#if you don't see the chemistry you cannot graduate

[dcextremefan]

The Writer - Gotham Knights Jason Todd x reader - Part 2

Warning: same as the part 1, by the way, read the last chapter and also use of remedies (do not repeat the same actions as the protagonist, go to see a specialist/doctor when you start to feel bad phisically or emotionally)

After the Red Hood saved you and you posted about it on your blog, you got tons of likes from thousand of people who lives in Gotham. You were laying in your bed moving your legs excitedly and then you received an email. An anonymous email.

Your smile faded and then you send a copy of an archive to this email and closed it, you started to feel your heartbeat go faster and a little bit of dizziness.

"God... for how long will I still do it?" you asked to yourself "what would father do?"

You get up of your bed and goes to the bathroom and looked at your reflection at the mirror, you opened the high balcony and you took a pill. A tear fell of your eye, but you quickly wiped it off with your hand. You grab your notebook and placed on your desk and you finally sleep.

Something you did not notice it's a vigilante who is watching you from afar. Red Hood watches you fall asleep and he enters through you apartment's window and starts inspecting everything.

"Belfry, I've entered into (Y/N)'s apartment" Red Hood informed quietly to not wake you up

"okay... that's kinda weird, I hope we'll never do it again. I don't want us to get reputation as a stalker" Tim has said

"Tim, don't worry. We are just investigating. And Jason, try to find at least some clues about (Y/N)'s life" Barbara demanded

"don't you think that's invasion of privacy?" Dick asked

"what Jason has said to us earlier got my attention. Why would some random thugs assault a normal civilian writter?" Barbara answered

"not just any writter. A very famous writter, maybe they were just after her money, after all she sells books" Tim suggested

"anyway, what did you find, Jason?" Dick asked

"nothing special, she loves drinking a lot of tea and... hmm" Jason stopped "she uses remedies to control anxiety"

"have you checked in her computer?" Barbara asked

Jason went to see in your computer, but it needs password, he buffed

"belfry, her computer needs password" Jason informed

"the one who can discover passwords so easily is Babs" Dick informed

"unfortunately I cannot discover the password right now, but I had an idea. Tim, you with me?" Barbara asked

"you know it" Tim answered

Jason started to search more about you in your apartment and he finds a portrait of you inside of your locker, it's you in a graduation uniform with a woman who is older than you.

"I found a portrait of (Y/n) with a woman who might be her mother. Not only that, she is wearing the graduation uniform and it says 'Chemistry College'" Jason has informed

"wait what? No no no, she always put on her bio that she is graduated at Literature, how can she lie about something like that?" Tim asked surprised

"we'll find out" Jason said

TO BE CONTINUED...

[callsign-bunnie]

Do you have everyone's majors decided in the college au?? And the classes the professors teach??

Yes! So this was further explained in An Academic Proposal chapter 14 and 15, but I've had their majors decided since about chapter 5 of An Academic Achievement! Feel free to ask any questions about Academic Achievement and Proposal since I know not everyone has read either

--

Rodolfo: Rodolfo's major is a little tricky. So, he's Pre-Law which isn't one specific major, but I've settled on Sociology being what he takes before he goes to Law School and switches to Criminal Law (Originally going to be for Custody Law which I think has a bit more specialized of a Law degree.)

Alejandro: Alejandro is actively a business major, he's also in Alpha Lambda which is a business frat. However, once he gets through this degree, he's going back into college to get a BSW (Bachelor's of Social Work)

Soap: Chemical Engineering. This was sparked because what he's supposed to be was split down the middle as half wanted Engineering, half wanted Chemistry, so I found a middle ground. He's not too passionate about his degree at the current time for reasons I can't say due to spoilers.

Ghost: Ghost is forensics with no specialty. He's kind of just going to college to have a degree, he has enough family money he doesn't really need to find a career. He plans on going as high as he can with Forensics and then teaching it.

Roach: Roach is Digital Forensics, which he picked because Farah is forensics and he has a mild interest in technology. However, he's reconsidering his major for Entomology, because he has more passion for insects than computers. I cannot explain why he didn't go with Entomology to begin with because of (you guessed it) spoilers.

Valeria: Sociology. She's also Pre-law and will be a prosecuting attorney when she graduates Law School. She's been on this track since she started.

Price: He's mostly just the coach of the football team as well as a few other very small sports teams. He also teaches a couple Sport related courses. He has a degree in Sports Management with a Sports and Society minor.

Laswell: She primarily teaches Criminology, but she's a Prosecuting Attorney for her main job. I should state this now I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LAW AND I DON'T FEEL INTERESTED IN LEARNING, SO ALL THREE LAWYERS ARE GOING TO BE FAIRLY INACCURATE

Laswell's Wife (Jen): She teaches Chemistry Courses, whatever ends up being most convenient for plot. Not super accurate for her character, I would probably choose Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree if I did another. However, she has a PhD in Chemistry.

Gaz: Business major. He's fairly undriven at college because he had other things going on when he joined. He's about to look over everything he's done and see if switching majors is something feasible for him.

Alex: He started out also as a business major, but switched to Criminology in his second year about a fourth of the way through. Laswell helped him do it and he'll likely join her firm when he's graduated. He used to also be in Alpha Lambda, but had to leave when he switched majors because it's a Business Frat

Farah: She's a basic Forensics Major with no specialty. I have no major reason, I don't really think it fits her character, but it did fit the story. If I was to do a new College AU, I think I would pick Social Justice or Social Work

Malika: She's a computer science major because she has a special interest in all things computer! She and Roach actually bond over a similar major quite a bit!

Graves: Business Major, current Chapter President of Alpha Lambda. Not much really needs to be known beyond that, tbh

Lucas: (He's important to the story.) He's also Pre-Law and his degree is in Criminology. He hasn't quite figured out the full scope of his career, yet.

--

Again, feel free to ask whatever for this AU. Here's the original headcanons post and here's An Academic Achievement and An Academic Proposal if you haven't read them, yet. I think I just recently reached a 225k total wordcount for the series!

[boozles]

Boozle's 2023 Top Ten Dramas

I've been really enjoying reading everyone's top lists of the year, and I've actually been thinking about my own for a few weeks now, because I knew how hard it would be for me to put my lists together! Basically, in terms of Asian drama series, I watched a lot this year. According to my MDL, I have completed 99 dramas for the whole year. (Disclaimer: not all of these were BL, and a handful were short films. Regardless, I still think that's a ridiculous amount and I understand why people think I have no life x_x) So, I think you all can understand why these lists are going to be a little difficult for me!

Note: Everything I say here is my own personal thoughts and opinions. I'm not trying to attack anyone for liking something I don't, or disliking something I loved. We're all pals here, okay? <3

Top Ten Dramas (Note: not all dramas were released in 2023.)

(i) He's Coming to Me (2019) After watching Something in my Room last year, I swore to never watch another 'ghost boyfriend' series because gosh, even if ghosts are my favourite spooky thing, my heart cannot handle the pain of a sad ending. However, Ohm and Singto sucked me in, and this was just lovely and even gave me a happier ending than I'd expected. I'm a little sad that I was so late to this series, but it has definitely found it's place in my heart.

(ii) My School President (2022/23) I still can't believe that I originally thought this was gonna suck and only started it because I wanted to see what everyone was fussing over. I became so invested in these lads and gosh, I fell in love with the cast (minus Prom, who still irks me). Fourth, Gemini and Mark were absolute standouts in this, and I honestly cannot wait for My Love Mix-Up! because they will be fantastic.

(iii) Moonlight Chicken (2023) This is a surprise to no one, because it seems like it's on everyone's favourites list. Again, though, this was a surprising hit for me; I originally only planned on watching for First and Khaotung because I didn't really know Earth and Mix very well (I only started watching BL at the tail end of 2022, so I feel like I was still a little bit of a newbie at the time) and I just fell in love with EarthMix. They have chemistry that is just so mesmerising and belongs to them. The writing of this series was also just perfect, and the cast was wonderful. It deserves all the accolades it's been getting, and I honestly think this will always be a favourite of mine.

(iv) Choco Milk Shake (2022) In all honesty, I expected this to be weird because it's literally about a guy's pets coming back as humans and his dog falls in love with him and his cat falls in love with his uncle. It sounds like it should be creepy, but it really isn't. I sobbed like an absolute baby during this, and whilst I found the ending a little confusing, I loved it. I really hope we get that rumoured second season.

