#an absolutely fantastic piece of work which also fundamentally can’t stand on its own

[heyclickadee]

Okay, but all of this.

I ran out of room in the tags 😅, so I’m putting this here: One thing I wanted to touch on is the Ahsoka thing. The treatment of Ahsoka’s “death” at the end of season two of Rebels didn’t strike me as odd when I was watching through the first time as that show was coming out, because I wasn’t super attached to Ahsoka at the time, but, looking back, it’s weird. Ahsoka goes out in this huge self-sacrifice, we don’t see her die but they sure imply she dies off screen, there’s a little thing you see at the end that may or may not be her or her ghost, Ezra’s devastated, we get sad looks from Rex, a sort of funeral march version of her theme, the season ends, and then…nothing.

Ahsoka doesn’t get a funeral. The only person who gets close to saying she died is Tarkin (“Now that Vader has eliminated the Rebel’s Jedi leadership”). She hardly ever comes up, and when she does it’s usually in a, “We could have asked Ahsoka about this Jedi thing,” capacity. Rex, her oldest friend, doesn’t talk about her. Her death doesn’t motivate anyone—in fact, almost all of the conflict in the front half of the season is driven by the other things that happened in the season two finale, Kanan’s blinding and Ezra falling in with Maul—except maybe as subtext. We don’t even know for sure that everyone believes Ahsoka is dead; there’s even one moment that kind of indicates Ezra’s holding out hope that she’s not.

The show basically ignores the big Ahsoka-death shaped elephant in the room until two seconds before Ezra is pulling a very alive Ahsoka into the world between worlds. And contrasting that with the other important deaths in the series, mainly Kanan, and then Mira and Ephraim Bridger, where they actually go out of their way to hammer home how dead they are, make the deaths integral pieces of the plot, include entire episodes of processing, and do the work necessary to allow the audience and the characters to move on, it ends up being obvious that Ahsoka was never actually meant to be dead at all. She’s MIA until she comes back and the show treats her like she’s MIA, not like she’s dead.

And the reason I keep coming back to Ahsoka on this is that despite being the implausible resurrection franchise, the list of main Star Wars characters with planned fake out deaths which fake out the audience in addition to the characters is pretty short, and they all kind of fit this pattern. (For a truncated example, check out KB in Skeleton Crew. We get Captain Wrong dead certain she’s going to die before she even crashes, KB doing her best to fix things and find a way out while her moms and her friends say she can do it, horrified reactions when she crashes, aaaaand then twenty seconds later the story completely forgets about KB and how she just “died” until about ten minutes later when the kids are like, “Oh! KB!” and they rush off to find her alive).

To me one of the biggest pieces of evidence that Tech is alive and planned to come back in a future installment is that, were I to be trying to write a fake out death, I cannot think of anything else I could add short of literally showing him alive (at which point it's no longer a fake out.)

Give extensive development to his ability to rapidly think his way out of anything and stay calm in stressful situations? Check, we have Faster showing that he can make these plans in seconds while in the middle of driving and he actually says outright that the second one is a skill of his.

Give survival foreshadowing? Check, just check out the extremely blatant hold on him after Romar's "I'm a survivor" line. And again in Faster - it'd actually be an excellent place to put some foreshadowing of his possible death, have him win but in a way that causes a crash or something of that nature, making it so that his gamble worked but was a close call, rather than an easy survival for him. Instead we get others doubting Tech could survive but he not only does, but he does it easily. We have lines from Phee implying that there's more to come - her first line, better late than dead, is one that is an odd intro to her as a character but works perfectly if taken as foreshadowing for later. And her oddly specific 'don't go running off with any pirates or smugglers' in their last scene together is another one where it just feels primed for a comeback later on. His final conversation with Saw also is an interesting aspect here - Saw is the one that is leaning hard on 'sacrifice is necessary for the greater good' while Tech tells him to work smarter and take your enemy down from within. If you're going to have a character sacrifice himself, why put him at odds with the concept of sacrifice immediately before? There are just a lot of pieces that make the most sense if they're foreshadowing something to come with him.

Open plots that aren't yet resolved? Check on multiple angles. He has Phee of course - and they could have resolved that by either giving more closure in their last talk together or by having more of Phee in season 3, allowing her even one scene to talk with Omega about moving past something that she will never get closure on. This leaves their dynamic hanging wide open, but not in a way that uses the lack of closure for plot development. They also introduce a theme of culture and memory with him, which isn't allowed to go anywhere prior to him dropping into the mists and isn't developed in season 3 in his absence, where nothing is done in his memory and his goggles being placed in the Archium isn't even about remembering him it's about Omega not wanting to leave Pabu behind. AND, going back to Faster yet again, Cid drops that she owes him one, which hasn't come back. Cid is still out there, and that favor could still be called in if Tech comes back, otherwise it's an empty line that doesn't connect to anything. All of these were opened in season 2, so they're not just leftovers from changed plots.

Ambiguous method of death? VERY Check. Falls are one of the classic fakeout death methods because as long as we don't see the results anything could have happened between the moment we lose sight of Tech and when he would have impacted the ground. Did he manage to get on top of the rail car and use it to break his fall? Did he manage to find an alternate landing place and use wind resistance to angle himself towards a softer landing? Is the armor protecting his head and torso shock resistant enough to allow for survival? Could be any of those or more, we don't know because we don't see it. TBB also puts a lot of effort into making sure you know falls aren't that fatal. Here's a great post from @heyclickadee going into the WIDE variety of falls that would have logically been fatal but that are wriggled out of through the series. They could have given him some kind of injury that makes it less likely he'd survive, but nope despite being blown off the railing he's totally fine and able to maneuver out of it. He even flips into the skydiver's position before we lose track of him, which is the first thing you're supposed to do if you find yourself in freefall.

