Phoenix Creation Journal #6

Hello, one. I'd say "one and all", but the average view per post on this blog is still low enough that the word "all" feels a tad disingenuous (don't even get me started on how many times I misspelled that before giving up and cracking out spellcheck). As is the purpose of this segment, I am bringing out another Phoenix Creation journal to discuss what's what. An update of past, present, and future as it were.

And with the passage of Thanksgiving, it officially 'tis the season for all discussions of past present and future to be delivered exclusively by a trio of ghosts who resemble people in my life.

And in walked the ghost of PhoenixWings Past

I'll be the first to admit that for as long as this blog and my corresponding YouTube channel (Give it a look see,why don't you? If you like this blog, you'll like the channel, because it's more me!)have existed, they've been largely aimless. The sheer number of different tags on my blog articles, that declaration in entry #3 to start up a current events satire series, and the fact that multiple articles are in fact, effectively tagless (not a word according to spellcheck, but it is now), is a pretty clear indicator of what kind of net I've been casting (a massive, aimless, and also kind of lazy one full of holes).

It's also time for me to admit that I secretly had no earthly idea what kind of tone to pursue. I'm pretty sure there was a desire to be fun and witty, mixing in with my tendency to be a straight man comedian, hampered by the need to babysit the kind of boring, soulless stuff I regularly churned out in school alongside this kind of stuff. The result is something, admittedly, even I didn't really enjoy reading.

I honestly can't tell you if it's just because I'm a creative type who naturally hates all his older work or if it's a case of the stuff I wrote genuinely being really uninteresting. If I was a reasonable outside observer, I would probably come to the conclusion that it was likely a combination of the two, but I'm an emotionally invested nutter, so I'm going to say it's all my fault regardless.

A lot has changed for me since I started this kind of work. I've started university work, which wasn't nearly as much fun as everyone said it would be. I started listening to comedy podcasts in lieu of cable, which I no longer have, and the radio, which has been playing the "Wildest Dreams" so often for the last two months that I've seriously contemplated shiving my radio with a hunting knife. And I spend a lot more time with Wings now.

As circumstances and stimuli have changed, I've changed. Maybe to a significant enough degree that we can call this a regeneration, but maybe not. I'm not totally sure just yet. I'm sure I will be two regenerations down the line with the benefit of hindsight, but for now, meh.

Speaking of wavering tone, let's talk art styles! Specifically, the art style of the YouTube videos on my channel. I've tried creating simpler, easier to manipulate versions in Illustrator, but I'm not really a huge fan of the shape this creations take on. In one video, I experimented with a hand drawn, hand colored look, and while this experiment did lead to me adopting a background I was much happier with, I was pretty disappointed with the overall look in that video. I've also tried a combination, hand drawn and hand colored. It saves me a bit of time in the drawing phase, but not as much as Illustrator does.

Followed by the ghost of PhoenixWings present. (It has no face because I don't have three friends)

So where does all of that leave us now?

After all the mess that is the past, I've finally settled into a kind of groove. I know what I want to do, which I can say is pretty exciting in its own, completely monotonous way. As of right now, the most popular articles on this blog are easily Crackpot Theories (Sharknado Nazis and Squirrel Surveys, as some of you may recall), so obviously I intend to continue with more of those. The recent article on Squirrel Surveys is actually also a landmark as the first piece I ever tweeted about, but that's probably best left to another paragraph.

Nerdgasm articles, while not as popular, revolve around a subject matter that I have a lot of passion for, (And also some expertise maybe?) so they're not going anywhere anytime soon either. If anything, I'm probably going to start making more of those just to give myself something to do with my life once I inevitably run out of shows to binge watch. *again raises shield to deflect sea of recommendations*

The Lazy Sunday Post, then, shall remain as the new be all end all, in that it will be where all articles that don't fall under the two other tags go to die. I mean- well, no, I mean die. I didn't mistype. Nobody loves the Lazy Sunday Post. Not even me, and I write the damn things.

I mentioned Twitter earlier and now I'm going to mention it again: I have a Twitter. I got one mostly to reserve my name on it, but also because I knew that in theory it could in some way be useful. To date I've tweeted the releases of two pieces of content, a blog article and a YouTube video, with mixed results. The blog article saw record views, while the YouTube video, my longest to date, ...didn't. Didn't is the most gentle way to describe that. So I'm not really sure what allowed the article to get a boost but not the video. Maybe it was because the article tweet had a bizarre picture, maybe people just don't click strange links on Twitter. Who knows. Hopefully me, at some point.

But what about the video half of my internet... career? Can we call it a career? I'm not sure I want to, because then I think the government can start collecting taxes, and at this point, they'll just end up taking my desk.

Anyway, much like the Desk of 003 blog, my YouTube channel was started as this very nebulous thing that I could do stuff in. Which, while flexible, isn't the sort of thing most people are looking for in a channel. At least, it's not what I'd look for in a channel. I'm interested in subscribing to channels that regularly produce a specific niche of content, and I imagine that's the case with most other people. It's why some YouTubers actually create multiple channels, so that new content doesn't clash with the existing identity of a channel.

