#why are you making me write a 2 page paper while also making me simplify it. i can very simply explain what cloud computing is

[inverted-dagger]

well i finally finished my essay. it sucks ass

[hello-vampire-kitty]

Servamp chapter 104 "Gambit"

Hello everyone! I mentioned that it would take me a while to translate this chapter because it was quite long and I also had to do something for another fandom, but, it's done!

After you read the chapter, please look at the translations notes. Some I was able to write on a few pages, but there are things that required more explanation. READ CHAPTER HERE

Hello everyone! I mentioned that it would take me a while to translate this chapter because it was quite long and I also had to do something for another fandom, but, it's done!

After you read the chapter, please look at the translations notes. Some I was able to write on a few pages, but there are things that required more explanation.

Gosh, I hope that wherever Hugh is taking Tetsu, he can do something to help him ;;

So we have a continuation of the flashback when Niccolo and Ildio met. I wrote on the 3rd page about how Ildio said "employer".

The word is written 雇い主 and it's used as the furigana reading while the kanji reading is 主人 which means "master", which is used when the word "Eve" is mentioned.

-C3 members are having a meeting and Tsurugi is making paper airplanes from the documents xD

Those 2 characters that appeared in the early chapters are also there! We never got much details about them like their names or what they do at C3.

Also, for a while, I think many believed that the girl was a robot made by Iduna...

Maybe Tanaka will give more details about those characters.

Page 8 In the panel where it shows Yumi and Tsurugi, I'm not sure, so it's just my interpretation for their expressions.

Sigurd said "internal conflict", which is written like this 内輪もめ and Yumikage also said the word but, the way he said was written only in hiragana うちわもめ, and this reminded me of some other cases where for example, if there are some complex words being used and a character that might be unfamiliar with the word or they barely used it conversations, I saw that they when they spoke the word, it would be simplified in hiragana or katakana sometimes, without kanji and I'm guessing that could have been the case here. Tsurugi said that he didn't understood what he said, I think the words that Sigurd used were perhaps too pretentious, this is my assumption.

Next, I have some notes for the panel where they show the images of Iori, Touma, Tooru and Jun. You might have seen these in anime/manga, you can see that Iori and Touma have crosses and Tooru and Jun have triangles, in Japan they are for rating.

Triangle (sankaku), can mean "weak", "average" or "in progress", partially OK.

Crosses (batsu) can mean "wrong", "not good", 'unavalible" in this case it can imply that something is "dead".

ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN! Or Yetis, depending on your preference.

Page 9

I think that Sigurd might be German and that's why I wrote his names with the German spellings that I have found.

I hope that when Tanaka writes his name, it will be Sigurd and not Siegfried, I mean if they wanted to have his name written like the latter it should have been ジークフリート. Sigurd is the name of the hero from Norse mythology and that's why I use this one because of the many names Tanaka sensei used a lot of names from Norse mythology.

Another name for which we don't know how it's supposed to be spelled is the name of Sigurd's translator, Pisca.

Tanaka actually wrote on their Twitter that his name was misspelled and this will be corrected in the next volume of the manga.

In the chapter published in the magazine, his name was written ビスカ (Bisca), but it's actually ピスカ (Pisca) or it could be Piska...

I haven't the origin of this name, if someone heard it before, tell me!

His last name, I thought at first it was supposed to spell "Brownie", like the cake, but that's actually written as ブラウニー

So yeah, until Tanaka writes his name, I will use Pisca Browny.

Page 13

One thing that I can't say for sure what it means, and I don't know who was talking in the small speech bubble in the second bubble where it says 同期型 which means "synchronous type" and my assumption is that it is referring to Sigurd's ability.

Page 17

We are introduced a new character, Tsukimitsu Shirayuki, the mother of Iori, Miyako and Yumikage. Her name means "snow-white" and she was the former manager for the C3 branch in Tokyo.

Page 18

Honestly, I don't know what Tsurugi and Yumi were reffering to..

Tsurugi said the word 流れ which has a lot of meanings, but the general meaning is "flow", such as the flow of water or passage of time, and it can also mean trend.

Among its other meanings I have found "course of events", "procedure", "process", although I mostly have seen this word used with the former meanings...Thus, I thought, what could have Tsurugi been referring to with the meanings from the latter, and my assumption is that given that Sigurd said that the idea of leaving matters to the Servamps was foolish, it could be that Tsurugi and Yumi were recalling the fact that they went trough this before, as in, being against the vampires, but now they will have to rely on them and cooperate with the ones that also want to stop Tsubaki.

Page 20

Sigurd's face betrays what he said about Iori and Touma...

Page 21

I know it's not confirmed, but if Tsurugi is Gear's descendant, I hope they are actually related. Maybe there was a special case for Gear and had children and it wasn't the other cases trough which ancestors from the Kamiya family got powers.

I would love to have Tsurugi call Gear "grandpa" XD "Grandpuppy" as I called him in another post.

Page 25

Shirayuki-san called Sigurd a fool/idiot. Savage!

Hoo, boy, this chapter! I hope the notes are helpful!

[millenniumblog]

[ID: A chart describing the core values of each of the nine Enneagram personality types with YuGiOh characters correlated to each of the types.]

YuGiOh Enneagram Analysis, Part #1

Please note that this is the “boring” informational post about Enneagram with the Types listed and explained as well as a few other things. The next post is what has the actual, in-depth character profiles promised!

Introduction & Motivation

Over the past several months, I have been trying to analyze my strengths and weaknesses as a writer and learn more. I have been writing fanfiction since I was a little kid, making my first FF.net account in 2003 when I would have been twelve years old. Even before that, I was a lurker and wrote fics to share with my childhood best friend on paper or floppy discs.

YuGiOh came into my life at some point shortly thereafter. I know this, because I spent my thirteenth birthday in a comic book shop, mostly watching some of my male friends play the trading card game. I had some of the cards, but I was never much of a player, unable to keep up with the seemingly rapid rule changes. Besides that, I was always way more interested in the story and characters than I was in the card game. I remember I even wanted to call “YuGiOh cards” “Duel Monsters” instead to make it seem a little closer to tween-y LARPing.

Eventually, I gave up on collecting cards or trying to ply the game. I felt that while my male friends didn’t mind me being around when they played, they weren’t extremely interested in helping me learn or keep up. I felt I had other strengths, so I started carrying around a notebook even more than I already did. I started my fledgling forays into online fandom. And YuGiOh was a big part of the beginning of that.

I can’t remember posting any YuGiOh fic in particular, and I’m sure that if I had it would make me cringe now. What I do remember is reading some and also spending a lot of time lying on my bed, headphones plugged into a small purple stereo, listening to the first of the two American-released CDs with YuGiOh-inspired music on them. In particular, the last three tracks were pieces of music from the original score composed for the 4Kids dub, which is - for some reason - different from the original Japanese music.

During that time, I would fantasize and conjure my own YuGiOh plots in my head, most of which were focused on the Ancient Egyptian and more spooky, spiritual, and horror themes in the show. I was really fascinated with the reincarnation angle, though my understanding of and opinions on how that works have grown with time.

Years went by, and I didn’t think about YuGiOh much at all. Then, something happened in 2018. I don’t know what got in my head, but it was like all the joy I once found in thinking about the YuGiOh characters came back in a giddy conversation with my childhood best friend. Then, for a little while, it wouldn’t leave me alone.

I started writing for the fandom then, and after several detours, I’m trying to get back in the groove of it.

My approach to the tone of YuGiOh-fanning is that it’s a bit serious, but it’s also with a tongue placed in my cheek because of how incomprehensible or silly the plot can be on a meta level. Sometimes, it almost brings tears to my eyes by being so over-the-top about something that, in the real world, would make no sense at all. But the drama, in the context of the universe, somehow rings true.

I think that’s all owing to how most of the primary characters are just... really freaking great characters.

It has often puzzled me. Like, did Takahashi do all this layering on purpose? Is it really there, or did earnest fanon just make it seem like it? And, as a person, I am always here for a good fan-and-canon symbiosis.

This post is going to be, from here on, an effort to match the YuGiOh characters to the 9 Enneagram Personality Types. I am writing this for my own benefit as I continue to work on my pet YuGiOh fanfiction project, It’s Always Sunny in Domino City, which is a mixture of YGOTAS-vibes-and-concepts taken seriously and a sincere take on fanfiction for the actual canon. It’s dramedy about a sizeable chunk of the main cast a few years post-canon with some canon divergence such as the Memory World arc not yet and possibly never-happening. If that sounds like something you’d like, I would humbly request you check it out!

Either way, this will be an in-depth character analysis cheatsheet for all of the characters above, based on my observations, opinions, and feelings. I invite discussion, but it’s fine if we need to agree to totally disagree!

If you are interested and enjoy what’s below the Read More and in the coming second post, then you are welcome to utilize the character analyses to aid you in your own fanwork!

Enneagram

What is Enneagram, and why am I using it?

Enneagram is a personality categorization system that one might compare to the somewhat better-known MBTI. However, in the words of excellent writing-advice YouTuber, Abbie Emmons:

MBTI shows us how we behave.

Enneagram shows us what we believe.

I will be referencing Abbie’s video Using The ENNEAGRAM To Write CONFLICTED CHARACTERS and her free Enneagram-cheatsheet, available in the description of the linked video. Whether it’s before you continue reading or after, if you’re interested in writing, I would highly recommend you check out her channel!

The Enneagram system has nine basic personality types that overlap and interact in really interesting ways. It is not a hard science, and it’s not a horoscope. Instead, it’s supposed to be “based on conventional wisdom and modern psychology.” All I can say is that with every set of characters I’ve tried it with, it works! Once you get the hang of it, it feels kind of like ~✰~magic~✰~!

Below, I will list Abbie’s simplified definitions of each of the personality types, in order:

Type 1: The Reformer

The Rational, Idealistic Type:

Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

Basic Fear: Of being corrupt/evil, defective

Basic Desire: To be good, to have integrity, to be balanced

Key Motivations: Want to be right, to strive higher and improve everything, to be consistent with their ideals, to justify themselves, to be beyond criticism so as not to be condemned by anyone.

Type 2: The Helper

The Caring, Interpersonal Type:

Generous, Demonstrative, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved

Basic Desire: To feel loved

Key Motivations: Want to be loved, to express their feelings for others, to be needed and appreciated, to get others to respond to them, to vindicate their claims about themselves.

Type 3: The Achiever

The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type:

Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious

Basic Fear: Of being worthless

Basic Desire: To feel valuable and worthwhile

Key Motivations: Want to be affirmed, to distinguish themselves from others, to have attention, to be admired, and to impress others.

Type 4: The Individualist

The Sensitive, Introspective Type:

Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance

Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity)

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."

Type 5: The Investigator

The Intense, Cerebral Type:

Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable

Basic Desire: To be capable and competent

Key Motivations: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.

Type 6: The Loyalist

The Committed, Security-Oriented Type:

Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance

Basic Desire: To have security and support

Key Motivations: Want to have security, to feel supported by others, to have certitude and reassurance, to test the attitudes of others toward them, to fight against anxiety and insecurity.

Type 7: The Enthusiast

The Busy, Variety-Seeking Type:

Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered

Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain

Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs fulfilled

Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.

Type 8: The Challenger

The Powerful, Dominating Type:

Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others

Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life and destiny)

Key Motivations: Want to be self-reliant, to prove their strength and resist weakness, to be important in their world, to dominate the environment, and to stay in control of their situation.

Type 9: The Peacemaker

The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type:

Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

Basic Fear: Of loss and separation

Basic Desire: To have inner stability, "peace of mind"

Key Motivations: Want to create harmony in their environment, to avoid conflicts and tension, to preserve things as they are, to resist whatever would upset or disturb them.

Now that you’ve seen all those, what do you think your favorite character is? In YuGiOh or anything else! It works great for original characters and even yourself and your loved ones.

The actual Character Profiles will be in coming post(s), but continue reading if you want me to explain more about how and why the Enneagram is a great personality typing system. #nonspon, or whatever.

The Enneagram Chart

Now, you could just go to the Enneagram Institute’s page on How the System Works, but below I’ll cut it down to only the parts I’m interested in and explain those in a way that helps me.

Unlike in astrology or MBTI, which are both more restrictive in different ways, the relative position of each type matters a bit on the Enneagram chart, because it can be used to visualize a lot of things about a person!

The Basic Chart

The Types are shown in a clockwise fashion with “1″ in the 1 o’clock position on an analog clock. The interior lines mean things, but I have trouble reading it without further delineation.

Centers of Response

Below are two small charts, displayed side-by-side. (If it’s too small, try right-click, open in new tab!)

The chart on the left shows the three “centers.” The “centers” indicate the first ‘processing language’ a person would use to respond to stimuli.

Type 8, Type 9, and Type 1 respond first based on instinct (primal, gut-feeling). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the id.

Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 respond first based on feelings (social or personal desires, the heart). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the ego.

Type 5, Type 6, and Type 7 respond first based on thoughts (analytical rather than emotional, the head). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the superego.

Remember that, of course, every single type and person engages their instincts, their emotions, and their thoughts at different times and to different degrees, and some of these are learned or changed behaviors. This is about what their innate drive toward that would be.

Likewise, the same “centers” can also be used for the chart on the right. You will notice that all three of these are defined by what is typically considered a negative emotion. This is because this is about a person’s instinctive, not particularly conscious emotional response when they are backed into a corner and deprived of something that is core to the needs of their personality type.

Type 8, Type 9, and Type 1 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with anger/rage.

Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with shame.

Type 5, Type 6, and Type 7 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with fear.

Stress vs. Growth

We all know that there are times when a person isn’t acting like themselves, for better or for worse. Usually, “You’re not acting like yourself,” means that a person is behaving badly. Of course, it’s way easier to withdraw and bristle and defend rather than growing in the midst of adversity. However, it is certainly possible to experience character growth in response to experiences, good and bad. Unlike a lot of other personality typing schemes, the Enneagram has a way to display and predict what stress and growth do to a person.

The Enneagram never suggests that any Type is an island unto itself. Every person contains multitudes, but a person’s Type is likely to remain relatively stable throughout their lives, once they have had a chance to develop any personality at all. This means that when a person is stressed or growing that they do not become the type they emulate. Rather, they are more highly expressing that aspects of their personality that reflect those drives and desires but in a way that is either fraught, sickly, or unwell (in the case of stress), or aspirational, flying-high, and incorporating the hard-lessons into who a person is going to be going forward (in the case of growth). The latter, especially, isn’t a sustainable mode, while a stressed person can become more entrenched in their bad habits and defensive coping mechanisms.

Stress

Note the white, directional arrows. Each number has an arrow point pointing to it and an arrow leading away from it. The point indicates that this is the stress manifestation for the Type at the origin of that arrow. The origin of each arrow indicates the Type being described.

Confused? Let me finally give you a YuGiOh example.

