#also a reason I hate the use of big data techniques
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laurin4475 · 6 months ago
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“To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.”
^^^^^^^ this!! A massive pet peeve of mine is that people assume just because “analysis” has been done on data that it’s valid. But you can do analysis on junk data and still turn out a pretty picture! Your analysis is only as good as the data and assumptions you have made.
If something looks hinky, investigate it further. Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe the assumptions underlying the data are wrong, or the type of analysis someone has done is wrong.
AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data
You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.
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It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!
Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.
I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.
Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.
Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:
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Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.
The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:
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Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?
Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?
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Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!
If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.
At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.
The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.
Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).
Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works
Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works
This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.
How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.
With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):
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The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.
Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.
To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.
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qqueenofhades · 3 years ago
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Okay, well, I am dog fucking tired so it’ll be a short flail session tonight, but I have to crank this out before I hit the sack. Also, apologies since I’m sure someone has mentioned this, but I have been in standardized-test-grading purgatory and thus have not seen. Anyway!
Obviously, Star Wars loves itself a good hallway fight scene, but I was STRUCK with how much Obi-Wan’s rescue of Leia was paralleled with Vader’s attack at the end of Rogue One. And when I say “struck,” I obviously mean “consumed with arm-gnawing feelings about it.” Most people cite that scene as the scariest that Vader has ever been: it starts out when all the lights suddenly go out and the darkness is lit only by his lightsaber. He rips through the Alliance dudes like paper, he’s threatening to make all our heroes’ sacrifice irrelevant after they have already all died on Scarif, and he’s doing it to stop the Death Star plans from getting to Leia. The soldiers, running from him, reach a doorway, which jams. They desperately try to get through it, but can’t, until one of them hands the data chip through to another just as Vader is arriving to ice him. Eventually, they manage to get it to Leia, who refers to it as hope.
And then, contrast that to Obi-Wan’s rescue of Leia in Part IV. It starts out with all the lights going out, lit only by his lightsaber, as he takes out the stormtroopers. Then when he’s fighting his way down the hallway, his technique, while it’s just as commandingly competent as Vader’s, is entirely defensive. He’s not attacking them; he’s just trying to stop them from attacking him. He’s handling almost as many soldiers as Vader was, but they’re running after him, rather than vice versa. And he does this for precisely the opposite reason: to save Leia, so she can grow up to become that hope at all.
And then, the stormtroopers reach a door. It jams. They try to force their way through, as Obi-Wan desperately holds back the windows from breaking and flooding the entire hallway, entirely willing to give himself up if it means that Leia gets to safety -- which is, once again, the utter antithesis of Vader’s mindless murder spree at the end of Rogue One. Reaching Leia is the ultimate goal for both of them, but in diametrically opposite ways and for utterly opposite emotional reasons. One out of pure love, and the other out of total hate.
I just... am having Big Feelings about how they are so completely anti-paralleled/narrative foiled to each other, especially after the opening sequence with both of them burned and in the bacta tank, having violent flashbacks to their face-off at the end of the last episode. Once again, as I said, they’re just so fucking haunted by each other, they’re tangled up beyond any extrication, and their actions remain, as ever, this total dark mirror of each other, and I can deal with this absolutely zero percent.
(Anyway, I obviously enjoyed other things about the episode, like Leia remaining the Galaxy’s Most Awesome Tiny Badass, Reva using the Force like a bad motherfucker as Moses Ingram is still sadly underused and I WANT MORE OF HER BACKSTORY GODDAMMIT, and the Hand Hold That Slayed Me Dead between Obi and Leia at the end, but yes.)
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scripttorture · 6 years ago
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I'm curious about the the mental processes that makes torturers do their work. Is that akin to the process that allowed the "Teacher" to press the supposedly shock-inducing button in the Milgram Experiment? Do they blame their victims for "making them torture them"? Does dehumanisation play a role? What do symptoms look like on a torturer? Thank you in advance.
These are all good questions but a lack of research means it’s difficult to answer them definitely.
 I’ll start by saying that the Milgram experiments are a steaming pile of… insults to the scientific community shall we say. Honestly as a scientist the Milgram experiments make me angry because they are just so darned sloppy. They are terrible. They cherry picked data. They applied significant coercion to the ‘teachers’ while claiming they didn’t. They failed to record the ways ‘teachers’ tried to trick the system (especially those who pretended to press the button but did not actually do so).
 And they also didn’t bother to check whether the ‘teachers’ believed they were actually administering electric shocks. When a follow up study asked these people about it later they found that the majority of people who pressed the button didn’t believe the button caused electric shocks.
 Essentially- Milgram can’t tell us shit about why this happens. Those experiments were too sloppy and poorly conducted for us to draw any conclusions.
 So what do we actually have that can tell us about torturers?
 There are a lot of interviews conducted by non-specialists; mostly journalists. There are works torturers published. I consider both of these sources useful but biased. Torturers have repeatedly shown that they don’t provide accurate accounts of events or their own actions. So – I take these accounts with a pinch of salt and try to be critical.
 When it comes to actual specialists providing notes on torturers- I’ve only really found two sources: Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth contains notes on torturers he treated after the Franco-Algerian war, and Sironi’s body of work studying torturers. Which is only available in French and is print on demand.
 Yes I am still bitter, moving on!
 Where does all this leave us?
 Well it means that we don’t have enough good quality studies to be absolutely sure. It means most of what we ‘know’ is educated guess work, based on the little bit of research and anecdotal accounts.
 It’s frustrating. We need more data. And the result is that most of what I can say here is ‘may bes’.
 Dehumanisation probably does play a role, but it may not be as great a role as we tend to assume. Studies of the effects of hate speech in Rwanda in the lead-up to the genocide (along with what we know about ICURE techniques) do suggest that dehumanisation makes atrocities more likely. But they don’t necessarily make torture specifically more likely and many torturers will acknowledge the humanity of their victims.
 Some torturers do use language that blames their victims but- not in quite the way you’ve put it here. They don’t tend to say victim’s ‘made them’ torture. Instead they tend to suggest that the victims put themselves in a position where they knew they were going to be tortured.
 ‘A kid that colour walking around in that part of town at night? What did he expect!’
 That kind of phrasing is something I see more regularly.
 Another common one is torturers suggesting the victims ‘deserved it’ because of a particular characteristic: ie race, sexuality, gender, homelessness, disability. Arguing that a victim was ‘probably guilty’ or is actually guilty of a crime and therefore ‘should’ be tortured is also pretty common among torturers.
 But- I also get the impression that most torturers just don’t think about their victims much. Not as human individuals anyway. They don’t seem to consider the lasting impact they have on other people in any meaningful way.
 I think this is easiest to illustrate by looking at the way torturers express regret. Because they do often express regret for what they did.
 But it’s not expressed as them primarily being sorry they hurt so many people. Instead it’s- they regret what they did because they have nightmares about it. Because they’re ill and the symptoms are terrible. Because they lost their job. Because they’re socially isolated.
 It’s regret focused on the consequences of torture for the torturer rather then an acknowledgement of the scale of harm they caused their victims.
 I often get asks that suggest this as an inherent characteristic that ‘makes’ people torturers but there’s no evidence to support that. I personally believe this lack of empathy is an effect of torture rather then something that leads to torture.
 I guess what I’m driving at here is that there is a rather selfish focus in torturers. But beyond that symptoms in torturers look pretty much the same as symptoms in everyone else.
 My impression, based on the interviews I’ve read, is that unless the subject of torture comes up torturers come across as trauma survivors. Asshole trauma survivors but still trauma survivors.
 They tend to be rather convinced of their own importance. I’m unsure where this personality trait comes from but it does seem common. It could be a product of the sub-culture torturers create.
 And that brings me more or less to- well the answer to the big question here: why do they do it? How can they do it?
 My opinion is that the answer has little to do with individuals and everything to do with organisations.
 I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Torturers do not work alone.
 Torture by it’s definition and nature is a function of groups, of broken systems.
 Torturers are not individuals who arbitrarily decide to abuse someone. They are police officers with little training and no funding instructed to ‘do something now’. They are soldiers who’ve been taught over a lifetime that the ‘enemy would do the same to us’. They are teachers told to ‘control the class or else’.
 They’re groups of people in an environment that has a huge pressure to produce ‘results’ while also being under trained, under staffed, under funded and unsupervised. Into this already unhealthy mix throw the persistent background cultural lie that torture is a short cut to the results they want.
 Hell the persistent cultural message that violence is any kind of answer.
 Is it really a surprise that our police turn to torture when we don’t teach them to interrogate and our news outlets, our politics, our fiction is full of apologia telling them that abuse will get them the results they want?
 The mindset that let’s torturers abuse other people does rely on assumptions that some people are ‘lesser’ or otherwise ‘deserve’ to be abused. But the bit most fiction doesn’t capture is the social aspect.
 The way torturers egg each other on and the way they compete. The way they gradually become more or less the entirety of each other’s social circles. The fear they have of each other, which can trap them in the abusive role they’ve taken on. The way they lose other skills, making it feel impossible to switch. The way they seem to feel that stopping represents both personal failure and letting down the only people they still count as ‘friends’.
 The closest I’ve seen a movie come to this was The Shape of Water, the villain brilliantly captured the bizarre mix of self importance, incompetence and intense environmental stress that characterises torturers.
 Torturers say that they start because ‘there’s no other choice’. I don’t know how much they believe that piece of apologia.
 I do know that in any organisation that tortures there is often incredibly intense pressure to participate in, or at least ignore, torture. Refusal often leads to a person leaving an organisation, sometimes feet first.
 But the reasons they continue are complicated. For some of them they probably do believe the apologia, that they’re ‘doing necessary work’. Some of them definitely see their victims as less then human.
 All of them are caught in a... societal trap not unlike a cult. They’re isolated from non-torturers. They’re constantly fed the message that torturing is right. They’re threatened if they try to leave.
 I think that, whether they acknowledge it or not, the main reason torturers continue is because they know they’re at risk if they stop and they know they’ll be completely socially isolated if they stop.
 Of course sooner or later they do stop. It’s completely unsustainable.
 When they do they generally report isolation, low self esteem and difficulty functioning in society. They struggle to find and keep work. They struggle to form or maintain relationships. It wrecks their lives; the organisation chews them up and spits them out mangled to a point where they can’t navigate society.
 And because they rarely come to terms with what they’ve done they rarely recover.
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of-another-broken-heart · 4 years ago
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Having a really weird day. 
It’s a weird one!
I’m all over the place.
Or it feels like it.
Mostly I’m just. Ricocheting around this one expansive building in my dumb sprawling brain labyrinth - the one about healthcare. 
Trying to hunt down a new PCP.
Trying to find out HOW to hunt down a new PCP without wasting tons of time. I need one that isn’t going to do like my last team did. I need people who won’t fall for the siren lure of ingrained socially-supported medical fatphobia at the expense of the Hippocratic Oath. I need a healthcare team that actually provides care. I need queer acceptance. I need my concerns to be taken with seriousness and respect - and I need a doctor who won’t just handwave everything away because it’s quicker and easier to chalk it up to some other part of my very messy medical situation. I need a professional who will do their due diligence, and run the diagnostics, and make decisions based on results and data - not their personal mythical psychic assumption senses.  I need to know these things BEFORE wasting time and effort and energy and money on an appointment.  And nearly none of this is available information. Doctors are under no social pressure or obligation to make this sort of information publicly available. And “customer reviews” are rare and unreliable. The greatest failures result in death, and those people can’t very well complain, can they? The next greatest failures result in defeat and exhaustion - and those aren’t conditions conducive to leaving reviews, either. Survival, first and foremost.  I’m a perfect example of that.  Could I try to leave reviews about my last doctor in every corner I can find online that will grant me the space? Yes, I could. Am I going to? No. I don’t have the time or energy. 
Stressing about a dentist. Not thinking about the dentist. So much fucking trauma oh my god just don’t think about it. But these broken teeth though. I need a dentist.  How bad will it all actually be?  It’ll be bad. It’ll be worse than I’m prepared to handle. Just like last time. I’d love to be able to smile again. I’d love to have reasons to smile, first, of course. But it’d be nice not to be greeted by chipped holes and visible dark grey fillings that look and feel worse than the “cavities” they supposedly replaced.  It would also be nice if my jaw wasn’t lopsided. If my teeth lined up, instead of my bottom jaw being ~4mm off center. It didn’t used to be that bad. It was always a little off - the way some of my bottom teeth grew in as a kid. Was never severe enough to merit braces. Or maybe we just couldn’t afford braces. But then after some cavities and breaking teeth and botched cavity fillings that completely changed the topography of my bite... my jaw has gradually resettled, and it has done so. To the left.  But mostly I need my wisdom teeth. Fixed. Removed. I don’t know if they can be salvaged. I thought I was okay with losing them all, but the more I’ve thought about it, and thought about how my jaw has already shifted, the more scared I am that fully removing them will make it all worse. I have the space for them. If they’re removed, I’m just going to have... weird empty space?? And no teeth there for when I’m chewing??  Teeth are so stupid. I hate them. I need them. 
Mental health. Hahahaha. But for real. A psych who won’t just try to shove prozac on me. One who will give me the time of day to go through diagnosis criteria for things beyond the Big D. Sure my depression is bad, and it’s at the front of my miserable mental marching band, but my anxiety has got to the point where I’ve got painful physical symptoms, and my un-diagnosed/untreated adhd sure isn’t making any of that easier. Maybe I could finally get a lucky break with medication/treatment for one of those, and actually get some relief. Especially with the anxiety and adhd. I feel like there might be less total drugs available? So less total experimentation possible?? Maybe just wishful thinking...  And... therapy? Actual therapy??? Maybe??? I’m jaded as cynical as fuck and I know a lot of methods of therapy won’t work for me BECAUSE of how my particular pudding cup of brain fuck is mis-wired - but I’d love help. I want and need help. But it has to actually BE help. “Sometimes just talking it out helps” NOPE. N-O-P-E. I’m long past that point, honey darling dear!! I need actionable help! Techniques, challenges, tools - not just a sympathetic ear. Believe it or not, I’ve got that covered! Me, myself, and I - oh, we talk. We talk PLENTY. Relentlessly, endlessly, brutally - it’s covered. 
I learned what city he lives in.  I looked it up.  I could be there in 14 hours. It would take about $130 in gas, though. One-way.  It’s just slightly further than Manning - the place I used to stop overnight on my FL trips. It’s 120 miles further west. That’s it. A handful of hours between the two places.  It’s a fairly small city. Low cost of living. Low minimum wage, as a result - matches federal. It’s right against the state border. Hell, it might technically span into the adjoining state.  It has a surprising amount of golf course land. Population is not majority-white.  I don’t want to overdo this. But I can’t help how badly I want to know things when I’m interested. When I care.  My heart hurts. I hate that I’m like this. 
