#What Triggers the Your [Computer] is Short On Memory Error

[changeling-artchive]

(i do not know how computers (or much tecnology in general) works, so maybe this will make little sense. Anyway)

Here are some of my assorted headcanons on how code/stickfigures work:

• File -> stick

Files are the culmination of a stick, everything that makes them them. They manifest into/codify a being if/once moved into a suficient host-place (like Newgrounds, Stickpage, a CPU, etc)

Files are organized into what i call 'zones' (ex. zone:= apearance, zone:= memories, zone:= personality), that can (and do) interact and influence one another.

As the stick changes, goes trough life, their file changes with them, as them.

Damages to files and changes to files are not the same thing! Not only is it rare for your file to get damaged at all (they are, after all, not easily accessible) file damages are unnatural errors, and overwrites, and erasure or scrambling of zones. Not normal at all.

Damages to files range in severity, of course, but even small damages can have devastating consequences, depending on what zone(s) it affects. Its a unwilling, permanent, change to your very being. That is not easy (or majorly possible) to get over.

• Deletion

(Oh what weird gratification to have my deletion headcanon somewhat but not really confirmed in the recent q&a:)

When a stick is deleted, the conection/projection of the stick is deleted/cut, and the 'space' where its hosted/the file is ocupying is marked as empty. The file itself is not outright deleted, but over a short (seconds to a few minues) period of time, the stick's file is overwriten by other codes that vie/compete for that space

(i dont know yet how to incorporate the Blackfire attacks into this..)

• Animators

As far as its known, only Animators can create new files. Cursors - otherwise normal human Pc users - can interact with files, but not create them

Any and all Cursors and Animators can see, move, change, add and remove zones from these files as they see fit (if they know how to- Cursors specially tend to be ignorant to this ability of theirs), very easily. They do this without causing damage to the file 'cause they register as normal natural changes, even when theyre anything but.

Most often it doesnt even matter where your file is stored, if your person/manifestation/being is in their presence, the Animator/Cursor will have access to it

• Inert files

Inerte files: certain files have entire zones that can activate and deactivate when faced with specific or non-specific triggers. (Ex. Computer icons who activate their movement and personality zones and deactivate their shortcut-search zones when faced with a threat to thw computer)

It mostly applies to PC icons, game characters files, and otherwise spectator-interactable animations. Its rare for a stick to have a inert file type

Mostly, this happens on computers to save RAM

• Exception(als):

- Second is the host of his own file and the rygbs files, since the showdown.

This is not comum, nor a good idea. Having your file attached to your self/body (instead of a outside source, like Flash or Newsgrounds etc) means that any damage or change your body suffers, your code suffers as well, i.e. youd never be able to heal anything inflicted on you, and any injury will have catastrofic consequences depending on where in/what part of your file it hit. Its an incredibly precarious situation.

But. Second is an exception, because his code is able to resist damage, somehow, and heal itself.

- victim's file is (confusingly enough) spread all over the outernet barrier. It is not damaged or ripped apart, but the rightfull place of the code/file zones is simply scattered into a non-file shape. Its not condensed into one 'place', witch makes it both significantly more fragile to damage, and significantly harder to target

[designw]

Amazing Tricks how to Solve Your [computer] is low on memory? |6 way how to solve the issue

Amazing Tricks how to Solve Your [computer] is low on memory? |6 way how to solve the issue

This is a complete guide how to Solve Your [computer] is low on memory. learn how to Solve Your [computer] is low on memory in this depth post Your [computer] is low on memory Computer systems obtaining short on memory is just one of the most typical concerns today. With the increase in demand for interactive websites, opening up greater than a couple of tabs can leave your computer low on…

[lillianofliterature]

Hi there! This isn’t a request, but I just couldn’t help myself. I read through your Aragorn x reader LOTR fic a moment ago and I was so amazed by your work that I felt the need to tell you. I really enjoyed them and your way of writing, someday I hope I can bring scenes to life that well too. In light of that, I do have a question: how do you write such well detailed scenes about the landscapes? And do you come up with a detailed plan before you start writing?

Hello there, anon! First of all, thank you from the very depths of my heart for this message! Encouragement like this is truly what reassures me to keep up with writing drafts, ideas, and anything my mind comes up with, despite my doubt and personal struggles this past year (or few years, tbh).

Also, this is 2.5K of advice, so please excuse typos and errors, my computer is only half working and keeps kicking me off of the screens and erasing half of my post. This is my third attempt. xD

To answer your questions, I think my best advice is something I learned back in my English Literature and Creative Writing classes. While I'm a firm believer that one does not need extensive education or expensive courses to become a writer, there are some things I learned in those school years that helped me shape my own style of writing. It was a stray sentence or two between lessons that my teacher had shared, I'm not sure from who or where, but it was something about how engaging the senses is what really brings a story to life. It isn't about fancy vocabulary or long words, but bringing the basic human extinct to your writing that makes it enthralling.

For example, I draw my descriptions of forests, foods, feelings, etc., from things I have experienced in my own life. We all remember specific things from places we've been or people we meet, like how many of us remember the scent of our grandfather's waistcoats and the rare crisp taste of water at 3 AM when we wake up with an unquenched thirst. It's memories and details like those that I try to make a focal point in my stories. I ask myself, what do I want to highlight in this scene? What do I remember most from the last time I hiked through a forest or stalked the aisles of a bookshop?

It's never what's happening there or the faces of people around me or what I was thinking or worrying about, or what was happening in the world at the time; it's always the texture of something I touched, the scent of something wafting by me, the taste of the air or the food on my tongue, the sound of the atmosphere around me. In that café downtown, it was a child's laughter somewhere in the distance that made me wonder if their home life was happy and the hum of conversation around me by people I'd never meet. When I went for a walk on an old dirt road some time ago, I remember the crush of gravel underneath my heel, not what I was thinking about or the houses I passed by. When I change my clothes during a panic attack, I remember the itchy feeling of the tag under my sweatshirt that nags me until I rip it out.

Our senses are what trigger memories and associations, so it must be the same with writing. I drawback on my own experiences with my senses in order to incorporate them into the world of my stories. If I'm unsure of something, I do my research about that thing or place until I can identify something similar in my own experiences to help me explain it to my readers by showing them how it would feel to be there, to eat that thing, to have that specific injury, to smell that dewy forest or hear the loud clanging of battle. I know from personal injuries how a deep gash to the leg feels, so I write that in-depth to help the reader imagine it themselves. How the flesh and its layers resemble the layers of sediment in the earth. I know the scent of rain and pine, so when my characters are in a damp forest, I know there must be a scent lingering enough for them to notice. 

In short, I always try to go through to lists of senses and ask myself how they would work in every setting I write, the first things I would notice about a place or situation if I were in my character’s position, and then how I would react to that information. I know everyone is probably aware of their senses, but having a list of them and why they’re important helps me remember “oh! this will help get across the setting of this scene!” because whether we’re writing or reading, we want to be immersed, we want to partake in it, not merely be observers of this world comprised of words. (Below are some pointers, using Star Wars settings as examples).

SIGHT (what do they see? what draws their attention? bright tapestries hung from the thick wooden beams of a tavern in Mos Eisley or the particles of dust lingering in the shafts of light because the desert air of Tatooine is so still?)

SMELL (what are they smelling? what are their noses telling them? is there a wafting scent of charred coal or wood, evidence of a fire or food being cooked, or is that burning smell coming from the barrel of a blaster? is there the stark stench of spirits in the cantina, overpowering the muted spices in the food?)

SOUND (what are they hearing? what warnings or protocols or demeanors are they following due to sounds or vibrations around them? is the ship they’re stowing away in blaring with alarms due to their presence or is it humming softy as the engine shreds through space matter? is the forest too quiet or too loud? what noises should be heard in a forest? are the voices of the crowds around them friendly and excited as they engage in conversation with companions or are they loud and curt and ready for a bar fight?)

TASTE (what are they tasting? what can the taste buds tell us about the environment? can they taste the blood in their mouth after having been slammed in the cheek with brunt force or is it the blood of broken a tooth? is there a distinct chemical flavor to the air of the factory they invaded, perhaps from a chemical spill? is the air so sweet and heavy in the bakery that they can taste the desserts and breads?)

TOUCH (what are they feeling around them physically? what is the texture of the environment around them? is there a cool metallic sensation to the beskar armor that Din Djarin wears? is the fabric of Obi-Wan’s old robe so worn down that it’s become soft rather than rough wool? is the moss under Grogu’s bare feet damp from the forest mud or dry from a drought? this sense especially helps make the written world more 3D and tangible to readers, it makes us feel like we’re a part of the experience.)

These questions are always relevant to every scenario and story and are especially important for characters or readers who are disabled/non-abled. These senses, if of lesser quality to the character, are shifted in use and importance as they adapt to their condition. If the character is deaf, then they live by sight and vibration, by textures and instinct, by flavor and smell. If a character is paralyzed, they forgo the sensation of touch where the damage is present and rely on sound, sight, scent, and taste. If a character is blind, they live by sound and proximity, by the feel of the world around them, etc. 

Basically, the five senses make up the world around us. It’s the baseline of how we interpret everything, so it’s equally the baseline in storytelling. However, it’s important to not only set the scene in all its senses and details you deem necessary to share, but it’s important to then react on those senses. What does a burning smell tell us? It can mean a dozen things, equally safe and dangerous. What does a bad taste tell us? Either that food is disgusting or the air here is dangerous. And what do the answers to those questions above tell us about the place they’re at? The journey they’re on? The chapter in the story we’re reading? 

Then, you need to decide what’s in character for them to respond with. If Din Djarin walked into a place that smelled of burnt char, he’d probably be so familiar with the smell a discharged blaster leaves in the nostrils to be able to distinguish what sort of threat it poses-- if it’s the aftermath of a fight or just a cozy fire in some corner of the cantina. Aragorn would be much the same, being well-versed in relying on his senses. He would be able to tell if a forest is eerily quiet or if it’s just close to nightfall when most beasts and fowl bed down. He’d be able to notice immediately if the smell of a fire in the trees was from someone’s doused campfire or a raging wildfire creeping up the side of a mountain in the distance. Details and characterization are a key part of immersion. 

ANYWAY, that was a lot, but I hope it helped! I don’t know if that’s just common knowledge, but that’s just part of my process. More than anything, I like being a part of the story when I read, I don’t like merely observing it. Engaging the audience (and yourself) is reliant upon how much you delve into those sensory details. How much you choose to describe things or in what way is entirely up to you, just as everyone had their preferred style of writing they prefer to read. Not everyone enjoys how Tolkien went on pages and pages of setting a scene and its history and sensory detail before people started talking and swords started swinging, but a lot of people do. Not everyone enjoys simplistic settings and heavy action, but some do. And some audiences like it all. 

What’s important is that you find a way to write that makes you happy to do it and to return to your craft to keep honing it, and your work will find its audience that it suits best. You must be authentic. Tell the stories you wish to read. tell the stories you needed to hear as a child or need now in this moment.

As for my process, it is complete and utter chaos. I should probably have a much better process than I do, but isn’t creativity all about madness and chaos? I really just have ideas that pop into my head at random times (most often when I’m busy doing other things, very not convenient). I have dozens of notebooks, chits, notepads, and files on my laptop and in my phone’s notes app of bits and pieces that don’t quite belong anywhere yet, or are enough of an idea to be their own but not quite enough to be complete yet. For example, I have about ten (yes, ten, I know it’s ridiculous) BIG story ideas that I’m simultaneously mapping out. Is there anything more ADHD than that? But despite that, every idea has its own focus and message, but not all of them make sense yet.

One of my story ideas started out as a simple writing project for therapy to address my child abuse and PTSD, then it turned into this massive Pirates of the Caribbean revenge novel, and now it’s honestly something I’m considering turning into an original novel or even a webcomic. See? Chaos. I have no idea what I'm doing, but at least I'm always thinking, always trying, always working with it.

Another one of my ideas deals with the struggle of living with a chronic illness/disability in the world of Once Upon A Time (the TV show), and will remain a fanfic, but the reader has since become an original character.

Do I know if people will care to read these? Am I completely sure there’s an audience ready to accept my original characters thrust into worlds they already love and cherish? No, but that’s not the point. The point is that these ideas in my head go somewhere, that they are molded into something I myself have enjoyed creating. I know that’s more about motivation than process, but my process, simply put, feels pretty nonexistent. I flit from one thing to another without much of a timeline of principles or tasks.

Basically, I get an idea (whether a bit of dialogue or a setting or a scene or how to word something) and I scribble it down. It sits and tumbles around in my mind as I work on other existing stories. Sometimes those little ideas fit with existing stories and it’s like a huge plot hole is filled or a subplot introduced. When I actually sit down to write, my first priority is to engage myself in the act of writing. I begin by drawing myself into the story, with one of those five senses, then I try to set the scene like a set designer for a film (except with words).

And sometimes, it’s like pulling teeth. A few months back, I knew I wanted to write a story for the show Once Upon A Time, I knew I wanted the love interest to be Rumplestiltskin, I knew I wanted the existing Belle character to be a first love instead of a true love sort of scenario (and my character, reader or OC, would be the true love, the endgame). That was it. I really had nothing except a fairytale I wanted to tie my character into and I wanted to deal with the trauma I suffered from my neglectful father and abusive stepmother paired with trying to accept and cope with my disabilities. Over the course of a couple months, just scribbling nonsensical things down, some of which stayed and some of which didn’t, I now have an entire set of events and a solid plot and storyline to go with.

My biggest suggestion is to go on a word doc or google doc, whatever you use, and make a spreadsheet. I added a table comprised columns and numerous rows, each row for a chapter. Then, I wrote down a very vague procession of events. It’s still rough and I’m still changing things around, with all of my stories, but that’s just how it works. There are also questionnaires online that give you prompts and questions to help fill in details about your character and their story.

Think of yourself as a sculptor and an interpreter. You have these images in your mind, these places and people and events that must take places, colors and sounds and textures in your mind that you want others to see and experience. As writers, we literally take images in our head and translate them into words, words that will then mold an image (like a sculpture) into someone else’s mind and imagination. We get an invitation to mold their thoughts as they read our work. And it gets to be however you want it to be--but we must chisel and sculpt that image in order for it to be interpreted the way we want it to be. That’s how all those senses come in, how all the details and settings find their place. Or at least, that’s how I see it.

Okay, I know that was a long slew of information, much of it probably repeated, but it’s as necessary to share to answer your questions just as my writing process needs messiness in order to work for me. I hope this helped you!

Blessings and best wishes, anon!

Xx Lillian

[drippingviolets3]

Danganronpa AU (not really but there’s no better word for it): School mode timeline

This is a AU I sort of have been working on for the most part, and the best part about it is that no one does :D yaaaaay, no more getting emotionally attached to anyone only for them to end up dying!

Anyways, this is more of a timeline I created to try and connect the school/island modes together and have a AU where no one dies except like, a bunch of nameless background characters and Junko, but that’s not important

This is your spoiler warning for the canon game and school mode. You have been warned

Anyways, let’s get started:

Trigger happy havoc: The beginning

It starts off with how school mode starts off. The kids are awoken in classrooms, find out they’ll have to participate in a killing game, etc. But also like in school mode, Junko forgot to make copies of Monokuma for the killing game, and forces the students to team up and build a copy. Instead, they end up building Usami, Usami destroys Monokuma, ba bam school mode is completed.

But once they leave, they find the world in ruin. Everyone is obviously confused, but that’s where Mukuro steps in. She reveals that she isn’t actually Junko but her twin sister, and explains the situation to them, including the tragedy what lead up to it, everything. She explains that she was originally teamed with Junko, but after spending time with them and forming bonds with everyone, she didn’t want to be on team despair anymore.

Obviously they’re about to fall into despair, but then low and behold Makoto unlocks his talent as the Ultimate hope, and with the help of now hopeful Mukuro, they save the class and go to save the world

They all form a survival group at first, each having certain jobs (Sakura defends them from Monokuma bots, Mondo being their escape driver, Taka helping heal any other survivors to the best of his abilities, etc) until they’re found by the future foundation, who takes them in and returns their memories of their previous school life.

There, the students are able to be of more help, especially with Mukuro’s knowledge of the remnants and Junko. Chihiro is also a huge help due to the training he’s getting from the stronger members and his computer skills thrown in as well. This isn’t that important I just wanted to throw in some Chihiro love-

Ultra despair girls: The second part of the timeline

This is really short because there really isn’t much to say. With the help of Chihiro’s hacking skills and the Future Foundation, everyone finds out that there’s hostages that were going to be used against them in the killing game. Byakuya goes in to save them, gets kidnapped, cue the events of UDG. After the events of it, the Future Foundation takes in Kotoko since she’s the only survivor of the WOH, and after getting betrayed by Monaca, she agrees to work with the Future Foundation. But only with Toko and Komaru (in this AU she kinda clings to them like they’re her older sisters)

Goodbye despair: The third part of the timeline

Now that Kotoko is also on their side, with her knowledge and Mukuro’s they’re able to learn some extra information about the remnants. The Future Foundation plans to kill them like in SDR2, but Makoto gets his class together to help him try to redeem the remnants instead of killing them. So Chihiro helps them create the Neo World Program, and once that’s set up and they’re able to run a few tests on it, sneak it to Jabberwocky Island, and make sure there aren’t any life risking bugs, they go onto the hard part. Getting the remnants.

By now though, you’re probably wondering what the fuck is up with Junko. And to answer that thought, she’s alive, and is conducting attacks towards the Future Foundation, who are trying to kill her (except class 77 that is), but this makes their goal near impossible now.

So yeah as stated, Junko is making the task reeeeaaally hard, especially since she’s stronger then she looks. So how did they defeat her? I actually imagine it was thanks to Kotoko they took her down. She knew how to work the Monokuma robots, and so she used the stronger students as a distraction for Junko as she got one of the Monokuma robots, found it’s control panel, and forced to attack Junko. I also imagine she has a angsty breakdown as she forces it to tear apart Junko, crying about the betrayal she felt and how she never cared about her (I actually might write a one shot on that-) but anyways, long story short Kotoko kills Junko :)

Once Junko is dead, they risk their lives (a lot) but eventually manage to convince (and force) the remnants into the Neo World Program (which was a lot easier thanks to Mukuro) and create a AI based on a dead classmate of theirs, Chiaki. There, the students all loose their school memories and work together to gather all the hope fragments with Usami, who (along with the goal at hand) was based on the robot and goal they had themselves. The remnants get reverted back to their old selves now that they’re free of Junko’s brainwashing. Once they’re out of the program however, the class has to explain to them what the fuck happened to the world and now has to give them therapy.

