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My blog

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Hey everyone, welcome to my blog!

Here I’ll post stuff relating to pokemon, other video games, movies, tv, etc. These could be reviews/analyses/opinions or anything tbh. I might also post more real life stuff as well, ie about student life, studying/productivity and all. Whatever’s on my mind really. Idk how much I’ll post, but yeah let’s see.

Anyways hope you enjoy!
 
Doom eternal review

So I’ve been gaming for a while. Most of my experiences are with nintendo games, though I’ve been branching out recently. The biggest game that’s different to what I’ve played so far is ID software’s Doom Eternal. Honestly, up until this point I wasn’t awfully into first person shooters (I’ve played CoD a bit), let alone something that looked so fast-paced and aggressive as this. But man am I so glad I got into it, because Doom eternal has surprisingly become one of my favourite games of all time. I enjoyed 2016 doom, but this is even better. Thanks to this, I even played through the original Doom games. So how come?

For starters, Doom Eternal has amazing gameplay. It really eases you into playing aggressively but strategically. You’re not just mindlessly shooting demons (though that’s a big part of it), but have a bunch of other things to manage as well. Firstly, health pickups are minimal as your primary source of health comes from ‘glory killing’ demons; ie performing a (violent) finisher on them after weakening them enough. To get more ammo, you use a chainsaw on a ‘fodder’ demon. To get armour, you use a ‘flame belch’ ability that sets them on fire, killing them afterwards. This is how you’re always kept in the fight. The only way you can replenish your resources is by fighting demons and killing them, rather than having to run away and camp behind a wall to slowly regenerate health (like in CoD). This fundamentally keeps you within the combat loop and makes you play aggressively.

But like I said, there’s a method to the madness. You are given a variety of different guns, all of which have relatively low ammo to start with. Each weapon also comes with two different weapon mods (which you unlock), that unlock a whole host of functions. Just as a few examples, the shotgun can allow you to shoot sticky bombs, the heavy cannon rifle can come with a sniper scope and the chaingun can come with a shield. This gives you a lot of customisation with your loadout, which you’ll frankly need. Different demons also have different weak points, incentivising you to use different weapons and mods. As you progress and get better weapons/mods, you’ll learn new tricks on your own and strategies to kill them. Since an encounter has all sorts of demons, you’ll be constantly switching your weapons on the fly to best adapt for your current situation. Each demon also has its own purpose. Weaker demons constantly keep spawning and are used for farming resources whilst stronger demons require more strategy or skill to take down. Furthermore, some demons are best saved for last (as they require your full concentration to fight), whilst others are best taken down (like one that summons other demons). The main idea is that you’re always thinking on your feet, strategising on which demons to kill, what happen you should be using, when you should replenish, etc. Because each encounter is also the same, you can plan ahead of time and rework your strategy/approach. What’s best is you can approach it (and win) however you’d like, but I’m betting that your solution is going to ensure you’re hooked onto the gameplay experience. Furthermore, some weapons function as instant kills, so you can also plan on when to best use them to get out of a sticky situation.

It does sound full on talking about it here. I’m sure if you look it gameplay of it rn it’ll be overwhelming or even exhausting. But trust me, the game is amazing at breaking it down step by step as you progress through the campaign. You’ll get the hang of it.

But it gives you ample breathing room, via platforming sections between intense encounters and by having a ton of collectibles you can find by exploring off the main path. The maps also look incredible. There are a variety of different locations and with different atmospheres. Some locations are unlike anything you’d expect to see in a doom game of all things (like ancient cities, different planets, space, etc). From a gameplay perspective, each combat zone also encourages movement because it has stuff like jump pads, bars you can swing on to and higher elevations. Since you have both a double jump and dash, you’ll constantly be on your feet - the game literally tells you that if you stand still for too long, you’re dead. Cause it’s true.

Overall, the game is genuinely amazing as you’re constantly engaged with it and experimenting with new things. It gives you a ton of options but they never feel overwhelming by the end of it. It frustrates you enough to challenge you, but it never seems impossible. It’s just a thrilling journey from start to finish and thanks to all the side content and even dlc, you’ll be hooked onto it well after the credits roll. It’s not for everyone, but I’d highly recommend checking it out, even if you’re not used to playing games like these. Who knows, you might end up like my brother who was initially trash talking it when I was playing, but now has finished the campaign himself on the same difficulty as me.

Anyways thanks for reading this far if you did, this turned out wayy longer than I expected lmao.
 
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Stress

It's no coincidence that student and stress both start with the same two letters. The two go hand-in-hand like it's cookies and milk. But what exactly is stress, why do we experience it, and what can we do about it?

When you feel stressed, your body undergoes many changes. Your heart rate increases, you have increased levels of adrenaline, you experience shortness of breath, sweaty palms, increased cortisol and more. Stress is basically a response to a threat. It's an alarm, a way for your body to prepare you against immediate dangers. It's just a protective mechanism and honestly a pretty smart thing for its time. I'm sure you've heard of the 'fight or flight' response, which is marked by these aforementioned changes.

In the short term, these changes are actually helpful. But chronic stress is the issue. Prolonged release of these chemicals (ie adrenaline, cortisol) can cause detrimental effects on our body in the long term (like fatiguing muscles and the heart+ increasing our blood pressure) and this 'flight or flight' response also reduces other body functions (like the digestive and immune systems).

Consider our ancestors for a moment. Our ancestors were hunter gatherers. They were outmatched physically by other animals and had to rely on their intelligence to survive. Danger could always be lurking around the corner and each encounter could mean life or death. Thus overtime, the body adapted to this role, which also has a variety of other consequences on us nowadays. Relatively speaking, human life has changed insanely quickly over the last few centuries. Long gone are the days of us being hunted by other predators and survival being our biggest concern. But our body hasn't caught up to the times yet. Evolution and adaptation take millions of years and although we have changed, our body is still suited for our hunter-gatherer lifestyles. So it misinterprets problems we have now as legitimate threats and activates its response for it; therefore stress.

