#and that's not including the amount of backtracking in order to make sure that everything is pointed at the ''real thing''.

[racke7]

So, because of the setback to my "grand idea" that was me accidentally nerfing my own mod. I spent this morning trying to think of a way to make certain classes interesting.

Like, Necromancer can usually be interesting by using teleportation and smacking people with massively damaging AOEs.

(Which is why Spectre, where "physical damage" is almost a side-effect to your true goal of stacking up debuffs that do very little (without game-breaking mods) always comes across as frustrating to me.)

And Rogue can be fun, because there's stuff like positioning yourself for backstabs, and then also having access to lots and lots of CCs.

(Turning people into chickens who will run away, after giving them a debuff that makes them take massive damage if they try to run? Always hilarious.)

Comparatively, Knight is "run up and hit them with your sword", and Ranger is "go to a high-spot and then click-kill on the enemies".

So, trying to make those classes more interesting is... hmm...

In the end, I found something that sounded very promising for a Knight-build, where they basically boost themselves with every skill, until they get access to a very strong attack. It's still very much "hit them with the sword", but it feels like there could be a bit of a dynamic involved.

The same mod-author had also created a Ranger-mod and Rogue-mod, and those looked like they'd stack pretty well with each other (a lot of "cause Bleed" and "if enemy is Bleeding, then" type of skills).

But then I, of course, got distracted.

And created an entire new Necromancer-mod from scratch.

I have no idea if it's even remotely "balanced" or whatever, because I just grabbed a few Hydro-skills and said "you do physical damage now". Which was... a very long and involved process. Especially to switch the skill-animations for other skill-animations.

But the end result was me having a bunch of Necro-skills that are purely damaging, causes bleed/decay/cripple, and doesn't come attached with all of the unnecessary bells-and-whistles of Odinblade that always seems to annoy me.

I'm... probably going to publish it once I've done some actual vague play-testing, and maybe one day I'll even be able to figure out how to get the fuckers to actually sell the damn spells.

(For now, I just craft them by combining "random bits of junk" with "necromancer books", because that usually makes it compatible with everything else.)

[wienerbarnes]

Agent 51

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (Cheek to Cheek)

Word Count: 1,525

Warnings: some being sad feelings but otherwise none!

A/N: hehehe my plan all along 

MAIN MASTERLIST | CHEEK TO CHEEK MASTERLIST

“This contains your new passport, identification cards, fingerprints, and file with all of your medical and personal information. Memorize it. And don’t forget it. Around the tower you will be referred to as Agent 51 and you will answer only to Agent 51. You will under no circumstance use your real name, and your new teammates won’t either. Any questions?”

Nick Fury isn’t as intimidating as he was made out to be. He’s just tall, nothing special.

“How far do the numbers go?” You ask, eyes trained on the sealed bag with the documents detailing your ‘life’.

The clothes you wear feel foreign on your body; a black long sleeve cotton shirt with Avengers logo on the breast and thick black leggings to match. What you would do for a cardigan or tasteful belt or those green platforms you got or just anything other than black.

“Excuse me?” Fury’s voice is firm and almost angry sounding at the question. Even though he literally asked for any questions.

“I’m 51. How far do the numbers go? Is there a limit? Or do they just keep going forever? Like is there an Agent 6,000?” You meet his eyes, determined to let him know that you don’t find him scary in the slightest. Your posture is straight and your face is serious as you clarify your question. If they’re making me stay here, they’re certainly not going to get the nice me.

Your eyes flicker to Bucky who stands to the right of Fury when he attempts to disguise his laugh with a clearing of his throat, but your face stays unchanging.

“Sergeant, why don’t you escort your new teammate back to her quarters so she may be acquainted with her new identity.” Fury commands, more than asks.

Your eyes leave Fury’s for only a moment to glance at Sam and Sharon, who both offer you a reassuring smile of sorts before you turn and follow Bucky out of the office.

Bucky’s walking ahead of you towards the elevators when you pause in the middle of the hallway, staring at the heavy bag in your hands. Bucky’s voice calling your name, your real name, makes you look up at him.

“That’s not my name.” You respond as he makes his way back to you.

“Course it is.” He says as he finally approaches and stands in front of you.

“You’re not supposed to call me that.”

He snatches the bag of folders from your hands, “Well, I’m not calling you this fake name, that’s for sure.” He informs you before walking back towards the elevator once more, calling out a “C’mon” behind him. You follow and speed up your steps to catch up to him. Those are the first words you’ve spoken to him in three days.

The elevator ride and the walk to your room is silent and it’s only when you enter your room and go to close the door behind you when a metal hand stops you.

“What’s wrong with you, what did I do?” He asks and proceeds to push himself in, closing the door behind his back.

“What are you talking about?” You turn and walk to slip off your shoes next to your bed, frustration growing at his questions.

“Why do you seem so upset?”

“Because I’m here!” You spin around and snap at him. He flinches at the raising at your voice, you’ve never raised your voice at him. “This is, like, the second-to-last place I ever wanted to be, and you’re asking me why I’m upset?! I thought you of all people would know what it’s like to be forced to stay somewhere you don’t want to be and then have to work for the people keeping you there.”

His eyebrow twitches and you know that was a low blow, even for you. You turn back around and focus your eyes on a piece of lint on your pillow to try and hold your tears back. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

A hand touches your shoulder and you tense but quickly relax at the unbelievable comfort that comes from the warmth you feel through your shirt. “I’m sorry.” His voice comes closer than you were expecting, and it hits you then how much you missed him over the last three days.

It’s a feeling that’s so deep within you that arises; you want to cry of relief from having him close to you again, having his touch, hearing his voice, him. You’re not sure if you’ve ever felt something like it before, but then again, lately all of the feelings you have towards Bucky have been leaving you confused.

You sigh, “What are you sorry for, Bucky?”

“Maybe if I’d left you alone; if I’d not sought you out and looked for you, you’d still be in your apartment.”

“I’d be dead if you hadn’t come into my life, Bucky.” You reassure him, closing your eyes and feeling guilt overcome you at the thought that he was blaming himself for your sadness.

“I… I’m just- I don’t want to be here, Bucky. I’m not upset with you, I’m upset at the situation.” The lump in your throat is rising faster and faster.

“And- and I just wanna be left alone. For a bit. If-if that’s okay.” You get out without allowing your voice to crack.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course- of course it’s okay. Of course.” He stutters out, hand leaving your shoulder and body moving to gently place the bag of your documents on your desk, before leaving your room without another word, the door quietly shutting behind him.

…

It’s been a week at the tower. You’ve kept completely to yourself, besides a few conversations you have with F.R.I.D.A.Y. It was odd at first, talking to a robot that was recording and tracking not only everything you did, but everything happening at the tower. But it was nice, what she would tell you, anyway. A good amount of your questions were met with, “I’m not authorized to give you that information, Agent” or “You are not of high enough clearance for me to say, Agent”.

She informs you every night when Sam and Sharon, and some lucky agents every once in a while, are eating dinner in the common dining area, but you choose to make your own food and eat alone in your room.

You recognize that they were trying to be as welcoming as possible, and they did you quite the favor of forcing you to be here rather than prison. But it was weird. The barrier between Avenger and inmate turned to Avenger and escaped criminal and now Avenger and Agent, all in such a short period of time. You just weren’t comfortable yet.

You’ve spent all of your time in your room. Minus the one time you ventured out to the library that F.R.I.D.A.Y. informed you of where you gathered two or three books to occupy your time, considering there hasn’t been any missions or cases requiring your abilities.

The only other time you’ve left your room is now, when the A.I. told you of the request for you to head to the medical bay, where all of your medical information was updated. You hadn’t had a proper check up in about a decade, so the nurse, that seemed more like an intern in scrubs, took quite a lot of blood.

Not that blood has ever really bothered you anyway.

Approaching your room and turning the knob, you find something blocking the other side, forcing you to push harder to get the door open enough to get inside. About six large boxes stacked together is what you find blocking your entrance.

“Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.? Who brought these boxes in here?” You question, going to grab the scissors from your desk and opening them wide in order to tear open the line of tape sealing them closed.

“Sergeant Barnes did, Agent.”

Even more confusion.

You finally pop the box open to see - your stuff!

You let out a gasp - the blue tapestry you had draping over that card table, your clothes, your shoes, your bags, your earrings, everything! You quickly open the other boxes and see your fluffy blankets, your plants wrapped neatly in paper, even your mugs and plates you had in your cupboards. Your lufa, your robe, your scrunchies, everything is here!

You have to blink away teary eyes due to the absolute joy and surprise you feel right now. Even a few giggles escape you from contentment.

You pause in your inner celebration and backtrack to what you just heard. Sergeant Barnes did. Bucky brought your stuff. Bucky went to your apartment with boxes, packaged all your stuff, including taking the time to wrap anything fragile in paper, and then drove all the way here to drop it off to you, After you said you missed it a couple of days ago when you last saw him.

A smile grows on your face, and you’ve got to give it to him.

He’s trying. So you will, too.

[wherevermyway]

be your confessional (1/?) // minbin // 18+

chapter one: cherry-flavoured nicotine series navigation: [desktop] [mobile]

⚠ POTENTIAL TW: READ WITH CAUTION! ⚠ pairing: lee minho x seo changbin rating: explicit! 18+ warnings/tags: obsessive compulsive disorder, cults, religious guilt, internalized homophobia, past sexual assault, cheating, smoking, tattoos.  word count: 4,032 also on AO3

originally posted: 27 december 2020

It's been ten years since Changbin left the cult he was born into. He's been desperately trying to become a normal member of society, but sometimes it proves to be difficult. He has a normal office job, a normal roommate, and a normal life. At least he was trying.

this fic sounds a lot darker than it is. most of the dark things happened in the past and is briefly discussed/observed.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are  interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do  not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of  the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable,  please stop reading now.

“Would you stay still? The Mark is going to come out imperfect if you keep moving.”

The voice felt like nails on a chalkboard, making Changbin nauseated just hearing it. He couldn’t help but twitch as the tattoo machine etched black lines into his skin, black ink and blood blending as the tattooist wiped at his chest.

To most sixteen-year-olds, getting a tattoo so early was a sign of rebelliousness, something to be envied by others. To Changbin, however, this was not a tattoo he would wear with pride. The X, surrounded by four triangles and enclosed in a circle, was something he felt shameful over.

“The X means you are nothing. You must follow the four principles: morality, service, responsibility, and submission to be whole, much like the circle. That is The Mark.”

The words hurt more than the tattoo being carved into his sternum. Everyone in their fellowship was forced to get The Mark at sixteen, if born into it, or when they were deemed worthy after joining.

Changbin didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be marked with a brand that rendered him unworthy, as nothing more than a pawn to some bullshit deity that some power-hungry man came up with fifty years ago. He loved his parents, he truly did, but he never understood why they fell for the words that The Leader spat out every week. The Leader wasn’t even charismatic; perhaps his parents were just vulnerable and stupid.

It didn’t matter.

“Wear your Mark with pride, Son,” The Leader whispered in his ear, continuing to dig his nails into Changbin’s wrists. “You are one with The Universe, one with Us, one with Me. Together, we are one in responsibility.”

“One in morality,” the tattooist nodded.

“One in service,” his father continued.

There was a pause as Changbin tried to choke back tears. He knew he had to complete the oath, but the lump in his throat and the burning of the skin on his chest made it difficult. The Leader cleared his throat, digging his nails into Changbin’s skin further, until he cried out and shook his head. “One in submission!”

One in submission.

Fuck submission.

Changbin nearly fell off of his bed as he thrashed awake. He was unable to make sense of his surroundings, trying to calm his rapid breathing and focus his eyes on something, on anything. He hated this nightmare; it haunted him for years, and they were increasing in frequency again.

It was irrational, but he needed to make sure. Changbin kicked his sheets off of him, untangling his legs from the prison his sheets tried to trap him in. As he made his way to his feet, he tore off his shirt, haphazardly throwing it somewhere across his room.

He needed to make sure.

Moving towards the washroom was mechanical, automatic. He did this so many times, waking up in the middle of the night to run off and check his skin. It was 37 steps from his bed to the sink. 37 steps to security.

Step 35: collide with the door.

Step 36: turn the light on.

Step 37: stare at the tired reflection in the mirror.

A wave of relief washed over Changbin as he stared at the dark raven that sprawled across his chest, wings touching the tips of his shoulders and the open beak pointed up towards his left shoulder. It held a deep meaning to him, but it was more important that it completely covered up that stupid fucking mark.

It hid away the years of guilt and shame, the obsession and compulsion that came along with conforming to each intricate, demanding rule that the cult ordered. The years of pain would never be totally washed away, but it was getting easier with each passing day.

“Hey,” a tired voice from the doorway startled Changbin, causing an electric jolt to course through his body. He turned his head over his shoulder and stared, blinking a few times to make sure it was really his roommate, Jisung, standing there.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he sleepily mumbled, nervously rubbing the tip of his shoulder with his thumb as he nibbled on his lip ring.

Jisung leaned up against the door, running his fingers through his vivid red hair. “You didn’t. I was already awake. Besides, it’s almost 5:30, so I figured I’d just get up and deal with the day.” They stared at each other for a moment, before Changbin turned back to look at his reflection in the mirror.

“You ever think it’s gonna stop, the nightmares?”

“Dunno,” the redhead shrugged as he met Changbin’s eyes in the mirror. “It’s been awhile since you woke up like this, though. You gonna be okay when it comes up?”

It hadn’t been long since he woke up like this, it had just been a while since Jisung woke up to Changbin acting on his compulsion. The black-haired man sighed, biting at his lip as he ran his eyes over his skin. “I’ll get over it. Hopefully he gets what he deserves.”

Jisung took a step forward, softly gripping Changbin’s shoulder and smiling at him in the mirror. “I know you will, but don’t be afraid to lean on me, dude. I’ll be here to help you through it, I promise.”

“Thanks, man,” Changbin smiled back, then looked down to his hands, staring at the hangnails and scabs that had littered his fingers. He wanted nothing more than to tear into his skin and tear away the imperfections that he had created during one of his episodes. The momentary lapses in rationality, where he would ferociously tear his nails apart, rip off hangnails, the lapses were the only thing that made the intrusive thoughts stop.

“You wanna hit the gym early? I know you’re not gonna go back to sleep any time soon, so might as well be productive with our time.”

“Yeah,” Changbin sighed, looking at himself in the mirror one more time before he turned the light off. “Might as well.”

Ten days until the hearing.

“Good morning!”

Fuck. Changbin tried to stealthily roll his eyes as he walked into the office. He hated the paralegal, Lee Minho. Minho was everything Changbin was not: nice, loveable, innocent, and a good church boy who was pure. Everyone loved Minho, because he was safe, an easy pill to swallow. Changbin was not an easy pill to swallow; he was covered in tattoos, ears decorated with jewellery, hard around the edges, and abrasive to most people.

“Yeah,” Changbin grunted, trying to avoid saying much else as he made his way to his office. It was too early to deal with someone so chipper, not without copious amounts of caffeine.

“Wait!” Minho called after him, and Changbin didn’t bother to hide his disgust as he stopped. He heard the shuffling of papers, and then Minho was suddenly by his side. “Mr. Bang is away from the office today, and he told me to pass off some of the Dawson v. Doebring case off to you.”

“Walk and talk, then,” Changbin didn’t bother waiting for Minho to follow him. “If Chan’s out, that means we’re busy today.” There was an itch under his skin as he lost count of the steps from the front door to his office, and it made him tense.

There was a bit of a squeak that came from Minho as he followed Changbin to his office. “I’ve got your back, Mr. Seo.”

Changbin couldn’t hold back a groan as he stopped dead in his tracks. He hated when people addressed him by his last name. “Stop calling me that,” he took a step closer, getting into Minho’s face. “I keep telling you, only address me as Changbin.”

“But,” Minho started, nervously backtracking his words incoherently.

He looked at Minho with a pleading gaze, trying to not seem vulnerable. Part of him wanted to tear into Minho because they did this every week, but the pitiful look that Minho had painted on his face made Changbin feel like a horrible person. It felt like he was yelling at a child for something stupid and only out of frustration. “Please, just… don’t call me by my last name.”