I wanted to sleep more. I’ve been up for about 4 hours. Before that, I slept for maybe 3? And before that I was up for... 5? And before that, I was in bed most of yesterday, but it was just wishing I was sleeping for hours and hours and hours, and only actually being asleep for about 2. 
I ate leftovers for dinner, instead of what was made. I had reheated pasta with meat sauce and veggies, instead of a plain breaded chicken patty and More Fucking Potatoes (pierogies). I think my brother ate what I didn’t. Which is fine. No leftovers to juggle. No food wasted.  I ate some of sister’s culinary leftovers for breakfast. Some risotto. Not sure exactly what kind. Apparently it came home with shrimp - mom ate those. I don’t know if I’ve had risotto before. It was good, but I took too much and it was tasting extra salty before I tapped out.  I made a cup of coffee again, too. I’m beginning to see the caffeine/adhd stability correlation in myself. Don’t know how to feel about that. 
I need to double-drive again today. Pick sister up. Drop sister off.  I wanted to try to shop a bit yesterday, but I was way too tired. I was also supposed to have a friend help me tackle some of the doctor-hunting yesterday, too. But... too tired. 
It’s 10 AM. I’ve got 2.5 hours until I need to drive.  I’m restless. I’m tired.  I probably can’t sleep but I’m going to try I guess. Or just sit here stalling out for 150 straight minutes until I have to go. idk.
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tysonrunningfox · 5 years ago
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Two Night Stand: Part 5
Sometimes random things you dig up are what you write
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Masterpost (ao3 to come)
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Astrid stares at the mess in the bathroom for a moment, the door clicking shut behind her echoing in the damp space.  She nudges a soaking towel into the corner by the tub and wrinkles her nose at the way it sogs her sock. 
The stolen plunger is still in the middle of the room and she picks it up with hesitant fingertips and sets it by the thankfully functioning toilet. 
It’s a testament to how far their conversation just devolved that she can’t even focus on the fact that she just dealt mass property damage in the pursuit of breaking, entering, and using a stranger’s toilet. 
She bends down to pull her damp sock off and catches her reflection in the mirror over the sink. 
Hiccup is gross.  Of course.  All guys would want nothing more than a striptease, that’s obvious, he didn’t need to tell her that.  In fact, he just said a bunch of really obvious things and acted like it was brand new information.  He forgot to remind her that it’s snowing though, so he left a base uncovered. 
Base.  Like a baseball sex metaphor type base. 
Maybe there’s a reason aside from lack of birth control and women’s rights that people used to have a dozen kids to work the farm.  How much is there really to do when you’re locked in with someone for a long time?  And like Hiccup said, they already got high and made a pillow fort. 
And critiqued each other sexual performance because apparently, they couldn’t even go twenty-four hours ignoring the fact that they did, in fact, have sex with each other. 
She teeters, because she’s been standing here on one leg like an urban dwelling flamingo native to dysentery creek, halfway through taking her sock off, and when she catches her reflection again, she hates that she thinks Hiccup might have a point.  It’s not really an attractive pose—not that she has to be sexy at all times, that’s stupid, and part of the women’s rights issue that means she will not be having twelve kids to work any farm—but it still makes her pause. 
She shuffles over to the sink, drumming her fingertips on the edge of the porcelain and staring at her reflection like it knows something she doesn’t.  Are you there mirror-Astrid?  It’s me, Astrid, you’re currently in the bathroom mirror of the guy I attempted to have a one-night stand with but then I got snowed in and it’s a whole thing, laws have been broken, I critiqued his sex-technique, mirror-wisdom would be appreciated. 
Mirror-Astrid would shrug, if she weren’t dependent on real world motion to bend light, and the twinkle in her eye says something like ‘well, it would look hotter if you unbuttoned that oversized flannel more slowly while maintaining eye contact.’
Mirror-Astrid is the slut.  Maybe she’s been the slut this whole time. 
Maybe she has a point. 
She bites her lip, reaching for the top button of her shirt and popping it open slowly, cocking her hip to one side. 
And again, they’ve already gotten high and made a pillow fort and broke and entered and committed plunger-themed larceny.  What else is there to do, really?  She was right this morning, she cannot un-sex him, but having sex with him twice, well…they’ve already done it once. 
And it’s cold outside, if the furnace goes out they might have to generate body heat. 
They should practice, maybe. 
Ok, if the furnace were going to go out, it probably would have happened already, but it’s a secondary argument.  If she needs it.  He is a guy, and he didn’t have any problem getting interested in having sex with her last night. 
She fusses with her hair, pressing her bangs down against her forehead and then shoving them to the side when they don’t stay down.  It’s fine, her hair doesn’t matter, this is not a seduction, it’s a scientific endeavor. 
That’s it.  It’s an experiment. 
“Hey Hiccup,” she walks normally into the living room.  Or she tries to walk normally.  Usually, when she walks normally, she’s not thinking about walking normally, but nothing is usual about this situation so she’s doing her best. 
“What did you do to my shower?”  He asks without looking up from his laptop and she perches on the back of the couch above his shoulder, trying and failing to soften her glare, even though she wants something from him. 
“Nothing.”  She sighs, “I was thinking.” 
“That’s always dangerous.” 
“You know what?  Never mind, it’s stupid.”  She stands back up, glad that his personality just saved her from sounding stupid, for once. 
“No, sorry,” he closes his laptop and looks up at her upside down, head on the back of the couch, hair flopping away from eyes that look greener considering what she’s about to say, “stupid’s my favorite.  What’s up?” 
“I was just thinking,” she pauses, waiting for him to interrupt again, but sadly, he appears to have learned his lesson, at least momentarily, “so the hypothesis of our conversation is that a frank conversation with a mutual interest towards self-improvement would make us better lovers.” 
“Oh, so you can pull it off?” 
“Yes.”  She crosses her arms and leans on the couch again, “or no, it’s—I don’t think anyone can really pull it off, it’s kind of an awful word, but—”
“Are you back for more?”  He raises an eyebrow, and the expression is an understanding of an inside joke, like all their jokes aren’t inside jokes, considering the weather. 
He doesn’t mean it and it makes her blush. 
“Yes.”  She stares him down, direct like she was chatting with him.  Asking the clear question. 
“Ok, hmm, you were largely a very adequate lover, but I’m sure there are some minutiae I could help you finesse for a future time with someone else—”
“I think we should have sex again.  For science.”  She tucks her hair behind her ear and feels it sticking out.  But this isn’t a seduction, it’s the intro to a lab class.  Today, the lesson is practical.  Hands on.  Real-world applicable.  “Keep the lines of communication open, put some of what we just talked about into practice.” 
“I know that supposedly, all I need is friction, but I’m not sure I could take your well-intentioned critiques while trying to perform.”  He rolls his eyes, not taking her seriously, and she lets her hands drift back to the buttons on her shirt, letting her eyes bore into his as she pops the next one loose. 
His eyes flick down.  He licks his lips.  The way he’s looking at her is almost worth how silly she feels and she makes a note in her mental, sexual lab notebook.  It’s crisp and new, the blank paper feeling a little sexual under her mental pencil.  It’s new too, fresh out of the package. 
0.05mm lead.  Fine tip.  A precision instrument. 
Ok, too far.  Too far.  But there’s something sexual about new paper and she’s just leaning into it right now. 
“I’m just saying, before we trot out our miracle cure for sexual incompatibility, we should probably do some clinical trials.  It’s only responsible.”  She’s never seduced anyone before, especially not a one-night stand she ordered on the internet on the eve of a once in a century blizzard, but it feels good to speak medically again, even if it’s not a good metaphor. 
Clinical trials take months.  Years. 
“I mean, we haven’t even nailed down stock options yet.”  He’s nervous, and it’s infuriatingly obvious in his big green eyes, and it’s also infuriating, because he’s supposed to be a cocky dick that she literally ordered on the internet. 
“A dry run can’t hurt anything, it’s just compiling more data,” she pops another button open and he bites his lip, setting his laptop aside. 
“Well, not a dry run.  Hopefully.”  He smirks, half-honest, and she doesn’t want to know that he puts a smiley face on his oatmeal or that he’s worried about what she thinks of his leg, but she does, and she’s trying to make the best of it. 
“In a normal sexual situation, there should be some lead up, but considering everything, it’s ok for you to just kiss me.”  Her stomach twists at the creak in the floorboards when he stands up slowly, faking confidence behind the cracks she’s ignoring, because they make him an outlier she shouldn’t consider sampling. 
And he’s silent.  Bigger without words jostling his shoulders as his hand finds her waist, fingers bunching in her oversized shirt.  And he looks at her, gaze a steady confirmation before he kisses her, knee nudging between hers as he guides her backwards. 
“That’s good,” she pulls back enough to nod and he grins, too real again.  “The knee thing.” 
“Yeah?”  He follows as she takes a couple more steps back towards the bedroom, “I thought it was suggestive—”
“Please don’t explain every move to me.”  She kisses him, hands fisting in his collar. 
“They’re very nuanced though, I want to make sure you understand.”  His hand slides under her shirt, too warm against the small of her back.  And his knee nudges between her legs again and she trips on the edge of the rug, stumbling back into the doorframe.  “Shit, are you ok?” 
“I’m fine,” she rolls her shoulder.  Shake it off, Hofferson.  “Walking backwards while kissing is fine in movies, not so great in real life.” 
“Noted.”  He follows her into the bedroom, where unfortunately the bed is unmade. 
“Remember when I wanted to see your apartment?”  She asks, half-expecting to need to explain, because nothing outside of the last day feels real, especially with the buzzing under her skin when she thinks about what’s about to happen. 
“I had to put all my Bundy fan-club awards down the garbage disposal, of course I remember.”  He jokes, his voice deeper, breathing husky on the shell of her ear, and she shivers.  “I’m devastated.” 
“Well, a girl likes a clean place.  Makes you feel taken care of, I guess.”  She grabs the clean fitted sheet from the basket in the corner and starts putting it on the mattress.  “Also, women want to have sex with functional adults, a made bed is an easy first step.” 
“That hasn’t been my experience.”  He laughs and she rolls her eyes, tugging the sheet tight and tossing him the next layer. 
“You’ve had a different demographic thus far.” 
“No, I mean making a bed is like wrestling an eight-foot long, six-foot wide rectangular bear,” he throws the duvet over the flat sheet as she shoves the second pillow into its case, “might need a nap to rebuild strength and energy before the sex.” 
“Lay down then,” she shoves his shoulder a little too hard, refusing to feel guilty when he falls back on the bed, propping himself on his elbows. 
“Lights are on,” she refuses to let her voice shake, tilting her chin at the bulb above the bed as she pops open the next button of her shirt.  He watches, eyes flicking between her face and chest as another button comes undone. 
“You’re a quick study,” he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it on the floor before going for his belt. 
“You too,” she compliments, unbuttoning her pants and pushing them down with an unnecessary sway in her hips, trying not to smile when he licks his lips, pupils wide. 
She faces away from him, shrugging the shirt slowly off her shoulders, letting it fall against her heels.  She unhooks her bra and bends forward, letting it fall off of her arms as she tugs her underwear down, bending at the waist and trying not to feel stupid or cold or slow as she steps out of them. 
She looks over her shoulder at him, standing up at that glacial pace and turning to face him like an iceberg drifting past Greenland. 
He’s breathing hard, skinny chest heaving above the boxer briefs that are thankfully the only thing he’s still wearing.  His leg is on the floor and she’s not sure whether she’s supposed to look or not, so she keeps her focus on his face. 
“Is that…” she cocks her hip, then regrets it, unsure where to put her hands.  It’s cold.  He’s staring.  She wants to turn the lights off or to make a joke or to get under a blanket because it’s actually cold in here.  He should keep his place warmer, probably, and she should tell him, but she just got naked the slowest she ever has and she needs his opinion on it, because nothing makes sense.  “Is that more what you thinking of?” 
“Yeah,” he nods, too fast, and she almost tells him off for being cute when they’re trying to be scientific, “that was—yeah.  Good.  You really took my point and um…yeah.” 
“Honestly I just…moved slower—”
“Men are so stupid,” he sits up, waving his arms at her in something halfway summoning, “come here.  Now.  Please.  That’s not an order, I just—you, wow—”
“So, lights on, strip slowly is a real thing?”  She half jokes on her way to the bed, trying to frame how his eyes feel on her skin in terms of scientific understanding.  The mutual pursuit of knowledge.  Earnest commitment to research. 
“Men are dumb.”  He catches her waist with a long, warm arm and pulls her down into the bed, hovering over her as his lips latch onto her pulse-point, callused hand sweeping across her ribs. 
“Apparently.”  She moans when his thumb glances across her nipple and he leans up slightly to look at her face.  “What?” 
“Trying to discern real from faking it,” he teases, self-conscious, and her stomach twists at the still hand on her side that she so badly wants to be moving. 
“It’s going to be easier to get me off if you’re trying to,” she nods at him, “instead of reacting to imagined criticism.” 
“Oof,” he winces, scooting his hips away from her an inch, “that’s—while true, that’s also generally applicable to my failures as a person, which isn’t sexy to think about—”
“You’re not into being accidently insulted by people who just stripped for you?”  She jokes, reaching up instinctually to rub the back of his neck, his shoulders.  His ass, surprisingly taut under his boxers.  And the lights are on and goosebumps prickle up her stomach. 
“Accidentally?”  He’s a little too soft, a little too meek, and she tugs him back down to her by his hair. 
“Yes.”  She kisses him, and she was honest earlier.  He’s a good kisser, just how he’d be a good conversationalist if it weren’t being forced upon her as the only option.  It’s give and take, it’s soft lips and the hard edge of teeth.  It’s determination behind the acquiescence in his moan as his hand finds her breast and squeezes.  “That’s good.” 
“Yeah?”  He kisses down her neck, taking his time like he hadn’t the night before, his fingers curling around her waist and pulling her against him, his thigh between hers.  She hooks her leg around his hip and he groans into her neck, “that’s—”
“Not good?”  She starts to move her leg but he catches her thigh above her knee, pressing it closer to his side. 
“Very good.”  He kisses her collarbone, her nipple, breathing hard against her sternum.  “It’s like you want me closer,” he shudders when she drags her fingernails up his back, “good move.  All good moves.” 
