#you have 8 names to learn per final. it’s not hard

[6ebe]

China and Taiwan sharing a joint bronze medal in horizontal bar is a hilarious unintentional unparalleled sports diplomacy moment 🤣😭

[bomertheshark]

Scenting

A Clark Kent x top male reader

Short

You worked as a contract assistant for hero’s . Anytime a hero needed anything to be taken care of when they were visiting from out of town or if they just needed an assistant during their personal life while they were out fighting crime. To get into this job you had to have a certain commitment since the pros would divulge personal information about their true lives, which was no laughing matter if you were just going to sell them out.

All of this to say that your newest client was the elusive Superman also now known to you as Clark Kent a writer for the Daily Planet. With good recommendations from your boss and previous clients he decided to hire him as his assistant for around 8 months. He didn’t really want to commit to the full year but it was better than nothing. You waited on him hand and foot for anything he could need. If he needed groceries, needed a tableau submitted, for his clothes to laundered, even to contact other pros for assistance and such. In order for you to be close to him you rented an apartment near him without being so close that it was suspicious. You learned a lot about him at the 6 month mark, He loved being a reporter but hated the people he worked with, a lot of women actually liked him but the most persistent so far was a woman named Lois Lang. no matter how hard he tried to get her off his back she wouldn’t let go. It got so bad that she had started to slightly stalk him to the point where she became suspicious of you and Clark’s relationship. She actually tried to confront you about it saying things like “You should stay away from Clark he isn’t gay like you.” And “Even if he was gay I could turn him since he would never consider you.” None of it bothered you per say since you were comfortable with your sexuality and knowing the rules of your contract even if you liked him you couldn’t be together since he wanted clear boundaries after working with you for 4 months. But you were concerned for Clark just in case you were seen with him as Superman as well and some villain pieced it together, to pull the suspicion away from you both you and your boss decided it would be better if you started meeting a coworker and making it look like you were in a relationship.

Everything was going fine for the next few months even though Clark had become a bit weird around you. He stopped asking for things sometimes or he started asking for a lot from you. You were starting to get slightly suspicious when it all came to a head when he came to you wanting to break the contract. You were slightly alarmed at first but understood that since he didn’t even want to commit to the full year he must not have needed you anymore, no fuss no muss you signed the break and alerted your boss that the contract was no longer in place and that you would be moving back to your previous residence.

Thought something weird had happened the night you were to move out of the apartment, Clark had been watching you closely but not offering to help which was strange since he normally was really nice and made conversation before insisting on helping you move something around. You made a point not to point it out but it still struck you as strange. Once you finally moved back into your place you visited your coworker to tell thank them for pretending to be their partner so that it wouldn’t out your client. Obviously he had no quips about it and sent you on your way with some leftovers after you two had dinner together.

Time passed and you were just going into your room to take your before bed shower. You were startled to see your old client Clark Kent standing near the doorway to the balcony. “Oh God! What are you doing here Mr. Kent?” You said calming your beating heart. “Oh, well I’m not sure I think I just wanted to see you… I’m not sure.” He responded looking fidgety.

You weren’t really sure when he made his was over to you but he was now holding on to you as he was smelling your neck, not aggressively just almost soaking it in before you pulled away, something was obviously the matter. He almost looked like a dog with its hackles raised a look of someone had touched something that was his. “You went to go see them again?” He said in a low tone. You confused responded by asking him what he meant. “That man, I can smell him on you. Did you go to see him again?” He said almost like he was accusing you of lying. “Oh! You mean my coworker! Yeah I went to have dinner with him and talk.” He was not satisfied by this answer as he shoved you onto the bed. “You had dinner with him?! Why would you have dinner with him?” At this point you were really confused, concerned and a tad agitated, your client who broke off the contract found your residence and is now throwing you around while asking really weird questions, fed up with this you full on asked him what he meant by that, why he was in your bedroom and why he just decided to throw you onto the bed. He didn’t answer anything just standing there staring at you.

You changed your position to be sitting on the edge of the bed hands behind you holding you up with your legs spread and leaning a bit back to get a full look of his face. Once this change happened Clark seemed to have some sort of realization before apologizing to you and getting on his knees. “Clark are you okay? Do you need me to call someone for you or something?” This broke him out of his trance and now he was in between your legs staring up at you. Startled you instinctively grabbed him by the hair tilting his head back. He whined from this, he fucking whined. At this point you start to realize what all of this has been, it all made sense now. He was jealous of the fact that you were “seeing” someone else, broke the contract at the realization that he liked you because he wanted to get closer and the night your contract was officially terminated he came to see you hoping to be with you but smelt the very man he was jealous of and thought you were dating.

Once you brought this up to him he confessed and cried to you a little about how he wanted to be with you and wanted you to like him back. This also made you realize that you totally forgot to tell him why you were “dating” this guy and that it was all fake in the first place.

You also realized that your boss totally knew this and probably didn’t tell you to because she knew that the hero liked you in that way.

All of this now led to now where he’s all over you, naked just covering you in his sent while enjoying the feeling of being full from your cock. Everything was exactly as he wanted it.

You’ll thank your boss later for this but for now you have to take care of the hero who was drunk off your scent.

Sorry this one took so long! I really liked just writing more about the time together than the smut.

[blue-disco-lights]

✨ Weekly Tag Wednesday ✨

Honored and delighted to be tagged by @heymacy @mybrainismelted @energievie @stocious @deedala

@spookygingerr @lingy910y @roryonic @mmmichyyy @sgtmickeyslaughter

@jrooc & @ardent-fox - thank you! i love these chances to get to know everyone better each week!

=======

name: julia

age: X=(Nosho)x2

your time zone: Pacific Standard Time (PST) / UTC -8 (it's a pleasure to hang out with you Australians on discord at night!)

what do you do for work? manage operations for a small agency

do you have any pets? a cat and a dog who are the most reluctant roommates and eat each other's food

what first drew you to this fandom? i was perusing the schitts creek subreddit in 2021 and someone recommended the show, specifically these mysterious mickey and ian characters. I was looking for a new show so in i went... and i have yet to emerge! This is really my first fandom and i can’t believe how nice and SO talented everyone here is!

are you a morning person or a night owl? for those of us who stay up late reading fics and then wake up early and read fics, this is a tricky question...

what are your hobbies? reading, galladrabbling, learning to draw a little, walking with audiobooks

how tall are you? 5' 6”-ish

if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? I’ve toyed with chicago, but considering how california i am, i’d probably freak out the minute the temp got below 45 degrees F (7 C?)

favorite color? aquamariney-blue

favorite book? tough question! one that comes to mind right now is Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

favorite movie?  I can watch Pride & Prejudice (2005) anywhere anytime

favorite fic? Well this is basically impossible. None the Wiser, ORFNSP, You Deserve Good Things, Like Real People Do, and and and ...

favorite musical artist: new order & depeche mode, as this will answer the above age question for you

what is your average screen time so far this week? uhh… i do a lot of stuff on my phone ok??

what's the first app you open in the morning? instagram & discord

how long have you been on tumblr?  2 years

finally (and i know this one is hard) tell me a fun fact about yourself: there’s a chance i might still be able to do a cartwheel

=====

(note: tumblr is glitching and can only tag 5 people per line!) I'm late today, but I shall still tag you

@krysmiss @suzy-queued @palepinkgoat @ms-moonlight-inn @mickeysgaymom

@tv-obssessions @astaraels @too-schoolforcool @bawlbrayker @deathclassic

@transmurderbug @ian-galagher @sandrashaine @francesrose3 @doshiart

@jademickian @piefrans @sweetbee78 @vintagelacerosette @gillyp

@gembu-tortuesouscafeine @heymrspatel @jessieoneday @callivich @look-i-love-u

@creepkinginc and anyone who I've missed and would like to play!

[writingquestionsanswered]

I have a few characters who's names are in the "hard to pronounce" or otherwise "hard to remember" category. I made them when I was 15 so I realize they are in need of a change. However, their names have just kinda stuck for years and years now that I'm not sure how I can even think to picture them with another name let alone one that fits. Especially since this will be a comic so character design and personality will be shown. Any advice on breaking that clinging bond and embracing the changes?

Changing Hard to Pronounce Character Names

FYI, I got your resubmitted ask and your question came up for answering today. It came in on 1/18, not 1/8, so it has only been ten days since you sent it, and only about six days elapsed between when you sent the question and when you asked when it would be answered. I get multiple asks per day... far more than I can answer in one day... and many of the asks I get are long and involved so I may only get to one or two questions in a day. For that reason, it generally takes me at least a week to answer questions, usually about ten days, and sometimes two or three weeks when it's really busy. I really appreciate patience.

For the names... I would suggest doing a brainstorming session on each name to see if you can come up with alternatives that are similar but easier to read/pronounce. Sometimes you can look at a name and figure out what it is you like about it... maybe you like the letter it starts with or ends with, or you like a combination of letters. You may be able to find alternatives with similar vibes.

Baby name websites are so, so helpful for this. Nameberry is a favorite of mine. You can also Google lists of baby names, like "unusual baby names" or "baby names that begin with the letter Y." If the names have a particular language vibe, like they're French names or Spanish names or sound like it, you can look for lists of French or Spanish names specifically for ideas.

Sometimes you can simplify a name just by removing some letters, changing some letters, or using a phonetic spelling. So, let's say one of your characters is named Dahniqyelle which you're imagining is pronounced as "don-ick-ielle." You could try Dahnikielle, Doniqiell, or Dahnikielle.

Another option would be to come up with a nickname and use that as the name rather than the full name. So, maybe you imagine Dahniqyelle's nickname would be Dahniq. That's a much easier word to pronounce. Or, maybe you imagine their nickname is Niqi. That's much easier to say, too.

Finally, you can look for a name that sounds similar but is more common or easier to pronounce. A good replacement for Dahniqyelle would be Danica or Danika.

Here are some other posts about naming characters that might help:

Guide: Naming Characters Choosing the Right Name for Your Character Coming Up with a Character Specific Nickname Unusual Character Names in Contemporary Story

I hope something here will work for you!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[smilesrobotlover]

Febuwhump- I still don’t know what I’m doing but screw perfectionism

Based after the prompt day 8: panic!

Spirit has a bad time!!!

