#OH YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE EPS FROM THIS SITE TOO
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👉🏼👈🏼 I’ve never seen the new show but I love your blog and content, can you tell us who don’t know where to watch??
Alkajsndkjn oh man, thank you!!! I'm honestly shocked I haven't scared off anyone not familiar with it after, well, this year :'D For the legal options, it's on both Crunchyroll and Hulu! For the people who uhhhhhh *ehem* prefer life on the high seas, first make sure you have adblock because I've never viewed the site without adblock, then this site has some of the better subtitles that I've seen! If you're more of a dub person, the full dub is up there too!
#Ask#Anon#Tristamp#Trigun Stampede#Trigun#Also just because I don't want to assume you're a fellow weeb:#Sub is Japanese audio with English subtitles#Dub is English audio! Hulu has English dub with English subtitles#But that's the only place I know where that's the case ):<#I'm partial to the sub BUT both are good#Just different#OH YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE EPS FROM THIS SITE TOO#BTW#I may have them all downloaded#Maybe#Perhaps
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Free wedding fonts for cricut
#FREE WEDDING FONTS FOR CRICUT FOR FREE#
#FREE WEDDING FONTS FOR CRICUT HOW TO#
#FREE WEDDING FONTS FOR CRICUT LICENSE#
Quick and Easy The font is Obelix Pro, the camera silhouette is. This is what I came up with (Mostly free files) For the sign, I used a 16x20 canvas, painted it black, and added 651 white vinyl. We had a few on hand, but I wanted to make some 'extras'. These fonts are free and come with a commercial license. For my nieces wedding recently, I was in charge of the photo booth props. To download just click the name of the font you’d like and go to the page to find it for download. Free FONTS WITH EXTRA GLYPHS for Cricut & Silhouette crafts like vinyl signs, home decor & more Elegant cursive script fonts with beautiful strokes Free FUN, CREATIVE FONTS for Cricut.
#FREE WEDDING FONTS FOR CRICUT FOR FREE#
The best resource I’ve found for free fonts. So, while I was browsing for free wedding fonts, I found a few I thought my font lovers might enjoy Each of these fonts would be perfect for wedding invitations, menus, etc. Just like Dafont, Font Squirrel one of myįavorite website with a curated collection of good quality, free fonts from all Of the absolute best free fonts available on Google Fonts, must of them are 100% free for commercialįonts ranging from sans serif to calligraphic, Dafont allows you to filterįonts through a number of options, If you plan to use any font for yourīusiness Make sure they are available for commercial use. Just like FontBundle you can get you can getįree Fonts Every week, Creative Fabrica offers freebies and many of them comes Like, many Cricut fonts built into the machine itself and the same can be used.
#FREE WEDDING FONTS FOR CRICUT HOW TO#
When you want to know how to add a font to Cricut there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Our cut files comes with svg, dxf, png, eps files, and they. Download 340 svg cut template free wedding invitation svg files for cricut svg png eps dxf file to create your own diy projects compatible. Let us now briefly have a look at the ways and means of uploading fonts. The sophisticated wedding invitation svg set for cricut explore is designed to make your guests say wow when they open your handmade invitation. Here are the top 3 free Easter fonts for Cricut crafters, and oh yeah (theyre also free for personal and commercial use, as with all the rest of the amazing free fonts we have in this post): 1.
#FREE WEDDING FONTS FOR CRICUT LICENSE#
Many of them comes with a commercial license too. 12 free wedding fonts My daughter’s best friend is getting married, and I’m so incredibly happy for her They’ve been friends since they were in elementary school, and luckily college life hasn’t pulled them apart one tiny bit. These could be considered to be the best fonts for cricut machines. I’ve been really impressed about the quality of these items. This is probably one of my most favorite sites where you can get Free Fonts, Every Week some of the items are going to be added to freebies.
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Simmer, Get to know
Tagged by the lovely @katsimsdreamer and @whyhellosims ♥
Under the cut, these are so long ☻♥
Your name: Patricia is my Real Life name but on the internet, I go by MarcelTorak for account names and Sinostra (usually) for my avatar in games.
Languages you speak: English, a tiny smattering of Spanish and French because you know school and education. French is required in elementary school in Canada and Spanish, German or French are usually options for you in Highschool. I studied Spanish for 4 years but that was 20 years ago so... I retained NOTHING!
Are you a mermaid: I am a Life Bouy I float... literally FLOAT like I can dive into the water and just keep my arms and legs straight at my sides and I will end up on my back floating perfectly.
Your playstyle: Mostly just Gameplay but I have been trying challenges recently. I never tried any challenges before I joined Tumblr.
Your self sim picture: I might be a bit thicker but I’m sure I set her to the heaviest setting. I’m lucky in that I retained my figure even when I gained 100 pounds it helps me look less than I really am.
Stories or gameplay builds, lookbooks, edits or cc: I love reading people's stories. I love doing gameplay and just seeing what randomness can happen at times. I’m too lacking in confidence to really do lookbooks or builds but I love looking at other peoples. I adore CC just not talented enough to make it but I certainly APPRECIATE IT!!! I did do my first edit ever the other day for the Lunar Zodiac Challenge!!!
Your favourite age state: I would love the age states a hell of a lot more if there was -more- I could do with them. Infants, Toddlers, Children are so adorable but I feel really limited in their activities and personalities. Teens are great because the game treats them like practical adults so there is little you can’t do with them. I love the growing up and watching them become someone...
Your favourite season: Every time I start a new save I start in spring because I feel that is the order of things. Birth life ageing death and birth anew. It feels off if I choose a different season to start with. I did it with the Santa Baby Challenge but that’s because she’s all about winter so I had to.
Your favourite holiday: Winterfest was my favourite because of the Santa Baby Challenge and the fun I had with it but I’m growing to really like Love Day and the warm fuzzies I get seeing my sims do special things for their loved ones.
How was your day: I didn’t really get much done today but the things I really wanted to get done today I did finish so I feel accomplished.
Your favourite career: If you don’t mind needing to travel around a lot the Conservationist Career when you do the stay at home functions was really fun when I started out with Pearl but as my families grow I lose the time to spend focusing on the stay at home tasks as much so I usually pick a job that suits their personality or aspiration and send them off without me.
Your favourite aspiration: I love family aspirations.
Your favourite EP, SP or GP
Favourite Eps: Island Living
Favourite SP’s: The toddler one. I forgot what it’s called.
Favourite GP’s: Vampires and Realm of Magic
How old is your simblr: I should be hitting 1 year old within the month? I’ve had the account for much longer but I’ve only been active for a year.
Have you woohooed: I should say so. I’ve been married, divorced and now live common law with my current darling who I hope to be with forever. It’s been 8 years so I think I will. ^_^
Your favourite skill: Any musical skill, Flower Arranging and Wellness.
The size of your mods folder: 16.6 gigs with about 580+ folders sorting by the creator.
Your 3 favourite mods: Deaderpool for MCCC, LittleMsSam and all her mods, Polar Bear sims and their Personality and vampire mods. I suppose but I really am tied up with several more I would want to list.
Your interests (other than sims): Reading, Crochet and Video Games... Mostly RPG types like World of Warcraft, Starwars and the like.
Your favourite sim (picture if possible): I made her for a bachelor(ette) challenge that never went anywhere so she’s never gotten to be featured in anything but I seriously think this is the most beautiful sim I’ve ever made and will ever make.
which sims games you have played (including mobile games): The Sims 1, 2, 3 and 4. I had the Wii sims uhm... those little box head ones? Both mobile versions as well. Oh and the Castaways one. I still own (in storage somewhere so the disks might not work anymore... all the expansions, game packs and stuff packs of Sims 1, 2, 3, and almost all of 4 I’m just missing tiny living.
Propose a crazy scheme: *raises pointed finger in the air* I believe that what sims 4 needs the most is what sims 3 had! That website connected to the game that lets you purchase little addons for the game! You could by something as simple as a hairstyle or a whole town! you had to use real money and I can’t see why it wouldn’t make them billions of dollars because I swear by the time sims 4 came out I had invested about 1,000 dollars myself alone and I still hadn’t bought all I wanted to buy! Hell! They could even save themselves time and give out like a... I dunno uhm.. royalty payment? to current modders to feature their stuff on the sims official site if they let the company own the CC from then on but the artist either would get a single fair payout or a couple of cents per download kinda payout.... it would motivate the people who make CC for money as well as fun and give EA a massive pool of content to choose from!
The best part of simblr: Seeing all the amazing talent, imaginations and humour of the people around me who have the same joy in playing sims as I do. Seeing comments on my posts even if it’s just a <3 I get all happy seeing it!
The worst part of simblr: Well I haven’t really gotten to see the dark side of Simblr to be honest but I do think that people sometimes can get out of hand with their differing opinions.
What other games you play: World of Warcraft, Starwars Online, Any MMORPG really I’ve tried almost all of them if they are free to try. Lately, my husband and I play Titan Quest together it’s fun it’s like Diablo 2
other websites or accounts (origin, twitter etc..): uuuuuuhm I have a Facebook account for personal use that I hardly use other than to get messages from people I need to hear from since I do not have a phone. I have a twitter I never use that I linked to things so they post on it for me? I have an Instagram I was putting crochet stuff on it but I can’t remember the password for it anymore I never use it really I don’t really Uhm... do the social thing... I’m on Discord?
I’m tagging: @quinnterestingsims, @kalissimsblog, @lotusplum, @sammsims, @sadmachinepng, @nyxfoxx if you already have done this or don’t want too then just ignore it.
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Moments In Song No. 021 - Tromac Pineapple
“Moments In Song” asks people one simple question, “What are you listening to?” For every installment we ask someone to make a playlist of 10 songs they’re listening to, whether it be something new they stumbled upon, or a song they’ve always loved, and explain the story behind their choices. We aim to show that no matter where we come from, what we do, or what we look like, music has the ability to bring us together.
DMV producer/rapper/DJ Tromac Pineapple reaches every corner of Hip-Hop and brings it together in his playlist. We talk to him about digging through Bandcamp for music, what makes a good DJ, and his new project the Velour Vandal EP.
Listen to Tromac’s playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.
Words and photos by Julian.
_________________________________________________________
Julian: First thing I wanted to ask you is what the thought process was behind making your playlist? People always say it’s hard picking 10 songs to squeeze into it.
Tromac: Well I wanted to spread across my taste as wide as possible. I actually had a hard time once I got to like 7 songs because I was like, “Damn, I can only put in three more of those joints, but I know 5 that I could pick.” I pretty much just wanted to touch on the different types of music I like. I still didn’t even get across all of it.
I noticed that a majority of the playlist was Hip-Hop, but different types of Hip-Hop. You have some boom bap stuff with “Free (Type Shit),” Dilla, and Anderson. Then you have more turn up stuff like WiFIGawd and Ghostie. That Ghostie song caught me off guard. It has a little house feel to it that I wasn’t expecting.
Yeah see I had to add that, because Ghostie is one of the most versatile artists I know. As versatile as this playlist is, he’s six times as versatile as that. As a fellow producer in this area, I have a whole lot of respect for him. And that’s my mans, so I’ll be listening to it anyway. Shit be cranking, no matter what genre he tackles. And then I also have the “Free (Type Shit)” joint because it’s just so smooth and it hits. The beats, the boom bap. That’s one of my favorite things in Hip-Hop. It’s just so powerful. That’s also why I got the J Dilla joint on there. That’s like my favorite Dilla beat of all time. Straight slap, the drums, the snares. The whole thing. It's just hard. Classic. Undeniable.
When did you first really start listening to music and developing your own taste, instead of just listening to what was on the radio?
Pretty much when I was in 9th or 10th grade. Back then my main taste was just mixtapes and shit. The first favorite rapper I ever had was Lil Wayne, and he’s still like top 5 to me to this day. I would just listen to endless mixtapes, because before I graduated High School I just loved to listen to underground shit. I literally didn’t listen to albums and would only listen to mixtapes. I would listen to the first three Droughts, Sorry 4 the Wait. That was my favorite mixtape of all times for like 18 years (laughs).
Were you on DatPiff and all those sites?
Oh bruh, I had a DatPiff account, LiveMixtapes, Sprinrilla, all of that.
So how did listening to mostly mixtapes branch off into listening to other types of artists and other types of music?
Well basically every now and then I would look into what was new that week…
Still on the mixtape websites, or is this on something else?
Yeah still the mixtape sites but at this point I also got into Bandcamp, and that was some real underground type shit. When I got into Bandcamp I was also making my own music at this point and was posting it on there. I would hashtag that shit and then click on them to see who else was posting music from Laurel, MD, or PG County, or just Maryland in general. That’s how I found a bunch of other local artists, like my homies Fonlon and Kente from NASA8, Tek.Lun and other guys. They had the same hashtags because we were all from Laurel. And then from there I would look at other hashtags like #HipHopBeats, and I would discover artists like Madbliss. Searching through hashtags led to me finding a bunch of random bands on Bandcamp, and I feel like that really opened the door for me to be on the lookout for other genres of music.
You said earlier this is when you started making music?
Yeah I started making music in 10th grade.
So is that writing rhymes? Making beats? Both?
Making beats. I mean I was freestyling with my friends all the time, and writing rhymes down in my notebook, but I wasn’t rapping on beats until 11th grade, which was around 2013. I didn’t rap on my own beats until 2014 because I knew my shit wasn’t good (laughs). But it eventually got to a point where I could hit my own stuff instead of YouTube “type beats.” I knew early on “type beats” wasn’t the wave. It is the wave for some people, but it wasn’t the wave for me. And I knew that early on because you can’t really build a solid body of work just taking random beats. Even if you get a bunch of random beats from different producers, it’s more that needs to go into a project than that.
When you first started making music, who were some of your influences when it came to producing? I would assume Dilla is one, or did that not come until later?
I knew about J Dilla because I would hear my parents listen to Erykah Badu and Common, so when my Dad found out that I was making beats he would be like, “Oh so you wanna be like Dougie Fresh and J Dilla?” and I was like, “Who the hell are these people?” All I knew was like Mike WiLL Made-It because that was what I was hearing. I wasn’t too keen on producers at that level. The producers I did know were like Flying Lotus, Tek.Lun, Kaytranada, Sam Gellaitry and that was all through Soundcloud. Some of my favorite producers would be the ones I randomly found on Soundcloud.
Can you talk more about how discovering these local artists’ music on the internet led to you linking up with them, and not just working with them but them becoming your homies.
Literally just through showing love and support through the music. I started coming out here to Baltimore for events and chilling with the homies as a way to immerse myself in the scene. Of course, you met people, you tell people you do music, and eventually the link forms itself. And if you’re good the link grows with a lot of people. When you’re genuine, genuine things happen for you. I’ve never been a “clout chaser” or anything like that. It’s always been, “This dude is really dope. He’s the homie of my homie.”
I agree with that 100%. I feel like every connection or relationship I’ve made with someone in the arts scene has been on some person to person type stuff. Not even like artist to artist, or creative to creative type stuff, but just like as a person. And I feel like you were saying it just grows from there.
Definitely. People who are just creative in general. Photographers, painters, dancers, even like fucking bartenders. Athletes, anyone who’s mind moves faster than the normal individual. I remember when I was learning how to drive my driving instructor told me that people who are athletes and artists tend to get adapted to driving easier, because their brains work more than the average individual because they have a craft they need to constantly focus on. Whatever activity you’re involved in, your brain works harder to adapt to that.
So beats came first, and then the raps. Where does the DJing come into that?
So the DJing came in because I had probably performed 3 or 4 times rapping, but then I was really confident in my beats and I wanted to start performing my beats. By this time, 2015/2016, I would be seeing videos of dudes like eu-IV, j.robb, other producers I looked up to, random Boiler Room videos, and was thinking, “Why can’t I perform my shit?” So I started creating mixes in FL Studio, and learned to DJ through that. It was tedious as fuck, but I had time because I was kid and didn’t have shit to do (laughs).
I feel like that shows in your sets now. The last one I saw from you, you had a transition from some house song to a Gucci Mane song that was crazy. Never would I have thought to put those two tracks together.
Literally when I DJ, I just play the music that I like. That Gucci Mane song just came back into my rotation like a week ago and I was just like, “Damn I don’t remember this shit being so hard. I gotta play this at a show!” A lot of it is on the fly. I don’t really plan too much outside of downloading the music. I always go off of the crowd and how I feel. Sometimes I’ll download 30 songs for a set and only end up playing like 13, and the rest of the set would’ve been made up of songs I’ve played at other shows.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a show, and have been practicing the week before, and had a playlist ready, and you go in and the crowd is totally different, the energy changes, so you have to play off the cuff. I feel like as much emphasis you put on practicing and preparing, you also need to have the skill of being able to be on your toes and change on the drop of a dime.
I feel like if you’re a good DJ, that should already be a thing. You should know. You pick up on things like that automatically. The shows are practice. You’re not gonna get the same experience at a show, practicing at home. That’s why I feel like if you’re just starting out you should take as many opportunities as you can, and get a feel of what your lane is. I used to take any show I could. I would DJ baby showers, college pools parties, everything. You gotta find your lane, figure out what type of crowds your best in, and switch it up every now and then.
What can you tell me about the new project you got coming up? What kind of sound and themes can people expect from it?
So the new project is called the Velour Vandal EP, and it’s basically establishing myself as a rapper in the game. I’ve had rap projects before, I’ve had beat tapes, but this is my first official EP. I want people to hear this and think, “Ok, Tromac is actually trying to make it type shit.” It’s really just a lot of crank on this joint, but it’s not like I was in this joint like, “Fuck your bitch…”
You put some thought into it.
Yeah! There’s some lyrics that you gotta ask about. I’m trying to make something that’ll hit, stick, and has good content. All the people I’m working with on it are people I know care and are passionate about music. The intro is produced by me and Koleco, I’m recording all of the songs with Martin J. Ballou, I got Vlad on a song, I got Ghostie. Pretty much have all people I know are serious about music. I want this project to be something.
Yeah it’s like your introduction as a whole artist.
Yeah. And the whole thing behind the title is for like the last year or so, I’ve become really fond of velvet and have been buying a lot of it. People would always tell me I’m a bear, because I’m big and shit, soft and cuddly, just a cozy ass nigga. I have a thing where I give myself a bunch of alisas, and Velour Vandal just happen to be one of them, and I was like, “Hmm. I can do something with that.”
Any last words about your playlist and what you want the people to get from it?
I want people to go into it with a blank slate. Almost pretend like you’ve never heard music before, be reintroduced to all the different genres and aspects of these songs, and cultivate a new taste from that.
Connect with Tromac Pineapple:
https://twitter.com/TromacPineapple
https://www.instagram.com/tromacpineapple/
https://soundcloud.com/tromac
Connect with Moments In Song:
https://www.instagram.com/momentsinsong/
https://twitter.com/moments_in_song
https://tinyurl.com/MISAppleMusic
https://tinyurl.com/MISSpotify
#Moments in Song#Music#what are you listening to#hip-hop#dmv#baltimore#bandcamp#soundcloud#apple music#spotify#ghostie#martin j. ballou#snoop dogg#three 6 mafia#rick ross#j dilla#saba#wifigawd#anderson .paak#lorde fredd33
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Good morning! I was in good Ole fanfiction net, it was a very easy site to navigate, had my group of friends then people moved on and I went to ao3 with the hobbit Fandom, one night I got so pissed I deleted everything and Tumblr, I remade it a month later but I never seeked out the people I knew.
Well, seeking angst in stories is better than living it, ngl.
Fisk is an amazing villain. Although he talks waaaaaay too much. Like Matt I get it. I would like to kill him too. But mafia man WTF.
TV shows are always better than movies, movies are weird if you wanna focus on the action like take iron man, nice development and growth in his own trilogy then turning him into a ~villain in age of ultron. He had just burnt all of his suits why would be create a robot? No sense. Or Steve how is cw a captain America movie? It is not. 😢
I downloaded the first seasons of all shows. I'll start with half Jessica half Matt so it will be less heavy and then watch Luke because Luke came a year later. Propably start at Monday. I will watch titans today which is from DC and a cool show. Do you like the six ep format or do you prefer the 13 eps?