When I was trying to identify the Types of the characters, defining Marik was difficult, because he has a “Yami,” or Dark Side, which has its own personality and will but which is not its own separate soul or person than Marik himself. Rather, it’s a kind of fantasy/magic-assisted personality splintering where Yami Marik is a full manifestation of the negative traits Marik needed to embody to survive.

So, for reference:

When stressed, Type 1 behaves more like Type 4. 

When stressed, Type 2 behaves more like Type 8.

When stressed, Type 3 behaves more like Type 9.

When stressed, Type 4 behaves more like Type 2.

When stressed, Type 5 behaves more like Type 7.

When stressed, Type 6 behaves more like Type 3.

When stressed, Type 7 behaves more like Type 1.

When stressed, Type 8 behaves more like Type 5.

When stressed, Type 9 behaves more like Type 6.

Alternatively, you can use these sequences to follow the stress lines:

1-4-2-8-5-7-1

9-6-3-9

Growth

Think of the above-explanation in reverse.

The sequence:

1-7-5-8-2-4-1

9-3-6-9

As a Type 1 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 7.

As a Type 2 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 4.

As a Type 3 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 6.

As a Type 4 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 1.

As a Type 5 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 8.

As a Type 6 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 9.

As a Type 7 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 5.

As a Type 8 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 2.

As a Type 9 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 3.

Wings

The final thing to know about the Enneagram chart for my purposes is about wings. The wing of your personality traits accounts for the complementary and contradictory aspects of your personality. They are the inconsistencies that make you human, predicted and jumped in. Typically, a person is not thought to have both possible wings but one or the other. A wing is one of the two adjacent Types to yours, the number before, or the number after, and it is annotated, for example:

Type 1, Wing 2: 1w2

Type 1, Wing 9: 1w9

Link to Part 2 Here!

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Trapped” Part 3

Almost one year ago, someone tried to kill The Joker in a speeding car and Y/N pushed him out of the way, getting hit instead. With a fractured skull and broken bones, she was out of business for 6 months; when she finally recovered, The Queen of Gotham wasn’t the same anymore. Trapped inside her own mind and exhibiting severe cognitive impairment, Y/N’s life switched upside down without any hope of ever returning to normal.

Part 1       Part 2     Part 4     Part 5

Same day, later in the evening

“What are you doing, Pumpkin?” The Joker crawls next to you although he has an idea about why you look upset.

You’re on your tummy scribbling on a piece of paper and he can tell you are concentrating hard while working on the current project: writing down your name. Only got the first three letters then the rest went blank.

“I….I can’t think…” you intensely stare at the blue pen in between your fingers.

“Of course you can!” J reaches over so he can guide your arm since it’s clear you need help. “There you go… done. Now try to copy it bellow, alright?”

“Hm?”

“Try again Princess,” he taps on the sheet and watches Y/N struggling to imitate the word. “Well done!” The King of Gotham praises. “Wanna give it a shot with a few more simple words?”

“Mmmm…” you debate. “OK?...”

You analyze The Joker’s movements as he depicts four letter words, one of them getting your attention in particular.

“Love?” you smile, happy you deciphered the meaning.

“Yes, a basic…”

“Love?” you scoot over, more and more excited and it clicks for your boyfriend.

“It’s just an example for you to exercise and relearn how to write, understand? It doesn’t mean anything!”

You giggle and touch his nose with yours.

“Love!”

“No Pumpkin! I don’t love you, how did you get such atrocity from my note??!! It has no hidden meaning! I barely, from very afar, remotely, not even similar to love, sort of like you and that’s it!”

You snicker and quickly slide to grab the yellow teddy bear, whispering in its ear:

“Love.”

“Aren’t you listening Princess?? Don’t start fake rumors!!”

Still…Y/N lives on her own little planet and her damaged brain grasped a wonderful concept despite The Clown vehemently dismissing his actions.

“Serves me right for being supportive,” he grumbles and resorts to diversion, the best weapon against your new found logic.

“Wanna read to me?” he points at the pile of children’s books resting on the nightstand: they are the best to use in your present circumstance.

“… … Read?... ” you ask, confused.

“Here,” J picks a random publication and gives it to you.

Might as well fully take advantage.

“Spoil me!” he buries his cheeks in your cleavage, guiding your free hand towards his green locks.

You never figured out how he doesn’t suffocate with his face glued to your skin; sometimes he sleeps like that for hours. Must be a special talent.

“The … ummm… the…. The duck…” you read the first page and massage his scalp, frowning at the words you can’t make sense of. “Cross… … crossed?...”  

“Yeah,” The Joker’s mumbled voice agrees.

“… the… g-glass…” you stutter at the sentence.

“Grass,” J corrects you.

“Hm?...”

“Grass Pumpkin, not glass.”

“Ummm… grass…” you continue to read the best way you can and he rectifies your errors until no more sounds emerge: The King is softly purring, a clear indication he’s dreaming.

You toss the book on the floor, fed up with the difficult task of organizing your thoughts; pampering him is better. You slowly tilt his head backwards so you can kiss him: The Joker frowns in his daze and you pinch his butt, chuckling.

“What is it?” he opens one eye and you pull down on his boxers. “Princess, we had sex an hour ago. Do you think I run on batteries?” the complaint is fast to follow.

... … … Batteries?... …                                            

You jump from the bed and stump to the closet, fumbling around for a couple of minutes before returning to a puzzled Clown.

You stretch the elastic of his underwear, dropping two batteries you snatched from the flashlight inside.

“How… how long do we w-wait?” you innocently ask.

The Joker bites his lip, attempting to contain himself yet he can’t: he bursts out laughing at your quirky solution while dragging you on top of him.

“You’re the funniest and smartest person I know, Pumpkin!” he cracks up, actually convinced he’s telling the truth. “Who’s my clever girl, huh?”

He’s talking about a girl again…What girl?...

Y/N peeks behind her and J reminds his baffled half:

“For God’s sake, Princess! I’m talking about you; you’re my girl! Can you get my phone?” he gestures at his mobile ringing by your pillow.

You give the cell to J, ignoring his conversation with Frost: you keep kissing him with the sole purpose of getting undivided affection.

“I guess Adam is here to pick up the cars you damaged,” he finally ends his chat. “Let’s go supervise the process. Don’t be disappointed, Pumpkin, we’ll have fun later. It’s your fault for destroying my collection!”

****************

The Joker watches his crew sweeping the concrete in the garage: broken glass, pieces of metal and debris scattered on the pavement after his vehicles were hauled inside huge trucks in order to be transported to Adam’s workshop for repairs.

“Thanks a lot, Y/N!” he growls, frustrated.

“Y-you’re welcome,” you serenely reply without a care in the universe.

“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me, Princess!” he huffs at your indifference.

“Love,” you confess to the fluffy toy squished in your embrace.

“I heard that and it’s an aberration! Why do you keep persisting with this nonsense?! I’m literally stating the opposite!” J admonishes but who’s listening to him?

Not Y/N.

“Nolan is texting me,” he changes subject. “He wants me to meet him at his warehouse to inspect the boxes of ammo for the deal. Will you accompany me?”

“Hm?”

“Car ride?” The King of Gotham simplifies his request.

“U-hum!” you nod, preparing to enter the purple Lamborghini which luckily wasn’t in the garage when you smashed J’s cars.

“Frost, if you see me parked up the street in the driving alley, don’t come investigate, got it? This woman’s been pestering me for extracurricular activities, might not make it inside the mansion.”

“Of course, sir!” Jonny finds it wise to consent to his boss’s rambling.

“Tell everyone: if the Lamborghini’s rockin’, don’t come knockin’!”

**************

You’re sitting on J’s lap, completely blocking the arrangements happening at the table: you’re more preoccupied with your game than whatever it is they are negotiating about.

“What are you playing, Y/N?” Nolan curiously inquires because your thumbs are surely moving at a crazy speed on your cell’s screen.

“Hm?” you stop and gaze his way.

“What are you playing?” the man repeats.

“Mmmmm… Tetrixx Bricks.”

“What level are you on?” Nolan leans over, his eyes getting big at the revelation. “Holy shit, Y/N! How did you make it this far??! I’ve been striving to pass level 98 for a month!”

“She’s smart, that’s how!” your boyfriend sassily underlines.

“Do you think that you can help me?” the guy slides his phone in front of you.

“I’m sorry, is this a gaming party or a business matter?!” The Joker scoffs.

“Well, we’re pretty much done: we accepted the terms, we just have to move the merchandise in the morning.”

You are already matching the colorful blocks on Nolan’s game, his face ecstatic when the obnoxious song announces with great fanfare: “Level Up!”

“Holy cow!!!!” he shouts and you return his phone. “Thank you!”

“Hey Y/N,” one of the mobster’s henchmen dares to voice his demand. “Would you help me too? I’m stuck on level 76.”

“I’m dead on 105,” another goon mumbles under his breath, stepping in the line forming to your left.

J would normally cut off this useless waste of his precious time yet he can’t deny the gratification building up in his heart: heavens knows how it feels to be trapped inside your own mind and his girl has definitely battled unimaginable odds to be where she’s at right now.

Living with cognitive impairment is not easy, but she’s still here and it beats the alternative.

“Good job, Pumpkin!” The Clown boasts at the long string of cell phones parading through your fingers while you aid Nolan’s team leveling up on Tetrixx Bricks.

And somehow his hands are holding you tighter, not even bored with the random outcome of his meeting.

**************

You escaped on the terrace for a break and J is discussing the last details with your host: tomorrow you have a routine checkup, thus he has to wrap it up soon.

“Out of my way, half-wit!” Derek aka Nolan’s oldest son pushes you. Would he have done it if you were the same individual from almost a year ago? Nope. Apparently he believes he’s entitled to take advantage of Y/N since she’s alone outside.

“Why did Mister Joker bring you anyway?” he lights up a cigarette, annoyed. “Stupid monosyllabic bitch!” he ogles your summer dress, swiftly lifting it. “Are you wearing diapers?” he chuckles as you walk backwards, trying to process what he’s throwing at you. “Come on, show me!” he approaches and carefully scouts the premises to ensure you two don’t have company.

Perhaps the neurons in your brain are overcharged for the moment; nevertheless, they warn of imminent altercation: the dude’s a total douchebag.

“Are you shy?” Derek grins. “C’mon, lemme see!! Oooohh…fuuuuck…” he bends over in pain when your knee unexpectedly kicks him in the crotch: you used all your strength and he drops down, curling up in a ball. “God…dammit!” Derek shrieks at the defense he didn’t anticipate.

“I…I’m not wearing diapers!” you stammer and because he landed on the edge of the pool you roll him in the water also.

The loud splash makes The Joker wave at you, glad he eventually found you: he’s been searching around the warehouse for the last 5 minutes.

“There you are! Quit playing around, Pumpkin; we have a swimming pool at home!”

You rush by his side eager to bail before the asshole pops up from the bottom of the pond.

“Sushi for dinner?” J suggests and Y/N is not the type of individual to reject one of her favorite dishes.

“I…I love sushi,” you smile elbowing him. “Love.”

“Don’t start with me again!” The King barks at your obvious hint.

*************

“Are you eating the last piece?” he glares at your salmon roll.

“No,” you offer the treat to him. “You…you need it more,” Y/N verbalizes her concern regarding his well-being.

“Can’t disagree, Pumpkin. You exhausted me you naughty girl,” J pretends to be super tired. “What can I do? Princess wants, Princess gets,” he inhales, resigned.

You’re not focusing on his whining: frankly, your intellect has been challenged enough for today. You cuddle in his arms while he chews on his food and watch TV without paying attention to the movie.

“Don’t forget tomorrow morning you have your doctor’s appointment,” J mentions. “I have to stay and wait for the guns I purchased from Nolan; you’ll have to manage without me. I’ll send an escort, deal?”

“U-hum.”

“Don’t yawn, Pumpkin. I’m the one that should yawn,” The Joker scratches his thigh. “This move sucks,” he pouts and turns off the TV. “I have a better idea,” he chooses a kid’s book from the stack. “Read to me.”

You open the textbook and although your brain is overwhelmed, you still make an effort for his sake.

“Mmm… Rainy… sky… Skies?...”

“Yup,” he turns on his side and nuzzles in your hair.

“Float over…hmm… t-town…”, your voice echoes in the room, soothing a worn out Joker.

Strange he can’t properly rest unless you read to him: after all J barely, from very afar, remotely, not even similar to love, sort of likes you.

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[patrickstargang]

Forgotten Past, Hidden Future (Legend of Korra fic)

Chapter 1: Looking In The Wrong Places

Chapter 2: Lucky To Have You

Chapter 3: A Lot To Learn

Chapter 4: Kya’s Story

Chapter 5: A Tale of Miazu

Chapter 6: The Avatar’s Love

Final Chapter: The Mural

Ever since Kya told her about Kyoshi, Korra has been trying to learn more about the prolific Earth Kingdom Avatar. Little things about the conversation that one day stood out in her mind, mainly that Kyoshi’s efforts were “unable to affect any kind of real progress.” With the Earth Kingdom in a much different situation than it was since the death of Hou-Ting, this little fact became a nagging voice in the back of her head. 

I’m sure things have gotten better since then. Korra’s thoughts began to go deeper, with each passing moment leaving more room for uncertainty. I mean it was hundreds of years ago! So much has changed since then.

This thought came to her while reading what looked like a massive textbook titled “A Comprehensive History of The Earth Kingdom”. She was off into a corner, deep within one of Republic City’s oldest libraries. With the lighting and arrangement of the pillars it looked like a two floor version of Wan Shi Tong’s library (probably a form of imitation as flattery). This library in particular was notable for containing documents related to Earth Kingdom rule dating back thousands of years, which was what brought Korra here in the first place. 

Korra skimmed through page after page, finding a great deal about Kyoshi as an Avatar, a diplomatic figure, but not much for her work as an “activist”. After a while, she noticed there wasn’t even a mention of same sex relationships in the Earth Kingdom. She continued scanning, her eyes straining from frustration but also exhaustion. This was around hour three of her search. She hadn’t done this much intensive studying in one day since Tenzin had her read Air Nomad philosophy. As time passed, the behemoth of a text book began to shrink, only a few more untouched pages left. With each page turned, she seemed to grip the paper tighter, almost ripping it. And then…...nothing. After all that time there was not a single piece of information to show for it. Korra was more confused than upset. Something felt off about it. She closes her eyes, letting a breath go out.

Questions began firing in her mind. How is that possible, I looked everywhere! Maybe I missed it a few chapters ago? Wait, what if I checked a different book, maybe this is just an old versi-

“Mam?” an anonymous voice rang from behind Korra. She darted her head up from the book to see a young librarian who looked as if he was carrying fifty pounds worth of books. “It’s almost closing time.” Korra glanced out the windows to see it was night time already. Just a minute ago it seemed like she just got here. “Sorry, guess I lost track of time.” The librarian let out a lighthearted chuckle before he began to organize the shelf of Earth Kingdom text in front of him.

