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fisherrprince · 3 years ago

Note

do you have more thoughts on keyblade fighting that you need to put somewhere, because i have two hands ready to catch Should The Need Arise

anon: hey I heard you mention you’d analysed the combat styles in KH and what you said in the tags was already alluding to really neat stuff, but I for one would love to hear more of what you came up with!! so if you ever wanted to share any of your analysis then the floor is yours

aHAH, MY EXCUSE!!

Okay, so first some words on “standardized wielding styles”. These are styles shared by Terra, Aqua, Vanitas, Riku, and Xehanort and every other scala and daybreak kid. I will make the argument that the red style is the fanciest standard style, while the purple is seen often to make it easier on the little chibi sprites. BUT, I cannot discredit Eraqus, who uses the purple variant in bbs, nor can I discredit half of the Foretellers (Gula and Ava, at least, use this. Invi and Aced use the first type). So, two standard styles. For simplicity, let’s say one for primary offense, one for primary defense. The standard offensive style really wasn’t popular before Scala-era society.

check this difference out, specifically between ava invi and gula:

then between eraqus, hermod, and xehanort, and eraqus and terra.

These two were likely popularized and standardized for education in Scala ad Caelum for their predominant lack of obvious weak spots.

After this, we have unique styles. Those include Sora Kairi and Xion’s (similar to standard defense, but more mobile at the expense of form — Kairi takes after Sora but less confident, she hasn’t been hit that heavily yet), Ven’s (backhand, heavy range and mobility), Roxas’ (modified for two keyblades, but takes after Sora), and Axel’s (taught himself, comfortable with chakrams).

So! Let’s go.

Standard (offensive)

All styles have sub-variations, of a sense. Different wielders can choose where their keyblade points, and how they hold it exactly, based on what makes them most comfortable. Terra and Aqua point theirs downward, while Vanitas and Riku hold theirs above their head. What is recognizeable to this style is a hand for the sword, and a hand for guarding/blocking/items/magic.

It’s incredibly efficient. With only one hand on the weapon, you not only free up a hand for other things, but increase your range of movement with said weapon. Test it out yourself! The keyblade hand is always your dominant hand, held behind you for increased power when attacking (since you lose a significant amount of it by choosing not to grip with both hands). This style also decreases the speed of the defense you have, but with that increased mobility and swing power, along with a hand free to brace against the keyblade (defense strength up!), it makes up for it. Many people who use this also have strong barrier spells — both a testament to their preference for coverage and an acknowledgement that any directional block will take a little longer and be weaker if they try it with one hand.

The pointy end, though. What difference does it actually make, the height it’s at?

I think it’s half a matter of attack style preference and half intention. Riku, Vanitas, and Xehanort stab quite a bit. Aqua and Terra slice more. Not that they don’t do both, but it’s the first instinct. Aqua and Terra are also likely taught to hold their keyblade neutrally, in a safe position, until someone starts attacking. It’s polite! Eraqus also holds his one-handed, neutrally, until he gets into position. Riku and Vanitas learned to fight assuming everyone was out to fight them. Invi and Aced may like this style because of range (i hc she’s blind and strikes very very quickly, and he’s already very powerful with just the one arm and wants better motion).

and on character specifics: Terra often switches to two-handed, to copy his dad and add extra power to his hits without always sacrificing the empty hand. Vanitas likely was forced to relearn how to fight, as instead of solely being trained to be better at withstanding, he was constantly being made to better his own attacks. The moves Xehanort uses would best be replicated in the same style. Vanitas is wild for holding the massive spiky x-blade like that.

Now, what‘s good on this style does not correlate to what’s bad in the other. The two standard styles simply have different ways of dealing with each con they create or taking advantage of each pro.

(Here’s an interesting side note — Gula uses standard defensive, but in this instance, swaps. One hand… likely to display confidence! Wrong move, but hey. He got cocky. He’s also doing it wrong, and swaps back to two-handed to take Aced’s attack.)

Standard (defensive)

The main detriment of this style is the lack of ease of long range movement. Hold a wrapping paper tube out in front of you with both hands, then run. It goes to the side, or tucks in to your stomach, right? Dodge. Your legs will get in the way unless you know where to move that sword. It requires, interestingly, a little more discipline. You’d think Aqua would like that, but no, she wants movement and practicality, and she loves magic, and remember that you must take a hand off this style to grab a potion. You’d think young Eraqus wouldn’t, but remember that he’s a fancy royal lad.

The main draw, though, is tankiness, readiness, and power. You don’t need to move as much if nothing dares hit you! Ava and Gula might be attracted to this style because they’re not as physically strong, but want protection in close-quarters fighting. Using this style when your muscles aren’t as big but you still want to Hit Things Good, or when you want to be a boy you can’t knock over with a pail of water (horse stance rules), is probably solid advice.

Traditionally, this is a lot less like fencing, and a lot more like a samurai sword or kendo. Your blade is held in front of you, giving you very easy access to blocks and frontal attack/defense. In losing some twirly spinniness, you gain power and minimize your opponent’s ability to parry and block.

you gotta dodge master Eraqus so mcuh

All styles will swap between one and two hands for different moves. Eraqus, notably, swaps to a stance very similar to Xehanort when channeling a metric ton of magic.

Both of these styles require a degree of upper body/core strength, as does all swordfighting. I would be interested to see someone whose keyblade style relies on leg strength.

Sora, Xion, and Kairi

please look at the difference between the foretellers’ or eraqus’ two-handed grip and Sora’s. Do this with your shoulders and a top-heavy object.

They’re both in a hard stance, but hon. What are you, a gremlin? Anyways, a traditionally taught master would have… better form, even if it’s harder to learn at first. It’s habitual. Sora nearly crouches, and holds his keyblade back-pointed with two hands, which makes it easier for him to dodge roll, push off his feet quickly, and pull off those spinning combos he loves. It‘s really gonna hurt his muscles, in the future, though, since he’s doing a squat for like…. hours. Pulling on those shoulderblades and neck. Xion, too. Replicas had better have correct muscle dynamics. Kairi is brand new, so… maybe Aqua can teach her how to hold a sword so it doesnt hurt you.

Okay, now look at the grip itself. Held in front versus held to the side-back. They’re really attempting to combine both standard styles subconsciously, giving themselves more attack power while really wanting to keep that hard defensive parry, wanting to prevent all attacks to the front while also wanting mobility. It’s working for them really well, they fight like an anime character, and manage to get the best of both, with a minor sacrifice of length range that they don’t care about. We’re flexible and full of magic, baby! Holding the blade like this makes it pretty easy to let go with one hand without sacrificing that crouched defense position.

Now, Sora, specifically, is very adaptive. He’s had two keyblades, claws, guns, yo-yos, and a giant shield, to name a couple. He retains a bit of that alert crouch no matter where he goes, but Sora knows how he wants to attack and how to balance that with the most effective way to use his current weapon. He’s a smart kid! Sora has the most ridiculous shotlocks, which are also probably due to not always wanting to go standard for it. He also prefers to keep his focus on the enemy, which is evident in his reprisals and lack of very many effective “escape” moves.

Xion is very similar to Sora, but she does have some moves that are all movement. She switches to one handed for strikes a lot — using two for defending, one for smacking. In her data battle I’d swear some of those heavy hits are claymore-like. But anyways, since we’re magic, Xion cares not for the laws of exhaustion, and will ping about as a ball of light everywhere. Short range? Up in your business. Mid-range? In your business with one hand. Long range? Throws a boomerang. Hit her? No you dont. Ball of light. She’s above you and wants to bash your head in. (Vanitas also does this! A lot. It’s an easy way to catch someone off-guard. I’ll argue that the soras are very tough and strong, but not tanky. they want to avoid being hit a lot)

Another interesting note about Kairi. I say “unconfident” not because she doesn’t hit hard, but because her stance is also often tilted back, ready to dodge. It’s two handed, but almost all her moves are one. She does love spinning and throwing the thing! It looks like she’s been taking notes from the wielders she knows. It would be easy to teach her a standard style, I think. See here, she lets go on the strike, and by trying to do both, actually ends up with an advantage (being confusing) and disadvantage (losing both the power of two handed and versatility of one handed).

A counter to Sora and Xion is difficult to pin down. Time? Probably. Lack of heating pads. Something that takes all their attention is about the only way to get a sneak attack in, and then you have to hit hard. A counter to Kairi would be anyone who can knock her off balance. She needs a sturdier stance. .

Roxas

Roxas is interesting. He takes after Sora for the one blade. Wielding two, however, nets him a totally different way of fighting. Roxas’ clavicle muscles n… deltoids and stuff must be Ironclad. Also, two handed means you are very fast and sharp all the time. He has the advantage of standard defense (horse stance), and the advantage of offense (range of one sword, but twice).

Roxas generally attacks in two ways — simultaneous hits, and follow-up hits. Either he hits with both at once, or hits hard with the first one, and adds the second one as a bonus smack. He can attack by hitting in opposite directions with the two, like a drum, but that will be a little awkward and leave him prone to being tangled. That established, the follow-up hit method means he spins a bunch. As do we all.

Roxas gets a little complicated because we are not in the real world. We have magic and turning into light and physics that let you become a circular saw. So, typically, disadvantages would include: being unable to let go of a weapon to grab something or use an item, having just a very big silhouette to attack on, having difficulty with close-range attacks because Oathkeeper and Oblivion are kinda long, and convenience. Roxas gets to dodge #1 (keyblades can be unsummoned) and #4 (keyblades can be unsummoned). Speaking of dodging, he also gets to skirt the difficulty of dodging and rolling with two swords because he turns into a beam of light. But he can’t dodge how difficult it is to use two swords effectively — he needs to concentrate on fighting, and nothing else, or he risks messing up. He has to be very, very coordinated, and undistracted. Luckily he’s pretty good at making his opponents shut up, most of the time. Blocking is another thing — theoretically his blocks could be strong, but Roxas has no real brace: crossing your blades and taking a hefty stab might smack one of them back into your face. He mostly uses reversals and dodges, because of this.

The takeaway to this is Roxas is built for speed and power, and he is very strong. He’s a mid- to far- range fighter who if you’re not careful can snap you in half if you’re too close (be SO careful of that cross blade scissor).

A perfect counter to Roxas would be a tank that can grapple, and also be very distracting. If you can take hits, be talkative, and get close enough to stop his blades, you have a chance.

Ventus

This is a bizarre choice, my guy, but I get it.

Backhanded weapons are very impractical for a lot of... attacking, mainly in mid-range combat, and Ven likes to either fight very close or throw the keyblade like a boomerang (and hey, backhand gives it a good whip for throwing). His attacks aren’t meant to one hit KO, but they do come with a bit of power to them, especially on the backslash. Like holding a knife for gouging. It’s for very close defense — pretty good when Wayward Wind and Missing Ache have hooks.

Backhand also, while retaining that empty hand for potions and guarding, gives you an extreme coverage boost. By which I mean Ven’s sword hand now has a nearly 270 degree sweep of “I see you, don’t touch me”, very quickly, based on just flicking his wrist. It sacrifices a ton of strength/sturdiness, but you don’t need that if you’re dodging. You also don’t really need to block, which is slower, but relatively sturdy when Ven does it, as he blocks with mostly the chunky hilt between crossed arms. He sacrifices (again) a bit of strength for coverage — an attack would hurt his arms, not his chest, if he were hit head-on.

His attacks often have him flip the blade around in his hand, too. Quick swaps between standard moves and backhand ones. Basically, Ventus is built for moving, protecting himself, and quick attacks that wear down the enemy, not outclass it. Likely because he’s good at fighting, but everyone he’s fought hits harder than he can! It doesn’t matter how he holds it, getting hit will hurt. So he just. Doesn’t. He’s not a buff little guy — but he is a persistent one. Ven very likely made this up on his own, in Daybreak, and it was too hard to fix his whole style, but it was enough to correct most of his form so he doesn’t hurt himself too much. He is going to have to really stretch that shoulder and wrist (maybe get a brace), though. At least his neck is ok. … not sure about his knees tho dang boy that crouch

A perfect counter to Ven would be someone big and fast, who hits hard mid-range. He’s already been sparring with Terra, though, so when in doubt, try scruffing him?

Axel

Theres not a ton to say about him — he‘s not a swordfighter. He uses his keyblade like it’s a frisbee. Because that’s what he’s used to! His neutral is behind his back on his shoulder, which is terrible for readiness, but okay for chucking the thing. It’s good it has a sort of… ripstik like… boomerang quality.

Axel’s fighting style is completely made up, like most of the self-taught wielders’. His strengths lie in some of the benefits of standard offensive style (one-handed), and some of the same coverage stuff as Ven, having a cocked wrist most of the time so no one can sneak up around him without risking getting whacked very quickly, and having an interesting range due to the pointy end being basically on a spinny swivel wherever his hand moves. He’s not going to be good at close-range and he knows it — his attacks are mostly distance. And the guy has ZERO defense, combined with zero coverage when idle, so it’s for the better.

Distance-wise, though, he rocks. Treating the blade like it’s a flaming throwing weapon means his idle is actually great for sudden flick-tossing and attention-guiding for sneakier attacks, and his stance itself (…nonexistent) serves a different purpose: bait. Basically a big "come hit me". Fun, when you have a lot of fire magic and two friends who are beasts and love to take advantage of a distracted enemy — distance on the blade, proximity on the burning.

A perfect counter to Axel would be someone pinging around very close <—> very far and circling him incessantly. Like, data Xion could wreck him, as he has to wait for the boomerang to come back -- he no longer has two spinny wheels. Also someone with water magic.

SO! In conclusion! Having a teacher who teaches you correct sword usage rather than instinct may detract from overspecific styles that benefit you most but leave weak spots, but your muscles and your oversights will thank you. Everyone is glad we have the power of the Mouse and anime on our side.

Keep in mind again that I have done cursory research, and have had minimal actual sword instruction, I am not an expert and this is all for fun anyways :]

#I ran out of images which is homophobic #KH #ask #mojimallow #THANKS MOJI #If you’re wondering what the counter would be to Terra and Aqua; in terms of counters there are no counters #not style-wise anyways. That’s why they’re standard.#Terra can’t react very fast and Aqua needs more mp but that’s individual #and we are mostly talking BASE COMBAT here #of course lingering will can use keyblade transformations and there’s magic strategies — but that would make this post… much longer #brrrrrrr #kh analysis #kh meta #thanks to the handful of other people who asked me to expand on the same thing <3<3<3 #REALLY wanted to include one of Invi blocking — just go watch invi and aced fight for two standard offense #it Shows off their strengths and weaknesses #… no living adults do the two handed grip. Watch Sora and Xion’s data battle for an approximation I guess??#you. Hey you. Look in the notes rn #metazone

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overdrivels · 4 years ago

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Among Us!AU

This was supposed to be a simple mission. Come onto an abandoned space station and commandeer it. It was a spooky place that had definitely seen better days. For the past few days, you and the rest of the Overwatch crew who were able to come ran around fixing odds and ends on the station to get it to a habitable level.

But strange things had begun to happen. Lights going out at odd times. Sudden oxygen depletion. It had gotten to the point that you all had no choice but to wear your suits at all times, unsure when you’d all be thrown into a life-threatening situation or sucked into the cold vacuum of space.

Then the first body appeared: Zenyatta.

Winston was on cameras when it happened. A humanoid shadow off screen sliced Zenyatta in half, destroying his processor. It was precise and quick. By the time Winston had called an emergency meeting, the perpetrator was nowhere to be found.

It made everyone uneasy. Genji was understandably upset, threatening to unmask everyone in vengeance. It was Hanzo, surprisingly, who talked him down from it. It didn’t keep Genji from retaining his promise: anyone suspected of being the killer will be felled by his sword.

But it set the stage for your daily meetings now.

Everyone had to account for themselves and others. No one could trust the other. Winston’s vague description of ‘someone in a suit’ could have been any of them. As much as no one wanted to believe it, they could only suspect themselves--there was no one else with them, was there?

There was too much to do to travel in large groups. In the end, everyone was assigned pairs. If anyone got hurt, the other could signal or provide assistance. There is safety in numbers.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“I hope so.”

You checked your holotablet for tasks. They didn’t look very different from the previous day’s.

“I’ll be right outside.”

“Thanks, Genji.”

He nodded at you before pulling the curtain.

The isolation, though thin, made your skin prickle. If something happened to Genji, you don’t know how you’d face Hanzo. He was a scary guy on a normal day, but you didn’t want to see him mad.

As quick as you could, you stripped off the suit and stepped onto the scanner.

Once a week, everyone had to do a scan in the medbay to send data back to Earth. Athena and Angela monitored everyone’s health from one of the Watchpoints back home and sent back recommendations. Zenyatta was supposed to receive them, but now…

You pressed a button and the scanner came to life. The worst part about doing this was the waiting. The quiet hum only made the silence stretch into anxiousness. It’s only when the beep came that you could feel relief.

You yanked on your suit, nearly tearing it in your haste. It’s dangerous to leave yourself exposed for so long. If it weren’t protecting you from the elements and potential catastrophic reactor meltdowns, you’d keep it off--it just weights down your limbs and feels too constricting, more so than necessary.

“All done?” came Genji’s voice from the other side.

You pulled back the curtains, managing a relieved smile at the sight of Genji and his bright green suit. “Yeah. Your turn.”

“I did mine two days ago,” he said, waving you off. “Where to next?”

“I, uh.” You pulled out your holotablet, but in that instant, the lights went out. You took a step back and bumped into something not hard enough to be a wall. Fear nested in your throat. “Ge-Genji?”

“I’m here.” Even through the suits, you could feel the rumble of his voice. “Don’t worry. I’m here.”

Unconsciously, you smiled. That’s right. Genji, for all the jokes and his whimsical nature, was a reliable person. He would definitely protect you.

“Should we go check the breakers and fix the lights?” you suggested, putting the holotablet away.

“The others are likely closer. It is safer here.”

You felt him shift behind you and then the sound of a sword unsheathing. The sound made your stomach clench unpleasantly. Fear began to filter into your veins. What if Genji was the person--what if Genji killed Zenyatta--what if he did it and acted angry so no one would suspect him?

