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luminous-studiess · 5 years

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Seeing as you mentioned in one of your last posts that you’ve learnt how to study in the pas semester, I was wondering if you could share with us your tips & tricks, please? I love your blog ❤️

hi!!!!! first of all, thank you so much for the kind words. it always helps when i hear that people like my content, and it’s nice to know when people on studyblr reach out and motivate each other. i hope you’re doing well as well!i guess i have to preface this with the fact that studying in undergrad is very different from studying in law school. also, studying in different undergraduate courses constitutes very different studying styles as well. for me, i took literature, so it was a lot of writing papers and not much memory work. in law school, there was a LOT of memory work. i did really badly for several months because i wasn’t used to studying for those kinds of exams. i may make posts if anyone’s interested on how to study specifically for literature or law classes, but for now, these are general tips on how to study.this is a long-ass post, so my apologies!

HOW TO STUDY!!!!!!! A HUGE GENERAL GUIDE FROM SAM FROM LUMINOUS STUDIES, AFTER ~7 YEARS OF HOMESCHOOLING, 4 YEARS OF UNDERGRAD (AND A MAGNA CUM LAUDE) AND ONE TERRIFYING SEMESTER OF LAW SCHOOL.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: general tips, some life advice, preparation

- actual intelligence matters very little in school. some people learn faster, some take a little more time. being smart in itself does not matter when you don’t work. actual hard work can compensate for a less retentive memory (as i’ve found out over the semester). discipline and a lot of hard work always pay off, even if it seems rocky at first. make the resolve to dedicate a set amount of time to study everyday, even if it’s just an hour or so. a little is better than nothing. - my constitutional law professor (aka my favorite professor) advised one of my classmates to log her work hours. while it seems tempting to set a specific timeslot to get things done, sometimes life gets in the way, and you don’t actually get to work at 3 pm. maybe most of the time you sit at 3 pm is spent fiddling on your phone. to actually track productivity and consistency, time the hours you actively spend studying. put away all your distractions. personally, i like the forest app because it forces me to stay away from social media and lets me use the pomodoro method. on good study days, i get to log my work time in batches of 25 minutes. again, it can be the amount of hours you put in, but what matters is the quality of work you put in. stay consistent. i promise you. it helps- on the study environment: sometimes studyblr convinces you that you need a coffeeshop, an aesthetic library, a beautiful italian garden to get things done. that would be ideal, but most of us don’t have access to that. i suggest you evaluate if you work better in public spaces with a little sound ambience, to hold yourself accountable (coffeeshops, the school library, with friends), or in private, quiet spaces. once you know where you work best, know what keeps you focused. is it tea? a glass of iced coffee? a lofi playlist? a podcast? i find that process a little fun because it keeps the study process a little less dull and uncomfortable, as it often can be. don’t forget to keep it pleasant/rewarding, but note that overindulgence can distract you. trust me, i know this from experience.- study materials: are what you want and what you need. you don’t need anything fancy. personally, i need many colored pens and highlighters because i have a color-coding system for cases and provisions, but for undergrad, my best weapons were just a black ballpen and a nice mildliner. it’s preferential, and just see what works for you. - on study anxiety: i have mental health issues. i’ve been seeing a psychiatrist (and lately a therapist) for depression and anxiety, and it used to be really, really bad, to the point i couldn’t start. i think the best place to start is to find that kind of help if you really have bad mental health. but if it’s the kind of anxiety that stems from being worried that things won’t turn out well, or that there’s too much to do, it’s always best to start, and to remember that even a little, or something imperfect, is still progress. try it for 5 minutes. if you still can’t do it, rest. but sometimes we just need a little push. other things that really calm my anxiety are a good baroque playlist (check out baroque lute/jordi savali’s the celtic viol/bach’s goldberg variations on spotify!!!), jazz, or lofi, and lavender room spray. i also like to use gifs which help you with breathing techniques. you can find them all over tumblr and twitter. it’s also really helpful to ask others for help when you feel stuck. i’ve asked professors for a little consideration and classmates for advice and clarifications when i’m confused. reaching out to other people is often a great way to start the learning process.