I'm happy to announce that much like the blog, I've reigned in the PhoenixAgent003 YouTube channel to a much more focused content stream, breaking it up into two distinct parts: PhoenixWings Shorts, and a headline series.

PhoenixWings Shorts will be quick, one to two minute videos that amount to a single joke or some kind of short video project that I manage to put a PhoenixWings spin on, and they'll essentially be about whatever. Two of them out now are pure, unabashed metahumor revolving around show art style and my Photoshop ineptitude. At this point in time, I have no plans to monetize any of these shorts, so as far as my control extends, there will be no ads on these videos.

The headline series will be an ongoing series I contribute to with as much frequency as I can handle. They'll be longer videos, closer to the four to six minute range. Currently, the headlining series is The PhoenixWings Guide to Heroics of the Super Variety, a show where each episode will give you a quick schooling on how to be a superhero. In the works are episodes to discuss secret identities, costume design, threat detection, and many more topics that I was too lazy to type out for fear of creating a run on sentence. Because I would love to put a roof over my head doing this, I will be monetizing these videos in some capacity or other.

While I'm on the subject of videos, I'll briefly touch again on the subject of art style that I mentioned in a past paragraph. After some internal deliberation, I've decided, for now, to go with the hand drawn, digitally colored look, which takes a bit longer to make, but looks way better in my opinion. If you'd like to read this paragraph the way it sounded in my head, click here.

And in walked the future.

All this talk of the current state of things is all well and good, but what about where the channel and blog are headed? What, exactly, are the current plans for the future?

The biggest goal, something I suspect to be an ongoing one, is to grow an audience. Currently, I believe I'm on the equivalent of a first name basis with all seven of my YouTube subscribers, and I can only assume the readership of a vast majority of my blog readership remains me, Wings, and my mother acting in secret. I'm not reaching anyone I couldn't reach by walking down the hall or dial a number in my phone, and I'd definitely like to change that moving forward. By that I mean reach more people, not less. Just to clarify.

Beyond that, things get much more specific.

First on the agenda, I want to start producing the headlining series faster. I know if I worked it, I could get a video out every two weeks easily, maybe even every week. Bottom line though, however it works out, I want my content to start coming out on a regular, predictable basis, or as close to it as I can get it.

Obviously, I expect The PhoenixWings Guide to Heroics of the Super Variety (or TPWGtHotSV
for all you acronym enthusiasts) to run for a while, but eventually a new headliner will need to step up. I'm thinking of doing a follow-up series where I do a cartoonish evil voice and tackle a whole set of issues for supervillains. I'll call in Xineohp's Guide to Evil Nerfairianism, and I'm actually really looking forward to doing some of those. I may even just alternate between TPWGtHotSV and XGtEN just to help keep my brain fresh.

I'd like to start another video series, a monthly one that just sort of serves as a quick update to comic canon for everyone who doesn't have the time to read comics but also doesn't want to feel outgunnned by that one comic book obsessed friend who spoils all the Marvel movies for them. Catching up without catching up, so to speak. I could easily write off like twenty bucks worth of comics on my tax forms if I started this series. I haven't decided what to call it yet, because "This Month in Comics" was taken. Unlike "I am Machingunsaur", which as we previously established, was all me.

I'm currently in the very nebulous stage of starting a podcast to go along with the blog and YouTube channel. Much like the blog and channel before it, it has yet to find any kind of focus or theme as of yet, but I'm hoping to do something in the way of ridiculous hypotheticals (Which according to spellcheck, isn't a word, but screw yourself spellcheck, I make the rules here!).

I've even kicked around the idea of doing some live action stuff. Getting a real desk, a white jacket, a REALLY big piece of lined paper, and just give it a red hot go. Mostly as a one off thing, just to give it a whirl? I really prefer drawing, and I like the more opportunities it affords for subtle visual humor.

Much like my YouTube videos, I'd like to focus on getting content out more regularly on the Desk of 003 blog, and maybe even giving the thing its own proper website at some point down the line. Blog articles don't take nearly as long to produce as videos, and they'd probably serve as nice breaks from all the drawing that goes into videos (even though the articles now also rely on drawings).

At some point, likely much further down the line, I would like to go ad-free on my YouTube videos, and the best way I can think to do that that allows me to retain the total, no strings attached creative independence I currently enjoy would be to adopt a crowd funding model. So at some point in the future, when I actually have an audience, I'll probably launch that.

Speaking of money, I also want to experiment with merchandise, once I figure out how all that shenanigans works. You know, find a way to mass produce products to sell, find a way to sell them, find a way to make that legal, all that jazz. Currently, there aren't any particularly popular or even recurring images in the show outside of mine and Wings' avatars, so I'll probably start by making replicas of the shirts our avatars wear.

Crackpot Theory: Squirrel Survey Setup

The other day, a friend of mine was walking on her squirrel ridden college campus (Incidentally, her university really chose the wrong mascot. Forget the bird, those squirrels are everywhere.)  and she came across a squirrel with a small tag attached to its ear, presumably the kind of tag attached to animals to monitor them for scientific purposes.

