endomentendo

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

Panicked about school and made these to calm down because there wasn't a single ENA themed writing paper template/notebook cover on Pinterest.

It's also my first time making something like this so I'm still figuring things out.

Feel free to use but DO NOT REPOST it.

Not on tumblr and not on any other webside.

[kninedlog]

Since my own art is trash credit goes to this person for the best interpretation creatable -

twitter: https://twitter.com/hunblooms

instagram: https://instagram.com/hunbloom?utm_medium=copy_link

The picrew itself: https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/626197

OC # 1 : Meet Anthony Andrews more formally known as Mr. Andrews

The beginning | Previous | Next

(I'm trying to merge The Andrews and my other oc's into the story as best as I can without changing too much. As I do truly love the orginal and full fnaf story esp. SB; I love what creative minds and the fandom together have created more. So, please take any major changes with a slight grain of salt and move on. 'Tis a fan story.)

THE BEFORE

- Late 1979, a young spry, fresh out of highschool guy, named Mr. Andrews met a guy nicknamed Bill durring their time in college. Bill was speed running his way to a robotics degree, Andrews could see the man had some help back where he came from unsure of how or where though. As someone with his already preexisting knowledge felt a little taboo in these parts. He should know that best, being the weird one out in the robotics major of all places for just simply being good at it and the top of the class until Bill came around and knocked him to number two just because of speed. However, he didn't mind nor really cared about the man. That was until the campus spread with rumors that Bill owned a business. A children's pizza joint for family and fun times that had animatronic robots as the entertainment. That caught his attention.

-While Bill was busy rushing through the courses he needed workers to help keep the animatronics that were already there spic and span while he was away, he couldn't just leave his business partner to handle it all, it'd just be too much for him. So Andrews approchd and showed off a bit in class to get Bills attention for the job.

-It worked. All he needed was a small time engineer. Not anything really fancy. But, if Andrews could do more that'd be a plus! But truly he was just looking for someone to keep the upkeep while he was busy with learning and his partner was busy with the restaurant biz.

-Andrews happily accepted as he simply wanted the extra cash, being a small time waiter and bartender was not cutting it for the big ambitions he had dreamed for. Besides he was never really a people person. Robots and computers understood him more anyway.

-Working at the main location as it was the closest, young Mr. Andrews got to meet an at his prime, Henry Emily. A name that was thrown around a lot at the campus for his solo business venture through Chica's Party world. A place most of the campus students favored than fredbears before the two companies merged to make the Diner. Andrews never really picked a side, he didn't care enough.

-Andrews was then trained and heavily watched over by Henry. Simply doing his daily task of checking, basic tuening and cleaning everyday for a surprisingly three digit stack at the end of every week. However Henry started to notice a shine, a glow about the young adult who worked so feverishly and passionatly perfect at his job that he wanted to indulge in a little bit of curiosity.

-Andrews was then randomly asked to create a new animatronic for them to present. Something more marketable then useable. Just a test. He assured the boy they were never gonna use it, the man was just simply curious. Curious to see how truly in love the young one was to the craft of robotics and the science within it.

-Andrews delivered ten-fold. Billions of papers stack and stacks of notebooks and loose leaf were piled onto the surprised owners desk the next morning. The man couldn't have made all these the night prior could he!?

-Each few pages dedicated in intricate detail to a single idea. All different, all unique, all spectacularly futuristic with AI emotional programming and features that by today's time were impossible. Yet maybe plausible in the near future.

-Andrews wasn't just a simple robotics and computer science major, he was a visionary. A genius. An inventor. But he sadly didn't have the funds nor space nor help or crew create what he wanted. Not to mention that with these blue prints and designs, it would need to be a few years before something of this calibur could be made. Still Henry was fascinated and intrigued. He decided to hire the boy full time the second he and William graduated together. That's when Andrews finally knew Bill's full name.

-From that point forth he was now officially Fazbear entertainment's head engineer and technician employee, ready to hop from location to location where they'd need him to fix things right on up!

1983

- FOUR YEARS PASS. IT'S 1983. Since the Diner chain would barely need his assistance anymore with the booming business that's been surrounding it, Andrews was moved to the newest spin off location Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, with the same working position as before but also a co manager. He was offered the role of head manager but he turned it down. Too much pressure, too much people, he'd rather just robot.

-Durring his time at his newest location he used up all the money he had saved previously from four years ago to finally start working on a project he plans that he would fully end up passing over as a gift to his kin. Well that's if he would ever have kids, no woman would ever glance his way or give him the time of day. That's until he met the future Ms. Andrews at a company after party night on location where he found out she worked as a waitress.

-The two started to mingle, flirt, and eventually become an item. Jordan loved watching the man she would marry one day work, found it fascinating how he knew all these codes and sequences, how in the zone he would become, sure it was a bit scary. Sometimes she couldn't even get him to eat or go to the bathroom, pry him away from that damn table or computer, how he would just push himself to and over the limit just to get a single finger to move. But how he would put this peice here and that there when building together a gift for something he only hopes and prayed was a possibility someday was still so amazing and greatful. She envied him. She envied him a lot.

- Still well early into the year the idea that he had heard his bosses talk about time to time had become a reality, an idea that frankly he had slight suspicion was stolen from him. I mean a robot that can move around freely and not have to bolted somewhere in place. That was one of the many of hundreds ideas he had scattered on Henry's desk that day. But then once he heard the idea came from William and that the robot would also double as a suit, Andrews then got freaked out. The awful amount of possibilities that could come with that were suprisingly not endless but gruesome.

- Could he say this right in front of the man's face? Absolutely the fuck not! That's his boss, he didn't want to eat fired! Plus he has a strange feeling he'll be used as a guinea pig for the idea if he did. So he kept his mouth shut, forced out a smile and gave a thumbs up and continued to watch from the sides. If there was one thing Andrew was best at, it was keeping his name out of anything and staying out of trouble.

-One day tragedy hit the company when one of the founders children died due to a very tragic chain of events. This left a shock of nerves spiked at the new Andrews houshold, a shotty two bedroom apartment in a complex. Right when Jordan found out she was positive too. Henry and William both told Andrews to keep continuing his job at the spin-off location despite the tragedy struck at the Diner. Nothing had happened at the spin off so it was fine. Plus they would need him to keep the golden suits that were now stored in the back the same treatment he was giving the new wonderful four.

- He listened and went back to work but had a feeling that William needed a talk, he looked so . . . Out of it. So he offered to let the man rant his heart out to him over drinks, to mourn and get emotional with someone that will keep their mouth shut at the local pub Jr.'s

-After a few small drinks and deep talks, with Jordan as added company, William wanted to drive them back home, do a good deed for a good deed ya know. Out of all them William wasn't as drunk and was to chilverous and proud to let Jordan drive. He claimed he never let his wife due to how "bad" she was which was a funny laugh. They agreed and off they went but half way home they crashed. It wasn't that bad, no serious damage was done to the car. William and Andrews were fine, dizzy. Maybe left with a tiny concussion, but Jordan wasn't so lucky.

-At the hospital William was apologetic to the nines. He didn't mean for it he didn't realize how drunk he was. Andrews was calm he was collected and he was reasonable. He told his superior that it was alright. Jordan, although heavily reluctant, made the more probable choice to live and get another chance at giving birth, but lost her first child in the process due to the injury she received.

1984

-The Andrews house hold has never been so quite, so very quiet. Mr. Andrews continues his job in due diligence until the night after his successful testing of the security puppets visual recognition to color, AT THE DINER, Charlie Emily dies from a random act of violence by an unknown killer at the back of the restaurant he first started. He takes a few days off and just like thing only got worse.

-AT THE LOCATION HE CO-MANAGES FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZA; one new kid gone, another gone. Another, another. He had it after one, after Susie went missing and stayed home later, picked back up the waiting tables and bartending the weekdays and leaving his job earlier to not be associated, but he still felt guilty and awful that he had no idea what to do. Once the third came around he just fell off the grid. Stopped showing up and started focusing on his and his new wife's life together. Using the sudden suprise marriage and honey moon as an excuse before completely quitting when they returned.

- He completely cut himself off from anything Freddy Fazbear's for a long long LONG time. Putting his free time into the gift of a life time. And watched as a bystander as a the company he used to love and cherish, the men he used to aspire to and admire break down.

- Then his first child was born.

The beginning | Previous | Next

[thecryingastrologer]

Asteroid babbage(11341)🖥️

DISCLAIMER: THESE OBSERVATIONS ARE BASED ON MY PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS.

DO NOT PLAGIARISE 🚫 MY 🚫 WORK 🚫 IF YOU WISH TO REPOST IT GIVE ME THE CREDITS 💌🧿

NAMED AFTER: CHARLES BABBAGE

DATE OF BIRTH: 26 DECEMBER 1791

DATE OF DEATH: 18 OCTOBER 1871

AGE OF DEATH: 79

CAUSE OF DEATH: RENAL INADEQUACY, SECONDARY TO CYSTITIS

ABOUT CHARLES BABBAGE

Charles Babbage was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer

BABBAGE'S ACHIEVEMENTS

Babbage is considered by some to be "father of the computer". Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, the Difference Engine, that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in Babbage's Analytical Engine, programmed using a principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom.

Babbage had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers covered in his book Economy of Manufactures and Machinery. His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century.

Babbage, who died before the complete successful engineering of many of his designs, including his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine, remained a prominent figure in the ideating of computing.

Parts of Babbage's incomplete mechanisms are on display in the Science Museum in London. In 1991, a functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked

The idea of mechanically calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. Later he made a small calculator that could perform certain mathematical computations to eight decimals. Then in 1823 he obtained government support for the design of a projected machine, the Difference Engine, with a 20-decimal capacity.

In 1843 Babbage’s friend mathematician Ada Lovelace translated a French paper about the Analytical Engine and, in her own annotations, published how it could perform a sequence of calculations, the first computer program. The Analytical Engine, however, was never completed.

Babbage’s design was forgotten until his unpublished notebooks were discovered in 1937. In 1991 British scientists built Difference Engine No. 2—accurate to 31 digits—to Babbage’s specifications, and in 2000 the printer for the Difference Engine was also built.

BABBAGE'S PUBLIC NUISANCES

Babbage involved himself in well-publicised but unpopular campaigns against public nuisances. He once counted all the broken panes of glass of a factory, publishing in 1857 a "Table of the Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate Glass Windows": Of 464 broken panes, 14 were caused by "drunken men, women or boys".

Babbage's distaste for commoners (the Mob) included writing "Observations of Street Nuisances" in 1864, as well as tallying up 165 "nuisances" over a period of 80 days. He especially hated street music, and in particular the music of organ grinders, against whom he railed in various venues. 

The following quotation is typical:

It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.

Babbage was not alone in his campaign. A convert to the cause was the MP Michael Thomas Bass.

In the 1860s, Babbage also took up the anti-hoop-rolling campaign. He blamed hoop-rolling boys for driving their iron hoops under horses' legs, with the result that the rider is thrown and very often the horse breaks a leg. Babbage achieved a certain notoriety in this matter, being denounced in debate in Commons in 1864 for "commencing a crusade against the popular game of tip-cat and the trundling of hoops."

Basically he became a ken(male of version of Karen) of 1864

MEMORIALS FOR BABBAGE

There is a black plaque commemorating the 40 years Babbage spent at 1 Dorset Street, London. 👇

Locations, institutions and other things named after Babbage include:

🥬The Moon crater Babbage

🥬The Charles Babbage Institute, an information technology archive and research center at the University of Minnesota

🥬The Charles Babbage Premium, an annual computing award

🥬British Rail named a locomotive after him in the 1990s

🥬The Babbage Building at the University of Plymouth, where the university's school of computing is based

🥬The Babbage programming language for GEC 4000 series minicomputers

🥬"Babbage", The Economist's Science and Technology blog.

🥬The former chain retail computer and video-games store "Babbage's" (now GameStop) was named after him.

WHAT I THINK THIS ASTEROID COULD MEAN

Where you create a legacy or become extremely reknowed/ prominent

(Charles was known for being father of computers)

Multiple interest/ versatility

Where you attain support from law or people around you

Where your work may be forgotten or unaknowledged for a while and then become prominent or extremely important.

Deep rooted interests and where we tend to focus to to improve

Where we set ourselves apart from the crowd/ where we become distinguished.

Where we encourage others to follow us or where others feel the need to follow us

Where we become notorius/controversial too sooooo 👀😂

Prominence of this asteroid occurs only when it is conjuncting with your personal points (ic, dc, mc, ac) and personal planets (sun, moon, mars, mercury, venus)

[atariaction]

Kay’s 2021 Wrap-Up

It’s the waning days of 2021, which means it’s time for my annual summary of the computer history efforts I’ve made in the past year.

I published interviews with 29 people across 28 episodes of ANTIC: The Atari 8-Bit Podcast. Many of those interviews can be grouped into specific subjects that I gave extended attention to. Those subjects were:

The Capital Children’s Museum and Interactive Picture Systems. The museum was home to a large lab of Atari (and later, Apple) computers, as well as the office of Interactive Picture Systems and the “Superboots” software development lab.

Atari Research. I did five interviews with people who worked in Atari’s famed R&D lab.

Atari computers at the science fair. I interviewed three people who, as kids, used their Atari computers for school science fair projects.

Computers: Expressway to Tomorrow — a deep dive into a multimedia school assembly, sponsored by Atari, that was seen by more than a million middle- and high-school students in 1983 and 1984.

Some of the folks that I interviewed still had old source code, which they gave to me and allowed me to share with you. I unearthed the Forth code for Worms? by David Maynard as well as his development notes; three published and two unpublished programs by Ed Fries; and LOTS of Apple II Forth source code — both published programs and their development tools — from Prentice Associates.

In a collaboration with programmer Peter Liepa, I preserved the source code to several versions of Boulder Dash, but I am not able to share them due to German copyright law. (A German company owns the rights to Boulder Dash and still publishes new versions.) Still, it’s good to know that the code won’t be lost.

