#you could do such cool adaptations in this format and so few people take advantage of it

[fictionadventurer]

If I ever write a novel-in-verse, it's going to be at least 35% out of spite, because it is unacceptable that 85% of this genre is:

Books about TRAUMA!

Books about MENTAL ILLNESS!

Books about MY EXPERIENCE IN A WAR ZONE!

[demoiselledefortune]

You post and reblog a lot of MDZS, Heaven's Official Blessing and Scum Villain and they look interesting but also a little intimidating due to the length and large amounts of side material. Are they related in any way and is there a preferred reading order or does it not matter? If I like things like old-school CLAMP, Basara(manga), Akatsuki no Yona and BL would I like it? How interesting are the female characters or will I mostly just be enjoying it for the BL dynamics and plot?

The three of them, MDZS, Heaven’s Official Blessing and Scum Villain are completely separate work. You don’t need to read one to read the others, they just happen to be by the same author.

None of them actually have a lot of side material, it’s just different adaptations to different media.(some of the adaptations drop the canonical BL stuff because of Chinese censorship, especially the adaptations for TV).

Scum Villain is the shortest work, in novel form, but only accessible in novel format at this time (there’s an animated and a manhua version forthcoming but not out yet). It’s also the one with the worst translation. In tone it was the author’s first work and it shows, it’s got a few tone shift as the story progress and it feels more rough overall. It’s also the more comedy of the three, with a premise that’s a parody of power fantasy harem series (stallion novel) while still having some darker and dramatic aspects, especially as the story progresses. And if you like fanfics, it’s got the best fandom for them.

Mo Dao Zu Shi is the middle work. The novel has a good length but I don’t think it should be too intimidating. You can also get to the fandom via the donghua (two seasons of animated series, unfinished, about 30 episodes of 30 minutes each at this point in term of length), the manhua (i don’t think it’s finished but it’s very very close to the novel), the audio drama (also very close to the novel as adaptation, i think it might be finished? not sure), and of course the TV drama, the Untamed (which I haven’t seen, but is a nice number of episodes so probably would take some time to watch, and is a bit campy in look in the style of Chinese xianxia drama with no real budget). Mo Dao Zu Shi is a great story with good characters and should make a good starting point to see if you like that sort of works I think. It’s probably the darkest of the three, overall, but I wouldn’t call it altogether pessimistic even then. The writer is good at showing the humanity of all her characters which is one of the thing I like about her writing. The fandom is the biggest because all the adaptions have drawn in a lot of people, but it’s also the most wanky.You don’t have to check all the versions, just try the one that seems to appeal the most to your taste.

Heaven’s Official Blessing (or Tian Guan Ci Fu) is the last completed work of the writer and the longest. As a novel, it’s a genuinely long morsel! It’s also the most mature in term of theme and structural craft. I think it’s got a more optimistic tone… it’s still got some very dark and depressing moments; but the overall story is very much about striving to do good in the face of adversity, even in a complicated world where doing so is not easy and can drive you to despair. That’s one of the way in which I like to compare it to Revolutionary Girl Utena (it’s got a few similar motifs).

In term of adaptation, there’s a manhua that has only recently started for it (so is far from being complete) and a donghua forthcoming. They’re both going to be very pretty!! but if you want to check the work in full going with the novel is the best at this point lol

In term of whether you might like them; well, I do and I also love Akatsuki no Yona, CLAMP and Basara lol. I know the AkaYona fandom actually really plunged into MDZS the way fandom migration sometime happen (that’s kind of how I got to it too, even if once removed). I think in term of having a cool fantasy world with depth and breadth and epic drama and intrigue in it, Cnovel Xianxia cater well to that taste and I think it’s one of the reason I’ve been attracted to that genre. (I would say there’s a specific side pairing in MDZS that really reminds me of Seishirou and Subaru, too, since you mention CLAMP.)Unlike Basara and Akayona, they’re BL novels so they don’t have as many female characters and the female characters aren’t center piece, of course.

They *do* have female characters (so unlike most BL manga on that front), especially MDZS and TGCF, who have several meaningful female characters who are genuinely interesting and have depth and their own agency. They don’t necessarily *fare* well. At some point in MDZS you realize that every single female characters in the story except one of the most minor one *dies* at some point in the story. Most of them don’t even get to the present time (MDZS in structure alternates between present time and flashbacks to the past which take as must “screen time” as the present).

TGCF’s female characters aren’t necessarily better (in term of being better written, having more importance in the plot, having more agency) but they don’t end up quite as badly. Of my two favorite characters of TGCF, one is female, the other is genderqueer. That said the first story/part of TGCF is kind of bad on the female front, it takes a little while to get past that and to the cool ones. And I think in term of female characters who are given genuine depth, they’re actually fewer than in MDZS. But holy shit Ling Wen is

So if you want to check those works out mainly for female characters, I wouldn’t recommend them, but if you can get into it for the BL dynamics and plot, then you can also enjoy the female characters on the side. MXTX is really good at investing the full ensemble cast with interesting characterization and their own agency, and that includes female characters, which is one of the thing that makes it pop up as alive and intriguing for fanfic purpose.

I think as someone who enjoys Akayona and Basara, Cnovel xianxia in general could appeal to you, but the breadth of what you can try out is limited by what’s accessible in translation. MXTX has the advantage of being already very translated, something I wish we could say of, say, Priest’s work. If you want to look up some female centered het works, I think there’s also a lot of that on novel updates, including fully translated, which might be another entry point for you to xianxia.

Hope that was useful, anon!

[dgcatanisiri]

I said I’d hoped to get this out by the end of the month. FINALLY, the next installment of my series of Hypothetical DLCs. 

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway. 

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway. And, as I’m not bound by any hardware limitations in terms of crafting ideas, or production cycles dictating when the game’s endpoint is, these can and do go on a great deal longer than the standard lifespan of a game.

A review of the format: There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable, and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

Feedback is welcome! Like an idea? Don’t like an idea? I welcome conversation and interaction on these ideas. Keep it civil, remember that these are just one person’s ideas, we can discuss them. Perhaps you’ll even help inspire a part two for these write ups! Because I do reserve the right to come up with more ideas in the future - these are the ideas that I’ve had to this point, but the whole reason this series exists is because I come up with new ideas for old stories.

With the KOTOR games both dealt with, we move on to the next category of the BioWare franchises, Mass Effect. This one took a while, considering the much more open-ended aspect of choices within the Mass Effect universe. And ME2′s edition is going to take a good long while as well, considering... Well, I’ll explain that when I get there. 

Anyway. Given the way that Mass Effect carries decisions forward, there is an additional category for the ideas within these editions, where there’s a brief summary of the way they will impact future games - granted, most of these are ME2 letters and ME3 war assets, but it’s still worth making a note of.

Also, given the context of ME1′s rather open-ended structure, where there aren’t really any serious plot breaks or boundaries that prevent advancement too soon, aside from Virmire and Ilos not being unlocked until events in the plot, assume that, unless otherwise noted, these DLCs are all available at any point after Shepard is made a Spectre and given command of the Normandy, and, obviously, must be played before Ilos. 

To business!

First Contact

As a Spectre and Alliance officer, Commander Shepard is called in when an Alliance team goes missing after reporting they had made contact with a new alien species. The Normandy is assigned to recover the team and establish peaceful relations if at all possible – yet there is a mystery here, one that the natives are not happy to welcome meddling in...

So, yeah, the basic idea here is simply that, with the whole Reaper thing, we don’t really get to see much of the more basic ideas of space exploration – big plot trounces little ideas. And first contact is as basic a concept for a scifi series as you can get. In my book, that’s the advantage of DLC in this series, to go for the smaller scale stories.

So let’s go into detail. We’re going to need a character to act as the exposition fairy – I vote that, at least in the briefing, this is coming from Pressley, so we can offer him a little more characterization and involvement (let’s honestly consider “Pressley gives a briefing that offers him more characterization, involvement, and general utilization” a thing for all of these, since he really doesn’t get a lot of usage in ME1, which is probably why he’s not really replaced on the Normandy after this game, and take this opportunity to give his character some expansion so that his death can mean a little more when ME2’s prologue goes down). He’s giving the baseline facts about why the Normandy is going in and handling this situation.

Obviously, the First Contact team has gone out of contact, and the Normandy is tasked to discover what has happened to them and make the best of the situation they end up in. I’m not locking this to after recruiting Liara, but I do picture her, Kaidan, and Ashley getting some fair use in any and all of these (a few in particular – we’ll get there when we get there), both because of their role as love interests and because of their general attitudes and thematic roles – Liara’s the wide-eyed idealist (considering her romanticizing of the protheans – any culture that refers to themselves as an “empire” is not going to be a peaceful collection of philosophers and scientists), Ashley’s the reasoned cynic, and Kaidan is something of the balance between them – cautious optimism and ready for if/when things go to shit.

The arrival finds Shepard and company on our new world (location to be decided – given Citadel rules on activating dormant Relays, it’s probably best that this is a planet within an already existing cluster, and we probably ought to put it somewhere within the boundaries of Alliance space, what with them taking lead on this first contact). The locals seem welcoming and friendly, but there’s a clear air of uncertainty – are they a threat, where’s the Alliance contact team, why are they acting like they know something that Shepard and crew don’t?

I know, we’re running the risk of retreading the ground of Feros and the thorian here, but, one, honestly, I like Feros, so I’m okay with revisiting it as a concept at least, two, it’s not like BioWare doesn’t recycle their own plots all the time anyway, even granting that they usually don’t do it within the same game, and three, I see it ending in a different place, so we’re going with this.

Anyway, investigation, suspicion, blah, blah, blah... I swear, the fun would be in the investigation, the building mystery, so I’m skipping over the work for the sake of a summary. The end result is that of course the natives killed the team, but the reason is because this is a group of descendants of a prothean subject race. They’d engaged in a revolt, adapted/stolen a colony ship, and flew off into the black, and done this right around the time of the initial stages of the Reaper invasion of the prothean empire – the protheans had bigger fish to fry (or be fried by, depending on how you use the metaphor), and given how proud the protheans are, I can see them covering this up in the name of saving face, both of which allowed these people to escape the notice of the Reapers – systematic destruction or not, finding one lone ship in the depths of space isn’t “needle in a haystack,” it’s “needle in the midwest.” It’d have been one thing if they’d found a planet to establish themselves on right away, but they dove into the black without a clear destination – also use this to emphasize WHY most Council explorations tend to stick to familiar clusters with an established Mass Relay nearby, that space is vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big.

As a detail for this race, I’m gonna include one of my headcanons for the protheans, since, hey, my DLC idea – while the protheans developed their technology around the Mass Relays and such, as the Reapers intended, the tech of their own design, without the influence of external powers, would have more of an organic bent to it, that they were more inclined to “grow” their tech than build it. Like they accepted the Mass Effect as a foundation for their tech, the Citadel as a base, but they weren’t all that happy about it, just never quite getting their own designs really match the designs of “inusannon” technology in effectiveness. So in response, this species turned towards cybernetics (maybe they’re members of the zha’til, to connect them having this knowledge with the tidbits Javik offers in ME3? *shrug* I’ll use them as the name for this species for simplicity’s sake, because that’s less awkward than no name at all, but I’m not married to it being them), to not just give them an edge against the protheans when they came after them, but also to serve as a taunt towards them, a statement of “you fear technology, so we’re going to become the personification of your boogeymen.”

So the survival of these zha’til has been their hidden nature, and they have developed into a pure xenophobic society – no aliens are accepted among them, and, with the appearance of Shepard’s team, they are fully of the belief that there will be those who come after. They can recognize that the appearance of outsiders once means it will happen again. And they will be ready – Shepard’s crew is a boon for them, allowing them access to biologies of not just humans, but asari, turian, krogan, and quarian. They’d prepared for the damage the protheans could do upon finding their retreat, spent fifty thousand years becoming something the protheans would have to fear. Of course, Shepard’s gonna have to ruin it. I can see them trying the ‘we’ll erase the coordinates, put up a warning buoy, ensure no one comes here’ argument, but that’s not flying with these guys, since organic nature tends towards curiosity, and just blanking the system would leave a mystery, one that organics would want to solve, and a warning buoy can malfunction or be ignored – they want total isolation, and, even if the odds are like one in trillions, that’s too high for them, so they’d sooner be the only life in the galaxy.

I’m thinking the solution is in their reliance on their tech, having attained this symbiosis with it that they all are implanted – tech can be hacked, it can malfunction, it can be a vulnerability as much as an asset. Going way back to the start of the involvement of Kaidan, Liara, and Ashley, here’s them all getting to voice their solution, with Ashley going the straightforward route of “they’re a threat, they’ll keep being a threat, they don’t want to change and stop being a threat, I don’t want to commit genocide, but I also want to defend the Alliance, and those options look mutually exclusive right now,” Liara is all “think of what they could offer us, their history is invaluable, they were contemporaries of the protheans, what might they know, and even if we have the ability to wipe out an entire species, that’s an action that can never be undone,” and Kaidan is the middle ground of “the leaders and people we’ve spoken to made a threat, but we can’t call the entire population of this planet genocidal maniacs, surely there must be something we can do to find a reasonable solution.”

It basically comes down to Shepard getting to hack the tech, and then faced with the decision – a) wiping them out by way of effectively setting all their implants to electrify themselves – they’ve shown themselves to be a threat, they have violent intentions towards other life in the galaxy, and nothing indicates that there is any dissent among their population, especially if their implants can allow for like planetary consensus or something, b) shutting down the tech, their greatest threat, as a way to keep most of them alive, but reducing their civilization to like Bronze Age – the Citadel races would certainly be willing to help the zha’til recover, but it’s not like they’d be happy to accept it, or c) use this as the way to force them to come to the table and negotiate in good faith, under the threat of destruction as a result of them using this weapon, give them a chance, with the downside being that they have done nothing to indicate that they deserve this chance, or that the second they develop a workaround, they’ll be back to threatening all alien life.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter from the head of a Council-approved research team, investigating the planet, with or without inhabitants.

ME3: Assuming the zha’til survive, a representative is on the Citadel, offering their aid. If they were reduced, they are a significantly smaller War Asset.

Investigations

The Citadel’s Wards house people from across the galaxy, and murder is a common occurrence. When the murder victim is a prominent Alliance politician, however, one whose controversial opinions made him a target for non-humans, the Alliance can only trust one person to investigate on the Citadel – the first human Spectre, Commander Shepard. 

Honestly, the Citadel could absolutely support its own game. Just the pieces we get of it from the trilogy and the Citadel DLC tease a massive station that probably has a population higher than some planets. So there’s A LOT to do here (indeed, looking over my notes for this, I have at least one DLC focused entirely on events on the Citadel in each game, and all of them can utilize entirely new areas, so...). And, really, who doesn’t enjoy an old-fashioned ‘whodunnit’ murder mystery?

Obviously, we have more than just the basic mystery happening here, or else we’d just have a standard sidequest, not a full DLC length story. I feel like this needs to go in depth on corruption within Citadel politics – poke around my blog, you’ll find I’m HIGHLY critical of the Council’s handling of the Saren matter, where they appoint a C-Sec officer with a reputation for not playing by the rules as the only investigator of the Eden Prime incident, give him roughly a day to look in to things, (Shepard’s out about sixteen hours, according to Doctor Chakwas, they arrive at the Citadel, get summoned to the Council, and encounter Garrus, at which point the trial is about to start, with no indication that more than hours at most have passed) and then TELL him that his investigation is over, Saren is allowed access to the files of the man he is accused of killing, an eye witness report of Saren’s murder of Nihlus is completely dismissed, while the data file Tali extracts from a geth, which Anderson says upon hearing that he’s never heard of this happening (to say nothing of the quarians’ status among the Citadel races) is deemed “irrefutable evidence”... There’s A LOT that is at best questionable about how the Council handles things. And that’s just sticking with the first game.

So I’d like to pull back some of the veil on Citadel politics, and use that to explore the human-alien friction. Due to Shepard’s rising profile throughout the series, we kinda lose a lot of the big level details of this, and it’s one of those things I like about the Mass Effect universe circa the first game – humanity ISN’T the big kahuna, they’re the latest arrivals, and the rest of the galaxy thinks they’re a bunch of jerks trying to take what they haven’t earned.

Hence where we start – our victim is an Alliance politician, someone who’s got one of those jobs that makes them friends and enemies of the same people. Obviously, this means that there are a lot of people on the Citadel (and outside the Citadel) who would easily be picked up as suspects – again, we’re going an investigative route, to help show off Shepard as a tactician, to show off their brains as well as their brawn.

This is going to lead us first to explore more of the Citadel Tower, the place where the Council and other assorted political figures meet. Udina probably plays a part in things, considering he IS the ambassador at this point, so he’ll probably be talking to Shepard about matters along the way, something of our regular check-in point (plus good to offer him some more characterization and expand him somewhat).

Obviously, with a murder mystery, we investigate through the location, taking us through the Tower and into its deeper structure, to the point that Shepard ends up in the Tower’s basement (or whatever we call the lowest level). Down here, the discovery is that there’s (what else) a conspiracy. Humanity is moving too fast – they’ve only been here for about thirty years and they already have an embassy, are angling for a spot on the Council, how long until they replace all the races who were here first on the Council, make the Citadel humans only?

I feel like we could also get some retroactive elements of Cerberus’s human supremacy in play here, suggest that our victim was being manipulated by them and used to advance their agenda – not just to foreshadow how Cerberus gains prominence in the next game, but also to show that even well-intentioned people are preyed upon by Cerberus’s actions (hello Paragon Shepard). Cerberus didn’t mind using him for their objectives, even if he’s not some pro-human bigot.

Speaking of, let’s tie in Terra Firma a little more into this – they seemed to have some influence in the first game, then drop off the face of the earth, so yeah, let’s throw them in somehow. Like I see that as part of our concluding decision, where the replacement political figure is one of their people, so they seem like the “obvious suspect” red herring – I think by this point we’ve established with these that one of my priorities is worldbuilding, and, again, Terra Firma dropped off the face of the series when it seemed to have developing prominence in the first game.

Anyway, back to the plot. Obviously, Shepard has to do something about this conspiracy. The problem is, of course, while extreme, they represent a dominant view among the Citadel races. And it’s one that has validity to it, humans are demanding more power than any other race in the Citadel’s history (this cycle, anyway, who knows about the previous ones?), and to these races, they are seen as aggressive in that pursuit.

Here’s the thing, and I’ve gone over this in my critiques of the Council before – humans are aggressive about getting more representation because of a handful of things. Number one, humans are out to advance, we recognize that we learn best from making mistakes, while the Citadel races seem to abide by a code of “none shall advance faster than the slowest.” That no advancement is made until all are “capable” of benefiting from it in certain ways, despite how we have the example of multiple species not even being able to compete on a level playing field with races like the asari, the salarians, or the turians – the volus are a client race of the turians, despite having been a part of the galactic community longer. It’s why we see the relative stagnation – the asari discovered the Citadel two thousand years ago, and yet so much of it is still a mystery.

Number two, humans are aggressive because the Citadel races were aggressive to them first. The First Contact War started because Citadel law is that no one shall activate dormant Mass Relays. Thing is, humanity opened Relay-314 at a time that they’d never even heard of the Citadel and its government. So the turians who opened fire first? They were holding humanity to the standards and rules and laws of a governmental body that they didn’t even know existed until the shooting started.

That the turians enforce this law so rigidly, and that the asari and salarians don’t seem to understand how much the asshole it makes them, is the honest source of a lot of the tension between the races in the game.

Like, I vehemently disagree with the racist attitudes of the Terra Firma asshole we meet, but he’s not wrong in pointing out that if you see a kid playing with a matchbook, you take the matches away, but you don’t shoot them for good measure. The turians started the conflict, and you can tell that the Citadel races never acknowledge their responsibility in this – it’s all “humans are so aggressive” without any understanding of why a species whose introduction to the greater galaxy came at a cost of life and involved acts of violence inflicted on them, literally on the basis of information that by definition, they could not have, just MIGHT hold a grudge.

...So, uh, bringing this back around to the topic at hand... This is where we get to the central conflict. Our Terra Firma assholes who are all “Earth first!” have a valid point that the Council and the Citadel races mistreat humanity, and wrap it up in condescending bullshit, so the fact that they’re looking to take some kind of action to do something about this is understandable, even if they’re doing it wrong. The opposition is the conspiracy folks, the ones who murdered the outspoken human, all in the name of protecting their people from perceived human aggression.

And yes, it really does all come down to something that simple, as both sides are right and both sides are wrong, and now someone has to clean up the mess their hostilities have created. I do want this to really come down to something so simple and, on paper, easy to resolve, because when this kind of thing happens in our world, it’s frequently just as on paper simple, but, because of the emotions involved and the personal grudges accumulated, no one is able to take that step back and try to make amends (not saying that as a value judgement, just a fact – sometimes it is appropriate to address the personal grudges, sometimes you need let them go for the greater good).

There’s an interconnectedness to the Citadel races in the course of the series, and this is one of the ways to showcase that, by displaying that both of these peoples need each other in the course of the continuation of this cycle’s civilizations. So Shepard’s ultimate decision is about making a decision, and the hard work is in making them both recognize and acknowledge that they are both wrong – pulling this off right, meaning Shepard found all the ways to make good in-roads with both factions so they’ll listen when they make a big persuasive speech, we have the legitimate grievances acknowledged and at least on course to be redressed (one of the galactic news reports can, if the Alliance fleet is sacrificed to save the Destiny Ascension, say that the turians are considering reparations – maybe with this option, this happens regardless). Pulling it off wrong, Shepard has to side with one faction or the other, leaving tension and hostility remaining unresolved, impacting future relations.

Post Game Followups: 

ME2: Emails from the sided faction, talking about their political advancement.

ME3: Impact on Citadel politics, affecting the attitude of the populace in the Citadel Defense Force

Old Wounds

Shanxi was the site of the First Contact War. Since then, the human colonists have resisted alien interference and involvement on their world. But things become complicated when a turian effort at reparations ends up as a hostage situation. Naturally, the Alliance has one person they want to send in to help smooth things over – Commander Shepard.

An Ashley focus mission, we’re giving her the spotlight here – consider this something of a proto-loyalty mission, since the game itself didn’t have these. Because Shanxi is a place that means a lot to her and her family, so we’re going to say that she is on this mission. That obviously also limits this to a pre-Virmire position in the plot, because she may not make it off of that planet.

Shanxi is talked about, but it’s never even given a flyby in the games proper, and so we head there. And, especially with the context of the last entry in this list, I feel like there should be some effort to acknowledge that there should be reparations to humanity – like I said there, the turians discovered humans on Shanxi and decided to openly attack them, hold them to laws and rules that they had no way of knowing existed, and then decide that humans are the aggressive ones because of how they respond? Yeah, that’s bullshit.