Minho nodded his head and bit his lip.

“Thank you,” Changbin sighed, turning on his heel and beelining towards his office.

“Sorry, Changbin,” Minho said, curling into himself a bit as he trailed Changbin.

The younger man shrugged as he sat down at his desk. “Don’t worry about it, Minho. Just…” he let his voice trail off as he looked down at his stacks of paperwork. There was a lot to do before he was going to be absent for several days due to the hearing.

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t hear me. The leader deserves to die a slow, and painful death. Fuck this goddamned cult!”

That had earned Changbin a slap across the face from his father.

“Blasphemy is a sin, Changbin.” Despite being furious, his father’s voice was exhausted. He tiredly grabbed a black book off of the table and passed it to the young man. “You should be grateful that The Leader accepted you back into his embrace after the stunt you pulled.”

Changbin shook his head, grabbing the book his father offered and tossed it across the room, colliding against the vase on the dining table. “He should be fucking grateful I didn’t take this to the cops.”

Another slap to the face.

The younger man licked his teeth and shot an icy glare towards his father. “You know this isn’t right. You’re really going to side with that fucking monster over your own son?”

There was a painful silence that lingered in the air as they stared down one another, until his father broke the tension. He didn’t look like he wanted to say the words he had been thinking, but he repeated them anyways, his voice empty and distant.

“One in responsibility, one in morality, one in service, one in submission.”

Changbin didn’t bother. He scoffed as he took a step back, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re as much of a monster as him, you know?” His mother sat on the couch, curled up into herself as she stared off in a dissociative trance, trying to remove herself from the situation. “You’re going to actively defend and dismiss the things your beloved leader has done to me? Did you forget that I’m your fucking son?”

There should have been a slap, but Changbin’s father just looked down. His expression was hard to read. There was a look of shame and a look of remorse, but his eyes were dead.

“Get out of my house.”

Changbin’s mother lifted her head, opening her mouth to say something, but nothing came to fruition.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Changbin shook his head. “I’m not living with someone that doesn’t stand up against their son being abused and assaulted for years by some fucking psychopath that thinks he’s a god.”

“Come back here!” His father demanded, but Changbin was having none of it.

He turned on his heel and tried to remain composed as tears rolled down his face. “You’re both dead to me. I hope that, when this whole fucking cult gets torn apart, you both come down with it all.”

It had been ten years since he had seen his parents last, and he would be seeing them again in ten days.

“You’re making your fingers bleed,” Minho’s voice pulled Changbin back from the depths of his memories. “Are you okay, Changbin?”

No, I’m not okay. Never have been.

“It’s fine,” he grumbled, grabbing a tissue from the box on his desk. “Sometimes happens when I think too hard.” Ten days. He was still partially lost in the abyss of the past, and he was afraid he’d never fully shake the vise grip that the cult had around him.

Minho frowned, setting his notepad and pen down on the desk in front of him. “Can I ask you something kinda personal?”

No. I don’t want you to know anything about me.

“What is it?” He blotted the tissue around his fingernails until the blood was mostly gone, then dropped the tissue in the bin.

The older man brushed his brown hair away from his eyes, and sat forward. “Is law school really worth it? How did you know it was right for you? Like, I see you and Mr. Bang spend months over these cases and part of me is interested in applying, but...”

Fix the imperfections.

Changbin stood up, trying to fight the urge to pick at his fingers. “Can this wait a minute? I need to go wash my hands off.”

Minho nodded his head once. “Sure, sure. I’ll finish making notes on this file.”

127 steps from his desk to the washroom. He counted every step mentally as he walked. Anything to keep his thoughts away from tearing the flesh next to his fingernails off in nervousness, not until he was alone.

Step 126: open the door.

Step 127: scan the room.

It was an additional three steps to the third sink. Three was a good number.

Changbin ran the water a bit too cold for comfort as he stuck his hands under the faucet, ravenously tearing at his hangnails, pulling them off and turning the porcelain of the sink a shade of pink for a split second. The blood would drip down, then rapidly desaturate and dissolve into the water.

Fix the imperfections.

He hated these thoughts. Sure, the medications he had been on helped, and the therapy appointments he sometimes went to had helped him with better coping mechanisms, but this was the only thing that made sense to him, that actually felt like there was a payoff of serotonin. Changbin didn’t tear into his skin because he liked it — it hurt, actually, and it was incredibly uncomfortable — but because his brain told him he had no other choice.

“Obsessive-compulsive disorder isn’t uncommon in cases like yours,” his therapist told him. “Children develop coping mechanisms like skin picking or excessive handwashing amongst other things to gain control in their lives when things don’t make sense and they don’t have a way to express that in a healthy manner. Anxiety disorders are common: obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcohol and/or drug use and abuse, eating disorders…”

“Fuck that goddamned cult,” Changbin whispered under his breath, his voice laden with venom. “Fuck that man, fuck my parents. Fuck all of them.”

He let the water wash over his hands until his hands started to shake from the cold. Anything to numb the pain.

“You look pale,” Minho had, again, given Changbin an unwanted statement, and the younger man gritted his teeth as he bit his tongue.

Fuck you, too, you prudish brat.

“How’s the case review?” He deliberately ignored the concern Minho had as he sat at his desk, clasping his hands together and resting his chin against his fingers.

Minho batted his eyelashes a few times, giving Changbin a look of worry. “The case review is fine, but I don’t know if we’re going to have this ready by the end of the week.”

“Guess we’ll have to work harder.”

The men sat in silence for hours, poring over their evidence for the case. When Changbin could fully immerse himself in a case like this, it dampened the intrusive thoughts in his head. He felt somewhat normal for a little while, and it was a welcomed change.

“It’s half past two, Changbin,” Minho whined, looking up from his paperwork. “Can we take a break for now?”

It took a moment for Changbin to pull himself away from the paragraph he was on, taking a highlighter to some of the words. “I assume you want to get something for lunch, right?” He didn’t bother looking away from the document, because he didn’t want to look at Minho’s sad eyes.

“That’d be nice, yeah.”

“Then go,” Changbin shrugged.

“You should eat something, too.” Minho leaned in on the desk, trying to get into Changbin’s line of sight. “Maybe take a break from all of this.”

“Fine,” Changbin sighed, grabbing his glasses off of his desk and adjusting them on his face. “Chan said I should be nicer to you, anyways. How about that French place down the street?”

Minho’s smile was soft, genuine. “That sounds perfect.”

Changbin hated the fact that Minho was so nice. It felt fake and unwarranted. He saw a lot of his younger self in the way that Minho acted: fake kindness, putting others before himself, a general sense of being lost. He knew that the other man was deeply wrapped up in some sort of religion that took up all of his time outside of work.

It wasn’t obvious until Changbin watched the way he talked about his fiancée. It felt like she was a prop or a chore: just another thing for Minho to deal with.

“Hey, congrats, man!” Seungmin, the other new paralegal, had excitedly shouted one day a few weeks prior. “Finally settling down like a real adult, huh?”

Changbin poked his head out of his office door, ready to scold the paralegals for being so loud, but the look on Minho’s face distracted him. For someone being congratulated, he looked incredibly uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he had meekly said, sinking into his shoulders a bit as he darted his eyes around. “She’s great. My parents have been pushing me to bite the bullet for months now, and this weekend seemed like it felt right.”

Doesn’t look like it feels right.

Changbin stood in his doorway, observing the two of them chatter back and forth, watching the discomfort on Minho’s face every time Seungmin asked him questions about his fiancée. It was like he was trying to talk with a wedge of lemon in his mouth: constantly scowling and wincing.

“We’re gonna get married in a few months,” Minho said with a sigh. “Her parents want a winter wedding, and my parents just want me to get married.”

Seungmin shifted his weight to the other foot. “Dude,” he folded his arms, his tone turning more serious. “You sure about this?”

Minho shrugged. “Yeah. It’s what I’ve gotta do. Nobody else in my community waits this long to get married and start a family.”

Community.

Changbin tried to stifle a scoff with a fake cough when the two men noticed him standing there. “Sorry, I wanted to offer congratulations. I was also looking for the corporate notes for the Smith v. ParaCorp case, Minho.”

“Oh,” Minho nodded, his face flushing as he scrambled around his desk. “Yeah, I’ve got them somewhere, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Changbin shook his head and turned to walk back to his office. “Just have them on my desk in a couple of hours.”

As much as Minho annoyed him, Changbin felt somewhat bad for him. He didn’t know the specifics of what all Minho was involved in, but it sounded deep-rooted and like he was stuck. Chan told him to try and be nicer to his paralegal, but sometimes annoyance won out over niceness, but he was at least trying.

Somewhat.

“So,” Changbin dug into his jacket and pulled out his vape cartridge as soon as he and Minho were outside, “how’s the wedding prep going?” He eyed Minho out of the corner of his eye as he inhaled, the cherry-flavoured nicotine cloud leaving his lips a moment later.

It was a rude question to ask, given the circumstances, but he wanted to try and confirm a theory that was burning in the back of his head, under the guise of caring about Minho’s personal life.

A theory that was slowly unravelling to be truth. Minho shrunk a bit, kicking a stray rock down the sidewalk as they walked. “It’s,” he paused, tucking his hands into his pockets, “I guess it’s going? Maria and her family are working on most of it.”

Go figure.

“You don’t seem very excited for a man that’s about to get married.”

They walked in silence for a bit. 40 steps from the entrance to the curb. The stoplight ahead of them was red, and cars rushed past them as the air lingering between them went stagnant.

“I’m not excited about it.” Minho’s voice was quiet, almost too quiet for Changbin to pick up on. “Not at all, actually.”

The younger man took another pull from his vape, then rolled his tongue over the stud in his lip. He should have pretended like he didn’t hear Minho, but curiosity always got the better of him. “Wanna talk about it? Sworn to client confidentiality.”

Minho scoffed, anxiously tapping the toe of his shoe against the ground. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t love her, do you?” The light turned green, the orange hand turning into a white stick figure, but neither of them moved.

The older man looked up, his eyes glistening a bit as they stared forward. Some stranger walked past them and flipped them off, but neither of them paid the stranger any mind. “Are you actually supposed to love someone you marry, or is that some sort of fairytale? All of my friends are married and secretly miserable.”

“Dunno,” Changbin sighed, sticking his hands into his pocket as he stared at the light turn into a flashing hand. “Never been married. Never planned on it.”

“Why are you asking me this, anyways?” Minho turned to look at Changbin, a disgruntled look on his face.

“Why did you answer me?” Changbin tilted his head a bit to the side, looking at Minho with indifference. “I figured you wouldn’t say anything if you didn’t really want to talk about it. To answer your question, though, it’s been bothering me since you announced your engagement. You looked uncomfortable when Seungmin brought it up.”

Minho didn’t answer Changbin, instead taking a hasty step forward as soon as the light flashed back to a white stick figure.

“Wait, Minho!” Changbin reached out, practically ripping Minho’s sleeve off of him as he pulled him back from the road right as a car ran a red light, nearly running into Minho. The force of the pull knocked them onto the sidewalk, causing Changbin to land hard against the ground, barely missing his head colliding into the concrete.

Minho awkwardly laid on top of Changbin, staring down at him with terrified eyes. He grabbed the sides of Changbin’s neck and panicked. “Oh my goodness,” he whined, “Changbin, are you okay?”

He’s cute from this angle. Fear looks good on him.

“I’ll be fine,” Changbin says, unsure of where to place his hands. He’d never been this close to another man his age. It never hit him before, but Minho was good looking. Had he not been the pure, innocent church boy type, he would have been Changbin’s type. Minho, however, was innocent and literally planning a wedding that was coming up in a few months.

“Changbin,” Minho whispered, his cheeks turning a shade of crimson. There was a strange tension between them, like the air around them was full of electricity and they were being pulled together. Minho dug his fingernails into Changbin’s neck, slowly bringing his head in closer.

Don’t kiss the church boy.

He knew where his hands needed to be. Changbin brought his hands up to Minho’s head without even thinking twice, pushing aside the intrusive thoughts running through his head. The warmth of the older man was intoxicating as he brought their lips together.

Minho responded in kind, pushing a bit further into the kiss. They were getting strange stares, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the euphoric energy that danced around them as they kissed. He pulled away, then pressed his lips to the older man’s three times in total.

Stop kissing the engaged church boy.

Maybe he would make it six times.

Don’t kiss the engaged church boy who is probably heavily traumatized.

Nine times. Three times three for good measure.

Changbin had just literally fallen for the church boy, but he felt like he was potentially metaphorically falling for him now. Fuck the intrusive thoughts.

[theyregonnashowusthewayyy]

Hello! I’ve posted the second chapter of my fic Leap Year! I’m gonna include a little preview of it here and you can find it on AO3 here!

Castiel was already feeling the repercussions of this decision the next morning. His alarm went off at 5:30, Castiel still needing time to gather a few things and to make sure his apartment would be in order for the amount of time he was gone. He drug himself out of the warmth of his own bed and made his way into the kitchen to get some coffee brewing before he did anything else. He turned around after the coffee started trickling into the pot under it and leaned back into the counter, holding onto the linoleum and closing his eyes. This was crazy. There was no doubt about it. But getting out of his comfort zone was something Castiel was used to at this point. Hopefully, he would be getting a big reward with this.

After the short grounding session to make sure Castiel didn’t freak out immediately, he told his boss what was going to be happening. He would only be gone a few days, he’d give them the names of some other people who could cover for him in his absence, so on and so forth. At this point, Castiel had been going around his house getting the last few things settled and grabbing his bag to move it into the kitchen so he could get out the door as soon as possible.

It was 6 a.m. when Castiel finally got his boss to hang up and he took his coffee to go with his luggage and coat and left his apartment.

-

Why did I do this again?

There were so many people in the airport. So many that Castiel couldn’t walk more than a foot without running into another person. It started to really get to him when he was just getting through security and it was approaching 7:25. He felt like he was in a tin of sardines for how many people were shoving right into him with no room in the airport to actually move around. Castiel fought his way through, thinking how Balthazar definitely didn’t have to deal with this when he flew private. He really wished he could be there now instead of in this shithole of an airport. When Castiel made his way down to his terminal, it was almost time to board. He sighed a breath of relief and sat down for a second, rolling his luggage bag right beside his chair. Castiel slid down in his seat, staring a hole through the ceiling and wondering if this was all actually going to be worth it in the end.

-

On the plane, Castiel was sat next to a priest. They made idle small chat before the plane took off, Castiel talking about his plans and the priest nodding politely along.

“I mean it has been four years so it’s not like I’m exactly rushing anything right now. I hope I’m not boring or bothering you with all of this, I just haven’t had anyone to actually talk to about this yet.” Castiel said, backtracking quickly after he realized he was rambling on.

“Oh, no worries at all. I hope the best for you and your partner.” The older man said and that was the extent to which the conversation carried.

Castiel turned his attention to the in-flight movie and was just getting invested in it when a voice came over the intercom.

“This is your captain speaking, we may be experiencing some light turbulence within the next few minutes.” As soon as his voice stopped speaking over the intercom, the whole plane gave a terrible lurch downwards as they went into an area of extreme turbulence. The plane shook around and moved in ways that couldn’t mean anything good, and everyone in the plane began to panic.

Everything slowed down, people screaming, the plane rocking as a forewarning of what the rest of this trip was about to become. Castiel’s throat started to close, his chest tightening, and his whole body switching into panic mode. There was no way this was happening. The only person who actually knew that he was gone was his boss and he would only realize something had happened after he didn't show up to work on March 2nd.

“I’m getting engaged,” Cas said breathlessly and through clenched teeth. “I’m not going to die, I’m going to get engaged and live a long and happy life.” his hands were gripping the back of the seat and the armrest where he had moved to brace against the side of the plane, half perched on the seat and half sitting on the armrest itself. His knuckles were white from the strength of his grip and Castiel could tell he was going to have a panic attack before the usual signs were even there. One of the flight attendants came over to where Castiel and the priest, Tom, were sitting and tried to direct Castiel to sit back down in his seat.

