#text to flowchart

[futuretiative]

Napkin.ai : Transforming Text into Visuals | futuretiative | Napkin AI

Stop wasting time drawing diagrams! Napkin.ai automates the process, turning your text into professional flowcharts in seconds. See how it can simplify your workflow. #Efficiency #AItools #NapkinAI #ProjectManagement #ProjectManagers #WorkflowOptimization #BusinessTools #ProcessMapping #Agile #Scrum #AItechnology #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #TechInnovation #MindBlown #AIArt #DigitalTools #Efficiency #Workflow #ProductivityHacks #AItools #Diagramming #SaveTime #Automation #TechTips

Napkin.ai is a tool that focuses on transforming text into visual representations, primarily flowcharts and diagrams. Here's a summary of its key aspects:

Key Features and Strengths:

Text-to-Visual Conversion:

Its core functionality is the ability to generate flowcharts and other visuals from textual input. This can save users significant time and effort.

It handles various text inputs, from simple lists to detailed descriptions.

User-Friendly Interface:

Users generally find the interface intuitive and easy to use, minimizing the learning curve.

Customization Options:

Napkin.ai offers customization features, allowing users to adjust the appearance of their visuals with colors, styles, and layouts.

Efficiency and Speed:

The tool is praised for its quick processing times, efficiently converting text into visuals.

Collaboration features:

The ability to collaborate on the visuals, with commenting, and real time editing, is a very strong feature.

Limitations and Considerations:

Language Limitations:

Currently, the tool performs best with English text.

Accuracy:

Like all AI tools, it can have some accuracy issues, and it is important to review the generated visual.

Feature limitations:

Some users have stated that it is really a text to template converter, and that it can struggle with more abstract requests.

Development Stage:

As with many AI tools, it is in constant development, so features and abilities are likely to change.

Overall:

Napkin.ai appears to be a valuable tool for individuals and teams who need to create flowcharts and diagrams quickly.

Its ability to automate the conversion of text to visuals can significantly improve productivity.

It is important to remember that it is an AI tool, and that reviewing the output is always important.

In essence, Napkin.ai is a promising tool for simplifying data visualization, particularly for those who need to quickly create flowcharts and diagrams from text.

Visit the napkin.ai website to learn more

Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more AI content!

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[reasonsforhope]

Given the misinformation that's been going around and will be going around, thought this might be helpful to some people

For a lot of reasons, I'm very good at this/at searching, to the point where I have worked as a professional fact-checker for two different publishers. So, here goes:

My Article Fact-Checking Protocol

Thorough Version

Read the full article. Keep an eye out for emotionally loaded words, and all-or-nothing language

Keep an eye out or anything that sounds too good to be true, and in contrast, anything that sounds so awful it must be true

Run the website/source through the amazing Media Bias/Fact Check. They'll tell you about a publication's bias and history of accuracy

Go to the website's home page and read through the headlines. Look at what topics they cover/prioritize, sensationalist headlines, and whether they're framing anything in a way that feels odd/off to you

Do a search related to the topic. This can be keywords, a question, or even just copy-paste the article title (Recommended: use DuckDuckGo so the results don't change based on what Google thinks they can sell you)

If multiple highly credible sources that say the same thing pop up, and there's no major societal biases that might affect the coverage of the topic in those sources (e.g. anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict/Palestinian genocide, no matter which side), then I'm done!

If there are major societal biases, or I can't get a consensus of sufficiently credible sources, then I do some combination of:

(1) search the topic again + the words "controversy" and/or "fake"

(2) search the opposite of the topic, or do some sort of other filtered search

(3) look up a sufficiently credible news outlet with the opposite point of view of my source, and see what they have to say

(4) if it's a big enough topic, start by looking up 2 of the top national papers and 1 major paper for your region (I usually do the ones in the US, because that's where I am In the US: the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the NY Times)

Adjust "news" to "relevant type of source, e.g. tech, environmental" as relevant for all of the above options

If no red flags come up, and it's a topic I understand enough to smell huge bullshit,

Then I'm usually done!

