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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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The definitive answers to Disney's pernicious queueing debates

Last summer, I wrote a six-part series on the history, future and present-day of queue- and crowd-management strategies at Disney themeparks, summarizing my endless reading, rumination, and direct experience on the question.

https://doctorow.medium.com/disneyland-at-a-stroll-part-vi-62934f35aac1

Who gets to do what and when at a themepark may sound like a trivial question, but I think it’s a perfect little microcosm for the distributional problems that are at the heart of all political economy — questions that the pandemic’s shortages and shocks threw into stark relief.

It’s a question that’s animated my work since my first book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which is literally about how people lay claim to priority over scarce systems, using methods that aren’t driven by spot markets or other faith-tenets of neoclassical economics:

https://craphound.com/down/

That question continues to come up in my work, tangled up with complicating factors of psychology, economics, material culture, high technology, and distributional philosophies, which come together in Walkaway, my novel about fully automated luxury Communist resorts in the burned-over, ruined places of the climate emergency:

https://craphound.com/category/walkaway/

I don’t flatter myself that my six-part series was the final word on the subject of how aggregate demand and distribution can be managed through a mix of computers, networks, psychology and showmanship, but I do think I did a pretty good job.

And then I spent 103 minutes watching Defunctland’s latest video, “Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History,” and reeled. I slept on it, got up this morning, and I’m still reeling. It not often that I recommend that you spend nearly two hours watching a video, but that is my firm recommendation here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE

As the title suggests, the video depicts the evolution of different crowd-management strategies in the Disney parks, starting with the early ticket-books that bundled together “E-ticket rides” (like the Jungle Boat Cruise) with A-ticket rides (like the horse-drawn cart up Main Street).

It describes the internal executive struggles within Disney to change this system to some kind of reservations- or virtual-queue based system — struggles that turned on philosophical questions about equitable access, operational questions of administratability, economic questions of profit maximization, and, of course, the technical question of what was actually possible.

The turning point came with the advent of process-engineering simulations, which bolstered the case for Fastpasses (a reservation system that evolved into a kind of hybrid reservation/virtual queue system) by putting it on an empirical, rather than philosophical, footing.

But “you treasure what you measure” and “every measurement becomes a target” and so Fastpasses became a symbol that different stakeholders in the Disney parks projected their own aspirations and fears onto. Regular visitors — annual passholders, mostly — learned how to “optimize” their Fastpass usage. Front-line operations people learned how to adapt them (for example, when a ride broke down, operators would dispense and discard several hours’ worth of Fastpasses to balance out the promised reservations with the ride’s capacity). Marketing sold Fastpasses. Infrequent guests who didn’t understand Fastpasses fumed at the people who “cut in line” ahead of them. Imagineering designed queues to accommodate Fastpasses.

Each of these interventions were grounded in ideology, sometimes explicit and sometimes unspoken. For example: “Everyone who comes to a Disney park should have a chance to ride the best rides.” Or: “People who put in the time to read guidebooks and online forums deserve to have an advantage when they come to a Disney park.” Or: “People who save for a once-in-a-lifetime trip should experience the most impressive rides.” Or: “People who are loyal customers and come all the time deserve the advantages that come with experience.”

It doesn’t take much imagination to map these ideological positions onto higher-stakes distributional questions coming up today, like “People who choose not to get vaccinated should go to the back of the line at the ICU.” But because we’re talking about six minutes on Space Mountain and not a week on a ventilator, it’s possible to examine multiple sides of the argument without quite so much emotional freight.

New technology opened up new possibilities for queue- and crowd-management. At the same time, the company was discovering that a sizable portion of its audience was price-insensitive. When they tried to reduce the number of Annual Passholders by raising the price, they discovered that most of those APs hung in there. Raising the price again, and again, and again, had little effect on passholder numbers.

This discovery bolstered the argument for resolving shortages by raising prices, and Disney started tinkering with ways to sell priority access to rides, with strategies ranging from premiums for people who stayed in a park hotel to a per-day/per-visitor upcharge to unlock various additional Fastpass capabilities. Some of these had little effect, and some had very big ones, like the operational challenge posed by thousands of people crisscrossing the parks to collect Fastpasses from ride entrances like the faithful performing the Stations of the Cross.

All of these currents came together with the advent of Magicband, an RFID bracelet tied into a complex back-end that was supposed to facilitate reserved rides, make it easier to buy things, act as your park tickets, and even your credit card. This project ballooned to a $1b tech boondoggle that struggles to this day (my own experiences with it have been farcical, even Kafkaesque). It also spawned a whole cottage industry of vloggers, influencers and forum flamers who offered ways to eke out minor advantages or circumvent the multi-hour waits for phone support when things went horribly, inexplicably wrong.

A couple months ago, Disney announced Genie Plus, a new initiative, based around a digital personal assistant that would recommend itineraries based on a combination of guest preferences, historical trends, and current conditions. Critically, this system also includes a way to buy Fastpasses — even as it does away with the ability to reserve Fastpasses months in advance.

Describing this, Defunctland advances the argument that this system has the potential to balance out the different ideological positions embodied in different crowd-management tactics through the years. By limiting virtual queues and reservations to same-day bookings, the system ensures that people who are unfamiliar with the system will get a crack at the best rides. By keeping the upcharge on Fastpasses low, the system adds a manageable premium to the cost of a once-in-a-lifetime family visit. By limiting how many Fastpasses you can buy — you can’t get a new Fastpass for a ride until you’ve used the one you’re holding, and then it is subject to availability — the system balances ride capacity between frequent and infrequent riders.

Anyone who spends time on Disney park forums will be familiar with these questions of distributional fairness — they are the source of endless arguments that turn on a mix of anecdote and logical inference, but they’re notably shy on data.

That’s where the Defunctland video takes a hell of a turn. The team worked with computer scientists and data on real-world Disney park visitor wait times to build a powerful simulation of a hypothetical themepark: Shapeland (slogan: “Acute place to shape memories”).

By running this simulation multiple times under different crowd-management strategies, the team was able to create an empirical account of the distributional effects and efficiency of each. The results are fascinating: for example, systems that let you buy your way into the line produce some efficiencies (less slack capacity on all rides, more rides per person), but depending on the size of the charge and its specific contours, the distributional and efficiency effects skew wildly. Some market-based “solutions” produce fewer rides per person, even as some rides sit empty, with ample surplus capacity.

Whenever we’re talking about empirical data on Disney wait-times, we’re inevitably talking about Touring Plans, Len Testa’s Disney park travel-agency/app/analytics firm, which started when Testa was in college and he started bringing a stop-watch to Disney parks to compare posted wait times to actual wait times. Today, Touring Plans produces guides, realtime recommendations and planning information grounded in a decades-long, detailed data-set compiled by its customers’ own use of its apps. It’s the single best adjunct to a Disney visit you can have:

https://touringplans.com/

Unsurprisingly, Testa played a role in the creation of Shapeland and the analysis of its data; he says it “shows how FastPass disadvantaged the guests who had the audacity not to study for their vacation like it was a medical board certification.”

He also says that he’s working with Defunctland to open-source the python code underpinning the Shapeland modeling tool, producing “the basic infrastructure to simulate things and help the next generation of theme park designers.”

Shapeland looks like a hell of a themepark to visit. Defunctland’s got Shapeland merch up for pre-sale:

https://defunctland.myshopify.com/

#pluralistic

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haemilkis · 4 years ago

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grocery shopping date

Pairing: husband!haechanxreader

Genre: fluff

Word Count: 1172 words (im sorry—it was supposed to be a drabble adjskl)

Warnings: none

Summary: You and your husband Haechan decided to go grocery shopping together and stumbled upon someone that made you want to ask whether you were ready to build a family.

It was a Sunday morning and both you and your husband Haechan were beat from last night’s impromptu karaoke session that went on till 4am since your husband just can’t stop serenading you his favourite Micheal Jacksons’ songs. It was definitely sweet of him to share his Spotify playlist(S) with you back when you were still his girlfriend. But not when you’re now his wife and would have to listen to his anthem Smooth Criminal at least thrice a day — but you also fell in love with him because of that. He really proposed to you to be his girlfriend through his Spotify playlist!

As of right now, you’re just too madly in love with this man to deny anything from him. “hey, morning”, he muffles his words under the blanket and slowly stretches his arms around your waist. “so, what are you doing today?”, you said as you positioned your face in front of him and tugged the blanket he used to hide his face in. Haechan was smiling through the blanket as he playfully peeps at you through the blanket and stared at you face for a bit before answering you, “maybe we should go grocery shopping together today, what do you think, hm?”, you smiled playfully and nodded through the blanket that was once on Haechan’s head. You both knew that it was still a tad bit early to go now so you just cuddled together for another 10 mins or so you thought—it was actually an hour later when you both got up and got ready to go to the nearby supermarket to buy your groceries.

As soon as you and your husband arrived at the supermarket it was packed with people and you were already thinking whether you should just go home—but you husband was adamant to still pick up the necessary items like milk, bread and chocoballs (Maltesers to be exact, his absolute favourite). So you just went in the automated glass door entrance of the Groceria whilst Haechan grabbed the trolley. Once you found the perishable food aisle you asked your husband if he wanted some more tofu and kimchi since he loved to cook kimchijiggae at least twice a week. “of course! yes yes” he cheered to you and with a smile he winked and you were a bit flustered because you can never get used to your husband’s love language (flirting with you 24/7 at the most random times). “alrighty haechan i get you now turn down a notch... there are people staring at us” haechan smirked and strolled the trolley to the bread section that was a few steps away.

Unbeknown to you, suddenly you felt someone tugging your maxi dress from behind. You were about to scream your husband’s name aloud because you were already internally screaming for a split second. You quickly turned around to see a very small figure with a height just above your knees tugging your dress tightly. The tiny baby girl had long hair in a ponytail and eyes were wet with tears. “Are you okay sweetheart? Where are your parents? Are you alright? don’t cry, okay let’s find mummy and daddy”, you bombarded her with questions since you were feeling flustered as the small figure’s crying didn’t stop.

Haechan saw you and was about to approach you but stopped his tracks as he saw your maternal side when you started to hug the child’s small figure to calm her. He felt weird. Not the bad kind of weird — rather, something in him was infatuated by the sight of you and him having a child together. To have his very own small family. He was lost in his own thoughts but quickly brought back to reality as the mother of the child in your hands scurried through the crowd to reach her crying baby girl. “I'm so sorry! Eun Hae tends to run off on her own sometimes whenever she gets a little too giddy but would also then cry when she loses her way to me” the mother rambles and sighs at the end as she tells you about her daughter. By this time your husband was beside you and also trying to entertain the small girl to ease her cries whilst the mother was explaining to you. Shortly after, the mother then thanked you again and left the both of you again now walking towards the freshly baked bread section of the Groceria.

You noticed that haechan was stealing looks at you. “um, is there something on my face?”, you quickly brushed your face with your fingers. He smiled “no, you don’t” and briefly chuckled. Both of you went back to shopping for the groceries together speedily since the supermarket was now very packed. The queues were long and you both kept things minimal and bought only the absolute necessities ( yes, Maltesers included) and went to the self checkout counter to make your payment.

As soon as you were in the car and loaded the shopping bags in, haechan was still stealing looks at you. “Ok haechan tell me...what is on your mind?” You just knew that at this point he wasn’t trying to get your attention to flirt with you or any of his mischievous acts since he had “I have something to tell you” written all over his face. Haechan quickly adjusted his body to face you from the driver’s seat. “Okay so actually just now when you were calming the little girl from crying... i was— well I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now... do you think we should... you know... have our own little family?”, he said as he looked into your eyes earnestly. “I saw how you looked at the little girl and how you calmed her down...I just know that you will be able to be the best mother for our children” he continued. You, on the other hand, were feeling relieved and over the moon when your husband finally asked you this. You’ve always felt unsure on how to bring up this topic with him to discuss because it was always either you were both too busy with work or just unsure how to word it to you husband—mostly due to the latter.

You positioned yourself upright as you face your husband in the car with just the white noise of the wind blasting through the car’s air-conditioning chambers. “I- thank you haechan. Thank you and yes! yes I would love too”, you mumbled to him as you looked back at him at the verge of tears streaming down your peach tint cheeks.

You both hugged each other and savoured the moment into the embrace. “okay but let's go home first okay? or else your maltesers’ going to melt”, you said with a chuckle.

#haechan #nct dream #haechan fluff #oneshot #fanfic #nct imagines #nctau #haechan!husband #nct 127 #nct 127 haechan #lee donghyuck #donghyuck x reader #donghyuck fluff #haechan fic #nct dream fanfic #nct

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eyndr-stories · 3 years ago

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Howdy, traveler!