Castiel looked up at the man, his vision already starting to go into tunnel vision, and somehow said “I- I think I’m having a panic attack,” and after a beat the flight attendant sprung into action, motioning for Castiel to follow him quickly and then bringing him back into the back of the plane where there were no passengers, and it was quieter.

Continue

[thulasibhavani]

Week #9 Update

A lot of interesting things have taken place in this week and I am very eager to share it with all you. I was pretty busy this week trying out new recipes for my business Vegan Foods. Out of the blue, I have been getting few enquiries to provide catering services for small events at home now that festive season is round the corner. This was not something that I had planned for and it got me thinking. To be honest, the items on my menu which mainly focused on breakfast and snack items have not been able to impress many clients the way I had planned and for the past two weeks I have been reworking my menu keeping in mind the customer tastes and preferences.

Providing catering services for small events/parties was something that I had planned as an organic extension to my business. But now looking at the demand and trend, it seems I will have to speed up the process. Now in addition to my original menu, I am also working out the logistics and strategies to provide catering services. I have got a catering order for 20 people for a housewarming ceremony and am currently working on implementing it successfully. I think this way I will be able to cater to a wider market and I am sure that this will help me in building a long-standing relation with customers that will aid in my business growth.

One challenge that I am currently working on is the box in which food is delivered. The packaging doesn’t seem quite right. Based on the feedback that I got for the services and food, it seems that some amount of backtracking and analysis is required. Though the food is tasty, the packaging is not appropriate in the sense that it is not able to retain the heat, making the food dry and cold. So now I am working on changing and revamping the packaging. I had not included this extra expense and so need to work on my budgeting and expenses component.

I have realized that initially when I used to face challenges, it was quite overwhelming as I expected things to go on smoothly and thought that setting up a business is a cake walk. But now it seems that I look out for problems and issues to work on, as I feel that if everything is smooth sailing then probably, something is amiss – that I am on the wrong path and not putting my effort in the right direction. I think that this entrepreneurial journey will get the best out of me and I am hoping to see my dream come into reality in the coming months!!!!

[uxuifromzerotowow]

The 4 Golden Rules of UI Design by Nick Babich

The user interface (UI) is a critical part of any software product. When it’s done well, users don’t even notice it. When it’s done poorly, users can’t get past it to efficiently use a product. To increase the chances of success when creating user interfaces, most designers follow interface design principles. Interface design principles represent high-level concepts that are used to guide software design. In this article, I’ll share a few fundamental principles. These are based on Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for UI Design, Ben Shneiderman’s The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design, and Bruce Tognazzini’s Principles of Interaction Design. Most of the principles are applicable to any interactive systems — traditional GUI environments (such as desktop and mobile apps, websites) and non-GUI interfaces (such as voice-based interaction systems). 

The UI design principals are:

Place users in control of the interface

Make it comfortable to interact with a product

Reduce cognitive load

Make user interfaces consistent

1. Place users in control of the interface

Good UI s instill a sense of control in their users. Keeping users in control makes them comfortable; they will learn quickly and gain a fast sense of mastery.Make actions reversible – be forgivingThis rule means that the user should always be able to quickly backtrack whatever they are doing. This allows users to explore the product without the constant fear of failure — when a user knows that errors can be easily undone, this encourages exploration of unfamiliar options. On the contrary, if a user has to be extremely careful with every action they take, it leads to a slower exploration and nerve-racking experience that no one wants.Perhaps the most common GUIs where users have the ‘Undo/Redo’ option are text and graphics editors. While writing text or creating graphics, ‘Undo’ lets users make changes and go back step-by-step through changes that were made. ‘Redo’ lets users undo the undo, which means that once they go back a few steps, they are able to move forward through their changes again.‘Undo’ can be extremely helpful when users choose system function by mistake. In this case, the undo function serves as an ’emergency exit,’ allowing users to leave the unwanted state. One good example of such emergency exits is Gmail’s notification message with an undo option when users accidentally delete an email.

Create an easy-to-navigate interface

Navigation should always be clear and self-evident. Users should be able to enjoy exploring the interface of any software product. Even complex B2B products full of features shouldn’t intimidate users so that they are afraid to press a button. Good UI puts users in their comfort zone by providing some context of where they are, where they’ve been, and where they can go next:

Provide visual cues. Visual cues serve as reminders for users. Allow users to navigate easily through the interface by providing points of reference as they move through a product interface. Page titles, highlights for currently selected navigation options, and other visual aids give users an immediate view of where they are in the interface. A user should never be wondering, “Where am I?” or “How did I get to this screen?”

Predictability. Users should be provided with cues that help them predict the result of an action. A user should never be wondering, “What do I need to press in order to do my task?” or “What is this button for?”

Provide informative feedback – be acknowledging

Feedback is typically associated with points of action — for every user action, the system should show a meaningful, clear reaction. A system with feedback for every action helps users achieve their goals without friction.

UI design should consider the nature of interaction. For frequent actions, the response can be modest. For example, when users interact with an interactive object (such as a button), it’s essential to provide some indication that an action has been acknowledged. This might be something as simple as a button changing color when pressed (the change notifies the user of the interaction). The lack of such feedback forces users to double-check to see if their intended actions have been performed.

Show the visibility of system status

Users are much more forgiving when they have information about what is going on and are given periodic feedback about the status of the process. Visibility of system status is essential when users initiate an action that takes some time for a computer to complete. Users don’t like to be left seeing nothing on the device screen while the app is supposed to be doing something. The use of progress indicators is one of the subtle aspects of UI design that has a tremendous impact on the comfort and enjoyment of users.

Accommodate users with different skill levels

Users of different skill levels should be able to interact with a product at different levels. Don’t sacrifice expert users for an easy-to-use interface for novice or casual users. Instead, try to design for the needs of a diverse set of users, so it doesn’t matter if your user is an expert or a newbie.

Adding features like tutorials and explanations is extremely helpful for novice users (just make sure that experienced users are able to skip this part).

Once users are familiar with a product, they will look for shortcuts to speed up commonly-used actions. You should provide fast paths for experienced users by enabling them to use shortcuts.

2. Make it comfortable for a user to interact with a product

Eliminate all elements that are not helping your users

Interfaces shouldn’t contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Irrelevant information introduces noise in UI —it competes with the relevant information and diminishes its relative visibility. Simplify interfaces by removing unnecessary elements or content that does not directly support user tasks. Strive to design UI in a way that all information presented on the screen will be valuable and relevant. Examine every element and evaluate it based on the value it delivers to users.

A good example of an app that follows the ‘less is more’ approach by avoiding overloading the interface with content or features is iA Writer.

The interface of iA Writer app is a clean typing sheet with no distractions. It allows users to focus on what they’re writing and hides everything else.

Don’t ask users for data they’ve already entered

Don’t force users to have to repeat data they’ve previously entered. Users are easily annoyed by tedious data-entry sequences, especially when they have provided all the required information before. Good UI performs a maximum of work while requiring a minimum amount of information from users.

Avoid jargon and system-oriented terms

When designing a product, it’s important to use language that is easy to read and understand. The system should speak the user’s language, with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than jargon or system-oriented terms.

Apply Fitts’s Law to interactive elements

Fitts Law states that the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. This means that it’s better to design large targets for important functions (big buttons are easier to interact with).

It’s also important to remember that the time required to acquire multiple targets is the sum of the time to acquire each. Thus, when working on UI design, to increase the efficiency of an interaction, try to not only reduce distances and increase target sizes, but also reduce the total number of targets that users must interact with to complete a given task.

Design accessible interfaces

When we design products it’s important to remember that a well-designed product is accessible to users of all abilities, including those with low vision, blindness, hearing impairments, cognitive impairments, or motor impairments. Good UI is accessible UI because improving your product’s accessibility enhances the usability for all groups of users.

Color is one of the elements of an interface that has a strong impact on accessibility.  People perceive color differently — some users can see a full range of colors, but many people can only make out a limited range of colors. Approximately 10 percent of men and one percent of women have some form of color blindness. When designing interfaces, it’s better to avoid using color as the only way to convey information. Anytime you want color to convey information in the interface, you should use other cues to convey the information to those who cannot see the colors.

Use real-world metaphors

Using metaphors in UI design allows users to create a connection between the real world and digital experiences. Real-world metaphors empower users by allowing them to transfer existing knowledge about how things should look and work. Metaphors are often used to make the unfamiliar familiar. Take the recycle bin on your desktop, which holds deleted files, as an example – it’s not a real trash bin, but it’s visually represented in a way that helps you understand the concept more easily.

Engineer for errors

Errors are inadvertent in the user journey. Bad error handling paired with useless error messages can fill users with frustration and lead them to abandon your app. A well-crafted error message, on the other hand, can turn a moment of frustration into a moment of conversion. An effective error message is a combination of explicit error notification together with hints for solving the problem.

Even better than writing good error messages is having UI design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Try to either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation dialog before they commit to the action. For example, Gmail prompts you when you forget to insert an attachment. 

Protect a user’s work

Ensure that users never lose their work. Users should not lose their work as a result of an error on their side (i.e. accidentally refresh a web page with a form that has user input), a system error, problems with an internet connection, or any other reason other than those that are completely unavoidable, like an unexpected power loss.

3. Reduce cognitive load

Cognitive load is the amount of mental processing power required to use a product. It’s better to avoid making users think/work too hard to use your product.

Chunking for sequences of information or actions

In 1956, psychologist George Miller introduced the world to the theory of chunking. In his works, Miller says the human working memory can handle seven-plus-or-minus two “chunks” of information while we’re processing information.

This rule can be used when organizing and grouping items together. For example, if your UI forces users to enter telephone numbers without normal spacing it can result in a lot of incorrectly-captured phone numbers. People cannot typically scan clusters of ten or more digits to discover errors. That’s exactly why phone numbers are broken up into smaller pieces.

Reduce the number of actions required to complete a task

When designing a user interface, strive to reduce the total number of actions required from a user to achieve the goal. It’s worth remembering the three-click rule, which suggests the user of a product should be able to find any information with no more than three mouse clicks.

Recognition over recall

One of the Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics advises promoting recognition over recall in UI design. Recognizing something is much easier than recalling it because recognition involves more cues in our brain (cues spread activation to related information in memory, and those cues help us remember information).

Designers can promote recognition in user interfaces by making information and functionality visible and easily accessible. Visual aids, such as tooltips and context-sensitive details, also help support users in recognizing information.

Promote visual clarity

Good visual organization improves usability and legibility, allowing users to quickly find the information they are looking for and use the interface more efficiently.

When designing layouts:

Avoid presenting too much information at one time on the screen. This results in visual clutter.

Remember the principle ‘form follows function.’ Make things look like they work.

Apply the general principles of content organization such as grouping similar items together, numbering items, and using headings and prompt text.

4. Make user interfaces consistent

Consistency is an essential property of good UI—consistent design is intuitive design. Consistency is one of the strongest contributors to usability and learnability. The main idea of consistency is the idea of transferable knowledge — let users transfer their knowledge and skills from one part of an app’s UI to another, and from one app to another app.

Visual consistency (style)

Users should never question the integrity of a product. The same colors, fonts, and icons should be present throughout the product. Don’t change visual styles within your product for no apparent reason. For example, a Submit button on one page of your site should look the same on any other page.

Avoid using different styles for elements on different pages of the site. Users should not have to wonder whether a transformed button like this example means the same thing.

Functional consistency (behavior)

Consistency of behavior means the object should work in the same way throughout the interface. The behavior of interface controls, such as buttons and menu items, should not change within a product. Users don’t want surprises or changes in familiar behavior — they become easily frustrated when things don’t work. This can inhibit learning and stop users from feeling confident about consistency in the interface. Do not confuse your user —  keep actions consistent by following “The principle of least surprise,”  to have the interface behave the way users expect it to.

Consistent with user expectations

People have certain expectations about the apps/websites they use. Designing your product in a way that contradicts a user’s expectations is one of the worst things you can do to a user. It doesn’t matter what logical argument you provide for how something should work or look. If users expect it to work/look a different way, you will face a hard time changing those expectations. If your approach offers no clear advantage, go with what your users expect.

Follow platform conventions. Your product should be consistent with standards dictated by platform guidelines. Guidelines ensure that your users can understand individual interface elements in your design.

Don’t reinvent patterns. For most design problems, proper solutions already exist. These solutions are called patterns. Popular patterns become conventions and the majority of users are familiar with them. Not taking this solution into account and continuing to design your own solution can lead to challenges for users. In most cases, breaking design conventions results in a frustrating user experience — you’ll face usability problems not necessarily because your solution will be wrong, but because users won’t be familiar with it.

Don’t try to reinvent terminology. Avoid using new terms when there are words available that users already know. Users spend most of their time in other apps and on other sites, so they have certain expectations about naming. Using different words might confuse them.

Conclusion

The goal for UI designers today is to produce user-friendly interfaces: interfaces that encourage exploration without fear of negative consequences. Without any doubt interfaces of the future will be more intuitive, enticing, predictable, and forgiving, but most principles of UI design listed in this article will surely be applicable to them, too.

Source https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/ui-design/4-golden-rules-ui-design/

[foxymuses]

on the topic of rk900 && his ‘deviancy’

the way that i write rk900 to be is very specific, and it includes a lot, which i will? try to explain? as best i can? please feel free to ask clarifying questions though like i have so much to say about this and im sure i’ll miss something. anyway imma shove this under a cut because i KNOW im about to just fucking go.

so i wanna make it very clear from the get go that 900 is not deviant in the typical fashion. he does not believe that he is a free being with actual emotions and rights to live. there is never a moment where he stops and goes ‘oh shit’ and breaks through that red tape. he never has an ‘i may be deviant’ breakdown. he is not deviant.

however, he is not not-deviant. 

what i mean by this is kind of complicated. let me start with some background into my personal interpretation of the rk900 series in general. they are a series designed for warfare -- the majority of them have been shipped overseas with soldiers to act as a variety of things: weapons, infiltration, an inhuman line of defense to protect the human soldiers --- like. they were specifically designed to be killers, to be dangerous, to be pretty damn hard to stop. they are essentially top of the line terminators -- are they entirely legal? ehhhhhh. but they let the government get away with things that might either kill their human soldiers or are of questionable ethic that they can just.... decommission the android afterwards. that’s their main function, the main reason they exist. 

this is crucial, and i will explain more on it in a moment, but for the rest of this meta i’m going to be using rk900 to talk of the general model series, and 900 to speak specifically to mine (and, in a lesser way, the fandom one in general, though this should go without saying i don’t intend to infringe upon other personal headcanons of rk900 writers)

connor was the rk ‘law enforcement’ prototype, but he also functioned mainly as a playing piece in an android revolution that, let’s face it, cyberlife saw coming a mile away. cyberlife wanted a say. they wanted to have a semblance of control over how to twist the uprising in a way that benefit them. given 900 comes about in a world where the revolution was quelled, cyberlife basically achieved their goal (i’ll touch upon my meta of my machine connor and this in another post). 

the reason this is important is because 900 was implanted with the majority of observations and experiences that connor had. things he learned about humanity, how to mimic it, how to manipulate it, how to use it. things like the events of the revolution in the order they happened, what it was like to be a detective with the dpd, literally like. all the things that connor went through or observed or scanned or downloaded or learned -- these were uploaded into 900.

now, his memories weren’t necessarily input into 900 -- that is, 900 doesn’t have any first hand accounts of most things (from petting sumo all the way to connor ending the revolution). so even if he has an understanding of what being on a case is like, he doesn’t have connor’s exact memories of doing it. it’s more like all of these things have been converted into data for him to retrieve -- it’s been shifted into facts, statements, articles, serving more as.... general history knowledge? like that stuff everyone just knows for some reason? 

but it’s more in depth than that because, yknow, they intended for 900 to be top of the line (yes, 900, not rk900). so all this information from connor was used to boost the insanely vast amounts of knowledge that they input into 900 to begin with -- it was used as contextual information, filler information, you get me? because the main thing that differed between connor and 900 is that 900 was given all the knowledge he needed before he was released, where as connor was expected to observe and adapt. cyberlife took connor’s methods of observing and interacting and adapting to humanity and refined it so that 900 already had that information.

so when 900 was officially done, he had basically anything he might need to know in his software already. he didn’t need to learn anything. 

