#when they all 3 came out as 75 i had to do the math like six times

[whiskeyswifty]

DATA ANALYSIS TIME!!!

Several very interesting findings from this survey that I'll lay out below, with the caveat that the sample size is incredibly small. Including the winner for which was the hardest region to buy eras tickets for and the easiest region to buy eras tickets for.

Over the course of the tour, the general consensus was that it was far more difficult to obtain tour tickets in America (first leg) than elsewhere. For several reasons, namely the tickemaster shitshow, the cost of resale tickets pricing many people out of the ability to attend, the fact that at that time of purchase the US shows were the only shows so non-US fans also participated spiking demand further whereas US fans had already seen the show by the time international dates dropped so demand was lower, etc etc. However, in a fascinating turn of events, of the North American, European, and Latin American pools of attendees, 75% of each group was able to attend the show closest to where they lived. Which makes the claim that it was equally as easy to attend a local show in North America, Europe, and Latin America. The personal experience bias and internet bias of America being more difficult to obtain tickets to is, empirically at least, false! This is even more fascinating that it evened out given the following per capita stats: with roughly 375 mil people in NA and 71 shows, that ends up with 1 show per 5 mil people. with roughly 742.3 mil people in Europe and 48 shows, that ends up with 1 show per 15 mil people. and with roughly 658 in Latam and 13 shows, that ends up with 1 show per 50 mil people. Obviously, the population of North America is more inclined towards Taylor Swift as an American popstar than the populations of non US countries, culturally, so that can factor into the outcomes evening out despite drastic differentiations per capita, which her touring team probably has the stats on and planned for accordingly. However, despite the wider distribution of shows per person in NA, it was not easier to get a ticket to your local show as 1 of 5 mil people than it was in the other markets where you were 1 of 15 mil or even 1 of 50 mil. One would think that NA attendees would be able to attend local shows at a higher percentage rate given those odds. By that assessment alone, you could ascertain that yes, it was in fact harder to get a local North American ticket as a North American resident. Inversely, it is massively impressive that Latam attendees were able to compete with NA attendees at an equal rate, given their odds were 1 in 50 mil compared to 1 in 5 mil for the NA population, with lesser shows per country than in the entirety of the US. Congrats to all the Latam fans who got so lucky!!

Contrastingly, only 55% of Australian/Asian attendees were able to attend their local show. This stat is more aligned with my expectations, however. Given how few shows there were in that region compared to population size. Of the remaining attendees who could not attend their local show, 26% traveled further within their country/region and 19% had to travel outside their country/region. With roughly (very roughly) 3.58 bil people in Asia (in the general region of Asia she toured) and 10 shows, that ends up with 1 show per 358 mil people. and with roughly 26 mil people in Australia and 7 shows, that ends up with 1 show per 3.7 mil people. Given the almost incomparable population size of the Asian region she toured, 55% of attendees able to attend their local show, or 81% of attendees able to attend in their region at all, that is expected (although higher than expected). However, given I had to group Asia and Australia together due to limited poll slots and how she organized her tour legs, i imagine Asia is weighing this a bit more than Australia. Aussies had the highest amount of shows per capita of any continental region, which you would imagine would make it the easiest ticket to obtain. So to see the stats average out to being the most difficult ticket to obtain is shocking. However ticketmaster also operated in Australia so that could be a contributing factor. Other than that, I can't come up with a reason to explain such low numbers compared to it's high per capita.

Of those unfortunate attendees of the first 3 pools, NA, Europe, and Latam, that did not get tickets to their local/closest show, the data does lend itself a bit more to the America-had-it-worse bias, but not entirely. 75% of remaining NA attendees had to travel further within NA while 25% had to leave the continent, 96% of remaining Europeans had to travel further within Europe while only 4% had to leave the continent, and 67% of Latam attendees had to travel further within Latam while 33% had to leave the region. With more shows per capita within NA compared to Europe and Europe nearly double the population size, it is startling that 25% had to leave NA to see the show when only 4% of Europeans had to do the same. Again, American popstar in America cultural bias could explain one part of that, but the far superior and efficient online ticketing systems of Europe and the laws against resale extortion in most European countries also likely came into play. Perhaps there were the same number of fans purchasing with the intent to attend in each region, but the influx of resellers into the NA ticket market was so high that it made it less likely to get tickets in North America despite nearly double the odds of the average European purchaser. Which, given no other information from polled participants, makes that datapoint more indicative of how dire the reseller issue in NA than anything else. Latam's percentages map out as expected given their show per capita, however it does beat the NA stats in terms of how easy it was to get regional tickets. Combining those stats, 93% of North Americans were able to get tickets within their own region, where only 91% of Latin Americans were able to say the same. It's a close race, but Latin America beats NA by a hair. (99% of Europeans were able to attend in Europe, for comparison lol congrats to you all). but none of them were able to beat the 81% of Australians/Asians who were able to get tickets within their own region.

Again, this is a small pool of people on an American-run predominantly English speaking website, so these results are skewed in that way. This also doesn't account for the conditions stated above that non US fans were not aware of the shows in their local areas until after much of the US first leg had already transpired, which could have spiked demand for US shows higher than others. Also, by that same assumption, it doesn't account for the TTPD set addition for the 2024 leg of the tour, which could have spiked demand for those North American shows and the European shows for those outside NA and Europe. And, of course, the fact that single attendees went to multiple shows in multiple regions. HOWEVER, the numbers working out how they did, with an even match of 3 of the 4 regions in acquiring tickets to their local shows, was not what i expected.

Regionally, Australia/Asia takes the trophy for most difficult tickets to get, which is interesting given Australia's per capita is higher than any other region, but Asia's per capita is massively lower. It has to be assumed Asia weighed down that stat more significantly than Australia, but at this point in time, I don't have the numbers to prove that, so Australia/Asia you are winners of this gauntlet!

Europe wins the region for easiest tickets to get, despite the US having a higher per capita. There are a number of factors we can point to that make Europe different from the other regions, as outlined above, but congrats to Europe for having, what data can vaguely back up, the most efficient and fair live event ticketing system of the 4 regions!

*There is NO button for those who didn't attend, as the poll options maxed out. Kindly do not vote in this poll if you didn't attend so you don't skew the data!

**For the same reason of limited poll slot options on tumblr, Asia and Australia are grouped together by their longitudinal/time zone proximity and how the tour legs were divided up by Taylor. I am aware they are not one geographic region and not as geographically close to each other as other regions listed here, don't worry, so no need to aggressively inform me in the tags!

***By the same tour leg categorization, North America here means Canada and the United States. Yes I'm aware Central America is within the continent of NA, but for the purpose of this poll, it is grouped primarily by leg, and Latin America is the primary categorization. The term North America here is used as a shorthand for Canada and the United States for the sake of brevity.

****Also due to not enough poll slots, there were not enough slots to add one for those who live outside the touring regions of the Eras Tour and traveled from those regions to an Eras tour region. I am aware there are people who live outside of the regions listed above, and that you attended the Eras show and that's great! But for the purpose of this poll, it is only for those who live in the Eras touring region. Kindly do not vote if you don't live in the Eras touring region so as not to skew the data!

[a-b-riddle]

Pen Pals Chapter One: Welcome to the Internet

I feel like most girls who claimed they loved world history either had a hot history teacher or a Percy Jackson obsession. Well, I'm not like most girls. I had both. I may have been failing math, but when I tell you I was passing history with flying colors...

It was 2009: I was a freshman in high school and at 14 years old, I was very impressionable. Full disclosure: I was not groomed. Well, by my teacher at least. My history teacher wasn't like that weird, over-friendly coach with the students. He was just hot. Very incredibly boring, but hot by my standards as a 14-year-old who up until that point had only kissed two boys, but read some very questionable fan-fiction. 

Our semester closed on the unit about World War II. It was the week of Christmas, we just finished our finals and we watched a movie I highly recommend called 'Pearl Harbor'.

That movie just kind of fueled my obsession with World War II. It's like those little kids who had a really nice nurse when they were sick and they grew up wanting to be nurses. I saw Ben Affleck in a WW 2 uniform and was fucking SET. 

Now don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed it besides the hot actors. I loved the stories. I loved the heroes. Second Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy: The most decorated soldier of the war. He was credited for killing over 200 Germans. Corporal Desmond Doss was a medic, never picked up a weapon and saved 75 men by lowering them down from a freaking cliff. I cry every time I watch his interviews and if you want to know his full story watch Hacksaw Ridge. Then there was Private Steven Grant Rogers. Started out as an E-1 and then promoted to a O-3 (or a Captain) and was renamed  Captain America.

Just like how people think of Tom Brady when they think of the Super Bowl, I did the same thing when it came to Captain America and the war. Now, I don't want to say I idolized the man, but I did admire the hero.

My obsession made me major in History and later get a Master's in Conflict Management. Now, I was applying to one of the biggest companies in the nation: Stark Industries. Now, that was partly because I could not find a job anywhere and someone that I went to college with started working in HR and was able to get me an interview. It didn't have to do with anything pertaining to my degree, but it had been a while before I was able to find a job that paid this well. 

I felt like I was running my sponsor dry with his support and I had applied several times to multiple colleges in the city. I mean I had a freaking Master's degree with intentions of pursuing my Doctorate for crying out loud and the best I could do was be a personal assistant.

I was going to be a secretary. Nothing important, but the pay was more than exceptional. 

Stark Tower was intimidating to say the least. Over 90 floors and reflective glass windows. It hurt my neck to look directly up at it. 

When I walked into the building, security instructed me what floor to go to. When I got there, I was greeted with an empty desk. I waited several minutes downstairs before a strawberry blonde woman with cute freckles came down to greet me. "Hi, you must be the secretary applicant." She smiled. "I'm Pepper Potts. So you're resume here is quite impressive and Harrison in HR highly recommended you."

"Yes, I was so excited when he told me you had a position available."

"Usually, I would be doing the interview, but I'm afraid I have to head out on some other business, so if you want to take the elevator to floor 82, Mr. Stark will be waiting."

"Of course." I said holding a folder that contained all the documents he requested I brought in.

"Hello, Mr. Stark." I greeted.

"You must be Pepper's replacement."

"Oh," I said. "Is she not-"

"She's been made COO." He clarified. "She can't leave that easily."

"Oh, good." I said. "She seemed really sweet."

"To you, yes. To me, I can't do anything. Don't put your life in danger, don't challenge terrorists." He mocked. "She's no fun." He walked further into what I assumed was a common room of sorts. It gave no indication that he lived on that floor. There was a full bar and it looked more of a place he hosted parties. "So tell me a bit about yourself." He began to pour himself a drink. "Something that isn't on your resume."

"Um, well, I'm taking a course in French and Greek right now. Just online classes, nothing too time consuming. I prefer dogs over cats because I think that its important if you die, for your pet to at least be sad and I am the first one in my family to live in New York, that I know of. I'm the first girl to graduate with their Master's. I plan on eventually getting my Doctorate, but not for a while. I don't like hot coffee and I'm terrified of snakes."

"Who would actually prefer cats over dogs?"

"Pepper?" I asked to which he laughed, even though it wasn't that funny.

"I like you." He took a sip of his drink. "It's not liquor. Pepper has this rule that alcohol should only be consumed during certain times of the day."

"I think 9:30 on a Monday is acceptable. I was debating on getting Mimosas after the interview if it went well."

"And if it didn't?" He asked.

"I would say tequila, but I got food poisoning from the limes once."

"Really?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I had about 15 limes and felt terrible the next day."

"I prefer a good scotch myself."

"I like anything that doesn't taste like alcohol. I'm really impressed that a bottle of wine can cost thousands of dollar, but I guarantee it can't be as delicious as a Moscow mule."

"I haven't had a Moscow mule in forever." He said. "They were my go-to in college."

"Where did you go to school?" His response was to point at a wall that was covered in awards and accomplishments. "You went to Andover?" I asked looking at his degree.

"Seven years." He said. "I really liked the science department."

"I've given a few guest lectures there. It's a lovely school."

"What was the topic of discussion?"

"The North African campaign during World War 2, but specifically the Battle of Ramree Island."

"History nerd. Nice." Mr. Stark replied sarcastically when the elevator door dinged. "Speaking of historical nerds."

If my legs could have physically turned into jelly at that moment they would. None other than Steve Rogers walked in with a blonde following dutifully behind. "Tony."

"Capscicle and the ice queen." He whispered too low for them to hear.

"Rogers, meet our new secretary." Tony introduced and started to head toward the elevator.

"It is such an honor, Captain Rogers." I said taking his outstretched hand.

"Please, call me Steve." He insisted. The blonde beside him remained quiet and eyed me up and down with a stoic expression.

"Not that I'm trying to cut you off, but I'll let you two old ladies reminisce on the glory days." Tony clicked the elevator door and waited until it dinged opened. "I have somewhere to be. Congratulations. You got the job. Blah. Blah. Blah. Monday at 9, don't be late." He pressed a button I couldn't see and the doors began to close. "Or do. I really don't care, but if you're late, bring coffee."

"He's..." I began, but couldn't quite pick the right word.

"Arrogant." Steve finished.

"I was going to say interesting." I said.

"So what 'glory days' was Stark referring to?"

"Oh. I gave a few lectures about a few battles at the University he went to. Nothing exciting."

"Well Mrs.-"

"It's just Miss." I said. That was stupid. Why did I say that? That was rude to cut him off like that. "Sorry." I apologized. Why was I apologizing?

"Well, Ma'am. It looks like we'll be seeing you Monday morning. If you're late Tony gets a triple shot of espresso and a disgusting amount of sugar in it."

"Being late isn't really my style. My mother always said if you're not early, you're late." Why was a quoting my zealot mother right now. Jesus, stop it.  Not like Jesus Jesus. You know what, never mind. "I think I can find my way out." I said.

The walk back home I felt my cheeks burn the entire time. I haven't even started and I'm already flustered. Jesus, get a grip.

Suddenly my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was him.

*So how did it go?*

*I got the job* I replied back.

*That's wonderful. I'm so proud of you* I couldn't deny the pride that swelled inside of me at his praise.

*Thank you, although I did make a complete ass out of myself*

*How so?*

*Well, my new boss introduced me to one of his partners and I felt like I made a fool of myself.* I typed. *Not partner in the sexual way, but someone he works with. He called Mrs. and I corrected him and said 'no it's just MIss' like it didn't even matter, he was just being polite. Then I quoted my mother. I was just flustered, but I start Monday.*

C didn't reply after that. We were supposed to have a date tonight so I'm sure he would just finish the conversation later. I had a caprese salad, but ate mostly the mozzarella. I showered, shaved and waited until I got a notification.

 *Sorry. Something came up. Regardless, I think you'll do great.* I smiled at his message, but was disappointment that he was cancelling our date tonight. Well the closest thing we came to date nights which usually ended in me being in an unsavory position.

Initially, C and I met on a chat forum in 2016. I was working on my senior seminar and had sort of an open ended question regarding the war. It was something along the lines of taking the notion that if a war on that scale were to happen in today's world in what ways would American citizens contribute to the war effort at home? Back in the 40s most companies like Ford made strictly military equipment. It was an honor to have a government contract whereas now it's more like any other business deal.

I received a lot of interesting responses, but a user named CR0876 replied that shifting the current American ideal of self-preservation to what we had before which was sacrificing for your country was the only way in which today's America could possibly aid in a war. I messaged CR0876 to further discuss the topic. 

He wrote me: All I am saying is we now live in a day and age where you have people who won't vaccinate their children simply because they choose not to. They don't have an issue with you vaccinating your kids, but not theirs. We eradicated some of the deadliest diseases that are still present in some third-world nations and you have entitled people who don't trust science to preserve the health and well-being of not only their children, but everyone they come in contact with. The reason that our life expectancy has shot up isn't because of ground breaking medical break throughs like chemotherapy, it is for preventative measures. Getting vaccinated. Getting checkups. Wearing sunscreen. Washing your hands after wiping your ass. 

A few minutes later he sent an apology for getting so riled up in his rant and I told him that no apology was needed and I completely agreed with him. From then on our friendship started to blossom. 

Most of our conversations had something to do involving the war, but then it got more personal. I felt comfortable with him. I talked about my time at college and what I was studying. We went from a few messages a week to communicating everyday. Eventually when graduation came around, I offered him a graduation ticket. I was a little disappointed to find out it was too far for him to travel. He asked for my mailing address. That he felt guilty for missing such a big event and he wanted to make it up to me. I was a little apprehensive. I mean, we were taught to never give your stranger your address, but I was an RA in a college dorm. I would be out into the real world soon and he wouldn't know my room number or what I looked like.

So I sent it.

A few weeks passed and I got a pair of beautiful pearl earrings with a card that read. A beautiful girl always needs a set of beautiful pearls. Congratulations on all of your hard work. -C

Four and a half years later and I still have that card. We still talk about the war. I recommend him movies, while he recommends books then we both point on the inconsistencies. It was stupid, but it was fun. Now, I just sort of tell him about my day to day life and he tells me small tidbits about his. It was earlier in 2020 when the pandemic hit that things started to get... well things just changed.

I had just moved to New York in early February to start teaching at a local college. I was going to start with May-mester classes, but then Covid hit and the world stopped. 

I had moved in with little to nothing. I had a few pieces of stuff for the kitchen and a bed. It wasn't much, but it was mine and I was damn proud of it.

My pride was short lived when I got the e-mail. In a panic, I sent him a message.

Hey can you talk?

Sure. What's up?

Is there anyway you can call me? I'm kind of in a bad place right now and I really don't have anyone else to talk to. I felt guilty as soon as I hit the send button. I'm not like going to hurt myself or anything I am just super stressed and if you have the time and energy, I just need to unload some stuff.

Seconds later my phone began to ring.

"What's wrong?" He asked. I took a deep breath. I can't believe this was the first time hearing his voice. It wasn't what I was expecting. I expected almost a pompous scholarly tone in his voice. But instead he was borderline on being batman. His voice was deep.

"They rescinded my offer." I took a deep breath. "I just spent all of my savings literally to move to this stupid freaking city and they told me over an e-mail 'we are sorry to inform you that your offer for employment has been rescinded until further notice due to the impending pandemic and the unforeseeable circumstances it holds. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and wish you the best in your future endeavors.' They said sorry and good luck." 

There was a pause and I heard him sigh. "Sweetheart, I am so sorry." 

"Thanks." I rubbed the back of my neck. "Looks like that chapter closed before it got any good. I guess I can see if maybe I can do virtual learning for a high school, but I don't know if my degree is enough. I think you need an education degree to teach."

"But you always wanted to teach college..." His disappointment matched mine.

"I know..." I looked down at nearly clear streets of New York. "But I need a job, C." I sighed. "It's either that or call my parents and I would literally rather be homeless than ask them for help."

"How much?"

"What do you mean?"

"How much was your job going to pay you?"

"80k a year starting." I said and felt another wave of nausea wash over me. 80k wasn't much to some, but it was a lot for me and it would be doing something I loved.

"Tell you what, that is about 6 and a half grand a month. I will pay you 7 grand a month if you promise me not to give up."

"What?" I couldn't believe this. "There is absolutely no way I could ever accept that kind of money."

"It's not like I don't have it, Princess." He can't be serious. That's crazy. He never mentioned having money or being well off. 

"And what do you want in return?" The butterflies in my stomach began to churn. God I hope he wasn't wanting to do anything... unethical. "Surely you wouldn't do that just because you want me to be a college professor."

"Nothing." He said. "Absolutely nothing. I just want you to be taken care of and pursue your dream."

"I really can't let you do that."

"It's only temporary." He tried to assure me, but I still felt guilty. 

"C-" He was always so argumentative and authoritative over messaging and he matched it over the phone.

"I promise." He interrupted. "It won't put a dent in my wallet."

"Only until I have a full-time job." I tried to say.

"Until you become a professor."

"No," I said. "As soon as I get a job and can support myself."

"Sweetheart, it's not polite to argue."

"I appreciate it." I said. "I really do."

"So does that make your day a little bit better?" He asked.

"It does."

"Anything else gone wrong you need help fixing?"

"No." I responded and felt like a child and and adult came up to fix the mess I had made.

