#and there ARE some generational fights about person first vs ID first language

[madtomedgar]

It's weird that ime, by and large, disabled people get that whatever the new inoffensive language of yesterday was is the derogatory language of today, and sometimes that language is SO derogatory that it's gotta go, and sometimes you have to insist on a word's neutrality despite others using it as a pejorative, and sometimes you use what is understood to be offensive on purpose to make a point, but that doesn't make that offensive word suddenly neutral, and it's a matter of tone and degree, not something to make neat if then rules for. But ime by and large millennial and younger lgbtq people don't get this at all.

[ljf613]

Colonization & Imperialism in ATLA

One of the things I’ve noticed in fandom complaints about the ATLA comics-- namely, “The Promise”-- and subsequently, LOK’s worldbuilding, is the way the narrative handles colonization. 

I see a lot about how what the Earth Kingdom chose to do with the former colonies is “none of Zuko’s (or Aang’s) business.” (I also see people talking about how Katara would never support colonialism, in any shape or form, no matter the circumstances.) 

And I just.... don’t vibe with those ideas? At all? 

Like, I definitely have problems with the comics-- especially “The Promise,” where all the drama centers around Miscommunications of Epic Proportions and could have been resolved in Part One if all the characters just sat down and listened to each other (not to mention that Aang would never have agreed to make that promise, nor would Zuko have asked it of him (Sokka would be a more obvious choice, but that’s a different discussion))-- but I never had any issues with their worldbuilding. 

I love the idea of Yu Dao, and the fact that the narrative acknowledges that a new kind of world has new kinds of problems. It makes sense to me that we can’t always just “give back the land we took.” And I found the idea of the end solution being  “give the people who live there their own country” really cool and empowering. 

So I want to talk about why I feel this way. About what kind of real-world parallels can be made here. About some little-known bits of world-history that compare. 

(Please note that for this meta I am only going to be discussing the relationship between Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. As far as I am aware-- and I could be wrong-- there is no real-world genocide quite comparible to what Sozin did to the Air Nomads, and most of the people alive in ATLA were not actually around for or involved in that. And the relationship the Fire Nation has with the Water Tribes-- and that the North and South have with each other-- is worth a whole separate analysis, and doesn’t deserve to just be shoved into this one.)

(Disclaimer: While this is in response to some of the interpretations I’ve seen on this site, it is not meant to discount or invalidate those fans’ views-- I’m just trying to show my take on it. I am a firm believer in the power of active discourse, and the value of looking at the same scenes through different lenses, rather than just getting one opinion and accepting it as Absolute Truth.) 

The main thing I notice in general ATLA discourse-- and not just on this topic, but in any sort of meta about the Fire Nation, colonization, and global impact-- is that the fandom mostly compares the war and its after-affects to real-world Imperialism, the Age of Imperialism, New Imperialism, and Colonization. 

And I understand why that is. In the grand scheme of world history, that era is still fairly recent, and we are still dealing with the afteraffects from it. It has shaped the Western World’s worldview on every level. (Not to mention that the Euro-centric way we’re taught history means that this piece of world history is the one we’re most exposed to, and so have the most understanding of and room to analyze/criticize.) 

However, there are a few issues with sticking only to this perspective. 

First off, the Age of Imperialism was a direct response to the Age of Exploration. This was the period of time when white Europeans sailed around the world acting as though they were discovering new places and pretending that there weren’t already existing civilizations there. 

[ID: Two dots meme, edited so that Guy A says “i’ve discovered a NEW WORLD,” Guy B replies “you didn’t discover ****,” and Guy A insists “i’ve discovered it” / End ID.] 

Now, I’ve mentioned this in passing, but the world of ATLA doesn’t appear to have had an Age of Exploration. There’s no vast “undiscovered” land masses, the four nations have always known about each other, and they all have a shared language. 

The whole foundation for the Age of Imperialism was “oh, look, there are all these ‘unexplored’ lands with resources ripe for the picking (who cares about the indigenous people, they’re just simplistic savages who don’t know what’s best for them), let’s see which European country can grab the most land first.” 

This was a race. This was sudden. This was Europeans coming in and taking over while viewing the natives as bothersome pests. This was about multiple major world powers competing over resources. 

This was not 100 years of active warfare between a single conquering country and the very people they were trying to conquer. 

The parallels don’t hold up. 

Secondly, by focussing only on this one kind of historical narrative, we ignore any others. 

I will admit that I have used the word “imperialism” in reference to the Fire Nation a time or two. However, upon further reflection, I realize I didn’t really mean imperialism, which is actually a fairly modern concept. What I feel the Fire Nation is really an example of is centralism and expansionism-- two ideaologies that have been a way of life for conquering empires throughout history. 

(I am in no way qualified to explain the differences between these concepts-- I recommend doing your own research if you’re curious.) 

The Persian Empire. The Greek Empire. The Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire. The Mongolian Empire. The Russian Empire. The First French Empire. 

You could take any of these (or numerous others) and make an interesting analysis between the similarities and differences between their behaviors and that of the Fire Nation. And maybe I’ll do that someday. 

However, I started this to talk about Yu Dao and all of the other so-called colonies (I really feel like territories would be a better word, but, again, that’s a whole ’nother discussion), and I’d like to focus on that. 

FYI, here’s a basic history refresher: If two countries are at war, and then they decide to end the war, neither country is required to return captured territories. They can make a treaty and agree to do so, but there is no obligation to. The Fire Nation didn’t just march in and say, “this is our land now”-- they fought for it. They captured that land. Just because the war is over doesn’t mean they need to just give it back. 

Like it or not, that is the way the world operated for thousands of years, and so that is the interpretation I’m working with here. 

In any case, “The Promise” actually presents this as a three-way conversation. There’s Zuko (and, by default, the Fire Nation), Kuei (and, by default, Ba Sing Se and the Earth Kingdom), and the people of Yu Dao themselves. 

(My understanding of the Earth Kingdom’s style of government is that it’s made up of a large collection of different ethno-cultural regions who all answer to Ba Sing Se.) 

I’ll let Sokka explain it: 

[ID: Comic panel from Part Three of “The Promise.” Sokka and Katara are talking, both in obvious states of agitation, while Suki and Toph are looking at something in the background. Sokka is saying, “Let me see if I got this. The protestors and the Earth Kingdom Army want the colonials to go, the Fire Nation Army wants the colonials to stay, and the Yu Dao Resistance just want their city to be left alone?” Katara responds, “Yes!” / End ID.] 

The people of Yu Dao don’t care about the war. They don’t even really care who’s in charge. They just want to be left alone. 

This speaks to me on a very personal level, so I’m going to make another real-world comparison here: 

My ancestors first came to America to escape from the poverty and opression they were experiencing in a place known as “White Russia”-- that is, Belarus. To be clear, I am not talking about the country “Belarus,” but the region, which includes the modern-day countries of Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Moldova, as well as parts of Poland and Russia. 

I looked up White Russia, trying to find out how much information someone who didn’t grow up hearing stories about what it was like (that is, most of the people reading this,) might have. I didn’t find much. Most of what I found talked about political ideologies and such-- things that your average poor peasant, struggling just eke out a living, didn’t have much energy to care about. So let me paint a(n oversimplified) picture for you. 

Imagine you’re a poor shoemaker in a small town on the Russian border. You spend your days hard at work, trying to earn a living to support your wife and nine children. You’ve never left the town you were born in. One day you get the news: Russia and Poland are fighting again. Your two oldest sons (ages 15 and 17) are forcibly drafted off to fight in the Russian army; you never see them again and have no way of knowing if they’re dead or alive (they’re probably dead). Poland wins-- this time. Congratulations, your town is now part of Poland. 

Does suddenly being Polish make a difference to your life? Not in the slightest. Two or three years down the line, you’ll go back to being part of Russia again. This is the third or fourth time you’ve seen your town switch hands, and you can’t say you prefer one government over the other. It doesn’t really matter who’s in charge-- you’re still faced with crippling taxes, forced drafts, and various other forms of oppression. (It doesn’t help that you happen to be part of a persecuted minority.) 

(This is why I have many ancestors who may never have left the town they were born in, and yet records show that they were born in one country, got married in another, and died in a third.) 

This is the kind of worldview through which I am looking at Yu Dao. (Obviously, it’s not an exact parallel, but neither is the standard “colonizers vs oppressed natives” lens.) 

My ancestors eventually got fed up with the treatment they were receiving from their respective governments, and left to build a new life, in a new place. But the citizens of Yu Dao don’t have anywhere to go. The only two real world powers in this story are the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, neither of which has ever before expressed any true interest or concern in the actual people of Yu Dao. 

The Earth Kingdom didn’t really care about the city before the war-- they were just another poor, struggling town, whose citizens were barely able to make ends meet. And while the Fire Nation may have helped the place grow into a bustling town, they also established a hierarchy that did not serve in the citizens’ best interests. 

And so, in “The Promise,” these citizens’ frustrations come to a head. “Enough,” they say, “we don’t want to be used as a pawn in your games anymore.” 

And Zuko and Kuei (and Aang) actually listen. They say “we need to start thinking about these people as people, not as symbols of one side or the other. It’s time to give them a say in their future.” 

And a new country-- a new way of life-- is born. 

(Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it is constantly evolving and changing, trying to do better, be better. And that’s more than you can say about most of the other countries in this world.)

[kazuwhora]

i love your writing and you're doing matchups so please if i could request a romantic one cause i dont know who i like most in tokyo rev anymore? also are you okay you got hit by a car?? im guessing it wasnt bad but still.

my pronouns are she/they, im INTP 6w7.

people often tell me im really cold and carefree but i have my 2 best friends im soft for. i warm up to people in time but itll take a while before i'll really care about someone. i like to think im generally nice to people, i don't really argue with anyone ever i just push them to one sided arguments or if i want to annoy them ill smile and tell them "you're wrong but ok" and it drives my family crazy.

im not sure how to answer the values question? i really value when someone takes my feelings into consideration cause i wont say it at first or if they recognize my efforts. or is it more about morals and fairness cause im not that. i dont have em. ive broken into places for fun. ive had a girl transfer schools cause of me. ive put people up to physically fight each other. im your filler villain. yeah i feel like a horrible person and i hate myself but i never paid for any of it. maybe i do kin dark impulse mikey

lmao ok my love language is probably quality time or acts of service. i dont think id ever enjoy classic dates id rather sit in their car parked on some dark road or just. at the beach at 4am eating cold pasta (i do that with friends every weekend and the sunrise makes everything so peaceful). i dont have real hobbies but i have a cat i play with. im an animation student so i made my previous hobby a career choice so all i have now is cat, which isnt a hobby its a responsibility but i guess it works out.

irl im not looking to date at all cause i will not be opening up to anyone like that BUT this is tokyo rev boys so ill allow it for them. id want someone who reminds me im a person. it sounds so stupid but its not a hard task theyd just have to ask what's bothering me or tells me to eat something today. ok i feel super guilty about it but i want someone sweet and touchy and clingy because i know myself well enough to know ill flirt first. ill kiss first. ill initiate everything but i will definitely stop once theyre mine. i want someone to pull at my sleeve to go to bed and lay on my chest.

appearance wise i think im average. im 165cm tall, 60kg (i round the weight cause its always 58-61). brown eyes, dark blue hair regrettably its the berries and cream haircut but my hair is wavy and always looks disheveled so really its the crackhead rat look. i have around 20 tattoos (like 6 are small ones though so really its like 14) i have my ears pierced a lot (and i wear a bell!! yes cause of kazutora and yes i made it myself) and my septum pierced. i had the side of my nose pierced at 16 but i took that out a couple years ago and it grew in. my biggest appearance trait is that i always wear 2 shirts on top of each other and apparently its the first thing both my best friends noticed at first about me so i guess its valid.

god im sorry thats so long!! thank you so much in advance!!

thank you for supporting me and my writing and sending in a request!! I am ok I guess for now, it wasn't like omg I went flying but I have a nice bruise on my waist and some sore ribs! life goes on lol

let me just say that kin wise you def sound like mikey LOL

so because of that I'm matching you up with Mitsuya!

wI think in terms of kin vs matchup mitsuya is a character who is about balance and care which works well with the fact that a lot of your personality resembles mikeys. there's a reason why mitsuya is in toman lol. you mentioned wanting someone that reminds you you're a person, and really I don't think this sounds stupid at all. it's really easy for us to get lost in our day to day lives and feel detached from ourselves. mitsuya (being an infj) is someone who deeply values emotional connections and being grounded in yourself and relationships- a trait that rubs off on others really easily.

mitsuya is one who's presence brings you back to earth without much effort. he's calm, caring, and has no struggles with being emotionally vulnerable and true to himself. while you may have a cold front that you put up in terms of like you said scaring people off, mitsuya sees through it and recognizes you for you and not for how you act. he values your emotions and opinions as a part of you, and never hesitates to make that known through conversation and his listening skills. chalk it up to having two sisters lol.

the other thing I think that just works about you and mitsuya is his indulgence in your ideas. you wanna eat cold pasta on the beach at 4am? sounds like a fantastic idea and he's up for it. no complaints to be had. it can be jarring (?) at first, but once you're able to recognize that he is in fact being genuine, it quickly becomes a really valid aspect.

[heartfeltheart]

Alchemy: Magic Vs. Science

Chapters: 22/25 Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter Rating: T Relationships: Edward/Winry, Lan Fan/Ling, and May/Alphonse. Primary Characters: Edward Elric, Severus Snape Additional Tags: Crossover, Teacher!Edward, BrOtp Edward/Severus. Sassy beyond measure. Series: Part 1 of 9. Summary: Magic and Science, are they the same or are they completely different? It just takes one person to point out all up and downs. Along with breaking the stereotypes that come up with being a wizard, alchemist and most of all being human. Thank you, @amynchan! D/C: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Discord: La Red(Mesh Mash of… stuff.): https://discord.gg/KYjmVAb Alchemy Series: https://discord.gg/DejEYNJ

“English and Edward’s accented voice.” “Amestrian or another foreign language.” “Written notes.” ‘Thoughts.’ First Name: Informal Last Name: Formal (Or used to annoy others)

"Is he okay?"

"He's been like this for the past half month."

"I'm sure he's fine, could be that Professor Severus pulled a prank on him."

"No, impossible. Professor Flitwick was probably the one that pulled the prank on him."

"Even so, Mr. Elric never spent this much time complaining about it. He would get even."

A chorus of agreement ran through the Friday Alchemy class. Which counted being all thirteen students that are studying said subject. For the past half month, they had taken note at how their teacher has been moping around and grumbling under his breath in Amestrian. Whatever the reason for his behavior, it has to be something big.

Edward ran a hand over his face, mentally preparing himself what he is about to say to his class. He was about to announce something to them that will surely spread like wildfire. Even if he was not going to tell them, the old man was going to announce it to the school any other way. The main difference between what he and the Headmaster are that Edward is providing more detail on the matter. "Settle down everyone. I have an announcement."

Once everyone sat in their proper seats and giving the Golden Blonde their full attention, the announcement was made.

"Next week, the Emperor of Xing will be visiting along with a group of Amestris. The Mustang Unit, most of you already know... The reasons for them coming to Hogwarts has to do with politics and other random things that do not concern any of you for now. Emperor Ling main reason to come here is to see how magic works, the id... he is planning on creating a magical in Xing for his country. Don't be surprised if you see him wondering around once he gets them."

"What about the Mustang Unit, Mr. Elric?"

"Continuing negotiations with the Ministry of Idiots, I mean Magic... Plus, Xing and Amestris are in friendly terms. Plus... General Mustang, Doctor Marcoh, my brother, a Princess from Xing and a Mr. Scar will be giving the school a performance in alchemy..."

"They are going to perform Alchemy to the entire school?"

"Why everyone? No one else is learning alchemy but us."

"That's the problem, do you remember how many took the exam? How many of us passed? How many are there left at this point? People are degrading Alchemy for the fact at how Mr. Elric is presenting it. To get more people into it, there has to be some sort of show to get noticed."

"Exactly. That's it!"

"Or they are just coming to degrade Mr. Elric."

"That's a possibility too."

Edward slowly blinked at his class, he couldn't help but shake his head. They were coming up their own theories onto why his friends are coming to Hogwarts. Let thing think and wonder why they are coming. They'll see once they arrive.

-.-

Once Dumbledore announced the fact that an Emperor of far east is coming to Hogwarts. On top of that, a delegation will be coming from Amestris to act as a type of go-between for the Emperor and Ministry of Magic. What really got everyone's attention is the fact Mr. Elric is in charge of taking care of them once they arrive. It came into light that Mr. Elric is very deep connections to both countries to the point he could wave off the fact he knows an Emperor... by a first name base.

Nope. The Alchemy teacher is actually dreading the date that is quickly approaching for the fact he does not want any of them to come. He just does not like any of them in general, something about corrupting his students and taking them away from him.

-.-

"Oooooooohhhhhh! Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh! What is thaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" Emperor Ling Yao jumped all over the Headmaster's office, his expression completely transfixed at everything in the room. It was just so whimsical! He wants it all. The group he came with either shakes their heads at his antics, failing at trying to hide their smiles or just ignoring what he was doing. His group is comprised of Unofficial-Official Advisor/Bodyguard/Future brother-in-law Alphonse Elric, younger sister/princess of Xing/bodyguard/advisor Mei Chang, and the final one the Emperor's bodyguard/unofficial advisor Lan Fan. "Lan Fan! Look at it! It's so beautiful..."

Ling's attention is fully focused on Fawkes, the Phoenix seemed to enjoy the attention. The Phoenix took in the attention he was receiving from the Emperor of Xing.

The other occupants in the room are Dumbledore, the four Heads, the Minister of Magic Millicent Bagnold, along with other government officials and a couple of Aurors. They were either talking among themselves or paying close attention to the fireplace in the office. They are still waiting for the Amestrian diplomats or as Mr. Edward Elric calls them, Mustang Unit. The moment came to be when the fireplace grew and the flames changed color signifying the short arrival of the group.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Curse.

