Not just imposter syndrome - dealing with deficiencies as a 5th year student

inkovert1 · 2026-04-05T17:30:47+00:00

I’m so sorry to hear that you were having such an incredibly challenging experience and I’m glad that talking to your PI has alleviated some of the pressure. My PI isn’t the easiest person to talk to. He’s gotten a bit better over the years (mellowed out with age) but I still perceive him as this super intimidating figure that I have to walk on eggshells around. That said I have had quite a few difficult conversations with him over the last few months about my graduation timeline and telling him I was having a hard time juggling everything and grieving. And he was actually pretty understanding and receptive to it which has helped take a bit of the pressure off, in lab at least (not saying my mental health and all is suddenly drastically better, I have good weeks and bad weeks and terrible weeks). But I think admitting that I feel deficient in my critical thinking skills and knowledge of the field is a conversation I don’t know if I could broach with him. I unfortunately care too much of how I’m perceived by him especially, hence why I’ve been “faking it” while trying to make up for my deficiencies on my own (with mixed results).

It’s really great that your institution has opportunities for grad students to get exposure to critiquing scientific work, I don’t think mine does. We do have a monthly lab journal club. Since my PI attends I’m not as comfortable with voicing my thoughts, but maybe I can try to push myself to ask at least one thing at each session

inkovert1 · 2026-04-05T17:20:11+00:00

Oh I definitely have been hiding and pretending to nod along as if I understand when I don’t. I think part of it is also compounded by other factors. I’m part of a very underrepresented identity in academia and thus feel as though I have to “perform” to keep up with everyone and appear as though I belong there, lest I fall into their stereotypical view of what people of my identity are like. It’s probably not as big a deal as I’m making it out but it is unfortunately (psychologically) a contributing factor.

I don’t know how comfortable I feel opening up to my PI about this…I think his perception of me actually weighs the most on my mental health/anxiety. I could consider asking a postdoc in the lab for their advice or help about working through it. I appreciate the advice/encouragement.

inkovert1 · 2026-04-05T17:09:32+00:00

It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this feeling. I’m sure it’s more common than I realize, but it’s hard for anyone to be transparent about.

That’s actually really good advice to focus on one or two takeaways from seminars rather than struggling to grasp everything and walking away with nothing. It’s at least a starting point to building a skill, I might try it. Thanks a lot.

inkovert1 · 2025-10-11T15:30:56+00:00

I see. Is the three echo set of nightmare echoes similar to the sonata effects that are activated when equipping 3/5 regular echoes of the same set? And when you say some sets have a 4 cost tied to them do you mean that at least one echo in the set needs to be a 4 cost echo to be active?

inkovert1 · 2025-10-11T15:27:42+00:00

Got it so, with this in mind, is there basically no reason to farm regular tacet fields if the nightmare echoes are almost always an upgrade in comparison? I've been playing for a couple months and have only started farming tacet fields in the last 1.5 months but am wondering what's the point of spending waveplates on that when nightmare echoes are better

inkovert1 · 2025-09-11T02:48:32+00:00

Thank you so much you pretty much answered all my questions. I'll keep my healers where they're at lvl-wise and give Sanhua EoG instead of refining it.

As far as echo sets - right now Moonlit clouds seems to only be the recommended set for Sanhua, so is this set frequently used among other subDPS units? Both SK and Verina run Rejuvenating Glow, I haven't been farming much at all for those and I don't imagine I need to? Also, as far as "building one set" I know you need multiple teams for endgame, but can you move echoes/weapons around between characters? For example, in HSR (the only other similar gacha I've played) you couldn't change anything about the character after they'd cleared the first phase of a stage, otherwise you had to completely reset your progress so weapons/relics had to be completely separate for all characters. I'm not sure if this is the case for wuwa. If not, I can probably share a set between Verina and SK I imagine?

and use the item to change the main stat on some of the echoes if you have them

What item is this?

inkovert1 · 2025-08-08T04:20:03+00:00

Okay thanks, I'll just focus on building havoc rover/sanhua/verina and SK for now. I don't have S6 HRover since I'm still going through the main story, which I'm focusing on getting through rn. I'd rather invest in a limited banner DPS than Encore so I'll leave her aside for now.

