was a bit more downtempo Lou-Reed inspired. I figured, why not do both?

There's not a whole lot to cover here that I haven't already covered. Mostly the backing vocals, but only because I think I did a worse job with them than the other version. There's nothing outwardly wrong with them per-se, but I think the blend is not good and that's gonna immediately stick out to some people. The middle section just kinda came about because the other version doesn't really have a proper chorus. It just has some guitar noodling. I played around with the chord progression of the middle chorus in the fast version and made something that was a bit more structured, then adapted a melody around it. Harmonies grew out of the melody. I felt like something was missing, so I took that same call and response idea from earlier and applied it here too. I really liked the interplay between the two vocal lines. The “Purify me” line was originally supposed to come up again and again throughout the album. One of the tracks that ALMOST made it would have been the song it was from, and then there would be callbacks to the melody throughout the album. It was kind of like a motif. That was unfortunately completely scrapped and this is the last trace of it. Maybe I'll work the idea into something I do in the future.

I like this song. I realized way too late that it massively rips off The Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane. I guess that “Lou Reed inspired” idea was a little bit too literal. Fortunately I would say the middle section saves it from being too much of a copy. I think it's a good way to start and finish the album. I also like the thematic notions of this album starting with the same track it ends on. Like these things work in cycles and you're never truly free of your own quicksand. Like an Ouroboros eating its own tail, like Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. When one cycle ends, a new begins. The same, but slightly different – until it is completely undermined by the epilogue track that says “no this is actually the end”.

Hey congrats on making it through all of these entries! You may have only read this one, or even skipped to the end. If you did that, disregard that previous sentence and go back to read them. This album was the culmination of a lot of work and thought. 13 of these writeups was nothing compared to probably hundreds of hours spent working on this album, and probably thousands of hours thinking about it. I'm aware few people are reading these writeups, but it's honestly mostly my own indulgence. I gotta decompress this stuff and be free of this album. I can finally get rid of all this useless crap in my brain. I'll probably enjoy being able to go back and read this stuff once I've forgotten most of this, and once I've become a more mature person. I'll probably go “wow this shit is cringe. I can't believe he posted like 22 pages of cringe” but that's okay. The album's okay. I made for certain it was not, in fact, cringe before releasing it. And honestly I enjoyed writing these.

A part of me wants to get back to the freakish pace I had in like 2011 where this blog was nonstop content. I don't think it'd work so well in 2020 Tumblr because who even uses this site anymore? I think it's a little sad because it's pretty much the death of long form posting. Twitter is great because people pay attention to you, but sometimes I just want to write like two thousand words and have some psycho actually read them and respond to it. I think we've lost that on the internet. Sometimes I think of making youtube videos, but I'm no good in front of a camera. Sometimes I wonder, couldn't I just read something like this TO the camera? The answer is no, I can't. That'd be boring. I'm completely convinced nobody would watch that. I sometimes think that if I could add some editing and some visual component though, it'd work out. Some sort of... video essay. Some kind of... man with facial hair and left leaning politics who enjoys media and talks about both... Wow I wonder if that niche has been filled at all?

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 14x06 “Optimism”

bisexual DEAN + COCKS, I cannot believe that actually happened

02:03pm

i’m a day late but SO READY

charlie and sam!!!! i saw a couple promos, one with a screaming girl and jack and dean (oh whoop just typing that makes me think of the youtube duo jack & dean, somehow i never noticed that before??)

i’m having trouble looking at screens and stuff (vestibulitis, i believe) so i’m nauseous and dizzy, and just gonna take breaks as needed~

-

02:07

rEALLY like the visual and sound edits on the recap !!!

......one minute later as the recap ends, i realise how ridiculous it is that i’m like “hey!!! the people who make this show professionally actually made something good!!!”

-

02:09

............ARE THEY KIDDING

ANOTHER ONE???? STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT????

YEAH OKAY

I’M HERE FOR IT

-

02:10

AND THE MICHAEL HAT

what is going on

old man clearly has the hearteyes for the girl who says hello EVERY SINGLE DAY ..... just sayin

-

02:12

am i just gonna see this entire season as a series of destiel aus now??? because now girl-cas is sorting books in the library and i am PUMPED

you sort those books girl!!!!! yeah!!!!!

-

02:13

the frills on her shirt look like wings

uuugrhguh i love this ??? because in a weird way it’s soooo damn close to seeing cas in a different costume

WISHLIST: PUT MISHA IN A FRILLY SHIRT

also adoring the fact they’re just going full-out with telling stories through fashion here.

like. i am a fan

-

02:16

“arbour, it’s me!!!”

“winston, god”

wait wait i gotta check who wrote this.

ahh steve yockey, good

i checked because i was like “wait, that doesn’t seem like the deadly duo writing style, or name choice”

now it makes sense

.........well her name was harper but close enough

-

02:18

how dare all three of these incredibly white people be so cute? why

-

02:20

wiNSTON IS THE CUTEST MOST ADORABLE HUMAN ON THIS PLANET

but given the nature of this show, that makes me suspect he’s a vampire or something

-

02:21

ohhhhkay that’s the music and the sequence from that spider man movie

-

02:22

now i think he’s gonna die

-

like. immediately

he’s gonna get hit by a car or something

oh god i can’t look

-

02:23

................................yup

-

02:26

jack: “maybe i’m allergic to sitting around doing nothing”

he is so much like cas

-

02:26

dean: “cas is an insurance policy on those hunts”

OH GOD NOW I JUST REALISED HOW BADLY I WANT AN EPISODE OF JUST CAS HUNTING BY HIMSELF AND SOLVING A CASE ALL BY HIMSELF

also with jack. and with dean and sam. but CAS ALL BY HIMSELF

-

02:28

h e l p

-

02:29

jack: “we can be hunting buddies!!”

dean: “okay. A) don’t call it that--”

that little nervous huff though

WHY DEAN? IS THAT WHAT YOU AND CAS CALL EACH OTHER WHEN YOU NEED TIME ALONE? “HUNTING BUDDIES”

-

02:33

“DICK’S RED ROOSTER DINER”

tell me that doesn’t sound like five-star “eat some penis cock here” signage

and dean drives up with his manly phallic symbol

-

02:37

i love this woman for making dean make this face

-

02:38

I GASPED OUT LOUD

ANYONE WHO DOUBTED ME ON THE PHALLIC DINER NAME BEING A BISEXUAL DEAN THING, CASE IN POINT

THAT IS THE MOST PHALLIC NON-PENIS OBJECT I HAVE EVER SEEN

(i have so many questions. did someone find it in a thrift store and keep it for years until they found the right way to use it? did they get it made specially? THAT THING EXISTED FOR THIS EXACT PURPOSE)

THERE’S A CAKE RIGHT THERE, WHICH IS A DEAN-LIKES-MEN THING (VS. DEAN-LIKES-WOMEN BEING PIE)

AND HE PUSHES IT AWAY WHEN THE LADY IS LIKE “DATING VS SEX, SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE THE SEX”

DEAN RESISTS THE SEX WITH MEN BECAUSE HE WANTS COURTING & DATING FIRST

WITH CAS

BECAUSE WHO THE FUCK ELSE

I am dying 

this symbolism is killing me

great!!!! i want to place an order for 3000 more of these please, thank you, i’ll pay in cash

fyi there is no doubt in my mind that dean is bi and knows it. he’s written as bi, the writers know it, the directors know it, the set decorators know it, and jensen knows it (he’s intelligent and he has a dirty mind, he knows exactly what that cock means. like, neither dean or jensen need need to know what “bi” means or remember what the flag looks like to know the concept and experience occasional attraction to men as a part of his personality)

-

02:52

sam: “that wing man was you”

charlie: “no it wasn’t”

rainbow in the background behind charlie’s head

no worries, she may be a different person but she’s still gay af

-

02:53

the love of charlie’s life was kara/cara

i’m taking notes

C UPCAKE BaKERY !!!

-

02:55

oh “tara” not kara or cara

.......oh man that is the worst backstory :c

-

02:57

trust dean to be surrounded by cocks and be like “but i like pie women”

shoutout to that lil pink sugar box on the left

-

02:59

headcanon: dean sniffs cocks before he puts them in his mouth

BUT SERIOUSLY THEY HAD HIM PUT A COCK IN HIS MOUTH. THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. VISUALLY. WE JUST SAW THAT HAPPEN WITH OUR OWN EYES.

WOMEN PIE IN ONE HAND AND MEN COCK IN THE OTHER ARE YOU KIDDING ME

I’M FUCKING REELING HERE

DEAN IS THE MOST BISEXUAL

HE STARTS WITH THE WOMEN PIE BUT THEN HE’S LIKE YEAH OKAY I’LL TRY THIS MEN COCK ... PRETTY GOOD YUP

I DIDN’T THINK THEY’D EVER TOP THE CAKE=MEN THING BUT THEY DID. THEY EVEN PUT THE CAKE AND THE COCK TOGETHER TO PAIR THEM TOGETHER AS SIMILAR METAPHORS (SEEN IN THAT EARLIER SCREENSHOT)

I’M NEVER TAKING CAPS LOCK OFF AGAIN

no but actually 911 hello yes this is obscene

-

sidenote, this is reminding me slightly of my destiel chicken au Roost

three guesses why

-

03:07

jack: “no, you back off, old man”

FOR SOME REASON I’M HARDCORE ROOTING FOR JACK RIGHT NOW

EVEN THOUGH THAT CLEARLY HURT DEAN’S FEELINGS

-

03:12

harper’s apartment is #2

two people, takes two to tango

two of cups in tarot is new love/romance/relationship/friendship

-

03:17

harper and jack getting along

was harper meant to be a cas parallel or was the trenchcoat just a visual thing at the start? because she wore a completely different coat when he brought jack to her place

i considered that her thing with the old man, paired with jack calling dean “old man” maybe made it a “dean’s getting older but cas is immortal” thing which makes me VERY SAD

-

did dean just call vance “archie” ? as in archie comics? as in riverdale?

-

i feel like there’s some form of symbolism in another man wrestling dean so he goes tumbling into a waterfall of romance novels

-

03:32

“a brass nail dipped in sugar water can kill it”

sooooooo... something brass covered in soda

(edit: or just shoot it, okie dokie)

-

03:37

harper: “it’s a little game we play”

well i mean... if you’re gonna be undead and magic, then this does seem like a fun kinky thing

seducing other boys and killing them

sure

-

03:45

dean: “you know, jack, you’re pretty smart sometimes”

yeah

i love them both <3

also when dean said “love gets crazier that that” i expected jack to ask dean if he’d ever been in love

-

03:47

OH MAN

that was a great episode 10/10 easily. my favourite episode from this season so far

my favourite part was dean + all the cocks

best part was sam comparing charlie to the musca and convincing her to stick around

i LOVED the two hunts, and getting to see two different teams doing unrelated things but enjoying both

i like that harper didn’t die

i love that charlie and sam saved the black guy and he didn’t die

idek what else to say, this was a fine piece of writing

and i can’t even complain about a lack of representation, really, since everyone besides dean/sam/jack either turned out dead or evil and that would just add to the representation problem

(BUT WHERE WAS CAS????????????? WHERE WAS CAS????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? LITERALLY DON’T EVEN KNOW)

I am worried about jack but know he’ll ultimately be fine

I WILL NEVER BE OVER THE BISEXUAL DEAN THING THOUGH

THAT WAS A PYRAMID OF PURE 22 CARAT GOLD AND I LOVE EVERYONE WHO HAD A HAND IN CREATING THAT FOREVER. especially director richard speight jr, since i have the feeling he mostly concocted this himself since it was 100% visual and maybe not even in the script and he’s done unscripted penis jokes before

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Venom (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review a week after the film is released worldwide, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie don’t read on.

Critics vs Consumer:

Alright, so I touched upon this briefly in my non-spoiler review, but I am actually quite disgusted at these critics and alleged “fake reviews” that are determined to tear this movie down until everyone hates it. I get that Venom comes out at the same time as Lady Gaga’s A Star is Born, but both are completely different movies in terms of genre and story so there shouldn’t be any type of competition.

As I mentioned the comparisons to both Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar and Halle Berry’s Catwoman are absurd. First of all the movie is carried mostly by Tom Hardy’s acting which both the aforementioned movies failed on and also, while I understand the one scene in this movie at the restaurant could be compared to Catwoman, it’s not in any way as random or senseless, in fact it is quite funny and organic to the story.

I also do not see why the public puts so much stock in what critics have to say about movies, they are just people who happen to have most likely studied movies. The main point of movies are to entertain and that opinion belongs to the individual not to a few snide individuals.

Characters:

As always my plan is to go into a character analysis of all the main players based on my fondness for them and also what they contributed.

Eddie Brock/Venom:

Tom Hardy was a fantastic choice for this role; not only did I find Eddie relatable as a reporter, studying media myself I do feel were I to pursue journalism this is how I would tackle it, but also just Hardy’s personality in general resonated so well here.

It was great to see Hardy in a movie as himself for a change rather than having some sort of mask obscuring his face...mostly obviously, but also Hardy proved apt at action sequences. I genuinely yelped with joy at the scene when he’s originally escaping the Life Foundation with the symbiote and yes while the hallway fight scene was very strategic in its editing so you couldn’t tell if it was Hardy or a stunt double jumping off the wall, it was still brilliant and I haven’t seen a comic-book movie do a continuing hallway scene like that since Iron Man 2 with Black Widow. Atomic Blonde is still the best when it comes to continuing hallway fights.

Eddie’s life in the beginning of the movie was also rather organic from having a fiancée to formerly being a reporter at the Daily Globe which are both comics-accurate, although I am surprised by the number of people that believe Eddie has worked for the Daily Bugle and I put that down to the 90s animated series which, for simplicity I am guessing, had Peter and Eddie working in the same place so that Eddie getting fired would spur his vendetta against Peter.

Speaking of the animated series, yes this does compare somewhat to the animated series with how the character of Venom behaves however I still rate Hardy’s version of the character higher than both that version and definitely Topher Grace’s interpretation. In fact if this version of Venom was in Spider-Man 3, it may have saved the movie.

Now I mentioned comedy, and from the minute Venom started talking as a disembodied voice, I was sold on the comedy; it is somewhat in poor taste to make a villain who is known to eat people a comedic character but this is where I think the movie could have excelled if the writing and directing was better.

I would have loved more exposition into the symbiotes; we had brief descriptions of their biology and behaviour from both Carlton Drake and Dora Skirth on separate occasions, however I would have loved them to explore an adaptive personality of the symbiotes. For instance, it would have made perfect sense for Venom and Eddie to pick-up and mimic traits of the other; Eddie became comfortable with Venom eating people towards the end, so if the movie had explored the fact that Venom’s language and personality switch was a result of being bonded with Eddie, because he did touch upon that towards the end when Eddie asked Venom why he decided to save the planet and Venom responded “Because of you” but they didn’t fully develop the symbiotic bond enough on an emotional level to warrant that one moment paying off to mainstream audiences. I could be spitballing ideas completely in the dark but I do believe that was the intention of the symbiote-human bond.

Having said that, this was a completely comic-book accurate portrayal of Venom, from the look to the personality. I loved during the scene where the SWAT team is cornering Eddie and he and Venom mimic the SWAT team’s actions of “Mask! Copy!”. Originally when I saw that in a promo clip I did not understand why they said that but now seeing the whole scene it does make sense and is very funny.

My favourite scene is possibly when Eddie first becomes aware of Venom and he makes the elaborate assumption that he has a brain tumour, it’s just the delivery of the line which made it so funny. But that whole motorcycle chase was brilliant and demonstrated Venom’s power wonderfully, even healing Eddie’s broken leg when taking over his body fully.

Also I loved how much of a wingman Venom was to Eddie because it did make sense the symbiote would want Eddie to be happy because it keeps him as a symbiote happy; happy host happy parasite, but Venom being the one who prompted Eddie to apologize and attempt to get back with Anne was a very friendly thing to do in exchange for obviously inhabiting his body.

Another great moment with the two is when Venom tried getting Eddie to jump out the window of his old work building and then in the next scene Eddie is waiting by the lift and all Venom can say is “Pussy” was hilarious.

The one thing that doesn’t make sense to me is the lack of explanation in Venom seemingly leaving Eddie after destroying the rocket containing Riot, but then in the next scene he and Venom are reunited with no explanation. It is simply Venom saying goodbye in one scene and then supposedly a day or two later they’re back in business...no explanation is given!