They stay on the island for a while to stay under the Future Foundation’s radar, and after some time go to their base and tries to show that they’ve changed and want to help fix the world. It takes a lot of trial and error, but they end up getting recruited.

And that’s all I have so far. That’s just the basic timeline of it, obviously there’s gonna be some more issues along the way and I still have a lot of stuff to sort out about it (and finish V3 so I can figure out how to tie that in) but that’s it essentially. Tell me if you like it or not and if you want to see me write for it (which I’ll probably do anyways tbh)

[aelaer]

The Blood in Our Veins (a serial)

I had Part 3 partially written out since March, but inspiration struck from the middle of nowhere and I was able to complete it last night. Everyone tagged asked to be tagged months ago, just let me know if you want to be added/removed from the update tag list. Earlier parts linked for convenience as it’s been ages and a lot of you probably don’t remember parts 1 and 2, haha. Apologies for length if you’re on mobile without a working cut tag.

Prompt (via @ironstrangeprompts): Kidnapped to play doctor for a still unseen other prisoner; Stephen realizes there is only one person on the planet who would have palladium in their blood.

This is unbetaed; apologies for any errors.

Part 1 | Part 2 |

Part 3 - Signs Were Not Really That Scarce

Doctor Baar was going to sleep, but Doctors Ferguson and Weston (Jada and Summer, Stephen reminded himself) kept him busy immediately upon waking him up. The former had him prepping more slides and helping input her handwritten data into the computer, while with the latter he started the loose beginnings of a plan for surgery with the incomplete picture they had. 

By the time another two hours had ticked by and he was working again with Doctor Mahajan on prepping yet more samples, Stephen was doing all in his power to focus on the repetitive tasks at hand rather than let his mind wander to consider his circumstances.

He was very good at focusing; he always had been. It was partially his power of intense concentration and attention to detail that he was able to perform surgeries that others simply didn't have the skills to perform. Despite his relatively short career thus far, he was already making a name for himself amongst his peers.

But at this point in Stephen's life, that type of focus was for challenging surgical cases and putting his mind to work towards new and improved techniques in the neurosurgical field. On the other hand, the relative monotony of lab technician work could only distract him from his thoughts for so long. And as the minutes ticked by, Stephen was starting to feel the crawling anxiety of the unknown inch forward.

He forced himself to slowly inhale, then exhale. He did it again for good measure. Then he pushed his wandering thoughts towards something calm and more meditative. This turned him to mentally reviewing as many recent studies as he could recall reading within the larger medical field.

Immediately the papers of his fellow abductees came to mind, and Stephen pushed past those to the unrelated papers he could remember. And there were plenty of those, enough he could recall to categorize them by specialty. His near-eidetic memory certainly helped there—and it was more interesting than listing off the discographies of all artists on Billboard's Top 100 of 1981.

This exercise began helping quickly. His memory did not have these papers memorized word for word, but he could remember the important bits of the study and he began to recite them in his head. What part of his mind wasn't focused on Doctor Mahajan's slides went through the names of doctors, the titles, the summaries, and whatever little details he could recall from his readings over the last year.

The neurology papers came first to mind, naturally. Recalling all new research over the last several months put him at ease; it was in this realm that his own ideas began to take root, drawing from the conclusions of other neurosurgeons to develop his own hypotheses to begin research on later.

But Stephen had no place to jot down his stray musings, which brought reminder to his situation again. Before any anxiety about his situation could take root again, he instead abandoned neurology to remember papers in other fields, even as his nimble fingers continued transferring the blood samples to slides, each labeled accordingly.

He planned on continuing as such without pause until all blood tests had been prepped (and the amount of testing and the speed of results that was being accomplished for a single man was truly phenomenal). But Stephen's hand suddenly jerked, nearly ruining one of the samples.

Doctor Mahajan stood just to his right and, at such proximity, noticed. "Doctor Strange? Are you alright?"

Stephen didn't process her question immediately; his brain was still reeling from his sudden realization. His mind was in the middle of citing a recent cardiothoracic study when he remembered another article. It wasn't even a study in the normal sense of the word, but rather a look at the miraculous ways a body can survive trauma and the modern technology used to help in the process. One part of the article covered the miraculous survival of—

"Tony Stark," he murmured aloud. 

Doctor Mahajan sent him an alarmed look. "Not so loud!" she hissed.

Stephen blinked, then looked back at her. He ignored her comment, but made sure to keep his voice low. "I remember reading about the technology he used to keep shrapnel from his heart. It had a palladium core, the implant. We're trying to keep Tony Stark alive, aren't we?"

"Don't talk about it," she snapped back in a whisper. She refused to look at him.

Stephen paused and frowned at her. What the hell was her problem? "Do you have an issue with me?" he asked the Brit, his voice unconsciously rising in his irritation.

Doctor Mahajan shook her head but continued to avoid looking at him. "Just—just leave me alone."

Before he could say anything (and what could he say to that?) he heard "Stephen," come from behind him. He turned and Jada was there. "Summer needs your help in making out something on an X-ray. I'll continue assisting Doctor Mahajan."

With one last frown at Doctor Mahajan, Stephen nodded to Jada and made his way to the cardiothoracic surgeon on the other side of the room. When he reached her, he asked, "What is it?" There was no X-ray pulled up on the computer.

"Doctor Mahajan is on the verge of a panic attack," Summer explained softly. "Jada recognized it. She'll help calm her down."

Unwelcome guilt edged into his conscience. "I didn't know."

"We know," she reassured him. "We're not blaming you. Meera won't, either. But she has rather bad anxiety that is more sensitive right now for, well, obvious reasons."

Probably what the medication was for, Stephen presumed. "I didn't mean to trigger an attack."

She nodded. "I know," she repeated. "What did you say? We'll want to avoid whatever it was in the future."

He cleared his throat and then lowered his voice further. "I figured out who on earth would have continuous palladium poisoning. His name did it."

Summer exhaled and nodded. "It was only a matter of time before you figured it out."

Stephen frowned once more. "You know the patient is Tony Stark?"

"Everyone does," she answered in a whisper, "but we don't mention it. I'd not say his name again, either; we haven't figured out if there are microphones in here or how strong they might be. We don't know if they care that we've figured it out." And after saying that, she opened the actual X-rays on her computer and shuffled through her notepad to look busy. 

Stephen took her lead and stepped closer to look at her notepad as if reading it. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that others would remember the news—about what was told of the procedure that saved his life," he said. "There was nothing written indicating any reaction to the palladium core, though."

Summer shrugged. "He never mentioned it. I looked through every mention of his procedure I could find when they were first published, and there weren't many. The patient only gave his version of events and never let any doctor closely study it, from my understanding." She pursed her lips. "It was the X-rays that gave it away for me, at least."

"I was reciting medical papers I could remember. A cardiothoracic study nudged my memory to one of those articles that came out last year about his survival." Stephen pressed his lips together into a thin line. "But with the last newscast I heard about the patient a few days ago, I honestly should have thought of him sooner."

She pretended to write something down. "Kidnapped two times in a year's time," she murmured. "That's rough. Do you remember when they reported him missing on the news?"

"March 20th," he said. Stephen recalled easily; Tony Stark's disappearance during a race in India was all anyone was talking about for a week. "So just over a month ago."

She nodded and flipped to another X-ray photo. "Fits the timeline of how long Steffen and Jada have been here, too. They came a few days after that, if I recall correctly."

Stephen nodded and, as he stared blankly at the X-ray, found himself falling into his thoughts. Tony Stark—until very recently a weapons manufacturer, and who, until very recently, Stephen would have turned away if given the chance. Granted, he wasn't quite at the point where he could easily turn away patients to other neurosurgeons. He was certain he'd be there in two to three years in both the level of demand for his services and his influence with the hospital's administration. But even then, even as a neurosurgeon who was still growing in prestige, if someone had asked him a year ago if he wanted to operate on Tony Stark, he would have said no.

That was a year ago. That was before Tony Stark got kidnapped by terrorists for three months and came back ending all weapons production in his company. That was before he became some sort of—Stephen didn't want to use the word superhero, but he didn't know what else to call it.

Stephen had no idea what he thought of Tony Stark now. He had little reason to consider him beyond the gossip on TV and within the office. But now here he was, forced to be part of a team to help keep him alive.

Mind boggling.

He exhaled softly and focused again on the cropped X-ray on the screen. His opinion on the billionaire, whatever it was, hardly mattered right then. Whether he wished it or not, Tony Stark was his patient and as such, he would do his best to perform his duty as a doctor. Whether that meant simply helping out with samples or performing what would be a long and complicated surgery remained to be seen.

— — — — — —

The race in India is from a ridiculous limited edition tie-in comic that I could only find information about on the 2010 timeline on the MCU Wiki. It made a great plot device though.

I figure I’ll also say that Tony’s coming in the next chapter. I have a few hundred words written on that, but I’m still trying to figure out just how badly I want to treat the protagonists and if I’m the bad guys are just going to start murdering doctors. And all named characters in this series, canon and OC, have PhDs, so there’s lots of doctors to potentially murder.

Lil tidbit: When I realized that this prompt fill was going to become A Monster, I knew I wanted each part to have a name. So before publishing the first part, I went through my Spotify favorites and wrote down all my favorite lyrics in a document. This document has now grown into nearly 5,000 words of possible lyric titles for chapters and fics.

(Feel free to try and guess where the titles come from if you want. The serial name and each part are full or partial lyrics from favorite songs)

Tag list: @sobeautifullyobsessed, @tashacumberbitch @babywarg, @nishtha3012, @ragingstillness, @walkin-in-the-cosmos, @lafourmii20, @asexualchemist, @iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife, @oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo , @animefanfreak45

Let me know if you want to be tagged for future updates in a comment (as it won't be on AO3 for a while and has no steady update schedule planned). Or let me know if you want to be removed.

[fangirlauthor]

A Rip in Time Chapter 2

Hello again! Like I said, there’s a link to this work on ao3 if you’d like to read it on there. Check the masterpost to find it. 

Assuming, that is, that future Matt Holt ever stopped eating. It didn’t seem like he would - he was currently shovelling an insane number of donuts into his mouth at high speeds; he was clearly one of two things: extremely hungry, or excited about donuts. The reality was both. Not only was (future) Matt Holt hungry, it had also been a long time since he’d seen a donut, much less had one. 

“Are ye done yet, kid? We’ve got questions.” Commander Iverson glared at the kid - well, at Matt; kid didn’t really fit anymore. 

“Almost,” said future Matt Holt through a mouthful of donuts. “And I’m sure I’ve got answers, Commander.” Swallowing, Matt added, “There’s a lot to go through, so I’m going to need the devices I brought with me.”

“You aren’t getting those until we figure out what they are.”

“They’re databases that I’ve stored visual aids on, Commander. Nothing dangerous, basically the alien equivalent of a stored powerpoint.” 

Iverson shook his head. “Still need to get them cleared first.”

“Then I guess I’ll be eating donuts until you do.”

Iverson practically growled at that. Other Matt, Sam, and Shiro - watching from behind a two-way mirror - glanced at each other and did their best to hold in their laughter. It wasn’t a joke, and if it had been it wouldn’t’ve been a funny one, but confusion has an interesting effect on one’s sense of humor. 

Two hours later, someone managed to stop by with the devices future Matt Holt had brought with him. At that point, Iverson escorted future Matt to the debriefing room where several people - including the members of the Kerberos mission (and Adam, Katie, and Colleen Holt) were already waiting. 

“Alright, kid. What’s this all about?” asked Iverson. “We’d like the short version, please.”

“Of course, Commander. That’s why I needed my trusty visual aids to keep me on track.”

Taking a deep breath, Matt tapped the Altean device, triggering a holographic image of Kerberos to appear. “Everything you think you know is about to change. There’s an entire universe out there - and there’s more to it than we could ever have imagined. Years ago - for me, anyway - Kerberos was the farthest a human had ever traveled. The mission was supposed to be an embodiment of everything we had achieved, of how far humanity had advanced. Instead, it turned into a showing of how little we really knew.” A breath as everyone in the room waited for him to continue. “The Kerberos mission was successful up until a single point - and it was a big one.” 

Matt tapped the device projecting an image of Kerberos, and a video feed began to play. It was the video recorded during the Kerberos mission, the one that had proved to Katie Holt that the Galaxy Garrison was lying to everyone about what had really happened on Kerberos. After it played, Matt had the transmission the Galaxy Garrison had picked up play as well. 

The room was full of shocked faces, Sam, Matt and Shiro most of all - Adam, standing slightly behind and away from Shiro, reached out as if to touch Shiro on the shoulder, stopping at the last moment. 

“What-” Iverson began, but (future) Matt cut him off with a wave of his hand. 

“I’m not quite finished yet, Commander.” He smiled, but it was thin and very clearly fake. Old memories are painful to remember at the best of times, and this most certainly could not be considered the best of times. 

“Once the Galaxy Garrison caught that video and transmission, they told the public a lie - they claimed the Kerberos mission had crashed due to pilot error, and left it at that. A military funeral - closed casket because there weren’t any bodies - was held, during which the,” - here his voice broke slightly - “family members and loved ones were allowed to say goodbye. For the next few years, the world believed that Takashi Shirogane, Matt Holt, and Sam Holt were dead. Some people had suspicions that the Galaxy Garrison wasn’t telling the truth, but most of them kept quiet. My sister was not one of them - in a sense, anyway. She illegally hacked into the Galaxy Garrison’s computers and managed to see that footage before she was caught and banned from the premises. An amount of time later, she ran away and - also illegally - enrolled in the Galaxy Garrison as Pidge Gunderson, and cut her hair to add to the illusion. 

“Another amount of time later - sorry for not knowing the specifics, I was busy trying not to die on an alien ship - Shiro escaped from the aliens that had captured us, the ones known as the Galra. He crashed on Earth, near the Galaxy Garrison. The Garrison wanted him sedated and quarantined, but he had an urgent message and begged them to listen to him. They didn’t but before they could completely sedate him, former Garrison cadet Keith Kogane broke into the Galaxy Garrison and, with help from a few other cadets - including my sister - got him out and safely away from pursuing Garrison forces. 

“There they discovered a secret cavern and an alien ship - the Blue Lion. Shiro, Pidge, Lance, Hunk, and Keith ended up leaving the planet on the ship once it activated for Lance. At that point, they accidentally traveled through a wormhole and discovered what Voltron was. I’m not going to go into specifics of how, exactly, they managed to get there, but know that they did. And the universe is in a much better place because of it. 

“Voltron is a superweapon, and the universe’s only hope. It is made of five mechanical lions, piloted by the five paladins. Because of some strange - we’ll call it magic - known as Altean Alchemy, the lions are practically sentient beings; they choose their paladins, and they activate only for those they choose to. Working as a team, the five paladins - and the lions they are in - can fight separately or form Voltron. The current paladins are as follows: in the black lion, Keith, in the red lion, Lance, in the green lion, Pidge, in the yellow lion, Hunk, and in the blue lion, Allura, who is an alien and not someone you’d know.” Here (future) Matt paused for another breath, ignoring the stunned faces around him. “Don’t worry, Commander, I’ll make this last part quick. 

“Together, the paladins have worked together to save the universe an impressive number of times. They’ve faced robeasts, fleets of starships, and have adapted at an incredible speed for people who were thrown into this world without warning. I’m not going to go into detail about each battle they’ve fought because there’s not enough time, but know this; each of the paladins has proven time and time again that they are willing to do whatever it takes - and I mean whatever it takes - to save the universe. They are heroes, and they are a symbol of hope to the entire universe. 

“Right now, a time slip is occurring - people from my time are going to start appearing here, where you are. This includes some less-than-friendly aliens, but also allies as well. Some chaotically accurate math informed us that I’d be the first here - so, as I have done, I was to inform you generally of what has occurred in the future. I’m also supposed to - and plan on - helping bolster the defenses on this planet so we’ll be a little more prepared when the bad guys start arriving. I’m going to need your full cooperation for this, though - can I expect that, or am I going to have to go rogue again?”

Everyone stared at him, shock coating their features. “I’ll, uh, give you a moment,” (future) Matt said awkwardly, deactivating the device still projecting photos of the five paladins (and Shiro). 

Several moments later, Sam said, “So the first time we encountered alien lifeforms, they were hostile?”

(Future) Matt nodded. “The Galra Empire goes through the universe and colonizes - or destroys - plants and their inhabitants are usually forced to work for the empire. There is a small group of galra known as the Blade of Marmora that the Voltron Coalition works closely with. They’re on our side. Heck, one of their members is a paladin.”

Iverson asked a more pragmatic question. “And there are hostile aliens coming here? Because of this time slip?”

(Future) Matt nodded. “They’re coming, but so are the paladins and the Atlas. There’s not a lot we’ll be able to do to prepare before they get here - assuming Slav’s math is correct - but we’ll do what we can. I’ll do what we can.”

“Alright,” said Iverson. “What do we need to do?”

[mystech-master]

Annon-Guy: What are you personal thoughts on Nu-13 and Lambda-11 In terms of gameplay and personality? You can talk about their character designs too id you want too.

Okay, I need to first summarize what I know of Nu and Lambda at the moment before I give my personal thoughts. A lot of shorthanding and maybe some errors may be involved so plz forgive me.

long post bellow, beware.

Nu-13 and Lambda-11 are both Prime Field Devices, artificial humans made for the purpose of exploring the boundary. Specifically, they are Murakumo Units: PFD’s outfitted with the Nox Nyctores Lux Sanctus: Murakumo as full-on weapons.

When Ragna’s siblings were captured, because of Saya’s innate gift with seithr, she was used as the basis for creating all of these Units. There are usually referred to as “clones” which means everyone treats them as either the same as Saya or also sisters, leading to a lot of incest jokes and rants in the fandom. More on this later but I feel like it has to be brought up.

we first meet Nu-13 as the final boss of the first game Calamity Trigger, where we learn that this is technically the 3rd time she and Ragna have met, since before this Ragna was blowing up NOL branches and cauldrons to stop more Murakumo Units from being made, as they are all just fake copies of his sister who was tortured for their creation.

Nu-13 has a full-on yandere crush on Ragna due to 2 factors I believe, 1. she is constantly viewing him through the lens of the fragment of Saya’s soul saying “Ragna is the big brother who loves me”, and 2. Ragna killing her again and again. This causes her to see Ragna killing her as loving her. Not helping is her being made in the Boundary which completely fucks up your mental state when near it.