No body? VERY check. They picked a method of death that lets them not show a body, and then they go out of their way to make sure no one can look for a body. Omega's hurt so they can't go back and look for him. She passes out in front of a body but it's not his. Hemlock claims all he found is goggles in a moment where he has every reason to lie to them. They could have had Hemlock recover the body and show it under a sheet in his lab. Omega passes out in front of a body, that could easily have been made to be Tech to drive home that he's gone. There's a lot of options there! They took none of them.

Nobody ever gives him a funeral or has a mourning scene outside of the initial shock moment? Check. And, in fact, the only time he's even referred to as dead by anyone it comes from the mouth of Crosshair, the guy that's in this show primarily to be wrong about things. Every other time he's brought up, it's a moment of sadness and moving on. This is an easy fake out trope, because it allows the grief to linger without taking up a ton of screentime for something you're ultimately going to reverse. (See: Ahsoka in Rebels)

If I wanted to add to this, if I wanted to make it MORE clear that he was coming back without just saying so in words or literally showing him alive, I don't know what could be added. Front to back it's fully loaded with everything that goes into a fake death. And nothing that typically signals a real death. You can't rely on real life statistics for long falls because it's not real life, it's fiction. And by all fictional standards, Tech never died and it's just a matter of when and where they'll reveal him. (I'm still putting tentative money on it being sometime between the ending shot of the tree and the epilogue, to justify why they pulled his goggles out of the Archium rather than leaving them there as a memorial.)

[lbmisscharlie]

@havingbeenbreathedout tagged me in her 11 questions thing lo these many years ago (it seems), and I finally had some time to finish her fantastic and thought-provoking questions.

1.      What is the last book you read that you couldn’t put down, and why?

A queer book club I recently started going to picked A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar as our pick for June, and I LOVED it. It’s an immigrant coming-of-age story, queer and frank and with a really sharp and interesting voice. I’ve been meaning to put some key quotations up here for y’all, because I know some of you would really like it.

2.      What is the last book you started, that you stopped reading, and why?

I picked up the first volume of Princess Jellyfish on recommendation from someone in that same reading group, got a couple pages into it, and then looked again the dense brick that’s just volume one and made myself put it down. I’m not even keeping up with comics I’ve already been following; I didn’t want to add another big series to the list right now.

3.      Talk about a thing that bothers you in a piece of media you love.

The first thing that came to mind is the absolute perfection that is The Hour and the fact that it ended without telling us what happened to Freddie and without more of Lix’s backstory. But that’s not really its fault, I suppose.

4.      Talk about a thing you still love in a piece of media you generally dislike or which you at some point “broke up with.”

Oh, god, the answer to this is obviously Sherlock, which I have watched all the episodes of but mostly can’t stand now. While I was definitely drawn in by the flash and glamour and prettiness, the thing that kept me around was the subtlety of movement that Martin Freeman brought to his portrayal of John. He was always able to communicate so much through the most minute of gestures of expressions, and it worked so well in contrast to the generally bombastic atmosphere of the show as a whole.

 5.      Talk about a piece of fanfic that changed or deepened your perception of a character in, or other aspect of, the source material. 

This is totally and deservedly a fandom classic: Nonymous’s Into that Good Night, which shifted my fundamental perception of Bucky and particularly Steve into a focus on their loneliness – I think I recc’ed it to @loveisofthebody with something about the “fundamental loneliness of being Captain America” and I stand by that. Not just because of the super-soldier, long-life, man-out-of-time thing, but also because there’s such a solitary sense to his righteousness, a constant underlying awareness that any choice he makes might, in fact, leave him standing alone – and yet he’ll still make the same choices, again and again, if he thinks they’re the right thing to do. It’s definitely informing the way I write Steve now.

6.      Do you have particular articles of dress or manners of self-presentation that you use as “battle dress” (i.e. to bolster your self-confidence when you’re facing something nerve-wracking, or when the world feels like Too Much)? If so, what are they?

Oh yes! I have one Perfect Dress that I’ve worn to every single academic conference at which I’ve presented these past four years; I feel absolutely killer in it. It’s a knit sheath dress in a grey snakeskin textured ponte, fits close to the body, has a high but wide neckline and short, non-binding sleeves, and is just professional enough to work but not so plain that I feel bored wearing it. On a more everyday basis, I usually slap on lipstick on my way out the door/in the car/on the bus in order to feel totally put together, even though I don’t wear any other makeup. My perpetual favorite is Revlon balm stain in Smitten.

7.      What is your fidget toy of choice, if you have one?

If I’m wearing a necklace, I’ll adjust the chain, pull on the pendant, flip open and closed the locket all the time. I sometimes have to stop myself from doing it when I’m teaching, in fact!

8.      Talk about a thing you made that turned out close to how you imagined it.

My mind is on sewing because I’ve not had time to do any this past month, so probably this wool and linen shirtdress that I made over spring break. I’d been holding onto the vintage plaid wool for a while, waiting to find just the perfect project, and I’m so pleased with how it all came together – especially my perfect pattern-matching on the bodice front!

9.      Talk about a thing you made that came nowhere near how you imagined it.

I do have plenty of sewing mishaps and things that don’t translate well to my body, but I think this is also probably true of most of the long fic I’ve ever written. I don’t usually outline, and all of the long fic I’ve written (Fill Our Mouths With Cinnamon Now, Into the Dark Stream, the current Still the Walls Do Not Fall monster) have started with the intention of being much shorter. This is one of those places where they turn out differently because I shift directions, I hone my intent, and create plots rather than just character studies as I go rather than at the beginning – I’m mostly happy with all of them, but they’re not what I expected. However, that does mean I’m starting to figure out how to change up my process and am in the very beginning stages of outlining what will (hopefully) be my next novel-length thing, after I finished a few short things in the interim. Outlines! Plots! What madness!

