#so like... clearly my way of doing things works at getting one meaningless metric you can get on here

[medicinemane]

To be honest, seeing a post about how since binders are hand wash and that's a pain, old washboards do a good job (did I reblog that?...I forget) really kind of makes me want to get a washboard for my laundry

See... I kind of fucking hate using machines like that for some reason. Like, I don't use the dishwasher, it's so much easier for me to do it by hand (even easier if I get ahold of some good dish rags cause... when I've got a rag I can get things cleaned even quicker and easier)

Just something about the loading and unloading... doesn't work well for me

But using a washboard on the couple things I use (I mean I'm at home a lot, so I don't go through a ton of stuff), and then hanging them on one of those little... like the indoor hanging racks (which I could make if I'd just make it)... that feels easier too me

Hard to get started doing cause... it's... it's a big learning investment, not that it's complex but like... even if you... well even if I know all the steps for something, doing it the first time still is really hard and like learning, I can't say how it is for you

But like, once I started doing it and was used to it I feel like I'd do it a lot more than I'm willing to do laundry in a machine

...I don't know... just thoughts I have. Don't know why I'm like this, but I am

[scandalsavagefanfic]

did you see the tagging discourse yesterday? they really went after whumpbby

Hey there. I did see it. I wrote up a response to it but I wanted to sleep on it before I responded. I wanted to make sure I come across as informative and dispassionate as possible because emotions are already high and tempers are flaring and the last thing I want to do is fan the flames.

As far as I can tell there were three issues mentioned.

1) Explicit Content in Summaries

I think not putting explicit content in a summary is a valid suggestion. Frankly, it’s not an angle I’ve ever considered (even though I’m pretty sure none of my summaries are explicit. I’m not giving away the milk for for free. You have to click on the cow to get it 🤣). 

But I do think it’s important to remember that asking the fanfiction community as a whole to embrace this as a community standard isn’t a miraculous fix it. For starters this is an additional courtesy and I’m not sure how much fic it will actually affect, particularly in this fandom (I pretty much only read explicit fic and while there’s definitely summaries that are explicit, it’s not a particularly common issue and the OP’s example is actually not explicit and is exactly the kind of thing that should be in the summary so that you know whether the fic beyond that will trigger you or not). I’m happy to pay a little extra attention and make an effort but that by no means ensures that you won’t see explicit content in the summary. I mean, tv shows give you the rating and tags in the beginning of the episode but you still might see something explicit if you’re flipping through the stations. It’s not possible for content providers to account for every person’s individual needs. The individual has to do some of the work.  There’s not really any reason for someone to be reading an explicit summary if they’ve seen the fic is rated explicit and seen the ship is one they’re uninterested in and seen that the tags contain content they’d be uninterested in for that ship (if there are any, because people forget that further tagging is another courtesy that creators go out of their way to do to make life easier for readers - I don’t know a single writer who enjoys tagging) before they ever get to the summary at all. But still. Fine. I think that’s a good point and I’ll be going through my 80+ fics over the weekend to make sure. It’s just that readers should never expect things that are courtesies to be strictly adhered to by the entirety of the community. 

2) Tagging All Batfamily Ships as “Incest”, Regardless of Actual Content

This seems to be predicated on the misconceptions that 1) the fan-dubbed Bat “Family” is an actual family by any metric that could be considered incestuous, and 2) that this is obvious and not up for discussion.

Both of those are untrue. The Batfamily are not canonically a family whose interpersonal relationships can be considered incestuous, by blood, law, or anything else. 

If you want to interpret the text that way, there is certainly room to do so. But it is neither a fact, nor an obvious one.

The Pre-Flashpoint canon, especially for Batfam, exists in a nebulous state of “maybe applicable”. One of the few things we can be sure of, is that Dick and Tim at least, were never adopted. Tim’s parents are alive and well. Pre-Flashpoint, Dick was adopted as a gesture in his late 20′s. He’s early to mid 20′s in N52/Rebirth (for some reason people seem to think that N52 and Rebirth are different continuities. They’re not. Rebirth is a continuation of N52.)

Jason’s adoption is never explicitly addressed in current canon. So you can pick your poison.

None of them grew up together in either continuity so that argument is out.

You are welcome to read the Bats as this kind of family if you want.

But no one else has to, and there is very little evidence in current (or past) canon to suggest they are. What evidence there is, is vague and ambiguous. NOT obvious and damning. There are a million different ways to consider someone family, including both platonic and romantic.  

Finally, since it was specifically pointed out, with the lack of blood ties, if I write an AU where they one or more of them has no ties to Bruce, that’s not incest and no one should be tagging it as such.

It’s pretty weird to ask someone to tag their fic as something it’s not. It’d be like asking me to tag my angst “fluff”. I might as well tag DickKory or SuperBat “incest” while I’m at it.

Hopefully this helps clear things up. Hopefully this will help people who are triggered by incest to be able to see batfam ship tags without being triggered. If the clarification that they are not a legal or blood family in canon does not help, I am truly very very sorry and I genuinely hope you can discover what it is about those ships that actually affects you so that you can better protect yourself. But I have to tag my ships. I can’t not tag a ship so that you don’t see it, because then you might accidentally stumble across it and get much further than the tag before you know what’s happening. And I can’t tag incest because it literally is not then readers will think that I’ve written a verse where the characters are blood/legal family in some way, where the fic treats them like they have familial bonds and sexual relationship, and some of them will likely avoid it.

Appropriate tagging is important so that people who don’t want to see things don’t AND so that people can find the content they’re looking for. It’s pretty unfair to expect people to use inappropriate tags and potentially harm more people by making tags meaningless and expecting readers to guess.

(small aside, “batcest” is not an ideal tag. From personal experience, coming here from comics and having no history with this kind of fandom, I avoided things tagged Batcest because I thought, with the combination of Bat + incest, it was the ship name for Bruce/Damian and I wasn’t interested in that.)

3) Inconsiderate Reader Comments

Inappropriate comments left on fics by readers, is also a valid issue. It is also an entirely separate issue that has nothing to do with the very clearly stated primary concerns. Inconsiderate comments are an unfortunate reality of creating and sharing those creations. Unfortunately there’s no, non-fascist way of forcing people to be considerate. We all have to live with that.

We can absolutely complain about publicly on our blogs. And if you’re a gen author, with no history of certain ships, I will defend that it’s rude to pop on your fic and ask if it’s going to be that ship. Just like I will defend that it’s rude to pop on my perfectly tagged Bruce/Duke fic and try to tell me that it’s incest because Duke lived at the Manor for two weeks before moving in with his uncle. I’m sorry you have to deal with it. I’m sorry I have to deal with it. I’m sorry we all have to deal with it. But it’s not something we can stop or the people who came before us would have. So it is something that you have to be able to cope with.

As for whump, I thought she handled it well, especially in her clarification posts. The OP was obviously very emotionally invested in the subject and came off very antagonistic. I know OP doesn’t consider their suggestions unreasonable but that’s because they’re based on a fundamental misconception of canon. If DC writes a continuity where the Bats are a family in any way that would make sexual relationships between them incestuous, and if I write something for that continuity, then of course I will tag it accordingly. Asking me to tag a fic as something it isn’t, is unreasonable. It instantly makes tagging in general completely useless. Asking people to apply a catchall tag or keep explicit content out of the summaries is not intrinsically unreasonable, but expecting the entire community, regardless of how immersed in fandom the creator is, to abide by that standard in a way that provides meaningful protection for you (in that you can lower your guard in any meaningful way when you have content you need to avoid) is..... well, it’s just impractical. 

[rwmhunt]

Leviticus, chapter 27

1. Smoke.

2. Indeed, at the time, to the roles ascribed, as unto a gender,

Be it so aligned, that you wouldn't find to express by yourself

Such ways as others divined, as otherwise, you might have thought to.

For it is that they wouldn’t look the way you would mean to appear,

Nor would they be pursuant of the actions that you wouldst be undoing of;

But, tis normal to be inspired- so

Then experience revelations, and the found skills that're of being alive;

To acknowledge them and allow for their alterance as unto others irrevocably.

See, Erotion can never go back.

Her auxiliary capacious desire is here ignited and thrust.

It is this passion that both excited the lord,

and hath made of her the compulsive conclusion.

For where the lord hath giv'n unto her

Of a low forrid, owl features, a froward, evilfavouredness–

Yet, hath she a mallum, passive and usable; and of how many shekels?

We shall see.

But the freedom that hath brought me to her

Might moreover be wrought agin us.

Here, you really have to drill down on the mental illness,

As I, my own actress.

3. Come madame,

Come all the rest.

O

Shagahll ahnaaah-

Which translate here as

Escrow, usufruct,

Lo, my

Incarnate ignominy,

In relatively tepid water,

Whimsy, say, jsyk, that

She'd hair like a whip

And pretty good eyes,

And if it be a female,

By such metric

As flux the matrix, yet,

I know not who I am, Erotion,

So know me only by my appetites.

4. Only in death,

At the courts of love,

Doth a woman gain of herself

Judgement as unto crime's advantage.

And still, I mean,

They're shaken still, as unto this day. 

For that they have still not recovered

And I know not that ever they will.

I love you as

Can experience

Nothing through you

O wait, but didn't I just?

That gait, that fate, that lately

Fell to someone else's statement-

Leviticus? That you? I know why

You’ve got to focus on this sort of stuff, 

But I really think, I think really that that is not 

Where the numbers are;

I’m talking to today,

As women

Imagine their bodies

To be their own.

5. To every little girl watching tonight;

Of five years, even unto twenty,

That thy worth shouldst be as a fifth

of thy fathers-

Those men who hath brought you forth,

For as thy be their daughters,

Here to see what I will prove

Unable to do;

In the singular vow-

To shew verily

What you need

Is a system of value judgements,

Set out so, before the lord. In shekels.

And where social shame provideth not enough discipline,

Graft unto it from the rod of cultural capital-

Say, that because the Children are inherently bad,

And aware only of their denial, might they

Be tripped into taking an onus

That isn't rightly theirs, so do good by it,

Or else, bloody-minded,

They hyperchargeth the tendencies that demarkate

My eternal and internal boundaries, or,

Maybe, my babies,

It's time to join the can cult;

To get a new book-

If such be my contribution,

Then such is enough.

6. Non-mathmatical aesthetic identities,

According to the valuation, as clearly uttered-

Though it be of an accident, with a minced oath attachment,

And baked-in with wild conjecture, yet, me thinks, I heard-

Piled high, of thousands, a pressure mountain, ah,

But we have a different scribe here to the last, imho.

So Mose has handed over the keys, though, I don't know

The hand that handled the sword as his, really, either...

For here, calculators are wrought, and to the ready,

But we'll dispatch with them, it is not necessary;

Set that ceaseless bucket down.

7. And the bawling of missives, meant for one, there unto all-

The original context collapsing; grafted deep onto him in death,

Riding out his memory towards a destiny of Her own choosing, who,

By whatever generosity in prior tact the intended might have possessed,

As wouldst prove to be a benison, if brought unto the conflagration, it's lost;

Even, forced out beyond itself, and the function,

Encouraged to carve up the message unto its own ends,

Where the loss of context is pulled out of its context and loved.

8. The imposition of women,

A short for sacrifice of well-being,

As She, ultimately, makes sacrifice of herself for her appetites,

But, de gustibus, in grafting them unto her in death,

So She truly hath lived, there be no defeat-

And riding forth her memory towards a hell of her own choosing,

As to scrutinise the system, adequately substantiates it's requirement-

Thy confirmation, by corroboration with a backward-thinking;

Too poor to be valued, a daylight over static water,

O whimsy,

That a priest should find a way with,

What’s lower than an afterthought?

I don't remember.

9. Is death hell?  Sheol? A well

Avernus, tartarus, hades,

A shale shell,

Too deep to see the stars from?-

Doth your bird speake?

Not as a rule, but as

A narratal tool-

10. Exchanges are not to be made,

Lo. but if they, yet so; then holy be-

I heard she'd words with the chatty rat,

That as earn you side-eye from fellow travellers-

Nae, twas just a flurry of feathers,

Like pigeons who momentarily flummox eachother

Into a figment of a fox, by misreading of the other's,

Otherwise meaningless, sudden motion;

So only as you are;

Never shall thy speake.

11. And should a priest do as he be bid,

And look the gift horse lowly, well,

He hath abused his powers,

And abusers are cowards,

Feared of their just desserts,

Should they try to revert

To a precedent

That's slumpt, inert,

And just is.

12.  To drop the eyes, so take

the focus off the waiting.

One handed,

Straineth, and,

Before I lose my medical status,

Make a mimesis to

The viability-shield

Of barrier nursing.

13. And there was an evening

When she cursed,

Turned white overnight-

Not even only just her hair.

And it ran on for days,

Days as months

That aged like years;

So, acuity straid,

Don't say impaired-

We just hang on.

14. In unspoken dotage,

She ordered a home report unto

My eternal and internal boundaries,

As global eyes be a-watching you;

In real time, you can't go back.

Lo, not like that you can't-

Details fetishized, or forgot,

And writes that she loves Jhwh,

Using an exclamation point to add an extra emphasis.

- I don't think I need to do anything else.

- I don't think I do either.

Alright then.

I'm saved, as while outside,

The world is raging,

As global eyes swell watching you,

The forgotten who fell from the storm;

Here, you really have to have a drill-down on the mental ills.

15. Yet after all the work, the depth,

I do think now only of numbers;

Where are the convolutions

That a life as this requires?

Lo, but my cut please.

16. Out to the field, the trap, she went,

Lifting the flap

From the batter'd tent,

The old vhs player, the old liniments,

Tinctures, unguents, hartshorn, clinked,

One silver shekel, minted anew,

Glinting from a box of screws,

Fungus sprung from a seam in the pattern,

Tins of yam and of sacred beans,

A scientologist's half-filled-in questionnaire,

Some garden tools, a dressing gown,

The buried bones, exhumed again,

The climbing harness, the bathroom rug,

The old kitchen table, stained with blood-

A water-damaged iliad upon it, still,

As everything was- quite sodden.

17. So, by visitation,

To or from Aunt Miriam

That changes were rung

Within the domestic routine,

Being within walking distance

To the Post Office

And from what comes of the tent of meaning.

18. Lo, for she loved her processes

As a kind of glockenspiel

And when arose opportunity,

Tinked it for the rest of us

- That it ran through us all-

A thimble's klang; O Jubilee.

19. If tears are the understanding of grief,

Then differential can be deferential,

- But do not let Miriam be led

Like a baby that is born dead,

As dead things that never were,

With a body that is only half there,

To be wondered of a second childhood-

So here Mose crows, plied to a strain

Unknown in the voice, alone,

- Please Lord, make her well!

And there was no water for the congregation.

20. And went down

Through Joppa

To watch the waves rolling in,

21. And Erotion ascribed unto each,

Meaning,

22. And farther out

Were many waves

That couldn't be

determined,

As everything that

Has already been said.