The media I digitized wasn’t limited to code. Filmmaker Lucy Hilmer generously gave me a U-Matic videotape of The Magic Room, Atari’s 1983 documentary about Atari computer camps, which I had professionally digitized, as well as a folder of production documents related to the film. After digitizing them, I donated all the material to The Strong Museum of Play.

After my interview with Suzanne Ciani, she found an unpublished song that she produced for Atari and allowed me to share it. “My Atari” is a bop.

I also unearthed Brenda Laurel’s Atari research memos on the subject of interactive fantasy, which she didn’t have anymore but were buried deep on a very old, very janky hacker site.

I scanned a figurative ton of material in 2021, even purchasing an A3-sized bookedge scanner for larger-format material. I scanned 83 issues of Home Computer Advanced Course magazine, completing the Internet Archive’s collection of that fun UK publication. I also scanned dozens of Atari newsletters, including issues from Jersey Atari Computer Group, Atari Interface, South Shore Atari Group, Atari Times, Bay Area Atari Users Group, Atari Computer Enthusiasts, and Atari Dealer News. (In a herculean effort to organize my workspace, I donated these newsletters to The Strong also.)

Dan Kramer sent me amazing batches of material to scan. Dan, who worked at Atari from 1980 to 1984 in the consumer engineering group, created the Trak-Ball accessories for the Atari game consoles and computers. He also worked on the prototype Atari 2700 and various other projects. I scanned his Atari engineering notebook as well as the schematics and notes that he had saved regarding the Atari Cosmos, an unreleased holographic tabletop game; the Atari 2700 with radio-controlled joysticks; SECAM video versions of the Atari XL computers; and more.

I continued work on the Scantastix project, adding 310 items (primarily Apple II manuals provided by 4AM.) Those 310 items totaled at least 8,000 pages. I lost count.

Other projects that I completed in 2021:

Copying my back catalog of 450+ audio interviews onto YouTube to increase their visibility and reach.

Creating The Internet Archive Research Assistant (TIARA), a tool for researchers who use Internet Archive.

Processing videos of the presentations at Vintage Computer Festival West and VCF East 2021.

Looking ahead: to be perfectly honest, I doubt I will be as productive in 2022 as I was in 2021. The end of December, and the end of 2021 in particular, probably isn’t the best time for me to write this summary. The short winter days weigh on me. I am healthy, but the lingering effects of wave after wave of covid are draining me emotionally. I can’t predict how much energy I will have to devote to these projects in 2022. I need a break from so many interviews (each is more time-consuming than you might guess), and spending hours processing piles of scanned documents does not appeal to me at the moment. It’s possible that a bunch of exciting new projects will reveal themselves this year, and it’s possible I’ll regain the energy and emotional bandwidth to dive into them. It’s also possible that 2022 will be a quieter year. So I’m making no predictions, setting no goals. I’m going to take things a little bit at a time and see where 2022 takes me.

Thanks to my supporters for joining me on this journey, whatever waves and crests it endures.

-Kay Savetz, December 26, 2021.

[cwmoonglum]

The Grid of Misery

cw: suicide, self harm In 2005 the kids at my school were obsessed with a simple website lost to history that functioned as a sort of combination of twitter and PostSecret. The home page was a grid of multihued squares. Each square was a post – importantly, an anonymous post. The users could alter the text colour, formatting and background colour. There was no such thing as the like or share function. Nevertheless, this anonymous site was equally as addicting as later forms of social media, because these messages revealed the internal turmoil teenagers felt. The posts were, unless signed, untraceable. They discussed self harm, eating disorders, feeling ugly, feeling great, homosexuality, pining after crushes. Everyone in my social group used the site, and many nights were wasted in MSN Messenger group chats trying to parse the grid for clues as to the posters. Eulogies for earlier iterations of the internet often miss an important fact; the internet has always been a sad place.

I remember the first time someone online told me that they were going to kill themselves. I was 14, and posting on the Wizards of the Coast forums, specifically the Dungeons and Dragons boards. Truthfully told, I wasn't gaining much traction, because it seemed like most of the userbase was older than I was. But I did connect with one poster, Hassan, who happened to be an Assassin. By this I don't mean that he played an Assassin in D&D, though of course he did. Rather, Hassan claimed descent from an actual حشّاشين , a devotee of Rashid al-Din Sinan. Logging into AOL instant messenger, we would often discuss the exploits of the assassins during the era of the Crusades. Hassan's favourite story was that of an assassin who, as Saladin besieged their mountain fortress, entered the Sultan's war camp in the dead of night and left him a steaming plate of regional baked goods – and a poisoned dagger. Saladin switched to diplomacy after this, but Hassan was enamoured of the assassin's dedication, their willingness to risk death.

Like a lot of kids that get into D&D, Hassan wasn't too popular at school. It was also 2004, and he lived in America. As our chats went on, he began to open up; even his friends that played D&D with him were starting to get sucked up in the racist fervour around the Iraq War. Girls did not like him. His town was small, and his family isolated even as his father tried to blithely disregard the hate directed at them. Paranoid, unhappy and victimised one day he logged in and told me that he was going to kill himself by hanging. I stayed online for hours trying to talk him out of it, heart in my throat even as I grew irritated and bored with the circular logic of his depression. Our last few chats followed this pattern. Then one day he told me he was moving to college to study computer science. He never logged in from that account again; I assume he made it out alive.

In 2007, a Virginian teen was suspended from school for creating and carrying around a replica Death Note notebook. Like in the manga and the anime, he used it to record how he wanted people who victimised him to die. Going forward, there would be a spate of such incidents; many if not most moved online, using early social media or services like Formspring to create databases of gossip, bullying and venting that terrified school administrators. Wearing masks or posting anonymously allowed teenagers to express and explore extremes of feeling that were impossible in daily life. Indeed, researcher danah boyd wrote a blog post observing the phenomenon of unhappy teenagers engaging in 'digital self harm' whereby they created sock puppet accounts to bully themselves. Whether such children were trying to gain sympathy, call attention to their emotional agony or further punish themselves the internet was in effect a space for the transmission of unhappiness too overpowering to express in reality.

Much of this happened anonymously, or in digital dress up in obscure corners of the internet. Awakening one morning and checking on a forum I moderated, I found that an otherwise secretive user who refused to discuss their private life had filled the boards with graphic images of self harm. Not knowing what to do, I deleted the images, apologised to those that had seen them and spent the remainder of the week fretting that the user wasn't returning my concerned messages. Was the effect of the network a loosening of social injunctions against displaying such emotional pain, or was there a viral component whereby such thoughts and images lodged in your head? Many of the people on such boards struggled with similar problems, but there was no algorithm driving engagement as there is nowadays.

It wasn't just Hassan. There were many times I and others would befriend a stranger on the internet, only to find ourselves a few weeks later talking them down from suicide. Unprepared teenagers acting as crisis counsellors to one another through lonely nights filled with blue screen light and music piped through tinny headphones. The sheer number of such encounters informs me now that at least some of them were deliberately toying with the credulous, soft hearted fools on the other side of the screen. Another part of me objects; the urge to perform such turmoil before strangers suggests a deep loneliness that was only pretending to pretend. Like my peers on the microblogging grid site, each and every user was desperately wishing to be decoded, to have their pain revealed, affirmed, forgiven.

[fipindustries]

The ludomancer

So you heard of parahumans fans using their own lives to come up with triggers and create their own fan capes? well, that is more than well trodden ground so i figured lets take it an extra notch and figure out my own fan practitioner, my own fanctitioner! (disclaimer: many of of the personal details here were either exagerated or fabricated for dramatic effect)

backstory

i had open heart surgery when i was 6 months old, and if niccolette belanger is anything to go by, having big openings in your flesh at a very young age is free real state for persky spirits. Just imagine this giant entrance direct to my chest, leaving my heart ridden with holes and openly exposed.

Now this was in a very modern hospital in and incredibly sterile enviroment so is not like there were a lot of grisly phantasmagoric spirits crawling all over the place, you i was covered head to toe in technology, multiple wires and tubes and god knows what else all poking out of my chest, back in those days i was more machine than human. So with that in mind i like the idea that perhaps some fairly young spirits of electricity, technology, science and artificousness got inside me.

nothing too wild and powerful considering these things were all relatively recent by the standards of the practisce, but enough to have an influence. The general result is that i would be naturally inclined towards STEM fields, mad scientists, math and engeneering as a kid. I would constantly find myself getting involved into these enviroments (even when i didnt want to) such as going to a course in robotics, going to a high school soecialized in mechanics, studing computer science in college, etc.

my life would go on more or less like normal, the spirits slowly growing inside of me but always kept in check by my own essense and sense of self. Until...

Awareness

i changed careers and went to live at a college dorm in the middle of nowhere, five kilometers away from the nearest city, a small oasis of technology in the desert and the central hub for the Wi Fi of my state. As the years went by i became more and more isolated, my Conections grew weaker, my own sense of self got thinner and thinner (exacerbated by me finally questioning my gender identity). my prescence on the world was almost non existant, spending most of my time in my dorm in my computer not interacting with anyone, browsing ever incresingly more niche or obscure websites.

in this oasis of technology in the middle of nowhere, with my personal conections and sense of identity growing weaker, the spirits within me started to grow stronger and stronger, starting to screw with my very perception of reality, pushing things so that i would start to go down weird rabbit holes online, reading strange texts in impossibly formatted websites that would introduce strange ideas about the nature of reality, some times even downright attempting to posses me (i would try to rationalize these episodes where i would experience derealization as just panic attacts).

The spirits of technology would introduce me to forbidden ideas online, dangerous memetic cognitohazards, basiliks that would force me to perform obscure rituals to summon  demonic entities from lost planes of reality, not aligned with human values. They would try and convince me that reality was a simulation and coax me to pierce the veil and see the true subyacent reality, that subatomic particles were capable of experiencing suffering, that i could be tortured for eternity if enough people were kept from getting dust specks in their eyes. If things had gone like that for much longer i would have probably ended up summoning or becoming an Ex Machina and probably an entire wing of the college campus would have been condemned.

Luckly in my college there just hapened to be a young dabbler who got wind of my situation. They took notice of me and were kind enough to put me in touch with an online community of witch hunters who specialized in cases like mine (the dabbler didnt take care of it themselves because they didnt want to accidentally reveal to me more than strictly necessary about the magic world, the group of witch hunters had a lot more experience solving this problems without the karmic burden of awakening someone)

The witch hunters were a fairly niche group within the larger community of witch hunters. They specialized in bayesian techniques. Using the tools of rationality to dispell illutions, glamours, mind tricks and half truths. They established firm rules for thinking and percieving the world so that Others wouldnt be able to decieve or manipulate them. Calling bullshit on the impossible. Their organization, the Magical Interference Restriction Institute, coordinated the efforts to develop safe protocols for the practisce in the digital age.

They exorcised most of it, gave me a few basic mental tools and rituals to keep the spirits in check and recommended me to try and forget about the whole affair. But fat chance about that, by this point my eyes had been opened.

The awakening

When i finished college and moved to a different city i did everything in my power to enter in contact with the practitioner world again. Walking around the city, reading craiglist adds, looking into different organizations. Of course i wasnt acting blindly, i was guided by some of the things that i had picked up during my posessions, the things the spirits had revealed to me, the forbidden texts that i had read and some of the advice the witch hunters gave me.

Eventually i managed to follow conections and came across a small cabal of practitioners who put the front of a board game club to recruit people and have a place to reunite while looking legitimate and not arising suspicion from the mundanes. The way the club would work was that on the front it was a normal place to play things like Catan, Carcassone, king of tokyo, etc. But on the back room they would “play test” new “games” between the senior members of the club. when in reality they would workshop new rituals to perform.

They would focus on a fairly recent branch of magic caled Ludomancy. Focused on the idea that any boardgame is in the end a ritual. it would be this communal activity with rules and mechanics, supported by the illution and the beliefs of the players who would manipulate symbols and idols across intricate diagrams. 

they saw my experience with rules, logic and technology applied to magic and saw enough potential in me that they allowed me to join. Their awakening ritual is a bit different than most since they customized it based on their findings and experiences with rituals. Instead os sitting in a circle the circle is inscribed in a board. The piece that you use to move through the board has to be carved by you and has to be composed of elements that represent you and that are meaningful to you and it has to hold within a couple of drops of your blood.

You throw the dice and move across the board and depending on what places you fall in on of the cards will be drawn from the multiple decks. These cards will either give you challenges to overcome to prove yourself, make declarations and impositions on the kind of practitioner you will be once you awaken or just be criptic messages and riddles that wont be relevant or mean anything to you until many years down the line. You have to overcome the challenges, answer the questions posed by the cards and most of all, play the rules cleverly so that you can make your piece reach the center of the board and scream jumanji to complete the ritual. Now the rules of every awakening playthrough change and they can be incredibly intricate and complex, it can take a lot of cleverness of a lot of luck to finish this ritual but once you do you find yourself in a much firmer and powerful grounding than most begginers do.

the practice

i would probably focus on shamanism, collecting spirits here and there, slow and steady accumulation of a power base. i would like to get into constructs, acumulating spirits, helping them grow, give them a bit of my own power to help the process along, like sacrificing one drop of blood every week, or establishing small rituals of worship, and then mix and mashing them together to build more complex spirits, also i would probably offer small favors to the local practitioners in exchange of tibdits, trinkets and sources of power, always keeping it low profile and not too ambitious, something like helping with a ritual here and there, being a pair of extra hands, mostly giving help establishing magic circles and drawing diagrams, running small errands, sending messages. it would help let other people know that im not too much of a concern and hopefully they would let me be

if you need help or want to make an exchange with me you could come to my house and i would offer to play a game (usually one i made up) and in the process of playing the game i would perform the magic that you need or arrange the cosmological and quintessential pieces inside and outside of you according to your request.

