#1. Backup Your Data

[cashygophones]

Sell Your Old Laptop in Bangalore for Instant Cash

Selling your old laptop in Bangalore has never been easier. Whether upgrading to a new device or decluttering, you can get instant cash in exchange for your unused laptop. Here’s how you can make it happen seamlessly.

Why Sell Your Old Laptop?

Laptops lose value over time, and holding onto unused devices can clutter your space. Selling your old laptop allows you to:

Earn extra money instantly.

Upgrade to better technology.

Contribute to eco-friendly recycling efforts.

Where to Sell Old Laptops in Bangalore?

Bangalore offers several options for selling old laptops. You can choose the one that best fits your needs:

1. Online Platforms

Websites like OLX, Cashify, and Quikr make selling laptops simple. Create a listing, set your price, and connect with buyers in your area.

2. Cash-for-Gadgets Services

Services like CashyGo specialize in offering cash for old electronics. They provide quick quotes and hassle-free transactions, making them a top choice in Bangalore.

3. Local Shops and Marketplaces

Bangalore’s local electronic shops or marketplaces like SP Road can offer competitive prices for used laptops. Visit them to negotiate in person.

How to Prepare Your Laptop for Sale

1. Backup Your Data

Save your essential files on an external drive or cloud storage before selling your laptop.

2. Factory Reset the Device

Restore your laptop to factory settings to remove personal data and make it ready for the next user.

3. Clean and Package It Properly

A clean and well-maintained laptop creates a better impression and fetches a higher price.

Benefits of Choosing CashyGo in Bangalore

CashyGo is a reliable option for selling laptops in Bangalore. Here’s why:

Quick Cash Payments: Get instant cash upon selling.

Fair Price Evaluation: They assess the condition and brand of your laptop to offer the best value.

Convenience: Avoid the hassle of negotiating with multiple buyers.

Top Brands That Sell Well

If you own a laptop from top brands like Dell, HP, Lenovo, Apple, or Asus, you’re likely to get a better resale value. These brands are in high demand due to their quality and durability.

Tips for Getting the Best Price

Highlight Features: Mention specifications like RAM, processor, and screen size in your listing.

Be Honest: Disclose any defects or issues to build trust with buyers.

Compare Offers: Don’t settle for the first offer; compare rates from multiple sources.

Final Thoughts

Selling your old laptop in Bangalore is a smart way to declutter, earn cash, and embrace sustainable practices. Choose a reliable service like CashyGo to ensure a smooth and rewarding experience.

Take the first step today and turn your old laptop into instant cash!

[togrowoldinv]

Memory

Natasha Romanoff x Female Reader

You feel like you’ve met her before, but you just can’t remember when or how. It turns out there’s a lot you don’t remember

Note: Hey y’all. I have been swamped these last couple of weeks studying for and taking a part of the cpa exam, but I finally had a free moment to have some fun. I went and saw Argylle, so this is loosely inspired by that. Enjoy it!

Natasha Masterlist 1, Natasha Masterlist 2, Natasha Masterlist 3, Main Masterlist

The room is silent aside from the clicks of a keyboard as Natasha tries to break through a firewall. She’s smart, but the person who created it is slightly smarter than her.

The redhead smirks when she is one step from breaking through, but her cheekiness doesn’t last. An alarm sounds and she’s met with at least ten agents swarming all around her.

“Oh hey, guess you guys found the party,” she says in her usual cool under pressure tone.

She uses the agents’ hesitation to begin attacking them to deal the first blows. She takes them down two at a time until there’s only one left. She knows who he is.

“Are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?” Natasha asks.

“You know what I want,” he says.

“And you know what I want,” Nat replies.

The two of them keep their guns in ready position. Nat alerted for backup, but she knows most likely she’ll have to handle this on her own.

“Where is the woman?” The man asks. He shakes his gun at Nat. She sees a weakness in the way he’s holding it. He won’t last.

“If you give me the intel, I’ll give you her location,” Nat says.

