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all-pacas · 1 year

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What, exactly, went wrong with How I Met Your Mother?

On January 28th 2023, Neil Patrick Harris reprised his role as Barney Stinson for the spin off show How I Met Your Father. After the episode aired, one of the show’s creators, Isaac Apator, was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly about getting Harris on board:

Hilary [Duff] was so excited to work with Neil. […] They have so much in common — they both were these giant TV stars when they were still in middle school and now they've both fronted the How I Met series.

Hang on. What?

How I Met Your Mother, or HIMYM, was a sitcom that ran from 2005 to 2013. While it never reached the beloved status, or ratings, of its similar precursor Friends, it was well-liked and respected, receiving decent praise, viewers, the occasional Emmy nominee — especially during its earlier seasons. It had a solid cast with great chemistry, and, with the premise of the show being that the main character, Ted, was retelling the story to his children decades later, HIMYM had the freedom to play around with its narrative, playing with non-linearity, flash backs and flash forwards, and unreliable narration, all while keeping exceptionally strong continuity from season to season. HIMYM had a solid and devoted fanbase, active fandom, and seemed primed to live a comfortable life in syndication after it came to an end in March 2014.

And then the finale aired, and things all fell apart so thoroughly, and so horribly, that it wasn’t until Game of Thrones that any show’s finale came close to betraying expectations and thumbing the eye of the majority of the viewers as HIMYM’s ending did.

The wedding of fan-favorites Barney and Robin, the focal point of much of the show, led immediately to a quick and brushed passed divorce. The friendships of ‘the gang,’ said repeatedly to be that of family and all-important, fall apart, with Robin leaving for decades and Barney quietly vanishing halfway through. The mother, perfectly cast and played by Cristin Milioti, is killed via voice over. Characters are shoved into position, relationships waved away, and in the final moments Ted and Robin, a relationship the viewers were told again and again was both impossible and would never happen… happened. And that’s a wrap.

Backlash was huge. A relatively-thriving fandom died overnight. Complaints were innumerable: The finale ruined the entire show. It came out of nowhere. It made no sense. The series creators admitted to having written it, in part, in the show’s second season, long before many of the show’s pivotal relationships and character arcs; it no longer worked in the show’s ninth. An alternative ending was cobbled together from existing footage and intentionally leaked. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’s other projects were repeatedly rejected.

The finale had defenders, but was nearly universally panned, with even those who liked the premise finding fault in the execution. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and slap the viewers and fans in the face. It contradicted episodes and seasons before. How could anyone think it was a good idea!?

Where did the show go wrong?

#himym #how i met your mother #longform #don't be alarmed by the patreon link; none of this shit will ever be locked #it's just a convenient way to post things in one place

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lacunha · 1 year

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Heather Moni now live on the site. lacuna.one

Now also writing on Substack. Subscribe for free. A paid subscription there gets you full access to all the imagery on lacuna.one.

#heather moni #heather monique #lingerie #substack #longform #tigobitties

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anony-poet · 24 days

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Twelve, Eighteen

TW: This is a longform prose poem with mentions of child abuse and themes of suicidal ideation and extreme dissociation - However, it has a happy ending.

I was twelve years old the first time I grieved my own death.

The first time the last piece was carved out of me And there was nothing left.

The first time I felt nothing when the blows landed on my skin.

I was twelve years old the day I wrote my own eulogy I tore pages out of my notebook and scrawled out an apology I told my friends I loved them I folded the pages three times over and hid them in my desk.

That night I prayed to every god I knew And I cried for the little girl who would never make it to thirteen.

I felt her give in, I felt her light go out And when I woke up the next morning She was gone.

And six years passed In a grey kind of blur I managed to keep my body alive And I fought for moments of light For the tiniest spark of the girl I used to be-

And there were times I thought I felt her Times I was alive again But she always faded away

And for six years I was a ghost.

I was eighteen years old when I cleaned out my old desk Days away from moving to a college dorm I found a few pieces of paper hidden in the back of the clutter They were folded three times over.

I gently unfolded them with shaking fingers And I sat on my bed And I read each page The letters on that paper a sharp knife in an old wound.