"Good." I heard him sigh. "I'm glad that was easy to fix and now, that I got you on the phone... it's nice to finally hear your voice."

Chapter Two: Confessions

[boloorsportsmania]

Diamond jubilee lady hits the BULLSEYE 🙂

Just as my mom Smt. Sanjeevini Rao turns 75 tomorrow ,here are 7 special moments which makes me feel proud of her. I call her The Iron Lady for these very special qualities. A gritty , focused and tough lady had a very special 70 years. Along with these special achievements, her biggest victory is how she battled Lymphoma Cancer. She braved through 6 full chemo treatment to fight the cancer. Having will power, dedication and focus to get through cancer with a positive attitude is not everyone's cup of tea. Hat's off mom. Keep rocking!!!Just as photo describes, she has hit BULLSEYE in this aspect .

Moment 1 : Period 1984. Place Bhadravathi. Dad was in transferable job as he had moved to marketing role. We got transferred from Bangalore to Bhadravathi. Me and Seema joined St Charles school. Mom and Dad were curious to see how we would fare in school considering change of school is not always easy to adapt. I was in 2nd standard and Seema in 5th standard. St Charles was a very competitive school with loads of bright students. In mid term exams, we did well. Results were to be announced after festival holiday break. Mom had put in a great effort to get me accustomed to new syllabus and new school. St Charles had a tradition of announcing top 3 ranks of each class in morning assembly. This was to encourage the students. I was literally chatting my friend Ashit during the assembly when all of a sudden something shocking happened. They announced my name for 2nd rank. In our class, we had 2 students by my name. They had not announced initials. They again announced my name with Boloor tag to it. I was shocked more than surprised. My hands were almost trembling when I ran towards the stage. I had shock expression in my face even when I received marks card from principal. Seema also came 2nd in class in that exams. Mom was thrilled . Dad was even more as he felt a bit guilty of being transferred to Bhadravathi. He literally picked me and threw into the air. My head almost touched the roof the hall in the house. Well, fun just started here. Seema was always a student who would excel consistently. I was like Ravi Shastri, happy in hitting a few sixes and then get out of form 😉 In Nov exams, my rank dipped to 10th and in Dec exams to 23rd. During this period, my aunt Sharath was in Bhadravathi. As soon as I showed my marks card to mom, lecture started as expected from mom. I expected that as her oratory skills was like legendary Indira Gandhi. Hard hitting words with spot on points. I had my face covered in hands as I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. She made a comment “ Your marks has fallen off the mountain, from the peak to the bottom. In next exam, I guess you would dig the ground and go further down !!”. Sharath aunty felt bad and tried to calm mom. I started getting a bit nervous. Things calmed post that. The way she expressed her opinion, I know she was more hurt that I scored less marks. Mom then didn’t say a thing for a week. She then prepared a daily time table of what to read. Seema on the other hand had secured first rank in both the exams. Mom never pressurized me by comparing to Seema. She knew both are of different mould. In today’s sporting world, She was Virat Kohli and I was a mere Rishab Pant with a few sixes here and there. I put in loads of effort post that. I managed to get 5th rank in final exams. This was my first face off with mom’s anger. I can relate to this anger even now. I am a bit tempered. Beneath anger, I knew she wanted me to do the best.

Moment 2 : A couple of years later, mom felt the need to work as it would improve the financial state of the house. She was always fond of teaching. She had done B.Sc in Maths and was even a rank holder. She decided to pursue B.Ed which would open up teacher roles for her. Unfortunately, there was no college in Bhadravathi which had this course. She enrolled into a college in Shimoga which was about 1 hour drive from Bhadravathi those days. So at the age of 38, she decided to do B.ED which was remarkable since she had to do on top of normal household work. She would get up at 5 AM, get household work done, then leave to Shimoga at 7 AM. She would return by 5 PM. She would have some assignments too. She would help me in my homework as well. This routine would go for 1 full year. It needed a lot of guts and determination to do this. By the time, she completed her B.Ed, dad came to home with news of being transferred again. Mom had the expression in her face which would say “ When one challenge is completed, other follows like a shadow!!”. We moved to Bangalore again !!!.

Moment 3 : Period 1988 to 1990. This was a phase we led a rapid life. I was super happy as our house was right in front of massive APS college ground. Mom happen to be teacher of the same school where Seema studied. Infact, she was Maths teacher of Seema for 9th and 10th standard. I was busy playing. The moment I return from school, I would rush to the ground. Mom and Seema would return from school together. This was period where Seema would win loads of awards. Mom was super proud of her. She won 2nd price in Hindi debate competition for whole of Karnataka which was splendid achievement. She won loads of awards in school competitions too. 2 moments brought maximum happiness to Mom during this phase. One was Seema winning Hindi debate competition and another was me winning 3rd prize in science exhibition. I enrolled my name at the last moment and didn’t have any idea what to present. Mom gave the idea of liquids getting heated faster than solid. Example was simple. Have a stand to place a cardboard box. Fill the box with water. Place a candle under the box with enough distance between them. Its observed that water catches fire faster than cardboard box. Mom gave me explanation points around it too which revolved around some molecular theory. I memorized it well as I had a knack of doing it. Judges were some college professors. 70 students had participated in it. Judges heard each student’s explanation. There were some interesting ones too like volcanic effect by my classmate Niranjan. I explained my part well. My only worry was that I had just 2 cardboard boxes. I had to use it smartly. I had to start the experiment just a few minutes before judges came to my seat. I did that well. Judges were impressed. I felt relieved. Post lunch, one of the teachers came and made 2 announcements. One was that parents and teachers would come around to see the displays between 3-5 PM IST. 2nd was the 3 winners. I was shocked more than surprised when they announced my name as 3rd place winner. It made my day. Mom couldn’t come to watch my experiment since she would return from school only 430 PM. I had a bigger issue in hand. I didn’t have any cardboard box left. I went around sweet shop near my house. He spared me 4 old boxes without charging a penny. We would constantly buy veg puff there. So he knew me well. Post 5 PM, I ran to house to announce my results. Mom was super happy. She couldn’t control her wide smile. She and Seema came for prize distribution later too. Actor Srinath was the chief guest that year. It was cool to receive the prize from him. Mom made science and Maths simple for me which helped a great deal in later years to come.

Moment 4 : In 1990, we got transferred again. This time to Madras. It took ages to get settled in the TN capital. I used to call it MAAADDDras with specific emphasis on Mad. I made good friends though but life style was so different. In school too, focus was all on studies. In the school I studied, there was no sports period as well. That’s when we as a family got really close. We literally became friends for each other. To top the pain, our TV had gone to maker’s factory for insurance claim. For 6 months we didn’t have TV. I literally followed 1990 world cup soccer on news paper only. Due to this, we had loads of time though. We used to go for long walks post dinner. We used to live in Ashoknagar which was really a good place. Mom got her job in school pretty fast. She directly approached principal of Jawahar Vidyalaya. They had a post open at that time. Her career really picked up from there. In initial years of tough life in Chennai, mom held us together. This was very critical since we led next 10 years of life in Madras.

Moment 5 : I had a crazy way of studying for my exams. I liked to read while walking. I walked around the house as if it is a temple. This is not just it. I had to have TV on with some sports channel on. I would constantly focus on scores as and when I come in front of TV. When I study, others don’t get to watch TV !! . Mom somehow managed to bear my crazy style of studying. The pace at which I would walk would increase as and when I get further in studies. Infact, I even studied Maths like this. I studied Maths also mentally rather than practicing it. During engineering days, books would get heavy. So I would tear books into 3-4 parts !!! Any other mother would lock their kid in a room and make them study if they study in such a idiotic way. She always smiled when I walked with an expression “ You are one unique specimen !!! “ . She kept saying to his students who came to tuition though that this is exactly NOT the way to study !!! 😊 . What she couldn’t say to me she said to her students. Speaking of making your point in a unique way !!

Moment 6 : I had met with a major accident 2 months before my XII board exams. I was bed ridden for almost 2-3 weeks. It was critical phase for XII as all revision exams and tuitions was scheduled during that phase. Any other parent would have panicked. But mom being mom, she just told me to give it all once I am fine. She did sound a bit nervous though. Mom and dad didn’t want to make me nervous though. Once I recovered, I just had a little more 4 weeks left for exams to start. I decided not to go final revision as well as that would reduce time for preparation for final exams. Though it was a bold move, mom felt that would be the best as well. I prepared a strict timetable. In X board exams even though I did well, I just managed to score 80% marks. Any such dip would make dad’s life difficult as management engineer quota was expensive. I just put my mind out of all this and just focused on studies. I still watched TV and still walked around the house though !!!. I did reasonably well in exams. When the day came for the marks to come, mom decided to stay back home and took off from school. She was a bit nervous but didn’t show it. My marks was like Bulls eye for engineering seat. I got 96.5% in PCM which mattered. I just got 85% in rest. But that was enough. Infact, I was topper in the class in PCM% which was a shocker for me. Had mom not given the freedom to study the way I did, I would not have fared so well. It mattered a lot as management quota seat would cost 40-50K per year but free seat would just cost 6.5K per year. I managed to get the later. Dad was so thrilled that he too came back from office earlier than scheduled with a box of sweets. I finally had a moment which made mom and dad proud and I was proud of it !!!

Moment 7 : Well, this has got to be Singapore trip . Mom, dad, Seema and Sanjay came to Singapore when I was posted there for an onsite assignment. We really had good time there. Mom had a wish to visit a foreign country and she was smiling all through the trip.

Cheers to Mom for her “ Never say die “ spirit. Though there were few moments where our thoughts didn’t match , it was negligible when compared to the respect we have for each other. Mom rocks at 75 !!! Many cheers to the IRON Lady who turns 75 tomorrow !!!!

[ankaa-avarshina]

If Yareli can do all that why do the youtubers hate her?

That's what I want to know as well. The biggest reasons from what I gather are:

She has little to no ability synergy, unlike the one that came before her, Sevagoth. I will agree on this one, but they talk like this is an extremely bad thing. A lot of "strong Warframes" barely have synergy themselves, like Chroma and Saryn. You only press one button on these guys to be effective at the very least.

Her 2nd ability, Merulina, is extremely difficult to control. Oh sure, I also agree on this one, but umm... and Gauss isn't? "Well you play Gauss on open worlds, not small tight areas." Then Yareli's the same. Play her on proper maps, dipshits.

Her 1st ability can only stun a few select people at once, probably 3-5. A valid flaw. But... to call her the "literally worst Warframe" just because? And are you going to sleep on her ultimate, then?

Her 3rd ability doesn't deal enough damage. Again, a valid flaw, and could use tweaking. But at least they have guaranteed slash procs, and last a ridiculous amount of time.

I'm sure they got more complaints than these, but now this just pisses me to hell and back because Yareli has a LOT of other proper strengths!

She has a goddamn 200% crit chance increase on secondaries. "But you have to keep moving" Oh no what a chore to do in the game where you're always jumping around like coke-infused robo-ninjas. It's also an INCREDIBLY small price to pay for a 200% crit chance, when there are weapons like Akbolto Prime and Pyrana Prime.

Merulina provides so much buffs, while also giving her certain resistances and immunities outside of what's dictated. I don't even know where to BEGIN. She's immune to any status effects, and casting Merulina will cleanse her of them. She can't be affected by Nox clouds, Arctic and Venomous Eximi auras, neither can ice floors and lava spills. Not to mention, she can't trigger pressure plates in Orokin maps. She doesn't enter the heavy landing animation when falling from a great height while on Merulina, and lastly, she's immune to knockdowns ONCE while on it, at the cost of being knocked off Merulina. But she does not get disabled for that.

Merulina's damage resistance is surprisingly strong. I am unsure what's going on here and I don't have the math to prove this, but Merulina's damage resistance just feels a lot stronger than it should. Despite having only 75% resistance, compared to Gara's 90% or Mirage's 95% (while in darkness), playing her even on high level Kuva Lich missions never had my health bar dented. They all keep whittling down my shields slowly, which will then be restored by my Sentinel, and by the time they whittle it back down, my Sentinel can restore it again. Again I don't know how accurate this is, but I've felt more tanky as Yareli than I ever had been as Gara or Mirage. Playing those two, I would fold very quickly against high level enemies regardless. Yareli though, I've yet to taste the floor.

I will admit Yareli's not the best Warframe, but she definitely does not deserve the title for LITERAL ABSOLUTE GARBAGE-TIER WORST either. At least she does as advertised, still capable of dishing out good amounts of damage, and is fun to play. Yareli is fun to play! She's proper strong once you've modded her right! She can play with the big boys and girls yet everyone decides to give her shit all because some hot shits with popular YouTube accounts had bad first impressions, and obviously everything they say is right. Or maybe because everyone decided to jump on her because hating on Xaku was soooo yesteryear.

Also, if she's the literal worst... what do they have to say for Frost and Atlas? The literally two most forgotten Warframes because they're outclassed by everyone else. Not even joking, when's the last time you've seen a Frost or Atlas.

TL;DR:

[notebooknebula]

Top 3 Aha Moments in Real Estate with Jay Conner & Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

https://www.jayconner.com/top-3-aha-moments-in-real-estate-with-jay-conner-chaffee-thanh-nguyen/

Real Estate Investing With Jay Conner

Jay Conner was joined by his good friend Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen. They talked about some of the “Aha! Moments” in the real estate business.

In addition, they also conversed about “Private Money”. What is Private Money? How and where you can get private money to fund your deals.

All these and more in this episode of Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen is an International Speaker, #1 Best Selling Author, and Business and Success Coach.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

After college, he worked in Corporate America for over 11 years as an Engineer and Senior IT Business Analyst.

He was a Certified Project Management Professional with the internationally recognized Project Management Institute for 6 years.

Using his corporate experience, he went on to start multiple businesses starting in 2002, including Real Estate Investing where he has invested in multiple states across the nation.

His passion, helping others achieve their highest potential in both business and in life.

As a refugee himself, Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen is committed to helping others and giving back. He is very active within his community serving within the Jaycees as a 10th Degree Jaycee, US Jaycee Senator #70583, and a JCI Certified National Trainer.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

0:39 – Today’s guest: Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

1:34 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now” –https://www.JayConner.com/Book

2:13 – Chaffee, one of the editors of Jay’s new book talks about why you need to get this book now!

3:19 – Aha! Moments in Real Estate – Private Money Academy Conference

4:43 – Who is Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen?

8:42 – 1st Aha! Moment: Substituting the collateral allows the lender to continue earning interest on a loan for a longer period of time, should the original property sell in less than 6 months.

10:19 – What is Private Money? Who is a Private Lender?

15:43 – 2nd Aha! Moment: Sellers do not know what they will accept until you make the offer.

23:10 – How can you buy a property using Subject-to existing note strategy?

26:04 – Final Aha moment for today: You can make big money in the real estate business in a very small market.

31:49 – Chaffee’s parting comments: Go out there, do not be afraid to make offers!

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11201/top-3-aha-moments-in-real-estate-with-jay-conner-chaffee-thanh-nguyen

Top 3 Aha Moments in Real Estate with Jay Conner & Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

Jay Conner

00:03:06

Well, Chaffee, you’re the one that came up with the idea for the show today, and that is we can talk about the live event a little bit and we had 74, what we call “A-ha moments.” So, tell everybody what “A-ha moment” is at the live event, Chaffee.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:03:34

So, first of all, let me say that this was one of the best live events that we had a long time in forever. And so to have everyone there, it was a full crowd, full room. Everyone was up in mixing and mingling and having the time and most importantly learning what to do in their business, following Jay’s processes and systems. And as you can see, it’s multiple pages before an “A-ha moment,” which is a moment where Jay talks and trains and teaches about what to do and how to do it.

And the little light bulb comes on and it’s like, “A-ha! I’ve got it! It makes sense!”  

Jay Conner

00:04:14

And the attendees are writing these down and they’re turning them in. So we give away prizes and such as well for people to share their A-ha moments. We don’t have near the time to review all 74 of them, but review just a few of the comments that the live event attendees wrote down and turned in as light bulb moments, from learning at the event. But, Chaffee, lets you take a moment and tell folks about your background and how it is we work together.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:04:47

Sure. So when I was growing up, I was told you gotta go to school, get good grades and get a good job or J-O-B as we call it, right? And so that’s what it is. I did. I went to school, I got great grades.

I’m Asian, of course. So I get straight A’s and good stuff.  

Jay Conner

00:05:06

You’re really good at math, right?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:05:07

That’s right. I was good at Math. So like a lot of Asians during my time, we were either doctors or engineers and I became an engineer, went to college, got big grades again and got a job as an engineer. So I’m working as an engineer in the corporate world at a multi-billion dollar company. And it was always nagging at me, Jay, that I needed to do more. I needed to do something else because I wasn’t made to be an engineer. I was made to do a lot more than go to a job, 8:00 in the morning and come home at 8:00 at night, 10, 12 hours a day working for somebody else, doing something that I might be good at, only I don’t really enjoy, or I don’t have really have a passion about. So during that time I decided to start something on the side and that was my real estate business. Started investing in 2002 and lost a ton of money on my first deal day.

Jay Conner

00:06:09

Uh-oh. There’s one big lesson right there.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:06:09

That’s a book that I need to write, right? Of what not to do. And one thing that I didn’t have, just to share with everybody, one thing that I did now was a coach or a mentor to call up and say, “What’s going on? What am I doing wrong? Or what am I not doing? What should I be doing that I’m not doing?” And that’s really what got me in trouble, Jay, was really some of the things that I should have done that I wasn’t doing. So it wasn’t necessarily that I was doing something wrong. It was, I was missing some steps. I’m missing some things that I should’ve been doing. And so I lost a ton of money in that first deal. Learned, I went through the school of hard knocks and, and you know, lost a ton of money.

And then I got smart and I said, I need help. And so I got a mentor, I got a coach and started doing some more deals. And then I realized how powerful a coach and a mentor can be for somebody’s business and success. And that led me to personal development, which led me to fall in love with coaching. And so I started transitioning from real estate into coaching. And then while I was coaching at a real estate event, I met this guy right here, Mr. Jay Conner. And it was like a spark right away. It was like, I like this guy. He would resonate. And I like what he’s doing. And at that time you were just starting your Where To Get The Money Now course. And you’re like, I’m going to be a speaker and a trainer.

I’m like, “Me, too. I’m doing the same thing, I’m a speaker and a trainer, too.”

And so we’ve gotten in touch over the years. And then, Jay, you started blowing up. I mean, you started teaching and training a whole ton of people. And along the way, he said, “Hey, Chafee, come join the party.” And I was just like, “I’m there.” Like, where am I at? And let’s join the party and-

Jay Conner

00:07:55

You’ve probably been coming to all of our live events. It’s probably been 7 years or more, 7, 8 years, something like that. But yeah, Chaffee helps me run my mastermind group, as well. So, wow! Mastermind group is starting to blow up big time. Because we had 22 of us in the room, thereabouts, 20, 22 of us in the room, the week before last at the mastermind. And we almost doubled that now, but yeah, Chaffee’s a very, very important part of my team when it comes to working with our students and et cetera.

So anyway, as I mentioned, we just have gone through these A-ha moments. So let’s just go back and forth, Chaffee. This first one here. So I’m gonna read the A-ha moment, but then I’m gonna ask you to expand or to really talk about what it means in a very easy, simple to understand way. So George at the live event wrote down, his A-ha moment was, “Substituting the collateral while I was a lender to continue earning interest on a loan for a longer period of time, should the original property sell in less than six months.” So,how about unpacking that. First of all, a good place to start is, make sure everybody knows what we mean when we say, “collateral.” What’s collateral?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:09:24

So collateral is what you get in place of the money that you’re lending.

And in our case, Jay, or your case, the collateral is the property. And so they get the property. If something happens and you’re unable to make that payment back to them, then they can go and get the property. And a lot of times they’ll end up with a lot more money when they get the property because you’re only buying those properties that are certain after-repair value, 75% of the ARV, as we say. And so they’re better off getting a property only, obviously you’ve always paid everybody back. And so they’ve never had to use that collateral.

