#images that rewired my brain chemistry.

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

WISDOM TEETH REMOVAL: SUCCESSFUL 🎉🎉🎉

[ruler-of-thorns]

Drown in sorrow

[teatitty]

What are your favorite tropes for kakairu? Sorry if you've written them I'm behind on reading your Naruto stuff aaaa what are you favorite things about them as a ship? What animals would they best be in your heart of hearts? What are their favorite ways to annoy each other?

Haven't had the time to write out any of the tropes I actually love for them yet but some of my fave KakaIru tropes are: Kakashi being a lowkey stalker and Iruka still falling for him anyway bc all Shinobi are weird like that; Tsundere Iruka and Kakashi being so so so self aware about it he is living his romance dreams; mission fic! I love a good 'have to go on a mission together' trope especially if its them bickering a lot and bonding throughout; office romance is just inherently baked into them lol but that too; Kakashi being one of very few people who can consistently invade Iruka's personal space and be touchy with him without consequence. This does not go unnoticed and everyone is [suspicious side eye] about it

Favourite things about them as a ship: Domesticity; two heavily traumatised orphans caring so deeply about the younger generations; Iruka not giving a single fuck about Kakashi's reputation and loudly arguing with him the same way he would anyone else; there's a myriad of interesting dynamics you can explore with them and just an absolute shitton of tropes and AU's ripe for the taking; they match eachother's freak; the amount of official art Studio Pierrot made of these two together makes me laugh; this is an anime only scene but Kakashi grabbing Iruka's hands just to give him Pakkun before leaving the village rewired my brain chemistry; ANBU Kakashi could've fixed a delinquent Iruka by fucking hi -

Animals they'd be: said it before Kakashi is obviously dog coded even back to his dad's moniker being "White Fang" and Iruka is a tanuki

Fave ways to annoy the other: There are so many we could not name all of them but Kakashi's favourite is turning in messy reports and Iruka's favourite is ruining Kakashi's cool guy image by telling the kids he loudly sobs at sad adverts about dogs

[holybatgirlz]

Had to do another response to bridgertonbabe’s spouses groupchat

(All credit goes to @bridgertonbabe)

—

🐝 The Children Group Chat 🐝

Eloise sent a picture.

Eloise: I think we should submit this to Merriam-Webster to put in the dictionary next to the word ‘heavenly’ because holy shit what happened last night was the closest I have ever had to a religious experience.

Eloise: And yes, I already created and bought matching sweatshirts with this image on it for everyone. They say ‘I survived the Pictionary Incident of ‘16’ on them.

Hyacinth: I swear to god if you two idiots scared Sophie off I’m going to finish what she started.

Anthony: Do I have to remind everyone that both Colin and myself were assaulted last night?? Or did you not see the photo Eloise just sent??

Violet: Do I need to remind you both that you purposefully dropped a keg on your brother’s hand?!?

Colin: Mini. It was a mini keg.

Colin: We’re not stupid enough to drop an actual keg on Benedict.

Violet: Well, you could have fooled me.

Violet: The doctor told me your poor brother broke two fingers and was a millimeter away from needing to have surgery on his hand. And in his dominant hand no less.

Violet: Do you have any idea how this is going to impact your brother? His painting? His upcoming gallery showing? He still has three paintings he needs to finish before next month and I have no idea how he’s going to complete them now that you two have gone and done this to him.

Colin: Yes, yes mother. We know. Benedict’s your precious little baby. Heaven forbid he do anything wrong. Like yelling at his girlfriend because she nearly made him lose Pictionary.

Colin: A girlfriend who, I would like the record to reflect, slapped me.

Anthony: Sophie also gave me a black eye. Kate has spent all of this morning laughing at me every time I walk into a room and she sees it so I think we’re even.

Violet sent a picture.

Violet sent a picture.

Violet: What did you not understand about almost needing surgery? You practically shattered his hand!! You nearly destroyed your brother’s art career!

Hyacinth: If Sophie stops talking to me because of the shit you two bozos pulled omg I’m going to end you both.

Colin: I’m surprised the coke can you nearly hit her with didn’t already do that.

Daphne: Hey. We may have a situation happening.

Francesca: What’s wrong?

Violet: Is everything alright?

Daphne: Simon’s panic pacing in our living room right now and I heard him say something about Sophie. I’m trying to figure out what happened. Give me a second.

Daphne: Hold on.

Daphne: SOPHIE’S PLANNING TO BREAK UP WITH BEN!!

Francesca: What??

Eloise: Say sike Daphne. Say sike right now.

Gregory: Seriously??

Colin: Oh shit. For real?

Francesca: How do you know?

Daphne: Simon and Kate are texting with her right now. I only figured it out because Simon’s stutter comes back when he’s stressed and mutters to himself to stay calm.

Daphne: But Sophie’s said she’s going to break up with Ben when he wakes up because she thinks we all hate her!!

Violet: I need to get back to the hospital right now.

Hyacinth: YOU IDIOTS!!!

Hyacinth: I’M GOING TO KILL YOU BOTH!!

Colin: Gregory. Since I know u r with her. Scale of 1-10 how pissed is Hy right now?

Gregory: Hy right now:

Gregory sent a photo

Gregory sent a photo

Colin: Ah. 100 then.

Gregory: Yeah

Colin: Well it was nice knowing everyone

Anthony: Why on earth would she think we hate her?? You were all cheering her on when she was assaulting us.

Eloise: By far the hottest thing I've ever seen. I think watching her throw that punch rewired my brain chemistry. Watered my crops. Cleared my skin. Ended my depression. And helped me finish my graduate applications. I’ve never felt so alive.

Eloise: Fuck Wollstonecraft. Fuck Steinem. Fuck Atwood. Their works do not even compare to the straight prose Sophie was shooting last night while she was yelling at you two.

Eloise: And if we lose her now because you two idiots made her think we despise her I am going to HELP HYACINTH BURY YOUR BODIES!!!

