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shikai-the-storyteller · 5 years ago

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Back from being out of town SO: Cyberverse Season 2 episode 7, 8 and 9 watch!

SO MANY EPISODES CAME OUT WHILE I WAS OUT OF TOWN, THAT WAS SO CRUEL!!!!

Cyberverse 7!

MACCADAM!!!! OMG OMG HES FINALLY BACK

OH NO ITS THE MEGAOP BREAKUP SCENE

oh nevermind, it’s just breakup scene #513214

I wonder what Megatron asked Optimus to do :O

Optimus: I just cant seem to make progress on these peace talks Maccadam: That sucks. Aren’t my drinks AWESOME? Optimus: yeah....

Aw Maccadam has such a cute smile. It’s really nice to see someone giving Optimus advice, usually he’s the designated dad of the group. Glad he has some support in this continuity!

OHOHO THEY’RE GONNA WORK TOGETHER TO BRING DOWN STARSCREAM

Man I frickin love it when Megatron and Optimus are forced to work together against a “greater evil”

Also: I love that Optimus is still so full of hope for that “one success” even though he’s failed so many times. Good characterization

I really love the animation style in Cyberverse. Also that Opening is STILL incredible, I can’t get enough of that (but oh Starscream, buddy, yellow is not your color)

Starscream, petting a Scraplet: Don’t you recognize her? This was the great Solus Prime! Slipstream: Can I PLEASE go home Starscream: Wait I’m not finished showing you my bug collection

“This is the noble Megatronus!” hrGHHH WHY DOES THAT MAKE MY HEART ACHE

The Seekers have only one brain cell and clearly Slipstream is the only one in possession of it

Soundwave: Together? That’s ridi— Megatron: *raises an arm to silence him* Me: HOW DARE YOU SHUSH MY BOY

The way Megatron says “let us discuss” while leaning forward makes me cautiously suspicious, but also I wonder if Megatron is as anxious to come to an agreement with Optimus as Optimus is with him, in his own way...

Shadow Striker’s surveillance got blocked by Prowl’s massive chest lmaooooo

Shadow Striker has such a good voice, I KNOW I MENTION THE VA’s IN EVERY LIVEBLOG BUT MAN!!! CYBERVERSE HAS SUCH GREAT VOICE ACTORS

It’s so tragic that Bumblebee and Rodimus are utterly indifferent to the peace talks because they happen so frequently and always fall through :( yet again, good way of showing without getting into too much detail. I admire the way cyberverse tells their stories

OMG SOUNDWAVE AND WINDBLADE ARE ABOUT TO GO AT IT

Grimlock: quit staring at me Shockwave: illogical Grimlock: I’LL SHOW YOU ILLOGICAL GUYS PLS lmao that cracks me up, they sound like CHILDREN

Lmao @ Megatron yelling at them all, “LEAVE ME ALONE IM TRYING TO TALK TO MY EX”

tfw you’re trying to make up with your ex but your disaster children have absolutely zero chill

OH GOOD SLIPSTREAM IMMEDIATELY WENT TO THE MOST COMPETENT DECEPTICON

“Must we?” SOUNDWAVE C'MON MAN

HE HAS A GUN ON THE BOTTOM OF HIS FOOT IN SUCH A WEIRD SPOT LMAO

SHE SHOT HIM AND I CANT EVEN BE THAT MAD, SOUNDWAVE YOU’RE BEING A BUTT

“The biggest mistake I made was underestimating Starscream” story of Megatron’s life in every series

OMG….SHADOW STRIKER AND PROWL ARE HANGING OUT…THAT’S UNEXPECTEDLY ADORABLE

wHEELJACK AND SHOCKWAVE HANGING OUT WITH THE SHOCKLETS IM SHRIEKING WITH JOY THATS!! SO!!! CUTE!!!!

Shockwave’s little expression before it cuts back to Megatron and Optimus :’)

*whispers* and they were LAB partners!

Megatron: We should have talked like this ages ago, Prime Optimus: So much history between us… *meaningful shot of them sitting on either end of a very long table* Megatron: …and yet, so little trust Me, wheezing in agony

“Most roads on Cybertron are one way” FRICKIN

MEGATRON YOU DORK. I have no idea if he was being serious or being metaphorical but either way I laughed even while my heart ached

WINDBLADE ITS YOUR GIRLFRIEND SLIPSTREAM

Slipstream: Who’s the second most competent person I know. Slipstream: Well, it’s definitely not gonna be a Decepticon

SLIPSTREAM NO!!!!! WTF

Wheeljack: Well, it was fun while it lasted! Shockwave: No it wasn’t Snorts

MAN THIS IS KILLING ME, FATE REALLY NEVER CUTS MEGATRON AND OPTIMUS A BREAK HUH???

AGAIN, TFW YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE UP WITH YOUR EX BUT YOUR KIDS HAVE ZERO CHILL

OK BUT THEY’RE NOT GONNA LEAVE SLIPSTREAM LIKE THAT ARE THEY???? Jeez louise. I mean I know she’s not dead dead, my guess is she’s going to manipulate the All Spark from within later on to screw up Starscream’s plans, there’s no way they’d write her out like this.

EPISODE 8

Kitty cat no!!!

“They’re not here anymore!” Thank you captain obvious lmao. I love him. I bet Cheetor would get along well with Teletraan

“I know you told me not to interrupt anymore but—” lmao

OH NO A DISTRESS CALL FROM MEGATRON??? A last desperate attempt to warn Prime against a great danger??? Suspicious yet sweet

“Sounds extra forboding!” Teletran you’re such a DORK

Ohhh I really do love the way they animate Windblade’s expressions

“Well, this isn’t creepy at all!” Lol me 2 Rodimus

UHHHH ARE THOSE THINGS IN THEIR CHESTS BUGS??? IS THIS GOING TO BE AN ALIEN VS PREDATOR THING oh no ok, it’s just their sparks, I WAS GONNA SAY

*Ominous thunking ends abruptly* Well that’s not ominous at all

I mean at least they’ve still got their sparks?

OH MAN they even got Shockwave and Shadow Striker, jeez

SOUNDWAVE NO!

Optimus: Starscream’s forces managed to overwhelm everyone, even Soundwave I love that he said “even Soundwave”, like, yes, good, that’s right Optimus, thank you for acknowledging that my boy is no pushover

YO HOT ROD HAS HIS FLAME POWERS THAT’S SO COOL

I love the way they animate Windblade’s sword, that looks awesome

OH NO THEY’RE GETTING OPTIMUS, JEEZ THAT LOOKS BAD

MEGATRON OH NO

Starscream’s dramatic frickin reveal killed me, I can’t believe he didn’t say “Megatron has fallen

AW The frat boys trio working together is so cute :’) I love them

“We got your back, Cheetz!” RODIMUS YOU ARE PRECIOUS

HECK YEAH RODIMUS, YOUR FIRE POWERS LOOK SO C

NO THEY”RE GETTING BUMBLEBEE AND HOT ROD OH NO NONO!!!!

RUN KITTY RUN!!!

ALPHA TRION....Good lord

“Alpha Trion says he’s very disappointed in you, Optimus” STARSCREAM PLZ, HE REALLY IS LIKE A CRAZY PET OWNER

Ohhh they’re talking about the Matrix

WINDBLADE NO!!!!! NOT MY GIRL

OH SNAP THEY’RE ACTUALLY GOING FOR IT??? NO ONE’S GOING TO JUMP IN TO SAVE OPTIMUS???

THAT’S SO GRUESOME WTF, THEY’RE ACTUALLY TEARING HIS CHEST OPEN TO TAKE IT OUT

“The Matrix looks really pretty” I say in a small voice, mortified beyond belief

CHEETOR IS SO CUTE....

“You do not understand who and what you are fighting” SICK LINE CHEETOR

THANK YOU FOR RIPPING THAT HIDEOUS YELLOW ARMOR OFF STARSCREAM

THE FRAT BOY FRIENDSHIP TRIO IS SO CUTE

Megatron: I will...permit you to leave now Optimus: You are welcome Ughhhh Megatron’s expression while they’re walking away is so good thIS KILLS ME...........

Cyberverse 9!

OH NO THUNDERCRACKER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, ARE YOU OK???