The speculation made you dizzy.

“Be still,” he said. He held his katana in front of you, the faint green glow of his katana granted you both some extra visibility. It only made the visuals through your mask more frightening. Everything was cast in an eerie light. “I will protect you.”

Just those words were enough to calm the nervous beating of your heart. Right. Genji couldn’t possibly be the killer or whatever was in this place. You could trust him, you assured yourself. You kept that line of thinking up even after the lights returned.

As soon as they do, the signal for an emergency meeting goes off.

At this rate, you’ll never get your tasks done.

Exchanging a sheepish look, you and Genji made your way into the meeting room.

Two by two, everyone came filing in, the colored spacesuits adding life to the dreary room. Cyan and Blue--Mei and Hanzo. Red and Gray--McCree and Fareeha. Yourself and Genji. Black, Orange, and White--Winston, Torbjorn, and Soldier: 76 are already in the room.

You breathed a sigh of relief seeing everyone accounted for. Every time the call for an emergency meeting went off, you feared the worst. Everyone else must have been thinking the same. Mei held a hand to her chest, visibly breathing out a sigh of relief upon counting all the members.

“So, what’re we in for?” McCree asked.

“Head count,” Torbjorn offered gruffly. “Makin’ sure you all still got ‘em.”

Soldier waved him off and pressed his hands against the table. “Where was everyone when the lights went off?” He pointed at McCree and Fareeha. “Report.”

“We were both takin’ care of the trash.”

And though Fareeha may not have said it loud enough to hear, her voice still came through the mic sets, “And there was a shit-ton of it.”

Ignoring that, Soldier then pointed at you and Genji.

"I was doing the medbay scan," you said. “Lights went out as soon as I finished.”

Genji nodded. "I can confirm, I was there."

With your alibi established, they moved onto the next person until all alibis were heard. Everyone's worried expressions visible through the small window of their suits. You were, too.

Winston raised his hand as though to adjust his glasses, but bumped into his helmet instead. He gave a little laugh before he cleared his throat. “Right. With that out of the way, we have some new information. It appears to be some sort of lifeform that is able to, ah, control people.”

Blue’s head--Hanzo--snapped up. “Control people? How?”

“We don’t know. There is simply not enough information to determine whether this life form kills and takes over the body, in essence, replacing them, or if it is simply controlling our bodies and leaving the victim alive.”

Mei put both hands over her helmet where her mouth would be. “Does that mean the person might not even know they’re the killer?”

“It’s quite possible. But again,” Winston rushed to say before the clamor in the room could reach unrestrainable levels, “we simply do not have enough information to work off of. We are still not dismissing the possibility of an outsider. And absurd as it may sound, maybe even a shapeshifter.”

The last part fizzled out as though the communicator didn’t want to relay such a nonsensical theory. But it would be entirely possible. In that case, no one would know who to trust.

“We again recommend keeping your partner in your sights at all times, if possible. Notify the rest if you suspect anything suspicious. You are all dismissed. Please continue with your tasks.”

There was some hesitation before the groups dispersed, everyone whispering to each other. You and Genji were no different.

As you did your tasks, you both pondered the nature of whatever it was you were facing. A shapeshifter? A doppleganger? A parasitic creature? Whatever it was, Genji swore to put it at the end of his blade.

By the time you were done with your tasks, it was ‘night’. Even with Genji helping, there were just too many things to be done in the station. It’s a given considering just how long it has been abandoned, but you really didn’t expect this much work out of it.

Even Genji requested for a short break.

“I’ll get us some tea,” you offered. The cafeteria was just a short ways away from your rooms anyway. You’re sure nothing will happen in the meantime.

“Thank you.” The fact that Genji didn’t even try to offer to come with you only gave away just how exhausted he must be. With the death of his master and now being suspicious of everyone on the space station, you couldn’t even imagine.

The cafeteria was huge and so very empty. Dying here would probably be the worst way to go. If you couldn’t find the perpetrator, were you all going to die in space where no one could hear you scream or mourn your death? Where you’d have to be thrown out into the empty embrace of space without ever returning home?

You shook yourself free of the oncoming existential crisis, grabbing two mugs and some stale teabags from the cabinets. You had to focus on the tasks at hand. Tasks make the day go by faster. And the faster the days went by, the faster you could all get the hell off this space station and go home where you didn’t have to suspect your fellow teammates of being shapeshifting, human-eating aliens—

“You’re alone?”

You shouted, nearly jumping out of your skin. You spun around and there was Gray--Fareeha. Your eyes darted back and forth. When did she sneak up on you?

“Fareeha! Um. What brings you here?”

“Where’s your partner?” she asked suspiciously, crossing her arms. Her tone immediately sent goosebumps up and down your skin.

“He wasn’t feeling all himself, so he’s resting. I’m making him tea,” you said quickly.

“You’re not supposed to move without each other.”

“I know, I just thought--you know, we’re just across the hall.”

She sighed in exasperation. “I can’t believe you. I’m coming with you until you have your partner back. Safety in numbers, right?”

You smile weakly. “Right.”

She waited patiently for you to finish making the tea and then nodded at the doorway even though no one was there. “Jesse. Let’s go.”

From behind the wall, McCree came out and gave you the tip of a phantom hat. “Escort mission, eh?”

“Hey, McCree.”

“Howdy. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” He bowed dramatically at you, sweeping his hands at the door. “After you.”

Even in such tense situations, he hasn’t lost his flair. You couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks.”

No sooner did the three of you step outside the room did the lights go out.

Fareeha growled. “Again!?”

“Guess we gotta go fix the lights.”

Someone--probably Fareeha--grabbed your wrist. “Wha—?”

“Gotta go fix the lights first. Then we bring you back to your partner.”

You could only follow whoever was pulling at your hand, unable to see more than just a few inches beyond your helmet. You don’t even know where you’re going or how they’d know where they were going for that matter.

But eventually, the grip on your hand disappeared. The sounds of footsteps faded away. In fact, everything faded away. No lights, no sound. Nothing. It was as though the vacuum of space was condensed onto your being, reality slipping away from you in inches.

The sound of a buzzer snapped you back into reality like a bubble popping. The lights were back on. You were standing in front of Genji’s room, on the other side of the cafeteria where you exited with your cups of tea. You looked around. How did you get here? Odd. You felt odd. You felt...full. Satisfied?

A voice--Soldier’s voice--crackled in your suit’s headset, choked up and reluctant.

“Dead body found. It’s...Fareeha.”

---

In case it’s not incredibly clear, which it isn’t, you’re the imposter and Genji isn’t. I’ve also only played the game a handful of times and watched a dozen youtube videos on it.

Originally it was supposed to be revealed that it’s Reaper who is controlling you ala symbiote-style. If I included it, I thought it would end up being a multi-chaptered thing and I wasn’t ready for that. But to tie up loose ends, Reaper was turning off the lights via your tablet without you noticing. Genji is sus of you. Everyone is sus of Genji. You were able to do the medbay scan because Reaper was in your suit which you took off.

#my writing #among us!au

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Star Trek Villains Who Actually Had a Point

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This article contains spoilers for various parts of the Star Trek franchise.

Last fall, airing just a few weeks apart, both Star Trek and Star Wars debuted season premieres of new streaming TV episodes in which the heroes of each show had to fight a giant, legless worm-monster. In Star Trek: Discovery’s “That Hope Is You Part 1,” it was the deadly Tranceworm, while The Mandalorian’s “Chapter 9: The Marshall” had the murderous Krayt Dragon. The differences between the Final Frontier and the Faraway Galaxy could not have been made clearer by these dueling beasts: in Mando, the plot involved killing the monster by blowing up its guts from the inside, while in Disco, Book taught Michael Burnham how to make friends with it.

The Trek universe deals with the concept of evil a little differently than many of its famous genre competitors. There is no Lex Luthor of the Federation. Palpatine doesn’t haunt the planet Vulcan. The Klingons have no concept of “the devil.” (At least in The Original Series.) This isn’t to say Trek doesn’t have some very memorable Big Bads, it’s just that most of the time those villains tend to have some kind of sympathetic backstory. Even in the J.J. Abrams films!

So, with that in mind, here’s a look at seven Star Trek villains who maybe weren’t all bad, and kind of, even in a twisted way, had a point…

Harry Mudd

In Star Trek: The Original Series, Harry Mudd was presented as a straight-up con-man, a dude who seemed to be okay with profiting from prostitution (in “Mudd’s Women”) and was also down with marooning the entire crew of the Enterprise on a random planet (in “I, Mudd”). He’s not a good person. Not even close. But, he does make a pretty could case against Starfleet’s lack of planning. In the Discovery episode “Choose Your Pain,” Mudd accuses Starfleet of starting the war with the Klingons, and, as a result, putting the larger population of the galaxy at risk. “I sure as hell understand why the Klingons pushed back,” Mudd tells Ash Tyler. “Starfleet arrogance. Have you ever bothered to look out of your spaceships down at the little guys below? If you had, you’d realize that there’s a lot more of us down there than there are you up here, and we’re sick and tired of getting caught in your crossfire.”

Seska

At a glance, Seska seems pretty irredeemable. She joins the idealistic Maquis but is secretly a Cardassian spy. Once in the Delta Quadrant, she tries to screw Voyager as much as possible, mostly by hooking up with the Kazon. That said, Seska is also someone caught up in hopelessly sexist, male-dominated power structures and does what she has to do to gain freedom and power. The Cardassian military isn’t exactly enlightened nor kind, so the fact that Seska was recruited into the Obsidian Order in the first place certainly explains her deceptive conditioning. You could argue that Seska could have become a better person once she had Captain Janeway as an ally, but, the truth is, she was still a spy caught behind enemy lines, but suddenly without a government to report back to. So, Seska did what she had to do to survive, even lying to Chakotay about having his child. The thing is, again, outside of Starfleet, Seska is at the mercy of the sexist machinations of the Kazon, so again, she’s kind of using all the tools at her disposal to gain freedom. Had Voyager not gone to the Delta Quadrant, and Seska’s villainy may have been more clear-cut. But, once the reason for her espionage becomes moot, her situation gets more desperate, and, on some level, more understandable.

Charlie Evans

In The Original Series, Kirk loves telling humans with god-like powers where to shove it. In “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” he phasers Gary Mitchell and buries him under a rock. But, in “Charlie X,” when teenager Charlie Evans also gets psionic powers, Kirk does a less-than-a-great job of being a good role model. For most of the episode, Kirk tries to avoid become Charlies’ surrogate parent, and when he does try, it results in an embarrassing overly macho wrestling match featuring those famous pink tights.

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Charlie was a deeply troubled human being, and there was no justification for him harassing the crew and Janice Rand in specific. But, angry, kids like Charlie have to be helped before it gets to this point. Kirk mostly tried to dodge the adult responsibility of teaching Charlie the ropes, and only when some friendly aliens arrived, did everyone breathe a sigh of relief. But, don’t get it twisted, those aliens are basically just social workers, doing the hard work Starfleet is incapable of.

The Borg Queen

Because the origin of the Borg Queen has dubious canonical origins, all we were told in Voyager is that she was assimilated as a child, just like Seven of Nine. As Hugh and Jean-Luc discuss in the Picard episode “The Impossible Box,” basically, everyone assimilated by the Borg, is, on some level, a victim. The Queen was never presented this way in either First Contact or Voyager, but, at one point, writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens had pitched a story for Enterprise which would have featured Alice Krige as a Starfleet medical technician who made contact with the Borg.

Because both Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson played the Borg Queen, it’s possible the backstories of each Queen is different and that maybe they aren’t the same character. Either way, assuming the Borg Queen retains some level of autonomy relative to other drones (likely?) then she’s pretty much making the best of a bad situation. In fact, at the point at which you concede the Borg are unstoppable, the Queen’s desire to let Picard retain some degree of his independence as Locutus could scan as a kind of mercy. The Borg Queen actually thinks she and the Borg are making things simpler for everyone. And with both Data and Picard, she tried to make that transition easier and, in her own perverse way, fun too.

Ossyra

Yes, we saw Ossyra feed her nephew to a Trance worm, and we also saw her try to kill literally everyone on the USS Discovery, including Michael Burnham. However, in the middle of all of that, Ossyra did try to actively make peace between the Emerald Chain and the Federation. And, most tellingly, it was her idea. Ossyra also pointed out one of the most hypocritical things about the United Federation of Planets: the fact that Starfleet and its government rely on capitalism without actively acknowledging it. Essentially, Ossyra was saying that the ideals of the Federation are great, but the Federation has all kinds of dirty little secrets it doesn’t want to talk about. In her meeting with Admiral Vance, pretty much everything she said about the Federation was true—and her treaty proposal was fair.

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The only snag: she wouldn’t turn herself over as a war criminal. Considering the fact that the Federation made Mirror Georgiou into a Section 31 agent, despite her war crimes in another universe, this also seems hypocritical. Why not just do the same thing with Ossyra? Tell everyone she’s going to prison for war crimes, but make her a Section 31 agent instead? Missed opportunity!

Khan

Khan was genetically engineered by wacko-a-doodle scientists at the end of the 21st Century. At some point on Earth, he became a “prince” with “power over millions.” But, as Kirk notes in “Space Seed,” there were “no massacres” under Khan’s rule, and described him as the “best of the tyrants.” Kirk’s take on Khan in “Space Seed” is basically that Khan was an ethical megalomaniac. Most of what we see in “Space Seed” backs this up. Khan doesn’t actually want to kill the crew, and stops short of doing it when he thinks he can coerce them instead. His only focus is to gain freedom for himself and his exiled fellow-Augments. In the Kelvin Universe timeline, Khan’s motivations are similar. Into Darkness shows us a version of Khan who, again, is only cooperating with Section 31 because he wants freedom for his people. Sure, he’ll crush some skulls and crash some starships to get to that point, but in his dueling origin stories, Khan is, in both cases interested in freedom for his people, who, are by any definition, totally persecuted by the Federation.

Khan is still a criminal in any century. But, we only really think of him as a villain because he goes insane in between the “Space Seed” and The Wrath of Khan. The Khan of The Wrath is not the same person we met in “Space Seed.” As he tells Chekov, “Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress.” Had Kirk sent a Starfleet ship to drop in on Khan and his “family” every once in awhile this whole thing could have been avoided. In the prime timeline, Khan goes nuts because Ceti Alpha VI explodes and nobody cares. In the Kelvin timeline, Admiral Marcus blackmails him. Considering that Khan is Star Trek’s most famous villain, it’s fascinating that there are a million different ways you can imagine him never getting as bad as he became. In “Space Seed,” he and Kirk basically part as friends.

In “Encounter at Farpoint,” Q accuses humanity of being “a savage child race.” And walks Jean-Luc Picard through the various atrocities committed by humanity, through the 21st Century. Picard kind of shrugs his shoulders and says, “we are what we are and we’re doing the best that we can.” When we talk about the philosophy of Star Trek, we tend to give more weight to Picard’s argument: the idea that by the 24th century, humanity has become much better, in general than it is now. But, the other side of the argument; that there’s a history of unspeakable violence and cruelty baked into the existence of humanity, is given less weight. We don’t really listen to Q when he’s putting humanity on trial, because we can’t see his point of view.

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But, because Q wasn’t a one-off character, and because he said “the trial never ends” in the TNG finale, he’s actually not really a villain at all. Q exists post-morality, as we can imagine it. His notions of ethics are far more complex (or less complex) than we can perceive. Q is one of those great Star Trek characters who is actually beyond reproach simply because we have no frame of reference for his experiences or point of view. In Voyager, we also learned that even among other members of the Q Continuum, Q was kinder, with a more humanitarian approach to what he might call “lesser” lifeforms. If Q is villainous, it’s because of our definitions of villainy. Of every Star Trek antagonist, Q is the best one, for the simple fact that he’s not a a villain at all.

Which Star Trek villains do you think had a point? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Star Trek Villains Who Actually Had a Point appeared first on Den of Geek.

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nellied-reviews · 5 years ago

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Super Energy Saver Mode Re-listen

Hellooooo! My Wolf 359 re-listen has hit episode 6, and guess what that means? Yup, you got it!

Super Energy Saver Mode

In which Eiffel struggles to name his top five lanthanides, Hilbert blows things up again, and the Hephaestus might be haunted?!

I'll confess, going into this episode I could not remember very much about it. The title felt familiar, I vaguely remembered that it was one of the episodes where something on the Hephaestus stops working, but other than that? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. So that was exciting.

And you know what? I can kind of see why I didn't retain much from this episode! Plot-wise Super Energy Saver Mode just doesn't do very much. There's not a complex solve or fix for the issues that come up, or a clever work-around. Instead, Minkowski and Eiffel just... figure everything out and fix it competently?

In retrospect, there is, of course, one big, plot-relevant, spoilery thing that happens. But even that is basically left unresolved by the episode’s ending, which aims to create a creepy atmosphere than anything else.

Because that is what this episode does well. Without the additional job of being plotty, Super Energy Saver Mode can just concentrate on being atmospheric. Coming into it pretty much blind, in particular, meant that I appreciated the tension baked into the episode - even once I remembered what was going on, I really enjoyed how spooky this episode felt.

As per usual, though, we don't start with the creepiness. Instead, we start with Eiffel chatting about something mundane - namely, the fact that it's the crew's 500th day in space!

It's something that I think, on any other show, wouldn't actually be all that mundane. There are a whole bunch of spacey series where I could imagine a pretty decent episode being built around the crew trying to host some sort of anniversary celebration. But here, 500 days isn't something to be celebrated. It's not a bad thing, per se. But it's not a good thing. It's just a thing, a reminder of how worn down the crew are at this point, and how many days they have left on the clock. We get the impression that this mission is more of a long, hard slog than anything else - and thus we're reminded again of how little Goddard cares about its employees' wellbeing and morale.