Because of this, strategies for combating stress basically trick your body into turning off this alarm. For instance:
- Exercise: Exerting yourself physically and resting after would imply you've dealt with the immediate threat (like running away from a tiger) and your body can relax now.
- Deep breathing/meditation: The opposite. If you've got the time to sit there, close your eyes and just focus on your breathing, chances are there's no immediate threat you need to deal with.
- Planning/doing other activities: Similar idea. If you're not responding to an immediate threat, then there's probably no threat. Planning is also good for giving yourself mental clarity though.

Anyways hope this gave you some new insights about stress and perhaps reframed how you think about it. Thanks for reading and have a good one!
 
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I'm still alive lol
Procrastination
Guys I swear I didn't spend 2 weeks procrastinating on writing this! I just had mid sems on lmao.

You know if studying was a video game, your grades (or passing) would be your objective, stress would be your motivator whilst procrastination would be your main obstacle. Everyone has experienced it to some degree. I'm sure you've even heard of those articles that will 'cure' procrastination or at least give you tips on how to deal with it. Now what I wanna do today is really look at what procrastination is, why we experience it, how it's driven and finally, how to actually beat it. There's actually more to procrastination than you might think and digging deeper into it can tell us a lot about human nature and how to optimise our performance.

Procrastination is basically postponing something for 'later'. There's several reasons why we could do this. From my experience, here's when I'm likely to procrastinate:
- Task is too difficult
- Task is too complex
- Task is too boring/easy
- Poor time management/planning
- Distractions

Making 'better' tasks
Before studying for anything, you should always have a goal. After all, if you don't know what you're doing, how are you supposed to do it? I'd highly recommend making a to-do list (in advance). Anyways,

If a task appears too difficult, complex or even boring we're not inclined to do it. After all, our brain wants to avoid unpleasant sensations hence if studying is associated with it, you'll feel a natural tendency to avoid it. However, what our brain doesn't understand is that our perceptions and reality can be warped. Just from a subconscious level, we can inflate tasks to be more cumbersome than they really are to the point where even thinking about it becomes gives us a headache. Hence we resort to procrastination. To clear the fog you gotta grab the bull by its horns and once you sink your teeth into it. Once you do, all that mental resistance (ie stress/anxiety towards that task) you've built up fades away (in other words, you're in the flow state). Therefore, the likely problems here are that you've made the task more unpleasant than it really is (difficulty), you don't know where to start (complexity) or you're not engaged enough (boring/easy).

Managing these is the same. Get a task and break it down to simple, specific, and actionable steps. For example, instead of 'study X subject' split it up into its components 'reviewing notes/doing practice questions/flashcards/etc'. This doesn't have to take long! Just add these 'sub-categories' underneath your main tasks. What's even better is that now you have a sense of progression, as you can cross off tasks once you complete them. This is important for keeping you engaged in the overall process and pushing you to complete the next one. Not only that, but having a plan provides you a sense of reassurance and confidence towards your studies (which is pretty important for your long term motivation, more on this later).

*Bonus tip: As a rule of thumb, focus on tasks, not time. Rather than aiming to study for X hours a day, be oriented towards results (ie your to-do list) and your time will be secondary to how much work you get done. This is important as you can free valuable time for other activities.*

What about motivation? Don't worry about it for now. Most times you'll find that it comes after you start working. Now if you're actually struggling with burnout in general, that's a topic for another day.

Time management
Consider the following statement:
'Work expands to fill the time allotted for it'

This right here is Parkinson's Law and helps you prevent setting unreasonable deadlines. Deadlines are pretty important. I'm sure you've noticed how your productivity spikes up during those last few hours before an assignment's due. Basically, if you give yourself a whole day to complete a task, chances are it'll take you all day to do it. My god, was this an eye-opener for me, because this was exactly what I was struggling with recently.

But how come? Surely it takes you a set amount of time to complete a task right? Even if you gave yourself too much time, shouldn't that just be spare time you'll have after completing your task early? And isn't giving yourself more time better for quality?

Not necessarily.

Like I said, we're pretty good at inflating tasks to be more complicated than they are. We can spend a lot of time overthinking certain aspects of them. Or our perfectionism could kick in and make us fuss over the most trivial things. Deadlines are also important for motivating us to actually do it and the closer it is, the more likely we'll get started on it. Therefore, giving ourselves too much time can make us just stretch out something and spend unnecessary time on it. Also, the time it takes for us to complete a task isn't directly proportional to us actually working on it. The anxiety/stress of doing the task is always on the back of our mind and can mentally exhaust us over the day. There's always a reminder that we need to do it and it can still eat away at our subconscious when we're supposed to be relaxing or something. In the end, you're just wasting time that you could be spending doing something else.

This is what I went through. On the weekends I was usually free, so I'd give myself all day to study. But what would happen is I'd procrastinate without knowing it, assuming I'd get it done later. But because I was 'busy' studying today, I wasn't actually doing anything fun. Yet I'd end up rushing my work by the end. So basically, I was in this awkward middle ground where I didn't get a lot of work done, but wasn't doing recreational activities either. So don't fall into this trap, because it is brutal.

Truth is, we're not machines who can do work all day. We have a limit and certain time periods when we're most productive. We can only do a set amount of 'high-intensity' work per day, around 2-3 iirc. Remember, high intensity work is stuff that actually requires your full concentration/effort; active tasks, not something passive (like watching lectures/reading notes, because you can do that all day lol). The idea is that there's a certain threshold where putting more time into doesn't result in better outcomes. So by then it's best to move on. You want to schedule tasks within your productive hours and get them done and dusted there. This allows you to have free time do to other things and actually enjoy life. So even if it's a small thing (since covid has made this wayy harder), have something planned in your day besides studying! This could be anything like gaming, watching tv shows, talking to friends, etc.

Because you'll find when you have something else to look forward to, not only is there a closer deadline that'll make you procrastinate less, but now you also have a reward after completing the task (and an incentive for doing it).

Distractions
Alright, I'm guessing this is the hardest part for everyone. Regardless of how good our approach is, you won't get anywhere if you're not even focused on the right thing. Whether it's social media, a new episode for a TV series (FATISW anyone?), video games, movies, other people, etc. I'm sure there's something out there that consistently sucks your attention away from what you're supposed to be doing. For me, youtube was a big killer in the past, though nowadays social media in general like facebook/insta/snapchat/tiktok and ironically these forums+discord have been my Achilles heel. I'll mainly be tackling social media here, since its so potent.