Jay Conner

00:10:10

Yeah, these A-ha moments. So the name of the event that we just said is called The Private Money Academy Conference. So the emphasis of the event is on how to quickly and easily get a lot of private money. So let’s be clear, first of all, Chaffee, and make sure everybody understands what we mean by “private money.” What are we not talking about and who is a private lender or what is a private lender?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:10:37

So just to be clear, private money typically comes from somebody that doesn’t really do real estate. They don’t want to get involved in real estate. They’re busy or they have other things that they want to do in their life. And they want a greater return on their money. Sometimes people confuse private lenders with hard money lenders and these are professional money lenders. And so they charge points and they charge high interest rates. And that’s what most people are familiar with. That’s what most people use, are hard money lenders. They’re not banks, they’re not institutions. They’re just people. Most of these people are retired or they’re professionals with high incomes and they have money sitting in a bank or in a retirement account, earning them less than 1% typically. And they’re looking to earn a lot more.

Jay Conner

00:11:33

So private lenders are human beings, right? As Chaffee just said, you’re not borrowing money from any kind of bank or mortgage company or broker of money. These are individuals. In fact, Carol Joy and I right now have 47 individuals that are loaning us money, investing with us to do deals. We pay them a higher rate of return, safe and secure, but nowhere near a hard money lender’s rates. One thing that’s very different about this world of private money is we make the rules as the real estate investor. We set the program, like resetting the interest rate. We determine how long the notes are. In Kentucky, they call it a 360. It’s actually a 180. So it’s the opposite direction of how it works when you’re borrowing money from a bank. When I was borrowing money from the banks up until 2009, my first 6 years, that’s where I thought, that’s what you had to do.

You had to go to the bank and borrow the money to fund your deals. Well, 2003 to 2009, that’s what I did. But since that time, and then this world of private money, we have created our own program. And like we said, the interest rate, how much interest rate would you pay, the frequency of payments, and et cetera. So back to this coming here on this A-ha moment, George says substituting collateral allows the lender to continue earning interest. So what I taught in the section was that when you have borrowed money for your real estate deal, and it sounded like I borrow a lot of what we call “seconds” or junior lien position, smaller amounts of private money, not a lot of money that I used to buy a house, but for rehab and say, for example, so I may have like a $30,000 note that I’ve borrowed to rehab a house.

Now let’s say I sell that house and the note has not expired. So if I have another property, another collate piece of collateral that I have, then I keep that note open so that the lender can keep earning their interest. And I don’t have to pay off that $30,000 note, in this example, I can just substitute or change the collateral that’s backing that note. Does that make sense, Chaffee?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:14:07

Yeah. What you’re saying is that you don’t have to pay back that private lender and pay them on the interest because you still have time left on that note. So instead of them only getting interest on four months of payments because you sold the property within 4 months, you know, it’s a 12-month note, you got eight months left. You just take that and put it on another property and they continue to get paid on those 8 months.

Something that goes along with that is a lot of times when I have a new private lender that is doing business with us, if I cash out, I’m going to pay them off or whatever. One of the first things they say is, “Well, Jay, can’t you just keep the money? I don’t want the money back.” And the answer is, you got to either substitute- If you’re doing the business my way cause we can’t borrow any unsecured money. It’s all backed by real estate. Can I do that legally? Sure. But I want to protect and give the security to the private lenders. So they’ll ask, “Well, can’t you just keep the money, Jay?” And the answer is I can, if I’ve got another property that I can collateralize that note. And the worst, I can’t, I’m just not going to keep the money.

If you pay off and you’re also shooting the collateral, then the real estate attorney can’t keep it in their escrow account, what we call “unassigned” and I mean that they’re not a savings account, right? So either got to pay them back or settle through the collateral. We gotta do our next one, Chaffee. What we’ve got here on the sheet?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:15:42

I like this one that Felicia had which is, “Sellers do not know what they will accept until you make the offer.”

Jay Conner

00:15:55

Yes. That’s always an A-ha moment. So the A-ha moment is that sellers do not know what they will accept until you make an offer. But now I’ve heard you say this a hundred times, Chaffee, “I’ve never bought a house that I didn’t make an offer on.” Right? So the reason this is such an important point is I just know from experience, it happens all the time and Carol Joy and I, and my team, we do 2 to 3 deals a month, right?

Not a lot of deals, but 420 rehabs since we started this back in 2003. What I’ve learned over all these years is that regardless of what the seller says is the least they will accept. Now, this is particularly if they’re talking to someone else on your team, like the acquisitions. So I have a full-time acquisitionist that does the initial negotiating with the sellers. So regardless of what they tell Kim, our acquisitionist, then I’ll run the numbers. I may not be able to offer that amount of money that he said was the least they would take. So a lot of times I’ll get back to Kim and I’ll offer much, much less. For example, we’ve got a house over in Beaufort right now, that lead came in from one of our bird dogs, a.k.a. Field Agent, a.k.a. Ant Farmer. Anyway, they sent me a picture of this FSBO sign.

And we got up into the seller, Chaffee, and the seller told Kim, in fact it was an inherited property, told him they weren’t going to take one penny less than $300,000. We ran the numbers. I couldn’t offer $300,000 to make it work. The most I could offer was 250,000. So I went back to Kim. I said, “Give them the offer,” and I’m just not offering 250,000, it’s how this offer is framed and presented. I said, “All cash,” i.e. private money, private in there to buy it. And then I could close in 7 days. I knew the house was vacant. I knew it was imperative. There’s no emotional attachment to this property. And these 2 sisters just want to cash out. And so I said, “We close in 7 days, all cash. Don’t have to go get approved for a mortgage or get approved for a loan.”

And that was $50,000 less than just what they said, the least they’d take is 300, and Chaffee, they accepted it. Boom, no conversation. They accepted it, $50,000 less. So as is written down here. They really don’t know. I think they may have really thought that in their head, they may not have been playing any games, but when you’ve got an all-cash offer offered to you and you can have all that cash in 7 days. I mean, that will affect the way you think. Right, Chaffee?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:18:57

Absolutely. I mean that’s a $50,000 lesson right there, right?

Jay Conner

00:19:00

Exactly. Exactly. So the takeaway from that for me is, if you want the property, make the offer, period.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:19:12

Let me add why I think that’s also very important is that before you even get to the conversation with the seller, Jay, a lot of students that I’ve talked to that have trouble or challenges finding deals always tell me, like I asked him, “How many offers did you make?”

And they’ll say like, “2 or 3.” I go, “Why haven’t you made more offers?” And they’ll say, “Well, the numbers don’t make sense.” And so that’s a wall for them, right? That’s a mental wall that says they look at the numbers from the MLS or the lead sheet or wherever they got that lead from and say, well, you know, it just doesn’t make sense. Like, they want more, it doesn’t meet the MAO, the maximum allowable offer, or it’s above that. So it’s not a lead, let me just throw it away. And regardless of what the numbers say, if you just make the offer, according to what your numbers should be, you’ll be surprised at how many people come back and counter the offer or start that negotiation process. Or as you said, Jay, just take it because they want out.

Jay Conner

00:20:17

Exactly, and there’s an art to making the offer as well.

So we’re going to make the offer, but we’re also going to justify the offer. Many times we will share my formula that I use with the seller. Now I say, the math is what makes the decision and what we can do. And we just get the white elephant out of the conversation, like right up front. In fact, the sellers that I was visiting with this past Friday, I sat down with them for two hours, I still make offers myself. I enjoy visiting people. So I’m sitting down with these people. And so I knew what their number was and we were $30,000 off. And so I had already gone through the house and looked at the repairs that they needed and etc.

And I told them right up front and I said, “Look, I think we’re going to have to work something out,” but I’ll tell you it doesn’t work out all the time. We call that the ‘takeaway,’ right? But I just get the white elephant out of the way by saying, you know what, unless this is a win for you and a win for her husband that was sitting there as well. And this is a win for both of you and a win for me then I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to be involved in any transaction where everybody is not winning. And for everybody to win, all of us have got to give a little bit, too, for that to happen for a long time. So I justified the offer by actually sharing the formula and the math.  

I don’t want to come across as though I am just like pulling some figure out of thin air and just trying to make an extra $30,000 and be some greedy real estate investor. There’s an actual formula to where this comes from and I actually gave him a choice. And one I’m gonna bring up now is not on the A-ha moments, but we talked about it at lunch and that is, I gave them multiple offers. I gave them a choice. And quite frankly, I was happy with whatever choice they took, I said, “Look, I can buy this property.” Of course they never heard of the subject to the existing note, nobody’s ever heard of it. So you gotta like, dumb that conversation down, but I said I can pay you all cash, or I can give you $10,000 more if I buy it from you with what we call,

“subject to the existing note,” or “subject to,” as most real estate investors. And they immediately took the 10,000 more. That’s what they had in their- at least these people were current. I mean, they got fantastic credit. So just to make sure everybody understands, Chaffee, tell our audience and listeners and viewers here, what do we mean by buying a property, subject to the existing note?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:23:21

So when we say “buy, subject to the existing note,” which is not something that you would actually say to the seller. You’re not going to say I’m going to buy your property subject to the existing note because that’s right over their head, right? So basically they have a mortgage on that property with the bank or with a credit union or some institution. And all you’re going to do is you’re going to make their payments for them.

So they’re not getting rid of that loan, instead, you’re just gonna pay those payments as they come on a monthly basis and they’re going to transfer the title of the property to you. So you’re going to own the property and make payments as if it was your loan, except the loan stays in their name. So that’s the only thing. You’re making their payments and you’re taking over the property and they can go on their happy way and live their life. So they don’t have to worry about those monthly payments anymore. And oftentimes Jay, with “subject to,” with the strategy that you use, if somebody is behind on payments, you’re actually helping them fix their credit because you’re making those on-time monthly payments. Now, in this case, they were on time. So you don’t have to do that. And as long as you continue to make those payments for them, that’s still helping their credit build up because that’s a loan on their property being paid on time

Jay Conner

00:24:38

Yeah. So they are actually getting in this transaction that I’m talking about, they are actually getting about $34,000 more than their payoff. So I’m buying it to the existing note, making the payments on that outstanding balance until I find a buyer and cash out. So the difference that I’m paying them, I explained to them, you’re getting the same amount of money in your pocket. Whether I pay all cash and pay off your mortgage, or if I buy it, this is what I call Option B and explained to them how “subject to” works. You’re still getting the same amount of money in your pocket. It’s just a matter of whether I’m going to be paying off your mortgage right now. And so what else am I going to do on this deal? I’m buying it, set it into the existing note, and then I’m going to borrow private money in a second position or a junior position, and use that little bit of private money to go ahead and give them their cash when we close on it.

One A-ha moment that I’ve read on here is they just made a statement that they heard me say to a lot of them all the time. And that is you can make really big money in this business in a very, very small market. So what’s the population of where you and your family live up in the Chicago area?

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:26:21

There’s about 8 million people in the city and the surrounding areas.

Jay Conner

00:26:26

Yeah. So he’s at 8 million. So me and Carol Joy are here in 40,000, so we did 2 to 3 deals a month, even when it’s become more challenging now to find deals in the market that we’re in.

But as I said, we do 2 to 3 a month, and we’re still averaging all this $70,000 profit per deal. Well, let’s fill up under contract that I’ve been telling everybody about. The after-repair value is right around 300,000 and I can put maybe $5,000 in this house. It’s already been totally rehabbed. There’s a little bit left upstairs. Well, here’s the math, I’m buying it for 160,000. It’s worth right at 300. And all I got to put in is about $5,000. So I didn’t have to take that to the committee to get the approval on that one.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:27:35

Let me just repeat that so everyone listening understands, Jay, is that these individuals are current on their payments and the house is worth about 300 after repair. And they’re willing to sell it to you for 160 and they’re allowing you to take over their payments.

And is that a real deal, Jay? Do those kinds of deals exist?

Jay Conner

00:27:59

Well, I’ll be able to show you the contract. I’d be able to show you the deed this coming Monday. But this is not an out of ordinary deal by any imagination. One question someone may be thinking right now is, well, why would somebody trust me to make their payments and give up all that equity? Couldn’t they put the house in the multiple listing service? They could, even though it still needs some repair upstairs. But I always ask people, “How did you know where to find us?” And we did marketing consistently everyday. We do Facebook ads. We do Google ads. We do direct mail to people that are behind and in foreclosure, et cetera. So I asked this lady, I said, “How did you find me?”

She says, “We’ve been living here for 28 years and we know what you do.” I mean, if you live around here, you’re going to see my face and you’re going to see my marketing on Facebook. And so she’s “All I did was I just went to Google and I Googled ‘Jay buys houses.’ ” There it was. But back to the question, why would someone be willing to do what we’re doing? Well, people do things for their own reasons. Sometimes you’re not even actually sure, but since I sat down with these people for two hours, I know why. The husband is not in good health and it’s like a hundred degrees here. He’s been working on this house for over a year. And he came in from the heat last week and his wife is worried sick that something’s going to happen to him.

And she’s going to be stuck with the burden of this house. And she tells me that she tells me that multiple times. She says, “I just don’t want to have the risk of being stuck and having the burden of this.” And in fact, on this “subject to” things they never heard of, I said, “Well, you get with me giving you $10,000 more, option B way,” I said, “The only thing you have to decide is, are you going to trust me to make your payments?” And I said, “Why wouldn’t I make your payments? I can’t sell a house and fix it up and all that if I’m not making your payments, right? I don’t want the bank to take it away from me, particularly when I’m getting ready to put this rehab money in it.”

So the short answer to the question, “Who would be willing to sell their house this way?” And the short answer is, “A motivated seller.”

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:30:46

And that’s the key. So I hear it all the time, Jay, is that, “No, I don’t. I can’t find these deals out there. No one will ever sell me these properties.” And the reason is that you’re talking to unmotivated sellers. Most of them are For Sale By Owner because they’re too cheap to hire real estate agents. So they’re not motivated. They just want more money and those, I think For Sale By Owners, you can definitely find some deals with them. If you find the right For Sale By Owner, only is you have to filter through a whole ton, a lot of them. And I think that it’s good practice for you to learn how to speak to people and just realize you want marketing channels in place to get those motivated sellers contacting you so that you don’t have to go out there and talk to a thousand people for you to find the 1 or 2 motivated sellers from those FSBOs out there.

Jay Conner

00:31:40

Exactly. Well, Chaffee, we are about out of time. So I’m going to let you wrap it up with parting comments and final thoughts.

Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

00:31:48

Parting comments is – Go out there. Don’t be afraid to make offers. Find somebody who you can resonate with, who you like, who has a system and a process that can help hold your hand to do this business and show you how to do the things that you need to do. Unlike me, when I first started, right? Find somebody that’s going to teach you this business so that you can do this business and it can allow you to change your life and live life with the passion that you want or do the things that you’re passionate about. Because, you know, I hear a lot of people all the time, Jay. I’ve watched 30 hours of YouTube videos every single week on how to do real estate.

And I hadn’t done a deal, right? Well that’s because you don’t have somebody like Mr. Jay Conner telling you, guiding you, teaching you step-by-step, what to do and how to do it. You’re watching a thousand different videos that tell you all different things. So you’re either going to pay through the school of hard knocks and learn through mistakes, or you’re going to find somebody and go through and hire a good mentor or coach that’s going to show you how to do this business and do it successfully. And it’s going to be a lot less headaches. So you can do this business, just find the right people to work with and it will change your life.

[inwintersolitude]

- April 11th 2022 -

Were you upset when you found out certain things weren't real? (santa, tooth fairy..) No. As far as I can remember, I came to the conclusion on my own that that stuff wasn't real, simply based off of it not making logical sense. And then when someone else told me that it wasn't real, I was like... "well duh, I already figured that out."

Name something you're proud of. brag a little bit. I got my pilots license when I was only 19.

Where would you like to go right now? Nowhere. It's a chilly/gloomy/stormy day, and I'm happy to be relaxing at home.

Which store would you like to win $1000 for? Pottery Barn. They have really nice furniture. There's an upholstered armchair there that I've been thinking of buying.

What do you usually eat for breakfast? A bagel with either plain or vegetable cream cheese, avocado toast, an omelette, oatmeal, or muesli topped with berries. Sometimes I'll have a hard boiled egg as well. I like to have a lot of variation in what I eat from day-to-day.

Do you pay any attention to celebrity drama? Nope.

Name a random fact. Bananas produce anti-matter! As they ripen, they emit one positron every ~75 minutes.

What's been an embarrassing phase you went through? I went through an "I'm not like the other girls" phase when I was 18/19 and in my first year of college/flight school where I thought that I was better/tougher than other women just because I was in a very male-dominated field. I never expressed this stuff outwardly towards anyone, but I'm sure that people could still pick up on that egotism and internalized misogyny. Yikes.

Would you ever move a far distance for a relationship? Not exactly applicable to me... I'm married, my husband and I live together and we move together. I've never been in a long-distance relationship, and never will be.

What's the ugliest animal in your opinion? That hairless cat breed. Sphynx cats, I think? They look like a cross between an uncooked chicken and a ballsack.

What about cutest? Budgies, guinea pigs, donkeys, hairy woodpeckers, capybaras.

Are you good at math? Yes, I've always had a natural talent for math.

What song describes your life currently? I can't think of one.

What popular food do you dislike? Hershey's chocolate. It has a chalky texture and a slight vomit-ish taste.

How long could you be famous before you got "canceled"? I don't know.

Is water wet? If you define “wet” as “having been made damp/saturated due to coming in contact with liquid or moisture,” then I suppose so, because technically water is in contact with itself... or something like that.  Lol.

How old were you when you got your first cell phone? Around 14 or 15.

Are you in any pain currently? Nope.

What's the closest object to you that is red? A red Sharpie.

Do you have any cats? Nope.

Are you impulsive? Nope.

What 3 things do you think you'd need during a zombie apocalypse to survive? Hmmm... a water filtration system, a gun, and a gardening kit to grow your own food.

What's the last meal you've had? Dinner. I had chicken parmigiana.

Have you ever got in trouble with the law? I've gotten a speeding ticket before, but that's all.

What's a law you would create if possible? I've always had a HUGE problem with the current attractive nuisance laws as they pertain to homeowners, so I'd get rid of those. If you have a pool, fountain, trampoline, yardwork equipment, etc... anything that attracts a curious child onto your property, and then that child hurts/kills themselves on your property, that should NOT be the homeowner's fault. It should 100% be the fault of the child's parents for not doing the most basic level of parenting, which is supervising your child and making sure they don't wander onto other people's property and hurt/kill themselves. People who don't have children should not have to make their property child-friendly just because the neighbors are shitty parents who won't watch their kids.

Have you given any thought about what the Christian God looks like? I'm an atheist, I don't believe in that stuff. But I was raised Christian, and as a young kid I remember imagining what "God" might look like.

What's your most used emojis? 😂

What age would you choose to be forever if you had to choose? Roughly the same age as I am now. Early 30s.

How many slices of pizza can you eat in 1 sitting? I guess I technically could eat 3-4 slices, but I would never actually eat that much!

Do you prefer to fix things yourself or always call an expert? It depends. I enjoy fixing things, so there are some things that I do myself, but I also know my limits on what I can handle so I have no problem calling a professional for bigger repairs. And of course there are times where I could fix something, but it's just easier and more convenient to hire someone to do it.

[roll-da-credits]

The Dreaded Finals - Kuroo x Dumbass Reader -

Word Count: 2.3k

With finals quickly approaching you dreaded for your impending doom. Having barely studied the entire semester and getting just passing grades, both you and Kuroo were rather anxious about the finals. (The title is me. I’m the dumbass reader.)

A/n

This story was brought to you by me procrastinating on studying for finals even though its literally a week away. I should study Physics and Biology right now but I can’t be bothered at all. Anyways, as always I hope you guys enjoy the first Haikyuu post here. 

“THEN WHAT THE HELL IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SERIES AND SEQUENCE IF THEY USE THE SAME FORMULAS???” What is math.

You threw your hand up and Kuroo looked at you, exhausted but amused at how idiotic you actually were.

This morning you were just reminded by your boyfriend, Kuroo that tomorrow was the math finals.

How you forgot the dates for finals was beyond him. Cue panicking over not understanding a single thing taught in math.

Him being the kind boyfriend he was, offered to teach you the formulas and do some example questions with you. Though at first, he thought it wasn’t going to be that hard, your scores weren’t amazing, but they were passing.