Francesca: Mum, how close are you?

Violet: 30 minutes out. John is driving as fast as he legally can to get me back there.

Violet: I knew I shouldn’t have left her there alone. I knew something was off. She was far too quiet to have been okay with all of this.

Daphne: Do you need us to come meet you there?

Violet: No. The last thing we need to do is overwhelm her.

Violet: This is all my fault. I should never have picked Pictionary. I shouldn’t have even allowed a Game Night to begin with!

Violet: I forgot that I have wolves for children. That you all were swapped with changelings as babies.

Hyacinth: Why didn’t anyone stay with Sophie???

Eloise: Because she’s a grown woman who knows how to handle herself. She seemed fine last night.

Francesca: She seemed pretty overwhelmed to me. I found her crying in the bathroom after Benedict yelled at her.

Violet: She was crying?!!!

Francesca: I think she was just taken by surprise and she told me Danbury had called her earlier about the lawsuit with her stepmother so I thought she was probably already stressed before she arrived at the house last night. I told her Benedict didn’t mean any of it. And after the beat down she gave Colin and Anthony I thought she would be okay.

Hyacinth: Mum you need to get there!!

Violet: Sweetheart, I’m trying to get there as fast as I can.

Hyacinth: Omg Mum hurry up 😩😩😩 My sanity is on the line here.

Gregory: Anthony and Colin’s asses are literally on the line right now. Hyacinth might actually commit to killing them.

Hyacinth: I swear to God I’m going to actually lose it if Sophie leaves. We finally were about to have a cool in-law in the family and now you IDIOTS RUINED IT!!!

Gregory: We were almost able to say we had a felon in the family 😖😖😖

Daphne: Gregory. Sophie nearly going to jail is not something to strive for.

Francesca: She also isn’t a felon. She would have had to have been convicted for that to be true.

Hyacinth: Firstly, she was falsely accused and this has been a known fact for weeks now. Keep up. Secondly, and according to the police report, Sophie almost outran the cops and got away. Like they chased her seven blocks before they caught her. Full sprint the entire time. And then she elbowed one of them while they were arresting her so they nearly hit her with an assaulting police officer charge because of it.

Hyacinth: Thirdly, Ben said Sophie completely decked her stepmother once it was revealed that Armabitch lied about her stealing from her (which honestly should have been a heads up for tweedle dumb and tweedle dumbest not to FUCK with her)

Hyacinth: And FOURTHLY, she literally got broken out of jail by Mum and Ben because yours truly was smart enough to make sure her location sharing was on.

Hyacinth: She’s a literal icon of icons 😍😍😍

Daphne: Hyacinth, you never answered this the last time we asked. But did you hack Sophie’s phone?

Hyacinth: No

Hyacinth: I just made sure she was sharing her location with me while I was putting my number in her phone. That’s all.

Violet: Alright I’m back at the hospital.

Hyacinth: Mum you need to find Sophie! You need to stop her!

Violet: Oh I plan to. Not going to allow all my hard work to go to waste. I’ll text you once I’ve spoken to her.

Eloise: Are you two idiots happy with yourselves now??

Eloise: Was this worth dropping a keg on Benedict??

Colin: Again

Colin: Mini keg.

Colin: And right now, since I am currently praying to every God in existence to make sure Sophie and Benedict don’t break up, the answer is no.

Anthony: If she was bold enough to hit me in the face, then she was a perfect fit for this family.

Anthony: Mum, if you don’t stop her, tell me. I’ll come out there and speak to her myself.

Hyacinth: Anything?

Daphne: Oh my god this wait is killing me.

Francesca: Mum any updates yet?

Benedict sent a picture

Benedict: I lived.

Daphne: Benedict! Where’s Sophie? Is she with you?

Hyacinth: DO NOT LET HER LEAVE US!!!

Benedict: She here ❤️

Benedict: she finance

Eloise: ????

Benedict: Soap finance

Daphne: Benedict what are you trying to say

Eloise: What the hell does this mean???

Benedict: Soap

Benedict: Finance

Benedict: SOAP MY FINANCE

Benedict: soap finance

Benedict: Duck

Francesca: Benedict are you still high??

Benedict: No. Typing 1 hand. Hard

Eloise: I think we should all take that as he’s still high.

Benedict: Soap Bucket my finance

Gregory: This is some fucking DaVinci code level shit.

Francesca: Are you talking about Sophie??

Benedict: Yes

Benedict: Finance

Benedict: She finance

Francesca: She’s fine?

Eloise: What about Sophie’s finances??

Violet: Fiancée. He means fiancée.

Violet: Sophie and Benedict are engaged!! Well, technically, engaged. Sophie told him he has to propose again once the drugs wear off but I got here just in time to see Benedict asking her to marry him after he woke up and hearing Sophie tell him yes. We’ve all been celebrating. It was quite lovely 🥰🥰

Benedict: Mum cryin rite now.

Eloise: No doubt ecstatic she no longer needs to worry about you dying alone.

Colin: Oh thank Christ.

Gregory:

Francesca: 🥳🥳 Congratulations Benedict

Daphne: Congratulations!!

Hyacinth: This is literally the best news I could receive 😭😭😭

Benedict: Thank you ☺️

Benedict: V happy rite now.

Eloise: V high 2

Benedict sent a photo

Benedict: High on life 😌😌😌 On love 😍☺️🥰

Eloise: Omg 🤢🤮

Eloise: Freak

Eloise: No one asked to see your kissing selfies.

Violet: Benedict. Sweetheart. Since I apparently have to text you this as well. Put the phone down and go back to sleep.

Benedict: NO

Benedict: Engaged!

Benedict: Every1 celebrate me b engaged

Anthony: Congratulations brother.

Benedict: Asshole. Hat u. U no celebrate.

Benedict: Hate other asshole 2. Were Colin?

Colin: Hey Benedict. How’s your hand?

Benedict: Duck u

Benedict: Fuck u

Benedict: Hate u both so much rite now.