If there are red flags, or I actually need a certain amount of detail/understanding, then it gets more complicated, but that would be a whole other thing to break down and such

or

tl;dr

Quick Version

Read the full article. Keep an eye out for emotionally loaded words, and all-or-nothing language

Keep an eye out or anything that sounds too good to be true, and in contrast, anything that sounds so awful it must be true.

If I don't know the website:

Run the website/source through the amazing Media Bias/Fact Check. They'll tell you about a publication's bias and history of accuracy

If I trust the source, but something else pinged my radar:

Do a quick web search to verify anything that sounds suspicious or too good/bad to be true (Recommended: use DuckDuckGo)

[lucabyte]

transfem loop + siffrin... you agree

i does agree.... i does in fact ... write a 7k word essay on the subject..... if you would like to perhaps click that link and read it if you were not already aware...... kisses u on the forehead......... sorry its that long but i had to cover all of my bases you know how it is with textual analysis when you're trying to draw a distinction between "headcanon" and "reading of the text" because those are different things.... to meeeeeeee.......

[lapdogchase]

its all coming together.

[dykefish]

i jsut keep hoping while nothings happening

[waterbearable]

current estimate on final length of chapter 0 content for Personal Project is. there's not a huuuge amount of logic behind the calculation so I'm giving a wide range of 60k to 80k.

60k. For the prologue one. The one where I know that only half of the ROs are introduced. The one where arguably the PC will have maybe two opps to flirt w the ROs that are there. dear God how do anybody do this

[dragoncommunion]

i get an uncomfortably familiar feeling, watching generative text ai try to replicate human speech with only logical statements like, "the type of person i'm playing is usually observed to say D after C, and C after B or A" without A, B, C or D linking back to any feeling besides whatever "positive testing feedback" feels like

[roboticutie]

After being isolated for more than a week I'm excited to get back into the real world, but I'm also scared. -> Do it scared

[ladybracknellssherry]

Collection of writing resources I've gathered. Grammar, prompts, general writing advice, research tools, thesauruses (or thesauri 😉)... Enjoy!

General

English Language and Usage Stack Exchange

UW Madison Writing Center - Grammar/Punctuation rules/basics

Wheaton College Writing Resources

UNC Writing Tips and Tools

Purchase College Editorial Style Guide

Writing Forum - The Writing Process

Absolute Write Forum

English Plus Grammar Slammer

Onelook Thesaurus

Online Etymology Dictionary

Literary Devices

Fiction Writing

Instead Of...Simple Writer's Guide by anaemicc

'How to Become a Better Writer' by @tapwrites

'50 Tips for (Fanfic) Writing' by @ao3commentoftheday

Fic Writing Advice by @radioactive-earthshine

'How to Exploit Facial Expressions' by Kathy Steinemann - absolutely check out the rest of the site too, it is a goldmine.

'Writing Inspiration and Resources' by Bryn Donovan - some digging required but there's tools here for everyone.

'World Building and Writing Advice' + a brilliant list of Prompts, Scenarios, and Dialogues by @pendarling

Writing Questions Answered Masterlist

One Stop for Writer's Character and World Building Thesaurus

ProWritingAid Emotions Thesaurus

Descriptionary - it's...ways to describe things. Just check it out, lmfao.

Neurodivergent Fic Writer's Advice by @bookishdiplodocus

The Sexy Stuff

KJ Scott's Lewd Vocab Survey Results

'The Smutwriter's Dictionary' by @maybeeatspaghetti

Laurel Clarke's Sexy Thesaurus

Quinn Anderson's Ultimate Guide to Writing Smut

Smut Writing Tips + Smut Thesaurus by @prurientpuddlejumper

'How to Write Smut' by @bohemiantea-scorpiocoffee

Defying Labels by @pasiphile

Misc.