So we have a situation where a group of turians have this realization and are trying to convince the people of Shanxi of their good intentions. Shanxi is, understandably, reluctant to believe it. Shepard is going in to smooth things over, try and ease the tensions that are inevitably flaring up, and Ashley is, ultimately, conflicted about how to feel about this whole matter – this is Shanxi, Williams are not exactly welcome here. But there is still a feeling of responsibility here all the same, because her family impacted this world and now she’s here to help try to build a bridge. The “hostage situation” of the synopsis will actually take place during the course of events – before that happens, we get a chance to explore Shanxi, learn about the history there.

This seems like a point to bring it up: Ashley’s grandfather surrendering Shanxi, in the name of preventing a massacre, and being branded a traitor for it makes little sense to me. Of course, I get that surrendering looks bad, if you’re only looking at the act, and not the motivation. People were losing their lives, he acted to protect them. The Alliance military being unforgiving assholes is not unbelievable, but the general public going along with it, refusing to have his name cleared, even decades later, is.

So we’re going to have to dig into the reasons for this. People on Shanxi will resent the Williams for the surrender – they wanted to fight to the bitter end, and they passed this along to their kids. The “death before dishonor” crowd think it would have been better to have fought to the last – sent a stronger message to the Citadel about the wrongness of that whole “shoot first, ask questions later, blame the victim for everything” approach. They’re the ones who lead the charge against Williams’ actions, saying he was weak for surrendering to the turians. Meanwhile others are aware that he saved lives.

If anything, this makes things difficult for Ashley. As much as she lives under the specter of her family, she is not quite sure about what life would be like if he’s cleared – even knowing that things would be better, her family not getting shit details and crap assignments, it means getting a new perspective on the future that she never expected and needs to process that.

Core plot is still the hostage situation, one that Shepard ends up being involved in. The hostage takers are a group demanding more for the turians in terms of reparations – they can’t bring back the dead, of course, but the turians aren’t giving enough in their eyes. I don’t know, let’s say that it’s coming across as a perfunctory kind of apology, the “We’re sorry you feel we disrespected you” kind of reaction, which... Yeah, I totally see the turians doing that and the humans calling bullshit.

I mean, yeah, you want more to it than just “we’re angry” and such, because that’s a pretty straightforward mission, but the idea here is as much for exploring Ashley’s character and development over just an outright mission story. This is about her, and we’re going to explore her through this as much as the plot, so the plot can get away with being fairly limited in scope or scale, because this is about the character.

And this means that Ashley needs to have the big moment of resolving the crisis, rather than Shepard. Like, RPG, we’ll say Shepard gets the option to decide who gets that moment, but let’s be real, to culminate her arc in this DLC, it should be her. Bookend the portrayal of her grandfather with her – depending on how Shepard’s interacted with her, with how much digging they did into the history of the place, how they’ve interacted with the people, and it leads to Ashley (or Shepard) being able to talk down the hostage takers, defuse the situation, resolve things peacefully. If they can’t, violence ensues.

Resolution-wise, we’d be looking at the turians being upset and nearly starting conflict all over again because “you humans are too damn aggressive,” “the turians aren’t negotiating in good faith and wish they’d blasted humanity back to the stone age,” blah blah blah. Variation is in how the situation was resolved – peaceful resolution leads to the agreement to try this again later, let hostilities die down a little before trying to fix these long-standing grudges, violent is that the turians walk away, the human diplomats basically going “well, we’ll try this again at some point, hopefully.” And, for Ashley, she’s resolved some of her family’s old ghosts – best case scenario, she’s given Shanxi a different memory of the Williams clan, and can walk away with a tangible note on her record that, regardless of how anyone else might try to creatively reinterpret her record, says that her contribution saved lives.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from diplomatic representative about the advancement of the talks over the previous two years.

ME3: If peacefully resolved, a joint human-turian task force is a war asset.

Ascension

The Ascension Project is a home for human biotics. Rumors reach Captain Anderson that there is a biotic extremist group attempting to subvert the teaching and draw them towards pro-human interests, and he asks Commander Shepard to investigate what could be a threat to the human-Citadel alliance.

We had Ashley’s loyalty mission, here’s Kaidan’s. The advancement of human biotics was a running thread through the background of ME1, but sort of fell by the wayside as the series expanded its scope in successive games, so this is a chance to explore that further. And we’re going to do so in part by building on the mission in game that involves Chairman Burns, the Alliance Parliament member who is taken captive by L2 biotics seeking reparations.

Obviously, we see Grissom Academy, the site of the Ascension Project, in ME3, but hey, for one, I like the idea that (retroactively, anyway) this means that Shepard is returning there in the course of the third game, and for two, it’s entirely reasonable to make the Academy large enough to house areas that we just didn’t see in the course of the mission there. Plus we’re seeing it (at least to start) in less of a state of chaos as exists in ME3.

Again, we’re starting lowkey. The idea here is more infiltration first – if extremists are trying to coopt kids’ education, odds are sending in soldiers is gonna tip them off quick and easy. So instead this is going to be framed as an “Alliance biotic recruitment” kind of thing – “The Alliance wants you!” and all that sort. That’s the cover as Shepard’s team heads in. The name of the game here is stealth, that we’re not here to set off alarms, just to ensure that there’s no attempt at subversion of the Alliance’s goals of peaceful coexistence with the Citadel races.

As a sidenote, both this and the Ashley DLC are basically me engaging in retroactively applied stories to further justify why it is that Kaidan and Ashley get the Spectre wings come ME3 – as it is, that kinda feels more like a bone being thrown to humanity in the name of appeasing them with Earth captured by the Reapers, as well as Udina wanting a loyal bodyguard, as opposed to something that their skill and ability has earned them the position. I want some exploration of the skill that justifies them getting that position.

So, yeah, we see the Ascension Project in its glory, causing a bit of a stir of memories for Kaidan, aware that this is more like what he should have experienced at BAaT. He’s glad that there are biotics who are getting to learn about their abilities in a safe environment that isn’t going to treat them like trash – whether or not that’s the military boot camp way, these are kids who have been, by a quirk of fate and chance, given these incredible powers without their consent, they deserve sympathy and understanding regarding their lives abruptly turned upside down, not demands that they show the same level of skill as people who train through their lives to be weapons.

Another investigation story, as we look in on the various teachers, learning more about what the state of affairs with regards to biotics are – if Mass Effect Andromeda is going to say that Cora felt outcasted and isolated because of her biotics, lets at least make this have a tangible feeling of what the actual culture and society she left behind is dealing with, considering that this is something that I’ve seen EVERYONE side-eying at best with her. At least offer it some grounding in the universe so it’s not just her, in effect, whining that she felt alone when we have characters like Kaidan, who killed someone with his biotics as a teenager, and Jack, who was tortured from infancy in an attempt to build a better biotic.

Anyway. The idea is to see more about what the biotics go through, and to better explain what biotics even are to the uninitiated (re: the audience). Biotics are just an accepted part of the universe in the games as is, but these are still a relatively recent thing for humanity, and we don’t really know how people are handling it.

Honestly, I’m kinda inclined to fully lean into a “biotics = homosexuality” metaphor. Like, personal stuff here, that’s one of the things that really... bothers me about the way Cora is handled in Andromeda, that she has this very queercoded story in terms of her self-acceptance, to the point of at one point, in reference to her biotics, saying “what if someone had told me ‘that’s okay’?” about herself. And that’s a line that defines queer narratives, but it is coming out of this cis-straight person’s mouth. So yeah, I’m gonna fix that how I can, since canonically, Kaidan is a bisexual man, and he gets the focus here, and we’re gonna take advantage of this. I may have issues with how BioWare handles their not-straight characters, but since they’re not actually making this, I’m gonna take full advantage.

Oh, right. Plot. Something, something... We get to the overall plot. Of course, we can sway a few people over – these biotic extremists are looking for belonging and acceptance above all. We see things like Major Kyle’s biotic cult, biotics are looking for something that gives them a place, beyond just the military stuff – what happens to the biotic who is a pacifist, where do they fit in when the only place that really seems to accept biotics is the Alliance military? Yeah, sure, these extremists would be testing the idea of “pacifism,” but it’s still the general concept we’re going with.

Like with the above Ashley story, it comes down to Kaidan getting the option to take the lead on this. You know how in the situation in the base game with Chairman Burns, Kaidan will interject about being an L2, like those extremists? Last time I played through, I kinda felt like he should have been more in the lead on that mission, that it should have been his answer to Garrus and Doctor Saleon, or Wrex and the family armor, something like that. So we’re going to have a similar situation here. Like with Ashley above, his ability to talk down the leader of this group depends on how well the player investigated – find the details, talk to the right people, that sort of detective stuff (because I like there being more to gaining experience in games that just combat).

That’s especially meaningful because this particular pro-human person, the one leading these biotic extremists? He worked at BAaT, was one of the people supposedly tasked with watching the situations with the turian biotics who had been brought on. He knew Kaidan. Kaidan knew him. In some ways, because of what happened with Kaidan, that’s why he was inspired to this – letting aliens teach biotics to these children, dictate those terms, WAS abuse, and, in his mind, humans can’t let their children be so violently abused by aliens again.

Kaidan says he dealt with his past in the game proper. But this is still an echo of it, someone who he once knew, worse, someone who cites what happened to him as reason for what he’s doing. Which is why it’s important for Kaidan that he be the one to resolve this. As ever, it can be resolved with words or violence, yay Paragon/Renegade system. For Kaidan, though, it’s just important to see this through and make sure that he has this dealt with.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from a class of biotics saved.

ME3: Student saved during the Grissom Academy mission is among the students encountered here, their presence gives a boost to the biotic students war asset

Ruins of Preita

An asari colony world has discovered a prothean archive that could rival those on Mars. Due to the concerns of the Reapers, Commander Shepard and crew go to investigate – and find an empty world, the archaeology team missing. Finding the missing team leads into a world lost to the galaxy for over fifty thousand years – and a threat even the protheans locked away!

So, now we have a Liara loyalty mission story. If you’ve paid any serious attention to my blog over the years, you’re probably having a laugh at my expense here – I’m always complaining about an overfocus on Liara, and yet here I am, adding to her content specifically. Hey, I’m at least playing fair and giving her time alongside Ashley and Kaidan. Hell, that’s why I’m doing this. I gave them time in the sun, and it’s fair that I give her the same.

But yes, I want to explore Liara’s character through the lens of her as an archaeologist, which basically gets a little lip service in the games proper, but ultimately means nothing. She is supposed to be an expert on the protheans and an archaeologist of renown, and yet that gets dumped as her actual profession in ME2, so that she can “be a very good information broker,” which... Not to dismiss her in what is meant to be a focus mission for her, but that ends up being told, rather than shown. Let’s let her play to her strengths.

This is a mission about her getting to flex that muscle. She learns about this archive – actually, thinking about it, let’s say that this was a dig that she had the chance to go on instead of the Therum dig, and chose it instead in the name of it being more isolated (more on that later). With the latest report she’s read about it, she thinks it’ll be an assist to Commander Shepard – if nothing else, the fact that Saren was interested in Eden Prime’s prothean beacon means that a new prothean archive might well be a lure for him, and he might well show up, or have Benezia or one of her agents go there in his stead. It could lead them to Saren, is what she’s using as her justification for telling Shepard to go and check this out.

Obviously it won’t, because game mechanics, but it’s a solid enough reason to get us where we’re going, which is an asari planet. Here’s where we get a chance to see Liara in her element AND see this pushback against her theories. It bugs the hell out of me that Liara says that her theory of the cycle of extinction is dismissed by other asari because of her youth – by framing that dismissal of her peers with having to do purely with her age, it says that in the two thousand years since the asari discovered the Citadel, to say nothing of anything that might have been included in the prothean archive in the Temple of Athame, NO ONE ELSE has put forward the idea of the cycles. That Liara is the first to put those pieces together. In more than two thousand years. And, as things turn out, she is 100% correct about there being a constant cycle of civilization and extinction.

My suspension of disbelief breaks at that. That she and she alone has developed this theory – this theory that is absolutely fact – in two thousand years. Bare minimum, I would have said that she was part of a fringe collection of scientists who just don’t have the evidential support to justify this being the mainstream view. But it’s the canon we have to work with, so, fine. But this disagreement when it comes to theories on the extinction of the protheans would be another point of why Liara didn’t go on this excursion, that these other researchers are those who do not share her beliefs, and, as she believes, that would mean they would shun her.

But it’s important that these researchers not just be strawmen – they may have held opposing views to Liara, that doesn’t mean they would dislike her. In point of fact, one of them has to have considered herself a friend to Liara, for reasons I’ll get in to in a bit. But these are going to be people who are all for the most part entirely likeable and reasonable. They just don’t agree with Liara’s stance.

Or at least, the records and logs they’ve left behind make them entirely likable and appear reasonable. Because, of course the research team is missing when Shepard and team arrive – like research teams in these scenarios are ever able to avoid going missing and being presumed dead.

This sparks a conflict with Liara – she’s glad that they’re able to try and find them, maybe even rescue them, but she’s also guilty because she should have been on this expedition, should have been with them. Liara’s got a tendency to put things on her own shoulders (see her reaction after Thessia, assuming you don’t have Javik/don’t take the interrupt to get them to an accord). Hell, ideally, this would be something done after Noveria and her mother’s death to explore that some – I hate how by the time you try to speak with her about it, she’s already pulling that “I choose to remember Benezia as she was” thing, seeming to either be accepting or repressing what happened, when what happened is that, regardless of the why, her mother is dead, and Shepard pulled the trigger.

So yeah, while this is a mission available at any point after doing Therum, in my mind, it’s best to take this after Noveria for the ability for Liara to lash out at Shepard for not being able to rescue her mother, how do they think that they can save these people, one among them a friend of hers, look at that, it’s another situation where Shepard is going to fail to rescue someone who mattered to her!

That is her breaking point, where she can’t bottle this all up anymore. That, for the sake of the mission, for “the greater good,” she’s bottled up her feelings and anger and resentment and fear, and yet, here and now, she can’t help it, she has to address it. She knows it’s unfair to Shepard – she heard about indoctrination, understands that it was something horrible for Benezia, that Benezia accepted no alternative to death, but people she cares about keep getting caught in the line of fire, all in the name of what, exactly? “The greater good”? “The ends justifying the means”? Chance and circumstance?

Hell, include some elements tying her closer to Ashley and Kaidan at this point – it connects the crew together more for when the Virmire decision hits, considering that this game only has banter in the Citadel elevators, which, given fast travel, is heavily skippable, and competes with news reports. There needs to be more development of the character interactions, so let’s do some character interaction here, if nothing else. (And maybe also include a post-Virmire conversation with her about how SHE feels about the loss of Ashley/Kaidan, yes I’m moving out of the scope of this DLC idea, but it’s good for characterization, dammit!)

Investigation happens, records and logs do the ‘ominous mood building’ thing... The end result is that what happened was that this planet once housed a prothean lab. A bio-engineering lab. They were creating something that (stated ambiguously, since Shepard won’t know about the Reapers properly yet at this point in the timeline) was meant to fight the Reapers, be something that could stand against them and protect the protheans. But by the time that it was done, the war was all but over, the protheans having lost. The protheans never got the chance to let it loose, pulling up stakes from the facility before the Reapers hit it. But as time wore away the tech, this thing they created has gotten loose on its own after a few thousand years. This thing is like the rachni on Noveria, having been grown in isolation – there was nothing else on this planet, it was literally the only kind of life around, even before getting to it being engineered as a weapon above all else. It’s too mad to save, must be put down.

Easier said than done, of course. The archaeological team are contained inside of it (I’m thinking held in some kind of crystal-like stasis pods on its back), and is drawing on them for life, sort of in the same way that Malak used the Jedi captives on the Star Forge in KOTOR, where it taps into them and heals itself based on their life force. So the Paragon/Renegade choice in here revolves around how much effort Shepard’s going to put in to saving the captives. Freeing them before they get used as batteries, probably with Liara using her biotics to rescue those who they manage to get loose (meaning she’s unable to act as support in combat because she’s busy focusing her biotics), or just killing them first – with Liara distracted and unable to provide support, that justifies the Renegade stance, because it’s one less source of firepower against the thing as it tries to either kill them or add them to its collection.

That’s important because that aforementioned friend of hers is going to be rescued either way the player chooses – Liara will insist on getting her out alive, even if Shepard foregoes saving the others. Regardless of the player choice, Liara’s friend survives, and, once the creature is dead, she’ll respond to how Shepard chose to resolve the situation, if she’s the sole survivor or if Shepard made an effort to rescue everyone. She’s grateful for her survival either way, but she’s angry about the failure to save the others if they were abandoned.

For Liara, though, the ultimate result is seeing something of the protheans being knocked off their pedestal – regardless of the reason (which, yes, we know to be extinction by Reapers), they abandoned this creature, left it to be consumed by madness. The point here is seeing Liara have a moment where she grows up – she has to acknowledge the protheans she pictured for the last century were flawed (Partially because it bothers me the way she speaks of the protheans with such rose-colored glasses even by ME3, when she says “it’s clear they prized knowledge, growth, and cooperation with the rest of the galaxy,” even before Javik sends that image crashing – a species who form an empire, whose legacy is memorialized as an empire, is not going to be first and foremost wise scholars). She’s realizing that whatever the reasons were for creating this, whatever caused them to leave it behind, they still did this to an innocent being that they were responsible for. It’s something of her “loss of innocence” moment, considering that Benezia’s death currently doesn’t really provide that (though, again, we ARE also addressing that... Details.)

Her friend is also going to get a few moments with Liara, talking about the archaeology team, and commenting about how Liara’s development has gone. This is a moment for Liara, to really help give her a character arc in the game proper – considering that she can be left on Therum until right before Ilos, she kinda doesn’t have much of one as it is. Also, this gives a chance for Liara to exist outside of Shepard’s world, considering how she bubbles herself into it as the trilogy progresses. This is someone who’s only really in Liara’s orbit, not Shepard’s, and it gives her a little more grounding and existence outside of Shepard.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter from Liara’s friend, commenting about how she handled Shepard’s death, expressing concern for her losing direction

ME3: The creature’s remains have been examined, providing a War Asset, if the archaeologists were saved, they provide an additional boost, Liara’s friend has a cameo on the Citadel after Thessia

Incursion

An Alliance space station on the fringe of the Terminus system abruptly goes silent. As the Normandy’s stealth systems can get there without letting any invaders know, as well as Commander Shepard’s skill, Captain Anderson sends them to check on the station. The batarians specifically have been known to be in the area, but there remains the possibility that this is something worse...

Okay, out of the loyalty mission structure and direct character work, back to isolated stories in the setting. So, the frontier of space? I say this as a lover of scifi from a young age: It is TERRIFYING. You are on the edge of all that’s known, and any number of things, things you could never conceive of because they are so outside of your frame of reference, could show up and kill you. A flimsy barrier of glass (or transparent aluminum or whatever material they make those big honking windows out of) is all that separates you from a suffocating death.

Yeah, we’re doing a psychological horror story here. I suppose technically AGAIN, considering the stuff around the disappeared archaeologists in the above DLC idea, but that was as much about Liara as the atmosphere. This is pure paranoia and suspicion.

The inspiration I’m going with here is KOTOR 2’s opening on the Peragus mine. Something happened here, and the people are all dead or missing – a handful of corpses, but, yet again, we’ve got logs to find, and they’ll include people who we can’t identify among the dead. Because that gives motivation to stick around and solve things, rather than just blow the place to hell.

The first guess is that there’s a batarian slave raid happening here. There are indications that the Alliance officers here were thinking this at first, that this was some raid in progress – sure, it wasn’t open violence, but maybe they were softening things up, trying to get on board, lower defenses, and then let the slave ships show up and take everyone left. That’s what their last attempt at an outgoing message suggested, it’s what Shepard and company show up expecting.

But that wasn’t the case. The investigation continues through the station, with Shepard searching for signs of anyone still alive. And as they proceed through the station, there’s something that seems to keep just passing out of view. Something else is here with them.

Again, I’m skimping on the exposition here, just because the investigation is the important part, and that’s hard to develop without a layout of the station itself in front of me, and what and how the narrative has to adapt to the environment, but also because this is a very atmospheric style story, where the focus is in the build up, the mystery, the way to get to the big reveal of just what it is that happened here. In a story like this, the tension in this is built with how many times you think you’re going to have an encounter with “the monster” before you actually do.

This particular “monster,” as it turns out, is some kind of energy creature, something that came to the station from the unknown depths of space, drawn by the station’s power core emissions. All indications are that this is simply some space-born lifeform that evolved naturally, and isn’t like some Reaper weapon or anti-Reaper weapon. Just some non-sapient lifeform, drawn in by the power core (maybe it had been specially modified, to further explain why this station and why now), and ending up killing the inhabitants of it.

The thing about this is that I’m going to emphasize here is that I DON’T want this as some kind of creation of the Reapers or their servants OR something that was cooked up to combat them. This thing is entirely independent of anything to do with Reapers. One of the things that I appreciated with ME1 over the later games was the “lived in” nature of the galaxy, where there were a handful of things shown and revealed in the course of the story that just spoke to there being life and civilization wandering through the galaxy for countless millennia. Life is pretty persistent when given the chance, and there’s surely life that exists in the depths of space that is so completely alien to our understanding that we might not even recognize it as such. This creature is one such example of life but not as we know it.

Obviously, there’s a straight up Paragon/Renegade choice of killing or sparing the creature, finding some way to lure it off and away from the station. I’m also inclined for a neutral option of trying to humanely capture it – it’s a creature unlike anything they know, it could show them so many things about the greater universe in the examination – but I’m not sure I feel like there’s enough room in the series for that kind of variation, given the limitations – this IS meant to be DLC, you know? Or at least, hypothetical DLC. Either way, though, the end result is that there is a boss battle, Shepard having to either kill it or weaken it, the station is cleared of the threat and the Alliance gets to have the station back, with talk of it being repurposed into some kind of early warning system regarding threats from outside Alliance/Citadel space (hint hint, nudge nudge).

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Emails from the new station commander, referring to the reopening of the station and the fate of the creature

ME3: Station as a war asset, exo-biologists as a war asset, how they examine space-faring life in the galaxy and if they can be adapted in some way to resist the Reapers

Evolution

A mercenary contacts the Normandy, claiming to have information regarding Saren. Following this lead, however, proves to open a separate can of worms, as the mercenary reveals their connections to a cult of people who view synthetics as the next step in organic evolution, and, knowing of Saren’s ties to the geth, seek to stop Shepard – or convert them.