Korra slowly brought her attention back to the text and began to quickly flip pages back to the beginning. She stopped at a chapter with the title “The Life of Avatar Kyoshi”. It was a simplified synopsis of Kyoshi’s time as the Avatar, detailing important events and milestones within her era. She began looking at names, trying to piece together any possible threads to look more into. She noted a few: her bending teachers, the Yellow Neck leaders, the Air Nomads that Kyoshi stayed with. But one label caught her eye: bodyguard. That title belonged to someone named Rangi, who was only referenced a few times in the chapter. Everyone else had some background, except for her. There was only her label as the Avatar’s “bodyguard”, a position left mostly unknown besides a name and nothing else. What's being left out? And why?

It struck Korra that there was only ten minutes left before closing. She closed the book with a slam, followed by a strained wince as she realized how loud it was. She quietly got out of her chair and headed for the doorway. But she stopped and glanced back at the librarian still attempting to alphabetize numerous books at once. “Are the archives still open by any chance?” 

“There isn’t much time left but...yeah they're open.” The thought comes to Korra that this might just be another dead end. Maybe it might just be a rabbit hole and Kya had some wrong information. But she was willing to go further, if it meant that she could better understand the Earth Kingdom’s troubled past. Korra looks back up at the librarian with a new face of determination. “Sorry to bother you again, but do you think they’d allow me to take something back home with me?” Her face transformed from determination to an awkward grimace after asking what really was an unusual question. “I mean, if it's no trouble.”

Korra’s grimace continues as she expects a confused reaction but instead finds the librarian deep in thought. “Well….” the librarian draws out the pause, stroking his chin. “I’m pretty sure we can make an exception for the Avatar.” Korra is taken aback by how nonchalant the response was, not even indicating the slightest bit of sarcasm. But she didn’t care, as her determined aura decided to come back in style. “Perfect!” she proclaimed, once again louder than intended.

She turns toward the archive doors. “Because I’m going to need a couple of scrolls.”

(so if you got to the end, thank you for reading all of this. this is my first attempt at writing a fanfic and its an idea that i really like, it might take a few chapters to get there but i think it will be worth it. also feel free to lend me your thoughts on it, im happy to hear whatever you guys think would improve my style or if you just really liked it.)

[ocehans]

9 Essential WEB SITE DESIGN Methods for DIY Beginners

Let’s get right down to it, shall we? Below are a few of the very most useful styles and guidelines to learn when building your first website:

1. SET ASIDE the Mouse, GRAB a Pencil

Your site may already exist as a lovely, complete entity in your mind which is the reason why you immediately leap into Photoshop (or worse, an internet browser and HTML) to plan it out. Whoa, whoa-cool your jets for another! Don’t place the cart before the equine. First, get out a pencil and pad of paper and start putting your ideas into something easily tangible. That is an important stage to map out the framework of your site using only rectangles, doodles and influenced ideas (categorized as wireframing). Things can be very tough at this time; no one’s heading to view it nevertheless, you.

It is more easily at this time to alter designs you originally thought works however now discover are cluttered and confusing in writing. This can save you many hours of disappointment instead of making the same finding after the site is coded and in a web browser. Plus, it can help significantly to create a web page when you have research at hand to seek advice from rather than moving in blind.

2. Follow a Hierarchy

It’s an undeniable fact that a lot of web surfers tend to only check out webpages rather than take time to read everything. You should be ready because of this by placing the most crucial content first. This means that a consumer can break down the most essential information on a full page all in a single screen on preliminary load, and never have to focus or scroll. That is, of course, easier said than done. Here are some tips to help you better understand the significance of the design theory:

Keep Content “Above the Collapse”

We call that preliminary display of loaded content “the fold”-and everything below it that must be scrolled to be observed is considered supplementary. Generally, your most significant information rests “above the collapse”. The crucial thing to perform within this area is to entice a consumer to do this or generate the motivation to scroll down further.

Utilizing a “Hero” Image

A common trend in web site design nowadays is to fill this “above the fold” area using what is named a “hero” image or banner. They are full-screen history images with very succinct and to-the-point overlaid text messages, usually combined with a call-to-action button. Feasibly the whole purpose of the net web page could be included within this banner area, although it also acts as a great primer for this content to follow.

“The Collapse” May Change With regards to the Device

Here’s where things become complicated-and why you shouldn’t overburden yourself attempting to match everything above this marvelous line. Concerning the user’s device, the display screen sizes could differ greatly. A jaw-dropping 5K screen has a vertical quality of 2880 pixels, whereas an iPhone 5 has not even half of this. This means that mobile users just aren’t heading to have the ability to fit as much content to their display real property. (More upon this later.)

3. Typography Is Your Design

Unless you’re owning a photography business, the text is the solitary most important component of any website, so it’s important to get this done part right. Your web page’s hierarchy is greatly reliant on the typography you select: how your headings, subheadings, and body text message follow an all-natural circulation and stay aesthetically distinctive in one another

Make sure the written text is legible (avoid flowery fonts!) and large enough (usually around 16px for your body).

Stick to only two fonts-and make sure they set well together!

Give your paragraphs some room to inhale between one another, and arranged enough top cushioning or margin on your headings to symbolize clear breaks in content.

Avoid long lines of text. It’s easier on the eye for paragraph lines to be approximately only 15 words long-and a little significantly less than that for mobile displays.

Serif fonts are usually best only in print-unless they may be found in large headlines on the net

4. Colors & Comparison Are Crucial

We’ve discussed color mindset at length, however, the idea bears duplicating. The colors you select for your website play a massive role in how users understand your brand, as well as how motivated they could feel in taking action (i.e.: buying things) through your website. Why? Well, every color evokes certain feelings, and either for their natural character or by social fitness, these colors have grown to be associated with certain types of businesses. If a children’s toy company or a financial consultant painted their whole website in the stark dark, it could send the incorrect indicators with their meant viewers. Around the flipside, a shiny orange or an enjoyable blue, respectively, would catch the perfect firmness and consciousness for his or her customers.

If you’ve already established the colors of your brand, use those on your website then. It’s best, however, to keep it at only three colors for your site; like fonts, you don’t want to overdo it here or your site could finish up with multiple personality disorder. Also, be skeptical of way too many splashes of color across your website; our eye is attracted to them like honey traps, plus they could interrupt the natural movement of your articles. Use color only once it is most needed, such as links or control keys.

In contrast, your text message must stick out from the backdrop. Using light greys, yellows or greens for your fonts will likely render them unseen on the web page. Black on the white background is the foremost combination of comparison and is normally what you ought to stick to.

Additionally, you want your text message to pop against background images. Using very occupied photos can distract from the written text, to avoid this issue either use less comprehensive photos or use an overlay of, say, rgba(51,51,51,0.5)to help soften the image within the text.

Contrast also is important in how users are attracted to certain important elements of your site. Your most significant call-to-action control keys must get attention through the use of contrasting colors. A blue “Buy Now!” button manages to lose its urgency and well worth it when it's swallowed by a niche site that uses blue everywhere-but a red button on that same web page grabs a user’s attention by shouting “Hey! Click me!”

5. Using Pictures

Deciding on the best images to use on your website partly boils down to your artistic aptitude, but there are also intellectual considerations to consider that should assist with your selection process. First of all, avoid embellishing your site with extraneous photos because they could look nice. Instead, think of how each image you utilize serves its purpose, and how it functions as content. A well-chosen picture can convey your brand, service, product, or audience a lot more effectively than words. Use photos to help your users understand something, to evoke feelings, or even to inspire trust and self-confidence; with them solely for visual reasons should be supplementary.

Understanding Document Types & Compression

There can be an extra step that must be taken for using images on the net. Those elegant photos you have from sites like Shutterstock and iStock could be very substantial (5,000+ horizontal pixels and 10+ megabytes in proportions) which is okay for printing, but they’re unfit for websites. Not everyone has superfast Dietary fiber Internet, and that means you must decrease the size of your images to support for launching times (not forgetting 40% of site visitors will leave if the website takes much longer than 3 mere seconds to weight!). Typically, you want to keep each of your images at no more than 500 kilobytes in proportions, though your average quality should of times be around 100 kilobytes.

JPEG is the typical format for photos. It is a lossy format, this means its image quality is reduced when compressed. If you’re utilizing a JPEG for a full-width history image I quickly recommend keeping its horizontal quality at a minimum of 1200px. For general purposes, stay away from any image with significantly less than 600px horizontal quality, as it'll likely show up blurry on modern displays.

PNG is the most well-liked choice for images or for images that want transparency. It is a lossless format, which is ideal for keeping image quality but may also greatly increase document sizes. Generally, you’ll use PNG images for illustrations, symbols, or smaller images that may be stacked together with other elements for their transparency. You’ll hardly ever need a PNG to be bigger than 1000px.

SVG (Scalable Vector Image) is a more recent format that is changing GIF and even PNG in some instances. SVG wonders that it could be as large or as small onscreen as you will need it to be, all while keeping perfect clearness and crispness (but still be a little quality). You should think about using SVG for just about any logo design, icon, or vector visual on your website; as high DPI shows are becoming commonplace, the sharpness of SVG provides the best image quality.

6. Mobile-First Design

We’ve now reached a period where most people consume online quite happy with their cell phones rather than on the desktop computer. As a total result, there is much larger precedence in web site design to tailor specifically to the mobile experience, which has resulted in the “mobile-first” design viewpoint.

This means that essentially, throughout your initial sketching and planning phase in some recoverable format, it is best to focus on the site’s mobile layout first. Only the most crucial content necessary for the functioning of your site will be displayed on smaller screens. This causes you to simplify your design and slice out any distracting elements immediately. Think back again to your “above the flip” content: if you first ensure that the important info can fit on the original screen of the phone, then you’ll know for several it'll fit on bigger displays. Once you’ve nailed the fundamental mobile layout, you'll be able to start adding in embellishments or bigger images for desktop displays.

Your mobile layout assumes a far more vertical design that inspires scrolling, as opposed to the wide landscape of the desktop. If, say, your product web page displays entries in a grid of 3 across on desktops, then usually your mobile layout will display them as only a single column.

Yes, which means that you essentially need to produce several layouts for every web page of your website. Fortunately, a worthwhile website contractor should provide reactive templates that change these designs automatically so you’ll then just need to fine-tune them.

7. Keep Things Aligned

When elements appear sporadically laid across your site it is often due to an alignment issue. Imagine your website on the sheet of graph paper. Individual it into even columns by sketching, for example, six right lines. You now want to ensure that the remaining sides of your elements are distributed and aligned to only these six vertical lines.

8. Keep It Simple

It is said that the best web site design moves unnoticed; it is a poor design that phone calls focus on itself. As stated earlier, the main facet of any website is merely its text message. If you can offer outstanding typography that is a joy to learn, you won’t do much more. Wanting to overdesign your site will just mess and complicate things.

Are the package shadows necessary? The crazy, ornate patterns? A large number of colors? Not probably.

9. Big Open up Spaces

Your articles need room to breathe. White space is the prevailing design choice for modern websites: wide, open up areas of nothingness to pad areas between content. It’s a far more pleasant way to process information, looked after stimulates you to eliminate superfluous text messages and images to keep carefully the site clean.

Get more advice Thought Media is a leading Chicago web design providing professional website development services, and one of the top SEO companies. The agency has worked with hundreds of clients all over the world! Creating high converting website designs, providing reliable website hosting, and successful Search Engine Optimization Marketing campaigns!

Conclusion

Web site design can be considered a sprawling field of technology to learn, ideas to practice, dialects to review, and artistry to understand. Only with experience will all of these components start to make sense, however, you already are well on the way simply by grasping the basics of why is a good website work. I am hoping that guide acts as your launching-off point, which offers you the self-confidence to consider your website into the own hands and build it just how that only a business proprietor knows best.

[mattlassen]

My Ascent into MADness

          I’ve seen a lot of eulogies to MAD from contributors and fans alike the past week since the news broke that they wouldn’t be printing new material going forward. Yes, it is a loss for me as a MAD contributor but to be honest, I have been processing this loss and the end of MAD for a little while now. As Tom Richmond said so dead on, this was not something we didn’t see coming.

           I wrote some tweets as a tribute to MAD the day after the announcement went public but I feel I owe it more. (I really am a millennial - I thought a tweet or two was enough!) MAD was a big part of my life. It changed my life. It deserves more than Twitter. We all do!

           I was a writer and artist (occasionally) for MAD since I interned at the age of 19 but not many people know how I encountered MAD for the first time. I was born with a pencil in my hand as my mom says which makes me question what she was eating and drinking during pregnancy. I was always drawing and dreamed of being a comic strip artist after my dream of being a basketball star went by the waist side when everyone got taller and left me well by their waist side! During high school, my family took a trip to California and being big fans of Peanuts (my mom and I), we visited the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. It was an amazing experience. We went around the whole museum while my dad and brother tailed off to let my mom and I experience it more in-depth at our leisure. When I met up with my dad later, he said “I was sitting in on this artist talk and the guy is pretty good. Maybe you’d be interested.” We went in and Tom Richmond was doing a talk about caricatures. They were amazing. Funny, exaggerated and completely dead on. You knew who it was right away! The perfect caricature.

           As the talk ended, Tom showed the opening spread artwork he just finished for MAD Magazine for the movie, Spiderman 2. Wow. Caricatures, amazing line, color and backgrounds together. Oh and stupidity! Spiderman’s pants were coming down so his underwear was showing, Doc Ock had big bandages on his tentacles and there was a paper that said “Man bites Dog, Dog sues.” The best was a spider web coming from the middle of Spiderman’s legs which I remember Tom saying, “Yeah, I’m surprised I got away with that one.” I left amazed but also thinking I can’t draw like that. Uh-oh.

           The museum announced that they would be doing a caricature workshop with Tom in about five minutes upstairs for free. We all went with a little encouragement from my parents. Tom started by asking for a volunteer that he could do a caricature demonstration of. My parents were very insistent that I do it, but being a teenager at the time (who looked quite younger than his actual age, short and scrawny!), I didn’t want to. I was picked and had to go up in front of everyone for an artist to pick apart my face and draw me. Yay! I was a good sport and a very jokey guy so I can take a joke just like I dished them out. He drew me on chart paper with big muscles and a mom tattoo because hell, my mom was the whole reason he was drawing me! I left the workshop with a caricature in my hand and MAD Magazine in my head. I need to get the magazine that had this Spiderman art in it. Many years later after hanging and talking to Tom on multiple MAD occasions as contributors, I told him this story at a party after a beer or two. He was a bit surprised to say the least.

           We went to a mall shortly afterwards and I was searching for the MAD art in the newsstands but it wasn’t out yet. I settled for the latest issue and was amazed by the diverse amazing artwork in the magazine. Since I met Richmond, I was fascinated with his work and it really stood out but there were other guys that were cool too like Mort Drucker, Hermann Mejia, Tom Bunk and John Caldwell (my all-time favorite since he was much goofier looking and simplified with his artwork just like I liked to draw!) Plus, he had this squiggle in his line which was intriguing. How? Why?

