#like im in advanced classes and i do well in them but i just dont feel smart

[funkypurpleradiohost]

Why the fuck are they making updating my disability accommodations so long. I cant fucking get like any work done and like the earliest I can schedule a meeting to update the accommodations is more than a week away. It's only been a few weeks and I'm so behind because certain teachers refuse to adhere to my accommodations because they are being so fucking pedantic about the wording in the updated policies.

[fairykazu]

AITA FOR BEING COLD TO A STRANGER FOR BEING WEIRD BUT THEY ENDED UP BEING MY CRUSH I LIKED FROM MY CHILDHOOD ??? FT. SCARAMOUCHE ! cw: informal writing, ooc, modern au, plotless ?, crackpost, use of kys/kms jokes, ip address leak (NOT REAL!!! i dont condone this in real life.), brief stan war, etc note: i think scaramouche using reddit for advice is funny. i might use this for a diff character. im reposting this from my other account @kaedehararchives masterlist

scaramouche isn't the type of person to ask for advice. so why is he on the infamous site, reddit? well, he doesn't want to ask people knowing that he has weaknesses so obviously, he's here.

r/amitheasshole ∙ a year ago thehatguy aita for treating someone for being weird? i know how that title sounds but bear with me. i (M17) come from a predominantly rich family that is known internationally. when this person (GN17) came up to me, being all weird, acting like i know them. i was thinking that they were going to use me for connections / money / fame / etc. i didn't want that to slide obviously so i told them (dis)respectfully to fuck off. despite, my warning messages, they kept persistently to be friendly with me. in my personal opinion, i hate clingy people especially when we first met.

i tried my best to be civil with them and ignore / avoid them and their super weird-clingy-cringe advances. but they KEEP thinking we know each other from somewhere. it's getting annoying... and frankly, i did get a tad angry with them. so i pulled some strings and they aren't allowed to talk to me.... well in a class we share.

after typing up a post, he already had gotten a few responses. he wiped right, unlocking his phone, to see the notifications.

replies:

lesbianpirate69 you sound like an asshole

eyepatchwearernumber1 lwk loser behavior lmao thehatguy [OP] who even wears eyepatches? get off my post detectivelover69 nta they prob deserved it thehatguy [OP] thats what im saying

thank god someone agrees with me. he thought. well that was until he kept scrolling. a bunch of people calling him an asshole. typical. but the username "hydronarwhal" caught his eye. stupid reddit user. who even uses this stupid app?

hydronarwhal idk why would u be weird to someone js because they want to be friends with you thehatguy [OP] why wouldn't u be mean to someone who keeps trying to be friends with u hydronarwhal dude i think you have some issues thehatguy [OP] did u read it right? read it again for me hydronarwhal just because ur rich doesnt mean they want ur money bro thehatguy [OP] 192.1xx.x.xx

after this conversation with this guy "hydronarwhal", he had enough of this. clearly, that guy is sick in the head. blocking the account from seeing his post, he went to sleep. well, he will check the comment section after he had a well-rested night.

well, two more won't hurt.

bobaya nah thats weird. i get you on that using people for connections thehatguy [OP] finally, thank you beetlefighter101 wait ur weird asf for leaking someone's ip address thehatguy [OP] that's just the celluar data tower they're using beetlefighter101 what do they use thehatguy [OP] t-mobile hydrowhales0612 can u not? bobaya wait no, op is valid. t-mobile is ass

robinoaknumberonefan this sounds parasocial thehatguy [OP] you cannot be talking? barbaraisbetterthanrobin ROBIN CANT BEAT BARBARA'S PERFECTION robinoaknumberonefan uhh okay, albert. (albert's info) (albert's info) open full thread?

---

is he an idiot for leaving his notifications on for every app? yes. he is because why did his post that he was sure no one would really see due to the flood of aita posts, get l

[notification: reddit +1] adornthenight are u sure ur giving the full story?

adornthenight are u sure ur giving the full story? thehatguy [OP] duh... why wouldnt i? adornthenight read this then www.reddit.com/r/aita/avidsnoopyfan

---

u/avidsnoopyfan my side of aita for treating someone for being weird? hello! im the person in the thehatguy's post. i want to clear things up. he said that i was clingy to him and that i was someone who wanted to use him for money. i reassure you guys that isn't the case. he just looked familiar. someone i held dear to my heart. i know that's bad to project on someone you met. technically you can argue that i couldve seen him from social media but i don't really use any other than pinterest.

no comments yet

[cloudcountry]

Ahhh i dont really know how Tumblr works (this is my first time requesting someone) but i see that ur request was open

i want to request an academic rivalry trope hcs with riddle or Azul or both (bcs i absolutely LOVE the way u write them 😞 it makes me giggle)

Thank u in advance and have a great day or night (⁠´⁠∩⁠｡⁠•⁠ ⁠ᵕ⁠ ⁠•⁠｡⁠∩⁠`⁠)

SUMMARY: Riddle & Azul with an academic rival!!

WARNINGS: None!!

COMMENTS: omg i love you for this!!! this is one of my favorite tropes ever and these two are so emotionally constipated they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. i hope you have a lovely day too anon <33 and im so glad you like how i write them hehe azul is the loml so it means a lot when people say that!!

Riddle doesn’t know what to do about you. He feels so incredibly frustrated every single time you score higher than him on a test because he should be better. How can he pride himself in being Heartslabyul’s Housewarden if he can’t even be at the top of his class?

So what does he do with that frustration? He studies harder and harder because clearly he isn’t trying hard enough. His health deteriorated, and if it wasn’t for Trey, Riddle would be even more of a wreck.

Then he finally does it. All of that work culminates into Riddle finally scoring a point higher than you on his Magical History exam. He stares at the board smugly, really admiring his name above yours (which is how it should be, in his mind.)

You approach the board too, and he expects you to say something about how you’ll score higher than him next time or how you can’t believe he’s finally beaten you, but instead, you nod cheerfully and walk away.

You just walk away. You don't even look at him. You’re satisfied with yourself?! Riddle feels rage bubbling up in his chest, and he almost screams at you right there and then in the hallway. What is wrong with you?!

It doesn’t help matters when Crewel assigns a huge project that's to be completed by two people, and places you and Riddle together. He’s so hell-bent on avoiding you the entire time, even when your face grows annoyed at his inability to cooperate.

“This project is a long one, you know.” you tell him one day, staring daggers into the side of his skull, “It takes six months to complete. If you want to get a good grade you’ve got to lay down your pride and talk to me. I’m not put up with this for half a year.”

Riddle hates that you’re right. He hates it so much because he’s always supposed to be the sensible one. He’s studied the rules over and over and yet you stump him. You make him wrong.

Is he wrong to resent you for that? Is it wrong to want to destroy your pride? Is it wrong to hate that you seemingly get everything you’ve ever wanted so easily while he’s worked hard for it?

Is it wrong that he wants to cooperate so hard and so efficiently with you that you take back everything you said to him?

Azul wants to get you in his debt so BADLY. He isn’t at the very top of his class, no. That title belongs to Riddle, who has refused his offers for a contract time and time again. Maybe there’s something you want, though.

He will find it. He will examine you every day and pick apart every insecurity and moment of sadness. That smart little brain of yours may be good for tests, but when it comes to manipulation, you have nothing on Azul.

It’s a small comfort if nothing else. You may have the entire school wrapped around your finger and the Leech twins might be fascinated with you, but that doesn’t matter.

Well, it doesn’t matter until you show up at the Lounge of your own volition. Azul is shocked when he hears the twins call your name, and you enter his VIP Room looking far too calm.

Floyd almost hacks up a laugh from laughing too hard when you ask for tutoring. Azul is baffled as Jade snickers, wondering why the person who outscores Azul continuously would ask him for tutoring.

But this is his chance. And so he writes up a contract, asking for something vague because he doesn’t know what he’ll need from you yet but he’s certain you’ll come in handy in the future and suddenly—

You wrinkle your nose and hand the contract back to him, pointing at one of the conditions. “I don’t like that one. Change it.” you say, and Floyd starts cackling again because no one has ever read them that closely.

It’s a condition that states you will come to the Lounge whenever Azul summons you. It’s vague enough that the signer may not realize he truly means whenever, but outlined enough to make them assume that it only applies to the time frame in which the main part of the contract is in effect.

It’s sneaky, and you caught it. Azul’s eyebrow twitches as he stares at you, forcing a smile on his features. Why, of course he can change that for you! What would you like it to say instead? You should know that he’s on home turf right now, and he never loses in the comfort of his VIP Room.

[124ndm]

villain!deku rambles.. eeerrmmm

i rlly want to start a comic about villain!deku, but im a little hesitant because i feel like it would be WAY too big of an undertaking for me..

but if ur at all interested, my ideas are below the cut. ^_^

My concept would start with the sludge villain incident. Other heroes get to saving bakugou before both midoriya or all might. This, in turn, means that he never gets OFA.. and never joins the hero course (yadada im sure this has all been written before). However I DO think that he would still join UA. Thats really my main motivation behind making a comic like this. In a lot of villain!deku stuff I see, he tends to abandon hero work altogether.. which i just dont think he'd do!! midoriya is VERY determined when he has his mind set on something, so I feel like he'd find some way to go to UA one way or another.

So, what would make him a villain then?? Well, it would definitely be a gradual build-up overtime. Assuming he takes the support-course route (which ig would make this a mashup of two aus, LOL), I think it would start with him helping vigilantes. Low-level illegal heroes convince him that by making support items, midoriya can advance in his field. He keeps doing these sorts of favors, knowing its unethical, out of a desperation to feel useful and help the 'heroes.'

I also think as a sort of parallel to bakugo, he'd start hanging around bad classmates like bakugo did during middle school. Being in a support course as opposed to a hero course means a very different demographic of students. We see a lot of instances IRL of students going into engineering good intentions, only to throw away morals for higher paying jobs (i'm sure yall have seen those Lockheed Martin tiktoks, need I say more 💀). We know characters like mei hatsume are very honest and dedicated to their craft, but what are the lower-level students like? What about the other classes? We don't really see much of that, so I think it'd be fun to explore the morally gray students of UA.