Now if you've also been hooked onto it, don't feel bad. There's more to this than simple self control. Truth is, these apps are incredibly clever. They're meticulously designed to be as addictive as possible, as your attention is extremely valuable to these companies. Because they're free (thus you can't just profit from buying the app), most profits are made by targeted advertisements that these guys have been working behind the scenes from. Without getting too much into it, social media is pretty good at exploiting our biology (by providing us with instant gratification) to keep us as hooked as possible. There's a lot of factors that it takes advantage of to allow this (see below).

Funnily enough, I've never procrastinating by playing video games. I have a PS4 right next to me in my living room but it's never tempted me. But my phone always has. Why is this? Well, when you think about it, there's actually a lot of differences:
- Starting: To play PS4, I have to turn on the TV, log in, select the game, wait for it to load, select my file, more loading and then I'm finally in the game (and can get some gratification). Meanwhile, all I have to do is unlock my phone, make 1 swipe and two clicks then I'm already in. It's so much easier to just start browsing social media, hence less time for you to stop yourself from doing it.
- Vigilance: When I sit down to game, I know I'll be doing it for a while. After all, it's not feasible to play something for 10-20 minutes right (especially given how long it takes to start)? However, when was the last time you intended to spend only 5 minutes on facebook? You don't expect to. However it sucks you in without you even knowing it, throwing off you and your schedule.
- Frequency: I don't game often (especially nowadays) but I'm always checking my phone throughout the day. I have subconsciously built a habit of doing it, so I'm more inclined to do so.
- Satisfaction/progression: Gaming is a more 'high-intensity' activity than browsing social media. You're more engaged in it and there's more distinct checkpoints (like playing one level/game, do this one objective, etc). But there's no end point to social media. You don't feel fulfilled/satisfied after doing it and you actually keep scrolling through in anticipation of it.

Hopefully by examining the above, you understand what factors fuel procrastination. Bottom line is, you want to make it easier to do the right thing and harder to do the wrong thing. So keep your phone away, use a website/app blocker (like selfcontrol on mac) and limit how much you check it. For recreational activities, replace social media with something more fulfilling/fun.

*Bonus tip 2: Don't rely on pure willpower to simply resist temptations. It's actually a finite resource and depletes throughout the day. Furthermore, if you spend all your energy trying to avoid more trivial things like this, you won't have enough for the more important stuff. The best way to deal with distractions is by minimising how much you'll encounter them in the first place.*

Defeating procrastination
It's actually pretty simple and I think I've alluded to it a few times. Have a schedule of how your day should play out. You can't delay something for later, if you know you can't do it later. Schedules aren't actually as restrictive as you might think. In fact, they allow more freedom since you can manage your time and make the most of it. This doesn't have to be difficult!

Think of it like an extended to-do list and you can use something like google calendars. Basically:
- Place all your commitments that are non-negotiable (ie classes, work, sleep, etc).
- Make sure you factor in commuting times, so leave a good gap between tasks.
- Strategically space out your chores/trivial stuff throughout the day to function as breaks from studying.
- Now look at all your spare time. On weekdays you probably don't have much time to begin with due to your prior commitments. But on weekends you can slot some recreational activity in. Morning or night, it doesn't matter. Just have something you wanna do (something higher intensity remember).
- The remaining spare time you have, that's your study time. Use your to-do list to place your tasks here.

Scheduling does take some time to get right. Don't fuss about the specific times you'll start/stop a task, just aim to have everything done by the end. It's something you'll need to adjust accordingly and there really isn't a 'one-size fits all' approach to it. You shouldn't expect yourself to stick to it 100% of the time! Remember that even if you only stick to it half the time, it's still better than 0% (and you'll get more work done than when you started!). So just aim for consistency and make sure it's repeatable for coming days. It shouldn't take that long (5-10 mins tbh), since you'll be copying+pasting a lot of the time anyway. You'll get a lot more work done if you actually have a plan, trust me.

WOW that was a mouthful. Hope you found something useful for this. Guess you've seen how passionate I'm about this lmao. I promise I'll post something more relevant in the future. Cya in the next one!
 
MCU Movies Tier List

Whatup

I'm quite the MCU fan once I got into the movies a few years ago. So I'm gonna rank each movie from worst to best and briefly explain why. Of course this is just my opinion. Btw I wanna talk about their TV shows sometime later (cause you bet I've watched them!) but just stick to the movies for now. Anyways here's mine:
my-image (1).png


S tier
I put both Infinity War and Endgame above the rest because, they are in a way. These transcend the movie genre altogether. Seeing these movies is an experience, a journey in of itself. It's hard to compare these to previous ones because they're simply not like them. It's a two-parter story that doesn't make sense unless you've seen the prior ones. They're so saturated with characters, that newcomers would go crazy trying to keep track of them. They're just something else and were made to be the end of an era. Hell Endgame is literally a love letter to the franchise, trading away a nice, cohesive plot (w/ time travel) for fanservice - and that's great! It's not meant to be objectively the best MCU movie, but the payoff that's been building for over a decade. I'd say Infinity War is still better all-around (more characters throughout, a thrilling/cohesive plot, more action/comedy spread throughout ) but they're meant to complement each other since they're telling 1 story. They're so ambitious, phenomenal and memorable that they deserve the S-tier spot.

