#python Set for loop

[proeduorganization]

Python Sets

Introduction In previous post, we talked about the concept of python tuples. In this post, we will understand the concept of Python Set. In Python, a set is an unordered collection of unique elements. It is defined using curly braces {} or the set() constructor. Sets are mutable, meaning you can add or remove elements from them. However, unlike lists or tuples, sets cannot have duplicate…

[lokiified]

a world with you

summary: when you get back from a mission, and Ethan isn't there.

pairing: ethan hunt x f!agent!reader

word count: 2.8k

author's notes: descriptions of injury, mention of a python snake, anxiety over major character death, flirty banter and some suggestive stuff, reference to a Jason Mraz song, so angsty for a bit but sweet fluff i promise, established relationship, no use of y/n, taking care of ethan bc he deserves it, i imagined this with mi2 ethan bc that look is just unmatched so this takes place in like 2007

The innocent mumble of traffic below the window was starting to give you a headache. Your ears had been strained, pricked-up to the slightest of noises, for what felt like ages.

Battered and bruised from the mission, you’d stumbled into the safehouse a mere hour ago. You were running on only adrenaline and Ethan’s training playing on loop in your brain as you instinctively started undressing to clean your wounds. The haze in your mind mercifully numbed the burn of rubbing alcohol and the aches in your bones, and when you finally came-to you’d showered and changed into a clean set of clothes. It was then that you realized that you didn’t know where Ethan was.

“If I don’t make it back, please don’t come looking for me,” he’d always said, brushing gentle lines across your cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, “keep yourself safe first.” He would press a soft kiss to your forehead, as if it would seal his words into your mind.

But now, now that he really wasn’t here, now that it was the fear of a dreaded possibility coming true that was clawing it’s way done your spine, it took more strength than any mission to keep yourself from throwing on your jacket and boots and marching back into the world, exhausted as you were, to find him.

The mission was simple: get in, plant a trace on a necklace in the hotel’s vault, and get out. You’d both been expecting the security in the back hallways of the hotel, but what you hadn’t prepared for was that one of the goons was an ex-agent, defected and gone rogue a few years prior; he recognized the two of you immediately. In the midst of the struggle, you’d been separated from Ethan.

Now, hands trembling as they fidgeted in your lap, you were waiting. The window in the living room was open and the apartment was dark, depriving every other sense to focus all of your attention on listening, waiting for Ethan to come back. Surely he was going to come back?

But the men were big and there were at least a dozen of them, and the memory was pierced with the crack of gunshots beneath the haze of adrenaline as you made a break for it.

You… made a break for it? Why did you run? Why didn’t you stay and fight like Ethan probably did? You were such a coward. How could you leave him there to fend for himself? Of course he’s can take care of himself, but what if he’s dead?

Then it would be your fault.

The guilt suddenly choked your lungs like a python with its prey, stifled sobs wreaking silent havoc on your body as you pulled your legs up to your chest and hugged yourself, burying your face into your knees. He was dead and it was your fault, all your fault. He had always been so selfless, so brave and so willing to do anything for you, even back when he barely knew you. You were a horrible person. You could never face Luther again; not with the knowledge that it was your fault Ethan was dead, that you had killed him—

“Agent?”

Your head snapped up from your knees, eyes locking onto the figure that had appeared in the window’s reflection. The sudden roar of blood pounding in your ears made you dizzy, and you squinted into the inky black night as you stumbled through the fog in your brain: he certainly looked like your Ethan, although the silhouette of his hair falling around his shoulders was the only detail you could make out in the darkness, but it seem impossible. He couldn’t be here. You’d left him behind, he was dead and it was all your fault. But then who was this man that had the key to the safehouse? Should you run? Suddenly the reflection was moving, then there was movement in your peripheral, and a figure that looked a whole lot like the Ethan you loved came and crouched in front of you.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I’m right here.”

His hands reached your waist but you jumped back at his touch and scrambled into the cushions, half expecting this to all be a hallucination. His hands recoiled and quickly raised in surrender, his brows twitching together with worry as he watched you, your chest beginning to heave in panic. Your heart longed to believe it was Ethan, wanted nothing more than to melt into his touch, but it didn’t make sense for him to be here.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, keeping his eyes trained on yours as he slowly lowered a hand. You eyed the gun on the holster around his shoulders, but he moved past it and found the buttons of his shirt, undoing each one slowly and moving to slide the shirt over his shoulders. He quickly dropped it on the floor and brought his hands up again.

“It’s me, okay? I promise. You can check, I promise it’s me.”

You inspected him from afar, noting the smattering of bruises across his ribs and the graze of a bullet on the underside of his right arm, crusted over with blood. His skin was covered with a thin sheen of sweat and grime, but nowhere could you find any seams or signs of deception. You moved closer to him.

“Tell me something only my Ethan would know about me,” you said, your voice wavering in the aftermath of your panic. Ethan smiled, warming your heart with his radiance.

“Our first date was two years ago, in Rome, when our mission got called off after we’d already landed. I took you to dinner at a rooftop restaurant that overlooked the city, and we danced to that Jason Mraz song you love so much-“

“A World With You,” you finished with him, slipping off the cushion and into his open arms on the floor. His arms encircled you and squeezed gently, and your tears came spilling out of you at the comfort of his touch. He moved so his back was against the couch and you were cradled in his arms, his head resting atop yours as he stroked your arms to soothe you.

“I thought you were dead, I thought they killed you… I thought you were dead and it was my fault because I left you there, how could I leave you there?” The words tumbled out of you between sobs, your mind and body expelling all of your fears into his warm embrace.

“No, hey, I told you to run, remember?” He said, bringing a hand to lift your face and look at him. “I told you to run as soon as the guard recognized us, remember?” You shook your head, trying to recall his voice but all you could hear was the sound of gunshots and shouting fading behind you as you raced through the halls.

“I promise I told you to run, okay?” He brushed away the trail of tears on your cheeks and moved the hair out of your face as he spoke. “You were just following orders, you did the right thing.” His voice was like a balm to your wounds, soothing the guilt that gripped your chest. The rest of the night was coming back to you; Ethan’s frantic shout when he realized the situation with the guard, his promise to come find you. Your breathing evened out. You became aware of his own heart beating solidly beneath your weight, of the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

“Yeah… yeah okay,” you whispered, resting your head against his chest again. You focused on breathing, on the steady thumping of Ethan’s heart, the proof that he was alive here with you.

“We should really get you cleaned up,” you said after a while, and he sighed.

“I missed you,” he replied as he squeezed you tighter.

“I missed you too, but that doesn’t change the fact that you desperately need a shower.” His head sprung away from resting atop yours and he looked at you in disbelief.

“What are you saying, Agent?”

You pecked a kiss on his nose and grinned, “you stink.”

He broke into a grin and leaned closer to you, placing a hand on the back of your head and capturing your lips in a kiss. You moved in perfect tandem with each other, the anxieties of the day fading into the background as you poured your heart into this moment, this single moment where nothing else exists besides the two of you, kissing in the dark like two teenagers on stolen time.

