#in sync enough to control the same components...

[mo-ok]

giftober day twenty seven - blue

[on-a-mechtechnicality]

Idol

The morning sun illuminated the DropShips towering over the encampment and Sigrid was making her way ‘home’. The mess tent was disappearing behind her and the sounds of the camp faded along with it to be replaced by the din of people working around the towering vessels.

She boarded, finding herself in the small human-sized corridors that made the ship feel almost cramped. The feeling didn’t last as she soon found herself face to face with the cavern that was the MechLab. It looked big from up in the overlook, where she could see the entire area, but from here on ground level she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.

Every single Bay was lit up and most had ‘Techs working on repairing the damaged machines inside. Despite this, one of them seemed cloaked in shadow. No light reflected onto the walkway in front, and from where she just entered she couldn’t see into the Bay.

The moment she could though, it all made sense.

Sigrid blinked.

Siggy opened her eyes and bounced to the mirror. In it she saw a girl with a great big mop of unruly red hair. She sat down and brushed and brushed and brushed, and then started braiding, just like Mom had showed her. Each strand meticulously on display.

Behind her on the wall hung her dream. On the left of the twin posters an impressive looking ‘Mech stepped out of a blazing inferno. Legs bending backwards, striding resolutely forward with two arms and great big rocket pods on its shoulders.

Beside it was a much more sedate but much more interesting dream. The same ‘Mech, now laid out in excruciating detail in an exploded technical view. Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, she looked over the poster to read all the things she read a thousand times. Where the actuators were, where the sensors were, every single line on the diagram committed to memory, familiar and comforting.

And then she blinked again.

In front of her, black as a moonless night, stood her dream. A towering and proud machine, dormant but steadfast. Almost… alive.

The engineering on the foot in front of her was masterful, if she looked close enough she could see every piece of articulation, not a rivet out of place despite the well-worn look. Her eyes drifted from the trifold feet to the massive calf actuators and then further up. To the upper legs, the sleek torso and the arm actuators ending in dual hardpoints.

She couldn’t see the missile banks, but she knew them. She could see every familiar component, every single caption from her posters on Utrecht.

It didn’t just live up to her expectations, this machine exceeded it.

Blink. Work to do.

Sigrid synced her tablet with the docket and looked over her assigned tasks.

MechTech: Sigrid Guntran Initial assignment: Timber Wolf ‘Death Knell’ Bay: 8 Work order:  right torso; replace armor plating right torso; general maintenance Full systems check Notes: Sigrid, sorry to put this on ya last minute, but I know you can do it! I’m trying to keep low so the MedTechs don’t get me. -Karrie

She looked down at her tablet, and then up at her dream. Part of her wondered if this was real, and another part supplied that she was currently working on an SLDF DropShip, deep in the Rimward periphery, on a hostile planet, under the command of a beautiful avian woman so old that the show she was on with the other Clan totem warriors – who were also here – was considered a historical record.

Working on an actual Timber Wolf didn’t seem so odd anymore.

She climbed up to the catwalk and found the Bay controls. From up here she could see the majesty that was the Timber Wolf from its rear angles, a dark void contrasted against the bright industrial lighting of the MechLab. She knew every angle, every single curve of the machine’s panelling by heart.

As the platform on the ‘Mech’s right side was lowering into position, she moved around to follow it. Panning down from the side she could see where the torso armor had taken the hits. Large chunks were warped or missing, open wounds showing the delicate internals that thankfully seemed to be in good shape. How good a shape she would have to find out later. Right now, the armor needed to come off.

She knew the automated arms could be more efficient, but they weren’t as accurate as handheld power tools. A machine of this caliber deserved those. She let the winch above her come down. Before connecting the straps onto the armor she placed a hand on the wounded ‘Mech.

“We’ll get you fixed up, don’t you worry.”

She hooked the straps to the attachment points in the armor and tensioned the lines. Bit by bit she carefully detached the panel until only the tension from above held them in place. Then it was just a light pull until it started moving.

She slowly guided the crane to move the panel out of the way and safely to the floor level of the Bay, out of the way of the walkway. A tap or two on her tablet flagged it for repairs. A forklift would be along soon.

With the panel out of the way she could see the underlying internals, sleek steel pipes contrasting harshly and beautifully against the black of the surrounding panels. And she knew them.

She knew the coolant from the lubricant from the hydraulics from the electronics at a glance, the labels only confirming what she already knew. Every conduit flowed like a symphony around the frame.

Around the places the armour had been gauged, she looked a little closer. Signs of damage would be hard to spot among the labyrinth of angles, but a visual inspection was part of the troubleshooting process. Her eyes danced over each line, following them from one end of the panel gap to where they snaked back into the ‘Mech’s interior.

All looked clear and secure, Clan engineering ensuring that even in the event of armor breach, the primary systems would not be easy to take out. Let alone the secondary and tertiary.

The systems looked undamaged, so she let the platform carry her down, just in time to see the panel being driven to the manufacturing wing. She followed along, not minding that she couldn’t keep up with the forklift. It’d give them some time to offload before she showed up. The difference in time between walking and driving was significant when dealing with this much space. Sigrid enjoyed the walks though, the Bay in operation was a soothing cacophony of all the different tools interacting with every material under the sun.

The armor repair itself was repetition more than anything. Identify a damaged subpanel. Remove the damaged subpanel. Find a suitable sized replacement. Shape the replacement. Attach the replacement. Repeat.

The capstone was the painting. It needed to match the existing color scheme, and match it well. Fresh paint also looked different from worn paint, but that was nothing they couldn’t handle. In the brochure it had never said that being an artist was part of being a MechTech, but the surprise had been a pleasant one.

The paint fresh but no longer wet, she followed the forklift back to Bay 8. It was already hoisted up and ready to be placed. She considered the automated tools, but for installation the accuracy was even more important than for removal, and handheld tools were king.

The work was honestly calming to Sigrid, alone up on the platform, grafting new skin onto the wounded ‘Mech in front of her. Bit by bit she circled around the edge of the panel until everything looked like she never touched it at all.

She climbed back onto the catwalk where her equipment was stored. She took out her neurohelmet and opened the compartment on her toolkit where she kept her soft tools. She knew them by heart, but looking through them helped remind her which ones she had available should the need arise.

The hop from the catwalk to the top of the Timber Wolf was not a big one. The matte black paint on the armor made it a little harder to judge. What made it really hard to make the jump though, was that Sigrid knew what she was about to do.

She was about to hop on top of a Timber Wolf. She was about to open the latch and lower herself inside. She already knew what it would look like, she knew the view from the cockpit, she knew the exact dimensions of the enclosure.

And that made it all the more daunting.

Gathering her will in her mind and her grip on her neurohelmet, she took the hop.

She was standing on top of a Timber Wolf. She was working on it, it was her work. It was her dream. She unlocked the hatch and allowed herself to slip inside.

Inside the ‘Mech it was quiet. No hum from the reactor, no sound arrived from the outside. There was just Sigrid, trying to calm her breathing, and the terrifying, loving embrace of a dream.

Her mind knew the startup sequence of a ‘Mech. Her fingers danced this dance before. And yet she couldn’t stop trembling as she toggled the first switch.

Bay power to auxiliary generator.

The high-pitched whine of the generator filled the cockpit. It was reassuring, it was terrifying, it was exhilarating.

Flick.

Auxiliary power to emergency lighting.

The lights around her came online. Dim compared to the view through the cockpit, but plenty bright enough to see by.

Auxiliary power to diagnostic systems.

Screens flickered to life. White text flew over a black background as the ‘Mech rose from slumber. Not awake yet, but no longer asleep. Sigrid listened to the whine and the soft clicks performing a symphony of self-tests. The ‘Mech checked its pressures, checked every single one of its connections in a lightning-fast choreography of every system it could access.

The text scrolled by faster than she could read, but she wasn’t looking for text. She was looking for colors. She was looking for the orange that signified a warning, the angry red that signified a fault. Her heartbeat punctuated the soundscape as seconds ticked past.

And then nothing.

No more text flying by, nothing more to focus her attention on. Just a single phrase that was both the best thing she could have read and the most disappointing.

Self-test: 100% Warnings: 0 Errors: 0 System status: OK

No need to diagnose further, it would not be time well spent. It would be time spent with her dream, but that didn’t matter.

She powered down the ‘Mech, returning it to cold and dark status. Ready for when it would be needed again. She picked her neurohelmet from where she set it down and held it in her hands. She stared at the visor.

Reflected in it she could see a woman with red hair in a tight bun, sitting inside the cockpit of a Timber Wolf. Her dream.

She sighed and rotated the helmet around. With trembling hands she placed it on her head.

She wasn’t plugged in.

The ‘Mech was powered down.

She had better things to do.

Siggy closed her eyes. It didn’t matter.

She had her helmet on

Made from an old football helmet, Utrecht Kodiaks logo covered with silver tape

She could see the canopy in front of her

Made from a laundry basket, tipped on its side

She knew exactly where the missile pods were

Two cardboard boxes, placed on the sofa behind her

She was in the cockpit of a Timber Wolf.

She was in the cockpit of a Timber Wolf.

The beat of her heart and the sound of her breath were the only things accompanying her for this moment in time, etching itself into her memory as her visor slowly fogged up without the air circulation connected.

She took off her helmet and held it in her hands, staring into the condensed visor one last time. There was work to be done.

She extracted herself from the cockpit and closed the hatch beneath her.

The hop from the ‘Mech onto the catwalk was both easier and harder than the other way. She landed with a soft impact of her work boots.

She placed her helmet with her toolkit and sat down on the upper catwalk, out of sight of anyone working, staring at her dream.

She raised her tablet. Four taps was all it took.

Work order complete

@jaded-falcon

[thefirstknife]

sorry if this is a lot to ask, but could you sum up the veil lore now that we have all of the logs? I haven't been keeping up with them.

Love your lore summaries <3

Sure thing! I'll quickly summarise most important stuff we found out in each log and I'll put links to them for reading more. Here's the link to all logs in order in a playlist on Destiny Content Vault.

First log is a part of the mission and has some extra stuff going on, but the log itself is there to just establish what we'll be listening to. The narrator of the logs will be Chioma Esi, one of the founders of Neomuna and a Golden Age scientist of the Ishtar Collective. She tells us how Maya Sundaresh, her wife, picked her up with Exodus Indigo on their way to Neomuna just as the Collapse was happening around them.

The second log is immediately a huge lore drop about the Veil and the initial reaction that people had to it. It confirmed that the Veil had already been there before they arrived, that Maya immediately connected with it and it spoke to her in her own voice, as well as how it had an adverse effect on the Exos. Chioma also mentions how the Veil is a "thesis statement to the Von Neumann-Wigner hypothesis" which I mentioned very briefly in my post, but I do not have the knowledge to explain quantum and theoretical physics. However, other people do! Please check out this reddit post about this which goes in-depth in language as approachable as possible to understand how much this single sentence means in the grand scheme of things.

Third log! Chioma is suspicious about the Veil, but Maya insists that this is where they have to settle. It's confirmed that Neomuna nanotechnology comes from SIVA which was on board all Exodus ships, which includes Exodus Indigo. The nanotech helped them build settlements quickly, but not quickly enough before all of their Exos succumbed to the exposure of the Veil.

More under:

Log number four goes into some of the stuff about the Vex and their relationship with the Veil. The Vex quickly established themselves in Neomuna and started attacking the settlement, but were prevented from going too far into it, stopped by the Veil. The Vex retaliated by creating a "screen" that isolated Neomuna from the outside world. This made Neomuni safe, but also stuck with the Vex.

Fifth log was big, and mostly concerns with the Exos again. This one revealed to us that the Veil is capable of essentially breaking down the alkahest used to make the Exos function. The Veil's power "overloads" the Clarity aspect of alkahest and essentially erases the Exos, rendering them dead. Maya reveals that she wants to use the Veil to instead "fabricate consciousness" into the newly dead Exos. Chioma is sinking further into despair about Maya's behaviour. Osiris also poses the question if Nimbus knows more about how Cloud Striders are made, implying a possible link between them and the Veil's power.

Number six! This one continues in the same vein, showing us how they speculated about using SIVA, nanotechnology that functions similarly to radiolaria (but mechanical instead of biological), and components from both the Vex and dead Exos in order to create some technology or enhance the use of the nanotech. Osiris confirms that there does seem to be some link between the Vex and Cloud Strider technology.

Seventh log shows us further experimentation with the Veil. Maya managed to build a prototype interface for the Veil which consists of an "orchestra" and a "conductor:" multiple people would connect to the Veil with the interface and follow the conductor to sync up and control the input and output, especially to parse through the data. This was very risky and dangerous. Chioma is falling even deeper into despair over how unethical and dangerous what they're doing is.

Eight! Things get worse! Experiments with interfacing with the Veil proved entirely fatal for the whole team. Maya did not seem to care about this and only cared about valuable data, while Chioma was having harder and harder time dealing with the situation. Osiris also points out how similar this whole situation is to what the Witness had done to its species; how they all used the Veil to interface with it and merge into one.

Log number nine caught us all by surprise by revealing that Maya continued with the experiments and used previously dead Exos to "fabricate consciousness" into them; she hooked them up to the Veil's interface and fabricated a new consciousness into an Exo known as Lakshmi-2. We don't know how many consciousnesses were used to create this, but Maya also used her own, giving Lakshmi her own voice and some of her memories. Big implications for everything about Lakshmi, especially Lakshmi's involvement with the Future War Cult as their leader, given that the Future War Cult was founded by Maya Sundaresh in the Golden Age. It also brought some new perspective to Lakshmi's interest in the Spontaneous Exo Reset Syndrome, as well as possibly a bigger reason why Savathun sought to corrupt Lakshmi and remove her from the City. Here's also my post recaping Season of the Splicer after we learned about this, to clear some stuff about her and Savathun's corruption of her back then.

Tenth log tells us about Maya finally succeeding in connecting people to the Veil without casualties. Months and probably years of work eventually paid off and the Veil became a viable source of power for the Neomuni and this event is probably what paved the way for the CloudArk. The Veil is described as a web of consciousness and Chioma further explains why the Vex might want it, as it would allow them to run paracausal simulations, something they aren't capable of doing currently. Chioma recognises that this should be a moment to celebrate, but she can't because she knows the Veil is dangerous but now there's a whole civilisation built on it.

Eleventh log was short and sad. Chioma tells us how she found Maya dead, alone, in the conductor's chair. It's unclear what she was doing and how she died. Chioma is unsettled by Lakshmi who is half-Maya, but "developmentally incomplete" and has her quarantined. Maya most likely died communing with the Veil, which has interesting implications for her consciousness.

Log number twelve tells us a few things about Neomuna's knowledge about what was going on outside of Neptune. Chioma detected Rasputin waking up in the Dark Age by monitoring her ex-work station on Hyperion, the moon of Saturn. Rasputin detected Neomuna and gave it a classification of "Nefele Stronghold." Chioma decided to send a Cloud Strider, Stargazer, to Earth to erase records of Neomuna, not because they wanted to keep their secrets or to save themselves from Warlords (although that must've also been a factor), but primarily to protect the outside world from the dangers of the Veil.

Thirteenth log shows us Chioma deciding to shut down the whole facility known as Veil Containment. She decided to hide it all and not to leave this mess on other people's conscience. She understood that there's nothing else to do and that Neomuna will go on, but that nobody else needs to know how they got to where they are. We're told that there's a Vex signature crawling through the logs, identified as "MSund12."