- scheduling: i find it hard to keep on top of things, so i’m really thankful to the classmate who added me to a google calendar with all the class assignments. i think it’s a great system for knowing what the assignments are, so google calendar is your friend. for daily tasks, bullet journals help keep me accountable. i have a really simple one. quick and dirty. ACTUALLY STUDYING: methods, tricks, tips- consider the subject. different classes require different methods. some classes like math and chemistry – which, disclaimer, i have very little experience with – require practice problems. for literature classes, this requires much free analysis, annotations, research, and your own interpretations. other classes like history and geology require the memorization of topics. consider what information you need to learn, and how you want to approach it.- TAKE NOTES DURING THE LECTURE. i can’t stress this enough. if the teacher or professor mentions it, it’s probably important. nowadays, for major classes, i mark the topic on the syllabus with a special-colored highlighter that i won’t use for anything else so i know it’s crucial and will probably turn up on an exam. note: if they place special emphasis on a bit of information because it probably WILL turn up during the exam. one of my professors mentioned that a case would probably turn up during the philippine bar exam and guess what. it did. listen to the professor, don’t goof around on twitter (me to my undergraduate self, tbh), take good notes. make the notes into a reviewer during exam season. pass the class.- pre-studying helps. this is mandatory in law school, because mostly, you go to class to regurgitate what you’ve studied (or didn’t study) on your own from the syllabus. for undergrad, however, it helps to give yourself a background on the material so you can engage in the class, and take notes more efficiently. also, as much as possible, do the required reading. you’ll probably do it in one night anyway before the exam, so at least spread your work out and do a reasonable amount weekly.- on that note: if you’re going to rush through the syllabus and do “a semester’s worth of info” in one night (yes we’ve all seen Those Memes) anyway, it will be less of a pain in the ass to actually do the work slowly and consistently every week. trust me. this comes from a procrastinator who’s getting bitten in the ass, so please learn this as early as you can. it saves you a lot of pain later on.- THE CLASS SYLLABUS IS YOUR BIBLE. it’s all there. before classes, go through it. keep it with you during class and annotate it if you have to. some of my friends like to space the syllabus out on a document file so they use the headings for note-making. the syllabus will be your friend during review season.- always learn actively. if you don’t know a word or term, it will always help to google. make notes in the margins. make flashcards so you state information and retrieve it instead of just recognizing it. form study groups. rewrite your notes. engage with what you’re learning and it becomes so much more interesting, and so much easier. - set a time to unwind religiously. breaks are so important to avoid burnout. i like friday nights for unwinding, family dinners, reading, watching series. please rest. REVIEW SEASON: HOW TO COPE. HOW TO PASS. HOW TO CRY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. - exams are scary. i used to enjoy them, until law school, where i’ve been beaten up thoroughly by every exam. but strangely enough, this is where i only learned how to actually study for an exam with huge blocks of information. i realized that this method really helps for undergrad, and probably will get you honors if you stick to a similarly solid method. - study as early as you can. once you know when the exam is, make a study plan. two weeks is a good minimum. sometimes, there are professors and teachers who announce only a week before, which is unavoidable, so honestly. just make a plan. i tend to assign a set number of syllabus pages to cover/study for on each day so i have time to do a second reading/quizzing. - HOW TO REVIEW: remember the class notes? remember the syllabus? those will help you cover everything you need once you schedule. the syllabus is your map for what you need to cover. assume that everything in the syllabus is something you need to go over at least once, so assign a set number of pages/topics per day. the class notes are your guide on what to focus on. note the special topics which have been emphasized by the lecturer. it also helps if you know what parts you’re very unsure about, so you know what to work on again when you have extra time. i tend to make reviewers out of my class notes, which also helps to retain info, because i go over it again. make time to re-read and quiz yourself. - blanking out on exam day? i can honestly assure you that it’s probably because you didn’t sleep enough. you’ve studied the information, but sleep deprivation either makes you fall asleep during the exam (which has happened) or forget what you learned (which has also happened). if you’ve made the time to repeat what you’ve needed to learn, the studying isn’t the problem. i make a rule to try and avoid all-nighters when necessary because sleep is integral in helping you retain information. when i need extra time to study, i go to bed early, and wake up around 3 or 4 am to study some more. it really helps.DEALING WITH FAILURE: - my professor (a huge businessman, constitutionalist, overall a very successful person) told me that he would not get where he is now if he hadn’t failed. failure is growth because you know you’re doing something. the only true “failure” is when you stop trying. some days are hard, some days don’t yield the results even when you work hard. it’s okay. be gentle on yourself. you are still growing.- sometimes i think about the fact that “gifted child syndrome” aka burnout and perfectionism stem from how many smart kids are often praised for their intelligence and not their work ethic. so when they do badly later in life, they think it’s because they weren’t “smart enough” and give up easily. i think much of doing anything entails a lot of embarrassment, a lot of hard work, and lots of failure. it’s so hard to put up with, and it can often be depressing and unhealthy and put you in a bad place. sometimes we need to talk to someone professional, if it gets to that point. but sometimes, it also helps to realize that a little hard work will help us to get where we want to be. - ask for help. i talk to my friends, my parents, and my professors when i’m stuck. it really helps.ok, whew. i know there’s so much more about studying. but i hope this helps for now. please let me know if you guys want more specific study guides. good luck, loves! you got this.– sam

