First off, I want to
use this space to officially thank you readers for sticking with this blog for
as long as you have. I couldn’t do it in
the last post because I was “in character”, but I feel like I HAVE to take some
time out to say thanks to anyone who’s even bothering to read this. That big 400 isn’t exactly a number worth
paying attention to, given that said number’s been inflated by content in one
file being spread into two or three (or nine) posts, and of course tons of I Hraet You chapters, buuuuuuuuuuuut
what I do value are the comments and readership of viewers like you. So consider this milestone a celebration of
all of you.
And in the same breath,
a provocation of all of you.
Yes, that’s right, the Spirit Showdown is back after a months-long hiatus. Those
of you who’ve seen the blog in the past…oh, roughly eight seconds might have
noticed a tab over there labeled Spirit Showdown. For the five of you who actually cared enough
to look at it, it’s a bit of blog fiction -- for lack of a better term -- that
puts the characters I’ve created over the years into a brand new scenario. A story outside their stories, as a proving
ground for their mettle, their potential, and of course their spirits.
…At least, that would
have been the case if it didn’t suck.
Okay, maybe I’m being a
little hard on myself. I would assume
that there are some people who spotted the posts and liked what they saw. It was a proving ground for my characters and
my concepts, so in theory it was something that could make people go “oooh” and
“ahhh” -- which in itself is the objective of any given blog, even if it is a
minor one. Even so, the big issue that I
have with the Showdown is that generally speaking, I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of it, I
wasn’t having as much fun working on it as I expected, and putting up those
posts week after week left me more drained than hyped.
Just imagine what that
meant for me, the creator of all
these characters. Time after time I
found myself going “Ugh, time to do another one of these posts.” Ideally, I
should have been excited every time I had even a minor opportunity to type
something out. But again, I wasn’t
getting enough out of the “series”. Why,
I could make a few (probably accurate) guesses.
It was unrewarding effort, it didn’t move as fast as it needed to so it
could reach the points it needed to, it was cumbersome, it took focus away from
other cool stuff I wanted to work on, and worst of all huge percentages of it
came off as me waving my hands and shouting “LOOK AT THIS GUY! NOW LOOK AT THAT GUY! AREN’T THESE GUYS AWESOME? AREN’T I AWESOME? NOW SIT THERE AND LET ME TELL YOU WHY THESE
GUYS ARE AWESOME!”
That wasn’t what I
wanted out of the series. For some, what
I originally offered was more than enough -- and that’s great. I appreciate those that gave it a look, and
even enjoyed it. But for me, looking
back roughly a year after its creation, it’s not much more than self-aggrandizing
garbage. Only in the later installments
did it actually start turning into something worthwhile, but by then the damage
had been done. So I pretty much had to shelve it.
And in honor of the 400th
Cross-Up post, I think it’s high time to bring it back…with some major
changes. And stipulations. And by "bring back with a swanky pseudo-animation" I mean "effectively make an announcement and not much else".
First of all, if you’re
expecting a SS post every week, DON'T.
I’m not going to commit to a strict schedule right now, but I would say
it’d be smart to expect one post a month.
Maybe tri-weekly, if we’re lucky, or bi-weekly if there’s a
miracle. That might seem a little
extreme, but let me explain why. First
off, here’s the intro video from the 400th re-posted.
That video is barely over a minute long…and it took me days, if not a full week (or more) to
prepare beforehand. Drawing the outlines,
filling in the outlines with color, making edits with the meager programs I
have, stringing them together in Windows Movie Maker with some facsimile of
skill -- I wouldn’t call it difficult, exactly, but it’s tedious as all hell. I don’t intend to upload/do a lot of videos,
but inevitably I’m going to end up doing more than two, at a bare minimum. So I guess that’s something to look forward
to. (I’m certainly not; I can’t look at
those things without pointing out every failing of my art/video editing
“skills”.)
Even beyond that, the
transformed nature of the SS means that there are going to be a lot more than
just videos going up. In theory, I’ve
already done the lion’s share of the work well in advance; most of the stuff that
comes after it SHOULD come easily for me thanks to a little bit of
foresight. Working smarter, not harder,
as they say…for a given definition of “smarter”. Hopefully this time, the series won’t implode
-- and this time putting it together will actually be fun. If nothing else, the effort I’ve put in to
make it different will ALSO make it easier for me to put the posts together, as
well as something actually worth reading.
Hopefully. It shouldn't go wrong this time, right?
So. Let’s go over a quick “change list” for the
new and potentially improved Showdown.
--A commitment to an actual storyline from the get-go.
This was something that
I’d always intended to include (and even in the earlier posts laid the
groundwork for it), but it didn’t develop fast enough or thoroughly enough to
justify it. This time around, the plot
will actually be the focus. Things will
be happening, and if I’m doing this right it’ll be something that people will
actually want to read. It’s more than a
little meta, I’d wager; I’ll just have to figure out how to make the transition
from in-character and out-of-character as smooth as possible.
--Allowing the characters to take center stage.
This is probably the
biggest problem with the original Showdown, in that a good two-thirds of the
series (at least) came out as extended profiles. It was ideally supposed to be a way to get to
know my characters better, but somewhere along the line -- blame my ability to
not write anything in a reasonable length -- it turned into the biggest
violation of “show, don’t tell” I’ve done to date. Before long, I’ll have that completely
fixed. And that’ll be because of…
--A dramatically-altered format.