so let me backtrack a little bit into why i say 900 gets these things and not all the rk900s. 

like i said before, the rk900s were built for warfare. 900 was not. i mean, yes, his model and abilities are all the same, he is still an rk900 model. but he was not built to go to war. the 900 that connor meets in the zen garden is the same 900 i write. that particular rk900 model, 900, was specifically designed to replace connor. the others were mass produced for their purpose as war based androids. but 900 was made to work for the DPD, to sort of take connor’s place, in part because it gives them access to local law, but also because they want to monitor the place where connor was assigned. 

so because of this 900 does not have a purpose. 

he was not developed with any specific goal or mission or duty aside from ‘work with the dpd’, so he doesn’t have the same goal set that the rk900 models are programmed with. cyberlife essentially input all this data into 900, and then didn’t tell him what to do with it aside from ‘just go to this location’ which means that 900 had to figure it out for himself.

this is where cyberlife fucked up big time.

the other rk900 models are designed to be perfect soldiers -- deviancy was basically coded out of them based on connor’s experience (whether or not he went deviant, it was in his code). thats not to say that they can never go deviant, its just to say it would be really fucking hard to make them do that. 

since 900 has none of that, he is inherently different from the rk900 model. when you make an android without a purpose, you have basically created a deviant android from the get go. 900 is more or less his own model, in which there is only one 900, and by default, he works for the Detroit Police Department.

now, generally, this means he’s paired with gavin (gotta live up to that delicious ship, honestly) so a lot of my following nonsense is stemmed from that but the point is that, he gets to decide what his goal is whenever he wants, so it can change, and it does change, and the choice is entirely his own. by all intents and purposes, cyberlife inadvertently created an android with honest to god free will.

so where does this leave us with deviancy? because i can hear ya’ll but fox, you said he wasn’t deviant and now you’re saying he is which is it?

here’s what makes 900, well, 900. as part of the fact that he is so incredibly self-aware, he knows he’s a machine. he accepts he’s a machine. there isn’t any like -- ‘i’m a machine’ with a touch of sadness or regret. he doesn’t wish to be human -- he has no desire to feel or experience human things, or do whatever deviant androids wanted. he doesn’t care about that. it doesn’t interest him in the slightest. and this isn’t because he doesn’t know about feelings or that “how could he know if he doesn’t want them if he hasn’t experienced them” because it’s not like that. 900 has an incredible sense of what things are, what they’d be like -- he got all of this from connor, remember. so 900 isn’t inherently interested in being anything other than a machine, and he holds no misunderstandings about what being a machine entails either.

does that make sense? hold on let me try it this way. because cyberlife tried so hard to make sure that 900′s software had everything, they created an incredibly self-aware android that doesn’t seek humanity because of how well they understand life. 900 doesn’t like or dislike being an android -- he just is. he recognizes that. wanting to be something else doesn’t... compute because it just doesn’t make sense. like why would he want to be human when he’s not? when he can be better and do more? like i can’t even say he’s happy about it because he doesn’t (at first) associate chemical reactions in his system with being emotions because they aren’t. it’s all synthetic.

he is perhaps the most alive an android can get without being alive, honestly.

900 decides that, upon being assigned to work with gavin, that gavin is technically his mission now. as a partner to a detective, but as a partner that is stronger, faster, and can withstand immense damage, he essentially positions himself as a bodyguard for the human. the problem here is that, due to his awareness, his approach to this is.... unorthodox.

900 will let gavin throw a punch at someone who can and will definitely hit back, but he’ll stop gavin from walking into an ambush. he might get gavin a coffee one day without being asked, but then throw the coffee at him the next day when gavin demands one. he has a habit of making sly comments and is known to push buttons and see what he can get away with, testing limits and constantly pressing against the boundaries of what he can do before someone snaps, and then sees if he can go just a little farther. 

900 is very much his own person. he belongs to neither cyberlife nor DPD. he does what he wants when he wants it and how he wants it, and he can, at times, appear very human (albeit one that is obnoxious and at times infuriating). however 900 never lets it be forgotten that he is a machine. he can crush every bone in your body one by one while you’re helpless to it. he can have expressions that are near-humanlike : amused, angry, exasperated. but he will go from lightly smiling to fucking cold eyes and danger just radiating off of him to the point people will actually feel the room lower a few degrees

900 knows he’s a machine. if you even for a moment forget, he will remind you. he has unethically tortured suspects for information, they purposely don’t give 900 a gun at the start because he would get bored and simply shoot whoever they’re investigating and apologize later. he has no qualms about killing, about breaking laws or faces, about doing things the way that he feels like doing them, with or without anyone approving. and if anyone thinks they can stop him, they’re just. good fucking luck.

but the reason he doesn’t do any of this is because he is self-aware enough to know there’s no fucking point to it. his mission is, as he decides, “protect gavin reed” and he will do what it takes for that, which may include punching a suspect or stealing evidence or something, he doesn’t care, but if it serves no true purpose in what 900 is doing, then he consciously decides he’s not going to just.. do it. but the thing is that at any moment he could decide to change his mind. and that’s what makes him so terrifying. he is literally unpredictable.

i ... okay i think that’s what i wanted to say? just as like some added notes, but with gavin, 900 does become.... hmm... softer? he doesn’t soften but he basically claims gavin as his own, like he is assigned to be gavin’s partner but it becomes literally almost a possessive thing. 900 makes gavin his mission, and if anyone gets in the way, they’re fucked. but by attaching himself to a human, he opens himself up to the softer side of being human, so 900 never truly ‘becomes deviant’ because there is never, as i said, a moment where he’s got a red wall that says this isn’t protocol becaaaause he doesn’t have protocol. so there’s never a chance for him to break through it. but he takes care of his partner, makes sure gavin is eating well and sleeping well, makes sure he’s more or less safe, is always in tuned to where gavin is and what gavin is doing, will step in at a moment’s notice if he feels the need. 

it becomes way more.... well, more, if this is a ship with a gavin, but regardless, 900 will have a gentler approach to his interactions with the human he has claimed that will be noticeable. softer tones, less cold eyes, more considerate touches. he’ll listen to gavin (may not always follow directions, but he listens), he’ll defend gavin’s actions, he’ll get angry if something happens to gavin. 900 never explicitly goes deviant, and he never fully accepts that what he feels is.... a real feeling? because he does not fully believe that androids can experience true emotion, so even if he does get angry, or he does feel amused or happy or whatever, it’s based on an extensively coded software that has made him so perfectly able to mimic humanity that it’s basically indecipherable. yes, he cares about gavin in most cases. yes he can feel panic or worry if something happens. but in general, no. he will not feel fear, he is not concerned with death, he can’t experience pain... so.

a last note is that like. this is the reason that he goes by 900. gavin typically calls him ‘nines’ which is only allowed for gavin. but a name is a human thing, and 900 is not and has no desire to be, so he just uses 900. most other people in the DPD also just use 900, sometimes they’ll call him rk which he’s okay with but it’s not his preference. he would’ve allowed gavin to name him if he wanted to but gavin didn’t, so that’s why when gavin begins using nines, that’s what 900 assumes as a name. 900 is comfortable to him, it’s who he is, and he doesn’t desire more than that. 

alright i’m. i’m probably gonna start getting repetitive soon, and a lot of the rest of the emotional aspect is based on 900 being involved with gavin, and thats case by case so it’s can be subject to change, and this post is meant to serve as a general basis for my portrayal of 900. 

[chicgeekgirl89]

The Shituation: Chapter 2

Fandom: SEAL Team

Characters: Lisa Davis, Sonny Quinn, Jason Hayes, Clay Spenser, Eric Blackburn, Trent Sawyer, Brock Reynolds, Ray Perry, Cerberus

Read Chapter 1 Here

Shituation: A situation that is already very bad and then goes to shit.

Lisa was trained for combat but that didn’t mean she was enjoying fighting for her life. Ray and Clay had sandwiched her between them as they took up sniper positions on an outcropping of rock above the rest of the team. “All right Davis?” Ray yelled over the sound of gunfire.

“Yeah!” she yelled back.

“You picked a great day to join up,” Clay managed in between shots. “Get a taste of what it’s really like to be a SEAL.”

“I think I prefer sitting on the other side of things,” she said.

He just grinned and kept on shooting. 

How on earth they could stay so calm with all this chaos going on she would never know. She was no shrinking violet but this kind of combat was a little outside her comfort zone. There was a rock digging into her thigh and her neck was starting to cramp. She could feel sweat dripping down her back and her heart was pounding so hard it was almost painful.

“Clay, ten o’clock,” Ray said and Lisa watched as the youngest team member easily took out a man who was at least a football field away. Damn. Her boys were seriously lethal.

“Bravo Two, how you doing up there?” Sonny asked over the comms.

Ray let off a burst of gunfire, clearing Sonny and Brock’s way to the cave mouth. “What the hell would they do without us?” Clay asked.

Lisa rolled her eyes. Lethal and unbelievably cocky. “They’re all inside,” Ray said. “Get ready to move out, Jay’ll be calling any second.”

“Good thing you’re out here with us. This is where the party is,” Clay said.

“Remind me never to go to a party at your place!” Lisa yelled, ducking down as another round of fire flew over their heads.

“Bravo Two, Bravo Six, get down here,” Jason ordered.

Lisa assumed she was included in that summons too. “I’ll take point,” Ray said. He looked at Lisa. “Stay between us. Keep moving.”

She took a breath and gritted her teeth before giving him a nod. 

They moved fast, which was no easy feat on the steep slope. She tried to keep herself upright but it was difficult in the loose shale and dirt. Falling would only cause them more problems and she would not be the weak link in all of this, so she did her best to keep from tumbling down the hillside.

“Down!” Clay pushed her to the ground as something exploded nearby.

Dust and rock skittered over them, and she tasted dirt in her mouth, and then Ray pulled her to her feet, continuing their descent. They only made it a few more feet before she felt as much as heard Clay go down behind her. When she turned back it was to find him face down on the ground. “Ray!” she grabbed his arm to get his attention.

He turned around and immediately began backtracking, slipping in the dirt in his haste. “Fuck! Clay!”

They rolled him over and his face was screwed up in pain. “I’m all right,” he gasped. “Just got me in the thigh. It’s not bad.”

There was no way Clay was getting up without help and Ray was clearly trying to figure out how to carry his brother and keep them all safe at the same time. Lisa wasn’t going to be any help to Clay. He was twice her size and weighed about three time as much. But she could shoot. She reached down without a second thought and picked up Clay’s rifle. “I got it,” she said.

“Davis—“ Ray looked hesitant but they definitely didn’t have time for any kind of argument.

“I said I’ve got it,” she told him firmly. “Go!”

Ray pulled a groaning Clay to his feet and they ran as best they could down the hillside, Lisa pausing only long enough to offer the occasional burst of fire as cover.

She’d never quite know how they made it to the mouth of the cave without dying. It definitely had nothing to do with her abilities and probably everything to do with some kind of miracle. But the next thing she new there they were, inside, the rest of the team crowding around them. Sonny took the rifle from her hands and she realized they were shaking. She resisted the urge to shove them in her pockets.

She could feel Sonny’s eyes on her, but she refused to look up, because if she did, there was a good chance she was going to lose it and they couldn’t afford that right now. Today she was Bravo Seven. She needed to act like it.

She went to her knees beside Trent who was ripping open Clay’s pants. “Whoa, buy me dinner first,” Clay said, managing a smile despite the pain.

“Shut up,” Trent said as he cut through the fabric.

“What do you need?” Lisa asked.

“Hand me that gauze,” Trent said and Lisa moved to do what he’d asked even as she felt a cold wave of shock at the amount of blood Clay had already lost in only a few minutes. She couldn’t help but feel partially responsible. If he hadn’t been so busy protecting her he might have had a better chance of making it here unscathed.

“You hurt anywhere else?” Trent asked.

Clay shook his head. “It’s not that bad. Shit!” he exclaimed, letting his head fall back to the floor, breathing fast as Trent poured antiseptic over it.

“Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that. Another roll,” Trent said tersely and Lisa handed it over.

It took several minutes and a couple years off Lisa’s life until they got the bleeding to slow down. “Trent?” Jason asked when they finally had a second to breathe.

“Bleeding’s slowed a little. Bullet’s still in there. I gave him a blood transfusion and the morphine’ll hold his pain in check for now,” Trent said.

“Davis, you all right?” Jason asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded, trying to look calm. “I’m good.”

“She’s better than good,” Clay said, propping himself up on his elbows so he could see them all. “She was badass out there. Saved all three of us.”

“Don’t say that too loudly, Jay’ll have you replaced Clay,” Sonny said.

“I barely did anything,” Lisa said, a surge of pride running through her. It felt good to get praise from them for holding her own in such a dicey situation. 

Ray put a hand on her shoulder. “You did great.”

“Thanks.” She looked at Jason. “What’s the situation at TOC?”

“They’re on it. Although without you there it’ll probably take twice as long,” Jason said.

It was sweet the way they thought she was some kind of miracle worker. If they only knew how many times the save had come at the last second and been more of a luck thing than her actual capabilities they’d probably have ditched her for someone else a long time ago. 

“Here.” Sonny held out a water bottle. “You need to stay hydrated.”

“Thanks.” She stood and took it from him. That was when she realized her hands were covered in Clay’s blood. She swallowed hard. She’d seen the guys hurt before, had sat by their hospital beds, made them meals, helped get them back on their feet, but to watch the events that put them there happen in real time was chilling.

“You all right?” Sonny asked, lowering his voice a bit.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat and tried to make that statement true as she wiped her hands on her pants. “Not a typical day at the office but what’s life without a little near death experience every once in a while?”

“There ya go!” he said with a grin. “Think positive. Little adventure is good for you.”

“Yeah I’m not sure I’d call this a ‘little’ adventure.” Her eyes wandered back to Clay who was now sitting up and eating a protein bar, sharing bits with Cerb when Brock wasn’t watching.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Sonny said. “We’ve been through worse than one little bullet hole.”

“Right.” She nodded. “I know.”

He stepped in front of her, his face more serious. “You’re going to be all right too. We’re going to get out of here.”

There was a lump in her throat as she looked at him, his face showing that he was telling her the truth. She could trust him, all of them, to get her home safely. She believed him, but it didn’t stop the panic that was clawing at her insides while she tried valiantly to keep it there. “You’re going to owe me a lot of beer,” she said.

He grinned. “Done.”

“Stop feeding him,” Brock grunted, having finally noticing what Clay was up to.

“He likes it,” Clay protested.

“Not part of his diet,” Brock replied, pulling the dog away from Clay’s side.

“Bravo One, how do you read?” Eric asked over the comms.

“Read you loud and clear, what’s the plan?”

“Still working on it. Looks like a third party has shown up, distracting your rebels for now.”

“Can we sneak out while they’re distracted?”

“Negative Bravo One. The two parties are on either side of where you’re holed up. We’re working on an exit strategy. Standby.”

“Roger that.”

That explained why no one had come busting in the door after them yet. Apparently they were going to be here a while.

“Gentlemen,” Sonny nodded at Lisa, “and lady. What we have here is a shituation.”

“Oh god.”

“Really Sonny?”

“Seriously?”

All the guys groaned while Lisa tried not to smile. Leave it to Sonny to feel like he had to lighten the mood.

Clay grinned. “All right, I’ll bite. What’s a shituation Sonny?”

Sonny pointed at him. “That’s why you’re my favorite Taylor Swift.” He cleared his throat, making sure he had the full attention of his audience. “A shituation is when you’re in a situation already and then it goes to shit. Hence a shituation. We got a flat tire: situation. We got pinned down by fucking rebels: shituation.” 

“Why don’t you shit your ass down and check how much ammo you have left?” Ray said making them all chuckle.

“Tough crowd,” Sonny grumbled, but he winked at Lisa as he went to do what Ray had told him to.

Lisa shook her head. Only Sonny. Even in a complete and total disaster, he was keeping the guys upbeat. 

They had about three seconds of warning before everything went to hell.

[firebirdsdaughter]

This is still ‘soon’…

… Right?