A tier
Ok now these are awesome. Some of the best the MCU have to offer. Had a blast with these ones.
- Avengers 1: What can I say? Iron Man may have kickstarted the MCU but this one catapulted it to stardom. How funny is it to think that having 6 different superheroes would've been too much in a movie back then? It still holds up to this day and it's seriously impressive what they were able to pull off here. Character interactions (ie cap/tony, thor/hulk, hulk/black widow and tony) were all great, Loki was a sick villain (setting up Thanos too) and it had great moments all around.
- Captain America: Civil War: The epic conclusion to the best MCU trilogy. It balances both the 'civil war' and 'cap+bucky' storylines well imo. It's really impressive how many characters they were able to cram into this one, without it feeling cluttered (which they went all out with later lmao). I liked the conflict between Cap and Tony, and how you could see both sides to the argument. Given their experiences, both perspectives are understandable and logical for the charcters. Captain America just dealt with HYDRA growing inside SHIELD this whole time, thus realised how dangerous blind faith in the government can be. Tony has caused collateral damage through his reckless decision making (like creating Ultron) and believes that he needs to be put in check. T'challa and Peter Parker were both great new characters (the former had a great arc too) and Zemo was an interesting villain. The one who actually succeeded in tearing the Avengers apart. And it was so dark that he was about to commit suicide after his mission was completed. There could've been more long-term character deaths (like with Warmachines fall) but it was incredible.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier: A sequel that doesn't drop the ball! Wow. Chris Evans is soo good man, he really gets to shine as Captain America. This is where Captain America actually became cool and cemented him as one of the best MCU characters easily. The action is incredible, plot is full of twists (besides knowing that Bucky's the winter solider) and it's got a strong emotional core. Cap plays off really well with Falcon, Black Widow and Nick Fury as well and the winter solider always carried this sense of dread whenever he showed up. It's just an amazing movie all around, no wonder the Russos stuck around after this.
- Spiderman: Far from Home: This movie has almost everything that made the first one great, but improves on it in almost every way. The biggest improvement is the action+stakes, which homecoming was lacking. Here there's 2 jaw-dropping action scenes (you know which ones) that are just so fun to watch. And that mid-credits scene- holy shit. Now THAT's a cliffhanger, that sets up the third movie but only after finishing this one (unlike you Age of Ultron). Peter's arc is just as compelling as the first one, as now he's grieving Tony and needs to step up after his death. He's not ready and can't shoulder the responsibility. Which makes Mysterio all the more threatening - from the outside he looks like the perfect replacement. Peter genuinely believed that Mysterio would protect the world and become the hero [Peter] doesn't think he can be, only to be backstabbed at the worst possible time. He breaks down completely and it's chilling to see how ruthless+twisted Mysterio's master plan truly is. Huge props to Jake Gyllenhaal+the writers for translating such a weird villain brilliantly to the MCU (and even utilising the pre-existing technology!) and making him a treat to watch. Side characters like Ned, MJ, his teacher, Betty, Flash, Brad even were just better here. The plot isn't as cohesive and there is an oversight, but I can look past it. If I had to go off pure favourite, these two would be STRONG contenders.
- Spiderman: Homecoming: Spiderman is my favourite superhero, so you knoww I was popping off at his MCU debut. My god, they really knocked it out of the park with his MCU portrayal (so far). Tom Holland is the best version, no contest. And he really drives this movie, making you care about both Peter Parker+Spiderman. I loved how grounded this movie was and how it uses the MCU to its advantage. Vulture works because he's a low-grade villain that just got screwed over by the big guys, he's just trying to make a living. He has a personal connection to Peter and Michael Keaton does an amazing job with making him menacing but sympathetic. Spiderman's arc of trying to live up to Tony Stark and being to handle threats without his help (even rejecting his position at the Avengers) makes so much sense given his background. The avengers already exist in this world, so he's a more low-key superhero - a boy who's just trying to do the right thing, even if it puts him in danger (case in point, him going after vulture when he could've stayed at prom). Side characters like Ned are a treat too. It's just incredible.
- Thor: Ragnarok: Finally a great Thor movie! You know they took notes from Guardians and went all out on this one. Chris Hemsworth can finally shine as Thor and bring his charisma to the role. Thor becomes such a badass this movie (especially with his lightning powers) and no longer feels like that Shakespearean-esque character who just swings around a little hammer for his powers. He really gets to play off Loki, Hulk and Valkrie even to make such a fun and refreshing dynamic. Hela was a good villain too and I liked how she wasn't technically evil - just the product of Odin's upbringing who treated her unfairly. And oh man, this was hilarious. Shoutouts to Korg for stealing every scene he was in. Now, maybe they did make it too wacky/have too many jokes that may have cut dramatic moments, but this was just an awesome movie and I'm glad they went as far as they did with it. This+IW redeemed Thor altogether and gave him the respect he deserves.
- Guardians 1: Takes its wacky concept and rolls with it. Each character brings something to the table and I loved the group dynamic. It's pretty entertaining but it still has a strong emotional core in the end. Just a story about a rag-tag group coming together. Conceptually it shouldn't have worked, but James Gunn found a way to make this appealing to the mainstream audience and bring an otherwise unknown Marvel team to the forefront. Quite the gamble but paid off big time.
- Iron Man 1: What can I say? The one that started it all. Story, characters, action, humour, everything was just solid here. It did start the trope of the villain being an evil version of the hero, but that goes to show how successful+influential this movie was.