WHY IS SLIPSTREAM SUDDENLY THERE AGAIN, WHAT’S GOING ON (NOT THAT I’M NOT GLAD TO SEE YOU)

Wait I forgot there’s another purple Seeker, that’s probably not Slipstream RATS

What exactly is Cheetor doing, WAIT I think these are all old memories he’s seen, these are just flashbacks ALRIGHT WE’RE COOL I GOT IT NOW

GOSH I LOVE MEGAOP BATTLES NO MATTER HOW BRIEF THEY ARE

Cheetor: I hope they one day settle their differences so that we may one day take our place among them Somehow that makes him sound like an alien, which is ironic since they’re ALL aliens

Very nice group shot right there

aw, Cheetor is right at Rodimus’ hand level when he’s in his cheetah alt mode, I half expected Rodimus to pet him

"Won’t someone please pet me??”

Man, this makes me miss Ravage. I’d love to see him show up in Cyberverse too. We know Lazerbeak is here at least though!

Hot Rod: How can we find Starscream if he ghosted us? Bumblebee: “Ghosted us”? LMAO nice slang Hot Rod

Aww poor Cheetor, me too buddy

RATCHET RATCHET RATCHET!!!!

LMAO HE SCREAMED, I LOVE YOU RATCHET YOU’RE SO CUTE

Oh no Cheetor, don’t go help Wheeljack

LMAO Cheetor you’re just so sneaky like a kitty cat, no one can hear you coming

OH NO DEFINITELY DON”T HELP PROWL

“YOU”LL NEVER TAKE ME” PROWL PLEASE

AW BUMBLEBEE SCARED CHEETOR that’s sweet that he went to go make Cheetor feel better :’) Best buddies

WAIT WTF

FRICKIN CYBERVERSE, YOU SCARED ME FOR A SECOND, I HEARD THAT SOUND AND I WARPED BACK TO FRICKIN 2005, HOW COULD YOU SCARE ME LIKE THAT

This frickin series is made by a bunch of MEMERS

BEE SAVED THE KITTY CAT!!!!

UH OH jeez louise they got caught

“I was so hoping to never see you again!” I love you Bumblebee

SPARK MERGING??? STARSCREAM BUDDY....

“I have no fight with you. We are soon to be one” Not creepy at all Starscream

OH NO IS HE GOING TO PUT BEE’S SPARK INA SCRAPLET??? JEEZ THAT’S NEW

SMART THINKING CHEETOR

CHEETOR AND BEE ARE SUCH CUTE FRIENDS GOSH

wait Episode 10 is out too??? OK I CAN”T HELP MYSELF, IM GONNA PUT IT IN A NEW TEXT POST THOUGH

MAN I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! I LOVE CYBERVERSE

#i talk #Cyberverse #cyberverse spoiler /#I'm watching Cyberverse #Primordial robot hell

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mpricesvad-gd-blog · 5 years ago

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This weekend I tuned into Canceled Con. This virtual event was created as a platform to share ideas, thoughts, experiences, creativity, and positivity in a world that many things are being canceled. I had the opportunity to listen to some of the most awesome creatives like Andy J. Pizza, Chris Do, Lauren Hom, Danielle Evans, and Noah Camp.

One of the coolest things I learned was a ton of new features that Adobe has released with Paul Trani. His tutorials were full of mind blowing features that Adobe offers. I had to remove myself from watching the stream and go outside because canceledcon went on for 2 days of 12 hours. I will be going back as soon as I can to finish watching the pieces I missed. In addition to learning from these people’s work, I also had the opportunity to have my portfolio reviewed among 24 other students. This was a very helpful review because I often sit on my portfolio for hours and can no longer attest to the quality and representation of it. It was enlightening to see other students and what kind of work they are doing too.

I have been feeling a little down in the dumps recently, often feeling that ever pertinent “imposter syndrome” and this event truly helped to fuel the fire to create more and to bring my neurodiversity into my work (as Andy J. Pizza calls it). I enjoy hearing different people’s thoughts and how they often feel the same way I do. It’s this shared sense of struggle I can connect with and feel a community in. One of my favorite things that was said by was “Design needs to touch people in a variety of ways. On a global, community, and personal scale”. Danielle Evans said this and to me this is really important because design exists to communicate, make change, and spark a feeling in people. Without these factors, whats the point? Never before have I felt so much a part of joy in the community of the design world and thats why I thought this event was so cool. It was not about how much money you spent on a festival pass or how many people you knew to get in, it was about sharing ideas and community with everyone.

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sootsuit · 5 years ago

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how the pics are named its just like Meat Wall. Claws. why werent meat wall and claws in l4d this is so sad

YEAH... i mean i discussed it wit my big brother (who has been a very avid fan of left 4 dead on-and-off since before it even came out) and we thing maybe some elements of dese infected were instead given to others, similar to the screamer and how parts of it were attributed to the boomer/jockey?

like, the meat wall is huge and can clearly carry/lob people, maybe that got applied to the tank somewhere down the line... and claws reminds me a lot of a hunter or witch!

my brother also said dat they dont feel like the meat wall and claws line up with the rest of the infected and i agree! like, they look more like Grotesque Monsters than Infected Humans, which is what the other infected clearly are (i think the furthest reach of all of them is the tank, i think thats as wacky as the infection could get before they dont rlly look like zombies at All anymore)

BUT I DO AGREE THAT LIKE... THIONKING ABOUT THEIR DESIGNS, MAYBE THE POSSIBLE MECHANICS COULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME??

i can totally imagine the meat wall being a very rare boss-like infected that only spawns in specific places e.g. streets and other narrow-ish places, and slowly walks towards you, making progression very difficult until it is dead. all the while its either throwing infected at you, or picking you up and throwing YOU back... i havent put a lot of thought into it, but the idea of being in holly street in the no mercy campaign and that Thing walking slowly towards me, too tall for its head to be illuminated by the streetlights, causing the ground to quake, while otherwise being totally silent.... This does not spark joy. This wud make the game so much scarier and i kinda love it???

again big bro says that the SCARIEEEEness isnt the point of left 4 dead and this would slow the game down too much, which is fair, considering the game is almost a race to the end where taking your time (or being slowed down such as in this case) results in punishment... very interesting to think about

#txt #l4d #-goes autism mode-#anonymous

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dickie-gayson · 7 years ago

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(1)So I’m kind of late, but I’m here to review Me and the Devil. And scream about parts I liked. Also this got awfully long, so I hope you don’t mind being spammed. Its been a while, so I re-read the first couple chapters of Me and the Devil. I may be repeating things from my last review but oh well. First off, man do I enjoy the lines about how Talon finds the sheer amount of emotion Jason gives off fascinating due to his own inability to feel much of anything. And wow, Dick is fully gone.

(2) I’m particularly fond of the line where Talon reflects about how much Dick Grayson enjoyed jumping between rooftops, and how its just mechanical at this point. Honestly thats one of the truest signs showing that the Dick we know and love is gone. Like that joy he finds is so vital to who he is and that line says so much about his current state in so few words. Though I obviously hate what they did to Dick, the way the Court of Owls got brought down is so poetic. They spent so long

(3) controlling Gotham that they tried to control something they had no hope of containing. I’ve always thought making him a Talon was an objectively bad idea, because no one can really control him forever. Dick’s always been tricky like that, even though quite a few people have tried, which was good when he had strong morals. Now he has no morals.“At first he thought it was Nightwing, back from wherever he disappeared to.” Oooo boy he doesn’t even KNOW how right, and how wrong he is dammit.

(4) Also just softly saying confess is terrifying. Jason is still Jason (albeit in his most damaged phase). Comments on how stupid the mask is first, worries about the killer part after. Also I know this is terrifying and all but I laughed at how Jason’s sitting their like “its just too many knives. Who needs that many knifes”.Talon allowing Jason to choose the fate of his attacker is an interesting look into whatever tiny bit of code Talon has left.I’m really enjoying the commentary

(5) and thoughts of the guys working for the Arkham Knight. I loved how much his militia respected him in the game, and how they honestly seemed to like him. However Jason and Talon spin their new working relationship, it would be super cool to see the underlings perspective. I live for people meeting Talon (which is why I liked that scene with Carmine Falcone so much, as well as the second one where the men get to witness Carmines description of Talon and his possessiveness).