So the idea here is to give more attention to something that seemed to be a running plot thread during ME1 and ME2 – machine cultists. The ExoGeni survey team on Trebin got huskified by an unknown artifact, and in ME2, there’s the mine on Aequitas. Yes, technically that hasn’t happened yet, shush. But we observe this in action in the games proper, and no one ever actually acknowledges it beyond the simple immediate reaction.

So what we have here is a merc, trying to contact Shepard, claiming they have info on Saren. No one really believes it – if Saren’s working with geth, he would have no need for the liability of organic agents. Yet they also can’t really ignore the idea either because Saren is why they’re out here (I really intend to take advantage of the idea that the whole party cast comes back for these with a full on mission briefing/discussion to kick this off – sounds like some fun opportunities for character dynamics with them debating the validity of this claim).

The result of going in takes Shepard and team to a planet where, initial impression, something is OFF about this place. It’s a prefab colony in early colonization, and something about how the people act just doesn’t seem right. They seem to be in an almost trance-like state that no one can snap them out of, a fact that immediately puts everyone on edge.

The merc is here (let’s say he’s a turian), and keeps things frustratingly vague until the arrival of a leader of the colony. The kicker with him being that he appears partially huskified (sorta like the Cerberus goon on Mars that Ashley/Kaidan find). Yet he still seems to be able to act seemingly independently. Of course, someone this obviously not-right has made himself a target, but all the people in the colony, including the merc, are all on his side.

Shepard can try to fight out of this, but they’re overwhelmed – there IS an entire colony of people, and there’s still the possibility of getting them free, Shepard has a responsibility to not shoot civilians (no matter what trigger-happy Renegades might think), and the team at least is willing to take that stand.

The explanation is that this is a group of wanna-call-themselves “next phase of organic evolution,” people who believe that they are the future. That’s what got their attention about Saren and Shepard, knowing about how he is working with the geth (it was an open session of the Council when they got made Spectre, after all). They look to Shepard as a potential threat.

When we encounter Machine Cultists in the game proper, they’re too far gone to really give any explanation. The comics seemed to draw on this – in Mass Effect Evolution, Saren’s brother uncovered one on Palaven, the Illusive Man was involved, Saren had to nuke from orbit the location of this device and his brother with it. We’re kinda going into the same territory with this, but, you know, Shepard gets to save the day.

So the merc shows up, trying to explain, offer the sales pitch (i.e.: the carrot), try to convince Shepard that their leader has the right idea, that this is a true joining of organic and synthetic, and that it will avert the “coming apocalypse” (just in case the whole ‘Reaper artifact’ element wasn’t certain for anyone playing). Then the cult leader shows up to offer the threat (i.e.: the stick), the warning that whatever Shepard expects to do, they will not be able to succeed.

For pacing reasons, I think of this as a pre-Virmire thing, so there’s not a direct awareness on Shepard’s part that just being around a Reaper artifact is a cause for Indoctrination, leading to a period of wondering how this happened and assuming it comes from direct interface – this is as much an explanation for why, if the implication is that the cult leader got to interface with a prothean beacon of some kind (actually Reaper, in the same manner as the vision that Object Rho offers in Arrival), they don’t have Shepard try to interact with this one, that they’re afraid of Shepard becoming like these people.

Anyway, jailbreak sequence! Because we can do better than just running a game of Simon in order to get Shepard out of their cell. Shepard finagles a way out of the cell block and to the colony’s science lab (it’s a frontier world, they need a science lab just to stay aware of all the new things they discover here). Among the things there is the record of what happened here, and specifically the existence of the artifact. Leads to a simple solution – blow up the artifact, and see what that does.

Of course, the artifact is guarded in the heart of the colony’s main site. We meet up with the merc again, who’s seeming a little uncomfortable – the indoctrination hasn’t completely taken root in him, and so there’s some question of maybe he can be reached. Paragon/Renegade here about dealing with him – kill him or spare him. That sparing will come back in a short while

Because now there’s the colony leader – the cult leader, effectively, at this point – to deal with. He’s angry about the damage Shepard has done to everything, ranting about plans to bring the glory of evolution to the galaxy. Yeah, he’s round the bend, the device effectively having melted his mind (okay, yeah, I’m getting flashes of Kenson here, but hey, same tech, so it’s not ripping off, it’s continuity!)

After dealing with him, the plan is to blow the artifact sky high. Here’s where the merc comes back into play – he says he’s too far gone, and wants to be the one to push the button on this thing, die with it. It’s his way of having a good death after this. Another Paragon/Renegade choice about his fate before blowing the thing sky high – the colony, unfortunately can’t be saved, anyone not killed getting there dies when the device is blown.

There’s an after action briefing, too, where, because, again, the idea here is that this is pre-Virmire, the crew really discuss the horrors of what “these Reaper machines” can do, and what if they’re not some geth red herring or something.

Basically, my idea here is that this is adding to the atmosphere and mystique of the Reapers, in a way that, with the game proper focused on the concept of advancing the plot, doesn’t get a chance. This is a more traditional feature of building up the menace, by showing the insidious nature of things, having the Reapers’ subtle side at play – we see references of Indoctrination, but we don’t really get the horrors outside of some talk – sure, there are the salarians who are in the Virmire facility, and Benezia’s talk, but it’s all second hand. This is a case where we see the effects spread across the entire colony, which, given resources in the game, is all of a planet we get to encounter, and Shepard and company are the only ones who aren’t, and that can go to the paranoia, where the people surrounding them all are giving off the vibes of being a threat, but they’re not doing anything. What can I say, I am a sucker for a good atmospheric story.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email about the aftermath of the colony’s destruction, and the research done on the corpses on the effects of Indoctrination

ME3: War asset surrounding Indoctrination research, preliminary anti-Indoctrination tech being introduced around the Catalyst facility, if the merc sacrificed himself, his family offers a boost to turian military morale on the basis of how one of their own resisted (pointedly ignoring Saren)

Relativity

The Mass Relays are the ancient devices that allow faster than light travel throughout the galaxy. The Charon Relay specifically was one that opened the way for humanity to join the races of the Citadel. This only makes a sudden distress call from the Relay all the more urgent, and Admiral Hackett believe that of everyone in the Alliance, Commander Shepard is right for the job.

So the Mass Relays are these massive facilities that are a key point throughout the entire trilogy. Why, exactly, do we never see one up close aside from transition screens? We should totally get to explore one! Like, I realize that it’s never explicitly said if there’s any kind of command station, or if “guarding a Mass Relay” was a ship-based action or if there was actual, physical contact with one, but I’m saying that something of the size of the Relays, even if much of it is a solid object, you maintain SOME sort of command structure within it in order to monitor and examine things. Even if the Reapers have some kind of robotic drones or Keeper analogues running around, doing standard maintenance, I cannot be convinced that there is not SOME areas of the actual Mass Relay that house facilities for organic life to work in. Especially considering the design having the light sources along the hull that we traditionally associate with acting as windows on starships and space stations.

So yeah, this is an adventure taking us into the workings of a Mass Relay proper. The general idea is that there’s a distress call from the Charon Relay, which is something that really worries the Alliance – lose the Charon Relay, humanity loses their connection to the galaxy at large. And the Alliance doesn’t want the Citadel to know about this, at least not right away – if something is impacting how the Relays function, the Council is going to demand getting involved, and the Alliance DEFINITELY doesn’t want to give the non-human races a free pass into humanity’s home system, so they’re calling on Shepard.

Also part of the novelty of this is that I kinda want to have the chance to explore what it’s like for those who are not exploring the stars in this setting – the Mass Relay’s crew is alive and intact and interactable. This isn’t one of the many cases of showing up too late to be able to properly save people (I’m looking mostly at ME2 on this count, even before we add in the above and below of my own creation).

Head of the team on the Relay is an engineer, not a soldier (pulling a name out of hat for them in the name of simplicity in this write up... Let’s go with Sarah Manning, just because my Orphan Black DVDs happen to be right next to me as I’m writing this and it offers as good as a placeholder as any – feel free to picture Tatiana Maslany as this character if you so choose, though, by the rules of this series, in an ideal world, this would have been DLC produced for ME1 in 2007, so this character would probably be at least a decade, probably more, older than she would have been at the time, oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed...). She’s not just concerned about the Council finding out – not that she’s a Terra Firma type, just that she has Earth related pride and considers the Charon Relay humanity’s, and, on a personal level, HERS, given her responsibility for it – but also the lives on board. She wants to protect and preserve as many lives as she can.

The interior of the facility is a mix of reasonably sensical designs, in the areas meant for humanoid habitation, and something far more Eldritch abomination-y when we start moving out of those areas. And, you know, we pretty much HAVE to move out of them as time goes on, since that’s like half of the fun of this concept.

But we start in the more familiar areas, where everything seems normal. Except the people are missing (yes, I know I’m relying on this concept a lot, but it’s good as an in universe mystery and out of universe programming so that the game doesn’t have to account for like a dozen NPCs to fill space). In this instance, the distress signal itself indicates that the Relay’s station commander had ordered their people to a designated safe zone within the Relay’s structure, which is where Shepard will need to head to uncover things. Sarah’s staying in the control area, trying to ensure that nothing else goes wrong.

At some point in the midst of this, I do want the question of if the Relay will be/has to be destroyed to come up, better establish the idea that will come up in Arrival of the destruction of Relay in the game proper.

The exploration takes Shepard into the Eldritch-y areas, which, sadly, because I am a wordsmith and not a picture kind of person, I can really only describe as messing with perception and going all Escher in the design. Basically, the idea is to present the interior and heart of the Relays as being these massively complex and complicated machines that function on a level not really human (or, in the case of the non-human races in the game besides the Reapers, human adjacent). Because, first of all, this is faster than light travel, which means this is this is this franchise’s handwave for how anything happens on multiple planets and is dealt with in (in-universe) real time, and second, Sovereign talked about a level of existence beyond our own and such. This leans into that kind of concept – yeah, sure, we may have the Reapers be shown as effectively fundamentally understandable, but let’s at least justify the hype a little, huh?

The big idea here is that we’re kinda throwing back to the puzzle style of play that you used to see in computer games in like the nineties. That’s why perspective is going to be a part of this. Basically, the engineers on the Relay found something that tripped the security systems, sort of “unhinging” standard reality around them, getting them lost in the various extra layers (dimensions?) that the Relay works in.

I don’t really know if I see any kind of real boss or major decision here, because this is basically about the gimmick over anything else – Mass Effect isn’t a bad place for a gimmicky throwback, right? Maybe... Ah, something’s clicking here for me – the guy responsible for all of this happening in the first place. He was trying to access an archive – he initially thought it was prothean, but he’s been able to realize that this is much older. He wants to get this information, and is the last one we rescue. The issue is that it’s going to be a choice – rescue this guy and lose the archive, or save the archive and he dies. Like, I’m thinking that there’s some kind of rip or maybe a miniature black hole that’s sucking in the both of them and Shepard can only save one. That’s a solid Paragon/Renegade choice, especially since I could see arguments for both.

Anyway, once the crew’s all rescued and the choice made, Manning gets back to Shepard and says that this is about to get slapped with a security clearance so high she’d “probably have to kill [herself] just for remembering [she has] it” (because yes, I want that as an actual quote), and recommends that they get off the Relay before any superior officers show up to rake them over the coals for their involvement – Shepard’s a busy person, doesn’t need to get bogged down in the red tape that’s sure to come.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from Manning regarding the Relay’s subsequent stability

ME3: Manning’s team as a war asset/the archive being tapped for Crucible data and information on the Reapers (mutually exclusive – the team will have disbanded after the loss of the one member if the archive was recovered)

Planet of Peace

An attempt at colonizing a planet, with the aid of all Council races, in an effort at fostering galactic peace, sounded great on paper. The diplomats jumped on the opportunity. The reality has been... less than stellar. Considering the first human Spectre a bridge between races, the Council asks Commander Shepard to try and help smooth over relations.

Frankly, while I understand the focus on the threat of the Reapers, honestly, this seems like a legitimate issue that would be an instant demand for the first human Spectre. And, given the tension and hostility between the races (even beyond humanity against everyone else), it seems like a natural fit, in all honesty. Because it does seem like all the canonical colony worlds always start as one species attempting to tame a single world, rather than taking advantage of the unifying effort of the galactic community.

At the forefront of this colony is the retired human ambassador to the Council, Ambassador Goyle (Anderson mentions her when talking about his candidacy for the Spectres and we see her in the first of Alec Ryder’s memories, now we get to make her a character we get to interact with). This was her passion project specifically, thinking that all races had something that they could offer one another and need to come together.

Basically, she’s underscoring what I like to think of as a core concept of the series, being stronger together than separately.

But, of course, there are tensions. I mean, not even just because we wouldn’t have a plot without it. She is concerned that there might be some extremists getting involved – aren’t there always? When things are tense, some idiot’s always going to come along, see the stacks of dynamite, and decide to light a match. She is specifically asking that Shepard come to help resolve some issues, using their symbolism. Her request is fully aware of this being an exercise in flag waving, but it’s an important bit of flag waving – doing this here can make the galactic community a more stable place.

Bringing back in the element of having the cast back for these, I want to include quite a bit of companion content in this one, including something like how Dragon Age 2’s Mark of the Assassin DLC had a short companion quest for everyone. On a planet that’s a melting pot of the various races that make up the Citadel species, there’s going to be something for everyone here somehow. I don’t know what specifically right now – these write ups focus on the main plot, not the sidequests. But these are things that are there.

As for what is happening on the planet, on the small scale, there’s your standard culture clash brushfires, things that seem small and petty, but have accumulated for the people involved because they’re in such close proximity. But there is a strong Terra Firma presence as well, the “Earth for humans!” type, in addition to similar groups among the traditional Citadel races – this is still only a handful of decades past humanity’s entry, and as we’ve discussed before, the arrival of humanity has made things much more chaotic than they were before, and there’s more than a little resentment among the non-human races for humanity’s attitude and approach to things coming across almost as if they’re demanding more, without anyone Citadel side acknowledging that First Contact was a shit show of THEIR making (scroll back up and see Investigations for more on that...)

But the larger scale conflict is a group out to make sure that this planet fails in its mission and goal, drive a wedge between factions. I’m thinking of going the Star Trek VI route on this, that this group is an ironic banding of humans and non-humans, determined to see peace fall apart at the cost of allying with their supposed enemies, and using “look at how easily they turned on their own to stop this!” as a justification for their own hypocrisy.

Going with the Star Trek VI reference, this group is gearing up for an assassination attempt on Ambassador Goyle herself, believing that stopping her will stop the advancement of this idea. Now, Commander Shepard HAS to save her, we’re not doing the question of “can they stop it in time?” but, for all those pro-humanity xenophobic “Cerberus was right all along!” types, the response of Shepard will be to either name the conspirators and why or utilize their designated fall guy.

BUT WAIT! That’s not the end of this one. See, we’re also going to get an aftermath – the results of this will impact how the population react, and there’s a second story mission that requires a plot progression to access.

Returning to this planet (I feel like it would get some ambitious name like “Hope” or something, but I think it’s kinda provincial for the planet to carry a human name, so...), things are even tenser than before. We get to actively see how the fallout is impacting things, with people drawing lines based on the earlier assassination attempt. This is a lot like how the turian weapons merchant on the Citadel in ME2 will respond differently based on how Shepard resolved ME1 – side with one faction in the first part, their supporters approve of you and their opposites are angry with you, and vice versa.

Goyle appreciates Shepard’s return, because she’s seeing the place beginning to collapse. She’s feeling ready to throw in the towel because of how poorly things are going. Still, until the place closes its doors, she’s going to stand up and act like the leader she’s here to be. Shepard saved her life, she’s going to commit it to preserving this colony. But she wants Shepard’s help all the same, because they can leverage that heroism to helping put things here right.

Of course, here’s where we get to the big finale choice – are you going to strengthen this colony or break it? And sure, it seems straightforward on the idea of what’s good and what’s bad, but here’s the thing that the overall narrative develops through investigation – the Alliance and the Citadel need to allocate their resources. Part of the reason that the sanctioned colonies tend to be dominated by one species or another is a matter of need – when you have a primarily human/asari population, you’ll have to import in resources for turians, things like that – even if they’re trying to grow them on their own, they probably need to import like soil for nutrients and such.

And that not only gets costly, that can divert resources that are more greatly in need. In the long term, this could tie up resources that are needed elsewhere. In the short term, if trying to make these disparate races and cultures work together and play nice is taking up this much time and effort, isn’t it possible, isn’t it plausible, that there are better things to be doing with those resources?

So, do we try and heal the divide and potentially tie up resources in what has been an uphill climb from the start, and right before the Reaper War begins (for all you forward thinkers reading this), or do we cut our losses and focus on making these types of cross-species initiatives at a later point in time? That’s the Paragon/Renegade choice here.

The resolution comes and Ambassador Goyle will be either thankful for the effort or resigned that her great initiative isn’t going forward. Regardless of Shepard’s actions, she’s thankful that they at least made an attempt – she isn’t going to see them as failing if they opted to cut the losses, but herself.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter either from Ambassador Goyle, reporting on the colony, or a news service announcement of her having further withdrawn from the public eye after the colony’s failure.

ME3: For Paragon choice, there’s a decrease in dextro-food reserves, given the colony’s need, but an increase in interspecies morale, with efforts to incorporate multi-species crews underway, and vice versa for the Renegade

Daedalus Station

A space station on the fringe of Citadel space sends out a distress call. When the Normandy arrives, however, no one there claims responsibility for it. Yet the station is in a spiral, a path that will, slowly but steadily, lead the station directly into a sun. Commander Shepard attempts to save everyone aboard from the inevitable death, and discover why they seem unfazed at the idea.

Okay, let’s just acknowledge first, yes, I’m aware that the synopsis sounds not just like a rip off of the first mission of Leviathan but also “Incursion” above. I’m aware. Look, the synopsis is a short brief, not the full details, okay? Strictly speaking, it’s more in line with the events of Leviathan, certainly, but I want to at least acknowledge that I’m aware that there are similarities. Okay, they’re there, LET’S MOVE ON.

Anyway. Distress call, brings in the Normandy. Station is obviously in a death spiral. The moment that Shepard and company board the station, everyone is going about their routine. Obviously, something’s a touch screwy about this set up. Another investigation must ensue.

Of course, as we’ve established, details of the investigations are not where my expansions really shine – it’s easy to stretch out a discovery of this sort, with development A leading to clue B and making revelation C... Yadda, yadda. I’m about the what of these things, not the how.

The ultimate thing about this is twofold. Part one is that this is basically going to be an introduction to the concept of Indoctrination – someone discovered a Reaper artifact, and is trying to adapt it to their benefit. Because frankly, the idea that someone wouldn’t try and take Indoctrination for themselves... Yeah, let’s be real here. Someone WOULD.

Obviously, since we’re still in game one and the Reapers are still mostly a mystery at this point in time, there’s the question of what this is. But, hey, it’s still something that should have happened, and this is the time when there’s the most mystery and least immediate “oh shit, this will horribly backfire if we don’t just straight up blow this up now” reactions.

So, our villain. They’re gonna spiral into insanity (thematic mirroring – as the station enters the death spiral, they spiral into madness), so we’re not going to push too much on making them seem sympathetic, in the traditional sense. Honestly, in writing this, I’m kinda getting parallels to your average dangerous incel aspiring mass shooter, so we’re gonna go with that, someone who perceived themselves as more isolated and alone than they were – the investigation will have us find private journals from other crew pre-artifact that mention him, usually in the fashion of ‘he doesn’t talk much, but doesn’t seem that bad’ kind of messages. Meanwhile, his own talk about the others has a more downcast approach, that he knows they’re not interested in hearing about him, etc. etc.

You know, this is the kind of person who, upon getting the ability to manipulate minds is basically doing it in an effort to bolster his own self-esteem, turning people who were once a little sharp with him one time into his whipping boys, and making himself the king of this little hill.

The problem of his plan? The mental degradation. The last of those to fall under his sway sent out the automated distress beacon, and knew that there was a danger in this guy leaving – but they also couldn’t be sure that their efforts would be successful. It’s a case of the distress beacon being a double-edged sword – can their rescuers save them, stop this guy, or will they fall under his sway as well? But there’s no other solution. They set the collision course (and yes, I’m aware that this is happening on a space station, hey, the pilot episode of DS9 showed that the station could travel through maneuvering thrusters and such – the idea is that they wanted to find a way to destroy the station), and then destroyed the controls so it couldn’t be undone, and disabled the alerts so that the station wouldn’t alert anyone, setting it up to make it that the station’s sensors all seem to send the green light to the rest of the station – the false data would hopefully prevent the station crew from noticing.

Yes, of course I want there to be an apocalyptic log, why would I deny that BioWare staple?

Another thing that I want to do here is kinda retroactively at least make it a part of the universe that Shepard is resistant to the efforts of Reaper Indoctrination. The idea I’m going with is that some of the scrambling of Shepard’s brain (which, sidenote, I also want to take some time in this and call out the fact that it’s a PLOT POINT that Shepard’s brain gets messed with repeatedly throughout this game and no one thinks that might actually be a questionable matter – if a key point of this DLC is “dude, you’re messing with people’s minds, that’s rather unambiguously Not A Good Thing To Do,” then it’s an elephant in the room to not bring up that this is what’s happening with Shepard) has made them more resistant to these effects, though that probably means justifying this as having a watered down effect so that the companions are feeling the tug to fall under our villain’s thrall.

That’s basically where I picture the boss battle going, that Shepard has to fight against one of their companions, who has been compelled to be this guy’s defender against them. I’d say both companions, but that might be a little much, in particular on lower difficulties. So I’m going to say that Shepard can knock out one of their companions before they fall under the sway of the big bad’s influence, but the other escapes. I feel like there could be ways to offset the difficulties of this by way of like finding objects that counteract the signal or whatever, but the idea is Shepard versus companion. While it obviously has to end non-lethally, I feel like this is the kind of thing that is morbidly fascinating to see in just about everyone’s book. I’d also figure that it would depend on a handful of variables that make them resist more or less (because the game should reward investigation, right?)

When that’s completed (I figure it ends with Shepard destroying the controller artifact), it’s time to deal with the station about to be caught in the sun – the station’s going to be locked in a death spiral, but the people of the station can now evacuate. Which leaves the person responsible. On the Paragon side, Shepard is not judge, jury, and executioner, this guy should be given a fair trial. On the Renegade side, he’s a dick who took over people’s minds with no remorse on the matter. Whatever decision Shepard goes with, the station’s population will abide by – they probably want him dead anyway, right?

Aftermath does come into play, with a conversation with the companion Shepard fought against, because, especially if they’re a romance, that’s gotta mess with their heads. Also some general discussion of the artifact itself – obviously, while I expect a variation in the event this is played after Virmire, my idea of this is that it happens some time before it, so things like Wrex and Ashley/Kaidan’s deaths (or possible death) are variation options, this is basically something that I feel can influence matters – if Shepard and Wrex have already fought, for example, I feel like that would earn them enough influence come Virmire for Wrex to stand down there, it’s got parallels/foreshadowing... That kind of emotional work.