(v) The Gifted (2018) & The Gifted: Graduation (2020) Okay, I'm including both seasons of The Gifted because I loved them both for their own reasons. However, one of the main things I loved about this series was that it made me appreciate actors I'd never cared much for before. I didn't get all the fuss about Gun Attaphan until I watched this (and yes, I'd already seen Not Me), but I thought he was spectacular in this. Chimon and Nanon were fantastic, and I really loved Mek and Victor, even if they weren't as porminent and I'd have liked.

(vi) A Boss and Babe (2023) Ah, my first experience of ForceBook. I would die for these men. This was a bloody brilliant series, and if you want my honest opinion, it really showed how fantastic Book is at acting, because Cher is nothing like any other character he has portrayed. I loved the backstories and the little nuances, and the supporting cast was fantastic, too. This series deserves more credit and respect (but can we pretend the Our Skyy 2 episodes never happened? Because they were so weird.)

(vii) Beyond Evil (2021) This is probably the best Kdrama I watched all year. It had everything I need - murder, mystery, tortured men with tragic backstories, plus twists and turns in every damn episodes. The acting and writing was superb and I'm honestly depressed there isn't going to be a season 2 (as far as I know?).

(viii) Only Friends (2023) Okay, I know we all have our complaints about things that went wrong with OF, but you know what? I still loved it. Yes, I still think the creators made mistakes with allowing fan opinions to influence the editing and I'm bitted about the treatment of Boston in the end, but I loved these characters and their stories. The cast put their heart and soul into their performances (especially Khaotung and Force) and I really hope we get to see them in future series' together again, as they all work so well together.

(ix) I Feel You Linger in the Air (2023) This was another series I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did, yet I was there with the rest of you, bawling my eyes out when it ended. Despite the fact my dream career is a historian, I often don't enjoy historical dramas, so I put this off for the first few weeks of it airing until all the gif sets finally forced me to check it out. The cast was fantastic, and the writing was brilliant. I will be broken hearted if they don't get a second season, because they deserve it.

(x) I told Sunset About You (2020) & I Promised You the Moon (2021) I'm including both series as one since technically it's just season 1 and season 2. I loved these shows. They were the most realistic portrayals of young teenage queer love that I have seen in so long. I know a lot of people get angry with Teh in IPYTM but by gosh, my heart just hurt for that confused boy; Billkin's crying is so tragically realistic and as much as I too hated that he was hurting Oh-Aew, I also could understand the confusing feelings that come with growing up. Oh-Aew was just...perfect. PP Krit really just cut my chest open, crawled inside and made a little home for himself with this performance. My only issue is that these two haven't been in anything else together since, and I really hope 2024 fixes that, because as much as I support their music careers, I need them on my screen again.

Honorary Mentions: (i) Kiseki: Dear to Me (2023) (ii) The Warp Effect (2022) (iii) Home School (2023) (iv) Our Dating Sim (2023) (v) La Pluie (2023)

[dig-jules]

yes i know the god awful writers room was definitely trying to put saavik in romantic situations with kirk and spock because they're incapable of writing women BUT in the culmination of all of the acting and directing choices that went into those scenes, I don't think it has to- or even does at all for that matter- read romantically in any of them.

Ok I'll only talk about the kirk and saavik scene

(but I'll probably discuss the spock and saavik scenes from II, III, and IV in another post eventually)

The elevator scene is not romantic. At all. I actually didn't think it was ever intended to be until people were complaining about it on here. And it's the only scene where someone could even stretch the definition of romantic to fit.

Yeah there's the weird "saavik stops the elevator" thing but it genuinely just comes across as an awkward standoff between Kirk (having his midlife crisis) and a young cadet who isn't afraid to confront the expectations Starfleet had when he was that age.

Did I mention they're standing on opposite ends of a very large elevator?

Kirk stands in literal parade rest and stares at her with a deadpan, tense expression the entire scene. And Alley, in the nature of her character, deadpans right back. Every single romantic interest Kirk ever had onscreen had him immediately batting his eyelashes and making the same stupid smitten face. He had more chemistry with his ex-wife over a zoom call in this very same film than he ever even hinted at with Saavik.

L->R Meeting Edith after breaking into her basement in 1930s New York; Literally seeing Rayna for 2 seconds; watching a powerpoint presentation made by his estranged ex-wife

How does he look at Saavik?

Okay, so they're talking. What do they talk about? Saavik's test scores. And also there's a bit of "yeah im your teacher so i probably shouldn't tell you I bullshitted my final exam at the school you're graduating from and got away with it"

This is no different than how he acted around Will Decker in TMP.

It's awkward and it's standoffish and it perfectly displays that Kirk is so incapable of dealing with "outgrowing his usefulness" that he cannot interact with young people. He makes a joke that doesn't land and looks seconds away from, as Bones would put it, Koboyashi maruing himself.

Shatner plays it like that. Alley plays it like that. The dialogue leaves room for that and only that.

[eliotquillon]

PLOT: shelby/lucy. anastasia/nero. elena/nero. raven/verity >:^)

shelby/lucy: doesn't make sense, compels me. i have no idea why i latched onto them as a couple bc they hardly interact one on one (other than shelby technically being the one who introduced her to the others?) and realistically shelby/laura or lucy/laura makes more sense if we're talking abt ships that have any kind of foundation in canon. However this is maybe exactly WHY it compels me. i think they have a lot in common tbh (difficult family relationships, attempted concealed identities). and while i find shelby super shippable with every core four member i can never really see any of those relationships working out in the long run for her (shelby/laura i always see as one sided/laura choosing otto, shelby/otto is a short lived teenage fling that has tons of chemistry but is also super tosxic for them both, and bloodline epilogue kind of confirmed my 'shelby and wing go on a 'break' post graduation and just never get back together' headcanon), whereas with lucy i think i can? like they have a good enough balance of similarities and differences (whereas shelby/otto are too similar and shelby/wing are too different for me). idk obviously in canon it could never work because lucy fucking DIED but it's fun to imagine aus where she didn't!

anastasia/nero: makes sense kinda, compels me. im so sorry mark walden i say this w all the love and respect in the world you CANNOT tell me you wrote those books not intending us to believe anastasia and nero hatefucked nasty. the whole bucharest thing is so deliciously vague like...idk what else couldve gone on. my more 'fun' nerostasia headcanons (eg that anastasia and elena were the twins, that anastasia/nero had some overlap with elena/nero) are definitely way out of the realm of canon though so i think i can't say it fully makes sense. anyway yes it compels the hell out of me they are my ants in a lab!!! i think i don't enjoy them on their own so much as i enjoy them as part of the rich tapestry of Fucked Up Furan Dynamics like the two are inextricable for me. but anyway yeah i think one of my fave fics ive ever written was that bucharest nerostasia fic. they really get my brain goin

elena/nero: makes sense, doesn't really compel me. makes sense because the whole romeo and juliet thing and also in the wider fanon saga of nero vs the furans it is objectively funny and very in character for nero to turn around and make his nemeses' baby sister into a teen mom. however while i am incredibly compelled by nero and the furans as a family, and am SUPER SUPER obsessed w elena on her own, them together specifically is not something i'm super interested in. elena is so so fascinating to me and always has been, but not because of her relationship w nero. i think it's fun to reflect on how nero perceives and elevates elena after her death, and it's fun to talk abt the consequences of their relationship, but the actual relationship itself devoid of any of the furan Drama? eh. just not something that particularly inspires me i don't think

raven/verity: makes sense, UNFORTUNATELY DOESNT COMPEL ME. to be clear when i say makes sense i mean in a hatefuck-y way. they were definitely homoerotically obsessed with each other even before raven murdered verity's sister. i wish wish WISH this was something that got my brain chugging because on paper it ticks all my boxes (messy hatesex, lesbians, assassins) but in practice it's just never been something i've gone 'wow i need to write/think abt this'. DONT GET ME WRONG I LOVE READING IT HINT HINT but i dont think i'll ever write for it