My implement would be a set of D&D dices that i can use to make a bit of augury, affect probabilities, dictate outcomes and, in times of need, cheat at my games a bit. the rest of my equipment would be booklets and notebooks filled with my own designs, rulesets and texbooks, lots and of graph paper and one actual RPG supplement that i would use to bluff some of the more out of date Others by claiming that i have tomes filled with arcane spells and a full compendium of magicl creatures.

eventually i would try to diversify, focusing more on crafting and building, going more for the angle of the toy maker rather than game designer. I would build complex structures in papercraft, small mechanisms with cardboard, intricate contraptions with some clockwork and some springs.

i probably wouldnt get a familiar, i just dont see my self commiting to a life long companion. i would desperatly try to establish a demesne but that would also be rather complicated since i dont see my self owning property any time soon either.

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: 【夏彦拜访剧情】 Xia Yan’s Personal Story 2-9 Translation

Translated parts: Xia Yan’s Personal Story Chapter 2: 2-1 / 2-2 / 2-4 / 2-5 / 2-7 / 2-8 / 2-9 / 2-10 / 2-11 / 2-13 / 2-14 Translation Masterlist: here

Video: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xV411m79T?p=7

A quick explanation of how this feature works is that each boy has their own section that you can “Visit”! Part of it is like MLQC’s GSH feature, where you can talk to the boys (with Live2D!) and raise intimacy by interacting with them. The other part of it is a storyline that centers on the MC running around with the respective boy to deal with a certain case or situation.

Basement

After the topic of living alone ended, Xia Yan and I started a new round of searching in the basement.

Soon, I noticed a very exquisite box.

It was very out of place compared to the other, outdated items in the basement. All it was missing was “I’m very special” written on top.

MC: Xia Yan! There’s a box here!

I opened the box. There was a journal in it.

Journal Contents

MC: So Zero’s owner was called Marivisa. They fell in love!

MC: The riddle on the notebook just now was the confession event all along.

I swept my gaze over the journal’s first line, and couldn’t help thinking of an image.

A flower garden at night, specks of fireflies; the same time that the young man said “kiss”, the young lady kissed his lips.

It… no, I think I should use “he” to address him.

MC: And then, the calendar picture records their first meeting, and the alarm clock picture records their daily interactions.

MC: Zero wrote a journal because he feared that if there ever was an accident, it would cause problems on his memory chip’s data.

MC: How romantic…

Xia Yan: But… this isn’t scientific.

Xia Yan: Though AI robots can do deep academic learning, it’s not possible for them to produce emotions, and emotions of love are even less likely.

Xia Yan: Based on the Turing test…

MC: …

MC: Xia Yan! Do you have a single romantic cell in your body!

MC: The Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz” had feelings! There are lots of AI robots with emotions in anime and movies!

Xia Yan: Why did you get angry… I was just saying…

Cover

MC: Looking at the signature, this is Zero’s journal.

Xia Yan: The memories that Zero wants to find might be this.

MC: Although, why does an AI robot need to write a journal to record events? Wouldn’t it be enough to just save it in his memory?

Xia Yan and I continued to look through the contents of the journal.

Halfway through the journal, the romantic feelings between Zero and Lady Marivisa took a sharp turn.

MC: Not long after Zero and Lady Marivisa fell in love, Lady Marivisa got a serious illness.

MC: The doctor said that an optimistic estimate was that she had three years left…

MC: Lady Marivisa wanted to have Zero delete all memories about the two of them, to have Zero forget that they had fallen in love…

Xia Yan: …

MC: …

Xia Yan: As an AI robot, Zero had no way of disobeying the command of his master, but he didn’t want to forget Lady Marivisa. 

Xia Yan: He used the computer virus to interfere with the deletion command, left clues for himself, wanting to use these to remind himself to find his lost memories.

MC: So we received the commission. We just need to give this journal to Zero…

Xia Yan sunk into silence for a moment.

Xia Yan: The commission letter from earlier had a postmark for 2046, but the last date on this journal is 2043.

Xia Yan: Three years… Lady Marivisa already…

MC: Medical science might have improved and Lady Marivisa might still be alive!

This was only a game, only a setup made of countless pieces. Lady Marivisa could not have gone against this setup.

But I still unconsciously looked for a reason, not wanting to let this story end in this way.

Xia Yan did not refute me. He seemed to have been infected by my mood, following my words to quietly explain it.

Xia Yan: Even so, she doesn’t have much time anyways. Otherwise, she would have returned to look for Zero.

Xia Yan: And Zero… wouldn’t still be in a state of memory loss throughout the three years.

MC: Why didn’t Zero restore his memories in the three years? He should have…

Xia Yan: Lady Marivisa probably made some other arrangements.

Xia Yan: There are many ways to hide things from someone…

MC: …

Is it really like this…

Lady Marivisa used every method possible to have her lover forget her and leave her…

MC: Why does it have to be like this…

MC: Why couldn’t she have let Zero accompany her by her side – Zero would definitely…

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: Because… Zero would be happier this way.

Xia Yan: He wouldn’t feel sorrow, he wouldn’t be sad, and he could happily start a new life.

He seemed to be comforting me, saying this gently.

Xia Yan: A story of two people where only one person has a sorrowful ending, but the other person can have a happy ending.

Xia Yan: If you think about it like this, is it a bit more acceptable?

>It’s not good at all! >Do you really think that?

MC: It’s not good at all! If I were Zero, I wouldn’t be happy at all!

MC: If someone important was silently bearing everything on their back, while I knew nothing while benefiting from her sacrifice – how could I be happy!

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: She wasn’t sacrificing herself. She was just using her own methods to let Zero be happy.

MC: But Zero’s happiness is her.

Xia Yan: She already has no way to give Zero happiness.

Xia Yan: Rather than hurting him at the end, this way would instead be somewhat good…

I didn’t know if it was because of the story, or if it was Xia Yan’s opinion that “as long as one person was happy, then it would be fine”, but I suddenly got a little angry.

MC: Why do you always say this kind of thing! Could it be that you plan to hide things from me throughout your whole life if you ever encounter some sort of bad situation!

Xia Yan: I…!

Xia Yan: … I’m sorry…

Xia Yan’s expression was hard to look at for a moment. In a panic, I apologized.

MC: I’m sorry, Xia Yan, that’s not what I mean…

MC: I just got a little anxious…

>It’s not good at all!

>Do you really think that?

MC: Do you really think that?

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, and he didn’t speak. I knew that this was his admission by silence.

MC: Then what if I got some terminal illness one day and also quietly – 

Xia Yan: What nonsense are you talking about!

Xia Yan lifted his hand, blocking my mouth in an instant. I pushed a few times before finally getting his hand off.

MC: Xia Yan, why did you cover me so tightly? Did you want to choke me to death?!

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan’s rapid breathing took a while before stabilizing. I subconsciously felt some guilt.

MC: Don’t be so agitated, I’m just talking about it.

MC: Look, you also wouldn’t be willing for me to not tell you if I encountered some situation and went off quietly on my own.

MC: I’m the same. If you encounter some sort of situation in the future and disappeared on your own, I would be very sad.

MC: I know that this kind of method is to let the other person be happy, but I don’t think that it will really let the other person be happy.

Xia Yan: I…

The space between Xia Yan and I fell into silence for a moment.

MC: I’m sorry, I reacted a little too severely…

Xia Yan: … I know…

Xia Yan: I know that you hate sorrowful endings the most.

Xia Yan: So I…

Xia Yan suddenly held his words.

MC: Xia Yan…?

Xia Yan: I wanted to say, so we should hurry out of here. Let’s not get sad over a story!

Xia Yan: Don’t you always say that desserts are the best cure? I’ll bring you to eat something delicious, how about ice cream cake?

Xia Yan: Let’s go, let’s go!

Laughing, Xia Yan pulled at my hand, bringing me towards the outside.

I turned my head to look at that journal. The pictures that hinted at the love between two people in this riddle swept around in my head, one by one.

Suddenly, something among them flashed—

MC: Wait, Xia Yan! It’s not the last memory! We still have a clue we haven’t used!

I promptly pulled out those five pictures and placed them together again.

Back

MC: Outside the gaps, there are three numbers – 800, 3, and 2. All our riddle solutions earlier haven’t used them.

MC: But if these numbers were specifically printed on here, then they shouldn’t be meaningless.

MC: The numbers lay on top of the patterns, or you could say that they were printed after the patterns.

Xia Yan: The patterns relate to the escape room’s floorboard mechanism.

Xia Yan: Your meaning is that these numbers are the floorboard mechanism’s next riddle.

MC: That’s exactly my meaning!

Front

MC: Before, our attention was all focused on reading the text on the front of the pictures.

MC: We thought that the symbols on the gaps on the back were related to riddles afterwards, so we ignored them temporarily.

Xia Yan: 800, 3, 2. Something here that relates to having three numbers is…

MC: It’s the shelves! I just saw that the side of a shelf had a tag with 800!

Xia Yan: If so, then 2 and 3 might mean the row and column of the shelf.

We found the number 800 shelf, then found a wooden box and a book from the drawer on row 2, column 3.

The wood box was locked up by a 4-digit password lock. On it, there was placed Isaac Asimov’s short sci-fi fiction novel, “I, Robot”.

Xia Yan: Since this book was placed with the wooden box, then the wooden box’s password should be related to it.

MC: But where is its relation to the password?

I held up the book and flipped through it. The book was very new – there were no ripped pages, no paper notes inside, and no sketch marks.

The book spine’s bottom area had a blank white label stuck to it.

MC: Places in the book relating to numbers is – price, page count, or the book number like the one from the last riddle.

Xia Yan: Aside from this, the book name or the author name’s abbreviation letters can also be converted to numbers using the order of the alphabet.

MC: Then I’ll try them all!

I entered the price, page count, book number, abbreviated name’s converted pattern numbers in one after another, but the password lock did not respond.

MC: It won’t work…

Xia Yan: Don’t get disheartened. We’ve already excluded several types of incorrect methods, right?

Xia Yan: Look, this book’s spine has an empty label. If it’s specially placed on, it can’t be irrelevant information.

Xia Yan: And the other strange place is the shelf’s number.

Xia Yan: The quantity of the bookshelves is only in the tens, so why is this shelf numbered 800?

MC: You mean, the riddle’s answer is related to these two things?

Xia Yan: Right. Usually only library books will have labels stuck on them, but this book isn’t from a library’s collection.

Xia Yan: Bringing it back to the point, looking at these shelves and these books, do you feel some déjà vu?

I looked at the shelves in the basement. Under the dim lighting, for a while, I actually did think that it was a bit like a library.

MC: Is it a library? Right! The book shelves at the library all are numbered!

Xia Yan: That’s right!

Xia Yan: Library books all follow the library classification system’s class numbers to distinguish them all!

MC: Library classification system, huh… I know nothing about this…

Xia Yan: Did you forget that you’ve got me?

Xia Yan: There are a lot of library classification systems in the world. Among them, the most widely used, with the largest influence, is the “International Dewey* Decimal System”.

Xia Yan: I’ve looked at it. The shelves here, the files and the books’ placement in them, should be following this classification system.

Xia Yan: “I, Robot” is a short sci-fi fiction novel by American author Isaac Asimov.

Xia Yan: According to the Dewey Decimal System, the classification number for short fictions is 82-32.

I immediately entered 8232 into the password lock. With a “click” sound, it opened.

MC: It opened!

In the wooden box was yet another journal.

I opened the journal. There was a computer chip inside.

Journal Text

MC: September 15, 2043!

MC: The last journal’s final date was May 7, 2043. This is a new journal entry!

I quickly read it.

“Day 66. I found my journal back.”

“But what makes me happier is the thing you sent to me today.”

“It turns out that before you had me delete my memories, you quietly made a backup.”

MC: Lady Marivisa also really missed Zero.

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan looked at the end of the journal, and quietly read it aloud.

Xia Yan: “Three years, 36 months, 1096 days, 26,304 hours, 1,578,240 minutes, 94,694,400 seconds.”

Xia Yan: “For all time, I will accompany you, and pass these days in laughter.”

Computer Chip

MC: A computer chip?

Xia Yan: The “memories” that Zero is looking for should be here.

Cover

MC: The signature on the cover is Zero’s – it’s Zero’s journal!

Seeing that the two of them were together in the end, I let out a long breath.

MC: That really is great.

Xia Yan: But… in three years, they will still…

Xia Yan: Just for love… they can’t change anything, and there’s no use in it…

MC: It’s not necessarily true that there’s not use in it.

MC: As the old saying goes, people can encounter disaster and happiness within a short time. Something might happen tomorrow to the healthiest of people.

MC: If one chooses to give up because of one moment of difficulty and fear, in the end, they will definitely be even sadder.

MC: Just like it says in here, in three years, there are 36 months, 1096 days, so many hours.

MC: If one can love for one more day, if one can love for a little more, isn’t that better?

Xia Yan: But… in the end their heart will still hurt.

MC: Yes. But this is also the choice of the two people, and the feelings are the matters of those two people.

MC: Whether it’s happiness or sadness, they should be shared.

MC: No matter what the future is like, both people should see it together. No matter what their thoughts are, they should communicate it with each other.

MC: The two people can make a decision together. No matter what the result is, at least they won’t regret it.

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan’s eyelashes lightly fluttered. In the middle of the half-light and half-dark, light and shadow intertwined in his eyes.

MC: Eh? The depth of the wood box’s interior is a lot less than it should be – it’s two-layered!

I pried open the second layer. There was a strip of paper in it, with two rows of typing printed on it.

“Three years later, Marivisa left a message: “If you are willing, then miss me. If you are willing, then forget me”.”

“Zero responded by using his own methods to input this into his heart: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Sphinx”

MC: Sphinx! He came here!

Xia Yan: Places like this all have visitor commemoration registers. We just need to see it to know when he came.

Xia Yan: There’s a ladder there, I’ll carry it over.

--

TL Note:

* “Dewey” is apparently not included in the Chinese name for it, but I stuck it in so Western readers would know it. Pretty sure it’s the correct one.

[muertawrites]

Muggle Magic (George Weasley x Reader)

Summary: George Weasely hires a squib to help him out in the shop, only to learn that magic doesn’t always require a wand. 

