#you really could do an entire rundown of how they put the different characteristics between different entries of the series

[muziiek]

Step by step instructions to Hire a Good SEO Marketer

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the workmanship and study of making search engines rank your site high in the characteristic search results when somebody types in a question. That is the purpose of SEO, in any case. Since SEO is as yet a rising field, there is no "overseeing body", and the principles at times change. A good SEO professional comprehends these evolving rules, and realizes how to appropriately apply them. An awful SEO specialist by and large commits errors, or deliberately attempts to beguile the framework to win "counterfeit" high rankings.

It isn't correct that you have no power over what shows up in the search engines. The content that you put on your site figures out where you show up in the search engine results page (SERP). On the off chance that your site is about "gadgets", you're likely not going to show up in search results about "transport passages". The most significant thing you can do on the web is to speak to yourself genuinely. In the event that your site is about "gadgets", and the content on your site discusses "gadgets" at that point you'll likely show up some place in the SERP for "gadgets". A good SEO professional can assist you with ranking higher for "gadgets", among other all around researched, and important catchphrases.

What is the Difference Between a "Good" SEO Service, and a "Terrible" One?

An awful ("blackhat") SEO advertiser resembles a merchant strolling down the road selling fake relief. You may believe you're getting it, yet you can't make certain of the outcomes. A good SEO advertiser resembles a drug specialist. They have concentrated all the dependable techniques to take care of your concern and likely have a good thought of how to securely and viably address your issue.

The Benefits of Hiring awful SEO:

Your site could shoot directly to the top, ranking #1 for your watchwords

You could procure a couple of new clients rapidly and make a brisk buck

The expense is far not as much as what your companions and rivals are paying for SEO

The Costs of Hiring awful SEO:

At the point when the search engines get on, your site could be punished (definitely downsized) in the rankings, winding up more terrible than previously

Your site could be incidentally restricted from the search engine (totally unfindable - anticipate 6 a year)

Your site could be for all time prohibited from the search engine (totally unfindable - for good)

At the point when any of the above happens, there will be lost efficiency from expelling all the search engine spam from your site

It could be difficult to track down all the stunts the SEO advertiser used to misleadingly support the rankings, and along these lines it could require some investment to get back into the outcomes pages

Once punished or prohibited, you will lose all the potential clients you would have picked up had it been done accurately

A professional SEO advisor will likely must be employed at extra expense to fix it and carry out the responsibility right

Try not to trust it? In February 2006, BMW was given the Google Death Penalty for utilizing blackhat SEO rehearses. They introduced a smooth plan to anybody with JavaScript, and indicated every other person (that implies the search engines) a catchphrase rich page. Demonstrating one content to guests and another to Google is a no-no. BMW Germany was prohibited from Google.

The Costs of Hiring Good SEO:

The underlying cost will be higher

There will likely be a progressing membership charge

The execution time will be longer (for the site to rank high)

There will be changes to the content of the real site, and most likely the structure, also

The Benefits of Hiring Good SEO:

Higher rankings by and large

The high rankings will in general remain there

The catchphrases you are ranking high for are applicable to your association and the individuals who are attempting to discover you

It is more financially savvy in the long haul

Future pages that you include the site will be simpler and quicker to rank higher

No power outage periods or client misfortune due to punishment

What Is "Terrible" SEO, and Why is it So Undesirable?

To begin with, how about we inspect a portion of the techniques accessible to the blackhat SEO advertiser. Here are only a couple:

Entryway Pages: Many pages loaded down with watchwords are set on the web, and all link back to your site

Shrouding: Showing one variant of the site to guests, and another to search engines.

Dynamic Content: Not all unique content is terrible; truth be told, most is entirely genuine. In any case, having the server produce huge arrangements of watchwords that change regularly is commonly a poorly conceived notion.

Scraping: Some sites visit high ranking sites, duplicate bits of the content that has the catchphrase they need, and post it on their site. This is an excellent method to really disturb different websites.

Shrouded Text: Keywords on a page that are a similar shading as the background, or that are covered up by CSS are a poorly conceived notion

Setting up links pages that utilization the catchphrase rich link content of different sites to increase ranking. This makes the link page give off an impression of being increasingly important for the ideal watchwords. This bothers the search engines, yet additionally the guests.

Watchword Stuffing: Writing practically pointless content in the site that is essentially an extensive rundown of catchphrases. Mindful SEO will utilize watchwords cautiously in the content, yet like all things, you can try too hard. Search engines acknowledge good language.