Anne Weying:

Michelle Williams could have very easily just been the stereotypical MJ damsel character in this movie, fortunately she was far from being a damsel. Deciding to essentially start off the movie by breaking up the main character and their love interest was an interesting move because it led to a continuation of Eddie pining after her and eventually at least being on a civil level.

I think her reaction to meeting Venom was quite genuine, freaking out at the site of Venom about to eat that guard and then Eddie taking control to try and explain was a very realistic moment. Being able to be at least friends with Eddie allowed for her to care about him without obvious romantic entanglement getting in the way. Although the fact that Venom then tried to harm Dr. Dan partially because it feels Eddie and Anne should be together made things slightly complicated.

During that hospital scene when the symbiote is forced to leave Eddie’s body and inhabits a dog in order to try and reconnect with Eddie was also interesting, not only because Anne proved herself a very capable woman with her ability to “handle weird shit” but also the fact she identified Venom had merged with the dog and the two, I am guessing, decided to merge to save their mutual friend was also rather savvy of a character pegged as the stereotypical love interest.

Speaking of She-Venom, this is possibly the scene that has caused the most uproar with this movie which, in my opinion is slightly unjustified but also understandable as it goes back to that lack of symbiote exposition. As I said, if the writers had made it so it was explained that Venom had grown to care about what happens to Eddie and looking out for his wellbeing or that it had felt what Anne feels for Eddie which led to that kiss then it would have made a lot more sense, and in my opinion took away from what was an awesome moment in the first appearance in film or television of She-Venom.

Also Michelle Williams played a blinder in an interview when stating that she was “ready to play She-Venom” but not specifically stating that part of her character would appear in this movie.

I do hope, if there is a sequel, that Eddie and Anne do end up back together because not only do I believe their chemistry but also Dr. Dan just didn’t do much for me.

Carlton Drake/Riot:

In terms of this being a “dated” comic-book movie, the villain was definitely a large part of that. Riz Ahmed very much gave a Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor or Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom type of villain as Carlton Drake. That’s not necersarrily a bad thing and both those villains had their pluses but it was just another businessman in a suit at the end of the day.

I did like the running like of “Have a nice life” first used by Drake to Eddie as a precursor to him destroying Brock’s career to the point he couldn’t even use his name in print anymore. Then at the end of the movie when Venom says the same to Riot just before the rocket explodes with him in it it further supports my annoyance of wishing the movie definitively explored the fact the symbiote and host were becoming more like each other.

Speaking of Riot, while I liked the character and the fact he was essentially a living weapon, I do think it was a missed opportunity not to make Scream the main villain symbiote. Not only is she an agent of the Life Foundation in the comics but her host Donna Diego was already in the movie as that homeless woman Eddie was friends with. Also it would have been nice to have a female villain in the Spider-verse as so far we’ve only ever seen male villains in any Spider-Man movie.

But also on Riot’s origin, the fact it took him so long to get from Malaysia to San Francisco with no exposition as to whether or not he’s been learning about Earth and instead just going from person to person, starting off with “Jameson” by the way which is a brilliant Easter-Egg for John Jameson III who is the son of famous Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson Jr, but not even showing us the fact he knew his kin were at the Life Foundation which is why he went there and chose Drake as his host. It just screams (ironically) missed opportunity.

Once symbiosis was achieved though, it did seem like Riot as a character was in control and Drake was just the vehicle being used. I do think, while Drake wanted Venom back under his control it was the fact Riot who demanded Venom to return to the homeworld that made it seem like Riot was the true villain of the movie.

I am actually glad they killed both Drake and Riot at the end of the movie, usually in Marvel movies it does annoy me they can’t keep a villain longer than a movie but both Drake and Riot had served their purpose so it was time for them to go.

Dora Skirth:

This role was interesting because, at first, her role plays a lot like Nebula in the first Guardians of the Galaxy in that she is the somewhat loyal right-hand of the main villain, there Ronan here Drake. However the fact they did not show any true villainous qualities in Dr. Skirth’s character and instead just made her a scientist who knows when she oversteps natural boundaries was a very fleshed out character.

It is also interesting that most of the background characters in this movie are created for the movie yet still managed to make an impression. I do feel her character was very believable in terms of working for the villain but trying to go behind his back to the movie’s hero is a real-life thing of working for someone you know is corrupt but being too scared of what may happen if they find out you’re trying to stitch them up.

Dr. Dan Lewis:

Alright so I have made it sound like I am not a fan of this character but that is only really in relation to him getting in the way of Eddie and Anne. I know in the comics the two are exes but I wanted to see more of them together in the movie.

I will say I did like that, once he got his head around the situation, he was ready to fight the symbiote by using the MRI machine. Granted it was not in a concealed room and Venom escaped through the air vent but it was still a very cool scene watching Eddie and Venom be separated.

I know he is still with Anne at the end of the movie but especially after that kiss between Eddie/Venom/Anne you would think she would have at least told him because in his defense he does seem like a cool guy, he’s okay with Eddie as Anne’s ex still hanging around so he may be understanding of the situation?

Mrs. Chen:

I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to my favourite minor character Mrs. Chen who owned the bodega Eddie frequented. Not only did she remind me of Delmar who owns the grocers in Spider-Man: Homecoming in terms of how the movie’s main character interacted with them, but also she was not shy to say her piece.

I also liked the fact that, even though we knew it was coming from the trailers, that scene of Eddie/Venom eating that thug at the end was foreshadowed towards the start of the film.

Ensemble:

Then in terms of the others, really there’s only the Life Foundation’s head of security and Donna Diego but while they both made an impression they didn’t take away from the main characters, if anything they aided them which is the right role to be in.

Post-Credits:

So there are two end-credits scenes that play after the most god-awful rap by Eminem I’ve ever heard, the first is relevant to the movie and the second is the big waste of time they make you sit through the entirety of the credits for. I have issues with both but for different reasons.

The mid-credits scene shows Eddie arriving at San Quentin Prison for an interview, the best thing about this is San Quentin Prison is the same prison Scott Lang was released from in the first Ant-Man movie. But he is there to do an interview with none other than Cletus Kassidy who in the comics is the first host of Carnage.

Now I had named who I thought would be great for this role during my fan-casting frenzy for Sony’s Universe of Marvel Character...but with the three suggestions I put forward, none of them were Woody Harrelson. I am not happy with this reveal, yes I knew Harrelson was cast in the movie but had no idea it was in this role. Not only is Harrelson 16 years older than Hardy so playing Carnage who is supposedly Venom’s “son” seems weird, but also that blood red wig, while fitting for the character, looked ridiculous on Woody Harrelson. I still think they should have gone with Will Poulter, but hopefully Woody Harrelson will surprise me in the sequel, I do still like the actor I just don’t think he’s the right fit.

The very end-credits scene is a promo for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which has no relevance to this movie what so ever other than the fact they’re both Spider-Man related. I just think this was a bad PR stunt to have a movie that is already being hated by some people immediately followed by an upcoming movie debuting Miles Morales...why not just have a trailer at the start of the movie? It still looked good and showed how Miles Morales meets Peter Parker but I do not understand why they showed it.

Overall I have to say this was a good Venom movie but not a great one and also I do think the 90s/naughties comparisons are apt as the movie does have that feel, but that isn’t a bad thing when you’re talking about a PG-13/12a rated movie about a supervillain who is known to eat people. Give it the higher rating and you may get what you want.

So that’s my spoiler review of Venom, again sorry for the delay but I am still curious how you guys feel about the movie. I am aware this movie has divided a lot of people but I for one would welcome more of Tom Hardy and this movie. Post your comments and check out more Marvel Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

[bangkokjacknews]

The Weekend Mystery - Will the real Paul McCartney please stand up?

Did the famous ex-Beatle really die in a car crash back in 1966?

On 12 October 1969, Tom Zarski rang the ‘Uncle’ Russ Gibb’s radio show on WKNR-FM in Dearborn, Michigan, and announced that Paul McCartney had been killed in an accident in November 1966 and the Beatles had drafted in a lookalike to keep the band fully functioning. He backed up his argument with several pieces of credible circumstantial evidence, including the decision by the band in 1967 to stop playing live in order to concentrate on their studio recordings and film work. Russ Gibb was so intrigued by the story that he then spent two hours on air mulling over the clues and playing Beatles records. When one caller urged him to play ‘Revolution 9’ (from The White Album) backwards, Gibb was amazed to find he could distinctly make out the words ‘Turn me on, dead man’ through his headphones. Despite the fact that Zarski had pointed out he didn’t actually believe Paul McCartney was dead, he was just interested in the theory, by the end of the programme networks across the United States were discussing the mysterious death of one of the world’s most famous rock stars and the events surrounding his demise. Hundreds of news journalists promptly flew to London and interviewed as many of the conspiracy theorists they could find, and from the reports that followed the only certainty is that many of them were experimenting with LSD, as none of it made much sense at all. The story ran that on the evening of Tuesday 8 November 1966 Paul McCartney and John Lennon were working late into the night on the Beatles’ upcoming album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when a row developed over recording techniques and McCartney stormed out of the studio. Furious, he sped off in his Aston Martin and smashed into a van, dying instantly. The resulting fire prevented the coroner from positively identifying the body but the remaining band members were left in no doubt at all that McCartney had not survived. Another caller to Russ Gibb’s show claimed that McCartney had picked up a hitchhiker called Rita that night. When she suddenly realized who he was, she had screamed and lunged at her hero, causing him to crash into the van. Neither Rita nor the other driver were ever seen or heard from again. The public mourned as shock in but there was one unavoidable question: if McCartney had died in 1966, who was the man that looked like Paul and who had been hanging out with the Beatles ever since? The explanation ran that Beatles manager Brian Epstein was so horrified at the thought of the world’s most successful band breaking up that he held secret auditions and persuaded John, George and Ringo to have all their photographs taken with a stand-in to keep the public unaware of the accident. When Epstein died only nine months later, after a battle with depression and drug abuse, his untimely demise was cited as another piece of evidence. It was said that he just couldn’t come to terms with the loss of McCartney. The Paul-is-dead mystery was also conveniently used to explain McCartney’s sudden split from long-term fiancée Jane Asher (because McCartney stand-in William Shears Campbell didn’t like her) and that his new relationship with Linda Eastman (later McCartney) was Campbell’s real love interest. Another piece of supposedly compelling evidence is that for several years the other three Beatles had wanted to stop playing live shows because the audiences were screaming so loudly they couldn’t could hear anything, but McCartney had resisted. With Paul gone, the remaining three could do as they pleased – indeed the Beatles had last performed live on 29 August 1966, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, and played no more live concerts after that. Conspiracy theorists nodded and agreed that it all made perfect sense, while others, including the Beatles, laughed it off as a ridiculous urban legend. And still the story continued. One American radio presenter had photographs of the singer before and after November 1966 scientifically compared and found there were obvious differences, one being that the nose was of a different length. A doctor from the University of Miami analysed voice recordings and concluded publicly that the recordings prior to August 1966 were different to those recorded afterwards. Paul McCartney, he claimed, did not sing on Beatles records after August 1966. By now fans all over the world were beginning to look for their own clues in Beatles music and album covers, and the clues turned up in spades. Here then are some of them, and the evidence seemingly pointing to the fact that Paul McCartney was dead. Sgt Pepper was the first album the Beatles released after the supposed accident, after recording began on 6 December 1966. When it reached the shops in June 1967, nobody noticed anything unusual about the artwork in connection with the Paul McCartney mystery, but in 1969 conspiracy theorists were able to detect a range of coded references to Paul’s demise. For a start the band appear to be standing at a graveside complete with flowers and wreaths. They are surrounded by famous personalities, who could be mourners, and one of them is holding an open hand above McCartney’s head, said to be a traditional Eastern symbol for death. The theorists looked closer and concluded that the yellow flowers at the foot of the picture are arranged in the shape of a left-handed bass guitar, Paul’s instrument, and one of the four strings is missing, signifying his absence. Under the doll’s arm on the right hand side there appears to be a blood-stained driving glove and the doll itself has a head wound similar to the one Paul was supposed to have died from and he is wearing a badge on his sleeve on the inside cover bearing the letters OPD, standing for ‘Officially Pronounced Dead’. The open-palm gesture actually appears on the front cover of Revolver, twice in the Magical Mystery Tour booklet, twice in the Magical Mystery film and twice on the cover of the original Yellow Submarine sleeve, but, in reality, none of it means anything at all. There is no such gesture in Indian culture symbolizing death. The badge Paul is wearing on the inside sleeve does not read ‘OPD’, it has the initials OPP on it. The badge was in fact given to McCartney when he visited the Ontario Provincial Police in Canada during the Beatles’ world tour in 1965. A statue of Kali, a Hindu goddess, also features on the front cover of the Sgt Pepper album, which the theorists maintain represents rebirth and regeneration, hinting that one of the Beatles has been reborn, or replaced. But Kali, from which the name of Calcutta is believed to derive, has traditionally been a figure of annihilation, representing the destructive power of time (kala being the Sanskrit word for ‘time’) Also, the ‘O’ shaped arrangement of flowers at end of the band’s name has caused some theorists to speculate that the whole thing reads ‘BE AT LESO’ instead of ‘BEATLES’. This was taken as a sign that Paul was buried at Leso, the Greek Island the band had supposedly bought. But none of the Beatles had bought a Greek island and there is no such place as Leso. There are many more pieces of ‘convincing’ evidence. I’ve just picked out some of my favourites. The Beatles all grew moustaches at the time to help mask a scar on the lip of McCartney stand-in William Shears Campbell. In fact McCartney did grow a moustache for Sgt Pepper as he was unable to shave at the time. Paul had fallen off his scooter on his way to visit his aunt and split his lip on a pavement, making it too painful to shave. He also lost a front tooth in the accident, explaining why he appears in the ‘Rain’ and ‘Paperback Writer’ promo videos missing one of his teeth. The accident also explains the scars seen during the White Album photograph sessions. The number plate on the VW Beetle shown on the Abbey Road cover reads LMW 281F, taken to mean Paul would have been 28 ‘IF’ he had survived. But Paul would have been only twenty-seven, and the VW Beetle had nothing to do with anyone at Abbey Road. The director of the photo sessions tried to have it towed away, but the police took too long to arrive so they went ahead with the picture anyway, leaving it in shot. McCartney is wearing no shoes in the Abbey Road photograph. His explanation was: ‘It was a hot day and I wanted to take my shoes off, to look slightly different to the others. That’s all that was about. Now people can tell me apart from the others.’ But the conspiracy theorists swore that the picture had been set up to look like a funeral march, with him as the corpse. On the records Rubber Soul, Yesterday and Today, Help and Revolver there were said to be many more clues. The song ‘I’m Looking Through You’ on Rubber Soul was thought to be about discovering that McCartney had been replaced. Some fans took these blatant ‘clues’ as hard evidence while others quickly realized all of those records were made prior to 9 November 1966 and could not possibly have anything to do with the supposed accident. But with hysteria mounting, even the thinnest clue came to look like definite evidence. In the lyrics to ‘I am the Walrus’, the line ‘stupid bloody Tuesday’ is taken by some to be John Lennon referring to the day of the accident that claimed his band mate. But when it was pointed out the alleged accident was supposed to have happened on a Wednesday morning, conspiracy theorists then claimed it was the Tuesday night that the two of them had fallen out before McCartney had stormed off, and to his death. Some believed it, while others dismissed it as an already thin lead being stretched even thinner. But then came the line ‘waiting for the van to come’, a supposed reference to the ambulance, and ‘goo goo ga joob’ – apparently Humpty Dumpty’s last words before he fell off that wall and bashed his head in, as Paul was supposed to have done. The Beatles themselves very quickly became very irritated by all the speculation. And it was not long before the band, aware every lyric and photo shoot was now being studied, began to play up to the hysteria. After writing one complicated and seemingly meaningless song called ‘Glass Onion’ Lennon remarked, ‘Let the f**kers work that one out.’ But he included the lines ‘Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul’. In no time at all, people were announcing the walrus was a symbol of death to some cultures and Lennon despaired. It wasn’t much fun being a Beatle any more and the band broke up soon afterwards. So – to sum up – if the real Paul McCartney had died in his Aston Martin in 1967, and a replacement found in time for the photo shoots for the next album, then imagine the string of coincidences that needed to have taken place. For a start he had to look and sound just like Paul. Then he had to convince Linda or, if she was in on the plot, she had to like him enough to stay married to him for the next thirty years. And he would have had to learn how to play guitar left-handed, which is even less likely, I can assure you. John Lennon would have to have been fooled too, as it is unlikely he would want share song-writing credits and royalties with a stranger for the last three years of Beatles recordings, especially as Epstein wasn’t there to tell him to. And most of all, for the lookalike to have written and recorded songs of a McCartney standard for over thirty years would be hard to imagine. Hang on a minute, I have just remembered ‘The Frog Chorus’ and ‘Mull of Kintyre’, and so my argument is beginning to wear thin, even to me. And another thing – would the real Paul McCartney have married Heather Wills, or whatever her name was? Perhaps Zarski was right after all – there must be an impostor. - Albert Jack Albert Jack AUDIOBOOKS available for download here  

  Albert Jack’s Mysterious World Buy Now Audio Books Other Platforms Assorted eBooks Read the full article

[kr210]

Mafia

Notes:

And with that we have reached chapter 12 in the manga. I hope you are all enjoying the story so far. I would also like to apologize for the month long Hiatus as I was helping my mom move but now that she is settled in updates will continue regularly once again.

