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pidayforpi · 4 years

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Rigmor of Cyrodiil is a wasted golden opportunity

(I should probably only post this on reddit, where people will understand. But...I feel like posting this here as well. Probably no one will understand.)

TL;DR, I give this mod a 60/100.

This is a review of the Skyrim mod Rigmor of Cyrodiil. This is the first time I have written a review for a mod. I thought of whether I should do it (let alone post it online), but since Rigmor of Cyrodiil (let’s call it RoC, not Republic of China) has a special place in my heart, I will do it just for this mod.

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First off, disclaimer. I...

...haven’t played the prequel Rigmor of Bruma. I will probably play it, but not soon because I need a rest.

...also haven’t played the sequel “Dragonchild”.

...don’t really care about the “lore” aspect. Skyrim is the only Elder Scrolls game I have played, so I can’t say I am familiar with the ES lore myself.

...also don’t really care about time-sensitivity. I am talking about modern slangs used in the mod. It just doesn’t bother me.

...don’t care about character stereotypes. It’s not easy to think of unique character settings all of the time. Cliché and a bit boring they may be, character tropes are hard to be avoided.

...don’t care about my character being forced to be the character the mod intents for me to be. I play a male/khajiit/friend-type character in my playthrough. I also haven’t touched the Skyrim main quest, so I am technically not a Dragonborn. I know many people get bothered by the limited choices/forced role-play aspect of the mod. But in my opinion, my character is just a character I lend to the mod. The mod is the story. The mod author is the storyteller. I don’t and don’t need to have any say about my character. I am just here to listen to the story.

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Overview (spoilers, of course)

RoC, as I see it, is a romance/politics/adventure genre of story. A quick description of the story:

The first part of the story revolves around Rigmor being forced to sign a legal document due to her noble status of her hometown Bruma. Being a free spirit, Rigmor just wants to sign the document, leave, and continue her carefree adventure with her boyfriend Bobby.

However, when she is in the capital, she is framed to be a traitor, as she is supposed to be the legal queen of the empire due to her family history. Thus, the current “bandit king” (who took the throne by force) and the queen Morag want to get rid of Rigmor to protect their own power.

You (the MC) has to rescue Rigmor from exile, and during the journey on Roscrea (?), you both learn that Morag is behind all of this conspiracy, including bribing Akaviri vampires and Tsaesci samurai with human flesh, and the reason behind her immortality is that she (1) is a vampire -> (2) is Molag Bal (I think?) -> (3) is relying on a soul gem powered by the souls of children.

Back home in Bruma (with the help of a pirate old friend and his crew), Bobby (who betrays Rigmor) and his men are attacking Bruma along with the central imperial government. You fight back, and capture Bobby.

After briefly settling the attacks on Bruma, you start your attack on Morag. To destroy her, you travel through the mountains to a ruins, along with a girl with the power to destroy the soul gem with her arrow. You raid the ruins, destroy Morag (Molag Bal), and go back to the base camp.

You suddenly fall into a near-death situation due to Morag’s curse, but is later saved by the goddess Alessia. When you wake up, war has already begun between Bruma and the imperial government. You, Rigmor and the protectors of Bruma launch a counterattack, successfully driving the imperial soldiers away and winning the war.

At the ending, you and Rigmor march into the imperial palace once again (the place where Rigmor sign the document), and kill the illegal bandit king (who fakes an armistice to assassinate you and Rigmor). You and Rigmor thus become the king and queen of Cyrodiil, when Rigmor announces she is pregnant with the next Dragonborn. The story ends.

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Obviously this is a very brief run-through of the plot of RoC. I omit many small encounters both intentionally and unintentionally, because that would be a lot (examples include...

-Rigmor falling sick on Roscrea

-The battle between locals of Roscrea and Akaviri

-The battle between the pirate crew and Akaviri

-The chancellor asking for peace between Bruma and the capital

-A mysterious old priest

-A wood elf general offering help to Rigmor, who hates elves due to her father being murdered by elves (I think it has something to do with Rigmor of Bruma the prequel?)

There are probably a lot more of these things in RoC, but I just can’t remember, nor will I list them all out.)

At first, RoC gives me a very good first impression.

Actually, in general, RoC is pretty enjoyable in its first quarter (not first half, mind you). That is, the first 2-3 hours of gameplay. I will say what I like about RoC in the next section, where I list what I like and don’t like in RoC.

I first started the mod last year in April. However, I stopped at the ship ride sequence back to Bruma due to study. I wanted to marathon the mod, but it was taking up too much time.

After finishing my public exam, I started the mod again (from the beginning) this year in July. I think it took me...2 weeks to complete it (to be fair, I have other things to do).

Even after finishing it, RoC still is a gem in my eye. Unlike any other Skyrim (story) mod I have played, RoC caught my eye. I have never been hyped by a mod. It’s just a shame how it progressed towards the end. It started with a pretty good image, but kept going downhill as I played it.

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Things I like about RoC

1.Thing I like the most about RoC: Beautiful.

And I mean that on multiple layers (so that probably concludes most of the things I like about RoC).

Assets: The world of Cyrodiil is beautiful. I use no ENB, only a weathers mod (that has some reshade I think), and it’s still beautiful. I took a lot of screenshots throughout my gameplay, because the scenery is just so wonderful. Be it the wilderness on the Table Mountain, or the bustling Imperial City...It’s crazy. The only mod (I have played) that beats RoC in terms of aesthetics is Malsea.

(Yes I know (some of) the assets are borrowed from Beyond Skyrim. But that doesn’t stop them from being beautiful.)

Screenplay: The scenes of RoC are beautiful. This is actually what caught my attention when I first played RoC. The signature scenes are overlooking Cyrodiil with Rigmor on top of a tree, and Rigmor devastated with her fate in front of her childhood “secret base”. These two scenes are crazy powerful. I have never seen such powerful, sentimental scenes in a video game, let alone a Skyrim mod. Even without playing RoB, I could feel the emotions: Only because she’s born to a noble family, Rigmor has to endure all of those matters. Later, it’s even found out that not only is she chosen by mortals, but she is also chosen by the gods. Sometimes, perhaps, Rigmor may even prefer the wandering, dangerous life in Skyrim to the boring, controlled life in Bruma.

Also beautiful are some of the dialogues written. Example is when the Chancellor Blackwell describes Rigmor being tortured when she’s arrested. When her hair is cut, when her clothes are torn...I could picture the whole scene and feel the sadness of Rigmor.

Characters: Rigmor is beautiful. No, I don’t mean her physical appearance. Rigmor actually reminds me of Princess Garnet from FF9 (you can call me a Zidane): A princess yearning for freedom but caught in a destined tragedy. On the other hand, her personality makes me think of Tifa Lockhart from FF7: A seemingly strong, yet emotional young woman. That’s why I think RoC is a tragedy and its ending is a sad one. Rigmor just wants freedom, but throughout the story she’s pushed around by others (arrested, forced to save the country, bare a child, only due to her family history and fate). In the end, she’s trapped in an even harsher cage: As the queen of Cyrodiil, how can she possibly run away? The story of RoC destroys the life of Rigmor, forcing her to accept the fate bestowed upon her. Her life is a tragedy, a beautiful tragedy.

Also brilliant is the voice-acting. Most of the main characters are professionally voiced. Rigmor, Bobby and Morag Sethius (?) are my favourite. I don’t find many mods that are voiced, let alone professionally voiced.

Story: The story (to a certain extent) is beautiful. RoC is a story-oriented mod and we all know it. The story is extremely detailed. Almost all side characters have character development to a certain extent. There are many dialogue scenes for character developments, such as Rigmor and you talking about the past, as a comparison to the sad present life you are experiencing now. Side characters have backstories, such as the orc warrior and her partner from the Burma Fighters’ Guild. Old, recurring characters have (I assume from RoB?) stories that detailed why they are in the position they are in now (such as a character becoming a Jarl in Skyrim). That fills up many plot holes, to the point of developing the holes to hills.

(Mind you, detail is also a problem in itself. I will discuss it later.)

The story is rather unique and not very lore-heavy (in its first quarter, at least). A pet peeve of mine when finding Skyrim story mods is the massive amount of lore in these mods. Stories that revolve around Dwermer, Daedra (etc.) immediately put a slightly bad taste in my mouth. In my opinion, lores are unnecessary, complicated and boring. I don’t care about a non-lore-friendly story. I just want a story that connects to me in a personal level, talking about issues that we, as real-life modern human beings, can relate to.

That’s why RoC’s story gave me a breath of fresh air when I first played it. Rigmor’s story is extremely relatable at first: Being forced to do something you have been running away from. You strongly want to continue running away, but you know the problem will come back to bite you, or others will suffer the consequences for you. Should you run? Or face it? I think many of us have, unfortunately, experienced this dilemma in real life.

Relatability is a very important aspect in storytelling. You have to let the readers relate to the main character on a personal level, so that readers can feel the emotions themselves. We don’t face celestial invasions or supernatural disasters in our everyday lives, so Skyrim lore-friendly story mods are more often than not non-relatable.

That’s what makes Rigmor’s story stand out (initially, I will talk about how the story goes on later).

2.Effort.

No matter you like the mod or not, you have to admit a lot of effort is put into the mod. A lot. RoC is very long, almost like an official DLC, or even a brand new video game. We have a huge map. We have many locations. We have many cutscenes. We have voiced characters. We have composed music. The programming alone is crazy effort. We have to give applause to the team making RoC (and RoB). They really put a lot of time and sweat into making a free Skyrim story mod.

Also give a big hand to the voice actress of Rigmor. She has voiced thousands of lines for one character. And the writers, as well. Millions of lines written in books, notes, dialogues.

All these efforts are not lost on me.

I can never make a Skyrim mod myself, so I admire all modders in the community. For team Rigmor, you surely deserve a seat as one of the most important modders of Skyrim.

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Things I don’t like about RoC

1.Thing I don’t like the most about RoC: Long. Too long.

The problem is not the mod duration. The problem stems from the awkward pacing and tension.

I would like to make a comparison between two video games to demonstrate this problem: Okami and Persona 5. For people who have played these two games, you may understand my opinion better. I assume most have not, so I will not spoil...much.

(ok there will be spoilers i will keep it as small as possible)

(you can skip this section if you just want to see the mod look for the “Back to RoC...” subtitle)

(also for people who have played and loved okami please don’t kill me i know a lot of people love that game)

(also i’m aware that is a kid’s game, but i’m judging it in terms of story pacing)

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Both games are of similar length, mind you. I used a year to complete Persona 5 (with school and study, of course), but I lose count of how long I used to finish Okami (I finished it this May).

This is because Okami was...sadly, getting boring. And this is due to its unbalanced pacing.

Games, or long stories in general, should have an ascending pacing and atmosphere up until the climax. The actions should get faster and faster. The missions should get more and more important. Little exception.

For Okami, I feel like the story was loosely planned. As if the story was being forced to extend when the developers realised the story was not long enough.

From the start, it is stated that Orochi is the main menace of the world. Then you would assume Orochi to be the final boss, or at least the second final boss, right?

The part up to Orochi is great. You save a local village, another village, and proceed to the capital of Japan. Neat.

Then the showdown comes down between you and Orochi. The battle is epic. Very dramatic (though a bit stupid for comic relief). I thought the game finale was at hand, given the fast pacing and the tense atmosphere.

But no, there are still at least 3 bosses until the final boss.

Then what is the tension all about?

The next boss (Kyuubi/Ninetails) also has a pretty good buildup. It leads to the deaths of two rather major characters, and you have to destroy it in its lair. Awesome.

But it’s still not the second final boss.

I stopped after the attack on Kyuubi, because it’s getting too long and boring. I felt like the story was never ending, and my patience was running dry. You kept giving me high tension, only for it to be a fraud. Similar to how the goal of the marathon keeps shifting backwards.

When you give me something that wows me, I will beg for more wows, stronger wows, until the finale.

It’s like competition. You try a 10km marathon, you then want to try another, and the next one will be a 15km.

You try a 15km marathon, you then want to try another, and the next one will be a 25km.

You win your friends in a chess game, you want to win the community.

You win the community, you want to win the country.

You win the country, you want to win the world.

Stories and games are like this too. If you give me cheap fast-food steak after I have tried a prime angus beef steak, I feel nothing. If you continue to do so, I will feel bored. Until you give me something better (or, at least equal).

That’s also why I think the ending of Okami is rather...simple. The tension before is too high, that the ending feels like it was rushed. There isn’t any buildup between the second final boss and the final boss. I beat both bosses in one day. You just...go.

I believe Persona 5 is no shorter in length than Okami. Then what made me so intrigued in Persona 5 that I followed it nonstop for a year? Pacing and atmosphere done right.

The first boss (basically a tutorial one) is a school teacher. Okay.

The second boss is a nation-famous artist. Great.

The third boss is a crime lord/gangster boss. Awesome.

The fourth boss is your future teammate. Cool.

The fifth boss is a world-famous entrepreneur. Magnificent.

Just from the status, do you see an ascending importance from each boss to each boss? From a nobody to someone everyone knows. You are evolving from a local hero to a world hero.

Although the fourth (and sixth) boss is a nobody again, they are linked to you personally. If you don’t do something, you will be in trouble. You face direct danger.

The seventh boss is the second final boss. They are the person the game hypes to be close to the final boss (similar to Orochi in Okami), and right after beating them, the final boss is at hand.