Your arms draped over his shoulders and your hands moved to tangle in his hair, pressing your body against his as if you could get any closer to him. His hands moved between cupping your face and gripping your waist like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch you more. His teeth caught your lower lip and you released a breathy moan, and you felt his lips curl into a smile at the sound. He broke away with heavy breathing, pushing your hair out of your face.

“I thought I smelled bad” he whispered with a smile as you caught your breath.

“Oh you do.” Ethan leaned in to kiss you again, but you pulled away and stood to your feet. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” His face melted into a pout and you laughed, causing his lips to twitch up into a smile and betray his feigned offence. You reached your hands out to him and he accepted your help, standing up slowly. You noted the way he grimaced as he stood and your eyes flicked across his body in search of the source of his pain.

“Do you need help walking to the bathroom?” you asked, then rolled your eyes when he quickly shook his head. “Let me rephrase that: I’m going to help you walk to the bathroom.” Ethan grinned at you and accepted your aid, slinging an arm around your shoulder and lending you some of his weight. Slowly, the two of you made it to the bathroom where you set him down on the closed toilet seat. His shirt stayed behind on the floor of the living room, and in the dim light and sweet aroma of the candles you found in the cupboard you helped Ethan peel off the rest of his clothes and expose the wounds underneath. Mercifully, there were no major gashes besides the bullet graze on his arm.

“Are you injured at all?”

You gave him a stern look, “you’re not allowed to ask that until I’m done taking care of you.” You finished wrapping his arm and stepped back to inspect the rest of him, then walked over to the tub and started running the hot water.

You noticed the way his eyes followed you wherever you went, his gaze warm and filled with longing, like you were the most important thing in the world.

As the tub filled up you helped Ethan to his feet and into the now ankle-deep water. You pulled two towels and a facecloth from the shelf and put them on the mat in front of the tub. You’d showered earlier, but you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pamper Ethan after a hard day. Goodness knows he deserves it.

You shut off the water and slid out of your sweats and t-shirt, the chill of the darkened apartment hitting you suddenly before you dipped your toes in the water. It was the perfect temperature, and warmed you instantly as you submitted yourself further into its embrace. You both sat facing each other, knees to your chests, the steam of the water rising up to color your cheeks and twist Ethan’s hair into curls.

Allowing the silence to linger like the steam in the air, you motioned for Ethan to turn around so his back was to you. You cupped your hands and brought water up to his head, soaking his hair through. You smiled to yourself as you reached for the shampoo, grateful that Ethan had remembered to bring his own products. He was very passionate about his precious hair, and the IMF’s safehouse supplies were never up to his standards.

You massaged the product into his scalp, the tension that remained in his neck melting away with every press of your fingers. His head rolled back and his shoulders dropped, and you caught a glimpse of his small smile, eyes closed in bliss. I should do this more often, you thought to yourself.

When you were done with his hair you pulled the showerhead from its hook on the wall and rinsed his head, combing your fingers through the strands as you went. Once the last of the shampoo was rinsed out you took the facecloth and lathered it up with soap. Gently, you scrubbed away the sweat and grime from the day, kneading the sore muscles beneath Ethan’s battered skin.

“I remember this one,” you whispered, so as not to startle him in the sacred stillness that had settled over the room. Your ministrations had paused at a long white scar, poorly healed and puckered. You dragged your finger down it, from the top of his right shoulder blade to his waist. “You got it in Malasia, back in ’04.” Ethan turned around to face you, a serious look set into his features.

“I remember,” he said, and you could see him flipping through the memories in his head. “You were captured. I disobeyed direct orders and went to rescue you.”

Your lips twitched up into a smile; he had saved your life that day.

“That was the day I realized I loved you.”

The sound of limbs wading through water wafted up your ears in the steam as you watched Ethan’s face, his hand coming up from the water to cup your face and his head leaning forward to rest against yours. You closed your eyes, feeling the heat radiating from his body and the dew that was rising on his skin from the heat of the water.

You’d always found a way back to each other, even before everything.

After a few minutes he pulled away and pressed a kiss to the edge of your hair, inhaling to smell your shampoo and smiling against your skin. You raised yourself out of the water and his eyes grazed over your body, a hint of his playboy smirk surfacing but he seemed to think better of it; it had been a long, tiring day for the both of you. Instead of whatever had crossed his mind, he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on the front of each of your thighs. When you were both dried off, you pulled on your clothes from earlier.

“Let me go get you something, I’ll be right back.”

You returned with a soft cotton t-shirt, a deep green that complimented his tanned skin and chestnut hair beautifully, and his favorite pair of sweatpants. The sight of him in such comfortable clothes, a cheeky smile on his face, made your heart soar with joy. He deserved every comfort you could ever bring him. His hands were warm when they reached yours, fingers intertwining as you lead him into the darkened bedroom, the moon and city lights casting a gentle blue glow onto the bed.

You fell asleep almost instantly, but Ethan laid awake for hours. Despite the exhaustions of the day, he didn’t feel like he could sleep yet. He had been worried about you too; worried he would come back to the safehouse and find it empty, void of your presence which he so desperately needed. He always needed you, but after days like today he felt like he might die without you. There was no one else he felt safe enough to surrender to; no one else he could give his weakness and pain to and trust them to handle it with care.

The gentle rise and fall of your chest beneath his arm was continuously drawing him closer to sleep, but he felt the need to reflect on your time together and make sure he hasn’t taken anything for granted after being half-convinced he had lost you today.

He thought of Rome, of the way your face shone in the glow of the city lights beneath the rooftop where you danced with him. He thought of waking up beside you in countless countries that the average person could never name. He thought of the day he told you he loved you, hiding in a Russian forest while hiding for your lives. He thought of the day you were assigned to his team, your sweet and innocent face immediately lighting up his world despite the darkness that haunts him.

With your hands intertwined, your bodies as close as physically possible, and his mind filled with memories of a world with you, Ethan finally submitted himself to rest.

[track-maniac]

Feeling inspired by a post I saw a few months ago, I programmed a simple game of tic-tac-toe in python, in a single expression. Like regular functional programming, this means I can't mutate variables. But more than functional programming, this also means I can't

Declare variables at all

Declare functions

Use most loops and branch structures

The resulting program is 1730 characters long after removing all the non-strictly necessary whitespace and contains "lambda" 9 times.

The players are asked where they want to play using a number for each cell, in the configuration of a standard numpad. The program checks for invalid input too.