Curse.

Grumble.

Bigger thump.

Squeak.

Pain in general.

Several individuals dressed in blue uniforms fall out of the fireplace, piling one on top of another. The ministry officials and Aurors recognized said pile to be the same group of people that visited the Magical World previously. The only one that did not end up in the pile is Captain Hawkeye, she simply strode out of the fireplace and shaking her head at her team's antics. After her is a man dressed like a monk, a man dressed in a cloak with a hood that hide his entire face, and finally came out is Edward Elric himself.

The Alchemy teacher looked down at the pile with a snort, he grinned when he realized who is on the bottom of the dog-pile. He said something in Amestrian that sounded an insult that resulted with a grumble from underneath the pile.

"Is this everyone, Mr. Elric?" Dumbledore asked the young man, interrupting him from his possible argument slash fight.

"This is everyone that is supposed to come. Hope none of you mind I invited Dr. Tim Marcoh and uh... Jugemu-jugemu Gokōnosurikire Kaijarisuigyo-no Suigyōmatsu Unraimatsu Fūraimatsu Kūnerutokoroni-sumutokoro Yaburakōjino-burakōji Paipopaipo-paiponoshūringan Shūringanno-gūrindai Gūrindaino-ponpokopīno-ponpokonāno Chōkyūmeino-chōsuke... Scar for short." Everyone that did not know the man's name, sweat dropped. That was one hell of a long name and for it to be shortened to Scar? Well... could be for the fact the man has a scar on his face.

"I can't feel my face..."

-.-

General Roy Mustang is a shallow and self-absorbed man. An aura of selfish and narcissistic surrounds him and every word he speaks. Acts just as immature as Colonel Edward Elric. Pushes off most of his work to his Captain, Captain Riza Hawkeye, whom he flirts with every moment he has. (It seems to be one-sided...)

Captain Riza Hawkeye, quiet and collected, serious but courteous. Disciplined and rational, keeps her colleagues on track. Strict, rigid and puts fear into everyone that works with her. It notes her aliases, 'The Hawk's Eye' is just putting it lightly to her talents in marksmanship with her muggle weapon.

Captain Vato Falman remarkable memory.

Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc laid back...

Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda an imbecile.

Sergeant Major Kain Fuery weakest link...

Emperor Ling Yao is a right down childish, idiotic ruler by far we have ever encountered. Extremely easygoing and trust people far too easily, the only problem is his advisors and bodyguards.

Masked Bodyguard #1 keeps to the shadows or right by the Emperor's side at all times. A porcelain mask keeping their identity a secret and it appears they are acting as an advisor or secret keeper to the young Emperor.

Mei Chan is the seventeenth royal princess of Xing, younger sister of the current Emperor. It is noted by Colonel Edward Elric, General Roy Mustang and Emperor Ling Yao that she has a mastery in Alkahestry that rivals in terms of Alchemy. (Turn to page 5 to see what Alkahestry is.) She is currently teaching Alphonse Elric Alkahestry, continuing her mastery of the subject.

Alphonse Elric, younger brother of Colonel Edward Elric by just a year. It is heavily applied by Colonel Elric that they are on par in their Alchemy skills and helps with the Alchemy Curriculum. Something else worth noting is that he is far nicer than his older brother...

Tim Marcoh, a doctor.

.... Scar, a monk.

Dolores Umbridge rechecked her notes she created on the foreigners that arrived at Hogwarts. She is going to need every bit of information in order to go head to head to any of them. The only thing she ends up doing is adding more and more to her notes or revising them. The longer she spends her time with both groups, the Ministry Official wonders about the sanity of everyone. Her every attempt to question any of them are met with far too kind smiles or complete disinterest.

Every turn that was attempted to gain a favor for the Ministry, ended up backfiring. Speaking to the Emperor is like talking to a very, very...very... immature child. The only times he even speaks English is to ask random questions that did not pertain to anything to the negotiations. The only time he got serious is when he speaks to Mr. Alphonse Elric or General Mustang. The former of the two would translate everything for him and Dolores swore... the youngest of the two Elric's is the secret to securing Xing. Now if she could have the Amestrian's to stop blocking her way to him.

"Ugh... why did they bring the pink horror?" Edward grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Ling, Roy, and Alphonse to hear him. The former of the two men snickered at his set of words, neither of them was fond of the walking pick terror. They would comment on how she looks like a toad, but that would be an insult to their friends that are chimeras. So, they are sticking towards a theme of her hideous wardrobe and sickly sweet words that makes them want to vomit. Oh, how people will act to gain a favor...

"Edward...Big Brother... be nice." Alphonse said warningly, all the while he had a smile on his face.

"Meh... you weren't there the first time I meet that... thing!" Edward pulled a face when he remembered the first time he first saw Ms. Dolores Umbridge. That isn't a pleasant memory to remember. "A warning Al, she wants to know about your exact connection to the Military."

Alphonse's nose scrunched up at his brother's words. Of course, people would want to know about his connection to the Amestrian Military. In Amestris and the Military itself knows that his only connection is his brother who is a State Alchemist. In Xing, it is more or less but that is less and less as time goes by. He made it a point that his only connection to the Military is his friends in said group and his brother. It doesn't control him or give him orders, hypnotically speaking. They could ask him or mention something here and there, but not order him as they do to Edward. "Now they are going to ask my connection to Xing."

"And what exactly are you going to say about that?"

Roy and Edward looked at Alphonse expectantly, waiting for an answer. Luckily for Alphonse, Ling answer it for him. Ling swung an air around Alphonse's shoulder and gave Roy and Edward a closed eye smile. "He's my advisor, bodyguard, future brother-in-law, confidant, best fri-"

"Wait..."

"What?"

Edward and Roy stopped walking and faced Ling and Alphonse. This caused everyone around to also stop walking and glance over at the scene before them. It appeared whatever the Emperor of Xing is informing General Roy Mustang and Colonel Edward Elric are giving them mini heart attacks and looks of complete shock. It didn't help how the younger Elric brother is trying to pull away from the Emperor.

"Marriage!"

"I feel so old!"

"Please let go of me..."

"Once Alphonse marries Mei, you and I are going to be brothers, Edward! Isn't that great!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Everyone stopped walking at this point and turned their attention to the eldest Elric brother. How said brother is now on his knees blubbering out words that no one could comprehend. It seemed to involved his younger brother and the Emperor of Xing. The only one that appeared not at all surprised by such behavior is Severus. He actually walked over and smacked Edward upside his head. "Behave."

Edward stopped his blubbering and glared at Severus. "You do not understand what is happening... In a couple of years... I will be related to this idiot. My brother is going to marry one of his sisters..."

By this point, Alphonse to make himself smaller and inch away from the upcoming questioning stares. Mei, on the other hand, is blushing heavily but made no way of moving from her spot. She has many sisters and Edward made no mention she is said sister.

"Alphonse is marrying a princess and Edward marrying his childhood sweetheart... You have to step up your game, Boss." Jean sniggered at Roy's look of astonishment and deep realization of several aspects of his life. "They're beating you to the punchline."

"I'm actually surprised Fullmetal did not attack tall, dark and creepy."

-.-

"Have you seen the visitors?"

"Yeah! The so-called Emperor of Ping? What a bloody joke!"

"He's a complete idiot!"

"Shhhh! Didn't you guys know? He has a guard that blends into the shadows and could pop out of nowhere!"

"Naw, that can't be true."

"Don't believe me, ask the Weasley Twins. They're still recovering from that prank they did on the Emperor of Xing?"

"Wait... is that why they are in the Medical Wing?"

"Yes, I was there when it happened."

".... Whoa..."

"I know..."

-.-

"He's so handsome!"

"His smile..."

"How is he even related to Mr. Elric?"

"I know! They act nothing alike!"

"They do have the same eye and hair color..."

"That's where the similarities end."

"I heard he's engaged..."

"WHAT!"

"NOO!"

"Why is it all the good ones are always taken!"

-.-

"She's is... Amazing."

"Adorable even."

"If only we could understand what she is saying."

"That only makes it even better."

"Everyone... She has a bodyguard."

"I thought only the Emperor had a bodyguard."

"The princess has a tiny rat bear cat thing, the demon thing bits or scratches anyone that comes their way."

-.-

"He looks like a potions accident gone horribly wrong, don't they have any sort of healers where they are from?"

"He looks terrifying..."

"Hah! He looks like a freak!"

"True! Hahaha!"

"Hey! Shut up! Don't talk about Dr. Marcoh like that!"

"Yeah, what are you going to do about it, Hufflepuff?"

"Oh I show you, you damn Gryffindor!"

-.-

Let it be noted... All of this occurred in the span of two days...

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[daresplaining]

Who are your favourite DD villains? Fisk, Bullseye and Mr Fear all sound brilliant from what I know of them, but are there any others with similarly iconic influence on Matt?

    There are! Daredevil comics aren’t known for their well-crafted villains to the extent that, say, Spider-Man or Batman comics are, but I really enjoy a lot of Matt’s rogues gallery. Fisk and Bullseye are probably the two biggest names, but there are many others who have had major impacts on his life, and the Marvel Universe in general, over the years. Here are some of the most notable DD villains, in my opinion:

Gladiator (Melvin Potter) is a major antagonist who, over the years has become arguably one of the most nuanced and interesting Daredevil characters. I wrote a longer post about him, way back when we thought we might actually get a Gladiator origin story in the Netflix show, but in general, a lot of his lasting appeal comes from the complexity of his character. When he was first introduced in Daredevil vol. 1 #18 he was a pretty standard Silver Age villain: a guy with semi-logical origin story, a funky costume, and a penchant for monologuing. Specifically, Melvin Potter was the owner of a costume store who was sick of being disrespected by his customers, and so decided to make a name for himself by attacking people with spinning blades. 

[ID: A panel from Lee’s Daredevil run. Daredevil is battling the Gladiator. Daredevil hoists himself up on a big crate to dodge one of the Gladiator’s spinning wrist blades.]

Matt: “He’s not fooling with those wrist blades… he’s fighting for real! But, why? I’m certain I’ve never met him before!”

Melvin: “You can’t keep dodging me forever! And the moment you slip, you shall have the honor of being my first victim!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #18 by Stan Lee, John Romita, and Sam Rosen

    Over the years, various writers have worked hard to add nuance to his character. Despite his fearsome appearance and goal of gaining respect, most early Gladiator stories involve Melvin being manipulated by stronger, smarter supervillains. Later, he becomes even more sympathetic: a dangerous killer who, at heart, is gentle and naive and hates when he loses control and hurts people. This creates an inherent discord in his character that adds an emotional hook to all of his stories. Matt tries to help him, and Melvin is grateful for Matt’s friendship and returns that favor when he can, but sometimes they end up having to fight each other. Essentially, Melvin’s story is the relentless tragedy of a man who wants to live a peaceful life but keeps falling victim to his own demons and the cruelty of the world around him. 

[ID: A page from Miller’s Daredevil run. Matt Murdock, in civvies (a tan suit and blue tie) confronts Melvin Potter, who is in a prison uniform and holding his Gladiator helmet.]

Matt: “Melvin, we’ve come so far. I know how much you want to be well… to go straight. We can help you, Betsy and I.”

Melvin: “I been trying, Matt. I been sitting in that courtroom, listening to them say those things about me, feeling my guts churn up, wanting to rip them all to pieces… They hate me. They all hate me… so I’m gonna hate them back!”

Matt: “I’m not letting you off that easy. If you want to become the Gladiator again, you’ll have to get past me.”

Melvin: “Past you?! Look at you– you’re just a skinny little blind guy! I’d break you in half! It’d be easy…”

Matt: “Is that what you want?”

Melvin: “Why not? I’m the Gladiator! The Gladiator! When I’m wearing my armor, I’m unbeatable, I’m…” 

[ID: Melvin throws the helmet and falls to his knees.]

Melvin: “I’m all alone. Help me… please…”

Daredevil vol. 1 #173 by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Glynis Wein

    This complicated and heartwrenching characterization has helped Melvin to remain a fresh and popular antagonist (anti-hero, even) and a regular guest in Daredevil. He is one of several characters who complicates the hero/villain dichotomy, and thereby both emphasizes and challenges Matt’s own heroism. 

Typhoid Mary/Mary Walker is another one of the more famous Daredevil villains, and someone who has had a significant impact on Matt’s story over the years. I wrote a longer post on her as well. Female antagonists in particular seem to suffer from a variety of weaknesses in their depictions, and Typhoid– as a sexual character by nature, as well as someone who plays upon “crazy” villain tropes– has had her share of not great depictions over the years. However, at her core, she is a wonderfully compelling character and a dangerous villain who is literally multifaceted by design. Even moreso than Melvin Potter, Mary plays upon the concept of a good person who is powerless to prevent themself from doing violent things– in Mary’s case, through genuinely having multiple psyches inhabiting one body. She is in constant conflict with herself, as gentle Mary and bloodthirsty Typhoid battle for dominance. As much as she is an antagonist to Matt and the other heroes whose paths she crosses, she is her own arch-enemy. 

[ID: An excerpt from Nocenti’s Daredevil run. Typhoid Mary and Daredevil are both underwater, in the East River. Mary looked panicked partway through strangling Daredevil, and flees out of the water.]

Mary/Typhoid: “Don’t kill him! You! Shut up! I love him! Stop! Get out of my head! You can’t kill him! Get out of my head! Oh, god! Where am I? Why am I dressed like this? What have I done?!”

Matt: “Curious. That’s a completely different woman running away! What came over her?”

Daredevil vol. 1 #256 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr., and Christie Scheele

    Matt’s dealings with Mary have brought about some of the more unheroic moments in his career. In Joe Kelly’s attempt to integrate the Man Without Fear-verse origin story into the 616 universe, he proposed that Matt nearly killed Mary on his first superhero outing. When Typhoid, in her introductory arc, is hired to seduce Matt, it works– he cheats on Karen with her. Later, when attempting to bring down the Kingpin’s empire, Matt removes Mary from the equation by sleeping with her to get her guard down and then forging documents to have her locked away in a psychiatric hospital. She hits all of his weak points: as Mary, she is a victim who needs rescuing… and an attractive one at that. As Typhoid, she is a dangerous enemy who must be stopped. In addition to her skill with weapons, she has all kinds of awesome psychic powers– including, most notably, pyrokinesis– and something about her physiology messes with Matt’s senses and makes her difficult to fight. She is a challenge on every level, and in many ways, Matt serves the same purpose for her– Mary (and, arguably, Typhoid as well) accidentally falls in love with him, representing a loss of power and control that she can’t stand. 

[ID: Excerpt from Nocenti’s Daredevil run. A series of panels alternating between Daredevil falling off a bridge and a tear sliding down Typhoid Mary’s cheek.]

Daredevil vol. 1 #260 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr., and Christie Scheele

The Hand I love the Hand– which is to say, I love the Chaste, and part of why I love the Chaste is because I love their rivalry with the Hand. On some levels, the Hand are your standard Big Bad Secret Organization, but I also find them to be a lot of fun, and they have been a significant force in Daredevil comics since they were introduced. The Hand are key players in Miller’s updated version of Matt’s origin, which introduced Stick and gave him a purpose for training Matt. They also had a huge role in Elektra’s origin, since her attempt to singlehandedly bring them down from the inside led to her becoming an assassin. And of course, Matt’s role as leader of the Hand and temporary vessel for their patron demon, the Beast, was a defining moment in recent DD comics and a low point of Matt’s career. The Hand are dangerous because they are vast, and their high-ranking members have all kinds of cool powers, which I love. And there’s also a certain amount of weakness and dysfunction to the Hand that makes them appealing. They are a once-great organization relegated to being mercenaries-for-hire. Their low-ranking members are fairly weak– as Matt quips in Volume 1 #380, “a little harsh language and [they’re] up in smoke!” They were led by a Skrull (disguised as Elektra) for a while, and didn’t even notice. Arguably their most dangerous enemy, Master Izo, mostly just bothers them with Hand puns. 

[ID: A panel from Diggle’s Daredevil run. Daredevil, seen from the back, is standing in an empty room. The light from the sunset streams in through the windows. Izo is sitting behind him on the floor, drinking tea.]

Matt: “Look, you wanted me leading the Hand, you got it… but I never agreed to be your puppet.”    

Izo: “‘Hand puppet.’ Heh.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #503 by Andy Diggle, Roberto De La Torre, Marco Checchetto, and Matt Hollingsworth

    I also enjoy the way the Hand and the Chaste operate and Matt’s relationship with them. Matt isn’t an official member of the Chaste (like Elektra, he was rejected for being too emotional– which, in his case at least, is a fair assessment) but he still teams up with them on occasion, and the experience almost always puts him out of his depth in really entertaining ways. Matt is one of the Hand’s biggest enemies and one of the Chaste’s most useful allies, so he gets dragged into their business even when he doesn’t want to be involved. 

[ID: Excerpt from Daredevil: Ninja. A conversation between Daredevil and Stone in a series of face close-ups.]

Stone: “We need your help.”

Matt: “You should have asked me to come.”

Stone: “Would you have?”

Matt: “I hate this ninja crap. I hate it. Every single time it’s nothing but lies, half-truths, and misguided loyalties. Stay away from me and my life.”

Daredevil: Ninja #2 by Brian Michael Bendis, Rob Haynes, and David Self

    There are also two excellent (and, I’d say, influential) alternate universes in which Matt joins the Hand and thrives in their presence: What If? Daredevil vs. Elektra and Earth-65 (Spider-Gwen-verse). 

Lady Bullseye (Maki Matsumoto) And if we’re discussing the Hand and the Chaste, I have to mention Maki– undisputed head of the Bullseye Fan Club and another of my favorite Daredevil villains. She’s relatively new (she was introduced during Brubaker’s run) and so hasn’t had a particularly big long-term influence on Matt, but she is a great character with extensive connections to Daredevil history. One thing I love about her is the fact that while she modeled her look and identity on Bullseye, she isn’t treated as just female version of him, as her name might suggest. They actually have very little in common; she just chose to honor Bullseye because he played a role in her origin story by indirectly rescuing her from a human trafficking ring.