B tier
Fairly solid all around. Worth the watch and both new/old people can have a good time here I reckon. But they can get stale though.
- Captain America: The First Avenger: Actually pretty good. I'm surprised with how much I liked this one, especially given how lame I found Captain America before the MCU. It stands out because of its time and provides characters we wouldn't see otherwise (like Steve+Bucky, Howard Stark, etc). The action was solid, story was compelling (great tragic ending btw) and it hits all the right beats. Red Skull and Hydra were decent. It does a great job of making Steve Rogers a likeable character and why he's worthy of the leading the avengers moving forward. Chris Evans also deserves credit here too.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron: Honestly, it was kind of a letdown. It's good, but just couldn't compete with the previous one. Ultron is supposed to be this all-power menacing antagonist who could solo the avengers, but here he's just some snarky robot. Normally he's just hiding behind his drones. When he's fighting, he's getting beat by Cap, Hulk, Vision/Thor/Iron Man together. His powers are so lame as well - just that weak ass laser and whatever that other one was. Also the climax, a 'floating city' with robot drones is just too similar to the first one. Quicksilver's death also made no sense and everyone in the avengers is just 'there' now. Thor even dips out halfway through to advertise future movies (in that bath tub). At least Hawkeye's better tho. Thing is, the foundations from the first movie are so strong that this is still a good movie, it's not bad at all. But the avengers can be better than this, as we've seen.
- Guardians 2: A solid sequel to the first one which fleshes out its characters more. I like how everyone had a new 'partner' they paired up with by the end (Peter+Yondu, Gamora+Nebula, Drax+Mantis, whilst Rocket+Groot are still there). It makes the team better and develops them. I also thought Ego was a better villain than Ronan, thanks to his personal connection to Peter and Yondu's death hit hard at the end (actually a permanent death of a main character wow). But overall, I think it's not as good as the first one. Especially the jokes, a lot of them didn't land as much this time (like taserface). Ik jokes are a weird metric, but there's so many of them crammed in.
- Iron Man 3: Pretty underrated tbh. Really hones in on Tony's character and what he is without the suit. I actually really liked seeing him have to improvise fighting (superpowered) people without his signature powers and apply his intellect there. It also focuses on his PTSD after the Avengers, showing the ramifications of it, which drives his decisions in later movies. That being said, I wasn't a fan of how the Manderin was handled - you don't just hype up the main villain of the protagonist only to use him as a cheap fake-out. Especially given that Aldrich Killain+extremis crew weren't that interesting to me.
- Black Panther: Look I get the cultural significance this movie has, but I don't think it's wayy up there with other movies. It's still good though. Killmonger was an amazing villain and really drove the plot. T'challa had a good arc here too, how he realised the faults of his ancestors and seeked to correct them. He really was a good king and character (RIP Chadwick Boseman). However, the action+CGI in this movie (as well as some other plot points) were lacking and they could've been better.
- Doctor Strange: Best visuals of any MCU movie hands down. Aside from that, I enjoyed the action sequences+how magic was portrayed here. That being said, I wish we got to see more spells/fighting styles, cause it was mostly hand-to-hand combat with generic 'magical' whips/swords here. Dr Strange's character was decent here too, but the main villain+story wasn't that compelling. They could've done more with it. However, I loved how unique the final fight was with Dormammu.
- Ant Man: Nice low-stakes origin movie. It knows what it's trying to do and does a good job with it. It made Ant-man fairly likeable and although it's still an origin story, it feels distinct from other ones. That's a general praise I'll have for the MCU actually; each movie has its own 'atmosphere' that sets it apart from the rest.

C tier
These are fairly generic, but passable. They all have a certain role (ie introducing the main character to the MCU) and they're fine in that regard. Won't rewatch them though.
- Thor: Had a good premise of stripping away the hero's powers and making him earn it. It's important for Thor's character arc. Loki is also a great villain. It builds a solid foundation, but on its own it's not spectacular.
- Captain Marvel: Quite a controversial one. Once again I don't care about the politics behind it, just the actual movie. And it's alright. Captain Marvel is portrayed as a pretty boring/emotionless character, which is a shame given her interesting backstory and powers. The movie feels pretty inconsistent with what it's trying to be and has a lot going on- there's the buddy cop dynamic, rediscovering old memories, skrull invasion, then fighting the knees, 90's homage, tesseract, etc. It doesn't flow cohesively and never shines in one aspect. It had potential but it's all over the place.
- Ant Man & the Wasp: It's really drawn out and uninteresting. Not a bad movie, but just bland. It had to introduce the quantum realm and bring back Ant-man for endgame and does a decent job of that I guess. But the actual movie is just decent the whole way through, it never really becomes great imo. Except for that post-credits scene though, that was amazing.
- Hulk: Not awfully memorable and is made even stranger that Bruce Banner is played by a different actor here. Just never found it compelling, Hulk's arc in later movies is better if you ask me.

D tier
These are just, bad. Funny how they're both sequels as well. Iron man 2 at least had some entertainment value (both intentional and unintentional comedy) but Thor 2, my god. If it wasn't for Loki I might as well've fallen asleep halfway through. Generic plots, action isn't spectacular, trash villains, not many memorable character moments, even humour-wise they're pretty dry. They're just boring, the type of movies you watch just to cross them off the list rather than because you actually want to.

Whoops this was meant to be a short one. Gotta watch the word count next time lmao. Guess I needed to get all the MCU out of my system. Peace.
 
Motivation
I've talked passionately about stress, procrastination and now motivation. Not exactly giving the best impression hey?

Motivational Videos
I'm sure you've seen a motivational video before. Now honestly, has it actually motivated you to make any change in the long term? Or did your motivation fizzle out the day after? It sure hasn't worked for me yet. Most motivational videos nowadays have a few problems:
1) Specificity: They're incredibly vague in their content. They don't actually give you specific things you should work on or relate to. Since they're targeted to such a broad audience, being specific would alienate them. For example, I'm a student so when I see videos about starting your own business and whatnot, it mostly flies over my head because, well that doesn't apply to me. Thus the whole video crumbles.
2) Ambition: These guys are actually insane with their demands. They hype you up to do a complete 180 on your life in a few months. Start a multi-million dollar company, travel the world, become jacked and be married to the partner of your dreams; they throw all this stuff at you and expect you to make unreasonable progress. When you don't, then you quickly lose steam. Although some people might be able to turn it around this rapidly, the majority of us can't. These things don't happen overnight. They also ignore the fact that not everyone is even looking for these things.
3) Actionable: The biggest problem!! Rather than giving you actual long term solutions that can propel you to achieve your goals, they just make you imagine a fantasy life and spout out half-baked, cliche, psuedo-intellectual quotes. It's always the same stuff: 'work hard, don't let others bring you down, follow your dreams' etc. They keep telling you to get it together without actually telling you how. It's actually useless, because you just feel good watching them but end up doing nothing a few hours later. A goal without a plan is just a wish after all.

So that's why these videos rarely help, at least from my experience. Now hopefully by looking at what's wrong, we can flip this to become our new criteria on what actually works.

Motivation
Let's reframe how we look at motivation first. Here's the thing with motivation: it's just an emotion. Emotions are fleeting and influenced by our current wellbeing. They are not a reliable source of producing results in the long term, because they're not sustainable. You can't really choose them, they just happen and you gotta roll with it. Hence if you're not feeling motivated and that's your only source, you're not gonna make much meaningful process. Although emotions can help kickstart your journey and steer you in the right direction, you need a better plan for the long term.

