#Seriously how was this post any different than the others data wise?

[dzthenerd490]

The Malipherian Empire Reborn: Seralish Magress Ishsir

Name: Seralish Magress Ishsir

Gender: Female

S.O.: Asexual

Species: Royal Demon/ Demon Lord/ Overlord

Job: Royal House Noble/ General/ Executioner

Class: Supreme Class

Arsenal: Lich King Armor - Armor with the eyes of several types of undead monsters on the chest plate with the eye of a demonic undead right in the middle of them all. These eyes give the user a sixth, seventh, and eights sense, able to perceive any kind of dangers and able to perceive almost everything around them down to the most minute detail. The armor also has an undead aura curse that weakens good karma creatures and enemies, weakening them over time especially if they try to strike the armor but aren’t strong enough to dent it. Not even enemies of evil karma can harm the armor and magic will get absorbed by the eyes of the armor. The armor is also enchanted with the “Undead” curse as is all items owned by Lich’s so anyone who is killed or even hurt by the owner of the armor they will be cursed to turn into a powerful undead after they die. Normally anyone who dies at the hands of the Lich King Armor will normally become a Lich Knight and forever serve the owner of the armor.

Crystalized Demon Blood Suit - an extremely thin suit glowing with demonic energy that powers the user and greatly weakens anyone around the wearer with angels having the worst of it. The power of the user is already increased by ten times as much but if the user is willing to sacrifice a portion of their blood they can grow even stronger. Furthermore anyone who is harmed by the wearer will suffer a demonic curse that will weaken their body and slowly kill them within a week, the only cure is holy water.

Living Abyssal Longsword - A dangerous sword made from the ancient gods of the Abyss but now serves the Malipherian Empire. Can only be wielded by a monster of pure evil such as a Royal Demon or an Overlord of Death. Possesses a mind of its own allowing the wielder to slash harder and with greater accuracy. Each slash is enough to cut an entire town in two, and the blade can either extend into a longer blade for even greater damage and range or hundreds of smaller blades each being able to kill a group of people with a single slash with all of them being able to wipe out an entire army of enemies in an instance. The Longsword can even form itself a new body and act as a guardian for its master as well as a servant.

Skull of the Lich Warlord - An enchanted skull of a defeated Lich Warlord that now floats aimlessly without a master. Once bonding with one typically an Overlord of Death, it will serve then as an advisor and a guardian. Within the skull is not only the tactical knowledge of hundreds of years of war but also an abundance of demonic undead energy. Each of the floating orbs around the skull is a physical manifestation of Elemental Magic Cores that it can infuse into any undead it creates allowing it to create both single core elemental undead, multi core elemental undead, demonic undead, mutant undead, or any combo that itself or its master desires.

Mace of the Hell Lich - A lost item of an ancient demonic undead known as the Hell Lich. A mace coated in gold and adorned in blighted crystals that carry the essence of demonic undeads. Within the core of the mace contains the essence of hell fire that burns all who don’t have the purest of holy water. Anyone who gets killed by the mace will either become a HellFire Zombie, a HellFire Skeleton, a HellFire Undead Warrior, a HellFire Undead Mage, or a HellFire Death Soldier depending on how strong the victim was in life.

Cursed Armor Slime - A slime that was mutated with cursed magic allowing it to not only grow bigger but develop its own magic. It was also exposed to an abundance of armor it cannot digest but instead keeps as a personal collection. This combo of evolution has turn the slime into a large humanoid looking monster covered in armor and weapons of its slane victims. All of which are now coated with its cursed slime meaning that anyone who is hit by its weapons or cut by its blades will now suffer a random curse such as “Weakness Increase”, “Random Pain”, “Poison Effect”, “Blindness”, “Fear Increase”, “Hallucinations”, and possibly more.

Magic Cores - User possesses the following magic cores: Shadow, Demon, Abyss, Galactic, Blood, and Cursed.

Martial Arts - User has knowledge of the following combat cores: Magic, Enhanced, Sensory, Blade, and Blunt.

[thatfrenchacademic]

On PhD research questions and the agony of, you know, finding one.

So recently I got two pretty similar questions, and realized I had this way-too-long post in my drafts on the topic, that I had never published because I didn’t feel particuarly qualified to give any definitive answer on anything PhD-related. I still absolutely do not feel qualified, tbf, so this is more me sharing the lessons learnt from my experience, and the experience of friends who went through the same process of finding the right research question. 

TL;DR : If I sum up all the (good) advice I have been given as a PhD student regarding what a good research question for a PhD project is, I end with this checklist :

It is new : we do not have the answer yet, although nearby questions may have been adressed.

It is important : or in the sweet, sweet words of a Professor of mine : “your research being interesting does not give it a point” (ouch). In kinder words : it must matter to you, but also to others ! (maybe less if you are self-funding...? Unsure)

It is doable : consider the logistics, the time frame, the money required. All questions matter, not all can be answered by you, right now.

It advances your field : even as a small increment. Maybe it’s a new idea, maybe it’s a new approach, maybe it’s a new case, maybe it’s a new factor, maybe it’s a new voice. But it is new.

It captured your attention won’t. let. it. go. you can see yourself working on it for a fairly long time. IT must matter to you, not necessarily one a personal level (a thesis is not your whole life!), but at least on an intellectual one.

(Way longer explanation and reflections under the cut!)

I really encourage anyone who would like to add their own points, their own perspective, their own experience, if you see that something has not been covered (which is definitely the case, since I draw from a limited experience here). 

1. First, how long will be your PhD ? Depending on the field and University/program, they can range from 3 to 7 years. You want to do something which will be tractable in the time you are alloted. 

2. Second, a PhD is... surprisingly underwhelming regarding the size of the contribution we are likely to make ?? Most of the time, we do not revolutionize the field or present a groundbreaking theory which will change the entire understanding of the discipline (disappointing, I know...). I think as undergrad and grad/master’s students, we are often misguided in what we consider “good/important research”, because what we have read so far, academically, has been the Important Stuff. The big names, the paradygme-shifting publications, the stuff that That One Researcher in your discipline worked on, that Changed Things. But that is the work of a whole life. That One Researcher probably published this work at 40 yo, with research assistants, after a life of letting it mature through successive works. But that is not what academic research is, in general. If there is one thing that both Kuhn and Popper agree on, it is that science moves in slow, slow increments, one stone after the other. Your PhD will be a few bricks, not a whole house, and that is FINE. That is what is expected.

3. More than being big and large, our research question and the answer we plan on providing must matter. It brings something new. Something small can suffice, if it is clearly new and necessary. Now, what is “new and necessary” depends on the field. Different field focus on different things at different times. Have a look at the titles of the thesis of current PhD students at Unviersities which would be of interest to you, they can give you some insight on what is likely to be funded and considered doable as a PhD student in your field right now. 

3. A research question is generally one to which... we can provide an answer. Which sounds obvious, but often, one starts or wants to do a PhD with a research topic, more than a research question (heaven knows I did). And often, for the aforementioned reasons, the actual question covers only a portion of the topic. From my experience, a good way to see if you have a research question rather than a research topic is to ask yourself : what would satiate my curiosity ? What sort of answer, of data, of finding, of theory, of arguments, would make me go “Aha, there is the answer! ALRIGHT, NEXT”. If there is none, if you cannot envision what an answer would look like (Without getting into whether this is the right answer or not!) then you do not have a research question, you have a research topic, and you need to narrow it down, focus on one of the many questions (itself can be made up of a few different sub questions!) and envision what an answer would look like. 

4. It bugs you. That is the only way I can describe the “right” question for a PhD  research, and I think the ultimate test to see if your research question is right for you, and not just right for Academia. This is the “unofficial part”, that is not in the ~serious Research Method books~, but it’s my take on it. It makes you go : “No but seriously, why is that???”, “Ok, but really, there is no answer yet and we are fine with that ?”, “I know it is not THE issue, but still, we should look into it no???”. Not like it keeps you awake and makes you loose appetite, it’s not your obsession, but it just makes you frown when you read article that get close to, but does not, actually give and answer. Like, come ooon. It bugs you. It is the right level of slightly stubborn, persisting intellectual curiosity that will get you through the rough patches, without making you loose your mind when it, inevitably, does not go as expected.  

To conclude, your research question is liekly to change and shift during your PhD. What you are looking for, in a PhD proposal, is more something that can show a selection Committe “I know what I want to research, and I know how to come up with a pertinent research question”. It does not have to be a beacon of perfection substance-wise, it needs to show that you know what you are getting in. 

[samthemarvelfan]

Goodbyes: Finale

Summary: Ella Monroe is the Avengers newest recruit, handpicked by Steve Rogers himself. Indebted to him for reasons unknown, Cap pairs her up with Bucky Barnes. He is tasked with training her to relearn and hone the skills that have long since rusted. Bucky is cold and distant, and Ella can’t seem to break through the wall he’s built up for decades. He sees something in her though, and it scares him to death. Has the fate of these two strangers been sealed? …or will they always be longing…

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC

Warnings: None (for the first time in this whole damn series), maybe a sexual innuendo or two? This is a piece of long-overdue, cathartic FLUFF. Enjoy!

A/N: I cannot believe we’ve reached the end! Thank you all so much for your love, your comments, your reblogs...all of it. This was the first thing I ever posted to this blog, and I am so proud of how far we’ve come. Ella is my forever-muse, so expect to see more of her! I can’t tell you what this series has meant to me. Thank you for being a part of it! <3

P.S. There may be an epilogue in the works!

@iheartsebastianstan @jjlizz @stuckysbabe @sk493494 @lefoutoir @nickangel13 @marvelismysafezone @lilulo-12 @warmvanillafeels @star-spangled-beard-burn @ravenesque @pinknerdpanda @wintersoldierissucharide @snapcapquartet @ellen-reincarnated1967 @unlistedpond (strikethrough means the tag didn’t work! I’m sorry!)

Bucky woke so well rested, it was almost startling.

When was the last time he’d slept that soundly? He couldn’t remember.

Rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, he looked at the sleeping form on his left. All curled up under the blankets, exposing just a few bits of your gorgeous skin.

It felt like a dream.

He couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his lips. How was it that you were here? After all he’d done to push you away, you never gave up on him.

Bucky laughed for a moment, recalling your stubbornness. Something he’d never thought he’d be grateful for.

What the hell did he do to deserve someone like you? You, who calmed the storm that had been raging inside him for nearly a century. All while dealing with demons of your own.

He kissed your forehead softly, not wanting to disturb you. As he stood from the bed, a sigh of contentment escaped his lips.

He was happy.

For the first time in God only knows how long, Bucky Barnes was happy, and it was all thanks to you.

The sound of running water and soft jazz woke you gently from your slumber.

Bucky’s scent surrounded you as you stretched, reveling in the memories from the night before.

You stood, grabbing your shirt from the night before and putting it on.

The bathroom door opened slowly, and quietly; Bucky assuming you were still sleeping. When he saw you were awake, he smiled.

“Good morning.” He said, walking to stand in front of you.

“Hi.” You said shyly.

His voice was different, lighter. Had he always sounded so...happy?

He leaned down, giving you a soft kiss. The still-wet tendrils of hair covering your cheeks in droplet of water.

The kiss was long, but sweet. “Any regrets?” He asked, playing with a loose strand of your hair.

You shook your head. “Not one. You?”

Bucky kisses you again, quickly this time. “Best night of my life, Doll.”

You smiled, sitting back down on his bed. “We gotta go to that debriefing, right?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, noon sharp.”

Silence fell over the room as Bucky dressed. It’s was calm, and comfortable. The two of you exchanged glances every now and then as he flitted around the room, smiling whenever his eyes met yours.

Bucky sat on the bed next to you. Your hands naturally intertwined, and he began playing with your fingers.

“So...” you said.

“So...” he responds with a smile.

You laughed softly, “Is now when we have that talk where we establish what we are?”

“What we are?” Bucky asked.

“Is there an echo in here?” You ask sarcastically, “I just wanna make sure we’re on the same page.”

He adjusted his position to face you. “Hey, I meant what I said Els. I love you. Even if last night hadn’t happened, I’d feel the exact same way.”

You smile, feeling your cheeks burn. “I-I love you, too.”

And you meant it. Your body was aglow with your feelings for him, every touch made you weak in the knees.

He lightened noticeably, stroking your cheek with his thumb and watched you for a moment. “God, you’re beautiful.”

The heat rushing to your cheeks was apparent, “Buck...” you griped shyly.

“What? Am I not allowed to call my girl beautiful?” He asked happily.

Butterflies swarmed in your stomach.

His girl.

“You are,” you said, kissing him quickly. “I’m just not used to it, it’s different...good different.”

He smiled, “Good. We have some time to kill before the meeting, any ideas?” He asked, standing in front of you.

“Breakfast?” You ask, standing.

Bucky looked at you slyly, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Bucky!” You chastised out of embarrassment. “I was thinking something like, oh I don’t know, waffles?”

He rolled his eyes dramatically, “Oh fine,” He griped, “You’re more of a dessert anyway.”

Your mouth hung open in shock as Bucky placed a small smack on your backside.

“Then we blew it to hell, and got the hell outta there.” Steve finished.

The debriefing was a success. You learned not only had HYDRA begun kidnapping children again, they were planning a large scale attack on the dark web to leech out encrypted data from every major government they could.

“Imagine if they got the nuclear codes...” Rhodes said coldly.

“Yeah...but they didn’t. Meeting adjourned, everyone go do something to de-stress.” Tony winked.

You stood from your seat next to Bucky, and hung back as everyone made their way to the door.

“You coming, Doll?” Bucky asked.

You nodded, “Go on, I’ll meet you on the dock.”

He smiled before turning to leave, and you heard Steve clear his throat.

“So...Doll, huh?” He smirked.

You slapped his shoulder playfully. “Oh hush, you.”

He put his hands up in defense, still with that signature Roger’s smile. “Hey Ella, I’m all for it. I told him a long time ago you two weren’t so different. I’m just glad he wised up.”

You looked out the windows of the conference room to see Bucky, he was skipping stones across the surface of the lake as he waited for you on the dock.

“He’s not like anyone I’ve ever known, Steve. He’s been through so much. I just hope I can make him happy.” Your voice was tinged with doubt.

Steve wasn’t having it. “Him? I hope he can make you happy. You deserve it just as much as he does.”

You smiled softly, “I hope that’s true.”

Steve continued, “I know Bucky. I’ve known him in this century and the last, and I’ve never seen him as happy as he is when he’s with you, Ella.”

Warmth filled your heart, “Thanks, Cap. I mean it. Thank you for saving my life—and changing my life. You didn’t owe me a damn thing, you could’ve walked away, but because of you...” you had to pause and blink back the tears.

Letting a shaky breath out, you continued. “I have a home...I have a family. I have a future, Steve.”

He stepped forward, enveloping you in his arms.

“I couldn’t have left you there. I saw what they’d done to you and...I don’t know. It made me furious, you were so defenseless, but you were a fighter. I saw it in your eyes the second I took you out of those chains. Besides, look at you now.” He kisses the top of your head.

“Love you, Steve.” You said earnestly.

“Love you right back, Ella.”

“Hiya, handsome.” You called to Bucky as your feet echoed off the dock.

He turned with a smile. “Hey gorgeous. I was starting to think you forgot about me.” His hands found your hips, and he pulled you close to him.

You stood on your tippy toes and kissed his lips quickly, and sighing contently. “Remind me again why it feels like I’ve known you my whole life?”

He chuckled, turning to walk with you to the edge of the dock. “Can’t answer that one, Sugar. But trust me, I know the feeling.”

Bucky let you sit first before he joined you. He kept an arm around you as you leaned into him.

“So what now?” You ask.

He let out a soft breath, before kissing the crown of your head.

“We’ll start over. Together. How’s that sound?” He asked.

You thought for a moment. “No.” You’d said.

He leaned back to look at you. “No?”

“There’s that echo again.” You joked.

“Els...” he scolded.