Source code under the cut

(lambda grid,toggle,players,cells_filled,print_grid,check_victory,ask_xy,validate_input,the_game:(lambda victor:print('=====\n'+('Draw.'if victor is None else f"{victor} wins!")))(the_game(grid,players,cells_filled,toggle,print_grid,check_victory,ask_xy,validate_input,the_game)))([[7,8,9],[4,5,6],[1,2,3]],True,['X','O'],0,lambda grid:print('\n'+'\n'.join(' '.join(map(str,ligne))for ligne in grid)),lambda grid,players:([player for player in players if any(set(grid[i][col]for i in[0,1,2])=={player}for col in[0,1,2])or any(set(grid[row])=={player}for row in[0,1,2])or set(grid[i][i]for i in[0,1,2])=={player}or set(grid[i][2-i]for i in[0,1,2])=={player}]+[None])[0],lambda players,toggle,grid,ask_xy,validate_input:validate_input(input(f"{players[toggle]}, place your symbol: "),grid,players,toggle,ask_xy,validate_input),lambda selection,grid,players,toggle,ask_xy,validate_input:(lambda selection,grid,players,toggle,ask_xy,validate_input:(selection%3,2-selection//3)if grid[2-selection//3][selection%3]not in players else ask_xy(players,toggle,grid,ask_xy,validate_input))(int(selection)-1,grid,players,toggle,ask_xy,validate_input)if len(selection)==1 and'0'<selection<='9'else ask_xy(players,toggle,grid,ask_xy,validate_input),lambda grid,players,cells_filled,toggle,print_grid,check_victory,ask_xy,validate_input,the_game:(print_grid(grid),the_game((lambda players,toggle,xy,grid:[[players[not toggle]if(j,i)==xy else grid[i][j]for j in[0,1,2]]for i in[0,1,2]])(players,toggle,ask_xy(players,not toggle,grid,ask_xy,validate_input),grid),players,cells_filled+1,not toggle,print_grid,check_victory,ask_xy,validate_input,the_game)if check_victory(grid,players)is None and cells_filled<9 else check_victory(grid,players))[1])

If you can't read any of this, don't worry, I can't either.

You can find the original code and a slightly more readable version on my gitlab: https://gitlab.com/Rijaja/gaae/-/tree/main/tttaae (but careful, the game is in French)

[nylpad]

CAFFEINE, CODE, AND COUCH CONFESSIONS

Warnings: coffee addiction

Tim Drake, the resident tech genius of Wayne Manor, had a mission: to teach you the intricacies of coding. Armed with a whiteboard, a stack of textbooks, and a steely determination, he embarked on this noble quest. Little did he know that unraveling the mysteries of Python and JavaScript would be the least challenging part.

Tim sat you down in the cozy corner of the Batcave, the glow of the Batcomputer casting shadows on his face. He explained loops, variables, and functions with the fervor of a preacher. But your brain? It was like a stubborn old laptop running Windows 95—slow, glitchy, and prone to crashing.

"Okay, so if you have a nested loop," Tim said, pointing at the whiteboard, "you'll need to—"

You interrupted. Again. "Wait, wait. What's a nested loop? Is it like a Russian doll situation?"

Tim sighed, rubbing his temples. "No, it's not—"

"But what if the Russian doll is an array?" you asked, eyes wide.

Tim's patience wavered. "It's not—"

"But what if the array contains Batman's utility belt gadgets?" you persisted.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not—"

Coding fatigue set in. Tim's eyes glazed over as you continued your relentless questioning. He needed a distraction—a break from the syntax and semicolons. So, he proposed a truce: "How about we take a snack break?"

You perked up. "Snacks? Now you're speaking my language."

Soon, the Batcave echoed with the rustling of chip bags and the clinking of coffee mugs. Tim brewed a fresh pot of coffee—the fifth one that day—and you raised an eyebrow.

"Tim, you're going to turn into a jittery metahuman," you warned.

He grinned, sipping from his mug. "Nah, I've built up a tolerance."

The couch beckoned, its cushions inviting. Tim abandoned the whiteboard, and you both sank into its plush embrace. Laptops forgotten, you fired up the gaming console. The Batcave's massive screen displayed the latest multiplayer shooter.

"Ready to kick some virtual butt?" you asked, controller in hand.

Tim hesitated. "Actually, can we watch movies instead?"

You raised an eyebrow. "Movies? Since when do you—"

"—binge-watch romantic comedies?" Tim finished, cheeks flushing. "I may or may not have a soft spot for cheesy love stories."

And so, you traded code for rom-coms, coffee for popcorn. Tim's head found its way to your lap, and you stroked his hair absentmindedly.

"Promise me," you said, "no more coffee. Your heart rate is rivaling the Bat-Signal."

He grumbled but complied. "Fine. But only because you're the best code-cracking partner."

As the credits rolled on the screen, Tim whispered, "Maybe I'll write an algorithm to predict our next movie choice."

You chuckled. "Or we could just flip a coin."

And there, in the dim glow of the Batcave, you realized that maybe—just maybe—love was the most complex code of all.

[dungeonmalcontent]

My anxiety told me that I should do some research about cosmological models to see how feasible a 36 hour day would be. Would it change seasons? Size or distance from the planets star? Would the number of orbiting bodies need to change (I like the idea of multiple moons).

And then I realized. My setting has magic. It's a universe inside of a snake; it's an inverted sphere python. It doesn't need to account for all of the science stuff.

36 hour day. 18 hours of primarily sunlight. 18 hours of primarily darkness. Stars are always at least a little visible. A week is 5 days. 5 weeks in a month. 4 months in a year. 3 moons; 1 red 1 white 1 mostly invisible. There is a star that is just a giant spaceship that got stuck in the periphery of the universe as it entered from the abyss of non-reality. People eat two significant meals and two official snacks a day. Somewhere in the woods, there is an immortal corgi named Scrug. Scrug is simultaneously one of the most powerful creatures in the world and also one of the least important (unless you are a frog). Frogs are an intelligent and advanced sentient race. Only frogs know that frogs are an intelligent and advanced sentient race.

Anyways. What I'm getting at is, your setting doesn't need that much detail. It just needs to have closed loops of thinking.

[princesssmars]

wildfire

some starmora x reader nsfw headcanons

wc : 1.162

cw : nsfw content! triad poly relationship (fmf). dom!gamora, switch!peter, sub!reader. some sex position links bc i think they're fun. strap-on sex. anal. pda with butt slapping. masturbation.

an : watched gotg 3 and definitely not broken. new gamora is cool but im always gonna miss og gamora so expect more starmora stuff to come bc im bisexual and sad <3

so lets say you joined the guardians early, peter and gamora already have that spark between them and now you've arrived and thrown them for a loop.

while you and gamora are still mostly trying to deal with your romantic feelings, peter is being driven crazy by his sexual ones. he's not stupid enough to jeopardize the budding relationship he has with the both of you by sleeping around.