From your test answers, he noticed how you already understood the formulas. You just had trouble applying them and putting the right formulas on the right questions.

But he realized pretty quickly, you were just incredibly lucky.

“So, for geometric and arithmetic they have 2 formulas for each so its 4 formulas all together I think you already know that-“

“Wait there’s 4??” Kuroo looked up at you from the paper slowly, completely dumbfounded how you didn’t know there was 4. “Ok stop looking at me like that HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?”

Kuroo pitifully smiled and ruffled your hair. “How did you even pass this test if you didn’t know there were 4 formulas??” He actually was amazed at how you graduated from Junior High.

“Well I just guessed around, plus sitting beside smart students help a lot you know.” You nudged over towards Kuroo. A sly smile decorating your features.

He shook his head, amused at the fact that you somehow cheated on every single test but STILL get a BARELY passing score.

“Ok so, this is how it works.” He then spent close to one and a half hour explaining everything about ONE out of the four topics you had to study that day.

Thankfully you seemed to be focused to be learning everything, he was actually surprised at the fact that you were enthusiastic to try and understand everything.

Now was the hard topic. It was close to 8pm and you finished 3 topics, but the last one. Algebraic expressions.

“Yea no, you know what. I’m just going to stop here and hope this doesn’t come up that much tomorrow.” He laughed out loud at your reaction when he showed you his notes.

Your hand tangled in your hair with your eyes wide open, completely baffled at the satanic writing in front of you. “This doesn’t even look like math anymore.”

Sighing, you planted your head on his desk. He grabbed both your shoulders and shook you lightly as a small way of trying to cheer you up. “At least you already understood the other topics, algebra’s hard, don’t be too hard on yourself.” He tried motivating you.

Kuroo was one of the most supportive boyfriends you could ever ask for, whenever it came to you trying out new things or you trying to study. He was always there to support you and sometimes tease you whenever you needed a laugh.

Kuroo smiled fondly over at you, there was something about you that always captivated him. Even in situations like these where you’re frustrated or just plain annoyed, he always saw you as incredible.

He admired you as well, although sure your grades weren’t something that would qualify for Harvard or Oxford. He admired that you still tried, albeit you procrastinated a lot. He’s never seen you fully give up and come to something completely unprepared.

You were always working on your flaws, whether you realized it or not. And for that he admired you. “Can we just hang out now? You’re very deserving of a break.”

Truthfully, he just wanted to have a soft cuddle session with you on the bed until you realized you had to go home, before your parents start calling the police. Much to his disappointment, you shook your head and opened your phone to check the time.

“Can’t. My parents already texted me, asking where I am.” You muttered, already beginning to take your books and notebooks. “Thank you for teaching me though, you’re the best.”

You gave him a light peck on his lips as you stood. Successfully making the volleyball captain grin. “Love you, wish me luck for tomorrow.”

~

The next day came and it was no surprise that he was actually worried for you. As always, you arrived in class one minute before the teacher came in.

Before the test papers were handed out Kuroo saw you look back at his seat 2 rows behind you and grinned largely.

How the fuck were you so calm.

Even he was stressing a little bit internally. He felt like he didn’t prepare enough.

When the tests were handed out his eyes widened. From what he saw by skimming the questions, close to 75% of it was algebraic expressions.

Something both of you deliberately skipped last night. Safe to say the entire time he was doing the test he snuck glances over to you, trying to see if you were panicking or not.

Although, even if you were, he wouldn’t be able to see it since your back was facing him. For some reason, it was panicking him a lot that he didn’t spend the time to teach you.

What happens if you fail?

He knows your parents were rather strict on grades. They agreed as long as it was a passing grade you would be safe from a punishment.

But what if you failed?

Would your parents stop you from visiting him?

Or worse, what if they confiscated your phone?

How was he going to text you flustering pick-up lines in ungodly hours of night?

Even through all of the stress pile up and him panicking every time he read a new question and it was still algebraic expressions. He somehow finished the entire test on time.

The only good thing that comes from finals are, no other subjects, and you get to go home early. Lunch time came as soon as the test ended and the bell rang.

Kuroo immediately went to your table, “Damn, we should’ve studied algebraic expressions huh cutie?”

He patted your head lightly. He wanted to tease you, making sure you smiled at something if you were feeling down at the unlucky test questions.

What he didn’t expect you to do was giggle. “Damnit, I probably used up all my luck in my other tests.” You barely seemed bothered by the high chance you might get a failed score on math FINALS. “Maybe next time I’ll listen to you more.”

You grinned ear to ear, standing up from your chair to kiss the rooster head boy on the cheek.

“You coming? I want to meet up with Kenma.” He didn’t even realize you were already leaving the classroom.

The rest of the lunch break was spent with you and him talking about random nonsense, whilst Kenma sits playing his game and adding a few of his own opinions to whatever topic you talked about.

Afterwards it was time for another final test, you and Kuroo took your seats again and began the test.

He again realized; this was difficult. He struggled with a few of the questions. This made him worry again for you.

Not that he wanted assume you were stupid or anything of the kind, you were a pretty smart person when it came to certain subject. Though, other subjects you seem to get a barely passing grade.

Then again, after the test, you didn’t seem bothered by it and barely complained about the question.

The finals week went on and every day the same thing keeps happening.

He’d help you study but would have to cut a few things from each topic short because you had to go home. The next day the test would have you write the answers completely and in depth, he’d get worried you won’t be able to do it. As always, after the test.

You didn’t seem shocked or even bothered.

You didn’t even talk about the finals when you were hanging out, you wouldn’t talk about the questions or even discuss the questions you didn’t understand with him.

He was perplexed by you. One day you were panicking because you didn’t understand math at all, the next you seemed terrifyingly calm after doing something you supposedly can’t do.

You didn’t speak about the finals for the next week either, it was when the last week of school finally came that the moment of truth is revealed.

All the test papers would be given back to the students.

Since this was finals to determine if you’d make it to your third year, everyone seemed antsy. Even Kuroo himself was scared to see his score, passing was one thing, his expectations for himself was another thing.

He looked over to you, and again. You seemed,

Oddly calm

No nervous foot tapping, ghost piano playing on your table, or even your fingers fidgeting with each other.

Nothing.

Completely calm

It was unnerving, he’s never seen you that calm before.

You’ve always been someone who matched his energetic lifestyle, so seeing you so quiet and calm was… creepy.

The test papers are finally given back to the students, and the teacher left the classroom.

A range of emotions swept through the class, some crying, others cheering. Kuroo sighed in relief. His scores just reached his own expectations.

He walked over to your table and saw you clutching the paper close to your chest. Readying for the worst, he waited for an outburst of emotion.

Then he saw it.

The first few tears that came out of your eyes. His heart immediately broke at the sight.

He knew you worked hard and didn’t procrastinate the whole week of finals, although you did before. You always made up for it by studying extra hard a day before finals.

He took his palm and wiped a few of your tears. “Oi, cutie, come on give me a smile. Grades don’t mean everything. Plus, I bet that one subject you love you got a really good score on.”

He took your chin on his right hand and lightly pulled it up to look at him.

His eyes widening with little bit of fear. You were SMILING???

Seeing his shocked expression made you laugh really loudly whilst wiping the tears. You put all of your test papers on your table for him to see.

Every one of your finals you didn’t only get a passing score.

But every one of them were above 85.

You got a 90 for math.

“I DID IT!!!” You enthusiastically yelled and stood up abruptly.

You hugged Kuroo, whilst the table between the two of you made the position a little bit awkward. He leaned into your touch, still confused though.

When you pulled away you laughed at his ridiculously confused expression. You sighed in contempt and sat back down at your chair.

“I slept for 2 hours every single night, just to study. When I come back home from your house, I’d still study. I’d try to understand every single thing we didn’t touch on before.” Your eyes glimmered with a sense of pride.

A new kind of admiration filled his heart as he listened to his beautiful lover talk about all the things they did to help them memorize everything.

You were lost in your own explanation that it took you a while to realize Kuroo was looking at you with the most love-struck expression. “Pffftt, what’s that face.” When he realized he was staring he immediately looked away and blushed.

“Hey hey hey!! I thought you were the teasing one in this relationship.” You continued to tease him whilst laughing.

Kuroo looked back at you and gave you one of the most genuine smiles you’ve ever seen. Successfully making you stop talking, “You’re incredible.”

He said out of nowhere. It amazed you at how Kuroo was able to say those kinds of things with a straight face. You awkwardly laughed at his comment, “You inspired me you know?” His head cocked to the side with curiosity. “I thought to myself, you deserved a smarter lover. So, I wanted to get really good scores this year.”

Oh, if only you knew how much YOU inspired HIM to be a better person. Since it was time to go home anyways, Kuroo took your bag with his and dragged you across the hallways.

“Where the hell are we going???” You were utterly confused.

Kuroo didn’t even reply, he just ran all the way back to his home and his room. You threw off your shoes as quickly as possible whilst he was still pulling you.

He pulled you on his bed with him and immediately cuddled close.

“The fuck?” It wasn’t as if you didn’t like it.

You just were… confused

“You said you haven’t been getting enough sleep so we’re taking a nap right now. I won’t take no for an answer chibi-chan. If you do say no, I’ll just keep bragging about my scores until you’ll sleep just to get away from me.”

You scoffed, “I’d never fall asleep with THAT kind of bedtime story.”

Kuroo looked down at you, “Well, first off I got a 98 in math, it wasn’t hard. I saw that question 4 you got it wrong and the way to actually do it is-”

“Go to hell, I’d rather sleep.” His signature hyena laugh filled the room.

Adorable as always.

“Then go to sleep cutie.”

You hummed in agreement and put your hands around his torso, whilst he to yours. His chin resting on the top of your head and you nuzzling into his broad chest.

This was the perfect end to finals week.

[moonlightwritesdisney]

𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓’𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓’𝐒 !

—————————

𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓 !

1. “I’m leaving.”

2. “You relapsed again, didn’t you?”

3. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!”

4. “Yeah, it’s always my fault!”

5. “I hate you.”

6. “Even after all that?

7. “You broke her heart and came back for more, you bastard.”

8. “This isn’t fifth grade, this is a courtroom, you whore.”

9. “I think you’d be the perfect match for my ex-husband. He loved to sleep with multiple people.”

10. “I’m not coming home, don’t look for me.”

11. “Time was always a measurement of this relationship and we finally ran out.”

12. “Please don’t look at me with such hatred.”

13. “I could’ve died and you couldn’t have cared less.”

14. “Just get out. I- I don’t want you here, just leave.”

15. “You’re not the same person I married, don’t tell me I’m wrong.”

16. “I wish you wouldn’t beg for forgiveness, it has the opposite effect of what you want.”

17. “Don’t hate me for this. You would’ve done the same.”

18. “This could’ve been the end and you were ready to let me go.”

19. “You should’ve left me, you could never deserve the person I’ve become.”

20. “Hate me all you want. I know I’m right.”

21. “Today you broke my arm, I hope tomorrow it’s not my heart.”

22. “Nothing can justify this, you’ve ruined him.”

23. “You live with so much guilt, I hope it drives you mad one of these days.”

24. “My life was ruined because of one mistake. You were that mistake.”

25. “You are everything I hate, don’t ever come back.”

26. “Evil doesn’t come close.”

27. “Your wrongdoings are becoming your pastimes.”

28. “I wish you had of just done it for the thrill of it, but now you’re in deep shit.”

29. “Next time, I won’t be here to salvage your wreckage. This is the last time.”

30. “You should have ruined me when you had the chance.”

31. “No one will keep your name alive. Once you’re gone, everything you once stood for disappears too.”

32. “Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about your life without me.”

33. “This is always how it ends.”

34. “Break my heart once more, I dare you.”

35. “Forget how you loved me once, I mean nothing now.”

36. “This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, this is real life and I can go on without you.”

37. “You don’t own me, I don’t belong to you.”

38. “I should’ve died. That would’ve made you happy.”

39. “Are we going to carry on like this or are you going to give him back to me.”

40. “She drowned and he lost his mind.”

41. “We shouldn’t. You’re married and I’m pregnant.”

42. “You’ve never been loved, I can tell.”

43. “Who told you I needed fixing and what made you believe them?”

44. “You’re almost as far-gone as I am.”

45. “Maybe it’s best that we don’t go home.”

46. “Roaming the streets was never safe for her. What makes you think it’s different for you?”

47. “I think you’re going to ruin me. Am I right?”

48. “Do you remember our last feud? I wouldn’t want someone to lose their life again, would you?”

49. “Kiss me quick and leave them be.”

50. “I hate seeing you so sad. It’s just so dramatic how humans show emotions and being sad is such a boring one.”

51. “Will you ever forget my number? No? Ah, because you still love me.”

52. “After the funeral, let’s surrender.”

53. “What made you think I cared for you?”

54. “It’ll be fun explaining this to your sister. I hope she likes horror stories.”

55. “Don’t act as if we’re friends. I know how much you want to slit my throat.”

56. “Let’s not get angry. Let’s calmly and sensibly take this outside so I can ruin your face.”

57. “Please ruin yourself for me and I’ll watch in adoration as I fall apart as well.

58. “We’re never going to have a happy ending, just remember that.”

59. “Everytime something goes well, I momentarily forget how much I despise you.”

60. “Don’t pretend like you’re not happy to see me like this.”

61. “There is nothing worse than seeing you get what you want.”

62. “Your mind must be a horrible place.”

63. “You can cut me, bruise me and skin me alive, but you will not take her from me.”

64. “How is it that we always end up in this predicament?”

65. “I want to wipe that grin of your face with my sword, but my mother taught me to play nicely.”

66. “Did anyone ever tell you how pathetic you are? It’s incredible how low my standards are for you.”

67. “Ah, well if you want them back alive, I suggest you lay down your own life.”

68. “Don’t be ‘smart’. The battlefield is no place for Math Scholars.”

69. “You shouldn’t have come. You can’t be-”

70. “Stop talking or tomorrow won’t come.”

71. “Hand me the gun and I’ll kill him myself.”

72. “I shouldn’t care for your life, but I’m starting to and it’s becoming an inconvenience.”

73. “If you live to see her, please send my best regards and this box of her father’s ashes.”

74. “It would’ve been nice to get to know you better, but I’m afraid I don’t care.”

75. “I can’t help but think you’re a terrible person.”

76. “Seeing your face has unconventionally made me want to die. I wasn’t quite prepared for this feeling.”

77. “You could have loved me, I’m quite good at seducing, but you’re actually vile.”

78. “I hope I see you in a bodybag sometime.”

79. “Let’s pretend you didn’t cheat on me with my sister and be good people for a few minutes.”

80. “We should probably stop talking forever.”

81. “If I hated you anymore, I think I’d probably be crowned as satan’s right-hand man.”

82. “To say I ‘tolerate you’ is a vast overstatement.”

83.

84. “This will be the last time you lie to me.”

85. “You know it’s not like that.”

86. “How could you think this wouldn’t hurt me?”

87. “You’re never going to be the same after this.”

88. “I just think it’d be best if we never met.”

89. “I can’t believe you would even think to leave me like this.”

90. “You never loved me, did you?”

91. “It didn’t have to be like this, but now you’ve ruined everything.”

92. “I hope you’re happy.”

93. “If you had have kept your mouth shut, then he’d still- he’d still be here!”

94. “What did you want once this was all through? Tell me!”

95. “Now I have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Thanks, it means a lot.”

96. “You could’ve- could’ve stayed. You could’ve helped me fix things.”

97. “I knew she’d never change, she was too stubborn, too similar to me.”

98. “This isn’t going to be fixed. You’ve ruined this for good now.”

99. “I hope I’m not put in the same part of hell as you.”

100. “When did you think you could hurt me again? Today? Tomorrow?”

101. “You’re back in my life and I want to die again.”

102. “You only ever brought me pain and I’m sick of it.

103. “I hope you got what you wanted.”

104. “You made me miserable and I still loved you.”

105. “When you die, I’ll be the first to dance on your grave.”

𝖱𝖨𝖦𝖧𝖳𝖥𝖴𝖫 𝖢𝖱𝖤𝖣𝖨𝖳𝖲 : @a-cure-for-writers-block 𝖮𝖭 𝖳𝖴𝖬𝖡𝖫𝖱 !

[the-bejeesus]

To Those Who Say “I’m not gonna catch up on One Piece until it’s finished. Why would I watch/read 1000+ episodes/chapters when I don’t even get to know how the story ends?”

      Now for the past few years, when I came across somebody who said this, my rebute would be something like “Well the series is great already. It doesn’t really matter if I don’t know how it ends, because the journey itself is enjoyable.” or “Man if that’s your excuse, who you gonna explain why you read/watch stuff like Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and My Hero Academia? Newsflash, they aren’t done yet.” But it came across my mind that I can now apply a completely different approach:

“If you start watching/reading at this pace right now, it will be over by the time you catch up.”

      If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll know that for awhile now Oda has been saying that he plans to end the series in just 5-4 years. Now he’s made lots of claims in the past that turned out to be ridiculous. However, many One Piece researchers have compiled his claims and found out that they only get more accurate as time goes on, with the most ridiculous claims being found to be myths. And with the most recent claims of ending the series in less than 5 years, even his editors who are usually skeptical have started to trust that he can do this. After all, he has officially set there to be only one more saga (which isn’t necessarily one arc, but it’s either going to be 1-2 major arcs or an anthology of 5-6 shorter arcs). And now that we can trust this claim, we can essentially extrapolate how many chapters/episodes are left and what pace we have to binge to catch up at just the right time.

If you plan to read the manga (black and white):

The manga in black in white is a perfectly fine way to enjoy One Piece. It’s what Oda draws, it’s how he intends it to be viewed, and best of all, it will be the first version of publication to finish.

     Out of the 1223 weeks since the first chapter published in July 19, 1997, 1000 chapters have published, meaning on average he publishes 42 chapters per year, or in other words, there are only 10 hiatuses per year (including holidays where WSJ does not publish). Now if I wanted to be more accurate, I’d only look at the chapters published this year, to exclude outliers like how he had no hiatuses for the first 200 chapters, or how he had a 4-week hiatus during the timeskip, but 2020 has been a bit crazy, so we’re not doing that for this or any of the others.

     Going off of this, the final chapter would be chapter 1212 in December 28, 2025 (yes, the 28th would be a Sunday again.) So here’s how you’d calculate the pace in which you need to read One Piece, and really this is how we’ll calculate it for every version)

     Now I know math is boring, but the reason I’m showing this to you is because the amount of weeks until One Piece ends will vary based on when you start this binge. Chances are you aren’t going to start the day you see this post, and there’s an even greater chance you won’t see this post the day it’s posted. For every example I’m going to assume you started binging on December 28, 2020. Now let’s try to use it for this example.

     And there’s your answer, just read 4-5 chapters per week. By the end, One Piece should be nearly over or have very recently ended. To put that into a different perspective, you could purchase and read just two volumes per month and you’ll be at prime pace. Or you could read one chapter every day, but only on weekdays.  If you want to, you can see this calculation in action in graph form.

     While this is a very rudimentary graph, it’s a basic visualization of what we’re calculating here. We’re calculating what speed we need to binge to catch up at exactly the right moment. I say exact, but ultimately no one can predict how many chapters there will be exactly, nor how many hiatuses Oda will go on during it. It will be important, as you’re nearing the end, to find a spoiler-free way to keep up on how close One Piece is to ending. To know whether you ought to speed up or slow down.

If you plan to watch the anime (subtitled):

For years now people have hated on the anime “terrible animation!” “terrible pacing” but at the end of the day, it’s the more popular version. Or the more viewed version I should say. And personally, I think that once you acknowledge its problems and learn how to deal with them, it’s a perfectly fine experience. There’s enough good voice acting and enough good storytelling that you’re easily able to ignore the problems. Plus, the animation has substantially improved since Wano.

      Now for this we’re going to have to change a lot of variables to get this right. We’re going to have to adjust when publication started, and recalculate when One Piece will end by looking at how slowly the anime adapts the manga, and how behind it is. The anime aired on October 20, 1999, and has aired 956 episodes since then. This means on average they air 44.9 episodes per year, meaning there is pretty much only 7 breaks the entire year. With these 956 episodes, they have adapted 955 chapters, making the pace almost exactly one chapter per episode. However this is really inaccurate, considering all the better-paced arcs earlier on in the story. Looking solely at episodes 2012 and onwards, the anime adapts at a pace of 0.65 chapters/episode.