You turned slightly toward him. “I don’t wanna start over, Buck. Why should we? We’ve been through more this year than most people go through in a decade. We both deserve a win, and this can be ours.”

You saw a smile start to form on his lips as you spoke.

“Without all the shit that’s happened to us, neither of us would be here, and we certainly wouldn’t be here together. So let’s start from right now, and just...be.” You finished.

Bucky held your face in his hands for a moment, just looking at you.

“God damn, I’m a lucky son-of-a-bitch.” He kissed you deeply.

After that, you sat for what felt like hours. Sometimes it was quiet while you just leaned into one another, other times you’d swap stories from the happy parts of your lives—the parts you remember anyway.

“My Ma woulda loved you.” He said, grinning from ear to ear as you walked back to the compound.

Your heart fluttered, “Oh yeah?”

Bucky nodded, “Mhm, you call me on my crap, and you aren’t afraid to speak your mind. She was the same way.”

You smiled, stroking his beard lightly. “She sounds like a strong woman.”

He smiled at the ground, “Tough as nails, which was a rare commodity back then. Most dames thought it was best to shut up and look pretty.”

You giggled, “Dames, hm?”

His face turned red, “Showing my age a little there, huh?”

You held onto Bucky’s hand, tugging him into the elevator. “Lounge,” you announced. “It happens a lot, especially when you tell stories from back in the day.”

He squeezed your hand, the cool metal now the same temperature as your flesh. “Sorry, Doll.”

You looked at him seriously, “Why would you ever be sorry about that? I love it, Buck. It’s you being you, the real you. That’s all I want.”

The doors opened, and you caught Sam walking by.

“Well if it ain’t the love birds.” He quipped.

“Sam...” you groaned, embarrassed.

“Only teasing, Punchline,” He laughed. “But for the record? Called it.” He smiled ear to ear.

You rolled your eyes at his childish giggle.

“You guys wanna eat? We ordered enough Chinese food to feed an army.” He said, gesturing to the lounge.

You looked to Bucky, who shrugged. “Sounds good to me, Sugar.

You followed Sam into the lounge. Everyone was talking and joking around the large table.

You looked on for a moment, it was still so surreal. This was your home and these people you’ve come to care so much for not only accepted you, but wanted you around.

“Els, you okay?” Bucky asked as he handed you a play.

You nod and smile, “I’m great, just thinking.”

“What about?” He asked, stroking your arm.

You look up into his cerulean eyes, and kiss him slowly before you speak.

“How ridiculous it is that this is my life. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, Buck.” You felt the sting of tears brim your eyes.

Bucky kisses your forehead, “Come on, Baby Doll. Let’s eat.”

You lay in your bed with Bucky. He’s reading a book about modern technology’s effect on the century and you scrolled through your phone.

Juxtaposition at its finest.

Being here, this way with him. It felt like this is where you’d been meant to be all your life. You smiled before looking at him.

“Did you even think we’d be here?” You ask.

Bucky chuckled deeply, “I didn’t think I’d see this century, Baby Doll.”

You laughed with him. “Is it still weird for you?” You ask.

He shook his head. “Not really, not anymore.”

It’s remarkable. How easy it suddenly was with Bucky. Not that you’d ever forget what you’ve been through both with him and without him, but it felt right.

And your heart felt at peace.

“Els?” He called.

“Hm?”

He turned to you slightly, “For the record, I don’t know what I did to deserve you either.”

You put your phone down and looked up, only to see him smiling down at you.

You sighed contently, snuggling into him even more. Bucky abandons his book on the nightstand and holds you close.

“It’s a good life, Sugar.” He says, kissing the crown of your head.

You press your cheek to his chest and hear his heart beating rapidly beneath you.

“Now it is, Buck. Now it is.”

[official-archivist-keith]

Keith sat down with the paper and the statement before turning on the tape recorder. He took a breath, he was starving... hopefully this would help.

"Statement of Sunil Maraj regarding their work as a security guard and the disappearance of their co-worker, Samson Stiller. Original statement given 3rd April, 2011. Audio recording by Keith Kogane, the Archivist.

Statement begins."

"So I lost my job last week. I mean, I quit, they didn’t fire me or nothing. But you know how like sometimes you quit because you want to, and sometimes you quit because you’ve got to? Well, this was the second, although I’m not gonna pretend I’m not glad to see the back of the place.

It’s ‘cause I kept asking about Samson, you know? And what I saw. And they really, really don’t want me to make a stink about that. Because if he just disappeared one day, didn’t come into work, that’s fine - I mean, not fine for his family, obviously, or the police who have to find him, but fine for the company. If he disappeared at work, though - if what I think happened is even close to what actually happened - then that’s real bad news for them, and opens them up to all sorts of lawsuits and liability.

I mean, it’s fine, I can get other jobs, and it’s not like I really want to be working there after what happened, but I just wish someone would take it seriously. It’s messed up, and I’m having a real hard time getting out of my head.

So, I work security right? Used to be, a company or shop would have its own little security force they put together, did all the in-store and CCTV vigilance stuff. These days, it’s all centralized, though. You tend to have a building or a shopping central contract all the security work out to a single company, who’ll then cover all the businesses or shops. It’s easier, from a centralizing point of view, and cheaper, if that’s what the owners like.

But it does mean that there tends to be a lot less stability and how it’s all structured, personnel-wise, at least. If you’re lucky, you’ll be assigned to a post and stay there for years, getting to know the place, the systems, your co-workers. If you’re unlucky, or there’s contract difficulties, you could easily end up moving through two or three different places in as many months.

That was kind of the case for me and Samson. We were the odd men out in a lot of ways. We’d originally been brought in for a big corporate office block near Liverpool Street, but there’d been some problem and the whole place had to be closed up for months. Samson said they found asbestos, I heard it was a lease issue, but it doesn’t really matter. Point is, they hired us for a job that no longer existed.

I expected they’d just get rid of us, but I mean to their credit, they did try to do right. They did their best to fit us in with other security teams: I mean, over the last two years we did a couple of data centers, a digital marketing hub - whatever that is - three different office buildings near Kings Cross… trouble was, every time, almost as soon as we got there, there’d be some personnel changes, or expiring contracts, or some other trouble, and generally, as the last in the door, we were the first to get reassigned. Started to feel a bit like we were cursed, you know?

Samson took it harder than I did. I mean, I’m young, my mum’s got a flat in Hackney, and to be honest, most of my evenings are out with friends or in with black ops, so the moving around was pretty much fine with me. Sam had a three-year-old, though, and lived way down in Morden, so being thrown from one post to another all the time was really kind of getting to him. He tried to talk to me about it a few times, but honestly, we weren’t that close. Or rather, we were close because we’d always worked together, but we didn’t have a huge amount in common. I mean, I tried to talk to him about football for a while, but I think he could tell I was talking out of my ass. Anyway, point is, when we were reassigned to a shopping centre in Stratford, he wasn’t in a great place.

Now, I’m not sure I can legally name the shopping center I was working in to you guys, but let’s just say it wasn’t the Westfield. It was old, clearly been around decades, and the security systems really showed it. I mean, one of the shops still had the original alarms from the late 70s, and plenty of them still had cameras that recorded to VHS, for God’s sake.

The security office was a mess. The company I worked for - again, dunno if I can legally say them, but you can look it up, you know - they have a package where they replace all your equipment and systems with the stuff we use. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it, if only because we all know exactly how to use that stuff.

Whoever was running this shopping center had very much not opted for that particular contract. I mean, the teams before us had made a valiant effort to centralize and integrate all the feeds and setups into just the one control room, but… damn, that place was a mess. Flat screens, next to banks of old CRT monitors that some of the cameras had to feed into, next to racks of channel banks, and a few actual, honest-to-god computers, that tried their best to wrestle everything into something that was almost usable.

I found it properly overwhelming, didn’t like the place at all. But Sam actually seemed to get on with it pretty well almost from the get-go. He’d apparently been an engineer back in the day, and something about all those old surveillance systems, all tied together, all wrapping into and around each other like some weird nest of cameras… it seemed to really appeal to him. The first week he was there he spent almost the entire time playing with the system and the wiring… left me to do most of the other work on my own. Well, I mean… there were the other guys working there, of course, but even the ones who’d been there awhile started to get the picture and gave Samson a bit of a wide berth after a few days.

He really did seem to get the place in a bit better order. I mean, some of it, only he really understood, but soon enough it actually made sense - what we were watching and when - and he managed to get rid of some of the delay, so that we even managed to catch a couple of shoplifters.

There was only one piece of equipment that seemed to give him any trouble. It was this old Tecton multicamera recorder from the late 80s, managed the feeds for one of the various budget shoe shops that lined the promenade.

It didn’t seem all that complicated when you just looked at it, but trying to use it was an absolute nightmare. None the buttons seemed to do exactly what you wanted them to do, and there were all sorts of sequences where pressing a button, holding a button, pressing it three times, all that - they’d all do really different things.

Sam spent almost a whole month wrestling with it, before he finally cracked and he asked Dave - the bearded old guy who we all sort of assumed had been there the longest? - whether they still had any of the old operating manuals.

I remember the smell of dust when Dave went and cracked open the filing cabinet in the back room, before waving his arms in the direction of the drawer and shrugging. I mean, I’d have just left it, obviously, but I think Samson was taking the whole knowing how the system works thing as like - a point of pride? Something he could salvage from the whole situation. Just a way of getting some control over his life, you know?

So he found the manual. More of a pamphlet, really. Can’t have been more than ten pages of A5 in the whole thing, yellowed and water-damaged. Well-used, though. Someone had even put their name in the front, like they were afraid people were gonna steal a manky instruction book.

Still, Sam just couldn’t put it down. I mean, it was like 10 in the morning when we finally found it, and when I went in at 2:00 to see if he’d taken his lunch break yet, he was still sat there, just staring at it. I mean, I’m not a fast reader, or anything but that’s a lot, right?

And like - okay, so this is the part that you’re definitely gonna think I’m having a joke with you, but I’m honestly not, I’m dead serious. Because I saw some of the pages over his shoulder, and on one of them there was, there was a picture of me.

Like, a black-and-white photo of my face. I didn’t get a good look, but it certainly wasn’t one that I remember having taken. Not that would make it any less weird for it to be printed in an old CCTV manual from back when I was doing nappies. And I’m not making it up, I swear.

Then Samson turned, and he looked at me, and I don’t know, I got real spooked. His eyes were all - messed up. Like, weird. And glassy. It was really, really freaky, and I just turned and I got out of there. That wasn’t the end of it, though. If it had been then sure, maybe I write it off as a weird dream, where I was tired or whatever, but no. Because from that point, on Samson just gets creepier.

For a start, he’s always at work. I mean, we’re not always on the same shift, so it takes me a while to notice, but when I ask him about it, he just says that our schedules must have synced up weird. But whenever I arrived, there he was, staring at the monitors, watching all the people come and go, his eyes wide like he was drinking it all in. And whenever I was there late, and it was my turn to close up, he’d always say that he was happy to do it, say I could head off a few minutes early.

So, I never actually saw him leave. I tried to stay once, said I needed to do it myself, but he just got real quiet, like… real quiet, and stared at me.

The bank of monitors was behind him, and I’m just trying to come up with something to say, get him to talk to me… and one by one, they began to just wink off, turning dark.

And I got this feeling, deep in my gut, that if that last monitor turned off, then something really bad was gonna happen to me. It was one of the old CRT sets, big, and bulky, and the picture on it was never that clear, but for a moment it looked like it was me on there. Staring right back at myself as the screens slowly went black, getting closer and closer. The face on the monitor looked absolutely terrified, and I was starting to feel it myself.

So I just tried to smile, told him not to worry about it, and I headed out as quick as I could. My legs were shaking so hard I almost fell on the way out.

Then there were the actual cameras. I mean, you work in a shopping center, obviously you do a bunch of shopping there. I used to get my lunch, for one, and usually pick up any of the essentials I needed. Sometimes, if I was feeling hard done by and it was payday, I might buy myself a new shirt, or a game, or something.

And obviously, because I work security, I know where all the cameras are. where they cover, even how they move. A lot of them are completely static, just pointing at one place. But gradually, I start to notice something when I’m shopping. It’s like a tickling, creeping sensation all over the back of my neck. Like I’m being watched.

So I start to keep an eye on the cameras when I’m in the shops, and you know what, I’m right. They’re following me. Whenever I look at them - doesn’t matter where it was they were meant to be aimed - they’re always focused right on me.

I keep staring at them, moving around, and they just shift to keep the lens pointed at me. But they’re not articulated, they don’t have any motor or swivel mount they just… move. Pointed right at me.

One time, when no one in the store was looking, I threw a can of deodorant at one of them. Hit it square on. Samson wore sunglasses for the next two days, and when I caught a glimpse of him without them, there was a crack right down the center of his eye.

I tried to talk to the others. I’m pretty sure that they were getting similar weirdness from them. they were all jumpy and nervous those last few months. But I was known as Sam’s friend. We’d come in together and everyone just assumed we were close. When I started to ask about it, about what was going on, they just clammed up like I was trying to get them in trouble. My nerves were all shot to hell.

I wasn’t in work the week he disappeared. I’d called in with a bullshit stomach thing. I just needed a break, some time to get my head right. It was almost working, you know? A little distance, a little space to relax. I was starting to feel good.

Then I got the call from Dave. He was frantic.

I couldn’t make out half of what he was saying over the bad line, but he kept saying Samson’s name. Asking me if I “knew,” if he’d “told me.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but he kept screaming at me. He kept saying, I must know, he must have told me what was going on. He kept saying, “what do we do with his eyes?”

I mean, I didn’t know what the hell to say, I just went quiet listening to Dave as he started sobbing down the phone

“He won’t stop,” he said. “We can’t get rid of his face.”

I hung up. And Dave was gone when I went back in. A bunch of them were, all quit suddenly. I wanted to check in with them, find out what happened, but we’d never really been friends, and I didn’t know any of their details.

I never saw Samson again, either. Though, I did find his old work shirt in the back. It was torn to shreds, wrapped around that old instruction manual. I put it back in the filing cabinet, and I threw the shirt away.

I tried to stick around, to do my job, but I was asking too many questions for the folks upstairs, I think. I wanted to know why Samson hadn’t signed out of the building before he disappeared. Why, no matter who tried to reset the system, it always logged back in as him.

Why, whenever I was watching the monitors alone, I’d see him on that old CRT screen. Staring right back at me. Quietly calling for me to join him."

"Statement ends." Keith let out an exhale, "Much better..."

@zombieapocalypsekeith

[itscinnafox]

We need more fics where Furihata isn't just shivering scardy-chihuahua and actually have intellectual conversation with Akashi.

I mean Furihata is an over thinker, he's cautious and intuitive too so naturally he would be nervous whenever there's something that poses a threat. Think about it ; he isn't scared of Akashi or any of the GoM, he is aware of their talents and he is aware of himself too, he knows his capabilities and he recognises their capabilities, thus he becomes cautious because he has good instincts to keep a good distance, which means he's observant, watches and learn to adapt.

When Kagami and Kuroko overheard the trio (Fukuda, Kawahara and Furihata) having a conversation about quitting the club, it was Furihata who objected wanted to keep going, not because he was scared because he was determined and knows where they stand despite knowing his lack of capabilities compared to their starting teams and even Kagami and Kuroko.

Having the determination to stay beside those stronger than him is what makes him the bravest. Being shaken and nerve-wrecked in front of even Kasamatsu, shows how he's fully aware of himself.

Furihata has confidence issues I don't think it is out of insecurities, but merely because as again, he is aware of himself and those around him. Furihata is extremely observant, calculative and tentative. Which what makes him smart even more than Kuroko sometimes. Because Furihata knows that anything can happen at any given moment, in episodes it shows that most of Furihata's dialogues are base on his observation. Heck if anything, Furihata is next to scariest when in comes to intelligence, even Midorima isn't in par, Midorima is smart but he's necessarily wise and realistic. Kuroko is witty, but Furihata is next to being able to know a possible outcome if he's not careful. Who else does this when he's in right state of mind? Akashi, plenty of times he has backed out when he knows it's not worth to push it.