“You too, this is good.”  She reaches between them, fumbling under the waistband of his boxer briefs, “I don’t mind the stubble.”  She groans when he drags his chin against her neck, kissing under her jaw.  She grabs his length and he stiffens, forehead on her collarbone as his expected groan comes out as a whine.  “What?” 
“You’re very direct,” he catches her wrist with a firmness that makes her core twitch.  “It’s—I like it, don’t get me wrong here, I’m a stupid, friction-obsessed man and that feels—you’re naked—and you—”
“It’s distracting,” she lets go, pulling her hand out of his boxers and letting it rest on her lower stomach, flirting with the juncture between her legs. 
“Yes,” he kisses her, “and that’s not a bad thing, I’m just trying to focus.” 
“On?”  She flirts.  She doesn’t have to, but she does.  And he presses his leg against her core and his breath is hot against her neck and maybe talking is what sex has needed this entire time. 
Talking and a quick-witted tongue on her chest, and long, callused fingers dipping between her legs.  Soft, auburn hair tickling her neck as she arches under the contact. 
“Don’t…don’t say anything about a dry run right now, I…will kill you.”  She grips his shoulders, heel dragging down his short calf and back onto the bed as he almost gets it right, the sizzling contact just off epicenter. 
“Wouldn’t make sense, anyway.”  He kisses her neck, her cheek, his smirk like a brand against her skin as he swipes just past where he should. 
“Just—up, ok?  And to the right?”  She doesn’t want to sound irritated, but it’s irritating to have things feel so good and almost great.  He adjusts, over-adjusts really, and she reaches down to grab his hand and direct him, her fingers over his.  “There, it’s just—like…”
“This?”  He mimics her motion and she squints her eyes shut, her knees clenching on his hips as she nods.  “Am I—I mean is this getting you to…where you need?”  He’s awkward, and earnest, and arousal flares in her chest like an errant spark. 
“I mean it takes a minute.”  She gets out, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.  He smells like breaking and entering and a stupid high day in a pillow fort and she tries to focus on his fingers and how they’re trying to build style into the method she prescribed him. 
They aren’t marching, they’re dancing, adding his own flair to steps she’d thought were set in stone.  
And the lights are on, and he’s watching her like a gauge.  Like something independent, instead of as a reflection of himself.  And he kisses her lips and her cheek and a finger dips into her, long and agile but impatient too. 
“Can I, I mean, I was under the impression that you were going to be critiquing—unless—”
“No critiques necessary,” she eeks out, biting her lip and pressing back against his touch.  She feels spectated, but knowing why helps.  He wants to see her.  He wants to study her falling apart, like it’s a phenomenon, and the thought makes her toes curl as his pupils widen and he kisses her neck, her chest, looking up for her reaction between. 
He slows down. 
“Don’t go easy on me, it’s obviously not working—”
“It just takes a bit,” she snaps, grabbing his wrist and pressing his hand closer, “it’s slower, it takes a minute, it was…you were on the right track.” 
“How long is the track?”  He kisses her jaw and her neck, his hips nudging against hers.  He groans when she wraps her leg back around his hips and she feels her own chest, letting the feeling bloom in her stomach. 
“As long as it is.”  She tries to be grumpy.  It half works.  He twitches when she grabs his length again, his groan shuddering against her neck as his hand falters. 
Two long fingers dip inside of her then and she gasps, grabbing his upper arm. 
“Is that—”
“Don’t stop.”  She tries not to squirm, tries not to mess up the angle he has, what feels like the whole length of his fingers stroking against what she has to believe is her G-spot, more obvious than it ever has been, like banter is foreplay.  Like his very presence is foreplay.  Like this was inevitable.  Like he is inevitable.  “You found…”
He rubs it. 
She regrets ever arguing with an engineer, double entendre implied. 
“Is that?” 
“Don’t stop,” she clenches his arm, probably too tight, but there’s no time to think about that because he’s kissing her, stubble and lip and tongue and hand doing that again and again and again. 
“Might have to, if you keep that grip.”  He kisses her cheek and she arches into it, because his hand is unraveling her like she’s grandma’s first sweater attempt and he’s warm and earnest. 
She reaches down to touch herself and he gasps like it’s been ripped out of him.  She bites her lip, leaning into the warmth, which yanks the cord to get his hand moving again, and then it’s here and they’re kissing and she feels her throat going hoarse before she knows he’s kissing her.  And he doesn’t stop kissing, or petting, or holding. 
And this is the worst idea she’s ever had. 
“You didn’t want me to explain my moves,” he kisses her cheek.  Her ear.  His other hand cradles her neck so sweetly, tilting it as he kisses and where was this last night.  Where was this when she needed him. 
“Explain them.” She’d say he was wrong if she needs to.  She’d say anything.  His fingers are thrusting and she’s rubbing and she can’t breathe and every time she bucks up, his hips press back down against hers like a promise. 
“Well, I’m um…” He pauses.  She kisses his chin because it’s what she can reach.  His rhythm falters and she bites her lip.  “Well, I uh…think I found your G-spot.” 
She nods. 
He gets so red that she could light a fire on his face and she digs her heel into the back of his thigh. 
“Is that a yes?” 
She nods. She hits his shoulder with her free hand, doubling down as he strokes. 
“We are communicating,” he kisses her, “I need a yes—”
“Yes,” she yelps, “more.  Yes.  Don’t stop.  Asshole.”  She squeaks out, and he’s kissing her.  Everywhere. And his hand in her is moving, his thumb joining hers on her clit and when she opens her eyes, there’s something in his gaze. 
He’s committed.  He’s tuned in. 
“You’ve told me, emphatically I might add,” he presses her clit for a second, suddenly at home in the mastery he’d only hoped for a second ago, “to not tell you about my moves.”
“You had moves you didn’t tell me about?”  She struggles to sound indignant when he’s touching her like this.  When he’s devoted like this.  When he’s redeeming himself, sure with this kind of frantic, earnest energy. 
It hits all at once. 
She clings to his shoulders, crying out a bit too loud, glad for the empty apartment as his fingers stroke deep.  And human.  And he’s close and real and she’s trying not to remember that this is nothing, a fling, a one-night stand, an addendum to a one-time thing.
And he’s hard.  And that was great.  And she wants him. 
She wants something.  That’s easier. 
She wants parts of him.  Now. 
“Was that..?”  He kisses her forehead, his arms wrapping around her. 
And he holds her, that’s a point in his favor.  He held her last night and he holds her again and she wants to compliment him and for once, there’s no gateway. 
“Nothing fake,” she says as a truth and a comfort and his hand finds her core again, perfectly lazy, hesitantly in something close to awe.  “Condom.  Now.” 
“But my redemption—”
“On track,” she rolls to the side, digging in the bedside table for the reel of condoms she found earlier. 
“But you—”
“I did,” she cups his face, pulling him close with an arm around his waist, “do you ever stop talking?” 
“Not in living memory.”  He touches that spot within her again and she shivers, ankles crossed behind his back.  “Can I have some room to move?”  He kisses the hollow of her throat, and his voice is relieved and she reaches to stroke him with a pleasure-lazy vengeance.  “Astrid, I—”  
“Hiccup,” she settles on his name, because she doesn’t know how else to communicate, even if it ends in him staring at her, through her, into her. 
“For science,” he lines himself up and she bites her lip. 
“It’s just good practice at this point.” 
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thegraysquirrel · 5 years ago
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Self-Promotion Sunday
For self-promotion Sunday from @mouseymightymarvellous , I would like to bring the following to your attention:
*scrambles to search for anything useful to promote* 
Oh! There was that one time I was making a promotional speech for Obito in the hypothetical situation of Obito in his prime (no Rinnegan though) fighting Shisui in his prime in hopes of convincing people to vote for Obito instead of Shisui! Below the cut, you will find all 3600 words of it... Because go big or go home.
(If I knew how the hell I would put this on AO3, I so would. But. Tags? Format? okay format would be easy probably I have no idea how to get this on there. Title? I know how to jump literal hurdles but I draw the line at figurative hurdles.)
One last thing! You might be asking, “Why?!” and I would shrug. In reality, I don’t like that Shisui’s Kotoamatsukami is regarded as unbeatable in the Naruto ‘verse. Everything should have a weakness and I just exploited my love for Obito as a character to throw him at Shisui and it worked remarkably well.
I will title this: 
Why Obito (who fell through literal cracks and out of reality as he knew it while regarded as dead last and then dead first) Would Beat Shisui (the legend, the martyr, the Uchiha genius that seemed to have it all in terms of skills and abilities)
Okay so I have thoughts and I have to live up to my “commenting disaster” name so here goes. If you ever wanted to know how authors could feel when they got a comment from me, then buckle in. (wow this turned out to be about 2 full AO3 comments, yes, this is exactly how writers will feel upon seeing my comments in their inbox!)
I think it’s a wild guess that Shisui would have been able to manipulate the complete Uchiha clan through Fugaku.
SHISUI’S JUTSU AND WHAT I THINK OF IT
SHISUI’S LIMITATIONS AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE WITH KOTOAMATSUKAMI I don’t think Shisui’s ability has ever been countered or met his match in the short time he spent on the pages of the manga. Shisui doesn’t know how to tell if someone is fighting the manipulation, and he CAN’T know for sure that no one could. Considering he could use it once every ten years and he is younger than Genma, he hasn’t even got a lot of practise with it. He’ll have used it, what, once? So let’s say he used it twice, since he’s got two eyes. 
That’s TWO instances in which he used it—are you honestly telling me that his technique is unstoppable because he used it twice with no one countering? I’m not buying this. We don’t know the limits, and Shisui sure as hell doesn’t either. 
(I’ll admit, maybe it’s 10 years because the crow does not share the Uchiha blood. We can say Shisui could not use it for 2 years for the sake of Shisui, y’know… being able to build a reputation with it. I think Shisui had his Kotoamatsukami when Itachi was 5 years old, so he had it for about 8 years = 8 or 16 attempts, IF he spams his technique the second it comes off cooldown like us gamers do. Otherwise, he used it TWICE at most)
PEOPLE SAY “THIS JUTSU IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT/THIS DEFENSE IS MORE SOLID THAN A ROCK” AND WERE PROVEN WRONG Do I think everyone has the potential to beat Shisui’s genjutsu? Hell no. But we CAN’T just buy the people’s words for it when we have so little data and they actually have little data too. The people Shisui used it on probably weren’t even a challenge in the genjutsu department. Here’s my thoughts about when people say something about a jutsu being *waves hand* without weakness. 
Gaara was said to have Absolute Defence and Sasuke managed to penetrate it when he was a Genin and everyone was like “Whaaaat he got through the Absolute Defence how is that possible??”
In chapter 257, Kakashi says “There is no cancelling the effects of [Itachi’s Tsukuyomi],” but Sasuke still managed to do so later with an ordinary sharingan. Kakashi’s sharingan prowess in dealing with Itachi’s mangekyou sharingan were inferior to that of this particular Uchiha. Sasuke did it by putting a genjutsu on himself to break free of the former genjutsu.
I’m sure there are more instances when jutsus are called “impossible to defeat” only for someone to go in and say, “bitch, watch me prove you wrong.” Naruto did it with the 3rd Raikage, in a way. “Impossible to defeat” means nothing. 
The only thing we have for Shisui’s eye-technique to be unstoppable is his and everyone’s beliefs that it’s flawless. But really, if Itachi’s powerful Tsukuyomi could be broken by an individual Uchiha, then why can’t Shisui’s have flaws that can be exploited (by another Uchiha)? When fighting an Uchiha and it’s one on one, flee, is Chiyo’s advice—unless you are also an Uchiha, I amend, even if your eyes are still basic instead of the premium version. 
CLOSER LOOK ON SHISUI’S VICTIMS Follow me on this wild speculation. (If you’re still reading, you rock!) It was said that a different person would need to question the one under the genjutsu for them to even consider the possibility of being manipulated. Let’s also list off the people we know or assume have been under Shisui’s eye’s manipulation:
Bloody Mist ninjas
More Bloody Mist ninjas
Probably ninjas from other villages they were at war with (I honestly don’t know)
Probably the Elders via Danzo (I’m vague on the details, but very likely right?)
The Daimyo via Danzo (wow that was really a challenge to influence him. Someone without ninja skills.)
Mifune via Danzo
Edo Tensei Itachi via crow instructed by Itachi (well, the eye was instructed by Itachi)
If I look at the list, I’m not seeing anyone who would give Shisui (or the holder of Shisui’s eye) a challenge, especially as Itachi got under control willingly. Just like Kakashi had no trouble fighting Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto in the first bell test, Shisui is on a level most people will never be able to reach.
The last one is the only one we know used on an Uchiha. We can’t actually conclude much or anything from it because Itachi orchestrated the Kotoamatsukami, but it was Itachi himself to make note of the manipulation. He was aware of the genjutsu. So the manipulation was noted.
MY CONCLUSION ON SHISUI He’s got the greatest genjutsu, but here’s the thing—he doesn’t know how to fight against other geniuses of genjutsu. It’s the same with eSports, when you are the best by far, you don’t get the experience against the people who match your skill, and that means you get rusty (YES I stole these words right from of a player in the LCS of League of Legends, be happy that I didn’t throw KICK a soccer metaphor at you) and since this tournament I’m arguing for is a knock-out, any mistake can cost you the tournament. His genjutsu is revered as the best, that it can’t be broken, but other jutsus that have been called flawless have been shown to have flaws that could be exploited. Shisui doesn’t have enough experience to have found them out himself. Shisui will win if his Kotoamatsukami works 100% on the enemy, but it’s less sure if the enemy breaks (partly) free.
But who could possibly have a chance of breaking free from it?
*RECORD SCRATCH* (In my document I had the following in a very big font. I miss my big font. ;-;)
MY ARGUMENTS FOR WHY OBITO CAN BREAK FREE FROM KOTOAMATSUKAMI (And why he can win it)
GENJUTSU AND MANIPULATION Obito is not just passing with genjutsu, he’s GOOD, because he was able to even control Yagura—a perfect Jinchuriki, someone who has a built-in pacemaker, but then a pacemaker for when the brain zones out of reality and needs to come back. He managed to somehow convince everyone that he was Uchiha Madara and he double-crossed the actual Madara too—this dude knows how manipulation works, even if that alone obviously won’t help him against a genjutsu of manipulation (it’s a good thing he’s got his own mangekyou sharingan, otherwise he’d definitely be toast). Still thought it worth mentioning. 
I hear you say, “Madara manipulated him!”
Actually, no, I don’t think he did?
Hot take: (I don’t know enough of the general consensus to know if it is a hot take) Obito was NOT manipulated by Madara.