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phoenixyfriend · 7 years

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Voltron Paladins on: Who’s the hottest Young Avenger?

I’m posting this as a one-shot to tumblr because it can feasibly stand alone as a fic, but it’s actually an omake of sorts for the Voltron fic Just a Little Death. The only things you need to know are:

1. The paladins figured out a way to get into contact with home, and have gotten some things. Lance’s family sent him a kindle loaded with a bunch of things he likes, including comics. 2. Some of the characterization may seem a bit unusual, because this scene takes place after after eighteen chapters in JaLD.

Other than that... well, warnings and such under the cut. This is almost three thousand words of nonsense.

If you happen to be a fan of Cheung's V1 artwork or aren't comfortable with the idea of someone poking fun at Tommy Shepherd, maaaybe skip this. I’m not as careful as usual about keeping my biases under wraps here.

Anyways! There's a bit of a ramble in there about Noh-Varr, so I need to lay out some warnings.

WARNINGS: Mentions of mind control, torture, medical experimentation, and mass murder (all to or by a minor, because Noh's life is a shitshow for a while).

o.o.o.o.o

“Bullshit,” Lance said, slamming a hand down on the table. “That is just… such bullshit.”

“My tastes and your tastes are not the same,” Hunk said. “You asked who I thought the hottest character was, and my answer is Teddy.”

“How?” Lance whined. “How can you pick anyone other than Noh-Varr? Like, I can maybe see Kate or America, but anyone else? Sorry, buddy. The space roach wins.”

“You know,” Pidge said from the doorway. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I kind of want to know just based on the fact that I heard something that was almost my name.”

“There’s a comic that Lance likes from like… the turn of the century,” Hunk said.

“2012 was not the turn of the century,” Lance argued.

“Called Young Avengers,” Hunk continued, like Lance hadn’t just interrupted.

“Written by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Jamie McKelvie,” Lance said. “A dynamic duo of comics if there ever was one.”

Hunk shot him a look.

“…fine, for that era. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are the true heroes, as always, may their souls rest in peace despite the misogyny of many of their works,” Lance allowed. “Anyway, I got Hunk to read the comics a while back, and I was expecting him to make the obvious choice when asked who the hottest Young Avenger was.”

“I still say it’s Teddy.”

“And I still say you’re wrong. Noh-Varr is straight up pin-up boy material.”

“This is exactly the kind of bullshit that I’m glad I missed out on back at the Garrison,” Pidge said.

Keith poked his head into the room. “I heard yelling. Is there a fight happening?”

“Why don’t we get Pidge and Keith to weigh in?” Hunk suggested.

“Fine,” Lance sniffed. “I’m sure they’ll make the right choice. Let me just get the right pictures up.”

He fiddled with the tablet his siblings had sent along.

“Your brother and sister sent you digital comics from half a century ago?” Keith asked.

“I think Tío Ricardo just added everything he thought I might miss, and since this is my favorite series…” Lance shrugged. “Okay, so I’ve got a group shot and a couple of solos.”

“Which group shot?”

“Kate’s getting a call from Freud.”

“…right, the harpoon! Okay, so the solos: anyone from V1?”