(6) Now onto the third chapter. It hurts how much Jason is being reminded of the Joker in this chapter, and hurts even more when Talon starts to use this against him and confirm his fears about still being controlled by the Joker. The parallel is beautiful and painful, as Talon is trying to give Jason the same sense of power and freedom he had when utterly destroying the court of owls. The amount of possessiveness that practically drips off of every word Talon says is wonderful. The worst part

(7) is that being protective over his siblings is a 100% Dick Grayson thing. Talon would almost be easier to stomach if his motivations in this story were completely unlike the Dick we know. But seeing his protectiveness twisted and malformed almost beyond recognition is horrifying. Oh jeeze I’m so scared and so ready to see what on have become. I’m not sure how far you plan on taking this, but like the amount of people who care about these two, it would destroy them. At least you can still

(8) see Jason in the Arkham Knight. But Dick is gone, and I honestly can’t wait for the reaction to that. Final notes I have are that I really enjoy your writing style overall. Comparing your various fics, you can write vastly different tones with the same level of excellent quality. I died laughing at some of you humour fics, and this has a super dark tone that actually does that aspect properly, which I think is awesome. Sometimes I find that when happier characters go dark in fics I often

(9) take a step back and think “okay, thats too far”. But your Dick has enough in his past and the right connections to his past characteristics and his behaviour feels right for this state. I also appreciate how even in this, you manage to work in a few happier tone humour lines in a way that feels smooth to me, and them quickly switch back to the darker tone without the tone switch being super bumpy or catching the reader off-guard. I’m also a fan of how your style flows. Like honestly thank

(10) you so much for writing this. I look forward to whatever comes out next. (I’m also a huge fan of More Shej, but thats for another day) Anyway, thats definitely enough for now. Catch you later *finger guns*

u dont know fear until u get on Tumblr and see 10 messages waiting for u.

BUT SRSLY, MY HEART. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Reading all the stuff you enjoyed just made my night, no joke. Hell, it made my month. I’d be writing a more eloquent response but my mind is kinda just repeating various screeching noises of joy lmfaoo (ngl i’ve been staring at and re-reading this for like 3 hrs) I also thought The Court trying to convert Dick was always a Bad Idea for those same reasons! Bruce could barely get Dick to follow orders without getting into a fight, the Court wouldn’t be able to keep him reined in for long. He’s just too stubborn lmfao

I also loved how his men treated him in the AK game (at least before the end lol) and was highkey thinking of doing a mini-series from their pov of either Me and the Devil or just the random going-ons of being one of The Arkham Knight’s men.

I’m p excited to get to the others meeting Talon, especially Bruce and Alfie. I’m such a sucker for the twisted way that Talon Dick could be and very much enjoy playing with the possibilities.

I could sit here all night and keyboard mash over my joy at this message as well as talk about the things you pointed out. THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN. These reviews give me life and really help keep me motivated to write.

#Anonymous #review #I'M CRYIN THANK YOU #i highkey feel like writing now #which is smth that i havent felt in a hot minute #idk how to properly convey my gratitude for taking the time to write this and send it to me #but srsly thank you so much #long post

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marlaluster · 6 years ago

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Emptying the cliptray on the new phone. ....

1. mag·ic /ˈmajik/ Learn to pronounce noun 1. the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces. "suddenly, as if by magic, the doors start to open" synonyms: sorcery, witchcraft, wizardry, necromancy, enchantment, spellworking, incantation, the supernatural, occultism, the occult, black magic, the black arts, devilry, divination, malediction, voodoo, hoodoo, sympathetic magic, white magic, witching, witchery; More adjective 1. used in magic or working by magic; having or apparently having supernatural powers. "a magic wand" synonyms: supernatural, enchanted, occult, Druidical; More 2. INFORMAL•BRITISH wonderful; exciting. "what a magic moment" synonyms: fascinating, captivating, charming, glamorous, magical, enchanting, entrancing, spellbinding, magnetic, irresistible, hypnotic More verb 1. move, change, or create by or as if by magic. "he must have been magicked out of the car at the precise second it exploded" Feedback Translations and more definitions Merriam-Webster › dictionary › magic 2. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/magic 3. British & World English magic Definition of magic in English: magic NOUN mass noun 1The power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces. ‘suddenly, as if by magic, the doors start to open’ More example sentencesSynonyms 1.1 Mysterious tricks, such as making things disappear and reappear, performed as entertainment. as modifier ‘his parents bought him a magic set for Christmas’ More example sentencesSynonyms 1.2 A quality of being beautiful and delightful in a way that seems remote from daily life. ‘the magic of the theatre’ More example sentencesSynonyms 1.3informal Exceptional skill or talent. ‘he's been working his magic on New Zealand movies for the past two decades’ More example sentencesSynonyms ADJECTIVE 1Having or apparently having supernatural powers. ‘a magic wand’ More example sentencesSynonyms 1.1attributive Very effective in producing the desired results. ‘confidence is the magic ingredient needed to spark recovery’ More example sentences 2British informal Wonderful; exciting. ‘it was a great time, magic’ More example sentencesSynonyms VERB 4. Mmmm yummy things so rewarding n awesome, a mysterious thing kind of. So appreciated, tasty things like that yummy looking ice cream cone. Kind of not so a match for the current environment though i must say so as to not be misleading. Then people are not really present to enjoy the treats but they still mean something for their seeming occurrence to have them. 5. 35,108 likes halleberry Sometimes the perfect #SelfCareSunday is about bringing joy to the ones we love, and nothing feels better than making my little guy smile. When we honor others we honor ourselves.🍦 lylaesme3 ❤️❤️❤️😍 bikeradd You tell them Halle, I've cream makes everyone happy even me! Love you Halle! God Bless You, 🙏 marlaluster Mmmm yummy things so rewarding n awesome, a mysterious thing kind of. So appreciated, tasty things like that yummy looking ice cream cone. Kind of not so a match for the current environment though i must say so as to not be misleading. Then people are not really present to enjoy the treats but they still mean something for their seeming occurrence to have them. 16 HOURS AGO 6. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx8NfEyjJ_q/?hl=en 7. pretty top n pretty on halle berry. things like this that are something meaninful somehow to people. dont wish things to not be okay, aging maybe suggested as not what it is traditionally w some things like this maybe. thats good. #pretty 8. 84,483 likes halleberry Today is a very special Fitness Friday because it’s Wick Night as well. A true warrior like JOHN WICK starts within, and you fight only as good as you fuel ⚡️ Today’s #PHITTalks is ALL about nutrition and ritual, and @peterleethomas and I got the hook up! We talk transitioning into the keto lifestyle, why cheating on your diet is the BEST, the pros & cons of creatine (+ vegan friendly options!), AND I give y’all the inside scoop on my go-to meal replacement shake 🥤 - Head to IGTV to check it out & happy #FitnessFriday! ♥️ laurajuarez15 U killed that role in John wick!! ❤️ laurajuarez15 U killed that role in John wick!! ❤️ marlaluster pretty top n pretty on halle berry. things like this that are something meaninful somehow to people. dont wish things to not be okay, aging maybe suggested as not what it is traditionally w some things like this maybe. thats good. #pretty MAY 17 9. https://www.instagram.com/p/BxkW9cMjUdS/?hl=en 10. pretty dress. pretty things can be underestimated n idolized here which is not good. But whatever they mean to people maybe we will never know here but this present way of things should end n would end. #pretty #yayhalle #endtheruleofthedevil 11. 94,409 likes halleberry In living color. 💃🏾 @antonioberardiofficial georgelovingjackson GJ c marlaluster pretty dress. pretty things can be underestimated n idolized here which is not good. But whatever they mean to people maybe we will never know here but this present way of things should end n would end. #pretty #yayhalle #endtheruleofthedevil MAY 8 12. https://www.instagram.com/p/BxNTl0hD6OC/?hl=en 13. 677,641 views halleberry Out here walking on sunshine 🍎 @johnwickmovie borngentleman34 Legs @halleberry forever the goat👏👏👏 djfatpockets Flawless marlaluster #pretty #yayhalle #yayhalleberry another unique n pretty item to express something wished n really more meaningful than so to be told when things are not able to be more okay to be central to people that people would wish. Too trivialized here things that people wish. I have to say its okay here or what im saying could seem less pleasant n more misleading because it is such a coverup here that its not okay to people how things are here. APRIL 28 14. https://www.instagram.com/p/BwzxKIrjaKc/?hl=en 15. #pretty #yayhalle #yayhalleberry another unique n pretty item to express something wished n really more meaningful than so to be told when things are not able to be more okay to be central to people that people would wish. Too trivialized here things that people wish. I have to say its okay here or what im saying could seem less pleasant n more misleading because it is such a coverup here that its not okay to people how things are here. 16. 677,641 views halleberry Out here walking on sunshine 🍎 @johnwickmovie borngentleman34 Legs @halleberry forever the goat👏👏👏 djfatpockets Flawless marlaluster #pretty #yayhalle #yayhalleberry another unique n pretty item to express something wished n really more meaningful than so to be told when things are not able to be more okay to be central to people that people would wish. Too trivialized here things that people wish. I have to say its okay here or what im saying could seem less pleasant n more misleading because it is such a coverup here that its not okay to people how things are here. marlaluster #pretty #yayhalle #yayhalleberry another unique n pretty item to express something wished n really more meaningful than so to be told when things are not able to be more okay to be central to people that people would wish. Too trivialized here things that people wish. I have to say its not okay here or what im saying could seem less pleasant n more misleading because it is such a coverup here of that its not okay to people how things are here. APRIL 28 17. https://www.instagram.com/p/BwzxKIrjaKc/?hl=en 18. blacks n nudes - so much for artistic expression having any chance to get away w anything. I guess its the illusion. so much/so many things become some extremism that is some area other than what is not so bad. whatever art does to distance a challenging thing to some degree from being the red hot target (but still really it would be a target though) as a person would be a red hot target to more directly act like something questioned as okay is okay, i dont know but its still like a smoking gun or a trace of that its quite stark n extinguishing of the other kind of challenge or envelope pushing other than is disturbing in a way its not to be possible to exist. This order is too challenging of peoples sentiments as to be anything worth anything. A persons sensibilities n cares n gripes n etc are supposed to be worth nothing at all here. Then something disrurbing is to be okay other than more reasonable challenges such as nudity or things characteristic of black people or other things questionable as okay that could be not that bad. #yikes #nomansland #uninhabitablehere Art post by Tessa Thompson having some relevance for the times. Perhaps the intention. That would be better for the situation. 19. 35,705 likes tessamaethompson This Energy. angiereads1 Thank you for posting all of the art from yr Paris trip busta_rupert Damn. Everytime I come across your post. It's always loneliness. Now it's naked loneliness. Girl I like you. Stop putting goddamn images in my head. This is frustrating. You know what I'm saying 😒 marlaluster blacks n nudes - so much for artistic expression having any chance to get away w anything. I guess its the illusion. so much/so many things become some extremism that is some area other than what is not so bad. whatever art does to distance a challenging thing to some degree from being the red hot target (but still really it would be a target though) as a person would be a red hot target to more directly act like something questioned as okay is okay, i dont know but its still like a smoking gun or a trace of that its quite stark n extinguishing of the other kind of challenge or envelope pushing other than is disturbing in a way its not to be possible to exist. This order is too challenging of peoples sentiments as to be anything worth anything. A persons sensibilities n cares n gripes n etc are supposed to be worth nothing at all here. Then something disrurbing is to be okay other than more reasonable challenges such as nudity or things characteristic of black people or other things questionable as okay that could be not that bad. #yikes #nomansland #uninhabitablehere Art post by Tessa Thompson having some relevance for the times. Perhaps the intention. That would be better for the situation if it was intended. 14 HOURS AGO 20. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx8ehufBVBR/?hl=en