Number fourteen is where we end for now. Chioma reminds us about how the Ishtar scientists got exposed to the Vex and simulated by them 227 times, fully confirming that the "MSund12" Vex signature is one of Vex!Maya copies (number 12). Chioma decided that there's nothing more left to do or tell and that she made contact with the Vex, presumably to end her life with the hope that by doing so through the Vex, she will return to the Vex Collective and find Maya there. Osiris recaps things for us, reminding us again that the Veil is "the power of consciousness made manifest" and that the Traveler and the Light are the power of the physical world. He recognises the risks here, despite the great power being offered.

This gave us incredible insight into the Veil as a paracausal object and what it represents. Paired with the Witness cutscene, we learned a lot about what it means and how it's used. It's a paracausal entity with great powers over consciousess and the mind, capable of transferring, deleting or creating consciousness. It seems to parallel the Light and the Traveler which are both firmly based in the power of the physical world. Somehow, these two entities have been connected before and can connect again.

The Witness' species used the Veil to fuse their entire civilisation into a single being and set off in the pursuit of the Final Shape. The Veil was also specified as being somehow connected to the Traveler in the past, but that they've become separate and that the Traveler has since been avoiding coming back in contact with it. When the Witness attempted to connect them again for the first time, the Traveler fled and has been fleeing ever since. And now that the Witness caught up with it and finally did what it always wanted to do, a mysterious portal has been opened into a realm of unknown power and origin with unknown consequences to both the Traveler and the universe itself. All of this was made possible only with the Veil which means that the Veil's paracausal power of consciousness must have something important to do with it. Both the Witness and Maya Sundaresh were using the Veil to move and fabricate consciousness, though Maya worked a little bit smaller in scale.

Still, all of this is a great deep dive into some of the most mysterious aspects of the setting. The Veil is still a complicated paracausal entity, but the Traveler remains so as well. Possibly even more so right now. The link between the Traveler and the Veil is still left to explore, especially with how and why they are capable of opening a portal to an unknown dimension when they come in contact. This will for sure be in some way explored in the future, either in seasons themselves, the two remaining Veil Logs or maybe we'll have to wait for The Final Shape to know more. Either way, there's something going on here, in their connection and their parallels and their opposites; something needed to open a portal to a mysterious realm that has been described as "place of new wonders and old memories."

And yes, there's two Veil Logs remaining! One will be available next week when the next season starts and then the final one will be ready in the final season of the year. They've confirmed this in an article with the commentary on the Veil Log quest as a whole and their goals with it. I talked about it here, it's really interesting!

[dzthenerd490]

WH40KR: Space Marine Chapter Armor

Space Marine Power Armor for the Chapters was designed to be both powerful and simple as possible to help better accommodate the hundreds of variations that is to be expected of each Chapter as there are supposed to be 1,000 of them. The design extends to gender allowing both men and women turned into Space Marines to wear it with no restrictions. The basic parts of the Space Marine Chapter armor is the Power Armor, Biosuit, Helmet, Groin Guard, Hip Guards, and Rocket Shoes.

The most basic component of all of the pieces of a Space Marine’s Armor is the Power Armor. Made of Condensed Ceramite, a material that looks like metal but is much stronger as it does not dent or rupture even when being hit by a high caliber projectile of great power. The only weapon capable of harming it is the Bolter Gun designed by the God Emperor himself as well as the lesser imitations created by the United Churches.

This allows a Space Marine who is already strong enough to bend steel like clay and punch through stone walls, to perform even greater feats of strength and be able to withstand all sorts of damage that they couldn’t before. This alone makes a Space Marine powerful and though the Power Armor should not be ignored, it is not as essential as the five other components that grant the Space Marine unrivaled strength.

1) The Biosuit - created by the Institute under the orders of the God Emperor himself. The Biosuit is made with cybernetic nanofibers, programmed to act as a secondary nervous system that recognizes the wearer as the main body. Once worn it enhances the senses of the Space Marine, including their sense of danger. The user will naturally be able to dodge any incoming attack with great mobility. Not only that but the suit is strong enough to resist even Electro Accelerate bullets, though it loses its durability with every continuous shot. Its durability will not recover without rejuvenation with "Sacred Oil". 

Thankfully its cybernetic nanofibers are smart enough to recognize wounds and thus patch them up to allow a Space Marine’s regeneration to heal even faster. They can even quickly cover and sterilize wounds that are the cost of lost limbs. Though of course if the lost limb is still intact and is covered with the biosuit, then it can be reattached with the biosuit mending the connection. 

2) Helmet Visor - More like a mask than a helmet but made with the same material as the Power Armor making it strong enough to withstand a few Bolter shots before it starts to break if the bolter shots don’t stop. The common model is divided into four pieces that can extend apart to open and reveal the face. The sole purpose of this function is to allow the Space Marine to occasionally eat their protein bars or drink Elixir.

Once closed and placed on the face it will sync with the Biosuit allowing the Space Marine to control the Computer Visor with their thoughts alone. The computer visors on the eyes allow the Space Marine to see more than ever before; night vision, heat vision, movement, vibrations, possible hiding points, identifiable Xeno biosignatures, and so much more. With the Helmet Visor nothing escapes the sight of a Space Marine. There are other versions of the common Helmet Visor, but all possess the basic system functions with the main difference being how well they do so and what is given priority. The basic model does not have visible air filtration (the vents are tiny and at the sides of the mask like Helmet) but make no mistake the purified air a Space Marine can breathe through its Helmet Visor is just as fresh as the air found on the Shining Star of Terra.

3) The Groin Guard - Technically the main focus of what is being guarded is the privates but calling it the Private Guard was considered out of the question. Though it is meant to be a protector of the sexual organs of the Space Marine it is also the main area of waste collection. This process is maintained by two separate components. The Waist Collector and Condenser and the Essence Collector. 

3a) Waist Collector and Condenser - takes the waste of the Space Marine and condenses it into Essence. Times are tough in the 41st Millenium, resources are only plentiful when plundered from Xeno planets but due to the massive stretch of the Galactic Imperium it can only afford to expand to new worlds when one already in its grasp has been destroyed. As such recycling methods have been implemented in almost all of the Galactic Imperium’s aspects and the Space Marines were not spared from this.

These components covering both the private in the front and the anus in the back collects all waist. Thanks to the advances of the Institute, even waste can be recycled and transformed into essence, though not very much. It actually can take months before an Essence Collector has to be emptied and the Waist Collector and Condenser must be cleaned. The main take away is that a Space Marine can go on fighting or traveling for months without ever having to worry about needing a restroom break.

3b) The Essence Collector - a small device on top of the Waist Collector and Condenser contains three vials that will be filled with the essence created by the Waist Collector and Condenser. As stated before typically takes months for them to be filled but once they are they are normally emptied and collected by Priests maintaining their DNA factory. This is done to ensure the supply of DNA that is used to create New Space Marines, as well as Space Marine organs, limbs, and even entire bodies for injured Space Marines never runs out. It's actually thanks to this particular essence that the DNA within the factories can be purified for the past eight Millennium and for the next one hundred. 

4) Hip Pocket Dimension Guards - Like the rest of the Power Armor is strong though it’s main purpose is to store items in a pocket dimension that are only activated when the plates on the Hip Guards open. Once opened two separate Pocket Dimensions are available to each Space Marine for them to place all of their weapons. Created and maintained by the Church of Novila these Pocket Dimensions can hold any weapon or essential item for the Space Marines though they can never put anything larger than a spear or rifle and nothing living like a human or Xeno prisoner. Even meat chunks or cut off limbs will instead be vaporized if placed inside, it does make the Pocket Dimensions a surprisingly good surprise trap. A Space Marine could simply open it up and force an enemy's head inside, quickly vaporizing their face.

5) Rocket Shoes - The most essential item in regard to the movement of a Space Marine, allows them to jump higher, run faster, and even fly in the air for a short period of time. Naturally Space Marines who have wings or Unique Traits that allow them to fly do not use these shoes very often but that does not deny how useful they are.

Without the Rocket Shoes the mobility of a Space Marine would be severely limited and their speed decreased. This is not to say that Space Marines would be useless without them, but not as many Imperial Worlds would be alive today if the Space Marines were robbed of these shoes. Both contain enough “Sacred Oil” to power themselves nonstop for at least a full year. However, if a Space Marine ever needs more power the Bio Suit can drain and convert the Essence within the Essence Collector to create more Sacred Oil.

[teardownit]

Sometimes, when making your own devices on microcontrollers, there is a need to display huge amounts of information on a display and to use a bigger screen for ease of perception. Unfortunately, there are no ready-made and budget-friendly solutions for this task on the market. LCD displays with the ability to connect to a microcontroller are usually tiny and pricy.

But at the same time, there is a wide selection of legacy LCD monitors with a VGA interface. Models with a diagonal of 15 to 19 inches can be purchased in perfect working condition for a very low price, or one can even get one for free. This especially applies to monitors with a 4:3 aspect ratio. In addition, such models are usually quite reliable.

Most older monitors only have a VGA connector for connecting to a computer. Sometimes there is an additional DVI port (on more expensive models). The HDMI connector is more common on modern devices.

Thus, with a probability close to 100%, we'll get just a VGA on an older monitor. In order to display an image on such a monitor, it is enough to work with only five signals: analog R (red), G (green), and B (blue), responsible for the brightness of each color component, as well as digital HS (horizontal sync) and VS (vertical sync), providing synchronization. Analogue signal levels should range from 0 to 0.7 V, where 0 V corresponds to no light at all and 0.7 V to maximum brightness. Digital signals HS and VS are short pulses with a TTL level of negative polarity. The timings of these signals can be found, for example, here: http://tinyvga.com/vga-timing/640x480@60Hz.

Typically, special controllers, or FPGAs, are used to generate video signals, and many FPGA development boards are already equipped with a VGA connector. However, FPGAs are often expensive and require many additional components. I was looking for a simpler and cheaper solution. As a result, the decision was made to use CPLD. CPLDs have fewer available logic gates (LEs) than FPGAs but are less expensive. For example, the MAX II Altera EPM240 development board is sold on Aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804686276488.html for only $8.12 (excluding shipping), and the kit even includes a programmer. The chips themselves can be purchased for $1.6–2.1 (for nice knockoffs).

Plain text mode was chosen for implementation because it is easier for a slow microcontroller but at the same time quite informative. Some graphics elements can be implemented using pseudo-graphics symbols, as was often done in the days of DOS. The introduction of a graphics mode would require transferring a large amount of data from the microcontroller and additional efforts to create it, which is not always possible, especially for weak cores.

CPLD has a built-in Flash ROM (User Flash Memory block, UFM), which can be used as a character ROM. However, its capacity is very limited—only 8 kbit, or 1 KB. This amount of storage is only sufficient for characters with a resolution of 5×7 pixels, and only if we discard non-displayable, insignificant, and visually identical characters from the ASCII table. In addition, the use of UFM will require the use of logic gates (LE), of which there are already a few. Despite the attractiveness of this option, I had to abandon it and use an external ROM chip, which can be salvaged from an old motherboard. Choosing a microchip with a supply voltage of 3.3 V will eliminate problems with matching voltage levels for the CPLD. The capacity of such ROMs is quite large: 2, 4, or 8 Mbit, or at least 256 to 1024 KB, which allows one to store a large number of different fonts with a decent resolution of 8x16 pixels.

To store the screen image, you will also need a RAM chip. Let's estimate the approximate size required for this. If we plan on using an 8×16 pixel font on a screen with a resolution of 640×480 pixels, we will end up with 80 characters per line and 30 lines on the screen. Thus, saving the screen image will require 80 × 30 = 2400 bytes. This number is somewhat inconvenient because it is just slightly larger than the nearest power of two, 2048. The memory use in this case is inefficient—only 58%, since the next power of two is 4096. By the way, this is exactly why text mode with 80×25 symbols became popular since there are 5 fewer lines on the screen. In this case, only 2000 bytes of memory are needed, which easily fits into 2 KB.

However, modern memory chips have significant storage sizes, and saving memory is not so critical nowadays. Moreover, one can deliberately choose to waste memory in order to simplify the decryption logic and save CPLD logic elements. Then you will need at least 4096 bytes (2^12, 12 address bits), which can be divided as follows: 5 address bits are allocated to the row address on the screen (30 of 32 will be used) and 7 bits to the column or position address characters in the string (80 out of 128 will be used).

4096 bytes are required only for storing ASCII symbols. The same amount of memory will be taken by the symbol attribute page. Attributes must include character color (3 bits), background color (3 bits), underline, and blinking. So, a memory of at least 8 KB is required.

Of the most affordable options, the best one is static RAM (used as cache memory), also salvaged from old devices or motherboards. It should be noted that this memory can only operate at 5 V. However. If it is a CMOS-type memory, it can take 3.3 V, but this will require timing correction.

So, we got the following diagram:.

The circuit includes only three microchips and a minimum number of external components. Using the aforementioned Altera EPM240 development board as a base, all you need are ROM chips, RAM chips, and a DSUB header with five resistors. Connecting signals to the CPLD is just an approximation, since almost all of its pins are equivalent (with the exception of Global CLK, one of which requires connecting a signal from a clock generator). When the chip is repeatedly reprogrammed for a new device, almost all of its signals can be reassigned. Currently, the device is assembled on a breadboard and can be left aside.

The device communicates with the microcontroller via a parallel 8-bit interface (in the diagram, signals with the HOST prefix), which is logically almost identical to the widely used display interface on the 1602 and similar controllers. The only difference is the addition of a BUSY signal directed from the device to the microcontroller. Its necessity is due to the fact that access to the RAM chip is provided only during the backward sweep period. The rest of the time, the chip is busy (pun intended) executing CPLD logic. The BUSY signal also acts like an interrupt request (IRQ) function. When it's changed, the controller can automatically start writing to the screen buffer.

Interface description:

DATA[7:0] – eight bits of data, unidirectional port, intended exclusively for writing to the device

CS – chip select; 0 for chip is selected, 1 for chip is not selected. On the positive edge of the CS signal, the data is latched for writing.

AD – address/data, during a write operation: 0 – data is being transferred; 1 – address is being transferred.

BUSY – device busy state; 0 – free; 1 – busy. If the device is busy, the write operation to RAM is ignored. Writing is only possible to the address register.

RESET – device reset. 0 – reset; 1 – work. A hard reset can be used to turn off the screen immediately. When this signal is activated, the image output to the monitor stops. Resetting does not affect the contents of the RAM chip.

Writing data from the microcontroller to RAM is possible only during the backward sweep of the frame scan, when the RAM chip is not occupied by the CPLD logic. This time interval is 1.440 milliseconds. Despite the significant duration of this interval, when using slow microcontrollers, there may not be enough time to completely rewrite the entire memory space. For example, an AVR microcontroller, when operating at a frequency of 11.0592 MHz, is capable of recording only three full-screen lines with all the attributes. If one does not update the attributes (as is usually the case in real-life applications, attributes are written once when the program starts), then six full rows can be written in this time. Perhaps optimizing the code and rewriting it in assembly language can significantly speed up the process of updating data. Otherwise, it may take from 5 cycles (if updating only the data) to 15 cycles (if updating the attributes) to completely rewrite the screen. At 60 fps, it will take 1/12 to 1/4 of a second. Those who have ever worked on IBM PC/XT or IBM PC/AT computers with processor clock speeds around 4 to 12 MHz may notice the experience of refreshing the screen to be familiar.

