I'm so sorry that I didn't see this in time anon ;_; I will give you tips and hopefully they will help for next time!!

first of all, I was linked this guide (thank you Nora) which was incredibly helpful. this doc is a general overview of how things work, I'm going to give more direct instructions on what I thought was effective https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1QlKW9Qne04TISkVmaRLC_M_1Hx0OQwdC9gq09Id8j3M/mobilebasic

keep in mind: the guide was written based on the Rutile caulis event, and my tips are written based on the Shino caulis event, so there are some discrepancies from each other in how they work, and there will probably be discrepancies between either of them and how the eventual Murr caulis will work, too. (for example: in the guide, it says you can only explore the tower 3 times per day, but during Shino's caulis, you could explore 6 times, 2 per exploration slot)

tower exploration:
- you get two runs per day for each exploration slot. this is regardless of how much tp or mp you use for that run, so it's best to use the maximum every time! (the exceptions being the first and last days of the events, which are incomplete days, so there aren't 8 hours for those windows, and you should try to do 3 runs within the day to get the daily mission.) be sure to turn the mp boost on!
- the "center" slot as mentioned in the guide is the one at the top that only sends the focus character. if you only have so much tp/time and can't do 6 max tp/mp 4 hour runs, try to prioritize to get longer runs out of the center slot as much as you can
- it doesn't matter which chibis you send for exploration. you have to use different characters but there are no bonuses for using certain characters or for having stronger chibis or anything. follow your heart
- you'll want to do normal training twice and normal battles 3 times a day for the daily event achievements, but if you don't have enough tp/mp to work with and have to pick between daily achievements or longer runs in the exploration tower, prioritize the exploration tower

trial doors:
- there are four doors: a wooden one, a silver one, a gold one, and a special crystal one with limited access. these had to be unlocked in order: you have to go through the wooden door first to get access to the silver door, then you had to go through the silver door to get access to the gold door, then you had to go through the gold door to get access to the crystal door.
- during Shino caulis, there was ONLY a chance of Shino dropping in the gold door. use 300 keys (the minimum) to clear the wooden and silver doors, then focus on the gold door exclusively until the card drops. after the card drops once, it's removed from the rewards pool. the card is NOT in the reward pool for the crystal door. if you look at this screen, as shown in the guide, at the part where it's labeled 'potential drops,' it should show a thumbnail of the card if you're at the right door. (you can also click on the "..." button here to see what other drops you might get at the end of a run.) https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdMpdubFpFBATqXe7B_ywxl-ixzc35XHXG8WoEaDr0p840TM4KWtxq4e5zM-8tIkNt0OvcReLILEEPEMeKtwK2KfsMZXE1pfIs_cLsgxSt8up00SyBNnEz28l873SDhkgsh2_R0swP6-u-0Zky_pAgcxMNr=s800?key=cFBaau79Y9apJZfTZEjJvg
- the crystal door is limited to either two 300 key runs or a single 600 key run per day. it has a higher payout of point rewards for climbing the ladder if you want to get to 2mil for the card in the ladder reward. however, if you don't think you'll make it to the 2mil mark regardless, you should just save your keys for the gold door.
- in the guide, it says that if your party wipes during the trial door fights, you can use mp to revive, but during Shino caulis, you had to spend one mana stone to revive your party. personally I was fine with spending mana stones because the reward ladder was giving me more mana stones than I spent. however, especially if your team is on the weaker side, using more keys per run means fewer opportunities to wipe and have to use mana stones, so go for 1500 key runs (or even 3000 key runs later if you still haven't gotten the card drop) as much as you can.
- like with most event bonuses, you want to run event cards in your party during training and get a chibi with an event bonus percentage and include that chibi in your trial door team. you only need one event bonus chibi, but the bonus can be attached to any chibi from any chara, not just the event chibi