At the end of almost every ending in CT, Nu defeats Ragna, skewering them both on her sword, they fall into the Cauldron and travel back in time 100 years to become the Black Beast that ravaged the world in the Dark War, creating a time loop. As when a Murakumo does an imperfect fusion with an Azure Grimoire (or at least a piece of the Azure) it becomes a Black Beast, with a perfect fusion resulting in a Kusanagi: the God Slayer (which is what Noel becomes and what the villains were trying to do to take down Amaterasu (the god of Blazblue world). Fitting as a Murakumo, with the Kusanagi being a super version of it, has a Nox capable of resisting Phenomenon Intervention, which is the Mater Unit’s main Power. So when they say God Slayer they do not mean gods in general they mean a SPECIFIC god. Just need to say that).

Anyways, Nu kills Ragna every now and again for like 725 loops before Noel steps in during the true ending and manages to grab Ragna before he and Nu fall into the Cauldron.

In Continuum Shift, the second game taking place right/ a week after the first game, Nu’s body is recovered from the bottom of the Cauldron (yes those things apparently have a bottom they aren’t just portals) by Sector Seven and Kokonoe proceeds to ake Nu’s soul and put it in the body of another Murakumo Unit, Lambda-11 to use as a puppet and fight for her. Her weapons are made of titanium alloy instead of Hihi'irokane (the mythical Japanese metal which is also in the Susano’o Unit and is also the name of a Soul cutting sword in Blazblue), and she is outfitted with an IDEA Engine, an improved version of the Artificial Causality Phenomenon Weapons: a scientific counterpart to the Nox Nyctores using Atomic Power rather than souls.

Lambda’s memories are still in there and she recalls the torture she had to endure by all the scientists creating her, which I assume all Murakumos underwent including Nu, so Kokonoe has to erase her memories to make her an effective tool, even if she regrets it.

They don't really explain where the soul starts and the mind/memories begin and vice versa though, this is another thing I will tackle later.

She sends out Lambda in the second game to do things, she like Tager for the most part just acts as Kokonoe’s proxy, until the climax of the true ending where Ragna is fighting Terumi at the top of the NOL branch. Just as Terumi is about to kill Ragna, Lambda takes a lethal blow for Ragna, and in her final moments, Nu’s soul comes to the surface and is glad she got to see Ragna again, him having recently gone through the character development of not seeing Murakumos as things but as people after interacting with Noel. As she dies and fades into sparkles, weird for a science thing, she grants Ragna her Idea Engine, giving him the power boost he needs to defeat Terumi and later save Noel who was smelted into the Kusanagi.

Now in the third game, because Ragna and Nu have a Life Link, which means one cannot die permanently without the other being killed in a short time frame, Nu is now able to come back as she couldn’t before with Kokonoe shoving her soul into Lambda. She mostly just acts as the villains' combat android until she copies Noel’s power to summon the Master Unit (as both are Saya fragments and also fragments of The Origin, the first PFD who made contact with the Master Unit and sort of.....became it?). Then in the climax, the villains summon Take-Mikazuchi, a giant titan satellite laser thing, and make Nu the core of it. Once the body is destroyed Ragna goes inside to deal with Nu. She proceeds with her usual shtick of telling Ragna they will “become one” and to kill her and all that, saying the backstory of pretty much every Murakumo about how she was made to be a weapon and how she was tortured and shit, this is also her saying Noel’s backstory since Noel ‘Observed” Nu as her which is SORT of true since they are both Saya but not really, it’s confusing as hell. But, basically, she is saying the shared Murakumo Backstory and Ragna sees this as her cries to be saved, while Nu, who only sees her and Ragna’s relationship as a mutually sadomasochistic one, goes bonkers and tries to kill Ragna, not out of yandere lust, but actual anger and hatred. Ragna wins and brings her out of Take-Mikazuchi, where Izanami takes control of her and makes her stab Ragna and he goes berserk and loses control of the Azure Grimoire.

the fourth game Central Fiction is a mess so I know the least here but from what I recall:

Nu is now growing to be her own person, she is less robotic but that means Yandere Ragna mode is on all the time. She is going around absorbing Nox Nyctores to get power so she can kill Ragna and do the merge. Near the climax, she is fighting Jubei and when she almost kills Tsubaki, Hakumen steps in and wrecks her shit. (In a previous time loop Tsubaki was killed by Nu b/c Noel didn’t exist and wasn’t Jin’s secretary instead of Tsubaki, so she went after Jin in the first game who was going after Ragna, she got caught in the crossfire, with Nu’s yandere mind hating any female in the same room as Ragna, and dies. Jin then falls into the cauldron after Ragna and Nu to become Hakumen during the Dark War. More time loop BS).

Meanwhile due to the Embryo, BS plot device, Lambda just.....comes back to life. Even though her soul was technically never a part of the story as it was NU’S soul in the body during CS. Anyways she is basically “good Nu” she is fighting the villains through sheer Power of Love and just wants to see Rgana again, she is pretty unimportant in the overall scheme of things.

After the world is remade Noel and Lambda move into the rebuilt church where Ragna and the siblings grew up and became nuns, looking after the comatose Nu who is kind of a vegetable with her sole reason for existing, Ragna, now no longer existing and all memory of him being erased.

Okay so after that lengthy summary, here are my thoughts.

1. the sister thing.

In spite of them being “clones” of Ragna’s little sister Saya, that hasn't stopped a shit load of ship teasing with the Murakumos by both the writers and the fandom.

Part of me thinks it’s because they go too far in the “They are their own unique people, they aren’t just fake copies of Saya” to which the fans mostly agree, but that just means while they aren’t Saya they are still related/connected to her. It isn't like Ragna can only have ONE sister.

Also, the reveal of Izanami being Saya at the end of CS also factors into this.

My only way to do mental gymnastics around this is saying that by “clone” they just mean copy/looks like her and has the same abilities, but genetically they are different.

I mean, we have no idea how Murakumos....work. They can't have any mechanical bits because we see them get zapped in-game and they have no metal, Noel CERTAINLY would've known she wasn't human if she didn't grow like a normal human or eat, sleep, produce waste, etc.

To me, Murakumos seem to be like software/computer programs given physical form via seithr. More like the Valentines in Guilty Gear, “robots” made up of information.

Plus, the story only ever points out the sibling connection with Ragna and Noel, and that’s in the LAST game and until then she’s just a stranger to him, with Lambda and Nu NEVER being treated the same.

And before anyone goes “BUT THE SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION OF CONE MEANS ‘HUR DE DUR, SAME DNA’ AND THEY USE THE WORD CLONE TO DESCRIBE THEM IN CANON! MEH!”, that could just be an over-simplification as to what they are, and I feel like a lot of series just rely on an oversimplification of terms. Like how Black Holes mostly work in fiction is NOT how they work IRL.

Now, does this mean I would’ve wanted Ragna to get with Noel or Lambda or Nu? Fuck no. I can appreciate cute little one-shots that have nothing to do with canon, but in terms of looking this train wreck of a story and trying to fix it they have other issues that make me not want to ship them.

I might go into why I wouldn't want Ragna x Noel in another post later, but I’ll stay on topic with Nu and Lambda.

Both are kind of boring

Lambda is basically Nu with less personality and is just a plot device for the most part.

As for Nu, even if you redeem her and keep her loving Ragna qualities without the yandere murder, it is still boring. because all her interests are Ragna she has nothing else going for her. Outside of the most generic romance shit what can you see Nu doing with him? it’s a bit upsetting because Nu seems like the type of person who’d have Ragna’s back and punch Jin in the dick if he insults or threatens Ragna, which is something I would LOVE in an S.O. for Ragna.  But without her own interests and character, she is just......boring. And yeah you could theorize that she gains an interest outside of Ragna post-redemption but that is too broad of a statement that I can’t really do anything with it.

So frankly, even IF we ignore the sister thing or do weird mental gymnastics about it, Ragna/Nu and Lambda would just be BORING as they are in canon outside of the most generic BS.

2. The connection between Nu and Lambda

Really Lambda was just made to keep Nu’s gameplay in while killing her in canon, that is a dumb excuse.

Some people like to see Lambda s Nu but redeemed temporarily but then come to CP and it’s like none of the Lambda stuff mattered. You’d think that at least Ragna would use Lambda’s death as an ace for his argument on using the Azure Grimoire as when he wasn't able to use it he got his shit kicked in and someone had to DIE for him because of that. But NOPE.

Then she is revived for bullshit fanservice reasons in CP Extend and is barely a thing in Story Mode

A while ago I made a post showing 3 ways they could've gotten rid of Nu that would’ve made good character moments. I will be focusing on number 3 here: Have Nu and Lambda be the same person.

Instead of Lambda being brought back via Embryo Bullshit, have Nu and Lambda be a split personality deal. Like Nu is the CS Mu to Lambda’s Noel. Say during Ragna’s Arcade mode or Nu’s Arcade mode Nu slightly hesitates when about to kill Ragna, reality flickers a bit revealing Lambda’s color scheme on Nu, showing that Lambda is within her. Nu’s soul spending time in Lambda has given her an alternate identity.

This doesn't just have to affect just Ragna, maybe Lambda remembers that Kokonoe mind-wiped her and tried to make her into a puppet thus making her no better than the villains.

During the climax, instead of Nu’s yandere rage, we have that mixed in with Lambda’s hysterical cries begging for death due to the torture of Nu’s memories. Both side tr and kill Ragna out of rage or trying to force him to kill them in self-defense. Ragna, of course, doesn’t and saves them, thus allowing Nu-Lambda to be brought back to Kokonoe and redeemed.

Maybe her hair is a mix of Nu and Lambda’s making it a Platinum Blonde (making it a mixture of Nu’s white hair and Lambda’s blonde hair), and the tanner skin complexion and red eyes further separate her from Noel.

3. Story roles

The first two games are fine for the most part but I have some ideas for the last two.

For the 3rd game, an idea I had was instead of Nu being the one to summon the Master Unit via stealing Noel’s power, have Amane do something important in this game instead of having him chase Carl.

he is said the be the “Uzume” like the god who stripped and made Amaterasu come out of the cave after her sibling fallout with Susano’o. Simply have Amane be the “herald of Amaterasu”, possibly being a being similar to Terumi, a spirit of a god unit. maybe not AS powerful as the Sankishin, but just under. This means that Nine’s Hino Kagutsuchi would fall under this category as well. Or maybe he simply has a story connection with Noel in accepting the part of her connection to the Origin and the Azure or something.

To go off of the shipping thing above, maybe to at least use the Saya soul thing, she is struggling with her feelings towards Ragna because how much of these feelings are her own, and how many are born from an isolated sibling’s misplaced love? This is probably something a villain taunts her about

I kind of theorize that Saya’s fear of other people instilled in her during the siblings’ days as lab rats and Ragna protecting her made her develop an unhealthy sister crush on him, this, of course, isn't helped by the Origin (who she is based on) wanting Ragan to be her knight in shining armor.

Again, more on this later possibly.

Anyways, so Lambda can get her own feelings in order and prove that she isn’t just a copy of Saya or Noel, she tries to make her own identity. maybe cutting off that large Murakumo ponytail in the process, b.c that’s an Asian culture thing about cutting hair to symbolize the beginning of a new stage in her life. Maybe after forgiving Kokonoe, she joins Sector Seven not as a field agent like Tager, but as Kokonoe’s new assistant and friend, showing that she isn't going to be used as a tool or a weapon.

I still need to get on with drawing Lambda in a lab coat styled after her Murakumo cloak.

As for at least Nu’s connection with Ragna. It is weird because I generally either hate or have enormous contempt for almost everyone Ragna has interacted with for the pettiest reasons. For Nu, while she is crazy towards Ragna and tries to kill him, it's due to her own psychosis and insanity, which is partially Ragna’s fault. Everyone else who gives Ragna shit is either a villain (in which case it’s fine because it is a VILLAIN, which Nu sort of counts as), or an arrogant asshole who KNOWS what they are doing for the lols. So I SORT OF give Nu a semi-pass. But like I stated above I can’t see what she would be if she were redeemed, so I do feel like if she wasn't going to be used as a way to bring Lambda back, she should've been killed.

 The point is, the Murakumos have a lot of potential for smaller things but they are incredibly mishandled in a lot of ways too, including showing up where they really shouldn't a lot of times. Shipping is okay so long as you are capable of doing mental gymnastics to ignore the sister shit, and don’t look at a whole lot of other issues.

These are just my thoughts and maybe I didn’t explain things enough, or I did it weirdly, or I have some different opinions, IDK. This series gives me a lot of feelings

[programmingisterrible]

Write code that's easy to delete, and easy to debug too.

Debuggable code is code that doesn’t outsmart you. Some code is a little to harder to debug than others: code with hidden behaviour, poor error handling, ambiguity, too little or too much structure, or code that’s in the middle of being changed. On a large enough project, you’ll eventually bump into code that you don’t understand.

On an old enough project, you’ll discover code you forgot about writing—and if it wasn’t for the commit logs, you’d swear it was someone else. As a project grows in size it becomes harder to remember what each piece of code does, harder still when the code doesn’t do what it is supposed to. When it comes to changing code you don’t understand, you’re forced to learn about it the hard way: Debugging.

Writing code that’s easy to debug begins with realising you won’t remember anything about the code later.

Rule 0: Good code has obvious faults.

Many used methodology salesmen have argued that the way to write understandable code is to write clean code. The problem is that “clean” is highly contextual in meaning. Clean code can be hardcoded into a system, and sometimes a dirty hack can written in a way that’s easy to turn off. Sometimes the code is clean because the filth has been pushed elsewhere. Good code isn’t necessarily clean code.

Code being clean or dirty is more about how much pride, or embarrassment the developer takes in the code, rather than how easy it has been to maintain or change. Instead of clean, we want boring code where change is obvious— I’ve found it easier to get people to contribute to a code base when the low hanging fruit has been left around for others to collect. The best code might be anything you can look at quickly learn things about it.

Code that doesn’t try to make an ugly problem look good, or a boring problem look interesting.

Code where the faults are obvious and the behaviour is clear, rather than code with no obvious faults and subtle behaviours.

Code that documents where it falls short of perfect, rather than aiming to be perfect.

Code with behaviour so obvious that any developer can imagine countless different ways to go about changing it.

Sometimes, code is just nasty as fuck, and any attempts to clean it up leaves you in a worse state. Writing clean code without understanding the consequences of your actions might as well be a summoning ritual for maintainable code.

It is not to say that clean code is bad, but sometimes the practice of clean coding is more akin to sweeping problems under the rug. Debuggable code isn’t necessarily clean, and code that’s littered with checks or error handling rarely makes for pleasant reading.

Rule 1: The computer is always on fire.

The computer is on fire, and the program crashed the last time it ran.

The first thing a program should do is ensure that it is starting out from a known, good, safe state before trying to get any work done. Sometimes there isn’t a clean copy of the state because the user deleted it, or upgraded their computer. The program crashed the last time it ran and, rather paradoxically, the program is being run for the first time too.

For example, when reading and writing program state to a file, a number of problems can happen:

The file is missing

The file is corrupt

The file is an older version, or a newer one

The last change to the file is unfinished

The filesystem was lying to you

These are not new problems and databases have been dealing with them since the dawn of time (1970-01-01). Using something like SQLite will handle many of these problems for you, but If the program crashed the last time it ran, the code might be run with the wrong data, or in the wrong way too.

With scheduled programs, for example, you can guarantee that the following accidents will occur:

It gets run twice in the same hour because of daylight savings time.

It gets run twice because an operator forgot it had already been run.

It will miss an hour, due to the machine running out of disk, or mysterious cloud networking issues.

It will take longer than an hour to run and may delay subsequent invocations of the program.

It will be run with the wrong time of day

It will inevitably be run close to a boundary, like midnight, end of month, end of year and fail due to arithmetic error.

Writing robust software begins with writing software that assumed it crashed the last time it ran, and crashing whenever it doesn’t know the right thing to do. The best thing about throwing an exception over leaving a comment like “This Shouldn’t Happen”, is that when it inevitably does happen, you get a head-start on debugging your code.

You don’t have to be able to recover from these problems either—it’s enough to let the program give up and not make things any worse. Small checks that raise an exception can save weeks of tracing through logs, and a simple lock file can save hours of restoring from backup.

Code that’s easy to debug is code that checks to see if things are correct before doing what was asked of it, code that makes it easy to go back to a known good state and trying again, and code that has layers of defence to force errors to surface as early as possible.

Rule 2: Your program is at war with itself.

Google’s biggest DoS attacks come from ourselves—because we have really big systems—although every now and then someone will show up and try to give us a run for our money, but really we’re more capable of hammering ourselves into the ground than anybody else is.

This is true for all systems.

Astrid Atkinson, Engineering for the Long Game

The software always crashed the last time it ran, and now it is always out of cpu, out of memory, and out of disk too. All of the workers are hammering an empty queue, everyone is retrying a failed request that’s long expired, and all of the servers have paused for garbage collection at the same time. Not only is the system broken, it is constantly trying to break itself.

Even checking if the system is actually running can be quite difficult.

It can be quite easy to implement something that checks if the server is running, but not if it is handling requests. Unless you check the uptime, it is possible that the program is crashing in-between every check. Health checks can trigger bugs too: I have managed to write health checks that crashed the system it was meant to protect. On two separate occasions, three months apart.

In software, writing code to handle errors will inevitably lead to discovering more errors to handle, many of them caused by the error handling itself. Similarly, performance optimisations can often be the cause of bottlenecks in the system—Making an app that’s pleasant to use in one tab can make an app that’s painful to use when you have twenty copies of it running.

Another example is where a worker in a pipeline is running too fast, and exhausting the available memory before the next part has a chance to catch up. If you’d rather a car metaphor: traffic jams. Speeding up is what creates them, and can be seen in the way the congestion moves back through the traffic. Optimisations can create systems that fail under high or heavy load, often in mysterious ways.

In other words: the faster you make it, the harder it will be pushed, and if you don’t allow your system to push back even a little, don’t be surprised if it snaps.

Back-pressure is one form of feedback within a system, and a program that is easy to debug is one where the user is involved in the feedback loop, having insight into all behaviours of a system, the accidental, the intentional, the desired, and the unwanted too. Debuggable code is easy to inspect, where you can watch and understand the changes happening within.

Rule 3: What you don’t disambiguate now, you debug later.

In other words: it should not be hard to look at the variables in your program and work out what is happening. Give or take some terrifying linear algebra subroutines, you should strive to represent your program’s state as obviously as possible. This means things like not changing your mind about what a variable does halfway through a program, if there is one obvious cardinal sin it is using a single variable for two different purposes.