(not to say he didn't get tempted, there was this one chick with blue skin, big doe eyes and four arms and-)

still. he's not that stupid. but, he does have needs, so he jerks off. a lot. every time he does it he thinks about the both of you. the feel of gamora's skin when his hand brushed against it that morning, the smell of the new shampoo you pick up on the last planet. even just the memory of you two laughing at one of his shitty jokes is enough to make him finish.

not to say gamora doesn't get herself off as well. i don't think she would have that much sexual experience or at least not as much as peter does. just a brief hook-up occasionally to take the edge off. but when you complimented a new armored top she bought that complimented her arms and peter agreed with that stupidly charming yet sleazy smile of his, she couldn't help but lay in her bed that night and rub her puffy clit until she had to bite down on her hand as she came.

it wasn't long after that you all became official.

in the bedroom, gamora is a dom and peter is a switch. to her, there's something about quill commanding the team during missions and casual settings and being reduced to a man on his knees begging for you to touch him anywhere.

but don't for a second think you're off the hook. if you ever get too cocky when she's dominating peter, she won't hesitate to put you in your place. her favorite way to do it was sitting you on a cushion with a direct view of the bed, your hands bound behind your back with a vibrator stuffed inside you as you were left to whimper and beg as she rode peter into oblivion. she keeps eye contact with you while she has her hand around his threat, teasing you about how flustered you look.

gods help you when they're both in a dominating mood. it's mostly after they got roughed up after a mission or the person who hired you was more of an asshole than usual. on those days they don't hesitate to toss you around like a ragdoll and do with you as they please.

one time you were left behind to take care of the ship while they negotiated with the person who hired you, which must have gone wrong with the looks on their faces when they got back. before you know it you're pressed into an arch on your bed, gamora's hands pushing your mouth and tongue deeper inside of her pussy, as peter grabs your hips and helps you throw it back on his dick.

peter would love positions where he can make eye contact, loves the intimacy of it and loves to see the facial expressions you make. doing the counterblow or fireworks in the pilot's seat, a deck chair, or python in bed when your both craving contact. right before you both cum he'll pull away from sucking on your tits or neck to look you in your eyes, whispering "i love you"'s and "cum for me, cum all over me baby"'s as you both reach your highs.

gamora will take you in any position she can. not to say she doesn't love the intimacy occasionally as well. there have been more than a few times where she gently drags you to her room, places you on the bed, and eats you out agonizingly slow for over an hour before crawling on top of you and slotting herself over you, riding your cunt until neither of you can move from overstimulation. her faves would be 69, eagle, plain, and a full nelson if she's feeling pent up.

oh and gods help you when she gets her hands on a strap-on. she found it in a sex shop on a little excursion to a shady planet for rocket to find some rare materials for an invention. quill had seen it first, practically begging the two of you to go inside with him. while he and you were pointing at different beads and gadgets and giggling at the obscenity and absurdity, gamora is busy stalking along a back wall, looking at the different dildos and harnesses with piqued interest.

when she tells you that she booked a hotel room for the three of you for the night, you can't help but get a little giddy at the idea of another night of pleasure with the two of them without having to quiet yourself by biting or gagging. you don't expect gamora to come from the bathroom, a black harness around her hips with a long and thick dark red dildo attached to it. after she gets your consent and gets you prepped, your body is held up and squished between the two as peter thrusts into you from the front while gamora takes the back. you didn't leave the hotel room for two days.

they are very different in how much pda they like to show in public. gamora is more subtle, still wary to let others know how much you really mean to her, plus she likes to keep the romantic and sexual side of her life more private. she'll settle for soft smiles across the room, brushing her hand across yours when she walks by. if she's feeling devious she'll come up behind you while you're doing something under the guise of "helping you", when in reality she's pushing her entire body against yours and maybe throwing a small little thrust in there too. nine times out of ten it will leave you flushed beyond belief and she'll walk away satisfied.

peter is. a whore (affectionate). he is not afraid to be affectionate with you in public. hand holding, hugging, kissing, etc. you already know he's fond of slapping your ass, and will do it every opportunity he gets. if you do it back to him he will literally go like :0. definitely doesn't get a boner.

their aftercare is unparalleled. while you're coming down from your high, peter will rush to get a rag for you all to wash off the liquids and sweat, while gamora will whisper sweet gentle praises while making sure the both of you are hydrated. no matter how rough or quick the sex was. they will always end it with you cuddling in their arms as they whisper to you how much they care about you. <3

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

All Right, Let's Do a Dumb One

LeetCode has a bunch of problems that are at this point almost famous for how laughably unrepresentative they are of work in the coding world. Like, there are points where demonstrating that you can solve one also incidentally demonstrates that you know certain kinds of critical thinking, and those questions are genuinely quite good, but most of the time it's just a Credit Score kind of thing where what you demonstrate is that you spent time practicing on LeetCode, and therefore the site made itself necessary by getting enough business decision-makers to trust it. Anyway.

This is a good example because if I got this as a question during the interview the first thing I'd do is include a disclaimer.

The challenge is to rotate an image 90 degrees. The "image" is represented by a 2D array numbered, so this happens. 123 741 456 -> 852 789 963

Now, the question says they want you to change it in-place, meaning no making a new array and slotting things in. The disclaimer I'd include is: This is a terrible idea. Making a 2D array - even a very large one, such as the kind you'd need to display something hi-def on an IMAX theater screen - is not horribly memory-intensive in the scale of memory that our computers work with today. And working in-place is terribly error-prone, both in initial creation (which someone could theoretically lay at your feet - shouldn't you be good enough to get around that?) AND in maintenance, meaning even if I know I'M hypercompetent at coding and can do it all in-place, I'm metaphorically making a bridge out of hard-to-replace materials and setting that bridge up to fall apart when the maintenance guy doesn't know how to repair it. Not doing it the way they demand you do it for the question would be part of coding best practices.

But what the hell. Let's do it. For the sake of argument.

I'd still be doing a microcosm of the same. You have to record what's in a slot without deleting it.

I'm wondering whether the intent is to run this via breadth-first search, in order to work out which spaces have already been processed? I'm going to go on that assumption.

So in a Rubik's Cube kind of way, I'm going to start from the corners. Because they're the easiest to mathematically transform to each other regardless of size, right? We're supposed to be able to do this whether the square we're rotating is 3x3 or 300x300. For a mercy, it is at least guaranteed to be a square.

We make a (starts off empty) list of processed spaces.

We make a (starts off empty) list of spaces to look at.

for x, y what happens on "rotate" exactly? In terms of corners, for an nxn grid (0, 0) gets moved to (n-1, 0) which gets moved to (n-1, n-1) which gets moved to (0, n-1) which gets moved to (0, 0). Like, in a 4x4 grid (3, 3)'s contents get moved to (0, 3). What about that second space? (1, 0) turns into (3, 1). (2, 0) turns into (3, 2). So for the top row at least, you can reverse the x and y values and invert the number of the y value, and that does it?

...I think this means you want depth-first search, actually. Because you want to be handling the square each time in order to minimize how much info you're holding at a time.

What happens is you make a nested for loop, like

for i in array: for j in list: while (i,j) not in fixed: {Block of code that adds the 4 permutations of (x,y), (-y-1,x), (-x-1,-y-1), (y,-x-1) to a list for processing and then processes them in order, finally adding i,j to fixed when it's done}

The reason this works in Python is that calling for "-1" in a list is the same as saying "length of the list -1." So on a 4x4, calling "-x-1" when x is 0 will loop around the other side of the list to find the 3.

At that point, you're only holding two points of data - the item you've just "picked up" from a given space and then the contents of the space you'll be "putting it down" in. Then you swap it out for what's in the target location.

Again, this would all be a LOT easier to just do by writing to a new list.