Not to mention the increasing linkage and pacing between the bosses.

Linkage-wise, in Okami, every boss is a separate monster. No linkage otherwise.

In Persona 5, the first boss has nothing to do with the main plot other than facilitating your awakening and forming your cool team (not really a spoiler the trailer shows it).

The second boss and third boss also have little to no importance to the main plot other than making you a greater hero (this is, however, a part of the main plot).

The fourth boss’ mother investigated the power you are using to beat bosses, and died because of her investigation.

The fifth and sixth boss are parts of the conspiracy of the seventh boss. And the seventh boss is your destined arch-enemy as shown by the game.

The final boss is the reason behind every boss you have beaten.

The linkage grows stronger and stronger from each boss to each boss, making you want to continue playing to find out the mastermind behind.

The pacing does a good thing to keep you focused as well. From first to fifth bosses, there are celebrations and fillers between the bosses. But from the sixth to final, no chit-chat whatsoever. One boss, onto the next. The breaks from first to fifth bosses are also really just breaks. Short and simple. One event per intermission. These breaks also give clues to future events, such as you seeing your future waifu teammate while watching fireworks after the third boss.

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Back to RoC...

Now you know the importance of pacing and tension, let’s discuss about RoC as a case study.

I believe (from many reviews online) that the unbalanced pacing is the reason why many players do not enjoy RoC. The weird pacing hurts the enjoyment of RoC a lot (I will say a -25 point goes to that).

There are many occasions where the tension is broken and the pacing halts to a crawl, mostly using dialogues. For example, the excessive use of military strategic conferences. These conferences are boring, whenever they are placed. When you put these conferences in between battles, it feels weird and extra boring. I know it is realistic for conferences to be held to discuss what to do next, but these conferences are just too long.

Times I think RoC has had weird pacing and tension (in terms of chronological order, of course including but not limited to):

-The escape on Roscrea. There are many times you both take a breather and chat. I get that it is used for the character development of Rigmor, but that’s just too much.

-Rigmor falling sick. This whole section feels unnecessary. I get they want to include Alessia (the witch-doctor of Rigmor) as part of a foreshadowing, but with you needing to gather ingredients for the Alessia and listening to her (fake?) backstory, it takes up a lot of time.

-Sabotaging the supply of Akaviri vampires and saving human slaves (on the way home to Bruma on the pirate ship). I get that they want to include that in a realistic, strategic sense, as well as show the kindness of Rigmor to save the innocent, but again, it’s not really that important, yet takes you a lot of time.

-Military conference back at Bruma, and the meeting with Chancellor Blackwell. Bruma is under attack. The tension is high. I recommend just get to the fighting part. More dialogues hurt the pacing in such a dire situation.

-Rigmor (and Blackwell) meeting with an imprisoned Bobby. I get that is for Rigmor to officially cut ties with Bobby, but in times of war, doing that slows down the pacing.

-During the expedition (to destroy Morag Sethius), too many breaks.

-After destroying Morag Sethius, any sequential military meetings (or human problems, except wars) seem boring. You just slain a Daedra. There’s nothing more exciting than that.

-Character developments for the Fighters’ Guild side characters right before the finale...? (I don’t want to be mean but I hate that)

These unnecessary (or unnecessarily long) interactions before or in a high tension situation harm the story very much. I don’t feel anything for these interactions. If you give me more of these, I will only feel bored. Until you give me something that wows me.

I think one of the general problems with the pacing of RoC is that a very high tension event is placed in the first half of the story. I am talking about the rescue of Rigmor. Rigmor is in a life-and-death situation, either she will be killed by men or demons. Saving Rigmor, bringing her home is (at least, to me) very important and put me on the edge of the seat. Therefore, after that, I assume the story will pick up its pace, and the ending is coming soon. But that is not the case. There are still 10+ hours of playthrough, not to mention the story slowing down multiple times with the aforementioned “breaks”.

I will feel bored, until you give me immense danger again like you did with the rescue of Rigmor. Putting the Rigmor rescue arc in the near beginning forces you to pick up the pace and end the story quickly.

Another problem with the awkward pacing is a logical one. A significant example is the expedition arc. I don’t want to be mean, but aren’t you saving the world? Why are you always taking a rest? Even have time for Rigmor to take a bath? Another example is right before the finale. You have the empire at your mercy. Why do you still have time to ask a side character about her backstory? Don’t you want to get the war done? Aren’t you afraid the empire will launch a counterattack?

2.The Ending.

The problem is not that the ending is a sad one. The problem is of atmosphere and logic.

Although, having a sad ending will undoubtedly decrease enjoyability. After all, who doesn’t like a feel-good ending? With the already low enjoyability of RoC, having a sad ending surely add salt to the wound.

Atmosphere-wise, unless you really investigate the story, the ending doesn’t seem like a sad one. You don’t see Rigmor devastated with being forced to be the queen. The ending is progressed quickly without much buildup. The credit scene uses a...very epic remix of the Dragonborn theme. It looks...awkward. Similar to if Thanos snapped half of your favourite superheroes to oblivion, they and the other half are emotionless. No tears. No anger. No awesome, encouraging last words.

Logic-wise, I think neither you nor Rigmor would accept the ending. Both you (through dialogue choices) and Rigmor have always showed immense disgust with fate forcing them to do what they don’t want to. There are many occasions where both of you are like “screw the rules and prophecies”, even right before the finale. Then why would you two suddenly become so submissive and accept fate? You become the empire, while Rigmor becomes the queen and bears the Dragonchild.

You can say you both “mature” (even though I personally don’t think accepting whatever life puts onto you is being “mature”), but this is not shown. Rigmor and you, up to the ending, still refuse to accept fate. But the moment you enter the palace, you both suddenly mature and accept the thrones. This transition feels extremely sudden and weird.

3.Technical Problems

I seldom find technical problems the bane of my enjoyment. But when the problems are game-breaking, that is a problem (a famous example being Sonic ‘06).

Bugs: There are quite a number of bugs in RoC, either guaranteed or easily encountered. A significant example of guaranteed bugs is the Mara shrine scene. Again, I don’t want to be rude, but this is the first time a (serious mod, not joke) mod requires me to use console command to solve a bug. Immersion-breaking is not the problem. The problem is that if I did not know how to solve it, I couldn’t continue. I didn’t even know the command “TIM” (Toggle Immortal Mode) before I looked up on how to solve the Mara shrine bug (“TGM” doesn’t work for that situation).

Easily-encountered bugs are a lot in RoC. These bugs can break your quest, making you unable to continue your story. Examples include:

-Running from the trolls and giants on Roscrea. I think the game wants you to guide them through thin ice, so that the monsters will fall. But it just didn’t work for me. In the end I had to manually kill all the monsters (because Rigmor kept fighting/being attacked by the monsters).

-The meeting with Mr Bear. Because the meeting is placed right after a battle scene, Mr Bear will often be still in its “battle mode”, making you unable to interact with it. Worse if you (accidentally) past through the cave before the cutscene between Rigmor and Mr Bear (due to the lack of directions). I encountered this bug where Rigmor was on the other side of the mountain, yet the cutscene with Mr Bear still hadn’t finished. I had to use two third-party mods to solve this bug (by literally carrying Rigmor over the mountain).

-The battles on the sea. Did the mod team test-run the mod, or invite beta testers to test-run the mod before releasing? Given the narrow battle area and large amount of enemies, people going overboard (falling off the ship into the sea) is extremely easy. Worse when Rigmor or any quest characters have fallen overboard. I had to, again, use console command (“kill”) and a third-party mod (unlimited jumping) to kill every enemy that went overboard and get back onto the ship.

-Rigmor dying. I’m serious, this is possible. There should be an option where you can toggle her essentiality (?), but the option had to be unlocked through console command (at least for me). “Resurrect” console command will break Rigmor. A quest-given shout that should be used to resurrect Rigmor doesn’t work. Why don’t we just make Rigmor essential in the first place?

-Technically not a bug, but the game is sometimes too clueless for you. I’m okay with handholding, but not with no handholding at all. Lack of quest markers, vague directions, no signs that a cutscene is continuing...All these sometimes make me clueless as to what I should do. And it hurts the gameplay enjoyment. The large amount of flags (conditions you need to fulfil before the quest can continue) also lead to a lot of bugs, as you can easily miss those flags (such as talking to a certain person).

My recommendation for anyone who wants to try the mod is to save frequently. Not quicksave. Save. Especially before any battle scenes.

Difficulty: The mod is just too difficult. I play on Adept (default difficulty) because I want to experience the difficulty mod authors intend for you to have, but even that is too difficult for me.

Whenever there is a battle, it is almost always a large-scale one. Having a ton of enemies rushing at you makes surviving extremely difficult, let alone eliminating all enemies. I had to use a third-party (rather) OP spell to eliminate the enemies, or I would have to use whosyourdaddy God Mode. Unless you have a powerful character, or you play at a lower difficulty, legit combat is near impossible. Again, did the team test-run the mod at least once? Or is the mod supposed to be played at a lower difficult/with a very strong character?

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That’s all I have to say about Rigmor of Cyrodiil. It will always have a special place in my Skyrim gaming experience. The concept is great and unique, but the problems in execution just hurt the overall enjoyment of the mod. I will not advise against playing the mod. If you have time, please experience it for yourself, if story-oriented mod is your cup of tea.

This is the first non-fiction passage/review I have written (well, outside of school and exams). Thank you for reading!

(16-7-2020 ~ 17-7-2020)

#i still dont know why I post it here #skyrim #rigmor of cyrodiil #skyrim mod #skyrim mod review #other stuff #i dont know what else i can put here #im sorry

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comicgeekscomicgeek · 4 years

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Their Hero Academia – Chapter 60: Final Exam Part 2: Multiple Choice

Presenting the next chapter of my on-going, next-gen, My Hero Academia fic, Their Hero Academia!

All chapters can be found here

Shota took in a deep breath and let out a scream, high-pitched and powerful. The sonic waves passed through the buildings ahead of them and then bounced back, giving him a detailed outline of everything and everyone those waves had touched. It was like seeing a picture in his head, online mostly just in sharp blue outlines. Normally, he couldn’t get this good of a picture. Solid objects slowed down the soundwaves and bounced them back. But with so many of the buildings having shattered windows or other hole in them, he could get a much better picture of what was going on.

“I count four people in the buildings,” he said, pointing. “Two there, one there, one there. Plus three people outside it and at least four more people up past that building, but it gets fuzzy after that.”

“Good job, Shinso,” Sora Iida told him. In her red and silver armor, combined with her height, she stood out distinctly in the morning sun. “I can scout ahead and take the far point, while you three work on the closer rescues.”

“Who put you in charge?” Aoyama asked. He was lit up like a small sun himself; with his arms and face exposed, his glow made him hard to even look at directly.

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Iida asked. It wasn’t a challenge, the way Kirishima-Bakugo might have asked it, but genuine interest. Of course, given Iida’s scientific leanings, she would be interested in the best outcome.

“…Non,” he admitted. His shoulders slumped and he gave his cape a flick. “Let us do your plan then.”

“We must also be vigilant against the presence of Villains, Aoyama,” Koda said, cautiously. She usually was the one to rein Aoyama in when he was getting an attitude or pouting. “Iida is the fastest of us. If anyone should be scouting ahead, it is her.”

Aoyama crossed his arms, but grumbled his assent. Shota knew he liked to show off and be the center of attention, but now really wasn’t the time for it. Not with all of them passing or failing depending on it. Shota was already worried enough that he was going to drag everyone down… He’d kept it together during training since he came back to school, but this was a lot more intense.

“You are correct as always, Mademoiselle Koda,” Aoyama conceded.

The matter settled, Iida said, “Remember, we are to check in with Tos—Gravi-Might and the others in ten minutes, unless they contact us first.” With the roar of her Jetpack, the wings of her costume snapped up and she took off, quickly speeding into the distance.

Shota, Koda, and Aoyama snapped into action as well. None of them possessed Quirks which granted much speed, but they were all still in good enough shape for a quick jog. On the road ahead of them, a pair of cars had crashed into each other. One had been abandoned, but the other was crushed where a downed electrical pole had landed on it. It showed no obvious signs of still being active, but…

“Hang on, sir!” Shota called out to the robot behind the wheel of the car. “We’re going to get you out!”

From the robot, there was no response. Unconscious, then? That meant they really needed to move.

Fortunately, Koda was one step ahead of him. From the seed pouch on her belt, she produced a handful of seeds and tossed them near the car. Once in the ground, she applied her Quirk and they immediately started to grow, becoming vines that wrapped their way around the pole, covering each stray wire, and slowly lifting it off the car.

“My hastily grown friends do conduct a little electricity,” she said, “but not enough to do them significant harm. And far less harm than that would do to us.”

Aoyama stepped in next. With the car partially smashed, there was no way they were just opening the door to get the robot out. From the mirrored wristband on his right arm, he released a small portion of his stored light, going for a concentrated blue-white laser beam that cut through the car like a hot knife going through butter, leaving an orange-hot line behind it. When he had gone completely around the edge of the door, he took a quick step back as it fell.

“Watch the edges!” Shota said. “They’re going to be hot!”

Aoyama shot him a dirty look. “I know that!” he snapped. But the look on Aoyama’s face said he didn’t. With care, though, he extracted the robot. “Do not worry,” he told it. “We shall get you somewhere safe.”