[yuzokasu]

mankai stage actors thoughts dump. i just feel like rambling

stage mskz's chemistry is insanely good. makes sense since both their actors have been playing as misumi and kazunari for so long and had to improvise so much skits together but they're so in synch it's crazy!!!! their dynamic is a major reason why shinobi misadventuring's stage adaptation was so good and i know it's wishful thinking but i hope they lead a play again soon. i just love their tandem

ryoya is phenomenal as masumi. he's adorable and regardless of my opinions on masumi fanservice he does his job so endearingly well i can't even be mad LMAOOO he's so animated too like kumon's stage actor. i cannot even begin to describe how amazing he is at singing like each time he opens his mouth in a harugumi play that shit that sends you to HEAVEENNN personally i think he's already cemented himself as a vocal powerhouse along with like teruma, toshiki, kandai, whoever else u think belongs on that list. they should give him 200% more lines in the next harugumi show

speaking of vocal powerhouse!!! i think sion as azami is underrated. i don't see him as talked about much but he's so good i'm still in awe at how his voice is so bright and crisp while being in such an action/choreo-heavy group like AKIGUMI and his chemistry with stage taichi is so good too i loved how they played off each other's energies in mantou fist. like mskz i really hope azamin and taichi lead a play together again soon

when august's actor got announced i was really surprised how similar he looked to chikage's stage actor. they looked related it made me wonder if that was intentional casting. and with hisoka's actor graduating soon (WE'LL NEVER FORGET YOU UECHAN.....) i'm starting to wonder if they'll cast an actor that looked similar to them both LMFAOOO

also i need shuffle plays to return!!! the only """hint""" i have is ryuugi (stage sakuya) saying he wants to play akiyama from first crush baseball in a radio show once and i am like 80% sure that's gonna be true. by the way if we're talking about shuffle play fcb taichi should play the muscle otaku 'cause he's BUFFFF personally i think ryoya and sion should be in shuffle play phantom because they're hashtag Singers but citron should get in there too because that's his mom's lead play. for shuffle play charlatan of oz we need tenma as wizard of the north i don't think we've ever seen him in a kinder guidance type role. as for shuffle dead/undead uuuummmmm tsuzuru because i have a crush on his ac

[bettsfic]

so i finished rebels and i have some Thoughts and Feelings i need to process so they are going here on my blog. (spoilers ahead)

for three seasons i hated ezra bridger. i thought he was such a boring protagonist and poorly written and i was so bummed to find out he was the main character

but THEN

sometime during season 3 my hatred came full circle. i started hating him so much i began to devise interpretations of his character i would not despise.

at first my initial attempt was that he made a great side character and an awful protagonist

i love that everyone loves him and it's completely illogical but the writing seems to be aware of that and how funny it is? kanan, hondo, and maul are all ready to throw down for him immediately

but what really worked was

into the nothingness, apropos nothing, i said aloud, "puppyboy ezra?"

i informed my roommate that i could bear ezra as long as i interpreted him solely as a puppyboy

*sensible chuckle* how ooc, i thought

my roommate was like, uh strange you should say that.......

i thought, haha i bet there's a dog in an episode or something

i proceeded to outline a very long puppyboy ezra fic (which i definitely plan to write; whether or not i post it remains to be seen)

((i ship ezra with a certain character that is so obvious to me but there are only 5 fics on ao3 and i'm devastated. i guess there will just be 5 drabbles and one 60k psychologically fraught modern au in the tag))

and i am simply knocked DEAD to discover that the series ends with GIANT SPACE WOLVES

listen

i love wolves

love them

specifically i love giant

space

wolves

in fact i have purchased every piece of artwork i can find on the internet depicting giant space wolves and they are all hanging on my wall as we speak

and so i felt deeply eerily called out when ezra's conclusion involves being spiritually connected to a wolfpack

i'm mostly shocked that rebels seems to be that bizarre mix of amazing but falls steeply short of its own promise, a la sherlock and early supernatural. the stuff that pings my "gotta fix this gotta fix it gotta add porn" lizard brain and i end up writing 100k

actually if i get out of this fandom under 100k i'll be shocked

hellcheer have one scene together in a show i don't even like and i wrote 100k about it in a few months

i have nearly 4 years of graduate education in creative writing and i Cannot Determine if rebels is good or if i'm just so personally fucked up by giant space wolves that i can no longer see it clearly

also

i wrote 7k of organic chemistry today and i'm hoping to get ahead by a couple chapters so it'll still be a while before i post (wednesday maybe?)

and then i'll focus on office au bdsm rexsoka

and then maybe (?) my post-apocalypse au

and then the puppyboy ezra fic no one will read but that's okay because i am writing it for me

i have more thoughts on rebels and clone wars and i'd love to write some metas but right now i need to face the treacherous mountain climb of fic-writing ahead of me and make peace with it

[sharpiepaws]

hi. it's pride month. happy pride month. for pride month i have decided to share sketches that i have been doing for the past, quite a while of the 2 main guys from the gay schizo comic i am writing. i'll share like, one or two things a day until i either a. run out of sketches or b. run out of days. i've got so much of this shit though i think i'll run out of days way sooner.

right. okay. the fruits. this is isak and vincent. isak is the titular schizo, but that happens over the course of a while. anyway, isak has the longer dark hair and vincent has the shorter hair with the streak running through it. he dyed his hair like that to match with his sister (not pictured) his sister wanted them to match she thought it'd be cute (it is). uhmm they're in university and isak is a few years older than him but they're in the same graduating year. vincent's like idk 20 or smthn. they're both in their early 20s. isak is studying to become a botanist and vincent is studying to go into film. isak fucking LOVES plants it's his thang. his primary interest is plant genetics so he likes to crossbreed plants or graft plants together just for fun. just to see what would happen. the two of them also work on vincent's school movie together. "work on together" might be an overstatment though isak is just the grip he doesn't even take any film classes lol. vincent is the editor and director, basically he does the actual work of making the film Exist. anyway what was i talking about oh right these two uhm they are BRI'ISH isak is english vincent is scottish. isak is also german on his dad's side he can speak it fluently but he was raised in england he's got a nottingham accent he's FUCKING ENGLISH. vincent speaks with a glaswegian accent if you were curious. anyway uhm let's see isak is VERY farsighted he cannot see shit without his glasses unless it's like across the room or smthn he's very much blind. both of them make pictures vincent draws very cartoony sorta comic style isak can draw as well but he's better at painting his stuff looks very delicate and scratchy and it's usually painted/drawn from life. vincent's really into dragons he has a bunch of dragon ocs that he draws. uhm vincent owns a mega drive his favorite games are truxton, arrow flash, and ristar. isak tends to play it more often though his favorite game is mean bean machine he fucking LOVES puyo. isak will ask to come over just to play mean bean machine. vincent's cool with it he just gets editing work done in silence while isak plays on his mega drive parallel play moment. isak knows how to cook and he is quite good at it. domestic god. uhmm what else what else -tapping my head- neither of them really listen to music but if they did vincent would listen to downtempo, idm sort of stuff. if vaporwave existed at the time the story takes place he would have been all over that shit. isak would listen to noise rock. there's a lie in here i'm sorry i lied to you isak did listen to music when he was in highschool he listened to grunge and alt rock. he's probably heard ok computer too. at least once he's listened to it at least once. he thought it was pretty good. uhm isak is a smoker vincent is not he may smoke from time to time but not like isak. not like him. uhm isak has a lab partner in chemistry her name is kimmy (also not pictured) they are best friends <3. that's all the random facts i can think of. they are gay and in love in very normal ways but also in decidedly un-normal ways because i gotta make em weird with each other it's my god given right. you'll see what i mean as the days progress. yea that's it from me right now ask me questions if you want or don't i don't care okay bye see you tomorrow.

[blorbologist]

Hello! I don't know if this is strange to ask but I feel safe asking you, (if this is invasive don't worry about answering at all)

How did you get into biology? was it always your dream? was the courses and school worth it? did you do very well biology and math wise in highschool? how often do you use math in your field?

- Someone considering the biologist field

Hi there anon!

I'm so sorry this is so late - I've had a busy month both due to my personal life, fandom and academics. I'll try my best to answer, and I'm really flattered you asked me ;;

Now, full disclaimer: I'm working on my Master's thesis. I currently intend on pursuing a PhD and remaining in academia, but who knows what will happen. Maybe I get the offer of a lifetime and work as the behaviorist for a zoo! Or maybe I find happiness in a workplace only tangentially associated with biology. So there are a lot of unknowns I can't answer. But I can answer what you've got so far!