Eiffel and Hera are having an unofficial party, though, with just the two of them, which is sweet. In practice, of course, this just means that they're spending time chatting while Eiffel avoids work. But it's really cute, and I find the banter about top five lists and the various criteria that Hera uses to come up with them soooooo funny. I mean, Hera judges "Stick It to the Man" songs by active political regimes at the time of composition, and complexity of choral progression, which I love for reasons I can't quite pinpoint?

The sequence also shows how differently Hera and Eiffel think. Eiffel very immediately and intuitively forms an emotional connection to things like music, but can't even fathom how Hera just knows things like the 900th digit of pi, or all of the lanthanides. Hera, meanwhile, has so much more information and raw data at her metaphorical fingertips than Eiffel, but doesn't quite connect to it in the same way, and doesn’t entirely get how Eiffel does. It's not (like with the Dear Listeners) that she can't connect to music, or fundamentally doesn't get it. But she's working on a different scale, judging by different standards. And she's not embarrassed to mess with Eiffel because of it, or to talk about it with him. Really, it's a textbook example of how to hang out and be friends with somebody while still thinking and relating to the world differently - which I think is a large part of what I like about Eiffel and Hera's friendship.

Their fun little interaction gets interrupted, sadly, by Hilbert requesting extra power for his lab, which we can already tell will end badly, because come on, it's Hilbert. But what is interesting is how irritated Hera seems afterwards. I mean, she does the whole "I am not programmed to get upset" spiel, but nobody's buying it, and when she confesses that she doesn't like Hilbert's tone, there's definitely a lot of annoyance there. It reminds us, after seeing Hera's machine side, that she's still a person and still has emotions - a balance that Wolf 359 is generally pretty good at. Hera's allowed to be an AI, with the non-human worldview that that entails. But at the end of the day, she's still a character with emotional depth and nuance.

With that in mind, then, Hera admits that she doesn't like Hilbert's tone - which is totally understandable - but also that she's mostly worried that somebody's going to get hurt as a consequence of Hilbert's recklessness - which seems to be validated when the station's power cuts out and Hera goes offline mid-sentence.

Eiffel, given the circumstances, remains remarkably calm, but this does mark the point where the episode shifts genre to become what is, in effect, a haunted house story. It's set on a space ship, sure, but all of the beats from this point onwards are pretty much the beats you might expect if Eiffel were, say, spending the night alone in his late grandfather's crumbling old mansion, long rumoured to be cursed. It's paranormal horror at its finest, complete with weird voices and jump scares and a bunch of "it's probably nothing" moments.

I noticed, as well, that there was barely any music from this point onwards. There is some (shout out to the creepy little theme with the ghost-like, theremin-sounding wail and the soft bass guitar!) but it's subtle, and very much secondary to the sound effects, which suddenly get very loud. For as long as the power is off, we get all sorts of creaking, groaning and echoing - and with it a sense of just how big and empty the Hephaestus really is. Hera's constant presence and the electronic noises around the place do a lot to mask that, normally. But now we're hearing the silence, and it is eerie.

Adorably, Eiffel's first instinct is to ask himself, "What would Commander Minkowski say if she were here right now?" This leads into a huge and surprisingly detailed fake argument, of course, which is hilarious in and of itself, but there's also just something kinda sweet about how immediately Eiffel assumes that Minkowski would have a handle on things. Eiffel still complains about her a lot, at this point in the series, so the respect that this little moment betrays feels fresh and sort of unexpected.

Eiffel's not wrong to trust Minkowski, either. Once she shows up, the episode's main problem - Hera being offline - gets solved quickly and remarkably efficiently, with Eiffel doing the legwork and Minkowski giving instructions, and honestly, it's in moments like this that I remember how technically competent Minkowski is. I think I tend to remember the more military, combative bits best, with her stalking round harpoon in hand or shooting folks, so it's nice to be reminded that the Commander can also handle things like repairs just fine.

Of course, that means that the episode's main tension is never actually about the power outage. The sudden silence and the threat of life support running out add to the episode's general atmosphere, sure. But the thing we are most anxious about, as the episode plays out, isn't the ship's newly-accessed Super Energy Saver Mode. No, instead of that, we're given a new mystery, and it's a doozy: what's up with that voice Eiffel keeps hearing?

It starts almost inaudible, but in the end Eiffel hears the words loud, clear and terrifying: "You're not the first." Which, like, terrifying much? It's vague and ominous and very chilling, especially with all the distortion that's going on.

In retrospect, of course, we know that this is our first encounter with Captain Isabelle Lovelace - indeed, it's one of the very few encounters that we have with the real, non-alien-duplicate Isabelle Lovelace, for whatever that's worth. We also know that she doesn't mean any harm - she's trying to warn the crew, in fact.

Strangely, though, knowing that doesn't actually this any less effective as a ghost story. After all, what are we hearing, but the voice of a dead woman, warning the crew about an even worse monster lurking in their midst? The Hephaestus, Lovelace's recording reminds us, is indeed haunted, if not literally then at least metaphorically, by the ghosts of its former crew and the traces that they have managed to leave behind.

With or without hindsight, then, the episode is creepy, hinging ultimately on the idea that there might be something not quite airtight in Hera's programming, that there could be something hiding - or deliberately hidden - just underneath her code. In making that the focus of the story, the episode opens up the tantalising possibility that something might fundamentally be wrong with the Hephaestus and its systems. The show's very setting is destabilised and made frightening - and that's a genie that you can't just put back in the bottle once you decide that you're done telling ghost stories. Instead, the feeling that something is not quite right persists even after Hera comes back online, and still haunts the episode as it draws to a close, since we don't actually get an explanation of who Lovelace is. Instead, it remains a mystery. A spooky, weird, always-in-the-back-of-your-mind mystery.

It's a bold move, and it feels a lot like what happened with the plant monster, which is also at large at this point. I'm beginning to suspect that this is a thing we're going to see more of, too - big, obvious plot threads that are ostentatiously waved in front of us, then dropped, apparently without comment.

It's something I think these early episodes could do more easily, since the expectation that loose ends would be followed up on wasn't quite established yet. Later on in the series, everything gets more serialized, so if something like, say, an alien duplicate of Jacobi turns up and is left dangling, we can reasonably expect that it'll get addressed at a point. Earlier on? We've not got those expectations. This might just be the sort of show where weird, scary voices are brought up and then never mentioned again. It might be the sort of show that lets a plant monster loose and forgets about it for the rest of the series.

When it turns out, then, that that isn't the case, even in these early, apparently inconsequential episodes, it feels like a bonus, and we get, in hindsight, a little thrill of recognition, as we realise that no, there was a plot there the whole time. It's a satisfying feeling, at least for me, and it's 100% what's fuelling this re-listen.

So yup. Super Energy Saver Mode. An exercise in atmospheric spookiness, an enjoyable haunted house story and just generally a pleasant surprise. Solid work, really.

Miscellaneous thoughts

Eiffel is talking about an 830 day mission, if I've done my maths right - with the possibility of Command extending it! That is one long-ass time to spend in space with three other people!

I want to know Eiffel's top five Stick It to the Man songs so badly

"Ooookay. Maybe this isn't one of those wait and see things. Maybe it's one of those... imminent death things."

Wait Hilbert had to amputate multiple of Minkowski's toes???

Bless her, Hera sounds drunk when she's coming back online ^-^

#wolf 359 #wolf359 #w359 #wolf 359 relisten #super energy saver mode #nellied reviews #creepy episode this time #featuring a very familiar voice #distorted beyond all recognition #also Eiffel and Hera being cute

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spookyflowerbouquet · 4 years ago

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Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore

Sales & Marketing �� Marketing Marketing Myths You Should Ignore. Debra Murphy July 20, 2013. Email marketing can enhance your relationship with your subscribers and drive your revenue. Email; Entrepreneurship. 3 Marketing Myths About LinkedIn You Should Ignore. Those false ideas and take advantage of the benefits LinkedIn marketing offers: Myth No.

Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore Someone

Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore Others

Direct Mail Myths You Should Ignore

April 07 2016

Most direct mail marketers stick to the same bag of tricks that have been working for decades. While there has been plenty of valuable wisdom, experience, and strategies passed down from one generation of marketers to the next, there also have been some harmful myths that have persisted.

This industry seems particularly prone to following the book, even when evidence suggests it’s time for a change. As it gets harder to grab and keep the attention of target audiences through direct mail and other mediums, it becomes even more costly to cling to counterproductive marketing myths.

We’re dispelling the most persistent direct mail marketing myths so that you can hone in on the factors that make a difference in your bottom line results.

It’s All About Clever Techniques

Myth 3: Email marketing is no longer effective Building your own in-house email list and providing a focused and well executed email marketing campaign is still very effective, especially when integrated into your content marketing activities. While you may have heard it said before, we will continuously hammer home this point: SPLIT TEST as much as you can! We hope this article helped debunk the 7 most popular email marketing myths that you should ignore when looking to optimize your marketing campaigns.

As much as marketers would love to believe that the perfectly worded offer or a tricky technique can hypnotize customers into doing whatever a marketer pleases, it just isn’t true. Focusing on tricking or commanding people to act will take you away from what you should be focusing on: putting a quality offer in the right hands at the right time and making the conversion as clear, appealing, and simple as possible.

Your audience will likely see right through any tricky techniques. If you turn off a potential customer, you’re only dragging your success rate down.

All Features Should Be Turned Into Benefits

Have you ever heard the marketing saying: “People don’t want drills; they want holes.” There’s some wisdom in there, but today there are plenty of market segments where you can thrive with a feature-based approach. Talk about the holes, but don’t forget about the drill. The enthusiasts in your market segment may just want to dwell on the object of their affection without being hit over the head with its benefits.

Imitation Breeds Success

More amateur and professional direct mail marketers have been brought down by this myth than any of the others on this list. The logic is simple: if I see a mailer that’s working for someone else, I’ll just copy it and make some minor tweaks to fit my purpose. Bam! Proven method for success.

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What you’ll learn the hard way quickly is that every business, service, product, list, and offer is its own animal. If you’re not digging into what makes your audience and your offer unique, you’re not maximizing your potential return on investment.

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Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore Others

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xmxisxforxmaybe · 5 years ago

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Decryption_Error: “Darlene”

Summary: Amidst an unsettling arrest at CIStech, Elliot decides it’s time for Y/N to meet his sister, Darlene. He’s also ready to acknowledge his feelings, and afterward, Y/N takes it a step further to offer Elliot some more consistency in his life.

Story Summary, “The Server Room, Part I”, “The Server Room, Part II” “The Long Weekend, Part I”, “The Long Weekend, Part II”, “The Aftermath”, “Undecided”, **“Decided”, “Spooked”, **“Fourth of July, Part I”, *”Fourth of July, Part II”

Word Count: 7600

Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @limabein @txmel @alottanothing @ouatlovr @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @moon-stars-soul @free-rami @ramimedley @hopplessdreamer @sweet-charmie

*Updated tags--If you want added or I’ve missed your request, let me know.

Warnings: Mild sexual content, mild description of a panic attack

“How could this have happened?” I asked more to myself than to Alison Shaye, head of HR, as I rubbed my temples and looked over the substantial brief one more time.

It was mid-August and the summer heat had reached a sweltering climax. It hadn’t rained since the day Elliot and I drove back from my parents’ house in Greenwich, and the city was collectively frustrated by the hot weather.

Everyone except Elliot and me—we had been wrapped up in one another, running our new daily program which now included seeing each other almost every night. Even though Elliot hadn’t yet returned my pronouncement of love, I could tell there was something different in the way he looked at me since that night on the floor of my closet.

As promised, I didn’t push. I never asked for more from him than he was willing to give. I still told Elliot how I felt when I felt it, and he answered me with a smile or with a head shake of disbelief.

And I let it be enough.

“He’s been selling our data for over two years—ever since he had to split the custody of his son with his ex-girlfriend,” stated Alison, yanking me back to the madness of my current situation.

“But it’s Colin. He’s an asshole, not a criminal.”

“Apparently he’s both,” Alison said in her colorless tone, showing for the first time I had ever seen, a less than professional impartiality.

“And the police were just sent this file? A neat little package of all that Colin’s been doing? This had to take months to put together—bank transactions, meeting dates, cell phone records, IP addresses, logins, everything.”

“So it seems. About a month ago, an attorney called to confirm Colin’s hire date, our company’s pay dates, and a few other simple employee identification questions. I didn’t think much of it because I assumed it had something to do with a custody suit. When I met with a detective last week for more thorough questioning, my confirmation of dates must have been the last thing they needed to make an arrest. Colin lawyered up, confessed, and took a deal. Didn’t even try to fight the allegations.”

“Damn,” I breathed, still in disbelief.

“Ms. Y/L/N? You need to head upstairs for your meeting.”

I stood up and thanked Alison. As she left, I steadied my nerves and gathered up my files. Since Precision Machining was our host company, its Board of Directors controlled us as well. Miles said I would occasionally be called in for meetings with them as the highest person at CIStech, but who knew my first meeting would be one about an employee caught committing insider trading?

I swiped my badge and rode the elevator to the second to last floor of our building. The vibe at the top is always different in any office building. Things are quiet, sterile, and there’s a general feeling of ill-ease, like no one wants to talk too loud or draw too much attention to what they are doing. Even the phones ring quietly on the top floor.

I checked in with the receptionist and she took me straight back to the board room. My father still retained his seat on the board, so I knew there would be at least one face in the room I could focus on as I faced the inquiry.

My eyes scanned the room and I couldn’t help but inwardly sigh at the sea of white, grizzled faces, only two women amongst them, and none of them with a welcoming expression.

I lifted my chin and walked quickly to the open seat at the end of the table, the chattering continuing as most of the members hadn’t noticed my entrance. Only when I was settled, my hands folded on the table and my breathing even, did I risk looking up to find my father’s face—his features etched into a mask of indifference until I locked eyes with him.

He was watching me, and when I met his gaze, his handsome face filled with concern.

“Oh—CIStech’s here,” the president of the board said when he noticed the addition of a body to the table.

The other board members grew quiet and turned in their highback, expensive leather chairs to face me. The table was steel, possibly something that had been done in one of the machining shops to add to the sterility of the room which contained nothing remarkable except for the window-lined walls that opened up to a glorious view of the city.

I looked around, making eye contact, knowing I had to project confidence. They were looking for someone to blame, and I was their best choice until I convinced them otherwise.

The president began the meeting by summarizing Colin’s offense. It was then that I learned Colin took a deal that sentenced him to six months in jail for securities fraud, plus a year and six months on probation. He defrauded Precision Machining of $450,000.

“I guess my question for Ms. Y/L/N, is how the hell did this happen?”

I explained my understanding of the police report, adding in relevant tech details. To finish, I added, “The truth of it is, Colin Greene used his position at CIStech to gather sensitive information he then sold on the dark web that resulted in his own financial gain.”

“How do we get that information back?”

Christ, I thought as I fought not to roll my eyes at the outdated question from someone who had no clue how the internet worked.

“There is no such thing as ‘getting back’ information once it’s been propagated online.”

“The more important question is,” spoke up the baldest, loudest man to my right, “how you stop this from happening again. Isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that what you have a whole company doing?”

“We work very hard to keep your information secure—”

“Damn good job, you did of it, too, tootsie,” spoke up an equally bald, but less loud board member who then shot my father a scathing glare before saying. “I don’t care that your dad’s sitting across from me. 450k is nothing, a drop in the bucket, but what happens when techs like you and yours get greedy?”

“Colin’s arrest has proven there are consequences for this sort of crime—”

“Yes, if someone outside of your company reports them.”

I looked at the woman who spoke up, her mouth set in a firm line, her eyes staring at me with an unrelenting gaze.

“I understand your frustration, but I assure you we prevent far more—”

“That’s supposed to reassure us? It’s not an exaggeration when I speak on behalf of the board to say that we see your charts, your data analysis, and we have, until now, assumed it all correlates to the near-perfect record of cybersecurity this company has maintained. But this event casts serious doubt on your ability to protect us against . . . ourselves.”

She had a point, and for the first time I faltered, looking down at the thick police report, realizing I did indeed fail to stop something dire from happening within the company. I glanced to my father and he gave me a small nod of encouragement, looking at me with eyes the exact shade of mine.

I took a deep breath and began again. I fielded questions for well over an hour, answering every concern and theoretical potential fix the board members threw at me until I had sated them. Though they were all wealthy, many of them far worse people than Colin and with even less regard for the stockholders they served, they were no different than anyone else who wanted to have their voice heard. They felt vulnerable, something people in their position had the luxury of rarely feeling. Their reactions were out of fear of that vulnerability, so I tried my best to alleviate it.

And this time, it worked.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Y/L/N. We will expect an update on your aforementioned new protocols at next month’s board meeting. You did say you’d have data by then?

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

I gathered my files and left the board room, only to be greeted by Miles who had been waiting to see me.

“How’d it go in there?”

“Well, appalling to start, but I think I brought them around.”

“We need to talk about Colin’s replacement.”

“Talk or tell?”

“Tell,” Miles said, walking me to the elevator, getting in, and selecting his floor.

We rode down the few floors in silence and I followed him past his secretary and into his office, a corner office with a perfect view—just what Miles had always wanted.

“Nice digs,” I said, smiling a little.

“Damn right.”

“This is going to be painful, isn’t it?”

“Certain individuals within the company feel it would be best to put someone of a particular pedigree and integrity in Colin’s office. They want to send the message that everyone is replaceable . . . with someone better.”

“Okay?”

“Ali Olayan.”

I snorted, surprised, but not actually. I moved to sit down in one of the comfortable chairs across from Miles’ desk and I crossed my legs before tossing my files onto the seat next to me. I rested my hands on top of my knees and looked up.

“And if I say no?”

“You can’t say no. Not if you want this company to continue to take you seriously as Y/N Y/L/N and not just as daddy’s little girl.”

“You remember what Ali did?”

Miles rolled his eyes before continuing, “You made the choice to get involved with Alderson knowing the possibility of a move like this. When we kept Corey and Ali, it would only be up or out for them. It was a 50/50 chance, Y/N. You bet the house, and you lost.”