Getting it a safe distance away was enough for the robot to tell them they had completed its rescue. The other rescues went just as quickly. Shota was even able to use his Quirk to blast away some rubble, letting Koda and Aoyama finish up the rescue. It felt good. Even if they were robots, using his Quirk to find people, to help them, not to cause harm, was a welcome change. Still, some small part of him still flinched at unleashing the more destructive aspects of his Quirk, even for rescue work. He could still see the Nomu simply disintegrating under his power. Even if it had turned out not to be alive, he hadn’t know that at the time…

With a road of jet engines, Iida returned, landing near them. “I was able to rescue two, but I will need additional support for the others,” she said. “But first… Loud Kid, another sonar sweep, if you would, in case the parameters have changed?”

Shota nodded. But just before he could let out another sonar pulse, a loud crack sounded, echoing off the buildings. Something struck Aoyama in the head and he went down!

***

Isamu skidded to a stop, braking hard with a bit of reverse-thrust. The section of Omega City his group had headed to was a wreck, looking like a tornado had hit it. Robot civilians were running from a Villain, a muscular man with bird-like feet that ended in sharp talons, hair that turned into feathers and spread along his back, and massive wings. He wore tattered jeans and very little beyond that, with tattoos covering the space on his back between his wings. When he flapped his wings, he unleashed massive gusts of wind, blowing over everything in his path. The tornado theory was looking pretty solid.

The Villain hadn’t noticed them yet, content in his rampage, with his back to them. His shock momentarily halted, Isamu stood up. Already, he could feel his heart thudding in his chest. Even if this was some Pro-Hero helping out U.A. or one of the other year teachers or something, this felt like a Villain attack. Whoever they were, they were doing a damn good job getting into their role.

Of course, if he was a Hero, Isamu felt like he should have recognized him. But there weren’t a lot of Pro-Heroes with wings (Hawks and Kestrel immediately came to mind, but this definitely wasn’t either of them) and this guy didn’t seem to match up to any of them. Maybe from another country? He wasn’t so good with those.

“That’s right!” the winged man shouted. “Run! Run!” He flicked his wings forward again, sharply. The wave of air was more compressed this time, slicing through everything in its path. The change in air pressure was intense. Even as far away as they were, even from behind him, Isamu could fell it. This guy’s Quirk might make him even stronger than Gale Force…

“…I’m open to suggestions here,” Sero said. “I mean, I could probably shoot some Tape at him, but those wings look pretty strong. I’d have to take him completely by surprise and I’m just not fast enough to wrap him up before he notices.”

“Yeah, this why I’m going into Rescue Heroics,” Ojiro added. “I guess I could go invisible and kick him in the balls…”

“X-Ray,” Isamu said, and he had to force himself to say Sero’s Hero name, “Stick ‘Em Up… Rescue the civilians. Amaterasu and I will get his attention and hold him off.”

Behind the clear face plate of his costume, Sero gave him an astonished look, then performed an exaggerated salute. “It’s been nice knowing you, man. You ready, Kimmie?”

Ojiro nodded, a gesture only visible because of the visor she wore with her eye-searingly bright costume. Sero wrapped an arm around her and in the blink of an eye, they both became invisible, shielded from view by the power of her Quirk. Isamu heard the “thwip!” sounds of Sero firing off a strand of his Acid Tape and he knew they were on the move.

Tokoyami’s expression was more unreadable, but Isamu had known her long enough now to read some of the more subtle movements of her feathers and her eyes. She was uneasy, but ready to fight.

Training had mostly pitted them against robots or, occasionally, each other. And yes, they’d been allowed to engage some very minor level criminals and Villains during their Internships. But this was something different entirely. Who even was this guy?

“Ready?” he asked her.

“Ready,” she said.

“Could be bad,” he said. “Guy seems pretty powerful.”

“So are we,” she said. “Have confidence, Haimawari.”

She had a point. “I’ll go low. You go high.”

There was a small nod between them, and Isamu launched himself forward, employing his Quirk as soon as he hit the ground. “Hey!” he shouted, pouring on the speed and trying to get the guy’s attention. “How about picking on someone your own size, you big blowhard!”

That got the guy’s attention. He turned quickly and Isamu could now see that he had harsh, yellow eyes like a bird as well. “Well, well,” the guy said, a trace of a Chinese accent in his voice, “if it isn’t the brave little Heroes!” His wings flared out and Isamu felt a massive gust of wind push against him. He poured on the thrust, fighting against it, more grateful than ever for the goggles and bandanna protecting his eyes, mouth, and nose. There was plenty of dust and debris in the air that could have been really nasty otherwise.

Fortunately, he was just the distraction. With the bad guy focusing on him, he didn’t see Tokoyami’s Frog-Shadow snaking around from above. But suddenly, Frog-Shadow swerved from her path, flying erratically through the air, until she smashed into the ground, leaving a small crater from the impact. Isamu too, suddenly saw the world spinning around him, making it impossible to tell where the street was. He swerved, hard, and saw a wall coming up right in front of him…!

***

Midoriya had one of the strongest Quirks in the class, up there with Izumi, Shinso, and Tokoyami, and he’d bounced off the Villain like a ragdoll! He was getting back up, but it would take him a minute. That impact looked like it was going to hurt tomorrow.

The metal man grinned in a way that vaguely reminded Chihiro of Kirishima-Bakugo, the same kind of “this is gonna be a fight and I’m gonna enjoy it” sort of smile she got before she punched someone. It was made all the worse by the truly massive underbite the guy had. His bottom jaw was huge, like the scoop bucket on a steam shovel. Where the hell had U.A. found this creepazoid? It was part of the exam, right? It hadn’t been crashed by some real Villain, had it? No, if that was the case, Aizawa and the other teachers would be intervening already…

“You going try and fight me like the green kid there?” the metal man asked. Despite looking like a thug, he didn’t sound stupid or uneducated. The voice was deep, rumbling, and confident like a champion fighter. “Nothing wrong with running. I’ve fought plenty of Heroes before and come out on top. I don’t like fighting girls, but if I have to…. Well, I’m not leaving without the doc.”

“Girls”? Mika repeated. She stamped a hoof on the ground and pointed an indignant finger. “The nerve of this guy! We’re Heroes in training! And he’s trying to softball us? I demand the right to be fought just like a guy!”

Anybody else, Chihiro would have thought they were babbling. But among Mika’s many skills was provocation. It had worked well for her during the Sports Festival and judging by the guy’s expression, it was working now.

“I mean, really,” Mika went on, “what rock did they find you under? Haven’t you heard of women’s liberation? Have you even talked to a woman in the last twenty years..?”

The metal man let out a roar and charged, smashing his metal fists down. Mika dodged out of the way and his fists hit the ground. Or rather, they hit what was on the ground: Mika’s sticky balls, the trap she’d seeded earlier.

He tried to pull his fists back but was unsuccessful, the sticky balls adhering quite well to his fists and the ground. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized he was trapped.

“Shock-Jock!” Izumi called out. “Now!”

Which was when Chihiro and Izumi let him have it. Her Cords slinked down and plugging into her bracers and she brought her hands up, sending out dual blasts of electricity. Bless Aunt Momo and Mrs. Hatsume, they did their job well, specialized circuits in the bracers and gloves directed the electricity in a straight line. Izumi, meanwhile, released some of the heat she had stored up from building the ice walls, projecting yellow-orange blasts of flame at the guy.

Her electric attack hit first, setting the guy twitching and screaming, before Izumi’s flames washed over him, turning some of his metal body white hot. Chihiro actually felt kind of bad. This was still just the exam, right? She had to take it serious, but she didn’t want to give the guy permanent nerve damage or anything.

Izumi ceased her fire attack and held up a hand. Chihiro caught the signal and let up on her electric one. The guy stood there, groaning, his metal skin making a slight pinging sound as it cooled.

“That hurt,” he snarled. “But this is going to hurt more!” With a massive grunt, he freed his arms, not by removing Mika’s balls from them, but instead simply being strong enough to tear the sections of ground they were attached to up with them.

“…That’s new,” Mika said, quietly.

Fortunately, by this time, Midoriya had recovered. “GRAVITY...BOOSTER!” He shot forward like a rocket, then hit the guy with an uppercut that made her ears ring. The metal guy was in motion this time, not braced like before and went flying high into the air from the force of the blow, disappearing from sight.

Still, Chihiro couldn’t help but stare, wide eyed. “You sure All Might is only your step-grandpa?” she asked.

He didn’t bother answering her question. “See if you can get any of the other teams on the comms. Mine got smashed when I hit the wall.”

***

Kenta had been exploring the inside of the building with Tensei Iida, looking for people to rescue, when something had taken them by surprise. Or rather, someone: a massive, muscular woman who looked like she could snap you in half just by staring at you hard enough, the kind that Mineta would say could crush your head between her thighs. And for just a moment, Kenta had frozen, the memory of the Nomu rearing up over him playing on a continuous loop in his head.

Iida had saved him, rushing in with his Jetpack to shove him out of the way. The woman had hit Iida instead and seemingly forgot about Kenta. He hoped Iida was okay. It would be really bad if he had to tell Takuma he’d gotten his boyfriend killed or put in traction.

Great. He was making jokes at a time like this. Takuma really was rubbing off on him.

He forced himself to get moving, heading back out the way he had come in. Outside, he could see all three of his classmates (Iida was upright, that was good!, even if he was sporting a nasty dent on his armor!) fighting with the woman. Her costume left a lot to be desired, being only stylized biker gear, with heavy spikes on the shoulders of her jacket.

Kirishima-Bakugo fired off a round of disks from her gauntlets, peppering the ground with a series of small explosions that kept the woman off balance, while Iida flew around behind her and snagged her with a capture-line from his gauntlet. After they’d taken her off balance and restrained her, Shoji moved in, swinging all three of his right-side arms.

Great. He was definitely going to fail the exam and make everyone else fail. Because he’d frozen up like a damn coward. Maybe one bad moment wouldn’t be enough. But he needed to make himself useful somehow…

Shoji’s blows connected, but they didn’t rock the woman back even an inch. Thought the bottom half of his face was covered, Kenta could see Shoji’s eyes widen in surprise. The woman just laughed.

“No bad, kid,” she said. “That was a nice gift. Let me return the favor!”

She flexed her arms and snapped Iida’s capture line like it was made of string, then hit the six-armed boy with a blow that sent him flying.

“Finally!” Kirishima-Bakugo shouted, throwing her head back and laughing. “A challenge!”

She charged, lashing out at the woman with a series of close-range blows. Every time a blow connected, she fired off an explosion. Some kind of contact transfer from her gloves, if he remembered right. It was hard to keep up with everyone’s costume and Support Gear updates. Maybe he needed to invest in something if he wanted to keep up.

The woman may have been sent off balance by the explosions fired at her feet, but this time, they didn’t seem to do anything. They didn’t even singe her skin.

Kirishima-Bakugo took a step back, fists still at the ready, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “What the hell, lady? What’re you made out of?!”

“Can’t stop everything by hitting it, girl,” the woman sneered. She swung her fist in a wide arc, but Kirishima-Bakugo was lighter on her feet, dodging out of the way. Iida swooped in, striking out at high speed. The blow clipped the woman’s chin, knocking her back for a moment and spinning her head around, before she struck out, faster than anyone that big should be able to move, swatting Iida from the sky.

What the hell was he supposed to do against that?

Wait…

She’d gone from being thrown off balance by Kirishima-Bakugo’s explosions to being unaffected. She’d shrugged off blows from Shoji but gotten her head spun around by Iida. Even with Iida putting his speed behind it, Shoji had a lot more power to his punches. What if she had to know a blow was coming to block it?

Hang on guys, he silently pleaded. He had an idea… he just needed her to stay in one place long enough.

He’d say this for all three of them, they kept taking her hits, but they kept getting back up again. And the huge woman gave as good as she got. She’d called Shoji’s blow a “gift” too…

But there, a telephone pole, right across the street…

As he ran towards the telephone pole, Kenta did a little math in his head, grateful for the fact that unlike Takuma and Kimmie, he actually paid attention in class. There was lots of math involved in baking and he was good enough at helping his dad to do some calculations on the fly. If she didn’t move too much, it would be just about right.

CHOMP! Kenta’s jaw muscles were strong and he could open his mouth wider than a normal person could. Combined with the fact that his teeth were incredibly tough, he could bite through anything very quickly. He bit, chewed, and swallowed as fast as he could, feeling like some kind of beaver as he worked his way through the wood. He kept his eye on the fight and the woman was still in just about the right position. In seconds, the telephone pole started to pitch forward. “TIMBER!” he shouted, giving it a strong push to finish the job.

He saw Shoji backpedal out of the way and Iida grab Kirishima-Bakugo (who protested that she wanted to stay and fight), and the woman try ineffectually to hit them as they fled.

THUMP!

The telephone pole came down on her hard, driving her into the ground. She’d started to turn, but hadn’t had time to fully do… whatever it was she did. For the moment, she was trapped.

“Sato!” Kirishima-Bakugo shouted. She looked mad. Probably about him “stealing” her victory. “How the hell did you do that?” When she couldn’t was left unsaid.

He ran across the street to join the others. “I think… I think she can absorb whatever force you throw at her. But she has to know it’s coming. I just got lucky.”