Welcome to the void under the bridge, where I stow all my creative nonsense. You can look around as long as you like! Don’t mind me, I’ll just be staring at you intently and hovering closely over your shoulder as you look at my stuff!!

Tags:

eyndr tells a story - all the stuff ive written

eyndr does art - all the drawings ive made

writing help - posts about tips and advice for writing stuff

art help - posts about tips and advice for drawing stuff

paper airplanes - asks I've answered

prized jewels of the hoard - fanart from others <3<3<3 (I love you all so much)

queue cheese please - I've got a queue set up now! Sometimes I'm not on tumblr for a while so this will hopefully keep things a bit more consistent. If you see me in your notifs liking a bunch of stuff, the reblogs will follow soon lol

~*~

This is a side blog for my stories and other creative nonsense and current fandom shenanigans! Currently very much into FNAF: Security Breach so you're gonna see a whole lot of that here lol

My main is @eyndr which is mostly just for memes and general tom-foolery

My ask box is open! Feel free to yell at me, send me a prompt, say hi, whatever B^) I am a friendly creature and I hardly ever bite promise :)

~*~

If you'd like to toss a coin under my bridge I have a patreon and a ko-fi! Patreon's got a bit more stuff on it just cause they have better support for posting stories and I also like their tagging system lol

New stories are posted in their entirety to Patreon in advance as soon as they're done! That’s right, I figured out how to schedule things all nice and proper, just for you!! If you want you can pay to read the whole story all at once for as little as a dollar, otherwise, my stories will typically post chapter by chapter one day at a time (and become available to the general public on Patreon at the same rate) both here and over on Ao3

~*~

All my stories and their info are under the read more~

Unwelcome Shopper - Created from a prompt by @write-it-motherfuckers, this short story is about a very tired retail employee working the night shift, speculating about their weird little town, and working through their anxieties.

My Planet - Created from a prompt by @writing-prompt-s, this short story is about love, hard decisions, and a little bit of sci-fi stuff.

From Dirt We Come, To Dirt We Return - This is an original short story written by yours truly about a pet sitter who agrees to watch a very dirty dog. Elavo struggles both with their mortality as well as keeping their house clean.

The Stranger The Better - A finished Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach fanfic! In Summary: Reader is a forever exhausted young adult who has social difficulties doing their best to pay the bills, so when they get hired at the well-paying, almost entirely automated Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizza-Plex, they don't really hesitate to think things through before stumbling headfirst into a horror mystery surrounding this company and its crew of quirky (and surprisingly kind) animatronics.

To Be Human - A finished Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach fanfic! In Summary: In a distant future where humans no longer roam the Earth and the sentient robots they left behind are left with little to no clues as to the lost history of their inherited world, Sun and Moon take up the title of scientists and endeavor to create their own human in their lab (that's where you come in!) in order to shed light on the mystery that is the lost history of the human race. Shenanigans and existential dread ensue as you, a funky little lab creature given sentience, attempt to puzzle out what it really means to be human.

To Be Alive - A finished Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach fanfic! Also a continuation / part 2 of 'To Be Human'. In Summary: At long last, the thrilling continuation of 'To Be Human'! There are more shenanigans for Star and co to get up to, and new horrors to be subjected to! Not to mention, Eclipse is still at large and up to no good... As 'To Be Human' is a self contained stand-alone story, one could very well choose to leave the adventure as is! Considering there are some heavier themes in this one (biggest thing here being death, specifically) that's exactly what I would recommend you do if you like everything very much the way it ended in 'To Be Human'. This story is an exploration of a few ideas I wanted to work with left over from the first story, and a way to tie up some very minor loose ends, as well as a return to some characters and a world I had a lot of fun with.

Chester and the Jesters - A finished Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach fanfic! In Summary: The new tech sure does seem a little strange. Chester (at least, that's what their name tag says) doesn't seem as concerned as they should be about the high turnover rate here at Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizza-Plex, or the numerous rumors about what happens to people who take the night shift. And to make matters worse, there seems to be some kind of criminal on the loose! The cops say they think the criminal is hiding out in the woods somewhere near the pizza-plex. Stress is high at the plex these days, but Chester is stoic as ever. Say, come to think of it, no one can seem to remember where Chester's application went or who they interviewed with. Their employee file is misplaced or missing just like everything else in this place. But the new tech does a good job completing their tasks, and has their own badge and everything, so of course they must belong here. It's not like someone would sneak into the plex and go this far out of their way to impersonate a low level technician. Right??

I Think I Smell A Rat - A finished Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach fanfic! In Summary: Being a robotic repair rat who lives in the walls of the pizza-plex is a pretty great gig, all things considered! You fix the wires instead of chew them, and you get into tight spaces those silly humans can't reach and fix things up behind the scenes. You do your little tasks diligently, and all is well. That is, until one night when you realize all of your other repair rat friends have gone missing, and almost all of those animatronics outside the walls are acting strange… You aren't sure what it is that needs fixing, but by golly you'll fix it! You just might need a little help along the way…

THE SQUEAKUEL - Epilogue to 'I Think I Smell A Rat'! Just a silly little thing, all chill fluff. You and your rat friends play games with Sun and Moon!

Did It Hurt When You Fell? - A short little scenario request from ShiraCheshire on Ao3! Same universe and characters as 'I Think I Smell A Rat'. No prior reading required. This is a very detailed repair scene! We dive paws first into the noggin of our favorite blorbo :) And there's a few nifty little tidbits about repair rats as well!

We'll Need To Invest In Parachutes At This Rate - A short scenario request from FormDrop on Ao3! Same universe and characters as 'I Think I Smell A Rat'. No prior reading required. This is a sort of other side of the coin of the last chapter (Did It Hurt When You Fell?), where this time its Sun & Moon helping you after you've sustained some pretty gnarly damage!

Tea Time Tall Tails - A short scenario request from The_TRUE_Fanfiction_Princess and Gaiko on Ao3! Same universe and characters as 'I Think I Smell A Rat'. No prior reading required. Basically Sun, resident expert on having fun, teaches a bunch of robo rats how to get silly! Just a cute fun little chapter ^_^

Untitled Goose Fic - It's a lovely night in Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizza-Plex, and you are a horrible goose. Super short, just a single chapter, and packed full of silly shenanigans! You are a goose a la 'untitled goose game' and you decide to have some good silly goose fun for a night in the plex! You confuse and maybe even befriend baffled animatronics and knock a lot of things over and do a considerable amount of honking. That's all, its just a silly fun little fic! Enjoy!! <3

Across The World - Original story written by yours truly! 8 chapters, fully completed. Summary: The gods of this world are ancient, most of them forgotten, or nearly so. Nomen has been taught not to make deals with any old gods, should they be unlucky enough to come across one. However, when their little brother Maribus stumbles into mortal peril, they find they have no real choice but to accept the trials of one such god in order to save him.

#writing #stories #short stories #eyndr tells a story #eyndr does art #prized jewels of the hoard #writing help #fanfic #fnaf sb fanfic #rebagel #paper airplanes #art help #pinned post #last edited march 2. 2024

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mymadmedleyw · 3 years ago

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For the Wips ask game.

First of all, you have so many wips. I'm a little scared for you. 😂

Seriously though, everything looks so exciting. I'll ask specifically about "No other choice Left" and "Lightness of Dark."

Thank you for being interested! ❤

Yes, I have many WIPs - especially in my mind 😅 - and you don't even know half of it. 😄 (I did not list the many short ones for GG or WTPH because that would have been long, so it was a shortened list. Now, you can imagine why I am going ahead with everything this slow. My mind is chaotic, working on its own most of the time and against my plans.)

Anyway, so ‘little’ summary about the asked ones.

:readmore:

No Other Choice Left:

Technically it'll play after WTPH/21, but it could be read independently. You ask how. Well, it'll contain a revealing scenario. Without mentioning how that particular circumstance happened that led the happenings there, it could be about anything, so then, working as a simple reveal fic too, and as a sort of standing alone one. On the other hand, it will be the continuation of the mainline, cutting off a question about a not-answered sideline.

Right now, I don't know if it will be a two-shot - as I would need at least two POVs - or it will 'just' one chapter with cuts init. I had this idea for a while, and I think I could say it is mostly written, but since it (could be) connected to WTPH, it's in queue now.

However, I'm going to share its main synopsis:

"Mr and Mrs Fenton,

This is Phantom. This is an automated message in case of an emergency. Please detect the signal. The Specter Speeder is attached to it.

Whatever happened, remember, I'm on your side. I always was. Be hurry.

Note: if it is Danny, please don't take him to the hospital, this is important! Later he will tell why. If it is me - Phantom - it is just as important not to shoot me. I will tell you everything later.

(Please don't freak out if I change in front of you before I could tell you everything.)

The attachment will help you in case of a medical emergency."

(Side note: it is a sequel of previously shared Portal)

---

Lightness of Dark (a.k.a. 'LoD'):

Oh, god, I could rant about this... This's my next planned long story. This was my medicine during December when I was having my final exam at the university, writing my thesis, and other great stuff... I was longing for that to start writing on this. It was tormenting me at the same time and was helping me to go ahead too. You can imagine the headache. So, the moment I could sit down for that, getting free from school obligations, I began to work on this idea as soon as I could. And I managed to figure out mostly its whole plot that time too. 😁

It has already a prologue, four and a half chapters right after that, two and a quarter chapters in the middle, and the earlier shared 'concept' (Sailor) is somewhere in its 'third' part. (I have three separate docs for its sections to write: the continuation of the beginning part, the middle, and for the end).

The whole idea got born from this little idea because it was bugging me so much that soon my brain had to come up with some background for that little scene. So then, it turned out into a complete story, into LoD. (And the scene itself is actually in the first chapter, so...)

I have so much to tell about this story, but I think I have to keep myself back a bit to avoid bringing out the surprise factors.

Technically, the story will play between WTPH and GG, but it could be read entirely independently from those. The little connection LoD will have to those will be mentioned, but only briefly. (I could say its only reference to GG will be that once or twice Dan's dreams about a girl - Dani - will be brought up, but really just for some side notes. Anything relevant that happened in WTPH will be explained too, through some short comparisons of the happenings in LoD, but nothing more will be needed.)

The story itself won't be about Dan. Sure, he'll be one of the main characters, but the focus will be on Valerie. LoD, even though won't be as complicated as WTPH was, it'll have its surprises, I am sure. My longest chapter in this so far is 4k long, so it won't be as gigantic either, as my 'usual' chapters are in WTPH. Which, hopefully, would allow me to work on it faster too if its time comes.

I think I can't say more about it, but here are some interesting (irrelevant) facts. It won't be mentioned as clearly, but it'll mainly be played in Europe. I was like, 'hey, why not write once a fic playing a bit in Europe?'. So I did it. And it happened similarly with the sailing stuff. (I could drive a boat and more or less could sail too, so yeah, I am stealing some stuffs init from my life. 😅)

Also, some could say it'll be a darkgray fic. I can't decide if it could be counted as that or not. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Personally, I can't write romantic things, and I am far away from Deliverance-level - even though that story gave me the idea to once write on my own one with Valerie and Dan - so it could be said it will be darkgray one, as much that it won't.

The story itself will play in a TUE timeline - but I can't say more about it without saying too much.

Officially LoD was planned for InvisoBang, but I very soon realised I wouldn't be capable of finishing WTPH and writing this to be done at the deadline, so plans changed. This decision freed me from a huge weight, though, allowing me to go ahead at my own pace with writing both. (Which means I haven't touched LoD in a while... 😅)

The story itself will be about Valerie, along with Vlad, kind of having no other way but working together with her thought-to-be enemy to avoid an event. But of course, things wouldn't be this easy. Things (that were never said before) come to light, and trusts get shattered, old stuffs return, and other lovely things will happen. So 'Lightness of Dark' will be kind of about Valerie finding herself again behind the Red Huntress. Just as much it'll be about not necessarily seeing everything 'black and white', so then neither her enemy as just her enemy, but as a person, and facing severe issues meanwhile too.

---

(Collecting these thoughts, I realised how much I miss writing these ideas. Now I've got curious and took a quick check, 'No Other Choice Left' was updated on 1st February 2021! 😳 I can't even speak about LoD without causing me heartache wishing to work on that again. 😔 But maybe, soon! ☺)

Thanks for being interested in coming stuffs! ❤

#my stuff

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kittyfandango · 4 years ago

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Some thoughts about the TVA (with spoilers)

What does the TVA recruitment process look like? We know they’re all variants, and we’ve seen them die. Presumably sometimes they need new agents. and the TVA isn’t actually manufacturing them out of nothing (I think they are mostly clones in the comics).