     Knowing that there are roughly 212 chapters left, and Toei adapts at 0.65 chapters per episode, we can assume that there are going to be roughly 324 episodes left. That sounds like too many, but keep in mind that there will be several, several instances where the manga will be on hiatus whereas the anime will keep on airing. Knowing there are approximately 324 episodes left, and that the anime only takes about 7 breaks a year, we can assume that it will take 7 years, or 374.49 weeks before the anime will end. So now we have the information we need to do the math again.

x = 1280/374.49

x = 3.417 episodes/week.

     It may seem like a more relaxed binge, since you get a whole 2 extra years to binge, and you only have to do 3-4 episodes per week, compared to the 4-5 chapters. But keep in mind that these episodes are 24 minutes each. Still not at all bad, but you will be spending more time on it overall.

If you plan to watch One Pace:

One Pace is a fan project that edits the anime so that filler and padding is cut, other edits will be made to make the anime more manga-accurate, such as reorganizing scenes, or adding title cards where absent. Originally only used by a niche number of One Piece fans, One Pace has grown in popularity, and has tried to improve its quality to accommodate more fans, such as making their episodes Dual Audio (meaning you can switch between the dub and original Japanese audio tracks), and including Spanish subtitles.

      You’d think we’d have to adjust for when One Pace began, how slowly One Pace catches up, and the works, but there’s not much to calculate. Fortunately for us, no matter how far behind One Pace is on editing the current arc, they always like to wrap things up just a few weeks within when an arc ended, if not the very same week. So really all we have to calculate is how many One Pace episodes there will be by the end of all this, so that we know how many you’ll need to watch per week.

      Looking solely at what they’ve covered so far, One Pace has taken 573 episodes and condensed it down to 259 episodes. That’s a pace of 2.21 anime episodes/ paced episode. Earlier we calculated that there would be 324 episodes of the anime left, making for 1280 episodes total. This would mean that there would be around 578 One Pace episodes by the end. And One Pace would probably wrap up in, let’s say 376 weeks, because as I said, they’ll probably finish editing the final arc a week or two after the last episode airs.

x = 578/376

x = 1.53 episodes per week

      Now that’s a relaxed pace. 1-2 episodes per week? That’s so slow, I’m not even sure if I’ll remember what I watched last week next time I watch some episodes. The only problem is some of the pre-timeskip still haven’t been edited. They’ll probably be done by the time they finish the final arc, but that’s not gonna work out fast enough. You’ll hit your first roadblock about 7 weeks in when you need to watch the Baratie arc and it’s not done. And don’t even get me started on how many arcs aren’t done in dub or Spanish sub yet. Hopefully you could just switch to the anime or manga when you hit these arcs, readjusting how many episodes/chapters you need to watch/read when you do. But that’s a bit of an excessive amount of math for something that’s supposed to be fun. So yeah, if you’re still convinced you shouldn’t get into One Piece until it’s ended, maybe this is the option for you.

If you plan to read the manga (Colored):

Since 2012, Shueisha has made a colorization of One Piece. It’s not a fan coloring, it’s as official as it gets. Many consider the color schemes portrayed in this version as the most canon, as the majority are pulled straight from whatever colored illustrations of Oda’s they can find. And quite frankly it makes the manga at least 10 times more beautiful. It’s especially great if you have trouble interpreting dense, small black and white panels.

      This one is a doozy. You’d think all I gotta do is calculate how far behind the colored manga usually and just adjust from there, right? Wrong. Because how far behind the colored manga is, or how frequently they release volumes in full color, is one of the most inconsistent things I have ever seen. You wanna see what I’m talking about? This is how they’ve chosen to release each volume since 2012:

Volume 1-12: July 15, 2012

Volume 13-23: September 28, 2012

Volume 24-63: December 4, 2012

Volume 64-65: April 4, 2013

Volume 66-68: December 20, 2013

Volume 69-70: August 25, 2014

Volume 71-72: September 16, 2015

Volume 73-75: October 4, 2016

Volume 76: December 2, 2016

Volume 77: March 3, 2017

Volume 78: July 2, 2017

Volume 79: September 4, 2017

Volume 80: December 4, 2017

Volume 81-82: March 3, 2018

Volume 83: October 4, 2018

Volume 84-86: August 2, 2019

Volume 87-92: September 16, 2020

     How I am supposed to find out how long it will take for Shueisha to colorize the final volume of One Piece is beyond me. I guess the first step would be to look at how far behind the manga each release was on average, but I’m going to ignore all the ones before 2013, because those were clearly just Shueisha catching up really fast cause they just started and didn’t want to be dozens of volumes behind forever. So of the 14 publications between 2013 and now, on average the last chapter of the last volume they colored was 97.78 weeks after that chapter had published in Weekly Shonen Jump. This means that if the final chapter of One Piece is chapter 1212 on December 28, 2025, then you can expect the final colored volume to publish November 14, 2027.

x = 1212/359

x = 3.37 chapters/week

     So if you prefer the manga but don’t want to read 5 chapters every week for 5 years, this might be a better option for ya. But yea, I have no doubt my prediction is at least a little off for this one.

If you plan to watch the anime (dubbed):

Unlike the 4KidsTV and Odex dubs of One Piece, the FUNimation dub is a perfect way to enjoy One Piece. The DVDs come with enjoyable commentary and a marathon mode, great for binging.

       FUNimation’s releases of the dub are inconsistent, although not nearly as erratic as the colored manga release. However, there was recently a 2-year hiatus we only just got out of. Since Episode 1′s dub in May 27, 2008, the dub has gotten as far as Episode 614. But that’s only looking at the DVD releases. If you’re willing to stream on FUNimationnow, the dub is as far as 641, and if you’re willing to digitally purchase it from an e-shop such as the Microsoft store, it goes all the way to Episode 654. With that being said, that would mean that on average, FUNimation dubs 1.004 episodes per week. Although if we go back to before the two-year hiatus so as to exclude it from the average, it’s actually 1.10 episodes per week. Not a huge difference, actually. And then if we look solely after the two-year hiatus, it’s actually 2.25 episodes per week, which is insanely faster. It’s hard to tell what the future of the dub will be. I can’t assume they’ll go this fast forever, so I’m just going to take the average of all 3 and say it’s 1.45 episodes per week. Don’t know if that’s the best mathematical approach, but the number seems about right.

     So knowing that the dub is at Episode 654 and looking at our previous guesstimation that the anime will be 1280 episodes long, we can predict that it will take 431 weeks before the dub catches up and ends. That would be in 2029! Sounds quick at first until you notice it’s 4 years behind!

x = 1280/431

x = 2.96 episodes per week

      Looks like it’s almost exactly 3 episodes per week. Not as much less of a workload as I expected, compared to catching up to the sub. You know, I figured those 4 extra years would make you binge a lot slower.

Final Thoughts:

      There’s a lot of my math that was estimation, approximations, extrapolations. Feel free to correct me or fact check me, especially if you plan on using this. I figured this would be a fun thought excercise. There’s also a lot of smaller variables I simply didn’t want to take into account because of how long this is already. For example, reading the black and white manga. The calculation can vary slightly depending on if you read it the day it’s published (which I assume would have to be a fanscan unless you can read Japanese), reading the weekly publication legally on Viz.com, waiting for the physical volume release. The dub can also vary depending on whether you buy from Microsoft, wait for the FUNimationnow release, wait for the DVDs, or wait for the Collection sets. So feel free to take this into account.

[plasticghostbird]

alright mcytblr i did some pointless math so you don’t have to

i’m currently working on a comic that follows the events of the dream smp from exile to tommy’s revival and release from prison. when i first started working on this, i wanted to extend the timeline of events and use actual minecraft days to make the comic feel more realistic. now that i’ve got my plot outline and a rough summary of chapters, i decided to write a timeline.

and that’s where my math comes in.

bear with me, i haven’t been in school for a year and a half.

first, i had to calculate minecraft time. according to the minecraft wiki; 1 day equates to 2.4 months (72 days) in minecraft. that number, 72, was the base of all my calculations.

next, i had to find out the timeline of each event/era. this was all taken from the Dream Smp wiki:

Exile Arc: December 4 - December 16

Vengeance Arc: December 16 - January 6

Doomsday: January 6

Disc Confrontation/Imprisonment: January 20

Pandora’s Vault Lockdown: February 21

Tommy’s Death: March 1

Tommy’s Prison Release: March 12

alls left to do was to calculate how long each event lasted and the time between each, comparing those numbers with our 1:72 ratio. these are what i came up with:

all numbers are rounded to the nearest tenth

Exile; 12 days : 2.4 minecraft years

Vengeance to Doomsday; 21 days : 4.1 minecraft years

Doomsday to Imprisonment; 14 days : 2.8 minecraft years

Imprisonment to Pandora’s Vault Lockdown; 32 days : 6.3 minecraft years

Lockdown to Release gets a little confusing due to the tiny calculations i had to make so i broke it down like this:

Lockdown to Release lasted a total of 19 days (3.7 minecraft years)

From the start of Lockdown to Tommy’s Death lasted 8 days (1.6 minecraft years)

Tommy’s Death lasted 3 days (216 minecraft days)

Tommy’s Revival to his Release lasted 11 days (2.2 minecraft years)

after Tommy’s Release, there are a few more events that happen in my comic, but there are technically 75 days (14.8 minecraft years) between Tommy’s Release and the final event.

this means my comic’s timeline would be 173 days (34 minecraft years)

now, obviously, 34 years is waaaaay too much time for my comic to take place.

TL;DR: doing this math was completely and utterly useless and a vile waste of my time

still gonna work on the timeline but definitely not using minecraft time.

I also calculated limbo time in relation to the events with the help of this article. and i can do a breakdown on that in another post if anyones interested.

updates to come :)

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen X’s Gacha Rules for a ‘Good’ Gacha Game (Featuring Arknights)

Hey look, that Arknights essay came quicker than I thought.

Continuing on my goal of finishing up all my years-old drafts by the end of February, I think it’s pretty damn convenient that I glanced over this half-finished opinion piece just in time for the next limited banner for Arknight’s CN server to be announced. This is a topic I’ve been wanting to cover for awhile now. If there was anything that was a decent marker for Allen X’s gaming experience these past 4-ish years it was the fact that he got real into Gacha Games. I’ve dipped my toe into quite a few different Gacha phone games over the years. AFK Arena, Granblue Fantasy, Girls Frontline, and even an Ikkitousen gacha game at one point. And of course Arknights, which is my current main gacha game at the moment.  

Honestly, the only thing I didn’t play was Fate/Grand Order, and for damn good reason, but one thing at a time.

Anyway, with all that time I spent playing these games I’ve slowly given myself a ruleset and mindset for how I handle these gacha games. And I figured I’d talk about how I go about playing some of them, some of the experiences I’ve gained, and what I look into when it comes to the money portion of playing a ‘free-to-play’ game. I’ll mostly be talking about Arknights since it’s the main gacha game I’ve been playing for the past year and I don’t play two of these at once for damn good reason. 

So, with that all said, let’s start off with... 

Point 1: Methods of Ten-Pulls

For those new, the typical loop for most gacha games is to roll for rare characters and use them to complete segments of the game, whether for their looks, stats, or playstyle (but mostly looks). The characters themselves are usually drawn in an attractive and appealing way, along with having abilities and statistics that are desirable from a gameplay perspective, at least those of a higher rarity. The more you pull and buy into the gacha, the higher the chance you get for a rare character. Some games have deals where you pull can pull for free with some in-game resource like Girls Frontline, and more commonly the game encourages you to pull 10 at a time to increase your chances. 

For any good gacha game, I feel you should be able to pull for free at a fair rate. That varies a lot depending the game mechanics at play, how the game handles duplicate pulls, the rarity rate of gacha pulls, and so on, but in general if you can pull 10 times every two weeks I’ll consider the game fair, at least on that front. 

Arknights is actually a pretty good example of this. Headhunting aside, you can pull 4 times a day using in-game resources in the recruitment section of the menu, but those pulls tend to be a lot more common and not viable in the endgame like some of the ones you get in headhunting. And even without the recruitment section you can usually ten-pull about twice a month if you do the daily and weekly missions plus the weekly Annihilation missions. When I first discussed Arknights in this regard I had some confusion about how Annihilation worked and assumed it reset monthly. I apologize if I misled people with that statement. 

Anyway, by doing all the activities and missions that give you Orundum, the gacha currency, you should be able to collection about 10,000 Orundum every month, which is one guaranteed ten-pull a month. This is a little under what I would had preferred for Arknights and there’s a good chance I’m missing a free source of Orundum somewhere (and I’m rounding down to play it safe), but... it’s fair enough. 

But onto my second point.

Point 2: Premium Currency in Relation to Real-World Currency.

In short, I should have a clear idea how much it cost to pull a character if I was going to whale. Typically, in most gacha games you can purchase a premium currency in order to pull characters with real world money. The amount can vary from game to game, but there should be a clear idea of how much it cost to pull for a character. 

As a free-to-play game, most gacha games do need some kind of reliable income. Let’s be real here, this game doesn’t run on happiness and sunshine and I don’t mind giving money to products I want to see succeed and continue, but if it takes 20 bucks to ten-pull I’m going to find that ridiculous unless the gacha rate is in highly my favor.

Arknights uses Originium Prime as it’s premium currency, an item that can be transferred into 180 Orundum per unit. One Originium Prime costs one dollar. You need about 33 Originium Prime to get the 6,000 Orundum needed to pull ten times, or a little over 3 Originium Prime to pull once using 600 Orundum. This means on average it costs around $33 to pull on command.

This is absurd for a tower defense game.

Now, Originium Prime does a lot more than let you engage with the gacha, but the brass tacks of this is that for every ten-pull you do you could just as easily get 3 games off a Steam sale, maybe more. I also think I should note that Arknight’s store lets you buy 40 Originium Prime for $30 as a bundle, cutting that cost to about 75 cents per Originium Prime. There’s also an option for 66 Originium Prime for $50, but that for just a little over 75 cents per Originium Prime if my math is correct. Either way, Arknights is asking for quite the price to engage in one of its main mechanics. 

And yes, you can gain Originium Prime in game by perfect-clearing stages and clearing the challenge modes, but there’s a finite a moment of those stages and events maps are pretty scarce in Arknights, coming around once every two-ish months with about 15-20 chances for Originium Prime. As a casual player this is... fine, but for folks that rush the endgame this is... a tad much. 

Now, I’m a casual player. I don’t rush to the latest content and I don’t try and min-max a gacha game of all things. As much I mostly just buy a monthly pack that grants me about 300 Orundum for free daily for 30 days and 6 Originium Prime upon purchase. This makes the grind a little easier and it’s a cheap way to show monetary support to the development team. However, I do recognize there are people that do these min-max and rush content and my opinion of these folks aside I think those folks probably spend the most money as well, undeservedly so. But this is more a discussion of the individual person and not the gacha community as a whole.

So... moving on...

Point 3: Late Game Viability as a Free-to-Play

To me, it should never feel like you need the gacha to finish the game or get to the endgame content. For a free to play game, you should be able to at least finish the initial pre-update content without needing to try and a pull a rare character to get you through a hard segment of the game. Events and Post-Launch stuff have a bit of wiggle room, but overall I don’t think you should need a team of the rarest characters to just beat the game, at least not a meta-team. That doesn’t mean the desire to pull can’t be there, but at least for the launch-content, you should be able to finish it out as a free-to-play player. Thankfully, most games (most good games) will give you a pretty decent team to work with if you truly have bad luck with rolls. Girls Frontline is a good example of this.

Arknights... isn’t as generous as I’d like it to be.

In Arknights, by the end of Chapter 4, with limited engagement of the Gacha, you’ll have handful of 4-Stars that can be leveled to the late game with decent stats, Amiya, and an assortment of 3 stars that can technically get you through those first four chapters if used and placed wisely. But some four stars like Gavial, Courier, and Dur-nar are time-limited if I remember correctly, so as of me typing this there’s no reliable way to get some of those characters.

Meanwhile, in Girls Frontline you got most of team Anti-Rain by the mid-game pre-updates, a group of 4-star guns that had already great utility and with half of their members being in the meta of the pre-update endgame content, and are still viable to this day if I remember correctly. 

This is a major point of contention I have with Arknights. I think they’re fairer than most gacha games, but I’ll admit they don’t like giving handouts, not as many as I’d prefer anyway. Even the stingy AFK Arena gave you more stuff after maintenance updates and the like, and I hate the fact that I complimented AFK Arena on anything.

But onto my last point.

Point 4: 5-Star/SSR Rates Must be Around 4% or Higher.

This is the main reason I’ll never touch F/GO (along with other reasons). Every gacha game should, statistically, guarantee a five-star/SSR/highest-tier rarity after 30 pulls. Any more than that and you’re playing with a rigged slot machine by my standards. Like I said, the main goal of most gacha games is to get you pulling for these are fancily drawn jpegs and pngs, and while those characters technically have gameplay function and even limited animation in certain non-gameplay settings, they’re still pictures nonetheless. And if I have to dip more than 30 times to get something good then what’s the point.

Again, using Arknights, their 5-Stars are at a rather generous 8%, but their 6-Stars being at a tad crueler 2%. By all accounts, I shouldn’t be touching Arknights because of this, but due to the nature of how busted Six-Stars are and a few other details like base functions, potential levels, and some other factors in Arknights gameplay, I let this slide for the moment.

Regardless, I shouldn’t take more than 20 pulls to get a highly rated unit of some sort. The details of the specific unit can be discussed at a later date, but my point remains.

Also, any gacha game that mixes accessories and characters in the same pull pool is equally unplayable. Characters have utility and gameplay functions that can be used for multiple strategies and methods, along with out-of-game benefits ala the base mechanics of Arknights depending on the game. Accessories and items are stat buffs in game where grinding levels is already purposely tedious. Anything making that act more of a hinderance is honestly trying to rob you blind and should be avoided like the plague.

Now... one more thing to talk about. 

About Arknights Specifically

You know... between me bitching about Chapter 7, bitching about Chapter 6, bitching about 7-18, and bitching about Code of Brawl I get the feeling you all think I hate Arknights. 

Trust me, I only whine and moan because I love this game and the people who made it, I wouldn’t waste my breath or keystrokes otherwise. 

That said, I would like to see some things change about Arknights on a foundational level. I’ll try and keep this short, but no promises.

Endgame Team for Free

This is the team you have to work with for 6-7 because of story reasons and I think this team should gained for free to by the end of chapter 6, everyone in this squad should be in your rooster by the end. Even Blaze, her kit is good, but not as busted as Silverash so she wouldn’t shatter the game’s difficulty. This team overall is very well balanced for end game content and has all the essentials to get through it. E2 medics and guards, cheap vanguards and defenders for last minute placements to stall, a good sniper that can do solid burst damage, some specialists just in case you need to manipulate enemy movement and path detection. I believe you can get Rope, FEater, and Myrrh free, but Blaze and Greythroat for reliable lategame damage feels like a must. And I see nothing wrong with giving out those two for free anyway, especially for what was near endgame content at the time and how pivotal Blaze and Greythroat were to the storyline of Chapter 6. And yes I feel the same way about Rosmontis in Chapter 7 too. She’s actually a pretty niche unit and a 6-Star that’s expensive to upgrade, just having her in your pocket wouldn’t shatter the game like it would be if you gave us, again, Silverash.

Gacha Rates

I think arguing for cheaper prices with the Originium Prime is a fools errand because corporations will never listen, but I’ll at least say this. The rules of the gacha that followed the WWE Banner should be for all future banner. You should get a banner-specific currency that lets you outright buy the rare units on said banner if you have bad enough luck. You needed to pull 300 times to get W or Weedy and about 50 times to get  Elysium. I feel like both of these should be cut in half. Going by the math I previously did counting that requirement in half would mean only doing 15 ten-pulls, about 495 Originium Prime (89,100 Orundum) or a little over $370 for a limited operator.

This is still absurd for a tower defense game, but it is a far more fair than the original system.