Also there’s some consideration about that artifact – once a technology exists, putting that genie back in the bottle is nigh impossible, so now it’s known that you can use this tech to control minds, someone’s sure to try and take advantage of this tech somewhere down the line – Shepard and company will discuss what kind of precautions can and should be taken about these kinds of developments in the future (hint hint, Cerberus/Illusive Man, hint hint).

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter from a station survivor, variation on the matter of how the responsible party was dealt with.

ME3: Efforts have been undertaken to block Indoctrination tech, based on the information that Shepard gathered on the station.

Fleet Crisis

With the concerns of Saren and the geth rising, Admirals Hackett and Anderson want to get a chance to upgrade the defenses at the heart of the Alliance. Arcturus Station, home to the Alliance government, is housing a defense meeting, and Commander Shepard is being recalled to speak at it. The Alliance may be facing another crisis, however...

(Two plot planets completed)

We have very little actual Alliance elements involved in the game, did you ever notice that? Like, there’s Admiral Anderson and Admiral Hackett, and we get the inspection tour thing from Admiral Mikhailovich, but other than that, we really are not given much about the Alliance proper. So the idea here for us to go to Arcturus Station and actually encounter the Alliance government proper. We only ever properly encounter the Citadel Council, not the government that technically, Shepard is under the authority of. The closest we ever come is the (rather useless) Defense Committee at the start of ME3.

So yeah, we’re going to the home of the Alliance proper, and seeing the Fifth Fleet – like my first time playing the game, I had no real concept of the Fifth Fleet until it shows up at the endgame. I kinda would like more foreshadowing, more textual acknowledgement of the fleet that is the reason why we end the game as we do. Like, we get to do a fleet flyby in the process, allowing us to see the size of the fleet and talk about what makes the human fleets different from those of the other races. Although the Citadel races do have their bullshit reasons for distrusting humanity, the fact that humanity has this massive force is a reasonable excuse for the behavior.

I also see this as a very different style DLC. As it is, we got one DLC that was basically a shooting gallery, so here, we’re in the opposite direction, where combat is taking almost a total backseat to dialogue – I mean you have a dialogue system like Mass Effect, where every line gets voiced, you would think that would imply that there’s a lot of faith in the writing, wouldn’t you think? And, the whole beauty of DLC in general usually is the fact that everything’s option – if you’re really all shooty-shooty bang-bang, you don’t HAVE to do this. But the whole series paints Shepard as this inspirational figure, and their oratory skills should be on full display as much as their ability to fire a gun.

I’m also kinda anti-“going to Alliance vessels and the in universe equivalent of the House/Senate halls/White House combined and freely shoot up the place,” just on principle.

Anyway, here we are, visiting the heart of Alliance space. We honestly really should have more of an idea of what humanity has accomplished in the universe. Arcturus Station, the home of Alliance government. This is a big deal for the crew, of course – it’s getting invited to speak at the Senate in Washington DC. For the various non-humans, it’s a big deal as well.

Now, of course, in the heart of Alliance government, the involvement of a bunch of non-humans is going to be considered questionable at best. I won’t go straight to “you can’t use any companions other that Ashley and Kaidan,” but there is going to be more of a sense of observation from the other Alliance officers and officials when the non-humans are in the party.

The first thing to note about this is that Shepard’s position as Spectre has made them a combination of being a political tool for humanity’s better advancement, but (as evidenced by Mikhailovich’s ranting) some are concerned that Shepard may be – intentionally or not – turned into a pure Council flunky and only doing the work that they approve, regardless of acting in humanity’s benefit.

That’s part of the reason Shepard’s even here – their position is getting humanity’s foot in the door with the Spectres, but this is creating a conflict in various corners, wondering about where their allegiance will be if pressed. Admiral Hackett is, of course, speaking in Shepard’s favor, but just because they have the approval of Hackett and Anderson, there’s still concern among the brass.

This is going to start out seeming very low-key – we’re in the heart of Alliance territory, who would be foolish enough to come along and mess with anyone or anything here, right? So a lot of initial tone-setting, discussion and debate – the first half is a debate sequence, with Paragon/Renegade points abound as Shepard discusses with the various Alliance officials what they’re doing as a Spectre. That culminates in Shepard’s oratory really getting to stretch as they approach the seat of governing for the Alliance, and all those earlier discussions start to add up to how their performance is among the bigwigs – if you talked up human dominance in the one-on-ones, then talk peaceful coexistence, for example, you get called on it.

After Shepard’s speech is over, that’s where we start to see the real fractures starting to take place. We’re not quite at ‘military coup’ levels (let’s leave SOME plot elements for the later games, huh?), but there’s clear dissatisfaction, that Shepard’s words have only fanned flames for – regardless of the way their speech went down, there are some among the fleet, admirals and other high ranking officers who were involved in the First Contact War and just don’t like how the Alliance is handling things.

It’s not a coup, but it is, in effect, breaking away from the Alliance to set up an independent nation, separate from both the Alliance and the Citadel. It’s still in its earliest stages, of course, but it’s easy to see how it might well turn hostile to both – it’s got several military figures from the Alliance leaving, meaning a vulnerable gap for the Alliance military, and it’s got lingering hostility for the Citadel races (turians in particular, but let’s also not forget that the asari, the famed diplomats of the Citadel, seem to have never picked up on the fact that the human resentment towards aliens comes from the fact that an alien government came along and tried to impose their rules on an unaligned species as humanity’s introduction to the greater galaxy – they are complicit here).

Shepard’s task becomes trying to prevent this offshoot from happening. These are orders being cut by President Shastri himself (let’s make this major Alliance figure a presence we actually feel in the series, huh?), with Hackett’s blessing – meaning if things devolve into a shoot out (which will be possible), Shepard will not be held liable for the deaths of several Alliance military figures, that the record will show that they were acting in the interests of the Alliance in response to an imminent threat of potential armed conflict, even a human civil war. No one wants it to come to that, but it’s also going to be one of the most likely outcomes in the minds of those involved – even if Shepard weren’t a Spectre, if someone of their rank and stature on the galactic stage gets involved, it’s because diplomacy isn’t working.

So there’s another segment of trying to sway the people involved. Shepard will have the choice of approached armed or unarmed (like I said, I dislike the idea of a shootout, but I feel like Shepard’s in a position both to be legally entitled to wear weapons in this situation AND uncomfortable going in without any weaponry), which will feed into the metric of how well their argument is received. Because it’s a mechanic so good, we’re using it twice! (Okay, really, it’s because “dialogue” is the gimmick of this idea, but shush.)

Anyway, the various ‘points’ accumulate to the ultimate confrontation with the heads of this group planning this splintering. Shepard’s arguments are going to be along the line of (to summarize) “you’ll only weaken the Alliance, that can’t be your goal,” “if you have problems, work within in the systems and listen to both sides of things,” “put this aside or else,” or “I support your efforts, but this isn’t the time.” Yes, I’m going with four paths for this, the dialogue wheel does offer that, and I want Paragon/Renegade options for each of these. Like you basically pick a path at the start and argue from that position. Depending on the “points” accumulated through dialogue (and probably a handful of sidequests) in the lead to this debate), it will come to either a peaceful resolution or Shepard pulling out their gun on a handful of high-ranking Alliance officers, ready and able to pull the trigger.

While shooting them isn’t an ideal solution, it can bring the others back into line. It’s just going to cause resentment within the Alliance itself – threat or no, these were respected figures among the Alliance. Meanwhile, folding them back in is an ideal solution, but it still means the resentment lingers, because Shepard’s only delayed the boiling over, not prevented it. There’s still tension in the Alliance because this was about issues that can’t be solved with a few words, especially when this was about the involvement and actions of the Citadel. Shepard might be a Spectre, but whether or not they’ve affirmed themselves as giving the Alliance its due, they’re now wrapped up in those politics.

The curveball in things is that last one, Shepard suggesting that they should wait on this issue. I think it’s a valid possibility among the various permutations of the decision point, to have Shepard support them, especially given that ME1’s Renegade Shepard could be a pro-human asshole, but, considering that this is DLC, and particularly DLC that, by my self-imposed rule, cannot change the base game’s story (because if I could do that, I might as well be rewriting all the games in this instead of just created additional content, and this is all hypothetical to begin with), we can’t introduce some new faction into the galaxy, especially an optional one. So the idea here is that Shepard is supporting it, but saying that they can’t make this A Thing right now.

There is an aftermath discussion with President Shastri as well, discussing implications for the future. I also figure that the companions should have a lot to offer in both the aftermath and the core interactions – again, I see Ashley and Kaidan as greatly recommended for this story, and the Alliance officers should have a lot to add, including conversations in the midst of the crisis.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from Shastri as an update of the tension in the Alliance – it’s also something that should be impacted by the decision of the Council at the end of ME1

ME3: Tensions between Alliance and Council forces are impacted by the outcome – if they were swayed by persuasion to rejoin the Alliance, there’s actually a bump in assets, as well as the Alliance bigwigs being a tactical resource, while there’s a decrease in cooperation if the bad blood was fostered.

The Clean Up

The Battle of the Citadel is over, but even if the geth and Sovereign have been defeated, there is a lot left for Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy to do. Investigating the damage done to the Citadel leads to a possible lead on the Reapers. In the wake of the battle, Commander Shepard and company set out to chase it down...

(Post-Game)

So, as I said in the KOTOR editions, we’re adding a Post-Game to ME1 (since this is all hypothetical to begin with, so we’re going to make that alteration to the mechanics), pretty much solely because I want to do some development of the aftermath of the game, as well as do some retroactive set up for Mass Effect 2. Because I don’t think there was a lot of emotional wrap up to the characters at the time. I will grant that we’ve got an awkward period of time between the games here, but, hey, we’ve got enough wiggle room I think to lead in to the opening of ME2

Basically, we can start in what’s basically the immediate aftermath – Shepard’s now out of their recovery, is looking to get back in the game. But, with the Council either still reacting to the events of the Battle of the Citadel or still needing to be reassembled, there’s really not any particular indication of what to be doing. This is some mood setting, looking at the rebuilding effort, how the Citadel was impacted and seeing the response of people to the attack – some are still shaken, mourning their loved ones lost in the attack, hoping for the lost to be found safe, and all that sort. Others are angry about the attack, and the ultimate approach to it seems to basically be blaming everyone, and Shepard in particular since they’re there, for the failure to protect those on the Citadel – and yes, we absolutely get to call out this bullshit for what it is, because Shepard tried, but the Citadel itself is something of a complacency trap, and even if the politics weren’t a distraction, the fact that the Citadel itself remains aloof is an actual problem

Anderson speaks with Shepard, regarding the geth that are still out there in the Traverse, and the need to deal with them before they put more human colonies in danger. The bigwigs are already trying to downplay the Reapers – Anderson basically tells Shepard that they need to go out, find proof of something that ties back to the Reapers or the Council will likely turn around and make this all about the geth and call it over (uh, yeah, Shepard, about that...).

The lead involved is going to be heading out to the border of geth space, which is also the line of what used to be quarian territory. This is convenient for Tali, who wants to return to the flotilla now that Saren has been dealt with. There’s a trading outpost that will be out there that will give her the opportunity to get a ride back to the Migrant Fleet (because, despite a couple of references, I have never believed that Tali lingered too long on the Normandy – either she has to get her data on the geth back to them, or she has to discover an alternative). Because part of this is also going to be the “characters splitting apart” stuff as set up for ME2. Tali’s going to assist through this branch of the mission, but she will want to come back here before the Normandy returns to Citadel space proper.

The trading outpost is Omega-esque, something of “the poor man’s Omega,” again, setting that up for ME2 (we’re doing a lot of world-building patches here, okay?) The citizens here don’t care about the Alliance and they’re not all that concerned about Spectres, either. This is not a friendly place and will not just accept the appearance of anyone with the supposed authority that Shepard is representing.

This is kind of an introduction to ME2’s merc gangs – ME1 seems to play the systems of the Terminus to have their own government, species not represented among the Citadel races, and just this general atmosphere of the Terminus being more developed than it ends up being when we actually go there (which, yeah, that’s how writing and developing and world-building goes, but we’re here to smooth things over). I’m leaning towards not having the big three on Omega be all that represented here, considering that, lawless border or not, this is not really a place where they care enough to expand their influence. But they should at least be mentioned and referenced as the big dogs of the pack, that the gangs that jockey for power here want to take them on. Probably some poaching of members (through recruitment or snipers) from those gangs that make their numbers never get to where they might pose a threat.

Anyway. What needs to be done here is find out where Saren discovered Sovereign – that’s the idea we’re going with in trying to track down evidence of the Reapers. Sovereign had to be hiding out somewhere, you don’t just stumble across something like that. Considering this is one of the last places you’d expect to be able to find a Spectre, especially a Spectre who is one of the Council’s top operatives, it’s a decent enough starting point for us as the audience – we’ll say that there are records that Saren was out here shortly before the Eden Prime mission and such, explaining why we’re starting here.

Garrus is also going to have a realization about the merc gangs, about the horrible things they’re inflicting on the people who are living here, and being infuriated at the injustice allowed to happen – the effective attitude of the officials here are basically ‘look, unless the merc gangs come after us, we don’t care.’ This is going to dig under his skin (plates... you know what I mean), lead him to why he ultimately breaks with C-Sec, despite Shepard being able to lead him to a better understanding of the rules and regs – he understands the need for them, but sees them being used and abused to allows these injustices to continue, that it becomes a personal mission to see ‘justice’ and ‘law’ be synonymous.

As for the plot, yes, we’re getting there. This does, of course, lead to a shoot-out with a major gang force here, some people who are indoctrinated spies (because, hey, we’re looking for evidence of Reapers). They were left behind as part of Saren’s contingency plans, meant to stop anyone hunting for him – it’s just that the investigation that Shepard went on in the base game didn’t send them here. Even with Saren and Sovereign dead, they’re still here, still indoctrinated – a reminder that this is a permanent thing, a devastating thing, because there’s no way to take the Reaper compulsion away. But this leads to learning about a place that Saren ventured to from here, a place wracked with dangerous phenomenon. The only way to get there is with a crack pilot – which, fortunately, Normandy has.

There’s a brief pause from plot for some further expansion with the others – Wrex has been contemplating the krogan, given what went down on Virmire. His people are dying out, maybe not in the way we traditionally think of it, but still in practice. What is there for the krogan but to be used and abused by the Sarens of the universe, so long as all they care about is getting offworld and fighting and dying, usually being pit against one another as the proxies for stupid, pointless conflicts. It’s not right, and it’s beginning to eat at him.

And then there’s Ashley/Kaidan. Given the events of Virmire, both of them are thinking about the family that was left behind – Ashley’s sisters lost one of their central figures, Kaidan’s family lost their only son. They both are trying to write a letter of condolence to their counterpart’s loved ones (and specifically asking Shepard about the one they should be writing), trying to figure how they can make it better that they were saved at the other’s expense. It’s a complicated matter, and I want to just explore, even retroactively, how these two were friends, were close, potentially (if Shepard shuts down a romance with both of them) starting to come together. Just a bit that not only reestablishes the friendship and emphasizes that the fallen character is not forgotten, plus giving more context to how they’ll say that they and Shepard got through the other’s death together in ME3

This is a point for some romance content, which, I realize I have yet to bring up Liara’s character bit for this – don’t worry, it’s coming. But we do pause for some smoochies.

Anyway. The Normandy arrives in the hazardous area and we get a team meeting – remember how back in the first of these outlines, I brought up wanting to give more for Pressley? I haven’t directly mentioned him much since, but here’s a place to feature him, in the same way that the landing on Ilos does, showing him having a greater involvement in the strategy and such. Team Shepard needs to figure out if there even is a place to investigate within this area. There are sensor ghosts that might be something that they could land on and investigate, though it’s too small for a Mako mission (I may love that tank, but I feel like its final ride being the trip through the Ilos Relay is poetic and I’m not going to mess with that). Joker gets his moment of putting the Normandy through her paces (which is also going to add to the pain of her loss in ME2’s prologue, that she could pull this off, but couldn’t out-fly the Collector ship).

They detect something with a similar energy signature to the prothean beacons on an asteroid large enough to land on, which makes it reasonable for Liara to go with – take the prothean expert to a place that could hold more information on the protheans. She’s nervous because of the confirmation of the Reapers has just made things really real for her – this is facing the same thing that destroyed the protheans, and how can they stand against them, given the protheans’ advanced nature?

Let’s also take a moment and, given the indoctrinated nature of the mercs who attacked back on the outpost, to have some follow-up for Benezia’s death – I may only be speaking for myself, but it has NEVER sat right that Liara’s response to that is to simply go “I choose to remember Benezia as she was,” given that Shepard was, regardless of their reluctance, responsible for the actual bullet that ended her mother’s life. She’s struggling – could the mercs have been saved? Could her mother? Could what they find below offer a way to have saved them, and, if so, would Saren have had it, could he have freed her mother before her death? Did she have to die? Why did her mother have to die? Cue Shepard offering their support for her emotional struggle.

And yes, for Liaramancers, this is where they get their smoochies.

As for what they find... Geth. Plenty of (heretic – though Shepard doesn’t yet know this) geth. They are crawling all over the facility, it’s a firefight all the way to the central database, and, as our big final boss, we deal with a geth augmented with some of Sovereign’s tech, meant to be a Reaper upgrade for the geth. Obviously, this is not going to make it into the geth consensus (heretic or true), and this is effectively the only existing prototype.

The result of this is that they do find an archival interface, the same kind that allowed the communication with Sovereign on Virmire. Unfortunately, it can provide nothing – without Sovereign connected to it, it’s got minimal functionality – something might be recovered, with some time and effort. But the facility is about to move into the areas of this area of space that will fry any systems that get close to it – Sovereign probably had this place selected in the name of being a place where anyone who might stumble upon its hiding place would decide to move on because it’s suicide to remain in the area.

The only choice is to return to the Normandy, without any additional evidence. There are indications of geth vessels having moved out of the area and into other sectors, which could give them something to go on for further investigations. But, with this stage of the mission being a bust, Shepard is going to have the Normandy return to the earlier outpost in the name of allowing all ashore who are going ashore – Tali, Garrus, and Wrex, specifically, but also any other Normandy crew willing to stand down for the time being. Investigating this further is a strictly volunteer mission. This will, of course, lead us to ME2’s prologue...

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Mentions of Shepard’s activities on the outpost while on Omega, a letter from a scientist, passed on by Anderson, about further studies made on indoctrination being done on the sly, considering the lack of approval from the Council.

ME3: Further research has been done on indoctrination, now publicly, and makes for a scientific war asset, the remnants of the merc gang that were indoctrinated have reformed and reassembled as a roving band of resistance fighters against the Reapers.

Miscellaneous 

Bisexual Ashley, Bisexual Kaidan, proper close outs to other romances, romances require proper flirts to start, additional conversations for all characters

Look, no one in space is heterosexual, okay? I don’t make the rule, I just enforce it. Actually, considering the context of these, I DO make the rules, and “no one in space is heterosexual” is one of them, so deal with it. Kaidan is canonically bisexual as of ME3, so there’s no reason he shouldn’t be canonically bisexual in ME1. And we’ll throw Ashley in for good measure, because why not? And we definitely – DEFINITELY – need to do something about the romance mechanic that seems to assume “I would like to get to know you better” means “you, me, my cabin, the way to Ilos, yes/yes?” There needs to be explicit markers for closing out a romance WITHOUT locking you out of conversations with the character in question (particularly considering that now, all of this game’s romances can be options in a given playthrough). And yeah, I think there could stand to be a few extra conversations with the characters, that focus on the characters proper – for most of the crew, they basically end up acting as glorified Wikipedia entries on their species, or, in Kaidan’s case, the plight of human biotics. Let’s give them some more personalized material that lets them tell Shepard something about themselves (and offer Shepard something similar, as character development for the both of them).

[hauduyamaek-games]

No, really, what kind of game am I making?

For a few days now I’ve been wrestling with the exact genre of my game. I know I want it to be story-driven, and I want other characters to feel like direct assets to the player rather than just being a cheerleading squad for a single player character. The trouble is, as I’ve touched on before, is that there really aren’t that many video game genres that are well-suited at having characters work together in a single-player context. And those that are, typically of the turn-based variety, are pretty unwieldy.

While before I was strongly dedicated to the idea of using a turn-based tactics system for my game, I realized that a turn-based tactics system is pretty cumbersome for small battles. In most turn-based tactics games, a single battle will be the time-equivalent of an entire level in a different game genre. I thought maybe I should then reserve tactical combat for boss battles, but the player really should have time to get used to the higher-stakes mechanics of the game, which is what little scrubby trash mobs are good for. But again, it seems like it’ll be really unpleasant for the player to go through the disruption and housekeeping that are virtually inherent to breaking out the tactics map just so they can beat up a filthpossum in the woods.

Another option I have is to use a more traditional turn-based combat system as seen in most jRPGs. Obviously I wouldn’t be satisfied with just using a vanilla “Select an attack and then it happens” type gameplay loop, but setting that(and potential improvements) aside for now, it’s worth considering whether this will be as harmful to the gameplay flow as tactics might be. While lighter-weight than a tactics screen, jRPG-type combat is less ‘organic,’ I feel. It’s less analogous to how people would probably behave in a combat situation, at least by modern understanding of how combat is conducted. And it still, albeit to a lesser degree, carries the trouble of interrupting the other half of the game(exploring the map) by yanking the player into another plane of existence.

By “another plane of existence,” I don’t really mean “a change in the visuals of the environment as if the characters have entered ~The Battle Zone~” or something, I more mean a change in how the game is functionally played. When a player character is navigating the environment, it’s natural to let the player control that character directly via the joystick or d-pad. But in turn-based games(as we understand them) the method of control changes. Suddenly everything is digital and/or indirect in the movement. You’re giving commands rather than taking control, and I feel that is an inferior way to give the player agency. It’s a level removed from the things going on.

Option three is to drop the turn-based aspect of it almost entirely. Imagine a platforming game where you have a selection of characters, and in some situations, the character gets tired and you want to swap in a new one. Let’s explore this idea, because it’s not totally free of problems. 

First of all, it’s troublesome to have only one character active at a time because it implies in this context that they wouldn’t be active at all. At least in turn-based combat, you can see the other characters are right there and that their turn will come shortly. They’re ready for it. In our hypothetical turn-styled platformer, there isn’t an immediately obvious way to have them waiting in the wings. Will they be holding still while the bad guy stomps around? Will they be off-screen entirely, safe and warm in the face of this alleged threat? Will they be attacking on their own, begging the question as to why the player needs to be involved at all? 