Kirishima-Bakugo scowled. “Yeah, okay. …Not bad, Lips.”

“As soon as I get out of here,” the woman yelled, “you’re dead! You hear me! You’re all dead!” Already, she was struggling and working her way out.

“We’ll see who’s deader, ya witch!” Kirishima-Bakugo shouted back. “I’m gonna explode you so hard your grandkids will have burn marks!” She brought up a gauntlet, ready to fire it.

“Ah,” Shoji began. He put a hand on her gauntlet.

“What?” she demanded.

“Perhaps we should continue our rescue work while she’s trapped?”

“I agree,” Iida added. “She is quite capable of neutralizing our attacks and is more than ready to anticipate them. We should rescue who we can, retreat, and fight another time.”

Kenta raised a hand slightly.

“You’re gonna agree with them, aren’t you?” Kirishima-Bakugo demanded. Her teeth were gritted in anger, her body language tense. She was not exactly the type of person who ran from a fight.

He gulped, then nodded. “Maybe we can get somebody like Kaminari or Todoroki or even Takuma or Minet to fight her. Somebody more zappy or who can restrain her.”

“AAAAARRRRGH!” Kirishima-Bakugo let out a scream of frustration. “Dammit, you’re right. Fuck!”

She gestured off in the opposite direction they’d come. “Iida, get eyes in the air, get on the comms and get somebody we can use. The rest of you, move!”

***

“Aoayama!” Koda cried out. The glowing boy went down, smacking his head on the ground, before any of them could react. But they had little time to panic. More shots followed the fist, one several impacting into the ground, others ricocheting off the building behind them. One even stuck Iida, making a clang where it hit her armor.

In response, Shinso screamed. But it was not a scream of panic, instead, he directed the soundwaves outward until they formed a protective, shimmering dome around three of them. Akaya said a small prayer that their classmate was all right. It may have only been an exam, but students had been greatly injured in training and exams before.

“Is he…?” she began, softly, bending down to examine Aoyama.

Around them, shots bounced off of the force field dome Shinso was screaming into existence. They came quickly and from multiple directions. Was there more than one person shooting at them? Guns were a rarity in Japan to begin with, even more so among Villains and Heroes, unless that gun augmented or worked with an existing Quirk, such as their teacher Hawkeye and her Super-Accuracy.

“Breathing,” Akaya continued, after taking his pulse. A nasty bruise was forming along the side of his head, one she could see even through his glow.

“Then we must move,” Iida said. “As soon as we can. I will distract them, while you three get to cover.”

The urgency was apparent. Shinso’s shield was already weakening. He could not sustain the scream for much longer. He held up a shaky thumbs up to say he agreed.

Akaya scooped up Aoyama. He was a fit boy, but slender and not as muscular as Midoriya or Haimawari, let alone Shoji, and while hers was not a strength Quirk, her size and rocky countenance did make her stronger than many. Despite his glow, his skin was not hot, but soft against her rocky one.

“Go!” Iida shouted. “Now!”

Shinso stopped screaming and the dome dropped instantly. He took off and Akaya followed close behind, while Iida rocketed into the air. Shots rained down around them, one narrowly missing her.

Slinging Aoyama over her shoulder instead and apologizing for the rough treatment, Akaya reached into her seed pouch with her now free hand and dropped seeds behind them, using her Quirk to make them grow rapidly. Trees sprung up like lightning behind her, offering temporary shielding from the gunfire.

She kept her eyes on the road ahead, but she could hear the sounds of gunfire still, hear it bounce off of Iida’s armor.

“I cannot see them!” Iida’s voice rang in her ears from their communicator headset. “Shinso, can you pinpoint them?”

Looking around, Akaya and Shinso came to a stop, sheltering behind a car. Shinso looked around, cautiously, then let out one of his sonar screams, casting it in various directions. When he stopped, he made a confused face. “I keep getting something, but it disappears as soon as I make contact. I guess it could be a teleporter, but those kinds of Quirks are, like, super rare! I mean, other than that kid who won the obstacle course, and we probably wouldn’t be fighting him…”

For a moment, the gunfire went quiet. Worryingly quiet. On her shoulder, Aoyama started to stir. Unconscious, the arrogant boy looked much smaller and vulnerable than usual, as though he puffed himself up like a hissing cat when awake.

She wondered sometimes why she tried so hard to be a friend to him. He was a walking tribute to the sins of pride and envy, and just as often prone to wrath. But there was something behind his eyes, a sadness that touched her deeply. There was a pain he carried with him he did not share, but which fueled his vices and she wished she could ease.

Aoyama groaned. “I… claim this land… for France!” he exclaimed, one arm shooting straight up into the air. “Ugh… what hit me?”

“Some kind of projectile,” Akaya told him, helping him get on his feet. “Iida attempted to draw their fire while we escaped.”

Aoyama frowned. She should tell his pride was hurt. “Merci,” he said, simply.

Around them, the world had gone deathly silent, save for a lingering echo of Shinso’s screams. Akaya quickly wished that she had chosen a different word to describe it than that. But it was apt. The strike had come out of nowhere and wasn’t even from a Quirk. They knew less than nothing about who was attacking them.

Iida’s voice again filled their comms. “The shooting seems to have stopped,” she said. “Like it or not, we must continue our mission. I will try to apprise the others of the situation and then join you.”

“She wants us to go on with some maniac with a gun out there?” Aoyama hissed. “Is she crazy?”

“We’ve… we’ve got to rescue people,” Shinso insisted. “Even if it’s dangerous. We’re Heroes. We can’t let everybody down.

It made sense, however dangerous it was. Real Heroes couldn’t just huddle and hide until the danger passed. They had to move on. As they got up to go, something made Akaya stop. There was the slightest of sounds, like a window shade being drawn back. Behind them, rising up from the shadow of a building like a swimmer appearing out of the water was a woman, her features plain and ordinary, especially for this day and age. She wore a black catsuit and carried a dangerous looking rifle.

“Then prepare to disappoint everyo—“ the woman began.

“Hey!” Shinso called out, suddenly sounding excited for some reason. “I know you!”

#my hero academia #their hero academia #fan fic #fan fiction #my writing #shota shinso #chihiro kaminari #kenta sato #akaya koda #isamu haimawari

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pacific-studies · 5 years

Text

SAT vs. ACT:

What’s the difference, and which one should you take?

First of all i just want to say that standardized testing is its own skill, and that scoring lower on the SAT or ACT is in no way a measure of your intelligence. But with that said, higher scores definitely help get into your college of choice, so it’s important to know what you’re getting into.

(this got kinda long so I put it under keep reading)

Format

One of the largest differences between the SAT and ACT is the format. In the SAT there are 4-5 sections (listed in order):

Reading

65 minutes long (the longest section)

52 multiple choice questions, all based on various passages and possibly graphs or graphics

passages will be previously published works covering a variety of subjects, including world literature, history, and science

after this section you get a 10 minute break

Writing and Language

35 minutes long

44 multiple choice questions

passages are given and the questions have you fix the grammar or word choice

most questions also have a “NO CHANGE” option

Math, No Calculator

25 minutes long

20 questions, mostly multiple choice but a few grid-in questions at the end

13 grid-in questions total between the two math sections

5 minute break after this section

Math with Calculator

55 minutes long

38 questions (grid-in vs. multiple choice explained above)

all questions can technically be solved without a calculator but it will definitely help in some problems

Essay (optional)

50 minutes

read a short passage and explain how the author conveys their argument (aka a rhetorical analysis essay)

the passage is usually a speech, but when I took the SAT I got an online article

The ACT, on the other hand, has (in order):

English

45 minutes long

5 passages, 15 multiple choice questions each (75 total)

“NO CHANGE” option available in most questions

extremely similar to the SAT Writing and Language section

Math

60 minutes

60 multiple choice questions (no grid-in)

calculator allowed the whole time

algebra, geometry, and basic trig. functions

questions are typically asked easiest to hardest

10 minute break after this section

Reading

35 minutes

4 passages with 10 multiple choice questions each (40 total)

passages will be: literary narrative, social science, humanities, natural science

similar to the SAT Reading test, but slightly easier passages and questions (in my experience, but most people tend to agree)

Science

same time and number of questions as the reading section

basically the reading section but with a lot of graphs and tables

basic knowledge in chemistry and biology are really helpful

Experimental Section

this does not happen every test but many people are unaware and are thrown off when it does come up

this section does NOT affect your score, it is a section to test whether these questions can be used in future ACT test

can be any section, but it is shorter than the real section you took (ex: a second Reading section with only 17 questions)

Writing (optional)

40 minutes to write one essay

3 short hypothetical opinions are given on a subject (zoos, society’s emphasis on innovation, online culture, etc.) and you must “join the conversation”

you can side with one of the given opinions or have your own unique perspective, but you must analyze the relationship between perspectives and provide a counter-argument

Scoring

Currently the SAT is scored from 400-1600. You do not lose points for getting questions wrong. Reading and Writing and Language are given a score out of 800, and the two Math sections are given a score out of 800. Self-scoring a practice test is a little complicated but most prep-books with practice tests will include a conversion table and the process to find your scores. Depending on the specific test you take and which question you miss, getting one question wrong can bring you down 0, 10, 20, or more points. The essay is scored on 3 categories: Reading, Analysis, and Writing. 2 graders will grade your essay from 1-4 in each category, and then their scores are added together for each section, for a total of 3 scores from 2-8.

For the ACT, each section (not including writing) is graded from 1-36 (see a conversion table to see how raw scores compare to the scaled score). The four sections are then averaged together for your composite (the official) score. The scores are rounded to the nearest whole number, so if you got a 30, 31, 31, and 30 (which averages to 30.5), then your composite score would be 31. You are also given a STEM score, which is the Math and Science sections averaged together. The essay is graded by 2 graders, who give it a score from 1-6. The two scores are added together for a total score from 2-12.

So Which One Should You Take?

Focusing on one test, rather than both of them, is much more time and cost efficient. Some people tend to score much better on the SAT, some people tend to score much better on the ACT, while others struggle or excel equally in both. The best way to tell, in my opinion, is to take a practice test for both of them. It’s ideal to take the official PSAT or Pre-ACT at an official testing center, but there are many online practice tests and prep books with practice tests where you can self score. Although your scores are important, you should also consider:

Timing

the ACT requires you to be faster than the SAT

if you are typically a fast test-taker, or can speed yourself up easily, the ACT will likely be a better choice

the SAT still requires you to be fast, but there is more time to spend on questions

Endurance

you are likely going to take multiple practice tests and the real test at least once, so make sure you pay attention to which one leaves you the most tired

personally, the SAT was much more draining than the ACT, and my scores reflected it

Your Personal Strengths and Weaknesses

if you’re weaker in science, then the SAT is probably better, since it is mixed into the Reading section and is on a more basic level than the Science section on the ACT

If you’re weaker in English, particularly reading and analysis, then the ACT will likely be better, since the reading section is much shorter and tends to be easier

if you have taken or will take intense classes like AP Chemistry, AP Biology, or AP English Language, the work and learning you do in those classes will help your scores

Essay/Writing

if you have more practice in rhetorical analysis essays, consider the SAT

if you have more practice in argumentative/persuasive essays, then consider the ACT

if you can write a decent essay for either type, then this shouldn’t affect your decision too much

PSAT

there is a scholarship (National Merit / NMSQT) for scoring high in the PSAT your junior year

there is no Pre-ACT scholarship as far as I know

if you focus on the SAT, you should also look into PSAT preparation because being a semi-finalist or finalist can get a lot of money or discounts from certain colleges