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cgpaints · 8 years ago

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Monthly Review, June 2017

Hi everyone!

I have been (and still am) a little hesitant to post an monthly review thing this month because to be perfectly honest there just is not much to show as much as actual work is concerned. Most of my freelance work is under NDA and there was not too much time left for personal work and/or studies because as I mentioned last month me and my girlfriend finally moved into our new appartment and have been insanely busy setting everything up.

During the move something happend though, that I wanted to talk about. In a way my thoughts tend to spiral down quickly into the „aaah whats the point -realm“ when it comes to writing these long texts. I was debating myself if I should actually do this privately or if I should write it down and share it publicly but as the thought of sharing it has been spinning around in my head for three days now I figured that I might as well just write it down and try to get it out of my head that way. Maybe this resonates with someone, and maybe someone might even feel motivated to share his/her own views on and experience with this.

The thing I want to talk about is my experience of self worth and how it relates to my work, my attitude towards my work that is in turn resulting from that, maybe even my view on painting and drawing in the widest sense (as it relates to me personaly) and at last about how this might have started to change a little bit during the last few days in particular AND how aaaaaall that relates to the picture at the top of this post.

BUT first things first.

As I already mentioned we moved into a new appartment. It‘s large, it‘s cool, it‘s expensive and thus scary as fuck for a struggling freelancer like me, but that shall not really be the point here, maybe next month once the situation has settled in a little bit.

What‘s important here is that in this new appartment I do have an entire room just for myself, a REAL grown up person‘s office basically. Up until now all I had was a tiny tiny room that I could barely fit a desk in and for the past six months when my girlfriend and I moved around a little bit from Airbnb to Aribnb while she was tryting to get a fulltime office job I did not even have that. A simple desk had to to do during that time.

So now I have this biiig room with more than enough room to have all my drawing and painting supply out at the same time, ready to go whenever I want and it is great!

A few days ago after we got all our stuff into the new place I was sitting in my chair looking aorund the office trying to figure out what to hang on my walls, I just needed something up there, the room was too empty to feel comfortable.

I sat there thinking about all the awesome art from all the different artists I admire that I would like to decorate my walls with but the issue was that I don‘t own any prints not to mention originals here and just printing something out seemed kind of lame.

Being a little bummed out about that I proceeded to go through all my stuff when I found all my marker and watercolor drawings I did last year during „maysketchaday“. I looked through them and I noticed „ hey these are kind of fun!“. Moreover I noticed that they immediately sparked the desire to just grab my markers and get to painting again. I remembered the fun I had trying out a new medium last year and this just got me going. Weirdly enough I did not have this feeling for YEARS. Even during the time I painted these, sure it was kind of enjoyable but it all had this „o well, it‘s a drawing I guess“ feeling to it.

And then something hit me, and this is the thing I want to talk about here.

While feeling kind of excited about getting to drawing right away after rediscovering these tiny things actually feeling good about them I immediately remembered that I used to beat the SHIT out of me „emotionally“ after each one of these, sucking the joy out of the process I have just felt minutes before. I would be bummed out that the drawing did not come out the way I wanted, that I was not improving( which wasn‘t even true) and that I am not even close to anything „all the other artists“ are capable of. I took the drawings, put them in a drawer and would be happy to not have to look at them again.

Remembering all this I kept thinking about it and quickly noticed that I am doing this all the time, I beat myself down after each and every drawing and painting I do. I do this subconciously afer every single drawing I finish. I do this based on the work others do and even based on the response I get from it on social media, stupid shit like that. I am not talking about a healthy mentality that made me realizy my shortcomings and motivated me to do better next time, I am talking about being resentful and downright hateful towards my own work and to be frank to myself as a person.

Thoughts like „ I‘ve been doing this for years now, I should be better“, „others have started drawing later than me and have surpassed me by miles, why am I still so bad at this?“ „is talent actually relevant afteral, or am I simply not intelligent enough to see the flaws and to be able to improve on them?“ were my daily routine. To a degree they still are, I just started conciously noticing this days ago.

I realized what I have been doing this for a period of years and it almost seems comical to me now that I was actually wondering why I was getting kind of depressive and resentful towards my work and myself even. All I do all day is trying to improve my skills with all that I have and after each time I decide to punish myself for that. What is supposed to happen if one keeps that up for years and even turns it into a subconcious routine?

Obviously you stop at least liking what you are doing, hell you might even get scared to do it, which is definitely what I experienced.