The TVA has judges and trials, prisoner facilities. What for? According to their own rules it’s not possible to be innocent of deviating from the sacred timeline. Even if it was, we’re shown them resetting timelines before taking a variant in for judgement so there’s nowhere to send them back to. What would happen if they were innocent? Is there a sanctuary for exonerated variants somewhere? Bringing Loki in to help catch Sylvie seems to be an exception to the way they normally do things. Surely it would be more efficient to erase the variant with the rest of the timeline?

It would make sense if the trial and processing was the first step in recruiting and ‘making’ a new TVA agent, even if judges aren’t aware that’s what they’re actually doing.

They’d have to either keep the new agents and their records away from the team that brought them in, or else mind-wipe everyone involved. Are there actually TVA people that know the truth and carry out this kind of work, is it all automated?

The TVA is an interesting moral dilemma. One the one hand all TVA ‘employees’ are kidnapped victims who had their minds erased, but on the other hand they’re all acting freely. They’ve been lied to and manipulated, but not forced. I wish that had been explored a bit. Instead they TVA is shown as pretty bad itself (in a bit of a wishy-washy non committal sort of way) but the people aren’t. It’s a bit too black and white.

But what happens if they do refuse to do the job they’ve been assigned? I’d imagine rebellious agents are pruned. It makes sense that they’d have a recruitment process that selects people most likely to submit to authority. Someone who won’t take a ticket and queue nicely probably isn’t going to be an obedient TVA slave for a start.

Some people just wouldn’t make good TVA agents. Could you mind-wipe a variant Steve Rogers and expect him to commit genocide on a daily basis? Seems unlikely.

The one thing that doesn’t fit with that is Sylvie. When they brought her in she was a child, probably too young to be an agent. Did they want her for something else?

Is any of this intentional? Am I just trying to pull together bits of world building that weren’t well thought out? Maybe?

#loki critical #loki spoilers #my posts

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hotdogct · 4 years ago

Text

as dreamers do ||| n.jm

pairing: na jaemin x reader genre: fluff words: 2.2k a/n: hello!!! this is my first piece of writing in a very long time, so apologies if its all over the place/makes no sense!!! obviously this is all a work of fiction, disclaimer, blablabla, idk what i’m doing i just wanted to write drabbles about nct lmao, so with that being said!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do you trust me?”

You roll your eyes in the direction of your coworker, Jaemin, who was sitting across from you in the fluorescent lit break room located just behind Splash Mountain’s gift shop and exit. The two of you were part of the massive workforce of college aged youth that Disney recruited every year to staff their theme parks and resorts. While you weren’t initially thrilled with your role as a custodian, you learned to appreciate its quirks - and that included the unique cast of characters otherwise known as your coworkers. From the full-timers that did their best to ignore your presence, knowing another semester would just bring a fresh wave of new faces, to your fellow program cohorts - Jaemin being one of them.

Assuming he was just quoting Aladdin at you, you offer no response to Jaemin’s initial query and continue scrolling through your phone, shoveling the few remaining cheese crackers from the nearby vending machine down your throat, intending on savoring the remaining minutes of your last break for the evening.

Your thoughts wandered back to your fellow cast members. There was Daehwi, sheltered and away from home for the first time, affectionately nicknamed ‘baby’ by everyone he befriended. Wendy, with her melodic voice and cheerful disposition, eager to break into song at a moments notice. Lucas, who might’ve come to Florida to party first, but worked equally hard. Hani, who arrived a few weeks after you, always the first to come help when you radio that your restroom has overflowed, again. Even Jinho, who had initially fooled you with his youthful looks before revealing this was his third time through the program, had somehow wormed his way into your heart. But nobody had been as captivating as Jaemin. When you first met him in passing in the cramped break room, you were convinced casting had made a mistake, that he was lost on his way to costuming for entertainment. He certainly looked like a prince - perfectly straight teeth, boyishly handsome good looks. A few days later he was assigned to clean the same bathrooms as you - “bathroom buddies” as everyone affectionately would call the practice. There, in the shared stockrooms, you learned who Jaemin was beyond his beautiful face - how his friends back home called him Nana, that he was studying photography in college, that he was an only child, a helluva flirt. Even your music tastes were similar, a fact you discovered on one of the many cramped, late night bus rides back to program housing where the two of you stood packed shoulder to shoulder, like sardines in a can. Jaemin interacted with guests both young and young at heart with an effortless charm and grace. Your managers loved him immediately, and before you knew it, you found yourself incredibly enamored with him too.

It wasn’t until his hand suddenly broke through your field of vision, blocking sight of your phone, that you realized Jaemin had stood up and was now standing directly in front of you. His head covered the harshest of the overhead lights, casting a soft halo glow around his black, messy hair and broad shoulders. He smiles down at you, innocently, and you feel your heartbeat accelerate when your eyes meet his own.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, again. This time, without thought, you place your hand firmly in his.

******

Jaemin leads you out of the blinding light of the break room silently, into the dark of the early winter evening. Eyes still adjusting, you follow behind him, thankful that your corner of the park was mostly deserted - Splash Mountain still closed for the season, only a few stragglers were coming and going to use the restroom in the area. You vaguely remember that Jaemin had been assigned a nearby zone to clean that evening - which was it again…?

He leads you up a flight up stairs, then, and that’s when it hits you. Train Zone. The Frontierland Railroad Station. It was an easy zone to clean, as the railroad shut down early each night before the fireworks display. Gathering the trash in an empty zone like this was a godsend, especially when compared to the other ride queues you had to clean, oftentimes fighting constant guest traffic like a fish swimming upstream.

Lost in your thoughts, you follow behind Jaemin as he completes his task diligently, making sure each trash can within the train station is empty and re-bagged for the next morning. It had been a few days since the two of you had worked in neighboring areas, and you often found yourself tongue tied when around him. The background music loop of Frontierland was noticeably absent, the speakers within the station shut off for the night. This led to Jaemin singing nonsense songs while tying up trash bags and wiping down surfaces, dancing lightly on his feet.

Turkey leg-g-g

At the train

D-d-d-driving me insane~

All you could do was laugh at his antics, and before you knew it, the nearby banana boat parked at the exit ramp was full of trash bags. Satisfied with the results of your hard work, you were about to begin the walk to backstage, where the dumpsters were located, when Jaemin turned about face, walking instead towards the train station.

“What are you doing?!” you hiss, not wanting to shout but needing to stress your confusion at his actions. Jaemin stops at the gate, unlatches it, before turning around, beckoning you over with a smile.

“I asked you if you trusted me, didn’t I?” his voice low in your ear upon your arrival at his side, banana boat now parked safely out of any guest traffic. Jaemin unlocks the gate for you, both of you falling silent on your walk back up into the depths of the train station - no more cute, silly songs spilling from his lips.

“Are you sure we aren’t going to get caught?” your voice carries louder than intended across the empty room as you go through the turnstile, and you wince.

Jaemin’s boisterous laugh took you by surprise, followed a moment later by his hand ruffling the top of your head, messing up your hair. As if to say, foolish.

“Getting the trash from up here is technically our responsibility. So what if it took us a little long?”

He was right - the best part of your job was the agency it provided. Sure, you were cleaning up garbage and bathrooms and vomit, but you could walk around freely. Explore hidden corners and crevices of the park. You knew all too well the allures of the shared hallway between the Frontierland restrooms, the stock closet next to the Veranda breezeway, the dumpster behind the Haunted Mansion - places the rest of your desperately horny coworkers had used to hook up in weeks prior. As you follow Jaemin around a corner towards the front of the station, through an open passageway, you wonder if that’s what he has in mind. That is, until you see the view in front of you.

Jaemin had led you to a small balcony that overlooked the whole expanse of Frontierland. From above you could spot guests walking about the park to and fro, the Rivers of America flowing gently behind them in the distance. Bits and pieces of Cinderella’s Castle were visible through the tree line, shining bright in multicolor as the nightly projection show proceeded to play.

“Jaem, it’s….”

“Nice, isn’t it?” He finishes your thought for you, his hand brushing over the staged decorations of fake barrels and crates against the wall of the balcony that seemed perfect to sit upon. Moments later, Jaemin plops down with a satisfied smile on his face and pats the space beside him, silently asking you to join him.

“Nice is an understatement” you offer in reply. A small laugh leaves his lips, a breeze rolls through. For just a moment, it is quiet and still.

“I’ve been wanting to show you this place for a while, but the stars just never aligned right until tonight.”

“You mean, the computer system that automates scheduling and staffing didn’t randomly place us in neighboring areas of the park until to-” Jaemin’s stiff elbow into your side lets you know to drop the wit. That you could do, but a question lingered in your mind, still, and you did have to voice your sole concern.

“How do you not get caught up here?”

Jaemin turns around, points to the solitary light on the balcony, and it’s then that you notice the bulb is off. You might feel exposed looking down upon everyone, but quickly realize that nobody is looking up at the closed train station - let alone looking for two cast members in white uniforms in the dark, goofing off on a weeknight.

Fooling around…

You were thankful for the cover of darkness in that moment, as you felt your cheeks turn crimson at the thought. Being alone, with Jaemin, this close, in the dark...This all seemed very sudden, despite everyone knowing about your big crush on Nana - he had to know too?

“So,” Jaemin’s voice cuts through your ever-racing thoughts, and your chest goes cold. “A little birdie told me there’s something you really, really like…”

If jumping off the balcony was a safe option, in that moment, you would’ve taken it. A confirmation of your worst fears - that Jaemin was aware of your ridiculous, schoolgirl like crush on him. You are speechless, sunken, pulse racing, and terrified.

Without the usual cue of area music, caught up in the last hour, you had missed your usual clues. A loud boom caused you to jump in your seat, out of your brain, head immediately turning towards Jaemin - only to make eye contact with him, bright lights reflecting off the surface, who smiles and motions for you to turn around. Of course.

If you were known for one thing amongst your cohorts, it was that you loved fireworks. Even on the most hectic of nights you found a way to make sure you were outside during the nightly display, never taking for granted that you were being paid to watch the sky light up in time to music. You had your favorite spots to watch from, but had never once considered the train station. From the corner of Frontierland, it felt like the fireworks were almost on top of you - cascading down upon Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the expanse of empty night sky providing the perfect canvas. As the speakers above you were silent, there was no accompanying soundtrack, but it didn’t matter - you knew the whole show by heart. You were unaware of how long your mouth had been hanging open in blissful, childlike wonder, only noticing when Jaemin gently pressed his finger up against your chin, closing the space between your upper and lower lip through simple momentum. Moments later, his hand brushed over yours, testing the waters, and finding no complaint, interlocked his fingers with yours, and gravity pulls your head to his shoulder. A soft, steady hum leaves his lips, as you settle into this newfound bliss.

The rest of the fireworks show plays out in front of the two of you - two white ghosts in a dark shadow, illuminated by glowing streaks and bursts of color from the night sky. You’re working at the most magical place on earth, sure, but this felt like the most magical moment of your life.

Before you know it, the sky calms again, signaling the end of the show. You remain frozen for a moment, not wanting to leave. When you finally stand back up, awkwardly untangling yourself from Jaemin’s frame in a rushed manner, you can almost feel yourself floating back down to the ground, back to reality. Jaemin, your co-worker, Jaemin the flirt. He brought you up here just to watch the fireworks after all. Had you been a bit more outgoing, a bit less awkward, maybe...

Taking a few steps towards the entryway, a sudden hand on your wrist pulls you against the wall - thankfully, out of sight of any guests, but now engulfing your entire body in shadow. And it’s here in the darkness that Jaemin’s hand releases itself from your wrist, finds its way up to your cheek. Here, he leans in and kisses you - pressing his chapped lips against yours gently, but with enough intent and purpose that you swear you were seeing stars after a few moments. It doesn’t last long, as all fairytales would tell you. When you part, Jaemin rests his forehead against yours, both slightly damp from the Florida humidity, and you can feel him smile against you, somehow breathless, letting out a low chuckle, before asking,

“Did you think I was talking about the fireworks?”

#na jaemin #nct fanfic #nct dream fanfic #nct dream #nct fluff #jaemin #nct scenarios #na jaemin fluff #na jaemin fic #jaemin fic #jaemin fluff #nct x reader #jaemin x reader #nct dream fluff

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its-afucking-mess · 4 years ago

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A little guide on ao3 (by an ao3 user and writer)

Friendly reminder for mobile users! Ao3 is a website. It doesn't have (as far as im concerned) an official app for mobile, so better get comfy with using crome on your phone.

Some video links ill leave for people who prefer video and audio:

- navigating the fanfiction sites

- popular fandom terminology part 1 and part 2

- shipping etiquette

i really reccomend coley's videos if you want to get to know more fandoms, or get an inside look to how some stuff works. There also might be more vids about fandom's and fan works, so don't hesitate to look through some of her stuff!

the explaining under the 'read more' ao mutuals wont kill me :)

(also tagging @ethanesimp since they asked for this advice )

So, what is Ao3 really?

