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everything-laito · 3 years

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hey,,, i've seen this controversial opinion about laito not being sexually assaulted by cordelia. . .as the only opinion of laito that matters, what are your thoughts on it? i know you've made some posts in the past about cordelia and laito's relationship, but i think that now would be a good time to i guess, remake a post or clarify your thoughts so people could follow along?? i hope you enjoy your day.

*proceeds to crack all my knuckles at once*

This isn't really my own "response" cuz oh boy I'm sick of this petty ass drama lmao. To begin, SKLDJF I'm very flattered that you hold my opinion in that high of regard! I'd say there's others that have interesting interpretations of him too though :) but again, thank you :') glad you enjoy what I have to say!

I know I've already kinda responded to this via a screenshot here, just to hold you––and others reading this––over. As much as this is a great time to talk about a how-to-analysis, I’ll still put that as a separate post eventually, but I still will go over the philosophy of truth and writings etc. But anyways, to answer your initial questions, they’re under the cut!

And no, I’m not specifically calling anyone out here. These are just issues with the fandom that I find as a whole, along with some extremists. Thus, I’m not going to be putting tags for people to easily find this post because I don’t want to be wound up in this drama––once again this is just more commentary on the fandom as a whole, which hopefully you can apply to people you find!

I have a lot of my own thoughts about Cordelia and Laito’s relationship here (just in case if people need it):

1. Goes over potential grooming of Laito, facts about Cordelia and what happened before she did stuff to Laito, and when did she rape Laito for the first time?

2. Stuff about incest and how any relationship out of a parental/child relationship is abuse even if it’s not penetrative sex, more incest stuff, and just more thoughts on their relationship

3. Neuroplasticity, trauma, Karlheinz, and isolation

4. What does sexual trauma look like? And some stuff on Laito’s facade

5. More stuff on his facade, and projection on Yui

6. My thoughts on Laito’s dark fate vampire ending + Conclusion

7. Answering some inbox stuff relating to Cordelia

Sure I realize I might be missing some stuff but that’s just my whole analysis on them. I’ll probably make some follow up posts eventually but I’m not sure when that will be.

But as for this analysis/ramble, I’ll divide it up into sections:

The issue of hypocrisy in the Dialovers fandom:

I- oh dear god. Ok, just saying, there’s a lot of people being like “oh I hate Cordelia because she was abusive” then ??? yo??? Why do you like the boys?? They’re abusive and we see more of them than Cordelia??? I just personally hate hypocrisy. However, it’s okay to hate Cordelia! It’s okay to love Cordelia! It’s okay to hate the boys and it’s okay to love the boys too. But recognizing that you don’t like one or the other just because “they’re abusive” is a fallacy at that point.

The reason why so many people hate Karlheinz/Cordelia/Beatrix/Christa/Richter (or at least start off hating them) is because they are written as the villains of the story! Karl’s the main villain, and the rest (including the diaboys and Yui) are kinda just tragically wound up in his plans. You sympathize more with the boys because you spend more time with them and watch them grow! It’s a whole “us vs them” situation. Since those people were awful to the boys/the boys hate them, you’re like “yeah they’re bad!” But the issue with the whole “us vs them” situation (as in real life) is that people tend to excuse the actions done by the “us” party.

Same thing goes with extreme Karl/Cordelia/Richter fans (I’ve never seen a hardcore Beatrix/Christa fan but they’re probably out there). Some hate the diaboys but love the people in that party. They’ve also done some shitty stuff too! Bro, even Yui has done some terrible stuff! But that’s because she was a product of the events she was thrown into––and same with everyone else.

Karl has been the mastermind of all this, and for me I don’t have any sympathy for him, mainly because we’re not shown anything to sympathize with (except that he just is tired of living but idk why he wants to create a whole new race like lmao science nerd ig, I feel that king). A lot of people like him for his looks, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing––he’s a fictional character, objectify these characters however you want. This is more of a personal opinion of mine though. And maybe people do just sympathize with his outlook on life, that’s totally fine.

But since these characters are all attractive in their own regard, they all get the treatment of “pretty-boy” syndrome (Idek if that’s the exact name for it). Which is just the privilege pretty people get. But again, this is fictional, so it’s not necessarily important in this case. Bro I got into DL cuz of “ooga booga hot vampires” and stayed for the complex lore and characters (especially one complex character, wonder who that could be). I imagine most people got into DL because of that, or out of sheer curiosity.

Ok, I’m throwing out a lot of points but not really connecting them. Lemme give you an example: I don’t like Reiji. His character doesn’t vibe with me most of the time aside from the fact that he’s hilarious. But I just am very neutral/neutral-negative on his character. But I’m not like “oh cuz he’s mean/abusive” cuz LOL EVERYONES MEAN IN THIS GAME. Sure you can still say that, it’s just not a very strong claim. Hypocritical claims tend to be like that. Same with a lot of Yui haters. In this case, they’re more jealous that she’s there and not them, which I’ve explained a lot in this post about toxic femininity and Yui in the fandom etc. But it’s ok to just not like a character! It’s alright! I know someone who just doesn’t vibe with Subaru. She doesn’t know why, she just doesn’t vibe with him. There’s no need to defend it either. But the use of hypocrisy is my main issue, and I’ll get to that in the next section.

(There’s a really good post explaining this too but I cannot find it for the life of me. I think it was made by @/abottleofkarlheinz or @/the-madame21)

How opinions of fictional universes left unchecked can effect real life:

I’ve said this a little bit in that Dialover PSA post I’ve made about Yui that I linked a couple paragraphs ago. But the reasons why people say they hate Yui is concerning. If you don’t like Yui, that’s totally fine! Again you don’t need reasons to hate on a character or defend it. But if you do choose to defend those characters, make sure what you’re saying isn’t out of some other place in your heart. Let me explain.

In that “Yui PSA” post I made, I say how your attitudes in being critical of a fictional universe usually does reflect on who you are as a person, at least when you’re making certain claims. In that Yui post, I say that the hatred on Yui is a result of the “other girl” mentality. On top of that, it erases her experience as a survivor. Yes, this is a fictional character, but bringing that into real life can have some dire consequences if you don’t differentiate them. If you have the same attitude of Yui with other survivors if the “abuser is hot” then thaaaaaat’s so fucked up.

For example, there’s people who have crushes on real life serial killers! That- that’s absolutely disgusting! Those real people killed living people and effected so many lives and families. Dude I have fictional crushes on fictional serial killers, and that’s different, because it is a removed universe. It’s why I can still call myself a lesbian but still have crushes on fictional male characters, for a further example (and vice versa! I have straight friends who crush on fictional characters of their same gender! But that doesn’t make them any less straight. And no, I’m not erasing bi people here either, just clarifying in case if you needed that).

Not being able to differentiate your opinions of a fictional universe can get very toxic. Like I love Laito, but I’m not like “omg I wish he was real so he could do that stuff to me uwu” like no!!! UH!!! I wouldn’t want to date anyone like him in real life! That’s literal abuse! And if Laito was here in real life it’s not a controlled environment, he’d literally be able to do anything with you, etc. That’s what makes a fantasy, a fantasy. They’re controlled.

Also vice versa, some people get really triggered by Dialovers, specifically Laito’s route. A lot of non-consensual acts that he does have been experienced by people in real life in any extent, myself included. For me, it’s a personal escape from that, because it is an environment where I am prepared for those events and can control my exposure to it. For some, they are reminded of the reality they had to experience. Fictional universes are inspired by real life, no matter what way you look at it. Real life people are making it, after all.

I feel like I’m going in so many circles, but trust me, I’m getting to the point.

I- I can’t explain this enough but it is most definitely implied that Cordelia had raped and sexually abused Laito. If it was explicit, DL would be an 18+ game, but they cannot do that in Japan. I’m not going to like defend this point because so many people (myself included) have defended this point. It’s implications carry over into Laito’s character and why he’s like this. He’s a textbook sexual abuse survivor. I just,,,, cannot explain this enough. Same thing with overwriting the abuse of Yui. They get jealous of Yui. Sure I’d say a good chunk of people have ravishment fantasies here. At least the 18+ people in the fandom who are into that stuff. But oh my dear god, ravishment fantasies are super super dangerous to enact in real life. It’s possible to do them, but it would take years of building up to that point in kink. That’s a whole other discussion though and I’m not incredibly comfortable talking about it knowing that minors read my blog (I’ll also have to say here: no minors in kink--its alright to educate yourself but pleaaaaaaaaaase don’t enact on any of those activities until you are of age, and even so that still can be dangerous right as you turn 18).

But anyways, saying that Yui should enjoy this because she’s experienced the ravishment fantasy you’ve dreamed of? Oh fucking hell, if you leave that opinion and mentality unchecked and it goes into real life, that’s incredibly awful. Abuse apologists are absolutely terrible people, almost as much as the abusers themselves.

If you twist the narrative that Laito loves Cordelia or Yui loves the boys at the end of the first game, that’s still––ughhhhhhhh. Especially when it’s so obvious that Laito has so many mental issues with Cordelia. His whole monologue and breakdown at the end of Dark Fate definitely tells us that he has had such an issue with Cordelia. And MB+ Laito is still Laito. As for Yui, dude she literally goes through stockholm syndrome in the first game like it is so goddamn apparent idek how to explain this at this point.

Ok dear god lmao wow, uh I think that’s answering the first couple of questions?

The philosophy of truth:

“Truth” has been an incredibly debated topic in philosophy for years. Truth is more of a subjective item rather than objective. Sure you can have personal objective truths, but they may not be the same truths for others. For example, a tomato is red. However, that tomato is red to me, because I am not color blind. A red-green color blind person may see the tomato as being brown or more muted in color. That’s their truth. They can’t really imagine what red is (ok depending on severity of their color blindness), considering they have not experienced the color red in the same way people who don’t have color blindness do. God uh, here’s a whole ass essay about truth, I’m cherry picking some of the things in there that are relevant to this.

Basically what I’m saying is, truth is very subjective. However, there are philosophers arguing a more objective truth. But that’s a whole other discussion. Also, this isn’t to support any political opinion, but I can use that as an example. Let’s go for well... The death penalty. I’m in America, we have the death penalty in some states. Yes, this is a very controversial topic, and no I’m not arguing the ethics of it here. Just hear me out.

If you live in Europe for example (except in Belarus and Russia––ok when I looked it up they consider Russia in Europe and technically it is but also there’s the whole chunk that is not- lmao even the truth of geography can be subjective), you might be like “yeah what the fuck are Americans doing?” (a common sentiment that I also share lmao). But yeah, what the fuck are we doing? Why is the death penalty still in existence? Yes, there’s statistics that prove that it doesn’t deter crime, but even crime rates is caused by a lot of different things too. Even statistics aren’t always accurate, because of many different factors. They’re not objective either, although good statisticians try their best to get good results and not skew the data. (please try to see where your data is coming from and who it is sponsored by––it matters a TON)

I’d say the closest thing we have as an objective truth to argue the death penalty or not is money. Money, although the concept is subjective, is a very objective currency. It’s why artists hate “exposure” compared to “money” as sole currency. The death penalty is very expensive, and not even used that often.

So, although money is currency made by us, and is technically 75% linen and 25% cotton (in America at least) with some funky dudes n numbers printed on it, it doesn’t sound that special. However, it would be considered as a baseline of some type of “objective truth” in ~society~ because people are typically on the same page of what money’s worth. Even so, this baseline of truth is still subjective! If Bill Gates accidentally has a $20 bill fall out of his pocket, that’s nothing to him! But if someone who’s working very hard to make ends meet loses that same amount of money, it could deal a lot of financial damage to that person.

Ok, hopefully you guys kind of get my drift. There are a lot of theories of truth, I’m just explaining one (honestly I forget the name of this theory) because it is the closest to the types of truth we are dealing with. And in this case, it’s called “canon.”

What the fuck is analysis:

The concept of “canon” is the objective truth that we have when analyzing universes. They’re our bread and butter of interpretation and extrapolation. The art of analysis clings to this notion of an objective truth. It needs a baseline. I’m going off of Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle, because that type of analysis I have the most experience with.

This is called rhetorical analysis. Rhetoric is the use of words in a persuasive fashion, and the analysis part is a breakdown of how words are used in order to achieve persuasiveness. I don’t typically use a lot of explicit rhetorical analysis in my personal writings, but I guess a version of it. Which typically has to deal with intention and execution. A lot of analysis on language has to do with this. Language is incredibly subjective. Certain words carry individual meanings to people. I have gone over the difference between real and lexical definitions before, and I’ll do it again.

I’ll just copy and paste what I’ve said before here from this analysis:

To put it simply, lexical definitions are the definitions you find in the dictionary. This is an “official” and “agreed upon” definition. Real definitions (quite a misleading name in my opinion) is the definition that’s more kind of “felt” in a way and how you internally interpret the word in context (these can be through individuals or any niche group). What I mean by this is that when you say a word (for example) to convey a feeling, you usually won’t know the dictionary definition off the top of your head. You say that something’s “savage” for example when you want to describe something violent or gruesomely awesome (it depends if it’s in a slang context or not) but there’s many lexical definitions (and outdated lexical definitions) of the term. But the first definition that usually comes up is “adj (of an animal or force of nature) fierce, violent, and uncontrolled.”

But people typically don’t think of the lexical definition when they learn what a word means; they usually learn the context of it and apply it as such. And that’s what a “real” definition is. Laito has a differing definition of what affection and love is, and that’s his own meaning and what it means to him.

I’ll even add another example to that too. The word “cunt” in english refers to a vagina. That’s just it. It’s lexically synonymous with “vagina,” “pussy,” etc. However, “cunt” has a subjective meaning to it. This is where “real” definitions also come into play. Many people view the word as vulgar and dirty. And that’s cuz we live in a ~society~ lmao. Our use of language has shaped what this word means in a context outside of the dictionary. I’ll do you one more. The Japanese word マンコ (manko) is also vulgar slang that’s kind of like our word “cunt/pussy.” Sometimes I say “cunt” for jokes, but I don’t use it that often to begin with since it’s just a very strong word to most (albeit it’s not that strong of a word for me). However, マンコ is a strong word to many Japanese people, but if I hear it even though I’ve been learning Japanese, it doesn’t have that same effect as hearing “cunt” for me is (which still, idc if I really hear it depending on context) because I haven’t been shaped in a culture that uses Japanese.

Even so, tone, intention, and context is HUGE in this. If someone called me a “useless fucking cunt” when they’re angry at me, I’d be close to crying. If someone told that to me as a joke, I’d be like “lol yeah you right, bitchass” and if someone said that in a consensual sexual context, it would certainly tickle my masochistic heart.

DSLKFJ also sorry if you don’t like hearing that word, I just had to utilize a strong example for this. But anyways, now let’s change the lens to Dialovers.

No, it never explicitly says that Cordelia rapes Laito. It doesn’t. However, there’s this WACKY thing called being able to infer, reading between the lines, and identifying implications. Those are kind of all the same things. However, indirect exposition is used a lot in effective creative writing. The utilization of this type of exposition is more preferred when writing a story, because direct exposition is kind of referred to as “info-dumping” when used excessively. Forgive my jargon: this is just showing vs telling as we’re taught in every writing class. I’m personally very bad at it, which is why I stick to writing these, and stick to reading creative fiction. (NOT SAYING IF YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT THIS TO NOT CONTINUE TO PRACTICE CREATIVE FICTION, I JUST DONT HAVE THE CURRENT MOTIVATION TO GET GOOD AT IT)

Dialovers uses a LOOOOOT of showing. And even so, its “showing” ability is very minimal considering the Japanese language can be vague on its own, it’s medium (visual novel) does not show a lot of things explicitly most of the time (and even when it is shown it doesn’t convey a lot). There’s several CGs of Laito and Yui where it doesn’t show the amount of pain or the dire situation Yui’s in, compared to what she’s saying she’s going through.

When I made my whole breakdown on Laito’s HDB route from Yui’s perspective, I got several comments about how they didn’t realize how bad his route really was. That’s either because people might not have experience with verbal abuse themselves, can’t exactly see Yui’s body language except her head (and even so, her expressions are limited), or don’t know a lot of gaslighting/verbal abuse techniques/have done research into it. Honestly verbal abuse is kind of hard to realize, so I’m not calling anyone dumb here. Despite me knowing a lot of the signs, I didn’t know I went through it––and even so I’ve denied it. And that’s what is so effective about this game though! Especially Laito’s route! Because you’re also sucked in with limited knowledge because you’re seeing this through Yui’s perspective, and on top of that it’s isolating. You can only make so many choices, and I feel like Dialovers is perfect as a visual novel. You get caught up with a lot of shock value things that Laito says, which serves as a perfect distraction for your first time through. But anyways, I’m getting off track.

For example, many people found his Maniac 07 chapter to be very confusing. I broke that one down here as well, and even so I was confused at first (also I was like 14/15, dear god). It tells you SO little, but you know that Laito’s incredibly upset at Richter for some reason, and even so, Yui comments on it a little too. Laito is shown to still hate Richter in DF, but he talks about it a tad more.

Here’s a further example from my writings in that first part of the Cordelia/Laito analysis series but I have bolded the terms I use to convey this rhetoric:

There hasn’t been any flashbacks that specifically show us the first time that happened. However, I believe that there was a flashback in HDB that shows one of the first times. Here’s a scene from Laito’s Dark Epilogue:

Cordelia: ー Laito…Laito… Laito: …Hm? Is something the matter? Cordelia: I have a favor to ask. It just isn’t enough. You can do it, right Laito? Laito: You really are something…So that’s why you came to me again? Cordelia: Fufufu…That’s right, Laito. Come on, quickly… Laito: …Guess it can’t be helped. I’ll love you plenty. Cordelia: Aah…My cute Laito~ I love you. I really do. Laito: I can do it…right? Cordelia: Of course, Laito. Now, quickly…

First of all, ew. Second of all, Laito’s diction implies that this was maybe the second or third time this occurred. He asks a question, and ends it with “again.” We know by this that it is not the first time, but the question also means that Laito might not have expected to occur again. His tone also implies some surprise to it, at least in my ears. His other question, “I can do it, right?” screams hesitance to me. If this scene took place down the line, or after many times he did this with Cordelia, I don’t believe he’d be some level of surprised or hesitance.

That’s what rhetorical analysis is. You take the contextual meaning of the words, the tone they use, and extrapolate what they imply. On top of this, we know that the term “love” here is sexual, implying that they did something sexual. We are not given the details of this, but considering we know that Laito uses “love” before he rapes Yui in the game, we can infer that’s what happened (or something similar) to himself with Cordelia, considering he projects on Yui quite a bit.