10.   What are your go-to methods of getting to sleep/combating insomnia?

HA. Hahahahaha. Would that I had one. I’ve suffered from insomnia since I was a tiny child, and mostly my not-at-all recommended way of dealing with it is to stay up late doing things until I’m so exhausted I have to sleep, then trying to sleep in on the weekends. F-, would not recommend.

11.   When you dream, do you tend to experience the action from your own point of view, the point of view of a character in the dream who isn’t the same as you in your waking life, or as if you’re observing the action at a remove (as if you’re a “camera” rather than a character)?

From my own point of view, but usually with a sense that I’m not really choosing the actions I’m doing, just sort of floating and doing things that are either predetermined or caused by others in the dream. Which, honestly, usually leads to horrifying nightmares that are less about scary physical things and more about things that I accept as totally normal within the dream but are in fact deeply disturbing.

Thanks for the questions, hbbo! Since it took me this long to answer, I am not going to delay any longer in making me own -- but if any of you want to answer her questions, as well, please do!

[topicprinter]

1. Entrepreneurs are burdened with vision AND a sense of obligation — they’ve all taken a leap of faith.“Somebody should do something… and I’m somebody.”This is perhaps the first “point of divergence” between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. Everybody has daydreams and fantasies — but entrepreneurs seem to be more pained than everyone else at the prospect of not doing something about it.Entrepreneurs of all personality types, introverts and extroverts, “thinkers” and “feelers”, all seem to casually–yet–sincerely use words like “vision”, “conviction”, “leap of faith” and “courage” to talk about themselves and their work.I’m naturally quite a creative person, and I really had passion and flair for my craft. I’ve always had a million ideas for things I would do to break the mould of the cafe market. I always had ideas that I was so sure would work, and I would always propose them to my manager. They’d get rejected — because of issues like costing, ordering, storage, the additional impact on existing operations, etc. So I was constantly on the lookout for the opportunity to start my own thing — and the moment I spotted one, I dove right into it. — Christine Seah, Dapper CoffeeNot every entrepreneur has a clearly-articulated grand unifying vision, or a super-elaborate business plan. But every entrepreneur has taken a leap of faith. And taking that leap is never easy, no matter how much preparation you do. It almost always boils down to “somebody’s got to do it, and I’m somebody”.Interestingly, when I tweeted about this, someone asked, “But you’re probably talking to SMBs in tech right? That would explain the emphasis on vision and mission.”And the answer is… nope! It’s true for restauranteurs and ‘traditional’ entrepreneurs selling everything from seminars to standing desks. Vision and mission may have become buzzwords, but they’re still fundamentally important to entrepreneurs.Why is this so persistent? I think it’s because of the activation energy required to start a business. Unless you have lots of disposable cash to burn, starting a business requires you to decisively walk away from everything familiar and comfortable to most people.I think every entrepreneur puts a significant part of himself into his business. Not just time, energy, money, but also vision, personality, values, ego, in a way. Self doubt is huge, when you struggle to meet your business goals, when you think you’re not good enough. When as the leader responsible for the entire business, you couldn’t think of the answer, or do the right thing that can unlock the answer to your goals. But even deeper than all that is the idea that your business is a part of you, a representation of you and your beliefs and values. For that to fail, and be rejected, can be extremely personal. It can feel like the world is rejecting your existence. […] All the way through, theres the questioning of whether even if we irreversibly compromise our values, whether we can achieve the vision. Is that vision even still meaningful? — Louis Puah, Praxium2. Entrepreneurs constantly battle self–doubt , and they do it in an arena where there are real stakes and consequences.“But can I do it? I’ve never done anything like this before.”To most people, the phrase “self-doubt” tends to imply a generalized self-criticism: doubting whether one is fundamentally capable, good, worthy. And that definitely is a question that many entrepreneurs have deal with — and sometimes one that they turn to entrepreneurship to answer.But entrepreneurs also grapple with a much more granular, nuanced sort of self-doubt than most people relate to. And that’s about contending with each aspect of their abilities.Are you good enough to hire the right person for the job? Are you good enough to make the sale to the client? The success of your business depends on you being accurate in your self-assessments!“I’m a specialist, and I’m focused on making the classes better. I rely on my teammates to focus on bring in sales. I did a strengths test — I’m all about relationship building. It drains me to think about sales.” — Fagan, MOVE AcademyLots of people don’t know how to support entrepreneurs through The Struggle. For example, when they have self-doubt, it’s tempting to say, “Don’t doubt yourself!” But that wouldn’t actually be good advice, because self-doubt is part of what helps entrepreneurs survive in challenging and uncertain environments.3. Entrepreneurs endure increased accountability to others — to customers, employees, vendors, investors.“I need to deliver the goods so I can realize our potential. I cannot let everyone down.”The word “entrepreneur” literally means “one who undertakes”. To be an entrepreneur is to volunteer to shoulder more responsibility than other people. It’s to declare, “I think we should go that way,” and then bring people along with you for the ride — without being completely certain that it’s absolutely the right thing to do.Just think for a moment about all the people entrepreneurs are accountable to.They’re accountable to their customers, who will sometimes write scathing reviews online if something isn’t right.They’re accountable to employees, who expect their paychecks to come in on time, but may not necessarily feel the same sense of obligation when it comes to clocking in the hours.If they have investors, they’re accountable to them too — to give them a return on their investment.Some entrepreneurs even feel accountable to all their friends and family — by choosing to strike it out on their own, they become a flag-bearer for the pursuit of dreams.“I often feel guilty that I’m not giving Statement enough attention. I believe there’s still tons of ideas that we can explore with it. I feel like we are sitting on this huge mountain of potential, and possibly inhibiting its growth.” — Desmond, Statement4. Entrepreneurs appreciate the true nature of constraints better, because they’re rubbing up against them all the time.“Can I feed my family doing this? Does a market exist? Will competitors eat me? Can I make payroll this month?”As consumers, we never quite appreciate how tough it is for SMBs to survive — and how personal it is. Deciding to start a business is a very personal, overwhelming decision — and the moment you start, the timer starts ticking. Costs are guaranteed, revenue is not. And so begins a frantic race for survival.