Summary:

We have entered the daily life Arc and boy is it busy. For our Yakuza Princess she is more busy than she wants to be but she is also getting to meet the 10th family. Its nothing but adventure and excitement in this installment

Sakura’s Character Page 

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | 

Reborn

Sakura stood there at the entrance of her home looking at this baby dressed in a suit. Both Kai and Bai were on edge to see this child in their home standing before their princess. "Ciaossu" he greeted them. The twins moved in front of Sakura guarding her and being protective. Sakura frowned, totally confused as to what was going on.

It was a Sunday morning when she was greeted by the doorbell on her way to the kitchen to get breakfast. She had just been passing the entranced and decided to answer it anyways since she was the closest. As she opened the door though she felt like she had sensed something wrong and took a step back. Some instinct told her to get away from the door and that instinct had spread to the house like wildfire. In an instant both Kai and Bai were standing next to the princess along with six other guards around her.

The door opened anyways and there stood a well dressed baby in his black suit and tie. "Ciaossu" he greeted them again. "Who is this?" Sakura asked. "I am Reborn" he introduced himself to her. "Reborn?" she questioned confused. "The number one hitman in the world" Bai explained. The baby named Reborn nodded.

"I came here today as a formal greeting. Perhaps we can sit down and talk somewhere?" he asked, looking directly at Sakura. Blinking confused on why everyone was so on edge, Sakura took the stance to say, "Prepare the tea room."

A bit of bustling and rushing along with a few guards, the Yakumo Yakuza welcomed the hitman. Sakura sat across from the baby at the tea table as a maid poured the tea and served some small cakes. Reborn looked at the princess once the maid was gone. "The formality is that the Vongola mafia has hired me to train the next leader of the Vongola. That leader is here in Namimori. Since you are the residing mafia here, it's only formal that I introduce myself along with my intentions" he explained to her.

Sakura frowned and shook her head a little in disbelief. She was educated in the mafia world enough to know who the Vongola familia was and the influence they held in the world. "I understand the formality but what does the Vongola get from telling us? My Yakuza is small compared to them. And it would make no difference what you do versus what you say." she commented frowning.

Reborn chuckled. "Your tutors have been educating terribly then," he told her, shaking his head. "The Yakumo Yakuza are the ones who first welcomed the Vongola Primo and his guardians here when Primo decided to retire. Your founding members even helped Primo get all his paperwork and housed him like family while he stayed here on vacation" Reborn explained to her.

Sakura was shocked at that. She had no clue her family had close ties to the Vongola like that. Reborn on the other hand saw the shock on her face and reached into his coat pocket to pull out a letter. "Here you are. A letter from the current Vongola leader" he said, handing it to her. Sakura sat up slightly and took the letter from the baby.

She briefly read over it and her eyes widened as she read the letter and the history that the Vongola and Yakumo family had in common. The Princess also read the request of the Ninth to look out for this new Vongola leader. After she folded the letter to read in better detail later, she turned her attention to the baby. "I can agree to these terms. Watching over and helping out the Vongola benefits my Family more than it benefits the Vongola" she commented. Reborn nodded his head. "Very good. I'll let Ninth know that the Yakumo Yakuza is in agreement and an ally of the Vongola" he commented. Sakura nodded and bowed her head. "Thank you."

Reborn excused himself and left to do Reborn things. Sakura on the other hand excused herself to her officeIn her office she began reading over the letter in more depth. According to the Vongola history, Primo, the first Vongola leader and founder, moved to Japan to retire and thanks to a set of twins named Yakumo Ryunotsuke and Yakumo Tsubaki. The twins were leaders of the Yakumo Yakuza which helped people just like the Vongola. The older twin Ryunotsuke and Primo got along very well and Ryunotsuke did whatever he could to help his new friend settle into the country including getting papers and a home to live out his life.

The other twin Tsubaki took on the role of hostess in helping Primo settle in and helped him dress his home. She was also the person who suggested a couple of japanese names for Primo to take on. She had beautiful calligraphy and wrote the kanji for Promo's new name. Supposedly she was fond of the cloud guardian Alaudi but there was nothing more written in the letter.

Sakura put the letter down. She knew who the Vongola Familia was and the power they had. She knew the fact that they allied with her small Yakuza would allow a lot of opportunities for her. But she also knew that entering this alliance meant that she could be married off to build bonds in the Vongola and Yakuza. She let out a sigh feeling a little stressed.

New Member

Later that afternoon, the little Yakuza Princess heard a commotion out in her backyard. Confused, the princess got up to see what was going on. She made her way down the stairs, across the tatami mat of the formal tea room and slid open the paper doors to see Bai standing behind his brother, Kai. Kai on the other hand was holding up a young teenage boy who was borderline beaten bloody. The princess felt her Yakuza self kick in as she stared down at this teen. He on the other hand, with his black eye glared at the princess.

"Who is this?" she asked Bai, ignoring the teen. "Some brat that decided to climb the wall," Bai explained to her. Kai on the other hand dropped the kid letting him cough up some blood and try to regain his center. Kai looked at her. "Are you done working in the office?" She nodded. "Yeah I reread the letter from the Vongola and I'm okay with these conditions. Even if it means I might be married off one day" she said standing tall. Kai nodded not happy with her choice but in agreement with it because this was a good business move.

The teenager saw them all distracted and went after the princess. He moved as much as his body would let him. The twins froze when they saw this teenager but the princess was calm. As soon as the teen reached for her she grabbed his arm and threw him over her shoulder and knocked him on his back flat on the wooden porch. The teen was surprised. As the princess turned her attention to Kai and Bai. "I'm gonna head to my room to do some homework. Please take out the trash" she commented before she turned to go inside. Instead the teen rolled over and took the servant bow. "Please let me serve you." he begged. Sakura glanced at the teen then looked at Bai. "I think I need some help with math." Bai nodded and said, "I will be up shortly." Then the princess took her leave. The kid on the other hand didn't move. He was surprised how a child could easily flip someone twice her size and weight. Kai looked down at him. "It'll be up to the Princess to decide what happens to you. I'd suggest you stay there and wait for her command." he told him going inside.

It would be a few hours before Sakura stepped out to see that same teenage boy unmoved. She went over to him and placed her foot on his head. "Your name?" she asked him. "Miki, miss" he said. He sounded tired and sluggish. "And how old are you?" He glanced up at her but her foot shoved his face to the wooden porch again. "I will be 16 this year." he said. "Have Kai take care of you and prepare for the Namimori High School test in Spring. I expect everyone in my household to have a proper education." she said then left him there. "Thank you." he said, grateful.

Sawada Tsunayoshi

The next day at Namimori Middle School nothing too interesting happened other than the rumors of a first year confessing to another first year in their underwear. Sakura rolled her eyes finding this all to be a rumor until she was summoned by Hibari at lunch. Another member of the disciplinary committee met Sakura at her classroom. "Sakura-san, Hibari-sama wants to see us." he told her. She blinked surprised but nodded her head. Yuna looked upset. "You've been spending a lot of time with him." she commented. "It's part of being in a club. You should join one" The princess suggested to her best friend. Yuna continued to eat her lunch.

Sakura and this other member met Hibari in the empty stairwell. "After school there will be a student fight in the dojo. I expect you two can handle it." he commented. "Yes, sir." they both said and he took his leave. The other student nodded to Sakura and headed off following Hibari. Sakura on the other hand headed back to her classroom to finish lunch with Yuna.

After school Sakura headed to the dojo to see what this whole fight was about. She made her way inside as students made way for the second year once they saw her badge. Quickly she grew bored seeing how this fight was over a girl. She sighed thankful she didn't want to deal with another girl having a crush on Hibari. Instead she folded her arms waiting for the fight to start.

Boy was she shocked to see a first year student in his underwear getting in a fight with the older student named Mochida. She watched as he destroyed this student pulling out his hair and playing off the word of Ippon or one hit. She scoffed amused greatly by this. After the fight was over she made her way out so she could make the report to Hibari.

Gokudera Hayato

"A transfer student?" The princess was caught off guard to hear such a request from Kusakabe. Kusakabe coughed "Yes, I would normally create a file for the student for Hibari-sama but unfortunately I have a bit too much going on that I cannot make the file. Could you please do it for me?" he asked her once more. Sakura blinked and took the name from the second in command. "Thank you" he told her.

After school Sakura made her way to the committee room. She knocked on the door and waited a moment but there was no response from the leader. Cautiously she opened the door expecting Hibari to start a fight with her instead though she was greeted to a quiet empty room. Hibari wasn't by the window staring down at the students nor was he taking an afternoon nap on one of the couches.

She shut the door behind her and went over to the kettle so she could start making a cup of tea. Then she went over to the desk to boot up Hibari's computer that allowed her to access information about the students so she could start this new transfer student's file.

The girl spun the chairman's chair and then took a seat in it. Her face then started to heat up as she realized that she was sitting in Hibari's chair. The same chair that he gave orders in and looked down on them. A giggle escaped her as she leaned back in the chair. To sit in Hibari's chair without trying to hide or sneak around to leave him gifts was so different than having permission to actually sit in his chair and work. "Ah right, I'm supposed to be working instead of fangirling" she muttered to herself.

Finally starting to work, Sakura began to write up the transfer's file.

Name : Gokudera Hayato

Age : 13, First year

Birthday : September 9,

Gokudera Hayato comes from Italy as a first year transfer student to Namimori Middle School. He is transferring under the status of his half Japanese blood. Grades from Italy are unknown.

Sakura stared at the quarter filled sheet on the computer. "This isn't a very filled out report" she muttered leaning back in the chair. "I don't think Hibari will approve of this..." she commented frowning. She looked up at the new student's name and then looked at where this student came from. She pondered a bit...before she pulled out her phone.

She called Kai. "Is something wrong princess?" he answered shortly after the first ring. "No nothing is wrong. I'm working on something for the committee." she quickly explained. "Alright." he answered. "It's a first year transfer student named Gokudera Hayato. He comes from Italy. So I was curious to see if he has any mafia connections" she explained why she was calling. Kai pondered it as he headed over to his brother who was more informed about other mafias. He put the phone on speaker so his twin Bai could hear. "Gokudera... I don't know a family by that name from Italy." Bai let himself be known. Sakura pondered a moment. "Could he be an illegitimate heir?"

"How soon do you need that report?" Kai asked her. "Ah it needs to be done today." she commented frowning. "If we had more time we could look into him more but with such a short deadline I do not think it's possible..." Sakura nodded. "Alright I'll settle for what I have." she commented. "Okay. We will see you tonight." the twins told her and they hung up.

Sakura printed out the very short report and put it in a manilla folder. She then left it on Hibari's desk to read it when he returned to his office. Sighing she got up from the desk and went to get her now cold cup of tea. After she drank it, she cleaned up and locked up the office for the day.

I trust you.

Sakura was staring at the hole in the middle of the school ground. "A freshman apparently did it to avoid being expelled after a low score on a science test." Another member of the committee explained to her. "So that means we have to clean it up?" she asked, shocked and not fond of physical labor. "No." The committee leader arrived. annoyed Sakura and the other committee member stood up quite stiff.

He looked at Sakura. "I trust you to handle this clean up." he said to her anger radiating off his body. Sakura turned to look up at him confused. "Handle the clean up? Why me?" she questioned him. Usually one wouldn't question Hibair's orders but that would be completely unlike this girl to not question the fearless leader.

"Your report on the transfer student was short and precise. It was excellent work. It shows that I can trust you to handle other jobs." he explained to her. Sakura blinked surprised but quickly nodded her head. "Yes sir" she said with a huge smile on her face that quickly turned to a smirk as she looked at the other who would have to listen to her now to clean this up.

Hibari nodded his head and left the work to the Yakuza Princess.

Yamamoto Takeshi

"You don't know who Yamamoto Takeshi is?" Yuna asked Sakura as they were rushing down the hallway with the other students. "I don't know all the students like the disciplinary committee leader does" she said, dodging one student who opened the window and sticking their head out the window and looking up.

Just as the girls were about to turn down the hallway to head down the stairs Sakura's phone chimed. She read the text from Hibari demanding she go to the third floor and be prepared to catch the freshman that was ready to jump. Yuna sighed. "Orders from the scary leader?" she asked her friend. Sakura frowned but nodded. Yuna sighed again. "Alright I'll keep you updated on the ground." Sakura smiled and said, "Thank you" before she took off heading up to the third floor.

Sakura entered one of the classrooms and opened the window to make sure she was just below the student that was hanging off the railing. Once she was in the right spot she texted Hibari letting him know she was in position. She was nervous and antsy. Many what if questions when through her head.

"Ciaossu" Sakura was pulled out of her thoughts by the baby hitman. "Ah Reborn-san" she said surprised. "Are you here on orders?" he asked her. A nod. "Then do you mind ignoring this situation?" "Does this have something to do with the freshman Vongola leader?" she asked. He nodded. "Then yes, I can ignore this whole situation." she commented. "Thank you Yakuza Princess" he told her and took his leave.

Sakura smiled as she sat in the open window now to simply sit and watch the show.

The Cow Print Baby

Sakura and Yuna were eating lunch in their classroom along with the rest of their class. "It's true, I saw it yesterday" one girl said standing up from her desk creating quite a commotion. Yuna and Sakura both turned to look at the girl. "What's that about?" Sakura asked. "There's a rumor going around about some cow print baby here at school. Sakura raised an eyebrow at that. "Uh huh... well I haven't heard anything from Hibari about it so therefore I wouldn't worry about it" she said. Yuna nodded.

The Rice Ball Present

All the girls on this day in Namimori were making rice balls in Home Econ class. That also included Yakumo Sakura and Hinamori Yuna. Sakura was staring at her rice balls. They looked a little too perfect for her. "Are those for Hibari-senpai?" Yuna asked, sticking her head into Sakura's station. "Ah yeah I guess I'll give them to him." she commented frowning. Yuna noticed that frown and looked at Sakura. "Is there something wrong with them?" Yuna asked her, looking at the rice balls.

"Don't you think these are a little too good looking?" she asked her best friend. "Sakura-chan you've always been good at cooking so of course your rice balls look perfect" her friend encouraged her. Sakura ended up pouting and let a long sigh. "They look so good that they look fake. I don't think he'll like them." she muttered packing them up as the class was coming to an end.

The best friends said their goodbyes and went their separate ways. Yuna would give her rice balls to someone else in their class while Sakura would head up to the next floor. This is where she found herself running into the third year that made her heart rush and face blush. "Yakumo," he said surprised to see her up there. "You should be in home ec right now." he narrowed his eyes at her. She pulled out her perfect rice balls. "Actually, I just came from the home ec classroom to give you these." she said presenting her perfect rice balls to him.

To say Hibari was surprised was an understatement as he looked down at the younger student. He then looked at her rice ball and took them from her. "Get back to class" he ordered as he entered his committee room and locking the door behind him. Sakura let out a long sigh of relief and headed back to her classroom.

[elizabethrobertajones]

13x02 watching notes

i'm on a train. choo choo.

expectations: helpfully wrote them out last time for the season as a whole which this ep is introducing all the plot stuff for since last episode advanced the plot a single day of angst, but this episode especially has a few SUPER low bars to pass. Last time out BL failed spectacularly to not kill Eileen. now we have "don't assault mary, over-sexualise the day old guy, or flub introing the new characters, or reintroducing the returning ones"

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our train was like 10 minutes late out the station because there was no driver. is this a metaphor.

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i also had to eat krispy kreme doughnuts before I could dig into the episode.