Furihata's realistic, which means he's more down to earth and is able to face truth, which directs as again to his self-awareness and those around him. Those who can take the hit in the face are those who are able to improve themselves and change for the better.

The GoM are over confident, so when it comes to strategizing, Furihata would be able to beat them because he would recognise when someone are over themselves loses their focus, which means, Furihata would be steps ahead of them because they're predictable. I would dare say even Momoi wouldn't come close to Furihata is they were in a strategy game, because Momoi's intelligence comes from her knowledge of gathering data's and how to use it against them, put her in a line with nothing, Furihata would have gathered all necessary details so he would adapt. Furihata is street smart rather than book smart, I'd say he even be good at chess if he knows the rules.

Also he seems to be aware of Akashi's dual personality which, I'd say he was more alert and knows where to stand back when needed to. Which shows that he knows that Akahi is unpredictable, and what happens when you see someone unpredictable? You keep your guard up and run the fuck for the hills, because Furihata's cautious and isn't dumb to have himself expose to danger, which equals to being smart and not run head on like a bull.

The senior trio of Seirin's starting team shows their confidence in Furihata, they do regard him highly as shown in drama CD, even Kagami and Kuroko respects his credibility as a beginner. Hyuuga is a captain, who somehow 'hinted' that Furihata has the ability to lead and tame team members, Izuki sees Furihata as the next skilled point guard which requires one to be very observant and strategise for the team while playing, Kiyoshi sees Furihata as someone who is caring and always offer his aid to any members, which shows how he is able to take care of his member's well being, one example, he notices a lot of times when Kuroko and Kagami over exert themselves, and he was the first to offer to tape Kiyoshi, and he hands water bottles to everybody (HE IS A SWEETHEART).

Now this brings me to another point which is the captains of the other teams. Who are captains and point guards? Kasaamatsu, Akashi, Nash, Imayoshi, Hanamiya. What does this point guard captains have in common? They're the smartest, scariest and head-strong. Furihata is one himself, only difference is, he's more soft hearted and much more receptive to his members. I'd say he'd be best captain if it's canon. Kasamatsu recognise Furihata's abilities once he saw what Furihata actually did in the court, and at certain scenes, Imayoshi even showed that he was impressed and surprised with Furihata's capabilities. Aomine was even surprised that the chihuahua actually faced Akashi and didn't back down.

More reason that I ship them and think they'd be the best duo in KnB. Akashi's intelligent, but Furihata is more of a strategist, and they'd go hand in hand when it comes to solving any problems.

Furihata's star sign? Is a scorpio, now scorpio's are witty and sneaky (*cough* Loki) they're also deceptive. Now his outward 'weakness' might just be a facade he unconsciously puts up to guard himself so no one would predict him. Now I'll add different character from a different anime who is a scorpio and extremely intelligent to compensate his physical strength; Armin Arlert from AoT. Yeh that's that's right, I just slap this two together because they are alike, both scorpios, both strategist, both have confidence issues, both observant, both always steps ahead and most importantly both willing to sacrifice themselves for their team members..... also I ship them both with equally smart badasses and their badass boyfriends are fire signs: Akashi a sagittarius and Jean an aries. Both are smart and gentle in their own way and knows when to back out. (Hoho a slap of my own shipship facts)

So I seriously enjoy dark-themed AkaFuri fics where Furihata is shown to be smart.

Plus note: He witnessed Akashi almost jabbing a scissors at Kagami. WHO WOULDN'T FREAK OUT?

*slaps roof of post* this contains so much Furi love.

[adhd-sorcha]

Im trying to get into the medical field and I have a super hard time with adhd. Any advice for getting through all that schooling?

I am soooo sorry I took so long to answer this (good thing you didn’t go on anon!). I have no excuse, I’m just like this.

Before I get into anything, I just want to say that I was only diagnosed a few months ago, so I didn’t go through school consciously coming up with ADHD-busting strategies and there were definitely mysterious difficulties that I’m only now understanding but at the time I never managed to sort (*shakes fist at essay based subjects/exams*). I will tell you what I think were my accidental ADHD-helping techniques though! One other thing, I have predominantly inattentive ADHD ( or formerly ADD) so if you or anyone else are looking for tips on how to stay seated for extended periods or anything like that, I’m afraid I’m no help there. Sorry!! Also, since I don’t know what stage you’re at school-wise, I’ll include things that I found useful in secondary school too, in case it’s useful.

So, in no particular order! (this may get long...)

- Diary, diary, diary: In the schools (primary and secondary) here in Ireland you get given a diary at the start of the year. At the end of every class, the teacher writes up the homework and we copy it into our diaries. Great system!! The diary is only for school so it never needs to leave your school bag, so it should be hard enough to forget. I used to only write short notes, eg. Maths: pg 20, part a-e or something like that. It makes it easy to look through at the end of the day when collecting your books to bring home. I used to look at one line, put those books in my bag, then look at the next line. One at a time. And I often double-checked. It made me slower to get ready to leave than everyone else, but hey! I remembered my stuff! I got myself a diary for college when I moved on. They are soooo helpful. And it’s so satisfying to tick things off as you do them!!

- Have ONE school bag: Might sound weird, but I know people who, in college, just bring whatever handbag matches their outfit that day. No! You’re going to forget to transfer something over. With one bag, you can keep your school diary and pens and student card and things like that in it. They will always be in there. No need to go moving them around, they’ll only get lost if you do that. It just helps to limit the things that you have to remember to bring with you, if your bag is already kind of packed as a default.

- Take advantage of desk/locker space: Keep spare items at your desk/in your locker so that even if you forget to put them in your bag, you’re still covered. Things that I’ve kept at desks/in lockers include: spare pair of glasses, hair ties for labs, spare writing paper (so it doesn’t matter if you forgot your copy!), pens/highlighters/pencils, socks (it rains a lot here, probably not the most relevant...). Absolutely anything that you think you may be likely to forget and is safe to leave at school just keep a spare one already there! (maybe don’t leave valuables...)

- Set your timetable as your lockscreen/homescreen: I’ve never done this one personally. I kept my timetable in my diary. I find it easier to read. But, I know a few people who used to make out their timetable in Word or something and set that as the lockscreen on their phone. People tend to keep their phones somewhere that’s easy to reach, so it shouldn’t conflict too much with executive dysfunction or anything like that.

- Routine: Having a set routine can really help with getting homework done. It becomes a habit and so a certain amount becomes automatic. I used to do mine as soon as I got home from school/college. And I had a set time for when to start my work at the weekends.

- Bring the lecture slides to lectures: I assume this will vary by college, but our lecturers used to post their lecture slides to the class site before the lecture so you could bring them to class. You could either bring the pdf on a tablet/laptop or print them off. (If you’re using a tablet/laptop you can always download the notes when you get there so it’s okay if you forgot to do it before class!). I found these helpful because I only had to make note of the extra information that the lecturer said out loud or I could just highlight important words, thereby limiting the amount I actually had to write. When I just had blank paper, I was always trying to write everything for some reason and just became lost...

- Make study notes that suit you! I remember being shown in school how to make notes when studying. But I found the standard neat lines, black/blue pen that teachers wanted didn’t work for me. They were boring to look at so they were boring to use. So I made them interesting! I used lots of colourful pens, sticky notes just to create little ‘boxes’, scribbled in the margins, drew labelled diagrams instead of putting some things into words. People would actually ask from time to time how I studied from them XD Study notes are one of those things that we’re taught how to do, but there really isn’t a one size fits all approach to it, so don’t be afraid to do different things with your notes. I used mind maps to study history in school! Here’s an example of my 3rd year pharmacology notes (believe it or not there isn’t any colour-coding XD I just went with what was fun!). 

- Have a study buddy: This seriously helped me when I moved from school to college. The two girls I became friends with in first year were so much better at organising study and assignment work between lectures than I was. They’d just automatically go to the library to get stuff done between lectures so I went with them and just worked on whatever they were working on. Having them around kept me on track. We did this informally (by which I mean I’ve only recently come to realise that copying their behaviour is why I got through my first two years so well, they have no idea that that’s what I was doing XD), but you could always formalise something like this with someone. There is no shame in needing someone to help you organise your study or needing someone around to work on assignments together.  You don’t have to do education on your own.

- Have multiple study places: I know study advice normally says have one dedicated location for study, but that gets so boring. I might be able to study at my desk in my room this month but then it gets boring and I can’t study. So, I have multiple dedicated locations for study. My desk at my room, the main college library, library on a different campus. People with ADHD like novelty, so sometimes I find having a change in study scenery can help focus on work!

- ASK FOR HELP: To be fair, this is one I still struggle with myself. But honestly, so many problems can be solved so easily if you just tell someone about them. Can’t remember when that exam is happening? Ask. Don’t know how to make that application/do that assignment? Ask. What did those instructions even mean? Ask. Forget where that office is? Ask. So many educators, particularly at third level, genuinely want their students to do well, but they can’t help if they don’t know you need it. I know for myself I don’t want people to know how disorganised or confused I get so I put off asking questions, but the sooner you ask, the sooner the problem gets fixed!

- If you need to do something differently, do it differently: Before I started my leave I was starting to realise that my having ADHD meant that I would have to do things differently to my neurotypical labmates. I was going to need to write more reminders of basic things for myself and stick them all over my bench. I was probably going to generate data more slowly than them because time management and organisation is difficult for me. I was going to need to have a detailed protocol next to me at all times instead of knowing the procedure off by heart like the rest of them. The neurotypical way is not the only way. Doing something differently does not make it wrong.

- Be kind to yourself: The education system is tough enough on it’s own, but those of us with ADHD have some extra obstacles in our way. There really is no point in comparing yourself to someone who doesn’t have ADHD (or similar problems) and berating yourself for not getting as much done as them or doing something slower etc etc. Don’t let ADHD limit you by any means, just remember that the route to success looks different for different people.

I think I’ll stop it here. This is getting quite long! Like I said, I’m newly diagnosed so there are things that I’m still struggling with myself (time-management is a big one!! I am 100% unqualified to give people advice on that one!!) and the things that I have done well have been more lucky accident than anything else. I hope these are somewhat helpful? Feel free to ask anymore questions though! And I wish you the best of luck with getting into medicine!!

[honestly-weird-weirdly-honest]

Project 1 - How I plan to lose around 42 kg / 90 lbs (of fat)

First off, here is my weigh in for today:

Weight: 99,5 kg / 219 lbs

Body fat: 55,7 %

Waist: 98,5 cm / 38,7"

Hips: 124 cm / 48,8"

Ok, so as I already said in my first post, I suck at self discipline and am one of those people who procrastinate until the deadline is actually breathing down my neck or I get so stressed about it that I snap, and then I do The Thing in one big rush of manic energy and usually crash into bed afterwards and feel like I need to sleep for a week. But as just about anyone can tell you, losing weight does not work like that, especially if your trying to lose a lot of weight like I am.

So instead, I've gone down a research rabbithole, reading everything I can get my hands on, watching youtube videos, reading fitness and weight loss blogs, and so on.

I have never seen so much contradicting information in my life, and an alarming amount of pro eating disorder blogs; I now have the intense desire to stress that

 I am NOT pro mia, pro ana, or pro any eating disorder.

I've got enough to deal with mental health wise without adding another disorder, so no thanks. My goal is to get fit and healthy, losing weight is just one part of that journey.

So how does one lose weight in a healthy way? For a bit I was confused about what I should be doing, as I said I found a lot of contradicting advice, so many different diet plans, leave out carbs, go vegan, low fat. low carb high protein. Only drink cold water, only drink lukewarm water, negative calorie foods, superfoods, and so on, and nothing seemed to fit together. I was going a bit crazy until I contacted a friend of mine who had lost a lot of weight a few years back, and hasn't regained it since. I asked her what the hell she did to figure out which advice to follow and what to do, and she recommended this book to me:

Conquering Fat Logic: How to Overcome What We Tell Ourselves about Diets, Weight, and Metabolism; by Dr. Nadja Hermann

This book was a godsend. Seriously, it's exactly what I was looking for.

This book is NOT a diet plan or a "this is how you lose 20 lbs in 4 days" type book. Actually it's the opposite.

Basically the author looks at studies regarding weight loss, malnutrition, obesity and so on, and interprets and explains the data so that it actually makes sense, without sensationalizing it like the media does.

One of the points she drives home is that a lot of studies quotes about weight loss based their data on self observation. The problem with that is that people are absolutely terrible at estimating and if you don't check self observation, you will get wonky data.

Even trained nutritionists could not accurately estimate the amount of food they eat, much less the calories it contains, and the more the test subjects weighed, the bigger their margin of error was.

If you actually want to know what your ins and outs are, you need to weigh everything and write it down. 

You've probably seen just as many studies as I have, claiming things like "Thin people eat more chocolate / sugar / fast food" etc. Those studies most likely worked off of self-observation by the subjects (I've checked a few, and they all did). So anything I read along those lines, I now disregard.

So the book basically breaks down scientific studies and facts into bite-sized info, giving the reader the information you need to understand how metabolisms work and to develop a plan from there.

The 3 main things I learned from reading this book:

1) If your calories in are lower that your calories out, you will lose weight. Do not rely on estimates and guesswork, measure and write down what you eat and drink!

2) Losing or gaining large amounts of weight over night is very likely water weight. That can fluctuate quickly and depends on several factors including hormones, so look at you overall curve instead of stressing about every day's specific numbers.

3) Malnutrition doesn't depend on your caloric intake. You can be eating double or tripple your BMR (basal metabolic rate = the calories your body burns to stay alive) and still be malnourished, or you can be running a deficit and be just fine. If you watch what your eating, check for proteins, vitamins and other essential nutrients, you can cover your needs easily with a greatly reduced caloric intake. If your not sure, check with your doctor, They can do a blood test and tell you if you need to change something or maybe take a vitamin supplement. 

Obviously there is a lot more information in the book than these 3 points, there is also a lot of info on obesity related diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, sleep apnea and so on. That part is a bit hard to get through as it gets a bit dry, but it helped me to actually understand the dangers of my obesity and helped me to solidify my resolve to change. It also has a chapter on conditions and medications that are associated with weight gain, a chapter on gaining weight for those trying to do that, and several other topics related to body weight and health.

Basically, if anyone reading this blog is struggling to find some facts in the chaos that surrounds losing weight, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

So after reading this book, re-reading it, reading it again and taking copious amounts of notes, rethinking the things I thought I knew and starting to watch what I actually eat (without changing anything at first, I wanted to get a feel for my current normality) I came up with this plan:

 - I will be eating about 1500-1700 kcal a day. This is my BMR, so arond what my body would burn if I lay in bed all day, but as I do get up, walk around and so on I will be in a low deficit. I am starting with a rather low deficit because normally I tnd to overeat, and I want to get use to eating less slowly so I don't feel hungry and get irritated all the time. Once I get use to that, I might go a bit lower, but we will see.

With this deficit I should be losing about 1 - 1,5 kg (2.2 - 3.3 lbs) / week.  

 - I am going to start eating a mostly protein based diet, because apparently I haven't been getting enough of those.

Proteins are needed to build and maintain muscle mass, so this will be critical for me.

The studies referred to in the book I mentioned say you need about 0,8 - 2 g of protein per kg bodyweight per day; the low end of the scale is for people who are not all that active, 

meaning no workouts, the high end is for people who are actively training alot. Again, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole cross checking multiple sites and found the same general figures, varying only very slightly.

As I am not going to start a high intensity training right away I will be aiming for about 1-1,5 g of protein per kilo per day at first. Once I start more intensive training I will be cranking that up as well.

 - I am starting an easy workout program, about 30 minutes of beginners yoga per day, and some zumba type dance workouts for cardio (because those are actually fun and not just torturous like jogging is for me).

Once I've lost some weight (about 10-12 kg / 22-26 lbs), I will add some body weight exercises or weight training. I am waiting on these so I don't put an inordinate amount of stress on my joints, they have been working far to hard lugging around my bulk for the past few years anyway.