I looked to the side to look out of Miles’ magnificent set of windows. For the first time, I wondered what it would be like to leave this world, to leave Wall Street and to never look back.

* * * * *

Elliot watched from the sofa as I stormed around my apartment, slamming the refrigerator door for the fifth time having not pulled a single thing out to eat or drink.

“I just can’t fucking believe this! How could I not have known Colin was selling off our data, fucking Martha Stewart insider trading horseshit right under my fucking nose!?”

I walked back the hall, turned around and came thumping back into the living room, circling the couch, ignoring Elliot’s alarmed expression. I slammed my hands on the counter and he jumped, finally tired of twisting to watch my movements, so he used the momentum to stand up.

Elliot was still dressed in his work clothes due to the forcefulness of my invitation to come home with me. Rarely, did we leave the office together, but I gave Elliot little choice today. Everyone on the floor, including JaLeah, watched with interest as I damn-near yanked him out of his chair and told him he was done for the day.

“Why—why are you so angry?” Elliot asked, his face filled with concern. “I thought you didn’t like Colin?”

I took a deep breath, glanced at Elliot, and decided to finally open a bottle of wine to take the edge off. I moved around the counter and fished out my corkscrew.

As I chose a bottle of wine from the little wire rack on my counter, I started to explain. “It’s not about Colin. Well, it is. But it’s more about who they want me to have replace him.”

“Oh,” Elliot said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said, sticking the screw into the cork of the wine bottle and twisting.

“Ali Olayan.”

“Oh,” Elliot said, his voice a lower and darker.

“And I wasn’t given a choice—it’s Ali . . . or me, essentially. Do you want any of this?” I asked as I reached for a wine glass.

“No.”

I pulled a single glass out of the cupboard and began to pour.

“If I comply and make it a smooth transition, I’ll keep the respect I’ve earned, the name I’ve made for myself. If I refuse, if I complicate this promotion, I may as well resign because everything I’ve worked for will be made into a mockery—daddy’s little girl, does exactly what she wants because she can. Because she’s so fucking privileged.”

I took a long drink and continued as Elliot’s eyes flicked between the counter and my face. “You should’ve seen the file this tipster compiled on Colin. It was a detective’s wet dream. Literally everything tracked, everything monitored, times, dates, transactions—everything. Whoever put it together is a fucking genius. Even better than you,” I said with an eyeroll and a snort into my glass as I took another drink.

Elliot looked at me, his eyes oddly focused this evening. Normally, if I was overly emotional, he was unsure how to proceed and kept as much distance as he could. But tonight—something was different. He was much more sure of himself.

“Maybe it needed to happen?” Elliot offered.

“What do you mean?”

“How much longer could he really have gotten away with it? You can bet he would’ve fucked up soon enough—it’s Colin, after all. And you’d be in this exact same position a month or two months from now. If—if it weren’t for me, would you go along with it without protest?”

I looked at Elliot for a long time and felt like I was being tested as his gaze remained fastened on mine.

“I don’t know,” I sighed.

“You’ve made it personal, Y/N. Well, I’ve made it personal.”

“I’m afraid of breaking your trust by not pushing back.”

“Is that the only reason why you want to push back? For me?”

“No—it’s, it’s not the right thing to do, to promote someone because of their connections, their wealth and status, it’s not the right thing to do. I got into tech because I wanted to protect people, people like my dad—good people, not just rich people—who pour their souls into their businesses. When people are that invested in their business, they’re going to be that invested in their employees.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes,” I said with a conviction.

“You’re a good person,” Elliot said as he moved closer to me. “The best person I know.”

“That’s not saying a lot considering you know maybe five people, including me,” I teased.

Elliot laughed softly, his face set in a sweet smile.

“I guess you’re right.”

I turned to face him, my hand still resting on the stem of my glass as it sat on the counter.

“So what do I do now?”

“You play their game. You protect yourself, gain their trust, and bide your time until you can enact change.”

“That’s not what I want to hear.”

“But,” Elliot continued, moving so close he was now a breath away from me. “You’ll still be a good person. A good person caught in the machinations of corporate greed—you had to know something like this would happen if you stayed on Wall Street.”

I looked into Elliot’s face, his grey eyes filled with concern and also with a confidence I rarely saw—he was right and knew he was right.

“You’re right. Unless I just walk in and quit in a fiery rage,” I finished, remembering the feeling I had in Miles’ office as I looked out of the window.

“You’re not a quitter,” Elliot said, his hands coming to rest on my upper arms. “Places like that need people like you in positions of power. It’s all about balance.”

“I’m vastly outnumbered.”

“All the more reason to stay and fight.”

“Who are you tonight?” I asked with a huff of a laugh.

Elliot’s face turned serious and he gripped my arms a little tighter.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re just . . . so sure of yourself.”

Elliot shook his head.

“I’m sure of you,” he said before pressing his lips to mine, kissing me with purpose until I almost forgot the horrors of the day. I was enveloped by him, quickly lost in his citrusy scent that curled around me so totally that I nearly forgot I needed to ask him something important.

I broke the kiss, pulling away and causing Elliot to start stammering out an apology before I shushed him as I waved my hand.

“I almost forgot! Can you do something for me? Can you see if you can figure out who tipped off the police? I don’t have that kind of skill set.”

“Are you asking me to hack? I thought we lived by the rule of, ‘Don’t hack, ask?’” Elliot said, his lips twisted into the perfect curl of a grin again.

“I’m being serious—can you just see what you can find out? I don’t ever want to be blindsided like that again. Dad said the first time the board put Miles through the ringer, they had to call the meeting short so he could collect himself. I get why. It was brutal, and I never want to feel that unprepared again.”

“I can look into it,” Elliot said as his hands slid up my arms to rest on either side of my face, his thumbs settling on the outer corners of my mouth.

“Thanks, El,” I said before his lips were on mine and I let myself go, lost in that citrusy-grey darkness that was Elliot, the day’s events fading away until they were barely visible in my mind’s eye.

* * * * *

A few days after Colin’s arrest, I was sprawled out on Elliot’s bed, answering emails I hadn’t gotten to during the day. It was 8 pm when he walked into my office, the building long emptied, and told me it was time to quit. Once again, he was right, and he knew he was right, so we went back to his place for some takeout.

I had moved to his bed to stretch out after eating, loving the way I could just snuggle in and be surrounded by everything that was him. Elliot was in the kitchen finishing up the dishes when he asked, well, stated that he’d like me to meet his sister.

I stopped reading and stared at him, unsure if I heard him correctly.

“What? Are you sure?”

“It’s been over a month since I met your family. It’s time for you to meet mine.”

“If you’re sure?” I said, my heart picking up its pace a bit as I finally tossed my phone aside, officially quitting work for the day. I could always count on Elliot to provide a thorough distraction, on purpose or not.

Elliot laughed, “Are you nervous?”

“Yes!”

“Darlene is not someone to be nervous about meeting. Buy her dinner and her loyalty is yours,” Elliot said as he toweled off his hands and walked toward his bed.

“She’s not a stray cat! She’s your sister—the only person, well aside from Angela, that you really seem to give a shit about. What if she thinks I’m bad for you? That would be it. You’d be gone. And—”

“You’re babbling,” Elliot said, cutting me off as he crawled onto the bed, moving to sit beside me and to take my hand.

He lifted my palm to his lips and pressed a kiss there before continuing.

“This is not even in the same ballpark of the kind of daunting meet-the-parents plus the whole family thing that you did to me.”

“Fuck me,” I said, thunking my head against the wall.

“Alright,” Elliot said with a mischievous light in his eyes.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Not funny.”

“I seem to recall a girl who said something wildly inappropriate to me just as we pulled into her parents’ driveway.”

“That was funny.”

“No.”

You harrumphed and Elliot chuckled before pulling you close.

“I can’t keep you a secret forever. Don’t want to.”

“Adopting my lifestyle now? Elliot Alderson is climbing out of the shadows?”

“Fuck no—I still like my…mysterious persona. Keeps people at a safe distance.”

“Didn’t work on me.”

“No, you little weirdo. You were like a moth to a black flame.”

“I really was,” I said through a soft laugh. “I think I was half in love with you after the night I helped you prep for idiot Colin’s presentation.”

“And now you’re all the way in love with me?”

“For the thousandth, unrequited time, yes,” I said turning my head to smile at him.

“It’s not,” Elliot said, his face growing serious, my own smile faltering as I looked at him in the dim lighting of his apartment.

“What?” I whispered, my voice sounding like it was a million miles away.

“It’s not…unrequited. I—I love you,” Elliot said, his eyes suddenly finding a spot to look at on the bookshelf next to me.

“I love you, too,” I said, my face stretching into the biggest smile it had ever achieved.

Elliot took a deep breath and his eyes flicked to me now that the danger had passed, relief settling over not just his face, but his entire body.

“Check something for me?”

I furrowed my brow and slowly said, “Okay. . .”

“Check outside and see if hell’s frozen over.”

I laughed and launched myself into his arms, half sitting on his lap.

I pulled back from my hug to search his face, my thumb resting on his cheek as I cupped his jaw.

“Hell doesn’t freeze over when you tell someone you love them.”

“I feel a little sick,” he said, smiling shyly up at me.

“That feeling in the pit of your stomach,” I began as I touched him there, “like everything is just too much, like you’ve just gotten out of a bathtub after having your skin scrubbed raw, that vulnerability. That’s love.”

“I’m not sure if that’s poetic or if that’s even supposed to make me feel better, but it’s pretty fucking accurate.”

“I’ve been feeling it longer, so I’m the expert.”

“You haven’t—I just haven’t been able to tell you until now.”

We looked at each other for a long, long moment and I knew he meant it. Elliot loved me. I moved all the way into his lap and straddled him.

“I want you so much, El,” I breathed. “All of you. All the time.”

“I’ll always give you as much of myself as I can—promise,” Elliot said as he closed his eyes and let me kiss him.

The kiss was as slow and as sensual as our sex; we undressed each other, took turns kissing one another from head to toe. By the time Elliot slid into my aching, wet heat, I was near tears, overwhelmed by the intensity of our now shared, raw emotion.

We came, successively breathing one another’s names over and over, and I was sure that life couldn’t get any better than this.

* * * * *

Darlene Alderson may have physically resembled her brother, beautiful face with big eyes that made me feel exposed as they traveled over my face, but that’s where their similarities ended. She was outspoken, crass, and owned any room she was in. She projected a confidence I only rarely saw in Elliot, and she also seemed to speak each thought as it popped into her mind, very unlike her brother’s labored communications.

The plan was to meet at Elliot’s apartment to watch movies and order a pizza; I asked if we should go out somewhere nice and he outright laughed.

“Darlene doesn’t really do . . . nice.”

“Everyone likes a little nice.”

“Not my sister,” he said with a hint of annoyance.

I thought he was wrong, but then again, Elliot had been right about a whole lot of things lately.

Despite asking Elliot to look into the people who hacked Colin, he hadn’t been able to find anything. I was surprised, but I knew if anyone could find something, it was him. Since he hadn’t, it made me more nervous because so far, we were the vigilante’s only target. Insider trading wasn’t something rare—if the hacker’s goal wasn’t exposure, what exactly was it?

My anxiety had been worsening since Colin’s arrest and resulted in my first full-blown panic attack in months. I woke up, sweating, certain death was imminent as my heart hammered so hard I could feel it pounding when I held a hand to my chest. I was relieved Elliot hadn’t spent the night. I didn’t want him to see how much all of this stress was affecting me.

But thankfully, Elliot continued to provide ample distraction and waiting to meet his sister made me a different kind of nervous, one that forced me to put Colin out of my mind, again.

I roamed around Elliot’s apartment, straightening things that didn’t need straightened. I had made the bed twice and was now giving it another weary eye.

“Please let me buy you a bed.”

“I can buy a bed if I want to.”

I growled and left Elliot to fuck around on his computer, not really looking at what he was doing. He usually wasn’t on it when we were together, but he said he had something to finish before Darlene got there.

“Stop . . . fusspotting,” he mumbled without turning around and without missing a keystroke.

I stopped in my tracks and marched to stand behind Elliot’s computer chair.

“That’s what my nanny always said! She called me her little fusspot.”

“I know,” Elliot chuckled as he swiveled his chair around. “Your mom told me that. She said you’ve always been a nervous person, even as a child. And, it’s selfish, but I like it when you’re outwardly nervous—makes me feel more normal.”

Elliot scooted forward and ran his hands up my thighs, pulling me close to hug me, his head resting on my stomach as his hands cupped my ass.

I narrowed my eyes as I looked at what he was doing on the computer. It looked like he was creating a virus—

Elliot pulled open the button of my jeans with his teeth and successfully diverted my attention.

“Elliot! Your sister will be here any minute.”

“I’ll lock the door,” he said in a muffle as he started licking at the skin he had just exposed.

But it was too late for that.

The door to Elliot’s apartment flung open and Darlene came in, causing me to jump back from him so quickly I tripped and fell onto the mattress, causing Elliot to then tumble out of his computer chair.

I quickly rebuttoned my jeans and prayed to god for the mattress to open up and swallow me.

“Ew,” Darlene said, staring at the two of us.

Elliot rolled over onto his back, his sides shaking with a silent laugh until I kicked his shoulder and rolled off the bed.

I knew my cheeks were red, so I took a deep breath and gathered what respect I had left for myself and walked over to Darlene.

“Hi—sorry about that. Your brother’s a complete dick.”

Darlene grinned, and I was struck by how much she looked like Elliot when she smiled.

“Finally! Someone else gets it. I’m Darlene,” she said with a wave as she dumped her bag on Elliot’s table.

“Y/N,” you said with your own wave and embarrassed smile.

“I think you dislocated my shoulder,” Elliot said from his spot on the floor as he watched us both turn to look at him.

“Good,” Darlene and I said at the same time before looking at each other and laughing.

“Fuck. I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Elliot mumbled as he pulled himself up and back into his chair.

“Did you fix my virus?” Darlene asked as she moved past me to stand beside Elliot’s chair.

Elliot turned to look at her, clearly telling her to shut the fuck up with his eyes, but I spoke up.

“I can see it’s a virus. And you only popped the button of my jeans to distract me from looking at it.”

They both turned to look at me, twin expressions of incredulity, waiting to see what I would say next.

I crossed my arms and waited—I knew how to wait Elliot out.

“Darlene writes viruses and sells them to companies that make antivirus software.”

I raised my eyebrow, “Interesting niche.”

Darlene grinned, “We can’t all be corporate sellouts like you two.”

“Darlene,” Elliot warned.

“It’s a joke, douche,” Darlene huffed as she plopped on the bed.

“I knew this job would make you uptight—no offense, Y/N. I mean, someone’s gotta do it. Just never thought it would be my brother.”

“Do you . . . want a job? We could always use another tech.”

“No,” Elliot said, a look of horror washing over his face.

Darlene laughed and lifted her head to turn her eyes to me.

“So, you could just do that? Snap your fingers and get me a j-o-b?”

“You’re Elliot’s sister, his family. I’d do anything to help you—if you wanted it,” I added hastily.

Elliot and Darlene looked at each other, and Darlene laughed, laughed so hard a tear squeezed out from the corner of her eye.

“Elliot told me you were, like a good person or whatever, but shit. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t wanted to fuck me has ever offered to do anything that nice for me. Wait--you’re not into freaky siblin--”

“Darlene!” Elliot yelled, the vein in his neck popping.

Darlene raised her arms in a gesture of surrender and said, “Excuuuse me.”

I watched their exchange with a smirk of understanding. I did have three siblings of my own.

“Jobs aren’t exactly a scarce commodity for techs on Wall Street,” I said, crossing my arms and drawing their attention back to me.

“Just something to think about if you ever want some stability,” I added as Darlene continued to look at me like I was an alien.

“Elliot says you’re rich—”

“Fucking shut up, Darlene!” Elliot groaned, twisting his hands in his hair and standing.

“My father is rich, so yeah. I’ve never gone without,” I said with a slight head shake at Elliot’s distress.

“I’m so sorry about her,” Elliot said taking a step toward me while still glaring at Darlene who only rolled her eyes.

I chuckled, “It’s fine, El. She’s curious and clearly doesn’t beat around the bush—unlike you.”

“Ha!” Darlene said, raising her middle finger at her brother’s back.

This was . . . interesting, I thought. Not at all how I thought it was going to go, but there was something refreshing about Darlene, something childish in the same way there was something childish about Elliot—only on opposite ends of the spectrum. She had a child’s impetuousness, while Elliot had a child’s reservation. I wondered for the millionth time just what it was like growing up for the two of them because I had a feeling it was, at best, difficult. Most people shed those traits with maturity, and it was odd neither Elliot nor Darlene ever did.

I did enjoy Darlene’s assertiveness, even though I was certain it had gotten her in trouble over the years, but that’s what big brothers were for, right?

“Anything else you wanna know?” I asked as I sat on the edge of Elliot’s mattress.

“Since you both have fancy ass jobs for a fancy ass corporation, why the hell are we eating pizza in Elliot’s shithole apartment?”

“I told you,” I said looking at Elliot with a smirk.

Elliot sunk into his chair, sighing heavily before he popped the CD from his computer and tossed it to Darlene.

“Let’s go out,” I suggested. “Elliot and I had this debate before you got here, and I’m happy to say that he just lost because I was right.”

“Elliot needs a good check. He’s not always right,” Darlene said, glancing at him and giving him a smirk.

Elliot just looked at Darlene and shook his head.

“So, dinner in Midtown? Do you like seafood?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“I’ll make a phone call,” I said smiling, enjoying using my privilege to impress Darlene.

I wanted her to like me; she was the only family Elliot really had, and she could be a good ally if he ever needed more than just I could give him.

“El? Do you feel like going out?”

“Does it matter?”

I looked at him and wondered if our teasing really had bothered him.

“Of course it does,” I said with a soft tone as Darlene looked between us, watching our exchange with interest.

Elliot’s eyes ran over my face, and his lips gave me a ghost of a smile.

“I guess even Darlene likes a little nice.”

“Told you,” I said before I went to retrieve my cellphone.