So! Let’s look at subbed Ryusoulger nigh immediately after raw Ryusoulger.

… Huh. I’m not sure about that sentence.

So, I got into one of my theory rambles at the end of this. In case anyone wants to just skip to the end and avoid the nonsensical bullet points. XD

In no order:

I love the angsty edgy bros w/ my whole heart and no one can stop me.

Touwa definitely sounds a little… I dunno, wistful? I really think he is lonely, and too read too much between the lines, this sort of seems to me like he may not know about the betrayal thing. I guess it just kind of seemed like there was an edge of questioning about it? Like he’s bringing up the topic of ‘friends’ in an effort to probe his brother’s reasons for being so against it? … Probably overthinking it.

Kou inconveniently makes a noise before I can learn anything about Banba’s opinion on the word ‘friends.’ Damnit, Kou. If you weren’t so cute…

He’s so happy, gods love him. Banba just stares incredulously at him, but Touwa rolls his eyes. Definitely the more expressive of the two. ^^

Banba does let Kou back up quite promptly, though. He may not trust people or want to work w/ them, but he’s not outright hostile, at least.

Important facts: Melto now gets to eat a banana w/out having to worry about being incriminated.

Kou just takes things, does he. XD There’s his mischievous side. ^^ Though I guess he did have a reason, and it was a clever tactic to get the other two’s attention.

Banba is somewhere offscreen like ‘damnit, Touwa, don’t make promises I don’t want to keep!’

Kou’s awkward ‘wait, this isn’t mine…’ moment when Touwa says he’d have to give them the map. XD

Okay. I love all these kids, and they’re all doing great. But what gets me in the opening shot of all of them screaming is that Tatsuya, Ichika, and Tsuna are all just going for it w/ the tragic drama, while Yuito and Hayate… Maybe it’s bc there’s no other context but they both kinda look like they’re almost smiling to me? Weird, I know. And probably just me.

And the problem children are officially at it. XD Drama babies.

I still don’t understand why the hell Touwa knows about that. Have you been hanging out w/ business men? Does Kou even know, for that matter?

I love Kou being super impressed until Touwa claims he won. It’s so adorable. ‘Wow, you’re actually really good––no, wait!’

Ah, Touwa acts all indifferent, but I think he’s definitely enjoying this. Kinda seemed like he suddenly realised he was having fun and immediately tried to backtrack. Like, really, when was the last time he got to behave like a kid? Like, we know Banba loves him, and I’m sure they played as children, but it’s a little different––probably esp after Banba started shutting himself off, depending on when that happened. Gah. It’s hard to explain. Like, why there’s the whole thing about how it’s good for children to play w/ kids their own age, and stuff like that.

They both keep doing the same thing. XD You boys are so similar. ^^ … Banba is going to kill you both.

The little green dancing knights and the little black dancing knights overlapped and it’s CUTE.

I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE FULL TEAM ROLLCALL I WILL CRY.

Poor Kou get’s interrupted on his announcement speech.

No, Kreuon, they don’t.

These two are gonna find ways to turn everything into competitions, aren’t they.

DORKS.

Aw, don’t worry, Touwa. He meant both of you.

Still a cool reveal shot. Also, damn, Banba got there fast. Does he have a ‘someone just pushed my brother in a fountain’ radar or something?

Actually, he probably does have a ‘brother in trouble’ radar.

Banba officially becomes the second person to actually formally trade blows w/ Tankjoh. And the last time, when Kou did it, he was riding adrenaline and rage from Master Red’s death. This is really cool.

Like, he was able to activate KataSoul in perfect timing to not get untransformed by the purple glowy slash. And it didn’t even really knock him back––he does a bloody flip and leaps clear. And while he’s a bit out of breath from it, he doesn’t seem that worse for wear. That was impressive! Even Tankjoh was kind of impressed!

XD These two dorks. Definitely already got the bickering down. ^^

‘Oops. Nii-san’s pissed.’ I love how even Kou is awkwardly looking down. XD

I love how it looks like this woman just carefully placed her purse down before falling unconscious.

Ah, yes. The universal Toku Hospital. Pretty sure this is where Geiz and Tsukuyomi took Sougo during the Ghost arc.

How… How would you tell if that was the Minusaur host. Like. Is it it just based on the toy gun? I’m beginning to wonder if Banba was just staring at Kou when he asked about killing the kid bc he could believe Kou was dumb enough to think he’d do that before being sure.

Or just for thinking that he’d do that already. It’s not like they want to kill people, they just think they’d have to.

Like, they’ve––well, definitely Banba, I think Touwa might have some left––lost all optimism. I don’t think Banba believes in the ‘power of hope and determination’ at this point. Boy needs to relearn his Sentai tropes. ^^ I mean, he’s definitely shut off most of his empathy. Like I know I’ve said before, and I’m so annoying I’ll say it again, I think he had the opposite reaction to trauma that the trio did. They choose to find hope and carry on in the memory of their Masters, and try to find happiness to help counteract the sorrow––whereas Banba seems to have reacted by deciding he’ll stop the pain by just feeling and connecting as little as possible. If that made any sense.

Banba says nothing, and he’s really stoic, but I think he’s also uncomfortable w/ that concept. Esp since it still seems like he raised his brother, I highly doubt he could actually harm a child w/out thinking of Touwa.

When did Kou stuff that down his shirt? And how did it stay there?

I love how Melto immediately chastises Kou for taking things. XD Definitely the mom friend.

Kou just looks confused.

Maybe I’m totally overreading Banba’s reaction to Melto suggesting they split up? But it’s the sort of thing that could very well be related to a betrayal, no? I dunno. Maybe he really was just looking for an opportunity to make someone else deal w/ Kou and Touwa’s competition.

Apparently, Asuna can’t read a map.

Oh, and don’t worry about him, dear. He’s just like that. I promise you, he’ll open up eventually.

Love how he’s very purposefully walking a certain amount of feet away from her.

Okay, but  the fact that TigerLance and MirNeedle really are stuck in their temple means so much to me. I can’t believe my goofy, über-tired joke theory came true.

I love how we’re all including each other in calls now. Like, before Asuna just called Kou. But apparently we all, I dunno, exchanged numbers? Is it possible to only call one person, or are they now just stuck on conference for life?

Banba will hate that if it’s true.

Touwa is vaguely concerned, aw. I really think he’s been a little lonely, what w/ Banba just having lost all faith in the rest of the world, so to speak, while he didn’t have the same experience; so the trio are growing on him faster, and he’s a little more open to the chance of connecting w/ others.

Also, the fact that Banba was the one to associate the Minusaur’s behaviour w/ an adult playing w/ a child. He seems like the last person that would be able to make that connection, but he’s also the one that we can confirm to actually have potentially interacted w/ a child in that way.

But even if I’m wondering if I’m overthinking Banba’s reaction to the splitting up suggestion, I really don’t think I’m overthinking Touwa’s reaction to the reveal about what created the Minusaur. It seems to have hit a nerve, and I think we can now be pretty certain that the boys have (presumably, though I guess it could have been their mother) dad issues of some kind. But… Well, I’ll get more into those ideas a little further down. See, there was this idea I had… I’ll get to it at the end.

I don’t think it’s that strange for Touwa to intercede. He has an idea to beat the Minusaur w/out killing anyone. The brothers don’t actually want to kill anyone. They just thought they’d have to if they couldn’t stop the monster in time.

Though I do definitely think there’s also something personal going on.

Cuties.

Banba’s comment, not only sets up his motivations for next episode, and make sit double clear how much Touwa means to him, but also reenforces my suspicion that the brothers have dad issues.

I love MirNeedle and his weird steamboat sound.

Also Banba almost smiling and kind of teasing his brother. ^^ Even more cuteness.

I love how the touching moment where Touwa admits that he’s kind of gotten fond of these fools is promptly followed by evidence of their utter incompetence and goofy melodrama. XD

Really excited for next week. XD I mean, it was already highly likely that they way they’d get Banba to start at least working w/ the team would be through Touwa, since Touwa is the only person he’s able to trust right now, but I’m excited for how they’re doing it. Usually stoic big siblings being distressed and frantic over injured little siblings is one of my jams. ^^

Seems like Tanjkoh is deliberately goading Kou, and it turns out to be a setup of some kind. Touwa ends up getting bitten by the Cerberus-based Minusaur, which seems to be some sort of rabid dog/werewolf type thing where the bite does something. And, naturally, Banba freaks out. Presumably after they get him calmed down enough to actually go after the Minusaur rather than just stabbing the nice animal lady (emotional Banba is not gonna be rational Banba), he eventually agrees to work w/ them in order to save his brother.

According to the website, his relationship w/ Kou also changes? So we’re starting the adoption process, I think. XD

Aaaah. While I do love the little Kishiryu running about on the book, I also would’ve loved if they’d done like LuPat where the preview kinda continued under the sponsor stuff, so we got to see a little more of the next ep. Mainly bc I am a big impatient baby. XD

That’s all folks! White chocolate rubber duck for anyone who read all that (go on, eat all of it, I dare you).

Anyway, onto that theory I promised to get to. So, when things were first getting revealed, and it turned out that Green and Black were brothers and we learned about Gaisorg/Gaisoulg, and how those three would be appearing in Strongest Battle, I had a thought that maybe Gaisorg was their father, who was either getting controlled by the Druidon (like Wolzard) or had gone evil for power, or something (like Ikkou and Isshu’s father). When it turned out that it was the armour, and esp when the brothers didn’t seem to recognise it, I pretty much ditched the idea. However. There have been developments. Someone picked up and took Gaisorg’s helmet away at the end of Strongets Battle. They’ve stated that Banba was betrayed in the past. This most recent ep indicated that Banba and Touwa have some kind of father issues––namely, that their father was likely rarely around, esp for Touwa. Banba’s line to the father about how there’s nothing more precious in the world than family. So now I’m wondering. Was their father the one who betrayed him/them? Maybe he wasn’t around bc he got obsessed w/ being stronger? Or maybe he betrayed them early, and Banba made the call to get away from him? Banba coming out of his usual stoicism to inform someone of the importance of family could just indicate he’s dealt w/ someone who failed in that regard, possibly in almost exactly the same way. A father who put duty (or maybe just plain power) before his children. Could also explain Banba’s desire to prove his own strength, prove he’s better than their father. And while he’s obsessively devoted to the mission (possibly after seeing his father lose sight of it?), it’s certain he would never put it above Touwa. His arc could partially be not just learning how to trust again and finding friends/a new family, but also getting away from their father in his own way.

Alternatively, I’m riding the high of the fact that my goofy ‘what if TigerLance and MirNeedle are trapped’ theory, and I’m running my mouth. But it does smack of a rather stock Sentai/Toku style, though in those the fathers usually turn out to be under the control of the bad guys, or it’s some sort of secret plan. But maybe we are pulling a KR here, and dad’s just plain a dickwad. Might be interesting.

[anamericaninserbia-blog]

Day 87

This weekend is the trip that I have been most anticipating all semester--Athens! I have been dreaming of going to Athens for most of my life, and have been obsessed with Greece since I went to my first Greenville Greek Festival. I knew I had to visit the real thing and experience it for myself. We flew out on Friday afternoon and experienced my first direct flight within Europe, which was so nice. We flew through Olympic Air and boarded a tiny plane with about 20-30 people. I slept through most of the flight but woke up just in time to see us flying over islands, and it got me so excited for the trip. 

We decided to treat ourselves to an apartment rather than a hostel since we would be spending more than just a weekend in Athens. The apartment is beautiful, with a balcony that looks directly onto the street. We decided to relax at the apartment for a bit before heading out for dinner. We failed to account for how deserted the city would be due to the Easter holiday and had to walk pretty far to find open restaurants. We didn’t get to see the best parts of the city on this walk, and it was pretty dark, so it wasn’t the best first impression.

This morning we scheduled a walking tour of the city and met with our group in front of the Academy of Athens. Although the building looks very old-fashioned and majestic, I was a bit disappointed to find out that the building was actually built in the 1900s, but it still embodied my idea of Athens and looked really cool in pictures. Our tour started at noon and I realized as soon as we got to the meeting point that it was going to be a lot warmer than we were used to in Belgrade. I was already sweating, and we hadn’t even started the tour yet. We took some pictures of the Academy before starting the tour. The path to the entrance was lined with olive trees that I’m sure would’ve been beautiful had the Greeks not decided to chop all the branches off.

We saw many things on the two-hour tour, including the Parliament, Royal Gardens, Olympic Stadium, and the Temple of Zeus. My favorite stop was the Royal Gardens, which were huge and so beautiful. We spend a good amount of time strolling around and taking pictures of the greenery. A fun fact that I learned about the gardens is that the Greeks had palm trees imported from Washington state and placed them alongside the pathways in the gardens. I didn’t even know Washington had palm trees.

We were exhausted by the end of the tour. Our guide dropped us off near the Acropolis, but we didn’t have time to see it before it closed. So we explored the Plakas District, which is a nice walking area full of stores and restaurants. We decided on a place for lunch and I ordered a chicken gyro, attempting to get the full Greek experience. However, we must have chosen an upscale, more hipster restaurant, because I was given a plate with fries, chicken, and a few spiced slices of pita bread. The really authentic gyros are more likely to be found in the streets of Athens, although I have yet to find a good place. The food was very good, but I was disappointed by the gyro. 

We also discovered that Greek Coca-Cola is very different from Serbian Coca-Cola. I found the taste to be a lot herbier, and the aftertaste was very strange. After tasting Coke in every country that I’ve visited, I feel like I’ve become a sort of international connoisseur of Coca-Cola. I’ve found that Serbian Coke is te best, but that’s probably because Serbia is our home base so I get it the most often. 

We made very (overly) ambitious to climb Philopappou Hill, one of the many hills around Athens. We were recommended the hill by our tour guide, who suggested that we go there to get an incredible panoramic view of the city. The hill also had a few landmarks that we wanted to see, so I pulled out my handy Google Maps app and attempted to navigate us through the city and up the hill. The problem with using Google Maps offline is that it tends to struggle with finding your exact location and determining which direction you’re going in. So we happened to get lost a couple of times, and one of the landmarks was actually closed. At one point, we ended up on top of a cliff while my map insisted that we were at the Prison of Socrates. Turns out, we were standing on top of the prison and had to completely backtrack to get to it. Our extended walk gave us a few beautiful views of Athens, though, so it wasn’t for nothing.

I had to rely on Google Maps once again to take us back to the apartment and it decided to give us a detour through the ethnic neighborhoods of Athens. After spending the day learning about a ton of white dudes and (generally) white deities, it was a bit shocking to see so much diversity on one street. There were dozens of markets, shops, and salons run by and for all the ethnicities that call this part of the city their home. I thought it was cool to see a side of Athens that the tours don’t show you; it makes everything seem so much more real.

[delhi-architect2]

Journal - An Architect’s Guide to Building Codes: 7 Steps to a Safer Design

Mike LaValley is the architect, speaker, and writer behind Evolving Architect. For more creative and nerdy insights, follow him on Instagram or check out his upcoming book.

Building Codes. Why did it have to be Building Codes?

At first glance, they sound a little bit boring, a little bit real, and a little bit scary.

Any architect who doesn’t respect Building Codes is probably not doing their job.

So what are Building Codes exactly? And why do we need to make sure that we understand them as architects? Because trust me, you do.

They may seem like something to gloss over when you’re trying to make your next design masterpiece, but Building Codes protect those who use the buildings you design.

Building Codes 101

While there may have been ramifications for poor construction, construction hazards, and construction mishaps in the past, it wasn’t until the 1800s when the first Building Codes were established. As industry and technology continued to thrive, the potential for new hazards such as sweeping fires became far more common.

And so, at the most fundamental level, Building Codes were established in order to protect the Health, Safety, and Welfare of society.

Jurisdictions

Originally, the Building Codes weren’t very pretty. In fact, when Building Codes were first established, they varied greatly and held much different priorities from one another. Over time, Model Building Codes were been developed by regularly iterating upon them and a continued collaboration of professionals across the globe.

Today, you’re far more likely to come across a situation that is treated in a familiar way between states because of the adoption of the International Building Code. Even so, most States adopt the larger Building Codes such as the IBC and make modifications to it based on their specific political and regional priorities. For example, California is more likely to strengthen Building Codes related to earthquakes and seismic activity than a state like Vermont.