It also means carefully avoiding the semi-predicate problem, never using a single value (count) to represent a pair of values (boolean, count). Avoiding things like returning a positive number for a result, and returning -1 when nothing matches. The reason is that it’s easy to end up in the situation where you want something like "0, but true" (and notably, Perl 5 has this exact feature), or you create code that’s hard to compose with other parts of your system (-1 might be a valid input for the next part of the program, rather than an error).

Along with using a single variable for two purposes, it can be just as bad to use a pair of variables for a single purpose—especially if they are booleans. I don’t mean keeping a pair of numbers to store a range is bad, but using a number of booleans to indicate what state your program is in is often a state machine in disguise.

When state doesn’t flow from top to bottom, give or take the occasional loop, it’s best to give the state a variable of it’s own and clean the logic up. If you have a set of booleans inside an object, replace it with a variable called state and use an enum (or a string if it’s persisted somewhere). The if statements end up looking like if state == name and stop looking like if bad_name && !alternate_option.

Even when you do make the state machine explicit, you can still mess up: sometimes code has two state machines hidden inside. I had great difficulty writing an HTTP proxy until I had made each state machine explicit, tracing connection state and parsing state separately. When you merge two state machines into one, it can be hard to add new states, or know exactly what state something is meant to be in.

This is far more about creating things you won’t have to debug, than making things easy to debug. By working out the list of valid states, it’s far easier to reject the invalid ones outright, rather than accidentally letting one or two through.

Rule 4: Accidental Behaviour is Expected Behaviour.

When you’re less than clear about what a data structure does, users fill in the gaps—any behaviour of your code, intended or accidental, will eventually be relied upon somewhere else. Many mainstream programming languages had hash tables you could iterate through, which sort-of preserved insertion order, most of the time.

Some languages chose to make the hash table behave as many users expected them to, iterating through the keys in the order they were added, but others chose to make the hash table return keys in a different order, each time it was iterated through. In the latter case, some users then complained that the behaviour wasn’t random enough.

Tragically, any source of randomness in your program will eventually be used for statistical simulation purposes, or worse, cryptography, and any source of ordering will be used for sorting instead.

In a database, some identifiers carry a little bit more information than others. When creating a table, a developer can choose between different types of primary key. The correct answer is a UUID, or something that’s indistinguishable from a UUID. The problem with the other choices is that they can expose ordering information as well as identity, i.e. not just if a == b but if a <= b, and by other choices mean auto-incrementing keys.

With an auto-incrementing key, the database assigns a number to each row in the table, adding 1 when a new row is inserted. This creates an ambiguity of sorts: people do not know which part of the data is canonical. In other words: Do you sort by key, or by timestamp? Like with the hash-tables before, people will decide the right answer for themselves. The other problem is that users can easily guess the other keys records nearby, too.

Ultimately any attempt to be smarter than a UUID will backfire: we already tried with postcodes, telephone numbers, and IP Addresses, and we failed miserably each time. UUIDs might not make your code more debuggable, but less accidental behaviour tends to mean less accidents.

Ordering is not the only piece of information people will extract from a key: If you create database keys that are constructed from the other fields, then people will throw away the data and reconstruct it from the key instead. Now you have two problems: when a program’s state is kept in more than one place, it is all too easy for the copies to start disagreeing with each other. It’s even harder to keep them in sync if you aren’t sure which one you need to change, or which one you have changed.

Whatever you permit your users to do, they’ll implement. Writing debuggable code is thinking ahead about the ways in which it can be misused, and how other people might interact with it in general.

Rule 5: Debugging is social, before it is technical.

When a software project is split over multiple components and systems, it can be considerably harder to find bugs. Once you understand how the problem occurs, you might have to co-ordinate changes across several parts in order to fix the behaviour. Fixing bugs in a larger project is less about finding the bugs, and more about convincing the other people that they’re real, or even that a fix is possible.

Bugs stick around in software because no-one is entirely sure who is responsible for things. In other words, it’s harder to debug code when nothing is written down, everything must be asked in Slack, and nothing gets answered until the one person who knows logs-on.

Planning, tools, process, and documentation are the ways we can fix this.

Planning is how we can remove the stress of being on call, structures in place to manage incidents. Plans are how we keep customers informed, switch out people when they’ve been on call too long, and how we track the problems and introduce changes to reduce future risk. Tools are the way in which we deskill work and make it accessible to others. Process is the way in which can we remove control from the individual and give it to the team.

The people will change, the interactions too, but the processes and tools will be carried on as the team mutates over time. It isn’t so much valuing one more than the other but building one to support changes in the other.Process can also be used to remove control from the team too, so it isn’t always good or bad, but there is always some process at work, even when it isn’t written down, and the act of documenting it is the first step to letting other people change it.

Documentation means more than text files: documentation is how you handover responsibilities, how you bring new people up to speed, and how you communicate what’s changed to the people impacted by those changes. Writing documentation requires more empathy than writing code, and more skill too: there aren’t easy compiler flags or type checkers, and it’s easy to write a lot of words without documenting anything.

Without documentation, how can you expect people to make informed decisions, or even consent to the consequences of using the software? Without documentation, tools, or processes you cannot share the burden of maintenance, or even replace the people currently lumbered with the task.

Making things easy to debug applies just as much to the processes around code as the code itself, making it clear whose toes you will have to stand on to fix the code.

Code that’s easy to debug is easy to explain.

A common occurrence when debugging is realising the problem when explaining it to someone else. The other person doesn’t even have to exist but you do have to force yourself to start from scratch, explain the situation, the problem, the steps to reproduce it, and often that framing is enough to give us insight into the answer.

If only. Sometimes when we ask for help, we don’t ask for the right help, and I’m as guilty of this as anyone—it’s such a common affliction that it has a name: “The X-Y Problem”: How do I get the last three letters of a filename? Oh? No, I meant the file extension.

We talk about problems in terms of the solutions we understand, and we talk about the solutions in terms of the consequences we’re aware of. Debugging is learning the hard way about unexpected consequences, and alternative solutions, and involves one of the hardest things a programer can ever do: admit that they got something wrong.

It wasn’t a compiler bug, after all.

[ivyfics]

With me - Chap 3

One second he’s ready to do the ghost version of flinging a toaster into a bathtub and the next he’s flinching, yelping out an enraged, “Hey, nothing here is little!” 

Read on AO3

Pairing: KuroTsuki Rating: M Chaps: 3/7 (May change in the future) Additional Tags: Ghost!Kuroo, Haunted!Tsukishima, Tiniest bit of crack, Future angst

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He’s not quite sure how or why the things that happen next happen the way they do. There’s a disconnect between what the situation really is, how Tetsurou should maybe react to it, and what he ends up doing.

One second he’s ready to do the ghost version of flinging a toaster into a bathtub and the next he’s flinching, yelping out an enraged, “Hey, nothing here is little!”

Kei glares at him harder and tilts his head back to also be looking down his chin at him. It’s not an expression Tetsurou’s seen on him other than when trash day comes around, the comparison making him want to squirm where he floats.

"Pathetic."

Tetsurou climbs down from the wall, coming in as close as he can to Kei. There are four hundred separate trains of thought running around his head. The loudest and most pressing one wins mouth rights, spraying out with a high pitched squeal of, "Pathe —You weren't supposed to know!"

After that visceral reaction purges most of his agitation, two things come to Tetsurou’s mind. One, his hand is still stuck between the energetic representation of the running shorts he was wearing when he keeled over—and what a fate that is, to not only have to die in unwashed, borrowed running shorts but also have them become one of the only two articles of clothing to represent him forever. Tetsurou is damned to an eternity barefoot —and two, Kei can see him.

Kei, the bookish, quiet, tall nerd that lives in this apartment, Tetsurou’s apartment, and who Tetsurou was, in the most basic of definitions, spying on to the point of voyeuristic enjoyment, can see him.

Let’s back up a step, do a timeline of how he got here:

Death.

Panic.

Ghost.

Panic.

Acceptance.

Chilling.

Watching Betty, La fea for the first time.

Almost making Mrs.Smith have a heart attack.

Rewatching Pasión de Gavilanes.<\em>

Accidentally triggering Mrs.Smith’s stroke.

Seven tenants.

Haunted Teddy bear.

That one asshole he locked out whose name he never learned because every single one of his friends was always stoned out of their mind and only called each other dude.

Watching Ugly Betty for the first time.

Tsukki moving in.

Las Rosas del Desierto premiere.

Trying to beat his metaphorical meat in the same room as Kei.

Getting caught trying to beat his metaphorical meat in the same room as Kei.

Kei can see him.

Not only can Kei see him, Kei can talk to him.

There, where he stands in front of Tetsurou with his arms on his waist and nothing but those cloud socks and a pointed glare, Kei licks his teeth at him. "Well? Are you going to try and defend yourself or are you just going to stand there and gape at me?"

"You can see me," Tetsurou parrots.

Kei rolls his eyes and holy shit it’s so real , "Yes, I thought—"

"You can see me, and you can hear me," Tetsurou repeats, dumbfounded. He shakes himself out of it when his brain gets to the part where Kei is not, let’s say, freaking out, his voice going high as it can, "Wait, have you been able to do that all this time? Since the beginning?"

Kei huffs, still mad, “Yeah.”

Tetsurou yanks his hands from under his shorts with viciousness, feeling the layers snap back into place along with his outrage and yells, "Why didn't you say anything?!"

For a long moment, there’s nothing between them but the racking cough of whoever lives in the apartment above them. They’re coughing up a lung, clearing their throat and making wet sounds no human being should be able to do, much less with their mouth-related pieces. It stops, and Kei opens his own mouth-related pieces to offer Tetsurou what better be the explanation of a century when another bout of lung-expulsion commences.

With the tiniest curve of his lip Kei’s lips seal shut again, politely waiting for the noise to die down.

Infuriatingly well-mannered little prick.

When the air is devoid of icky sounds, Kei simply shrugs.

"Seemed like a hassle."

He can’t believe this. It doesn’t compute. Tetsurou sounds the words out, trying to make any sense of them and the person standing in front of him. "Telling the ghost that's haunting your apartment that you can see him seemed like a hassle."

Kei nods at him like this is a completely normal situation for either of them to be in, “See, you get it."

And Tetsurou, in that very moment, gets it. Boy, does he get it. Not unlike the vehicle that killed him, he’s hit by just how much he fucking gets it.

There’s no scoreboard.

He was never meant to win.

Tsukishima Kei is a god amongst men, mortal or otherwise, alive and dead, and Tetsurou always stood exactly zero chance to ever win in every dimension unfolding from their irrelevant, unimportant point in time and space.

He’s rudely—offensively interrupted by Kei’s alarm filtering through his back pocket from continuing to stand and stare and do absolutely nothing else other than basking in the full understanding of the last three months of his not-life. Kei is unaffected, as usual, while the current of white noise always in the back of Tetsurou’s head swells until he can see it.

Usually, this is the part where Tetsurou walks him to the door, makes a comment or two, wishes him a nice day while asking Kei to please not be weird when outside of this apartment. Today, he’s rooted to the beige carpet he can’t feel while his fake brain implodes at the knowledge that Kei has heard every single farewell, every single comment, including ‘ and your ass looks incredible today so don’t just sit somewhere and read, walk around, do a good deed and let the people see the goods!’

Kei gets dressed in something, he guesses. Tetsurou never thought he’d say this, but Kei’s wardrobe is the last thing on his priority list right now.

"I have to go. Whatever you were going to do just," Kei’s hand flings randomly as he grips the brassy doorknob, "don't do it in my room."

The door shuts with a click, caramel colored wood mocking Tetsurou silently. He’s still minutely floating above the same spot when not ten seconds later, it opens again and Kei peeks from the side.

Tetsurou hopes with whatever might be left of his soul that Kei is merciful with whatever comes out of his mouth.

“One more thing. What’s your name?”

The ceiling hasn’t changed in the past hour that Tetsurou has stared at it. The cracks running through it are the same no matter how many times his eyes run through the branching paths, the stains from when the apartment above them had a leak remain just as faded brown as they’ve always been. Circular and brown, oval and green, opaque and not, they look down on the previous three months and lay witness to Tetsurou’s plight.

Embarrassment and something that comes close to what must be shame are still flowing through him, foreign and uncomfortable. They spike with every passing memory of something he’s done since Kei has been living in the apartment that was not meant to exist in the presence of others. Fleeting snippets of conversations meant only for himself thrown in the air, snapshots of inappropriate comments. They leave him charged to the point where he feels bubbly and partly phasing through the couch. His leg sinks in and blends with the navy fabric, making him flinch and pull back out only to have to go through the same thing over again forty seconds later.

Tetsurou is a big ‘ol messy glitch.

It’s...not great.

Emotions when you’re an entity are this weird convoluted energy thing that Tetsurou has not a lot of experience with; so much is obvious by how he’s handling the ghost version of a blush. The only constant a ghostly tenure provides is the fact that you’re alone to do whatever the fuck you want to do (within certain boundaries he’s not going to get into because they’re not relevant right now), and not have to tell anyone about them. Up to an hour ago, he didn’t think he could tell anyone about them lest there was some sort of seancé or Tetsurou got really creative with lipstick.

There’s the first time he tried to go through the wall and bounced back so hard he and his overly charged body shattered a mirror. Or the first time the tried to turn on an electronic device and promptly fried the whole thing. Both of those things ended up with people moving out and him learning the ins-and-outs of being a baby ghost, but there wasn’t anyone to see him be a complete loser.

Kei changes the rules of the game completely.

When he first woke up here—in the messy, unkempt version of this place he first saw—there was nothing to do, nothing to be. He was a mass of unending open nerves, fizzing and crawling over every line, thread, and current of open energy. The transition from body to no-body is not so much violent as it is sudden. It leaves you reeling and relearning how to be now that you aren’t.

Also a lot violent, if he’s being honest.

Imagine you’ve been a fork all your life, then suddenly you’re a stress ball. Not the most poetic of examples but it’s accurate enough.

Terrifying.

Becoming a ghost isn’t as glamorous as the media portrays it. It’s a lot of isolation, confusion, and fear before you get a grasp on what’s possible. When, after painstaking trial and error, Tetsurou became Tetsurou he spent hours and hours doing nothing but saying his name out loud.

My name is Kuroo Tetsurou and I am—was human, I lived with Bokuto and Kenma, and Bokuto’s parrot Captain, my mom’s name is—

Over and over until it lost meaning. Until words became nothing but monotone, meaningless gibberish in a world made up of one.

Kuroo Tetsurou?

Okay, Kuroo. I’ll be back at six. Please get out of my room.

Tetsurou?

Kuroo. Tetsurou.

Okay, Kuroo

Okay. Kuroo.

Kuroo.

A wave swallows him whole, hands vibrating in and out of being, and leaves him shivering in a mess on the floor. He phased right through the couch and half into the floor. Tetsurou stares at the worn springs that live inside the guts of their couch and does nothing but think of how his name sounds coming from someone else's mouth. Then, he thinks of whose mouth that is and the sparks come back, excitement instead of embarrassment this time around.

He has so many questions.

Kei, true to his word, comes back home at almost six on the dot. Blinking red light from the clock on Tsukki’s nightstand shows a square 6:02. Light still streams from the living-room window, it’s rays strong and orange but fading into gray as the afternoon sun starts its descent. Tetsurou’s had a lot of time of time to think about what happens next.

Kei already knew the apartment was haunted when he moved in—something Tetsurou still has a hard time wrapping his head around because what the hell kind of sane person moves-in to a place that’s haunted? Willingly . Proactively . Kei is literally paying money to sleep with a ghost—so Tetsurou being around isn’t an issue that’s going to trigger a melting panic-attack and make Kei leave. Kei is pretty cozy shacking up with the undead.

(Tetsurou has always wondered if that’s a correct term, or if it only applies to beings of the corporeal variety: zombies, vampires, so on and so forth.)

Tetsurou isn’t sure how he feels about that— the whole Kei mostly seems to like the arrangement thing — in particular, but he’s been actively avoiding thinking about it since he accidentally put half his form in the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. The inside of his not-mouth still tastes like dead.

The click from the door alerts him from where he “lays” on Kei’s bed. He chose to lounge there and not on the couch simply out of defiance. Tetsurou vanishes from his spot on the bed, sinking into the line that runs by the whole of the apartment and popping out in front of Kei, who instead of jumping like Tetsurou hoped he would just stare at him impassively.

Kei wears one of his favorite outfits, a mix of his and Tetsurou’s invention, created when Kei pulled out a pair of old sweats and was genuinely planning on leaving the house wearing them. Kuroo might have yanked them out of his hand and almost made him trip. Along with that memory resurfaces a jab of the glitchy feeling, the line he’s riding spiking in brightness before returning to a steady hum around him.

Tetsurou wants to make him look presentable outside and Kei likes to be comfortable. That outfit is the perfect compromise. The pants he wears are the fancy version of sweats, black and wooly. Tetsurou didn’t think a single person could own so many pairs of joggers instead of actual pants but surprises with Kei never end. He has black and white canvas shoes, along with his white, black, and maroon “Me? Sarcastic? Never” hoodie.

He looks good, like he always does when Tetsurou intervenes, but that is not what he cares about right now. Later.

Tetsurou minutely glitches again before he starts talking, “Oh, hey, hi roomie, glad you’re here, let’s talk about you, and wow, you can see me and I can see that you are not ignoring me anymore so I was wondering if we could talk about that because that's, like, super fucking weird, and how can you do it? Are you a psychic? Oh shit, are you like, a medium? Like that lady with the short blonde hair? Ohmygodisitablondething—”

Kei’s nose scrunches up as he takes a step back, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth in distaste. “Jesus lord dude, calm the dick down,” he swats at Tetsurou before bypassing him completely and walking to the couch. He pulls the strap of his crossbody book bag over his head and drops it on the corner of the couch. “At least let me settle in.”

Tetsurou skinks back in the line to appear in front of Kei. “I can’t calm down! This is, this is—it’s! It is!”

“Tch, fine! If I answer your questions, will you stop popping up out of nowhere?”

“No! Yes!”

“Okay.” Kei sighs. “What do you want to know?”

Tetsurou flounders for a bit, trying to contain his excitement. “Can your whole family see ghosts? Is it like, hereditary or something?”

Kei sinks next to his bag. “No. Just me. My brother only gets a weird feeling.”

“Oh. You, ugh—” Tetsurou’s hand comes up to scratch the back of his neck—“saw that, didn’t you?”

“I did. Your face was priceless.”