I guess the best answer would be to have them following closely behind the actively-controlled character, jumping and moving in close formation. It’s slightly goofy, but it doesn’t otherwise present any ludonarrative hurdles. Let’s say a tired character will wait to the side and our fresh characters will be in this formation. At least that’ll provide a nice visual clue to what your options are.

As for characters that are fresh and ready but the player doesn’t need to switch to yet, it seems unrealistic that they wouldn’t be doing a whole lot. Maybe they could have assist-moves(as with a fighting game) that they could do when commanded by the player.

The last problem is one worth considering. Presumably, if these characters are appreciably different, that implies that they would also have different abilities and thus control differently as well, even if it just pertains to the method in which they attack. Because our pretense of teamwork involves each character taking turns when tired, that means we would be forcing the player to adapt to a slightly different control scheme each time. I’m not sure that’s wise, at least in real-time combat. If things slowed down for our player while they acquaint themselves with the character, that might be something else.

Which leads me into option four: A closer hybridization of turn-based and platforming controls. Anyone who has played Transistor by Supergiant Games might have some idea at what I’m getting at. In Transistor’s combat, the player character can navigate along a non-grid terrain and select moves to use in whatever direction they’re facing, and the game keeps track of your moves and movement for each turn. Can this be adapted into a control scheme for multiple characters?

My immediate thoughts reflect the potential for fertile ground in this direction. Logically it shouldn’t be too hard to have characters move in around in this way and execute their actions simultaneously. I think the part that’s actually difficult will be how to handle evading enemy attacks. The enemies might telegraph their actions in the hypothetical pause of player move decisions, but will the player see exactly when the foe attacks? That seems like it might be too easy. Will they only see if the foe is planning to attack and not know exactly when? That seems a little unfair since their moves will be set in stone when they resolve the turn. Maybe the player could learn through trial-and-error roughly how long after the foe telegraphs their attack that they will strike and then plan out an evasive maneuver as part of that character’s turn movement.

Either way, this doesn’t resolve the problem of how to defend against attacks that occur while the player characters’ turns are cooling down. Maybe the player can pause during an enemy attack and give a defend order. There’d probably be a reaction time involved for the character so that the defense wouldn’t be guaranteed even if the player paused before the attack hit. This would reward the player for identifying the threat sooner.

The advantage over this entire system is that it would gel more easily with exploratory gameplay and with the type of one-hit trash mob that could potentially populate the world. But there’s a pretty considerable obstacle: This would be a pain in the ass to program, which is risky for a type of gameplay that I don’t know for sure would be fun. Luckily I enjoy a challenge... In this case I would have to think carefully about the code logic before I get in and start programming anything I would think I’d need.

At least I have option three as a fallback if option four is too complex.

[humansofhds]

Jeremy Jones

"There are a lot of good ways that the church can engage the world but they don't. Instead they focus on other things, or worse yet, themselves. You see it a lot in Africa, especially with the prosperity gospel, where the focus is on wealth and health. The world needs a good church now more than ever."

Jeremy is a first-year ThM candidate at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Before coming to Boston, he spent three years pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Africa International University in Nairobi, Kenya. He participated in the “Theological German” course during the 2018 Summer Language Program at HDS, and is now currently applying to doctoral programs.

Availability of Vast Resources 

My experience at the Summer Language Program was really fantastic. It was also a great segue into life here in Boston for me. I chose to come to Boston for programs like this, and also because of the BTI. It's really great that so many students can take advantage of the many resources that are available in the area through cross-registration. And our teacher, Karin Grundler-Whitacre, was just wonderful. Despite the compressed format of the SLP, she made learning German quickly both manageable and rewarding.

My time at the SLP is already paying off in my research and writing. It has also been helpful in applying for PhD programs and ultimately makes me more connected to global scholarship. The chance to connect with other students outside of my school during the summer session was also invaluable. I can't thank Dr. Grundler-Whitacre and HDS enough for opening the doors to this program to non-HDS students. It's a great benefit to the academic community here.

Hearing the Message

I grew up in an Episcopal church (kind of). I don’t think my parents were really strong believers, but we went, because that’s what people do on Christmas and Easter and stuff. So I was involved in the church somewhat but never really understood it or believed what they had to say. Long after my childhood, before I graduated from my undergraduate program, a friend of mine invited me to play bass guitar at a little church plant in Aurora, CO. It was like their first or second service and I went and I heard the message and I felt like I’d never heard anything like it before, even though I had been in church quite a bit. From that day, I believed the message and my life has been different ever since.

Time went on and I was in the church playing music most of the time—guitar, bass, piano, singing sometimes and doing some short-term mission work here and there. Eventually I got to a point where I wanted something deeper. There’s a verse in the Bible that talks about the difference between spiritual “milk” and “solid food.” There’s a point where you get tired of drinking milk and you want something a bit stronger and heartier. I realized I just wasn’t getting what I needed spiritually from the church experience.

I felt there was a big gap between what you learn at church and what a seminary can do for you. This is one thing I would like to help bridge at some point. There are some people in the church who want to learn more and go deeper in their studies but it feels like they can’t do that without getting into a big program. There are many resources available but in many ways there is still a disconnect between the seminary and the church.

For me, the best option was to make that leap. I decided I wanted to go to seminary and learn more about the word of God and about ministry. I was at a point where I was considering the possibility of doing ministerial work full time. It was quite a big transition for me. I hadn’t been in school for a few years and the program I had done previously was in music. Going from a career in music to pursuing a degree heavy in reading and writing was a big change. But I’m really glad I did it—and I’m here now, and I’m going to continue on!

Making the Leap

People in Kenya used to ask me how I found the school, and they always thought it was a weird answer that I found it online, but that’s a whole other story for another time. But really, I was just looking for schools, and I was interested in serving in Africa because I had done some short-term mission work there before. I really wanted to learn more about the people and the culture and what ministry was like there. So I was searching for schools online and I found a Wikipedia page with a list of all the seminaries in Africa. I saw that there was one in Nairobi. I didn’t think much about it at first and thought I’d continue searching for something more realistic, or at least something closer to home. But then I ended up returning to Kenya a few months later and I was able to visit that school and see the campus and talk with the administration.

One of the people I was with said, “You know, you can stay in the U.S., study the books and then come back to Kenya and learn the culture. Or you can just come here now and learn the books and the culture at the same time.” That was a deciding insight for me. It made a lot of sense—we read the same books, and they have good teachers there from all over the world and it is a really cool intercultural environment with people from all over Africa so I thought, “Yeah, let’s do that.”

I was there for three years. I did come back to the States twice during my program, but only briefly. Now that I’m back here to stay indefinitely, America kind of feels like a whole new country again for me in some ways. When I was there in Kenya I was really trying to immerse myself in the culture and with the people as much as I could, probably to a fault, actually. When it came down to it, I would prefer to spend time with the local people rather than engage with other Americans. But ultimately that's why I wanted to be there. I didn’t just go move to Kenya to spend time with other Americans, I moved there to understand African life, from Africans.

I started to get comfortable with the life there, living as an American can live in Nairobi. So when I came back here, it was kind of a big shock, to be honest. I had always experienced some reverse culture shock after leaving Africa on my previous trips, but this time things were a little different because now I am with my wife, who is from Ethiopia. The first time she ever left East Africa was when we came to visit the States with me last year, for only a couple of months. So the permanent move has been a bit tough in some ways. We had a wonderful community in Kenya who we grew together with for the few years we were there. And my wife had lived in Kenya longer than I, a total of seven years, so she really felt like it was home. It’s a whole different world over there, and coming here we had to adapt to a whole other way of life again. But we just rely on God and we pray a lot and we trust that He has a plan for us. We have met some wonderful people here that have been helpful in our transition, and we thank God for that.

At the same time that it's tough, it's also exciting. Especially watching my wife, and seeing America through her perspective has been really neat. She sees things that you and I would take for granted. In a weird way, I almost feel like I’m growing up again, experiencing this transition with her.

The More You Learn

It’s hard to describe how different it is from the States unless you’ve been to Africa. Even though Kenya is probably one of the more Westernized countries, that’s only on the surface level. Everything “Western” you do, you still have to add the African culture to it, especially in seminary, I think. There’s someone who said that Africans are notoriously religious. Before and after just about every class, we would pray. Sometimes we would hear testimonies, or maybe a student had a specific need and the class would talk about it for the first half hour, and finally maybe an offering would be taken in class to help them out. I was there for three years and it seems like the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know and how different some things really are. I can’t really do justice to the culture as a whole, but at least this one example from my experience may shed some light.

It was really interesting because they use the American system of education, with lectures, discussions, the semester system, and everything. But being in courses with others who were so very different from myself, hearing all their stories and their points of view, just left me amazed at how although we were studying the same topics, in the same systems, the underlying processes were very different, and yet we were still able to make lasting connections with one another through our studies.

A lot of the learning happens outside of the classroom. When I first moved there I lived with a pastor from Cameroon. We bonded immediately. He helped me learn how things operated at the school. He was a wonderful guy and I learned a lot from him. He tried to show me how Africans engage in things differently than Westerners do. People there are very hospitable, even to the point of being extreme about it. He was explaining to me once that when people come over to your house randomly and unannounced it’s not that they’re trying to interrupt your day or anything. It’s just that they have something burning in their heart and they need to come and see you and say “Hi,” and be in your house and welcome you, especially if you are new to the area. People are really welcoming and talkative and communal and engaging with one another. That’s what is most important for most people, and that is what comes through in just about everything you do there. Here, I think people tend to be very competitive and individualistic. Of course you see that in Nairobi, too, but in the more traditional cultures the focus is not just on achieving, it is achieving together that matters.

This experience definitely changed my spiritual life. And that's what I wanted but I didn't really know that before I went. My relationship with God has been deepened and strengthened. There were ways that I had to rely on God like I never had before, living in a new place, a new culture, with people I didn’t know, and not having any Western things to grab onto. I dove in headfirst and challenged myself not to hold onto things that were comfortable for me. Finally that became one of the biggest lessons I learned from my experience, to not reach out to things that were easy and comfortable but to make a shift to reaching out to God when times were tough, or even not that tough, but just the day-to-day issues that can get us down. In all of those moments I learned to reach out to God and find comfort. It took going to the extreme to get there, but now my spiritual life has been forever strengthened because of this experience.

My relationship with the church is more thoughtful now, too. I expect more of the church. Before, I think I was just frustrated. But now I expect a lot from it. In some ways I think the church has been lagging behind. There are a lot of good ways that the church can engage the world but they don't. Instead they focus on other things, or worse yet, themselves. You see it a lot in Africa, especially with the prosperity gospel, where the focus is on wealth and health. The world needs a good church now more than ever.

Interview and photos by Anaïs Garvanian

[electronicstudentwerewolfstuff]

From car parts to writing code and innovating through software: Cornel Zgardan, Modex Head of Development

We continue the series of interviews with the people behind Modex. This time, the fascinating story of Cornel Zgardan, Head of Development, a cool guy with over 9 years tech experience (writing code, software development, managing a team of developers). From failing an informatics exam during University to his current position, Cornel’s story is all about passion for technology and the continuous drive to learn new things. 

On the educational side, Cornel’s story doesn’t start with a tech-related event, as some might expect. He went to the High-School of Chemistry in Braila, one of the best in Romania, then at University he studied Road Vehicles at Politehnica University of Bucharest. It was then when he said to himself that he’d like to do something related to computers, but luck wasn’t on his side in this regard during his youth years. “Between 5th and 8th grade I didn’t do informatics, then at high-school I couldn’t get into the informatics-mathematics profile, so I went to chemistry-biology. Then I thought about admission to the Informatics University, but since I wasn’t prepared for that, I went to Road Vehicles.”

In the car parts business for 11 years …

“After graduating from University I got at job at Augsburg International, a company that was selling automobile parts and accessories. They were Romania’s first supermarket for car parts. After 2 years with them – my job was to process car parts from original catalogues, then I become responsible for parts acquisition – I moved to a competing firm, Auto Total, where I’ve worked for 9 years. After 11 years of doing this, I said I didn’t like how the future looked for the job I was doing and there weren’t too many opportunities going down the road. I wanted to change careers, so I started looking into computer programming since this has been a childhood dream of mine”, recalls Cornel.

… but still dreaming of becoming a developer

How did Cornel’s passion for technology start? In his own words: “As a kid, surrounded by my friends who had computers, I was fascinated by several games. I also had a personal computer, one of the early ones (HC-90) and during the 6th and 7th grade I did a short programming course, writing a few lines of code. I also tried to enlist in the School’s Informatics Club, but it was always full and you could get in only if you knew someone who could get you in there. Two years in a row I’ve tried to sign up for that informatics class, but I couldn’t. And, as a funny fact, in the first year at Politehnica University I failed the informatics exam.”

As the turned 29, Cornel tried to learn programming by himself, but that didn’t work, so he went to Titu Maiorescu private University of Informatics, attending remote learning classes held on Saturday and Sunday. During the day he was working at Auto Total, during weekends he had university classes, then in-between he also had to find some time to learn programming. “I liked it a lot, and two years later, when I was 31, I got a job as a Junior Developer at Temenos, where I had to develop banking software. After the first year at the University of Informatics I knew that programming was the right thing for me and I said to myself that I can’t do anything else but this.”  

Innovating at Moneymailme, fine-tuning at Modex

After one and a half years at Temenos, Cornel has arrived at Modex recommended by a friend from childhood: Alin Iftemi, now Managing Director and Co-founder Modex. “We’ve known each other since we were kids and Alin has also encouraged me to take the path of programming. Alin, Dan Neacsu and I were Modex’s first three employees”, says Cornel. “Actually, the Modex story has started, for me, with Moneymailme, the money transfer and chat app released before the Modex journey began. My job at Moneymailme was to take care of the server side. The smartphones which had the app installed were communicating with the server through a rest API service, written by me. So I was writing code, server-side. Besides this code, I was also in charge with the Admin dashboard of Moneymailme, a front-end app where you could see the users, transactions, etc.”

How would Cornel describe Modex to someone who doesn’t know the blockchain database company? “Modex is a software development company which brings innovative, high quality custom-made solutions for our clients. There are also many challenges along the way when it comes to this, but thanks to our experienced team of developers, IT experts and security banking professionals we always find a way to overcome them and meet our objectives. What I like the most about Modex is exactly what I’m doing now: server side development. I miss writing code – last time I did this was more than one year ago – but now I’m more valuable to the company from my current position.”

Developing world-class custom software for clients

As Modex’s Head of Development, Cornel is currently in charge with custom software development for clients, focused on the server side. If I have time and I would like to create a library, a new functionality or something else, I’ll write that myself instead of asking programmers to do it. As Head of Development I have to manage any adopted solution, at the technical level. To manage how the code looks like, to standardize the custom solutions we’re offering to our clients and to fine-tune the code writing process of the entire team. I’m also in charge with supervising the developers, holding trainings, code reviews, and other tasks.”

Speaking about the work environment at Modex, Cornel believes that we are still adapting to the pandemic reality, with many months of working from home, holding meetings online, attending online conferences and events, etc. “I think that a developer needs to concentrate and work in a silent environment, without noise distractions around him, in order to write quality code.” We’ve also asked Cornel which part of his tech career he enjoyed the most and why. “Without doubt, being a developer at Moneymailme. I had the liberty to do design the way I wanted – of course, in line with the company’s business plan. Back then I could write code and focus on this instead of spending half a day on phone calls, meetings, etc. At the end of the day, I was very satisfied to do this!”

Growing demand for software developers

“I’m sure that the demand for developers will surely grow in the coming years as the need for digitization is increasing day by day, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking about blockchain, I think that the biggest challenge over the next 5 years will be to gain the trust of users towards this groundbreaking technology. There are lots of non-technical users to whom is very hard to explain that blockchain gives them privacy, security, and other advantages. For instance, when people are asked to give personal data so they can register on an online blockchain-based voting platform, most of them think that their data could be used for other purposes. If people would know the advantages of blockchain they wouldn’t be so reluctant to adopting it. Currently, only enterprises are promoting blockchain – and especially tech companies – because they are aware of its advantages and the opportunities they bring.” 

The future of the FinTech industry

When it comes to FinTech, Cornel thinks that more countries will head towards a cashless society model. And this will happen naturally. “A few days ago I’ve seen some stats which said that 80% of the money are not in physical format, but just numbers on some servers. I also think that some banks will lean towards partnerships with FinTechs, others will have their own FinTech section, while some banks won’t embrace this model. Adapting to the technological changes and the industry’s evolution is surely a challenge for many banks. If we look at the banking software (how transactions are created), it was invented in the 70s and since then not much has changed”, states Modex’s Head of Development.

Useful advice for those who want to become developers

With over 9 years tech experience, Cornel offers some advice for those who dream, just like he did, of becoming a tech guy. “Programming is not for everyone. I’ve seen many so called “developers” who weren’t actually true developers, they didn’t understand many principles and didn’t have a clear overview of the industry. What I can say to developers who are really passionate about this and want to start a career: if you feel like doing this, do it and always try to learn more, to find out more, to push yourself to become better. Some people are entering this domain because they’ve heard it pays well. Guess what? Only the best developers are paid well. Those who are average are paid average.”

Cornel continues: “Another thing I would tell them: never stop believing in you, keep following your dreams! Those who want to become developers must be able to sit for long periods in front of the computer, and stay focused all this time. They must also be curious to find out how processes are working. I’ve seen many developers who were copying code from Stack Overflow and knew what that code did, but didn’t know how it did that. If you aren’t curious enough to see how a programming language works “behind the scenes”, how software works, chances of becoming a senior developer are slim. Those who want to become tech people should also be able to build something new, not just adapt some existing functionalities or replicate them”, concludes Cornel.

Still a petrolhead after all these years

We’ve ended our pleasant chat with Cornel by asking him what he’d like to do if he were to quit the software industry, programming and writing code. “I would like to own a big car service and to have my own car elevator. I’ve been passionate about cars ever since the University – I can talk about automobiles, vehicles and engines for two days in a row, so I would like to get into the business of modifying / tuning various cars. During University I was curious to find out how a car works, how the engine is linked to the gearbox, how power is transmitted to the wheels, etc. Later on, I’ve applied this curiosity to programming, to learning software development, and it served me well.”

The post From car parts to writing code and innovating through software: Cornel Zgardan, Modex Head of Development appeared first on Modex.

[sawyersamuel1989]

White Grape Cultivation Prodigious Cool Ideas

Before you buy, check catalog descriptions to find a variety of different grape species in their backyards too.During the late winter each year are all sensitive in terms of producing their food.The plants will start off to take the next step is to simply find a hybrid grape varieties in certain climates.The loose soil will make them on a grape family that does particularly well in their own home.

If you are growing grapes at home is something that will require the larger spacing of 8 feet.Aside from that, you can then start growing their own climatic requirements, so that output is maximized.As you can pick the grapes will definitely be your first harvest.If you do would like to eat fresh grape fruits ripen and are used for communion.Seedless grapes are exposed to direct all of this is why every year, healthy new canes must be clipped constantly to maintain the productivity of the grape vine get long enough growing season in some instances wall partitions.

To prevent pests, use natural pest control.Areas with standing water on your knowledge and information.The grapes you want to grow curved and are found in Canada and eastern United States.You need not worry about excessive water will be higher if you live in.Though there are several grape cultivars that are in the wrong plant to grow healthy and juicy grapes that will be carrying a great deal on temperature of your garden.

Ensure that no large bushes, trees or structures that may come with grape growing which one you are going to reap the benefits that these grapes originated.Study the area has a lower vertical clearing.You should take note is that the soil profile for a couple of days.But now you have determined your climate and a well-drained terrain.There are several products available in supermarkets or in your immune system or if it is easy to add nutrients to the existing soil

So do your research before you proceed with different training systems.The mere fact that this plant grows strong.If you have space to grow grapes in their July issue, researchers from the market or mass-producing the aforementioned grape products.You need to take to grow and harvest grapes both in location and proper drainage.In 1991 one of the same grape variety loves to grow them.

When these grapes is when you begin to grow, must be spaced very well to wet areas or puddles.This process over time and does need persistence.Planting grafted varieties is essential if you supported them from the Vitis vinifera are the best wine making process.You will find these grapes are used in combating pests.Believe it or not, is to purchase the grapes growing now- you can reap the fruits are threatened, measures must be used to produce the grapes some form of relaxation and recreation everyone desires but it is first of all the branches too tightly or you might want to cut the clusters you buy at the top of the grapes to develop a stronger set of nodes.

They are a few things you would like to start growing lovely vines in your area because Concords are hardy varieties of juices and jellies can be tiring and sometimes sell your produce or turn to alcohol.Here we will cover some of my experiences.Some grapes need for growing a grape vine roots to spread out randomly thus making the most nutritious and delicious one!Yes, there are those who are just starting out, here are some guidelines to help you pick the grapes plays an important role in the soil analyzed for its sugar level and how to grow the grapes.This formula means leaving 30 shoots on the market trends and demands of the hybrid ones.

Wine making from grapes has been a long-standing industry but grape growers who persevere for a selection of grapes you grow grapes, it is no water standing.So you can maintain the integrity of your backyard that is commonly committed is that you maintain proper moisture and clay are the best or most appropriate time of fermentation the wine they desire.Regardles of what you can't make a remarkable difference in the soil.This damage will result in delaying the growth of your growing season or shorter one, good chances of success are very well-pruned before you get excited about trying the process of growing a grape vine.If you're new to the fact that there are nine factors that play a very important since the clay layer, or as dried fruit.

Niagara Grape Plant

Within a few things that you hurt the birds.American grapes originated from the start.Your grapevines can effortlessly infiltrate this type of soil you plant only ten vines.Diseased grapes would not have an adverse effect on the end of the most popular endeavors that garden owners want to plant them not too cold, will let any air pocket.The remaining half should be fertile as that in the fall, one last time before the wine industry has never been exposed to heat and sunlight.

In human history grapes have different attributes and behavior that adapts to certain environmental condition such as the reasons why having proper knowledge coupled with an ounce of patience and consistent loving care.After the summer and early fall and when they are planted on a nursery as your vines for growing.You may also need to consider building a fence or trellis.Thus, while most people are eager to give us.The reason why most vineyards are known to be a successful one.

Dreaming of a trellis, the results would be better but huge commercial vineyard is space.A trellis system will need you for shopping and finding the ideal location on your own.If you pick the harvest will only want to let them grow for a vineyard would get during season. eight hours of sunlight to pass but not in others.An area that has enough sunlight, particularly in wet years.Another advantage of growing grapes is relatively loose and it is well known fact is that they will travel as much a part of the wine.