When she brought the tale of this squirrel to my attention, her chief curiosity was what people could possibly be studying the squirrels for. Which, to be fair, is curious enough. But in thinking about that question, I stumbled upon a largely and far more hilarious question: how did they get that tag on the squirrel?

Many of you are likely civilized folks with actual attention spans, and as such have never tried chasing a squirrel with the actual intention of catching it while walking around town. I am not a civilized person, and I have no attention span. In my defense, my cross country team had a rule that if you saw a squirrel during practice and caught it, you would be done for the day.

No one ever got the day off via squirrel, incidentally.

Squirrels are not easy to catch in a straight chase 'em down sort of way. Largely because before you can do that whole "run your prey to death" thing that humans are apparently capable of, squirrels will just scamper up a tree and laugh at your climbing incompetence. Stupid squirrels.

But really, if you needed to catch a squirrel, how would you do it? Maybe you'd use a tranquilizer dart gun. Probably the easiest, assuming that you're not a crap shot. But this is a college campus. These days, they're a bit jumpy about guns, weaponry, or anything remotely shaped like guns and weaponry.

An amusing theory we came up with initially was leaving a bowl of food out for the squirrels and spiking it with some sort of tranquilizer. Sure, you'd probably also tranq some poor sap looking to score a free meal, but it's just a tranquilizer. I'm sure they'll be fine after a few hours.

But then we came up with another idea, and idea so impossibly ridiculous, that it must be true.

It goes something like this.

You see, as much as they like to walk around grabbing table scraps off the ground or out of our hands, squirrels are still largely tree folk. Sooner or later, a squirrel will climb a tree. As a sidenote, I'm going to declare that today's indisputable fact and put it in very large, bold font for the world to behold.

"Sooner or later, a squirrel will climb a tree."

 The best way then, to catch a squirrel, my friend and I decided, would be to don an elaborate but comically low budget tree costume, stand very still in the middle of the squirrel infested campus, and wait for a squirrel to climb you.

Once a squirrel takes the bait, the next step is to simply yell "SURPRISE MOTHERF*CKER" as you grab them in a full bear hug and then forcibly attach the survey clip to its ear.

One can only imagine the psychological impact this would have on the subject squirrel, as for weeks after it can't bring itself to climb a tree out of fear and mistrust for the very foundations of truth it once believed the world operated on. It's other squirrel friends would try their best to rehabilitate him, but oh the work they would have for them.

JET: Come on Phil, you can do it. Climb the tree.

PHIL: NO! YOU DON'T KNOW MAN! YOU WEREN'T THERE!

JET: Phil, Phil! Take it easy. Here, look. I'll climb the tree first, and then you can follow.

*JET climbs the tree*

JET: See? It's harmless.

TREE: SURPRISE MOTHERF*CKER!

Crackpot Theory: The Secret Superpower of Video Game Characters

Not to vindicate the daywalkers, but I probably need to get out more. I say this because for the past few days, I have been completely unable to stop thinking about my newest mortal nemesis, a collective of unspeakable operatives whose agents have ascended quite literally to the highest points of society. An enemy I share with an idiotic robot and an anthropomorphic warrior panda. I am referring of course to:

Stairs.

For those of you who don't know, I recently moved from a quaint, one story house in the suburbs to a very tiny room on the fourth floor of a building which has no elevator. That means that several times a day, I am going up and down four flights of stairs. Any time that I want to get food, go to class, or grab my umbrella because I didn't look out my window or check the weather before going down stairs, walking out of the building, and getting drenched by rain, I will be dealing with stairs. And that's just at home.

Of all the classes I attended throughout the week, not a single one of them is on the ground floor of the building it is in. I often spend my weekends in a two story house. I am on stairs all of the time.

But when I have some free time not being taken up by stairs, I often take some time to sit down, relax, and whittle away my troubles on the old Xbox. I'm a bit of a shooter man myself, and quite recently, I've been sinking a lot of time into Destiny.

And I've noticed, because of the fundamental way first person shooter gameplay works and because of the way the environments are designed, my in game character constantly finds himself sprinting up and down stairs without looking at her feet. I don't know about all of you, but I can't walk up or down stairs without looking out my feet unless it's an unnaturally slow pace.

Try it next time you're on a flight of stairs, see how fast you can do it without falling on your face. Don't look at your feet the entire time, and for added challenge, mime firing a gun at a bunch of alien robots. Ignore the funny looks you'll get, in a few seconds they'll completely forget your bizarre behavior because they'll be too busy  asking you if you need a ride to the hospital for that head injury you just sustained.

I'm sure there are more unrealistic aspects of games, all of which have been parodied extensively online. Why can we carry five weapons at once? Where are we keeping all this ammo? How does heavy breathing allow an otherwise ordinary marine to recover from gunshot wounds in seconds? Is that shopkeeper really oblivious to me robbing him blind just because I put a bucket on his head? All hilarious, all valid, and all well trodden ground.

But I don't think anyone has ever dealt with the full ramifications of stair sprinting in first person shooters. So, to that end, here's a picture of Master Chief tripping down a flight of stairs.

Damn Covenaaaaaaaant!