Getting into biology was not too different, at least initially, from most STEM: it meant a lot of chemistry, and physics, and high-level math. Come CEGEP and then Uni (French-Canadian education system, eh?), I continued to be funneled down the STEM pipeline, at least initially, which meant competition was very intense with pre-med, neuroscience and the likes. By my second year of uni (third for most), though, I was able to start taking the really BIO-oriented classes, and from there started scouting out profs whose class and research focuses I enjoyed for a potential research project. Doing a research project in your last year (or sooner! I was just set back by COVID) is an incredible foot in the door; it showed me what science is like in the day-to-day, introduced me to many seminars to Zoom in on and which publications to watch, and of course was a massive networking boon by getting to be in touch with the head of my lab + grad students directly. It's also a good test run as to if this is for you. From there, it's reaching out to potential labs (before grant deadlines! Start looking NOW if you're graduating this academic year!). Look at the PI's recent publications, their lab's website, what direction they are taking their research into, where you're willing to go / how far you're willing to deviate from your goal research. Have a project or two in mind. In my case I talked to two labs - one initially did not have space and referred me to others in their field I might like, and one of their suggestions I talked to had too many students to take me on. Lo and behold, my OG first pick ended up having a spot - an interview later, plus some meetings with the current grads so I could ask what the lab was like, and I'm writing this instead of making sure my data is tidy before sending it to my PI :P

TBH, it was a lifelong interest with the critters around me. I grew up in rural Quebec and so had a lot of opportunities to go outside and Find Things. My brother and I would trudge out to the pond to catch frogs and minnows and - if we were super lucky! - garter snakes or snapping turtles. But it was also the weird emerald green bugs that'd bite us, or watching wasps build a nest, and seeing how waterstriders dance. Our parents fostered a lot of that interest; my dad always encouraged us to always put animals back where we found them, to not hurt plants, to be mindful of the living space. And I do appreciate my mom swallowing her disgust at the nth Animal Planet documentary with animals dying graphically pft. Steve Irwin was an idol to kid me, though now I'd quibble with how he would interact with wild animals and stress them out, I cannot understate how many people my age he got to really get fascinated by so many creatures. I'd credit my interest in dinosaurs for a lot of this too, because wow, the world has selected for some mighty cool animals over time! How did they interact? What could select for traits that extreme? Or, inversely, what makes them stick around?

Sidebar, but a moment that sticks out to me is when my brother and I stumbled on a host of the local garter snakes leaving a brumation hide (and probably a mating ball). We caught twelve of them, including regulars we recognized. It's what got me thinking about snake behavior, about their social lives, about if they remember who they spent a good third of the year with in a tiny cramped crevice by the stream.

See, the courses initially sucked: either because I was taking chem and physics prerequisites instead of getting to do dissections and look under a microscope, or because I was in a high-stress environment decided to try and weed out potential doctors and neuroscientists and pharmacists while I just wanted to study animal behavior (and neurobiology). So those first years were really hard - but finding joy to appreciate what I was learning here and there definitely helped a lot, and I appreciate the work ethic I developed as well. Once I got into the more specialized courses things really relaxed - still a lot of learning and refining my skills, but there was less of a selection pressure on students and the professors had smaller, more interested classes, so it all went far better. I remember those ones fondly <3

I did very well in math - I didn't get any biology classes in secondary school (again, STEM prerequisites), but I can tell you that chemistry kicked my ass and physics would sometimes throw me curveballs. And the only class I've ever failed was Calculus 2 in CEGEP :p

I work specifically with animal behavior research - so it's less about math and more understanding the biology and behavior of my animals and making sure I remain consistent with experiments, accounting for as many potential factors as possible. However, math does come up. Sometimes you're TAing for a course and need to dose rats with caffeine; sometimes you're making snake oil at a specific concentration; sometimes you're preparing solutions for a perfusion. However, at least in my area, it's mostly low-level math - and in the lab I did my undergrad research in, I can confirm it took myself and two grad students to figure out some pretty simple equations together, but we got through it XD Outside of the lab context, you will be using a lot of stats to back up your findings - so brush up on those, and be ready to ask for help if needed. OFC more technically finite research than 'put snake in arena see what it do' will require more math than me, but being a bit weaker at it isn't a career-ender. Just be ready to ask labmates for help and be ready to learn.

HOWEVER, I will note that one thing that really helped me get my foot in the door was coding. Take a coding class or two - the field is leaning heavily towards automating what it can and/or using automated learning algorithms to back up findings ('look, even a machine can detect these differences and classify X Y Z based on them with high accuracy!'). At least a basic grasp of a couple coding languages is essential going forward, and from what I can tell most labs are really expecting this from their grad students.

Hopefully you see this, and hopefully it's of some help in deciding what path you want to take! Or maybe it'll help someone else - regardless, wishing you the best! <3

[whisperingintoavoid]

Bₗₒg ₄₋₁₃₋₂₀₂₄

I have decided to make my post pretty sometimes, as a treat. I cannot promise that I will always do this, but I'm feelin' pretty alright right now and I feel like doing it, so I'm doing it!

I think I'm not going to hold myself to any standard with this blog aside from my tags to help my future self find past entries. The main thing I want this blog to be is an outlet. I don't want to end up avoiding posting here because I don't feel up to making the post look or sound good, ya know?

Anyway, I don't know if I have much to write about today. At least, what I feel like writing about.

I went to Nashville with my boyfriend a few weeks ago to meet his parents for the first time. I have mixed feelings about it. They're lovely people and I especially like his mom.

But I noticed that during the whole trip, he was masking in front of them. And at the end of the day, when we were alone in our room, he seemed exhausted from having to put up that front of being "normal" all day. And that just really sucks. It honestly hurt. It hurt me to see that because I love him. I love him so much. I love who he is, I love that he's kinda quirky and weird. I love his interests and how he infodumps and the way he paces constantly when he talks. But he felt like he had to hide that from his parents and that makes me so sad.

I wish they loved him the way I love him; unconditionally.

There's a whole other complicated situation regarding him and his parents and I have my own feelings about that, but I don't feel at liberty to write about it here. I feel like it's more his business than mine, so I won't write about it out of respect for his privacy. But suffice to say, I feel for him. My heart hurts for what he's going through.

On a brighter note, I just took my official GED social studies test and passed! I took it on Thursday and found I passed about 10-15 minutes after I finished. This was my first time taking an official GED test!

There are four tests you have to take to get your GED. Social studies, science, math, and reading. So I'm one quarter of the way to getting my GED! This is the closest I've ever been and I'm honestly so proud of myself. I can hardly believe it, to be honest.

High school was extremely hard for me. I was battling extreme academic anxiety, depression, and had undiagnosed ADHD. School was unbearable for me. I dreaded waking up everyday, just the thought of opening my backpack to start homework was enough to send me into an anxiety attack, I openly talked about wanting to kill myself every single day.

My grades were only good enough to scrape me by. In some classes, I even outright failed. Namely, chemistry and algebra in 10th grade. Math was always my hardest subject. It just never clicked with me. I didn't pay attention in most of my classes. I never really did projects or papers. The only class I thrived in was English. I've always been good with reading and writing and I've always been proud of that. I was also pretty okay at Spanish. Lowest grade I ever got in that class was probably a C.

Anyway, I was also attending a dual high school/college program from 9th-10th grade. We took real college classes alongside our high school ones and earned college credits. When we graduated, we also earned an Associate's Degree.

I dropped out after 10th grade; the pressure was too much. The anxiety was too much. I felt like I could never breathe.

After I dropped out, I enrolled in an online school instead. I thought that, if I didn't have to wake up at a certain time and get ready and go to a physical place and interact with people all day, that maybe that would help.

It didn't.

Still, the thought of even opening the laptop and logging into class would hit me with a wave of anxiety that would make me nauseous. I was always avoiding school.

When you're in an online school, you need to log in a minimum amount of hours in the school year to be able to pass and continue to the next grade, regardless of how well you're doing. At some point toward the end of the school year, my mother got a call from my school, telling her that I hadn't logged in enough during the year and that there wasn't enough time left in the school year for me to make up the time - I got expelled.

So I had to repeat my junior year. 11th grade, I tried a new online school.

To be honest with you, I don't think I would've passed that year either. I still barely logged in. Still barely did my work.

But it never got that far because the school I was attending was literally shut down in the middle of the year.

So... I was kind of just left floating. I could either put myself through more personal hell by enrolling in a fourth school, or I could just call it quits and get my GED instead. I was 17 going on 18 at this point.

School was torment for me. I knew what I was going to do.

But, unfortunately for me, I was an anomaly that no one knew what to do with. When I turned 18, I started trying to get my GED. Well, I was aiming to take the HiSet test, but it's basically the same thing. However, in order to be able to get your high school equivalency, the state needs proof that you dropped out of high school. You're not legally allowed to have a high school diploma and a high school equivalency and the state is very strict about this. I don't know why anyone would go through the trouble of getting a GED if they already have a high school diploma (seriously, it's a HASSLE trying to get this fucking thing) and I don't know why it would even matter if someone did. Regardless, they're extremely strict about this rule. However, because my school shut down and literally did not exist anymore, I couldn't contact anyone to get official paperwork saying that I dropped out.

Eventually, I just had to write something myself explaining the situation.

But that wasn't the only hurdle! Of course it wasn't! Because this is my life we're talking about!