I think his final breaking point would be when he gets in kahoots with Giran. I don't think giran would immediately clock midoriya as a potential recruit, but instead would change his mind later: seeking out midoriya after Shigaraki shows interest in bakugo. (sure, they aren't in the same class anymore, but both of them being in UA works as a convenient connection).

After midoriya gets with shigiraki, I believe he'd certainly get a quirk (whether or not midoriya actually wants it, Im sure theyd give him one anyways. more power to their organization, and more leverage over midoriya). Soon after, the LoV would get into an altercation with class 1-A, which would probably get him expelled. Although, in-turn, fuel a stronger disproval towards hero society (and also compel izuku to get better at using his quirk, knowing that he has a lot of catching up to do).

And duh as the cherry on top, there'd be bkdk angst.. bakugo only realizing that midoriya got into UA after seeing his association with the league. The weird guilty feeling bakugou would get knowing that a kid he bullied ended up becoming a villain, but also pure anger at knowing that he even got into UA in the first place. And also, the inevitable midoriya/bakugo fight that would happen when the league and class 1-A have more encounters.

I haven't exactly decided on how to end it, but I feel like it would end with either a redemption or something similar to the whole togachako situation. More likely a redemption because, lets be for real here, midoriya is so kind-spirited that even as a villain: he'd probably fold when faced with a genuine bakugo apology or heart-to-heart All Might encounter LOL.

anyways im deffff yapping here, I did NOT intend for this post to be so fucking long HELP. I just really wanted to get my stupid ideas written down. Like i said earlier, this has prob been done before if we're being quite honest.. but I still I think making a comic like this would be sooo fun. But godd i am NOT a good writer so I worry that I would start and then never finish. aaaaah 😭😭

I'll just have to see if my motivation sticks around these next few weeks. If so, I'll probably start drafting this out!! If I do lose interest, well then.. this'll be the last you hear of my villain!deku rambles LMAO. I rlly hope I don't lose interest because this would be the first time ive written since like, early high school, and I really want to get back into writing again. Even in comic form, any kind of writing would be great practice for me. Dx

[breeding-puppie]

hi ok so. uh let me sum up quickly. Call me S, im f19, i was born female but have an intersex condition causing excess Androgen's and Testosterone and the older i get the more infertile i get. most people with my condition cant have kids after 25. I am STEM major in college in my second year and dont want to drop out but i have the worlds biggest breeding kink and especially a forced breeding kink/cnc/rape/etc. My boyfriend is long distance and ftm and im a virgin.

I want a baby so unbearably badly and im getting more and more horny about it and my kinks are getting more and more focused on someone breeding me and it not being my fault because i just want someone else to make the decision to get me pregnant so i can have a baby now before i cant. My mom (who i live with as i do college) is always talking about how she wants grandkids and would watch my baby if i got pregnant.....

what do i do? im getting progressively more and more horny every day and im growing desperate.......

There's a lot of things to consider because of the situation as a whole. You're in college which is an incredibly demanding task as it is, being pregnant and then having a baby on top of that is going to make it mentally and physically more difficult to focus and complete your classes. If your mom is open to helping with caretaking that's wonderful, but you're still one of the parents and therefore need to make sure you have ample time to care for the baby as well, for a lot of different reasons from bonding to developmental and beyond. If you're in a long term relationship and want to stay with your boyfriend, this is a huge thing to discuss and there's a laundry list of things to begin with. There's also financial situations, childcare situations if/when your mom can't assist, healthcare situations, custody if another person is involved and that's your route, sperm donor research if that's your route, pre-screening for health issues before pregnancy, living situations, etc.

Breeding kinks are so much fun, they're fun to indulge in, but the reality behind them is you're not just doing it for a kink. You're creating another life that will have to navigate through the world like the rest of us and if you want to do so, you need to make sure you have every t crossed and i dotted to give them the best life you can.

Time is obviously a huge factor but what are the alternative options? Can you freeze your eggs at all? What are the recent advancements in medicine? If you're interested more in the pregnancy side of things, is surrogacy an option instead?

Don't rush into things because you're horny, find a safe outlet for your needs and make logical decisions. The smart decision is to keep everyone involved in the decision making process who you want involved in the raising process. Also do research on costs right now. The average cost of daycare in my area is $4000 a month. Imagine how much you'll spend on diapers, clothes, doctors visits, formula if you don't breastfeed, baby food when they're eating solids, etc.

The best advice I can give you is do extensive research first. You're limited on time but you need to be fully educated on the matter before you even begin to make decisions.

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

do u have a reccomendation for what form of shorthand to learn first. deeply interested-- i saw ur reply on that one post and then u seem cool so i just followed u and figured i would ask here

hello !!! thank you for asking !!!!!!!!!! and im so sorry this is so long lol

If you want my biased personal recommendation, I would suggest Pitman New Era. That's what I use, and I think its the best balance of efficiency vs difficulty to learn, and I like that the learning curve is such that, as you learn, you apply more rules that simplify the writing process more (meaning that earlier practice is still legible, if far less efficient). This compared to other forms (like Gregg) where, as you learn, youre just kind of generally suffering and trying to get your brain to memorise things and differentiate very similar looking strokes. I find Pitman also lends itself well to using in conjunction with other "standard" writing styles so you can take notes that are enough in "standard" writing to be skimmable while using enough shorthand to be much faster to write, basically maninmising writeing AND reading speed. [example below]

You can skip to the end for resources for Pitman and shorthand in general if this answer is sufficient :)

If you want a horrifically long, massively autistic answer that breaks down the three most popular/common styles, then thats what the rest of the post is !! It is so fucking long I am so sorry

Horrifically Long Answer:

I'm answering on the assumption that you would be learning for use with english. If you want to learn shorthand for another language there are a variety of options however I am less versed in them :( I'm also assuming you're asking out of personal interest rather than vocational, since certain jobs will recommend or require you learn certain styles of shorthand and it would be best to defer to that.

The most popular methods are Gregg, the various forms of Pitman (this is what I use), and Teeline. Gregg and Pitman are phonemic while Teeline is alphabetical. There are also a huge number of other, less popular forms of shorthand (as well as shorthand systems which are popular in/made for other languages). If you're interested in learning about these, check out the subreddit listed at the end of this post under "resources".

Teeline:

I know much less about Teeline, so I'll go into it less, but basically it is a "spelling-based" shorthand system -- that is, it is based off the standard spelling of words. It replaces latin letters which different forms that are faster to write and can be connected more efficiently, while removing extraneous letters from words. It is simpler to learn, in part because it is spelling-based, and also because it has fewer rules which further consolidate and shorten word forms. Due to this, it is ultimately much slower to write than the other two systems mentioned here (although you can still get up to good speeds !!). Like the other shorthand systems, you can learn to a more basic extent, or learn more advanced theory to maximise its capability and speed. Teeline is very standard for journalism and overall quite popular for professional use, however it is still in copyright and so there are far fewer resources available online. If you are interested in taking classes, however, I would assume those are available.

Teeline TL;DR: alphabetical, simplest to learn but less efficient, popular, still in copyright so fewer resources.

examples of Teeline:

[images sourced from wiki]

Pitman and Gregg: Phonemic Systems and Regional Accents:

As mentioned, Gregg and Pitman are phonemic. If you dont have any practice with phonemic writing systems, you might have luck starting out with shavian just to practice. also because shavian is fun :) (its one of the writing systems in my header !) Im saying this partly because I want more people to learn shavian and partly because I learned Shavian long before I learned Pitman and found that having that practice was helpful. In particular, if you have any accent other than RP, its helpful for figuring out either which vowel sounds and phonetic spellings are relevant to your accent and your pronunciation, or, should you choose to go a "standard" (RP) route, how certain words should be spelled despite how you may pronounce them. Using a "standard" RP approach can be helpful if you want people to more easily be able to read your writing or want to "match" the dictionary, but someone well versed in shorthand should be able to figure it out no matter what, and if its just for your personal use I'd suggest just going by your own regional pronunciations.

Pitman:

Pitman was an early shorthand system developed in the early to mid 1800s. It used to be the most popular shorthand system, however nowadays has been eclipsed in popularity by Teeline and/or Gregg, depending on the country and occupational context. However, it remains popular among enthusiasts and there are significant amount of resources available for learners and practitioners.

The main thing to know with Pitman is that words are built using different strokes for each consonant sound, and symbols attached to these consonants to mark vowels. These consonant sounds are differentiated by shape as well as line thickness. Voiced and unvoiced pairs of consonants (eg., T and D, C and G, S and Z, etc.) are designated using the same strokes, with the voiced consonant of the pair being thicker than the other. This line variation is something which is normally achieved with a pencil, though I mostly use fountain pens to write and so I use flex nibs to achieve the same effect.

Vowels are marked with certain dots or dashes placed along corresponding consonant markings, For increased writing speed, most vowel markings can also be left off in Pitman, and instead where on the line the first stroke begins serves to signal the first vowel.

Pitman uses short forms (also called "logograms" or "grammalogues," depending on the version and book you use) which are abbreviated forms of commonly used words (see picture below for a few examples). Different versions of Pitman have different numbers of grammalogues.

With Pitman, efficiency is increased through a combination of memorising various short forms and implementing rules which simplify strokes. (Examples of these can be seen in the picture below. probably need to click to be able to actually see anything rip) This allows you to have certain "levels" of complexity, where as you learn more complex rules you increase in efficiency, but you can also eschew some of those rules if they are too complex for you without sacrificing legibility to you or proficient practitioners. Probably someone somewhere on reddit has something to say about that but tbh who gives a fuck. You can do whatever you want forever. Its known to be very common for people to come up with their own personal shortcuts and variations in whatever shorthand system they use, and imo sometimes that just means looking at a rule and going "well thats stupid👍" and ignoring it. Pitman can seem really intimidating, however just remember that you can ignore rules for as long as you want until they are less intimidating to learn and apply.