For six years I was under water My eyes closed, senses muffled Floating in darkness and the comfort of nothing

I was eighteen years old the first time I came up for air.

I read each word of that little girl's obituary Every sentence a gulp of freezing oxygen into aching lungs

I tore those pages up Set them on fire Sprinkled the ashes in the river

And for a second time, I grieved.

#my writing #poetry #prose #prose poetry #longform #original poem #my poetry #original poetry #writers #writblr #writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writers and poets #writerscommunity #tw sui ideation #dissociation #tw trauma #childhood trauma

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gabbieranting · 15 days

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My Silly Application Piece for Screen Rant

Why Only Terry McGinnis Should Succeed Bruce Wayne as the Next Batman

The cowl has been passed throughout the Bat Family with reverence, and possibly, with too much frequency for something which has been identified by the Lasso of Truth as a singular person’s true identity. Bruce Wayne, as Superman says in Superman/Batman #76, is the disguise. The true identity is the one that formed in the dark, and much of Bruce Wayne died in Crime Alley with his parents. However, one of the many Paul Dini creations to make it from cartoon to comic, Terry McGinnis, is the most appropriate successor to the title Batman, for several reasons.

The Gotham that Terry lives in is different from, but similar to, the Gotham which Bruce aged protecting. A technological arms race with Batman and his team has led to street gangs armed with hovercrafts, drones, and explosives. Criminals have taken up the themes and adapted the costumes of classic Gotham villains. Wayne Enterprises has been merged with Powers Industries to form Wayne-Powers, and its leader, Derek Powers, murders Terry’s father to hide the development of a mutagenic nerve gas. Early in his career, Terry creates his own first nemesis, exposing Powers to the toxic chemicals that will turn him into the villain Blight. In the same manner as his mentor, Terry creates a slowly escalating chain reaction among the Gotham underworld.

Terry’s personality is also the most similar to Bruce’s. Of all Bruce’s proteges, Terry’s brooding is the most familiar. Dick is unique in his ability to heal emotionally from trauma, Jason in his inability to do so. Damian is, in a way, loved and raised by both of his parents, as is the Helena Wayne who is the daughter of Bruce and Selena (in Tom King’s Batman/Catwoman.) Each of these Batmen wear the cowl in situations where they are mourning Bruce Wayne, their surrogate father. When Bruce is off-world or when he is dead, a Robin picks up the mantle. But Terry is trained not as Robin, but as Batman, by Batman. Terry is a direct answer to the Gotham he serves, and has solid reason to avenge himself upon the city. The loss of his father to a brutal crime, the creation of his own nemesis, his refusal to fully join the Justice League, and his perpetual exhaustion from living two lives leads Terry to be a mirror of Bruce in his misery.

Thanks to Amanda Waller, another Terry is an appropriate successor to Bruce’s city is because he is Bruce’s biological offspring. Waller, fearing a world without a Batman, found a psychological match to Thomas and Martha Wayne in Mary and Warren McGinnis, and used nanotech and a sample of Batman’s blood to replace Warren’s DNA in his reproductive cells with Bruce’s. Terry, and his brother Matt, therefore, are biologically Bruce’s. Waller’s original intent was to have Andrea Beaumont - the Phantasm - murder Mary and Warren in front of Terry as a child, to spur him into a crusade against crime.

Phantasm backed out at the last minute out of respect for Bruce, and Waller agreed, canceling the project; but her actions unintentionally spurred on the McGinnis’s divorce when Warren found out his sons weren’t his and suspected an affair. Terry coming to grips with his origin in Project Batman Beyond further aligns him with the struggle of the original Batman.

Finally, out of all of Batman’s potential heirs, only Terry has the luxury of never having worked alongside Bruce as Robin. Terry and all his rogues are a clean slate, a new chaos, and unlike any of the others,, Terry has never been a sidekick. In Batman Beyond, Bruce the role fulfills is Oracle’s; manning the computers from the cave and feeding intel into the comms.