It feels a little weird to write this down in a rather short way (although for a simple blog entry this sure looks enormous) because this way of thinking has becomce such a huge part of me.

Measured on the time I spent doing if for the last 10 years I think it is obvious that drawing and painting has been the most important aspect of my life. During that time it has acutally become a part of me. I as a human am defined a lot through it. There just is not much left of me when one takes the drawing and painting aspect away from me, it is not just what I do for work. It‘s another topic to decide if this fact alone is actually good or bad, what I am trying to say is that this thing „painting“ has a lot of power over me. My personal well being as a human is highly dependant on the way I handle my relationship towards painting. If this relationship is compromised by constant self hate and punishment it‘s only obvious that all this bleeds into the rest of my personality. I feel like as a result of all this I have been kind of desolving into this unhealthy spiral of self doubt and resentment towards myself.

Its also another story to go into of when I think all of this has started, all I know for now is that this is something that HAPPENED, it has not been that way from the beginning. At some point something switched and drawing which was this huge and exciting unbeatable but beautiful and POSITIVE mountain of a thing became this dreadful chaotic monster that one can not get a handle on no matter what.

I can‘t really tell why all this dawned on me as soon as I held these drawings of dead people in my hands but it sure did. I also tend to be rather scepticals towards these moments of „revelation“ but I felt this so strongly and clearly at that moment and I still do that I decied to act on it and to ultimately write about it.

I decided to take all of them and hang them on my wall and to just have them there as a reminder that this is actually what I do and that no matter how these turned out these were the best things I could do at that time and that I don‘t have to be ashamed for or angry about them but that I am actually allowed to like them for what they are.

Now are they the best drawings ever? Hell no, they aren‘t even „professional quality“ (whatever that means) and I am not trying to trick myself into thinking that they are. But they are a part of me in some way, I painted them, I gave it my all when I painted them and this is a good thing. They have a right to be pinned on that wall. They remind me where I was a year ago, they show me where I should improve on, they motivate me to do better and they make me want to get to painting as soon as I enter the room. What‘s bad about that?

The impulse to just lock them up in a drawer and hating myself for having created it is so utterly destructive and stupid, sitting here right now writing this makes me realize that even more.

As a matter of fact I came up with a plan out of all of this.

There is still a ton of free space on my walls, I am going to use it. Whenever I paint or draw something that I think turned out okay, or god forbid even „good“ I will pin it on the wall. One day sooner or later the wall will be filled with no room left, that‘s when I will start swapping out drawings one at the time. The new „best“ drawing will replace the current „worst“ one on the wall. I think I will also divide the wall into sections I want to improve upon like „watercolors“ „oilpaintings“ „anatomy“ „design“ and so on. I want this to feel exciting again and I want to actually see my progress rather than just feeling like sinking into a swamp of „o well I hope I am going to end up somewhere sometime“

There it is, I think I poured my heart out, I don‘t really know what to say anymore.

So what‘s the point of this text in addition of just allowing me to sort out my thoughs on that topic?

I think that if you belong to the kind of artists (or people in general) who tend to go down the path of self loathing for trying to do something thats arguably hard to do, no matter if conciously or unconciously you might want to start looking at what you are doing selfhate wise and try to figure out a strategy for yourself to get out of that. As I already said I have been thinking about this for the past week or so so nothing I say is really worthy of being called „founded advice“ or anything like that but there are very personal lessons that I think I am learning right now which feel right and more importantly feel like a good means of proceeding into the future with a healthy mindset to improve and enjoy whatever this all is.

Don‘t be ashamed for what you are doing and incourage yourself like you would incourage a person you care about. Not being the best at something should feel interesting and exciting, it does not mean that you suck as a person. You are your own benchmark, do your best, try to improve on your weaknesses and be thankful for your wins and losses on that path.

Don‘t be an asshole towards yourself!

Talk to you next month!

#art #drawing #painting #illustration #freelance #self help #artist #commcercialart #motivation #depression #encouragement #gameart

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louisvelazquez · 6 years ago

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Life has a way of putting you where you're supposed to be, you just need to want to see it. About 3 or 4 yrs ago I met an amazing woman at a dog adoption event, we hit it off immediately however I was in NYC and she was in FL so that wasnt in the cards then, we remained friends which worked out for both of us, well fast forward to present time, now being in Florida for a couple of months we reconnected and sparks flew again but this time we can see it through. I realized that what I've been looking for the past decade is right in front of me now, someone who shares my interest, is driven as a mofo, who will always have my back, who hits every note possible which I didn't think I'd ever experience but I'm experiencing that now Having so many awesome people in my life that have found their true other half was always a mystery to me, like how did that happen?? but now that I've found my other half, my soul and swole mate well i still can't explain it so I just feel blessed to have it and her in my life My soul and heart has been filled with something I've never experienced before but it has finally brought me peace and focus in my life so that I can push harder than ever with true purpose Thank you J for being you and for allowing me to be a part of your life, love you to the moon and beyond I'm sharing this story with y'all because life is interesting and when things are at their darkest there is always a glimmer of light that shines through , business wise that light has been shinning and now I've found my balance in my personal life which will only.enhance my business life, thats how it works , bonus is that she trains at 4:30/5am daily so how lucky am I?? Lol J youre my #WCW today, tomorrow and every tomorrow thereafter , a true Queen in every sense of the word , thank you for mending this torn soul and turning it into a haven for true joy, happiness and love, you're my center, my balance, my everything that I've missed out on all this time #relationships #lucky #womancrushwednesday https://www.instagram.com/louisvelazquez/p/Bw67oyVAHnB/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=xl4zl7c89y30

#wcw #relationships #lucky #womancrushwednesday

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mwg-us · 6 years ago

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Free MiniWarGaming Vault Trial - MiniWarGaming

Here's just a few reasons why you should try the MiniWarGaming Vault for FREE Crush your opponents... In the MiniWarGaming Vault you'll have access to more battle reports, as well as the post game shows with in-depth tactical analysis of the games (well, except for Dave's games, but we all love Dave). Watch more of your favourite games: Try out the Vault for free and get more battle reports... "I'm a Vault member because it's amazing. It's amazing because of the extra content you get. It's amazing because it helps support MWG, and help them keep producing content. It's amazing how much MWG is doing for the community. As someone that was brought into 40k mostly because of MWG videos, this is a great way for me to give back for all the great times I've had due to them peaking my interest long ago."Brian (NubimusPrime) from Pittsburgh, PA Wow your friends with your painting skills... (Silver Members Only) With our daily painting tips and tutorials you will finally be able to hone your painting skills, whether you are a brand new painter, or a seasoned one. Try out the Vault for free and get more painting tutorials... "You should definitely buy the Vault membership. I was two sided about it at one point thinking are all those other videos worth it? The answer is yes!! Even if you get the Bronze. $3 a month is enough to spare for all the amazing things that you get. Buy it!! Buy it now!!"Kaptin Obvious from UK Support MiniWarGaming... We might not have the prettiest of faces, but we love making videos, and that ain't free. We've got to pay our video creators, our rent, our order-monkey Justin to buy all his Chinese food, and for all those other "fun" bills. Our Vault members make this possible. Try out the Vault for free and help us make even more videos... 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It's cheap too so i really have been enjoying my vault experience."Jebu911 from Finland"I joined for the free painting tutorial DVD and stayed for the awesome-ness. This site has a lot of interesting videos. It's a great deal for the money. The Batreps are really cool and I've learned a lot about Warhammer 40k (a game I've recently picked back up) and other games that are played on a large table. I had so much fun I upgraded my service to Silver. It was the best deal for me. Looking forward to more painting videos, more batreps and more awesome-ness. Thanks guys!"Jake from Oklahoma - USA"You should join the vault 'couse its awesome. Sure you can go to you tube and watch, but thats just half the fun, in the vault you get to see all videos MWG have done over the years, and not only that, if you choose silver or gold membership,(Gold member myself since i like what they are doing and we should suport the community as good as we can), you get to download the videos and you get free downloadable dvd, its awesome. MWG Wants YOU to join the vault and be part of the awesomeness that is MWG"Andreas from Boden, Sweden"I had been watching MiniWarGamings 40k battlereports for roughly a year before I decided to join The Vault. I liked the videos and the contents that they made, and I felt that I wanted to contribute. As I was running low on battlereports that I hadn't seen, I decided to take the leap. I was flabbergasted. The amount of contents you get, just for the silver membership, is insane. Countless battlereports, free DVDs, painting tutorials, strategies, post-game videos, the works. I'm pretty sure that I will never get through it all, and I see this as a immensly good thing. If you like what you see on Youtube and you are thinking about joining, but are afraid to not get value for your money, allow me to stop you right there. If you have only seen the free stuff, you have just seen the tip of the iceberg. I can heavily recommend anyone considering in joining The Vault. It's a great value for money, awesome content and more time with the people that we love: The MiniWarGaming team. "Martin Nord from Denmark"Potential Vault Member, Kolonel Kraig here with a dispatch from the Bunker in DC ~ First off let me inform you of the type of individuals that are Miniwar Gaming. I have had the honor of meeting Matthew, Dave and the rest of the MiniWar Gaming crew on a weekend gaming marathon at their headquarters located in Welland, Canada. Without a doubt these guys are genuine gamers who truly love the game and the community they support. 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Not this time, now I'm considering upgrading to Gold."SC from Florida"To all of you out there considering joining the Mini Wargaming Vault.... Like a lot of you out there, I have a pretty busy life. Between work and family and the myriad of other distractions that happen day-to-day, it's hard to find time for our hobbies. So, for me, I often find myself staring at the shelves of unpainted grey plastic and metal, wondering how wonderful it would be to get those miniatures finished. Then I see the boxes of unbuilt miniatures and think, "I really should get started on those." All of this contemplation lasts for a whopping two or three minutes and then I'm distracted once more. C'mon you've been there! Since joining the Mini Wargaming Vault however, my procrastinating ways have begun to change. Inspired by the amazing content found here, I have a paint brush in my hand more often. A miniature gets assembled, and all seems right with the world (queue the symphonic music here.) 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annaxkeating · 6 years ago

