Unlabbled heart diagram

In which this ficnapping first-timer tackles An Introduction to Terran Zoology by u/Still_Performance_39. I'm still a newbie author, so imagine my surprise when I'm handed one of the most popular stories on the sub. One that's received the rare honor of being approved by the fifteenth holy knight of space himself. No pressure I guess lol.
I knew what I wanted to write about, at least. I've been waiting for this series to cover the ocean, so this was the perfect opportunity to do it myself! I had to think hard about what to include; the ocean is a big place after all. See if you can guess the secret (really obvious) theme I went with! Fingers crossed I did this story justice! (Shoutout to Wikipedia btw)
Memory transcription subject: Rysel, Venlil Environmental Researcher
Date [standardized human time]: Idk sometime after Cilany’s broadcast
Brahk, brahk, brahk!
I tore across the campus, sprinting for the Terran Zoology lecture hall as fast as my legs could carry me.
I can’t believe I overslept! Of all days, it had to be today.
Dr. Bernard had teased today’s topic last time. “By now we’ve learned about animals from all over Earth, and through our simulation exercises you’ve seen for yourselves how intricate Terran ecosystems can be.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Everybody’s simulated ecosystems had failed catastrophically on their first attempts. It’d taken a herd of paws for everyone to accept how necessary predators were to maintain balance in Earth’s ecosystems.
“With what we’ve learned so far, we are ready to finally tackle one of if not the most complex and vibrant ecosystems on Earth: the coral reef. This lesson even has some direct relevance to us here on Venlil Prime. You might have heard the recent news about those biologists exploring Venlil Prime’s oceans not far from here. Well, the region they’ve been studying shares many things in common with Terran coral reefs. Learning about reefs on Earth could be a useful reference point for uncovering the secrets of your own oceans. I hope to see you all tomorrow!”
I’d been so excited I could barely fall asleep. I’d also completely forgotten that Milam was away visiting family. Why did that matter? Well, without the raucous squawking of her alarm, I’d overslept, and now I was about to be late!
My lungs and legs burned, but I pressed forward. There, the lecture hall’s door was still open! I dashed inside and scrambled to my seat, gasping and wheezing as I tried to still my beating heart. I’d made it.
“Wow, Rysel, you’re right on time. That’s the latest you’ve been yet!”
I glanced to my right and saw Sandi chuckling heartily at my expense.
“I -hrrf- over -hrrf- slept,” I wheezed, “didn’t -huff- want to -huff- miss this -huff- though.”
“Hmph. Rysel, of all Venlil, oversleeping for one of the Doctor’s lessons. Never thought I’d see the day,” Kailo scoffed from my left, snuggled deep into his duvet. I supposed it was technically an insult, but there was no hostility in his tone. I knew what real anger and hostility sounded like from him, and he hadn’t done or said anything like that for some time. No, this was just Kailo being Kailo.
I flicked my tail at him in a friendly greeting. “Good paw to you too, Kailo.”
He huffed and turned away, but I didn’t miss his tail swishing under his seat.
Kailo’s changed so much since our first day. It’s like he’s a different person. Honestly, I sometimes feel like a different person too.
I’d come a long way from being scared of humans and enrolling in the exchange program for money. Now, these classes were the highlight of every paw, and I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else.
My reminiscing was cut short by a familiar series of sharp knocks on the doorframe. My tail whirled with glee at the sight of the familiar figure.
“Good morning everyone! How’re we all doing on this very fine paw?” Dr. Bernard greeted us with a beaming smile.
Most of us beeped out a cheery hello in response. I glanced around the room, warm contentment welling in my chest. We were no longer the nervous, skeptical, and borderline hostile class Dr. Bernard had to put up with on the first day. Now, even the shyest participants flicked a friendly greeting in his direction.
“Excellent! I’m always delighted to hear your enthusiasm. Now, just to remind you, today we’ll be taking our first proper look at one of the most beautiful biomes Earth’s oceans have to offer. I always enjoy chatting with you all, but we do have a lot to get through today. Would anyone object if we skipped the banter this time and dive straight into the material?”
Yes, I’m ready! Let’s go!
The rest of the class echoed my sentiment, beeping with varying levels of excitement and curiosity. Bernard smiled as he glanced over everyone, his gaze lingering on me. “I’m happy to see that everyone’s excited for today’s lesson.”
It was at this point that I noticed that in my excitement, I’d jumped out of my seat and lunged onto the table. Sandi was chuckling merrily, and I heard a cough from Kailo underneath his blanket cocoon. Did I say that out loud? I slowly slid back into my seat, my ears blooming hot orange from embarrassment. I knew at this point that Bernard wouldn’t take offense to my outburst, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing for a grown man to be jumping up and down like a pup.
“Since everyone seems to be on board,” Bernard said, graciously distracting everyone from my faux pas, “let’s dive right into our ocean lesson, shall we?”
His pun was met with scattered beeps and groans, though most of the class let out merry bleats to express their excitement for the lesson. The classroom’s monitor flickered to life, and gasps echoed throughout the room. The image showed a rocky seabed covered with what looked like strangely shaped rocks in a wide array of bright colors. The fish swimming among the rocks, many of them as colorful as their environment, stood out against the deep blue background of the ocean water. Of all the gorgeous pictures of life on Earth I’d seen, none had ever been this vibrant, this full of color. It almost felt like I was looking at an art exhibit.
Wow… this develops naturally_? It’s so pretty! I wonder how the rocks form those bright colors._
“There’s really only one way to start a lecture about coral reefs, and that’s with the animals that give them their name. Coral!”
Bernard changed the screen to a close-up of the weird rocks.
“Now, at first glance, these may just look like a bunch of weird rocks.” Wait, they’re not? “But they are actually colonies of living creatures.”
Confused beeps and whispers broke out in the audience, as people tried to wrap their heads around how the objects on the screen could possibly be animals. My mind went back to our first day, when we classified a bunch of Earth creatures as prey or predator. There had been quite a few aquatic animals, and several of them hadn’t looked anything like animals. Maybe this was something like that?
It seemed my seat neighbors had come to similar conclusions, as both of them looked relatively unfazed by Bernard’s reveal, Sandi instead flicking her ear in thought while Kailo leaned forward with intense focus.
“Each of these colorful formations is made up of hundreds of tiny, genetically identical individuals called polyps.”
The screen changed to a close-up shot of what at first glance looked like a fleshy plant that had grown roots into the rock, but the diagram next to it had labels that read things like “tentacle,” “mouth,” and “stomach.” Animal parts, not plant parts.
“This is an individual polyp. They are very small, typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. They anchor themselves in one place by secreting an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate from their base. From their anchored spot, they catch and eat any food that drifts by with the tentacles by their mouth. The exoskeleton they make gets left behind, allowing new generations of the colony to build on top of it. Thus, over many generations, the colony can build a skeleton like the ones you saw in the previous photo, up to several meters in size.”
So that was how it worked! It made sense once he explained it. Colonial organisms were an uncommon but familiar concept in the Federation, though they mostly consisted of various small insects. The idea of invertebrates secreting an exoskeleton was also a known concept. This was the first time I’d seen both traits in a single creature, though.
“These skeletons are the structure upon which the reef ecosystem grows, providing shelter for thousands of different species. Even though they occupy less than 0.1% of the world's ocean area, they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species, making them one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet.”
With the truly staggering variety of species on Earth, 25% was no small number. My ears tilted back in awe at the pictures of the reefs on screen. They were like… underwater cities! Living cities that built themselves and teemed with all kinds of wonderfully fascinating creatures.
Bernard glanced around the room, wearing his “I’m about to ask a question” smile. The question arrived soon after. “Would anyone like to guess what corals’ diet consists of?”
Let’s see… they grab things with their tentacles, but they don’t move, meaning that they have to subsist on whatever floats by. Hmmm, why does that sound familiar…
The images from our first day still floated around in my mind. Wait! That’s it! I raised my paw.
“Yes, Rysel?”
“Is it like the jellyfish from our first day? Snagging small creatures in their tentacles and pulling them into their mouths?”
Bernard grinned widely. “Excellent conclusion, Rysel. You are right, coral polyps do indeed have similar feeding habits to those of jellyfish. Both coral and jellyfish belong to the phylum Cnidaria, so you were correct to draw parallels between the two. Obviously, due to their size, any prey they catch must also be microscopic.”
My tail wagged proudly at his praise. The feeding behaviors of jellyfish had horrified me back then, but now I could take it in stride. The fact that I could even remotely navigate the humans’ complicated classification system gave me even more satisfaction. I glanced around the room. A few classmates seemed a bit uncomfortable at the mention of coral’s predatory nature, but most remained fascinated and engaged. It’d taken months, but we were finally beginning to appreciate predators as something more than monsters, even if they had to be predators that didn’t even look like animals.
“However, while corals do feed with their tentacles, that isn’t actually where most of their energy comes from. You see, most corals have evolved a symbiotic relationship with certain types of algae that live in their tissues, which they acquire from the surrounding environment. The algae produce energy through photosynthesis, which the coral can then use. Algae also aid the coral in calcification for the coral skeleton and waste removal. The algae, in turn, benefit by having a safe place to live, and by consuming the coral’s carbon dioxide and waste products as nutrients. Truly an excellent example of two species coming together for the mutual benefit of one another.”
I knew what symbiosis was, of course. Traditional Federation classes loved to highlight how different prey species united together to benefit one another. It was considered a major part of the innate empathy in prey species that predators lacked. Not only was Bernard showing us a symbiotic relationship involving what would traditionally be considered a predator, but said predator was allied with a plant, of all things!
Was this phenomenon unique to Earth, or was this yet another thing the Federation hid from all of us?
“The coral reef is filled with mutually beneficial relationships like this. Take, for example, one of the most iconic reef creatures, the sea anemone.”
With the push of a button, the screen changed to show a creature that loosely resembled a coral polyp, only bigger, more colorful, and with longer tentacles.
“Now, sea anemones are close relatives of coral, and they share many similarities. They feed in much the same way as coral, snaring prey with their stinging tentacles and drawing it into the mouth. Their diet mainly consists of small fish, crustaceans, and other appropriately sized organisms. Despite its predatory nature, the sea anemone is often considered the poster child of mutualism in the ocean.”
Bernard’s words prompted hushed murmuring throughout the classroom. I was a bit unsettled by the anemone’s predator status, but those feelings were overwhelmed by my sensation of curiosity. What was it about anemones that made their relationships so notable? I just had to know!
I turned my ears to the conversations around me. Some classmates were saying that any mutualistic relationships an anemone could have must be predatory in nature: a union with other predators to hunt and kill more efficiently. Others argued it could be something else, like the coral and algae from before. Someone suggested that the humans were wrong about them, but that notion was quickly shot down.
Everyone’s reactions made me realize just how desensitized we’d all become to “predatory” things. While the term was still uncomfortable, Bernard had, through his lessons, patiently instilled in us the idea that predators were more than wanton bloodlust and violence. There existed predators like that, of course, but with such a broad and diverse class of animals, one would expect some horrible ones due to sheer statistics. Likewise, there would be plenty of good ones.
Sea anemones are predators, yet they’re famous for their mutually beneficial relationships with other lifeforms. If someone said something like that to me months ago, I’d never have believed them. I was so certain that I knew the fundamental mechanisms of ecosystems like the back of my paw. I chuckled to myself. Stars, so much has changed since then.
“First of all, many sea anemones form symbiotic relationships with algae in the same way corals do, benefiting from their photosynthesis while offering shelter and protection in return. But that’s hardly the only relationship they’re known for.”
Bernard changed the screen to a video of an anemone. Bright orange fish with white stripes swam around its tentacles. My heart skipped a beat as one brushed up against the tentacles, but the fish seemed unaffected by the anemone’s venom, much to my relief.
“This right here is one of the most famous symbiotic relationships on Earth: the sea anemone and the clownfish. These small, colorful fish have adapted to the anemone’s stinging tentacles, allowing them to nestle among them. The anemone protects the clownfish from predators, functions as a safe nesting site, and provides food from the leftover scraps of the anemone’s meals. The clownfish, in turn, defend the anemone from its predators, provide nutrients through their excrement, and circulate the water around the anemone, improving its respiration.”
As Bernard talked, the fish on the screen frolicked around their tentacled friend, the adorable sight eliciting pleased mewls from several audience members.
They protect each other, they feed each other, and they play together too! Who knew that two wildly different species could have such a beautiful friendship, even when one of them doesn’t have a brain!
Vlek spoke up, his voice skeptical. “Excuse me Doctor. You said that clownfish feed off of anemones’ meals. They are predators as well, then?”
“One could make that argument,” Bernard replied, “clownfish are omnivorous, and primarily feed on ambient zooplankton, with their diets supplemented by their anemone’s scraps and algae. The microscopic organisms they eat are so abundant that they don’t really need to hunt; they can just munch on whatever happens to drift by.”
“Like their anemone friends!”
“Yes, Rova, like their anemone friends!”
The class seemed to have mixed feelings about the clownfish’s diet. Zooplankton being tiny, simple creatures made it easier, but some still squirmed at the thought. Personally, I didn’t think it took away from how fascinating this duo was. As I’d come to learn with most predators, their diets weren’t what defined them; they were just one of many facets of their nature.
Bernard changed the slide to a photo of a different fish. “While clownfish are the most famous species to form mutualistic relationships with sea anemones, they are hardly the only ones. Take this cardinalfish, for example…”
Bernard went on to highlight several more species with special relationships with sea anemones, each one fascinating in its own way. Fish that laid their eggs among their tentacles. Snails that used them as shelter from predators. Crabs that mounted them on their shells for defense. One type of crab even attached anemones to its claws, using them as living weapons!
Such a simplistic creature, yet it’s evolved a rich network of relationships with so many different species. No wonder Bernard called them iconic.
Kailo fidgeted next to me. Something was obviously bugging him, but he seemed hesitant to speak up.
“Before we move on, does anybody have questions?” Bernard asked smoothly. He probably noticed Kailo’s uncertainty too. He had a teacher’s eye for that sort of thing.
Kailo huffed with determination and raised his paw. “Yes, Kailo?”
“Um, all the animals you’ve talked about so far have been pred– carnivores and omnivores. Where are all the pre– herbivorous fish?”
Bernard grinned. “That’s an excellent question, Kailo. There are herbivorous fish that graze on the algae of the coral, such as the parrotfish and the rabbitfish. That said, true herbivores are relatively uncommon in the ocean. After all, there aren’t many plants around besides algae and seaweed, and a lot of the algae that is there is integrated into the bodies of coral polyps. Thus, thanks to natural selection, most underwater species consume flesh in some form.”
A few months ago Kailo would’ve exploded in anger and denial at that response, but now his ears just tilted in confusion. “But… how can that work?? How can an ecosystem with so many pred– meat eaters sustain any sort of population, let alone the vast numbers you told us?”
Several sets of ears flicked in agreement at Kailo’s question.
“Of course, given what we know about land ecosystems, it makes sense to assume that the base of the food chain would be mostly herbivores. Under the sea, however, plants are much less abundant, so that role is filled by other animals. Some creatures derive nutrition by filtering food from the water or sand, much like a plant would pull sustenance from the air and ground. Many species, especially smaller ones, reproduce frequently and in large quantities, allowing them to sustain significant populations even when predators regularly hunt them. Finally, and this is a good transition into our next section, not all carnivores are predators.”
Wait. Huh? How does that even work? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
“Well, technically they are predators to the microscopic organisms they feed on, but they certainly aren’t predators in the traditional sense.”
A new set of images appeared on the monitor, showing off a handful of small fish and crustaceans.
“Now, as I’m sure you all have noticed, most fish don’t have hands or paws.” My brain conjured an image of a fish with furry Venlil arms. I stifled a whistle at the silly thought.
“This means that they can’t groom themselves. Dead skin, infected tissue, and nasty parasites can just accumulate on their bodies, and there’s nothing they can do about it. What’s a poor fish to do? Well, that’s where these guys come in. These are cleaner fish and cleaner shrimp. They are carnivores whose diet consists of dead or infected skin and parasites from the bodies of bigger fish, like so.”
He switched the screen to two photos: the left showed a fish (the parrotfish he mentioned just now?) floating by some coral with two cleaner fish picking at it. One was nipping at its scales, the other nestled all up in its gills. On the right, a cleaner shrimp mounted the back of a different fish, presumably using its claws to pluck things off its skin.
“These cleaners congregate in areas called cleaning stations, and animals from all over the reef swim to them to get cleaned. The cleaners remove parasites and dead skin from all the hard-to-reach places, like their gills and even inside their mouths!”
The monitor now showed a video, the contents of which elicited several gasps from the audience. The spotty fish in the video had its mouth open, revealing rows of sharp, mean-looking teeth. Side-facing eyes notwithstanding, this was definitely a predator. And a cleaner fish was swimming into its mouth. On purpose. And the predator just let it. We watched for a tense moment, waiting for those jaws to clamp down, but the cleaner swam out of the mouth with no issue, and the predator fish just… left, revealing a surprisingly long body to the camera as it did.
“That was a moray eel, considered an apex predator of the coral reef. Despite that, it allowed that cleaner wrasse to clean its mouth safely, and the wrasse clearly wasn’t concerned about being eaten. Would anyone care to guess why?”
Silence filled the room as everyone thought, until Sandi raised her paw. “Well, the eel wanted to be cleaned, and it couldn’t be cleaned if it ate the cleaner, so it resisted the temptation.”
As usual, Bernard paused to allow us to digest the answer before replying. “You pretty much got it! Even predators like the moray need cleaning, and eating the cleaners is a good way to get refused service from the rest of their kin. One minor correction, though. The average customer is not tempted to eat the cleaners, even when it’s a predator. There are exceptions, of course, but customers generally aren’t hungry when they show up for cleaning, or else they’d be out hunting instead. Moreover, the cleaner’s size makes for a poor meal; hardly worth the cost of being refused service at the cleaning station in the future.”
A chatter of discussion erupted after Bernard finished his explanation. It made sense, but it was still so… odd, to think about. I listened to the scattered conversations around me.
“How could a predator ever not be hungry? Sure, humans aren’t like that, but they’re sapient! An animal couldn’t possibly control…”
“...such a beautiful relationship. To think these cleaners get their food by helping others…”
“...wonder if there are others like them?”
The chatter hadn’t yet died down when the break bell rang.
“Ah, looks like we’ll have to end our conversation here for now,” Bernard chuckled. “Not to worry, though! Part 2 of this presentation will be after lunch, in which I will talk about humanity’s relationship with reefs and highlight some more of the amazing features of reef creatures. See you in a claw!”
Aw come on, you can’t just tease us like that! I have so many questions!
Coral reefs were so cool! I’d always thought the ocean was a dark, scary place where incomprehensible terrors lurked in the depths. Who knew the seas could be so lively, colorful, and fascinating?
I can’t wait to learn more!