Tropes

Case Converter

Fake Text Message Generator and Another Fake Text Message Generator for your fics

Epithet Flowchart

Historical Timeline of Slang

Fashion History

Writing Realistic Injuries

Hiveword - Search Engine specifically for writing tools

Mythbank - Sort of a world mythology encyclopedia

Skeptic's Dictionary

Written Sound Onomatopoeia Dictionary

LitCharts Shakespeare Modern Translations

Stanford Geospatial Network Model of Roman World

Writing Sketchy Topics by @wordsnstuff

Writing Scents by @thewriteadviceforwriters

Ao3commentoftheday Beta Reader Checklist. Actually, for AO3 tips/basics/everythings you just really need to get yourself to ao3commentoftheday's AO3 and read everything there. Including their bookmarks!

[boombox-fuckboy]

The in-progress Podcast Crossovers Extended Universe flowchart, now in legible text, provided [tumblr] doesn't kill the image quality.

Additions welcome.

[steamberrystudio]

13/04/2025 Devlog

You know what is amazing? Sometimes I go into my update file and realise I wrote an ENTIRE UPDATE for tumblr at some point and *never posted it*

It's been a while since my last update here because, well...that happened. 8D

Anyway I'll jump into the state of things regarding WSC now! Buckle up!

Summary Bullets:

Most of it can be summed up in "I released Episode 3/Chapter 5"

Working on some accessibility fixes

Starting on Episode 4/Chapter 6

Art:

I'm not going to go into too much detail since the episode I was doing stuff for is already out anyway. But yeah. Lots of art for the Chapter 5 release. CGs, sprites, background cut ins, etc.

Also, fun fact. The BG is finally  nearly done. Unfortunately I had to have some of the BGs redone again for various reasons so the background situation is just a bit of a disaster. Ha ha.

But the end is in sight. Woo!

Writing

Plotting and planning the POV scenes for Chapter 6. That's it really.

Other Stuff:

Obviously Chapter 5 is released. I went through the whole process of beta, corrections, early access, fixes, public release.

I think my last update here was when the chapter was right before beta and the update I wrote but never posted was from when it was in beta.

Well. Yeah. Now it's out.

I had to do a couple of small patches to fix what were minor coding issues that were having  notable visible bugs.

And now I'm working on fixing some accessibility issues with the self-voicing. Some of that is on me - not adding alt text here and there to image buttons and not making sure the re-designed customisation page made sense if you were having it read to you.

But one thing I've learned also is that the self voicing is handling the tooltips in WSC really weirdly. There has been a whole saga with trying to find out what is going on and finding a fix for it. 

Some friends helped me find a sort of hack-y fix for it so it seems to be working now (the flowcharts were a big issue.

So yeah. Working on getting that fixed.

Upcoming Weeks:

I have a few more accessibility things to work on related to self voicing and then I will probably push another update to the current build.

Beyond that, I will start working on the non-asset-driven aspects of the next episode. As always, I will not be adding any new visuals or content for a while yet but will be focusing on things that don't require new stuff (like sprite expressions).

I will also probably start writing the POV scenes that will go out with Chapter 6.

That's it for now. Chapter 6 is a bit shorter than Chapter 5 and won't have CGs.  But it does require two new sprites and, of course, I have to write the POV scenes for the events of Chapter 5.

I'm hoping I can get it done a little faster. But we'll see. 

That's all for now! See you next...update. WHENEVER THAT MAY BE.

(I seriously do update Itch.io monthly without fail and Patreon weekly for all tiers. It's just harder to remember to update here on tumblr)

[smartgirrl]

how to effectively review your notes after class

reviewing your notes shortly after class can greatly improve retention and understanding. here are something that i do!

why review your notes?

forgetting curve -> a phenomenon where our brains tend to forget information rapidly if we don’t revisit it.

by reviewing your notes within 24 hours, you strengthen neural connections and solidify the material in your long-term memory.

˚ ͙۪۪̥��� ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · ˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧

effective strategies for reviewing your notes

1. active review

summarize the material -> after class, write a brief summary of the key points in your own words.

ask yourself questions -> turn headings or bullet points into questions and see if you can answer them without looking at your notes.

teach someone else -> explaining the material to someone else can reinforce your understanding and identify gaps in your knowledge.