I was going to go over what is good/bad analysis, but I think I’ve implied it anyways here. Utilizing separate information from different sources of canon in order to make sense of something is good analysis. That’s our objective truth: canon. I’m not saying I’m the best at analysis, but I am fairly confident in it. It’s how I’m able to attempt to answer some of your “how would Laito react” questions without it being specifically hinted in the game. You cannot cherry pick specific sentences and go off of that alone for analysis. It’s context. It’s reading tone. It’s knowing the characters attitudes towards things, how they speak, etc. There’s a lot going into analysis in general. I know I didn’t elaborate on Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle right now, but that’s for another date I suppose.

Oh dear god I hope I didn’t lose you guys, I know this is a lot of information, but if you have any questions/comments/clarifications, as always, please let me know!

Hope you enjoyed! -Corn

#analysis #ask corn

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blu-eh · 3 years

Text

quaranteens

[AO3]

Or: a day in the life of the quarantined high school spider-kid.

Cindy Moon thinks she knows weird.

New York has always been a little strange on its own—there’s a reason it’s so well known despite the general vastness that is the entirety of America. Still, the rise of superheroes and supervillains when she was a little girl had been a punch in the face. Aliens had been more of a straight-up knockout at the time. The Avengers formed and, yeah, that has been somewhat of a wild ride because now there is always something happening in New York. Still, those somethings are usually handled by at least one of the wayward superheroes who now live in the city she calls home.

Until they weren’t. Like half the population of the universe, she just up and died for about five years before they were suddenly resurrected and thrown into a world that they didn’t really belong to anymore. If aliens were a knock-out, she's not quite sure how she'd describe the previous months of absolute anarchy.

It’s alright, though, because eventually everything calmed down and life is back to its normal amount of weird. Social media is currently bopping because she (like half the population) had missed five years’ worth of memes and are desperate to learn. Even now, eight months later, she still hasn’t caught up totally. She still goes to school in the morning. She says hello to the friends that were blipped with her (and says goodbye to the ones that weren't). There are other happier things, too, like that time she caught Spider-Man on the rooftop singing some offbeat pop song. He spent the better part of an hour desperately trying to get her to delete the shaky video she took while trying not to laugh.

(She posted it anyway. It had almost half a million views by the time the week was over.)

So, yeah, Cindy is pretty confident she knows weird.

You can imagine her reaction when the quarantine started.

No one is quite sure what caused it, exactly. Cindy had spent late nights on google like any other reasonable person trying to find an answer for why all of New York and most of the east coast has to be locked up in their homes for the foreseeable future. There no certified answer, really, but Cindy can pretty safely assume it’s probably something supervillain-related. That, or it’s aliens again.

(She really, really hopes it’s not aliens.)

The reason doesn’t change the outcome. Work and schools close. No one is allowed to leave their homes or apartments. Teachers spend exactly a week setting up online classes, and Cindy very much enjoys that break, before she’s forced to attend first-period chemistry at exactly seven-thirty in the morning online. If that isn’t enough to certify a horrifying start to her day, then the mandatory ‘video cameras on at all times’ rule certainly would.

But that’s all fine. It’s whatever. Video cameras on at seven-thirty for online classes might really suck, but there are some exciting things about it too. Mainly, Cindy can now confirm her theory about how Suzan hasn’t outgrown her middle school horse girl phase given the number of horse pictures still hanging up on her furthest wall. Or there’s that fact that Flash’s apartment is always strangely empty and startlingly clean despite being so absurdly big and nice. Or that Abe’s bunsen burner collection next to his bed makes him a nerd with a capital N.

So, it’s not all bad. She’s known her classmates (or, at least, she's known half of her classmates) since they were all young, but even she has never really interacted with them in a situation like this. Being stuck in quarantine with everyone else lets her see just a little bit closer into everyone’s lives.

This all leads back to the most crucial point—Cindy Moon knows weird. And Peter Parker? Yeah, Peter Parker is weird.

Peter’s life is no mystery to most of Midtown School of Science and Technology. Especially not to Cindy, who’s known him since they were both toddlers in the same preschool. He’s not exactly subtle in any way, either. She knows about how he lives with his aunt in Queens, and, subsequently, his uncle’s untimely and incredibly devastating death. She knows how he’s a nerd that likes school, how he wears science pun t-shirts every other day, and how he’s just about as close to a teacher’s pet as you can get while being the school’s greatest genius slacker.

She also knows that he mysteriously got jacked their freshman year of high school, and no one could ever explain why. Something happened, then, because he quit a lot of their shared activities. Robotics club had been the first causality, but it doesn't stop there. He started getting into furious whispered conversations with Ned more frequently in the hallways when they both thought no one was there. He started skipping decathlon practice not long after, which was perhaps the most startling given how dedicated he had been to decathlon previously. Sometimes he comes in with a limp or sloppily done makeup to cover up a bruise, only for it to disappear the next day. Cindy is also pretty certain she isn’t making up the time, right before the blip, that Peter had seemingly disappeared off a moving bus right as the aliens started attacking.

Peter Park is weird. This isn’t new.

However, what really ties this all together is that Cindy might not know everything about Peter Parker, but even she’s fairly convinced his little apartment in Queens is not supposed to look like a log cabin disguised as a mansion. Yet, every morning when she logs onto Zoom for their shared seven-thirty chemistry class, Cindy can definitely make out the beautiful finishes of a massive kitchen with beautifully crafted wood cabinets and a stunning view of the lake through the kitchen window. If Cindy’s paying attention enough, sometimes she catches the blurry image of a toddler running around at seemingly random intervals.

Flash is convinced he’s using a background filter to make himself seem cooler. Cindy is not so sure.

It takes another week of Zoom University, but the reality of the situation comes crashing down in perhaps the most spectacular fashion. Cindy’s seen a lot of soap operas and medical dramas recently, but absolutely nothing compares to the glorious spectacle that is Peter Parker’s life.

Like most of this weird form of a quarantine adventure, it starts in the regular seven-thirty AM Zoom chemistry class. There’s nothing specifically remarkable about this chemistry period—the most interesting thing so far is how fast the majority of the class had forgone any sense of getting ready in the morning. Even Brad Davis, who has been trying to impress MJ for the better part of the year, did nothing more than roll over and turn on his camera when asked. Cindy herself barely makes it to her desk in her PJs in time for class to start. It’s only MJ, who somehow manages to get up at the ass crack of dawn every morning and still manages to look perfect in time for class, and Peter, who’s still sitting in that picaresque kitchen, that even try to look like they’re ready for the day.

Mr. Cobbwell commented on it the first couple of days to get them a little more motivated to be presentable. Now, even he looks like he’s barely holding it all together. It’s truly remarkable how a single Zoom class can expose man's fallacies in such a blatant and brutal manner.

So life continues on. The first part of the class is normal—Cindy's not quite sure what they're learning about but she'll probably figure it out by the time the second test rolls around. Then the toddler runs behind Peter Parker’s screen.

That in itself isn’t wholly unusual. Cindy’s not quite sure where Peter is, exactly, but the toddler isn’t anything she hasn’t seen before. In fact, the toddler has made quite a few (adorable) appearances over the last two weeks. The most notable one being the time she ran screaming behind Peter while Peter had been asking a question and Peter never once batted an eye.

This time, it’s the man that comes running in after her that gives Cindy pause. He scoops her up and says something that Cindy can’t hear due to the mandatory mute rule that Mr. Cobbwell had imposed on them last week after someone’s parents got into a screaming match (swearing and all) halfway through the lecture. He holds her on his hip, kisses her forehead, and almost immediately zeroes in on Peter's computer screen.

This man isn’t someone Cindy recognizes right away despite the ringing familiarity in her head. She squints, trying to figure out where she’s seen this man and his toddler before and why Peter is in this man’s house and/or why this man is in Peter’s house.

The man turns around to face the camera—arm full of toddler and everything—and Cindy finally makes out the fashionable goatee, oil-stained t-shirt, and actual arc reactor in his chest before she makes the connection and bites one her tongue to keep from shouting in surprise.

No way.

She’s not the only one who’s noticed, either. Mr. Cobbwell (bless his soul) is still droning on about moles or something equally unimportant. The rest of the class, though? Yeah, the rest of the class has noticed if the wide-eyed looks and subtle glances in the direction of Peter’s screen are anything to go by. The tension on the Zoom call is almost palpable.

Peter himself remains blissfully unaware of the entire situation. Cindy wants to scream.

Absolutely no fucking way.

The man—Cindy doesn’t want to call him who she thinks he really is because it makes absolutely no sense for that man to be in Peter Parker’s home—doesn’t stay for very long. He ends up wandering out of the camera’s sight not thirty seconds later—she’s not quite sure, but she thinks he might’ve winked before he left too. More than half the class has definitely taken a screenshot by this point. Herself included in this list.

It’s almost agonizing, having to sit in her uncomfortable desk chair and not say a word. It’s not like she can unmute herself and start what will definitely be the wildest Zoom class fight of the twenty-first century. Mr. Cobbwell probably wouldn’t appreciate her interrupting his stoichiometry equations, the mystery of the Tony Stark lookalike or not.

She doesn’t have to wait for long, though. Whatever stars are smiling down upon her, Mr. Cobbwell ends up being forced to take an emergency phone call. Cindy bides her time until the exact moment that Mr. Cobbwell had muted himself and walked away off-screen before she furiously unmutes herself.

“Peter fucking Parker,” she says. Peter’s head snaps up so fast that it almost looks inhuman. “Did Tony Stark just waltz in and pick up his child in the background of your Zoom call?”

Peter freezes. Wide-eyed, with ‘guilty’ written on his forehead in 72, bold, Times New Roman font. It takes a solid thirty seconds before he can put himself together enough to click the unmute button.

“I—no?” Peter says. His voice is startlingly high pitched, and his expression is nothing short of horrified.

Damn, if that isn’t anything but a confession.

There’s a voice in the background that’s too garbled to make out, but Peter quickly mutes himself and turns his camera off despite the mandatory camera-on rule that had been in place for the entirety of the founding of Zoom university. Two messages come through the Zoom chat before Cindy has the chance to wrap her head around the entire transpired interaction.

[Peter Parker]: Sorry, Mr. Cobbwell. My mic and video aren’t working.

[Peter Parker]: I think I have a bad connection.

Cindy’s not the only one who finds this bullshit if the look on Flash’s face, in particular, is anything to go by. The rest of the class simply watches this entire interaction with wide eyes. Considering this is the most interesting thing to happen to most of them in the last two weeks, Cindy can’t really bring it in herself to blame them.

“Peter,” Cindy says, loudly. “Just because you muted yourself doesn’t mean you can’t hear me. What the hell was that?”

There’s no answer. Not even a chat message comes through.

Cindy’s about to rip into him again, peanut gallery and all, when Mr. Cobbwell decides to make the most inopportune appearance in the history of teachers walking into classrooms at bad times. Truthfully, this one would go right up there on the top of a compilation of worst teacher entries.

“What happened to Peter?” Mr. Cobbwell says. He reads the messages in the class Zoom chat. “Oh, that’s unfortunate. Peter, let me know if you need any help or continue having trouble before the next class.”

[Peter Parker]: I will. Thanks!

Cindy doesn’t get the chance to wring more answers out of Peter before the class period ends. He’s the first one to leave, lack of camera appearance and all. Cindy logs into her next class confused, and frustrated, and oddly excited all at once.

---

The next morning, Cindy is the first person to log onto the Zoom call for first-period chemistry.

She’s not the only one who has this idea. By the time seven am rolls around—a full thirty minutes before class is even set to begin—over half the class is in the Zoom call. It’s no secret that Peter liked to join Zoom calls early, and everyone’s more than a little curious after the events of yesterday morning.

Like clockwork, Peter joins with his camera working at exactly seven-fifteen. He takes one look at the almost-full meeting, does a double take, and scrambles for something on his computer.

Cindy narrows her eyes. “Peter, if you leave this Zoom call, I’ll have MJ eject you from the decathlon team.”

“MJ wouldn’t do that,” Peter says but he doesn’t sound so sure.

“That all depends on how convincing her argument is,” MJ says. Her camera isn’t even on.

The look Peter gives her is so full of betrayal that Cindy almost wonders why he isn’t on the acting team.

(Then she remembers that Peter has commitment issues on a good day and, well, acting has never really been his thing. He can’t even lie with a straight face, and considering most of what comes out of his mouth this day and age is a lie, it's probably for the best that the idea is never considered again.)

“Why are we even here? It’s a background,” Flash insists. “He just coded it or something for attention.”

“Flash, shut up,” Suzan says.

“Yeah, okay, Flash. Why are you even here if you think it’s a background?” Cindy shoots right back, full of adrenaline from the Tony Stark-shaped mystery that’s being hung above all of their heads.

“No, no, no. Flash is right,” Peter says immediately. “It’s a background. I had Ned help me code it and everything.”

Ned’s in the meeting, but his camera is off, and his mic is muted. Cindy gives Ned a moment to speak up and confirm but there’s not even a twitch. Cindy turns her pointed look back to Peter.

“I said,” Peter says louder. He subtly glances in the direction of the list of names currently in the meeting, “That I coded that background with Ned!”

Ned doesn’t come on to confirm or deny. If the look Peter is sending the Zoom call is any indication, he knows that there will be no help from that corner of the room. Either Ned is watching this all go down with popcorn in his hand like the rest of the class, or Ned is AWOL and won’t be returning in time to save his best friend from getting his ass absolutely grilled.

“Right,” Cindy says dryly. “Peter, you are the worst liar in this entire class.”

“It’s a coded background,” Peter insists. “That’s all it is. It’s a coded background.”

---

It’s not a coded background.

Peter doesn’t log on early the next day. In fact, he logs on a full five minutes late and gets a snide remark from Mr. Cobbwell for his efforts. His camera is on, at least, and Cindy knows he sees her glare if his paling face is anything to go by.

I will find out, she mouths at him.

She’s pretty sure he doesn’t understand the exact words she said, but her vibes are not hard to guess. He gives her a wide-eyed stare and shakes his head in defiance.

Well. No one can say that Cindy never liked a challenge.

This time, though, she doesn’t even have to wait until the end of the class period to get more information. Peter does that all for her.

Peter’s unmuted. He had just finished giving Mr. Cobbwell a (correct) answer to the latest chemistry question when there is a thunk sound from his side of the line. Peter glances up, seeing something that isn’t in the camera’s line of sight, and his expression drops so fast that Cindy’s not convinced he’s seen a ghost.

“Who is that?” a voice says. It sounds strikingly familiar. “Peter, are you chatting with your school friends?”

“No,” Peter whispers in poorly disguised horror.

“Well, well, well,” the voice says and, oh god, it’s so familiar. “What do we have here?”

Peter lunges for his computer. He turns off his camera and mutes himself before Cindy can even think of a proper response. There’s silence in the Zoom call. Even Mr. Cobbwell can’t find it in himself to reign in the class and break the absolute grappling stillness that is currently holding the entire first-period chemistry class.

It’s all of thirty seconds before Peter’s camera flicks back on. This time, he isn’t alone.

Cindy might have thought about it, and she’s reasonably convinced that she’s right about the entire situation, but truthfully nothing could prepare her for the emotional whiplash upon seeing The Anthony Edward Stark pulling up a chair at the beautifully carved wooden table and plopping in a seat directly next to a red-faced Peter Parker. Tony Stark takes it all in—the leftover Zoom chats from those kids that don’t want to unmute themselves to ask a question, the half-finished equations written on Mr. Cobbwell’s shared screen, and the twenty-something high school kids staring at him with a combination of confusion and awe.

“Good morning to Peter’s class and friends,” The Tony Stark says. Peter’s face seems to get redder and redder. “What a wonderful day to continue the education of the youths.”

Ned turns on his camera and unmutes his mic. “Hi, Mr. Stark, sir!

“Hi, Ted,” Mr. Stark says. “Good to see you again.”

“OhmygodMr.Starkalmostknowsmyname—"

Peter buries his head and lets out the world's most pathetic whining noise.

“I—,” Mr. Cobbwell stutters out. “Mr. Stark, what are you doing…here?”

It’s a very eloquent way of asking why the hell are you in the house of one of my students? Cindy has to give him props for not being a stuttering mess. She’s not quite sure she could form actual words currently, even if she tries.

“I love disrupting important conversations,” Mr. Stark says. Cindy’s pretty convinced that he’s purposefully playing ignorant. “And I was curious to see what Peter here was doing at so early in the morning. So, what’s on the lesson plan today?”

“Well,” Mr. Cobbwell says. What’s he going to do, tell the Tony Stark to leave? No sane person would even try. “Today, we are working on balancing equations.”

“Basic stoichiometry,” Mr. Stark says. He’s ignoring Peter very obviously pushing on his shoulder. “I would say I’m rather adept at that, right, Peter?”

“Not really,” Peter says.

The Zoom chat starts blowing up. No one wants to verbally get in the middle of what is possibly the most interesting thing to ever happen to them. This is including the time where half the population died for five years.

[Abe Brown]: can someone PLEASE explain whats going on

[Zach Cooper]: honestly dude if any of us knew i think we would tell you

“Right,” Mr. Stark says. He stands up and lets himself be pushed a little further away by Peter. “I have to do other things right now—very important work things that pertain to the safety of the universe and whatnot—"

“Mr. Stark, you’re retired,” Peter says.

“And you’re in class,” Mr. Stark says. “But feel free to send me an email if you ever want a guest lecturer. Well, send Peter an email and I’ll respond through that. Probably.”

[Betty Brant]: does this mean peter was telling the truth about the internship?

[Sally Avril]: whos gonna tell flash

[Flash Thompson]: shut up. i can read

[Sue Lorman]: what are your current feeling, flash?

[Sue Lorman]: ….flash you there?

[Sue Lorman]: you know we can see you camera on right

[Sue Lorman]: ope he turned if off lmao

Mr. Cobbwell gaps, unable to come up with a proper response. Peter’s looking somewhere off-camera with desperation bleeding into his expression.

“Mrs. Potts,” Peter says. His voice pitched upwards, almost as if he were whining to Pepper Potts, which of course, Cindy thought of as ridiculous. After all, common sense dictates that no one would ever whine to the Pepper Potts.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” a voice says off-screen and, yeah, Cindy has seen enough of the #1 woman CEO’s interviews to be able to recognize her voice. “But you and I both know that it was only a matter of time before he made an appearance.”

Peter puts his head back in his hands and looks like the picture perfect definition of someone how has tried to fight with the logic of the universe and lost spectacularly. Ms. Potts steps into the view of the camera for the firt time, just as beautiful and as striking as every interview Cindy has managed to get her grubby hands on.

“Tony,” Ms. Potts says. “Why don’t you go get Morgan some breakfast?”