As I made reservations, I could hear the quiet mumble of Elliot’s voice in the background and Darlene’s much less quiet answers. When I hung up with the restaurant, I ordered an Uber.

“Uber will be here in 15 minutes. Should give us plenty of time to make our reservation.”

Both Elliot and Darlene looked up at me, that twin expression again which was starting to unnerve me a bit. Getting up from the bed, Darlene took the CD Elliot gave her and shoved it in her bag. She pulled out her phone and checked it, her thumbs moving quickly as she answered a text or an email.

Elliot turned off his computer before turning his attention to me.

“Thanks for doing this,” he said quietly as he put his hands on my waist.

“I want her to like me,” I said into his ear as I hugged him quickly.

“She does,” he whispered back, pressing a barely-there kiss to my temple.

* * * * *

Dinner was fun and easier than when it was just Elliot and I sometimes. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy quiet nights with Elliot; it was that, given what happened with Colin this week, I greatly appreciated the distraction. It was nice to get lost in Darlene’s stories, and as it turned out, there wasn’t much she wasn’t willing to share, talking almost nonstop about everything from her love life to her and Elliot’s childhood.

Elliot listened, but I could tell he wasn’t truly present. There was something about his sister that seemed to make him retreat further into himself. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with me or if it was something to do with their childhood. After the Fourth of July, I hadn’t pressed Elliot. He seemed to be in such a good place that I didn’t want to open up a door he clearly needed to keep closed.

“Do you remember that, El?” Darlene asked.

“Hmm?” Elliot questioned, clearly not listening.

“That first time we went to the museum in Queens with Angela? The place you always ran away to?”

Elliot gave a half-convincing nod.

“Anyway, it has this really cool model of the entire city. You should check it out.”

“I’ve lived here forever and never knew it was there. I love finding spots in the city I’ve never visited.”

“We should go—all of us,” Darlene suggested, looking at her brother.

Elliot didn’t answer, which seemed to be something Darlene was used to. She gave him time, but when it became clear that was as far as she was getting, I spoke up.

“Are you busy Saturday morning-ish?”

“I keep my life pretty open to my whims,” Darlene said as she chewed her roll.

“I need to find a dress for this dinner thing next week. Do you want to come shopping with me? I could use a second opinion—and lunch would be my treat for putting up with my indecisiveness.”

“Sure,” Darlene said with a grin. “Let me get your number.”

She opened her phone and quickly created a new contact for me to enter my number. Elliot watched us with a little more interest now that Darlene wasn’t talking about their childhood.

By the end of the night, I felt like Darlene and I were on our way to becoming friends. When the Uber took us back to Elliot’s, I let them go back to his place alone to have some time, probably to talk about me.

Elliot gave me a look and a wave as he shut the door, and I could hear Darlene chastising him for not kissing me goodnight. I waved and shook my head, giving the driver my apartment’s address.

* * * * *

As it turned out, shopping with Darlene was fun. While I tended to err on the side of being reserved and polite, she was to the point, and I ended up finding a dress more quickly than usual thanks to her frank opinion.

We had lots of time before lunch to wonder through a few more boutiques and Darlene stopped to try on some sunglasses. She looked particularly cute in a pair of heart-shaped ones, and I offered to buy them for her as a thank you.

She accepted with a shrug of her shoulders and a grin, once again the complete opposite of her brother, which I told her.

“I know, right? Elliot said I get it from dad. He was never afraid to say what was on his mind.”

“Does he talk about your dad to you? Or your mom?”

“Not if he can help it. We had a pretty shit childhood. Dad died when I was 5, so I have trouble remembering him. It hurt Elliot—they were best friends. I think my mom was always kinda jealous of that and really took it out on him. Which is really funny because it only made us hate her more.”

“Is she still living?”

“Yup. But she’s in assisted living. Fuck if either one of us was going to take care of her when she started getting sick. When Elliot left for college, I counted down the days until I could get the fuck out of that house. Without him, it was depressing as shit.”

“So you two are really close?”

Darlene gave me a measured look before replying, “How long have you known Elliot?”

“Mmm, almost a year.”

“But, like, you haven’t been close until, what, like a few months ago?”

“We were pretty close at work from the start. I was one of the only people he talked to.”

“But you didn’t really hang out a lot?”

“No.”

“And, since you got close, nothing strange has happened?”

I stopped walking and turned to face Darlene.

“Strange as in . . . occasional memory loss?”

“Yes!” Darlene said, her face filling with relief. “I was fishing because I didn’t want to—you know, Elliot is the best person I know. I would do anything for him, anything to protect him the same way he’s always protected me.”

“I understand. There’s something about him that makes you want to give him a really big hug and tell him the world isn’t as shitty as he thinks it is.

“But fuck if he’ll let anyone. I mean, you’re the only real girlfriend besides Angela he’s ever had. And they had some sort of friends with benefits thing going on—she’s her own basket of freshly baked fucked up.”

I laughed, “What the hell did they put in the water where you’re from?”

Darlene chuckled and shrugged her shoulders.

“Anyway. Elliot’s had those weird blackouts since we were kids. I’m convinced it has something to do with keeping people at a distance, at least that was what it always seemed to be with us. But that shit works on your nerves and for a while Elliot and I just didn’t talk. I mean, we kept tabs on each other, but we didn’t see each other.”

“Well, I think you’re good for him. He needs people who care about him actively in his life. Being alone like he was—that’s not good for anyone.”

Darlene smiled.

“I’m glad he has you—not just because you’re rich, but you seem cool.”

“Thanks, but no worries. I come with my own, how did you put it? Basket of fresh-baked fucked up?” I asked through a laugh.

“That was a good description, huh?”

“It was. So, maybe you can help me figure out how I’m going to tell Elliot I’ve rented him a tux and he has to attend this event with me?”

Darlene threw her head back and laughed, clearly loving that her brother had just been sentenced to a night of boring horror, and we linked arms as we walked to a café around the corner for lunch, grinning as we guessed at his response.

* * * * *

I hung my new dress on the back of my closet door, making a mental note to go through my shoes to see what matched and to remember to tell Elliot he had plans on Wednesday night.

Spending the day with Darlene had been fun, but exhausting. Getting to know people was hard work, especially people as complex as the Aldersons.

Elliot had said he wanted to come over, so I left my door unlocked while I ran a bath, loading up on the bubbles.

As I watched the tub fill up, I thought that maybe I should give Elliot a key to my place. Elliot Alderson most likely wasn’t about to break up with the person he finally got the courage to tell he loved, so the gesture might be another nice piece of consistency for him (and for me).

I stepped out of my underwear and slid into the tub, luxuriating in the warmth and the sweet scent of coconuts. I had almost fallen asleep when there was a soft knock on my door before Elliot pushed his way into the bathroom.

He gave me a soft smile and took a seat on the edge of the tub.

“So you do use this thing?”

“Everyone loves a good soak in the tub.”

I paused, then seductively asked, “Want to join me?”

“No,” Elliot said flatly, making me laugh. He was such an atypical man that it was refreshing at times.

“That’s okay—I’m wiped. Your sister is exhausting. She has more energy than a child.”

Elliot nodded, his eyes incredibly focused on my face.

“I like her, though. I want to spend more time with her.”

“I’m glad,” Elliot said with relief. “I wasn’t sure if she’d be too much for you. She’s too much for me sometimes.”

“She loves you, El. So much. It’s sweet.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, a) she’s your sister,” I said, sitting up a bit and shaking off my sleep. “And b) she said you were the best person she’s ever known. I’d say that means she loves you.”

“I really don’t deserve that. I’ve done some shitty things to her.”

“Haven’t we all? I mean, to our siblings. Erin told you all about the epic chip battle of 1996.”

Elliot snorted, “I hardly think that counts.”

“I was being funny. We weren’t about to rehash the time she fucked my prom date in our limo the first time you met the family.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Erin was evil to me throughout high school. Granted, she was addicted to pills and to boys—she was six shades of fucked up.”

“What—why?”

“Two excellent questions, both with pretty blasé explanations. She got in with the wrong crowd, loved the attention, and just got sucked into that shitty world. It took years of therapy, and she was in and out of rehab until she finally found a purpose. She’s one of the lucky ones—so many addicts can’t find their way back once they take their first hit.”

“Wow. Never would’ve guess that.”

“You didn’t hack them, did you?”

“What?”

“Don’t sound so surprised—I trust you, El, however, I didn’t define all the grey areas, did I?”

“Not really—but I just assumed the whole ask, don’t hack applied to everyone in your life.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

“Is there something you want to ask me?”

“No,” I said a little confused. “Should there be something I should be asking you?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Beside the front door, there’s a ring of keys on the very last hook closest to the wall. Bring them to me?”

Elliot got up without saying a word and returned a minute later, the keys jangling as he walked. He handed them to me, and I shook the bubbles off my hand before I searched for my apartment key and wriggled it off the keyring.

“Here you go,” I said, holding the little silver key out to Elliot who now looked like he had a mouth full of peanut butter.

“Huh?” he asked, his mouth barely parting.

“I want you to be able to come and go as you please—and it also means I don’t have to get up to answer the door anymore, or leave it unlocked if I know you’re coming over at some point in the evening. It’s a gift of convenience.”

“Are you . . . sure?”

“It’s just a key to my apartment, El. Not an invitation to our wedding,” I finished as I closed my eyes and didn’t bother to hide the smirk on my face. I could practically hear the pistons misfiring in his brain at the mention of a wedding.

“Thanks,” came his cautious, quiet reply.

I nodded my head, not bothering to open my eyes as I let the warmth of the water envelop me again.

#Elliot Alderson #elliot alderson x reader #female reader #elliot x reader #elliot alderson fanfic #mr robot fanfiction #rami malek #rami malek character

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tinystudyingbean · 6 years ago

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Study Tips

When I began tutoring back in 2010 I would recommend that my students use the study methods that worked for me; sometimes this went really really well and the student thrived with the techniques I tought them, other times what worked for me didn’t work for a student and they would get frustrated, and one of them just gave up studying in the subjects I was tutoring them in all together because they “couldn’t study the right way” which forced me to try a different approach. I did some research and realized something I’ve been hit over the head with time and again since then what works for one person may not be what works for another. This list of study tips is a list I’ve compiled over years of interacting with a lot of different types of students and hopefully someone will find something useful in here for them.

Focus on what works for you. If a certain method of studying makes you less likely to actually study ditch it. Does your friend say your method of studying is a bad way to study but that method helps you retain the information, ignore your friend’s advice. Do what you have to do to study well and keep studying, you’ll thank yourself at test time.

Create a schedule. This tip applies to almost all students (I have yet to run into the person this doesn’t help in some way but I am sure there is someone out there that this doesn’t work for). How you set up this schedule is entirely up to you and your personal preference, and I will be making a separate post on some of the best scheduling methods I’ve seen people use for those of you who haven’t practiced creating a schedule for yourself before or haven’t found a method that works well for you yet.

Establish a regular sleep pattern. I cannot stress this one enough. Our brains need sleep so they can absorb information and commit it to memory. Our bodies need sleep so they can fight off diseases and recover from a day of hard work (and yes even days where you stay in studying are hard work for your body). When you don’t get enough sleep your memory and attention span lag and you are more susceptible to mental and physical ailments which is dangerous and even if it weren’t it is definitely bad for your ability to study effectively. Give yourself a bed time and stick to it every night unless something major pops up. It’s okay to cheat on this occasionally but most nights you should be sticking to your routine.

Go to class, unless your sick, something physically prevents you from going (a broken down car for example) or there is an emergency. If one of these things happens email you professor politely explaining the situation. If you don’t go to class you can’t expect to do well in the class, but you also have to take care of yourself (because trying to study or take a test with a 101 degree fever doesn’t go well, trust me I’ve been there).

PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS! Seriously this is the single best thing you can do for yourself when you are studying, if you don’t pay attention in class you will miss out on the clues professors and teachers drop as to what is important and what isn’t. Also students who pay attention take better notes, and class notes can be incredibly helpful study tools. So focus and put your phone away. (The exception to this is if the class is directly based on the readings or you are 100% sure you understand the material and can ace the test, at which point I give you permission to work on other stuff on your computer in class, just be productive and keep at least one ear on the professor in case they call on you).

Make friends with someone in your class! Not only will this give you a new friend to hang out with, which is always good, having a friend in class can help you study and do well in the class. Having a friend in class will possibly give you a study partner, a partner for group projects, and someone to turn to if you miss class for some reason.

Do the assigned readings and take notes. Notes help you to remember the most important things about the reading without having to go back and reread the entire thing when you go to study for the exam. Your notes do not have to be elaborate, though they can be if that helps you. Personally my favorite method was writing down the main argument (thesis) of the reading, the main supporting argument(s)/evidence, one question the reading left me with, maybe a quote (especially if I thought I would use the piece in a paper later), and one short essay question about the reading in my note book under a heading that stated the title of the reading and the authors’ names. Some people would do the same on notecards. Other methods include printing a hard copy and underlining/highlighting the important information and writing notes in the margins, QQTP (Question, Quote, Talking Point), and writing a short summary of the paper in paragraph format. Whatever helps you study and retain the information in the readings is what you need to do!

Textbook readings are a little different but the principle of using whatever note taking method works best for you still applies. Some people prefer to mark up their textbook so the most important information is easily visible when they go back while studying and review, while others prefer to take meticulous notes in a notebook summarizing the information in each chapter. Some people find doing the practice questions in the textbook helpful tools to prepare for the exam, other people find this bogs them down too much and they don’t get any studying done besides the practice questions (even if you are usually this type of person if you are taking a math or science heavy class including things like economics or accounting and you are not a math or science major do the practice problems, trust me in those fields unless your professor tells you not to use the textbook the practice problems will help you). Some people find it useful to write down any vocab with their definitions in their notes, other people find this tedious and unhelpful.

If you don’t understand something either ask for clarification in class (I guarantee you someone else has the same question, and your teacher/professor will not bite your head off for asking them a question so long as you are respectful about it) or go to office hours. Your teachers/professors want you to succeed and they want you to learn. When you understand the material studying it is a lot easier!

If your teacher doesn’t give you a study guide create your own! Make a list of the most important things that will be covered in the exam. In math or science fields this will include formulas, theories, methods, and data for the discipline. In a liberal arts field this will include things like people, ideas, events, dates, places, and things specific to the field. Language study guides should include the grammar structures you learned, the themes your lessons covered (good, places, weather, business transactions whatever the case may be) and the most important vocabulary for those topics.

Make practice questions. If you exams are likely to have an essay look at the main themes you have covered and create essay questions related to those themes (and answer them). Try your had at creating questions that may appear on the exam itself as you study and then towards the end of the session go back and try to answer those questions without consulting your notes. If you find yourself having trouble with certain types of questions you know what you need to review again (and maybe go to office hours to consult your professor about).

Rewrite your notes. Some people find rewriting their notes to be tedious and pointless. Other people like making their notes pretty and the visual things they add helps them to recall the information later. Other people find reviewing and revising the information in their notes by either rewriting them or typing them up (or writing them down from the computer based notes they took) to be immensely helpful (and a good way to prevent losing all of your notes if you lose your notebook- I did that once in high school and it was the worst).

Make flash cards. Some people absolutely love flash cards for all kinds of information and think of them as the ultimate study tool. And for some people they absolutely can be! You can keep them in your back pocket and review them on the bus, in the supermarket line, and wherever else you go. Easy on the go studying with none of the hassle of varying notebooks everywhere you go. I’ll be honest though, outside of vocabulary study and maybe notes on certain reading I’ve never been very good with flash cards, they just aren’t the best way for me to learn, and most of the people I’ve tutored over the years either make flash cards on their own to review at home and come to me for bigger broader picture stuff or they aren’t big flash card people either so my tips may not be the best on this one.

Read out loud. Whether it’s your notes, the assigned readings, the textbook, or assignments reading out loud can help you retain information. By engaging another one of your senses you give your brain another avenue to remember what you studied, and it can force you to slow down enough to make sure you are reading the information correctly.

Make up little sayings, mnemonic devices, stories, or mental pictures to help you remember key pieces of information. Remember Roy G. Biv? Yeah that’s still the only way I remember the order of the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). Little mental tricks like that can be very effective ways to help you remember information later! The more unique or ridiculous the image/story is the more likely it is to stick in your mind! But again as with anything if this isn’t how your brain works don’t try and force it, use the tricks that work for you!

Watch YouTube videos on the subject you are studying. Sometimes you need someone besides the professor to explain something to you and YouTube can be an awesome resource to help you learn! For example I used the CrashCourse Biology videos to help me study for the AP Bio exam when I was in high school and I understood the material significantly better after watching them.

Make use of the technology available to you! There are great study apps like Quizlet and productivity apps like Forest that can help you to maximize your study time.

Try teaching what you’ve learned to someone else. If it makes sense to them after you’ve explained it you probably have a good grasp on the material. Bonus if you have a good relationship with your parents or grandparents you can call them and explain it to them, they’ll be happy you called and excited to hear you talking about what you learned or that you thought they were a good person to help you study.

Try not to cram the night before. Everyone has been here, and don’t beat yourself up to much if you wind up doing this but instead of cramming the night before try to study a little at a time (even if it’s just 15 minutes) every day for 2 weeks before an exam. You’re more likely to retain more information if you spread it out and see it a few times and in a few different ways before the exam than if you study really hard all at once the day of the exam. And even if you do wind up cramming for the exam try to stick relatively close to your normal bedtime. Studying all night does you no good if you go to the exam too tired to think straight or if you sleep through the exam because you fell asleep at 6:30 in the morning on top of your books.

Take study breaks, but set alarms to hold you accountable to keeping such breaks to a reasonable time frame. It’s never good when your fifteen minute break turns into a three hour break because you got sucked into social media. But at the same time studying until your brain turns to mush and you are no longer actually comprehending what you’re reading isn’t going to help you either.

Figure out what environment you study best in. Some people study best alone in complete silence, others study best in groups or in noisy areas like coffee shops. Library, coffee shop, outside, church basement, bedroom, or student center? Alone or in a group? Music or no music? Wherever and however you study best make a conscious effort to put yourself in that environment and take advantage of the time you can make to study.