[ID: Panels from Brubaker’s Daredevil run. Bullseye is single-handedly beating up a bunch of gun-toting mobsters in a warehouse building. Maki Matsumoto watches him between the bars of a large cage.]   

Caption: “She remembers that so vividly. Remembers the joy she beheld that day from her cage. She had never seen anything so beautiful, she thought. Of course, she was nearly insane already by then. But then, like a miracle… freedom.”

[ID: Maki reaches between the bars of the cage and grabs a key from a dead mobster’s pocket. As she tries to escape, another mobster runs toward her.]

Man: “You– back in your cage, girl!”

Maki: “I think not.”

[ID: Without looking at him, she slices his throat with the key.]

Daredevil vol. 2 #111 by Ed Brubaker, Clay Mann, and Matt Hollingsworth

    Since then, Maki has teamed up with Bullseye– mostly notably, resurrecting and caring for him after his death in “Shadowland”– but more often, she operates on her own as an assassin. Like both Elektra and Matt, she was trained by the Hand and the Chaste without forming an official allegiance with either, and it seems her primary teacher was Master Izo– thus making her Matt and Elektra’s ninja aunt and/or sister in the Chaste Family Tree that definitely exists in my head and nowhere else. 

[ID: Excerpt from Brubaker’s Daredevil run. Lady Bullseye and Izo are standing on a Manhattan rooftop as the sky brightens behind them. Pigeons are flocking around them; Izo has one perched on his hand.]

Maki: “You said I would lead the Hand.”

Izo: “I said a lot of things when I was training you, girl… Said whatever I needed to say.”

Maki: “You’re as bad as them.”

Izo: “No. I didn’t put you in a cage and sell you to the Yakuza.”

Maki: “You still used me.”

Izo: “Yes, I did… but I’m not going to apologize.”

Maki: “Someday I’ll kill you for this. You know that, right?”

[ID: Izo leaps off the roof.]

Izo: “Yeah, well… get in line.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #500 by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Matt Hollingsworth, et al.

    Maki masterminds the destruction of Matt’s life that leads him to join the Hand. She is extremely smart (she passes herself off as a lawyer during Brubaker’s run and fools both Matt and Foggy; as far as anyone knows, she might actually have a law degree…?), an excellent fighter (arguably better than Matt, not quite as good as Elektra), an absolute badass, and an all-around great antagonist who deserves her own solo series (hint, hint, Marvel). 

Death-Stalker I’m not sure Death-Stalker counts as a major Daredevil villain, but he was used about once a week in late 70s Daredevil so he’s certainly been a recurring presence. I also just find him really cool, conceptually. One of the interesting things about Death-Stalker is that he started his existence as a completely different supervillain: the Exterminator, who is best known for “killing” Mike Murdock! The Exterminator had a weapon that could shift its victims out of sync with the time-stream. When Matt blows it up to fake Mike’s death, the Exterminator is caught in the blast, with shocking consequences: 

[ID: Excerpt from McKenzie’s Daredevil run. A series of flashback panels: the Exterminator (a kind of goofy-looking villain with a purple and white costume and blue antennae on the side of his mask) watching Daredevil pull a lever, then the Exterminator getting caught in an explosion and falling into a void.] 

Death-Stalker: “How many long and empty years has it been, Murdock? How many… since you so callously destroyed my awesome Time-Displacement Ray… catching me fully in the time-shattering explosion?! How long has it been since I was hurled through the fabric of time? But what you believed to be my death proved instead a macabre rebirth! I found myself in a timeless limbo! Unobserved, I could go anywhere! Do anything!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #158 by Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, and George Roussos

    Thus, the Exterminator returns years later as Death-Stalker– a villain who can move freely through time and space, become intangible at will, and whose mere touch is lethal. This, combined with his new appearance (glowing eyes, bony hands, huge billowy cape…) makes for an excellent creepy character concept, and some of the Death Stalker issues feel more like horror stories than the typical Daredevil comic. 

[ID: Excerpt from Gerber’s Daredevil run. A tired Daredevil is making his way through a swamp. Death-Stalker appears behind him out of the fog and puts a skeletal white hand on his shoulder. Daredevil collapses.]

Matt: “H-he’s gone! Nothing but an empty cape! It’s not possible! It– where did he go?!”

Death-Stalker: “Here, Daredevil. I am here. Death is at your back.”

Matt: “Huh? Wha– No!! My… shoulder… your fingers… like ice–!”

Death-Stalker: “Like death, Daredevil. Like the grim, glacial embrace of the North Wind. No use to flee… you can’t outrun the wind.”

Caption: “For Daredevil, for this sightless adventurer, all the world is blackness, all the time. But now, a different kind of darkness envelopes him, a sort of oblivion he has never known before. He hears his heartbeat slow… feels his mind empty of all thought… feel his every nerve tingle, then go numb… and he knows that he is… dying. And that is all he knows when the darkness claims him and the Death-Stalker relaxes his grip.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #114 by Steve Gerber, Bob Brown, and Stan G.

    Sadly, though, I don’t feel he was ever used to his full skin-crawling potential, particularly considering how dangerous his power-set was. He was mostly just a nuisance who rarely got the upper hand, and he was killed in Daredevil #158 when he accidentally materialized through a tombstone during a fight with Matt. One of my favorite details about Death-Stalker isn’t Death-Stalker himself– it’s that his mother lived in a booby-trapped mansion and owned an army of exploding robotic children that she sicced on Matt to avenge her son’s death. But that’s a story for another post… 

Jester (Jonathan Powers) The Jester gets no respect, and it’s a shame because he’s both genuinely a great villain when he’s used well and highly entertaining when his 1960s goofiness is played up, and he manages to embody both of those characterizations with absolute panache. He has played a role in some fairly major Daredevil stories over the years and I’d consider him a staple DD villain. His origin story is pure Silver Age silliness: he was an actor who received bad reviews for his first major starring role, found his career heading downhill, and so decided to become a supervillain instead. This is pretty typical of motivations for villains of this time period (see the Gladiator’s origin story above, and Stilt-Man below), but even this aspect of his character has been put to good use. Daredevil #218 features a surprisingly touching story of the Jester stealing the chance to reprise that first starring role– and of Matt keeping the cops distracted (by pretending to be the Jester!) so that his enemy can finally live his dream. 

[ID: Excerpt from O’Neil’s Daredevil run. The Jester is dressed as Cyrano de Bergerac. He pulls off his false nose and bows dramatically to Daredevil and the cops who have come to take him in.]

Jester: “A moment ago you unmasked. Now I shall perform a similar gesture… I am your humble and obedient servant… the Jester! At your service!”

Matt: “You deserve the bow. You were magnificent.”

Jester: “Indeed! I trust the critics will change their tune.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #218 by Denny O’Neil, Sal Buscema, and Christie Scheele

    Throughout the issue, Matt draws comparisons between himself and the Jester: their shared mask-wearing and the experiences of disillusionment that shaped their lives– and while it certainly doesn’t give the Jester the emotional depth of certain other Daredevil villains, it’s a memorable connection. 

    But where the Jester is at his most dangerous is not as an actor looking for attention– it’s as a creator of chaos. The Jester is a master of illusions and media manipulation. In his introductory arc, he frames Daredevil for his murder and turns Matt into a wanted criminal. Later, he uses a campaign of false news reports and misinformation to sabotage Foggy’s run for District Attorney, turn the superhero community into targets, and throw the whole country into an uproar. Most recently, in Waid’s run, he manipulated TV footage to cause rioting in NYC in the wake of an unpopular and highly publicized court ruling. His plans don’t always succeed, but even then, the scope and effectiveness of the damage he causes makes him a truly formidable villain.

[ID: Excerpt from Waid’s Daredevil run. The Jester is sitting in front of computer monitors in a dark room, yelling into a microphone. In the next panel, we see random civilians in a cafe, watching “Mayor Jameson” (played by the Jester) on TV.]

Jester: “Listen to him. God, he’s so smug. No matter. This is a minor setback. Daredevil’s not the ultimate target, after all. The city’s the target, and it’ll burn. Voice synthesizer on… People of New York… this is Mayor Jameson! Effective immediately, I am rescinding all handgun regulations in Manhattan! Take up arms– for your own protection– and await further instructions!”

Daredevil vol. 3 #32 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

The Owl (Leland Owlsley) The Owl has, unfortunately, been overshadowed by the Kingpin for most of his existence, and as such, hasn’t been given anywhere near the same amount of character development or nuance. They were created based on the same character concept: a high-powered mobster with a shadowy network of pawns who controls the city’s criminal underworld. 

[ID: A series of panels from Lee’s Daredevil run, showing a man in a long green coat and brimmed hat walking into an office building. His face is not shown; the people he passes looked at him with fear.]

Caption: “This is Wall Street, heart of New York’s Financial District, where fortunes are made and lost by the world’s greatest financial wizards! And, within the canyons of this street, we are about to find one certain man… a merciless man… a man with no friends… no loved ones… nothing to connect him with the human race, save the fact of his birth! Let us follow this man… let us study him as he walks into a towering office building, his heavy footsteps reverberating through the huge marble lobby! For we shall see much of this man on the pages that follow… He walks slowly, but with a sure, steady tread… looking neither to the right nor the left… ignoring those he passes and those who pass him! But he himself cannot readily be ignored by others! His very presence seems so fraught with evil, with menace, that his fellow humans shrink back from the mere sight of him! There are some who recognize him… who speak his name in whispers… for his wealth is said to be legendary, and his power almost beyond measure!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #3 by Stan Lee, Joe Orlando, and Sam Rosen

    Unfortunately, the Kingpin just ended up doing it better, and while there are a few Owl story arcs that I really like, I’ve never found him that interesting. However, he is hugely significant because he was the very first Daredevil supervillain, introduced all the way back in Daredevil #3! (In #1 Matt fights the mobsters who killed his father, and in #2 he fights Electro, who is a Spider-Man rogue.) Thus, he has had an impact on Matt’s life simply from having been around for so long. This also means there’s a huge range in his stories, verging from extremely ridiculous (he sometimes eats rats, and used to own an owl-shaped airplane. How cool is that?) to slightly more grounded. There is a great Owl story arc in which his bird-like body modifications start killing him, which gives his law-breaking more nuance, because he is doing it to look for a cure. Matt, upon discovering this, tries to help him. 

[ID: Excerpt from Chichester’s Daredevil run. Daredevil and the Owl are on a fire escape together. The Owl has metal cybernetic legs and has collapsed. Daredevil is comforting him.]

Matt: “You’re going to make it, hear me? You’re gonna–”

Owlsley: “You should’ve let me…”

Matt: “Unh-uh. You take my hand– you’re willing to take my hand– I don’t let go. You’ve got some long ways to go, mister… but you can count on me…”

Daredevil vol. 1 #303 by D.G. Chichester, M.C. Wyman, and Christie Scheele

    There’s also great point in Bendis’s run when the Owl, in a surprising demonstration of cleverness, hires a lawyer to sue Daredevil for breaking and entering. It doesn’t work, but it throws Matt off and is absolutely priceless. 

    The Owl has also had several children– two unnamed young kids who were introduced in Alias, and Jubula Pride, who was introduced in Daredevil Volume 4 and worked alongside Matt to rescue her father. Jubula’s brief-but-memorable appearance added a bit more depth to the Owl– allowing us to see him in the role of a parent as well as a villain. But mostly, over the years the Owl has remained one of the more insidious of New York’s mob bosses, always scheming to stay in power and fight his way out of the Kingpin’s shadow. And he’s been doing it for so long that he feels like an integral part of Daredevil comics. 

Turk Barrett He’s not a costumed supervillain or even much of a threat, but Turk has become an iconic Daredevil antagonist for both his sheer ineptitude and his plucky ability to stay alive. Of all of the recurring low-level mobster characters, he has the most engaging personality, and his dynamic with Matt is one of long-held friendly animosity. Daredevil isn’t the most dangerous person in Turk’s life, Turk isn’t the most dangerous person in Matt’s life, so they mostly just annoy each other. They’ve even been known to team up, when Turk thinks the odds of survival are in his favor. 

[ID: Excerpt from Daredevil: Love and War. Turk Barrett (dressed in a white shirt and blue pants) is mopping the inside of an elevator. The doors open, and Daredevil walks in. They ride the elevator together.] 

Matt: “Turk! You got the job!”

Turk: “No, man… this… I mean, I’m working undercover, man… I’m your backup!”

Matt: “I believe you, Turk.”

Turk: “Even know what level the doc’s on, man… So how’d you get in, Devil?”

Matt: “I flew in, Turk.”

Turk: “…Course. I knew that. ‘Spose the window locks weren’t much trouble…”

Matt: “Melted them with my heat vision.”

Daredevil: Love and War by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz

    Turk is an underdog. He’s kind of a goof and he’s certainly a criminal, but he’s also a small fish in a big and dangerous pond, working in a career where most people eventually end up at the bottom of the East River in concrete shoes (or a taxi, as the case may be). He’s slippery and resourceful, he stays just harmless enough to keep himself out of danger, and you can’t help but root for him, even when he does dumb things like stealing Stilt-Man’s stilts or trying to kill Daredevil for the hundredth unsuccessful time. 

Stilt-Man (Wilbur Day), of course, requires no introduction. He is another personal favorite of mine, and a rare case of a goofy Silver Age villain surviving into the modern era while remaining exactly as goofy as he was when first introduced. The great appeal of Stilt-Man is, in fact, that he’s a bit of a joke, while at the same time being quite dangerous, in a comic book physics-kind of way.  

[ID: Excerpt from Lee’s run. Daredevil is battling Stilt-Man on a daytime city street.]

Wilbur: “Hah! You missed!! Have you forgotten so soon how easily I can change my height, thanks to my magnificent hydraulically-operated stilts?!!”

Matt: “Mebbe so! But I haven’t forgotten that I’m the gent who whumped you good last time fought! (Man! It sure is lucky I was here! If Stilt-Man ever managed to get the Leap-Frog safely away, what a team those two would make! But, I hear the boys in blue hauling that human jumping jack right now! Which means Stilty and I can go it alone!) Heads up, dad! It’s time for fun ‘n games again!”

Wilbur: “Hah! Didn’t expect me to seize your cable, did you? I should have warned you, little man– I’ve modified my protective armor in such a way as to double my strength! Which means I’m more than a match for your limited talents!!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #26 by Stan Lee, Gene Colan, and Artie Simek

    Part of the charm of this characterization is the fact that he’s a joke in-universe as well; most of his appearances in modern comics consist of Stilt-Man being made fun of and/or of the audience being reminded that he’s actually a threat. This creates a great balance in his depictions; the jokes are fun, the sight of various superheroes being beaten up (at least a little) by Stilt-Man is fun, and he remains an enjoyable, mostly lighthearted presence in a landscape that has become dominated by Dark, Serious, and Disturbing villains. 

[ID: Excerpt from Bendis’s Daredevil run. Matt is sitting at his desk in his darkened office, talking to Wilbur Day– a short, bald guy in a black jacket, with his arm in a sling.]

Wilbur: “Wilbur Day– I’m Stilt-Man. We’ve met four hundred times.”

Matt: “Stilt-Man– Huh. Oh, you mean that burglar guy Stilt-Man? Who wears the stilts and robs things?”

Wilbur: “Can we please just–”

Matt: “We’ve met when?”

Wilbur: “I–”

Matt: “Are you in some kind of legal trouble? Is that why you’re here?”

Wilbur: “Okay, fine.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #41 by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Matt Hollingsworth

    Stilt-Man is just a short guy in a ridiculous outfit who wants to commit some crimes and get a little respect– and really, who can’t relate to that?  

Ikari (???) I’m mentioning Ikari not because he’s a long-established Daredevil villain– he’s not– but because I am fascinated by his potential. He’s a favorite of mine as much for what we don’t know as for what we do. In his introductory arc, we learn this: He was engineered/commissioned by Bullseye to kill Matt, his fighting abilities equal Matt’s, he has hypersenses, and (as a horrified Matt discovers later) he can also see.

Ikari: “Someone has, in fact, managed to re-create the toxic chemicals that blinded you, gave you enhanced senses. Someone whose hate for you keeps him alive. But he didn’t waste the process on weak, malnourished vagrants. He used it to baptize a warrior. A fighter trained to be every bit your equal in skill– and now, in power.” 

Daredevil vol. 3 #25 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

    And that’s it. We don’t know who he is or where he came from, or what the consequences are of having that degree of sensory perception (presumably his vision is heightened too?). We don’t know what his personal goals or motivations are, since we’ve only ever seen him as a pawn– first of Bullseye and then, later, of the Kingpin. But the concept of his character as someone who shares Matt’s powers plus some– who is essentially, skills-wise, a criminal version of Matt– and all the mystery that surrounds him, is hugely compelling to me. 

[ID: Excerpt from Waid’s Daredevil run. Both Ikari and Daredevil are out on the street, being shot at by cops. As Daredevil hides behind a parked car, Ikari attacks the cops and cuts their guns in half with his blades.]

Matt: “The cops are hunting me under an open-fire command. Presuming they’ve been advised of Ikari’s prison break, I’m sure the same order applies to him. I wish it scared him. I wish anything did.”

Daredevil vol. 4 #17 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Matt Wilson

    In his last appearance he was killed by the Shroud, but his body was stolen, leaving the door open for him to maybe return sometime in the future and receive more development. I hope he does. 