           I became obsessed with MAD for the art. I didn’t read it as much as I should have early on but I was just obsessed with the artwork as a budding cartoonist. The words were secondary to me. It was an art magazine. I drew everything in high school with chicken fat - gags on top of gags. My MAD subscription and obsession continued when I entered college. I went on the MAD website and saw they had internships in the New York offices for art and editorial. I was in no way a graphic design person. I hated it. Type and layout was boring. I wanted to be a cartoonist! I applied for both art and editorial. I wrote and mocked up my own outtakes from different TV shows such as The Office, Muppets etc. which was a recurring feature in the magazine at the time. It was something fun to do on a rainy Saturday night. I submitted and thought nothing of it. I wasn’t going to get it. Another summer doing art and taking summer classes. Yay.

            I checked my email on a slow Monday morning and to my astonishment, there was an email from Amy V. at MAD offering me an editorial internship. I was stunned. I told my family and they were ecstatic for me and soon I was starting my first day as a MAD intern. It was insane. The only magazine, I liked and I was going to work there. I got there and we had a morning staff meeting first thing. The whole staff (which wasn’t big at all!) and the four interns (two editorial and two art). I was nervous but was eased when the staff was grilling us about the magazine and I was the only one answering everything. I remember art leaving after giving their report on the status of their pieces and what they needed etc. John Ficarra, the editor (and best Benjamin Franklin impersonator I’ve ever met) took a piece of paper and wrote down what Michael and I would be doing. I got a big speech from my family about interns and how I shouldn’t expect much, I’m going to get coffee and do meaningless jobs that others didn’t want to do etc. John said “Okay, you’ll be writing fundalini pieces in house such as “The Godfrey Report”, “Celebrity Cause of Death Betting Odds” - give us a list of celebs to approve before you start and Fundalini asks “What If…?” etc.” He also said, we will have brainstorming writing sessions where you will work with us etc. I don’t think I blinked for the two minutes he was talking. Then he said, Dave will show you your office and get you guys set up. We had an office. We had our own desks. We had our own computers, phones. What?! Where was the coffee I needed to get them?

            We went right to writing, Michael and I. We came up with a bunch of celebrities etc. and got to know each other. I was always an art person and a little funny in classrooms and parties but never would I think of myself as a writer. We got a bunch of issues from the storage closet and focused in on the material we had to write specifically. I was seeing the magazine in a completely different light. It was incredibly smart and funny. Why wasn’t I reading this cover to cover all the time? We started writing together and putting out stupid jokes to try to make each other laugh. Sometimes successfully and most of the time, not. The soul crushing silence became the most dreaded thing in my life. The joke didn’t land and you just embarrassed yourself. That writing session was broken up by a call to come to the editor’s office because Al Jaffee was there dropping off the new Fold In. What?! This day is getting more surreal. That was cool is an understatement. Eventually, throughout the days at MAD, Michael and I wrote by ourselves and didn’t really collaborate on any pieces mostly because we had different comedy sensibilities and it was easier to write by ourselves. I started writing all day long and printing out my pieces to read and revise on my commute home.

            I got to sit in on fold in meetings, department writing sessions, general pitch meetings from writer submissions and what direction they wanted to go with content. I quickly figured out that I wasn’t as quick and funny as everyone else thought I was. These guys have been doing it for decades. Damn were they good! My first department writing meeting, they had an article about Fast Food and they needed a fake department name. I didn’t even get to process what the article was and the editor says “When Grease Meets West?” to which he is interrupted by Charlie singing “All We Are Sayyyyinnnnggg…Is Give Grease a Chance.” I was dumbfounded, out of my element and intimidated. I need to get better and quick.  

            As the six-week internship went on, I wrote so many pitches and submissions. I wrote three or four pages of Godfrey Reports (maybe nine got in), multiple Celebrity Cause of Death Betting Odds (three or so that got printed), so so many what ifs, that were off the mark. I loved it there! The people were funny, they were welcoming and better yet, they were kind and nurturing. They told you what worked and didn’t work. They didn’t care who had the best idea or the funniest line in the room, they liked that it was the best and funniest! It was comedy boot camp and you wanted to work there forever.

             We helped write fundalini pieces, department titles, articles in house, even an article introduction and so much more. I was like a staff member. I would get there early and leave later than I needed to. I met legends and heroes of mine when they would visit the office including Al Jaffee, John Caldwell, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, ironically, Tom Richmond and Hermann Mejiia among others. We got to go through original art for auction (where I found three Don Martins which they had to pry from my hands before I drooled on them), got to admire and examine Mort Drucker original pages that he just fed ex’ed in for a new parody with the staff, see the construction of a cover putting Obama and Alfred together (like 20 or 30 different versions) and the same for the Knockout Obama, Hillary piece both by Mark Frederickson. I felt like a staff member and left being assigned an editor to submit to and now you are a contributing writer, if you want to be. Submit anything you want. Now I’m a writer. They didn’t know who I was six weeks before. I’m just a college kid. I’m a contributor now? That was the best thing about MAD, they didn’t care what else you did for other people, they wondered what could you do for us. Don’t show me work you did for other people, show me a piece you wrote specifically for us. They looked at potential and built up talent to a new level.

            I wrote and wrote and there was a lot of near sales but a lot of not quites. I sold to MAD Kids before Christmas. That was a cool Christmas gift. In January, the magazine lays off three staff members and goes quarterly. There’s a famous Stephan Pastis line that I always remember and works best here “I finally get to play for the Lakers and the stadium is collapsing underneath us.” I came back the next summer and interned in the art department. Now, I’m getting to know people I knew but didn’t work with closely at all. Same old MAD but completely different. Instead of being with the editorial guys, I was with the art guys, Ryan, Sam and Doug. All smart, funny and amazing guys themselves. I came right into a deadline for the magazine and was put to Photoshopping different things. I was then tasked with restoring fold ins for a upcoming fold in collection. The previous intern did about ten or so which meant we were a long way away from completion. Over the next six weeks, I restored over 450 or so fold ins for the book, got to have lunch with and meet more artists and writers including Harry North, Jason Chatfield, Shannon Wheeler etc. and go through more original artwork to send back to the artists. Any cartoonists dream. I think Adam Cooke and Michael Slaubaugh visited that summer too! During this time, I wrote a piece on the weekend and submitted it to Dave Croatto, my editor, to which they eventually bought! Now I was actually a contributor to MAD! Not in house pieces but as a writer.

            After leaving MAD as an art intern, I looked for other places to intern/write for/work for. I knew MAD wasn’t going to pay the bills! I interviewed at The Onion where they told me I would hate working there after working at MAD because they didn’t care if it was the funniest idea or line in the room, if an intern said it they would ignore it. Nothing was like MAD and would be like it. I became very loyal to MAD. I only wrote for them. I didn’t consider myself a comedian, I was just a writer for MAD and MAD only. I temped after college in the editorial department for a month (literally, the day after my last final ever and took a day off for graduation!) We started the blog, established daily posting and internet presence through the current events that was happening. I started submitting more and selling on a more consistent basis. I valued their opinions and their direction. Nothing made me happier than seeing a MAD guy on the floor of a convention or visiting the office once or twice a year. They changed my career and the way I looked at things by just giving a 19-year-old kid a chance and some criticism and encouragement. They let me submit cartoons and I started to sell those too!

           I continued to write for the magazine and even got a page in their new book, Inside MAD, to write about MAD as a contributor. I did other freelance art jobs and eventually went back to graduate school to become an art teacher. Even throughout the four years I’ve been teaching, I continued to contribute and write consistently for the magazine. There are too many stories and memories to recount. (Believe me, this could be much longer!) When MAD announced they were moving to California, I went into mourning. My buddies were leaving. There were talks for years about this happening and they resisted as much as they could. I didn’t know what was going to be next for them and the magazine. I wanted to continue writing because it was my outlet and a nice hobby for me to destress from life and my full time gig of teaching cartooning. It wasn’t a job for me, it was fun!

           The new year came and it meant starting over with a new staff. It was hard. I tried but my heart wasn’t in it as much as when the New York staff was there. I wrote pieces and sold pieces (many that didn’t get printed because of the shortened run) but contributed none the less. As my job got more intense, I wrote less and less and without the same relationship, I had in the past my motivation folded a little bit before MAD did. My mourning period has lasted for a year and a half so the end of MAD wasn’t such a surprise or as much of a loss as it would have been otherwise for me. It still is a loss, don’t get me wrong but less so. This isn’t any slight to the West Coast MAD staff at all. It was me, not them. MAD became a fun hobby for me. Not my sole income and my way of life. I did it because I had the ideas and I enjoyed the people and the work. Plenty of people make fun of politicians, celebrities and the stupidity of the life but I occasionally got paid for it.

            I’ve been asked if I will try to get into other publications. I don’t know. Maybe. You might just see more MAD like pieces in my own webcomics and cartoons. The influence will be there forever and I hope people can clearly see that through the bad puns, the political stupidity and the irony.

            MAD is the cartooning and comedy bible. I loved the art as a cartoonist and grew to love the writing and minds behind everything as a contributing writer. My art and views are completely changed by my experiences working and being a MAD idiot. Everything I do is so idea based now because of MAD and being a MAD writer. They weren’t afraid of new blood or printing work from an unknown artist or writer. They gave chances and crafted things that were truly unique. I thank them for changing my life and letting me be a part of theirs and their legacy for the past decade. All of the amazing people and contributors I have met because of it is amazing. I will miss the occasions we would meet, share a joke or even lament about things. My life would be something very different if I didn’t go to a museum in Santa Rosa, if I didn’t submit an internship application and if I didn’t pick up a MAD Magazine on vacation. I would be called an idiot in different, not so surprising and endearing contexts and I wouldn’t have an Alfred sized hole in me today. I’m proud to sound off like I have to other MAD NY staffers and contributors in our coded communications.

Forever MAD

[pixelgrotto]

D&D With My Bro: The Case of the Almost Assassination

For the last four months, my brother and I have been playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I whipped up called The Case of the Almost Assassination, and we came to a triumphant finale the other night. My bro’s called it a “steampunk mystery set in a fantasy world,” which is a good description, but on a more detailed level, the campaign was also heavily influenced by the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton games and exists in the universe of The Thirteenth Hour, a series of fantasy stories self-published by my brother that are inspired by 80s movies and cartoons. So the whole thing is one huge ball of fun nerdiness, and figuring that it might be cool to chronicle the campaign as we played, I captured each of our sessions on video. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube here in convenient playlist format (listening to it in the background like a podcast is also pretty nice, I gotta say), and there’s over 20 hours there, which is longer than some of the video games I’ve blogged about! 

This wasn’t the first time that my brother and I had played D&D, since I’d previously introduced the game to him via a small four hour mini-campaign last time I visited his house. (He’s written some great thoughts on that adventure, as well as the experience of missing out on D&D in his childhood but getting the chance to discover it as an adult here.) But this was certainly the first time we’d played something long that continued from week to week, and it was also the first time we’d used virtual tabletop software - in this case the very useful Roll 20 - to play online. Minus a few minor internet hiccups, it ran smoothly, and I think both of us had a great time. The experience also made me ruminate on three interesting facts about D&D that I think not enough people write about, and I’m going to jot off a few thoughts on them here. Without further ado...

1) It is perfectly possible, and sometimes even more fun, to play D&D with just one other person. 

Normally, Dungeons & Dragons conjures up images of a bunch of people - usually three or four at minimum - sitting at a table listening to instructions given to them by the Dungeon/Game Master, or DM. But the hardest part of D&D isn’t juggling rules or even fighting Challenge Rating 30 monsters - it’s getting a group of three or four people to meet up together on a consistent basis! This is why you can tell that anyone who still thinks of D&D as an activity for anti-social basement dwellers hasn’t actually played it, because in truth, the game is a demanding social commitment, especially for adults.

Thankfully, while it might be a less common way to play, you can totally enjoy D&D with just two people. Usually this means that someone more familiar with the rules has to be the DM while the other person acts as the player, which is what my brother and I did. Sometimes, the DM will also have to create a player character for themselves, and I did that in order to assist my bro with various battles and tricky scenes. This is more work for the DM, since they’ll have to juggle both their own character as well as the various non-playable characters (NPCs) encountered in the story, but if you’re up for it, it’s a rewarding exercise.

The best thing about playing D&D with just one DM and one player is how efficient it is. Three or four player D&D (to say nothing of five, six, or even more players) can get slowed down by arguments about how to progress or share loot, not to mention downtime in battles when a player who has a bazillion spells at his disposal deliberates on the one he wants to use that will both do the most damage and look the coolest. Don’t get me wrong, I actually love these sorts of interactions, but it’s also nice to strip all that fat away. 

When it’s just one player and the DM, the DM also has the chance to make that player feel pivotally important by basing the story around them. Usually, the “unit” of D&D is the adventuring party, but in a one person + one DM game, the player gets to shine as the main character. Thus, it’s a good idea to choose the sort of story that can emphasize the important actions of an individual, and in my opinion the best ones for this are heavy on role-playing and character interaction rather than dungeon crawling and monster slaying. For example, a rogue adventure in an urban environment might fit the bill...or maybe even a mystery. Which leads me to my second point...

2) If you’re a DM making a homebrew campaign, try utilizing a setting that your players are already familiar with.

When my brother initially agreed to play a long campaign with me, I first thought that we might attempt one of the many published Forgotten Realms adventures that have been released for 5th Edition D&D. But then I realized that while my brother is mildly familiar with the Forgotten Realms, thanks to old comics and fantasy art from the 80s and 90s, he’s much more familiar with the setting that he created for his own fantasy novel, The Thirteenth Hour. My bro originally wrote this book when he was a high school kid and finally published it a few years ago, and in the time since, he’s written some short spin-offs and outlined ideas for a sequel. In the mini-campaign we’d played in October, his character was actually a half-elf ranger named the Wayfarer who’ll play a pivotal role in book two, and I initially pitched the whole idea of D&D to him as “Hey, this can help you brainstorm your sequel concepts before you put them down to paper.” 

Once I began toying with the idea of making a homebrew campaign set in The Thirteenth Hour world, I started worrying that my brother’s universe was limited when compared to the “fantasy kitchen sink” setting of the Forgotten Realms. I mean, my bro’s book didn’t even have orcs! Or dwarves! What was I gonna do! But then I stopped being reliant on fantasy tropes and actually re-read The Thirteenth Hour, quickly finding that there was plenty I could work with.The universe that my brother created doesn’t have all of the races that Tolkien coined, but it’s still full of magic and wonder - a place where crafty old wizards inspired by The Last Starfighter’s Centauri run amok, strange technological anomalies like hover boards occasionally pop up and an otherworldly gatekeeper known as the Dreamweaver lets the spirits of the deceased visit their loved ones in dreams. And there’s also a large kingdom called Tartec ruled over by a vaguely Trump-esque king named Darian, who thinks he’s found the elixir of immortality when actually all he’s discovered is coffee. (If you think this sounds amusing, you can pick up a digital copy of my bro’s book on Amazon for less than a cup of Starbucks!)