Music huh? We need the exact year he was in college tbh to determine better. Maybe some classic rock or indie and frencj songs Elektra made him listened to. Didn't we see foggy being a metal head in the show am I remembering wrong? Radio yes as well. Maybe when they are bored at the office together when he is alone at home and bored before he goes out to fight but something small for sure. He listens to podcasts regularly maybe some law shows or maybe some criminal ones So he can protect the city. But I definetely think he listens to them, I mean he doesn't watch TV soo.. 🤔
again, more matt murdock talk under the cut :) feel free to filter #matt murdock dissertation if you don't wanna see these!
oh fanfiction net. ofcourse. i heard the lore over on wattpad, but never dared to go look myself haha! i had a group of friends on wattpad, i loved them but some days it was very toxic (some really really horrible stuff happened.) so i totally get not wanting to revisit those people! i'm glad those days are behind me. people also needed to grow up on that site, because there was so much bullshit all the time.
yeah i like shows more too, at least in such a big fandom like the mcu! just way more room for character development and it feels 10x less rushed! so yeah, i agree on everything you said there!
ooh i'm so excited for your rewatch!! that's a smart idea too, as you said jessica jones is kinda dark, so you lighten it a bit with our boy :). oh, i don't know titans, but i might watch it whenever i have more time! great question too! i like both 6 and 13 episode seasons! as long as its not 22 (except for gossip girl and vampire diaries. those are the only two shows i tolerate haha. maybe cm too, but i'm kinda burnt out from watching that!)
ooh i love the classics and indie music. as well as french music, i love french music! i have got no idea if foggy was a metal head actually, i must've missed that! okay i love that. yes to radio in the office. maybe when he doesn't want to hear the loud noises of the city. i think he gets really overwhelmed with that sometimes, so some soft music must help to focus his thoughts! oh, how i'd love to listen to podcasts with him. i agree on the crime one! or maybe the funny ones about weird law cases? that would definitely be his jam. maybe an audiobook once in a while, although i don't think he has the patience or the time to listen to 40 hours of those haha!
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Ep 10 Transcript: Fireheart Learns to Code
Episode 10
[intro music]
PAZ: Hi, everybody. Welcome back again to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.
JULIAN: I'm Julian.
LIZ: And I'm Liz.
PAZ: And we're back again this week reading Fire and Ice, chapter eight through 10, if I am remembering correctly.
JULIAN: Yep.
PAZ: But before we get into the chapters, we have some updates on the Barnes and Noble saga that I want to share, because they're all incredible. So a lot of these are just like additional comments to the Tumblr post that we read last week. I guess we can just go in the order through like how you sent them, Julian, because that's how I pulled them up.
JULIAN: Sure. I can read the first one.
PAZ: Sure, go ahead.
JULIAN: All right. Tumblr user melthedestroyer says, "I used to work at Barnes and Noble. And I need you all to know, when you pulled up a book in the internal system, it gives you a couple of top reviews from bn.com on the page. Imagine now my coworker Sal, a 60 year old Italian man with a flip phone, pulling up one of these one day. It was an interesting shift for Sal and I." Imagine having to introduce your coworker to the concept of roleplay, Warrior Cats roleplay.
PAZ: Yeah, not any roleplay. I love that.
JULIAN: I mean, I'm sure if he worked at Barnes and Noble he was familiar with the Warrior Cats phenomenon.
PAZ: Yeah, better be. Yeah, I'll read the next one. This is by Tumblr user diatribe. "I was part of a different circle of this for three-ish years in the early 2010s. Most of us had super controlling parents and weren't allowed internet access. The BN book reviews were broken af, completely unmoderated. Multiple books often shared the same reviews. And you didn't even have to own the book to write a review."
LIZ: Lawless.
PAZ: "It started with people just shouting out in these popular books, wondering if anyone else could see them. And then when people could reply, it spiraled. Also, we used BN's e-reader, so it just looked like we were reading." So Julian, you were like 100% correct.
LIZ: That's amazing.
JULIAN: Yeah, I was talking about this with Han after the podcast. And they also mentioned that Barnes and Noble's website probably also wouldn't be blocked on a school computer. So people might have been doing it from school computer labs. But a lot of the comments mentioned like doing it specifically on the Nook. So it looked like you were reading which is, oh, I'm really glad that these kids had somewhere to roleplay Warrior Cats that their parents could not control.
PAZ: Right? And just like, instant message, because we saw some of those as well. The creativity of children when they want to RP cats with their friends is endless. And I have nothing but respect.
JULIAN: Yeah, another update was someone saying that there was also a big Warrior Cats roleplay community on Khan Academy, which again, tracks.
LIZ: That is just incredible to me. That's like saying yeah, I used to RP on like Wolfram Alpha, or whatever that math site is.
JULIAN: Does Wolfram Alpha have a comment section because if so there might be Warrior Cats RP there.
LIZ: Wolfram Alpha forums. Let me check. Yes.
PAZ: Oh my gosh.
JULIAN: Oh yes.
PAZ: Search Warriors.
JULIAN: Community.wolfram.com/groups.
LIZ: Wait, search Warriors, please.
JULIAN: Oh, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.
LIZ: Cats, anything.
JULIAN: Oh, no, I'm not seeing anything, unfortunately.
PAZ: Oh no. Maybe it's too moderated.
JULIAN: It might be too moderated. It seems like it's pretty moderated.
PAZ: Tragic.
JULIAN: It's also like a whole company.
LIZ: Well, the framework is there. You could get past that. Listen, we saw some territorial disputes in the Barnes and Noble comments section.
JULIAN: We really did.
LIZ: So if anyone needs to branch out, I bet-- you know, there has to be someone who can hack a little bit.
PAZ: Yeah, Wolfram Alpha? Yeah.
LIZ: To get around this.
PAZ: Who wants to read the other final update that kind of dove into the questions we had about like, moderation and stuff?
LIZ: Is this the very long one that's like a screenshot?
JULIAN: Yeah, it's the one I had to screenshot because it was a reply, so I couldn't link to it.
LIZ: Okay, I can do the first one because it is pretty long. Okay, "here's a breakdown for you guys. You'll find people RPing in classic books because they're multi rez, which means multiple books link to the same review section. You can only post one review per book and posting in it erases your original review. So multi rez books are obvs desirable if you wanted to RP more than one character. Or if you wanted to leave a post up for someone who wasn't online at the moment."
JULIAN: "If you posted a bad word, you'd get locked out and wouldn't be able to post in that particular book anymore, which also made multi rez books desirable. You can get around this by putting open angle bracket underscore close angle bracket after the first two letters of a swear word, and then posting it would make it look like you hadn't censored it at all. Warrior Cats books were the most popular, but I remember Percy Jackson RPers hung around in like the Athenian constitution books."
PAZ: Yeah, so I remember we'd noted that like you could see the review counts of people and it would just say like one. And I think the explanation for that phenomena is here.
LIZ: Incredible.
PAZ: Because apparently it'd just delete if you reviewed more than once.
JULIAN: Yeah, so that makes sense, though, because it's like, if people are basically waiting for someone else to be online and then kind of RPing back and forth, but each of their new posts erases the old post, we only see the last one.
PAZ: Yeah, it's really tragic that there's no archive, though, because of that.
JULIAN: It's all gone. And the odds of it being on like Wayback Machine are very low if it replaced that quickly, unfortunately.
PAZ: It's truly the epitome of like, touches ground, something happened here.
LIZ: God, I hope someone has at least like saved or archived or screenshotted somewhere like just a moment of this. Like a slice in time to put in a museum in 3021.
PAZ: Yeah, I hope somebody was like copy-pasting into a Word doc somewhere.
JULIAN: Right? Ugh.
LIZ: I mean, how else are you gonna remember what's happening if you're RPing?
PAZ: Right?
JULIAN: I mean, you depend on the encyclopedic memory of an eight year old for like trivia.
LIZ: That's true.
JULIAN: They don't have to remember how taxes work so they can remember every detail of what Umbrellastar from BloodClan told them.
PAZ: I wish that was me.
LIZ: God, if only.
JULIAN: Same.
PAZ: But yeah, I guess that's the updates we found. The fact that it was somewhat moderated is extremely funny, but like not moderated enough that they're like we're gonna not allow this RP to happen.
LIZ: You just can't say fuck.
JULIAN: Like we can't stop you from RPing on this forum but you can't get horny about it.
LIZ: For some reason, we can't stop you.
PAZ: I so badly want to find someone to talk to who was in charge of the Barnes and Nobles website in some capacity and be like, what happened here?
JULIAN: I want the email chain where someone was like, Hey, my boss. You got to know about this. What do we do about this?
LIZ: CEO voice, you know, it's interaction. It's engagement.
PAZ: Yeah. They're probably like--
LIZ: We need to get those Hamlet numbers up. The kids do not care about Hamlet. This is as close as we're gonna get. If Shadowfur wants to RP with an assassin cat or get into a territorial dispute with the Percy Jackson RPers, we let them.
PAZ: Yeah, we need those clicks. That's all that matters.
JULIAN: Honestly, I wonder if they were so laissez faire about it because Barnes and Noble really, really wanted people to like use their Nooks. There was like a big push for them to like-- they were pushing Nooks versus Amazon's Kindle really hard. And so if they were like, well, at least people are using the review section with their Nook devices.
PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're a kid who wanted really badly to RP with their friends and you could convince your very strict parents to buy you a Nook, it works out in Barnes and Noble's favor, so.
JULIAN: I mean, honestly, I wonder if it was just like, you know, I borrowed my mom's Nook because she never used it. And I didn't know about-- I was also too old for RP at that point and was just bulk downloading fanfiction to the Nook. But like if I had been slightly more sheltered and a little bit younger at the time, I definitely would have been-- I would have done this.
PAZ: Did you guys do that thing where you would print out fanfic?
LIZ: Yes. Mm-hmm.
PAZ: And then either read it in bed or take it to school?
LIZ: Yes.
JULIAN: I did not print out fanfic because I was mortified that my family would find out about it. So instead, I copied and pasted it from a particular Doctor Who fanfic archive into Word documents. I had like one Word document that was like one genre and then another Word document that was like a different ship, and they all had like little secretive acronyms so that...
PAZ: Oh my god.
LIZ: This is so intricate.
PAZ: Wow.
JULIAN: It was so much. Because this is before Ao3.
PAZ: I don't think I was smart enough as a child to do that. I would just like to try and throw out all the fanfic I'd printed out before people saw it. Because I would read it in bed because I didn't have a phone I could read it on.
JULIAN: Oh yeah.
PAZ: If I wanted to get cozy in bed and read my, I don't know, Kingdom Hearts fanfic, I had to print it out.
JULIAN: When I finally did get a phone my senior year of high school, I spent pretty much that entire summer reading fic. And so my mom was like, oh, what are you doing? And I was like, Oh, I'm-- someone had posted about this on Tumblr and I stole it. I was like, Oh, I'm reading unpublished stories by authors online.
PAZ: God.
LIZ: Not untrue. You're just supporting new writers.
JULIAN: It's accurate.
PAZ: It's what people on Twitter want to think, so.
JULIAN: It's literature. It's literature, Mom.
LIZ: God.
PAZ: Yep, classic. You know, getting fan content, it was bad. It was hard back in the day.
LIZ: It was hard.
JULIAN: We didn't have tags. You had to just pick a pairing and hope that the fic was good.
PAZ: Right? Oh my god. Yeah, it was all summary based, like good fucking luck.
LIZ: It did have genres. Like fanfiction.net did have genres. It was like romance.
PAZ: I vaguely remember that.
LIZ: Comedy, poetry, suspense.
PAZ: God. What was the fanfic that I would... what was the fandoms that I was in reading fanfic on fanfic.net? I know it was Kingdom Hearts. I think Ranma 1/2, probably Naruto fanfiction.
JULIAN: Yeah, it was just Sherlock and Doctor Who. I'm so sorry to tell y'all this.
PAZ: That seems kind of... Sherlock seems kind of late for fanfic.net though. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.
JULIAN: It was... I like started out fanfic.net. It was like right when Ao3 was becoming a thing. But the wait for Ao3 was like six months at that point.
PAZ: Oh right.
LIZ: I used to read Sherlock fic on Livejournal.
PAZ: Also definitely read Invader Zim fic on fanfic.net.
JULIAN: My Invader Zim phase was before I realized that like fanfic was a thing that existed outside of me writing fanfic in my journal. So unfortunately, I did not stumble across that.
PAZ: Maybe, maybe, fortunately.
JULIAN: Maybe good. I also probably would have been reading a lot of iCarly fanfic.
PAZ: It wasn't like ship fic though. I don't think I understood the concept of that at the time. It was just like-- I read a lot of like OC self insert fic when I was much younger. I don't know.
LIZ: You just loved the character building.
PAZ: I did, I loved the worlds.
LIZ: Yeah, well, what an intricate like beautiful universe you've created.
PAZ: I think I remember a fic like that was like a crossover with Alien.
JULIAN: Oh my god.
LIZ: Like Alien-alien?
PAZ: Yeah, the movie Alien with like the xenomorph.
JULIAN: I love that. That's wonderful.
PAZ: It was powerful.
JULIAN: Oh all right, sorry, Chickpea is screaming. Let me see if I can feed her and then she'll stop.
PAZ: Okay.
LIZ: I'm just thinking about that fucking like Sherlock Livejournal community that we looked at with the graveyard with all the broken Photobucket links.
PAZ: I'm kind of... I don't know why I never got into Sherlock fandom like seriously, but I'm happy I didn't.
LIZ: Bullet dodged. It was something. We should look for Warriors Livejournal stuff. I bet there's some good graphics if...
PAZ: Yeah.
LIZ: If it ever made it there.
PAZ: No, I'm sure there were Warriors Livejournals. But Livejournal was after my Warriors period so I wouldn't know from personal experience. Definitely read a lot of Doctor Who fanfic on Livejournal though.
LIZ: I actually didn't. I was big into it.
JULIAN: Alright, hello.
LIZ: I just stuck around for icons and stuff. Hi.
PAZ: Hi, welcome back. We were saying there's probably like Warriors communities on Livejournal, like old ones somewhere.
JULIAN: Oh my god, I bet there are.
PAZ: Yeah, we should look into that in the future.
JULIAN: Yeah, we should do a hunt there.
PAZ: There's so much content out there. Even on Barnes and Nobles.com.
LIZ: I don't think people are RPing in like Goodreads reviews for Warrior books. But wouldn't that be something? You can reply on those things.
PAZ: Are you sure people aren't doing that?
LIZ: I don't know. Maybe.
PAZ: Now that you've said that, that seems like an obvious situation to do it.
LIZ: Put it on the docket. We've got so much research. God.
PAZ: We're going to become scholars of Warrior Cats RP communities.
JULIAN: Great news. Uh.
PAZ: Yeah.
LIZ: Yeah?
JULIAN: There are... Goodreads: Group. Show Tag RP.
LIZ: [gasp]
PAZ: Oh my god.
LIZ: Fuck yeah.
JULIAN: We have 1825 roleplay groups on Goodreads.
LIZ: What?
PAZ: Oh my god. Is this just Warriors, or like everything?
JULIAN: Oh, this is everything.
LIZ: Oh, okay. I was like damn, Warriors. Can you give us a little tasting board of this?
JULIAN: No, don't make me login. So let's see. Just a little something. We have Percy Jackson and HOO– I guess that's something about Olympians– roleplay group. Have you waited for your satyr all your life but it never came? Well, welcome to CHP, where all demigods are accepted. You can create your own character and talk to other half bloods. We are here to have fun, sing songs on the fireplace, play Capture the Flag, volleyball, and of course go on lots of quests.
LIZ: This sounds fun.
JULIAN: Yeah. I haven't seen any-- oh, here we go. Warrior Cats: A New Fall. Yep, we've got three separate Warrior Cats RPs on the first. So we'll have to dig into this a little bit.
LIZ: Thank god.
PAZ: This is so exciting.
JULIAN: A lot of this is like... a lot of boarding school RP. Like people have made up-- this roleplay is tagged as semi-advanced. What does that mean?
PAZ: I guess your reading level has to be... I don't know.
LIZ: Middle school and above.
PAZ: Eight plus.
JULIAN: Oh, I'm so glad people are just out here on the Goodreads forums RPing.
LIZ: Good. Fuck it up.
PAZ: This is a better use of Goodreads.
JULIAN: Yeah, it is. I hope Amazon has to read all of these.
LIZ: Yeah, get wreckt.
JULIAN: It'd be good for them.
LIZ: Humble them a little. We should look into those. I bet there's some new innovations going on if it's still active.
JULIAN: Oh yeah, no, these are sorted by the latest activity. So the three ones I found, last activity six hours 25 minutes ago.
LIZ: Oh my god.
JULIAN: Yeah, so we can really dig in here.
LIZ: We need to check out that semi advanced style. I wanna know what that means.
JULIAN: I can't tell, but they have their own gifs. Like there's some really nice graphics.
PAZ: Wow, you can post gifs on Goodreads?
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: Wow.
JULIAN: It's like a fully fledged forum here.
PAZ: Wow.
LIZ: Yeah I think you can post like reviews and then that you have like, here's my Marvel GIF about reacting to... I don't know. Twitches.
JULIAN: I think there's like... because there's like a Groups function.
PAZ: Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is just a forum.
JULIAN: That I think is intended to be like for book clubs. But is, in this case for--
PAZ: This is a book club. What are you talking about?
LIZ: Oh, yeah, these things. I joined one for exactly one reason. It was to ask what book this was because I didn't remember the name, title, or character, or author, or anything. And they were mean about it.
JULIAN: Aw.
LIZ: They were like, everyone has asked what this book is. Did you not read the FAQ?
PAZ: Oh, no.
LIZ: And I did. So anyway, Goodreads is bad, but I'm glad people are using it to RP.
PAZ: Good on this random boarding school roleplay for saying no racist, homophobic, discriminatory, etc. comments.
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: The Warrior Cats: A New Fall RP's number one rule is "no bullying. We make exceptions for in the roleplay."
LIZ: Wow.
PAZ: Gosh, perfect. Well, this is an exciting possibility world before us that we will have to revisit in the future. But I guess now that we're done with that update, we should go into our chapters.
LIZ: Beautiful.
PAZ: So this week, we read three chapters, chapters eight through 10. And I'll just dive right into the summaries. So chapter eight continues from the scene of the RiverClan warrior Whiteclaw's death. Leopardfur, the RiverClan deputy, warns ThunderClan that this has now gone beyond a border dispute and leaves. The WindClan cats leave as well, thanking ThunderClan again. And Sandpaw is freaked out from her near death, and Graystripe is shaken and disturbed from accidentally causing another cat's death.
Once they are back at camp, an angry Tigerclaw takes Fireheart and Graystripe back to Bluestar and informs them both of WindClan's rescue and the RiverClan death Tigerclaw believes seeing ThunderClan with WindClan cats will push RiverClan and ShadowClan together. Bluestar, while disappointed, is not as angry. She decides Graystripe and Fireheart should take apprentices to train to prepare for future hostilities.
Later that night there is a naming ceremony for the apprentices. Fireheart takes Cinderpaw, an energetic cat, as his apprentice, and Graystripe takes Brackenpaw, who is more serious, as his apprentice. The chapter ends with Fireheart thinking about how he wants to be a good warrior and mentor and that it feels like Tigerclaw is waiting for him to fail.
In chapter nine, Fireheart takes Cinderpaw out into the forest for her first day as an apprentice. Graystripe declines to join them and is still depressed. Fireheart and Cinderpaw travel various places, with Cinderpaw bounding ahead and not listening to Fireheart closely. Fireheart teaches her some things about scents, hunting, and owls. Cinderpaw then runs ahead towards Snakerocks before Fireheart can warn her, but comes back once he makes the danger clear. They then visit the Thunderpath and eventually go near the Twolegplace, where they spot a pregnant kittypet. Fireheart gets an inexplicable feeling that this cat isn't a threat and gives away their position so she runs away. Back at camp, he dreams about when he was a kitten and realizes the kittypet he saw was his sister.
In chapter 10, Firepaw gets an intense longing to see his sister after seeing the familial familiarity amongst the clan cats. He asks Graystripe to take Cinderpaw for the day and heads back to the Twolegplace. He waits until the sister comes into the garden to reveal himself. She is frightened at first, but once he remembers her name, which is Princess, and remembers who he is, she calms down. When she asks why he came to see her, Fireheart simply says, because you are my sister. He asks about their other family, who all still live in the neighborhood. They talk for a while and Fireheart tells her about the clans. Princess eventually has to go inside and Fireheart returns to the ThunderClan camp after hunting.
Back at camp, Tigerclaw confronts him about leaving Cinderpaw with Graystripe. Fireheart apologizes and says he will focus on her training. Graystripe still seems disturbed about the RiverClan encounter. The chapter ends with Fireheart watching Cinderpaw and her brother, and thinking about how he has felt lonely within the clan, as none of his family is there. And that's the end of our reading this week.
JULIAN: My first note for chapter eight is Graystripe killed a man.
PAZ: Yeah. RIP Whiteclaw, our beloved friend. Yeah, Graystripe, you did kind of kill a guy. This was like, the first time I'm like, damn, I just agree with Tigerclaw because it really is like Fireheart's fault completely. There was no reason to go into RiverClan territory. And he is also partly responsible for a death.
JULIAN: Also Fireheart being like, Oh, it was a special mission, just like Highstones. So it's okay for us to-- like, no, it's not. You knew it wasn't.
PAZ: Yeah, you had to convince everyone to do it. Because everyone was like, I don't think that's a great idea. I feel bad for those poor WindClan cats who just... they just had a horrible two months, and now this bullshit.
JULIAN: Well, and like Tigerclaw is, for once, worst person you know just made a great point.
PAZ: Exactly.