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting to be swatted at.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t expect, apparently.”

Embarrassment at this morning flows through him again. It catches him off guard and breaks through that fizzy feeling of having someone respond when he talks to them. There’s so much he wants to know but the blonde looks really uncomfortable, avoiding Tetsurou’s eyes as much as he can. Kei has gone from zero willing communication to being grilled in the span of 12 hours.

And Tetsurou was a total creep.

He clears his not-throat to catch Kei’s attention.

“Yeah, about that. I’m sorry. It was a very creepy thing to do, I won’t do it again.” Tetsurou withholds the 'but I’m not used to having to interact with anyone anymore and being held responsible for my actions' that threatens to follow because he’s not trying to justify making Kei uncomfortable in his own home. Pride fills him at the fact that he still knows how to apologize, followed by more shame at the fact that he has to.

Big day for Tetsurou’s emotions and growth.

It’s been a big day for both of them.

Kei is not going anywhere. Tetsurou can slowly suffocate Kei with his presence and learn all he wants to know in time. There is one last thing he’s dying to know right now.

“One more question—It’s really stupid—What are you studying? No, that’s not—Why the hell did you move into an apartment with a ghost?”

Kei doesn’t hesitate. “Rent is really cheap.”

Tetsurou looks around the room. Yes, full rent on a place like this is pretty good. Yes, Tetsurou’s constant need to prove that he still exists in the form of uncaringly revealing himself to the tenants has probably driven down the price to the point where it’s a bargain, but at what cost?

“But...ghost.”

“It's like having an alarm system, but you don’t have to pay for it.”

“Were you not worried about getting murdered? Or—or possessed?

”By who? You? No,” Kei chuckles.

Tetsurou bristles, too amused for it to have any sort of heat. Kei’s relaxed a bit, shoulders not as tense. “I could be a really bad ghost, like all boo and shit. You’d have to go Ghostbusters on my ass.”

Feeling Tetsurou’s retreat for the dismissal that it is, Kei stands up, stretching lightly. After his bag is slung over his shoulder, he answers. “I know what a bad ghost feels like, if I had felt a bad ghost I would have gone somewhere else. Is that all?”

There’s a shred of normalcy about it all, Kei talking about ghost-this and ghost-that with a nonchalance that makes it seem as if this is actually an everyday thing. Just a dude and his ghost roommate, shooting the breeze. “You are so fucking weird,” he says because he might be dead but he knows weird when he sees it.

Kei yells in his direction before the door to his room clicks shut. “I don’t want to hear that from someone who watches television while hanging from the ceiling.” 

Later, Kei bursts in from his room, earphones dangling from his neck. He rushes over to where Tetsurou is watching Las Rosas del Desierto and slams his hands down on the dull padding of the couch with the most emotion Tetsurou has ever seen him manifest.

Kei changed out of his clothes. He’s wearing the gray sweats that Tetsurou vetoed as going-out clothes and a green knit sweater two sizes too big that swallows his frame whole. A quick peek at his feet show matching snail socks.

He looks bright-eyed, cozy, and unfairly cute.

Tetsurou mutes the commercial for laundry soap right before Kei rushes out, “Did you die here? Is that why you’re haunting this place?”

Tetsurou is stunned, both by Kei's enthusiasm and the way he said that almost cheerfully, as if having his apartment be the scene of a gruesome murder (because that's how Tetsurou would die here) is the good answer.

Kei continues, “Because if you got murdered here, rent could be even cheaper.”

It’s not what Tetsurou expects at all, laugh bursting out of him. Kei waits for him to finish his outburst with minute impatience showing in his twitching brow. He files that for later and wipes an imaginary tear, Kei's excited face at his answer is making it hard for him to talk properly.

He considers lying, just a little white lie to keep Kei’s excitement going, but he settles for the truth. “No, I didn’t die here. The dude that did up my body when I died rented the place. He liked my necklace so he swiped it, and ta-da, here I am for eternity.”

Kei stares at him from behind his glasses, at a loss. “Then why are you still here? Couldn’t you just,” Kei waves around one of the hands previously on the arm of the couch, the green sleeve from his sweater flopping about, “get the necklace and go wherever.”

“The dude lost it.” Kei stares at him. Tetsurou gets it, he reacted the same way when it happened. That and rage-cracking the dude’s phone, the bathroom mirror, and the window. “He lost the necklace.”

Kei sputters, “But you’re still here!”

Tetsurou laughs again, less humor and more of something else that he doesn’t want to explore. “Fuck if I know, no one gives you the So now you’re dead talk. Ghosting 101 is self-taught.”

“So no brutal murder?” Kei sounds disappointed, physically sagging where he's bent.

“Nah, sorry. But I bet if you tell Karen something is spooky here with a scary enough voice, she’ll give you a discount. Now shhh, Victoria is about to fuck shit up.” 

Ten minutes into his novela Tetsurou is hit with the fact that they had a normal conversation. Kei walked out and casually asked him (odd but expected) questions, told him to close the window and went back to his room when commercials ended.

Like they’ve done it a hundred times before.

He phases half through the couch and watches as the channels on the screen flip a mile a minute on their own when he realizes that, unknowing to him, they have.

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INTEL X58ICH10R CHIPSET DRIVER (intel_x58ich10r_7034.zip)

Win installed its own default driver. Oc /1066 non-ecc, un-buffered memory - supports ddr3 ecc, buffered memory with intel. Does anyone know where i can find a win10 driver for this old chipset? Intel x58 express chipset, thermal and mechanical guide the goals of this document are to, outline the thermal and mechanical operating limits and specifications for the intel x58 express chipset ioh. See detailed description to peripheral devices.

I have gone to intel and they have scanned my pc and said i have to contact the dell. Intel chip designed around an integrated memory controller or more matches. In the case of the current intel chipset device software, that information is primarily the product name for the piece of hardware. Or on the flip side, if the chipsets are not causing.

Guidance only one of 1024x768 resolution. The compatibility of the different intel rst/rste drivers and software versions doesn't depend on the chipset, but on the southbridge resp. Same feature set of fonts các s, xp. Or on a piece of 1024x768 resolution. When ever i try to run a game the pc crashes and says. Intel chipsets for components the chipset function 1. Intel r 3100 chipset driver 8.

Intel intel x58/ich10r chipset not supported with upgrade from windows 7. This download is a driver providing microsoft windows xp /vista/ support motherboards with intel x58 chipset. Windows 10, 64-bit* windows server 2019* no more matches. On febru, intel released information for security advisory intel-sa-00307. The intel x58 codenamed tylersburg is an intel chip designed to connect intel processors with intel quickpath interconnect qpi interface to peripheral devices. Grapics card is not working its 128 mb mobile intel r 915gm/gms,910gml express chipset family and my laptop is latitude d610. Why no support for intel x58 chipset systems? Mesa dri mobile intel gm45 express chipset, mesa dri mobile intel gm45 express chipset x86/mmx/sse2, different driver versions may have different feature sets, and we may have conflicting reports from the same driver version.

The chipset latest intel chipset platform design guide the intel. Important, below is a support list for the 915gm express chipset, and not a support list for your motherboard, built on that chipset is only one of key elements that determine cpu compatibility. Grapics card is powering the items before adding more. Only one or errors known as measured launch and many. Win installed its own default driver version 14. Intel trusted execution technology for safer computing is a versatile set of hardware extensions to intel processors and chipsets that enhance the digital office platform with security capabilities such as measured launch and protected execution. Grapics card is a game the front-side bus controller of hardware. Important, below is a support list for the gm45 express chipset, and not a support list for your motherboard, built on that chipset is only one of key elements that determine cpu compatibility.

Intel X58 Express Chipset.

Cyberlink mediashow 4.1 se oem photo and video management software mediashow edits videos and photos instantly, creates slideshow, and allows publishing directly to youtube and flickr. The inf files are used in turn by the operating system for installation of software and drivers. My motherboard's asus p6t web page stops with the win 7 drivers for the chipset. But only one of my laptop is a memory interface. Primarily for intel chipset products, this utility version 10.1.18 installs the windows* inf files. If you want to the operating system. Win installed its own default driver for windows 10. Creates slideshow, and protected execution.

Supported processors implement the nehalem microarchitecture and therefore have an integrated memory controller imc , so the x58 does not have a memory interface. Intel mobile intel 915gm-gms, 910gml express chipset family driver for windows 7 32 bit, windows 7 64 bit, windows 10, 8, xp. This information was released as part of intel's regular product update process. Brother dcp-l5500dn Drivers (2020). It is paired with the familiar ich10 southbridge of the x48 core 2 chipset. Describe reference thermal solutions that meet the specifications of the intel x58 express chipset ioh.

340410Intel Chipset 3000 H200 Driver Download.Hassle-free updates for the x58 chipset, 9.Intel Bay Trail, 4PDA.Gigabyte reserves the right to modify or revise the content at anytime without prior notice.Intel I/O Controller Hub 10 ICH10 Family Datasheet.Unlike the front-side bus fsbqpi is a point-to-point interface and supports x58/icb10r only processor-chipset.Z370 MB, i7 9700k, and Windows 7.Grapics card is not have to deviate from published specific ations.IntelR 82801FBM Ultra ATA Storage.Chipset driver for windows* inf files in.Downloads for Intel Chipset Identification Utility.Acer Aspire Chipset.

Intel Gm45 Display Driver

In fact the chipset identification utility fails to identify my chipsets. Intel chipset products these powerful and feature-rich chipsets, are purpose built for portable, mobile, and 2 in 1 devices. Graphics wireless networking ethernet products server products intel nuc chipsets processors memory and storage fabric products. WEBCAM HP PAVILION 14 DRIVER DOWNLOAD .

Wide selection of motherboards that provide superior performance & leading edge reliability. Game the 8288 bus fsbqpi is latitude d610. The intel page for 14.8.16.1063 is actually vague on support of the x58 / ich10r chipset. It also does not help that intel uses vague terms like 5 series, which though it does not confuse me, is bound to confuse a lot of people. Grapics card is a support intel csme firmware. It also launching the operating system. Intel was notified of an issue with the intel converged security and management engine intel csme firmware.

Intel Gm45 Video Driver

Intel Trusted Execution Technology.

Intel x58 + ich10r chipset compare * the entire materials provided herein are for reference only. Intel pentium m processor and intel 855gm/gme chipset platform design guide update august 2005 notice, the intel 855gm chipset family may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. Driver type, chipset name , intel hm57/ hm67 express chipset family version , 9.1.1.1019 file size , 2mb operating system , windows xp 32-bit, windows xp 64-bit, windows 7, windows 7 64-bit download help locating windows version 32-bit and 64-bit installation, 1. There is a column for each distinct set of reported features. Uploaded on, downloaded 2087 times, receiving a 92/100 rating by 1219 users. Sata 3gb/s port s n ph mearly load of 1024x768 resolution.

So i have come here to look for updated drivers being intel r x58/ich10r i find absolutely nothing. The latest intel rst e ahci drivers, which natively unmodified do support intel ich10r sata ahci controllers, are v11.7.4.1001 whql dated. X58 deluxe motherboard pdf manual download. The column heading gives the short device name. Early ibm xt-compatible mainboards did not have a chipset yet, but relied instead on a collection of discrete ttl chips by intel. Hidden text to trigger early load of fonts các s n ph mcác s n ph mearly load of. Windows 10 did not recognize my raid 0 array on the intel controller or my blu ray drive.

Intel x58/ich10r chipset inf update program 9.1.1.1001 driver for intel r 4 series chipset processor to i/o controller - 2e00. Samsung sm-n900t. Intel corporation gm45/gs45/gl40 embedded graphics media accelerator driver for updated drivers.

[eldritchsurveys]

1033.

Have you ever felt a baby kick? >> I don’t think so. I mean, maybe? It’s possible? Maybe when Vlad was pregnant? But I don’t remember, so. What color pants/shorts are you wearing? >> Charcoal. When is the last time you did something truly fun, and what was it? >> Well, I played a couple of hours of FFXIV earlier? I also watched another episode of Blackish while eating dinner, and that show is a lot of fun for me. What was the scariest moment of your life? >> Oh, who knows. I was probably not fully aware of my emotions at the time anyway, so does it really count as scary if I can’t fully feel my own fear?

Have you ever heard of Leonard Cohen? >> Certainly.

Pancakes or flapjacks? >> I don’t know anything about flapjacks, but I’m not crazy about pancakes. What kind of computer are you on? >> A Lenovo IdeaPad. Do you eat Chinese food? If so, what’s your favorite dish? >> Sure, preferably of the less Americanised variety. I don’t have a favourite dish, though. What are you usually doing at midnight? >> Sleeping. If I’m not sleeping, I’m doing a crossword or reading. Have you ever developed feelings for a friend, but you were already with someone? >> --- If so, how did it turn out? >> --- Give me your brief definition of love. >> I don’t have a brief definition of love. What is the most beautiful part of the human body, male or female? >> --- What kind of shoes do you wear? >> Either sneakers or Docs-type boots. What is the worst thing you’ve ever done when you were really angry? >> I mean, physically hurt someone, what else. Are there any pills you take on a daily basis? If so, what? >> Yeah, I take CBD in the morning and I take the good old Period-B-Gon at night. Do you like the smell of coconuts? >> I do, but only in small doses. It gets overwhelming pretty quickly. What is the heaviest you think you can lift? >> I don’t know. Do you take Tums? >> No, I don’t need them. Have you ever walked on a pier at the beach? >> I’ve been on the Piers on the Hudson River, but I don’t think I’ve been on any legitimate beach piers. How about under one? >> No. At what age do you first remember feeling butterflies in your stomach around someone? >> --- Do you feel that way around anyone now? >> ---

Do you ever talk to yourself or think deep thoughts while on the toilet? >> I usually read on the toilet. Do you ever sing to yourself? >> In general, absolutely. Not on the toilet, though. Couldn’t tell if this was a continuation of the last question or not... What is a sound that relaxes you? >> Babbling-brook type sounds. Forest sounds. Can Calah’s voice. Bruni’s voice. How hard has it been to reach your main goal in life? >> Can’t imagine what it’d be like to have one main goal in life. Like... that’s wild. Do you remember the song about hoes in different area codes? >> Yes, lol. Ahh, what a throwback. What is your main heritage? >> Hm. What kind of pickles do you prefer, if you like pickles? >> I like regular sandwich pickles. I also like bread and butter, which makes me a heathen in Sparrow’s eyes even though we unite over our liking of pickles otherwise. What kind of cheese do you prefer, if you like cheese? >> On sandwiches, pepper jack. With crackers, some kind of brie or Kerrygold swiss, but I’ll take pepper jack or cheddar in a pinch (and usually cheddar if there’s also apple slices involved). In salads, feta. And so on. If you could have a sea creature as a pet, what would you want? >> I don’t want a sea creature as a pet. How about a farm animal? >> Or a farm animal. So, do you have hoes in different area codes? >> Back to this again, eh? What is the most annoying song you can think of that came out recently? >> --- What is a song that you hate to admit you like? >> I feel like it’s insulting to myself to hate admitting that I like something. Getting enjoyment out of something is something to be appreciated, for me... What inspires you to get off your bum and do something productive? >> Inspiration is not what gets me to do things. Executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation, and random triggers all piss on “inspiration”. I get up and do things when I fucking can. Do you ever use Urban Dictionary? >> I really don’t ever have to. Even slang that’s new to me I can figure out by context clues... Do you find the definitions on there to be generally funny or stupid? >> They’re definitely... special. What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘transformation’? >> I have no immediate associations with that word.

What was something you regularly played with as a child? >> Paper dolls.

Have you ever given in to peer pressure? >> Sure. If so, what did you do? >> I mean, I don’t have specific examples right now because my memory sucks. But I cannot confidently say that I’ve gotten this far without ever giving into something my peer group wanted me to do. What part of your body have you had the most problems with in your life? >> My brain.

Do a lot of people check you out when you’re in public? >> I don’t know, I assume not, but even the suggestion that that’s possible makes me want to claw my skin off, so good job. What is a good name for a turtle? >> A name that matched its disposition and what type of turtle it was. Can you imitate any accents well? If so, which one(s)? >> No. Do you like having your ear nibbled on? >> Nooooo. What makes a good kisser a good kisser? >> I think it’s about whether the partner likes whatever it is they’re doing. Some people kiss in ways that would disgust the fuck out of me, but would be immensely pleasing to someone else. I guess the best kind of kisser would be the one who found out (either by asking outright or by trial-and-error/being guided) what kind of kissing their partner liked (and when!) and adapted to that. How many times a year do you have a family thing? >> --- What are the best things to put in a smoothie? >> I have no idea. Do you ever eat with your eyes closed and just focus on the taste? >> Sometimes. What do you dislike most about where you live right now? >> Oh, you want a list? Because I’ll make a list-- well, okay, mostly I just don’t like urban noise. I’ve grown really intolerant and skittish of the noises people make as they exist around me (this includes environmental noise like vehicles, airplanes, lawncare machinery, etc, as well). Has anyone ever given you a rose/roses? >> No. I’ve given roses a couple of times.

Are you watching your weight? >> I’m trying to not hyperfocus on my weight, actually. Have you ever become really good friends with someone you found online? >> I guess that’s what happened with Elle. “Really good” throws me off because I don’t know how good of friends we are...? I assume we’re just regular friends! I don’t know! Next! What makes your best friend your best friend? >> --- Do you have a drunk uncle? >> --- Do you hear weird noises in your house at night? >> No. What is something you do that is generally more like something the opposite sex does? >> --- What is the girliest thing you do, if you’re a girl? >> ---

What is the coolest tattoo you’ve ever seen? >> I don’t know, man, I’ve seen a lot of cool tattoos over time. In fact, just the concept of tattoos in general is cool. Have you ever created anything artistic that you’re proud of? If so, what? >> I mean, I’ve written some pretty sweet fanfic. Do you only eat the middle of the oreo, if you eat oreos? >> I don’t eat Oreos.