Darian’s a funny character, and in one of the spin-off short stories that my brother wrote, an older and slightly wiser version of him reflects on how an assassin nearly took his head off with a dagger. This one sentence got me thinking who that assassin might be, and before I knew it I’d come up with the basic hook of a campaign. At the time, I was also reading Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, a D&D book that introduces 5th Edition’s Inquisitive subclass, which is basically a fantasy Sherlock Holmes. Suddenly, the ideas began bubbling in my head - the campaign would be a detective story set in Tartec with two leads trying to determine the identity of King Darian’s would-be assassins. Once I had this hook, I decided to draw further inspiration from the two video game series I think of when I hear the word “detective” - the Professor Layton games (which I like the style of but am rubbish at, since puzzles confound me) and the Ace Attorney series, which I’ve written about before. My brother would be the main character Lester LeFoe (patterned slightly after Phoenix Wright, the star of Ace Attorney), and I’d be the spunky female assistant Claudia Copperhoof (a little similar to Phoenix’s assistant Maya Fey). 

I hoped that situating these characters in my brother’s world would breed a quicker sense of familiarity than he’d get from playing a generic warrior in the Forgotten Realms, and I think it’s safe to say that the experiment succeeded. Thus, even though 5th Edition D&D products all use the Realms as their default setting, it’s worth remembering that you don’t have to follow this lead, and can always tailor your campaign to a world that your players are already familiar with. In my brother’s case, he’s a writer who made his own world, but for someone else this can easily be Middle-Earth or the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard’s Conan books. The D&D Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide actively encourage modifying published adventures to appeal to your players’ favorite settings, in fact, and not only will this potentially help to decrease the amount of lore you need to explain as a Dungeon Master, but it’ll also help keep the attention of everybody listening to you. Because who wouldn’t want to insert themselves into their favorite bit of genre fiction as a legendary figure? In many ways, the whole point of D&D is to give people a framework to do that!

3) If you’re DMing for someone who doesn’t have much time to play, remember that a linear campaign is not necessarily a bad thing, and simplify the more complicated rules - making stuff up whenever necessary!

On page six of the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, there’s a whole section entitled “Know Your Players,” which is all about altering your game to appeal to the personalities at your table. If you’re DMing for people who like acting and appreciate in-depth stories, give them plenty of role-playing opportunities and narrative twists, for instance, and if you’re dealing with folks who’d rather just make their characters look cool, try having them fight lots of monsters who reward snazzy armor and weapons. 

There should really be a sub-section there entitled “How to run a game for players who are low on time.” Because that’s my brother in a nutshell. He’s a late 30s dude who works a demanding job and has two small children to take care of, one of whom is barely half a year old. (You can hear my nephew gurgling in the background in a few of our videos, and sometimes we’d even have to stop playing when the baby woke up from a snooze, which is a situation that I’m sure all new parents can relate to.) I know for a fact that my brother is also the type of guy whose eyes will glaze over when presented with a lot of complicated rules - as is probably the case for anyone who only has at most an hour or two, often in the late evening, to sit down to play a game when the rest of the family is in bed. 

In my opinion, the way to tailor your game to such a player is to make a brisk, well-paced story that they can actually see to a satisfying conclusion. This means that the campaign might be fairly linear - a word which seems to have bizarre negative connotations to some D&D players out there, who are always ranting about “railroading,” which is when a DM puts players down a predetermined path without any wiggle room. I think it’s important to note that “linear” does NOT necessarily equate to “railroading,” however, and that a sprawling campaign with a trillion different outcomes and choices to make at every interval isn’t necessarily the best approach for someone who can only play a little bit each week and might get bored if they feel like they aren’t making tangible progress. 

Let me put it this way - the campaign that I made for my brother was tightly designed. Instead of giving Lester and Claudia a vast landscape to explore, everything was confined to the city of Tartec, and I made an effort to nudge the characters towards certain objectives that they had to complete in order to solve the mystery, such infiltrating a manor house in the upper class section of town. But I also made sure to flesh out these few areas (quality over quantity) and allowed a certain degree of freedom in how the objectives could be cleared. For instance, I initially thought that Lester and Claudia might sneak into the manor house through the sewers. But as I was brainstorming strategies with my bro, the topic of disguises came up, because Claudia owned a disguise kit. And eventually we decided to infiltrate the party with Lester masquerading as a nutty old lady and Claudia as his keeper, which was a fun improvisation that I never would’ve anticipated - but still a viable way to complete the main objective that didn’t negatively impact the story’s pacing. 

On the topic of keeping the pace of the story brisk for a player low on time, I feel like it’s also important to minimize the number crunching and reduce D&D’s more complicated rules whenever possible. In practice, this meant that I took care of as much behind-the-scenes stats management as possible so my bro wouldn’t have to, though I did always try to explain to him what was going on (and what all of those funky dice rolls meant) so he’d have some understanding of the game’s mechanics. Also, whenever we were in a situation where I wasn’t sure of a rule, instead of wasting time looking at the Player’s Handbook, nine times out of ten I’d just make something up on the fly. For example, our adventure had a friendly NPC orangutan in it (specifically chosen because I know my brother likes backflipping primates) and she was supposed to be a super strong, unpredictable force of nature in the final battle. I’d lost the stats that I’d used for her when she first appeared, and instead of looking for them, I decided to just roll a d20 for her damage, figuring that the end result would be close enough. In that same vein, there were a few instances where I made mistakes, since I’m still a relatively new DM. Once I totally miscalculated a character’s special attack, leading to a funny NPC death (which I’d expected but not exactly in that way) and on multiple occasions I flat out forgot to apply modifiers to attack rolls. But instead of going back to redo everything I’d either just laugh it off or forge ahead, hoping that my bro didn’t notice, which he never did. 

Ultimately, my philosophy for DMing is to not sweat the small stuff TOO much if it probably doesn’t matter in the long run, especially if you’re running a game for just one person whose free hours are precious. I believe this sort of approach might be sacrilegious to some of the more rules-oriented DMs out there, like the ones who spend hundreds of words arguing over damage variables on the D&D Subreddit. But I’m not one of those folks, and I’d prefer to follow the advice of Sly Flourish, a DM who has a great website where he advocates a “lazy” style of Dungeon Mastering which de-emphasizes nitpicking over rules in favor of just having fun. 

At the end of the day, having fun is what D&D is all about. It’s a game of make believe that can really bring out your inner storytelling-loving child, and in an era where very few adults are encouraged to even consider the concept of “make believe,” it can be a truly wonderful breath of fresh air. And if you don’t believe me...I encourage you to watch The Case of the Almost Assassination and try not to crack up at some of the situations that Lester LeFoe and Claudia Copperhoof found themselves in. :)

The pics above are either art that I assembled for our adventure or screenshots that I took while we were playing! The little figurines I designed via HeroForge.

[goosegoblin]

hey jess, how’d you get so good at biology? i’ve been following you for a while and ily, am so proud of you and imo you’re #goals in so many ways, biology included. when you talk about it, you seem like you Know Your Shit and have a firm grasp on all the concepts. i never feel confident in my knowledge no matter how hard i study, and it never seems to stick in the long term? so i was just wondering if you had any particular studying methods or if that’ just how your beautiful brain runs ♥

That’s so kind of you!! Thank you for your lovely words. I’m gonna break this down into a few sections, I think.

1) Understanding the literature

The fun thing is that when you talk to people or answer questions online, you can google everything. I check basically everything I answer/ write because I don’t trust myself that much either, so sometimes I start being like ‘... a monkey IS a mammal, right?’ ‘2+2 is 4, isn’t it? I didn’t make that up?’

Studying science teaches (well, should teach) basic scientific literacy, so you know how to search for papers and understand an abstract. Once you’ve got that down, if you understand the field a bit you can answer pretty much any question on a surface level.

For example, a few years ago somebody asked me why we cry. I found a few vaguely scientific looking articles, read the Wikipedia page and followed some links, came up with some of my own hypotheses and had a look if there was evidence for it, but freely admitted I hadn’t considered it much before so wasn’t too certain. But when you’re scientifically literate, the process of finding information and understanding a topic becomes a lot more streamlined and easy.

2) Immersion and flow

I do not like the way science is taught at school. Learning science at school and many universities is really modular, and it doesn’t actually encourage an understanding of the underlying principles. You might memorise the structure of the eye, but you don’t really learn why that matters, or how it evolved that way, or how it differs from other animals, and without any understanding of the ‘why’ then it’s really hard to get things to stick. Trying to understand biology through high school education is like trying to understand a TV show by watching one random episode per season- and not even in order.

Rather than teaching underlying principles like evolution (”Nothing in biology makes sense except for in the light of evolution”), basic biochemistry, concentration gradients, population dynamics, how DNA actually leads to observable changes, how the environment leads to adaptation or inheritance, you end up with hyper-specific modules that award you for writing the specific words written on a mark scheme and actively punish independent thought or research. 

We don’t teach how science works, and that’s a problem. I have met multiple multiple multiple people who genuinely think you can model all genetics using a simple one-trait punnet square. Things are presented as ‘this is the truth’ rather than ‘this is a simplified version of what we currently think, this is what we used to think, this is what we don’t yet know’. It leads to bullshit like people claiming that because scientists said a different thing today than they did ten years ago, science can’t be trusted (or that the new idea is garbage). See: gender and sex, climate change, nutrition...

Anyway, none of that is actually helpful to you. Short of overhauling all curriculums (I can dream!), I recommend reading some pop-sci books, following some science-y blogs or twitter accounts, reading press releases regarding experiments, going to public lectures or talks, watching scientific TV shows, etc etc. If you’re interested in a topic, read around it a bit. Information sticks more when you care about it, and if you can find something you care about, it’ll be easier to remember it and want to know more. 

To be a good scientist, you need to think, but to pass tests at school you just need to memorise. For that, I recommend doing a ton of practice tests, re-writing notes, making flashcards and quizzing each other... I also strongly recommend trying to teach a concept to someone who doesn’t know it, as that’s a really good way to make the ideas more concrete in your head and highlight any parts you don’t personally understand. That’s a nice part where learning more can come in, because the person you’re talking to will often ask a question you have no idea of the answer to, and might not have ever thought of before. Sometimes scientists can be so focused on the details that they miss what they’re missing. Answering questions on here has taught me so much about new topics and concepts, because I got asked questions I’d never thought of before.

3) Winging it

Honestly, there’s this thing where like... the more you know, the less you feel you know, because you know how many things you don’t know. Does that make any sense? You go from ‘I don’t know anything’ to ‘hey, I know some stuff!’ to ‘holy shit there’s still so much I don’t know’.

And, again, with the highly modular and exam-based way that school teaches you to learn science, it makes total sense that information slips out of your mind when it’s no longer relevant. That doesn’t mean you’re dumb or can’t grasp science. The thing is that you shouldn’t really be learning in a way that makes certain pieces of info become relevant or irrelevant for huge chunks of time, but biology is such a damn huge field that it’s hard to keep any kind of consistency. So don’t feel bad for not being able to get stuff to stick. As you go further in science, your field gets narrower and narrower. I can tell you a lot about the factors affecting reproduction in lesser flamingos, but I can’t tell you anything about their organ systems or ancestors or a damn thing about Andean or Chilean flamingos. As your field gets narrower, everything gets a lot more connected, and topics become much less discrete.

It’s also a lot easier for me to appear confident in a medium where I can take as long as I want and do as much research as I need to answer something. In real life I’m a lot more stammer-y, stutter-y and unsure. Projecting confidence is a big part of scientific writing, because if you don’t believe what you’re saying, why should anyone else? It’s not that everyone but you knows what they’re doing- it’s that we’re all a bit uncertain and a bit unsure, and we’re all winging it, but we still believe our point has a bit more weight and evidence for it than the other points, and we’d like you to believe that too.

Thank you again for a really lovely question- I hope I helped!

tl;dr:

1) Being able to find information is more important than memorising information

2) School is garbage, read a book

3) No one knows what they’re doing 

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[charmingsego]

Bumbleby week!! Day 3:Au

I have a cute story I’ve been working on for sometime so I decided to add it for @bmblbweek​. I actually have the second chapter written and will upload it later!

The Both of Us

Edit: Chapter has been uploaded.

Fanfic  Chap.2

Chapter 1: Decisions

             “What you working on?” Yang said as she slowly approached Blake from the kitchen. She set down a set of matching cat cups on the counter and sat next to the girl.

“My Publisher wants me to write a children’s book.”  Blake reaches for the cup and the counter and takes a big sip, only to sigh after she set it down.

“Children’s book? That’s new, what’s it about?”

“Well the main character is a small girl who’s in love with flowers. I’m still working it out.”

Yang moves a little closer to Blake to wrap her arms around her bringing them closer. Blake immediately nuzzles into Yang’s neck enjoying the warmth that always surrounds her.

 “I’m sure you’ll get it. You always tough it out.” Yang paused, “But why a children’s book? I mean I think it’s great, but I don’t know you never seemed like the one to write for kids. Or even like them.” Yang whispered that last part hoping her girlfriend didn’t hear.

 Obviously Blake heard and she smiled at the girl, “I already write fiction, so simplifying it into something children would enjoy is a nice challenge.”  she lowered her gaze slightly adding,

 “And I do like children. Their innocence is adorable.”

“Right! Plus, the way they are totally honest when they are little is the cutest. Oh! That reminds me of this video I saw on YouTube recently, let me find it real quick.”

Yang pulled out her phone and typed in “kids say the darnest things” Blake set down her work and they watched videos for what felt like hours. They watched videos ranging from a baby's first word to children dancing to the latest songs and the couple just laughed; only when they heard the front door open did the two stop watching videos.

“Hey girls what’cha up to?” Taiyang asked as he came through the door with groceries.

“Just funny kid videos.” Yang replied getting up to help her father with the groceries.

“Oh yeah? Yang and Ruby were pretty funny as children too.”

“Oh really? Yang only told me a handful of stories, but they were always about Ruby.” Blake chimed in from her seat.

“Yang has always been a little fireball since she was little. When she got her first haircut she was so upset that she grabbed handfuls of her cut hair and put them in her pocket, and when we got home she begged me to glue it back on. I actually have a picture of her holding her hair, remind me to show it to you later.” Tai started to laugh recalling the memory of his eldest daughter.

“Dad that was not funny! I thought it would never grow back and don’t show Blake that picture it's horrible.”

 “Too bad! I’m still showing her the picture. What made you guys start watching baby videos? Are you guys expecting?” Tai’s face grew wider when she saw the two girls react to his comment. Even Though he knew it was a joke, he wouldn’t mind if it was true.

 “What Dad no! Blake’s writing a children’s book and it sorta let to the videos, I guess.” Yang took a small glance at Blake only to see the girl stuck in place with an expression Yang couldn’t figure out. “Besides we-we’ve never talked about it before.” she added more bashfully.

“Mhmm. A children’s book, well that is new.”