[sciforce]

AI and ML in the European Pharmaceutical Industry: Recent Applications, Challenges, and Response to the Pandemic

Innovations in the pharmaceutical industry proved to be a tall order, as drug development's success rate has been traditionally tremendously low. However, the COVID-19 pandemic whipped up R&D centers, markets, and leaders to develop the response to the crisis faster than ever. AI and ML bring to the table a toolbox to overcome new challenges in the whole industry. Significant that the Healthcare Artificial Intelligence market is expected to reach $51.3 billion by 2027 at CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 41.4% starting from 2020. Check out this fresh guide on the latest updates that AI and machine learning brought to the pharmaceutical market in the EU, including recent applications and the most significant challenges.

AI and Pharma at the “Slope of Enlightenment”

Recent AI and ML applications in healthcare and pharma proved that these technologies are reaching the 'Slope of Enlightenment' in the Gartner Hype Cycle. It seems like the industry has no choice at the moment. Per Subroto Mukherjee, Head of Innovation and Emerging Technology at GlaxoSmithKline, the development of the new vaccines against coronavirus would take from eight to ten years before. In contrast, the ones available now took 300 days from the start of development to the first testings. The rationale of using ML in the industry is to lower attrition and costs while increasing the success rate for new drug development.

Hence, the power of using ML algorithms to parse significant amounts of data to learn from it and make determination or prediction about the future of the new data sets come to the scene. The algorithms show higher performance with the increase of quantity and quality of data, leading to the question of data regulation, which we cover further. Data collected like images, texts, biometrics, assay, and other information from wearables stand as the field for developing the new models or formulas that are still unknown but could bring crucial changes. Practically there has been next proven applications of AI and ML in the market:

Disease Identification — reaching all the possible areas where data is available.

Clinical Trials — matching the ideal candidate for a trial based on their data.

Digitizing — facilitating conversion from paper/image medical info into fully structured digital data via optical character recognition (OCR) and natural language processing (NLP).

Medical data mapping — enabling medical research and development by standardizing data formats.

Medical data integration — helping medical data owners sell/give access to their data to research pharma companies via Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) technology.

Drug Discovery — components screening, RNA and DNA fast measurement, personalized medication development.

Personalized treatment — enhancing the diagnostic accuracy of healthcare providers.

Prediction and forecasting — monitoring the seasonal illnesses globally and facilitating early diagnostics and precision treatment via data analysis.

Telehealth — helping caretakers in delivering treatment remotely via mobile/web development

Recent Use Cases in the European Pharma and Healthcare

To illustrate the mentioned applications, see how the European companies resolve the scientific problems delivering faster pharmaceutical, bispecific target diseases treatments, and rare disease patients treatment matching using machine learning. The UK and France-based companies are on our list this time.

Tessella is a data science consultancy offering AI and data science services by building machine learning models. They claim to have helped GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) improve the salt and polymorph screening process of the drugs' development. It helps to find the best physical form of the new drug substance. The company developed an ML model that automates medicine preparation processes like liquid addition and mixing, heating and cooling, shaking, sample transfer, and solid dispensing.

Healx has developed HealNet, software helping in matching rare disease patients with appropriate drug treatments. Their ML algorithms are built on a database consisting of publicly available data and specific sources, including clinical trials, symptoms data, chemical structure, drug targets, patents, and scientific literature.

Exscientia claims their software can discover small molecules and compounds treating bispecific target diseases. This solution is using an ML model that predicts the specific development of the bispecific diseases.

Owkin claims their solution, Socrates database helps in creating predictive models for drug development optimization.

GlaxoSmithKline, a UK-based multinational company, applied the ML in predictive forecasting for some popular seasonal brands. It helps to foresee the possible peaks and troughs of coming cold and flu or allergy in a specific region, assisting local authorities to deliver an effective health communications campaign.

Challenges of Big Data for Big Pharma

Statistical technology depends on the data quality to generate meaningful and impactful results. Hence, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies should balance the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), starting from 2018. It is also still applicable to the UK, which is leaving the EU. The data, which is under GDPR patient's consent, includes the following categories:

Identification data: any information identifies an individual (name, address, ID number, email, social media accounts, etc.).

Personal data: data relating to a person's physical, genetic, physiological, mental, cultural, economic, or social identity.

Biometric data: any data including an individual's physical, behavioral or physiological information.

Genetic data: data of the acquired genetic or the inherited characteristics, any data from a biologic sample.

These regulations hold the extraterritorial reach, which means that any global business dealing with EU customers should consider this aspect. Noncompliance to the GDPR leads to 4% of annual global revenue or €20 million fine. It does not sound inspirational, is it?

Per David Champagne, a member of the McKinsey Digital Practice, et al. in their article devoted to realizing machine learning potential, there is a way to escape a bottleneck. Pharmaceutical companies can move through the regulatory landscape effectively. In the meantime, all the actors should consider these points:

Data quality is a crucial success factor, and we all need judicious consideration of data usage.

Transparency: leaving behind the 'black box' approach and explaining the 'magic' elements to the key stakeholders.

Credibility: results should be consistent with domain expertise and established science.

Fairness: avoiding the biases of the clinical and social environments.

Impact: ability to quantify the results as more productive than previous practices.

Reproducibility of the results: algorithms should still perform while dealing with real-time data.

AI and ML vs. COVID-19

Recent studies worldwide are experimenting with AI and ML techniques for decision-making in treatment, recovery prediction, and patients' prioritizing. The pandemic also triggered telehealth development, as a recent case in Spain shows the effect of using patients' data for predicting whether a person needs immediate intensive care unit admission. Read more on AI and ML grappling pandemic in our recent post.

Per Subroto Mukherjee, AI and machine learning can hold their role in the fight with the pandemic by finding out coronavirus's biological secret. The crisis affected not only drug development but also a global supply chain. AI's power of planning, forecasting, automation, and collaboration can also unleash supply companies' management.

Such applications as natural language processing and computer vision apply to current initiatives. The US White House, with the help of the AI community, started the process of medical literature mining to understand a coronavirus's nature. Medical imaging companies are already using CT image processing to detect coronavirus-induced pneumonia.

Wrapping Up

Machine learning and AI are demonstrating transformative power on the European pharmaceutical and healthcare market. Meanwhile, it is a domain that still needs to find out optimal modus operandi concerning privacy and clarity to all the actors. To meet all the criteria and ensure progress in a current global fight with the pandemic, we should apply the known tools considering the guidelines. Daring to bring positive results in exponential growth using AI and machine learning is real. We have checked it out.

[lovemychinchilla]

Why Do Chinchillas Wink?

Chinchilla behavior is difficult to understand unless you know what to expect. One thing you may have noticed is your chinchilla winking at you. But what meaning, if any, does that have?

Why do chinchillas wink? Winking can be a sign of a happy chinchilla. Chinchillas may wink as a kind of greeting which shows that everything is OK. But it can also indicate something wrong with one of your pet's eyes, e.g. inflammation and infection. Look for white goop or fluid around your pet's eye, and if you notice any, take it to the vet.

Chinchillas are fascinating in their own right, not because their behavior is like ours. To compare their behavior to ours and think it's the same is to misunderstand them (and do them a disservice!) So, to find out what winking means in chinchillas, read our guide below.

Why Is My Chinchilla Winking at Me?

The purpose of blinking is to keep the eye clean. The motion of the eyelid physically dislodges any dirt or hairs that touch the eye. And as the eyelid moves, it leaves behind a trace amount of fluid: tears. This further cleans the eye, and also stops it from drying out. Keeping the eye moist means it can move around more easily in its socket.

Many animals wink for the same reason. Animals can blink their eyes independently like we can. If they only have something in one of their eyes, they will wink rather than blink. This leaves one eye open so that the animal can see anything dangerous coming. But winking can also have meaning behind it.

"If my chinchilla winks at me, surely it's trying to tell me something?"

When a chinchilla winks, it doesn't have the same meaning as when a person winks. To think that your chinchilla is being cheeky or silly would be a mistake. This is something that pet owners commonly do called 'anthropomorphizing', which means thinking of the pet like a person. The owner assumes that the pet thinks like people do. This isn't dangerous, and it's lots of fun, but it does mean that you may not properly understand its behavior.

That doesn't mean that winking is necessarily meaningless. Chinchillas are social and are skilled at communicating both through noises and body language. As such, winking could be a way to communicate. And on top of all of that, winking could also be a sign that something is wrong with your chinchilla's eye or eyes. So which is it?

The guide below explores which side of this divide winking falls on!

1) Blinking vs Winking in Chinchillas

Chinchillas rarely blink. Only two or three blinks every 10 minutes is not unusual for these pets. It's thought that this gives wild chinchillas an advantage, as they can always see threats approaching. This behavioral adaptation will have been passed on to pet chinchillas.

Nevertheless, blinking serves the same purpose in chinchillas as it does in people. Blinking moistens the eyeball which keeps it working properly. There's a possibility that:

Your chinchilla only needed to moisten one of its eyes, so it kept the other open

Your chinchilla did blink both of its eyes, but you only saw it close one

What some owners report is that a chinchilla blinks one eye first, followed by the other. It does this in quick succession. So, you may have missed it blinking its other eye. If this is the case, there's nothing wrong with your pet: it's just blinking its eyes one by one.

Observe it for a while and see if it winks again. You'll likely see that your chinchilla is perfectly fine, getting on with its day, either eating or snoozing. But if it blinks too frequently or only blinks one of its eyes, it may have a problem like an eye infection (check Section 3 for more details).

2) Chinchilla Body Language and Communication

Chinchillas are communicative creatures. They make noises to show they're happy, frustrated, angry or scared. Their body language is another tool they use to communicate, e.g. when they stand up to threaten each other when fighting.

While chinchillas and their communication have been studied in depth, the specific behavior of winking hasn't. This means that we have to rely on the experience of owners, and what experienced owners think winking signifies.

Many books and online sources state that winking is a form of greeting. It's like greeting somebody with a smile: it shows that everybody is calm, and everything is okay. It's possible that this is a natural chinchilla behavior, or that some individual chinchillas have developed this behavior as pets. This would fit in with what we know about other pets, and it's certain that winking doesn't signify anything bad, at least.

However, it would be wrong to assume that a chinchilla does something because other animals do it. As such, this remains conjecture rather than fact.

3) Somebody Taught Your Chinchilla to Wink

Chinchillas are smart pets and can learn lots of new behaviors. One thing that a chinchilla can learn to do is wink.

You can teach a chinchilla to wink on purpose, but you can do it by accident as well. When your chinchilla winks at you, your first reaction is likely to wink back. If you do this enough times, your chinchilla will wink back when you wink first. Your chinchilla could also react to your blinking, which is why it winks when you don't expect it.

If your chinchilla was a rescue or was previously owned by a friend, this can still apply. The previous owner may have taught the chinchilla to wink and not told you. The winking may be triggered by something you don't expect.

4) Chinchilla Eye Health and Winking

Another possibility is that your chinchilla is sick. Many health conditions affect the eye, including conjunctivitis, cataracts, lens luxation and more. In many cases, these affect only one eye.

As in people, conditions like conjunctivitis cause irritation, swelling and infection. This can force your chinchilla to keep its eye closed, or shut its eye more frequently, while leaving the other one open. This could explain what you interpret as 'winking'.

As such, if you notice it winking frequently, you should check your pet's eyes. Look for:

Wet, matted fur around the eye

White goop coming from the eye

Redness and swelling in the eye

Your chinchilla pawing at its nose and eye frequently

Your chinchilla blinking far more frequently than two or three times in 10 minutes

If you spot these signs, your pet may have an eye infection and should be taken to the vet. You will need to administer saline drops or antibiotics to heal your chinchilla's eye. Infections can easily cause blindness or loss of the eyes in chinchillas, so take this problem seriously if you spot it.

5) Dust in Your Chinchilla's Eye

Alternatively, there could be something in your chinchilla's eye. The most common problem is bathing dust/sand. A particle or two can get in your chinchilla's eye and cause irritation. This is seen with finer dusts like Kaytee.*

When this happens, the symptoms are similar to those of general poor eye health. Your chinchilla's eye or eyes will water, and it may paw at its nose and eye. If you don't fix the problem, your chinchilla's eye could get infected (pink eye/conjunctivitis). A vet can wash its eye out and prescribe antibiotics if it is infected.

*Note: Kaytee brand chinchilla dust is of good quality, and using finer bathing dust than usual isn't necessarily a bad thing. The finer the dust, the better the cleaning action. However, this is one of its downsides.

Chinchilla Has One Eye Closed All the Time

If your chinchilla keeps one of its eyes closed much or all of the time, this is a different issue. It's almost certainly a health problem affecting the eye.

Chinchillas aren't supposed to keep one of their eyes closed. As all other animals do, they keep their eyes open to scan for hazards or predators, or to look for food. So, while the chinchilla's eyesight isn't as good as its senses of smell or hearing, it still should keep its eyes open unless it's sleeping or resting.

Perform the same health checks described above (looking for wet fur and white goop around the eye). This will tell you whether the eye is infected. Redness will tell you that the eye is either infected or has dust in it from bathing.

Whatever the issue, take your pet to the vet. They can properly diagnose what's wrong and treat it in the appropriate way.

Below, you can find our chinchilla quiz, new posts for further reading, and a signup for our Chinchilla Newsletter!

[ays_quiz id='9']

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#chinchillas #chinchillabehavior

[groundramon]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

:O!!!

I’ll take this as asking for five facts about five characters bc im currently waiting for all/most of the items to unlock on my current zoo tycoon game and idk what to do to kill the time besides this sO:

Character 1: Skift (bc I dont talk about him enough)

1. Skift is a very ambitious person.  One of the main reasons he enlists in the army in Majjikku is in hopes of some day becoming a war hero.  He’s also easily influenced by other peoples’ approval or disapproval, despite how adamantly he would insist otherwise if you ask him.  Hence why he wants the validation of being a household name and a hero in the history books.

2. The other main reason he enlisted in the army is because he absolutely despises his family.  I’m still working on the kinks of his backstory but the jist of it is that he comes from an extremely large family with a neglectful mother and an absent father.  He and his other siblings around his age were raised by their elder siblings, but Skift had the misfortune of having a personality that completely clashed with theirs and often got in fights with them, that sometimes even turned physical.  As soon as he was old enough to enlist in the army, he left home and headed to the nearest enlisting center (which unfortunately was several days away since they lived in the middle of goddamn nowhere, but he makes at least)

3. Skift has no real education, living in the middle of nowhere and not having anyone to teach him skills.  When he was younger he got along with his siblings better and was able to learn basic math, and of course he can speak fine, but he probably can’t read very well and anything besides basic addition and subtraction is a mystery to him.  Having said that, illiteracy and a general lack of scholarly knowledge, isn’t uncommon on the Parity side, as they have the very minimal requirement of laws and government required to run a government.  (Literally you can kidnap someone and as long as you give them adequate shelter, food, and water, and you dont abuse them or anything, the “police” wont do anything about it)

4. Skift gets a strong rush while in the middle of combat.  Adrenaline does good things to his psyche and as long as he doesn’t suddenly realize that those were real people dying on the battlefield, he’ll be in a good mood for the rest of the day after a Parity victory.  He’s not bloodthirsty, but he does get uncomfortably into it when in the heat of battle, even if he has to watch the person he’s killing die in front of him.

5. Skift in a way is supposed to be a sort of clueless libertarian/anti-ally who isnt a bigot.  Like, think a white person who doesnt believe in systemic racism but wouldn’t discriminate against a person of color because the whole reason they dont believe in systemic racism is because its bad for the economy.  (Which, it is, they’re right about that lmao).  I dont know entirely what I’m planning to do with that concept because I dont know if I, as a very dumb white person, have the ability to play with racism/the concept of colorblindness like that, but I hope I can do SOMETHING with them.  Either I’ll need to educate myself or I’ll just change that trait to being dumb about politics in general, I dunno.  (Because he doesnt really care about the politics of Parity vs Halcyon, he just agrees with the Parity because thats all hes ever known.)

Bonus fact bc I had too many: Skift is pretty heavily inspired by the design of an old warrior cats OC I had named Falconstar/Falcon.  He’s not exactly a dead character (I dont do anything with Warrior Cats anymore but if I did, he’d be on my list of potential characters to reboot, altho i dont know if id have the heart to take him out of the universe/AU he’s from…) but I feel like their personalities are different enough that they wont be mistaken for one another.  Also Skift has a stupid scarf.

Character 2: Phillip (or is it Lenny? Idk I think I changed it to Phillip)

1. Phillip is also from Majjikku, I should mention, but he’s a part of the Halcyon side.  The first thing I should mention is that he’s a prince, and 3rd in line to the Crayking throne - he has an elder brother who joins the army with him, and an elder sister who stays behind to keep the kingdom safe with their aging parents.  I believe they also have a younger sibling or two, but they’re too young to be politically important.  Anyways, its worth mentioning that the only reason Phillip was sent over her sister is because he’s an inadept spoiled brat, and the Halcyon side was asking for at least two members of royalty to join their ranks to form an alliance, so Phillip was sent alongside their actually combatually adept elder son.  The Halcyon sent Phillip to the “less useful” soldier training camps, while his brother was able to ascend straight up in the ranks of the army.  Since arriving in Halcyon territory, Phillip hasn’t seen his brother once.  (It’s worth mentioning as a side note, the Craykings only allied themselves with the Halcyon side to protect their own necks.  They believe the Halcyons have the upper hand in the war, and want to be on the right side of history when the war concludes.  And they dont have the strength to stand up to both sides; the Halcyons have promised to protect their underwater empire from the Parities due to their allyship.

2. As I mentioned, Phillip is an inadept spoiled brat.  Years of coddling in his palace have turned him into a demanding asshole who makes jokes at the expense of others and has overly high expectations from others, despite thinking he himself deserves to sit on his ass all day.  There’s a deep reason for it, as there is for all my characters, but there are so many layers that caused him to act like this that at this point it’s just become his personality.