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oh jeeze Drexel survived season 12... no one really has a fanclub for the random minions, probably because around Simmons we realised there was no point getting attached. and he was in some of the worst scenes of last season just because of the context. which is a shame. also he's a lucifer fan and that's not really a worthwhile position. anyway hope springs eternal that colonel sanders is such a charismatic character he makes the demon scenes worth watching... and Drexel gets to be interesting. And stop saying lines like 'make hell great again' which is so not a good thing to put in his mouth - at least the other demons who were going around saying it it was the white demon who said it and got the stink eye from the other demon.

One of the other demons says "can you even hear yourself" but idk if BL would crit their own writing unlike competent writers whose first port of call is stressing that they are bad writers and mock their corny dialogue

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this also raises the semi perpetual question since season 11 that if Crowley's throne room is here why would any of the pretenders to the throne even want it. they seriously need to justify it. We know devil's gates are a pain and not usually open so smuggling minions out to work topside is an issue but there are other workarounds than establishing a campy hell set that's not even in hell, then getting confused about if it's hell or not, and never really explaining why Lucifer would stick around in it except for the fact Crowley is really good at setting up a system and it would be a shame not to use the pre-established set up.

but eh

I really sincerely hope Asmodeus is just here because Crowley's ex-minions are here and will relocate post-haste to his plantation.

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He hung up his coat. Drexel survived though. I guess being a named character has its perks. the sun shone in my eyes the entire time so i was quite amused when the train turned a bit and i saw demons dropping with burned out eyes, angel-style. like Dagon being super duper powerful, I guess they're giving him extra powers - because this is just a few steps up from how Sam was exploding demons with his head at one point and he got his powers from a YED... though in 5x10 when Lucifer killed all those demons he also didn't burn the eyes out. it's probs a stylistic choice. in character and out.

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Nougat!!! he's so cute. he's sleeping at an angle to be behind Sam in the convo. The camera points at Sam from the dash and at Dean from Sam's POV, and Jack is in his background. methinks this is about Sam.

He's trying to make Dean sleep and calling out how he hasn't had any, which is nice because I was worried about that earlier.

Dean is calling Jack "it" which I think was in some people's pre-season fic, or else if it weren't it was in the one i didn't write :P Blatant convo is blatant but does at least have an actual honest to god lead into the next scene via the mom is dead conversation. Again we get the super zoom close up on sam being sad and questioning dean's thoughts. assert yourself, sammy! i believe in u

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(totally on your side too Dean but the sun is too bright to examine your micro expressions and the camera isn't favouring you anywho so you're a rewatch flavour today)

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Satan wants to trade Mary for Jack. Well if Dean knew he'd sell Jack for a corn chip anyway (is that Crowley's phrase from the original weird dog episode?) so that's just a great big victory. methinks the choice will fall on Sam or fall on Dean after he's had a chance to bond with Jack some more - that's the other side to the tension about Dean liking jack that i was talking about earlier whensomeone asked me why everyone wants dean to adopt jack.

ideally mary saves herself or it never comes to it but for now i'll assume whatever else happens between here and there, some version of this plan will at least be floated, even if it's random circumstances and not lucifer's hand any more or something

makes sense anyway to tie mary back into the main arc in a way like how she mirrored cas the entire time last season - if her fate and jack's are connected even tenuously it gives her a connect back into the main thing

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oh good the woman next to me has finished her dangerously over-full cup of Pimms because I was terrified it would be bye bye laptop

nnnoooo as I type she refilled it

the train is swaying back and forth so much

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anyway Mary asks Lucifer why he wants to be a parent and he hints several times in a row that he has hidden depths without actually showing any of them. i don't want him to have a redemption anyway and i really super duper don't want him to have one written entirely by BL

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Colonel Sanders continues to try and liven up the story while giving us surface level exposition

I'll be honest, 'write that down' is the first good line... must be whichever of BL is quippy currently writing. I think they just introduced a monster taht lucifer is scared of but I couldn't catch what it was and for some reason another demon is listening in so is he getting ideas? I mean why to what end? also what exactly was the thing that was locked up because it sounded like a cut price Leviathan expo dump but obvs not that because a leviathan would eat Lucifer

i mean i don't think we pay enough attention to the fact that dick roman would just gobble lucifer up and end of story. bring back dick.

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*Pimms lady sways dangerously close to my laptop*

I think Sam accused Dean of hallucinating "shit" on the road because it's too noisy to hear him say "sheep". I just assume that is what he actually said in the non-censored version

-

pls drink your Pimms fast enough to end this danger but not so fast you're sloshed and throw it on my laptop before it's all gone

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Cashing in on that new Scooby Doo partnership! Some bank like Halifax is currently using Scooby Doo to sell stuff so I see that dog on telly all the time and the fact they exist in the same fictional universe as Sam and Dean is kiiiilling me. I think we have all been assuming Jack takes us to Scooby World so plonking him in front of the telly to watch some is how it all begins. Dean, like every fan fic between 13x01 and now hates Jack unreservedly for having childlike enthusiasm about the telly because Cas used to do that, while (semi)unaware that Jack is mirroring HIMSELF from 12x11 most closely right now. I think that's an interesting parallel I don't know how much work has gone into but pls poke me to write about Jack's 1 day old child-like wonder compared to sweetie pie no memory Dean if no one else has done it because they're essentially the same character from completely different angles, and we're about to hit Jack mirroring Dean excessively.

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Me: don't excessively sexualise the kid

BL: "here read a book" *chucks the Bible at him* *he opens it to the Song of Solomon* We're NOT having this chat right now.

I suppose some people just meta-gasmed all over this. I don't know much about the Bible but I do know that's the sexy bit.

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the "I can take the couch" conversation probably put the exact same thought process in Jack's head as mine when my very lanky brother looked at the lil brick hard bed set up in the corner of our hotel while we were stranded in Glasgow, and looked at me, princess and the pea-syndrome sufferer, and nobly offered to take a bed that *my* feet stuck 3 inches over.

No.

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Thanks but no.

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aw man we're only at Carlisle.

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It's the promo scene as well, which mostly just drove home how much Jack is mirroring Dean... We've had basically no character interaction in the missing day, although we can assume it's mostly gone like this... Dean annoyed, Sam forgiving Jack for being adorable, and Jack being adorable. He's getting better at sarcasm as well, which can't be making Dean feel any better about him.

And that means that the "Castiel is my father" revelation happened off-screen and we're not being given any room for a reaction about it, which is the most annoying part of this. I knew 13x01 was an anomaly and going into a BL ep so soon after would deprive us of some of the emotional depth, but it's like having a bucket of cold water dumped on us :P

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I think Dean's 'sometimes' about family being good is going to be a criminally underrated line and I don't even know if I can bring myself to remember it all the time in discussions about how Dean feels about family going forwards but this is a note that i heard him say it and acknowledged it means he has some issues with blood family ongoing.

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Jack being adorably human blah blah, Dean aggravates the issue by being really mean about insisting Lucifer is his father and asking if he reached out to Jack and now Jack's remembering him doing that. Hey leave the kid alone, Dean, his blank slate was slightly messed up by waning to be like Cas which is obviously an excellent exemption to  having a blank slate.

Maybe there's a metaphor in him agitating the bad father sitation over here.

I don't know if Jack should have asked for clarification there so let's pretend there was a hesitation and a "Ca -" "*Lucifer.* Your father." exchange. Or something.

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And now Nougat is lying about emotional strife, like's been agitated into being a Winchester from his great blank slate

GAH Stop gesturing by the STILL FULL glass of Pimms

they keep topping it up and it's not good for my stress levels

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I think I just missed basically everything that happened because all I could see was my own reflection but then they were like *rising tension music* *scuffle* *donatello* so I assume he jumped out on them. Mental note to go back and see who was defensive of Jack and what he did.

-

*casually mopping up my neighbour's Pimms as it splashes dangerously close to my laptop while listening to Donatello's exposition*

the good thing about BL episodes is that you can often just kinda chill and  listen to the exposition if it's just a chunk o dialogue and nothing offensive is going on so we're making progress through the ep

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*dean is super bitter about who does and doesn't have a direct line to god for some reason*

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Awww Sam says they're brothers and it's a family crest when he is saying Jack should get the tattoo <3

*completely* robbed of Dean's reaction

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WHY DID THEY NOT TELL JACK IT WOULD HURT

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I went to the loo and came back to them wiping Pimms off their phone

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Well Jack just completely put Dean in his place RE: pain, when he told him to man up about it and Jack was like right we accept pain as a sign of maturity... this is absolutely not what Dean meant but it is probably a healthier approach to it minus all the toxic masculinity

can we get to 13x03 and an ep written by Berens soon :P

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Jack accidentally absorbs his warding. Oops. I guess that angel warding was a WEE bit OTT I mean I'm no expert but that looks like a total pain to be dealing with all the time for the makeup department :P

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Also must have taken friggin ages

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I still don't get why Donnatello is here except to use as a chip in their arguments... Ah well. Dean arguing intent doesn't matter freaky powers are freaky powers because he's still pissed about what happened to Cas and can't see the much more basic thing that Jack didn't mean to get Cas killed and OBVIOUSLY didn't intend it if he was waiting for Cas to be there for him when he popped out of the womb. I think for all the random avenues this took in fandom this is probably about as deep as the show will go if this is how BL are spelling it all out for us... And the answer is all there on the page already but we're just using Dean as the alternate side of the argument to show his own character stuff going on where he can't deal with Jack because he's upset about Cas. And he was always more concerned about Cas than the philosophy of whatever else was going on

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Train going through the Lake District... I am enchanted. It's a grey day w/ very low clouds and water on the ground and all the trees are autumnal. Sue me, this is more interesting than Donatello being unhelpful. He backed up Sam's argument earlier w/ saying Lucifer felt toxic and Jack is somewhat more like his grandfather, but then once he starts talking he's like hurr blurr as a scientist nature wins and he's a monster and then Sam's like I thought you were on my side dude and then Dean angsts about Cas some more and calls Jack the devil and he decides he better start teleporting now because leave me alone not-dad and get off my case

I hope we see his wings. Dean asks in 13x01 if he had wings and equated it to teleporting and I suppose we don't know how demons do it but the assumption is if he's half-angel adn can teleport then he has wings

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Oh no it is KILLING me how Jack's thing is sitting cross legged. PROTECT HIM.

Sam finds him, thankfully, after the Sad Kelly Montage. There's a very Northern man behind me talking loudly on the phone so I'm gonna concentrate SUPER HARD now

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The hotel is called the Black Hat which I think is western coding for the bad guy. There was a house in the prairie art on the wall, and the single isolated house is how Jack came into the world... He's dealing with towns now.

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Exposition Mooose! Telling us Dean gets some wires crossed about getting angry whe nhe's frustrated and scared  like yes good expose dean for us some more... explaining him to jack is like hey so um he's an acquired taste... trying to make this about protecting everyone instead of pointing out the obvious that he blames jack for what happened to cas

Jack is a winchester because he's like maybe i'm not worth it

help

and them Sam brings up w/o knowing it was on jack's mind that kelly thought so but also is a blatant link to how they used dead!mary to guide their lives right up until she came back...

... and then so would Cas and so would I. Sam aligning himself with Jack's parents to show he has emotional guardianship of him right now

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has dean gone down to the bar because it's called th eblack spur and obvs not the same one but i'm like 100% sure that's the bar from 10x01 where he was hanging with Crowley and I'm not gonna fact check that. it's "black" again aka more nature stuff, more coded evil stuff I guess? I don't know anything about Westerns I admit

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And hey look a blonde bartender is chatting to him - there's a Jack ale sign on one side... and hahahahahaaaa no there's a Kingdom Beer sign behind Dean over his shoulder because the director wants to kill me

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So far this is the weirdest BL episode Ive seen in a long time because they're trying so so hard to be all nuanced and deep and to explore character stuff and carry on the mood from the first episode, while being direly under-equipped to handle it, so everyone's just blurting exposition all over the place in a series of awkward exchanges. The overtness of the dialogue is actually helping in a weird way to rush through the tick boxes because Dean just admitted to seeking his neglectful father's approval from a standing start which is a sign of progress for him to just leap right into admitting his issues with John. I don't have a frame of reference for this because tired and white noise and noting we're pulling into Lancaster and it looks like rain now and there's a guy travelling with an enormous silver mirror with an ornate frame as tall as he is on the other platform and more pimms is on the table... but yeah when DID he last talk about John? Is this the increased openness since 12x22 we were hoping for? Is my backpack okay because it's in a luggage rack I can't see and if someone nicks it they're only stealing all my laundry but I like some of those t-shirts so it would be a bummer...

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Lol surprise Asmodeus, no wonder she pushed all the father stuff... Was he talking about Lucifer then? It's everyone has father issues season. He's fitting in as another mirror in it all. Like the great big shiny mirror the dude at Lancaster station had. I'd honestly not be surprised if John came back in some way just cuz we had the Mary season where motherhood was a theme, and now we're doing this. I don't think John would come back for good liek Mary but they could scrounge up a more direct way of confronting his memory at least.

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This also is so unsubtle bcos Dean had no idea what the bartender looked like so he coulda just tended the bar and chatted to Dean b4 he knew who Asmodues was, and we could have had some cool tension like we all know that Colonel Sanders is the bad guy and Dean's just chatting him up a bit. But then when do we ever get such things in a BL ep?

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Sam just goes and spells it out about Jack being molded and the ambiguity of his father figures aka the dual nature battle they think Jack should have, with a deciding vote already thrown in there by Kelly and of course that Jack has free will and choice

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So Mary just nearly got assaulted, tho not by Lucifer, which was not exactly a pleasant surprise. >.> idk what that guy's problem was but he seems to be implying women can't fight and something something I didn't catch but clearly he doesn't see a whole bunch of women. This is literally the antithesis of the show's handling of female hunters since the start so I'm going to have to assume that this is an AU thing like, total worst timeline, and everyone's sexist to boot. Not really a fan of doing this at all because why are humans made out to be just as bad as meeting angels and demons in this world - Mary being at risk from ALL of them (where is BOBBY I wanna see wtf was going on between him and AU mary and our mary and our bobby) - and it being disappointing that Mary's at risk BECAUSE she's female and might get assaulted.

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Lucifer continues to try and act like a good guy by saving Mary and then of course the Nice Guy twist that always comes - if you won't give me what I want that I'm pretending is mutually beneficial then I will just hurt you.

They're chilling by that church from 8x23 now so I guess Mikey will be along soon.

Preston Station looks like a hellscape as well - it's packed and there's no ticket barriers. I'm so glad we were only passing through

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Dean comes in and sits down with Sam with the shadows of the blinds falling over them - prison imagery I missed you! We're trapped in these mindsets...

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Sam wants to get them on the same page and Dean is like F U and Sam's like lemme do exposition while you sit with the shadow over your eyes.

I wish there was a shadow falling over my eyes... We've passed back through to hazy sunlight south of Preston.

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Sam says people who we love, and who have been in our lives for a long time, in such a way I bet some asshole is excluding Cas from one category bcos Mary doesn't count in the long time category so maybe one is for her and one is for Cas

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obviously that's the real donatello because he only cares about breakfast and is an object of ridicule while Asmodeus was presumably the other and actually talking plot.

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this is an idiot ball moment tbh because Jack hasn't been in any hotel scenes for a while and somehow we've shuffled through all the characters here and not had any of them with Jack or checking where he is despite him being the most precious cargo, and it was bugging me earlier that dontatello and sam talking meant jack was alone because he wouldn't be w/ dean so where was he but Sam didn't ask? they just chatted? And obvs that was asmodeus but yeah... no one's keeping an eye on him and D. wasn't even supposed to be taking Jack to get breakfast or what? If that wasn't him then what exactly did Sam think Jack was up to?

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Also Sam tanking the mytharc Dean tanking the personal arc - he talks to both of them w/o them knowing and guess what each's conversation is

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And also Dean came in with food as well like there's major miscommunication going on here if the real donatello was getting breakfst and so was Dean but is that the point or is that just a plothole where this doesn't add up properly if you actually try and map who knew what and - was Dean the one SUPPOSED to be watching Jack? But Sam didn't ask him either.

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Anyway here's the demon that Dean's entire fight scene is about straddling to death.