“My Publisher thought I should expand my writing and we both thought this would be a good challenge for me.” Blake answered after her initial shock was over, “Plus kids are honest critics unlike most people out there.”

“True, well I’m happy you’re expanding your horizons. Dinner will be ready in about an hour if you girls wanna eat.”

“Thanks Dad. Come on Blake let’s clean the living room and set up a movie. 

Blake nodded her head and began to pick up the papers she left on the couch and headed to the room she and Yang share. After graduating college, the two girls moved in with Tai, he offered them a place to stay while they both got use to the “adult” world. 

Yang graduated with a bachelor's degree in physical therapy, it took her a while to complete 2,000 hours of clinical practice, so staying with Tai made things easier for her. She recently got a job being Pyrrha Nikos personal physical therapist, normally it would have taken her awhile to get into this type of position, but due to her relationship with Pyrrha and her boyfriend Jaune she could start work easily. While being Pyrrha Nikos --famous boxer and occasional tennis player-- personal physical therapist is great; the boxer lives in Vale and the commute between Patch and there isn’t that hard but annoying so she is on call most of the time. When she isn’t helping Pyrrha she works at a small clinic where most of the patients are locals in the area.

Blake on the other hand had a harder time finding her place in the “adult” world. She got her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature, so she had many options to choose from. Her writing career started off rocky, she submitted short stories, poems, a couple of translations but she got nothing. It wasn’t until she met Coco Adel--her current publisher-- that her work started to take off. Now she writes fiction--and now children’s books-- under the name “Luna” and while Blake loves writing the income isn’t that great when she gets writers block, so she teaches at the local high school as main English teacher for seniors.

“Hey Blake, babe. Can we have a little talk?”

“Sure. What’s up?” Blake moves to sit next Yang as they talk. After cleaning up the blonde got very quiet and Blake was pretty sure she knew why.

“I-I was just thinking; you know wondering if you wanted to have a kid?” Blake knew this was coming, after watching those videos--not the first time they’ve done that--and her dad’s comment it was just up for discussion now.

“I knew you were going to say that, and my answer is, I don’t know Yang. I mean we’re only 25! Don’t you thi-”

“My dad had me 20! Age shouldn’t be a problem. He worked it out and we could too” Yang interrupted abruptly.

“I know. I j-just need some time to think it through.” 

“Yes. You’re right, I understand. Sorry for interrupting you.”

“It’s okay. Now come here.” Blake wrapped her arms around Yang’s waist and gave a chase kiss on her lips. Yang couldn’t help the goofy smile that appeared on her face, she brought their foreheads together and whispered, “I love you.”

Even though it was cliché Blake hated Mondays. Her morning class was just as dead as she was and the fact that she wasn’t in the best mood made the day even worse. After her talk with Yang she could tell her girlfriend's mood was different. It was too much to think about so Blake gave her class a few pages to read while she went to the teachers’ lounge to get a cup of coffee.

She was almost done brewing the coffee when she heard her name from across the room. She slowly rubbed her temples and turned to see who it was.

“A good morning we got here huh, Ms. Belladonna?” It was Sun, the P.E teacher, and usually his energetic nature would make the school day go faster but today was not the case.

 “Good morning, Mr.Wukong. Why are we yelling so early in the morning?” Blake retorted a little more hostel than she wanted.

“Okay whoa! Stop the teacher talk, what’s wrong Blake?”

“Sorry it’s not you. I just have a lot on my mind; last weekend Yang asked if I wanted to have kids and I-”

 “Oh my god! That’s so great, what’s the problem?” Blake took a moment to reply honestly shocked by the energetic response. Am I the only one thinking about the logistics of it?

“Don’t you think were too young? And what about money? We would also have to move; I have to think about my parents, and jobs, it’s a lot.”

“Blake, answer this question. Do you want to have a baby? Don’t think about the money or all that stuff. Do you Blake Belladonna want to have a baby with your girlfriend?”

Blake took a moment imagining Yang playing with a young child, she pictured the small hands and feet. The shared laughter they would have and most importantly the smile on Yang’s face. Sure, there would be hardships but maybe they could work it out.

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Blake finally answered with a smile.

That night Blake came home with a bigger smile than usual. She set her bag in their room and changed into her comfort clothes, black legging and one of Yang’s graphic T-shirts. When she heard, the front door open she practically sprinted into the room to greet her girlfriend. Without any warning Blake ran into Yang’s arms and hung around her neck.

“Whoa this is new! What’s up Bl-”

“I’m ready. 

“Huh? I don’t...wait you don’t mean?”

“Do you wanna have a baby Yang?”

 Yang didn’t answer at first she just stood there, until she felt the tears in her eyes run down her face. She wrapped her arms around Blake’s waist and silently sobbed into her shoulder. Blake just started to rub her back trying to calm down her crying girlfriend.

“Yes Blake, I would love to have a baby with you.”

[movedto-insom-art]

hi!! i just found you while poking around for gobelins students on twitter and i love your art, congratulations on passing!! i was wondering if you have any advice on the written exam or tips on how to prepare for it? i heard that the written exam can be given in english if french isn't your first language...

I’ll try to be very concise about this andmaybe pin it to my profile because I was in your shoes exactly a year ago, andif I made it here I think you have a considerable chance of making it too as long as you’re willing to put work into it. I want totell you what I wish I had been told.

Disclaimer: I’m definitely not the best personto ask. I’m self-taught and my situation may and will differ a lot from yours,but on top of that, bear in mind Gobelins has a ~5% admission rate. During theinterview I shared room with a person who had a stunning portfolio and had been doing two years of prepclasses to get in Gobelins specifically and didn’t get in. I don’t even understand what brought me in, but I will try to at least give you a detailedguide of what *I* did to prepare.

Important: READ THE “MODALITÉSD'ADMISSION” DOCUMENT THREE TIMES AT LEAST. It has so much usefulinformation and so many points you can’t afford to skip. If your French isflaky, ask for a friend who speaks it fluently to help you out. You *must*understand it fully if you want to get in and avoid needless calls to theschool.

Also, keep an eye on the website often. Allthe information I provide here vis a vis dates only applies to a time periodthat’s already gone and I can’t predict if the dates will be exactly the sameevery year, so double check for yourself!

French

If you don’t speak French now start asap, anddo your Duolingo and “Apprendre le Français avec TVMonde” exercisesevery day. The lessons for the 4-year program are in French and while they canbe understanding with foreigners I just strongly recommend for the sake ofcommon sense that you pick up the language, just to make the most of the chanceif you’re given it.

However, you can def do the written exam in English! The exam will be printed and handed to you in both languages, it’s not so much a test to see your writing skills (ironically) than it is to prove your drawing ones.

If you pass that first round, while they won’t require any certification, they *will* test how good you are understanding and responding in French during the interview process of the second round.

I also recommend you take special conversational classeswith a private teacher or with a French speaker the couple of weeks before theoral exam to really gain fluidity, it makes a difference.

Mental Health

Preparing for all this will be sustainedstress over a long period of time. While it’ll be intensive and will demand alot of you, bear in mind that a mentality of “every minute I spend notworking on this is a minute lost” is only going to harm you. It’s alrightto take breaks, have a social life, and space for leisure while you do prepwork. It’s alright to not be drawing every single hour and rest your mind soyou can go back to work with all your might.

Try to be demanding and to pushyourself out of your comfort zone, but do it at your own pace and alwaysleaving space for breaks and stuff that will take your mind away from it whenyou need to, like friends, videogames, or just drawing for fun. A healthy business to leisure ratio is always between ½ and 2/3.

Meditate if you can, too, just 10-15 minutesevery day. I recommend the Headspace app and it has helped me keep my coolduring really tense moments.

Open Days

Go to the open days at Gobelins in January ifyou can! I took a plane for the weekend just to go, it was expensive but Ireally, really do not regret it. Here’s why:

DONOT MISS THE FIRST DAY. They hold portfolio reviews and while you may not haveyours ready just yet, it’s the perfect chance to get an insider point of viewof how well you’re doing right now and how far from your goal you are. Make aprovisional one (or do like I did and just make a tumblr blog and throw inwhatever you’d want them to assess) and arrive early to ask for a spot at thequeue.

Youget to talk to other first-year students, who will showcase their portfolio andanswer all your questions about the admission process, the school and whateverother questions you may have.

Youget to attend conferences where they explain each of their programs in detail,and the head of the department will also answer all yourquestions.

Admissions usually open right in the middle of the open days. By all means grab a seat at the computer room and save yourself a spot in the exam process asap.

Also,if you’re a foreigner like me, you should totally go to the international classand see if you can spot somebody from your same country (or who at least speaksyour language) to hang out with for a bit.

Site note: That international class is adirect entry to 3rd year specifically for English-speaking students who alreadyhave animation experience. I didn’t apply for that so I can’t tell you muchabout it, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you want in, they say it’seasier than the main track, too.

Preparing for the written exams

First off, draw every day. Even if it’s notprep work or studies all the time, you can indulge in your OCs, OTPs, whatevermakes your heart race, but draw it and do it every day. It doesn’t have to beideal or finished either, but what really matters is that you get used todrawing a lot and make a habit of it. Quantity, consistency and speed areimportant skills for animators to have as I’ve been told and they will be looking for it since one of the parts of the inteview includes evaluating how much paper you’ve filled in a year.

Grab all the exams you can get a hold of fromthe Gobelins site and do them in the specified time (they’re on the Concepteuret Realisateur de Film d'Animation class page). When you’re done with that do themagain. Ask for feedback from your teachers and improve on them. Take aperspective book (I recommend “Perspective for Comic Artists”), take a gesturedrawing book (“The Vilppu Drawing Manual” or “Gesture drawingfor animation”), take a storyboarding and character design class (I tookSchoolism’s, which are 15$/month per class, it’s very affordable) and that’llgive you a good frame of reference. And when you’re done with the exams andknow them by heart, make your own exercises. Then do the exams again. Andalways ask for feedback, critique to train yourself against every weak pointthat you don’t want the jury to catch you doing when you do the actual exam.

Sign up for figure drawing class right now,with or without teacher (I signed up to an art club without one), the soonerthe better, and go there frequently, once or twice per week, to the short posessessions (up to 15 minutes per pose, 2 to 5 minutes would be ideal). Don’tbother doing portraits or long poses because again, what you want is to producea lot, fast. Put a lot of focus on gesture drawing, movement and speed. It’llnot only be a big chunk of your portfolio if you do pass the first round, butit hones your draftsmanship like no other exercise. You can additionally trainat home with websites like QuickPoses or the New Masters Academy figure drawingvideos, but I’d really want to stress that live models work so much bettersince they force you to interpret a 3D person.

Go to your local zoo as well, once a week oronce a fortnight, and do animal studies. If you can bring a friend it’ll help alot making it more fun but try to get used to drawing shapes that are nothuman. Understand their anatomy and try to apply what you’re learning aboutgesture from the figure drawing classes.

Draw in the street, in museums, go to a placethat inspires you or that you find curious and draw it. Draw the people topractice your characterization and caricature skills. Draw buildings to showyour perspective skills. And just whatever catches your eye. Environments and perspective are important and I strongly recommend you start by drawing from observation.

If you have a cool idea in mind or find agood exercise on tumblr to try that isn’t this, do it! The teachers appreciateinterest in several fields and if you can showcase that you’re a curiousstudent with plenty of interests they’ll consider you more seriously. I didconcept art and digital painting on the side and it ended up being a mainthing of my personal project.

And finally, go to @gobelins andraid it for advice, it’s a great point of reference to start with as well. Goto the current @crfa20 and past CRFA blogs to see what the students are up to if youwant inspo and check their profiles too.

Do this for the whole year.

Admissions open inJanuary and the earlier you can sign in the better (especially if you are aforeigner like me, you must get the equivalence with French studies recognizedofficially asap, it usually takes a while to get and it’s necessary).

On a side note, for the written exam, simplifyyour tools. You don’t have much time to elaborate or fix your mistakes so Iwould recommend you do your practice with pens (so you get used to not erasinglines and being confident with your strokes) and pencils (especially if you canget both regular, mechanical and color pencils to layer your drawings forcomplex exercises like perspective). During the exam don’t even think aboutbringing pens in case you do make mistakes you need to erase though, they arejust really good training.

Side note: if you can, all this while, make space for personal projects.Nothing that you must finish, but just produce a lot of your own content. Pick apodcast and do visual development for it, do fanart, iterate on a movie’s shots, developyour own stories through visual storytelling, do character design, storyboards,comics. Steal ideas if you must to get the creative juices flowing (but don’tpost it or pretend they are your own :V). Get acquainted with projects, explore a fewideas so that the moment you’re out of the exam room when you’re done with thewritten exam you not only have a deck of projects to choose from but are alsoacquainted with the process of carrying one forward (and also have a littlework already done).

Preparing for the oral exam

The oral exam consists of 3 parts.

A first part in which you’re not present, andthe jury will judge your portfolio, sketchbooks and demo reel without you for 30 minutes.

A second part, where you must introduce thejury to an original personal project of your own made for the admissionprocess, and defend it (in French).

A third part, where the jury will just ask youquestions (they’re usually very friendly) and judge your viability as a futureclassmate. Just be yourself!

The portfolio should just have your best, besweet, short and to the point. There is a limit of 40 pages including coversand the personal project so choose your best pieces from between your projectsand your practice. It should also cover three main points

Your skillset, which should be covered byyour studies, schoolwork, observation work and partly (but not mainly) the rest of your artwork.

Your capacity for creation and personal vision(aka what your interests are as an artist), which should be covered by the restof your artwork and other projects of your own.

Your capacity to convey and develop ideas, messages andstories through visual narration, which should be your main, personal project.

I recommend you throw in both sketches andunfinished stuff along with your most detailed and refined pieces so the jurycan have a good idea of your process, your way of solving problems and how faryour skills go. Storyboards, animatics and comics will always be a positivesince you’re aiming to study a medium that is sequential.

Also, if you can, pick other students’ portfolios for reference. They don’t need to be Gobelins or even students though, if you find a good philosophy to build your portfolio around, by all means go for it. It’ll give you a good idea of what needs to be there and what can be left out.

Lastly, while they stress that you *don’t* need toknow animation to get in since that’s what you’re applying to, you can bring ina 2-minute demo reel. I made mine with an animatic and a few animationexercises on my own, but I want to repeat what they told me, the intentionisn’t to show how good you are at it already (then what can they teach you?)but to show that you’re interested in the medium and are eager to learn.

Final note

You’re applying for an animation school, keepthat in mind always. An animator is not an illustrator or a concept artist(even if they can easily become one), and what sets them apart in my opinion is the focus on speed, gesture, quantity, and most importantly, making drawings that feel alive andthat tell something. Understand the craft, ask other animators, read books onanimation, anything you can get your hands on will help.

One of the points that I feel are the mostimportant about all this is included in the Modalités d'Admission text, whichsays that they look into a quality that would literally translate to “opennessof spirit”. I think that speaks for how open minded you are to new ideas,to working with others, to learning and to considering new points of view.