Silent Fear

Consciousness began to return to Spirit, his senses coming back to him as he slowly opened his eyes, confused at what he was seeing at first. It took a moment for him to realize that it was lava he was looking down upon, and the heat immediately assaulted him. He groaned in discomfort and the ache in his arms were registered next. His arms were tied in thick ropes, him being hung by his hands tied behind his back. He looked down at the lava again, panic beginning to rise in him. He blinked hard, trying to remember what happened before, but he truly couldn’t remember what could’ve gotten him into this situation. They were in Warrior’s time was what he remembered, but they weren’t in a battle, they were in a peaceful town. Spirit was simply walking along the trail when he felt a sharp pain in his head, then nothing. He groaned again, his headache being added to the list of pain he was feeling at this moment. He looked around and saw a ledge he was at level with, covered in mysterious people staring back at him.

“So you’re finally awake?” One of them stepped forward, his arms crossed across his chest.

Spirit squinted, but all of their faces were shadowed, so he couldn’t see their features.

“You were out for a while,” he continued, “I was getting worried about you.”

Spirit scowled at him, he didn’t know what he wanted, but he sure as heck wasn’t going to give it to him. The man only chuckled though.

“I wouldn’t have that attitude if I were you boy,” the man gestured to the lava Spirit was hanging over. Spirit looked at the lava below him and the panic returned to him. That would be a terrible death, and he was several feet from experiencing it.

The man stepped a bit closer, grabbing the rope that kept him from falling to his death, which was slung over a hook on the ceiling. Spirit gulped and stared him down, trying to seem brave.

“Let’s just get right into it, ok? We’re looking for someone, but he’s hard to get a hold of. So you’re gonna tell us where he is.”

Spirit frowned. Who could these strangers possibly be after? And how would Spirit know anything? He wasn’t with anyone when he got kidnapped.

“We saw you traveling with him earlier, the hero of Hyrule. His name is Link, and he owes us something.”

Spirit frowned. He was still in Warrior’s world right? He must be the one they’re after. But Spirit didn’t know where he was specifically, he didn’t even know the name of the town they were in before he was taken. They quite literally picked the worst person to interrogate.

“Now…” the man gripped the rope and grinned, “tell us where he is. Now.”

Spirit sucked in a panicked breath, trying to think of a way out of this. Even if he wanted to give up Warriors (which he wouldn’t, obviously), he couldn’t say anything. Spirit is mute, and he only communicates by writing in his notepad. While he knows a little bit of sign language, he hasn’t had time to learn it. Either way, he couldn’t talk to them. His hands and arms were tied, and there was no way for him to communicate this to them.

“Perhaps I didn’t make this clear…”

Spirit’s stomach dropped and he screamed when the rope let loose, plunging him towards the lava. He let out a grunt when he was stopped just a few feet away from his almost fiery grave. His heart was beating a thousand miles per minute, the situation feeling a lot more real to him now. He winced at his possibly bruised chest and sore arms as the rope began to raise him up to his captor’s level again.

“You understand now boy? Tell us where that hero is or else you’ll meet your end right here.”

Spirit was panting for breath that was sucked out of him earlier. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t sign for them to stop, he couldn’t tell them that he didn’t know where Warriors was, he couldn’t do anything. All he could do was kick his legs in desperation. He screamed again when the rope was let loose again, and he landed much closer to the lava.

He let out a cry of pain when he was pulled back harshly to the ceiling, the man holding him hostage beginning to lose patience.

“Tell us where the hero is, NOW!”

Spirit looked in his direction, tears leaking out of his eyes. He opened his mouth but of course, he wasn’t able to beg them to stop. The man reached for the rope again and Spirit was dropped to the lava once again, this time, his feet brushing against the hot magma. He yelped and patted it down with his other foot, biting back a cry for his burnt toes. He was pulled back up, the repetitive motions making him sick to his stomach.

“Stubborn aren’t you?” The man leaned forward, seemingly studying Spirit, before pulling out a knife, putting it to the rope. “Well, your mistake.”

Spirit gasped as the man raised his knife ready to swing down on the rope that kept Spirit alive. Was this how he was going to die? He was only thirteen, he didn’t want to die! He let out a cry as the knife came swinging down, preparing himself for the pain he would soon have to endure.

“ENOUGH!”

The man stopped and turned around, stepping away from Spirit’s blurry vision. He squinted to see what was going on, but couldn’t see anything past his tears. He heard his captors talking amongst themselves, and some of them started yelling, but it got quiet after a while. Spirit tried to take a deep breath to calm himself down, but he was still breathing rather quickly and his heart was thudding painfully against his chest. He groaned at his sword arms and chest, not knowing if he was going to be ok or not. He was so close to straight up dying that it made him want to puke. What would Zelda say? What would she do? The thought of her mourning over him killed him on the inside. He needed to find a way out of here.

He gasped again as the rope shook, but he noticed that they weren’t threatening to drop him, they were taking him down.

He was carried onto the ledge, which was only lit by the lava, but it was enough to finally see who these men were. When he was set on the ground, he started to observe the people around him, but his heart dropped. He’s been in Warrior’s world long enough to recognize that these were Hylian soldiers. They wore the uniforms the soldiers would wear, and some still had their helmets on. Why were Hylian soldiers trying to kill him? And what do they want with Warriors? One man stood over him, one arm around him so he could sit up. He surprisingly had a soft expression when he looked at Spirit, but it quickly melted away to anger.

“You’ve been torturing a child?” The man asked angrily, turning to another one, who had a noticeable scar across his cheek.

The other man scoffed and crossed his arms.

“We haven’t been torturing him, we’ve just been interrogating him! Big difference!”

Spirit recognized Scar-face’s voice as the man who was threatening to drop him into the lava, and he immediately glared at him.

“You were dangling him over lava! What is wrong with you?”

“We needed one of Link’s companions to tell us where he is! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, but I didn’t want you to torture and threaten a child!” The softer looking man’s voice raised at the end of his sentence, holding onto Spirit tighter. Scar-face huffed and turned around as Soft-guy turned to Spirit. “What is your name, kid?”

Spirit pursed his lips and frowned, looking at his tied up hands. He looked back up at Soft-guy, and his eyes widened in realization.

“How do you communicate? Is it sign language?”

Spirit shook his head. He really needed to learn that.

“Do you write things down?”

Spirit nodded, and Soft-guy nodded back. He started to untie his hands, which gave his sore arms some relief.

“Woah, woah! What are you doing?” Scar-face yelled.

“I’m untying his hands.”

“But why?”

“Because he’s a mute! We won't get any information out of him with him tied up like this!”

“But-but he’ll fight back!”

“I’m leaving his arms tied, you imbecile.” Soft-guy pulled out a stick and pointed at the ground, signaling for Spirit to write in the dirt. Spirit grabbed the stick and his stomach did a flip. They probably don’t even know how to read his language.

“What is your name?”

Spirit chewed on his lip and looked up at Soft-guy nervously. He might as well try and see if these people understand him. He wrote down his name “Link” into the ground and looked up at everyone’s confused faces.

“What language is that?” Scar-face sneered, staring at the name written into the dirt.

Soft-guy gave a frustrated sigh and took the stick away from Spirit. The young engineer figured that this would be the case. Only Windy could read his language, it made communication with everyone else very difficult, which was why he wanted to learn sign language. Soft-guy nodded at the men around him and they lifted him up, tying his hands behind his back again.

“You kidnapped someone who can’t even communicate with us, good job,” Soft-guy remarked sarcastically to scar-face, “We’ll just use him as bait. The hero has a soft spot for children anyways.”

Scar-face grumbled and grabbed hold of Spirit’s tied forearm harshly, which caused him to hiss in pain.

“Hey.”

Scar-face turned around and glared at Soft-guy.

“You don’t hurt him, understand?”

Scar-face rolled his eyes and kept dragging Spirit behind him. He looked at Soft-guy in desperation, trying to stop, but Scar-face pulled harshly, hurting his arms even more. Soft-guy may not be any better than Scar-face, but Spirit didn’t want to be left alone with him. He tried to cry out but Soft-guy turned away, leaving him alone with Scar-face. Spirit sighed and stopped resisting, hoping that he could escape before Warriors got dragged into this mess.

[kcsplace]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag @sparrow-in-the-field and @strangethings-everywhere

I guess today is the day that you all get to learn about my other AO3 account since a lot of these Qs are about overall stuff lol.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

59

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

846,116 which is insane to me, esp as more than half that is one fic

3. What fandoms do you write for?

MCU - Phlint and Stucky Stranger Things - Steddie 9-1-1 - Buddie Criminal Minds - Reid/Hotchner Firefly - Jayne/Mal H50 - McDanno TBITB - Coxstroke Merlin - Merthur NCIS - Tony/Gibbs SG-1 - Jack/Daniel The Sentinel - Jim/Blair

4. Top five fics by kudos?

He Whom My Soul Loves (Stucky) - 988 A Diaz By Any Other Name (911) - 970 The Man On The Wall (Stucky) - 929 Magic Man (Merthur) - 781 The Royal Camelot (Merthur) - 650

5. Do you respond to comments?

I love answering comments. If someone can take the time to leave a comment, I always do my best to answer. Not always immediately, but I get there!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angriest ending?

I don't think I've ever written anything with an angry ending. Maybe not happy, per se, but not angry

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uhhh probably The Man On The Wall because after a 475k slow burn, Bucky finally gets his kiss

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have done! Not in a while, but not because I'm any better, but because I'm such a teeny writer, nobody cares enough to be rude anymore!

9. Do you write smut?

Yup! Though by the time I'm done writing it it feels dry as the Sahara and textbook dull, I can only hope it reads better and that I'm just jaded after spending ages working on it

10. Craziest crossover?

I've done fusions, but not a crossover. Not yet!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup! Why they'd choose mine, I don't know. Also had them added to goodreads against my wishes

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Never been asked! I've had art made for fic, and someone wanted to do a podfic version of one, but never translated.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Absolutely not!! I'm too much of a control freak and if my procrastination and oh-so-slow writing annoys me, it'd enrage even the calmest of co-writers! I wouldn't do that to an innocent person!

14. All time favorite ship

Honestly, I have favourite ships in a fandom, but narrowing down a favourite of all of them, I don't think I can!!! Cop out answer FTW!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

While I never start a fic in the hope of maybe finishing it as I always start with the intention to finish, sometimes they end up so big, or are outside my sphere of limited talent that they peter out. I have 120k of a Night At The Museum type AU for Stucky that has sat on my hard-drive for nearly a decade, and I'm 65k into a OFMD fic that I'm determined to finish, but at the moment the OFMD is the far far more likely fic to see the light of day

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue for sure. I can write whole fic that are just nothing but dialogue, and then I go back in and fill it out. The dialogue is the skeleton I work the rest onto

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Everything not dialogue!! Everything

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

....I don't have any?!?