Other Small Quality of Life Changes

A quick pull for recruitment operators so we don’t have to see the bag animation 4 times over. Girls Frontline had something similar by the time I left and it was all the better for it. 

A similar form of auto-play to Girls Frontline where you can send in one of your 4 squads to auto play a map off screen a number of times and come back later when they’re down for materials at the cost of extra sanity. 

Have a Orundum be a log-in reward. Again, something Girls Frontline did and I think coughing out 1,000 Orundum once a week wouldn’t kill anyone.

Buff Amiya goddammit. Either remove/shorten the stun on her S2 to make her have reliable (if random) magical burst damage or remove the instant retreat on her S3 so she can become a hard-hitting damage unit at the cost of a high SP cost and cooldown timer. Don’t give major drawbacks to your only non-event free 5-Star when Silverash exists. When Click and Haze has more viability than your main character you have a problem.

Anyway, that’ll be it for me. Next time... I talk about something that isn’t me bitching.

[akatsuki-celeste]

I can feel my anxiety medication wearing off so before I re-up it, because if ever there was a day that I just need to keep it going - I feel the need to scream into the void first. 

I haven’t talked about my personal life that much save for a few depressive, anxiety-fueled rants before, and maybe this is just one more of those but longer. But today was the last day in a long saga of days that has just made me....really question *everything*. It’s probably the closest I’ve ever felt to being absolutely done. 

So the last year and a half has been quite the roller coaster and occasional hell for me, as I imagine it has been for everyone else on the planet. Everyone has their own 2020 story to tell, everyone’s is important, so I haven’t made a huge deal out of mine. I’m luckier than most. So this isn’t a post where I’m going to go on and on about how rough I’ve had it, etc, etc. This is just going to be about...me. The facts, as seen by me. 

In March 2020, my work began efforts to roll out a remote work plan that I qualified to start early due to being immunocompromised thanks to a fun little auto-immune disease called ulcerative colitis. I’ve been diagnosed since I was 18, so basically half my life, and the medication I had been on then, Remicade, was one I’d been using for the last decade with absolutely no issues except maybe I get really tired and like naps afterwards. All of that went smooth. I felt relieved that I, at least, was going to be at home. One of my roommates, also a co-worker, was able to work out the same situation so we didn’t even need to deal with transportation for her until the official lockdown. 

And then a week - possibly less, my memory is hazy - my roommates (my then-best friend and her brother) got into a screaming fight of such epic proportions that I had an actual mental breakdown in the middle of (first for me). I remember hiding in my room with my laptop - I was still trying to work for some reason, I do remember eventually telling my boss I had a family emergency so I could log off - I remember calling my mother in a panic, and then I remember waking up at my parents’ house about 6 hours later and finding out that my mother had told my former roommates to gtfo, which I did not attempt to rescind (not at the time, because apparently I was there when it happened but I don’t remember this, and not later) because I knew living with them was no longer feasible for a number of reasons which I will not go into. I’m still dealing with five years of mental abuse and trauma on that one. 

By the first week of April they were gone, and I was able to busy myself for the next few months with making my place habitable for one person again, which was a good distraction. And then September came around and I started to notice these, well, patches on my skin. At first I thought it was just eczema or dry skin irritation, it happens sometimes. But with each month they got worse and worse, until December finally rolls around and the only conclusion anyone can come up with is that my trusty Remicade, which had successfully kept my UC in check for a decade, had finally decided to stop playing nice with my body and I was having a “psoriasis-like” reaction. So for the first time in a long while I was starting the medication shuffle again, steroid creams and a new UC medication that took nearly 4 months to get approved. I’m still not recovered even though I’ve been off of Remicade for 7 months now. It takes 6 months for that stuff to fully work its way out of a system, so the reactions didn’t stop until a few weeks ago and I’m still struggling to heal. I’d say it’s about 75% better than it was, but showers still suck, pants also suck, and I can’t tolerate temperatures higher than 70 degrees (hi summer, you suck). Also during this time I got the COVID vaccine (woo!) but seriously, if not for remote work I probably would have lost my job. I used up most of my sick leave in the beginning of the year because I couldn’t move without pain, even to sit at the computer for 8 hours. I also have a ton of PTO, but my boss told me that I couldn’t necessarily use it for sick leave (news flash for me) and again, could lose my job if I tried to use it too much. So trigger my anxiety. A lot. 

Fast forward. In one week my office is reopening for 50% capacity, which apparently means to upper management that we have to all work 3 days a week in office, 2 days remote, which doesn’t match the math but whatever. They’ve also stopped screening temperatures, have nixed the social distance requirement, and are only requiring masks for the unvaccinated - but aren’t requiring anyone to say whether they are or not. Needless to say, not exactly the best reassurance for my still-immunocompromised ass, not to mention the dress code will murder my skin. So I ask about continuing remote work and get told I need an ADA accommodation. Okay. I get the paperwork and pass it on to my GI; I was already on FMLA for my UC, figured this wouldn’t be that different. 

Except my GI has refused to sign the paperwork, saying there’s no medical reason for me to continue remote work. Despite still not being recovered from the skin reaction I got back in December from the Remicade, despite finding information that Remicade potentially interferes with the vaccine, I’ve been told to just adhere to social distancing and mask-wearing despite my employer not requiring that of anyone else. And with all the information about the delta variant coming out.... yeah, I’m scared. Probably paranoid, probably anxious. I have no idea how I’m going to get through a work day without having to medicate and I won’t be able to function if I have to do that. i see my psych before RTW-Day, but only a few days before. 

My last chance is that the dermatologist I’m seeing on Wednesday might be able to fill it out based on my condition, but at the moment I’m in a cycle of panic that I’m going to be told it’s Not That Bad and not get taken seriously. Which is a feeling I’ve been having a lot lately. I know it’s partly the depression and anxiety ramping itself up, but I just don’t know what to do now. All I want to do right now is press the restart button. Sell my place, relocate to a new place so radically different from where I am now that I can’t even compare it, start over. Get a puppy, write a novel, not be in $33k worth of debt. This wasn’t where I’d hoped to be at 36, and now it feels like it’s going to be another 5-6 years before I can get there. If I can get there. It seems like another lifetime. 

Anyway. That ends my void screaming. TLDR, I have to start working in the office again in a week, I’ve been told by my GI that my auto-immune disease doesn’t qualify me for an ADA accommodation to keep working from home, my anxiety is now living with me instead of me living with it, and my last shot is a dermatologist I’ve never met before. 

[sadaboutniall]

something about you;

introduction | masterlist | tag | wattpad

Thirteen. March, 2012. 

Niall can’t sleep. 

It’s three o’clock in the morning and he’s fucking exhausted and he’s in New York and he can’t sleep. The day’s been long: an early wakeup call, a never ending album signing at a mall somewhere in New Jersey, a long drive back to the hotel. He spent a few hours fucking around with Louis afterward, playing FIFA, eating pizza, just generally chatting shit and he’d felt fine, mostly, just tired, until now. 

For the most part, the homesickness thing hasn’t really gotten to Niall over the past two years—at least not the way it gets to Louis and Zayn and even Harry sometimes. He doesn’t spend hours curled up in his bunk on the bus on the phone to home, doesn’t feel like he needs things like Barry’s Tea or Club chocolate bars to Tayto crisps to remind him of what he left behind. He loves Ireland, of course he does, but he loves adventure, too—he loves the wide, open roads of American highways, the constant hum of New York City outside his window, the unmatchable energy of screaming fans everywhere he goes. It feels like he’s made a good trade off, if he’s honest—he had to lose to gain, but, most of the time, he doesn’t feel like he’s lost all that much. 

But today was St. Patrick’s Day. All day he’d fielded questions about Ireland: about what he misses, what his favorite slang words are, what he wants to do whenever he goes back next, as if he even knows when he’ll be able to go home again. By the middle of the day it felt like someone was banging him over the head with a hammer, shouting at him to miss Ireland, think about Ireland, call home to Ireland. 

And then there was a girl. She was one of the last ones in line for the signing and couldn’t have been older than six, long blonde hair, a shy look on her face. She clung to her mom’s leg and looked up at the five of them with wide eyes, like she couldn’t quite believe they were real, and when Louis asked for her name she whispered ‘Isla,’ standing up on her tippy toes to watch Louis scribble it onto her copy of the album. 

Bang, Niall felt, hammer over his head again. Bang, bang, fucking bang. 

And now he can’t sleep. And he can’t stop thinking about it. And St. Patrick’s Day is technically over but he feels weird, antsy, a little clammy. He wants to take a walk but not through the city, his only option right now—he’s thinking about backroads in Mullingar, overgrown fields and muddy ground along the canal. He needs to move: to jump, to run, to do something that isn’t laying on his back in a hotel bed and staring at the ceiling. 

He needs to talk to Isla. 

They’re not talking anymore. It was an on purpose decision, one they made together a few weeks after the breakup, when he’d called her in the middle of the night to tell her about a movie he’d just watched and she told him this had to stop, told him it was too painful to keep talking the way they used to, told him they had to take this break up seriously, if that’s what he really wanted. 

They’d drawn a hard line in the sand then: no talking except for birthdays, holidays, and emergencies, and all conversation had to be strictly platonic. Isla’d offered to write up an official contract for them both to sign, Niall’d told her it wouldn’t be binding until she actually got accepted into law school. She’d laughed and hung up on him, and that had been the end of it, really. He hadn’t even had time to see her over Christmas, because he was only home for three full days. 

And so, when Niall does crack at 3:47 in the morning New York time, he shouldn't be surprised that Isla answers the phone with simply, ‘are you okay?’

‘Hello to you too,’ he says, warmth immediately pooling in his stomach. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Why are you calling me, then?’ Isla sounds a little tired and Niall does some quick math: 8:47 am in Ireland, on a Sunday. ‘This is a breach of the contract.’ There’s a smile in her voice, one Niall matches instantly. 

‘Is not. St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday.’

‘That was yesterday,’ Isla says, feigning annoyance even though Niall can hear her laughing. The sound of it melts over him like a duvet, warm and familiar. Safe. ‘And it doesn’t count.’

‘Why the fuck doesn’t it count? It’s our country’s national holiday, it should count the most.’

‘You don’t live here anymore,’ a rustling sound, a chirping bird. Isla’s outside. ‘It doesn’t count for you.’

‘I respectfully disagree, barrister,’ Niall settles down a little more comfortably in bed, imagines Isla’s smile. ‘As a citizen of the great nation of Ireland and a budding national treasure I retain all my rights to—’

‘Shut up,’ she laughs. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing, really,’ Niall admits, shrugging his shoulders even though Isla can’t see. ‘Couldn’t sleep, thought you might be able to bore me to death.’

‘Time’s it for you?’ Niall hears a gust of wind down Isla’s end of the phone, bites back the sudden urge to ask if she’s wearing a jacket. 

‘Uh, nearly four in the morning. I’m in New York.’

‘Sick. Have you eaten one of those massive hot dogs?’

‘Yeh, first day we got here,’ Niall laughs. It had been one of the first things he and Liam did. ‘They’re so good.’

‘You there for a few more days? Hasn’t your mam got cousins in New York? You should call round.’

‘I did, saw them the other day. The kids are super cute,’ he ignores the stirring in his stomach, the way it gives him butterflies to know that Isla remembers these kinds of things. This is strictly platonic. He carries on, ‘don’t want to talk about me, though. What are you up to? Sounds like you’re outside.’

‘Observational,’ Isla laughs, and Niall imagines her giggling in the early morning sunlight, March frost curling in the air. ‘I stayed over at Emilia’s last night, just came out in the garden to take your call since she’s still asleep.’

‘Oh, did ya? Girls’ night?’

‘No, bit of a party, actually,’ Isla says, and Niall hates how it clangs in his stomach, hates how he still feels left out knowing that his friends are having fun without him, that life carries on when he’s away. His life now is more exciting than he ever could have imagined—yet somehow the thought of his mates drinking cans in Mully’s basement without him makes him jealous, makes him forget about just how much he dreamt of what he has now. ‘Everyone was here.’

‘Ah, what was the occasion?’ Niall tries to keep his voice light, not like he’s digging. ‘Paddy’s Day, or?’

‘Yeah, Paddy’s Day. And celebrating, too.’

‘Celebrating what?’ Niall feels suddenly like he’s missed something. 

‘Uh, me,’ says Isla, sounding a little embarrassed, and a little confused. ‘I, erm. I got into King’s College last week. The law program.’

It feels like he’s been in a car, going 75 miles on the freeway, and had to slam on the breaks. It feels like whiplash, like falling on his face, like that hammer from earlier, bang, bang, fucking bang, life goes on without him. ‘Isla,’ he manages to say, deep breath in, deep breath out, ‘what the fuck?’

‘Sorry?’ she asks, confused. ‘What do you mean what the fuck?’

‘You didn’t tell me?’ He tries not to sound angry, accusatory, but there’s a feeling he doesn’t recognize bubbling over in his stomach. The fact that something like this could happen in Isla’s life and he didn’t get to be a part of it makes him feel like someone else. 

‘Niall, we agreed—’

‘This counts as an emergency,’ he insists, sitting up in bed. He feels cold all of a sudden, like he wants a blanket, or her body, on top of him. ‘Isla, holy shit. I’m so fucking happy for you. I mean, I knew you’d get in but still, fuck, I can’t believe this is happening.’ It’s not a lie, the fact that he’s happy for her. But, he thinks, a rank feeling he doesn’t like still curdling away in his stomach, it’s not the whole truth. He should’ve been there with her when she got in. He hates himself for not. 

‘Thanks,’ Isla’s smiling, birds singing in the distance. Niall imagines her with her face turned toward the sun, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around her body. He imagines her in his Derby jumper, the one he’d left in Mullingar for her to keep. ‘It’s a crazy feeling, isn’t it? I guess both our dreams have come true in the end.’

‘Yeah,’ Niall says, a tight cramp forming in his stomach, a lump pressing against his throat. ‘I guess they have.’

He can think of at least one dream of his own that hasn’t.

####

taglist: @stylishmuser @thicksniall @stayclose-holdsteady @niallhoranruinsme @ajayque @flickerswinehouse @1dfangirls35 @crocodileniall @halfpinthoran @awomanindeniall @booksncoffee

join the taglist here

[jarmes]

Beating Pokemon Sapphire with (almost) no damaging moves

Last year, I decided to beat Pokemon Leafgreen without using any damaging moves. It was hard, but doable. A few weeks back, I decided to try and find out if you can beat Pokemon Sapphire under the same ruleset. The answer is no. You can’t. It is physically impossible. Let me explain why.

I started the game up, fast-forwarded through the introduction, and chose Mudkip as my starter. Unlike Leafgreen, which features Bulbasaur, one of the best stall Pokemon in Gen 3, all of the starters in Hoenn are terrible for this run, lacking any real way to stall. I went with Mudkip because it’s the most defensive. Tackle is a damaging move, so Mudkip is unable to use anything but Growl. Fortunately, the Poohcheyana is programmed to run away before it beats you.

I named Mudkip GarbageBoyStinkman (technically GBSM because of character limits) and traveled to Route 103 to meet with May. Having no way to deal damage, I ran from all wild Pokemon along the way. Unfortunately, this is the point the run becomes unwinnable.

You cannot beat May without dealing damage. It cannot be done. None of the starters have any moves that can take out opponents through status moves. Now, you may be thinking, what if I caught another Pokemon on the route? Well, you can’t. You can’t buy Pokeballs until after you beat May. And you can’t trade because you only have one Pokemon. We can’t beat May because her Torchic takes us out in a few hits, and we can’t level up before May because all of the wild Pokemon around do the same. So, the run is over. Game over.

Hence the “almost” in the title. Because May is impossible, we’ll try to beat the game without attacking anyone else. It takes four tackles to take out her Torchic. Technically, because criticals do double damage, two criticals could take May out in two hits, setting our minimum attacking moves at two. Getting two crits in a row only happens one percent of the time, but it is possible. I opted for four hits because the battle was already a wash and moved on.

Birch gives us five Pokeballs and we finally have a little breathing room. Our best strategy, for now, is going to be stalling until enemy Pokemon struggle themselves to death. Mudkip lacks the bulk needed to take a few dozen hits and would end up struggling before the opponent, so I need to get some reinforcements. I caught five Zigzagoon: Chocolate, Caramel, Taffy, Lolly, and Liquorice. Full party in hand, I marched to Route 102 and ran into Youngster Calvin, a six-year-old with a single level five Zigzagoon.

Calvin is the hardest trainer that I’ve ever beaten in any challenge run. Calvin is so insanely difficult that he made me question if the run is actually possible.

At level five, Calvin’s Zigzagoon knows three moves: Tackle, Tail Whip, and Growl. Combined, these two moves have 75 PP, meaning I need to stall for 105 turns before the Zigzagoon will struggle. Growl and Tail Whip are fine, but Tackle deals damage, and my team needs to shrug off 35 of them, plus however many struggles it will take for the Zigzagoon to knock itself out.

Even when my team has used Growl six times and Calvin has avoided all uses of Tail Whip, Calvin’s Zigzagoon can take a member of the Candy Squad out in five hits and GBSM out in six. Now, looking at those numbers, it seems that Zigzagoon should just barely be beatable. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Cal’s Zigzagoon is able to take out the first two of its brothers before they minimize its attack and tail Whip lowers the number of hits we can take. Plus, Struggle does just as much damage as Tackle but only does half as much in recoil, meaning that, if my math is right, it’ll take ten struggles for it to die, meaning that even in the absolute best circumstances, we’d need to survive 45 hits when we only have enough HP to take 36.

Now, there are a few random factors that make me think this battle may be technically possible at this point. Zigzagoon chooses its moves at random, meaning that it could in theory save all of its Tail Whips until after wasting its Tackles. And, as previously mentioned, Tackle can miss, which gives us a free hit to survive. But, at the same time, Zigzagoon can get criticals which effectively doom us. After two more tries, I decided that this battle wasn’t winnable, at least not yet.

So, we can’t beat a level five Zigzagoon. But, the question is, can we beat a level two Wurmple? Because if we can beat some wild Pokemon on Route 201, we can get some EXP and become strong enough to beat Youngster Calvin. Unfortunately, my team right now is just barely too weak to survive a single battle.

Fortunately, I bought a couple of potions. If I use a potion right before the Wurmple can take out Mudkip, I can just barely survive. Now, I only had a few potions, but I wasn’t too worried. After each battle, Zigzagoon has a 10% chance to give a random item after battle, including Super Potions, Rare Candies, and things like Nuggets and Full Restores that I can sell for money. With five Zigzagoon, I had a ~40% chance of getting an item after each battle I won.

But, luck wasn’t on my side. By the time Mudkip reached level eight, I was completely out of items. And Mudkip still wasn’t tough enough to survive a battle without a potion. Game over.

So I completely restarted. This time, I was smarter with my Pokeballs. Instead of throwing them willy nilly and having to buy ten more after running out, I saved and reset until I caught five Zigzagoon using the five balls Birch gave me. I also avoided Calvin until I was ready for him, because losing to him wasted money. The extra money this run gave me was enough to start my grind with ten potions instead of three. Also, I made sure that all of the Zigzagoon I caught were level three this time, hoping that the one extra HP would help. I made a save state and started grinding.

I also switched to hunting Poochyena instead of hunting Wurmple. They deal the same damage at level two and don’t know string shot, which made things go quicker. After my first Poochyena defeat, one of the Zigzagoon picked up a Full Restore, which I was able to sell for five extra potions.

Finally, after hours of grinding, Mudkip hit level ten and was able to survive a battle without a potion. I was ready. I marched up to Calvin and stalled. The battle came down to the wire, with Mudkip being the only team member standing when Calvin started struggling.

And then I ran out of Growls. I could not switch out, I could not attack. I was at full health from the last potion, so I could not use another. Calvin was struggling and I was without any means to beat him. Fortunately, one of the Zigzagoon picked up a Revive while I was grinding and I was able to use it to revive a Zigzagoon and switch to it. Still, I came dangerously close to losing.

After Calvin was defeated, I knew the run was possible. There were half a dozen trainers between me and Petalburg Woods, but fortunately, all of them could be avoided. Petalburg Woods contains two things that were useful for me: Cascoon and Silcoon, who only know Harden and can be trained on easily, and Shroomish, the first member of my actual team.