JULIAN: He's like, yeah, this is gonna solidify RiverClan and ShadowClan's alliance. And he's right, it will.
PAZ: Yeah. This is the worst thing that has come out of Fireheart's lack of brains by far. And he seems like he doesn't have any lingering guilt about it.
LIZ: No.
JULIAN: Yeah, Graystripe is like, tore up about this. And Fireheart is just like, Why doesn't he want to eat with me?
LIZ: Isn't there that part in like, that part where he's like, aw Graystripe doesn't want to hang out. Oh, well.
PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I think I think Graystripe's having the appropriate emotional reaction. But I don't know why he's the only one having that reaction.
JULIAN: Yeah, I am still unclear on like, when it's okay to kill another cat. Um.
PAZ: Yeah, it's very, extremely unclear. Because I really feel like people die all the time. But then it's like, we're sad when people die. Also, sometimes maybe it's dishonorable? Question mark?
LIZ: They say like that it's just a border dispute, which is why like, the murder was, I guess, like, too much, but it seems like all of their disputes are border disputes.
JULIAN: Like what else do they dispute about?
LIZ: Yeah, what?
PAZ: I don't know. Maybe there are periods of active warfare. I don't know.
JULIAN: Yeah, like maybe it's okay to kill another cat like, if they're in your camp or something.
PAZ: Yeah. Or like they stole your children.
JULIAN: Yeah, I remember-- in Warrior Cats roleplay, we would like schedule battles. And I'm trying to remember whether that is based on the books or just useful for RP scheduling purposes.
PAZ: Yeah, I don't really remember from later books. So I can't really say. But I do like how this whole situation sets up like Sandpaw's changing thoughts on Fireheart. Like, her appearances in the rest of these chapters is her being like, very, like, shaken that she almost died and also like, seeming to be thinking thoughts about Fireheart, so.
JULIAN: Yeah, it's very like... you can tell that she's sort of thinking about like, Oh, you know, damn, kittypet did save me.
PAZ: Have I been wrong? Who knows. I do still feel-- damn. Dustpaw and Sandpaw have it bad, though. They're still apprentices and fucking Fireheart and Graystripe are getting their apprentices. Can you imagine sharing the apprentice den with these little tiny babies?
JULIAN: With these babies that are like, technically still too young.
PAZ: I hope they become warriors soon. They don't deserve this.
LIZ: I don't know. You'd think that since Fireheart and Dust-- nope, Graystripe are getting apprentices so early, that Bluestar would also make the other apprentices warriors by now too, just like, gotta keep moving.
PAZ: Right? She's like, we need more warriors. I'm just gonna make these babies apprentices and not promote these older cats for some reason.
LIZ: Who have seen battle.
JULIAN: Right? They're also like, at this point, they're like super seniors.
PAZ: Yeah, I assume they're at least a couple months older than like, Graystripe and Fireheart.
JULIAN: Just like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna keep taking classes.
PAZ: This is so sad.
JULIAN: I was really happy to see that there was some sort of like criteria to become a mentor, because Bluestar says that Runningwind would make a bad one. So at least they are thinking about it a little bit.
PAZ: I think her judgment is off because she decided Tigerclaw would make a good mentor, but I guess, at least there are considerations. Yeah, the other thing from the beginning of this chapter is I know we said we'd keep a Fireheart/Onewhisker alert out. Yes, here it is. "Fireheart meowed a quiet farewell to Onewhisker as he passed. Onewhisker glanced briefly at him and walked on."
JULIAN: Damn.
PAZ: It's there. It's real.
JULIAN: Oh my god.
LIZ: This is all those posts about tender yearning, you know.
PAZ: Exactly.
LIZ: It's about glances... and they don't have hands, so paws.
PAZ: The nose touches. The tail touches at their annual ball dance.
JULIAN: The jellicle ball.
PAZ: But yes.
JULIAN: God-- oh sorry. One more Bluestar thing. Um, she does tell Fireheart to pass on everything that she taught him. And I just have a note that's like, you didn't teach him shit.
PAZ: Right? There was something-- like there was like a part in like, a later scene with Fireheart and Cinderpaw that implied she did more than one thing with him. Because it said something about like, Bluestar teaching him about owls. But I'm like, when in the world did this happen? This did not happen. They had one fight.
LIZ: Is it just like... is it like a retcon to imply that like more time passed than we saw?
PAZ: Yeah, maybe?
LIZ: Or I guess so. It just would have been nice to see like, if not just one, maybe two or three, and then you can just say it kept happening. I don't know.
PAZ: Right?
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: It really felt like it was only one. But yeah, but speaking of time passing and timelines, I was trying to figure out the timeline for like, how long they were actually warriors before getting apprentices. I think it was like three days, because--
LIZ: Oh my God.
PAZ: Because, right? So they became like, apprentices after-- they became warriors after their vigil. And I think it was the day after that that Bluestar's like okay, you gotta go find-- I don't know. When was the Gathering?
JULIAN: Let's see. Pull up my ebook.
PAZ: I forgot there was a Gathering in between. Maybe it's like five days.
LIZ: Well, how long did the WindClan retrieval take?
JULIAN: I feel like three days, I think?
PAZ: That was like two days.
JULIAN: Two or three?
PAZ: They slept two nights. They slept a night before finding WindClan and then they slept a night on the way back with WindClan. So yeah, I guess it was like three days.
JULIAN: Yeah, they sleep a night on the way back, and then they come back, go through RiverClan, go back to ThunderClan. And then that night they get apprentices. I think the Erins are really relying on the fact that children have no idea what timelines are.
PAZ: Okay, so, checking back to the beginning, it appears there was the day after they became warriors. And then the following day was the Gathering. So that's like two days. And I think it was the day after the Gathering that Bluestar is like, Okay, you got to go on this journey. So that's like another day. And then there's the day of the journey. They sleep. Day of finding WindClan, coming back. They sleep. Then they're back. So that's six days, I think.
JULIAN: What are we at? A week?
PAZ: I totally was not counting. Yeah, like a week, about.
JULIAN: Oh, you know.
LIZ: Oh my god.
JULIAN: They are cats. A week is a long time if you're a cat and have no real sense of short term memory.
PAZ: I guess.
LIZ: What's a week for a cat?
PAZ: But I mean, cats don't live like-- cats can live until they're like, 20. They don't... I mean, not outdoor cats, I guess. But it's not like they only live to be like five years old. I feel like it should be at least a month.
LIZ: What's a week to a cat? Like, a month?
PAZ: I don't know.
LIZ: Two weeks? Three weeks.
JULIAN: I'm googling cat sense of time. But I don't know. That might be a rabbit hole we can't fall down.
PAZ: I feel like cats don't... Cats wouldn't have a concept of days, though. Because they just sleep whenever.
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: I mean, not these cats.
JULIAN: I mean, pet cats have a really good sense of time because like, they do get onto a...
PAZ: Yeah, they know when they get food.
JULIAN: Right. They get on to a rhythm. And if their rhythm gets disrupted, they get very upset.
LIZ: Yeah, they have to have their breakfast at 5am.
PAZ: And they have to run around the house at 3am. Very strict schedule. Well, anyway, yeah. Timeline is weird, but they get their apprentices. I couldn't remember any cat named Bracken-something. I feel like maybe there was like a Brackentail. But I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if this guy's gonna make it.
LIZ: Maybe he's destined to just be like--
PAZ: Pouring one out.
LIZ: -- inoffensive side character.
PAZ: Yeah, that might be the case.
LIZ: That's the life you want. You don't want to be like a fucking Firepaw. Look at that shit he's going through.
PAZ: I didn't look it up because I'm like, I'll just see.
JULIAN: I did look it up and spoiled myself, but I will not spoil y'all.
PAZ: I know what happens to the other two apprentices so far in this book, which is why I'm like who the fuck are you, Brackenpaw? I don't know him.
JULIAN: I mean, in his defense. Well, not in his defense. He hasn't really established much of a personality yet.
PAZ: I know.
JULIAN: You know, sometimes you're the quiet sibling, and your sister is real boisterous.
PAZ: Yeah, is their other sibling Swiftpaw? Or like, am I getting confused?
JULIAN: I thought it was just Brackenpaw and Cinderpaw. I didn't think there were...
PAZ: Was Swiftpaw a different litter? Maybe. Because that was the one who got promoted to apprentice at the beginning of this book.
JULIAN: Oh.
PAZ: Or wait, at the end of last book? I don't know. Recently.
JULIAN: Um, yeah, no, Swiftpaw is a different...
PAZ: Okay. That makes sense. Cause he's older.
JULIAN: Yeah. Different litter. The stuff with Cinderpaw is very cute.
PAZ: It's so cute.
LIZ: It is.
PAZ: But I'm also like, Oh, God, don't go to Snake Hell please. Listen to the adult.
LIZ: She got so close to Snake Hell like immediately.
PAZ: Cinderpaw needs to be on like a child leash.
LIZ: Uh-huh.
JULIAN: I am a little bit like, watching Fireheart mentor her is very much like when you have a teen babysitter take like a bunch of children to a pool. Or like to the zoo. It was just like, Oh, this was a mistake. You all need an adult.
LIZ: Bluestar, why did you do this?
PAZ: Right? Once again, worst person you know makes a good point. I think Tigerclaw was right when he was like, they're too young to have apprentices.
JULIAN: Fireheart like fully does not know what he's doing. He's just like, uh, I'm gonna take you around. We're gonna go to the Thunderpath. That sounds like fun.
PAZ: Yeah, no one gave him the like, teacher's manual.
LIZ: No, he's not certified. He's a teen boy.
JULIAN: Fireheart, your union contract.
PAZ: This is really just like in high school when you have a, like, junior college student come in and be like the assistant teacher for their like college credit courses. And it's, like, so obvious to you as a senior. It's like, Oh, wait, we're actually pretty close in age. What are you doing here?
LIZ: Don't worry. Cinderpaw [inaudible]
JULIAN: I fully respect Graystripe wanting to be alone and not be near Fireheart right now because Fireheart does not seem to understand that he did anything wrong. I also think that he should have stuck with Fireheart because two adults and two children is much more manageable than one adult and one child. Especially when one of the children is like... like if you have a rambunctious child and like a very calm child, that's much better than one rambunctious child.
LIZ: Graystripe even says so, right?
PAZ: Mm-hmm. But Graystripe is having a crisis so I'll excuse him.
JULIAN: God. And then Fireheart is like, well, I'm just gonna ditch my apprentice with you for a day. Is that chill?
LIZ: Yeah, like the second day.
PAZ: Ah, God. I gotta say though, all the internal thoughts about family Fireheart has in these set of chapters is very good.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: There's just so much more internal life than in the first book. It's like, it's very noticeable.
LIZ: Yeah. He's really going through like-- he has not become dad, but he thinks he is. Like, he's looking at Cinderpaw like, Oh, God. Oh, God, what do I do? Oh, god, no, no, she's going to Snake Hell. Wait, come back. Oh, my God, children. So he's also like, just a young guy. But it's very funny.
PAZ: Yeah. And his like, anger and worry about being a former kittypet continues to be like, a thread running through this. Which is... I don't know, it's just good to see that they're keeping that like personality trait consistent in this book.
JULIAN: Yeah. And like the tension between like, found family versus birth family is like, nice to see explored here.
PAZ: Yeah. And like how he feels like he's-- even though he really likes his found family, how he still feels alienated because, I mean, like, they still see him differently.
JULIAN: Yeah. And like, even through that, you know, there's a bit where he's like, yeah, you know, I do wonder if I would have closeness with my birth family. But also I know that like, you know, the closeness that Princess has with her siblings who she sees occasionally is not the same as like, the closeness that the cats in the clan have.
PAZ: Yeah, he like, thinks some thoughts about like, you know, would my life have been different? Like, what am I missing?
LIZ: And he still does feel like, like that level of remove, and he's like, lonely. Like, damn, I wish I had someone who knew exactly like where I was coming from and had the same experiences.
JULIAN: Yeah, that moment where they both-- like he and Princess talk about like, the bedding that their mom had when they were kits is really sweet and like, poignant.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Because he doesn't have anyone in the clan who remembers how he grew up.
PAZ: And like, what they think of his childhood is just like, really mean to kittpets because they're all xenophobic. So he can't even really talk about it I think is one of the points. Like he can't tell anyone like he saw his sister or anything. And it stresses him out and it's just, yeah.
JULIAN: Also the bit where he doesn't remember her name is awful.
LIZ: Oh, yeah, that was bad.
PAZ: Aw, I know.
JULIAN: Like, initially, he can't remember it and he's like, Oh, I'm Rusty. And then like, finally does remember it but like, it takes him a bit and that's just like, ah. Aw, buddy.
LIZ: Aw.
PAZ: I hope he finds, you know, something where he feels like he can be his whole self. I also got to say, Rusty, do you think your balls really would have been stolen? Because apparently nobody spays or neuters their cats here. Because your sister's just pregnant. She obviously didn't go get the-- what the fuck.
JULIAN: The snip?
PAZ: The cut. Think he might have had balls still.
JULIAN: Like she's pregnant, which clearly means that like A, she didn't get neutered and also, like, whatever cat is the father didn't get neutered either.
PAZ: What is up with this neighborhood?
LIZ: Did you catch the part where-- I mean, like, she says that all the siblings are still kind of nearby too. So do like-- I just want to know if a cat gets pregnant in this neighborhood, do they just distribute the kittens to neighbors, or do they just keep all of them? Cause I know that happens but that can't be regular.
PAZ: When our cat Maria kept having kittens before we could get her to the vet, we would just post free kittens sign. People would come and check out the kittens. I don't know. But it wasn't just like our immediate neighbors.
LIZ: No.
PAZ: No, not at all.
JULIAN: The HOA where it's like, to live in this neighborhood, you must accept every fucking six months or whatever.
PAZ: Oh god. Yeah okay, so let's go through our list of kittypets so far. Princess, wasn't fixed. Their mom, Nutmeg, obviously wasn't fixed. Jake, still had his balls because he fathered children at some point. I guess Henry is the only one we got confirmed to...
JULIAN: Smudge. Smudge got neutered.
PAZ: Oh, yes. Smudge got neutered. Okay. I don't know.
LIZ: So two out of like, what? Six, seven? Probably more.
PAZ: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what's going on here.
LIZ: They're really just lax about it over in England, huh.
JULIAN: I mean, is it England or is it just this book?
LIZ: Is it just this one neighborhood in England? Like oh yeah, that's cat city.
JULIAN: That's cat hell.
PAZ: Maybe it's some sort of weird hippie community.
JULIAN: You know what, maybe that's why all the Twolegs they run into are so awful to the cats because it's like you know...
PAZ: Oh, it's just overrun.
JULIAN: The neighbors are really nice, but like anyone who comes and visits this park is like, oh fuck. It's the fucking cats again. It's all the horrible cats.
LIZ: It's like that one island they always talk about on clickbait articles that's like, oh yeah, this is the city of cats. And they're just everywhere.
PAZ: Oh, the one in Japan? Or near Japan.
LIZ: God, yeah.
JULIAN: I want to read a Warriors book set with the feral cat colonies that live in the Colosseum. That's all I want.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Oh fuck yeah. They'd all be Italian. Cat mafia.
LIZ: The Meowdessy.
JULIAN: You already have a clan structure.
LIZ: The Kittyad.
PAZ: On the day of my daughter's naming ceremony. But to go back to that point about Fireheart's character exploration in this segment, like the second to last sentence in these sort of chapters was just really nice. It was just a good sentence. It was, "He had found the closeness he had missed, but it had given shape to a sense of loneliness that until now had lain vague and nameless in his heart."
JULIAN: Aw buddy.
LIZ: Aw.
PAZ: That was a good little sentence and evocative of a feeling. And just wanna give him a little hug.
LIZ: He's just a little guy.
JULIAN: He's just a little guy.
PAZ: He's a little guy, but also now a responsible teacher.
JULIAN: He's a little guy and he's also a father.
PAZ: And an accessory to murder.
JULIAN: I mean, manslaughter. Graystripe didn't mean to kill him. It wasn't premeditated.
PAZ: Yeah, sorry, Graystripe.
LIZ: Has Firepaw killed anyone yet? Fireheart, sorry.
PAZ: No.
LIZ: I don't think so.
PAZ: He wanted to kill that one ShadowClan cat but then I think Whitestorm was like, no, we do not kill, apparently.
LIZ: The emphasis on it, and I mean, the emphasis on Whiteclaw dying and like the almost murder from the last ep, I wonder if it's gonna come to a head at like the finale of this book.
PAZ: Yeah, maybe. I just... I know in later books cats die so much, but murder seems to be like... so far the only like onscreen murder slash manslaughter we've seen is Oakheart. Is that the guy? I don't know. That RiverClan cat who got killed by Redtail. And then all of Tigerclaw's murder victims, but that was obviously evil. And then there's accidental death. But I know these cats are killing each other in later books. So I don't know. Maybe it's just like a change that happens.
JULIAN: I feel like there is some-- there is like a shift. But I don't remember when it happens.
PAZ: Yeah, I'll be curious to see if it happens like within the first series, or if that only really starts happening like, second series onwards.
JULIAN: There's definitely murders in the first series.
PAZ: Okay.
JULIAN: Unless I'm misremembering what happens in the first series.
PAZ: No, I mean, there's like murders. I know there's murders of like the other evil group. But I'm talking like interclan murders.
JULIAN: Oh, gotcha.
LIZ: What other evil group? Hold on. Wait.
PAZ: Don't worry about it.
LIZ: Okay, sure.
PAZ: We'll get there.
LIZ: Hmm.
PAZ: Yeah, I don't know. We'll see.
JULIAN: Yeah, there have so far been no war crimes, I would say. At least in these chapters. I think this book has also been pretty low war crime.
PAZ: Yeah, I feel like the war crimes might be coming up, though.
JULIAN: Yeah, I probably shouldn't call it. We're only on chapter 10.
PAZ: Yeah, I think we're gearing up for war crimes.
JULIAN: I guess hunting on WindClan's territory after driving them out could probably be construed as a war crime.
PAZ: Yeah. Breaking treaty, breaking word also. So there were war crimes. Couldn't go 10 chapters without some war crimes.
LIZ: Well, it is Warrior Cats. Not like non Warrior Cats. I think I've made this joke but better before. These are some fighting cats.
JULIAN: Cat fight.
PAZ: They sure are. I don't know. I don't have anything else really for these chapters. I don't-- does anyone else?
JULIAN: Yeah, I don't either.
LIZ: As a note, I think it's very funny that in like these chapters Tigerclaw he's being put on like, the sensible side of the argument or whatever. Yeah. It's just like, he's just acting normal guy now, but he's still evil.
PAZ: Yeah. He was so normal guy these chapters, noticeably.
LIZ: It's very funny.
JULIAN: Yeah, I feel like it's like trying to set us up for like, a twist when he goes mask off again. But.
LIZ: But what if he does-- what if he does just become normal? He's like, Oh, yeah, Vice President. This is good enough. I'm retiring my evil ways. I'm still mean, but from now on, I'm just going to be critiquing your teaching style.
JULIAN: Which frankly, needs it.
PAZ: Fireheart, have you considered murdering your apprentice as a motivator?
JULIAN: Oh.
LIZ: Oh, no? Well, have you considered taking notes?
JULIAN: Fireheart, have you thought about taking some continuing education classes? Some workshops?
LIZ: Night classes.
JULIAN: Personal development? Professional development?
PAZ: Needs to get his education certificate.
JULIAN: Yeah. Fireheart, where's your MA?
LIZ: You know, Fireheart, they have some courses on LinkedIn that you can take. About seven hours each. You get a little certificate at the end. That's how I got mine.
JULIAN: Fireheart learns to code. Fireheart goes to boot camp. Comes out with a Udemy badge.
LIZ: Are we good for these chapters?
PAZ: Yeah, I think we're good.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: It was only three chapters. And it was a lot of like, internal stuff.
JULIAN: Right, they're a lot less eventful than the last ones.
LIZ: Everyone's very sad.
PAZ: Yeah. Yeah.
[meow]
So, in honor of meeting Princess these chapters, I decided maybe we should look at all of the canonical kittypet names and rate them and see what the kittypet names got going on, because I think we were pretty positive on Nutmeg last week.
LIZ: Oh, yeah.
PAZ: So we're gotta see if there's more where that came from. So I'm pulling up the list of canon kittypets on the Warriors wiki. Okay, I'm just gonna go down them and we can give our thoughts. How about that?
JULIAN: Sounds good.
LIZ: All right.
PAZ: So the first that we have is Algernon? Is that how you say that? Al-grr-non?
JULIAN: Al-jer-non, yep.
PAZ: And Bess. How are we feeling about that?
JULIAN: I like them, but only as a duo. Like you got to have Algernon and Bess. They really play off each other.
PAZ: Yeah, I agree.
LIZ: They sound like a separate pirate duo in Black Sails.
PAZ: Yeah, I agree. They have to be a pair. Okay, next we have Hal.
JULIAN: Eh.