2. organizing your notes

highlight key concepts -> use different colors or underlining to emphasize important points, formulas, or definitions.

add examples -> include real-world examples next to complex ideas to make them more relatable and easier to remember.

create summaries or concept maps -> condense lengthy notes into diagrams, charts, or mind maps to visualize relationships between topics.

3. spaced repetition

review within 24 hours -> go over your notes right after class to reinforce initial learning.

space subsequent review -> revisit the material after a few days, then again after a week.

use flashcards or apps -> tools like anki or quizlet can help with spaced repetition by showing you content at optimal intervals.

˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · ˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧₊˚. ‘˚ ͙۪۪̥◌ ✧˚ · . ˚ · . ༉‧

how to keep your notes engaging

make it visual -> use diagrams, doodles, or flowcharts to break up text-heavy notes and make reviewing more interactive.

incorporate mnemonics -> create acronyms, rhymes, or mental images to help remember lists or difficult concepts.

if you want to go beyond... what i do is take my notes digitally during class (or before if the lecture is posted online) and after the lesson rewrite everything in my notebook. by rewriting everything, i review the lesson :)

[hatsukeii]

"WE ARE THE BLOOD IN OUR...WAS IT VEINS OR ARTERIES AGAIN?" / T. KUROO

#4. READY PLAYER...15? | M.LIST | PREV. | NEXT. |

warning(s): biology, horrible reliance on academic validation

wc: ~1.4k

It is in the fifth week of biology tutoring that Kuroo Tetsuro finally gets somewhere with his pep talk. Just after the walls of text pertaining to cells with alphabetical names, disgustingly high definition photos of pus and wounds, and flowcharts that look more like gibberish than anything, is a segment filled to the brim with neurological complications and diseases. When Kuroo mistakenly discovered his magnum opus the night before, he was convinced that this might just be the light at the end of the tutoring tunnel.

"Hemorrhage...so blood needs to flow properly...that's it...!" He's mumbling to himself now, fully immersed in his personal thought bubble, and you stare blankly. His brow is furrowed, fingers picking at his lips in focus, as if he has just made some scientific breakthrough. For the first time in the past five weeks, he actually looks smart. Concentrated. Deserving of his valedictorian position. You'd hate for him to realise that his discovery is supposed to be common sense for biology students, so you bite your lip and shoot a hand towards his squinted eyes, snapping and waving to break him from his unimpressive epiphany.

“Why are you looking through the brain? We have an exam on immunity in two days?”

Kuroo freezes, his head lifting agonisingly slow to meet your eyes, and the stapled papers in your other hand. Truth be told, he has been unaware of any biology exam until this moment, the past week spent tormenting himself over the upcoming chemistry exam, conveniently scheduled for the day before- tomorrow. His mind wanders to two days prior, recalling your reminder to focus on understanding immunity, and his blatant dismissal of it at his newfound discovery of the brain's pep talk potential. Eyeing the papers in your hand, and making out the familiar A, B, C, and Ds on the first page, he tries to estimate the total combinations of answers he can possibly provide on a twenty question multiple choice test. He comes to the conclusion that it's a lot.

"I made you a mock exam, get it done and we'll spend tomorrow going through it."

You watch Kuroo spend five minutes on the first question alone, sigh beneath your breath (something you know he notices by how he mimicks it half-heartedly), then turn away to face your open laptop. As he goes through the five stages of grief on the paper, your keyboard clicks obnoxiously in front of him. He looks up to see you gnaw on your bottom lip fist pump, and scoffs dryly at a recognisable 8-bit tune sounding from your laptop's speakers. You're playing Tetris.

"Shouldn't you be working?"

"On what? The exam I made for you?" Your eyes don't leave the screen. A piece falls into the wrong spot, to which you click your tongue and grumble, pressing even more furiously at your keyboard.

Kuroo spends the next twenty minutes making some attempt at the paper, before handing it over to you, half-folded and face down. Scanning his work against your answer sheet, the pages become maps of red against black ink, and you stare at the glaring 2/10 that graces the top of his paper, just beside the sorry:( scribbled carelessly in the corner. You're not sure how it's even possible to achieve that after weeks of tutoring. Maybe you should be impressed, but all that consumes you is the visceral urge to crumple up the test and throw it at him.