Colin: Listen. Ben. I’m really sorry for almost crushing your hand.

Benedict: Hand no long matter. U hurt Soap. I kill u.

Colin: She slapped me!

Benedict: Deserved. U deserved. Drop keg on me n face Soap wrath.

Benedict: God she was so hot 4 that.

Eloise: So hot

Benedict: So hot. My gf is so hot.

Benedict: Finance! She finance now.

Anthony: Benedict. Please tell Sophie how sorry we are for last night and that we are all incredibly happy for her. For both of you.

Anthony: You can also tell her she has an impressive right hook.

Anthony: …

Anthony: Benedict?

Anthony: Benedict are you there?

Violet: He’s not going to answer. Sophie finally took his phone away. But I’ll tell her.

Daphne: Everyone say thank you to Kate and Simon. They spent almost an hour trying to talk Sophie out of leaving Benedict while we were all freaking out.

Francesca: Do they know?

Daphne: I told Simon

Anthony: Kate knows

Gregory: Kate and Simon right now probably

Eloise: Anthony. How much did you just drop on ‘thank you for saving my ass’ jewelry for Kate?

Anthony: Fuck off.

Francesca: I texted Kate. She’s checking the bank account.

Francesca: About 5k by the looks of it. And he’s taking her to Paris.

Anthony: I hate all of you.

[thetacticalspider]

aight so i listened to a podfic (read by giveemhellkidd) of "the science of sleep" (written by chimneythunder) while cleaning my closet a few months ago and basically it rewired my brain chemistry enough that i drew TWO seperate posters for it...and will probably draw another as my art abilities continue to grow and develop. the first one posted here was finished literally this morning and the second one a few weeks ago (idk when exactly). i couldn't find tumblr blogs for either the author or narrator but i hope fate intervenes and they see this anyway. their creation has impacted me so.

image descriptions in alt and under the cut

[image number one shows a colorful drawing of a poster, done mostly in marker. "the science of" is written in large yellow letters at the top of the paper, and "sleep is written in even bigger letters at the bottom. Behind the letters, there's a zig-zigging silvery line bisecting the page. on the left side, the background is blue, showing mikey way in the back wearing a grey shirt and a red bandana. he's got light skin, small rectangular glasses, straight brown hair falling into his face, and is smiling. to the right and a little bit further down the page is gerard, with light skin and dark hair falling into his face, which is partially hidden behind a sketchbook with blue colored sketches on one page. he's also smiling. even further down the page and to the left is ray, who has slightly darker skin and a curly golden brown afro. he's smiling and is wearing a black misfits shirt. the other side of the jagged line has an orange background and the aforementioned people are mirrored on this side, only as the danger days versions of themselves. mikey has his red kobra kid bomber jacket on and is pointing his red ray gun down and to the left. his hair is bleached and he has black sunglasses on. gerard has the yellow party poison mask, dyed red hair and blue bomber jacket. his bright yellow ray gun is being pointed above his head. ray is in side profile, facing towards the center of the page with his blue ray gun being held parallel to his face, both hands on the hilt, pointing it up. he's wearing his black jet star jacket, but it's partially obscured by two grey rectangles made to look like strips of tape, with red words on them reading "a novel by chimney thunder." this is right above the final E and P of "sleep." finally, at the very front of the page, his comparitively giant face bisected by the big jagged line, is frank! he has light skin and black hair and his eyes are closed. on the left side of the line, his whole closed eye can be seen and his eyebrow, which has a piercing in it, since his hair is cut very short. his ear is right in front of ray. on the right side of the jagged line, his hair is long and falling into his face, covering his eye. we can just see the side of his nose and bits of his cheek. finally a tagline is written on the poster. on the left side is written "good morning frank..." and on the right side "have you taken your medication today." finally, the signature "tactical spider" is written across gerard's head on the left side]

[image number two is pretty much exactly the same as the first one, only this one is mostly done in colored pencil and therefore the colors are bit lighter and less blended. the orange background on the right side is an ombre that gets lighter as it goes down. instead of being grey, mikey's shirt on the left side is black and is meant to have duct tape on it, on which it reads "arts and crafts." the bottom of frank's nose can be seen on the left side and we can see a small nose ring. also, there are two small slashes through his left eyebrow. the red words above the word sleep have no background and are much harder to read, though if you can read them you'll see they say "based on the novel by chimney thunder." finally, the "tactical spider" signature is written along gerards arm on the right side. end id]

[a-pale-azure-moon]

I'm a day late on this, but happy 5th anniversary to FE3H, the game that unexpectedly rewired my brain chemistry!

I've been a Fire Emblem fan since I first played Blazing Blade back in 2003 (yes I'm old), so when 3H was announced, I immediately pre-ordered it. I purposely stayed away from rumors, leaks, and most official information about it because I wanted to enjoy it spoiler free. (Much of Fates got spoiled for me and I didn't want a repeat of that.) The most I indulged in was watching the trailers for the individual houses when they came out. And that trailer. You know the one.

So I got the game shortly after launch, once Amazon shipped it to me, and I had no idea which House I was going to pick. I was slightly leaning towards the Golden Deer, largely from Claude's design and how he seemed "different" from previous FE lords, but I was truly undecided when I started. It was really a coin flip between the Lions and Deer right up to the point where the game forces you to choose. What ultimately made me pick the Blue Lions was actually Mercedes; I wasn't aware that recruitment was a thing yet and her Live to Serve skill stood out as particularly useful to me. Healer who can keep herself healed? Yeah, I want that on my team!

If I'm being honest, I didn't find anything about Dimitri particularly special right away. I certainly liked him, mostly because of his amazing voice (thank you Chris), but I recognized him as a Marth clone right from the start, so a lot about his character felt "generic" to me at first. The tone around him was considerably more somber compared to previous lords, and I was curious about why that was so, particularly since the timeskip trailer had spoiled that he goes through a dramatic transformation later in the story. So I was paying close attention to him as the game unfolded, but it wasn't until his breakdown at Remire in chapter 8 that it hit me just how radically different he was compared to previous Marths. That's where I got super invested in his story and started sacrificing sleep to play the game so I could find out what happened next. By the time I finished, my whole brain had been transformed into this:

(I forget where I first saw this image, so my apologies to whomever made it.)