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I also loved his march down to the room where he was all in shadows

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The last shot of that fight though where Dean's cowering away from the demon on a bed while it advances on him with a knife

like wow that was a good fight scene for the dynamics going on there. Dean as a victim being absolutely dominated by that demon and all the associated knife and weirdass positions imagery. Dean on that table with his legs around the demon is like an entire meta on its own as well

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okay it was too bright when I saw the scene where Asmodeus was talking about that whatever it was he let out but I THINK that was the same demon I thought I saw overhearing it and now I am wondering what on earth that was about because Dean just killed him :P

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Awww Jack out in nature. I love the flowers and the buzz of insects and life all around him. And Asmodeus is testing him.

Okay it's been like one episode how can he have character inconsistency with himself from earlier in the episode - he now wants to unleash the things he got in trouble for unleashing before? I mean unless he's decided that Lucifer really isn't coming back so might as well just throw a party while there's no adult supervision, and get back to all that chaos and destruction he loves. If he thought there was remotely a chance Lucifer would come back he wouldn't do it, but then is he just doing it now out of spite that Lucifer told him no before, and instead of whatever nonsense he said about family dynamics back then is not really true at all because he wants to rebel now instead.

If Jack unleashes the thing because he was tricked then it will be the biggest Sam and Cas mirror thing ever and will set him up with some angst and guilt for the rest of the season.

One of the downsides of Dean not getting along with him is that Jack doesn't know how much scepticism about God is a healthy amount in this universe. He basically just knows that God is his grandfather and family is usually good. But God is suuuch a bad concept to rally behind here, it's not even like God wouldn't ask him to do it because God never tells anyone what to do about anything (which is like the first thing Dean would have told Jack if he hadn't still been sulking God wouldn't lift a finger to help him over the whole dead Cas issue), God would also just never have any positive reinforcement for anyone or get excited about having a grandson, at least in a way to get actively involved :P

I mean Chuck probs thought that Donatello making his way to Jack was about as useful as he could be and that immediately went sour when no one kept 2 pairs of eyes on each other at all times.

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Wyoming has some pretty nasty stuff under it :P

I wonder if Hell maps exactly to earth but just kinda deeper.

Also point to me for rambling about hell gates earlier and then Asmodeus actually listening to my suggestion box for once. Maybe he will be the one character who can actually hear me in this show.

Hey you, you're an asshole

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Is Lucifer aware he literally just lead them in a circle because I am so not telling him that, because it's too funny.

I hope Jack didn't inherit his sense of direction but this is Dabb era, as soon as that kid gets a car, trouble starts.

-

The midlands are so bleak.

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These angels are wearing heavy tactical gear and yet more kneepads. The human had them too. This is just kneepad world. I don't see the necklaces of baby ears so maybe that design thing got ditched or maybe Bobby was being metaphorical.  The important thing is they don't look like Cas. The weird thing is we know Mikey's costume sort of does look like a ragged Cas.

Anyway Lucifer is so offended to hear Michael killed him even though it was literally the most obvious thing ever the entire time we've known about them and since 12x12 we've had extra info to prove it :P

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Omg why are you opening champagne on a traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain

-

MIKEY

He wanders in like hey I'm awesome but also I need to immediately open with super obvious exposition lines

Lucifer accuses him of being dressed like he came from a western too which goes with the thematics back in the Earth part of the story and also makes me think maybe the costuming choice was supposed to kinda mirror Frontierland Dean's 2nd costume because why the fuck not this is Dabb era, rules are for suckers :P

I can't see it w/o the hat but maybe he has a hat elsewhere.

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this hole down into the centre of the earth looks REMARKABLY like the one the 2nd season of Shadowhunters had in the season finale, so I need Magnus to just wander over the rise and close it now. Also his eyes glow gold and cat like. Is his power literally equivalent to Jack's? He's like ridiculously OP in that show. I guess all that hiatus watching was research.

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Ah, Asmodeus has learned the "Oh shit it's the Winchesters" moment already, especially recognising the car. Them driving right onto the scene has the oddest shades of 5x22 without anything being remotely like it except it's a field, hole in the earth, and car.

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Okay why did Donatello yell "that's not Donatello"

this is like the reverse of the best version of this scene I've ever heard which is the one from the end of Here Be Gerblins in the Adventure Zone which I will not spoil for you except to say this is the worst and also it doesn't take too much listening to get to that point and I nearly cried laughing so you should probably go listen. More hiatus watching research!

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The other option is D is having a total crisis of self w/o a soul or the evil D is actually the real thing and Asmodeus is helping them for some reason.

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LOL he's like hi I'm Crowley's replacement so the line now is "howdy boys" intead of hello boys

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As soon as Jack knows what's up and sees his new peeps getting hurt he stops because he is precious and he did nothing wrong and I love him

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AWW HE THINKS THEY'RE HIS FRIENDS I LOVE YOU NOUGAT

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Deal with that, Dean.

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Mary like "... should I be shuffling backwards?" "I SHOULD BE SHUFFLING BACKWARDS, BYE"

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Lucifer said he needed Mary, Mikey says he needs Lucifer... I think that phrase is being turned over and ruined now. The necessary step of Dean having said it to Cas that one time when he shoulda said I love you... They had a brief critique of "need and want" and some stuff about i and we, which was what last season was doing, but Cas feels bad bcos he feels needed but not wanted, and this is as much as Dean has said to him - from the depths of his heart - but it's not enough because that was season 8 and he hasn't felt like he belongs and he needs that I love you. Uh but w/o using "need" - look, they're gesticulating with champagne again, I have 1 eye on this at best as we roll through the midlands for an eternity :P Anyway I guess it is time to put "need" in the firing line as the Wrong Word that means that you're USING someone.

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WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? DEAN DOES NOT SIT AT THE TABLE LIKE THAT. OH MY POOR, POOR BROKEN CHILD LET ME HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS

I know it's probably for that wonderful shot of them through the door but Dean fundamentally does not sit up against the wall - he and Sam have their places at that table when they have their chats and it's a serious thing since the entire time theyve been using the kitchen for important plot chats.

Anyway he super not okay bcos that's his seat he sits at when he's in his proper place in the dynamic - or improper one but the point is the dynamic is the dynamic when they sit opposite each other and Dean's opted out and flopped back against the wall instead of sitting where he normally does when he and Sam are in balance. Sam's connection to his seat has some other flavours of his side of the codependency issues but largely about his lack of assertiveness or getting too messed up about saving Dean, so we'll see

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AAAH Sam is sitting one seat over as well.

I know it's a free table but there's 8 seats and REMARKABLY little flexibility about it.

Dean's wearing a black henley which is also baaad news. *pats him on the head and follows with a blanket*

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Sam stands (or sits) his ground

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Dean, gosh, I don't like when the camera follows you because this is probably going to be awful for my heart.

We also have not really had his POV much this ep except the Asmodeus chat up scene

He's mostly reacted. Like he thinks Jack is only reacting.

I DON'T LIKE THIS SCENE

PROTECT JACK FROM HIMSELF TOO

I hope he was just being curious like a super amped up version of how Kira on Orphan Black found out she has super healing powers so sliced her own arm open while being scared and fascinated with what she was and pissed off the adults wouldn't tell her anything but this was gross and violent and pls protect Jack because that was awful.

Dean's suitably horrified though because he has to contemplate Jack is just as freaked out and lost as he is about this whole thing because this is a gross and horrifying way to show that Jack is as fucked up and lost as the rest of them. I don't think he was actually trying to kill himself esp. because he knew the angel blade already stabbed him and did nothing and even if he doesn't know what it is and why that's signficant he knows he didn't die of something that should have killed him... I hope it's just childlike curiosity mixed with bleak existential horror as he comes to understand how much he doesn't understand himself even in the context of the world he's in...

-

OH NO

but also good lines of dialogue they acted super well. Jack is starting to think he can't be saved if Dean doesn't think it and is silently asking him to do it because he doesn't want to hurt people and oh gosh this isn't 10x09 at all where Deran asked Cas to do it to him... But completely different emotional landscape where Dean WOULD do it and wants to and Jack is only just starting to doubt himself and wonder if he would hurt people and the important thing is not like Dean thinking there was a line he would cross and half-tricking Cas into saying he'd do it by asking him for a favour first, but Cas not being able to oblige him in 10x22... This is Jack being such a good pure piece of nougat that he's SCARED of what he is and what he can do and beginning to think that he might need to be killed esp. because Dean thinks so and this has been a bad day for him... even though again his nature shone through, Dean thinks it was a "sneeze" and Jack still doesn't have a developed enough moral compass to understand what he did except that we can see it was a good thing.

-

And final shot Jack reflected in the mirror all bloody and sad and I need to zoom in on that later to see his face because like magic the sun is out again when I want to look at the screen.

-

End episode here. Good. That means Dean angstily listening to music is in 13x03 almost for sure because I want it to be (uh, sorry that's not science :P) but it would be a great Berens to Berens chat with self about 9x14 and Dean angstily listening to music there.

I am not actually where were we are any more except powering towards London, but I'm gonna put my laptop away because they're still topping up the champagne and I just survived a BL episode where nothing so awful happened that I can see the fandom outrage from a million miles away and the worst I can say is that they are an exposition machine and I wish they had more nuanced dialogue because in someone else's hands that character stuff would have been delivered well rather than just delivered :P

[cjostrander]

Liam Gallagher: As You Were

Hello everyone! Today i’m going to switch gears and go on a promo review for the debut solo album by former Oasis and Beady Eye singer Liam Gallagher. This one was actually rather interesting when i heard it was coming out and wanted this to be up here relatively soon. It is going to obviously feel similar to past work from him in Oasis but saying in saying that; i mean he has a stronger sense of life to him than he did in Beady Eye. I won’t spend too much time giving you a backstory; so let’s get this review started!

Wall of Glass (Single): We begin this album with the first single and it starts off rather lively yet rustic with an interesting harmonica. The drums and acoustic riffs work well with the electric guitars to give the song a layered and ambitious atmosphere that would be rather enjoyable live. Liam arrives with a sense of rhythmic swagger that he hasn’t delivered in ages. His vocal echo could easily be compared to Beady Eye’s positive moments so if you were digging that band then this will be a fairly decent follow up for you to check up. The guitars give a nice rumble with the bass at times which will provide Liam ample spacing to deliver his lyrics without the risk of delivering a bore to the listener. Naturally the lyrics will flow decent but substance wise won’t give you anything to be wow’d by. That’s one thing i’ve noticed criticized in other reviews. His lyrics seem as if he was following Radiohead’s tactic of drawing lyrics from a hat and rolling with them. It seems to work decent enough for him and helps to open this album up on a lively note without getting too rambunctious early on. 8.5/10

Bold: Acoustic guitars begin this one with a nice level of emotional grit which Liam arrives over rather blissfully. His lyrics come by rather calming and do well to deliver a careful sense of emotion to the listener. His echoed voice gives a rather interesting atmosphere to the song and will be rather engaging for a listener to encounter during a lazy afternoon or weekend day. I could also see the potential for a late night drive to it; so the song has a lot of potential moods for playing it. That will help to keep the listener into being pigeonholed into when the would actually appreciate it. Flow wise it uses its time frame decently without coming across as overly repetitive; and early on that’s a good perk to retain on any soft album. 8.5/10

Greedy Soul (Single): This second single begins with a slightly more energetic guitar opening and the drums infuse it with a catchy pattern for a listener to develop a light dance vibe to. Liam delivers a slower pace in his singing but manages to use his echo flair to resonate well with the vibration of the guitars. The backing harmonies are a good pick for filling in the background and giving this song a little extra life to let some ambition shine. The lyrics are decent enough to follow along to but certainly won’t connect with you in terms of meaning or emotion. It is just the tone of the instrumentals and Liam’s vocal tone and energy that will make the impact on you. The guitar solo towards the end is rather engaging and will offer the listener an enjoyable segment to witness during a live performance. It certainly has enough energy to keep you from zoning out without being overwhelming. 8.5/10

Paper Crown: The electric guitars begin with a bit of an indie vibe and Liam enters with a rather fitting melody. He has a nicely rustic tone that brings forth some of his psychedelic tendencies without trying to bluntly rip of The Beatles again. The lyrics give the song a nice texture and will actually be a very relaxing element to focus on during this song. They bring in some subtle key work to give the song a more grand foundation; which works rather nicely at this stage of the album. One thing i do like also is that He manages to find that nice balance between being complex and simple; which will help to keep the album from feeling bland or bloated like the Oasis albums Be Here Now and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (i reviewed the latter lol) suffered from. It’s a nice sense of freshness that is sure to please long time Oasis fans as long as you aren’t expecting the grungey energy of Definitely Maybe on it. 8.5/10

For What It’s Worth (Single): Single number three begins with slightly more dire tone to it. The keys and guitars work together to create a beautiful sense of tension that i am sure the listener will be very intrigued by. Liam uses this to his advantage to deliver his strongest vocal delivery on the album yet. He pours a sincere sense of emotion in the song that gives the lyrics a strong sense of substance. This will do well to bring back fond memories of his early ballads during his Oasis days and reassure those fans that he still has it. It also does a nice job of helping to justify his ability as a solo artist since we can all tell by his Beady Eye work; Noel Gallagher was the key writer of the two brothers. From what i’ve read even he admits he’s a better performer than writer; which can explain why he’s got songwriters helping him out on nearly half of the songs here. Not a bad thing when you know your weakness and take steps to work with them; and since he still wrote the other half of the album by himself; its not like he’s stopped trying to get better. 9/10

When I’m in Need: This song will end the first half of the album and begins with a slow and soft guitar melody. Liam begins very low in the mix with a strong echo trait that will give the listener a different texture to encounter on this album. I think it lacks a little life because of this approach; but if the lyrics manage to capture your focus then this song should float on by fairly easy. The chorus makes use of backing harmonies to add in a good dose of atmosphere to the mix before Liam brings forth a little extra push into his delivery. I wouldn’t say that it brings extra life but it does help to show a little extra effort on Liam’s part. For me this one is a little risky and will be a hit or miss track depending on how your mood is at the time. 7/10

You Better Run: The guitars begin with a nice rhythm and the drums establish a groove that will be very hard not to dance to during a live show. Liam enters with a strong sense of swagger which will shape this into a semi-old school rocker tune that Beady Eye was pretty good at. The instrumentals do very well to infuse of party like sense of tension in between Liam’s vocals and the brass infuse extra class and complexity into the mix. This would be a decent pick for a single due to its life and it actually showcases some rather solid lyrics for the listener to engage. This is a sole Liam written song so it helps justify the notion that Liam is improving as a songwriter and one day may be able to give his brother Noel a nice run for his money. I’m also really looking forward for Noel Gallagher’s new album is released in a few days. I think he is going a little more mainstream from what i’ve heard but it still sounds pretty solid. Give it a peak because i’m sure it will be up on my blog rather quickly after it’s release. 10/10

I Get By:  The instrumentals start this one off quick in a similar rock approach; but with a more rough edge to it. Liam uses a casual delivery which should resonate decently with the listener. The catchy factor is a big miss on this one unfortunately so you will likely have to place your focus on the lyrics or the general tone of the instrumentals; but both are a bit too standard to make an impact on the listener. Because of that; this is one song that is almost filler quality and could of had a stronger impact if added a catchy factor to it. 7/10

Chinatown (Single): Drums start this final single off with a echo tone over a rain like static. Liam arrives over a blissful guitar melody to deliver a very soothing set of lyrics. The lyrics on this one are what were criticized for substance and i will agree when you focus heavily on them; but tone wise they are very interesting to encounter. The chorus is very simple uses echoed melodies to create a blissful sense of atmosphere on the listener. It would be a nice piece to come across during a live performance and could be an easy pick to close a setlist with as well; so this one will have very easy live potential. As a single; its blissful ballad approach will make a nice edge on a mainstream radio station; but the psychedelic moments may be a bit harder to grab that pop/pop-rock audience that this song is clearly geared towards. Overall not a bad piece for him by any means. 9/10

Come Back to Me: The guitars enter with a nice sense of reserved ambition to them and Liam arrives to deliver a decent level of push to them. He manages to achieve a quick level of melody and catchiness despite the reserved pacing of the song. The keys will give the song a nice sense of classical prowess that will give the rock tendencies of the song a nice foil to mess with cleanly. I wouldn’t call it a highlight piece; but it will be another decent one to come across during a first time listen. The guitar solo is another good moment to look for during this one so i don’t see much issue in this one pleasing the listener. 8/10

Universal Gleam: The drums begin this one with a slightly tropical vibe before the guitars arrive to return it to a more atmospheric rock tone. Liam is very blissful in tone and his lyrics do very well at connecting with the listener on an emotional level. This one is a nice hidden gem to encounter and would of been a great pick to close this album with; due to its melancholy sense of cheerful goodbye. This is another Liam written track in case you wanted to further judge how he writes on his own now. I don’t know if hes responsible for any of the instrumental writing on this album; but he does play acoustic guitar on a few songs; so he did step out of just singing for a couple tunes. In the latter half backing female harmonies enter to give the song a soothing tone; that bares some interesting gospel elements for you. It’s a bit subtle but it is played with just right; as to be familiar to his other material but also include a little experimentation as well. Not bad! 8.5/10

I’ve All I Need: This finale piece begins with a nice guitar melody and catchy drum patterns. Liam enters rather blissfully with his lower vocal delivery. It delivers a nicely echoed atmosphere that will resonate rather fondly with the listener without losing momentum at this crucial point in the album. One really strong trait for this album is that despite being a very relaxing and at time formulaic album (the style of Oasis and Beady Eye are just pretty easy to guess on genre-wise); it doesn’t lose any momentum or bring any boredom to the listener in the second half of the album. This does well to prevent songs that are otherwise solid on their own from coming off as weak in the album flow. This does a decent job closing the album and hopefully leaves the listener with a pleasing sense of farewell. 8/10

Overall album rating: 8.4/10

Well this album was actually rather pleasing to do and it scored well for a debut solo with a B score. I would suggest giving this one a try even if you weren’t fond of his work with Beady Eye. This one takes all of the complex positives in the band and combines and improves drastically upon it. The big plus for it is that Liam dramatically toned down his nasally psychedelic tendencies while refraining from tossing them out altogether. Because of that; it lacks that bloated feeling and try-hard level of ambition that Liam has suffered from on previous efforts. I suggest getting the deluxe edition because it has three bonus tracks that are of similar tone to the regular album. It will help to extend your enjoyment of the album without taking any strength from the album as a whole. I hope you guys enjoyed this review because i had fun with it. Next week i will return to my anniversary sheet and continue to scratch off essential albums that i have slacked on over the year. I blame my time working at my Aerospace job in Longmeadow; but it was a good career move even if it only lasted a few months. Peace!!