For Terry, Bruce isn’t Batman; the batsuit isn’t Bruce’s skin, his identity, and taking on the name Batman isn’t the burden of wearing your father’s shoes for Terry in the way it would be for any of the former Robins. Terry has the ability and distance to become his own Batman, and not a temporary replacement for the real thing.

#batman #terry mcginnis #longform #comics #dc comics #robin #bruce wayne #phantasm #amanda waller #batman beyond #GabbiesWriting #Gabbie Writing #Screen Rant Articles

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brightoakgame · 4 months

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Author's Marginalia - 4

This year is edging closer and closer to ending, and simultaneously toward the beginning of the new. It feels like there has been something lost in Western culture; back when the winters spanned longer, darker, lit with candles or the shadowed flickering of gaslight, so did our stories trend more to shadowed tales and huddling together for warmth. A Christmas Carol is a ghost story not because it is a seasonal outlier: rather, it was shaped from the coal smoke choked skies of Victorian England, caught between the dreadful and furious progress of industry, and the haunted trappings of ancient tradition.

December is a liminal space, neither here nor there, an end that anticipates a beginning. No wonder, then, how easy it is to feel set adrift.

(content warning: grief and depression)

I, too, have occupied a liminal space these last few months, attempting to push through some of the most severe burnout and depression I've experienced in decades. It has been slinking in the corners of my mind since midsummer, sometimes only glimpsed in the periphery of my vision, sometimes flaring out abruptly and swallowing all thought and reason with its ferocious, ever-hungry maw, so that I too become part of that echoing, dark--nothing. Sometimes it feels like I am inhabiting my own world as a ghost: I go to raise my stylus or address my keyboard, and my hand seems to pass through it entirely. I drift from room to room. I converse without any substance. I am a poltergeist that opens the cupboards and doors and goes through the motions, and yet my efforts at normalcy only seem to disturb the other inhabitants of my life. People turn to speak to me: I am not there. My partner complained recently about the bourbon-soaked phantom that wore my skin the night before, expounding on their very genuine desire to be carted off by the fae and eaten. He was unamused: the tipsy phantom had been in deathly earnest. I reminded him patiently that he knew who I was when he married me, and laughed it off.

The fae did not respond to my summons, which I am grateful and sorry for by turns.

December intrigues me more and more as I grow older, because I see December as a month of both storytelling and death in equal measures. I do not place more weight on tragedies than I do on comedies (if anything, I find comedy much more challenging!), but as desperate as I am for connection in art, death and grief are irresistible as mysteries and great unifiers.

Each breath comes with an inhale, and then exhale; every life will at some point encounter death. And grief, in my experience, loves to tell stories--the things that came Before, the things I maybe did not know, the embellishments given to quite ordinary things, crystalline now as past, exquisite and multi-faceted with loving truths and illuminating falsehoods.

I began writing Bright Oak in 2017: a very different time, feels like, though not so long past in the bigger picture. Between then and now, I've known many deaths and Deaths, rebirths and (quite literal) births, losses and gains. Friendships have washed upon my shores and receded again, as friendships seem wont to do, reshaping my perceptions, sometimes gently, sometimes not, and often leaving treasure in their wake. People are at heart truly, painfully lovely animals, I think.

I write because I want to understand better than I do; I write beloved friends and well-intentioned enemies, and they spirit me away to a world beyond, someplace where the water and air carry our meaning further and with more clarity, but with voices never too loud, never too harsh. I can hear them all. I know them better than I know myself; they know me better than I know myself. And they, too, will eventually fall to ebb tide, and wash back out into the vast sea of a world of things I do not properly understand. But I get to treasure them for that little time, and now I wish to share them with others before they go, like a collection of beautiful shells and pearls wrought from all I fear and all I do not understand.

Death visits us all, and so many, many times. I do not have to dig to know that I start the vast majority of my stories with accidents: I can pinpoint the day I felt my childhood ended, with the loss of a dear friend in a car wreck. The end of one chapter, when things were more heedless, but safe; the beginning of another, when things were dangerous, but a little wiser. There have been many, many chapters since. We are each of us anthologies, to a one; our tree rings show the times of plenty and the times of drought, the fires and the trauma, the slow recovery, the growing-over of scars, the knots and flaws and fine-grained beauty.