2019 was a difficult year for me; my mom was going through some health issues, and my dad wasn't being particularly helpful in the ways she needed, which left me to pick up the slack (my older sister lives out of state and was/is busy with her three kids). I was also still trying to break out of a festering creative slump that had gone on for way too long, but changing that mindset is hard, especially when you've convinced yourself that everything you write sucks (and that therefore you suck).

So 3H and Azure Moon in particular wound up being a great comfort to me through an emotionally draining year (and then the pandemic hit...). Dimitri's story and character arc resonated with me in all the right ways, and it lit a new creative spark inside of me, the likes of which I hadn't felt in a long, long time. I almost wish I hadn't picked the Lions first, because the other routes wound up being a big disappointment to me when they failed to reach the same emotional high. I think I would've become a Lions stan even if I'd saved their route for last. It left THAT strong of an impression on me. I mean, I became obsessed enough that I wrote a freaking book, lol.

I'll be the first to admit that this game isn't perfect; some of its mechanics are wonky, classes aren't well balanced, there's not enough map diversity, Maddening Mode was definitely not properly play tested, and there are genuine flaws in some of its writing. I won't even get into the trashfire that is 3H discourse (which is somehow still a thing after all this time). I don't even think it's my favorite overall game in the series, but it's in my top 3 with Awakening and Path of Radiance. But the impact the game left on me is difficult to understate. I'm so happy it's a thing that exists and that it helped guide me to my current path.

[deep-space-lines]

Have you ever wanted to draw something but you fought due to your skill level at the time you decide not to do it

Honestly I don't think there's been a time in my life where I haven't experienced this. There's a file on my ipad I've had on the backburner for like probably over 4 years now; there's a really clear image in my head of a poster showing the detailed anatomy of an astronaut from the perspective of aliens who believe the spacesuit to be part of its body, and every time I come back to it, I keep saying I'll do it later because I just can't pull it off yet :') so yeah the struggle is real

That being said, I've personally found that apart from just 'don't draw it and let it haunt you for years until your confidence improves', there's two solutions that work for me

1: Just draw it the best you're able now, with the knowledge that it might suck (in your eyes) but there's no rule that says you can't come back and re-draw it a few months or years down the line once you've learned more, if you still want to. It can be super frustrating if you have a really concrete awesome image in your head that you know you can't execute the way you'd like, but treating it more like a rough draft than something that has to be perfect the first time around can help get around this. Genuinely I think about this post all the time now, I think it rewired my brain chemistry as an artist. Just accept it'll look bad, who give a shit!!!! If you draw the rough draft now, it'll either turn out better than you expected, or you'll figure out what you struggled with for next time. Either way you'll at least temporarily get The Image out of your head and satiate the Art Beast.

Which leads into...

2: Figure out if there's a specific aspect of the Thing that intimidates you the most and put some time into low-stakes practice with the skill that's blocking you. Usually it's gonna be something like perspective, anatomy, rendering/painting, struggling with dynamic poses, etc.

Starting a completely new skill from scratch sounds intimidating, but you're not starting from scratch, and if you sit yourself down and give it some dedicated practice, you WILL see improvement within the same day. Keep it up for a week or a month and you'll have learned a lot. If it's dynamic perspective, tell yourself "ok I am GOING to learn how to draw with perspective" and mess around with references, look up tutorials, draw other art pieces with perspective until you feel like you have a somewhat decent grasp of it. If it's anatomy or dynamic poses: (once again, cannot stress enough) use references. Trace and then copy references until you get a feel for the shapes (AdorkaStock is really good), practice figure drawing (Quickposes, Line of Action), watch Proko because they have really good videos on these things (1) (2) (3).

'Practice makes perfect' is simultaneously very correct and very unhelpful advice, but if you've got a good grasp of the fundamentals of art, picking up specific, individual skills to a 'good enough' level is not nearly as time-consuming and frustrating as trying to just get better at 'art' as a whole. It can be really good motivation tbh (at least for me), to have an image of something I want to create and telling myself "I am going to intentionally practice [indoor environments]/[perspective]/[faces]/[painting with unrealistic colors]/[insert specific skill] for a few weeks until I feel confident enough to draw this thing".

anyway sorry that was so long. idk if this is any help, just my personal experience

[rockingego]

there was ONE piece of fanart I saw in like 7th grade

I dont even remember what it looked like but it was SearchLai and that one image rewired my brain chemistry

[thepoison-thecure]

hearing them perform these lyrics in those outfits in 2022 full of life and viciously mocking the fetishisation of their past image is rewiring my brain chemistry actually

[fae-fatale]

𝔉𝔞𝔶𝔢'𝔰 𝔇𝔬𝔭𝔞𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔇𝔢𝔱𝔬𝔵𝔦𝔫𝔤 : ℜ𝔞𝔪𝔟𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔱 ℑ 𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔪𝔶 𝔣𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔲𝔯𝔢𝔰 (𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 1)

My name is Faye. All throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was considered academically gifted Although the reason for my failures are 100% my responsibility my parents' parenting style did contribute to it. The combination of never being allowed outside , never being allowed to see my friends so they gradually stopped inviting me, tutoring every day, and only ever being praised by my academic ability and so I had no other identity and things to spend time on lead me to become addicted to my very first iPod touch.

As my neurons became more and more rewired for instant gratification from the ages of 9-14, I very slowly stopped making efforts in my studies and very slowly quit art. Art was my first love.At the age of 11 I was swayed to create an Instagram art account in hopes of turning my dream of becoming an artist into reality. Instead as the years went by I would consume other people's art ALL day. This was all I did after school and before school. At the start, I would still make plenty of drawings until gradually I would never even create any art. I would spend hours consuming 1000s of images of art a day but never remember any of it and never even create any art myself. Think about how much time you spend scrolling and how much of it you remember. I am wasting my life in a brain dead state and I don't even remember or enjoy any of it and in exchange I'm giving up my dream life. The choice is mine.