making a strong chibi team for the trial doors that doesn't die as much:
- in the caulis trial doors, a chibi's HP stat is determined by its stat total, while its ATK stat is determined by its score. this Shino chibi's score is 34228 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErdRNPVU0AYcStX?format=jpg&name=large
- a chibi's score is mostly determined by the number of traits it has. I took that Shino chibi cap from this guide on how to get more traits and thus a higher scoring chibi https://twitter.com/izayoi__seeing/status/1348635903690870784
- because HP is still determined by stats, rather than following the above guide exactly, build a team that has a higher ratio of daiseikou cards as usual. if possible, include cards that have BOTH a daiseikou skill and a trait drop skill. Valentine's Faust and north ballad Mithra are cards with both, for example
- list of cards with daiseikou skills https://mahoyaku.fandom.com/wiki/Card_Skill/Training_Success
- list of cards with increased trait drop chance skills https://mahoyaku.fandom.com/wiki/Card_Skill/Traits#All_Stats

navigating trial door tiles:
- I specifically made this section to tell you that when you hit the magical beast's blessing tile, you should pick the blue icon with the picture of a key as much as possible to equip it and and level it up. this effect refunds some of the keys you spent at the end of your run. the icon can be seen here at the bottom right https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdGoi8Uw2FtD0hgaqK4G7dMgnVIS1l5IHlwhEog5Q4H5VM7dVTRgM34oovaDH3dDE55IUrfoTJ-IMGYYlENwhBVQvTj7KT4oeXtE933e0GKVgxeF_CFdPhriPMYCOuYimjW8VpCBtCFA_gqtnAMbHCYNPW3=s800?key=cFBaau79Y9apJZfTZEjJvg
- look ahead and try to plan your route out a little in advance so you don't get stuck in a weird place away from the heal tiles. it's best to mostly focus on the 50% heal tiles and the skill tiles. there's no real hierarchy of which skill tiles are best that I can tell, all of them are good
- I don't actually know if getting chests increases your chances of getting the reward card to drop, but I hit chests as much as I could just in case.

bonding/fureai/rapport:
- BOND WITH YOUR CUTE MONSTER FRIEND LOTS
- during the regular bonding activities, sometimes keys will drop. bond with your cute monster friend lots
- if you bond with them even after your bond is maxed out (maxes out at 100), bonding activities may still drop keys, so keep bonding
- feeding bonds faster, but doesn't drop keys, so after your bond is maxed, there's no need to keep doing it anymore

HELLO ANON I HAD NO IDEA PEOPLE WERE SENDING ME RETROSPRINGS. sorry for the late reply! the placements were based mostly on a combination of what genre I think their songs would end up being + my familiarity with the seiyuu as singers. yes there are a couple placements I would change

Oz & Arthur: Oz's seiyuu is one of the ogs of good character songs as far as I'm concerned and I Cannot imagine him doing a bad job. excellent singer, excellent low tone so he wouldn't have the issue of having to push his range somewhere that sounds more strained as some other people on this list would. Arthur's seiyuu can also be quite good. importantly, I think they would probably get a slower, softer song, which would be complimentary to both their voices and play to their seiyuus' singing skillsets

Mithra & Rutile: as I said under the original tweet this could either be incredible or not work at all. I especially like Rutile's seiyuu as a vocalist and have faith his performance would probably sound good no matter what; Mithra's seiyuu is also really talented but I have less of a sense of what he would sound like as Mithra in specific, so I think there's a chance he might lean into sounding bored/flat to a point where it sounds less good from a singing/music standpoint. I also don't know how good their voices would sound /together/, because their ranges and tonal qualities are so different. but the real sticking point is I have no fucking idea what the song would sound like here in terms of genre/tempo/instrumentation. it might be more of a gag song? in which case I probably would find it entertaining but wouldn't want to loop it as music I just like listening to. but I'm technically still leaving it in good because it could just as well be amazing

Shylock & Murr: Murr's seiyuu is more of a newcomer so I'm less familiar with his body of work, but I have heard him sing once and liked it! I am VERY familiar with Shylock's seiyuu and Shylock is exactly in the strikezone where I like him best. by far the most likely sound for this would be something in the jazz/lounge family which I am all about and I have faith the seiyuu could knock it out of the park. I want this in my ears

Chloe & Rustica: I SHOULD probably put this in mid, actually. I think there's a pretty high chance they would get a more playful-sounding song with more talking inserts which goes back to the "not the kind of song I'd want to put on loop" thing again. I think their seiyuu are both good and they would sound good together, though