It’s not a suggestion. Mr. Stark doesn’t take it as a suggestion either. He gets up so quickly that it’s almost like he had never been there to begin with.

“I’ll sort this out,” Ms. Potts tells Peter. Then, to the rest of the class, “I’m incredibly sorry for my husband’s disruption. I’ll make sure he doesn’t interrupt further so you can finish your class.”

Class had ended almost ten minutes ago and almost everyone will be late for next period, but no one tells her this.

She leaves them after that—Peter still hasn’t removed his head from his hands, and he doesn’t look like he’s about to join the world of the living any time soon. Cindy takes this as the perfect opportunity to maybe-finally figure out the mystery that is Peter Parker and Tony Stark.

(Because as much as she loves being right—and, oh man, this is definitely going on her resume under ‘amateur detective'—this entire situation only leads to more questions than it does answers. Mainly how the fuck does Peter Parker even know Tony Stark? Why is he spending quarantine in that house? How does someone like Peter Parker even get there in the first place?)

[Cindy Moon]: alright which of you has peter’s contact info because We Need To Chat

[Peter Parker]: we really don’t

[Ned Leeds]: i have it

[Peter Parker]: ned.

[Peter Parker]: ned don’t you dare

[Sue Lorman]: guys this is the class zoom chat

[Sue Lorman]: everyone can see these messages

She almost forgets Mr. Cobbwell is still in the meeting, so you can imagine her surprise when she looks up to see him reading the Zoom chat.

“I think,” Mr. Cobbwell says. “That we will end the lesson there for today.”

[Cindy Moon]: sweet

[Cindy Moon]: hmu if you want to be added to this new

[Cindy Moon]: hmmmm

[Cindy Moon]: lets call it a study group that im making

Half the class joins within fifteen minutes of Cindy making it. She’s never been so proud in her life.

---

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Peter Parker]: oh no

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

[Cindy Moon]: no you dont

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Peter Parker]: please dont do this to me

[Cindy Moon]: you brought this upon yourself

[Michelle Jones]: spill, parker

[Peter Parker]: mj you literally already know

[Michelle Jones]: i mean, yeah, but i really like watching you squirm

[Peter Parker]: why are you and i friends again

[Michelle Jones]: i don’t know, loser. why are we?

[Ned Leeds]: because peter thinks youre really cool

[Peter Parker]: ned i love you but i am actually going to toss you into the hudson river one of these days

[Ned Leeds]: :(

[Flash Thompson]: this is literally disgusting

[Michelle Jones]: Then Leave

[Peter Parker]: you know for a sec i completely forgot about this entire chat

[Peter Parker]: so im just gonna,,,,

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Cindy Moon]: bro.

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Cindy Moon]: PETER

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

[Abe Brown]: honestly i don’t know why i expected anything different

---

The next day, Cindy is yet again the first person in the Zoom meeting. Yet again, Peter doesn’t show up until some five minutes or so after the 'tardy' bell rings.

Unfortunately for Peter, Mr. Cobbwell is also running late that day so he gets the full brunt of a curious class of twenty or so students who accidentally saw Iron Man on a Zoom call and not once got an answer as to why. Only about a third have their cameras turned on, likely because it’s seven-thirty in the morning and no one actually wants to be here but curiously is a dangerous thing. However, very, very few are muted. It’s as if they’re predicting the argument that is undoubtedly going to take place and are just waiting to jump in like the hungry pack of drama-feeding sharks that they all are.

Peter takes all of ten seconds to notice the silent tension. He yet again freezes on the spot. “…Where is Mr. Cobbwell?”

“He’s late,” Suzan says. “Like you are.”

“Oh, great. Uh, I guess I'll be taking my leave—"

“—Oh, no, Peter. You are going to sit your little white boy butt down and explain why Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are in your house,” Cindy pauses and then, “Or are you in their house? Do you even own a house? This is confusing.”

“Why would I own a house?” Peter says because of course that’s the part he gets fixated on. “I live right in the middle of Queens.”

“Well, obviously not right now,” Abe Brown says.

Peter bites his lip and goes silent. Cindy wishes they had class in person so she could wring the answers from him personally.

“Peter,” she says slowly. “The quicker we get an explanation, the quicker we stop harassing you.”

“You could just stop harassing me to begin with and forget about it,” Peter offers helpfully. Some of the class boos. Peter ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck.

“That's not happening and you know it.”

“I—ugh, fine,” Peter says. He doesn’t meet their eyes and instead chooses to fiddle with his notebooks in front of him. Cindy knows this is a lie before it even comes out of his mouth. “I’m, uh, I’m here for my internship?”

It comes out more of a question than an actual answer. He still doesn’t meet their eyes. Cindy sends him a look that’s so unimpressed that she can see the exact moment that Peter’s eyes flicker towards the 'leave Zoom meeting' button.

“Peter,” she says. “Stark Industries is currently shut down, like the rest of New York, because we are in quarantine. Also, internships don’t usually constitute internees going to their mentor's houses to attend online school. So if you are going to lie, at least make it believable.”

Peter gives her a look of utter horror and turns off his camera.

“Peter!” she hollers. “You can’t run forever! I know you can still hear me!”

“I knew it,” Suzan Yang says, quietly. There’s something like muffled laugher that comes from MJ’s computer.

Peter is saved by some ungodly force of nature because Mr. Cobbwell takes that exact moment to log into the meeting. Cindy puts on her perfected look of an innocent high schooler and greets her chemistry teacher at ass o’clock in the morning just as she does every day.

(If she sends a particularly vicious look towards the black square labeled 'Peter Parker' at the top of the screen, well, no one can really blame her.)

Peter never once turns his camera back on.

---

[Jason Ionello]: anyone want to take bets on why peter parker knows tony stark or

[Flash Thompson]: i still say its fake

[Betty Brant]: flash the only one youre fooling is yourself

[Betty Brant]: peter did say he had an internship

[Cindy Moon]: weve already debunked the internship theory

[Betty Brant]: hm. damn i got nothing then

[Suzan Yang]: i have a theory

[Cindy Moon]: you have said your theory many times in person and i honestly don’t want to think about it at all, ever, so im going to say debunked

[Suzan Yang]: your loss then

[Zach Cooper]: five bucks on the secret love child theory

[Brad Davis]: bet

[Kenneth Lim]: theres no waayyyy lmao could u even imagine

[Sue Lorman]: no, no kenneth shut up i want to hear more about this theory

[Zach Cooper]: its really quite simple and im sure you can understand it if you read the name ‘secret lovechild theory’

[Michelle Jones]: im screenshotting these to send to peter

[Cindy Moon]: oh right peter said you already knew the reason

[Cindy Moon]: mj spill challenge

[Michelle Jones]: no thanks its more fun watching you guys guess

[Cindy Moon]: hm alright i guess we need an answer from the source

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Cindy Moon]: confirm or deny above theory

[Peter Parker]: oh my god

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

[Abe Brown]: yet again i am not quite sure why i expected something different

---

Perhaps the most surprising outcome of the entire clusterfuck of a situation is that they do get something out of it. Of course, it’s not from Peter because Peter is like a steel trap and everything he says only leads to more questions and no answers. Cindy has been trying this for almost a week now. She knows how this goes.

She isn’t expecting to log on for first-period chemistry like always, only to see The Tony Stark already on the meeting.

She’s not early this time—she stopped that some three days ago when Peter made it incredibly clear that he wouldn’t show up early anymore either. Instead of wasting thirty minutes of precious sleep, Cindy decides to put her drive towards more obtainable goals like trying to get out of bed instead of trying to grill a person who doesn’t even show up half the time.

Mr. Cobbwell is already on too. He seems ecstatic for incredibly obvious reasons. Not many teachers can say that they had Tony Stark guest lecture, after all, even if it is just through Zoom.

He’s got a little label with 'Tony Stark' and everything. Cindy doesn’t know why she’s surprised that the previous CEO and Iron Man does, in fact, have a Zoom account.

“—I’m sure the student will enjoy whatever you have planned,” Mr. Cobbwell is saying. He checks the timer and startles. “Oh! We’re about ready to start. We’re missing a couple students, I think, so we might have a few that log on late, but you can start whenever you’re ready, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark looks at his screen intensely. Then, he stands up from his kitchen table (the same one that Peter has been sitting at. Go figure) and says, “Hold on just a moment.”

Mr. Stark wanders off-camera just as there’s a crash in the background.

“Peter, you’re supposed to be in class,” Mr. Stark says. It’s muffled, almost impossible to understand, but Cindy’s listening in so intensely that she’s determined to understand every word. “C’mon, kid, Pepper is going to kill me if you skip.”

“I’m not skipping! I’m just—I’m sick! I’m so sick, Mr. Stark,” Peter’s voice comes through. It’s even more muffled than Mr. Stark’s is. “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can make class today. I’m gonna throw up or something. I’ll just be going back up to my room—"

There’s a sigh. Mr. Stark wanders back into camera view and addresses Mr. Cobbwell and the entire class, “Yeah, I’m going to need another moment. Teenagers and all that. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, of course,” Mr. Cobbwell rushes to assure. “Take all the time you need.”

“Thanks,” Mr. Stark says. He turns off his camera and mutes his microphone.

It doesn’t take long—Cindy’s not counting the time despite being incredibly invested. However, Peter does log on almost five minutes after the bell should’ve sounded looking distinctly not-sick and incredibly disgruntled. He shoots someone off-screen a look just as Mr. Stark turns his own account’s camera and microphone back on.

“Now then,” Mr. Stark says. “How about we start this lovely little lesson? High school chemistry is one of my favorite subjects, after all."

(Cindy can’t be certain because Peter’s muted, but she’s pretty sure that he gives a little groan when he buries his face in his hands and looks like death personally came to pick him up.)

The lecture starts. Unfortunately for Cindy and the rest of the class, chemistry isn’t suddenly exciting even when you have a superhero to teach it. It’s still seven-thirty in the morning, they’re still playing the part of innocent Zoom University students, and chemistry itself just really sucks, if she’s completely honest.

Time passes. The class is about to end. Cindy does manage to learn something even if that something is the fact Peter is not below a couple backhanded comments directed at The Tony Stark. She can’t hear them very well because Peter’s mic is muted but, y’know, Tony Stark is sitting right next to him and his mic definitely isn’t muted so she gets to hear a couple of gems with the rest of the class. That alone makes this entire thing worth it.

“I would appreciate it if you would all keep this on the down low,” Mr. Stark says right after he had finished his guest lecture on the applications of modern chemistry. It’s possibly the most excited Cindy has seen Peter all week. “PR and all that. I’m sure Pepper could explain more if you wanted her to.”

“Mr. Cobbwell, are we done?” Peter says suddenly. “I have another class to get to and I’m sure Mr. Stark is really incredibly busy—”

“I do have a toddler now,” Mr. Stark says with a nod. “And an ungrateful teenager, apparently.”

Peter very distinctly ignores that. “—I’m not sure I’ll have enough time to make it to my next class if I don’t leave now. So can I please leave?”

Mr. Cobbwell gives him a look but Peter doesn’t back down. Eventually, he says, “Alright. Everyone say thank you to Mr. Stark for so generously spending his morning being here with us—”

A couple students unmute just to say “Thank you, Mr. Stark,” while even more post thank yous in the chat. Mr. Stark gives them an award winning Iron Man smile and, yeah, he definitely just gave them finger guns as well. Cindy’s not quite sure if that makes him cooler or not, honestly.

“—And with that, class dismissed,” Mr. Cobbwell finishes.

Peter is the first one to leave the meeting.

---

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Peter Parker]: cindy its almost 3am

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

Cindy Moon has added Peter Parker to Explanation Station

[Peter Parker]: It Is Almost Three In The Morning

[Cindy Moon]: throw us a bone, peter

[Cindy Moon]: peter???

[Cindy Moon]: peter you there???

[Peter Parker]: listen.

[Peter Parker]: yes, okay, i know mr stark

[Peter Parker]: and he promised to stay out of my calls originally so No One Else Would Know This but you all saw how well that went

[Kenneth Lim]: guys its three am

[Sue Lorman]: no shut up peters about to let something slip something i can feel it

[Jason Ionello]: oh my god why is my phone going off at 3am

[Zach Cooper]: everyone shut up let peter type!!!!

[Peter Parker]: you guys are really invested in this huh

[Zach Cooper]: dude u know The Tony Stark

[Peter Parker]: i guess that’s fair

[Peter Parker]: mr stark heard that he was caught on video the other day and. well.

[Peter Parker]: he decided to make it worse

[Sue Lorman]: you mean better

[Peter Parker]: no i definitely mean worse

[Peter Parker]: im pretty sure hes making you sign NDAs though

[Cindy Moon]: hes making us do what

[Sue Lorman]: what

[Jason Ionello]: oh damn

[Zach Cooper]: can someone tell me what an NDA is

[Peter Parker]: i mean. he’ll pay for your college

[Cindy Moon]: nm my lips are sealed

[Jason Ionello]: same

[Betty Brant]: yeah u know what. thats fair

[Peter Parker]: ok! cool now that’s all sorted out

[Peter Parker]: uhhhhhhhhhhh

Peter Parker has left Explanation Station

---

Just a day later, a mysterious envelope shows up at her door with a return address already stamped. Cindy wishes she could say she’s surprised at the bolded 'Non-Disclosure Agreement' stamped at that top but, really, that would be a lie.

She does end up reading through the entire thing, mostly because she has a big fat tendency to run her mouth and doesn’t really want to get sued by a man who could buy a team of lawyers just to have them over for breakfast. Seeing the very eloquently written ‘if you keep your mouth shut, we’ll pay for your entire college and graduate program if you want’ clause is very nice to read.

She signs it without hesitation.

Mr. Stark doesn’t really make many more appearances after that, mostly because quarantine comes to an end and they’re all back in normal school by the end of the month. When she sees Peter Parker in person for the first time, surrounded by both MJ and Ned, they only meet eyes for a second before Peter is hurriedly packing up his backs and heading to his next class.

They don’t say anything about what happened during those quarantine weeks. In fact, no one does.

Cindy doesn’t really ever get an answer as to why Peter Parker is at Tony Stark’s house, of all places. She doesn’t ever really get an answer to why Peter Parker knows Tony Stark in the first place. There are theories, of course, but there had been theories long before The Reveal happened and there will be theories long after. It’s just yet another thing to add to the mystery that is Peter Parker.

However, with the prospect of a fully paid college tuition and the many hours of engineering and business tutoring from Mr. Tony Stark and Mrs. Pepper Potts themselves, she finds that she doesn’t quite mind letting sleeping dogs lie. And, yeah, Cindy Moon is pretty sure she knows what weird looks like now.

#my fics #marvel cinematic universe #marvel fics #spider-man #marvel

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saintheartwing · 3 years

Text

The Continued Targeted Harassment Campaign from the Troll Mundo De Bee, aka Debtoons, Aka Dedehbee

I'm sure this particular person I'm thinking of who recently sent me some VERY unkind guest reviews on my "The Pigshit Troll" tale on FF.Net will find out about this. I didn't WANT to talk about them anymore but then they kept sending more and more vitriolic reviews. Not just to me, but to my friends.

See, here’s some of the things they said along with accusing me of trolling their fic, which I didn't, my critique was that their story seemed to be overlooking the fact Zim had done the mass slaughter of innocent humans and enslavement on top of that, and was Dib and Prof. Membrane hostage and can kill them at any time...all to make Gaz love him. So there's an inherently abusive power dynamic. But this person who I...at FIRST...was reluctant to name disregarded these very real issues I brought up and just told me, and I quote, "Go away, then. This story is happening whether you want it or not. :/" This happened months ago. In fact, I brought attention to what they said back in OCTOBER on my DA account. So now you’re getting an idea of what they’re like. In response to a reasonable critique about problematic undertones, they just basically told me to get lost, then blocked me before I could respond to that. I tried to reach out to her friends after she complained about my review, and then she got mad about my "Jeremy" story, seemingly thinking that because I did a story about dark subject matter, I was being a hypocrite for complaining about what Zim did.

Uh...that’s NOT HOW IT WORKS.

The issue was the story wasn't addressing what Zim did as bad, my story made it REAL DAMN CLEAR what Jeremy had done was a tragedy and horrible, and that what he'd been through WAS VERY BAD.

But YOU? YOU didn't do that in your story, it almost came off like you were putting Gaz in Stockholm Syndrome and going a kind of "Twilight" route of sort of glorifying a very problematic relationship. Now, I didn’t SAY specifically that in my review, do I actually think that what’s happening IS Stockholm Syndrome or exactly LIKE Twilight was, but it’s problematic in a SIMILAR VEIN. And THAT was my problem. Not the dark subject matter, but you not caring about the implications...at least, that's how it looked to me. Or at the very least, not, in-story, treating Zim like what he'd done was wrong when it was.

Anyway, that was months ago. I had basically forgotten about them until just I got these three anonymous guest reviews. I'm guessing that because they blocked me, they had to do it that way, they don't want to unblock me to leave a normal review. The reason why I'm pretty sure it's them is because they said, in their review, AND I QUOTE...

"And if my story had ANY grammar/spelling mistakes, that must be because I'm... not from U.S.? And don't speak English fluently? As a matter of fact, if you speak "only" intermediate English in my country (like I do), that's already one hell of an accomplishment. That's already getting xenophobic, ok?" Okay one, me criticizing spelling errors isn't xenophobia, how am I supposed to know you're from another country unless I actually go to your webpage or the like, and I'm not going to see that if I'm just replying to a review. So that's one reason I think it's her.

Another is that she wrote, in her third reply, from "Opinadora (Guest)". Since that's Portuguese, and it happens to be the most spoken language (based on my Google research) in the home country this person says she's from on her homepage, i was damn sure it was her. She saw my Pigshit Troll story, thought it was about her even though the story was really more about addressing the...well, the actual, real life Pigshit Troll going around FF.Net, while also doing a critique both of common tropes in typical Zim story fare and also critiquing the common critique. It was me addressing issues with my own stories just as much, with Gaz forcing Dib to realize his own flaws. It wasn't really about this person who happens to be from Brazil (if her page is to be believed). They also said stuff like "I would say you draw like a 12 years old, but that would be a compliment, 'cause when I was 12, I used to draw at least three times as better than you" and "Also:I forgot, but if we're talking s*** about each other's works: not only you draw like a 8 years old, but the titles to your stories are also so f*** creepy that they make me nauseous even before reading the first chapter".