My favorite cemetery in town is a public park (and I admit, if this doesn't out me as a former goth kid, I don't know what would). One of my very earliest memories in life is of going to a playground with my mother on a bright weekend morning, trying to bring the sky ever closer while playing on the swing set, and making a new friend in the process. They asked if I knew what ghosts were: I did not, and they explained succinctly that ghosts were dead people that now chased living people, and did I want to play ghosts with them, since there were gravestones right over there-- a clear harbinger of ghosts being present?

I did not enjoy the game; I did not like being chased by ghosts in a rough and tumble round of monster tag. My mother, perhaps to calm me, pulled me aside and proceeded to read to me the poetic epitaphs of the last century headstones that bookended the playground, telling me how much she and my grandmother appreciated these final words set in stone: sometimes rote, sometimes religious, sometimes romantic, sometimes cryptic (pun fully intended).

It often recurred as a setting in dreams during my teens and early twenties. It wasn't until far later, when I moved back to my hometown, that I realized that this was a place that existed in reality, and was not merely a mishmash invention of dreams. After all, what cemetery has monkeybars and a swing set?

It's an old burial ground (at least, by Southern California standards); the graves outlasted the people still around to tend them, and sometime in the last century, it fell into extreme disrepair, and eventually was closed off to the public. Further, it was entirely bulldozed over when miscreants regularly gathered there for the purpose of vandalism and unrecorded mayhem, and after some hullabaloo over the matter, a handful of the old gravestones (belonging, of course, to the more prominent of the permanent denizens) were collected and lined up tidily in the corner of the green space, like a forgotten backstop, craggy granite guardians of the nearby playground.

I love this place, filled as it is with towering old trees, screaming children running amok (and quite possibly playing ghost-tag), people laying out obliviously to sunbathe, or picnicking blithely over the many-hundreds of dead some feet below the surface. It is such a poetic space to me, because try as we may to circumscribe death to a remote and out of the way corner, divorced and isolated from all things Life, it strikes me that death is the very foundation of all life as it proceeds. Death is in the day's end, the unfinished arguments, the words left unsaid, the little losses, the griefs we carry that we are not the person we were, and have not become the person we meant to be. Grief is the bittersweet knowledge that once I was one of those shrieking children, and once I sat on the periphery of the park, oblivious and sipping a coffee, and then I learned its story, and now I am able to tell it--and someday, someday I shall likely forget it, and tell it no more.

We are all the fickle authors of our own stories, and we all know the death that comes with the ending of one chapter, the bittersweet grief of letting it go and beginning anew. I dearly hope December treats every one of you with kindness; that the stories you tell, and those which you tell yourselves, bring warmth and comfort. Even ghost stories are not all bad--particularly when we can all huddle together around the bonfire, peeking at the stars as they show between plumes of smoke.

In this time of intense personal darkness, I am looking through the smoke to those stars. I am grateful for those who huddle at my side, imaginary and otherwise. And I look forward to the beginnings which I know to be just there, over the horizon.

#bright oak #marginalia #longform #game dev #author's note #december #burnout #visual novel #interactive fiction #oelvn #vn dev

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themerlinrewrite · 10 months

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only hot girls write 276 pages of fanfic so they can turn a show into a book

(i'm at 110.7k words and i'm only on the seventh chapter)

#merlin fandom #merlin fanfic #merlin emrys #merlin #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #fanfic #writing #writer things #fanfic writer #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #longform #books and reading #merlin rewrite

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longreads · 14 days

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The latest Atavist Magazine issue, by Hallie Lieberman, is a true crime story about a mysterious figure who preyed on gay men in Atlanta. From the introduction:

There were men who said they’d narrowly escaped the Handcuff Man, and rumors that some of his victims hadn’t survived. But there were also people who thought that he was nothing more than an urban legend. Jordan’s assault would bring the truth to light: Not only did the Handcuff Man exist, but there were people in Atlanta who knew his name, including members of the police force. He hadn’t been caught because, it seemed, no one was trying in earnest to catch him.

Read an excerpt of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on Longreads.