23. Yet Erotion still tried,

And was always happy

With her answers,

And so was I.

24. Where tiny grains of hail

Should swell into orbiting moons,

And pull at bodies,

And make wider water move,

That might be discerned

And distanced, and rifled for meaning

As mere memorandum.

25. That you may not break the speed limit

Does not mean you may not run,

Whence, from one chair

In her kitchen,

She may not push

The boundary of human thought

Where she may yet

Press of her own;

26. And rising, she taketh a step,

The like which is more of a push from the back

Than a reaching with the front

Of such manner as Dr Molock wouldst

Consider to be good; nevertheless,

She doth so switcheth on the radio

And is met with applause.

27. Theory of relativity ran thus-

Trained to shoot missed rounds at centre-mass,

Against the retroviral doctrine of lache's mutinous strikes;

A high-stress phase, where stakes hit low-calibre bystander.

But when she read, of the self-help book,

That no sense could thus be made,

Where each of the examples

Suffered a circumstance

Different to him,

She deemed.

28. Notwithstanding no devoted thing

Being here redeemed, evangelicals,

The difference between being washed over,

And taking something up from the wash-

And coming back with it, and thence,

holding it to a burthen, is easy to see, 

Only after.

29. Ransom and be gored,

As all masacres, undertaken

To guarantee the peace;

So let the bodies pile high: 

Same customs revolved, same characters.

You can take his horn-torn shirt unto thy sister;

That she was tough as old eggs,

In returning from the engine room;

Unctioned only; as still alive;

The perpetual repair.

30. Finally Miriam,

Over the hill,

Rose out

From the face of family impasse,

Repurposed the old

To adapt to the current;

Rode forth

To the corner,

In  'de Gustibus,-

The Solid Scran Van',

She says she means of herself

A safety net, to be

The wheel in the street,

31. And looketh up to see

God's face in the moon

Or whatever it was

That can't be drawn

And I won't be drawn.

32. As round the tent entrance

of a palace of cloud, plastered in doubloons,

And cannot be kept from my imagination,

And what I perseve is right lively to the world-

Das ding und sich and such and but;

For I'll be the judge of that, and to my bias-

Whatsoever cloys under the great varnisher,

Who layers the crack in the camel's back,

That yet, we all must press low under,

In sweetness and/or in revulsion,

Where we too are fallible, still

The lord must only be cute.

Lo, but i hold no decree

And yet am repulsed

By vitric surfactants.

33. A relationship, broken in three places,

Months after a tremendously successful campaign cycle,

Where I, a simple volunteer, am accused

Of such stuff as I do not do, while the A.B.C.

Confirmeth or annuls the meaning,

With one Boeing E-6B Mercury flying off the East Coast;

With another high over Oregon- lo, practically,

Laws are abstract,

And will not bend

To their being wrong,

When unto him a dybbuk,

And; the series is severed,

The characters gone.

Don't look.

Gives you memories.

34. So be.

- For, it's that we're made

Of an edible stuff, mulled the steer.

-Nae, for I ate my piglets and now

I'm glad of it, said the sow;

Lo.

-All's well.

[vroenis]

When The Best You Can Do Is Shoot A Gun

The Animal Crossing / Doom Eternal Covid19 launch coincidentally seems to be related to this discussion, even tho I’d say Doom Eternal has an excellent combat system and isn’t really relevant to what I’m going to bring up. I don’t have a problem with shooty-shooty, I have purchased, played and will continue to purchase and play plenty of video games that engage with firearm violence. There are plenty of discussions about how intelligent, consenting adults can do this without any problems and I won’t retread them here. Doom is simple game themed vaguely around demons; demons bad, player protagonist good, good player shoot bad demons - OK you got it, apply an incredible movement system into that and enjoy.

What I want to discuss involves of-course that pesky word and idea nuance, which annoys the shit out of more people these days, for its applications and misapplications - fingers-crossed I don’t fuck it up, but first I want to bring up Ubisoft and systems, so now’s as good a place as any for a stolen picture from the internet.

As far as concept art goes, that’s actually very representative of the final product in-game.

Ubisoft appear to have a long-term open-world tech development objective. I believe at some point very soon, these individual objectives will converge into one single middleware product with a mandate to producce retail licenses that combine what each of these individual franchises have been testing and achieving in isolation, those being;

Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint: 3rd person Load-On-Demand

The Division: 3rd Person Cover and interactivity

Assassin’s Creed: Environmental mapping and interactivity

Starlink: Scaling Load-On-Demand

Far Cry: First Person implementation of various combinations of above

I’ll put it another way;

Ghost Recon: Load everything

The Division: stick to everything

Assassin’s Creed: climb everything

Starlink: scale everything

Far Cry: do it in first person perspective

It looks like all of these games are running in Ubisoft in-house proprietary engines. Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed are running in Anvil, developed for the very first Assassin’s game and in which the Prince of Persia 2008 and Forgotten Sands also ran in. Oddly, (Rainbow Six) Seige, Steep (lol) and For Honor are also running in Anvil.

Both Division games and Starlink are running in Snowdrop and this appears to be due to The Division having come from Massive Entertainment. I’ll be honest, from the perspective of a consumer (read: punter) and someone with extremely minimal 3rd-hand development experience, The Division looks far more impressive than both the Ghost Recon and Assasin’s games, and former Massive brand and art director Rodrigo Cortes has said of the engine that it was design to “do things  better not bigger” and I think it shows. Anyway, it was still developed with Ubisoft so as I understand it, they own it. Massive is a Ubisoft subsidiary, their studio based in Sweden.

Far Cry is going to be a little different, being a little older and having its roots slightly before... what shall we call this mess... the cynical age? The microtransaciton age? Anyway. The first game used the CryEngine developed by Crytek. At some point, Ubisoft seemed to develop an offshoot of the engine called Dunia because the CryEngine was licensed and clearly lucrative, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but Dunia does appear to remain in-house and under the auspices of Ubisoft Montreal. Where am I going with all this?

Starlink was “toys to life” a-la Skylanders but way too late, combined with No Man’s Sky-lite, but the game itself other than being overstuffed with Ubisoft copy-and-paste template-quests is an excellent proof of concept.

I do need to say that in general, I don’t have any particular affinity for Ubisoft. So I am yes, absolutely fascinated with something I do think is happening as far as tech goes and now I’m writing about it in this piece, and yes you can tell I’ve played and even enjoyed some of the games they’ve produced and published, but there’s a lot not to like about many of their practices, the least of which is the overbearing sense of cynicism pervasive in many of their games.

I played Far Cry 3 long after it released and got perhaps 20% thru the campaign before giving up entirely. For starters, nothing about how it controlled felt right and I appreciate that’s purely a personal preference. Being a Battlefield player, there’s something about DICE’s sense of locomotion that is perfect to me, even tho it varies from title to title from Bad Company 2 all the way to V most recently. Other things about Far Cry bother me tho - if there’s wildlife around, it always attacks the player, guaranteed. Everything about this game seems to be designed to force the player into engagement, to provide you with materials to collect, craft or sell, but also to run you short of ammunition to either scrounge for more or have to buy it because *surprise* - it prompts you to purchase ammunition for real-world money. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Fuck off. I uninstalled the game immediately. I can deal with ridiculous AI with magical aim and irrational scripting. I can deal with absurd narrative for the sake of reading (and roasting later), but the entire package culminating in purchasing more ammunition was otherworldly, it was truly bizarre. To this day, I don’t understand what world Ubisoft inhabits that this is something that makes sense to anyone in management or marketing, and yet there it is and there are consumers that not only accept it but embrace it. No doubt there are metrics from the mobile industry that support it and dear lord the capitalist apocalypse is upon us.

What will Ubisoft do when they can merge these technologies? They definitely want to and likely already have in-house, they just need the engine to run client-side for the Consumer. You and I and Inside Gaming are all laughing it up at Stadia right now, but we’re at the wrong end of the business. For Ubisoft, they can ignore the faltering at the start, it’s the long-term they focus on. The pittance Google are losing now, even if they end-up shuttering the project will be meaningless if they end-up getting the hardware to work, even if the end-result is the hardware sitting in a box in the consumer’s home in 10 years. Sure, that’s a long loop, but the journey still doesn’t matter, only the eventual ROI.

If this piece hasn’t gotten boring for you yet, it’s about to because you’re probably excited for what Ubisoft will do with this impending technological power and development and I rally am not. What will Ubisoft do with it? Probably just more Assassin’s Creed, except you’ll be able to snap to cover and have a fully mapped country. Probably more The Division, but you’ll have a fully mapped city that you can also climb on the outside of buildings and then enter them without any loading. Probably more Far Cry but with bigger maps and more interactivity and less loading. The next generation of consumer hardware consoles from Microsoft and Sony are upon us and as much as PC enthusiasts hate to admit it, the consumer market is largely gated by the generational hardware stepping of these platforms. That may change after this era depending on how Google, Amazon and indeed Microsoft and Sony go with cloud computing, but for the moment the status-quo will remain as alternative products develop. Bear in mind with Covid19, climate change and the general sustainability and ethical standards of working and living being under growing scrutiny the world over, things are changing more each day, our technology development may change in ways we don’t expect so who even knows what’s in store for the future.

So What Do I Actually Want?

Good question. NB: before you ask, Animal Crossing isn’t my thing. I played it years ago on Gamecube. It’s cute, it’s fine. I’ve no interest in it. I’m writing this note in retrospect because I realise you may say “Just play Animal Crossing or The Sims but hopefully I can illustrate by neither of those games is what I’m after, nor do I just want to build a house in something like No Man’s Sky and fill it with crap. Let’s see if I get there... A few weeks ago I wrote about how the best thing Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 4 was Elena and Nathan’s domestic spaces. I did purchase The Division 2 on the cheap a couple of weeks ago and I’ll be honest, there’s a lot about it that I’m enjoying quite a bit. For a start, visually it’s stunning. The art team have done an excellent job of both filling the world with immense detail, but also making every area of Washington unique and distinct which is a huge feat given the total space covered. Thus far, I’ve spent a whole lot of time just walking around and gathering resources, in part just to sightsee and explore without any particular objective in mind. After a while, I got the impression that the map was a bit flat, but the more you explore, the more you find places where you get verticality, and then doing missions always adds verticality and variety in environmental and art design, it’s a marvel to see.

Apologies to James and Thomas (above) for ripping these images, but I’m glad your names are in frame so you have direct credit - outstanding work. The art in this game is without question its strongest element.

And that’s just the thing - The Division is an interesting game in that what I enjoy most is the sense of walking around exploring, gather resources and helping people. I’m not here on an anti-violence kick - I play Battlefield, I actually don’t mind the shooting in The Division, it’s fine, whatever, I’m not going to justify that. What I’m saying is that it gets boring.

THERE ARE A LOT OF GAMES ABOUT SHOOTING.

Like... a lot. More than enough. There will always be a lot of games about shooting and that’s fine. I think I’ll always play them. Hey, I even play games about shooting *in very specific ways* - it’s not like I don’t care about the shooting, I’m playing The Division with only a bullpup DMR and shotgun combo, plus I’m trying to use my sidearm when traversing the streets as much as possible so don’t at me, I’m in the game.

But we seem to mostly get high detail assets in games with guns because shooty games get all the money. I get it - shooty games get all the sales because we as gamers like to play them - sure, I’m one of them, but I didn’t buy The Division until it was under AUD$30 because gotdam the shooting is so boring and even now yes, it really do be just more boring shooting, just like it’s boring in Uncharted, just like it’s boring in Ghost Recon (my goooooood so boring), just like it is in Destiny, and the umpteenth shooty mcshooty game. I’m getting too old for this.

Uncharted 4 had an opportunity to do something more and it almost did. For many players, it probably achieved enough of what I was after by those two visits to the Fisher and North residences but I wanted so much more of that. I want to see Sully’s house or houses, more of his life. I want to know where Chloe’s life is at. I want to know of their lives and emotional engagements outside of the frankly stupid narrative I have no interest in because it’s clearly stupid and an excuse for running and jumping that other games have since done better. If Uncharted as a whole was a subtext for character, then by the fourth game, the focus should have been the characters that carried the series thru to the end - no disrespect to Tom Baker - not the heretofore unrevealed older brother.

For Years I Didn’t Know “Walking Simulator” Was A Pejorative

I think this is why I replayed and continue to replay Dear Ester so much. I remember laughing my ass off at YouTubers making videos about how it wasn’t a game and that it didn’t have objectives. Yet there were still threads and might still be on reddit or Discord wherever gamers congregate these days - about “virtual tourism” and “just chillin’ in place x because it’s so awesome” etc. It’s fine, each generation will rediscover virtual tourism again and again and we can’t denigrate anyone for doing so, it’s certainly nothing we invented given it comes from literature and oral tradition before that, but it’s remarkable that there’s this resistance to experiences crafted purely for the purposes of being immersed in them.

I adore Dear Ester and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture. Absolutely loved What Remains Of Edith Finch and only if you have already played Edith Finch, because it’s full of spoilers but also its own spoiler warnings, I heartily recommend Joseph Anderson’s outstanding video The Villain of Edith Finch. It’s a 53 minute watch so I won’t embed it, and he has a certain style of presentation that won’t gel with everyone, nor do I always agree with everything he says which should go without saying but at some point folks, you have to stop pursuing art, criticism and media that just wholly aligns with your own views. That said, I generally do find most of what he says agreeable, innit. Anyway he’s great and the video is great.

While Dear Esther is more surreal and Rapture and Edith Finch are in part slightly more fantastical than the real-life settings of Uncharted 4′s home and Division’s post-apocalyptic cities, they all visually represent dense, very human object-rich spaces that to me are quite interesting to explore. Dear Esther might be a little more rooted in nature but its human elements tie-in to its narrative in an extremely interesting way. Each game offers different levels of interaction, some that serve the narrative directly, some as subtexts and others quite mildly in the periphery.

I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself but I remember seeing a promo for Battlefield Hardline coming off the back of Battlefield 4 and the ridiculous marketing phrase “levolution” - the term they coined for large-scale environmental destruction (please take the keys away from the marketing department). I remember seeing video footage of a large construction crane falling in a level and thinking

“All this intelligence, all this tech, and this is what we do with it? Is this all we can achieve? This is it?”

That’s how I feel about this emerging technology. Somewhere out there (on YouTube, to be fair), there’s all this footage buried of the Beyond Good And Evil sequel that to everyone’s knowledge is still in development. I’d put my money on that being the first project built in Ubisoft’s convergence engine that they hope successfully implements everything that each of these games executes individually. I know the BG&E fans are frothing for it and when I saw those early demos, what I interpret of the tech did blow me away, but from an experience perspective, I did still think the same thing...

“Is this it?”