So "Frost" is creepy? I can get why "The Pod People Invasion" is creepy, but a title like "Don't Read This Book" isn't inherently creepy. "Soft Hands" isn't. You're kinda just cherry picking. I made this journal pot on DA because she had decided to keep this "thing" going on going by leaving those guest reviews and assuming the story of “The Pigshit Troll” was about her, and she was just a total jerk about it. I had left her alone for weeks, MONTHS even until she popped up making those guest reviews again. And then she wrote "P.S.S.: If you give my name out to anyone who has nothing to do with this, and tell them to hunt me down, like you did to my watchers (which, BTW, wouldn't surprise me if you did), that just proves you're indeed a troll, and no better than PigShit here, okay? ".

I was trying to be civil... despite how INCREDIBLY PISSED I am at you. And she also kept calling me a religious fanatic and other crap to her friends. I'm not, a simple look at my journals on DA or my posts here would prove that, so it amazes me that you couldn't be bothered to do research on me yet you expect me to instantly know you're from Brazil. So I find it interesting you expected me to look you up and find out things about you so I wouldn't leave a review you could find objectionable...but you couldn't be bothered to do any research about me. I mean, you seem very liberal, concerned about LGBTQ rights, worried about the deforestation in Brazil, those are big issues. And I sympathize also with having a fascistic leader in charge. You got Bolsanaro, we have Trump. I get how it feels.

That doesn't excuse how you behaved towards me. I'd stopped reviewing your stories, you're the one who brought all this back by reviewing mine. So if you want to talk, unblock me on FF.Net or here, and let's talk this out like adults. If you've got a problem with me, actually outright say it, don't leave it in a guest review.

Now, if she’d said "Look, ZAGR is just what I'm into, it's just a fetish of mine", then fine! FINE. She should have just SAID that to me. But don't just dismiss the moral questions I had by going "Don't like don't read". Because that's a fallacy. A story can start out great, but turn bad. Or start out bad, but turn better. And how am I supposed to know if it'll do either if I don't keep reading? Take, for example, Star Wars's sequel series. Started great! Amazing!...ended poorly. Star Wars prequels! Started bad! But the ending was pretty darn good! So don't just go "don't like, don't read/watch", because that's not a real, actual good argument.

I had hoped, writing all this, she’d actually try and reach out. Or she’d stop.

But she didn’t. Let me quote what she sent to me next. "I was only mad because you plain trolled me on your review. Did you ever heard of "common sense" or "constructive criticism"?"

Which my critique was.

It was a critique of the character behavior of the main characters, not trolling. Bringing up the fact that Zim had taken Gaz's family hostage and could kill them at any time, but we were supposed to overlook that is a perfectly reasonable critique.

But instead of responding normally, you just leave another guest review. I was willing to talk to you normally and to work things out fairly, but you keep being a jerk. Everything you've said hasn't been an actual, reasonable, fair criticism of any of my stories. It's just been 'ad hominem'.

What IS ad hominem? That’s when you don't address the SUBSTANCE of someone's argument, you just attack the person arguing. Like if someone says "I think your story is glorifying abusive, unhealthy relationships" and you go "Yeah but you're into the inflation fetish so there"! That doesn't actually address the problem brought up about your story, it's just you attacking the other person. And she was doing that.

For weeks I was nice enough to not bring up your name, but I said “if you keep it up, I’ll reveal your screen name because you're the one being unreasonable now by keeping this going, when I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie.”

Her response?

“Opinadora:I find it funny how you know you can't strike me back, because you know that I'm ten times more talented than you and that you're just jealous of me... u.u I'm not one to talk down on other artist's work, but that's what you get for being a snob. You're no better than me and you know it. In fact, you're no better than ANYONE, and I say that because you really are worthless. Yet you like to act superior and talk down on everyone to have some fun or... IDK. People like you shouldn't even be called "people". You're just psychos.”

She was engaging in the very behavior she said I was doing. I don’t get how she functions like this. This was getting insane.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

She posted a of blog entry and I'll quote what they said. "I've been contacting a troll of mine" Anonymously, you did it via guest reviews on my story, you started all this again after I left you alone for months with three meanspirited reviews insulting me and my work when I'd been leaving you alone. And yeah, I responded by making the "fight" public, you refused to speak to me normally. I was willing to speak with you normally through notes or PMs on FF.Net or DA, you were the one who ignored that and kept insulting me in guest reviews because you still have me blocked. "He's not being civil enough to keep anyone anonymous." I haven't used either your real name (which I don't know) or your screen name. So this is just a lie. "He's going after my watchers to complain about me" I contacted ONE of your watchers who I knew that also made a story in which an entire chapter was deliberately invoked to insult me because an obvious villain character with my SCREEN NAME was used as an easy enemy for Zim to blow up. I contacted them to say "Can you please tell your friend to stop". Here's the full text, basically. "I’m sorry I keep sending these messages to you, the only reason I decided to note you to begin with was because your friend (NAME REDACTED) sent me three anonymous guest reviews, and called me a bunch of names like “douchebag” while insulting my art at the same time. I was willing to ignore her until she sent not one but THREE meanspirited shots at me. And I can’t reach her, so..." So it wasn't "your watchers" plural, it was ONE watcher whom I knew you knew because I couldn't find any other way to contact you, because, again, you childishly blocked me and refused my olive branch. "He should have enough common sense to know that his issue is with ME and none other." But you refuse to let me talk to you openly. On top of that, you're the one who blocked me, not the other way around. "He's such a lunatic he said he would give out my REAL NAME, if he knew. O.Ò" I never actually said that, I was clearly referring to your screen name. "I was nice enough to not bring up your name, but if you keep it up, I WILL use your screen name, because you're the one being unreasonable now by keeping this going, when I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie. " So now you're just lying. Plain and simple. I would say you should be ashamed of yourself, but it appears you don't understand shame. I know some people say "don't feed the trolls" but that doesn't always work. Sometimes shining a light on them is the only thing that does. And I swore to publish every word they've said to me if they kept doing meanspirited guest reviews done solely to insult me.

What was their response to THIS? Well, they called me a retard.

"Seu retardado:It isn't Stockholm syndrome...? And I KNOW that nobody will believe you 'cause you're just using ANONYMOUS reviews against me. Now, you've been quoting me on your tweets nonstop even after I blocked you. Just so you know, I ALSO reported you for abuse multiple times." "But go ahead. Do you really believe that they'll take your side of the story? I only gave out your name to warn my watchers about you ONCE, but you just keep quoting me when I blocked you, so we'll see what happens THEN." "VSF:Wow... You must REALLY be retarded. And here I was just saying that to insult you. O.Ò But I'm not apologizing for that when you didn't apologize for flaming my story, attacking my watchers, nor even trying to act superior, when... You're not. O.Ò And still you want to believe that you're a better artist than me. I should be laughing about that. 9.9 Seriously, what did you take? "

I’D HAD ENOUGH. Because they didn’t JUST call me all these names. They started going after fellow artists on FF.NET and friends of mine and leaving insulting guest reviews too. So...

What’s their name? I dunno their real name. But their screen name is Mundo De Bee. AKA Debtoonz AKA Dedehbee.

This is their page.

https://www.deviantart.com/mundo-de-bee

This is their Twitter. Both normal AND NSFW

https://twitter.com/Bee_Zorra

https://twitter.com/Bee_Zorra_Total

Their current FF.Net account (or at least I BELIEVE it is) https://www.fanfiction.net/u/8252861/Debtoons

And their instagram. https://www.instagram.com/bee.zorra/

They keep leaving really nasty reviews on my work. You can find some of their “samples” here. https://www.fanfiction.net/r/13241492/0/1/

Here's what they've also said.

And this:

They also said this on a friend's story in an anonymous review.

""Debtoons chapter 1 . 3h ago

You think Shaeril McBozo did all this? You're mistaken troglodytes. Shaeril McBrown is a stand by, she works for me, doesn't have a choice in the matter. Pigshit is an urban legend, he works for me. You're all such fools, you have yet to realize there is more to come, much more, and I will bring you all down. I have not forgotten what you all have done. I'm always watching, you're all my pawns, the game is mine, and I play to win. La Cefiera Queen Bee AKA Debtoons Also, stop copying my ZAGR ships, yours suck was."

I've tried to ignore her. But this has now been going on for MONTHS. I am done trying to be NICE, and trying to hold back. So I’m exposing her for what she is. She’s a bully. A hypocrite. A troll. She NEVER ACTUALLY RESPONDED to any of my actual problems about her story, instead just DEFLECTING and misrepresenting my points, then attacking the misrepresentations.

I wasn’t even sure, at first, it was her Even after getting another anonymous review from someone who said "I already know your name. Shaeril and little Debbie told me. Hi I'm Striberz. Actually, I'm anyone I want to be, but let's go with Striberz for now. Good to meet you b***!"

Little Debbie. Debtoonz.

She also sent THIS anonymous review to me.

The way the review is written, the style, the little details, bringing up "Oompa Loompa" and the like and other little things that I never brought up publicly...this is why I believe Mundo De Bee, aka Debtoonz, is leaving me targeted harassment reviews.

But even THEN. After ALL THIS. My online friends suggested hold on, slow down. One of them said "I'll ask her about this". To try and get her side of the story. MAYBE it wasn't her. MAYBE it was just someone posing as her and trying to emulate how she talked. Months later, Mundo had written another story called 'Something called love', another ZAGR and DATR story. In the story, Zim was 20 years old, but Gaz was only 16. A friend of mine reviewed the story, making mention of the age gap and said 'Wait, that's illegal'.

It was mostly a joke review but in all of five minutes, Mundo furiously spouted off not one, not two, but THREE pissed off PMs, calling my friend “Some Dude Who Likes To Write” on FF.Net retarded and the review retarded. Pretty horrible. Nevertheless, Some Dude wanted to be diplomatic, even after Mundo left a super nasty review of my story. Theyw went to her Deviantart and asked if she left that revieand she said 'No', but the second they brought up the 'Oompa Lumpa' insult, a comment that Mundo had used directly to me in a note, well...she hid the comment and then ignored the other ones that were left and blocked Some Dude, pretty much indicting herself.

Then, several weeks later, guess who leaves a review in which she accuses Some Dude of being a xenophobe, transphobe, misogynist and homophobe? Well, Some Dude knows someone who knows Mundo. They ask to talk. She PM’s them, she asks "What do you want to accuse me of now”. Some Dude says he’s not accusing her of anything, they just don’t like being called a bigot. Her response was to just deny leaving that review...and then to block them AGAIN. Then we see a series of dozens of insult reviews, false accusations against myself, Zim’sMostLoyalServant and Some Dude along with others, all being attacked by her. She also evidently admitted to Some Dude that if she came across any review Nick and I left, even if it was positive, she would report it and tell the admins we sent the authors death threats. Which would be a LIE.

And so...that’s what happened. Now you all know the truth. This woman from, I assume, Brazil, has been harassing me for quite a while. Me AND my friends.

All this...because I wrote a bad review of her story asking why the story was glossing over Zim's cruel behavior and how much the story seemed to be like "Twilight" in a problematic way. I could have overlooked Zim falling in love with Gaz easily. My issue was why the story was overlooking his blatantly evil mass murder/blackmailing stuff and not acting like these were bad things at all.

Her literal response was, and I again, I quote from her directly, "Go away, then. This story is happening whether you want it or not. :/" So no actual response as to why the story wasn't addressing the elephant in the room. Just that...and then blocking me when I tried to reply.

I call that "cowardly".

She's always responded like that. She never unblocked me, she just sent nasty guest reviews to me instead of reaching out to me directly on DA, or Twitter, or a variety of other methods. It can never be her directly putting her name on anything because she didn't have the courage to do that.

She's a coward, she's a bully, she's a troll, and she's a hypocrite, doing all the things she's accused me of. What projection. How disgusting.

When I have an issue with a story, you know what my issue usually is? A moral one. And I'll say things like "This looks like domestic abuse, why are you acting like it's a you-go-girl moment for Gaz" or "Why is the fact Zim caused millions of deaths just casually overlooked".

It's not "YOU SUCK!" or lots of swears or insults or all caps. Cuz that sort of thing IS a flame. That IS a troll.

Saying things like "Why is the story acting like this character is a badass when their behavior's morally repulsive" isn't a flame. Or being a troll.

Anyway, now you all know. Mundo de Bee, Debtoonz, La Cefiera Queen Bee, Dedehbee , whatever you wanna be called, this is what she’s like.

SHAME. ON. YOU.

#Debtoonz #debtoons #Mundo de Bee #La Cefiera Queen Bee #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction net #fanfiction.net #troll #trolling #Dedehbee #call out #call out post #Invader Zim #ZADR

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wordsablaze · 6 years

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Living Death In The Moment

Simon Lewis has been through a lot but never has he had to balance all his troubles completely alone, hiding his pain so deep that only the sun and moon know his true emotions... angsty simon-centric piece because his life really isn't fair, enjoy!

A/N: I promise i love Simon really, but i have feels... Not sure if I'm happy with this but I’m posting as otherwise i never will...

It had never occurred to Simon that loneliness would hurt the most.

Pain isn't new to him.

He's been targeted by bullies, he's fallen off his bike, he's seen his mother crumple under the power of hopelessness, and he's watched his best friend leave him behind without a moment's hesitation. Said best friend had apologised and he'd understood that circumstance had made things worse than they actually were so being impulsive had been the only option, but that's not the point. Pain can't really be a foreign concept to someone who's had to climb out of their own grave but, now, he can't help but think he'd been so blind, so naïve, so clueless to think he had any idea at all.

It's funny, he notes, how pain always finds a way to become stronger, to become deadlier, to become so much worse than the worst. He'd never imagined such pain but, as he looks around the small room he'd called his bedroom for the better part of his childhood, he can't think of a time when the world didn't feel like it was crumbling around him, a time when everything was alright.

Raking a shaky hand through his hair, he sighs, wondering where it had all gone wrong and why. Maybe it was when peer pressure made him drink from Heidi or maybe it was when he was foolish enough to try and stay in touch with his family but, regardless, he's stuck in some kind of liminal space between clinging to his past and letting go of it entirely.

It's like time isn't applicable to him right now because he could swear the sun had just set but now it's shining brightly at the top of the sky and ruining the pathetic fallacy of his apartment. If Clary was here, he thinks, she might have drawn a sun with his face on it to make him laugh. Then they'd joke about nostalgia and he'd scribble something to tell her he's grateful and she'd hug him, sending him one of her genuinely warm smiles... but she's not here and she probably won't ever be because he might have killed her. She, just like everyone else he loves, is gone and it's all his fault.

Her surprised smile flashes before his eyes and he groans, grabbing his phone and calling, calling Maia because he doesn't know what to do anymore. He's not disappointed when she doesn't pick up, she'd warned him she'd be out of contact and the number was more so he knew not to ignore her calls, but a part of him is so frustrated that he doesn't even notice when the metal bends under his fingers. He does, however, notice when tiny shards of glass dig into his skin and sharp pain becomes his most prominent thought.

"I can't even blame the stupid mark for this one," he says quietly, then sighs, dropping the remains of his phone.

As much as he wants to, he can't go back to his mother and ask her to just smile and tell him she loves him because, to her, he's dead. And he is dead, but not in the way she thinks he is, the way she only thinks he is because he hadn't been strong enough to try and persuade her he isn't evil.

Something inside of him screams in agony – probably his heart – as he crosses everyone off his mental list of who to try and find. He can't go to Hotel Dumort because Raphael is gone and he doesn't know if the clan will accept him back, especially not when he has a brutal defence system installed on his head. He'd feel too guilty going to any of the Lightwoods, especially since one of them is barely alive – it doesn't help that he's probably made the worst impressions on every Shadowhunter in the city. They don't have any reason to help him so he sees no point in proving their belief in his weakness right.

Magnus, in spite of the ridiculous names he uses, has always made himself an option for when advice or a shoulder to cry on is needed but he can't bring himself to go because Magnus has enough on his hands, even more so since his hands aren't magical at the minute. He hates himself for not being able to help his favourite warlock but there's no way he can do anything without being a danger until he gets himself under control.

Any other time, Luke would know something was wrong and he could tell him anything but, with Clary gone and Maryse de-runed, he figures Luke has enough to worry about without him adding to the mess. It's not like he's an urgent problem that needs to be solved; he's just an infinite jigsaw that fails to abide by the laws of logic.

He leaves.

He leaves his room and his confusion behind and runs, runs as far as he can manage without keeling over. Of course, he keels over eventually, but, by then, he's in an area he can't recognise. Somehow, it makes him feel better. His unnecessary breathing comes easier as he collapses under a conveniently-angled blossom tree.

It's ridiculous how quickly the sun is throwing its red and purple glow over him, the shadows of light falling over his hands and looking like blood stains. This only makes it so much worse, reminds him of the potential blood on his hands, makes the world all seem so much more fleeting and fragile. He wishes he could turn back time to when breaking his glasses was the biggest worry of his life. He wishes he could go back to when the name of his band was on his mind more than the tastes of different blood groups. He wishes he could pretend nothing had happened to the oblivious life he'd been more or less happily living.

His wishes are in vain.

No matter how hard he wants to forget this new, unpredictable side of the world, he won't ever be able to and he knows it. He thinks about it all night, watching as the moon comes and goes with as much ease as his composure. In the morning, he settles on leaving behind his crossroads and sitting down.

He's been so focused on trying to move on, trying to build himself a life, that he hasn't stopped to consider he might be all he has.

And so, he smiles. He smiles and grins and babbles on about nothing in particular. He smiles and laughs and takes the eye-rolls in his stride. He smiles and does what people ask and pretends he's okay with not knowing who he is. He's friends with everybody but friends with nobody. He's a child of the shadows walking in the light where he shouldn't belong but keeps going to anyway. He's facetious and nonchalant on the outside because his heart is too heavy to carry on his sleeve so it stays inside of him, where it can't weigh anyone but him down.

He's dead in more ways than one but that doesn't stop him being the life of the party.

It's a party nobody had been invited to and nobody had seen coming, one that nobody had been aware of until it had finished and restarted but a party that they can't leave until the party allows it. He makes the most of it, drinking (blood) and dancing (his way around questions with words) each day, pretty sure that the sun and moon - which he watches every night because sleep is incredibly rare for him now - can probably tell he's constantly on edge but no-one else can, and that's what matters.

In the end, he chooses to dismiss his anguish entirely and fold his problems up, tucking them away from the world and anybody else who might see them. Slowly but surely, he crushes his anxieties and buries them under puns and jokes and references to a culture for which he is the only representative. His walls are built of faux-confidence and superficial optimism but nothing stops him from trying to hide his pain and pretend it doesn't even exist because if there's one thing Simon Lewis is, it's good at living life in the moment.

Well, living death in the moment.

Like/reblog but don’t repost, thanks!