3. Having said that, Phillip grew up in an environment where acting nice was more important than being nice.  Who cared what you did behind closed doors, so long as you put on a presentable front?  He’s extremely charming and sociable in big social events, often making on-point jokes and contributing in a seemingly meaningful way.  In fact, he’s arguably even better at it than his two older siblings, since they have opinions of their own and aren’t just a mindless robot for their parents to interject their thoughts and opinions to.  Phillip is very good at regurgitating what he’s been told, and has a very flawed and honestly nonexistent sense of self because he has never had the freedom to make his own opinions.  Or rather, he was told how to act and feel, and he never had the strength that his siblings had to make his own opinions on what was being taught to him.

4. Phillip wears a fancy bowtie and he refuses to take it off for unexplained reasons.  There’s no deep reason to it, I just like bowties.

5. Phillip believes that both of his elder siblings are more adept and intelligent in every aspect.  He respects his parents authority over the kingdom and part of why he acts like a jerk is because he legitimately has no idea what he’s doing and would rather die than inherit the throne.  He knows nothing about politics, despite his entire life being politics (in more ways than one).  The good news is that it seems like if something happened to both his elder siblings and his parents, it would probably go to the next sibling below him, even if they were still under 10 at the time.

Character 3: Glitch

1. Glitch REALLY needs a new name but I’m currently trying to come up with an idea of how Glitch could mean something different in their world (Majjikku, I should clarify), but right now im empty-handed and please help me.

2. Glitch is blind, or at least has significant sight problems.  I think.  I dont know, I really need to develop Glitch more.  Maybe he just needs glasses like I do and without them everything is hella blurry but at least he can get around.

3. Glitch’s species is often used as horses in the Halcyon army due to their obedient nature and high intelligence for a species that generally isnt considered “sentient”/having human intelligence (I know sentient isnt the right word, hence why I clarified).  Glitch’s species does have human-like intelligence and capabilities, having the capability for empathy and compassion and self-realization just as much if not more as other Majjikku species, but they generally lack in vocal and academic intelligence.  Glitch is unusually vocal for his species, a mutation that comes up in packs of the sauropod-like species every now and then.  Because of this and his sight problems, he was put in the same “lesser” squadron as Phillip, instead of the same training the other young from his herd were given.

4. Having said that, “unusually vocal” for his species is still very quiet most of the time.  He has a strong understanding of the words of those around him, stronger than most of the rest of his species (although they can comprehend language, just not as quickly) and can articulate full sentences in a reasonable amount of time, he just prefers not to.  He also can’t go on half-an-hour-long rants about things because he would run out of words and brainpower very quickly, which god I wish that were me because I will talk until my mouth falls off and its 3 am i s2g im not even exaggerating.

5. Glitch has no understanding of the war but as his herd is encouraged to help the war effort, as opposed to being forcibly taken (which was outlawed and deemed unethical when more and more offspring like Glitch started popping up), he supports his side and would gladly die for it.  Also he loves his friends, even Phillip.

Character 4: Aquarius

1. I love Aquarius!!!  Somehow she became my favorite Majjikku character and idk why.  She’s got cool pants, thats probably part of the reason.  Anyways Aquarius is Marble’s best friend in the series; they become fast friends on the train to their squadron when they begin talking about their similar experiences in being dragged away from their families and forcibly enlisted in the army.  (Is it horrible to enlist 13 and 14 year old kids in the army by force?  It absolutely is, that’s the point; I dont take my characters being young teens like most stories abt young teens do, I’m well aware they’re going to be fucked up as fuck and I’m exploiting that for all its worth.)  Aquarius came from a big family of 5 with an absent mother and a nonexistent father, where her elder sister raised herself and then raised her.  Unlike Skift, Aquarius became very close with her eldest sister, although they both share a resentment for their parents because of their shit awful parenting.  Aquarius was forced to join the army because her three younger siblings were too young for the army, and her eldest sister had to stay behind and work a job and care for the younger kids, something Aquarius knew she wouldn’t be able to do.

2. Unlike all the other characters I’ve mentioned so far, and hell probably all the characters in Majjikku in general lol, Aquarius actually supports the Halcyon for what they stand for.  Obviously with her absent mother and father, Aquarius and her siblings needed a lot of financial help.  Thankfully that’s what the Halcyon system was built around, and the government was able to get Aquarius’s eldest sister a stable well-paying job and the entire family enough money to get a decent place and pay for food for a while.  The government still monitors their family regularly to make sure they arent squandering the money and that everything is going okay, but they did far, far more good than harm.  Aquarius believes that this is the best form of government; a form of government that on a very personal level cares for its members and helps them through hardships, and forces them on the right path.  In our world, she’d be a socialist through and through, if not a straight-up communist.  (Having said that, I do believe Aquarius would have different political opinions if she grew up in our world.  The difference between our world governments and the Halcyon government is that the Halcyon government…actually gives a shit about people.  Most of the people who work for the government are volunteers, who at best get a small place to stay and some food.  Like, the Halcyon actually help 99% of the poor population in the Halcyon city.  The amount of financial aid given outside of the city significantly drops, but in their city, being homeless and poor is illegal but instead of throwing you in jail for it they’ll help you get out of it.  If you squander it then you’ll end up in jail, but still.  Idk what Aquarius would believe in differently if she grew up here, but I dont think she’d be a straight-up communist because we have too many failed communist governments in our history.)

3. Aquarius and her family’s coloring is very odd for her species.  The bear-like species that her family is made up of is generally brown, red, yellow, orange, tan, white, gray, black, ect - normal-ish fur colors.  Blue, at least to the extent that Aquarius and her family have is nonexistent.  It is likely that she and her family have a small percentage of an aquatic species’ DNA, such as a crayking, in them.

4. Aquarius loves being supportive of other people and listening to and relating to their struggles.  She’s actually a pretty good motivational speaker and is a pretty great friend.  She’s great and I love her.  Also the pants.

5. Aquarius clashes a lot with Shade, another character in her squadron.  I’m not giving Shade his own section but the reason is that he’s an overly negative character, constantly throwing shade at the Halcyon side and complaining about training.  However, once she realizes the reasons for his dissatisfaction with his current situation, she stops calling him out when he says stuff against the Halcyon side.  She does start to debate her own opinions a bit after that, and has a lot of long conversations with Marble about it in their shared bedroom.  (If anyone’s interested in Shade feel free to send me another star asking about him, or reply to this post or w/e! otherwise ill just keep it a secret lol)

Character 5: Grace

1. Thank god, a character that isn’t Majjikku-related lol.  Anyways Grace is the embodiment of a rebellious teenager.  She doesn’t listen to any authority, goes out of her way to do bad things, and will purposely disobey what you say even if she doesnt want to do the thing she’d have to do by disobeying you.  The whole reason she gets involved in Spirits’ plot is because she knows taking money from a stranger to play with the laws of science and reality would be firmly in her dad’s list of things she can’t do.

2. Speaking of her dad, he’s a little bit of a dick.  He’s the reason she’s so disrespectful towards authority.  He’s basically just a stereotypical religious nut; anti-gay, anti-transgender, anti-atheist, anti-anyone who isnt christian, anti-drugs, and he even enforces some form of gender roles.  And he’s very vocal about these things.  He tries to be a huge helicopter parent, but Grace can and will avoid him, ignore his punishments, and stay out so late that her parents cant yell at her for disobeying them.  Her father is very vocal about his displeasure and downright hatred of Grace sometimes, and ever since she started questioning his words when she was a young girl, he’d yell at her for it.  Her older brother isn’t too great either, but he’s more of an annoying slouch who plays video games all day instead of working than a legitimately bad guy.

3. Grace believes she’s straight because she has no interest in being sexual with a woman, but she’d be totally down with kissing and cuddling and being romantic with a woman, hence why I identify her as a biromantic heterosexual.  She’s also the most sexually active of all my characters, which no I will not elaborate on that, not because I dont feel comfortable with it but because I dont know how the fuck that works.  (Also side note, I headcanon things in my own stories so I like to headcanon that at some point Grace and Shawn get together and they can be all romantic and mushy n stuff together but Shawn’s totally okay with Grace going out for one night stands with guys so long as she stays safe.  Obviously they talk everything out to make sure everyone is safe and okay with the relationship, but Shawn’s pretty okay with it; she’s pretty used to Grace having sex with no romantic attraction involved, and ofc Shawn isn’t into sex so she doesn’t feel like it’s a problem.)

4. Grace is closer with her mother than her father, but although her mother is very much a mediator and acts very kind and forgiving to Grace, Grace still kind of despises her.  Just because Grace’s dad is a dick doesn’t mean she isn’t too.

5. Grace’s spirit form is a bloodthirsty wyvern with major anger problems.  Each of the kids’ spirit forms have a slight personality outside of the kids themselves, and Grace’s is bloodthirsty and destructive - not intelligently so, but still.  Most fo the kids’ spirit forms are pretty mindless and just mindlessly destructive, except two.

[dekuborn-blog]

REALLY  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY.  RULES.  repost ,   don’t  reblog  !    tag  10  ! good  luck  !  TAGGED.  i stole it from my other blog aslkjdfhg  TAGGING. ofiignition, ofsturdiness / ofquaking (whichever muse u want), frostbitc, explosiu, and anyone else who wants to !!

BASICS.

FULL  NAME :  midoriya izuku NICKNAME :  deku (originally by katsuki, but now by practically everyone) (there are others but this is the only significant one) AGE :  sixteen BIRTHDAY :  july 15th ETHNIC  GROUP :  japanese NATIONALITY :  japanese LANGUAGE / S : japanese, a very small amount of english SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :  bisexual ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION : biromantic RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :  verse dependent, canonically single HOME  TOWN / AREA :  near the shizuoka prefecture CURRENT  HOME : in the yuuei dorms PROFESSION :  heroics student at yuuei

PHYSICAL.

SKIN : fair skin, but not white EYES:  green and big. they are always full of curiousity and take up quite the expanse of his face due to being blown wide in surprise and / or interest FACE :  soft and cute, far more rounded and this makes him look rather babyfaced. that said, izuku is not chubby LIPS :   his lips are medium sized, not too big not too small, and sometimes when he gets distracted into his heroics, they become dry, but they are typically lacking of cracks due to keeping himself hydrated (its healthy and he wants to be as good as he can in the heroics realm of things) COMPLEXION : he doesnt typically have any issues with zits or anything of that sort. he used to have blackheads when he was in his first year of middle school, but he grew out of them with time BLEMISHES :   nope! SCARS :  he has two scars on the sides of his right hand from his battle with todoroki, and said arm becomes further scarred up his bicep and arm from another fight some time afterwards TATTOOS :  none HEIGHT :  166cm / 5′5″ WEIGHT :  61.24kg / 135 lbs BUILD :  musclar. izuku doesnt look it, but he is far more fit than his clothed body gives off. 10 months of extensive training with all might gave him a full set of abs as well as carved and well cut muscles on every part of his body FEATURES :  freckles on his cheeks (and on his back in summer when he gets the sun) ALLERGIES : none known USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  a big fluff of black hair with green highlights USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  hes often happy, smiling, and overall adorable in expression. he does not show angry expressions often, but determination comes through him strongly when he is in battle related situations USUAL  CLOTHING : outside of his hero costume, izuku typically is seen wearing his yuuei uniform with the tie done wrong. he is also featured with oversized red shoes on his feet

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S :  dying,losing the people hes close to (friends, family, all might, etc), failing out of the heroes program ASPIRATION / S :  becoming like all might (without copying him), becoming a pro hero POSITIVE  TRAITS :  calm(at times), capable, cautious, committed, curious, dedicated, determined, faithful, hardworking, honest, kind, loyal NEGATIVE  TRAITS :  anxious (at times), rambles, self depreciating MBTI : ISFJ-T (The Defender) ZODIAC : cancer TEMPEREMENT :  phlegmatic SOUL  TYPE / S :  The Hunter, The Caregiver, The Helper ANIMALS :  beaver VICE  HABIT / S :  rambling is a pretty bad one, i guess FAITH :  he isnt sure, truthfully. religion hasnt always been a large part of his life GHOSTS ? :  yes AFTERLIFE ? :  yes, but unsure what sort of afterlife it would be REINCARNATION ? : nah ALIENS ? :  yes POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :  the heroes side ? EDUCATION  LEVEL :  middle school and currently in high school

FAMILY.

FATHER :  a man that he is not particularly close to, not for negative reasons, but because he is not in izuku’s life much. he is overseas working currently, so izuku hardly ever sees him MOTHER :   a kind, warm, and loving women that has been supportive of izuku and loving of him his entire life. she is the only family he is close to, currently SIBLINGS :  none known EXTENDED  FAMILY :  none of note, but they all reside a town or so away from where izuku lives NAME  MEANING / S :  "midoriya” means “coming out / being from a certain place” and izuku means “long ago” HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :   unknown

FAVORITES.

BOOK :  his all might comics MOVIE :  all might documentaries (hes a true fanboy) 5  SONGS :  parallax by the careful ones, i cant help falling in love with you (twenty one pilots version), 7 years by lucas graham, adventure of a lifetime by coldplay, all the pretty girls by kaleo DEITY :  hes unsure of his religion, so he doesnt have a favorite deity HOLIDAY :  christmas MONTH :  he doesnt have one SEASON : spring. he likes the rain and he likes the flowers growing in and everything smelling nice. the atmosphere is his favorite PLACE : at yuuei / at home with his mom WEATHER :  sunny and breezy, but not too hot outside. summer is typically too hot, but spring is just right for him SOUND :  the people he cares about laughing SCENT / S :  his mom’s cooking, strawberries, vanilla TASTE / S :  katsudon FEEL / S :  the matieral of his hero costume, cat’s fur, his bunny’s coat,  ANIMAL / S :  cats and bunnies NUMBER :  he doesnt have one COLORS :  green and blue

EXTRA.

TALENTS :  he has fighting skills due to being a hero, and then of course he has inherited one for all if these count as talents ? BAD  AT :  long ranged combat, noticing when hes rambling on about something, standing up for himself at some times TURN  ONS :  body praise (kissing, compliments, etc), care, confidence, praise, small marks TURN  OFFS :  bad attitudes, inconsiderate, rude, too angry HOBBIES :   lifting weights to get stronger, practicing at mastering his quirk, spending time with his closer friends in the class TROPES :  "Ascended Fanboy,” “Finger Gun,” “Humble Hero” QUOTES :  "I'm not gonna be your worthless punching bag Deku forever... Kacchan. I'm... I'm the Deku who always does his best!" (to Katsuki) || “That’s right. Don’t worry about what other people think! Hold your head up high and plunge forward!” (to himself)

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?           A1 :   what does this mean Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?           A2 :   uhhh i mean honestly it would probably be a happy, relaxing playlist. nothing too upbeat or crazy, nothing angry either. just nice music Q3 :   why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?           A3 :   when i started writing him, i was also writing katsuki as well, but i came back to this one in particular because not only is he easier to write, but hes such a good, soft bean Q4 :   what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?           A4 :  i honestly dont even remember because its been so long but it probably had to do with the fact that he was kind of relatable to me in a strange way and plus hes cute Q5 :   describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.           A5 :   i dont really ? dislike anything about him tbh Q6 :   what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?           A6 :   i think we’re pretty similar in the sense that we have some confidence issues sometimes. hes far more confident / less shy than i am, but he is most definitely awkward like me and we have those things in common, but he has just grown more than me Q7 :   how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?           A7 :   man id hope hed like me i mean im trying my best here Q8 :   what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ?         A8 :   i have so many interactions on this blog man i love every single one of them Q9 :   what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?         A9 :   i dont rly get insp i just have no life Q10 :   how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?           A10 :   hours and now i have a headache like i always do after i finish this meme

[grapefruitwoozi]

I was tagged by @kyebumzu-official (thank uu~)

i tag: @soonhosh @k-linyong @krbiy @ilovewoozi 

Your top 10 biases?  

Amber Liu f(x)

Lee Jihoon (seventeen)

Kim Namjoon (bts)

Kim Hansol (topp dogg)

Kim Kibum (shinee)

Rocky (astro)

Kim Yugyeom (got7)

Joy (red velvet)

Yoojung (ioi)

Chele (nct dream)

First group I listened to/liked? snsd!!! awwwh

Do you prefer boy groups or girl groups? depends on how gay i feel each day Favorite female group? f(x)!!!!!!

Favorite male group? uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh bts, topp dogg, and seventeen are all p tied tbh so idk Favorite female solo artist? can i say amber??? bc amber if i can count her as a soloist. But if not then Lim Kim!!!! (pls appreciate her shes so great) Favorite male solo artist? jay park  Top 3 Groups? f(x), topp dogg, bts Favorite Kpop Song? i dont know like, favorite over anything always, but right now its fxxk it by big bang

Favorite happy Kpop song? chewing gum by nct dream hELL YEAH

Favorite Kpop sad song? rainy day by topp dogg

Favorite Kpop smut song? listen i cant think of any smutty kpop song rn for some reason and this isnt even kpop but lu by luhan is my shit lmaoooooo its barely even smutty but idc

Favorite Kpop song of 2017 so far? knock knock by twice or never ever by got7

Favorite debut? astro!! :’))

Favorite debut of 2017 so far? tbh idk lmao

Favorite mv of 2017 so far? knock knock 

Favorite mv? uhhhhh im not sure tbh

Favorite album/mini album? i do not know at all

Favorite album/mini album of 2017 so far? idk that eITHER IM AWFU L WHOOPS

Your ultimate bias? amber liu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Favorite GIF of your ultimate bias? 

Favorite picture of your ultimate bias? literally all of them i cant pick 

Favorite thing about your bias? shes the most wonderful, sweetest, genuine person in the whole entire world. shes so real and honest and shes so open i’ve never seen anyone be as wonderful as her and i just love how genuine she is. she loves everyone and its amazing

Was he your bias from the start? im not sure if this means like, out of all the groups i like or just out of f(x) bc if its the first then no, because key was but then immediately after i found out abt amber i fell in love so she became my ult. and for the second one, yes bc i never even looked at the other members like “are they my bias??” bc like, amber.

Have you ever changed biases more than 3 times and in what group? nah. not more than three. but i changed biases in got7 and shinee lmao. 