#study #studyblr #studying #study tips #do what works best for you #the important thing is that you study effectively

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hirohamadugh · 6 years ago

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THE ENHANCED

Part 3! | Part 2

Elliot had come and gone, recording Issac’s first temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate. Physically, he looked closer related to Chris than he did to either Hailey or Issac, but had jet black hair and a more burly body build. Food had been offered, and ultimately left in the room for Issac when he turned it down. He may have never eaten before, but he just didn’t have an appetite. Too much was going on; thoughts constantly swam and wrestled for the forefront of his attention, giving him a grueling headache and intense dizziness. It almost felt like his brain was trying to make up for the lost 20 years of activity it should’ve gotten before being as developed as it was.

The brown haired boy fell onto his back against his bed, puffing out a heavy exhale as he covered his eyes. He crinkled his nose in a small grimace at the throbbing pain that threatened to burst out his temples, his mind working overtime in a desperate attempt to file away all this new knowledge and experience. “…So is life always this ouch, or just at the start?”

You mean ‘painful’, Hailey kept to herself as she looked over at him with pity; she’d been trying not to stare or ask too many questions, figuring he might be wanting to sort things out on his own for now. As much as she loved all of the enhanced for being the only family she’d ever had, whenever Gabriel had hovered over her in the beginning it was very overwhelming. She already had him in her mind for what few of his memories she retained, so to have him all up in her business physically, too… it was just too much to handle sometimes. And that was merely from bits and pieces: Issac had way more memories than she ever did back then, so he must be feeling that a thousand times over. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, swinging her legs over the edge of her own bed to face him. “Too many thoughts?”

“Way too many.” Issac took another hefty inhale, feeling his chest swell up as it filled with air before he forcefully expelled it again.

“Sorry,” Hailey spoke almost sheepishly, unable to help feeling at fault for his pain. But now she understood why Gabe had been so all-over-her back then: it can be very scary to see someone you assisted to bring into this world struggling when you know you can do something to help. “Try to think about one thing at a time. Remember when I hadn’t learned food etiquette yet and I grabbed two fistfuls of spaghetti and put them on my head, saying I looked like Gabe now?”

This garnered a small snicker from Issac, and even if it was brief, Hailey was ecstatic that she was able to distract him from the overwhelming storm of voices. It was something that always made her smile, looking back.

“That was so embarrassing once I learned better,” he laughed, before averting his eyes. “Before… you learned better, I mean.”

“You learned from that too,” she consoled, sliding off her bed and crossing the room to flop beside him horizontally onto his.

Issac closed his eyes, back to his somber state of confusion and overthinking. “I hope this doesn’t come off wrong, but it’s just hard,” the boy trailed off, wincing again like he had earlier. “Knowing everything about me isn’t… actually about me at all.”

“I get that. I can relate my experiences to an extent, but it’s nothing you don’t already know. And honestly, that must suck.” Hailey turned her head to face him, a small amount of bittersweet sorrow painted across her features. “You’ll figure it out. You have the biggest problem-solving center in your frontal lobe out of all of us. Plus, you’re already starting to be yourself, not me.”

He twisted his head as well, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well for starters, I would’ve never turned down a Chris-prese salad.” The girl smiled teasingly, leaping to her feet and taking the liberty to pop a slice of his untouched mozzarella into her mouth.

Issac rolled his eyes in amusement at the sudden turn in conversation, sitting up now. “Take the whole thing. The vinaigrette has been stinking up the room anyways.”

“Really?!” Hailey beamed at the offer, a small glint of mischief twinkling in her amber eyes. “I read about this off-handedly once in the Typical Human Behavior archive on our learning database, I think people call it… A middle of night snack? I’ve never had one before!!” She happily scooped up the plate and Issac’s fork, stabbing a Sycorax-grown grape tomato and popping it between her teeth. “This is so spontaneous and un-regulated!”

The newborn chuckled, raising an eyebrow at her erratic behavior. “If I had known giving you the go-ahead to have it would make you that happy, I would’ve done it much earlier.”

“It’s not just the salad,” she explained, pushing another small tomato around with the fork. “It’s the fact I’m doing this on my own behalf.”

“Yeah,” Issac nodded very slowly, starting to understand. His shoulders sank as he kicked his feet in the air over the edge of his bed, deep in thought once more. “They really do kinda control everything around here, huh?”

The tanned girl finished off his small portion, setting the dish on her small bedside table. “They also gave us everything,” she reminded him, wiping her hands on her gray pants. “Food, a place to live, knowledge, the best healthcare anyone could ask for, life,” She puckered her lips to one side, before meeting his eye contact. “This is the life we were born into, so no sense in being upset. Certainly could be worse, you know?”

When he remained silent, Hailey sighed quietly to herself and stifled a yawn. “I think I’m going to head to bed. You should too, your first breakfast at the caf with the rest of us is at 8:30AM.” She climbed into her bed and stole one last peek at her brother, worried about how he would handle his first night, but well aware she’d done everything she could.

“Goodnight,” he said softly, breaking his zone-out and offering a small reassuring smile, one that fell as soon as she turned out the lights and wished him a goodnight back. His pupils dilated to adjust to the lack of light as he stumbled around the foot of his bed to their shared bathroom and shut the door. Inside he turned on the dim room’s light, resting the heels of his hands on the corners of the sink and leaning some of his weight onto them. Issac stared long and hard at his reflection, this being the first time he’s really gotten a good look at it. He scanned every last detail of his face, taking in all the different curves and crevices the muscles made as he moved his jaw, twitched his nose, raised his eyebrows, anything. His skin was the same exact shade and undertone as Hailey’s, most likely due to all the common genetic data they were comprised of. His hair fell almost to his shoulders, and tickled the back of his neck whenever he moved his head. Tearing his gaze away from himself, Issac began to rummage through the drawers for a hair tie, remembering seeing them somewhere in here from Hailey’s upload. Finding a solid black one in the back-corner of one of them, he pulled his hair back into a tiny low pony just to keep it out of his face. His head was still over-congested with Lunch is at 12:30 every day the past tense of run is ran when introducing yourself to someone new the proper response is to shake their hand Sycorax is a biotechnology company investing in the future of this planet I like the lavender scented soap the best plant cells have stiff cell walls and large vacuoles that animal cells do not Chris is the oldest of any of us and Liv’s clear favorite Derek has been in quarantine for 3 days now due to his genetic makeup failing tomorrows dinner is pasta primavera the four main macromolecules are proteins carbohydrates nucleic acids and lipids bacterial cells don’t have a nucleus-

Issac squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find any sort of silence in the screaming competition for attention within his mind. He shook his head violently in attempt to physically rid the thoughts, but only managed to let loose some stray hairs that had fallen out of his tie. Who are you? All you’ve ever known is Hailey, and you’re not her, he mentally told his pained reflection, who looked like it was cracking under the weight of a million burdens. How could you ever be someone else than what you are right now?

The boy shoved the faucet’s handle on and frantically splashed the brisk water onto his face, dribbling it all over his shirt as well as he desperately tried to rip himself from this downward spiral into panic. The bitingly cold liquid seemed to kickstart his lungs again, which he hadn’t even realized weren’t working. Issac gasped in a deep breath of air, feeling how he did when he was ripped out of the growth pod all over again. His eyes refocusing from their hazy blur, he couldn’t help but notice soft red glow was pulsating from the nape of his neck, just on the inside of his collar. Issac pulled it out to its full stretching capacity, the confusion actually doing more good than harm as it provided him with something to focus his attention on. Panic button, he quickly assessed, and it was sending out a signal about his extremely elevated blood pressure and labored breathing, no doubt. Not wanting it to report this personal moment for all to see and possibly be in trouble with Ms. Amara, Issac nimbly slipped the shirt off his body and let it fall to the floor in a heap, the red alert dulling until it completely stopped- no longer attached to a body to sense emergency signals from

His chest still expanding and compressing heavily, the boy stole one last glance at himself before shutting off the bathroom light and climbing up into his bed. Even though he’d never experienced it before, Issac instinctively knew he was a creature of comfort, and sought it out by swaddling himself in the provided blankets. He forced himself to close his eyes and hoped as hard as he could that the thoughts would stay quiet just for this one calm moment. His muscles listened and soon relaxed as well, succumbing to the great exhaustion both mentally and physically he’d endured.

Day one of being alive: Done. And Issac could only hope it would get easier from here.

#Sycorax AU #big hero 6 the series #city of monsters #liv amara #chirs sycorax #chrissistant #sycorax #bh6 the series #bh6ts #big hero 6 the series spoilers #bh6 the series spoilers #bh6 the series s2 #bh6 oc #oc issac #going with the enhanced as a title for now #the fake name of his file in their database wasnt cutting it

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theadmiringbog · 5 years ago

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The most basic idea of strategy is the application of strength against weakness. Or, if you prefer, strength applied to the most promising opportunity.

Yet this whole midlevel framework misses two huge, incredibly important natural sources of strength: Having a coherent strategy—one that coordinates policies and actions. A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength through the coherence of its design. Most organizations of any size don’t do this. Rather, they pursue multiple objectives that are unconnected with one another or, worse, that conflict with one another.

The creation of new strengths through subtle shifts in viewpoint. An insightful reframing of a competitive situation can create whole new patterns of advantage and weakness.

Half of what alert participants learn in a strategy exercise is to consider the competition even when no one tells you to do it in advance.

Whenever an organization succeeds greatly, there is also, at the same time, either blocked or failed competition. Sometimes competition is blocked because an innovator holds a patent or some other legal claim to a temporary monopoly. But there may also be a natural reason imitation is difficult or very costly. Wal-Mart’s advantage must stem from something that competitors cannot easily copy, or do not copy because of inertia and incompetence.

The oft-forgotten cost of decentralization is lost coordination across units. Stores that do not choose the same vendors or negotiate the same terms cannot benefit from an integrated network of data and transport. Stores that do not share detailed information about what works and what does not cannot benefit from one another’s learning.

Tradition saw discounting as tied to urban densities, whereas Sam Walton saw a way to build efficiency by embedding each store in a network of computing and logistics. Today we call this supply-chain management, but in 1984 it was as an unexpected shift in viewpoint. And it had the impact of David’s slung stone.

To detect a bad strategy, look for one or more of its four major hallmarks:

Fluff.

Fluff is a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments. It uses “Sunday” words (words that are inflated and unnecessarily abstruse) and apparently esoteric concepts to create the illusion of high-level thinking.

Failure to face the challenge.

Bad strategy fails to recognize or define the challenge. When you cannot define the challenge, you cannot evaluate a strategy or improve it.

Mistaking goals for strategy.

Many bad strategies are just statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles.

Bad strategic objectives.

A strategic objective is set by a leader as a means to an end. Strategic objectives are “bad” when they fail to address critical issues or when they are impracticable.

Describing a destination is no substitute for developing a comprehensive roadmap for how the country will achieve its stated goals.

“All too much of what is put forward as strategy is not. The basic problem is confusion between strategy and strategic goals.” With regard to the recent editions of the national security strategy, it said “when you look closely at either the 2002 or 2006 documents, all you find are lists of goals and sub-goals, not strategies.”

Fluff is superficial restatement of the obvious combined with a generous sprinkling of buzzwords.

Fluff masquerades as expertise, thought, and analysis. As a simple example of fluff in strategy work, here is a quote from a major retail bank’s internal strategy memoranda: “Our fundamental strategy is one of customer-centric intermediation.” The Sunday word “intermediation” means that the company accepts deposits and then lends them to others. In other words, it is a bank. The buzz phrase “customer-centric” could mean that the bank competes by offering depositors and lenders better terms or better service. But an examination of its policies and products does not reveal any distinction in this regard. The phrase “customer-centric intermediation” is pure fluff. Pull off the fluffy covering and you have the superficial statement “Our bank’s fundamental strategy is being a bank.”

A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge. If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy. And if you cannot assess a strategy’s quality, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one.

If you fail to identify and analyze the obstacles, you don’t have a strategy. Instead, you have either a stretch goal, a budget, or a list of things you wish would happen.

“This 20/20 plan is a very aggressive financial goal,” I said. “What has to happen for it to be realized?” Logan tapped the plan with a blunt forefinger. “The thing I learned as a football player is that winning requires strength and skill, but more than anything it requires the will to win—the drive to succeed. The managers and staff in this company have worked hard, and the transition to digital technologies was handled well. But there is a difference between working hard and having your eye on the prize and the will to win. Sure, 20/20 is a stretch, but the secret of success is setting your sights high. We are going to get moving and keep pushing until we get there.”

“This is what Jack Welch says,” he told me. The text read: “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible.” “That’s what we are going to do here,” said Logan.

What I would advise is that you first work to discover the very most promising opportunities for the business. Those opportunities may be internal, fixing bottlenecks and constraints in the way people work, or external. To do this, you should probably pull together a small team of people and take a month to do a review of who your buyers are, who you compete with, and what opportunities exist.

Chad Logan thanked me and, a week later, retained someone else to help him. The new consultant took Logan and his department managers through an exercise he called “Visioning.” The gist of it was the question “How big do you think this company can be?” In the morning they stretched their aspirations from “bigger” to “very much bigger.” Then, in the afternoon, the facilitator challenged them to an even grander vision: “Think twice as big as that,” he pressed. Logan was pleased. I was pleased to be elsewhere engaged.

Effective senior leaders don’t chase arbitrary goals.

Rather, they decide which general goals should be pursued.

And they design the subgoals that various pieces of the organization work toward.

Indeed, the cutting edge of any strategy is the set of strategic objectives (subgoals) it lays out. One of the challenges of being a leader is mastering this shift from having others define your goals to being the architect of the organization’s purposes and objectives.

To help clarify this distinction it is helpful to use the word “goal” to express overall values and desires and to use the word “objective” to denote specific operational targets. Thus, the United States may have “goals” of freedom, justice, peace, security, and happiness. It is strategy which transforms these vague overall goals into a coherent set of actionable objectives—defeat the Taliban and rebuild a decaying infrastructure.

A leader’s most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives.

These sorts of broad “goals” work like the rules of football in that they rule out a great many actions without specifying what the team should actually do.

A long list of “things to do,” often mislabeled as “strategies” or “objectives,” is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do.

Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders make suggestions as to things they would like to see done. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into the “strategic plan.” Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long-term” is added so that none of them need be done today.

A high rate of community involvement might be a very desirable state of affairs. But it is hardly a strategy. It is a blue-sky objective.

The kernel of a strategy contains three elements:

A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical.

A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.

A set of coherent actions that are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy.

In business, the challenge is usually dealing with change and competition. The first step toward effective strategy is diagnosing the specific structure of the challenge rather than simply naming performance goals. The second step is choosing an overall guiding policy for dealing with the situation that builds on or creates some type of leverage or advantage. The third step is the design of a configuration of actions and resource allocations that implement the chosen guiding policy.

A great deal of strategy work is trying to figure out what is going on. Not just deciding what to do, but the more fundamental problem of comprehending the situation.

Jen-Hsun Huang reformulated the company’s strategy. Key inputs came from a temporary technical advisory board made up of both insiders and expert outsiders.

A new strategy is, in the language of science, a hypothesis, and its implementation is an experiment. As results appear, good leaders learn more about what does and doesn’t work and adjust their strategies accordingly.

... in business, where an executive can choose an action based on gut feel and, even a year later, no one will know whether it was a good choice.

In the same way, a good business strategy deals with the edge between the known and the unknown. Again, it is competition with others that pushes us to edges of knowledge. Only there are found the opportunities to keep ahead of rivals.

Given that we are working on the edge, asking for a strategy that is guaranteed to work is like asking a scientist for a hypothesis that is guaranteed to be true—it is a dumb request.

It was 1890, and there was a cocktail party here in Pittsburgh. All the movers and shakers were there, including Carnegie. He held court in a corner of the room, smoking a cigar.

He was introduced to Frederick Taylor, the man who was becoming famous as an expert on organizing work.

“Young man,” said Carnegie, squinting dubiously at the consultant, “if you can tell me something about management that is worth hearing, I will send you a check for ten thousand dollars.”

Now, ten thousand dollars was a great deal of money in 1890. Conversation stopped as the people nearby turned to hear what Taylor would say.

“Mr. Carnegie,” Taylor said, “I would advise you to make a list of the ten most important things you can do. And then, start doing number one.”

And, the story goes, a week later Taylor received a check for ten thousand dollars.

Taylor’s assignment was to think through the intersection between what was important and what was actionable. Carnegie paid because Taylor’s list-making exercise forced him to reflect upon his more fundamental purposes and, in turn, to devise ways of advancing them.

The problem is that there might be better ideas out there, just beyond the edge of our vision. But we accept early closure because letting go of a judgment is painful and disconcerting. To search for a new insight, one would have to put aside the comfort of being oriented and once again cast around in choppy waters for a new source of stability. There is the fear of coming up empty-handed. Plus, it is unnatural, even painful, to question our own ideas.

Thus, when we do come up with an idea, we tend to spend most of our effort justifying it rather than questioning it. That seems to be human nature,

The creation of new higher-quality alternatives requires that one try hard to “destroy” any existing alternatives, exposing their fault lines and internal contradictions. I call this discipline create-destroy. Trying to destroy your own ideas is not easy or pleasant. It takes mental toughness to pick apart one’s own insights. In my own case, I rely on outside help—I invoke a virtual panel of experts that I carry around in my mind.

Social herding presses us to think that everything is OK (or not OK) because everyone else is saying so. The inside view presses us to ignore the lessons of other times and other places, believing that our company, our nation, our new venture, or our era is different. It is important to push back against these biases. You can do this by paying attention to real-world data that refutes the echo-chamber chanting of the crowd—and by learning the lessons taught by history and by other people in other places.

#Good Strategy Bad Strategy #books

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scripttorture · 6 years ago

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If a character was tortured, managed to get away, was caught again, and then was tortured far more brutally for escaping, would they be more likely to seek self preservation (doing as they're told to an extent, not drawing attention, trying not to look threatening) or are they more likely to fight harder against the torturers? Would this worsen symptoms already present? Or give more, new symptoms? A combination of both? Would they be more likely to attempt suicide instead of a second escape?