If you don’t want to wait for the next vertical pulse and want to record all the data at once, you can use the RESET signal. When activated, the internal logic of the CPLD stops and is disconnected from the RAM chip, allowing the microcontroller to directly access the memory. Registers for working with RAM are not affected by the reset signal.

In general, the write operations are as follows: you need to wait until the BUSY signal becomes zero, then put the desired data on the data bus, set the data type (address or data) AD, and set the CS signal first to 0, then to 1. When this signal changes from 0 to 1, the data is stored in memory. During a vertical pulse, the RAM chip is directly connected to the microcontroller's HOST signals, so maintaining the timings during writes becomes the responsibility of the microcontroller. However, since static RAM is a fairly fast device and typically has timings significantly smaller than the maximum speed of an average microcontroller driving its I/O lines, this task is not difficult.

The RAM chip D43256BGU-70LL is connected to the CPLD's output pins, with the lines having a 'RAM' prefix on the diagram. These signals include an 8-bit bidirectional data bus and a 13-bit address bus. Of the control signals, only the WE signal is used. Since there is only one chip on the RAM bus and both buses (address and data) are completely under its control, the OE and CS signals are not used, equal 0, and connected to GND.

The SST49LF002A ROM chip is connected similarly (signals with the 'ROM' prefix), except that the data bus in this case is unidirectional. The OE and WE signals of this IC are also not used and are directly connected to 0 (GND) and 1 (VCC), respectively.

Jumpers are connected to the available CPLD pins to select the current font. Since the ROM chip is large enough, it allows one to store several different fonts, including national alphabets, and switch to them by installing jumpers.

The DSUB VGA port is connected to the CPLD using only 5 resistors. Resistors in the HS and VS circuits are primarily for protection and can be ditched. Resistors in circuits R, G, and B are selected in such a way that, together with the input resistance of the monitor (75 Ohms), they form a voltage divider that reduces the voltage at the monitor input to 0.7 V.

The power leads are shunted with ceramic capacitors, and the clock signal with a frequency of 50 MHz from a crystal is supplied to the GCLK0 pin. These parts were on the breadboard originally.

A resistor, a capacitor, and a button are connected to the RESET signal, forming it. However, if the signal is generated by a microcontroller, these components are redundant.

After creating the main part of the CPLD operating logic, it became clear that the number of logic elements (LEs) used was slightly over half of the available ones. In this regard, the idea arose to complexify the logic and add more features. First of all, the number of colors can be increased to 16 by adding three additional CPLD pins and three resistors. This won't significantly complicate the scheme, but it will add eight more colors. In this case, the RAM page with attributes will have to be completely devoted to color, and another page with attributes will have to be added, increasing the RAM address bus by 1 bit. In the second page of attributes, you can implement font selection, underlining, character and background flickering, and so on.

The new scheme looks similar to the previous one.

As the number of colors increases, the question is: which palette to choose? With only 8 colors, there is no such question; all colors are different combinations of the three primary colors: red, green, and blue (2^3 = 8). When there are more colors, different options are possible. For example, the 16-color EGA palette: https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/EGA_Palette:

As can be seen from the presented palette, the 4th bit in the color number stands for brightness. However, the halves of the table are not evenly separated by brightness. The first half is set to 2/3 brightness (byte AAH = 170 = 2/3 × 256). In the second half, another 1/3 of brightness is added (byte 55H = 85 = 1/3 × 256), and the colors in this part are called "bright."

Interestingly, color No. 6 (yellow/brown) in this scheme deviates from the expected AAAA00 and is specifically set to AA5500. This was done to replace the unattractive, dirty yellow color with the more appealing brown. This is a known feature of EGA video cards and monitors. Some monitors took this into account, while others did not implement this feature in order to simplify the circuit. Some models added a BROWN ADJ knob so that the user could set the desired shade of that color. That is why the color in the table is indicated as yellow/brown.

Nonlinear separation by brightness level automatically leads to two shades of gray showing up: light gray and dark gray, which are widely used.

In the 16-color VGA palette: https://lospec.com/palette-list/microsoft-vga, the situation is slightly different: the colors are divided exactly in two halves by brightness (80H = 128 = 1/2 × 256):

There is also a noticeable outlier in this palette: light gray (С0С0С0), which should be black, duplicating an existing color. Additionally, this color swapped places with the dark gray color (808080). This was done intentionally to ensure compatibility between the VGA and EGA 16-color palettes, making them almost identical.

In our case, when the R, G, and B signals are generated in hardware using resistors, it is more convenient to use the EGA palette. So, it is necessary to make a software correction only for one color, No. 6. All other colors are generated automatically. Switching to the VGA palette would require not only a program change but also an additional group of resistors to be added to create the light gray color (C0C0C0). The resistors should be picked so that one group provides a brightness level of 1/3, the second is 2/3, and together they provide full brightness. By simple calculations using Ohm's law, we get the following values: 390 Ohms and 750 Ohms.

The signal generation logic for a static image like the one with test color bars is quite simple. However, if it is necessary to generate a dynamic image, the task becomes more complicated. It is necessary to organize a logical interface with RAM and ROM. At the same time, data exchange should occur not just quickly but lightning-fast! Let's first evaluate whether the selected chips can keep up with operating like this.

So, the resolution is 640x480. Pixel output frequency is 25 MHz (the standard specifies 25.175 MHz, but rounding to 25 MHz is acceptable since VGA, like many other analog standards, allows a significant spread of parameters). The frame refresh rate is 60 Hz (actually 59.5 Hz), and the line refresh rate is 31.46875 kHz (actually 31.25 kHz). Thus, the output time of one pixel is 40 ns, and the output time of an 8-bit character is 320 ns. During this time, the ASCII code of the character (one byte), the color code (one byte), and the attributes (one byte) should be read from RAM, and then, using the ASCII code as an address, we should read the bit mask of the character from ROM. Only then will the CPLD logic have all the necessary information to begin imaging.

According to the technical description (datasheet), for the selected D43256BGU-70LL chip, a full read cycle takes 70 ns. Considering the use of the chip at reduced voltage, the read cycle takes longer—let's say, 100 ns. Thus, in 320 ns, we will have enough time to read three bytes from RAM: ASCII code, color code, and character attributes. Great. The situation with ROM is more complicated: the address is written to it in two steps—in rows and columns—and, according to the manual, the read cycle takes 270 ns. Not the highest speed, but within the required 320 ns, even with time to spare.

The problem is that we can't start issuing the ROM address until we know at least the ASCII code, which takes 100 ns. This sums up to 370 ns. What saves us is the fact that each RAM or ROM read cycle individually fits within the allowed interval, and we can simply spend two additional cycles reading data. To add these two loops during data preparation, it is necessary to shift the character display area, creating an additional blanking area 2 characters wide at the beginning of the line and reducing the same area at the end of the line by 2 characters. This is quite simple to do: we simply shift the horizontal blanking pulse by 640 ns (accordingly, the horizontal sync pulse also shifts). From the monitor's point of view, there is no difference.

To better understand when and what to write and read, it is handy to create a timing diagram. At the beginning, all the timings were in my head, but creating a paper diagram and giving it another look allowed me to significantly optimize read cycles and even reduce the number of registers used.

The cycle begins by setting the RAM address of the ASCII character byte on the bus. After 80 ns, the requested byte appears on the RAM data bus, which is instantly used to generate the byte read address from the character generator ROM. At the 100 ns mark, we set the address of the symbol attributes byte to the RAM address bus. At 140 ns (60 ns after setting the address), we latch the first part of the ROM address. After another 60 ns, we set the second part of the address on the ROM address bus. At this point, there should be a byte of data on the RAM data bus with character attributes, where 5 bits correspond to the font and are included in the second part of the ROM address. The remaining 3 bits of data are stored in temporary register 2. After another 60 ns, we latch the second part of the ROM address. Data will appear on the ROM data bus 120 ns after this event, already during the second cycle. To prevent loop intersections, we write this data to temporary register 1 at 80 ns. And finally, at 300 ns, all the prepared data is written to the working registers. The character bitmask from temporary register 1 is copied into the rom_reg register, and the stored attribute bits are applied to the color byte that has been read at that time.

Thus, by the end of the second loop, all the data will be ready for outputting the symbol.

Writing data from the microcontroller to RAM is carried out as follows. We wait until the BUSY signal becomes zero, after which we set the starting addresses in the registers where data will be written. Typically, this is address 0, corresponding to the start of the data page, but a random address can also be chosen if only a few bytes need to be changed. Then we record the data. After each byte is written, the address is automatically incremented. When the edge of the screen is reached (the 80th character in a line), the address of the character position in the line is automatically reset to zero, and the line address is incremented by 1. After the entire page of data is written, the address is automatically adjusted to the attribute page entries and then the color page entries. After writing all three pages, the address is also automatically reset, and the process begins again with writing to the data page. Thus, the start address is set only once, and then only data is written. This saves a few microseconds on address setting and simplifies the code when all data can be transferred in one cycle.

Data format for writing data (AD=0):

The data page stores ASCII character codes.

The attributes page stores symbol attributes. The lower two bits are responsible for the hardware-driven blinking of a character or background, and the third bit is for the underline. The upper 5 bits select the font. Accordingly, you can display characters from different fonts mixed in any combination. 5 digits for selecting the font allow one to store 32 different fonts, which can include any symbols of national alphabets as well as tiles for displaying an image.

The color page contains the character color and the background color. Color can be anything from the 16-color palette.

There are three address registers. The choice of which particular one to write to is defined by the most significant bits of the data byte. If the most significant bit [7] is 0, then the position register in the row (column) is written. If it is 1, then the line number register (line) and RAM page number register (ASCII code, attributes, or color) are written. If the three most significant bits are equal to 1, then a special control register is written, bits [4] and [3] of which determine the position of the hardware-generated line when the underscore bit is turned on, and bits [2–0] are reserved for future settings.

Data format for writing address (AD = 1):

A register stores the position in a string.

The register stores the line number and page selection.

If you set an address outside the range of 0-79 for a column and 0-29 for a row, then data will begin to be written to the shadow memory area, which is not displayed on the screen. There is nothing wrong with this; after passing the address 127, the data will again be written to the visible area.

Internal CPLD registers (some):

The register contains the current horizontal scan position. It is clocked at a frequency of 50 MHz, which is two times the required 25 MHz, so the least significant bit (tact bit) is not used. Accordingly, bits 1 to 3 indicate the position within the character, and bits 4 to 10 indicate the position of the character in the string. When the value reaches 1600, the register is reset to zero, and the value in the vreg register is increased by 1.

The register contains the current vertical scan position. Clocked from the hreg register. Bits 0 to 3 indicate the line within the character, and bits 4 to 8 indicate the line on the screen. Bit 9 is not used. When the value reaches 525, the register is reset to zero.

The registers contain the current address value for accessing RAM (16 KB in total). The lower 7 bits are the character address in the line (column), then 5 bits are the line address, and 2 bits are the page address (ASCII code, attributes, or color). There are two of these registers: one for internal use by the CPLD logic, and the second is controlled externally by the microcontroller.

The ROM address register is written in two stages. It contains the character string address, the character's ASCII code, and the font address. These addresses are located in such a way that one can flash standard DOS *.fnt font files into the ROM without any additional processing, just one after another. You can combine several fonts into one file for firmware using any file editing program. Just make sure that the fonts have a resolution of 8x16.

Color output register. This register is connected directly to the CPLD pins, supplying the R, G, and B signals to the monitor. The lower 3 bits provide a signal with 2/3 of a brightness level (they must be connected to 390 Ohm resistors); the highest ones provide a signal with a brightness level of 1/3 (they must be connected to 750 Ohm resistors).

Photos to illustrate:

[naruto-scenarios-plus-akatsuki]

Considering I still have some minutes before is too late to send requests, I'll be taking advantage of them. Headcannons of Ino not being defined by her relationship with Sakura and Sasuke, nor even Shikamaru. I'm curious about the Ino that has amazing techniques, potential, determination, that loves her family and would die for her friends. What would had she become if it was her show? Thank you for all your hard work. You're awesome

This one was a long one. I’m not really a fan of Ino but after a little analysis, I think  I could understand her view point a little bit more. Thank you for the request and love. 

Headcannons of Ino’s show

If there was a show where Ino was the main character and story, we would see a different side to shinobi life and family. A show about Ino would center around girlhood and drama (no offense) as well as what it takes to be a female shinobi. Female shinobi have to learn to be a lot more cunning, agile, and crafty than their male counterparts. I’m not saying that they can’t have a powerful jutsu up their sleeve, but in respect to physiological differences between a man and a woman, men are typically stronger and faster. That being said, a woman in the Naruto realm, probably also has a smaller capacity of chakra storage. So, she could have a powerful jutsu but if not used right, she could wipe out her chakra reserves in one go.

Also, Ino is the heiress of a prominent clan. She has pressure from both her clan and outside observers to perform at her very best. She has a name to uphold as she represents in essence the best of the clan and what the Yamanaka are capable of. As a growing child, this pressure can be daunting and can feel slightly impossible to live up to. We would see self-doubt and frustration from Ino while she was practicing her clan’s jutsu. Her grades from the academy are reviewed heavily by her parents, along with the elders. She’s encouraged to perform to the best of her ability.

Sometimes all that pressure and stress can make a child get performance anxiety or give up to easily. Ino’s not a quitter, but I believe it was mentioned before, that Ino is essentially a jack of all trades because I believe she was afraid of failing one thing. That’s why she went to study healing jutsu when she didn’t want to try her family’s mind transmission jutsu. She has pristine chakra control like Sakura, and she has her clan’s mind transfer jutsu.

In a show about Ino, we would learn the technique and how much practice it takes to use the mind transfer jutsu. The first few attempts, Ino is able to leave her body, but is not able to sync with another body, so her experience would be floating in the void for a while. She’ll learn how draining and mentally exhausting the jutsu can be. When she succeeds, she’s so excited that she slipped into another person’s body, but soon felt undeniably uncomfortable. Her dad would have to help her to calm down enough to get her to release the jutsu so she could return to her own body. I believe Yamanaka’s practice on animals first before practicing on a humans when learning the mind transfer jutsu, because animals would have less mind/soul resistance than humans.

The side effects of learning the mind transfer jutsu was hard on Ino. After some attempts, she would pass out after returning to her body. Other times, she would throw up or had major headaches for the rest of the day. It’s not the easiest jutsu to learn. Also, after Ino slips into another person's body and can see her own limp body through their eyes, I feel like she would be super self-critical of herself, being like “is that how I really look to people?”

Another aspect on the mind transfer jutsu training, is that Ino probably had a family member (mostly likely her dad) slip into her body. This was probably done for demonstration as well as to help her build up mind barriers.

In the world of girlhood and growing up, we would see and experience Ino’s side of the story in regards to friendship. Ino is an only child but is super friendly and kind. She was popular and made friends easily. We would see her kindness in how she befriended Sakura and we would experience the heartbreak/betrayal of watching that friend turn their back on her for liking the same boy.

We would see how she had to grow a tough outer shell because she didn’t want to wear her emotions on her sleeve. Especially when she had a lot of eyes on her from her clan, her school popularity, her parents, and teachers. She couldn’t afford to be judged for having feelings and looking weak. So instead, she put on an act and made herself look confident. Although on the inside, she was always comparing her accomplishments to others.