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Increase Your Landing Page Speed (By Stealing Our Homework)

If you’ve read Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report (and you really should), then you already know why speed is so important this year. Slow-loading landing pages have always been an obstacle to higher conversions, and now Google is punishing poor mobile load times in its search rankings. To be successful in 2019, we—marketers—need to be thinking fast. But are we?

To find out, we polled almost 400 marketers on their attitudes around page speed and asked what (if anything) they were doing to get faster.

Just 56% of marketers are happy with their mobile load times, according to the 2019 Page Speed Report.

Almost three of every four respondents said they had taken steps to improve their page speeds over the last year, and that’s pretty good. Alarmingly, though, only half of marketers we surveyed are satisfied with their load times on mobile.

So most marketers are trying to get faster, but many aren’t where they want to be. Which begs the question: what are people doing to speed up their landing page load times?

Computer, enhance!

Only 39% of marketers have bothered to find out how fast their pages are actually loading. Not great.

Here, we start to see why marketers are somewhat pessimistic about their page speed progress. Just over half have optimized their landing page images—ostensibly one of the simplest ways to speed up your load times—and even fewer have done any of the real technical-sounding things they need to get faster. (I mean, fair, they sound pretty boring to us, too.)

Here’s a doozy, though: just one in three marketers have run a website speed test to find out whether their load times are impacting their conversions. That’s the easiest one!

And hey, we get it. Marketers are being asked to do more than ever before, often with fewer resources. If you’re a small team (or a single person, the smallest of the teams), you might feel you don’t have the time or expertise to meaningfully improve your page speed.

But I’ve gone and done the hard work for you—me, a film school graduate who, until recently, believed that his Apple computer was impervious to viruses. (Hoo boy, it is not.) I’ve spent hours talking to Unbounce developers, reading how-to guides, and generally just bombarding my brain with the most dull, technical page speed information I could get ahold of. (Apologies to said developers.) And if I can get my head around it, there’s no excuse for the rest of you.

Below, I’ve simplified some of the most effective ways to increase your landing page loading times in a guide. For each fix, I’ve indicated the technical difficulty and the estimated time it’ll take, so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in to. Use the table of contents below to jump to what’s relevant to you, or go ahead and do it all in order.

Jump to a Landing Page Speed Fix

How to Check Your Landing Page Speed

Run a Google Speed Test (5 Minutes)

Try the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer (5 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Easy Fixes

Reduce Your Page Content (15 Minutes)

Optimize Your Images (30 Minutes)

Host Your Videos Elsewhere (30 Minutes)

Audit Your Hosting Solution (30 Minutes)

Implement a CDN (30 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Intermediate Fixes

Minify HTML, JS, and CSS (15 Minutes)

Enable Browser Caching (15 Minutes)

Set Up GZIP Compression (15 Minutes)

Kill Needless Scripts and Plugins (30 Minutes)

Convert Images to Sprites (30 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Hard Fixes

Remove Render-Blocking JS and CSS (45 Minutes)

Start Hand-Coding with AMP

Final note: If you’ve built your page with Unbounce, you can skip a lot of this stuff—we make many speed fixes on the back-end automatically. In this post, look for the ‘Building Pages in Unbounce?‘ callout boxes to see if a given fix is something you need to implement.

Look for these callout boxes throughout this post to get Unbounce-specific tips and learn how we automatically optimize your landing pages to make them load super fast.

How to Check Your Landing Page Speed

First things first.

Before you throw on your hard hat and start hitting things with a hammer (both figuratively and literally), it’s important to have some idea of what’s working—and what’s not—on your landing page. That means running a speed audit.

It’s important to point out that, regardless of which speed test you use, you don’t want to get too hung up on your score. Achieving a perfect score is not always technically possible (and it might not even be desirable). Instead, use your results as a general guideline to improve page speed and implement the fixes that make sense for you.

Okay—let’s test them pages.

Run a Google Speed Test

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 5 Minutes

There are a bunch of great tools for testing your page speed, but why not start with the big dog itself? Google’s PageSpeed Insights is an awesome way to do a quick performance check-up with at-a-glance recommendations. (Ryan Engley, Unbounce’s VP of Product Marketing, explains how to interpret and act on your PageSpeed Insights results in this must-read blog post.) Then there’s Lighthouse, a newer tool from Google that provides a comprehensive analysis of your how your page presents to end users.

You’ll also want to run your page through Google’s Test My Site tool, which will check your speed from a mobile perspective.

Clicking on individual results in PageSpeed Insights will reveal your problematic page elements.

Running a Google speed test should only take a couple of minutes, and the results will help you identify some of the top opportunities to boost your landing page load times.

Try the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 5 Minutes

Running a speed test with Google should be your top priority, but PageSpeed Insights doesn’t give results tailored to landing pages. For that, you’ll want to run your page through the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer, which not only provides feedback on page performance but includes a bunch of advice on creating more effective campaigns and kicking your conversions into overdrive.

Unbounce’s Landing Page Analyzer provides feedback on page speed, but also actionable advice on things like SEO, message match, and mobile-friendliness.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Then you’ll definitely want to give our Landing Page Analyzer a shot. Get best-practice recommendations for conversion optimization and see how your landing pages stack up against others in your industry.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Easy Fixes

With your results from both Google and Unbounce, you’ll be well-equipped to move onto the actual work of making your page perform better. It’s time to pick up that hammer.

These fixes should be simple enough for anyone to tackle, regardless of their technical expertise.

Reduce Your Page Content

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

We’ve marked this as an easy opportunity to increase your page speed, but it probably won’t feel like that when you start thinking about which elements on your page you can junk. Marketers love big hero shots, beautiful supporting imagery, and fun, animated explainer videos. But how much of that content is actually helping you drive conversions?

Visual content accounts for a huge portion of the size of an average web page—images account for over 20% of web page weight, as pointed out by Kinsta—and each element creates an HTTP request. That’s when your visitor’s browser pings your web server to request the files that make up the elements of your page. Too many calls can be a serious drag on your load time, so one of the simplest ways to improve your page speed is cutting down the number of elements you include.

Look at each piece of content on your page critically, then ask yourself: “Does this spark joy?” “Does this increase conversions?” If you don’t think there are pieces you can toss, try running an A/B test with a slimmed-down version of the page. The results might surprise you.