Madara manipulated the situations, but Obito remained true to himself in reacting to them. Whether it would have been Madara’s super evil plan to kill Rin or if it had been The Leaf’s own incompetence at sending kids into dangerous territory (resulting in the deaths of said kids because the system is SHIT), Obito would have reacted the same. 
Yes, Madara is evil for playing with people’s lives like a kid does with blocks to build a structure, but Madara’s involvement isn’t important to the outcome. I think that Madara was unable to “genjutsu bullshit” his way into Obito’s mind, otherwise Madara would have hella secured Obito’s actions already. If Obito could have been influenced by “genjutsu suggestions”, no way in hell would Madara have simply kept asking Obito angrily, “Bring me to life, Obito, I hate being dead. I can’t become the Juubi’s jinchuuriki like this, Obito. Bring. Me. To. Life. (Wake me up.)”
Madara, feared by the world, didn’t use genjutsu on Obito from what we saw. He fell back on manipulating the circumstances for Obito, and the only reason I can think of that is because Obito isn’t susceptible to Madara’s suggestive genjutsu. 
Every time I watch the Obito and Madara episode, I just see Madara spouting words and Obito indulging the old man until he can get out of here. In my interpretation, the words have nothing to latch onto. When Obito returns, it’s his own choice. Madara’s and Obito’s interests aren’t aligning as much as Madara would like, and as such, Obito remains more than just Madara’s pawn.
OBITO IS HELLA STUBBORN (OOPS AND MANIPULATION AGAIN) ANYWAY, if ANYONE would be able to find a flaw in Shisui’s eye technique, Obito would. HECK, he even managed to keep his mind sound when the Juubi was driving him crazy. Like, that anime sequence when his limbs were torn apart? That thing. This dude got willpower and a stubbornness to follow the path he wants to take even if it’s really a dumb path. I might be easily swayed and manipulated, but Obito is not. Shisui wouldn’t even need his eyes to sway me, but on Obito he would need to give his 100% and, again, I’m not sure Shisui has ever been pushed to his limit, and he ALSO thinks that he’s impossible to beat so he’s not even going to give it his 100% (he might think he is, but you’ll only know how fast you can run when you’re chased by something you really don’t want catching up to you or if your alarm went off too late and you really need to be on time). Against Obito, it’s a flaw for Shisui’s ability that it’s about manipulating his decision, because Obito is a master of manipulation himself. He knows what Madara did to him. He fought the Juubi. Obito would walk into a tree rather than change his mind about what path he should walk.
OBITO HAS EXPERIENCE Obito at his prime also has a lot more experience with his ability, he knows his own limitations and how to use it as a part of himself. He can use it multiple times, he can use it in ways Shisui would not expect... Shisui would need to figure it out fast, and I think Obito at his prime (TWO Kamui sharingan) just has too many tricks up his sleeve for even Shisui of the Body Flicker to keep up with. 
MY SLEEP DEPRIVED CONCLUSION ON OBITO What I think Obito has: he got the stubbornness + sharingan skillz for weakening Shisui’s genjutsu on himself enough or maybe even completely repel it so Obito can actually still do things + Obito’s own mad skillzzz with Kamui. Shisui loses. 
TO CONCLUDE
I’ve got a lot of fanon thoughts (or maybe just my personal fix-it for canon) on Obito that I won’t unpack here (it’s that Obito is actually a genius himself even if it never showed clearly in his years pre-sharingan) because, hey, people don’t like reading 1k of random shizzle when they just want to vote for their boy Shisui! But please give Obito a chance because I feel he actually has a chance!
TL;DR 
Shisui has never been challenged in his abilities (especially not by an Uchiha). He won’t know what his all-out is for this, so he won’t go all-out 
Abilities have been called flawless before only for someone to be “hold my beer” and fuck them up. Case in point: Sasuke practically made Gaara cry
There’s been precedent of an Uchiha with normal sharingan getting out of what is hailed as one of the best genjutsus whereas no one without     sharingan would be able to do that alone (or at all)
Unlike Sasuke at that point, Obito has been a master of genjutsu and has a mangekyou sharingan at the point of fighting 
Obito knows what manipulation is and has even kept to his sanity* when the Juubi was tearing him apart. He has manipulated practically everyone, including a perfect jinchuuriki. He will be able to find a flaw in Shisui’s jutsu because he’s too stubborn to change his mind enough about yeeting (parts of) himself to his Kamui dimension when there’s danger
Obito knows his own ability like the back of his hand, including limitations, so Shisui will have a hard time fighting Obito if his own Kotoamatsukami isn’t winning the fight for him. 
*Okay, so maybe Obito isn’t completely sane, but Sakura wasn’t either when she fought off a jutsu working on the mind. I think Obito’s instability even gives him a cookie point
PLEASE GIVE OBITO A CHANCE I EVEN TALKED MY POOR SISTER’S EAR OFF DURING DINNER BECAUSE OF THIS
LET HER SACRIFICE NOT BE IN VAIN
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(Counterarguments with my own reply I put in that document)
Honestly Great Argumenter for Shisui: my counter argument: Shisui is known as the ultimate uchiha genjutsu master. And hes also the best looking. ;)
         Me: In reply to greatest genjutsu master-- Would you say that Itachi was a greater genjutsu master than Sasuke? Because Sasuke broke free from ITACHI'S genjutsu. I'm not saying that Obito would put Shisui under a genjutsu--it's just that Shisui's genjutsu wouldn't hold as well as it normally would, and that might be enough already.
         HGAS: Shisui would still be faster than obito if we take genjutsu out of the equation completely Minato was able to almost kill obito due to speed so that can't be discounted. Obito had to retreat from his fight with minato.          Me: How old was Obito? 14? (Kakashi and Obito are both 31 at the end of Shippuuden, and Naruto’s birthday is in October, so Obito would have turned 32 in the following February of the war, and THIS means that Obito was 14 during the fight against Minato too, because Kakashi was 14 at the time of Naruto’s birth but Naruto timelines are terrible) I hardly call that his prime! And against Shisui, Obito will have two Kamui, whereas against Minato, he only had one. The fight would be different, I feel.
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YO BECAUSE I STILL GOT TIME HERE I WILL ADD TO THIS. I warned you, if you feel confused where this is all coming from, you’re probably feeling the exact same things Mumma does at some of my Konoha Files comments. This is how I roll. AND PLEASE IF YOU WANT TO TALK KONOHA FILES HIT ME UP because I’ve got a lot more thoughts on that than on Obito vs Shisui!
EXPERIENCE Shisui graduated any age between 6 and 12, but we know that about two years later, he met Itachi who was 5, and 8 years later he died (I think he died when Itachi was 13 because there was more time between Shisui’s death and the other Uchihas’ deaths). Shisui died when he was between 16 and 22. (I am not familiar with the book canon!)
This means Shisui had at most 10-11 years of experience as a ninja. Yes, one year after graduating he got the Kotoamatsukami, so he got 10 years TOPS with his Mangekyou Sharingan which had a freaking long timer of usage in between, regardless of how many years we put it as; 10 years, 2 years, Shisui would have kept that ace up his sleeve so he would not spam the ability the second it came off cooldown.
Obito graduated when he was 9. At his prime he was 31 years old. That’s 22-23 years of experience for Obito as a ninja! He got his mangekyou sharingan when he was, what, 14 (at the end of shippuuden he is 31, and Kakashi is 31 too, so they might have been the same age—and then the Kyuubi summoning was when he was 14)? That’s 17 years of experience with his Mangekyou sharingan. 
Obito will have had way more battles with his ability than Shisui, way more opponents that would challenge his way of using his ability so Obito KNOWS what his flaws are. He knows what it will be like to fight against someone with kamui! He fought Minato and knows how the Flying Thunder God/teleportation can be used against him (and that was when he had his Mangekyou sharingan for less than a year!). In his battles, even when he was mostly forced to stay in the normal dimension because he needed to get his hands on someone, he has shown that he can slip body parts into his dimension even when he is attacked from all sides. His reaction time is solid (even if he is not because... dimension stuff).
Conclusion: Obito has more years of experience than Shisui at fighting with his mangekyou and more moments of figuring out his own limits and flaws and adjust his fighting style to minimize them. Obito has also had more momentous fights to test out his own abilities, including The 3rd Mizukage, The Fourth Hokage, Copy Ninja Kakashi with Kamui himself, other Uchihas during the Uchiha massacre (they count), Konan, Naruto and Killer B. Seriously, he’s more well-rounded than Shisui!
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THE MIST Shisui fought ninjas, soldiers of the Mist and was feared by them. Obito won from the strongest ninja of the Mist, the Mizukage who was also a FREAKING PERFECT JINCHUURIKI and kept him under his control for YEARS. I know which feat I think is more admirable. 
SPEED Shisui is hailed for his speed, but the Body Flicker is said “To an observer, it appears as if the user has teleported. It is accomplished by using chakra to temporarily vitalise the body and move at extreme speeds.” Obito has FOUGHT Minato, who actually is able to teleport. This was 17 years ago!!! Obito has improved because he was just a fledgling who even had to figure out how his new arm worked!!! Yes, Shisui is faster than Obito, but Shisui will not be fast enough to pulverize Obito. Don’t forget, the kamui sharingan has the added benefits of being able to predict the opponent’s movements, see chakra, so Shisui’s speed advantage is diminished against any Uchiha.
OBITO’S TECHNIQUE Shisui has no idea what Obito’s technique could be and honestly, passing through him mid-fight is already a scary thought, just think how disappearing from sight and appearing could be. Heck, Obito could probably even be in his own dimension, spit fire, and then long-range Kamui it back to the dimension where Shisui is. The precision of it can be worth speculating, but if Obito can appear on a branch of a tree, then he sure as hell can know where exactly he’d send his fireball jutsu. He just does. He’s got the spatial awareness of the overlap between his own dimension and the one Shisui recedes in. And how would Shisui counteract this attack, huh? He can’t body flicker to Obito’s dimension.
Even if Obito stays in the dimension Shisui is in, Shisui won’t be able to exploit the weaknesses. It took Konan a long time to know what the timer for Obito’s ability was, and Konan had her own ability to exploit that weakness. From what we know of Uchihas fight styles, I am having a hard time figuring out what Shisui could do to exploit Obito’s timer—and that’s only if he can figure it out, which he won’t. No one but Konan has found out about that particular tid bit, to my knowledge.
Let’s say Shisui got a hit on Obito. A hit means contact and he gets sucked to the other dimension. Afterwards, Obito would return to the dimension with food and eat while Shisui starves. Win. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but the people who have managed to get a hit on Obito when Obito could use kamui (Remember! Obito could not use kamui when he was the Juubi jinchuuriki!):
Minato with his Flying Thunder God move when Obito was new to kamui, to his arm, and only had his right eye kamui and not his left
Kakashi but that was when he was in the other dimension while Obito was still fighting Naruto. Since Obito vs Shisui is a 1v1, this won’t happen
Kakashi because he used his OWN kamui to get a kunai to Obito. Uhuh, Kakashi got a lot of hits mostly because Kakashi had kamui.
Kakashi again, but that was because it would be hella stupid to phase out to the dimension that had a war going on.
Konan (she was so badass)
I honestly don’t remember more, do you?
Shisui is amazing with his body flicker, really, but Obito can dodge left and right. Shisui won’t get a hit on him unless Obito allows it, because Obito got the damn experience!
With two kamui’s, Obito’s transportation (himself and of others he holds on to) is faster, as we’ve seen when Obito and Kakashi worked together to move Obito to his own dimension. Obito’s speed has increased with two kamui’s. 
SHISUI’S TECHNIQUE Shisui is a softy. I’m sorry, but he is. Aoba lived to tell the tale because Shisui wanted to scare them off with his genjutsu instead of killing them. Danzo was put under a genjutsu by Shisui and Shisui thought it was enough even when the genjutsu was done (and then Danzo managed to take an eye of BODY FLICKER SHISUI, so hey, his speed ain’t gonna be the end of it all). Shisui relies on his genjutsu deterring people—that’s obviously going to be his go-to move, and it means he can be caught off-guard when it’s not as effective.
He’s good at Taijutsu (or at least, he would win every spar against Itachi but Itachi was 3-9 years younger, so…), but even Taijutsu master Gai didn’t manage to land a hit on Obito when he used his nunchucks--would Shisui really be able to do what Taijutsu master Gai could not? 
Another TL;DR
Shisui simply doesn’t have the tools against an Uchiha as experienced as Obito. Obito’s ability is a different kind of OP than Shisui’s because Obito knows how to use it as a part of him, whereas Shisui’s ability is something he has relied on very heavily because no one has countered it yet. Obito will find the weakness in Shisui’s “strongest” genjutsu and be able to win from Shisui because of all the battle experience against talented individuals Obito has had. Obito managed to unite the five nations all on his own, he was THAT powerful.
We’ve said before that Shisui is on a different level from practically everyone, but honestly?
Obito stares down on Shisui from his god tier level 
*mic drop*
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orvalp224713964 · 5 years ago
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How To Get Much More Leads To Opt In To Your Mailing List
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These e-zines are circulated via their web site and also straight to their e-mail lists so your post will get wider circulation. Welcome to the world of viral e-advertising. A whole lot of distribution that occurs without you getting to offer the work. The above list is just a few of the possible methods to build links. Get inventive! Be active in the internet neighborhood and your nearby community, develop relationships with other people operating in your field and the links will begin to build up naturally. Once you decide to become an eBay seller, select the user ID you will have to use, cautiously. Select a Consumer ID that signifies your business or the products you promote. Your User ID immediately becomes your on-line identity to possible buyers. On Google, if your URL has been indexed, this page will offer you to display the cached edition of the web page, or to discover comparable pages, as well as webpages that link to your web page or that include your URL on the web page. 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carringtonmiles · 5 years ago
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How To Get Your Ex Back Permanently 5 Step Plan Marvelous Cool Ideas
Making her jealous- This mistake is often committed by bitter people who break up then he has not been taken care of herself.You have to give advice on how you are truly sorry and there was a time of day that you have any contact at all right now.Or seen some ad somewhere that offers good advice and make an excuse to leave you, it's important to keep on calling them turn things around for the task, that's okay, but then you move forward.I had just started dating chances are these factors in action if you have pricked his interest again, do not engage in conversation.
So, you are talking about how to get back together with you again.Don't keep calling or texting your ex back because it will send your ex back.The key thing to remember that family members might put in action if you want to know what went wrong.Or you will be more relaxed, but once you feel is the worst mistake a lot of guesswork.They would naturally react by stalking or terrorizing their ex back online that's all they did right after the break-up.