PAZ: Pretty boring.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Pixie.
JULIAN: Very good.
PAZ: Eh. Yeah, I think it depends on the cat. I have to visualize this cat.
JULIAN: That's true. This is a fluffy white she cat, which is like a less good-- I hear Pixie and I'm biased by our friend Erin's very good cat who is a little tabby freak.
LIZ: Pixie should be a freak.
JULIAN: And this doesn't... this cat does not sound like a freak.
PAZ: No. Freaks only. Okay, the next cat is Red.
JULIAN: Eh.
PAZ: Uh, it's okay, I guess.
LIZ: We've got a good ginger cat already. And Fireheart really got the protagonist name thing down.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: Okay. Next cat is Marmalade.
JULIAN: Excellent.
LIZ: 10 out of 10.
PAZ: This is fantastic. He is described as a large ginger tom.
JULIAN: Yes.
PAZ: I am a huge fan of this name. Then we got Jay.
JULIAN: Eh.
PAZ: It's okay.
LIZ: It's all right.
PAZ: I do like-- a very old black and white she cat. I'm just picturing Chloe.
JULIAN: Oh.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Then we have Jake. I feel like we already discussed his name, but I'll just reiterate. I love when a cat is just named a guy.
JULIAN: Just a human man.
PAZ: Then we have Twig.
JULIAN: Very good.
PAZ: That's pretty good. I like the energy that brings. Then we have another duo. It's Cherry and Boris.
LIZ: Very good together.
PAZ: I love Boris so much.
JULIAN: That's another human man name.
PAZ: Right? It just sounds like some Russian, old Russian man. I don't know.
JULIAN: Who is out here naming their cat Boris? I love it.
PAZ: I don't know but they chose right.
LIZ: I mean--
PAZ: Um-- yeah, go ahead.
LIZ: No. Our good friend does have a cat named Putin. Short for, if I'm remembering correctly, Rasputin, so.
JULIAN: Yes.
PAZ: Exactly. Then we have Echo. That's okay, I guess.
LIZ: Nice Friends at the Table reference.
JULIAN: Next cat name is Fourteen Fifteen.
PAZ: No, if only. Hutch. I don't know.
JULIAN: It really depends on the cat.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: I feel like.
PAZ: It's original, I guess.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: I'll give it points for that.
JULIAN: "Hutch is a dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes and hard paw pads." Why do we know that his paw pads are hard?
PAZ: Oh no.
LIZ: You mush them.
PAZ: How am I gonna squeeze his beans?
JULIAN: Give him some coconut oil.
PAZ: Okay, our next cat is Oscar. Once again, love just a normal human man name.
LIZ: I know I shouldn't be looking at the descriptions of these cause they're probably really spoilery.
PAZ: Yeah, don't do that. Stop.
LIZ: But this one's really funny. I won't remember it by then.
PAZ: Okay, you can read it.
LIZ: But if anyone's worried about spoilers, cover your ears. This says, "an unknowing descendent of SkyClan who chooses not to live in SkyClan because he believes clan ideas are stupid."
PAZ: I agree with Oscar.
JULIAN: That's a real Oscar-- Oscar would.
PAZ: Classic Oscar. Okay, the next cat is Bella. It's boring, I guess. I don't know. Another duo, Rose and Lily.
JULIAN: It's fine. It doesn't have the same energy as our previous duos.
LIZ: No.
PAZ: No, I don't... they're not bringing the same heat. I guess at least they have a theme, which is flowers.
LIZ: I want these to be like really out there cats, if it has to work, like real fancy or really evil.
JULIAN: Yeah, I just want like a cat with a flower name that's like really fucking-- like, where's my cat named Hydrangea?
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Fuck yeah. Okay, next cat is Hattie. Feel like that's cute.
LIZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: Sounds like it should be like a little, little old cat. Next cat is Velvet.
LIZ: Very decadent.
PAZ: Yeah, just makes me think of the Velveteen Rabbit.
LIZ: Aw.
PAZ: Which I guess is a vibe. I don't know. Okay, then we have Benny.
LIZ: That's cute.
PAZ: It's pretty good. It's not as good as the other man names but it's cute. Then we have Brandy.
JULIAN: Brandy feels like such a 90s name to name your cat.
LIZ: Yeah. Like you're definitely thinking of like Brandi, capital B Brandi, right?
JULIAN: Oh, yes.
LIZ: I guess these did come out around that time.
JULIAN: Like that cat needs to bring that energy.
LIZ: This is a cat with a rhinestone collar.
PAZ: I think the name is better conjunction when you see that his sibling is Minty.
LIZ: Aw.
JULIAN: Oh, that's good.
PAZ: I think that's a good pair of names. So another one where I think a duo really brings out that energy.
JULIAN: The next one is also a duo. Or like, half a duo.
PAZ: Yeah. So it's Frankie. And then Jesse.
LIZ: Very cute.
PAZ: Those are just like, those are solid names. (laughing) The next cat is O'Hara.
JULIAN: Oh boy.
LIZ: Uh.
JULIAN: Bad, but it's not her fault.
PAZ: Yeah.
LIZ: No.
PAZ: Oh, God. Okay, next name is Parsnip.
JULIAN: Excellent.
PAZ: I love that.
LIZ: 10 out of 10.
PAZ: This is a perfect cat name.
LIZ: Wow.
PAZ: I'm gonna keep it in mind for future cats, I think. It's powerful.
LIZ: I think Parsnip should have like a little vegetable clan and it should just be like, here's my deputy Carrots. Here's my other deputy, Rutabaga. And my [laughs] I don't know, my apprentices, like, Cabbage and... I'm running out of vegetables.
JULIAN: Peapod.
LIZ: Potato. Peapod, yeah.
PAZ: Polly. Eh.
JULIAN: I like Polly, but I think I'm mostly biased toward it because it's my grandma's name. So I'm just envisioning like a very like old, cheerful cat.
PAZ: That would be good. Then we have Riga, I guess? It's unique.
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: It's probably a person name or something?
PAZ: Yeah, I don't know.
JULIAN: I think it's a person name.
PAZ: Points for not being a common name. Scarlett.
LIZ: No. Hold on a second. Are Scarlett and O'Hara a duo?
PAZ: Oh, no.
JULIAN: Oh, I'm very afraid that they might be.
LIZ: I don't like that. No.
PAZ: They both live in the same place apparently.
JULIAN: Nooo.
LIZ: Bad.
JULIAN: Hate it.
LIZ: Not their fault. But bad.
PAZ: No, but I'm looking at Scarlett's wiki page. It doesn't mention O'Hara anywhere, so. Maybe not.
JULIAN: That might be an Erin Hunter badness.
LIZ: Oh, no. Okay, wait. It says they're hostile. [laughs]
JULIAN: Well, then the name is perfect.
PAZ: Yeah, I don't think they're together. They live in the same neighborhood. I think that's about it. Thank God. Okay, then we have Victor.
JULIAN: Excellent.
PAZ: That's powerful.
LIZ: Mm-hmm.
JULIAN: Oh.
PAZ: Then we have Webster.
JULIAN: Yes.
PAZ: I like-- I love that.
LIZ: Yes.
PAZ: That's a little, like, nerd cat.
LIZ: With glasses.
PAZ: Exactly. Then we have Ziggy. That's also cute.
JULIAN: I think the four here are just really good kind of in conjunction, where it's like Victor, Webster, and Ziggy.
PAZ: Yeah, that's a great combo. That's a little like, YA friend group.
LIZ: They all sound like, like in that book, they would be the little nerd group that's going to go on like some sort of robotics competition thing. And it's about friendship.
PAZ: Exactly.
LIZ: And accepting who you are.
PAZ: The next name is Betsy.
JULIAN: Cute.
PAZ: It's a good name for an old cat. Gonna skip some of these names. Max. Eh.
LIZ: Can we go back to one? Just one because it's--
PAZ: No, we gotta skip them.
LIZ: Aw, but the one before that is so...
JULIAN: It's really good.
PAZ: Okay, I don't think that counts as a real kittypet name.
JULIAN: This was clearly not chosen by a human but Harveymoon.
LIZ: Can we give it a shout out?
PAZ: Harvest Moon sequel, Harveymoon.
JULIAN: Is that what they're calling it now that they can't use the Harvest Moon trademark anymore?
PAZ: Yeah.
LIZ: Harveymoon, friend of Susanclaw.
JULIAN: Now I'm gonna be imagining them as an elderly couple.
PAZ: That's perfect.
LIZ: Oh my god.
PAZ: Okay, um, Ajax.
JULIAN: Excellent, real powerful name.
LIZ: Mm-hmm.
PAZ: That just reminds me of dogs because I read a book about a half-dog half-dingo named Ajax, but that's my own bias.
JULIAN: Can I just read his description real quick?
PAZ: Yes.
JULIAN: "Ajax is a kittypet and friend of Rose and Fuzzball."
LIZ: Aw.
PAZ: Yeah, I was waiting to get to Fuzzball on this list to rate that, but Fuzzball is a 10 out of 10 also.
LIZ: All three of those together are just... what a wonderful friend group. Powerful.
PAZ: Then we have Pickle.
LIZ: Beautiful.
PAZ: Perfect.
JULIAN: He has a squashed in face.
PAZ: Aw, Pickle. Imagine Pickle and... what was it? I've already forgotten it. Yes, Pickle and Parsnip together. Imagine that.
JULIAN: Oh yes.
LIZ: Oh, yeah.
PAZ: Yeah. Powerful.
LIZ: Wait, wait, wait. Do you think Pickle used to be Cucumber when he was younger and then as he aged he became Pickle?
PAZ: God.
JULIAN: Aw.
PAZ: Then we have Yew.
LIZ: Oh, me?
[laughter]
PAZ: Yep. Then we have Bumble.
LIZ: Beautiful.
JULIAN: That's very good.
PAZ: I like to picture this as the cats, you know, with like the balance like condition.
JULIAN: Oh yeah.
PAZ: Where they wobble.
LIZ: Aw.
PAZ: Yeah, it'd be a cute name.
JULIAN: I do think it's a cute name. I do think about the dating app unfortunately.
PAZ: Oh no.
JULIAN: But it's fine.
PAZ: I forgot that existed. Um, there is a cat just called Tom.
LIZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Good.
PAZ: Here's Tom's description. "He is hostile to every cat he meets and is a mean bully."
JULIAN: Good for him.
LIZ: So this is an old man.
PAZ: Who wrote this? Then we have a cat, Flower. Eh.
JULIAN: Eh.
PAZ: I don't know about--
JULIAN: She is said to be frightened by strange cats.
PAZ: Who isn't?
JULIAN: So I'm picturing a very skittish creature.
PAZ: Yeah. Um, we got our boy Rusty. I think that was a pretty good name, but could be better.
LIZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: Yeah. Then we have Smudge. I think Smudge is a cute name.
JULIAN: Smudge is very good.
PAZ: We have Princess.
JULIAN: Eh.
LIZ: Classic.
PAZ: That name didn't do much for me.
LIZ: In context, it's very good.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Right, when you know that Princess is the daughter of Jake and Nutmeg.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Yeah. Um, then we have Henry.
LIZ: The best.
PAZ: We love Henry. Henry is 11 out of 10. Fantastic.
LIZ: I'm looking at Henry's page wondering if there have been any hot Henry updates.
PAZ: No, I think we already established this.
LIZ: There's a pretty good image of him. He doesn't look as big as I imagined him, though.
PAZ: Yeah, it's like the stock Warriors wiki for kittypets.
LIZ: Aw.
JULIAN: I want him to be like a real chongus.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Okay, moving on. We got Purdy. I think that's a great name.
LIZ: Mm-hmm.
JULIAN: Mm-hmm.
PAZ: Cody.
LIZ: That's just a boy. That's just a guy. A lad.
JULIAN: Cody feels like a dog name to me.
PAZ: Yeah.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Yeah, if you told me there was an animal named Cody, I think I would assume a dog. Then we have Sasha.
JULIAN: Cute.
PAZ: It's okay.
LIZ: Also feels like a dog name, but like a sort of big furry one.
PAZ: Yeah, kind of.
JULIAN: Mm, I can see that.
PAZ: Then we have another duo. Jacques and Susan.
JULIAN: Perfect.
LIZ: Yes.
JULIAN: Yes.
LIZ: Oh my god.
PAZ: Jacques is such a good cat name.
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: And with Susan, though, that's like...
JULIAN: Yeah. I'm picturing like, you know how kids cartoons have like, sometimes just a very stereotypical French character.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: I'm picturing like a little cartoon where it's like, I'm Jacques. (high-pitched creaky voice) And I'm Susan.
PAZ: Yeah, Jacques has a little beret on.
JULIAN: Yeah, he's all stripey.
LIZ: I've seen this and it's the cooking show that Jacques Pepin had with Julia Child. This is just what it is.
JULIAN: Perfect.
PAZ: We have, um, Jingo. I have to say, don't name your cat that.
LIZ: Mm-mm.
JULIAN: Yeah, I think the cat right after is also bad.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: It's like Jingo and Huss-er. Or Hussar. I don't actually know how to pronounce that word.
PAZ: Yeah.
LIZ: Bad.
PAZ: Yeah, it's like a cavalry person. Really leaning on that theme. Then we have Snowdrop.
JULIAN: Perfect.
LIZ: Cute.
PAZ: I think for a little kitten, that would be a very cute name. We have Jigsaw.
[laughter]
Yeah?
LIZ: I love puzzles. That's the only reason I'm laughing.
JULIAN: I think it's a very good cat name.
PAZ: Yeah. Is Seville how you pronounce this next one?
JULIAN: I think so.
LIZ: Yeah, like with the oranges?
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: Seville oranges.
JULIAN: Unless you're being super like, "suh-veal" or "suh-vee" or something. But like I don't think anyone...
PAZ: No.
JULIAN: That's like people who say "cwossan."
LIZ: Oh god, can I get another read on that? That was very good.
JULIAN: You want me to...? "Cwossan."
LIZ: Name a cat that.
JULIAN: But you have to say it exactly like that.
PAZ: Uh-huh. Next up we have Bob.
JULIAN: Good.
PAZ: 10 out of 10. Fantastic. Then we have Zelda.
LIZ: Great cat name.
JULIAN: Can I just read this list of like the next like three or four, kind of all in conjunction?
PAZ: Yeah, go ahead.
JULIAN: So we have Bob, Zelda, Max, and Loki.
PAZ: Wow.
JULIAN: Just a real--
PAZ: One for the Marvel fans there.
JULIAN: That's another YA book friend group.
LIZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: You have Zelda, your sort of token girl. And then Loki, who clearly chose their own name.
PAZ: Loki's just LARPing. I think we already rated the next two, which is Velvet and Fuzzball.
JULIAN: Fuzzball is still so good.
PAZ: Fuzzball's still fantastic. Okay, everyone brace yourself for the next two. It's Eggs and Bacon.
LIZ: Perfect.
JULIAN: Yes.
LIZ: Best ones.
PAZ: And Eggs and Bacon are the sons of Pancakes.
LIZ: Oh my god, they're siblings. Of course they are.
PAZ: This is 100% the best names on this list.
LIZ: Pancakes, you've done it.
JULIAN: Pack it up. What else can we do?
LIZ: We can't go on.
PAZ: It's so good.
LIZ: Fuck.
PAZ: Oh my god. Okay, um, we got Millie... eh.
JULIAN: Eh.
PAZ: Also, Liz, don't look at these descriptions. I'm covering your eyes.
LIZ: Okay, can I-- I'm covering the half that has the descriptions and I'm just looking at the names.
PAZ: Uh-huh.
LIZ: These... these mostly look like people names going forward.
PAZ: Yeah, yeah. We got Millie, Duke, Ruby, and Socks. I think Socks is cute.
LIZ: Socks is cute.
PAZ: Socks is a classic.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: Quince... Okay.
LIZ: So a fruit?
JULIAN: I think it's a fruit.
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: You little fruit.
LIZ: Tigerclaw.
PAZ: We have Shnuky.
JULIAN: Oh, that's good.
PAZ: That's a powerful name.
LIZ: Oh, when did that book come out, with the Shnuky in it?
JULIAN: Shnuky's in the mangas.
PAZ: Yeah. Then we have Patch. That's cute.
JULIAN: Cute.
PAZ: Then we have Harry. Once again, that one's just a guy.
JULIAN: Can I just post real quick an image of Shnuky?
PAZ: Yeah, please.
LIZ: Yes.
JULIAN: From the wiki? That may be from the official art. Um, this is not a cat.
LIZ: Wait. Wait a second.
PAZ: Oh my god. That's definitely from the manga.
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: That's a man. Or that's some sort of human.
PAZ: This is a human man who's been cursed to be a hairless cat.
JULIAN: He looks like those paintings.
LIZ: This cat has the eyes of Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid.
JULIAN: The legs are also all wonky. They're like--
PAZ: They look like arms.
JULIAN: I'm like... so I assume this is, because I don't want to make fun of it if this is like a child's fan art.
PAZ: No, I think this is the manga for sure.
JULIAN: Oh god.
LIZ: I think it is. It's got that screen tone.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Yeah, I think oh, it does have screen... Yeah, no, this was drawn by an artist. These are human eyes.
PAZ: Yeah, it's kind of scary.
JULIAN: I hate to look at this.
LIZ: They're human eyes and they're begging you to set him free from this cursed form.
JULIAN: God, and the back legs. One knee bends forward like a human's knee. And then the other knee is bending back.
PAZ: God.
LIZ: This is an animorph mid-transformation.
PAZ: Oh god. Okay, we're almost at the end here. Let's get haulin'. Myler.
JULIAN: I... sure?
PAZ: I don't know. I guess.
JULIAN: I don't know how I feel about that.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: It feels like a... like a Kayleigh. Like a Michaela name.
PAZ: Yeah, I don't know. It's a name, I guess. Um, Crystal? She's just like, a blonde.
LIZ: That's the name of my old boss.
PAZ: I don't know.
JULIAN: Yeah, it's like, the problem with Crystal is that it is a human name. But it doesn't have the same kind of human name energy that like... Susan--
LIZ: Yeah.
PAZ: This is no...
JULIAN: --has because it's also an object.
PAZ: This is no Boris.
JULIAN: Yeah, no, not a Boris at all.
PAZ: We have Violet. It's fine.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: Riley. Also fine, I guess.
JULIAN: Yeah, Riley's cute I think.
PAZ: Yeah, depending on the cat, I think. Then we have Lulu.
JULIAN: Lulu's very good.
LIZ: Good.
PAZ: That's what my dad calls my cat Loo, whose full name is Waterloo technically.
JULIAN: Aw.
PAZ: Heck yeah.
JULIAN: I didn't know Loo was short for Waterloo. That's really cute.
PAZ: Then we have Madric. I feel like that's something, but I don't know what that is. Okay, googling it just showed me soccer players so I don't know. I guess it's a--
LIZ: This is a jock.
PAZ: Oh my god, this cat's homophobic.
LIZ: What?
PAZ: "He is an antagonistic kittypet who acts hostile towards Ravenpaw and Barley--"
JULIAN: Fuck off, Madric.
PAZ: "--and accuses them of trespassing."
LIZ: Fuck you. Get out of here.
PAZ: Madric's just some fucking straight boy in those like knee length shorts in winter on the football team.
JULIAN: Ravenpaw and Barley don't respect your land borders.
PAZ: No. And then we have Pasha. I don't know why this is the second cat named after historical military officers, but okay.
JULIAN: Isn't Pasha also like a diminutive for like Sasha?
PAZ: Is it?
JULIAN: I thought it was.
PAZ: I believe that, yeah. It probably is. Oh my god. Okay, I just have to read this description. "A dark tabby. He is one of the kittypets tormenting SkyClan."
LIZ: Oh no.
PAZ: Oh god. Okay, that's all the kittypet names.
JULIAN: We did it.
LIZ: I think there's some more.
PAZ: No, I think that's all of them.
LIZ: No, if you click on the-- did we miss Gremlin?
JULIAN: What?
PAZ: Where is this?
JULIAN: Oh, there's-- if we go into List of kittypets, there are more kittypets.
LIZ: Oh my god.
PAZ: Liz, I don't want you to-- stop clicking around. Please.
JULIAN: Here, I opened it up. There's no spoilers on this list. And we don't have to read them all because there are--
PAZ: No, Liz, close the list. I'm holding a gun up.
JULIAN: 155.
LIZ: I'm closing it.
JULIAN: Um, but I just want to call out a couple of really good ones.
PAZ: Yeah, please.
JULIAN: Bigteeth. Bugeater. Buster.
LIZ: They're good.
JULIAN: Cheddar.
PAZ: Oh god.
LIZ: Oh my god.
JULIAN: Oh, we do have a good-- Daffodil.
LIZ: Aw.
PAZ: That's cute. Diesel.
JULIAN: Yeah. Um, Gremlin, as mentioned.
LIZ: Perfect.
JULIAN: We have not only Hal, Harry, Harvey, Hattie, and Henry, all of which are good.