So there you have it. This is my plan, and I really hope this will work.

I’d really like to hear if anyone is follwing or has followed a similar plan, perhaps we can keep each other motivated!

Have a good one everybody!

[tsukiprotranslations]

[Translation] Machine Elements - Cast Presentation: Procellarum

Hey, y’all!! Here’s Procella’s introduction for Machine Elements~! As usual, thank you to @ryuukia for working on the Tsukiuta and Empire-related pages for Machine Elements~! 

I guess the next one would be Swiiiiiits?? Can’t say for sure when it will actually be finished though XD But please look forward to them, too~

※ Please don’t re-post and re-translate this interview under any circumstances. If you want to translate it to your native language, I can provide the kanji I transcribed from the scans ^^

Under the cut, enjoy~!

SHIMOTSUKI SHUN

“Now, everyone, are you ready? This is the beginning of a sweet adventure ☆” PROFILE:

NAME: Shimotsuki Shun

GUILD: Procellarum (※Guild master)

BASE: The White Demon Stone [Byakko]

□ A young man who is the master of Procellarum, a guild said to be legendary. He’s someone impossible to get a grip of, and overflows with playfulness in more than one way.

□ He basically seems to only stay at the base, [Byakko], where he drinks tea elegantly while waiting for the return of his fellow Procellarum members, who fly around the world. Next to him appears to be a large animal from the cat family that resembles something which could only possibly come out of legends.

□ A few hundreds years old photo of a young man who resembles him perfectly came to light, and since then rumours about him being immortal have flooded the world. There are too many mysteries surrounding him. 

COMMENT:

Welcome, to the [Kisosekai] world! I’m Procellarum’s leader, Shimotsuki Shun. This time the world is filled with cutting-edge yet broken machines, with primitive machines and plants. There’s a bit of magic, plus a variety of beings come to coexist despite not having any sense of conformity, and still, this world is filled with possibilities. There are so many things that come out of this chaos. Now, I wonder what will come to life this time? Let’s have a look together at everyone’s great adventure while having some refined tea. 

FUDUKI KAI

“Roger. If that’s the case, let’s move forward at full speed, everyone!” 

PROFILE:

NAME: Fuduki Kai

GUILD: Procellarum

BASE: The White Demon Stone [Byakko]

□ Procellarum’s elder brother and the one in the position of adviser. Behind his roughness and big heart hides someone acknowledged for his reliability and for his abilities to slip though during battle scenes.

□ He came to own a personal ship due to switching between their general shop from [Touda] and the [Byakko] base quite often. The ship’s name is [Leon]. It appears that sometimes he goes on trips to faraway countries with this ship.

□ As it can be seen, judging the loupe placed over his right eye, he loves tinkering with the machines. Sometimes he also hangs a notice for Shun before going to excavate the ruins. ��

COMMENT:

Hello, Fuduki Kai here! This time the Procella team rises in the world once again as a legendary guild! As a general merchant, I cooperate in settling the mundane troubles that appear in the neighbourhood, but in the back I seem to be doing things like treasure hunting all over the world. Let me say, I’ve been, really, so looking forward to this! I love it (laughs). Although there are restrictions in the world view, Procella and Gravi are some sort of exceptional appearances and we have as many weapons as we want. I’ve been wanting to use a whip and when I made the suggestion they said OK. Expect me to (maybe) handle a whip splendidly!   

HADUKI YOU

“Ah, seriously. You’re so troublesome!”

PROFILE:

NAME: Haduki You

GUILD: Procellarum

BASE: The White Demon Stone [Byakko]

□ Among the Procellarum members, he’s the one who flies around the most, and also the one who holds the instigator position. He seems to go around ruins all over the world, where he collects samples. 

□ His favourite phrase is ‘troublesome’, and despite coming across only troubles or problems during his journeys around ruins, he is sometimes the one who takes up the contrary position and he’s good at taking care of others. When problems with women (of any age) arise, he will 100% help.

□ Physique-wise, he’s especially tall and nimble. On the spur of the moment, his ability to judge the situation is also very high. Furthermore, his strength during fights is particularly good too due to using a mysterious weapon bestowed to him by Shun. Also, he might have possibly beat a group of certain outlaws by himself?

COMMENT:

Everyone, were you waiting for my cool action scenes~? I have some this time around too… or to be more exact, they’re too many (laughs)! And, this is Haduki You. Even with that in mind, I’ll still do my best to retort to whatever happens. There’s even wire action, so if you came this far, you have to enjoy yourself watching it! Kicking the rascals in order to help the girls in need sounds like something I’d do, right? I’m flashy from the very first appearance, so make sure you burn my cool form into your mind. I leave the cheering to you!

NAGATSUKI YORU

“Okay, let’s get to work without complaining.”

PROFILE:

NAME: Nagatsuki Yoru

GUILD: Procellarum

BASE: The White Demon Stone [Byakko]

□ Procellarum’s earnest member. He and Shun are seen together with Byakko here and there, however he usually takes care of office work and has side jobs. He may have quite the docile looks, but as expected from the member of a guild said to be legendary, he moves around a lot.

□ His side jobs include making canned food. This miracle collaboration born from using Yoru’s pre-possessed cooking abilities and a machine invented by Shun created the canned food titled ‘Nagatsuki Madness’. Procellarum’s rumoured source of income is from delivering the canned food to celebrity shops from all over the world.   

□ In an unexpected turn of events, he decided to go the Art City ‘Rikugo’ while working as a general merchant in ‘Touda’ together with Rui.

COMMENT:

Hello, I’m Procellarum’s Nagatsuki Yoru. In a mysterious world where machines and plants blend together…...I’m making canned food (laughs)! There is actually an interesting scene in this story where I’m making canned food. I use, in fact, a machine that makes the canned food, though I couldn’t help but want one for the dorm too (laughs)! 

I may seem to enjoy my days peacefully, but starting with the arrival in the Art City, the story surrounding the mysteries of the world will enfold. It seems I have a few action scenes, so I will do my best!

MINADUKI RUI

“......These sounds are nostalgic.”

PROFILE:

NAME: Minaduki Rui

GUILD: Procellarum

BASE: The White Demon Stone [Byakko]

□ Among the Procellarum members, he and Iku are in charge of the shop management in ‘Touda’. More exactly, he’s responsible of the indoors part. As the one who handles information, he sorts and communicates every single detail concerning Procellarum.  

□ He developed his own unique code using sounds, which seems to have reduces the risk of information leakage instantly. 

□ He has unusual instincts and the data he picks up usually have something more hidden to them. Based on his standing in the Twelve Regions, he is usually the one who manages to get Shun the knowledge that he wants due to his vast networks of information.

□ By coincidence, he decided to visit the Art City ‘Rikugo’ together with Yoru. While he was there, he met Kakeru and Koi. He’s usually an indoor type of person but he was running around with the other two.

COMMENT:

Hi, I’m Procellarum’s Minaduki Rui. This time the concept of the stage play is steampunk. The costumes are cool, and cute, right? There are ornaments on the costume that may or may not have meaning, and there are also parts that are really necessary. I love them. It seems like there are also official merch for this world-view so please, check them as well. I diligently worked on advertising. 

KANNADUKI IKU

“Shun-san! Won’t you leave this to me?”

PROFILE:

NAME: Kannaduki Iku

GUILD: Procellarum

BASE: The White Demon Stone [Byakko]

□ He’s the most light-footed member of Procellarum who’s also in charge of the guild’s public relations. He goes around in the city, runs to the front lines, and even charges through rough places! “Please leave everything to me!”

□ Normally, he’s a shop attendant at a small shop called “General Shop ~Furosera~” in Downtown Touda. Only a few members know that the shop is run by a legendary guild. 

□ “General Shop ~Furosera~” handles things from looking for lost items or searching for pets.From rubbish pickers up to spring cleaning helpers. No matter how small the problem is, they work to resolve it. Come, let’s say it with energy… “Welcome!”

COMMENT:

Hello!

I’m Procella’s Kannaduki Iku. The fun part about joint stage-plays is that we can always offer you a different scenery on the stage. 

For the fans of other units, the atmosphere may seem different. 

You might wonder if you’re supposed to laugh at certain points, or whether you’re supposed to have a reaction. 

I’ll work hard to show everyone a fresh scene each day.

The people in the audience are looking forward to this just as much as me, … or actually, should be looking forward even more than me! And if possible, please remember my face and name after you return home (laughs). 

Please take care of me!

Translator's note:

- The name of the store was a bit tricky. The kanji meant something like "Anything Store ~Wholesaler~", but in the end we decided to go with 'general shop' (basically a shop that sells anything), while 'wholesaler' is actually a play on Procella, so we went for the literal reading, 'furosera'.

※ Please don’t re-post the English translations without permission.

If you enjoyed this, please consider buying me a ko-fi here to support my work if you want. (o^▽^o)Thank you!!

[gelo-p]

What trying for T10 ~kinda~ looks like

My friend said that the last thing I wrote was all over the place so I decided to rewrite all of it. >_>

So what’s this about?

This is just my own experience (and in a way, method) about tiering in Bandori; most of these, you’ve probably already read somewhere else. To be frank, tiering in Bandori can be summarized as “get the best team you can, prepare lots of flames, pick meta songs, and go like hell”. However, I think it’s important to visualize and plan out what “going like hell” really means.

Most of these will be written as if you’re trying to get into T10 as a solo player.

First things first - Bestdori is your friend.

Bestdori is a website that lets you determine exactly how strong your team really is. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do so; it’s invaluable in making estimates. Set up an account (you don’t have to, but it’s convenient later on), enter your cards and area items, and then use Bestdori’s team builder feature to determine what the best team to use is for a specific event. This post assumes you won’t need help in using Bestdori; I might write a separate post for that later.

(huge thanks to u/NonSpicyBurrito over at reddit and the rest of the Bestdori team for making an excellent tool ^^)

Table of Contents

“Estimate how much EP you’ll need”: A Fallacy

There are no guarantees, so prepare to lose efficiently

Automating the Guesswork: The T10 Calc

Input: Active Hours Per Day

Input: Multi-Live Score (includes VS Live)

Input: Multi-Live Duration

Input: Challenge Live Score

Input: Challenge Live Duration

Input: Final Hours Sprint

Planning your daily Multi-Live Progress

Planning your daily Challenge Live Progress

Hold on - what’s a “set” ???

Tracking your Flames (and CL’s) per day

Miscellaneous Tips

Final words

I. “Estimate how much EP you’ll need”: A Fallacy

Getting into your desired tier (T1, T2, T3, T10, T100, T1000...) is all about getting enough event points (EP) before the event ends, and nothing else. If only 99 people have higher EP than you, then congrats, you make it to the top 100! And if your EP is so high that only 9 people have it higher, then you make it to the Top 10.

However, there is no good way to estimate how much EP you’ll need to ensure getting into the desired tier. The moment you think you’ve figured it out, the other players start upping the ante and all of a sudden you’re left in the dust.

For example: when I first started estimating the EP I’ll need for Cycling Seasons, I figured 16M would be enough for T10, based on some foolish assumption using data from the last Challenge Live (which was My Ideal). Having read other posts by the other T10′s (post-event), they wondered if 18M would be enough. Surprise, the cutoff turned out to be 18.5M - and I personally did 19.2M.

Where did 18.5M come from? Nowhere. Nobody decided before the event to just “stop” at 18.5M and call it a day. And that’s why you can never actually estimate how much EP you’ll need. As long as there’s someone crazier than you out there, that cutoff is going to be pushed higher and higher.

II. There are no guarantees, so prepare to lose efficiently

Read that header again and again until it sinks in. There are no guarantees. I can tell from personal experience: during the Cycling Seasons event, the player who finished at T11 had a better team than I did (I know from periodically tracking their score), but I was able to put in more effort.

All you can do is put in as much effort as you can, using the best team you can get your hands on; however, should this not work out, you should also learn how to lose efficiently.

There will come a point where the amount of effort you’ve done will almost always** guarantee you a spot in T100. You have to decide at that point - usually after 2 days of playing at T10 pace - if keeping up with T10 is worth it or not. If you decide not to, then congratulations on an early T100.

** In the absolutely rare-as-hell event (never happened before AFAIK because seriously this is crazy AF) that 100 people fight for T10, then you’re going to have to put more effort to stay in T100. Otherwise, just play defensively, and keep yourself above T50. It’ll be easy at that point.

III. Automating the Guesswork: The T10 Calc

If you’re still willing to take the risk, then let’s start talking numbers. This was the first step in planning for me: making sure I know the numbers behind what I’m about to do.

First, grab a copy of the T10 Calc spreadsheet, since this pretty much streamlines the entire estimation process.

T10 Calc over at Google Sheets

Note: I know it’s ironic how it’s called the T10 Calc when I said there are no guarantees, but that’s what I call it, so... ^^;

Go to the EP Estimator Sheet and fill up the inputs.

Num Full Days - An event is always N Days + 6 hours long, so enter the number of full days here. It’s officially announced a day before the actual event, but sometimes Bestdori already has that info as early as a week before. Some events are just 6 days long (lucky~) while others can reach up to 12 (fuck me ugh). Typically it’s 8 or 9.

Num Hours Last Day - An even is always N Days + 6 hours long, so usually keep this at 6. There is a special case where you might want to change this though, discussed later.

Active Hours per Day - The number of hours per day you’ll be playing. This doesn’t include breaks, i.e. Active Hours + Sleep + Breaks = 24

ML Score - Compute using Bestdori. This is your score when playing in Multi-Live / VS Live using 3 flames.

ML Duration  - The average duration of a Multi-Live. This is different from the average duration of a song.

CP required per CL: This pretty much stays at 800, since this is the most efficient, time-wise. (There are 200/400-CP CL’s, we won’t use those)

CL score - Compute using Bestdori. This is your score when playing a Challenge Live. If the event isn’t a Challenge Live, please set this to 0 or leave blank.

CL duration - The average duration of a Challenge Live. This is different from the average duration of the challenge song.

Final hours sprint - Specific to Challenge Live events, it’s possible to hold back your CP’s, and instead use them during the final 6 hours of the event.

IV. Input: Active Hours Per Day

The average person can do 14 active hours per day. Which means 14 hours of staring at your phone, and 10 hours left for eating / having a life / sleeping. I found this the hard way; you’re free to make your own estimate. You can bump this up to something higher (I did 14.3), but make sure you don’t lose too much sleep / time for other activities. The higher you can push this, the better.

Have you ever wondered how T1 / T2 / T3′s always get crazy-high scores? Well, they can set this to 24 by sharing their account with teammates using the Data Transfer feature. By having teammates who can take over your account while you rest, your account can do 24 hours a day of gaming. I personally don’t do it (I’m a soloist all the way~), but it doesn’t seem to be a banned practice, so get your own team if you want those titles.

Thankfully, there are only 1-to-3 of these accounts per event, leaving some space for solo players to actually get to T10. WARNING THOUGH! If after a couple of days, you can’t get into T10 because they all have crazy high scores, give up and settle for T100. You can’t fight a 24/7 account.

V. Input: Multi-Live Score (includes VS Lives)

Note: For VS Live Events, you’re obviously expected to play VS Lives instead of Multi-Lives, but for the purpose of naming variables I stuck to the “ML” naming scheme.

No matter the event type, you’re going to have to compute an ML score using Bestdori.

Always use 3 flames for your computation, and because Bestdori gives you the maximum points achievable, dial it down for safety. In my case, I used 4275 instead of 4380. Initially it was 4200; however, after 2 days, I realized that it’s too safe (my actual score was waaaay above my calc sheet’s estimate) so I bumped it up to 4275.

Please note that different event types will give you different scores for the same team; Multi-Lives during Challenge Live events give you a lower EP compared to, say, a VS Live event, because during a Challenge Live, you’re expected to get some of your scores from the Challenge Lives. VS Lives give just a bit more EP than Challenge Lives; however, there won’t actually be any Challenge Lives, so the final EP is smaller. Normal events (where you’re expected to farm using ML’s alone) give the highest EP per ML.