“Nah. Cassie’s too young for it to be comfortable during her time with the team, especially with how unnecessarily sexual some of the art of her gets in V1. Like, she’s fourteen? Stop ripping her clothes off and highlighting her boobs? Same goes for Nate and Jonas on the age thing, and Eli is an age thing too, but also just… I love him, but Cheung’s art style. It doesn’t do anyone favors, but it’s especially harsh on Eli.”

“Why do you hate Cheung’s art style so much?”

“Have you looked at V1 or Children’s Crusade?”

“The writing wasn’t bad!”

“The writing was mostly fine and absolutely what made me love Eli. But you have to admit that Cheung’s art style is really same-face syndrome and that it’s just plain messy and… why. Why. McKelvie’s got a bunch of same-face too, but at least it’s clean and I can tell who’s who in the close-ups and he isn’t sexualizing fourteen-year-olds.” Lance buried his face in his hands. Hunk patted him on the back.

“Moving on… Kid Loki shape or Agent Loki shape?”

“He’s kid shape in the group shot, but just after the age-up in the solo.”

“David?”

“Tried to find something out of uniform, but no dice except the party, and his big scene wasn’t even in McKelvie’s style, so… yeah, uniform.”

“Tommy?”

“Do I have to?”

“Lance…”

“He’s such a fuckboy, though!”

“Still part of the team.”

“Barely.”

“They traveled dozens, if not hundreds, of universes to save him.”

“…I mean, I did add his picture to the set. I just, you know, don’t want him to win.”

Hunk snorted. “Okay, thene. I’m guessing you probably added those shirtless Noh shots from the first issue.”

“Noh-Varr’s hot, okay?” Lance brought the back of his hand up to his forehead. “Like, absolutely smoking hot. Like Uptown Funk ‘Hot damn’ hot. Like, ‘the things I would do to that man…’ hot.”

“Lance, are you okay?”

“No.”

Hunk bit his lip, suppressing a grin, and then seemed to realize something. “Wait, are we including villains?”

“I mean… I guess? Why? You’re not going for Oubliette, right?”

“What? No, of course, not. But dude… Leah.”

“This is true.” Lance nodded. “I mean, she’s terrifying, but at least that version of her isn’t entirely real even in-universe?”

“Or Loki would be dead.”

“So dead,” Lance said emphatically. “Also, if we’re talking hot YA villains, then…”

“Don’t.”

“Sylvie Lushton.”

“How is your taste in comic book villains so bad?”

“I’m not saying she’s a good person! But, you know, she’s hot!” Lance protested.

“Also kind of evil and not exactly the brightest bulb in the box.”

“Still hot, Hunk.”

“Hi, I have a question,” Pidge interrupted. “Which of these guys is the smartest?”

Lance put a hand over Hunk’s face before he could answer. “We’re talking aesthetics only. No choosing based on intelligence. You can revamp your choice later if we change criteria, but right now we’re only going on aesthetic hotness.”

“Boo you, whore,” Pidge said, then stuck out her tongue at him. She looked down at the page again, and then pointed. “Okay, in that case… her.”

“America Chavez?” Lance eyed Pidge for a moment, and then nodded. “Acceptable.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she told him. “But yeah. She looks ready to kick ass and I guess the expression on her face is appealing? She looks like she’s not taking anyone’s shit, and also I like her hair.”

“This is a pretty good summary of her basic surface personality,” Lance acknowledged. “She’s deeper than that, but it takes some reading between the lines, or rereading after the reveal at the end, to realize, especially if you don’t read the point one issue.”

“I’m torn,” Keith announced. “Can I get names for these guys, at least?”

“Real or code?”

“…real?”

Lance pointed to each character in turn. “Noh-Varr, Kate Bishop, Loki, Billy Kaplan, Tommy Shepherd, Teddy Altman, David Alleyne, America Chavez.”

“Tommy and Billy are identical twins, but Tommy’s hair and eyes changed color when his mutant powers manifested,” Hunk added.

“The Tommy guy is in a different style from the others,” Keith noted.

“They had guest artists for the issues he featured in most,” Lance explained. “Couldn’t really find a clear picture of him in McKelvie’s style.”

Keith nodded, looking down at the pictures. After a moment, he pointed at David and Tommy.

“No,” Lance gasped dramatically. “You traitor.”

“Oh boy,” Hunk muttered.

“Listen,” Keith said, obviously holding back a laugh. “I have my reasons.”