LIZ: Oh my god.
JULIAN: Macgyver. Oh, Miss Mama Cat. Hello?
PAZ: Oh my god. That is incredible.
JULIAN: I must know more. Oh, Miss Mama Cat is a different name for a cat who has a separate name.
PAZ: Oh, yeah. Don't click.
LIZ: Spoilers, huh?
PAZ: Look away from this list.
LIZ: I'm not clicking. I'm not clicking.
PAZ: Holding up the gun.
LIZ: I've exited. Don't worry.
PAZ: Okay.
JULIAN: Um, let's see. Raindrop, very good. Scraps.
PAZ: Aw.
JULIAN: Shanty, Snooky.
PAZ: Tiny.
JULIAN: I can't be fond of Tiny because I know who Tiny is.
PAZ: Oh yeah, fuck, I forgot. Yeah, you're right.
LIZ: Oh, that's very ominous.
PAZ: Yeah. That bitch Tiny.
JULIAN: But apparently there are two Tinys. So maybe I can be fond of one of them.
PAZ: No, it says graphic novel.
JULIAN: Oh, they've listed it twice.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: They just haven't sanitized this list well. Um, but yeah, there's some good ones on here. I think we-- oh, Little Mew. I missed Little Mew.
PAZ: Aw.
LIZ: More cats should have little titles.
PAZ: I agree.
JULIAN: Yeah.
LIZ: Like imagine if--
JULIAN: Oh.
LIZ: I don't know, Nutmeg was like Miss Nutmeg.
PAZ: Aw, that's very good.
JULIAN: Little Mew is the kit of Husker and Moss and kin to Splash. Their siblings are Pad, Raindrop, and Birdy. And they all live in a barn besides a Twoleg nest.
LIZ: Wow.
PAZ: Aw, that's so cute.
LIZ: They're in their own book. This is some like Beatrix Potter shit.
JULIAN: Oh my god, Little Mew has anime bangs.
PAZ: Oh my god, please. Please please please. Oh my. They're horrible.
LIZ: Oh my god.
PAZ: Little Mew has 90s boy like middle part anime bangs.
LIZ: Little Mew looks exactly like a little boy in Pathologic Classic.
JULIAN: Here's the screentone version of Little Mew so you can see the bangs better.
PAZ: The bangs are colored differently.
LIZ: Little Mew's frosted tips.
JULIAN: Little Mew's center part.
PAZ: Oh God.
JULIAN: Little Mew's Edward Elric haircut.
LIZ: No!
PAZ: It also kinda looks like Yugioh hair.
LIZ: No.
JULIAN: I love the Warriors manga. I love that it exists and that it gave all the cats anime bangs.
LIZ: But not the ones we wanted.
JULIAN: Oh.
PAZ: Okay, well, that's all the kittypet names. I think there's some pretty good ones here.
JULIAN: Yeah.
PAZ: So good job, Erins.
LIZ: 98% good job.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: Can I share one more art from the manga?
LIZ: Yes.
PAZ: Oh yeah, please.
JULIAN: This is Birdy.
LIZ: Holy shit. What the fuck.
PAZ: Does she have eyeshadow on?
LIZ: What the... who...
JULIAN: I just, I love that for the manga they appear not to have gotten like furry artists or people who were particularly good at drawing cats.
PAZ: No.
JULIAN: They got some like regular manga artists and were like, hey, you're good at shoujo manga, right? Um, can you draw cats? Don't worry. It's just like people.
LIZ: This cat looks like one of those old cats in the Cats musical.
PAZ: Yeah.
JULIAN: This is Grizabella the glamour cat. But this is before she really went downhill. You know? She's got her eyeshadow. She's looking fierce.
PAZ: Uh-huh.
LIZ: This is her in her prime.
PAZ: Yeah. Got her side face fluff styled to perfection.
LIZ: I don't like this expression that the artist has drawn.
PAZ: No.
JULIAN: She looks really vacuous. It's kind of scary.
LIZ: Don't look at me with those big old eyes.
PAZ: Oh gosh. Okay, well, I think that might do it for us. It's been a while. It's been a journey.
LIZ: I think we can agree that there are three really good categories of kittypet names. So there's one, just stuff in the kitchen. Two, just human names. And three, which is just kind of like a cutesy descriptor.
PAZ: Yeah. I agree.
LIZ: Fuzzball, you know, can't top that.
JULIAN: Socks.
LIZ: I think for the new generation of Warrior Cats as a series, if they have more kittypets, there should be cats named Toaster and Tax Return. That seems to be what millennials are doing now, right?
PAZ: No, it's for the children. It has to be like TikTok and, um...
LIZ: This is my cat Fortnite.
PAZ: My cat Fortnite. Exactly.
JULIAN: Name your cat after memes that are like three years old. This is my cat Doge.
PAZ: Oh god.
LIZ: Name your cat Bean Dad now to be already out of date.
PAZ: My cat Milkshake Duck.
LIZ: No.
JULIAN: This is my cat Warrior Cat. I'm sure somewhere there is a cat rescue that is naming their cats after memes.
PAZ: Oh, absolutely.
JULIAN: Ensuring that everyone who adopts the cats will immediately rename them.
PAZ: Mind games. Okay, I'm gonna call it here. Great list, some great names. But we'll be back next week reading chapters 11 through 14. And as always, you can follow the show on Twitter @staircast and send in any questions or anecdotes to [email protected]. I can't remember if there's anything else to plug. Oh, I don't know if I ever mentioned it on the podcast but the episode summaries like written out, I'm linking them in the episode description. If anyone wants to look at that, they're there. Other than that, I think that's it. So until next time, may StarClan light your path. Bye.
JULIAN: Bye.
LIZ: Bye.
[outro music]
Let's podcast. Sorry.
JULIAN: We have to get that MeUndies money.
PAZ: Ugh. MeUndies wishes, but they'll never get us. They won't corner this market.
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L E S B I A N for the musical asks :)
That you sent me LESBIAN anon, I’m dying, YES!!!
L (a playlist on your ipod): Lmaoooo okay, I have many playlists. Some are on themes according to mood or season, some are grouped by artist or vibe, etc. My favorites are my ‘now’ playlists. I dump everything I am ‘presently’ listening to a bunch into one playlist called ‘now’. After a few months, I add a date to that playlist (it’ll be like ‘Now 2018 Spring’) and then I make a new, fresh ‘now’ playlist and start it all over again! It stretches back a couple years at this point, since I always keep the old ones. It’s neat to see what I was listening to during different periods of time. For example, during Fall of 2016 I was listening to Kim Kwang-seok, Hank Williams lmfao, Winner, and Mylène Farmer!
E (favorite song from the year I was born): Okay, so I was born in 1991…hmm. ‘Our Frank’ by Morrissey?
S (artist you have the most merch from): Love this question. It’s probably Malice Mizer (I have a bunch of CDs, DVDs, photobooks, etc). Actually though, recently I’ve been getting a bunch of Gerard Way shit that’ll probably end up surpassing that. I’ve got the Hesitant Alien album, the picture disc, the Pinkish EP, THE LOLA STUFFED ANIMAL, the Hesitant Alien zine, some random magazines that Gerard is in, the Lola socks are on their way, oh and I have a bunch of his comics shit like Doom Patrol, Killjoys, Umbrella Academy, and the Secret Loves of Geeks he contributed to. I really want the Boyzine thing he did though, that’s my next goal. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to track a copy down however, unfortunately. Seems hard to find. I’ll keep posting about it and hoping though, hahahahah!
B (Top 5 albums): GODDDD THIS IS GONNA BE SO HARD!!!!!!!! Okay, keep in mind this isn’t in any particular order I couldn’t possibly rank these.
1- Soft Ballet: Incubate. It’s early 1990s, new wave, synth pop REALNESS! Also my fave song of all time, ‘Engaging Universe’, is on here! Woo, it was hard to pick my Top 5 albums though, I nearly put Ippu-Do’s Radio Fantasy or YMO’S Naughty Boys instead! But yeah, ultimately, I put Incubate instead because hmm…there’s something, I’m not sure, otherworldly and philosophical about it. I listen to this album to think. Not sure why. There’s something special about ‘Deep-Sets.’)
2- Malice Mizer: all their albums BINCH!!!!!!! HAHAHAHHAHAHA If I had to pick though yeah, Merveilles…but honestly Bara is beyond good, too…and memoire…I genuinely like all of them, I do. I guess Merveilles best represents their spirit though, as a band? As an art project? Idk, and Merveilles I listened to a lot as a teenager when times were rough and so I’m really attached to the fantasy world they created with that album. It’s like I could leave wherever I was and go there, you know?
3- Susumu Hirasawa: Sim City. This album is so beautiful and meaningful to me. It’s about Susumu’s take on Thailand as a city of the future, as a place where people take their bodies and destinies into their own hands. He was very interested in the transgender women he met there, and befriended several. One, Lady N, is featured on the cover of the album and does some spoken word stuff on the album. I believe she came on his tour for the album too. Hahaha, most of my fave shit has to do with gender/trans/sexuality shit hahaha. It was a hard toss up between that and one of his other albums, Philosopher’s Propeller, which was the basis for the Millenium Actress film soundtrack!
4- Gerard Way: Hesitant Alien– WOOOOO!!! I had to limit myself to 1 Gerard item, otherwise, MCR would fill this shit up too fast! But yeah Hesitant Alien is what got me truly into him because, believe it or not, I’m late to the Gerard train! Only got into him like, 3 years ago, and only truly became a fan for maybe 2 years now. I was too busy with Malice Mizer and visual kei as a teen to notice MCR, or really a lot of things that were big for kids my age then! Like I really have...no affinity for most the rest of emo from that time period, aside from The Used (and obvi MCR). But anyway yeah this album makes me laugh and cry! The song Brother is like a feel I feel…even though I don’t have a nice brother like Gerard does. Also just musically I’m impressed by Gerard’s constant evolution soundwise overtime. He reminds me Bowie that way, always evolving. I have many artists that I enjoy that are more static– there’s defs something to be enjoyed in that consistency, but yeah, I totally admire when somebody can gracefully evolve as an artist over time. It’s not easy.
5- Amadeus - Mikan No Gosenfu To Kurayami No Meikyuu. They’re on some early 2000s, symphonic, operatic, indie visual kei realness! This album shaped a lot of my musical and aesthetic sensibilities for years to come. Although it’s cheap, it was such an ambitious record, such an ambitious project. You can feel a scope that isn’t usually present in an indie band. Defs a band that I wish had made it, but was pretty much doomed to never make it.
Honorable mention: David Bowie’s Hunky Dory changed my life!!!!
(I own them all! They’re all important to me!)
I (an artist you don’t like): Normal, uncreative stuff… I’m not even getting specific because then I’d have to like, think about who I dislike and then I wouldn’t be able to get their songs out of my head, hahahaha! Besides, eh, having some musical tastes that are niche or ‘unique’ (though there is defs mainstream stuff I like as well) I’m sensitive to not stepping on other people’s toes about music. I feel like the stuff I like gets shat on as weird/“shallow”/overly focused on visuals (whatever that even means like??? as if you can’t, idk, potentially attend to visual and musical and lyrical artistry at once HAHAHAHA) so I tend to not mention if I’m not into something, unless I’m speaking to somebody who I know for sure isn’t into that shit. But yeah, I can narrow it down to a genre…probably ‘normal rock’. Rock music where it’s like the same chord progressions you hear in a million different bands? That gets to me a bit, er, a lot. Sounds like a drone. Makes me bored and sad LMFAO!!!!
A (guilty pleasure): One Direction! Specifically, their album Four. Idk if that’s ‘guilty’ though because I’m pretty open about it. I certainly don’t feel bad about it. I think I own Four…or did I just download it? I can’t remember.
N (a song you haven’t listened to in a long time but you love): Aw ;.; Man this makes me nostalgic. Probably ‘Green’ from Klaha’s solo album, Nostal Lab. That whole album and the personal symbolism of idk, his many sides through the prism, the past cutting through the future and back again (nostal is short for ‘nostalgic’), it just makes me feel things so I don’t tend to listen to it. Aw, I loved him so much. I used to spend every Christmas/New Years when I was a kid watching his blog, hoping he’d post again. His site is gone now. I think the guy’s just done with music and public life, you know? Hoping wherever he is though, that he’s okay.
Thanks for a good ask, anon :)
#anon#ask#personal#gerard way#hesitant alien#soft ballet#malice mizer#amadeus#klaha#one direction#susumu hirasawa
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Shamelessly stolen from @notfinlandjosswhedon because I have time to kill
Do you ever sit with your legs open?
Not much anymore, but sometimes when I’m alone.
Have you ever been offered drugs on the street?
Been asked for, many times. Offered, no.
What is one place you have been to and hated?
Any place where the temperature reaches 30 degrees, really.
Have you ever seen a jellyfish?
Not in person!
What’s your favourite kind of soup?
The soy broth that they make at the ramen shop near my place :D
Do you ever put bread in your soup?
Like dipping? Yeah. Not, like, dropping it straight in.
Is there anything in the USB key slots in your computer/laptop?
Um, let’s have a look. Mouse, keyboard, external HD, microphone, and 360 controller. I actually thought there’d be more.
What advertisements are on your screen at the moment?
I’m going to try out Star Wars: The Old Republic today, so that’s downloading now, and the launcher has some ads for premium content on it.
Do you ever get a really itchy nose when you’re unable to scratch it?
Way too often.
Has anyone ever randomly licked your face?
Dogs, and Ash, although that was probably in retaliation considering I licked their face earlier that evening ^^:
When was the last time you bought a book?
Not too long ago? I think I picked up an ebook recently. But an actual, physical book? Fuck, I have no idea.
Are you upstairs or downstairs at the minute?
I am on the one and only floor that my unit has.
Have you ever been asked for directions?
I get asked every now and then, yeah. Last time I was pulled up a a traffic light and a woman on the street approached my car and asked which way to the shops.
Are there any farm animals near you?
There are plenty on the edges of town. Like, within a few km for sure.
Are there any lakes near you?
Nah, the closest would be Wivenhoe Dam and that’s like an hour and a half away.
Was there ever a time when you felt absolutely terrified?
Yeah, it happens sometimes.
If so, why?
Existential horror and anxiety. It’s veeeeery rarely from a tangible source. Oh, and my memory loss is pretty fucking scary too.
Have you ever been in your local newspaper?
lmao nah
Have you ever called your mother ma or mammy?
I just call her “Mum”.
Can you imitate any other accent?
I’m really bad with accents, but if you have no idea what an Irish accent sounds like then I might be able to fool you. Oh and if I just speak English using Japanese sounds and form then I can probably do what passes as a Japanese accent.
What is your funniest memory of the 6th contact in your phone?
It’s one of my D&D party. Our funniest memory – which happened during a game, naturally – would be either the time she tried to get the party druid to sling her over a high wall and onto a room, or she led the group in playing Lute Hero at a pub.
Were you ever chased by an animal?
… Huh, I don’t actually think so.
Are you single/or taken?
I resent the binary implications of this question, haha. I am in a relationship, and simultaneously on the market.
^Are you happy with that?
Of course ^_^
Do you make the first move or do you prefer it the other way around?
Depends on the situation! I mean, I’ve only ever had one other person make the first move, so usually I have to take the lead, but I’m fine with that. Still, it would be nice to be hit on every now and then.
What is the most painful thing you’ve experienced?
The time I jumped a fence on a job site and turned my ankle. My boss threatened me not to report it for worker’s comp and just stay home while he paid me, because he was a skinflint and didn’t want his insurance premiums to go up. The month off was excruciating, and yet I still ended up being pressured into going back to work long before I was ready My ankle is still quite weak to this day. And I have CPTSD from that god damned job lmao
Do you hug someone whenever you see them?
If I know they’re comfortable with it. If not, I’ll ask them first.
When was the last time you bled? What happened?
I squeezed a pimple a few days ago. It emptied nicely, and then blood came out afterwards of course, so I guess that counts as bleeding.
When you look behind you what catches your attention the most?
The sun coming through a crack in the curtains. Today is going to be disgustingly hot. :(
Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend?
No. I think I’ve been that, though, back in my very first relationship :(
How many true heart breaks have you had in your lifetime?
A pretty rough breakup I had about a year and a half ago. Learned some solid life lessons from that one, haha.
Who last grabbed your ass?
Ash, I’m pretty sure.
Do you have any gay family members?
More than half my siblings are queer. It’s just that I’m the only one who’s publicly out, so nobody knows about any of them except me. I guess I don’t mind pulling that attention, but it’s lonely without their solidarity.
Where did you get the shirt you are wearing?
Just target , for a costume party. I painted the Wonder Woman logo on the front myself, because a bottle of fabric paint and a cheap shirt were cheaper than trying to find an actual license top in the style and size I needed.
Do you feel like everything is falling apart around you?
They is literally life for me. Everything is always falling apart. The only was to survive is to stay vigilant and rebuild as fast as things crumble, while simultaneously trying to support what is still currently stable so it doesn’t collapse too.
Was your first kiss romantic?
Yeah, I guess. In hindsight I cringe. But at the time I guess it was.
Do you know anybody whose last name is a color?
The person I’m stealing this from. Half of her last name is a colour.
What are you most likely to go to jail for?
Probably for being queer in a place that doesn’t allow it
Do you ever feel like life is going by too fast?
Fast, yeah, but not too fast. I can’t wait til I’m older.
Who was the last person to sleep over at your house?
Sage, and they brought their beautiful dog too ^_^
Is there someone that always intimidates you?
I think so, though tbh I can’t really remember right now.
Have you ever liked anyone that was in a relationship with someone else?
I’ve dated multiple people who were in relationships at the time. I’m dating one right now.
Would you ever get a boob job?
At this rate I don’t think I’ll need to. My family’s genes are finally coming through for me :O
Did your last relationship end because of you or the other person?
I’m not entirely sure I understand the phrasing of this question, but I broke up with him, because I could not tolerate a certain thing he did.
Do you ever ignore texts from some people?
If I’m in a bad headspace and can’t answer, then sometimes I delay answering til I’m ready.
Have you ever tried to break up anyone because YOU liked the guy/girl?
Why would anyone ever do that when polyamory exists? That’s so petty and awful :(
When is the last time you felt left out?
Yesterday. Not going into detail.
When was the last time you flirted with someone?
Yesterday, I think. But I flirt with people on most days. I flirt with practically everyone.
What would you think if you found out your ex was gay?
Most of my exes are queer. That’s, like, kinda necessary considering that I am queer. As for my one straight ex, I’d be surprised as hell but also glad he was doing what made him happy.
Would you ever take someone back if you found out they cheated on you?
Nope. Anyone who felt they needed to cheat, while dating my polyamorous self, is clearly not someone who I need in my life.
What does your last text message say?
“Haha, well you can always try it on my floors! I shall keep you updated.” A friend of mine is trying a new mop. We are exciting people.
What colour is your hair right now?
Brown.
Do people ever compliment your eyes?
Actually, yeah. Apparently they’re my best physical feature.
Do people ever tell you that you’re funny?
Sometimes, yeah.
Would you be upset if you caught your boyfriend looking at porn?
I would send him more.
How many people has your best friend had sex with?
Zero, I’m pretty sure.
What’s the last song you listened to?
I was going through old music and I think the last one I played was Hats Off To The Bull by Chevelle.
Who’s the last person that hung up on you?
Not a clue.
Four days from now, will you have sex?
Four days, four weeks, for months – not happening unless something drastic changes in my life. (grey ace yo)
Do you look intimidating?
I have been told that I do.
What does your second to last text say?
“Behold, my floors will SPARKLE!”
What makes you laugh?
People being people.
What were/are you most looking forward to today?
When the sun goes down and it starts to get cooler.
How is your hair?
Desperately in need of a trip. The split ends are running rampant.
When was the last time you had a conversation with an ex?
A couple of days ago.
Are you worried about anything right now?
It would be easier to list the things I’m not worried about. My life is one long series of worries and anxieties. Living in poverty is great.
How do you think tomorrow will be?
Exactly the same as today.
Is there a guy who knows everything or almost everything about you?
Yeah, Seb knows a fair bit about me.
If you could pack your bags right now and were given a plane ticket, where do you go?
Canada, to visit @aelwen.
How far away are you from the person you have feelings for?
"have feelings for” is such a VAGUE way of putting it, haha. But there’s a cutie I know who lives roughly 13,500km away from me.
Your last ex calls wanting to hangout, what do you say?
“Yeah, sure, though you’ll have to travel to see me cause I am not travelling all the way to Brisbane on this notice.”
Where were you at 2 this morning?
Watching Stranger Things 2 with Ash. Only the first ep, though, and then I passed the fuck out.
Have you ever kissed anyone who’s name started with a K?
… huh, I don’t think so!
Have you accidentally sent a text to the wrong person?
Occasionally, haha.
Last time you were TOTALLY happy?
A few weeks ago, I was having a really bad day. Ash took me to get bubble tea and Japanese. I nearly cried with gratitude.