"You ever thought about dropping biology?" Oh, if only you knew.

Kuroo's shoulders tense up now, and he thinks he'll turn away when you reveal to him the fruits of his twenty-minute labour. You slap the paper in front of him, watching the gears in his head turn as he soaks in the dismay of a new academic low. The gears in your head, on the other hand, are in desperate need of oil, jammed in place by sheer confusion as to how somebody so utterly incompetent at a subject has managed to worm his way into the position of to-be valedictorian.

"I don't know, it never occurred to me."

You grip your seat, feeling the blood rush to your fingertips. Well, maybe you should consider it, the thought rings in your eardrums, and your hand comes up to press against your temples. Meanwhile, Kuroo pokes and picks at his paper, playing with the edges between the pads of his fingers. He makes no sound, opting to let you wallow in disappointment at his incredulous failure. He probably deserves your silence right now.

"I told you to look through immunity, didn't I?"

"You did." Some insuppressible sensation bubbles in your throat at his acknowledgement.

"Did you?"

"...Possibly not."

You groan, shoving your head into your hands as your nails dig into your hair. Kuroo swallows as you slam your laptop shut, and shove it into your bag. He tries to check the time on his phone discreetly, head unmoving and eyes peering ever so slightly to the screen. There is still ten minutes until the end of the session.

"Coffee shop? My treat as an apology?"

You don't think he understands, as you keep stuffing papers and pens into your bag. Seriously, how is somebody this bad at a subject doing better than you across the board? What more will it take for your name to sit somewhere close to his on the ranking announcements, instead of down at #15, buried amongst the rest? When your placement flashes through your mind for a second, you pull the zipper on your bag extra hard, and yank it all the way around. Kuroo's head dips beneath the table, trying to find your face amidst your dismissal of his proposal. He hopes to God you did not go back to your caffeine addiction to create this mock exam, all for him to forget about studying and fail completely. Your bag disappears from the ground, and he shoots up from beneath the table, his head knocking into the edge, only to see you pushing open the door to the room. He collects all his pens into a pile, and wipes them into his own bag, before snatching it off the side of his chair and tailing after you.

"Hey, are you good?"

"I'm going home, don't feel like coffee today."

Your steps quicken, shuffling further from Kuroo as you hang your head low and speed walk across campus. The worthiness of this tutoring gig suddenly falters, the nights spent compiling notes following hours of gruelling studying finally beginning to seem as insane as it sounds whenever you explain your exhaustion to your peers. Call it jealousy, envy, disdain, whatever it is that is making your eyes twitch and your teeth grind against each other with each step, but you come to the bitter realisation that Kuroo Tetsuro is a better student than you ever will be, even if he's dropped 2/20 on a tutoring mock exam. A hand shoots out to your wrist, stopping you in your tracks.

"What's going on?"

"Why are you even asking for my help? You're valedictorian already, I'm not even close." Not close, inadequate, in fact. You are inadequate, and it is undeniable.

Kuroo freezes, eyes glazing over at your confrontation. He thinks about his pep talk; the brain, RNA, blood, and it all leads back to you. The bags beneath your eyes when you explain to him concepts he couldn't care less for, the times you have fallen asleep at the counter in the coffee shop the two of you frequent, your deadpan tone at his fumbles and distractions. He's been scamming you out of your time, and for what? So he can workshop a pep talk?

I'm valedictorian, but can't beat you in a single chemistry exam. I roped you into this gig for a pep talk. You can stop tutoring me, if that makes anything better. I'm sorry.

When Kuroo opens his mouth, you yank your wrist from his grip. He doesn't keep chasing you, but you almost wish he does. You imagine him telling you no, you are just as smart, if not smarter- God, being praised for your intelligence by a valedictorian sounds so good right now. You can almost hear it in your head, before your own voice butts in and shatters the fantasy.