As an architect, it’s an inherent responsibility to identify what Code applies to your project and who is the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). The AHJ will have the final interpretation on the Building Code for your project and will be able to enforce the Code in kind.

Navigating the Building Codes

Each and every time I sit down to perform a Code Review, I know the review will be unique to that particular project. It’s something that you realize very quickly – No Code Review is ever the same.

When I start looking at the Code, I go through a series of basic steps to help guide the types of major information I need to document and confirm. Skipping steps is not advised. It can lead to backtracking later, missing critical information to assist in design, and possibly the need to change conditions during construction for a much higher cost in order to meet key Code requirements.

The Steps:

Occupancy Classification

Sprinkler Systems

Construction Type

Allowable Floor Area

Building Height and Number of Stories

Location on Property

Means of Egress

Step 1 – Occupancy Classification

The first thing you need to know about a given project is what the project will be used for. It sounds simple, right? But do you know what the difference between an S-1 and S-3 Occupancy Classification is? Do you know when to classify an educational project as a Business (B) Occupancy over an Educational (E) Occupancy?

I’m not saying that you should be able to rattle off the answers to the above questions from the top of your head. The point is that you should check to see if the project requires an Occupancy type regardless if you’ve done a hundred projects before just like it.

I’ve performed many Code Reviews in my career to date, and I was caught off guard when an Occupancy that I had assumed for a project was completely different because of one difference from previous projects I had worked on.

As a good friend always reminds me, “Don’t Assume, you’ll just make an ‘Ass’ out of ‘You’ and ‘Me.’” Lame, I know. But it’s effective. In some ways, the Occupancy Classification dictates everything. Youíll treat every move you make differently based on what types of activities will take place throughout the project.

Just think about it. A hospital has so many different needs than an industrial factory. A school uses different programs compared with a big box retailer. There are different levels of hazards at each. Some are less hazardous than others. Some are more dangerous and have to be dealt with appropriately.

As such, Occupancy is the key to determining almost every other piece of information in the Code Review.

Step 2: Sprinkler Systems

I’m not a plumber and I don’t imagine I’ll ever be one. But damn if I don’t appreciate how much easier a good sprinkler system makes my life as an architect. Anyone who has ever done a Code Review will tell you the same thing. Sprinkler systems, while not always required per Code, will almost always reduce the construction restrictions and requirements for the rest of your project.

The Building Code is primarily concerned with safely protecting the users of a building. It’s also concerned with protecting property. Even without specific requirements for them, Insurance Companies will often lower an owner’s insurance rates if the project incorporates sprinkler systems.

Let’s make no mistake here: Sprinkler systems cost money. Depending on the type of fire suppression you’re using, they can be very expensive on top of the overall cost of doing a project in the first place. They also tend to be one of those items that some Owners shy away from because it’s not something they see active value from.

In short though, they make my job easier — a lot easier. Sprinkler systems can reduce the requirements for fire-rated wall, ceiling, and floor assemblies, or in some instances, negate them altogether. I remember working on one project where the building was just on the edge of needing a sprinkler system. It wasn’t a mandatory requirement, but the owner ultimately decided to incorporate one because the offset in all of the labor to properly rate the associated corridors throughout was worth it. The sprinkler took all requirements down by an hour of fire-rating, essentially negating the need for fire-rated assemblies in 80% of the building.

No need for special wall systems. No need for additional specifications.

I love sprinkler systems.

Step 3: Construction Type

Did you know that there’s actually MORE than one way to construct a building?! Stop the presses!

Anyway…

Yes, indeed. There are a variety of ways to build a building. But according to the International Building Code, there are technically only 5 types of construction.

A bit confusing, but it’s straightforward when you think about it. Each Construction Type assumes not only an inherent set of potential materials that can be used, but also how flammable those materials are.

On about 90% of the projects I’ve ever worked on, Type IIB Construction has been used because of the fact that it provides a common palette of non-flammable materials to select from. Because of that, it’s also able to bring many Fire-Rating Requirements down to 0. On the one hand, you’ll be paying a premium to use materials that are more flame resistant, but you gain the freedom to use them in a much more liberal way.

Step 4: Allowable Floor Area

Alright, I’m going to get real with you. We’re into the less exciting portions of Code Review, albeit important ones.

Allowable Floor Area is the maximum amount of square footage the Building Code allows each Floor Plate of a Building to be built to. There are charts that tell you this number based on (you guessed it) the occupancy and construction type. An included sprinkler system may extend the allowable floor area as can a building’s proximity to property lines.

Step 5: Building Height and # of Stories

Another part of the Code that will truly knock your socks off is Allowable Building Height and Allowable Number of Stories your Building can be built to. You’ll find that, like Allowable Floor Area, a Building’s Height is dictated primarily by Occupancy and Construction Type.

Another factor that you have to consider is that many Buildings can be limited by real-world things like Fire Truck Ladders and other life safety equipment. There are obvious exceptions (I see you skyscrapers), but just keep in mind that many of the Code Requirements for Building Height can be lessened as other concessions are made such as Sprinkler Systems.

If you haven’t realized it yet, the Building Code exists to protect people and property. To a degree, it doesn’t care how you do it as long as you do it one way or another.

Step 6: Location On Property

Ok. Now we’re back into the exciting stuff – Property Lines!

Ahem. Ok, well I was excited.

Imagine two scenarios. The first — two, five-story mixed-use buildings in an urban environment that have a zero lot line, meaning they are literally right next to each other. The second — a large munitions facility in the middle of nowhere with ample amount of space between the building and its property line; hundreds and hundreds of feet. When I say nowhere, I mean the only thing nearby is open field as far as the eye can see.

Which is safer?

One could argue that the two urban buildings are safer because they’re not building things that explode.

But I’d actually argue in this case that the two urban buildings require more attention here in terms of their location. Maybe the munitions facility is building hazardous products, but the two urban buildings are far more likely to endanger each other, causing injury to people or property.

The requirements for the separations between these buildings is much higher because the Building Code would require that they essentially protect themselves from each other.

If there was a fire in one building, the fire rated assemblies must be constructed in such a way as to prevent loss to the other structure.

In the case of the munitions facility, it’s removed enough from all other buildings that it actually is more likely to have a lower exterior fire rating based on property location alone.

Step 7: Means of Egress

It’s not just enough to protect users from other buildings. Once the overall requirements for the building have been established by Steps 1 through 6, an architect needs to properly map the Means of Egress (aka safe path out of the building).

It takes a significant amount of planning to ensure that not only is there a proper path out of the building, but that the path is no greater in length than the maximum distance allowable and that the path is protected at various stages to ensure safe passage.

If there are too many people calculated for a given space, you may even need a second means of egress from that space and out of the building.

I’ve found that determining the proper means of egress for all spaces in a project is often the place where I spend most of my time in a Code Review. Many of the previous criteria become readily apparent with experience, but the Means of Egress is always different from project to project because the spaces area always different.

When in doubt, think about how many exits from a space are required, how far the Code will allow someone to travel before exiting the building, and how much the building has to protect their paths from where they start to the building exit.

WITH ANY LUCK, IF YOU FOLLOW THE SEVEN STEPS ABOVE, YOU’LL HAVE YOURSELF THE START OF A BUILDING CODE REVIEW.

Other Considerations

The Building Code is up to your interpretation as a Design Professional, but NEVER try to break the Building Code. Your design intent must always align with the Codes established to protect the Health, Safety, and Welfare of those who will use your built work.

I’ve noticed that sometimes younger staff (without knowing any better) will avoid having to research the technical standards required to execute the nuances of fire-rated construction or neglect to analyze each room for compliance with ADA.

I’ve started to recognize that many without a professional license, just ‘doing a job,’ tend to care less about whether or not things are actually Code-Compliant in every instance.

Having been doing this for a while now, I can tell you that if you’re working at a firm and it’s not your stamp on the line, that doesn’t mean you can or should ignore anything that may be in non-compliance with the Building Code.

It’s possible that you’ll miss something in your own Code Reviews. No one is perfect, but architecture and the responsibility we hold as architects is much more than most.

No offense intended when I say this, but if a graphic designer misspells something, it won’t accidentally kill someone. If a Candy Store manager doesn’t sell their quota in lollipops, the store won’t start on fire.

I think of it this way: No matter how you analyze the Building Code, make sure that you’re doing your due diligence to protect those people who rely on you to do your job. They have families. They have lives. Building Codes are in place to make sure they keep on living them.

Further Reading on Building Codes

Also, I’m an Architect, but I don’t memorize every aspect of the Code. I’m always trying to understand more about it.

Here’s some additional reading and a few key resources to help you on your own Code journey.

Up.Codes – A Free Building Code Website to Easily Help You Track the Latest Building Codes

Building Codes Illustrated – By Francis D.K. Ching

ICC – International Code Council – Gate Keepers of the International Building Code

NFPA – National Fire Protection Association – Standards Regarding Fire Protection in Construction

ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act

This post originally appeared on Mike LaValley’s Evolving Architect blog. Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The post An Architect’s Guide to Building Codes: 7 Steps to a Safer Design appeared first on Journal.

from Journal https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/young-architect-guide-building-codes/ Originally published on ARCHITIZER RSS Feed: https://architizer.com/blog

[thisdaynews]

Fact check: Did Bernie just backtrack on Medicare for All?

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/fact-check-did-bernie-just-backtrack-on-medicare-for-all/

Fact check: Did Bernie just backtrack on Medicare for All?

Changes to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ health care plan have led to accusations of softening his stance. | Joshua Lott/Getty Images

2020 elections

Critics pounced on a tweak Sanders made this week to his signature plan, but they’re being misleading.

Speaking to labor officials in Iowa this week, Bernie Sanders unveiled a new twist to his “Medicare for All” plan. His centrist Democratic rivals pounced, accusing the original champion of government-run health care of softening his signature policy in order to placate angry union members.

Nonsense, his campaign responded.

Story Continued Below

So what’s the deal?

The new provision is wonkish, so bear with us here. But bottom line, it would offer advantages to workers who negotiated health plans through their unions during the four years the country moved to a universal, single-payer system.

Here’s a breakdown of Sanders’ controversial tweak and what it actually amounts to:

How would it work?

Under Sanders’ new plan, companies with union-negotiated health care coverage would have to renegotiate their workers’ contracts. The National Labor Relations Board would oversee and enforce the negotiations once Medicare for All becomes law. Any resulting health care savings from the single-payer system would be required to be returned to workers in the form of higher wages or more generous benefits.

Workers who don’t belong to unions wouldn’t qualify for that treatment.

This plan is a small part of a major, 1,900-word policy aimed at strengthening organized labor across the country that, among other things, calls for a dramatic expansion of collective bargaining.

Sanders’ proposal does not change anything in the Medicare for All legislation he unveiled in April, but adds requirements for the transition period that were not sketched out in the bill text.

Notably, the plan does not allow for more private health insurance. A critical part of the debate over Medicare for All has centered on the fact that Sanders’ bill would essentially abolish private insurance, and that remains the same under his new policy.

What did critics say?

Sanders’ rivals in the 2020 primary immediately slammed the new proposal, accusing him of backtracking from his hard-line opposition to private health insurance and characterizing it as an admission of the policy’s flaws.

“Bernie’s rewrite is the latest example of a Medicare for All candidate moving away from the plan in the face of the fact that it’s both bad policy and bad politics,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). “Now that Senator Sanders is reversing, Senator Warren and the other candidates should reconsider Medicare for All.”

Campaign aides to Kamala Harris, who originally signed onto Sanders’ bill before backing away from the proposal and introducing her own health care plan, seized on the announcement as well.

“Bernie’s backtrack doesn’t solve the problems with his plan, it just lets everyone know that they’re there,” added John Delaney, one of the primary race’s loudest opponents of the single-payer plan.

Other critics on social media pointed out that Sanders’ proposal follows some union leaders and members expressing concerns about Medicare for All, including directly to Sanders on the campaign trail in Iowa. Joe Biden, who opposes Medicare for All, said this week that union workers “don’t have to give up” their private insurance under his health care plan because labor organizations “negotiated really hard” for those benefits.

How did Sanders’ campaign respond?

Sanders’ aides took to social media to aggressively push back. Warren Gunnels, a senior adviser to Sanders, said on Twitter that he “didn’t amend” the Medicare for All bill and called aWashington Post headline about the proposal — “Sen. Bernie Sanders changes how Medicare-for-all plan treats union contracts in face of opposition by organized labor” — “bullshit” and “bogus.” Another staffer said the plan simply provided “additional value to worker contracts.”

Sanders’ campaign told POLITICO that the question of whether companies or union members would receive the savings from eliminating private insurance was always one that needed to be answered — and the NLRB provides a way to direct those funds to organized workers. For non-union workers who lack contracts, they said, there’s no such mechanism.

“Organized workers sit down and negotiate an entire wage and benefits package, often including health care. Because at the end of the day both sides are just negotiating over the overall size of that aggregate package, the company has agreed to pay the workers a dollar amount of wages and benefits. Those agreements may be locked in for many years. That’s really the key,” said Jeff Weaver, a top adviser to Sanders. “To lock in workers who made wage concessions for health care for years is not fair.”

Who’s right?

Sanders’ critics say the new policy is an admission the original plan was bad for unions. But the leaders of many major labor unions, including the SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers and the Association of Flight Attendants,say they supportMedicare for All and believe their workers would benefit from free and comprehensive health coverage that they don’t have to bargain for.

Yet the new details the campaign released do nod to the anxieties about the proposal that some key players in the labor world have raised. Even some of those who say many union workers are paying too much now for too little health care have a fear of the unknown, and the additional incentives Sanders is offering could go a ways toward assuaging those concerns.

“Bernie Sanders understands collective bargaining,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants. “He’s making sure union members can capture the value we’ve previously negotiated in health care as increased wages or other contractual gains.”

The claims that Sanders’ plan would allow more private insurance seems to stem from the fact that his new proposal lets union members negotiate for private health benefits as long as they don’t duplicate what’s covered under Medicare for All (which is, essentially, everything). But Sanders has permitted that all along.

What’s the upshot?

The accusations that Sanders is flip-flopping are inaccurate. The new proposal doesn’t alter anything in the original bill and private insurance will still be virtually eliminated — even if does give union members a big advantage under the plan compared to non-unions workers with private insurance.

Read More

[dillenwaeraa]

A Simple Approach to Optimizing Website Internal Linking Structure

Having a great internal linking strategy is essential for a website’s success, both for user experience and for SEO. The ranking and indexing of a site depend on a number of factors, the layout of site’s structure via main navigation and on-page internal linking being some of the most important aspects of optimization. Consideration of a site’s number and authority of backlinks also affect how search engines will prioritize pages.

This article is meant to address the issues faced with the distribution of link equity through overall site architecture as it relates to the depth of internal linking within the site. It will also provide a simple methodology to identify sections of the site by category that are either benefiting or suffering from the site’s structure due to the depth of pages and those with backlinks.

I’ll start out by covering the current state of internal linking recommendations, measuring link equity, faceted navigation, and other relevant pieces of the website architecture puzzle.

Lastly, I’ll be giving a methodology that focuses on analyzing categorical sections of a site that will hopefully help to make sense of internal linking optimizations in a simple format.

Overview

Internal Linking

Backlinks

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Website Internal Linking Analysis Methodology

Using Google Sheets

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Recap of Possible Solutions

Let’s start by covering some of the basic concepts relevant to website structure and link equity.

Internal Linking

The fundamentals of site structure lie in the design and strategy of internal links, most critically in the main navigation of the site. The number of clicks from the Homepage (page depth) and internal links pointing to a page, determine that page’s importance within the site.  

This, in combination with backlinks, has been quantified with the metric Pagerank. There are many articles that give advice on calculating your site’s PR based on their own interpretation of Google’s algorithm. (Ref. The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works,  Calculate Internal PageRank, How to Calculate Pagerank and What to Do with It)

Backlinks

The quality and number of backlinks to your pages determine their ranking potential. We also know that pages linked from pages with backlinks receive link equity from their connection.