Could you go the rest of your life without drinking alcohol?
I could but I’m not going to.
Is there anything currently hurting on your body?
Yes. A lot.
Ever kissed someone with green eyes?
Ash has green eyes ^_^
When you are home alone, do you still close the door when you shower?
Yeah, cause it keeps all the warmth in.
Are you mad at anyone right now?
Nah.
Do you like your music loud or at a reasonable level?
Depends. If I’m in the mood for it, loud can be good. But usually I need to to be quieter. Loud noises fuck me up.
Have you held hands with anyone in the past 30 hours?
Multiple times ^_^
How often do you sleep in?
Every day. It’s the only way I get anywhere near a reasonable amount of sleep.
Will you be in a relationship next month?
I don’t see why not.
Do you stay up later than ten o’clock on a week night?
Always.
Who’s the last person you told a secret to?
Hard to say. I am kind of an open book about myself.
Do you think someone is thinking about you right now?
Doubt it.
Would you rather have big or small dogs?
Medium dogs!
Will you cry tonight?
Possibly. Depends on how badly my brain fucks me ^^;
Do you have respect for people even if you don’t like them?
Depends on why I don’t like them.
What’s one fruit you love in drinks?
Lemon goes well with a lot of things.
Have you ever tried wine?
Yeah. Not a huge fan, but sometimes it can be nice.
In your life, do you plan on visiting other countries?
Eyyyup. At the very least I want to visit Canada, Japan, and NZ.
Is there an ex you want to make up with?
If my second-to-last ex came along, apologised for everything, and showed that she was sincerely trying to be a better person, I’d accept that.
Does cuddling freak you out?
I freak out unless I’m cuddling (okay not really but you get the idea)
How much time do you take to get ready in the morning?
Depends on how much prep I did the night before. I usually take between half an hour to an hour, though.
Do you love where you live?
Yeah, it’s okay. :)
Will your next kiss be drunk or sober?
Sober. Ash will wake up soon, come into my room, and I’ll kiss them.
Do you wear high heels everyday?
Nope, I rarely wear heels at all.
Are you an aunt or an uncle?
Yes, I have a niece!
Were you texting someone right before you fell asleep last night?
Yeah, a couple of people.
Did you have any unread text messages when you woke up today? How many?
A couple of messages from the group chat, and a few from Chloe.
Are you happy?
With myself, yes, more than ever. With the way I’m treated because of who I am? Absolutely not.
Are you an alcoholic?
Nah, I don’t drink much.
Can you go a day without thinking about the person that’s on your mind now?
I assume that "the person that’s on your mind now” means “the person you’re most attracted to right now”? Cnsidering we talk almost every day, I guess the answer is no.
Could you go the rest of your life without a cigarette?
Yes.
Does anyone know every little detail about you?
Not really, not even partners or exes. I mean lots of people knows lots of little details, but they’re just the ones I wear visibly.
What’s one thing you really want right now?
A steady income. As it is, I have to choose between paying bills and buying medicine.
Who was the last person you took a picture with?
I think it was @aturinfortheworse, at Riverfire.
Did anything “cute” happen today?
lmao no
Are you wearing shoes right now?
Nope.
Have you ever just laid outside and looked at the stars?
Yeah, it’s nice when I go out of town to do it.
Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?
Yes! Mostly tattoos at this point. I already have a ton of piercings and can only thinks of a couple more that I want.
Do you smile everyday?
Um, yeah, I suppose.
Who are you more like, mom or dad?
I look more like my mum, and have a personality that’s kind of a mix.
Could you date someone shorter than you?
That is, indeed, what I Am currently doing.
Where do you wish you were right now?
Somewhere that wasn’t fucking 30 degrees
Have a crazy side?
*snerk*
Something you do a lot?
I probably game way too much.
What is your natural hair color?
Brown
How many people have you kissed?
I count 12, but I’m like 99% certain I’ve missed some people.
Ever kissed someone you weren’t dating at the time?
Most of them.
Ever kissed someone you’d met less than an hour before?
Sure have.
Were any of them in relationships with someone else at the time?
Helloooooo. Polyamorous.
How old was the oldest person you’ve kissed?
35.
How young was the youngest person you’ve kissed?
15. I should clarify that I was 16 at the time. Since her, I've only kissed people who were older than me.
Ever been kissed by a legal adult when you were a minor (or vise-versa)?
No.
Ever been walked in on while you were making out with someone?
Yes, and then he joined me with kissing her. It was a good time lmao
Weirdest place you’ve kissed someone? (geographically, not physically)
I can’t really think of anywhere. I mean, there was that access corridor through the inner city shops in Toowoomba, where I got pushed up against a wall and made a peace sign at the dude who was staring like 8O from outside the glass doors? But even that wasn’t really, like, weird.
Ever kissed someone and had someone else get really mad about it?
i mean there was the (multiple) time(s) i caused a couple to break up by showing one of them what a good relationship could actually be like, does that count
Ever stopped kissing someone because they had bad breath?
Eyyyup. I can’t stand morning breath kisses. They taste awful D:
Ever not known the name of someone you kissed?
I can’t remember the names of four out of those twelve people.
Ever kissed someone on a dare/as part of a game?
Sure have.
Kissed someone you didn’t really like just to make someone else jealous?
Nope.
Ever had a really horrible kissing experience?
haven’t we all
Ever been called a bad kisser?
On the contrary ^_^
Ever called someone else a bad kisser?
I don’t think so.
Where’s the most public place you’ve ever made out with someone?
Probably at the shops or something similar.
Where’s the most private place you’ve ever made out with someone?
Bedroom I guess.
Ever thought of someone else while you were kissing someone?
What about the person I’m kissing, and someone else, at the same time?
Do you usually kiss on the first date?
Sometimes. If I’m definitely attracted to the person, and know they seem to have positive feelings as well, I’ll ask to end the date with a small kiss. It makes my intentions and interest unequivocally clear.
#tumblr games#this was a long one#but it killed enough time that my download finished#mission accomplished!
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Danie’s Dilemmas Ep. 25: What I Learned From Tinder
Here’s. The Motherfucking. TEA.
If you’ve known me for awhile, or have caught me at 2am, you should know by now that if there is one way that I refuse to meet the eventual loml, it’s through online dating sites. And what did I fucking do? I joined tinder.
I’m about to sound pretty hypocritical for a minute lmao. I don’t know what came over me this one day, but I just downloaded the app and set up an account with no hesitation, no second sober thought (that’s metaphorical. I was sober fr lol). All I remember after signing up was telling my one friend “I got tinder”. Her reaction was pretty tame, mostly because it’s not really a big deal. It’s not like I’m lying about my age, or doing it illegally. I’m not gonna lie, tinder was fun for about a week. You weed out all the good ones pretty fast, and the others are either horny or silent. A couple of them ended up adding me on snapchat, however I only really talk to one of them now because we gave each other homie vibes more than anything. We bonded over music, which by now should be a given. It’s by far the easiest thing to relate to. I probably picked the worst time to get involved in this app in the first place, considering we’re in the literal middle of IB exams right now and I still have a lot to deal with for university that’s stressing me out. But the simplicity of swiping left or right was addictive, at least momentarily.
Here’s a list of things I learned from my experiences:
1. You can never assume that anyone is actually looking for anything serious. This is pretty common knowledge I’d say, but now that I’ve experienced it first hand, I think there’s more validity to it.
2. Be prepared to answer the question “what’s up?”. There’s nothing wrong with the actual question. Small talk is fine until you’ve done it about a dozen times. By that point it becomes a lackluster performance.
3. Some guys are real assholes. There were a couple of comments on appearance. I got a lot of “oh wow, you’re REALLY short huh”... okay, and?? what do you want me to do about it?? Other times (once they’ve added me on snap and transitioned the talk on that platform), they’d comment on my hair or the fact that I didn’t have a specific appearance. Sorry, but it’s not my fucking job to fulfill all physical appearance expectations. You’re not the shit, you know. Usually when they’re like that, I just unmatch and don’t say anything back because I’m afraid that if I say something, I’m just setting myself up for bad karma.
4. Other guys are fucking divas. You think a girl cares too much about her looks?? bruh. That’s where you’re wrong. The one guy who commented on my hair snapped me saying “oh my god look at my hair it’s so flat and it’s not supposed to be like that, it’s so messy” and the picture was of his hair... with one stubborn strand sticking out that could have easily been fixed if you just ruffled with it or something. Another time, OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HEATED I GOT. You should know that I really fucking hate it when someone asks me “what do you think of me/like about me?” FIRST OF ALL. My bad, I didn’t realize you needed to be validated 24/7. SECOND OF ALL, if I think anything more or less of you, I WILL MAKE IT KNOWN. But it gets worse. The following day he goes “I was hoping you’d compliment me when I asked that question”... later that afternoon, I send a photo to which he responds “u cute”. Not that I meant it at all, but I wanted to see how he’d react so I said “no u”. It’s a mediocre response, but this bitch literally said “omg no that’s not even a compliment, i look gross, you’ve never even seen my face, i’m so sweaty from the gym.” I got so annoyed that I just stopped responding until he figured it out for himself that I wasn’t about to deal with him. I didn’t know how to put it nicely that when a person gives you a compliment, YOU DON’T FUCKING REJECT IT???? LIKE WHERE IS UR DECENCY??? anyways, be prepared for that type.
5. Dick pics are a given. periodt.
6. Some guys really got the balls to brag about the length and girth of their dicks, when really they’re straight up virgins.. i- what.
7. The good ones almost always never respond.
8. If you plan on adding them on any other social media platform, do yourself a favour and don’t allow them to see your location lmao. (no, but seriously. don’t.)
Overall, if you asked me to rate the experience after the first two days of having the app, I’d say that it was an 8/10. But after having it even for just a week, I’d give it a 2/10. This shit’s fucking stupid. If you wanna meet someone, meet them irl. Keep in mind how difficult it can be to relate the online version and the real life version of the person to one another. You never know what’s real and what isn’t.
Final verdict is that tinder is okay for when you’re bored. But if you hope to find some real shit, you came to the wrong place.
that’s the tea.
more to come, keep up.
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"4 Strategies HubSpot Used to Improve Its Marketing Results In 2018 Ft. Kipp Bodnar" (Inbound Success Ep. 68)
What marketing strategies is HubSpot's CMO using to drive the company's explosive growth?
Kipp Bodnar
This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, HubSpot Chief Marketing Officer Kipp Bodnar is pulling back the curtain on the company's marketing and sharing the details of four successful marketing experiments that have been game changers for the company in 2018.
Kipp covered this in his presentation at IMPACT Live 2018 and it was so fascinating, I asked him to come on the podcast so we could dig a bit deeper.
Some highlights from our discussion include:
HubSpot's marketing strategy for 2018 was focused on reducing friction and making it easier for customers to learn about, interact with, and engage with the company.
By revamping their lead nurturing workflows for new contacts, HubSpot was able to go to a 67% open rate from a 37% open rate, and from a 17% click-through rate on the previous version of its lead nurturing workflow to a 61% click-through rate.
By syndicating content that relates to high traffic, competitive keywords and republishing it on third party sites, HubSpot dramatically increased page authority for that content and as a result, traffic grew considerably (up to 16,000% for one article!).
Building on the success of its content syndication program, HubSpot is now working on getting accepted as a publisher in Google News in order to experiment with the impact that exposure in news aggregation sites will have on traffic.
A new strategy to connect with its audience via Facebook Messenger is also paying off, with prospects converting on a Messenger-based quiz.
The company is in the early stages of a new play to cover more breaking news and has added a full time writer to work exclusively on this.
In 2019, Kipp foresees HubSpot devoting more resources to video and to marketing via Instagram.
Listen to the podcast to learn more about the marketing experiments HubSpot conducted and the results that they generated.
Transcript
Kathleen Booth (Host):Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm Kathleen Booth, and I'm your host; and today my guest is Kipp Bodnar, who is the CMO of HubSpot.
Welcome Kipp.
Kipp Bodnar (Guest): Hey, thanks for having me Kathleen, I really appreciate it.
Kipp and Kathleen recording this episode
Kathleen: I'm really excited to have you here. I had the opportunity to hear you speak at IMPACT Live in August.
Click here to watch the video recording of Kipp's IMPACT Live talk.
Kathleen: I've heard you speak before at INBOUND and so I'm personally very excited to get to pick your brain a little bit on some of the things you're doing at HubSpot.
Before we dive into that, can you talk a little bit about yourself and just about HubSpot. I'm pretty sure most of my listeners know what HubSpot is, but just in case there's that random person out there who's never heard of it, maybe you could give us the two-minute version.
About HubSpot
Kipp: Sure, yeah. Well thanks for having me and to the audience thanks for taking a few minutes to listen.
So HubSpot...we build technology for growing businesses and we started as a marketing and marketing automation tool, but really now we're a CRM with tools for marketers, sales people, and customer service folks.
Whether you need to store your contacts, manage your pipeline, automate your marketing we've got the tools for you to do that.
I personally have been here at HubSpot for almost nine years now. It's been a fun journey. We've got an awesome global team growing and an amazing network of agency partners, integration partners that really extend HubSpot's platform with their own application.
It's a really awesome system we have here and I'm excited to talk a little about it today.
Kathleen: Yeah, it's amazing to me how much the company has changed since you joined, I mean I haven't known of HubSpot for even as long as you were around. I think when I had my own agency we became partners, it was 2011.
Kipp: Yes.
Kathleen: And even just in that time it's unbelievable what's happened, so I can't imagine as someone who joined what was it? Would it have been 2007?
Kipp: No I joined the end of 2009, so not-
Kathleen: 2009, so-
Kipp: - too soon before, about a year or so before you started coming through my office. But yeah, the company's been around since 2006.
Kathleen: Yeah, unbelievable amount of change in that time.
Kipp: Glad you remember and reflect on it.
Kathleen: I feel like we could do a whole other podcast on just that. But we won't so we'll save that one for another time, and for this time, you know, one of the reasons as I said I was really excited to talk to you was that I think a lot of us in the marketing world have heard HubSpot's story of growth. It's incredibly impressive, but it also - to the average marketer or to the small or medium-sized business owner - it can kind of seem unattainable or unrelatable because the growth is so dramatic.
What I appreciated so much about what you discussed at IMPACT Live was you pulled back the curtain on HubSpot's marketing and rather than try and give us the secret to success, you gave us a couple of very discrete, actionable, specific things that HubSpot has done in the past year, that have really made an impact in terms of the results that you're seeing in your marketing.
It seems to me that all of those were very doable and attainable by the average company and so I would love to spend today breaking that down and talking about that for listeners.
Kipp: Let's do it.
HubSpot's Marketing Goals
Kathleen: Alright. So maybe you could start by just talking about what your goals for the year were, 'cause I know when you started talking at IMPACT Live a lot of these changes that you put in place had to do with really achieving the objectives you set out as far as HubSpot's marketing.
Kipp: Yeah, this year we wanted to build off of the momentum we've had and we wanted to really solve for our prospects and our customers, which has kind of always been our core DNA. But when we thought about this, like man we've got this awesome flywheel, we've got a business that's really going up but there's a lot of friction in it, and how do we reduce that friction and make it easier to learn about us, interact with us, engage with us?
And so we really wanted to drive awareness with HubSpot and how we think about getting people to adopt our free products, which I think are a really great way to engage with us.
We wanted to make it easier for our customers to be advocates for us. We believe that word of mouth is one of our best marketing channels, and so we wanted to really rethink how we thought about customer marketing and communicating to our customers, and how we enabled them to tell a better story.
We wanted to make shopping with us and buying with us easy, friction-free, on our own prospects' time schedule and how they wanted to interact with us. And so that involved telling better stories, educating them, but also doubling down on things like automation and chat and different strategies like that.
Kathleen: Yeah, and all of those I think are goals that any business that is at all down the path of pursuing an inbound marketing strategy probably share. I know for myself, we would love to reduce friction and solve for the customer and make it easier for our prospects to engage with us, so how'd you do it? I know you ran a bunch of tests, and there were some that worked and worked particularly well.
1. Revamping HubSpot's Lead Nurturing Strategy
Kipp: Yeah, so there's a ... We'll talk about one of the things I shared at IMPACT Live which is really about how we improved our automation and nurturing.
Once we were able to bring somebody into our community I would really take them to the next level and help them understand our products, address their pain in the right way, and really we've been, as a company that's been in the marketing automation system, we've been doing automation for a long time and we continue to try to iterate on it over and over again.
Like any marketing tactic or strategy I feel like you always, the first iteration is always just full of assumptions, right? It's the marketer trying to guess and making a bunch of assumptions as-
Kathleen: Right, as people like to sound fancy and scientific they say, "It was my heuristic analysis."
Kipp: I'm not that fancy at terms.
Kathleen: That's just a way of sounding really smart when you're saying, "I made a bunch of assumptions."
Kipp: Yeah, and so that was basically like our automation, two to three years ago, that's kinda what it was like, right? We'd assume based on what the topic that person downloaded that they wanted more stuff on that topic, right? And we wanna try to keep giving them more of what they wanted and it worked okay, like we had a 30% open rate on that automation, about 14% click-through rate. It was respectable. Nothing to be frustrated about.
Kipp: Then we were like, "Oh well it's good that they want that stuff, but actually they're looking for this information 'cause they have this bigger holistic set of problems, right?"
They either need to get more traffic to their website, they need to get more leads for their business, they need to turn those leads into customers at a high rate.
There's kind of a refined subset of problems that all these folks have, and so what if we do our best job to kind of segment those people based on those areas of focus and kind of what their core marketing challenge was?
Kathleen: Yeah, I seem to recall you gave an example in your presentation of somebody would download a social media playbook and at first on the surface it would appear that their problem was they wanted to learn how to do social media better, but really that was the symptom of a larger challenge that they were facing, so I thought that was interesting.
Kipp: Yeah, and so we looked at that and we said, "Okay, well let's then do this different point of segmentations, instead of giving them a bunch of social media content, let's give them content around how they can get more leads to their website," for example.
And that improved our performance. We went from a 30% open rate to a 37% open rate. We went from a 14% click-through rate to a 17% click-through rate. It's an improvement I think a lot of people would be happy with.
But then we really did something pretty obvious that we should've done two years earlier, which is we asked people ... We basically made a "pick your own adventure," choose what you really need to know about right now.
And so if you, basically if you downloaded that same social media ebook for example, you get that first kind of welcome email after that was, "Well what challenge are you trying to tackle? Do you need more leads? Do you need to grow your revenue? Do you need to manage your sales pipeline? Or do you need to do all of these things?"
But some people write. Some people it's, "Hey I'm just getting started, I need to make all these things happen," and based on which one you picked, we had a really customized set of followup content that really aligned really tightly with that.
And the response rate on that was way better than we could've ever imagined. We went to a 67% open rate from a 37% open rate, and we went from a 17% click-through rate on the previous version to a 61% click-through rate-
Kathleen: Wow!
Kipp: ... on the newer version, which is a massive, massive improvement.
Kathleen: That's amazing.
Kipp: It's awesome, and our team did an incredible job on that, and I think it came back to, "Well when you finally get segmentation and the value you need delivered for your perspective customer, and you marry that with good content, good information, you can really drive remarkable results.
Kathleen: Yeah, what's so interesting about that change for me is that it kind of mirrors what you're taught as a salesperson.
I spent some time on IMPACT Sales Team, and before I came here I was an agency owner. I kind of was my main salesperson and you're always taught in sales, if somebody comes to you for example and says, "I need help with social media," the best salespeople don't just say, "Well great, how can we help you?" Or "Here's how we can help you." They say, "Well why do you need help with social media. What are you really trying to achieve with that?"
So you kind of peel back the layers of the onion and figure out, you know, don't let the customer self-diagnose necessarily. Figure out what they're real motivation is and I like the way you guys went with the pick your own adventure.
I mean the customer is still self-diagnosing to a certain extent.
Kipp: Totally.
Kathleen: But you're taking it to a deeper level by asking them really, why? Why are you here? What's behind it? So that tracks very nicely with how I think the buying journey happens.
In my head when you said that you went from a 30-something percent up in rate to a 60, or whatever the increase was, I felt like it was you doubled everything, all I could picture was the marketing team popping a bottle of champagne that day 'cause that is such a huge increase.
Kipp: Yeah. No, I mean that's the biggest thing, like, for anybody, when you have big milestones you've gotta celebrate them, right?
Kathleen: Yeah.
Kipp: So we do all kinds of fun things. Sometimes you'd have a bottle of champagne, sure, sometimes you get a bunch of cupcakes, sometimes it's like a big joke that's a symbol of the progress.
Kathleen: Right.
Kipp: Whatever it is, celebrating those milestones are super important.
Kathleen: Yeah. Now from a very kind of nitty-gritty technical standpoint, when you present people with this. So somebody converts on something, we'll go back to our example of the social media playbook, and they're sent either an email or they're sent to a thank you page, you're giving them this opportunity to say, "Here is the direction that I wanna go."