This is probably going
to be they make-or-break factor. I think I’ve got all the tools and assets
I need to realize my vision (though given how my videos/art turn out, that’s
definitely up for debate), and as such the Showdown is going to be a leaner,
meaner product. The original format just
wasn’t working for the kind of series it needed to be, so I took it back to the
drawing board to figure out how I could make it an easier and more enjoyable
read. And I think I’ve long since found
the answer. I’m hoping that my execution
is enough to make it work -- and if it is, then you can expect posts that are
faster to read, but more rewarding than even the most glowing Let’s Discuss
post.
But that said, the
major difference is going to be…
--A boosted focus on reader interaction.
Consider this another
failing of the original Showdown. The
intent was to make that the
cornerstone of blogger-reader-other reader interaction, but…well, if you’ve
read this far, you can probably guess why it didn’t work out. So once again, I had to take it back to the
drawing board -- and the answer I’ve come up with SHOULD make for a more
exciting story and relationship.
Generally speaking, readers will have a chance to decide how key events
and sequences play out. How that’ll work
is something I’ll have to get to when it comes up, but for now let’s just say
it’s your story as much as it is mine.
--Bonus content.
There might not
necessarily be a post that moves the story along on a regular basis, but just
to keep the series and the cast fresh in people’s minds I plan to throw up a
little filler post every now and then.
And if I can get a good rhythm going, you can expect to see nice little
things in there every now and then. I
won’t build up your expectations too high right now, but if nothing else it
should be enough to put a little smile on your face. Likewise, I’ll see if I can sum up the
characters and plot along the way super-duper fast. Like I said, the characters are going to take
center stage, so it’s important that there’s at least a basic understanding of
the cast before they start gallivanting in earnest.
And I guess that’s
about it for the Showdown. Now then,
since this is pretty much a housekeeping post, let’s go ahead and keep on
chatting about changes and coming attractions to Cross-Up.
--Believe it or not, I
STILL haven’t forgotten about RE: Kingdom Hearts up there. But that only brings up a minor point:
certain posts in the future are going to become part of the SS story arc. Not a lot of them, mind, but at least
two. (The
Majora’s Mask posts are notable
examples; according to those, I’ve actually been dead since last
December.) And as you’d expect, the next
post on Kingdom Hearts 2 is going to
be one that has a minor story to it -- connected to SS, but not 100% required
reading…much like SS itself. So in a
sense, you can think of that content to be something like Linkara’s Atop the Fourth Wall videos; the main
content is there for those that want it, and everything that follows can be set
aside…BUT those that want the extra story stuff can dive in at their
leisure.
--Beyond that, it’s
worth noting that RE: Kingdom Hearts won’t be a tab that stays up there on the
navbar forever. Once I reach a certain
point, it’s going to transform into something slightly different. If you’ve seen the stuff on the blog before,
you can probably guess what it is. For
now, though, I think I’ll just keep my cards close to the chest. So look forward to that.
--Next, let’s chat
about I Hraet You. First off, I know I post chapters every
Monday and Thursday, but in light of the 400th I decided to hold
off. So two chapters will pop up this Thursday, and something not-hraety
will go up Friday. Not that Lloyd is
exactly wanting for attention…or sense.
--In any case, I
mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I’m going to put IHY on the shelf for a little bit to
build a nice, healthy buffer. It won’t
be gone for long, but I want to have a big bank of chapters to draw from
without sputtering out. That way, I can
keep the chapters flowing in, but I won’t be pushing myself nightly to come up
with chapters five minutes before I upload them. Besides, considering where I am in the story
and how excited I am to pump content out, IHY
chapters are slowly but surely becoming second nature to me. I have got some amazing stuff planned there, so I’m hoping that it’ll be something
worth reading no and in the future. In
the meantime, though, expect some additional content -- an update on the Notes
page is first in line, but I expect to add to the Cast page sometime soon.
--I don’t intend to
have any content slip too gravely in the coming months (or years, or whatever),
so if you’re here exclusively for video game posts, that’s fine. I should have you covered. But there’s more that I can say, and I’ve
already taken strides towards preparing new content for you. Chances are you’re not going to see it
coming, but it should be something relatively good. I’ve got an ace up my sleeve that might go
beyond anything you could have expected; again, I don’t want to build
impossible-to-satisfy expectations, but if I pull this off, it could be
something you’ll really be looking forward to between installments.
--Lastly, one minor
announcement: I’ve
made a Google Plus page. Granted I
don’t really know exactly how to get
the most out of G+ just yet, but I’m committed to figuring it out. I want Cross-Up to be a place where people
can gather and discuss fiction -- and as the blog’s webmaster, I owe it to all
of you to build a bigger community. It’s
my responsibility, and I intend to do so in the weeks that come…even if it is
at a snail’s pace. So give it a look
and…do whatever it is you do with G+ pages.
Something about circles, or whatever.
Also, tell your friends. That’d
be pretty cool, too.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand
that’ll just about do it for now. Again,
I want to thank those of you that keep coming back to my blog (for whatever
reason), and I want to stress that I’m going to keep doing what I can not only
to turn Cross-Up into something bigger and better than ever, but something
that’ll continue to put smiles on your faces.
I would hardly be able to call myself a webmaster if I didn’t. So with all that in mind, thank you -- and
here’s to a brand new day.
See you guys soon. Hope you’re ready for more over-the-top
posts.
…But seriously, I’ve
been dead for the better part of a year.
That’s canon. That’s totally
canon.
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