*Reviewer’s Pick*

[itsjessicaisreal]

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

Let’s face it: a lot of landing page optimization is guesswork.

Educated guesswork, sure. You know the best practices—copy and design techniques that, by and large, get more of your visitors to convert. And you know your customers. Looking at the results of past campaigns, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what will (and won’t) resonate with your audience. Like a hardboiled detective who’s about to accuse the police chief of having been dirty from the start, you’ve “got a hunch.”

That’s supposed to be where A/B testing comes in, right? You can create landing page variants and see which performs better to validate your hunches. The problem is A/B testing takes an either-or approach to optimization, aiming to find the one page that’ll appeal to as many people as possible. Not all visitors are the same, though, and even your highest-converting variant won’t click for everyone.

That means a lot of your hunches—optimizations that are probably great for some of your visitors, but not enough of ’em—get canned.

We first revealed our AI-powered conversion tool Smart Traffic at CTAConf 2019, where Unbounce co-founder Carl Schmidt made the case for using artificial intelligence to direct visitors to the landing page that’s most likely to convert. That means marketers can follow all of their hunches, using them to create relevant variants for different types of visitors. Rather than either-or, Smart Traffic is either-and… and-and-and-and.

Check out Carl’s full talk (and all the other recordings from CTAConf 2019) here.

We’ve already told you how Smart Traffic works. Now that hundreds of Unbounce customers are using it, we want to tell you about some of the marketers already optimizing their landing pages with AI.

ConstructConnect: Experimenting with Colors & Imagery

Meet ConstructConnect, a project management tool for contractors and manufacturers that helps them win more bids and grow their businesses. ConstructConnect has only been using Unbounce for a few months, and Smart Traffic was one of the big reasons they gave the platform a go.

We checked in with Tim LaBarge, Marketing Director of Campaigns, and Steven Keyser, ConstructConnect’s Inbound Marketing Director, to see how Smart Traffic is working for them. As Steven explains, they were both eager to take the feature for a spin:

Smart Traffic made sense from the first minute we heard about it. And that’s really why we bought into Unbounce. If you looked at our account, you’d go, “Gosh, these guys hardly put anything in here for four or five months.” That’s because we were waiting for Smart Traffic.

ConstructConnect had only built a handful of landing pages with Unbounce before using Smart Traffic. Tim was running an email promo that pointed recipients at the page below, prompting them to sign up for a demo:

This is one of the original pages ConstructConnect created pre-Smart Traffic. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Smart Traffic launched, this page was converting an impressive 17% of all visitors. Tim was eager to see if Unbounce’s AI could push that number even higher, so he got working on some variants. And since the page had already been running for a little while, he could compare the results to his existing conversion rate.

For the first variant, Tim experimented with the page imagery. He replaced the background image and swapped the color overlay from blue to orange.

I wanted to test whether color and imagery have any effect on how captivating or engaging the page is. Everything else is the same as the original.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to whip up this page variant with new visuals. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Next, Tim wanted to try different messaging. He created two more variants—one in each of the new visuals—and changed the page headline from a statement (“Get Access to Private Projects in Your Area”) to a question (“How Many Private Projects Are Bidding in Your Area?”).

Creating variants for Smart Traffic doesn’t have to be big work—it can just be little tweaks. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Then he turned on Smart Traffic.

It wasn’t long (only about 50 visits) before Smart Traffic started “learning” and ConstructConnect got results. Two of the three variants immediately started converting between 23 and 24%—about 7% higher than before. The third variant slightly underperformed at 14%, so Smart Traffic started routing more visitors to the higher-converting pages automatically.

Not only that, but optimized traffic meant that the original page started seeing more conversions, too.

That was really cool to see. It wasn’t just the variants contributing to a higher conversion rate. Smart Traffic actually helped increase the conversion rate of the control page as well.

One month later, Smart Traffic had created an overall conversion rate lift of more than 35%. That’s translated into a ton of valuable leads for the ConstructConnect crew.

Smart Traffic added about 150 form fills in this [demo] campaign. We’ve got some duplicates, but that’s probably 125 more leads going through to our sales team. That’s significant.

Smart Traffic has continued to boost this page’s conversion rate since we spoke with ConstructConnect.

Now that they’ve had a chance to take Smart Traffic for a spin, Tim and Steven plan to use it in all of their campaigns going forward. That includes rebuilding a number of high-traffic landing pages (we’re talkin’ thousands of visitors) in Unbounce so they can take advantage of the feature.

To have an effective A/B test, you need to go slow—just crazy small steps. With Smart Traffic, you can just create a totally different page.

That means ConstructConnect can optimize their pages faster than ever. And since Smart Traffic is constantly re-assessing which visitors are converting where, there’s no need to pick a champion.

Dooly: Using Variants to Target Different Benefits

Next up is Dooly, a CRM automation tool for Salesforce. Though it’s only been around a few years, Dooly has quickly become a must-have for tons of sales teams around the world.

Mark Jung, Dooly’s Head of Marketing, explained the tool’s popularity:

Dooly makes updating Salesforce fast and easy, saving reps up to 20 hours of CRM busy work every month so that they can sell smarter.

Lots of Dooly users discover the tool on their own, then refer it to coworkers at their company. One user becomes two, then four. Before long, the whole sales team is using it.

The viral nature of the product inspired Dooly to create its referral program. It’s super simple: the company assigns each user a unique referral link that they can share with their network. When someone signs up for Dooly using that link (or within 90 days of being cookied), the referrer gets 20% of the revenue—forever, uncapped.

Mark and his team created the promo campaign for the referral program in Unbounce. The plan was to send an email to their customer list, directing them to a landing page that explained how the program worked. But the question came: what messaging would best convince users to participate?

Mark found there were two main motivations for referrals. One was the financial incentive, obviously. (Speaking of which, wanna try Dooly? Lemme grab my referral link.) The second was about helping other people escape the time-suck of plugging data into their CRM.

While an A/B test of the landing page would’ve let Mark figure out which messaging generally resonated better with his whole audience, he knew that highlighting the right incentive for different visitors would help him convert better overall. So, he decided to try Smart Traffic.

For me, Smart Traffic made sense out of the gate. I’ve used Unbounce for years, so I’m used to building page variants, running tests. It’s kind of a natural stepping stone.

Mark built two page variants, with the messaging of each targeting a particular motivation.

One was mostly about the financial benefit: “Refer, earn 20%.” But we’ve also seen a lot of positive mentions in the community about the emotional benefit of Dooly—the pain it saves them every day.

The messaging in the second variant was more about helping your friends stop their CRM suffering. That’s translated really well for our audience.

This variant page for the Dooly referral program is all about that dolla. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by swapping the headers, Dooly emphasizes the opportunity to help friends. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Mark turned on Smart Traffic, he saw results almost immediately.

We had about a 30% lift in conversion rate from Smart Traffic on day one. We’ve also had a ton of conversions that didn’t necessarily convert on the Unbounce page but went to the referrals page in the product. So we’re looking at close to 45 or 50% conversion rate on the campaign.

Of the roughly 100 visitors who hit the landing page on the first day, almost 30 clicked through to get their referral code. Compared with the results Mark would’ve had in a standard split test, about 5 of those conversions are attributable to Smart Traffic.

Since then, Smart Traffic has continued to provide an overall lift of more than 10%. And remember: the virality of the tool means any single new user could win Dooly an entire organization.

One example of the sorta response Dooly’s referral program has gotten on social.

Get Better Results Faster with AI-Powered Optimization

Smart Traffic isn’t a replacement for A/B testing. Instead, think of it as another tool in your arsenal. But when you want to deliver the best conversion experience for each visitor (rather than your average visitor), there’s really no comparison.

With Smart Traffic, I can test more things. Just the speed at which the tool is able to start adapting and sending people to different pages, and how quickly you see real gains—more form fills, more leads going through to sales—is impressive.

Start converting on more of your hunches. Build some landing page variants (using these tips), turn on Smart Traffic, and let AI do the rest.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/converting-with-smart-traffic-constructconnect-dooly/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethmontiveros]

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

Let’s face it: a lot of landing page optimization is guesswork.

Educated guesswork, sure. You know the best practices—copy and design techniques that, by and large, get more of your visitors to convert. And you know your customers. Looking at the results of past campaigns, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what will (and won’t) resonate with your audience. Like a hardboiled detective who’s about to accuse the police chief of having been dirty from the start, you’ve “got a hunch.”

That’s supposed to be where A/B testing comes in, right? You can create landing page variants and see which performs better to validate your hunches. The problem is A/B testing takes an either-or approach to optimization, aiming to find the one page that’ll appeal to as many people as possible. Not all visitors are the same, though, and even your highest-converting variant won’t click for everyone.

That means a lot of your hunches—optimizations that are probably great for some of your visitors, but not enough of ’em—get canned.

We first revealed our AI-powered conversion tool Smart Traffic at CTAConf 2019, where Unbounce co-founder Carl Schmidt made the case for using artificial intelligence to direct visitors to the landing page that’s most likely to convert. That means marketers can follow all of their hunches, using them to create relevant variants for different types of visitors. Rather than either-or, Smart Traffic is either-and… and-and-and-and.

Check out Carl’s full talk (and all the other recordings from CTAConf 2019) here.

We’ve already told you how Smart Traffic works. Now that hundreds of Unbounce customers are using it, we want to tell you about some of the marketers already optimizing their landing pages with AI.

ConstructConnect: Experimenting with Colors & Imagery

Meet ConstructConnect, a project management tool for contractors and manufacturers that helps them win more bids and grow their businesses. ConstructConnect has only been using Unbounce for a few months, and Smart Traffic was one of the big reasons they gave the platform a go.

We checked in with Tim LaBarge, Marketing Director of Campaigns, and Steven Keyser, ConstructConnect’s Inbound Marketing Director, to see how Smart Traffic is working for them. As Steven explains, they were both eager to take the feature for a spin:

Smart Traffic made sense from the first minute we heard about it. And that’s really why we bought into Unbounce. If you looked at our account, you’d go, “Gosh, these guys hardly put anything in here for four or five months.” That’s because we were waiting for Smart Traffic.

ConstructConnect had only built a handful of landing pages with Unbounce before using Smart Traffic. Tim was running an email promo that pointed recipients at the page below, prompting them to sign up for a demo:

This is one of the original pages ConstructConnect created pre-Smart Traffic. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Smart Traffic launched, this page was converting an impressive 17% of all visitors. Tim was eager to see if Unbounce’s AI could push that number even higher, so he got working on some variants. And since the page had already been running for a little while, he could compare the results to his existing conversion rate.

For the first variant, Tim experimented with the page imagery. He replaced the background image and swapped the color overlay from blue to orange.

I wanted to test whether color and imagery have any effect on how captivating or engaging the page is. Everything else is the same as the original.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to whip up this page variant with new visuals. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Next, Tim wanted to try different messaging. He created two more variants—one in each of the new visuals—and changed the page headline from a statement (“Get Access to Private Projects in Your Area”) to a question (“How Many Private Projects Are Bidding in Your Area?”).

Creating variants for Smart Traffic doesn’t have to be big work—it can just be little tweaks. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Then he turned on Smart Traffic.

It wasn’t long (only about 50 visits) before Smart Traffic started “learning” and ConstructConnect got results. Two of the three variants immediately started converting between 23 and 24%—about 7% higher than before. The third variant slightly underperformed at 14%, so Smart Traffic started routing more visitors to the higher-converting pages automatically.

Not only that, but optimized traffic meant that the original page started seeing more conversions, too.

That was really cool to see. It wasn’t just the variants contributing to a higher conversion rate. Smart Traffic actually helped increase the conversion rate of the control page as well.

One month later, Smart Traffic had created an overall conversion rate lift of more than 35%. That’s translated into a ton of valuable leads for the ConstructConnect crew.

Smart Traffic added about 150 form fills in this [demo] campaign. We’ve got some duplicates, but that’s probably 125 more leads going through to our sales team. That’s significant.

Smart Traffic has continued to boost this page’s conversion rate since we spoke with ConstructConnect.

Now that they’ve had a chance to take Smart Traffic for a spin, Tim and Steven plan to use it in all of their campaigns going forward. That includes rebuilding a number of high-traffic landing pages (we’re talkin’ thousands of visitors) in Unbounce so they can take advantage of the feature.

To have an effective A/B test, you need to go slow—just crazy small steps. With Smart Traffic, you can just create a totally different page.

That means ConstructConnect can optimize their pages faster than ever. And since Smart Traffic is constantly re-assessing which visitors are converting where, there’s no need to pick a champion.

Dooly: Using Variants to Target Different Benefits

Next up is Dooly, a CRM automation tool for Salesforce. Though it’s only been around a few years, Dooly has quickly become a must-have for tons of sales teams around the world.

Mark Jung, Dooly’s Head of Marketing, explained the tool’s popularity:

Dooly makes updating Salesforce fast and easy, saving reps up to 20 hours of CRM busy work every month so that they can sell smarter.

Lots of Dooly users discover the tool on their own, then refer it to coworkers at their company. One user becomes two, then four. Before long, the whole sales team is using it.

The viral nature of the product inspired Dooly to create its referral program. It’s super simple: the company assigns each user a unique referral link that they can share with their network. When someone signs up for Dooly using that link (or within 90 days of being cookied), the referrer gets 20% of the revenue—forever, uncapped.

Mark and his team created the promo campaign for the referral program in Unbounce. The plan was to send an email to their customer list, directing them to a landing page that explained how the program worked. But the question came: what messaging would best convince users to participate?

Mark found there were two main motivations for referrals. One was the financial incentive, obviously. (Speaking of which, wanna try Dooly? Lemme grab my referral link.) The second was about helping other people escape the time-suck of plugging data into their CRM.

While an A/B test of the landing page would’ve let Mark figure out which messaging generally resonated better with his whole audience, he knew that highlighting the right incentive for different visitors would help him convert better overall. So, he decided to try Smart Traffic.

For me, Smart Traffic made sense out of the gate. I’ve used Unbounce for years, so I’m used to building page variants, running tests. It’s kind of a natural stepping stone.

Mark built two page variants, with the messaging of each targeting a particular motivation.

One was mostly about the financial benefit: “Refer, earn 20%.” But we’ve also seen a lot of positive mentions in the community about the emotional benefit of Dooly—the pain it saves them every day.

The messaging in the second variant was more about helping your friends stop their CRM suffering. That’s translated really well for our audience.