At that point, for each space you'd just find the space 90 degrees counterclockwise from it and set that value into the corresponding space.

[moose-mousse]

Greetings moose-mousse, it is a bit niche/weird (but let's see how far it goes) but may I ask for some suggestions / advice concerning making pseudo-code / fake code scripts / programs to put onto scenes to film? Because I work towards portraying sidestream programming environments of the past (yet customized into my own 16^12 worldbuilding stuff) to show for films I look forth to produce this summer and idk where to pull fitting samples, code style guides & whatnot to put on various screens.

A great start. Wireshark. It is a packet sniffer. Especially on wireless networks in looks great as background busywork. Do it to a public network and you will get plenty of noise to look technical. Basically in wireless networks, everyone is just screaming things. Only the intended target really reacts, and things are encrypted and all sorts of safety is in place, but the fact of the matter is still that everyone is screaming. So you can just have wireshark show you everything that is happening, and it gives a nice constant feed of technically valid but essentially nonsense to look at. Customize the look a bit and you are great. Note that this is both legal and fine. This is stuff it is ok to yell about in public The other is of course a command console. For that I would recommend installing Python, and then simply make a infinite loop that prints technical nonsense. If you need sample text then install anything by writing "pip install ______", copy the text and print it in your own python thing. Creates infinite nonsense text that looks real (because... it is a copy of something real.) Both of these should take less than an hour to set up, and will create great looking backgrounds on screens for "someone doing something technical"

If you want code just staying still on the screen, then basically install visual studio code, find an open source project on github and open a file. Open files of a few different types and visual studio code will automatically recommend you extension that will color the text to look like proper code.

[sm-baby]

if Caine proposed to someone, would the ringbox just be another set of teeth? & inside, would there be just. a loop of floss?? idk i just had this thought & figured you'd appreciate it :]👏 NOT EXPECTING U TO DRAW!! just wanna make u smile. love love LOVE your drawings and the Carnival AU is vry cool i have many incomprehensible thoughts about it!! ^_^ all i can say is i love Pomni's skirt & bell shoes, and Gangle reminds me of a python/lion, all the designs r so so funnn!! :3 ⭐⭐⭐

HEHE this is such a sweet ask! YEAHH THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT FOR CAINE AND HIS SILLY ANTICS! this was so silly!! This so silly ☺️

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

#The Cute/Pawesome Self Awareness Identifier/Rectifier 9000 #this program will search through fenFacts.txt to check if Fen thinks it is pawesome and cute and then to rectify the situation if it doesn't. #first step, open the file in read mode and set up an empty array to copy each line fenFactsFile = open('fenFacts.txt' , 'r') newFenFactsStringArray = [] #now let's set up our variables to check if Fen already thought it was Cute/Pawesome and/or if it thought it wasn't. cute = False pawesome = False #now to blitzing through through this data. Python has built in functionality to read through lines in a file using a for loop like "for line in file:" where line is the current line of the file so let's just use that for currentLine in fenFactsFile:      #loop code starts here. Our comparison strings have the "\n" at the end because we're not stripping these. let's check to see if it thinks it is NOT Cute or Pawesome first.      if currentLine == "Is not pawesome.\n":           print("I was wrong and thought I was not pawesome ~w~");           #we don't want to keep a wrong fact in our new array so let's skip over to the next iteration of the loop using continue to skip the rest of the code in the loop           continue

     if currentLine == "Is not cute.\n":           print("I wrong and thought I was not cute.");           #we don't want to keep a wrong fact in our new array so let's skip over to the next iteration of the loop using continue to skip the rest of the code in the loop           continue           #Now the cute check      if currentLine == "Is cute.\n":           cute = True           print("I already knew I was cute!");      #now for the pawesome check      if currentLine == "Is Pawesome.":           pawesome = True           print("I already knew I was pawesome ^w^");       #final part of the for loop is to append to our new Fen facts array

newFenFactsStringArray.append(currentLine) #end of the for loop here

#end of reading, we got our checks done. Time to close the file fenFactsFile.close() #Now let's see if we cute or pawesome are still false if cute == False:      #it does not recognise its own cuteness. We can fix this.      newFenFactsStringArray.append("Is cute.\n") if pawesome == False:      #it does not recognise its own pawesomeness. We can fix this     newFenFactsStringArray.append("Is pawesome.\n")           #Now we have all the Fen Facts we want in newFenFactsStringArray so let's open up fenFacts.txt in write mode and get it fixed up with the cute and pawesome lines but without the is not cute or is not pawesome lines fenFactsFile = open('fenFacts.txt' , 'w') #the next line will replace the text in fenFacts.txt with our newFenFactsStringArray fenFactsFile.writelines(newFenFactsStringArray) #closing it for real this time fenFactsFile.close()

——————

I was wrong and thought I was not pawesome ~w~

I was wrong and thought I was not cute.

[mojop24]

Why Learning Python is the Perfect First Step in Coding

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Keep practicing, and don't hesitate to look at code written by others to see how they approach problems. Coding is a journey, and with every line you write, you’re gaining valuable skills that will pay off in future projects.

FREE Python and R Programming Course on Data Science, Machine Learning, Data Analysis, and Data Visualization

[txttletale]

what's up with not for broadcast? i've had it in my wishlist for a while just from the basic premise of the game seeming interesting.

first of all, its political satire is somehow both heavy handed and bafflingly confused. like the plot of the game is that Evil Socialists take over by Doing Populism (scary!) and then do Evil Socialism by taking away rich people's money and doing 1984 to everybody. and idk this could just be standard anticommunism and it'd be annoying but not confusing. but the game is also like--like, it makes a point of how the Evil Socialist Government gets sanctioned by the rest of the world causing economic crisis, and how the main anti-government rebel is a self-centred paranoid far-right podcaster clearly based off alex jones, and how the rich people were all nasty iditos who didn't deserve their money. which like. i don't know. what's the game trying to say, then?

the only possible takeaway i can take from how these two factions are presented is like 'wealth inequality and capitalism is bad but it would also be bad to do anything about it'. the only character who is presented as even remotly sympathetic is the news reader who is decidedly apolitical and only cares about Getting To Read The News With Journalistic Objectivity. so many weird and confusing and self-defeating political assumptions baked into this game.

secondly, the humour misses the mark because it just can't fucking stop. like the joke will reach its punchline but because there needs to be a set amount of footage for the core gameplay loop to work jokes just get pushed wayyy past the point of the punchline. and not in an artful way like tim robinson or aunty donna just in a very tedious way where even quite funny jokes become absolutely fucking obnoxious the more they go on for. this is subjective of course but at some point watching C-tier monty python skits stretched out to three times their natural length just became so grating.

finally, the gameplay is so close to being good but losers confidence in its main gameplay mechanic at the last moment. like most of it is deciding when to cut between several different camera feeds, like, yknow, potentially making people look bad or good, undermining or reinforcing propaganda, etc. and this is a really good core mechanic that's really good and satisfying to play with! but unfortunately they keep interrupting it with stupid gimmicks like wiggling a line about to make it match anotehr line (the TV signal is out of tune or whatever) which instead of feeling like you're making meaningful choices about the titular broadcast just feel like pointless busywork. all these little distractions really really ruined the gameplay aspect of this for me which otherwise was extremely good and intersesting.