Because of-course, a huge part of the new game is going to be combat. I just - don’t - care. When I think about what was lacking in Uncharted 4, what I wanted more of, it was intimacy. What didn’t I like about the conversation and resolution between Elena and Nathan? About the tours of their homes, the little time spent playing as Cassie, the few insights into Sully as a character, the absence of Chloe who was such a great contrast to Nathan, Elena and Sully all-together... it was intimacy. Yea oroight, so I don’t exactly mean the type of real-life intimacy between lovers, do I - that much is clear. But if I don’t mean shooty because there’s enough of that, and I’m leaning into domestic detail and emotional exploration and reflections of that in objects, spaces and interactivity, then that’s what I mean.

Tho I’m loath to bring it up, I feel like in the worst possible way, David Cage is right on the periphery of this discussion (and for that reason, I ain’t tagging him or his games in this entry, get fucked). He has the most vague notion of trying to ground his games in the intimacy of human experience, so he tries to tie human locomotion and objects to the digital representations of interactivity. If we take those as perhaps the worst possible examples and then come back to some really good examples in Uncharted 4 so I can stop whipping it - I maintain that the house tours are strengths and the high-points of the game, and then look at something like The Division and consider opportunities for more complex interactivity centred around helping people and emotional engagement, I feel like that’s what I’m after.

Which is impossible, right? No-one’s going to make a game even a quarter of the scope of The Division, with all that amazing dynamic lighting, with all those awesome textures and mapped objects, animations, rigged character models, complex scripting and AI, interactivity, load-on-demand tech and full voice-talented support, just to be a game about exploring, sightseeing, meeting and learning about people and helping them? Because who would play that?

I would, for a start.

[bihansthot]

Here's a personal set of questions for you if you don't mind me asking. 1. What got you into writing? 2. Has there ever been a point in your life where you felt like you're writing wasn't good by any means? Are there times you still feel like that? 3. What have you done/what do you do to remedy those negative thoughts and feelings? 4. If you had to give a definition based on personal experiences, how would you define the meaning of life?

1. What got me into writing is that I tend to fall for characters very few people write about. My Polar Bear is a perfect example of this, I have been in love with this gloriously arrogant cryomancy since I was 8. EIGHT YEARS OLD, for reference I am 35. Sadly there’s not a lot of smut out there that has Bi-Han as the main focus, at least not in comparison to say Kuai Liang, so I just kind of decided well screw it, I’ll do it then.

2. I mean starting out I think everyone feels that way at first. I started writing little stories and ideas probably around 10, which led to creating original characters in the fandoms I love, which is where Ice my MK OC came from, she was a result of just playing around and acting out Mortal Kombat role playing with my best friend. I probably didn’t start writing actual fanfics until I was at least in late high school, I didn’t think it was great but my friends enjoyed my stories and encouraged me, so while it’s come and gone over the years writing is something ai keep coming back to.

Do I still feel like that? Hahahaha all the freaking time. That feeling never goes away, not for me any rate and I know I can probably get irritating about it, but I honestly have no self confidence in anything in life, let alone my writing. It’s something I really, really sugggle with, I’ve mentioned it a bit in the past, but I’ve been pretty mentally and emotionally beat down by the people who are supposed to encourage you my whole life and that definitely leaves a lastinf impact l. I unfortunately seek approval and praise from others, because it’s something I desperately want and never get. So, if I get needy about likes, reblogs or comments I want everyone to know this is the reason, I need to know it’s ok to keep doing what ai enjoy doing, it’s not just me wanting my ego stroked. I still get nervous anytime I post something and feel like I’m constantly waiting for someone to drop a nasty note in my inbox telling me to stop writing because my work is terrible and I clearly have no idea what I’m doing.

3. I’m not good at doing anything about it if I’m being perfectly honest. I beat myself up constantly, so trying to get over those negative feelings is something that’s really challenging for me. I do try and remind myself that I do this for Bi-Han as cheesy as that is, I do it because I love him so freaking much he deserves all the love and recognition he can get. I also tend to go back through my work and look at my note count and try and give myself a pep talk, try and convince myself to post something because at least one person asked for it or liked it. Honestly my followers and mutuals are my biggest source of strength when it comes to that sort of thing, so I thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. Failing any of that I get drunk and cry at @fromthewifecage until she makes everything better. 😘

4. Life is meaningless bullshit and a metric fuck ton of unfair with a heaping side if I deserved better. lol Sorry to be so blunt, but I’ve had a really difficult, shitty life. I’ve undergone more than 20 open heart surgeries before the age of 14, the first being when I was three hours old and they had to operate to turn my heart around because my ventricals were on the wrong sides and failing, at 14 I had a heart transplant which flipped my world upside down and absolutely robbed me of any of the good qualities I had as a kid because I was bullied nonstop for my scars, my medications made me pack on about 60 pounds in a year, so I was constantly bullied and harassed for that too. It didn’t stop there though, I developed PTSD from the trauma of the surgery, was diagnosed with clinical depression and accurate anxiety and never received proper help for it because my Mother is so narcissistic she made all my surgeries and hardships about her. She also was so kind as to force me to develop an eating disorder around 17, because I was so desperate for her to love me the way she loved my brothers. At 15 I had my gallbladder removed, 22 was my wisdom teeth, 29 was my last major surgery which was replacing my tricuspid heart valve. Now I still struggle with all my mental illnesses, an unhealthy relationship with food and have really bad anemia due to my kidneys starting to fail from my transplant meds, yay iron infusions I guess? So, it’s been a rough road and I don’t have a lot to look forward to, I’m too sick to work now, so pretty much all I have is the MK fandom. Even though there’s all my personal shit going on, I still feel like I am so grateful for all the wonderful friends I’ve make in this community and just want to thank you guys for loving and embracing me back.

Hopefully somewhere in my ramblings I actually answered your questions @whatamidoingwithmylifeman , thanks for asking. 😊

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I think it’s more to do with the fundamental structure of the site. People on Tumblr want notice too (it’s a microblogging site), but the way it works is so fundamentally different from most other sites. First, while there is a ‘you might like...’ recommended post function, it’s really minor and doesn’t have much of an effect; in places like twitter, massive engagement is necessary to gain notice, so if people post, they want interaction that drives *their* engagement metrics, rather than having it ‘stolen’ my a retweeter, and they assume that Tumblr tags and reblogs work the same way. They don’t. They absolutely don’t.

On Tumblr, a post getting noticed is more of a distributed effort. Primarily, people engage with posts on the blogs they follow; engagement metrics are completely meaningless except in the sense that more reblogs mean the post is on more blogs (and therefore has a bigger audience). Replies and likes are like nice little communications with friends, but people who do want others to see their posts care primarily about one thing -- reblogs. On Tumblr, unless the message is clearly meant to be private (like someone venting about a bad day), the nicest thing you can do is reblog. If you want credit, you want reblogs.

Tags are a bit more subtle, but the way we use them is also born out of Tumblr’s structure. People started talking in the tags because it was the only way to hold a conversation on a post that wasn’t permanent. If you add a comment to a post, it’s part of the reblog chain, and back when this site still had that stupid line quote layout that rendered posts unreadable after a handful of comments, it was pretty fucking rude to make a post less readable just to say “This!!” or “I saw this same thing at the supermarket” or something. Posts are more readable now, but post length is still an issue; long posts are considered a pain to some users and not read as often, so people don’t want to reblog with comments, as the site is designed to be used, unless they have something to say that’s a) worth the clutter and b) that they want people outside their immediate followers to see. Tags are comments to your followers; adding onto a reblog is a permanent addition. So if people want to make a little joke to their followers, or a personal comment, it goes in the tags; if they want to add to the conversation in an enduring way, it’s added to the post in a reblog.

(Tumblr has a post comment function, but very few people use it unless they want to say something specifically to the OP, because it’s shit. Tags and reblogs serve the intended function of post comments far better than post comments do.)

So that’s the cultural base, and that leads directly to the ‘peer review’ that above posters have mentioned. When people see hilarious tags, of course they want to add them to the post, either to respond or so that others can see them. This means that people who want to add something permanently to the post, but who want to make it look like it was intended as an aside to followers or who don’t want to look arrogant/intrusive about it, can put it in the tags and hope that a follower finds it funny enough to ‘how dare you leave this in the tags’ them. (There’s nothing wrong or underhanded about this, it’s perfectly normal social communication.) The thing about this particular method of addition is, it removes the identity of the original tag poster. In some circles it seems polite to @ the tagger to ID them, or to be like “tags from X”, but this isn’t the norm; it’s usually accepted that if someone adds your tags on, you’re anonymous unless you respond and ID yourself by implication. To a twitter user, this looks like engagement theft. To a Tumblr user, it’s a cultural norm.

Keeping someone’s tags when you reblog is just a temporary/private version of adding them to the main post. Saying ‘I found this funny enough to keep but I also don’t want to clutter the post itself’. This is why it’s considered normal here, but outsiders might find it rude -- we’re used to making concessions for usability on Tumblr and accept that this is a way to pass on something funny to a small group, whereas users of other sites are still thinking in terms of engagement metrics leading directly to them in ways that don’t apply here.

idk how this "prev tags" nonsense got started but i promise you i am not following a breadcrumb trail to find out what those tags were. if they're that funny then share them with the class in a reblog like a normal clown this isn't twitter

[droneseco]

AGM M7: The Unsmashable Anti-Smartphone

AGM M7

7.50 / 10

Read Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Shop Now

The AGM M7 is a budget semi-smartphone that is almost unbreakable and looks like something from the pre-smartphone era but offers much more. Those looking for a smartphone experience will be disappointed, but those looking for something unique will find this hybrid beast compelling.

Specifications

Brand: AGM

Storage: 8GB

CPU: MediaTek MT6739

Memory: 1GB

Operating System: Android 8.1 (Custom)

Battery: 2500mAh (TYP), removable

Ports: USB2.0 Type-C

Camera (Rear, Front): 2M/0.3M

Display (Size, Resolution): 2.4inch QVGA Touch Panel

Pros

Almost unbreakable

Battery lasts 4 days and is replaceable

Incredibly loud speaker

Dual-SIM and expandible with SD card

Cons

No Play Store or Google Account integration

Typing is clunky

Facebook, Tiktok and Browser apps poorly implemented

Buy This Product

AGM M7 other

Shop

// Bottom var galleryThumbs1 = new Swiper('.gallery-thumbs-1', { spaceBetween: 10, slidesPerView: 10, freeMode: true, watchSlidesVisibility: true, watchSlidesProgress: true, centerInsufficientSlides: true, allowTouchMove: false, preventClicks: false, breakpoints: { 1024: { slidesPerView: 6, } }, }); // Top var galleryTop1 = new Swiper('.gallery-top-1', { spaceBetween: 10, allowTouchMove: false, loop: true, preventClicks: false, breakpoints: { 1024: { allowTouchMove: true, } }, navigation: { nextEl: '.swiper-button-next', prevEl: '.swiper-button-prev', }, thumbs: { swiper: galleryThumbs1 } });

Smartphones complement modern living. Their bright touch input displays bring endless media sources from hundreds of apps right into our pockets. If smartphones are less robust and have shorter battery lives than the mobile phones that preceded them, the trade-offs seem worth it.

The AGM M7 begs to differ. At first glance, it seems like the anti-smartphone. A rugged brick that harks back to the pre-smartphone era with big touch buttons, a replaceable battery that lasts 4 days, and an IP 69k rating all for just shy of $100.

However, this phone isn't a complete throwback, as it features a modified version of Android 8.1, and its color display is also a small touchscreen. Oh, and it also has a massive 3.5-watt speaker on the back.

The AGM M7 is a strange but wonderful, loud and unbreakable, semi-smart phone, but is it right for you?

AGM M7: First Impressions

The defining feature of AGM phones is their rugged, almost unbreakable design, and the M7 is no different. For its form factor, it is large. At 14 cm tall it's a hair shorter than a Google Pixel 4a, but it's almost 2cm thick. It's chunky.

This size accommodates big, tactile buttons and a textured, easy-to-grip exterior. You also get a user-definable button on the left side along with a top-mounted LED torch - which makes it a much more practical prospect than regular smartphone flashlights.

Glass screens can still be a point of failure for rugged phones, so a smaller area of glass overall is probably an advantage for the M7. It does have cameras, but we'll come back to those later, as the defining feature is the 3.5-watt rear speaker. I've never seen anything like this on a phone before, but the prospect of a super loud ringer that can be heard even over machinery or foul weather will be a draw to many.

The battery compartment is well designed. After removing the cover, you are presented with another composite plastic seal protecting the battery, which is removable.

Removable batteries in a rugged phone are something to get excited about, but it does also come with a problem that we'll cover later in the review.

It's Android, but Not as You Know It

The paired down version of Andoird 8.1 that comes with the M7 supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and use as a hotspot for other devices. It also features versions of WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, Skype, and Zello, along with some stock apps for calendar, clock, sound recording, and an FM radio. There is no play store, so what comes on the phone is what you get, and some things work a little better than others.

Unusually for an Android device, you can't sign in to your Google account, making it hard to bring contacts with you and sync the calendar without using a USB connection or storing data on your SIM card.

This is likely a product of the simplified Android build, but outside of that things like connectivity and setup feel identical to standard android.

How Rugged Is Now?

The AGM is IP69k rated, which means it is completely sealed from dust ingress, waterproof up to 2 meters underwater, and capable of taking drops of up to 2m. It's also functional from -20C to 60C.

In drop tests the M7 was solid. It took a few scrapes and a small dent to the speaker grate, but the phone never flinched or restarted when dropped. The battery cover would fly off sometimes, but the second cover kept the battery safe and in place.

The phone also survived being "forgotten" in a lake, used as a mud shovel, and being thrown around by a rampaging toddler for the best part of a day.

The phone also claims the MIL-STD-810H standard, which sounds fancy but doesn't actually have anything to do with the military directly, and is so unregulated that it's a meaningless metric of toughness.

However, it's not really an issue, as AGM takes ruggedness seriously. It's the hallmark of their phones and once again it seems like they've nailed it. This phone would survive things that I would not.

What's Good About the AGM M7?

On the surface, the AGM M7 is a simple phone designed to have a good battery life, take an absolute beating, and make a lot of noise. It does all of these things perfectly, and a phone that feels like a pre-smartphone era handset with WhatsApp, Skype and the Zello push-to-talk app (with the side button as transmit by default) is a good fit.

The top-mounted LED is bright and its position makes it an actually useful torch compared to other phones. Even when locked, a long press of the zero key toggles the torch, and the keypad is useable even with thick gloves.

The speaker is very loud, doesn't distort even at high volumes, and gives as close to a rounded sound as is possible for something this size.

The charging dock is a useful addition, though it is an optional extra available for a further $9.90 from AGM, and my M7 came with a fairly decent set of budget waterproof Bluetooth headphones made by JBL and AGM in tandem. I'm not sure if these come with every purchase, but it was a nice touch.

What's Bad About the AGM M7?

The Camera. In general. Low-quality cameras paired with low-fidelity color screens were little more than a gimmick when they emerged over a decade ago, and this is no different. It could be functional as a way of taking quick notes in good lighting, but nothing more.