It's important to note that both internal links and backlinks have a large impact on ranking in SERPs. Internal links can influence how Googlebot crawls your site, which impacts indexation, user experience, and how search engines view the hierarchy of your site, more so than a submitted XML sitemap.

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Provide great user experience. This is a best practice for all SEO strategies, including internal linking. I.e. don’t put irrelevant links onto pages just to optimize for link equity.

Limit your faceted navigation and filters options to preserve link equity. Read more here for large sites.

Paginated Pages should contain rel=next and rel=prev tags to improve indexation for the main page in the sequence.

Nofollow tags can’t re-distribute link equity among internal links. For example, if there are 10 links on a page that receives 100 units of link equity and you nofollow 2 links,  the other 8 links will still only pass 80 units instead of the full 100 units.

Remove redirects/redirect chains from internal linking that dilute link equity.

Both backlinks and internal links affect ranking, the number of inlinks pointing to pages on the site being just as important.

Measuring the impact of changes is still unscientific, without products such as ODN or you own interpretation of Google’s algorithm for Pagerank. That doesn’t mean there are guidelines we can’t still follow with the above.

A Simple Methodology for Identifying Internal Linking Opportunities

This process is useful for quickly identifying valuable pages that may be unintentionally hidden deeper within the website. By moving these pages into better positions within the site architecture, you are sending strong signals to Google that these pages are important.

What you will need to do this methodology: Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Google Sheets or Excel. The most time-consuming part of this process will be bucketing your site’s content together into sections and then later deciding which pages from each section to prioritize.

Pages located deeper within your site that are critical to business goals should be linked within 3 clicks of the homepage. These important pages could be optimized landings pages, other pages within a defined conversion funnel, and any other pages on the site that contribute heavily to overall business goals.

The methodology for creating a spreadsheet and visualisation is an estimation of which areas of the website can be improved in terms of internal linking and backlinks. Not all backlinks are equal, given that a backlink from a site with a higher domain authority will be stronger than a backlink from a spammy website.

Crawl Site with Screaming Frog

I’d advise excluding images, CSS, and JS files from your crawl, as these aren’t necessary.

Export “Internal All”

Isolate the Address column, the Crawl Depth column (Crawl Depth is the number of clicks from the start page.), Status Code, and the Inlinks column (The number of internal links pointing to a URL).

Export Ahrefs Best Pages by Backlinks

Then create a new column for backlinks to your pages and perform a vlookup to match the number of backlinks to the respective page.

Make sure you are using the column ‘Dofollow’ in the Ahrefs export.

Categorize URLs into Site Sections

This is basically organizing the pages of your site into categories. You can go as in depth as you want, but to get the most value out of this process consider keyword targeting in addition to the content topic when grouping URLs.

The process is much easier if your URLs already contain subfolders that indicate categorical structure to your site. However, if your URLs paths don’t follow distinguishable naming conventions, you can also consider using the page title as a way to quickly categorize.

You will need to make another column for categories and label URLs by their category. To make it quicker, filter the address column for the category keyword, then copy and paste your label into the category column for all URLs that apply.

Using Google Sheets to Organize the Data by Category

After breaking down the site into categories, you can create a table to visualize how far deep into the site they are internally linked. In combination with backlinks, inlinks, and status codes, we can first identify pages that are located farther in the site with backlinks and also investigate the inlinks and status code for those pages.

Google Sheets is a very practical way to analyze, share, and visualize your data. With the data organized from excel, you can copy paste them into google sheets and create a pivot table from the results.

Essentially, for internal linking purposes, a page can receive better ranking potential from the following: More internal links, backlinks, a status code of 200, and a page depth of within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage. While these attributes are not everything a pages needs for optimization, they are significant pieces of the SEO puzzle.

There are several ways to use your data with SEO benefits in mind:  

Find pages within a section that have more backlinks and prioritize linking these pages within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or from the internal navigation within the appropriate section to use the benefit of the link equity for ranking.

Identify pages that have a high amount of inlinks and determine if they are important/have ranking potential. If not, then remove them from the navigation or where they are linked so that they are not prioritized for indexation and further dilute link equity.

Audit pages with low amounts of inlinks to determine if they are important/have ranking potential and either put them into the navigation or ensure they are linked on pages in the appropriate section.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Below, I created a pivot table from the data showing Category as the columns, Crawl Depth as the rows, and Backlinks as the values within the table. By filtering for Backlinks on Categories past 3 clicks from the Homepage, we can determine which sections would create benefits for the site and help with ranking those pages if internally linked higher in the site architecture.

In this particular example, we can see the section Bags has a sum of 73 backlinks on pages located 7 clicks from the Homepage. This gives us a starting point in re-adjusting the site’s internal linking structure.

For reporting, creating a scatter plot provides easy visualizations for backlinks by crawl depth within the site.

In order to review the specific pages in the Bags section that are 4-7 clicks from the homepage, we can backtrack to our pivot table and filter the Category for Bags and Crawl Depth.

We can now quickly see the two URLs in the Bags section we can consider as priorities for linking higher in the website, or even the main navigation if appropriate. It’s also good to view the status code of these URLs with high numbers of backlinks as it will influence the link equity given to those pages.

If these pages are old and outdated, consider 301 redirecting these pages or canonicalize them to similar products/category pages that will help more important pages to rank.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Using our pivot table, we can both concentrate on finding sections/pages with either a high amount of inlinks within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or with low number of inlinks.

Filter by the number of inlinks descending to review if there are pages that are being prioritized on the site that do not belong.

Here we can see that many of the most linked pages are products that are taking priority over category pages and do not necessarily have the most backlinks pointing to them.

At the category level, we can create a table similar to earlier that shows the sum of inlinks by their crawl depth. By filtering the table for 0-20 inlinks, we can see that there are some sections that are not being linked to within the site very well.

If any of these pages within these sections are important to the site, they should be added into the internal navigation or linked within the body content higher within the site’s architecture.

Recap of Possible Solutions

Prioritize important pages by ensuring they can be crawled easily within the first 1-3 clicks from the Homepage.

Increase the flow of link equity on the site by linking to pages with high numbers of backlinks.

Create more inlinks for important pages by including them in the main navigation or by including more internal linking within the body content.  (I.g. a blog article can be linked internally by other relevant blog articles for reference in the body content.)

301 redirect pages with high amounts of backlinks that are outdated/no longer valuable to user experience on the website/not a high amount of organic traffic.

Consolidate site sections if many pages overlap in topic/intent by canonicalizing or by 301 redirecting.

Consider adding breadcrumbs for additional internal linking and site structure.

There are many ways to use this data, even beyond the scope of this article! Such as including primary keywords to pages or organic traffic, which has been done in previous posts on IA optimization here.

Please share any thoughts in the comments!

from Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/a-simple-approach-to-optimizing-website-internal-linking-structure/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[ronijashworth]

A Simple Approach to Optimizing Website Internal Linking Structure

Having a great internal linking strategy is essential for a website’s success, both for user experience and for SEO. The ranking and indexing of a site depend on a number of factors, the layout of site’s structure via main navigation and on-page internal linking being some of the most important aspects of optimization. Consideration of a site’s number and authority of backlinks also affect how search engines will prioritize pages.

This article is meant to address the issues faced with the distribution of link equity through overall site architecture as it relates to the depth of internal linking within the site. It will also provide a simple methodology to identify sections of the site by category that are either benefiting or suffering from the site’s structure due to the depth of pages and those with backlinks.

I’ll start out by covering the current state of internal linking recommendations, measuring link equity, faceted navigation, and other relevant pieces of the website architecture puzzle.

Lastly, I’ll be giving a methodology that focuses on analyzing categorical sections of a site that will hopefully help to make sense of internal linking optimizations in a simple format.

Overview

Internal Linking

Backlinks

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Website Internal Linking Analysis Methodology

Using Google Sheets

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Recap of Possible Solutions

Let’s start by covering some of the basic concepts relevant to website structure and link equity.

Internal Linking

The fundamentals of site structure lie in the design and strategy of internal links, most critically in the main navigation of the site. The number of clicks from the Homepage (page depth) and internal links pointing to a page, determine that page’s importance within the site.  

This, in combination with backlinks, has been quantified with the metric Pagerank. There are many articles that give advice on calculating your site’s PR based on their own interpretation of Google’s algorithm. (Ref. The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works,  Calculate Internal PageRank, How to Calculate Pagerank and What to Do with It)

Backlinks

The quality and number of backlinks to your pages determine their ranking potential. We also know that pages linked from pages with backlinks receive link equity from their connection.

It's important to note that both internal links and backlinks have a large impact on ranking in SERPs. Internal links can influence how Googlebot crawls your site, which impacts indexation, user experience, and how search engines view the hierarchy of your site, more so than a submitted XML sitemap.

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Provide great user experience. This is a best practice for all SEO strategies, including internal linking. I.e. don’t put irrelevant links onto pages just to optimize for link equity.

Limit your faceted navigation and filters options to preserve link equity. Read more here for large sites.

Paginated Pages should contain rel=next and rel=prev tags to improve indexation for the main page in the sequence.

Nofollow tags can’t re-distribute link equity among internal links. For example, if there are 10 links on a page that receives 100 units of link equity and you nofollow 2 links,  the other 8 links will still only pass 80 units instead of the full 100 units.

Remove redirects/redirect chains from internal linking that dilute link equity.

Both backlinks and internal links affect ranking, the number of inlinks pointing to pages on the site being just as important.

Measuring the impact of changes is still unscientific, without products such as ODN or you own interpretation of Google’s algorithm for Pagerank. That doesn’t mean there are guidelines we can’t still follow with the above.

A Simple Methodology for Identifying Internal Linking Opportunities

This process is useful for quickly identifying valuable pages that may be unintentionally hidden deeper within the website. By moving these pages into better positions within the site architecture, you are sending strong signals to Google that these pages are important.

What you will need to do this methodology: Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Google Sheets or Excel. The most time-consuming part of this process will be bucketing your site’s content together into sections and then later deciding which pages from each section to prioritize.

Pages located deeper within your site that are critical to business goals should be linked within 3 clicks of the homepage. These important pages could be optimized landings pages, other pages within a defined conversion funnel, and any other pages on the site that contribute heavily to overall business goals.

The methodology for creating a spreadsheet and visualisation is an estimation of which areas of the website can be improved in terms of internal linking and backlinks. Not all backlinks are equal, given that a backlink from a site with a higher domain authority will be stronger than a backlink from a spammy website.

Crawl Site with Screaming Frog

I’d advise excluding images, CSS, and JS files from your crawl, as these aren’t necessary.

Export “Internal All”

Isolate the Address column, the Crawl Depth column (Crawl Depth is the number of clicks from the start page.), Status Code, and the Inlinks column (The number of internal links pointing to a URL).

Export Ahrefs Best Pages by Backlinks

Then create a new column for backlinks to your pages and perform a vlookup to match the number of backlinks to the respective page.

Make sure you are using the column ‘Dofollow’ in the Ahrefs export.

Categorize URLs into Site Sections

This is basically organizing the pages of your site into categories. You can go as in depth as you want, but to get the most value out of this process consider keyword targeting in addition to the content topic when grouping URLs.

The process is much easier if your URLs already contain subfolders that indicate categorical structure to your site. However, if your URLs paths don’t follow distinguishable naming conventions, you can also consider using the page title as a way to quickly categorize.

You will need to make another column for categories and label URLs by their category. To make it quicker, filter the address column for the category keyword, then copy and paste your label into the category column for all URLs that apply.

Using Google Sheets to Organize the Data by Category

After breaking down the site into categories, you can create a table to visualize how far deep into the site they are internally linked. In combination with backlinks, inlinks, and status codes, we can first identify pages that are located farther in the site with backlinks and also investigate the inlinks and status code for those pages.

Google Sheets is a very practical way to analyze, share, and visualize your data. With the data organized from excel, you can copy paste them into google sheets and create a pivot table from the results.

Essentially, for internal linking purposes, a page can receive better ranking potential from the following: More internal links, backlinks, a status code of 200, and a page depth of within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage. While these attributes are not everything a pages needs for optimization, they are significant pieces of the SEO puzzle.

There are several ways to use your data with SEO benefits in mind:  

Find pages within a section that have more backlinks and prioritize linking these pages within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or from the internal navigation within the appropriate section to use the benefit of the link equity for ranking.

Identify pages that have a high amount of inlinks and determine if they are important/have ranking potential. If not, then remove them from the navigation or where they are linked so that they are not prioritized for indexation and further dilute link equity.

Audit pages with low amounts of inlinks to determine if they are important/have ranking potential and either put them into the navigation or ensure they are linked on pages in the appropriate section.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Below, I created a pivot table from the data showing Category as the columns, Crawl Depth as the rows, and Backlinks as the values within the table. By filtering for Backlinks on Categories past 3 clicks from the Homepage, we can determine which sections would create benefits for the site and help with ranking those pages if internally linked higher in the site architecture.

In this particular example, we can see the section Bags has a sum of 73 backlinks on pages located 7 clicks from the Homepage. This gives us a starting point in re-adjusting the site’s internal linking structure.

For reporting, creating a scatter plot provides easy visualizations for backlinks by crawl depth within the site.

In order to review the specific pages in the Bags section that are 4-7 clicks from the homepage, we can backtrack to our pivot table and filter the Category for Bags and Crawl Depth.

We can now quickly see the two URLs in the Bags section we can consider as priorities for linking higher in the website, or even the main navigation if appropriate. It’s also good to view the status code of these URLs with high numbers of backlinks as it will influence the link equity given to those pages.

If these pages are old and outdated, consider 301 redirecting these pages or canonicalize them to similar products/category pages that will help more important pages to rank.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Using our pivot table, we can both concentrate on finding sections/pages with either a high amount of inlinks within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or with low number of inlinks.

Filter by the number of inlinks descending to review if there are pages that are being prioritized on the site that do not belong.

Here we can see that many of the most linked pages are products that are taking priority over category pages and do not necessarily have the most backlinks pointing to them.

At the category level, we can create a table similar to earlier that shows the sum of inlinks by their crawl depth. By filtering the table for 0-20 inlinks, we can see that there are some sections that are not being linked to within the site very well.

If any of these pages within these sections are important to the site, they should be added into the internal navigation or linked within the body content higher within the site’s architecture.

Recap of Possible Solutions

Prioritize important pages by ensuring they can be crawled easily within the first 1-3 clicks from the Homepage.

Increase the flow of link equity on the site by linking to pages with high numbers of backlinks.

Create more inlinks for important pages by including them in the main navigation or by including more internal linking within the body content.  (I.g. a blog article can be linked internally by other relevant blog articles for reference in the body content.)

301 redirect pages with high amounts of backlinks that are outdated/no longer valuable to user experience on the website/not a high amount of organic traffic.

Consolidate site sections if many pages overlap in topic/intent by canonicalizing or by 301 redirecting.

Consider adding breadcrumbs for additional internal linking and site structure.

There are many ways to use this data, even beyond the scope of this article! Such as including primary keywords to pages or organic traffic, which has been done in previous posts on IA optimization here.

Please share any thoughts in the comments!

from Digital Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/a-simple-approach-to-optimizing-website-internal-linking-structure/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[anthonykrierion]

A Simple Approach to Optimizing Website Internal Linking Structure

Having a great internal linking strategy is essential for a website’s success, both for user experience and for SEO. The ranking and indexing of a site depend on a number of factors, the layout of site’s structure via main navigation and on-page internal linking being some of the most important aspects of optimization. Consideration of a site’s number and authority of backlinks also affect how search engines will prioritize pages.

This article is meant to address the issues faced with the distribution of link equity through overall site architecture as it relates to the depth of internal linking within the site. It will also provide a simple methodology to identify sections of the site by category that are either benefiting or suffering from the site’s structure due to the depth of pages and those with backlinks.

I’ll start out by covering the current state of internal linking recommendations, measuring link equity, faceted navigation, and other relevant pieces of the website architecture puzzle.

Lastly, I’ll be giving a methodology that focuses on analyzing categorical sections of a site that will hopefully help to make sense of internal linking optimizations in a simple format.