#longreads #longform #truecrime #atlanta #lgbtq #gay #journalism

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atavist · 1 year

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A woman, an elephant, and an uncommon love story spanning nearly half a century.

Issue no. 136 — “Sanctuary” by Shannon McCaffrey — is now live at The Atavist.

Here outside the small town of Attapulgus, near quail-hunting plantations and pecan groves, Buckley had built a refuge for elephants. It was the culmination of a nearly lifelong devotion to the world’s largest land animals. But at the moment, Buckley’s refuge lacked any elephants—and one elephant in particular.

There are many kinds of love stories. This one involves a woman and an elephant, and the bond between them spanning nearly 50 years. It involves devotion and betrayal. It also raises difficult questions about the relationship between humans and animals, about control and freedom, about what it means to own another living thing.

The woman in this story is Buckley. The elephant is named Tarra. They met at a tire store in California, and together followed a serpentine path from spectacle to safety: from circus rings to zoo enclosures to a first-of-its-kind sanctuary. But now their bond was being tested. For complex reasons, Buckley had lost custody of Tarra, and just before Michael struck, a jury had deadlocked on whether the two should be reunited. In a few months, the case would go to trial again. If Buckley won, she would bring Tarra home to Attapulgus. If she lost, it was possible she’d never see the elephant again.

The uncertainty was a nightmare. But the fence Buckley built for Tarra had withstood a monstrous storm. This was, she thought, a good omen.

#atavist #elephant #carol buckley #california #florida #zoos #longreads #journalism #longform #animal sanctuary

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fledbeast578 · 4 months

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Just finished the event. Overall I have some mixed feelings on it, spoilers obviously

In terms of positives I really loved how they portrayed Jiang Ziya, and while he's easy to make fun of, I personally felt that his failure within the story was easy to understand within context. Even if we didn't see Daji proper, I liked how they characterized their relationship, and I like the implication that Jiang Ziya loved this evil of humanity enough to try and make their relationship work. I don't know if it was intended or not, but I took the ending scene as a subtle implication that his wife was Daji, and he remade the expression based on her last words.

The happy ending was honestly a surprise, although it didn't feel super deserved. I don't hate Koyanskaya, but if we had just killed her and destroyed the reality marble I wouldn't pity the loss of it any more than the other lostbelts, especially when they kept beating in how they were all non sentient. But overall it was a very heartwarming ending, and showed off the best of Jiang Ziya.

In terms of negative, almost everyone except Jiang Ziya is barely a character. Ibuki was literally bimbofied the entire time, which is weird to think about when it's the same author as Heian Kyo (the main interlude where she's literally capable of becoming a beast and is on a similar level to a literal god). The beast part is especially weird to think about because there could be no contribution from Ibuki on how Koyanskaya actually loved humanity.

Dobryna was only barely better. Her dragon was awful and contributed nothing other than being yet another comic relief animal companion. She was fairly generic in the story proper, and her ending didn't really make it better, it felt completely thrown in there to say "Dobryna had a reason to be one of the three total servants with a main story role!"

Mash was fine, Habetrot didn't have a story role.

Koyanskaya I'm a bit mixed on because I don't hate her reveal so much as I think her previous roles in the story didn't lead up to it. On the one hand the reveal she wasn't a Tamamo was out of nowhere... On the other it's not like they were doing anything with it before. It's ultimately just a weird thing for them to do, because it wasn't a good twist or one I absolutely despised

Ivan completely dipping was the funniest and worst part of the singularity, and giving players a total 10sq was not remotely worth it

#fgo #fate grand order #ramble #longform #tunguska sanctuary

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thephooka · 1 year

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White Noise chapter 12 end!

Read it here! | WN on Patreon | @hiveworks

That's a wrap! The epilogue will start in a couple weeks--more details in the page description! Thanks for reading. <3

#queer webcomics #comics #hiveworks #wn comic update #wn comic #white noise webcomic #original comics #wings #fantasy #longform #indie comics #web comix #I KNOW I queued this post on Sunday but it seems to have evaporated?#ok tumblr

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bcomic-blog · 2 years

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What Is Webcomics?