Ao3 is a website made by fans for fans. There are no ads, and all content is free on Ao3. Anyone can post (with some age restrictions) and they can post anything.

How can I browse Ao3?

Ao3 does not require an account to view stories. You can easily browse as an anonymous user. You just are not able to view certain works, as creators have the ability to show their works to registered users only. Some cases, commenting is possible while anonymous, but again, it's up to the creator of the work.

If you want to be a creator and share works, you need an account.

An account also gives you the ability to bookmark works, so you can re-visit them, mark works for later, keeps a history of the works you've visited and allows you to favourite tags.

How do I get an Ao3 account?

When you first open the site, it gives you the option to "Get Invited". An invitation will be sent to your email anywhere from 24hrs later to a week later, depending on the amount of people in the automated queue.

After the invitation, you are able to set up your account like any other social media account. Pick a username, pseuds (name), description and bio. You can have a profile picture as well.

How do I navigate the site?

There are few ways to do so efficiently, but there's countless of ways you can experiment with to find which is more comfortable.

1st option: As the website loads, you can go to the 'Fandoms' tag.

Then, after clicking on it, this column appears. Through there, you can pick which media your fandom is from and from there, browse the huge list of different fandoms until you spot your own.

The list is in alphabetical order, so if your fandom begins with an "C", it shouldn't be too far down.

2nd option: At the top right, under your profile, and the options 'Post' and 'Log Out' should be a white oval search bar.

(im using my own account for demonstration)

When searching, there are many ways to work around it.

Personally, I press search as it is. It will lead you to a page where all the fanworks of the site are listed. (i believe its easiest, but always feel free to experiment)

From there, you press the 'Edit Your Search' button, located near the top right.

It will then lead you to a page with multiple fields.

Don't panic when you see all the fields. Only half those are of interest when you want to browse works for a fandom.

The most important ones are those under the Field name 'Work Tags'

Whatever you select under this field will be included in the works the site presents you with.

What are the work tags? What do they do?

Lets go through the options.

Fandom(s): when typing on this option, multiple fandom names will autofill in a list under the white space. If your fandom shows up, you can just click on it.

example:

From there, you can select the fandom you want to see works from. If your fandom doesn't show up, it can mean one of two things:

-there are no works for it

-it isn't popular enough to be picked up by the algorithm

After selecting one fandom, you can select another fandom, or more, to see works that are crossovers over universes.

Ratings: Ratings are selected by author. It defines the level of maturity it has in the work

- General audiences is the tag you want to use when nothing bad happens in the work. No swearing, no sexual activities, no violence or gore. It wont contain scenes that minors are not allowed to see.

- Teen and up audiences is the tag used for most works on the site. It is what would be used when you have mentions of/vague sexual content or violence. Normally, the most extreme stuff on there is excessive swearing, heavy angst and hurt/comfort with no excessive details

- Mature is the tag that is for 18+. It is mostly filled with one of following : Violence, Sexual Content, Ab*se, R@pe, Death and SH.

Reader descretion is advised by looking at the additional tags the author has provided, especially for those with triggers.

- Explicit is like Mature, but contains more graphic content. Works rated explicit mostly fall under the 'Graphic depictions of sexual content', 'Graphic depictions of Violence and Gore' or 'Graphic depictions of Ab*se, R@pe, or Self H*rm

Reader descretion is advised, stronger than mature, since it can be much more triggering. The works are scarily detailed sometimes.

- Not rated: the author has not given this work a rating because none of the other ratings fit the work. Pay special attention to the tags.

Warnings: Also known as Archive warnings by older users. The trigger warnings of Ao3. There are 6 archive warnings:

-Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings: The author didn't use the warnings, either because none of them fit the work's theme and warnings, or to avoid spoiling the story. Pay attention to the tags for any warnings.

-Graphic Depictions Of Violence: It is pretty self explanatory. Can contain any sort of violence, from wars, to simple fights, to ab*se of any kind. Can and often contain death. The type of violence is in the tags.

-Major Character Death: A main character in the story will die in this work. Pay attention to the tags always. The name of the character will be mentioned, as well as the way they die.

-No Archive Warnings Apply: None of the warnings apply. It is most times a perfectly safe work. Check the tags to make sure though!

-R@pe/Non-Con: The work contains non-consensual activities. Ranges from non-consensua sex to non-consensual use and ab*se of substances. Very close attention to the tags!

-Underage: The main character(s) in this work are underage/minors. This is normally tagged along sexual content so be aware and pay close attention to the tags!

Categories: This regards the relationships in the work:

- M/M, or better known as mlm or a relationship between two non-woment (men mostly, can include characters under the non-binary umbrella)

- M/F, a heterosexual relationship (is inclusive of trans characters too!)

- F/F, or wlw, or a relationship between two non-men (women mostly, can include characters under the non-binary umbrella)

- Gen, no sexual or romantic relationships are in this work, or if there are any, they arent of main focus.

- Multi: Polyamorous relationships, or multiple relationships are included in this work (this is also where threesomes+ are tagged in sometimes)

- Other relationships: One of the two people in the relationship is non-human (mostly), or the relationships are platonic/family.

Characters: The characters you want to be included in the story. This works just like the 'Fandom' filter, so the same things apply. You can tag as many characters as desirable.

Relationships: The relationships that you want present in the work. This includes both major and minor relationships. It can also include ended relationships (tagged Past x/y) and implied/referenced relationships. This works just like the Characters and Fandom filter.

Additional Tags: These are things the author has included to give potential readers an insight to the story. 'Angst', 'Fluff' and 'Smut' are additional tags. Works like the Relationships filter, so all same applies.

Is there anything I have to avoid/ I should avoid?

There is this very infamous tag, 'Dead Dove: Do not eat.' This tag is a warining to readers that the things in the work are really messed up, and can include anything illegal in it. PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE REST OF THE TAGS IF YOU STILL ARE INTERESTED.

How else can I filter works?

You can choose how they are:

sorted (Titles, Authors, Hits, Kudos, Comments, Bookmarks, and Best Match)

the word count (from 1 word to millions)

the language (most are on there)

the amount of chapters

if the work is complete of not

when it last updated/when was posted

and if there are crossovers.

These are all options that author has to include, and therefore you can sort freely. Most are bulletin options you can click on.

What if I want to find a specific work?

If you happen to know one of these: Author, Title, Fandom or Rating, you will find it. If you were reccomended one, it's better to ask for the author or the title, to make looking for it easier.

Can I find a specific author/ user?

People search is for finding users on the site

Bookmark search helps you look through other people's public bookmarks. Not really used.

Tag search finds works that include this specific tag you searched. Also not used a lot.

People can see my bookmarks?

When bookmarking a work, you are able to do a lot.

if you do not want your bookmarks to be visible to the public, make sure to check off the Private bookmark box at the bottom left.

Common terms thrown around by Ao3 users:

-tags: the additional tags of the work

-kudos: liking a story

-bookmarks: saving/saved stories. makes it easy to revist. you can see your bookmarks from your profile

-hits: the amount of people that have clicked on a story. Isn't necessary they liked it, but they did click on it.

And those are the basics! If you had to take one thing only, its ALWAYS READ TAGS

I hope this helped the clueless souls even a bit :)

Im open to reply to any other questions, and you can send me them in my asks, messages or comments of this post

#sofi's advice #navigating ao3 #help #advice #ao3

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border-spam · 6 years ago

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Troy Calypso’s very nice good time

Accidentally wrote a 6.5k comfort fic with actual nice sibling moment mentions because that’s what they deserved.

( Thank you so much @lazulizard and @artisthicc-nikyri for the feedback and motivation on the initial draft that was 2k that pushed it into this nonsense )

The pile of furs and blankets on the huge bed shifted slowly, messy black hair beginning to peak out from underneath, complete silence of the inky Pandoran night broken by a stuttering yawn as the God King shifted his head out from under the covers enough to nuzzle his face into a pillow.

“Mmmm… You’re a damn genius Troy-boy..”, he muffled sleepily as he breathed into it. The heavy fur blankets were still pulled mostly over his head, and the plush down cushions he usually slept with were comfortably pressed along his bare body under the warm weight. Bliss.

Spending the bit of extra time before going to sleep to fully remove his bracer?

Worth every second of effort.

It was still pitch black out and the middle of the night, but that was fine. He loved the deep night on Pandora, and that was the best few hours sleep he’d had in months. Tyreen should go off world without him more often… He made a mental note to off handedly congratulate her on a job well done when she got back from this merger trip, maybe he could have few more of these in the future.

Reaching up to gently scratch at the uncovered neuro-port at the base of his skull, he inhaled deeply into the cushy warmth of the pillow, enjoying how loose his normally stiff joints felt, feeling a grin creep across his face.

Fresh laundered sheets. He loved that smell, and it was alllll his tonight, unlike the times there would be that nasty lingering odor of whatever faceless COV fanatic he’d slaked his baser urges with beforehand, all sour and grimy.

His ship, Sanctum, was fully tailored to his tastes and needs, and the custom made bed had been a galaxy-brain move he congratulated himself on. Big enough that he could sleep comfortably without having to curl up to fit his massive 6"7 height onto the mattress like he had always had to do with regular beds, and being able to stretch out lengthwise like this? That was the kind of luxurious shit a God deserved, even if the God in question currently had an atrocious case of bed hair and yesterday’s eyeliner smudged down his cheeks.

No Ty meant no live appearances today. No live appearances meant being able to queue today’s Let’s Flays and Sermon uploads last night, automate his outgoing reports and mark himself on “Holy Respite” on the clergy’s internal echo network.

There would be no high priests organising meetings with him, no sacrifices or tithes to attend, no data to compile or reports to work on, it was all taken care of already. The only light in the room was the slow red pulse his arm’s custom built charging dock integrated in the wall opposite the bed gave off, and he let his eyes adjust to it, enjoying the complete quiet of the Pandoran night bar the gentle whirs and thunks of his homemade fleet of service junkbots running their chores outside his bedroom door.

Just him, his pajamas, gross food, and whatever the hell he wanted to do today. Or this morning. Or.. night? Whatever. Didn’t matter.

He turned onto his back and stretched languidly, pushing the furs down his torso and savoring how free his bare right side felt without the grounding weight of the bracer. A pleasant shiver crept up his spine as he ran his palm down the goosebumped skin of his lower ribs and stomach before letting it rest on the jut of his left hip, smiling to himself as he puffed a breath into the thick black hair that had fallen over his eyes.

It was gonna be awesome.

Shimmying his legs to the side of the bed, he swung them over the edge, then slowly sat up, yawning so wide he felt both cheek clips click as the face mods they held together strained to split open, letting his eyes adjust to the additional slight glow of light the red markings running down his left thigh and calf added. The ship’s auto temperature system kept the dark comfort of his bedroom cool during the night the way he liked, but you got cold quick in it. Judging the distance between where he sat and the doorway in the opposite corner of the quarters that led into the washroom, he rubbed at his eyes and lifted the top fur covering of the bed over his back and head like a shroud, wrapping it around his naked body as he stood up out of the warm blankets.

As soon as he rose, the room sensors automatically lit the paper lantern lights that crisscrossed the low ceiling on long trailing ropes, keeping them dimmed to fill the shadowy darkness of the room with pools of cosy multicoloured light.

He was gross right now. No wash before bed last night, no -time- for one considering all the work he’d stayed up doing to make sure today would be prepared for, and his hair was a state. Still full of styling products and pointing haphazardly in every direction, he tried to run a hand through it and felt his fingers catch in the waxy mess.

“..Bleh…” he groaned, rolling his tongue out to emphasise how nasty this was. “OK.. seriously, fucking shower time you nasty little shit, heh.”

Stumbling over to the black felted wall facing the bed, he tapped a hand to the panel that extended his inbuilt dresser from the recess it was hidden within, rooting inside it for some chillout clothes as one of his personal playlists began to play over the ship’s audio system.

How long had he had these things now he wondered, picking up a long dark pair of sweats and matching tank, poking a finger through a hole near one of the ankles as he slowly waddled towards the washroom. Years probably. One of the first things they had done once they had started making donation income on Pandora was buy clothing and get out of their ancient patched up hand-me-downs, like shedding the skin of your former self and emerging a new being… and he tended to hang on to stuff he found comfortable. Not a crime, right? I mean sure he could replace them, he could afford to replace anything, but you couldn’t buy that feeling of well worn, broken in comfort clothing. You had to earn that.

The whole “Trash-punk Deity” aesthetic he’d designed for himself and Tyreen was based around looking effortlessly sexy in its thrown together accidental style, but it was fucking hard work in reality. That shit was uncomfortable most of the time, so wiggling out of 20 belts and piles of chains and into the comfort of indoor clothes like these had almost become a cathartic ritual once he closed the door to the rest of the world behind him and entered his ship quarters.