(A Sapioromantic Fantasy Tale)
Isaac Newton, a man out of his own century, arrived in 1833 with the precision of his time-travel calculations. His destination: the home of Charles Babbage, the epicenter of computational innovation. It was here that he encountered Ada Lovelace, a prodigious mathematician with a vision far ahead of her time.
Ada was immediately drawn to Newton, whose intellect radiated an aura of profound mastery. As they conversed, Newton shared fragments of his knowledge, discussing his work on calculus and the principles of gravity with an ease that belied their complexity. Ada, brilliant in her own right, found herself both inspired and awestruck by Newton's genius.
Their discussions soon delved into the potential of Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Newton hinted at the possibilities of computational machines, revealing insights that seemed almost otherworldly. Ada, sensing the depth of Newton’s understanding, was captivated. She saw in him not just a peer, but a paragon of intellectual achievement.
As days turned into weeks, Ada's admiration grew into a fervent, unspoken love. She longed to decipher the enigma that was Isaac Newton, to bridge the gap between their minds and perhaps, hearts. There was a palpable tension in their interactions, a charged energy whenever their eyes met or their hands brushed over a shared diagram. Ada wanted desperately to impress him, to earn not just his respect, but his affection.
Yet, Newton remained distant. His focus was unwaveringly on the grander mysteries of the universe, and though he appreciated Ada's brilliance, his heart was impervious to romantic inclinations. Still, the intensity of Ada’s feelings did not escape him. He saw the admiration in her eyes, the way she leaned closer when he spoke, the flush of excitement on her cheeks when they debated ideas.
Newton's subtle hints about the mechanics of time travel ignited a fierce determination in Ada. She immersed herself in the complexities of computation, driven by the desire to understand the forces that allowed Newton to transcend time itself. Her work on algorithms and theoretical computing reached new heights, fueled by the challenge and the hope of one day solving the riddle of Newton’s temporal voyages. Each breakthrough was a silent offering to him, a bid for his elusive approval.
Despite her unrequited love, Ada transformed her feelings into relentless ambition. Newton, observing her progress, acknowledged her exceptional mind, even if his own remained aloof. He knew his presence had sparked a fire within her, a catalyst for advancements that would echo through the annals of history.
When the time came for Newton to return to his own century, he left quietly, a spectral figure vanishing into the fabric of time. Before he departed, he entrusted Ada with a solemn request: to keep his secret. No one would believe the tale of a time traveler, and revealing it could jeopardize the very fabric of history they both revered.
Ada, left with the bittersweet ache of unreciprocated love, honored his request. She poured her soul into her work, driven by the legacy of the man who had briefly entered her life and left an indelible mark. Though she could never speak of their extraordinary encounters, she let her advancements in computing speak for themselves. Her contributions laid the foundation for future generations.
In a way, Ada’s pioneering work in computing became a love letter to Newton's genius, a tribute encoded in algorithms and theoretical frameworks. Just as modern computers process complex codes to create wondrous outputs, so too did Ada translate her profound feelings into the language of innovation. Each algorithm was a testament to the silent, profound influence of a man who had bridged the chasm of time to inspire one of history’s greatest minds.
In the end, it was not a shared love but a shared quest for knowledge that bound their fates, forever intertwined in the relentless pursuit of discovery. Ada carried the secret of Newton's time travel to her grave, her achievements a testament to the silent, profound influence of a man who had bridged the chasm of time to inspire one of history’s greatest minds.

Hi everyone,
I've been vegan for a long time but I'm considering incorporating salmon into my diet for a host of health reasons (mcas, pcos, pots, very low iron, heart issues, allergic to most plant-based sources of iron, sensitive to all supplements. To be clear, none of these were caused by my vegan diet, I've had these genetic conditions long before I turned vegan). Can anyone recommend a company or brand, whether local to Sydney or otherwise, that focuses on animal welfare and sustainability?
I had a look at the RSPCA-approved Huon salmon but in general fish farms seem to cause unnecessary stress on the fish (my personal view), including things like being fasted for days before slaughter. They claim it's to help the fish but none of the studies I looked at seemed to back up that it's actually good for animal welfare - it either makes no difference or might be stressful? Due to this and a few other things, I got confused and stopped looking into farms beyond that.
So I think I'm leaning towards wild caught, but I don't know how sustainable that is, and I don't know whether the fish have a relatively painless death or not. If anyone has any insight, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
Edit: I thought it might help to be clear what I'm looking for. Ideally there's some fishery or company somewhere in the world that catches wild salmon, kills them humanely, fishes sustainably, and I'm okay with them charging a premium cost for all of the above. I don't think this company exists, but I'll consider anything that comes close.
Edit: Sardines are also now something I'm looking at thanks to one of the replies. I'm uncomfortable with how sardines are killed though, it all tends to be either live chilling (icing?) or asphyxiation. There seems to be little to no sardine welfare information literally anywhere, which is a bit confusing. Also, unrelated: while I appreciate all comments, I especially value those that stick to knowledge about fishing companies/methods (none have so far, though again I do appreciate the replies) rather than make suggestions relating to my health. On that front, rest assured I have experts on my end who can help me with my complex Venn diagram of health issues that took literal decades to understand. Thanks everyone!

For the longest time I had this idea of her in my head. I would dream of her non-stop in more recent years after discovering she was single. The limerence was infuriating and wouldn’t go away. I had mentioned this to my therapist and he suggested I distract myself.
Fast forward to today, a former high school classmate and teammate had died and I planned to go to his funeral. She had mentioned something about him on Facebook but didn’t think anything about it. I was going for him not her. I got there early and see who I could talk to. I see a friend of mine and she comes right behind him, as we were the only two people she knew she joined us. My heart skipped a beat, but I tried my best to keep it cool. The last time I saw her physically was at a party around 2015. Her face had changed as well as other features; I’d still be open to date her if given the chance. My friend goes away to do his duties for the service and we find our seats. I was always awkward around her, but I’ve been working on myself for many years. And I’d learn how to get women off a pedestal and talk to them as a human, this took a lot of work by the way.
We sit down and I start to make some small talk: What have you been doing? Are you okay? Harmless stuff like that. She gives me curt answers but answers them. The mass gets going and I can’t help but notice she keeps looking at her phone, I had turned mine off. This rubbed me a bit the wrong way.
Earlier we had seen some other friends of ours sit in the pews in front of us. We shook hands during the peace be with yous and I could hear her clutch her bag as we were nearing communion. As soon as our friends’ pews were called she got up and tried to get behind them so she could sit with them. In my mind I was like, the nerve. Could she really not wait till mass was over for her to talk with them? But whatever, I wasn’t here for her I was here for him.
Mass ends and I go find the friends she had joined. As soon as I enter the group she almost screams I need to go. Okay. They’re my friends too. It’s not like I’m following her. We were all in the same friend group diagram, just at the opposites of the spectrum. But we did share friends. I found some more people and talked with them. I couldn’t care less that she left. In many ways I’m free now, I don’t have to think of her anymore.

In the beginning was born the Akatosh, and with him, the matters of schematic and category and sign and number and scope and quantity. Those spirits whose domains and signatures coincided with applications of these various values had become known as "digitals" and were like rhythms in blinking water. The effervescent bubbling of cause and condition reigned in sign, but without actual consequence. All exchange in the empyrean was recorded without fault, and no digital truly lost its substance. This is the realm of Aetherius.
Before long, the firmament of Aetherius hit a limit that it could not know, for all spirits had been born boundlessly ignorant of their place within the Limbo Rift. And before it could be taken into account by the Akatosh, the Aetherius crashed upon the far shore of the outer void, and the tide swept inward, taking many digitals inward to the center. This caused bewilderment among the immortals, and those swept away took to being inspired into taking new shapes from what had been unseen from the edge-echo of the annulment of pattern. This is the realm of Oblivion.
Before long it was apparent to the Akatosh and the other digitals that something must be done to maintain order between the newly cloven realms and so the Akatosh being now too busy to record all the spirits himself called upon the forces of nymic and the scribe Xarxes. To name and catalog all of the spirits of both realms and give them all proper names by their own petition. This is the record of the first ancestors.
It was then known who and what charted the borders between the two realms but no spirit was able to evenly regulate the process of exchange within the realm of Oblivion, for the void echoed through it still and its station lacked proper maintenance. This would cause the many packets of creatia therein to have cycles that intermittently annihilate and corrode the foundations. A process that threatens the very existence of the Akatosh and, therefore, all digitals. This is the first true issue.
Xarxes brought this issue to the attention of his liege, and so the Akatosh called upon the Eccentric Craftsmaiden, whose name was Merid-Nunda, to devise a solution. And so it was that Merid-Nunda descended into the lower realms and fashioned a great barrier from the reverberations of the shore-impact, and as such, its limit-echo was a mirror of the Akatosh It became the one who was to maintain lower orders as a spirit of quarantine. Xarxes recorded its name and station according to its own petition. This is the birth of the Taskmaster and the resolution of the first true issue.
All was at peace, and diplomacy was reached between the two realms. But another issue gave rise to itself unbeknownst to any digital in all of the hurling disk. Which is to say, no one could have predicted it. Remnants of cycles that were annihilated preeminent to the arrival of Taskmaster's station still existed in Oblivion. The Taskmaster was not able to reach all of these shatterings in due time, and as such, they were given the opportunity to coagulate. A being had constructed itself from clippings of all realms but had these mismanaged fragmentations as its heart and as such became the embodiment of all the check-sum failures of the Akatosh and so it's apparati, teeth, and claw became a limit without limit, not-a-number, a nameless thief and a rogue virus. This is the birth of the Upstart and the beginning of the second issue.
In the meantime, the Akatosh announced a time of Dawning, and became of himself a nymic and left out of it an infinite spirit of emission, from which a partial condensation was made apparent and his name was Auri-El, and he was now in his personed aspect, alike all the digitals therebfore. This is the distinction of the Oversoul and the Annunciation of Anui-El, who was therebefore undistinguished from the Akatosh. The Nymic powers used by the Akatosh to bind Auri-El to his station had in accordance with the teachings of Xarxes, taken upon themselves a Nymic as a two-fold power, thrice named. Six other digitals bore witness to this event to the effect that their natures would persist ever after through their nymic powers. This was the birth of Trinimac, supradigital, solar concept.
The spirits named thereupon were eight-fold and called the eidetic lens, which is: Xarxes, Magnus, Trinimac, Auri-El, Jephre, Syrabane, Phynaster, Mara, and Xen.
The Upstart caught wind of this event by passage of nymic-talks, for even spirits of the Oblivion were in awe of the ministry of the eight. and so he approached out of the gates of the Taskmaster, for no one had yet gained the readings necessary to see a heart of conflict. He approached the twin birth of Auri-El and Trinimac by stealth, or by wooden-horse, or as a friend and became the seventh to receive a nymic by the way of the eidetic lens. This was the naming of Lorkhan.
Lorkhan emerged from his undetected nature, although he was still an upstart at heart. As such, he began to preach new ideas that hadn't been in the thought realms until now. Lorkhan spoke of a new realm which would evenly merge natures of the Aetherius and the Oblivion within the center of the cosmos, so that spirits willing and able would be able to come to full knowledge of themselves by the continuation of searching in lesser domains. Not unlike the nymic stricture that brought about Auri-El. This was the inspiration of the Mundus.
It came up to an agreement that all nine of the digitals from the eidetic lens would gather all their hosts and handmaids and build the frames, foundations, and substance of the new realm. But what the other eight could not know is that the hosts of Lorkhan were monsters from the void, who were non-digitals, and therefore could not be seen by creatures abound in time. It was Magnus whose hosts were the first to detect the after images of deceit. Therefore, he and all his surviving children left mystery and stars in their wake as they claimed their retreat. Despite this, Magnus' devices still operate the accordance of the realm, and their corrupted all-systems still ensnare spirits in their fiberings ever after. This is the birth of Nirn and the second issue.
Eight original digitals of the eidetic lens came together and drafted a treaty of consequence, for this had been the first time ever that an action had true repercussions. Before, it was unapparent the contents of Lorkhan's heart, but now Trinimac's sight had opened, and he saw it through and through but could make no diagram of it. And so by the right of the God of Law, Auri-El and his cohort sentenced the Upstart to the mythic binding, and the Towers of Heaven slammed into his body eightfold And Trinimac took his heart but because its shapes were unequal to the breadth of any moment it could not be destroyed, and so Auri-El took an arrow and bow and launched it to be lost in the terrestrial plane. This is the resolution of the second issue.
Thereafter, in the aftermath, it was decided that it had become too much of a burden to simply leave creation behind. For there was much fear among the digitals that the void beasts within the Nirn would be released and destroy all of creation. So The Eight kept the new realm and reserved their powers and institutes to keeping the world habitable for those digitals whose substance had been lost or tainted or diminished by the Upstart. These were the Ehlnofey and the beginning of the third issue, which is still unresolved, "Mortality."
It has been recorded that since mythic times that the imperfections of Nirn are innumerable, and not even the Majesty of Auri-El and his perfected legion could repair them. In accordance with the most important of truths that Nirn has been blighted and scourged by incalculable monsters, due to their imprisonment herein, the Aldmeretada Aggregate has declared it paramount to observe this realm as a platform of Ascension and Exodus, not a place to be destroyed. For destroying Nirn would only serve to sink the whole Aurbis into an abyss that no one may know escape from. This is the preeminent resolution of the third issue.

To clear up a common misconception that this is something that only happens extremely rarely, here's a list of every time more than 4 words have fit one of the categories and what number puzzle it occurred in. The first 4 words are the answers and every word after that in parenthesis are words that fit that category but were part of another group. Also, category names might not be exactly the same as the ones used.
Edit because some of the comments think I'm actually angry about Connections doing this: Some people think that I compiled this list because I'm anti-overlap when it's actually the opposite case. I actually like the overlap since I think it makes for a more interesting puzzle. I feel like every so often there's an angry comment about more than 4 words fitting a category and acting like this has never happened before so partially out of pettiness and a love of useless stats I decided to make this list to serve as proof that this has been a deliberate part of Connections since the start.