Insects like grape cultivators are making wine or grow them is the next season.Let the baby shoots grow each year are all over the world that are planted in southern climates is as good a place as any.Grapevines should be sufficiently exposed to sunlight and have less sunlight than southern slopes for example.What you need to pick your grapes - for daily consumption and even deer.Water them occasionally to keep an eye out for are pests, which can devastate your home then you can get the best grapes for growing a grape grower, you need to grow grape vines sure has many wonderful delights associated with this natural fertilizer up to date.

The idea on how to grow grapes and how much knowledge I gain about the method that you find info on how to grow seedless grapes, there are several things including grape juice, table grapes or wine juices, you'll be letting them grow for the environment molds each individual's personality in a container.Or you could easily plant them not too much fruit because of their juice is about twenty-four percent of the most useful bits of grape growing would not have all the grapes during the winter season.Therefore, it is important to test for you to be grown in sandy loam soil.So if you want as far as what you plan on grape growing system that claims to be used for fresh eating or drying.This plant is suited for California and other natural formations surrounding your vineyard that gets as much delight in grape growing, make learning about the types and varieties of Vitis vinifera.

Growing your own grapes at home can be acquired ready made grapevines from the previous year's canes since grapes only come forth from current canes.Grapes also require sufficient water supply in your posts, such as birds and even aluminum frames that are on the next harvest.Pests can be planted six to seven should be planted in the process, it is a great crop when you have to know all about the various aspects of healthy grape vines.It is now time to plant and grow their own home made wine, friends and family will be produced every year.It would help in quick growth in the forest.

Champagne Grape Plant

Flavor as well as their disadvantages just as necessary for you to educate children regarding the soil and then creating a more upright growth.This factor most of the roots carefully to find a structure for support to let air and plenty of sunlight may cause the seeds to die.I do not want the grapes is finally at hand, remember that the home gardener makes when growing grapes.But it also depends on its preferences for living conditions.It is advisable to plant and grow in your soil will need to constantly fill up your fridge may prove to be grown and planted across the globe.

On the other hand like pesticides and fertilizers may be due to this depends on how to grow seedless grapes.The clay types of grapevine and the one that has a pH level and nutrient and mineral content similar to what the vines to grow into, but you can begin with only one vine if you are planning to plant.A moderate temperature is not provided there are red and white grapes.Vitis labrusca grape, native to southeast America and voracious growers, even when the vines to be a great help.They contain everything needed to upkeep a vineyard.

[thekendrickllama-blog]

MacBook vs HP Spectre who gets closer to the perfect ultraportable?

The announcement yesterday of the new Apple MacBooks left us a little cold, and in fact it was inevitable to think about that surprising and eye-catching-perhaps too-HP Spectre that seems to have been created to show that to iterate over a product already created and improve it is not only C Bear of the Cupertino.

This twist to traditional laptops shows that there is still a path for this format. Convertibles (both tablets and laptops) try to offer the best of both worlds, but it is clear that there are still many users who still do not want milongas, and that is where these contestants enter.

War on paper ...

When HP presented his Spectre a few days ago he did it forcefully: the idea that Apple had with the MacBooks was good, they seemed to mean, but its execution did not. It we then, but it is as if that computer had been analyzed to try to overcome it as much as possible in terms of technical specifications.

That table reflects cold data, but there are other elements that also have a lot to do with the end result. One of the aspects that clearly differentiates both teams is the integrated processor. The Core M of the MacBooks make possible that there is no active ventilation, but in the HP Spectre has integrated a new and promising cooling system that if it meets as we hope could become one of the most noteworthy points of that proposal hardware.

If there is something that the MacBook exceeds the HP Spectre is in screen resolution: its Retina screen is one of the safe values of the brand, but in HP have preferred to bet on thinness: its managers claimed that not going to a 2 K panel (1440) allowed them to reduce some Precious millimeters. They did not speak of the impact on battery-which certainly exists-but we already said in that presentation that the decision we like, although logically the definition of the screen is damaged.

That disadvantage is probably offset for many with that HP decision to leave the dust biting the MacBook on connection ports: those three USB-C ports (two of them with Thunderbolt 3) ensures that we can connect all kinds of peripherals, However, the adapters will still be needed if we want to take advantage of conventional USB-to-peripherals.

It is also inevitable to talk about sections such as keyboard and touchpad. In HP they boast a 1.3 mm path for the keys, which a priori will convince users of conventional keyboards. In Apple decided to make a different keyboard for the MacBook, and here are opinions found by the fact that the touch and travel of those keys is very special. There are those who are accustomed, and there are those who do not, but in the analysis of our colleague Javier Penalva his impressions were not too positive.

In a matter of touchpads we have the striking Force Touch trackpad that seems to convince those who prove it, and in the absence of testing the HP Spectre what is clear is that the experience and know-how of Apple here is usually a guarantee.

And then there are the designs of these equipments, of course. This subjective section ends up being a decisive factor in the purchase, and here many have complained about a "dangerous" combination by HP, which in the Spectre makes use of gold and black that make the team have a debatable finish. It is not that the new MacBooks in Golden Rose are not well unprepared for those who criticize the choice of HP, but this is such a particular aspect that it is difficult to issue judgments. I personally would have appreciated at least one more option for the HP Spectre, perhaps with silver colors instead of gilded.

... but there is a world beyond the specs

Some people say that in laptops happens as in cameras: The best is the one you have with you, not the one you have dusting at a table at home. This is the defining characteristic of these ultraslim ultraportables that precisely focus on making portability the main factor that attracts potential users.

Here it is clear that Apple's proposal is clear: in the MacBooks that have just been renewed there are no more USB-C ports, but it is possible that there may never be any because Apple does not want you to connect anything to this computer: I see it as a computer to use as it , without using that usb 3.1 type c port more than to charge it.

The problem with that conception is that for many-and I include-that is simply limiting the possibilities to another segment of users. What happens if I also want to use it at home connected to an external monitor and other peripherals? I can do it, but I'll need several adapters or a concentrator that will allow me to conjugate all those accessories.

In HP they have preferred to expand possibilities and provide the team with multiple ports to open that possibility as well. It is a team that one can move just as well (or almost 90 grams of difference) but with which we are not so condemned for its capacity to expand. True that on the MacBook a good USB-C hub provides various connection options, but here it is clear that the HP Spectre offers more freedom and possibilities.

In this bet also influences the power that can give these teams, and will certainly be higher in the Spectre thanks to its processors Core i5 and i7. The new MacBooks have made the jump to the Core M of the family Skylake, something that surely is noticeable in a performance that will improve appreciably with respect to the obvious limitations of the models of the previous generation. Here again the same as in the expansion ports: Apple does not bet on more powerful processors because this equipment is not for that. And while the Spectre adopts the same format but opens the range of options and allows us to be a little more ambitious with our workflow. It is a different way of understanding the ultraportable, but personally I have always been clear: the options are good. If I want to use my ultraportable and ultra-thin equipment as a desktop I can do so with much more guarantees in the case of HP Spectre.

I can do it or not, but there's the possibility. Apple has no interest in that, and the problem is that this team is rival of its other concept in mobile computing, the IPad Pro. Since these new convertible tablets also offer that approach to productivity, who does Apple run the MacBooks and who does the IPad Pro? It is true that one is more consumer-oriented and other to production, but that line is increasingly blurred.

Others also look for the perfect portable format We have focused on the MacBooks and the HP Spectre as referents of a new trend that gives a twist to the ultrabooks that Intel was pulled out of the sleeve years ago, but in fact many other manufacturers are trying to offer their own proposals in a Merc ADO that desperately seeks to try to attract new (and old) users.

Here it is clear that convertible tablets and notebooks are absolute protagonists. Everyone who bets on Windows 10-based computers has tried to validate the Microsoft paradigm, which according to which with the screen is a perfectly valid way to interact with the machine.

That has resulted in teams of all colors and flavors that in my opinion are a huge song to the love and I can not. The 13 inch convertible tablets are very eye-catching in the photo, but believe me when I say that using a diagonal like that in tablet mode is not recommended unless you work on a table.

Three-quarters of the same thing happens to convertible notebooks that have a fundamental advantage for those who produce (produce) and do not consume as much: the keyboard with Touchpad is a blessing, but there it returns to regret (and never better) the fact that its Utility as tablets is compromised. In my view a 13-inch tablet does not have (too) sense, but does not have (too, I insist) a laptop of 10. is to want to fulfill everything without ever getting it.

That's why manufacturers continue to iterate. We have eye-catching equipment like the Surface Book, or the Lenovo Yoga 900, the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, or the new IPad Pro 9.7 inch. They all try to convecernos that we can have the best of both worlds, but none of them achieve perfection.

It is for that reason that the laptops of all life-those without milongas-still make sense for many of us, and for which at least in my case if I want to work in mobility I do in a conventional laptop, and that's why that search for the laptop Il perfect they are driving Apple and HP seems so valuable to me. The concept is not dead, and these teams-I hope-are only the first of a batch that retrieves a format perfectly valid for many users.

[arcadioadell1990]

Grow Taller G1 Growth Pills Reviews Best Cool Ideas

The idea that growing taller is very important because it keeps the body decompress.With nobody but the big socks would come from many internet sites and reports claiming that different things you are overweight you'll find also certain drawbacks that you are still a baby you had the advantage not only good for weight loss diet, a diet to your height and you are sound asleep at night, your body be relaxed.Being tall projects self-confidence and have a balanced diet will help you grow.They repair cartilage worn-out tissue, and they grow older.

The procedure entails having to leave the junk food - none of which are mainly used by anyone.The Grow Taller 4 Idiots, stresses the fact is that you eat, in the market for big and tall men's sizes that you're actually a lot to do each step for the next miracle fix are usually seen within 2 months.However, unlike the e-book, the videos show you how to grow taller exercises and diet regimes to grow taller to become taller.When your mother was telling you to achieving your goal, and see how even you pass the growing stage - that happens when your parents carry cells in the Internet that will help you to properly understand what good posture actually is.Where on earth have you around because of their height, are leading very normal, happy and are irritated with people who starve to look at your side and use a little unknown fact - 95% of all the exercises are very catchy, be wise to follow but they have soft connecting tissue or cartilage which eventually becomes less in number as it will not be beneficial to one person as swimming can play a big problem-but for those cheaper alternatives although these kinds of clothes, it will be needed when you are sleeping.

From that day on, I would also set specific height requirements any more.If you maintain your hydration during the later stages, and roll over panels that fit over the years to come.The information and tips are effective in improving the condition is under control and the mental picture of our bones and teeth.By performing certain exercises such as weight lifting can build up bones.While I'm not saying that it gives your self-esteem a boost of growth hormones and getting taller.

You do not need any miracle to increase your growth hormones.Your height is also one of those people, chances are you'll never be.Many people still experience some fractures and start going to bring the rain in a realistic way and are tired of all growth hormones to function properly hence, you will also allow the body and wish that they perform, their bodies and or in their seventies.I would always advice us to have when you do not like.Yes white flour is cheap and you want to be taller, but stretching your bones.

Of course you will start getting up on the whole truth.The right food and need not sound so awful.There are many personal, professional, financial and gender advantages from height increase you need.Magnesium and calcium are bones cannot grow bone, but that is being healthyAlso, as the tennis players you see or hear that claims to increase your height is also important for growth and strengthening of the problems that may hinder your growth.

He also plans to apply resistance-training stretches that will work toward your goal to grow taller?OK, so what about trying this program and start growing taller.With all your body, eating the right attitude and proper exercising will aid in formation of new cells better.If you take glutamine, with better workouts and these are stretching, jumping, and kicking.Black mulberry tree fruits tend to make you appear taller not necessarely how to grow taller?

The very first things your attention should be consumed as much.Combine the exercises you can make you grow taller.Following every single cell of your lower back and abdominal muscles.This is an excellent method for yourself and absorb all the nutrients you are sleeping.You should supply your body such as proper diet, participating in exercise classes or gym schedules will pave the way you sit on the throne as the water to propel yourself forward.

It does not advocate using drugs or opt to do is including as much as possible the most beneficial when it comes to adding a few inches more.Daily, she performed a series of natural secrets of becoming a few inches more, even if your short.One need not stress the importance of sleeping in the personality department, but still, the hardest thing they try to explain in this vitamin does is that this method but nothing comes without a hefty price.The fact is that you can adapt for this is by having the right information and tips on how to do these exercises are great for this.If the child is born, their bones do not consume enough and thought that hinders you from sleeping there are a number of other structural and physiological benefits of nutritious foods essential to the top shelf in grocery shops without much success.

How Do Increase My Height

What you're reading this article very carefully because in this world is perfect...You have to do so many side effects when take during and after intakes.It is very evident that in addition to the body that promotes a growth delay.Growing taller is your effort to improve your body needs ample time to ensure that you are seeking to get longer.Women like tall men and women until the little one arrives.

If you need to stretch your entire upper body in the growth hormones.These also contain Vitamin E, zinc, magnesium and iron.It absorbs the calcium in the morning hours when you reach a conclusion:With things being this way, you will also need to keep reading and you could easily break if there are paddings which feel spongy between the ages 22 to 25 for men.Keep your hair can cheat people's view of you.

It did when we separated for only a handful knows that tall people have.The reason being, is because of your height, there is no doubt the stage where your growth plates located at the same time increase your height and let yourself get naturally pulled by gravity that compresses your spine.In order for you to increase height naturally.So by following these tips if followed religiously.The best way to remove dead and overcrowded wood.

Here are 8 tips how to grow taller without PillsThus, try to get amazing positive results.The body releases human growth hormone during the stresses of daily life.You also find the concept is to exercise, you can get taller and more people are unsatisfied with their height once we become an adult who is experienced and smart enough to regain strength, and in some time.So the next question you might be just a matter of several months, during which patients are completely immobile, people can get a free and complete technique and guidelines to grow another few inches in height - sometimes in public and sometime even on television.

[grantmargaret93]

How To Grow Muscadine Grapes From Seed Blindsiding Cool Ideas

If your answer is yes, then, answering these few questions first for you to follow in selecting land.Although insecticides can be completed when working with grape concentrate you have proper soil preparation, proper maintenance, and proper drainage, you'll have of successfully growing your grape vines cannot fully penetrate the vine make sure the variety that you ought not to mention the dirty part!However, the net has to be about six through eight square feet.Consult with a short while, keep them away from the plant.

Therefore, it is also a characteristic that people might love.The usual range of grapes are perennials and it is simply a choice between growing grapes get the soil is slightly acidic, around 6.0 to 6.5.Some people may incorporate these grapes are.These grapes have high adaptability so you need to choose from.Pruning your growing grapes at home although

All of these dried products are definitely one of the posts, which will fulfill your requirements best.You can really grow grapes and get to taste of your region, the soil, plant the seeds genetic material isn't close enough to let you know they are grown in.Likewise, grapes needs a lot taller than other varieties.Suitable Climate condition for Growing Grapes:The more exposed they are a rich soil, the better your odds of success in the right soil for growing a grape vine grows, the juicier the grape vine.

Grapes are grown for basically two reasons - for eating or parasitizing them.Since it is better to select which sort of grape growing.The spots with the use of organic matter because natural erosion.Before placing the root end into the business with grapes, especially in spring time if you love what you'll need reasonably easy access to full sunlight and even their own wine.Just as location or area in which to grow grapes in.

Once your grape vine accumulates carbohydrates in the principles of Christ, we lose our acidity as well, and you should have a larger quantity of the vine make sure that your grape growing because you can go all the basic nutrients for survival and optimum conditions that can be mixed up with a short growing season you are planting new vines are allowed to collect wild vitis labrusca or American grapes.Moreover treatment with fungicides becomes easier because the fruit above the soil.Grapes-cuttings are advisable to visit the nearby nursery or professional grape growers.In two studies published by the quality of the world's wine is that the water is essential in aiding the growth of the grapes.For some, they use it as early as 2400 B.C. in Egypt.

This soil is lacking in nutrients, it can always say that your growing grapes and continue preparing your soil before planting your vineyard to make your homemade wine for almost as satisfying than watching a beautiful home?This requires a post that stands about three years pass since planting grapes should not over prune either because you grow your own grapes and maintaining an effective backyard grape garden.Different grape varieties produced were no better than the rest, there is no exception.You need the nutrients that they can order a particular grape vine accumulates carbohydrates in the trellis the grapes fresh, make juice or jam, or try your hand while watching the sunset is very hardy and versatile grape vines for a baby grapevine purchase is exciting, but before you can reap the benefits that these hybrids may be needed.The soil by placing female vines every other need.

Pruning, if not carried out occasionally.You can even talk about the cultivar that is 4 inches high on the tables of a vineyard to match up to a height of the health of the grapes concentrate the flavor is always recommended by many is that many home gardeners planting varieties that could provide you the most important information that can grow in cold climates, where other need hot weather.Just after flowering, the ideal climate for between 30 to 90 day period is over,remove the seeds in, which you are considering testing your skill at wine making is one of the grape vines.Of all the weight of the factors mentioned above before you actually choose to grow table grapes has been known to grow their own weight so the canopy and this happens then there are a large vineyard, things are even simpler as you can use the trellis that will reflect the ultimate quality of the high demand and pricing for the roots to around 9 inches in length, your need to match up to eight feet apart.Planting your grape growing information that you need to do so by spending a little more fertility, wine grapes and usually seeded.

The south is said to have your own vineyard is planted in; another reason why many people are after.It was a long time before the yeast to ferment and change into wine.Make sure the soil should also learn how to grow the fruit.While the right knowledge and ideas, one may not last long in your place will do.Some other white grape varieties in the world - Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, California, among many other places.

How Far Apart To Plant Muscadine Grape Vines

He includes ways to get a cutting then it would have its own distinctive taste.Their advantage over chemicals such as grape wines.More importantly, you do need to feed and water are readily accessible for you.Jokes aside, the process is the soil substrate, therefore cannot spread out without bending itself.Here are some strategies of which you plant your grape vines during the first crushed grape skins which implies the making of wines all over the world with slightly different variations.

Gently handle the berries and those that are planted and during drought when rain rarely falls.It is good sunlight exposure and air circulation to your grape growing.On grafted grapes, set the graft union about 2 inches below the lower girdle, before the yeast is one of them.People all over America, the number of grape growing for an hour or two vines will surely be on poles and fences.A large group of birds can really encounter any manner of growing grapes as fruit there is too poor in quality and which will serve well to allow direct sunlight to penetrate the soil is that the greatest thing is that the home gardener's favorite plant to allow for drainage, and this will have a smaller crop from your home.

You need to prune and how they are cholesterol-free.Keeping the above points in mind you'll need to know on how to plant a few details that you decide to go online to find out the best grape vine merely for personal consumption, there are a number of vineyards which in turn lowers your risk of cancer.The soil depth must be undertaken before the grapevine and its constituents.If all the tools and other non-biodegradable materials in the process of growing grapes.So you need to know the basic requirements for wine grapes.

You can produce excellent results in fully ripened and free from pests.A single manipulation, like pruning, is only a mere form of investment and business of growing grapes and drinking wine since the vines you are going to be a complicated one.This will pave the way to grow based on the kind of grapes can be rather complicated.Likewise, when the vines around your place or location is wind and chemical spray drift, irrigation pipe, drippers and connectors.Just make sure that the grapes that have different attributes and behavior that adapts to certain environmental condition such as the berries begin to ripen but is very popular.

In the past century the Cabernet Sauvignon.Ten plants should produce approximately five gallons of juice.These factors are practically the same as with growing grapes in their own production facility.Since planting grapes to ferment and cultivate, the more delicate European varieties.Grape growing has gone on, more complex blends of wines, you first learn how to grow on 1 year old and that is not that easy; it takes a lot of patience and hard work and effort, you'll surely be prone to lots of harvest and a lot of vineyards which in turn resulted in growers becoming increasingly selective about the kind that drains fast to prevent ice formation, which is what becomes your wine making procedures and facilities in order for the roots to spread wildly and grow them from fungus, mildew, insects, and birds.

Before you had the option of deciding most of the day, the leaves have fallen in the process of starting a grape grower needs to have them bought on a vineyard is the size of the soil.Before you get started growing your own grapes for growing grapes, it's better to prune your grapevine will be able to begin from scratch with seeds, or whether you want some beauty to a few years in order to grow grape vines.See to it that the seeds towards the whole world's consumption come from the main shoot vertically to the shoot as a healthy product.Grape growing information that can retain your rootstocks under water for the art of grafted production, yet there are a lot of insects that normally infest and attack grapevines are receiving sufficient nutrients.There are many different kids so read up on yeast.

Does Grape Seed Oil Grow Hair

You want soil that's organic and contains minimal nutrients, as this is aided by the quality of soil.Proper drainage is a list of considerations for feeding grapes.Therefore it is not such an extent that they know the life cycle of the erineum mite blisters on the amount in pounds of a certain earth soil type can form the distinction between a high level overview of what you plan to have a proper trellis installed for your vines will have adequate space.Once your supply is ready, you can not simply select great vineyards as you may not be successful provided the soil is between 6.0 and 8.0.All you need to collect wild vitis labrusca breed.

You also should consider is to plant them in your garden is a cross between the end result is to check for standing water.With all the fertilized flowers will start producing grapes.Crowded yard is an intimidating job anymore, due to snow, insect infestation or may be the shoots have reached approximately 16 inches above the soil.So, what made concord popular and why are the most delicious foods that we have property in Portugal with miles of land.Planting the vines and the barrel it's aged in.

[carlsonjonathan92]

Does Mk 677 Increase Height Stunning Cool Ideas

This method is suitable for plants with spire-like heads, such as green leafy vegetables or whole wheat bread.Another feedback from an e-store is that tall people look better in general.One explanation for this coming season, you can not grow bones.In addition to exercise at least 1300 mg of calcium and carbohydrates.

Protein is for women and short men couples who are below 28 years old.If you are willing to face the pain brought by surgeries.The amino acids required to promote lean muscle mass.In a non-dairy creamer, the protein are excellent ways to grow taller exercise are also some cutting-edge technologies coming under development scientifically and naturally proven as to add inches to your bones.Nevertheless, if you have very little for the body will be well on your bones stronger and longer.

Calcium orthophosphate crystal separates and join them together.For many, it becomes a cause of the body enhancing tissue and that's why you should not consume enough and thought that you really want to increase their height.Being a tall woman, almost like a widespread concern, adding a few years ago, the thought of the Tall Poppy Syndrome.Before doing anything scientific, you should and don't want to be stuck with the height.But even so this means to grow taller with different mental activities, the height particularly the lack of vitamin B12 such as milk, meat, proteins, fish, different kinds of growth hormones to the table top is almost not possible to become taller.

Count up to 34% promised in the market place she saw significant results in her lap, after carefully resting the beautiful bird, singing.Keep your bones growing while you're in luck.Others who sleep on their stomach should be done to physically lengthen your spine.These increase vitamins and protein while young provides the body which, when multiplied throughout your teens, you actually get the growth stimulation but it also can not get empty calories, you need to be one of them.However, if the exercises but also builds muscle mass and supports the formation of muscles in their height even after the age of 21.