“Time is one constraint. We spend our office hours in an ad agency. After dinner, paperwork, and the occasional fitness/social/me-time, there’s not much time for anything else. Market size is another. Our brand isn’t directly scalable, so growing while remaining authentic is a challenge. We also have partners not paying up on time, which isn’t fun.” — Selena Soh, Temasek ClothingsThis has all sorts of effects on entrepreneurs. Some liken it to the highs and lows of gambling. Others describe it as like “living in the wild”, hunting for every sale, warding off predators.One thing is clear — SMB entrepreneurs are hypersensitive to the beating hearts of their business. Every sale, every review, every social media share has a real impact on their moods, even if they try to be somewhat stoic about it.When I first started, I was the only cafe making a variety of homemade vegan-friendly milks out of nuts. We had hazelnut milk and macadamia milk, it was fantastic. But it took a lot of labour to make them, and nuts are expensive. One day I realized, “I’m just going to have to get packaged almond milk because it’s taking 2 days to make a batch of homemade nut milk and nobody’s buying it.” So y’know I had to really have a good hard think about what I do, and how to compromise creativity vs product quality vs cost vs marketability.But in a way I felt it was good to have so many constraints, because you can only really do something out of the box when you have an actual box to work with. Unicorn Tears was my best work, arguably classified as a “perfect” product. it was creative, no one in sg had seen anything like it before. it was tasty, visually impactful, it was cheap and easy to make, and it sold like hotcakes. — Christine Seah, Dapper CoffeeEntrepreneurs are also always mindful of the opportunity cost of what they’re doing — many of them have walked away from lucrative, well-paying jobs in order to enact their vision.5. Entrepreneurs “wear many hats” — in a much more fragmented way than regular folk are used to (or can even imagine)“I do everything around here — operations, accounting, sales, hiring, morale…”“I was really exhausted. Trying to pull everything together — construction, manpower, suppliers and costing; was a considerable feat for one person. I struggled because of my lack of experience. I learned the hard way that running a café was a lot more than just the simple stuff like preparing items and serving customers.” — Samantha Koh, Curbside CafeThis is obvious intellectually, but experiencing it is something else altogether.You might start a business because you want to do your own thing — say, selling your specially-frosted cupcakes, which your friends have raved about. But you can’t just be a specialist — you also need to be a salesperson. You need to manage the numbers. You need good communication and interpersonal skills. You need to figure out how to hire people, fire people. You need to be an “influencer”.How do you actually build that up in almost no time at all? Most of the time, you have to learn on the job. And that means enduring a lot of failure as you learn.In school, we learned about the various fields of management, finances, technology— but until I experienced it for myself, I didn’t fully appreciate why there are specialists in each field. I understand now why there are entire disciplines about the various subsets of business. Each thing takes a lot of expertise. How can a single person build that up overnight? You have to figure it out as you go, on the job — and that means you’ll be failing a lot. — Fagan, MOVE Academy6. Entrepreneurs are constantly overwhelmed with decisions, “fighting fires” and an infinite todo list"I have more things to do than time to do them."“Our vision has always been to empower couples and the challenge has been to avoid getting distracted by other things. So the question we’re always asking ourselves is, “Does this help empower couples?” Recently we’ve looked at expanding the ways in which we empower couples but our end goal remains the same. Sometimes it can be helpful to distinguish between what the goal is and the means by which you try to achieve it. From time to time, the means might change but our goal is still the same.” ~ Dharma and Leana, The Wedding Scoop Every entrepreneur is living in a sort of chaotic state in their minds, where everything around them is suboptimal and needs to be fixed, corrected, addressed, taken care of.Nothing good happens unless you make it happen, while bad things happen all the time — sometimes because of your neglect and failure, and sometimes due to events entirely beyond your control.“Our todo list? Well — there’s a mix of things we haven’t done, things we need to do now, and things we need to do in the future. At some point I realized I can’t just keep cleaning what’s due or past due. It’s always never done. So I have to touch a bit of everything, and be okay with the fact that every day is going to be like this. I have to keep reminding myself of that.” — Selena Soh, Temasek Clothings7. Entrepreneurs value relationships a lot, and often speak about them with a certain tenderness and reverence“Through shared struggle, my partners and have developed extremely intimate bonds.”To me, this seems related to the fact that they get to “choose their partners”. If you start your own business, you get to decide who you’re going to hire — and each person you hire is going to contribute the culture of the organization you’re building.Most people inherit their relationships and coexist with their colleagues. Entrepreneurs are more discerning.“We didn’t initially expect to work together. But it made our relationship even better. I think we’re both ambitious career-driven types. And we get to make more decisions together, face conflict and challenges together. Solving problems together on more than just domestic issues helped us grow.” — Lydia Shah, A Good CitizenIt’s interesting to consider the causality here — in several cases, it seems to me that entrepreneurs either crave the sort of intense relationships only cofounders have, or they dislike ‘regular’ relationships (consider the stereotype of everyone going to the bar after work to complain about their jobs).I have a huge, huge appreciation for everyone that becomes part of the journey, even if it’s just giving support, giving advice, making connections. […] Regular folk” would form friendships with colleagues, but retain a business relationship for anyone outside of the department or organization. But as an entrepreneur, every connection is valued, nobody I encounter is “none of my concern”. — Louis Puah, Praxium Ironically, entrepreneurs are often “people persons” and yet quite lonely — because they’re so consumed by their work. As my colleague Si Quan pointed out when I talked to him about it,I’ve grown to realize, there is a loneliness to entrepreneurship. It’s a funny paradox: they’re very sociable, that’s why they’re in the people business… and yet they’re too busy to have much of a social life. One merchant even said to me, “I don’t think anybody has actually asked me the full story before.” — Si Quan, Breakdance Decoded8. Have a growth mindset: prioritize learning and growing to get better at managing uncertainty“It’s not going to get easier. I’m going to become stronger.”Being an entrepreneur is staggeringly overwhelming — if you don’t believe that you have room to learn and grow, or you don’t believe you’re capable of doing it, you’re going to quit.I find that running a business makes you almost “live on another planet” compared to friends who stayed in a regular job. Most employed people “avoid uncertainty” (or so they think) by e.g. going for a fixed contract or sticking with a big name employer. As an entrepreneur, we learn to “manage uncertainty” by not relying on one big client, agree things clearly in contract, requiring payment up front. While it can be challenging and draining, I tell myself that employment only provides the illusion of security. And I really see no alternative for learning to manage it. If you have a job, it’s just one job and when it’s gone, it’s gone. By always managing uncertainty, entrepreneurs live more in the real world. Once you build the skill of managing uncertainty, you are much better equipped to deal with sudden events. — Guus Goorts, Crystal MarketingTo me, this seems directly related to the fact that entrepreneurs operate in a more uncertain environment.Some seek out the uncertain environment because they want to learn, and tolerate the uncertainty to enjoy the accelerated learning.Some prefer the uncertain environment to other more controlled, predictable environments, and learning is the rent they pay to stay in it.And for some, well, why not both?In the best cases, this results in entrepreneurs learning and growing more than — if they manage to survive in a chaotic, uncertain environment, they begin to develop skills and abilities that they wouldn’t have otherwise. They learn to manage and inspire people. To set a course. They create meaningful, colourful experiences, that make the world a brighter, more colorful place.There’s a staggering caveat, though. Having a growth mindset does not guarantee success. And growth only really feels good on retrospect — it’s uncomfortable, painful and exhausting all the way through.After working night and day to make your vision reality, you wake up to find that things did not go as planned. Your company did not unfold like the Jack Dorsey keynote that you listened to when you started. Your product has issues that will be very hard to fix. The market isn’t quite where it was supposed to be. Your employees are losing confidence and some of them have quit. Some of the ones that quit were quite smart and have the remaining ones wondering if staying makes sense. You are running low on cash and your venture capitalist tells you that it will be difficult to raise money given the impending European catastrophe. You lose a competitive battle. You lose a loyal customer. You lose a great employee. The walls start closing in. Where did you go wrong? Why didn’t your company perform as envisioned? Are you good enough to do this? As your dreams turn into nightmares, you find yourself in The Struggle. — Ben Horowitz, OpswareThanks for reading! The struggle is real.