The removable battery is a great idea and I applaud AGM for making it work in an IP69k rated phone. The only problem is that there doesn't appear to be any way to get spare batteries from AGM. They aren't listed on their website, and their EU aftersales website gives a 404 error. I'm sure that AGM will be able to provide them but at the time of recording this review, I haven't received a reply to the email I sent to the service team - though it has only been a few days.

No Play Store or Google account integration might seem a bad thing to you, but in fairness, the M7 does advertise this fact on the purchase page. The M7's failings don't come from what it lacks. Instead, they are the product of poorly integrating what is there. I'm not fully convinced that the smarter elements of this phone went through much development at all.

You Can Browse, But You Won't Enjoy It

When mobile phones initially began adding basic browsers to their firmware, they were a nice idea in principle, but functionally near unusable. Fifteen years on, the M7 falls into this trap for different reasons.

The browser works for basic searches, and you can even log in to your email services, watch YouTube, and enable desktop mode for logging into various services. The issue here is the screen. It's just too small and low resolution to really work. Pair with that the fact that the browser requires frequent use of the touch screen to access some buttons and selections, and it quickly becomes something you'd only use in a real pinch.

The same is true of the TikTok and Facebook apps: fine ideas in principle but not much fun to use with the small screen and keypad combination.

Demon Texters of the 90s Will Be Disappointed

Typing, in general, is painful on this phone. Now I'm sure some of you are thinking "of course it is, it's a keypad." That's fair.

But, to people of a certain age, keypad typing was the norm. When I was a teenager a seemingly revolutionary technology called T9 predictive texting made writing messages much faster. Instead of picking each letter individually, you could tap each letter key once, and the phone would predict words from the possible letter combinations and put them in place, allowing you to change it after the fact when it got it wrong.

The M7 does have word suggestions, but they pop up after the fact and it doesn't have any single keypad pressing input. I'm aware that this may not be an issue to some folks - T9 was popular for a relatively small slice of time, some older folks never adopted it, and some younger folks won't have even heard of it.

I can only assume this was the case in the AGM team, as when comparing the typing user experience with phones released 20 years ago, it is a massive step backward and a missed opportunity. T9 emulation for Android already exists, I don't know why it's missing here.

If there is one general flaw to this phone, it is the implementation of Android it uses. It is clearly still biased towards the touch screen and the keypad suffers as a result. This is no problem when using the M7 like an old-school mobile phone, it just makes the smart elements feel a little clunky overall. The thing is, once you've settled your expectations, even these seemingly glaring flaws don't matter much.

Criticizing elements of the M7 doesn't change the overall experience - one I did not expect to enjoy but thoroughly did, and still do.

AGM M7: The Verdict

It became clear while making this review that a phone with one foot in the mobile phone era and one in the smartphone era is never going to be able to stand up to either one individually, especially sitting at the $100 price point.

After a couple of days, the flaws were mostly forgotten, and this hybrid monster of a phone began to make sense. It's not going to replace a smartphone, and I'm not even convinced it would make a good phone for non-tech savvy folks or the elderly, but I'm still using it, and I think it comes down to what the M7 offers.

For some folks, limitations are liberating. We've grown accustomed to always having the digital world in our grasp, and it can be especially difficult to drag yourself from it when you are a freelancer with no concept of a healthy workday!

For the 9 days I reviewed this phone, I carried my smartphone turned off as well just in case I needed it. It turns out I didn't, and after day 3 I didn't even miss it. The AGM M7 takes away everything, then adds back a few things you need. Yes the Tiktok and Facebook integrations are clunky and yes the browser and text input is a mess, but it's functional enough to use in a pinch.

I've loaded albums onto into the memory that I meant to get round to listening to years ago, actually selectively downloaded podcasts rather than just listen to whatever is just there. I have relatively quickly let go of the feeling that I need to document every interesting aspect of life with photos I'll likely never even look at again.

It's nice to not worry about battery life, it's nice to know I can just throw it in my pack and head out riding, running, or even wild swimming, and know that not only will the phone be ok, but that checking emails, Slack or wasting time on Reddit aren't even viable options despite having a fully connected Android phone with me.

It's not a retro throwback, but it's not quite a smartphone either. The AGM M7 is unique, and for some people, it represents the balance they desire. I've no idea if AGM had this in mind when they threw this insane combination of features into a phone - but it works for me.

AGM M7: The Unsmashable Anti-Smartphone published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[kingdomofthelogos]

The Battle of Joy

Read Nehemiah 8

It is okay for you to have joy. Know in your heart that your God is the very God of joy, and He desires for you to have joy; furthermore, God gives you permission to have joy.  The Master of Creation spoke the world into existence that it would be good, beautiful, and even filled with joy. Horribly, the possessive spirit attempting to destroy our culture desires for us to be sad, demoralized, and depressed. It comes, seizing and convulsing our culture as it demands for us to surrender before its accusations and be miserable. It wants us to feel guilty for unreasonable things beyond our control. Despite this, we have the great alternative that is the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Although now we do not see Him in His fullness, when we are believing in Him we may rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. There are many spiritual battles going on right now, but we must not lose the battle of joy. Joy is good and inseparable from revival. 

Joy is not the same thing as the basic impulses of happiness or pleasure, but it is instead the payment given to a meaningful investment from one’s life. To experience lasting joy is to invest in something with your heart and mind, to accomplish something of meaning. When we consider the Parable of the Talents, we find that joy is not free, but the slaves who choose to be productive with their master’s talents are given access to joy. Only through investment was entrance to joy given. Matthew 25:23 states “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’” In Matthew 28 we find the joy that was purchased at the enormous price of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Word of God, the Logos of all Creation, who was both fully God and man. Matthew 28:7-8 reads: “7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” Such costly joy came with fear.

John writes in 3 John 1:4 “I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” No sincere Christian should have a problem understanding this Scripture literally in our modern age. There are so many people who walk outside of truth, people who walk in mockery of the truth, and even people who arrogantly ignore truth as they walk this earth. Just as God is holy because He is, the truth is beautiful because it is. There is a great reward from investing in truth; moreover, there is great joy in walking in the truth. Keep in mind, that Christ Himself stated in John 14:6 that “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Christlike love does not want people to indulge in darkness and beast worship, but to have joy in one's God. We must want people to step into truth and discover its joy.

Joy is beautiful, and like many beautiful things it is connected to sorrow and labor. We tend to think that beauty is something undefinable, but I do not think this is the case. The closer something gets to a truth of God’s creation, whether it be the truth of our form as men and women, or the truth of virtue or music, we see such as being beautiful. The closer we get to beauty, the more our souls experience joy. Joy and beauty are often coupled with sorrow. We do not feel sad over meaningless things, and neither do we find beauty in meaningless things. Things are only worthy of joy if they are also worthy of sorrow. 

There is a phenomenal scene in the 1956 Ten Commandments movie starring Charlton Heston as Moses, who stands on the mountain declaring  “There is no liberty without the Law,” before casting down the first set of tablets which break open a fissure in creation to consume those who have idolatrously rejected God’s order. It is true that one cannot have liberty without the law; however, we must not be shallow in our understanding of these words. There is no morality without the law, for people are not naturally good but naturally sinful. When there is no morality, there is no certainty, and where there is no certainty there can be neither joy nor meaning. This reduces people down to nothing but mere static fixtures, statistics to be quantified as survival rates and polling numbers. The destructive spirit of our age wants us to be demoralized, meaning we are uncertain in our morals and therefore disabled from seeking truth, meaning, honor, or joy. 

Rest assured, you were not made in the Image of God to be merely a statistic or polling number, but a unique living creature with a valuable will that would navigate this terrestrial domain, doing great and noble things that proclaimed the glory of your Maker. Nehemiah did not record the households in his territory because they are a survival rate, but because it was important to him that they found meaning and no longer lived in shame. God didn’t descend from the thunderous throne of heaven to merely increase your survival rate, but to free you from all that brings misery and chaos to the world, to renew your mind and give you liberty beyond the frailties of fallen creation. 

Our world right now wants to reduce people to polling numbers and survival rates, things that can be quantified. Joy cannot be quantified, and neither can liberty nor any other of God’s virtues. Yet, our world desires people to be quantified as statistics, a word that has the same root as “static.” The Latin “stat” means to stand. It means to exist in a fixed state where one does not move, live or breath. It is to exist standing still, lifelessly like a statue. People are reduced to a statistic when they have no meaning and joy, and this is a great evil. To demand people be statistics and static is evil. 

If there is no joy without the Law, what then is the power of the Law and how did it factor into Nehemiah’s revival? The Law of God truly is much more than a list of do’s and don’ts, for it is a metric with which one weighs the world. It is the clothing of animal skins given to Adam and Eve, which do not hinder them, but enable them to live life in a dangerous world. The Law gives people clarity on good and evil, sight to go further and pursue higher things. 

The festivals themselves are part of the Law, and God sees it so necessary that we have joy that He gives us commandments to take time for joy. The people in Nehemiah 8 celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles, which is called Sukkot, or the Festival of Booths. This is the great time of the harvest, when the people come together to celebrate the great achievement of a long work endured in the fields. People assemble in booths, making shelters to celebrate in, and for the time being work is forbidden. Work is not forbidden because work is bad, but because the work has been accomplished, the investment of one’s energy has come to fruition. It is a time of great joy, and it was something that was missing from the people who had lived through generations of despair.

Joy cannot be separated from meaning and truth. When people lack meaning, they cannot have lasting joy. When people are without lasting joy, they cannot truly have meaning. When people are without the Law, they are demoralized, and easy to be conquered since they lack conviction. In Nehemiah 8 Ezra gives the people meaningful instruction of the Law. He wants them to clearly see the distinctions between good and evil, beauty and ugliness so that they may find joy. 

Joy can be found in the midst of persecution, but this can only be done in conjunction with the Law. There can be no joy without the lines drawn between good and evil, without a clear image of all that is noble, beautiful, and good. Christ did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Moreover, Christ did not die and resurrect for us that we would be sad, but that we would find an indescribable joy. There are many spiritual battles going on right now, but we cannot lose the battle of joy in our hearts. If we are to be a people of revival, then we must be a people of joy. Nehemiah knew this, Jesus taught this, the apostles employed this, and we in our age must discover this.

Paul writes in Galatians 5:22 that the “fruit of the Spirit is to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; moreover, there is no law against such things” There are several particularities of this fruit worth mentioning. First, this is a singular fruit, and not a variety of fruits to be cut off from one another. Second, as warm and fuzzy as these words sound, we must remember they were given in a time when Christians, including children, were stoned, beheaded, boiled, melted, forced to die as gladiators, and martyred in all sorts of manner. These words came in a violent Roman world, and the fruit of the Spirit offers a stark contrast to fallen creation.

The destructive spirit of our culture demands that we have neither law nor joy, it wants us to be demoralized. It has blasphemously declared good to be evil and evil to be good. Despite such horrible facts of our time, our God tells us to have joy. Let us not squander or lose our joy as both the world and deceiver wish, but let us kindle the flames of the Gospel and make use of the talents that God has given us. Whenever we lack joy, the accuser has a victory.

Our God is a God of liberty. Our Lord said Himself in Luke 4:18-19, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” These are words of freedom and truth. God desires people to be free and see truth, and one cannot be free if they do not see and walk in the truth. 

God cares about your life and all that happens in it. He doesn't simply want you to be a slave, a statistic that serves him in the polls. God sees you as a creature of value, one worth transforming and investing in. If God offered up His own life to invest in you, then we should value how important it is for us to joyously walk in His truth. James 1:25 reminds us that “those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.” This blessing is a lasting happiness in the soul, satisfaction not fleeting pleasure.

The possessive spirit is not being genuine when it demands that we have conversations on issues in our moment, whether they be race or a virus. The spirit is like Sanballat and Tobiah, calling us down into the valley below so that it might destroy us and keep us from doing the good work that brings meaning and joy. The Gospel teaches us to treat people as individuals and move up on the Way of Life, not fearing death but investing in meaning. Everything that retains old sins and tells families they cannot be together is of the darkness. Such evils prevent us from rising up in noble joy with honor and beauty. Our culture is seized by disingenuous people who want us to come down and dance for their flute instead of doing the good work of the Gospel. Sanballat and Tobiah will kill you if you come down. The idolatrous spirit does this because it hates joy and liberty. But that's enough on this matter, let us return to the great news of the festival. 

When people look up to Nehemiah's Jerusalem, they will see a nation celebrating in glorious festivals. Nehemiah’s Jerusalem is God’s Jerusalem, and it is filled with people of honor and joy. These people take joy in the presence of their God and they draw near to His way of living by embracing His liberating gift of the Law. This is not a shallow happiness or momentary pleasure, but a joy that comes at the end of a hard season's labor. This is a joy that comes from standing up to evil and looking to Almighty God. This joy comes from drawing near to God and His holy nature.

When people look to the church, they should see people who have joy despite the efforts of the world to bring misery. Evil wants you to be joyless and demoralized. Joy is beautiful, and we should never forget that. Joy is the reward of meaningful investments in the things of God, and it is a battle we must not lose. May God be with and bring us joy. 

[sombytaco]

Why DaveKat is Narratively Important

Let’s talk about DaveKat because I have nothing better to do!! So, whether or not you personally ship or agree with davekat, this is just going to be about how, from a narrative standpoint, it is 100% vital to both Dave’s and Karkat’s storylines and personal character arcs, let’s start with:

Knight Class- So, bit of class/aspect analysis because the fact they both Dave and Karkat are both Knights is absolutely VITAL to their character development and their connection to each other. Something Kanaya said, that classpects are not necessarily chosen to suit the strengths of each player but rather to challenge them in a way that is most beneficial to their personal growth? That is completely correct, Dave and Karkat being some of the best examples in the comic. The aspects are the elements which the game, and therefore the universe(s) are made of - literally. Like, these are the constructs out of which the world exists, the building blocks so to speak. However, they also represent more metaphorical concepts, Life=Optimism, Hope=Belief, Heart=Soul, so on and so forth etc. So paired with the Knight class, the active pairing of Maid class, we have to examine how exactly the aspect *applies*. Obviously, being active, the Knight class is self serving (more on active vs passive or knight vs maid specifically if y'all hmu with some asks I’d be happy to explain more in depth), there’s also a metric shitload of symbolism involved in the name. I’ve been reading this comic for almost five years and the sheer amount of symbolism never ceases to amaze me, but the absolutely loaded amount of metaphorical value behind this class has to be in my top 5. The classic “knight” iteration, sword and shield type of deal, is instrumental in the interpretation of how Dave and Karkat wield their abilities and grow as characters. The weapon is obviously the way in which they wield their aspects, but the shield is so much more interesting: it’s their PERSONA. Part of the blatant parallels between Dave and Karkat’s story arcs is how they allow others to perceive them in regard to their own internal struggles, they both put up a persona to protect themselves. For Dave it’s his “coolkid” facade, he doesn’t let others see his emotions, feelings, or motivations because he’s so wrapped up in this delusion of irony and toxic masculinity that he feels it would be a weakness to show himself for what he is, one that could very possibly (at the hands of Bro) get him severely injured at best, dead at worst if he fears for his life which is a distinct possibility. Karkat suffers in a similar way, his persona is this image of the overly aggressive, “shouty/angry” guy, he’s loud and obnoxious because he’s trying to keep people at arms length, similar to how Dave doesn’t let anyone in. Karkat also has similar motivations behind this persona, because of his blood color he knows he will be in immediate danger if people get too close, look to closely, care too much, so if he can shout and seem just as bloodthirsty and aggressive as other trolls, he can both keep them away and keep himself free of suspicion. So, they have their shields, their personas, this is how they protect themselves from the world. Let’s talk about their weapons.