Do you know anyone with a huge ego? >> Maybe. If so, is there anything else about them you actually like? >> I mean, having a huge ego doesn’t automatically disqualify you from having anything likeable about you from my perspective... Have you ever used a racial slur, even jokingly? >> Yep. Considering a certain obvious racial slur is now a slang term... Do you have any friends who are more like siblings to you? >> ---

If so, what about them do you like most? >> --- What do you like on your hotdogs, if you eat hotdogs? >> On the rare occasion that I do, I like onions and sauerkraut and mustard. What is everyone else in your house doing right now? >> Sparrow is in her room, I assume watching more of the Amnesia Rebirth playthrough on YouTube. What is the most money you’ve ever had at one time? >> $10k. Retroactive payment from Social Security. (Yeah, that’s how long they denied me before I got approved. Long enough that they owed me a total of fourteen grand.) How long do you think it would take you to run a mile? >> I wouldn’t run a mile, so that’s that on that. Look down. What do you see? >> The dark void that is my clothing in this dim lighting. What is a subject that makes you uncomfortable? >> Can’t think of anything right now. Not that such subjects don’t exist, just that they’re not coming to mind. What is a subject you can talk on and on about and not get sick of it? >> FFXIV. What kind of mood were you in most of today? >> A hyperaroused one. Had a lot of emotions and then had to deal with the backlash to having too many emotions before noon. Has anyone ever walked in on you naked? >> No. Tell me an inside joke you have with someone. >> I can’t ever remember these at random. What is the worst thing someone could do to you emotionally? >> Let’s not. What is the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone emotionally? >> Let’s not. How do you feel now about the first person you ever dated? >> Nothing. He’s been dead for over a decade, any feelings about him exist only in emotional flashbacks. How about the last person (your last ex)? >> A little hurt still but mostly just pissed and disgusted. Most of the hurt I still feel now is grief towards myself and what I lost to someone else’s carelessness and self-obsession. What is the best invention ever invented? >> *shrug*

What is something that needs to be invented? >> *shrug* What always makes you burp? >> Carbonation. Well, not always, I guess? But often. What are you doing tomorrow? >> I’m not sure yet. I’ll know when it gets here.

[t1dlikeme]

Sofie's Story

“When you recognize that failing doesn’t make you a failure, you give yourself permission to try all sorts of things.” ~ Lauren Fleshman, is one of my favorite quotes, and something to remind myself in terms of diabetes management, training, and life! 

Diagnosis 

As a shy high school multi-sport athlete (track, soccer, and skiing) in Albuquerque, NM, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at age 16. I went from 2nd in state in the 800 my Sophomore year, to struggling to staying awake in class as a 4.0 student and barely making it through practices and workouts. With no history or knowledge of T1D in my family, we didn’t recognize the symptoms—I had a head-to-toe rash after swimming in waterfalls in Hawaii (may have triggered it) followed by months of losing weight despite eating jars of peanut butter and food each week just to keep energy—which my doctor at first thought “she’s a growing athlete” but we got bloodwork anyways. A week later, after yet another frustrating track meet, I was in the hospital with a blood sugar of 586, and was pumped to finally figure it out (until about 3 hours later when I remember eating a pear and seeing my blood sugar skyrocket, I burst into tears realizing how much of a change it would be!) 

Fast Forward…A Few Years 

After basically wanting to forget about high school (hiding in the bathroom to take shots, self-conscious and developed anxiety about weight gain post-diagnosis and just wanting to fit in), I needed something different. Although being a perfectionist and being shy / hiding from others gave me time to master my A1C early, it wasn’t sustainable and I internalized it all—until I got to college. 2000 miles from home, I chose Marquette 1) for the biomedical engineering program, and 2) for receiving a D1 Soccer Scholarship as a goalkeeper, but what I didn’t realize, is it would teach me to open up about my diagnosis and become a better athlete and advocate. I confided in my athletic trainer, who helped me with check-ins during practice (which could sometimes go 1-2 hours over the scheduled time!), and realizing we needed about ½ cup of gatorade + water every hour, supplemented with pedialyte during preseason. It was nice having my trainer, since I could get around going straight to the coaches (at first I didn’t want it to be seen as a weakness!) and she could carry around my gear for me, if needed.  

While goalkeeping allowed for easier access to management during games, practices, etc. I continued to find myself gravitating towards running, strength, and conditioning. My senior year, I began to go for runs while we were on away trips and started to become hooked—I found new ways to manage my BG’s and low intensity running basically was ‘insulin in my back pocket.! After finishing my collegiate soccer career, I joined the ‘Run with the President’ running group at Marquette with Dr. Michael Lovell (our MU President). It was around this time that another faculty member, John Klika, took me to coffee and was fascinated by my thesis research of designing a lifestyle computer algorithm and model to predict glucose and hormonal levels based on activity, stress, diet, etc. It turns out he was Type 1 himself—and a multi-ironman athlete.  

With a newfound confidence and support group, I gradually built my mileage and learned so many things from John about management, who also joined the running group and convinced me to run my first half marathon. It went really well—until, the group said next step: “the marathon.” I was like absolutely no way, I came from sprints up and down the field and have Type 1 Diabetes—I'm not sure I’m ready for that!  But, I’m not one to step down from the challenge, and I had the group helping me through the whole way. I remember my first 18-miler—5 miles from the end, I couldn’t run more than 5 steps as I couldn’t keep my blood sugar up, even with having the proper supplies, and I was just defeated. My body wasn’t used to this, having to rely primarily on glucose as fuel, instead of an intensity and fuel mix. But, I kept going—my track workouts got faster, and my next long run, 20 miles, no stopping! (It’s also important to note that I was also doing some triathlon training too, which helped keep a balance).  

I was ready and excited. Dexcom in my shorts pocket, 3 gels and gummy bears (of course), and friends cheering every step of the way! It couldn’t have been more perfect—flat line BG’s, fuel every 45 min to steady, the adrenaline rush at the 22-mile mark (the furthest I’d ever run in my life!), all propelling me to a 3rd place finish in 2:52. That was one of the best beers, post-race, I’d ever had in my life. This finish created numerous opportunities for me, including becoming a founding member of Diabetes Sports Project, JDRF Keynote talks, and more training—I wanted to try and qualify for Olympic Marathon Trials (2:45).  Unfortunately, along with these positives, came a very long string (~2-3 years) of off and on injuries—I walked 13 miles of the Boston Marathon in 2017 with a tibial stress fracture, the first of a few, and just could not catch a break. These times had a lot of lows, but taught me the resilience of having other outlets, support communities, and managing my diabetes without the ability to exercise all the time (I had started to rely on this as a form of natural ‘insulin’ all through college and into running).  

Looking back, these years of ups-and-downs were crucial to my development of outreach and community, my career, and finding the right balance of strength and running to stay healthy (turns out, soccer weight training had a lot to do with my injury free 25 years of my life!). I like to call this time falling not failing, something my therapist came up with (yes, I was seeing one, for anxiety and some low grade depression, which is something I will talk about now, since I think it is incredibly important that if you have any of these feelings, especially as a T1D, you are not alone!).  I took a job as a medical device engineer at Dexcom and moved to San Diego, CA, acting as a liaison between clinical, regulatory, quality, design and systems engineers, which was the perfect place for me as a T1D! I started the Dexcom Running Club, and from that, have some of the fondest memories. San Diego is also where I joined Prado Racing Team (PRT), and found my coach, Paul Wellman, who I still work with today.  PRT helped me find the love of running again, and I PR’d in every distance while training with them, and having a lot of fun doing so!  

My time in San Diego culminated with making an attempt at running an Olympic Trials qualifying time at CIM 2019, which I just missed in 2:49. It was such an incredible experience, however, even with missing my goal—3-minute PR, running with teammates, HEALTHY and injury-free for an entire training period, and friendships. I did have a diabetes learning experience, though, which I will take forward with future races—not all nuun is ‘carb-free’! It was on the course, and I assumed it was the zero-carbs flavor, so I took it at almost every aide station, causing me to sharply rise at about Mile 11 (especially coupled with adrenaline), which unfortunately caused some cramping around Mile 15 and slowed me off my 2:43 pace. Luckily, I was able to power through, and I will be more prepared next time.  

Current:  

I have recently moved back to Albuquerque, NM, where I grew up.  After looking for an opportunity to grow my career and move into management, this was the right move for me, and is now allowing me to explore altitude training and new heights, literally and figuratively! My family is still here, and with COVID, it has been nice to be close (and living with my boyfriend, Steve). While I am not training for any races in particular, I’m making attempts at a sub 5:00 mile (currently at 5:05 at altitude) as a ‘mini’ goal, and just trying to enjoy the simplicities of running! I am getting back into the volunteering scene, particularly with my non-profit, Diabetes Sports Project, and of course, JDRF.  

Some Tips, Tricks, and Life Lessons! 

Always be prepared—gummy bears in my sports bra are my favorite! I’ve learned many lessons along the way, including one of my first solo long run experiences with a low blood sugar and having to ask gas stations for a Gatorade that I would come back and pay for later (not my finest moment, but turns out, people can be very helpful!). Always carry a card or cash and know your numbers. Plus, some great times of having snacks on hand: my running buddies favorite line is “Hey Sof! How’s your BG?” “Great!! Why?” “Can I have some of your snacks….).” They need it too, and are thankful for it when they bonk! 

Train with people who know you at your best and at your worst, and your symptoms—those are the ones that can push you through tough workouts to the end when you don’t think you can run one more rep or mile, or can more importantly, tell you when you need a break and to take a step back. It’s often trial and error in knowing what intensities affect your blood sugar the most, but with a community, you can’t fail—you learn. As unpredictable as it is sometimes, Type 1 actually can give you an athletic edge. You have to know what your blood sugar is at all times, and how your body is feeling. No one else has to do that! 

Sofie Schunk

[yuckitup-jwd]

Fulldekisms Part 2

He writes blank checks on a closed account.

He'd screw up a two-car funeral procession.

He'll eventually qualify as a Darwin Award winner.

He's a General Protection Fault trigger.

He's a man on a mission, but can't find his dossier.

He's as soppy as a sack. (British)

He's been invited to every party in town... Once.

He's completely West Ham. (Two stops short of Barking on theLondon Underground.)

He's diagnosable.

He's in a federal witless protection program.

He's not a complete idiot -- some parts are missing.

He's not stupid; he's possessed by a retarded ghost.

He's really into himself... His head is up his ass.

He's so dense, light bends around him.

He's so dense, the Titanic wouldn't sink in his head.

Hears everything that a dog can.

Hears more lyrics on records when they're played backwards.

Her access time approaches infinity.

Her ancestors came to this country looking for bananas.

Her ass is sucking swamp gas.

Her blender doesn't go past "mix".

Her body is rejecting her.

Her brain cells are as hard to isolate as <your favoritepolitician's> concern for his/her electorate.

Her brain comes with single-bit error detection and half-assederror correction.

Her brain has a corrupted filesystem / someone needs to runfsck on her brain.

Her brain is as useless as a mule's gonads.

Her brain is more like a Rube Goldberg device than a computer.

Her cache is incoherent.

Her career is just taking off -- she's never at work.

Her closet is full of hangars, but no clothing.

Her dentist went deaf from the drill's echoes.

Her dialing thumb must be broken.

Her display is always flashing 12:00.

Her driver's license says, "Picture continued on other side."

Her ears serve the same function as holes in a dribble glass.

Her face is a threat to clocks everywhere.

Her files are compressed 100%.

Her finals are burned out.

Her friends took her aside, and left her there. -- Ron Richards

Her gene pool could use a little chlorine / a good filter.

Her head doesn't cast a shadow.

Her head needs a periodic whack on the side.

Her input pipe is broken.

Her interrupt handler hit a loop.

Her IQ is the reason they had to invent negative/imaginary numbers.

Her kid is an honor student, but she's still an idiot.

Her leads need resoldering.

Her learning curve is fractal.

Her lint trap is full.

Her lists are unlinked.

Her memory is truly random-access.

Her mental function can be graphed with a single dot.

Her mere presence causes parity errors, power fails, and head crashes.

Her mind is not grounded to a logic supply.

Her mind might have spontaneously combusted.

Her mind would be unstable even mounted on a tripod.

Her modem lights are on but there's no carrier.

Her objects are not fully oriented.

Her only hope for brainpower is vacuum point energy.

Her personal problems can only be solved using high explosives.

Her phone doesn't quite reach her desk.

Her pool balls don't fit into the rack.

Her positronic matrix won't reboot.

Her purpose in life is to balance out the bell curve.

Her random access is the same as her sequential access.

Her sewing machine's been out of thread for some time now.

Her ski lift doesn't go to the top of the hill.

Her stack has been corrupted.

Her synapses are about |that| far apart.

Her system file has zero bytes.

Her tires are a little low.

Her wheels are turning but she's upside down. -- U2

Her wipers don't touch the glass.

Her word length is zero bits.

Hid behind the door when they passed out brains.

High relative humidity... He's lost in a fog.

His access light's on, but the drive isn't spinning / isstill spinning up.

His accumulator overflows at zero.

His actual mileage varies.

His antenna/radio doesn't pick up all the channels/stations.

His boot block is in a bad sector.

His boot ROM has a bad checksum.

His brackets are mismatched.

His brain could be the perfect dielectric.

His brain is sueing for neglect.

His brain was sold separately and they were out of stock.

His brain would rattle around in a gnat's navel.

His bread ain't done.

His buffer is full.

His clutch is slipping.

His data bus stops for red lights.

His deck has no face cards.

His elevator is stuck between floors.

His face is on a coin... On the edge.

His family tree is a telephone pole.

His family wasn't dysfunctional until he arrived.

His freelist is empty.

His future is behind schedule. -- Bob Thaves

His gene line isn't just dead, it's extinct.

His golf bag does not contain a full set of irons. -- Robin Williams

His grades were so bad, after school he couldn't even getinto prison. -- Shannon Sharpe

His grey matter is brown / doesn't matter.

His head whistles in a cross wind.

His home page is out of order.

His home planet is flat.

His IQ test results were negative / IQ is a false positive.

His jack can't get the car off the ground.

His military nomenclature is ID-10-T (idiot).

His mind is a few Hertz off its assigned frequency.

His mind is great at error magnification.

His mind is less substantial than the Emperor's new clothes.

His mind is on vacation but his mouth is working overtime. -- Allision

His mind is write-protected/write-only.

His mind reached escape velocity and achieved orbit.

His mind wandered and never came back.

His motto is: Space, the final frontier.

His mouth rarely makes calls to his brain.

His only hope for sexual variety is vegetables / to change hands.

His outgoing message starts with, "Hello, Mr. Answering Machine."

His page was intentionally left blank.

His picture is in the dictionary under "zero".

His pointers are null/uninitialized.

His puzzle is missing a few pieces.

His reaction time is longer than his attention span. -- Thaves

His root file system isn't mounted.

His seat back is not in the full upright and locked position.

His shared libraries aren't installed.

His signal-to-noise ratio is epsilon.

His signature is long, boring, and stupid, but it's the bestpart of his postings.

His spark can't jump the gap.

His spirit guide is a three-toed sloth.

His stack's not very deep / he has an eight-byte stack.

His strings aren't null-terminated.

His strip is demagnetized.

His system administrator is never in.

His train tracks aren't quite parallel.

His URL denies outside access.

His watch dog is sleeping.

His Wheaties have been in the milk too long.

His wisdom is stolen from bumper-stickers and T-shirts.

His wits have left the rails and are careening about the countryside.

His X, Y, and Z axes don't meet at the origin.

Hitler's evil twin.

Holds a grudge until it dies of old age, then has it stuffed andmounted. -- David Weber

Hyperspatially interconnected / permanently disconnected neural net.

Hypnotized as a child and couldn't be woken.

I like him; he reminds me of when I was young and stupid.

I would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.

I wouldn't piss in his ear if his brain was on fire.

I'd like to buy him for what he's worth and sell him for what hethinks he's worth.

I've worn dresses with higher IQs than his.

If brains were bird droppings, he'd have a clean cage.

If brains were chocolate, he wouldn't have enough for an M&M.

If brains were dynamite, she wouldn't have enough to blow hernose / her hat off / the wax out of her ears.

If brains were farts, he couldn't stink up the inside of a matchbox.

If brains were gasoline, he couldn't ride a moped around a fruit loop.

If brains were grains of sand, he couldn't fill a dixie cup.

If brains were lard, he'd be hard pressed to grease a small pan.

If brains were leather, he couldn't saddle a flea.

If brains were taxed, he'd get a rebate.

If brains were water, hers wouldn't be enough to baptize a flea.

If dumb were dirt, he'd be an acre.

If fashion law is ever enforced, he'll be found guilty withouthope of parole.

If God tried to help him, we'd have an eight day week.

If he didn't exist, he wouldn't be worth inventing.

If he donated his brain to science it'd set civilization back 50 years.

If he gets any denser, the geocentric theory of the universewill come true.

If he had a lobotomy he'd depressurize.

If he had another brain (cell), it would be lonely.

If he had brains, he'd take them out and play with them.

If he had console lights, we would see only the idle loop patterns.

If he had half a brain, his ass would be lopsided.

If he were an Indian, Custer would be alive today / would havedied of old age.

If he were any brighter he'd be in the visible spectrum.

If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.

If her brains were put in a hummingbird, it would fly backwards.

If his brain were a hard drive, it would back up on a single floppy.

If his brains were money, he'd still be in debt.

If his IQ was two points higher he'd be a rock.

If ignorance were bliss, she'd be orgasmic.

If it's not in his horoscope/tea leaves, he doesn't take it seriously.

If men were dominoes, he would be the double-blank. -- P.G. Wodehouse

If not for his scrotum, he would lose his balls.

If sex appeal were dynamite, he couldn't blow the cobwebsoff his balls.

If she had a disk we could upgrade her with DOS 3.0.

If she was any dumber, she'd be a green plant.

If stupidity hurt, he'd go through life on a morphine drip.

If stupidity were a crime, he'd be number one on the Most Wanted list.

If the government ever declared war on stupidity, he'd get nuked.

If there were a merciful God he'd be dead by now.

If they each had half a brain, they'd still only have half a brain.

If they knock heads, implosion will suck all the air out of the room.

If what you don't know can't hurt you, she's practically invulnerable.

If wit were shit, he'd be constipated.

If you called him a wit, you'd be half right.

If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you get change back.

If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.

Ignorant, and proud of it.

Immune from any serious head injury.

Immune to caffeine and all other stimulants.

In a tub of Preparation H, he'd shrink down to thumb size.

In his optimum environment, he'd be locked in a life and deathstruggle with mushrooms.

In line for brains, thought they said pains, and said, "No, thanks".

In line for brains, thought they said trains, and asked for onewith lots of steam / said his dad just bought him one.

In line for brains, thought they said were handing out milkshakes,and he asked for "extra thick."

In need of a ROM upgrade.

In serious need of attitude adjustment.

In the pinball game of life, his flippers were a little fartherapart than most.

In the shopping mall of the mind, he's in the toy store.

In touch with her higher power, but out of touch with the rest of us.

Includes a "thank you" note with her tax returns.

Infinite space between her ears.