Word Count: 3,100

Author’s Note: Remember when I said I was gonna post this a few days ago? lmao that was clearly a lie. But it’s finished! And I’m actually really proud of it and I promise I’m not gonna delete this one like the last couple fics I’ve posted because I’m convinced that this one doesn’t suck! I might also be posting more regularly now since I started a new antidepressant that actually makes it so that I want to do productive things with my time and constant need for escapism. I hope you like my first Wizarding World fic because there will be more, considering its the one fandom I let myself get somewhat obsessive about. Enjoy, dearies~ 

                                             ~ 💀🌸 Muerta 🌸💀

( masterlist )

Working for George Weasley brought magic back into your life. 

He hired you a little over two years ago, and to say he took a chance on you was an understatement; you were a squib - come to London to get a master’s degree in the hopes of becoming a muggle historian - who had stumbled into Diagon Alley in an attempt to reconnect with your magical roots. You’d stepped into Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes during a rare moment of calm when the shop was empty and, noticing the history books peeking out of your bag, George struck up a conversation with you, mentioning his father’s long-lived love of muggle culture. 

Despite the stigma you carried, your first conversation with George offered him a shortened version of your life’s story; how you convinced your family to send you away to a muggle boarding school when your letter to a magical institution didn’t arrive by the time you turned eleven, spending your teenage years learning everything there was to know about living outside the magical world. He enjoyed your wit and passion, your lively intelligence, the comfort you had with yourself in the face of discretion, and, deciding that keeping anyone else around would be a bore after making your acquaintance, offered you a part-time position in the shop to help pay your way through grad school. 

Of course, your adjustment to the magical world after years separated from it was a challenge.

George kindly let you live in the apartment above the shop, taking rent out of your pay so that you didn’t have to bother converting such a large portion of your income into muggle money every month. Work, however, was a much more significant struggle; having no wand to help you manage the store and its immense inventory, you had to arrive early to most of your shifts in order to organize and replace product by hand, often putting yourself in danger traversing the stock room’s stories-tall ladder. After a particularly terrifying fall in which you narrowly avoided death, George took it upon himself to get you some help where genetics had failed you; he enchanted about a thousand paper cranes to pull stock for you, retrieving and storing anything you needed on command. 

“With them around, what do you need me for?” you’d teased him, quietly thankful for his care to ensure no loss of life or limb would befall you under his watch. 

“Eh,” he’d grinned, “they could never agitate me quite as well as you do.” 

Though it was odd returning to a world you could never fully be part of, working for George Weasley made the vertigo of reassociation fun. He always had some sort of funny little trick up his sleeve, be it something malicious, like slipping sugar cubes into your tea that made your hair turn into ostrich feathers or jinxing the cash register to shoot fireworks at random when opened, or something winsome, like making it snow inside as the winter holidays approached or enchanting your textbooks so that their lessons leapt off the page, playing out before you in a theater of paper mache. He engaged you in his own work, inquiring your aid in developing new products, and was deeply interested in yours, enraptured with your retellings of a history he was unaware took place so near to his own. He even brought you books on magical history from Flourish and Blotts, stopping weekly on his way into work, suggesting you consider taking up the practice of teaching the subject.

“Seriously, you should look into it,” he told you. “If I’d had you instead of Professor Binns, I might’ve actually cared enough to pass a class.” 

During slow hours, you and George would sit at the counter and eat lunch together, talking about everything and nothing and anything else in between. You told George about your childhood; how, growing up, you dreamed of doing things you would never be able to do, the horror you felt having your life’s path ripped from under you at such a young age, how you managed to find yourself again through art and history and literature. He told you about his own youth; the boisterous years of his life spent at Hogwarts, the incredible fantasies and ambitions he and his brother would dream up during late nights spent awake in their shared bedroom, the gaping hole his twin’s absence left in his soul the night he died. George was fourteen years your senior, but you were able to laugh and grieve with him as easily as if you’d been born a day apart. 

You loved working with George. Being a part of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes gave you a sense of belonging you’d never felt before; You often felt caught between the magical and muggle worlds, standing in the threshold between the two but never able to set foot into either. In the shop with George, however, you could exist without conflict - the halves of your universe were indistinguishable from one another, and for once in your life you finally felt whole. You’d found your home in the last possible place you ever expected to.

As much as you loved the shop and your employer, there were certain things about your job that drove you absolutely insane - namely, the parchment bookkeeping system. It was true that all things ancient and antique were your area of expertise, but trying to keep track of a business with nothing but quills, ink, and a stack of heavy, leatherbound volumes was what you envisioned was similar to experiencing the ninth circle of Hell. Opening and closing every day took ages, and George’s office was so cluttered with paperwork that finding anything amongst his things required a full-fledged expedition into every cabinet in the building. Fed up with the chaos, you decided it was time to bring the wizarding world (at least the corner of it you occupied) into the Twenty-First Century. 

“What the hell’s all this?” 

George furrowed his brow in bewilderment as he traversed the stairs into his office, where you were seated at his desk in front of a shiny new Mac. 

“A computer!” you told him, grinning. “We’re going to use it to help run the books. I sent an owl to your dad asking if he had anything like it laying around his shed; he sent this over last night.”

“So it’s a muggle thing,” George assumed, setting his briefcase beside the monitor as he pulled up a chair beside you. 

You nodded. 

“I’ll teach you how to use it. I’ve been here since six scanning files into it; we’ll be able to access and keep the books in order much easier now.” 

You opened the spreadsheet you’d made outlining the last quarter’s numbers, smiling proudly as George’s eyes widened in awe. 

“That’s incredible,” he said, leaning in to inspect the screen. “But what about our ledgers? How can this thing hold all of that information?” 

You giggled at his curiosity, thinking it a bit adorable how out of touch he was. 

“I’ve kept the ledgers so we still have physical records of everything,” you explained, “but having it all at hand on the computer will make the boring parts of the business a lot easier. I’ve got everything matched up with my laptop, too, so I can open and close quicker and all the numbers will be sent right to you.” 

George quirked a brow. 

“Laptop?” 

“It’s a small version of a computer,” you told him. “The screen and the keyboard” - you pointed each of these parts out - “fold together like a notebook so I can take it with me wherever I go.” 

George shook his head, clearly baffled by the complexity and convenience of muggle technology. 

“Blimey,” he mused. “I never would’ve guessed muggles could do all this without magic. It’s bloody brilliant.” 

You rolled your eyes, smiling to yourself as you gathered one of the volumes you’d been searching through and returned it to its place on the wall of shelves overlooking George’s desk. 

“You need to give us more credit,” you bantered. “Muggles are a lot more magical than you’d think.” 

The rest of the morning was spent digitally organizing documents and giving George a crash course in computer science, by the end of which he considered himself an expert in the subject. When the shop opened at noon, you could barely pull him away from his desk. 

Aside from the morning’s excitement, the rest of the day ran as usual. You spent the afternoon fluttering around the building, keeping and moving inventory while George used the weekday calm to hole himself up in his workshop and concentrate on new product. By the time evening rolled around you were adequately exhausted, deciding to settle behind the counter with a book and a cup of tea while you waited to close. 

“You said something earlier,” George announced as he finally returned down the stairs - the first time you’d seen him in hours - “about muggles and magic. I can’t seem to figure out what you mean.” 

“Good evening to you, too,” you greeted him, glancing up from your book and shooting him an amused grin. “What’s got you confused?” 

George hoisted himself up onto the counter, turning so he faced you and folding his legs beneath him. For someone fresh into his early forties, he still acted much like you imagined he did as a teenager. 

“You said that muggles were magical,” he reminded you, “but you can’t be, really. Not without… well, y’know, magic. I can’t see what can be so magical about a world that doesn’t have what ours has.” 

You shut your book, setting it in your lap as you searched for the right words to describe what you were thinking. 

“It’s not… magic in the magical sense,” you attempted, earning a strange look from George. “Muggle magic is more about… defying the odds than doing the impossible. It’s also about how things make you feel. Things people have done and created… situations and experiences that inspire awe; that make you feel like you’re living outside the regular world.”

George continued to gaze at you, his eyes narrowing as he attempted to process what you were trying to convey. 

“Like what?” he wondered. 

You thought for a moment, folding your arms over your chest and leaning back into your chair. 

“... Cathedrals,” was the first thing that came to mind. “When you stand in the center of a cathedral that’s been standing for hundreds of years, and you think about how incredible it is that something so lasting and beautiful could have been created by people who had so little in resources compared to what we have today. 

“Or music. Like, how does something as simple as sound cause us to feel so much emotion? A good song can make you feel joy or bring you to tears and can connect strangers to each other in such an intimate way. I think it’s the most magical thing we have.”

George smirked at you. You noticed a new brightness in his eyes when your gaze met his, and you watched, bemused, as he slid off the counter and onto his feet, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“What else?” he asked. 

“Medicine,” you replied. “We can cure things most people died of fifty or sixty years ago. We can replace our organs if they’re not working properly - there are even labs that are working to grow organs outside of the human body or replace those that don’t work with artificial ones. We can even change the way we look if we want.

“And,” you stood up, pulling a pen out of the vase you used to hold quills beside the register, “there’s technology. Muggles have incredible technology! I mean, look at this - millions of people in this world who possess the ability to perform magic and yet you’re all still using quills you have to re-dip in ink.” 

George chuckled at you, leaning in as he took the utensil from your hand, his fingers brushing against yours and leaving a delicate tingle in their wake. You couldn’t help but blush, glancing down at your feet before looking back up at him. 

“I appreciate your sentiment, love,” he teased, “but I don’t think a pound store pen is going to inspire awe in anyone - magical or otherwise.” 

You scoffed, rolling your eyes.

“You know what I mean,” you said, taking the pen back from him and returning it to its place. “Muggles are incredible, and we’re incredible without magic making everything so easy for us.” 

George, who still loomed close above you, placed a hand against his chest in feigned shock, his jaw dropping and eyes growing dramatically wide. 

“Easy?” he taunted, his expression brightening ever so slightly as you grinned amusedly up at him. “You think magic makes everything easy? I’ll have you know, I nearly blew us to smithereens today trying to perfect our latest Whizbangs design. Bringing joy to people’s lives is extremely difficult and dangerous work, which you should respect me for, little darling.” 

You smirked at him, letting out a soft chuckle as you crossed your arms and leaned back against the counter.

“Your stupidity with pyrotechnics is no one’s fault but your own, Georgie,” you joked, to which he gave you a tickling pinch in your side and scooped you over his shoulder as you bent down to fend him off. You squealed with laughter as he spun you around, setting you down atop the stairs when he felt you’d had enough. He sat on the step below you, giving your knee an affectionate pat. 

“... You know, I do think there’s a type of magic we wizards share with muggles,” George said after a period of comfortable silence. “That is, if you muggles feel human emotion like the rest of us.” 

You playfully shoved his shoulder, and he grinned mirthfully as he slouched comfortably into the side of your body. 

“And what is that?” you inquired. 

“Joy,” George answered matter of factly. He leaned closer into you, looking out over the empty, dusk-lit shop as he allowed his thoughts to guide his voice. “I don’t think… I’ve ever felt joy like I used to since Fred died. Not until you showed up, anyway. Having a laugh with you almost feels the same as it did with Freddie. I’ve missed that feeling… and no magic could ever replace it.” 

You hummed thoughtfully, wrapping an arm around his broad shoulders as a gesture of comfort. 

It was odd, you thought to yourself, working with George. He was your boss, but you had a hard time seeing him that way; Ever since he helped you move in upstairs, you’d seen him as a friend, and you knew simply by the way he looked at you that he saw you the same. You could hardly call what you had with him a business relationship - it hadn’t started that way, even from the moment you met him, and the more time you spent in his company, the more its trajectory changed into something much deeper and more significant. 

It suddenly dawned on you that you loved him - in a way no one should ever love their much older employer and landlord. 

As if sensing the way your heart dropped, fluttering wildly, into the pit of your stomach, George pulled away from you, taking your hand gently in his and stroking your knuckles with his thumb. 

“You went silent,” he noticed. “You never go silent.” 

You grinned a little, shame creeping into your features as a hot, blistering blush. 

“I was just thinking,” you told him. “... Do you think love is another type of magic?” 

George blinked, pondering the idea. 

“Of course,” he finally answered. “Love is what won the war.” 

You nodded, looking down at his fingers wrapped around your palm and twining them with yours. 

“Your love for Fred is what keeps him alive,” you said. “I never met him but I always feel him here because of you. He’d be proud.” 

George swallowed heavily; you could hear the tension in his throat, could feel the weight of hesitation pressing in the small space between you. You peered back up at him, meeting his brown eyes that watched you intently. 

“Your passion is what gives you magic,” he murmured. “You don’t need a wand or any kind of innate ability to do it for you. I’ve realized… that’s the reason I love you. Among all else.” 

Though you sensed the words were coming, they still hit you like a speeding lorry. 

You stared at him, shaken, the last breath you took trapped in your chest. You had no idea how to respond. Should you tell him that you loved him, too? Should you be rational and tell him that this was inappropriate for a business owner and his subordinate? Should you kiss him? Every part of you wanted to kiss him; had been wanting to for a very, very long time. 

You raised the hand that wasn’t twined with his up to his cheek, grazing your thumb over the warm, tender flesh there. Your fingers grazed the scar where his ear used to be, getting twisted in the tendrils of his amber red hair that framed the sides of his handsome, familiar face. You leaned forward and kissed him, the sensation of his lips at last touching yours causing an explosion throughout every nerve of your body. Despite the beauty of the moment, you couldn’t help but wonder to yourself, My god, if kissing him feels like this, I can’t wait to feel what sex with him is like. 

George pulled away after what felt like equally too long and not long enough, giving you a dopey, lidded-eyed smile that made your heart combust all over again. You hated the feeling, but never wanted it to stop. 

“Would you kiss me like that every day if I asked you?” George wondered, sounding so dreamy and unlike himself it took you somewhat aback. 