This variant page for the Dooly referral program is all about that dolla. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by swapping the headers, Dooly emphasizes the opportunity to help friends. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Mark turned on Smart Traffic, he saw results almost immediately.

We had about a 30% lift in conversion rate from Smart Traffic on day one. We’ve also had a ton of conversions that didn’t necessarily convert on the Unbounce page but went to the referrals page in the product. So we’re looking at close to 45 or 50% conversion rate on the campaign.

Of the roughly 100 visitors who hit the landing page on the first day, almost 30 clicked through to get their referral code. Compared with the results Mark would’ve had in a standard split test, about 5 of those conversions are attributable to Smart Traffic.

Since then, Smart Traffic has continued to provide an overall lift of more than 10%. And remember: the virality of the tool means any single new user could win Dooly an entire organization.

One example of the sorta response Dooly’s referral program has gotten on social.

Get Better Results Faster with AI-Powered Optimization

Smart Traffic isn’t a replacement for A/B testing. Instead, think of it as another tool in your arsenal. But when you want to deliver the best conversion experience for each visitor (rather than your average visitor), there’s really no comparison.

With Smart Traffic, I can test more things. Just the speed at which the tool is able to start adapting and sending people to different pages, and how quickly you see real gains—more form fills, more leads going through to sales—is impressive.

Start converting on more of your hunches. Build some landing page variants (using these tips), turn on Smart Traffic, and let AI do the rest.

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[samanthasmeyers]

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

Let’s face it: a lot of landing page optimization is guesswork.

Educated guesswork, sure. You know the best practices—copy and design techniques that, by and large, get more of your visitors to convert. And you know your customers. Looking at the results of past campaigns, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what will (and won’t) resonate with your audience. Like a hardboiled detective who’s about to accuse the police chief of having been dirty from the start, you’ve “got a hunch.”

That’s supposed to be where A/B testing comes in, right? You can create landing page variants and see which performs better to validate your hunches. The problem is A/B testing takes an either-or approach to optimization, aiming to find the one page that’ll appeal to as many people as possible. Not all visitors are the same, though, and even your highest-converting variant won’t click for everyone.

That means a lot of your hunches—optimizations that are probably great for some of your visitors, but not enough of ’em—get canned.

We first revealed our AI-powered conversion tool Smart Traffic at CTAConf 2019, where Unbounce co-founder Carl Schmidt made the case for using artificial intelligence to direct visitors to the landing page that’s most likely to convert. That means marketers can follow all of their hunches, using them to create relevant variants for different types of visitors. Rather than either-or, Smart Traffic is either-and… and-and-and-and.

Check out Carl’s full talk (and all the other recordings from CTAConf 2019) here.

We’ve already told you how Smart Traffic works. Now that hundreds of Unbounce customers are using it, we want to tell you about some of the marketers already optimizing their landing pages with AI.

ConstructConnect: Experimenting with Colors & Imagery

Meet ConstructConnect, a project management tool for contractors and manufacturers that helps them win more bids and grow their businesses. ConstructConnect has only been using Unbounce for a few months, and Smart Traffic was one of the big reasons they gave the platform a go.

We checked in with Tim LaBarge, Marketing Director of Campaigns, and Steven Keyser, ConstructConnect’s Inbound Marketing Director, to see how Smart Traffic is working for them. As Steven explains, they were both eager to take the feature for a spin:

Smart Traffic made sense from the first minute we heard about it. And that’s really why we bought into Unbounce. If you looked at our account, you’d go, “Gosh, these guys hardly put anything in here for four or five months.” That’s because we were waiting for Smart Traffic.

ConstructConnect had only built a handful of landing pages with Unbounce before using Smart Traffic. Tim was running an email promo that pointed recipients at the page below, prompting them to sign up for a demo:

This is one of the original pages ConstructConnect created pre-Smart Traffic. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Smart Traffic launched, this page was converting an impressive 17% of all visitors. Tim was eager to see if Unbounce’s AI could push that number even higher, so he got working on some variants. And since the page had already been running for a little while, he could compare the results to his existing conversion rate.

For the first variant, Tim experimented with the page imagery. He replaced the background image and swapped the color overlay from blue to orange.

I wanted to test whether color and imagery have any effect on how captivating or engaging the page is. Everything else is the same as the original.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to whip up this page variant with new visuals. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Next, Tim wanted to try different messaging. He created two more variants—one in each of the new visuals—and changed the page headline from a statement (“Get Access to Private Projects in Your Area”) to a question (“How Many Private Projects Are Bidding in Your Area?”).

Creating variants for Smart Traffic doesn’t have to be big work—it can just be little tweaks. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Then he turned on Smart Traffic.

It wasn’t long (only about 50 visits) before Smart Traffic started “learning” and ConstructConnect got results. Two of the three variants immediately started converting between 23 and 24%—about 7% higher than before. The third variant slightly underperformed at 14%, so Smart Traffic started routing more visitors to the higher-converting pages automatically.

Not only that, but optimized traffic meant that the original page started seeing more conversions, too.

That was really cool to see. It wasn’t just the variants contributing to a higher conversion rate. Smart Traffic actually helped increase the conversion rate of the control page as well.

One month later, Smart Traffic had created an overall conversion rate lift of more than 35%. That’s translated into a ton of valuable leads for the ConstructConnect crew.

Smart Traffic added about 150 form fills in this [demo] campaign. We’ve got some duplicates, but that’s probably 125 more leads going through to our sales team. That’s significant.

Smart Traffic has continued to boost this page’s conversion rate since we spoke with ConstructConnect.

Now that they’ve had a chance to take Smart Traffic for a spin, Tim and Steven plan to use it in all of their campaigns going forward. That includes rebuilding a number of high-traffic landing pages (we’re talkin’ thousands of visitors) in Unbounce so they can take advantage of the feature.

To have an effective A/B test, you need to go slow—just crazy small steps. With Smart Traffic, you can just create a totally different page.

That means ConstructConnect can optimize their pages faster than ever. And since Smart Traffic is constantly re-assessing which visitors are converting where, there’s no need to pick a champion.

Dooly: Using Variants to Target Different Benefits

Next up is Dooly, a CRM automation tool for Salesforce. Though it’s only been around a few years, Dooly has quickly become a must-have for tons of sales teams around the world.

Mark Jung, Dooly’s Head of Marketing, explained the tool’s popularity:

Dooly makes updating Salesforce fast and easy, saving reps up to 20 hours of CRM busy work every month so that they can sell smarter.

Lots of Dooly users discover the tool on their own, then refer it to coworkers at their company. One user becomes two, then four. Before long, the whole sales team is using it.

The viral nature of the product inspired Dooly to create its referral program. It’s super simple: the company assigns each user a unique referral link that they can share with their network. When someone signs up for Dooly using that link (or within 90 days of being cookied), the referrer gets 20% of the revenue—forever, uncapped.

Mark and his team created the promo campaign for the referral program in Unbounce. The plan was to send an email to their customer list, directing them to a landing page that explained how the program worked. But the question came: what messaging would best convince users to participate?

Mark found there were two main motivations for referrals. One was the financial incentive, obviously. (Speaking of which, wanna try Dooly? Lemme grab my referral link.) The second was about helping other people escape the time-suck of plugging data into their CRM.

While an A/B test of the landing page would’ve let Mark figure out which messaging generally resonated better with his whole audience, he knew that highlighting the right incentive for different visitors would help him convert better overall. So, he decided to try Smart Traffic.

For me, Smart Traffic made sense out of the gate. I’ve used Unbounce for years, so I’m used to building page variants, running tests. It’s kind of a natural stepping stone.

Mark built two page variants, with the messaging of each targeting a particular motivation.

One was mostly about the financial benefit: “Refer, earn 20%.” But we’ve also seen a lot of positive mentions in the community about the emotional benefit of Dooly—the pain it saves them every day.

The messaging in the second variant was more about helping your friends stop their CRM suffering. That’s translated really well for our audience.

This variant page for the Dooly referral program is all about that dolla. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by swapping the headers, Dooly emphasizes the opportunity to help friends. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Mark turned on Smart Traffic, he saw results almost immediately.

We had about a 30% lift in conversion rate from Smart Traffic on day one. We’ve also had a ton of conversions that didn’t necessarily convert on the Unbounce page but went to the referrals page in the product. So we’re looking at close to 45 or 50% conversion rate on the campaign.

Of the roughly 100 visitors who hit the landing page on the first day, almost 30 clicked through to get their referral code. Compared with the results Mark would’ve had in a standard split test, about 5 of those conversions are attributable to Smart Traffic.

Since then, Smart Traffic has continued to provide an overall lift of more than 10%. And remember: the virality of the tool means any single new user could win Dooly an entire organization.

One example of the sorta response Dooly’s referral program has gotten on social.

Get Better Results Faster with AI-Powered Optimization

Smart Traffic isn’t a replacement for A/B testing. Instead, think of it as another tool in your arsenal. But when you want to deliver the best conversion experience for each visitor (rather than your average visitor), there’s really no comparison.

With Smart Traffic, I can test more things. Just the speed at which the tool is able to start adapting and sending people to different pages, and how quickly you see real gains—more form fills, more leads going through to sales—is impressive.

Start converting on more of your hunches. Build some landing page variants (using these tips), turn on Smart Traffic, and let AI do the rest.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/converting-with-smart-traffic-constructconnect-dooly/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[josephkchoi]

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

Let’s face it: a lot of landing page optimization is guesswork.

Educated guesswork, sure. You know the best practices—copy and design techniques that, by and large, get more of your visitors to convert. And you know your customers. Looking at the results of past campaigns, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what will (and won’t) resonate with your audience. Like a hardboiled detective who’s about to accuse the police chief of having been dirty from the start, you’ve “got a hunch.”

That’s supposed to be where A/B testing comes in, right? You can create landing page variants and see which performs better to validate your hunches. The problem is A/B testing takes an either-or approach to optimization, aiming to find the one page that’ll appeal to as many people as possible. Not all visitors are the same, though, and even your highest-converting variant won’t click for everyone.

That means a lot of your hunches—optimizations that are probably great for some of your visitors, but not enough of ’em—get canned.

We first revealed our AI-powered conversion tool Smart Traffic at CTAConf 2019, where Unbounce co-founder Carl Schmidt made the case for using artificial intelligence to direct visitors to the landing page that’s most likely to convert. That means marketers can follow all of their hunches, using them to create relevant variants for different types of visitors. Rather than either-or, Smart Traffic is either-and… and-and-and-and.

Check out Carl’s full talk (and all the other recordings from CTAConf 2019) here.

We’ve already told you how Smart Traffic works. Now that hundreds of Unbounce customers are using it, we want to tell you about some of the marketers already optimizing their landing pages with AI.

ConstructConnect: Experimenting with Colors & Imagery

Meet ConstructConnect, a project management tool for contractors and manufacturers that helps them win more bids and grow their businesses. ConstructConnect has only been using Unbounce for a few months, and Smart Traffic was one of the big reasons they gave the platform a go.

We checked in with Tim LaBarge, Marketing Director of Campaigns, and Steven Keyser, ConstructConnect’s Inbound Marketing Director, to see how Smart Traffic is working for them. As Steven explains, they were both eager to take the feature for a spin:

Smart Traffic made sense from the first minute we heard about it. And that’s really why we bought into Unbounce. If you looked at our account, you’d go, “Gosh, these guys hardly put anything in here for four or five months.” That’s because we were waiting for Smart Traffic.

ConstructConnect had only built a handful of landing pages with Unbounce before using Smart Traffic. Tim was running an email promo that pointed recipients at the page below, prompting them to sign up for a demo:

This is one of the original pages ConstructConnect created pre-Smart Traffic. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Smart Traffic launched, this page was converting an impressive 17% of all visitors. Tim was eager to see if Unbounce’s AI could push that number even higher, so he got working on some variants. And since the page had already been running for a little while, he could compare the results to his existing conversion rate.

For the first variant, Tim experimented with the page imagery. He replaced the background image and swapped the color overlay from blue to orange.

I wanted to test whether color and imagery have any effect on how captivating or engaging the page is. Everything else is the same as the original.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to whip up this page variant with new visuals. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Next, Tim wanted to try different messaging. He created two more variants—one in each of the new visuals—and changed the page headline from a statement (“Get Access to Private Projects in Your Area”) to a question (“How Many Private Projects Are Bidding in Your Area?”).

Creating variants for Smart Traffic doesn’t have to be big work—it can just be little tweaks. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Then he turned on Smart Traffic.

It wasn’t long (only about 50 visits) before Smart Traffic started “learning” and ConstructConnect got results. Two of the three variants immediately started converting between 23 and 24%—about 7% higher than before. The third variant slightly underperformed at 14%, so Smart Traffic started routing more visitors to the higher-converting pages automatically.

Not only that, but optimized traffic meant that the original page started seeing more conversions, too.

That was really cool to see. It wasn’t just the variants contributing to a higher conversion rate. Smart Traffic actually helped increase the conversion rate of the control page as well.

One month later, Smart Traffic had created an overall conversion rate lift of more than 35%. That’s translated into a ton of valuable leads for the ConstructConnect crew.

Smart Traffic added about 150 form fills in this [demo] campaign. We’ve got some duplicates, but that’s probably 125 more leads going through to our sales team. That’s significant.

Smart Traffic has continued to boost this page’s conversion rate since we spoke with ConstructConnect.

Now that they’ve had a chance to take Smart Traffic for a spin, Tim and Steven plan to use it in all of their campaigns going forward. That includes rebuilding a number of high-traffic landing pages (we’re talkin’ thousands of visitors) in Unbounce so they can take advantage of the feature.

To have an effective A/B test, you need to go slow—just crazy small steps. With Smart Traffic, you can just create a totally different page.

That means ConstructConnect can optimize their pages faster than ever. And since Smart Traffic is constantly re-assessing which visitors are converting where, there’s no need to pick a champion.

Dooly: Using Variants to Target Different Benefits

Next up is Dooly, a CRM automation tool for Salesforce. Though it’s only been around a few years, Dooly has quickly become a must-have for tons of sales teams around the world.

Mark Jung, Dooly’s Head of Marketing, explained the tool’s popularity:

Dooly makes updating Salesforce fast and easy, saving reps up to 20 hours of CRM busy work every month so that they can sell smarter.

Lots of Dooly users discover the tool on their own, then refer it to coworkers at their company. One user becomes two, then four. Before long, the whole sales team is using it.

The viral nature of the product inspired Dooly to create its referral program. It’s super simple: the company assigns each user a unique referral link that they can share with their network. When someone signs up for Dooly using that link (or within 90 days of being cookied), the referrer gets 20% of the revenue—forever, uncapped.

Mark and his team created the promo campaign for the referral program in Unbounce. The plan was to send an email to their customer list, directing them to a landing page that explained how the program worked. But the question came: what messaging would best convince users to participate?

Mark found there were two main motivations for referrals. One was the financial incentive, obviously. (Speaking of which, wanna try Dooly? Lemme grab my referral link.) The second was about helping other people escape the time-suck of plugging data into their CRM.

While an A/B test of the landing page would’ve let Mark figure out which messaging generally resonated better with his whole audience, he knew that highlighting the right incentive for different visitors would help him convert better overall. So, he decided to try Smart Traffic.

For me, Smart Traffic made sense out of the gate. I’ve used Unbounce for years, so I’m used to building page variants, running tests. It’s kind of a natural stepping stone.

Mark built two page variants, with the messaging of each targeting a particular motivation.

One was mostly about the financial benefit: “Refer, earn 20%.” But we’ve also seen a lot of positive mentions in the community about the emotional benefit of Dooly—the pain it saves them every day.

The messaging in the second variant was more about helping your friends stop their CRM suffering. That’s translated really well for our audience.

This variant page for the Dooly referral program is all about that dolla. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by swapping the headers, Dooly emphasizes the opportunity to help friends. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Mark turned on Smart Traffic, he saw results almost immediately.

We had about a 30% lift in conversion rate from Smart Traffic on day one. We’ve also had a ton of conversions that didn’t necessarily convert on the Unbounce page but went to the referrals page in the product. So we’re looking at close to 45 or 50% conversion rate on the campaign.

Of the roughly 100 visitors who hit the landing page on the first day, almost 30 clicked through to get their referral code. Compared with the results Mark would’ve had in a standard split test, about 5 of those conversions are attributable to Smart Traffic.

Since then, Smart Traffic has continued to provide an overall lift of more than 10%. And remember: the virality of the tool means any single new user could win Dooly an entire organization.