“How could you choose Tommy over Noh-Varr?”

“Well, the Noh-Varr guy looks like he’s about to try to convince me to try his weed brownies or free range quinoa,” Keith said.

“That’s not a thing,” Hunk said. “That’s… that’s not even logically possible. Quinoa’s not an animal product. It can’t be free-range.”

“Exactly,” Keith said, as though that explained everything, which it kind of did. “Meanwhile, this Tommy guy looks like he’s about to ask me to help him hotwire a car for the hell of it.”

Lance’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and then he whirled around and draped himself over Hunk. He wailed, “Betrayed! By the one closest to me!”

“What does that make me, then?” Hunk asked. “If Keith is the closest?”

“You’re not just close to me, Hunk, you’re part of me,” Lance said, as though it should have been obvious.

“Ah, right, of course.” Hunk nodded and patted Lance’s back.

“Anyway,” Lance said, and then went back to wailing. “Oh, the horror! The humanity! Keith has betrayed me!”

“I really hope this is just Lance being dramatic about something relatively inconsequential again instead of something serious,” Shiro said from the door. “Please tell me this isn’t something I need to actually worry about.”

“Keith thinks that Lance’s favorite character isn’t as hot as Lance’s least favorite,” Pidge said.

“Tommy Shepherd is a fuckboy, okay?” Lance whined.

“You mean like you?” Shiro asked, keeping his voice mild.

Dead silence reigned for a moment.

“…Should I not have said that?” Shiro asked, sounding a little more nervous. “I may have overstepped a line. Ah. I’m sor—”

“Ooooooooooooooooh!” Pidge yelled, Hunk joining in after a moment.

Lance let his eyes roll up and pretended to faint, right into Hunk’s loving arms.

“Lance Álvarez has been found dead in Miami,” Pidge announced, deadpan.

“Oh god, is he okay?” Hunk asked, not even looking down at Lance in his arms.

“Yeah, but he’s dead.”

“You guys suck,” Lance moaned, getting back up. He turned back to Keith. “Wait, what about David?”

“He looks like he could stare down a bomb without even twitching. Like he’s just that dead inside because he’s seen so much shit.” Keith tapped the picture. “Basically, he seems like the guy that’s sitting off to the side mostly quiet but offering sarcastic comments whenever someone does something stupid.”

“You’re not that far off,” Shiro said. “David’s experiences in everything are fairly expansive, due to the mental osmosis that his original powerset consisted of.”

“Wait, Shiro, you’ve read YA?” Lance demanded.

“…yes? I preferred Runaways, but—”

“Which Young Avenger is the hottest?” Lance demanded, scrambling away from Hunk and towards Shiro. He stopped just a foot or two away, visibly restraining himself from grabbing Shiro’s hands and pulling them up to his chin.

Shiro looked at him for a long moment, wide-eyed and surprised. “Um… I haven’t thought about it in a while?”

“Stick to V2 since all the V1-only characters are too young,” Lance suggested. “Aesthetic hotness only.”

Shiro looked down at the tablet that was still on the table and bit his lip. “I’m… going to have to with Marvel Boy and Hawkeye?”

“Yes!” Lance yelled, pumping his fist in the air. “Fuck yeah! Noh-Varr’s the hottest!”

“Ah,” Shiro said. “Who did the rest of you choose?”

“Teddy,” Hunk said. “Pidge chose America. Keith decided that he was torn between Tommy and David.”

“Nobody chose Billy, then?” Shiro asked. “Or Loki?”

“Billy’s more sweet than hot, I think,” Lance said. “Even aesthetically. Same thing goes for Teddy, I’d say, but Hunk’s got his own weird tastes.”

“And Loki just doesn’t suit anyone’s tastes?”

“He spends two-thirds of the comic as a twelve-year-old, and the last third looking like he’s about to try to sell you snake oil as a hair tonic,” Lance mused. “So. That might be it. Loki’s more appealing in AoA, honestly. I feel like Lee Garbett’s style is better suited to that Loki than Jamie McKelvie’s.”

“Hm. I’d have expected Pidge to like David the most, but I guess if she doesn’t know anything about him, and just had to go by image, America makes sense.” Shiro swiped through the tablet. “That is… definitely a lot of shirtless Noh-Varr shots.”