ML Score is directly tied to the room score, and there are four ways to bump it up:

Increase your band’s power. Max out all your area items, and follow Bestdori’s recommended band. If you can afford it, buy your way into better members. Prioritize maxing out items that match the Characters / Attribute of the event.

Choose a Leader with a 90/100/110/115% score boost, and max out their level. Bestdori would have already done this for you. For VS Live, increase everyone’s skill levels.

Join private rooms (where the members are high-level). Joining the Grand Room is okay (that’s what I did), but if you have high-level friends who can help you out with their high-level bands, then it’s better. Conversely, during VS Lives, you want to join a private room where everyone is weaker than you are.

Pick meta songs. Meta songs score higher in general compared to non-meta songs, so try to pick them as much as you can. These include Jumpin’, Unite from A to Z, Home Street, KIZUNA MUSIC, etc... You probably recognize this list.

VI. Input: Multi-Live Duration (includes VS Lives)

This is the amount it takes to complete an entire Multi-Live / VS Live, from the moment you press the “Live” button to the next time you’re able to press it again.

There are two ways to dial down ML duration:

Join private rooms. On average, ML duration is 3.5 minutes in the Grand Room; if someone disconnects, or takes a reeeeally long time to pick, it can take up to 4, even 5 minutes. A good game in a public room is 2 mins and 45 secs long, but those are far and few in between. By joining a private room and agreeing beforehand which songs and difficulties to pick, you can keep the average ML duration down.

Pick meta songs, again. Meta songs are shorter in general compared to non-meta songs, that’s why they’re really good for farming event points. You will keep running into these songs once you start tiering.

SPECIAL NOTE FOR VS LIVES: During VS Lives, there’s an Event Song room, which might prove to be faster than the Free Song room, since there’s no need to select the song. This is especially the case if the event song is a meta song; case in point, the Roselia vs Afterglow event, where the event song was Passionate Anthem. I suggest checking out the Event Room (and song) during the first day, and see if the ML Score and ML Duration will give you a better final EP compared to taking your chances over at the Free Song room.

VII. Input: Challenge Live Score

Note: If you’re not playing a Challenge Live event, set this to 0!

Specific to Challenge Live Events, you also have to compute your CL score. A Challenge Live event will have a list of featured songs (you can look this up in advance using Bestdori). Take for example the Cycling Seasons event:

Songs higher up in the list are better for your score, but I find that the first Hard song in the list is less tiring to play, giving me more consistent scores (in this case, Brand New Days level 18).

If you can genuinely manage playing the EX / SP songs multiple times consistently, then please do so.

Once you’ve settled into a song, calculate your CL score. Always use 800 CP.

Again, better to have a safety net, so instead of using 26,380 I used 25000. You’ll get a good feel for this value once you’ve actually started playing the CL songs. Just update the estimate later on.

You can bump this up by getting all members of your team as strong as you can. Area items, max skill levels.

VIII. Input: Challenge Live Duration

Like ML Duration, this is the amount it takes to complete an entire Challenge Live, from the moment you press the “Live” button to the next time you’re able to press it again. There’s no way to bring this down, since you’ll be playing the same song over and over again (to get a consistent CL score, see above).

Use an external timer to get the exact time this takes. Add a few seconds for safety, because the phone slows down after some time. For example, Brand New Days takes 2 mins 12 seconds long, but it can slow down up to 2 mins 22 secs long (according to my timing) once you’ve played enough.

IX. Input: Final Hours Sprint

This is unique to Challenge Lives, because it’s possible to stock up on CP’s and use them all up during the last hours of the event.

When this is set to > 0 (but capped at 6, for the number of hours in the last day), the estimator will calculate how much CP you should save up to perform the sprint during the last day.

A sprint is simply a period where you start using your CP’s. If you save up your CP’s until the very last hours, it’s possible to catch a few people off guard who thought you’ve ran out of CP already. Sprints let you earn a really high amount of EP in a short time, letting you overtake other people. There are still daily sprints, but not as much as the final day sprint. (You will still play Challenge Lives every day, you’re just not going to use them all up)

This will not affect your final score; this is just so your opponents could be tricked into not giving too much effort, thinking you use up your CP everyday. Please note however that most T10′s will also hold back their daily CP usage, but from what I gathered, most of them will sprint during the last full day, and not during the final 6 hours.

This won’t have any advantage if everyone else decides to hold back their sprints until the final 6 hours.

X. Planning your daily Multi-Live Progress

Now that you know how much effort you’ll be putting into tiering, you can now determine your Final EP and the number of Flames you’ll need to get there.

If you’re lacking in Flames, better start buying stars early. The premium boxes are the most economic; however, you have to buy them months in advance, because it takes 25 days to reap the full benefits.

If you’re not satisfied with your estimated Final EP, then you have to start finding ways to bring up your live scores, bring down your live durations, or increase how much time you can play for in a day.

Use Bestdori to simulate past events and see how you’ll fare. ^_^

Now, assuming you’re already satisfied with your target EP (again, no guarantees...), the next step is to ensure you’re on track getting there. This is where Flames used per full day comes in. If you want to evenly distribute the load over the duration of the entire event, then you must use at least this much flames per day. It’s easy to think you’ll just catch up, but might prove difficult (remember, you barely have enough time for sleep and other activities). On the other hand, if after reaching your quota you have enough strength to keep going, then please do so.

Of course, the final 6 hours isn’t a full day, so for that, please refer to Flames used during final hours.

XI. Planning your daily Challenge Live Progress

Note: The Challenge Live section should become empty if CL score is set to 0; conversely, the Normal / VS / Live Goals / Mission section should be empty if CL score is set to > 0. Also, a lot of these are just stats used in computing more important stats.

For Challenge Lives, the idea is the same: you have a quota of Flames to use per day, but now you also have a quota of Challenge Lives played per day. Both of these already take your Final Hours Sprint into account. The longer you plan to sprint, the more flames you have to consume per day, and the less CL’s you have to play per day (because you’re concentrating a lot of the CL’s in the final 6 hours). You’re still going to play the exact number of ML’s and CL’s, you’re just rearranging them.

If you don’t plan on sprinting (Final Hours Sprint = 0), then the final hours is just like any other day: the same amount of Flames and CL’s per hour, except for just 6 hours.

Should you decide to split the final 6 hours (Final Hours Sprint > 0, < 6), then you’ll have a few hours where you’re playing normally (mixed ML’s and CL’s), and then the final hours will be for CL’s only.

If you plan on using the full 6 hours for a final sprint (Final Hours Sprint = 6), then that’s all you need to do: play CL’s one after another for 6 hours straight. Please start at least half an hour earlier to account for possible interruptions. You need to consume all your Challenge Points before the event ends.

If you want to dedicate the final 6 hours to a sprint, but only want to do it for 4 hours (as an example), then please do the following:

Note your current total active hours.

Set num hours last day to 4.

Set final hours sprint to 4.

At this point, your total active hours should drop.

Slowly increase your active hours per day until you’re back to your original total active hours.

Since you’re “forfeiting” 2 hours of the final 6 hours, you have to make up for this by playing a bit more per day.

XII. Hold on - what’s a “set” ???

You need 800 CP to perform a Challenge Live, and in order to get 800 CP you need to play (in my example) 3.74 games on average. A “set” is the set of these 3.74 ML games + the CL it activates. That’s how you get set duration: 3.74 ML x 3.5 mins / ML + 2.37 mins of the CL = ~15.45 mins (it’s 15.46 when computed manually; Excel just rounded off 3.74 differently).

I just refer to it as a “set” for the purposes of calculation. Since you won’t actually be playing ML’s and CL’s one after the other (it’s more time-efficient to play a bunch of ML’s and then a bunch of ML’s, especially if you need to switch teams), you can just ignore the idea that you have to play in terms of “sets”.

XIII. Tracking your Flames (and CL’s) per day

Now that you know your daily quotas, it’s time to visualize them. Using the Excel file, head over to the Tracker Meta sheet:

Enter the current full day of the event, and it will automatically compute how many Flames and CL’s you should have used by the end of the current day.

Please keep playing until both “Remaining” fields are 0. ^_^ (they will of course increase once you move to the next day)

There is an Estimated Current Score based on the number of games you’ve played. If your actual score is below this estimated score after a day, then you overestimated your scores, and should immediately bring them down. Conversely, if your actual score is above the estimated score, then you made too safe estimates. You can probably increase your average ML score / CL score when that happens (I personally did this, from 4200 ML score to 4275).

To actually enter how many flames and CL’s you’ve consumed, head to the Tracker sheet.

Every time you finish a song (while the fireworks are exploding, to make better use of that time), enter a “3″ under the Flames column, or a “1″ under the Challenge column (if playing a CL). The timestamp should automatically be filled up (instructions inside the Excel file); if it doesn’t work, just delete the timestamp column, it’s not important anyway.

Note: The timestamp column has since been deleted, after migrating the document to Google Sheets. It’s not relevant anymore, but other functions should still work as intended.

Based on your current iteration (which day you’re in) and the number of games you’ve already played, you’ll know conveniently what time your misery would actually end for the day ^o^

(If you rest for one hour, you’ll find that the hours left won’t change, and that the estimated end time would also be pushed back one hour.)

It’s also possible to enter 0.25 / 0.5 under the Challenge column, if you somehow decide to play 200 / 400-CP CL’s. I don’t recommend it, but at least when starting out and just trying out the songs, you can still plot accurately.

One thing I personally do is enter a “2″ under the Flames section when I finish an ML with a score that’s significantly lower than my estimate. This lets me ensure that my estimated score won’t be higher than my actual score. However, I have to use one extra flame to catch up - and that means in the end, I’ll end up using more flames than what was actually planned.

Note: The tracker is only meant to be used until the last full day. I don’t think tracking the final 6 hours is necessarily useful; better to focus on just playing at that point, and give your best! ^o^

XIV. Miscellaneous Tips

During the first day, obviously, you’ll be playing CL’s after the ML’s (since you don’t have CP’s yet).

Starting the 3rd day, however, I found it easier to play all the CL’s before the all ML’s. This also lets me avoid a long-ass sprint (imagine finishing the last full day with a sprint... only to follow it up with a 5-hour sprint). This is only applicable if you plan to do a final sprint, since you’ll have reserved CP’s by this time. Your mileage may vary, just something you might want to consider.

Now, I didn’t discover this by accident - I actually woke up one morning and found there was no internet. Yes, that did happen. Thankfully, because I had enough CP to spare, I was able to stay productive and “passed” the time burning through my CP’s instead (mobile data proved to be stable enough for CL’s). That’s one advantage of not immediately consuming all your CP’s - it lets you stay productive (assuming you have mobile data) when the internet fails.

If you do lose internet and the only way to earn event points is via playing ML’s, then you’re fucked. Go to sleep, and make up for it once the internet is back. You have to hit your quotas, and if you aren’t playing, then you should be resting. Same thing when there’s an emergency maintenance.

When playing in a public room, if another player is taking too long to load, you might want to disconnect - especially when their progress bar resets. This is admittedly a dick move, but in my experience, 50% of the time, that player is going to lose connection in the middle of the game, and your room score is going to suffer. It’s still up to you. That said, don’t disconnect while loading a VS Live.

When you’re already tired, and you think there’s a chance you’ll fail the chosen song in Expert, just pick Hard. The billion times Jumpin’ was chosen, I played it in Hard. No shame in that.

You might want to start tracking the scores of other T10 contenders at some point. For non-Challenge Lives, this lets you know how many hours a day they’re actually playing (since EP gain is proportional to time played); for Challenge Lives, this can give you some idea if they’ve already sprinted or not (if they gained waaay more points than usual, you know they’ve expended some, maybe all, of their CP). Now, this info might not matter, since you already have a planned amount of effort anyway, but if you see that you’re severely lagging behind, start considering stepping up, or backing down.

If you do make it into the T10 at some point, make sure to set stupid profile comments. It’s your time under the spotlight, have fun with it XD (don’t put offensive comments please) ... just don’t take 30 minutes to decide.

Prime examples. 😎

XV. Final words

Whew! I don’t know how much of these is new information to any of you, but I hope at the very least that the Spreadsheet helps. >///< If you have questions please don’t hesitate to ask me!

Most people who try for T10 will have friends to help them. I cannot, in good faith, recommend doing this alone like I did, especially during a major event.

However, that being said, I can understand the feeling of wanting to do it anyway.

SO! Good luck, have fun, 7000+ go like hell, and hey-hey-hoh~! ^o^

[secondaryincome4-blog]

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As hinted earlier in the home page of the site, we are best described as a biopharma startup and we are mainly into early-stage research and development (better called R&D) of pharmaceuticals. Our clients are primarily major Pharma companies. Working at the stealth mode is not uncommon in the pharma industry, particularly for those in the study and development component. Rather than making sound all over the place, they quietly concentrate on their research work, softly enter into partnerships and wait patiently till an ideal product is prepared before going public with it.

[keyorsomething]

►єυ∂ιєgσ яαит

✿Hello everyone!✿

Today, I'm going to simply be ranting about my thoughts on Eudora's character, and the ship between her and Diego.

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Warning! This will contain spoilers for any episodes past number three, and will discuss some serious and rather touchy topics. Reader discretion is advised.

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►1. єυ∂σяα'ѕ ¢нιℓ∂нσσ∂ (domestic violence trigger warning.)

!!!THIS IS JUST HEADCANON. DON'T ATTACK ME FOR MY WEIRD ASS HEADCANONS!!!

Eudora spent a lot of her younger years in a violent situation. She grew up in the ghetto of the city, and took up martial arts when she was young to learn to better defend herself. Her father abused her mother often, and her grandfather was the main reason she grew up to be as functional as she's shown to be.

Most children who grow up around intimate partner violence (IPV) have a lot of issues. She was lucky enough to have a grandfather who kept the violence as far away from her as possible. When she was eight years old, her mother was nearly murdered by her father, causing her grandfather to call the police. They were helped out of the situation, and Eudora's father was sentenced to 38 years in prison. She dreads the day that might come- where he lives long enough to get out of where he belongs.

Often times, children are distrustful of their female caretakers who were victims of IPV. They don't believe that the victim will care for them, causing independence to be forced at a young age, even after escaping the abuse. I believe that Eudora likely loved her mother a lot- but never fully trusted her, even into adulthood. Ever since she was nine years old, she'd decided that she never wanted to be like her mother. She saved thousands of dollars through all of her years in middle school and high school, so that when she was 18, she could move out immediately.

Seeing the violence in her home caused Eudora to want to stop it. She wanted to be someone who could prevent people getting hurt as her mother was, and was determined to become a cop. She saved up as much money as she could, and once she graduated highschool, she enrolled in the police academy, and bought a small apartment near it.

Update as of May 20th, 2019:

So, I saw a comment that I absolutely agree with, and slightly adjusted my headcanon.

Perhaps, instead of actually experiencing abuse in her own home, she experienced it second hand. A childhood friend, or someone like that. A less violent headcanon that I've also had for a while is that maybe her father just left, around the same time that Eudora's mother and her would have left in the other headcanon.

This version of my headcanon could still leave Eudora's mother wary of men, raising her to be careful around them. If her mother had a close friend, or sister, who escaped from a domestic abuse situation, it could also work better. Leaving Eudora wary of men, but not a direct victim of the abuse. Idk- tell me what y'all think?

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►2. тнє єαяℓу уєαяѕ σf ∂ιєgσ αи∂ єυ∂σяα'ѕ яєℓαтισиѕнιρ.

Both Eudora and Diego had little experience with relationships. Eudora, from a young age, was raised to be scared of men. She didn't think she'd ever want to have an intimate relationship with a man- mostly because she was terrified of becoming like her mother.

Diego grew up as a Hargreeves. Romance was strictly forbidden. He followed the rules as strictly as he could- he wanted nothing more than to be better than Luther at the Academy. In high school, though, he had many girlfriends. Never a long term relationship, though- everything was touch and go for him.