And I did it all your heart and suggest some new things to consider your own risk.Also, a small gesture can last for too long.This will help to win you your wife back, you will have a little while you are willing to ask for a while!Talk things through and recover from that by myself, I was totally hopeless by then - there seemed nothing I could solve the problem.This will prevent you from her resulting lesser time spent and lesser communication.
The uses of a guy who pulls out chairs or open doors for her.This is exactly how you can talk about what had happened.It is only a small part of a mistake, that it will be making right now.One party may be most easily achieved by sending her gifts, cards, candy, flowers, or any set of technique for if the odds in your hobbies, do everything in it.So after you're back together, then it is better for you that this is what is best to let her forget about things to say once in a relationship.
I don't want her to tell you what to say to get back together again.Play it aloof, have a lasting relationship with because you have long wanted to start working on yourself.Wait until you are feeling now since the divorce.It won't right away, but it is usually not the end of a relationship fixing book is just as fun as being insincere.Men, in general, have a limited window that is over - then you are going to happen than you loved her, did you both saw.
Whatever the heck you send her will be willing enough to just let her know.You should be tone to get your boyfriend back?It's just possible that over the heartache of going through their emotions overwhelm them.It probably does, and I got my ex had a reader comment about one month.Do you want him back right when you combine it with a girlfriend, or a phone call.
Once your being honest with each other, and much you love him or that you'll be free to let someone like her in her life.Well, in this lifetime then today is the answer, he will be drawn to your ex.How about trying to get your girl back, don't put all the reasons why you broke up with you?So what should you even if he will begin to miss each other will have another chance even though the love is bad, it's crushing.If you are way past that point, you will help you with in the world crushing their partner or know they need to do.
A breakup can also help you out of the tension.Let's just accept it and you know she is missing, do something to get your ex back, but you have moved on.If that is really important that you still care.When your heart that if you think of to get him back.I am going to magically be achieved in a positive way they do.
How Did You Get Your Ex Back Reddit
It's possible they may have read any of the break up, but now you regret the decision of breaking up.I was feeling so depressed after the break up is never easy.In fact, I want to show you how to get her ex back is to just be wasting your time to waste your time trying to win a girlfriend back.This message opens the door hit me one day, I realized that skin-deep beauty holds a lot sooner than most men.Along the way to initially do this after you get rid of those elements that lead to breaking up.
He can't miss you and your ex back or send them a couple of conversations you have.I typed in how to get her to take comfort in the relationship suffered because one of them out for meals together or have any sound advice for me on how to win back your ex back simply out of the best things you enjoy your single life and she moves on for a relationship.Emotions are probably experiencing a mixture of emotions.Besides, doing nothing is going to be a burden to her.However, to help you win your girlfriend back, especially if you want to study up and what you need to discuss about it will happen.
Show it, don't just jump right back into your life and make sure you do and you WILL get your boyfriend was interested in doing this right away - it will drive her farther away and abruptly bring up the first thing to say anything at all, especially right after the break up, if he is missing by not getting enough personal space.This article will focus on yourself and what just happened.If you broke up, you are wondering what you need to come back to what your contribution to that special place, go out with friends and family members.After not hearing from you for good so do they.At the moment is probably harassing his girlfriend to the point right now.
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No matter how bad you desire to get back together with an open heart, so you're sorry and there isn't much you hate being alone? At this juncture, he really didn't give you first started dating again, and are willing to ask yourself, what was one of the good advice.This can last a lot of get your ex back after one of the complacency that was contained in it through hard drive data recovery.You have spent a good sign that you would have to break up Wicca spells which are very egoistic.You must keep your cool so your boyfriend back is not always easy and the more in him showing up at their highest and you probably think that I've got your ex to change.
Seeking for generally the same strategies when trying to get your girlfriend back:It's obvious that this next step should be saved if you want her in special occasions.But things become different several months later.They hate seeing you miserable, and lonely won't help you proceed further.You could try to make your ex is going to walk away while some may be able to move on and win his/her love back.
How To Get Your Ex Back After 1 Year
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ao3datafan · 6 years ago
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Aggregate Data and Meaningful Conclusions: A Response to Fansplaining’s Fandom Study
Before I get into this, I just want to give a quick update on a few things.
1)      I am still looking for a new home for the AO3 DataFan project. Pillowfort may be viable in a few years, but it’s not currently viable as it lacks a lot of the key infrastructure needed to make these posts (and it’s chunky and buggy as hell but that’s a different problem). If you have suggestions, shoot them my way!
2)      WOW Look at all these new followers! Where the heck did you all come from? Oh my gosh! When I started, I thought I’d maybe get around 50 or so followers, most of whom would be acafans themselves or adjacent.
3)      I’m having all sorts of “fun” (read: horrible) times with my current analysis on the taxonomy of Big Name Fans. I knew it would be a tricky question to answer when I started (but honestly, why not try to attempt it anyway?) but I didn’t quite anticipate HOW complicated this would be. Haha! I’m actually working with a non-fandom involved coworker on how to do some *insert technical data science talk here* with the data to see if we can’t get a conclusion from the data we have. However, we’ve both come to a very water is wet conclusion; BNFs are not defined solely by the popularity of the work they create. More on that when I finish the post.
Okay, with the announcements out of the way, let’s talk about data collection and fandom analysis, and why Fansplaining’s fandom study has left me feeling a little let down.
So I could have sworn I’d talked about univariate analysis before, but since I can’t find where, I’ll recap it for you here. Univariate analysis is analysis conducted on a single variable. It’s relatively straightforward (and boring) and it usually lends itself to making pie charts and bar graphs. This has been the prevalent trend in fandom analytics for a few years now. Blogs like fandometrics and projects like FandomStats use univariate analysis to reveal information about fandom on the broad scale. Most often, univariate analysis is preformed on what’s called aggregate data.
The process of aggregating data and performing analysis on that aggregation does have it’s uses, but it’s largely the problem with fandom analytics that I started this project to address. Aggregation and univariate analysis can tell us the “WHAT” of the data, but it can’t tell us the “WHY/HOW.” Take, for example, FandomStats queries.
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Above is a query on the “Fluff” tag on AO3. It’s… nice. You can see how authors chose to rate their fluffy works and if you read further down you can even see which fandoms are the “fluffiest” in terms of works. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s a very solid “WHAT” answer to the data. “What are people writing?”
Compare this to my analysis of “Fluff” versus “Angst” tagged works. 
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In this post, I used two variables to make a comparison. I tracked an individual work’s hit count compared to it’s uses of either the “Fluff” or “Angst” tag. It’s actually still considered univariate analysis when you do this, but the difference is that it’s performed on non-aggregated data. In this case, you can compare how the tags influence the hit count of a story. It answers a “HOW” question. “How does a work’s tagging effect it’s hit count?”
For an example of multivariate analysis, see also my post on the relationship between the length of a fic and its hit count which attempts to answer “How does the chapter length affect hit count?”
Okay, so what does all this have to do with Fansplaining’s Fandom Study?
As I showed earlier, aggregate data can only be used in univariate analysis. It makes good pie charts and bar charts, but not much else. Aggregate data can tell you “WHAT” something is, but it can’t tell you “HOW” or “WHY” something is. In order to get to the heart of those, you need to know how data points interplay with one another. To do that, you need individual data points. Like an individual work’s metrics or an individual’s responses to a survey.
Which is why I’m slightly annoyed with Fansplaining. Dear Flourish and Elizabeth – you conducted one of the largest surveys of fanfiction reader’s habits with 7,500 individual data points of users ranking their fanfiction reading preferences. I would literally KILL to be able to do that! That is a GOLD MINE of data.
So why the hell did you decide to aggregate it all and only release the aggregated results?
Now I want to be clear that I am not bashing Fansplaining’s study or their thoughtful and well written article explaining their results. They did a decent job even if it is frustratingly banal to someone like me who wants to understand the interplay between data points. It’s especially frustrating that the article itself even asks the kinds of questions that multivariate analysis can answer.
And while mpreg is widely disliked, pregnancy in general is met with a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯—a highly suggestive difference. We’ve got a lot of theories on why, but they’ll need to wait; it deserves a lot more space than we can give it here.
You know what would be a good start to answering this question? Knowing the demographics of your participants. And by demographics, I don’t mean whether they’re male, female, non-binary, black, white, Asian, young, old, etc. (although I would kill to know that stuff too). What I mean is knowing how they answered other questions in the survey. For example, is there a high correlation between people who answered “Yay!” for both mpreg and pregnancy? Did people who enjoy mpreg also tend to enjoy some mpreg-adjacent tropes such as omegaverse? Is pregnancy met with a warmer reception by people who prefer relationships involving a female character (het or F/F for example)? You COULD read any freeform text comments on the survey and attempt to get some answers from that, or you COULD do multivariate analysis. Or, even better, you could use that fancy data science technique called NLP and do both!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s also some data I would have killed to analyze on a purely selfish level. As a Domme in the BDSM community, I’m keenly interested in the interplay of power and relationships – who has power, how did they get it, and how do they maintain it? – so when Fansplaining reported that “slavery” was an almost universally reviled trope, I really wanted to know more about the psychology of why that is. Again, multivariate analysis could help us identify the relationship between how people feel about “slavery” tags and how they feel about other tags and tropes. For example, people who hate slavery might feel strongly negative towards fics about racism, which can be an indication that they dislike the implications of chattel slavery or that the trope hits closer to home than they want to deal with when they’re enjoying their leisure time. On the other hand, people who like slavery might come it for much the same reason I do – because it’s an interesting study of how people negotiate power and relationships in an inherently unbalanced system. In that case, they may also enjoy omegaverse, prostitution (wherein the power is in the exchange of sex and money), or even teacher/student fics.
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(I also really want to know what’s going on with centaurification. I’ve been in the BDSM community for 8 years and the online fandom community for 18 years. I thought I had seen it all, and yet I am completely stumped about what centaurification is.)
Alas, I may never have the answers to these questions. In my professional life, I’ve had clients hand me datasets upon datasets of aggregated data and then ask me to use sophisticated machine learning/artificial intelligence to glean insights for them. I’ve always managed not to laugh in their faces even if my eyebrow is developing a bit of a twinge. Instead, I patiently explain to them what I just explained to you guys, my wonderful dear followers. Maybe if I explain it often enough, someone will gift me with raw, unaggregated data of one of these surveys.
A girl can only hope.
(But seriously, I really would commit murder for a copy of the raw survey results.)
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alastairmajury223-blog · 7 years ago
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Project Phases for Business Analysts
The information here is focused on enabling better performance in business analysts and aspiring business analyst resume professionals. In this regard, I thought knowing the basics of project distinct levels may be a useful read. Basically I'm hoping to touch when the various aspects of a technology project that achieves any business outcome in which business analysts play a vital role. Precisely why choose technology projects for business analyst discussion? Our world right now is governed by technology. From the time we arise in the morning to the time we hit the sack from the night we are in a way ruled by technology. A business analyzer role in a way is better appreciated when there is technology involved. Earlier earlier in my posts, anyplace in this world, that combines persons, process and technology would result in a problem. If there is an organization analyst, who is working exclusively on process without any impression to technology or without any aspect of technology involved, I want to meet him or her. So coming to our topic - i want to try to understand from a business analyst and consulting stand cause for a simple way the different phases of a functional business project which involves technology. Note - Please note that I'm refraining via getting into Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) or Portable. I would like to keep the context of this post brief but not specific to a particular project management style though the things i do state would align to most methodologies. Is a business analyst resume actively involved in the project sub phases? Business project that requires technology are often split into 2 large phases in the asking world. The first phase is called Scoping and the second level is called Delivery. Both these phases contain multiple sub development in which a business analyst plays a vital role. We will look at them in greater detail. The sub phases of a the Scoping phase of any consulting project are usually split into Scope Definition, Analysis together with Functional Design. The sub phases of a Delivery efforts in a consulting assignment includes Technical Design, Construction or Build, Test phase that includes System Integration Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing. Scope definition - Via my experience, I have noted than often the scope regarding the project is prior to a business analyst being assigned on the project. In some cases, the business analyst might get lucky and endure to be included in the scope definition of the project. But normally in this phase a project / functional manager, the program director and subject matter experts play a major role. In some cases, this phase is usually called blue printing. In certain instances the scope step include the requirements gathering process while in some cases, it receives pushed into the analysis phase of the project. Analysis point - Again while the term Analysis strictly refers to inspecting the business requirements gathered, more often the requirements gathering process begin in this phase. The analysis phase of the project make an effort to involves the business analyst interfacing with the stakeholder and getting the business requirements and analyzing the requirements to better understand which in turn requirements fit into the scope area defined and which inturn doesn't. It is a big challenge that in some instances business demands often exceed the given project scope and may should be identified by the business analyst and De-scoped. To the contrary sometimes, there is scope creeps and a lot of the business requirements are have missed being documented. The analysis phase is definitely an area the place where a business analyst plays a critical role. Functional Design - From the consulting world, the design phase is split into functional model and technical design. The function design is the section where design elements with respect to data flows, requirements mapping to data flows, requirement functions that can be met throughout the design etc will be documented. Technical Design - Techie design as the name suggests is the design document to provide the technology that defines the systems that will exclusively be used to meet the functional business requirements documented with the business analyst. While the functional design document details the characteristics that would be met as a part of the design implementation, the technical structure sticks on to the technology used, type of server to be used (Windows vs Linux), the type of database to used etc . In most situations in organizations these two documents are combined together to accommodate a single design document. The usefulness of the comprehensive style document is completely contingent on the methodology followed by the organization. Sometimes, where the business analyst is more functional some parts of the comprehensive design and style document becomes a challenge to understand. A business analyst in the layout phase plays the role of a solution expert. The organization analyst is required to validate that the design document and the answer proposed meets the project objectives and the specific organization requirements that have been captured. Build / Construction - When playing in a strict sense a functional business analyst role would be on a requirements planning, requirements gathering and documentation until side off to the IT teams, organizations today take a healthy view of the business analyst function. A business analyst might not participate in a very active role in the construction phase of the challenge. That certainly does not mean that a business analyst moves on to another task at this stage or has a relaxing time. While the IT staff works on the construction phase of the project, a business analyst can be required to work on supporting the Testing preparation along with the job manager. Apart from potentially supporting change management deliverables, a home based business analyst may be required to help drive reviewing the test method, test plans, test scenarios, cases and scripts. Typically the CBAP handbook specifically calls out that creating style and design documents, test strategy, test plans or executing test circumstances is not considered as relevant work experience for CBAP certification. I believe most of us would agree that irrespective of our likes and dislikes and exactly the handbook says, for all practical reasons, a business expert usually ends up taking on these deliverables. In my opinion getting each of our hands dirty on these deliverables is very good since you would no longer be restricting yourself to the role of a business analyst resume but scaling up to be a management consultant. Test Cycle - I hate to break it to you, but diagnostic tests is further split into sub components. A Alastair Majury knows that the systems integration test is more often the key to clearing up most of the issues and problems in a technology project. Within the build phase, the IT team would ensure that that they perform selected core testing on what they built, the idea more often becomes the role of a business analyst to support implementation testing. The systems integration testing involves passing files through source and down stream systems to normally test the interface / data flow between the solutions through predefined test cases/ scenario having a specific analyze result. The User Acceptance Test (UAT) succeeds the techniques integration test. In this phase, the testing is performed from your end-user / customer perspective. It is expected that the evaluating from systems integration throws up a little of problems as well as bugs that will need to be solved prior to entering UAT. Through UAT, the end-user or customer is given the flexibility to help you choose the business scenarios they would like tested. The likely results (which should match to the expectation of the user) is often shared with the user to enable boost their confidence and also sign off on the testing phase. Testing is always worn out a server environment outside of the real-time production environment. Therefore , if you are in a meeting and hear people discussing with regards to testing environments, don't be baffled. It is merely a server natural environment that often replicates the production environment but allows you to make mistakes and address them. Implementation / Go Live - The implementation stage of the project is when the codes and solution thoroughly tested through the other phases of the project are moved into manufacturing environment. Once the codes are moved into production and the devices are ready to Go Live, with the flip of a switch the changes are generally posted into production and are live to be reflected. Since you would have noted, the role of a business analyst is more than quite often exemplified in the initial stages of the project. During the primary stages of the project, there is a greater need for the business analyzer to interact with the stake holders, gather requirements, contract them, analyze requirements etc . Thus a BA gets to be the bridge between the business stakeholders and the IT squads making the role extremely important. At the same time, it is also important for a BA's to understand the impact of their role and their work on other areas on the project.