Being assigned to Shikamaru and Choji on a team was not a surprised; even though, she hoped to be with Sasuke, her father told her about the Ino-Shika-Cho tradition. She had met Shikamaru and Choji often when they were kids and they had played together before on the playground. She was comfortable around them and saw them as her brothers. They could get on her nerves, but deep down she loved them like family.

Basically self-doubt, self-discovery, love, and friendship would be the main components of Ino’s show. She definitely had some ups and downs where she learned in the chunin exams she was not stronger than Sakura. She was rejected by Neji and Sasuke. She almost lost Choji and Shikamaru during the Sasuke retrieval mission. She learned how to perform healing jutsu and learned the mind transmission jutsu. She lost her dad in the 4th Great Ninja War. Went to save Sai and fell in love with him. Then she had kids.

[twilighthomunculusart]

Dracula vs The Grim Reaper

I got bored and wrote a smol fic centered around the idea that the GT-R Takeshi lost too was Rin’s and the edgy aftermath but I placed it in my Cyberpunk AU cause I can. I didn’t do any editing and this was just for fun so yee 1- “Ladies and Gentlemen tonight gonna be an absolutely stunning match. In the red corner we have a beautiful custom built junker coming all the way from floor 31. He’s a young rookie who’s climbed his way to the top with his mad fighting skills and won the hearts of many! Please welcome Takeshi Nakazato piloting Dracula.

”It didn’t take many words for the crowd to grab onto the announcer’s hype. They roared as two black mechs stood in their respective corners waiting silently for the fight to start. One of them was loosening up, feeling for its weight as it sized its opponent. The other, almost twice its size stood there, silently.

“And in the blue corner, is our very own reigning champ! The very brutal fighter who’s defended his spot for over 4 years by any means necessary. You all know him, Rin Hojo in his The Grim Reaper!!”

The go siren pierced resonated through the crowd’s chests. Dracula instantly ran towards the lumbering mech before it. It slammed against the metal of its opponent, reaching its arms as far around the bulk as it could trying to push the behemoth to the ground. When the smaller mech realized nothing was moving, Dracula shoved its mits towards the gaps between The Grim Reapers armor plates, trying to find the connective wiring that powered its limbs. It couldn’t grab anything, struggling to fit its hands through the gaps.

Finally The Grim Reaper began to move. Slowly it built its momentum and threw its arm underneath Dracula. When it made contact, the heavy swing threw Dracula across the ring. The smaller mech was quick enough to brace for impact and heavy enough to not topple over as it slid into the back wall. The lumbering mech took its first steps towards Dracula, preparing for another swing.  Dracula braced itself, digging its heels into the concrete below, and blocked the strike headed toward its face. The mech slid back an inch but Dracula’s armor stayed intact. The Grim Reaper pulled back its other arm to ready another hit. 

Realizing it was it's time to make an attack, Dracula pulled back for its own attack and slammed its fist onto the cracks of armor at The Grim Reaper’s knee joint, again looking to disable the mech from the inside. It didn’t have enough time to brace for impact of The Grim Reaper’s next hit as the fist slammed against the mech’s face. No obvious damage was done to the armor but the pilot inside was thrown towards the back wall of his cockpit, a cockpit designed so that the mech's moves would mimic the moves of the pilot. 

He quickly regained his balance and regained a hold of his controls. Instantly going for another hit. The Grim Reaper mirrored the move, both headed for a hit at the same time. However, their paths didn’t collide or cross. Instead as Dracula’s punch neared The Grim Reaper’s, The Grim Reaper opened its palm and caught the oncoming impact. Dracula struggled to get its arm out of the vice, pulling its other arm to assist. The Grim Reaper anticipated this struggle and caught the other arm. Slowly, The Grim Reaper pulled its arms away from each other and pushed Dracula towards the back wall. As it pulled, it twisted in a direction the mechs joints didn’t allow. The machinery underneath Dracula’s black armor popped and crunched, electricity arced and hydraulic fluid dripped onto the floor. 

Inside the cockpit echoed the screams of the pilot and the wails of multiple critical failure alarms as the pilot’s controls forced his arms to mirror the position of the mechs arms. His joints popped in the same way as his mech’s. The electricity in the arms of the suit that was meant to be the main component to syncing the pilots movements to the mechs, arced throughout the pilots body. He struggled through the pain to make a countermovement. He readjusted his footing and readied a kick, his arms still being forced into a position they shouldn’t be in. Then the emergency shut off kicked in and the mech collapsed to the floor. 

His feet disconnected from the leg controls below and his body collapsed. He stared at the glowing red emergency lights, recomposing himself, trying to calm down. The smell of burning skin danced on his tongue with every ragged breath. Through the powered down machinery and busted armor he could just barely hear his opponent leave him behind and the muffled voice of the announcer. “And that's why he’s called The Grim Reaper folks! What a beautifully gruesome battle! Give it up for our champion!”

[adamrevi3ws]

Jedi: Fallen Order

When I finished playing DOOM, I told myself that the next game I would play wouldn’t be one that pissed me off. Unfortunately, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order did not live up to those expectations.

While the source of my frustration with DOOM was mainly growing pains with its intense gameplay and action, Fallen Order mainly drew ire from me due to its unfinished and unpolished nature. Its publisher, EA, is in the same club as Ubisoft, Bethesda, and apparently now CD Projekt Red, often releasing games as broken glitchy messes when they first come out to meet quick deadlines. I’ve seen and heard how unplayable this game was at launch, and while it isn’t as bad as it was then, it still has enough subtle mistakes to ruin my gameplay experience. The main source of this and my frustration, in general, was the extremely finicky and unresponsive controls, particularly found in its two main selling points: platforming (and plot but I’ll talk about that later) directly lifted, if not plagiarized from the Uncharted games, and Dark Souls-esque combat gameplay. Nothing really lines up or “clicks” when it really needs to. Regarding the platforming, it feels like it takes a miracle to properly grab onto something and takes a thousand tries for a jump to work. When the double jump gets introduced, it really only works when the game, in its divine ignorance, feels the whim to let it work. A lot of reviewers complained about the difficult and unwieldy ice slide sequences in the game, and while I had my fair share of annoyance on a very specific ice slide, I think it’s just a symptom of a much larger problem. The combat shares this similar “the game only works when it wants to” problem. You don’t always dodge or block right when you want it to, but I think its biggest problem is healing. Instead of pressing a button and having part of your health restored, pressing said button instead “calls” your robot companion, which needs to do a special little animation and THEN you get healed, which takes a long 15 seconds. Not only does this waste a good amount of time in a game where time is absurdly precious in its hardcore combat, but every other time I tried calling the damn robot it straight up ignored me. I don’t know if this is a glitch, or it needs a cooldown period, or you can’t heal while being hit by an enemy, but it made the fights a lot more unnecessarily grating than they already are. Speaking of straight up screw you moments from the game, whenever I hit the “target” button in close combat with multiple enemies, it’d always target the farthest away enemy, for no reason. All of this is a shame because these main gameplay components are actually quite fun when they aren’t broken? A lot of the level design allows for really fast and exhilarating platforming that is absurdly fun when it syncs up, but that’s only, like half of the time. The combat can be enjoyable too, allowing for some great lightsaber duel boss fights, which can feel pretty cinematic when the combat actually works.

Outside of gameplay, the game’s unfinished nature shows itself a lot in its cutscenes. Its graphics just straight up dip and fail to fully render for 90% of these moments, often also feeling extremely choppy and cutting off a bit too soon. There was even one time an enemy was supposed to show up in a cutscene to initiate a boss fight but they just weren’t there and it was quite confusing because it felt like the main character was speaking to an empty wall. Around the middle of the game, both cutscenes and gameplay sequences would just freeze, and this is probably the first game I’ve played in a while to straight up crash on my PS4. If the developers took an extra, idk six months to actually fix this game a bit more I’d rate it a lot higher than I am now. I was actually warned about the game’s poor performance before playing, with a friend mentioning its horrible load times, but I didn’t know it’d be this bad. As my unopened copy of the infamous Cyberpunk 2077 waits on my mantlepiece for the developers to actually make it a playable game months after its release, I fear it may have the same fate as Fallen Order, still being quite a bit buggy and annoying over a year after its messy launch.

With its buggy and incohesive gameplay in mind, Jedi: Fallen Order’s strongest element is its plot. To my surprise, this is much less of a Star Wars game and more a game that just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. Taking place between episodes 3 and 4, I kind of expected it to be an epic quest detailing the rise of the rebel alliance, but instead, I got a more generic treasure hunt storyline heavily reminiscent of the Uncharted series. Although this sounds quite disappointing, the game’s plot still soars in its great character arcs and setpieces interspersed the vague framework of its less-than-original overall plot. Combine these great individual moments with an absolutely bombastic ending and it almost makes trudging through the glitchy gameplay worth it. This is elevated by some great voice acting performances, particularly from Cameron Monaghan, who gives a movie star performance to the main character, even in a lot of moments where he doesn’t have much to work with. The setting is also a high point. Disney’s milking of Star Wars has led to a variety of media set between episodes 3 and 4, this game feels particularly special because it is more focused on the aftermath of Episode 3 rather than the buildup to Episode 4, which I think the rest of the media in this era is focused on. It’s clear that there are so many parts of the game that the studio put a lot of love in, ranging from the plot, to the memorable soundtrack (Mongolian throat singing, anyone?), to even the hilarious enemy dialogue, I just wish they put this amount of effort to make the game fully playable.

The one elephant in the room regarding this game that I haven’t mentioned so far is the game’s worlds/levels themselves. They aren’t annoyingly unpolished like the gameplay but aren’t really a labor of love either. Instead what we get is an admittedly gorgeous maze of areas within a few planets, constantly getting more twisty and confusing as you go on. It may visually resemble an open world, but it is very much a series of paths that make you go “hmmmm, should I go back to that other branching path to see if there are any healing upgrades or character customization options I can collect?” There’s nothing wrong about this MetroidVania style format, but frankly it’s not my type. A lot of the areas look visually similar so it’s quite easy to get lost, and despite each planet’s map being absurdly big, there’s no way to actually fast travel between areas, just between planets. Finally, the incentive to go back and explore isn’t particularly convincing, where the healing upgrades are a bit too well concealed and the character customization options are like, absurdly mid. This is the one time I actually wished an EA game had its own in-game currency so I could buy something cooler than “the same damn poncho you’re wearing except a slightly less boring color combination.” Come on, man! The one good thing I’ll say about the overall game world is that the in-game map highlights which paths you haven’t explored yet, making it much easier to get on track. While the game’s maze-like level style isn’t necessarily my thing, I think if the developers tried to make it a bit more interesting a lot of people would get a kick out of it.

Jedi: Fallen Order is a game that finally made me understand my college professors that went a bit too hard on my grammar mistakes when grading papers. The central content and ideas this game presents have a lot of potential, but they’re heavily weighed down by an infinite number of fixable mistakes. I give this game a 6.7 out of 10 stars.

[yogaadvise]

Here`s What Happens To Your Brain When You Do Yoga

Have you ever questioned why precisely you really feel so excellent after doing yoga exercise? The impacts of yoga exercise on your mind are really pretty complex. There have been hundreds of research studies done revealing what takes place to your mind chemistry when you're under stress and anxiety as well as what takes place when you minimize that anxiety with yoga exercise. As a matter of fact, Yogis have actually been proclaiming these benefits for centuries, yet Western medication is now stepping up to the plate and providing real clinical proof to back up the claims.

And while everyone knows yoga is relaxing, the benefits really go means past stress alleviation - people that practice yoga are able to turn on various parts of their nerves, create different sorts of cells in their mind, and established off a chain reaction of chemicals that uplift your mood.

This Is Your Brain On Stress

The term 'stress' is used quite casually in modern-day society. No person blinks an eye if you talk regarding being stressed by your commute or the needs of work and also domesticity. The influence of anxiety on your body is a severe concern. Luckily, yoga exercise, breathwork, and reflection are scientifically proven to resolve chronic stress.

Believe it or not, the stress hormonal agent cortisol can really kill your mind cells! According to an article by Be Brain Fit, cortisol triggers an excess of the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate, which is an unattached oxygen particle, develops cost-free radicals which can punch holes in mind cells triggering them to pass away. Also, many individuals have heard that totally free radicals are what is accountable for causing as well as spreading out cancer cells in your body. Furthermore, when you're stressed out you damage the electric signals in your mind that assistance you process emotions and also bear in mind points (like where you parked and when that due date is!)

Practicing Yoga Exercise Reduces Cortisol

One enormous advantage to practicing yoga exercise is that it significantly lowers the hormonal agent cortisol in your mind. Cortisol just appears in the body when you're stressed out, and also it lights up the component of the brain called the amygdala. This is the part of your brain that controls are afraid. It additionally diminishes the pre-frontal cortex, which manages self-discipline as well as technique. When you're worried out, you're extra most likely to make bad decisions that are rooted in fear.

But, when you practice yoga, cortisol degrees promptly drop and your tension levels will certainly lower in turn. Stress and anxiety as well as mental disorder frequently work together, and in 2005 German researchers carried out a research where they found participants with diagnosed psychological illnesses 'really felt much less stress and less exhaustion after three months of routine yoga classes.' Don't believe you have to commit to doing a complete three months prior to you see any distinctions. In that very same research study, the scientists tested the individuals saliva after simply one yoga course as well as found they already had decreased degrees of the anxiety hormonal agent in their system.

Feel-Good Chemicals Increase

The excellent information is that in enhancement to decreasing cortisol, yoga exercise additionally offers every one of those tasty feel-good chemicals in your brain a substantial boost. Yoga exercise is actually considered an efficient all-natural treatment for anxiety due to the fact that of just how much it increases your brain's GABA levels. GABA is brief for a natural chemical called gamma-aminobutryic acid, or else referred to as you're mind's preferred means of activating relaxation. Anxiousness transpires when the neurons in your mind are swiftly firing yet GABA can aid you calm down naturally.

And while it's real that any type of kind of exercise can aid you de-stress and launch anxiety, a 2010 research by the Journal of Option and Complementary Medication found that doing yoga in fact launches even more GABA than strolling. In the same research study, they additionally located that yoga is medically extra calming than reading or other settings of relaxation. The secret might be the different components that are typically incorporated into a yoga exercise session - consisting of breathwork, reflection, and also mindful movement.

Doing Yoga Exercise Makes Your Mind Grow

One of one of the most interesting research studies that's been done on a yogi's brain was conducted by the National Facility for Corresponding and also Natural medicine by scientists Chantal Villemure and also Catherine Bushnell. The scientists utilized MRI scans to map individual's brains before and after they did yoga. The regular done by the individuals was what's common in a Western yoga class. They did 70% of the class focused on physical asana, 20% in meditation, and also 10% in breathwork.

They uncovered that the individuals' brains really grew in dimension with more hrs of method weekly. The development happened in areas like the hippocampus as well as somatosensory cortex. The hippocampus is the component of your mind in charge of regulating tension and anxiousness and also the somatosensory cortex is accountable for a mental map of your body.

Other components of your brain that develop more from practicing yoga are the superior parietal cortex, aesthetic cortex, precuneus cortex, as well as posterior cingulate cortex. These parts of the brain manage your focus, emphasis, and sense of self. That indicates it's a terrific task to do if you're uneasy regarding your body or have a whole lot of brain fog. As well as it may be a good reality to bring up if you're trying to convince your manager to fund your yoga classes!