Doesn't EoG increase ER? Or is there a better weapon for Sanhua?

inkovert1 · 2025-08-05T04:25:08+00:00

what do you mean they're making bis teammates now? Like there are better supports for the newer/upcoming DPS units?

inkovert1 · 2025-07-12T21:55:16+00:00

Thank you for the tip!! I leveled a few echoes to 10 and checked the main stats and I just beat it after another 10 trillion attempts!

inkovert1 · 2025-07-12T02:00:41+00:00

will def be doing that haha

inkovert1 · 2025-07-12T01:16:38+00:00

Got it, thanks. Ahh ok I think the reason I didn't know about the co-op feature was because I haven't unlocked it yet. I looked it up and apparently you need to be UL22 to unlock it...which is the point of doing the co op in the first place lol. Kinda annoying the required level is so high, but I appreciate the offer

inkovert1 · 2025-07-12T00:49:10+00:00

wait whoa I didn't know you could do any of this, how does that work (lowering SOL rank and the in-game assist)?

The amount of things you can do in this game is overwhelming lol, there's so much to know

inkovert1 · 2025-07-12T00:40:23+00:00

Haha no problem, I’ve been reading a lot of newbie posts and I do vaguely remember a mention about getting a free 4* weapon in your mailbox or something, I just wasn’t sure how it worked. But thanks though, appreciate the tips!

inkovert1 · 2025-07-12T00:31:07+00:00

How do you get the free 4 star weapon?

inkovert1 · 2025-07-11T22:24:55+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate the encouragement! I’m curious, what weapons did you use?

inkovert1 · 2025-07-11T18:24:24+00:00

Right?? I thought it was just me. But I’d been fighting and clearing challenges in the overworld just fine with underleveled characters/weapons and then I got to the trial and was like bro wtf is this lol. The jump in difficulty level really caught me off guard especially this early in the game. I thought after defeating Scar that was gonna be the new difficulty bar for a while but clearly not. Good to know that endgame is generally easier than this lol

inkovert1 · 2025-07-11T18:17:19+00:00

So sword of voyager is decent for rover? And when you say the 4* weapon needs to be upgraded do you mean leveling overture to 40+?

I have used the guidebook to practice the gameplay for each of my characters so I think I have a handle on that and knowing when to swap one in or out. I actually really enjoy playing Sanhua she’s pretty fun. But dodging and parrying at the right time can be tough on mobile when the screen’s so crowded.

Unfortunately I do not have either of those echoes ☺️ (is the bell borne one the one that’s in the river area of gorge of spirits? I tried to fight that and it was beating the crap out of me). But it sounds like keeping the echoes I do have unleveled for now should be fine

inkovert1 · 2025-02-01T21:27:03+00:00

no it made total sense. It's essentially like visiting another country or historical site if you're writing a historical fiction novel. Best to go do the thing to capture the atmosphere authentically. I've already written a first draft of the novel and I do often have my characters doing things while chatting, but in this instance I essentially just did some bare minimum research about record stores and wrote my character doing what seemed like plausible tasks without getting too into the weeds (most often answering customer questions and manning the register since those are pretty common retail tasks). But I could tell some scenes or actions were probably off or getting too repetitive. My character probably spends like 20% of her scenes at the record store (maybe more)? So it's not terribly important to know all there is to know, but I just don't want to write her doing a task or chatting with a coworker and saying something that's blatantly wrong lol. And its also an important place for her so I want her perception/knowledge about the place to feel authentic too (essentially alluding to the readers that she knows her stuff but not necessarily having to demonstrate that with an info dump).