Riquet & Mitile: I think I put this in mid to be nice. I like Mitile's seiyuu fine as a vocalist, I know Riquet's less well but I think he'd probably sound fine too, and they would probably blend well together, so while I don't think they would be exceptional I don't think there'd be anything to complain about on that front either. but I also think it would be a particular kind of cute twinkly music that I don't really like at all. maybe it would be too mean to call it bad. other people might like it just fine

Brad & Nero: I don't know why I didn't put this in good the first time. it would obviously be rock, I love rock, Bradley's seiyuu is at his absolute best as a singer in this kind of role, and I literally have rock character songs at my disposal to get a pretty close approximation to what Nero would sound like and those songs slap. I would like it. maybe I worried they wouldn't blend well together but I think Nero's seiyuu is some kind of wizard and it would work out

Cain & Owen: this should also go in good. I'm sorry. at the time I made the tierlist I wasn't familiar with Kanbara Daichi's game.

Faust & Lennox: Faust is the one carrying here. I just think Lennox's seiyuu would be too held back by character affect in a way that sounds strained/distracting to my ear. like Oz and Arthur I think they would also get quite a slow song but unlike Oz and Arthur I don't think this would be to the advantage of the seiyuu's strong points

the twins & Figaro: there is simply no earthly way the twins will sound good. I don't even like White's talking voice. that is NOT his natural comfortable range by any stretch of the imagination. Figaro additionally presents an extra layer of difficulty where the song has to somehow accommodate his old man range at the same time as the twins' child range

Shino & Heathcliff: I don't think either of them are very good singers. I'm not even sure if Shino's seiyuu could physically sing while maintaining Shino's character affect

I think he tends to prefer light, fresh-tasting foods (like fresh fruit and seafood) and tends to dislike rich, heavy foods (particularly carb+sugar-heavy, like sweet potato and churros). partly I think this may be because eastern cuisine is likely to lean towards a more delicate palette (Faust and Heath also prefer lighter foods, and Heath's hated foods are almost exclusively heavy meat dishes, lol) (conversely west likely leans towards rich, heavy, decadent), but it's also probably partly because 1. lighter foods are generally easier to digest (being someone who may have a compromised digestive system from poor diet early on in life) 2. tasting fresher=tasting safer. canonically he likes the sourness of lemon because it makes him feel alive; he probably likes soda for the same reason. conversely although he likes sour tastes I figure he might not be good with fermented things or jerky (bc it isn't fresh-tasting/thus may feel closer to his experiences with food that has already gone bad)

I wrote this primarily referencing this guide again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/159Iw7UWzMwWzyw_xuhFSJt8aI70mEB7IdBVyIuq4--o/edit?gid=1528682551#gid=1528682551

but that being said, it's worth noting that characters' food preferences are not written totally consistently in series with their in-game kitchen preferences. for example I wanted to think Shino doesn't like spicy things bc he's not good with the cinnamon candy in anni2 and I thought it would be cute, but he likes curry and chili con carne so he probably isn't that bad with spice :( and there was this login story from the Mitile and Mithra sonatine where Heathcliff and Arthur were excited for an all meat dishes spread https://x.com/sagesjournal/status/1791440072694218999 but as noted earlier, nearly all of Heath's hated kitchen dishes are heavy meat dishes DFJLKDJS (though even in the login story he is most excited for the chicken). Heathcliff also has a whole character episode dedicated to being excited about roasted sweet potatoes but in the kitchen he only actually likes them if they're bitter and is otherwise neutral on them... maybe it was just the novelty of eating something cooked outside... maybe open fire sweet potatoes are more bitter...? he also ends that episode saying he wants to show Shino but Shino hates sweet potato... pictures taken moments before disaster......... somehow I ended up talking about Heathcliff's food tastes. sorry. osana brain never turns off.