Again I don’t have all the answers, but if youare “open of spirit” and really make an effort to dive into theanimation world, look for resources and friends in this world I’m certainyou’ll find them.

[wikimakemoney]

Understanding Semantic Search to Boost Your SEO

Last updated on June 25, 2020 at 07:32 pm

Before 2013, SEO was virtually a straightforward endeavor. You had to incorporate the exact keywords inside your content and the important places such as title tag, H1, meta description, then build a high number of relevant quality links to those pages to ensure ranking on the first page. However, the same could not be said today. Search engines evolved in how they understand searches and queries to the point that the same strategies we used almost a decade ago are not enough now.

Today, a deep understanding of the meaning behind the keywords, content that effectively answers the context of the keywords, and the intent behind it is what succeeds in the search results. All of these were brought about by the age of semantic search. Let’s dive deeper.

What is Semantic Search?

Semantic search, simple enough, is the search engine’s way to have a deeper understanding of a user’s queries by analyzing and connecting the meaning and relationship between the words and their context. This in turn enables search engines to find the best possible relevant pages to display even if the user’s query wasn’t straightforward. Here’s an example:

This specific search is pertaining to the well-known phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. Google understands the context between the words used in the query and effectively answers it by knowing the relationship between the animal (quick brown fox) that jumped over the dog. Now, if semantic search was nonexistent, Google might have shown me results that showed random animals jumping over dogs. 

This just goes to show how far search engines have come to understanding the queries made by users. However, much like other machines, search engines are also limited to their own knowledge. Here’s another example:

Now, most of us know that the wizard in the Avengers is Doctor Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. But when I searched for it, the answer Google gave me is Chris Evans, the actor that played Captain America. This isn’t the correct answer, far from it. But this is what happens when I change a word in my query:

The search result actually shows the correct answer – Benedict Cumberbatch being the actor that played Doctor Strange. The snippet isn’t as accurate as we’d like but it still does answer the question. So, if you focus on the query I made, I changed the word “wizard” to “sorcerer” and Google actually gave me a fairly accurate answer. Why did this happen? The reason behind this is easier to infer than you might think. 

Through the use of Knowledge graphs, introduced back in 2012, Google has an extensive database of public information and the entities contained inside them such as the people involved, their birthdays, parents, etc. Now, through the knowledge graphs that Google has, they use what’s contained inside it to better understand queries. The inference we can make is that in Google’s database, Doctor Strange (and the actor that plays the role) is known as a sorcerer and not a wizard. This, possibly, could be the correct answer to why Google was able to give me a more accurate answer than the one I previously searched for. 

To summarize, Google uses the following to better understand a user’s query:

Search Intent

Context

Relationship and connection between the words

All of these things, coupled with your search history and behavior, affect how Google understands your queries and which results they display. Aside from Knowledge Graphs, Google released a series of updates over the years to make semantic search more accurate and effective.

Algorithm Updates that Affect Semantic Search

Hummingbird

In 2013, Google released its Hummingbird update to help with understanding complex search queries. This update was released to reward the pages that match the query’s context rather than the page matching the words inside the query. 

To simplify it more, Google rewarded pages that answered the user’s query rather than rewarding the pages that just contained repeated mentions of the words in the query.

Rankbrain

2 years after Hummingbird, Google released Rankbrain; a machine learning system that’s considered a ranking factor and analysis AI. Rankbrain shared the same purpose with Hummingbird but with the edge of its machine-learning integration.

Through Rankbrain, Google was able to deliver more relevant results by interpreting the user’s through their location, behavior, and the words they used in the query. 

BERT

This is the newest addition to the updates Google Released. BERT is Google’s way of better understanding longer queries and more complex sentences by processing the words and their context & meaning in relation to the other words contained in the search query. 

Through the BERT model, Google aims to deliver more accurate and relevant results to “longer, more conversational queries”. By the end of 2019, the BERT model affects 10% of all queries made in Google. This might not sound like a large number, but consider how many users Google has and how many times they search per day. 

Understanding Semantic Search Leads to Better SEO

Semantic search isn’t a small thing that we can disregard. It’s a massive process that changed an entire industry and it will only progress toward better things as the years go by. 

SEO on the other hand is a practice that revolves around adapting all our strategies and tactics to hopefully reach the first page of an ever-growing search engine landscape. So, with semantic search, it’s only logical that our strategies change to better fit the current landscape. Some of the major changes we made in SEO Hacker include:

Changing our focus from keywords to topics

It’s not about just writing about a specific keyword anymore. Much like the queries that users search for, keywords can mean a lot of things. That is why shifting our focus from a keyword-centric content strategy to a topically-relevant content framework did us wonders. 

The primary difference between a keyword and a topic is their scope. A keyword is only limited to the meaning it holds while a topic will include multiple keywords under it. Knowing what the topic is and being able to write about it and its corresponding subtopics is an essential part of creating high-quality, valuable content today. 

A great example is writing about title tags. If we were to solely focus on keywords, we would create pages that target “how to change a page’s title tag”, “best title tag length”, “how to optimize a title tag”, etc. 

But if we focus on writing about title tag as a topic then we would write a page about “The Ultimate Guide to Title Tags” or “All You Need To Know About Title Tags” where the content talks about the subtopics such as “how to change a page’s title tag”, “best title tag length”, and “how to optimize a title tag”.

Of course, you would need to know which subtopics are relevant to the users. You can’t write about everything about the topic at hand because that will not only waste your time and energy, but it will also discourage the user from reading everything as well. Using the example I used above, I wouldn’t include things such as “the history of title tag” or “who popularized the term title tag” simply because users wouldn’t care about those subtopics. 

Understanding and serving search intent

Have you ever experienced ranking highly in the search results for a specific keyword, then you start noticing that you’re slowly ranking lower even though you know for yourself that the page ranking for the keyword is fully optimized and has valuable content? We’ve experienced that for a good number of our clients and the most common reason is that we’re not properly serving the intent of the keyword and the users. 

Search intent is easily understood on paper but when applied in the search results, can be tricky and at times confusing. 

The best way to mitigate this is to manually search for the keyword you’re ranking for and check the pages that are ranking higher than you. How does their content differ from your own? Is the context of their content different from your own? What kind of pages are ranking higher than you? Are they product category pages? Blog posts? Homepages? – these are questions you need to ask yourself when you’re slipping in rankings. 

Simply put, your page should be something that Google would WANT to display on the first page of the search results for that specific keyword, and the best way to find it is to check what EXACTLY is Google displaying on the first page. 

Key Takeaway

Outdated SEO strategies and below-average content aren’t enough for the search engines AND users. Semantic Search has changed the SEO game for the better and it actually serves users more relevant and accurate answers than before. 

Once you have a firm grasp of semantic search, then adapting to it will come easier than you think, especially if you’ve already made it a point to publish high-quality and relevant content. 

Do you have any questions about semantic search? Comment it down below and let’s talk!

source http://wikimakemoney.com/2020/06/25/understanding-semantic-search-to-boost-your-seo/

[anthonykrierion]

Understanding Semantic Search to Boost Your SEO

Last updated on June 25, 2020 at 07:32 pm

Before 2013, SEO was virtually a straightforward endeavor. You had to incorporate the exact keywords inside your content and the important places such as title tag, H1, meta description, then build a high number of relevant quality links to those pages to ensure ranking on the first page. However, the same could not be said today. Search engines evolved in how they understand searches and queries to the point that the same strategies we used almost a decade ago are not enough now.

Today, a deep understanding of the meaning behind the keywords, content that effectively answers the context of the keywords, and the intent behind it is what succeeds in the search results. All of these were brought about by the age of semantic search. Let’s dive deeper.

What is Semantic Search?

Semantic search, simple enough, is the search engine’s way to have a deeper understanding of a user’s queries by analyzing and connecting the meaning and relationship between the words and their context. This in turn enables search engines to find the best possible relevant pages to display even if the user’s query wasn’t straightforward. Here’s an example:

This specific search is pertaining to the well-known phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. Google understands the context between the words used in the query and effectively answers it by knowing the relationship between the animal (quick brown fox) that jumped over the dog. Now, if semantic search was nonexistent, Google might have shown me results that showed random animals jumping over dogs. 

This just goes to show how far search engines have come to understanding the queries made by users. However, much like other machines, search engines are also limited to their own knowledge. Here’s another example:

Now, most of us know that the wizard in the Avengers is Doctor Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. But when I searched for it, the answer Google gave me is Chris Evans, the actor that played Captain America. This isn’t the correct answer, far from it. But this is what happens when I change a word in my query:

The search result actually shows the correct answer – Benedict Cumberbatch being the actor that played Doctor Strange. The snippet isn’t as accurate as we’d like but it still does answer the question. So, if you focus on the query I made, I changed the word “wizard” to “sorcerer” and Google actually gave me a fairly accurate answer. Why did this happen? The reason behind this is easier to infer than you might think. 

Through the use of Knowledge graphs, introduced back in 2012, Google has an extensive database of public information and the entities contained inside them such as the people involved, their birthdays, parents, etc. Now, through the knowledge graphs that Google has, they use what’s contained inside it to better understand queries. The inference we can make is that in Google’s database, Doctor Strange (and the actor that plays the role) is known as a sorcerer and not a wizard. This, possibly, could be the correct answer to why Google was able to give me a more accurate answer than the one I previously searched for. 

To summarize, Google uses the following to better understand a user’s query:

Search Intent

Context

Relationship and connection between the words

All of these things, coupled with your search history and behavior, affect how Google understands your queries and which results they display. Aside from Knowledge Graphs, Google released a series of updates over the years to make semantic search more accurate and effective.

Algorithm Updates that Affect Semantic Search

Hummingbird

In 2013, Google released its Hummingbird update to help with understanding complex search queries. This update was released to reward the pages that match the query’s context rather than the page matching the words inside the query. 

To simplify it more, Google rewarded pages that answered the user’s query rather than rewarding the pages that just contained repeated mentions of the words in the query.

Rankbrain

2 years after Hummingbird, Google released Rankbrain; a machine learning system that’s considered a ranking factor and analysis AI. Rankbrain shared the same purpose with Hummingbird but with the edge of its machine-learning integration.

Through Rankbrain, Google was able to deliver more relevant results by interpreting the user’s through their location, behavior, and the words they used in the query. 

BERT

This is the newest addition to the updates Google Released. BERT is Google’s way of better understanding longer queries and more complex sentences by processing the words and their context & meaning in relation to the other words contained in the search query. 

Through the BERT model, Google aims to deliver more accurate and relevant results to “longer, more conversational queries”. By the end of 2019, the BERT model affects 10% of all queries made in Google. This might not sound like a large number, but consider how many users Google has and how many times they search per day. 

Understanding Semantic Search Leads to Better SEO

Semantic search isn’t a small thing that we can disregard. It’s a massive process that changed an entire industry and it will only progress toward better things as the years go by. 

SEO on the other hand is a practice that revolves around adapting all our strategies and tactics to hopefully reach the first page of an ever-growing search engine landscape. So, with semantic search, it’s only logical that our strategies change to better fit the current landscape. Some of the major changes we made in SEO Hacker include:

Changing our focus from keywords to topics

It’s not about just writing about a specific keyword anymore. Much like the queries that users search for, keywords can mean a lot of things. That is why shifting our focus from a keyword-centric content strategy to a topically-relevant content framework did us wonders. 

The primary difference between a keyword and a topic is their scope. A keyword is only limited to the meaning it holds while a topic will include multiple keywords under it. Knowing what the topic is and being able to write about it and its corresponding subtopics is an essential part of creating high-quality, valuable content today. 

A great example is writing about title tags. If we were to solely focus on keywords, we would create pages that target “how to change a page’s title tag”, “best title tag length”, “how to optimize a title tag”, etc. 

But if we focus on writing about title tag as a topic then we would write a page about “The Ultimate Guide to Title Tags” or “All You Need To Know About Title Tags” where the content talks about the subtopics such as “how to change a page’s title tag”, “best title tag length”, and “how to optimize a title tag”.

Of course, you would need to know which subtopics are relevant to the users. You can’t write about everything about the topic at hand because that will not only waste your time and energy, but it will also discourage the user from reading everything as well. Using the example I used above, I wouldn’t include things such as “the history of title tag” or “who popularized the term title tag” simply because users wouldn’t care about those subtopics. 

Understanding and serving search intent

Have you ever experienced ranking highly in the search results for a specific keyword, then you start noticing that you’re slowly ranking lower even though you know for yourself that the page ranking for the keyword is fully optimized and has valuable content? We’ve experienced that for a good number of our clients and the most common reason is that we’re not properly serving the intent of the keyword and the users. 

Search intent is easily understood on paper but when applied in the search results, can be tricky and at times confusing. 

The best way to mitigate this is to manually search for the keyword you’re ranking for and check the pages that are ranking higher than you. How does their content differ from your own? Is the context of their content different from your own? What kind of pages are ranking higher than you? Are they product category pages? Blog posts? Homepages? – these are questions you need to ask yourself when you’re slipping in rankings. 

Simply put, your page should be something that Google would WANT to display on the first page of the search results for that specific keyword, and the best way to find it is to check what EXACTLY is Google displaying on the first page. 

Key Takeaway

Outdated SEO strategies and below-average content aren’t enough for the search engines AND users. Semantic Search has changed the SEO game for the better and it actually serves users more relevant and accurate answers than before. 

Once you have a firm grasp of semantic search, then adapting to it will come easier than you think, especially if you’ve already made it a point to publish high-quality and relevant content. 

Do you have any questions about semantic search? Comment it down below and let’s talk!

Understanding Semantic Search to Boost Your SEO was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

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Understanding Semantic Search to Boost Your SEO

Last updated on June 25, 2020 at 07:27 pm

Before 2013, SEO was virtually a straightforward endeavor. You had to incorporate the exact keywords inside your content and the important places such as title tag, H1, meta description, then build a high number of relevant quality links to those pages to ensure ranking on the first page. However, the same could not be said today. Search engines evolved in how they understand searches and queries to the point that the same strategies we used almost a decade ago are not enough now.

Today, a deep understanding of the meaning behind the keywords, content that effectively answers the context of the keywords, and the intent behind it is what succeeds in the search results. All of these were brought about by the age of semantic search. Let’s dive deeper.

What is Semantic Search?

Semantic search, simple enough, is the search engine’s way to have a deeper understanding of a user’s queries by analyzing and connecting the meaning and relationship between the words and their context. This in turn enables search engines to find the best possible relevant pages to display even if the user’s query wasn’t straightforward. Here’s an example:

This specific search is pertaining to the well-known phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. Google understands the context between the words used in the query and effectively answers it by knowing the relationship between the animal (quick brown fox) that jumped over the dog. Now, if semantic search was nonexistent, Google might have shown me results that showed random animals jumping over dogs. 