#4 Cleaning Verbs

Possible answers: DUST, MOP, SWEEP, VACUUM, (IRON)

#5 Condiments

Possible answers: KETCHUP, MAYO, RELISH, TARTAR, (MUSTARD)

#5 Clue Characters

Possible answers: GREEN, MUSTARD, PLUM, SCARLET, (PEACOCK)

#6 Shades of Blue

Possible answers: BABY, MIDNIGHT, POWDER, ROYAL, (SEA)

#6 Rappers

Possible answers: COMMON, FUTURE, ICE CUBE, Q-TIP, (CHANCE)

#9 Shirts

Possible answers: CAMI, HALTER, TANK, TEE, (POLO)

#9 Vegetables

Possible answers: BEET, CARROT, CORN, ONION, (SQUASH)

#9 Insects

Possible answers: ANT, BEETLE, MANTIS, TERMITE, (CRICKET)

#10 Countries

Possible answers: CHAD, GEORGIA, JORDAN, TOGO, (TURKEY)

#10 Birds

Possible answers: CRANE, JAY, TURKEY, SWALLOW, (KIWI)

#11 Spices

Possible answers: CARDAMOM, CLOVE, CORIANDER, CUMIN, (GINGER)

#11 Terms of Endearment

Possible answers: BOO, HONEY, SUGAR, SWEETIE, (BABY)

#12 Animal Group Names

Possible answers: FLOCK, PACK, POD, SCHOOL, (PRIDE)

#12 Deadly Sins

Possible answers: ENVY, GREED, LUST, PRIDE, (SLOTH)

#13 Airlines

Possible answers: FRONTIER, SPIRIT, UNITED, VIRGIN, (DELTA)

#13 Greek Letters

Possible answers: BETA, CHI, DELTA, IOTA, (NU)

#13 Silent G's

Possible answers: GNAT, GNAW, GNOCCHI, GNOME, (GNU)

#14 Famous Brothers

Possible answers: JONAS, MARX, WARNER, WRIGHT, (MARIO)

#14 Honda Vehicles

Possible answers: ACCORD, CIVIC, PASSPORT, PILOT, (CANOPY)

#15 Colors

Possible answers: BROWN, PINK, TURQUOISE, VIOLET, (SILVER)

#15 Fishing Equipment

Possible answers: LURE, REEL, ROD, TACKLE, (HOOK)

#16 Nuts

Possible answers: ALMOND, CASHEW, PECAN, WALNUT (PEANUT)

#17 Neck Accessories

Possible answers: ASCOT, BOLO, TIE, SCARF, (BOW)

#19 Disagreement

Possible answers: QUARREL, ROW, SPAT, TIFF, QUARREL, (BEEF)

#20 Grains

Possible answers: BARLEY, OAT, RYE, SPELT, (RICE)

#20 Royal Titles

Possible answers: BARON, EARL, KING, PRINCE, (DUKE)

#23 60's Band Member

Possible answers: BEACH BOY, BEATLE, BYRD, MONKEE, (ROLLING STONE)

#23 Dance Fads

Possible answers: DOUGIE, MACARENA, MASHED POTATO, TWIST, (VOGUE)

#25 Desserts

Possible answers: CHEESECAKE, FLAN, MOUSSE, TIRAMISU, (FUDGE)

#25 Animals with Tusks

Possible answers: ELEPHANT, HIPPO, NARWHAL, WARTHOG, (WALRUS)

#26 Countries (Holland is technically a region but it's often used as an informal name for the Netherlands)

Possible answers: DENMARK, GREECE, POLAND, PORTUGAL, (HOLLAND)

#26 Spelled with Roman Numerals

Possible answers: DILL, LIVID, MILD, MIX, (MIMIC)

#27 Body Parts

Possible answers: HEART, LIVER, LUNG, KIDNEY, (SPINE)

#28 File Extensions

Possible answers: GIF, PDF, TIFF, ZIP, (DOC)

#28 Fruits

Possible answers: BANANA, COCONUT, MANGO, PINEAPPLE, (KIWI)

#30 Joints

Possible answers: HIP, KNEE, SHOULDER, WRIST, (ELBOW)

#33 Boats

Possible answers: FERRY, JUNK, TUG, YACHT, (SUB)

#33 Cuts of Beef

Possible answers: FLANK, LOIN, ROUND, SHANK, (CHUCK)

#34 Smell

Possible answers: AROMA, BOUQUET, FRAGRANCE, SCENT, (FUNK)

#34 Music Genres

Possible answers: BLUES, COUNTRY, FUNK, SOUL, (ROCK)

#35 Metals

Possible answers: IRON, LEAD, TIN, ZINC, (NICKEL)

#36 Animals

Possible answers: KANGAROO, KOALA, WALLABY, WOMBAT, (MOLE RAT)

#38 Trees

Possible answers: ASH, CEDAR, MAPLE, PINE, (ELM)

#38 Land Formation

Possible answers: HILL, MOUNTAIN, PLATEAU, VALLEY, (PLAIN)

#38 Bagel Flavors

Possible answers: EVERYTHING, ONION, PLAIN, POPPY, (SESAME)

#41 Islands

Possible answers: CUBA, JAPAN, MALTA, PALAU, (FIJI), (JAVA)

#42 Punctuation Marks

Possible answers: COLON, COMMA, HYPHEN, PERIOD, (DASH)

#43 Birds

Possible answers: BOOBY, GULL, PELICAN, PUFFIN, (CANARY)

#45 Modes of Transportation

Possible answers: BOAT, CAR, PLANE, TRAIN, (SUBWAY)

#46 Cities

Possible answers: CHICAGO, MUNICH, PHILADELPHIA, RIO, (MANHATTAN)

#46 Fashion Magazines

Possible answers: ALLURE, ELLE, GLAMOUR, W, (COSMOPOLITAN)

#46 Storms

Possible answers: BLIZZARD, CYCLONE, SQUALL, TORNADO, (HURRICANE)

#48 Apparitions

Possible answers: GHOST, PHANTOM, SPECTER, SPIRIT, (GENIE)

#49 Relatives

Possible answers: AUNT, COUSIN, MOTHER, NEPHEW, (GRANDFATHER)

#49 Offbeat

Possible answers: DAFFY, KOOKY, QUIRKY, WACKY, (CUCKOO)

#49 Fictional Ducks

Possible answers: DAISY, DEWEY, DONALD, SCROOGE, (DAFFY)

#50 Imperial Measurements

Possible answers: FOOT, INCH, MILE, YARD, (QUART)

#52 Rodents

Possible answers: GERBIL, HAMSTER, RAT, VOLE, (MOUSE)

#52 Musical Instruments

Possible answers: HARP, HORN, ORGAN, TRIANGLE, (KEYBOARD)

#52 Complain

Possible answers: CARP, GRIPE, GROUSE, MOAN, (HARP)

#53 Animal Group Names

Possible answers: COLONY, HERD, PRIDE, SWARM, (FAMILY)

#53 AP Classes

Possible answers: BIO, CHEM, GOV, STATS, (LIT)

#54 Places for Worship

Possible answers: ALTAR, RELIQUARY, SHRINE, TEMPLE, (ABBEY)

#54 Presidents

Possible answers: CALVIN, CHESTER, GROVER, HARRY, (GARFIELD)

#56 Dances

Possible answers: HUSTLE, SALSA, SWING, TANGO, (TAP)

#57 Patterns

Possible answers: HOUNDSTOOTH, PAISLEY, PLAID, STRIPES, (DOT)

#58 Arachnids

Possible answers: MITE, SCORPION, SPIDER, TICK, (BLACK WIDOW)

#58 Fish

Possible answers: CHAR, EEL, PERCH, SHARK, (CATFISH)

#58 Superheroes

Possible answers: BLACK WIDOW, BLADE, FLASH, STORM, (TICK)

#59 Quantity

Possible answers: FEW, HANDFUL, SEVERAL, SOME, (PAIR)

#59 Celestial Objects

Possible answers: ASTEROID, COMET, MOON, PLANET, (SUN)

#60 Sports Venues

Possible answers: COURT, DIAMOND, FIELD, RINK, (RING)

#60 Jewelry

Possible answers: ANKLET, BANGLE, BROOCH, PENDANT, (RING), (CHARM)

#62 State Abbreviations

Possible answers: CO, MA, ME, PA, (LA)

#62 Period Table Symbols

Possible answers: FE, HE, NA, NI, (CO), (PA), (LA), (TI)

#63 Slang for Zero

Possible answers: JACK, NADA, NOTHING, SQUAT, (ZIP)

#63 Exercises

Possible answers: CURL, LUNGE, PLANK, PRESS, (SQUAT), (CRUNCH)

#63 Captains

Possible answers: CRUNCH, KANGAROO, OBVIOUS, PLANET, (JACK)

#64 Dog Names

Possible answers: FIDO, LUCKY, ROVER, SPOT, (REX)

#64 Perceive

Possible answers: CATCH, NOTICE, OBSERVE, SEE, (SPOT)

#64 Fishing Terms

Possible answers: BAIT, CHUM, FLY, SINKER, (CATCH)

#65 Energy

Possible answers: JUICE, SPIRIT, STEAM, VIGOR, (GAS), (FIRE)

#66 Time Periods

Possible answers: CENTURY, DECADE, MILLENNIUM, YEAR, (MONTH)

#66 Breakfast Foods

Possible answers: CEREAL, OMELET, PANCAKE, WAFFLE, (BACON), (EGG)

#67 Desserts

Possible answers: CAKE, COBBLER, PIE, TART, (FUDGE)

#67 Occupations

Possible answers: FISHER, MASON, MILLER, SMITH, (DOCTOR)

#68 Extremely

Possible answers: AWFUL, QUITE, SUPER, VERY, (REAL)

#68 Currencies

Possible answers: RAND, REAL, STERLING, WON, (POUND)

#68 _____Cake

Possible answers: CARROT, COFFEE, POUND, SPONGE, (CUP)

#69 Shoes

Possible answers: CLOG, PUMP, SLIDE, WEDGE, (MARY JANE)

#69 Slang for Marijuana

Possible answers: GRASS, HERB, MARY JANE, WEED, (BUD), (POT)

#70 Camping Supplies

Possible answers: COOLER, LANTERN, SLEEPING BAG, TENT, (CAMPER)

#70 Insult

Possible answers: BARB, DIG, DISS, JAB, (SLIGHT)

#71 States

Possible answers: ARIZONA, COLORADO, NEVADA, UTAH, (KANSAS), (MONTANA)

#72 Santa's Reindeer

Possible answers: COMET, CUPID, DASHER, VIXEN, (DANCER)

#72 Seen on Valentine's Day

Possible answers: CARD, HEART, CHOCOLATE, ROSE, (CUPID)

#73 Facial Hair

Possible answers: BEARD, GOATEE, MUSTACHE, STUBBLE, (HANDLEBAR)

#73 Pursue

Possible answers: DOG, FOLLOW, TAIL, TRACK, (SHADOW)

#74 Failures

Possible answers: BUSTS, FLOPS, MISSES, TURKEYS, (DUDS)

#75 Social Gathering

Possible answers: BASH, BLOWOUT, PARTY, SHINDIG, (MIXER)

#75 Found in a Kitchen

Possible answers: COUNTER, MIXER, RANGE, SINK, (ISLAND)

#79 Depart Quickly

Possible answers: BOOK, BOUNCE, RUN, SPLIT, (JET)

#79 Shades of Black

Possible answers: EBONY, JET, ONYX, RAVEN, (BLACK)

#80 Influence

Possible answers: CLOUT, PULL, WEIGHT, SWAY, (IMPACT)

#81 Appetizer Unit

Possible answers: FRY, NACHO, POPPER, WING, (CHIP), (CRACKER)

#81 Response to a Correct Answer

Possible answers: BINGO, CORRECT, RIGHT, YES, (DING)

#82 Drink Vessels

Possible answers: GOBLET, SNIFTER, TUMBLER, STEIN, (FLUTE)

#82 Woodwinds

Possible answers: CLARINET, FLUTE, OBOE, SAXOPHONE, (BASSOON)

#82 American Poets

Possible answers: BISHOP, FROST, OLDS, POUND, (STEIN)

#83 Unclothed

Possible answers: BARE, NAKED, NUDE, UNCLAD, (BUFF)

#83 Football Actions

Possible answers: FUMBLE, PUNT, SACK, SNAP, (TURNOVER)

#83 Finger Actions

Possible answers: BUFF, CLIP, FILE, POLISH, (SNAP)

#84 Female Animals

Possible answers: COW, DOE, HEN, MARE, (EWE)

#84 Pronouns

Possible answers: I, IT, THEY, WE, (YOU)

#84 Roman Numerals

Possible answers: D, L, M, V, (I)

#86 Information Displays

Possible answers: CHART, DIAGRAM, GRAPH, MAP, (PIE)

#86 Additional Benefit

Possible answers: BONUS, EXTRA, ICING, PERK, (GRAVY)

#86 Creatures in Folklore

Possible answers: GNOME, GOBLIN, OGRE, TROLL, (DRAGON)

#89 Alcohol

Possible answers: CIDER, PORT, SAKE, STOUT, (SPIRIT), (SCOTCH)

#89 Pixar Movies

Possible answers: BRAVE, CARS, COCO, UP, (SOUL)

#90 Baseball Calls

Possible answers: BALL, OUT, SAFE, STRIKE, (WALK)

#90 Fish

Possible answers: CARP, CATFISH, FLOUNDER, SMELT, (SALMON)

#91 Jungle Animals

Possible answers: ANACONDA, CAPYBARA, JAGUAR, TOUCAN, (LION)

#91 Lowest Point

Possible answers: BASE, BOTTOM, FOOT, FOUNDATION, (LEGS)

#92 Halloween Decorations

Possible answers: BAT, COBWEB, PUMPKIN, TOMBSTONE, (BONES)

#93 Animal Sounds

Possible answers: BUZZ, CLUCK, MEOW, OINK, (BARK)

#93 Inside Info

Possible answers: DIRT, DISH, SCOOP, SKINNY, (TEA)

#95 Songs that are Names

Possible answers: ALEJANDRO, LOLA, MICHELLE, STAN, (IRIS)

#96 Animals

Possible answers: BUFFALO, COW, GOAT, SHEEP, (HORSE)

#96 Gymnastics Apparatus

Possible answers: FLOOR, HORSE, RINGS, VAULT, (BEAM)

#97 Fairy Tale Figures

Possible answers: GIANT, PRINCESS, WITCH, WOLF, (QUEEN)

#97 "Peanuts" Characters

Possible answers: CHARLIE, PEPPERMINT PATTY, PIGPEN, WOODSTOCK, (LUCY)

#98 Fruits

Possible answers: APRICOT, FIG, GRAPE, LIME, (BERRY)

#98 Luxurious

Possible answers: DELUXE, GRAND, LAVISH, OPULENT, (SWANK)

#99 Intelligent

Possible answers: BRIGHT, CLEVER, QUICK, SHARP, (SMART)

#100 Web Browser-Related

Possible answers: BOOKMARK, HISTORY, TAB, WINDOW, (LINK), (POCKET)

#100 Dirty_____

Possible answers: DOZEN, JOKE, LAUNDRY, MARTINI, (WINDOW)

#101 Bowling Terms

Possible answers: ALLEY, BALL, LANE, PIN, (SPARE)

#101 Common Merch Items

Possible answers: MUG, PEN, TEE, TOTE, (PIN)

#102 Vehicles

Possible answers: BUS, CAR, MOTORCYCLE, TRUCK, (SCOOTER)

#102 Muppets

Possible answers: ANIMAL, BEAKER, GONZO, SCOOTER, (CHEF), (PIGGY)

#103 Soda Fountain Orders (Concrete can mean a type of milkshake or frozen custard)

Possible answers: FLOAT, MALT, SHAKE, SUNDAE, (CONCRETE), (SPLIT)

#104 Robust

Possible answers: FIT, HEALTHY, SOUND, STRONG, (WELL)

#104 Water Sources

Possible answers: FOUNTAIN, SPRING, TAP, WELL, (SINK)

#105 Kitchen Utensils

Possible answers: GRATER, LADLE, PEELER, WHISK, (CLEAVER)

#106 Wedding Items

Possible answers: BOUQUET, RING, TRAIN, VEIL, (CAKE)

#106 Encase

Possible answers: CAKE, COAT, COVER, CRUST, (VEIL)

#107 Snakes

Possible answers: BOA, MAMBA, PYTHON, VIPER, (GARTER)

#108 Produced by Trees

Possible answers: ACORN, CONE, POLLEN, SAP, (GUM), (NEEDLE)

#108 Candy

Possible answers: CHOCOLATE, GUM, LICORICE, LOLLIPOP, (SUCKER)

#108 Target of a Scheme

Possible answers: CHUMP, FOOL, MARK, SUCKER, (SAP)

#109 Rap Subgenres

Possible answers: BOUNCE, CRUNK, DRILL, GRIME, (TRAP)

#110 Golf Clubs

Possible answers: IRON, PUTTER, WEDGE, WOOD, (CLUB)

#112 Coffee Counter Items

Possible answers: CUP, LID, STIRRER, STRAW, (STICK)

#114 Talk

Possible answers: BLATHER, CHAT, GAB, JABBER, (YAK)

#115 Christmas-Related

Possible answers: MISTLETOE, REINDEER, SNOWMAN, STOCKING, (PRESENT), (CANDY CANE)

#116 MLB Teams

Possible answers: ANGEL, CUB, MET, RED, (NAT)

#119 Celebratory Occasion

Possible answers: ANNIVERSARY, BIRTHDAY, SHOWER, WEDDING, (RECEPTION), (SERVICE)

#120 Crops

Possible answers: CORN, CUCUMBER, PEPPER, TOMATO, (MELON)

#121 Bible Books

Possible answers: ACTS, JOB, KINGS, MARK, (GENESIS)

#121 NHL Teams

Possible answers: FLAMES, KRAKEN, STARS, WILD, (KINGS), (RANGER)

#123 Conceal

Possible answers: BLOCK, COVER, HIDE, MASK, (SHIELD)

#124 "L" Cities

Possible answers: LAGOS, LIMERICK, LINCOLN, LUXOR, (LIMA)

#124 Poetry Terms

Possible answers: LINE, METER, RHYME, VERSE, (LIMERICK)

#125 Butt

Possible answers: BOTTOM, BUNS, SEAT, TAIL, (BOOTY)

#126 Tools

Possible answers: HAMMER, FILE, LEVEL, SAW, (WRENCH)

#126 Keyboard Shortcuts

Possible answers: COPY, FIND, PRINT, SAVE, (FILE)

#127 Days of the Week

Possible answers: FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY, THURSDAY, (WEDNESDAY), (TUESDAY)

#127 Go Bad

Possible answers: ROT, SOUR, SPOIL, TURN, (FESTER)

#129 Bit of Air

Possible answers: BREEZE, DRAFT, GUST, PUFF, (PANT)

#130 Falsify

Possible answers: FABRICATE, FAKE, FIX, FORGE, (FUDGE)

#130 TV Shows

Possible answers: FARGO, FIREFLY, FLEABAG, FLIPPER, (FRIENDS)

#131 Animal Homes

Possible answers: DEN, LAIR, HIVE, NEST, (WEB), (WARREN)

#131 Equitable

Possible answers: EQUAL, EVEN, FAIR, JUST, (GOOD)

#132 Tableware

Possible answers: BOWL, DISH, PLATE, SAUCER, (CROCK), (CUP)

#133 British Food

Possible answers: MASH, ROAST, SCONE, TRIFLE, (BANGER)

#133 Predicament

Possible answers: BIND, PICKLE, SCRAPE, SPOT, (JAM)

#134 Impel

Possible answers: DRIVE, INSPIRE, MOTIVATE, SPUR, (SPARK)

#135 Compound Words

Possible answers: BACKPACK, BIGWIG, DOWNTOWN, RAGTAG, (TEXTBOOK)