The obvious answer is “comics on the internet”, but...

Sooooo... like this?

...No, not like that.

When some comics are distributed via the internet, we call them “digital” comics, but others are “webcomics”. Even if we aren’t sure how to explain the distinction, we can tell the difference!

And this is despite the fact that some of the creators of successful long-running webcomics, like Ryan North and Chris Hastings, have moved very successfully into the world of comic books, and at least one creator of a popular long-running webcomic (Phil Foglio) came from that world, without this ever really blurring that line. So we can conclude that the difference isn’t just in who makes them

Webcomics Is Free

An obvious difference is in the business model. There are comics that fall on the “digital” side of that imaginary line that use a “pay what you choose” type of model, but generally there is some expectation that each member of the audience pay for the content directly

Contrariwise, the usual business model of webcomics is for the content itself to be available free, while the artist is supported by ad revenue, or by selling merch, or by the generosity of fans.

In many ways, it’s similar to the distinction between movies and television

Webcomics Is Crude

Another common distinction between webcomics and comics that happen to be on the web is an obsession going back to the early roots of the form with using shortcuts to allow a visual story to be told without, in many cases, much in the way of drawing ability. This ranges from pixel sprites, to clip art, to stick figures.

Previously mentioned webcomic superstar, Ryan North, took this tendency to the formalist limit by creating a single page of simplistic pixel art for his Dinosaur Comics and then, for going-on 20 years and 4000 pages, only changing the words every day. Below is my favorite page of Dinosaur Comics, but they’re all the same. Except for having different words.

(When I was thinking about this tendency of webcomics, it reminded me of a comic I loved back in the early 2000s, that I was going to describe as a “webcomic except in print”. But upon further investigation, I discovered that Get Your War On had been a webcomic all along, just one that happened to also be printed in a few US cities’ leftist newspapers. Below is an early one, probably the first that I saw, and a perfect representation of why it was such a vital outlet for those few of us not caught up in the war fever in those dark Bush years...)

Even those webcartoonists not trying to avoid drawing don’t necessarily have the patience to actually learn to draw before beginning to publish. Webcomics are well known for sometimes stark evolution in their art, and possibly none moreso than my personal favorite webcomic, El Goonish Shive:

There are definitely major exceptions to this tendency. Many webcomics are gorgeously, lushly illustrated (even from the beginning.) Below is half of a particularly lovely page of a webcomic ode to transhumanism titled Dresden Codak:

The thing that ties these disparate works together, from those with art that’s crudely sketched, to cleverly sidestepped, to beautifully fully realized, is each has a singular creative vision. In stark contrast with their big bro the comic books, webcomics are distinguished by relatively little collaboration and practically zero editorial meddling. These are the works of passionate amateurs who (sometimes) gradually found ways to make a livelihood from their passion

Webcomics Is Bite-Sized

But beyond the business side of it, and even the low entry barriers and amateurist zeal, the thing that really sets webcomics apart from the comic books to the point of seeming almost a different medium and linking them more closely to even-older sibling the newspaper comics, is the different pacing and structure caused by being released in tiny, tiny chunks

But that’s enough for now, we can talk about the impact on the form of coming out in bite-size installments.... next time!

#webcomics #christopher hastings #ryan north #dinosaur comics #get your war on #david rees #dan shive #el goonish shive #8-bit theater #oots #gitp #rich burlew #girl genius #phil foglio #original content #oc #longform

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standardquip · 9 months

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Post I'm replying to is here

"Generally speaking, the more hours I devote to [editing] a video, the more I like it and the prouder I am of the results.

I fear that others don't feel the same, though. My second-most popular video on Tumblr is an "older" one of relatively little effort, and I unfortunately can't say that I care much for it myself. It took maybe 20 hours, tops, whereas more recent videos that pushed past the 50-hour mark—and that I'm far more confident in—have garnered maybe half the notes.

[...]

I enjoy edits with lots of clips and effects... but are those kinds of AMVs just "bad"? Or is the way I'm executing them bad? Am I focusing on all the wrong things with my videos?"