#simon lewis #simon-centric #shadowhunters #fanfiction #angst #hurt no comfort #simon x everyone #unhealthy coping mechanism honestly #i have feels #maia roberts #lightwood siblings #luke garroway #magnus bane #hurt simon lewis #lditm #my writing #mostly my emotions #sorry?#raphael santiago

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astermacguffin · 7 years

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Anti: The Death (and Rebirth) of The Author

#SepticArt + #AntiTheory = THIS AMALGAMATION

Since I am not really that great of a visual artist as I’m more of a wordsmith, in honor of the #SepticArt movement that Jack started, I would like to try something different. I'm gonna incorporate both artistic (visual) and academic (textual) elements in this post.

All the theories I have seen about Antisepticeye so far are “lore-based”, focusing on deciphering Anti’s plans, behavior, background, and all that juicy stuff. So to freshen things up, I would like to call into attention the genius of the Antisepticeye fandom that Jack nourished well and explore how all this craziness really works in an academic perspective.

To start off, I’m gonna say this right away: Antisepticeye is a creative genius.

And not in the ways you are probably thinking of right now. Although the idea of Anti is the same as Darkiplier and any other “shadow personas” with some sort of a fanbase, what makes him stand out is the way the fandom makes him “grow”.

As an intellectual, I love theories and frameworks that help me understand the machinations of complex concepts, which is why I’m gonna remove my “conspiracy theorist” goggles for now and put on my academic glasses.

(I’ll be borrowing a lot of ideas from literary criticism, semiotics, sociology, and psychology. If you don’t like that stuff, this might not be for you.)

Okay. Let us begin the examination.

The Creative Machine

The Antisepticeye community is one big, living machine that is self-sustaining. We could never know if Jack intentionally created it to be like this or not, but that matters not. What you just need to understand is that Jack managed to make an engine that makes its own fuel.

Let's break down how this works.

Step 1: A Spark

An idea. It's really hard to tell exactly when and where the concept of Antisepticeye started and who formulated him, but we all know that he must've originated somewhere. Jack says it all the time in vlogs that the idea was created by the fandom, so that could be a good start.

Regardless of his exact origins, what matters is that we have this spark of a flame. People can interpret the idea of Anti whatever way they want because there is still no canonical concepts about him just yet. However, there is one uniting idea about him that everyone at this point agrees upon: that he is an exact image of Jack.

Step 2: A Flame

A solid concept. The spark became a flame when Jack started canonizing Anti through his entire October Halloween scheme last time. Because of that, Anti finally had some canonical attributes we can identify (the throat slit, the gauges, the Zalgo text, and the iconic glitches). It was a flame fueled by the sparks from different minds, as evidenced by Jack confirming in his vlogs that Anti’s characteristics were based on multiple ideas from the community.

Step 3: Interpretations of the Flame

In literature, when an author releases a piece of work, its meaning no longer belongs to them; it belongs to the audience. There is no “proper way” to react and experience a piece of work; no individual will react and experience a piece exactly the same, which is why people appreciate different types of stuff.

This same principle applies to Anti, which we can interpret as a “character” in a narrative. People have their own theories in their heads when reading/listening/watching narratives since meaning-making is a very instinctual and integral part of a person’s experience of a piece.

You might not be aware of it, but creators just provide us blueprints of a piece’s meaning and we, as the audience, have to build it in our heads with our own materials and own interpretations of the blueprint’s instructions. They communicate this “blueprint” through language, may it be the language of film, of music, of gestures, of text, or whatever form of language.

We can get incredibly close to what the original creator intended for us to perceive and understand, or our interpretations might be incredibly far-fetched. Either way, none of that truly matters since YOU made your own theory and you get to keep it in your head. You can’t ask the author what they mean and they can’t force you to experience their work a particular way. The way you see flame may be similar or completely different to mine.

Art interpretation is collaborative, but at the same time, one-sided.

Step 4: Clash and Union

Things start to get interesting when people share their theories and interpretations to other people. Obviously, some interpretations would contradict one another while some will complement. This “clash and union” of ideas gets even crazier when the subject piece is ambiguous (i.e. the narrative of Anti).

Let’s tale Romeo and Juliet for an example. (I assume everyone already knows how this story ends. If not, then SPOILERS AHEAD.) If the story just ended openly with Juliet contemplating suicide instead of actually doing it, the audience can interpret it in different ways. Some may say “Juliet lives and carries on with her life” while some may say “Juliet will totally kill herself.” Perhaps someone would even be crazy enough to say “Romeo gets reanimated into a vampire and they live together happily through eternity.”

That last one may sound way too unlikely, but since the hypothetical Romeo and Juliet had an open ending, all three theories I mentioned are just theories with no real confirmation. The same goes with all the theorizing about Anti. They all have truth-values, but just like Schrödinger's cat, without someone/something to collapse both possibilities into one, these theories would remain simultaneously true and false.

Step 5: Intertwining

After a repeated process of clash and union, like natural selection, some theories would die off while some would remain triumphant. These surviving theories then intertwine to form a narrative of its own based on both canonical aspects and theoretical aspects.

It is important to note, however, that these theories would remain in this stage without confirmation from the original creator, may it be direct (actual statement) or indirect (solid clues).

Step 6: Communal Agreement

The group reaches communal agreement when the intertwined theories finally acquire a solid foundation through confirmation from the original creator (as mentioned in Step 5). However, just because a particular group has reached communal agreement about a certain subject doesn’t mean the group communally agrees to all the other similar aspects.

Nonetheless, a group that has united strong enough to form a communal agreement is not a small deal to be brushed off that easy. At this point, it’s not just the people that are alive; the theories are now living and breathing, too. With a mind of its own.

An Unlimited Creative Source

If there’s a Holy Grail of artistic creation, Jack might be onto something. You see, at this point in the Anti fandom, Jack could just tease us with anything Anti-related and the community would spit out TONS of theories and artworks. And you know what that means?

Harvestable content.

Jack provides us content, but in a sense, we provide him content to work on as well. It’s this amazing, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship between a creator and his community that makes this whole thing unbelievable.

I actually strongly believe that the current climate in the Antisepticeye community was never intentional. If I’m not mistaken, all the craziness started when Jack started playing Epidemic and Bio Inc. Redemption. Ever thought if maybe Jack just wanted to play these games? Nope.

Well, the community blew this way out of proportion by vomiting out theory after theory. Judging from the origins of Anti, Jack used the ideas of the community as inspiration for the pandemonium we are in right now. The timing of this Anti stuff is too sudden and unprepared to be intentional but since we inspired him to pursue this craziness, we got what we wanted.

R̡̧̛̻̟̜̰͔͙̙̄̓͂̓̓̑̀̕͝ͅḛ̸̼͖̜̑̋͂̎̇͐̅̉͟t̢̡͍̮̻̞͕͖̠͉̿͒͛̄̂̅̈́̐u̶̢̡̞̪͍̘̣͗̅̌͂̐̌͗̀͒͜ȑ̴̞͎͇̗̂͂́̚͞ͅņ͇͕̹̺̊̈́̍̔̈́͑͑͞ ô̡̦̻̯̝̎̀̄̀͠r̮̞͇̝̪̳͓̣̮̀̽̾͂̚͡ͅ R̴̡̢͈̻̖͈̹͚̔́̂̎͐̐͝ͅe̵̡̠̹̳͈̠̜̥̦͒̌͑̀͐̌͒̀̌͒b̶̢̥̻̩̰̲̓̍̿̎̽͞͞ǫ̷̹̼̥̞̟̦̖̌̂̀̊̀͋͛r̶̡̗̦̟͆̿͋͛͛͜n͈̞̯̱͇͉̳͎̮̊̍́́̄̀̏͂̐

Before you reached this part of the post, you were probably wondering about the relevance of the title: The Death (and Rebirth) of the Author. Well, The Death of the Author is basically a concept that originated in Roland Barthes’ essay of the same title where he argues that the writer and piece of work are two separate entities. Although the essay actually goes deeper into The Intentional Fallacy and how the author’s biographical background and intention should not be used in interpreting a text, I’m using it here just for the elegance of the term.

When Jack released his canonical version of Anti, the moment it reached us, its meaning no longer belongs to him (as I said earlier). The author is, in a sense, “dead”. We cannot just ask him what he meant and even if we do, it shouldn’t even matter anymore. We create our own meaning. However, since the community’s concept of Anti acts like a self-sustaining creative engine, the author is “reborn” as Jack reclaims his grip of the content by releasing new canon stuff based on the products of the machine.

This creates the conundrum of whether Jack’s authority over the concept of Anti was ever really “dead” (and now reborn) or just “lost” (and now reclaimed). We all talk about Anti controlling Jack and the other Egos when in reality, this entire chaotic masterpiece is all just Jack pulling the strings and controlling Anti (and inadvertently, us).

And so I leave you one final question: is Jack an accidental creative genius or is he a masterful strategist all along?

#septicart #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #fan theory

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adamhgrimes · 7 years

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Building expertise: beyond the 10,000 hours

This post is a followup to my recent post which looked at Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour fallacy. That post focused on what is wrong with pop science soundbites. This post is different: today, I’m going to tell what you can do to work toward mastery–practical tips toward deliberate practice. Soon, I’ll follow up with a final post that asks the question no one ever seems to ask: should you even be doing this? What’s the right thing for you?

Deliberate practice

After I published the previous post, several of my readers raised the objection that I was oversimplifying Gladwell’s book, and that he emphasized the importance of deliberate practice rather than just spending 10,000 hours doing something. Actually, it was the original research done by Anders Ericsson that emphasized deliberate practice, the research that Gladwell misrepresented and oversimplified. Here is what Ericsson himself has to say on the topic:

…Gladwell didn’t distinguish between the type of practice that the musicians in our study did — a very specific sort of practice referred to as “deliberate practice” which involves constantly pushing oneself beyond one’s comfort zone, following training activities designed by an expert to develop specific abilities, and using feedback to identify weaknesses and work on them — and any sort of activity that might be labeled “practice.” For example, one of Gladwell’s key examples of the ten-thousand-hour rule was the Beatles’ exhausting schedule of performances in Hamburg between 1960 and 1964. According to Gladwell, they played some twelve hundred times, each performance lasting as much as eight hours, which would have summed up to nearly ten thousand hours. “Tune In,” an exhaustive 2013 biography of the Beatles by Mark Lewisohn, calls this estimate into question and, after an extensive analysis, suggests that a more accurate total number is about eleven hundred hours of playing. So the Beatles became worldwide successes with far less than ten thousand hours of practice. More importantly, however, performing isn’t the same thing as practice…an hour of playing in front of a crowd, where the focus is on delivering the best possible performance at the time, is not the same as an hour of focused, goal-driven practice that is designed to address certain weaknesses and make certain improvements — the sort of practice that was the key factor in explaining the abilities of the Berlin student violinists.

So, yes, deliberate practice is important, and we should turn our attention there, rather than to the 10,000 hours. But what is it? In a nutshell, it’s practice that challenges you; it’s practice that pushes your limits. Deliberate practice may not be fun—in fact, if you’re doing it right, you will have many failures—many times where you try to do something but are unable. This is a natural consequence of working at the edge of your ability, and it is uncomfortable.

An easy example might be to compare two piano players. One plays pieces of music he likes, sometimes plays in front of friends, and when he can play something pretty well, moves on to another piece he likes. He will stop to work on the parts that challenge him so he gets better, but he mostly enjoys playing things through from beginning to end.

Contrast that to the serious player who spends hours working on details, might work on a piece for weeks or months, and may spend days in which he does not play the piece in its entirety. If you were to listen to him practice, sometimes you couldn’t even recognize the piece he’s playing because he is playing very slowly, or is playing small sets of notes (sometimes as few as two or three) over and over in different ways.

One of these guys is not right and the other wrong; they are doing two almost completely different activities. The first person is playing casually, for fun. The second person has a different objective, and may not, on the surface, be having as much “fun”. The serious worker may end practice sessions dejected, and will begin again tomorrow by focusing on places he is likely to fail.

Passion matters

When we work in deliberate practice, we frequently face our limitations—we fail, over and over again. Though, as I’ve said, this is not fun, it can be profoundly rewarding. When we overcome obstacles, and someone working in deliberate practice certainly will, the emotional rewards are very sweet indeed.

Deliberate practice is not drudgery. In fact, I don’t think you can do it without passion. Passion is a word that gets thrown around casually (especially by every business school student on a job interview. No… I don’t think you are passionate about capitalizing operating expenses…), but it is the driving force behind the will to succeed. Unless you love something so much that it is a part of you, I don’t think you can muster the constant work and struggle to work toward mastery. Without passion, you are doomed to be a hobbiest and mastery will ever elude you.

How to do deliberate practice

Deliberate practice is a mindset, and if you are working toward mastery, it will be a lifestyle. Let me share some ideas that will apply to a wide range of disciplines, then we will look at trading and financial markets, specifically

Deliberate practice requires time and effort. This is one of the true lessons of the 10,000 hours: it takes a lot of time and work to develop mastery. If you want to succeed at something at the highest level, assume that your path to mastery will be measured in years, or perhaps decades. You can expect to achieve some real competence and proficiency in most fields in perhaps 2-3 years, but there will be others where you are still building a foundation at 5 years. Your time commitment will be pretty much every day. On average, probably 5-6 days a week. You can take vacations and breaks—you’ll likely find that doing so speeds your progress—but you will not get where you want to be working 2-3 days a week. It’s ok to switch your focus and plan once you get into something, but if you do decide to master a field, go into it with your eyes wide open: the days will turn into months will turn into years, and you will have thousands of hours invested in your mastery.

What you do matters. You can’t spend time just playing and exploring. You must work in deliberate practice. (Yes, this is a list about deliberate practice, but this point is so important it must be re-emphasized.) These thousands of hours you are putting in must be well-spent.

Understand the goals and ways to evaluate your progress and get feedback. This is one reason why you may get much better results working with a coach or teacher. When you’re learning, you truly don’t know what you don’t know. Even when you are well along your path, having the outside perspective of a master teacher can speed your progress along. You may well create your own path, but you’ll do that most effectively if you have a foundation of basic knowledge in the field. As you develop, you’ll learn to tell good from bad, but even this must be taught at the beginning. The beginner picking up the golf club probably feels equally awkward holding it correctly or incorrectly.

Break things into parts and parts of part. Watching a master do something, it often seems easy. Everything flows, but this ease is deceptive. What you’re actually seeing is mastery of many little details, and some of these details may seem very boring. For instance, I recently returned to serious piano playing (after achieving a good degree of mastery in the field) and worked with a master teacher to build my technique. We spent many weeks playing one note at a time with a single finger dropped on a key. After that, we spent months playing one note at a time, hands separately, very slowly. I think many people would not have had the patience to endure this type of training, but it was essential–we were focusing on the atomic elements of technique, and everything I will do rests on a firm mastery of those basic elements. This is true of any discipline, and working toward mastery doesn’t mean “doing really cool and hard stuff” as much as it means doing very basic things very well. One of the consistent reasons I’ve seen people fail in various pursuits is that they are unwilling to spend this time on basic. They are too good, too proud, too “advanced”–and it is exactly this thinking that will doom us to mediocrity.

Failure is good. Most people create their lives around the idea of avoiding failure. Failure is scary, and failure doesn’t feel good. Someone working in deliberate practice will work toward failure and will cultivate practice techniques that assure failure. Now, there’s abject catastrophic failure, which is a sign that we’re reaching too far and can be harmful (and in some disciplines physically harmful), but good practice will assure thousands of small failures in a week. You might think of it like this: if you don’t fail, you’re not trying hard enough. Failure shows us where our “growing edges” are, and only by exploring those edges can we grow.

Repeat and repeat and repeat. This almost goes without saying, but you’re going to be repeating basic elements over and over. You’re going to be learning something, relearning it, and then working on it long after you’ve mastered it. Once you think you’ve polished something, you’ll begin to see imperfections and to see ways in which you can grow further. This might relate to part #4, but I’ve seen many people who are on a quest to accumulate as much knowledge as possible. They would rather have tons of superficial knowledge (e.g., reading hundreds of books on a subject) without really digging deeper. Master is both broad and deep, but going deep is not natural. Going deep takes many repetitions, and then many more.

If you do this right, it’s hard work. But it’s also incredibly satisfying. Even more important: it’s the only way to get to mastery.

That’s enough for today. I have one more post coming on this topic. In that post, we will revisit the nature/nurture question, ask what the limits of practice might be, and if you should be doing this at all. Oh, and we’ll also look at why all of this might not apply so well to trading and financial markets in general.

Building expertise: beyond the 10,000 hours was originally published on Adam H Grimes

#10000 hours #deliberate practice #gladwell

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asleepingwindow · 7 years

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As a final post on this “discourse” sideblog, I want to talk about something not specific to the ace discourse, but rather something that cuts across all groups, all people online or off. Whatever you are arguing or whatever side you are on, we as humans are prone to confirmation bias and the online world is no better place than to create echo-chambers.

I have always felt that teaching myself skepticism was one of the best things I could have done for myself. It was during that time I was also active in the atheist community, online and off. The skeptic and atheist community often overlapped and it was from these groups that I became a feminist.

New atheist groups often wonder why they are largely made up of white men, and if you challenge them on their sexism/racism etc… it becomes obvious why, which is what happened to me. I was the darling women on a majority male forum agreeing with them that religion is the source of all evil, therefore exempting atheist men from things like sexism and all other bigotries. It wasn’t until an argument about rape culture came up that I saw just how deeply misogynist some of these men were.

So my venture into skeptic and atheist groups not only taught me the scientific process and logical fallacies but it also steered me towards social justice. I am no longer friends with any of those people in real life or online. Once I became a feminist and was able to identify their sexism, I wasn’t their darling atheist spokeswoman anymore. It was another valuable lesson in the way people form their groups and their echo-chambers within. How people will ignore some really bad things just to stay included and how they will turn when someone strays. Some people may be thinking of trump supporters now, but everyone is susceptible to this type of behavior.

Fast forward a few years later, but still a few years ago and I had to deal with a callout on an anonymous forum I moderated bc they monitored my tumblr and I made the sin of reblog from and being in mutuals with the wrong people, (who were just ppl they didn't like including people I’ve since met IRL.) I was dubbed a transphobe not for anything I explicitly said or did that was transphobic, it was guilt by association. Had to leave the forum, as this was also invitation to make up other horrible things I never did bc they could and now ppl were ready to believe.

This is around the time TERF started catching on, and while I certainly agree with calling out transphobia in feminism (I would never insist a trans woman is male, I think thats a violent act against trans women! And I despise it being done in the name of feminism) but at the same time it turned into a witch hunt for anyone who talked about sex-based oppression that even ended up attacking other trans woman for not towing a certain Tumblr rhetoric on these issues!