Exaggerating RSS: Go ahead and coop huge segments of your website. Be that as it may, coordinating the entirety of your website may raise a banner. There are bits of gossip proposing that there may perhaps be changes in the manner Google records RSS later on.

Sleight of hand: Submitting the search-engine benevolent page to the search engine, at that point after it's ordered, transferring the "real" page. This is an exceptionally brief lift in your rankings.

Unimportant Keywords: WHY might you advance the catchphrase "sex" on your site about "gadgets"? Do you sincerely think somebody searching for "sex" will see your site and state, "goodness hold up a moment, I think I needed a gadget"? In the event that you sell "gadgets", at that point advance "gadgets", so individuals who need to purchase "gadgets" can discover your "gadgets".

For what reason do Search Engines Dislike All This?

Search engines are in the data business. In particular, search engines give supportive responses to questions. Sites which utilize these techniques weaken the pertinence and helpfulness of the search engines. The search engine that permits their outcomes to get unessential is futile and out of business. Nobody will search that engine, nobody will tap on their advertisements, nobody will need to purchase or show their promotions, and inevitably nobody will need to put resources into them. Search engines are securing their ventures and their future by guaranteeing the proceeding with significance and handiness of their outcomes.

The most effective method to Hire a Good SEO Professional

Allows first gander at a portion of the signs that demonstrate the chance of a blackhat SEO advertiser

In the event that you hear anything like "we ensure top arrangement", don't recruit them. A good SEO advertiser can't promise you a good ranking anything else than your representative can promise you an incredible return. Everything they can do is a good job, or not.

In the event that the organization agent converses with you about the benefits of Meta Tags, don't employ them. Meta Tags are out of date regarding search engine advertising (SEM).

Get a rundown of past customers and check their present site and rankings. In the event that their rankings are currently low, or if the customer sites appear to have malicious content, or minimal content, don't recruit them.

In the event that first contact with the SEO organization is made through a spontaneous call or email, be vigilant. Why? SEO isn't a forceful advertising technique. SEO is the craftsmanship and study of furnishing individuals with what they were searching for at any rate. It is satisfying a need in light of a solicitation about that need. It could be said, it is a totally uninvolved showcasing technique, since it is possibly activated when an individual is really looking for it. Be careful about search engine advertisers that appear to be excessively forceful.

My own annoyance is the ones that call and declare that we are not at the top of the search engines however they can "help" us. Have confidence, we are recorded at the top for each keyphrase we've at any point really focused on. At the point when they are educated that we are at the top, they begin requesting to know which catchphrases we rank high for. Such significant keyphrases ought not be parted with so economically. I amenably hang up on these individuals.

[tmitransitioning]

hey there. i'm nonbinary and i really want to transition (have been for years) but i have an incredibly awful fear of doctors due to trauma, so the idea of trying to transition absolutely terrifies me. do doctors perform any kind of invasive exams before prescribing hormones (genital exams, etc) that i should know about? right now transitioning feels like a fantasy that I'll never achieve. i feel lost and afraid.

I have personally never heard of or experienced a genital exam as a prerequisite for hormones. If it helps you, here’s what I went through, roughly in chronological order:

Physical exam—height, weight, blood pressure (both sitting and standing because I have autonomic issues), and physically pressing on my abdomen to check for liver tenderness. (I don’t know if the last one is common practice, because that’s been a mystery pain for me for a while, so it could have been specific to my history.)

Between my first and second appointments, I had bloodwork done—it looked at baseline T levels, cholesterol, thyroid function, fasting glucose, white/red blood cell count, and general haematology.

The second appointment was a psych evaluation—asking both about my diagnostic history/emotional state, and giving a very rudimentary screening for symptoms that would be considered to “impair reality testing”. They also asked during this appointment if I was sexually active, and gave me a brief rundown of how testosterone might affect that (changes in drive and how it’s not birth control, mostly).

The psych evaluation also included, effectively, a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” as required for prescription treatment. This involved the doctor asking me questions about my identity, how long I’d known I was trans for, and how first puberty impacted me emotionally. Some of these questions were about secondary sex characteristics—”how did you feel when you started developing breasts”, for example.

The third appointment was bloodwork analysis and me signing a bunch of consent forms to show that I understood, and then he gave me the prescription.