[seorudranil]

SEO 2018: 15 Rules for Dominating Online Search Results

Seems like yesterday that I was writing about SEO in 2017. Now, 2018 is near. Are the rules changing much? Sort of. But, the fundamentals are staying the same. You still can't game the system. You can't take shortcuts or cut corners. If you want to absolutely crush the SEO game in 2018, you need to put in the work.

The truth? Understanding search engine optimization takes time. With hundreds of rules to Google's algorithm, it's no wonder it's so confusing. But, to stay ahead of the proverbial curve with SEO in 2018, you simply need to put in the time and the effort to deliver real value. Not try use shady tactics. No. Real value.

What exactly does that mean? Well, in order to properly convey the underlying rules to you, let's start with a story. Let's pretend you just opened up a new business and you walk into a bank. You sit down with the banker and explain your fantastic business model. You even show him a dazzling business plan.

You explain that you're selling the latest widget, designed to impress even the most discerning customers in the XYZ industry. Yes, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. You tell the banker you need a loan for a million dollars. He stares at you blankly. Then, after a long and unnerving pause, he asks you for the last two to three years of financials.

Financials? What financials? We're just going into business, you think to yourself. We don't have financials. We're just starting out. This is the latest thing since sliced bread. Don't you want to be a part of it? Another blank stare. This time, he shakes his head, stares down at the piece of paper you gave him, stands up, shakes your hand and sees you to the door.

The moral of this story? Most people who are trying to gain results with SEO in 2018 are just starting out. They've recently registered a website and are attempting to rank for some big and very competitive keyword. After about six months of trying everything under the sun, they throw in the towel and turn to paid ads.

Sure. Paid ads are great. Building a sales funnel and using ads on Facebook, Google or YouTube is quite possibly the fastest way you can make money online and present your offer to droves of customers looking to buy exactly what you're selling. But, there are lots of variables and metrics involved in doing that. For most people, it feels like flushing their money down the toilet. And for good reason.

But, what if you could get that same offer in front of people for free? Test things out, then scale using paid ads. That's specifically what SEO can do for you in 2018, or, frankly, in any year for that matter. So how does this work? What are the rules for absolutely crushing the competition and dominating Google (or any other search engine's) search results?

Related: Your SEO Checklist: four Steps to Optimizing Your Website

The three Pillars of SEO

Before you get into the nitty gritty of the specific rules or strategies to use when doing SEO, you have to understand the three pillars. If we go way back to the very beginnings of Google's search algorithms, we discover something called PageRank. If you'll recall, PageRank was the original algorithm that Google's search engine was built upon.

It scoured the web by moving around from link to link. It ultimately discovered the entire internet by spidering around on the so-called virtual web. The more links going to a specific page it found, the more importance or relevance it would attribute to that specific page. More links and more relevancy meant higher rank.

Now, things have definitely changed since those days. It isn't just about links today. Sure, people will tell you it's all about links. But, before getting into the technical details, you need to understand the three pillars that make SEO tick. You can consider these to be the fundamental driving principles. I've been teaching this since 2013, and although the rules have changed, the pillars have stayed the same.