#masterpost #long post #SAT #ACT #studyblr #study #studyspo

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

Photo

Lore Olympus (Mermaid Marker Test)‪

So my IRL friend introduced me to this AMAZING comic the other night, called "Lore Olympus," which is sort of a retelling of the Greek Myth of Persephone being kidnapped by Hades: www.webtoons.com/en/romance/lo… I read the whole thing in about two hours. If you like Greek Mythology or even just rom-com comics with super pretty art styles, please go check it out and support it! It updates on Saturdays and is still on-going! So since my friend was fangirling, and then I was fangirling, and we had to wait a whole week for the new chapter/installment, I sketched up a piece of fanart of Persephone and Hades just looking at each other cutely, in outfits from a couple of later chapters. I didn't color it right away because I had just ordered the entire collection of 32 Jane Davenport Mermaid Markers off eBay (For $30 after a $10 off coupon, I might add; had I purchased the individual sets off of Amazon that same night it would've been about $60!) and I was half-waiting for them to come in, half testing my patience to see if I could wait or if I would just cave and color it with colored pencils or alcohol markers before then. Luckily, I held out and they came in that Thursday. So I got to priming and swatching as quickly as possible! Calling them Mermaid "Markers" is a bit misleading; as they're essentially water brushes pre-filled with water-soluble ink. But I kind of understand why they're called that, as the "Mermaid" part insinuates their relationship with water, and they are more like markers that straight-up watercolors, in the sense that you don't technically need water to use them. Still, I think a more accurate name might've been helpful to people that have never heard of these before and have no idea what they're actually going to be like. Fortunately, I had seen these floating around and in a video before considering purchasing them, so I knew pretty much what I was getting, how to prep them, and what to do with them already, and at that point I wasn't even sure I'd want them. But after getting a set of Viviva watercolor sheets back in December and then the Arteza Woodless Watercolor pencils for my Birthday last month, the Mermaid Markers finally piqued my interest enough to want to buy them. I actually felt very lucky to find the eBay listing that I did, as $40 for the whole lot, in new condition (all the boxes still had their little round tapes intact and undisturbed, as well as their sealing rings, which I'll talk more about in a second) was already a great deal compared to buying the individual sets, before I even knew that I had the $10 coupon. Honestly, I was so sure someone was going to buy it before I had the funds, but luckily I was able to buckle down on some commissions and took the opportunity when it presented itself. The only issue I had straight out of the box was that, for some reason, my "Byron Bay" in the 12 set is miraculously missing its label. The best I can figure is it was just a factory oversight, as, like I said before, the boxes were still sealed and the sealing rings on each individual "marker," totally undisturbed, and there is no evidence there ever was one on the marker at all (no lingering bits of adhesive, etc.). It's not a huge deal as it was only one marker, the color names are all available online, and the solution is just as simple as either writing the name on the marker (which is what I've done for now) or printing out a new label. It'd be different if it had been multiple markers, making it difficult to tell which was which. It did take a little while to properly prime each marker; each one had a yellowy-green sealing ring between the screw-on brush tip and the squeezable ink cartridge that had to be removed and some gunk in the brush tip to preserve the shape during shipping, which you just gently wash off in water. And I will note here that it is important to make sure you screw the brush tip portion all the way back on! I had done quite a few and been left with a slight gap between the two sections before one went all the way down with less effort, so I had to go back and use a gripper like you would use to open jars to be able to turn the others the rest of the way down. I think this is important to mention because the one complaint I've seen over, and over, and over again in the Amazon Reviews is about them leaking, and I think in some (but not all) cases this might have been the problem! If one of them hadn't gone on with less effort, I wouldn't have known the difference! The other thing of note, the instructions/tips in each box specifically mention to store them with the brush tip up! Because I'm paranoid, I'm being extra cautious about this, but I suspect in a few cases this may have also been a problem causing leaks--as in people were storing them horizontally or with the brush tip down. I'm not a huge fan of the thin plastic boxes, but it's not a huge deal (as Copic markers use the exact same packaging). I think I would like to procure a case or stand to keep them all together in, though. I've been looking, but I want the case to naturally fit with keeping them upright and be able to sort them in whatever order I like. (Because I have to keep my art supplies organized or my entire world will fall apart). Now, when it comes to the drawing itself, I almost immediately ran into an issue with the line art. I didn't want to do just black, but the watercolor nature of the Mermaid Markers means that water-based ink will run when they touch. The only guaranteed water-proof liners I have are Copic multiliners in black or cobalt. That would've worked for Hades, but not Persephone. (The comic is very color-oriented for the character designs, so it just seemed more natural to do it this way; And besides, I use black lines all. the. time.) So I had to figure something else out. Originally, I tested both my Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils to see what water did to them (as I did plan on using a regular water brush with these to help with blending and stuff), and either one would've worked, as you had to be trying to pull the pigment out like I was to really get noticeable results, especially with the Polychromos, which are advertised as being water-resistant. I almost used them, but then I looked over and remembered: I have Dr. Ph Martin inks! In a variety of colors, that are supposed to be water-proof and lightfast (not that that means that much in this situation since most watercolors aren't lightfast anyway) when dry! So I got really crazy and broke out my dip pen and did the lines with that in red-violet, blue, and violet. Veeeeeeery carefully. Then I set it aside to dry for a couple of hours. (For the record, the red-violet lines are a couple shades darker IRL, the scan lightened them and seemingly them alone for some reason.) In hindsight, I might have done better to let it dry for a full 24+ hours. I say that because, while the ink was definitely dry enough to open and close the sketchbook with no issue, there were a few spots, particularly with the blue, that did bloat/bleed a little after I started going in with the Mermaid Markers and some water. Mind you, I wasn't like, drowning those spots with water or anything. Fortunately, I was able to sort of "push" and move the color around so that it didn't ruin anything. Beyond that, the pigment just willingly pulled out about as much as the colored pencils did when I was testing those, but that wasn't a huge issue since the characters are monochromatic and I was able to use it to my advantage. However, that definitely would've been an issue if I had lined with a color that didn't blend with the fill-in colors. So I will be more cautious of that sort of thing going forward. The Mermaid Markers themselves were actually kind of fun to work with, aside from the slight learning curve, since watercolors, in general, are mostly unfamiliar territory for me. The biggest issue I had was just trying to blend the right purple for the background, but that has more to do with my inexperience and the overall color selection. In general and just swatched out, the entire color collection of all 32 Mermaid Markers has a really interesting color family, with a number of shades that I think are fairly unique. (Or at least they seem unique to my eyes that are more familiar with color pencil palettes). The tradeoff is that there are some shades that are pretty, but might be a little "off" from the colors I'm used to working with. In this case, there is a muted lavender color called "Jellyfish" that I was using primarily to fill in the heart. However, it was a bit on the warm/pink side for my liking, including pairing with the "Deep Sea" darker purple, which was more of a neutral, maybe slightly blueish purple. It turned out okay with my attempts to "cool it down," but I still have some things to learn with watercolor, and until I really get the hang of it, I know the slightly unusual color choices with these might be a bit of a challenge to work through. The other thing is there are two "specialty" sets of the Mermaid Markers; one called "Celestial Sky" and one called "Shimmering Sky," which are metallic and glitter effects, respectively, and meant to be shaken up before use a bit like paint pens. The effects for both sets are really beautiful, I just wish there were more colors! There are only 4 of each; the Celestial Sky is more neutral/traditional metallic colors, and the Shimmering Sky colors are two pinkish and two blueish colors that look like they would pair well with the "Shipwrecked" set of 6. This isn't necessarily a bag thing--I want more colors of a product I like. I just thought I'd point it out while I was on the color thing. Still, they blended really nice and smoothly, and fortunately, they didn't argue too much with me when I made a mistake and tried to take some off/lighten it, etc. Once I was done coloring, I obviously went back and did Persephone's little leaf crown and outlined the butterflies on either side of her head with gel pens. Surprisingly, the pens went over this noticeably easier than the Arteza Woodless Watercolor Pencils, which I found odd. I did have to do a bit of tapping, but I pretty much always expect that no matter what I'm working with. Not sure what to make of that. (Though if I had to guess I suspect it had something to do with the fillers used in the pencils). I tried to use the glittery Mermaid Markers to give Hades a bit of pink blush and Persephone a bit of blue blush, but while Hades' worked out pretty okay, I think the blue was just too dark for Persephone as it didn't really blend out properly and, as you can see, to keep it from looking like she was bruised or I'd made a massive mistake, I ended up lifting most of it off entirely. But, at the very least, some of the glitter is still there so when you see it in the light it still sparkles a bit to tie in with the glittery gel pen I used for the crown. The only real thing I'm truly not happy about is that between the sketch and inking, Persephone's face slimmed down/got a little more angular than what I wanted. In the comic, she usually has a very round face to me. But it's not the end of the world; the art style is pretty fluid most of the time (which ends up adding to its charm and really lends itself to the characters' expressiveness) anyway, so drawing the characters "accurately" can only go so far, I think. (Compared to something where the characters are pretty much always 100% on-model, anyway). I think it did turn out very sweet though And now if you'll excuse me, I'll be waiting with bated breath for the next chapter to go up. The second-to-last one was a major plot doozy! ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings Lore Olympus & Characters belong to Rachel Smythe ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#loreolympus #mermaidmarkers

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joolshallie · 7 years

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The BMAT

The BMAT is the BioMedical Admissions Test - some universities require this test as part of application process. Quite a few medical schools such as Oxbridge, Leeds and King’s require it. In all previous years the BMAT was taken in the first week of November, but this year a new September sitting has been introduced (sorry this post is too late for people who took that!), so that you know your results before applying through UCAS - the deadline for this is 15th October every year.

This is useful because it can help you apply smart (playing to your strengths) to get the best chance at an interview. However, it’s important to note that Oxford doesn’t accept the September results for medicine or biomedical sciences, so you must sit the November test if you want to apply to Oxford.

Registration:

You take the BMAT in registered centres across the UK (I don’t know about international students), and should be able to google your closest one. Schools can be centres that run the BMAT, so check if your school does this. For the September sitting registration opens at the beginning of July and closes mid August. For the November sitting registration opens on the 1st September and closes on the 1st October.

Test Format:

Unlike the UKCAT, which is taken on a computer, the BMAT is a pen-and-paper test. The total time allowed is 2 hours, and in that time there are 3 different sections. The separate sections/papers are handed out after you have completed the previous section so you can’t go back to previous sections, you must only have the time allotted.

Section 1: Aptitude & Skills - 60 min - this section is 35 multiple choice questions which test problem solving skills and data analysis, as well as your ability to infer things from arguments/passages. I’d say it is like a mix of the QR and VR sections from the UKCAT.

Section 2: Scientific Knowledge & Applications - 30 min - this section is essentially a mix of 27 science and maths questions (multiple choice). There are questions addressing bio, chem and phy, so if you don’t take physics (like I didn’t) or one of the other sciences at A-Level make sure you refresh your knowledge. BMAT say you need GCSE level knowledge in all of the subjects in this.

Section 3: Essay - 30 min - you are given 4 questions and you have to write an essay on one of these. There is usually a more medically orientated question (I did one on the junior doctor’s contracts), and a more biochem/science based one; there is also usually a question that involves some ethics in it, or a quote that you have to write about. The question usually asks you to explain the question and to argue for/against the statement.

Scoring & Results:

For sections 1 and 2 you get a score between 1-9 with 1 being low and 9 being high. BMAT state that average applicants score a 5.0 with only very good candidates getting a 6.0 or over. Don’t be upset if you get under 5.0 in either section because the cohort of people taking BMAT are going to be of a high standard, so don’t think you’re ‘under average’ or not going to get in.

For Section 3 you get a score between 0-5 for the quality of the content of your essay, and a letter from A-E which scores the quality of your grammar/language.

The results are released online late September for people doing the September sitting, and in late November for people taking the November test. The way a university uses the BMAT in the selection process will vary, so check the institution’s website to check how they use your result.

General Advice:

Make sure you read and work from the specification (2017) - there is a new one every year but there are usually not any major changes.

Do all the past papers you can. At first you can just work through questions in a relaxed manner, but nearer the exam make sure you do timed sections. I found that section 2 was the most time-pressured, so make sure you identify and work on whatever your weaknesses are.

If you didn’t take one of the sciences/maths at A-Level I suggest going through a CGP GCSE guide to remind yourself of the content you need to know for section 2.

Make sure you do a full timed paper at some point, to make sure you have the stamina/concentration to get through the 2 hours.

If you take all sciences at A-Level make sure you practise the essay section a lot to get back into the habit of writing a large volume in a short time, and in a well constructed way.

Get English teachers to mark you essays - although there aren’t comprehensive mark schemes, and your teacher may not be too familiar with the topic you’re writing about, it is still worth getting their feedback on your general writing style.

Make sure you plan the essay question before you start writing. Think of arguments for and against - you should show a balanced view and then come down on one side, as the question often asks “to what extent...?”

Online Resources/Books:

BMAT website - you can access past papers from here

Preparing for the BMAT (this is the book Oxford recommends)

ISC’s 700 BMAT questions

#studyblr #studyspo #study motivation #medblr #bmat #uni #joolshallie

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itsworn · 5 years

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Cleveland Power & Performance Puts Dodge’s Most Iconic Body on a Fully Functioning Hellcat

Body swaps are difficult to successfully pull off. Consider the oddly proportioned Ferrari bodykits on C4 Corvette or Fiero chassis. Unless the dimensions of both cars are nearly identical, like a Tri-Five body on a 9C1 Caprice frame, your average body swap usually looks a bit off because of the work required to make the two line up. Given that, we were dubious of the success of this swap—a 1969 Charger built on a 2016 Hellcat chassis—when we first heard about it more than a year ago. Cleveland Power & Performance (CP&P), the shop that performed the entire build in-house, did little to encourage any optimism, either, by shooting the in-process photos in unflattering angles and disguising their subtle craftsmanship with ghastly chrome wheels.

“Yeah, we did that on purpose,” CP&P owner Rick Fragnoli said, laughing. “Those wheels were terrible, but we wanted to keep the final design and look of the car a secret.” It paid off.

The body was heavily modified, but the overall dimensions are true 1969 Charger; some pieces were enhanced, such as extensions built onto the front fenders to mate with the Hellcat lower bumper and deeper door recesses.

It may be a surprise to learn the builders are an underdog in the industry. “No one wanted to sponsor the car,” Rick said. Their goal was to be featured as a SEMA booth display vehicle. “We had at least one company back out at the very last minute, and we didn’t think we’d be able to take the car to SEMA.” When the car was finally unveiled at the Kooks Headers and Exhaust booth at the 2018 SEMA Show, the public reaction was epic.

Leading up to SEMA’s results were the 30-year efforts of the Fragnoli family’s evolving company. In 1986, Rick’s father, Rick Sr., lost an important promotion at his former job, so he quit it and purchased a junkyard in Columbia Station, Ohio, the same day. With no real knowledge or interest in cars, Rick Sr. started a family business with sons Rick (this story’s main character) and Brian.