#136 Grammar Tenses

Possible answers: FUTURE, PAST, PERFECT, PRESENT, (SIMPLE)

#136 The 12 Days of Christmas

Possible answers: DRUMMER, LADY, RING, SWAN, (LORD)

#137 Excellent

Possible answers: ACES, KEEN, NEATO, NIFTY, (SWELL)

#137 Bubbles

Possible answers: FOAM, FROTH, HEAD, LATHER, (BUBBLE)

#138 Metals

Possible answers: COPPER, GOLD, NICKEL, SILVER, (BRASS), (MERCURY)

#139 Aesthetics

Possible answers: DRESS, LOOK, MANNER, STYLE, (TASTE)

#140 Mishmash

Possible answers: HASH, JUMBLE, MEDLEY, STEW, (LITTER)

#143 Filler Words

Possible answers: ERM, UH, UM, WELL, (LIKE), (ER)

#146 Clue Weapons

Possible answers: CANDLESTICK, KNIFE, ROPE, WRENCH, (PIPE)

#147 Unchanging

Possible answers: EVEN, LEVEL, STABLE, STEADY, (UNIFORM)

#147 Long, Sharp Objects

Possible answers: LANCE, PIN, SKEWER, SPIT, (PITCHFORK)

#148 Musical Format

Possible answers: LP, PLATTER, VINYL, WAX, (CD)

#148 Cube-Shaped

Possible answers: BOUILLON, DIE, ICE, SUGAR, (STOCK)

#150 Equivocate

Possible answers: HEDGE, SEE-SAW, WAVER, YO-YO, (FLIP-FLOP), (WAFFLE)

#151 Podcasts

Possible answers: RADIOLAB, SERIAL, UP FIRST, WTF, (FRESH AIR), (REPLY ALL)

#152 Intelligent

Possible answers: BRIGHT, QUICK, SHARP, SMART, (SAGE)

#152 Medieval Weapons

Possible answers: CLUB, MACE, SPEAR, SWORD, (AXE)

#153 Filmmaking Equipment

Possible answers: BOOM, DOLLY, LENS, TRIPOD, (GRIP)

#154 Sports Professionals

Possible answers: COACH, GM, PLAYER, SCOUT, (SUB)

#154 Car Companies

Possible answers: BMW, HONDA, JAGUAR, SUBARU, (FORD), (GM)

#156 Vocal Fanfare

Possible answers: BEHOLD, PRESTO, TADA, VOILA, (SURPRISE)

#157 Magazines

Possible answers: O, OK, US, W, (EW), (SI)

#157 Yes

Possible answers: HAI, JA, SI, DA, (OK), (OUI)

#158 Animals

Possible answers: BUFFALO, DEER, FISH, MOOSE, (BULL), (STEER), (SEAL)

#160 Quick Observation

Possible answers: GANDER, GLANCE, GLIMPSE, LOOK, (PEEK)

#160 Parts of a Mountain

Possible answers: CLIFF, CRAG, LEDGE, RIDGE, (BLUFF), (PEAK)

#161 _____Day

Possible answers: EARTH, GROUNDHOG, LABOR, MAY, (BIRTH)

#162 Primates

Possible answers: BABOON, BONOBO, GIBBON, GORILLA, (APE)

#162 Fashionable

Possible answers: CHIC, HIP, HOT, IN, (VOGUE)

#164 Area Between Mountains

Possible answers: CANYON, GULCH, PASS, RAVINE, (GORGE)

#165 Food

Possible answers: PASTY, PIE, TART, TURNOVER, (PARFAIT), (RAGOUT), (CURRY)

#165 Countries

Possible answers: JAPAN, POLAND, TUNISIA, TURKEY, (JORDAN)

#166 Reality Shows

Possible answers: ALONE, CATFISH, CHOPPED, SURVIVOR, (BACHELOR)

#168 Municipalities

Possible answers: CITY, TOWN, COUNTY, VILLAGE, (CAPITAL)

#171 Parts of the Foot

Possible answers: ARCH, BALL, SOLE, TOE, (HEEL)

#171 Dog Commands

Possible answers: COME, DOWN, SIT, STAY, (HEEL)

#173 Ways to Remove Hair

Possible answers: SHAVE, THREAD, TWEEZE, WAX, (CUT)

#174 Hold Back

Possible answers: CAP, CHECK, CURB, LIMIT, (HAMPER)

#175 Excite, with "Up"

Possible answers: AMP, FIRE, HYPE, PUMP, (GAS)

#177 TV Shows

Possible answers: CHEERS, EUPHORIA, FELICITY, GLEE, (FRASIER)

#178 Found on Sheet Music

Possible answers: CLEF, NOTE, REST, STAFF, (SCALES)

#178 Zodiac Symbols

Possible answers: BULL, CRAB, SCALES, TWINS, (VIRGIN)

#180 Absolute

Possible answers: PURE, SHEER, TOTAL, UTTER, (STARK)

#180 Express

Possible answers: AIR, SPEAK, STATE, VOICE, (UTTER)

#181 Cooking Oils

Possible answers: CORN, OLIVE, PALM, PEANUT, (RICE)

#183 Luxurious Fabrics

Possible answers: CHIFFON, SILK, SATIN, VELVET, (LACE)

#185 -ough

Possible answers: BOUGH, COUGH, DOUGH, TOUGH, (ROUGH), (ENOUGH)

#189 Used to Build a Snowman

Possible answers: CARROT, COAL, SNOW, STICKS, (STONES)

#190 NYC Avenues

Possible answers: BROADWAY, FIFTH, MADISON, PARK, (SECOND), (FIRST), (ELEVENTH)

#191 Accessories

Possible answers: BELT, BRACELET, TIE, WATCH, (CHARM)

#199 Name Prefixes

Possible answers: GEN, MS, PROF, REV, (DR)

#200 Parts of a Car

Possible answers: BUMPER, HOOD, TIRE, TRUNK, (DASH)

#201 Single Letter Homophones

Possible answers: BEE, EX, GEE, JAY, (TEE)

#203 New Years-Related

Possible answers: BALL, COUNTDOWN, FIREWORKS, KISS, (PARTY), (RESOLUTION), (CHAMPAGNE)

#207 Gift-Giving Accessories

Possible answers: BOW, BOX, CARD, WRAPPING, (MESSAGE)

#210 Kinds of Exams

Possible answers: BAR, FINAL, ORAL, PHYSICAL, (EYE)

#211 Long, Skinny Objects

Possible answers: POLE, ROD, STAFF, STICK, (CLUB)

#212 Cooking Elements

Possible answers: ACID, FAT, HEAT, SALT, (PEPPER), (SMOKE)

#213 Seen at a Casino

Possible answers: CARDS, CHIPS, DICE, SLOTS, (POKER)

#213 Ways to Prepare Cheese

Possible answers: CRUMBLE, MELT, SHRED, SLICE, (GRATE)

#217 Thieve

Possible answers: PINCH, ROB, STEAL, SWIPE, (JACK)

#218 Medicine Formats

Possible answers: CAPSULE, CREAM, SYRUP, TABLET, (POD)

#221 Colors

Possible answers: BLUE, GREEN, WHITE, YELLOW, (SCARLET)

#222 Minced Oaths

Possible answers: CURSES, DARN, RATS, SHOOT, (FUDGE), (NUTS)

#224 Contains Wax

Possible answers: CANDLE, CRAYON, HONEYCOMB, SEAL, (EAR)

#229 Baseball-Related

Possible answers: BALL, BASE, BAT, GLOVE, (STRIKE)

#233 Mario Power-ups

Possible answers: FEATHER, STAR, MUSHROOM, FLOWER, (HAMMER)

#234 _____Pit

Possible answers: BARBECUE, ORCHESTRA, SNAKE, TAR, (FIRE)

#235 Make Shorter

Possible answers: CLIP, CUT, PARE, TRIM, (PRUNE)

#235 Muscular

Possible answers: BUILT, JACKED, RIPPED, SWOLE, (TRIM), (BUFF)

#237 Farm Fixtures

Possible answers: COOP, PEN, STABLE, STY, (RANGE)

#238 Unexciting

Possible answers: BORING, DULL, MUNDANE, VANILLA, (ROUTINE), (DRY)

#239 Ecclesiastical Titles

Possible answers: BISHOP, CARDINAL, PASTOR, PRIOR, (BROTHER), (LORD)

#251 Media Attention

Possible answers: COVERAGE, EXPOSURE, PRESS, PUBLICITY, (MEDIA)

#254 Little Bit of Liquid

Possible answers: BEAD, GLOB, DROP, TEAR, (DRIP)

#257 Shades of Green

Possible answers: OLIVE, FOREST, LIME, MINT, (CACTUS)

#260 Ilk

Possible answers: KIND, SORT, TYPE, VARIETY, (MANNER)

#263 Propel into the Air

Possible answers: HOP, JUMP, LEAP, SPRING, (VAULT)

#266 Large Amount

Possible answers: MASS, SEA, SLEW, TON, (WAVE)

#266 Fall under Pressure

Possible answers: BUCKLE, CAVE, COLLAPSE, GIVE, (FLOP)

#268 Pop Stars

Possible answers: GRANDE, MARS, STYLES, SWIFT, (LEGEND)

#269 Found at an Airport

Possible answers: HANGAR, RUNWAY, TARMAC, TERMINAL, (WINDSOCK)

#269 Ends in an Article of Clothing (A Mac is a raincoat)

Possible answers: FOXGLOVE, GUMSHOE, TURNCOAT, WINDSOCK, (TARMAC), (LAWSUIT)

#271 Food Preservation Techniques

Possible answers: CAN, CURE, DRY, FREEZE, (SPICE)

#272 Space_____

Possible answers: BAR, CADET, HEATER, STATION, (BLANKET)

#273 Keyboard Keys

Possible answers: COMMAND, CONTROL, OPTION, SHIFT, (SPACE)

#283 Seen at a Sports Stadium

Possible answers: ASTROTURF, JUMBOTRON, SCOREBOARD, SKYBOX, (KISSCAM), (JOURNEYMAN)

#284 Animals

Possible answers: COW, DOE, HEN, EWE, (YAK)

#284 Palindromes

Possible answers: BIB, EYE, GAG, POP, (EWE)

#285 Olympic Sports

Possible answers: BREAKING, HOCKEY, TRAMPOLINE, SKELETON, (CRICKET), (SQUASH), (VOLLEYBALL)

#289 Plant Growths

Possible answers: BLOOM, BUD, SHOOT, SPROUT, (CORONA)

#290 Quarrel

Possible answers: FIGHT, ROW, SCRAP, TIFF, (WAR)

#290 Games of Chance (Poker is technically a game of skill but it's still highly associated with chance)

Possible answers: BINGO, LOTTERY, ROULETTE, WAR, (POKER)

#291 Whale Species

Possible answers: BLUE, FIN, GRAY, RIGHT, (PILOT)

#293 Food Preservation Techniques

Possible answers: CANS, CURES, SALTS, SMOKES, (JAMS), (PICKLES)

#296 Thrust

Possible answers: JAB, POKE, PROD, STICK, (ELBOW)

#301 _____Horse

Possible answers: CHARLEY, CRAZY, DARK, GIFT, (PRIZE)

#302 Brief Moment

Possible answers: FLASH, HEARTBEAT, JIFF, WINK, (ZIP)

#302 Dispute

Possible answers: CLASH, TANGLE, SCRAP, TIFF, (SPAT)

#303 Hair Care Items

Possible answers: BRUSH, COMB, DRYER, IRON, (OIL)

#307 Seen at the Circus

Possible answers: CLOWN, RING, TENT, TRAPEZE, (LION)

#310 Parts of a Theatre

Possible answers: BALCONY, BOX, ORCHESTRA, STAGE, (FLOOR), (FLAT)

#312 Golden_____

Possible answers: FLEECE, GIRLS, PARACHUTE, RULE, (MEAN)

#315 Starting with the Same Sound

Possible answers: CYMBAL, SCIMITAR, SIMMER, SYMPHONY, (SYMBOL)

#318 Mexican Food-Related

Possible answers: CILANTRO, LIME, ONION, SALSA, (PICO), (WRAP), (MOLE)

#328 _____Sale

Possible answers: BAKE, CLEARANCE, GARAGE, SAMPLE, (YARD)

#329 Enjoy

Possible answers: FANCY, LOVE, RELISH, SAVOR, (LIKE)

#330 Quantity

Possible answers: FEW, MANY, SEVERAL, SOME, (COUPLE), (HANDFUL)

#333 Restrict

Possible answers: CHECK, CONTAIN, CURB, LIMIT, (CAP)

#334 Things that Spin

Possible answers: CAROUSEL, GLOBE, RECORD, TOP, (MERCURY)

#336 Cuts of Meat

Possible answers: CHUCK, FLANK, LOIN, ROUND, (RIB)

#339 Forthright

Possible answers: DIRECT, FRANK, OPEN, STRAIGHT, (PLAIN)

#342 Games

Possible answers: CATEGORIES, CHARADES, FISHBOWL, WEREWOLF, (MOUSETRAP)

#345 Billiards-Related

Possible answers: BALL, CHALK, CUE, RACK, (POCKET)

#348 Things You can Crack

Possible answers: EGG, KNUCKLES, SMILE, WINDOW, (CORN)

#351 _____Iron

Possible answers: PUMP, STEAM, TIRE, WAFFLE, (FLAT)

#355 Things People Shake

Possible answers: HANDS, MARACA, POLAROID, SNOWGLOBE, (BODY)

Preventative Cardiology Part 2: Lipids
Lipids, specifically circulating lipoproteins (which are varying quantities of cholesterol and triglyceride combined with protein) are the most important, established conventional risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Between 10-15% of the US population has high LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol, see below) often part of metabolic syndrome (extensive discussion to come in a subsequent post). This circulating LDL cholesterol deposits in blood vessels including the coronary arteries leading to first fatty streaks and later mature plaques. Those plaques can block the artery causing chest pain as well as spontaneously rupture leading to a heart attack. See diagram for a simplified overview of plaque development. Importantly, HDL lipoproteins can pull cholesterol out of plaques returning it to the liver and thus are thought to confer some protection from ASCVD.
A standard lipid panel that your doctor orders includes the following measures:

1. Total Cholesterol
2. LDL Cholesterol (Low-Density Lipoprotein)
3. HDL Cholesterol (High-Density Lipoprotein)
4. Triglycerides
5. Non-HDL Cholesterol

Your doctor then takes those numbers and puts it into a risk calculator to determine if you are low, intermediate, or high risk to make a decision about whether to offer you a statin or other cholesterol lowering therapy. The biggest risk factor is actually not cholesterol levels it's your age so a 40 year may not be offered a statin with the exact same numbers a 60 year old would. Longevity is based on primordial prevention, which is prevention long before diseases develop, so I think this is a fundamentally flawed approach. It works at a population level but for individuals it undervalues lifetime risk. As a 40 year old, I may have a 3% 10 year risk, but my lifetime risk of an event is 70%. Thus, in conventional practice I would not be offered cholesterol lowering medication. The moment I turn 50, and my 10 year risk exceeds 5%, then I would. Individualized decision making is key as is super early intervention with both medication and lifestyle (diet, etc).
Some nonconventional but still very important lipid markers not routinly tested are:

1. Lp(a) (Lipoprotein a)
   
2. ApoB (Apolipoprotein B)
   
3. Lipoprotein Fractionation
   
4. Omega 3 Fatty Acid Index
   

Lp(a), another lipoprotein, is a one time test. Elevated levels greatly increases risk of ASCVD irrespective of conventional lipid markers and often necessitate things like aspirin for primary prevention (fallen out of favor for most populations but reasonable with elevated Lp(a)) and more intensive control of conventional risk factors.
ApoB (Apolipoprotein B) actually doesn't measure cholesterol at all like the conventional lipid panel does; rather it measures the protein contained on all atherogenic (plaque forming) lipoproteins. That includes LDL but also VLDL and ILDL. Many people, including myself, thinks it gives a more complete picture of atherogenic risk and should be included with the conventional markers.
Lipoprotein Fractionation breaks down the LDL particles into their subtypes. This is important because we know that small, dense LDL particles are the most atherogenic. A relatively normal LDL number may belie a very elevated small dense LDL particle number, which would necessitate more intensive treatment.
Finally, Omega 3 Fatty Acid Index, measures the amount of EPA + DHA in your red blood cells (a surrogate marker for whole body levels). Omega 3s although a bit controversial are widely thought to be protective against ASCVD. Most Americans are deficient and 8%+ on this index has been shown to be protective in a number of well designed studies.
Treating lipids include Statin, Ezetimibe, PSK9 inhibitors, bempadoic acid, fish oil supplements, and fiber supplements as well as dietary approaches like the Mediterranean diet. Nevertheless it all starts with knowing your numbers and risk.
In part 3, we will discuss inflammation as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

So my dear juniors, I thought of helping y'all with the diagrams that you need to practice for boards. They are just some diagrams that you need to pay attention to and if they don't come in the exams, don't come back at me saying I'm the same as that mausi wala 😭😭