Related: 4 Ways Instant Gratification Has Changed Content Marketing

1. Authority

Authority relates to the quality and volume of links created over time. The more authority a website has, the more link juice it can pass on. You can assess authority through tools like the MozBar or SEMRush. The Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Score (DS) are two ways that these companies quantify the amount of authority a domain has. However, no score will be real-time and any changes or improvements to your SEO could potentially take weeks or months to see its results.

2. Content

The content of a site is crucial when it comes to ranking in 2018. In fact, the importance of this has increased dramatically over time. Gone are the days of spinning content and using software to generate low-quality, content-farm-esque prose. Today, your content has to be excellent. It has to add value and engage the visitor. The more engagement, the more users will share that content, and in turn, the better it will rank. Invest heavily in your content and it will pay off in spades.

3. Indexed Age

The third and final pillar of SEO is the indexed age. Age does matter. While other factors can certainly trump age, in the very beginning, it's important that you create a great track record with your domain's content and the quality of the links pointing to that content. This happens over time. You can't rush it. The indexed age simply refers to the original date that Google discovered the site or the content itself.

15 Rules for SEO in 2018

If you're looking to dominate SEO in 2018, then there are loads of rules, but 15 stand out in particular. Be sure to pay homage to these rules if you're looking to dominate the SERPs.

1. Assess your page speed and improve where necessary.

Use Google's Page Speed Insights to determine the areas of improvement required for your domain. By considerably increasing your site's page speed, you can vastly improve your potential visibility. You can also use tools like Pingdom, GTMetrix and Varvy. Here are the areas you should be looking to improve with any page speed enhancement:

Reduce the server's response time to requests

Eliminate render-blocking     CSS and JavaScript above the website fold

Leverage browser caching     to enhance speeds of page elements being served up

Minify your JavaScript ,     CSS and HTML where possible

Enable compressions like     GZip

Optimize all images with     loss-less image optimizers like Compressor.io

Related: Your SEO Checklist: 4 Steps to Optimizing Your Website

2. Use a CDN for your domain and DNS when possible to quickly serve your content.

Utilizing content-deliver networks (CDNs) like Amazon's Cloudfront is crucial to being able to quickly serve your content to users no matter where they're located. CDNs spread your content across multiple servers all around the world by mirroring it, then serving that content from the closest server to the visitor.

You should also consider moving your DNS to a CloudFlare or similar configuration that will help with DNS propagation times. Often, DNS propagation can lag depending on who the registrar is and where their servers are located versus where the DNS request is coming from.

3. Build useful content that adds value.

Create great content. Always. And don't try to take shortcuts when doing it. Google's ability to sniff out great content is getting better and better with each passing month. Don't try to game the system here. Actually go out of your way to make great content. When you do, it'll reflect on your site and the traffic will increase. Great content will engage visitors and will invite them to share it. Overall, focus on these elements when building your content:

Never write content less     than 2,000 words if you can avoid it

Create a healthy link     profile both with internal links and relevant outbound links

Cite all your sources and     back up facts with statics and studies

Section off your content     and make it easy to read

Ensure that you place     relevant, high-quality images as your primary photo

Utilize a healthy keyword     usage but don't overuse or stuff keywords

Build content that's     instructional and helps solve a problem

Write your content for     humans by making it sound natural and organic while also paying homage to     search engines

Related: The 6 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Small Businesses

4. Ensure mobile responsiveness and usability across devices.

Mobile searches are far outpacing desktop searches today. Focus on mobile responsiveness and usability. According to Search Engine Land, mobile searches were at nearly 60 percent of all searches in 2016. Take the time to ensure your site is optimized for mobile devices and can be easily used across all platforms by implementing a CSS library like Bootstrap or building out your own.

5. Focus on enhancing the user experience.

Create a great user experience. That means, make your site easy to use. Make it easy to navigate. Make it easy to search for and discover the right type of content. Here are a few suggestions:

Use breadcrumbs in your navigation

Implement a fast site search

Don't make your website too graphic-rich

Make the main menu easy to use

Categorize all your content using tags or categorizes

Avoid using too many pop-ups

6. Supplement content with videos, audios or podcasts to increase engagements.

Site engagement is huge. Google is acutely concerned with the amount of time that users spend on your website. Thus, when you build useful and engaging content, people want to stick around longer. Now, you clearly need to leverage words and long-form content here. But, you should also supplement that content with videos, audios and podcasts as well. This will increase your average page times and session times.

Related: 17 Ways To Immediately Improve Your Website Traffic

7. Utilize Latent-Semantic Indexing for keyword diversity.

Latent-Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a core technology that Google uses in its Hummingbird search, which is its current iteration of semantic-style searching. LSI allows Google to serve relevant content by understanding what the user is searching for rather than trying to return back content based specifically on the keyword itself. LSI is also just a fancy way of saying the same thing in another way.

For example, "make money online" could be said in a number of ways like "generate cash on the internet" or "earn an income on the web" and so on. Google knows it's the same keyword. Utilize this for all your content. This will allow you to create organic and natural-sounding prose without having it appear keyword-stuffed.

8. Create relevant outbound links in your content.

Outbound links are important. Don't worry about sculpting them with nofollow or dofollow links. Simply create relevant links within the content so that people can continue on in their discovery journeys. Always have at least two to three relevant outbound links within every piece of content you create.

Related: 21 Ways to Market Your Business Online

9. Focus on quality over quantity of links.

The quality of your links is far more important than the quantity of them. When building links to your content, don't go for mass numbers. Target the highest quality domains and ensure that those links are created naturally and organically. That should always be your goal and your aim. Think "white hat" and not "black hat" here.

10. Always market your content by leveraging trusted domains.

When I build content, even when I build it on trusted domains, I always market that content using other authority sites. No matter where you create that content, building content to market it is the key to winning SEO in 2018, or any other year for that matter. Simply create other useful pieces of content on authority sites like Quora, LinkedIn Publishing and Medium, for instance, with a single link pointing to the original piece of anchor content.