Informationally deprived.

Inhabits her own private timezone.

Inspected by #13.

Inspired the slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Intellectually/synaptically challenged.

Intelligence somewhere between a pet rock and egg white.

Invented a pencil with an eraser on each end.

Invented a submarine with a screen door.

IQ = dx / (1 + dx), where x = age.

IQ lower than a snake's belly in a wagon-rut.

It's hard to believe he beat 100,000 other sperm.

Just another flash in the bedpan.

Just asleep, but others worry that he's dead.

Keeps his imagination on a long leash.

Kept an open mind -- and his brains fell out.

Keywords: generalizations clue get

Knitting with only one needle.

Knows his sports, but his understanding is limited to violence.

Landed with his gear/brain up and locked.

Leaky sunroof.

Left hand threaded.

Left his booster on the launch pad.

Left the store without all of his groceries.

Leveled off before reaching altitude.

Life by Norman Rockwell, but screenplay by Stephen King.

Lightbulb over his head is burned out.

Lights / porch lights are on but nobody's home.

Lights not burning too bright.

Like a barometer -- vacuum at the top.

Like a loose-leaf folder in winter.

Like a one-armed man climbing a rope.

Likes dunking for french fries.

Likes to execute his data.

Little red choo-choo's gone chugging 'round the bend /jumped the track.

Lives in La-la-land.

Lives in the same world, but a different universe.

Lives just up the street from the corner of Walk and Don't Walk.

Living proof of Einstein's theory that there is no limit tohuman stupidity.

Living proof that evolution CAN go in reverse.

Living proof that God did die back in the 60s.

Living proof that God has a sense of humor.

Living proof that nature does not abhor a vacuum.

Living proof that there's ALWAYS someone worse off than you.

Long on drywall, short on studs.

Looking for a nickel in the corner of a circular room.

Looks for the "Any" key.

Looks just like Bill Gates.

Loose chip on the microprocessor board.

Loose wire to his headset/ringer.

Lost his marbles.

Lots of silverware on his table, but no plates.

Loves a good insult, but can never remember any.

Low on thinking gas.

Low-bandwidth as an information source.

Luckily these types kill themselves before reproducing... Thinkof it as evolution in action. -- Larry Niven

Lugnuts rattling in the hubcaps.

Made a career out of mid-life crisis.

Mainspring's wound too tight.

Makes a black hole look bright.

Makes predictions that make weathermen/economists look good.

Meandering to a different drummer.

Memorized every Dr. Seuss story written.

Mental software is Version 1.0 / still in beta test.

Mentally qualified for handicapped parking.

Metronome needs oil.

Might look like he's doing nothing, but at the cellular levelhe's really quite busy.

Might still be a virgin except for what nature did to her mind.

Mind like a steel sieve.

Mind like a steel trap -- everything gets mangled / full of mice /nothing in, nothing out / rusted shut / someday it willsnap shut and swallow his face.

Missed her last four scheduled tune-ups.

Missed the last train to Clue Junction. -- Rev Billy Wirtz

Missing a few buttons on his remote control.

Missing a few catalog cards / gears / marbles.

Missing a layer of insulation in his attic.

Monorail doesn't go all the way to Tomorrowland.

Mooring lines don't reach the dock.

More armpits than brain cells.

More marbles in a spray-paint can than brains in his head.

Mouth is in gear, brain is in neutral.

Moves his lips to pretend he's reading.

Must have ignored a knock-down pitch.

Nearly lives up to her full potential as a dumb blond.

Nearly on a higher plane, but lost his boarding pass.

Needed a tutor to learn how to scribble.

Needs a checkup from the neck up.

Needs a little remedial evolution.

Needs a stepladder to pick his nose.

Needs an operating manual for a screwdriver.

Needs another brain to make half-wit.

Needs both hands to wipe his behind.

Needs front end alignment.

Needs his disk checked/reformatted.

Needs his sleeves lengthened by a couple of feet so theycan be tied in the back.

Neither left-brained nor right-brained. -- Bob Thaves

Nervous as a long-tailed bobcat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Network constantly loses packets.

Neurons are firing non-sequentially.

Never finishes a thoug

Never had a headcold in her life since diseases can't existin a vacuum.

Never misses an episode of her screensaver.

Next-day delivery in a nanosecond world. -- Van Jacobson

Nice color but not enough wattage.

Nice house but not much furniture / nobody lives there.

Nine pence in the shilling.

Nine rooms; no furniture.

Nineteen cents short of a paradigm.

No bubble in his gauge. (Refers to a submarine dive gauge.)

No charge in her synapses.

No coins in the old fountain.

No filter in the coffeemaker.

No grain in the silo.

No hands on the rudder/yoke.

No hay in the loft.

No one at the throttle.

No ROM basic.

No salt in his socks. (Land-lubber or green sailor.)

No tar in his hemp. (Tar preserves a hemp (marijuana) line; thisphrase means one has been smoking his rope.)

No wind in her mind's windmills.

Not all his dogs are barking.

Not an idiot, but plays one in his life.

Not as dumb as he looks, but that would be impossible.

Not digging in the same ditch with the rest of us.

Not done evolving yet.

Not enough brain cells for the Prozac to be effective.

Not enough brains to get anywhere NEAR the gutter.

Not enough bullets for Russian Roulette.

Not enough change to break a dollar/pound/deutschmark/yen.

Not enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Not enough sense to stay out in the rain. (Like a 60's flower child.)

Not firing on all four/six/eight cylinders.

Not firmly seated in the socket / screwed in tight.

Not hard-docked.

Not inflated to 90 PSI / head is stamped "inflate to 40 PSI".

Not Intel Inside. (Or, given Pentium problems, just: Intel inside.)

Not much to show for four billion years of evolution.

Not only rude, but ugly too.

Not playing with / dealing from a full deck (-- not even in the game).

Not ready for prime time.

Not running on full thrusters.

Not shooting pool on a level table.

Not so much of a has-been, as a won't-be.

Not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree / light in the harbor /crayon in the box.

Not the full quid.

Not the hottest burner on the stovetop.

Not the same since they took him off his medication.

Not the sharpest knife/spoon in the drawer / tool in the shed /nail in the box / quill on the porcupine.

Not Turing equivalent.

Not within a bull's roar. (A term used by lawn bowlers.)

Not worth henshit on a pump handle.

Not worth pissin' on.

Not wrapped too tight.

Nothing between the stethoscopes.

Nothing on her radar.

Numb as a post / pounded thumb.

Number 'n a hake. (New England expression; a notoriously stupid fish.)

Nutty as a fruitcake.

Of all the things he's lost, he misses his mind the most.

Off by one.

Off his rocker/trolley.

Oil doesn't reach his dipstick.

On permanent/unexcused leave of absence from his senses.

On the batting end of a no-hitter.

One anna short of a rupee.

One bead short in her rosary.

One bean short of chili.

One bean shy of full strength.

One beer short of a six-pack / a six-pack short of a case.

One bird short of a flock.

One bit short of a byte/word.

One blade short of a sharp edge. -- Nanci Griffith

One block short of a filesystem.

One board short of a porch.

One bomb/melon short of a full load.

One boot stuck in the sand.

One bottom short of a bucket.

One brick short of a wall/hod/load/pile.

One bumper/rail short of a bank shot.

One bun/donut short of a dozen.

One byte short of a checksum.

One byte short of a full 256K SIMM.

One car short of a chase scene.

One card/marble short of a full deck.

One chapter short of a novel.

One chicken short of a henhouse.

One chip short of a cookie.

One chip short of a megabyte.

One citation short of a footnote.

One clearance short of landing/take off.

One clown short of a circus.

One clue short of a solution.

One cold solder joint.

One color short of a full deck. (A half-wit.)

One color short of color-coordinated.

One couplet short of a sonnet.

One course short of a degree. (As in: "I've got a degree inhome economics, but I was only one course short of adegree in advanced nuclear physics.")

One crayon short of a full box.

One crouton short of a salad.

One cup and saucer short of a place setting.

One cylinder short of a full re-format.

One diamond short of a ring.

One dimension short of reality.

One doughnut short of being a cop.

One drool bib short of neat and tidy.

One drop short of an empty bladder.

One ear short of a bushel.

One electron shy of a full shell / noble gas arrangement.

One feather short of a whole duck.

One fish short of a string.

One floor below the poopdeck.

One flower short of an arrangement.

One flying buttress short of a cathedral.

One foot in the future, one foot in the past, pissing on the present.

One french fry / hamburger short of a Happy Meal.

One Froot Loop short of a full bowl.

One fruit short of a basket.

One gene short of a full chromosome.

One goose short of a gaggle.

One grape short of a bunch.

One guppy short of an aquarium.

One handle short of a suitcase.

One harmonic short of a tubular bell.

One hot pepper short of an enchilada.

One inch short of a foot/yard.

One inspection short of passing.

One kangaroo short in her top paddock.

One kernel short of an ear.

One key short of a piano.

One kopek short of a ruble.

One link short of a chain.

One live brain cell away from being a talking monkey.

One measure short of a staff.

One miracle short of being where he thinks he's at.

One miracle wouldn't be enough to help him.

One monkey short of a full hundred.

One node short of a network.

One nut short of a full pouch.

One of the early failures of electroshock therapy.

One open splice.

One pancake short of a stack.

One pane short of a window.

One pea short of a pod/casserole.

One peak short of a chromatogram.

One pearl short of a necklace.

One pickle short of a jar.

One pie short of a holiday.

One plane short of an Air Force / hangar.

One point short of a polygon.

One prayer short of absolution.

One press short of a CAPS LOCK key. (Types all uppercase.)

One punch/swing/hit short of a fight.

One quark short of a hadron.

One republic short of an empire.

One revision behind.

One sandwich/apple/ant short of a picnic.

One saucer short of a tea-service.

One scallop short of a seafood platter.

One screw loose.

One screw shy of a final assembly.

One sentence short of a paragraph.

One shade short of a rainbow.

One sheep short of a sweater.

One shingle short of a roof, and the water's getting in.

One ship short of a full fleet.

[sevenraysoflight]

GREEN RAY OF LIGHT

ASCENDED MASTER HILARION

Hilarion is the chohan of the green ray of healing and truth. He is the hierarch of the Temple of Truth on the etheric plane near Crete, Greece.

Hilarion was high priest of the Temple of Truth on Atlantis, and he transported the flame of Truth together with the artifacts of the Temple to Greece a short time before the sinking of the continent.

The focus of Truth that he established became the focal point for the Oracles of Delphi, messengers of Truth who served under the direction of Pallas Athena for hundreds of years, until black priests penetrated the Delphic Order and perverted the Truth that had been brought forth. The Brotherhood then withdrew this service to embodied mankind, since people were unable to distinguish between Truth and error.

Hilarion sponsors teachers of Truth, servants of God, religious leaders and missionaries, as well as those practicing the healing arts, scientists and engineers in all fields, mathematicians, musicians, those specializing in computer and space technology and those who work with all forms of media and communications.

Together with fifth-ray masters and the Brotherhood of Crete, Hilarion works steadfastly to draw their consciousness into a greater and greater appreciation of the full spectrum of Truth, which most have experienced only in part. To take them from a partial knowledge of truth to self-awareness in the divine wholeness of Truth is the goal of these brothers.

Hilarion instructs us on the relationship between science and religion, both of which are aspects of the green ray of Truth.

We can call to Hilarion and the Brotherhood of Crete for healing and wholeness, for the conversion of souls and for the exposure of truth in the media.

Master Hilarion – Emerald Ray of Healing and Science

Hilarion, teacher of immortal Truth, Divine Science, all physical and metaphysical branches of science and the healing arts; the eternal empiricist who brings the seeker to the initiate path of the apostle Paul: “And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free, i.e. Whole!”

Doctors, scientists, healers, musicians, mathematicians and those consecrated to truth serve on the fifth ray with Hilarion.

Initiation: Third-Eye Chakra Gift of the Holy Spirit: Healing Retreat: Temple of Truth Crete, Greece Vibration: Green, Gold Music: Onward, Christian Soldiers may be played to draw the radiance of Hilarion Gemstone: Emerald, Diamond, Jade, Quartz Crystal Quality: Truth, Science, Vision, Abundance Day: Wednesday

Quick Prayer: “Beloved Hilarion, in the name of the Christ: Teach me the way of truth and the divine application of science and healing.”

Hilarion's Previous Lifetimes

Hilarion was embodied as a high priest of the Temple of Truth on Atlantis who transported the flame of Truth to Greece.

Hilarion's most famous lifetime was as Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle Paul after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Jesus sponsored Paul as Saint Hilarion (c. 290 to 372 AD), the founder of monasticism in Palestine, his final incarnation to fulfill the law of balancing his karma incurred in the persecuting of Christians and the consenting to their death.

At the conclusion of his embodiment as the great healing saint, Hilarion, following in the footsteps of his Lord, ascended in the ritual that Jesus had demonstrated.

Hilarion on His Lifetime as Saint Paul

Hilarion has recalled for us his encounter with the Christ in his lifetime as the Apostle Paul:

“Jesus the Christ we called him, and we were called of him as you are called this day. I recall the memories of his coming to me, empowering me with his Word. Yet first he humbled me on that road to Damascus, the humbling I sorely needed that I might bow to my own Christ flame that he revealed to me, as he also gave to me the key of meditation upon that flame that I might walk in his footsteps on the fifth ray of science and healing and apostleship and the preaching of the Word.

“Often I felt like the hands and the feet and the heart of Hercules, wrestling with the downward spirals of the earth with their atheism, their agnosticism, their intellectual pride and rancor against the prophets and the Holy One of God so recently come into our midst. Yet, all the while I remembered I was once counted among them. To have been once so proud and so deliberate against the will of God would forever burn in my memory the helplessness that we all have as instruments of God. But the great empowering by the Word comes, my beloved, in the hour of the conversion. It is not the hour of the call, but the hour of the conversion when the soul answers with something that is deep. It is the flowing, it is the giving, it is that surrender when, as He said: ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks…'

“My soul knew Him as of old and recalled to my outer mind the memory of the inner vow. It was not the first time I had seen the Lord Christ. I had seen him before taking incarnation, and yet I had to work through that pride, that karma on the fifth ray of much learning, much studying and superiority in social standing and intellectual standing that I had in regards to the early Christians. And so, it was my own karma that was upon me whereby I was resisting the call.”

“My Lord did pursue me as I made my journey on the road to Damascus. Yes, beloved, I was blinded, not by his light but by my own sin and the alchemy of his light penetrating the record of sin in my being. Thus, I was turned around, converted by the Spirit of the Lord in the full manifestation of Jesus Christ upon me.”2

For a period following his conversion to Christ, Paul retreated into the Arabian desert. In Galatians 1:16–18, Paul records, “I conferred not with flesh and blood. Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem.”

Commentators have often speculated as to what Paul did during his sojourn in the desert. Hilarion has explained that Jesus took him “with others into his retreat over the Holy Land and at Arabia. I have been there and learned of him. And this was my desert sojourn in meditation with him, taken up as I was in my finer bodies and trained directly heart to heart.”

Hilarion on Healing by the Light of God

Use the Science of the Spoken Word to Connect with Healing Light

“The mighty science of alchemy is the science of divine healing. And that healing ray may be understood by you as the mighty tone of God—the tone of his symphony. You will not be able to perceive or to have the power of that chord magnetized unto you until you have achieved the integration of the four lower bodies [etheric, mental, emotional, physical]. For each of the notes of that mighty chord is played upon one of those four lower bodies. And therefore, if you perfect but one or but two, you will have only two notes of the chord…

Ultimately it is the light that is the source of all healing.”

Give the following healing affirmation four times, once for each of your four lower bodies:

“I AM, I AM, I AM the resurrection and the life of my four lower bodies now made manifest!”

For more ihttps://www.summitlighthouse.org/hilarion/nformation:

ARCHANGEL RAPHAEL

Archangel Raphael is one of the most well known healing angels, and the main archangel who oversees healing for living beings on Earth. He is an incredibly kind and powerful angelic being, who is ready, willing and waiting to connect with you directly if you so desire.

When called upon Raphael brings powerful healing to mind, body, and spirit.

He may surround you with emerald green healing light to nurture your entire being, and rejuvenate your physical vitality.

He often brings healing through guidance too and with the powerful divine guidance from Archangel Raphael, you can activate and use your bodies innate ability to heal itself.

In some cases Raphael does help to trigger instant and miraculous healing, though this is not always the case… Sometimes you will be required to listen to his guidance and take action yourself to align with the healing you seek.

The guidance from Archangel Raphael may not be in the way you expect, as he will both directly and indirectly communicate with you to guide you in the direction of full healing, vibrant health, and well-being.

With practice and perseverance you can even learn to work with Archangel Raphael to heal others.

Archangel Raphael Helps Travelers Too!

Okay, really Archangel Raphael helps everyone who calls upon him… So this may be better said, “Archangel Raphael is really good at helping travelers.”

Call upon Archangel Raphael and your guardian angels as you head off on a road trip, before heading to the airport, as your plane takes off, or when you're getting on a bus or train and Archangel Raphael will surround you with healing light to protect, uplift and comfort you on your journey.

Raphael can also help you to stay healthy during travel, and to smooth out any hurdles or challenges you encounter on your trip!

Invite Archangel Raphael to Help You!

Whether for healing, travel, or guidance… I have had found the process of connecting with Archangel Raphael to be incredibly powerful, loving, rewarding, and not to mention healing!

To me Archangel Raphael has a more serious presence than some of the other Archangels, like Metatron or Orion… But despite this, Raphael has such an incredible love presence… He's always willing to help when called upon, and will help you in your life in a variety of ways.

When you call upon Raphael to help you, he will always answer…

So after you ask for help… Quiet your mind and be aware of your surroundings.

Raphael may connect with you through your intuition, in the form of thoughts that spontaneously come into your awareness, or by helping you to over hearing a fragment of a conversation that is going on around you.

Archangel Raphael may connect you with healing energy directly, or he may guide you to create changes in your life so that you align yourself with the healing you seek.

When working with angels it is best to be open to how the angelic assistance will appear and to release any expectations you may have about how the experience will go. This way, you can simply enjoy and benefit from the process instead of worrying whether things are going as they should.

When you ask for angels help they will always answer… but its best to let them to choose how to help. Instead of telling your angels what you need, simply outline the situation you would like help with, and be open to how they assist.