Aspects- As I mentioned above, aspects are the literal elements that make up the world, but also have a more metaphorical meaning. In the same way that Heart=Soul, Dave’s aspect Time is not only literally representative of time, but metaphorically representative of PROGRESSION. Karkat’s aspect of blood is therefore, while literally blood (possibly a reference to his mutation), also more symbolically representative of UNITY. Now, let’s see how those apply to each players personal struggle, because remember that’s the key here, how their classpects tie in to their character arcs. Dave is troubled by his aspect at multiple points throughout the storyline, severely disturbed by dead Dave’s and essentially haunted by the multiple loops he has running, in what is a single day to his fellow beta players likely feels like *weeks* for him, he’s not progressing in the game, he’s running all these loops and doing so much and yet he’s not really going anywhere. He’s like a broken record, if you will. Dave doesn’t see himself as a hero, broken sword symbolism aside because I cannot get into that rn lmao that’s way too loaded and this is long enough, Dave *can’t* see himself as a hero because in his mind, Bro was a hero, and he will never live up to it, so why bother. Easier to just run his loops and do whatever Terezi says because she’s probably right and anyways it’s just easier to do something menial and meaningless that doesn’t move anything forward because he would probably fuck it up anyways, right? Dave is so stuck in the past, haunted by his loops, haunted by the legacy of his Bro, haunted by dead Daves, he is terrified (whether consciously or subconsciously) of moving forward, of Progression. Alternatively, Karkat’s aspect of Blood, or UNITY trips him up in similar ways. Karkat’s relationships are…complicated. It’s been *headcanoned* that he comes across as pale towards most of his friends, because despite how hard he tries to act loud and aggressive, he’s a big softie who cares way too goddamn much about everything. Terezi also represents his biggest struggle with Unity and relationships, he “wanted her in every quadrant like a desperate fool”, and she played along for a while to see if he would settle in any one quadrant, but when he never did she moved on. This is a huge blow to Karkat’s self-esteem, he thought he was being so suave and smooth just like his romance novels and movies, but really he was pushing her away either knowingly or unknowingly. On the topic of his romance novels, his obsession with relationships also shows him trying to compensate (more on this in a sec) for his lack of capability in the area, as if he’s studying them to get a better understanding of how relationships should work because he really has no idea. In his very first conversation with Sollux that we see, he ends by affirming that he hasn’t gone too far right? They’re still friends? Because underneath his loud, obnoxious persona, he’s just acting the way he thinks he’s supposed to in this hyper-aggressive society. Sound familiar? It’s because Dave is doing the same thing. They’re both using their personas to survive, to appear the way they think they should to other people, because when it comes to their aspects, they’re fucking terrified and don’t have a clue as to what they’re really doing.

Storyline Parallels- So, I’ve seen a lot of good analysis of this and I doubt any of what I’m saying will be news to any of you, but I’m gonna put it in my own words as best I can bc this shit is imperative to understanding why DaveKat works so perfectly in the narrative. Dave is obviously working an uphill battle the entire story to overcome the hyper-masculinity (see also: toxic) that his Bro has ingrained in his psyche for 13 years. Not the least of which is some deeply rooted homophobia. Dave fronts constantly, accusing others of being gay, accusing *Karkat* of being gay pretty amusingly. Obviously he pokes at this in other people because he’s so insecure about it in himself, he struggles heavily with his sexuality the way so many pre-teens do, only he’s fighting against a decades worth of anti-gay propaganda basically so there’s no room for him to search within himself too deeply without feeling deeply uncomfortable because obviously that’s Wrong and Bad and that’s not how society works in his world. Similarly, Karkat struggles with the quadrants which is practically unheard of on Alternia. It’s such a clear parallel to human homophobia that like. I’m left speechless when I think about it honestly. Their struggles are so overwhelmingly similar and parallel to each other sometimes I just have to stop and appreciate it. But back on topic, his whole life, Karkat has grown up with this over idealized concept of romance, the quadrants, and he obviously knows something is wrong with himself from an early age. Karkat’s obsession with romance novels is no coincidence, he’s clearly always felt off when it comes to that and so he most likely reached out to these novels and movies to get a better grasp of the quadrants, consuming what was essentially romantic propaganda to overcompensate. The problem is, in studying these works, he latched onto the wrong thing which is so funny to me. He’s reading these trying to understand, to make himself fit into this system because that’s what society is like *cough* heteronormativity *cough* and yet he latched onto quadrant vacillation like it’s the holy fucking grail of romance. Like oh, okay, this is normal? Obviously people do this, as long as they switch within the bounds of the system it’s Okay™ and even romantic in some occasions. Only, this is fiction he’s reading and if you try to apply the logic of romance novels to real life…well, we all know what happened with Terezi. He was constantly pushing the boundaries of vacillation, he was red for her, he wanted to act black on occasion, he cares so much about everyone it’s impossible for him not to be pale, and we see him (though I doubt he realizes he’s doing it) trying to auspistice for her and Gamzee in the pre-retcon timeline by staging a sort of intervention. He “wanted her in every quadrant like a desperate fool” and I don’t understand how people put Karkat into the quadrant system!!! That line is so IMPORTANT, not even taking into account that we know his dancestor, who shared his blood mutation which may have had something to do with his irregularities, loved the Disciple “beyond the quadrants”. It’s. So. Obvious. Karkat is overcoming the stigma of wanting to love beyond the quadrants in the same way that Dave is struggling to overcome the loaded idea behind being Not Straight. They’re both overcoming these extremely similar prospects and it’s an absolutely stunning feat of narrative that as an English major it makes me fucking weak in the goddamn knees like Hussie is a lot of things but this? This is fucking genius. I’ve never seen two characters written together in such an in depth and parallel way before.

Opposites Attract- So we’ve talked about their similarities, let’s talk about their differences and how those differences are also actually poorly disguised similarities. Karkat is obviously a Loud Boy, thats his coping mechanism. He keeps people out and away by being loud and aggressive. Dave needs to cope for similar reasons, to protect himself he needs to keep people out and away but he does it in just the opposite way, he gets quiet. He doesn’t talk about his shit. Sure, he’ll go on the rambling metaphor when the occasion calls, but although he’s always talking he’s never really saying anything. Karkat is an almost compulsive over sharer, like, the boy (bless his heart) has zero filter. Dave will talk your ear off just as well, but I’ll be fuckin damned if he says anything worthwhile outright (his many, many Freudian slips aside). It’s also interesting to note that while I’ve seen people talk about how part of the reason Karkat doesn’t fit into Alternian society is that he’s so human, as its stated in the narrative that after seeing this soft species, that shares his blood color and stupid, stupid compassion, even *Vriska* admits that Karkat seems to fit in better with them than he ever did with trolls, we don’t see the same for Dave? I’ve rarely, if ever, seen the situation flipped, in that Dave was more suited for Alternian society the same way Karkat was more human than troll or at least had severely human aspects. Obviously Dave’s romance is still very human in that he’s a big ol’ fan of monogamy (he and Karkat both faced problems in their relationships with Terezi romantically when she became involved in other quadrants, these boys love monogamy I’ll fight), but his upbringing? Yikes. Lusii are supposed to, while still protecting their trolls, prepare them for the harsh and violent world. Whether they had to kill other trolls and Lusii to feed them, or learn how to fight to fend off other trolls on their own, there was a shit ton of fighting in their pre-pubescent years. Trolls are a hyper aggressive, violent species that learn to fight basically as soon as they can walk, which is exactly what Bro did to Dave. Dave could fight practically from the second he crawled off the meteor, I doubt a day went by without a sword in his hand for some reason and god knows he suffered through enough strifes. Both boys were brought up just thoroughly *wrong* for their societies in a way that ensured they would never feel like they truly fit in.

Finally, Romance- In the final culmination of all this, let’s actually talk about how they work together as a couple. So, they have this overwhelmingly similar upbringing and life experience, what happens when they finally meet up? Dave thinks it’s hilarious that Karkat is always yelling, “get a load of this guy I was telling you about, Rose”, and while I have no doubt he thought Karkat’s shitfits were the funniest thing since Colonel Sassacre, there had to be a part of him that was just in awe of how someone could be so free with their emotions. Like, he’s angry? And you know it the second he walks into a room?? This is an entirely new concept to Dave, my son, who grew up with an insanely passive-aggressive psychopath who would sneak up on him and fight him with a crazy fucking puppet like what the fuck?? Dave has always had to be on edge at home, Bro was quiet so you never knew when he was upset and you never knew when he was coming for you. With Karkat, that’s such a non-issue it’s like the issue dined and dashed, no bill and no tip, vanished into the wind. You can hear Karkat stomping down the hall five minutes before he even gets into the room, and once he gets there oh boy he will Let You Know What The Problem Is. Why is Dave always provoking Karkat? Literally just to hear him yell because it’s so goddamn refreshing to know exactly with 100% certainty what someone is thinking, no irony, no bullshit, just genuine fucking refreshing annoyance. And for Karkat, well here’s the guy he’s always wanted to be, right? Cool and suave, the romcom hero who could smooth talk the paint off a wall. Only, Dave isn’t actually cool in the way he pretends to be, he’s not this smooth suave hero, he’s not even just a hero. He can’t be. He’s just…a kid. A kid like Karkat who has issues like Karkat and talks just as much when he’s nervous as Karkat and he’s relatable even though he’s trying not to be. He’s trying so hard to be what society wants from him he wants to be the tough guy with the sword but he’s just so not and that’s so refreshing! Karkat realizes he’s not the only one who’s trying to live up to some buttfuck impossiblestandards and he realizes…that’s okay. He doesn’t have to be anything he’s not. And they figure that out together.

So pardon me if I don’t understand how you can put Dave with John, or Jade, because they don’t fit. The narrative literally doesn’t benefit in any way for them to fit, and if it’s your personal preference then by all means go for it who am I to stop you, but there is no benefit to them being together. They will not grow from it, John is explicitly someone who doesn’t seem to focus or care much about romance even? And Jade has no concept of anything Dave has gone through, she couldn’t even begin to understand. Same with Terezi and Karkat, or Gamzee and Karkat or John and Karkat or whatever, Terezi likes quadrants. They make sense to her and she enjoys them, Karkat cannot bring himself to deal with with that and they’re so much happier as just friends. I’m not even getting into Gamzee, I’m not even gonna dip my toe into that discourse because everyone likes different characters for different reasons and I won’t begrudge you of that so I’m just gonna stay away. So again, if you ship those then that’s fine! Go for it! This is just an analysis of why the narrative, in my personal perspective, supports DaveKat and why I personally think they are good and healthy for each other and help each other grow as people.

[mattgambler]

Dark Souls versus Nioh

TLDR: I played Dark Souls 1-3 about 18 months ago and yesterday I abandoned my first ever Nioh playthrough halfway through. I compare my experiences and declare them both winner and loser at the end of the day.

Today after waking up I was greeted on Discord by a public message of one of my mods which had me typing frantically in a matter of seconds: so Nioh went the same path as every other soulslike game ? Final call on it matt? ( wich mechanics where new wich ones where even more frustrating and wich ones where a welcome change from the other soulslike games?) I wanna clarify that I played a couple of “soulslike” games over the past 2 years and rarely left one of them unbeaten, so his first line had me somewhat confused about what exactly he meant, given that I had abandoned my Nioh playthrough halfway through only the day before. The games I had played (and I am aware of the fact that some rather important ones are missing) were the three Dark Souls games, Salt and Sanctuary, Dead Cells, Titan Souls and now Nioh. I usually want to beat these sort of games even if I don’t enjoy them, and be it only so I an criticize them without sounding like a whiner who simply didn’t git gud enough. Useless gamer pride, I know. But while I sat there, talking about how I had beaten all the other games before this one, I knew what he was probably talking about - which was me not liking the game. I also didn’t like DarkSouls 1-3 that much, and back when I streamed them it was usually me versus my chat as I tried to win the unwinnable argument of convincing fans of a game why it was clearly and “objectively” bad. Or at least not as good as everyone wanted me to believe. But let’s look at Ashtaks actual question. At first glance, Nioh does a couple of things which had me praising it as soon as I encountered them. Inventory indicators for what you had picked up since you last looked into your inventory. A clear path to follow. Storytelling that looked like actual storytelling for a change. I was sure I would like this one! But the longer I played, the more I noticed the glaring flaws that were worked deep into the games core, and which became even more apparent given how those flaws were mostly absent from the soulsgames I had worked my way through back then. The linear progression was nice in comparison to the at times random and unintuitive nature of Dark Souls, where I only managed to find the painted world of Ariamis after my chat had given me step by step instructions on how to find and enter it. But at the same time the missions soon started to feel same-ish, another temple, another batch of yokai that had corrupted something vengeful spirits something save that village something hope you dont mind taking a look at my yard while you are there Anjin Sama please make sure I didnt leave the window open. The storytelling had me intrigued for about as long as it took me to realize that the narrative was meaningless and bland and that it didnt make much sense up to the point I had reached in my playthrough. There’s a villain and he wants to gather that ressource Amrita that the game had introduced you moments before, now he stole your guardian spirit which you apparently had all along and that seems to be the only spirit in the world that can detect that Amrita stuff even though you are collecting it left and right as quickly as you can because the next levelup will require another 78 000 units of it because, hell, gotta keep you grinding, am I rita? The inventory indicators were good at least. Sorely needed in the trash collecting simulator that both Nioh and the games in the Souls Franchise are, too! But while it made sifting through trash a lot easier and more practical, it didn’t really change the fact that I was collecting trash 99% of the time. At least in Dark Souls you didnt feel like losing out if you left that stuff lying on the ground because you couldn’t exchange it for souls as easily, if at all. (I don’t exactly remember.) But while I’m listing pros here just to pluck them apart right afterwards, I wanna say that weirdly enough I felt like I enjoyed Nioh more, on a surface level. Sure, the story was weirdly uninteresting, but at least it was there, right? The game was reusing the same enemies for mission after mission, but at least it didn’t give me bullshit like the Anor Londo archers or the Tomb of the Giants, or that fucking disgusting curse mechanic in the canalisation of dontaskmewhatthatareawascalled. At least I had my sense of where to go and my inventory indicators for newly picked up equipment, right? And finally some proper tutorials! Yes and no.