Related: Cloud-Based Startups Face Tough Marketing Challenges

11. Do not overuse ads above the fold.

Be careful of how much ad usage you have above the fold. At the end of the day, you don't want the large part of the header being taken up by ads. This is going to detract from the user's experience and Google specifically doesn't like this. Also, too many ads served from too many ad platforms is going to naturally slow down your site. Keep it to a bare minimum.

12. Create ungated super-guides with clear calls-to action.

Roland Frasier, one of the most respected names in the online marketing field, says that his company, Digital Marketer, is focusing on building ungated super-guides. Super guides are simply pieces of content that are massive value posts (MVPs) and drive such an enormous amount of engagement and shares that they help to catapult a domain into the stratosphere.

13. Do not try to do anything deceptive or sneaky.

Forget about doing anything that's deceptive or sneaky and focus on adding value. Don't try to redirect users or trick search engines by cloaking content. If you're serious about winning the game of SEO, whether it's in 2018 or any other near, you have to stay away from tactics like this. You'll lose Google's trust and the trust of any visitor coming to your website if you try these shady tactics.

Related: 19 Experts Explain Why Your Website Isn't Bringing in Customers

14. Leverage social media to build viral content that links back to your domain.

Social media can certainly drive a tremendous amount of user traffic when done right. Leverage social media to build viral content that's not business-focused, but rather adds some sort of value, whether it's entertainment value or informational value in one way or another.

15. Solicit influencers in your niche to help you supercharge your results.

Target influencers to help push your content out there. Whether it's through Instagram or Facebook, there are plenty of influencers out there who can help champion your cause. It can help you reach a large audience, especially in the very beginning, and to help you get the word out there.

[josidel]

Rules for Dominating Online Search Results

Seems like yesterday that I was writing about SEO in 2017. Now, 2018 is near. Are the rules changing much? Sort of. But, the fundamentals are staying the same. You still can't game the system. You can't take shortcuts or cut corners. If you want to absolutely crush the SEO game in 2018, you need to put in the work.

The truth? Understanding search engine optimization takes time. With hundreds of rules to Google's algorithm, it's no wonder it's so confusing. But, to stay ahead of the proverbial curve with SEO in 2018, you simply need to put in the time and the effort to deliver real value. Not try use shady tactics. No. Real value.

What exactly does that mean? Well, in order to properly convey the underlying rules to you, let's start with a story. Let's pretend you just opened up a new business and you walk into a bank. You sit down with the banker and explain your fantastic business model. You even show him a dazzling business plan.

You explain that you're selling the latest widget, designed to impress even the most discerning customers in the XYZ industry. Yes, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. You tell the banker you need a loan for a million dollars. He stares at you blankly. Then, after a long and unnerving pause, he asks you for the last two to three years of financials.

Financials? What financials? We're just going into business, you think to yourself. We don't have financials. We're just starting out. This is the latest thing since sliced bread. Don't you want to be a part of it? Another blank stare. This time, he shakes his head, stares down at the piece of paper you gave him, stands up, shakes your hand and sees you to the door.

The moral of this story? Most people who are trying to gain results with SEO in 2018 are just starting out. They've recently registered a website and are attempting to rank for some big and very competitive keyword. After about six months of trying everything under the sun, they throw in the towel and turn to paid ads.

Sure. Paid ads are great. Building a sales funnel and using ads on Facebook, Google or YouTube is quite possibly the fastest way you can make money online and present your offer to droves of customers looking to buy exactly what you're selling. But, there are lots of variables and metrics involved in doing that. For most people, it feels like flushing their moneydown the toilet. And for good reason.

But, what if you could get that same offer in front of people for free? Test things out, then scale using paid ads. That's specifically what SEO can do for you in 2018, or, frankly, in any year for that matter. So how does this work? What are the rules for absolutely crushing the competition and dominating Google (or any other search engine's) search results?

The three Pillars of SEO

Before you get into the nitty gritty of the specific rules or strategies to use when doing SEO, you have to understand the three pillars. If we go way back to the very beginnings of Google's search algorithms, we discover something called PageRank. If you'll recall, PageRank was the original algorithm that Google's search engine was built upon.

It scoured the web by moving around from link to link. It ultimately discovered the entire internet by spidering around on the so-called virtual web. The more links going to a specific page it found, the more importance or relevance it would attribute to that specific page. More links and more relevancy meant higher rank.

Now, things have definitely changed since those days. It isn't just about links today. Sure, people will tell you it's all about links. But, before getting into the technical details, you need to understand the three pillars that make SEO tick. You can consider these to be the fundamental driving principles. I've been teaching this since 2013, and although the rules have changed, the pillars have stayed the same.

1. Authority

Authority relates to the quality and volume of links created over time. The more authority a website has, the more link juice it can pass on. You can assess authority through tools like the MozBaror SEMRush. The Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Score (DS) are two ways that these companies quantify the amount of authority a domain has. However, no score will be real-time and any changes or improvements to your SEO could potentially take weeks or months to see its results.

2. Content

The content of a site is crucial when it comes to ranking in 2018. In fact, the importance of this has increased dramatically over time. Gone are the days of spinning content and using software to generate low-quality, content-farm-esque prose. Today, your content has to be excellent. It has to add value and engage the visitor. The more engagement, the more users will share that content, and in turn, the better it will rank. Invest heavily in your content and it will pay off in spades.

3. Indexed Age

The third and final pillar of SEO is the indexed age. Age does matter. While other factors can certainly trump age, in the very beginning, it's important that you create a great track record with your domain's content and the quality of the links pointing to that content. This happens over time. You can't rush it. The indexed age simply refers to the original date that Google discovered the site or the content itself.

15 Rules for SEO in 2018

If you're looking to dominate SEO in 2018, then there are loads of rules, but 15 stand out in particular. Be sure to pay homage to these rules if you're looking to dominate the SERPs.