I caught the Shroomish with an Ultra Ball one of the Zigs picked up and named it Plus Ultra. Shroomish didn’t have any status moves yet, but it did have the ability Effect Spore, which could in theory be used to poison opponents. Effect Spore was too unreliable to rely on, though. I trained Shroomish up to level ten, where she learned Leech Seed. Finally, I had a consistent, controllable means to deal damage. Leech Seed drains one-eighth of the target’s health each turn, giving me a way to slowly whittle down opponents. It doesn’t work on grass types, and it’s slow, but it works well enough for now.

I stormed my way through the early game, beating Roxanne without issue. In Dewford Cave I got the TM for Flash and taught it to Shroomish. Flash is actually a decent stall move; the lowered accuracy does wonders to help Plus Ultra survive while waiting for Leech Seed to kill. I also grabbed the Everstone and gave it to Shroomish to keep her from evolving. Brawly was tough. His Pokemon hit hard, especially after a few Bulk Ups. I managed to get lucky and beat him on my second attempt. All of what I’ve said so far happened in a single six-hour play session, by the way. After beating Brawly, I saved the game and went to bed.

I booted up the game the next day and, for some odd reason I was back in Odale town. That’s weird. Also, I didn’t have any badges. And I didn’t have Shroomish. And all of my Pokemon were as weak as they were before the grind. That’s really weird.

I’m sure I saved after Brawly, but for some reason, it didn’t go through. I reverted to my last save before that. So, naturally, I did the only sane thing: redid everything until I got back to Brawly. It was...fun.

I went through Slateport without much issue; I ran out of Leech Seed PP against a Marill in the Seashore House and had to struggle it out, but that only took an eternity. North of Slateport I caught a new team member: Tex Mex the Gulpin. Gulpin had a decent bulk and comes with Poison Gas and Yawn, giving me a second way to take out opponents and a way to deal with Grass types.

I ran into a trainer with a Roselia on Route 110 and was reminded that Grass/Poison Pokemon are nightmares. Fortunately, I was able to walk around her. I mean, in theory, I could either take a Roselia out with a Zubat that knows Supersonic, by struggling it out, or getting it to kill itself by using Mega Drain on Gulpin because of her Liquid Ooze ability, but none of those plans are worth the effort.

May was, like before, annoying. I took out her Wailmer and Numel easily enough, but her Grovile took out Gulpin with Quick Attack. Fortunately, it poisoned itself thanks to Effect Spore. I made my way to Mauville, grabbed the Mach Bike, and made my way to the Day Care. I abused the Day Care to get both of my main team members up to Level 28. Gulpin evolved into Swalot and gained the new, fantastic moveset of Toxic/Poison Powder/Encore/Amnesia.

Leech Seed and Poison Powder both kill in eight turns. Toxic kills in five, making it our new method of taking things out. Also, I kept Poison Powder because it has a lot of PP making it a good move to waste time with.

I also evolved Mudkip, hoping the new Ground typing would help me beat Wattson. I ended up not needing it, because Shroomish and Swalot took him out with ease. I kept moving through the game until I reached a roadblock on Route 112. An unavoidable trainer with a Roselia. Fortunately, I had a plan.

In the Fiery Path, you can find wild Slugma. Slugma has the ability Flame Body, which has the ability to burn your opponent if they hit you with a contact move. The roadblock Roselia knows Poison Sting, which is a physical move. So I caught a Slugma and named it Sheers. Unfortunately, it has Magma Armor instead of Flame Body. So I caught a second one and named it Sheerz. It also had Magma Armor. The third Slugma, Shers, did have Flame Body. I took it to the Roselia, let it get pounded by Poison Sting, and...it fainted. Turns out Poison Sting doesn’t do contact.

So anyway I released the three Slugma and struggled out the Roselia. On Route 113 I caught a new team member: Punji the Skarmory. Skarmory is a famously bulky Pokemon, with great defensive stats, fantastic typing, and access to the interesting combination of Spikes and Whirlwind. Unfortunately, it doesn’t learn Spikes until level 42. And I caught it at level 16. So, he’s going to be wearing the EXP share and working as a tank for a while.

I stormed through the game until reaching Lavaridge. Lavaridge features cheap herbal medicine, which I used constantly throughout this run. Flannery’s fire Pokemon were a nightmare for Shroomish and Skarmory, but Swalot saved the day, using Amnesia to boost her Special Defence and tank Torkoal’s Overheat. After Flannery, I ran to the desert and grabbed the Sandstorm TM, which I taught to Skarmory to give him a way to deal damage. Sandstorm kills in sixteen turns, which isn’t great, but it does give us a way to take out Roselia. I also caught a Baltoy. I named it Tick because the first two I tried to catch Self Destructed. Baltoy doesn’t learn any status moves until 31, so I taught it Flash and kept it on the bench for a while.

Norman was tough. Poisoning his Pokemon allows them to decimate me with Facade, so I was forced to rely on Leech Seed for damage. Even then, he was able to use Focus Punch flinching, making the battle brutal. Fortunately, Truancy gave me time to heal my team and Norman eventually went down.

I ignored Wattson’s pleas for help and made my way to Fortree City. Along the way, I picked up an Absol I named Obama. His only good move at that point was Taunt, meaning that I had another near useless Pokemon to babysit. Wiona was tough, but Skarmory’s bulk and Swalot’s toxic helped me survive. I had my new Absol Taunt her Altaria to keep her from spamming Dragon Dance. Her Skarmory ended up being the most frustrating one to take out, because it kept killing Shroomish before I could get a Leech Seed off.

After Wiona, Baltoy learned Sandstorm and I taught it Reflect and Light Screen via TM, giving it a use. I caught a Duskull and named her M87. She started with Confuse Ray and Disable, making her a good Pokemon to shut down opponents while waiting for Toxic to kill them. Tate and Liza hit hard, but they only had two Pokemon, both of which Swalot was able to Toxic before going down. At the end of the battle, only Duskull and Baltoy were still standing, but the twins were down. I saved the game and ended another lengthy play session.

And I ended up back at Norman. It was at that point that I learned a fun quirk of my emulator. If you make a Save State, then play for a few hours, then make a battery save, it deletes the battery save and instead opens the save state next time. This also explains the weird issue with me ending up back at Odale Town.

This time, I didn’t have the patience to go through the game fighting trainers. Instead, I snuck past trainers until I caught Absol and Duskull again then abused the Daycare to get all of them up to level 42. This left the team without EVs, but I considered it a good sacrifice for not having to sit through dozens of slow battles.

After my Day Care abuse, I had a few new toys to play with. Duskull evolved into Dusclops, learning Will-O-Wisp and Curse along the way. Baltoy learned Cosmic Power and evolved into Claydol. Finally, Skarmory learned Spikes which, when combined with the Roar TM, gave him a reliable damage method. I also taught Obama Protect from a TM. I stomped the rematches against Wiona and the twins and made my way to the undersea cave.

The Undersea Cave was annoying, both because I had to leave Claydol and Absol behind for HM requirements and because the grunts kept using Taunt. Archie revived Kyogre and I went to Sootopolis to defeat it. Kyogre, the monstrous God of the sea, went down in four turns thanks to Dusclops’s Curse.

Wallace’s Milotic’s spamming of Recover was annoying, but I taunted it and stalled it out. With my eight gym badges, I was able to take on Victory Road. But I wasn’t ready, not quite. The late game battles had been getting harder and harder, so I decided to do a bit of prep work. I fought one hundred different Marill to give my team some HP EVs. I was going to do the same with Cascoon/Silcoon, but decided that I value my own time too much. I grabbed the Focus Band from Meteor Falls. I also made my way through the Ruined Ship because I remembered that the Leftovers were located in a trash can; they aren’t, they’re on the boat that you unlock by beating the Elite Four. Finally, I went back and fought some of the trainers I skipped so I could get money for healing items. My prep work done, I marched through Victory Road.

The trainers were tough, but beatable. I did have to keep leaving to heal my team at the Pokecenter, which was annoying. Waiting at the end of Victory Road was Wally. He sent out his Roselia, that devil, and I took it out with Dusclops’s Curse. I did some quick grinding before the Elite Four and Absol learned the move I caught it for: Perish Song. Perish Song essentially allows me to automatically win if I can get an opponent down to a single Pokemon. Going into the Elite Four, this was my team:

Plus Ultra (Shroomish)

Leech Seed/Flash/Stun Spore/Toxic

Tex Mex (Swalot)

Toxic/Amnesia/Protect/Attract

Punji (Skarmory)

Spikes/Sandstorm/Roar/Sand-Attack

Tick (Claydol)

Sandstorm/Cosmic Power/Reflect/Light Screen

M87 (Dusclops)

Will-O-Wisp/Confuse Ray/Disable/Curse

Obama (Absol)

Perish Song/Double Team/Taunt/Protect

I started out my battle with Sidney with some Spike/Roar comboing from Skarmory. After Skarmory went down, I switched to Swalot and took out a few Pokemon with Toxic. His last Pokemon, his Absol, went down to my Absol’s new Perish Song.

Phoebe’s team of Ghosts abused status moves, forcing me to keep switching out Pokemon. None of the team was knocked out, but the whole team had to step in to get rid of Phoebe.

Glacia was a challenge. Her super effective Ice Beams and Shadow Balls cut through my team. Worse, she managed to freeze Swalot twice. Her Walrein hit like a truck and would have taken out the entire team without Perish Song. At the end of the battle, all I had left was a red health Absol.

My plan for Drake was to have Swalot use Toxic then switch to Claydol. Unfortunately, I was out of Toxic when the battle started. Shroomish managed to take out Shieldon, but was one-shotted by Drake’s Flygon. I sent out Dusclops to use Will-O-Wisp, which missed three times in a row. Dusclops went down to a super effective Crunch, but I revived it and took out both Flygon and the Salamence with Curses and heal item spam. Altaria went down to a Perish Song, opening up the Champion battle, but I knew I was far from ready.

I used my Rare Candies I’d collected over the run, thanks to my Zigzagoon, to get a few last minute levels in. Shroomish finally learned Spore. I took off the Everstone and my boy finally evolved into Breloom. Would it have been easier to just forget about Spore and evolve at 23, as opposed to carrying around a near useless Shroomish for half the run? Yeah, probably. But whatever, I wanted the cool 100% sleep chance.

So, how did my fight with Steven go? Well, I recorded it and uploaded it here.

By the ingame timer, this run took 72 hours. But, I used superspeed. In reality, it only took 17 hours, mostly done during college lectures. I enjoyed this run, it was a fun challenge. I’ve already started on another run, this time in a much more difficult Pokemon game, so look forward to that. Thanks for reading.

[fauzhee10069]

JoJolion: What actually happened in Mamezuku Rai's past? (with some villains’ theory & motivation)

The X-Files theme is playing... (& TL;DR at the bottom post)

Back in chapter 75 during Ozon Baby arc, we got a glimpse of of how Mamezuku Rai's past happened.

JJL chapter 75: Ozone’s Baby Pressure – part 3

When he was a child, his parents grew prized high-class pears which would sell for millions of yens. However, because their techniques were leaked, a competitor tied to money-lenders ravaged Rai's parents' orchard, ruining their crop and forcing them to sell the land. Unable to forgive his parents' incompetence, Rai secluded himself on a mountain slope and managed to cultivate fruits in spite of the harsher climate. He was found by Norisuke IV and then he was appointed in secret as his personal fruit grower and appraiser.

However, in recent chapter (99) of JoJolion, we’ve been told that Rai’s father just passed away.

In the flashback, Rai told that he found his parent's orchard infested with insects. After informing them, his father rushed out of the house to deal with it, but was killed by a landslide caused by a typhoon. He then attended his father's funeral. However, there was also Akefu as one of the guests in the funeral, though it seemed that no one know him (including Rai).

Back to the present time, Head Doctor Akefu as Tooru’s Stand revealed his name as “Wonder of U”. He also revealed that he was the real cause of the death of Rai's father.

JJL chapter 99: Endless Calamity – part 5

He told Rai that his father had accidentally triggered the pursuing when he rushed out to deal with the insects, causing him caught in the flow of calamity.

Therefore, in these two chapters (75 & 99), it seems that Araki retcons Rai’s backstory. In the Ozon Baby’s arc, it was told that what damaged Rai’s pear orchard was the act of sabotage by the usurpers who were connected with local money lenders to cut the pear branches. The chapter also said that it was because Mamezuku’s cultivation techniques had leaked to other people in the industry. However in this chapter 99, we’ve been told that it was the work of rock insects and “Wonder of U”.

It is as if the story has changed, but the JoJo fandom page (wiki) actually considers it as if the two events took place at different times in a row. But does this mean that Rai's pear orchard had been destroyed twice?

Rai and The Rock-Humans

Wise Anon in 4chan also suggested that the usurpers who destroyed Rai’s pear orchard could be the rock-humans as well.

Then what was the motivation of those rock-humans to destroy Rai's pear orchard, twice?

JJL chapter 99: Endless Calamity – part 5

I think it's still quite difficult to be able to really tell the motivation of Akefu/”Wonder of U”/Tooru as major antagonist lately. But what Akefu said here sounds like a declaration of war between silicon-based & carbon-based humans.

We have just been shown that Tooru is indeed a rock-human. Urban Guerrilla had also implied that the goal of the rock-humans is to be superior being and reach the peak of society (compared to those ordinary carbon-based humans).

Then in this chapter 99, we’ve been told about the reason the rock-humans are created, it is as the backup for those carbon-based being in case their existence fails. But if so, why were they created together and living together at the same period?

There is also an interesting idea by u/Mamezuku from reddit:

What if rock-women no longer exist anymore? We have never seen any rock-woman (besides the flashback), only groups of men so far. What if the Doctors are trying to use the Locacaca in order to create a legacy, a rock-baby? That's why the perfect New Locacaca is very important to the Head Doctor’s gang. Notice how the narrator specified in this very chapter how normal men can make babies with rock-women, but not vice versa. The growth process that a rock-human has to go through is extremely harsh and difficult, hence why there's not many rock-human alive. What if no rock-women survive in this generation and only rock-men are left now? This would be an awesome motive for the rock-humans (Tooru) and so far it looks like it's heading this way.

Rai and Higashikata

Another interesting thing that I saw in Rai's flashback was the Higashikata family as funeral guests.

We see that Norisuke IV along with Jobin and Hato came to the funeral, we did not see Joshu and Daiya, probably because they were too small at the time. But clearly we don't see Caato here, even in panels when Norisuke IV and Rai were having conversation. I mean, she did not appear in this flashback at all.

This implied that Caato might have been in prison by then, which means that the equivalent exchange in her infamous flashback with Jobin already happened. Jobin and Hato also seemed not much different compared to them in the moment just before Caato got arrested.

Then according to Rai’s old backstory in Ozon Baby arc, he got hired by Norisuke IV as his plant appraiser when he was around 17 years old. Let’s do a little math, JoJolion took place in 2011, Mamezuku Rai is 31 (as his name & age were written in the chapter of his first debut). 31-17 = 14 years ago, 2011-14 = 1997, it was the year Norisuke IV have recruited Rai.

Then the time when Caato got arrested, in present time, she just finished her prison term and was released from prison. She was sentenced for 15 years of incarceration. 2011-15 = 1996, it was the year Caato was caught by the police.

Therefore, the time of Rai's father's death and the destruction of his pear orchard occurred around a year after Caato was jailed. At the funeral, Norisuke IV consoled and gave him his support, he also expressed his concern regarding Rai's pear orchard and the fate of his family. It seemed that Mamezuku family was in a real trouble at that time.

Norisuke IV is the man who is able to see someone's talents precisely. Seeing Rai's talent and the trouble faced by his family at that time, he also helped Rai by inviting him to work together as a plant appraiser in his family business.

The relationship between them turns into mutualism, Norisuke IV saved Rai from poverty due to his family's bankruptcy, while Rai helps Norisuke IV advancing his business further until Higashikata family becomes more successful and prosperous.

So what did Caato have to do with all this? This brought me back to her confusing and mysterious statement during her family reunion:

JJL chapter 58: Dawn at The Higashikata House

This out-of-nowhere claim have been causing those Caatofags to speculate and support the theory regarding her involvement with the cooperation between Higashikata and Damokan Group to the extent that they set aside Jobin’s role as an active player in this shady business. Of course, I believe that Jobin was the only one who initiated the cooperation with Damokan Group secretly (outside his mommy’s influence).

But what if instead of working with Damokan Group, Caato has actually cooperated with Head Doctor’s gang? I think HD gang might have made contact with Caato. It is possible that a contact was made when Caato was in prison (given the interval from her arrest to the destruction of the Rai’s pear orchard) or maybe even prior to that.

What motivated Caato?

Perhaps to prosper Higashikata family business and get rid of their potential business rivals, including Mamezuku family. With Rai's expertise, it is very likely that one day his family will be able to rival or even surpass the success of the Higashikata family. However, by (indirectly) bringing Rai to work for Higashikata family, their business will increasingly prosper. Basically, two birds in one stone.

I always love to see Caato as a foil for Holy: if Holy is a woman who is into scientific matters, Caato could be a woman who is more into business matters. Even her design gives a little hint about that:

Caato is already considered an outsider for Higashikata family, but it is quite interesting to see her wearing one of the attributes of the family on her clothes. However she prefers to use the fruit seller mark rather than the family crest symbol, kinda implying that she no longer cared about the family but still cares about their business.

What motivated The Head Doctor’s gang?

Answering this one is quiet trickier, maybe because it’s still hard to really read their motives. I want to return to the theory of procreation above, but what is already clear is that “the rock-humans really need New Locacaca” and we already knew that the formula of New Locacaca is to plant regular Locacaca on Higashikata’s land that has the property of “equivalent exchange”. However, this formula has just discovered after the birth of Josuke as a fusion-human.

Even so, according to Makorin, the issue regarding the ability of Higashikata’s land to do equivalent exchange has long been known by the citizen and most likely the rock-humans also already knew about it. Besides, by blending with society, it is highly likely that rock-humans (particularly the HD gang) have found out about Rai's talent in horticulture. Perhaps those HD gang (Tooru) have intended to direct Rai to the Higashikata’s land and make him cultivate a whole new type of Locacaca there.

Just like Holy, the HD gang is into scientific matters too. So HD gang has devised a plan to bring Rai to the Higashikata family, namely by eliminating Rai's family’s business and making him work under the Higashikata. HD gang may have used Caato to make this happen.

How did Caato (Higashikata) and Head Doctor’s gang work together?

Seeing the contrast of their motives and the relationship between those Higashikata and the rock-humans all this time, I can’t see their relationship as in a boss/the head and subordinates. They might have worked mutually just as how we have seen Jobin and Damokan Group working together. On the rock-humans’ side, both HD gang and Damokan Group already have their respective bosses (Tooru/HD & Damo), whereas I think Caato had worked independently like Jobin.

You are right, I cannot accept the concept that is often believed by other readers, that there is a single top leader among them (especially the Caatofags). What is most appealing in JoJolion is that each individual has their own situations, motives, and needs, they also have different characters and backgrounds that shape them. However, all of that leads them to one objective: the Locacaca fruit, leading to the race of the New Locacacaca that involving various factions.

How did they meet and who initiated it first?

Because this is still purely a theory, I cannot really answer who started this cooperation. So I will answer how this could be most likely played:

Caato

If Caato was really the one who initiated it, assuming that she made contact with HD gang before she went to prison. She could simply make a call or go to wherever the HD gang was at the time.

But what if it started after she was already in prison? At this point, this will be mere speculation and hype (as a result of the limited information we have about her). The big question is how can she interact with the outside world? Caatofags often hold the idea of how OP her Stand is, mostly by comparing her Stand to D4C. The assumption that she was able to make contact with the outside world happened at the moment when Caato was able to take out her newly released cellphone despite her 15 year-long incarceration.

But since when did she have that phone? Has it been several years before (time travel)? Or did Caato always hide her cellphones in prison and replace them with the latest model every year? Assuming that in the first year of her incarceration, she was able to smuggle her phone. Of course the possibility that he could communicate with HD gang was simply by calling them.