I’m no LGBT elder by any means, but I have been online since I was about 12 and I’m 32 now. I remember a time when the internet was far more horrible on SJ matters but also far more anonymous. People never dropped their real name; now one of the biggest social media sites requires it. And before that even happened I still saw a lot of petty bullshit happening online that wound up really hurting people IRL. So now with it easier to find out who people are and where they live, I can only imagine how online drama has ruined lives. We know it has driven people to suicide, and so as fun as it is to get self righteously angry at people for whatever your cause is, there’s still a person at the other end and no one’s perfect.

I am truly disturbed at how incredibly cliquey SJ groups are online, how callout posts aren’t for extreme racist sexist bigots, but for some drama I can’t even parse in their so called “proof”. And then you have activists on this site who block anyone who disagrees with them so their criticisms can’t show up in the notes. Some even go so far as dox people now for daring to disagree! K(And let’s be clear, I shed no tears for literal nazis being doxxed and losing their job, that’s just not what I’m seeing)

It’s easy, its human nature to fall into social pressures and conform to whatever the Big Names in your group are saying without question and to defend an absurd position based on emotional attachment than logical assessment. And we know it’s also easy to fall into a mob mentality and scapegoat people for all our problems. It’s also super fucking easy to plead mental illness and pretend you should be allowed to say anything you want without criticism, something that I hate so much as one who suffers from many mental issues including anxiety. (That’s why I created rules for myself when arguing online so I didn’t end up giving myself panic attacks over an internet edge lord)

I say this knowing I have participated in this behavior myself as well as having been a victim of it. But a lot in my life has changed and I am an older and sicker… and still likely to make similar mistakes. Point is I have learned and I have trained myself to not to fall into these traps and it does help. Experience is one hell of a teacher but it doesn’t have to be the only one.

No one can know if they are 100% right on any given issue, we all have our convictions for a reason. The difference is are you willing to listen to dissent? Are you willing to challenge your opinion and put it to the test? Or do you make block lists and shun anyone who entertains any different opinion? (a classic tactic amongst anti-vax groups when a parent sees the science) My convinction of many of my beliefs comes from the fact I have argued them over and over again, discharging beliefs that did not pass the test, while strengthening my arguments for and belief in those that do.

Make no mistake, when it does come to the so called “discourse” both sides can be guilty of this shit. I claim no purity. And I am in no way implying that we tolerate hate groups and violent hate speech, like those of nazis bc unfortunately nazis are actually relevant again, but I am saying some of you need a reality check on what that exactly entails, because a lesbian speaking her truth is not it.

And for god sakes don’t put teens on block lists, you know it invites harassment, you fucking know it.

#not gonna bother to tag for content #probably blocked already by the people who need to hear this most

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pinchtheprincess · 7 years

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@0ceanofdarkness said:

. . . [a blogger would] post about how unhappy she was with this or that scene and how it played out onscreen until sometime the following Monday when she managed to rationalize whatever she didn’t like into some idealized fantasy about what had actually happened and then she gushed just as enthusiastically about how beautiful & full of meaning it all was.

Do you have any idea how many Rumbellers I’ve seen do this very thing? I’ve been struggling to put this into words. I wish I could go back and track it all. It’s incredible, how some will talk it out and wrangle and twist scenes and dialogue to justify them, until they can accept them. Someone makes up their take on it, 95% of it headcanon or hogwash (or a combination), and people glom onto their post and run with it, developing it further, until it becomes solidified in a group of minds. (And if you subscribe to the bandwagon fallacy, then, the more minds in agreement means something is “right”.)

[I put the rest under a ‘Read More’ -- I wasn’t thinking about people on the mobile app, sorry.]

That much work to rationalize canon shouldn’t have to be done, but if you wish to, so be it. You do you. However, people should NOT be critical of others who don’t want to, or just can’t do that. Personally, that much cognitive dissonance hurts my brain. I get enough headaches without turning my straightforward thinking paths into a pretzel. I’m willing to entertain other interpretations, but if they don’t fit with what I saw and heard, I can’t fool myself into thinking that’s the “right way” to view the material. I’m fine with other interpretations of the source material, as long as it doesn’t veer too far off the path of realistic interpretation. My interpretation is filtered through my life experiences and emotions about them, just like yours is. I understand that and accept it.

But this certain segment---the ones who block others in their own fandom---they get their minds set, and it becomes orthodoxy, the only way to view the material if you’re “positive”. If you’re part of the “they’ve each made mistakes” crowd, they think they’re giving equal weight to each party in the relationship, professing to be impartial. But they don’t dare be critical of Belle, the pure and precious Belle, or if they do, they mention something completely minor, but overrun it with overwrought shock and horror about Rumplestiltskin’s actions, with the same sort of rhetoric we’ve been combating for years from the Hookers and from the haters who invade the tags.

When Rumbellers start thinking that they’re only being objective if they’re not anti-Belle, but are critical of Rumplestiltskin, how is that “objective”? How is that fair? They’ve been fans to this point, so they can accept his past, including murder, the Dark Curse, all of his machinations; but temporarily preventing Belle from leaving the ship---something done to protect her, when he knows Hyde is after her (actually Jekyll, but he didn’t know that), when she’s known for being quite reckless, and has no magic---is unforgivable? You cannot give equal weight to Belle’s actions and Rumple’s actions.

Oh, but he lied to her! Granted. That was fairly recent, too. He did confess about being the Dark One when he saw her next. And the next bit is vital. In that scene (5x16), when he came clean, he offered her everything he could, everything he thought was important: Family. Happiness. All he was asking for was acceptance of him, the way he was. He had become a better man than the one she fell in love with years ago. He was trying to tell her he was a better man than the one she had banished, too. She initially rejected this offer, because of the Darkness.

After that, last we heard, she loved him* and trusted him to fix the situation they were in (5x17 & 5x18). Unfortunately, his attempt at True Love’s Kiss failed (5x20). And that was the Underworld. Think about it: If the kiss would have broken the sleeping curse and his curse, he had to have been pretty confident he could find a way home without magic, or that they’d make it to that portal in time! He tries True Love’s kiss again (6x01), but she rejects him in the sleeping curse dreamworld. She doesn’t trust him enough. Gideon told her lies about the potential future, told her Rumple’s evil would tear apart their family, so, suddenly (it seemed to me), she decided to leave him for the good of their unborn child, which . . . tore apart their family.

Following that, each consecutive episode had her getting more angry, acting as if he was going to do something horrible, when she was getting her information second-and thirdhand. Belle was influenced to believe he might do something bad, so that his son wouldn’t love him, but she never questioned it. She didn’t question the dreamworld’s effects (filled with her regrets, and the affect those would have on her psyche), how her grown son could appear there, nor the paradox question: How can she avoid the outcome if it has already happened?

Moreover, if Gideon was appearing there, saying this awful thing had happened, wouldn’t Rumple using the Shears of Fate, cutting him from this path, be a good thing? (Not that I’m suggesting altering his natural course and letting him make his own choices wouldn’t be better. I do not believe in Fate, anyway. Free Will is what we all have. We are not puppets.) I’m glad that Rumple did not do this thing; I’m just pointing out what I see are the flaws in her thought processes.

Once back in Storybrooke, Belle kept pulling away, cutting Rumple off from anything to do with her pregnancy, when she knows how much children mean to him. Then, making plans to escape to another realm?! With those plans, that cuff allowing him to know her location is entirely justified. We are talking kidnapping vs. protection. These things are not equal. If I knew my spouse were going to kidnap my child, I’d be the rampaging Angel of Death! If you twist this because he’s the father and not the mother, that’s sexist as hell. (But this faction of the fandom don’t say those words, because they know this.) Rumplestiltskin loves children and family has been his prime motivation since the beginning. If you know his character, then, you know that.

I realize I probably won’t convince anyone to change their minds about the situation. I guess what I’m saying is that, for most people, impartiality is a dream. If you can’t accept that most fans are going to fall into one fictional character’s camp or another, Belle’s or Rumple’s, without making these fans out to be monsters, in your head, then I’m glad you blocked me. But why isn’t blocking people enough for you? I’m not a “horrible person”. I’ve never sent anon hate. I’ve never advocated people attack anyone. It’s a stupid, campy frickin’ TV show, which I wouldn’t be watching any longer if I didn’t love Robert Carlyle and hadn’t fallen in love with (earlier) Rumbelle, OUAT’s vision of Beauty and the Beast. Rather than shitting on a bunch of REAL PEOPLE who see things differently than you do, calling them names, WILDLY misrepresenting what they’ve said (you should know who you are), making snide insinuations about their ages, ::cough:: why don’t YOU do something good within the fandom? Help create Pax Rumbelle.

Or just, turn on some music or go for a walk.

* If that can be read as something more than a trick.

#fan wank #rumbelle #rumbellers #rumplestiltskin #anti belle #I realize I made one snide and insulting post but that wasn't until someone told me we were being talked about and called all sorts of names #this kind of shit needs to stop #you block us and that's STILL not enough?

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airoasis · 5 years

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Law Firm Marketing Trick: Get More Google Reviews Quickly & Easily

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/law-firm-marketing-trick-get-more-google-reviews-quickly-easily/

Law Firm Marketing Trick: Get More Google Reviews Quickly & Easily

Hey each person, Andy Stickler right here. Just wanted to, you know, I used to be talking to a patron previous at present and that i had an concept for a video after speaking to him. So I figured i might share this rapid tip with you guys. So, like a number of attorneys there may be normally a wrestle of getting your customers to depart you reports and there’s a number of legislation companies that it can be quite convenient to get reviews, like if you are a trade attorney or in case you do, I dont recognize, personal harm, extraordinary things like that and truly even that isn’t totally handy on account that quite a few times men and women will say they dont want to, folks will say they’ll depart you a review they usually just dont do it but there’s also often when you’re in an industry where humans dont want to depart studies.If youre a divorce lawyer for illustration, if you’re a criminal protection lawyer, men and women dont always wish to go on Google and thank their criminal safety legal professional for getting that pesky DUI charge dropped, for instance. So one thing that I inform my consumers is that if you are having drawback getting people to go away you reviews. One thing which you could take into account is character reports, on Google they dont always say consumer studies and it is kind of a grey subject and that i feel that they often, in the event you would ask them they more often than not mean, they probably imply customer reviews but what we customarily do quite a lot of times is should you can not necessarily get humans to go away you studies seeing that leaving stories is very intricate but that doesnt imply that you cannot get reviews.So, in many instances we are going to inform our customers to do personality reviews, so that implies that you could go to your next door neighbor or you can go to whoever it is, go to your brother in regulation, go to your, you already know, your friend from college, whoever it’s and get them to leave you overview that says, John Smith, anything alongside the traces like, John Smith is enormously knowledgeable in family law and if I ever needed a divorce he may be the guy i’d call or, you know, bill Johnson is incredibly proficient, he knows the regulation, he cares about his clients, if I acquired a DUI, he is the primary individual i might call, something like that. None of its fallacious however it’s an easy means so that you can get a consumer’s or now not always customers however it’s effortless approach so that you can construct up your reports considering that a variety of times we will see on Google My business, if you’re within the maps however you dont have probably the most stories or say there may be one law corporation that has 20 reports and also you best have 5 experiences.The legislation firm with 20 stories is on the whole going to get the mobilephone call. So, you’ve bought a figure out a option to get as many 5 famous person studies as possible. So, that’s simply some thing we do, once more, it’s variety of on the grey hat part, i know that Google quite often will not always, in case you name them and ask them can i do this, they may typically say no however should you use it sparingly and you utilize it so to get some stories in instances when you can not get studies and also you want stories, it works relatively well.We now have certainly not had a consumer have an drawback with it, I dont think that there is a manner that you just would have an hindrance with it considering that may require them truely going by means of and manually reading all of these studies and it’s simply isnt feasible. So, rapid tip for the day, for those who guys have any questions let me comprehend and let me recognize what other tips, let me be aware of on the feedback what different methods you guys use to get reports when you are having challenge getting consumers to go away you stories. Speak to you quickly. .

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batterymonster2021 · 5 years

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Law Firm Marketing Trick: Get More Google Reviews Quickly & Easily

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/law-firm-marketing-trick-get-more-google-reviews-quickly-easily/

Law Firm Marketing Trick: Get More Google Reviews Quickly & Easily

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topicprinter · 5 years

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I've been working on this product for ~2 years now. I don't develop, but I handle all the numbers and investor-related things since I spent some time working as a senior member of a VC fund.My co-founder built a beta 2 years ago and found me as I was one of its first users. I fell in love with the product and we've been working together ever since.In August, the app started to skyrocket in users, and we hit about 3k till date. Usage isn't the best, they figure out how to use it and get to the core value, but retention is poor. I'd say with 3-6 months of work on the product we could get the loop closed and have users returning and sharing.We've been able to grow all over the nation and we're steadily growing, based off of the rates we'll hit the 100k user mark sometime Q2 next year.Investors are starting to take an interest, so I'd say if we started to actively fundraise we could get a few angels by Q1 next year.So what's so bad?The team. We have trouble agreeing on anything. My co-founder has been working on start-ups for nearly a decade and he has anger issues. He yells a lot and doesn't listen to anybody when it comes to his team. He's absorbed in his phone, he's recently met someone online, and he's been focused on the content he posts online (down to the order of words in the post) and how he appears to his followers. When I push saying he needs to focus on our product he says that's him building an audience/following that'll be handy in the future and how he's also studying user behavior. I think he's lost it, and he tries to get off his phone, but he doesn't. One time I came over for 4 hours to work, of which we only spoke for 15 min because he was on his phone the entire time (yes, hours). I even left and he messaged me 2 hours later saying "where'd you go". Now, most of my time when I come over is spent on talking about if a post is "too forceful" or "is that funny?" or the girl he's crushing on. Mind you, this girl reads his messages but she doesn't respond to him, he's interpreting her saving messages as flirting back and her viewing his posts as a gesture of flirtation. I've told him he's wrong and there's nothing there, but he just says I'm crazy and don't understand it because they're both "real".When it comes to product, he's a great mind but a horrible team worker. He's hypocritical and any changes suggested by anyone (me) he feels as if it's changing the product and ruining his own vision. Of the entire product, it's all his mind in terms of the decisions and design. Our growth rate isn't the greatest and he doesn't let anyone experiment to improve unless it is his own idea. If someone suggests anything he attacks the suggestion from every angle, but if it's his own he names calls everyone and no one has control at the end, so even if we all disagree he'll still do it. He's also gone a little crazy saying he's seeing signs everywhere and he's starting to base product decisions off of them. When countered, he just calls you crazy and how we don't understand (because he has a decade of experience). He still has not been successful with his start-up ventures.I've been commuting 3 hours a day to work with him and my savings have gone from 12k to $400, I'm not sure I can do this anymore. He wants to change the entire core spirit of what we're building and that's not what I signed up for. I'm having conflict because he's also my friend (after being business partners) and I'm worried about him and his health. I feel if I leave he will feel like he has nothing left.He's also been unproductive because of this addiction to social media. We're weeks behind on a new version and the work he's doing could have been completed in ~2 weeks yet we're touching 5 weeks now. When you question his lack of work he freaks out saying he's working on art and we can't rush it (though this is an excuse he gives every time he misses his self-imposed deadline).I've tried speaking with him, and it just ends in yelling and me submitting because at the end of the day I can't do anything since I'm not the builder. After hours of digging, I feel like I get where he comes from but even then it's hard to be happy. Most of the time I just tell myself "this is the tough part of being in a start-up, most people die here. I won't let that happen" but is that a fallacy too?All these books I read on stories of incredible products lead to two things:I draw similarities between the "visionaries" to my partner and think, well hey all the successful ones are crazy and my partner is a smart guy nonetheless.Wow, none of these books talk about how shitty they felt between their co-founders, most stick together and can have normal discussions. We can't even talk about anything because he's either zoned out, doesn't care (because he controls the company), and yeah, we don't have any actual meetings.What do I do here? I know if I leave I can pick myself up and make opportunity elsewhere. On the other hand, I lose my start-up I've worked on the last two years and I'm not sure what would happen to my co-founder. I'd feel like I succumbed to the trough of despair every start-up goes through yet the other half of me says "no, this guy is a terrible partner, regardless of a great product".I do think he's a great product person. He knows how to build a great product, work well, and discuss things when he has had a full amount of sleep, doesn't smoke pot/cigarettes (he smokes pot every day), and takes it easy on the diet (he doesn't eat well). But those days are seldom, but when they do happen, they're great. If he was like that every day we would be leagues ahead of where we are now. I've told him this and he either gets sad or argues back, no change. I've threaten to leave and he gets quiet but doesn't change. Once I sent him a message saying we needed to have a serious conversation and he calls me multiple times because he gets nervous I'll leave, but doesn't change his habits.Do I bare the feeling of un-ownership in order to possibly build a company or do I slowly get myself out?

#/r/startups #reddit

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jodiwalker · 5 years

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A Star Is Born: Maybe It's Time to Let the Old [Maps] Die

This post contains mostly no spoilers, unless you consider *general geography* a spoiler which, fine, but we all took third and seventh grade...

HAAAAaaahhhhOOOOHHhhhaaaaAAAHHHOhaaaHAAA-IIIIIIII have now seen A Star Is Born and I am here to confirm what you already know: the hype is real. Come for the melodrama; stay for Lady Gaga's incredible face that Bradley Cooper's camera simply cannot stay away from — except for all the times when he puts the camera on his own face, which is also incredible in all its bronzed, gin-sweat glory, and also an inspiring muse, even if you didn't know Bradley Cooper was the star you were coming to see Bradley Cooper birth.

I do not mean to undermine Lady Gaga's performance. She's...so good. And in such an unexpected way, as perfectly showcased when Ally first sings "Shallow" onstage, and you're sitting there thinking that song has already been normalized for you because of its iconic rollout in the trailer, but halfway through trying to wipe the butter off your hands so that you can wipe the tears off your face, you realize what's most iconic of all is the fear and vulnerability with which Lady Gaga is able to color Ally's first time singing in front of an arena, even though Lady Gaga herself has straight up body-surfed at the Super Bowl halftime show, like, six times.

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Ally is definitely the star that is born in the first act, but then in the second act, she's just kind of…a self-assured toddler who is already very comfortable being a star? That's when the focus turns to Jackson Maine, who is very uncomfortable with his life as a star, or at least needs to snort a large caterpillar's worth of cocaine to get comfortable with it.

And that works too, I guess! Cooper’s is excellently crafted man pain, and I've heard it has made more than a few men cry many man tears. I myself cried enough man tears that I felt very relieved I hadn't worn makeup, and upon entering the restroom, realized while I had not intentionally worn makeup, I had done a real half-ass job of taking off some former makeup, as evidenced by my eyes looking like Jackson Maine's after he's drunk enough whiskey to forget the death of A R T.