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Probably Harry Potter some 20 years ago

20. Favorite fic you've written?

The Man On The Wall is my baby. I wrote it twice so its my sweetheart. It was also a serious labour of love at 474,747 words (also I love how neat that word count is) very very close second is Life, Written and Illustrated By in the Merlin fandom. It was my first foray into Merthur and was part of a competitive pornathon and I won that weeks with it so huuuuge confidence boost for my writing

[cloudbellsv3]

How about 7, 8, and 16 for the grievances ask game?

Thank you for the ask! The game is here!

7) Without naming names what's something you've come across in a fic that made you genuinely uncomfortable/angry.

I happen to have a few answers to this, but I'll just list the first one that came to mind! Gonna be as vague as possible.

There was this one poly fic that I loooooovvvvveeeeeeeedddddd reading. Like when I say I was seated everyday, for every available hour, reading this fic. I MEAN it. Steve was the addition to the ship, I won't say the other two because it's a bit more identifiable. Anyways, the ship was great, the development of the characters was enjoyable and included some interesting headcanons for the other two in the ship that I haven't considered. And it seemed like the author was spending a certain amount of chapters per character to explore their psyche a bit more, yeah? So I was sitting around and waiting for Steve's turn.

When I tell you, I got a migraine from the amount of anger and frustration I experienced when we finally got to Steve's section. Like I'm getting a headache right now as I'm typing this because it irritates me so bad. They dropped the fucking ball SO hard, there's probably a new ground zero directly below their keyboard or something. I can't say exactly what happened because I think it might be too on the nose, but let's just say it has to do with Bucky. God, I was so angry. I still have them muted on ao3 to this day😭I had such a strong emotional reaction because I LOVED the fic and I ADORED the pairing so much! It's not super common of me to be all in like that. I learned my lesson! If you wanna know what it was, feel free to DM me though - I wish I could give more details, but I just don't wanna put anyone on blast in public.

Despite all this, I still finished the fic though. #NOTAQUITTER

The amount of Steve poly fics that have caused me to almost burst a blood vessel is about 3, but that's 3 too many. I'm fragile.

8) What kind of content tends to cross your dash that you dislike the most?

This happens a lot more on my main, but I do not care about antishippers as much as everyone else seems to. I just genuinely cannot muster up any kind of genuine upsetness that other people on my side of the fandom has. And I admit, I do get annoyed seeing people go blue in the face cause someone said a ship or kink or trope is nasty or whatever - I don't care! But I don't talk about it much because I don't want to hurt people's feelings who do care. I recognize that insults and shaming like that slides right off of me in a way it doesn't other people and well, I don't like to speak on things I can't sympathize with. It would be way too easy for my tone to come off as mean and I don't want that!

16) Name a canonical aspect of [insert 2 or more characters]'s relationship that you think is problematic/not mentioned enough.

I don't know who to talk about hm. I keep coming back to this question and for some reason I'm drawing a blank?? Trying to think about things I haven't complained about before. Damn, I talk too much LMAO.

I mean, I mentioned the thing about Tony and Pepper on discord before, but I don't consider it bad. In fact, I like this aspect of their relationship (I am a Pepperony shipper :>). But the way people get mad at Pepper for...whatever they get mad at Pepper for when the amount of stress she's put through in that relationship, specifically IM3 is ridiculous. Now, I like IM3. I know a lot of people hate it, but I like it for various reasons. And I have to say, I genuinely would not have blamed her if she noped out the second Tony told a terrorist coming to kill him where they lived 😭But she's a resilient woman and stuck beside her man iktr!

The answer I gave this feels lackluster so feel free to trade in another or choose a specific ship. Sorry!! <3

[fourseasonsfigs]

Yuechu with Peach

I'm back! I had to take some time off from posting due to an intensive Intro Chinese class I was taking, combined with a truly crazy work schedule that does not seem interested in slowing down. But, with Gong Jun's new Xianxia show Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red Moon Pact finally airing, it's time to celebrate with a Dongfang Yuechu fig!

This fig is based off this short preview video:

I've been so excited for this show - the costumes looked absolutely gorgeous in the previews, and of course I always want to support Gong Jun. I've watched 8 episodes so far, and the visuals have not disappointed! The costumer seems to really like asymmetrical designs, which adds a lot of interest and creativity to the outfits.

This little Daoist arrived in perfect condition - no harm to his peach or to his tall and beautifully ornate guan.

The outfit he has on in the preview is one of many absolutely gorgeous ones. I was wondering how all the asymmetrical patterns were going to be rendered into fig form, but I think they did a nice job. There are a lot of swirly designs in the costumes in general so far, I think to evoke all the magic.

You can really see the height they achived on the guan here. In keeping with the beautifully ornate designs, he has a lot of very tall and intricate hair crowns on this show.

You can see a bit of the ribbon hanging down in back from the guan...you'll see it better as we rotate around the fig.

There we go! I also love ribbons, so really the costuming is made for me on this show. You can see the swirly designs showing up on the robe here.

I'm not going to lie, I'd have loved his hair to be doing all kinds of dramatic swirls here instead of just falling down his back, but to be fair he's just standing there with the peach in the preview!

I'm very grateful the peach is pre-attached to his hand. My fingers have proven pretty clumsy attaching little tiny pieces to figs!

Little bit of paint overspray - err overpaint, I guess, since all the peaches here are hand-painted. I can't complain one bit - if I was painting this it would be a lot worst than this!

He's so cute. I really like how the fig maker rendered his face here, and the mark on his forehead is kind of perfect - the right size to highlight his face but not be too obtrusive.

He's got pants on, which you know I love as that extra styling detail. It's hard to see from this angle, so let's do the backside...

There we go. Looking good!

A nice shot of that very fancy guan.

And another! This has got to have been a hassle to assemble (says the person currently trying to assemble fig horse reins for a JZEU set that are long and thin like the ribbons here. So fiddly!)

And our box cards! The actual name of this fig is something like (per machine translation, I learned a lot in my Intro Chinese intensive, but not enough to be able to translate things like this) Pink Little Daoist Priest. Normally I use the titles directly from the figs cards/maker, but I knew I'd never remember what fig this was if I called it that. I don't think of this fig as overwhelmingly (or even very much) pink.

Material: Resin

Fig Count: 521

Scene Count: 37

Rating: Congratulations to Gong Jun on the show's airing!

[link to the Master Post Index]

[mingiswow]

Chapter 8: Earth to yn

Word count: +1,1 k

Summary: You always believed in the stars, the energy, the destiny, and that everything happened for a reason. But what if the oh so destiny put you in a group project with the music majors? And that one of the boys hated you guts for a reason you don’t even know why? 

Pairing: Changbin x gn!reader, Hyunjin x gn!reader

The auditorium was more filled than usual when you entered the place holding the two cups of coffee and searching for your friend.

“Yn! Here!” You smiled upon seeing him and happily sat by his side, giving him his coffee. “Are you ready?”

“For what?” You took a big gulp of your coffee, regretting the decision as soon as the too-hot liquid almost burned your mouth.

“The group project”

“A little. I mean, I want to be in Hyunjin’s group, but I also wanna be with you. And I don’t know how the teachers are going to divide the class, there’s a lot of people” you looked around, taking notice of how many students the music major had in this particular class, but your eyes soon stopped when you saw the man entering the room, his laugh loud as always, as he kept talking to the three men with him.

He looked so beautiful that day, it seemed as if he glowed even more than usual, his silky hair framing his facial features just the right way to accentuate his angles. His nose looked like it was sculpted by Michelangelo and you never thought you’d be attracted to someone’s nose, but he wasn’t just someone. No. Hyunjin was a god walking among the dirty humans and you felt so lucky to be able to live in the same realm and universe as this man.

“Earth to yn” you shook your head and looked over to your friend who was laughing at you. “You looked so stupid right now. Daydreaming with the man. Why don’t you just ask him out?”

“I can’t. I mean, technically I can but it’s hard, ok? I always sound dumb and lame every time I try to speak to him” you took a small glance over at him again, feeling silly because of your crush on him.

“I truly don’t understand you” the boy shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. “And just so you know, he was whispering with his friends and looking at us” you turned to your friend, shocked, before turning not-very-subtly to them, who were indeed looking at you. You felt Hongjoong wave his hand to Hyunjin behind you and the other one to wave back. You just gave a small wave and a nod of your head, a little embarrassed.

You couldn’t let it slide how the boy you learned was named Changbin looked very grumpy when you looked at his friend. But also, how incredibly handsome he was. Large shoulders, big arms, and chest. His face was sharp and well-built and even though you didn’t see it, you were pretty sure he probably has a killer smile.

As the teachers started speaking, your mind wandered from what possibly you could have done to Changbin, or anyone he knew perhaps, that made Hyunjin ask to Hongjoong. Your mind made a back and forth trip between your curiosity about Changbin and your crush on Hyunjin.

“The groups from the music students have already been formed since the beginning of the semester” you heard the professor from the music faculty speak and finally paid attention to the people speaking. “So we gave them the liberty to choose with whom they want to work with” you looked over at your friend in a silent way of saying that in no way you’d be in the same group as Hyunjin. “We ask for the music students to start to separate into their groups and look for their partners. We only ask for the groups to be not over five people of each faculty and lower than two per faculty. Good luck, students”.

The woman finished and soon the silent class was filled with conversations and whispers and people forming their groups.

Hongjoong was pretty calm by your side, his legs crossed as he sipped on his coffee just waiting for some music student to talk to him. You, on the other hand, were on the verge of your seat, nervous about how the hell these people are gonna choose someone they don’t even know to make a project like that?

“Joong! Yn! Want to be part of our group?” You couldn’t believe your ears when you heard no one other than Hyunjin himself calling you. You heard a bit of a whisper-fight between him and his friends as you turned to them.

“Sure, we’d love to” your friend grabbed you and pulled you to the seats next to them. “Hi, I’m Hongjoong and this is my friend yn, nice to meet you guys” he smiled at the four men that reciprocated, except for Changbin.

“These are Chan, Jisung, and Changbin, they have a rap group called 3racha”

“Omg you guys are 3racha? I love your work! You guys are a legend on campus” Hongjoong spoke all happy, he was a big fan of the boys but never was able to see them in real life.

“Hongjoong is my graffiti partner I’ve talked about”

“Oh! You’re so talented, man. I’ve seen your last work that Hyunjin showed us, amazing” the cuter one, Jisung you think, said with a big smile on his face.