I love them!! I get the impression they end up hanging out at Shylock's bar together from time to time and Leno-Oz-Shylock are a trio of more lowkey overlapping dynamics that I like a lot. I really like interactions that are heavily weighted to non-verbal/unspoken communication... although Shylock is someone who in other contexts will happily use quite a lot of words lol. I think Shylock and Leno are both people who can give Oz a lot of relief in a way in that they have the capacity to understand his needs with minimal explanation and don't have particular desires or expectations of him. I think often about how Oz asks Leno for help repairing things at night because he can admit to weakness/failing to Leno without feeling ashamed of his nighttime powerlessness, or wary of the possibility that Leno might hold it over him. Leno also is better with interactions that are more about actions/service or a wordless togetherness so I think being around Oz feels likewise relatively easy for him in that way. me inserting Shylock into this answer was unnecessary but here we are

I wasn't sure what kind of lack of motivation so I wrote out multiple answers

"I have an idea I really want to write but I can't bring myself to actually put words on the damn page" - this is probably the most ADHD brain-specific answer here but I force myself to write as Literally The Very First Thing I Do When I Wake Up. before I even GET OUT OF BED. I reach for my phone and make myself write until I've gotten through at least a couple paragraphs. I also employ the opposite tactic and try to make myself write last thing before I go to sleep but that one's a bit more tenuous as I've gotten better at falling asleep without noticing these days. I also use self-imposed deadlines (like u,u's weekly update schedule) (or externally-imposed deadlines, like exchange events). it's also possible to use other markers besides sleep, for example sometimes before or after I get out of the shower I will make myself write at least a couple sentences before letting myself do anything else, or in the past I have sat in the car after getting off work and written a few paragraphs before driving home (tragically can no longer pull this trick as I no longer have/use a car). however writing first thing in the morning literally before anything else is in my experience the timeframe when I have the least mental resistance and can generally get the most progress in, and also makes it more likely that I may be able to go back later in the day and write more with less mental resistance as well. this trick does depend on my ability to write on my phone though. for people who can't do that, maybe a bedside notebook?

"I have lost steam on this piece in specific and no longer feel interested in or attached to it" - for me this is usually because I've lost track of what I'm doing with it. I almost always write to a specific scene I have in mind that I need build up to get to... so the problem is either that I don't have a scene like that, or that I don't have a strong sense of what I need to lay down to get to it. sometimes I can't overcome this one tbh... I think ultimately my best bet is to fall back on my affection for the characters and think about what parts of them I like most and want to show off to other people. like look at my wife. look at how they respond in these specific ways to these kinds of circumstances. aren't they so cute. I need to theme this whole fic around this part of them I think is cute. this advice might only be useful to people who approach writing with the same extremely specific mindset as me

"I can't come up with ideas" - I look for prompt lists and throw several of them in a pot and try to figure out how to fit them together. it's like a puzzle. or a math equation. how do I write a story for these characters with coffee shop, stalking, and vampires

I'm so sorry that I didn't see this in time anon ;_; I will give you tips and hopefully they will help for next time!!

first of all, I was linked this guide (thank you Nora) which was incredibly helpful. this doc is a general overview of how things work, I'm going to give more direct instructions on what I thought was effective https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1QlKW9Qne04TISkVmaRLC_M_1Hx0OQwdC9gq09Id8j3M/mobilebasic

keep in mind: the guide was written based on the Rutile caulis event, and my tips are written based on the Shino caulis event, so there are some discrepancies from each other in how they work, and there will probably be discrepancies between either of them and how the eventual Murr caulis will work, too. (for example: in the guide, it says you can only explore the tower 3 times per day, but during Shino's caulis, you could explore 6 times, 2 per exploration slot)

tower exploration:
- you get two runs per day for each exploration slot. this is regardless of how much tp or mp you use for that run, so it's best to use the maximum every time! (the exceptions being the first and last days of the events, which are incomplete days, so there aren't 8 hours for those windows, and you should try to do 3 runs within the day to get the daily mission.) be sure to turn the mp boost on!
- the "center" slot as mentioned in the guide is the one at the top that only sends the focus character. if you only have so much tp/time and can't do 6 max tp/mp 4 hour runs, try to prioritize to get longer runs out of the center slot as much as you can
- it doesn't matter which chibis you send for exploration. you have to use different characters but there are no bonuses for using certain characters or for having stronger chibis or anything. follow your heart
- you'll want to do normal training twice and normal battles 3 times a day for the daily event achievements, but if you don't have enough tp/mp to work with and have to pick between daily achievements or longer runs in the exploration tower, prioritize the exploration tower