There are 3 "main" versions of Pitman: the original system, Pitman New Era, and Pitman 2000. New Era has the most complex system of rules and abbreviations, while 2000 simplified many of these and got rid of most of the abbreviations. I personally use New Era, in part because I was able to access more resources for this, but largely because I found the increased number of rules and abbreviations to be better in the long run. If you are willing to invest more time and effort into learning a more complicated system, with the tradeoff that it will be faster and easier once you are proficient, you should learn New Era. The main benefit of 2000 is that the rules are simplified. I would say, however, that the downsizing of the list of abbreviations is not a benefit. While it in theory requires you to memorise more individual symbols, in practice these abbreviations are commonly used enough that they can become automatic with very little practice. If you decide to learn 2000, I would suggest taking he time to go through the list of abbreviations from New Era and, if not learning all of them, picking out the ones you think you are likely to use with semi-regularity. If you compile them into a cheat sheet and hand it next to your desk, they should be easy to practice using and become memorised really quickly. I myself dont have every abbreviation memorised, but instead focused on ones i use regularly, and often go through the list again to pick out new ones to learn and add to my lexicon as I think they may be used.

Pitman TL;DR: phonemic, differentiates strokes through line thickness, rules can be applied or discarded as best suits your practice without sacrificing readability. Increased speed and efficiency is achieved through extra short forms for commonly used words, and rules which simplify strokes.

examples of Pitman:

[first image mine, other two images sourced from Long Live Pitman's (website, linked below), and wiki]

Gregg:

Gregg is a very popular form of shorthand which utilises round, smooth strokes with the intent of increasing writing efficiency and legibility.

Where Pitman uses variation in line thickness to differentiate between strokes, Gregg uses line length. Both consonants and vowels are marked with designated strokes (compared to Teeline, which has vowel strokes but tends to omit them where possible, and Pitman, which adds vowel marking to consonant strokes or signals vowels through figure placement), and vowels are largely kept in-line. With Gregg, efficiency is achieved through the use of short forms, prefixes, and suffixes; "phrasing", (wherein certain phrases, such as "I may be," "one of the most," "by the," etc. are combined into a single stroke); as well as through the more efficient way in which strokes are joined together into words.

Left-handed people sometimes write Gregg from right to left.

Like Pitman, there are a number of different versions of Gregg, however Gregg seems to have significantly more versions and significantly less consensus around which version is best or why. I am not the best person to give advice on which one is best or information on the different types, so if you decide to go with Gregg I'd suggest checking out the subreddit or some of the other resources linked below for information on that.

examples of Gregg:

[Images sourced from wiki and gregg-shorthand.com]

Comparisons:

I would say that one of the main things to consider if choosing between Gregg and Pitman is which you think is more intuitive to read and write for you. Which sounds obvious lol but like. as an example. I struggle with spatial awareness and stuff like estimating lengths so for me Gregg is not a good option since it differentiates certain consonants through their length and I would have a hard time writing those consistently or easily reading them. Pitman is easier for me in that regard, as well as since it is more "choppy" (for lack of better word) which makes it much easier for me to recognise certain words without having to break them down, as well as making it easier for me to break them down to read them should I need to. On the other hand, some people find Gregg to be easier since its much "smoother" and flowier to write, which can be much faster and more intuitive for some.

Compared to Pitman, Gregg has significantly fewer rules to learn, making it in theory simpler, however, due to the way it is written, it requires significantly more practice to be able to consistently properly write and tell apart certain letters, words, and phrases. Once you are proficient in this, it is by far more efficient, however Gregg is very difficult to use while you are still figuring it out. Pitman, on the other hand, has significantly more rules, however you can continue to easily use it as you learn these rules and add them into your practice. The downside of this is that once you are fully proficient, it is less efficient than full proficiency Gregg. Essentially, the main difficulty with learning Gregg is telling apart different strokes and writing them so that they can be differentiated, while the main difficulty with Pitman is in learning the rules.

I havent talked much about Teeline because honestly I know far less about it, because it is so much harder to find resources on, and honestly because I'm a bit of an old man and personally prefer the older styles lol. Its popular for a reason, though !

I know it probably sounds like I'm shilling a lot for Pitman, however thats just because its what I use and know the most about, as well as because it is what works best for my unique considerations. Most people would probably be more likely to recommend Gregg (for a number of very good reasons !), however when I was first deciding which shorthand system to learn I saw very few people making the points that were most relevant to me (eg, that pitman can be used AS you learn, whereas Gregg is more of a "its useless until you actually have it down" situation, that Gregg is really difficult if you struggle with differentiating lengths, etc) so I feel the need to mention them

TL;DR: Everything:

Ultimately you should use whatever you think is best for you :) I'd say Teeline is your best bet if you are in journalism, or want something easier. Gregg is best if you want something popular, smoother to write, and extremely fast, and are willing and able to put in significant amounts of consistent work and practice to master it. Pitman is best if you want something you can use as you learn, and that's somewhere in between Teeline and Gregg in terms of difficulty and efficiency. If you wanted, you could probably learn Teeline as well as either Pitman or Gregg, but learning both Pitman and Gregg would be much more difficult.

Other:

I take all my notes by hand, generally using a mix of palmer method cursive and pitman shorthand to do so, however, I also have to write a lot of papers, and when I do, I get frustrated at having to type out whole words I normally write in shorthand. This is kind of the curse of shorthand, you get really annoyed having to type out "because". To deal with this, while typing in a word processor, I use an alphabetic shorthand I've come up with over time. I basically input a bunch of auto-replacements into my spellcheck, so that I can have shortcuts for commonly used words set up. so basically i can write: "here, . cnstrctn ` ntnl idntty served to lgtmse the ntn stte" and it will autocorrect to "here, the construction of national identity served to legitimise the nation state". Highly recommend this if you do a lot of writing, especially if a lot of the same topics and words come up a lot. Use whatever shortened versions feel intuitive for you, instead of something you've consciously + intentionally constructed, otherwise youre more likely to forget them or have them get mixed up.

Resources:

stenophile.com has a huge number of shorthand resources linked, particularly for Gregg and Pitman. If you end up choosing either of these I'd suggest starting here to find instruction books.

this website can transliterate into Pitman and Gregg, DEK and Stolze-Schrey (two German shorthand systems), and Sütterlinschrift (a historical German script)(also in my header !)

r/fastwriting is run by a very nice very dedicated man who posts a huge amount of content and resources on various shorthand methods, including lesser known ones. If you decide you want to learn/learn about a different shorthand system, he's the guy to talk to. This subreddit differs from r/shorthand or system-specific subreddits like r/greggshorthand, as those are more discussion-based for learners and practitioners, while r/fastwriting is better for research and being autistic. R/shorthand does have a number of resources listed for more popular shorthand systems, and is a good place to go for advice while learning.

Teeline:

blog with a few free resources

Pitman:

Pitman New Era Instructor and Dictionary. These are what I largely used to learn.

Long Live Pitman's: a website dedicated to Pitman, full of good information for beginning learners.

if you learn Pitman, as mentioned the line variation can be accomplished with a pencil, however if you want to get a bit fancy with it while staying on a budget, Fountain Pen Revolution carries a number of cheap yet reliable fountain pens with flex nibs, such as the FPR Indus or Himalaya. I'd suggest the steel flex rather than the ultra-flex for shorthand unless you have a lighter hand or have practiced with a flex pen before. I've also heard good things about the Noodler's Ahab pen but honestly find its very temperamental, needs tweaking (not ideal if youre a fp beginner) and just not as good. Both FPR and Noodler's pens are made of bioresin and must be kept away from solvents like isopropyl alcohol !!!

Gregg:

Gregg Phrasebook. Short guide to phraseology for Gregg

Gregg-shorthand.com: seems like a good place to start for learning Gregg. Answers some beginner's questions, and provides learning aids and reading material (transliterated into Gregg)

r/greggshorthand

greggshorthand.gibhub.io: a more in depth website with a number of book pdfs and lessons for various forms of Gregg.

[bellpeppre]

some tbosas modern au headcanons, mostly just the pack tbh, some of them are ooc but uh… shush

gonna be real with u, some of the headcanons r like partially stolen from other ppls fanfics or posts that ive read so if u see something on this list that u came up with plz dont be angry or anything i just stole it cuz it was cool💔

family headcanons🎉

��—————————

coral and mizzen r half siblings with the same dad, mizzen lives with coral, her mom, and their dad bc his mom is dead 🎀 mizzen has a cat that he’s keeping secret from their parents, gee sure this wont turn out to be a big disaster in one of the fics im writing

dill and reaper r cousins, they live in the same house bc reapers mother wouldn’t let him come back to live with her after he got out of juvie or something i haven’t put too much thought into this, other than them the people in the household r their grandparents, dills parents, and dills older siblings, as well as two dogs

treech lives with his parents, grandmother, and his siblings, hes the middle child tragically. dont have a whole lot of thought put into this one ngl, i dont think about treech very much

lamina lives next door to treech, she lives with her dad, and like three cats, her mom died when she was younger and her relationship with her dad is pretty strained since

tanner and brandy r twins, brandy’s older, they have two younger sisters, their parents should definitely be divorced but they won’t fsr. on their farm they have a few chickens, a herd of cows, and two horses

lucy gray obvs lives with the covey, her parents r still dead tho I’m not sure quite what killed them in this universe but its not that important. idk if they have confirmed ages but i made barb azure the oldest. barb azures gf is over to their home so frequently that she doesn’t even bother knocking b4 coming in

teslee lives with her mother, and two older siblings, she took over the garage for her projects, one time her sibling tried to park their car in the garage and she screamed at them for thirty minutes bc they knocked over one of her drones 🎀

circ is teslees cousin, he lives with his parents and siblings, two older, one younger, also haven’t put a whole lot of thought into him and teslee bc i only recently realized how silly they were 💔

bobbin and wovey r cousins, wovey and her older brother moved in with bobbin and his parents after their parents died. bobbin takes his job of protecting his little cousin at school very seriously, they’re very close

alrighttt i haven’t thought about any of the other tributes enough so we’re gonna move on to regular various headcanons 🫶