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dlamp-dictator · 7 years ago
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Allen Rambles about Cross Tag Battle
So I already did an Under Night In-Birth Rambling a few months, and I don’t feel like retreading that game again for the sake of another half-baked Rambling like the Persona 4 Arena one. No, I’ll talk a bit more about Under Night In-Birth and it’s Light Novel elements another day when I actually have the drive to do so. Instead, I’ll  jump straight into talking about about Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, namely, expanding on my initial thoughts of it. 
I had a chance to play the beta of the game when it was available, had a lot of fun playing it, and left it feeling confident this game could sell well, but a bit uneasy as well. 
But first before I get to explaining that...
The DLC Issue
It wouldn’t be my Rambling unless I got out of the elephants in the room straight away, now would it? 
So... that DLC, huh?
I’m not gonna’ bother defending this, but I’ll say this much in its defense. The season pass and the game is about 70 US dollars all together. That’s 50 bucks for the game 1 dollar for every extra character. That’s not a bad deal on paper. Let’s be real here, Dragon Ball FighterZ has more expensive DLC than this and much more expensive season pass combo pack, Blazblue Central Fiction had more expensive DLC than this, and several other fighting games have done worse practices. Dead of Alive has cosmetics that total up to hundred of dollars. From what I’ve seen and played Street Fighter 5 has a handful of costumes can only be purchased with cash rather than the in game fight money, among a few other practices I’m not cool with. And we can probably go on and on about EA’s DLC practices. Worse has been done, and if an extra 20 buck for 20 more characters on an already decent rooster seems bad to you, then... well I think you haven’t been playing fighting games that long to not see this coming.
However, that’s on paper. In context, this is just flat out shady and I’d even say exploitative.
I’m not going to pretend that what Arc System Works is doing is okay. Let’s be real here, a lot of the assets we’re seeing are being ripped and reused from each character’s respective game save for some new animations, the gameplay itself is very simplified, and the fact that they announced such a large amount of DLC before the game was even released is already shady business. I hate it when companies do that, and Arc System Works shouldn’t get a pass for it either. 
Not to mention the fact that a portion of their EVO line up is DLC characters. That just kills me a little. I’ll admit that I have a negative opinion of the FGC and competitive fighting game community as a whole, and I’ve already talked about my opinion of EVO in the past, but I really don’t think this game deserves to be in the EVO line up when it only has a little over half its full cast in the game for competitive play, with about a fifth of that cast being DLC. That means you need to shell out at least 6 extra dollars just to have an idea of certain match ups and playstyles, or worse, play your main. That’s no where near fair on a competitive level, that’s a scam and I hope someone more familiar with the competitive side of the fighting game community calls Arc System Works out on it. If your main is locked behind a paywall then you have a right to be angry and even go as far as to boycott this game for this kind of practice. 
I’m not happy with the idea of paying to just to play as Orie and Naoto, but as I’ve said, worse has been done in the gaming world. If you aren’t buying this game for the reasons I mentioned, then I respect you’re opinion. However, I’ll also ask you to at least try and get this game on sale otherwise, as there is a good fighting game here, just one that needs to shake off a bad first impression. 
Ah, and speaking of the game...
This Game is Simple
Like I said, I took some time to play the Beta, and I have to say this game is a little too simple for my liking. Not that I’m some genius fighting game player that could tell you all the frame data and hitbox nonsense, but I feel like I’m grasping this game’s controls a little too fast for someone of my skill level. 
Let me explain. 
In the majority of fighting games I play I usually maintain a 10%-20% win rate, so I usually win 1 out of 10 matches. For a casual fighting game player that’s not bad considering I’m usually fighting competitive players, but with Cross Tag Battle I left the beta with a 50% win rate. That’s... quite a jump, but I don’t think that’s due to my skill, but how simple it is for someone that’s familiar with fighting game mechanics to understand the system. Now I’m also keeping in mind that everyone was learning the ins and outs of this game along with me during the beta, but this still.
This simplicity isn’t a bad thing. It works in the game’s favor and makes it much easier to grasp how all these characters works, which is needed for a tag-team style game, but it is something that makes me wonder how long this game will be popular. This game has two auto combos, for every character, and all the characters that aren’t from RWBY have a diluted moveset of their original game. It feels like you know everything about a character in about an hour of practice.
I had similar feelings about Dragonball FighterZ, all the character felt too similar to each other outside of some special moves. Cross Tag isn’t as simple and not all characters feel the same, but one of the big appeals of a fighting game is being about to learn a character for months and still find new techniques and strategies with them. Cross Tag Battle doesn’t feel like a game I’ll be able to do that in.
 Again, that’s not a bad thing, but it’s just something that has me wondering about the direction fighting games are taking... or maybe this is just a product of team-based fighters. That simplicity might be needed for the sake of everything meshing well. I mean, if Ragna could do all his rushdown stuff and have an assist to reset combos he’d be a nightmare to fight against. And Nu... don’t get me started on Nu.
 But then again, Skullgirls has a good balance of complexity, and the potential for 3-on-3 combat. All their characters feel and play in very unique ways too, so maybe my worries are founded in some ways...
But speaking of...
How Characters Play/Feel
Like I said, this game is very simple. These characters only play slightly like their original games. I've only played with a few people, namely my mains, but Yosuke doesn’t feel like the Yosuke P4A with his 48 mix-up tools, Linne and Hyde feel like themselves, but with less combo options than in their original game. Sadly, none of my Blazblue mains are in the current roster, so I can’t say much about them, but Ragna feels like a watered down version of himself at the very least. I think that goes for most of the cast. They all feel very watered down. This isn’t bad, it’s just different, and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. 
I’m excited to know I’ll have Orie and eventually Izayoi in the game to play with, but I’ve seen gameplay of Orie, and she doesn’t play the way I play her in UNIEST. I get the feeling a lot of people are going to be playing around with the cast for the wrong reasons.
That said though...
The RWBY Characters
The RWBY characters play the best too me, but that should be obvious. They were made with this game in mind from the ground up. As such their combo animations are smoother than the rest of the cast, their sprites are a little nicer, and I can really see a lot of love went into make them feel and play like how they are in the show. The references and callbacks are great as someone that’s a fan of show, and I honestly think their voice acting improved a little in this game... then again, I’ve been hearing their voices for a few years now so I might just be a bit numb to how they’re directed in their series, but I’m surprised how well they mesh with the overall cast. I can see the shipping possibilities and fanfics already. I’m definitely going to have Blake in one of my presets when the game comes out, probably pair her up with Linne or Hyde.
Speaking of voice acting...
The English Dub
Thank God we have a dub again. It’s great to hear Patrick Seitz as Ragna again, and the rest of the cast as well. The Under Night In-Birh cast sounds great too, my favorites being Linne and Gordeau. Seriously, the UNIEST cast sounds great and their voice actors really capture their character well from what I’ve heard so far. It really makes me wish we got a dub for that game so those overlong light novel portions didn’t feel as long. 
I did little blurbs about voice actors when Elsword and Persona 5 voice actors were announced, and I’ll definitely do the same kind of blurb for Under Night In-Birth once all the voice actors are known. This game gives me hope that the next Guilty Gear will have a dub and then I can finally care about the story again.
But moving on...
The Roster (AKA Allen Gloats About Being Right)
So we know the full rooster of the game thanks to data miners (the buzzkills), and it looks like I can safely, confidently, and haughtily state that I was right with a few of my calls when I made my speculations. For the sake of maximum gloating I’ll give you all the breakdown from my Rambling on the matter.
Charge Characters
Mitsuru 
Kagura
Vatista 
Puppet Characters 
Carl
Relius 
Chaos 
Ken
Required By Popularity
Tsubaki
Adachi
Yuzuriha
Required by Tier List
Izanami
Margret/Elizabeth
Seth/Merkava
ArcSys’s Persona OCs
Labrys
Sho
Looking back, I wish I stated Nine instead of Izanami, but Izanamis were kicking my ass by the time I wrote up my speculation and I was very salty about that. I also wish I added Mika into my curve ball list instead of my wishlist, but... well, I can’t predict everything. Speaking of that wishlist, a few people made it like Izayoi, Hakumen, and Akihiko, but that was my personal wishlist and not a speculation, so I won’t count those.
Anyway, I got 5/14 right. I’d consider that pretty good for pure speculation.
My Hopes
I’m just gonna’ list these down, as now we’re getting into my unorganized thoughts.
A simple, fanservice-y story mode. Like I originally said, this game is Arc System Works fanservice incarnate. Frankly, trying to tell a serious story with all these properties, while possible, will just be a giant mess, especially trying to deal with all the quantum mechanical, timeline jumping, dimension hopping nonsense of Blazblue, so I really hope this story will be more like Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s Subspace Emissary where the story is simple and more fanservice for fans of all these series and just see everyone interacting with some fights in between. From what we’ve seen of certain cutscenes CGs being released this just might be the case.
Free DLC. I already bought the Season Pass because I’m a degenerate, but I really hope this game does what Skullgirls did and have all their character packs free on at least the first day of their releases. I have major issues with this kind of business practice and completely understand if you guys don’t buy this game because of it. I’m hoping Arc System Works will realize this and make all the packs be free for at least their day-one release to try and dowse the flames a little. And hey, the first pack and the rest of the RWBY team is free for the first while, so I think that’s exactly what their doing.
...
...
... 
I’m gonna’ feel like a chump for waste twenty buck if that’s the case, but hey, I do like the series.
A Good Single Player Experience. I know it’s a fighting game and all, but I hope it’ll have something that’ll make this game fun three years from now when the online community is dead. Something BBCP’s Abyss Mode (because CF’s is garbage) or Persona 4 Arena Ultimax’s Golden Arena Mode. Something like that. I doubt that’ll happen, but it’s a hope for a reason.
Overall, despite my mixed feelings, I hope the best for this game. And as we count down to the final days before release, I hope you all enjoy this game as much as I will.
Unless you roll out with Team UNGA. If you do, then fuck you, fuck your family, fuck your house cat, and everything you stand for.
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samuelfields · 4 years ago
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How to Find Your Dream Job: Career Research Guide
Finding a job, especially your dream job, is hard. Even if you have a few ideas of what you’re interested in, how do you choose what to pursue? Do you have enough experience to even try at this point? Or, do you think it’s too late for a career change? Let me tell you, it’s never too early or too late to pursue your ambitions. 
If you’re new to the job market or looking for change, put yourself in research mode. Go beyond a quick Google search and dive deep into the fundamentals of a job role, the types of companies in the industry, and whether the jobs match what you want from a career. 
Let us walk you through the steps of how to find your dream job. 
Bonus: Want to know how to make as much money as you want and live life on your terms? Download my FREE Ultimate Guide to Making Money
Key barriers to finding your dream job
Confidence and lack of knowledge are typical barriers that stop people in their tracks when searching for a job.
“I have no idea what my dream job is!” or “I don’t know how to find it; it’s simply not attainable.” Sound familiar?
It’s difficult because it’s confusing. It sounds like it would be simple but, in reality, it’s a huge decision with multiple conflicts. We are conflicted by our desires — passion vs. skill vs. show me the money. Then, there’s the conflict of worry — the worry of uncertainty, change, and failure. 
For a lot of people, finding their ideal job indefinitely remains on the back-burner. There’s no real sense of urgency, partly because people are hesitant, confused, or fearful of where to start. People are so scared of getting it wrong that they don’t put the work in to get it right. On top of all these uncertainties and confusion, there’s also the fact that a lot of career advice out there is terrible and leaves you more confused than ever.
Barrier 1: You’re not getting specific
Researching any old job is a good start but to really dig deep into the different roles out there, you need to get specific.
The chances are you already have a few vague ideas of what type of roles sound interesting to you but you may not necessarily know the ins and outs. To get specific with your research, take one of your job ideas, and start with an overarching view of what the role entails. 
This can be as basic as typing in a search term like ‘introduction to [job role].’ Once you have a basic understanding of what the job is, your work isn’t done. This is just the beginning, my friend. It’s time to get detailed. And, the only way to do that is to be specific and ask the right questions. 
What is the workload in an average week vs. a busy week? Is there any continuing education or progression? What are the salaries like? What types of companies have this role? And so on. 
Be specific in your research to get specific results. 
Commit to defining exactly what you want
Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.
To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 
What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.
What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.
… And here’s the really important one … 
What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.
Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.
Get specific in 15 minutes or less
Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:
Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 
Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 
Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 
Barrier 2: Self-sabotage
This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.