He let the fur slip to the ground as he rounded the doorway’s corner and stepped into the washroom, feeling a shiver shoot up his back as his feet touched the cool floor. It was exactly how he had requested when detailing the ship, dark and moodlit like the majority of Sanctum’s décor, tiled from top to bottom in deep grey slate with wall integrated storage and commodities, recessed night lighting set to a gentle soft glow skirting around the inner edges of the ceiling, open shower wall set to match his height, and a floor length mirror surrounded by panels that stored his cosmetics and toiletries.

Dropping the balled up clothing to the floor near the mirror, he leaned forward to reach and switch the wall mounted faucet on, and turned towards the mirror as he waited for the high pressured blast of water that roared forth to begin to heat.

Stepping onto the scale panel on the floor in front of the mirror, he blew a deep breath out and stared at his reflection, looking anywhere but the numbers flickering under his feet, taking in his naked form. All long, lean lines of rich brown skin and dark tattoo work, decorated by the Siren markings that ran like filligree up his left leg and arm, ending where they emerged from the mess of his pitch black hair and curled around his left eye.

He looked ok… didn’t he? His ribs were still clear, shifting under thin skin, but there was some meat on his chest and the faintest hint of defined vascularity across his shoulder and bicep now, and that was a good thing, right?

He didn’t look like he had lost any since last time, he mulled, worrying his lower lip between his teeth as he pinched the taut skin of his lower stomach between his thumb and fingers, measuring the thickness. He felt ok, he hadn’t been too tired recently, he hadn’t waited longer than he should have between top ups from Tyreen and made sure to eat on schedule, even if he had lost a little it would be fine anyway, right? He always bounced back even if it took a little while, and he’d been feeling ok recently. He’d been ok..

He closed his eyes and shrugged the tension out of his shoulder, inhaling and exhaling deeply before looking down at the scale readout.

“Oh..”

“No wait, whoah!”

2 pounds up from his last goal point? This was the heaviest he had ever been in his life! He gasped out a shocked laugh, looking back up at his reflection in the mirror and grinning as he failed to swipe his rat-nest of waxed hair back into something remotely respectable, blushing furiously under the streaks of black smeared down his cheeks.

“Holy shit, good job man, look at you! All buff n’ shit.” He boasted, puffing out his narrow chest and aiming a toothy grin at himself through the steam now filling the room.

“You only half look like a teenage girl who got dumped last night, fuckin su-perb.”

Barking out a genuine laugh, he turned and stepped into the blast of piping hot water, squinting his eyes shut as it cascaded down his face and over his torso. He’d have to tell Ty as soon as she got back about the weight gain. She’d totally call him a fatass, she was gonna be so happy too.

Shit like this was exactly what made it all worth it, he thought, watching the water swirl down the drain near his feet with a dreamy smile.

Hot water, any time you wanted, not having to bath in tepid river water because “heating it wastes energy, and ya don’t need it do ya kid, this is fine”. Clothes that weren’t threadbare and sewn from rags that constantly felt grimy because the only soap you had was that awful smelling shit Grouse used to make from animal fat. Food whenever you needed it, never being hungry or too sick and tired to be able to forage. All things you had to have not had once, to fully appreciate having whenever you wanted now. He appreciated everything, he thought. Eyes closed and face directly under the water. He didn’t have anyone to tell, but he appreciated everything.

Opening his mouth and gargling the hot water, he laughed as it spurted out over his chest, then wiped it out of his eyes with his forearm and began to scrub at his scalp with a shampoo bar from the small toiletry storage panel he’d slid open next to the wall mounted faucet. Feeling the caked in styling wax begin to give way felt so good. No need to put more of that shit in today and spend an hour styling his hair, or sit and work on a smokey eye, or make any effort at all with his appearance. He could just be a slob. A clean slob who was gonna go eat his weight in junk food after he finished scrubbing the rest of his body with the soapy suds rolling down his shoulders.

Raising his face into the stream for the last time and letting it finish rinsing him off, he enjoyed one more pleasant shiver under the incredible heat, then turned off the faucet and reached for the body sized towel hanging on a wall hook within arms distance, carefully dabbing it over the sensitive puckered scar and thin skin along his right shoulder and ribs, before vigorously drying his body and hair after.

Tossing the towel into the corner (the bots would sort it out later when they changed his bedding and tidied the room), he hopped one leg at a time onto the soft sweatpants and left them low hung over his jutting hips, pulling the drawstring taut. Walking in bare feet towards the doorway, he tossed the tank over his head and maneuvered his arm in, then flipped his jet black wet hair backwards and over the nape of his neck as he rounded the bathroom entrance and padded across the bedroom’s plush carpeting towards the mag-locked door that led into the ship’s main living chamber.

He could still hear the quiet whirring and beeps of his little “projects” through it even over the ship’s music stream, and felt his eyes crinkle at the edges as he smirked in anticipation, eager to see how they were faring with their custom programed household tasks as he raised his palm to the wall mounted reader and the door began to slide open.

Taking in the organised chaos it revealed, he leaned his lithe frame against the doorway, crossing his legs as he rubbed absentmindedly at his empty shoulder joint, smirk splitting into a wide grin.

“Heyyyy boys, how’s it going this fine night, huh? Miss me?”

A half dozen clunky, pieced together droids of various sizes stopped their assigned tasks and swizzled on junky wheels and mismatched clobbered together legs to beep and screech at him in welcome. Grating chorus quietening down as they returned one by one to their cleaning and maintenance chores, while he walked down the couple of steps that led out of his bed chambers and into the eclectic nonsense that was his home.

Pausing for a moment to let a tiny rat-sized box droid covered in charging ports that wobbled past his feet on rickety wheels, he turned into the small open kitchen on his right. Like the other included luxury ship components, he’d not changed it at all since Sanctum was finished 4 years ago, a fully integrated chrome and glossy black iron kitchenette fitted for his height, underlighting glowing softly around the curved shapes of the wall mounted sleeper cabinets above. All he’d done was… accessorised it a bit with extra features.

The left wall was covered in a grid of hanging potted herbs the droids took care of, having them on hand had proven extremely useful in the last few years. Something you could brew or smoke for joint pain relief was pretty useful for someone in his physical condition, and anything that helped him sleep and wasn’t the cocktail of chemicals he usually had to rely on was welcome. Great shit for seasoning food too, not that he’d brag.

The kitchen itself would be sleek as hell if he hadn’t Troy’d it to shit as Ty would say, but hey, what did she know. The scraps of paper print outs of their first big follower count milestones stuck to the front of the smooth black refrigerator door? That was part of the aesthetic. That homemade automated coffee machine made of of scrap metal and visible wiring? That absolutely fit in with the black glass stovetop it sat next to, she just had no eye for style.

Why would be go buy one anyway, he mused as he poured some of the fresh brew that had been triggered when he got out of bed into the chipped mug printed with a faded “Best Bro” he kept on top of the coffee machine, this one worked fine. The shocks you sometimes got when grabbing the pot? That was a feature!

Ty just didn’t get it, he reasoned to himself, nodding sagely as he sipped the smokey black coffee from the mug, eyes closed, savoring the taste. This worked fine, no reason to junk it just because it wasn’t as she would put it, “classy” or “functional” or “safe to be around without risk of explosion��.

Turning and resting his lower back against the edge of the counter top, he slowly looked around the rest of the living quarters as he continued to sip at the drink.

Sanctum had been fully internally tailored to his tastes and needs straight off the factory conveyors. Twinned to Tyreen’s personal ship and only a digit apart in their serials, it was a luxury cruise vessel with jump capabilities and an array of offensive and defensive addons. Money hadn’t been a factor, even years ago when they had originally commissioned their ships, the twins had infinite funding and nothing had been out of the question. Their personal Sanctums were large enough to give them their own private living spaces, while still small enough to be able to dock together on either side of most of their larger basilica’s cloisters. That configuration allowed them to share the cloister’s internal quarters, while still having the option to return to their ships when needed. Loving his twin didn’t mean he could avoid wanting to wring her bratty little neck 3 times a day, so this arrangement had been a life saver… probably quite literally at this point.

While both ships had the exact same internal layout, the twins had customised their own over time to the point where it would be hard to notice the ships matched perfectly originally.

Troy’s decorative tastes were.. jumbled, he’d guess would be a fair description. Life on Nekro had been relentlessly uncomfortable. Nothing was soft, everything was hard, rough. Sleeping on anything there chafed your skin or bruised delicate ribs. It made sense in a way now that he loved comfort so much. If he spotted a really nice piece of textile in a returning war party’s haul, looted antique wall tapestries or lush woven rugs, they had a habit of vanishing from the offerings and -somehow- ending up on this ship. Almost every inch of floor was covered in overlapping thick rugs, some of which he was pretty sure were probably treasures of some lost civilisation, but hey, they were nice on the feet.

Patterend textiles in various colours hung in sheets across the ceiling, giving the illusion of the ship being some kind of huge tent structure, sometimes with the odd resting bot perched in a hanging loop.

He tended to pick shit up too, much to Tyreen’s constant disgust. Pandora just had some really cool skulls laying around, was it really such a big deal to want to hang them around above doorways? Alpha skag skulls were so his vibe! Why waste ‘em by leaving them out in the desert. Same could be said for all his “project” droids. Tyreen gave him the stink eye every time he found a new busted piece of junk he was sure he could fix up, so he’d been sneaking them home for years now. If they were too far gone, no problem, meant spare parts he could use for the others later.

Most of the wall space that wasn’t hanging textile was covered in shelving he’d tacked up across the ship, and he loved to hoard nostalgia. The wall shelves around the living quarters were covered in things he attributed memories to, like plants from different planets they’d sat through hours of boring merger meetings on with the usual designer suit-clad pissants who looked down their noses at the twins while simultaneously trying to kiss their asses, crystal rocks he’d found on the long cross Pandoran trips required for attending various COV districts and bestowing their holy grace upon the rabid swarms of their followers, photos of him and Ty on their very first visits to different regions, all of which were so old now he noted, shrugging off the quick pang of sadness that shot through his throat. Spaces between the shelves were filled with sketches of things he had no captures of, like landscapes they remembered from Nekrotafeyo, Mom, or Eridian architecture he still glanced at times in dreams of a childhood long gone.

Finishing off the coffee, he took in a deep breath through his nose, pressed the mug against his stomach, and leaned his head back against a wall mounted cabinet behind him, letting his eyes flutter shut. The ship smelled of everything that always relaxed him, fresh oil from the workroom on the other side of the herb wall where he focused on his tech projects like his arm rig, bots, and more stupid shit to put around the ship and annoy Tyreen with. Remnants of spray paint fumes from the art station in the corner across from his kitchen where he worked on propaganda wall art pieces on huge canvases, splashes of colour smeared across the walls and floor surrounding it, and the homemade sheet metal shelving next to it that stored his cans and supplies. The warm spicy scent of the herbs currently being watered awkwardly by a Hyperion vacuum droid teetering on shaking, mismatched legs he’d made it when he couldn’t find the right parts to fix its internal rotor, it all merged together into a scent completely unique to where he lived. His home.

Opening his eyes again, he glanced down at the mug and absently ran his thumb along the slightly raised Best Bro print on the side, Tyreen had got him this as a joke on their birthday at least 6 years ago now, and he’d managed to keep it intact since. Without her knowing of course, that would be embarrassing, she’d never let him live it down.

He wondered how she was faring, and lifted his head to take in the huge curved window facing out the front of the ship, the Pandoran night skyline twinkling through it. The ship’s small cockpit and pilot seat was suspended above the recessed recreation area that faced the glass, railless spiraling steel stairs leading to it from just behind the semi circular couch that curved around the piles of blankets and cushions that covered the rec area’s floor. He should check up on her, just to be sure, just to know she was ok. Had to earn that title of Best Bro afterall.

Carefully returning the mug to the top of the coffee machine, he started to slowly walk towards the window, stopping to curl his toes in a particularly plush rug’s pile and consider his sister. Twins, despite total bullshit others had told him his whole life, were -not- psychic. He had no “magical link” to Tyreen’s mind, no super mystical sense that would kick in if something was very wrong, so when they were apart there was always the slight fear in either’s belly. Was he unwell? Was she in danger? Was he hurt? Was she upset? There wasn’t a secret twin power that allowed them to know, even though everyone else seemed to think there was. So, they had come up with more functional ways to reassure each other, and as he resumed walking towards the rec area, he reminded himself he could use one of those systems right now.

Dropping a hand to the edge of the recessed couch, he vaulted over the edge and onto the seat cushions, immediately jolting up straight backed with a wince as he landed on a sharp crumpled up beer can lodged in the recess of one.