While Nioh comes with a metric shitton of improvements that Dark Souls would have desperately needed back then, while it looks great and plays smooth and overall does everything I wanted Dark Souls to do back then, it lacks the inspiration and credibility to actually make it all work for me. On day 6 I encountered a bossfight that was somewhat similar in tone to the Sif encounter in DarkSouls. You know, sad music, the boss was kind of a good guy, this time it was a cat spirit instead of a giant wolf, but yeah, you get it. All it accomplished was making me realize that I never cared much for that feline companion of mine in the first place. Sif, in comparison, had never been my companion. He(?) had never tried to be loyal or helpful to me. Weird how I still ended up caring so much more for him than for my own weird cat buddy that I had never really gotten to know all too well, but... at least he was around? I guess? Must have been the missing limping animation. Another thing that always struck me as unpleasant about the Souls games was that there were no proper tutorials. Here, you are in a cell, now go die. Again, Nioh delivers where Dark Souls fell short, several nicely spaced out tutorials to show you the ropes, how to switch stances, how to use skills, how to take a dump behind a tree. But while Dark Souls would have had me confused about many things if not for my chat, Nioh locks tutorials behind mission progress and usually ended up teaching me things only after I had figured them out on my own. And weirdly enough, those tutorials managed to both make me feel as if they were holding my hand too much as well as(!) if they weren’t clear enough on things. How do you even pull that off? Sure I’m learning in detail what I already know, but I still need to do the tutorials for the rewards and it has me standing there unsure about why it is not continuing because I already did what it wanted me to... I think.

And then there is all the stuff that is missing, at least up to the point that I reached in the game. While Nioh does a somewhat good job of fixing DarkSouls’ flaws (Seriously, that inventory indicator, how could you not have that, Dark Souls. I mean what the actual fuck.) it took things that were good and working and just left them out. Basic stuff, like leaving messages for other players, complex and intriguing things like covenants, boss weapons. Incredibly vital stuff like secrets! Dark Souls is full of them and while I was sometimes annoyed by a bonfire being too well hidden, or another entire area being hidden behind a random wall segment in an even more random wall, Nioh feels like it is incredibly afraid to hide anything, or give you a glimpse of a later boss in the distance, or leave any sort of mystery as the story progresses. The bad guy? Yeah, he stole that spirit to collect amrita. That spirit? Yeah, it has been with William since he was a child. That mission? Yeah, seemingly the kids were turned into yokai, or the shogun (or whatever he was) blew up his castle but he also broke his teaset and that teasets name was “flat spider” in japanese and because he broke it the boss of this level is a giant spider. Oh, that character you didn’t really care for? Here is an entire page of exposition for you if you wanna learn his role in all of this. Considering all of this and more (incredibly uninspired and therefore often confusing leveldesign, to name one of several things I’m not gonna go into too much detail here)  I would already come to the conclusion that Dark Souls is a way more interesting and mysterious game than Nioh. Wild, reckless, interesting. Stupid at times, and fuck the tomb of the giants, what an embarrassing fuckup of modern game design, but still, a wondrous and intriguing journey overall. Personally I liked Dark Souls 2 best. But still I would have considered calling Nioh the more solid game, in a casual,  gamey way. It plays well, you progress through it, you probably have somewhat of a good time anyway. I’ve always considered Dark Souls, especially the first and probably most iconic one, as more of a weird art piece than an actual good game. But Nioh was too hard for me. Yes, harder than Dark Souls, and not in a good way as far as I’m concerned. The sheer number of times I was literally oneshot with full hp because I didnt dodge this attack or that combo in time is just too damn high. Many deaths in Dark Souls came from intricate traps or simply stupidly falling to my death (because fuck swimming or holding on to ledges, right?) but while Nioh does that sometimes as well, the sheer damage that enemies deal with each attack and your characters morbid fetish for being stunlocked made what could have been at least casual fun into a frustrating mess over time. And I used a spear, the only weapon that scales with the hp stat anyway.  I might just be bad, or not patient enough to die through yet another 20 bossfights until I figure out how to dodge enough attacks to barely succeed. But then again, I might just have had more fun dying in Dark Souls than I had dying in Nioh.

[lizziecq-blog]

i won’t let you go

the other day saw the release of an album that has likely flown under the radar of most people i know, but to me represents the culmination of something ancient and ambiguous, whose precise contours will likely take much more time to sound*.

If We Ever Live Forever by Longwave

historically, longwave are one of the least-remembered members of the so-called “class of 2001,” which was one of those vanishingly rare moments in music history where a bunch of bands in NYC got popular at the same time and thereby, for a time, held the rudder of popular rock music. this was the same moment that introduced us to interpol, les savy fav, and even the national, alongside a swath of much less memorable swoosh-gaze fluff like the exit, i love you but i’ve chosen darkness, etc. within a couple of years this moment had expanded and germinated into the “post-punk revival,” which in true punk fashion was capitalized on most enduringly by the brits, and blessed us with bands like the futureheads and field music while cursing us with boneheaded dross like franz ferdinand.

of course we’re ignoring the biggest driver of this wave: the strokes. is this it dropped that year (on rough trade, of course), and apparently it was so good that brandon flowers felt forced to rewrite what was to become the killers’ hot fuss from scratch. nice work boys! “mr. brightside” is still pretty good!

coming to the point: while longwave technically can’t be grouped in with the class of ‘01 (their debut had dropped the year before, and their major label “breakthru,” such as it was, had to wait until 2003), they had enough sonically in common with interpol and their derivatives to earn a spot on the dais; and at any rate, they were such good bros with the strokes that the latter invited them to open their first UK tour, which is what finally convinced the majors to give longwave a shot.

this is about where i come in. having joined my first band around the time is this it had hit - i’ve got my story about the first time i heard it just like everyone else** - i absolutely devoured it, along with the rest of the family. even at age 11 i was jaded enough not to credit the whole “saviours of rock ‘n’ roll” thing the critics had been trying to pin on them (also on the hives, and the vines, and the white stripes, and... man, rock ‘n’ roll is really just a gasping beached fish we’ve been spritzing with water every now and again for the last 40 years or so, huh?), but still it was hard to resist the lure of a bunch of drug-addled sex robots chugging straight eights into fake subway tunnels painted onto brick walls - like everyone else, i wanted dry, lazy, mechanistic beats, and i wanted them now. incidentally, this being the heyday of MTV2, this was the last time i can remember purposefully turning on the tv in the hopes that i might stumble onto the strokes playing something or other.

well, almost. because it was one of those times, maybe a year later, that i saw for the only time an ad for an album called the strangest things by a different new york band called longwave. 

the ad must have only been about 15 seconds, and i remember little of what it contained other than it was probably a bare sample of some of the band’s trademark atmospherics underneath the band’s name being repeated a few times. i couldn’t tell you what made me interested in it based on that, other than i was hungry for identity and i had access to kazaa, so now that i had heard of it there was no good reason not to give it a try. 

so i got on kazaa and the first thing i found was this:

not that it’s too surprising considering i was 12, but i hadn’t even considered anything beyond power chords by that point (my family had recently driven all the way to new york to see a reformed television play; i slept thru it) - and this was an entire song that didn’t use chords at all - i suppose it sounds a bit dated now, but this was an entire song that depended on textural variation rather than harmonic motion to define its structure, and how the hell were they even making those sounds to begin with? 

i bought the album: the strangest things. i still remember feeling my bedroom rock and scatter my bones when the first track hit:

i researched them on the allmusic guide; mackenzie wilson described one song as “just as charming as ride’s ‘vapour trail’” - who were ride? pitchfork was less enthusiastic, lamenting that producer dave fridmann, with such distinguished credits to his name as the flaming lips and mercury rev, would stoop to making something so bland - but who were they? 

this last piece was key as a matter of fact. there was no one i could get to muster as much enthusiasm for this sound as i could. my older brother, my only musical collaborator at that time, was positively venomous toward them, as he was with basically everything i liked that i had found on my own. but for my part i was done with power chords - i wanted to play this new thing i had found called “shoegaze.” and if my brother wouldn’t do it with me, well, i had just borrowed a cheap 4-track and orphaned delay pedal from my dad - it was time to strike out on my own. i picked up the guitar, started writing my own songs, and named my band day sleeper, peevishly dodging REM comparisons for about the next ten years:

and so: longwave, for all their virtues and shortcomings, were officially My First Indie Rock Band. i’ve extemporized at length about what i love so much about them elsewhere, but to paraphrase a good friend of mine who may have been my only convert across all this time, it’s not easy to be this simple and still be true. 

the real story i wanted to tell, however, is this one:

i grew up in the boston area, and the first time i got the chance to see longwave play live was when they played at tt the bear’s in cambridge (now sadly defunct, but i have a whole other trove of stories about being nurtured by this sweet little club). i was 14, and couldn’t get into the club by myself; thankfully my stepmom was able to convince my dad to get off his ass and take me down there, and even more thankfully, tt’s knew us both well enough to let me in the club (with X’s on my hands, obviously) as long as i stuck by my dad and didn’t try any funny business at the bar. i didn’t, but with my age i made a pretty strong impression on a very friendly (and very drunk) couple standing up front with me - i’m not sure how, but i’m certain they spread some kind of aura of protection around me that night, even if they mostly just gave the band a hard time for not playing any of their older songs***.

the show was stellar - they even made fun of the aforementioned i love you but i’ve chosen darkness, whom i had missed anyway - and fucking loud. and since this was tt’s, after the set the band stepped off the stage to talk to the audience. and my drunken friends introduced me, perhaps more loudly than the bar staff would have liked, as a 14-year-old.

and i talked to steve, their singer, and the first thing he asked me was if i played music.

i got to tell him all about how i had found his band, how it had inspired me to make music on my own, and without irony, tell him i had named my band after one of his songs. he spoke to me as an equal, promised to listen to my music, and actually fucking followed up. on myspace, no less! he even remembered my name, and spelled it right in his message!

point being, a new longwave record in 2019, long after the band’s commercial fortunes rather whimperingly flared out - this is, in fact, their second reunion album - is a big deal, at least for me. its very existence has implications that reach thru my ambitions straight into my identity, all of my ideas about what makes music important outside of the shitty capitalist structures it’s forced to accommodate, and inside them for that matter. all of my ideas about how music should be appreciated that often seem so opposed to how it is. not to mention how i feel about the standard metrics for success in our world, and how ultimately cynical and meaningless they are. 

because now, nearly 20 years on, the wider world has largely forgotten longwave, and is unlikely to be dented by them anew in 2019. but i like to think they they and i have been sustaining ourselves all this time on that same little trickle of meaning their music brought into the world all that time ago, and beyond that, neither of us need a reason to keep going now. everywhere you turn there’s always something there - that’s enough for us.

*the first song on longwave’s last album secrets are sinister was called “sirens in the deep sea.” get it? heh

**it was the video for “last nite” on MTV2, obviously. but the thing i remember striking me the most about it was that it was clearly an unsimulated live performance - the drummer knocks over one of his mics near the end, and you can hear the difference. fuck good charlotte - this is punk rock.

***a few weeks before, the band’s rhythm section had abruptly quit on them with no explanation offered. they had some new guys with them who messed up a fair bit - but this actually thrilled me at the time, because i got to feel like i knew the songs better than anyone by being able to identify the mistakes.

[thegoose5150-blog]

Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on 'Vanity' Stats

In a recent ProBlogger Mastermind, I shared a slide that seemed to hit a nerve with the group.

While having lots of page views, sessions, fans, followers and even email subscribers may feel good, they don't actually tell you anything about the health of your blog.

I included this in my Mastermind session after having several conversations with bloggers that all started something like this: Traffic is growing, and so is my social following and email list. But I'm not making any money.

For many, the monetization emptiness came from focusing on certain results and metrics (such as those I just mentioned) that sounded great, but had very little bearing on actual monetary return.

Vanity over actionable metrics isn't a new thing.

The idea of measuring the metrics that matter has been around for a while. People like Neil Patelhave made their names and built successful companiesthrough challenging us to think more deeply about the 'Why?' behind our numbers. Today, action-driven data is available to everyone doing business online including bloggers so there's no excuse for not using it.

But rather than leaping into the depth of data, I recommend you begin with small steps.

Define your North Star Metric, and what might influence it

Time is the enemy of most bloggers just starting out, and so focus is critical. A North Star Metric gives you one thing to care about above everything else.

To uncover your North Star Metric you must understand the value your most loyal customers get from using your product. Then you should try to quantify this value in a single metric. Sean Ellis

Your North Star Metric should be a metric that will directly improve the health and prosperity of your blog.

Start asking better questions

It's time to start ignoring what Google Analytics thinks you want to know. Instead, think about the real value you're trying to give a reader (your North Star), and what observable actions they might take that will show how good a job you're doing getting them there.

For example, if your blog teaches others how to run a successful blog, what short- and long-term behaviors would you expect to see from someone you're actuallyteaching?

They could be basic things such as:

Find you (first time visit)

Come back again (repeat visit)

Engage (comment on a post, or follow you on a social platform)

Give you their email address (subscribe)

Buy or subscribe to a product (purchase)

Buy or subscribe to a second product (purchase again)

Thanks to free services such as Google Analytics, we take comfort in very basic but often misleading blog metrics. After all, who has the time (or the energy) to dive into the numbers? But if think about the questions you need to answer beforeyou start worrying about how to measure them, you'll quickly change your mindset.

And once you've got this down, you'll be ready to get your numerical nerd on.

Understanding cohorts and segmentation

Statistics and mathematics are probably the last things you want me to talk about. But segmentation and cohorts are important terms that you need to understand.

So what are they?

Segmentation and cohorts are techniques used to collate data into meaningful groups. They let you compare different groups in various ways, as well as over different time periods, and ask questions like, Are my current first-time visitors behaving differently from the first-time visitors I had a year ago?

While Google Analytics lets you do somebasic cohorts, you'll quickly findthelevel of detail Google gives you for free quite limiting.

But when you look at your data through cohorts and segmentation, you can identify specific strengths and opportunities to improve.

What is a cohort?

In statistics, marketing and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects whoshare a defining characteristic.

For example, you might notice over time that people who find your blog through search are less inclined to arrive at your North Star than someone coming from a different source. By using research, data, and experimentation you can get a better understanding of the situation, and create a plan to improve the experience of these first-time SEO arrivals.

For example, you may need to:

create a stronger CTA in your post to help casual SEO arrivals learn more about you

find better ways to get readers to check out a second post, or give you their email address

spend time building more traffic from those lower volume but higher value-per-visitor channels.

Whatever the answer is, you'll find it in your experiments and metrics.

And from there you can look at your most recent cohorts to see what impact your new approach is having.

Congratulations. You're now taking meaningful steps to grow the prosperity of your blog.

The theories are nice, but what about in practice?

At 99designs, we began reflecting on our blog'sperformance by asking deeper questions about the impact we were having on our readers.