Allof this depends very heavily on the individual. There isn’t ablanket answer that covers all survivors. They’re individual peopleand they respond to these situations differently.

Suicide,short term compliance for the sake of self-preservation, anotherescape attempt and fighting even harder because they’ve got nothingto lose are all possiblerealistic responses.

Thetrouble comes when we write any one response as the ‘only’ or‘right’ way for survivors to be.

AndI could write an essay on that but I don’t think that would beparticularly helpful for you: so instead let’s focus a little onthis particular character and their situation.

Ithink we often tend to ignore or downplay the amount to which victimsmake extremely hard-headed decisions about their survival chances. Soput yourself in the character’s shoes for a moment. Imagine thephysical situation they’re in: their injuries, their energy levels,their physical capacity. Now think about howthey’re being held: any physical obstacles like walls, guards,restraints, animals that might be used to attack or track them. Thinkabout the environment they’re in and how capable they are ofsurviving in it.

Doyou think the character is likely to believe they could surviveanother escape attempt?

Acharacter who is too starved and beaten to run probably isn’t goingto want to try outpacing a pack of German Shepherds. A characterbeing taken across the Sahara with no water supplies for miles isprobably not going to try running away unless they know a well ortown is near by. A healthy character with lots of energy may stillnot want to attempt climbing a 40 ft castle wall.

Therewill always be some people (and characters) who attempt thingsdespite the odds. But a level headed assessment that escape is toodifficult right now isa good reason for a character not to attempt escape.

Fightingis a little different because the motivation behind it isn’tusually much more than inconveniencing the guards as much as humanlypossible. It is not necessarily a genuine attempt at escape orinjuring people but an expression of frustration, anger, defianceetc. An emotional outlet in an environment that has removed manyavenues of emotional expression.

Thinkabout whether anger is a regular symptom for the character andwhether they’re the kind of person who couldlash out when angry. Think about whether the character believesthings such as ‘violence is justified if I’m defending myself’‘people should stand up to bullies’ and so forth.

Themain thought process here is whether the character thinks they’relikely to be killed, maimed or otherwise more seriously injured forfighting. In a lot of situations a victim may well judge that they’regoing to be hurt no matter what they do. A lot of people in thatsituation decide to fight but not everyone does.

Evenif a victim believes they’ll be more seriously hurt for fightingsome would still judge it to be ‘worth it’ for the emotionalrelease and satisfaction they get from fighting their tormentors.

Thisdoesn’t make them ‘braver’ or ‘better’. It just means thatis how they’re emotionally processing the extreme situation they’rein and that their core beliefs do not include pacifism.

Shortterm compliance (which from the examples you’ve given I thinkyou’ve got a decent grasp of) can be motivated by a wide variety offactors. It can be a decision the character makes in order tosurvive. It can be a temporary state based on their physical ormental health because obvious active resistance is exhausting. Insome stories it could be part of a broader legal strategy on the partof the victim (‘See? I’m not the violent criminal they’reportraying me as, this treatment is unfair and uncalled for’). Insome stories it could be a stalling tactic on the survivor’s part(‘I’ll make them think they’ve ‘broken’ me until I canthink of a better escape plan or until I have access to a bettermeans of escape’).

I’dsuggest thinking about the other two strategies first and if you’veruled them out at least for the momentthink about whether short term compliance might benefit thecharacter. If it would get them access to better food, shelter andopportunities to escape then might consciously adopt it as part of alonger escape plan.

Rememberthat the strategies a victim adopts are not set in stone. It’s nota ‘one or the other’ affair. You can realistically have thecharacter switching between any of these strategies as the story goeson and the situation changes.

Asfor suicide-

Ithink it’s important to remember that not everyone who has suicidalthoughts or feelings actually attempts suicide. Not all suicides thatare attempted are completed. People can go for an incredibly longtime, even a normal lifetime, feeling suicidal and yet refusing toact on those feelings.

Theoptions available to us effect whether we’re likely to makeattempts or not. People in situations they see as truly hopeless,with no chance of improvement are a lot more likely to attemptsuicide.

Thefact your character has already attempted to escape means that theysee a way to improve their situation. The suggestion that they mightuse short term compliance for similar reasons backs that up. So Ithink a suicide attempt is only likely if the character becomescompletely convinced they can’t improve their situation in any way.

Thereare also cultural factors that effect the likelihood of suicide. I amunsure whether cultural prohibitions on suicide actually make it lesslikely but cultural condonementof suicide in certaincircumstances seems to make it more likely.

Iam, admittedly, basing that statement on anecdotal accounts acrosshistory and @scriptshrink may have a different opinion on the matter.

I’mthinking of practices like sati and the cultural pressures that were(and are) brought to bear on ‘dishonoured’ women; activelyencouraging their suicide as way to retain the social standing oftheir families.

Ifyour character comes from a culture that would consider suicidepreferable to a life in captivity then that coupled with suicidalfeelings post-torture would make suicide attempts likely. A characterwith a strong belief that suicide is somehow immoral might be lesslikely to act on those feelings, even if they’re just as strong.

Asfor the effects of further traumatic experiences- I don’t have dataon that in a torture context. This sort of escape and recapturescenario is a staple of fiction but is very rare in reality. I’munaware of any studies conducted on these sorts of circumstances.

Butstudies have been conductedon the effects of repeat trauma in soldiers and in civilians whosuffered childhood abuse or sexual abuse.

Basedon what I know of those studies you could see either more symptomsdeveloping or increased severity of existing symptoms, or acombination of the two.

PTSDin particular is more likely in the case of repeated traumatic events(and possibly also blows to the head). Anecdotally long termpersonality changes seems to become more likely the long a person isheld. Chronic pain may also become more likely simply because thecharacter has more injuries then they would have if the first escapeattempt was successful and their medical treatment is likely to besub-par.

Thatsaid none of those symptoms are guaranteed and it’s perfectlypossible for someone to go through multiple traumatic events and havesymptoms other than PTSD.

Themental health problems survivors experience are incredibly complex.The situation isn’t helped by how woefully lacking our research is.

Everythingyou’ve suggested is possibleand the likelihood of each outcome is strongly dependant on theindividual, the circumstances and a bunch of factors we simplyhaven’t identified yet. So consider the story you want to tell,consider the kind of character you want to show. Think about whichresponse fits that best, what creates opportunities to show thischaracter changing, to show their emotional state and what buildsinteresting obstacles for later parts of the plot.

Thatgoes for symptoms too.

Theseare hard writing decisions to make. The complexity of thesesituations in real life means that there isn’t an easy road map toa good or even a realistic portrayal. Different things are equallytrue for different people at different times.

It’snot easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw suicide #effects of torture #compliance #resistance #writing victims #Anonymous

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bbbburrito · 3 years ago

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Battlefield 2042 Beta Open, App Integrations, Merch and School

Introduction

Good evening you crazy cybernautic bean! There's a lot of things happening this month that I need to go over. A bunch of these updates have to do with technical shit. Then I also have to talk about future scheduling because of how hectic my school is going to be. There are some nuances when it comes to tech so bear with me. I'll touch up on each idea later on in the next blog so I can update you. What I am doing are dynamic projects that take time to implement and also require a lot of data which takes time to build.

The Main Idea

Google Analytics

I was recently tasked by my marketing class To complete a LinkedIn learning project certification. I was able to choose Google Universal Analytics out of all the certifications and decided to implement that on my website. As I was going through the Google Analytics course, I learned how to collect data from geo locations (Not to the granular detail like actual home address) from IPs that visited my site. A couple people volunteered on my Discord a few days ago for testing and the data that was collected was beautiful. I'm able to manipulate data to understand the people that come to my site and hopefully this will help me cater my contents to different audiences depending on the volume of people who visit me from certain areas. GUA is very powerful and I hope to use it for the years to come. I eventually do want to sell merchandise in the most efficient way possible and hopefully this site will be able to tell me different aspects of my site like bounce rates, merchandise sales, and etc. For right now, I just want to look at the geo located traffic. I only have a couple days worth of data, but eventually I want to grow it to several years so I can accurately gauge demographics that watch me.

Battlefield 2042 Beta

The Halo Infinite Beta test was a failure in part due to me having so many accounts with Microsoft. I created many Microsoft accounts over the past several years without deleting them and standardizing my games and accounts to one email address. Because of this, I did not have authorized access to the beta because I used a multitude of emails to sign up for the Halo Insider program. This backfired and I wasn't able to access the beta when it came out in time. I won't let this happen again with the Battlefield 2042 Beta And hopefully when I access this it will be a little bit more standardized because I haven't opened many accounts with Origin. The beta should come out within 2 weeks and I will be playing that and multi-streaming.

App Integrations

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to integrate a lot of applications together using automated software from third parties. I mainly use zapier for cross-platform Integrations. It was mostly a success on various platforms with the exception of infinite feedback when I cross link several channels together. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that these application integrations did not come for free. Integrating through zapier costs a monthly fee of $20 per month. As much as I want to integrate these applications together, I decided to opt out for the meantime because the cost didn't justify the amount of people that come to my stream. I'm currently on a tight budget because I'm unemployed. With all the fixed costs from operating my website, buying merch, and trademarks my hands are tied behind my back. When I'm able to get a sufficient following on patreon, I will definitely reconsider. All of the integrations are still existing on my account. I'm able to have one integration on a basic free account. I'm using that integration to post to my Twitter automatically. If and when my patreon reaches a certain threshold of subscriptions, I will use it to automatically post across different media sites faster and more efficiently. One can only hope. As I posted on my Discord, here's a map of all the Integrations I currently have and future ones that I propose to do I tried using other applications like IFTT, but nothing is as easy as zapier. Not only does it make my content automated, streamlining would be much easier and my workflow would be faster. Depending on how willing I am. I might buy this before I reach the patreon threshold just so I can blow up faster. I'm deciding whether I'm getting big just based on my content alone or because of streamlining my media. However, Zapier would be a great boost.

Merch

I do have new merch coming on in. I have brand new vinyl stickers that are 9 inches in diameter. I'm also constructing a longboard for marketing purposes. all of my materials have arrived now, but I need to find a way to present them within my stream so that more people would be interested in buying merchandise. I was originally just thinking about posting a couple pictures of my website. But because the majority of people that watch my streams are online watching my videos directly, I was thinking about adding a PNG with a transparent background using AVI on Vegas. Right now all the merch is just sitting in my room. I need to find a better way to promote it so that people are interested in buying that stuff. That takes time and I think I'll be doing some editing at the end of the semester when I do have time. That or whenever the next holiday comes around.

Stream Schedule

I had my first set of midterms last week. The results were all over the place. I kind of knew that I needed to focus more on studying. However, now that I have a good idea of how much it takes for me to study for a certain class, I think it is within my best interest to reduce my streaming to 2 hours from Thursday through Sunday. I will also stream earlier so that I do have time to finish up any class work or assignments for the next day. I have a tendency to procrastinate and utilizing that extra hour do dates of submissions is a game changer. Not only that but recently I've been feeling overwhelmed with 3 hours knowing that I have assignments that are due later on. This is only temporary, and it will definitely change throughout the time of the year and whether I have a break or not. The busier I am, the less I will stream and vice versa. This will also give me more time to focus on tasks like updating my stream bitrates, changing my settings and updating my websites; all which are important for a high quality stream. My new schedule is Thursday - Sunday 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) Los Angeles.

Conclusion

These are the beginnings of utilizing data to better help cater to my audience. I'm trying to lay down the infrastructure so that it'll be easier right now then later on in the long term. It looks a lot more professional and he retains people's attention a lot better. I have plenty more ideas to make my channel better but for right now I'm focusing on these things. Hopefully later on down the road I'll be able to measure my progress in October and see whether these new Integrations were worth something. Before this the biggest project I had was creating a network server and that could easily transfer data. That was a success. I'm trying to move on and apply that to the network that I have. My main goal is to just make things easier for everybody to find my content and get a couple laps in without having to click all over the place.

Thank you all for reading this update. I appreciate your time for reading this and I hope to see you soon!

Gerry

#extra new exciting

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michaelandy101-blog · 3 years ago

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Learn how to Construct and Scale a Excessive-Efficiency Advertising and marketing Group, In line with Leaders Who've Accomplished It

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/how-to-build-and-scale-a-high-performance-marketing-team-according-to-leaders-whove-done-it/

Learn how to Construct and Scale a Excessive-Efficiency Advertising and marketing Group, In line with Leaders Who've Accomplished It

In 2020, I began utilizing Headspace.

And, because it seems, so did everybody else.

The meditation app, which was first launched again in 2012, initially generated roughly $30 million in income and, as of 2017, had 40,000 subscribers.

At present, the app has over 2 million customers, and is valued at $320 million dollars. How’s that for progress?

However, when any firm scales that rapidly, it begs the query: Will the enterprise survive, and even thrive underneath its newfound success? Or will it crumble?

Maybe your organization is experiencing related progress, and your marketing group is feeling the rising pains. Or, perhaps what you are promoting is model new, and also you’re targeted on successfully constructing a robust marketing group for the primary time.

Whichever the case, the challenges that come together with constructing or scaling a marketing group could be detrimental to a company if dealt with poorly. Which is why I sat down with marketing leaders at Google, Microsoft, Wistia, Canva, and Typeform to study their ideas for efficiently constructing or scaling a group — so that you just’re prepared when it is your time to develop.

Let’s dive in.

Suggestions for Constructing an Efficient Advertising and marketing Group

1. Rent with variety, fairness, and inclusion in thoughts.

There are numerous advantages to variety within the office – as an illustration, do you know organizations with a various management group have 19% greater income on common than firms with much less various leaders?

Or, how about the truth that diverse teams can solve problems quicker than cognitively related individuals?

Suffice to say, variety issues.

When constructing an efficient marketing group, it is important to think about variety, fairness, and inclusion from the very starting.

As Google’s World Head of SMB Partnerships Advertising and marketing, Elana Chan, instructed me, “Hiring is the most important thing you’ll do as a leader — and that also means you need to think about DEI. It’s easy when we’re running fast to just ask people in our own networks to apply for open positions, but it’s worth it to diversify. Every study and even my own experience has proven that diversification and different points of view are important.”

Chan provides, “It takes longer to hire people who are outside of your natural network, but it’s worth it. You’ll get the right people for the job and also set the right tone across your organization. It’s important to walk the talk when it comes to DEI, not just when it’s convenient.”

While you’re first constructing out your group, you may wish to make sure you incorporate DEI into your recruitment plans. To do that, think about writing inclusive job descriptions, promote roles by means of various channels, and standardize your interview course of.

You may also strive utilizing recruitment expertise like Greenhouse Inclusion to scale back the dangers of unconscious bias when interviewing.

2. Rent people who find themselves hungry sufficient to strive something.

In the event you’re simply beginning out, you do not have limitless price range to rent a slew of entrepreneurs who concentrate on varied marketing actions. As an alternative, you probably solely have the price range for a handful of entrepreneurs — or even perhaps only one.

So … how do you make that one rent rely?

Above all else, Wistia co-founder and CEO Chris Savage believes it is necessary to think about how pushed your first marketing rent is.

He instructed me, “You want to find someone who is extremely hungry, and can make their own things — whether that is video, written content, or audio. Whichever assets your team needs, if you can find someone who can be both the creator and manager of those assets, then you unlock the ability to try things much more easily.”

“At Wistia,” he provides, “I hired a lot of misfits who were so hungry that they were willing to try anything. Maybe on paper it didn’t make sense, but in reality, it was incredible.”

For example, maybe your marketing group has recognized YouTube as a viable alternative to achieve new audiences and convert these customers into leads. If that is the case, think about hiring somebody with expertise creating video — together with a robust need to study rapidly, and take a look at new issues.

three. Rent a marketing buyer expertise (CX) chief.

When requested what probably the most essential early rent on a marketing group is, John Cosley, Senior Director of World Model Advertising and marketing at Microsoft Advertising, instructed me: “Two years ago, I would have said a marketing data scientist — someone who can analyze datasets and help their organizations better understand their customers and identify future opportunities, as well as advise on marketing tactics and analysis methodologies.”

“Fast forward to today,” He provides, “And I would say that the marketing customer experience (CX) leader is the most crucial early hire in scaling a marketing team. Consumer journeys have increasingly become digital and multi-modal and expectations have increased around privacy and trust, personalization, and quality.”

In the event you’re eager about making a buyer expertise technique for what you are promoting, check out Learn how to Outline a Buyer Expertise (CX) Technique.

Finally, a buyer expertise is about placing the client first. As Cosley instructed me, “Shoppers usually tend to worth a model that values them, so it has develop into crucial for manufacturers at present to prioritize the client expertise right through the buying funnel.”

four. Rent early.

Hiring as you are scaling could be a bit like attempting to construct a airplane when you’re flying it.

It may be troublesome and messy to get new hires up-to-speed on the identical time you want them to carry out optimally so your customers do not feel the friction. To reduce these challenges, think about hiring months forward of if you’ll want sure roles crammed.

As Francois Bondiguel, Canva’s World Head of B2B Advertising and marketing & Progress, instructed me, “A big challenge that many face as they scale is getting the organizational structure and strategy right. This includes hiring the right people, and ensuring they have leaders in place to guide them through this transformative phase and help them remove roadblocks so they can move fast.”

“On that note,” Bondiguel provides, “it’s important for key hires to be brought in early to ensure they are properly onboarded prior to projects ramping up. This helps avoid placing unrealistic pressure on new team members as well as the broader group.”

To do that successfully, check out your group’s long-term imaginative and prescient, and brainstorm which function(s) will must be crammed to get your group to the following stage.

5. Use one knowledge set to information your total division.

While you’re first beginning out, I am prepared to wager your lean startup group understands the significance of creating data-based choices … however they probably additionally work in silos.

Perhaps you’ve two content material strategists who concentrate on lead era numbers. Then, maybe you’ve one other social media marketer who focuses on cost-per-acquisition.