Another bigger question is how Caato knew about Head Doctor’s gang? Could it be just a flashback that hasn't been told to us? Another speculation and hype by Caatofags is that Caato herself is a rock-human, particularly a rock-woman. This theory is also being widely discussed again after the most recent chapter 99 gives brief information about the rock-women. For me, this theory is too far-fetched (and almost bullshit).

Moreover, while this theory is still unconfirmed, those Caatofags have already made up a further theory that Caato is the top leader above all existing rock-humans (including Tooru/HD). I really wonder why Caatofags are so delusional… (and this one really sounds bullshit).

Head Doctor/Tooru

I also don't really know how Tooru got to know Caato or the other Higashikatas (or even Rai), we also need to look further into his background and backstory about it. However, being a rock-human he is, this is more possible for him. We all know that rock-humans (which are silicon-based) generally have longer lifespan than carbon-based humans. Rock-humans can live for up to 240 years. Rock-humans also grows by transformation, which causes them to be much older than what they look (example is Wu Tomoki who looks 33 despite his actual age being 70).

Therefore, Tooru himself might be much older than we think. We have seen the birth of Tooru in chapter 99, but we don't know exactly when he was born. But judging from the flow of panels, during the explanation of how a rock-woman gave birth to her baby until the baby grew up as Tooru. We can say that Tooru was born around Meiji era (1868-1912) or even 1901, the year in which Johnny died. The same year Rina was stricken with the rock-disease.

Whatever it is, this makes it even more likely that Tooru knows the history of the Higashikata family, especially if he knows the ability of equivalent exchange on their land. As a long-lived rock-human, he has many opportunities to learn many things and get as much information as possible. Also keep in mind that Tooru knows about “the saint”.

Then how did he make contact with Caato? With his Stand 「Wonder of U」, I am sure that he is able to do it, even if Caato was already in prison at the time. WOU can move through reflective surfaces while manipulating objects around it, it can also move in 2D and 3D alternately. In chapter 96, we’ve also seen that WOU is indeed capable to enter a prison as it was shown when Rai was in jail. 

With the possibility of Caato's ability to hide a phone with her Stand and WOU which is capable to move through cellphone, of course it's very possible they can communicate. Caato didn't even need to have a phone at the time, because WOU is able to move through any reflective objects not limited to cellphones. And as we have seen in the latest chapters (98 & 99) that WOU/Akefu is able to converse with Josuke and Rai.

Though I'm more convinced that Tooru is more likely the initiator, I don't really see him as the boss who's ordering Caato... or vice versa.

This is the difference that I felt when talking about Caato and Tooru (the two main villain candidates): talking about Caato is like composing a fiction where we only get a couple of sentences to develop into a few paragraphs, or even a story. Whereas talking about Tooru really feels like I'm doing an actual analysis based on some factual data, using the pictures, dialogues and information, comparing and linking several related events.

Then, what had HD gang/Tooru and Caato done to Rai and his family?

The key players who had ruined Rai's family (according to both chapters: 75 & 99) were the money lenders, the unknown usurpers/competitors, the insects (which is likely rock-animals) and The HD/WOU itself.

The insects and WOU were nothing but the work of HD/Tooru, therefore the money lenders & competitors could be the work of Caato.

However, the problem is...

It still feels strange if Rai's pear orchard have to be destroyed twice. Also, according to the chronology on his wiki page, the sabotage by money lenders happened first (because in that chapter 75, Rai's parents were mentioned as "father and mother"). After that, Rai's father died by calamity when he went to deal with the pest insects.

This chronology does not support the idea that Caato and HD gang had worked together, as if they had worked independently in ruining Rai's life.

If so, is that really what actually happened?

There is still hope, considering that Caato was in prison, which means that she had limited mobility. Therefore, the first incident of the damage to the Rai's pear orchard could have been done by Caato with the help of HD gang.

Then seeing that Rai's family was able to recover again, HD/Tooru took second action which eventually caused the death of Rai's father.

But the other last problem is why did Caato still care about helping her family business when she had been jailed (and abandoned by them)? As I said before, there are two possibilities: the cooperation happened either “before” or “after” she was jailed. Perhaps Caato already planned it before she was jailed. Whatever it is, it means that Caato had committed two sins and hid them from Norisuke IV: “murder & sabotage”, all for the sake of her family.

Perhaps the first event with money lenders happened before she went to prison whereas the second event with insects & WOU happened after that. Surely, they ruined Rai’s life twice because their main objective was "to get Rai into the Higashikata family."

Another interesting trivia is that Rai's age had actually been retconed from UJ release to the tankobon release. Originally, he was meant to be 32 years old, but Araki changed it into 31. If he was initially to be 32 years old, then he would be 17 around 15 years ago! The same year as Caato's prison sentence and what she claimed that she has role in the 15 years success of Higashikata business. No wonder she thinks that she deserve her compensation.

Also, take a note that the Caato said her controversial claim in chapter 58 whereas Rai was first mentioned in chapter 59 and debuted in chapter 64. Perhaps Araki had originally intended to involve Caato in Rai's past (although I wonder why he changed it for some reason).

I dislike the hype Caato as the main villain, therefore I often try to debunk any far-fetched theory from her supporters. But that does not mean that I shall disregard Caato’s potential role as long as the theory that support it makes sense.

TL;DR Caato might have been involved in Rai's past, she could have worked with Akefu or did it personally. This could be the answer for the "15 years" claim she said about helping Higashikata business back during the family reunion in chapter 58.

That's all I can think about Rai's past and Caato's claim, which are both confusing af.  Though it's also quite odd, if Caato is the person behind the goal of making Rai work under Norisuke IV, why didn't Jobin know Rai's identity as their family plant appraiser? Why didn't Caato tell him?

Read further:

Mamezuku Rai's past and Caato’s missing potential (invalid)

Caato’s potential role in Rai’s past

[lovemesomesurveys]

Ready to answer 151 Questions? 1. When was the last time you swam in a pool? Like 6/7 years ago. 2. Do you like to party? My idea of a party is a small get together with friends just chillin’ with food and music. Maybe play some boardgames. Just super laid back. Crazy party scenes with a shitload of people I don’t even know is not my thing at all. That all being said, I haven’t been to a party in like 3 years. 3. If your ex suddenly kissed you right now, what would you do? I can’t even imagine a scenario where that would happen now. We haven’t talked or seen each other in almost 5 years. For that to happen, that would mean we were talking and hanging out again and yeah, don’t see that happening. Plus, SO much has changed for the both of us. Our ship sailed a longggg time ago. 4. Are you a virgin? Yes. 5. What are your parents views on your relationships? Ty and I never dated, but my parents really liked him. My mom definitely thought something was going on and she was rooting for us, ha. 

6. If you ran into your current boyfriend/crush in 10 years, would you marry them? I don’t have a boyfriend or a crush right now. But also, I wouldn’t just marry someone I bumped into 10 years later. Like, a LOT would have changed in that amount of time. Just because I dated or was interested in someone doesn’t mean things would be the same seeing each other that many years later. Would the feelings come back? Would we still vibe? What are we doing in our life at that time? Are we both single? 7. Is your best friend dating anyone?  My mom has been with my dad for over 30 years. 8. Describe the shirt you’re wearing? It’s a tie-shirt with pastel colors.  9. Do people who wear Hollister and Abrerbrombie every day bother you? I really don’t care. 10. Could you go out in public without wearing make-up? I’ve been doing that for the past few years. To think that there was a time I would have never done that... 11. What is one feature that you don’t like? On me? I mean, everything, but my smile/teeth for one. 12. Would people describe you as happy? No. 13. Are you single? Yep. 14. Does it bother you that pretty much every survey you take asks if you’re single? Yes or questions about relationships. 15. Do you have Tumblr? Duhhh.

16. What about Xanga? Aww, RIP Xanga.  17. Have you ever babysat before? Yeah, my younger brother and a couple of my cousins when they were kids.  18. Is there a teacher who you absolutely hate?  I had two awful math professors in community college. Like, they were horrible. 19. Ever shopped at Sephora? Yeah. 20. If your current boyfriend/crush suddenly moved away, what would you do?  21. Do you have any university plans? I graduated with my BA five years ago. I’m not going any further. 22. If your best friend revealed she was a homosexual, what would you do? I mean, it would definitely come as a huge shock if my mom came out now. Of course it wouldn’t change anything between us, but things would be different for awhile. Like, it would take time to get used to a new normal, one where she’s not with my dad who she’s been with for over 30 years and one where she’s with a woman.  23. What are your views on sex? Be safe. If you’re an adult and it’s consensual then I don’t see an issue. 24. Do sexual questions bother you?  No. I just don’t have much to say on the matter. 25. Would you rather have sex with your boyfriend or break up? Wth. 26. Have you ever dreamed about your wedding?  Nope. 27. Does it bother you when people TYpe 1yk dis’?  Omg. I’m so glad I don’t see that anymore. That seemed to die when Myspace did. 28. Do you delete pictures of you and your exes off of Facebook? There’s still photos of Joseph and I. *shrug* 29. Would you ever date a friends Ex? No. 30. What’s the last book you read?  The Girl and the Hunt by AJ Rivers. 31. Ready for 10 simple questions? Sure. 32. What is your last name?  Stephanie. 33. What grade are you in? I graduated college 5 years ago, I’m done. 34. What school do you go to? 35. Summer, Fall, Winter or Spring? Fall and winter. 36. Favorite Color? Pastels, rose gold, yellow, coral, mint green. 37. Are your parents together? Yes. 38. Any siblings?  I have two brothers. 39. Favorite subject?  Psychology.

40. Least favorite subject?  Math. 41. Favorite song? I could never just choose one. 42. Okay. Simple questions are over. Happy?  I don’t care. 43. How many friends do you have on Facebook?  150ish. 44. Ever been requested by some old guy from another country? They weren’t old, but yeah I’ve had several requests from men from other countries.  45. Have you ever googled yourself? Yeah. 46. Have a Formspring? I used to. I suppose it still exists out there since I never deleted it. I haven’t been on there in several years, though. 47. You’re offered free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. What do you do? Probably decline the offer. I actually do like both his current and previous album, but I don’t know if I’d want to go to his concert. *shrug* I also don’t know anyone who would go with me and I wouldn’t go alone. 48. Would you rather spend the day at an amusement park or a water park? Amusement park. I don’t do water slides and whatnot.  49. Been to Disney world?  Nope, but I’d love to go. I’ve been to Disneyland several times, though. 50. If someone posts their status “9 Inches :(” do you know what they mean? Sounds like one of those things where people post a random status from a list of things that will likely get people’s attention and whoever comments on it is privately sent said list of thing and they then choose something to post as their status and so on. That was a popular game thing on Facebook years ago. 51. Ever had a boyfriend?  Yes.

52. Ever had a huge crush on someone who still doesn’t know? I’ve had crushes on guys who never knew, but the really serious ones (there were 5) all knew. 53. Have you done something in the last week that you regret?  Yes. 54. Ever drank alcohol?  Yeah. I drank in my early 20s until I was 24. 55. Know anyone who’s currently doing drugs? Yeah. 56. Ever watched The Hills?  Yeah, the OG one and the reboot that came out last year. 57. What about Jersey Shore? No, I never got into that one. 58. Ever called someone a slut?  I’ve said that jokingly to friends. 59. What do you think of short shorts? I don’t wear them. Or any length of shorts.  60. Does it bother you if people swear around you? No. I think it’s funny because my dad is still weird about cussing in front of me and so is our family friend. She always apologizes to me if she does it.  61. Have you ever gotten an A in a subject? I mostly got A’s and B’s throughout school with some C’s because of stupid math. 62. What about a B?  ^^^ 63. And a C? ^^^ 64. How about a D? No. 65. Ever skived? What’s that? 66. Would you consider yourself popular and outcast or somewhere in the middle? I’d say I was the outcast. I mean, I had some friends, but I really just didn’t stand out or fit in.  67. Are most of your friends older or younger than you? My friends were my age or a year younger. Ty was the only one who was older than me (just by a year). 68. Ever been stabbed in the back by a close friend? Yes. 69. Do you think it’s immature when people laugh at the number 69? I have my immature moments, too. That one doesn’t do it for me, though.  70. Ever watched porn? I’ve seen it, but it wasn’t for my viewing pleasure or anything. I just personally don’t get the appeal. 71. How many laws do you think you’ve broken in the past month?  I don’t think I’ve broken any. I don’t do anything or go anywhere, ha. 72. Do you wake up with an alarm clock? Yeah. I’d sleep later than 3PM if I didn’t and I don’t know, for some reason I don’t want to. Not like I have anything better to do, but *shrug* 73. Do you prefer Wednesdays or Thursdays? Makes no difference to me. 74. If your school had a Glee Club would you join?  No. I can’t sing. I’m surprised I did choir for a few years in elementary school. 75. Ever performed in a talent show? My 2nd grade class did. We did “This Little Light of Mine” with a few very simple hand movements that went along with it. 76. Have you ever cried in public? Yeah. For the most part it’s only been at funerals and doctor appointments, but there have been a few other times in public where I felt the tears coming and tried to fight them back, but they started coming out anyway. I’m definitely someone who doesn’t like to cry in front of other people, so when it happens then you know it’s bad. 77. Do you have a favorite between your Mom and your Dad? I love both of my parents, but my mom and I have a closer relationship. She’s my best friend. I truly don’t know what I’d do without her. 78. Would you audition for a reality talent competition? Nooo. I have zero talent. 79. How many celebrity crushes have you had?  A lot. 80. How many non-celebrity crushes have you had?  A lot. 81. Name 5 male celebrities who you think are attractive. Alexander Skarsgard, Henry Cavill, Chris Evans, Matt Bomer, and Chris Pratt.  82. Name 5 female celebrities who you think are attractive. Margot Robbie, Jennifer Lopez, Ariana Grande, Hailey Baldwin, and Natalie Portman.  83. Ever been compared to a celebrity?  Ha, no. 84. Have any embarrassing pictures on Facebook? If someone uploads a photo of me that I don’t approve of it gets deleted asap. 85. Do you think spending £20 on Lip Gloss is a waste of money?  That’s too much to me.  86. Are you opinionated?  I do have my opinions I feel strongly about, but I also consider myself to be openminded. I’m open to hearing different sides of things. I want to. And it’s certainly possible for my opinion to change.  87. Do you have a favorite store? BoxLunch, Hot Topic, Kohl’s, Target, and Bath & Body Works. 88. Would you ever wear Flare Jeans? No. 89. Do you own jeans that aren’t skinny? Nope. 90. Have you ever worn the same outfit twice in one week?  Yeah. *gasp* Call the fashion police! 91. What’s the longest period of time you’ve been away from school?  Well, I graduated college 5 years ago if that counts. But if you mean like while I was still going to school, then a few months. I had to miss school 3 times for a few months because I had to have surgery. One of the times was when I was supposed to start UC, but ended up having to start the following semester instead. 92. Do you google abbreviations you don’t understand? Yeah. 93. Does it bother you when people have cats as their profile picture? I don’t care? 94. Own a pair of converse?  Yes. 95. Is there a teacher at your school who has obvious favorites? 96. If yes, are you one of them?  97. Do you text in class?  I never did that. I was a goody-goody lol.  98. What brand of jeans do you wear the most? I haven’t worn jeans at all in like 3 years, ha, but anyway most of my jeans are the Arizona brand from JCP. They’re the perfect fit for me and they’re reasonably priced. 99. At what point do you think sizes are “Plus Sized?” According to Google, it starts at size 16. 100. Do you want to lose weight?  Nooo. I’m too underweight as it is. I need to gain weight. 101. Ever seen a therapist?  No, but I should. 102. Ever watched porn?  Yeah, I’ve seen some of it. I didn’t watch out of enjoyment, though. I don’t get the appeal, personally. 103. Ever purposely ignored a text?  Yes. 104. A facebook message?  Yes. 105. A poke? I always ignored those. That was a dumb feature Facebook had. 106. A friend request?  Yeah. I don’t accept a request from anyone I don’t know. 107. Would you say you read into things too much?  Yepppp.  108. Is your best friend more likely to be the one suggesting something stupid or refusing to do something stupid? Refusing. 109. Do you have a “fun friend?” (A friend who you have tons of fun with but you never really have deep conversations?)  No.  110. Ever been called a bully?  No. 111. Ever purposely hurt yourself?  Yes. 112. Ever gone to church? Yes. I used to go sometimes with both sets of grandparents when I was a kid. They were of different religions, so that began my complicated and non-existent relationship with religion. That changed a few years ago, though, and now I’m a Christian. For over a year I’ve only been listening to the audio version a local church uploaded to their website every Sunday until they started uploading video earlier this year. The past few months they’ve been doing live streams because of the quarantine/lockdown, but they’ll be continuing that going forward for those like me who aren’t able to physically attend. I plan to when I’m able, though. 113. Would you call either of your parents screw ups? Absolutely not! 114. If you turned out exactly like your mom would you be pleased? Yes. 115. What do you want to do with your life? I don’t know. That’s the problem. 

116. Let me guess… You have brown hair? Naturally, yes, but not currently. 117. Already know what you’re being for Halloween? I don’t dress up or do anything for Halloween anymore. The past few years I’ve just stayed home and watched scary movies. I do for the whole month of October, though. 118. Do you still go Trick or Treating? Uh, no. I’m going to be 31 years old this year. 119. Ever liked someone WAY older than you? Celebrities, but not anyone “in real life.” 120. Does it bother you when people have really loud conversations on the bus?  It didn’t really bother me back when I had to take the bus sometimes in college. 121. When you have sunglasses on, do you stare at people?  I don’t wear sunglasses. Also, staring is rude. I’ve had to deal with people staring at me, mostly kids, all my life. Not cool. 122. Ever had a credit card denied? No. 123. What’s the last movie you watched?  Parts of James and the Giant Peach yesterday. 124. Last TV Show?  The Golden Girls. 125. You see your Ex making out with one of your friends. What do you do? I don’t have any friends, but I imagine I wouldn’t like seeing that. 126. Ever been called a whore?  Jokingly. 127. Are you american?  Yes. 128. Ever made yourself throw up? No.  129. Have you ever kissed someone who wasn’t your boyfriend?  Yes. Joseph and I did that for the entire time of whatever it was we had going on.  130. Are you Cute or Gross?  I’m trash. 131. Does it bother you when people say “LOOK HOW MUCH YOU’VE GROWN!”? No one has said that to me in a very long time. I don’t recall being bothered by it, though. 132. Can you say intelligent things around the guy you like?  I don’t like anyone, currently.  133. Ever had the lead in a play?  Nope. Never tried out for a play either. 134. What about a solo in a concert?  Ha, no. I was in choir in elementary school for a few years, but there definitely weren’t any solo parts for me.  135. What kind of a student are you? I did well. 136. Worst subject?  It was always math. 137. Best subject? English. 138. Ever had a crush on a teacher? No. 139. Would it bother you if you found out that your mother was pregnant?  She had a hysterectomy several years ago. 140. How late do you sleep in?  Until like 230 or 3ish. 141. Do you edit your profile pictures before posting them?  I use a filter.  142. Be 100% honest. Do you have any friends who are uglier than you? I was the ugly friend. 143. Do you believe in love? Well, yeah. It exists. I just feel like I’ll never experience romantic love. I’ve been in love twice, but both times were unrequited. I can’t imagine finding love in return and someone who actually wants to be with me.  144. Would you consider yourself a good student?  Didn’t you ask this? 145. Does it bother you when Surveys ask “Did you like this survey?”  It just seems kinda pointless cause they likely won’t see it.  146. Salty, Sweet, Sour or Spicy?  Salty and sweet. I would have said spicy back in the day, but I can’t eat spicy food anymore. Haven’t been able to for the past few years. D: 147. Are you going into High School this year?  Nooooo. Thank goodness. I did my time and graduated over 10 years ago. 148. What about Junior High? Omg, no. I’m old. 149. What is one thing someone could say to you right now that would make you cry?  Let’s not try and make me cry. It’s almost 7AM, I should be asleep. 150. Where did you find this note? LiveJournal.  151. Last question. How many unread messages are in your phone?  I don’t leave any unread text messages.