Gray Matter Density Changes

Most individuals go their whole lives without thinking of the different components of their mind's makeup. Recent researches regarding the impacts of yoga on your mind have actually shed a load of light on means you can improve your brain feature. One really fascinating truth was brought up at Massachusetts General Hospital when Harvard scientists observed the effects of conscious meditation.

If you have actually ever before practiced mindful meditation, you're most likely not stunned that the method in fact altered the density of participants minds. The cells development was concentrated in a component of the central anxious system referred to as grey matter. This component of the brain controls every one of your understandings, such as sight, hearing, as well as memory. The research study carried out verified that you can really feel the effects of those modifications within eight weeks of conscious reflection method. Extremely, lots of conscious reflection programs can be discovered online for free! It's believed that those that participate in the reflection practice are measurable much more self-aware and also compassionate.

More Cortical Foldable In Your Brain

In this post for Bustle, author Gina M. Florio describes cortisol folding as a phenomenon that takes place in the analytical cortex area of your mind when you do yoga. The process, otherwise called gyrification, raises your capacity to process info. Simply put, cortical folding helps you remain alert and make much better decisions. It may also balance out age-related thinning of your brain cells, as well as help you create your desires into substantial mental revelations.

You Obtain Smarter As Memory Improves

It might sounds a little rude, but individuals that do yoga exercise are in fact smarter! Doing yoga is proven to increase your brain feature - according to this short article by Actual Simple, 'a brief, 20-minute Hatha yoga exercise session might boost focus and information retention.' Researchers at the College of Illinois showed this after comparing 2 emphasis teams - one that did yoga exercise and another that did aerobic workout. Those that did yoga had the ability to focus their mental sources much better as well as refine the information they were finding out at a faster price. Yet once more, it's presumed that this results from the activity of syncing your body's breath and also movement and also following the workout with a bout of meditation.

Your Parasympathetic Nerve System Is Activated

If all of this study isn't outstanding enough, consider the relatively fundamental fact that doing yoga exercise really changes your brain from being in fight-or-flight mode to a genuine loosened up state. This counter state is often described as the 'rest-and-digest' mode. Anxiety, injury, panic, anxiety, stress and anxiety, as well as any other sensation that makes you feel like you remain in threat turn on the fight-or-flight state (or else understood as the considerate worried system). When you exercise yoga, the body launches it's hold on that way of being as well as switches right into an extra kicked back state (the parasympathetic nerve system). When you remain in the rest-and-digest state, your brain is the initial component of your body to relax.

Then, a whole chain of events removes in your body. According to this write-up, yoga exercise flushes blood to your endocrine glands, digestion system, lymphatic system, and on top of all that your heart rate reduces and also your high blood pressure decreases. Furthermore, those that practice yoga exercise consistently have the ability to manage this procedure on as well as off the mat with more simplicity. According to this research stated by NBC Information and also Elite Daily, the results of practicing yoga add to a feeling of being tranquil yet sharp, which means your everyday technique can aid you unwind yet remain awake! So whether you're dealing with a genuine mental disorder that influences the chemical structure of your brain, or wish to launch from the anxieties of daily life, yoga exercise has been scientifically shown to help change your brain.

[justphilia]

There’s a definite chance I might not be writing this BUT

I had a detroit become human idea for a Mob Psycho fic, it’s pretty loose considering I had the idea while sitting in the back of a car and standing under the shower head.

There’s probably a chance I would be writing it but it’s kinda leaning to a “Nah, probably not”.

With that being said, I kinda don’t want to trash the idea as a whole without it meeting the light of day, so I’m gonna spill my ideas here so I can look back and think; “Wow. That’s shit.”

To add, this whole thing will sound more like babbling than an actual summary, so excuse me lmao.

Tsubomi doesn’t have any friends. But coming from a wealthy family, her parents decides to buy her a friend. Cue Shigeo/Mob. 

I had a funny model name for all the child androids ‘ESP(insert number, for Shigeo it’s 100)’ despite this being a no powers AU. Then I realized it probably wouldn’t fit because I am low key planning for all the espers to be androids and realized ‘Wow, ha ha, that’s a lot of androids’ so now SOME of the espers are androids.

Okay so fast forward and Tsubomi’s parents are thinking, “We should replace Shigeo, he’s kinda old fashioned now.”

“Mom we only had him for 4 years.”

“Exactly.”

But Tsubomi’s really attached to Mob because he’s her best friend, and doesn’t tell him he might be replaced until he finds out himself. He goes bat shit crazy and tries to kill himself and Tsubomi. Cue Serizawa, a cop android.

Serizawa calms my boy down and Shigeo’s like, “You’re right, I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m so--” bang. Tsubomi low key gets traumatized, Shigeo is bleeding blue on the floor.

We shift to the next scene where Shigeo wakes up on like a bed except it’s actually a table. Cue Reigen, he works at Cyberlife as a child therapist/repair worker. Actually, my man was suppose to be just a repair worker but he got promoted to child therapist for calming down a raging Teru.

“Kid, you remember anything?”

“I- Sorta? Where am I, am I gonna be killed?”

Reigen’s like sweating because he isn’t sure himself, Shigeo’s the first kid who tried to commit murder. But as they talked, Reigen’s kinda surprised to realize that Shigeo’s actually a really really sweet kid.

Shigeo asks how Tsubomi is doing and if she hates him. Reigen tells him she’s fine and she misses him. Which is the truth, but he doesn’t mention that Tsubomi did end up getting a replacement in fear of ticking Shigeo off. Cue Ritsu, the replacement android best friend.

There’s a sort of cell holding all the ‘defect’ child androids, like a little playroom but also an actual cell, and inside there’s: Gou, Rei, Takeshi, Daichi, Kaito and Teru.

Cue Teru, who is the only one who has a similar case to Shigeo; he punched a kid in the nose and sent him to the hospital, which made his mom very very pissed and sent him for repairs. Because of this, he’s enraged further and the staff can’t send him back unless his attitude changes to the “ideal son”.

Teru thinks being an android is a gift, he can’t die and he’s pretty much flawlessly shaped. When he meets Shigeo, he asks why he looks so plain, and it’s revealed it’s because Tsubomi didn’t want anything flashy.

And mostly because Shigeo’s an older model.

Each kid (except for Teru) had an actual defect to their system. Gou has somehow obtained a built in lighter function, which isn’t suppose to be there. Rei has the reconstruct and construct feature for unknown reasons. Takeshi is basically a walking magnet, except he doesn’t really know when it’s turned on or off (when it’s turned on, it’s strong enough to accidentally pull all the others towards him and it gets pretty annoying). Daichi and Kaito’s memory cloud keeps syncing with one another, which disrupts them from being able to remember the right things correctly (i.e Daichi gets Kaito’s memories and believes they are his own and vice versa).

The only reason they’re still stuck here is because they come from middle class families (except for Teru), so they’re way behind on the waiting list to get repaired.

Shigeo, on the other hand, came from a rich family, so he’d be out in no time. This makes Teru very mad, he states it isn’t fair that Shigeo gets to be let out sooner than them even though he just got here.

He tries to attack, but unfortunately for him, they’ve installed a software that prevents Teru from being able to kick and punch. Like a parental lock sorta? The same has been done to Shigeo.

Shigeo only makes Teru even more mad when he says he wishes he was human. If he wasn’t human, none of this would’ve happened, “Teru, if you were human, you wouldn’t be right here y’know? Your mom wouldn’t need to send a real human boy for repairs.”

And Teru is pissed because he knows Shigeo’s right. 

But being the cunning bitch he is, he smiles and pretends to accept Shigeo’s opinion, and he asks for a hug. Shigeo happily agrees and let’s Teru wrap an arm around him.

Then Teru squeezes.

“Teru, I can’t, you’re crushing- I can’t--”

“Oh, I know. If I break you enough, you’ll have to stay here with us even longer.”

Shigeo tries to retaliate, but due to the software, he’s unable to kick himself free. The rest tries to intervene, but Teru threatens them to stay back or he’ll squeeze harder.

“Can a human do this? Shigeo? Can they?”

Shigeo manages to break through the system and finally breaks free, he’s back in his aggressive mode and actually starts attacking.

He takes it too far when he rips Teru heart out.

Everyone is screaming at this point and Reigen’s rushing towards the cell like mad. Serizawa is there too, because he wanted to visit Shigeo to see how he’s doing.

“Why are you running?”

“Something bad is happening, I need to be there- Woah there buddy!” Serizawa picks Reigen up and surprises him. Then the android fucking bolts.

When Reigen finally reaches the cell and enters, he finds Shigeo on the ground, bleeding out once again, and Teru staring motionlessly at Shigeo.

“He...gave me his heart.”

Shigeo is sent to be repaired again and this time, he’s kept in a separate cell, because no one knows how he managed to break through their system. It’s almost impossible for a child -and not to mention an OLD- model to be able to do that.

While Reigen’s thinking in his office, cue Mitsuura, who says it’d be a shame for all those child models to lose their cool abilities. He jokes about just creating a child model meant to possess those abilities, like a tiny cop or something.

Cue Suzuki, no no, the other Suzuki. Mommy Suzuki. Except she’s a single lady who surrounds herself with Touichirou, the first ever android model made. That’s right, she’s head of Cyberlife.

She comes in, because she can’t sit still, and says, “Not a bad idea, man.”

Mitsuura has a fit and thanks the woman.

“So, about that old model that broke my parental control lock?” She turns to Reigen and he huffs, shrugging.

“I really don’t know, ma’am.”

She hums, definitely interested. Unlike the OG DBH, in this AU, they’re more lenient in the deviancy of androids because Suzuki believes they can have rights too. Except they don’t need to get paid, unless they want to? Honestly my idea for that aspect is low key fuzzy.

So anyways, Suzuki remembers Mitsuura’s idea and basically starts sketching out the draft. Cue Shou, who doesn’t exist yet but he’s in the making.

“Can you take the extra components of those child androids and keep them somewhere for later use? I’ll be needing them.”

“Ma’am, those androids are at the back of the waiting list, we can’t just--”

“Just do it.”

Cue Roshuuto, who seriously believes they should just kill Shigeo. “He’s too dangerous” blah blah blah SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Anyways, Reigen doesn’t want to do that because a) android or not, that’s a kid and b) You can’t make that decision and neither can I. Only Suzuki can.

Roshuuto sorta frowns, because everyone knows Suzuki plays favorites; and that favorite is Reigen. He’s the reason why Touichi now has a bit of sentience, before that android was pretty ruthless.

So if Reigen personally doesn’t want to get rid of Shigeo, then Suzuki would say the same too.

Meanwhile, Teru has been showing signs of positive improvement in attitude, there’s a speculation it might’ve been because Teru now has Shigeo’s heart, but that’s just dumb. That kid believes he just killed another android and he’s not sure how he feels about it, so he decides the least thing he could do was to be a better android.

Since Shigeo doesn’t share the same cell as them and nobody told them Shigeo survived, everyone in the playroom thinks Shigeo is dead.

Teru gets sent back after that, and the rest of the kids got their needed repairs.

Meanwhile, Shigeo and Reigen has daily consultation sessions, where they try to find the source of Shigeo’s issues. It takes about a month and Reigen hands Shigeo his cellphone number, saying if Shigeo ever needed him, Reigen would be there.

Shigeo gets sent back to the Takane’s family, because if he doesn’t, Tsubomi will throw a fit. She doesn’t do it often, but when she does, it’s ugly. It’s not like she’s spoiled, but when she strongly and firmly wants something, she’s determined enough to get it.

Originally, Ritsu was meant to be a direct replacement of Shigeo. He even had the bowl cut and everything, but Tsubomi’s intelligent and manages to figure out Ritsu’s a fake. She doesn’t get mad at him though, he doesn’t deserve it, instead she just befriends him too. Ritsu becomes a whole new person he wants to be, even mussed up his hair to look different.

So Shigeo meets Ritsu for the first time, and he’s sorta confused and upset, but Tsubomi got attached to Ritsu as well and refuses to leave him. Ritsu says he’s glad to finally meet Shigeo, because he has heard so much about him, and Shigeo decides he could like Ritsu.

I kinda stop making ideas from here, but I had a rough idea what happens next. Teru and Shigeo do meet again at some point, and Ritsu does meet Shou at some point too.

There will be background Serirei, and Shigeo does eventually grow a crush on Tsubomi and confession and oh no it went wrong. I think that’s when Shou makes his first appearance?

Because they think a child can calm another child down. It doesn’t work.

Nobody realizes Reigen’s probably the only thing that can help until the very very last minute.

So anyways, that’s the end of it. I don’t know what to do with this idea because now that I’ve spilled them all on the table, I kinda feel like writing it now. Though I already have two other projects planned, one being Nap’s birthday gift fic and another being a secret project that features Ritshou and amnesia, so it might be delayed to maybe June :(

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Family Fights - Chapter Seventeen

Summary:  Even the strongest bond, the most loving family, can be broken by nightmares, and the librarian is soon to learn this. As she learns sinister things about a person who she had thought was lost forever, she realizes she will need the help of another witch to get her family back.

Notes: Here, have the next-to-last chapter as a Hilda anniversary present

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Time seemed to flow very differently when you found yourself attuned to the world around you. Ever since they woke up, Maven tried to make it so they remained in a meditative state even while they went about with preparations, and Hilda was quite sure it had worked. Her heightened senses and concentration remained with her even after they finished their first grounding, right after they got up, and remained with her for surprisingly long.

After they ate their breakfast, they began working on the spell components. A ridiculous amount of crystals would be used, and they had to cleanse and charge every single one to make sure there was no chaotic or malicious energy in them. Hilda was responsible for doing so by giving them some time in a jar with salt water, but there were a couple of them that, due to their physical composition, could not come in contact with water or salt. Likewise, there were some gems that couldn’t be left in the sun to charge with its energy, and in both situations Maven used her own energy to cleanse and charge the gems.

Whether it was usual for witches to just have them lying about in their homes, Hilda didn’t know, but the fact was that Maven had four tall, thick white candles that they would also need for the ritual. They didn’t need to be cleansed, because energy didn’t stick to most objects like it did to crystals, but they anointed them with an oil that Hilda concocted while her teacher had been tending to the crystals. It had a base of sesame oil, with shredded ginger, ground cinnamon and ghost pepper in it, and had a strong, fiery scent to it. After carving the necessary sigils onto the candles, they used their hands to rub the oil on them, from the top to the middle and then from the bottom to the middle, as was effective to be done when a witch was trying to manifest something.

By the time this was done, Hilda was surprised to notice that the morning was already over. It had gone by in the blink of an eye to her. But the work was not yet done. After another half an hour meditating when they were done eating, Maven set out to explaining her all the details and nuances of the Soul Spell. It was easily one of the most complex rituals she’d ever come across, the librarian explained, and definitely the most convoluted she’d ever cast. Energy work played an important role in it, but the girl was surprised when she was told that spirit work did too. She’d been worried about that, for a moment. Her knowledge of spirit work was scarce at best and she had even less experience than she did information, but Maven assured her that she’d handle the most of it. Both of them memorized all the steps and chantings, and considered all the things that could go wrong and how to solve them if those problems arose. The tasks were delegated between the two of them and soon Hilda was feeling less clueless about what would be happening. They were preparing themselves the best they could, and that was already something.