Is that as simple as they're clicking a button and then that button sends a signal in HubSpot to put them in a certain customer segment and it kicks off the workflow?
Kipp: Yeah. Yeah. So basically there's essentially four different workflows and based on which button you click in that email you're gonna get enrolled in that workflow.
Kathleen: Okay, and I think I have some screenshots of some of that, so I'll include that in the show and that's for anyone who's curious to see what those examples look like.
Kathleen: I love that and that's something that's really easy for I think anybody to implement, is really what's your problem, and based on the problem to then put in place the nurturing.
Kipp: Anything you can do to get a clearer understanding of what your prospect is looking for, their core problem, so you can deliver on that is going to drastically improve your marketing results.
Kathleen: Now am I right to assume that if I do come to your website, I do convert on that social media playbook, that's my first conversion, I then enter into one of these four workflows -- am I right to assume that you have some suppression in place so that if I then, five minutes later go and download something on something else entirely that I'm not gonna then start to get five different emails?
Kipp: Yeah, these are basically like the master workflows, so once you've had that first conversion you're gonna get enrolled in that workflow and regardless of what else you do you're gonna stay in that workflow and not get enrolled into anything else.
Kathleen: Until it ends?
Kipp: Until it ends.
Kathleen: Yeah. Okay. Well that's so interesting and there you go, there's one great actionable tip.
2. A Strategy to Rank for High Traffic, Competitive Keywords
Kathleen: One of the other things you talked about at IMPACT live I recall was a massive increase in traffic to the website.
Kipp: Yup.
Kathleen: Would you talk a little bit more about that?
Kipp: Yeah, so when I think about, it's kinda tough to be a marketer today and the whole host of reasons, and one of the reasons it's tough is because it's just been a lot of consolidation of audience. And man Google and Facebook earn so much of the audience, and so when we think about how we grow organic traffic to our websites, man, Google is the top priority there.
One of the things that we really learned is that there's some powerful stuff we could do to really get better distribution through Google, and one of the plays we did there was the content syndication play.
So basically what happened is content syndication essentially is a process of taking some content we've published and republishing it on third-party sites for broader reach around that point of view and thought leadership. That's the base thing.
And so we would create content for sites like Fast Company or The Muse, or Thrive Global, or other sites where at the end of that article we've got attribution that this article was originally posted on the HubSpot site. So Google knows that that article is not the canonical, the one on our site's the canonical article, so we're not messing Google up in anywhere there.
When we first did that we thought, "Oh this is gonna be a play to get good referral traffic from those websites. Oh people are gonna see that and they're gonna click that little link in that article and get back to our site."
And what we found is that that just wasn't true at all. You know an article for the Muse got us eight clicks, and that's just basic laws of conversion rate.
But what we saw, what was interesting though, is even though that post did not get a ton of traffic from the Muse for example, it started jumping up the rankings for a bunch of different key words. And the views from organic search really started to climb, and wow we saw that as a pretty awesome and interesting opportunity.
What we figured out is that syndication - instead of getting that direct traffic from the syndication partners - what it was actually a tool for was building authority in terms of linking and recency of traffic and everything else to those pages.
Kathleen: Okay.
Kipp: And it gave us some authority to basically increase the rank of those pages, and that was a really powerful revelation for us because we were able to figure out that, "Wow we need to use syndication as a tool in our organic search tool belt."
This is a play that I think anybody can run and kind of, if you wanna think about how you apply this it's you've got to look at the content you already have and what of that content has high search potential?
So, maybe it's already on the first page of Google, maybe in the bottom of the first page for example, so it has some resonance. It's got some credibility, it's on a topic that you care about, topic that has real search volume, and then you wanna go and you wanna promote that content through syndication partners, whether it through email, through Facebook.
That additional promotion gets you additional inbound links and sends a signal to Google that this is a really quality piece of content, and then you're gonna see your organic ranking increase and have a much longer month-to-month tale of traffic and visits to that page because of that promotion effort.
Kathleen: And that strategy presupposes obviously that you're able to find syndication partners that are open to republishing content that has appeared somewhere else, 'cause I know a lot of them are ... A lot of the big ones are really picky about that.
Kipp: Yeah, and sometimes it might be a repackaging of that content, it might be a new twist on that content, that is, you know, maybe you've got an article on your site that's really in depth, that you take one portion of it and you kinda add to it and you make it a syndicated article that points back to that original article for a more in-depth look at that issue.
Kathleen: That makes sense.
Kipp: There are couple different ways that we've tried to do it.
Kathleen: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And your traffic increase, if I remember correctly, it was something like 16,000% increase?
Kipp: Yeah, so for one blog post, yeah, we ... The example I gave is we had one blog post that went from I think it was 500 views a month to over 69,000 views per month. 'Cause we were able-
Kathleen: Wow.
Kipp: ... to really change the dynamic of how that post ranked and how we were able to promote it.
Kathleen: That's amazing. Now, just out of curiosity, have you looked at all or is your team looking at all at the impact that news aggregator sites could potentially have on gaining visibility for your content? I'm thinking like Apple News, Flipboard ...
We're looking closely at that for ourselves 'cause we're kind of establishing ourselves as a publisher and I've read a lot about that but I haven't ...
Kipp: Yeah we have, and so for us our big focus, those aggregators the key word of the statement you said is news.
Kathleen: Yeah.
Kipp: Right, and so it's a really different type of content and so what we have is we have, right now we have one person dedicated to news in our industry, and we actually, we are close to applying and getting into Google News for example, being able to include it in Google News results and then that paves the way to having that news content listed in those different aggregators.
We have seen that to be, early signs are very positive. It is really gonna be, I think, until we are listed in Google News 'til we really know the extent of how valuable that play is and is it, "Wow we need to put more people on that because that's working really well," or is it kind of incremental on top of what we're doing.
So that's kind of where we are in that process. We're just like you, we think there's some interesting opportunity there. There's a few technical things and everything we need to do to kind of finalize our play there to see how it actually works long term.
Kathleen: Yeah I think you're right about being very specific on the news side, 'cause we are covering news as well but I think we made a strategic error, 'cause we applied for Google News as a publisher and initially got rejected, but that's I believe because we submitted our main RSS feed, which includes a lot of non-news topics along with the news, so I think we might need to go back.
Kipp: They like you to have a whole separate feed and section of your site, how you structure the site matters a lot for those aggregators, so-
Kathleen: Yeah.
Kipp: We're in the process of fixing that and then we're doing real news. The woman who does that for us is traveling to events, she's covering stuff in real time. We've got a slack channel where she jumps in and asks people internally for comments. She's got some great external sources.
We're really trying to treat it very much as a news outlet, much more than an educational content or how-to content outlet like a lot of our other content that is currently positioned.
Kathleen: Yeah it's a really interesting shift and I'm looking forward to seeing where you guys take it and the impact that it has onsite traffic and a lot of these other things. So maybe we can do a followup next year on that.
Kipp: We could. That'd be awesome.
3. Generating Leads With Facebook Messenger
Kathleen: Great, well the other area that you talked about was Messenger, and particularly-
Kipp: Yeah.
Kathleen: ... Facebook Messenger, which I think is so interesting that something that's accessible to a lot of companies but very few I am seeing use it well, so maybe you could dig into that a little bit?
Kipp: Yeah, it's interesting, there's been an increased ramp of the talk of website chat and live chat in the market, right?
We've been doing live chat on our website for about five years at HubSpot, it's been a great channel for us. We're continuing to innovate there and really grow it's-
Kathleen: You guys have a great product for that, too, I mean-
Kipp: It's a great product, it helps with conversations, it's free if you wanna .... If you aren't using it check it out, but there's a ton of value there. I highly recommend it. If you don't, if you're not using any live chat on your website you really wanna start doing that. There's gonna be real benefit there.
Kind of tangential to that, we also have this strong belief that we wanna remove friction, like I talked about earlier, and one of the ways you remove friction is to go where your customers are, where your prospects are, and there's just a huge part of our community that is on Facebook. So why are we gonna ask them to leave the Facebook ecosystem to engage with us on our website, chat with us on our website? Why can't we have them do that within the Facebook ecosystem, is essentially our kinda core hypothesis here.
And you've got, we had a big Facebook book print, right? We have ... we're getting closer and closer to two million Facebook fans. We've got millions of Facebook video views, but man it's been ... we were kinda struggling, like how do we actually monetize this audience? How do we better engage with this audience?
And we've done a bunch of different Facebook Messenger tests. The one I shared with you and the folks at IMPACT Live was around comment to messenger, which is a specific feature where basically you can set a keyword in a social post on Facebook, and if the person comments with that specific keyword -- for us we had an SEO tutorial video. If you commented SEO on that video, it opened a Messenger dialogue with an SEO quiz for you to test your SEO knowledge.
That's the basic mechanics of it, and that quiz was awesome. It asked you some information about yourself, had some great questions for you-
Kathleen: And the quiz happened in Messenger?
Kipp: The quiz was all in Messenger, so delivered via a bot in Messenger, and then once that quiz was done we connected you with other pieces of content, so maybe an in-depth ebook on SEO.
But man if you care enough to take an SEO quiz and you're feeling pretty good, maybe you wanna learn some more, and that SEO book, you could load it as a Facebook instant article, so you still didn't have to leave Facebook.
And the interesting thing is from a form information perspective, if you wanna check out that ebook, we just asked you, the bot asked you a few form questions, you never needed to visit a webpage, fill out a form, and then we just automatically sink that back into HubSpot so we had all of your information.
You could do great automation, customize your experience with us, and everything, as well as re-engage you via Facebook Messenger after you've consumed that quiz and that ebook. You know, follow up with you the next day to see, "Hey now that you've read that ebook do you have questions? Are there ways that we can help you?"
Kathleen: How do you avoid people feeling like you're in their space on Facebook Messenger? 'Cause I feel like traditionally that's been such a private space, you know a friend-to-friend space and it's a fine line but brands walk if they go into that space.
How have you guys handled that in terms of the frequency of messaging, the nature of it, et cetera?
Kipp: Yeah, so we found it works most effectively when it's really anchored against something that they have real high in turn around. So the fact that we -- for this example, right -- the fact that we even kick off that Messenger interaction with a quiz that they have to opt into and they're doing in real time, and any followup is really around that quiz and around that topic, and then we really try to kind of hold off on much engagement until they actually proactively reengage, because you're right.
We wanna be sensitive to the fact that it's often a space for friends and family, but man I think business has a great space there. Well if you are contextual and you're really trying to provide value and be helpful to them.
And so it was pretty awesome in that of of the people that watched that SEO missed video on Facebook, about a little over 2% of them opted in and commented to take the quiz, which is a pretty good conversion rate. That's, I think a similar click-through rate, conversion rate, you would find on your website-
Kathleen: Yeah.
Kipp: ... and other places. SO I thought that was pretty good and I thought what was really interesting, if they opted in 95% of the people who opted in actually finished the quiz. So-
Kathleen: Oh wow, that's actually very surprising.
Kipp: - engagement of that platform, right? And the power of that platform, and the really crazy thing is that the quiz got them interested enough that of the folks that took the quiz 68% of those folks actually downloaded our ebook.
Kathleen: Wow.
Kipp: They were really engaged, really wanted that next step. We were able to teach them some really interesting stuff from the quiz and they wanted to take the next step of their education.
Kathleen: That's pretty impressive and what interests me the most about this one is that for a lot of companies there's a feeling of frustration that they spent years building up their page likes for their company page in Facebook, only to have Facebook pull the rug out from under them and basically make it so that nobody saw anything unless they paid to play, and this is an interesting way to derive value out of people who've liked your page or people who are interacting with it that I think it's a way to drive value in those legacy fans if you will.
Kipp: I think that's right. I think that's a very astute observation on your part.
Kathleen: Is this something that's really hard for the average business to set up? Is it super techy complicated or is it pretty accessible?
Kipp: No, you know it's getting much more accessible every day. You could do some of this with the HubSpot Conversations product I talked about.
Many Chat is a really great product. They've got a great HubSpot integration as well. There's a few other platforms out there, but if you just wanna go and create a free account on either HubSpot or Many Chat you can get something like this up and running pretty quickly actually.
Kathleen: That's great. And you also have some other ways you've used Facebook for conversion, I think you mentioned you have some native lead forms in there as well? Or-
Kipp: Yeah, so as part of this quiz or any of the Facebook Messenger engagements we do kinda natively forms within Messenger instead of sending people to an HTML form on a website, and we've found that the conclusion rates, conversion rates are really strong there as well.
Kathleen: So they don't have to go off of Facebook or off of Messenger, they can stay where they are and it all syncs back into the platform. Now, technical question.
Kipp: Sure.
Kathleen: When you take this approach, are you sacrificing the ability to cookie that person?
Kipp: You are. You are.
We believe that the number one thing is to deliver that prospect a remarkable native experience wherever they are to the extent that we can do that for them, right? And that's why we format our search content for answer boxes so that if they don't need to click through then they don't have to click through.
We're trying very hard to get them the information that they're looking for as quickly as possible, and knowing that if we do a great job of that, that we're gonna build great brand awareness, we're gonna build great trust with them, they're gonna take the higher-intent actions that we're hoping for as they continue to interact with us.
Kathleen: Yes.
Kipp: But you're giving up the right to cookie, but you ... I don't know actually say you're trading off the right to cookie for the right to have a Messenger exchange with them, right?
And you can retarget them on Facebook, there's other advantages, but what you're really sacrificing is cookie-ing for interactions kind of across the web and exchanging that for deeper interactions in the Facebook ecosystem.
Kathleen: Yeah and it almost seems to me, maybe you're not trading off or giving up the ability to cookie, you're postponing it-
Kipp: Yeah, exactly.
Kathleen: ... because if you do your job well, they will eventually come to your site and-
Kipp: Totally. Totally.
Kathleen: ... convert on something, and you'll get them anyway. So, yeah, I guess it all depends on the quality of that first interaction and the value that you're delivering.
Kipp: You've gotta bring the value, first and foremost, before anything else.
4. Growing Traffic Through News Coverage
Kathleen: Yeah, so going back to the topic of news.
Kipp: Yes.
Kathleen: You touched on this earlier, this has been a big play for you guys. I heard you mention this. I think I heard Matthew Barbey talk about it when he spoke at INBOUND.
Kipp: Yup.
Kathleen: How did this start?
Kipp: It started, we've always kind of covered news a little bit because even in the early days of our HubSpot blog it was because ... In the early days of social news content got you a lot of social traffic, and we're like, "Oh cool. This is a sweet way to get different people to discover us and get cool discoverability on social," and as social's kind of matured that's become a little less true, but now we've seen it as a unique way to get to a different type of audience through search news aggregators like we were talking about a little bit ago.
For example, one of the things we've noticed is that on average our news posts have a lot more links coming into them and more page authority than our non-news posts.
Kathleen: Huh. That's interesting. When I think about the traffic impact of news, it almost seems like a food analogy comes to mind. I feel like news can be a bit like a sugar high, you get that big initial spike and then you drop because obviously news gets old quickly, and more traditional content, like being on the protein diet, you get the long slow burn.
Kipp: Close.
Kathleen: Is that kind of what you've seen with your traffic?
Kipp: Some, but not completely. We try to take an editorial commentary on the news that makes it more evergreen.
And you also have a lot of research all on past news events, it's less like that. I think it's certainly partly like that, but it's less severe than I think you're kind of outlining it to be.
What we've seen is that you get a mix of social and search traffic to that news content, and you attract in ... You're really bring in people at kind of a different point in their process, right?
When you're getting people to do a search they have an intent for one very specific thing. News you're bringing people with much more passive intent, they didn't know they were looking for this thing but now that they've found it they're interested in it and they're engaging with it and maybe engaging with follow-along content and stuff from that.
Kathleen: Is part of your strategy to also go back and update older news posts when there are developments?
Kipp: Yeah, I mean news and non-news posts. We try to keep our best content always up to date.
Kathleen: Yeah.
Kipp: With a lot of time doing that, I'm sure you all do as well, it's just an important thing in today's internet, 'cause like you said, stuff changes and stuff can get out of date pretty quickly.
Kathleen: Yeah, absolutely. Well it's super interesting to me because some of what you guys are doing I think we're testing out at a much smaller and maybe less ambitious level but it's great to be able to have some insight into the approach you're taking and the results you're getting.
Kipp: Yeah, good. I'm glad.
Kathleen: I'll be really curious to see what happens with the news aggregations, that's one that I'm-
Kipp: I know.
Kathleen: ... personally very interested in at the moment, so ...
Kipp: Me too, and I'm a little impatient on it. Hopefully -
Kathleen: Yeah, I know. There's nothing like sitting back and waiting for Google to approve you. I ... we applied and did get accepted to Flipboard, but it took like-
Kipp: Oh nice.
Kathleen: ... a month-and-a-half, which was incredibly frustrating. I wanted to know like 24 hours later, so ...
Kipp: Totally.
Kathleen: We're all at the mercy of the platforms, right?
Kipp: That is the world we live in right now.
HubSpot's Marketing Plan for 2019
Kathleen: So my last question for you on this topic is just as we head into the New Year, can you share anything about where your focus is gonna be coming into 2019?
Kipp: Well there's a lot of focus, but we want to ... Man, I'm pretty-
Kathleen: And I'm springing this on you, I didn't tell you I was gonna ask you about this.
Kipp: Well I'm pretty obsessed with reducing friction, just making the best buying experience possible. The best educational experience possible for our community and so, man, we're gonna continue to make even bigger investments in Messenger and live chat, and automation, so you're gonna see a bunch more stuff from us on that front.
And then we're gonna continue to double down on the great educational content, but continue to evolve how we're telling the stories. More video, YouTube, things like that. We're gonna invest more there as well.
Kathleen: So you're not scared off by ... Everyone's been saying in the news that the pivot to video was kind of based on a false premise because Facebook didn't have the right data, are you ... You're not rethinking your strategy because of that?
Kipp: I think Instagram's growing like a weed. I think YouTube's a huge network with the ability to drive awareness, I think, only growing there. I think there's a big opportunity.
Kathleen: Yeah. Yeah. I would agree.
Kathleen's Two Questions
Kathleen: Well this has been great. I've learned a lot. I probably have a thousand more questions, but you only have an hour, so ...
Kipp: No worries.
Kathleen: Before we wrap up there's two questions I always ask all of my guests, and I would love to get your take on it.
The first is, company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?
Kipp: I love what our customer ezCater is doing. They're doing a really, really awesome job. Some folks who don't know, they are a platform that enables, they're kinda like an Uber Eats for catering for businesses. And they're doing a great job reducing friction in their buying process, they have a great website. They have an awesome blog creating content around catering and food trends and everything else.
It's definitely a market you probably wouldn't think about for awesome inbound marketing, but I think they're doing a really, really great job.
Kathleen: That's great and I love when people give me examples from outside of the marketing industry, because I feel like we can be a giant echo chamber so I can't wait to check them out.
Second question is, as you know the world of digital marketing changes so quickly, how do you personally stay up to date and educate yourself?
Kipp: Yeah, for me I try to have like a system of how I consume information so, Twitter lists for people who I really respect their opinion of, certain Flipboard magazines from people and sources that I think have really awesome information.
I subscribe to some old-school email newsletters 'cause some of them are really good, like Brian Balfour's 'Reforge' newsletter.
Kathleen: That's a good one.
Kipp: Right? I love Brian. He used to work here with us and so I always want to know what he and that crew is thinking about. So really that's what I want to do. And then sometimes, honestly, sometimes I'll just see a piece of marketing and I'll think it's really good and I'll just go try to find out who did it and talk to them.
Kathleen: Yeah.
Kipp: Be like, "Hey this is awesome. How'd you do it? Tell me more about it," and I think sometimes just doing that is super valuable as well.
Kathleen: Yeah, that's what my podcast is for me. It's my excuse to sponge all the knowledge from the people that I wanna learn from.
How to Connect With Kipp
Kathleen: Well this has been fantastic. If somebody is listening and they have a question or wanna learn more, what's the best way for them to connect with HubSpot or with you online?
Kipp: Yeah, so HubSpot, go to HubSpot.com, chat with us, sign up for our free products, whatever you need there. And then to chat with me, just connect with me on LinkedIn, send me an email, happy to chat and connect and do whatever I can do to help.
Kathleen: Great, and I'll put links to your LinkedIn profile and to HubSpot on the show notes, and thank you. This has been fascinating.
You Know What Comes Next...
Kathleen: If you're listening and you got value out of today's podcast, you know what to do.
I would love it if you'd leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice, and if you know someone else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, Tweet me @workmommywork because I would love to interview them.
Thanks Kipp.
Kipp: Awesome, thanks Kathleen. Appreciate it.
Want to stay updated when the podcast is released?