Things changed when they met in the police academy.

Eudora helped Diego through a lot. She tried her best to understand him, and listen to him when all he needed was to know that he's not worthless. He did the same for her, building an incredibly strong bond between the two. Eudora struggled a lot when she fell in love with him.

Diego wasn't dangerous, and she knew he'd never hurt her. But her whole world fell apart when she fell for him. She found reason after reason not to tell him, but she eventually confessed, after months of agonizing over the possibilities. He confessed the same, and their relationship extended to be romantic.

They both had no clue what they were doing, but they figured it out together. They were more alike than they thought, and just grew closer.

They explored a lot together. What their boundaries were romance wise. Their desires sexually (more on this later.)

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►3. ∂ιєgσ тнє ∂яσρσυт.

Diego was kicked from the academy when they weren't far from graduating. He couldn't seem to agree to the laws, so despite being undeniably good at what could've been his job, defiance clearly isn't a trait suitable for a police officer. Eudora was advised to stay away from him after that, due to suspicions that he'd interfere with her career, but she loved him, and he loved her.

Eudora allowed him to help her with assignments. They made an unstoppable team.

Or, what seemed to be an unstoppable team.

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►4. тнє ∂σωиfαℓℓ σf єυ∂ιєgσ.

Diego was bored with bureaucracy. He felt as though he wasn't helping the way that he should. He managed to get access to the police radio, and listened for hours, trying to find any crime to go after. He had moved into Eudora's apartment at this point in time- so it wasn't like she had to do much digging to figure out what he was doing.

Three nights in a row, he disappeared, without her knowing. He'd stopped minor crimes- convienent store robberies, small burglaries, etc. Though one night was different- Diego snuck out as usual, to the scene of some hostage situation at a Circle K just down the street. He didn't like to have to kill the bad guys- but he did.

That night, a lot of gunfire rang out. Eudora got a call at 1:00 AM, telling her she needed to get to the scene. Diego wasn't home, obviously- so she put two and two together. She'd waited just a few minutes, when he got home.

They fought. For the first time in their whole relationship, they fought. She kicked him out of her apartment- she felt hurt, betrayed, and angry at him. They broke up, and despite both parties trying numerous times, they couldn't seem to make it work.

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►5. тнє мσяє... ѕєχυαℓ вιтѕ.

SEXUAL TOPIC WARNING- I'M GONNA BE TALKING ABOUT BDSM AND SHIT LIKE THAT SO-

TUA doesn't exactly hide the kinkiness of Diego and Eudora's relationship. I mean- seriously.

Diego: "It's not spandex, it's leather. And you used to like it. A lot, if I recall."

Eudora: "God, please unremember that."

Diego: "Etched into the data bank, Eudora."

It's actually fucking hilarious to me- I'd probably break up someone too, if they were running around fighting crime in a BDSM suit. It's kinda great.

This subject is probably my favorite to talk about with Eudiego, cause it's really entertaining. A lot of people say that Klaus is the kinky Hargreeves sibling but uh?? No?? It's Diego?? Clearly.

Anyway, so about who would top- Eudora. I'm sorry, but her BDE is WAYYYYY too much for me to handle. Diego is, y'know, a switch- like, with Klaus, Diego would probably top (don't attack me for my opinions I swear-), but Eudora definitely topped in their relationship.

I mean, hell, she tased Diego instantly upon seeing him- like?? Hello?? Also, she shushed him just by putting her hand up. Idk, maybe I'm crazy, but I'm just obsessed with thinking about this part of their relationship. Especially when people try to argue with me about it, cause I fight anyone who dares to act like they think more about Diego and Eudora than I do lolol.

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►6. ωну ι ℓσνє тнιѕ ραιяιиg.

M'kay, so this is gonna be kinda sad. And serious- but ya. Just be warned I guess.

So, a lot of my friends ask me why I'm so obsessed with Diego and Eudora getting together again. A lot of them write it off as because it's just a ship of mine, but, actually? It's because of the ultimate feelings it gives me.

I constantly listen to "This Year's Love" (If you're somehow unaware, that's the song that played when Diego found Eudora's body.) Every time I listen to it, I can just feel the relationship they once had (and have the potential to have again). It speaks volumes for the way that they once felt about each other- and I love it.

I have been in multiple horrific relationships. Abusive, toxic, unrequited, etc. But, that song so clearly reminds me of the love that I adore. The love that I crave feeling.

One line that I constantly hear in my mind is "When ya kiss me, on that midnight street, sweep me off my feet, singin, 'ain't this life so sweet.'" The image it puts in my mind? Stunning.

As to why I think in the show that it's actually a really good pairing- they clearly care for each other. When Diego was in front of the station, waiting for Eudora, she seemed really annoyed. But the moment he mentioned his mom dying, everything about her softened. Her expression, her demeanor, and her voice changed.

Diego said "I just don't know how to-" and clearly began struggling to speak. Before he tried to continue, she just placed her hand on his arm- she didn't need him to continue. From this, I can assume that she's helped him before- or at least, she understands his emotions and struggles to some degree.

Another thing: their whole dynamic works really well. Almost a good girl likes the bad boy kinda thing, but different in a good way. Y'know? Because in most stories like that, the girl is really submissive and such- but Eudiego absolutely defies that. And I love it.

Finally, who was the first person Eudora called? Diego. The MOMENT he found out that she called- he left Five with Luther, and went after her. He was so clearly in anguish when he found her body. Luther had to hold him back from trying to attack Five when he got back to his place.

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►7. ωну ι ℓσνє єυ∂σяα.

So, I adore that we don't get a "soft" Eudora moment. We get plenty from Diego- and sure, she softened up when talking to him about Grace, but uh- we never really see a point where she's showing too much emotion. And I really like the insight that gives into her personality.

Also- I saw this article that was rating TUA characters, and it said that Eudora was the worst character in TUA. I, obviously, disagree- while I despise what they did with her, the character herself was really good. Her personality was honestly great- she was entertaining, kind, beautiful, amazing, and god dammit, I love Eudora.

She was also clearly passionate about her job. She cared about Diego- but her job came first. She did the right thing- the moment she found out where Diego's brother was, it didn't matter that she didn't have backup. She knew something needed to be done, and she did it. And even though Hazel had a gun pointed straight at her, she made sure that she clearly didn't shoot him.

Eudora is an undeniably good person. She loves helping people- otherwise, why would she be a cop?

There was a lot of potential lost, when they killed her off. Luckily, though- season two. The Hargreeves are going back in time. I understand that we got some good Diego development through her death- but what about the development we could have gotten if she lived? She knows Diego better than anyone. I think there was an entire background there that TUA really missed out on by killing her.

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My conclusion? Eudora is way underrated. I wish there was such an endless supply of fanart for her as there is for Klaus. That's why I myself draw her so frickin much- because she doesn't get as much love and appreciation.

Also- I actually once got told by this person that they don't ship Eudiego cause it's straight.

And I just-

Huh?? Like, it's still a good ship. Why once a ship is straight is it not shippable?

I don't care if you don't like Eudiego. What I care about is the reasons- and because it's not gay? That is a bullshit reason, man-

Anyway, I digress. I conclude my rant.

Oh, and, yes, I'll likely update this rant in the future :/

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If you saw this on TUA Amino, that's because I posted this there first- so ya uwu.

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2019 Megaman Valentine’s Day (Humor) Contest Results!

Apologize for the delay on this once again. Didn’t expect to be posting these results nearly a month after Valentine’s Day, but the extended deadline did help make sure we got a healthy competition this year. Thank you to all for your patience!

I’m going to start out this year’s results thread with a totally appropriate callout 4-Koma that is not technically an official humor entry from SubzeroIceSkater, even though it fit the rules. But it’s worth posting, to publicly humiliate myself anyways:

I'll take my token Akane-in-an-entry bribery any way I can get it, since nobody felt inclined to draw Mrs. Stelar’s fresh, piping hot, iced cinnabuns for their talent entry this year...Did I just type that? I mean, um...

Play me off, Johnny!

I kid, I kid! After all, these contests aren’t about me, it’s about the characters you love and want to draw. And that’s what makes everyone’s entries unique and helps motivate you to create time after time. And I am grateful for it, whether you are a long-time participant, or the yearly new contestant.

I’ll be doing things a little different this year, because the post would be way too long if I kept everything in one. So this first post will just contain the Humor category, and I will have a second, separate post for the Talent category. Raffle prize winners will be contained in both posts, so keep an eye out after my commentary on your art, for some possible winners here. The rest will follow soon. I’ll be contacting all winners soon enough, so sit tight!

Here are your humor winners and full gallery of entries, after the break!

Category 2 (Humor) -  Princess Sigmia Returns

A much smaller group of entries for this category, but the zany mergers were great, all the same. I thank you all for getting as creative as you could with this concept, as it was a little more than just a mere gender swap you had to consider, when designing your combined character. Whether you won or not, know I truly enjoyed seeing all of these pics. 

I know imgbox gallery gave people some issues before, so as always, let me know if images or links appear broken. Crossing my fingers this works smoothly this year! XD

After each entrant’s name, there will be a link in the character description to the entry, too, just in case the inserted external images don’t load for you. 

[Full humor gallery]

1.) SubzeroIceSkater - Arc Weldy Falls In Love (featuring Tundroll.EXE the Arc Weldy, plus ‘Master Albert’)

[Page 1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

Comics with length and substance always seem to steal the show, and this year was no different. Joining the ranks of fenril-huayra, wintesm and so many others in recent years, I believe SubzeroIceSkater’s wonderful tale will stick with many of you, as much as it did me. As a humor piece, sure there are great sight gags and comedic lines all around, but it also has a lot of heart. You feel really bad for Arc Weldy to start out, but also feel so many emotions of compassion, friendship and love throughout. Wonderful work, and thank you for all the effort you put into this massive entry!

Also, are 21 pages not enough for you all? Well, SubzeroIceSkater also had ANOTHER 15 pages worth of ideas, alternates, and outtakes to go with this comic. And, while I won’t upload each link or image here, because this one entry is long enough, you can see them in THIS GALLERY LINK. They are also really great.

*For coming in 1st, SubzeroIceSkater has won $100 via Paypal, or a prize of their choice up to that value.*

2.) @drewblossom​ - Geminette 

Nearly equally deserving in length, Drew’s comic more closely followed the Bowsette-style transformation gimmick to give Snake Man his comeuppance. The classic bait-and-switch kiss, turned on it’s head with a ‘lil Search Snake rather than a gross Toad Man, was a funny end. 

Design-wise, I really liked what you did to create Geminette’s look. Splitting his helmet crystals to the side as like dual hair broaches, and keeping the motif with the choker, armband, garter straps and chestplate, worked out nice. I can see why Snake was so easily charmed. 

*For coming in 2nd, Drew has won $50 via Paypal, or a prize of their choice up to that value.*

3.) @wimzik​ - Rollbble.EXE

If dominatrix Devil Roll wasn’t enough of a pain in Rockman’s side, I shudder to think how bad a Bubble Roll would be, puku! Or, would her devotion to him be as great (or clingy) as Bubs was with Shademan-sama? 

Taking Bubbleman’s yellow flipper feet motif, and turning it into a fish fin design, both on her feet, legs, and hair ribbon, turned out pretty neat. If anything, I’m sure this transformation gives her very kissable lips, though! XD I have to wonder what her plan is with that Roll Navi Data chip, now that the chocolate is all gone, and what it will do to Rockman?

*For coming in 3rd, wimzik has won $25 via Paypal, or a prize of their choice up to that value.*

And the remaining wonderful entries, in alphabetical order by alias:

@3-oclock-blues​ - Dr. Willis 

What you talkin’ ‘bout, Wil-lis? Or Dr. WHY?!-ris, if you prefer. With that absolutely awesome wide-eyed grin, she’s hellbent on living together with Zero in a world where only Reploids exist. Being that they both have spent time piloting flying machine bodies, and have sorta possessed some form of an evil energy, it’s a rather fitting combo. Unless you are Zero, and it’s your dad and girlfriend merged into one being. Awk~waaaarrrd. 

The skull motif and spikes are subtle on Iris’ design, but fit in really well. Her bangs are just wild enough on both sides now, that it gives that Wily hair vibe, without having to give her a horrible, bushy mustache. XD

*3-OClock-Blues is the winner of Raffle Prize #2 - The X OCW artbook and Zero keychain*

@bracedshark​ - Mettayer

This might be a terrible concept, but I’m going to type it. When a Met pops out from under it’s helmet, especially in sprite form, usually all you can see is the whites of it’s dark, beady eyes under that helmet, on it’s dark grey/black blobby round body form. With Layer, you don’t get to see her eyes under her bangs, hardly ever. So staring at Mettayer’s underboob for too long, due to her chest armor mimicking a Met helmet, all I see is a Met’s pair of closed bottom eyelids, and I’m seriously waiting for those eyes to open up and start staring back at me. Would that not be the most wrong way for Mettayer’s eyes to work?! But I can’t unsee it! Her belly button even feels like a snoring, sleeping Met’s mouth. I’ll spare everyone of me editing this art to make my point. But it’s in your head now, isn’t it?

OK, despite that awful paragraph, this is one hot Metall Mommy. Sorry, I’m starting this paragraph off pretty badly, too, I guess. ^^; Despite my interpretation of the combination, the design elements do stand out in a unique way. The fiery reddish-pink hair seems like a different choice considering the characters merged, but it plays off the red of a Met’s mouth and earpiece, and, well, fitting for Valentine’s, too! And instead, you get the Layer color scheme in the pickaxe, so it still connects visually.

@drewblossom​’s 2nd entry - Roll n’ Rock

This bonus entry from Drew flips the genders of both DLN-001 and 002. I liked Roll’s hair bow converting into more of a bow tie, and Rock getting her version of Roll’s hoodie, in a Blue Bomber color scheme. The V-Day card concept, complete with crayon-ish name writing, made for a cute entry. Hearts all around!

@supernovabee​ - Bayer

No, there won’t be any paragraph about underboob eyes for this version of a Layer transformation, as supernovabee has merged her with Bass. Bayer loves belting out her hard and heavy siren song to woo prospective love interests during karaoke night. 

Keeping Layer’s purple hair here actually kinda still keeps a Treble Boost feel, that the color scheme fits seamlessly, to go along with the more obvious Layer armor design pieces.

[thefloatingstone]

I’m stealing my mom’s phone data to post this. I’m sure she’ll understand. I’m still not online yet but I have no patience so I’m uploading this now.

“Hey! I know what would be a good idea! Let’s draw the boys from @tyranttortoise‘s SSLL fic in their civvies! Yeah! That’s an excellent idea!”

5000 years later and here we are. (seriously I started this in January before my birthday)

It turns out fewer of them wear alt outfits in the fic than I thought when I was going through it. In retrospect maybe I should’ve drawn the beach episode chapter instead. Or the Halloween one. Oh well. If nothing else this helped cement some of their designs in my mind that I was struggling with.

big fat AU breakdown notes under the cut!

First off; another reason for this picture was to play around with the designs of each character, since I personally don’t like it when characters are just copypastas of each other with different outfits on. So I was playing around not just with the idea of civvies, but also with differences in height, body shape, posture, etc etc.

First we have Red and our vanilla boi Sans. I imagine these two as being the most similar in terms of looks, with only details being slightly different. However there are small differences. Red is slightly taller than Sans, and although you can’t see it under all that fluff, his shoulders are broader. I like the weird dynamic these two have in the fic. They’re generally in ok terms, but Red seems to have pretty rotten luck and often accidentally does something to paint himself as someone untrustworthy, and with the king of distrust around, Sans comes across as having pinned him as “troublemaker” who he has to kinda shuffle back into place every now and then. By extension, Red is actually pretty intimidated by Sans.... because he’s Sans.