Favorite Ship? soonhoon, namjin, verkwan, taekook, and yoonmin are all p much tied lmao

Do you ship the “mom & dad” in your favorite group? yeah!

Who’s the mom and dad in your favorite group? namjoon n jin

Who do you end up liking more in groups; Leaders, Maknaes, mood makers, vocal, rap, “mom”, “dad”, English speaker, drummer, guitarist, pianist? tbh idk i like any one ??? i guess most of my biases can rap? like they arent all the rappers but they can rap? or english speakers too idk my biases r all different lmaoo

If your bias got a girlfriend/boyfriend how would you feel? I would be happy for them n just hope their boyfriend or girlfriend treat them well and keep them happy (also lowkey salty it wasnt me lmao lbr)

How would you feel if your bias came out gay/lesbian/bisexual/etc.? if any of the girls did id be like oh hELL YEAH FUCK YEAH MY BABIES COME LOVE ME AND KISS ME but any of my biases in general if they came out id be like “welcome to the gay life babies we got refreshments n love for u~”

Do you think any kpop idols are gay/lesbian/bisexual/etc.? definitely. i think theres no way EVERY. SINGLE. IDOL. is straight. its just not realistic.

If so; who? I'd rather not say bc i dont feel like fighting with ppl but i do have a lot in mind

Favorite kpop blog? currently its @blood-sweat-and-sin 10/10

Favorite kpop scenario blog? i dont have a fav lmao

Favorite kpop smut blog? i dont have a fav for this either 

Favorite Kpop fanfic? uhhhhh idk ive been enjoying this kim hansol fic called “my butterfly” on wattpad, its really good but they havent updated in a while cries. as for finished ones idk heres my wattpad finished list 

Favorite show with kpop idols? i do not know

Do you prefer saying “Oppa” or being called “Noona”? bye g2g

Is it cuter when KPop Idols know your language or don’t know it and try to speak it? when they dont really know it and try speak it bc their accents sound super cute and the english is broken :’) i lov

BIGBANG: “Bang Bang Bang” or “We like 2 Party”?

iKon: “#WYD” or “Rhythm Ta”?

Monsta X: “Perfect Girl” or “All in”?

BTS: “Save Me” or “Fire”?

EXO: “Monster” or “Growl”?

Astro: “Breathless” or “Hide&Seek”?

Red Velvet vs. EXID: “Ice Cream Cake” or “Up & Down”?

4Minute: “Crazy” or “Hate”?

NCT U vs NCT 127: “The 7th Sense” or “Fire Truck”?

Got7: “Just Right” or “Fly”?

Amber vs Ailee: “Borders” or “Insane”?

FTISLAND: “Take Me Now” or “Pray”?

History: “Queen” or “Might Just Die”?

KNK: “Knock” or “Back Again”?

Day6: “Congratulations” or “Letting Go”?

Block B: “Her” or “Toy”

ZICO: “I am You, You are Me” or “Boys And Girls”?

B.A.P: “Feel So Good” or “Young, Wild & Free?”

Seventeen: “Very Nice” or “Adore U”?

Taeyeon: “I (feat Verbal Jint)” or “Why”?

G-Dragon Vs. Taeyang: “Who you?” or “Eyes, Nose, Lips”

BTS: “The Most Beautiful Moment In Life Series” or “Dark & Wild”?

Day6: “The Day” or “DAYDREAM?”

BIGBANG: “A” or “M”

Monsta X: “The Clan, Pt.1 ” or “Rush”?

Seventeen: “Boys Be” or “First Love&Letter”?

EXO: “Ex’ACT” or “Love Me Right”?

Astro: “Spring Up” or “Summer Vibes”?

Vixx: “Chained Up” or “Error”?

EXO or BTS? bts

SISTAR or Red Velvet? red velvet

NCT U or NCT 127? nct dream

Girls’ Day or Girls Generation? girls generation

Seventeen or GOT7? seventeen

Winner or iKon? idk

Block B or Beast? block b

Romeo or Astro? astro !!!

Jimin or Jungkook? jimin~~

Xiumin or Chanyeol? xiu!!!

Taeyeon or Ailee? AILEE 

G-Dragon or Taeyang? gd!

Amber or Henry? Amber!!

Wooshin or Hwanhee (up10tion)? wooshin~

Jeonghan or Dino? lee chan!

Taemin or Jonghyun? jjong

Seulgi or Irene? seulgi

Got7: Markson or Markjin? 

Red Velvet: JoyGi or WenRi joyri

BTS: VKook or JiKook?

EXO: Hunhan or Kaisoo?

Monsta X: Showhyuk or Jookyun?

Topp Dogg: Hanjoo or Xenissi?

NCT: TaeTen or JaeYong?

Seventeen: Meanie or Jeongcheol? soonhoon

iKon: Double B or Double J (Junhwan)?

[racheltgibsau]

5 Things We’ve Done to Increase Our Organic CTR by 300%

If you follow the latest SEO trends, you are probably aware that RankBrain, Google’s AI-driven algorithm, is set to become even more powerful in 2018. Whether organic click-through rate (CTR) affects Google rankings is no longer a question. There is no doubt today—its influence is stronger than ever.

CTR along with the dwell time (how long someone spends on your website) are two critical things that RankBrain focuses on. It’s pretty simple—the more clicks you attract with your search result, the more likely Google will give you a ranking boost.

Why?

Brian Dean has nailed it: “If your website is getting clicked on like there’s no tomorrow, why would Google keep it buried in the #9 spot?”

On a Mission to Give Our CTR a Boost

Our marketing team at Chanty was surprised to notice some of our articles around long-tail, low-competition keywords receiving a natural ranking boost with no additional efforts from our side. It turned out, once the article gets to the #1 search results page on Google, it skyrockets to the top if the click-through rate is above average.

The spot your page gets in Google results could become a game changer. According to a recent study, the #1 search results in Google tend to get about one-fifth of all clicks. The top three results receive almost half (!) of all the clicks. With impressions → clicks → leads → sales funnel most companies are building their business around, the position switch from #5 to #1 may result in x4 revenue increase.

Realizing the importance of CTR, we shifted focus to improving the way our website pages are presented in Google search results.

In this blog, I’ll tell you about the five things we’ve done to increase our organic CTR and how you can apply those to your business moving forward.

1. Adding a Personal Touch

The ‘Content is a King’ trend is far from its sunset. In fact, it’s getting bigger each year. Although severe competition has taught marketers to write in-depth, engaging, educating and fun content, there are still a lot of irrelevant, auto-generated, ‘content for the sake of content’ results. It’s particularly true in the niche of communication software comparisons and the reviews we’ve chosen to compete with.

No wonder that opinion-based, human-fraiendly articles like our We’ve Tried 4 Slack Alternatives during 4 Weeks (our Team Feedback) attract plenty of eyeballs. Adding words like ‘our experience’, ‘our feedback’, ‘we’ve tried’, ‘our team’, etc. allows us to resonate with our target audience and have a positive impact on CTR. After we adopted this trick, our team made sure to add a bit of personal flavor to all blog articles where it was applicable. Key Takeaway: Share your experience. Express an opinion of your own and reflect that opinion in your content, including the headline.   

2. Standing Out With Featured Snippets

Climbing to the Google top is absolutely crucial. Even if your page occupies the #1 spot, don’t relax just yet. Chances are the page snippet isn’t even visible till the user scrolls down. If you take a look at the first screen Google shows you for “Slack alternatives”, one of our target keywords, you can see the organic search results aren’t even there.

As you scroll down, you may also see featured snippets—another reason you are experiencing traffic decline.

Featured snippet for our target keyword in Google

Did you know that CTR for the first organic result falls below 20% if a featured snippet is present? When it comes to organic opportunity within Google, featured snippets are an incredible opportunity to showcase your thought leadership. Be diligent with your keyword research and identify the ways that you can move into the featured snippet you’re looking to capture.

3. Staying Different

Apart from featured snippets, there are many more ways for you to stand out. Brackets, numbers, special symbols like ‘&, @, %’ in the title can drive attention to your snippet and boost the click-through rate.

Years ago, marketers were exposed to some studies claiming that headlines with numbers drive twice as many clicks than “how to” headlines. Or that odd-numbered headlines have a 20% better CTR than headlines with even numbers. Or that using brackets in headlines gives you a 38% CTR boost. The question is, are your competitors doing the same?

It’s hard to appear different if the search results are packed up with your rivals doing exactly the same thing.

Before publishing an article, take a look at the Google search results page for a keyword you are planning to target. Come up with a headline that is different from what everyone else is doing. If the titles abound with ‘7 Ways’, ‘12 Tips’ and ‘17 Tricks’, you should probably think of another way to attract attention. Consider even small differences like odd vs. even numbers or positive vs. negative sentiment.

4. Backlinks. Seriously

No, backlinks don’t affect your CTR directly. Let me begin from afar. Organic CTR is the ratio of organic clicks to impressions. It means that you need to have impressions in the first place. Obviously, you won’t get many impressions if your site appears on the Google search results page #7. A few impressions result in even fewer clicks. Even if you have the best CTR in the world, chances are there won’t be enough data for Google to analyze and push your result to the top.

That’s where backlinks come in handy. High-quality domains pointing to your site signal Google to give your site a boost and voila—improvement! Of course, there are many more ranking factors, but backlinks are by far among the most important. Once you get to the first page, you can start fighting that CTR battle.

5. What Matters Is On the Inside

We’ve noticed that once the site gets to the first Google search results page, its position number is no longer about backlinks. The screenshot below from ahrefs.com shows the first page results for one of our target keywords along with the number of backlinks and backlinking domains supporting each result. You can see that ‘the more backlinks—the higher’ rule doesn’t work in this case.

Data on backlinks and referring domains, Ahrefs.com

Now it’s RankBrain that determines your spot. And as you already know it focuses on both CTR and dwell time. If you are after a sweet spot in the top results of Google (where, naturally, CTR is higher), you totally need to work on stretching the time visitors spend on your page.

How Do You Increase the Dwell Time?

We’ve thoroughly researched this issue and here are some practical tips from our marketing team:

Make it ridiculously detailed. In-depth content is more likely to keep your visitors engaged and prevent from bouncing. Take a look at your competitors and work on the piece that’s better in every way—more educating, more insightful.

Check if your content is easy to scan. Break it into paragraphs, add headings, subheadings, images, gifs, memes, bulleted and numbered lists, graphs, tables, etc.

Add in-article videos. Just think how your dwell time would increase if your visitors spend 2-3 extra minutes to watch a video.

Experiment with fonts. The font you are currently using may be hard to read. Why not adopt the successful experience of others? I bet guys at Medium did a lot of research and polished their fonts, font sizes, font colors, and paddings to perfection.

Use simple language. Choose simple words, make easy-to-read sentences and combine those into short paragraphs. Putting some of the sentences as stand-alone paragraphs make your texts easier to comprehend.

We’ve done everything we can to make our content as easy to read as possible. We are still far from perfect. Nevertheless, they’ve improved significantly. Decent dwell time along with the higher-than-expected CTR (we’ve started with 3-4% and turned it into 15-20%) led to serious position boost over time.

Google Analytics data on the average CTR and position for our target keyword 

In the End…

Organic CTR is vital for a reason. It determines the number of clicks to your website which ultimately affect your sales. They say, RankBrain is taking over and will soon become the critical ranking factor replacing backlinks. If you don’t want to be left behind, you should think of user engagement signals today. While backlinks are still valid, it’s time to employ their power to its fullest capacity and get your pages to the top.

Once you are on the first page, stand out with your headlines, featured snippets, and personal approach. Make sure the content is worth reading. Educate your visitors and keep them engaged for a long time.

Hopefully, my advice helps you increase organic CTR. I’m sure our example is just one of the many islands in the ocean. What about your experience? Feel free to share useful tips and tricks on increasing organic CTR in the comments below.

The post 5 Things We’ve Done to Increase Our Organic CTR by 300% appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/01/5-things-weve-done-increase-organic-ctr-300.html

[zacdhaenkeau]

5 Things We’ve Done to Increase Our Organic CTR by 300%

If you follow the latest SEO trends, you are probably aware that RankBrain, Google’s AI-driven algorithm, is set to become even more powerful in 2018. Whether organic click-through rate (CTR) affects Google rankings is no longer a question. There is no doubt today—its influence is stronger than ever.

CTR along with the dwell time (how long someone spends on your website) are two critical things that RankBrain focuses on. It’s pretty simple—the more clicks you attract with your search result, the more likely Google will give you a ranking boost.

Why?

Brian Dean has nailed it: “If your website is getting clicked on like there’s no tomorrow, why would Google keep it buried in the #9 spot?”

On a Mission to Give Our CTR a Boost

Our marketing team at Chanty was surprised to notice some of our articles around long-tail, low-competition keywords receiving a natural ranking boost with no additional efforts from our side. It turned out, once the article gets to the #1 search results page on Google, it skyrockets to the top if the click-through rate is above average.

The spot your page gets in Google results could become a game changer. According to a recent study, the #1 search results in Google tend to get about one-fifth of all clicks. The top three results receive almost half (!) of all the clicks. With impressions → clicks → leads → sales funnel most companies are building their business around, the position switch from #5 to #1 may result in x4 revenue increase.

Realizing the importance of CTR, we shifted focus to improving the way our website pages are presented in Google search results.

In this blog, I’ll tell you about the five things we’ve done to increase our organic CTR and how you can apply those to your business moving forward.

1. Adding a Personal Touch

The ‘Content is a King’ trend is far from its sunset. In fact, it’s getting bigger each year. Although severe competition has taught marketers to write in-depth, engaging, educating and fun content, there are still a lot of irrelevant, auto-generated, ‘content for the sake of content’ results. It’s particularly true in the niche of communication software comparisons and the reviews we’ve chosen to compete with.

No wonder that opinion-based, human-fraiendly articles like our We’ve Tried 4 Slack Alternatives during 4 Weeks (our Team Feedback) attract plenty of eyeballs. Adding words like ‘our experience’, ‘our feedback’, ‘we’ve tried’, ‘our team’, etc. allows us to resonate with our target audience and have a positive impact on CTR. After we adopted this trick, our team made sure to add a bit of personal flavor to all blog articles where it was applicable. Key Takeaway: Share your experience. Express an opinion of your own and reflect that opinion in your content, including the headline.   

2. Standing Out With Featured Snippets

Climbing to the Google top is absolutely crucial. Even if your page occupies the #1 spot, don’t relax just yet. Chances are the page snippet isn’t even visible till the user scrolls down. If you take a look at the first screen Google shows you for “Slack alternatives”, one of our target keywords, you can see the organic search results aren’t even there.

As you scroll down, you may also see featured snippets—another reason you are experiencing traffic decline.

Featured snippet for our target keyword in Google

Did you know that CTR for the first organic result falls below 20% if a featured snippet is present? When it comes to organic opportunity within Google, featured snippets are an incredible opportunity to showcase your thought leadership. Be diligent with your keyword research and identify the ways that you can move into the featured snippet you’re looking to capture.

3. Staying Different

Apart from featured snippets, there are many more ways for you to stand out. Brackets, numbers, special symbols like ‘&, @, %’ in the title can drive attention to your snippet and boost the click-through rate.

Years ago, marketers were exposed to some studies claiming that headlines with numbers drive twice as many clicks than “how to” headlines. Or that odd-numbered headlines have a 20% better CTR than headlines with even numbers. Or that using brackets in headlines gives you a 38% CTR boost. The question is, are your competitors doing the same?

It’s hard to appear different if the search results are packed up with your rivals doing exactly the same thing.

Before publishing an article, take a look at the Google search results page for a keyword you are planning to target. Come up with a headline that is different from what everyone else is doing. If the titles abound with ‘7 Ways’, ‘12 Tips’ and ‘17 Tricks’, you should probably think of another way to attract attention. Consider even small differences like odd vs. even numbers or positive vs. negative sentiment.

4. Backlinks. Seriously

No, backlinks don’t affect your CTR directly. Let me begin from afar. Organic CTR is the ratio of organic clicks to impressions. It means that you need to have impressions in the first place. Obviously, you won’t get many impressions if your site appears on the Google search results page #7. A few impressions result in even fewer clicks. Even if you have the best CTR in the world, chances are there won’t be enough data for Google to analyze and push your result to the top.

That’s where backlinks come in handy. High-quality domains pointing to your site signal Google to give your site a boost and voila—improvement! Of course, there are many more ranking factors, but backlinks are by far among the most important. Once you get to the first page, you can start fighting that CTR battle.

5. What Matters Is On the Inside

We’ve noticed that once the site gets to the first Google search results page, its position number is no longer about backlinks. The screenshot below from ahrefs.com shows the first page results for one of our target keywords along with the number of backlinks and backlinking domains supporting each result. You can see that ‘the more backlinks—the higher’ rule doesn’t work in this case.

Data on backlinks and referring domains, Ahrefs.com

Now it’s RankBrain that determines your spot. And as you already know it focuses on both CTR and dwell time. If you are after a sweet spot in the top results of Google (where, naturally, CTR is higher), you totally need to work on stretching the time visitors spend on your page.

How Do You Increase the Dwell Time?

We’ve thoroughly researched this issue and here are some practical tips from our marketing team:

Make it ridiculously detailed. In-depth content is more likely to keep your visitors engaged and prevent from bouncing. Take a look at your competitors and work on the piece that’s better in every way—more educating, more insightful.

Check if your content is easy to scan. Break it into paragraphs, add headings, subheadings, images, gifs, memes, bulleted and numbered lists, graphs, tables, etc.

Add in-article videos. Just think how your dwell time would increase if your visitors spend 2-3 extra minutes to watch a video.

Experiment with fonts. The font you are currently using may be hard to read. Why not adopt the successful experience of others? I bet guys at Medium did a lot of research and polished their fonts, font sizes, font colors, and paddings to perfection.