————————————

coral needs glasses to read bc shes farsighted (whattt me? projecting? nooo never)

lamina always wanted a little sibling but never got one so she borrows corals 🫶 mizzen doesn’t mind being assigned a second older sister except for when lamina tries to get him to let her do his makeup (a well placed bribe of candy can convince him to let her on occasion, treech saved a picture for blackmail 🎀)

the pack as a friend group includes lamina and brandy, lamina and coral get along pretty well in this universe

if mizzen decides you have wronged him he will never forget about it, he still brings up the time treech accidentally hit him in the face with a door like four years later

teslee, dill, and circ have been friends since elementary school, they haven’t been in any classes together since sixth grade tho bc teslee and circ r both in advanced classes and dill is in remedial english bc of her undiagnosed dyslexia

mizzen is a weird kid, he’s been bullied pretty much since he started going to school, this leads him to get in a fights, which is why he was expelled from his first middle school 🎀

dill and mizzen have remedial english together bc both of them r dyslexic

sejanus’s ma teaches english and remedial english at their school

coral is the captain of her schools swim team

reaper and coral aren’t exactly friends but if they run into each other they’ll chat

mizzen and dill both thought the other hated them when they first met

cc takes orchestra a bit too seriously, if he hears u refer to a viola as a violin or something he may jump u

bobbin is in robotics with circ which is how they met, bobbin was once asked to sit out of a robotics competition bc he was too competitive and started swearing at the other team when they accidentally broke off a piece of his teams robot

teslee is in advanced english with cc, cc loves creative writing and teslee likes analyzing books. teslee and cc are friends but that all goes out the window when it comes to their grade in this class, teslee gets very upset when he gets a better grade than her on an assignment and cc has that little brother tendency to tease her when this happens. they aren’t allowed to sit beside each other anymore

mizzen and teslee have beef but they have to tolerate each other bc they’re both close friends with dill

coral has mommy issues bc her mom’s lowkey a narcissist and refuses to get therapy for the generational trauma shes passing on to coral and mizzen 🎀

brandy is the fastest to crash out when someones bothering her, if she doesn’t like you she will make sure yk and she will start throwing hands with no warning

teslee secured an internship with beetee for during her freshman year next year and she won’t stop talking about it

mizzen doesn’t believe in sunscreen

reaper loves painting flowers, he keeps his watercolor palette on his person at all times

the pack all borrow each others clothes

coral had a huge crush on persephone at one point but she never said anything and their friendship started to fade

mizzen does NOT know how to care for himself, his skin is sun damaged, his lips are perpetually cracked, his hair is outrageously dry from how much time he spends in salt water

coral is a barista

dill and reapers family are the caretakers for a graveyard, they live in a house in the graveyard and reaper helps to dig the graves, dill’s embarrassed of living in a grave yard and has never invited anyone to her house b4

wovey likes making friendship bracelets, all of her friends have at least four bracelets by this point

dill’s that one friend whos out of school sick like every other week, one time she had to be hospitalized and mizzen skipped school to come hang out with her

bobbin likes sewing, he makes outfits for mizzens cat sometimes

mizzen has braces

i have more but i can’t remember them so i may reblog this with more later, hope u enjoyed :3

[apriciticreveries]

rock ( @rockwgooglyeyes ) is telling me to give into the voices, and the voices are telling me to listen to rock . . ill listen to rock .

lolol introducing this girl !

( heads up that this post is veeeery long )

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

. . so . . yeagh, she’s just “ this girl “ for now, since i can’t settle on a name . . which are on the canvas . . though i am open to any other ideas ! ( don’t mind how crowded it is . also i dare someone to try and read the mountain of notes i have )

the options for her name would be, astrid ( meaning divinely beautiful, also a side note that im kinda doubtful of this one since literally 2 of my characters already have a names ), zhuli ( meaning pearl in chinese ), and then just . . modesty . yeah that could be a name . ( to me at least )

ill let you guys pick since im indecisive and cannot trust my own opinion :

anyways, now for the idea i was talking about in my original post hinting her ( im so sorry in advance rock this is probably a lot more lamer then what you had in mind )

basically, she would instead be training in anakt to be an announcer / commentator instead of an actual contestant . ( announcer as in the one shown at 2 : 15 in round 1 )

i imagine she’d mainly announce rounds, but also other things like updates on round schedules or whatever alnst needs her to say relating to the competition .

even though im pretty sure anakt doesn’t train for that kind of stuff, and probably just casts a random human as the role, what i had in mind to solve this was that anakt did train humans for the role in their earlier years, until they started to find it unnecessary and stopped doing it a few years before the 50 th alien stage came up .

one of my main ideas relating to the training ( that i need to get out or else ill just . forget . ), is that girlie would have special or different classes from her peers, and as a result, was often isolated from them and alone . even when she would have extra time to go to the garden and potentially interact with the others, she doesn’t . she doesn’t know how to, and often just observes them from afar instead .

she’d also maybe be pop up in a few of the normal classes, but other then that, i don’t think she’d be seen a lot .

another smol piece of her lore that i have, is that even before anakt, she didn’t interact with other humans often . ( kinda like @bluemoonscape’s tallis ? ) this leads to her struggle to interact with her classmates . she was often regifted between others, and never got to know others quite well because of her lack of time with them .

she was also sold at a high price ( at first ), for her “ rare “ physical appearance ( having 2 hair colors, two skin colors ( vitiligo ), and having both kinda complete ( im really not sure . one of her eye colors is a full color, and the other is two different colors ) and sectoral heterochromia )

but yeagh . that sums up what im thinking for now : 3 i dont have a lot of her lore pinned down right now, and im also still trying to figure out her themes in appearance and personality, so nothings official really official, except for the stuff i was talking about .

[snowball-doie]

whats halloween like in the 127 house

before the kids, the boys always did halloween stuff at the office for content. ahri would stay at home and dress up wearing something revealing so that the second the boys were back, they'd jump her. one year she straight up just wore white lingerie, bunny ears, and a bunny tail. "i dressed up like doyoung--" she could barely get the joke out before jaehyun had his lips pressed against hers and mark was unclasping her white bra. sometimes the boys would go out to party in clubs that were more catered towards idols.... on the rare occassion they would do that and they wanted to take ahri with, she would just wear a costume with a mask so that no one could take a picture of her face if they saw her with the boys.

yuta's been planning reyna's costume for MONTHS. he's always dressing her up, right, so this is the most important day of the year for him because he gets to go all out, buying her the most expensive costumes, putting all the accessories together, making things to go along with it, etc. haechan helps her get into her costume before johnny takes her and jooha to school. jungwoo always tries to do her hair, but taeyong has to fight him off-- he's been a victim of jungwoo's barber shop, he will not have their daughter suffer the same. reyna outgrew her princess phase at a fairly young age, so yuta's able to put together cool costumes from animes or popular film franchises, like harry potter or marvel. one year reyna was sophie from howl's moving castle, and yuta dressed up as the turnip head, and tiny jooha was markl <3

jooha doesn't like complicated costumes that take a lot of time to put on or feel heavy or irritate him throughout the day-- they learned when he was little that if they put something like thor's armor on him, he would just take it off before lunch time. so jungwoo, mark, doyoung, and ahri will sit with him and figure out, like, a month in advance what he wants to dress as. when reyna does harry potter one year (she dressed as fleur, and yuta was krum), they just put jooha in a gryffindor uniform and a thunderbolt sticker on his forehead (which he took off at lunch), and he wore his usual glasses. boom. harry potter. he dresses as favorite era haechan one year........ the boys cant stop laughing. dont worry, he does cherry bomb johnny too. and then fire truck taeyong. you know, none of his dads are safe when it comes to halloween, okay. they should've seen this coming when he wanted to dye his hair like them lmao.

when the kids are older, reyna, um. well. she wears, um. revealing clothing to say the least-- yuta HATED the first year when she said she didnt want him to make a costume for her "what do you mean?" "im going out with my friends this year, so i dont need you to make something. we're going as the fairies from tinker bell" "there's guy fairies in tinker bell" "chichi, you're not invited to go to a party with us"-- he tried to move to jooha, seeing if he could still do something with one of his kids, but all of the options yuta thought of made jooha turn up his nose. he's had a bad time with halloween ever since. "yu, come watch movies with us," ahri begs after she finds him sulking in his bedroom like a wounded cat. "no. my kids hate me" "they dont hate you" "they dont wanna match with me anymore" "they grew up. that happens." and he just rolls over to pout some more. so reyna likes to go partying with friends in hongdae and/or itaewon-- literally anywhere there's a party, she and her friends are there. jooha doesnt dress up by the time he's in high school because no one wears costumes to classes anymore, and he doesnt go out at night, so theres no point in making a fuss over it. instead, jooha and his parents stay in and watch movies together. it's the only time they can be convinced to eat a shit ton of candy without feeling guilty about it.

[yan-may-fire]

ive struggled with art block for years and feel very discouraged because im already 19 and feel really behind so many people. im really stuck and dont really know what to do to get out of it and try and improve. as an amazing artist, do you have any tips on how to kind of start from scratch? like how do you learn ... stuff

I’m really sorry that you feel stuck, it’s not a pleasant feeling and I’ve experienced it myself many MANY times. First, let me preface, that your age is not that important. I’m turning 26 in a couple of months and I know there’s still SO MUCH I can improve on, I know artists who are younger than me and can do breathtaking art. I also know artists who didn’t even start drawing at my age, who started drawing a little later in life because they felt like doing art. So, who are you competing against? Why are you competing? Is self expression not goal enough? I’m not a professional artist, I don’t want to adhere to some industry standard, and most of all I don’t want to feel behind in an area that is so, SO personal to me.

Now, to the feeling stuck part. I’d love to say that in art, you’re always improving. Well, it’s not exactly the case. There are artists whose work doesn’t change for years and they feel content in what they do. Are they stuck? Not really — they feel fine. When you feel stuck in your art, it means that your brain has caught up to your physical ability and went beyond, it starts seeing flaws you haven’t noticed before. You’re very young still and have PLENTY of time to work up the pure handcraft of visual art. What I recommend is, start analysing what your hands are doing. Find an artwork in which you admire the skill of the artist and try to replicate the way their brushstrokes or lines work. Find a screenshot with really good colours and try to make little thumbnails with the colours and the shapes that you see. Don’t go for actually replicating screenshots, define a goal and don’t worry about the rest. If it’s the creative part you feel stuck on, my go to advice is always — stop and take a break. Go outside and look at your surroundings. Watch a movie, go down the rabbit hole of YouTube tutorials on how to restore a night stand (not obligatory), go to your local museum and just. Look. Let your brain wander in how beautiful mundane things are. How pretty are the faces of the people on your bus. Love what you see and with love comes art.