Some of the results were hard to read.

Do people read our content?

We knew how many people startedreading our content. But we had no idea if they were consuming all those wonderful words we'd put so much effort in creating. We could make some guesstimates based on 'time on site,' but that was too general. So we produced two reports time engaged with the page, and how far people were scrolling down the page.

The results were hard to read at first. What do you mean, 'Only 5% get to the end'? But with visibility, we've managed to improve this percentage significantly in the past year.

What do people do after they finish reading (or abandon) a post?

We'd tried cobbling together an answer using sign-up rates and other things such as page views per user. But those were meaningless aggregate results.

So we created a report on what people do after reading (or not reading) a post.

What's driving growth our old (evergreen) content or our new content?

We assumed our new content was fueling growth. But it was actually a combination of the two.

But wait, there's more

These graphs are interesting. But when you start to segment things become more insightful. We can look at this graph by channel, post category, author and more to find patterns in what's being read and what's providing value to our readers. These insights are now intrinsic to our growth plans for our blog.

Upping the ante for key transitional pages

Our blog is what we call a top-of-funnel page type one that's consumed early in a relationship we hope to build with our readers.

As people progress through our funnel, we've identified key transitional pages that signal a significant potential shift in the relationship from reader to customer.

One example is our logo designpage.

On this page, a reader or visitor is deciding whether to pursue getting a logo with us - an obvious turning point. While we have great tracking measures on our blog, we track ten times as many events on our logo design page to learn even more about our transitional pages. And we use this extensive data to continually improve the page with changes both large and small.

The dangers of misinterpretation

I've been fortunate to work closely with some brilliant people who see numbersin a way I sometimes struggle to comprehend. And there have been some less than inspiring moments where I've been shown how quite clearly how 'wrong' I'm interpreting the data - publicly and privately.

As you get access to more data and learn how to use it, you'll undoubtedly face the same challenge. While you may be tempted to scurry back to a comforting world of vanity metrics and intuition, try looking your data critics in the eye and asking them to help you do better. Chances are your first blog post wasn't very good. Why would your first analytical endeavor be any different?

That said, here's how to avoid some of the mistakes I've made:

1. Become a student of data interpretation

There are a lot of resources, books and courses that can be really helpful. I'm currently doing a Data Science courseon the very subject to help me lift my analytical game.

General Assembly, Skillshare, Udemy, Lynda and Udacity all have data- and analytics-related courses you can subscribe to.

2. Don't go it alone

Collaborating with someone on your analysis - even if it's just talking through your data and what you've learned - helps you find not only mistakes in your logic, but also any subconscious biases that may have crept into your analysis.

3. Find your devil's advocate

This one is hard, but super important. Find and work with someone who will tell you you're wrong more often than right. The secret to making the most of this critical view on your decisions is learning when to listen to them and when to ignore them.

Now, how do you set all this up?

The point of this post is to challenge you to step outside ] your data comfort zone. While tools such as Google Analytics can take you some of the way, you might need to look for data in other places.

At 99designs we have a pretty complicated data configuration. You won't need anything near this level, - but here are some basic tools that can help take your analytics beyond Google.

Segment

We use Segment as the central point for collecting events and distributing them to the various tools that use them.

Indicative

We then use Indicative as our reporting tool for all that wonderful event data. But it's not cheap, and alternatives such as Mixpaneloffer better entry-level plans.

Setting up your new analytics might feel impossible at first. But try not to get too bogged down. A specialist can help set it all up for you.

Instead, focus on figuring out the questions that are important to your business. Start with your North Star Metricand work downward. Once you can describe the questions you are trying to answer with confidence, it's easy and affordable to get help setting up the analytics you need.

Love over metrics? Nope, love and metrics.

During the Mastermind event, I was fortunate to spend some time chatting with one of the most authentic community builders online, Jadah Sellner. Her session was titled Love Over Metrics, which proposed a slightly different direction than the one I was heading at the event.

But as Jadah and I chatted I realised that although we started at different places, we had common middle ground. We both believe that while meaningfulness is in the value you give to your audience, it's also important to align how you measure yourself to these goals. Results driven from loving your readers can live right next to a love of data.

This post doesn't have all the answers. But I hope it helps you understand that there's a life beyond those headline stats we've clung to for so long.

Mastering these measures may not give you schoolyard bragging rights with big headline numbers. But it will give you a better chance of building that profitable blog you always dreamed you could.

Shayne has been part of the ProBlogger Team in various ways for more than a decade from dreaming up new ProBlogger and Digital Photography School products and running marketing to writing books and speaking at events. These days he's happy sharing his experiences running teams of amazing content creators, marketers and engineers at 99designs.

The post Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on 'Vanity' Stats appeared first on ProBlogger.

[kristinejrosario]

Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats

In a recent ProBlogger Mastermind, I shared a slide that seemed to hit a nerve with the group.

While having lots of page views, sessions, fans, followers and even email subscribers may feel good, they don’t actually tell you anything about the health of your blog.

I included this in my Mastermind session after having several conversations with bloggers that all started something like this: “Traffic is growing, and so is my social following and email list. But I’m not making any money”.

For many, the monetization emptiness came from focusing on certain results and metrics (such as those I just mentioned) that sounded great, but had very little bearing on actual monetary return.

Vanity over actionable metrics isn’t a new thing.

The idea of measuring the metrics that matter has been around for a while. People like Neil Patel have made their names and built successful companies through challenging us to think more deeply about the ‘Why?’ behind our numbers. Today, action-driven data is available to everyone doing business online – including bloggers – so there’s no excuse for not using it.

But rather than leaping into the depth of data, I recommend you begin with small steps.

Define your North Star Metric, and what might influence it

Time is the enemy of most bloggers just starting out, and so focus is critical. A North Star Metric gives you one thing to care about above everything else.

“To uncover your North Star Metric you must understand the value your most loyal customers get from using your product. Then you should try to quantify this value in a single metric.” – Sean Ellis

Your North Star Metric should be a metric that will directly improve the health and prosperity of your blog.

Start asking better questions

It’s time to start ignoring what Google Analytics thinks you want to know. Instead, think about the real value you’re trying to give a reader (your North Star), and what observable actions they might take that will show how good a job you’re doing getting them there.

For example, if your blog teaches others how to run a successful blog, what short- and long-term behaviors would you expect to see from someone you’re actually teaching?

They could be basic things such as:

  Find you (first time visit)

  Come back again (repeat visit)

  Engage (comment on a post, or follow you on a social platform)

  Give you their email address (subscribe)

  Buy or subscribe to a product (purchase)

  Buy or subscribe to a second product (purchase again)

Thanks to free services such as Google Analytics, we take comfort in very basic but often misleading blog metrics. After all, who has the time (or the energy) to dive into the numbers? But if think about the questions you need to answer before you start worrying about how to measure them, you’ll quickly change your mindset.

And once you’ve got this down, you’ll be ready to get your numerical nerd on.

Understanding cohorts and segmentation

Statistics and mathematics are probably the last things you want me to talk about. But segmentation and cohorts are important terms that you need to understand.

So what are they?

Segmentation and cohorts are techniques used to collate data into meaningful groups. They let you compare different groups in various ways, as well as over different time periods, and ask questions like, “Are my current first-time visitors behaving differently from the first-time visitors I had a year ago?”

While Google Analytics lets you do some basic cohorts, you’ll quickly find the level of detail Google gives you for free quite limiting.

But when you look at your data through cohorts and segmentation, you can identify specific strengths and opportunities to improve.

What is a cohort?

In statistics, marketing and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who share a defining characteristic.

For example, you might notice over time that people who find your blog through search are less inclined to arrive at your North Star than someone coming from a different source. By using research, data, and experimentation you can get a better understanding of the situation, and create a plan to improve the experience of these first-time SEO arrivals.

For example, you may need to:

create a stronger CTA in your post to help casual SEO arrivals learn more about you

find better ways to get readers to check out a second post, or give you their email address

spend time building more traffic from those lower volume but higher value-per-visitor channels.

Whatever the answer is, you’ll find it in your experiments and metrics.

And from there you can look at your most recent cohorts to see what impact your new approach is having.

Congratulations. You’re now taking meaningful steps to grow the prosperity of your blog.

The theories are nice, but what about in practice?

At 99designs, we began reflecting on our blog’s performance by asking deeper questions about the impact we were having on our readers.

Some of the results were hard to read.

Do people read our content?

We knew how many people started reading our content. But we had no idea if they were consuming all those wonderful words we’d put so much effort in creating. We could make some guesstimates based on ‘time on site,’ but that was too general. So we produced two reports – time engaged with the page, and how far people were scrolling down the page.

The results were hard to read at first. “What do you mean, ‘Only 5% get to the end’?” But with visibility, we’ve managed to improve this percentage significantly in the past year.

What do people do after they finish reading (or abandon) a post?

We’d tried cobbling together an answer using sign-up rates and other things such as page views per user. But those were meaningless aggregate results.

So we created a report on what people do after reading (or not reading) a post.

What’s driving growth – our old (evergreen) content or our new content?

We assumed our new content was fueling growth. But it was actually a combination of the two.

But wait, there’s more

These graphs are interesting. But when you start to segment things become more insightful. We can look at this graph by channel, post category, author and more to find patterns in what’s being read and what’s providing value to our readers. These insights are now intrinsic to our growth plans for our blog.

Upping the ante for key transitional pages

Our blog is what we call a top-of-funnel page type – one that’s consumed early in a relationship we hope to build with our readers.

As people progress through our funnel, we’ve identified key transitional pages that signal a significant potential shift in the relationship from reader to customer.

One example is our logo design page.

On this page, a reader or visitor is deciding whether to pursue getting a logo with us — an obvious turning point. While we have great tracking measures on our blog, we track ten times as many events on our logo design page to learn even more about our transitional pages. And we use this extensive data to continually improve the page with changes both large and small.

The dangers of misinterpretation

I’ve been fortunate to work closely with some brilliant people who see numbers in a way I sometimes struggle to comprehend. And there have been some less than inspiring moments where I’ve been shown how quite clearly how ‘wrong’ I’m interpreting the data — publicly and privately.

As you get access to more data and learn how to use it, you’ll undoubtedly face the same  challenge. While you may be tempted to scurry back to a comforting world of vanity metrics and intuition, try looking your data critics in the eye and asking them to help you do better. Chances are your first blog post wasn’t very good. Why would your first analytical endeavor be any different?

That said, here’s how to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made:

1. Become a student of data interpretation

There are a lot of resources, books and courses that can be really helpful. I’m currently doing a Data Science course on the very subject to help me lift my analytical game.

General Assembly, Skillshare, Udemy, Lynda and Udacity all have data- and analytics-related courses you can subscribe to.

2. Don’t go it alone

Collaborating with someone on your analysis — even if it’s just talking through your data and what you’ve learned — helps you find not only mistakes in your logic, but also any subconscious biases that may have crept into your analysis.

3. Find your devil’s advocate

This one is hard, but super important. Find and work with someone who will tell you you’re wrong more often than right. The secret to making the most of this critical view on your decisions is learning when to listen to them and when to ignore them.

Now, how do you set all this up?

The point of this post is to challenge you to step outside ] your data comfort zone. While tools such as Google Analytics can take you some of the way, you might need to look for data in other places.

At 99designs we have a pretty complicated data configuration. You won’t need anything near this level, — but here are some basic tools that can help take your analytics beyond Google.

Segment

We use Segment as the central point for collecting events and distributing them to the various tools that use them.

Indicative

We then use Indicative as our reporting tool for all that wonderful event data. But it’s not cheap, and alternatives such as Mixpanel offer better entry-level plans.

Setting up your new analytics might feel impossible at first. But try not to get too bogged down. A specialist can help set it all up for you.

Instead, focus on figuring out the questions that are important to your business. Start with your North Star Metric and work downward. Once you can describe the questions you are trying to answer with confidence, it’s easy and affordable to get help setting up the analytics you need.

Love over metrics? Nope, love and metrics.

During the Mastermind event, I was fortunate to spend some time chatting with one of the most authentic community builders online, Jadah Sellner. Her session was titled “Love Over Metrics,” which proposed a slightly different direction than the one I was heading at the event.

But as Jadah and I chatted I realised that although we started at different places, we had common middle ground. We both believe that while meaningfulness is in the value you give to your audience, it’s also important to align how you measure yourself to these goals. Results driven from loving your readers can live right next to a love of data.

This post doesn’t have all the answers. But I hope it helps you understand that there’s a life beyond those headline stats we’ve clung to for so long.

Mastering these measures may not give you schoolyard bragging rights with big headline numbers. But it will give you a better chance of building that profitable blog you always dreamed you could.

Shayne has been part of the ProBlogger Team in various ways for more than a decade – from dreaming up new ProBlogger and Digital Photography School products and running marketing to writing books and speaking at events. These days he’s happy sharing his experiences running teams of amazing content creators, marketers and engineers at 99designs.

The post Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats appeared first on ProBlogger.

       from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ProbloggerHelpingBloggersEarnMoney/~3/eVld9X56LyY/

[richardrobertsimsuccessblog]

Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats

In a recent ProBlogger Mastermind, I shared a slide that seemed to hit a nerve with the group.

While having lots of page views, sessions, fans, followers and even email subscribers may feel good, they don’t actually tell you anything about the health of your blog.

I included this in my Mastermind session after having several conversations with bloggers that all started something like this: “Traffic is growing, and so is my social following and email list. But I’m not making any money”.

For many, the monetization emptiness came from focusing on certain results and metrics (such as those I just mentioned) that sounded great, but had very little bearing on actual monetary return.

Vanity over actionable metrics isn’t a new thing.

The idea of measuring the metrics that matter has been around for a while. People like Neil Patel have made their names and built successful companies through challenging us to think more deeply about the ‘Why?’ behind our numbers. Today, action-driven data is available to everyone doing business online – including bloggers – so there’s no excuse for not using it.

But rather than leaping into the depth of data, I recommend you begin with small steps.

Define your North Star Metric, and what might influence it

Time is the enemy of most bloggers just starting out, and so focus is critical. A North Star Metric gives you one thing to care about above everything else.

“To uncover your North Star Metric you must understand the value your most loyal customers get from using your product. Then you should try to quantify this value in a single metric.” – Sean Ellis

Your North Star Metric should be a metric that will directly improve the health and prosperity of your blog.

Start asking better questions

It’s time to start ignoring what Google Analytics thinks you want to know. Instead, think about the real value you’re trying to give a reader (your North Star), and what observable actions they might take that will show how good a job you’re doing getting them there.

For example, if your blog teaches others how to run a successful blog, what short- and long-term behaviors would you expect to see from someone you’re actually teaching?