[isat-script-project]

Back again! 8-ish dollars later and I can kinda sorta navigate the files! I've got a question while i experiment with editing text. Do you happen to know where the Twohat version of the epilogue favor tree text is ingame event-wise? (the pre battle stuff after you check their coin), i can only find the Onehat version of the dialogue by just clicking the event triggers on the act 6 map. Sorry if this is a bit involved!

As you can see highlighted beautifully here, there are multiple "pages" of events per event tile!

In this case, the third one is for the loop battle. You can see it has a switch checked off "0275 LOOP FIGHT TIME autorun", meaning that this event page only plays if this specific switch is on.

As for where it's flipped - you do need to do some digging, sadly, as far as I know the only way to check what switch is flipped where is like, a custom python script somebody made once? But this switch in particular is set to on in Common Event 0213 (Loop'sSilverCoin), if you use the coin near the favor tree.

The other most common type of event switch is for repeated interaction - in that case, the event page's condition will be if "Self Switch A" is on. Marked here as "Slb.schalter" bcuz my program is in german. I could've set it to english but i'm lazy sorry. These switches are native to base RPGmaker and are intended to be used exactly for differentiating event pages. When the first event page has run, that page will flip Self Switch A, and then Switch A will activate the second page. You can do this with Self Switch B and C and D as well.

ISAT also makes heavy use of a plugin that gives you "Self Var EventCheck", which is a variable (or switch, if it's Self Switch) that is unique to every event tile and individually counts how often it's occured. You can image this is the easiest method to set the variations in first/second/third/whatever many times an event has been seen.

A lot of information on that can actually be found in the github's wiki section! Gold has been less lazy adding information than I have been, lmao.

(this is a link to the wiki section)

I hope you have fun!! Feel free to reach out via more asks or even DM me if you have further questions!!

[megumi-fm]

this week on megumi.fm ▸ coding and coffeeshops

📋 Tasks

💻 Internship ↳ lab meet!!! got to learn about the other projects in the lab ↳ got work from home approved!! ↳ optimize protein seq code // account for missing residues ✅ ↳ add on a binding site identifier function for code using 4.5A distance threshold ✅ ↳ optimize binding site code // reducing time complexity for large PDB file inputs ✅ ↳ download and extract alphafold human protein repository and analyze pdb file formats ↳ set up progress tracker and upload code on colab ✅ 🎓 Uni ↳ Final Project: update images quality according to changes mentioned ✅ ↳ renew uni email for extra credit classes ✅ ↳ extra credit classes started this week! 🩺Radiomics Projects ↳ call with teammates to discuss next steps ✅ 📧 Application-related ↳ finished masters application form for 1/1 Uni (waiting on my referee reports) ✅ ↳ finalize referee report from my profs ✅

📅 Daily-s

🛌 consistent sleep [7/7] 💧 good water intake [5/7] 👟 exercise [5/7]

Fun Stuff this week

🍻 met up with my bestie @muakrrr <3 it was a stressful tuesday so meeting him for lunch was super comforting! he bought this cute purple drink and I got myself some ginger ale and the waiter served us the wrong drinks (gender and expectations something something) and it was amusing to watch them get confused when we corrected them 🎂 mom's b'day this week!! went out for dinner with her!! 🛒 went shopping with relatives who I haven't seen in years. bought myself a book! (rip my bookshelf) ☕ went out for coffee and dinner with my girlies (the same besties who I exchanged mugs with). we're trying to spend as much time together as possible before we leave to different countries for our masters 🎮 continuing the beginner's guide 📺 ongoing: Marry my Husband, Cherry Magic Th, Last Twilight 📺 binged: KinnPorsche The Series

📻 This week's soundtrack

Love Wins All by IU (been crying over this music video for days now. it's beautiful) KinnPorsche theme by Slot Machine: Kinn's theme [aka Phiang Waichai; TH] | Porche's theme [aka Free Fall; Eng] (first of all this is one of the catchiest theme songs to exist second only to SPECIALZ aka the JJK s2 op i'm also particularly losing my mind over how the two themes are love letters to the main characters from each other... the narrative parallels of it all are driving me insane sldkhlaksjkshs) Dum Dum by Jeff Satur + the Live Unchained version where his vocals are heavenly (maybe im so drawn to this song because the chorus is similar to the melodic motifs of the KPTS themes/soundtrack, either way, the show introduced me to him and god. I've been voraciously consuming his discography.) Ghost by Jeff Satur (on repeat all week. thoroughly obsessed with this song- the lyricism, his voice, the storyline in the MV, his acting, everything. wow. truly.)

---

[Jan 22 to 28 ; week 4/52 || I. love. my. internship. like. I have been having the most fun time problem solving and troubleshooting. it's also super satisfying to see the outcome of my code. it's been a while since I used python (I've been coding on C) so I forget that python has a lot of inbuilt functions that would do the same tasks I inadvertently entrust my nested loops with, and finding out about them is always so joyous (although it means I have to scrap off several chunks of code). i am a bit annoyed though, because the other intern isn't really doing any work that we're entrusted with so I'm having to carry the team and it's taking me too much time. but oh well. I've suggested we split tasks from next week, hopefully that'll make things better.

I've also been procrastinating a lot when it comes to my masters applications and it really hit me this week when I had to run to uni several times to get things approved and completed. Now that I'll get to work from home I need to set up a proper schedule to get application work completed wayy in advance. also need to resume my GRE prep from next week.]

[your-friendly-neighbourh00d-fag]

TALK TO ME ABOUT KOBRA KID

KISSING YOU RN HI!!!! IM GOIGN TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT KOBRA KID

ok so ive decided:

he has heterochromia

he loves old movies, dr d had a pile left older and ghoul fixed him up a dvd player. his favourites are romcoms and stuff from the eighties. he also likes the karate kid.

he’s SHIT at gunfights [idk if this is canon or not but anyway] he always always does hand to hand if its possible

he fixes up his bike [which he nicknames Python cause he’s cringe] with cool racing stripes and red paint and stuff to match his gun. ghoul helps.

he’s ftm. whatever i do with kobra in any au, he’s ftm. my brain glitches when i read fics where he isnt. trans kobra. can anyone hear me.

he makes bad luck beads for everyone. the girl joins in, putting cool charms on them all.

autism

^ specifically he’s really touch sensitive and noise sensitive, if he has a meltdown its usually because of the latter, but sometimes he literally refuses to wear a shirt because it Feels Wrong. also his sunglasses are for light sensitivity yes, but also to avoid eye contact.

he also sucks at binding, he’s so irresponsible. forgets to do stretches, wears it for too long, smokes with it on. it drives the others INSANE, and ghoul’s the only one who can get him to actually take care of it properly.

everyone shares his clothes.

he’s got a super good memory, probably eidetic if any of the killjoys knew what that meant. he knows so many random facts about before the world ended.