“Oh COME ON guys!” He yelled over his shoulder in the vague direction of where he could hear the bots still working behind him, leaning to the side as he rubbed his ass.

“Hhhhhf.. ow. Mannn.. you have to pay more attention on cleanup duty, fuck, that could have cut.”

Pulling the can out from underneath him, he tossed it backwards over his head and into the waiting little clamp hands of his earlier version of C.H.A.7, janky old H.8.N.K. Watching it sputter away on a shaky thruster and float towards the work room behind him to recyc the can brought a flicker of warmth to his chest.

H.8.N.K was nearly 7 years old now, one of the first bots he’d made himself, and still had its uses, even if a bit slow nowadays. That reminded him actually, he’d need to do a bit of work on the prosthetic tonight.

Turning back to face the window, he lifted his arm and gently pressed fingers into the recess of his missing shoulder, hitching in a quick sharp breath as he brushed across a pain point, eyes unfocused and trained on the floor in front of him.

That piston in the bicep’s inner side had been too tight for a while now and had been causing the weight to sit incorrectly, putting extra strain through his bracer and onto the shoulder edge.

Leaning forward slowly, he continued to press into the pain, now dry hair falling past his shoulders and brushing along the right side of his face. The tightness around his eyes loosened as he breathed out, carefully rubbing across the spot in a circle with his thumb, pain beginning to ebb away. He had all of tonight and today, he could get that fixed up fast, nice bit of tinkering to look forward to later!

Now to check on Tyreen, the window control tablet was right next to him but he heeded his.. where were they?

Leaning back into the plush couch pillow behind him, he rooted his hand around in the recesses of the seat cushions, tongue peeking out the corner of his mouth in concentration as he swapped his hand from the recess on the right side to the left.

“Where.. are.. those fuckin.. Ah!”

Pulling out his prize, he flicked his wrist forward to open the square glasses’s arms, then fitted them over his ears carefully, straightening the frames on his nose. Not going to get a headache from looking at the screen without these tonight of all nights, not when he had so much relaxing to look forward to.

Reaching down to the control tablet next to his left thigh, he muttered under his breath while tapping command panels that popped into life on the tablet display.

“Okayyy.. showtime.”

The massive curved window he was facing flicked from the inky black view of the Pandoran night outside, to a solidly opaque monitor view of cascading analytical data. A live feed of current viewer numbers on streams, finance reports organised into a sidebar overlay, and on the bottom right next to rows of app thumbnails, a small portrait icon of Tyreen.

Tapping the tablet rapidly to move the selection across to her icon, he smiled at the picture. No makeup, back when her hair was still deep brown and before she started bleaching it her iconic white on top, tongue out and giving the camera the peace sign. He remembered taking that, it had been her reaction to being called a little bitch after she’d asked him for a hand with setting up their stream gear. That same fucking joke she made at least once a week and that had never at any point been remotely funny.

“Bet you aren’t laughing now Ty-die, stuck in a merger meeting with a a shower of assholes while I enjoy myself, hehhhhh”

His momentary gloat was interrupted by the Hyperion Vacuum droid tapping his left knee with its front panel, drawing his immediate attention to the 6 pack of Bandit Brew balanced on its flat top, spindly little scrap legs shaking under the weight.

“Oh! BRO!” he barked out with a laugh, leaning quickly to scoop the cans against his chest with his arm and relieve it of the weight.

“Awww haha, thanks pal. Great timing!”

It made a distorted chirp in response and turned to waddle away, while he dropped the cans to the couch by his side. Tapping the tablet once more and waiting for the app to open on screen, he placed a can between his knees and then popped the tab with his thumb and forefinger, jumping slightly when it sprayed pressurised foam over his hand and arm.

Bot must have shaken these up a bit while bringing them over, not that he’d berate it he thought, eyes still on the main screen while he licked the foam off his forearm and fingers.

Not its fault he’d only been able to retrofit legs for it instead of a new rotor.

Wrinkling his nose at the awful taste of the beer, he started reading through the display Ty’s app was now showing on screen, lifing the can from between his legs to chug it in the hopes of not having to let his tongue touch it too long.

Heartrate calm, vitals all fine, no chem spikes, safe and sound off at her merger. Not asleep, so his guess was right, probably bored shitless in a meeting right now. Great, can scratch that little itch from his mind now and focus on him, Best Bro responsibilities met.

Reaching down and dropping the empty can near his feet, he grabbed a couple of the blankets strewn across the floor within reach and pulled them up and to his side, then reached for another brew and popped it open between his knees again.

This shit was vile. Awful stuff, like piss and vinegar, but they had an unlimited supply of it and it got you wasted fast. Some licensing deal he’d organised a couple of years ago, and a pretty decent one he figured considering how successful the sales were, raising the can to give a cheers to the massive split-jawed Skag skull that sat above the window monitor before chugging it and dropping the can next to the first by his feet.

Ok, right, so what was he going to watch.

Tapping the tablet again to cancel out of Ty’s app, he selected the the media streaming icon from the app list and started scrolling through what was up.

Man, there were at least 5 series he was behind on right now that had had updates, and the lengths he’d gone to to avoid spoilers were a joke. Know how hard it is to not see any when your entire existence was based around being on the echonet 24/7? There were followers who had been executed over not correctly spoiler warning before posting on public social media.

Clicking through the updates, he started to queue some into today’s playlist. “Ancient secrets of Eridian science” nice. “Murder he yote” real life serial murderer documentary slash comedy? Perfect.

He paused on the icon for that terrible romcom Ty liked, 2 new episodes unwatched. Glancing down, he clicked the option to bookmark it on the tablet for her. He hated romcom’s, found them intensely cringe, but Tyreen.. well. She had her reasons for enjoying them so much, he knew. He never complained if she wanted to watch one with him. He got it. He got why. He was probably the only person she knew who did.

Just two cans into this crap and he was starting to feel it, he puffed a deep breath out as he leaned back and pressed his hand into the solid line of his lower belly. Time to actually eat something, or his stomach was going to start kicking his ass if he kept drinking. Turning his head to the side, he yelled back in the direction of the kitchen while still watching the monitor and the show descriptions he was scrolling through.

“Yo, guys, any of you, can you reheat that pizza in the fridge from the other night?”

Concerned beeping came in response.

“Nah, n-no it’s fiiiiiine, it’s only a couple days old, just reheat it!”

A single long, resigned beep in reply.

Great. Food on the way he thought, smirking and turning to face the screen again. Time to check the Echonet fan uploads while he waited, tabbing out of the stream app and into the Echonet, quickly searching for anything tagged COV. This stuff was always hilarious.

The very first result broke him into a snorting laugh, a vid titled CALYPSO LOVELIFE UPDATE: NOT SINGLE??, the thumbnail a terrible edit of Ty’s face looking shocked, surrounding by crying bandits. He hovered his finger over the bookmark option again, then thought better of it when he felt a slight pang of remorse for laughing. That would actually just upset her, he realised, making a mental note to run a takedown request on it soon as he was finished with the shows.

It didn’t count as work if it was to make sure Ty didn’t see something that would hurt her, even if she would be furious with him for assuming (correctly) it would, so he’d get it done tonight.

The squeaks of nearby wheels broke the negative mood, and he turned so his left with excitement as good old Janky clunked awkwardly into view, pizza box held in front of it haphazardly on its single kitbashed spindly arm.

“I got it, hold on!” He laughed, reaching to take the box from the droid as it angrily grumbled at him in crackling honks, single red lens eye set into it’s sleek black box body flashing in irritation as the mismatched wheels he’d found for it snagged on the rug underneath.

Rustling in the box on his lap, he pulled out a slice of pizza, some kind of spicy sausage thing, covered in mixed herbs and slices of vegetables he didn’t know the name of. Tasted great, but he wasn’t too sure he wanted to find out what that meat actually was, he decided, shoving the whole slice into his mouth and wiping the grease from his fingers onto his pant legs before realising the angry Vladov bot was still stuck on the rug.

“Hold on, heh, c'mon Jank, it’s not that bad!” Troy reassured as he leaned forward to press a palm against the smooth front of its box body and push it past the snag its front wheel was spinning on, irritated beeping and honking growing louder.

“Ah man, look I’m sorry about the wheels, but at least you can move! Not perfect I know but excuuuuuse me for not having replacement leg parts specifically for a.. freaking… junked ”Prototype Vladov steward-bot “ in stock.” he gestured towards the grumbling bot’s welded on chassis and tripod wheels with the second pizza slice he’d just grabbed.

“I know this ain’t like, what you were made for but fuck it dude, you work right?”. The bot let out a conceding soft honk as it pivoted in place, then trundled away awkwardly on the mismatched set of wheels.

Troy twisted to face the screen again, reaching for the 3rd can of piss-ale and slamming it between his knees with more force than was needed, angrily snapping the tab open as he muttered under his breath.

“.. Fucking ungrateful really. Wish someone had cared half as much about trying to fix me.”

He wasn’t enjoying the gut feeling that interaction had left him with, unpleasant memories stirring in the back of his head as he slowly slid down the back of the couch, legs stretching further out across the floor as he finished the third can and dropped it with the others.

Screw it.

More beer, plenty of pizza to shovel into his face, and trash to watch. Speaking of which…

Tapping the control tablet again, the screen flicked into the start of the latest episode of some semi fictional biographical series on Handsome Jack. It could be completely factual honestly, some of the shit Jack supposedly got up to sounded like it had been written by a complete moron, but had actual real life witnesses to attest. What had happened in the last episode, something about killing a guy with a spoon? He should take notes honestly, Troy thought with a smirk, shaking the lingering feelings of self pity out of his head.

He was slouched low enough for his chin to touch his chest now, alternating between pushing whole slices of pizza into his mouth and sipping on the 4th can of swill he’d just opened, hair having fallen mostly over the right side of his face as he slowly sank down, and too comfortable now to bother fixing it.

The ridiculously over the top actor playing Jack was currently loading a group of.. scientists? Into an airlock while monologuing about the dangers of trusting others in a corporate setting. Bit out of Troy’s lane, but the campy energy the actor was throwing into the scene was enough to keep him snorting out laughter between swallows of pizza.

Rummaging his hand around the box far down his lap for the last slice, he absentmindedly clicked apart his face mods, letting the split maw fall open as he lathed the elongated prehensile tongue out across the bare skin of his chest to mop up the crumbs it was covered in, retracting it and resetting his jaw without even moving his eyes from the screen as his fingers hit the last slice and dragged it out of the box and into his mouth. Complete normalcy, well, for Troy.

It was starting to catch up with him now, he realised as each blink felt like it was starting to take longer and longer. He’d only had a few hours of sleep and the comfortable weight of food and beer in his belly was making it hard to keep his focus on the show. He could just shut them for a bit, this scene was fucking boring now anyway, Jack sure did seem to really get off on talking shit about himself for far too long..

He didn’t open them again, breathing evening out as his head tilted to the side and knees leaned together, glasses slipping off his nose as the show continuing to play on the monitor. Jack singlehandedly massacred his way through camps of filthy bandits while Troy dozed.

The tiny squeaks of Jank’s wheels didn’t wake him as it carefully removed the pizza box from his lap and pulled one of the blankets by his side over his lap, then muted the monitor as it trundled away as quietly as possible.

Let him sleep. He can wake up when he’s ready, the whole day is his.

#troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #my hcs #My hcs #My writing

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asterinjapan · 6 years ago

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Goodbye through the clouds

Hello again, this time from my home in the Netherlands. I arrived here safe and sound on Monday, but the jetlag got to me, and so I’m only typing this on Wednesday, oops.

I’ll attempt to summarize my trip in a couple of photo sets later. For now, my report on my final day and trip back home!

Even though my flight was an hour later than it would have been in summer, I still had to get up early. My alarm was at 5:30, although of course, I was nervous enough about missing my alarm that I woke up at 4:30. I stubbornly stayed put until my actual alarm and then got ready to go to the station.

I had gotten lucky this year: the Narita express would go via Ikebukuro during a time it would get me to Narita airport in time for my flight, so all I had to do was drag my luggage to the correct platform. Unfortunately I took the wrong entrance to the JR tracks, which had only staircases, but I had time enough to go back and get to an entrance that did have escalators. I did have two big bags now, I definitely wasn’t going to drag them up stairs, haha.

Luckily, there was plenty of space in the train to secure my baggage, and I went to my designated seat and settled in. I’d bought an egg and Danish doughnut for breakfast, so I nibbled on those as I watched the scenery go by. Of course, the Narita express also stops at stations like Shinjuku, Shibuya and Tokyo, so I got to say goodbye to those places one last time. Sadly I was on the wrong side of the train to see the Skytree properly, but I was sad enough about leaving as it was, so maybe it was for the best.