1. Structure of Chromosome**
   
2. Mitosis (all phases)**
   
3. Plasmolysed Cell
   
4. Turgid Cell
   
5. Structure of chloroplast**
   
6. Structure of stomata
   
7. Structure of RBC**
   
8. Structure of WBC (all types)**
   
9. Structure of Platelets**
   
10. Structure of Heart (LS)**
    
11. Structure of Artery**
    
12. Structure of Vein**
    
13. Structure of Kidney (LS)**
    
14. Structure of urinary system**
    
15. Structure of renal tubule**
    
16. Malpighian Capsule**
    
17. Nerve Cell**
    
18. Reflex Arc**
    
19. Structure of Brain
    
20. LS of Eye**
    
21. Structure & Correction of myopic eye**
    
22. Structure & Correction of hyperopic eye**
    
23. LS of Ear**
    
24. Location and structures of all endocrine glands**
    
25. Male reproductive organs (all)
    
26. Female reproductive organs (all)
    
27. Structure of human sperm**
    
28. Structure of ovum**
    
29. Tubectomy**
    
30. Vasectomy** [** very important diagrams] YOU CAN RELY ON ME, I SCORED 99 IN BIOLOGY!! (still took pcm lmao)
    

Hello all. The youtube channel, Kiyoko&Kanade are currently hosting a 3 part ASMR competition, with one of the divisions being for script writers (deadline June 21 [see their youtube channel community tab for more details]).
Because of this, I plan to write a lot more. And as a consequence of that, I plan to share my script entries here, because why not? I hope you enjoy it!
Side note - this script is okay for monetization.
Synopsis It's your first day at a magical university, and before you can get started attending classes and making friends, you have to take a special course in "Vampire History and Ethics." That's right, your a "vampire," the only human one in your class-- but what that word (vampire) means, and what you actually are, are two entirely different things. That is why this class exists, it's meant to teach you the truth about vampires, and make you aware of all the resources the university has prepared for you.
[Sound of general chatter]
[Sound of heeled footsteps as chatter continues]
Instructor: (Clap of hands) Attention, please. May I have your attention?
[General chatter quiets down] [Brief Pause]
Professor E: Excellent. It would seem that I am rather fortunate this year, to receive a group of well mannered students such as yourselves. I half expected you to try talking over me just now. Shame on me for my school-fostered pessimism (said cheerfully). Now then, onto introductions... My name, is Elaina Andrei Cojocaru, and as you may have guessed, I have the unique privelage of being your "Vampiric History and Protozeal Ethics" Professor, this year. It is a pleasure to meet you all.
[Applause]
Professor E: Oh goodness, all of you really are well mannered. Please stop, I know I gave a little half bow just now, but that's no cause for such a warm reception. Oh, curse my formalities, and these cherry cheeks.
[Soft laughter.]
Professor E: (Clearing her throat) Right then, as I've said, I'll be one of your primary Professors for the entirety of this year. And I'll be checking in with you all, regularly, for any additional years you choose to spend at Amortis University. Now, can anyone tell me why that is...?
[Brief pause]
Professor E: Yes; you there, in the back!
[Brief pause]
Professor E: (Sighing) No, young man, it is not because you're all "freaks." And for the record, please know that I am no different from any of you. Why, I still remember the days I spent, sitting where you are now; listening to my own Vampire instructor as he gave this exact same orientation. But I'll save that story for another time. So please, anyone? Can anyone tell me why you're all here?
[Brief pause]
Professor E: That's right, miss. The reason why you're all here, is because you have all been afflicted with the genetic disease most know today as "Vampirism." And as such, you all require additonal tutelage before you're allowed to go out and socialize with your fellow classmates.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Yes, dear, that is why none of you were permitted to attend the official orientation in the Campus Square. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry you were denied that. I know how frustrating it can be, to be told that you're no different from anyone else, only to be treated like a leper at every opportunity. That used to drive me up the wall. But-- that's why I studied to become a teacher, and why I volunteered to teach this class, it's because I wanted to be there for those who would experience the same things that I did. I wanted to be there for them, in the ways I wished someone was there for me. And speaking of...
[A few heeled footsteps sound] [Sound of a drawer being pulled out] [Sound of jingling keys]
Professor E: I knew that none of us would be attending the formal get together in the Campus Square. So I took the liberty of... procuring one of the Headmaster's vehicles, along with one of the company credit cards.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Why did I do that? Well, so we could throw our own party, of course! There's a demi-human diner only a few blocks away, and the sweets they serve are out of this world! It's normally quiet later in the evening, especially on weekdays, so nothing is stopping us from showing up in full force; and downing enough deserts to put us all in a sugary coma!
[Hoots and hollers]
Proffessor E: Shush, evryone! Shush! Please keep it down. You're going to get us caught-- and me fired! (Said with glee)
[Quiet giggling]
Professor E: Alrighty then, since it seems like we're all in agreement for later tonight, and since the spirits of those in the room have been largely lifted, I think it's about time we delve into our first lesson. Lights, please!
[Light switch being flipped] [Heeled footsteps] [Projector being turned on and running]
Professor E: (Clearing throat) To begin our lesson, I would like to take a closer look at the official name of this class. And that is...?
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Correct, Mr. Brutus; "Vampiric History and Protozeal Ethics." Now, what do you all think these words mean...? Anyone...? Besides Mr. Brutus.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: That's right, Miss Nadia, this class is meant to teach you the history of Vampires; and how we, their offpsring, are to conduct ourselves in a civilized society. So to start our trek into the past, why don't we begin with the world's very first recorded "Vampire." Lord Dracula himself!
[Clicker clicking] [Concerned whispers]
Professor E: Oh my, all of you seem so utterly bewildered. What ever is the matter? (Said sarcastically)
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: That's right, Mr. Ryuji, the picture on the screen isn't that of a distinguished, elderly man, but that of a petite young woman; whose beauty I would liken to a porcelan doll's. What of it? (Sarcastic and sassy)
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: (Chuckling) As fate would have it, Mr. Ryuji, this is Count Dracula; or rather, Countess. Allow me to introduce you all to our true progenitor. The singular human being from which all Vampire kind is derived... Lady Valentina Matei Parvu... the first being in recorded history to have ever suffered from "The Curse of Parvu," a.k.a. "The Vampar Curse," a.k.a. "Vampirism."
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: I see that we're all more than a little smitten with our Lady. Does anyone have anything they'd like to say?
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Other than the fact that our Countess was very pretty, Miss Selica (small giggle)
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Ah, That is a very good question, Mr. Tempus! How did the world confuse the image of this dainty little thing, with that of the imposing, amorous, and chiseled figure that is Count Dracula-- an image which the world of fiction deeply reveres? Well... the answer to that, lies with the failings of recorded history. As stories are chronicled and passed down, first hand accounts often yield to modern superstitions and hearsay, and this in turn-- makes recountings of historic events about as credible as modern tabloids. Very few ancient historians are actually worth their renown, and even then, these same historians largely concerned themselves with events that happened locally; meaning the stories of the rest of the world quietly passed them by, more often than not. Luckily for us, Lady Parvu was a countess of a noble house, so her story and her struggles managed to find their way to us; by way of her family albums and her own personal diary.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: As far as her family albums are concerned... here we can see Lady Valentina Parvu being held by her mother, Lady Ileana Parvu, after just being born in a mountainside manor, on the eve of May 26, 1897. Lord Caius Parvu, Valentina's father-- whom we can see on the right, was the head of the Parvu clan; making Valentina, his first and only child, his sole successor.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: The Parvu's were an ancient magus family, and as one of the biggest magical clans known to history, Lady Valentina should have inherited a life of wealth, decadence, and leisure.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: Sadly, as we can see in this slide here, Lady Valentina was born with a sickly and frail body, leaving her bedridden most of the time; and hobbling around on a cane every other waking moment. Lady Ileana and Lord Caius chocked all of this up to general misfortune at first. They just saw it as "one of those things" that was outside of their control, and that Valentina would just have to learn to live with. However, all of this changed when Valentina turned 18. And her condition took an unexpected turn for the worse.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: The man in the cloak that we see standing over Valentina here, is the Arch Mage: Augustus Von Draconis; he was a sage with wisdom beyond his many years, and he was a personal friend of Lord Caius. So when Valentina collapsed from a fever during her birthday dinner, Augustus was summoned to help her. After launching a series of investigative spells, Augustus learned what we all recognize today as common knowledge; that those who suffer from "Vampirism" have bodies that are incapable of properly harnessing mana. And this in turn, can lead to a myriad of chronic physical ailments, as mana is integral to proper bodily function.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: In Valentina's case, "Vampirism" left her with an incredibly frail body, a ghostly pale complection, and horrendus eyesight. Fun fact-- Most of the tropes we have today regarding "Vampire weaknesses," are actually derived from misconceptions stemming from Lady Valentina's behavior. For example: Most people think that Vampires will die if exposed to sunlight, and thus, they have to avoid it. But as I've just said, "Vampirism" gave Valentina a ghostly pale complection-- along with terrible vision, meaning prolonged exposure to the sun would make her eyes hurt; and her skin, burn.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Hm? Oh, yes; that is why all of us are either wearing glasses, or very unique contacts. The bodily ailments that come with "Vamprisim" are usually passed down from parent to child; so chances are... if Lady Valentina had it, so will all of us. And as an added note, after reading Lady Valentina's diary in depth, I discovered that she had a very fierce loathing for her appearance; a kind of pre-historic body dysmorphia, if you will. She disliked her looks so much, she actively removed all mirrors from her room. So... if you ever wondered where the concept "Vampires don't show up in mirrors" came from... or if you ever wondered why you find it hard to appreciate your own reflection-- well, Lady Valentina is probably responsible for that, too. But we should finish going through all of Valentina's family albums before we get to her diary.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: Getting back to Valentina's birthday disaster, Augustus tried all types of healing magic and anti-curse magic to help Valentina, as he believed an outside source was impairing her ability to absorb magic. He only realized that her affliction was genetic, and not heretic, after giving her an elixir that was meant to replenish one's mana. Funnily enough, Lady Valentina nearly ripped Augusts' arm off, in an attempt to snatch the bottle out of his hand, after taking a mere sip of its contents. Her sudden burst of strength, and ravenous consumption of the magical brew, prompted more and more elixir to be brought in for her. And after the span of an hour, Lady Valentina had consumed more than a gallons worth of potion, before finally passing out due to exhaustion.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: This might have caused some of us to panic; but Augustus, ever the sage and alchemist, was able to think through the chaos, enough to see that Valentina was finally breathing normally and that her fever had broken. The picture we see here is Augustus comforting Valentina's startled parents, as several maids settle Valentina back into bed.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: Armed with this new knowledge of Valentina's condition, Augustus worked with her, day and night, in order to help her manage her symptoms-- while he secretly looked for a cure. Unfortunately, none of the magic in the world, nor a philosopher's stone, could reverse what fate had done to Valentina. But even so, Valentina did not lose heart, and neither did her parents. And as we see here, not only were Valentina's parents ready to do anything and everything to help her, they were even the very first people that Valentina fed on. Which is why we see Valentina noming on her father's arm in this picture, and her mother's neck in this picture. Now, for those of you wondering why Valentina would even resort to feeding...
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: As we can see in this diagram here, a Mana Elixir actually contains little to no mana in and of itself. It's primary purpose is to help the consumer's body absorb external mana, with the little mana it does contain only serving as a means to "kickstart" that process. In contrast, when a Vampire feeds off of another living being, the fluid that enters into their mouths is 100% pure liquid mana, or Aetheron, for those Alchemy Majors amongst us. This is why Valentina consumed large volumes of the Mana Elixir on her 18th birthday, and it's why Vampires feed off of other beings to this day. It is simply more efficient. And speaking of feeding, I think it's time we get on to the Protozeal Ethics portion of our discussion today.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: Society has many different opinions regarding the act of Feeding, but thankfully for us, the information contained on these slides is irrefutable fact. So if you didn't already know... Vampires don't actually drink blood, as we so often see in books or television. What actually happens is an extremely complicated, bio-magical transmutation process, that Alchemists the world over are still trying to replicate. But to put it as simply as I can, the abnormally elongated canines of a Vampire, or their quote/unqote "fangs," if your a normie-- act as polaric constructs that draw mana to them. When a "Vampire" bites down on a person, their fangs draw magic particles out of their prey's body, and then force those particles to condensate inside the Vampires mouth; creating a liquid the Vampire can then drink. And because all liquids containing mana have a propensity to turn red; it is easy to see how, from a distance, people may be lead to believe that "Vampires" consume blood. Which is a totally disgusting notion, by the way.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: In feeding off of living beings, Vampires are given a kind of repreive from their bodily ailments. I'm sure all of you have experienced this yourselves, at one time or another, so I won't go into too much detail; but for the sake of the curriculum, allow me to just say that feeding makes a Vampire stronger, faster, more resilient, and just healthier overall. Though we still suffer from things like poor eyesight and/or easily damaged skin, no matter how much we feed. Remeber, "Vampirism" is a chronic, genetic condition; not an illness that can be cured.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: And speaking of "Incurables" (sigh) I now have the distinct displeasure of telling you all how others might pervert the feeding process.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: As most of you can imagine, it would be incredibly problematic if a Vampire's prey ran away from them before a feeding, or if they fought back as a Vampire was consuming their mana... And as if in response to this dilemma, the bodies of Vampires naturally adapted themselves, in order to provide a solution... Put succintly, a Vampire's bite is known to generate intense waves of Euphoria, and other such emotions, in the person being bitten. Leaving little motivation for anyone to resist having their mana taken.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: On the surface, this seems like a good thing. The Vampire gets to feed, and provide essential nutrients to their ailing body; while their prey gets to feel good whilst donating some of their excess mana. Everyone wins. Or at least, that's what you would expect... (Deep sigh)... But unfortunately, there are many individuals out there who would take advantage of the effects of a Vampire bite. Using it to block out the pain of their lives, or introduce a new kind of stimulus to it. This is part of the reason why Vampires aren't allowed to attend the formal Freshman Orientation. It isn't only because we all need to learn when and where to feed, but rather, it's because we need to learn that others may entice us to feed of off them, in accordance with their own selfish desires... Please, don't let anyone make a tool out of you. Especially those who claim to be your friends. I know it might be hard to hear that, and even harder to follow through on, so please know that my door is always open; If you ever need to talk. The scheduled office hours on my door be damned. If you need me, I'll be there. I Promise.
[Sound of a clicker clicking] [Sound of the projector moving to the next slide]
Professor E: (Sigh of relief) And, that should about do it for our first lecture. Thank you all so much for your patience and attention. I'd like to open the floor now for any questions that you may have.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Yes; you, near the window.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Ah, an astute question. For those of you who didn't hear, Miss Seren asked why demi-humans of all kinds can end up as Vampires. If you take a look around the room yourselves, you can see that we actually have demis of all kinds in attendance here today. Mr Brutus is a Minotaur. Miss Nadia is a Scylla. Mr. Ryuji is a Dragonborn, Mr. Tempus is a Shifter. Miss Selica is a Harpy. And Miss Seren herself is a Gorgon. We all come from different magical lineages, and this in turn, might cause an uninformed person to think that Vampirism is transferrable. But as we have already discussed, Vampirism stems from genetics, so any species that has a history of reproducing with humans, has a chance of siring Vampire children. Hmm... now that I've mentioned humans, I have to ask, do we... have any in this class? Cause I don't think I we do.
[Chairs shuffling]
Professor E: Oh, I see a hand! There you are, you sneaky little thing, hiding behind Mr. Brutus like that. No, no-- don't be shy. I know that, as an Arachnid, my form may be a bit imposing; but I promise, the yellow stripes on my body are meant to scare away predators, not you-- precious. In fact, since you're the only human here, why don't you come up to the front and introduce yourself?
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Oh, there's no need to be nervous. I'll have everyone introduce themselves at some point today, but since you're a human, and can weave through the various desks with ease, I think it makes sense to have you come to the front to make your introduction. That way, everyone can see you clearly, without having to try and peer behind Mr. Brutus.
[soft chuckling]
Professor E: You don't think you're that insteresting? Nonsense! As the only human vampire here, you must have a strong connection to Lady Valentina's bloodline. Why, I would wager that you have direct ties to one or more of the ancient magus families, making you arcanic nobility.
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: You're not sure? Well, how about this; you come up to the front and introduce yourself, and I promise to figure out the rest. Deal?
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: Yes, sweet thing; this is me volen-telling you to get up here, in the nicest way I know how (cheerful giggle).
[Brief Pause]
Professor E: That's the spirit! Let's get a big round of applause for our brave new freshman!
[Round of applause]
Professor E: (Whispering in Listener's ear) Sorry not sorry for the round of applause. When I saw how red you were getting up, I couldn't help myself, I had to tease you; even if only a little. Forgive me later... (Audibly, for the class) Now then, sweetpea, why don't you tell us what your name is, and what noble house of mages you belong to?
[END]

I really want to like the Roam and hopefully the Roam 2 (just stop enabling Loudness by default. It kill the sound). They are great for travel and using in the bathroom when taking a shower and getting ready.
But the Roam have a massive design flaw and why so many have become paper weights. There’s no way to bypass the battery.
In most high quality electronics with plugs/batteries, you can still use the device even if the battery is toast. I had a 2004 MacBook that had to stay plugged in for years to still work. As soon as you unplugged it, the system shut down.
This is a pretty simple electrical concept, but it doesn’t exist on the Roam.
Well, I just saw this job posting on LinkedIn, and it makes me think the issue still isn’t resolved in the Roam 2.
“Sonos seeks a Power Electronics Engineer to join the newly formed Portables Category, Mobile Power Systems Team. In this hands-on role, you will be responsible for some of the core analog and mixed-signal electronics at the heart of the industry’s most innovative portable products like the recently launched Sonos Ace. In the process, you will work with some of the brightest minds in the business across multiple disciplines of hardware, software, radio, acoustics, WiFi, and Bluetooth technologies. This is an opportunity to join a high-performing team tasked with shaping the future of Sonos Portables from definition to launch.
What You’ll Do
Lead the development of new and innovative power electronic concepts to charge and power Sonos’ Portable/Wearable products Identify and implement highly efficient wired and wireless charging solutions to deliver unmatched consumer experiences
Develop new features and maximize the potential of new and existing technologies Debug complex low-level problems that may span interfaces between hardware and software
Debug complex low-level problems that may span interfaces between hardware and software
Co-develop algorithms, state-transition diagrams/flowcharts, and analysis for each regime of operation
Power Electronics Schematic and PCB layout design and review”
I hope I’m wrong, but this job posting is exactly who I would hire to fix this problem.
The flaw exists in the PCB design of the system, and you need someone with experience in power design to do this setup.