^ he also really likes learning history, whether its from old books that he finds around, or oral retellings from older ‘joys.

he used to braid his hair, and so now that he’s the only one with short hair, he does everyone elses.

he can do weird body tricks like bend his arm out really far and curl his tongue and stuff. it makes jet so mad [in a joking way] because how! how does he DO that!

he loves colourful things. he has a pile of charms and beaded bracelets and stuff that he either loops around his belt hooks or puts on his wrists.

he has a really good singing voice, secretly.

he’s the only one of the four that uses a single set of pronouns

[twoidiotwriters1]

The Curse of Oenone (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: This is another chapter I was looking forward to post! -Danny Words: 2,549 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter // Next Chapter Listen to: 'Eight' -by Sleeping At Last

XXXI: I Would Fight Myself if I Could

Percy is on the steps to Cabin Ten waiting for me. Lily and Nico share a look and mumble something about the Big House before turning away. My brother stares at me, and a small smile shows up on his face.

"Purple's definitely your color."

I grin. "You really know how to cheer an Aphrodite up." I pause and reform my sentence. "Former Aphrodite."

He doesn't get up from the steps. "You know when we went to the sea of monsters? When Hermes gave me those gifts?"

"Yeah?"

"I tried to give 'em back at first because he wanted me to help Luke. I told him Luke was a lost cause, he hated the Olympians."

"Did he get angry?"

"He told me no one can quit their family, no matter if you hate each other."

"Bet you didn't believe that."

"He said I would someday. I thought he was trying to sound wise... but he was right."

Percy's looking so defeated even though he just won the war, that I feel like a terrible person. I'm the reason why my brother can't enjoy his victory.

"Do you hate me, brother?" I ask quietly.

He gets up. "I'm trying to say I'll always care for you even if you hate me."

"I don't hate you," I frown. "I've said mean things, but I don't hold them against you, I know you're scared. I'm scared for you too, that's why I did this."

He nods slowly, deep in thought. "I was willing to die for all of you, I can't lie and say I don't understand where you're coming from..."

"We're good," I state. "You know, sometimes I feel like we've been siblings our whole lives, maybe our souls are old friends," I walk past him. "But we're on different paths. Don't make me quit my free will and my family on the same day."

His face gets really serious. "Never. I'm here for you, Birdy."

I smile. "Would you help me, then? I can't stay in Cabin Ten now that I'm the Strategus."

He pauses. "But isn't it against the rules..."

I stare at him with a deadpan expression. "We're siblings, Percy."

"Right," he makes a face. "I need a nap."

After Frank explains that he's been hearing the Roman and Greek versions of his dad shouting inside his head, it makes sense that he was interested to hear more about the voices in her head.

"Maybe we can fix your problem and save Hazel while doing so," Ara's mind races through several ideas. "If you offer a deal to your mentally unstable father, maybe he'll get us a python for Trip's chariot. Ask them if they'd like that."

Frank looks at her begrudgingly, but he closes his eyes anyway. He grumbles and groans for a few seconds, then fixes his posture, still not opening his eyes. "Horatius... Fine. If that's what it takes, I'll prove I'm as good as Horatius. Uh... what did he do?" 

After a second, Frank's eyes open and he looks at her. 

"I hope you're in the mood for a Phorcy's 2.0"

Ara grins. "Always am."

"Get on one knee so I can crown you the Canadian lone ranger."

Ara ties a large shirt over Frank's nose and mouth to protect him from the cow-dogs's poison. She won't even try to call those monsters by their name, she knows she'll get it wrong.

"All set," Ara covers her nose and mouth as well. "Ready?"

"You look weirdly happy," Frank points out while pulling up tiles and searching for roots.

"That's because I'm absurd. It took Jason, Piper, and Leo a week to figure it out," Ara cuts pieces of the roots and stuffs her pockets with them. She's wearing safety gloves to protect her skin. "Sorry you have to put up with me."

"Percy's a lot like you, Greeks are generally crazier," he comments while Ara ties pieces of roots to the belt loops of his pants. "I'll survive."

"That's the first time someone says Percy's like me and not the other way around," she says bemusedly.

Frank chuckles, then shrugs. "So why are you happy?"

"Because we have a plan. I like it when solutions are found quickly, and even more when it's something I can do without help. Well, partially—I sort of need you."

"Thank you," he replies without much excitement. "Now let's hunt some smelly cows."

The monsters might look heavy, but these creatures can run. Ara turns Almighty into a spear and Frank turns into a lion, she climbs his back and holds onto his mane, stabbing the cow-dogs that dare to inch closer.

They run through narrow streets, taunting the creatures with the nasty smell of their roots. Her spear isn't killing them fast enough so she switches to something different: a BB gun. Ara has better aim with a gun than she ever had with a bow, but Michael never let her use guns in camp because he considered that too risky.

She wonders what he'd think, watching her ride a lion through Venice while shooting at an army of cow-dogs. He'd be torn between awe and horror no doubt. Ara thinks about what her younger self would think, and that image comes effortlessly: Little Ara would be whooping and screaming at her to aim between the eyes.

Frank stops near a canal and turns into a human. Ara jumps off his back and keeps shooting. "You want our poison roots?" He screams, slashing through the herd with Hazel's sword. "Come and get them!"

He grabs Ara by the waist and jumps to the canal, turning into a dolphin. The girl holds onto him, but even though she'd been expecting this part, the smelly water is warm and repulsive, and she squirms in disgust.

"This sucks!" She shoots at the monsters angrily. "Nico's in debt for life!"

It feels like an eternity of running and killing, Ara keeps changing Almighty into different weapons to test out its efficiency, and she keeps glowing different colors as well: White, silver, green, and teal (she grew tired after that one, pulled half a dozen cow-dogs to the canal). 

"There!" Frank points at an old wooden bridge.

"Looks weak!" Ara nods approvingly. "Let's go!"

Frank turns into an eagle to make sure all the monsters are still following them, and Ara focuses on shooting, slashing, stabbing, and exploding the monsters with the bombs she had in her Octopi. Frank joins her in human form, pulling her to the middle of the bridge.

He grabs the roots from her pockets and tosses them behind them along with his roots, then he draws out Hazel's spatha. "Come on! You want to know what Frank Zhang is worth? Come on!"

Ara's never used all of her blessings in a row, and it takes a lot from her. Her anger is keeping her standing, she's tired of having to guess whether they'll be wounded or helped—most of all, she's tired of pitying herself. 

Ara likes a good fight, and she enjoys killing monsters, but lately, all she thinks is that she's sending threats to Percy and Annabeth, thinning their chances of survival and getting in their way like she's always done. 

Her actions have consequences, in this world and the next, and the ones around her. All she can do is minimize the damage by not going apeshit. She focuses on achieving their goal even if it costs her a limb, she can't go back to the ship with Nico as a plant and no Hazel, so she'll do whatever Frank tells her to, twist herself into knots if she has to.

The girl calculates all of her moves and keeps an eye on Frank, who attacks the monsters in all the forms he can imagine, animal and human. He's a little frantic too, their strength and patience are running out. 