They kept talking about their artistic inspirations and aspirations while you and Changbin stayed quiet. His eyes never left the ground, as the dirty porcelain tiles were more interesting than anyone and anything. You couldn’t help but feel your heart sting a little, why was he treating you like this without knowing you? Without talking to you? You wanted to confront him, to grab him by his collar and ask what was wrong.

Suddenly you felt someone shaking your body out of trance, calling your name. You looked over to who was it to find Hongjoong’s smirking face

“Sorry, were you talking to me?” the boys laughed at you, making your cheeks heat up.

“You’re daydreaming a lot today, yn” your best friend commented, his smirk still on his lips as if he was up to something. “We were asking what you think about us meeting this friday after the boys performance to talk about the project”

“Hm… sure. That’d be great.”

The bell rang, announcing that the class was over for the day. you and the boys started to gather your things to go to the next class, walking along to the exit of the auditorium.

“So see you guys this friday?” you asked the four boys that nodded, except for Changbin, again, who only stood a little further than his friends, playing with his feet. “Was nice meeting you guys, can wait to start the project” you smiled

“Will be so cool” Hyunjin spoke with his beautiful smile, hugging Chan and Hongjoong by the neck. “Can wait to work with my friends”.

You felt your stomach do a little flip as he said the word friends and that, maybe, you were included in it.

Previous | Materlist | Next

[masteryourtiktok]

8 Ways TikTok Auto Views Can Make You Popular

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You can also read:

Explore Autoliker TikTok- The TikTok Growth Hack You Need to Know

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[umichenginabroad]

Rome Week 4: Putting the “Study” in Study Abroad

Hey y’all!

I realize that while telling you all tales of my adventures galavanting through Europe, I have been leaving our one crucial part of my adventure here: my classes. I do in fact have classes, and they are like… real, legit classes. As a refresher, I am taking Fluid Mechanics and Art & Archaeology of Ancient Rome, the former for 8 weeks but the latter for only 4. I have Fluids in the morning from 9 to 11 am monday-thursday, and I have art and archaeology 12-3 monday-thursday. I have mentioned Art & Archeology previously, it is a really amazing class in which I learned so much about the history of the city as well as the buildings and art within it. It wasn’t only touring ruins and visiting museums though, and there were also days spent sitting in a classroom learning about the lineage of the emperors or the evolution of art styles throughout the republic and empire. It was honestly a lot of information but presented in such a way that it never felt overwhelming. I think that 4 weeks was a good amount of time for the class, it felt almost like a mini-course.

For that class I had only a few large assignments, the rest were just readings. I had 2 essays and a group presentation but honestly they were not too much work, and on interesting topics so I didn’t mind the research and writing process. I had some technical difficulties (my laptop has broken :( so I have been writing everything on my phone) and the instructor and staff were super accommodating and extended the due date to accommodate for that fact. (Sidenote: I’ve also been writing these blogs on my phone, so I apologize for any typos. I do not recommend, my thumbs get so sore.) In general the art & archaeology class has been super chill but super interesting. Even the final exam, which I took on Thursday, wasn’t too hard. I had reviewed my notes, but quite a lot of what was tested wasn’t specific dates and names but rather our comprehension of the overall themes and trends in the class, such as the use of art in a political fashion or the evolution of art styles. I appreciated this because although I am able to simple memorize dates and names and places, I find that understanding why is more important (and more interesting) than strictly knowing what.

Fluid Mechanics is the other class I am taking, and it runs the full 8 weeks. I would say that the workload for this class is significantly higher than for that of art and archaeology, however it is still plenty manageable. The class itself is taught fairly well and my instructor makes sure to address as many questions and complications that we have. It is a class of only 6 people (including myself) so it feels very personalized in a way. Due to it only being 8 weeks the content is being covered fairly quickly but we review old concepts a lot and do example problems in class which helps my learning process. The one thing that I am not the most used to is having homework every night. I am typically assigned 2-3 problems from the textbook per night to do, rather than the weekly problem sets I tend to get at UMich. It’s not harder though, and the textbook is also a good place to supplement what dude in clsss. The exam was a little bit rough, though the problem represented what we had covered in class, the one thing that I though was interesting was that there was an essay question. We had to write about a topic we had discussed in class, which was a bit weird as I have never had to write an essay respond to a question on an exam before.

I have been doing my homework over the weekends while traveling: on trains, in hostels, and even waiting in the Uffizi gallery. It has honestly been pretty manageable to both study hard and explore Itamyselfly. I have found the academics to be good and quite similar to the ones at home, though perhaps this is due to my choice in classes. Overall, I think the balance that this provides is amazing as well and lets me explore a good bit while still being able to dedicate time to school and studying. This weekend I even went to Croatia with some of my roommates! (pics below). Sidenote, I highly recommend Croatia. We stayed in Dubrovnik which was very touristy and expensive but other locations are apparently cheaper. Either way, it was gorgeous there and a nice bit of break from the studying I was doing all last week to prepare for the tests!

Ryan Ettner

Biomedical Engineering

Engineering in Rome

[iamnikoli]

AY23/24 Sem 1 Module Reviews

This sem is probably the most difficult sem of my degree acads wise. Since I scored much better than expected in Year 1, I could afford to fully focus on core modules that would teach me useful skills related to my major. Hence, I decided to take 4 core modules, namely CS2040, DSA2101, DSA2102 and MA2311, along with GEN2061X. I did slightly underload to give myself more time for CS2040, which has a very high workload. I was also expecting a drop in GPA since most of the modules I took this sem weren't exactly easy or fluff. Nonetheless, I grew much closer to the friends I worked with in the different mods, and it made all the difference to my mental well-being as well as my academic performance.

CS2040

Module Coordinator & Lecturer: Dr Chong Ket Fah

T/A: Gary (tutorial), Chao Ming (lab), Sourabh (lab)

Lecture Topics/Schedule:

Week 1: Course Admin + Intro to Java, Analysis of Algorithms 1 Week 2: Analysis of Algorithms 2, Sorting 1 Week 3: Sorting 2, List ADT 1 (Array List, Linked List, Stack, Queue) Week 4: List ADT 2 Week 5: Map ADT (HashTable) Week 6: Priority Queue ADT (Binary Heap) Week 7: Disjoint Sets ADT (Union Find Disjoint Set), Ordered Map ADT 1 (Binary Search Tree/AVL Tree) Week 8: Ordered Map ADT 2, Graph Intro + Graph DS Week 9: Graph Traversal and Applications 1 Week 10: Graph Traversal and Applications 2, Minimum Spanning Tree  Week 11: Single Source Shortest Path 1 Week 12: Single Source Shortest Path 2, All Pairs Shortest Path Week 13: Revision

Deliverables:

Tutorial attendance/participation - 3% Lab attendance - 2% One-Day Assignments (ODAs) - 1.5% x10 Take Home Assignments (THAs) 1.5% x8 qns, 2 qns per assignment Visualgo Quiz - 4% x2 Midterm - 20% Final Exam - 40%

Other Comments:

Although this module is hard (as you probably already know), I would say I enjoyed it for the most part. First of all, Dr Chong Ket Fah is an amazing lecturer, and he explains things very clearly. This made understanding the difficult concepts a lot easier. Dr Chong is also very nice and understanding towards students, for example, I fell sick one day before a one-day assignment and he extended my ODA deadline to the day after my MC ended which was basically one week later lol. These things might seem insignificant but they are highly appreciated by students (me at least).

There was a lot of content to cover in this module, and frankly, it can sometimes get overwhelming. On paper, there are 3 hours of lectures every week on Zoom exclusively, but Prof Chong often overruns to about 4-5 hours of lecture time a week. Not to worry, the lectures are recorded and you can watch them later. It is paramount that you keep up to pace with the lectures as it's not realistic to cram all of it in reading week, anyway you'll need the lecture content 1-2 weeks later to solve the ODAs and THAs. Also, we're expected to learn Java within the first 2 weeks, as prof does not teach java, he just gave us a learning package/crash course to do on our own. This is very important for students with no Java background like DSA students because we'll be expected to complete all our coding assignments in Java from end of week 2/week 3 onwards.

I attended the tutorial slot by Gary, and Gary is absolutely goated. He is very clear in explaining things, and often talks about potential extensions/modifications to the questions which may come up in the exams. This was very helpful in cultivating the sort of skills and thought process needed in the midterms/finals. Gary is also very chill and dedicated, we can message him on Telegram if we have any questions, and usually the night before the exams, he would stay up all night to answer questions that we had. Where are you gonna find such a dedicated TA HAHAHA please give this man a raise The only not-so-good thing about the tutorials is that the bulk of questions are pseudocode/coming up with algorithm questions, but the majority of questions in the exam are MCQ. I would've liked to see more of the latter in the tutorials as many of us felt unprepared for MCQ-style questions in the exams. From my understanding, the exams used to be a lot heavier in pseudocode questions, which might explain such an emphasis on such questions in the tutorial. If so, the tutorials might need a refresh.

Labs are essentially dedicated to solving ODA questions, and you can ask your lab TAs if you're stuck on either the ODAs or THAs. Apparently, they are also the ones that grade them. For me, I left my whole Friday empty in case I got stuck on an ODA and needed more time to solve it, since you have to complete in 24 hours. I also worked on the problem before my lab slot, like once the assignment opened at 10am. This was to ensure I made full use of my lab TAs expertise during the precious 2 hours if I got stuck, instead of trying to understand the question and come up with a first iteration to solve it. The ODAs in general were not terribly difficult though. As for the lab TAs, most of us preferred to talk to Chao Ming because he was more approachable and helpful. However, we often don't understand each other's algorithm suggestions HAHAHA. On the other hand, Sourabh was very passive. Maybe he was in charge of doing the assignment grading? But my friend asked him questions on telegram and got blue-ticked (I think more than once) so there's that. Oh also, you're required to submit pseudocode before or during the lab which also acts as your lab attendance grade, which is why you should start working on it before the lab because 2 hours to do pseudocode and actually code and debug is very tight.

THAs were more difficult, and I spent about 1-4 days on each question. There were 4 THAs in total, 2 questions in each THA. Discussing algorithms with friends really helps because a lot of these problems are not straightforward and require a good grasp of lecture content along with creativity. Unlike CS1010, your code now has to be efficient and meet the required run-time, otherwise it will not be accepted. Hence, talking to friends to see if there are other more efficient ways of solving the problem is highly efficient on your time needed to solve the THAs. Do note that looking at other people's code is not allowed, as mentioned by the prof so just be careful not to show actual code when discussing. The worst THA though probably has to be the AVL tree one, it was incredibly painful to have to build the AVL tree on your own and do all the rotations. Maybe deforestation isn't so bad after all Nonetheless, you should score full marks for both the ODAs and THAs as most people do after countless tries or discussing algorithms with friends.