Drop us your name and email address below and we’ll send you the show notes every Monday!
from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/hubspot-marketing-strategies-kipp-bodnar
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So why can’t our beloved Powerhouse Museum have two campuses, avoiding the need to move Locomotive No. 1, the Catalina flying boat and the other large objects? – Dick Pollitt, Mosman
Illustration: John Shakespeare
Photo:
Why can’t this government abandon Baird’s grand design and restore some sanity to what is really needed for Parramatta. – Garry Horvai, Pennant Hills
The destruction of the Powerhouse Museum is an act of cultural vandalism without comparison in the modern world. Rather than extend the collection over two iconic sites as has been done in London with the Tate and Tate Modern, or in the USA over several sites with the Smithsonian Institute, the NSW government has opted for ongoing debasement of the state’s cultural, historical and environmental heritage.
What a soulless, vapid city politicians are creating. The old joke about a bridge and an opera house for sale is no longer funny. I expect to see them listed in Domain any day now. – Marie-Louise Dreux, Petersham
After all of the expense of the Darling Harbour revamp, the added attraction of a world class museum within easy walking distance of the hotels and the revamped area would make the museum a cash cow.
Does the government think tourists are going to get on a train or ferry out to Parramatta when the city is the centre of tourism? – Robin Humphrey, Springwood
If Gladys Berejiklian is confident that the electorate agrees with the rebuilding of the stadiums and the moving of the Powerhouse Museum, she should put both proposals on hold until after the next election.
This would allow all people to decide on the future of these major issues, something they are currently denied. – Tony Re, Georges Hall
The papers the government released reveal what we always knew about the proposed move of the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta: it was never feasible.
Oh well, all is not lost: I’m pitching the storyline to the producers of Utopia. – Irma Havlicek, Umina Beach
Australia needs to go its own way in the world
Your editorial was most candid and sounds a clarion call for us in Australia (“Summit of illusions has a clear message”, June 14) .
Our future focus should be towards our neighbours in the Asia/Oceania region of the world.
America reflected in the persona of Donald Trump has for too long now sounded like the spoilt child who has had its lolly taken away.
They were once great contributors to the planet, but a culture of expected rights and freedoms has them now moving towards being takers rather than givers.
The foundations of the planet earth we once knew are being shaken. This is admittedly discomforting.
If we don’t point ourselves in our own chosen direction then the bully boys of the world will drag us in their direction, which is ultimately self-defeating.
Australia’s coming of age might well start with us recognising our First Nations peoples in our Constitution. There’s a solid foundation stone to move us forward creatively. – Neville Williams, Darlinghurst
Many times I thought Trump would never be elected President of USA (Letters, June 14). I watched every minute of the three debates and came away convinced that he had no hope of victory, especially when he refused to say he would accept the will of the people in the event of he not winning. I was dumbfounded on election day.
So who is to say he will not succeed now? Time will tell. I have learned not to write him off. And for world peace, I wish him well. – Michael Kennedy, West Pymble
Of all the comments on the Singapore Summit, Michael Kirby’s informed and compassionate assessment seems the one most worthy of reflection (“A long way to right the wrongs”, June 14). Beware those who “mock the time with fairest show” when a false face hides what the false heart knows. – Meredith Williams, Dee Why
Even the most ardent supporter of Trump admits he sometimes presents poorly, but if he succeeds in denuclearising the Kim regime, who cares about his demeanour and modus operandi – unless you are one of those elitists for whom the “sizzle is more important than the steak”. – George Fishman, Vaucluse
Trump has now verified that he is not the great negotiator that he like the world to believe that he is. Kim has neither ceded nor agreed to anything remotely close to denuclearisation. Trump’s new nickname? Steinway. Kim is playing him like a piano. – Alan Garside, Raglan
I await the announcement of the biggest, most expensive Trump Hotel project to date – in Pyongyang. – Patrick McGrath, Potts Point
Energised by school funding
The state election is only nine months away and we now have news of a huge boost in funding for schools (“Huge boost in funding for schools”, June 14).
The Treasurer Dominic Perrottet claims the government’s strong economic management has allowed for heavy investment in schools.
It was encouraging to read all new schools and schools being upgraded will be designed with sustainability in mind. Does this mean all these schools will be fitted with solar panels?
Schools are the obvious buildings to make use of solar energy as very few schools are open at night. An initial outlay for solar panels could save schools an enormous sum of money due to lighting, heating, cooling and computer networks.
If there is as much spare cash as the Treasurer claims surely there will be enough for solar panels. –Robyn Lewis, Raglan
Guarantee there will be no indoor swimming pools, orchestra pits or heated horse stables in the “necessary” upgrades earmarked for a number of public schools in NSW. – John Cotterill, Kingsford
Times are changing
Christian churches must forgo the right to keep silent on child sexual abuse, both as educational institutions and as hearers of confession (“Bishops still don’t get it, things have changed”, June 14).
If not, they must forgo the right to work with children in line with the rest of the community who are banned from working with children if they fail to report abuse. – Vanessa Tennent, Oatley
Whether the Catholic bishops “get it” or not, the Pope has publicly stated what they have to do. The Pope said, in reply to a journalist’s question, that there is zero tolerance of sexual abuse; bishops must remove all powers from priests who offend; and they must support victims including in the pursuit of civil claims.
Moreover, some of the things recommended by the royal commission and mentioned by Joanne McCarthy are simply not within a bishop’s power to change. They are matters for Rome. – Greg McCarry, Epping
My bet is that Malcolm Turnbull will take all the credit for the royal commission into child abuse during his apology on October 22 rather than thanking Julia Gillard for initiating it (“Tougher laws months away”, June 14). – Judy Hungerford, North Curl Curl
An undersea cable for neighbours
Congratulations to the Turnbull government for financing the undersea internet cable to the Solomon Islands (“‘It’s business’: talks with Chinese telco ongoing”, June 14).
As a wealthy nation, Australia should be very proactive and generous in helping our less well off neighbours in any way we can. Be proactive not reactive. – Graham Russell, Clovelly
Will the internet cable connection promised to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea be better than the internet cable connections Turnbull promised to Australians? To where will their cable be connected? The home, curb or corner? They should check their contracts now for download speeds, data limits and ever-extending connection dates. – Ian Campbell, Newington
The political relationship between Brian Burston and Pauline Hanson has been destroyed.
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Turnbull’s double dissolution stunt
It’s no surprise that One Nation and the rest of the hard-right fringe is fracturing (“Senate scramble as Burston quits One Nation”, June 14). Five senators on the right no longer represent the party of their election.
This alone damns our democracy or what is left of it. But the carnage is partly due to Malcolm Turnbull’s double dissolution election stunt which meant more fringe-dwellers were elected than in a normal half-senate election. – Nick Wilson, Palm Beach
Training students for jobs that don’t exist
Recent findings seem to go against the current thinking that we are helping students by training them for jobs that don’t yet exist and that future workers will undertake a variety of jobs in response to flexibility in the job market (“Early career choice pays off over lifetime”, June 14).
With this type of thinking espoused by leaders in government and education, is it any wonder that children no longer have a clear sense of career direction? It would also be interesting to know if this is contributing to the lack of engagement with education in our young people. – Philip Cooney, Wentworth Falls
For universities to boast about their student culture and the variety and volume of their degrees and not show where people end up after graduating means that adolescents aren’t to blame for having an uncertain career path. Being in year 12, I know what courses I want to do, I just have no idea where it will land me or who I will be working for. – Naosheyrvaan Nasir, Quakers Hill
Data entry is not teaching
Just what do we want from our teachers and students that we are subjecting both to such extremes of testing and data collection (“Teachers win data entry reprieve”, June 14). Imagine the stress put on little children by such testing no matter how good, kind, caring and wonderful the teacher may be. Imagine multiplying the collection of 1000 pieces of data for one child by 28 or 30.
Do the people who dream up these schemes ever think about what the rest of the class is doing while the teacher is finding and entering the data? No wonder teachers are complaining about workload. – Augusta Monro, Dural
A final solution for refugees
Congratulations Australia, you’ve finally been recognised and acknowledged in the world (“Australia an inspiration for boat halt”, June 14).
Your treatment of refugees has been adapted by Italy and will forever be known as “The Aussie Solution”. Doesn’t have the same ring as “Final Solution” but the treatment of the oppressed is from the same page.
Hang your head in shame. – Tony Redmond, Wyong
Italy is a beautiful country but now not for refugees.
Italy was wrong to refuse the shipload of refugees. Spain showed a kinder heart and a stronger character and acted to help the unfortunate souls. This is only one example of an issue that is going to be ongoing.
Let’s work on making life better for all. – Dennis Fitzgerald, Box Hill (Vic)
Beware the private lives of politicians
C’mon all you finger pointers! Barnaby Joyce is a top politician whose personal life should be private but a sad play of events made it prime-time news (“Joyce due for icy welcome at Nationals conference”, June 12). If we investigated the morality of all our pollies, Parliament House would make R-rated films and websites look like Sunday school picnics. – Cecile Hunt, Paddington
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Episode 107 : La Rivincita Del Classico Bravo Ragazzo
"Tried to be a citizen...they wouldn't let her."
- Kermit
I had a trip to Italy this month, and when I was in Pisa an album cover popped into my head! With this month being the eighth anniversary (already?) of the passing of Guru, I was glad to be able to get my own version done in time for this episode's cover art. Thanks to Lisa for the original photo (yes, I really was in front of the tower for this shot), Damian for font advice and Sabrina for the translation!
This month, the show of course includes something from Guru, as well as selections influenced by the disgusting treatment of the Windrush generation (help however you can), some new releases and a few old gems, as always.
The Mouse Outfit are playing in Manchester on May 18th - tickets here!
Twitter : @airadam13
Playlist/Notes
Ruthless Rap Assassins : And It Wasn't A Dream
With everything that's been in the news over the last month - but which has been going on for a very long time - this is a perfect record to pull out of the archives. Manchester's Ruthless Rap Assassins emerged from the pioneering Broken Glass crew, and released their debut LP "The Killer Album" is 1990. This track was a single from that album, and sounds very much of its era - but even twenty-eight years down the line, the subject matter cuts just as sharply.
Ludwig Göransson : Killmonger
Easily my favourite track from the "Black Panther" score, which starts off gently and then builds along the way until it bangs out into full trap mode, reflecting the violence of the character. Great work from Göransson and the African musicians he worked with on this.
Ocean Wisdom ft. Method Man : Ting Dun
I didn't know about Camden's Ocean Wisdom until my man Didjit told me to check him out, so I went to have a listen to the "Wizville" album. This track stood out as an immediate favourite, and to my mind Ocean absolutely dominates the track, despite the presence of a legendary MC who has known to slay guest appearances in his time. Meth does do a nice turn in tilting his vocal style towards Ocean's, and together they put in a great vocal performance over the Basquiat beat.
Prhyme : Streets At Night
As I said last month, "Prhyme 2" is definitely an album to pick up, and this is one of the best tracks on it. May not be the obvious Premo style, but he delivers 21st century boom-bap off the back of an Antman Wonder sample (don't worry, it's all cleared!)
Termanology ft. Lil Fame and Ea$y Money : Welcome To The Machine (Remix)
Dug this one from out of the corners of my hard drive, and was surprised I hadn't played it yet. I got this one from the old Spine Magazine site (RIP), but you may be able to find it if you have a hunt around. Artisin is the producer, and the Pink Floyd sample he uses starts in the intro but then winds its way into the main part of the track. Lyrically, Termanology's verse is kind of like his own version of GZA's "Labels", though the audible highlighting of the names of each one was a little heavy-handed. Lil Fame of MOP contributes a solid verse as well, and the third verse is really the only let-down.
Blak Twang : Fearless (Original & 19 Long Time version)
It made sense to share both versions here, with the original coming from the originally unreleased "Dettwork SouthEast" and the refresh being part of the brilliant "19 Long Time" LP, with V-Essence on the hook. A perfect song to play this month, with Tony Rotton addressing the far right, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the horror of the Black Holocaust.
[Supreme] Sunz Of Man : No Love Without Hate (Instrumental)
A great example of the work of the man responsible for Sunz Of Man's early production, with some straight boom-bap around a classic soul sample. I've got two copies of the 12", but I'll leave the rest out there for you :)
The Mouse Outfit ft. IAMDDB and KinKai : Feeling High chini defty metro
May 4th will see the release of The Mouse Outfit's third studio LP, "Jagged Tooth Crook", and they were kind enough to send through a preview copy so you could hear a track a little early :) The vocals come courtesy of two standouts from the new generation of Manchester artists, IAMDDB and KinKai, both of whom are getting respect from those in the know, perfectly complementing the vibe of the beat. Production is by Chini and Defty, founder members of the crew, along with Metrodome - a longtime Manchester artist despite his young age. Chilled, polished, quality. Get that album!
Meyhem Lauren ft. Conway the Machine : Venetian Loafers
That new age vintage New York street talk from Laurenovich! This is Queens flavour from his new "Glass" EP, solely produced by Harry Fraud - definitely one to check out, and one I think we'll be returning to for a future episode. Right here, Meyhem and Conway from up in Buffalo, NY give you uncompromising, unapologetic rawness.
Sean Price & Illa Ghee : Metal Detectors
The title track from the newly-released EP from the late Sean P and Illa Ghee from the Mobb Deep family, and it's a killer. The opening verse is definitely one of Illa's best, in my opinion, and it's always great to hear Sean's voice. I've not been able to find out who produced it yet (damn digital releases), but it's darkly beautiful.
Jay-Z : People Talkin'
One that might have passed you by, after it was apparently dropped from the "Blueprint" album. Jay claimed this Ski Beatz track which was originally for someone else, and the finished product finally got a release on the "MTV Unplugged" album as a bonus track - although I'm playing it here from a white label. Always liked this one, right down to the annoyed mumble near the end about Jay never having to sell another record in his life!
T_One : Lot Of Cats Hate My Guts
From the Beatfonics Crew's "Beatxploitation" tape, T_One throws all kinds of samples into the stew for this one!
Geechi Suede : Limozini
This one cried out for a little light juggling before letting it run - not least since it's only a short track anyway. Produced by Nytelife (and taken from the "0.9 Nytelife FM" album), the track is based around a fairly modern sample from one of the greats and provides a bouncy background for Geechi to get busy on.
Black Milk : Could It Be
The new album FEVER is somehow Black Milk's sixth, and he continues to deliver his own interpretations of styles from Detroit and beyond. On this track he brings in a guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist, then plays producer in the traditional sense, guiding them into a cohesive unit playing an irresistible groove.
Gang Starr : Much Too Much (Mack A Mil)
Always one of my favourites from the must-own "Daily Operation" album - the third in Gang Starr's faultless run. Listening to this reminds me how much we miss Guru.
Rottin Razkals : Oh Yeah
Rottin Razkals came up under the wing of Naughty By Nature, with one of the MCs (Diesel) actually being Treach's younger brother. They only released one album, 1995's "Rottin Ta Da Core", from which we have this big single. NBN wrote and produced it, but you can't take away from the energy of the performance by the group themselves!
[DJ Spinna] Jigmastas : Too Ill (Instrumental)
I was definitely a fan of the fact that the "Resurgence" album came with the instrumentals included - it allows me to share gems like this :)
Zion I ft. Pep Love : Warriors' Dance
The "Deep Water Slang v2.0" album may not be one that everyone knows, but it really is quality all around and is well worth seeking out. This track, featuring Pep Love of Hieroglyphics, is somehow both bouncy and a revolutionary anthem. Zion and Pep are a great combination, and Amp Live's production is always inventive and well-done.
Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!
Check out this episode!
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Hello! Bwahahahaha!
Welcome back, you foolish souls who dare to tread in the abode of The Evil Doctor OlderMusicGeek.
This year, we have done something ingenuous! Bwahahaha!
We have given each episode more of an Iowa flavor by naming it after a monster that can be found in our quaint state, and provide you with a little information on said creatures and its relatives!
Oh yes, The Corn Spirit - whether you follow the Native American one or the pagan European corn gods - seems to have kept our state fairly safe from too many harmful creatures... unfortunately!
We don't seem to have an overabundance of aliens here, despite 3 "airships" with "Ma. rtians' chrashing in our state in mid-April 1897.
But like anywhere else, we do have a share of cryptids and cryptozoological creatures!
Some come in a furry form.
For instance, the cow! Yes, the benign bovine you moo at playfully.
Did you know this beast kills more people in the U.S. per year than sharks, alligators, bears, snakes, and spiders combined!
Makes you look at it a little differently doesn't it?
And Iowa also has its share of Bigfeet. Look at The Grassman, the plains' own version of Bigfoot, named because it likes to walk in the tall grass. - Though it would have been more awesome it had been made of grass!
The most famous case seems to be The Hairy Wild Woman seen in 1884 in Gordon's Ferry near Dubuque.
Also, our own Lockridge Monster has been claimed to be a Bigfoot or relative to Bigfeet.
Plus, we have had plenty of plain, good ole Bigfoot sightings here too.
Besides these Bigfoot types, we also have the shunka warakin, hyena/wolf creatures that carries off dogs, and phantom kangaroos have been spotted here as well!
So to celebrate this strange, furry animals that provide a little magic in our cornfields, we present, for this part, some acoustic and folky tunes that are bit bent and twisted.
IMSC posts related to Halloween:
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To download the podcast, right click on the link below and hit "Save as...":
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"tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art by Dean Sturtevant
stretched to make into a square
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TRACK LISTING:
For more information, click on the link below the track.
Cover by Dean Sturtevant
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Opening - Iowa Music Showcase Halloween theme 3 by Dylan Boyle, Dan OlderMusicGeek, and freesounds.org
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Song 1 - "Night after Night" by CW Smith
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Song 2 - "The Devil's Bar" by Aaron Earl Short
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Song 3 - "Watch Out" by Andy Mitchell
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Song 4 - "Imaginary Black Cat" by Kate Kane
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Song 5 - "Black Witch" by The Starry Nights feat Heather Cousins
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Song 6 - "Ghost Train" by Cheshire Moon
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Song 7 - "Nurse Jane" by Bryan Baker
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Song 8 - "The Door" by Old Scratch Revival Singers
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Closing - Iowa Music Showcase Halloween theme 2 by Jessica Villegas
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All song are copyrighted by the performers and composers, and used by their kind permission.
Next episode: We continue the Iowa willies and wailings next week as we educate you on Iowa's own dragons!
One year ago...
Episode 34: Happy Hawkeye Halloween 2016, Part 1 of 4 - A Branch Snaps -http://ift.tt/2dbV2y2
Two years ago...
Episode 17 - A Joe Lawler Dedication -
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Iowa Music Showcase is also on Code Zero Radio every Tuesday and Thursday at 10pm central time:
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EA Origin is having a sale on sims 4. 15 bucks and a free 48 hour trial on the full game. I am kind of considering it, but everything I've seen about 4 is putting me way the hell off. This game removed core elements that made sims fun in the first place to implement elements that no one asked for. Emotions, multitasking, bullshit, more bullshit, and... oh yeah, BULLSHIT. But i remember being put off just as much by sims 3 when it first came out. The only reason why I ever played it was because when i tried installing sims 2 on a new computer, it was permanently blocked. Normally, you get a new access key from EA when the game reaches its install limit. However months of attempts, and multiple chats with tech had no success where that was concerned. So the tech made it up to me by giving me Sims 3 plus two eps of my choice as digital downloads through EA Origin. I chose pets and Supernatural. Years later, Sims 2 ultimate collection came out and I was an early adopter to have it as a free download for having registered all of my sims games. I got my beloved Sims 2 back but still played 3 on occasion. I even purchased a few more EPs down the line. I found I still could download sims 2 ultimate collection today and did so. But I haven't launched it yet. Mods might still be available for that one. Hell, there are still a feeeew sites left that offer sims 1 user content. Thankfully I was able to take a little stress off my game by including a couple of mood altering items still available. Simbology had some pretty good hacked objects. Things aren't quite as overwhelming as they had been. I might get around to sims 2. I'm just dreading all the prework involved before firing it up. Not mods but other things. Setting up windowed mode, going in and changing settings to make certain the computer will play it properly where my sims aren't walking around with black boxes under them, and having the aspect ratio adjusted for a wider laptop screen. Hoping I won't have another security update blocking the game running. I will have to look up again how to create default replacement skins and go to the graveyard to find the Rensims that I like so much, or learn to live with the ugly, blotchy maxis ones. It's a weighty decision, basically. I have also acrued over 800 magicoins in sims 1, but I need a total of 1,500 to get the place I want. The house Una and Edward are living in is a bit cramped and there are multiple occurrences of traffic jams that cause too many problems. Strangely enough, Edward's high activity and Una's laziness is actually beneficial to the routine. I usually send Edward to poop and shower while Una cooks breakfast. Because he hops right up, makes up his side, then goes into the bathroom, she groggily sits there questioning the existential need to get out of bed. In other words, he's in the bathroom just as she's rising and going into the fridge. She finishes breakfast just as he gets out and they eat together at the exact same time. I usually speed through breakfast, but that ends up being a mistake, as literally the only topic they both agree on is sports. That means there's a very high probability that the relationship can become tainted over a single meal together if I don't watch it and change the topic in a hurry. But i hate watching them eat.
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