Now on to the learning part. This one is way less poetic because, well, the theory behind art is an academic field and I’m not an expert in it. There is a sea of decent art tutorials on YouTube, ranging from colour theory to multiple point perspective. If you have an artist who’s very skilled and happens to have a YT channel, watch them and really think about what they’re doing and why. I can’t stress this enough, if you want to actively learn something, you have to watch critically. If you have any spare money, you can invest in an art basics course too, god knows my brain expanded 40 times when I finally attended one, and I’ve been drawing for years before that. If you don’t have the finances for that — don’t worry. First, learning is a process and attending a class just sometimes accelerates it. Second, attending a class later in life does NOT mean you missed an opportunity. Rounding up, outside of any means of formal education you can still learn some useful things. Start with the basics, with the “boring” stuff (and I use parenthesis because drawing boxes is really fun actually), with “how to draw a straight line and what is line weight” and not “upper limb anatomy” or “advanced colour theory”. You’ll get there eventually, I promise. Just like I mentioned all the way in the beginning of this awfully long reply: it’s not a competition!

I hope this was useful in any way and I wish you lots of luck and patience. And love what you do, regardless of what other people do.

[ukuraichu]

i was a teenage exocolonist is so fun so much so infact that i ran to my laptop to post my thoughts because i simply have so much to say and therefore have to type a lot.

ANYWHO. im going to document some things about my current runs. I've played the game twice and have amassed about 18h in the 2 days i've had it (woah.) so the hyperfixation is truly hyperfixationing. anywho x2. RAMBLING TIME. (under the cut)

SO IN MY FIRST RUN, i play as sol (they/them). i LOVE my dad, i love my mum but she's a little tough on me. i know she scolds me because she's worried about me and she just wants me to do well but it still. AHHH. i get frustrated and lash out sometimes. but i still love my mum. my childhood friend is marz, who i think is really cool but also i like to compete with her! she can't be the only coolest person ever. i don't remember what i picked as the augment though. ANYWAY.

i wasn't very close with tammy, but when she passed her presence was heavily felt. especially in the secret funtimes club. she would have loved to make friendship bracelets with us. i was enamoured by the very serious and focused and locked in autistic girl (tangent) who i grew up with. i went to classes mostly as an excuse to spend time with her and so that she would like me and pay attention to me, to think that we were of equal standing. her best friend was marz and i was jealous. i asked anemone to be my best friend and she said yes! but we grew apart over time anyway. I did some exploring, but not a lot of it. not enough to see a lot, but enough to sneak out with Dys. I explored and found a pet Hopeye, affectionately named Fungle (after the among us map LOL). I didn't know Dys very much though. he ran away, or went missing, or maybe blew up the colony when i was growing up. i never saw him again.

there was a famine and my mum died. my dad died soon after because of the shimmer. i never found out why. i just locked into robotics and engineering more and more. i named the little robot Ronaldine.

i don't remember the specifics of everything. the finer details are blurry. i just remember dedicating a lot of time with tang and spending time and time again with her, over, over, over. i didn't save the colony. we fell and died. also i didn't like the helios. but i was an obedient kid for the majority of my life up until my dad died and i started to become less obedient.

i grow old, i think. i made a lot of mistakes, but i still grow up. my partner at the time tang, becomes dejected and apathetic and hyperfocused on what happened to dys. i can't save her and she separates herself.

i start again

i wake up again

run 2!!!!!

this one went better. TLDR i saved tammy, not tonin or mum or dad i didnt know how. i become best friends with dys but also date his sister but also flirt with dys and his alien lover sym who i also flirt with but have to decline his advances because im dating tang and i cant tell her i made out with an alien </3. i also spent A LOT of time in the SFC, and work with marz to campaign to overthrow the government. also marz is one of my best friends in this run. also my nemesis, markedly, because i stole her dream job. but because im so close to sym like wow so close, he takes me to meet his big alien leader and is like. homie. i dont like humans but sym likes you and we could like. collab or something idk. like a peace plan. i accept his peace plan, im thinking so forward. so i bring about peace to the world. my mum and dad would have been so proud. i grow old and tang grows old and we break up but the love we shared was still there.

WAHHHH,...., thinking.

also i did NOT clock that tang was trans in the first run. when she said her body was modified i thought she meant. she literally used to be an actual robot. not genome therapy. my bad. love you tang. also when i become best friends with dys and he said he always knew she was his sister RAHHH it made me RGAHSGGFSDF because WOW. theyre literally SOUL BONDED whether they want to be or not. i want them to reconcile i need to get them to talk. idk how i build rex's bar but i WANT IT RAHHH

[terraliensvent]

About this: https://www.tumblr.com/terraliensvent/762628974139637760/httpsdocsgooglecomdocumentd1hedsgxllpfwh2z

At first, I gotta say that I never wrote something like this before, but the way my asshole burned out from this PSA is indescribable. Second, English is not my native language so I may make some writing mistakes, I apologise in advance.

This is more like an appeal to Veal. So basically the whole thing is like:

You: heyy Civ hru?

Civ: Aww im bad :(

You: ohhh nooo what happened?? Wanna talk about it? I'm concerned :0

Civet: *actually does what you asked them to do and tells how they feel*

You: AHHGG NOOO!1! IM A MINOR AAA!!1! NOO DON'T SPEAK TO ME ABOUT SUCH THINGS NO!!!!11!1 IM A MINOR WTFFFF

Like what the actual fuck, this even feels funny to realise. People are being honest here, but let's be honestER:

You're fucking 16, not 6. You CAN talk about such things. I know damn well you wrote this PSA just to make even more drama and let people know "Oh look! I also have beef with Civ! I'm on your side guys!". But if you really get so fucked up after talking about Alcohol/Drugs/Other I'm not even sure how you exist in the society. Like damn you only got 2 years left to stop being so fucking soft. And btw, you don't automatically mature once you turn 18 at the snap of a finger. It's a process that lasts for YEARS, and if at this age you have issues with tallking about such topics (especially on the internet) then I have bad news for you. You're not a little kid to shout "IM A MINOR! DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT ALCOHOL!!".

Even when I was 16 I was talking with my minor and adult friends about many different topics, it's internet, all kinds of shit here. And none of them stopped me with words "I'm a minor!! Don't talk to me about this!!" You know why? Bcuz starting drama was not in their interest.

I'm not on Civ's side in the Terra conflict (I'm actually on nobody's side) but this PSA is pure bullshit and has absolutely NOTHING to do with Terraliens. Not only your words make no sense, but you also showed that you're not trustworthy and childish. You leaked a PRIVATE conversation that supposed to be PRIVATE and BETRAYED a person that considered you their friend. All that just for hype.

Like I personally would never trust you with anything, knowing that for you leaking private chats it's easier than actually THINKING. It's like, people like you are the reason why others may have trust issues.

This whole vent post may sound rude as fuck but at least it's the hard truth that you need to realise to avoid bad situations in the future. As a person who was betrayed by many people I have nothing but pure disguist towards this PSA and your behavior.

The moral of the story: GROW UP.

post related

i dont even have a rebuttal to this actually, a lot of what you said is your opinion and if you dont see anything wrong with having a 16 year old emotionally manage you, a legal adult, and make sure that you go to class and brush your teeth, then thats your prerogative i guess

[syrupspinner]

i am obsessed with roman sands re:build

so now im gonna talk about it for a looooooong time. you can hit j to skip posts

roman sands re:build is an upcoming game developed by arbitrary metric (paratropic) and published by serenity forge (ddlc+, lisa definitive edition, slay the princess pristine, basically if it has text boxes and is an updated release it was these guys). notably, it is a remake of a visual novel just called roman sands, but ive deliberately avoided learning anything about the older release because I don't want spoilers

it's hard to pin it to one genre. you could call it an adventure game? you take first-person control of someone... interchangeable. nobody cares about your name, and people seem to use whatever pronouns is most convenient for their perception of you in any given moment. anyway, it's your job to be the busybody at this resort. fulfill requests until the day ends, which takes four room transitions. you start in the morning when you first enter the main doors, then it goes to noon, then afternoon, then evening, then you quit

then it's the next day. you're in a time loop... probably. this is also just what working in retail is like, I've been told. every day has you do the same thing for the same people. oh, speaking of,

everybody hates you. there are four hotel guests: Betty, who will yell about hoe youre awful at your job and you should be ashamed; her husband Harold, who is scatterbrained and weak-willed but at least knows how to say thanks: Sylvia, a high-class lady who condescends at you; and... bunk

I mentioned your perception is inconsistent. Betty sees you as maliciously incompetent, Sylvia is equally insulting but in a way that's more concerned with emphasizing her own superiority, and I'm not sure if Harold even knows you work here. but bunk can flip-flop in the moment. sometimes, he sees you as one of the guys that he can talk with about the good old days where you could complement women on their bodies without them calling hr. sometimes he sees you as one of those women. he doesn't care about who you are in the slightest, you're just a means of gratifying whatever whims he has. well, the others are like that too, but bunk is the most obviously carnal.

the main gameplay loop sees you routing the most efficient way to maximize your XP gain. since entering a door advances time, and the tasks reset every loop, you can do stuff like... getting Betty's pills before she asks for them, and going through the side door so you can fetch Harold a chair before he asks for it. cutting down on backtracking means you can do as much work as possible in as short amount of time as possible, just like a real overworked minimum wage service worker!

the games design and atmosphere does a great job at distilling this sense of frantic pace-keeping. I could never play stuff like diner Dash cuz I always got overwhelmed by having to keep all the orders straight and worrying about customers getting even a little unhappy. RSr:B fixes both of those problems, the former by making everything predictable enough to plan around and account for with previous attempts explicitly not mattering. the later is addressed by making everyone a stupid jerk.