Bottom line: stick to the fundamentals of good landing page design and try to keep the number of elements (and thus HTTP requests) to a minimum.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We recommend that you keep things pretty lean, but we’d never remove content from your landing page. (Must resist… desire… to do best practices…) This is one optimization that you’ll have to tackle on your own.

Optimize Your Images

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Once you’ve trimmed some elements from your page, you’ll want to optimize the content that made the cut. Poor image optimization is the most common reason for slow page loads, especially for mobile visitors. Fortunately, it’s also one of the easiest issues to fix.

These are some quick tips for shrinking your images and improving your page speed. The goal here should be getting images at least under 800kb, but the smaller we can make them, the better.

Resize your images

It’s easy to chuck a larger image onto your page and rely on your content management system (CMS) to compress it to the appropriate size, but it’ll still be loading at least some of those extra pixels on the back end, and your visitors are going to feel it in the load. When you add an image, make sure it’s the same dimensions that your page will be rendering it.*

*This doesn’t necessarily apply to Unbounce’s retina image support—read up on that here.

Choose the right file type

Most people don’t think too much about the format of the image they’re uploading, but it can have a dramatic effect on page performance. The file types you’re probably most familiar with are JPEG and PNG—and, yes, there are differences.

JPEG is a ‘lossy’ format, which means it’ll lose some data during compression. That typically gives you a smaller file, but it can come at the expense of visual fidelity. Generally, images with significant color variation (say, photographs) perform better as JPEGs, and any dip in quality can usually go undetected.

PNG is ‘lossless,’ so the image’s appearance won’t change when resized, but it tends to make for larger files if there’s significant color variation. PNG is ideal for simple images with defined shapes, like those with text. Saving PNGs in 8-bit (rather than 24-bit, which has a broader color palette) can help shave off some extra bites.

Here are some optimization tips for JPEG and PNG (and GIF, that villain) from Google itself.

Use compression tools

Before your weigh-in, it’s good to run images through a final round of compression. There are plenty of image compression tools on WordPress, as well as some free, standalone ones like TinyPNG. These shrinky gizmos offer a simple way to cut down your image sizes without braving the cursed labyrinth that is Adobe’s export settings. (Hey, I’m a words guy.)

Your takeaways here are:

Ensure your image dimensions match how they’ll actually be displayed

Use JPEG when a slight dip in visual fidelity isn’t the end of the world (like photography), but PNG when it is (images with text and sharp lines)

Compress images to keep the file size as tiny as possible

If you want to take a deeper dive into image optimization, we recommend that you check out this post from Search Engine Land, which goes into detail on making images smaller while keeping them beautiful.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We’ve got you covered. Unbounce’s Auto Image Optimizer shrinks your images as soon as they’re uploaded so you can focus on making the best landing page possible.

Host Your Videos Elsewhere

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Why carry something yourself when you can make someone else carry it for you? That’s my motto for landing pages and life, and it’s why I’m no longer welcome on Unbounce’s company hiking trips.

Hosting videos on your own domain can be great for SEO purposes, but that’s not usually our goal with landing pages. We want everything to load in a flash and give our visitors the best chance to convert. Depending on your hosting solution, though, your videos might be slowing down your page speed, suffering from playback issues, and taking up an uncomfortable amount of server space.

Done properly, transferring videos to a third-party platform can shed some extra load time and help your pages render faster. Consider moving video content to Wistia, YouTube, or Vimeo, then using a light embed technique so that your videos only load heavier playback elements when your visitors actually click on them.

Building Pages in Unbounce? As a disclaimer: Using light embed codes with Unbounce (or any custom code, for that matter) will require some technical knowledge to implement and could, in rare cases, cause issues. Check out this Unbounce community post for more information.

Audit Your Hosting Solution

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Loading speed isn’t just determined by what’s on your landing page. Your web host also has a major influence in how quickly your page rolls out to potential customers.

There are three common models for web hosting:

Shared hosting Generally the most affordable solution, shared hosting is when your website is hosted alongside other sites on a single web server. Everyone draws from common resources (like storage space and processing power), which means—you guessed it—you need to share.

Virtual private server (VPS) hosting This is essentially a mix of both shared and dedicated hosting. With VPS, your website still shares server space with others, but you’ll have dedicated resources that no one else can dip into. The result is more power and flexibility, but it tends to come with a higher price tag.

Dedicated hosting For those who’ve had a traumatic roommate experience (who hasn’t?), dedicated hosting means your website has the server all to itself. More resources, no sharing. That’s great if you’re heavy on digital content and get a ton of traffic, but dedicated hosting is also the most expensive option and requires the technical know-how to set up and maintain your server.

Low-volume websites can generally get by with the cost-effective shared solution, but once your traffic starts to rise, you might not be getting enough juice from your web host to deliver content quickly—and that’s when load times start to suffer. (Give this post from Search Engine Journal a read for a more comprehensive explanation.)

It’s also important to note that the whereabouts of your web server can have a significant impact on your page speed. If you’re not using a content delivery network (CDN; more on this below), you’ll want to make sure that traffic from foreign countries isn’t encountering too much latency.

Think your hosting solution might be impacting your page speed? Run your site through a server speed test like this one from Bitcatcha, and use WebPageTest or Pingdom to see how your quickly your landing page loads in other countries. Depending on the results, you might decide it’s time to upgrade your hosting plan (or change web hosts altogether).

Building Pages in Unbounce? You don’t have to worry about this one—Unbounce’s global hosting solution boasts 99.95% uptime and ensures that your landing pages always have the necessary resources to load super fast.

Implement a CDN

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

When your landing page gets a visitor, their web browser pings your server to get the content necessary to build out the page. Simple, right? Everyone downloads your website information from the same place, regardless of their location around the world. Well, that’s usually fine if the visitor is in or close to the country that your web server is located, but when they’re halfway around the globe, chances are they’re going to encounter some latency.

To avoid that, you should look into deploying a CDN, which caches your website across a network of data centers and proxy servers all over the planet. Say your own server is in the United States and someone from Lithuania is trying to visit your landing page. Instead of downloading your content from across the Atlantic, that visitor can pull a cached version from a server nearby.

Setting your website up with a CDN is pretty straightforward and—depending on your traffic—generally affordable. Here’s a list of some popular CDN providers from Mashable.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We’ve got five global data centers supporting the Unbounce CDN, which means your landing pages will load in a flash regardless of where they’re being accessed from.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Intermediate Fixes

These next speed fixes are a little trickier, but they should be manageable for marketers with a little technical know-how. Still, a mistake here could mean actual damage to your landing page.

Our recommendation? Do some research, make a backup, and—if you can—consult briefly with a developer on your team. It never hurts to have an experienced colleague to turn to if you get in over your head.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We talk a lot about WordPress through this next section. If you’re using our plugin to publish Unbounce landing pages to a WordPress domain, some of these recommended speed fixes can actually cause technical issues. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for clarification if you’re ever unsure.

Minify HTML, CSS, and JS

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

All those lines of HTML, CSS, and JS code that make up your landing page? They’re packed with spaces, line breaks, and other bits of formatting that make it more legible and easier for us to interpret, but each makes your load time just an eensy bit slower—and the web browsers your visitors are using to render your page don’t particularly need them.

With minification, the goal is to cut out all of that extra junk and condense your code so that browsers can read it faster. Here’s an example snippet of Javascript code from Wikipedia:

var array = []; for (var i = 0; i < 20; i++) { array[i] = i; }

After minifying, that code would look something like this:

for(var a=[i=0];++i<20;a[i]=i);

There are plenty of free online tools that will do this for your landing page, like Minify Code, as well as a bunch of WordPress plugins. Be sure to check out this post from Elegant Themes, which is an awesome resource that dives into the many options at your disposal.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Do we minify? We practically invented minifying. (Editor’s note: We did not.) Unbounce compresses all of your code automatically, making your landing page as slim as can be. No coding your pages from scratch and no minifying that code in the background? We’re making this too easy for you.

Enable Browser Caching

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

The goal with any landing page should be getting prospects to convert the first time they visit, but the reality is that not everyone will. Sometimes, visitors will need some time to think about it: they’ll bounce, do more research, check out some competitors, then come back to your original offer. Browser caching ensures that when they return, your page will load even faster—and that’ll make them more likely to convert.