trial doors:
- there are four doors: a wooden one, a silver one, a gold one, and a special crystal one with limited access. these had to be unlocked in order: you have to go through the wooden door first to get access to the silver door, then you had to go through the silver door to get access to the gold door, then you had to go through the gold door to get access to the crystal door.
- during Shino caulis, there was ONLY a chance of Shino dropping in the gold door. use 300 keys (the minimum) to clear the wooden and silver doors, then focus on the gold door exclusively until the card drops. after the card drops once, it's removed from the rewards pool. the card is NOT in the reward pool for the crystal door. if you look at this screen, as shown in the guide, at the part where it's labeled 'potential drops,' it should show a thumbnail of the card if you're at the right door. (you can also click on the "..." button here to see what other drops you might get at the end of a run.) https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdMpdubFpFBATqXe7B_ywxl-ixzc35XHXG8WoEaDr0p840TM4KWtxq4e5zM-8tIkNt0OvcReLILEEPEMeKtwK2KfsMZXE1pfIs_cLsgxSt8up00SyBNnEz28l873SDhkgsh2_R0swP6-u-0Zky_pAgcxMNr=s800?key=cFBaau79Y9apJZfTZEjJvg
- the crystal door is limited to either two 300 key runs or a single 600 key run per day. it has a higher payout of point rewards for climbing the ladder if you want to get to 2mil for the card in the ladder reward. however, if you don't think you'll make it to the 2mil mark regardless, you should just save your keys for the gold door.
- in the guide, it says that if your party wipes during the trial door fights, you can use mp to revive, but during Shino caulis, you had to spend one mana stone to revive your party. personally I was fine with spending mana stones because the reward ladder was giving me more mana stones than I spent. however, especially if your team is on the weaker side, using more keys per run means fewer opportunities to wipe and have to use mana stones, so go for 1500 key runs (or even 3000 key runs later if you still haven't gotten the card drop) as much as you can.
- like with most event bonuses, you want to run event cards in your party during training and get a chibi with an event bonus percentage and include that chibi in your trial door team. you only need one event bonus chibi, but the bonus can be attached to any chibi from any chara, not just the event chibi

making a strong chibi team for the trial doors that doesn't die as much:
- in the caulis trial doors, a chibi's HP stat is determined by its stat total, while its ATK stat is determined by its score. this Shino chibi's score is 34228 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErdRNPVU0AYcStX?format=jpg&name=large
- a chibi's score is mostly determined by the number of traits it has. I took that Shino chibi cap from this guide on how to get more traits and thus a higher scoring chibi https://twitter.com/izayoi__seeing/status/1348635903690870784
- because HP is still determined by stats, rather than following the above guide exactly, build a team that has a higher ratio of daiseikou cards as usual. if possible, include cards that have BOTH a daiseikou skill and a trait drop skill. Valentine's Faust and north ballad Mithra are cards with both, for example
- list of cards with daiseikou skills https://mahoyaku.fandom.com/wiki/Card_Skill/Training_Success
- list of cards with increased trait drop chance skills https://mahoyaku.fandom.com/wiki/Card_Skill/Traits#All_Stats

navigating trial door tiles:
- I specifically made this section to tell you that when you hit the magical beast's blessing tile, you should pick the blue icon with the picture of a key as much as possible to equip it and and level it up. this effect refunds some of the keys you spent at the end of your run. the icon can be seen here at the bottom right https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdGoi8Uw2FtD0hgaqK4G7dMgnVIS1l5IHlwhEog5Q4H5VM7dVTRgM34oovaDH3dDE55IUrfoTJ-IMGYYlENwhBVQvTj7KT4oeXtE933e0GKVgxeF_CFdPhriPMYCOuYimjW8VpCBtCFA_gqtnAMbHCYNPW3=s800?key=cFBaau79Y9apJZfTZEjJvg
- look ahead and try to plan your route out a little in advance so you don't get stuck in a weird place away from the heal tiles. it's best to mostly focus on the 50% heal tiles and the skill tiles. there's no real hierarchy of which skill tiles are best that I can tell, all of them are good
- I don't actually know if getting chests increases your chances of getting the reward card to drop, but I hit chests as much as I could just in case.