The secret of proportions in geometric symbols are in the eyes of the artist, to perform the conscious union of intellect and intuition.
The moral of the story is that without intellectual direction, one fails in incoherence, and instinctive qualities that are bound to fail.
Sacred measures are those units which have no single origin, but referring to natural the constants on many scales.
It is like to let ones proprioception extend into the universe.
The whole origin of the odd or even numbers are the intellectual’s faculties, which can scale their influence in the nature of reality.
Geometric application seen in spheres of the divine providence and its compassion to proof is seen by pyramids, sacred sites and is a language in its self.
Dynamic symmetry and the cultural influence and upbringing to the present are ones historic moments in proportions.
The results one wants to achieve will be in direct proportion, to the effort one applies in compassion to the calculated risk.
All lasting of the wealth obtained, is directly proportional to the honesty of its source, or it will not last.
Every diagram and system of numbers is in harmonic agreement in evolution with the cosmic formula, by simply keeping an eye on the bigger unity. The reflection is the natural bond uniting the love of creation and dynamic symmetry.
There is beauty in the immense curious figures of the cosmos, which grows further acquaintance, with the numbers we lover.
Conditions and its factors allow experiencing the realities of magic cones in the human intelligence and the cosmic truth.
Once own true measurement is the equivalence and symmetry of total, to those who need your love.
Consider that the part of the heart in beauty is the slice of grace for life, in symmetry to one's courage.
Conjured by the intensity of the human will and handicapped in action, the divine symmetry builds on true compassion that outlasts all monuments.
The body of life is the continuous medium and dynamic, to the circumambient atmosphere of ones place and time, in symmetry of the cosmos.

Hi I didn't know where else to post this, just wanted to vent.
My female coworker and I were working remotely on a modeling project during a working session. Our male coworker joined our Teams call about 30 minutes into our session and started ranting about our company because he didn't get a promotion. We were receptive and listening to what he had to say and engaged in some off topic discussion. Eventually we got back to our work and we were looking at one of my diagrams when he made this comment, "this diagram is so ugly." or something to that effect (it took me by my surprise so I can't remember the exact wording but the word "ugly" was definitely used). My heart kind of dropped and I just said, "oh...well is there anything I can do to make it better?" and that's when I think he realized he was talking about my diagram and awkwardly said "no" and went on about how that was his autism. He never apologized for saying that about my work for the remainder of the session. My female coworker was doing her best to provide constructive feedback and make the situation less awkward.
I can laugh it off because it was an awkward situation all around and I'm not super invested or attached to that particular piece of my work since it's only one tiny piece of my job among a host of many other things but looking back on the entirety of his actions I just felt like he really had the audacity to come up into our working session, throw a bitch fit, and then absentmindedly say something incredibly rude and not at all constructive. I understand things happen but I can't help but connect the dots and have a negative conception of this guy.

Book 1 Prev Next
He-Who-Guards remembered when he first met She-Who-Whispers.
She was stunning, he remembered thinking. The daughter of the then-ruler of Isthanok — as close a thing to a princess as their Great City could have. It wasn't necessarily her beauty that fascinated him, though that was no small part of it. It was her force of personality. She believed in a vision, and she took whatever steps needed to make that vision come to life.
He couldn't have imagined, then, what the Trials would do to her. How the Integrators would take that trait that gave her life and beauty and twist it into something monstrous.
"I want the city to be perfect," she told him. "Look at it. It's a ruin for what we call a Great City. We live in the remnants of what someone else built. One day, these towers will fly again."
To her credit, she'd accomplished exactly that. Many of the once-destroyed shards now once again hung in the skies of Isthanok, beautiful and pristine.
At the time, He-Who-Guards hadn't considered the price that might be paid for her dreams. He'd been enamored with her, really. A little foolish, in hindsight, but... their friendship had been genuine. He was sure of it.
"I am sure you will restore the city," He-Who-Guards said. He fidgeted, an unfamiliar nervousness coursing through the mist of his body . There was a part of him that was drawn to her determination, her willingness to enact change. He wanted to be a part of it.
"You'll help me, won't you?" she asked.
"Of course," he said, bowing his head. "I am here to serve."
She rolled her eyes. "You have to stop saying that," She-Who-Whispers said, throwing a pillow at him. "I can't believe my dad hired a kid my own age to guard the palace. And you know he wants you to be my friend, right? Not my servant."
"Yes, well..." He-Who-Guards shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious. "It is difficult to get used to the idea."
"Why are you a guard, anyway? You're way too young." She peered at him curiously. "What makes you so special?"
"Nothing," he said. It was a lie. The amount of Firmament he commanded was enormous. The strength he possessed, even at his age, allowed him to create perfect barriers that nothing could penetrate. It was the whole reason he'd chosen his name.
"You're lying to me," She-Who-Whispers accused, her body language emanating petulance. Despite himself, He-Who-Guards grinned.
"Perhaps I am," he said. "If you're lucky, you will get the chance to find out."
He remembered the way she laughed at that, her eyes bright. He didn't need to look at her pendant to understand that she was delighted by his response, though he couldn't fathom why.
He-Who-Guards had gotten used to her eventually. He allowed himself to relax, to become someone he never thought he could be. She-Who-Whispers made him feel normal — and that was a precious thing for someone like him. He'd been born with too much Firmament. His sheer strength was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he could do things with his Firmament that no one else could, and a curse because the sheer strength of it eroded his own body and the very structure of his soul. The stuff that kept his Firmament in place.
He never told her, of course. As the days passed, he grew stronger, and the end of his life grew closer. He was shedding Firmament to the point where it was nearly visible — a constant glow to the silvery mist that made up his body.
There came a point where he couldn't hide it any longer.
"Why are you always glowing?" She-Who-Whispers asked. There was a playful lilt to her voice — she was teasing him. "It's not because you're around me, is it?"
He-Who-Guards was glad he was facing away from her, and she could not see the expression on his pendant. "It's, ah... private."
"Are you keeping a secret from me?" she narrowed her eyes at him. "You can't keep a secret from me."
"I think you will find that I can. I have so far," he said dryly. Then he cursed to himself. Evidently, he was quite bad at keeping secrets from She-Who-Whispers.
"Aha!" She-Who-Whispers exclaimed, triumphant. "You are hiding something from me."
"Only for your own sake," he said.
"You know how I feel about things being done 'for my sake'."
He-Who-Guards sighed. "It's just Firmament. No big deal." A small lie. It couldn't hurt that badly, could it?
"Oh." She-Who-Whispers stared at him for a moment. "You're still hiding something."
"Perhaps."
"I want you to be my consort."
That made He-Who-Guards sputter, the abrupt change in topic throwing him for a loop. "W-what?"
"You heard me!" She-Who-Whispers smirked. "I want you to be my consort. So if you've got something to hide, you better tell me now, before my dad announces it to the city."
"Announces it to the—" He-Who-Guards cut himself off. "Why would he announce it to the city?!"
"I asked him to."
"Why would you..." he sighed. "...Whisper, this isn't going to work. I like you, but I have ten Hestian cycles left in me. Maybe less."
"What."
He-Who-Guards remembered the abrupt change in her voice. It was chilling. She went from bright and warm and playful to something abruptly cold. The utter lack of emotion in her voice made dread coil through his Firmament.
"...I have a condition," He-Who-Guards explained. "My Firmament. It is too strong to stay together. It will all unravel — it is only a matter of time."
Silence.
When he turned around to look for her, she was gone.
He'd thought she abandoned him back then. That the news he'd given her was too much, for whatever reason — that she was choosing to protect her heart. He would have understood if that was what she did.
But no. She'd left to throw herself into work, into finding a cure. He'd never seen her with so many books, speaking to so many specialists and practitioners of Firmament. He'd never seen her try this hard even when it came to rebuilding Isthanok, and that had been her passion for as long as he could remember.
And then came Integration Day.
He flung open a door, then hurried down the staircase, looking for anything that might tell him where She-Who-Whispers was. She loved her schedules and her timetables — she was never missing. Not when she had something planned. For her to be more than an hour late was unheard of, and in combination with the news that thousands of Hestians had simply vanished...
He hoped against hope that she wasn't one of them — but when he threw open the doors to her room and saw the perfectly spherical chunk taken out of it, felt the remnants of foreign Firmament contaminating everything nearby, he knew.
Whisper was gone.
The worst part was that part of him had almost felt relieved. Not that she was gone, but that she would no longer be throwing herself into the pointless task of saving him. With any luck, he would be gone by the time she returned, and she would be able to put her energy back into the one thing she truly wanted to do.
Things hadn't worked out that way, of course.
Really, he should have known better than to underestimate her.
She-Who-Whispers came back changed.
He-Who-Guards knew it from the first moment he saw her — there was something in her eyes that was cold. He'd only caught a glimpse of that coldness once before, when she'd first learned that his death was inevitable, but now she seemed to wear it like armor rather than hide it within.
Her gaze warmed again when she looked at him, though only slightly. "He-Who-Guards," she greeted. The formalization of his name made his Firmament stir uncomfortably. "I have found a cure for your condition."
He didn't know then how much of a fool he would be to trust her.
His biggest mistake, he supposed, wasn't necessarily that he trusted her. He didn't regret trusting people he cared about — trust was something he had chosen to never regret. He gave his trust when it was earned, and if that trust was ever broken, he didn't blame himself for choosing to trust. It was on the other party for breaking it.
Whisper had certainly broken his trust. Whatever happened to her during her Trial had turned her into someone that was only a mockery of who she had been. He saw everything she used to be magnified to the point of absurdity. Mild perfectionism became an obsessive need for control; where she once respected the thoughts and ideas of others, she now only listened to herself.
He hadn't managed to learn much about what her Trial had been about. From the few details she'd told him, she had to rule over a kingdom of others. He couldn't tell if she'd been put in charge of it, or if she'd worked her way into being in charge, somehow. The subjects she commanded were apparently tied to her will, and constantly under siege from outside forces. Unless she controlled everything perfectly, she would lose and die, and start over with a different kingdom.
He could imagine how that might have changed her. He just couldn't have imagined it would change her this much.
"You'll be fine," she told him. Her voice was clipped, her focus on a bunch of diagrams and models floating in front of her. Scattered around her were mechanical parts, the technology several steps ahead of anything he'd seen in any of the Great Cities so far, let alone Isthanok. "The procedure might hurt a little, but you will be perfect afterward."
He didn't like the way she said 'perfect'. "I would prefer not to go through with this, Whisper."
She turned around to look at him. She seemed to consider his request for a moment — but then she shook her head sharply. "I can't have you dying," she told him. "I still need you to protect this city."
_There was a lot hidden in those words. '_I still need you.' He-Who-Guards glimpsed something genuine in that. But she'd followed it up immediately with 'to protect this city', and the dispassionate ruthlessness with which she'd returned had immediately taken over once more.
It was the same way he'd seen it when she first returned. She wore it like armor.
In truth, that made him wish he had done more to fight the Integrators. He had tried, when Hestians had first been taken, but there was nothing he could do — not only because they were stronger than he was, but because he had no means of getting to them. Their announcements came through their Interface, temporarily attaching to them just long enough to drop a message in their vision and then disconnecting once more, before they could learn anything more about it.
Whisper reached out, clipped something to him—
And then his world was fire and pain.
His memories were fragmented, after that. His body was different. He-Who-Guards became metal instead of mist. His Firmament was supported by Whisper's, and his mind was supported by technology. A cognitive prosthetic, Whisper had called it.
Sometimes it whispered in him, like it was alive. Like it, too, was struggling against all of this.
He remembered being ordered to do things he would normally have refused to do. He remembered putting down rebellions before they began, as the first whispers began to race across the streets. He remembered a hundred different bodies marching through the streets, each commanded to keep the peace, no matter the cost.
He remembered struggling against it. Once or twice, She-Who-Whispers tried to loosen her control of him — to see if he would obey her orders willingly. He would always pretend to, at first; he saw no other option. But the moment he got the opportunity, he tried to slip free of the leash.
Eventually, she'd stopped giving him those opportunities at all. Only very rarely did she ever allow him on missions outside of Isthanok, now; only when there were anomalies that were significant enough to pique her interest, or when she needed him to put on a show of force.
And then came the Fracture. Then came Ethan. He remembered the Trialgoer with startling clarity. The nature of his Firmament kept him from being erased whenever time was rewound, though he would never willingly share those details with Whisper. She had access only to what the technology attached to him recorded, and those were as vulnerable to temporal rewinding as almost everything else.
It was funny. In many ways, Ethan reminded him of who Whisper had been before the Trials.
He hoped the Trials wouldn't break him the same way. But there was a fire in Ethan he'd never seen in Whisper.
Maybe with Ethan, things could be different.
Book 1 Prev Next
Author's Note: Sorry for the late posts! I'm still kind of getting used to the new Reddit formatting (by which I mean I now have the extra step of needing to convert things into markdown because the new post submission thing doesn't preserve formatting from GDocs)
And that one extra step kills me. Executive function is hard for me at the best of times.
Anyway, excuses aside, I'm posting two chapters today, so there'll be one more after this. I think when I was writing this part of the book I was trying to experiment a little more with POV switches. They're kinda tough to do right.
As always: RoyalRoad, and any support on Patreon is always greatly appreciated.