also, just because i dont realy dwell on it, the aesthetic is amazing for non-thematic reasons. i love the use of cool colours despite the tropical setting, it emphasizes the tranquility that is intended by the location, and heavily contrasts with the presence of the sun as a threat to the narrative, which emphasizes the threat's dismissal. wait shit thats a thematic reason again, fuck. i love pretty dreamcast beaches and shiny y2k ui elements and the stupid stretchy noodle people. it just looks so cool man. im and english student not an art studen so i cant really articulate why i think that without just saying its pretty and i like looking at it.

anyway, there are so many minor mechanical things that are built to goad you into hurrying the fuck up. you start each day with two minutes on the clock, and if that clock runs out, you... miss out on a little xp boost. if you walk on an arrow path to whatever task is closest, you go way faster, encouraging you to move straight from one request to the other without breathing. and you cant select responses by scrolling through a menu, you have to select it from the number row. its like in a shooter, if you couldnt use a weapon wheel and always had to quick-select, which of course encourages you to be quick

there's enough that encourages you not to get too stagnant with your loops too. first, there's a sense of mutual exclusivity. there is only one drink, and two people want it. second, there's unlockable items! this is the main use of leveling up. for example, you can get a mop to clean bunks puke (don't actually you'll softlock and the demo doesn't save) or get that checkbook Silvia wants you to sign. or a simple toolbox

ooo, another thing is the tutorial. just when youre about to enter the doors, you get a pop-up of a girl telling you stuff lie "keep your head down" and "hurry up" that dont actually tutorialize much of the gameplay itself. i think this is another deliberate satire of capitalism. the most important part about getting and maintaining a job isnt your skillset, its who you know and how well you adhere to the culture. it doesnt matter how well you do the skills if you dont know your place

also, the game is really good about teaching you things naturalistically. betty asks you for a marg (with the pop-up lady redundantly telling you to get her the marg, but this would be really helpful to the players that were very understandably overwhelmed/disoriented by being yelled at by three people at once). bring it to her and she immediately barks another order at you, which tells the player that you talk to people to get requests. then, you go outside and get her pills like she asked, and you learn about the mechanic where time pass when you go to a different area.

the main goal of the demo, the main thing you're working towards, is fixing the elevator. well youre in luck, because the thing that you get from being level 3 (which you can get in your first day if you know what youre doing) is a toolbox. its not robust enough to fix the boiler in the basement, but... actually no it cant do anything about the elevator because its too sulfur-y. from here im going to spoil the central puzzle to completing the demo, so if anything ive said sounds interesting, leave now and play it

so! if you take some time to look around, youll notice the orrery. yes thats its name, yes thats a real word, yes i also misread it as ossuary and got super concerned for a minute. the orrery it has a large yellow chunk in the middle, and a planet missing from the display. theres a solar system display in the main lobby. so take the planet thats logically missing from both displays (or just take em all and just see which one fits - its mercury btw) and put it into place. now just... rotate the display until the planets align and beam the sun from the left into into the yellow chunk and... it retracts, showing you the idea of sulfur. you can use that to fix the elevator, and then the demo ends! nothing noteworthy or worth mentioning happens after that point. nope, not even [withheld]. look i know too many people that ignore spoiler warning but i still wanna leave something for them to discover when they play the demo, because you are going to play the demo

now, with everything (audible wink) established about what this game is, lets talk about why it is that way. i know i usually jump right into the analysis assuming that the reader already knows about the game, but like, there are three people who have posted about this on tumblr. two of them are developers and im the other one.

so first and foremost, ripping the bandaid off, this game is anticapitalist as fuck. you play as a service worker that has their humanity brushed aside at best for the sake of fulfilling menial tasks. your paycheck is sporatic, and they only things you can spend it on are consumerist trash that literally does not matter. at the end of the work day you vanish into the sea, crawling right back out when the next day starts, as a metaphor for how the people being serviced by these workers see them as their job and nothing else, dehumanizing them to the point that nobody in the game realizes that youre a human being first and a worker second. your opinions and feelings dont matter, just your labour. and i dont have to tell you that the time loop represents the banal repetition of the 9-to-5.

also, its getting hotter. every day is one tick off the countdown where the sun fucks the big one and... maybe youll die, maybe youll just be in hell. this is also anticapitalist, because this is pretty obviously... fuck i dont even wanna call it a metaphor because it just kind of is climate anxiety. its mentioned once as something too far in the future to care about, if its even a problem at all, and youre expected to go about your day without thinking about it. but at the end of every day you still see it. n days until the sun dies. just ignore it, you cant do anything about it

the aesthetic plays into this too. you know im a sucker for paradise-like locals, and my favorite thing you can do in them is explore what goes on behind the curtain to make them paradise. like, in Paradise Killer, a lot of ink is spilled over human "workers" sacrificing their lives to build something that will just be scrapped for some trivial imperfection. here, you essentially play as one of the humans trying to upkeep the illusion of perfection. its supposed to be incongruent to your gameplay experience because youre just a worker, your experience doesnt matter, this is all for the guests sake. your frantic gameplay is deliberately contrasted with the serene locale and calming music

oh! the calming music! theres one track in the game that isnt a chill beat, and its... the level up music. the first thing i thought of when i saw it? a slot machine. did you know theyre often designed to have flashy and appealing scenes play out both when you win and when you lose? its to subconsciously trick your brain into thinking youre doing a better job than you are, that youre winning in some way just by continuing to pour your money away. i dont think thats a coincidence. first, slot machines are a great symbol of the evils of capitalism, a machine that only offers the "service" of a slim chance of receiving money that, realistically speaking, is dwarfed by what youve already lost. the purpose of a system is what it does, and gambling as a systemic part of life is successful in bankrupting as many vulnerable people as possible.

how does that play into roman sands re:build? well, like a slot machine, the extravagance of the music and the visuals exists to play up what youre getting. on one hand, this is just a reasonable way to design a game, emphasize gameplay rewards with something flashy so players have an increased sense of accomplishment. on the other, this is meant to convince the player that slow incremental progress towards finally earning the right to use a mop bucket is something worth celebrating. it reminds me of how often employers try to trick their employees into being satisfied with stuff like pizza parties instead of, like, raises. this may sound like a stretch to you but id like to take a moment to remind you that this game includes a gacha system for literal useless trash for no other reason than to satirize how consumerism encourages you to spend money on things that cost as little as possible, valuing consumption for consumption's sake rather than the actual value of what youre consuming. why wouldnt they extend this to also satirize how capitalism undervalues workers by withholding basic amenities and minimal compensation as a reward for doing as much as you can as fast as you can? keep working, motherfucker, maybe youll get that better toolbox soon

wage theft is one of the most common forms of abuse done to the working class. it follows, then, that it is one of the most normalized. it takes many forms, like unpaid overtime and withholding benefits. perhaps the most notable are forcing employees to purchase mandatory equipment out of pocket (a central game mechanic as discussed earlier) and asking employees to do things outside of the scope of their position. of course, this is how the gameplay works on a fundamental level. you are asked to do the work of a receptionist, a janitor, a bartender, and even a masseuse. notably, this is done by the customers and not the administration. I'll get into the lack of a distinct employer figure later, so for now I'll go into how the layman's complacency in abusive systems seems to be a major theme of the game

yknow what im gonna talk more about harold. the other guests are actively disrespectful and directly abusive to you, so Harold definitely stands out. he requests things from you politely, and shows you sincere gratitude. here's the thing though, he's TOO accepting. Betty arguably treats you the worst out of the four guests, and Harold is never seen even attempting to oppose her. he's on to something when he hears the vmmmmm vmmmm noise from the basement, because there's a giant ominous machine if unknown purpose, but Betty yells at him until he stops caring. his abuse towards you, the working class, is not through shouting insults at your capability or sexual assault or insulting your personhood directly. it's through witnessing you be mistreated, and embracing it as the status quo, making the most requests to you out of everybody. at least when the others dehumanize you they're blunt about it, but Harold being the nicest person while still only seeing you as a worker to be commanded stings in a special way. being treated this way is normal, it's the best you can hope for

not only does Harold serve an important role in showing how complacency in an abusive system helps perpetuate it just the same as active participation, but he also more specifically connects to the climate change metaphor. just as all the guests mistreat you in a unique way, they all dismiss the growing heat in unique ways. bunk notices it, but is too caught in his vices and self-loathing to really care that much about the realistic consequences inplied by the fucking su dying. betty says that shes fine with an awful thing happening to everyone because itll probably hurt the people she hates, meaning she definitely votes conservative. and Harold, having heard all this, questions it but soon blissfully dismisses his concerns, a toxic positivity urging him that things always turn out for the best. the other viewpoints are selfish in self-explanatory ways, with Harold representing the climate deniers who see the topic as too confusing and complicated to hold a proper opinion on. Harold I'm shoving a microphone in your face how do you feel about the conflict in the middle east

did you notice i didnt mention sylvia? she doesnt comment. she takes the moment to passively insult those shes around. between you and me, i think she knows more than she lets on, it seems too much like shes deliberately dodging the topic. also, from the way she talks about couture later, specifically upholding it as something godly and unfit for mere cattle (the player) it kinda feels like she has to be in some higher position. or being on the same level as the lower-class that she demonstrably hates is really starting to get to her, and she feels the need to distance herself from the likes of us.

let's get back to the lack of an employer figure. depending on how you interpret [withheld] it can be theorized that kara (yes thats her name no you didnt miss anything) holds this role, especially since it seems to be her in the tutorial pop-ups. I disagree with this for more wide-scope reasons, I think you sincerely washed up in shore one day. the doyalist explanation is that it is how all workers are seen to operate. the working class is not envisioned by those they serve as having lives outside of their job. how often have you considered what your cashier's hobbies might be? their family, their weekend plans, their politics? youre probably just waiting for the card reader to let you scan and go home, all you're worried about is the service provided by their labour. I'm using "you" but I do this exact shit all the time too, to be clear. anyway, it further emphasizes the guests dehumanization of you in their perception. they can imagine that when a human works at a job, they answer to a boss. but when presented with a service, a worker just becomes a means to that end, and their humanity is replaced by their labour.