Midterms and finals were pretty similar, exams were on Examplify and the bulk of it was MCQ questions, with 2-3 pseudocode/come-up-with-algorithm questions. The midterm tested until hashtables and was apparently harder than finals. As many of you know, Prof Chong sets hard papers so be prepared. Make sure you read the question properly as there's a lot of constraints/things to look out for to get the correct answer. Prof's questions also tend to be very long and confusing so it might take a lot of time and brain-power to understand what's going on in the question. Exams were open-book closed internet, the midterm was 1.5 hours and the final exam was 2 hours. You have to have a good grasp of the various algorithms, how they work, how their time complexities are derived and subsequently in what situations each algorithm works best/worst. I highly recommend working on the pseudocode questions at the end first because they need more time to think and come up with the solution, and if you don't know anything just write something out, and you'll get at least one mark. The MCQs can still be guessed if you run out of time, but try to do them well because they form the bulk of the marks. Do lots of PYPs to get a feel of the MCQ questions and see how the pseudocode questions should be answered. Also, for the pseudocode questions, I observed that writing in paragraphs/essay-style is much better than the usual code style because there's more ambiguity and it's easier for the marker to understand your algorithm's logic compared to code-style which will often be ridden with errors. For finals, prof actually dropped quite a few hints when he was going through the PYPs without answers in Week 13 lectures so do make sure to watch that. My score for the midterm was 58/100 (77th percentile), and the final exam was 75/95 (93rd percentile). Midterm stats 0 39 47 56 95, finals stats 0 41 50 62 91. Finals was originally out of 100, but there was an issue with the time complexity required and getting the correct answer (apparently the solution to solve it in that time complexity results in overcounting) in the last pseudocode questions, so prof re-based it to 5 instead of 10 marks and marked according to the next best algorithm to get the right answer.

Lastly, there were 2 Visualgo quizzes held during lab slots, one in Week 7 and the other in Week 13. Make sure to practise a lot of Visualgo questions in hard mode. I found the week 13 quiz much harder because the later topics were harder, especially MST. As a result, I got 14/15 for it because I got the 2nd best MST question wrong (so saddd). The first quiz was pretty easy though. Most people get full marks for both so.

All in all, I find this module difficult but also rewarding. A lot of the concepts taught are important, for example, I'm working on a project now that makes use of what I learnt in 2040. All the best to those taking it in future sems, rest assured Dr Chong is a very good prof and you're in good hands! Just put in the work and you should stay afloat

TLDR:

High workload, don't overload (in fact try to underload) when taking this mod Leave your Fridays empty to work on the ODAs Learn Java ahead of time if you can to get used to the syntax, don't leave THAs to the last minute because you need time. Discuss with friends to maximise efficiency on coding assignments Do PYPs and understand how each algo works, how the time complexity comes about, when to use what algo Do lots of Visualgo practice for the quizzes

Grades:

Expected grade: A- Actual grade: A

DSA2101

Module Coordinator & Lecturer: Dr Huang Yuting

T/A: Augustine

Lecture Topics:

R programming.

Importing data into R.

Data manipulation with R (Tidyverse)

Principles of data visualization.

Introduction to the grammar of graphics (ggplot2)

Exploring data through visualization.

Deliverables:

Tutorial Attendance - 5% DataCamp assignments - 10% Group project - 15% Midterm - 30% Finals - 40%

Other Comments:

This module has a pretty light workload, and the content is quite straightforward. It's a coding mod about data cleaning and visualisation using R. I thought I would be disadvantaged as I was pre-allocated DSA1101 in Sem 1 last year under Dr Sun, which had little coding emphasis and more stats/math, whereas in Sem 2 Dr Daisy Pham took over and revamped the whole module to essentially be about R coding. However, the first few weeks of lectures were about R coding and it was more than enough time to catch up. Also, it turns out that I'm quite quick at debugging in R, which is a great asset in exams. Dr Huang is a good lecturer in my opinion, she is concise and emphasises on the important things. Lectures are basically her going through slides which show various ways to code using a variety of tools/functions, and often she'll do a live demo to reinforce what was taught in the slides. She encourages us to code alongside her, and for this reason (apart from the fact that lectures are at 8am), I think it's better to watch the recorded lectures as you can pause and try them out yourself before continuing. Prof is also very approachable and quick to reply my emails, even if I ask a barrage of questions.

Tutorials are coding questions for you to try out on your own, and the TA will go through them. Augustine was a good TA, on top of the solutions provided by prof, he would add other methods to get the same result, and he was decent at explaining the code flow and thought process. He also responded to my queries on Telegram for the most part. As for the tutorial questions, I highly recommend trying them out on your own without using chatgpt to debug, because it's good practice for exams.

DataCamp Assignments were 8 x 1.25% online modules/courses? on DataCamp. These are free marks so just make sure you complete them by the deadline. DataCamp honestly isn't very helpful in learning because almost everything is filled in, and they just need you to fill in a few blanks.

The midterm was a 1.5-hour Examplify, open-book but closed internet exam, held in Week 8 at 8am (!!), and this was probably the most difficult part of the course. Most people weren't mentally awake at 8am, and the paper was quite difficult. It is easy to forget a certain function or have syntax errors, and R isn't the easiest language to debug in. It might be tempting to keep working on one part before moving on to the next because each sub-part leads to another, but the grading was very lenient in the sense that even if you miss out on a lot of things, you can still get the bulk of the marks. The key point is to try and complete everything and you should be above the median already. Since you don't have internet access, it is paramount that you do the tutorials as practice without the internet to prepare for the midterm. There were also a lot of small things that tripped people up, such as not being able to read the excel file in R when the excel file is open on your computer, ctrl-c ctrl-v being locked, the question paper on Examplify only taking half of the screen and couldn't be expanded etc. Overall it was a bad experience but luckily the grading was so kind. I got 27.5/30, the median was 21.25/30. Also do note that you have to copy your code from R into Examplify and differences between the R code submitted on Canvas and the Examplify code will be subjected to penalties. However, the Examplify exam does not auto-submit when time is up because there's 15 minutes after the exam to complete all the admin, so make sure your file can knit and all (basically the correct version of your R file) before you copy and paste into Examplify.

The group project was a report where we had to come out with 3 different plots using ggplot to investigate a meaningful question from one of the datasets given. We were allowed to choose our group members regardless of tutorial slot, so be sure to take this mod with friends!! My group did San Francisco Rentals, which a lot of people avoided because there were a lot of observations and variables/columns, but it turned out to be quite easy as we only had to select a few columns to work with. I had other friends who did the Lego dataset which seemed easy at first glance, but turned out to be a nightmare because you had to join a lot of different tables together to get the data you wanted. Unfortunately, I don't know why my group underperformed, I only got 12.5/15, and I assume a lot of people would get 13-15 out of 15 (stats were not released). Anyways just make sure you don't leave the project to the last minute because it can be quite tedious to code and have to write the report.

Finals were a lot easier than midterms. The format was Examplify open-book, closed-internet 2-hour exam, consisting of 25 marks of MCQ/fill-in-the-blank questions and 15 marks of coding. The coding this time around was much simpler, and possibly because we're more experienced by then. The MCQ questions were very easy, and if you were unsure of anything (eg. the definition of tidy data), you could just Ctrl-F. Hence, I recommend collating the lecture slides into one document to more efficiently Ctrl-F. This also helps for the coding questions, as there was 1 data-cleaning and 2 ggplot questions, and if you're unsure of which ggplot function to plot the graph, there's a summary on the lecture slides, alongside an example of the syntax to come up with the plot. Hence, I finished the exam with half an hour to spare and checked through my answers. I think the bell curve for this paper is quite steep because it was relatively easy. There was only one part that tripped some people up, which was removing NAs before or after performing pivot-longer. This will yield different results and affects 2 MCQ questions and the 5 mark coding question. Other than that, the exam is straightforward so be sure not to make careless mistakes.

TLDR:

Practise tutorials without ChatGPT Go through tutorial questions and answers, collate lecture slides into 1 document for easy ctrl-F-ing in the exams In the exams, aim to complete everything rather than perfect certain parts. Move on if you're stuck Don't be careless, read the questions carefully Work with trusted friends for the group project to minimise pain

Grades:

Expected grade: A- Actual grade: A

DSA2102

Module Coordinator & Lecturer: Dr Timothy Wertz

T/A: Tianyun

Lecture Topics:

Week 1: Introduction, Scientific Notation Week 2: Computer Arithmetic, Matrix Operations and Complexity Week 3: Systems of Linear Equations Week 4: Elimination with Pivoting, LU Factorization Week 5: Cholesky Factorization, Linear Least Squares Week 6: Gram-Schmidt Process, Reflections and Rotations Week 7: Singular Value Decomposition Week 8: Eigenvalue Problems Week 9: Power Iteration, QR Iteration Week 10: Singular Value Decomposition Revisited, Interpolation, Practical Interpolation Week 11: Orthogonal Polynomials Week 12: Numerical Integration Week 13: Error Formulas and Composite Quadrature, Other Integration Algorithms, Numerical Differentiation

Deliverables:

Homework - 5% x4 [lowest HW score can be substituted by lecture attendance grade] Midterm - 30% Finals - 50%

Other Comments:

This module is not difficult, but there's just a lot of content to remember. First of all, Dr Wertz is a pretty good lecturer, he is concise in explaining things and he splits his lectures into 3 categories: technical, conceptual, and enrichment. About 40% of the slides are enrichment which is nice to know but not required for the homework or exams. I would've liked to see a labelling of each slide under one of the 3 categories which would have made revising for exams a lot easier. Prof is also very helpful and answers questions at the end of the lecture. However, he also speaks very fast and tends to mumble/have run-off sentences so if your first language is not English, you might have a hard time understanding him.

There were 4 homeworks, each was out of 50. Like most math modules, the homework median is usually close to full marks, except for Homework 2 which had a killer counting operations of banded matrix question. As usual, discuss with friends to check your answers. The homework questions are mostly not tough, they are questions that are covered in lectures. Each homework also has an R coding question, but it's usually quite simple as prof has pseudocode in the slides, you just need to adapt them into actual code. If not, the tutorials also have an R question usually, refer to the tutorials for inspiration. Also, prof took lecture attendance, and while lectures are not compulsory (lectures are recorded too), it can replace your lowest homework grade, whichever is higher. I highly recommend getting the attendance grade as a safety net.