Eventually, a red light envelops them. There are no monsters left except for one, and Ara yanks Frank backward before he slays it. "You said we needed one!"

"Mars!" Frank yells, eyes wild and angry. "I've proven myself. Now I need a snake!"

The cow-dog jumps at them, and Frank moves Ara out of the way to cut it in half. The monster vanishes in a flash, and in its place, a python lands at their feet.

"Well done," says a voice.

Ara drops her sword. This is Mars, not Ares, she knows the difference because this version looks less stupid. She kneels before him, grateful. Percy would not approve of this, but the girl doesn't care. Ares has always kept her alive, like Clarisse did when they were little.

"On your feet, Strategus," he commands her. "A good leader knows when to hand over the reigns, and when to take control. You've earned my blessing."

Ara feels a lump in her throat but says nothing, she steps back so Frank can talk to his dad. "Father," the boy speaks hoarsely.

"It's natural to feel fear." Ara only heard him speak this warmly when Clarisse killed the drakon. "All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not. But you faced your fear, my son. You did what you had to do, like Horatius. This was your bridge, and you defended it."

"I—" Frank gulps. "I... I just needed a snake."

The god smirks. "Yes. And now you have one. Your bravery has united my forms, Greek and Roman, if only for a moment. Go. Save your friends. But hear me, Frank. Your greatest test is yet to come. When you face the armies of Gaea at Epirus, your leadership—" the god bends over, his form glitching from the Roman to the Greek. "Agony!" He moans. "Go! Hurry!"

"Get on my back," Frank tells her. 

Ara does and then he turns into an eagle, grabs the python with his claws, and flies away. 

"You found one!" Triptolemus says delightedly.

"Heal them," Frank drags the python into the room and then moves over to Hazel. "Now."

"How do I know the snake will work?"

Ara yanks the python closer to the chariot, tilts it sideways, and wraps the creature around the broken wheel. The chariot comes to life and starts circling the room.

"Fixed." Ara crosses her arms. "That'll be two healthy children of the Underworld, please."

Triptolemus tilts his head, toying with their worry. "Well, thank you for the snake, but I'm not sure I like your attitudes, demigods. Perhaps I'll turn you into—"

Frank jumps to his feet and pushes the god against a wall. It's only then that Ara notices his physical change. She glances down, her body looks different too.

"Think about your next words," Frank growls. "Or instead of beating my sword into a plowshare, I will beat it into your head."

"You know..." The god's eyes dart between him and Ara, who's glaring at him too. "I think I'll heal your friends." 

"Swear it on the River Styx," Frank presses.

"I swear it on the River Styx."

The boy steps back and Triptolemus stumbles away from him. "Just—just gathering herbs!"

Frank stands next to Ara, taller than before. Before they left Trip's house, Nico the potted plant was the same height as her, now it barely reaches her chin. Both demigods look at each other and Ara whistles.

"You look scary."

"You're small... but a different small," Frank frowns. "Like a bodybuilder that's just getting started. There's a child of Venus in New Rome—"

Hazel coughs and sits up. Triptolemus is next to her, his fingers full of crumbs and greenish matter.  "What—?"

Frank approaches and wraps his arms around her, he could suffocate the fourteen-year-old without even trying. "You're going to be fine. Everything is fine."

"But..." Hazel moves away and eyes him. "Frank, what happened to you?"

"To me?" He looks at himself. "I don't... Uh... I don't... Maybe I can fix it."

Hazel laughs. "Why? You look amazing!"

"I—I do?"

"I mean, you were handsome before! But you look older, and taller, and so distinguished—"

"Mars's blessing," Ara explains. "We both got it, I think."

"You think?" Triptolemus snorts. "Now, if we're done here..."

"We're not done," Frank points at the corn plant. "Heal Nico."

Nico turns back into a human and Ara steadies him before he falls on his face. "I—I had the weirdest nightmare about popcorn." He scowls at Ara, now as tall as him. "Why are we eye-to-eye?"

"You've been a corn plant for two years—"

"Knock it off, Birdy," Frank interrupts her. "Everything's fine. Triptolemus was about to tell us how to survive the House of Hades. Weren't you, Trip?"

"Fine," Trip makes a face. "When you arrive at Epirus, you will be offered a chalice to drink from."

"Offered by whom?" Nico questions.

"Doesn't matter. Just know that it is filled with deadly poison."

"So you're saying that we shouldn't drink it," Hazel says hesitantly.

"No! You must drink it, or you'll never be able to make it through the temple. The poison connects you to the world of the dead, lets you pass into the lower levels. The secret to surviving is... barley."

"Barley." Frank repeats.

"In the front room, take some of my special barley. Make it into little cakes. Eat these before you step into the House of Hades. The barley will absorb the worst of the poison, so it will affect you, but not kill you."

"That's it?" Nico frowns. "Hecate sent us halfway across Italy so you could tell us to eat barley?"

"Good luck!" Triptolemus gets on his chariot. "And, Frank Zhang, I forgive you for threatening me! You've got spunk. And you're brighter than you look, daughter of Olympus! I'd love to see you two get a degree in farming!"

"Not a chance, Trip!" Ara waves him off.

"Yeah," Frank makes a face. "Thanks."

"He's right, you know," Nico tells her. "You don't look smart. Ouch! You're stronger?!" He asks in outrage.

"Be quiet or I'll send you to camp in pieces," Ara warns him.

"Oh, to be mobile again!" Triptolemus exclaims as the garage doors open. "So many ignorant lands in need of my knowledge. I will teach them the glories of tilling, irrigation, fertilizing! Away, my serpents! Away!"

"I kind of regret fixing his ride," Ara mumbles. "We've released a nuance into the world."

"Can't be any worse than what's already out there," Frank sighs.

"That," Hazel says, "was very strange."

"The glories of fertilizing." Nico moves away from Ara and brushes off the corn hairs of his jacket. "Can we get out of here now?"

"Are you two okay, really?" Hazel places a hand on Frank's shoulder. "You bartered for our lives. What did Triptolemus make you do?"

Frank looks at his feet and takes a shaky breath. "Those cow monsters... the katoblepones that poisoned you... we had to destroy them."

"That was brave," Nico points out. "There must have been, what, six or seven left in that herd."

"No." Frank corrects him. "All of them. We killed all of them in the city."

Ara holds Frank's hand to absorb some of his torment. "I told Triptolemus I could fix his chariot, and Frank just did his best to help me."

"You put your life on the line just so we could heal Hazel," Frank squeezes her hand once and then lets go. "We helped each other. I know it's your job, but..."

"My job is to keep you from danger, not to put you in its way," Ara makes a face. "It won't happen again, I apologize."

"Look at that," Nico raises a brow. "That's the second time I hear a sincere apology from you. Maybe those blessings make you grow in more ways than one." 

She thinks about what Hercules said, her ambition feeding on her youth. "How fun..."

"Well," Nico moves toward the exit. "Does anyone know what barley looks like?"

Next Chapter –>

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