Oh yes, I did cry enough in those two final scenes — you know the ones — to activate some three-day old, already once removed LashBlast. Wait...am I the star that was born?

No. No, I am not. But which star this movie births is just one of its many conundrums (others have said the star is Gail, and once you know who Gail is, you know they might just be right).

The absolute best thing about A Star Is Born is how self-assured it is. In fact, Cooper’s directorial confidence that what's happening is the exact right thing to be happening… and does not need to be explained or made sense of…even when it is completely illogical, is perhaps the only thing that keeps the wheels from coming off in A Star Is Born. Like me telling anyone who tries to make me eat breakfast the unchecked fact I heard one single time three years ago that breakfast being the most important meal of the day was a marketing tactic made up by General Mills in the 1970s to sell cereal — unearned confidence will get you everywhere.

And by everywhere, I mean: your loved ones off of your back about not eating breakfast, and/or $50 million opening weekend domestic.

I don't think it would be a contrarian take, even for the film's biggest advocates, to say that almost everything about this film is technically "good" while not technically “making any sense at all." For example, why would a bunch of people who paid for a Jackson Maine concert be thrilled when he brings a lady in a t-shirt onstage to sing the encore, even if "Shallow" is a baaaaahooooohaaaahooohanger? Who cares, it gives us that incredible moment!

Further, was it...necessary to make Jackson Maine's brother a full 30 years older than him? Which came first: Sam Elliot's casting or Bradley Cooper's Sam Elliot impression? I love Sam Elliot as much as the next Bradley Cooper, but what are we doing here and why are we doing it? The answer is, of course: “Sam Elliot” and “because we can,” respectively.

Does it matter that Bradley Cooper is completely believable as in irreparable drunk with a heart of gold right up until the point when he takes his shirt off and your tongue rolls out of your mouth like a Sylvester the cat because these are not the abs of a man who hosts a DIY gin bucket in his torso every night? You can grease down his hair, sprinkle cigarette ash down his throat, and put as much Tom Ford bronzer on him as you want, but you cannot hide those abs.

Well, you could — with a shirt. A Star Is Born simply chooses not to because it knows you can live in two worlds: one where you enjoy Bradley Cooper's grizzled performance as Jackson Maine, one one where you enjoy Bradley Cooper's abs as Bradley Cooper's abs. Because this is a tried and true melodrama. We're not here for the Pythagorean theorem, we're here for: Hair. Body. Face.

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We could call into question if A Star Is Born actually doesn't realize it's shitting on pop music while featuring one of the greatest virtuoso pop stars of our time, or if it's doing the much trickier thing of shitting on people who shit on pop music by making Jackson Maine such a (sympathetic) asshole that he drinks a whole bottle of backstage-SNL liquor just because Ally sings a (good) song about butts, sure…

But that's hard work. And melodramas shouldn't be mentally laborious for the audience — you come; you cry; you leave; you throw your wig at Lady Gaga slinging non-stop bops (even the ones that aren’t supposed to bop) if you feel so inclined because you had a good ass time.

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There are plenty of things that don't make logical sense in A Star Is Born, but for the most part, it is so big and yet small, bold and yet subtle, emotionally manipulative and yet earnest, that you just move past the fact that sometimes Jackson Maine's brother accuses Jackson of stealing his voice even though we are at no point given any evidence that his brother was a singer of any kind. There was only one logical fallacy actually took me outside of the film while watching it:

WHERE IN THE FRESH MONTERREY HELL DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE LIVE?

For the first, I don't know, 45 minutes of this movie, there was no doubt in my mind that Ally lived in New York. Yes, I am a pretentious east coast nightmare who assumes that everything worthwhile happens in New York, but also...Lady Gaga has a Queens accent…her dad has a Queens accent…and all of her dad's friends who hang out at their house that is very clearly in Queens have Queens accents???

Long Island would not have knocked me over with a feather. I would have even been willing to consider New Jersey. But that Ally and her father did not live a bridge or tunnel away from the Empire State Buildings was inconceivable.

Until Jackson Maine comes to Ally's house and asks if she wants to go on a motorcycle ride TO ARIZONA...

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Apparently Ally actually lives within an interstate or highway (or eight, I clearly do no know how L.A. works) of the HOLLYWOOD sign??? Which begs the question: if Ally lives in L.A., why does Jackson fly her on a private jet to a concert that takes place at what is quite notably the Greek Theatre in L.A.? And further, if we're just taking private jets across cities, and motorcycles across states (or maybe countries, I’m honestly still not sure!!!), and treating the space time continuum like a recalled Stretch Armstrong, then why can't Jackson fly Ally's dad from (allegedly!!!) L.A. to Memphisfor their wedding???

Also, if Dave Chapelle lives in Memphis, where are he and Jackson childhood friends from? Arizona?? Was there some unaccounted for time in Nashville because Jackson's brother who (allegedly!!!) wanted to be a country star raised him? Does this movie think audiences just don't listen to state names??? Everyone learned a whole ass song about them in elementary school! We could sing them to you in alphabetical order, Bradley Cooper!!!

Alas, I got over it. The best thing about A Star Is Born is that it is a simple love story, told over and over. At its core, it really isn't a movie about the trials of fame, or the death of A R T or even the tragedy of substance abuse. It definitely is not a movie about the responsible narrative use of place and setting.

It's just a movie about two people doomed to fall in love, and the audience, doomed to fall further under the spell of a movie star who might also be an auteur, playing a country star; and a pop star who might also be a movie star, playing a ingenue. (And it all happened right here IN NEW YORK CITY!)

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#a star is born review #lady gaga #bradley cooper #sam elliott

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oovitus · 6 years

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Can eating too little actually damage your metabolism? Exploring the truths and fallacies of ‘metabolic damage’.

There’s a lot of discussion in the fitness industry about whether crash dieting can cause metabolic damage. In this article, we’ll take on this interesting topic and separate fact from fiction. We’ll also teach you exactly why crash diets might be linked to struggling to maintain your weight in the future.

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Despite working out consistently and intensely, plus eating carefully, you’re not losing weight (or not losing it as fast as you’d like or expect).

Or you were losing weight consistently… until recently. Now you’re stuck — even though you’re working as hard as ever.

Or when you were younger, you were super fit. Maybe you did fitness competitions. Maybe you did some crash diets. But now, even when you put in the same effort, you just can’t seem to get as lean.

“Is my metabolism damaged?”

Precision Nutrition Coaching clients ask us this question all the time.

(If you’re a health, fitness or wellness professional, you’ve probably heard it from your clients or patients too.)

Can months or years of dieting do some kind of long-term harm to the way the human body processes food?

Not exactly.

But gaining and losing fat can change the way your brain regulates your body weight.

To understand this answer let’s explore how human metabolism actually works. Then we’ll talk about whether the metabolism can actually be damaged.

Note: This post delves into the science of energy balance, thermodynamics, and metabolic regulation. If you love learning this stuff, feel free to dig in.

If, on the other hand, you’re simply looking for solid, research-backed advice on how to lose fat and break weight-loss plateaus, feel free to skip to the summary at the end.

Energy balance: The laws of physics still apply.

You need a certain amount of energy (in the form of calories) to stay alive, as well as to move around. You can get this energy from food, or you can retrieve it from stored energy (e.g. your fat tissue).

In theory:

If you eat less energy than you expend, you should lose weight.

If you do the opposite (i.e. eat more energy than you expend), you should gain weight.

In other words: *We use the term “body stores” deliberately as it represents the tissues available for breakdown (fat, muscle, organ, bone, etc) and excludes water (which can change body weight independently of energy balance).

This relationship between ‘energy in’ and ‘energy out’ is called the Energy Balance Equation, and it’s the most commonly accepted model for calculating a person’s energy balance and how much weight they’ll lose or gain over time.

While the Energy Balance Equation determines body weight, it doesn’t tell us much about body composition, which is influenced by things like sex hormone levels, macronutrient intake (especially protein), exercise style / frequency / intensity, age, medication use, genetic predisposition, and more.

Understandably, people get really frustrated and confused with the Energy Balance Equation when the numbers don’t seem to add up, or their results don’t match their expectations. (This is a good lesson, by the way, about the importance of adjusting your expectations to match observable reality.)

And it’s a fair frustration. Most of the time, the numbers don’t add up.

Importantly:

This mismatch between expectations versus reality is not because the Energy Balance Equation is wrong, or a myth. Nobody’s body defies the laws of physics, even though it seems like that sometimes.

It’s because the equation is more complicated than it sounds.

Many factors affect the Energy Balance Equation; they aren’t mutually exclusive. What you do to ‘energy in’ affects what happens to ‘energy out’. And vice versa.

“Eat less, move more” is a good start. (Most of us could probably benefit from eating a little less and getting a little more daily activity.)

But that advice alone isn’t enough. It doesn’t take all of the complex, intersecting factors into account.

Let’s take a look at some of these factors, starting with the ‘energy in’ part of the equation.

‘Energy in’ is trickier than you think.

Reason 1: The number of calories in a meal likely doesn’t match the number of calories on the labels or menu.

This might sound hard to believe, but it’s true… the way companies (and even the government) come up with calorie and nutrient estimates is incredibly complex, rather imprecise, and centuries-old. As a result, food labels can be off by as much as 20-25 percent.

And even if those food labels were correct:

Reason 2: The amount of energy a food contains in the form of calories is not necessarily the amount of energy we absorb, store, and/or use.

Remember that the food we eat has to be digested and processed by our unique bodies. The innumerable steps involved in digestion, processing, absorption, storage, and use — as well as our own individual physiological makeup — can all change the energy balance game.

So, for instance:

We absorb less energy from minimally processed carbohydrates, and fats, because they’re harder to digest.

We absorb more energy from highly processed carbohydrates and fats, because they’re easier to digest. (Think of it this way: The more “processed” a food is, the more digestion work is already done for you.)

For example, research has shown that we absorb more fat from peanut butter than from whole peanuts. The researchers found that almost 38 percent of the fat in peanuts was excreted in the stool, rather than absorbed by the body. Whereas seemingly all of the fat in the peanut butter was absorbed.

In addition:

We often absorb more energy from foods that are cooked (and/or chopped, soaked, blended) because those processes break down plant and animal cells, increasing their bioavailability.

When eating raw starchy foods (like sweet potatoes), we absorb very few of the calories. After cooking, however, the starches are much more available to us, tripling the number of calories absorbed.

Interestingly, allowing starchy foods to then cool before eating them decreases the amount of calories we can extract from them again. (This is mostly due to the formation of resistant starches).

Finally:

We may absorb more or less energy depending on the types of bacteria in our gut.

Some people have larger populations of a Bacteroidetes (a species of bacteria), which are better at extracting calories from tough plant cell walls than other bacteria species.

Here’s an interesting example of this whole process at work. Recently, USDA researchers asked test subjects to consume 45 grams (about 1 ½ servings) of walnuts daily for three weeks.

What they found was that, on average, people only absorbed 146 of the 185 calories in the nuts. That’s 79 percent of the calorie content on the label.

In similar research, people also absorbed only 80 percent of the calories in almonds, and 95 percent of the calories in pistachios.

Beyond the average, there were individual differences: Some people absorbed more of the energy in the nuts, while some absorbed less (likely due to the differing populations of bacteria in their large intestines).

In the end, by eating a diet rich in whole, minimally processed foods, the number of calories you absorb can be significantly less than what you expect. Plus they require more calories to digest.

Conversely, you will absorb more calories by eating lots of highly processed foods, plus burn fewer calories in the digestive process. (In addition, highly processed foods are less filling, more energy dense, and more likely to cause overeating.)

Since the number of calories someone thinks they’re consuming could be off by 25 percent (or more), their carefully curated daily intake of 1,600 calories could really be 1,200… or 2,000.

This means: As you can see, there’s a big margin of error for energy input, even if you’re a conscientious calorie counter. This doesn’t invalidate the Energy Balance Equation. It just means that if you want an accurate calculation, you probably have to live in a fancy metabolic lab.

For most people, it’s not worth the effort (that’s why Precision Nutrition moved to a hand-based measuring model for portions).

‘Energy out’ varies a lot from person to person.

‘Energy out’ — again, energy burned through daily metabolism and moving you around — is a dynamic, always-changing variable.

There are four key parts to this complex system:

1. Resting metabolic rate (RMR)

RMR is the number of calories you burn each day at rest, just to breathe, think, and live. This represents roughly 60 percent of your ‘energy out’ and depends on weight, body composition, sex, age, genetic predisposition, and possibly (again) the bacterial population of your gut.

A bigger body, in general, has a higher RMR.

For instance:

A 150-pound man might have an RMR of 1583 calories a day.

A 200-pound man might have an RMR of 1905 calories.

A 250-pound man might have an RMR of 2164 calories.

Crucially, RMR varies up to 15 percent from person to person. If you’re that 200-pound guy with an RMR of 1905 calories, another guy just like you on the next treadmill might burn 286 more (or fewer) calories each day with no more (or less) effort.

2. Thermic effect of eating (TEE)

This may surprise you, but it takes energy to digest food. Digestion is an active metabolic process. (Ever had the “meat sweats” or felt hot after a big meal, especially one with lots of protein? That’s TEE.)

TEE is the number of calories you burn by eating, digesting, and processing your food. This represents roughly 5-10 percent of your ‘energy out’.

In general, you’ll burn more calories in your effort to digest and absorb protein (20-30 percent of its calories) and carbs (5-6 percent) than you do fats (3 percent).

And as noted before, you’ll burn more calories digesting minimally processed whole foods compared to highly processed foods.

3. Physical activity (PA)

PA is the calories you burn from purposeful exercise, such as walking, running, going to the gym, gardening, riding a bike, etc.

Obviously, how much energy you expend through PA will change depending on how much you intentionally move around.

4. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)

NEAT is the calories you burn through fidgeting, staying upright, and all other physical activities except purposeful exercise. This, too, varies from person to person and day to day.

This means: Each of these is highly variable. Which means the ‘energy out’ side of the equation may be just as hard to pin down as the “energy in” side.

So, while the Energy Balance Equation sounds simple in principle, all these variables make it hard to know or control exactly how much energy you’re taking in, absorbing, burning, and storing.

Here’s the entire equation:

When you try to outsmart your body and it outsmarts you back.

Even if all the variables in the final equation above were static, the Energy Balance Equation would be complicated enough. But things get crazy when you consider that altering any one of the variables causes adjustments in other, seemingly unrelated variables.

This is a good thing, of course. Our human metabolisms evolved to keep us alive and functioning when food was scarce. One consequence:

When ‘energy in’ goes down, ‘energy out’ goes down to match it. (You burn fewer calories in response to eating less).

Not in everybody. And not perfectly. But that’s how the system is supposed to work. That’s how our bodies avoid unwanted weight loss and starvation. It’s how humans have survived for 2 million years. The body fights to maintain homeostasis.

Likewise, when ‘energy in’ goes up, ‘energy out’ tends to go up too. (You burn more calories in response to eating more).

To illustrate this point, here’s how your body tries to keep your weight steady when you take in less energy and start to lose weight*.

Thermic effect of eating goes down because you’re eating less.

Resting metabolic rate goes down because you weigh less.

Calories burned through Physical activity go down since you weigh less.

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis goes down as you eat less.

Calories not absorbed goes down and you absorb more of what you eat.

*This response is particularly modest at first. But the adaptation really ramps up as you lose more weight. (Or if you’re starting out lean and trying to get super-lean).

Check out what this looks like: In addition to these tangible effects on the equation, reducing actual calories eaten also causes hunger signals to increase, causing us to crave (and maybe eat) more.

The net effect leads to a much lower rate of weight loss than you might expect. In some cases, it could even lead to weight re-gain.

To add insult to injury, a rise in cortisol from the stress of dieting can cause our bodies to hold onto more water, making us feel “softer” and “less lean” than we actually are.

Interestingly, this is just one example of the amazing and robust response to trying to manipulate one variable (in this case, actual calories eaten). There are similar responses when trying to manipulate each of the other variables in the equation.

For example, research suggests that increasing physical activity above a certain threshold (by exercising more) can trigger:

Increased appetite and more actual calories eaten

Decreased calories not absorbed as we absorb more of what we eat

Decreased RMR

Decreased NEAT

In this case, here’s what the equation would look like: In the end, these are just two of the many examples we could share. The point is that metabolism is much more complicated (and interdependent) than most people realize.

Therefore, trying “what used to work” for you, or relying on calorie counting, often won’t get you the results you want. As your energy balance evolves, so must your strategies for losing fat or maintaining your weight.

Understanding energy balance means setting better expectations about body change.

It’s important to note that if you have lots of body fat to lose, many of these adaptations (i.e. lowered RMR, PA, NEAT, etc) don’t happen right away. But, as you become leaner, this “adaptive thermogenesis” kicks in.

It’s also important to know that how your metabolism reacts to changes in energy balance will be unique to you.

How much you can lose or gain will depend on your age, your genetic makeup, your biological sex, if you’ve had relatively more or less body fat and for how long, what medications you’re taking, the makeup of your microbiome… and probably a whole lot of factors we don’t even know about yet.

But let’s try to simulate how this could work.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have studied the data from people who have lost weight, and created a mathematical model that represents how weight and fat loss actually happens in the real world.

We can play with it, using the Precision Nutrition Weight Loss Calculator.

Let’s start with a 40-year-old male, with a starting weight of 235 lbs and a height of 5’10”. We’ll call him Frank.

Frank works a desk job, and is only lightly active outside of work. This calculates that he needs 2,976 calories of energy per day to maintain his current weight.

By knocking off 500 calories per day, his intake drops to 2,476 calories daily. And he doesn’t plan on changing his physical activity.

Now, you’ve probably heard somewhere that a pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories, which means that if we take away those 500 calories from Frank every day, he should lose 1 pound per week (500 x 7 days = 3500 calories).

He should end up at 183 lbs after one year of consistently eating 500 fewer calories every day. (According to this math, then, he would weigh 0 lbs within 5 years, which should raise some red flags.)

But we know it doesn’t exactly work this way in real life.

At the end of a year, Frank gets on the scale. He’s 205 lbs.

What the hell?

That’s 22 pounds more than I should be!

Frank rages to his wife Maria, who smiles knowingly. She’s 40 too, and has been trying to lose weight since having two kids in her mid-30s.

Tell me about it, she says. I’ve lost and gained the same 10 pounds over and over, even though I’ve been exercising and eating pretty healthy.

Then they both think:

Maybe I should try that juice cleanse after all. My body is obviously broken.

Nope, nobody is broken. Don’t hit that juice cleanse just yet.