Whenever I would go online to try to schedule my test, the website would give me an error and tell me that I wasn't old enough to take the fucking test!!!!!!!!

This was something that could not be bypassed!

I tried. I fucking TRIED to get my GED when I was 18 fucking years old. I wanted to. I tried to. But time after time, I was a victim of circumstance.

Do you understand how it feels to know that the world views you as lazy and unintelligent and aloof when you know that isn't true? It feels like having a labelled stamped on your forehead and no one takes the time to listen to what you have to say to explain yourself after they read what you are. You get shoved in with a group of people that are looked down upon, that are considered less than. It feels like screaming at a brick wall.

So now I'm 23, going on 24, and I passed my first quarter of the GED test.

So much has happened in my life that has taken my attention away from education. And really, I just felt like it wasn't for me. My brain didn't work the right way. I'm not compatible with the way school works.

I think I'm starting to feel differently now that I'm medicated. I'm not certain. I'm still very hesitant about it because of the fact that school was my own personal hell for so long and I wish I were exaggerating. But I've been going to math classes twice a week to study for the math quarter of the test and surprisingly I'm the student in the class that the teacher has to say "Let someone else answer," to. Almost everything just clicks and makes sense? I don't know why math is suddenly kind of easy for me. I fear even saying that out loud because I might jinx it.

Math used to feel like reading a language I'd never seen before. But it doesn't feel like that anymore and I don't know why. It's actually kind of scary? I'm scared I'll lose it.

Anyway, I have two more tests scheduled already. Science and reading. I'm not worried about reading, I could pass that in my sleep. I didn't even bother taking the practice test. Science I was worried about initially, but apparently it's the test with the highest passing rate, and I did really well on the practice test, so I shouldn't have anything to worry about, really.

I'm gonna walk that fuckin' stage in July if it kills me! '24, baby!

[theta-mage]

so i was walking the dog today and my stream of consciousness went absolutely wild. i'll give you a small example of how my brain works in an everyday setting. this is ten minutes worth of thinking, written after the fact.

i started thinking about skills and how people view our declaration of our skill levels. about how if i say, "i'm good at english", i'm considered a self-centered asshole by some (and they'll then look for any and all typos and grammatical errors in my writing, as if flawlessness was the prerequisite of being "good"). if i say, "i'm good at deliberately changing my point of view", i'm considered a preachy holier-than-thou kind of person by some (and they'll then do their best to find a situation where i could not see things from someone else's point of view—again, as if flawlessness was the prerequisite of being "good"). but if i say "i cannot wrap my mind around korean writing", some people will interpret that as me being too self-critical. or if i say, "playing the drums is impossible for me, i almost didn't graduate high school because i didn't learn it", they'll think i'm putting myself down and start worrying (which i get, i have a history of depression, and worrying is a form of showing they care).

and i thought about how i can confidently say my english is good—but not in all situations. i wouldn't last five seconds in a room of, i don't know, theoretical physicists speaking scientific english. but that's how life is! our skill levels are relative. always. someone who wins gold in junior high running competitions would probably be a fucking loser in the olympics.

then i started thinking about how we still insist that a finn who hasn't studied english in a university cannot speak good english.

and then i got a bit annoyed because we place so much value on formal education and degrees and so on. we seem to assume that a degree indicates both intelligence and wisdom—and we cannot accept that there isn't one intelligence but many! and we cannot accept that wisdom doesn't come from participating in lectures and writing essays. sure, it'll make it easier to contextualize lived experiences, but formal education alone cannot and will not make anyone wise.

we become wise in a multisensual, dialogical relationship with our surroundings. formal education may play a part in structuring our wisdom in a certain way, but it isn't enough to build wisdom.

knowledge does not translate to intelligence, nor does intelligence translate to knowledge. wisdom does not translate to intelligence nor does intelligence translate to wisdom. and finally, knowledge does not translate to wisdom and wisdom does not translate to knowledge.

and then i thought about contexts in terms of vocabulary. we have so many different contexts and worlds of words. we have kpop slang and app development slang and autism slang and we have slang pertaining to illegal drugs and we have chemistry-related slang and we have "chronically online" political zoomer slang.

so the string of words, "based, but delulu alpha stan, and masking" cannot be read without some kind of understanding of a variety of worlds of words, and the contextual understanding of what "delulu", "alpha" and "stan" might mean. if you don't, you can interpret "based" as a chemistry word (pertaining to bases) or a drug-related word (addicted to crack). and then continue on with the sentence, thinking about a completely wrong context.

we live in a world where we are exposed to a myriad of contexts every day. how does our brain cope with the constant switching from one context to another? i'm not sure.

(also, full disclosure: i consider my view of human nature optimistic, but i do realize some of my avoidant personality disorder traits and social anxiety traits and having been bullied trauma thoughts still surface in situations where i communicate with others. or when i think about a situation where i'll communicate with others.)

[whysojiminimnida]

THE GAYEST GAY I SAW THE OTHER DAY Or: 2020 Grammys VLive PART TWO

Where was I? Oh yeah. ORIGINAL CONTENT FOR TRUTH AND CONTEXT HERE:

And we'll pick it up around 9:35.

He's about to go in, kids. It's at about 9:40 in the original VLive which is in part one of this post. AND THERE HE GOES. Jeon Jungkook, main singer of BTS and worldwide pop idol, without a Jimin to settle him:

Jimin does not even blink. Hobi is unbothered, living as he did for YEARS with a Koo in Jimin's bed. At one point, somewhere earlier in there, Koo also went in on Joonie's hair and Jimin just glanced fondly in his general direction like "dammit these things are hard on my baby". Jimin handles "these things" (publicity, sitting still in general) much more easily than his man and he's quite accepting of that. Also he SAW USHER SO.

Fair's fair. Jimin gets to eyeball his crush, Koo gets to fix Namjoon's hair.

BUT OH WAIT it's time for... champagne!

Teleport Jeon to the rescue of the camera and his own sanity.

I think we can all agree that Jimin is absolutely worth staring at, but see the set of Kookie's jaw? Our mans is not happy because Jimin-ssi realized that he was Out Of Order (as per Bangwatch Behavior At The Grammys Protocol For Married Couples) and moves to the opposite side. It caused enough distress for Jungkook's tongue to try to make an escape via his cheek. I actually felt bad for both of them by this time, because while Jiminie handles placement issues better, kinda, he would always much rather be near his man. Especially when said man is looking FINE LIKE THAT and also suffers from either anxiety or boss-level ADHD. Jimin is Jungkook's center. Which: that said I have always wondered why Jimin is the moon and Jungkook is the sun when the opposite is actually true. Hasn't made sense to me for several years now. ANYWAY.

Look at them. All of them look amazing but I'm just busy noticing the champagne glasses. And also that, damn my image limit, Jimin went through two glasses in rapid succession and might have gone for a third. Because he too is tired and stressed and elated and he knows what's coming up next. STAMP COLLECTING IS GONNA HAPPEN. Philately and stress release. Both of those things.

Well fuck an executive order, Jungkook still has control of the camera and two three glasses of champagne ingested rapidly are at play and there is no frame that does not need the Jeon-Parks in it. Especially when there's a camera lens through which they can stare at each other. They think they're slick. They ain't slick. Fruity as hell but not slick in the least. Keep your A/B/O fanfiction to yourself (Jimin would be alpha in any event).

Jimin is also Over This Shit by now. Jungkook has moved the camera totally to highlight Jimin while ostensibly focusing on Tae, who is trying his damnedest to make a speech and is very cute and also pretty, but Jimin knows what his boyfriend is doing and obliges. I ran out of image space but there's a kissy face right about here, too. Jimin just.... loses it for a few seconds and it's adorable. The Jeon half of the household agrees with me.

Oh. Let the touching commence. "Fixing his jacket," Jimin? PFFFTTT HE WAS JUST TOUCHING THOSE PECS THAT'S ALL IT WAS AND THEN AND THEN JUNGKOOK GOES "Thank you" in English and it is THE CUTEST. They're just eyefucking now. Hobi needs another drink. And Yoongi, well. Yoongi ain't care, he is not even surprised, it's just Friday at the Jeon-Park house. Seokjin, though. He knows the rules. And Namjoon is not, this time, for once in his LIFE, in the middle. Exactly. FIVE GUYS ARE IN THE MIDDLE and no one is in the middle and this is what happens, PD-nim, when a Jeon goes rogue and STILL HAS CONTROL OF THE CAMERA.