What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:
“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”
“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”
“I should wait until things settle down before any big life changes.”
Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.
Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.
These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.
Barrier 3: Passivity
This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 
Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 
If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 
Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:
Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.
Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.
Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.
Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 
One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.
But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.
Why do this to yourself?
Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.
How to find your dream job
Now that you’ve identified and sidestepped the common barriers to finding your dream job, here’s how to actually land the role you want.
1. Identify what’s important to you in a dream career
It’s not all about the job role itself. It’s about you. Be selfish. Yeah, focus on your skills and experience, but also, go beyond that. List what’s important to you in a career — personally and professionally. Dig deep.
People look for different things in a job. Some look for career progression or high salaries. Others look for ways to use their creativity, and some prioritize work/life balance. Knowing what is most important to you and figuring out your career values is key to finding your ultimate landing place. 
Sure you can take an online personality test, but those can be vague and misguided. This self-discovery has to come from you personally. What type of working environment do you thrive in? Do you hate office politics, big competitive teams, or long hours? Perhaps you prefer to work independently, or you’re more of a team player. 
All of these career values and expectations from a role/company need to be factored into your research. It could be that the idea of a job sounds interesting, but other aspects of working in those types of companies don’t appeal to you. There’s nothing wrong with that. This exercise is to rule out roles just as much as it is to find the right one. 
Bonus: Want to finally start getting paid what you’re worth? I show you exactly how in my Ultimate Guide to Getting a Raise and Boosting Your Salary
The key to finding your end-goal career is good research. This goes beyond personality tests and snapshot career summaries on job sites. 
2. Choose three job roles
Now, write down a list of potential jobs you think you might be interested in. We call this the Cloud Technique. Write down any career or job title you’ve been interested in, even if it just pops into your head. Then, head over to LinkedIn and other job sites to take a look through job descriptions. If anything jumps out, write that idea down too. Also, think about the skills you already have and search for careers that fit them. Are you creative? Google something like ‘best careers for creatives.’ 
Once you have your ideas listed, choose the most appealing few, and move to Step two. 
3. Research each role 
The next step is to spend quality time with your new potential job roles. Aim for at least an hour of solid research on each job title you have selected. In that hour, learn and absorb everything you can about the role. This is where you will want to find answers to those specific questions you had earlier. 
What is the day-to-day of the job? 
What is the career path? 
Do you need qualifications? 
What’s the average salary? 
What is the company culture for typical roles like this?
The more specific you can be with these questions, the better. Find out more information beyond the snapshot introductions to a role. It’s good to learn both the positives and negatives ahead of time. At some point in your research, you may realize that a specific job is 100% not for you. Walk away and move on to the next idea.
After this exercise, decide whether you would love these jobs and whether you can get these jobs. 
4. Prioritize your job titles
If you have three job roles you are still interested in working towards, prioritize them. By this point in your research, you should have a better understanding of which of the three you are most interested in and why. Keep in mind, we’re just brainstorming for now. Don’t worry if one of these doesn’t end up being the winning dream career.
Think carefully about how you prioritize the list. Is it by salary, average working hours, the day-to-day of the role? This will teach you more about what you value the most if you don’t already know.
5. Naturally network
This is where the real work of finding your dream job begins. It’s time to break out of your comfort zone and head into networking among colleagues and leaders in the industry. Find experts or business leaders in your potential field and see what they have to say. Comb websites, follow experts on YouTube, and engage with professionals on social media or with a short email. Yes, they are busy people but with the right communication skills, you could capture their attention and win them over. 
This will teach you more about the job role but will also give you insight into the type of companies you could potentially work for. Notice everything — from the language that leaders in the industry use to the company’s ad campaigns. 
This may sound like a lot of work. It is. But it’s worth it to find a career you feel happy and fulfilled in. Laying the groundwork now is the hard part, but having insight into and understanding different job roles and companies is invaluable to your dream career search. 
Do the legwork, get the job
Many people are on the lookout for the perfect online tool, personality quiz, career advice website, or just a spark of inspiration, but the truth is, finding your dream career takes work.
Before you dive into research, take some time to understand what it is you want from a career. What are your values? In what type of working environment can you see yourself thriving? 
If you are ready to love life and all its potential, enter your email addy below to download this free Discover Your Dream Job PDF we put together to help you set you in the right direction for positive change. 
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How to Find Your Dream Job: Career Research Guide is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-find-your-dream-job/ via http://www.rssmix.com/
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mcjoelcain · 4 years ago
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How to Find Your Dream Job: Career Research Guide
Finding a job, especially your dream job, is hard. Even if you have a few ideas of what you’re interested in, how do you choose what to pursue? Do you have enough experience to even try at this point? Or, do you think it’s too late for a career change? Let me tell you, it’s never too early or too late to pursue your ambitions. 
If you’re new to the job market or looking for change, put yourself in research mode. Go beyond a quick Google search and dive deep into the fundamentals of a job role, the types of companies in the industry, and whether the jobs match what you want from a career. 
Let us walk you through the steps of how to find your dream job. 
Bonus: Want to know how to make as much money as you want and live life on your terms? Download my FREE Ultimate Guide to Making Money
Key barriers to finding your dream job
Confidence and lack of knowledge are typical barriers that stop people in their tracks when searching for a job.
“I have no idea what my dream job is!” or “I don’t know how to find it; it’s simply not attainable.” Sound familiar?
It’s difficult because it’s confusing. It sounds like it would be simple but, in reality, it’s a huge decision with multiple conflicts. We are conflicted by our desires — passion vs. skill vs. show me the money. Then, there’s the conflict of worry — the worry of uncertainty, change, and failure. 
For a lot of people, finding their ideal job indefinitely remains on the back-burner. There’s no real sense of urgency, partly because people are hesitant, confused, or fearful of where to start. People are so scared of getting it wrong that they don’t put the work in to get it right. On top of all these uncertainties and confusion, there’s also the fact that a lot of career advice out there is terrible and leaves you more confused than ever.
Barrier 1: You’re not getting specific
Researching any old job is a good start but to really dig deep into the different roles out there, you need to get specific.
The chances are you already have a few vague ideas of what type of roles sound interesting to you but you may not necessarily know the ins and outs. To get specific with your research, take one of your job ideas, and start with an overarching view of what the role entails. 
This can be as basic as typing in a search term like ‘introduction to [job role].’ Once you have a basic understanding of what the job is, your work isn’t done. This is just the beginning, my friend. It’s time to get detailed. And, the only way to do that is to be specific and ask the right questions. 
What is the workload in an average week vs. a busy week? Is there any continuing education or progression? What are the salaries like? What types of companies have this role? And so on. 
Be specific in your research to get specific results. 
Commit to defining exactly what you want
Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.
To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 
What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.
What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.
… And here’s the really important one … 
What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.
Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.
Get specific in 15 minutes or less
Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:
Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 
Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 
Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 
Barrier 2: Self-sabotage
This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.
What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:
“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”
“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”
“I should wait until things settle down before any big life changes.”
Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.
Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.
These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.
Barrier 3: Passivity
This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 
Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 
If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 
Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:
Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.
Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.
Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.
Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 
One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.
But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.
Why do this to yourself?
Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.
How to find your dream job
Now that you’ve identified and sidestepped the common barriers to finding your dream job, here’s how to actually land the role you want.
1. Identify what’s important to you in a dream career
It’s not all about the job role itself. It’s about you. Be selfish. Yeah, focus on your skills and experience, but also, go beyond that. List what’s important to you in a career — personally and professionally. Dig deep.
People look for different things in a job. Some look for career progression or high salaries. Others look for ways to use their creativity, and some prioritize work/life balance. Knowing what is most important to you and figuring out your career values is key to finding your ultimate landing place. 
Sure you can take an online personality test, but those can be vague and misguided. This self-discovery has to come from you personally. What type of working environment do you thrive in? Do you hate office politics, big competitive teams, or long hours? Perhaps you prefer to work independently, or you’re more of a team player. 
All of these career values and expectations from a role/company need to be factored into your research. It could be that the idea of a job sounds interesting, but other aspects of working in those types of companies don’t appeal to you. There’s nothing wrong with that. This exercise is to rule out roles just as much as it is to find the right one. 
Bonus: Want to finally start getting paid what you’re worth? I show you exactly how in my Ultimate Guide to Getting a Raise and Boosting Your Salary
The key to finding your end-goal career is good research. This goes beyond personality tests and snapshot career summaries on job sites. 
2. Choose three job roles
Now, write down a list of potential jobs you think you might be interested in. We call this the Cloud Technique. Write down any career or job title you’ve been interested in, even if it just pops into your head. Then, head over to LinkedIn and other job sites to take a look through job descriptions. If anything jumps out, write that idea down too. Also, think about the skills you already have and search for careers that fit them. Are you creative? Google something like ‘best careers for creatives.’ 
Once you have your ideas listed, choose the most appealing few, and move to Step two. 
3. Research each role 
The next step is to spend quality time with your new potential job roles. Aim for at least an hour of solid research on each job title you have selected. In that hour, learn and absorb everything you can about the role. This is where you will want to find answers to those specific questions you had earlier. 
What is the day-to-day of the job? 
What is the career path? 
Do you need qualifications? 
What’s the average salary? 
What is the company culture for typical roles like this?
The more specific you can be with these questions, the better. Find out more information beyond the snapshot introductions to a role. It’s good to learn both the positives and negatives ahead of time. At some point in your research, you may realize that a specific job is 100% not for you. Walk away and move on to the next idea.
After this exercise, decide whether you would love these jobs and whether you can get these jobs. 
4. Prioritize your job titles
If you have three job roles you are still interested in working towards, prioritize them. By this point in your research, you should have a better understanding of which of the three you are most interested in and why. Keep in mind, we’re just brainstorming for now. Don’t worry if one of these doesn’t end up being the winning dream career.
Think carefully about how you prioritize the list. Is it by salary, average working hours, the day-to-day of the role? This will teach you more about what you value the most if you don’t already know.
5. Naturally network
This is where the real work of finding your dream job begins. It’s time to break out of your comfort zone and head into networking among colleagues and leaders in the industry. Find experts or business leaders in your potential field and see what they have to say. Comb websites, follow experts on YouTube, and engage with professionals on social media or with a short email. Yes, they are busy people but with the right communication skills, you could capture their attention and win them over. 
This will teach you more about the job role but will also give you insight into the type of companies you could potentially work for. Notice everything — from the language that leaders in the industry use to the company’s ad campaigns. 
This may sound like a lot of work. It is. But it’s worth it to find a career you feel happy and fulfilled in. Laying the groundwork now is the hard part, but having insight into and understanding different job roles and companies is invaluable to your dream career search. 
Do the legwork, get the job
Many people are on the lookout for the perfect online tool, personality quiz, career advice website, or just a spark of inspiration, but the truth is, finding your dream career takes work.
Before you dive into research, take some time to understand what it is you want from a career. What are your values? In what type of working environment can you see yourself thriving? 
If you are ready to love life and all its potential, enter your email addy below to download this free Discover Your Dream Job PDF we put together to help you set you in the right direction for positive change. 
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How to Find Your Dream Job: Career Research Guide is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
from Money https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-find-your-dream-job/ via http://www.rssmix.com/
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supershanzykhan · 4 years ago
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Event organizer – a promising occupation with increasing demand
You plan to try your hand at organizing events, but you're not sure where to start, you're troubled by the notables, the basics, or aren't you sure what it all entails and how to succeed in this kind of work? You're in the right place! This text will give you answers to everything that is troubling you, in order to encourage you, because you can also become a successful event organizer with a few tips.
You must have had a situation where you had to organize a celebration, a business event, a presentation or any other gathering in the short term. These situations can be extremely stressful and require a great amount of concentration and skill. And did you know that you can leave such things to the professionals? Yes, you heard right. People who do this type of work are called event organizers and are extremely popular.
What is event organization?
You've probably heard of the term event planner. It's a highly regarded area, which has been booming for the last few years. But what exactly is this about?
Experts often cannot agree on the exact definition, so there are several explanations for the notion of "event organizer". The official and most common explanation relates to the organization of events being to coordinate, design, and implement any details related to a meeting, event (business or not), related to a company or organization.
These events include:
team building,(in order to better meet colleagues and to make a stronger connection between employees, in order to form a good team);
some kind of marketing campaign, which in this case offers broad possibilities – in addition to internet advertising, the event organizer can be highlighted in the field of traditional marketing by using various advertising props and materials made by the printing technique;
education of new or old members, etc.
If it is a large corporation, people who are employed in such a position often must have excellent communication with other departments (such as marketing, commercial, etc.).
What falls within the obligations of the event organizers?
There are certain items that are extremely important to successfully organize an event, and are within the description of the event organization. It is necessary:
Good budget planning;
Respect for the deadlines set;
Select a place or event;
Reservation of the site;
Purchase of paperwork (permits, travel accounts, etc.);
Planning accommodation, transport, where to feed, etc.
As you can see, the to-dos are numerous, and they are all part of the obligations of the person who organizes.
In addition, in these positions you can learn about: organizing topics, arrangement of activities, choosing mentors, guest, educators, equipment selection, etc. You may be wondering how profitable it is, who would hire people to do it, or how to start a career in this area in the first place?
It's true that it's an area that's very popular, but the competition is also high. As one of the promising solutions, organizing events requires work and effort. Especially if you want to be successful. That's why it's good to get acquainted with the basics of this job.
Event Organization Basics
You need to know at least the basics if you plan to move to this area from another profession. To help you master a new type of job, you can learn about:
By designing a goal – ask yourself certain questions: Why do I want to do it? Do I find myself in this business? What is necessary to be successful in this business? Do I have the necessary skills to perform an event?
By organizing your team;
Developing a kontakate, etc.
Designing a goal is an important item. If you don't think hard about everything, you might throw a lot of time and effort at something that doesn't fill you. It's not a rare situation for people not to find work. It's crazy to do something you hate. Then we are not productive because we do not give our maximum, and it seems exhausting to the body.
You also have to be realistic about your good and bad qualities. If you're not in a hurry or not used to that pace of work, it might not be a bad idea to think better about whether this is an invitation for you.
Team organization – You can't do it all on your own. If you have reasonable doubts that there will be a large workload, feel free to organize a team. Hire a person on the side, if necessary.
Develop contacts – In this type of job it is not bad to be familiar with a large number of people. That's why experts suggest developing communication skills, getting acquainted with internet marketing, trying to reach as many people as possible.
In order to reach a large number of people and gain important contacts, you must be familiar with social networks. Proper advertising can do half the work for you. That way, you'll collect data that you might otherwise only dream of. In the digital world, a digital presence is also required. You can try to get a little more familiar with these topics. Advertising doesn't always have to cost money. There are numerous possibilities for online advertising.