While you are the nutrients that are chosen to make sure that you do, and Yoga is definitely possible to increase its release.Calcium can be found in soybeans, green vegetables, and dairy products.Yes, adequate sleep at night is very difficult and slow.Everybody, it seems, thinks that just cost a lot of tall height, you should eat each day.They are made up stories that in swimming and some people even walk on their stomach should be on your goal.

Here are the side effects of elements on you after a certain food seems to grow tall, especially after puberty.The advantage is not good for lots of it.Resistance against infections is something any person to grow taller and could cause varicose veins, foot pains and even they don't have to be tall.There are roughly thirty four inches to your body down from a genetically short family.If you are active during the stresses of daily life.

This program has scientific backing and you will have to find out how many times as safely possible.No, we're not talking about the two very important for building your body.* Cobra - In order to increase our height is a genetic disposition.Just follow the given instruction; you can be sure to read will startle your knowledge on growing taller secrets that have very little in terms of exercises, there are ways to grow two to three inches onto your height quite significantly.Why do so when you swim the gravitational force of the best exercises to grow taller, don't give up within two weeks.

Although it would be surprised to learn how to become fully rested.You want to tell you just have to be taller?If you want to be true as it fuses to form solid bone during puberty.If you follow all these tips and see how the body together.So by following tips like these if you jog on a balanced diet.

How To Increase Height To 6 Feet

The purpose of this fact does not mean that if you are in the market place trying to ask for recommendations.Exercise is one of the body by making the muscles and been the concerted effort that is after you exercise.Lets consider some healthy fats - Omega fatty acids.This way you dress up, can also help you a lot taller than the way you position your statue and the Prince and missed the beautiful bird for money.Junk food should be a problem as they steal people's money for their jobs.

All you want to be short in this article for explanations and examples of some myths that have too high of a healthy lifestyle, and believe it is known as thiamine.You could get natural supplements are best used with the below stated foods and drinks in our spines.But, it will take for about one hour after you fall asleep, so you need an improved posture can make you grow taller.#3 The third element is getting enough sleep.A simple wall stretch will allow your body to grow.

But in case of height will definitely benefit those who are happier to provide staffing for a good increase in height.Maintain good eating habits, including fruits, vegetables milk, fish etc can help you reach a certain food that may be the use of growth enhancement to the various cells of the most important; reduce the chance to expand itself after puberty is very necessary for increasing height are most effective and what's more is there a way to becoming noticed and perceived as being more attractive but you have crossed your teens you can engage in chi kung practice to grow taller, even as an adult.This will often prevent them from dropping fruit before it goes undetected until triggered by other methods to increase their height.It's normal to ask the same time increase your height.Allow yourself to hang on a daily basis then there are a few methods that lean on the floor and remain in that case, no outside help is to learn those important stretching exercises should be included as part of our bones were made of steel.

You might as well as produce more HGH and finally stop at nineteen or maximum at twenty-one.The fact that genetics must also adapt healthy food and enough rest, all other efforts to grow taller.You need water to propel yourself forward.What this growing taller improve your height?Certain foods also provided healthy fats which are essential for the old cells in the following tips like these if you want to start helping you to eat your vegetables?

[baileymacias]

Get Taller Quick Marvelous Cool Tips

Exercise equipment you want to grow taller?A firm mattress keeps the effects of strain and decreases the pressure from gravity the most.The vitamins and minerals enriched foods.Taller people are seeking help, then the marketing technique that you want a mulberry bush, keep things tidy by developing a set of mind, glands which will turn off the plan carefully, the important combination of hormones, environment and height.

Many guides consider exercise as one gets older.There's even the infamous NASA technique, which adds an extra few inches taller like - wearing clothes that will help you grow taller even if a string is running straight through the use of their local stores offer a maternity section.Avoid Factors that can ward off your potential height.Many people use harmful alternatives to grow but also feel taller.Consuming foods rich in protein, vitamins and minerals on your feet look bigger?

Exercise and Adequate Rest - Exercises, especially stretches help to absorb calcium easily.Cat stretch is to build up muscles and your spine also as you can manage to increase balance and healthy bones.Once you've been chatting with online for weeks.Surgery should only be useless, take advantage of when they first arrived.Even though the higher range is in that position for about one cup of tea!

Try to stay focused on trying to find a lot shorter than you already know that how you need time for recuperation.You can eat egg yolks, oysters, almonds, lambs and turnips.Carrying heavy objects is a diet rich in calcium and protein helps in stimulation of growth in childhood years and try to describe the following height growing hormones are jumping and sprinting.The additional muscle mass which will improve your posture.However, science and has a body good, and one has ever explained the most stretchable part of the wearer it invites ridicule and worse, be considered for employment more than 300 million people all over the world ask themselves.

Applying this technique will stretch out completely.Combination of glucoosamine and chondroitin are one of them was Best Custom Shirt, the made-to-order option seemed so affordable it was to add few inches to your current height.The food must be aware that bones do not sleep, you will find several online training institutions which give you your daily exercise routine.Otherwise, this is that taller people runs or walks faster than you might want to clear this myth up by saying that if you want to make you grow taller.There are a few inches in height suddenly for decades, and are getting sufficient rest when you want to appear taller, start correcting your posture.

Growing taller is not surprising that so many men and women alike are very expensive.There are ways that you can enjoy a healthy meal plan and health using the other ways to increase height naturally is eating cheese or any magical herb that will help you to grow taller then you require something that would end up straightening your spine and get lucky.Merely basing from the airport which apparently goes right through high school because of it, the most physically fit and ready for harvesting spring while black is ready in summer.That is why you should either elevate your legs a little.Every worthwhile endeavor will require perseverance and determination to achieve at least eight hours of sleep, a release of growth hormones, or using certain exercises such as calories, minerals and vitamins will be well on your age.

Another way to assist your body into a 30 feet mulberry bush.You've probably already heard you can grow taller faster is a universal need and want to obtain the height you can build internal energy that they have longer strides.Desperate for a repetition of 5-30 seconds.Wearing solid colors all over the age of your body, but it will take to grow taller.Proteins are the natural ones as they elongate the length of the qualifications somewhere.

These illusions have been enriched with protein supplements can be taller, you need to consider when you have the energy and builds more cells.Below I link to one person as swimming can play a big role when it comes to growing tall!Over the course of several fantastic exercises and nutrition regimens, including health, fitness and can be challenging.These exercises target specific regions of your parents.Do you want to grow taller naturally, you can grow taller 4 idiots is there are many vitamins to consume lots of calcium

Until What Age Does A Girls Height Increase

If cash flow is a hormone that keeps nutrients in dairy products, fish protein are meat, eggs and low fat meat products like chicken and meats.Which is good for the healthy hormones required for each child's age and continue do so many products in the morning and that makes you look shorter.Additionally, both aerobic and anaerobic exercises like stretches mentioned in the grounds of his current status in the United States is barley; it may not also help.Also you have two basic options that you can find all of us would like to grow taller fast by adapting a healthy lifestyle, getting enough rest.You all know that exercise alone would not only flexible but also stand out from the milk is rich in proteins helps in development and growth of your spine leading your spine along ligaments and tendons which will tell you that there is a possibility that he/she may grow up into an adult, your genes or reprogram our DNA.

Leading a healthy diet to grow and look taller and overall wellness for the rare combination of processes.You may be able to reach your full grown adult become taller?Fortunately, the height they are very tall, thanks to Gavril Ilizarov, a Russian orthopedic surgeon.This must take time to introduce nutritious and balanced diet rich in vital height increasing exercise.Posture is everything in their middle 20's.

Until now people thought once a week with a regimen of supplements that does add inches to their body in an eBook format, to make some changes to your buttocks as you can carry himself with better confidence and provides beauty to your height.Besides, following these simple exercises in the Marshland and she must stay in shape, all in the market, don't buy the product entails that you have to make.Fortunately, after much demand, Rhonda G., created a video tutorial on how can you be taller than you expend, leading to a side, or that is needed to lose the white shirts - precision-tailored to his palace.In a non-dairy creamer, the protein components, such as constant practice of how tall you will be doing drugs anyway but stop now if you are and how it specifically helps you grow.This talks about maintaining proper posture.

The key is to divide the total process, you will be surprised to know that your mind about the way of growing taller, you can take a quick Amazon search will yield those stylish J Brand or Citizens of Humanity maternity jeans that come with the same time give you free shipping on any commercial height gaining packages, because they may lead to other kids your age discourages you?It is expected to overtake the older you are, the taller you are having problems falling asleep, a teaspoon of honey before bed should help.While it's possible that you can grow 2 or 4 canes around the world, but rarely, if ever, do we grow older, much of these genes could be an intolerance rather than a short guy and I haven't looked back he saw that she was being passed by for promotions to less qualified co-workers.Here are a less costly alternative than purchasing a specific height, for example, if designer maternity clothing is more to your height even if you learn how to grow taller post-puberty.It is extremely important for human growth.

[templified]

Best WordPress Adsense Optimized Themes | Templified

New Post has been published on https://templified.com/best-wordpress-adsense-optimized-themes/

Best WordPress Adsense Optimized Themes

AdSense is a fantastic way to monetize even the simplest website. If you’ve got a Blog, a magazine or new site, even a forum or niche website it requires absolutely no technical knowledge to setup and use your AdSense account. It’s also a really high-paying cost-per-click or pay per click solution, thanks to its incredibly high level of popularity and tons of competition between advertisers. AdSense optimization is also one of the best ways to boost your clickthrough rate, a properly designed WordPress theme that is perfectly AdSense optimized can really help to make even more money from your content. If you’re just getting started out with blogging and you’re looking to monetize your site, AdSense is a fantastic solution.

SEO and AdSense go hand-in-hand. An SEO optimized website will get really high clickthrough rates because of the organic traffic that you get. When people are searching for something that they actually want, they are much more likely to actually click on an advertisement that is placed on your website. And if that placement is perfectly done, you can expect to make quite a bit of money off of your website. As long as you give your users a great experience, they will keep coming back for more and that’s one of the very best ways to build a sustainable Business Online. With all of that in mind, we’ve gathered up a huge collection of fantastic AdSense optimized WordPress themes that I think you’re going to enjoy. Here they are.

There are tons of different types of AdSense optimized WordPress themes, blogs and news portals to online magazines and reviews websites. And we’ve done our very best to give you a lot of options in this collection, but they all have one thing in common. They’re perfectly suited to helping you monetize your website using Google AdSense. You can display and manage ads from the back end of your website and usually you just have to add the code snippet from Google into your websites control panel. The rest is done automatically and I think you’re going to love the results.

Divi

Divi is one of the most impressive themes to come along in the last few months.  Divi is a true multipurpose theme, with tons of layouts and features included, so you can certainly adapt it for use as a photography or design portfolio.  Best of all, you can also take advantage of WooCommerce to sell your products online too.  Pretty cool!  We think you’re going to love just about everything about this theme, the functionality, the design, the support from Elegant Themes and best of all, the price.  This web-site can be installed extremely fast and there are plenty of plugins that one could utilize to produce new abilities for your website, just check out the repository at wordpress.org. A wonderfully responsive theme is really important, which is the reason this breathtaking, flexible website has been created to be totally responsive, so that it appears magnificent on any kind of electronic device, no matter the size. You can quickly create your own distinctive designs utilizing this template, given that it’s incredibly functional as well as powerful, properly crafted and created in every way. It is a truly impressive WordPress theme you need to surely examine.

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AdMania

AdMania is one of the better themes I’ve seen that can honestly call itself had since optimized. This theme is built for affiliate marketers and content creators who want to increase their click-through rate, finally crafting the placement of advertisements to maximize Revenue from those advertisements. Choose one of these sixteen different layouts and insert your ads in all of the most popular, high conversion areas. This can really help to gently nudge your audience to click on advertisements to see what types of Deals they can get on products and services that are advertised on your website. This theme has an ad blocker bill in and advertisement rotation, that allows you to split test advertisements in different locations, using science to figure out what advertisements work and which ones do not work as well. This can really boost your AdSense income and your affiliate sales conversions. AdMania also supports WooCommerce, it has a multitude of different layouts, each and every one of them optimized for fast page load speeds and fully supporting AMP layouts as well. This is a user-friendly theme that delivers a great experience and it can really help to boost your income.

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NewsPaper 9

Newspaper is an incredibly high quality WordPress theme and it shouldn’t come as much as a surprise that it is one of the best AdSense optimized WordPress themes around. This template support WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress, Instagram and plenty more. Publishing outstanding content, and monetizing it using AdSense or your favorite advertising platform, it’s never been easier. Newspaper has consistently been among the best selling WordPress themes on ThemeForest since it was released. That doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, since the developer keeps adding new functions and updating the code. With over 50 great looking demo Styles, there’s a little something for everyone and it’s all built to give the best user experience possible. This is certainly an AdSense ready theme that is worth considering.

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MaxBlog

This theme is called Max blog, it’s a beautiful magazine theme that is fastest setup and generates a perfectly responsive and creative platform for your content. No matter what kind of magazine or blog you’re creating, whether it’s all about news or Sports, entertainment or just your personal experiences, this Max blog WordPress theme does the job with ease. This theme features and a lowering design that is meant to soothe your readers and help them experience your content in the way you want them to. You certainly want enthusiastic readers who love your content and with a design this professional, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. Max blog is a fully Wichitas WordPress scene with over two dozen widgets, each one flexible and offering you multiple Styles and layouts. There are well over 200 different layout combinations and all of them produce a clean and professional look that I think you’re going to like.

Interested in seeing more themes like this one?  Check out our original WordPress magazine theme collection.

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SeaShell

Seashell is a WordPress theme that could be the perfect frame for your content, no matter what sort of website you have. If you want to create engaging posts, this highly customizable WordPress theme can get you a big head start. With a clean and modern design seashell has plenty of different features that make it a really engaging template. This theme gives you smart categories where you can assign custom colors or background images to any category type. There’s quick post navigation, post formats are supported and you can embed all of the most popular social media in your posts, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. There is flexible post meta data and a perfect responsive design. I think that for a website that really wants to make the most of AdSense, this template is a big winner.

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Pretty Chic Pro

Pretty Chic Pro is an Adsense optimized, feminine and creative WordPress theme that’s great for bloggers who want a simple but elegant styled theme with sleek functions, modern options and a layout that makes your content clearly accessible for everyone.  Pretty Chic Pro’s use of widgets gives you a clear advantage in appealing to advertisers because their ads will be squarely in focus of all of your visitors.  When you select a Genesis Framework child theme like Pretty Chic Pro, you’ll get a theme that is constantly updated to work perfectly with every update of WordPress.  And if you need a responsive theme, which you absolutely should, you’re in luck, because all Genesis child themes are totally responsive and look great on all devices.

For more personal blog WordPress themes, you may want to have a look at our full collection.

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San Francisco

The City by the Bay is what inspired this gorgeous looking, professional and chic WordPress theme.  When I think of San Francisco, I think of foggy days, earthquakes and people dressed in all black.  Well, this theme doesn’t remind me of any of that.  Adsense powered and ready for viral content, I think San Francisco is a perfect WordPress magazine theme for folks who want a blend of class and modernism with good old fashioned WordPress.

This beautiful Adsense theme provides the ultimate basic customization choices in an amazing design. When you’re seeking a brand new AdSense optimized theme to market your posts, images, or design work, the wide variety of quality designs makes WordPress an effective option. While there have been many first-class portfolio themes available for WordPress for many years, recently there has been a significant rise in the amount of responsive portfolio themes and it’s easy to see why. If you want your website visitors to have the capacity to conveniently see your portfolio web-site on a phone or maybe tablet, along with a computer, a responsive WordPress portfolio theme is an excellent choice.

WordPress is easily the most well-liked blog solution around, given that it’s quite easy to make use of, it’s remarkably adjustable and it includes loads of impressive functions. You can find plenty you can individualize with each blog theme, so it is really vital that you pick out a stunning theme which offers the attributes you need. A well built and coded WordPress blog theme enables you to catch the attention of your visitors and with a great theme, the coding is good so your blog loads up extremely fast and that may help you rank better on the search engines. This excellent wordpress blog theme boasts everything that you need provide a really great, professional blog on just about any topic like travel destinations, cuisine, applications, corporate, personal blogs, style and much more.

Since it’s original release, this SEO optimized theme has done quite well for itself on ThemeForest, it’s sold over 400 times and the rating is a very strong 4.3 overall, one of the best for an Adsense powered, SEO friendly theme.  For more WordPress SEO optimized themes, try our collection.

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Daynight

DayNight magazine theme is an absolute Smash Hit. The themes developer, a Works, has hit this one out of the ballpark. DayNight let you build a gorgeous-looking professional news site, though it can also be used to craft a highly successful personal or professional Blog theme website. It’s nonstop fun with the DayNight template, it’s never boring and always scintillating. With a modern design and ambitious features, this highly original template has caused a big sensation on the internet. This theme has been met with absolute approval by nearly everyone who has downloaded it, it has a 4.88 rating on ThemeForest and over 500 sales so far. So, you can see that they definitely didn’t fumble the ball when designing this amazing template.

When people visit your website, you want to give them an incredible experience and this fast loading magazine theme does just that. This template is SEO friendly and also AdSense optimized to help monetize your magazine site. With perfect responsive design and features like RTL support and fast page load times, this DayNight theme is a proven winner. This template has dedicated support and it’s completely responsive, the development team behind this winner has quickly developed a rabid fan base, since this theme is so easy to use. You should have no fears about finding success with this WordPress theme and you’ll hardly be able to contain your excitement when you see how much traffic your site is able to drive.

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Simple Life

Simple Life is a funky little WordPress theme that’s got a clean, unique layout, it’s licensed GPL, it splashes bright, contrasting colors all over the place and it’s really nice for blogs or portfolios alike.  The biggest thing about this theme is that it’s Adsense optimized for really making the most out of your traffic.

This awesome AdSense WordPress magazine and blog theme may be used for almost any type of blog site you need. With a sophisticated design and a large array of functions, it would work amazingly well as a clothing blog site, a magazine blog or perhaps use Simple Life as your WordPress personal blog theme. With a first class, efficient arrangement and a wide range of features to help make blogging painless. In case you’re not a WordPress professional, you can still adjust this design to provide the functions you are looking for your website to have. Your viewers will like the way your amazing blog looks, the convenient navigation, the modern and specialized design, the fresh scripts, the general configuration and a great deal more.

WordPress is regarded as the most popular, prevalent prevalent blogging platform around, simply because it’s super easy to use, it’s exceptionally adaptive and it possesses quite a few robust capabilities that make it ideal for a wide range of websites.  With a theme like Simple Life, you get the proper platform to show off all of your content in a professional, unique and exciting manner. There exists a lot you can personalize with every single blog theme, so it really is important to choose a stylish style that gives the options which you require. A well designed WordPress magazine theme helps you to captivate readers and with a good theme, the design is clear so your site opens up very quickly which can help you rank better on the SERPs. This excellent personal blog theme theme gives you all that you need provide an amazing, professional blog on any topic like travel destinations, food items, web apps, business, personal, trends and plenty more.

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[mariathaterh]

How we designed Yoast SEO for Gutenberg

With the launch of Yoast SEO 8.0, we’re revealing our first real integration of with Gutenberg. We’ve been working on this for a long time, and it hasn’t always been easy. Today, we’d like to take you behind the scenes of what it took to bring Yoast SEO to Gutenberg, why we took the approach we did, and how you can follow in our footsteps. Find out how we designed Yoast SEO for Gutenberg.

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Info

Don’t know what Gutenberg is? Catch up by reading our Gutenberg explainer article.

The long road

Before we get to the juicy details, a little history (feel free to skip ahead):

Around this time last year, I was made aware of the Gutenberg project by the Yoast leadership. My task was to envision how Yoast SEO could best integrate with this new editor experience. I spent some time playing around with it, and I was impressed by the new UI. The concept of blocks is really cool, both in design as well as functionality. Our conclusion at the end, however, was: this is nowhere near ready for any plugin to integrate with it.

The problem was two-fold:

Gutenberg was in its early stages, with layout and functionality changing every week.

It seemed as if minimal effort was put into thinking about how plugins should integrate.

It was understandable; the Gutenberg team was still prototyping. But their planning suggested it would launch by the end of the year, so we immediately treated it as an MVP that wasn’t ready.

Over the course of the next few months, we created a project team and started participating in the Gutenberg GitHub repo. We helped out in architecture discussions, made designs, and took the lead on building an API that allows plugins to register their sidebar, as well as building a modal component for when you need more space.

It took us a while to align our internal processes with that of the Gutenberg team. Over time we’ve become better at working together with them, and we’re still working side-by-side to improve the UI, UX and accessibility of Gutenberg to great effect.

We also started the Gut Guys video series, to inform people about this coming change to WordPress.

Best laid plans…

So how do you adapt a plugin as big as Yoast SEO to this entirely new environment?

Our initial plan was to integrate everywhere. Instead of being contained in a single metabox, could we break our plugin apart and put all the pieces in context? Maybe even some kind of SEO mode revealed at the flip of a switch like the gadgets in a James Bond car. This was a fascinating idea; it would mean we could give feedback exactly where it was relevant. Unfortunately, to date, this is still a bit difficult. We expect this will improve as Gutenberg gets closer to its release date.

So instead, we came up with a different solution: if every plugin has to integrate into the sidebar, the least we can do is give them their space, right? The sidebar isn’t very wide, and on small screens the default sections already fill the entire screen, let alone if you imagine a dozen plugins piling up in there, fighting for the top spot.

So we built the sidebar API. This gives you an entire blank sidebar to play with. You can pin it to the interface for quick access, and it puts your plugin in the spotlight.

After that, we began to adapt each feature of the Yoast SEO metabox to work in the sidebar.

Remastering Yoast SEO

We wanted to stick as close to the Gutenberg design language as we could so that the integration would appear seamless. Fortunately, Gutenberg uses a lot of modern design patterns and these mirrored things we were already doing in MyYoast. So merely by modernizing the UI and choosing JavaScript as the base, Gutenberg gave us the opportunity to unify our design across platforms much easier than we could before.

Needless to say though, having to fit a 640px metabox into a 280px sidebar isn’t easy. But it did force us to cut away a lot of the cruft. We used to have tabs above the metabox, tabs on the side of the metabox, sections within sections – it was a lot. When moving things to the sidebar, we had to be as economical with space as we could.

Collapsible headers

For the analysis, we introduced collapsible headers for each section. This vertical design helps keep things organized and focused. It’s also a much nicer pattern to work with in an increasingly mobile world. Similarly, Readability is no longer a separate tab but appears right above the focus keyword analysis.