So they wrapped it up. Because what other choice was there, sixteen minutes and twenty seconds into the Story Of True Love Kept Apart By Closetry And Public Decorum? You can't fight the War of Hormone with that much champagne. It's not possible. What you do is smile pretty and disperse, politely, lest there be another kissing-noises-on-video moment. I need David Attenborough to narrate the entire mating dance, for real.

[shirophantomvox]

Leorio, Hisoka, Illumi, and Chrollo Head Canons #2

What’s up y’all! Thank you so much to the people who have given me feedback about what posts you all would like to see! This post will be about the “Adult Trio” and Leorio about how they would help their significant other with a subject in college. This one is a good suggestion! I’m going to incorporate fluff in this, as I am a sucker for fluff. I hope you all enjoy this! I most certainly do. This post is about 2687 words but don't worry, it's worth the read! These head canons came from my mind its a coincidence that some of these pictures match the thoughts. Portentous (old English) means wonderful or marvelous (in modern English) FYI: I am thinking about creating a discord server for both Voltron and Hunter x Hunter fans. I don’t know how to use the fancy perks of discord yet, so if you know how to and can help me out, send me a message! Alright, let’s get to it! Obviously these images are from Pinterest.

Discord Server for Voltron and HxH fans!

Leorio

“Mr. Leorio”, as we all know, is a sharp guy. He dresses in a suit, carries a suitcase, and wants to be a doctor. This man knows everything about academics, especially math and science. He will need to know these subjects to be a successful medical doctor.

Leorio received an A- in Calculus II and a B+ in Organic Chemistry. He was the only one that passed with flying colors while everyone else barely made it. He didn’t gloat in their faces but as soon as he got into the hallway he jumped for joy.

He was extremely happy about his progress and counted the days until graduation even though that was in 5 years. Wow! Don’t we love graduate school?!

He deserved the high grades because he spent countless nights studying missing parties, football games, and being with you just to make sure he was on the right track to graduating on time.

As we all know, Leorio wanted to pursue this career because he witnessed his best friend dying in front of him powerless to save him. The care for his friend would have been too expensive. Obtaining his degree was in honor of his friend; he’d save countless children, women, and men who’d all thank him for his hard work.

Leorio didn’t socialize much, but he did find himself hanging around a group of classmates that were a part of a co-ed fraternity that provided information on scholarship money for graduate school and job opportunities. This is where he met you. You didn’t want to be a doctor but instead wanted to be a computer scientist and decided to volunteer for this fraternity job fair.

As he rejoiced, his smile faded when he saw you walking down the hallway; tears falling from your face not caring who stared at you. He quickly walked up to you, put his arm around your back, and gave you a soft hug.

“What’s the matter,” he asks.

You were failing Calculus, a class you’ve been taking since the 12th grade but for some reason, you couldn’t pass it. Everyone else had A’s and B’s, while you had a D. D’s aren't accaetable in college; most make you retake the class.

“Don’t worry. I’ve just passed my midterm. I can help you study. You’ll pass; trust me.”

Later on that evening, he kept his promise but gave it a unique twist. He kept the lights off and lit 4 Yankee-sized candles in the room that smelled like Lavender. In the background, he had piano jazz playing on his speaker. You felt confused for a moment. You and Leorio weren’t necessarily dating but you both flirted with each other here and there. He wasn’t a social butterfly, but he felt comfortable talking to you.

“Um...what’s the music for?”

“It helps me concentrate. Believe it or not, it helps my brain flow. You like it don’t you?”

“No, actually I don’t.” Truth be told you loved it but you wanted to pull his strings a little. He looked up with a confused look.

“Ok. I’ll turn it off.”

“I'm kidding! It’s great!”

Whenever he cannot solve a Calculus question, he reviews similar problems from Algebra II. He applies this knowledge to your problem.

“Perform the indicated function evaluations for f(x)=3−5x−2x^2 . I’ll solve the first part for an example: f(6+t) simply means you will exchange “x” for 6+t. It will look like f(6+t)=3-5(6+t)-2(6+t)^2=-49 . You’d distribute -5 and -2 to the numbers inside of the brackets in which they are next to.”

Wow, that was easy! Wait, not he must think you’re stupid.

“You must think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“Of course not! It took me a while to understand it too. You’ll apply the same knowledge for the rest.”

After what seemed like 4 hours (which was 2), you finally finished your homework! It was probably wrong but at least you made it past the 1st question! As you blew out the candles and turned on your LED lights instead, you see Leorio sleeping on your couch. Something about his soft face made you smile and place your hand over your heart.

“My little doctor,” you whispered to yourself.

“Well, come give this doctor some company then. I’m freezing over here!”

The throw blanket was large enough for you both. Snuggling on the couch was a great end to a stressful day.

Chrollo

To everyone else Chrollo was “Boss” or “Boss Man” but to you, he was Chrollo. Big C was known for his love for poetry and language.

He read poetry any chance he had at lunch and even dinner. It had gotten so bad that you had to tell him for the millionth time “No books at the table!”

Given his past, he always read at least 2 hours a day or one book a week. Reading is what got him through the day.

He was staying in your dorm for the day to relax because he had taken and passed his midterms to. The young thief thought about hiding in the closet but he didn’t because he sensed that you’d be tense because of midterms.

As you walked through the door, you looked angry, so angry that you could punch a wall. He immediately rose to his feet, threw his arms straight out in front of him, and motioned for you to stop. You just stared at him blankly.

“Come here,” he said like you, on cue, melted in his arms. He was warm and the deepness of his cooing voice vibrated against your neck. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m failing this stupid Shakespeare class!”

“Really?”

“Yes and if I don’t pass this midterm I’m going to fail the class for the 3rd time. I want to drop out! Who needs this scam anyway?!”

Chrollo held you a bit longer until you were ready to sit down and get to business. You pulled out your college’s book about Shakespeare plays and how he used Old English. Chrollo was the perfect man for the job! He’s read Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet several times!

Chrollo read a few stanzas and explained them. He then had you read some on your own and explain them...still you can’t.

He notices the problem immediately. He catches you snuggling comfortably against his toned arm, nearly falling asleep.

Chrollo laid at the very corner of the couch as you lay horizontally placing your head against his chest. You were comfortable but you weren’t able to focus. He notices this and slightly demands that you go sit at the table. When it came to academics, he was serious.

For as long as he had been reading, he has an arsenal of vocabulary words ready to be of use. He created flashcards for you and had you flip them over for nearly an hour. You start to memorize the words!

But you’re not done yet.

“Say the word ‘portentous’.”

“Por-ten-trious…?”

“No. Por-ten-tas.”

“Tias…?”

He moved his chair next to you, just an inch away from your face. He cups your mouth and moves it as he speaks again. This wasn’t a hard clutch, it was soft and he wasn’t irritated but he could sense that you were becoming irritated.

“Por-ten-tas,” he said again.

Instead of letting your cheeks go, his eyes diverted to your lips. They were moist and plump, ready to be met by his.

“Your lips are gorgeous. Kisseth me quite quaint.”

Oh no. Look at the monster you’ve created.

Chrollo created a reward system. Whenever he did things right as a child, he was rewarded with money and jewels. For every word you pronounced and defined correctly, he kissed you once. For each word you got correct in a row, he’d kiss you twice.

Soon enough he had kissed you so much that you couldn’t see straight!

The kisses worked because you passed your midterm! Each kiss placed a stain in your brain that made you remember the definition and how to pronounce it.

You and Chrollo celebrated by drinking champagne and listened to him read Sonnet 23 and 57.

Hisoka

As unusual as it seems, Hisoka is gifted when it comes to Chemistry specifically. That is why you two work well together...there is some chemistry going on between you two.

His hair down and his glasses were his alter ego, it was something that made him act completely different than what you were used to.

When you all were freshmen, he would skip class, attend parties, and would be hungover almost every week but once he was called into the Dean’s office, he changed.

You slightly missed that edgy side of him, but you enjoyed having a serious beau.

Hisoka is a social butterfly and is the life of the conversation and you loved him for it but sometimes it was awkward.

While he was chatting away about Calcium (Ca) and Iron (Fe), you stood there nodding like an idiot. You had NO IDEA about what he was talking about and that is why you were going to drop your chemistry class.

“I saw an imbecile put aluminum foil in the microwave and it burst into flames. How did they not know that Microwaves are the radio waves falling under frequency around 2500 megahertz? Any metallic object detected by radio waves inside the microwave acts as a reflector of radio waves.”

You shove his arm hard. He was acting arrogant in front of his friends. You were used to this but it got on your nerves. You made mistakes, everyone does!...even those that almost burn down the entire dorm room.