bonding/fureai/rapport:
- BOND WITH YOUR CUTE MONSTER FRIEND LOTS
- during the regular bonding activities, sometimes keys will drop. bond with your cute monster friend lots
- if you bond with them even after your bond is maxed out (maxes out at 100), bonding activities may still drop keys, so keep bonding
- feeding bonds faster, but doesn't drop keys, so after your bond is maxed, there's no need to keep doing it anymore

oh this is hard. I have read a lot of manga in my life

ok in no particular order, not necessarily to say these are definitely my top 5, but 5 that came to mind that I really like

-MADK
eroguro body horror demon hell politics bl. this is the peak of romance for me. comfort series. every single chapter it manages to punch me in the face with something I wasn't prepared for

-Bokura no Hentai
coming of age story about two crossdressers and a trans girl. very heavy to start but it climbs out of it. the author actually noted that she hated her own characters at the start but grew to love them, and you can really like, viscerally feel that progression. it's really fascinating and moving to experience both the characters and the story itself growing and evolving. deeply evocative and affecting manga for me

-Houseki no Kuni
you have all probably heard about this series already or at least seen au fanart of people as rocks. this is also a heavy miserable read. forces the reader to unpack everything they want to happen. I actually read and enjoy a lot of light-hearted mundane series too but you really wouldn't know it from reading this list

-Chainsaw Man
I almost didn't put this on the list because I haven't started reading part 2 because I want to read part 2 all in one shot after it's done so I don't actually engage with csm fandom currently because I want to avoid spoilers. but I can't not put it on this list. it fucked me up so bad I had to stop in the middle and take a break and go cry in the park over my own dad's death for like half an hour. Fujimoto-sensei handles grief manifesting as regret in a way that gets to me like no one else can.

-Blue Lock
I fucking love sports manga

I tend to talk abt more real world issues off twitter in less public spaces cuz I don't want to spread misinformation by mistake. also I just don't want my twitter to be a stressful place. I have to put a lot more thought and research and effort to accomplish serious widescale reform while otoh I can create joy for a small number of people even while being a complete idiot by just shitting out of my mouth about wizards sometimes

that said I could probably stand to bring it up sometimes anyway you're right. maybe I will just start tweeting John Oliver videos at random. I appreciate the talent of jangling keys to keep ppl's attention through difficult topics

sharing some of the notes I have written to myself:

"If Figaro's absolute value as a central is "protection," Murr's is "truth." Compared to canon Murr, he has a stronger sense of responsibility over the damage caused by the knowledge he shares, but at his core, his ideal wish is for everyone to understand everything about everything. He's experienced plenty of reasons not to trust what people will do with information, but it goes against his heart to restrict information from anyone. Who can determine who does or doesn't deserve to know the truth? If central Murr could have his way, even insects would be taught all the secrets of this world! Meanwhile, Figaro loves to restrict information, so even though he and Figaro have spent centuries acting as something of a partnership, their methods still completely clash. But since Murr doesn't want to restrict information, yet understands its value in reducing harm, maybe he can breathe a little easier by leaving it up to Figaro. That might be how they've somehow stuck to each other for centuries."

Murr has no hatred for anyone. even if someone goes against the things he loves and values, Murr will still find them fascinating, and will probably just feel like, well, I should have understood them well enough to counteract this (central...). he is still a beloved and beloathed eccentric genius whose research has caused upheaval after upheaval in the balance of the world. he's penned in on either side by Figaro, who loves humans above wizards, and Shylock, who loves wizards above humans, and he loves and wants to work with both of them, while both of them admire his indiscriminate 'justice' that favors everyone but also both butt heads with it in their own biases. Shylock loved his sense of truth, but felt betrayed when Murr created magic technology, which creates benefit for humanity at the cost of the magic world.

while Figaro generally supports Murr's endeavors, Murr doesn't always support Figaro's lol. he usually will just go do something else rather than outright go against him, but there are probably times when he's cooperated with Shylock-the twins-Oz and gone against Figaro too (ex. Figaro was prob involved in the wizard slave trade for a time and None Of Them Liked That). but Murr never holds grudges and he's too useful to Figaro so they just come back together again as soon as one of them has a new project they want the other on board for

Murr's probably founded a lot of schools and orphanages and welfare programs over the years to make education more accessible