You nodded, squeezing the hand that was still wrapped so intimately around his. 

“Every day,” you assured him. “It’s the best kind of magic you could ever show me.” 

George grinned, playfully tapping his finger against the tip of your nose which - in a testament to how far your relationship had already crossed the line - he knew you would hate, chuckling as he watched you flinch away from him. 

“Just wait ‘til I perfect those Whizbangs,” he told you. “Then we’ll talk.” 

[hailing-stars]

here is my first fic for the 13 nights of halloween prompt list, this one isn’t very halloween-ish, but the next 12 will make up for it, please enjoy anyway!!

read on ao3

slow down, you crazy child 

“In a minute!”

Tony’s eyebrows furrowed, and his fist hung in midair, knuckles still gazing Peter’s closed bedroom door. He frowned. He knocked a second time, louder, and when there was no response, his hand flew down to the doorknob.

“I’m coming in,” said Tony, as he opened the door, and revealed the scariest sight he’d seen that October.

It was Peter Parker.

His eyes were sunken in, with dark purple circles under them, as he stared into the computer screen. He didn’t bother looking away to greet Tony, or to complain, as he normally did, when Tony barged into his room with little notice.

Papers were scattered all around his desk. Papers were scattered all over the floor, and on his bed, as well as opened several opened textbooks, and maybe, the most horrific thing of all, opened bottles of chemicals Tony instantly recognized as the ones Peter used to manufacture his webs.

“What the hell are these doing in here?” asked Tony, as he kicked his way through wadded up pieces of notebook paper and made his way over to the chemicals. He searched through the mess and found the caps, then screwed them back on. After he was finished, he looked back over at Peter, who still had his face in the computer screen, and who had yet to acknowledge Tony’s presence in his bedroom.

Tony frowned again. He took a piece of paper from, stopped a minute to admire a half formed sketched idea for a spidey suit, then threw it at the back of Peter’s head.

“Earth to Parker,” yelled Tony, just as the wad of paper bounced off Pete’s head.

“Hey Mr. Stark,” said Peter, in a drone voice. He still didn’t look away from his computer.

Tony marched over to Peter and kicked the back of his chair, causing the boy to jump and spin it around with his foot. Peter glared at him.

“Mr. Stark,” he said. “Why?”

“I dunno,” said Tony. “You tell me. Why is this shit in your room?”

Peter’s eyes went wide with realization. “Oh, god, Mr. Stark. I’m sorry. I – I must have forgot to put them back down in the lab. Normally I put them back – I swear.”

“So sneaking dangerous chemicals out of my lab and leaving them laying around your bedroom is something you normally do?”

“What? No.”

“That’s what you just said.”

“No it isn’t,” said Peter, blinking. It was one of his tells. For a vigilant, he was a lousy liar. “Did you need something, Mr. Stark?”

“Yes, you in your Halloween costume,” Tony told him. “It’s time to go. Morgan’s dressed and ready, and if we don’t leave soon, she’s going to eat all the candy we bought for the trick or treaters tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Was all Peter said. Just a single word, but it was packed with so much meaning.

Tony had given enough of those same exact ohs in the past. Enough to know what it meant. It was easy to tell, looking around Peter’s bedroom, and looking into his tired eyes.  

“You’re not coming.”

“I just, I have too much work to do.”  

“Kid, it’s a holiday.”

“I don’t have time for holidays,” said Peter. His voice cracked in frustration and broke Tony’s heart. “Look I have an essay for my MIT application and two exams next week I need to cram for and I have to finalize the new design for an upgraded suit –“

He was about to keep going with his to-do list, had his mouth hanging wide open, but was cut out by a high-pitched siren and blinking red lights that displayed a digital spidey head on the ceiling.

Peter dropped his head, and let out a defeated sigh, before slowly standing up from his desk chair. “I gotta go.”

“Uh, why?”

“The spidey signal,” said Peter, as if Tony should automatically know what means.

“The what?”

“It’s connected to the emergency dispatch system,” he explained. “It notifies me when there’s a threat.”

“I see,” said Tony. Half of him was impressed. Peter was capable and he had a good heart, too good. That was the other half of him. The half that just wanted Peter to a normal child and have fun and let the world look after itself. “And what exactly are the determining factors for a Spider-Man worthy threat?”

Peter shrugged. “Once it had KAREN send me to rescue a cat from a tree.”

Tony was caught between amusement and adoration and a sort of melancholy dread. Like seeing a train and knowing the tracks ahead were faulty and that the mess to come was unavoidable. He looked around Peter’s bedroom a second time and saw himself years ago, alone in his workshop, manically trying build a solution to his anxiety. To fix it on his own.

He couldn’t save himself back then. That had been Pepper’s and Rhodey’s and Happy’s job. Just like helping and occasionally saving Peter was his job. Just like now.

“Alright, it’s time for a break, kiddo,” said Tony. “You’re gonna ignore the spidey signal and come to the party with us. You know Morgan will be disappointed if you don’t.”

“Mr. Stark I can’t –“

“Nope, enough of that. You can and you will, because I’m insisting.”

Peter’s eyes went back and forth between the projection on the ceiling and Tony, until he finally relented and gave a second sigh of defeat and, dare Tony even think it, relief.

“I don’t even have a costume.”

“Be creative,” said Tony, turning around and wading across the mess. “I’m sure you can find something in this disaster zone.” He paused, with his hand on the doorframe. “We’re leaving in ten.”

Tony heard muffled complaints about not having enough time, but he zipped out into the hallway so fast they were easy to ignore. He took the elevator down to his lab, put the stolen chemicals back where they belonged, then went back up to wait in the foyer with Pepper and Morgan, who was dressed like Spider-Man.

Ten minutes turned into fifteen, and there was still no sign of Peter in the foyer.

Tony marched back down the hall, towards his room, and when he found it empty, asked Friday, who directed him to his and Pepper’s bedroom.

He found Peter standing in front of the full-length mirror, straightening out the black suit jacket he wore over some, nerdy science t-shirt. He had a pair of glasses that were a bit too big, because, Tony realized, they were not his glasses, but Tony’s.

“How do I look?” asked Peter, turning around.

Tony was too lost with the mental image of himself signing adoption papers to respond.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter shifted around in the suit jacket. “It’s a little bit too big…”

“You’re gonna grow into it,” said Tony, coming back to reality. He walked across the room and pulled Peter into a hug. “Just not so fast.”

Tony let go of him, and looked him up and down, and wondered what it would take to convince May to let him adopt one spider-boy.

“So, dressing up like me was the best you could come up with?”

“It was the only thing I could come up with,” said Peter, his voice evening out. “Besides, I was Iron Man the last year I went trick or treating, so this was the next step.” Peter paused, a solemn expression crossing his face. “You know, Mr. Stark, I’ve always wanted to be like you. That’s why I have to work so hard.”

“Pete,” said Tony. He didn’t know it was possible to feel such conflicting emotions. That was soaring with pride and warmth, but also feeling his heart go into a million different pieces. “You don’t have to work hard. You’re already so much better than I ever was, and you’ll be five times that once you learn to rest.”

Peter frowned and looked like he was at least trying to understand. For a few short seconds, Tony thought maybe Peter might try to argue, to actually make a case against taking a few days off every once in a while, but the seconds passed by and he didn’t say anything. Just nodded his head.

“Party time?”

“Yeah, definitely,” said Peter, with a smile, as Tony slung an arm around his shoulder and directed him out the bedroom and into the hallway. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“Great minds think alike, Pete. I’m also going as Tony Stark.”  

Peter busted out laughing. “You can’t go as yourself on Halloween.”

“Sure I can,” said Tony. “I’m a celebrity and the savior of the universe. Who wouldn’t want to be me?”

Peter continued to laugh, and Tony continued to worship that laugh, even if the dark circles were still present under his kid’s eyes. He’d deal with that later. He’d make sure Pete slowed down. He’d make sure Pete got a goodnight’s sleep when they got home.

He’d make sure they got some vacation time, at the lake, where Peter couldn’t be bothered by the spidey signal.

Scratch that. Tony would hack into the spidey signal, and program correctly, to only alert Peter when there were serious threats.

At that very second, though, Tony had better things to do. Like harass May Parker until she texted him photos of Peter that Halloween he had dressed up as Iron Man. Like a Halloween party with his children and his wife.

[mymemoirs]

Unrecorded Memories and Missing Taiwan #3

Gonna continue from the second part of my Taiwan trip. However, this post is definitely not going to be the last one regarding this trip since I went there for a whole month and I would like to go into the details so that I could reread this post one day. After all, this is my attempt to record those memories even though its already vague by now as two years have passed by. 

After the first weekend spent during my AI class, we had our last week of the class in which we were given group project and also interact with local middle school students near the campus and engage with them. 

7) I can’t remember much of what I’ve learnt in class but I remember we went to another field trip during our weekdays, to be specific, it was on Tuesday, 10th of July, 2018. There was a middle school near the Asia University campus site and  after our morning class session, everyone were guided by our TAs and professors to Taichung Guangfu Junior High School. I think it took us about 10-15 minutes walk away, it was really that close.

A Picture of The Taichung Guangfu Junior High Students and AI Program 2018 Students

The reason we went to the school was because Taichung Guangfu Junior High School old building was the one converted into the now Earthquake Museum we went last weekend. After having its building destroyed and turned into a museum, the school built a new building instead. I think the professor wanted to show us the new building that have been built for the school and let local students interact with expat students from the exchange program. 

When we arrived there, we were taken into a classroom. We were told to sit in a group and I happened to sit with Guy, Xin, and Hussain (an Indian student). We hit off pretty well and each of us was very competitive, since we’re given quizzes and games to play during our time there. I think the school is amazing since they were able to utilize various digital techs for the game and quizzes. 

Guy, Hussain, Xin and Me.

I don’t remember much of the details, but I think we won since each of us were given a notebook. It was really fun for us since we’re not only answering quizzes but we also went outside to do a bar code hunt (if I’m not wrong).

8) After the short field trip, we all went back to the campus to go back to our respective dorm. However, on our way back, we stumbled upon a newly opened restaurant and they were having a free fried rice or noodle promotion. So, almost everyone stopped by, I think even the professors and TAs too. Well, how could we say ‘no’ to freebies right? We all happened to be hungry at that time, *laughs*. Although, I had to admit that it’s memorable since the AI students never ate together, at least not as crowded as that day. Most of us sometimes just eat with a group of friends in different restaurants nearby the campus, since everyone have their own preference. Having this kind of activities actually help me bond with others. 

Eating Fried Rice/ Noodle at a Nearby Restaurant With Other Students.

9) The next day, we moved on with more data science materials that are very alien to me. I can’t remember much of the materials now since it’s more on practical skills but I guess my lack of understanding towards the subject was due to how little I was exposed to this topics before. I think, if I were to relearn it today, it will be much easier for me to understand now compared to last time. 

During that day, we were given details on our group project and everyone was asked to form a group. Since Guy were sitting beside me, he asked Xin and I if we wanted to join the team he’s forming. Apparently, he’s forming a group with Hussain. Xin and I agreed to join his team, because to be honest, both of us didn’t have any basics in computer science, let alone data science or AI. 

It’s funny, you see, since the group members: Xin, Hussain, Guy and I, were previously in one group too during the game session yesterday, and I think our team’s name is “Group 2″ in the game session, so we named our team as “Group 2″ again for this group project. During the game session, it was really fun doing group activities with them, and now that we’re having a chance to work together as a team, I was really excited to work with them again. Although, to be honest, I didn’t do much exactly. 

Group 2 Focusing on Their Project.

Hussain did the most work out of everyone, since he’s the one with a background in computer science. Guy did his best to accommodate Hussain, with his tech (cause apparently he’s the “Apple Guy”) stuff, since his laptop was the most powerful in running data science projects among the four of us. Besides, he also had a little exposure in machine learning (even when he’s actually a student with a degree related to design) so he was the second in command to help Hussain. Xin was a student in design too, so she was in charge of our power point presentation slides. The slides she made was beautiful. 

While me? Well, I felt like a burden to my team because I can’t do anything at all. It seems like I’m the only one at loss at what I should do, so I kept on asking what this and that means when Hussain was coding and I think that kind of hinders him so he said that he would explain to me later on. Although, I might not help much, I tried my best to be there as a teammate. We ate together and accompanied each other throughout the project. To be honest, I really enjoyed the times we spent together. I’m not sure about how they felt though. Nevertheless, I admired each of them as I get to know them better. They were one year older than me and they told me a lot of their experiences. It an was insightful moment.

10) So, the day of our presentation came the next day. We are only given less than 24 hours to finish the project, which is very short. I guess, we’re lucky that Hussain finished it on time and Xin managed to create the slides on such a short period of time. Our project is about image classification for breasts cancer. Of course, the datasets and the code Hussain used for the project can be found in the internet. Although most of this can be search up on the internet, I don’t think I will be able to do it at that time on that short amount of time, because I have no idea on how to search the code and even use it. 

Xin Turn To Present Her Part.

Our presentation are held in a presentation room. Everyone in my group, including me were given the opportunity to present about the project. I was the first to present since I get the easiest one which is an introduction to AI. After the presentation, questions are being asked by classmates and professors. Of course, only Hussain were able to answer it. I think I vaguely remembered he said that the time given were short and he admits that his teammates are still not familiar with how to use AI. Well, almost every team that give out their presentation complaint the same thing - the amount of time given were just too short. 

By the end of our presentation, our professor who was assessing everyone’s presentation said that there will be presents for the three teams with the highest score. I wasn’t expecting anything but our group turns out to rank second highest and we were given gifts to share with one another. It was really surprising for us but since we were competitive, we feel a sense of achievement.  We were really happy, and I really enjoyed working together with them so I asked for a picture together as a team (laughs). 

Group 2 Presents Their Presentation Second and Was Ranked Second! The Most Diverse Team Among The Other Teams (Consists of Indian, Indonesian, Thai, and Singaporean).