This is the nature of social media. It promises a few benefits: connecting with our loved ones anytime and anywhere, a platform to make your dreams reality and information on how to do anything you could possibly think of. However, instead we keep in touch with people we don't speak to anymore by giving them a digital heart to praise their fake curated life as if we're in the matrix. We ignore our friends' messages because we are 'mentally drained' and yet spend hours scrolling....This is explored deeper in the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

However, we cannot blame social media although the algorithms and every tiny pixel are split tested and meticulously designed to keep as many eyeballs on them as long as possible.(Hooked: How to build Habit Forming Products by Nir Eyal) We must take responsibility. I realised my addiction to Snapchat as a young tween was because I had no social life and this was painful to confront. However, improving my social skills and forcing going outside despite my parents was less painful than never changing.

I quit Instagram and Snapchat and this was easy for me as the fact it took my childhood and adolescence away from me made me sick. But from age 14-18 I got addicted to Youtube, Reddit and Tumblr particularly self improvement content. I would consume self improvement content ALL day while my Chemistry work would be neglected and my room as a mess and I was sleeping at 3am. We love to imagine doing things and it's easy to promise to from tomorrow I will definitely become a person that has the discipline I have never ever showed a day in my life starting tomorrow. It's like imagining a baby who has never touched water to become Olympic multi gold medallist Michael Phelps starting tomorrow because they watched a romanticised tiktok edit of a swimming lesson. But we sit in our beds watching staged curated romanticised study or working out videos and say I'll definitely be able to become this person who took years to become this disciplined starting tomorrow! The difference between you and me and the people we admire is simply habits.(Atomic Habits by James Clear).

I have attempted to quit my internet addiction hundreds of times. I have used a Nokia brick phone <3 and tried blockers. They work for a while but then I would go back to the same deathly habits after a while. The monumental book which made me realise I don't even WANT to be consuming internet posts I don't even remember or use to benefit myself is Smart Phone Dumb Phone by Alan Carr.

My average screen time has been from 8-10 hours a day for 5 years now. That's 14600 hours of my life wasted (and that's underestimating). Although the fact that it requires 10,000 hours to become world class in a skill has been debunked, this is still devastating. How much of my/your life have we spent braindead on shit we don't even care about making some random influencer 5 pence/cents per view at the cost of our LIFE. How much better would my/our lives have been if that was invested in all these things we're imagining we would do?

The reason I still check Tumblr and Reddit every time I am bored, something 'inconvenient' (happens like I have to wait for my food in the microwave - we are so used to instant gratification) , I don't want to do my work, I remember my past and feel pain, every negative emotion small or life-stopping - is because I am unhappy with my life. If we all truly had our dream lives down to every last detail would we spend all day on our phones? What problems are we escaping from by numbing ourselves and inducing a brain dead state looking at things you don't care about while your soul rots inside of you?

All my life I have been swayed by irrational impulses and emotions bc which can change in a second and now I succumb to every negative feeling by distracting myself.

“𝔒𝔫𝔩𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔦𝔭𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔯𝔲𝔩𝔶 𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔢. 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔦𝔭𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔰𝔩𝔞𝔳𝔢𝔰 𝔱𝔬 𝔪𝔬𝔬𝔡𝔰, 𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔭𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰.” – 𝔖𝔱𝔢𝔭𝔥𝔢𝔫 ℭ𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔶

I went from the girl who voraciously learned deeply with focus doing year/grade 11 math in year/grade 6 with a passion for art to the girl who failed to get into medical school who lies in bed all day with no hobbies at 18.

In the UK, you take 3-4 A-levels which are the grades which determine if you go to a specific course or university. Of course I spent the entire two years having a 8-10 hour screentime and escaped from the consequences of my own actions by not studying hard and giving up days before my exam.

A few weeks for the exam I was studying 4-7 hours a day, but of course this change was not sustainable from someone with a shaky foundation of never studying and with a brain rotted by social media and thus no attention span. A few weeks of good could not stand a chance against (almost) a decade of bad habits from aged 9-18. So, I did not get the grades for the conditional offer for medical school at St Andrews University which was my dream. Of course this was inevitable from my lack of work ethic and simple to predict from my habits. Input = output. 1+1 =2

So. What are we going to do about it?

Part 2 will be my Dopamine Detoxing Plan for 90 days - I'll be back to using my Hello Kitty Flip phone and of course no social media<3

Part 3 will be my journal of the experience and what I have learned.

I have done this before during lockdown using a Nokia Brick but my mistake was not making a strong foundation of discipline. So I slipped right back to before. I am going to make it a permanent change no matter how much I have to fail and learn.

These days I'm doing better. I have been going to the gym consistently for a year now :) and made some serious progress (I will make long info posts after I learn more)

In my A-levels I got two As and one C (in chemistry) which is crazy for how unprepared I was. Discipline will make me from coal into a diamond.

[mataurin]

Fancasts for Ivy?

Not to be that guy but it’s hard for me not to say Rihanna lol. Seeing that picture of her with red hair at a formative age permanently rewired my brain chemistry. She would devour this role. But as for who Most closely fits my personal image of ivy, visually Megan Thee Stallion comes to mind, if only for her appearance at that BoP event alongside a VERY Harley looking Doja

[themedicalstate]

How To Train Your Brain To Remember Everything

Todd Sampson, an Australian TV personality, underwent a brain makeover in a six-episode series called Redesign My Brain. By the end of the first season, Todd was able to memorize and enumerate a shuffled deck of cards at the 2012 World Memory Championships in London.

“The brain is a dynamic organ”, says Psychology Today. “It can change its architecture throughout life, responding to experience by reorganizing connections — in short, by wiring and rewiring itself.”