At the airport, I sighed because I had forgotten the international departures were on the fourth floor, so that was quite some escalators all decorated with lovely sights of Japan to pass before I came close to dropping off my luggage, haha. I checked in for my flight (sadly getting stuck on a middle seat), and then made my way to check in the baggage. I was only a couple of kilos over the limit, but that’s still a couple of kilos that would have been way more expensive to pay for as overweight baggage or to send home by mail.

There was a longer queue for the carry on bagage, but that row went very quickly and before I knew it, I made it to immigration. They had modernized and now used automated gates, so if you have a newer passport like me, you can very quickly pass immigration now. And I didn’t even get a nice stamp anymore either! Boo. At least I still have the sticker declaring my entering the country, but no longer the stamp saying when I left.

With all checks done, all that remained was waiting for boarding. I spent my time wandering through all the shops, getting some exclusive KitKat flavors and my favourite green tea, looking for a puzzle I ended up not finding, and by then it was almost time to board already! So that was a good way to kill time, although next time I’ll probably find a place to dump my backpack, it was getting rather heavy.

Well, as mentioned, I had a middle seat, so I put my backpack in the overhead locker and kept my purse close. The flight was going to be short, just shy of eleven hours (short being relative in this case), although we did have to wait a bit for streamlining purposes, whatever that means. Once we were barely into the sky proper, there was a new announcement: on the left, we could see the snowy top of Mount Fuji peak through the clouds! Yep, that’s important enough to announce. And I was in luck, because I was on the left side of the plane. Sadly my camera was in my backpack, so I quickly pulled out my phone to snap at least one picture. Despite all my flying back and forth to Japan, this was my first time actually seeing the Fuji from the plane, so that was really exciting!

Since the skies were clear, I occasionally took pictures from the view, with gorgeous mountain ranges bidding me goodbye as we left Japan behind us.

I fiddled with the on-flight entertainment system for a bit, watching two movies and some episodes of Friends while dozing off a little in between. It was a smooth flight, with quite clear skies overall, so I also managed to take some pictures of the Dutch coast line before we started landing.

Landing was very smooth as well and we actually arrived half an hour before schedule! There were warnings at Schiphol for long waits at passport control, but uh, the wait was estimated to be 10 to 15 minutes, and since I could make use of the automated gates again, it was even less for me. The luggage had already been unloaded, so that was another short wait, and thankfully both my bags had survived the trip safe and sound. My Kitkats even survived!

It was on to the train tracks, where I realized Japan had really spoiled me with trains, haha. I got rather grumpy about not knowing where the doors would open, and I ended up standing in front of a first class car, so I had to walk a bit to get to the proper car, sigh. And despite Schiphol being the starting station, the train itself got here 2 minutes late. Two whole minutes, tsk! (As I said, Japan spoiled me, haha. The train from Okayama arrived in Tokyo down to the second, despite that trip taking four hours.) But all was fine, and I only had to take one more bus to make it to my home town. It was a pretty full bus, but it quickly emptied out enough for me to sit down with my baggage, so that was nice!

I was at my destination half an hour earlier than scheduled, but luckily my dad was still able to pick me up. Just as well, because I was nearing the end of my stamina, haha. I managed to eat properly for dinner, but I was quickly starting to nod off and ended up going to bed at 8:30 PM. I woke up at 5:30, went back to sleep, and eventually got up around 10. I took it easy and mostly just unpacked my souvenirs, putting them into their proper places for the most part. (I didn’t do that many impulse purchases, so I have place for pretty much everything, haha.)

And now it’s Wednesday, my second full day back home. I still feel rather jetlagged, but I think I’m adjusting well, so hopefully I’ll be rid of it soon. I just finished my puzzle and I started folding my first tiny cranes with my tiny 3x3 cm origami paper, but it’s rather challenging, so maybe I should save that until I’m more awake, haha.

It turns out I have close to 4,000 (!) pictures on both my camera and phone combined, so it might take a while to go through them all. Once I have, I’ll do photo sets, one per week, before I’ll write my final report looking back on the whole trip.

I had an absolute blast, and right now, Japan feels still very close, like I can just get on a train and be back there any minute now. (I mean, in theory I could, but it would take a while, haha.) I’ll need some time to readjust to being back in the Netherlands.

For now, I’ll end this entry here, and I’ll see you one more time after this!

#report #japan 2019 #report: japan 2019 #report: travel

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telemedicineplatform · 6 years ago

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Telemedicine Platform, Telehealth eHealth and Electronic OPD

Telemedicine is a practice where the provider and patient are not present for face to face interaction, still, the patients can get the facilities of health care. Due to modern technology it is now possible as doctors can consult patients by using video chats applications which we also know as telehealth.Telemedicine platform is a health portal online where doctors and patients are involved in giving and taking tele-medicine services.

Table of Content

Definition of Telemedicine ·

What is Telemedicine? ·

How is telemedicine conducted ·

What is Tele-medicine ·

What is Telehealth ·

Telehealth Platforms ·

Benefits of Telehealth ·

Telemedicine Platforms ·

Best Telemedicine Platform

What are the advantages of Telemedicine ·

Differences Between Telemedicine and Telehealth

Healthtech Sector ·

Health Apps ·

Medical Apps ·

Benefits of Tele medicine or e OPD to Providers ·

Benefits of Telemedicine to Patient ·

Telemedicine Benefits to Players like Online OPD Registration ·

What are the disadvantages of telemedicine ·

Uncertainty in Policies related to E OP ·

Reduction in Face to Face Consultation

Expensive Technology

Telemedicine Definition

Tele-medicine is a perfect tool for healthcare. Telemedicine can be defined as a tool that makes healthcare more reachable, less expensive and boosts up patient engagement and is also known as doctor online. People living in rural and remote areas are getting health advantages as these people can reach the doctor virtually instead of visiting them physically.

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Telemedicine Meaning

Due to the introduction of the telemedicine, patients and doctor can speak in real time from one screen to another screen. Patients do not have to wait for appointments from doctors and also do not require to stand in the long queue of hospitals for their turns. They can consult a doctor from their home and offices in their comfort zone. Physicians slowly adopted the idea of telemedicine and telehealth.

However, due to the increase in demand from the tech-savvy population, it is continuously expanding and adopted as E-OPD has features such as cost-efficient, more accessible, and time-saving.

Conducting of Tele medicine

What is Telemedicine platform?

We can describe it as platform for “the remote delivery of healthcare services”. There are various kinds of tele-medicine, but the three common types of tele medicine are:

Interactive medicine - It permits patients and doctors to interact in real-time while sustaining HIPAA compliance

Store and Forward – It allows providers to share patient details with a physician in another place.

Remote Patient Monitoring – It permits faraway caregivers to observe patients that stay at home by using mobile medical devices to gather data (e.g. blood sugar or blood pressure)

How is tele medicine conducted?

There are numerous ways to conduct tele medicine. The mode being used most widely is simply video calling. It is similar to a video call to family and friends.

Health providers can conduct tele medicine with portable tele-medicine kits which involve mobile and computer medical equipment such as ECG machines or important sign machines. Digital cameras with high resolutions are also available for comprehensive medical images to doctors and specialists. At last, there are various telemedicine software that permits everything from storing data to live video conference. In general, there are numerous advanced tele medicine devices to meet the different needs of patients today.

What is Tele-medicine?

As per the World Health Organization (WHO), we can define tele medicine as “healing from a distance”. Telecommunications technology and information technologies are utilized to deliver medical services to patients residing in remote areas. The practitioners for digital imaging transmission, video conferences, and medical analysis now use Telemedicine.

Nowadays, a person does not require to visit the clinic or doctor to have a treatment. Instead of visiting personally, individuals can make video and audio call to physicians and receive the treatment and advice from the comfort of their locations (home and offices). This Feature is also growing in third world countries so we also find telemedicine in India like countries.

What is Telehealth?

HealthIT.gov describes telehealth as "the use of electronic data and broadcast communications advancements to help and support long-distance clinical medical care, patient and expert well being training, public health and health organization." The definition of Telemedicine and Telehealth sound similar but there is a difference. Tele health also includes non-clinical services such as meetings, CME, training for, etc. as compared to telemedicine. It is not a particular service, but a combination of multiple ways to improve patient health.

Overall, telecare and telemedicine fall under the umbrella of telehealth i.e. telehealth is a superset of telecare and telemedicine.

Telehealth Platforms

While most are telemedicine platforms it is very hard to find a true telehealth platform. Only VVFIT is the one that can be regarded as a complete and best telehealth platform.

Benefits of Telehealth or Tele-medicine Project

Ease in Health Services Operation

Proper appointment and show ups

Higher client satiation

Higher Degree of Quality Health Services

Cost Reduction

Time Reduction in Health Services

Greater Outreach

Precision in Services due to Automation

Enhancement in Services due to saving of all Practice Resources

Better Records Maintenance Procedure and Storage

The above list of the benefits of telehealth is inexhaustive.

Telemedicine Platforms

These days several telemedicine platforms have sprung up in the online market but none of them has gained any prominence yet. Most players in this segment seem to be at the experimental stage only. VVFIT is the only proper and the best telemedicine platform.

Best Telemedicine Platform or Telemedicine Centre

As no telemedicine platform has gained considerable success while many keep claiming no one can be determined as a winner while there are a few likes of VVFIT taking lead in this segment yet.

Telemedicine Slideshare or Telemedicine PPT

What are the Advantages of Telemedicine?

With the rapid advancements in technology, tele medicine is going to stay in the healthcare sector. At the present time, everyone from patients to provider wants to avail the benefits of tele-medicine.

What are the Differences between Tele-medicine and Telehealth?

Recently, rapid innovation in the healthcare sector and technology has brought the new terms in utilization. Terms such as policymakers, advocacy groups, healthcare systems, etc. are used incorrectly while the discussion in medicine and technology. Mostly, the terms “telemedicine” and “telehealth” are used in place of each other, but there are differences for sure. Technically speaking telehealth has a wider perspective with even some of the health IoT systems used while telemedicine is primarily like simple online OPD.

Healthtech Sector

Telemedicine or telehealth are parts of health sector so these can also be taken as derived from health tech sector.

Health Apps

These are app services under health tech sector itself. These merely provide health related services through apps. These can be like heart rate monitor app, pulse rate monitor app, body activity monitor app, medicine reminder app, telemedicine app, medical appointment scheduling app, etc.

Medical apps

Most health apps medical apps but health apps have a wider perspective. In this way medical apps are subsets of health apps and health apps are superset segment of medical apps.

Benefits of Telemedicine or e OPD to Providers

Tele-medicine is used in healthcare systems, physician practices, and trained nursing facilities to take care in a more efficient way. There are various tele medicine software which are integrated with features like AI diagnosis, medical records. These aid medical streaming devices which help medical service providers in better diagnosis and treatment. It also permits providers to observe the patient in real time. By utilizing tele-medicine revenue can be increase for health service providers. It is because doctors do not require to hire more staff or to have large office space.

What are Benefits of Tele-medicine to Patients?

Tele-medicine has numerous benefits for patients. Earlier, patients who face difficulties in reaching to the physician can access the facilities from their comfort of homes. Seniors who are in trouble due to their age can avail services by using medical streaming equipment. Also, the risk of spreading contagious diseases reduces as patients with such diseases do not require visiting clinics. This also facilitates them by not requiring to expose to doctors in crowded waiting rooms.

Tele medicine also benefits patients in the given below methods

Transportation: Patients can dodge spending money or killing time in traffic with video calling.

No missing work: In the present day, individuals can plan a session during a work break in the office.

Telemedicine Benefits to Players like Online OPD Registration

It is difficult to prove this point but big players like Health systems such as Hospitals are gaining from the tele-medicine. With the improvement in technology, the treatment offers cost saving and will become more evident.

Telemedicine Satellite

Telemedicine first conceptualized in the US but it has spread even in the third world countries. The use of satellites is very necessary in creating Medical or Health IoT (Internet of Things). China is making meticulous studies and has advanced too much extent in it with the program on use of telemedicine satellites. India’s ISRO Telemedicine programme started long ago in 2001 that connects connecting remote/rural/medical college hospitals and Mobile Units (MSUs) through Indian satellites to major specialty hospitals in cities and towns. ISRO

network covers various states or regions of its country.

What are the disadvantages of tele medicine?

With the advantages of tele medicine, here come the disadvantages of tele-medicine as well. As the field is developing exponentially, various challenges will also occur.

Uncertainty in Policies related to E OPD and ehealth

As the industry is growing, there is uncertainty faced by the policymakers in regard to reimbursement policies, privacy protection, healthcare laws, etc. Besides this, every state has their own telemedicine or ehealth laws.

Reduction in Face to Face Consultations with ehealth

A few doctors and patients face difficulties to adjust with tele medicine, particularly senior people. Doctors also worry about the mismanagement and misconduct of the patient. Along with this, there is a chance of occurrence of an error in technology.