Use simple language. Choose simple words, make easy-to-read sentences and combine those into short paragraphs. Putting some of the sentences as stand-alone paragraphs make your texts easier to comprehend.

We’ve done everything we can to make our content as easy to read as possible. We are still far from perfect. Nevertheless, they’ve improved significantly. Decent dwell time along with the higher-than-expected CTR (we’ve started with 3-4% and turned it into 15-20%) led to serious position boost over time.

Google Analytics data on the average CTR and position for our target keyword 

In the End…

Organic CTR is vital for a reason. It determines the number of clicks to your website which ultimately affect your sales. They say, RankBrain is taking over and will soon become the critical ranking factor replacing backlinks. If you don’t want to be left behind, you should think of user engagement signals today. While backlinks are still valid, it’s time to employ their power to its fullest capacity and get your pages to the top.

Once you are on the first page, stand out with your headlines, featured snippets, and personal approach. Make sure the content is worth reading. Educate your visitors and keep them engaged for a long time.

Hopefully, my advice helps you increase organic CTR. I’m sure our example is just one of the many islands in the ocean. What about your experience? Feel free to share useful tips and tricks on increasing organic CTR in the comments below.

The post 5 Things We’ve Done to Increase Our Organic CTR by 300% appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/01/5-things-weve-done-increase-organic-ctr-300.html

[mobileexpressnow]

Happy Tenth Birthday, iPhone: Then and Now

Apple’s iPhone just completed 10 years and in a befitting tribute to Founder Steve Jobs, unveiled some spectacular product demos- AR Kit, A11 bionic chip and iOS 11, to name a few. The phone that brought us the touchscreen, on-the-go apps, digitized music libraries, fun mash up of games, emojis, calendar, contacts and so much more, showed off its unmatched capabilities in high-fidelity visuals that left spectators agape. Here are the highlights of the birthday celebrations and the iPhone’s journey from a glamorised iPod to a smart gadget that ruled the market for nearly a decade.

Highlights of the Event

The biggest draw was Apple’s AR Kit that aims to bring Augmented Reality to mainstream by integrating it directly within the newly-launched iPhone X and iPhone 8. Directive Games’ demo on the AR game “The Machines” and virtual spaceX rockets landing in backyards, showed off the technology’s power even on machines lacking the same camera and sensor hardware.  Unlike Google’s Tango AR that was a niche product, Apple’s production can reach millions with a recent iPhone model. Since Apple’s announcement, Google has come out with a new AR platform, AR Core. Clearly, a war is in the making and our bets are on Apple for its tight software-hardware integration!

We gave you the scoop on iPhone X; now we’ll let you know the rest. The newly-launched iPhone X is a USD 999 bundle of iOS 11, bezel-less OLED screen, wireless charging, stainless steel body and more. Some unanswered questions are bubbling about the new addition- How good is the swipe interface? Are Apple’s claims that Face ID is superior to Touch ID, true? Will the glass back stand the test of time? Is the hefty price tag justified given the more fragile hardware and interface?

iOS 11 has a revamped Control Center; Calculator and Phone apps have a new look; text is bolder; the 3D Touch integration is expanded so you don’t need to open Settings; Lock screen has been merged with the Notification Center; Siri has a more natural voice now and can translate English to foreign languages.

The new animated emojis, Animojis, are now available in iPhone 8 and X. The Face ID feature will allow users to scan their faces and create custom Animojis resembling themselves.

The event was not only spectacular but also ground-breaking in a number of terms- Apple’s show of supremacy and an open challenge to mobile makers worldwide.

The iPhone’s journey till now

Apple released the first version of iOS in 2007. It was based on OS X of Mac fame. Safari, Mail and Messages were the only apps that were permitted and the phone gave the feel of a PC. Overtime, Apple did a complete redesign and gave the world, iPhone OS 1 with menu options like Mail, Messages, Photo, Safari, Phone and more. But, iTunes and Appstore were still not included and no customization of the background was permitted. In 2008, iPhone OS2 launched alongside iPhone 3G and had an exciting addition, the App Store that is now worth USD 31 billion and houses 1.5 million apps, in Apple’s estimates. Alongside, Apple also released SDK that is used by app developers. High-speed connectivity was news in 2008 which is why it was called a second-generation phone. The App store model became so popular that it was integrated in every device from smart TVs to laptops.

iOS 4 changed the look and feel of the entire OS in 2010. It allowed users to multitask between apps and change the background image on the Home screen. This was also the first OS to run on multiple devices, the other being the iPad which was also launched in 2010.

Next came iOS 5 with deep social media integration, the iCloud and iMessage. iOS 6 introduced a new row of icons on the 4-inch screen. It harbored a new Apples-made Maps app and the Passbook app for storing tickets. In iOS 7, new flatter icons took birth and multitasking view also changed to focus on panels rather than apps. All indigenous apps were given a facelift.

Widgets, such as Weather, came to be integrated in the Notification Center. Apple introduced Continuity,  a feature that lets you open apps on an iMac and iPhone, in the same state.

How the iPhone’s look changed

On September 9th, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone. In his own words- it combined three devices-a mobile phone, an iPod and an internet communicator, When Jobs claimed that it would lead to a revolution, Nokia, Blackberry and Motorola sniggered in disbelief. Remember, 2007 was the year when Blackberry Curve debuted and people were raving about Nokia 95’s dual-sliding display. The original iPhone was nothing like them! It vaguely resembled an iPod with a rounded aluminum body, a plastic back and a few buttons. It’s 3.5 inch screen had a 320 by 480 resolution, 2MB camera and 4GB/8GB storage. Third-party apps were not yet allowed on the iOS. Moreover, it was way too costly at $499 and $599 for 4GB and 8GB internal storage, respectively, than its competitors.

The iPhone 4 had a major step-up in appearance with a new flat design, an integrated antenna, a high-resolution display and a 5MP camera. Apple responded brilliantly in face of tough competition and it was heartening for Jobs to see buyers queuing to buy the pricey model.

After six handsets, in iPhone 5, Apple decided to seriously tweak the iPhone screen size and aspect ratio. The new handset was 20% lighter and had a 4-inch screen.

By the time Apple launched iPhone 5C, the strain of competition was already showing. Plastic-backed body of 5C made iPhone comparable in price to Androids and was Apple’s attempt to capture the busy middle markets.

Both the iPhone 6 and 6 plus ditched the industrial design that had been Apple’s hallmarks. It was replaced by an ergonomically-designed body and an advanced 3D Touch technology. By gauging the touch of your finger, it allowed a glimpse at an app without actually opening it if you tapped it lightly. If pressed harder, it opened in a separate window.

With iPhone 7 and 7 plus, Apple embraced waterproof technology. They come with IP67 rating that means even if you submerge the phones in water, you don’t have to worry! Another landmark improvement was ditching of the 3.5mm iPhone headphone jack, indeed a brave decision!

How the User Experience of iPhone Changed

From 3D touch to the voice-activated Siri, Apple has given birth to a mobile-friendly ecosystem. The App store is one of the ways in which Apple brought a whole new world of applications to users. From fighting Angry Birds to learning Swift, a language used by app developers, iPhone users can access information through the app store.

Siri, Apple’s Personal assistant that was introduced in iPhone 4s, had the world in awe. Now you could interact with your mobile as with a real living person. You can ask it to set your schedules, remind about coming meetings, ask for troubleshooting guidance and even make it tell jokes! Siri is found in most Apple products and continues to delight users.

Login became more secure through Apple’s fingertip scanner. It was futuristic, it was cool. Users just loved it!

iPhone’s 3D Touch allowed users to interact with the loaded pictures; they actually moved when  touched. Brought back the memories of days gone by!

Apple Pay integration has made transactions clutter free and secure. No bank cards or cash required when running errands!

Putting things into perspective: iPhone isn’t perfect

Let’s face it..Apple is facing hard times with Androids claiming the lion’s share of the middle market. Despite its excellent support and security, it faces issues with customisation and affordability. It’s still a niche product and tight budgeted consumers consider it way out of their league.

Let’s take a look at Android Vs. iPhone basis Hardware and Software:

Hardware assessment

Internal storage can be tricky with not all iPhone models offering 128GB

Micro SD cards costing as little as $13 can be used to boost storage, but it impacts speed

Since iPhones come in fewer models than Androids, it’s certainly easier to pick one if you’ve made up your mind to buy an iPhone

Software assessment

Homescreens can’t really be customised with iPhone. With Androids, there’s more freedom. You can hide all apps in an app tray and leave the home screen blank for your favorite display picture.

Both phones have Digital assistants, Siri and Google Now. Google Now has limited capabilities but Google Assistant is at par with Siri.

Android OS offers great functionality. Plug it into a PC and it acts like a hard drive. You can manipulate documents just like a flash drive. With an iPhone, you can just access the photos and videos. You can import softwares in Android from unknown sources, but iPhone allows only apps from app store in your country.

Downside of so much flexibility is that it takes a toll on the learning curve. Sometimes, manufacturers change the look and feel of the OS so much that users have to re-learn using the phone.

Buy an iPhone and you can access any Google service- Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar and so on, seamlessly.  Conversely, very few Apple services are available on Android phones.

Bringing it all together…

iPhone started the tidal wave of smartphones that has engulfed everywhere. And the legacy lives on…Some may argue, iPhone sales are dipping year-on-year, yet it bears some thought that hours after iPhone 7 was launched last year, its complete stock was sold out online and Apple had to push back release dates to cope with the staggering demand!

The post Happy Tenth Birthday, iPhone: Then and Now appeared first on AppInventiv.

[olumina]

Happy Tenth Birthday, iPhone: Then and Now

Apple’s iPhone just completed 10 years and in a befitting tribute to Founder Steve Jobs, unveiled some spectacular product demos- AR Kit, A11 bionic chip and iOS 11, to name a few. The phone that brought us the touchscreen, on-the-go apps, digitized music libraries, fun mash up of games, emojis, calendar, contacts and so much more, showed off its unmatched capabilities in high-fidelity visuals that left spectators agape. Here are the highlights of the birthday celebrations and the iPhone’s journey from a glamorised iPod to a smart gadget that ruled the market for nearly a decade.

Highlights of the Event

The biggest draw was Apple’s AR Kit that aims to bring Augmented Reality to mainstream by integrating it directly within the newly-launched iPhone X and iPhone 8. Directive Games’ demo on the AR game “The Machines” and virtual spaceX rockets landing in backyards, showed off the technology’s power even on machines lacking the same camera and sensor hardware.  Unlike Google’s Tango AR that was a niche product, Apple’s production can reach millions with a recent iPhone model. Since Apple’s announcement, Google has come out with a new AR platform, AR Core. Clearly, a war is in the making and our bets are on Apple for its tight software-hardware integration!

We gave you the scoop on iPhone X; now we’ll let you know the rest. The newly-launched iPhone X is a USD 999 bundle of iOS 11, bezel-less OLED screen, wireless charging, stainless steel body and more. Some unanswered questions are bubbling about the new addition- How good is the swipe interface? Are Apple’s claims that Face ID is superior to Touch ID, true? Will the glass back stand the test of time? Is the hefty price tag justified given the more fragile hardware and interface?

iOS 11 has a revamped Control Center; Calculator and Phone apps have a new look; text is bolder; the 3D Touch integration is expanded so you don’t need to open Settings; Lock screen has been merged with the Notification Center; Siri has a more natural voice now and can translate English to foreign languages.

The new animated emojis, Animojis, are now available in iPhone 8 and X. The Face ID feature will allow users to scan their faces and create custom Animojis resembling themselves.

The event was not only spectacular but also ground-breaking in a number of terms- Apple’s show of supremacy and an open challenge to mobile makers worldwide.

The iPhone’s journey till now

Apple released the first version of iOS in 2007. It was based on OS X of Mac fame. Safari, Mail and Messages were the only apps that were permitted and the phone gave the feel of a PC. Overtime, Apple did a complete redesign and gave the world, iPhone OS 1 with menu options like Mail, Messages, Photo, Safari, Phone and more. But, iTunes and Appstore were still not included and no customization of the background was permitted. In 2008, iPhone OS2 launched alongside iPhone 3G and had an exciting addition, the App Store that is now worth USD 31 billion and houses 1.5 million apps, in Apple’s estimates. Alongside, Apple also released SDK that is used by app developers. High-speed connectivity was news in 2008 which is why it was called a second-generation phone. The App store model became so popular that it was integrated in every device from smart TVs to laptops.

iOS 4 changed the look and feel of the entire OS in 2010. It allowed users to multitask between apps and change the background image on the Home screen. This was also the first OS to run on multiple devices, the other being the iPad which was also launched in 2010.

Next came iOS 5 with deep social media integration, the iCloud and iMessage. iOS 6 introduced a new row of icons on the 4-inch screen. It harbored a new Apples-made Maps app and the Passbook app for storing tickets. In iOS 7, new flatter icons took birth and multitasking view also changed to focus on panels rather than apps. All indigenous apps were given a facelift.

Widgets, such as Weather, came to be integrated in the Notification Center. Apple introduced Continuity,  a feature that lets you open apps on an iMac and iPhone, in the same state.

How the iPhone’s look changed

On September 9th, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone. In his own words- it combined three devices-a mobile phone, an iPod and an internet communicator, When Jobs claimed that it would lead to a revolution, Nokia, Blackberry and Motorola sniggered in disbelief. Remember, 2007 was the year when Blackberry Curve debuted and people were raving about Nokia 95’s dual-sliding display. The original iPhone was nothing like them! It vaguely resembled an iPod with a rounded aluminum body, a plastic back and a few buttons. It’s 3.5 inch screen had a 320 by 480 resolution, 2MB camera and 4GB/8GB storage. Third-party apps were not yet allowed on the iOS. Moreover, it was way too costly at $499 and $599 for 4GB and 8GB internal storage, respectively, than its competitors.

The iPhone 4 had a major step-up in appearance with a new flat design, an integrated antenna, a high-resolution display and a 5MP camera. Apple responded brilliantly in face of tough competition and it was heartening for Jobs to see buyers queuing to buy the pricey model.

After six handsets, in iPhone 5, Apple decided to seriously tweak the iPhone screen size and aspect ratio. The new handset was 20% lighter and had a 4-inch screen.

By the time Apple launched iPhone 5C, the strain of competition was already showing. Plastic-backed body of 5C made iPhone comparable in price to Androids and was Apple’s attempt to capture the busy middle markets.

Both the iPhone 6 and 6 plus ditched the industrial design that had been Apple’s hallmarks. It was replaced by an ergonomically-designed body and an advanced 3D Touch technology. By gauging the touch of your finger, it allowed a glimpse at an app without actually opening it if you tapped it lightly. If pressed harder, it opened in a separate window.

With iPhone 7 and 7 plus, Apple embraced waterproof technology. They come with IP67 rating that means even if you submerge the phones in water, you don’t have to worry! Another landmark improvement was ditching of the 3.5mm iPhone headphone jack, indeed a brave decision!

How the User Experience of iPhone Changed

From 3D touch to the voice-activated Siri, Apple has given birth to a mobile-friendly ecosystem. The App store is one of the ways in which Apple brought a whole new world of applications to users. From fighting Angry Birds to learning Swift, a language used by app developers, iPhone users can access information through the app store.

Siri, Apple’s Personal assistant that was introduced in iPhone 4s, had the world in awe. Now you could interact with your mobile as with a real living person. You can ask it to set your schedules, remind about coming meetings, ask for troubleshooting guidance and even make it tell jokes! Siri is found in most Apple products and continues to delight users.

Login became more secure through Apple’s fingertip scanner. It was futuristic, it was cool. Users just loved it!

iPhone’s 3D Touch allowed users to interact with the loaded pictures; they actually moved when  touched. Brought back the memories of days gone by!

Apple Pay integration has made transactions clutter free and secure. No bank cards or cash required when running errands!

Putting things into perspective: iPhone isn’t perfect

Let’s face it..Apple is facing hard times with Androids claiming the lion’s share of the middle market. Despite its excellent support and security, it faces issues with customisation and affordability. It’s still a niche product and tight budgeted consumers consider it way out of their league.

Let’s take a look at Android Vs. iPhone basis Hardware and Software:

Hardware assessment

Internal storage can be tricky with not all iPhone models offering 128GB

Micro SD cards costing as little as $13 can be used to boost storage, but it impacts speed

Since iPhones come in fewer models than Androids, it’s certainly easier to pick one if you’ve made up your mind to buy an iPhone

Software assessment

Homescreens can’t really be customised with iPhone. With Androids, there’s more freedom. You can hide all apps in an app tray and leave the home screen blank for your favorite display picture.

Both phones have Digital assistants, Siri and Google Now. Google Now has limited capabilities but Google Assistant is at par with Siri.

Android OS offers great functionality. Plug it into a PC and it acts like a hard drive. You can manipulate documents just like a flash drive. With an iPhone, you can just access the photos and videos. You can import softwares in Android from unknown sources, but iPhone allows only apps from app store in your country.

Downside of so much flexibility is that it takes a toll on the learning curve. Sometimes, manufacturers change the look and feel of the OS so much that users have to re-learn using the phone.

Buy an iPhone and you can access any Google service- Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar and so on, seamlessly.  Conversely, very few Apple services are available on Android phones.

Bringing it all together…

iPhone started the tidal wave of smartphones that has engulfed everywhere. And the legacy lives on…Some may argue, iPhone sales are dipping year-on-year, yet it bears some thought that hours after iPhone 7 was launched last year, its complete stock was sold out online and Apple had to push back release dates to cope with the staggering demand!

The post Happy Tenth Birthday, iPhone: Then and Now appeared first on AppInventiv.

[t-baba]

Make Your JavaScript Code Robust With Flow

JavaScript was always a significant programming language, being the only language that runs reliably in the browser. Recent trends in front-end development as well as Node.js based back-end development have pushed the scale and complexity of JavaScript applications. 

Large applications developed by large teams can benefit from static type checking, which vanilla JavaScript lacks. Flow was developed by Facebook to address this issue. It is a static type checker that integrates into your development process, catches a lot of problems early, and helps you move fast.