Behind the Redesign My Brain project was Michael Merzenich, a psychologist who pioneered the fastest-growing science in the world — neuroplasticity. He wanted to prove his hypothesis that each part of our body is mapped onto its own area in the brain.

He believed that our central nervous system wasn’t as hard-wired as previously thought. He rightly guessed that there are specific exercises we can do to train our brain to excel in particular areas.

1. The Method of Loci

The method of loci (also called mind palace technique) is one of the mnemonic techniques used for developing superior memory performance. To put it simply, it’s all about associating new information with something you already know. And, in this case — places (“loci” means “places” in Latin).

Visualization is at the core of this method — the more vivid, the better. Joshua Foer, a writer who happened to win the U.S. Memory Championship, opens up about this technique in his TED Talk.

How it works:

You have to pick a location (your home, neighborhood, office floor, etc.) that you know very well, and most importantly, you have to imagine the pathway you usually take navigating through that location.

Whatever the items you need to memorize, try placing them on the checkpoints along that path. So, let’s say you’re cramming for a chemistry exam and you need to remember this equation:

Mg+HCl → MgCl2+H2

Now, imagine Mg opening the door and greeting you into your own home. You say hello and step in only to see hydrochloric acid appearing from behind the closet and taking magnesium by the hand.

The two of them take you to your living room. Suddenly, the hydrogen and chlorine from hydrochloric acid decide to go to the bathroom and come back with their twin brothers (H2 and Cl2).

They fight over magnesium, and magnesium decides to leave with the Cl twins leaving H2 twins behind. Breaking bad, right?

2. Storytelling

This technique does wonders for memorizing lists of items when you go grocery shopping, for example.

Like the previous method, it’s based on the power of visualization and association whereby something too familiar to remember is associated with something more meaningful to you. It’s also essential to make those items interact.

How it works:

Let’s say you want to go shopping for coffee, bread, wine, and cheese.

Before you walk out the door, think about a situation where Kofi Annan (the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations) and Brad Pitt (the famous Hollywood actor) are having their photo taken under a grapevine, and the photographer says “cheese!”.

Once you step into the supermarket, the image is bound to stick in your memory.

3. Beat the Doorway Effect

Picture this all-too-common situation: you are sitting in your living room, and you suddenly remember you have to call someone. You dash for your phone that’s in the other room… but as soon as you go through the door, you no longer remember why you got up in the first place.

Walking through the doorway causes a temporary loss of memory, a study says. Because we experience a location update, our brain sets up a mental block. To stop being confused, you need to beat your mind to it.

How it works:

The moment you decide you need to go to the other room to fetch or do something, stop yourself for a second and visualize yourself in that other room, doing what you intended to go there for.

If it’s the phone call, envision yourself actually finding the phone, dialing the number, and answering.

4. Chunking

Our brains are wired for grouping things and seeing patterns, so why not use this superpower to improve memory performance?

It’s all about taking small bits of information and combining them into meaningful wholes i.e. larger units. According to the Peak Performance Center, chunking decreases the number of items you are holding in short-term memory by increasing the size of each item.

How it works:

One example of chunking is creating keywords or acronyms. Our brain can hold 7 items maximum (+/-2), so you should not go over that number for a single unit.

Say you can’t memorize the names of the Great Lakes of North America — Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. Take their first letters and make an acronym “HOMES”. Simple as that! For more advanced chunking techniques, check out this resource.

5. Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is one of the best learning techniques that revolves around spacing out your studying intervals. It’s been discovered that “long-term memory is enhanced when learning events are spaced apart in time, rather than massed in immediate succession” (Vlach & Sandhofer 2012).

Scientists agree that we all possess a “forgetting curve”, meaning that our ability to retain the memory of something we’ve learned declines over time unless we stop at an ideal moment and review.

Depending on the complexity of the new information you’re trying to retain in your long-term memory, the moment you stop to review will vary.

How it works:

The key is to stop at the right moment and repeat what you’ve learned. This needs to be done multiple times over a period of time.

The rule of thumb is that you should make your first review the day after you started studying. After that, you can make the second one after a week, the next one after approximately two weeks and the last one after a month. (As you can see, the periods double.)

If you’re afraid you can’t decide on your own, there are apps you can use to help you out. They are based on the old-school principle of flashcard studying with sophisticated algorithms that can gauge the intervals. The most popular so far are Anki, SuperMemo, TinyCards, and EdApp.

6. Spread the word

“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” ― Albert Einstein

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you’d learned something, and then, when you started explaining it to another person, it all got blurry? Well, you’re not alone.

How it works:

Once you start learning something new (studying for an exam, reading a book, etc.), make a stop after every section or a chapter and share it with someone else!

Try and explain what you’ve learned as if you’re teaching a class. In fact. It’s been suggested, “that [when] students actually teach the content of a lesson, they develop a deeper and more persistent understanding of the material than from solely preparing to teach.” (Fiorella & Mayer 2013)

If you can’t find anyone in the mood for listening, be your own audience. Stand in front of the mirror and start talking.

Takeaway Tips

While these tactics will surely increase your memory performance, you also need to take care of your brain’s wellbeing.

Get enough sleep and practice relaxation techniques as frequently as possible.

Of course, some foods will send your memorization potential skyrocketing too. Dark chocolate, blueberries, fatty fish, broccoli, and nuts should be topping your next shopping list. (Here’s a great way to start your super-brain journey: try and memorize these foods by using some of the techniques we’ve mentioned!)

Take baby steps at first, and don’t get discouraged if the methods don’t work right away. You could also combine several of them at once. For example, you can mix chunking and storytelling.

And remember, memory power is not a sign of intelligence or the lack thereof. It’s just one of the ways our minds work, and one of many you can amp up with enough practice and patience.

By Eric Sangerma (Medium). Image Credit: Rawpixel.