We're often told that motivation is a linear process: You feel motivated --> Do the task --> Get rewarded. But this isn't true, because the feeling alone doesn't drive us to do the task. It's actually a cycle, where: Do the task --> Feel motivated --> Get rewarded --> Do the task --> repeat. You see, most motivation comes after you start the task, not before. It drives you to actually get through the rest of it, which will give you the reward (satisfaction/result) you desire. Obtaining this is what makes you more likely to repeat this in the future, not just feeling like it. In other words, motivation is just a byproduct of action. So start with the action, take the feeling out if it. This cycle stacks on itself, as getting the reward makes you desire it more, so you initially do the task and become motivated enough to complete it. Hence long term motivation is really just taking advantage of this system, a habit.

Habits
Contrary to what you might believe, most of our day is determined subconsciously by habits. We do certain things at specific times, have certain behaviours and a lot of this is just second nature to us. Although we can actively choose what we want to do, our choices/reasoning are usually skewed towards one thing. Our thoughts influence our behaviour, our behaviour influences our actions, our actions drive our choices and our choices bring us to where we are. If you want to make changes to your life, big or small, habits (the actions) are what you should be focusing on; not motivation. If you're struggling to get a task done, make a habit where you just work on it and let the motivation come to you.

So how do you actually make a consistent habit? A lot of it does overlap with what I said about procrastination+building schedule a while back. Basically, the process is, I'll use going to the gym as an example (cause I've been doing it myself nowadays lol)
1) Pick a specific task you want to do (going to gym).
2) Break it down into small, actionable components (design workout and parameters).
3) Set a specific time to do it each week, or link it to an activity you already do (ie I go after classes since it's at uni anyway, but could also go at 3pm or something).
4) Plan in advance to make it easy as possible to start on the day (packing my gym clothes the night before).
5) Adjust difficulty as needed. If you are finding it too difficult, then decrease the difficulty (ie less weights, or days). Otherwise, progress it in a small way (more weights/days).
6) Rinse and repeat.

It's important to start small to not overwhelm yourself in the beginning. So usually just one at a time. Don't become disheartened if you fail as well. You want to aim for consistency, not perfection. It's better to go 2 days a week instead of 3 than giving up altogether because you can't go 3 days. As a rule of thumb, never miss twice. Most people abandon habits during the first month, so you really want to take it easy in this section. You'll find that after 1 month of doing it, it'll become almost second nature to you since it's ingrained subconsciously in your brain and has become a part of your life. The mental resistance you'll have towards it will gradually decrease overtime and you'll have a more steady baseline of motivation anyways.

Remember to focus on the journey rather than the goal. Because this is the most important aspect - what you do every day. It's no use having a goal if you can't stick to it, so don't fuss about it, just have a rough idea and go from there. You'll get more clarity as you go on and get more experience anyways.

Identity
If you're still struggling with starting something or sticking to it, give this a thought. Is this habit a part of your identity? Do you think you're the type of person who would do this? If you can't picture it, then it'll be fairly difficult to start. You'll basically experience cognitive dissonance because you think that doing this task isn't like you. This makes our brain uncomfortable, as it wants to act in accordance with its previous actions. So it'll either avoid or engage in actions based on whatever subconscious identity you've created for yourself.

But ironically our actions change our identity. It's a two way street. While there isn't a set event that will transform your beliefs, each action acts a little 'vote' to our brain to reinforce or change your identity. This can quickly build up overtime and your identity will change. As it does, you'll become more conformable doing the activity (since it's part of your identity) and do it more consistently. So the takeaway here is to be open to the tasks you're trying to do and watch what you say to yourself. If you convince yourself that you're just a nerd who just stays in their room all day, going out to exercise will be more daunting for you. Who you are is dynamic (not set in stone, can be changed) so don't lock yourself in a box. Perhaps think of the type of person you want to become and start doing the things they would today.

Yep that's about it for now. As far as my schedule goes, it's been fairly inconsistent haha. I'll aim for once a week, perhaps taking some of my advice on this. Just wanna say thanks to anyone who reads these and I hope this has been helpful for you. Enjoy your day now!
 
Wow 2 months
Pokemon rivals tier list
Finally switching gears onto something that's pokemon related!

What makes a good rival in pokemon? A few metrics I use are:
  • Frequency: How often do they appear in the game? How much do you battle them?
  • Character: What is their backstory and motivation? Does this make sense? Could you actually relate to them? Are they even entertaining to watch and have interesting interactions with other characters, or do they lack memorable personality traits altogether?
  • Role: What do they actually do in the story? Do they have any meaningful contributions or development within it?
  • Difficulty: How good's their team? This relates to movesets, pokemon number, levels, etc. Because a good rival needs to actually challenge you in a fight.

So I'll be referring to these throughout to effectively grade each one.

Anyways here's the tier list below:
my-image (2).png


All righty, the explanations for each tier are as follows:
Hop
  • Massive presence throughout the game from beginning to end, battled the most times out of any rival
  • He's got a direct connection to the champion of the region (which is a brand new concept) since Leon's his older brother. Due to Galar's huge focus on the gym challenge and everyone looking up to Leon, Hop has a lot to live up to. He naturally wants to be strong and become champion as well because he feels like that's what's expected for him. In this regard he becomes cocky almost and thinks just because they're related it automatically means he'll succeed as well. He's got a genuine reason to be stronger and is almost pressured into doing it. We can even see how in his own house, Leon has way more recognition and trophies than him.
  • He struggles a lot throughout the game, losing to Bede, gym leaders and of course you. This seriously effects his confidence, especially when Bede made it personal by telling him he's almost disgracing his brother due to this lack of skills. Every time you beat him, the fire in his eyes goes out a little bit and he wonders if all that's true. If he is a failure for not being able to do what he's supposed to be able to. If his brother would be disappointed of him because of this. Unlike with most rivals, we can actually see how this affects him during battles; ditching his Wooloo (his partner) because he thinks it's not strong enough. But he's able to pick himslef back up and keep trying, eventually growing stronger but still coming short against you in the end. At the end of his journey, after being reaffirmed of his skills and clearing his doubts, he's able to finally pursue what really wants. This allows him to let go of all the pressures of being the champion's brother but he also gets closure with Leon himself. He's also incredibly invovled in the main plot and postgame, battling alongside eternatus with you and obtaining the opposite wolf.
  • Throughout the game his team isn't that impressive at first, however this drives his development. He becomes more challenging as he changes it around but even after he isn't awfully difficult. But when he obtains the other legendary, he becomes a serious threat. The rest of his team's solid too and have good movesets and are high levelled. Variety can be a bit lacking however.