This is a lot of involvement with the medical system, especially if you don’t normally go to the doctor with any frequency. I don’t know what your specific triggers are, but I can’t think of any reason they would need to tell you to have a genital exam—the physical assessments are to screen for health conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol that could be affected by hormones.

If being physically touched by a doctor for things like putting on a blood pressure cuff or having blood drawn would be a trigger for you, I’d encourage you to vocalize this if you’re able and feel safe to do so directly to the doctor or nurse who’d be doing the exam. With trauma, it’s really hard to speak up about this, especially if you feel like you’re back in the traumatizing situation—it’s totally, completely understandable that this would be terrifying for you. But doctors who are any good at what they do will take steps to help you be comfortable if they’re able to and aware of your needs for space and aware treatment. This goes double for many doctors who specialize in trans care—they’re already working in environments where their patients may be distrustful of the medical system for a variety of reasons, and where a much higher proportion of the population has trauma of some kind. If you go to a doctor and you don’t feel like they’re taking your trauma seriously, you have the right to walk right the fuck back out of there. Nobody will make you get hormones. That’s driven entirely by you. This is a situation in which you have the control over your medical experience and the right to stop it at any time.

I’m not going to tell you how to handle your trauma, because that’s extremely not my place and you know yourself better than anyone. I will say that the fact you’re considering medical transition with this additional obstacle is extremely brave and reflects some very admirable self-awareness in how you’re considering what might be a problem for you. If you have access to services in your area where a doctor will offer a preliminary consultation before doing any physical or mental exam stuff, that might be a good thing for you to access—that way, the doctor can tell you specifically what they do during their evaluations, and you can be best equipped with information you need to feel safe and secure in a situation that’s been previously traumatizing for you.

- Mod Wolf

The wpath guidelines do indicate to discuss a schedule of genital exam based on risk (different based on age, sexual activities). I have known trans people who have had genital exams as part of their pre-hormone exam, but it's Not typically required. Remember that the patient bill of rights allows you to decline any part of the care process, and to outline how it's provided ("please let me know if you're going to have to touch me in any way, even on my hand") ("at this time I'm not comfortable with that type of exam"). There may be certain types of care certain doctors won't/can't give without certain exams but the gold standard of care down not require a genital exam before providing hormones, just to discuss timing of the exam based on your level of risk. (Hormones can increase the risk of certain types of genital cancers that these tests can detect). Mod mayhem

[keets-writing-corner]

Intro to Character

Minor mentions of: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek

Specifically talked about in discussion: Toy Story, Inside Out, Happy Feet, Sleeping Beauty Disney), The Princess and the Frog

So what makes a story great? Well, a lot of different things actually. Cool plot, interesting setting, well use of point of view, but the most important part about a story is forgotten a lot ironically. I’m talking about characters. What do I mean by this? Well, if you’ve ever taken a Creative Writing class, you’ll usually find a ban on genre. By genre, they don’t mean horror, or comedy, they mean like anything that isn’t considered normal in the real world. No flying horses, unicorns, witches, and wizards. No myths, no fantasies, and no folklore. No extremely advanced robots, aliens or space travel. No zombies or vampires. No ghosts. No metaphysical entity and no science fiction.

Why is this though? It seems rather unfair, doesn’t it? I certainly thought so. After all, I had so many cool ideas involving myths from old religions, folklore, even an alternate earth that was a weird mix of medieval times and future technology. For years, I feared the day I would get a teacher or a professor that would enforce this rule on me (I’ve been lucky enough to have super chill teachers so far who didn’t enforce the Genre ban). Until I asked why such a rule existed.

Genre creates distraction. Of course you want to work with all the cool stuff! Who doesn’t want to work with magic, and wizards? Especially after Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings make them so thrilling to read about. Of course you want to write science fiction with Star Wars and Star Trek out there? Have a favorite fairy tale? Why not make a variation on it? It’ll be so much fun! *gasp* Even better? Why not create an entire world?! Freezing popsicle sticks! Can you imagine all the possibilities?! The lore! The history! The alternate laws! The multiple cultures! The different species! Science fiction? What kind of tech do they have? Fantasy? What does their magic look like?