1. Assess your page speed and improve where necessary.

Use Google's Page Speed Insights to determine the areas of improvement required for your domain. By considerably increasing your site's page speed, you can vastly improve your potential visibility. You can also use tools like Pingdom, GTMetrix and Varvy. Here are the areas you should be looking to improve with any page speed enhancement:

Reduce the server's response time to requestsEliminate render-blocking CSS and JavaScript above the website foldLeverage browser caching to enhance speeds of page elements being served upMinify your JavaScript , CSS and HTML where possibleEnable compressions like GZipOptimize all images with loss-less image optimizers like Compressor.io

2. Use a CDN for your domain and DNS when possible to quickly serve your content.

Utilizing content-deliver networks (CDNs) like Amazon's Cloudfront is crucial to being able to quickly serve your content to users no matter where they're located. CDNs spread your content across multiple servers all around the world by mirroring it, then serving that content from the closest server to the visitor.

You should also consider moving your DNS to a CloudFlare or similar configuration that will help with DNS propagation times. Often, DNS propagation can lag depending on who the registrar is and where their servers are located versus where the DNS request is coming from.

3. Build useful content that adds value.

Create great content. Always. And don't try to take shortcuts when doing it. Google's ability to sniff out great content is getting better and better with each passing month. Don't try to game the system here. Actually go out of your way to make great content. When you do, it'll reflect on your site and the traffic will increase. Great content will engage visitors and will invite them to share it. Overall, focus on these elements when building your content:

Never write content less than 2,000 words if you can avoid itCreate a healthy link profile both with internal links and relevant outbound linksCite all your sources and back up facts with statics and studiesSection off your content and make it easy to readEnsure that you place relevant, high-quality images as your primary photoUtilize a healthy keyword usage but don't overuse or stuff keywordsBuild content that's instructional and helps solve a problemWrite your content for humans by making it sound natural and organic while also paying homage to search engines

4. Ensure mobile responsiveness and usability across devices.

Mobile searches are far outpacing desktop searches today. Focus on mobile responsiveness and usability. According to Search Engine Land, mobile searches were at nearly 60 percent of all searches in 2016. Take the time to ensure your site is optimized for mobile devices and can be easily used across all platforms by implementing a CSS library like Bootstrap or building out your own.

5. Focus on enhancing the user experience.

Create a great user experience. That means, make your site easy to use. Make it easy to navigate. Make it easy to search for and discover the right type of content. Here are a few suggestions:

Use breadcrumbs in your navigationImplement a fast site searchDon't make your website too graphic-richMake the main menu easy to useCategorize all your content using tags or categorizesAvoid using too many pop-ups

6. Supplement content with videos, audios or podcasts to increase engagements.

Site engagement is huge. Google is acutely concerned with the amount of time that users spend on your website. Thus, when you build useful and engaging content, people want to stick around longer. Now, you clearly need to leverage words and long-form content here. But, you should also supplement that content with videos, audios and podcasts as well. This will increase your average page times and session times.

7. Utilize Latent-Semantic Indexing for keyword diversity.

Latent-Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a core technology that Google uses in its Hummingbird search, which is its current iteration of semantic-style searching. LSI allows Google to serve relevant content by understanding what the user is searching for rather than trying to return back content based specifically on the keyword itself. LSI is also just a fancy way of saying the same thing in another way.

For example, "make money online" could be said in a number of ways like "generate cash on the internet" or "earn an income on the web" and so on. Google knows it's the same keyword. Utilize this for all your content. This will allow you to create organic and natural-sounding prose without having it appear keyword-stuffed.

8. Create relevant outbound links in your content.

Outbound links are important. Don't worry about sculpting them with nofollow or dofollow links. Simply create relevant links within the content so that people can continue on in their discovery journeys. Always have at least two to three relevant outbound links within every piece of content you create.

9. Focus on quality over quantity of links.

The quality of your links is far more important than the quantity of them. When building links to your content, don't go for mass numbers. Target the highest quality domains and ensure that those links are created naturally and organically. That should always be your goal and your aim. Think "white hat" and not "black hat" here.

10. Always market your content by leveraging trusted domains.

When I build content, even when I build it on trusted domains, I always market that content using other authority sites. No matter where you create that content, building content to market it is the key to winning SEO in 2018, or any other year for that matter. Simply create other useful pieces of content on authority sites like Quora, LinkedIn Publishing and Medium, for instance, with a single link pointing to the original piece of anchor content.

11. Do not overuse ads above the fold.

Be careful of how much ad usage you have above the fold. At the end of the day, you don't want the large part of the header being taken up by ads. This is going to detract from the user's experience and Google specifically doesn't like this. Also, too many ads served from too many ad platforms is going to naturally slow down your site. Keep it to a bare minimum.

12. Create ungated super-guides with clear calls-to action.

Roland Frasier, one of the most respected names in the online marketing field, says that his company, Digital Marketer, is focusing on building ungated super-guides. Super guides are simply pieces of content that are massive value posts (MVPs) and drive such an enormous amount of engagement and shares that they help to catapult a domain into the stratosphere.

13. Do not try to do anything deceptive or sneaky.

Forget about doing anything that's deceptive or sneaky and focus on adding value. Don't try to redirect users or trick search engines by cloaking content. If you're serious about winning the game of SEO, whether it's in 2018 or any other near, you have to stay away from tactics like this. You'll lose Google's trust and the trust of any visitor coming to your website if you try these shady tactics.

14. Leverage social media to build viral content that links back to your domain.

Social media can certainly drive a tremendous amount of user traffic when done right. Leverage social media to build viral content that's not business-focused, but rather adds some sort of value, whether it's entertainment value or informational value in one way or another.

15. Solicit influencers in your niche to help you supercharge your results.

Target influencers to help push your content out there. Whether it's through Instagram or Facebook, there are plenty of influencers out there who can help champion your cause. It can help you reach a large audience, especially in the very beginning, and to help you get the word out there.

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