The team at Cleveland Power & Performance (CP&P) created their own custom mix of PPG Paint they call Strangler Green.

In 1999, Rick bought a wrecked but nearly new Trans Am Formula from his dad and fixed it in a flash. With pops on vacation, Rick took the newly running car on its maiden voyage and got sideswiped. Rick still owed his dad for the car, so instead of repairing it again, he sold the LS1 driveline, a hot item in 1999. This marked the company’s first drivetrain package sold. Since then, the Fragnolis have focused on selling drivetrain-swap packages, so if the name Cleveland Power & Performance sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen the drivetrain-swap-on-a-pallet packages online and on the company��s social media. CP&P crates up complete, turnkey driveline swaps and markets them by firing up the engines right on the pallet. The kits come with everything you need—fuel system, pedal assembly, instrument panel, wiring harnesses, and ECM—to install the package into the older car of your choice.

Now, 60 percent of the company’s business is devoted to drivetrain sales and 40 percent to building cars, but the team receives little recognition for their projects. “So we thought, Let’s build the ultimate car using as much of our products as we can and show people we can actually build cars.” But what car? “If we were going to build something this big, we had to do with the best body we could, a ’69 Charger,” Rick said.

The functional air-dam hood has familiar lines, but it’s all custom. Beginning with an Ato Metal Direct Charger hood, the team cut and reshaped it multiple times, once even having it in seven separate pieces. The hinges were another issue, as they had to fold into the firewall. It took three months to complete the hood.

Thus, “Reverence” was born from three separate cars: a 2016 Hellcat Challenger chassis, a 2016 Hellcat Charger drivetrain, and a 1969 Charger body. The Challenger was a theft-recovery from Houston, and all that remained was a basic structure and dash. The Charger arrived at CP&P riddled with more than 30 bullet holes. “It was apparently a movie-style shootout,” Rick said. The electronics and interior were needed for the police investigation, but the drivetrain was complete and uninjured. The 1969 Charger was purchased as a bare—but complete—body and included spare parts and two engines.

The build began by removing the front clips of each of the Hellcats and stripping the Challenger to just its floorpan, rockers, and trunk floor. The 1969 Charger’s floorboard and trunk pan were removed, and with the quarter-panels loosely hung, the body of the ’69 was raised and lowered on a lift over the Hellcat chassis more than 40 times over the course a year. The team would measure, cut a piece, and measure again. When the two bodies were finally molded together, custom rockers needed to be built to make up the difference in width, as the 2016 chassis is narrower than the 1969 Charger.

Four years ago, CP&P changed its name from Cleveland Pick-a-Part, trying to distinguish the business as more than just a junkyard.

Aside from the width, however, both the new and old vehicles are surprisingly similar in dimensions, a true testament to Dodge’s retro design. The 2016 Hellcat Challenger has a similar width and wheelbase to the 1969 Charger. But the 1969 Charger has 9.5 inches of extra overhang to the rear bumper. Likewise in the front, the fenders needed custom-fabricated mounts. The core support is a combination of both the ’69 and ’16 pieces, as it was used to hang not only the 1969 Charger’s fenders, bumper, and hood latch but also the Hellcat’s radiator, intercooler, and headlights.

The front end distinguishes this body swap from the rest, thanks to its combination of components. The front grille, from the hood to the steel bumper, is mostly 1969 Charger with frenched and tucked black-chrome bumpers and Hellcat hideaway headlights. A modified Hellcat bumper sits below the steel bumper. Originally, none of the lines matched, so the team built metal extensions on the factory fenders to mate with the Hellcat bumper and splitter. Inside that lower bumper is a custom aluminum grille, which took six weeks to build by hand.

The stance comes from the modified wheelwells and KW Variant 4 coilover kit, which drops the otherwise-stock Hellcat suspension 1-1/2 inches.

The project relied on the car being fully functional, which involved much trial and error. For instance, the cowl and firewall of the 1969 Charger only needed to house the wiper motor. Now, it’s filled with electronics, A/C vents, and the bigger wiper motor of the new car. The cowl was rebuilt twice after discovering the first design didn’t allow access to the wiper motor. All accessories, electronics, and features of the Hellcat are functional in Reverence, without any error codes.

The Hellcat Charger’s mostly stock engine has been upgraded with a healthy tune, Metco pulley, and Kooks Headers and Exhaust 2.00-inch headers. Reverence made 722 hp to the tires on pump gas, a significant upgrade from the claimed stock 707 hp to the crank. Out back is a one-piece aluminum driveshaft from The Driveshaft Shop and Mopar Performance 3.09 rear gears with a limited-slip differential.

CCW SP551 Monoblock one-piece wheels measure 20×9.5 inches all around and are wrapped in Pirelli P Zero 275/40ZR20 up front and 315/35ZR20 out back.

After several show appearances in the spring, the car will be sold to raise funds for CP&P’s next project. “I’m also really proud of it, and I wouldn’t change a thing. There will be a spot in my heart missing when it goes, like sending a kid off to college, but it will be time to move on when it’s ready,” Rick said.

Saying a body swap is simple is like saying winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans is effortless. While a lot of people have done it, it isn’t easy. The task involves an enormous amount of time, effort, research, and errors. Reverence’s premise was straightforward, yet the execution was far more complex. Integrating Dodge’s most iconic body styling with one of its best-performing cars of all time was no easy feat, but judging by the reaction so far, it’s safe to say the team at CP&P pulled it off.

Performance of the mostly stock powerplant was improved a bit with a 2.85-inch Metco pulley, 10-percent ATI Super Damper, and stainless-steel Kooks Hellcat long-tube 2-inch headers and 3-inch dual exhaust.

2016 Hellcat Challenger Weight 4,449 lbs Wheelbase 116.2 in Outside length 197.5 in Outside width 75.7 in Overall height 55.7 in

1969 Dodge Charger Wheelbase 117 in Weight 3,100–3,682 lbs Outside length 208 in Outside width 76.7 in Outside height 53.2 in

The real black chrome on the bumpers and gas cap give the car a stealthy appearance. Chroming was performed by Ogden Chrome in Ogden, Utah.

Total Cost

Projects like this are expensive, especially when a company’s marketing budget is invested in one build. Although it wasn’t a cheap build, the CP&P team used its junkyard knowledge to save some dough.

Here is the 2016 Hellcat Challenger with the top of the body being removed.

1969 Charger Shell Cost purchased: $19,000 Estimated parts sold: $7,000 The car came with multiple engines, sets of bodywork, and spare parts. Since the Hellcat was to donate its inner structure, a large part of the 1969 Charger wasn’t needed.

This was the moment the 1969 body came to rest on the Hellcat chassis. From this point, the team worked extensively to get the overall look right, reworking the wheelwells, height, rockers, and overall stance.

2016 Challenger Hellcat Shell Purchased price: $4,000 Estimated parts sold: $3,800 The Challenger was a theft-recovery car from Houston, where thieves stole the drivetrain, suspension, brakes, and wheels, leaving only the unibody structure, A/C vents, and miscellaneous pieces.

The team built steel sections that mimic the shape of the Hellcat bumper but act as fender extensions. All that remains of the original Hellcat lower bumper is a portion of the centersection.

2016 Charger Hellcat Drivetrain/Car Purchased price: $25,000 Estimated parts sold: $5,500 This particular vehicle was used for its drivetrain, but it wasn’t complete; many items were removed to be used in a police investigation.

Total cost invested: $45,000 Total cost of parts sold: $16,300

The post Cleveland Power & Performance Puts Dodge’s Most Iconic Body on a Fully Functioning Hellcat appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/cleveland-power-performance-puts-dodges-iconic-body-fully-functioning-hellcat/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hot Rod Network

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fmservers · 6 years

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The tactics behind The Athletic’s breakout success in sports subscriptions

Local newspapers may be shuttering and people may be consuming most news on social media, but don’t tell Alex Mather that a subscription news publication can’t grow like a unicorn startup. His 2-year-old sports publisher The Athletic has gained over 100,000 paid subscribers (60% under age 34) and has a 90% retention rate.

Having already raised $30 million in its short life, the company announced a new $40 million Series C yesterday, led by Founders Fund and Bedrock Capital. It reportedly values The Athletic around $200 million.

I interviewed Alex Mather (The Athletic’s CEO) and Eric Stomberg (Partner at Bedrock Capital) to understand what’s behind the breakout success and why they think this publishing startup can scale to become a multi-billion dollar company.

EP: Bedrock makes concentrated, contrarian bets. Explain how The Athletic fits that.

ES: I first met Alex and Adam in 2016 during Y Combinator. The popular view then, as it remains now, was that people just aren’t willing to pay for content online and that to win in media you have to put out a high volume of free articles on social.

The Athletic took the opposite approach. It’s a narrative violation. Everything is part of a paid subscription, with the belief that instead of writers needing to post 3-4 pieces per day, they should focus on deeper stories that add value to paid subscribers over time. That worldview resonated with us. If you can create content at scale that people are willing to pay for, that’s a powerful economic engine.

There’s so much sports coverage already out there, by professionals and amateurs alike, so why are people willing to pay for The Athletic?

AM: While there appears to be an abundance of content, most of it is aggregated, shallow content for a broad audience. We produce fewer stories and target a diehard fan. Our subscribers consistently tell us that no one else produces the same depth on a daily basis.

How did you determine the $60/year price point?

AM: We think of $60/year ($5/month) as less than the average NBA ticket. It’s a meaningful price but not prohibitive, especially when we do discounts in the first year. Like all subscription companies, whether we like it or not, we have to consider how our pricing stacks up against Netflix. For $10/month, you can subscribe to Netflix which is spending $8 billion per year in content.

Is The Athletic profitable?

AM: We expand by launching in local markets. We are in 47 thus far. The operational focus is on building a local team and becoming profitable in each local market. I can tell you that most markets are profitable in the first year–currently all of our markets over one year old are profitable and most of those over 6 months old are profitable.

(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

Explain your growth strategy in terms of coverage: which sports did you start with and at which level (local vs national)?

AM: Direct-to-consumer businesses have to work really to earn their subscribers’ hard-earned money. We have to obsess over where we can be different. In the beginning, that was with hockey and baseball, because those have been de-prioritized by the bigger players. That shifted as we gained more subscribers: we needed to become comprehensive. We hired folks to cover the NBA, to cover the NFL, to cover soccer.

Do subscribers usually come just for one local sport or for the broader bundle?

AM: We’ve built a powerful bundle. A local newspaper has local politics, local restaurants, and then local sports. We have just the sports, but add a national perspective and a nationwide bundle. Most of our subscribers are “super bundlers,” meaning they subscribe to content from multiple cities plus at least one national product and usually a college product that’s not local. We provide all that for significantly less than competitors.

Eric — as a VC looking for multi-billion dollar exits, how are you analyzing the potential scale of a subscription publication like this? Even most people who are bullish on subscriptions believe it’s a choice of going for a niche audience and staying small.

ES: There are two things we look for in a subscription business: retention and a positive flywheel.

Retention. In any subscription business, the key question is: can they maintain their subscribers over time? Most of them don’t. Spotify does, Netflix does, and The Athletic does as well. The Athletic is off the charts, which sets it up for scale. You want to see deep engagement over a very, very long period of time — years.

A positive flywheel. The more you build your subscriber base, the more you build your revenue base. That allows you to get better content, to hire unique writers, to build greater depth. In doing so, you attract people who weren’t ready to subscribe in the early days but now you have writers they follow and content they want. Technology is important here too: as you build a bigger platform with more content, serving the right content at the right time to each user is a key advantage. When this flywheel is working it’s actually quite hard to put a ceiling on the business.

Most publishers did a so-called “pivot to video” over the last couple of years. You’re anchored in writing. Why not more video at the start?

AM: We’re obsessed with the consumer and all our research in the beginning said that people still like to read books and articles. Advertising with text may not be as good as with video, which may be why so many other companies “pivoted to video,” but we think the written word is still the best way to convey certain types of stories. It’s straightforward, it doesn’t require headphones.

There’s an incredible amount of talent out there that can produce these stories and that has been cast aside by many entities. We saw it as an opportunity to give them great jobs and bring value to our subscribers. That has paid off for us.

What are your plans for video or other content formats in the future?

AM: We raised this Series C with audio and video in mind. We can tell even more stories when we add in audio and video possibilities. Our goal is to serve the subscriber: some love to read, some love to listen, others prefer to watch. We look up to things like The Ringer, Andre the Giant on HBO, VICE News, Gimlet, and The Daily by the New York Times all as incredible storytelling, and we ask ourselves “how can we do sports versions of those?”.

Why focus on hiring experienced, full-time writers rather than a stable of contributors or curating from the vast pool of content by fans? Lots of amateurs pay close attention to sports.

AM: What’s really important to us is a growth mentality — that by Day 100 on our team a writer is thinking very differently. We’re providing lots of data, lots of feedback. We invest in great people who will figure this out with us over time. Also, scaling so quickly from 0 to 300 editorial staff was possible because we recruited experienced talent who know what to do already.

We do have about 400 contributors as well. These are folks who may be lawyers or accountants but are passionate about the teams they cover. We are a way for them to reach a premium audience. We can pay them really well and give them world-class editors formerly with Sports Illustrated and ESPN.

How are you acquiring your subscribers?