That’s exactly the “problem” with genre. You get so distracted about all these cool variables that the most important part of a story, the characters, have a tendency to become underdeveloped. This isn’t to say “Don’t create stories with genre”, after all, it’s because we have so many great stories that intermingle beautifully with genre that we want to work with it. But the reason so many Creative Writing classes have a tendency to ban genre is because, chances are, the people there are blossoming writers. They’re still learning how to write really good stories, and if they’re allowed that much freedom, the most important part of the story gets neglected in the euphoria of everything else. The reason that the ban is there is for writers to learn how to properly take care of and develop their characters BEFORE they start adding all these cool magic tricks and pyronetics. Without all of the flashy fireworks, seductive circus dancers, and glittery lights, writers can sit down and learn how to work with characters in a familiar setting, the real world. (I will make a post (or several? Not sure yet) about world building, but I will say, anyone who’s tried to make their own world KNOWS that it’s a lot harder than it looks. Some people can do it naturally, others have a harder time and need a preexisting world. Neither is wrong, the point is that by taking away that pressure to create a new world, writing is easier. You’re working with rules already established and familiar to everyone and you don’t need to make any of them up).

So why are characters so important? Well, Stories are kind of about them/revolve around them? I promise you, it doesn’t matter how cool your world is, how much you know about each culture and how much it’s explored in-story, if your characters are boring, underdeveloped and uninteresting, nobody is going to care.

So, I do have many posts planned about ‘Character’, but let’s give a quick rundown on what makes a good character. Remember, I’ll be doing separate posts going into detail about most, if not each, of these AND these are not the only things I’ll be covering about character.

Connection. Audience needs to be able to connect with the character. Sometimes it’s physical appearance, sometimes it’s the gender, sometimes it’s the place of origin. These are all superficial ways of connecting with a character (Superficial in this sense being used as surface level, a character’s physical appearance, and is not a “cheap” way of making a connection). But there are more ways of connecting with a character, aren’t there? After all I connected the most to a tap dancing penguin when I was a kid. There are different ways to connect with a character, superficial ways, and also deeper more internal ways. The main goal of a character (at least a main character) is to have audience be able to see themselves in that character in some way/shape/form.  

Flaws. You hear it all the time. Characters are not allowed to be perfect (I’ll go into this when I cover Mary-Sues). Characters need flaws. What frustrates me however is that flaw is often confused with struggle. Supposedly, we connect with characters’ flaws(again, in my personal opinion this is completely untrue because we actually connect and sympathize with their struggle). What’s the differences between Flaws and Struggles? I literally have an entire post planned covering just that, so fret not! For now, let’s just summarize what I see a flaw as. I see a flaw as a character trait that keeps them from being a “perfect” character. It’s not something they need to overcome, it’s just a part of them. Sometimes a flaw can even be a strength in certain situations, or a strength can become a flaw.

Struggle. Now if you ask me, this is what really makes an audience connect with a character. Everyone struggles in life, or has something they struggle with. These are often confused with Flaws. Let me give a few examples to explain what struggle is. Let me go back to Mumble from Happy Feet. The entire movie, he’s struggling to be accepted. He’s not struggling to be normal or to be like the other penguins, he loves his talent, and he knows there’s nothing wrong with it. He just wishes the other emperor penguins could accept him, and he struggles with this the entire movie (I hope to also do an analysis on Happy Feet in the future, where I’ll be talking about this WAY more in depth). I’ve always felt like I’ve been struggling for people to accept me, especially since all the molds society wants to put me in just don’t work for me, the same way Mumble can’t sing, no matter how hard he tries. Another example. Woody, from the first Toy Story. He struggles with selfishness and jealousy. One might argue that these are his flaws, but I disagree. I think the biggest difference between flaws and struggles is that flaws are static. They don’t change. Struggles do. You overcome them. You learn from them. Woody had to learn to overcome his jealousy and his selfishness, and that’s what he does. Again, I’ve got a lot to say about Flaws VS Struggle (and their third often ignored little sister, maturity), so for the purpose of not making this post longer than it already is, I’m going to move on. Summary of this paragraph: Characters need something to struggle with, internally, externally, emotionally, whatever.