One example of the sorta response Dooly’s referral program has gotten on social.

Get Better Results Faster with AI-Powered Optimization

Smart Traffic isn’t a replacement for A/B testing. Instead, think of it as another tool in your arsenal. But when you want to deliver the best conversion experience for each visitor (rather than your average visitor), there’s really no comparison.

With Smart Traffic, I can test more things. Just the speed at which the tool is able to start adapting and sending people to different pages, and how quickly you see real gains—more form fills, more leads going through to sales—is impressive.

Start converting on more of your hunches. Build some landing page variants (using these tips), turn on Smart Traffic, and let AI do the rest.

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[jjonassevilla]

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

Let’s face it: a lot of landing page optimization is guesswork.

Educated guesswork, sure. You know the best practices—copy and design techniques that, by and large, get more of your visitors to convert. And you know your customers. Looking at the results of past campaigns, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what will (and won’t) resonate with your audience. Like a hardboiled detective who’s about to accuse the police chief of having been dirty from the start, you’ve “got a hunch.”

That’s supposed to be where A/B testing comes in, right? You can create landing page variants and see which performs better to validate your hunches. The problem is A/B testing takes an either-or approach to optimization, aiming to find the one page that’ll appeal to as many people as possible. Not all visitors are the same, though, and even your highest-converting variant won’t click for everyone.

That means a lot of your hunches—optimizations that are probably great for some of your visitors, but not enough of ’em—get canned.

We first revealed our AI-powered conversion tool Smart Traffic at CTAConf 2019, where Unbounce co-founder Carl Schmidt made the case for using artificial intelligence to direct visitors to the landing page that’s most likely to convert. That means marketers can follow all of their hunches, using them to create relevant variants for different types of visitors. Rather than either-or, Smart Traffic is either-and… and-and-and-and.

Check out Carl’s full talk (and all the other recordings from CTAConf 2019) here.

We’ve already told you how Smart Traffic works. Now that hundreds of Unbounce customers are using it, we want to tell you about some of the marketers already optimizing their landing pages with AI.

ConstructConnect: Experimenting with Colors & Imagery

Meet ConstructConnect, a project management tool for contractors and manufacturers that helps them win more bids and grow their businesses. ConstructConnect has only been using Unbounce for a few months, and Smart Traffic was one of the big reasons they gave the platform a go.

We checked in with Tim LaBarge, Marketing Director of Campaigns, and Steven Keyser, ConstructConnect’s Inbound Marketing Director, to see how Smart Traffic is working for them. As Steven explains, they were both eager to take the feature for a spin:

Smart Traffic made sense from the first minute we heard about it. And that’s really why we bought into Unbounce. If you looked at our account, you’d go, “Gosh, these guys hardly put anything in here for four or five months.” That’s because we were waiting for Smart Traffic.

ConstructConnect had only built a handful of landing pages with Unbounce before using Smart Traffic. Tim was running an email promo that pointed recipients at the page below, prompting them to sign up for a demo:

This is one of the original pages ConstructConnect created pre-Smart Traffic. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Smart Traffic launched, this page was converting an impressive 17% of all visitors. Tim was eager to see if Unbounce’s AI could push that number even higher, so he got working on some variants. And since the page had already been running for a little while, he could compare the results to his existing conversion rate.

For the first variant, Tim experimented with the page imagery. He replaced the background image and swapped the color overlay from blue to orange.

I wanted to test whether color and imagery have any effect on how captivating or engaging the page is. Everything else is the same as the original.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to whip up this page variant with new visuals. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Next, Tim wanted to try different messaging. He created two more variants—one in each of the new visuals—and changed the page headline from a statement (“Get Access to Private Projects in Your Area”) to a question (“How Many Private Projects Are Bidding in Your Area?”).

Creating variants for Smart Traffic doesn’t have to be big work—it can just be little tweaks. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Then he turned on Smart Traffic.

It wasn’t long (only about 50 visits) before Smart Traffic started “learning” and ConstructConnect got results. Two of the three variants immediately started converting between 23 and 24%—about 7% higher than before. The third variant slightly underperformed at 14%, so Smart Traffic started routing more visitors to the higher-converting pages automatically.

Not only that, but optimized traffic meant that the original page started seeing more conversions, too.

That was really cool to see. It wasn’t just the variants contributing to a higher conversion rate. Smart Traffic actually helped increase the conversion rate of the control page as well.

One month later, Smart Traffic had created an overall conversion rate lift of more than 35%. That’s translated into a ton of valuable leads for the ConstructConnect crew.

Smart Traffic added about 150 form fills in this [demo] campaign. We’ve got some duplicates, but that’s probably 125 more leads going through to our sales team. That’s significant.

Smart Traffic has continued to boost this page’s conversion rate since we spoke with ConstructConnect.

Now that they’ve had a chance to take Smart Traffic for a spin, Tim and Steven plan to use it in all of their campaigns going forward. That includes rebuilding a number of high-traffic landing pages (we’re talkin’ thousands of visitors) in Unbounce so they can take advantage of the feature.

To have an effective A/B test, you need to go slow—just crazy small steps. With Smart Traffic, you can just create a totally different page.

That means ConstructConnect can optimize their pages faster than ever. And since Smart Traffic is constantly re-assessing which visitors are converting where, there’s no need to pick a champion.

Dooly: Using Variants to Target Different Benefits

Next up is Dooly, a CRM automation tool for Salesforce. Though it’s only been around a few years, Dooly has quickly become a must-have for tons of sales teams around the world.

Mark Jung, Dooly’s Head of Marketing, explained the tool’s popularity:

Dooly makes updating Salesforce fast and easy, saving reps up to 20 hours of CRM busy work every month so that they can sell smarter.

Lots of Dooly users discover the tool on their own, then refer it to coworkers at their company. One user becomes two, then four. Before long, the whole sales team is using it.

The viral nature of the product inspired Dooly to create its referral program. It’s super simple: the company assigns each user a unique referral link that they can share with their network. When someone signs up for Dooly using that link (or within 90 days of being cookied), the referrer gets 20% of the revenue—forever, uncapped.

Mark and his team created the promo campaign for the referral program in Unbounce. The plan was to send an email to their customer list, directing them to a landing page that explained how the program worked. But the question came: what messaging would best convince users to participate?

Mark found there were two main motivations for referrals. One was the financial incentive, obviously. (Speaking of which, wanna try Dooly? Lemme grab my referral link.) The second was about helping other people escape the time-suck of plugging data into their CRM.

While an A/B test of the landing page would’ve let Mark figure out which messaging generally resonated better with his whole audience, he knew that highlighting the right incentive for different visitors would help him convert better overall. So, he decided to try Smart Traffic.

For me, Smart Traffic made sense out of the gate. I’ve used Unbounce for years, so I’m used to building page variants, running tests. It’s kind of a natural stepping stone.

Mark built two page variants, with the messaging of each targeting a particular motivation.

One was mostly about the financial benefit: “Refer, earn 20%.” But we’ve also seen a lot of positive mentions in the community about the emotional benefit of Dooly—the pain it saves them every day.

The messaging in the second variant was more about helping your friends stop their CRM suffering. That’s translated really well for our audience.

This variant page for the Dooly referral program is all about that dolla. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by swapping the headers, Dooly emphasizes the opportunity to help friends. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Mark turned on Smart Traffic, he saw results almost immediately.

We had about a 30% lift in conversion rate from Smart Traffic on day one. We’ve also had a ton of conversions that didn’t necessarily convert on the Unbounce page but went to the referrals page in the product. So we’re looking at close to 45 or 50% conversion rate on the campaign.

Of the roughly 100 visitors who hit the landing page on the first day, almost 30 clicked through to get their referral code. Compared with the results Mark would’ve had in a standard split test, about 5 of those conversions are attributable to Smart Traffic.

Since then, Smart Traffic has continued to provide an overall lift of more than 10%. And remember: the virality of the tool means any single new user could win Dooly an entire organization.

One example of the sorta response Dooly’s referral program has gotten on social.

Get Better Results Faster with AI-Powered Optimization

Smart Traffic isn’t a replacement for A/B testing. Instead, think of it as another tool in your arsenal. But when you want to deliver the best conversion experience for each visitor (rather than your average visitor), there’s really no comparison.

With Smart Traffic, I can test more things. Just the speed at which the tool is able to start adapting and sending people to different pages, and how quickly you see real gains—more form fills, more leads going through to sales—is impressive.

Start converting on more of your hunches. Build some landing page variants (using these tips), turn on Smart Traffic, and let AI do the rest.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/converting-with-smart-traffic-constructconnect-dooly/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[annaxkeating]

Learn How These Brands Are Using AI to Crank Up Their Landing Page Conversions

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

Let’s face it: a lot of landing page optimization is guesswork.

Educated guesswork, sure. You know the best practices—copy and design techniques that, by and large, get more of your visitors to convert. And you know your customers. Looking at the results of past campaigns, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what will (and won’t) resonate with your audience. Like a hardboiled detective who’s about to accuse the police chief of having been dirty from the start, you’ve “got a hunch.”

That’s supposed to be where A/B testing comes in, right? You can create landing page variants and see which performs better to validate your hunches. The problem is A/B testing takes an either-or approach to optimization, aiming to find the one page that’ll appeal to as many people as possible. Not all visitors are the same, though, and even your highest-converting variant won’t click for everyone.

That means a lot of your hunches—optimizations that are probably great for some of your visitors, but not enough of ’em—get canned.

We first revealed our AI-powered conversion tool Smart Traffic at CTAConf 2019, where Unbounce co-founder Carl Schmidt made the case for using artificial intelligence to direct visitors to the landing page that’s most likely to convert. That means marketers can follow all of their hunches, using them to create relevant variants for different types of visitors. Rather than either-or, Smart Traffic is either-and… and-and-and-and.

Check out Carl’s full talk (and all the other recordings from CTAConf 2019) here.

We’ve already told you how Smart Traffic works. Now that hundreds of Unbounce customers are using it, we want to tell you about some of the marketers already optimizing their landing pages with AI.

ConstructConnect: Experimenting with Colors & Imagery

Meet ConstructConnect, a project management tool for contractors and manufacturers that helps them win more bids and grow their businesses. ConstructConnect has only been using Unbounce for a few months, and Smart Traffic was one of the big reasons they gave the platform a go.

We checked in with Tim LaBarge, Marketing Director of Campaigns, and Steven Keyser, ConstructConnect’s Inbound Marketing Director, to see how Smart Traffic is working for them. As Steven explains, they were both eager to take the feature for a spin:

Smart Traffic made sense from the first minute we heard about it. And that’s really why we bought into Unbounce. If you looked at our account, you’d go, “Gosh, these guys hardly put anything in here for four or five months.” That’s because we were waiting for Smart Traffic.

ConstructConnect had only built a handful of landing pages with Unbounce before using Smart Traffic. Tim was running an email promo that pointed recipients at the page below, prompting them to sign up for a demo:

This is one of the original pages ConstructConnect created pre-Smart Traffic. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Smart Traffic launched, this page was converting an impressive 17% of all visitors. Tim was eager to see if Unbounce’s AI could push that number even higher, so he got working on some variants. And since the page had already been running for a little while, he could compare the results to his existing conversion rate.

For the first variant, Tim experimented with the page imagery. He replaced the background image and swapped the color overlay from blue to orange.

I wanted to test whether color and imagery have any effect on how captivating or engaging the page is. Everything else is the same as the original.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to whip up this page variant with new visuals. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Next, Tim wanted to try different messaging. He created two more variants—one in each of the new visuals—and changed the page headline from a statement (“Get Access to Private Projects in Your Area”) to a question (“How Many Private Projects Are Bidding in Your Area?”).

Creating variants for Smart Traffic doesn’t have to be big work—it can just be little tweaks. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Then he turned on Smart Traffic.

It wasn’t long (only about 50 visits) before Smart Traffic started “learning” and ConstructConnect got results. Two of the three variants immediately started converting between 23 and 24%—about 7% higher than before. The third variant slightly underperformed at 14%, so Smart Traffic started routing more visitors to the higher-converting pages automatically.

Not only that, but optimized traffic meant that the original page started seeing more conversions, too.

That was really cool to see. It wasn’t just the variants contributing to a higher conversion rate. Smart Traffic actually helped increase the conversion rate of the control page as well.

One month later, Smart Traffic had created an overall conversion rate lift of more than 35%. That’s translated into a ton of valuable leads for the ConstructConnect crew.

Smart Traffic added about 150 form fills in this [demo] campaign. We’ve got some duplicates, but that’s probably 125 more leads going through to our sales team. That’s significant.

Smart Traffic has continued to boost this page’s conversion rate since we spoke with ConstructConnect.

Now that they’ve had a chance to take Smart Traffic for a spin, Tim and Steven plan to use it in all of their campaigns going forward. That includes rebuilding a number of high-traffic landing pages (we’re talkin’ thousands of visitors) in Unbounce so they can take advantage of the feature.

To have an effective A/B test, you need to go slow—just crazy small steps. With Smart Traffic, you can just create a totally different page.

That means ConstructConnect can optimize their pages faster than ever. And since Smart Traffic is constantly re-assessing which visitors are converting where, there’s no need to pick a champion.

Dooly: Using Variants to Target Different Benefits

Next up is Dooly, a CRM automation tool for Salesforce. Though it’s only been around a few years, Dooly has quickly become a must-have for tons of sales teams around the world.

Mark Jung, Dooly’s Head of Marketing, explained the tool’s popularity:

Dooly makes updating Salesforce fast and easy, saving reps up to 20 hours of CRM busy work every month so that they can sell smarter.

Lots of Dooly users discover the tool on their own, then refer it to coworkers at their company. One user becomes two, then four. Before long, the whole sales team is using it.

The viral nature of the product inspired Dooly to create its referral program. It’s super simple: the company assigns each user a unique referral link that they can share with their network. When someone signs up for Dooly using that link (or within 90 days of being cookied), the referrer gets 20% of the revenue—forever, uncapped.

Mark and his team created the promo campaign for the referral program in Unbounce. The plan was to send an email to their customer list, directing them to a landing page that explained how the program worked. But the question came: what messaging would best convince users to participate?

Mark found there were two main motivations for referrals. One was the financial incentive, obviously. (Speaking of which, wanna try Dooly? Lemme grab my referral link.) The second was about helping other people escape the time-suck of plugging data into their CRM.

While an A/B test of the landing page would’ve let Mark figure out which messaging generally resonated better with his whole audience, he knew that highlighting the right incentive for different visitors would help him convert better overall. So, he decided to try Smart Traffic.

For me, Smart Traffic made sense out of the gate. I’ve used Unbounce for years, so I’m used to building page variants, running tests. It’s kind of a natural stepping stone.

Mark built two page variants, with the messaging of each targeting a particular motivation.

One was mostly about the financial benefit: “Refer, earn 20%.” But we’ve also seen a lot of positive mentions in the community about the emotional benefit of Dooly—the pain it saves them every day.

The messaging in the second variant was more about helping your friends stop their CRM suffering. That’s translated really well for our audience.

This variant page for the Dooly referral program is all about that dolla. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by swapping the headers, Dooly emphasizes the opportunity to help friends. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When Mark turned on Smart Traffic, he saw results almost immediately.

We had about a 30% lift in conversion rate from Smart Traffic on day one. We’ve also had a ton of conversions that didn’t necessarily convert on the Unbounce page but went to the referrals page in the product. So we’re looking at close to 45 or 50% conversion rate on the campaign.

Of the roughly 100 visitors who hit the landing page on the first day, almost 30 clicked through to get their referral code. Compared with the results Mark would’ve had in a standard split test, about 5 of those conversions are attributable to Smart Traffic.

Since then, Smart Traffic has continued to provide an overall lift of more than 10%. And remember: the virality of the tool means any single new user could win Dooly an entire organization.

One example of the sorta response Dooly’s referral program has gotten on social.

Get Better Results Faster with AI-Powered Optimization

Smart Traffic isn’t a replacement for A/B testing. Instead, think of it as another tool in your arsenal. But when you want to deliver the best conversion experience for each visitor (rather than your average visitor), there’s really no comparison.

With Smart Traffic, I can test more things. Just the speed at which the tool is able to start adapting and sending people to different pages, and how quickly you see real gains—more form fills, more leads going through to sales—is impressive.

Start converting on more of your hunches. Build some landing page variants (using these tips), turn on Smart Traffic, and let AI do the rest.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/converting-with-smart-traffic-constructconnect-dooly/ via http://www.rssmix.com/