AM: When we expand into a new market, we gain new subscribers by hiring writers who have a following already and by word of mouth from existing subscribers. Then like any direct-to-consumer brand, we are acquiring subscribers through Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

You financially incentivize your writers based on them acquiring new subscribers through their articles or by promoting The Athletic with their followers online. That is very uncommon in publishing. Explain that strategy.

It ties back to our focus on building for the long term and investing in talent that will grow with us. We like to assign incentives that give us the best chance of building a sustainable business and we think about compensation in that way. We give our team equity in the company and for many, we tie a portion of their comp to the performance of their team, sport, city. It’s a great way to share in the responsibility and success of the business.

At the bottom of articles, you ask readers to rate each story as “Meh”, “Solid”, or “Awesome”. I wish every publisher did this. How do you use this data? How do a writer’s scores impact them?

AM: It’s about feedback loops. Our writers gauge feedback when they share on Twitter. This is another data point. It helps paint a more complete picture. NPS alone isn’t enough of course though. We look at whether articles drive new subscribers, drive deep engagement, drive comments, etc. We don’t use pageviews, but we certainly use metrics. Usually, this results in a writer producing very different work on Day 100 than they were on Day 0.

Explain the interaction between subscribers. It’s not unique to have a comments section: there are bad comments sections, good comments sections, and comments sections that go unused. At a tactical level, how do you think about building community?

My co-founder and I met at Strava, the social network for endurance athletes. I ran the product team and we were obsessed with community. We see an incredible connection between community engagement and subscriber retention. The question that drives us is how can we connect users in an authentic way, how can we connect users to our staff in an authentic way, how can we connect users to athletes in an authentic way. We’re doing a lot of experimentation here. We have a distinct opportunity because of our paywall: most of the comments on The Athletic are saying substantive things.

Via Eric Peckham https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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game-refraction · 7 years

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Game Review: Marvel Heroes - Omega (Xbox One)

Marvel Heroes: Omega is the console version of Marvel Heroes, a PC isometric MMO in the style of the Marvel Alliance franchise. Whereas Marvel Heroes on the PC has changed much over the course of the past 4 years, with various updates to its content and increasing character roster, Marvel Heroes: Omega has finally released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with just over half of the characters already available on PC, and a completely revamped crafting system. The game, unfortunately, suffers from a multitude of technical problems and a framerate that borders on almost unplayable throughout several sections of the game, but despite these issues, Marvel Heroes: Omega is a blast to play solo or with a group of friends.

Gazillion has crafted a free-to-play game that it not shy about making you aware that much of what you want is behind a steep paywall, with even breakout character Spider-Gwen as a random Spider-man alternate costume variant. Characters will run you anywhere from around $5 for a less popular character to $10 to $15 for the more standout characters like Deadpool or Rocket Raccoon, with a few characters exclusive to certain bundles. These bundles do make it somewhat cheaper per character, but when you charge $60 for a 6-person Avengers team or $40 for 2 members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and their movie skins, it starts to get rather ridiculous, and that’s not even talking about the premium currency bundles that peak at the $100 mark.

The game does offer the ability to earn the currency needed to unlock new characters, but unlike the PC version, you can’t craft the alternative costumes and the ones here in Omega are via the pay model only. You can spend real money and earn characters with “G” dollars, or through Eternity Splinters, which are drip-fed in-game like a fully functional faucet, which is to say; they are somewhat rare. A cheap character like Majik is 500 Eternity Splinters and throughout my 16 hours with the game, I have only earned 208 out of the 500 I need to unlock her, and I was very thorough in my hacking and slashing. To own each and every character will either take thousands of hours within the game or hundreds of real-life dollars when you take in account all the extra costumes as well.

The same goes for purchasing costumes with Marvelous Essence, a currency that is given at random via the loot boxes that you pay for with real money. I opened 7 boxes and gained 63 of the 140 I needed for Spider-Gwen. 2 boxes were via the $20 Spider-Man pack, which came with the Homecoming movie outfits, as well as the default Spider-man character, and a 5 pack of Spider-Man themed loot boxes that ‘may’ contain the Spider-Gwen variant. Spoilers; they didn’t, but I did nab the Black Spider-Man costume in the process.

While you can test drive any character up until level 10, you’ll eventually have to make a choice and spend your initial 225 Eternity Splinters on a character that you may not even want, as many characters require a bit more than that to unlock. With my limited funds, I unlocked Angela, as I am a huge fan of the character and was pleased as punch to see her make her Marvel Comics debut just a short few years ago. Currently, the man without fear, Daredevil, is free on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 online stores. It’s expected that sometime in the near future we will see all the remaining characters from the PC version make their console debut, more than likely in very costly bundles.

Free-to-play shenanigans aside, how does Marvel Heroes: Omega play? Really fun, but with several caveats that I’ll get into later. If you’ve played any isometric hack and slash games like the Marvel titles it is trying to emulate or even a game like Diablo 3, then you’re going to feel right at home here. Your face buttons are your skill attacks and by holding the left trigger, you’ll gain access to four more. These skills are unlocked at set levels that you’ll work your way up to by earning experience and leveling up. There are booster items that you can use to give that leveling a much-needed kick in the pants should you want to skip most of the grind.

Some skills can be used back to back whereas many have a cooldown that requires you to wait a short while before you can use it again. As you defeat enemies and bosses, or by completing certain quests, you will earn loot. These are weapons, helmet’s, boots, rings, and a wide range of relics, artifacts, and medallions, all that grant stat boosts to a set variety of perks. The loot problem with Marvel Heroes: Omega, and even just that of regular Marvel Heroes, is that with so many people running around as the same character, none of this gear physically changes the appearance of your character, meaning that my level 60 Angela will look identical to that of a level 4 version. I strongly feel that this is a huge letdown in respects to making that character actually mean something to you when you’ve spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours with them.

The gear you earn by defeating enemies requires you to pop into your inventory to even check it out, meaning that you’ll need to stop moving around, find somewhere safe, and then check out what you got. This disrupts the fast paced nature of its combat and feels like a step back in game design rather than one forward. I often wouldn’t even check my spoils until my bag was full, which happened often since your ‘free’ space is extremely minimal and I didn’t feel like spending real money to boost my storage space. Thankfully, you can teleport to your headquarters to sell your goods with a tap of a button and then right back to where you were, and if you are quick about it, several of the items left on the ground may even remain there when you get back.

Characters range from being a bit more close combat to ranged attackers using gunfire or optic blasts. Most characters have a bit of both and there really isn’t a poor character across the whole roster. There are a few characters that I never saw running around, but that’s more likely due to the popularity of some of them. Gazillion also didn’t want to renew the license for the Fantastic Four, so Johnny, Ben, Sue, and Reed are nowhere to be found. In fact, there is a Marvel Heroes Museum in the game that has a blank section that used to feature the Fantastic family.

The story in the game is penned by Brian Michael Bendis and normally I adore his work, but the story here is so painfully mediocre that it seems very much as if they had the majority of the game built and then needed some loose narrative to string it all together. The story follows the events of Doctor Doom gaining control of the Cosmic Cube and then utilizing its powers to take over the world. The problem, apart from the awful dialogue and the story itself, is that the game lacks any real sense of presentation. Most of the story is told through voiceovers or animated cutscenes that are static images that feature some movement to small details or the camera just moves around on a single image. The cutscenes suffer from some really bad horizontal tearing that occurs quite frequently and several of my cutscenes were playing in multiple languages. I also have to point out that the art used in the cutscenes is wildly inconsistent in its quality and felt extremely subpar considering you literally have some of the best comic book artists in the world working for Marvel right now.

Overall, the story took me around 15 hours and the last chapter of the game felt tacked on. The final encounter to both Doom and the last chapter boss were far better fights than anything else in the game and I felt as if several of the boss fights throughout the game would have benefitted from this level of variety. Regardless of it being Venom, Juggernaut, or Living Laser, the bosses felt like the same encounters over and over again, and often I simply used the same tactics from one boss to the next. There are small changes to certain encounters like Bullseye, where the game will require to you hide behind cover, but other than that; rinse, recycle, repeat.

The boss encounters when playing with other players is a sight to behold, but not for the right reasons. Take a look at the above screenshot and tell me if you can even see the boss we are fighting, let alone my character. While the game is flashy and some of the attacks are wonderfully animated, when you have several characters wailing away on a single enemy, it can get so hectic and so chaotic that it can be hard to tell what is even going on. This can also lead to several areas of the game where the framerate will drop to maybe 10 or 15 fps, and this is especially apparent in Asgard as the fields are just filled with so many enemies that the game just barely chugs along. I’ve had the game crash when it got really bad, but that only happened two or three times. One of those times was after I had finally defeated Doctor Doom and as I was about to pick up my rewards, the game crashed. Thankfully, those items were still there when I loaded the game back up.

I also had a weird glitch when I was on the hunt for MODOK. As you enter the facility where MODOK is waiting for you, you have to destroy a few objects around the level as well as take on three villains that lay in wait for you. I missed one item but eventually found MODOK at the end of a long hallway. I killed MODOK and my objective marker did not update. The portal to HQ was there and when I entered it, my objective marker still indicated that I needed to defeat MODOK. I looked online for a fix to this and discovered that if you swap characters and then back, it will refresh that mission and thankfully, it worked.

The game will take you to a fairly impressive amount of Marvel staple locations; Hell’s Kitchen, Asgard, Midtown, and even to the Savage Land. While these locations are incredibly vast, each holding a variety of secrets areas and NPC’s to interact with, much of them suffer from severe cases of cut and paste. The city levels, for example, will have the same grocery store a block over, or the same park literally a short walk away. While it’s nice to have large and widespread levels, these feel a bit too artificial and lack variety.

Upon hitting level 60, which I seemed to have timed out perfectly upon completing the story, unlocked a few things privy to that level. Ultimate attacks, which are more powerful abilities that have a fairly lengthy cooldown will be added to your move list to unleash when things get dire. You also unlock Infinity stones, which are different groups of stat based categories that allow you to pick and choose certain stat upgrades to your character. You can also prestige your character which will see power and talents reset, but you will retain your Ultimate attack upgrades and Infinity points. You’ll also lose all items that cannot be used by level 1 characters. If you plan on getting a character to the best it can get, this transition is crucial.

Once you’ve completed the main story then you’ll be grinding out various activities on your journey to collect the best gear available for your character. You’ll gain access to Operations; small bite-sized missions that you can complete alone or with a group. Patrols, at least the ones that I did, almost felt like a boss hunt mode where a group of us toured midtown in search of timed released boss encounters. There are also Trials, which are tests of strength against hordes of various enemies that will unlock harder difficulties that allow you access to better grades of gear. There are also Danger Room missions that are short experiences that are fairly fun with a group. While these modes can offer a decent amount of fun, they feel very small in the grand scheme of things for content to do after you’ve already pushed through the story. Revisiting the same places gets a bit old even if they do toss in a few villains that didn’t make an appearance in the story.

Crafting has been rebuilt entirely for Omega and while you can craft during the main campaign, it will probably look to suit you better post game. You have four main sections to utilize crafting for; R&D, Science, Engineering, and Logistics. Each can be leveled up to 20, allowing you to make better items and have more access to better crafting services. This is where you will use the in-game money that drops alongside your loot. I attempted a few times to craft items but my crafting level was so low that I ended up wasting materials making items that were nowhere near as good as the stuff I was currently wearing. You’ll occasionally pick up items that are designed to be donated to increase your crafting level at each of the four crafting NPC’s, but regular items will work as well and several of them contribute a great deal of XP.

Character attacks, animations and the detail given to their models are fairly decent and in some cases, rather great. Some environments look fantastic and have some nice little details that can be missed in the chaos that comes with combat. The menus in-game are sadly poor and are not as intuitive as they could be. The item selection is via a circle menu that isn’t great for quick selecting on the fly during combat. The menus also feel sluggish when moving from page to page. Loading, however; is incredibly fast and it never takes more than a few seconds to load into a new area or back to HQ.

There are several instances where the game got incredibly glitchy, apart from the issues I have already talked about. Huge chunks of levels sometimes didn’t load (see picture to the left) and I had several times where the floor texture was staying low-res for almost 10-15 minutes. I’ve had my entire HUD disappear for almost an hour and didn’t even fix itself upon rebooting the game. I’ve mentioned a few times now that the framerate is awful and frankly, it’s hard to really convey that unless you see it in action. The game is a technical mess and Gazillion is already aware of this and is looking to patch several of the well-known issues soon. I hope that in a few short months that these issues are ironed out because it can really affect how much fun this game can actually be.

Marvel Heroes: Omega is plagued with vast technical problems, glitches, and some design choices that don’t quite work. The menus are slow, unresponsive and feel more like placeholders than anything finalized. Despite these issues, there is still quite a bit to enjoy here. Sure, the PC version still has a decent 25+ more characters than what we currently have here, and the paywall blocking costumes and characters is a bit steep, but you can easily enjoy much of the content here for free or by paying a few bucks to get the character you actually want. The game can be played solo, but the real enjoyment of the game is found in teaming up with a few friends and taking the fight to the numerous bosses you’ll encounter. It’s not perfect, far from it, but it’s still a great time.

Marvel Heroes: Omega was reviewed and played for Xbox One. All screenshots were taken and uploaded to the Windows 10 app.