“I’m not sure what you expected from me,” Lance said.

“What’s so special about David?” Pidge asked. “Why does Shiro think I should like David the most?”

Lance exchanged a look with Hunk and Shiro, then turned back to Pidge. “Do you want to download some of my comics so you and Keith can read some? My uncle downloaded pretty much my entire online comics library onto here.”

“I don’t know… I’m more of a DC kind of girl.”

“I’ve got some DC and Image on here, too.”

“The Image comics are more Gillen and McKelvie, unsurprisingly,” Hunk said.

“Phonogram and WicDiv are fucking works of art, Hunk!”

“I never finished WicDiv…” Shiro mused. “I got spoilers, but…”

Lance pressed his tablet into Shiro’s chest, wide-eyed. “My poor man: I have them. Read.”

Allura and Coran walked in on five paladins near-silently reading comics half an hour later.

“Allura!” Lance yelled, scrambling to his feet and switching windows on his tablet to the earlier set of pictures. “Quick question: which of these characters would you say is the most physically attractive?”

Allura blinked at him, and then down at the tablet. “Why are there so many pictures of this one shirtless?”

“Because he’s my favorite,” Lance said, utterly unashamed.

“…I can see why, but that one hanging bang of white hair reminds me too much of Lotor,” Allura admitted. “Both of the girls are very attractive, though, and I like the hairstyle and the fabric that this one is wearing.”

She tapped the screen, right over Billy.

Lance squinted down at the photo, and then back up at Allura. “At least you didn’t betray me like Keith.”

“Are you serious?” Keith asked. “Are you going to bring that up forever?”

“You picked Tommy,” Lance repeated. “You picked Tommy in an argument of attractiveness when Noh-Varr was an option.”

“You do realize that half the reason he did that was to fuck with you, right?” Pidge said.

“Well, yeah, but pretending to be pissed off about something inconsequential is fun,” Lance said. “I don’t even dislike Tommy, but like… it’s fun to talk trash about one of the most popular characters. I shit talk with love, I promise.”

“Also, if we were going by personality as well…” Shiro trailed off. “Actually, assuming that a decent pattern of communication was in place and Noh-Varr wasn’t self-sabotaging with his own PTSD, he probably wouldn’t be that bad of a romantic partner. At least you’d always have music.”

“And a meat shield, apparently,” Pidge piped up. A glance told Lance that she was partway through the Marvel Boy miniseries, which meant she’d probably run into something about his indestructability by this point.

“Wouldn’t have to worry about being widowed, since he’s nearly impossible to kill,” Hunk added.

“And he can eat all the leftovers, including the parts that aren’t actually food,” Keith said.

“Life wouldn’t be boring either, given the extensive number of people that would gladly try to kill him for the Phoenix debacle or what he did to Manhattan,” Shiro added.

“He served his time for both of those incidents, did his reparation work, and got tortured a lot as punishment! I really don’t think you can hold all of that against him, given his circumstances!” Lance protested.

“I mean… the Phoenix was a result of misinformation, true, but Manhattan?” Shiro wiggled a hand in the air. “I’m only giving it a pass because I’d say all the torture, mind control, and so on, both before and after, is punishment enough for just about anything.”

“I’m not,” Hunk said. “But he actually tried to do charity work in his own weird superhero way afterwards, so… that’s not bad?”

“This isn’t a real person, correct?” Allura asked. “Just a fictional character?”

“Yes,” the paladins answered in unison.

“Trust me, I wouldn’t be trying to explain away the Fuck You Fires if he were a real person,” Lance said. “However, he is in fact fictional, and his circumstances were weird as shit—”

“Being part of a hive mind and feeling your entire family die and then watching them get dissected while you’re tortured by your captors will do some interesting things to a fifteen-year-old’s mind,” Shiro acknowledged.

“And then the Cube,” Lance added. “We do not forget the fuckery that happened at the Cube.”

“Comics are convoluted,” Keith said, staring down at the tablet in his own lap. “Very convoluted. Why are they so convoluted?”

“Because you have about twenty different writers at any given time writing the same characters in new situations, frequently causing crossovers between individual groups of characters, switching out at least three or four writers per year for someone new, passing on the characters to new writers who must then find something original to do with them, resulting in increasingly ridiculous plots as the writers struggle to find something new and interesting to do so that the audience doesn’t lose interest,” Lance rattled off.