- @marshmallowgoop

This is touching on a much larger "issue" in the vidding/editing community than you might realize (although you do seem to recognize it is an issue) but I'm going to try to tackle it in many points.

These are in no particular order.

Your audience doesn't know how long it took to make something.

I know it's hard to come to terms with the fact that sometimes "crappy" things do better than stuff you personally like more, but unfortunately that happens with everyone, all the time. Memes get more traction than well-written anecdotes, headlines get more traction than the actual article, and short vids are often easier to relate to than longer ones with more of a story.

What the internet zeitgeist grabs cannot easily be predicted and is never a judgement of quality. Throw this logic in the garbage, because what goes viral should never have any factor in your self-worth.

Who is your [main] audience for your videos?

If you're making your videos for you, than whatever you like is good. If you like what you end up with, then the video succeeded. If you are making videos to chase audience interaction (which is valid, btw, just not something I personally do), then they need to appeal to a very wide general audience. You'll need to re-assess why the vids aren't getting as much interaction as they used to and adjust your editing style to increase that interaction.

But your past posts don't seem like that's your target. It seems like you make vids for you. So don't think your videos are "bad" because they're not getting likes. They're getting the most important like: Your own.

Of course, it's always nice to be validated by other people. But that's generally not going to happen based on the amount of effort you put into something. It's generally just gonna be with people who vibe with or relate to your content, and if they don't then it won't be shared as much.

Another thing to factor in is where the people who like the stuff you like are located. Maybe your immediate circle is more about conan memes, and you need to go to reddit or something to find the conan romance fans. It could also be timing. Maybe the people who like conan romance aren't online when you post and don't see it. Or maybe it's just luck because the internet and social media are just Like That and totally random. Talk to any artist about trying to play the algorithm to sell more art! 😆

What is the ultimate goal for your videos?

On a per-video basis, you'll generally have a premise for a video.

Things like:

I want to play with new effects

I want to gain as many likes as possible

I want to make an action video

I want to make a character profile that people who have not seen the source video can appreciate

I want to make a good video for a particular song

A "good" video will balance visual entertainment with story, but ultimately, in my experience, it helps to simplify your video down to one goal, and then base all of your following decisions on if those decisions achieve the goal.

As an example, let's say you want to make an action video but your primary interest is the visual effects. This will affect your scene selection, as you should pick scenes that will work better with effects.

Action videos are generally more cohesive when they center around one particular character or duel. If that "plot" were your goal then you'd pick scenes that created a narrative structure aligning with the character or duel's progression.

But since you want to use as much vfx as possible, you may diverge from that cohesiveness by instead injecting a montage of "powering up" scenes with flashy transitions, or maybe you will sidestep the focus on one particular rivalry and include another fight with an unrelated character because that gives more opportunity for better added animation.

This does not make any quality judgements on what is "good" or "bad" when it comes to videos - instead it comes down to whether this particular editing decision advances the ultimate goal of your final video.

Similar to writing, if you're making a persuasive essay, you shouldn't meander onto your own related-but-not-actually-the-topic-of-the-essay rant. The rant might be great, but it's not the purpose of the essay and ultimately just muddies the point you're trying to make (much like this metaphor probably did for my post about video editing, whoops).

"is the way I'm executing [amv effects] bad?"

First of all:

"Good" or "bad" is so subjective, there is no overseer that can definitely say this is good or bad, because it's art, and art is subjective and on and on. Which I'm sure you know, but it bears repeating anyway.

I have tried to be unbiased for this reply so far, but I have to disclaim before I continue that I come from the "school" of "raw editing" - which is to say, trying to stay away from a bunch of effects - so while I am trying to remain unbiased, what I say next will probably be biased despite my efforts.

Even though there is not a definitive "good" or "bad" in vidding (and if you're hanging out with people who are making blanket judgements like this... don't), we can instead look at art, cinematography, and editing fundamentals for the general "laws".

As fan video editors, we are also essentially our own directors and cinematographers. We can choose which scenes we want to use for certain goals and sometimes even make up our own scenes through compositing.

I made this playlist that is about half fundamentals and half random editing guides. I do still add to it, but it's hard to find videos that aren't bloated (and also related to vidding somehow), so updates are few and far between.