Tutorials were apparently hit-or-miss. My TA, Tianyun, was a pretty good TA and he explained relatively well. Sometimes, I didn't understand him but he was very approachable to me asking him questions after tutorial and he cleared all my doubts. He was also very dedicated, because there was one week that another TA took over him, and damn he kinda sucks because he doesn't explain well and totally skipped the R coding question, which I needed to solve a homework question. After asking the substitute TA about it, he just shrugged and said he doesn't provide R code. However, after I emailed Tianyun about it, he came up with his own R solution to the problem as prof hadn't sent him the solution yet. This sort of proactiveness is appreciated. As for the tutorial questions itself, it's mostly not hard and quite a good reflection of exam questions.

The midterm was a 80-minute pen-and-paper, scientific calculator exam, and we had to bring our own writing paper and scan our answers to upload ala homework-style within 10 minutes. The paper was relatively simple but computationally intensive, so avoid making careless mistakes. We were tested up to Week 6 content, and it was quite right-skewed. I got 41/50, the stats are 0 33 39 43 50. The final exam was a 2-hour pen-and-paper, scientific calculator exam that was out of 50. It was honestly even simpler than the midterm because it was less computationally-intensive, the first question was a bit odd, asking us to consider the number of operations to get the time complexity of some algorithms. The rest of the questions were standard, and mirrored questions from lecture examples, tutorials or the midterm/final practice papers that prof gave. Prof said he sets easier papers by not allowing us to bring cheatsheets in, and I think he kept to his word. The hard part comes in memorising the sheer number of algorithms and ways to solve the questions.

TLDR:

Keep up with tutorials so that you remember the algorithms more easily As usual, check homework answers with friends, attend lectures for safety net/grade boost in case you screw up a HW Try to understand the process of the algorithms to make life easier when studying for exams Don't make careless mistakes in exams

Grades:

Expected grade: B+ Actual grade: A

MA2311

Module Coordinator & Lecturer: Assoc Prof Leung Man Chun

T/A: Shixiao

Lecture Topics:

1. Sequences (Monotone convergence theorem, series, absolute and conditional convergence) 2. Tests of convergence (Power series and interval of convergence, Taylor’s series, differentiation and integration of power series) 3. Vectors in R2 and R3 (Dot product and cross product) 4. Functions of 2 or 3 Variables (Limits and continuity, partial derivatives, directional derivatives, gradients of functions, Taylor’s formula, maximum and minimum, second derivative test) 5. Vector-valued Functions of Several Variables (Chain rule, tangent planes and normal lines to surfaces in R3, Jacobians (change of volume/area element), Lagrange's multiplier method) 6. Multiple Integrals (Iterated integrals, change of order of integration, change of variable formula for multiple integrals)

Deliverables:

Midterms - 20% Finals - 80% (!!)

Other Comments:

Despite my grade for the mod, I can safely say this is the WORST mod I've taken in NUS so far. This prof really sucks, period. Although some math majors were warning ppl about him in the CHS group chat, I thought that since the module content was easy, even if the prof is bad it shouldn't be too big a problem. How wrong I was HAHA (but tbf, I heard Charmaine Sia who's teaching MA2104 isn't that great either and 2104 is tougher so it's not an easy choice). At this point, the module should be renamed to Techniques in Advanced Gambling because I felt like I was throwing a dart blindfolded and seeing what grade I would land. The 80% finals really made it feel like a lottery.

Let's start with the lectures. Someone else mentioned that the lecture slides were bad, and yes it's true. It's just emptiness all around, like very few words and some random diagrams and pictures. I can understand if the prof wants us to take notes, and that's why he left so many blanks. But the problem is that his lectures hardly refer to the slides. 99% of the time he's writing some stuff on paper and showing it to the lecture hall on the visualiser, so no one knows which part he's explaining, especially since he really cannot teach and explain things well to us. I think it's very hard to learn content from his lectures, but I do think there is some value in watching them which I will explain later. I managed to get my hands on the previous prof's lecture slides which helped me to keep up with the tutorials but I didn't watch the lectures from midterms until reading week, as a result, I didn't exactly master the later topics until reading week.

As for the tutorials, Shixiao was a pretty good TA because he would explain things in a way that made sense. He was also helpful despite a lot of dumb questions I asked at the end of each tutorial lol. He was probably the saving grace of this mod. However, the tutorial questions were directly ripped from last AY's MA2311 (this prof was the TA for the mod then) and the prof is so lazy that he didn't even remove the previous prof's name from the tutorial solution slides!! So this means no one really knows what kind of questions the prof will set since there's no reference or anything.

Midterms was a 1-hour pen-and-paper exam held in the lecture hall on Week 8, and it was open-book. Apparently, it was closed-internet but there was nothing to block internet access. Nonetheless, you have access to all your notes and I also downloaded Geogebra offline to check limits lol. We were tested until radius of convergence. 2 questions were directly from the tutorial but just slightly altered, the last question was slightly unorthodox but still doable. I got 19/20, and I think a lot of people did too. We only got back the midterms on the very last lecture in Week 13 so if you realised you screwed up there's honestly not much time to catch up. The average according to the prof was around 18/20.

Finals was your typical 2-hour, pen-and-paper, scientific calculator and 1 A4 double-sided cheatsheet math final exam. (Note: There was 1 part of question 1 that was voided and the paper was re-based to 95 instead of 100.) The fact that finals was 80% was extremely scary, and it was a sink-or-swim situation. I spent the bulk of reading week looking through the textbook and trying out questions from there (answers can be found online if you're resourceful enough), and alongside going through the prev AY's prof notes in more detail I got a better idea of the content. To be fair, most of the content was not difficult except for the part on volume multiple integration. Nonetheless, I still poured a lot of effort and time into this module because I couldn't risk the 80%. After understanding everything, I watched the prof's lectures to see if there was anything I missed out on and also to get some hints. He was emphasising one particular question at the end of the last week 13 lecture which I added wholesale into my cheatsheet, and lo and behold, it came out in the last question of the finals. As for the finals paper itself, I could do most of the questions, it was a relatively even spread across all the topics in both the first and second half but I wasn't sure if I got them correct because even the first question, which was a giveaway L-hopital limit question, I got wrong LOL. I think there were a few questions that felt a bit strange and unfamiliar, but if you know your concepts well it should not be an issue. Overall, some people felt it was easy and some felt it was difficult, which I attribute to whether you know the content and watched his lectures or not. Still though, 80% is crazyyyyyy

TLDR:

Listen to other ppl's advice, don't take this mod under this AY's prof unless you like gambling if you're taking it under him, I wish you all the very best

Grades:

Expected grade: idek Actual grade: A+

[vermilionhealth]

8 Ways to Keep Your Mind Healthy and in Shape!

A lot of us are concerned with the size of our biceps or the girth of our waist.

Having a fit body is important. However, keeping your mind in shape is critical to enjoying your life at the highest level. 

Give your brain the attention it deserves!

Read more: 10 Greatest Tips to Stick to Your Diet and Lose Weight Fast!

Keep your mind healthy, active, and in shape with these strategies:

1. Exercise regularly. Roughly 30% of your brain’s volume is composed of blood vessels. It’s important to keep your blood moving! Exercise will get your blood flowing and help to control your blood sugar. High blood sugar is harmful to blood vessels. That’s why so many diabetics die of heart disease or stroke at a relatively young age.

2. Read each day. Reading requires a lot of your brain. It’s not easy to transform symbols into words and meaning. Spend some time each day with a book that makes you think. You might learn something useful, too.

Avoid reading the same types of books on a regular basis. Read well-written articles. Read the classics. Try a new science fiction novel. How about a book on theoretical physics? Reading the sports page every day doesn’t count. The same goes for romance novels by your favorite author. Mix it up.

3. Eat well. A healthy diet will help preserve your brain function. Do a little research on the best diet for longevity and attempt to make a few changes to your eating habits. A few, small changes each month will go a long way toward keeping your brain healthy.

4. Meditate. Meditation is powerful for several reasons. You’ll learn to focus like a Tibetan monk. You’ll also learn how to relax. Both are wonderful for your brain. Meditation is hard work. It’s like a decathlon for your mind.

Find a good teacher in your area and meditate in a group. You’ll make some new friends, too.

5. Challenge yourself. Learn something new. Learning to paint, speak a new language, or dance are a few great examples. Learning something new forces your brain to create new neural pathways. Your brain’s ability to change is referred to as its “elasticity.”

This can be very challenging at first. If you’ve been living the same day repeatedly for several years, learning something new is similar to going jogging for the first time. It’s painful, and you don’t get too far. Be patient and give your brain a chance to wake up.

6. Do something that requires a lot of brainpower. It might be solving cryptograms or writing a computer program. Take a multivariate calculus class. Study chess. Push your brain to the maximum.

7. Remember the past. As we grow older, it’s more challenging to remember facts from the past. When you can’t remember something, avoid giving up. Take all the time you need to remember. You might finally remember the name of your high-school English teacher while you’re mowing the grass. Keep at it.

8. Get out and socialize. Spending too much time alone has been shown to increase the likelihood of developing dementia. Have an active social life and spend more time with others. You’ll enjoy your life more, too.

There are many benefits to keeping your mind in tip-top condition. You’ll enjoy better mental health and preserve your mental faculties longer. Keeping your mind healthy requires attention. Challenge yourself to learn new information and skills. Your brain is highly elastic. Give it a chance to use that ability.

Combat mental stress and physical fatigue with a healthy does of our Health and Vitality Jelly, which boast a dose of 900mg of the 6 year old red ginseng extract per serve! This will bulletproof both your body and mind be it at the workplace, gym or in the classroom. Click here to read the reviews and check out the Health and Vitality Jelly on offer today!

Want to improve Eyesight naturally? Then TAKE ACTION NOW and be prepared to surprise yourself and everybody else, check out this health jelly for eyes health! Have you tried education, doctors and everything else but nothing has worked? Feel that your life for years now has been turned upside down by poor eyesight? Now is the time to take action. This healthy jelly can help to slow down macular degeneration, cataract formation and helps to relief dry and tired eyes.