What Is Flow?

Flow is a tool that checks your annotated JavaScript code and detects various issues that without it would be discovered only at runtime (or worse, not discovered and corrupt your data). Here is a quick example.

// @flow function getGreeting(name: string): string { return `Hi, ${name}`; } const http = require("http"); const greeting = getGreeting("Gigi") const port = 8888 console.log(`Listening on port ${port}...`) http.createServer(function(request, response) { response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"}); response.write(greeting); response.end(); }).listen(port);

Flow vs. TypeScript

Before diving into the nitty-gritty details of Flow, it's worthwhile to compare it against other alternatives, and in particular TypeScript. TypeScript is a strict superset of JavaScript developed by Microsoft. Any JavaScript program is also a TypeScript program. 

TypeScript adds optional type annotations and overall serves the same purpose as Flow. However, there are some important differences. TypeScript is a separate programming language that compiles to JavaScript, whereas Flow annotations must be removed to get back to valid JavaScript. 

TypeScript has great tool and IDE support. Flow is catching up (e.g. JetBrains WebStorm has native Flow integration).

The most important philosophical difference is that Flow puts an emphasis on soundness. TypeScript 1.0 didn't catch null errors; TypeScript 2.0 with strict null checks measured up to Flow in this regard. But in other aspects such as generic containers or typing, TypeScript is more permissive and lets various categories of errors through (only structural typing is checked, not nominal typing).

TypeScript as its own language adds concepts and language features such as classes, interfaces, visibility indicators (public, private, readonly), and decorators. Those features make it easier to understand and use for people coming from mainstream object-oriented languages like C++, Java, and C#.

Installation

Since Flow annotations are not standard JavaScript, they need to be removed before deploying your application. Here is how to install flow and flow-remove-types via yarn: yarn add --dev flow-bin flow-remove-types

You can add a couple of scripts to your package.json file to automate the process:

"scripts": { "build": "flow-remove-types src/ -d lib/", "prepublish": "yarn run build" }

You should run the prepublish script before publishing your code to the npm registry.

For other installation options (e.g. using npm or babel), check out the Flow installation guide.

To finish the installation, type: yarn run flow init

This will create the required .flowconfig file.

Type System

Flow has two important goals: precision and speed. Its type system was designed to support these goals.

Precision

Precision is achieved by analyzing how the code interacts with types, either annotated or inferred. Any mismatch raises a type error. Annotated types support nominal typing, which means that two different types with the same attributes are distinguished from each other and can't be substituted. The type of a variable is defined as the set of runtime values the variable may receive. 

Speed

Flow is fast due to a combination of modularity and distributed processing. Files are analyzed in parallel, and the results are merged later via efficient shared memory to accomplish full-program type checking.

Supported Types

Flow supports many types. In addition to primitive types, it also supports the following:

Object

Array

Any

Maybe

Variable

Tuple

Class

Interface

Generic

Type Annotations

Flow allows you to declare types as well as restrict variables and parameters to selected values:

type Two2Four = 2 | 3 | 4 function doubleIt(number: Two2Four) { return number * 2 } console.log(doubleIt(3)) Output: 6

If you exceed the valid range, you'll get an error:

console.log(doubleIt(3)) Output: Error: src/main.js:30 30: console.log(doubleIt(5)) // error ^ number. This type is incompatible with the expected param type of 24: function doubleIt(number: Two2Four) { ^^^^^^^^ number enum Found 1 error

You can also define complex types, including subtyping. In the following code example, the Warrior type is a subtype of Person. This means it is OK to return a Warrior as a Person from the fight() function. However, returning null is forbidden.

type Person = { name: string, age: number } type Warrior = { name: string, age: number, strength: number } let redWolf : Warrior = { name: "Red Wolf", age: 24, strength: 10 } let skullCrusher : Warrior = { name: "Skull Crusher", age: 27, strength: 11 } function fight(w1: Warrior, w2: Warrior): Person { if (w1.strength > w2.strength) { return w1 } if (w2.strength > w1.strength) { return w2 } return null } Output: Found 1 error $ flow Error: src/main.js:47 47: return null ^^^^ null. This type is incompatible with the expected return type of 39: function fight(w1: Warrior, w2: Warrior): Person { ^^^^^^ object type Found 1 error

To fix it, let's return the younger warrior if both warriors have the same strength:

function fight(w1: Warrior, w2: Warrior): Person { if (w1.strength > w2.strength) { return w1 } if (w2.strength > w1.strength) { return w2 } return (w1.age < w2.age ? w1 : w2) } let winner = fight(redWolf, skullCrusher) console.log(winner.name) Output: Skull Crusher

Flow allows even more precise control via class extension, invariance, co-variance, and contra-variance. Check out the Flow documentation on variance.

Configuration

Flow uses the .flowconfig configuration file in the root directory of your projects. This file contains several sections that let you configure what files Flow should check and the many aspects of its operation. 

Include

The [include] section controls what directories and files should be checked. The root directory is always included by default. The paths in the [include] sections are relative. A single star is a wild-card for any filename, extension, or directory name. Two stars are a wild-card for any depth of directory. Here is a sample [include] section:

[include] ../externalFile.js ../externalDir/ ../otherProject/*.js ../otherProject/**/coolStuff/

Ignore

The [ignore] section is the complement to [include]. Files and directories you specify here will not be checked by flow. Strangely, it uses a different syntax (OCaml regular expressions) and requires absolute paths. Changing this is on the roadmap of the Flow team.

Until then, remember that the include section is processed first, followed by the ignore section. If you include and ignore the same directory and/or file, it will be ignored. To address the absolute path issue, it is common to prefix every line with .*. If you want to ignore directories or files under the root, you can use the <PROJECT_ROOT> placeholder instead of .*. Here is a sample [ignore] section:

[ignore] .*/__tests__/.* .*/src/\(foo\|bar\)/.* .*\.ignore\.js <PROJECT_ROOT>/ignore_me.js

Libs

Any non-trivial JavaScript application uses lots of third-party libraries. Flow can check how your application is using these libraries if you provide special libdef files that contain type information about these libraries. 

Flow automatically scans the "flow-typed" sub-directory of your project for libdef files, but you may also provide the path of libdef files in the [libs] section. This is useful if you maintain a central repository of libdef files used by multiple projects.

Importing existing type definitions and creating your own if the target library doesn't provide its own type definitions is pretty simple. See:

Flow Documentation: Library Definitions

Flow Documentation: Creating Library Definitions

GitHub: Importing and Using Library Definitions

Lints

Flow has several lint rules you can control and determine how to treat them. You can configure the rules from the command line, in code comments, or in the [lints] section of your config file. I'll discuss linting in the next section, but here is how to configure it using the [lints] section:

[lints] all=warn untyped-type-import=error sketchy-null-bool=off

Options

The [options] section is where you get to tell Flow how to behave in a variety of cases that don't deserve their own section, so they are all grouped together.

There are too many options to list them all here. Some of the more interesting ones are:

all: set to true to check all files, not just those with @flow

emoji: set to true to add emojis to status messages

module.use_strict: set to true if you use a transpiler that adds "use strict;"

suppress_comment: a regex that defines a comment to suppress any flow errors on the following line (useful for in-progress code)

Check out all the options in the Flow guide to configuring options.

Version

Flow and its configuration file format evolve. The [version] section lets you specify which version of Flow the config file is designed for to avoid confusing errors.

If the version of Flow doesn't match the configured version, Flow will display an error message.

Here are a few ways to specify the supported versions:

[version] 0.22.0 [version] >=0.13.0 <0.14.0 [version] ^1.2.3

The caret version keeps the first non-zero component of the version fixed. So ^1.2.3 expands to the range >=1.2.3 < 2.0.0, and ^0.4.5 expands to the range >= 0.4.5 < 0.5.0.

Using Flow From the Command Line

Flow is a client-server program. A Flow server must be running, and the client connects to it (or starts it if it's not running). The Flow CLI has many commands and options that are useful for maintenance and introspection purposes as well as for temporarily overriding configuration from .flowconfig.

Typing flow --help shows all the commands and options. To get help on a specific command, type flow <command> --help. For example:

$ flow ast --help Usage: flow ast [OPTION]... [FILE] e.g. flow ast foo.js or flow ast < foo.js --from Specify client (for use by editor plugins) --help This list of options --pretty Pretty-print JSON output --tokens Include a list of syntax tokens in the output --type Type of input file (js or json)

Important commands are:

init: generate an empty .flowconfig file

check: do a full Flow check and print the results 

ls: display files visible to Flow

status (default): show current Flow errors from the Flow server

suggest: suggest types for the target file

Linting With Flow

Flow has a linting framework that can be configured via the .flowconfig file as you saw earlier, through command-line arguments, or in code files using flowlint comments. All configuration methods consist of a list of key-value pairs where the key is a rule and the value is the severity. 

Rules

There are currently three rules: all, untyped-type-import, and sketchy-null. The "All" rule is really the default handling for any errors that don't have a more specific rule. The "untyped-type-import" rule is invoked when you import a type from an untyped file. The "sketchy-null" rule is invoked when you do existence check on a value that can be false or null/undefined. There are more granular rules for:

sketchy-null-bool

sketchy-null-number

sketchy-null-string

sketchy-null-mixed

Severity Levels

There are also three severity levels: off, warning, and error. As you can imagine, "off" skips the type check, "warn" produces warnings, which don't cause the type check to exit and don't show up by default in the CLI output (you can see them with --include-warnings), and "error" is handled just like flow errors and causes the type check to exit and display an error message.

Linting With Command-Line Arguments

Use the --lints command-line argument to specify multiple lint rules. For example:

flow --lints "all=warn, untyped-type-import=error, sketchy-null-bool=off"

Linting With flowlint Comments

There are three types of comments: flowlint, flowlint-line, and flowlint-next-line.

The "flowlint" comment applies a set of rules in a block until overridden by a matching comment:

import type { // flowlint untyped-type-import:off Foo, Bar, Baz, // flowlint untyped-type-import:error } from './untyped.js';

If there is no matching comment, the settings simply apply until the end of the file.

The "flowlint-line" applies just to the current line:  

function (x: ?boolean) { if (x) { // flowlint-line sketchy-null-bool:off ... } else { ... } }

The "flowlint-next-line" applies to the line following the comment:

function (x: ?boolean) { // flowlint-next-line sketchy-null-bool:off if (x) { ... } else { ... } }

Conclusion

Large JavaScript projects developed by large teams can benefit a lot from static type checking. There are several solutions for introducing static type checking into a JavaScript codebase. 

JavaScript continues to grow in a variety of ways across the web. It’s not without its learning curves, and there are plenty of frameworks and libraries to keep you busy, as you can see. If you’re looking for additional resources to study or to use in your work, check out what we have available in the Envato marketplace.

Facebook's Flow is a recent and robust solution with excellent coverage, tooling, and documentation. Give it a try if you have a large JavaScript codebase.

by Gigi Sayfan via Envato Tuts+ Code http://ift.tt/2jl5jwU

[lovemychinchilla]

Why Do Chinchillas Wink?

Chinchilla behavior is difficult to understand unless you know what to expect. One thing you may have noticed is your chinchilla winking at you. But what meaning, if any, does that have?

Why do chinchillas wink? Winking can be a sign of a happy chinchilla. Chinchillas may wink as a kind of greeting which shows that everything is OK. But it can also indicate something wrong with one of your pet's eyes, e.g. inflammation and infection. Look for white goop or fluid around your pet's eye, and if you notice any, take it to the vet.

Chinchillas are fascinating in their own right, not because their behavior is like ours. To compare their behavior to ours and think it's the same is to misunderstand them (and do them a disservice!) So, to find out what winking means in chinchillas, read our guide below.

Why Is My Chinchilla Winking at Me?

The purpose of blinking is to keep the eye clean. The motion of the eyelid physically dislodges any dirt or hairs that touch the eye. And as the eyelid moves, it leaves behind a trace amount of fluid: tears. This further cleans the eye, and also stops it from drying out. Keeping the eye moist means it can move around more easily in its socket.

Many animals wink for the same reason. Animals can blink their eyes independently like we can. If they only have something in one of their eyes, they will wink rather than blink. This leaves one eye open so that the animal can see anything dangerous coming. But winking can also have meaning behind it.

"If my chinchilla winks at me, surely it's trying to tell me something?"

When a chinchilla winks, it doesn't have the same meaning as when a person winks. To think that your chinchilla is being cheeky or silly would be a mistake. This is something that pet owners commonly do called 'anthropomorphizing', which means thinking of the pet like a person. The owner assumes that the pet thinks like people do. This isn't dangerous, and it's lots of fun, but it does mean that you may not properly understand its behavior.

That doesn't mean that winking is necessarily meaningless. Chinchillas are social and are skilled at communicating both through noises and body language. As such, winking could be a way to communicate. And on top of all of that, winking could also be a sign that something is wrong with your chinchilla's eye or eyes. So which is it?

The guide below explores which side of this divide winking falls on!

1) Blinking vs Winking in Chinchillas

Chinchillas rarely blink. Only two or three blinks every 10 minutes is not unusual for these pets. It's thought that this gives wild chinchillas an advantage, as they can always see threats approaching. This behavioral adaptation will have been passed on to pet chinchillas.

Nevertheless, blinking serves the same purpose in chinchillas as it does in people. Blinking moistens the eyeball which keeps it working properly. There's a possibility that:

Your chinchilla only needed to moisten one of its eyes, so it kept the other open

Your chinchilla did blink both of its eyes, but you only saw it close one

What some owners report is that a chinchilla blinks one eye first, followed by the other. It does this in quick succession. So, you may have missed it blinking its other eye. If this is the case, there's nothing wrong with your pet: it's just blinking its eyes one by one.

Observe it for a while and see if it winks again. You'll likely see that your chinchilla is perfectly fine, getting on with its day, either eating or snoozing. But if it blinks too frequently or only blinks one of its eyes, it may have a problem like an eye infection (check Section 3 for more details).

2) Chinchilla Body Language and Communication

Chinchillas are communicative creatures. They make noises to show they're happy, frustrated, angry or scared. Their body language is another tool they use to communicate, e.g. when they stand up to threaten each other when fighting.

While chinchillas and their communication have been studied in depth, the specific behavior of winking hasn't. This means that we have to rely on the experience of owners, and what experienced owners think winking signifies.

Many books and online sources state that winking is a form of greeting. It's like greeting somebody with a smile: it shows that everybody is calm, and everything is okay. It's possible that this is a natural chinchilla behavior, or that some individual chinchillas have developed this behavior as pets. This would fit in with what we know about other pets, and it's certain that winking doesn't signify anything bad, at least.

However, it would be wrong to assume that a chinchilla does something because other animals do it. As such, this remains conjecture rather than fact.

3) Somebody Taught Your Chinchilla to Wink

Chinchillas are smart pets and can learn lots of new behaviors. One thing that a chinchilla can learn to do is wink.

You can teach a chinchilla to wink on purpose, but you can do it by accident as well. When your chinchilla winks at you, your first reaction is likely to wink back. If you do this enough times, your chinchilla will wink back when you wink first. Your chinchilla could also react to your blinking, which is why it winks when you don't expect it.

If your chinchilla was a rescue or was previously owned by a friend, this can still apply. The previous owner may have taught the chinchilla to wink and not told you. The winking may be triggered by something you don't expect.

4) Chinchilla Eye Health and Winking

Another possibility is that your chinchilla is sick. Many health conditions affect the eye, including conjunctivitis, cataracts, lens luxation and more. In many cases, these affect only one eye.

As in people, conditions like conjunctivitis cause irritation, swelling and infection. This can force your chinchilla to keep its eye closed, or shut its eye more frequently, while leaving the other one open. This could explain what you interpret as 'winking'.

As such, if you notice it winking frequently, you should check your pet's eyes. Look for:

Wet, matted fur around the eye

White goop coming from the eye

Redness and swelling in the eye

Your chinchilla pawing at its nose and eye frequently

Your chinchilla blinking far more frequently than two or three times in 10 minutes

If you spot these signs, your pet may have an eye infection and should be taken to the vet. You will need to administer saline drops or antibiotics to heal your chinchilla's eye. Infections can easily cause blindness or loss of the eyes in chinchillas, so take this problem seriously if you spot it.

5) Dust in Your Chinchilla's Eye

Alternatively, there could be something in your chinchilla's eye. The most common problem is bathing dust/sand. A particle or two can get in your chinchilla's eye and cause irritation. This is seen with finer dusts like Kaytee.*

When this happens, the symptoms are similar to those of general poor eye health. Your chinchilla's eye or eyes will water, and it may paw at its nose and eye. If you don't fix the problem, your chinchilla's eye could get infected (pink eye/conjunctivitis). A vet can wash its eye out and prescribe antibiotics if it is infected.

*Note: Kaytee brand chinchilla dust is of good quality, and using finer bathing dust than usual isn't necessarily a bad thing. The finer the dust, the better the cleaning action. However, this is one of its downsides.

Chinchilla Has One Eye Closed All the Time

If your chinchilla keeps one of its eyes closed much or all of the time, this is a different issue. It's almost certainly a health problem affecting the eye.

Chinchillas aren't supposed to keep one of their eyes closed. As all other animals do, they keep their eyes open to scan for hazards or predators, or to look for food. So, while the chinchilla's eyesight isn't as good as its senses of smell or hearing, it still should keep its eyes open unless it's sleeping or resting.

Perform the same health checks described above (looking for wet fur and white goop around the eye). This will tell you whether the eye is infected. Redness will tell you that the eye is either infected or has dust in it from bathing.

Whatever the issue, take your pet to the vet. They can properly diagnose what's wrong and treat it in the appropriate way.

Below, you can find our chinchilla quiz, new posts for further reading, and a signup for our Chinchilla Newsletter!

[ays_quiz id='9']

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#chinchillas #chinchillabehavior