This just goes to show how far search engines have come to understanding the queries made by users. However, much like other machines, search engines are also limited to their own knowledge. Here’s another example:

Now, most of us know that the wizard in the Avengers is Doctor Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. But when I searched for it, the answer Google gave me is Chris Evans, the actor that played Captain America. This isn’t the correct answer, far from it. But this is what happens when I change a word in my query:

The search result actually shows the correct answer – Benedict Cumberbatch being the actor that played Doctor Strange. The snippet isn’t as accurate as we’d like but it still does answer the question. So, if you focus on the query I made, I changed the word “wizard” to “sorcerer” and Google actually gave me a fairly accurate answer. Why did this happen? The reason behind this is easier to infer than you might think. 

Through the use of Knowledge graphs, introduced back in 2012, Google has an extensive database of public information and the entities contained inside them such as the people involved, their birthdays, parents, etc. Now, through the knowledge graphs that Google has, they use what’s contained inside it to better understand queries. The inference we can make is that in Google’s database, Doctor Strange (and the actor that plays the role) is known as a sorcerer and not a wizard. This, possibly, could be the correct answer to why Google was able to give me a more accurate answer than the one I previously searched for. 

To summarize, Google uses the following to better understand a user’s query:

Search Intent

Context

Relationship and connection between the words

All of these things, coupled with your search history and behavior, affect how Google understands your queries and which results they display. Aside from Knowledge Graphs, Google released a series of updates over the years to make semantic search more accurate and effective.

Algorithm Updates that Affect Semantic Search

Hummingbird

In 2013, Google released its Hummingbird update to help with understanding complex search queries. This update was released to reward the pages that match the query’s context rather than the page matching the words inside the query. 

To simplify it more, Google rewarded pages that answered the user’s query rather than rewarding the pages that just contained repeated mentions of the words in the query.

Rankbrain

2 years after Hummingbird, Google released Rankbrain; a machine learning system that’s considered a ranking factor and analysis AI. Rankbrain shared the same purpose with Hummingbird but with the edge of its machine-learning integration.

Through Rankbrain, Google was able to deliver more relevant results by interpreting the user’s through their location, behavior, and the words they used in the query. 

BERT

This is the newest addition to the updates Google Released. BERT is Google’s way of better understanding longer queries and more complex sentences by processing the words and their context & meaning in relation to the other words contained in the search query. 

Through the BERT model, Google aims to deliver more accurate and relevant results to “longer, more conversational queries”. By the end of 2019, the BERT model affects 10% of all queries made in Google. This might not sound like a large number, but consider how many users Google has and how many times they search per day. 

Understanding Semantic Search Leads to Better SEO

Semantic search isn’t a small thing that we can disregard. It’s a massive process that changed an entire industry and it will only progress toward better things as the years go by. 

SEO on the other hand is a practice that revolves around adapting all our strategies and tactics to hopefully reach the first page of an ever-growing search engine landscape. So, with semantic search, it’s only logical that our strategies change to better fit the current landscape. Some of the major changes we made in SEO Hacker include:

Changing our focus from keywords to topics

It’s not about just writing about a specific keyword anymore. Much like the queries that users search for, keywords can mean a lot of things. That is why shifting our focus from a keyword-centric content strategy to a topically-relevant content framework did us wonders. 

The primary difference between a keyword and a topic is their scope. A keyword is only limited to the meaning it holds while a topic will include multiple keywords under it. Knowing what the topic is and being able to write about it and its corresponding subtopics is an essential part of creating high-quality, valuable content today. 

A great example is writing about title tags. If we were to solely focus on keywords, we would create pages that target “how to change a page’s title tag”, “best title tag length”, “how to optimize a title tag”, etc. 

But if we focus on writing about title tag as a topic then we would write a page about “The Ultimate Guide to Title Tags” or “All You Need To Know About Title Tags” where the content talks about the subtopics such as “how to change a page’s title tag”, “best title tag length”, and “how to optimize a title tag”.

Of course, you would need to know which subtopics are relevant to the users. You can’t write about everything about the topic at hand because that will not only waste your time and energy, but it will also discourage the user from reading everything as well. Using the example I used above, I wouldn’t include things such as “the history of title tag” or “who popularized the term title tag” simply because users wouldn’t care about those subtopics. 

Understanding and serving search intent

Have you ever experienced ranking highly in the search results for a specific keyword, then you start noticing that you’re slowly ranking lower even though you know for yourself that the page ranking for the keyword is fully optimized and has valuable content? We’ve experienced that for a good number of our clients and the most common reason is that we’re not properly serving the intent of the keyword and the users. 

Search intent is easily understood on paper but when applied in the search results, can be tricky and at times confusing. 

The best way to mitigate this is to manually search for the keyword you’re ranking for and check the pages that are ranking higher than you. How does their content differ from your own? Is the context of their content different from your own? What kind of pages are ranking higher than you? Are they product category pages? Blog posts? Homepages? – these are questions you need to ask yourself when you’re slipping in rankings. 

Simply put, your page should be something that Google would WANT to display on the first page of the search results for that specific keyword, and the best way to find it is to check what EXACTLY is Google displaying on the first page. 

Key Takeaway

Outdated SEO strategies and below-average content aren’t enough for the search engines AND users. Semantic Search has changed the SEO game for the better and it actually serves users more relevant and accurate answers than before. 

Once you have a firm grasp of semantic search, then adapting to it will come easier than you think, especially if you’ve already made it a point to publish high-quality and relevant content. 

Do you have any questions about semantic search? Comment it down below and let’s talk!

[maritzaerwin]

Print Vs. Digital Resumes: How to Have the Best of Both Worlds?

As a serious job seeker, you’ve likely spent a lot of time creating and polishing your resume. Whether you choose to go with a traditional print, visual presentation, or video format, the goals of any resume are the same: to showcase your skills and suitability for the job and make a memorable impression among a sea of applicants.

That’s why it can be a major bonus to take those goals a step further by creating a resume that combines both physical and digital elements. Think of it as your own Augmented Reality job application — and though it sounds like science fiction, it’s actually super easy to do.

Adding a QR Code is the easiest way to digitize a physical resume. And depending on the type of Code you choose, you can use it to speed up the selection process for hiring managers, simplify networking, and show off your personal brand and unique skill set.

Remind Me Again: Why Are Resumes Important?

According to some estimates, hiring managers to take a mere 7 seconds to screen a resume before deciding whether to shortlist an applicant for a pre-screen interview or not — and sometimes even less. Jobs listings can receive hundreds of applications and only a few are selected for interviews.

Memorable resumes take time to create and can involve hours of rewrites. It requires carefully researching the company and the specific job requirements so that your resume matches the job description. Your writing style, tone, and list of skills should all be adapted to fit the role. It should also have a pleasant visual appearance and a professional tone.

So why put in all this effort into a single resume?

The only way for a company to gauge whether or not you are a good candidate for their job opening is by first looking at your resume. With only seconds to do so, it’s important that you spend the time creating the most eye-catching resume possible.

7 Benefits of a Digitized Resume With QR Codes

In line with the current trend of digitalization, resumes have gone digital as well. Many businesspeople already consider LinkedIn or Xing profiles to be a form of a digital resume.

Nonetheless, hiring managers often need more than the LinkedIn profile to understand a candidate’s skills.

LinkedIn may be a start, but traditional resume formats are still required for many job applications. Whether you choose a traditional text format or go for more modern alternatives, such as visual or infographic, there is a way to easily digitize any type of resume: put a QR Code on it.

Arguably the easiest way to integrate a digital element into your printed document or visual presentation is to include a QR Code that leads to a downloadable PDF. This means that for anything from business cards, paper resumes, Powerpoint, video, or graphic material, you can add a QR Code that links to a more detailed document.

For more complex requirements, such as giving a visual or audio demonstration, providing additional references or linking to a complete online portfolio, the chances are good that, yes, there’s a Code for that. Below are some of the more surprising benefits of using QR Codes on a resume and tips for choosing the right one for the job.

Benefit #1 — Promote Your Digital Savviness

While it won’t make up for sloppy or disorganized writing, having a QR Code on your resume instantly piques a recruiter’s interest because it shows you are tech-savvy and at ease in an increasingly digital world. It also makes it easier for them to find you online and forward your details to themselves or colleagues.

Think about it — in a typical hiring process, the application is often printed out multiple times and shared in its physical form with all the members on the hiring committee.

Not only is this unsustainable if you’re trying to look out for the environment and reduce paper waste, but it’s also often completely unnecessary. With one printed resume and a cleverly designed QR Code, you make it easy for the hiring committee to access and share your resume on their tablet or smartphone.

Benefit #2 — Showcase Your Language Skills or Direct to an Online Video or Portfolio

A big advantage of digital resumes is that you can add to the limited space of print materials by essentially adding a digital button to showcase additional skills. Instead of simply writing “highly proficient in Spanish,” for example, you can add hard evidence of your foreign language knowledge with an MP3 QR Code. When scanned, the Code opens up to an audio file featuring your personal introduction en español.  

Alternatively, you can take it a step further by directing the hiring committee to a personal introduction video with a Video QR Code. That way, you can put your best foot forward and they get a first impression of your personality without anyone having to leave their chair.

To provide another example: Artists, photographers or videographers, actors or anyone else whose professional background contains a lot of visual elements can benefit from using an Image Gallery QR Code. This can guide recruiters instantly to an online portfolio, image gallery, professional headshots, or graphic collection. This saves on resources, time and money and is much quicker than sending in a USB stick or CD, typing in a cumbersome URL, or sorting through printed images.

Benefit #3 —stand Out from Other Applicants

While it may save time when candidates are creating their resumes, using run-of-the-mill templates can result in less individualization when a hiring manager reads through them. And although it’s perfectly fine to use professional templates for writing your resume, it’s usually best to view them as a starting point and customize them to fit your needs.

Since QR Codes are still considered a novelty in most western countries (as opposed to China), adding the right one to your resume is a good way to differentiate yourself from other applicants. A QR Code shows you went the extra mile to simplify things for the hiring manager, as well as adding to the overall appearance of the resume with a bit of your own personality.

Benefit #4 — Build a Personal Brand With Customizable Designs

When creating your digital resume, don’t settle for the black-and-white. Make sure you choose a QR code generator that offers a wide variety of customization options you can use to build your personal brand. You can create QR Codes with specific colors, custom frames, and edges, add a logo or other image in the middle, as well as include a CTA (call to action), such as “Scan to view my portfolio” so that hiring managers to understand its purpose.

What’s more, as long as you use a software that offers dynamic, or changeable, QR Codes, you can edit and update your QR Code information without changing its original appearance. This is ideal for candidates who have different resumes per type of job or want to update the resume later on.

Furthermore, the appearance of the screen that loads once the QR Code is scanned (e.g., the landing page) should also be completely customizable.

Here again, you can add colors that match your resume and QR Code, creating a unified look that supports your personal brand. Be sure to write a short introduction, a description of yourself and give an image preview of the PDF.

Benefit #5 — Simplify Networking

QR Codes and digital resumes have a big advantage for candidates when it comes to job fairs, networking meetings and conferences. At these types of events, it’s common for applicants to bring business cards and paper resumes along to apply directly. But for hiring managers, that often means a huge stack of papers to go through later on.

Rather than get lost in this chaos, have the hiring manager scan your QR Code on your business card or resume and send them your digital resume automatically. This way, you know it won’t get lost in the paper stack and you’re one step closer to getting hired than everyone else!

Benefit #6 — Track When & Where the QR Code Was Scanned

Searching for a job sometimes means sending dozens of applications before you find the right fit. You can keep track of which applications had their QR Code scanned with professional scan tracking information, such as from QR-Code-Generator.com. For all Dynamic QR Codes, you can view insights such as total scans, time scanned, and location scanned. This lets you know which types of resumes with QR Codes are having the most success.

Benefit #7 — Easier for Hiring Managers to Access Links

Remember the rule of resume writing, that it should be no more than two pages in length? A big advantage of digital resumes is that you can bypass the limited space of print materials and fit in more information by adding what is essentially a complete online portal. This makes it easier for hiring managers to find you on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, on social media, or any other URL you might want them to access. If you don’t want them to find a disreputable Facebook profile from someone else with the same name as you, make sure they have the direct link to the correct profile!

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5 Top Tips and Tricks for a Digitized Resume

Time to get started on your new digitally enhanced resume! We’ve collected a few suggestions to help you leave a lasting impression and land your dream job.

1) Highlight the Most Relevant & Recent Positions First

The purpose of a resume is not to list every single job you’ve ever had (unless you’re just starting out). For many of us, it should be a summary of the most recent jobs that are relevant to the specific job listing. An odd job from ten years ago is most likely just taking up space, while a prominent managerial position should be at the top of the list.

2) Keep Descriptions Brief & Organized

Bullet points are now your best friend. Organize different job descriptions in a brief manner written with active verbs such as “managed xxx responsibility,” and choose a professional font. Times New Roman is considered old school, so search for a font that is easily readable but also helps your resume stand out a bit more.

How QR Codes can help — If you need to attach additional elements to your resumes like a digital portfolio, your LinkedIn profile, or other types of digital files, add a QR Code to make it easy to access without clogging up your resume with long, ugly links.

3) Match Resume Keywords to That of Job Listings

Your descriptions should include only the relevant information for a particular job listing. When you look through a job listing, they often include their own bullet point list of requirements for that particular job. When writing your job descriptions, make sure that your keywords used match theirs for as many of them as possible. In addition, you might want to review your skillset and add the particularly relevant skills as a summary at the top of the resume.

4) Try the Skim Test

Resumes are definitely not the place to write out your life story. Keep them to two pages maximum and make sure they’re easy to read (this is again where bullet points help). To put your resume’s readability to the test, ask another person to skim your resume in 10 seconds and summarize its main points. Were they able to understand the concept of your work history at that time? Then you passed. If not, it’s time to edit further.

5) Customize Styling

It was already mentioned above that there is a downside to templates. While templates can definitely give your resume a great structure and help you get started, you need to spend time customizing it. Otherwise, it will look the same as everyone else’s, which you want to avoid if you want to be hired.

How QR Codes can help — If you’ve opted for a QR Code to make your resume digital, match the QR Code to your chosen colors and style. Use matching colors across your resume and keep your written sections and graphics clear. Make sure your QR Code is the appropriate size and doesn’t detract from other graphic elements on the page.

6) Consider Adding Reviews or References  

If you’ve kept a record of reviews or would like to showcase references from previous work, adding them to your resume can increase your likelihood of getting hired. You may even want to add their contact information so that hiring managers can double-check. This is particularly relevant for freelancers or those that work on a project basis with clients, as reviews can convey your level of trustworthiness and be the factor that convinces a new client.

How QR Codes can help — Particularly if you have reviews on your website or other public review sites and are applying for projects, you can also link these with QR Codes. For your own website, you can link to a review page or portfolio, while public review sites like LinkedIn can be linked with a Social Media QR Code that directs the scanner to a custom landing page where they can select their favorite social media channel.

The post Print Vs. Digital Resumes: How to Have the Best of Both Worlds? appeared first on CareerMetis.com.

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