Honestly, I would love to spend more time together with them but the presentation day was on Thursday and it was the second last day of our AI class. The day after tomorrow, both Guy and Hussain will go home since they didn’t take any other class aside from this AI class. Only me and Xin took another class that will start after the AI class but we took a separate class. Xin took Product Design class while I took Creativity and Entrepreneurship Class. Boohoo.

A Group Picture with The Professors After Our Presentation

11) The next day was our farewell party which was held by our professors. It was really a simple one. There are food, beverages, music, etc. Most entertainment were provided by our Indian classmates, while the rest of us just sat and watched. It was really fun to see them sang and danced happily. Even though it was short, it was a memorable experience. I did take a video of my friends dancing, but alas, I don’t think I managed to save it on my hard disk. 

Receiving A Certificate of Completion For The AI Course

I think the AI course are memorable because of the classmates and friends I knew from there, especially my teammates from Group 2. I was really sad that we had to part so I decided to give them handmade letters that I crafted and wrote on my own. I remember I went to the convenience store and office supplies store just to find the materials that I was going to use for the letters. I was happy that I managed to give them something, even though it was just a letter. 

Anyway, I’ll continue the time when I’m in Creativity and Entrepreneurship Class in my next post! Adieu for now!

- Reina

[zemrudian]

Notebook Day #12: Difficulty at the Beginning

Day 12 (casting coins): �� - hexagram 3, 屯 /Difficulty at the Beginning

Explanation here, keep track of all posts here.

“Leibniz slept. Dreaming of a world that streamed in a perfectly ordered series of zeroes and ones; dreaming of an emperor who spared a book written only in broken and unbroken lines; dreaming of innumerable drops of water containing whole universes, inside each universe innumerable drops of water, inside each drop more universes; dreaming of a broad field where a mare whinnied and a woman waited for a long-postponed death; dreaming of men and women seated before strange machines capable of bringing all the world’s knowledge within their grasp; dreaming of a perfect language beyond words.”

P. 16 of Sixty Four Chance Pieces by Will Buckingham

In this story we see a dramatisation of Leibniz’ discovery of the binary number system, here prompted by an encounter with the sixty four hexagrams of the I Ching (made up only of broken and unbroken lines). In reality events happened the other way round, but it remains a fascinating historical anecdote nonetheless.

His dream of a perfect language is one that seems ever closer now, when there are probably very few humans on the planet who don’t interact with digital technology on a daily basis.

Still, if my own recent forays into computer science have taught me anything, it’s that the digital world is far from a perfect language. The ever-increasing power and complexity of our hardware, indistinguishable from magic at the user-level, is constrained by physical resources. Operations do not happen in some disembodied ether, but are produced by the binary logic of transistors, 1.75 billion of them in the CPU of my current writing device. And, despite the many ways that binary logic has changed our world over the last century, and will undoubtedly continue to do so, the sheer thingness of computers is impossible to ignore.

My newer laptop (a Macbook Pro) is currently exporting a video, a task which will take it about three hours, consuming pretty much all of its processing power. The Asus laptop I’m typing on is 8 years old, and due to a virus that I never sorted out properly, it constantly runs hot with the fan on its highest setting. Both of them are a bit grubby, keys worn down by interaction with my fingers, and both are generally shaped to the requirements of my human body (although I think Asus could have tried a bit harder there).

However much we dream of perfect, formal harmony, a world described in a ‘deep and torrential stream of being and nothingness’, this thingness will keep breaking through, the outside of the system, irredeemably other.

[addierose444]

College Organization: Part I

I am obsessed with systems so I thought I would share my current school organization system. This post was a lot of fun to write and ended up being pretty long. As a result, I broke it into two parts. In this part, I will be going over how I organize my notes, handouts, and digital files. In the second part, I will be explaining how I manage my tasks and schedule. 

Color-Coding:

On the most basic level, my things are organized by class. To make this easier I have designated colors for each class. I use this color-coding system throughout my organizational system from my calendar to file management. I have been color-coding classes since at least freshman year of high school. Over the years, my color-coding system has not changed much. That means that I instantly associate each class with the corresponding color. Here is my current color-coding system:

MTH 111: Light Blue

FRN 120: Purple

CSC 102/103: Orange

EGR 100: Dark Blue

FYS 193: Pink

Paper Organization:

Let me start off by saying that the vast majority of my organizational system is digital. The papers that I do get live in a ½-binder. Inside the binder, I have a divider for each class (except for computer science that has zero handouts). I also keep some college ruled paper in the front of my binder. Within each section, my papers are organized in chronological order. When I get home from class each day, the first thing I do is hole-punch and file away new papers. For my math class, I get two worksheets per class. For that reason, I have a 1-inch binder just for math. I leave that binder in my room. Within my math binder, I use dividers to organize my papers by type (classwork, written assignments, check-ins, and exams). As the semester progresses, I will likely start storing old handouts for other classes in my room in binders. 

Note-Taking:

I take most of my notes digitally. The main exception is French because we are not allowed to use our technology. I instead use a small notebook that I got for free during the first week of school. I prefer digital note-taking because I can access my notes across all of my devices and can avoid lugging around heavy notebooks. Also, it is easy to incorporate images and add color. 

For digital note-taking, I primarily use Microsoft OneNote on my iPad (6th generation) with the Apple Pencil (1st generation). Using my iPad allows me to handwrite notes, but still have digital notes. OneNote is awesome because it is free! OneNote allows you to combine typed text, handwritten notes, and other digital media. 

Within OneNote, I have a notebook for personal notes, old notes, and current notes. Within the current notes notebook, I have a color-coded section for each class. The first page in each section is the syllabus. For MTH 111, I have a page for each chapter and subpages for each lecture and textbook reading. For CSC 102, I have a new page for each powerpoint presentation. For classes where it is more discussion-based than lecture-based, I either focus on the discussion by not taking notes (FYS 193) or take notes and respond to discussion questions in Google Docs on my laptop (EGR 100). 

Readings:

I do many of my readings in OneNote so that I can keep them organized and easily annotate them. I either import pdfs or use the OneNote Clipper in Google Chrome. I have also gotten some required books as ebooks for my Kindle. I can then highlight passages and add notes. From Goodreads, I can more easily look at the highlights and notes I have made on my Kindle. 

Digital File Management:

Through Smith, you can get Office365 for free. That being said, I do most of my work with Google Suite products like Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Sites so using Google Drive makes the most sense for backing up and organizing all of my files. I have a color-coded folder for each class and one for this blog. In general, files are just in their class folder. For EGR 100, I have subfolders for each of our design scenarios. I like to name files by what they are rather than what they are about. I also include either the date or number. As an example, I have a document called “Reading Response 4” and another called “HW 3”. Since Drive is a Google product searching for files is really easy. 

[winterlinggg]

Studyblr Tag!

GENERAL

What country are you studying in now? Eau Claire, America

What’s your major or specialization? Paralegal (Criminal Law)

What year are you in? First year of Paralegal, sixth year of college

What courses are you taking (/will be taking if on break)? Paralegal & Law Ethics, Civil Litigation, Legal Research, Economics, American Government

Favorite course? I loved my Web Design course and Cultures in Conflict courses at University

What languages do you know? Want to learn? English, Sarcasm, HTML/CSS

What language do you study in? Do you think in a different language? English, and nope!

Career aspiration? Paralegal for the District Attorney’s Office, and legal advocate for victims of stalking, especially in states whose laws offer perpetrators too many advantages via grey area and loopholes.

If you couldn’t be #8, what would you be? A web designer and developer

Moment you knew what you wanted to do? After I was stalked by a police officer who used work equipment, resources, databases and coworkers to stalk me. It is not legally considered stalking in Oregon (where it happened), but it is in my current state of Wisconsin.

STUDY ENVIRONMENT

Where is your favorite place to study? My computer, which has three 43″ monitors on top of an actual conference table. It’s nice for spreading out on.

When is your favorite time to study? My favorite is late night studying, between the hours of 10pm to 7 or 8am.

Clean desk or organized mess? Clean desk!!

Music or no music? What type? If I listen to music, it has to be lyric-less music because I get too distracted by the words. 

Name top 3 worst distractions. Twitter, my boyfriend (who I live with), and YouTube 

Exam time, dress up or dress down? Dress down, because I like to be super comfortable in otherwise stressful exams. 

Exam time, hair up or hair down? Hair up and out of my face. When I’m hyper-focused, the tickle of my hair gets extra annoying. 

Favorite outfit for studying? Honestly, just undies and a tee-shirt

Favourite study scent? Always flowers, specifically jasmine, gardenia, or honeysuckle.

STUDY TOOLS

Name 5 things you would consider your ‘study essentials’. I would say my Pentel side-click pencil, my color-designated Staedtler pens, my midliners, and notecards. 

Hardcopy books or pdf online? HARDCOVER - I don’t know what it is but I cannot stand e-textbooks or typing up my notes (despite the fact that I was a computer science major. There’s something special about highlighting an actual book and writing notes down. I feel like you get to spend more time with the material. 

Favorite study snack? drink? White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cliff Bar and coffee.

Favorite pen (or pencil)? Pentel Side-click mechanical pencil - I cant stand back-clicks because it makes me change my grip on the pencil every time.

Favorite notebook/paper? I’d like to explore more notebooks, like the leuchtturm1917 but I’ve been a Five Star notebook buyer since grade school. Maybe next semester. 

Name 5 apps/tools that help you be productive. GoogleDrive, FamCal (my boyfriend and I’s synced calendar), the recorder app on my phone so I can listen back to lectures... I don’t know, I use paper more than apps. 

How many pens/pencils/markers are in your pencil case? 2 pencils, 1 pen, 8 Staedtler pens, 8 midliner highlighters.

Backpack or purse? Backpack, but a messenger bag.

How many notebooks do you have? Five notebooks (one for each class), and one leather portfolio with a legal pad for my volunteer position with the DA’s office. 

STUDY HABITS

How do you motivate yourself when you’re not motivated? When I’m not motivated, it’s typically because I’m too anxious. So I’ll take a break, take a bath, have a snack, declutter my desk, and that typically does the trick.

Pump up routine before writing an exam? run through notecards, listen to metal music tbh (I know it’s an unpopular genre but it gets your blood going).

Crammer or pacer? For assignments and general studying, I’m a pacer, and for papers I am a crammer ~ but not a day-before crammer kind of way, just in a I’m-on-a-roll kind of way.

Type of learner (kinesthetic, auditory, visual)? Kinesthetic in the sense that if I don’t physically write it out, I am less likely to remember it. It forces me to take my time with each definition/equation/theory. Then visual in the sense that, when I’m taking a test, I visualize exactly where on what page that information is written on.

How do you plan? (digital, planner, lists, no plan, etc.) Depends. Generally speaking, for my day, I use FamCal which syncs my boyfriend and I’s calendars together. For studying, like which order I’m going to read chapters/start essays/etc, I use notcard to-do lists. 

Preferred note-taking method? The outline method, although I am going to attempt the Cornell method this semester.

Do you make to-do lists? How? Yes, religiously. I go class by class, starting with the lightest homework first. For example I’ll start with readings for class A, followed by the online quiz for class B, then begin the rough draft for my paper in class C.

Do you stick to your to-do lists? Yes, about 90% of the time. If I don’t then it’s because it’s for the heavier homework like a rough draft paper in class C, in which case it’s me not following my to-do list because I’m taking a break and finishing later.

Group study or independent study? Independent is good for when I’m in a hyper-focused study session, but groups are really good at motivating me because I’m competitive I want to be the most productive one there. 

Average number of hours of sleep during exam time? Probably 8? I have to sleep more than the average person - I’ve been that way my whole life (it’s not a laziness thing). I typically sleep 10 hours or so, and have difficultly sleeping from the anxiousness of the upcoming test.

Ever pulled an all-nighter? Back when my PTSD was really bad I could never sleep at night, so I’d begin studying at 10pm and go to bed at 7 or 8 when dawn starts peeking through my blinds. So I used to be an exclusive “all-nighter”

STUDY MENTALITY

What do you do to recover from getting a grade lower than expected? I figure out where the hell I went wrong. Did the test come from the textbook instead of class notes? Did I focus more on general theories or ideas instead of the specifics like when and where or vice-versa?

One advice you’d give others? There is more than one way to get to where you want to go. I did a lot more writing of papers than weekly assignments in university. For papers, my best advice is to tailor the paper to what the teacher would like for optimal grading leniency. For example, in my Anthropology 380 course ‘Cultures in Conflict,’ I had to write about two cultures that struggled when they met. I may have enjoyed writing about a culture clash such as native amazonian tribes who are expected to stay “primitive” to satisfy the curiosities of american tourism, but I knew my teacher was into anime. So, I wrote my 20 page paper on “The Proliferation of Japanese Anime in American Pop Culture.” I got 110% on that paper (there were XC opportunities for that paper which I took, but I ALSO wasn’t graded down for ANYTHING because she loved the topic so much), and because it counted for so much of my grade, I ended that semester with 104% overall in that class. 

What are you most proud of right now? Honestly, my desk. I took so much time on setting it up exactly the way I like it, and it’s so big and aesthetically pleasing that it’s EASY to WANT to study. 

Favorite quote to keep you going? Someone somewhere is having a worse day than you. (So even if I don’t want to get up at 7:00am, I should appreciate that it’s my biggest struggle today)

Favorite way to destress? A BATH WITH A LUSH BATH BOMB

OTHER

Favorite 5 studyblrs? I can’t think of them all now, but I will make another post of people that pump out the type of content that made me love Studyblrs in the first place soon.

How often do you check Tumblr? 2x-3x a day?

Hobbies when you’re not studying? Playing video games (overwatch), taking care of my succulent garden (I easily have over 100), and watching political/social commentary on YouTube.

Favorite compulsory-reading book? Suspense/Crime books. I just Finished ‘Women in the Window’ which I read all in one day.