Instead, Frank and Maria could both benefit from a clear understanding of how weight loss actually works. Then they can set appropriate behavior goals, and have realistic expectations for their progress.

(Postscript: Frank and Maria decide against the juice fast and enroll in Precision Nutrition Coaching. At the end of a year, Maria’s “only” lost a total of 7 lbs, but has gained 5 lbs of muscle [which means she’s lost 12 lbs of fat]. Her firm arms and glowing skin are the envy of the other moms. Frank is down to a fit 185 lbs and trying to figure out how to convince Maria that he should buy a mountain bike.)

So, does dieting damage the metabolism?

Despite what you may have heard:

No, losing weight doesn’t “damage” your metabolism.

But because of the adaptations your body undergoes in response to fat loss (to prevent that fat loss, in fact), ‘energy out’ for those who have lost significant weight will always be lower than for people who were always lean.

Rather:

Losing weight, and keeping it off, is accompanied by adaptive metabolic, neuroendocrine, autonomic, and other changes.

These changes mean that we expend less energy — around 5-10 percent less (or up to 15 percent less at extreme levels) than what would be predicted based on just weighing less.

Unfortunately, because of this adaptive response, someone who has dieted down will often require 5-15 percent fewer calories per day to maintain the weight and physical activity level than someone who has always been that weight.

(Or even less, potentially, because as we learned in the very beginning, the RMR of people of the exact same age/weight/etc. can still vary by up to another 15 percent.)

This means someone who was never overweight might need 2,500 calories to maintain their weight, while someone who had to diet down to that weight may need only 2,125-2,375 calories to hold steady.

We don’t know how long this lowered energy expenditure lasts. Studies have shown that it can hang around for up to 7 years after weight loss (or more; 7 years is as far as it’s been studied). This likely means it’s permanent, or at least persistent.

This is extra relevant for people who have repeatedly dieted, or for fitness competitors who may repeatedly fluctuate between being extremely lean and being overweight in the off-season.

I don’t have data to back this up (to my knowledge no one has studied it), but adaptive thermogenesis seems to react more strongly or more rapidly with each successive yo-yo of extreme body fat fluctuations.

All of this explains why some people can feel like they’ve “damaged” their metabolism through repeated dieting. (And why some experts suggest “metabolic damage” is a real thing.)

But nothing really has been “damaged”.

Instead, their bodies have just become predictably more sensitive to various hormones and neurotransmitters. Their metabolic rates are understandably lower than predicted by various laboratory equations.

So, where does this leave us?

Even folks whose bodies resist fat loss or muscle gain can accomplish these goals.

All physiological changes — including weight loss or gain, fat loss or gain, and muscle loss or gain — require different efforts and amounts of time for different people.

But even if your body does resist weight loss, you can still lose fat, gain muscle, and dramatically change your body.

Our Precision Nutrition Coaching men’s and women’s Finalist Halls of Fame are clear evidence of that.

What to do next: Some tips from Precision Nutrition.

The physiology of weight loss is complicated, but the best strategies for losing fat and keeping it off don’t have to be.

1. Eat plenty of protein.

Protein is essential when trying to losing weight / fat for a few reasons.

Protein helps you keep that all-important lean body mass (which includes connective tissues, organs, and bone as well as muscle).

Protein significantly increases satiety, which means you feel fuller despite eating less. (And eating more protein often causes people to eat less overall.)

Just by eating more protein you burn more calories, because of the increased thermic effect of eating.

For example, if you’re eating 2,500 calories daily, 15 percent from protein, 50 percent from carbs, and 35 percent from fats (roughly average for US adults), you’re burning approximately 185 calories per day through digestion.

Maintain your total calorie intake but increase protein to 30 percent, drop carbs to 40 percent, and whittle fat to 30 percent, and your TEE goes up to roughly 265 calories per day.

For most active men: 6-8 palm-sized servings of protein per day.

For most active women: 4-6 palm-sized servings per day.

For a complete guide to using your hand to measure portions, check out our Calorie Control Guide infographic.

2. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, quality carbs, and healthy fats.

Vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, water, and fiber to help you fill up during meals, stay full between meals, keep you healthy, and recover from your workouts.

We recommend 6-8 fist-sized servings per day for most active men.

And 4-6 fist-sized servings per day for most active women.

The carbs will fuel training, boost leptin (a super important hormone), keep up sex hormones, and prevent feelings of deprivation.

And the fats also keep up sex hormones, boost the immune system, suppress excess inflammation, and make food taste really good.

For most active men, this would be 6-8 handfuls of quality carbs, and 6-8 thumbs of healthy fats per day.

For most active women, 4-6 handfuls of quality carbs and 4-6 thumbs of healthy fats per day.

For a complete guide to using your hand to measure portions, check out our Calorie Control Guide infographic.

3. Adjust your intake as you plateau, or to prevent plateaus.

As your weight loss progresses, you will need to lower your calorie intake further to continue to progress, as your smaller body will burn fewer calories, and your body is adapting to your diet.

Be ready, willing, and able to adjust portion amounts by removing 1-2 handfuls of carbs and/or 1-2 thumbs of fats from your daily intake. Then reassess and continue to adjust as needed.

However, one study found that weight loss plateaus have less to do with metabolic adaptations and more to do with “an intermittent lack of diet adherence”. In other words, not actually sticking to a nutrition plan consistently.

Research shows that we usually think we’re eating less and exercising more than we truly are. So do an objective review of your actual energy in and out before assuming your body is blocking your efforts.

4. Understand that this is complex.

So many things influence what, why, and when we choose to eat.

Too often, eating and body size / fatness are blamed on lack of knowledge, lack of willpower/discipline, or laziness. In reality, food intake and body composition are governed by a mix of physiological, biological, psychological, social, economical, and lifestyle influences, along with individual knowledge or beliefs.

One of the simplest ways to make your decision processes easier is to create an environment that encourages good food choices and discourages poor ones. This can mean making changes to your daily routine, who you spend time with, where you spend time, and what food is readily available to you.

But remember that weight loss can and should be relatively slow, so aim to lose about 0.5-1 percent of your body weight per week.

This helps to maintain muscle mass and minimize the adaptive metabolic responses to a lower calorie intake and resulting weight loss. Faster weight loss tends to result in more muscle loss without extra fat loss, as well as a larger adaptive response.

5. Cycle calories and carbs.*

For folks who are trying to get quite lean, at some point you can’t just rely on linear dieting to get you there. By strategically cycling calories and carbs, you can help to limit how much the metabolism-regulating hormone leptin drops (or temporarily boost it back up) – attenuating the adaptive and hunger response.

*Note: This is a higher-level strategy for fitness competitors and elite athletes who need to get very lean (i.e. ~6-9 percent body fat for men, and ~16-19 percent for women). It’s not something for the average person.

6. Refeed periodically.**

When getting to extreme levels of leanness, even strategic calorie and carb cycling might not be enough. So take out the big guns, and employ some periodic re-feeds to temporarily boost leptin and insulin and keep fat loss going.

**Note: This is a higher-level strategy for fitness competitors and elite athletes who need to get very lean (i.e. <6 percent body fat for men, and <16 percent for women).

7. Do a mixture of resistance, cardiovascular, and recovery activity.

Resistance training helps you maintain vital muscle mass, burn calories, and improve glucose tolerance. Cardiovascular exercise improves the health of your cardiovascular system, helps you expend energy, and can improve recovery.

But don’t overdo either one.

Recovery work (e.g. foam rolling, walking, yoga) helps you maintain consistency and intensity with resistance and cardio training, making them more effective. And it helps to decrease stress (lowering cortisol), which also helps you lose body fat and keep it off.

Aim for 3-5 hours per week of purposeful activity.

8. Find ways to increase NEAT.

Even small increases in activity can account for hundreds of daily calories, and therefore make a big difference in fat loss efforts.

Some ideas: Get a stand-up desk or a treadmill desk; fidget; pace while on the phone; take the stairs; park your car farther away from where you’re going.

9. Develop a solid nightly sleep routine and manage your stress.

Sleep is just as important to your success as nutrition and activity levels. Don’t pretend that you can get by with less. It simply isn’t true.

Often, when people lower their stress, they lose a lot of body water. Then they also notice that they may have lost fat too. (Plus, they may discover that chronic inflammation goes down — another win.)

This includes mental and emotional stress. Research on cognitive dietary restraint (i.e. worrying and stressing out about food) shows that constantly and negatively fixating on what you eat (or don’t) can have the same unhealthy effect as actually dieting stringently.

Yet we need some stress to actually help with progress and growth, so find your stress sweet spot.

10. Have some self-compassion.

There are going to be meals or days where you don’t eat as you “should”. It’s OK. It happens to everyone. Recognize it, accept it, forgive yourself, and then get back on track.

Research actually shows that self-compassion and flexible eating is associated with lower BMI and a healthier body weight, lower self-reported calorie intake, less anxiety and stress, and a better relationship with food.

Passionate about nutrition and health?

If so, and you’d like to learn more about it, consider the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification. Our next group kicks off shortly.

What’s it all about?

The Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification is the world’s most respected nutrition education program. It gives you the knowledge, systems, and tools to really understand how food influences a person’s health and fitness. Plus the ability to turn that knowledge into a thriving coaching practice.

Developed over 15 years, and proven with nearly 100,000 clients, the Level 1 curriculum stands alone as the authority on the science of nutrition and the art of coaching.

Whether you’re already mid-career, or just starting out, the Level 1 Certification is your springboard to a deeper understanding of nutrition, the authority to coach it, and the ability to turn what you know into results.

[Of course, if you’re already a student or graduate of the Level 1 Certification, check out our Level 2 Certification Master Class. It’s an exclusive, year-long mentorship designed for elite professionals looking to master the art of coaching and be part of the top 1% of health and fitness coaches in the world.]

Interested? Add your name to the presale list. You’ll save up to 33% and secure your spot 24 hours before everyone else.

We’ll be opening up spots in our next Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification on Wednesday, June 6th, 2018.

If you want to find out more, we’ve set up the following presale list, which gives you two advantages.

Pay less than everyone else. We like to reward people who are eager to boost their credentials and are ready to commit to getting the education they need. So we’re offering a discount of up to 33% off the general price when you sign up for the presale list.

Sign up 24 hours before the general public and increase your chances of getting a spot. We only open the certification program twice per year. Due to high demand, spots in the program are limited and have historically sold out in a matter of hours. But when you sign up for the presale list, we’ll give you the opportunity to register a full 24 hours before anyone else.

If you’re ready for a deeper understanding of nutrition, the authority to coach it, and the ability to turn what you know into results… this is your chance to see what the world’s top professional nutrition coaching system can do for you.

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References

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fandomdaysoftheweek · 6 years

Text

GRE preparation complete guide!

THIS IS NOT a Great Deal of STUDY. Only a somewhat descriptive article. A couple of weeks of comparatively less manic groundwork will readily complete all I have mentioned.

This isn't likely to let you know exactly what the GRE questions seem like - all novels do this, have a peek prior to reading this. These are just.

Schedule:

I would not suggest following the program I did. It had been five days of intense. Too much stress and no fun in any way.

Three to four months will be perfect to prepare without panicking. Simply take a evaluation - to evaluate exactly what you want to examine. It is basic math and english, therefore studying is a waste of time. Identify flaws and examine people. Whatever you're good at could be revised in the future.

Quantitative Reasoning:

This is tier school mathematics that is Indian. Therefore a quick revision may help. No trigonometry or calculus - but exceptionally basic trigonometry occasionally helps with the triangle queries, though it is not prescribed to examine.

The very best method to do this is to perform several practice segments and revise anything you don't understand.

Data interpretation queries are occasionally confusing and need training, if just to find out what they look like. There are lots of kinds of charts which could be given and distributing them might call for unique procedures. These questions occasionally take more than others, therefore that I always left them to address last.

Comparison questions have corner cases in case you have not practised them you might not consider. There are two amounts given and they should be compared. So do a lot of those questions so as to comprehend what type of values may be utilized to check the amounts. Generally significant are using values such as 1, -1, 0, positive and negative fractions besides other actual numbers/integers.

Don't assume anything! Something which resembles a ideal angle isn't a ideal angle unless it's specified or marked.

The remainder of quant is fundamental mathematics, make sure each subject is refreshed. It should not take a long time, if you're great at high school mathematics. If a lot was abandoned, clinic! Quant is unquestionably the simpler GRE section for a big percentage of test takers.

What the majority of men and women realise is the quant segments are really simple, but it's also quite simple to create (incredibly) absurd mistakes. Most questions don't require over a minute to address. I attempted to fix all of the queries over 20 minutes and then use the rest to resolve ALL the queries. I changed a few incorrect answers in my true GRE on doing so, so it is quite important to look at each answer at least one time. Don't check. Assess an issue by solving like it is the first time you are seeing it in clinic evaluations too.

Verbal Reasoning:

I will not describe what these queries seem like, however what I researched and practised.

In my view, the only means to overcome this is by simply performing a few *hard* RCs and studying response explanations, knowing why one alternative is more likely to be right. I did not do ANY clinic comprehensions which were as hard as the true evaluation, but ETS Powerprep comes fairly near.

One more matter with RCs is that a number of them are extended - more than 6 paragraphs. It's crucial that you learn how to take care of these passages without losing an eye on the content whilst studying - thus practice doing these queries.

All you need is at the paragraph. They aren't asking for your view or assumptions. If something is maintained in an answer option, but it isn't suggested in the paragraph - it's incorrect, regardless of how logical/correct/appropriate it might appear to you. The planet is merely the individual reading thing rather than the world around you. It needs to be indicated or cited by the passing.

Coming to text conclusion and word equivalence, blanks have to be filled in using proper words. This is only one of the most difficult areas of the GRE since the response choices are phrases which may not be within a mean vocabulary.

Improving ones language is best achieved by studying plenty. However, GRE prep period might not be enough for studying a whole lot, so other resources may be utilized.

Aside from really *knowing* a note, circumstance and removal of different alternatives is very helpful. In sentence equivalence, you must choose two equal choices. When an alternative isn't similar/equivalent in significance to some other alternative (IN THE CONTEXT), remove it. Read the sentence/text to be finished and understand the circumstance before choosing choices.

1. My pre-GRE language 2. 3. 4. Magoosh Primary Wordlists and Frequent Wordlists 5.

As soon as I took the diagnostic evaluation, I recognized language as my weakness and focused many attempts on this section (therefore my first vocabulary was not spectacular). I covered the additional resources in their entirety. It doesn't take long in the event that you can perform 300 words daily, but this is quite painful. In case you've fourteen days, do 20-50 words per day and keep bargaining. WRITE DOWN phrases you do not understand with their own meanings. It's so much easier to update from your handwriting than out of print. I can not stress that enough. Revise all previously completed words daily.

Rote learning of phrases won't HELP. The ETS is analyzing your English ability and NOT your own learning-of-definitions ability. So it is extremely important to understand phrases in context. The 1100 of Barron does this and I suggest it. Words are awarded in a (humorous) story and that I remembered a few words due to the tales I learnt them.

Word Power Made Easy can also be brilliant. It educates word origins so deciphering unknown words becomes simple. Aside from roots, many frequent GRE phrases are educated also - in a structure that's structured. Again, no more word-definition pairs. It is interesting with lots of humourous illustrations.

IOS and android possess an program. Can utilize any third party program that extracts flashcards out of Quizlet. Theyare word-definition pairs and aren't enough to learn context correctly. However, I used them just because I constantly had my phone about. Any free fifteen minutes have been spent revising a couple of words. I didn't touch the words that are complex . Quizlet

Barron's 333 frequency words are a revision of GRE words that are common.

The language is not exceptionally challenging. These are phrases used in regular dialog that is high-level. I didn't see more than just two or three innovative words on the true test. Again, all words except you were in the resources studied. Know the fundamental words before you proceed to complex in almost any wordlist!

Alphabetical wordlists are perplexing and quite painful, in my view. However, in the event that you're able to bear together, do it.

I wish I'd had the time to generate synonym trees.

Barron's 800 key words is helpful also, I've heard. I didn't have the time to undergo it.

See where time has been wasted and attempt to reduce. With perplexing response options, a few minutes are missing in debating with yourself - don't to do this. Mark the query (the program allows marking) and return to it afterwards.

30 minutes, 20 queries - one minute per query could be great. I constantly did text/sentence questions initially (since they had been rapid) after that I did RCs in raising length of studying thing, just because I did not wish to devote first time reading extended passages. Determine a pattern on your clinic segments that works nicely for you and follow along.

AWA:

AWA is allegedly not too crucial for technology applications (I do not understand how much this is accurate). But, 1 practice essay of every kind (Topic, Argumentative) is essential. Regrettably, there are approximately 200 for every essay kind, therefore practising these is near impossible. Writing in 30 minutes isn't simple, so exercise at least one time.

Issue informative article - read sample essays (out of ETS and the net) and determine what routine of paragraphs that you need to use.

The article is basically asking you to analyse a problem, have a stand and help with illustrations. The rack doesn't need to be for or against the situation. It may be likely towards one side or perhaps ambivalent, if it is possible to substantiate it.

Contradiction is a paragraph in which you approach the contrary stand and justify your stance with that perspective - such as contending with an entirely opposite view.

Argument post - read samples (out of ETS and the net).

Additionally, definitely look the sorts of logical fallacies common to GRE debate essay subjects. There are not many (possibly five or even six) and may be identifiable. If you're able to detect four or three logical fallacies, you are place to write the article.

Long essays are favored for the two subjects - examine ETS samples. 5-6 paragraphs is adequate.

The very first thing about the essays - They aren't analyzing how good of a creative writer you're. Do not try and use these to express your own creativity.

They're analyzing articulation, perfect punctuation and logical arrangement - so use straightforward language so far as possible and easy to comprehend sentences.

Have a comparatively stiff paragraph structure for your article - then you can dedicate additional time to coming up with things to compose and less time considering how to initiate the essay and resolve.

Spend the first few minutes considering what it is you will write before you begin studying- end with time to spare time and spend a couple of minutes proofreading what you write. Practice writing using a 20 minute time limitation, it is OK if you overshoot a little.

BTW, they are not vital for MS apps, but PhD apps look at AWA scores really badly.

Additional:

MUST DO. The program is just what the pc GRE test utilizes. The standard of queries is quite similar also.

Make certain all queries in the ETS textbook are performed too - easy, moderate and hard. Standard resembles the GRE.

TIMED PRACTICE SECTIONS are rather important. The GRE is just as about speed and precision.

They may be used if you're familiar with everything. I didn't use them.

I just did timed section clinics as I did not have a lot of time. However, for familiarity with queries, many enormous question banks (Manhattan 5 pounds, by way of instance) are readily available.

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