I'm genuinely impressed with how well Hop was done in this game. He knocks it out of the park with all the criteria. What really cements him on top with the sheer amount of time we spent with him, we saw his full journey and development. We saw each of his struggles and how it affected him. But he gets an amazing and realistic character arc of stepping out his brother's shadow and going after your own dreams, which fits perfectly into SS's theme of aspiration. He's proof that friendly rivals can be incredible if they're well written and works because he's friendly. By the end we're rooting for him and actually want him to beat us, because he deserves it! And that's why he's the best rival in the series.

Silver
  • Battles you frequently and appears fairly consistently throughout Johto
  • Due to how malicious and hateful he can be, he sticks out and has interesting interactions with everyone around him. Being Giovanni's son is a great concept and we understand why he hates team rocket as a whole; as they disbanded and silver was abandoned due to this. His mother (Ariana) is also in team rocket which further adds salt to the wound. You can understand his pain even if you don't like his methods.
  • One of the best character arcs we've seen from a rival. Goes from hating you, stealing pokemon and blindly wanting to become stronger to respecting you, loving his pokemon (starter+crobat particularly) and becomes a better person after losing to Lance. He actually bonds with his pokemon (which we see) is even able to partially redeem his loss at the hands of Lance. It's really night and day by his last battle. He is also involved in battling team rocket sometimes but isn't that helpful or cooperative with you throughout.
  • Team isn't awfully difficult compared to other rivals, but it's got solid pokemon and movesets with them.

Somewhat similar to Hugh, but he's got a more concrete character arc and battles you more frequently throughout the game. He's more fleshed out than Gladion as well, due to appearing in both Johto and even Kanto more. I would've liked to see his connection to team rocket be explored more and potentially have closure with his parents, but he grows a lot regardless.

Gladion
  • Appears a good amount throughout the story, albeit doesn't really battle you much (only 4 times) before the league
  • Amazing character. He's edgy and distrustful of everyone because of his negative experiences at aether paradise. He wants to become stronger to help free type null and protect his little sister, which is why he joined team skull. He stole type null because he wanted to help it, since it was a botched experiment. He hates ultra beasts because of how they corrupted his mum. He can be a standoffish jerk but you understand why. Despite being a part of team skull, he doesn't have any respect from the grunts (which are buffoons themselves) and basically self-exiled himself from aether paradise. He's also got famous quotes (like 'get out' lmao). He's not a bad person, but just someone raised in troubling circumstances with nobody to turn to.
  • Since he's directly related to both evil teams and Lillie, he gets a lot of exposure. He's the MVP in infiltrating aether paradise and contributes to the development of Lillie and Hau. Outside of that he doesn't contribute too much however. He grows a lot as a person, lightening up and finally seeing you as an ally. We can also see similar development in his team, which is friendship based. He's finally able to take the lead at aether paradise and in USUM goes to kanto to become even stronger. The arc could've been fleshed out more, particularly around the end but what we've got is still pretty good.
  • Team isn't awfully difficult throughout, but in USUM especially his title defense team is solid. He's got good coverage on his pokemon and they're high levelled by this point.

Character wise, he's one of the best we've got. Everything about his character makes sense and he's got many layers to him. He could've been more present throughout the story and could've had that closing arc for himself though, such as when his type: null evolved and when he obtained his z-ring. Not everything needs to happen onscreen, but I think he falls a bit short in this department. With more time to himself and perhaps seeing his backstory play out, I reckon he could been ranked higher. Thankfully the anime improves him even more, but I'm keeping that separate here.

Hugh
  • Appears a lot and battles you mostly during early game and alongside you even more. But could've spaced out his battles better, as he gets 2 relatively similar postgame ones.
  • Touching backstory of a brother just trying to bring back a stolen pokemon from his little sister from team plasma, back then he couldn't do anything but now he's ready to take revenge. To you he simultaneously wants you to succeed but also be strong enough to help him take on team plasma. Entertaining with how he treats team plasma, literally assaulting them but you understand where he's coming from. A lot of his personality is tied to team plasma and is refreshing to see a rival actively want to bring down an evil team.
  • He's incredibly active when it comes to team plasma. Learns to forgive the old team plasma grunts and not villainze all of them and actually achieves retrieves Liepard back. By the end he's helping old team plasma reunite with their pokemon, a far cry on how he used to treat them. But outside of that, he isn't seen an awful lot and doesn't do much else.
  • Team is rather generic for most of the run, but postgame+challenge mode especially can make him pretty tough. Really good in terms of levels, movesets and pokemon variety by then.

Hugh is a perfect balance of a friendly and jerk rival. He encourages you to achieve your dreams but isn't a pushover himself. He passionately hates the evil team and we can empathise with him. Also has a kickass theme. I would've liked to battle him more throughout the mid game and improve his team by then (since he's only using 3 pokemon) but he's a pretty good rival overall.

Blue
  • Lots of battles with him, but doesn't show up much outside of them
  • Pretty standard, being Oak's grandson and wants to be the best trainer. You do learn later that perhaps he was jealous of you and wanted Oak's praise since he's basically a father figure to him. But this isn't explored too much. He constantly talks down on you which motivates you to push further and beat him to prove him wrong. Since he's always one step of you, you're always lagging behind. Also has some iconic quotes.
  • Because he becomes the champion, he's the final boss/climax of the game itself. It's all about settling your score and humbling him. In future games, we can see that this was successful and he's mellowed down. He finally respects Red and has an almost sibling-like relationship with him, a far cry as to how he originally treated him. He also mentors younger trainers (like you in LGPE) and whilst he retains a somewhat cocky attitude, it's toned down and he does have the skills to back it up.
  • Good team and movesets, especially as the games go on. He's a formidable foe by the end since he's the champion.

Blue was great for his time and reflects how simple gen 1 was. He had a clear purpose as a rival and served it pretty well. It's also good seeing him grow and progress in other games. But imo Blue lacks the same nuance that newer rivals have; why does he become such a jerk to you? He also could've been more involved with the story of gen 1, but that was also pretty simple. He makes a good template for the future and is an iconic character, but on his own he feels a bit lackluster.