You keep walking. He doesn't follow.

author's note:

not my best work:( i think writing think fast has rid me of the ability to do fluff/crack because that entire fic was so angsty and like nostalgia fueled... i think i just need to plan out the rest of this series and get back into the groove and we'll be all good though!! for the time being, hopefully this did the series justice anyways, and i'll hopefully update this with a better next chapter:)

tags: @staraxiaa @chuuya-brainrot @akaakeis @hiraethwa @kuroppiii @laughingfcx @she-lovesmyheartshapedsunglasses @cupidsblonde @catsoupki @bailey-reeds @wyrcan @fiannee @shoyosluver @haikyuusunsalad @kongkhoi

[fipindustries]

one frustration i remember from college is that all through highschool my teachers put so much emphasis on good techniques for studying. learning to learn, how to apply good strategies to study so that you dont coast, like i did, on just goo memorization and what you understood in class.

techniques such as underscoring, highlighting, summarizing, doing comparative sheets and flowcharts, etc. all geared towards capturing the main idea of a paragraph, post it notes, stuff like that.

poblem is all of those techniques i was taught were for fucking text interpretation. it was all for humanistic disciplines where you have big dense texts that have to be read and understood.

it didnt do me one fucking bit of good when it came to calculus or linear albera where the books were mainly equations and diagrams, how the fuck do you "summarize" an equation???

i remember being really angry at this in my twenties

[warsublime]

Open Source Note Taking

I know all of you have followed me for the horny posts about sexual violence but I have decided to post some recommendations for open source tools each Friday to promote my other insidious agenda of increased privacy, security, and independence from for-profit companies.

A lot of you here probably like to journal and take notes so I decided to start with some dedicated note taking apps. Of course you can also take notes in LibreOffice and Cryptpad, but those are more general office solutions similar to Microsoft Office or Google Docs.

Freeplane

For most of my my personal note-taking right now I like to use Freeplane. It's free and open source (hence the name), runs on pretty much every desktop, and provides a solid note taking environment. Notes are represented as graphs (typically trees) which can contain cells which have arbitrary data. These cells can be manipulated with a built-in scripting language which allows you to use it like a spreadsheet in addition to using to store notes. Nodes can be folded as well, and you can make decision trees, flowcharts, etc. very easily.

The interface may look somewhat intimidating since it's not just a regular note taking app, and many users take a mind-mapping approach, but you can just imagine it as a nested tree with the nodes closer to the root being broader concepts than the leaves.

Joplin

Joplin is a markdown based tool for note taking, though it provides a WYSIWYG style editor, intra-notebook links, the ability to store templates, to-do lists, and a few more advanced features. It has an android and iOS app as well. If you want to sync your notes between devices you can self-host a server, use some sort of file sharing tool (like KDE Connect), or pay for their service.

I no longer use it (having since moved to Freeplane, KDE PIM, and SQL), but it's a good program and it might be good for your problems since everyone has different needs.

KDE PIM (KOrganiser or Merkuro)

If you use KDE already, KDE has a PIM suite which allows you to create tasks, events, and schedule things. You can use these to take journal entries which can show up in any calendar you share CalDAV info with (which means that you can link most calendar services to it). It can also be used to share when you are free if you like to schedule meetings. I personally use it for my own daily journaling and task management.

Just Plain Markdown

You can also store things in just plain old markdown files (org mode in emacs or just regular .md

files). Many people swear by this and there are some compelling benefits (near universal compatibility with any text editor as well as a very simple interface for extending it). For this you don't really need any specialized tools, just a text editor of your choosing, ideally with some highlighting for markdown. Nearly every text editor has it, so there's not much to say there.

SQL Databases

This is a niche solution, but I am going to mention it anyways since it took me years to actually try it out despite knowing SQL since no one else mentioned it. If you know SQL just using straight up SQL with a SQL database management tool is actually really good. I have done it (and do it) since for some tasks like storing recipes the added structure is actually quite useful. (and you can do complex queries on the data as well) Essentially you just break your notes into different types (possibly even thinking about how to normalize your knowledge representation, though there's a lot of bikeshedding that way) and then turn those types into tables.

Postgresql is my preferred option simply because I use it at work (and let's face it, if you use SQL you probably do to). However, if you aren't already experienced with SQL it isn't something I would recommend. Though I would recommend learning SQL to everyone, since databases have a similar set of capabilities as spreadsheets but are even more powerful and useful.