“Often commenting on contemporary events,” Shiro added, “and matters of social justice.”

“Never forget that Captain America was the creation of two Jewish men in response to widespread support of Hitler in the early days of World War II,” Lance added.

The Alteans stared at him and Shiro in blank confusion.

“Hey, Allura, want to see something funny?” Hunk asked.

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Keith said. “But also I kind of want to see what you’re planning.”

“Same,” Pidge said.

Allura looked at Hunk for a long moment. “I have no idea what’s going on, but alright.”

Hunk grinned and turned to Lance. “Hey Lance, is Magneto the Maximoff twins’ dad or not?”

(It took fifteen minutes for the team to get Lance to stop ranting.)

o.o.o.o.o

“Okay, Shiro was right. David’s my favorite now. Programming a miniature Cerebro in five minutes?” Pidge pretended to fan herself. “If I wasn’t ace… I mean, I still want to marry his brain anyway. Platonically. Just… damn. I have a favorite Marvel character now. I’m supposed to be a DC girl, but this has me hooked. Damn you, Lance. Damn you.”

“…just read the comic, short shit.”

o.o.o.o.o

A/N:There were a couple of characters I couldn't find decent V2 reference pics for; Tommy in particular doesn't show up in McKelvie's style much, since his two biggest appearances in V2 are both in issues that have guest artists.

I feel like Lance would have really strong opinions about bigoted retcons and the importance of remembering the minority influence on comics as a medium.

#Young Avengers #Voltron #Lance (Voltron)#Keith (Voltron)#Pidge Gunderson #Katie Holt #Hunk (Voltron)#Takashi Shirogane #Princess Allura #Team Voltron #crossovers #Phoenix Files #JaLD

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johnsaye · 5 years

Text

It’s alive!

Website

I’ve always thought of the word website as the singular word to describe a home for a person place or thing (noun) on the Internet. I don’t like web site or web-site, so website, it is. I’m kind of paving a new path here, creating a new version of my particular location in the World Wide Web. It’s nice. I like it. I’ve been toying with doing this for a while, and now it’s done. For a long time, I was simply forwarding to my Tumblr blog, but I’m afraid it just wasn’t malleable enough to keep up with changing times. So I’m planning to make the most of this.

It’s alive!

Writing

For everyone wondering what John’s up to, what he does, as much as he can, is writing. I started up again not too long ago, picking up again with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Which happens every November. Every year there a group of thousands of fiddling novelists get together and collectively, across the country and around the world give it a go at writing a fifty-thousand-word novel inside of thirty-days. I know, it’s not a long novel. A couple of times it was a great way to start then finishing longer work outside the time frame, but it’s still a great way to start.

I practiced. I was getting stronger, using my arm as much as I could. I played games. I swiped. I got good browsing and reading in my kindle app. I decided to train my right arm, I wanted to try Novel Writing month again despite my condition, with Plants vs. Zombies. At first, I could barely keep up. I waited. I trained more. I tapped and tapped, and started completing stages. Soon I completed the game. I figured if I could keep up with that, I could use similar motions to tap letters on my iPad onscreen keyboard. I completed the novel in thirty days. I didn’t say the first draft of it isn’t a nightmare, they all are, but this one is particularly bananas. I left crazy errors behind, trying to whip whatever story was there out, but I was pretty uncoordinated still at that point and I know there are pages and pages in there where I’m doing good to spell anything intelligible.

I’m still committed to editing it though. I’m going to run it through Grammarly and close my eyes. More on that soon.

This week I’ve been World building on my next piece of work. I decided I wanted to map out a series of star systems for a space adventure, but I wanted to be able to keep track of which planets were parts of different governments, and be able to tell which side which planets are on like unwashed a big interstellar game of Risk. Will it help? I’ve no idea, but it’s generating lots of story ideas, which is great.

As I was doing all this, I took a Masterclass with R. l. Stein on writing, and got to meet him on a live video chat. One of the most interesting things to me about his class to me, odd note, was the fact that he writes everything with one index finger. Here I was using a stick to punch out words again, one letter at a time. I was already writing with no fingers.