even if you didn't disappear into the sea, it wouldn't make any difference to them, they only think about you to acknowledge when you're not performing with proper efficiency, just like how you don't think about your clothes until they stop fitting, or you don't comment on roads without potholes, because there's nothing remarkable about meeting expectations.

so. what's up with that anyway. I've yapped about metaphors and figurative representation for a while now, but what's the lore? well, fuck if I know, it's a demo. but I've got some theories

theory one, it's a simulation. that would make sense with what is presented to us in the [withheld] segment, and also explain the time loop succinctly. the vmmmmmm machine could be some sort of core of the simulation? the lobby is full of larger-than-life paintings and sculptures, which may be foreshadowing that the entire world you're in is also man made (also, since i dont bring it up anywhere, i like how youre surrounded by art by never encouraged to interact with it, highlighting how capitalist obligation prevents us from truly appreciating the artistic). it is all but told to you that you're an interchangeable replacement for a previous employee, whatever happened to them, and some sort of matrix-style disposable humanity schema would fit right in to that. for the rest I can just say "it's like that one visual novel" and I think most of you will get it

theory two, it's the afterlife. it would make sense considering the location is called paradise in marketing. sulfur as an element is heavily associated with demons, so perhaps there's meant to be some symbolism that's made more solid in later parts of the game? here i can say its interesting that you obtain it by stepping outside of your role and not adhering to commands, which can parallel an angel disobeying the will of god. and using it to actively solve the problem could represent breaking traditional thought with new ways of thinking outside of doctrine? i dunno, it's hard to really say what it represents in the grand scheme before I've like, played the whole thing. also, that could mean [withheld] is a flashback to before you were conscripted into servitude (read: died), especially since the store page specifies that its post-apocalyptic. the cow imagery gains a double meaning here as well: they're seen as livestock meant to be literally churned into product, but hinduism sees them as sacred. something something essential worker, most see the proletariat as a disposable beast of meat, the animal itself just a means to an end of what they produce, but a select enlightened subsect of the world understand their importance to upkeeping society. which i guess are marxists in this metaphor? again ive only played the demo so this is 70% extrapolation

oh, speaking of cows, you can find a cow that has suffocated from neglect. I think this can connect to the whole worker dehumanization theme, but my intuition tells me it'll be more relevant to the [withheld] parts, in a way that is complimentary but still stands alone. god that part is so interesting, kara just could not wait to talk about dying. the voice actress nailed that shit

okay one last thing. the release was originally planned for summer 2023. its almost 2025 and the steam page still says "coming soon". completely sincerely: good shit. it would be hilariously pathetic to overwork for an arbitrary metric deadline when the entire game is like, about how shit that specific practice is. I love to see devs taking their time to make things the best they can.

if you can't tell I'm. kind of excited for this game. i dont usually go this in-depth but the thought of this thing instills the innate autistic urge to yap deep within my soul. but like i said earlier i dont really have the capacity to talk about stuff like how it looks and how it plays without just blindly gushing. did you know in the gameplay reveal trailer on serenity forge's youtube channel, your character nudges forward a little bit whenever they pick something up? this doesnt seem to still be the case, as interacting with objects now gives a full-screen prompt with the option to pick it up or examine it. also you dont seem to be any further forward when the prompt goes away.

okay. im gonna try and be less biased and come up with a critique. um, the demo could benefit from a save system, since its pretty easy for players who are taking their time and taking in the atmosphere to spend over an hour on this. you could argue that since the game is about going fast and being efficient through time loops that its not that big of a deal, and i agree! if a player quits the demo halfway through they can get back to where they were pretty quickly. but the demo does have a few glitches, like moments where it softlocked on a selection menu and it forced me to alt+f4. i know this'll be fixed in the full game anyway though so who cares.

uhhh i can see people being thrown off my having to click the mouse to advance dialogue but not being able to click menu options? i explained earlier how i think thats thematically resonant, but themes or no themes its still an inconvenience that players might have a problem with. the game has the colours and animations so built-in to how it works im not sure how robust the accessibility options are gonna be but that remains to be seen. but players are already complaining that the demo made em motion sick so i hope people sensitive to that kinda thing still have a chance to enjoy this. theres also how it isnt very obvious that you can select other planets in the lobby solar system but the dev said theyd improve that for the full release so im not gonna make a redundant suggestion.

um. there are probably. other things? accessibility/approachability is pretty important, but im just trying to be considerate of other potential players. if youre asking about what i, personally, think needs to be improved i can think of much. maybe if you play you can find a flaw, cuz i sure didnt. when you play the demo, let me know if i missed anything! i feel like i discover something new to talk about every time i launch this thing, which... is too often i think

this post is 4000 words. its almost 4 am. play the demo for roman sands re:build and add it to your steam wishlist.

[diorgirl444]

hiiii, i just stumbled upon your blog and i would LOVE a matchup (i tried doing them once on my page and i realised i suck at it lmao, so i admire that u can write them so nicely )

as for who - id love to be paired with someone from hp universe, any era<3

anywayyyy, im really bad at talking about myself but ill try my best

im an intj, my sun sign is aquarius, 5’6”, im a girl and i go by she/her, im bisexual but id rather be paired with a guy (if you choose a girl its fine as well)

i have blue eyes, short wavy/curly hair, currently dyed red, im pale as fuck (im literally allergic to the sun), curvy and i have lots of tattoos. my style is very inconsistent, i dress comfy but at the same time kinda goth-ish, alternative? i wear black 99% of the time, lots of silver jewellery, i have my nose pierced too:p i also wear glasses

i am very creative, i paint and draw most of the time. occasionally i write fanfics but then i have long breaks because i get burned out really easily. im lazy, which is not so good, but at the same time i mostly get things done. i am a huge animal lover, i have 2 cats and 3 dogs. im an introvert but when im with my closest friends my extravert side comes out. im a huge people pleaser, sometimes its not good for me but i cant help it. my love language is physical touch and acts of service.

i love art, art galleries, old cemeteries, greek mythology, the sky and sunflowers. i also adore the forest and just nature in general. im obsessed with pretty little shiny rocks.

i hate people who have a problem with minorities and are just nasty beings towards others and animals. i also hate spiders and insects of any kind, thats why i will never set my foot in australia.

oh and i also dont like kids. i dont have this “gift” or whatever. i dont know how to talk to them, how to act around them and how to play with them.

as for my aesthetic? i have no idea, but id go for dark academia/gothic vibes.

if you need to know anything else just dm me! xx and thank you in advance, have a lovely night/day! <33

your perfect matchup is 𝐣𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 💌

𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐣𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 <3

𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝟐 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 <3

the first time james sees you he’s completely speechless. you’re chatting with marlene about something in class, absentmindedly playing with your hair and he’s just gulping like a fish. because where have you been all his life? truly the universe has been so cruel in keeping you from him!

but he’s suddenly shy. james has had plenty of luck with girls. he’s a flirt by nature. he knows all the right things to say, the ways to sweep them off their feet. that is before he saw you… he’s now well and truly tongue tied. he’s literally like lying in bed at night planning what he wants to say to you next time he sees you. spoiler alert he just gets scared and watches you from across the great hall like this 🧍

but finally he pulls himself together and approaches you the next time he sees you. you’re sat in the back of the library on a window seat reading through a book you found which explains how the greek gods were actually early forms of wizards and witches, very interesting stuff you know? you don’t even notice him lingering over you till he sort of awkwardly coughs and asks “would you recommend it? the - the book i mean would you recommend it?” he asks and he can feel heat creeping up his neck as you nod and smile up at him. “tell me about it!” he practically spits out in the next second. he’s so embarrassing i love him

you agree because he’s cute and everyone’s always talking about what a nice boy james potter is to you. of course you don’t know that they only do that you because they see the way james looks at you but hey what you don’t know can’t hurt you? so you move along on your seat and james shuffles in beside you. the first thing you notice is how he smells like cinnamon, oranges and something slightly earthy that is just so james. the next thing you notice is the way his knee and his shoulder press against yours on the small window seat. it’s warm and intimate and you feel flustered as you start to explain the greek myths to him. he watches you as you speak, watches the way your lashes brush your cheek, watches the way your lips move as you talk.

it’s nice to just be listened to for a change so this becomes your pattern. you see a side to james in these afternoon reading sessions that very few people are privy too. the normally loud and cocky potter is gentle and polite. happy to just sit and watch you devotedly. he makes it so natural too so you forget that you’re introverted, you tell him what your favourite things, things that make you angry, your hopes, your dreams everything. and in that time you start to fall for him. you can’t help it he’s so easy to love. you try to hide this new discovery but its hard to go from telling james everything to keeping such a huge secret from him and so he notices the absence. he doesn’t know what it is but he knows you’re keeping something and so he’s hurt if he’s honest.

so you avoid him. you can’t face the sad puppy look on his face it cuts you up and so you pretend you don’t see him waiting for you in the library, pretend you don’t hear the tapping on your door, or the notes stuffed in your pocket. because hopefully he’ll get bored move on and you’ll get over him. but james potter is determined and so enamoured by you that he’ll try one last time. and so he hides a book in your room. the book is his diary with the pages from all his time with you bookmarked. in it are lists of your favourite things, tiny sketches of you, details on how he feels about you and he ends it with “vicky darling i don’t know what i did but please know i’m eternally sorry. you’ve made a mess of me, i’d do anything to just see you again. don’t you know i love you? if you feel the same meet me at our window seat. if i don’t see you there i will accept that you truly don’t feel the same and i will leave you be. yours forever, james” you find yourself wiping tears as you read it realising how silly you’ve been.

and so with haste you race to the window seat in the library and when you see him there all anxious and shy your heart aches. “ you’ve made a mess of me too james” you say softly as you sit beside him and his face lights up. “can i make it better?” he asks huskily and you nod. his hands cup your face as he leans in and kisses you. he tastes like maple syrup, he smells like spices and he feels like home. it’s perfect and as he walks you back to your dorm with a promise of a date in hogsmede and a soft kiss to your forehead you feel giddy as you lay down under the covers that night because james potter loves you and you love him.