Next we have Edge and Blackberry. Edge is taller than Papyrus but not the tallest of the bros (although he’s the tallest in the main building) Although this may just be because he likes his boots with a bit of a heel. I think his differences to Paps are pretty obvious. His overall facial structure is spikier not just with his teeth but overall. Black on the other hand is the shortest of the whole group which purely comes from the fact that I love the idea that the most tyrannical and bossiest of the group happens to be the smallest and he doesn’t give a fuck. He’s gonna order you around and you’re gonna listen to him. I also like envisioning Black, unlike the rest of the shorter bros, as being pretty spindly. One last detail is that Princess heel click. Which you KNOW he probably does all the time. a little detail I have to thank Vegeta from DBZ for in one specific scene somebody pointed out on tumblr with the tag “what a fucking princess”. And the second lack entered the fic that’s immediately how I pegged him.

Russ/Mutt and Vanilla Paps. Russ is the second tallest overall and the biggest flirt which is a huge fucking accomplishment. However I like the idea that he’s only serious about %5 of the time and actually just does it either out of habit or just because it’s funny to rile people up and annoy and/or fluster them. Papyrus, pure soul that he is, seems both oblivious and immune. I think he’s just happy for any kind of compliment, missing the intention behind it completely... ..I think.... Paps is difficult to fully understand sometimes. How much is he fully overlooking and how much is he perfectly aware of and just ignores. It’s a mystery. Russ’ facial structure is a mess compared to Pap’s. His jaw is really large and his chin is chiseled. His face is basically mostly jaw. It’s insane.

Blue and Crooks! Blue is a character I always struggle with, but I’m slowly getting to grips with him better (I hope???) I made him taller than Sans because I like the idea that the one who you’d project as being the youngest is bigger than some of the oldest. Otherwise, not much to say. His face is less round than Sans’ and yet somehow looks younger because of it??? weird. Crooks is the tallest, but he’s always hunched over to deal with everyone else so it’s a little unclear how tall he really is. Of course, one of the first exposures I has to AUs at all was from @forgivemeimmasin and her HT boys. So when Crooks entered the story I could only picture him as looking like her design for him. Heck in my mind he’s a mirror copy, complete with his large shabby coat and fingerless gloves. However, he doesn’t actually wear those in the story so I left them off. But yeah, he’s suppose to be Mun’s design which is why he looks just like him.

Axe, Stretch and Q! Axe is actually an exact copy of Sans. The only thing different is his posture which makes him look shorter, but it’s just his hunched, on-alert, way of standing. Again, heavily inspired by Forgivemeimmasin’s design, however, in the SSLL fic he’s literally exactly Sans but with the head wound and eye. So I stuck closer to that idea. I left off his beanie because I wanted to draw that crack. I also put him in the hoodie that the canon Sans plushie wears, rather than my personal default of Sans’ fluff hood. Just to put some distance between the two, however cosmetic.

Stretch I think I struggled with the most for some reason. I think again the differences are pretty clear. He’s taller than Paps but shorter than Edge (although just slightly) however his posture makes him seem shorter. He’s got longer legs than Paps though. And he’s got them hollow cheeks.

And lastly we have @jolie-in-the-underground‘s Q in his civvies. In the fic he actually doesn’t wear his admin outfit that much, however it’s what most people draw him in. I decided to copy Jolie’s header image for his civvies but not lose his digital cues *jazz hands*. Obviously the tallest of the Sans’, but very different in overall stature and design from the others. I don’t think that is actually canon within the fic, but my visual mind puts him looking more like this than short potato Sans. I reason it’s because the more time goes by, the more Q’s design shifts naturally away from Sans into being his own unique form. The change is just so slow and subtle it’s hard to tell.

Also also, this is completely at odds with the fic, but I imagine the shorter bros to all be a tiny bit shorter than the LL (even Red) and the taller bros are taller than her. anyway, my mom’s phone is being eaten alive data wise so that’s gonna have to be it.

[charlotteroseessex-blog]

Web of Lies or Web of Ties?

Let me just start by asking you a question.

How many people do you actually know that you follow on Instagram?

Imagine scrolling through your ‘following’ list right now. How many of the accounts would you be able to confidently say you know personally? Not just know of through a friend of friend of their brothers girlfriend, but actually, seriously, can call a legitimate worthy friend?

These days, people use social media to follow and connect with friends, family and also influencers and celebrities who are considered relevant to their lives and goal. ‘Following’ is a crucial process in every users experience and can become misused tool when the element of connectivity is abused, especially if you begin to share private photos with people you don’t really know. The most followed accounts on Instagram belong to Cristiano Ronaldo (152.62 million) and Selena Gomez (144.75 million). Regular people who may not have even met either celebrity will follow them in order to keep updated with upcoming music releases or football team transfers because the information is perceived important to their lives. In adjunct to this information, it is worth admitting that we, as the general public, seek factual or even pointless knowledge about regular people that is unlikely to be beneficial for us to learn. It’s a strange concept, but we now live most of our lives online whereby everything is accessible and this is making us become reliant on instant gratification when seeking information regarding other people’s business (basically, we are just nosy).

Take the incident, for example, which broke the internet in 2018 when Kylie Jenner's secret pregnancy was finally revealed, after a year of speculation, with the birth of her daughter, Stormy. Now I’m not sure about you, but I was shamefully interested in the news way more than I should have been for someone other wise unbothered by other celebrity pregnancies. Online communities stalked the Jenner in what should have been a private journey through the beginnings of motherhood, which exploded with posts and images about the new arrival as soon as the hint of information was published. Now, unfortunately I don’t actually know any of the Kardashians nor do their life choices affect me in any way, shape or form... so why do I even care? Well truthfully, it’s because it’s shoved in all of our faces by every social media platform we are on and there’s really no escaping it, so naturally you kinda become interested. I think every man and their nan got a little hype from the announcement of Stormy’s birth.  

Social networking sites, like Facebook, are becoming more accessible to people of all ages due to their attractable features targeting basically every age category. There’s news coverage for the oldies and games for the young'uns (one word, Farmville). Users now as young as 13, which is the minimum age requirement, can create an active profile which encourages them to take their first few steps into the addictive world of social networking. Now, I know I speak for a lot of millennials when I say that this never happens. I joined Facebook when I was 10 years old. I’m no mathematician but even I can assure you that rules were broken when I ticked the ‘Terms and Conditions’ section when confirming my false age of about 33 before accessing my Facebook profile. Everyone did it because no one wanted to be that one weirdo going into secondary school without a Facebook account. 

So why is being online so desirable? I mean why else do kids break the age bracket by lying about their truthful year of birth? Well, the initial idea of being online is exciting. I mean there is literally no other platform that allows you to choose a profile picture, share funny posts and engage in group chats with friends after school. But this is merely the makeup of Facebook. Think of the features on Facebook as the high coverage foundation covering up the scars and cracks hidden on a site able to save information and build your digital footprint as well as selling this same data to external companies. I mean??? To consider kids as young as 13 becoming active online is slightly alarming.

Little 10-year-old me was definitely unaware of all the potential dangers awaiting me as soon as I activated my online profile. Younger people are becoming more and more active on social networking sites which makes the issue of ‘stranger danger’ even more prominent. Especially when I was new to social networking, the element of cyber attacks or bullying was only just being uncovered, so in a sense, the awareness we have for the internet now is more educated despite the dangers still being there. But who’s to say the users are any more careful than they were before? There are cases of people being scammed or ‘catfished’ over Facebook or something, but there’s never a bone in your body that thinks that will ever be applicable to you. The dangers of being online are endless, but now it has reached a point where some bad experiences have become entertaining for others intrigued and excited by online horror stories.

4 words.

Catfish the TV show.

The fact that this show has achieved 7 successful seasons in the 7 years it’s been running, outlines the overall crisis that false identities and accounts have and still are destroying real lives. The cases that are investigated by Nev Schulman and Max Joseph are outrageous and most of the time so far fetched you wonder how these people couldn’t recognise the Catfish themselves. However, the manipulation and deception highlighted on the show presents social networking as a vulnerable world for those unaware of the intentions of those wanting to serve you harm. I mean, who’s to say the online friend you made on Facebook is actually who she claims to be. Yes, her picture might look legit and her friends may also seem believable, but nowadays, you can never ben too careful. She could be using her friends image in order to be perceived by others as someone prettier or skinnier or she may even be a he. Imagine a 50 year old man sat in his scabby 1 bedroom flat, who used the image found on google to befriend other young girls, whilst adding a nearby college as her ‘place of education’ in order to easily befriend unsuspecting students from the college who assume acquaintances purely based on their same place of education. It’s probably easier than it sounds.

But still, how many people do you actually know online?

Being accepted as a friend or being followed on social media can create a feeling of acceptance and gratification, but who are we really letting in? Are the pressures of society in being a certain weight or height, making an individual's hatred and discontent towards themselves a toxic driving force towards the increasing rate of falsified representations? The idolisation of more successful people, naturally evokes some sort of admiration and can even lead to a self comparison with someone so vastly different from yourself, we end up wishing ourselves to be something else - longer legs, bigger biceps, rounder lips, you name it, we’ve all thought it. Is the growth in catfishing others with personas deemed more attractive than our own, a progression towards a less unique generation? It’s no secret that the younger generation are all starting to look the same. After all, we are all influenced by the same few models and fashion bloggers who sport a similar appearance, like the small sunglasses perched at the end of their perfect button noses serving no purpose whatsoever other than an extension of the nose.

Not only is Catfishing a betrayal of social networking, but it is also a solid representation in how online communities can violate the privacy of others if the information provided to and by others is false. To address the mishaps of online communities and understanding the weak ties with some followers, it is worth delving into the realms of Instagram - the Queen of all user generated contents. Here, users are able to depict whatever persona they desire, true or false. Most accounts on Instagram post aesthetically pleasing images which are followed by those interested in the fashion it features or the interior design included in the backdrop. The communities created here share common interests despite being unofficial acquaintances with one another. In being so inspired by certain feeds, we often find ourselves trying to replicate influential or successful users so to achieve a similar sort of popularity. But how realistic is this new representation of ourselves? Potentially, this could also be classed as a form of catfishing, as even though you are the same 20 year old female displayed in your photos, the clothes and hair and makeup IS NOT YOU. The interests and persona you have created online is simply a replica of someone else. Is this just another symbolic reference of being a catfish? And are we now catfishing ourselves in becoming something or someone we no longer recognise online?

Younger users are the most likely to befriend strangers due to their naivety of experience in the application. Luckily, Facebook is a bound system which SHOULD make accessing profiles and private information less easy to access (depending on the privacy controls) until a friend request is accepted. The factorship of age and difference in online awareness is important when considering the reasons why users embark on adding others online. I remember my own first hype of Facebook as, when I was 10 and new to the world of online networking, my initial desire was to add as many people as I could in order to gage the most amount of friends. Why? Because I did what every other kid in the world was doing and didn’t want to be the outsider with less than 1,000 friends. In doing so, I dismissed the dangers of accepting a request from someone I didn’t know and instead embraced the extra friend regardless of ‘stranger danger’. In addressing this naivety at such a young age, it has bought annoyance upon my feed in recent years when I am still inundated with people I don't even know. My Facebook timeline was, until recently, filled with strangers status updates I didn’t care about. Now, 10 years later and having unfollowed and defriended those irrelevant strangers and to return my profile to a safe and bounded system, I am more cautious in my privacy settings as well as the information I choose to share. In being older and, I like to think, more wiser towards the dangers of Facebook and those using it as a platform to abuse, my profile is purely used for communication for those I maintain strong ties with. My point is that social networking, despite being intended for bound systemic usage, has the potential to allow strangers into a personal world of expression. 

The element of ‘stranger danger’ is prevalent on all day to day social networking sites and has recently developed into an entertainment theme. Not only is false identity the main purpose behind the TV show Catfish, as well as exposing and raising awareness for recognising false identities, but it’s also become a popular genre in the thriller category on Netflix. I would be lying if I denied the entertainment value of these movies and documentaries, as sad as that may be. We live in a world now where traumatic, horrific and impossible events prevail to be the most popular watches amongst the general public. Watching dramas and films created at the expense of others life-changing online experiences merely shock audiences nowadays due to the normality of cases whereby people are tricked into situations others would say ‘well you should have seen it coming’. The shrugging of shoulders when cases of catfishing or identity thefts are reported are becoming more and more acceptable in their regular occurrences and barely now even make the headlines.

Netflix capitalises on cases such as stalking, identity theft and catfishing in order to present, for the film hungry public, an endless binge watching of tragic cases of unsuspecting victims. One of the most recent movies to have been released on Netflix, is psychological thriller ‘Cam’ which follows a young webcam girl down a pathway of self destruction when her identity is stolen and then replicated by an anonymous user who benefits from her achieved success in her career. This film represents the repercussions of living your life online and over sharing information to a network of followers unknown to you. ‘Cam’ leads you on a journey which sees the obsession with not only being liked online, but also the growing fixation in achieving the largest following in order to reach self-love and acception.

The entertainment world has hugely profited from the mishaps of social media and the victims of others abuse of it. I often wonder the main attraction for creating false profiles online, or even stealing others, as my personal use for social networking is to engage with friends, the real life friends I actually know. The intention for users who create false identities in order to befriend and scam random innocent people, which is usually financially motivated, is honestly one of the most tragic pathways a human being can embark on. Just get a life? It’s not only putting regular people’s privacy in danger, but it also makes being online a concept of which some people do all they can to remain as far away from as possible or take regular breaks from social media altogether. And truthfully, the way in which social networking is spiralling, I don’t blame them.

[savrenim]

I keep almost opening tumblr to write a Big Long Post About My Life Because Goddamnit This Place Used To Be My Diary Until Suddenly I Got Involved In The H*milton Fandom And A Whole Bunch Of Strangers Started Following Me, and then, like. suddenly got more self-conscious. as well as better at dealing with stuff in my life so I haven’t really felt the need to vent, when did I become a semi-responsible semi-functional adult. but you know what? what the hell. there are things that I actually vaguely do want to vent about because dear gods has my life Been Ridiculous of late.

I am approximately 3/4 the person that I used to be? which is a dramatic way of stating that I used to be about 200lbs, I didn’t actually know because in theory I’ve aggressively avoided scales since high school because I used to have pretty bad anorexia and then orthorexia and binge eating then, it got better after I decided I don’t care about anything physical and just cut off all thoughts about anything like that and refused to acknowledge anything more than following the rule of eating three meals a day, but in practice I go to the doctor yearly and can access my medical records online and every once in a while can check with a friend and being steady over the last year or two meant that I was about 200lbs.