Health

For anyone I haven’t told yet, In 2016 I came down with an abomination called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Leave it to me to succumb to something I’d never heard of. We call it GBS for short. It knocked me flat on my back, and I mean that literally. For some, it amounts to partial paralysis. You dip down, then come back. Not me. I got the next to the worse variant. The one that doesn’t quite kill you, though it nearly did on several occasions. It’s an auto-immune disease that attacks the nervous system. It strips what’s called the myelin sheath that protects your nerves, helps them conduct the electric impulses that allow you to say, sends signals from your brain to your legs when you want to walk or hand when you want to pick up a fork, or eventually your lungs. It starts at your feet and hands and works it’s way up. The variant I had was nasty and nearly killed me. At my worst, they had to tape my eyes shut at night because I could close them myself anymore.

I was locked in…

I spent eight months in three different hospitals, had to undergo a tracheotomy and lived on a vent for five of them.

When I returned home I still couldn’t lift my arms. I need pretty much round-the-clock care. These days I’ve got some strength in my legs, and my arms are pretty good. My fingers are still very weak, and I can barely feel my feet. I’ve still got a long way to go, but I still have faith that I’ll walk again. I have physical and occupational therapy each twice a week, as well as a nurse’s visit once a week, and a nurse in to help me bathe. I used to also have speech therapy, but no longer need it.

I’ve successfully learned to speak again. That was some time ago.

I’ve got a lot to say about my time in the hospital. Much of it I’m still processing, even now. I’ll have a lot more to say, and I plan to drip that out. I’ve got a lot of memories from that time that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I spent large amounts of time hallucinating, or stuck in dream-like states while my brain and nervous system was growing back together. My mind did the best it could during that time while everyone was just trying to keep me alive.

As time goes on I’ll tell what I can. I get a lot of requests to write about it, but each time I open that part of my mind it’s too depressing to look at all at once. Maybe in blog form, I can talk about it in little chunks. Some might be longer than others. Some of it is pure dream-state madness, but I’ve got so many junk dreams mixed in with what was real that for me it’s very hard to distinguish. I’ll get there.

GBS was the end of an era for me. I lost everything except my family. I am incredibly grateful to them. I need lots of large medical equipment just to get around. I need a Hoyer lift to get out of bed. I need a powered wheelchair. It’s necessary for me to use a hospital bed. I need to use a stylus attached to my palm with a brace to type this and use my iPad. I lost my house. It was impossible to get my power chair through the door. It would have been cost-prohibitive to get me in the kitchen door, and then I’d be restricted to the ground floor with all the bathrooms on the second. The car had to go too. Carmax was happy to see it. We combined that cash with funds from a gofundme campaign where a ton of very generous people aided us in getting our ramp van. That donation is so appreciated. Couldn’t think of returning to work, not that I could get there from two-hundred miles away now. (Hi guys!) I can’t get to the bathroom without help. Coding even a little is a laborious process with essentially one finger. I think my days of commuting twenty miles by car to ride the train the rest of the way into town to hike another block, uphill to the office and back are over for me. I do miss walking around Piedmont Park at lunch though.

I’m coming along. Occupational therapy is still working with me on my fingers and physical therapy had me on the edge of the bed last time pushing like mad on this big platform walker we got recently. I’ve got more equipment coming to help me exercise and work what I do have.

Halloween

October 31st is coming up, and we usually try and add something new to the decorations each year. I’m not sure about everything else we’re going to do, certainly see if Garry the Grim Reaper is still going to inflate again for the third year in a row, but I’ve got some of my new ideas heading here in the mail right now. Garry is already a fourteen-foot-tall purple skeleton guy with a top hat that has a lightning flash inside him. Our yard gets noticed. We get a lot of trick-or-treaters and enjoy the night the best we can.

This year I know for sure that I’m going for a ground fogger, so that’s on the way, along with a rolling cart. When it’s time to turn off the lights and stop handing out candy, I want to be able to easily roll it into the house instead of trying to pull it away from other decorations or leave it outside. It’s got an ice bin for either ice or dry ice to keep the fog down on the ground. I hope it does well. We had a good fogger last year, but I accidentally got one I had to activate manually every time, and my thumb was sore at the end of the evening. This new one, a Mister Kool, has a timer. Looking forward to it.

source https://www.johnsaye.com/its-alive/

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