You two leave the party and head to his dorm room. Once you were settled, you released a can of anger and threw it all over your boyfriend.

“Hisoka? You just humiliated me.”

“Oh? No one knows that I was talking about you, my dear.”

“Don’t ‘my dear’ me! I asked for your help and you’re ignoring me. I don’t appreciate that. I didn’t ignore you when you sprained your ankle, did I?”

“No, you didn’t, dear. I supposed I have a few hours to kill. What do you need help with?”

Hisoka’s way of studying was much different from other students. He exercises like crazy before he opens his textbook.

He listens to EDM instrumentals while on the treadmill and when he lifts weights. You weren’t standing there like a trophy, he made you lift too.

“Being healthy will help your brain flow more easily. Lift this dumbbell as heavy as you can.”

He ran a mile on the track upstairs. Sweat dripped from his face like he had been standing outside in the rain.

By the time you returned to his dorm, you were beyond tired. You laid your head on his pillow but just as you closed your eyes, he pulled you up on your feet.”

“Not on my watch,” he tutted. “It’s chemistry time.”

You were having trouble memorizing Chemical Formulas and this by far was the most difficult concept you had come across.

To make you stay awake, he turned on a bright LED light and faced it towards the table. The bright light nearly made your head fall off from the pain it reflected in your eyes.

Hisoka grabbed his book and began to write down the major chemicals on the periodic table and their charges.

“Pay attention to the following abbreviations and charges: Calcium is Ca, Chloride is Cl+2, Carbide is C+2, and Carbon Dioxide is CO+2. Read these over and I’ll test you again.”

He did just that but you still weren’t understanding. You were ready to give up.

Stupid scam. Why do I need a piece of paper to determine what I can do? You thought to yourself. Well, it’s obvious. If you can’t do the work now, what makes you think you can do it at a job? Harsh, I know.

“Let me try this,” He said. He carried you to his bedroom and gently placed you on it. He took off his shirt and removed his glasses. “Aluminum has a charge of +3 and Oxygen has -2. If there were three of me and two of my clones disappeared, how many of me are left?”

“Just you, right? One”

“Correct! Excellent.”

Wow, everything started making sense once he took his shirt off.

From then, he just inserted himself into the equation and then it started to make sense! He apologized for running his mouth earlier and promised to keep any more secrets between you two. The night ended with you sleeping in his bed wrapped in a cotton blanket just cuddling and that was it. And bam! You slept as sound.

Illumi

Dating the “hot” quiet history buff was a flex of its own. Sure Illumi didn’t talk to anyone besides you, but it didn’t matter. People swooned if he looked in their direction.

History was a popular major during your era. People were not like their grandparents; they wanted to learn about other cultures besides their own. Illumi’s specialty was in world history and civilizations. The class was very interesting to you but there was so much information, you could barely process it.

Illumi often wrote his essays in one day proofread and all! He often charged people to look their essays over.

One time he made $500 in one year!

Glancing at your transcripts, he notices that you have a C- and offers to help.

“Why are you looking through my stuff?”

Hey, he’s your boyfriend! But still, he should ask.

“Sorry. It was up on the screen,” he said, throwing his hands in the air.

You began to blush in embarrassment. The hottest smartest man in the building now knew that you were failing one of the easiest classes on campus.

Placing his thumb under your chin, he lifted your head to meet his gaze. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I can help you.”

“How? I am so behind! I zoned out after chapter 2!”

“We’ll watch a movie.”

“Oh, God! Not one from PBS is it?!”

“Yes. How else are you supposed to learn?”

He turns on the movie and allows you to lay your head on his shoulder but not too much. He is aware of your tricks and he wants you to pay attention.

Every 15 minutes, he pauses the movie and asks you checkpoint questions. If you got them wrong, you had to stand up with your underclothes on (t-shirt and shorts) in the cool room for 10 minutes. If you got the questions right, he allows you to lay more comfortably. You were already in your underclothes but you were under the blanket.

He made you write down key definitions and the embarrassment of each section.

After the movie, he blindfolds you and reads out a term. Surprisingly, you got them all correct!

As a reward for your past midterm, he takes you to dinner at a restaurant where he slips a promise ring on your finger containing your birthstone.

[dreadfutures]

You referenced being in school/working on your PhD (I think, might be misremembering sorry). When do you typically find the time to write? Im so impressed at your pace, dread futures is a behemoth

Hi! I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to rant about science PhDs because so many people don't know how they work 😅

But long story short, I walk to/from work every day and write on my phone during that time, and I try not to bring work home but have a lot of anxious energy so I end up needing Something To Do with the little free time I have, so I end up writing. I wasn't sleeping a lot. I also have a pretty fast typing speed, and used to transcribe interviews quite often so transcribing game dialogue is pretty quick for me too. And I was Really Feeling Things and had a story I had to tell. And I really cannot emphasize enough that for the most part I turn off my inner editor when I write fanfiction, I do not plan my stories out much ahead of time, and I treat it kind of like an improv/dnd-like experience. What got published last is what I have to work with, and I have to make it work. I also self impose a 3k goal/limit on my chapters and then it's time to publish. All those things combined yield a pretty fast update schedule.

Now for the rant:

Most people think of graduate school as just that--school. Having lived with PhD students in Classics, Chinese Lit, and Business, that's true for a lot of disciplines. You take classes. You read all the time. All the while you're forming Opinions and you explore those in lectures and articles you produce, using the vast amount of information you've absorbed over your schooling. If you're familiar with an Honors Thesis from undergraduate education, you basically produce one of those over your time in a NON science PhD program.

A STEM PhD is much, much more like an elementary science fair project, but instead of asking What Is The Most Efficient Design for a Solar Cookie Oven, you're asking questions that contribute to issues like climate change, chemical waste production in manufacturing, Alzheimer's treatments, and vaccine development.

Sometimes your adviser is the one who tells you, "Hey, study this and see what happens" just like your elementary school friend might have had a parent or teacher give them an idea. Sometimes you yourself come up with the idea. Either way, here's the real difference between a science fair project and a PhD project:

In a PhD, no one has ever asked the question you're asking, and no one knows the answer. And your Question might be so small and seemingly inconsequential, you will never be able to explain it truthfully to your grandmother over Thanksgiving dinner. Even if your Question is fundamentally important to something like the race to efficient carbon dioxide fixation.

Also, it's not fair to say you have One Question in your PhD. A PhD researcher is a one woman army against a whole battlefield of Questions, and you spend about 1 year per Question (Project) answering (and all the little side questions that come up, curiosities, flashes in the pan, that you think might help you answer the main Question). A typical chemistry thesis is about 3-6 big projects that are related to one another usually only tangentially.

Day to day life is NOTHING like being a student. I walk to work and get in ~8am, and leave at 6. I work 6-7 days a week. The whole time I am doing research work: either at a fume hood, or in a glovebox, doing chemistry, or MAYBE I will sit down and analyze my data or look up prior research in the field to inform my future experiments/learn how to do a certain analysis.

I am teaching myself new techniques, new chemistry, and producing new techniques and new chemistry.

Science PhDs come out of their programs and go into jobs and their bosses tell them to stop working so hard, to only do what they're told, to stop taking work home. Because in normal industry jobs you get contracts that include time off, regular work hours, and regular performance evaluations, whereas a PhDs job is never done, your hours are dictated by what the experiments require, and the amount of time you spend doing your work is pretty proportional to how long your degree is going to take. :-/

Oh yeah and if you're lucky, you have a contract with your university! If you're lucky, you have a union! But most of us have neither of those.

STEM PhDs fortunately will pay you, rather than you paying the University. However, better settle for 25-30k (US)/year. Maybe you get health care. Good luck if youre in a more expensive rent area because 30k is already pretty high for a program offer. Oh, and unless you're very lucky, you likely will need to be a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses multiple times a year. Some contracts stipulate that TAships cannot require more than 20 hrs of your time per week (that's a 50% appointment, and the rest of your time you're supposed to be working in your research lab) but good luck, most of the time your teaching/grading load is going to be ~30-40 hours of its own. And just because you're teaching doesn't mean you get to produce any less work for your research!

Because here's the other thing: you're not an employee, you're not a student. You're supposed to be doing research to answer Questions that will save the world. But you get paid, and your adviser/professor gets paid, and your SCIENCE gets paid, based off of how many Questions you've already answered and how Important someone in the government judges your Answered Questions to be. So if you're not Answering those Questions and simultaneously proving that your Questions are Important, then your funding, and your adviser's funding, are at risk.