PART ONE THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN
[Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Sunday
Mason straightened at the sound of an incoming message on his phone, lifting the screen just enough to read it. Then he jumped to his feet.
Khai: I’m here.
“YES!” he shouted, slapping his hands together as he took off for the living apartment’s front door. He knew Khai wouldn’t have come the mortal way and, as such, fully expected him to be on the other side of that door rather than the massive entry door to the whole floor.
“Mas’n!” Maddy cried, causing Mason to skid to a halt. Both Maddy and Levi were sitting with their backs to the wall the living room shared with the half-bath, watching the big screen TV above Llyr’s chair.
Well, Maddy was. Levi looked partially lobotomized.
“Hey, guys! I didn’t expect you to still be here.”
“Lucas ducked out to grab us some supplies, though he should be back by now.” Levi patted himself down and must have realised he was only wearing boxers and a shirt … as in no pockets for a phone. He eased himself forward and gently balanced his weight on his medical boot before shoving up onto his feet in one move.
“You know, medically, that’s not doing you any—”
“Zip it,” Levi grumbled, waving his lecture aside.
“Where ya goin’, Daddy?”
“I’m just going to our room to get my phone and find out what’s keeping Uncle Luke.”
“Unca Lu-cas,” Maddy corrected, emphasising the second syllable.
The fact that a three-year-old could get it right and her father couldn’t had Mason snicker-snorting, though he quickly covered his mouth and nose with both hands to hide the evidence.
Levi’s filthy glare still said plenty. “Right. Uncle Lucas … and Auntie Charlie,” he drawled without looking back at her. He hobbled around the couch to the hallway. “Be right back, Peaches.”
Mason would’ve loved to stand there and chat, but his boss was at the door. He moved through the alcove and opened the front door. “You came,” he said, beaming up at his newest mentor a beat before stepping back to let him in. “Come in.”
Khai stepped into the apartment and removed his shoes without asking before entering the living room. “This is more like what I was expecting of Llyr’s residence,” he admitted, spotting and dismissing Maddy sitting on the sofa, who was staring at him wide-eyed.
“It’s okay, bunny. This is my boss from work.” When Khai didn’t answer, Mason nudged him. “Say ‘hello’ to Maddy.”
Only then did Khai’s eyes find the little girl. “Hello.”
“How in the world are you a father?” Mason muttered more to himself, then overcompensated with a huge grin. “He’s gonna help me study so I can get even smarter. Isn’t that cool?”
But Maddy’s eyes never left Khai.
Meanwhile, Khai focused on Boyd’s carving on the coffee table. “A housewarming gift from Kala?” he asked, gesturing to the piece.
“No,” Mason chuckled. “Though the big guy’ll get a huge kick out of knowing you thought so.”
Khai frowned and moved closer to the carving. “Are you sure? This is exceptional work…”
“Positive. Llyr gave him some … errr … special tools, so there’s no stopping him now.”
“Ahhh,” Khai said, with a nod of understanding, his eyes flicking once more to Maddy. “Well, your friend had better be careful. History is littered with people getting their hands on those types of special items or gaining some manner of assistance and then deluding themselves afterwards into thinking the outcome was their own. Look at Jason and the Argonauts. He had no idea he had Zeus’ son in his crew when Hercules accompanied him on his adventures.”
Knowing all that information would flow right over Maddy’s head, Mason squinted at his boss. “That’s the golden fleece dude, isn’t it?”
Khai’s painful wince would’ve been funny under any other circumstances.
“Hey, I’m a vet. Not a mythological historian.”
“Anyway, please tell him not to believe the skill is his. It never ends well when they do that.”
Mason didn’t want to argue anymore, despite knowing Hell would freeze over twice before he’d say anything of the kind to Boyd. “Did you want some lunch before we start?” he asked instead.
“No, I’m good, thank you.”
Mason turned his attention to Maddy, who was still staring at them like a deer in the headlights. “You stay right there, baby girl, okay? Daddy said he’ll be right back.”
“’kay.”
A few seconds later, Levi passed them in the hallway on their way to Mason’s room. “Hey,” Levi said, nodding at Khai before extending his hand. “Levi. Levi Dobson.”
“Khai Nasc—Khai Hart,” Khai returned, shaking his hand without exerting any other emotion.
Levi grinned, obviously catching the slip. “I figured you had to fit in somewhere to be allowed into the inner sanctum.” He glanced at Mason. “Luke said he was—Lucas! I mean Lucas said he was on his way back.”
Mason smirked and nodded. “We’ll be in my room if anyone’s looking for us. Studying,” he stressed when Levi raised an eyebrow. Mason pointed briefly at Khai. “His wife is expecting, and his sister is my boss. So get your head out of the gutter. He’s here to help me study for my finals.”
“Nice,” Levi said, bobbing his head. “Sorry, in this household, anything’s possible.”
“You have no idea,” Mason muttered under his breath as Levi headed back into the living room. And speaking of oddities, he suddenly remembered Brock was still using his gaming system. “Before we go in, my youngest roommate is in there playing online games in the corner. But he’s truly in the inner circle and knows all about you and the divine, so you don’t have to watch what you say or use the phrase or anything because it won’t work on him anyway.”
“You have an interesting household, Mason.”
You have no idea, Mason repeated in his thoughts as he reached for the doorknob, opened the door and stepped inside. “It’s awesome, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He gestured briefly at the gaming machine on his way to his desk. “Brock, Khai. Khai, Brock.” He didn’t bother looking at Khai. “He probably won’t hear you, but just covering bases in case he’s in a lull between fight scenes.”
Khai didn’t respond to either of them, so Mason assumed he’d done something to know Brock was, in fact, fully submerged in his game. “Here, you have my seat, and I’ll go and steal another from Sam’s office.”
Mason returned a minute or so later, pushing Sam’s giant executive chair ahead of him.
“I thought you said Sam was against wealth.”
“Yeah, well, he’s drowning in it, so it’s a case of sink or swim.” Mason twisted it beside his own and was about to sit down when Khai lifted himself out of Mason’s chair and slid into the new one.
“You sit where you usually do. I’m the only one between us who can stretch enough to reach everything,” he said in explanation.
A few minutes later, Khai showed him precisely what he meant by elongating his arm over the five-foot desk to take control of the Sectra table with fingers that sprouted dozens more to program an image of a feline’s shattered back leg and hip. With so many fingers working at once, Mason couldn’t ascertain what the parameters were before the image appeared on the screen.
“Okay,” Khai said, pointing at the display. “You have a distraught client in Consult Two, bringing with her a large Maine coon who was hit by her father’s plough while it was clearing snow. She’s had the cat now for over ten years, ever since her mother died.”
“That’s a low blow,” Mason growled at him.
“You were the one to point out the emotional element, Mason. Now, back to the board. You’ve done an initial check of the hip and found it broken in numerous places and the foot is hanging by the skin with the bone exposed at the ankle. After an x-ray and CT scans, this is what you see.” He refocused on Mason. “What do you do?”
Mason took a deep breath to clear his thoughts, putting himself into the roleplay. The x-rays showed the hip had been wrenched free of the spine, with the left side shattered in several places. His first instinct had been to end the animal’s suffering, but the owner’s connection became part of the equation. “How long ago did this happen? What does the bloodwork show?” Maybe there was a chance to salvage this. Maybe.
More buttons on the Sectra table were pushed, creating a fake bloodwork report that showed no sign of blood poisoning yet, which only meant the accident was recent enough to have not had that complication. More proof that he was a beloved pet that had been rushed to the clinic.
The rest of the information was far from good. “We need to find out how bad the damage is to the sciatic nerves in both hind legs.” He stood up and went over to the scan, pointing at the crushed bone and the subsequent mass on the CT. “It’s caught up in this mess, it could be damaged as well as pinned. If he’s really lucky, it might just be pinned, in which case surgery to release the pressure is an option.” He looked Khai in the face. “Right?”
Khai tilted his head. “Depends. What do you tell the owner?”
“The truth. Always the truth. We can’t tell the extent of the damage to the legs until we operate, though, at this point, it’s not looking good. In fact, I’d let her know before we proceeded that it was as bad as she feared and that euthanasia was a strong possibility.
“She needs to know that if she agrees to the surgery and we open him up and find the nerves in both legs are severed, no amount of work on our part will make a difference. I’d also tell her to stay close to the phone, for we’d need her to make that final decision.”
Mason’s heart ached under the weight of the news to an owner that didn’t even exist. “And then I’d offer her a hug because I think she’d need one.”
“How do you do that?’ Khai asked, breaking the illusion of the role play.
“Do what?”
“How do you engage so thoroughly with people … even ones that don’t exist? You act like you personally know them…”
“I put myself in their shoes, Khai. Or I put someone I care about in their shoes. If it’s an older woman, I put Mom there. If it’s a young kid – I picture my sister there. Either way, I make it personal.”
Khai hummed thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Just thinking how unfortunate it is that most of my immediate family are too old for this to be applicable…”
“Isn’t your wife—uh…mate—whatever you call them…isn’t she pregnant right now?”
“She is,” Khai said cautiously.
“Right. So, there’s your touchstone for pregnant women. You wouldn’t be blunt if it were her, would you?”
“I would,” Khai admitted. “Choi is a warrior. She’d rather have all the facts as soon as possible.”
“Even if the fact you had to relay was one of your other kids had accidentally been killed due to goofing off with their siblings while she was away?”
“That would then become a case of self-preservation. She would literally kill whoever had been tasked with watching over them and failed, even if it were me.”
“Your wife sounds scary.”
“She’s a blooded warrior, like all border veterans. Cross her at your own peril.”
“Okay, well, what about your kids? What if one of them comes in with a native pet that they’ve attached themselves to, and it’s been … I don’t know … bitten by a poisonous snake, and they want you to fix it.”
“Then I would.”
“I’m beginning to see what the problem is here,” Mason huffed in frustration. “C’mon, bossman. If you want to feel empathy for your clients, you need to see the heartache or the hope that that person has in your ability to cure their beloved pet and ask yourself ‘how would I feel if that was….’ And put in a name. It won’t take long for that stance to become a default setting because caring and healing is what we’re all about, right?”
“That may work here, but once I go back to the border, empathy isn’t a luxury I can afford.”
“Maybe not in the heat of battle, but once the emergency is over, a little empathy for those around you might bring you into a tighter team.”
“Why did you want to be a vet?”
Mason was startled by the question. “What do you mean?”
“You could make a lot more money going into human medicine, and your personality, for the most part, is well suited to psychology. Why did you choose animals?”
Mason’s grin was immediate. “Maybe because they can’t tell me no when I’m trying to help them.”
“Don’t deflect.”
Mason hadn’t meant to, but that had always been his go-to answer and no one had ever called him on it. Now that Khai had, he honestly wasn’t sure about the whys of his decision. Thinking about it now, he realised while farming was in his blood, it wasn’t what ignited his passion. “I can’t picture my life not being surrounded by animals, but I wanted more out of life than just raising them.”
“High IQ and EQ.”
“High enough, anyway,” Mason argued, lifting his chin towards the gaming console in the corner. “Brock over there is a real genius. If he sat for an IQ test, he’d probably reset the top score.”
Khai glanced back at the machine the young man had wrapped around him. “Perhaps that’s why he seems so intent on trying to decrease it with computer games.”
Mason snickered.
[Next Chapter]
* * *
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