Game Review: Marvel Heroes – Omega (Xbox One) was originally published on Game-Refraction

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cesarhcastrojr · 7 years

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A recruiter receives 250 resume applications for every job posting. After reading hundreds of applications, I wouldn’t be surprised if the resumes all start looking the same to them.

How can you make sure your resume stands out from the ones they receive? This article will show you how.

How do you make your resume stand out as the best? (graphic source)

Before we dive into these great ways to make your resume stand out quickly, first consider using a professional (stand out) resume template. We have hundreds of great designs that are ready to customize to your work experience and needs.

Now let's get into these killer resume tips to make your resume content, writing, and design better, so you can stand out as the best applicant and land the job you're aiming for:

10 Ways Make Your Resume Stand Out With Great Content

1. Open Strong to Stand Out Quickly

The first 20 words of your resume are critical because that’s the rough equivalent of what a person can read in six to seven seconds—the average time a recruiter spends reading your resume.

Your email and contact details at the top are exempt from this, mainly because recruiters won’t bother with them until they’ve vetted your application.

With 20 words, that’s just enough for the first one or two bullet points of your professional summary. Use these points to summarize your expertise and career progression.

For example:

“Full Stack Engineer with 15 years combined experience in iOS development, web development, and Internet of Things (IoT).”

That’s one bullet point with a job title, length of tenure, and a list of key skills all in 18 words.

2. Add Side Projects to Your Resume

Side projects show that you’re a hustler, and that you use your free time to acquire new skills to improve the quality of your work.

Side projects, including freelance and volunteer work related to your job works best in increasing your credentials. But you could also list gigs indirectly related to your day job. For instance, working as a property manager part-time builds administrative and customer service skills, two skill sets transferable to many industries.

These side projects could be listed along with your day jobs to show your growth in and out of the office. But if you have multiple or simultaneous gigs, it’s better to list them in a separate section to avoid confusing recruiters with your work timeline.

3. Leverage Failure on Your Resume

Stories of failure are the last thing recruiters expect to see in a resume. Your application is guaranteed to stand out if you share one of your less than perfect moments.

But you have to be careful in doing this. The failure itself is just the bait to get their attention. What comes after that is more important. Either they get a bad vibe from you and stop reading your resume, or they continue reading.

Share a short story of a project or task that failed with one of your previous employers. Then emphasize what you did to correct it, how long it took to fix, and the result. Just don’t overuse this strategy by sharing one fault per job title in your employment history.

Another reason this works is because a recruiter will think you’re less likely to commit the same mistake, and waste company resources in the process.

4. Customize Your Resume for the Job You Want

About 36% of employers ignore applications if the resume isn’t tailored for the position they advertised.

Good news is you don’t have to change your whole resume for every job you apply to. Here are a few pointers to make your resume look personalized:

Format specific skills and other keywords mentioned in the job ad in bold.

Copy their jargon from the job ad you're applying to. For example, did they write Photoshop or Photoshop CS6? Customer service representative or customer champion?

Delete unrelated employment history and skills from your resume.

5. Add Context to Your Resume Job Titles

No job title is self-explanatory, yet this is how candidates think when it comes to their application. Job titles like “content writer,” “marketing manager,” and even the more specific ones like “iOS Developer” are not self-explanatory, especially for a recruiter that may or may not have background knowledge in what you do.

Let’s use “Marketing Manager” as an example. It’s vague and unless the reader goes through every line in your professional history, they won’t know the following vital points:

The industry you work in: travel, insurance, SaaS products. It all makes a big difference.

The type of marketing you do: digital marketing or traditional media

The type of media you’re familiar with: print, audio, digital

The platforms you can work on: radio, Facebook, Google, magazines, TV

The type of clients you work with: small business owners, B2B, CEOs

Your resume will stand out if your job title stands out as well. And one of the surefire ways to do that is to be specific. In the example above, instead of “Marketing Manager” the applicant can use “Online Marketing Manager for Life Insurance and Investments.”

Now this is not to say that you should fill your employment history with responsibilities. Rather it’s important to include the specifics of your job, then find a way to effectively tie it into an accomplishment. The remaining skills and tasks where you don’t have a notable accomplishment can still be listed in your resume’s skills section.

6. Show Off Soft Skills on Your Resume

Employers value soft skills more than you realize. While the job market is better today and a tad friendlier to fresh graduates, many employers feel they lack the skills needed to thrive in the workforce.

Below are some of the skills they think applicants lack, according to Career Builder’s survey of 2,186 hiring managers and HR professionals:

Problem solving – 48%

Leadership – 42%

Teamwork 39%

Written and verbal communication: 37%

Creative thinking: 35%

Demonstrate these skills in your resume. If you’re not sure how to write about your leadership and problem solving skills, read this guide’s section writing soft skills in your resume.

Resumes

How to Effectively List Professional Skills on Your Resume

Charley Mendoza

Jaclyn Westlake of The Job Hop suggests:

“Adding hidden gems to show off your personality and spice up the recruiter’s day. You can do this by adding a witty bullet point such as, ‘Prevented participants from falling asleep by infusing humor in boring meetings.’”

8. Play to a Recruiter's Social Habits

Career Builder surveyed more than 2000 hiring managers and found that 60% of them use social media to screen candidates. If you work in the following industries, your social media profiles are more likely to get scrutinized:

IT: 76&

Sales: 65%

Financial services: 61%

Setting your profile on ‘friends only’ or private isn’t to your advantage. Two in five employers surveyed says they won’t interview candidates they can’t screen online.

Now that you know this, you can use it to your advantage.

Add links to your LinkedIn and other relevant social media profiles on your resume. If you’re a contributor to an industry blog, list your author’s profile page so recruiters can read your articles. Anything that adds credibility to your online presence is worth including.

9. Get a Recruiter's Inside Track

Reach out to your network or email recruiters you know for an informational interview. Then ask them questions about the company and the position they’re trying to fill.

If there’s no time or you have no contacts in your target company, research them online. Read their recent press releases, company website, and employee reviews to get a feel of their corporate culture and talent needs.

The information you uncover in this research can help you customize your resume according to the company’s needs.

10. Curate Work Samples for Your Resume

Since the majority of resumes are submitted and read online, you can include links to show samples of your work within the resume, instead of having the recruiter check a separate website for your portfolio.

For instance, you can link to samples of design, applications, or articles you wrote directly from the work history section of the resume. If you work in sales, you can also link to an excerpt of your sales presentation. This is another tangible way to show your skills on your resume to make it stand out better.

Sample Work Included in Your Resume

Must be related to the company’s industry, client base, or products

Doesn’t contradict the company’s point of view or image

Represents the work that you’re expected to do

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out Through Powerful Writing

Let's look at how to write a resume that stands out with a few useful tips, from selecting the best power words, to using the correct verb tenses, and more.

1. Use Top Power Words (Great vs Bland Power Words)

You already know that power words emphasize the skills and accomplishments you list in a resume. But there’s so many power words out there that it’s hard to choose which one to use. Some power words don’t boost your qualifications enough, but other words are too fancy, and they might not sound normal in the context of a resume.

Consider the following comparisons:

Bland

Impressive

Shakespearean

Increased

Raise, Surge, Boost

Burgeon, Accumulate,

Teach

Train, Instruct, Direct

Indoctrinate, Enlighten

Research

Explored, Investigate, Analyze

Inquest, Scrutinize, Probe

If you must, use a thesaurus to find great power words to make your resume stand out, but be careful of the words you choose. Make sure your word choice doesn’t make it look like you’re exaggerating though.

2. Describe Accomplishments, Not Just in Numbers

Adding numbers and percentages aren’t the only ways to make your accomplishments believable.

“Supervised a team of 5 developers” doesn’t say much, so you need to add some context. Add the type of project you worked on or the platform used.

Adding information about your team’s department, projects, products or service, clientele, and targets also help build a complete picture of your accomplishments.

Stand Out Accomplishment Examples

Recognized Top Seller of XYZ invoicing software for 4 consecutive months

Developed ABC iOS travel app 3 months ahead of deadline

Created B2B sales training program for pharmaceutical marketers

3. Use the Right Resume Verb Tense

Don’t write present tense verbs for your previous job, and don’t write past-tense verbs for your current jobs. It sounds obvious but a lot of candidates forget to check verb tense consistency in their resume.

Granted, some hiring managers won’t notice this. But you can’t write ‘attention to detail’ as one of your soft skills then get caught with mismatched verb tenses on your resume. There’s no coming back from that.

9 Formatting and Design Tips to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Let's look at how to make your resume stand out with the correct formatting and the right creative design choices.

1. Highlight Like an Ad Writer

Your resume is an advertisement of yourself. As such, you should think of it like a copywriter would think of ad copy.

Open strong (see Tip 1 at the beginning of this article) then use the remaining top part of your resume for your notable accomplishments.

Use bold formatting to highlight significant accomplishments and keywords. The goal is to emphasize the critical words that tell employers what they want to know about you right away. You want your key points to stand out on your resume even if they’re only scanning it.

2. Use a Different, Non-Wacky Font

Use a different but still formal and legible font. Times New Roman and Arial fonts are too common nowadays, so try other non-cursive fonts like Calibri, Cambria, Helvetica and Verdana.

Garamond and Lucida sans fonts look classy but not too familiar looking like Times Roman, so that might just make your resume look a tad different and more modern.

3. Stop Playing With Your Resume's Margins

One page resumes with wafer thin margins are hard to read, and sometimes the information is not properly interpreted by an applicant tracking system (ATS).

Don’t sacrifice your eyesight, or that of a recruiter to squeeze your resume into a single page. Use proper margins and don’t be afraid to use two pages if you have to. There are other ways to write a concise resume without sacrificing the document’s readability.

Careers

How to Make Your Resume the Perfect Length (+To the Point)

Charley Mendoza

4. Describe What's in A URL

Adding a link to your online portfolio doesn’t guarantee that the recruiter will click it.

You have to motivate them to do so. Add a short description of what they can expect to see in your portfolio.

For Example

http://ift.tt/2pc1etu: A collection of my graphic design and illustration work used for branding and product campaigns.

5. Consider Eye-Movement (Flow)

You can get creative when designing your resume, but the resulting layout should be easy to follow and not too crowded.

People read from left to right, so that should be your main guide in positioning the most important aspects of your resume. Use color, columns, and headings to strategically guide the reader’s eye flow.

Also, start with a professional resume template that stands out and you'll get a better result quickly:

Resumes

20+ Professional MS Word Resume Templates - With Simple Designs

Marc Schenker

6. Think Outside The Box (For Your Industry)

“Having recently recruited for a marketing role, we've received some really eye catching resumes where candidates didn’t just listed their experience and expertise. They visually displayed their skills.

This made recruiting a lot more fun than reading through black and white documents”, says Sarah Dowzell, COO and Co-founder Natural HR.

A little creativity can go a long way in making your resume stand out. In creative industries like film, video, design, and programming, submitting an out of the box resume will give you a huge advantage over applicants who apply with a traditional resume. The Clean Resume template has a stand out, modern blend of minimal design and creative elements that could be used to apply to job sin multiple industries:

Clean Resume template that stand out with minimal creative design.

Check out these sleek and creative resume templates for more options to help you stand out with a great design:

Resumes

25 Creative Resume Templates: To Land a New Job in Style

Sean Hodge

Note: Some industries don’t appreciate creative and out of the box resumes so use your better judgement on if using one of these is best for the job you're applying to. In the right context though, they can be the differentiator to getting the job.

5 Sending Tips to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Yes, the way you send your resume can also make your resume application stand out. Here’s how:

1. Pay Attention to Instructions

Do they want it in MS Word or PDF? Do they want it as an attachment or sent in-line on your email? Do they want you to use your name as the document’s file name? All these seemingly little things are important.

It’s common practice for employers to filter out applicants who don’t follow instructions correctly. Read the whole job advertisement from top to bottom to make sure you don’t miss any critical instructions.

2. Send Your Resume on Monday

A study on Bright.com revealed that applicants who send their resume on Monday are more likely to get interviewed. Applications submitted on Saturdays get the worst results, with only 14% of the applicants moving forward to an interview.

3. Have Someone Else Send It

Your resume says you’re awesome, but what’s even more amazing is if someone else vouches for you.

Referrals are hired 55% faster than applicants who came from online job sites.

That’s another incentive to improve your networking skills. Reach out to your online and offline friends, or talk to your university career center to find someone to refer you.

5. Use the Recipient's Name

A survey from Career Builder reveals that 84% of applicants don’t make the effort to research the hiring manager’s name. So you’ll definitely stand out if you use the correct name to address your job application.

Besides, writing “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Hiring Manager” is one way to prove you didn’t personalize your application.

Need more ideas to make your resume stand out? Check out this Envato Tuts+ guide:

Resumes

30+ Best Resume Tips: That Will Get You Noticed and Hired

Charley Mendoza

Don't Forget to Follow-Up

Recruiters are swimming in resumes for different positions they’re trying to fill. Even if your resume was impressive, there’s still a chance they haven’t seen it. That’s why you need to follow-up.

Send a short follow-up email two to three days after you’ve emailed your application. Reiterate your interest for the job and ask if the recruiter has had the chance to read your application. Learn more about how to write a follow up email after an interview:

Careers

How to Write a Thank You Email After an Interview

Charley Mendoza

Don’t hesitate to follow-up. A polite, well-timed follow-up email is one the easiest ways to make your resume stand out.

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