I worked in a startup for a while and it was very similar in mentality: your life and your work are the livelihood of the company, and you have to do everything in your power to ensure the company is popular and productive, with as little funding and time off possible--because if you don't do the work, there's no people or money to pick up the slack.

The upside to working in a startup, though, is that in my PhD I come across fun questions like: hey, why is this *that* color? but this other thing is different? And I have the freedom to try and explore those questions. Whereas in a startup, there is no space or time to waste on side projects. I'm in to this work for the curiosity and the passion (when I have energy enough to remember them lol). And a PhD not only provides me with specific skills and knowledge, it also proves that I can pick up any new field and dive in, teach myself, and be productive in it. Most of us never go on to work in anything immediately relevant to our PhD work, because our PhD work is so open ended, but also so narrow in scope within a field. It's important work and it's how most progress gets made in our quality of life and technology and healthcare and other developments as a society--this brain-breaking labor of love by underpaid and over caffeinated, unprotected workers in labs that are constantly at risk of being defunded.

Oh and halfway through, after you've wasted 3 years of your life melting your brain with big Questions, you have a Candidacy Exam where you prove your worth to a committee of Expert Professor Researchers in your field, and they say whether you even get to finish or not. 🤗

Which is what was happening when I started writing DPDF. in the middle of a pandemic. With a lot of my friends and support systems leaving me. And DPDF was born as a coping mechanism for the hopeless, worthless, existentially threatening place I was in at the time. Nothing gets the fingers tapping more than feeling like you want to die every moment you're alone with your thoughts, and having every other moment eaten by blistering brain work. Not working, and sitting, and relaxing were impossible and made me feel extraordinarily guilty. So I wrote. Like my life depended on it. It did. It does.

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

I often see memes about "going to public school" but they are very often american-nized. People talk about purposely messing up the pledge of allegiance and i'm like "???? we don't do stuff like that". But there are still some things I of course, could relate to.

I went to public school all my life, and this is the things from mostly middle school and high school that were very "typical" for a public school I guess. Note: It was still schools with a pretty good status, and especially my high school/upper secondary school had a really good work environment with good teachers (my middle school not as much, but it still had quite a "status"). However, despite that, public school kids will be public school kids. Just as the "I went to public school" memes can be very american-centered, these can be very centered on Nordic European public schools, or even, simply just swedish public schools. Or even, just my schools, cause every school is different. I don't know.

- Someone set fire to trash cans several times. One time the fire alarm went off 3 times in a day.

- All the other times the fire alarm went off was because some kids in the chemistry lab did something during class lol

- People did not know how to flush after themselves...

- ...and with that, they also sometimes didn't seem to know how to wipe? I have several times just seen someone's feces without any toilet paper just lying in the toilet. Why do people just... drop and go?? brndmgkxh

- In the school cafeterias, some people just simply left their plates on tables instead of like. Going up and putting their plates on the trail for dirty dishes.

- With that, sometimes the lunch ladies could just go pick up your plate while you were away to get more water or go get hard rye bread (they always had a table with hard rye bread you could take if you didn't like the school food)

- Or someone could just take your seat while you went to get something in the cafeteria, thinking you were done

- Condoms... lying around. Unused or used (and by used, I mean they mostly just were just filled with water or dirt... and sometimes with something white that I HOPE was not... that. Because honestly, I feel like many people would not just drop those like that, I feel like they more wanna prank people. But idk, maybe...)

- That leads me to the next thing: There were always rumors of people having "woohoo" in the restrooms. I cannot confirm this, but maybe? Or not? I at least have never got it confirmed anyone did that

- For some reason, some people just put a punch of papers in the sink. Like, wet papers. Why? No clue.

- That one (1) couple who just made out in the corridor wherever they went. It was always a new couple every week basically.

- There was this meme about the principal taking down posters, so every time she did we took a screenshot of the poster and printed out the screenshot, to hang it up again.

- Now when i've graduated, I sometimes see memes about someone peeing in the water fountain????????? Which I don't know if it actually happened or is just a dumb meme they have? But I am concerned

I can't come up with more but anyway. Public school is a thing.

[hermette-historian]

I AM going to ask about your extremely strong feelings on academic competition, it both sounds interesting and it's also healthy to write out your feelings, even more if it's something that's personally tiring/upsetting. Just to let it all out, yknow? Of course, feel free to ignore this ask if you don't have the time and/or if it's none of our business to know u-u - 🌻

I can promise you, you’re about to wish you hadn’t asked.

I have thoughts.

For people relying on me to stick absolutely solely to Hermitcraft on this blog, I’m sorry in advance for I am but a human. 

First, let’s ruminate a little bit upon why it is that I have thoughts. I attended a very large, extremely competitive public high school in the US, and I now attend  an even more competitive, very small private university. Somehow not as much of a culture shock as you would think.

I, like so many of you, was designated gifted kid as a child and rode that wave all the way through high school. Only somehow, I managed to not raise any mental health alarms along the way. Absolutely smooth sailing. Crazy, right? Only it really wasn’t.

The first sign that I was destined to clash violently with the established world of academic hierarchy and resulting social superiority was eighth grade, when I had to schedule into my first high school classes. We actually had the option to take an AP class-World History. We were blanket advised to not take world history because it was a massive jump in workload from even the most difficult middle school courses, but most of my friends believed themselves to be able to handle it so they disregarded the advice. I did not sign up for AP World History that year, or any year after that. I probably could have handled it, but quite simply I was not interested. I had no drive to learn history at that point in my life. Why would I go the extra mile to do it?

I cannot exaggerate enough how unpopular this decision was. While my parents had my back then and now in the path this set me on, the people I chose to associate myself with could at no point get it through their heads that choosing something other than the highest grade of rigor for a reason other than “you’re just not smart enough” was even an option. And that sucked. It sucked for them, victims of culture and structure, and it sucked for me, a victim of their endless condescension.

I stuck to my guns all the way through high school. I took high-rigor courses, sure. I did extracurriculars. I was, and still am, highly self-motivated to achieve academically. But my stubbornness when it came to only taking on things that I was actually interested in (and never, ever taking part in something just for the resumé points) meant that while my peers were taking a full seven-course load of AP honors classes by our senior year, I only had five total. 

This competitive culture, not my resumé, made my college application process a living hell. Sure, I had my choice of higher education in the end. But I only applied to six highly-accredited universities that I was actually interested in, while my peers applied to twenty at once just to flex their acceptances. Don’t get me wrong, it broke my heart to see them work so hard on an essay that in the end meant nothing, but holy hell did it turn them into terrible monsters to deal with. Calculus class (which by the way, I finally was persuaded to skip a course in order to take, worst mistake of my life) was regularly derailed by arguments over who out of that selection of 26 was going to get valedictorian. Apparently there was a tie, I wasn’t listening. I finished 70th out of 726, barely making the top 10% with a GPA well over 4.0. 

These are the people that I took with me into university, not in body but certainly in spirit. I love my university and wouldn’t trade it for any other choice I could have made. But on days like today, when I’m taking a full load of courses for the second time in the midst of a still-ongoing pandemic, my GPA barely clinging to a 3.0 after two semesters of organic chemistry, three semesters of calculus (yes I had to retake that one attempt from high school) electricity and magnetism, and quantum physics, melting on the floor after a particularly terrible exam, I struggle to step back and realize that I did not come out of there unscathed. Years upon years of relentlessly competing in a race I intentionally didn’t sign up for beat me down and finally broke me. It made me feel like if I wasn’t doing the absolute most, if I wasn’t maxxing myself out taking two majors and two minors and riding for the university team and playing in the orchestra and working 16-hour shifts backstage at the theater and running a goddamn essay blog that I simply wasn’t good enough. That all of the engineers and computer scientists were better than me, smarter than me, that they knew something that I didn’t. That they were doing life right, and I was doing it wrong.

I couldn’t give less of a shit what kind of job I get after I graduate. I’ve been perfectly happy in every minimum wage job I’ve ever had. I’m in this fight because I love to learn-I find myself reading the papers on Asian history now with the same wonder with which I go into a lecture on NMR spectroscopy. I want to know all the things, learn all the languages, I want to understand every bit of the world I live in and even the worlds I don’t. But I’m also human. A human with fears and insecurities and terrible anxiety that comes from being berated and misunderstood and looked down upon for not "doing it right”. Some days, that leaves me writing a passionate blog post or god forbid an instagram comment. And some days, that leaves me in a sobbing puddle on the floor wondering why I’m not good enough, if it’s too late to turn back, and if I’ll ever be able to participate in a society that-if my twenty rejected internship applications are to be believed-requires that I also somehow learn to write code.