First nerdy joke that pops into your head. There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

[blogquantum493]

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Aggravated, Sam sat down to his computer. His science teacher had not provided enough time to complete his project. He had three days left until the assignment was due, and he hadn’t completed collecting the project data that was required in the project guidelines. He stuck his slender, six fingered hands into the cavity of his desk reserved for the process of typing and added some notes to the file he had created specifically for this project. He added to the file deftly, letter by letter. Each of his twelve fingers could move up of down to add one of the twenty four letters that existed in his alphabet. After typing a few brief paragraphs his concentration was rudely broken and he changed the object of his attention to his best friend’s shouts.

“Hey, Sam!” Dan shouted up to Sam’s bedroom window from the littered ground two stories below. “You gonna come to school with me, or you gonna be late again due to that project of yours? Seems that’s all you think about now a days. Jenny’s getting jealous.”

“You’d be smart to spend some of your own time on the project rather than just hanging out with Jenny… Three. Days. My grades are going to soar like Jenny, whilst you’ll be on the ground like a little kid who hasn’t even learned to use their wings correctly yet.”

“Hey. I’ve got my contraption all set, although I still think we should collaborate. We could go down in history, like those people who gave us wings.”

“You just want an ‘A’. Besides, I’d rather not be affiliated with those bozos who gave us wings.”

“Who wouldn’t want to get an ‘A’? And… besides… we’re better than those wing-dings, our project could bring good, not foolishness.”

“Good point, but, regardless, I’m keeping my project to myself,” Sam took a last look at his project like a mother would look at her two-year-old, with an odd kind of loving and wondering if it would survive the day without him. He certainly hoped that the inhabitants of his project wouldn’t attempt any space travel while he was gone. The twenty-first century can really get to you. Getting a vague feeling from deep down that nothing catastrophic would happen in his absence, he leaped out the window and glided gracefully to the grassy ground outside his house thanks to his red, feathery wings.

“Finally. Took you long enough.”

“Would you rather have me have had taken the stairs?”

“I think we’ll make it on time today,” Dan said, looking optimistically at the school building in the distance, and the two took off running as the first bell rang. Luckily, they stepped into the classroom just before the warning bell announced the beginning of class. Ms. Lee started roll call, then started lecturing.

“I’d like to remind you how little time you have until your projects are due. I’d also like to remind you that the best project in the class will go on to the state science fair, and then might go on to the national level, bringing honor to our town and school.”

Sam’s watch couldn’t tick fast enough; he was urgent to get home and figure out how to get the data that would complete his project. He was the first to his feet when the last bell rang, and as soon as he was out the door he broke into a running start to fly home.

“You’re panting,” was Jenny’s greeting when Sam finally reached his home. “Did you fly all the way home? Are you crazy? Leave the flying to us birds.”

“I’m not crazy,” Sam sat at his computer and looked over his creation. “I prefer ‘passionate’. I’m running out of time to figure out the importance of this project. I probably should have done that before I built it.” He looked at the spinning green and blue orb that was lying on his floor in a fish tank for a moment before turning his attention back to his blue-feathered friend who was now standing in the window. Jenny’s feet were similar to his hands, but with only eight digits (three fingers and a thumb on each leg). Her eyes reminded Sam vaguely of a puppy’s; big and brown with long, dramatic eyelashes.

“Regardless, leave the flying to birds. Remind me why you hominids have wings in the first place again.”

“It was a vague desire, I guess,” Sam stopped typing and turned back to the bird that was still perched in his window.

“Desire?”

“Well, we know nothing for certain, but we think that somebody decided that they wanted some other features than what they had. Wings, for example, and some people think we didn’t always have twelve fingers, although I can’t think of any reason you’d want more fingers…”

“Wait. Wait. You’re telling me that you can change yourself just by deciding that you want to? You know… I’ve been wishing lately that I had an umbrella coming out of my head.”

“It’s now illegal, but there were these two people a long time ago – I mean... more years than I can count on my fingers – wrote a computer program on a primitive computer to change themselves. I can’t imagine what it’s like to never have flown. Regardless… they ended up getting married and having kids. All the kids had the same traits as their parents – mostly taking to the skies like the birds of the time. But, after a while the kids started having their own kids without wings and things like that the abilities started to deteriorate. That’s why it’s illegal now. Our wings are more of a burden than anything.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that us birds stayed the way we were.”

“Actually…” 

“I don’t want to hear it.”

ԑ¥ᴈ

“Cutting it kinda close, huh, Amy?” Chris was putting up the appearance of being angry to keep her shy and doing what he wanted, but really he was relieved. He couldn’t tell his friends that he cared, but he didn’t want to have to explain everything that happened on the field trip so she could help with the joint assignment the two of them had to complete within the week. They wouldn’t have enough time working together, so he would have to convince her to do the project on her own and give him half the credit. 

Across the parking lot Amy was also inwardly glad, hearing that Chris was thinking of her. Maybe this project would be different and she wouldn’t be expected to complete the entire project alone. 

The bus drove up and parked for a while in front of the school while some of the kids filled on and others mingled around outside. Amy parked herself in the third row of seats on the left side. She preferred being on the side of any vehicle behind the driver for a reason she couldn’t pinpoint. After the rest of the cows were corralled onto the bus she opened her backpack, which was relatively empty due to the field trip. She lifted a thick, green notebook out, and her lunch as well. Her thin spiral bound notebook labeled ‘School Notes vol. 13.3’ looked lonely as the only occupant, so she took her breakfast out of the lunch bag and placed the lunch back inside the messenger-style bag. She quickly spooned her yogurt into her waiting mouth before shoving the forbidden food back into her bag before anyone saw. She wasn’t fast enough.

“Sheep? Breaking rules? Am I seeing things right?”

“Didn’t have time for breakfast at home. My sister woke up early and had her shower before me. When I heard the shower running I made the unfortunate decision to stay in bed. After I took my shower I ran for the bus, but missed it and had to have my dad drive me.”

“That’s too bad. Yeah, well, anyway… we’ve got a week to do this project and I’m busy for the next week and I was thinking…”

Amy had heard it all too often. She pushed the green notebook off her lap and put her legs underneath her in a way that showed her knobby knees from under her plaid pleated skirt and made her appear three inches taller. “You were thinking? That surprises me. I am in fact busy too this week. Maybe you should use some of that brain power you wanted to use to exploit me for helping with the project!” She hadn’t spoken angrily toward another classmate in a long time. In fact, she had said more words since getting onto the bus and conversing with Chris than she normally said collectively in an entire day. 

Both Chris and Amy were thinking as fast as possible. Amy wondered; if she choose her words right maybe she would lose the nickname “Sheep”, while Chris for once tried to figure out how they could both contribute to the project, although he still wanted Amy to do most of the work. He looked at her notebooks she always had with her, and was struck with what he saw as a brilliant idea.

“A newspaper…” he was excited, but kept a low enough volume to not be noticed talking to Amy voluntarily about anything other than getting out of the project. He explained how he was great with computers and that if she did all the writing he would put the articles she wrote together into a newspaper. Amy was also good with computers, but help was help, and she appreciated that. Chris returned to his friends.

Amy opened her green notebook and flipped through the pages until she reached the page she had filled the previous night. 

The school bus was chaos, where a war of crumpled paper had broken loose despite the teacher’s futile pleading. Sara got hit in the head with a rather hard and heavy projectile. She turned to Parrot, who was perched on the back of the seat ahead of her.

“Can you grab hat rock that just happens to be lying there for me?” 

The strangest thing happened. Parrot’s feet turned to hands as she reached for the rock…

The scene went on, but she closed the book rather loudly. It was her diary (per se), but of things she had imagined that hadn’t happened yet. Every night she wrote about the perfect tomorrow, what she wished and expected to happen. She wanted to call it Great Expectations, but that title was already taken. “Expectations” would have to and had sufficed.

The boy sitting behind her, Nick,’s ears perked up. “What was that noise?”

This kid was annoying to the umpteenth degree. He was the kind of kid she tried to stay away from. On the other hand, everybody was the kind of kid she tried to stay away from. She turned to her tried and true method of avoidance, pretending to be busy. She started drawing a picture in her school notebook, a boy with brown hair and eyes, and, of all things, red wings. 

ԑ¥ᴈ

Sam was nervous. Pacing even. The one tiny detail he had left out was the one that would ruin his entire project, and his prospects of going on in the science fair competition. Yeah, he’d created an entire planet, Earth, and he had evidence that pre-transformation humans inhabited the place, but what was the point? He laid himself down on the floor, trying to remember what exactly had been the point of the project. He was staring through the glass of his bedroom window, and as he screamed “How can I talk to these humans?!?” Dan stepped into his room. 

“I know how you can talk to the humans,” Dan announced. “You still against collaborating?”

“What good would collaborating do? You just built something that looks like a teleporter from those books our parents used to read us when we were little.”

“You’re right about that,” Dan smirked as Sam glanced at him warily. “I built a teleporter, and if you and I go to your planet you designed…”

“Earth.”

“Yes. Well, we go there, and you talk to these pre-transformation humans and you have your project made.”

“Wait… so, I created a planet, and you created teleportation? Together we’ll make history!” They ran to Sam’s window and jumped out, gliding across the alley to Dan’s room next door. Sam had brought Earth, and Dan was setting up the teleporter. Jenny flew past the window to find some of her bird friends. 

Sam and Dan stood in front of the teleporter, as Dan counted down. “Three. Two. One.”

ԑ¥ᴈ

Nick took off his glasses, wiped them clean, and put them back on. It was useless. He must have really seen it, and there was no denying that Amy had disappeared. “Where’d Amy go?” he asked another girl, tugging on her arm like a little kid. 

“Who?” the girl asked, looking around for Amy. “Oh, yeah. Sheep. Your ‘girlfriend’?”

“I DO NOT like her. Besides, her name isn’t Sheep, it’s Amy. Sheep is a degrading nickname that hurts her self esteem.”

“Yep. Whatever you say. I don’t see her, though,” Nick heard his name uttered under her breath. Well, it was either that or “ick.”

Chris looked from where he was standing, wondering where Amy had gone. There was Nick. Weren’t Nick and Amy going out? Regardless, he always seemed to know where she was.

“Ya’ seen Amy around?” He was getting closer but wanted to keep as far away as possible. Rumor had it that Nick had a crazy disease and it was catching. 

“Why does everybody think I know everything there is to know about Amy?”

ԑ¥ᴈ

After a bright flash of light, Chris ended up in a strange place. Amy was in a corner curled into a ball, there was an elaborate machine in the center of the room, and there were two hominids staring at them. He couldn’t decide if they were human or not, but their wings were pretty cool. 

“Something’s wrong with your machine,” slipped out of Sam’s mouth, although the statement could have gone unsaid.

“Chris,” Amy’s voice wavered a bit. “Someone hit me on the head? Am I dreaming?”

“Dan! She’s right! We’re all dreaming, and if I just pinch you on your wing…”

“OUCH! MY WING!”

“Ok then… I guess we’re not dreaming. My teleportator worked backwards.

“Ooh. Teleportation. Just like in a sci-fi novel. Awesome,” Amy did a double take and looked at her toes. “Is this sci-fi?”

“Nah. It’s real life… at least for us.”

Amy looked at the spinning orb lying on the floor. “Wait… is that Earth?”

“Yes.”

ԑ¥ᴈ

After explanations of the inner workings of the machine, Amy and Chris went back  home using the teleporter, and became close friends. There’s an odd bond you get when you’ve been off the planet to a strange alternate universe where people have twelve fingers and wings. Once home, they finished their project together, and then started messing around with Chris’s computer. Remembering Dan and Sam, but not having heard the story about why we shouldn’t control evolution, they gave themselves wings and (just for the hell of it) six fingers on each hand. They ended up having children together, who passed on the odd genes. 

The rest is history.

[micahrodney]

Thread; Chapter 1 - Lost Boy

The following was a commissioned piece for MatthewCaveatZealot. Awakening with a start, Neil managed to bash his head on the ceiling of his dorm room. He collapsed back into his loft bed, running his hands across his temple.  He had always known this was a distinct possibility with his sleeping arrangement; there was barely three feet of clearance between his mattress and the unsettling popcorn-style stucco which always left flakes in his bedding. The only damage appeared to be a mild contusion, and a slightly hurt ego. The boy glanced at the alarm clock, which was inelegantly tucked into a corner of the frame, cord precariously taut.

8:35 AM

“Shit!” Neil cursed.

In his panic, he practically hurled himself over the rail of his loft. Fortunately, his faded blue bean bag chair – presently covered by a week's worth of dirty laundry – broke his fall. Fishing in the bureau just beneath his bed, he managed to dig out a clean pair of jeans and a grey tee.

As he reached for his bookbag, he noticed he'd left his computer on. The dull white of a Lotus document was burning into the monitor. Upon reading the salutation of “Dear Erica” the previous night's phone call came rushing back to him; three years discarded in two minutes.  He had trouble saying what he needed to say in that call. Truthfully, the shock of it had rendered him phased out of reality. There was a hollowness that consumed him upon hearing those words, an emptiness that had to be embraced lest it consume him.  

He couldn't even bring himself to cry.  Tears would only validate the nightmare.  That had to be it:  a nightmare.  One that he would wake up from in a day or two when she called him back and apologized.  When she remembered how happy they had been together and realized what she was giving up. After a few hours, he had passed from denial to bargaining. Every possible scenario played through in his head simultaneously, from magnanimous acceptance of her apology to him banging at her door and pleading to take him back.  That was when the rational approach of writing her a letter presented itself.  

Without bothering to save the document, he flipped the switch. The dull fizzling sound was always a strange comfort.  To Neil, it represented the end of a day.  Maybe that's how he should view Erica: just another chapter in his life that he would move past.  And maybe, like the document itself, there really was nothing worth saving there anyway.  

--- 

Voxton was once a whistle-stop town just outside of the state capitol.  It was the home of an active farm community, and the state's number one exporter of unemployed drunks looking for better opportunity in “the big city”.  Then somebody decided to build a college there in the wake of the 1973 stock market crash, presumably with hopes of turning the state's fortune around.  