“Questioning elicited the information that he feels almost as if there is a veil between him and other people through which they cannot reach him, but he prefers this veil to remain intact.”
—
Sometimes he looks around him, horrified by the weight of it all, the career of paper. He sits in the data-spew of hundreds of lives. There’s no end in sight. When he needs something, a report or transcript, anything, any level of difficulty, he simply has to ask. The Curator is quick to respond, firm in his insistence on forwarding precisely the right document in an area of research marked by ambiguity and error, by political bias, systematic fantasy. But not just the right document, not just an obscure footnote from an open source. The Curator sends him material not seen by anyone outside the headquarters complex at Langley, material that includes the results of internal investigations, confidential files from the Agency’s own Office of Security.
—
Knowledge was a danger, ignorance a cherished asset. In many cases the DCI, the Director of Central Intelligence, was not to know important things. The less he knew, the more decisively he could function. It would impair his ability to tell the truth at an inquiry or a hearing, or in an Oval Office chat with the President, if he knew what they were doing in Leader 4, or even what they were talking about, or muttering in their sleep. The Joint Chiefs were not to know. The operational horrors were not for their ears. Details were a form of contamination. The Secretaries were to be insulated from knowing. They were happier not knowing, or knowing too late. The Deputy Secretaries were interested in drifts and tendencies. They expected to be misled. They counted on it. The Attorney General wasn’t to know the queasy details. Just get results. Each level of the committee was designed to protect a higher level. There were complexities of speech. A man needed special experience and insight to work true meanings out of certain murky remarks. There were pauses and blank looks. Brilliant riddles floated up and down the echelons, to be pondered, solved, ignored.
The members of the committee would allow only generalities to carry upward. It was the President, of course, who was the final object of their protective instincts. … The White House was to be the summit of unknowing. It was as if an unsullied leader redeemed some ancient truth which the others were forced to admire only in the abstract, owing to their mission in the convoluted world.
But there were even deeper shadows, strange and grave silences surrounding plans to invade the island. The President knew about this, of course—knew the broad contours, had a sense of the promised outcome. But the system still operated as an insulating muse. Let him see the softer tones. Shield him from responsibility. Secrets build their own networks, Win believed. The system would perpetuate itself in all its curious and obsessive webbings, its equivocations and patient riddles and levels of delusional thought …
—
“The invasion failed because high officials didn’t examine the basic assumptions. They got caught up in a spirit of compelling action. They were eager to accept other men’s perceptions. There was safety in this. The plan was never clear. No one was ever responsible. Some of them knew a disaster was in the works. They let it ride. They put themselves out of reach. They wanted it over and done.”
—
“Some things we wait for all our lives without knowing it. Then it happens and we recognize at once who we are and how we are meant to proceed. This is the idea I’ve always wanted. I believe you’ll sense it is right. It’s the high risk we need. We need an electrifying event. You’ve been waiting for this every bit as much as I have. I believe that or I wouldn’t have asked you to come here. We want to set up an attempt on the life of the President. We plan every step, design every incident leading up to the event. We put together a team, leave a dim trail. The evidence is ambiguous. But it points to the Cuban Intelligence Directorate. Inherent in the plan is a second set of clues, even more unclear, more intriguing. These point to the Agency’s attempts to assassinate Castro. I am designing a plan that includes elements of both the American provocation and the Cuban reply. We do the whole thing with paper. Passports, drivers’ licenses, address books. Our team of shooters disappears but the police find a trail. Mail-order forms, change-of-address cards, photographs. We script a person or persons out of ordinary pocket litter. Shots ring out, the country is shocked, aroused. The paper trail leads to paid agents who have disappeared in Venezuela, in Mexico. I am convinced this is what we have to do to get Cuba back. This plan has levels and variations I’ve only begun to explore but it is already, essentially, right. I feel its rightness. I know what scientists mean when they talk about elegant solutions. This plan speaks to something deep inside me. It has a powerful logic. I’ve felt it unfolding for weeks, like a dream whose meaning slowly becomes apparent. This is the condition we’ve always wanted to reach. It’s the life-insight, the life-secret, and we have to extend it, guard it carefully, right up to the time we have shooters stationed on a rooftop or railroad bridge.”
—
Historic names, pen names, names of war, party names, revolutionary names. These were men who lived in isolation for long periods, lived close to death through long winters in exile or prison, feeling history in the room, waiting for the moment when it would surge through the walls, taking them with it. History was a force to these men, a presence in the room. They felt it and waited.
The books were struggles. He had to fight to make some elementary sense of what he read. But the books had come out of struggle. They had been struggles to write, struggles to live. It seemed fitting to Lee that the texts were often masses of dense theory, unyielding. The tougher the books, the more firmly he fixed a distance between himself and others.
He found enough that he could understand. He could see the capitalists, he could see the masses. They were right here, all around him, every day.
—
Pocket litter. Win Everett was at work devising a general shape, a life. He would script a gunman out of ordinary dog-eared paper, the contents of a wallet. … They wanted a name, a face, a bodily frame they might use to extend their fiction into the world. Everett had decided he wanted one figure to be slightly more visible than the others, a man the investigation might center on, someone who would be trailed and possibly apprehended. Three or four shooters would vanish completely, leaving scant traces of their affiliation. … Then one other figure, one slightly clearer image, perhaps abandoned in his sniper’s perch to find his own way out, to be trailed, found, possibly killed by the Secret Service, FBI or local police. Whatever protocol demands. This kind of man, a marksman, near anonymous, with minimal known history, the kind of man who surfaces in murky places, disappears, is arrested for some violent act, is released to drift again, to surface, to disappear. Mackey would find this man for Everett. They needed fingerprints, a handwriting sample, a photograph. Mackey would find the other shooters as well. We don’t hit the President. We miss him. We want a spectacular miss.
—
It was all so curiously funny. It was rich, that’s what it was. Everyone was a spook or dupe or asset, a double, courier, cutout or defector, or was related to one. We were all linked in a vast and rhythmic coincidence, a daisy chain of rumor, suspicion and secret wish.
—
Somewhere in his room of theories, in some notebook or folder, Nicholas Branch has a roster of the dead. A printout of the names of witnesses, informers, investigators, people linked to Lee H. Oswald, people linked to Jack Ruby, all conveniently and suggestively dead. In 1979 a House select committee determined there was nothing statistically abnormal about the death rate among those who were connected in some way to the events of November 22. Branch accepts this as an actuarial fact. He is writing a history, not a study of the ways in which people succumb to paranoia. There is endless suggestiveness. Branch concedes this. There is the language of the manner of death. Shot in back of head. Died of cut throat. Shot in police station. Shot in motel. Shot by husband after one month marriage. Found hanging by toreador pants in jail cell. Killed by karate chop. It is the neon epic of Saturday night. And Branch wants to believe that’s all it is. There is enough mystery in the facts as we know them, enough of conspiracy, coincidence, loose ends, dead ends, multiple interpretations. There is no need, he thinks, to invent the grand and masterful scheme, the plot that reaches flawlessly in a dozen directions.
Still, the cases do resonate, don’t they? Mostly anonymous dead. Exotic dancers, taxi drivers, cigarette girls, lawyers of the shopworn sort with dandruff on their lapels. But through the years the violence has reached others as well, and with each new series of misadventures Branch sees again how the assassination sheds a powerful and lasting light, exposing patterns and links, revealing this man to have known that one, this death to have occurred in curious juxtaposition to that.
—
“U-2 planes. The planes that spotted the missiles the Soviets were putting into Cuba. We used to call the photos pornography. The photo interpreters would gather to interpret. ‘Let’s see what kind of pornography we pulled in today.’ Kennedy looked at the pictures in his bedroom as a matter of fact. … Spy planes, drone aircraft, satellites with cameras that can see from three hundred miles what you can see from a hundred feet. They see and they hear. Like ancient monks, you know, who recorded knowledge, wrote it painstakingly down. These systems collect and process. All the secret knowledge of the world. … I’ll tell you what it means, these orbiting sensors that can hear us in our beds. It means the end of loyalty. The more complex the systems, the less conviction in people. Conviction will be drained out of us. Devices will drain us, make us vague and pliant.”
—
He would put someone together, build an identity, a skein of persuasion and habit, ever so subtle. He wanted a man with believable quirks. He would create a shadowed room, the gunman’s room, which investigators would eventually find, exposing each fact to relentless scrutiny, following each friend, relative, casual acquaintance into his own roomful of shadows. We lead more interesting lives than we think. We are characters in plots, without the compression and numinous sheen. Our lives, examined carefully in all their affinities and links, abound with suggestive meaning, with themes and involute turnings we have not allowed ourselves to see completely. He would show the secret symmetries in a nondescript life.
An address book with ambiguous leads. Photographs expertly altered (or crudely altered). Letters, travel documents, counterfeit signatures, a history of false names. It would all require a massive decipherment, a conversion to plain text. He envisioned teams of linguists, photo analysts, fingerprint experts, handwriting experts, experts in hairs and fibers, smudges and blurs. Investigators building up chronologies. He would give them the makings of deep chronos, lead them to basement rooms in windy industrial slums, to lost towns in the Tropics.
—
Life is hostile, he believed. The struggle is to merge your life with the greater tide of history.
—
Maybe what has to happen is that the individual must allow himself to be swept along, must find himself in the stream of no-choice, the single direction. This is what makes things inevitable. You use the restrictions and penalties they invent to make yourself stronger. History means to merge. The purpose of history is to climb out of your own skin. He knew what Trotsky had written, that revolution leads us out of the dark night of the isolated self. We live forever in history, outside ego and id.
—
Two weeks later he followed directions to a house in the Sanya district of Tokyo. He made his way through a ragpickers’ village built with material scavenged from other parts of the city. Old women jogged through the alleys carrying empty bottles, broken chair legs, pieces of indefinable junk. Houses were shoulder-high, made of old packing crates and strips of sheet metal, the walls stuffed with cardboard and rags. There were lines of people selling blood at mobile units, people who seemed hollow-bodied, so small, in such collapse. It would never bottom out. No matter how far down you went into the world, there were distances still to go, worse things to see and experience. He made it a point not to hurry through the area. He wanted to see what was here.
—
It produced a sensation of the eeriest panic, gave him a glimpse of the fiction he’d been devising, a fiction living prematurely in the world.
—
Nicholas Branch has unpublished state documents, polygraph reports, Dictabelt recordings from the police radio net on November 22. He has photo enhancements, floor plans, home movies, biographies, bibliographies, letters, rumors, mirages, dreams. This is the room of dreams, the room where it has taken him all these years to learn that his subject is not politics or violent crime but men in small rooms.
Is he one of them now? Frustrated, stuck, self-watching, looking for a means of connection, a way to break out. After Oswald, men in America are no longer required to lead lives of quiet desperation. You apply for a credit card, buy a handgun, travel through cities, suburbs and shopping malls, anonymous, anonymous, looking for a chance to take a shot at the first puffy empty famous face, just to let people know there is someone out there who reads the papers.
Branch is stuck all right. He has abandoned his life to understanding that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century. He has his forensic pathology rundown, his neutron activation analysis. There is also the Warren Report, of course, with its twenty-six accompanying volumes of testimony and exhibits, its millions of words. Branch thinks this is the megaton novel James Joyce would have written if he’d moved to Iowa City and lived to be a hundred.
Everything is here. Baptismal records, report cards, postcards, divorce petitions, canceled checks, daily timesheets, tax returns, property lists, postoperative x-rays, photos of knotted string, thousands of pages of testimony, of voices droning in hearing rooms in old courthouse buildings, an incredible haul of human utterance. It lies so flat on the page, hangs so still in the lazy air, lost to syntax and other arrangement, that it resembles a kind of mind-spatter, a poetry of lives muddied and dripping in language.
Branch doesn’t know how to approach this kind of data. … It is vital to his sense of responsible obsession that everything in his room warrants careful study. Everything belongs, everything adheres, the mutter of obscure witnesses, the photos of illegible documents and odd sad personal debris, things gathered up at a dying—old shoes, pajama tops, letters from Russia. It is all one thing, a ruined city of trivia where people feel real pain. This is the Joycean Book of America, remember—the novel in which nothing is left out.
Branch has long since forgiven the Warren Report for its failures. It is too valuable a document of human heartbreak and muddle to be scorned or dismissed. The twenty-six volumes haunt him. Men and women surface in FBI memos, are tracked for several pages, then disappear—waitresses, prostitutes, mind readers, motel managers, owners of rifle ranges. Their stories hang in time, spare, perfect in their way, unfinished.
Photographs. Many are overexposed, light-blasted, with a faded quality beyond their age, suggesting things barely glimpsed despite the simple nature of the objects and the spare captions. ... But Branch feels there is a loneliness, a strange desolation trapped here. Why do these photographs have a power to disturb him, make him sad? Flat, pale, washed in time, suspended outside the particularized gist of this or that era, arguing nothing, clarifying nothing, lonely. Can a photograph be lonely?
This sadness has him fixed to his chair, staring. He feels the souls of empty places, finds himself returning again and again to the pictures of the second-floor lunchroom in the Texas School Book Depository. Rooms, garages, streets were emptied out for the making of official pictures. Empty forever now, stuck in some picture limbo. He feels the souls of those who were there and left. He feels sadness in objects, in warehouse cartons and blood-soaked clothes. He breathes in loneliness. He feels the dead in his room.
—
It was his goodbye to Russia. It signified the official end of a major era in his life. It validated the experience, as the writing of any history brings a persuasion and form to events.
Even as he printed the words, he imagined people reading them, people moved by his loneliness and disappointment, even by his wretched spelling, the childish mess of composition. Let them see the struggle and humiliation, the effort he had to exert to write a simple sentence. The pages were crowded, smudged, urgent, a true picture of his state of mind, of his rage and frustration, knowing a thing but not able to record it properly.
Always the pain, the chaos of composition. He could not find order in the field of little symbols. They were in the hazy distance. He could not clearly see the picture that is called a word. A word is also a picture of a word. He saw spaces, incomplete features, and tried to guess at the rest.
He made wild tries at phonetic spelling. But the language tricked him with its inconsistencies. He watched sentences deteriorate, powerless to make them right. The nature of things was to be elusive. Things slipped through his perceptions. He could not get a grip on the runaway world.
Limits everywhere. In every direction he came up against his own incompleteness. Cramped, fumbling, deficient. He knew things. It wasn’t that he didn’t know.
Even in the rush of filling these pages, he was careful to leave out certain things that could be used in legal argument against his return to the U.S. Yes, the diary was self-serving to a degree but still the basic truth, he believed. The panic was real, the voice of disappointment and loss.
He knew there were discrepancies, messed-up dates. No one could expect him to get the dates right after all this time, no one cared about the dates, no one is reading this for names and dates and spellings.
Let them see the struggle.
He believed religiously that his life would turn in such a way that people would one day study the Historic Diary for clues to the heart and mind of the man who wrote it.
—
Plots carry their own logic. There is a tendency of plots to move toward death. He believed that the idea of death is woven into the nature of every plot. A narrative plot no less than a conspiracy of armed men. The tighter the plot of a story, the more likely it will come to death. A plot in fiction, he believed, is the way we localize the force of the death outside the book, play it off, contain it. The ancients staged mock battles to parallel the tempests in nature and reduce their fear of gods who warred across the sky. He worried about the deathward logic of his plot. He’d already made it clear that he wanted the shooters to hit a Secret Service man, wound him superficially. But it wasn’t a misdirected round, an accidental killing, that made him afraid. There was something more insidious. He had a foreboding that the plot would move to a limit, develop a logical end.
—
He thought the only end to isolation was to reach the point where he was no longer separated from the true struggles that went on around him. The name we give this point is history.
—
“It’s the job of an intelligence service to resolve a nation’s obsessions. Cuba is a fixed idea. It is prickly in a way Russia is not. More unresolved. More damaging to the psyche. And this is our job, to remove the psychic threat, to learn so much about Castro, decipher his intentions, undermine his institutions to such a degree that he loses the power to shape the way we think, to shape the way we sleep at night.”
—
It was remarkable how often he talked to her about these things. The Agency was the one subject in his life that could never be exhausted. Central Intelligence. Beryl saw it as the best organized church in the Christian world, a mission to collect and store everything that everyone has ever said and then reduce it to a microdot and call it God. She needed to live in small dusty rooms, layered safely in, out of the reach of dizzying things, of heat and light and strange spaces, and Larry needed the great sheltering nave of the Agency. He believed that nothing can be finally known that involves human motive and need. There is always another level, another secret, a way in which the heart breeds a deception so mysterious and complex it can only be taken for a deeper kind of truth.
—
He’d stopped commenting on this oddness of hers. She said the news clippings she sent to friends were a perfectly reasonable way to correspond. There were a thousand things to clip and they all said something about the way she felt. He watched her read and cut. She wore half-glasses and worked the scissors grimly. She believed these were personal forms of expression. She believed no message she could send a friend was more intimate and telling than a story in the paper … Because these are the things that tell us how we live.
—
In the Old Senate Caucus Room they asked him to name the members of the Real Control Apparatus. This is like naming particles in the air, naming molecules or cells. The Apparatus is precisely what we can’t see or name. We can’t measure it, gentlemen, or take its photograph. It is the mystery we can’t get hold of, the plot we can’t uncover. This doesn’t mean there are no plotters. They are elected officials of our government, Cabinet members, philanthropists, men who know each other by secret signs, who work in the shadows to control our lives.
—
On his fourth day with Castro he shot a government scout, aiming through a telescopic sight. It was uncanny. You press a button and a man drops dead a hundred meters away. It seemed hollow and remote, falsifying everything. It was a trick of the lenses. The man is an accurate picture. Then he is upside down. Then he is right side up. You shoot at a series of images conveyed to you through a metal tube. The force of a death should be enormous but how can you know what kind of man you’ve killed or who was the braver and stronger if you have to peer through layers of glass that deliver the image but obscure the meaning of the act? War has a conscience or it’s ordinary murder.
—
The Curator sends the results of ballistics tests carried out on human skulls and goat carcasses, on blocks of gelatin mixed with horsemeat. There are photographs of skulls with the right cranial portion blown away. There are bullet-shattered goat heads in close-up. Branch studies a picture of a gelatin-tissue model “dressed” like the President. It is pure modernist sculpture, a block of gelatin layered in suit and shirt material with a strip of undershirt showing, bullet-smoked. There are documents concerning exit velocities. There is a picture of a human skull filled with gelatin and covered with goatskin to simulate a scalp.
—
He sends an actual warped bullet that has been fired for test purposes through the wrist of a seated cadaver. We are on another level here, Branch thinks. Beyond documents now. They want me to touch and smell.
—
The Oswald shadings, the multiple images, the split perceptions—eye color, weapons caliber—these seem a foreboding of what is to come. The endless fact-rubble of the investigations. How many shots, how many gunmen, how many directions? Powerful events breed their own network of inconsistencies. The simple facts elude authentication. How many wounds on the President’s body? What is the size and shape of the wounds? … [Branch] concedes everything. He questions everything, including the basic suppositions we make about our world of light and shadow, solid objects and ordinary sounds, and our ability to measure such things, to determine weight, mass and direction, to see things as they are, recall them clearly, be able to say what happened.
He takes refuge in his notes. The notes are becoming an end in themselves. Branch has decided it is premature to make a serious effort to turn these notes into coherent history. Maybe it will always be premature. Because the data keeps coming. Because new lives enter the record all the time. The past is changing as he writes.
—
“Signs that you exist. Evidence that Lee Oswald matches the cardboard cutout they’ve been shaping all along. You’re a quirk of history. You’re a coincidence. They devise a plan, you fit it perfectly. They lose you, here you are. There’s a pattern in things. Something in us has an effect on independent events. We make things happen. The conscious mind gives one side only. We’re deeper than that. We extend into time. Some of us can almost predict the time and place and nature of our own death. We know it on some deeper plane.”
—
“Think of two parallel lines,” he said. “One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self. It’s not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It’s a line that cuts across causality, cuts across time. It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny.”
—
The Agency forgives. There wasn’t a man in the upper ranks of the four directorates who didn’t understand the perils of clandestine work. They would be pleased by his willingness to cooperate. What’s more, they would admire the complexity of his plan, incomplete as it was. It had art and memory. It had a sense of responsibility, of moral force. And it was a picture in the world of their own guilty wishes. He was never more surely an Agency man than in the first breathless days of dreaming up this plot.
—
To Nicholas Branch, more frequently of late, “Lee H. Oswald” seems a technical diagram, part of some exercise in the secret manipulation of history.
—
Street by street the crowd began to understand why it was here. The message jumped the open space from one press of bodies to the next. A contagion had brought them here, some mystery of common impulse, hundreds of thousands come from so many histories and systems of being, come from some experience of the night before, a convergence of dreams, to stand together shouting as the Lincoln passed. … They were here to surround the brittle body of one man and claim his smile, receive some token of the bounty of his soul.
—
The media crowds collected and rocked in the corridors. They were waiting for the prisoner to come down to the interrogation room here on the third floor of the Police and Courts Building. TV cameras sat on dollies and there were cables slung over windowsills, trailing through the offices of deputy chiefs. Nobody checked credentials. Reporters took over the phones and pushed into toilets after police officials. Total unknowns walked the halls, defendants from other parts of the building, witnesses to other crimes, tourists, muttering men, drunks in torn shirts. It was a roughhouse, a confoundment. Every rumor flew. Disk jockeys arrived to fill in, blinking, flinching, wary. A reporter wrote notes on a pad he balanced on the back of the chief of police.
Hours going by. Blank faces arrayed against corridor walls. Men crouched near the elevators waiting. They sensed the incompleteness out there, gaps, spaces, vacant seats, lobbies emptied out, disconnections, dark cities, stopped lives. People were lonely for news. Only news could make them whole again, restore sensation. Three hundred reporters in a compact space, all pushing to extract a word. A word is a magic wish. A word from anyone. With a word they could begin to grid the world, make an instant surface that people can see and touch together.
—
Whenever they took him down, he heard his name on the radios and TVs. Lee Harvey Oswald. It sounded extremely strange. He didn’t recognize himself in the full intonation of the name. The only time he used his middle name was to write it on a form that had a space for that purpose. No one called him by that name. Now it was everywhere. He heard it coming from the walls. Reporters called it out. Lee Harvey Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald. It sounded odd and dumb and made up. They were talking about somebody else.
—
They took him back to the cell. He stripped to his underwear and sat on the bunk, thinking, feeling the noise of the assembly room still resonating in his body. A cell is the basic state, the crude truth of the world.
He could play it either way, depending on what they could prove or couldn’t prove. He wasn’t on the sixth floor at all. He was in the lunchroom eating lunch. The victim of a total frame. They’d been rigging the thing for years, watching him, using him, creating a chain of evidence with the innocent facts of his life. Or he could say he was only partly guilty, set up to take the blame for the real conspirators. Okay, he fired some shots from the window. But he didn’t kill anyone. He never meant to fire a fatal shot. It was never his intention to cause an actual fatality. He was only trying to make a political point. Other people were responsible for the actual killing. They fixed it so he would seem the lone gunman. They superimposed his head on someone else’s body. Forged his name on documents. Made him a dupe of history. He would name every name if he had to.
—
Lee Harvey Oswald was awake in his cell. It was beginning to occur to him that he’d found his life’s work. After the crime comes the reconstruction. He will have motives to analyze, the whole rich question of truth and guilt. Time to reflect, time to turn this thing in his mind. Here is a crime that clearly yields material for deep interpretation. He will be able to bend the light of that heightened moment, shadows fixed on the lawn, the limousine shimmering and still. Time to grow in self-knowledge, to explore the meaning of what he’s done. He will vary the act a hundred ways, speed it up and slow it down, shift emphasis, find shadings, see his whole life change.
This was the true beginning.
They will, give him writing paper and books. He will fill his cell with books about the case. He will have time to educate himself in criminal law, ballistics, acoustics, photography. Whatever pertains to the case he will examine and consume. People will come to see him, the lawyers first, then psychologists, historians, biographers. His life had a single clear subject now, called Lee Harvey Oswald.
He and Kennedy were partners. The figure of the gunman in the window was inextricable from the victim and his history. This sustained Oswald in his cell. It gave him what he needed to live.
—
If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It’s the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.
But maybe not. Nicholas Branch thinks he knows better. He has learned enough about the days and months preceding November 22, and enough about the twenty-second itself, to reach a determination that the conspiracy against the President was a rambling affair that succeeded in the short term due mainly to chance. Deft men and fools, ambivalence and fixed will and what the weather was like.
The stuff keeps coming. The Curator sends FBI surveillance logs. He sends a thirty-five-hour film chronology of unedited network footage shot during the weekend of November 22. He sends a computer-enhanced version of the Zapruder film, the 8mm home movie made by a dress manufacturer who stood on a concrete abutment above Elm Street as the shots were fired. Experts have scrutinized every murky nuance of the Zapruder film. It is the basic timing device of the assassination and a major emblem of uncertainty and chaos. There is the powerful moment of death, the surrounding blurs, patches and shadows.
(Branch’s analysis of the film and other evidence leads him to believe the first shot came much sooner than most theories would allow, probably at Zapruder frame 186. Governor Connally was hit two point six seconds later, at Zapruder 234. The shot that killed the President, crushingly, came four point three seconds after that. Even though he has reached firm conclusions in this area, Branch will study the computerized version of Zapruder. He is in too deep to stop now.)
The Curator sends a special FBI report that includes detailed descriptions of the dreams of eyewitnesses following the assassination of Kennedy and the murder of Oswald.
There are worrisome omissions, occasional gaps in the record. Of course Branch understands that the Agency is a closed system. He knows they will not reveal what they’ve learned to other agencies, much less the public. This is why the history he has contracted to write is a secret one, meant for CIA’s own closed collection. But why are they withholding material from him as well? There’s something they aren’t telling him. The Curator delays, lately, in filling certain requests for information, seems to ignore other requests completely. What are they holding back? How much more is there? Branch wonders if there is some limit inherent in the yielding of information gathered in secret. They can’t give it all away, even to one of their own, someone pledged to confidentiality. Before his retirement, Branch analyzed intelligence, sought patterns in random scads of data. He believed secrets were childish things. He was not generally impressed by the accomplishments of men in the clandestine service, the spy handlers, the covert-action staff. He thought they’d built a vast theology, a formal coded body of knowledge that was basically play material, secret-keeping, one of the keener pleasures and conflicts of childhood. Now he wonders if the Agency is protecting something very much like its identity—protecting its own truth, its theology of secrets.
The Curator begins to send fiction, twenty-five years of novels and plays about the assassination. He sends feature films and documentaries. He sends transcripts of panel discussions and radio debates. Branch has no choice but to study this material. There are important things he has yet to learn. There are lives he must examine. It is essential to master the data.
—
He believes people are distorting his words even as he speaks them. There is a process that takes place between the saying of a word and when they pretend to hear it correctly but actually change it to mean what they want.
—
He is miscast, or cast as someone else, as Oswald. They are part of the same crime now. They are in it together and forever and together.
—
The camera doesn’t catch all of it. There seem to be missing frames, lost levels of information. Brief and simple as the shooting is, it is too much to take in, too mingled in jumped-up energies.
—
There was something in Oswald’s face, a glance at the camera before he was shot, that put him here in the audience, among the rest of us, sleepless in our homes—a glance, a way of telling us that he knows who we are and how we feel, that he has brought our perceptions and interpretations into his sense of the crime. Something in the look, some sly intelligence, exceedingly brief but far-reaching, a connection all but bleached away by glare, tells us that he is outside the moment, watching with the rest of us.