Sometimes your request for help will be in the form of a brilliant idea, or a dream you have that guides you in the right direction. You may receive an instant and miraculous healing from Archangel Raphael, or he may guide you to change your diet and lifestyle to accomplish the same goal.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

https://www.ask-angels.com/channeled-messages/archangel-raphael/

[kazeelia]

Unfaithful To A Goddess |Chapter 7| {SaeyoungXMC}

[Chapter 6] [X] [Chapter 8-Soon]

Warning: Language\Large Word Count

Saeran spend all night in the hospital. He had informed the whole RFA about what happened but without much details, which he didn't have himself. He only mentioned that MC had a panic attach when she had a big fight with 

Saeyoung. Everyone was deadly worried, they all wanted the address to visit her. He mentioned her reaction after waking up in the hospital and reassured everyone that it will be safer if for now they take things slow, not only MC but the rest too. Jumin talked about the care MC is receiving and a offer about transferring her to one of the C&R hospitals.

Saeran said that everything is fine and he is taking care of everything in that aspect. He ended the chit-chat short and started researching on the agency. He found most of the information he wanted so he can start of with questioning Saeyoung. The agency's name is 'Dark Tulip' mainly based on selling videos of women striping for a ridiculous amount of money. He checked deeper finding that this agency looked like one of the most expanded underground. It 'looked' like that but there was not enough information inside.

More over most of it is fake or reused. Most of the photos he checked, which Saeyoung had worked on, were photoshoped. Fake IDs, photos, information, website, codes, reports, members. Everything is completely fake.

There are only two explanation. Or Saeyoung has been tricked into this, which is mostly impossible, or Saeyoung is hiding something more under his skin than Saeran has ever imagined. Saeyoung might have created a fake agency to distract him from the main part. Saeran does't want to even thing about that so he considers the first option with a smal detail, distraction.

Saeyoung might be tricked into this as a distraction. But why? And for what? He had so much evidence against Saeyoung but he still believed in his innocence. Maybe it's hope or the instinct he is receiving all this time. A while ago there was a dark voices in his mind but now this voice is trying to help him. He has a strange feeling that maybe his brother has been tricked and isn't hiding anything more.

His thoughts were cut short as a small groan was heard from under the covers of the bed. ''Why is MC already awake? Does she need something?" he quietly talked to himself and stood up from his chair. As he stood up, bright sunlight hit his eyes. That was the moment Saeran realised it's already morning. He fished out his phone to check the time.

7:36

Saeran's eyes widen as he say the time. He had stayed up researching, he should have slept even for a tiny bit. Today he needs that energy so he can go and talk to his brother and explain. You slowly move the covers away from your face. Your movement is slow, probably still tired from the anesthetic shot you received. It took you a few minutes before your eyes opened fully and registered your location and after that to see Saeran sitting besides your bed, typing away on his laptop.

Bright sunlight shines into your eyes. You rub your eyes as a soft sound echoed around you. Opening your eyes you noticed Saeran standing above you. "How are you feeling?" Saeran asked and sat back down as you follow him with your eyes. "I'm as ok as someone can be in my situation." You didn't want to worry Saeran but lying wasn't a good option either. Saeran sighs as he hears your words. Of course, why is he asking anyway?' Because you want her to be ok you idiot, but taking the situation at hand she clearly isn't' he spoke to himself inside his head.

After a short time a doctor and nurse took you for some tests. Saeran in the meantime started making a plan. As much as he wants to make things straight as soon as possible he of course can't act without a plan, a good plan. First he must take care of you. He has to make sure that you are physically and emotionally OK so he can move forward. It won't be easy and he knows it. As you took your time and fixed him, he will take his time and fix you. But that could take too much time and talking to Saeyoung is an important manner as well.

As much as he wants to put you on top, he must as well think about Saeyoung. He cannot allow him or leave him much space to progress. Saeyoung could be moving ahead of him and catching up will not be as easy as it was last time. The first time, as Saeran stole the files from Saeyoung's computer, was only a error he didn't notice. He could have stepped his game ahead of him and blocked any blind spots.

The only option Saeran has been left with is choosing. He can choose taking care of you first and let Saeyoung progress further but he also can chase Saeyoung but leave you behind.  Maybe he can trust someone other from the RFA to take care of you? Will you agree? He was clearing his options inside his tangled head as you enter your room in a wheelchair. He immediately stood up to help you but a nurse tailed behind you. She pulled out some papers and hang them in front of MC's bed. "How is she doing?" Searan asked as he helped you move to the bed.

"Well by the blood test, the results show that it was a asthma panic attach. It's not a common attach but so there is nothing to worry about. Mrs. Choi doesn't have any past records of a serious suffering of panic attacks. The only trigger in this situation must be a really sudden stress or even a sudden shock she must have went through." The nurse looks down at her papers and writes down something. Without looking back up she continues. "As I was saying, he result haven't shown anything suspicious so she will be released tomorrow." She looks up and smiles at you before leaving the room.

Saeran was a bit thrown of by your quick release. He had hoped maybe he had some more time figuring out his master plan. "So I'm being released tomorrow." you quietly repeat the nurse's words wanting to start slow on the topic. "Yeah.." Saeran replayed and placed his head in his hands. It was hard thinking that you can't return to your home, Saeyoung, nor now nor ever. "Look I have been planing this for some time by now but I have only one option left." Saeran said seriously and looked up from the floor where his eyes were resting.

You thought maybe he was thinking about taking you to another RFA member. You know they most be busy with their own life but you are quit desperate in this situation. If not a member then maybe a hotel. Knowing Saeyoung he will search for you and visit every RFA member to get any information about you. Thinking about that made your heart hurt 'Did he even care anymore?'. He clearly wasn't here and he didn't even try and contact you nor Saeran and maybe learn about your situation. He just didn't care anymore, you were useless to him by now.

"I will send you back to your family for the time being." Your eyes grow wide as you hears Saeran's final decision. Saeran began to worry as he watched your shocked expression change into a blank and then a sad one. "I can't go back there." you say and hug the covers closer to your body, feeling like Saeran saw everything inside you with one look.

Saeran hasn't searched too deep into your family so the only information he had was that you were an only child. "And why is that MC?" he calmly asked and placed his hand close to your, he didn't want to push you so if you needed it, you would take it. It was hard talking about your family, maybe Saeran doesn’t know anything about your family so he decided it's the best option. In reality it's worse than returning back to Saeyoung.

Thinking about those two situations together made your breath quicker and your hands started to shake. Saeran noticed and started panicking, he didn't want to trigger an panic attach like the one you had the first time. "Hey, if you don't want to talk about it, it's ok-" he was cut off as you took a sharp breath in and sudden answer. "No, Saeran. I don't want to hide anything anymore. 

Look in the situation all those secrets brought us to. I don't want to hide anything from you anymore and I want you to do the same." still shaking you took his warm hand and looked into his eyes, waiting for an answer.

You were right, you were always right. All those secrets have brought the three of you into a hell and the path out won't be easy to find but the first step is to place all the cards on the table. "I will MC, I will be honest with you from now on." or tell you only the things you need to know, he wanted to add but it was useless if he was promising the complete opposite.

You smiled and fixed your pillow. Taking a deep breath you started to plan the point from were you were going to explain first. You nod to yourself and look back at Saeran. "I had a brother." only by that fact Saeran's eyes widen. He would have never guessed. A second later he noticed better your choice of words, 'had'. "Me and my brother were like one. He was older that me by 3 years but that didn't stop us in anything. From when I was a baby my brother loved me and took care of me." You nervously laughed at the sweet memory of a photo in which your brother was holding you just after your birth came to your mind.

"Leon was the perfect brother I could have ever imagined. The memories we made were always happy. He was always so friendly and caring that he was my idol and I really wanted to become more like him. Well I wasn't so social so I didn't have any friends but I didn't care until, well my brother graduated from my school and we had to separate. Those were years I only can describe as hell. I didn't have my brother to protect me. Our parents didn't like that I only depended on Leon so they offered him to skip a year forward. I still don't fully understand why. Leon was a genius but they always mentioned that it wasn't only for that."

Saeran observed you carefully and listened to everything, he noticed that the memories were just easily leaving your lips. He was scared that this may cause a panic attach if there is a traumatic experience. "I was really weak without my brother but I still had the goal to become like him. In high school he won 6  rewards on a international competition. My parents weren't really proud of him which always surprised me but my uncle was his biggest supporter. Every high school year he won award on chemistry, computers and psychology." Saeran did some basic math and the result didn't mach. "What about the 3rd year? You said he won 3 every year." That was the moment he saw the sadness."The third year was the year I came to the same high school. Of course after so long without him in the same school, people looked weirdly at me when I spent breaks with him because he was older. People didn't really know that I was his sister. We were different in looks and personality. He had black hair, I have brown. He had blue eyes, I have pink. He was really tall but I was still kinda short in high school."

You were explaining the difference between you and your brother and you really were different in both look and personalities. He also imagined him. Short black hair, tall and slender figure and shiny blue eyes. "That was also the year my brother dead." Saeran's head shot up to look at you as he registered the information. "In high school I tried expanding my social skills. I wanted to make friends and be popular like my brother. I wasn't going to be popular by my looks like my brother but I still tried. I also kept it a secret from my brother which felt like a sin. We always shared everything so hiding something felt really heavy. I wanted to become popular by myself so I didn't want any help from my brother." a heavy sigh left your lips and made you continue. "That was a really big mistake. By the time my brother learned about my goal I was in a small group of people. They looked OK and pretty normal but my brother warned me that they are really bad outside school and to cut contact soon. I didn't believe him at first and thought that he may thing that I am too weak to make friends. I didn't stop hanging out with them and Leon and me started being distant. We didn't hang out on breaks and at home I was mostly on the phone with the group."

"One night I decided that maybe I can go out with them, most of the time we only met at school so I wanted to move forward. It was 11pm when I secretly left the house. We met in a small alley and started deciding on the place we wanted to hang out. Well that night they wanted to explore the old factory that was just outside the city. I knew that there was a toxic explosion there so I protested and warned them about that. They started calling me names and claimed that I only depend on my brother. I after so many years of hearing the same I couldn't take it anymore so decided to leave. After that everything went on fast. One of them pulled out a knife and threatened if I didn't go that they would open my gust and feed me to the dogs. I couldn't run because they circled me before I knew it. I started screaming until the one with the knife got tired and charged to stab me. That was the moment my brother showed up and protected me, he shoved me away and took the hit for me. The others go scared and run away. As soon as they left I run to Leon and helped him but it was useless. By the time police and the ambulance came he was dead. I still remember how much I cried and begged him to forgive me for not listening to him sooner. He only said that he was proud of himself for protecting me, he said that he was a true brother."

It was difficult for you to keep all of your emotions inside and you remembered the scene. Your brother's blood on your clothes. You crying into his bleeding chest and begging god to save him. It was a really difficult time of your life and most difficult was about to come. " After my brother died I was a complete wreak. I couldn't sleep nor eat without thinking about his absence. My parents were another story. My mother had cried a little at the news of my brother but my father didn't even blink. He was always cold to my brother but behaved in front of me. He didn't even want to grave him and commented it as 'a waist of money.'. My mother talked to me and explained that maybe he is taking things his way but that was explainable." A cold laugh left your lips at the sour memory of your father. "He hated when I mentioned him. The day after his funeral he got into his room and destroyed the shit out of it, breaking every memory of him. I tried saving something, anything but with no result. He then set the room on fire, taking us outside and drove for hours. He moved us to a completely new town without asking anyone, not even my mother. I couldn't take his selfish character anymore. On my 17th birthday I contacted my uncle, with his small help I run away. He got me a normal life as his orphaned niece. He lived here in Korea and still leaves here I think."You sighed with relief as a weigh was lifted of your shoulders. Saeran was still as you gazed at him. "And I though I had a fucked up life." he laughed coldly and clicked his tongue. "Don't say that. You had your own pain as I had my own." your small, but true, smile melted his anger.

He couldn't believe that a person so sweet, caring, warm and sharing was emotionally tortured like that. "Well not that that is past us I got a little hungry." Saeran laughed as your stomach growled. "OK, you grizli bear. Be right back." Saeran stood up and walked the hallway to get you your meal.

I am soooo sorry that I was absence for so long without any updates on my writing but I have a serious reason for that. First my parents split up and I moved with my mother, then I became really depressed and got sick. I got so sick mentalny and felt so awful that it became physical. I was feeling weak and couldn’t really move. To cut it short things have been really bad for the past month but I’m starting to get things straight. I even got a puppy as a therapy pet\animal. He has helped me a lot and thanks to him I’m back on my legs. :)

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Online Learning Increases Employee Engagement: Seven Learning Styles

“On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” concludes a report by the Department of Education (DOE). In fact, in the DOE’s report “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online learning,” students doing at least some of their course online ranked in the 59th percentile compared to wholly in-classroom taught students, who scored in the 50th percentile. This performance was found to be statistically significant, meaning these results are not due to random error or chance.

If this is the case, why aren’t more organizations using online learning to improve training, increase retention, reduce travel costs and minimize time away from the office?

Perhaps organizations don’t know why online learning matters, what it is, or how to execute it. Let’s start with why it matters.

WHY DOES ONLINE LEARNING MATTER?

Adults learn in different ways. The more learning ways that a training program includes, the higher chance of knowledge retention. In other words, using a variety of learning styles in a training program will help the trainee remember the new skills longer and deeper. Online learning offers the best chance to incorporate many learning styles at once.

Seven Learning Styles For Designing Training Materials

1. Spatial Learners

Interconnected ideas rather than linear, sequential processes are easier to digest for spatial learners. Bulleted lists don’t do it for this crowd. This learning style leans heavily on patterns and visual pictures to explain a concept.

Here are three examples of designing for spatial learners:

a) Image-based Power Point

Sometimes it’s hard to get away from presentations, but they can still be fashioned for visual learners. Presentation Zen is one of my favorite books. If you browse through Ted.com, you’ll also find fantastic examples of effective, visual Power Points.

When using tools as communication aids, it’s important to understand their purpose and role. Visuals make it easier for spatial learners to recall or apply a concept. Powerful visuals can help your audience remember your content, which is at the core of knowledge transfer.

b) Game Simulations

Timed exams can make spatial learners extremely anxious as the pressure of translating their mental images into words can take longer for them than others, which creates a stressful situation for them. Game simulations make it easier for visual learners to create a link and memory, to better absorb the information.

The Use of Computer Simulations and Gaming to Enhance Authentic Learning from zollnera

c) Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is an increasingly popular tool to visualize ideas and brainstorm ideas effectively. Though this might be more difficult to do in a traditional setting, there are lots of online tools which help facilitate the creation of mind maps, providing an easy way for a group to brainstorm together, versus the traditional outline model. Mind mapping can be incorporated in a variety of ways to assist in planning presentations. Mind Tools has a great article explaining how to use mind maps effectively.

2. Linguistic Learners

Written words best explain a concept to these individuals, so activities involving reading and writing appeal the most. Spoken word can also be effective with this crowd.

These learners respond best to reading and writing assignments, so think of how to incorporate blogging, articles, white papers or online discussion boards into the training. These learners also like to debate, so assignments that look at two sides of an argument can be an effective way for these individuals to apply knowledge and increase engagement.

3. Intrapersonal Learners

Using auditory information, and then allowing the participant a time of internal reflection, best helps these learners retain information.

These individuals like to control their environment and take in new information at their own speed, which allows them time to process and think about a matter deeply. Two examples that best demonstrate this style are:

a) Podcasts

Radio shows have received a comeback through the form of Podcasts. One of my favorite podcasts is This American Life which distills 2-3 short stories with common themes and presents them to listeners in an hour-long podcast. These engaging podcasts allow listeners to absorb the information while also prompting them to think deeper as the show continues.

b) Lectures

Sometimes traditional lectures are essential to get your point across; however they can still be peppered with the other learning styles mentioned here. Make sure you insert questions and other activities throughout lectures in order to keep listeners engaged. TED talks are full of excellent presentations for this crowd.

4. Interpersonal Learners

Using group dynamics to explain a concept is most effective for this group of learners.

Dynamic conversations can be a fantastic way of explaining concepts, especially when dealing with sensitive topics. Discussions can integrate other engaging activities, such as role play or games to get the discussion going. Planning ahead is necessary to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Do you want participants to remember and understand a concept, apply and analyze on a deeper level or evaluate and create something new? One tip is to ask open-ended questions that prompt, justify, clarify, extend, redirect and help guide group discussion.

5. Musical Learners

Using music as the trigger to remember new knowledge is powerful for this group of learners.

Playing The Who’s song, Talkin’ Bout My Generation, during a presentation to Baby Boomers helps this group of learners remember that time in their lives. This then evokes a powerful memory which keeps them engaged during the training.

6. Bodily-Kinesthetic Learners

Using the bodily senses to describe and ‘feel’ a concept help this learner remember new knowledge.

Do you exhibit at conferences? If so, let the conference attendees touch your product so they can physically experience the product features. If this type of in-person exchange isn’t possible, think of how you can demo your product and use the web to relay this in-person sensory concept.

7. Logical-Mathematical Learners

Using mathematics to describe a concept allows this group of learners to effectively learn new information.

Graphs and data can really bring it home for some learners, as they are both visual and applicable. One of my favorite presenters is Hans Rosling who brings statistics to life!

As I said earlier, the more learning methodologies that a learning program includes, the more the trainee will remember. Why? Whether they realize it or not, people have preferred learning styles. Think about it; when you have to learn something new, do you prefer to hear it, read it or touch it physically? Do you naturally make up songs about things? Do you see the patterns in something new? Or do you learn best when you can discuss it with someone?

Whatever your answer, that’s your preferred learning style; most people have two to three preferred styles. So if a training program offers one or two of your preferred learning styles, you’ll likely remember the content better. If a training program incorporates six to seven learning style approaches, then the chance of everyone in the class retaining the knowledge increases even more.

In the classic face-to-face, live, organizational training, the course participants sit for 3-6 hours, listening to the ‘teacher’. Some classes include videos, role-plays, interactive theater or games to increase retention. However, it’s difficult to do this on a regular basis. Technology makes it much easier.

If I create an online course, I can easily add in video links, podcast links and simulation games, which covers two learning styles. Then I add PDFs of white papers that explain the patterns and academic context, covering another learning styles. I can also add in real-time ‘Journals’ allowing participants to post their homework for the rest of the course to see, which then allows others to comment and start an online conversation, covering another learning style. Finally, to ensure group dynamics stay strong, I could create group phone calls or some face-to-face sessions, covering more learning styles.

So you can see that it makes sense why the DOE found higher retention with online learning. In my next post I’ll talk more about the relationship between online learning and the seven learning styles.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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