Is Telemedicine Expensive Technology?

People require training for the adoption and implementation of new systems as staff members may face challenges to adjust to the changes. It involves a lot of time and money. This is also giving rise to Health IoT or Internet of Things

Though it is expensive in the beginning, in the future there are positive returns on the investment.

The information is on the basis of the most prevalent media information and is not a medical advice.

This article was originally published at: https://telemedicineplatform.blogspot.com/2019/11/tele-medicine-platforms.html

#telemedicine #telehealth #telemedicine meaning #telehealth meaning #telemedicine platform #telehealth platform #healthtech #healthcare #edoctor #doctor online #online doctor appointment #telemedicine platforms

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scrumprinciples-blog1 · 6 years ago

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UIPath Advanced RPA Developer Certification Questions with Answers

Check Exam Format at https://www.scrumprinciples.com/uipath-advanced-rpa-developer-certification/ 1). How many types of actions can be performed in the Variables panel in UiPath? Ans : – a). Changing Variable types b). Adding new Variables c). Setting default values for variables 2). What is the possible technique to get the content of a PDF document is available in UiPath? Ans. First to opening the PDF and using Screen scraping to get its data. Second to the Read PDF Text activity and providing the PDF file’s path. 3). Which activity is used to represent a decision inside a Sequence? Ans:- The If activity 4). How can you exit from a For Each activity in UiPath? Ans: – Break activity 5). During the running of workflow, how can you see the steps the workflow is executing? Ans : – a).Using Debug and inspecting the Output panel b). Using Debug with Highlight Activities option 6). How can execution be paused before a particular activity in UiPath? Ans: – a).First to use a MessageBox activity b).Second to use a breakpoint in Debug mode 7). In Order to Save Attachments activity, it can save all the attachments of an email to: Ans : – a). A relative path b). An absolute Path 8). What is the Visual Basic property within the MailMessage class will you use to get the Date of an email? Ans : – a).Headers(“Date”) 9). Which is the best optimize navigation method to be used in a form within Citrix? Ans:- By sending keyboard commands/hotkeys 10). What happens if Find Image doesn’t actually find the desired image in UiPath? Ans: – An Exception is Throw. 11). Which recording profile is used to generate full selectors in UiPath? Ans: – Basic recording 12). Which activities can be used to mostly interact with the user? Ans : – a). Input Dialog b) Message Box 13). In Which situation we have to use the Flowchart workflow in UiPath? Ans : – a).When modelling a process that has loops to previous states b). When having a process with many decision blocks 14). In case if the PDF activities are not listed in your activities panel, how can you get them? Ans:- You have to install pdf activities using Manage Packages features. 15). What should you use to click on a hidden IE browser? Ans:- a). SimulateClick 16). Why Timeout MS property is used in UiPath? Ans : – a). To define the amount of time during which the target of an activity must be found. 17). Why Queues are used in UiPath? Ans: – Distribute transnational load among multiple robots 18). Is it possible to click a button with Click Image Activity if the target is not visible on the screen in UiPath? Ans:- No, you could click a button which is not visible only using selectors 19). What is the way to send an image inside a MailMessage? Ans:- a).You can add the path to the attachment directly in the send activity. b). You can specify the relative path of the image in the Attachments property. 20). If you need to sort a table from a .xlsx file, which feature is used? Ans: – An excel Sort Table Activity. 1). Which recording wizard is used to automate UI interactions in an application that does not offer support for selectors in UiPath. Ans: – Citrix Recording 2). Which of the following phrases are true regarding Project Organization? Ans: – Saves time for all team members, Is a constant concern of the robot developer 3). how do you define to create a layout of business logic in complex process automation? Ans: – Flowchart 4). Which activity is used to chain together multiple workflows in single automation in UiPath? Ans: – Invoke workflow File Activity 5). How can you manage passwords for an automation project in UiPath? Ans: – With Windows Credential Manager 6). Which activity is used to Get Outlook Mail Messages activity? Ans: – MailFolder 7). Which activities allow you to iterate through an array of strings in UiPath? Ans: – a). while b). For Each c). Do While 8). Can you insert a Flowchart activity in a Sequence in UiPath? Ans: – Yes 9). What is the use of The Orchestrator? Ans: – a)Remotely control robots b). Send Start commands to multiple robots c). Schedule robots to perform specific processes 10). How to check the UI Element is exist on the screen or not, which activity is used for this? Ans : – Element Exists 11). Where can you see the variables’ values when we execute the workflow in UiPath? Ans: – In the Locals Pane 12). What can you use to make sure that the execution continues even if an activity fails in UiPath? Ans : – Try/Catch Activity 13). Which activity is used If you want to wait until a UI Element becomes available on the screen in UiPath? Ans:- Find Element 14). What happens if you use the Excel Read Range activity to read a .xlsx file that is already opened in UiPath? Ans: – This will read the document successfully. 15). What is the way to optimize accuracy when scraping with OCR a region that contains only digits? Ans: – Use Google OCR with “Numbers Only” 16). Which property is used to make sure that the workflow continues even if an activity fails in UiPath? Ans :- ContinueOnError Property 17). Which property defines the amount of time in which the UI target of an activity must be found? Ans: – The TimeoutMS property 18). Why Attach Window used in UiPath? Ans: – Identifying the window you are working with. 19). What is the way to enable the (Clipping) Region selection mode when Screen Scraping in UiPath? Ans: – By Pressing F3 20). Which activity can be used to modify the value of an existing cell in a DataTable in UiPath? Ans:- Assign Activity How does the Anchor Base activity work? It searches for an UiElement at a fixed anchor position.It searches for an UiElement using a relative coordinate position.It searches for an UiElement by using another UiElement as anchor. What direction can the arguments of a workflow have? In arguments.Out argumentsIn/Out arguments. At the end of the execution of Workflow1, which retrieves some items from a database, is the database connection closed automatically? Yes, the connection is closed after 30 seconds.The connection has to be closed using a Disconnect activity.Only the database admin can decide this aspect. Where can we see the logs generated by running robots? In the Output panel.In the local Logs folder.In the Orchestrator logs. Why is renaming activities considered to be one of the best practices? In case of an exception, to be able to find its source activityTo be able to understand the process logic without expanding each sequence or invoked workflow.To easily understand the high-level business logic from a workflow. What type of Output variable do all Get Mail activities return? (POP3, IMAP, Outlook, Exchange) MailMessageListList Is it possible to retrieve the color of a specific Excel cell? Yes, by using Get Cell ColorNo. The color cannot be retrieved from a workbook.Only with an OCR Engine. Can you store a Selector in a variable? NoYes, in a UiElement variable.Yes, in a String variable. What can be used to debug a workflow? BreakpointsHighlighting activities.The Slow Step option. How can a robot start an application in Citrix? By using a command line.By double clicking on a Desktop icon.By using an Open Application activity.By defining a shortcut key for the application and then triggering the app with a Send Hotkey activity. What is Orchestrator used for? Running Windows processes on the local machine.Remotely controlling any number of robots and performing workflow management.Designing workflows to be run by robots in a supervised mode.Designing workflows to be run by robots in an unsupervised mode. What happens when a new version of a package is published? The processes using the package are automatically updated to the latest versionThe processes have to be updated in order for the robots to run the latest version of the packageThe old version of the package is overwritten What types of assets can be stored in Orchestrator? Array, Datatable, Bool, StringBool, String, Integer, CredentialInteger, Password, GenericValue, String Where can you trigger an unattended robot from? Select all the options that apply. The UiPath Robot icon in the system trayUiPath StudioRemotely, from Orchestrator How can a process be executed on three different robots? By deploying the process in the environment of the robots, which run it automaticallyBy creating a job and selecting all three robotsIt is not possible to allocate a process to three different robotsBy scheduling the process and adjusting the settings in the Execution Target tab accordingly The best way of managing variable values within a workflow, so that they can be shared on different robots and environments is: Using Json config files.Using excel config filesUsing assets defined in Orchestrator. What robots can be selected when you start a job from Orchestrator? Any robot provisioned in Orchestrator.Any robot you have access to according to your role permissions.Any robot in the same environment as the process to be executed. What is the best way of restricting the access of a person to a limited number of pages in Orchestrator? That option does not exist. Everyone is able to see everythingBy changing the rights of the Administrator to the desired state.By creating a different account and role for that person. When creating a new role, restrictions can be applied. “Add Assets” in Orchestrator has the following option: Value Per RobotValue Per EnvironmentValue Per ProcessSingle Value

What robot state is displayed on the Robots page while a job is being executed?

BusyRunnningPending Where should credentials be stored? Select all the options that apply. In Windows Credential Store.In Orchestrator, as assets.Directly inside the workflows, as variables. Which one of the statements below regarding the GetAppCredentials workflow included in UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework is true? It first requests the credential from user.It first tries to fetch a credential from the Windows Credential Manager.It first tries to fetch a credential from Orchestrator. If a large item collection is processed using For Each, which activity enables you to efficiently exit the loop after a specific moment? No activity can be used. Instead, you have to create a Boolean variable based on which the For Each loop is brokenThe “Break” activity is the most suitable in For EachA While loop should be used instead of For Each Which of the following statements are true? Select all the options that apply. You cannot use a recorder in a Citrix environmentThe recorder is used to create a skeleton for the UI automationThe Desktop recorder generates partial selectors In UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework, what are the transitions of the Init state? In the case of Success, the transition is to the Get Transaction Data state.In the case of System Error, the transition is to the Init state.In the case of Success, the transition is to the Process Transaction state.In the case of System Error, the transition is to the End Process state. Which statement about the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template is false? The framework is meant to be a template that helps the user design processes.The framework can be used only if you get the input data from the UiPath server queues.The framework has a robust exception handling scheme and event logging. Which of the following are considered best practices? Select all the options that apply. Keeping environment settings hard coded inside workflows.Breaking the process into smaller workflows.Reusing workflows across different projects. In the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template, if a System Error is encountered in the Init state of the Main workflow, which state is executed next? Get Transaction DataInitEnd Process In the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template, in the Get Transaction Data state of the Main workflow, what happens before the next transaction item is retrieved? We check if the previous transaction has been completedWe check if a kill signal was sent from OrchestratorWe check if a stop signal was sent from Orchestrator When should an Attended Robot be used? Select the option that applies. When the processing of some input data relies on human decision.When a workflow needs to be modified and corrected.When the process might be interrupted by exceptions and errors. What happens in the Init state of the Main workflow, in the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template? The robot reads the configuration file and initializes all the required applications.The transaction items are extracted from the Queue.The robot checks if the previous transaction is complete and then starts the next one. How should exceptions be handled? Select all the options that apply. By using Try Catch activities inside the workflow for unexpected application exceptions.By validating data using conditional blocks for business exceptions.UiPath handles exceptions by default. In which workflow in the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template is the retry mechanism implemented? The SetTransactionStatus workflowThe Main workflowThe GetTransactionData workflow In the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template, in the Main workflow, the State Machine includes the following states: Init stateGet transaction data stateProcess Transaction StateSet Transaction StateEnd Process State Which of the following are considered best practices? Removing unreferenced variables.Deleting disabled code.Leaving target applications opened. In a Try Catch activity, how many times is the Finally section executed if no error occurs in the Try section? OnceThe Finally section is executed only when the Catch section is executed.Zero In UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework, the value of MaxRetryNumber in the Config.xlsx file should be set to a number greater than 0 to enable the retry mechanism in the following cases: Get data from spreadsheets, databases, email, web API.Do not work with UiPath Orchestrator queues.Get data from UiPath Orchestrator queues with Auto Retry disabled. The return value of the Get Transaction Item activity is of the following type: ObjectStringQueueItemList Which is the best way to navigate to a specific page in a web browser? Use the Navigate To activity inside an Attach Browser containerUse the Type Into activity inside an Attach Browser containerUse a Type Into activity with a full selector How should a UiPath developer handle frequent changes in the project files? By creating daily backups of the filesBy using a source control solution, such as SVN, TFS, etc.Old versions of the project files are not relevant What layout should be used for UI navigation and data processing? FlowchartSequenceState Machine In the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template, if a System Error is encountered in the Process Transaction state of the Main workflow, which state is executed next? Get Transaction DataInitEnd Process How can you pass data between workflows? By using arguments.By using variables.By using a pipe. In the UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework template, what happens if the processing of a transaction item fails with an Application Exception or a System Error? The process executes the End Process state.All used applications are closed and then re-initialized.The execution of the transaction item is retried if the MaxRetryNumber config value is greater than 0. Which of the following are required to have efficient execution of automation projects? Proper exception handlingRecovery abilitiesEffective logging mechanisms Read the full article

#uipath #automation #RPA #scrumprinciples

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