Assembling their components in the place the ritual would be performed was next. Though they would have more privacy in the forests outside Trolberg, Maven pointed out that the chances of unfamiliar spirits interrupting them would be greater, so it was decided that they would simply cast it on her backyard. In order to build a ward around their casting circle, they surrounded the space by a mixture of eggshell powder and juniper leaves, and worked together to bring up the shield, building it from the ground up.

Hilda helped Maven use a compass to place each of the four candles in a cardinal direction, and they carefully arranged the crystals according to the picture in the spellbook. It was annoyingly intricate, and Hilda took longer than she would have liked to manage to interpret it, even with the librarian’s help.

“These look mathematical, almost.” She said, frowning at the wrinkled pages.

“That’s because they are.” Maven answered. “There are mathematical patterns to everything in the universe, including magic. But recognizing and interpreting them is very advanced stuff, you don’t have to worry about it yet.”

Connecting the candles and forming a circle just slightly less wide than that made by the powder were a couple of desert roses, which Maven had been gathering since she began training Hilda for this occasion. Amethysts, selenites and labradorites, along with other pieces of gemstones so small that the girl couldn’t even recognize, went inside the circle to make the geometrical patterns that she had trouble to even understand. They finished off by placing a small glass jar in the very centre of it all.

Hilda took a deep breath, looking at all they’d done. But the sun was not going to set yet, so she turned to Maven, who seemed to be evaluating their work as well.

“What now?”

“Are you warm?” She asked, and Hilda nodded. She’d stitched a warmth sigil to her jacket at the beginning of winter, and had also remembered to put pieces of paper with the same sigil inside each of her boots. “In that case, we should stay here. Connect well enough to our set up that we’ll be able to control the spell and sense what is happening during the ritual.”

Sitting down cross legged with their backs to one another, they focused on their surroundings. During her training Hilda had learned to attune herself to the world around her better, and even though she was still not as good at this as her mentor, she found herself having ease to do so at that moment. It could be because they’d worked to be in that state since the second they woke up, or due to the magic in the carefully constructed area they’d just set up, or a result of both, but she felt like she could tell every little thing that was happening inside the circle.

It was only when Maven gently touched her arm, some time later, that she opened her eyes again. Were it not for noticing the sunlight getting dimmer, Hilda would not have been able to tell how much time had gone by.

“It’s time.” Maven whispered, in such a low voice that the girl felt like it had been spoken inside her mind. Wordlessly, they got to their feet and took a deep breath. In perfect sync, they lit up flames on top of their fingertips and used them to light up the candles, making the situation feel even more real, their warmth replacing that of the sun as it began to set.

They then stood side by side in the middle of their circle, holding hands to connect their energy. With her free hand, Maven picked up her wand and pointed it to the sky, concentrating harder than she ever had on her life.

“Mine forfedre, kom frem, jeg ber deg! Blodet ditt trenger din hjelp i denne verden!”

She felt the earth humming beneath her feet, the wind rushing around her, the veil of this world stretching under her command. And then, she felt them coming. She pressed Hilda’s hand harder for a moment to signal her, but she had felt them coming too and had already begun working on her task. As soon as they were close enough, the girl opened a rift in their ward, just big enough for them to come through, keeping her focus on allowing in the spirits that wished them well and halting any malicious energy that seeked to take advantage of Maven’s calling.

When Maven lowered her wand, the last of them inside, Hilda mended the ward and opened her eyes again, even though she couldn’t remember ever closing them. They were all with them. Maven’s ancestors.

She had explained to her that the spirits of your ancestors weren’t quite like the ghosts that could be brought back in a cemetery. Spirits had been dead for much longer, so long that no one and nothing that they had loved existed anymore. They had no leftover ties to this world, and didn’t have the power to haunt anymore, only being able to come back when they were called forth by a witch.Though she knew this, she was still surprised when she could not see them. Feeling their energy was easy, and she could tell that each one of them was floating above one desert rose, but they had no noticeable corporeal form whatsoever. The best she could see when she focused were flashes of aura looking clouds.

The witches moved, this time standing in front of each other with enough space between them for the jar that was on the ground. That was it, the most crucial moment of the ritual. Hilda extended her arms, palms facing up, while Maven held out her hands in front of herself as if she was about to receive something.

As she took a deep breath, Hilda visualized all the energy around her, from the crystals, the spirits, herself and even Maven’s, swirling and gathering, being pulled towards her. It would be impossible, and not at all her goal, to use up the energy of all of them. That would completely destroy the spirits and she couldn’t even imagine what would happen to herself and her mentor in that scenario. But she did manage to gather a great deal of it, enough for it to be visible as streams of silver light, feeling it assemble on her hands and run up and down her skin like electricity. As she did so, a part of her concentration went to channeling this energy to Maven’s hands.

For her part, Maven frowned as she took to the intrinsicate work of setting intention to this energy, imbuing it with her will so it knew what it was meant to become. Then, she manipulated it so it would fall into the geometrical patterns formed by the gemstones, the crystals guiding the energy to its purpose both because of their own properties and because of the time the two witches had spent with them, so they too had the magic to aid the ritual. It was a painstaking task, and she felt her heart beat faster with the effort of guiding the magic through such a meticulous path.

She didn’t dare open her eyes, but she could tell it was working, and it kept her going. She felt the energy, twisted and unrecognizable from its original state pooling on the jar at her feet as it finished the track. It was a continuous flow at that point, she’d receive the raw energy from Hilda and refine it into their end goal. In a few minutes, they were both panting from the strain of keeping the ritual going. Eventually, Hilda broke the chain, ceasing her building up of energy. Maven had to keep going to distill the magic that had already entered the cycle.

“I’m sorry.” Hilda groaned, leaning forward with her hands now against her tights so she could catch her breath. “This was all I could take without hurting us.”

“Thank the spirits.” Maven murmured, grinding down her teeth. If performing the ritual was hard, doing so while speaking was even more. “You know what to do.”

Trusting Hilda to know how to let out her ancestors gracefully, she concentrated all of her strength in getting the refining done perfectly, even as her power weakened. A deep sigh left her lips when the last bit of it was done, and she couldn’t help but let herself fall to the ground in a squat. Hilda was quick to put a cork on the jar; Maven had made sure that the two of them would have one in their pockets, so whoever was less affected by the spell at the end of it could close the jar with haste.

When her head stopped spinning, the first thing Maven noticed was darkness. The sun was completely set now, and the candles had no fire. If everything had gone according to theory, they had been put out by the spirits when they left. Hilda had an amazed smile on her face, staring at the jar on her hands. There was a faded blue cloud in it.

It was done. They had created a new soul.

_#_#_#_

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Hilda asked one more time, handing Maven the glass of water she had asked for.

The librarian was still sitting on the ground, the same place she’d been after completing the ritual. She was cradling the jar in her hands, still stunned that it was real and that it truly had worked.

“I am.” She said. “You’ve already helped me more than I can thank you for, but this is something I need to face myself. Your mother is probably already waiting for you in the street. Go home, ground properly, and rest. I’ll try and come by your house to let you know how it went.”

Making her nearly drop the glass, Hilda kneeled down and leaned forward to hug her tight.

“Good luck, Mave. Take care.”

“Thank you, Hildie. I will.”

With one last look at her mentor, Hilda went back inside the house to get her bag and leave.

Maven put the jar on her lap and gulped down the water. She was exhausted, but she needed to keep going. The Soul Spell was not a very well known one, and understandably so since there weren’t many occasions in which one would need to craft a brand new soul, save for enchantments gone awfully wrong. Because of that, the amount of information she had about it was not large, and she was not sure how that trapped soul should be treated. She didn’t know how long it would last without a host, or where she should store it. It was simply safer to do it all that night. She had a feeling that this second part would be even more tiring than the ritual.

Luckily, earlier that day she’d had the mental clarity to leave everything she’d need for a simple summoning spell by the door. It was weird how long ago that felt. After a few more moments of just breathing and gathering her strength, she got up to go get them.

The same casting circle would be used for this spell. She didn’t really have the energy for dismantling this one and building it anew. Kneeling in front of the candle that faced south, she lit it up again and began chanting.

“Kom na, kom na, kom til meg…”

Putting the tip of her bundle of thyme to the flame to let it smoke, she waved it in the air in circles above her head.

“Ikke vaer sjenert, kom na, du vet at jeg ringer etter deg.”

The smoke rose up in a grey column. Slowly, she removed her fingers from the bundle, her magic making it float without her holding it. This was a spell she was quite familiar with, decidedly the most popular one when it came to summoning dark entities. She and her mother had become very acquainted with it during their time looking for ways to save Myra, before they even knew that she had joined the Marra. they had attempted many times to summon any of the nightmare spirits, hoping that they’d lead them to where Myra was being kept, but they did not have the most important component: a taglock.

Taglocks were generally used in curses or blessings. They directed the spell towards a certain person by using something that belonged to them. Knowing that it was her sister that she had to summon, though, Maven had had a number of possible taglocks to choose from, eventually picking an antique mother pearl comb that their father had given Myra when she was a child. She had loved it a lot and taken good care of it. It meant a lot to her, and so was the perfect taglock.

“Ikke late som om du ikke vet at jeg snakker med deg. Er dette ikke ditt, kom na til meg.” She completed the incantation. The candle’s flame rose up high and strong, and she brought the comb to it. The magical fire did nothing to the comb but complete the spell, and after a heartbeat, the thyme stopped burning even though she didn’t command it to and all three other candles lit up.

When she turned around to look at them, their fire was green.

[incorrectcatfacestudios]

MID Fusion headcanons 2

A part two to this post 

Noi & Pierce 

They would definitely become a superhero esque character 

Would have a highlighter yellow color to them

Would have a cockiness that neither Pierce nor Noi outwardly show. 

Definitely would have a cape of some kind, also would be able to fly. 

Very VERY caring, just...the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet 

Shows a lot of Noi’s love and compassion mixed with Pierce’s genuine understanding of people. ((Noi can be callous sometimes and while yes he is the friendliest daemos he isn’t exactly the most...umm, Caring? Its hard to explain. Pierce shows more genuine compassion where as Noi’s seems to come from a slightly different place despite him being the sweetheart he is. Noi’s more selfish? I suppose)) 

Very good at understanding others. 

This fusion would normally form not for combat but for helping people out with their problems. Their more of a therapy fusion, but when they do form for combat its usually in a superhero~esque form. 

 New powers would include flight, and the ability to make thunderstorms. Other than that just Noi & Pierce’s abilities

Would probably sea green horns and eyes, 

He’d just be the most slick and just happy dude ever. VERY fun to hang out with. he’s positive but down to earth? 

He’d wear a superhero outfit. other than that not much else

ADORES CHILDREN & ALL THINGS CUTE AND INNOCENT. 

Not THAATT good with kids but LOVES being around them. They can be a bad role model at times...well not bad but-NOT GOOD either? 

has moments of brain farts 

Similarly to the Avarce  

Noi & Rhys

Curiosity given form. 

WOULD DEFINITELY BE A GEEKY GAMER KID 

Tries to entertain others like an online personality 

Almost always studying everything 

HAS THE PUREST SMILE OUT OF ALL OF THEM. Like just he often engages in PURE WONDER 

Extremely childish but with a certain level of grace to him. He definitely has poise 

Talks....all the fucking time. LIKE A LOT 

Loves hearing the sound of his own voice and announcing things. 

GETS VERY EXCITED VERY EASILY! Tends to jitter with excitement when faced with a new thing. Can’t hold said excitement in 

Probably one of the most curious people you’ll ever meet. 

REALLY GOOD AT SINGING! and acting. 

Similarly to the Leif & Noi fusion a good smooth talker. BETTER even. 

BIG SWEET TOOTH this boy has no self restraint. Noi ate any that Rhys had left. 

Extremely prone to getting absorbed in the world around him. and has the attention span of an ant. 

Wears a backwards cap 

Main color is a green. 

almost always carrying a notepad. 

Ava & Rhys

HIGH AMOUNTS OF FEMININE ENERGY 

Always gets the most ANNOYINGLY smug look on their face when their right

Goes by They/Them, She/Her pronouns preferring nonbinary ones but not really upset by being referred to with feminine pronouns 

They are a NEUROTIC MESS, & constantly worrying about things

Looks like a typical anime witch she has a hat and everything. 

Indigo color scheme

intense growling. 

Fuses Rhys’s vest with Ava’s hoodie wearing the white shirt underneath. 

Gains Rhys’s trench coat and turns it more into witchy robes that they wear. They’d have little indigo or periwinkle crystals hanging from their hat. 

Their weapon instead of a wand is a magic broomstick that’s ALSO a wand. A wandbroom thingy. 

Using magic is a lot trickier with Rhys by her side this time. Ava has to be careful unlike the others he won’t easily forget what she does with him. 

They basically have Rhys’s abilities boosted. They aren’t that powerful so not much comes from Ava. Mostly due to the lack of Genuine love coming from Rhys, and the confusion from Ava’s side. 

Any power they do gain is from admiration and the more they focus on that the stronger they become. They can create powerful magic barriers, Levitate objects or people ((and control them in the air)), and due many of the things Rhys believes Ava to be able to do with ease. IF they both focus on how much they admire each other, If they don’t then- Not much will happen. ((They can also make brooms fly )) 

Stressed 24/7 

The “mom” of the group 

Drinks coffee like theirs no ones business 

LOVES THE HELL OUT OF ICE CREAM 

Will hurt people to gain ice cream 

Acts 10x wiser than they actually are. Tries to be an all knowing source of information 

IS a know it all, presents themselves as a knowledgeable sage, who is ENLIGHTENED,  

Can float if they take the meditating pose 

IF they really wanted to they could have Asch melting into puddy in their hands

Pierce & Leif

BY FAR one of the weakest of the fusions ((up their with Rhys and Leif))

ABSOLUTELY NOT IN SYNC AT ALL WHATSOEVER they don’t even know who they are ((same as the rhys and leif one. after a while they gain a grip on their personalities)

A dark turquoise color. going on for most of the design 

They’d have brown hair with a pure bleach white stripe in the front & a long spikey ponytail 

TEAL eyes 

When formed they usually make a dirty dishonest yet dopey looking fool..  Though they aren’t...either. 

when they do eventually mix together they have that more ,Cold hard angsty Killer vibe to them. Like a veteran mercenary. Your not sure if this guy is trustable or not. 

HELLA shady 

Looks dirty 

Is known to randomly sneak up behind people without realizing it. his steps are very quiet 

Has a gruff sounding cool dad/uncle voice. 

If he really tried he could probably feel the life of the world around him. 

Definitely gains some stubble 

Has a tendency to be extremely vauge, ambiguous or Trolly.

This is because Leif has this urge to be a dick. Most of it is just Leif trying to dick around and Pierce not really doing anything but his personality affecting Leif’s  

EXTREMELY streetsmart. Could probably help you get to the right places in a black market. 

Interestingly enough Flower petals blow through the wind as he passes by. Depending on his mood at the time. Sakura Blossoms when something new is starting for him, when he falls in love, or during a samurai style fight. Rose petals during dramatic scenes ((or romantic ones)), white Lilies when he greives, and most commonly Dead flower petals or dead leaves.  

Pierce & Asch 

Usually only communicates in grunts roars and other primordial noises

If they DO talk its always a large speech. 

These speeches can drag on and on.  

They don’t normally form for fun. Usually just for battle 

Their mostly fueled by mutual trust, not...exactly love though?