Overview

Internal Linking

Backlinks

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Website Internal Linking Analysis Methodology

Using Google Sheets

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Recap of Possible Solutions

Let’s start by covering some of the basic concepts relevant to website structure and link equity.

Internal Linking

The fundamentals of site structure lie in the design and strategy of internal links, most critically in the main navigation of the site. The number of clicks from the Homepage (page depth) and internal links pointing to a page, determine that page’s importance within the site.  

This, in combination with backlinks, has been quantified with the metric Pagerank. There are many articles that give advice on calculating your site’s PR based on their own interpretation of Google’s algorithm. (Ref. The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works,  Calculate Internal PageRank, How to Calculate Pagerank and What to Do with It)

Backlinks

The quality and number of backlinks to your pages determine their ranking potential. We also know that pages linked from pages with backlinks receive link equity from their connection.

It's important to note that both internal links and backlinks have a large impact on ranking in SERPs. Internal links can influence how Googlebot crawls your site, which impacts indexation, user experience, and how search engines view the hierarchy of your site, more so than a submitted XML sitemap.

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Provide great user experience. This is a best practice for all SEO strategies, including internal linking. I.e. don’t put irrelevant links onto pages just to optimize for link equity.

Limit your faceted navigation and filters options to preserve link equity. Read more here for large sites.

Paginated Pages should contain rel=next and rel=prev tags to improve indexation for the main page in the sequence.

Nofollow tags can’t re-distribute link equity among internal links. For example, if there are 10 links on a page that receives 100 units of link equity and you nofollow 2 links,  the other 8 links will still only pass 80 units instead of the full 100 units.

Remove redirects/redirect chains from internal linking that dilute link equity.

Both backlinks and internal links affect ranking, the number of inlinks pointing to pages on the site being just as important.

Measuring the impact of changes is still unscientific, without products such as ODN or you own interpretation of Google’s algorithm for Pagerank. That doesn’t mean there are guidelines we can’t still follow with the above.

A Simple Methodology for Identifying Internal Linking Opportunities

This process is useful for quickly identifying valuable pages that may be unintentionally hidden deeper within the website. By moving these pages into better positions within the site architecture, you are sending strong signals to Google that these pages are important.

What you will need to do this methodology: Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Google Sheets or Excel. The most time-consuming part of this process will be bucketing your site’s content together into sections and then later deciding which pages from each section to prioritize.

Pages located deeper within your site that are critical to business goals should be linked within 3 clicks of the homepage. These important pages could be optimized landings pages, other pages within a defined conversion funnel, and any other pages on the site that contribute heavily to overall business goals.

The methodology for creating a spreadsheet and visualisation is an estimation of which areas of the website can be improved in terms of internal linking and backlinks. Not all backlinks are equal, given that a backlink from a site with a higher domain authority will be stronger than a backlink from a spammy website.

Crawl Site with Screaming Frog

I’d advise excluding images, CSS, and JS files from your crawl, as these aren’t necessary.

Export “Internal All”

Isolate the Address column, the Crawl Depth column (Crawl Depth is the number of clicks from the start page.), Status Code, and the Inlinks column (The number of internal links pointing to a URL).

Export Ahrefs Best Pages by Backlinks

Then create a new column for backlinks to your pages and perform a vlookup to match the number of backlinks to the respective page.

Make sure you are using the column ‘Dofollow’ in the Ahrefs export.

Categorize URLs into Site Sections

This is basically organizing the pages of your site into categories. You can go as in depth as you want, but to get the most value out of this process consider keyword targeting in addition to the content topic when grouping URLs.

The process is much easier if your URLs already contain subfolders that indicate categorical structure to your site. However, if your URLs paths don’t follow distinguishable naming conventions, you can also consider using the page title as a way to quickly categorize.

You will need to make another column for categories and label URLs by their category. To make it quicker, filter the address column for the category keyword, then copy and paste your label into the category column for all URLs that apply.

Using Google Sheets to Organize the Data by Category

After breaking down the site into categories, you can create a table to visualize how far deep into the site they are internally linked. In combination with backlinks, inlinks, and status codes, we can first identify pages that are located farther in the site with backlinks and also investigate the inlinks and status code for those pages.

Google Sheets is a very practical way to analyze, share, and visualize your data. With the data organized from excel, you can copy paste them into google sheets and create a pivot table from the results.

Essentially, for internal linking purposes, a page can receive better ranking potential from the following: More internal links, backlinks, a status code of 200, and a page depth of within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage. While these attributes are not everything a pages needs for optimization, they are significant pieces of the SEO puzzle.

There are several ways to use your data with SEO benefits in mind:  

Find pages within a section that have more backlinks and prioritize linking these pages within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or from the internal navigation within the appropriate section to use the benefit of the link equity for ranking.

Identify pages that have a high amount of inlinks and determine if they are important/have ranking potential. If not, then remove them from the navigation or where they are linked so that they are not prioritized for indexation and further dilute link equity.

Audit pages with low amounts of inlinks to determine if they are important/have ranking potential and either put them into the navigation or ensure they are linked on pages in the appropriate section.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Below, I created a pivot table from the data showing Category as the columns, Crawl Depth as the rows, and Backlinks as the values within the table. By filtering for Backlinks on Categories past 3 clicks from the Homepage, we can determine which sections would create benefits for the site and help with ranking those pages if internally linked higher in the site architecture.

In this particular example, we can see the section Bags has a sum of 73 backlinks on pages located 7 clicks from the Homepage. This gives us a starting point in re-adjusting the site’s internal linking structure.

For reporting, creating a scatter plot provides easy visualizations for backlinks by crawl depth within the site.

In order to review the specific pages in the Bags section that are 4-7 clicks from the homepage, we can backtrack to our pivot table and filter the Category for Bags and Crawl Depth.

We can now quickly see the two URLs in the Bags section we can consider as priorities for linking higher in the website, or even the main navigation if appropriate. It’s also good to view the status code of these URLs with high numbers of backlinks as it will influence the link equity given to those pages.

If these pages are old and outdated, consider 301 redirecting these pages or canonicalize them to similar products/category pages that will help more important pages to rank.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Using our pivot table, we can both concentrate on finding sections/pages with either a high amount of inlinks within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or with low number of inlinks.

Filter by the number of inlinks descending to review if there are pages that are being prioritized on the site that do not belong.

Here we can see that many of the most linked pages are products that are taking priority over category pages and do not necessarily have the most backlinks pointing to them.

At the category level, we can create a table similar to earlier that shows the sum of inlinks by their crawl depth. By filtering the table for 0-20 inlinks, we can see that there are some sections that are not being linked to within the site very well.

If any of these pages within these sections are important to the site, they should be added into the internal navigation or linked within the body content higher within the site’s architecture.

Recap of Possible Solutions

Prioritize important pages by ensuring they can be crawled easily within the first 1-3 clicks from the Homepage.

Increase the flow of link equity on the site by linking to pages with high numbers of backlinks.

Create more inlinks for important pages by including them in the main navigation or by including more internal linking within the body content.  (I.g. a blog article can be linked internally by other relevant blog articles for reference in the body content.)

301 redirect pages with high amounts of backlinks that are outdated/no longer valuable to user experience on the website/not a high amount of organic traffic.

Consolidate site sections if many pages overlap in topic/intent by canonicalizing or by 301 redirecting.

Consider adding breadcrumbs for additional internal linking and site structure.

There are many ways to use this data, even beyond the scope of this article! Such as including primary keywords to pages or organic traffic, which has been done in previous posts on IA optimization here.

Please share any thoughts in the comments!

A Simple Approach to Optimizing Website Internal Linking Structure was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

[heavenwheel]

A Simple Approach to Optimizing Website Internal Linking Structure

Having a great internal linking strategy is essential for a website’s success, both for user experience and for SEO. The ranking and indexing of a site depend on a number of factors, the layout of site’s structure via main navigation and on-page internal linking being some of the most important aspects of optimization. Consideration of a site’s number and authority of backlinks also affect how search engines will prioritize pages.

This article is meant to address the issues faced with the distribution of link equity through overall site architecture as it relates to the depth of internal linking within the site. It will also provide a simple methodology to identify sections of the site by category that are either benefiting or suffering from the site’s structure due to the depth of pages and those with backlinks.

I’ll start out by covering the current state of internal linking recommendations, measuring link equity, faceted navigation, and other relevant pieces of the website architecture puzzle.

Lastly, I’ll be giving a methodology that focuses on analyzing categorical sections of a site that will hopefully help to make sense of internal linking optimizations in a simple format.

Overview

Internal Linking

Backlinks

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Website Internal Linking Analysis Methodology

Using Google Sheets

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Recap of Possible Solutions

Let’s start by covering some of the basic concepts relevant to website structure and link equity.

Internal Linking

The fundamentals of site structure lie in the design and strategy of internal links, most critically in the main navigation of the site. The number of clicks from the Homepage (page depth) and internal links pointing to a page, determine that page’s importance within the site.  

This, in combination with backlinks, has been quantified with the metric Pagerank. There are many articles that give advice on calculating your site’s PR based on their own interpretation of Google’s algorithm. (Ref. The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works,  Calculate Internal PageRank, How to Calculate Pagerank and What to Do with It)

Backlinks

The quality and number of backlinks to your pages determine their ranking potential. We also know that pages linked from pages with backlinks receive link equity from their connection.

It's important to note that both internal links and backlinks have a large impact on ranking in SERPs. Internal links can influence how Googlebot crawls your site, which impacts indexation, user experience, and how search engines view the hierarchy of your site, more so than a submitted XML sitemap.

Things to Consider for Internal Linking Strategies

Provide great user experience. This is a best practice for all SEO strategies, including internal linking. I.e. don’t put irrelevant links onto pages just to optimize for link equity.

Limit your faceted navigation and filters options to preserve link equity. Read more here for large sites.

Paginated Pages should contain rel=next and rel=prev tags to improve indexation for the main page in the sequence.

Nofollow tags can’t re-distribute link equity among internal links. For example, if there are 10 links on a page that receives 100 units of link equity and you nofollow 2 links,  the other 8 links will still only pass 80 units instead of the full 100 units.

Remove redirects/redirect chains from internal linking that dilute link equity.

Both backlinks and internal links affect ranking, the number of inlinks pointing to pages on the site being just as important.

Measuring the impact of changes is still unscientific, without products such as ODN or you own interpretation of Google’s algorithm for Pagerank. That doesn’t mean there are guidelines we can’t still follow with the above.

A Simple Methodology for Identifying Internal Linking Opportunities

This process is useful for quickly identifying valuable pages that may be unintentionally hidden deeper within the website. By moving these pages into better positions within the site architecture, you are sending strong signals to Google that these pages are important.

What you will need to do this methodology: Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Google Sheets or Excel. The most time-consuming part of this process will be bucketing your site’s content together into sections and then later deciding which pages from each section to prioritize.

Pages located deeper within your site that are critical to business goals should be linked within 3 clicks of the homepage. These important pages could be optimized landings pages, other pages within a defined conversion funnel, and any other pages on the site that contribute heavily to overall business goals.

The methodology for creating a spreadsheet and visualisation is an estimation of which areas of the website can be improved in terms of internal linking and backlinks. Not all backlinks are equal, given that a backlink from a site with a higher domain authority will be stronger than a backlink from a spammy website.

Crawl Site with Screaming Frog

I’d advise excluding images, CSS, and JS files from your crawl, as these aren’t necessary.

Export “Internal All”

Isolate the Address column, the Crawl Depth column (Crawl Depth is the number of clicks from the start page.), Status Code, and the Inlinks column (The number of internal links pointing to a URL).

Export Ahrefs Best Pages by Backlinks

Then create a new column for backlinks to your pages and perform a vlookup to match the number of backlinks to the respective page.

Make sure you are using the column ‘Dofollow’ in the Ahrefs export.

Categorize URLs into Site Sections

This is basically organizing the pages of your site into categories. You can go as in depth as you want, but to get the most value out of this process consider keyword targeting in addition to the content topic when grouping URLs.

The process is much easier if your URLs already contain subfolders that indicate categorical structure to your site. However, if your URLs paths don’t follow distinguishable naming conventions, you can also consider using the page title as a way to quickly categorize.

You will need to make another column for categories and label URLs by their category. To make it quicker, filter the address column for the category keyword, then copy and paste your label into the category column for all URLs that apply.

Using Google Sheets to Organize the Data by Category

After breaking down the site into categories, you can create a table to visualize how far deep into the site they are internally linked. In combination with backlinks, inlinks, and status codes, we can first identify pages that are located farther in the site with backlinks and also investigate the inlinks and status code for those pages.

Google Sheets is a very practical way to analyze, share, and visualize your data. With the data organized from excel, you can copy paste them into google sheets and create a pivot table from the results.

Essentially, for internal linking purposes, a page can receive better ranking potential from the following: More internal links, backlinks, a status code of 200, and a page depth of within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage. While these attributes are not everything a pages needs for optimization, they are significant pieces of the SEO puzzle.

There are several ways to use your data with SEO benefits in mind:  

Find pages within a section that have more backlinks and prioritize linking these pages within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or from the internal navigation within the appropriate section to use the benefit of the link equity for ranking.

Identify pages that have a high amount of inlinks and determine if they are important/have ranking potential. If not, then remove them from the navigation or where they are linked so that they are not prioritized for indexation and further dilute link equity.

Audit pages with low amounts of inlinks to determine if they are important/have ranking potential and either put them into the navigation or ensure they are linked on pages in the appropriate section.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Backlinks

Below, I created a pivot table from the data showing Category as the columns, Crawl Depth as the rows, and Backlinks as the values within the table. By filtering for Backlinks on Categories past 3 clicks from the Homepage, we can determine which sections would create benefits for the site and help with ranking those pages if internally linked higher in the site architecture.

In this particular example, we can see the section Bags has a sum of 73 backlinks on pages located 7 clicks from the Homepage. This gives us a starting point in re-adjusting the site’s internal linking structure.

For reporting, creating a scatter plot provides easy visualizations for backlinks by crawl depth within the site.

In order to review the specific pages in the Bags section that are 4-7 clicks from the homepage, we can backtrack to our pivot table and filter the Category for Bags and Crawl Depth.

We can now quickly see the two URLs in the Bags section we can consider as priorities for linking higher in the website, or even the main navigation if appropriate. It’s also good to view the status code of these URLs with high numbers of backlinks as it will influence the link equity given to those pages.

If these pages are old and outdated, consider 301 redirecting these pages or canonicalize them to similar products/category pages that will help more important pages to rank.

Investigating Pages by Crawl Depth and Number of Inlinks

Using our pivot table, we can both concentrate on finding sections/pages with either a high amount of inlinks within 1-3 clicks from the Homepage or with low number of inlinks.

Filter by the number of inlinks descending to review if there are pages that are being prioritized on the site that do not belong.

Here we can see that many of the most linked pages are products that are taking priority over category pages and do not necessarily have the most backlinks pointing to them.

At the category level, we can create a table similar to earlier that shows the sum of inlinks by their crawl depth. By filtering the table for 0-20 inlinks, we can see that there are some sections that are not being linked to within the site very well.

If any of these pages within these sections are important to the site, they should be added into the internal navigation or linked within the body content higher within the site’s architecture.

Recap of Possible Solutions

Prioritize important pages by ensuring they can be crawled easily within the first 1-3 clicks from the Homepage.

Increase the flow of link equity on the site by linking to pages with high numbers of backlinks.

Create more inlinks for important pages by including them in the main navigation or by including more internal linking within the body content.  (I.g. a blog article can be linked internally by other relevant blog articles for reference in the body content.)

301 redirect pages with high amounts of backlinks that are outdated/no longer valuable to user experience on the website/not a high amount of organic traffic.

Consolidate site sections if many pages overlap in topic/intent by canonicalizing or by 301 redirecting.

Consider adding breadcrumbs for additional internal linking and site structure.

There are many ways to use this data, even beyond the scope of this article! Such as including primary keywords to pages or organic traffic, which has been done in previous posts on IA optimization here.

Please share any thoughts in the comments!

from Digital https://www.distilled.net/resources/a-simple-approach-to-optimizing-website-internal-linking-structure/ via http://www.rssmix.com/