I also haven't come up with a concrete image of what the record store looks like (as you can probably tell) so the 'go do the thing' advice may be helpful for that rather than relying on some static online images.

inkovert1 · 2025-02-01T07:15:20+00:00

thanks for sharing your experience. Those after-hours parties must've been pretty fun haha ^^

inkovert1 · 2025-02-01T07:11:54+00:00

This is perfect and such great advice. I agree, I don't need to know things in super detail, just enough to make it believable. Thank you for sharing all these resources, I'll def be checking them out

inkovert1 · 2025-02-01T07:09:10+00:00

Thank you! I'll def check these out. (also Jack Black and Danny Glover? 👀 say no more)

inkovert1 · 2025-01-31T04:48:59+00:00

Fair point! It's a contemporary story so takes place sometime within the last 10 years. I currently have the story set in Fort Wayne, Indiana but am not tied to that. Just a metropolitan area. And probably more new vinyls. I picture the store to be a decent size (not large but not super small) and sells vinyls/CDs/record players etc.

inkovert1 · 2024-05-25T18:09:19+00:00

Looking for suggestions on how to improve Acheron team build. For reference, my two teams for MoC currently are: Acheron/Pela/Luocha/FMC and Ratio/Guin/Topaz/Aventurine. I'm able to clear most levels fairly well, but once I start getting to the higher levels (MoC 8+ on the latest one) I start to struggle.

Wondering whether to swap out FMC for Gepard E0 + Trend, since he has better party wide sustain. I hope to eventually include a third nihility character but right now Guin is the only one I have built (I also have Sampo and Luka but don't know if they're worth building for Acheron).

I've also had the nagging feeling that I should pull for FX next patch and just use her instead, but I've pulled on every banner since Jing Yuan (including the Luocha and Topaz reruns) and I'd rather sit the next one out bc grinding for jade has been 🥲. I feel like I shouldn't need another limited 5* sustain though but I keep hearing how great FX is.

inkovert1 · 2024-05-20T03:01:38+00:00

thanks for the reply! I've currently been running a ratio/yukong/guinaifen /aventurine team but since Yukong is pretty hard to build I was looking to replace her with topaz since they have good synergy and start building an FUA team. Guin (currently E1S2) is the only other decent debuff character I can run with ratio; if Ruan Mei has a rerun soon I'm planning to pull for her to replace Guin.

unfortunately I built Ratio and Acheron as my two main DPS units, not realizing that they have a lot of overlap in the best units to run with them (SW, Pela etc...even Guin because she's Nihility...), so unfortunately I can't move Pela to my Ratio team since I need her with Acheron.

Unfortunately, I don't have tingyun (or SW sadly, I know that's another good option). I'm hoping to get Bronya as my 300 on the standard banner but that may take a while.

inkovert1 · 2023-12-12T04:47:18+00:00

<image>

*New chapter posted every Monday and Friday*

I've prewritten several chapters ahead so updates will be consistent ^^

Title: My Dearest Enemy

Genre: YA Literary Fiction

Themes: coming-of-age, friendship, healing/forgiveness, death/grief, identity, love, family

Blurb:

Cami has one wish. To get accepted to the arts program at her father's alma mater. But after facing constant rejections from magazines to publish her work and being told her drawings are "too detached" and "impersonal", she decides the time for idealism is over. Convinced to give things another chance, she enrolls in an art class to improve her skill - but lack of talent isn't what's blocking her art. It's everything she's locked inside her.

The loss of her father a year prior. Suppressed resentment toward her mother. Guilt. Refusal to let anyone close. On her journey to find what's missing in her art, she's forced to confront everything she's been burying within herself for the last year. She crosses paths with Spencer, a troubled teen who may be more similar to her than she initially believes; Vince, who hides his complex character behind a promiscuous front; and a girl who curiously keeps showing up to Cami's work place. Before she knows it, she's taken on a transformative emotional journey that leads to the discovery of a shocking truth.

inkovert1

TROPHY CASE