[misterborax]

My Game of the Week #3 - Gravity Circuit

My Game of the Week is Gravity Circuit by @DomAntGames! As a Mega Man diehard, I have been anticipating this game for years. Now that it's been a week since launch, it's time to give my full thoughts on the game! Let's just say, I LOVE it. 1/16

The game plays like a standard Mega Man-like 2D platformer, complete with 8 stages to choose from and some castle stages at the end. A run feature, a grapple hook, wall jumps - standard platformer fare. Although things get interesting when you start attacking… 2/16

Instead of blasters or swords, you use your punches and kicks to fight! You'll soon come to learn that your attack changes when you use different directions and attack in the air. You can even use your grapple hook to pick up defeated enemies and throw them! 3/16

Normally, a defeated enemy would drop health and ammo. In this game, enemies drop energy, which is used to fill a super meter. Yes, you read that right. By pressing the Burst button and a direction, you can literally use a super move like a fighting game. 4/16

Those familiar with fighting games can easily tell where these supers come from - rising uppercuts, screen-covering lasers, and my personal favorite - command grabs! A fantastic treat to action game fans who also dabble in fighting games. (I may have used the piledriver a little too much during bosses!) 5/16

This right here is the name of the game. Managing your super meter charges, and using the right supers at the right time. You can use these supers at any time during levels and bosses. Do you spend meter to get through a hard part of the level? Or save your charges for the boss? 6/16

Meter management doesn't have to be hard, however. At checkpoints, you have the option to restore all health and meter at the cost of some coins. Each time you use the refill in a level, however, the price of the next one goes up. When you die, your meter is NOT restored. So you gotta choose carefully where and when to buy meter refills. 7/16

And lastly for the levels, each one is littered with secrets! There are 8 robots to be rescued per level, usually hidden off-screen or behind breakable walls. There are also pickups that increase your health and energy charges. As if we couldn't get enough Mega Man references! 8/16

Moving onto the hub, there's two main things to do here. After each main boss is defeated, two new supers are unlocked, and you can use coins to buy them. You can also buy "perks" that can grant you passive abilities, that cost both coins and Robot Tokens you gain from rescuing robots! 9/16

You can, of course, interact with the dozens of characters chilling around the hub, and, most importantly, pet the dogs! Have I sold you on the game yet? 10/16

I do have one critique with this game. Outside of checkpoints, there's no healing whatsoever. There's a super named "Emergency heal" that restores a few pixels, but it's hardly enough. Mega Man has always had a matter of healing, whether it be one-time use health refills, or "sub-tanks" that fill up when you collect health pickups while at full health. 11/16

This made the early game a bit hard as I had lower health and no emergency heals, but the problem went away as I got better at the game. However, this could be really bad for new players, especially if they can't afford to heal at checkpoints. 12/16

There are measures in place to make the experience easier, such as no insta-death spikes and hazards, and very well-spaced checkpoints. But I think giving players some sort of cushion to get them to the finish line, even if it's easy-mode exclusive, could go a long way for novice players. 13/16

And for our final note, I need to give a special shoutout to the composer, @Dominic_Ninmark. Dom has been one of my favorite composers in the industry for years, and I've followed every one of his works, including Blazing Chrome, Mighty Goose, this year's Vengeful Guardian Moonrider, and the highly-anticipated fangame, Mega Man X: Corrupted. 14/16

Hearing what he's composed for this small team's first game is just absolutely astounding. To think this just might be his best soundtrack to date! Hats off to you man, you're an inspiration. Looking forward to your future projects. Congrats to the entire staff who made such an amazing game on their first try. 15/16

If you're a Mega Man fan and haven't played this game yet, your are doing yourself a disservice. $15 is a perfect price for this game. You can buy it on Switch, PsS4/5, and PC. Play it now! 16/16 Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/858710/Gravity_Circuit/ Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/gravity-circuit-switch/ PSN: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/gravity-circuit-switch/

[olleoskifelle]

My thoughts of S2 episode by episode

Some background: I didn’t watch the trailer because I hate spoilers. I also hate watching all episodes at once, so I made a deal with myself to watch only one episode per day (I’m crazy). In the end S2 took me 5 days and I wrote these  thoughts down after each episode. I’m afraid they are quite messy, but they are my topmost thoughts rather than a deep analysis. Oh and I haven’t read anyone else’s opinions yet because I didn’t want them to affect my own. So if you all disagree then that’s on you. But let’s get on to it, because I can’t wait to finish writing this and join the party!!!

Episode 1:

6 minutes in and all our worst fears are coming true. Poor @levok 😂

8 minutes in and I'm out of breath this moves fast.

I can smell wilmon endgame.

Omar has almost better chemistry with who ever plays this Marcus dude than with Edvin. OKAY I HAVE LATER CHANGE MY MIND ABOUT THIS ONE. (Don't come at me. Also I'm sure I'll learn his real name real soon. His insta following has probably shoot up by a million at this point.)

You do you Wille!

When are they going to tell Simon? And Sara... I'm on the fence of saying excuse me honey what are you doing but I also 100 % understand how things can escalate from just... that. Malte should win an award from this episode only. Overall I feel like that Sara/August scene was the strongest scene in this episode.

Episode 2:

Damn those Ericsson’s siblings are ready to get some. Simon has clearly been reading @levok ‘s blog and learned that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new. But is it really? And Sara... I'm still on the fence about you honey. That was possibly the most genius way to ask some. Or very stupid. It's August after all. But I laughed. Might try your tactic 😂

Was season 1 this fast-paced? I'm once again out of breath. I kind of wish there where more scenes to just breath. Like Simon's singing.

The story is finally getting some shape. Looks like August wasn't the worst of them all. And Wille thinks Simon has moved on. Oh honey, he hasn't. But Wille you need to understand how you hurt Simon. I remember thinking at one point during this episode that season 1 Wille wasn't this stupid. No wonder Edvin said he had a hard time understanding his character this season.

Episode 3:

Okay Marcus I'm not sure if I like you. When someone says they're not ready for a relationship you respect them, not kiss them. Or at least that's what I tell myself... And don’t therapies Simon. This is probably just me, but I don't really see how Micke affected Simon's relationship with Wille. The crown affected it way more.

This isn't Wille/Felice friendship I have read fics about. Don't ruin your friendship guys (I don't think you will). Thank you Henry.

August being next in line... I didn’t even watch the trailer, but I feel like I knew all this. Our speculations were way too accurate 😂 Very interesting to see how August is gonna treat Sara from now on. And what happens when Wille realizes who's next in line...

This episode felt much more chill-paced. I liked this episode. But I'm afraid of the next one, it's the 4th after all...

Episode 4:

Thank you Simon for renaming my blog. I'm the nameless blog now 🐟

It's starting to feel like everything is back like it's supposed to be. Wille and Felice are good friends. Wille and Simon are still Wille and Simon. August is all alone. I'm a bit worried about Sara. Did she do the right thing or not? I don't know. Sara has really been the one this season I can't make my mind about.

It was about a damn time for a wilmon kiss! I have had enough of this love triangle drama. Even before this season dropped 😂 I'm sure that’s what you all are once again currently talking about. I can't wait to join the discussion so I'm gonna treat myself with another episode today (look, I have a flu and all. I need something to do all weekend!)

Episode 5:

Okay that was a cool way to end the episode (except those curtains are still sheer... 🆘).

I knew from the moment Wille started to brush his teeth what was going to happen. Lisa has been spying on us. Hello if you're reading this.

Yes Simon. Someone at that school has to do what's right. Maybe neither of the Ericsson’s siblings ends up as the part of the monarchy (if there still is a monarchy at the end of this). But if I can choose I rather take Simon. Maybe being true to his feelings means Wille gets Simon back and that will give him strength to do his speech.

A special mention goes to the scene where Simon tells Wille he's just like his mom. That was a real slap in the face. But an earned one. I enjoyed that scene a lot.

August. Wow dude you're really in love. Maybe Sara will visit you in prison. Good luck.

Episode 6:

Okay Sara you are officially the true mpv of this season! Also thanks to you I can smell season 3 in the air.

Marcus - I told you to listen when Simon said he's not ready! (This might be a bit sensitive topic for me 😂)

August, you need to learn money doesn't buy happiness. But I don’t think you will. In my experience more money equals more problems.

I wish Simon could have sung his song 😔

Was that jag älskar dig added afterwards 🙈 It sounded weird!

At least Wille and Simon had each other. That's what matters the most, right...? And Wille seemed to find his voice, making his own legacy.

Overall I don't know what to think. S2 is still too fresh in my mind. I think I liked season 1 more. But that's probably because there was a bigger element of surprise. I've been too deep in the fandom and my expectations were sky high. I'm not disappointed at all - I truly enjoyed this season. Maybe I just thought so many things weren't left in the air. Because I have waited so long to get some answers. But if that means there’s season 3 I’m all in. 

Like said, I had waited SO LONG to watch this and right now I just feel empty. Thank god I have you guys to talk and speculate with, all the fans edits to watch, fics to read, 6 episodes to rewatch a million times, reaction videos, promo interviews and Simon’s song. I’m good for another year 😉

[redheadsinmybed]

Play dates and roller skates

Wanda x Reader

Description: Wanda and Y/N have been in a little big relationship for a week now, what happens when Y/N has her first playdate???

Notes: Hi! So I’m gonna post all my stories from AO3 onto here so I get a larger audience. This is my second fanfic that I ever wrote and it’s the second part to the series ’Loving a little’ I hope you enjoy if you haven’t already read it!!!

Having Wanda as your caregiver is the best thing you could ever ask for. She knows you so well and loves you beyond anything you could have ever imagined. Having Wanda as your mama is like a dream come true.

Currently you were big, just talking over stuff with Wanda while watching a sitcom in the living room. It was about 8:45 p.m. and you were tired.

“Okay so today Pepper, Bucky, and Laura asked me if you would like to play with Tony, Steve, and Clint tomorrow. Natasha and Thor will be there too,” Wanda said looking at you.

Two days after you had showed everyone about you, you had turned back to big. You haven’t been little in a week now and it was really starting to take its toll on you. You want to slip back into your little state, but you’ve been fighting it, wanting to spend girlfriend time with Wanda.

Wanda was worried about you, since everyone knew about you she thought you’d feel comfortable switching regularly. She also knows being big for too long isn’t good for littles.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Wanda asks, reaching out for your hand to get your attention. It’s not that anything is wrong per say it’s just that you want to be little again and you're tired of trying to fight it.

“I-,” you stop not knowing how to say what you want to say.

“I want to spend time with you just as girlfriends, but it’s hard because I can feel myself slipping, but I just don’t want you to feel like you are taking care of me all the time,” you finally say after thinking about it.

“Baby that’s what I’m here for, not just as your mama but as your girlfriend too. I want you to feel comfortable switching between the two. You will never make me mad by switching, I promise. Now, baby girl, do you want to be little? I can go get Bunny for you.” Wanda suggests as she gets off the couch when she sees you nodding.