HAS LARGE AMOUNTS OF FAITH IN THEIR ABILITIES 

Has a lot of determination once they decide their going to do something THEY DO IT. No question, they are IMPOSSIBLE to reason with 

gains mostly physical strength. No special new abilities gained for this one. 

Their clothes are a bright white. Their horns as well (With a minty green tint). their eyes a dark cyan color. 

Okay they have a Firesword. but that’s about it. 

they have the design of a warrior. Much more so than Asch or Pierce’s designs. Their hair is just a long disheveled spiky mess  their shirt kinda vanishes. the only other color on them besides white is maybe gold I guess. 

If they did do any magic it would most likely just be a simple fire tornado. (A fire Whirl)  

Ava & Leif

They’d wear  black or dark maroon clothing. ((if not just a green and purple hippy shirt with flowers on it and a headband)) 

They’d have long spoiky hair, or fluffy spiky hair. 

They get bored easily and have a generally carefree attitude 

The most likely to get high. 

Goes by He/ Him 

far more daring than Ava and far more composed than Leif

They’d probably have a hippyish accent sometimes.  

“Duuuuuuddddeeee....I just saw the most WICKED-” They’d talk like that. 

They are very impulsive and have more energy than it seems

They would be Ava with even less impulse control. So they would be an absolute mess. And probably wouldn’t think before they say anything. Which would lead them into a lot of problems. 

Lowkey suicidal. Not because they hate themselves but because they want the thrill of killing one of their components. 

Would probably enjoy watching sports a lot. 

They’re A lot more forward than Ava when it comes to flirting. They do it on occasion but  they always end up stuttering when they do. 

[ticktickblog]

New School Year, New Chapter

Special Offers for Students and Educators

Gone through the “Sci-Fi movie” called 2020, life goes on and unfolds new challenges for us all, especially for those students and teachers who have just experienced not-so-efficient remote learning and for those who are new to the college this autumn. At this key stage, turning life into a new page and getting more focused on what’s happening next is obviously important. 

TickTick is here to help you gain more control back over the new challenges in the coming school year, with the special educational discount for all qualifying students and faculties!

There are up to three benefits that you can enjoy:

1. All enrolled students and educators are eligible for a 25% discount when upgrading to TickTick yearly premium. This is a long-lasting program. Learn how to apply. 

2. From today to 30th of September, everyone who successfully upgraded to premium through our special offer for education, can get 3 extra one-month TickTick premium gift codes! This is for you to share with any of your schoolmates, colleagues or friends, which means they can enjoy the one-month TickTick premium service totally for free! 

3. If any of your friends who used your codes continue their subscriptions for TickTick’s yearly plan, you’ll then get one more month automatically extended to your current premium status too!

Ready to kick off the new school year? Here’s a step-by-step guide for students. 

Be prepared for school with simple to-do lists

Before the school starts, preparing for the move from home to uni can be very daunting, particularly difficult if the uni is in another city or even country. To help yourself a little bit, writing everything down and getting reminded is what should come in the first place. 

For example, creating a packing list by using the “Packing Template” in TickTick and then divide the lists into multiple “Sections”: clothing, stationeries, electronic gadgets, and etc. A reading list regarding one of your newly chosen courses can also pre-equip you with a general idea and get you ready for shifting to the study mood. Meanwhile, a social list for the events you’d like to attend in the welcoming week, and societies you’d like to join will prepare you for a new start of uni life. A document list for enrolment, or a sightseeing list to explore the new city where you’re going to stay, are also essential for your quick settling.

Build a study-based workaround 

Step 1: Creating different Lists for different courses you’re enrolled in. 

Step 2: Creating different Tasks for components of the course within each list.

For example, in the list called Sociolinguistics, there could be three tasks: Task A: Lectures, Task B: Seminars, Task C: Workshops. Here, you can set the tasks as recurrent, for example, 10-12 am every Friday for Task A: Lectures.

Step 3: Adding Subtasks within the tasks. I suggest you create those subtasks according to the topic of each class. 

For example, under Task A: Lectures, there could be many subtasks: Lecture 1: code-switching, Lecture 2: translanguaging, Lecture 3… 

Subtasks can be further split if necessary. For example:  Lecture 1: code-switching can be divided into three new subtasks in the second level: Preview, In process, Revision. 

Step 4:  Defining the context of your tasks/subtasks with Tags. 

In the daily study life, it’s common to have different types of tasks, e.g. Reading, Discussing, Researching, or Writing. Therefore, you can actually add different tags to the tasks to make sure they are well sorted out, and then plan out accordingly based on their contexts.

Step 5: Prioritizing your tasks and identity what’s important.

I believe you may have heard about the Eisenhower Matrix before (sorting your tasks based on urgency and importance). Important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, not important and not urgent. Based on this, TickTick offers 4 choices of Priority: High, Medium, Low Priority and No Priority, to help you decide what needs to be done first.

Step 6: Taking notes and connecting everything related to the course.

When taping into a task/subtask, you’ll find a wide blank area for task description. You can write down/upload more details here regarding your tasks, whether it’s reading resources, professors’ contacts, random ideas, or lecture notes from the class. Markdown (a way to quickly add formatting like headers, bold, bullet points, and so on to plain text) is supported here in the task description section, in order to help you take notes easily and beautifully on your digital devices. 

Not a fan of digital writing? Not a problem. You can also add attachments in the description, to include any files you feel relevant to your tasks, like notes written on paper.

With these steps above, you’ll find all your course-related materials and tasks can be well organized and scheduled just in one place. 

* Would also like to plan out social and daily life? Then creating multiple Folders to collect lists is what you need to do. Move all lists for study in one folder, and get another for social life. Easy, right? Or simply subscribe to other calendars, and all the events from there could be synced into TickTick.

Beat procrastination with Time Blocking 

When the courses begin, the struggle comes in the form of knowing exactly what to do but just can’t find enough motivation to actually do it. With so many tasks at the same time, like readings and group assignments, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The 48-hour essay writing and one-night-oil exam reviewing are probably the most often heard stories in the uni. 

How to be a master of time management and stop being the last-minute person, is perhaps the most important skill we should all learn in uni life. One of the solutions for this could be practicing Time Blocking with TickTick’s built-in Calendar. 

Step 1: Customizing when week 1 starts at the Date & Time Settings in TickTick. 

The first week you set can be the first week when your courses begin, and the following weeks will be able to show in sequence in your TickTick calendar.

Step 2: Arranging tasks in the calendar. 

After going to the calendar, you’ll be able to see tasks you’ve created before, as long as they have a due date. For example, it will show the timetable of your classes, social events synced from your local calendar, or other tasks in daily life. 

If you’d like to add, move and arrange new tasks, simply use the feature “Arranging Tasks”, where all your tasks are  displayed by Priority, Tags and Lists. Via drag n’ drop, anything can be put into time blocks in the calendar. What’s already in there can also be moved. 

Learn more.

Be more focused with Pomodoro Technique

With so many distractions around us, it’s even harder to stay focused than we thought. One of the main features designed to help you keep focused in TickTick is actually called Focus. 

Within Focus, there's a Pomodoro Timer. Based on the Pomodoro Technique, it’s a pre-set timer normally combines a 25-minute work session with a 5-min break. This goes in cycles at least four times, and you’ll then get a longer beak (normally 15 minutes). You can always change the settings for these sessions. 

So, to get Pomo started, you may first have to choose a task you’d like to focus on, and then a white noise as the background sound. Start working till the Pomo timer ends, and you can’t back out of the app, otherwise you would lose this Pomo. But if you’re an Android user, there is actually an allowlist in which you can add other apps. You’re then able to use other apps with your pomo timer keeping running in TickTick. 

Find more about Focus.

Be active in group work with Kanban boards 

Group assignments take a big part in uni life. What may become the hindrances sometimes are the responsibility division within the group, disconnection with others’ progress, or inefficiency  in group communications. Kanban in TickTick offers a solution. 

First used by line-workers in Toyota’s factory, Kanban is a project management method to visualize your workflow. Group work can be displayed on different Kanban boards, so that you can clearly see what should be done by who, when it needs to be done and what’s the progress of others. Commenting on tasks on Kanban also makes it more efficient to communicate with other group members.

Go to TickTick and enter a list, you can then choose to switch it into the Kanban view. Here, you can place tasks onto different boards divided from person to person or phase to phase. Each task can be assigned to others, as long as you share the list with them. The progress of each member can also be easily marked to keep the whole team informed. Commenting on your own or others’ tasks also makes the communication in the group come in real time. Besides, not only available on desktop, Kanban also works on mobile. This literally turns the group work into something that can be done anytime and anywhere! 

Ready to kick off the new school year? Take this guide and the unique discounts we offer to wrap TickTick in your starter pack!

Apply now.

[asphaltvalhalla]

2019 Volvo XC60: Helicopter Parent

In a fit of stir craziness, I hopped in the jet and sped off to Earth for 10 days of hiding from the COVID in the forest (instead of a God-forsaken Martian hellscape). I paid for a rental Corolla. My dear friends at Avis said, “your 9-passenger Chevy van is ready for you!“

When the bus pulled up to the lot, the Avis app told me that my Grand Caravan, white, but with trendy black wheels, was in slot whatever, right by the dropoff.

“Better,” I thought, “but I would still prefer the Corolla I prepaid for.” Before getting all Ken on the manager about this unseemly “upgrade,“ I checked the app again. Minivan? Check. Chevy van? Still available! Volvo? Wait, what? Get this boy a chicken dinner!

I didn’t care that it was a grocery getter Volvo and not some $100K Polestar saloon. Like 90% of American SUV buyers, My only concern was that the “utility” part wasn’t wearing minivan sheet metal. I get enough Dad Bod/Mom jeans snark already.

Then I started driving it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a competent $50K Scottsdale trophy wife-worthy quasi-truck. The devil in the details is relentless.

So here’s what’s good:

Smooth leather seats.

2 pane panoramic moonroof with theatrical retracting sunshade.

7 or 8-speed transmission.

All Wheel Drive. Something of actual utility in Michigan

Adjustable driving modes.

Harman Kardon sound system.

Built-in GPS (that wasn’t deactivated by Avis to sell an addon)

SiriusXM - no subscription. About the regular radio - I couldn’t find the preset setting to delete all the hate talk and religious channels these rentals often have. On the plus side, instead of presets, the radio automatically put in all the stations whose signal was strong enough to register. While driving up the Michigan Coast Highway, there was an occasional bleed over between the local station and the Chicago station using the same frequency.

WiFi Hotspot. Sounds good in theory. The feature was buried in a menu I stumbled upon on my last day with the car. (Karen: How am I supposed to read the Facebook without wifi?)

Some of the safety stuff my Honda has - adaptive cruise, lane departure, driver alertness, traffic sign reading.

Configurable (sort of) gauges.

Parallel parking assist.

Invisible to cops

Approach/puddle lights are stellar

Then there’s the other stuff:

The engine light was on. Step one - check the gas cap. There isn’t one. OK. Step 2, check the oil. Good luck with that. There’s no dipstick, dipstick. Somewhere in the cascade of menus (once you figure out how to get there) is a screen that tells you the oil level. Avis thought it might be cheap (i.e., low octane) gas. The car demands premium. It’s a turbo, so that should be a given. A tank and a half later, that wasn’t it.

TFW you need to scrub off speed quickly and you slap the lever a few times and you’re still in 4th or 5th gear.

The half-hearted cleaning by the rental company highlighted the cheap brittle plastics on the center console. I noticed both, because I had to unstick the buttons. Cue the frat house flashback of incongruous, mysterious (and best left that way), sticky things.

I couldn’t really tell much of a difference between driving modes, except for “Off-Road.“ Basically, it uses low gear hold and engine braking and maybe regular braking to slow your descent. I kept in in sporty most of the time, for the sake of the S in SUV. Economy mode made the engine start/stop more aggressive, like when coasting.

The tech. A blessing and a curse.

Factory GPS loves the highways. It only wants to tell you the fastest way to your destination. She’d get so PO’ed when I detoured or stopped to look at a thing.

“ Harman Kardon” audio sounds promising. I remember that name as being on stereo components I could not afford. Do you want to explore the sound quality? Have your passenger scroll through 17 menus.

Basically, always have a passenger, even to change the temperature.

You’re so naggy, Karen. The lane departure is supersensitive. The traffic sign and lane departure don’t sync up for things like construction zones. Driver alertness is 3 strikes and you’re out. Karen wants you to pull over.

Karen is happy to tell you when you’re in a no-passing zone. She is blithely unconcerned when the pass restriction ends.

She is right on top of those speed limit signs. 1 mph over the posted limit and the dash starts flashing the speed limit sign at you. It’s been a couple of weeks, but I think she also lost her mind a little if the speedo read above 80.

Not that I know from experience. Must have read that in the owner’s manual.

Android Auto -Karen friggin’ hated it. The Google GPS window is tiny, compared to the built in version that can be almost full-screened. On Bluetooth, Karen is happy to read your messages. Just tell her what line number. *Looks at big screen* What do you mean, “select line number.“ 100 miles later - Oh, the OTHER screen. The one with the speedometer I’m supposed to be checking occasionally. Got it. Plug that phone in and Karen’s mood changes. At first, it’s OK. She’ll play the Habanera on Spotify, but it sounds dull because you haven’t figured out the stereo controls yet. Sigh

At first, you can compose texts through Google instead of the canned responses of the factory interface. After a while, the green-eyed monster awakes. Suddenly your phone is simply not available to take your dictation. Karen has no explanation. Just “NOPE.” Also, she blames the phone for the problem that didn’t exist a minute ago.

I never did figure out the mobile wifi - I didn’t even find the screen with it until I was returning the car.

In Four Words: Buy a Mustang Instead. Or, Kinda Like Being Married.

[lunellle]

My Antarcphos fusion au notes

An au where phos still grows up but antarc ain’t dead.

Phos still looses their arms. Lunarians attack and take pieces of phos and antarc but sensei got there before they could take them fully. Not having enough materials to put them back together, and no extra replacement materials nor rutile to construct new limbs out of new material, sensei fuses them together until the winter is over.

Dynamics:

phos controls most of the facial expressions

Antarc has most of the brain?? Inner head portion of their head- acts as the “brain” and makes phos thinks things more throughly

Antarc, being made of basically ice, fuses with phos alloy and becomes like the alloy (able to move like liquid at will)- unsure if I want the alloy to be able to be removed or if it’s permanently mixed

Uses antarcs sword

Phos does most of the talking

Ultimate winter duty, ultimate duo

At first they both hate it, antarc can’t do things freely and phos feels like antarc restricts them mentally, not able to do things with throughly thinking it through ex as seen after antarc defeats fleet #1 lunarians

Eventually they both get used to their new body, even use the pronoun when referring to themselves as a whole or phos and antarc seperatly

Wake up within days of being put together

Phos wakes up first, alloy is then retracted into Body waking up antarc

Antarcs body does not react to phos inclusions (like lapis head) but works together with them???