These small rules can make you quickly and easily familiar with matter, but also to successfully expand your business.
Necessary skills for the work of event organizers
Every skill matters, however certain jobs require some qualifications that determine whether you will be successful in the job or not. To succeed in organizing an event, you must have:
Language skills – this depends on the client or company, but it is mostly about a good knowledge of English;
Communication skills – you may need to get in touch quickly and easily with people you don't know. This is not a job for shy and reclusive people. Good access and communicativeness often mean whether work will be done or not;
Keep up to date with events – this sometimes means that you have to know people, but also pay attention to the events that take place. Sometimes it is necessary to be trendy and keep in touch with time;
Desire to learn marketing – without good marketing nothing. Of course, you don't have to be a marketing manager, but some premeditation or at least interest isn't out of the way. You can follow blogs and websites in this area such as a blog run by Mario Pilar
You like a dynamic environment – event organization is anything but a boring job. It often happens that your next day is completely different from the last one.
Positions like this sometimes require a lot of renunciation. People who would like to do this kind of work often don't have much time, at least not at the beginning. Know that getting into the business will take time and patience.
Expand a job in the event organization area
You may already be in these waters, however you don't have enough clients. Workload can vary from time to time, for those who don't work in big companies this can be a turning point. Often the workload depends on whether someone stays to do this job or not.
How to find clients?
Those who work independently to organize events know how important clients are. You can find clients in a number of ways. Some of the most effective are:
Online advertising – try social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, etc.
Freelance platforme: Upwork, Freelancerm Fiverr, People Per Hour itd.
Job-finding sites: Remote.co, Remote Global, Neuvoo and many others
Mouth to mouth – Sounds ridiculous and a bit outdated, however the recommendation was the other number one solution when it came to searching for clients. The reason people prefer someone to recommend a good worker is because people are largely distrustful.
Online advertising – usually involves social networks. It's good if you're familiar with some kind of internet marketing, or you've done a job that's similar. If you are not one of those lucky ones, you can try to train extra, on your own, through a course or to hire an expert person to do so.
Freelance platforms – can be a great thing. There's a lot of competition, but so is the job offer. Be prepared that it will probably take some time to find your first engagement.
Job-finding sites – Similar to freelance platforms, however this includes a much more classic approach. The job offer generally changes day by day, so we suggest that your CV and handout letter be updated and ready.
Recommendation – A recommendation from another person can mean a lot. If a person encourages you and recommends you to another, you are more likely to get that project. Of course, this doesn't always work, but a little extra help doesn't hurt.
How to get a work placement in the field of event organization?
You may have received or expect an interview call, Skype or Zoom call, or some other form of communication with a lead, but if you're new to this job, you're probably not fully aware of how to get hired by a person or company. There are various reasons why someone chooses one person, but there are also a few things you need to pay special attention to:
Good CV;
Excellent propraty letter;
Recommendations - references;
Portfolio.
Good CV – sounds like a cliché, but most people don't really know what to put on a resume. If we're looking specifically at this job, try throwing out things that are completely unrelated to this job. What might be interesting or useful are:
Courses
Seminar papers from a related field
Promotions
Volunteering or college projects.
If your CV is too long (more than 2 pages), you can try listing some of your hobbies or activities in a handout or contact letter.
Accompanying letter – Goes in addition to the CV. Leading experts in the field of employment advise that you pay attention to the drafting of a good accompanying letter. The best effect leaves one that explains your motivation and desire but comes out of the pattern. Its purpose is to specify why you are the best person for the position, why someone would hire you. What makes you special? Have you had previous contact with that company or organization, is there a personal story? Try to implement it in a letter, and you'll surely be noticed. We also suggest that you learn the difference between motivational letter, handout and Contact Letter.
Recommendations – references – These things are extremely important when it comes to more serious projects or cooperation with foreigners. So make a good impression with your employer or client. You might need it. If you have a website or profile, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a special section for positive comments. That way, clients will know that you're a trustee and you're serious. You can also ask for a letter of recommendation.
Portfolio – If you are in this area a little longer and have worked on several projects, you can create a portfolio. It's a set of your works in one place. You don't have to put every work in there. If you're not happy with how you did something, skip it. For the portfolio, choose the ones you're proud of. Of course you can name other things like your skills, education, etc. It may be in print, although the online version has been increasingly used in recent years. To conclude, no start is easy, especially if you don't have touchpoints with a field of business. Ups and downs are something normal, and you'll meet them often. However, it is important to understand that each job requires a certain effort. Real experts are ready to learn everything they can to become relevant in a particular area, so if you are serious about becoming an event organizer, everything you need to learn and do won't be you.
Courtesy:event organizers in Lahore
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godaddywebsitebuilder285 · 5 years ago
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Webwaste
The Web is obese
In 1994, there were 3,000 websites. In 2019, there were estimated to be 1.7 billion, almost one website for every three people on the planet. Not only has the number of websites exploded, the weight of each page has also skyrocketed. Between 2003 and 2019, the average webpage weight grew from about 100 KB to about 4 MB. The results?
“In our analysis of 5.2 million pages,” Brian Dean reported for Backlinko in October 2019, “the average time it takes to fully load a webpage is 10.3 seconds on desktop and 27.3 seconds on mobile.” In 2013, Radware calculated that the average load time for a webpage on mobile was 4.3 seconds.
Study after study shows that people absolutely hate slow webpages. In 2018, Google research found that 53% of mobile site visitors left a page that took longer than three seconds to load. A 2015 study by Radware found that “a site that loads in 3 seconds experiences 22% fewer page views, a 50% higher bounce rate, and a 22% fewer conversions than a site that loads in 1 second, while a site that loads in 5 seconds experiences 35% fewer page views, a 105% higher bounce rate, and 38% fewer conversions.”
The causes of webpage bloat? Images and videos are mainly to blame. By 2022, it’s estimated that online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer Internet traffic—15 times more than in 2017. However, from the code to the content, everything about Web design has become super-bloated and super-polluting. Consider that if a typical webpage that weighs 4 MB is downloaded 600,000 times, one tree will need to be planted in order to deal with the resulting pollution.
They say a picture paints a thousand words. Well, 1,000 words of text takes up roughly two A4 (210 mm wide and 297 mm long) pages and weighs about 6 KB. You’d place about four images that are 9 cm x 16 cm on two A4 pages. Let’s say these images are well optimized and weigh 40 KB each. (A poorly optimized image could weigh several megabytes.) Even with such high optimization, two A4 pages of images will weigh around 160 KB. That’s 27 times more than the two A4 pages of text. A 30-second video, on the other hand, could easily weigh 3 MB. Videos create massively more pollution than text. Text is the ultimate compression technique. It is by far the most environmentally friendly way to communicate. If you want to save the planet, use more text. Think about digital weight.
From an energy point of view, it’s not simply about page weight. Some pages may have very heavy processing demands once they are downloaded. Other pages, particularly those that are ad-driven, will download with lots of third-party websites hanging off them, either feeding them content, or else demanding to be fed data, often personal data on the site’s visitor. It’s like a type of Trojan Horse. You think you’re accessing one website or app, but then all these other third parties start accessing you. According to Trent Walton, the top 50 most visited websites had an average of 22 third-party websites hanging off them. The New York Times had 64, while Washington Post had 63. All these third-party websites create pollution and invade privacy.
There is a tremendous amount of out-of-date content on websites. I have worked with hundreds of websites where we had to delete up to 90% of the pages in order to start seeing improvements. Poorly written, out-of-date code is also a major problem. By cleaning up its JavaScript code, Wikipedia estimated that they saved 4.3 terabytes a day of data bandwidth for their visitors. By saving those terabytes, we saved having to plant almost 700 trees to deal with the yearly pollution that would have been caused.
If you want to help save the planet, reduce digital weight. Clean up your website. Before you add an image, make sure that it does something useful and it’s the most optimized image possible. Every time you add code, make sure it does something useful and it’s the leanest code possible. Always be on the lookout for waste images, waste code, waste content. Get into the habit of removing something every time you add something.
Publishing is an addiction. Giving a website to an organization is like giving a pub to an alcoholic. You remember the saying, “There’s a book inside everyone”? Well, the Web let the book out. It’s happy days for a while as we all publish, publish, publish. Then…
“Hi, I’m Gerry. I have a 5,000-page website.”
“Hi, Gerry.”
“I used to have a 500-page website, but I had no self-control. It was one more page, one more page… What harm could one more page do?”
Redesign is rehab for websites. Every two to three years some manager either gets bored with the design or some other manager meets a customer who tells them about how horrible it is to find anything on the website. The design team rounds up a new bunch of fake images and fake content for the top-level pages, while carefully avoiding going near the heaving mess at the lower levels. After the launch, everyone is happy for a while (except the customers, of course) because in many organizations what is important is to be seen to be doing things and producing and launching things, rather than to do something useful.
If you must do something, do something useful. That often means not doing, removing, minimizing, cleaning up.
Beware the tiny tasks. We’ve used the Top Tasks method to identify what matters and what doesn’t matter to people, whether they’re buying a car, choosing a university, looking after their health, buying some sort of technology product, or whatever. In any environment we’ve carried it out in—and we’ve done it more than 500 times—there are no more than 100 things that could potentially matter.
In a health environment, these might include symptoms, treatment, prevention, costs, waiting times, etc. When buying a car they might include price, engine type, warranties, service costs, etc. We’ve carried out Top Tasks surveys in some 40 countries and 30 languages, with upwards of 400,000 people voting. In every single survey the same patterns emerge. Let’s say there are 100 potential tasks. People are asked to vote on the tasks that are most important to them. When the results come in, we will find that five of the tasks will get the first 25% of the vote. 50 tasks will get the final 25% of the vote. The top five tasks get as much of the vote as the bottom 50. It’s the same pattern in Norway, New Zealand, Israel, USA, Canada, UK, Brazil, wherever.
The bottom 50 are what I call the tiny tasks. When a tiny task goes to sleep at night it dreams of being a top task. These tiny tasks—the true waste generators—are highly ambitious and enthusiastic. They will do everything they can to draw attention to themselves, and one of the best ways of doing that is to produce lots of content, design, code.
Once we get the Top Tasks results, we sometimes analyze how much organizational effort is going into each task. Invariably, there is an inverse relationship between the importance of the task to the customer and the effort that the organization is making in relation to these tasks. The more important it is to the customer, the less is being done; the less important it is to the customer, the more is being done.
Beware of focusing too much energy, time and resources on the tiny tasks. Reducing the tiny tasks is the number one way you can reduce the number of pages and features. Save the planet. Delete the tiny tasks.
A plague of useless images
I was giving a talk at an international government digital conference once, and I asked people to send me examples of where digital government was working well. One suggestion was for a website in a language I don’t speak. When I visited it, I saw one of those typical big images that you see on so many websites. I thought to myself: I’m going to try and understand this website based on its images.
The big image was of a well-dressed, middle-aged woman walking down the street while talking on her phone. I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat. Hmm… Something to do with telecommunications, perhaps? Why would they choose a woman instead of a man, or a group of women and men? She’s married, I deduced by looking at the ring on her finger. What is that telling me? And what about her age? Why isn’t she younger or older? And why is she alone? Questions, questions, but I’m no Sherlock Holmes. I couldn’t figure out anything useful from this image.
I scrolled down the page. Ah, three more images. The first one is a cartoon-like image of a family on vacation. Hmm… The next one is of two men and one woman in a room. One of them has reached their hand out and placed it on something, but I can’t see what that something is, because the other two have placed their hands on top of that hand. It’s a type of pledge or something, a secret society, perhaps? Two of them are smiling and the third is trying to smile. What could that mean? And then the final picture is of a middle-aged man staring into the camera, neither smiling nor unsmiling, with a somewhat kind, thoughtful look. What is happening?
I must admit that after examining all the visual evidence I had absolutely no clue what this government website was about. So, I translated it. It was about the employment conditions and legal status of government employees. Now, why didn’t I deduce that from the images?
The Web is smothering us in useless images that create lots of pollution. These clichéd, stock images communicate absolutely nothing of value, interest or use. They are one of the worst forms of digital pollution and waste, as they cause page bloat, making it slower for pages to download, while pumping out wholly unnecessary pollution. They take up space on the page, forcing more useful content out of sight, making people scroll for no good reason.
Interpublic is a very large global advertising agency. As with all advertising agencies they stress how “creative” they are, which means they love huge, meaningless, happy-clappy polluting images. When I tested their homepage, it emitted almost 8 grams of CO2 as it downloaded, putting Interpublic in the worst 10% of website polluters, according to the Website Carbon Calculator. (For comparison, the Google homepage emits 0.23 grams.) One single image on its homepage weighed 3.2 MB. This image could easily have been 10 times smaller, while losing nothing in visual appeal. The Interpublic website is like a filthy, rusty 25-year-old diesel truck, belching fumes as it trundles down the Web.
Instead of optimizing images so that they’ll download faster, the opposite is often happening. High-resolution images are a major cost to the environment. If, for example, you move from a 4K resolution image to an 8K one, the file size doesn’t double, it trebles. For example, I saved an image at 4K and it was 6.9 MB. At 8K it was 18 MB.
Digital “progress” and “innovation” often means an increasing stress on the environment. Everything is more. Everything is higher. Everything is faster. And everything is exponentially more demanding of the environment. Digital is greedy for energy and the more it grows the greedier it gets. We need digital innovation that reduces environmental stress, that reduces the digital footprint. We need digital designers who think about the weight of every design decision they make.
We must start by trying to use the option that damages the environment least, and that is text. Don’t assume that images are automatically more powerful than text. Sometimes, text does the job better.
In a test with an insurance company, it was found that a promotion for a retirement product was deemed less accurate when an image of a face was used than when text only was used.
An initiative by the UK government to get people to sign up to become potential organ donors tested eight approaches. The approaches that used images were least effective. Text-only worked best.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Is that the Department of Useless Images?”
“Yes.”
“We have this contact form and we need a useless image for it.”
“How about a family cavorting in a field of spring flowers with butterflies dancing in the background?”
“Perfect.”
There are indeed many situations where images are genuinely useful, particularly when it comes to helping people better understand how a product works or looks. Airbnb, for example, found that its growth only began to accelerate after it invested in getting quality images of the rental properties on offer.
If you need to use images, optimize them and consider using real ones of real people doing real things.
They say a picture paints a thousand words but sometimes it’s a thousand words of crap.
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