“Okay baby girl, mama will be right back” she kisses your forehead and makes her way to your bedroom where your stuffed animal koala named Bunny was.

When Wanda comes back she sees you switched when you make grabby hands at Bunny.

“Here you go baby girl” Wanda says as she hands you the koala and sits back down. You hold Bunny close to your chest and snuggle up against Wandas.

“So baby, do you want to play with Tony, Steve, and Clint tomorrow?” Wanda asks as she strokes your hair. You look up at your mama thoughtfully.

“Tasha be dare?” You ask with hope in your voice.

“Yes baby Nat will be there.”

“Otay. Do you fink dey know hows to woller skate?” You ask her. You had just recently turned 3 in your little state. Steve, Tony, and Clint were all 4 so they had a year on you, give or take. So you hoped someone would be able to teach you.

“Maybe baby, if not mama can help teach you” Wanda said assuringly.

“Mama know how to skate?!” You look at her with big doe eyes not being able to believe that your mama knows how to skate, and better yet can teach you how.

“If mama know how to skate and baby girl know how to skate, den mama an baby girl can skate togetder!!” You say happily with excitement. Wanda laughs at how adorable you are when you speak little talk.

“Yes baby, you and I can skate together,” Mama says to you. You look up at her happily ready to hang out with everyone and stake.

You yawn and snuggle closer into Wanda's chest ready to let the beating of her heart send you to sleep. Wanda sees you struggle to keep your eyes open.

“Close your eyes baby girl,” Mama says. That’s all the convincing that you need before your eyelids drop close.

When you wake up your head is still against mama's chest and she has her arms around you, but you see that you are no longer on the couch in the living room. Your in Wanda’s room- no your in your shared room with Wanda.

After you dropped, Wanda and you decided it was best to move in together. Even though you were just one door over. But you liked sharing a room with Wanda. You got to cuddle with her every night and wake up to her every morning.

You didn’t have a lot of stuff to move into Wanda's room so the move was easy. Most of your clothes were already in Wanda’s room since you spent nights with her so frequently, and the few things you do have are small.

You are still a bit tired and Wanda is still sleeping so you fall back asleep. When Wanda wakes up she is in the same position as when she went to sleep. You on top of her with your head on her chest, legs tangled together and her arms around you.

You don’t weigh enough to crush Wanda when you sleep on top of her, just enough to create a comfortable weight. You are like Wanda's weighted blanket. Keeping her warm at night and adding weight on top of her.

Seeing that it was 10:30 a.m. Wanda decided to wake you up as your play date with everyone was around lunch time.

“Baby girl,” Wanda says as she shakes you awake. You fuss for a minute not wanting to be pulled from your slumber, but when you see Wanda looking at you with love you suddenly forget all about sleep.

“Mama!!” you chirp happily. Wanda chuckles and kisses your cheeks.

“Morning, baby. Are you ready for today?” Wanda asks.

“Yay, can’t waits” You say back.

Wanda starts to untangle herself from you to your displeasure. You whine and pull on her arm.

“Baby we have to get up and ready if we want to play with everyone and roller skate”

“Woller skate!!!” You say cheerfully as you jump out of bed.

Wanda helps you get ready and by 11:30 you guys are ready to go. You put your shoes on, proud that you didn’t need mama's help, that is until she stops you.

“Hey baby, you got your shoes on the wrong feet,” Mama says as she crouches down to help you put them on the right way.

“There you go,” she says as she slips on your left splatter print croc on. She holds out her hand for you to take as you both walk down the hall.

Everyone is waiting in the common room in the compound. Steve, Tony, and Clint are already little and are playing with various toys. Tony is playing with an Iron Man action figure, Steve is playing with hot wheels, and Clint is playing with lego’s. Pepper, Bucky, Laura, Natasha, and Thor were all on the couch talking.

You spot Bunny on the couch that you and Wanda were on yesterday night. You tug Wanda towards Bunny not wanting to let go of her hand. You pick up Bunny and hug her to your chest.

“Hey Y/N,” Clint says, “Do you want to play lego’s with me?”

“No play with me Y/N” Tony insists.

“She doesn't want to play with you Tony, she wants to play with me!” Clint says, raising his voice.

“Why would she want to play with you? She doesn’t even like you” Tony says matter of factly.

“Boys” Pepper warns them.

“Y/N can play with anyone she wants, just let her choose. You don’t need to fight about it.” Laura says. You look between the two.

Letting go of mama's hand you walk toward Tony and he sticks his tongue out at Clint.

“Haha told you she wanted to play with-” Tony stops mid sentence as you walk right past him and walk over to Steve.

Pepper and Wanda just laugh and Bucky smiles.

“Guess she didn’t want to play with you guys since you were too busy fighting,” Laura says to the boys. Tony and Clint pout and look at Steve and you.

“Hi, can I pway wit you?” You ask Steve.

“Yeah, you can pick your favorite car,” Steve says pointing at the various cars scattered around him.

You spot a 2009 green Honda CR-V and instantly choose it. It reminds you of your mama’s eyes.

“I wike dis one. Mama, mama wook! It wook wike your eyes,” you exclaim. Wanda over at you and smiles while nodding her head.

You and Steve play cars for a while racing them on the floor, until lunch time. There’s hot dogs, chips, fruits, and veggies.

After Wanda fixes your plate for you everyone sits at the table. Wanda places your plate next to hers and you look up at her with big eyes, wanting to sit on her lap.

“Mama,” you say quietly, looking down as you ask her “can I sit on your lap?”

“Of course baby,” Wanda says. When she sits down you climb up on her lap with a smile on your face. You eat your hot dog and chips in a comfortable silence.

“Mama?” You ask as you eat your last chip.

“Yes baby girl?”

“Can we woller skate now?” You ask as you look up at her.

“Yes, baby we can roller skate now,” Wamda says

“OOO mommy can I roller skate with Y/N too?” Tony asks Pepper.

“Yeah I want to too,” Clint says.

“How bout we all go out and roller skate?” Wanda suggests getting cheers and noises of approval. Bucky and Pepper get skates out of the training room. Why they have a bunch of roller skates just sitting around nobody knows.

Outside the avengers compound littles and their caregivers were putting on their skates. Learning from this morning you put your skates on the right feet, but you need help tying them up. Wanda ties up your laces and stands up.

You try to stand up but can’t by yourself. You frown and try again, but the back wheels on our heels keep turning.

Wanda sees you struggle and holds out her hands for you. You grab onto your mama's hands as she helps you stand.

When you finally get off the ground you start to slowly roll forward. Luckily Wanda is still holding your hands so you don’t get far.

“You ready, baby?” Wanda asks you. You nod your head still a little unsteady, but you know mama will catch you before you fall.

“Yes mama I’m red-ready” you say as you wobble back and forth. You start to move forward when Wanda starts to move.

Wanda moves forward with ease. And your eyes go wide.

“Wooooooow you can woller skate,” you say in awe.

“Every won wook! My mama can skate!” You say pointing to your mama. Your mama smiles at you as everyone looks at her. She lets go of your arms and skates around everyone. All the littles look at her with unbelieving expressions.

When Wanda skates back to you she sees that you had tried to follow her. While trying to follow her your front left wheel hits a rock you didn’t see. The sudden stop makes you lose your balance. About to fall face first into the cement you brace for impact.

You wait. Except it never comes. When you open your eyes you see that mama used her powers to stop you from eating some cement, and stopped a big meltdown in front of everyone.

Red wisps of magic gently bring you back to her. Only once her hand is safely collapsed around yours do her eyes stop glowing red.

“You okay baby?” She asks you worried that she didn’t stop you in time. You hug her tight thanking her for not letting you fall.

Wanda shows you how to move your feet to move forward. You struggle for a bit, but Wanda helps you until you finally move forward on your own.

“Wook mama!! I’m doin it!” You say as your mama smiles and cheers you on. You look back behind you and see Pepper helping Tony skate for the first time. Clint and Steve were racing against each other already knowing how to skate.You skate slowly back to mama and hug her.

“I love you mama,” you say, and everyone around you lets out ‘awws’. Wanda looks a little shocked. You've told her that when you were big, but never when you were little.

Wanda can feel the tears brimming at her eyes.

“I love you too baby girl.”

Here in this moment, surrounded by your family, by mama, you feel the most loved.

After roller skating for a while you went back inside where mama and Tasha cuddled you on the couch until you started feeling sleepy.

“You ready to go baby girl?” Wanda asks you.

“Go where?” You ask curiously.

“Back to our room so you can sleep baby.”

“Otay,” you say sleepily. Wanda stood up and held her hand out for you. But you were too tired to walk all the way down the hall to your bedroom.

“Mama, can you carry me, pwease?” Wanda picks you up and sets you on her hip. You wrap your arms and legs around her.

“You’re like a koala baby,” she says. Which reminds you of something.

“Wait, mama, Bunny,” you say pointing to the stuffed koala. Nat is sitting by the koala and hands it to you.

“Fanks Tasha,” you say.

“Can I get a hug before you go?” Nat asks smiling, and you shake your head yes. Wanda smiles as you hug Nat. She is glad that you have found comfort in being little around people.

Wanda carries you back to your shared room and sits you down on your bed. You close your eyes ready to fall asleep, until Wanda says something.

“Baby you need to take a bath before we can go to bed.” You whine because you’re tired and you just want to snuggle up with mama until you fall asleep.

“How about mama joins you baby?” She said hoping to convince you.

You had done a lot today, after roller skating you played outside for a while before you came back inside. Tony, Steve, Clint, and you made mud cakes for everyone so you really needed a bath.

You agree to take one when you realize you can cuddle with mama in the tub. Wanda goes into the bathroom to get the water running.

When she’s done she comes out to find you half asleep, sucking on your thumb while you hold Bunny. She sighs but picks you up and carries you to the bathroom. She helps you undress and into the tub.

When she undresses she gets in the tub behind you and pulls you to her chest. She washes the dirt off your body and whispers to you about how good you were today.

“You’re such a sweet little girl for mama,” you hear her say as she finishes washing you off. You snuggle closer to her and just listen to her heartbeat.

“You ready to get out baby?” She asks you after a while. You nod your head ready to go to bed with her. Wanda helps you get out of the tub and drys you off. She helps you put on your pajamas.

She tucks you into bed with Bunny and follows soon after. When she's under the covers she wraps her arms around you. You shift as close as you can to her.

“I love you,” you say to her before closing your eyes. Wanda’s heart swells with love at your words.

“I love you too,” she says as you two drift off into sleep.