I was 153lbs the last time I checked, and I’ve been checking weekly just to make sure that I Don’t Keep Drastically Losing Weight, because this has all been since March. not even the beginning of March, the second half of March. I almost definitely lost thirty pounds in a month, a month and a half. and then have at least been losing weight more slowly after that? it has been fucking insane and I hated every second of it, wheeeee. (what happened in March was I got sick with the flu, couldn’t eat for a week, lost a fair bit of weight from that, and then my appetite/taste buds solidly shifted after only eating lentil soup back to super healthy vegetarian rice and beans and what-not that I’d been eating at the beginning of the school year, instead of take-out type deal, and I was actually getting sleep and going to more Tai Chi and every other week my car was breaking down so I was walking places a bunch and sudden lots of exercise + change in diet + not as stressed as first semester and getting sleep actually is a fairly healthy way to lose weight?)

but boooooy did it freak me out when I suddenly fit into jeans from the start of college that I had kept thinking I’d never fit into them again because Holy Fuck All Of My I’m Starving And Am Going To Die instincts kicked in and all of my actual close friends are online friends which meant besides one comment from a Tai Chi instructor directly after I’d been out for three weeks from slowly recovering from the flu (which actually was the nicest way anyone has ever commented on my weight, it was an “oh you’ve lost weight” “yeah I had the flu pretty bad, that’s where I’ve been for three weeks, couldn’t eat for a week and have been slowly getting back to solid meals” “oh yeah that really sucks, happened to a friend of mine last year, I think there are still pictures it’s scary” instead of a well you look good response, Thomas P is great and I love him) but absolutely no one was commenting and it made me feel like I was going crazy and I had no idea how much I weighed so how much I should be freaking out and no data even to compare that against, which was why I eventually broke and got a scale so that I could at least have datapoints and figure out when I was steady again because gods I just wanted to be steady

and, like, that was one of the literal worst parts of losing weight in high school, it was ballooning from 100lbs to 200lbs and all the not-so-subtle judgement from my mother when I came back various breaks during college and the number of times I had to threaten not to come back at all if she so much as commented on my weight so she found other ways of commenting about “why are you skipping aikido tonight, you only have so many times to go to the studio before you’re back east,” and, like, the constant fight of her either deciding to pay for my food or that she wouldn’t pay for any of it because I ate too much of it, and then, like. after having lost so much weight needing to get new bras and honestly some new clothes despite the fact that I haven’t bought fitted clothes since the very start of college because I’ve just been so fucking afraid of my weight ballooning again and not being able to fit into anything, considering I don’t really have money to drop on a new wardrobe as I get everything as cheap as possible or hand-me-down anyways and then wheeee that brought up all the shitty memories from high school where my mother refused to get me a new uniform when I weighed too much for my old one so I spent a year squeezing into skirts that left imprints on my waist and wearing long sweaters to cover the fact that I couldn’t zip them up, and, like. suddenly losing weight also triggered the fear of am I going to gain it all back then more and be stuck with a wardrobe that even though it was designed loose in the first place, still won’t fit me, which is ridiculous because I’m steadying out and it’s not like my diet or patterns are going to change again, just. gods have these past few months brought up a fair bit of past trauma and I a little bit wish more people had reached out to me and responded but I bugged the right people and they hella listened and made sure enough that old instincts and old fears didn’t get involved and, like. I like this body? I’m more flexible and my balance is a bit better and I can punch differently but just as well and I need to get used to groundfighting and throws with it but lack of mass is made up for in other ways. gods I love Tai Chi and it is the one thing that has kept me sane through all of this because no matter what my body looks like the thing that’s been most important to me is that physically, I’m dangerous, and that’s not about weight. that’s about strength, that’s about training, I’m in that studio now eight hours a week because that is the maximum number of classes they have for adults and I can practice on my own and just. the one time that I feel fiercely okay and goddamn happy about the fact that I have a physical form is knowing that if someone messes with me, I can defend myself, and proving it to myself over and over and over.

but yeah that’s been going on.

then there are the kittens can you tell how much my life has been made better by the kittens, I love these kittens so much, the story behind the kittens is that I saw a cat meowing outside, thought it was a stray kitten because of how small and starving it looked but knocked on doors to see if it belonged to any of my neighbors before I just took it to a vet type deal, and it belonged to the woman behind the first door I knocked on, who asked me why, do you want her, which I thought was weird, then said woman shouted at me from her window as I was taking out trash that seriously, this cat just had three kittens, she needed money and to get rid of them, was I interested in buying any of them off her, I was just going to get Talvus and then it was a combo of “she gave me the kitten at 4 weeks which then I couldn’t get him to eat anything because he hadn’t been weaned yet and kittens can’t be separated from the rest of their litter until 12 or 13 weeks or they don’t socialize correctly” that just. waaaasn’t good. as well as the other two kittens were adorable and I’d named them and it seemed for a little while like my girlfriend might be able to take one so I went “listen just give me all three at 8 weeks once they’re weaned and I’ll take it from there”

and I’m so fucking glad I did this

she was keeping all three of them in a cage most of the time, they weren’t using her litter box because she was barely cleaning it so she was surprised to hear they weren’t peeing all over my house, I’m actually taking them to get vaccinated and spayed/neutered which I can only afford because the Friends of Animals program exists but also, holy fuck have I been spending a lot of my savings between kittens and needing to drive everyone everywhere so a whole bunch of tolls and gas money to my fiance staying with me for a bit but that both meant buying more expensive groceries than I usually do because she eats meat as well as a whole bunch of errands to run and little things that add up (and then she got strep and just. it was a nightmare.)

right my car has been breaking down too, that’s been exciting, thank you my grandfather for dying and leaving enough inheritance-wise that I have been able to afford getting a different used car despite wheee leaking money left and right this summer but fixing up this one consistently because if I don’t I’m even More Fucked despite it not being worth it has legitimately burned through a solid quarter of my savings. like. I don’t have the right to say that I’m worried about money because I do still have some savings and a stipend coming in each month from research that pays for food and groceries so it’s not like it’s gotten tight so much as I have had to just deal with savings exist because sometimes emergencies come up and you Gotta Spend Them and hopefully I’ll save more next year and having a car that doesn’t break down every other month is going to help

considering the old car is in now perfect working condition I’m giving it to a friend of mine for $300 with the stipulation that if it breaks down at all over the next year I will refund them any of that $300 that they don’t make selling it to a junkyard because I didn’t want to waste a perfectly fine working car and my friends are even more poor than me I just. also am hemorrhaging money left and right and gods maybe that will help.

my fiance and I figured out that we’re probably never going to live together. from a combination of we have very, very different schedules to she needs so much structure in her life that slowly wears away at my spoons to not even give it to her but to re-arrange my own schedule and contribute to the logistics of her making it happen for herself, like, I can sit at the table in my apartment and work for eight hours on research and pause because there’s food in my kitchen to grab a thing to eat, she needed to go to a coffee shop every morning to be able to concentrate because if it wasn’t going out with a goal of doing something and being somewhere she wouldn’t be able to concentrate and it would mess up the entire day, which, like. wasn’t terrible because I usually walk for coffee anyways and can work anywhere but having that be a Necessary Logistic that I Have To Push For In The Morning Because God Help Anyone Who Tries To Wake The Sleeping Dragon (even though said sleeping dragon prefers to be on schedules where she wakes up at 6:30am, unlike my usual 10:00am, and we tried to compromise for 8:30am but guess who was the one who was always up first because I actually listen to my alarm and then dear gods is it stressful to wake people up)

(as well as this is not all her, it is also me, like. I need everything to be perfectly organized in terms of logistics so if someone hasn’t eaten yet it will bug me so I will ping them every half an hour of “you’ve forgotten to eat lunch, can we make lunch happen for you,” or there is a very specific state of clean that I need the apartment to be, or I’m incredibly antisocial at times, I can’t deal with someone touching me or fall asleep next to them if I’m stressed or if it’s hot so spent a couple of nights on the couch, as well as I’m picky about exactly the way the chores get done so needed to do all of them, the tl;dr is I think I have discovered my ideal living situation is living alone, at least most of the time and maybe having a house to visit on weekends, because I love her and love to spend time with her but also need a lot of space and long periods of quiet to do the work that I need to get done)

which, like

absolutely none of this is detrimental to our actual plans for our relationship, considering our actual plans are “we both are very busy people, she actually does have a group of people that she lives with very very well and that actively work well into her schedule, I have my kittens and my math and my facetime and my weekends with people, and the basis of our relationship is the commitment and the external alliance and the face that we present the world as well as the fun of getting to be gay and go on cute dates every once in a while, it’s not that we live well or lifestyle well together, it’s that we powercouple well together, so pick and choose the things that work and keep those.” which also works really well for she’s thinking of raising kids and I’m probably going to bounce around location-wise in post doc positions for a while before I find somewhere I might be able to settle with tenure, and, like. that’s not a good environment to raise kids in.

(we’re poly. we’re so poly. can you tell how poly we are. it’s one of the things that solidly makes us work, because we don’t have to force the other one to be everything, she’s found someone that she solidly likes that we’re calling prospective duckling papa, I also solidly like this person, so. kids might actually be a thing on the actual horizon, although probably not in the house that I’m spending most of my time, so that’s interesting. and terrifying. and expensive. and hopefully at least five years away.)

and then also I...finally had a conversation with a friend that I’ve been meaning to have for a while? that I really hope and I really think I did get across the whole “I care about our friendship the way that society mostly expects people to care about and be committed to romantic relationships, which is almost why it’s weird to just call you a friend which is why we are having this conversation, not because I Am In Romantic Love With You Again” of basically just “considering I’ve been thinking about and mapping out the actual relationships in my life and the ones that are steady and that are going to stick around, you know that I love you, right, and that you’re one of the ones that I really really want to stick around” and, like

gods do I love this person so much. and just....the role they have played in my life over the years? the way that I can talk to them and the things that I can talk to them about and share with them and math and physics and stories and DnD stories because gods do I rant about that to anyone who will listen and they get it pretty bad, oops, but they put up with it. and just the sum of who they are to me right now? is one of the most important people in my life. and I get so self-conscious of “but do I mean anything back to you at all, of course no one cares about me and this is Entirely One Sided but that’s okay I’ve always been the person who was going to jump in front of the bullet because I go more intense than other people” but, like. besides the friends that actively know that they are surrogate siblings to me. There’s my fiance, that I trust actually loves me as much as I love her, because we are very gay and we talk about it all the time. There’s another friend that is actually one of the few people that I’m physically comfortable with because both (a) he is as asexual as me so I can actually make out or cuddle with him while knowing that there is zero interest in sex happening in the encounter, and (b) has spent years slowly setting boundaries and slowly negotiating comfort levels together and has been an amazing friend and fantastic part of my life in other ways and, like, so yeah, I love him, and he’s well aware of that, and he loves me, and I’m not self-conscious about that, but, just.

there is this part of me that always goes “nope you don’t matter to people” or at least the people that matter to me unless I have Lots Of Data to back it up and you know what I have fucking data to back this one up and this person explicitly told me that they care about me too

and it bothers me to love a person a bunch and then go “but oh gods I need to be so careful and delicate about saying it because what if They Get The Wrong Message and I don’t want to make things awkward on their end” which also is complete bullshit because this person has heard me talk about how I think and feel about things for years so if anyone is going to actually know that I’m not lying or sidestepping the truth in what I mean when I say I love them it’s going to be them but just. I guess time to build up the confidence that it is okay to directly express how much I care about this person the way that I have gotten comfortable expressing the way I care about other people in my inner circle because at least now I have their word that they know, they’re okay with it, they care about me right back too type deal

and that is all the drama that has been going on in my life

[masterzii]

How to get 4.0 or at least 3.7 plus?

There is no _secret_ to getting good grades. Additionally, not everyone will get good grades. I wouldn't focus on getting the grades as much as I would focus on making the most of your time, and using it wisely. Some classes are really hard and not worth the time to get an A.

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You could get a 4.0 by never taking any difficult classes that you don't have to, or you could load up and take 18 credit semesters and maybe not get a 4.0.

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Manage your time effectively.

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There are five super important things that you _must_ do for overall health and productivity.

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Meditation, Exercise, Diet, Sleep (7-8 hours a night, almost always), and Social activity.

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If you do those things and manage your time, that will be the best you can do.

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Make sure to set aside some downtime for yourself in order to restore yourself, whether that be to go to parties, clubs, spend time hanging out with friends, reading, hobbies... etc.

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Don't be too hard on yourself. If you are, you can become depressed, which is not only bad as a whole, but will make it harder to work on things, because you won't have the energy. It's okay to get bad grades. It's not good to linger on mistakes, figure out what you did wrong, and how you can prepare better for next time, or perform better on the assignments.

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Also, find some clubs, and make lots of friends. Make friends with people who work hard, it'll rub off onto you, and it'll matter more who your friends are than your grades when you get into the real world, over the long run.

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They may help pull you into good jobs, or act as references.

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Also, thing about your long term goals (which you may not be certain about), grades matter more for some things than for others.

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Finding the balances is tricky. You can only strive to do your best, and make the most of your time.

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I seriously regret not spending more time with people in college, my mental health would've been better, and I would have likely had better grades as a result, hell maybe even a girlfriend, or some fun stories to tell.

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You got this. I believe in you.

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You _will_ make mistakes, but everyone does, focus on the goals.

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And remember, life is about the journey, because every life ends in death.

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Go to class, study, go to office hours, work with your friends in order to help each other out when you get stuck, and for company. Set schedules and study in advance, don't pull an all nighter before an exam, because it'll negatively affect your memory, and your ability to do simple tasks, so you'll make many more mistakes, and it probably won't be worth it, unless you knew nothing going into the exam.

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Read the textbook, lecture notes. Make sure you know the content, rereading, and highlighting are probably not going to do anything to help you. Lots of study techniques are a waste of time, even though a lot of people spend hours doing them. Make sure you _understand_ the context, because it will make it easier to remember. Dumb songs, acronyms and other mnemonic techniques will make things easier to remember, even if they sound stupid.

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If you have a question, fucking ask, people may judge you, but it doesn't matter what they think, it matters that you understand the content. Lots of people who seem like they understand probably don't.

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Don't spend too much time comparing yourself to others, everyone has their limits, their priorities etc, focus on completing goals so you'll leave college happy with how you did, and _what_ you did.

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Social accountability is another powerful tool that will help you. If you can get your friends to be disappointed in you when you don't study properly, or do something you're supposed to do, it will be a massive deterrent against doing things poorly.

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If you're interested in learning to master your memory, check out "Moonwalking with Einstein". Anyone can train their memory to memorize lots of things quickly, which can be useful for some classes (and less useful for concept based classes).

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Learn how everything in a class connects, if you can do that, instead of having memorized one piece of information you'll have a web of things and how they relate to each other, making everything easier to remember, and sometimes you can use this web to derive a missing piece of information. I did disproportionately well on many exams, and I believe it was due to me focusing on understanding, and not memorizing problem solutions. Don't memorize the solution to lots of problems, learn how to read a problem and come up with an approach to tackle it.

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Lots of people will be stumped when a problem is not 100% exactly the same as it was in homework, don't let that happen to you.

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On exams, I always would flip through exams, do as much as I could until I got stuck, and move onto the next problem. I'd come back to that problem after it had some time to sit in my brain.

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Studying weeks in advance a little bit everyday is 10x better than cramming last minute.

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Do your homework, homework is studying (if you do it right).

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Also, more important than pure grades:

lab/research experience, programming skills for data analysis and automation, friends (connections), internships (10x more important than grades for getting a job), letters of recommendation for grad school (from working with professors)

Also, set a schedule, and stick to it as much as you can, but don't let it prevent you from doing unexpected things with friends. Make as many things as possible into a routine, so you don't have to actively think about them, planning will help you stay ahead of the game, so you don't need to figure out what to do, you just do it.

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Use time between classes wisely.

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Don't hang out with people who are going to get you to do stupid things, and who don't have any ambitions, they _will_ drag you down with them. It doesn't matter if they are good people at heart.

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And once again, use your time in college wisely, if it takes 10 hours a week to get a 3.5, and 30 hours to get a 4.0, just take the 3.5 and use the 20 hours to do research, join academic type clubs that will improve skills you want, it will send you farther in life.

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Figure out the possibilities for what you want to do, and try to design life around them. If you want to go to medical school, have a backup plan. Just studying biology will f*ck you over if you don't get in.

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Also, make sure you won't be graduating with an amount of debt you can't handle, it will literally ruin your life.

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It doesn't matter if you went to Harvard if you have 200k in debt, you'll be paying 20k+ a year for the next 20 years.

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Generally speaking, don't go over 50k in debt unless you have a very good reason, and a way to pay it off.

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An english degree is probably never going to make it easy to pay off 100k in debt no matter where you went.

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Once again, don't be too hard on yourself, you are in a top school, everyone around is mostly just as smart as you are, you are no longer the cream of the crop. You will not do as well as you did in high school (In all likelihood). That's okay, as I said, do your best, and plan for post college (or grad school), your grades matter less than you think in the long run.

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Also, I suggest figuring out every class you want to take, and figure out a plan to take them. Maybe you'll see if you can dual degree or double major, it's much easier to do now than in a few years. Classes will get harder (probably).

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You might consider taking a few classes in different disciplines in order to make sure you want to stay in your major, it'll make switching easier if you have a few classes done.

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Or, consider doubling down and finishing your classes a year early so you can graduate, or maybe start taking graduate classes and do lots of research.

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Good luck! :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/college/comments/996efz/how_to_get_40_or_at_least_37_plus/