The problem? “While you’re working in silos, there are additionally knowledge silos,” Chan tells me. “Which means you can never pull the same number across teams. That’s a mistake. If you start off providing your team with a unified data set, then it’s easier to grow together. It’s much harder to merge data sets later, and then it becomes politics to determine the right numbers to use.”

To repair this, guarantee you’ve a unified system for accumulating and analyzing knowledge even when your group is small. Think about using a CRM to retailer your knowledge in a single place, or making a division dashboard in Google Analytics.

Regardless of the case, it is vital you present your group with a centralized location so your knowledge processes can develop with you as you scale.

6. Deal with buyer retention at first, reasonably than simply buyer acquisition.

While you begin to see your record of shoppers rising, it may be tempting to need extra, extra, extra.

However as a startup, you must watch out. In the event you focus completely on buying new prospects, you overlook certainly one of your strongest weapons — your present prospects.

As Typeform’s VP of Progress, Jim Kim, instructed me, “Many SaaS-based startups … focus exclusively on customer acquisition and tend to neglect customer retention until they see issues with the customer base size growing.”

Kim provides, “By focusing early on efforts to engage and retain the base of customers already acquired, the startup develops a more holistic understanding of the customers they serve, and can gain insights into the things customers really care about that can then be added to the acquisition activities.”

To forestall buyer churn, you may wish to construct out an unimaginable buyer help technique that allows your present prospects to get their wants met. Moreover, think about the way you may present worth past the acquisition, or create a customized buyer expertise so your prospects know you care about them.

As Kim factors out, “It’s an obvious point, but in my experience, it’s hard to remember that retention can actually be a faster way to grow the customer base than new acquisition and usually has a higher marketing ROI, since it’s (generally) cheaper to keep a customer than find a new one.”

Suggestions for Scaling Your Advertising and marketing Group

1. Do not stifle the power of a startup.

As you start to scale, the office inevitably adjustments. Earlier than, conversations occurred casually throughout workplace desks, or when grabbing a cup of espresso — now, there are formal conferences with agendas.

And, when you might beforehand take a look at out a brand new thought with out essentially requiring buy-in from management, now you are anticipated to comply with stricter processes, which limits the experiments you may strive.

And but, one factor should not change as you scale.

As Chan places it, “It’s important not to stifle the energy of a startup. That’s the exciting part of being where you are, and I think the acknowledgement that you’re building the car as you’re driving it is okay — and fun.”

Chan provides, “At Google we have a saying: ‘Operating at the edge of chaos’. If you imagine a frontier, one side is not enough chaos, and the other side is too much chaos. If there’s too much chaos, no one knows what’s happening, and nothing gets done. But if there’s not enough chaos, then there’s no innovation and you’re not moving forward.”

“It’s your job as a leader to operate as closely to this frontier as possible, and I think in a startup that’s even more true.”

While you start to scale, you are going to have to implement extra formal processes. However these processes should not limit your staff from taking dangers, testing out new concepts, and pushing the boundaries of your marketing efforts.

Think about, as you scale, how one can defend that “startup energy” in any respect prices.

2. Stick to what’s working.

As you start to scale, you are in all probability on the lookout for new progress alternatives. And, at this level, it would really feel just like the sky is the restrict — what you are promoting is quickly rising, so why not take some dangers?

However, whereas sure dangers are inevitable, it is not a good suggestion to increase too far past what’s already working.

As Savage instructed me, “In the event you’re a startup that is making progress when it comes to bringing in prospects and getting them to make use of your services or products, then it is easy to suppose, ‘Okay, I’ve one channel that is working … now let’s add a channel on prime of that, and one other channel on prime, and that is how I am going to scale.’ Like, PR is working, why not add paid promoting on prime?”

The error, Savage says, is that there are sometimes one or two channels you find yourself underestimating when it comes to progress potential. In case your content material is performing exceedingly effectively and driving leads for the enterprise, it is not essentially a good suggestion to pivot away from content material. As an alternative, you wish to ask your self — How rather more can we increase with our content material?

“There’s good advice in personal finance,” Savage says, “which states that most wealth is built through a concentration of risk, and it’s maintained through a distribution of risk — so, basically, if you want to become wealthy, you need to take just a few big risks.”

“It’s the same thing when scaling customer acquisition … There are a few big things you can do. It’s very important to go big on the things that are already working.”

Somewhat than investing in social media, digital marketing, video, PR, and running a blog suddenly, think about which channels drive probably the most leads for what you are promoting. These are the channels that acquired you this far, and people are probably the identical channels that may get you even additional if you happen to focus your efforts.

three. Deal with your tradition as a enterprise precedence.

It is easy sufficient to foster and keep a robust tradition if you’re a small group. However, as you scale and increase your group, it could get tougher to guard the tradition that attracted staff to your workplace within the first place.

And whereas tradition may simply sound like a buzzword used to switch beer backyard and yearly ski journeys, it is not.

In actuality, tradition is important to what you are promoting’ success — in actual fact, firms with robust cultures are 1.5X more likely to report average revenue growth of greater than 15% over three years.

As Cosley instructed me: “In any growing organization, the key to success is embracing and honoring the culture to which you aspire. It’s likely what made your company a great place to work and attracted the high-quality talent that is driving your growth.”

Cosley provides, “It isn’t arduous for core values and cultural priorities to erode and even get misplaced throughout growth if that work will not be made a precedence. As you scale, you may wish to suppose and act deliberately about how your tradition grows with you, the way you outline and memorialize it, the way it impacts your hiring and onboarding, the way you prepare your management, and the way you consider efficiency.”

Consider — whether or not or not you’ve got actively fostered it, your organization already has a tradition … it simply won’t be a robust one. And powerful cultures can each entice and retain staff for the long-run, so it is an necessary enterprise initiative to take the time to create one which aligns together with your values and objective.

Moreover, Cosley notes, “Culture is not one-dimensional. You need to consider it across areas such as retention and hiring, diversity and inclusion, and employee engagement. And culture is contagious. Not only does it deliver more positive outcomes and business results, it helps with critical talent retention, and can lower the cost and time to acquire new talent.”

“Treating your culture as a business priority is essential. Without doing so, it could be detrimental to your organization’s potential.”

To make sure your tradition grows together with your group as you scale, check out HubSpot’s Final Information to Firm Tradition.

four. Institutionalize key values in your group.

To construct a robust group tradition, Chan recommends institutionalizing key values.

For example, maybe you worth autonomy, empathy, adaptability, or mental progress. As a pacesetter, it is vital you utilize these values as foundational constructing blocks on which your group can develop.

Chan instructed me, “For me, learning and intellectual curiosity are really important, so I say to my team, ‘You’re responsible for making the person next to you smarter’. And that creates the onus on bringing your own best game because everyone around you is so incredibly talented — so how are you being additive, collaborative, and innovative from within that culture? You owe it to each other to be your best.”

5. Reward what’s proper … and punish what’s mistaken.

As soon as you’ve got recognized the values that matter to your group, it is vital you encourage these values in every of your staff.

When offering efficiency critiques, as an illustration, take the time to establish the place staff have demonstrated key group values, and the place they may nonetheless be missing.

As Savage instructed me, “The way you scale it is, you praise the right stuff and punish the wrong stuff. It’s that simple — most culture is modeled. You need the most senior people to act the way you believe you should be acting, and if you do that, it permeates the building.”

For example, to illustrate you worth risk-taking in your group. If that is the case, you may wish to reward your group after they take dangers, and even reward the failure that may outcome from these dangers.

Alternatively, if you happen to’re in a mode the place you are risk-averse and on the lookout for optimization of processes, you’d wish to reward actions that exhibit threat administration.

6. Rent for the longer term — not simply at present.

Lastly, if you’re scaling, you wish to think about who you may rent at present that may proceed to fulfill the wants of what you are promoting whilst these wants change over time.

For example, after I was first employed at a startup, I used to be employed to create weblog content material. Quick-forward six months, and I used to be moreover tasked with making a podcast, and rising the subscriptions to an electronic mail publication. Because the enterprise scaled, my function modified rapidly. So it is vital you rent with the longer term in-mind.

When requested concerning the largest problem leaders face when scaling, Kim instructed me, “[It’s] the problem to steadiness long-term and short-term hiring. For a bigger, extra established enterprise, scaling a group will not be as difficult. The roles are already clearly outlined, and there’s probably already somebody doing that job. It is easy to rent for a task like this.

“But,” Kim provides, “when the team is trying to scale, the roles may be less clear and transitory. What you think you need today could be wildly different tomorrow. Balancing the needs of today, while keeping an eye out on how things might change in the future is something that’s extremely hard to do.”

Hiring and recruiting is not a simple activity, however to make sure you’re hiring for the longer term, you may wish to take the time to find out somebody’s work ethic, flexibility, and skill to shift roles because the wants change. And, as talked about above, you may wish to discover somebody who’s hungry to be there.

7. Create processes for efficient communication.

As your group scales, it turns into much more necessary to make sure you have processes in-place to make sure truthful, efficient cross-team communication.

For example, maybe you’ve got observed your conferences have develop into alternatives in your most extroverted staff to share their successes, whereas nearly all of your group stays silent.

To fight this, think about creating a gathering agenda or slide deck, so individuals know what they should share, and when.

As Bondiguel places it, “Another challenge is communication. You need to put good processes in place (access to documents, meeting cadence, etc.) to ensure the entire team has all the information and context they need to perform and do their best work. This has never been more important as teams adapt to hybrid work environments.”

And there you’ve it. Whether or not you are formally within the scaling section or nonetheless within the startup section, the following pointers ought to allow you to make sure you’re constructing a robust basis for the longer term.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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15 SNES Games That Deserve a Sequel

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The SNES isn’t just the greatest Nintendo console of all-time: it’s the home of a truly impressive collection of classic games, underrated gems, and, for our purposes today, a shocking number of games that never got the sequel they deserved.

While you can usually list the business reasons why certain games don’t get sequels, that does little to diminish fans’ desires for more of a particular experience or even a second chance to get things right. In the case of some of these games, fans have been holding their breath for quite a long time.

Before we dive into this look at SNES games begging for a sequel, please note that while we will mostly focus on games that never got a sequel, a few of these titles did get underwhelming sequels that missed the mark or otherwise haven’t been revisited in over 20 years.

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15. The Adventures of Batman and Robin

While I actually slightly prefer the Genesis version of this game, this underrated SNES gem was still a Konami beat-em-up made at the peak of that studio’s efforts in that genre. Even better, it was based on arguably the best Batman adaptation of all time: Batman: The Animated Series.

So why did this never get a sequel? It certainly wasn’t perfect, and Konami may have struggled to retain the rights, but given how much the company’s TMNT games improved over time, it’s hard not to wonder what Konami could have done if they had been allowed to expand upon this brilliant marriage of an expertly adapted world and nearly airtight gameplay.

14. Saturday Night Slam Masters

This game did technically get a sequel, but that title never officially made it out of Japan and also made some drastic changes that made the series more of a 2D fighting game. It was actually quite good, but it didn’t reach the heights of the original.

After all, Saturday Night Slam Masters balanced a fascinating mixture of fighting games and wrestling games that was compelling enough at the time but may bring a generation raised on increasingly stale WWE games to tears. This is quite simply one of the most entertaining wrestling games ever made.

13. Super Star Wars Trilogy

This entry is a bit of a cheat since it not only combines three games in one entry but arguably ignores the fact that we’ve obviously gotten quite a few Star Wars games since these were released. Still, what I really want is a new trilogy of games that mimics the gameplay and style of these brutally difficult classics.

Whether they’re based on the prequel trilogy, sequel trilogy, or tell entirely original stories, I’d love for a modern developer (probably someone in the Devolver Digital family) to make a modern Super Star Wars game that leaves you wanting to throw your controller through the window and enjoying every minute of it.

12. Mario Paint

While Nintendo has made other strange games that emphasized player’s creative input (Mario Maker is probably the most notable recent example), they’ve never really properly revisited this Super Mario spin-off that showed Nintendo fans everywhere there was an artist inside of them.

Mario Paint may be simple by today’s standards, but that’s all the more reason for Nintendo to upgrade what was essentially an educational game that mastered the “gamify” concept long before that really became a talking point in the industry.

11. U.N. Squadron

The SNES wasn’t exactly lacking in worthwhile shooters, but there was always something special about U.N. Squadron. Granted, it was tough as nails, but the game’s upgrade system, visuals, and incredible level design typically made it easy to put up with the frustrations.

Capcom is always talking about revisiting and reviving its back catalog, so why not release an “indie-style” sequel to this cult classic that’s always deserved another look?

10. Skyblazer

This largely forgotten gem from the SNES era shows just how spoiled we were at that time for these kinds of experiences.

After all, Skyblazer was a game that combined great visuals, a killer soundtrack, puzzle-solving, platforming, and intense side-scrolling action, and few people ever actually played it. A simple re-release of this underrated classic would be more than I could hope for, but truth be told, my heart cries out for an admittedly unlikely sequel.

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9. Sunset Riders

Long before Red Dead Redemption offered arguably the definitive Western gaming experience, one of the most enjoyable ways to take a trip to that era was this run-and-gun side-scroller shooter that failed to really make a name for itself despite having so much going for it.

Sunset Riders‘ old west setting carries a lot of this game’s weight, but it’s really this shooter’s gameplay (which feels like a combination of Contra and a light gun shooter) that makes you wonder how it spent so many years in relative obscurity. A sequel would go a long way towards helping to ensure this game gets the love it deserves.

8. Weaponlord

It felt like every developer was trying to make the next great fighting game in the ‘90s. While most of those efforts fell well short of being the next Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, the decade’s onslaught of subpar efforts meant that a few fighting games never got the chance they deserved.

Weaponlord was one of those games. Sometimes referred to as the spiritual predecessor to Soul Edge/Soul Calibur, this weapon-based fighting game complemented its shockingly deep gameplay with a unique art style that stands out to this day. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s so easy to imagine how a sequel could have fixed nearly all of this game’s flaws.

7. Uniracers

A racing game about unicycles is strange enough, but what really sets this game apart is its surprising speed and wacky courses that emphasize almost “stunt-like” racing and tricks. I even kind of love this game’s weird ‘90s attitude.

There was just so much more that could have been done with this concept had Uniracers gotten the sequel it deserved. Since its developer DMA Design (now known as Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar North) clearly isn’t doing anything these days, I don’t see why they wouldn’t revisit this one.

6. Secret of Evermore

It’s easy to get this game confused with Secret of Mana and some of the other titles of this era, but Secret of Evermore truly was a special piece of action RPG design that has been tragically overlooked over the years for reasons that have little to do with the game’s quality.

At a time when many fans were looking for a Secret of Mana sequel, Secret of Evermore offered a somewhat similar but distinctly different gaming experience that was a little slower, a little stranger, and a little more complicated, but arguably never got the chance it deserved to really carve its own identity and find an audience. I think modern gamers would be more receptive to this title’s ideas, though it would be a lot easier to confirm that theory if we got a sequel.

5. Kirby’s Dream Course

Kirby’s Dream Course is one of those games that I feel was both hurt and helped by its license. While this project’s association with Kirby probably inspired more people to play what essentially amounts to a combination of golf and puzzle games (think Marble Madness), a lot of young gamers who took a chance on this thinking it was closer to a traditional Kirby game were left throwing their hands up in the air.

Years later, though, it’s easier than ever to appreciate what Dream Course is going for. This almost zen-like experience challenges you to use your brain to solve its most fiendish puzzles but keeps things light enough to encourage you to progress even when you hit a wall. Even if an eventual sequel was nothing more than a mobile game, Dream Course is more than worthy of another look.

4. Illusion of Gaia

Illusion of Gaia was one of those SNES games that not everybody owned, but those who did own it typically wouldn’t shut up about it. To be fair to those sometimes persistent gamers, it’s kind of hard to forget about Illusion of Gaia once you’ve given it a chance.

Though perhaps best described as an ARPG, Illusion of Gaia is actually sometimes closer to a more complicated take on a classic Legend of Zelda game. Its incredible world, surprising plot, fun action, and unique action/adventure concepts made it easy to love, hard to forget, and surprisingly difficult to play. While part of an unofficial trilogy of games, this one has always deserved a proper sequel.

3. Super Mario RPG

While the Paper Mario series and some of the Mario & Luigi games eventually carried on Super Mario RPG’s legacy, you’ve got to forgive fans who still cry out for a “proper” Super Mario RPG sequel to this day. Maybe that’s because there’s really not another game quite like Super Mario RPG.

Developed by SquareSoft during their 16-bit peak, Super Mario RPG combined the better elements of a Final Fantasy game with the more lighthearted nature of a Mario title. The result was an RPG that was much more “accessible” than other notable RPGs of this era but never left you feeling like you were playing a lesser game. At the very least, a Super Mario RPG sequel may be the only way that we get more Geno adventures.

2. Demon’s Crest

There’s a loose rumor that Demon’s Crest‘s sales were so bad that it actually registered negative sales at one point due to an excessive number of returns. It may be little more than an urban legend, but it kind of goes to show you just how poorly this game performed when it was released.

To this day, I’m not sure why Demon’s Crest wasn’t an instant hit. It was a bit short and some of its design elements were somewhat confusing, but this lovely gothic action title combined Castlevania and Mega Man in a way that is so easy to fall in love with. It’s the kind of game that practically begged for a sequel that it just never got.

1. Chrono Trigger

While I’m actually a fan of 1999’s Chrono Cross, I understand why many fans don’t like it. I believe Kotaku once called it a great game and a bad sequel, which really kind of sums up some of the ways that game distinguished itself while seemingly ignoring so many of the ways the classic original made a name for itself as one of the best RPGs ever.

So yes, count me among the many who still wants a “proper” Chrono Trigger sequel to this day. While there are plenty of reasons to doubt that a modern Chrono Trigger game could replicate the ways that this game’s “dream team” of developers made it arguably the best JRPG of the golden era of JRPGs, it’s almost impossible to walk away from this one and not be left wishing for more.

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