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 <3

golden retriever bf! + black cat gf! golden retriever bf! + black cat gf! golden retriever bf! + black cat gf! okay but seriously you two are the epitome of this trope. not because you’re mean but because james is so extroverted and you’re not so much i think it matches the two do you perfectly.

he makes you go watch his quidditch games. 😭 im sorry they’re probably so boring so like you sit with marlene and dorcas to try and make it more palatable but it is probably still so dull. if it makes it any better he does loads of fancy tricks on his broom so that you think he’s cool though it does come off a bit pathetic. don’t worry though because at the end he’ll ride his broom over to you and kiss you while standing on it.

your reading thing doesn’t stop it’s just that now when you read to him he’ll have his arm around your waist and his free hand will trace hearts on the small sliver of skin that peaks out there between your uniform skirt and shirt. he doesn’t actually disturb you though because he finds it so relaxing to hear your voice. if you want to stop him and kiss him though he’s not gonna complain.

he loves visiting cemeteries with you. you offhandedly mentioned once how you were gonna visit one, you didn’t invite him though because you were worried he’d think it was weird. but then he sort of shyly asks “can i come too?” and you laugh and nod. the two of you pack a picnic and spend the whole day exploring the graveyard with each other in quite intimacy. your hands constantly intertwined as you walk, pausing to pay your respect and the long-forgotten names of the people who laid there and occasionally saying hello to the few ghosts that lingered there. you came across one pair which were an old couple who said you reminded them of theirselves when they were your age which makes the tips of james’s ear turn red.

he brings you any nice rocks he finds. sirius gives him the weirdest look when the marauders are sneaking around at night and james bends down to pick a stone up that he thinks you’d like but james just grins and shrugs his shoulders saying “my girl likes them. what can you do?” the marauders smile at that. they’ve never seen james look so lovesick - it’s very sweet.

you two have matching necklaces. i don’t know why but i just feel this in my core. you found them at an antique shop and yours is a silver moon james is gold sun. because of it when the two of you are together everyone calls the pair of you “solar eclipse” 😭 even did it once when she was telling your friend group off. she was like “where’s solar eclipse?” sirius absolutely pissed himself laughing about that.

james gets rid of spiders for you but not before teasing you a bit. that’s just the kinda of guy he is i’m sorry. he’ll get them gone though for you don’t you worry but only if you promise to kiss him as a thank you after.

he writes you love letters weekly. you smile on mondays when his owl flies and drops a cream coloured envelope down on your desk written in james’s scrawling hand. in the letter he incloses what his favourite memories of you he has of the past week be that an outfit he thought was really pretty, a song he heard that made him think of you, or a leaf that he pressed from a forest walk that the two of you went on. he adores you so much it’s unbelievable.

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 <3

hope you like it! xoxo, flo <3

[raw-law]

Pride months over (unfortunately), and ill be back in school by the end of july.. I HATE HIGH SCHOOL T-T

Im a smart kid according to what my other classmates say and they think i just get by easily (I DONT). I hate our school system so much i even considered my career in the department of education ^_^

Every single day i wake up at around 4 ish, i dont even set an alarm anymore because my eyes just automatically open around those times since i got used to doing all the time. My house is pretty far from school and bc the road is kind of narrow, traffic jams happen alllll the time so i had to leave early too. Did i mention how HOT it in our country, like regardless if its summer or not it feels as if you're a rotisserie chicken in a microwave. There were at least 13 or 15 students who fainted due to heat stroke and im one of them. One of the guys in my class were playing basketball and fainted during a match bc of heat stroke, when he woke up they still made him play :// we have to arrive at school before 6:40am, the gate closes after.. no, we dont have school buses for some reason. Everyday the teachers expect us to know every lesson so we would get to do quizzes right after the lecture. We have 10 subjects in total and everyday we have homework. Every two weeks we have exams. After those exams we get back to the lectures but we have projects that are due right before exams, we have 1 project per subject but nc we have to finish it before exams, that'll be 2 weeks. So 10 projects done in 2 weeks, along with homework. School ends at around 4pm but since i live a bit far + traffic, i arrive home at 6. I do chores for an hour and i have to eat dinner so i finish at 8 ish. I have to do my projects and homework for 4 hours which is barely enough time (i make up for it during lunch break so i tend to forget to eat which leads to me not understanding the very short lessons the teachers give). For 1 hour i study my current lessons and if i have time i advance study future lessons. I go to sleep at 1am. Once a month, our class gets an earful by teachers because we dont finish our tasks and we'll eventually fail. Aughshhhhhhhh Ill have to repeat this cycle for a couple more years but i genuinely hope theres a better school out there that ill like that wont treat me like garbage.

Anyways, Light, L, if you guys put yourselves in my shoes, do you think you would survive a whole year studying in my school?

L:

honestly, that sounds a lot like the experiences i've had with the educational system, save for the part about heatstrokes. (that sounds... highly concerning...)

i ended up attending a college preparatory school after passing the qualifications needed to get in. seems very similar to the circumstances you seem to be facing. waking up at 4 a.m., getting home two hours late because of traffic, taking quizzes right after lectures and overall just being expected to stay at the top of everything. very hellish overall, and that's only school. that's not even taking account the rest of life's cruelty.

i was lucky to make it out with a 4.0 last year, but it came at the cost of.. well. revolving life around academia and nothing else.

so, to answer your question, i do think i'd survive since i know what it's like to be in your shoes. you're definitely not alone in this suffering. however, since i understand said suffering, i would never willingly go through another version of it unless i was gaining something incredibly worthwhile, and i'm also deeply sorry that you have to experience such a horrid system at all.. good luck, soldier.

Light:

Well, actually, our school system here is rather notorious for producing gifted burnout kids, though we did score first for Math, Science and English in some standardised test whose name I can't remember.

It's hard, honestly. We're expected to plan school events and study and organise things among our classes and participate in school clubs and take third language classes. And since our school is the top school in my country we're learning things that normally we'd only learn 2 years later. At least, that's been my experience. And I know classmates who can't take the stress and have breakdowns one day, or who go to the toilet and cry because their A1 grade isn't a 'high enough A1). This is my second year in this school, and for the first I've been lucky enough to maintain the highest grades for all my subjects, but this year it's getting harder and the only way I'm getting through it is by studying.

You're definitely not alone. Hopefully it'll come as more of a comfort if you know we're all in this together. You can do it! And good luck, we're always here for you if you need it.

[my-castles-crumbling]

intrusive thoughts anon!

to answer you question, well ig it really depends on how you do it. if you do it well enough, the students dont notice. like ny bsfs from my olf school, we became friends cz our chemistry teacher took the 5 students who worked the best and just slapped us together in group projects.

but ig its mainly because 1) your attention wouldnt need to be contantly diverted across a multitude of different groups 2) some kids genuinely just dont like it.

the main thing to consider is the fact that theyre middle schoolers, if the smart ones realise oh, this kid in my group knows nothing, bullying could start.

if the slightly less advanced kid realises that the smarter kid is weaker than them of sorts, they can manipulate the situation.

but most of all, its important to realise that those chidlren are still kids, and teaching is technically the teacher's job.

this is smtjng ive struggles with alot in my life, im considerably smart in the subjects which matter (eng+maths+sciences) and am usually paired/grouped with kids who genuinely know nothing at all. its not even like theyre having a hard time, like no, theyre having a hard time AND they just dont want to listen to a fellow classmate.

some chidlrens egos surpass their need to learn and often times children just dont feel comfortable speaking up.

as an example in english (i have the top grades) the teavher always groups me with the girl who, ik i shouldn't say this, but is the BIGGEST pick me, like the entire lesson shes laughing at non existent jokes from guys and flirting with the two other guys in our group, talking over me continuously like girl im trying to make you guys understand. and then one guy whos failing all his subjects and a guy who's ego is thru the roof cz practically every girl likes him.

what do i get out of the lesson? nothing. im tired and drained and the teacher is like oh wow they did the work today😃 like girl pls bsfr

but as compared to having a group of all smart learners together, they'll either do their work silently if they dont like eachother or otherwise discuss topics together and argue/debate in a way which stimulates the mind.

HOWEVERRRR at the end, i, 100%, stand by friendgrps as groups. mostly they're either a grouo of like minded people or a group of a mix. they have good communication, they joke around ehile they work, they have fun, pick up where the other lacks and overall enjoy the learning process.

but, at the end, its important to remember that ecery classroom is different, all children vary. get acquainted eith your children and eho knows maybe diverse groups work best for them!

(also the against diverse group sentiment is not only something ehich ive observed but also something that my mother reiterated when i told her. for reference shes been teaching middle schoolers for 20+ years, is a mentor at her school and has been offered the principal position)

also at the end but this reminded me, my mother once said that she prefers non diverse groups because the smart kids usuallu get done earlier and she keeps extra activities planned for them which are more challenging so theyre not sitting free and disrupting the class, however when theyre in a group, they start to get frustrated because the rest of group doesnt work the same pace as them.

kids love to be challenged, the smart kids eill have people next to them that are working in relatively the same speed and eill try to surpass the others. the medium people will also be working at somehwat the same oace and these will be the children who will usually talk and discuss to figure out answers, likewise with the academically challenged kids.

also this reminds me. usually what my friend and i do when we're put in a diverse group is just do all the work and let the others copy from us whilst telling ehat few little things to change so it doesn't look TOO copied yk.

which obviously goes against the entire point and alot of children do this, ive done this myself and have also been oart of the copying group.

middle schoolers want to do everything in a eay that takes the least effort possible

idk if this was too long or even helpful but i tried.

oh and im okay (ish) rn

No, not too long at all, and super helpful! Honestly, I love hearing opinions about this stuff, especially from students, because they're the ones doing the learning! So like...I want to know how to help!

You're right that diverse groups aren't always beneficial, and I agree that higher-level learners tend to get sort of...left out, I guess? When it comes to being challenged. I love the idea of having challenging things for them to do when they're done, I'm definitely going to use that. And you're right that teaching is the teacher's job, and I think that we forget that it's not okay to always rely on the higher level students, so thank you for reminding me <3

Also, thank you for taking the time to write all of this out. It means the world to me! I think I'm gonna print out all of these advice things and keep them in a folder on my desk...