They could be basic things such as:

  Find you (first time visit)

  Come back again (repeat visit)

  Engage (comment on a post, or follow you on a social platform)

  Give you their email address (subscribe)

  Buy or subscribe to a product (purchase)

  Buy or subscribe to a second product (purchase again)

Thanks to free services such as Google Analytics, we take comfort in very basic but often misleading blog metrics. After all, who has the time (or the energy) to dive into the numbers? But if think about the questions you need to answer before you start worrying about how to measure them, you’ll quickly change your mindset.

And once you’ve got this down, you’ll be ready to get your numerical nerd on.

Understanding cohorts and segmentation

Statistics and mathematics are probably the last things you want me to talk about. But segmentation and cohorts are important terms that you need to understand.

So what are they?

Segmentation and cohorts are techniques used to collate data into meaningful groups. They let you compare different groups in various ways, as well as over different time periods, and ask questions like, “Are my current first-time visitors behaving differently from the first-time visitors I had a year ago?”

While Google Analytics lets you do some basic cohorts, you’ll quickly find the level of detail Google gives you for free quite limiting.

But when you look at your data through cohorts and segmentation, you can identify specific strengths and opportunities to improve.

What is a cohort?

In statistics, marketing and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who share a defining characteristic.

For example, you might notice over time that people who find your blog through search are less inclined to arrive at your North Star than someone coming from a different source. By using research, data, and experimentation you can get a better understanding of the situation, and create a plan to improve the experience of these first-time SEO arrivals.

For example, you may need to:

create a stronger CTA in your post to help casual SEO arrivals learn more about you

find better ways to get readers to check out a second post, or give you their email address

spend time building more traffic from those lower volume but higher value-per-visitor channels.

Whatever the answer is, you’ll find it in your experiments and metrics.

And from there you can look at your most recent cohorts to see what impact your new approach is having.

Congratulations. You’re now taking meaningful steps to grow the prosperity of your blog.

The theories are nice, but what about in practice?

At 99designs, we began reflecting on our blog’s performance by asking deeper questions about the impact we were having on our readers.

Some of the results were hard to read.

Do people read our content?

We knew how many people started reading our content. But we had no idea if they were consuming all those wonderful words we’d put so much effort in creating. We could make some guesstimates based on ‘time on site,’ but that was too general. So we produced two reports – time engaged with the page, and how far people were scrolling down the page.

The results were hard to read at first. “What do you mean, ‘Only 5% get to the end’?” But with visibility, we’ve managed to improve this percentage significantly in the past year.

What do people do after they finish reading (or abandon) a post?

We’d tried cobbling together an answer using sign-up rates and other things such as page views per user. But those were meaningless aggregate results.

So we created a report on what people do after reading (or not reading) a post.

What’s driving growth – our old (evergreen) content or our new content?

We assumed our new content was fueling growth. But it was actually a combination of the two.

But wait, there’s more

These graphs are interesting. But when you start to segment things become more insightful. We can look at this graph by channel, post category, author and more to find patterns in what’s being read and what’s providing value to our readers. These insights are now intrinsic to our growth plans for our blog.

Upping the ante for key transitional pages

Our blog is what we call a top-of-funnel page type – one that’s consumed early in a relationship we hope to build with our readers.

As people progress through our funnel, we’ve identified key transitional pages that signal a significant potential shift in the relationship from reader to customer.

One example is our logo design page.

On this page, a reader or visitor is deciding whether to pursue getting a logo with us — an obvious turning point. While we have great tracking measures on our blog, we track ten times as many events on our logo design page to learn even more about our transitional pages. And we use this extensive data to continually improve the page with changes both large and small.

The dangers of misinterpretation

I’ve been fortunate to work closely with some brilliant people who see numbers in a way I sometimes struggle to comprehend. And there have been some less than inspiring moments where I’ve been shown how quite clearly how ‘wrong’ I’m interpreting the data — publicly and privately.

As you get access to more data and learn how to use it, you’ll undoubtedly face the same  challenge. While you may be tempted to scurry back to a comforting world of vanity metrics and intuition, try looking your data critics in the eye and asking them to help you do better. Chances are your first blog post wasn’t very good. Why would your first analytical endeavor be any different?

That said, here’s how to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made:

1. Become a student of data interpretation

There are a lot of resources, books and courses that can be really helpful. I’m currently doing a Data Science course on the very subject to help me lift my analytical game.

General Assembly, Skillshare, Udemy, Lynda and Udacity all have data- and analytics-related courses you can subscribe to.

2. Don’t go it alone

Collaborating with someone on your analysis — even if it’s just talking through your data and what you’ve learned — helps you find not only mistakes in your logic, but also any subconscious biases that may have crept into your analysis.

3. Find your devil’s advocate

This one is hard, but super important. Find and work with someone who will tell you you’re wrong more often than right. The secret to making the most of this critical view on your decisions is learning when to listen to them and when to ignore them.

Now, how do you set all this up?

The point of this post is to challenge you to step outside ] your data comfort zone. While tools such as Google Analytics can take you some of the way, you might need to look for data in other places.

At 99designs we have a pretty complicated data configuration. You won’t need anything near this level, — but here are some basic tools that can help take your analytics beyond Google.

Segment

We use Segment as the central point for collecting events and distributing them to the various tools that use them.

Indicative

We then use Indicative as our reporting tool for all that wonderful event data. But it’s not cheap, and alternatives such as Mixpanel offer better entry-level plans.

Setting up your new analytics might feel impossible at first. But try not to get too bogged down. A specialist can help set it all up for you.

Instead, focus on figuring out the questions that are important to your business. Start with your North Star Metric and work downward. Once you can describe the questions you are trying to answer with confidence, it’s easy and affordable to get help setting up the analytics you need.

Love over metrics? Nope, love and metrics.

During the Mastermind event, I was fortunate to spend some time chatting with one of the most authentic community builders online, Jadah Sellner. Her session was titled “Love Over Metrics,” which proposed a slightly different direction than the one I was heading at the event.

But as Jadah and I chatted I realised that although we started at different places, we had common middle ground. We both believe that while meaningfulness is in the value you give to your audience, it’s also important to align how you measure yourself to these goals. Results driven from loving your readers can live right next to a love of data.

This post doesn’t have all the answers. But I hope it helps you understand that there’s a life beyond those headline stats we’ve clung to for so long.

Mastering these measures may not give you schoolyard bragging rights with big headline numbers. But it will give you a better chance of building that profitable blog you always dreamed you could.

Shayne has been part of the ProBlogger Team in various ways for more than a decade – from dreaming up new ProBlogger and Digital Photography School products and running marketing to writing books and speaking at events. These days he’s happy sharing his experiences running teams of amazing content creators, marketers and engineers at 99designs.

The post Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats appeared first on ProBlogger.

       Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats

[silvino32mills]

Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats

In a recent ProBlogger Mastermind, I shared a slide that seemed to hit a nerve with the group.

While having lots of page views, sessions, fans, followers and even email subscribers may feel good, they don’t actually tell you anything about the health of your blog.

I included this in my Mastermind session after having several conversations with bloggers that all started something like this: “Traffic is growing, and so is my social following and email list. But I’m not making any money”.

For many, the monetization emptiness came from focusing on certain results and metrics (such as those I just mentioned) that sounded great, but had very little bearing on actual monetary return.

Vanity over actionable metrics isn’t a new thing.

The idea of measuring the metrics that matter has been around for a while. People like Neil Patel have made their names and built successful companies through challenging us to think more deeply about the ‘Why?’ behind our numbers. Today, action-driven data is available to everyone doing business online – including bloggers – so there’s no excuse for not using it.

But rather than leaping into the depth of data, I recommend you begin with small steps.

Define your North Star Metric, and what might influence it

Time is the enemy of most bloggers just starting out, and so focus is critical. A North Star Metric gives you one thing to care about above everything else.

“To uncover your North Star Metric you must understand the value your most loyal customers get from using your product. Then you should try to quantify this value in a single metric.” – Sean Ellis

Your North Star Metric should be a metric that will directly improve the health and prosperity of your blog.

Start asking better questions

It’s time to start ignoring what Google Analytics thinks you want to know. Instead, think about the real value you’re trying to give a reader (your North Star), and what observable actions they might take that will show how good a job you’re doing getting them there.

For example, if your blog teaches others how to run a successful blog, what short- and long-term behaviors would you expect to see from someone you’re actually teaching?

They could be basic things such as:

  Find you (first time visit)

  Come back again (repeat visit)

  Engage (comment on a post, or follow you on a social platform)

  Give you their email address (subscribe)

  Buy or subscribe to a product (purchase)

  Buy or subscribe to a second product (purchase again)

Thanks to free services such as Google Analytics, we take comfort in very basic but often misleading blog metrics. After all, who has the time (or the energy) to dive into the numbers? But if think about the questions you need to answer before you start worrying about how to measure them, you’ll quickly change your mindset.

And once you’ve got this down, you’ll be ready to get your numerical nerd on.

Understanding cohorts and segmentation

Statistics and mathematics are probably the last things you want me to talk about. But segmentation and cohorts are important terms that you need to understand.

So what are they?

Segmentation and cohorts are techniques used to collate data into meaningful groups. They let you compare different groups in various ways, as well as over different time periods, and ask questions like, “Are my current first-time visitors behaving differently from the first-time visitors I had a year ago?”

While Google Analytics lets you do some basic cohorts, you’ll quickly find the level of detail Google gives you for free quite limiting.

But when you look at your data through cohorts and segmentation, you can identify specific strengths and opportunities to improve.

What is a cohort?

In statistics, marketing and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who share a defining characteristic.

For example, you might notice over time that people who find your blog through search are less inclined to arrive at your North Star than someone coming from a different source. By using research, data, and experimentation you can get a better understanding of the situation, and create a plan to improve the experience of these first-time SEO arrivals.

For example, you may need to:

create a stronger CTA in your post to help casual SEO arrivals learn more about you

find better ways to get readers to check out a second post, or give you their email address

spend time building more traffic from those lower volume but higher value-per-visitor channels.

Whatever the answer is, you’ll find it in your experiments and metrics.

And from there you can look at your most recent cohorts to see what impact your new approach is having.

Congratulations. You’re now taking meaningful steps to grow the prosperity of your blog.

The theories are nice, but what about in practice?

At 99designs, we began reflecting on our blog’s performance by asking deeper questions about the impact we were having on our readers.

Some of the results were hard to read.

Do people read our content?

We knew how many people started reading our content. But we had no idea if they were consuming all those wonderful words we’d put so much effort in creating. We could make some guesstimates based on ‘time on site,’ but that was too general. So we produced two reports – time engaged with the page, and how far people were scrolling down the page.

The results were hard to read at first. “What do you mean, ‘Only 5% get to the end’?” But with visibility, we’ve managed to improve this percentage significantly in the past year.

What do people do after they finish reading (or abandon) a post?

We’d tried cobbling together an answer using sign-up rates and other things such as page views per user. But those were meaningless aggregate results.

So we created a report on what people do after reading (or not reading) a post.

What’s driving growth – our old (evergreen) content or our new content?

We assumed our new content was fueling growth. But it was actually a combination of the two.

But wait, there’s more

These graphs are interesting. But when you start to segment things become more insightful. We can look at this graph by channel, post category, author and more to find patterns in what’s being read and what’s providing value to our readers. These insights are now intrinsic to our growth plans for our blog.

Upping the ante for key transitional pages

Our blog is what we call a top-of-funnel page type – one that’s consumed early in a relationship we hope to build with our readers.

As people progress through our funnel, we’ve identified key transitional pages that signal a significant potential shift in the relationship from reader to customer.

One example is our logo design page.

On this page, a reader or visitor is deciding whether to pursue getting a logo with us — an obvious turning point. While we have great tracking measures on our blog, we track ten times as many events on our logo design page to learn even more about our transitional pages. And we use this extensive data to continually improve the page with changes both large and small.

The dangers of misinterpretation

I’ve been fortunate to work closely with some brilliant people who see numbers in a way I sometimes struggle to comprehend. And there have been some less than inspiring moments where I’ve been shown how quite clearly how ‘wrong’ I’m interpreting the data — publicly and privately.

As you get access to more data and learn how to use it, you’ll undoubtedly face the same  challenge. While you may be tempted to scurry back to a comforting world of vanity metrics and intuition, try looking your data critics in the eye and asking them to help you do better. Chances are your first blog post wasn’t very good. Why would your first analytical endeavor be any different?

That said, here’s how to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made:

1. Become a student of data interpretation

There are a lot of resources, books and courses that can be really helpful. I’m currently doing a Data Science course on the very subject to help me lift my analytical game.

General Assembly, Skillshare, Udemy, Lynda and Udacity all have data- and analytics-related courses you can subscribe to.

2. Don’t go it alone

Collaborating with someone on your analysis — even if it’s just talking through your data and what you’ve learned — helps you find not only mistakes in your logic, but also any subconscious biases that may have crept into your analysis.

3. Find your devil’s advocate

This one is hard, but super important. Find and work with someone who will tell you you’re wrong more often than right. The secret to making the most of this critical view on your decisions is learning when to listen to them and when to ignore them.

Now, how do you set all this up?

The point of this post is to challenge you to step outside ] your data comfort zone. While tools such as Google Analytics can take you some of the way, you might need to look for data in other places.

At 99designs we have a pretty complicated data configuration. You won’t need anything near this level, — but here are some basic tools that can help take your analytics beyond Google.

Segment

We use Segment as the central point for collecting events and distributing them to the various tools that use them.

Indicative

We then use Indicative as our reporting tool for all that wonderful event data. But it’s not cheap, and alternatives such as Mixpanel offer better entry-level plans.

Setting up your new analytics might feel impossible at first. But try not to get too bogged down. A specialist can help set it all up for you.

Instead, focus on figuring out the questions that are important to your business. Start with your North Star Metric and work downward. Once you can describe the questions you are trying to answer with confidence, it’s easy and affordable to get help setting up the analytics you need.

Love over metrics? Nope, love and metrics.

During the Mastermind event, I was fortunate to spend some time chatting with one of the most authentic community builders online, Jadah Sellner. Her session was titled “Love Over Metrics,” which proposed a slightly different direction than the one I was heading at the event.

But as Jadah and I chatted I realised that although we started at different places, we had common middle ground. We both believe that while meaningfulness is in the value you give to your audience, it’s also important to align how you measure yourself to these goals. Results driven from loving your readers can live right next to a love of data.

This post doesn’t have all the answers. But I hope it helps you understand that there’s a life beyond those headline stats we’ve clung to for so long.

Mastering these measures may not give you schoolyard bragging rights with big headline numbers. But it will give you a better chance of building that profitable blog you always dreamed you could.

Shayne has been part of the ProBlogger Team in various ways for more than a decade – from dreaming up new ProBlogger and Digital Photography School products and running marketing to writing books and speaking at events. These days he’s happy sharing his experiences running teams of amazing content creators, marketers and engineers at 99designs.

The post Blog Metrics: Why You Need to Stop Focusing on ‘Vanity’ Stats appeared first on ProBlogger.

       from ProBlogger http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ProbloggerHelpingBloggersEarnMoney/~3/eVld9X56LyY/