[dkniade]

Albedo and his Various Titles Given by Rhinedottir

warning: caps.

note: This is just me rambling about translation and differences in language as a Chinese fan who speaks English better

“Concealed Talon” material description:

A sharp nail left behind by one of the Riftwolves.

All the marvels in the world must pale before "Cretaceus," the greatest work of them all.

CRETACEOUS IS 白垩 IN CHINESE

AND ALBEDO’S GERMAN TITLE “KREIDEPRINZ” IS 白垩之子 IN CHINESE

WHICH ASIDE FROM SIMPLY THE ENGLISH TITLE “CHALK PRINCE” ONE CAN TRANSLATE IT MORE DIRECTLY TO “CHILD OF CRETACEOUS”

(之子 is like a very fancy/formal way of saying “child of [subject/object]” like for example “Son of Crepus” or “Child of Mondstadt”)

“Child of Cretaceous” AS AN ENGLISH TITLE DOESNT FLOW AS WELL BUT BRINGS SO MUCH MORE MEANING and maybe it’s also because I don’t know much about chemistry but every time I read the title “The Chalk Prince” I think about the chalk you use to write on blackboards rather than the pure substance found in the ground and that’s the opposite of Albedo’s whole image

Maybe I should try playing Genshin with Chinese subs so I can learn the lore better (rewire my brain to relearn the entire game mechanics again in Chinese)

[cobble-stone]

1, 6, and 8 :D

i’m doin this for last life :)

1. which character do you relate to the most from your fandom?

to everyone’s big surprise, i’d have to say etho. i can’t really tell why, but i saw ll!etho and something in my brain went “he is literally me I Am Him we are One.”

6. when you first think of the fandom, what image comes to mind?

if i had to say, i think when i was watching session 4 while on a trip i took over the fall. i was heading to the airport by train, and just- watching as much last life as i could while sitting in the seat, all curled up and watching the fall leaves outside my window. that’s the first thing that comes to mind when i think about LL.

8. WHY did you join the fandom???

i was already a hermitcraft fan and a 3L fan at that point, saw that there was a s2 coming out, went “YOOO i’m 100% watching that-“ and well. now my brain chemistry has been rewired.

[liliannorman]

A secret of science: Mistakes boost understanding

This past spring, before COVID-19 turned the world on its head, Anne Smith’s 9th-grade physics class was learning about electric circuits. Smith teaches science at Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Ill. She gave her students paper clips, batteries, tape and a lightbulb. Then she said, “Have a go. See if you can make the bulb light up.” 

Students in Anne Smith’s 9th grade chemistry lab had to determine their own methods for deciding which solutions were best for making bubbles. A. Smith

Smith sees value in letting her students experiment. She believes that some of the most powerful learning happens through trial and error. “When students are allowed to struggle through difficult material, they gain confidence,” she says. “They learn that making mistakes is part of the scientific process.”  

This isn’t to say that once the task is given, Smith sits back and watches her students fail. Instead, she selects activities that may have more than one answer. Then she encourages students to try multiple approaches. She wants them to think about different ways to solve a problem.

Throughout the lesson, the students engage in group discussions. Their observations and reflections focus on the process, not the outcome.

Smith praises students for working through hard tasks. She wants to highlight how their struggles can reward them with benefits. “The point,” Smith says, “is to explore ideas and evaluate the methods [being] tried.” In doing so, students learn to value mistakes. Indeed, she finds, mistakes are an essential part of learning.

Failing to succeed

“Failure is the most important ingredient in science,” says Stuart Firestein. He studies the biology of the brain at Columbia University in New York City. He also wrote a book called Failure: Why Science is So Successful.

“When an experiment fails or doesn’t work out the way you expected, it tells you there is something you didn’t know,” he says. It suggests you need to go back and rethink: What went wrong? And why? Was there a problem with the idea? With your approach or assumptions? With your measurements? In the environment, such as temperature, lighting or pollution?

Thomas Edison, at left, poses with an early electric car that ran on his storage batteries. It took Edison thousands of failed experiments over many years to develop these batteries.National Park Service

This is the value of failure. It leads to what Firestein calls “the portal of the unknown.” It is where the most deep and worthwhile questions come from. And asking those questions can spark new ideas and types of experiments. The best thing a scientist can discover is “a new or better question,” Firestein says. “Failure is where the action is. It propels science forward.”

Thomas Edison is reputed to have said much the same thing, according to a 1910 biography. He wanted to make a better battery. But after working seven days a week for more than five months, he still hadn’t succeeded. He told a friend, Walter S. Mallory, that he had already done more than 9,000 experiments for the project. According to the book, Mallory replied: “Isn’t it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven’t been able to get any results?” The book goes on to say that Edison “with a smile replied: ‘Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.’”

Nor did the dogged inventor stop. Eventually, he got the new battery to work. He patented it, too. Although Edison is best known for the light bulb, those batteries eventually became the most commercially successful product of his later life.

Most schools do not encourage students to fail

Smith’s and Edison’s approach is different from the way science is carried out in most classrooms. Schools tend to focus on covering lots of topics and memorizing countless facts. Many classes rely on textbooks to give students as much info as quickly as possible. The problem with those books, explains Firestein, is “they have no context.” They state the results of experiments but they don’t tell why people did them. Nor do they describe experiments that didn’t work. By focusing on successful outcomes, Firestein says, “we leave out 90 percent of science.”

Instead, he suggests, science learning should include details of those failures. This shows the realistic process of getting to an answer. Also, students can discover why specific scientific questions arose and see how people arrived at the answer we have now.

You thought you followed the directions carefully, but the cookies still burned. What went wrong? A scientist would look at and test each of the factors that could have led to the problem. Is the oven thermostat reading the right temperature? Did you misread the baking time? Zhenikeyev/iStock/Getty Images Plus

When students fail, they question thoughts, opinions and ideas. This is what teachers refer to as critical thinking. Through such questions, you connect ideas and challenge reasoning. Both skills are highly valued in a scientist, says Firestein.