Anyway, of note are:

youtube

These are both highly valuable as they can help you not only choose which scenes to put together, but how to position them if you're framing your own shots through zooms and motion effects.

I watched all the videos you linked, and I think you are a good editor that makes what you like and that may not appeal to a broad audience.

I'm not a conan fan, but your vids aren't boring. I'm not a heavy vfx editing fan, but your videos don't look like most heavy vfx shorts. You're either making stuff your own (what I assume) or using presets I'm not familiar with.

WARNING I'M GOING TO CRITIQUE SOME OF YOUR VIDS BELOW

(I assumed you might actually want answers to some of those questions; if not, skip this part!)

The school of thought I come from with vidding says that everything should have a purpose. If my goal is to make a plot-driven vid, then what does a particular effect add to the video?

In this video at 0:04, you have this kind of cut in block thing, and I'm wondering what is this for? Why is it there? To me it's distracting and interrupts the flow.

But it could be a callback to Yu-Gi-Oh somehow? Maybe it's to give the video a feel like it needs to buffer load or something?

I'm not familiar with either source mentioned in the description, so I can't say, but as a general audience member, there's just so much stuff happening visually that I have no idea what's supposed to be happening story-wise. Maybe it's a character profile?

I'm sure you could extrapolate effects and decisions for all your other AMVs. But deciding if something works for your video's goal has nearly zero impact on the time it takes to complete.

Meanwhile, I look at this vid, which seems like a standard romance vid and it seems like a good balance between the romance and the effects; I'd only maybe change one or two things. Nearly all the effects work together to advance the story of the romance, so I'm not sure what went "wrong" here (in terms of lack of audience interaction).

END CRITIQUING

Is accessibility a concern?

Many vfx-heavy amvs rely a lot on motion transitions, which can cause motion sickness! I've gotten motion sick from more AMVs than I care to admit LOL.

But even aside from that, there are photosensitive people, and their photosensitivity triggers are far more broad than just flashing lights.

I noticed all your vids have captions and that you participate on ao3, so it seems like you're hanging out with people who also value accessibility.

In this way, by making vfx-heavy videos you are probably limiting your audience to people who are not photosensitive and/or sensitive people willing to "gamble" on a vfx heavy vid.

What you can do to help curb this is by adding content warnings about photosensitive triggers in your videos. On ao3 these are typically called "physical triggers," but 2 years ago I made a whole system called Vidding Photosensitivity Relay (VPR) .

Basically is comes down to describing what visually happens in your video. In most of your videos cases it would be motion transitions, quick cuts, and peripheral text. These relays (I'd hesitate to call them warnings) give people a better idea of what to expect when it comes to the videos they're watching.

With a better informed decision they could know if they can watch the video now, or later in a different setting, or maybe not at all to avoid a days-long migraine or something similar-- I was very surprised just how many people involved in vidding are photosensitive!

So that may be something to look into. You don't have to use VPR as a system, but it at the very least does list potential triggers and examples so you could refer to those.

My somewhat off-topic more of a personal reply here

"But I'm absolutely terrified that I'm only getting worse here—that as I learn more effects and get more comfortable with my program, my work is actually degrading."

(source)

Maybe you're just losing focus? Did you go through a writing phase where you had a massive vocabulary and started inserting all the "big words" into everything? The usage is technically correct but the message gets muddied due to the readers perception?

Maybe it's that.

I think re-assessing what your personal goals are, and deciding for yourself what you want to prioritize - your likes vs other people's likes (for starters) - will help.

There is also a need to decouple internet interaction from self-worth, which I know is MUCH easier said than done. But there are SO MANY great artists, editors, people in general, who don't get much interaction because the algorithm doesn't prefer them and/or they don't market themselves. That doesn't make them worth any less than the people who make it their priority to market themselves instead of create art.

I hope this whole post doesn't come off as patronizing or anything!

I usually just talk into the void and not get actual direct replies LOL.

Also sorry for taking so long to reply! Hope it helps in some way.

#reply #replies #video editing #vidding #longform #article #amv #marshmallowgoop #Youtube

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