[bestducky]

Fragments of Tomorrow

Master Chief x female reader.

Chapter 1

Prologue: Echoes of Home

Summary: (Y/N) has always been drawn to forgotten things — old machines, dusty books, broken relics of a world moving too fast to remember them. Fresh from finishing university classes, she visits a newly opened vintage shop, chasing dreams of building something greater than herself. But among the shelves of the past, she finds something far older — and far more dangerous — than she could have imagined.

Today is supposed to be the first step toward her future. She doesn't know it's also her last day on Earth.

Notes: This is my first ever fanfic, I plan for it to be very long, very slow burn/hurt/comfort, with some unease and bits of horror. (I also post on AO3, with the username: Best_Ducky)

The final lecture of the day dragged on like molasses.

(Y/N) tapped her pen against the edge of her notebook, her gaze drifting toward the half-open windows where warm sunlight spilled lazily across the tiled floor. The slideshow on the projector flickered — equations, diagrams, flowcharts — all blending into a shapeless blur of academic noise.

Almost there.

Just a few more minutes.

The clock above the whiteboard ticked loudly, each second dragging out longer than the last. Around her, the restless energy of the room buzzed; students shifted in their seats, slammed laptops shut a little too loudly, whispered eagerly about weekend plans. Freedom was close.

(Y/N) sighed quietly and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with the back of her hand. The smudge of a thumbprint clouded one lens, but she barely noticed. Instead, she dropped her eyes to the margins of her notebook and let her pen wander.

A sketch bloomed there — intricate, half-formed — some kind of device, part machine, part dream. Delicate spirals of wiring, branching circuits, soft hums of imagination she could almost hear if she closed her eyes.

Dreams always started small, didn't they?

When the professor finally waved them off with a tired flick of his wrist, (Y/N) was the first to move. She shoved her notebook and battered laptop into her backpack, ignoring the cascade of pens that spilled out onto the floor. Her steps were light as she hurried down the lecture hall steps, practically skipping out into the open air.

Outside, the campus was alive. The late afternoon sun dipped low, bathing everything in gold — ivy-covered brick buildings, cracked sidewalks, and bustling groups of students laughing and lounging on the grass.

(Y/N) slowed her pace for a moment, breathing it in — this small, ordinary perfection. The scent of fresh-cut grass, the murmur of distant music from someone’s speaker, and the sharp, cold bite of metal as she adjusted the strap on her bag.

Today was supposed to be a celebration.

Today was supposed to be the start of something bigger.

She dug her phone out of her pocket as she crossed the plaza, her thumb hovering over a half-written text she'd been composing between classes:

"Got a new idea. Think this might actually be the big one. Can’t wait to show you."

She smiled faintly at the screen, imagining the way her best friend would roll her eyes but grin anyway — always the first to believe in her, even when she barely believed in herself.

You’re meant for something more, she’d said once, drunk on cheap coffee and late-night hopes. You’re not just another face in the lecture halls. You’re gonna build something real one day.

Maybe she was right.

Maybe today was the first step.

Without letting herself overthink it, (Y/N) hit send and tucked the phone back into her pocket, heart lighter than it had been in months.

Her apartment sat just off campus, squeezed above an old laundromat that had long since given up pretending to work. The walk there was familiar — cracked sidewalks, peeling posters for bands she'd never seen, the comforting scent of street food vendors setting up for the evening rush.

She loved this city. Not because it was perfect — it wasn't — but because it was alive. Messy, stubborn, hopeful.

Like her.

She was halfway home when a new sight caught her eye: A narrow little storefront she'd never noticed before, tucked between a boarded-up video rental and a tattoo shop. The sign above the door swung lazily in the breeze, faded letters spelling out:

"Yesterday’s Treasures."

Something about it tugged at her — a whisper at the back of her mind, a strange pull she couldn’t explain.

Curious, she crossed the street.

The little brass bell above the door jingled as she stepped inside.