Learning about failure also makes science more approachable. Students need to know that science is not just a sequence of geniuses making one discovery after another. Rather, the history of science is full of mistakes and wrong turns.

Some of the most well-known scientific facts follow a trail of failures. For example, physics icon Isaac Newton was wrong about gravity. Although Firestein explains that Newton’s laws of motion are “great for launching satellites and building bridges, his idea about how gravity works was wrong.” It was Albert Einstein, 200 years later, who corrected it — again as a result of a failed experiment. He studied Newton’s idea until he came up with his Special Theory of Relativity. This changed science’s perception of gravity. The scientific process is where you arrive at the truth by making mistakes, Firestein explains, “each a little less of a mistake than the one before.”

Explainer: Where antibiotics came from

Failures have also led to great discoveries. Penicillin, X-rays and insulin are all the results of experiments gone wrong. “Two-thirds of Nobel laureates have announced their winning discovery was the result of a failed experiment,” says Firestein. This explains why Isaac Asimov, an American writer and biochemist, is crediting with saying: “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.’”

The importance of failure is just as prevalent in other fields. Take this observation by professional basketball player Michael Jordan in a 1997 Nike commercial: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot — and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” 

A changeable brain

Michael Merzenich is a neuroscientist who worked at the University of California, San Francisco. In the 1970s, he found evidence that brains can rewire themselves over time. His work challenged the common idea that people were born with a fixed number of brain cells organized in unchanging paths. Perhaps our potential to think, learn and reason was not set from birth, he proposed. 

Merzenich and his team began their research with monkeys. They aimed to map which brain cells fired when the monkeys completed a given task. The resulting “brain maps” amazed the scientific community. But he found an even bigger surprise when he later revisited the maps: The monkey’s neural pathways had changed. “What we saw,” said Merzenich, “was absolutely astounding. I couldn’t understand it.” The only possible explanation was that the monkeys’ brains had wired new neural pathways, he decided. Norman Doidge recounted the observation in his book The Brain that Changes Itself.

Merzenich’s research pointed to a concept that would come to be known as “brain plasticity.” It’s the ability of the brain to adapt and change in response to experiences. His studies went on to show that when we learn something new, an electrical signal fires and connects cells in different parts of the brain.

Scientists Say: Synapse

The place where these electrical sparks jump between brain cells is called a synapse. Synapses fire when we do things such as read a book, play with toys or have conversations. That firing strengthens connections between brain cells. If we do something only once, synaptic pathways can fade away. But if we practice and learn something deeply, the synaptic activity will form lasting networks in the brain. Indeed, learning rewires the brain.

If learning can cause our brain to adapt and change, what happens when we make a mistake? In 2011, Jason Moser studied how the brain reacts when people make an error. Moser is a psychologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. He teamed up with four other researchers. They asked 25 participants to complete a test with 480 questions. During the test, each person wore a stretch cap with electrodes that recorded activity in different parts of the brain.

The participants’ brain activity rose when they made a mistake, Moser and his colleagues found. “When a participant experienced conflict between a correct response and an error, the brain was challenged,” he says. “Trying to make sense of this new knowledge was a time of struggle and need for change.” This is when the brain reacted most strongly.

He also found two typical brain responses to a mistake. The first response indicated that something went wrong. The second reaction only came when test-takers treated the mistake as a problem that needed greater attention. Participants who responded to their error by giving it more consideration were able to do better on the test after making their mistake. Moser concluded that “by thinking about what we got wrong, we learn how to get it right.”

Even in math, a right answer isn’t the only goal. Showing classmates why you’re taking certain steps to a solution can help students learn together — or together troubleshoot where something went wrong.SDI Productions/E+/Getty Images

A new view of mistakes

Championing the value of mistakes, Jo Boaler has started a revolution in math. She teaches math education at Stanford University in California. In her 2019 book, Limitless Mind, she said people need to give up the idea that one’s ability to learn is fixed, or unchanging. Instead, she argues, we should view learning as putting us “all on a growth journey.”

She wanted to give students positive messages about mistakes and create a “mistakes-friendly” environment where students celebrate errors. Seeking to bring this idea into the classroom, Boaler established a three-week summer math camp known as Youcubed. (The last in-person session was in 2019. She now offers it as an online course.) The aim of this program is to boost confidence in math among 6th and 7th graders. When kids give answers, they are encouraged to explain their thinking. Discussing the process helped other students analyze their reasoning. This pushed them to keep trying.

At the beginning of camp, students often reported that struggling with math was a sign you weren’t doing well. But by the end of three weeks, most reported feeling more positive about making mistakes. They enjoyed being challenged and described having higher self-esteem. “When students see mistakes as positive,” Boaler says, “it has an incredibly liberating effect.”

Anne Smith’s students designed balloon rockets and then explained why they succeeded or failed using Newton’s laws.A. Smith

Learning through collaboration can also help us see mistakes in a more positive way. Janet Metcalfe studies the effects of errors and how they can benefit learning. A psychologist at Columbia University in New York City, she observed several middle-grade math classes. The most effective learning technique, she found, was giving students a chance to discuss their errors.

They might be asked: What do you think about that? How did you get your answer? Sharing the way they did a problem took much of the focus off of mistakes. Instead they described their theories and ideas. This collaboration with classmates resulted in higher test scores.

“When you connect with someone else’s ideas,” Metcalfe points out, “you go deeper.” Mistakes are simply the starting point for discussion. “You have only got something to learn if you make a mistake,” she concludes.

And that is the message Smith tries to give to her high school physics students. Yet some still come to class with a fear of failure. They believe that a wrong answer means they are not smart. Some give up before they even try because they are so scared of being incorrect.

“It is especially important for these students to see mistakes as a learning opportunity,” Smith says. Getting people to see mistakes as a natural part of learning takes time. We have all been embarrassed by making a mistake in public. But finding success as a result of struggling toward a solution will hopefully help students become more eager to approach future challenges.

To Smith, being able to “approach mistakes with confidence” is more important than anything else a student can learn.

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