Cheren/Bianca
  • Battled a lot and appear actively in the game often
  • Interesting characters, Cheren is knowledgable and wants to become stronger whilst Bianca isn't that confident in herself and has an overprotective father
  • Both are actually involved in fighting team plasma and unravelling the mystery of the legendary dragon; Cheren also learns from Alder that there's no point in mindlessly getting stronger whilst Bianca builds up her confidence and stand up to her father (thanks to Elesa's encouragement). We see the results in the sequels, with them pursuing unique roles (at the time) that best matches their personality and ambitions now.
  • Throughout the game they're not that strong, but postgame battles/teams are pretty good.

Pretty surprised with how good they ended up being when going through this. But they're pretty good characters with clear journeys that are also actively involved with the game's plot and themes. Also have a second game to show their progress and be developed further. Great stuff from gen V, though I think they don't quite leave the same mark as the ones above.

Bede
  • Battles you consistently early to mid game but disappears until the league
  • Pretty good backstory albeit a lot is implied, he lost his family but was sponsored by Rose and desparately wants to impress him by becoming champion; but this is one sided as Rose doesn't even remember him and is just using him to get wishing stars. Because he's an unapologetic jerk, he's entertaining to watch and you love to hate him. But despite how he presents himself as cool, collected, powerful and successful, if you dig deeper you can see truly how manic and broken he really is. He's too arrogant to admit it and psychic type suits him perfectly because of this.
  • Does actually become crushed after being disowned by Rose and lost on what to do. Thanks to Opal he's able to mellow out, have a genuinely good mentor, improve his battling skills and influence the people around him as gym leader. But he doesn't contribute to the actual story much as he disappears and reappears near the end.
  • Pretty easy all things considered due to his monotype team, only uses 5 pokemon by the end as well but have good movesets still

Overall he's one of my personal favourite characters as of late. Love his backstory and how his design, music and even type speciality reflects his personality. Unfortunately he's plucked out and resolved offscreen, but he has a clear journey and memorable personality. A great character, good rival but they should've done more with him in the story.

Hau
  • Battles you pretty often and appears a lot throughout the story (maybe a bit too much)
  • At first just seems painfully friendly, but you learn his connection to Hala and how he wants to step out of his shadow; also shows a more serious side to him throughout USUM in particular and later parts of the story. Meshes really well with Gladion in particular due to their opposite personalities.
  • Becomes more serious throughout the game as he's faced some bad losses, even parting ways with you for a bit; has to understand that not every battle is fun and games and is able to actually overcome Hala by the end; in USUM he even commands Tapu Koko and beats elite 4
  • Team is fairly standard but improves in USUM, still good though

Ok I've said before that he's underrated and he is. In Alola specifically a friendly character like him works perfectly and is able to lend to interesting interactions with Gladion and briefly Guzma later. He does actually toughen up and become genuinely impressive, but some of his growth happens offscreen (like beating Hala) which hinders him. There's more than what meets the eye for him, show him respect!

Barry
  • Good frequency with battles, spaced out well before and after league
  • Actually has a personality and can be entertaining, also has a reason for wanting to be stronger; to match his dad who's a tower tycoon
  • Does learn to mellow out over the story due to his loss against Jupiter and has his redemption, but pretty standard besides that
  • Team is fairly good, especially as you get to those postgame matches where they keep stacking (but those are really tedious to unlock)

He's a solid character. They could've explored his connection to his dad earlier and built up his story better though. He's actually got something more to offer than being a friendly rival and is hyperactive personality was fun to watch. But doesn't have the same emotional weight as other ones if you ask me.

Marnie
  • Not battled that much, only 3 times before the league
  • Good; she's trying to bring recognition to her forgotten home town by becoming the champion, even garnering her own fanbase throughout
  • Not much growth, she becomes the gym leader after her brother to represent spikemuth, but she doesn't actually do anything in the story
  • Not that hard, partly due to being monotype but also using 4-5 pokemon max when you've got a full team by then

A good character in of itself, but she doesn't do anything. Could've been a lot more interesting if they planned out her journey or given her a proper character arc.

Wally
  • Battle him like twice before pokemon league and postgame battles are pretty hard to unlock
  • Actually interesting, being a sickly boy who is inspired by you and is determined to grow stronger; which he eventually does to match your level
  • Barely does anything for most the game and only shows up around the end
  • Fairly easy before league, but that last postgame battle is crazy; his team is stacked, but by then you're also pretty strong yourself

A solid character but he doesn't get to do much. He actually has a character arc but we barely see the journey, instead just the result. Screentime is what he's missing tbh.

Calem/Serena
  • Battle them a good amount of times
  • Not that interesting, just your neighbours who you compete with occasionally
  • Do help with stopping team flare, at least have a more prominent role than the others
  • Relatively speaking their team is good by the end, but XY are so easy altogether that they're not that hard

Once again the friendly rivals, albeit they do actually battle you a good amount. But they're so bland and uninteresting by this point especially and lack uniqueness.

Brendan/May
  • Don't battle them much, especially around the later game
  • Pretty standard, just your neighbour and the professors kid
  • Not much involvement in the story or any growth
  • Pretty easy for the most part (except for that one time in route 119 in emerald lol) and their team isn't too impressive by the end anyways

More like friends than actual rivals, tbf they're not really the main one anyway. They don't really stand out on their own.

Trace
  • Battle him a lot actually, appears maybe a bit too much for tutorials and all
  • Incredibly bland and uninteresting, with almost no notable traits of his own
  • Basically the same role as Blue
  • Team becomes decently difficult around the end (like rematches) but nothing too spectacular

He's basically Blue but without as much personality, growth or battle prowess even. A lot of what he does well is just already been done and it's because of what the original character did anyway. He's fine for the role of the game and I like him adopting the cubone, but that's about it.

XY Rivals, grouping them together because they're not good enough to be their own anyway lol
  • Barely show up, you only battle them 2-3 times iirc
  • They have clear goals but are pretty generic
  • Do almost nothing
  • Ridiculously easy, only use 3 pokemon max when you've got your whole team

Overall, might as well have been friends over rivals or just supporting characters altogether. Just trash rivals, better in the anime but the bar was so low to begin with.

Have a good one aye. See you in the next one, whenever that is.
 

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