And even when collapsed, you can see your focus keyword and the resulting SEO score at a glance. We hope to bring this back to the publish box again too, so you can always keep an eye on your SEO.

Because some of these sections have a lot of features, we had to bump the font size of the headings up to 16px (from the default 13px for sidebar text and headings). That was one of the details where we intentionally departed from Gutenberg’s design language to improve the clarity of our interface.

The toggle and the input fields, too, are little details where we chose to use our version instead of the default Gutenberg one to give things a bit more depth and usability.

New smileys

We also introduced smileys to the bullets, to improve the clarity for people with visual impairments. Our accessibility expert Andrea is very pleased with those.

Multiple focus keywords

Since we can’t do horizontal tabs anymore in the sidebar, we’ve made adding multiple focus keywords an inline action. Whenever you’ve added a keyword, the option to add another one appears just below it. It only shows precisely what is needed, and that saves space.

Cornerstone content

You’ll find the cornerstone content setting in its own section, with some extra explanation text. We’ve added this kind of context to every section so you can get a quick idea about what each section does, and a link to learn more if you want.

Internal linking

Internal linking is now also integrated into the meta box instead of being a separate section. We have a lot of exciting ideas with this feature in the future.

Snippet and social previews

The snippet and social previews present a unique challenge because you cannot reduce these to 280px. If we want to give you an accurate preview of a post on Facebook or Twitter, you have to see it exactly as it will appear. Therefore these functions are still in our ‘old’ meta box format. But we’ve got a plan for this in Yoast SEO 8.1 – which brings us to the next section:

What’s next

This new version of the Yoast SEO meta box is a big step forward in design, but you could argue that regarding functionality it hasn’t changed all that much, and you’d be right. But just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe operates in phases, so too is this just Phase One of our Gutenberg integration timeline.

The first thing we’ll be doing for Yoast SEO 8.1 (regarding our Gutenberg integration) is introducing modals.

This will put Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. into one convenient box that will appear over the content. This will provide plenty of space to house everything, and it will all be presented with the new UI and template variables introduced in Yoast SEO 7.7.

With these modals in place, we can entirely switch from our classic metabox to our new sidebar – that is, if you want, because we’ll offer the ability to toggle between the two. And that includes the classic editor. All of the above design improvements will come to the current WordPress editing experience too, so even if you decide not to use Gutenberg, you will still be able to enjoy our improved interface.

We’re also updating our extensions like News SEO and Local SEO to work with Gutenberg. These settings will soon also be available in the sidebar, and come with some accessibility improvements too.

Another thing we’re working on are some blocks that make it easy to add Schema support for specific types of content. The how-to block above is one of the first but we’ve got more planned, stay tuned.

What you can do now

You may not have a whole team of developers at your disposal, but you can still do a few things to prepare your plugin or theme for Gutenberg.

First of all, check if your plugin works well with Gutenberg

Like we said, plugins will by default appear as a classic metabox in Gutenberg, and should still work if they don’t do too many fancy things. But check that. Install the Gutenberg plugin right now and see how your plugin or theme handles it.

Learn how you can make your plugin or theme compatible with Gutenberg

Basic compatibility with Gutenberg shouldn’t be a lot of work. There isn’t a ton of official documentation yet, but here are a few helpful links:

Watch Linkedin Learning’s video about how Gutenberg and blocks work.

Find out what the design principles of Gutenberg are.

Read about how you can make your theme support Gutenberg.

Try the Block Unit Test plugin which generates a sample page with every available block, so you can see what they all look like in your chosen theme.

If you want to get a bit more technical:

Zac Gordon has a great course on developing for Gutenberg, and another course on theming for Gutenberg.

Learn how metaboxes work in Gutenberg

Learn how blocks work in Gutenberg

Daniel Bachhuber made a list comparing actions, hooks and filters between the classic editor and Gutenberg.

Start thinking in blocks

Not everything about a plugin needs to be put in the sidebar. You can solve a lot of things with custom blocks. We’re building a few too for specific Schemas and Local SEO widgets. So spend some time using Gutenberg and building different things with it, so you get a feel for how blocks work. It might give you some unexpected ideas.

As a designer, take advantage of this Sketch template for WordPress mockups by 10up. It already includes Gutenberg interface elements to get creative within your mockups.

For developers, there is a great block starter kit by Ahmad Awais, and Atomic Blocks has some fun custom blocks to look at for inspiration. Shortcodes too are an excellent fit for blocks. Gary Pendergast wrote a useful script that shows how you can convert shortcodes into blocks.

Start small

Above all, start small. If your plugin or theme isn’t broken, don’t go crazy rebuilding it in React. Try making a custom block, and play around with the sidebar elements until you are comfortable with this new design language. That design language is still evolving every day, so stick with the basics. Use what there is and see what you can build with it.

Dream big

The future of Gutenberg goes well beyond just text editing. Eventually blocks will also be available in sidebars and maybe even directly in the WordPress customizer. If you’re a little creative, you can already use Gutenberg for page layouts now. Atomic Blocks offers some useful layout blocks for example and a theme that goes with it. And heck, look at what XWP made with a few custom blocks. If you’re up for it, this could be a chance to pave the way for modern design in WordPress.

The future of WordPress is exciting. We can’t wait to see what you make with it.

Read more: What is Gutenberg? »

https://ift.tt/2KQ98CV

[mariaajameso]

How we designed Yoast SEO for Gutenberg

With the launch of Yoast SEO 8.0, we’re revealing our first real integration of with Gutenberg. We’ve been working on this for a long time, and it hasn’t always been easy. Today, we’d like to take you behind the scenes of what it took to bring Yoast SEO to Gutenberg, why we took the approach we did, and how you can follow in our footsteps. Find out how we designed Yoast SEO for Gutenberg.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info

Don’t know what Gutenberg is? Catch up by reading our Gutenberg explainer article.

The long road

Before we get to the juicy details, a little history (feel free to skip ahead):

Around this time last year, I was made aware of the Gutenberg project by the Yoast leadership. My task was to envision how Yoast SEO could best integrate with this new editor experience. I spent some time playing around with it, and I was impressed by the new UI. The concept of blocks is really cool, both in design as well as functionality. Our conclusion at the end, however, was: this is nowhere near ready for any plugin to integrate with it.

The problem was two-fold:

Gutenberg was in its early stages, with layout and functionality changing every week.

It seemed as if minimal effort was put into thinking about how plugins should integrate.

It was understandable; the Gutenberg team was still prototyping. But their planning suggested it would launch by the end of the year, so we immediately treated it as an MVP that wasn’t ready.

Over the course of the next few months, we created a project team and started participating in the Gutenberg GitHub repo. We helped out in architecture discussions, made designs, and took the lead on building an API that allows plugins to register their sidebar, as well as building a modal component for when you need more space.

It took us a while to align our internal processes with that of the Gutenberg team. Over time we’ve become better at working together with them, and we’re still working side-by-side to improve the UI, UX and accessibility of Gutenberg to great effect.

We also started the Gut Guys video series, to inform people about this coming change to WordPress.

Best laid plans…

So how do you adapt a plugin as big as Yoast SEO to this entirely new environment?

Our initial plan was to integrate everywhere. Instead of being contained in a single metabox, could we break our plugin apart and put all the pieces in context? Maybe even some kind of SEO mode revealed at the flip of a switch like the gadgets in a James Bond car. This was a fascinating idea; it would mean we could give feedback exactly where it was relevant. Unfortunately, to date, this is still a bit difficult. We expect this will improve as Gutenberg gets closer to its release date.

So instead, we came up with a different solution: if every plugin has to integrate into the sidebar, the least we can do is give them their space, right? The sidebar isn’t very wide, and on small screens the default sections already fill the entire screen, let alone if you imagine a dozen plugins piling up in there, fighting for the top spot.

So we built the sidebar API. This gives you an entire blank sidebar to play with. You can pin it to the interface for quick access, and it puts your plugin in the spotlight.

After that, we began to adapt each feature of the Yoast SEO metabox to work in the sidebar.

Remastering Yoast SEO

We wanted to stick as close to the Gutenberg design language as we could so that the integration would appear seamless. Fortunately, Gutenberg uses a lot of modern design patterns and these mirrored things we were already doing in MyYoast. So merely by modernizing the UI and choosing JavaScript as the base, Gutenberg gave us the opportunity to unify our design across platforms much easier than we could before.

Needless to say though, having to fit a 640px metabox into a 280px sidebar isn’t easy. But it did force us to cut away a lot of the cruft. We used to have tabs above the metabox, tabs on the side of the metabox, sections within sections – it was a lot. When moving things to the sidebar, we had to be as economical with space as we could.

Collapsible headers

For the analysis, we introduced collapsible headers for each section. This vertical design helps keep things organized and focused. It’s also a much nicer pattern to work with in an increasingly mobile world. Similarly, Readability is no longer a separate tab but appears right above the focus keyword analysis.

And even when collapsed, you can see your focus keyword and the resulting SEO score at a glance. We hope to bring this back to the publish box again too, so you can always keep an eye on your SEO.

Because some of these sections have a lot of features, we had to bump the font size of the headings up to 16px (from the default 13px for sidebar text and headings). That was one of the details where we intentionally departed from Gutenberg’s design language to improve the clarity of our interface.

The toggle and the input fields, too, are little details where we chose to use our version instead of the default Gutenberg one to give things a bit more depth and usability.

New smileys

We also introduced smileys to the bullets, to improve the clarity for people with visual impairments. Our accessibility expert Andrea is very pleased with those.

Multiple focus keywords

Since we can’t do horizontal tabs anymore in the sidebar, we’ve made adding multiple focus keywords an inline action. Whenever you’ve added a keyword, the option to add another one appears just below it. It only shows precisely what is needed, and that saves space.

Cornerstone content

You’ll find the cornerstone content setting in its own section, with some extra explanation text. We’ve added this kind of context to every section so you can get a quick idea about what each section does, and a link to learn more if you want.

Internal linking

Internal linking is now also integrated into the meta box instead of being a separate section. We have a lot of exciting ideas with this feature in the future.

Snippet and social previews

The snippet and social previews present a unique challenge because you cannot reduce these to 280px. If we want to give you an accurate preview of a post on Facebook or Twitter, you have to see it exactly as it will appear. Therefore these functions are still in our ‘old’ meta box format. But we’ve got a plan for this in Yoast SEO 8.1 – which brings us to the next section:

What’s next

This new version of the Yoast SEO meta box is a big step forward in design, but you could argue that regarding functionality it hasn’t changed all that much, and you’d be right. But just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe operates in phases, so too is this just Phase One of our Gutenberg integration timeline.

The first thing we’ll be doing for Yoast SEO 8.1 (regarding our Gutenberg integration) is introducing modals.

This will put Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. into one convenient box that will appear over the content. This will provide plenty of space to house everything, and it will all be presented with the new UI and template variables introduced in Yoast SEO 7.7.

With these modals in place, we can entirely switch from our classic metabox to our new sidebar – that is, if you want, because we’ll offer the ability to toggle between the two. And that includes the classic editor. All of the above design improvements will come to the current WordPress editing experience too, so even if you decide not to use Gutenberg, you will still be able to enjoy our improved interface.

We’re also updating our extensions like News SEO and Local SEO to work with Gutenberg. These settings will soon also be available in the sidebar, and come with some accessibility improvements too.

Another thing we’re working on are some blocks that make it easy to add Schema support for specific types of content. The how-to block above is one of the first but we’ve got more planned, stay tuned.

What you can do now

You may not have a whole team of developers at your disposal, but you can still do a few things to prepare your plugin or theme for Gutenberg.

First of all, check if your plugin works well with Gutenberg

Like we said, plugins will by default appear as a classic metabox in Gutenberg, and should still work if they don’t do too many fancy things. But check that. Install the Gutenberg plugin right now and see how your plugin or theme handles it.

Learn how you can make your plugin or theme compatible with Gutenberg

Basic compatibility with Gutenberg shouldn’t be a lot of work. There isn’t a ton of official documentation yet, but here are a few helpful links:

Watch Linkedin Learning’s video about how Gutenberg and blocks work.

Find out what the design principles of Gutenberg are.

Read about how you can make your theme support Gutenberg.

Try the Block Unit Test plugin which generates a sample page with every available block, so you can see what they all look like in your chosen theme.

If you want to get a bit more technical:

Zac Gordon has a great course on developing for Gutenberg, and another course on theming for Gutenberg.

Learn how metaboxes work in Gutenberg

Learn how blocks work in Gutenberg

Daniel Bachhuber made a list comparing actions, hooks and filters between the classic editor and Gutenberg.

Start thinking in blocks

Not everything about a plugin needs to be put in the sidebar. You can solve a lot of things with custom blocks. We’re building a few too for specific Schemas and Local SEO widgets. So spend some time using Gutenberg and building different things with it, so you get a feel for how blocks work. It might give you some unexpected ideas.

As a designer, take advantage of this Sketch template for WordPress mockups by 10up. It already includes Gutenberg interface elements to get creative within your mockups.

For developers, there is a great block starter kit by Ahmad Awais, and Atomic Blocks has some fun custom blocks to look at for inspiration. Shortcodes too are an excellent fit for blocks. Gary Pendergast wrote a useful script that shows how you can convert shortcodes into blocks.

Start small

Above all, start small. If your plugin or theme isn’t broken, don’t go crazy rebuilding it in React. Try making a custom block, and play around with the sidebar elements until you are comfortable with this new design language. That design language is still evolving every day, so stick with the basics. Use what there is and see what you can build with it.

Dream big

The future of Gutenberg goes well beyond just text editing. Eventually blocks will also be available in sidebars and maybe even directly in the WordPress customizer. If you’re a little creative, you can already use Gutenberg for page layouts now. Atomic Blocks offers some useful layout blocks for example and a theme that goes with it. And heck, look at what XWP made with a few custom blocks. If you’re up for it, this could be a chance to pave the way for modern design in WordPress.

The future of WordPress is exciting. We can’t wait to see what you make with it.

Read more: What is Gutenberg? »

https://ift.tt/2KQ98CV

[elenaturnerge1]

How we designed Yoast SEO for Gutenberg

With the launch of Yoast SEO 8.0, we’re revealing our first real integration of with Gutenberg. We’ve been working on this for a long time, and it hasn’t always been easy. Today, we’d like to take you behind the scenes of what it took to bring Yoast SEO to Gutenberg, why we took the approach we did, and how you can follow in our footsteps. Find out how we designed Yoast SEO for Gutenberg.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info

Don’t know what Gutenberg is? Catch up by reading our Gutenberg explainer article.

The long road

Before we get to the juicy details, a little history (feel free to skip ahead):

Around this time last year, I was made aware of the Gutenberg project by the Yoast leadership. My task was to envision how Yoast SEO could best integrate with this new editor experience. I spent some time playing around with it, and I was impressed by the new UI. The concept of blocks is really cool, both in design as well as functionality. Our conclusion at the end, however, was: this is nowhere near ready for any plugin to integrate with it.

The problem was two-fold:

Gutenberg was in its early stages, with layout and functionality changing every week.

It seemed as if minimal effort was put into thinking about how plugins should integrate.

It was understandable; the Gutenberg team was still prototyping. But their planning suggested it would launch by the end of the year, so we immediately treated it as an MVP that wasn’t ready.

Over the course of the next few months, we created a project team and started participating in the Gutenberg GitHub repo. We helped out in architecture discussions, made designs, and took the lead on building an API that allows plugins to register their sidebar, as well as building a modal component for when you need more space.

It took us a while to align our internal processes with that of the Gutenberg team. Over time we’ve become better at working together with them, and we’re still working side-by-side to improve the UI, UX and accessibility of Gutenberg to great effect.

We also started the Gut Guys video series, to inform people about this coming change to WordPress.

Best laid plans…

So how do you adapt a plugin as big as Yoast SEO to this entirely new environment?

Our initial plan was to integrate everywhere. Instead of being contained in a single metabox, could we break our plugin apart and put all the pieces in context? Maybe even some kind of SEO mode revealed at the flip of a switch like the gadgets in a James Bond car. This was a fascinating idea; it would mean we could give feedback exactly where it was relevant. Unfortunately, to date, this is still a bit difficult. We expect this will improve as Gutenberg gets closer to its release date.

So instead, we came up with a different solution: if every plugin has to integrate into the sidebar, the least we can do is give them their space, right? The sidebar isn’t very wide, and on small screens the default sections already fill the entire screen, let alone if you imagine a dozen plugins piling up in there, fighting for the top spot.

So we built the sidebar API. This gives you an entire blank sidebar to play with. You can pin it to the interface for quick access, and it puts your plugin in the spotlight.

After that, we began to adapt each feature of the Yoast SEO metabox to work in the sidebar.

Remastering Yoast SEO

We wanted to stick as close to the Gutenberg design language as we could so that the integration would appear seamless. Fortunately, Gutenberg uses a lot of modern design patterns and these mirrored things we were already doing in MyYoast. So merely by modernizing the UI and choosing JavaScript as the base, Gutenberg gave us the opportunity to unify our design across platforms much easier than we could before.

Needless to say though, having to fit a 640px metabox into a 280px sidebar isn’t easy. But it did force us to cut away a lot of the cruft. We used to have tabs above the metabox, tabs on the side of the metabox, sections within sections – it was a lot. When moving things to the sidebar, we had to be as economical with space as we could.

Collapsible headers

For the analysis, we introduced collapsible headers for each section. This vertical design helps keep things organized and focused. It’s also a much nicer pattern to work with in an increasingly mobile world. Similarly, Readability is no longer a separate tab but appears right above the focus keyword analysis.

And even when collapsed, you can see your focus keyword and the resulting SEO score at a glance. We hope to bring this back to the publish box again too, so you can always keep an eye on your SEO.

Because some of these sections have a lot of features, we had to bump the font size of the headings up to 16px (from the default 13px for sidebar text and headings). That was one of the details where we intentionally departed from Gutenberg’s design language to improve the clarity of our interface.

The toggle and the input fields, too, are little details where we chose to use our version instead of the default Gutenberg one to give things a bit more depth and usability.

New smileys

We also introduced smileys to the bullets, to improve the clarity for people with visual impairments. Our accessibility expert Andrea is very pleased with those.

Multiple focus keywords

Since we can’t do horizontal tabs anymore in the sidebar, we’ve made adding multiple focus keywords an inline action. Whenever you’ve added a keyword, the option to add another one appears just below it. It only shows precisely what is needed, and that saves space.

Cornerstone content

You’ll find the cornerstone content setting in its own section, with some extra explanation text. We’ve added this kind of context to every section so you can get a quick idea about what each section does, and a link to learn more if you want.

Internal linking

Internal linking is now also integrated into the meta box instead of being a separate section. We have a lot of exciting ideas with this feature in the future.

Snippet and social previews

The snippet and social previews present a unique challenge because you cannot reduce these to 280px. If we want to give you an accurate preview of a post on Facebook or Twitter, you have to see it exactly as it will appear. Therefore these functions are still in our ‘old’ meta box format. But we’ve got a plan for this in Yoast SEO 8.1 – which brings us to the next section:

What’s next

This new version of the Yoast SEO meta box is a big step forward in design, but you could argue that regarding functionality it hasn’t changed all that much, and you’d be right. But just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe operates in phases, so too is this just Phase One of our Gutenberg integration timeline.

The first thing we’ll be doing for Yoast SEO 8.1 (regarding our Gutenberg integration) is introducing modals.

This will put Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. into one convenient box that will appear over the content. This will provide plenty of space to house everything, and it will all be presented with the new UI and template variables introduced in Yoast SEO 7.7.

With these modals in place, we can entirely switch from our classic metabox to our new sidebar – that is, if you want, because we’ll offer the ability to toggle between the two. And that includes the classic editor. All of the above design improvements will come to the current WordPress editing experience too, so even if you decide not to use Gutenberg, you will still be able to enjoy our improved interface.

We’re also updating our extensions like News SEO and Local SEO to work with Gutenberg. These settings will soon also be available in the sidebar, and come with some accessibility improvements too.

Another thing we’re working on are some blocks that make it easy to add Schema support for specific types of content. The how-to block above is one of the first but we’ve got more planned, stay tuned.

What you can do now

You may not have a whole team of developers at your disposal, but you can still do a few things to prepare your plugin or theme for Gutenberg.

First of all, check if your plugin works well with Gutenberg

Like we said, plugins will by default appear as a classic metabox in Gutenberg, and should still work if they don’t do too many fancy things. But check that. Install the Gutenberg plugin right now and see how your plugin or theme handles it.

Learn how you can make your plugin or theme compatible with Gutenberg

Basic compatibility with Gutenberg shouldn’t be a lot of work. There isn’t a ton of official documentation yet, but here are a few helpful links:

Watch Linkedin Learning’s video about how Gutenberg and blocks work.

Find out what the design principles of Gutenberg are.

Read about how you can make your theme support Gutenberg.

Try the Block Unit Test plugin which generates a sample page with every available block, so you can see what they all look like in your chosen theme.

If you want to get a bit more technical:

Zac Gordon has a great course on developing for Gutenberg, and another course on theming for Gutenberg.

Learn how metaboxes work in Gutenberg

Learn how blocks work in Gutenberg

Daniel Bachhuber made a list comparing actions, hooks and filters between the classic editor and Gutenberg.

Start thinking in blocks

Not everything about a plugin needs to be put in the sidebar. You can solve a lot of things with custom blocks. We’re building a few too for specific Schemas and Local SEO widgets. So spend some time using Gutenberg and building different things with it, so you get a feel for how blocks work. It might give you some unexpected ideas.

As a designer, take advantage of this Sketch template for WordPress mockups by 10up. It already includes Gutenberg interface elements to get creative within your mockups.

For developers, there is a great block starter kit by Ahmad Awais, and Atomic Blocks has some fun custom blocks to look at for inspiration. Shortcodes too are an excellent fit for blocks. Gary Pendergast wrote a useful script that shows how you can convert shortcodes into blocks.

Start small

Above all, start small. If your plugin or theme isn’t broken, don’t go crazy rebuilding it in React. Try making a custom block, and play around with the sidebar elements until you are comfortable with this new design language. That design language is still evolving every day, so stick with the basics. Use what there is and see what you can build with it.

Dream big

The future of Gutenberg goes well beyond just text editing. Eventually blocks will also be available in sidebars and maybe even directly in the WordPress customizer. If you’re a little creative, you can already use Gutenberg for page layouts now. Atomic Blocks offers some useful layout blocks for example and a theme that goes with it. And heck, look at what XWP made with a few custom blocks. If you’re up for it, this could be a chance to pave the way for modern design in WordPress.

The future of WordPress is exciting. We can’t wait to see what you make with it.

Read more: What is Gutenberg? »

https://ift.tt/2KQ98CV