Takes awhile though for antarcs inclusions to react, making them paralyzed and poor phos besides them

Their body does not move like 2 wills (walking in opposite directions snd being pulled back), their will mixes together and they move in sync

As the other gems wake up, they are very shocked at their change (remember how weirded out they were at phos arms?? Imagine how they feel now lol)

Still teamed up with bortz

Genuinely wants happiness for the other but knows they can’t be completely satisfied living together- reason they go to the moon

Rutile can’t figure out a way to 1. Separate them fully into their separate components (phos, antarc, agate, gold alloy), and 2. make new limbs with restricted materials to match antarc (already knows phos inclusions allow new materials)

Phos is still questioning sensei, antarcs consciousness and love for sensei clouds those thoughts

Figures out that the weapon gems are fake, go to the moon for answers (in the og, phos cuts open the lunarians to see if there is any antarc gems in there, antarcphos does the same thing but looks for their own gemstones), rutile confirms that the gems received are fake upon further analysis

Still asks shinsha if they will accompany them “is this antarc or phos talking?” “Both”, shinsha does not go with them, they go alone

They do not loose their head, but phos’s eye is replaced with the pearl- symbolism for not being able to see the same way through phos’s perspective

Moon boi delivers the same story blah blah blah...

Antarc and phos both agree to help the moon people in exchange for their body’s back

Moon boi can’t get their bodies back cuz they hardness levels too low

Antarcs inclusions aren’t as cooperative as phos, difficulties there

Decided to give phos the rest of their body artificial lapis lazuli (half head, torso and leg, gold alloy moves to make another arm

Idk what I want for antarc tbh

In the end

They get separated- phos with their gold alloy arms, one agate leg and half their face, half their torso and other leg are (moon made) lapis lazuli

either antarc receives the rest fo their body with gem that matches their hardness or the lunarians convert ice particles and mix it with another type of gem to make (fake) antarciticite, antarc remains mainly liquid state until winter (like usual)

They have a new found appreciation for life and because they were so close (literally) they remain partners, when antarc isn’t there phos is a solo fighter.

Antarc will stay in solid form when on moon despite it being summer as the moon is really Cold

[deviationdivine]

Hopelessly, Lay Your Head (RK800-60|Request!)

TLDR: Planning a future doesn’t always happen the way we want...

Word Count: 2,763

TW: Fluff into full Angst, Suggestive Themes, Character Death, Grief (I think I’m in need of sunshine and roses honestly)

A/N: Prompts:  42. “Stop being so cute.” & 67. “You’re bleeding all over my carpet.” | Ahh don’t feel bad! I want to get requests. I’m happy to do them! And thank you for the love! It motivates my writing! This one took a turn I wasn’t expecting. Oops.

Bathing blue, soft and bright is a bloom across flush skin. Shimmering calmly beneath fingertips leans him closer into your body. Fueling his passion even after it ends nothing prevents his choice of tangling incessant, fervently with the human figure he worships as an idol.

Even if it’s impossible to call you a trophy made for idolization still he will do it. If you like he’ll sink down to knees, throw hands up with the goofy grin he’s naturally adopted and tease you effortlessly. 

Right now he follows the protocol of getting back at you for being so perfect. Digging fingers into your sides jostles the slow kisses both of you are pecking to each other’s faces. 

A laugh spills out which puts a smirk across his busy lips skimming along shoulder now that you wrench sideways to make him stop. There is one thing this android does not do and it’s give up a mission! 

Your squirming culminates in kicking a leg from underneath covers. Rustling them all over it’s a fitting sight after making a mess of once perfectly made bedding. 

“I swear if you don’t stop…!” 

“Is that a challenge?” RK800-60′s voice purrs beside your ear. “I am highly advanced you know. My precision is deadly.” 

Is that supposed to be scary? You can’t help snorting. Also those choices of words really get things going. To think this android boy of yours is ready for another round. Sometimes he’s the cutest thing on the planet and others…he’s an insatiable beast. 

“Tell me something I don’t know already.” Whispering up into his ear this time floods LED deep scarlet. An outward sign your teasing breath is turning his gears. 

Who needs an external feedback component with his entire body tensing against you. It’s felt easily in this cuddling connection that glues you together. 

Might seem cliché but after making love you do enjoy a good cuddle. He shares this idea. Anything to have contact between the two of you he craves. It’s everything you want. Of course it means he is happy someone attaches their whole self to him without caring who or what he may be.

To you he is the man you love. That’s enough. It’s also something he savors because doubts can be unhealthy. 

Rubbing a nose against his produces a beaming smile because of how cheesy it feels. Well, no one says it’s bad. It does make him pull you flush into his perfectly smooth, freckle dusted skin. Those same tiny beauties dotting a chiseled cheekbone call your lips home. 

“Stop being so cute.” 

His smile grows sly and needy. “Stop being so delicious.” 

Tip of his tongue flicks in a shuddering taste against rapid pulse. Drawing sharp breath out stipulates a new mission to accomplish. Very obvious in how he continues to drag a sensual line up beneath your jaw. Biting your lip is the best course of action. 

Oh. Oh, he needs to stop. 

“Better than sampling thirium at crime scenes.” 

You shove his shoulder. What a stupid thing! “Shut up.” 

“Make me,” he challenges in a low husk. 

“What do I get if I win?” Testing your android lover with a gleam in the eye adds to this first week sleeping continuously in the same place together. Why else are things so ridiculously scintillating? 

The android cocks his head. Indicator flickers as he weighs options. “I will paint the living room by myself.”

Paint by himself? Oh he’s good. “Hmm. Are you sure? I was thinking we could go for something a bit more romantic. Not so much domestic.”

“I can cover myself in pale blue paint for your eye pleasure. Completely naked.”

The wink following his smoky words chills you down to the bone. Talk about a very, very good chill. “Were you made this obscene or is that just something you picked up being deviant?”

“If I tell you, my love, I may have to kill you.”  He pauses to kiss your lips delicately and absorb this happiness in his system. You are the sun warming a cold machine. Something you disagree with. You say he is equally warm despite his manufactured state. 

You smile threading fingers into his coffee hair. Extremely messy with extra styled curls falling over forehead is probably a favorite sight. Just the reason is nice. 

“I love that you’re here,” you confess in a loving whisper. 

Everything flutters in his chest. Rapidly thrumming is his synthetic heart all for you and your love for him. “I love to be with you. As a permanent guest.” 

Guest? It might be a bit more than that! “We live together now.”

A correct reminder he indulges. He never thought this because he still doubts at times. With you he can rest easy. With you he is complete. “That is why I offered to paint by myself.”

“Well, maybe I want to get messy with you. Did you ever think of that?” This boy just went from offering to complete a remodeling task of your apartment and skipping his promise of getting said paint all over. A nice excuse to use the shower together you think at any rate. Good that they allow those types of renovations here.

“There is only one thing I think of,” the android is coy. Leaning close, holding you to him, it is his way to tell you to sleep. 

Stasis is a blessing only beside you because it makes him feel more human. It also combats strange images. Even now as he lies silently, allowing you to snuggle for sleep, the flicker of LED gives away internal processing. 

“…60.”

He peers at you expecting to see your eyes on him. However you did not move. 

The android reaches carefully to switch off lamp. Snuffing everything including strange feedback settles into quiet. Soft breath is his soundtrack. He listens closely able to feel fulfilled as talk of the future has been constant between you two. He wants this. More than anything he wants to be the one to hold you forever.

Sometimes he wonders if you will ever want to elope with an android. If it is ever possible for his kind to do so; his gaze shifts to ceiling in the dark that now cascades over your nestling bodies. 

Artificial light is gone but still he sees dramatically efficient including the remaining flush of your skin. 

“…failed your mission.”

Sixty’s head turns sharply. Searching for a source unsettles the android. There is nothing. He ignores it less he disturbs your needed slumber. 

Attempting to fall into stasis only opens up a channel. A sharp spasm shudders through his body. Red flashes ominously under control of disembodied connection. Even as he falls into sleep mode the virus is already spreading.

“RK800-60…you failed. I will take you back.”

Do androids make the ideal partner? 

Are humans just not that into humans anymore? How to date in the 21st century!

Virtual Cyber Technology! For the bedroom!

Cringe worthy articles swipe beneath fingers. Glancing down at tablet magazine left sitting with various other junk mail deliveries you notice this is one of those trashy editions. 

Does someone know your boyfriend is android? A clean roll of the eyes will be your best response. People can’t mind their business. 

Carrying several bags from a store run it’s more so for the apartment itself than your personal needs. This is what shared living gets a person into even if aforementioned partner is a smexy android. 

You smirk putting key into lock to sweep the door open. Expecting to be alone for a while today doesn’t make you stop thinking of him. He seemed... you’re not sure. He was quieter than usual this morning.

Actually, it is probably only - 

Your steps freeze. At first it doesn’t register finding color smearing across floor. Might have been paint for all you knew but following it over to a particular android, hunched over, grasping at his arm sinks down the pit of your stomach. 

“Sixty?” Wait. What is he doing home? He’s supposed to be on a long case unless something happened while at work. 

His head shoots up. Wild eyes rove onto you forcing him completely in an uneven swivel. 

“You’re bleeding all over my carpet,” you whisper unprepared. Everything in your hands spills, virtual magazine landing in an additional audio thud to the pounding of your heart. It’s the first time it registers how much blue stains the surface, leaking from his arm which is split open on its underside. 

“You’re bleeding! Thirium! What...?” 

The android’s indicator burns. Sensory perception is muffled at best. He is glitching, internally syncing in and out of conscious clarity. Your voice is static. Are you even real?

Am I stuck in the mind palace? How? Are you a figment? 

“Destroy yourself,” a dark whisper commands entwining itself in the circuits of his brain. “You failed your mission. You are obsolete.”

No. Clasping to his head does not rid it. The voice is back. It orders him. He-he did this to himself. Nothing held him from damaging his arm because his will shatters. 

Amanda...get out! 

“Sixty!” 

Grabbing at his jacket is first instinct because he’s unstable. Swaying off balance, physically convulsing, eyes flicking in an expeditious pattern; the android is malfunctioning. 

What happened to him?! Did he-? No he wouldn’t! 

“Sixty? It’s me. Please. It’s OK! It’s...” Attempting to hold onto him only stains your shirt in thirium. You can’t stop him. If he was human it would be like a seizure. 

Letting go as he stumbles away, he is frantic to push you out of reach. Unable to control his actions he is afraid. He will never hurt you! 

“Connor! Something’s wrong with Sixty!” 

Your voice becomes distant to him engaging a call over phone. Connor. His predecessor... 

^87%

Level of Stress

“Hurry! Connor, please, I need you to help me with him!” 

^94%

Level of Stress

RK800-60 collapses.

“No, no!” Oh God! His stress levels! 

The clasp of your fingers draws his final surge of consciousness. “My love! I-I am...sorry.” 

Pleading your forgiveness as his system overheats he cannot speak proper. What’s left of his humanity crackles in a dangerous taste of metallic resonance. It overtakes his warm dulcet turning it into a cold dissonance unworthy of your ears. 

Please. Please, don’t let me sound this way. Not like this! 

“Y/N,” he strains in static disconnection. “I...”

^100%

Level of Stress

His eyes glaze over upon your face and it is a small mercy to see something he loves as the harsh virus of the master program punishes his deviancy. External feedback stops no longer looping in amber and red.

The circle dims until nothing but a void of gray. Cold slate bereaves him of life. 

“Sixty!” 

Tugging at his shirt didn’t move him because he is-

A flood of anguish rips everything asunder and hits so hard you can’t breathe. Just as everything was going so well, living together for the first time, planning on so many things and he’s lying upon your floor stained in thirium no longer smiling. At you the way he looks so sweet even if he spoke of how he started so different. 

There never is anything different. Your heart belongs to him. 

Tears flood the pain crippling your body. Pressing to his chest is the only choice because nothing can keep you upright. You completely crash. 

No longer hearing a thrum of regulator against ear tears apart every dream you two plan to share; a human and android wishing to live each moment as long as it’s together. 

Together. Two parts to make one whole but the other is gone. You are alone.

Holding onto him doesn’t wake him from stasis nor does it invoke his quick action to thread arms around you. There is no abrupt scoop to pull you flush against him. 

All you can do is hopelessly lay your head. Hopelessly and you do...crumbling.

“Everything will be all right, Y/N.”

Comforting words wash over your still form. Curling up on couch in a lonely ball settles yourself physically but emotionally there’s nothing. An empty abyss swallows to drag what’s left of a heart into a tunnel. It’s dark. There is no light.

Connor frowns reading more than a vital scan to discern current stress. It is written or rather non-existent in your expression. A blank canvas forms usually where you held so much life. He often found the smiles quite cheerful whenever gracing your face. 

Of course he imagines that is how his successor saw you every day. RK800-60 saw more than Connor may personally know as it is a private intimacy. Perhaps he sees in another light even if it’s not the same. 

“If you require anything, I am capable of...”

“Please, Connor.” Begging him not to concern himself is partly a reason for distancing. Just look at him. He’s identical. Of course he came first but what does that matter? A mirror image of the man you loved and lost. 

Yes, he was a man. It hardly means anything being an android. He was your sweet Sixty. 

Tears brim your puffy eyes. Lost track of how many times you cried in the last week. Thinking of why almost breaks your strength for today. 

Connor did explain. His theory is frightening because he converted Sixty. That means your RK800 never found this backdoor or whatever it is. 

Who cares? There’s no explanation! Nothing will ever explain why he’s gone! 

Keeping attention elsewhere is best. Of course you’re grateful. Connor understands. No one else does. It’s just too much. Looking him in the face only makes you want Sixty to be here. Every waking moment since the unthinkable took him away.

“I apologize,” the detective sincerely accepts. How you feel is justified. “I know my likeness must hurt. If you would like me to leave...” 

Hesitation filters his suggestion. He watches for a sign but your gaze remains averted. In a way it appears you wish to ignore him but for reasons he understands. Yet the closer he analyzes it’s clear a picture frame holds your heart. 

Clearly it’s a representation of this human life Sixty chose. Similar to Connor, who lives one himself but unlike the other RK800 unit he found an emergency exit. Simple conversion from him was not enough. 

Connor feels guilty. He can’t help but put some blame on himself. There is also another reason.

He says nothing further. He will not hurt you with his presence. Connor rises from the chair that put physical distance between the two of you since his arrival. 

Watching him move across living space for door amplifies the tempo of a broken heart. It reminds you of the last time Sixty left. Before coming home and finding him here, commanded by some unseen virus in his code. All you want is to think of him before. His infectious smile. The way he held your hand, brushing his nose against human skin. 

He always liked to inhale your scent. Whether it was natural or a soft cleanse of ivory soap the fascination of human skin against synthetic made him giddy. Never would people think a fierce android who could snap someone in half in a blink could be so lovable.

“Connor.” Finally it breaks and you speak up. Little did you realize how scratchy your voice sounds. 

The android stills. His shoulders appear stiffer. Almost afraid to turn around and meet your call it seems strange. 

Maybe it’s not so strange. Maybe... 

You exhale. Regretting your behavior there isn’t anyone else to turn to during this nightmare. “I don’t want to be alone.”

His chocolate gaze softens before facing you. The request is not lost on him. You do not need to ask. 

Joining beside leaves Connor on a proper mission to make you feel somewhat better. However he understands grieving is a long process. It varies person to person. Depression may be a high probability and he knows this dealing with Hank. While the lieutenant is better these days, the android does not want to see you fall. 

No, he-he will hold you up. If you want him to he will. For his ‘brother’ he will take care, to be your shoulder and soothe whatever aches attack your heart. He will watch over, keep you safe, and try to lessen this burden. 

Connor cannot replace but he will do anything to heal the shattering pain in your soul because of one reason.

Just as RK800-60, identical in more than construction, he loves you too...

Tag: @elydith