McCain University – presumably named for its founder, though Neil had never bothered to find out – had grown to become something of a Mecca for the technically inclined. If you wanted to break into engineering or computer science, you went to McCain, assuming your parents weren't wealthy or connected enough to ship you off to MIT.  

Thanks to a grant from the Governor, the school had an entire campus building dedicated to the most powerful machines on the market. Perhaps this was why Neil insisted upon using a personal computer from the 80s, despite the fact that his father had offered many times to buy him something newer.  

The IBM 386 was more than a little dated, but the chunky machine could do the important things in his life.  Sure his classes had him learning on top-of-the-line Power Macintosh hardware, but it had been the computer he grew up with.  Its impressive 32 MB memory was stuffed with the text-adventure games of INFOCOM.  While his first love would always be Zork, it was the murder-mystery Moonmist that made him want to become a writer.

These dual interests had conflicted before, and while Neil's father was supportive he was also wary.  Writing, after all, was a hard market to break into.  But computer technology was in high demand and only rising.  When he had embarrassingly tried to connect with his son by saying maybe he could learn to make “some of those Nintendo games”, Neil had politely laughed and agreed to consider it.  The boy's consideration didn't take long.  As a lawyer, his dad always was the better negotiator.  Perhaps it was overkill to mention that it is what his mother would have wanted.

Neil opened the door to his usual morning haunt, a student-run coffee shop called “The Junction”.  The place was barely bigger than his dorm, but they also had the best muffins in Voxton.  He stumbled up to the register and barely sputtered out his order before his bookbag slipped off of his shoulder, sending his notebooks scattering.  

“Damn,” Neil cursed.  “Sorry, Angie.  A blueberry muffin and a coffee to go please!”

“Running late again, Neil?” The senior asked, tying her long ebony hair back with a scrunchy.

“I know, they're lucky to have me as a student,” Neil mumbled bitterly, shoving the papers haphazardly back into his bag.  

“Four bucks. Your dad's Amex, I trust?”  Angie replied, extending her hand.  

“Cash today.  I forgot to grab my wallet, but luckily there was a five in my jeans,” Neil chuckled benignly, handing her the bill.  

“Moving up in the world.”

“Tell me about it.”  

“Lemme grab your breakfast, champ,” Angie smirked.  

Neil took his change and leaned back against the bar.  The place wasn't really all that bad.  Sure two people couldn't walk side-by-side behind the bar, but the little brick shack was alright. He had particularly liked the ironic name.  Before the University reclaimed land for a parking lot the place had been a rail depot. The result were tracks that didn't lead anywhere just behind the restaurant and for few miles north and south respectively.  

“And in offbeat news today,” droned a local news anchor on the 16 inch TV in the corner of the bar. “IBM supercomputer 'Deep Blue' went six games against chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov yesterday. Although Kasparov won the match with four games to Deep Blue's two, this is the first time a computer has ever defeated a world champion under tournament regulations. Truly this is a sign of things to come. Just how more advanced can these computers get?”  

“Neil!” Angie called, snapping her fingers in front of his face.  “Muffin, coffee, late for Computer Theory 221, remember?”  

“Right, sorry!” Neil sputtered, grabbing his food and bolting out the door.  

---

“Mr. Brown. How nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

Professor Barker was generally a nice guy, but Neil had tried his patience one too many times.  Tardiness was just one of Neil's offenses against the would-be silicon valley elite.  In short, Barker didn't like his attitude.  He didn't like that Neil would sit through his classes, mind clearly on other things. But what he hated worse was the fact that Neil continued to ace every assignment in spite of his lackluster classroom performance.  It wasn't Neil's fault that he felt he got very little out of the lecture hall experience, preferring instead to study on his own time.  

“Sorry, sir,” Neil apologized half-heartedly.  “Rough night.”  

“Wait until you become an adult, then you'll learn what a real rough night is,” Barker scolded.  

The aging technician looked like a slightly sunkissed Steve Wozniak.  He had the beard and the plaid collar shirts, but his face was a bit more rugged.  Barker had learned computers while serving in the Army during the 70s.  The synthesis was a computer nerd who looked like he used to beat kids up for their lunch money.  

“Now that Mr. Brown has found his seat,” Barker sighed.  “Let's resume. Where were we now?  Ah, yes! The potential of virtual reality.  Now, this ain't your 'Virtual Boy', we're talking about actual virtual reality.”

Barker was nothing if not fond of the sound of his own voice.  The lecture was more or less him pontificating about the achievements that had been accomplished with the budding technology and his wild-eyed fantasies of future use.  Of particular note, Barker's assertion that we could one day use virtual reality to explore the entire planet's history in first-person seemed especially romantic.  

“Imagine, if you would, you put on a visor and are instantly transported to the wild west.  With a few mouse clicks, you are in the Roman Empire, or watching the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

A loud digitized beep came from the clock just over the door. It was already 11 AM.

“Ah, well, I seem to have rambled on right to the end of class,” Barker chuckled. “Alright, that's a good stopping point anyway.  I'll let you head out.  Mr. Brown, a word.”

The students began to pack up and make their way towards the door, as Neil marched down the steps of the lecture hall, prepared for his weekly chew-out session.  The beard of the middle-aged educator seemed to twitch in anticipation and annoyance.  

“Neil, do you want to be in this class?” Barker asked bluntly.  

“Yes sir,” Neil stoically replied.

“You know the class starts at 8:30 AM every Monday and Wednesday, right?”

“Yep.”

“The winter semester has only just started and in the six classes we've had together you have been on time to one of them.”

“That's correct, sir.”

Barker sighed and waved his hands about in front of him as if he was grasping for something to strike him with.  

“I don't know what you expect from me,” Barker steadied his hands and pointed a finger in Neil's face. “But I know I expect from you. I can't have you barging in after the class starts.  If I have to lock that door, I'll do it.  Your work is good, but if you want to stay in my class I expect you to show up on time.”  

“I understand sir.”

“Well, I hope so,” Barker grumbled. “I'm not kidding about that lock either.”

---

Monday was, by design, Neil's easiest day.  He only had the one class, and he used the remainder of the day to run errands.  So as soon as Barker let him out, his first stop was to the Store24 to pick up some groceries.  Considering his food storage options in his dorm was a mini-fridge and the top shelf of his closet, he only wound up with two bags and a twelve-pack of the store-brand cola.  

He dropped off the bare essentials of sustenance and took a brief moment to tidy his room.  There wasn't much cause to impress anyone, but he felt compelled to use the time. It felt better to accomplish something – anything – rather than waiting around for the day to end.  

The next two hours were spent overseeing a load of laundry in the dormitory laundromat. It was pretty depressing, featuring bare stone walls and illuminated by a single dirt-specked window. with a line of six washers and four driers on opposite sides of the room from each other.  There was a table in the middle, slightly off-set from the window in a way that mildly infuriated Neil. There were technically chairs, but two metal folding chairs took a certain wear-and-tear over the decades and had never been replaced.

Neil found himself sitting on the edge of the table, staring out that window and reflecting on the bizarre dream that had woken him with such a start.  The events of the day had driven out most of the fantastic experience from his mind, but bits and pieces still lingered.  Those omnipresent voices, speaking in grand detail about him.  An idyllic planet that was repeatedly destroyed. The beast from within the pit, as Neil was bound and helpless on a web of light.  

He considered whether or not he wanted to try and duplicate the effects of his lucid dreaming again tonight. Was it a story worth picking up? Or did he want to find himself once again at the genuine mercy of some phantasm?

A low blare came from the drier, in what was more than once mistaken for a fire alarm.

Discarding the shards of his recollection, he set about folding his clothes for about five minutes, before hastily shoving the rest of his clothes into his basket and resolving to just “do it later”.  This was perhaps his favorite lie.  

So it was, at 3:00 PM, Neil found himself back in his room with nothing else on the docket.  The young scholar now had to decide between drowning his mounting sorrows in video games, television, or – if he were feeling particularly adventurous – both at the same time.  

Looking to a torn up photo of Erica on his desk, he considered what he would be doing if last night's conversation had not happened. The weekends were theirs and sometimes she would visit him Monday night as well, to hit up a movie when it wasn't crowded with people.  She wasn't a terribly social girl, and Neil had always done his best to accommodate that.  

They both used to joke about how she was a “cheap date”.  She was the kind of person who genuinely enjoyed an experience-driven rendezvous.  Erica would much rather walk through the Voxton arboretum or take in one of the free community light-shows at the planetarium rather than actually go out and spend money.  

On their first date, Neil had nearly blown his chance with her by trying to flaunt his dad's wealth.  He had been given $100 to “impress the girl” with.  Erica, in that way she always did, knocked him flat on his ass.

“I'm not here to get to know your money, I'm here to get to know you,” she said, before insisting on having dinner at the cheapest restaurant in Voxton, where she paid for her own meal.  

The wake-up call had worked, and he loosened up considerably; enough so that she was agreeable to a second date.  In spite of the rough start, they had gotten along famously.  But apparently not as well as he had thought.

A knock on his door disrupted Neil from his day-dreaming.  

“Hey man, open up.  You're decent, right?”

Neil chuckled as he opened up the door.  His friend Damian could only be described as “dashing”.  The heart-throb of choice for all the girls when they were in high school together, his looks had only improved with age.  

“Did they finally let you in?” Neil teased.  

“Dude, they let you in,” Damian retorted.  “If I wanted in, I'd be in.  But money is good in the sales game.”  

“You work in retail.”

“Retail sales.  If I sell ten computers, they give me $50 of store credit,” Damian replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.  “Anyway, we doing dinner?  My treat.  Gotta cheer up my sad-sack friend, don't I?”

“Damian, you don't have to-”

“Nah, brother, I insist,” Damian smiled, patting Neil on the back.  “Breakups hurt. I've been here, and you're gonna be fine.  We will eat, drink, be merry and this weekend we will go out dancing and find a girl to make you forget all about her.”  

It was this benevolent nature that led to the two becoming friends in the first place.  In middle-school, they were both slightly awkward, but Damian had the further disadvantage of being an immigrant.  His mother Tabitha had fled Egypt shortly after that assassination of Anwar Sadat, carrying along a four-year-old Damian with her.  

The pubescent Damian was dealing with bullying and trying to adapt to both a new country and a stepfather who Neil had never met.  The two had met while Damian was hiding out in the library during one fateful lunch and they managed to hit it off over Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Neil had just started reading The Black Cauldron, but Damian was already on Taran Wanderer. A young boy's excitement to talk about his favorite fantasy series led to the longest-lasting friendship either of them had enjoyed. 

“Damian, I'm not sure if I really want to 'forget' about her, you know?” Neil sighed. “But I don't really need to get into that now.”

“Why not now?” Damian asked. “Take the time, friend.  Dinner can wait.”  

“It just seems kinda,” Neil struggled to find the words.  “Pointless.  I mean she's made her decision.  I have no idea why, but she made it clear she was done with me.”  

“Your feelings aren't pointless,” Damian replied, tapping his chest for emphasis.  “It's all we really have in this world.  Of course, if you don't want to talk, I won't make you.  But, uh, make a decision quick.  I skipped lunch.”

Neil laughed and opted to continue keeping his thoughts concealed. At least for now.  

“Alright.  Dealer's choice,” Neil said.  

“What a dangerous power you've given me,” Damian chuckled.  “Thai food it is.”  

---

This one is hard to position.  The thread is destabilizing.  

Neil was not dreaming.  The voice was not in his head. It was just on the opposite side of his dormitory door.  The room around him was shrouded in darkness, and only the door was illuminated.  If he could just reach out and grab the handle...  

A terrible weight was dragging him down, and his limbs felt as though they were made of concrete.  A biting cold was gnawing at him, and there was a presence just behind him. Somewhere in that darkness, a great unseen thing wanted to devour him.  Panic seized him as he flailed his useless forelimbs at the impossible contraption.  A doorknob; he had seen thousands of these.  But his brain could not process how to manipulate one.  

With looming annihilation mere inches from him, he resorted to throwing all of his weight at the wooden barrier, hoping it would yield under the force of what, to Neil, felt like two tons of his own mass.

If the thread is lost, we lose the Binder.  This is unacceptable.

“Nox?” Neil called out, vaguely remembering the kindly voice from the other night.  

We are here, Binder.  Patience.  We will pull you into our realm.  You will not be sundered.  

At this pronouncement, a hideous shriek invaded Neil's mind. The darkness wrapped around the young man and began to flay him, leaving crimson marks on his arm.  By the time the third sinewy tendril had lashed him across the face, he felt an uncomfortably familiar tug around his midsection as he was dragged out of the darkness and through the door, beyond which lay the sea of stars from his prior visit.  

As the distant sparks sailed past him, the memory of that Eden weight heavily upon his mind.  He wanted to see it again, and yet he could not bear to watch it be destroyed once more.  The thought of having to relive the same disaster over and over again throughout eternity was unbearable. How many times would he have to suffer the same loss?  How many people would abandon him to the darkness of his own mind?  

Hey Neil, it's Dad.  Hope you've had a good Monday.  You're probably out with Erica, but I just wanted to get in touch with you about... well, your mother's remembrance.  It won't be a big social gathering like last year's.  Basically just gonna be your siblings and me, but we wanted to coordinate with you. Just give me a call back when you can.  I love you.  

His father didn't know yet.  Of course, why would he?  That was only last night?

Focus on the moment, Binder!

Rem's voice was as stern and monotone as ever, but with a renewed sense of urgency. There was a planet on the horizon, but it was no paradise.  The world was molten rock and scattered space-dust, perhaps one in the process of still being formed.  Or was this was had remained of the other world after the disaster?  

See past the reality of your eyes, Binder. They are not a reliable path to truth, Nox urged.  

He is weighed down by his emotional attachment to his own thread.  We are losing him, Rem added.  

The planet was quite hot, and Neil felt his flesh beginning to sear as he drew ever closer to it.  He closed his eyes as he fell through the atmosphere of a dying world, the weight of his grief dragging him into oblivion.