A wave of warm, dusty air wrapped around her, thick with the scent of old paper, rusted metal, forgotten things. The place was a chaos of shelves and piles — cracked radios, tarnished camera lenses, ancient arcade boards leaning against battered furniture.

It was perfect.

The man behind the counter looked up with a tired but genuine smile. His hair was wild and white, his apron stained with oil and old paint.

"New face," he said, voice rough with years but kind.

"New shop," (Y/N) replied, offering a grin.

He chuckled and waved a hand at the towering shelves. "Go ahead. You might find something worth saving."

(Y/N) slipped between the aisles, her fingers brushing over relics of another era — a cracked Game Boy screen, a rusted typewriter ribbon, a battered Polaroid camera whose lens winked lazily at her.

Everything in here had a story.

Maybe she could find hers too.

For a moment, the world outside melted away — the pressure of exams, the endless lectures, the gnawing fear that maybe she'd never be enough.

Here, among the ghosts of forgotten inventions, she felt something rare and fierce rise in her chest:

Hope.

She was admiring the faded keys of an old mechanical keyboard when she heard the shop owner muttering behind the counter.

"...junk. Should've thrown this out ages ago."

Curious, she turned and caught sight of him dragging something heavy from beneath a workbench — a battered metal box about the size of a small backpack, thick cables coiling out the back like vines. It looked old. Older than anything else in the shop.

But parts of it... Parts of it looked wrong.

The metal was too smooth. The wiring was too intricate. There were no brand marks, no serial numbers — just smooth panels and faint, unreadable symbols scorched into one side.

"What’s that?" she asked, stepping closer.

The man snorted. "No idea. Picked it up at an estate sale. Half the junk there looked like it came from Area 51." He shrugged. "Thing doesn’t even power on. Probably just a glorified paperweight."

He made to toss it toward a garbage bin near the door, but (Y/N) moved without thinking.

"I’ll take it."

The owner paused, eyebrow raised. "This old thing?"

She nodded, heart pounding with a spark she couldn’t quite explain. "Yeah. I like a challenge."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "Five bucks. If you can make anything outta that, kid, you deserve a medal."

She handed over a crumpled bill, grinning widely as he slid the machine across the counter toward her.

It was heavier than it looked — almost humming faintly under her hands.

She hugged it against her chest, imagining late nights with a soldering iron, her best friend’s teasing laughter, the quiet triumph of coaxing life out of broken things.

Already imagining the future.

The sun had dipped low by the time (Y/N) trudged up the narrow stairs to her apartment, cradling her prize like a sacred relic.

Inside, the familiar clutter of her life greeted her — stacks of textbooks, piles of soldering wires, tiny robots with blinking LED eyes, and half-finished mechanical projects littering every surface.

She loved this mess. It was hers.

She kicked off her shoes, dropped her backpack carelessly onto the couch, and carried the strange machine reverently to her worktable by the window. The last light of the sun caught the metal casing, scattering fractured reflections across the walls like shattered stars. (Y/N) pulled her glasses off briefly, wiping the smudge from earlier onto her sleeve, then perched them carefully back on her nose. She tugged her sleeves back, rolling them neatly to her elbows.

"Alright," she whispered to the machine, setting out her tools with a sense of ceremony. "Let’s see what secrets you're hiding."

The hours slipped away unnoticed.

Circuits, screws, cracked lenses — she dismantled and studied each piece with practiced hands, losing herself in the familiar rhythm of discovery.

But something about this machine was... different. Some components were almost organic — crystalline filaments that pulsed faintly under her fingertips, cables that felt more like tendons than wires.

Every so often, she thought she heard it breathing. Soft. Faint. Almost imagined.

Static brushed across her skin like a whispered warning.

Still, she worked, undeterred — driven by a fierce, gnawing hunger to understand, to connect.

She wiped sweat from her forehead, smearing a faint dark streak across her glasses. She pushed them up absently, ignoring the chill now settling into the room.

Just a little more.

Just one more adjustment.

The machine shuddered under her fingers.

The overhead lightbulb popped with a sharp crack, plunging the room into flickering half-light.

I should probably stop.

I didn’t.

I was too close to something.