Likability. Okay, this one veers more into protagonist territory, BUT if you want audiences to like/sympathize your antagonists or other characters, this applies as well. This one is basically “Why should I even care and root for this character?” Granted, some of the caring and rooting for them is interlaced with struggle, BUT it’s not until a character does something that’s considered likable that any of this really matters. Literally, you give a character ANY characteristics that fall under being a decent human being, and they will have some sort of a fanbase. Maybe they’re an underdog (this also falls under struggle :D ), maybe they just gave some food to a dog, maybe they have a soft spot for children, maybe they care about someone in their life, maybe they’re super polite! Anything! If a character does any of these things, the audience will automatically like them to a degree, even if they’re a horrible villain. If said villain shows that they care about dogs, or a specific person in their life, they’re instantly more likeable than a villain who treats everyone around them like dirt. On the flip side, there could be a horrible, selfish, anti-hero protagonist, but the moment there’s a quiet moment when they do something kind in secret, the audience goes, “SECRET HEART OF GOLD! YESSS”. Let’s go back to Pixar for a moment. Both in Toy Story and in Inside Out, in the original writings of the movie, the main protagonist was incredibly unpleasant and unlikable to viewers, being overly cruel, or too selfish. Pixar fixed this by doing two things: thing one, they gave these characters some “decent human” traits, and thing two: they gave these characters some struggles that everyone could get on board with. With Joy specifically, they fixed her jerkiness by making Sadness annoying. We’ve all had that one annoying person in our lives, so suddenly, Joy isn’t a jerk, she’s just annoyed by Sadness and is trying to get her to go away without hurting her feelings. Aww now Joy looks like this really nice person who’s tolerating that annoying person and trying her best not to hurt her even though nobody wants this annoying person around.

Motive. I’ve got a lot to say about this one too, so to keep it simple, characters need to want something. This could be a driving goal that moves the story, or not. It could also be something that fuels their decisions that may or may not go against what they need to do, which can cause juicy juicy conflict. If a principal character has no motive, then why are they in the spotlight? If they have no drive, they are passive and will generally not affect the story, which isn’t something a character in the spotlight should be.

Agency. How active is the character in the plot? Is the character letting things happen to them or are they actively trying to take control of the situation. I don’t mean assertive characters over shyer characters, I mean do they actually do anything in the story? Now, don’t get me wrong, Sleeping Beauty was my favorite Disney movie for a while when I was 5 (although, how much of that is due to the awesome dragon and how much of it is because it’s a fun princess story is debatable), but honestly, Aurora has exactly 0 agency the entire story. She gets cursed because her parents decided to not invite Maleficent -> not her fault. One of the good fairies makes the curse less lethal -> beyond her control. Her parents and guardian fairies decide to take her to the woods to protect her from Maleficent while she ages -> not her choice. This guy in the woods tells her he’s in love with her -> she’s a little creeped out at first, then just goes along with it. Her guardian fairies tell her that she’s actually a princess and she’s supposed to return to the castle tonight -> she doesn’t want to, but she literally just bows her head and goes. Curse gets activated -> she’s not in control of herself and succumbs and now she needs rescuing from Phillip. There is nothing wrong with Aurora except that she shouldn’t have been so heavily advertised as the main character. Literally, the only Disney main protagonist with less speaking lines than her, is Dumbo, who’s a baby elephant. He can’t talk. While it’s true that in real life, we can often be in completely helpless situations, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything or at least try (for ourselves or others), and the same is true for the characters. Now, granted, using Sleeping Beauty as an example was a little cheaty of me because it’s quite common for local legends and folklore to have characters without a lot of agency (and also the time is was made it was encouraged for women to be this way). But it was a deliberate choice of the moviemakers to adapt the motion picture that way. Let’s look at another Disney example, The Princess and the Frog. Another folkloric legend in which the characters don’t have a lot of agency (still more than Aurora, but not much). In Disney’s version, Tiana is all over the place doing whatever she can do. She wants to own a restaurant, so she works two jobs and caters for her friend until she can buy it. Then the dealers go back on their promise. She’s sad, but she’s already thinking about what she can do about it (this is literally the entire reason she turned into a frog, Naveen promised her money which she could use to get her restaurant). Then she gets turned into a frog. What does she do? “Heck no! We’re going to break this curse!” And drags Naveen along. This goes on the entire movie. Tiana is FULL of agency, even in hopeless situations where she was otherwise helpless. Note: Not all characters need agency, but protagonists are not one of these characters. This is getting too long, so I’ll cut it short at this: Characters need to actually do stuff.

Of course, there’s A LOT more to characters than what I just mentioned. Again, I have multiple posts regarding different aspects of characters planned (from arcs, relationships, flaws, struggles, motives, anti-hero/anti-villain, etc). But for now, I think this is a good introductory to Character! Is there anything in here you recognized in your own favorites?