Not sure if you’ve already got caching enabled? Before you start, run a quick caching check using a tool like this one from GiftOfSpeed.

If your site is built on WordPress, enabling caching is as easy as adding a plugin.* (WordPress is almost too easy, huh?) Check out this list of caching plugins, most of which include quick instructions for getting set up.

*If you’re publishing Unbounce pages to a WordPress domain, these caching recommendations could create big problems. Check with us first.

For those not on WordPress, enabling browser caching on your own is pretty simple if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. For example, on Apache web servers, it comes down to inserting a little bit of code into the .htaccess file on your web host or server: <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year” ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month” ExpiresByType text/html “access 1 month” ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month” ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month” ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access 1 month” ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year” ExpiresDefault “access 1 month” </IfModule>

This article from Varvy provides a great how-to, as does this one from WinningWP (which discusses enabling browser caching from a WordPress perspective but is applicable more broadly).

If all of this makes you nervous, there’s likely a simpler method for you to set up browser caching. Most web hosts will enable caching for you if you ask. Depending on your hosting solution, it might be as easy as making a phone call. (Although, now that I think about it, that might be more daunting for some of us.)

Building Pages in Unbounce? Seven-day browser caching is enabled on all Unbounce-built landing pages, so this is a speed fix you can comfortably skip. Maybe use this free time to treat yourself to some self-care? You’ve earned it.

Set Up GZIP Compression

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

When a visitor reaches your landing page, their browser pings your web server to request the files that make up the page and the server transmits them back. Naturally, that process moves faster if the information being sent is compressed to be as small as possible. Here’s where GZIP compression comes in.

(You’ll want to check to see if GZIP compression is already enabled before you get started.)

As with browser caching, the difficulty of setting up GZIP compression is going to be determined by how your website was built. If you use WordPress, you’re in luck: many WordPress plugins will enable GZIP compression for you almost automatically. If you don’t use WordPress, well, we’re headed back into your server.

This article from GTmetrix provides a quick overview of the importance of GZIP compression and how to enable it. With Apache web servers, you’ll need to add this chunk of code to your .htaccess file. <IfModule mod_deflate.c> # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml

# Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers) BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html Header append Vary User-Agent </IfModule>

And again, if this is beyond your comfort zone, your web host will probably help you set up GZIP compression if you ask nicely.

Building Pages in Unbounce? You don’t have to ask us nicely, because we’ve already done it. All Unbounce landing pages are automatically compressed during data transfer. (But be nice to us anyway, alright?)

Kill Needless Scripts and Plugins

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

WordPress is wonderful in its simplicity. As we’ve seen throughout this article, page speed fixes that might require a front-end developer on a static website can often be achieved by simply installing a WordPress plugin. Want to enable browser caching? Boom, W3 Total Cache.* Need to minify your scripts? Pow, Autoptomize.* Developer, shmeveloper.

But because it’s so easy to add functionality through plugins, WordPress websites have a habit of collecting a lot of them—along with all the of the bits and bites of code that make them work. Those add up.

Take a look at the scripts and plugins you’ve added to your website and decide whether they’re essential to your visitor experience. If they’re not, junking them could help cut some extra seconds off of your load time. (And guess what? There’s a plugin for that.) You can also disable plugins one at a time, then retest your page speed to determine which ones are problematic.

*If you’re publishing Unbounce pages to a WordPress domain, these plugins in particular might start a fire.

Building Pages in Unbounce? This is more of WordPress fix, but it also applies to Unbounce customers that have inserted a bunch of custom scripts onto their landing pages. Learn how the Unbounce Script Manager helps you keep things tidy.

Convert Images to Sprites

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

If your landing page includes a series of similar-sized images (say, for a client logo bar), you can shorten your load time by combining them into an image sprite, then use CSS to display specific chunks of that sprite at a time. This post from WebFX provides a great step-by-step guide for creating CSS sprites.

Joining smaller images into a larger file might seem counterintuitive, but again, the idea here is to reduce the number of HTTP requests on your page and ultimately make it faster. Each individual image requires its own call—combining images into a single CSS sprite means your page only needs to make one.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We don’t build CSS sprites for you, but you can certainly use them on your Unbounce-built landing pages. Check out our documentation on custom JS and CSS with Unbounce.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Hard Fixes

We’re into the scary stuff now.

These are fixes you should absolutely not attempt unless you know what you’re doing or you’ve consulted extensively with a front-end developer. (We even had one of the Unbounce devs fact-check this article, and we’ve never felt smaller.) Proceed with caution.

Remove Render-Blocking JS and CSS

Difficulty: Hard / Estimated Time: 45 Minutes

Those CSS and JS scripts that make your landing page beautiful and enable cool, dynamic functionality? They could be one of the major reasons that your page is loading so slowly. (Bad news for my flashing, neon visitor counter.)

When a web browser runs into CSS or JS in the head of your document, it’ll wait to download and process that content before continuing to render your page’s HTML. That might sound like a good thing from a user experience perspective—after all, we want people to see our landing page as it was intended—but it actually means that visitors can be left waiting on a blank screen while everything loads in the background.

To avoid this, we need to implement techniques for preventing render-blocking CSS and JS on our landing page. (Refer back to your Google PageSpeed Insights results to check if any scripts are slowing down your page load.)

Reduce render-blocking CSS

There are a couple of ways that we can neutralize render-blocking CSS. One option is to defer all CSS until after the HTML has loaded. That’ll certainly improve page speed, but it will also present non-styled content when the visitor first reaches our page. Not ideal.

The other, more preferable option is to defer most style rules until the HTML has been rendered, but inline the CSS necessary to correctly display content above the fold within the HTML. That way, visitors will see the properly-styled content as soon as they hit the page while the rest will load out of view. Pretty sneaky. This is a great tutorial using a real-life example from codeburst.io.

Another page speed opportunity for you here is combining your CSS files. By moving your style rules from several files to just one (or maybe two, tops), you can reduce the number of times that visitors need to ping your web server and improve your landing page load time. Here’s a good resource from GiftOfSpeed on combining and compressing you CSS scripts.

Eliminate render-blocking JS

Like CSS, JS scripts can prevent your landing page from rendering as quickly as you might like. We can avoid that by deploying the defer and async attributes. The former tells the browser to wait until your HTML is rendered before it begins pulling in JS scripts, while the latter asks that JS be downloaded simultaneously without interrupting the HTML download.

An important note is that not all JS scripts are equal: some are critical to the rendering of your page and need to be addressed right out of the gate, so they’ll have to stay at the top. Dareboost does a good job of explaining how to distinguish between critical and non-critical JS, as well as how to implement deferred and asynchronous loading.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Unbounce optimizes for most Google PageSpeed Insights recommendations, including the removal of render-blocking elements. That means you can skip this one.

Start Hand-Coding with AMP

Difficulty: Very Hard / Estimated Time: ∞ Hours

Alright, “∞ hours” is an overstatement, but implementing AMP is no small task. Developed by Google, the AMP project is an entirely new framework with which to build your web pages. The goal? Dramatically improve page speed, especially for mobile users.

AMP is made up of three core components: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache. That means you’ll need to learn new markup, as well as understand the framework well enough to get your landing pages validated and make sure they actually work.

We won’t get into the nitty-gritty of building with AMP here, but the AMP website has a bunch of resources (including tutorials) to help you get started.

Building Pages in Unbounce? No hand-coding AMP pages for you—Unbounce makes it easy to drag and drop together AMP experiences. Choose one of our AMP-optimized templates, load your content, get validated, and start publishing lightning-fast landing pages right away.

Improving your landing page speed can sound intimidating, but even small tweaks will make a big difference for your load times. Tackle the easy stuff first, then move onto more challenging fixes as you get comfortable. And above all, keep testing: seeing your improved speed results after each undertaking will give you the confidence and motivation to move forward.

Or, you know, just build with Unbounce. We automatically handle most of the speed fixes listed (or at least makes them super easy), which saves a ton of time. That means you can focus on what matters: getting more conversions and improving ROI.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/landing-pages/increase-landing-page-speed/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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