“You’re lying!”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m telling you the truth. They’re never really that different, right?”

“Drop your weapon,” he tries another tactic.

Natasha just smirks. She moves her left arm down and the man mistakenly thinks she’s giving in. The moment he shifts his aim Nat takes a shot at him. It’s an easy shot for her.

He goes down and Nat finishes gathering her data from the computer before she quickly gets out of the building. That backup she was waiting for finally arrives as she’s making her way outside.

“Thanks for the help,” she says sarcastically as Steve opens the door for her.

“Sorry,” he says. “We can’t be everywhere all the time. What were you even doing here?”

“Gathering intel,” Nat says simply. She shows him the flash drive and he just shakes his head. “The more I can find out the better I can help her, Steve. It’s an easy choice to make.”

“Nat, she’s so far gone,” he tries. “It might be worth stopping.”

“I’ll never give up on her. She’ll be herself again. I know it,” Natasha says. “Now, will you help me get this to Stark to decode?”

“Of course I’ll help you, Romanoff.”

She nods in thanks. For the rest of the drive, Natasha thinks about what her next step should be. There’s no easy fix to this situation. She needs to go where her mind works best.

Meanwhile, you are working on cleaning tables when the most beautiful woman walks in. You’ve seen her in here several times since you started working here.

She always sits at the table in the corner and orders coffee and a piece of chocolate pie. It’s always the same thing. You’ve never waited on her before, but somehow the stars align today and you’re covering that section.

You walk to her table and take a deep breath. She’s even more beautiful from this close up.

“Hey, how are you today?” You ask her.

“I’m okay,” she replies. “How are you?”

“Can’t complain,” you say. It’s your typical response when a customer asks you that question. “What can I get for you, ma’am?”

She orders her usual. You feel her eyes linger on you as you pour the coffee and bring her slice of pie to the table.

Something feels familiar about the way she smiles at you in thanks.

“Do I know you?” You ask her. She doesn’t reply, but you notice she looks away from you. “Sorry, it’s just that I had some memory loss so I’m just not quite sure who I know at this point.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry,” she says. “I don’t think we know each other though, no.”

“You seem familiar,” you tell her.

“Well, I am an Avenger so maybe that’s it,” she says. “I’m Natasha.”

“Right. The superheroes. It’s nice to meet you, Natasha,” you say. “I’m y/n.”

You hold out your hand for her to shake. When she does, you swear there’s still a lingering feeling that you know her. Maybe you’ve just seen her on television.

“I better get back to work,” you say.

“Nice to meet you, y/n,” Natasha says.

She stands from her chair and drops cash on the table. Walking towards the door, she stops short and turns back to look at you. You offer her a smile that she returns.

With that, she disappears into the city. The rest of the day goes by seemingly without any other excitement. You can’t stop thinking about your interaction with the woman, which is why you thought you were dreaming when she shows up at your door.

You blink hard to try and wake up, but the reality is that she’s truly here.

“Natasha?” You ask confusedly.

“I don’t have time to explain,” she says. “Can I come in?”

“I- what? Okay?”

She takes that as a yes. She walks inside and goes straight to the corner of the room where she picks up a piece of the floor to reveal a secret storage area.

Natasha fills her bag with the weapons that were stored under the floor.

“What is happening?” You ask her.

“Just trust me,” Nat says.

“I just met you today and you somehow know about this secret area of my house I didn’t even know about. And I’m supposed to trust you?”

“Yes,” Natasha replies. “Come on. Get some shoes on. We have two minutes.”

“Two minutes before what?”

She doesn’t get the chance to answer before a loud bang comes from outside. A series of car doors close simultaneously.

“Look, I know you don’t know me but you have to trust me. These guys are after you and if we don’t bail in the next thirty seconds we’re dead. Got it?” Natasha says.

“What?” You ask. It seems to be the only word in your vocabulary right now.

She grabs your hand and pulls you through your house. Once you’re outside, you go through the fence to the neighbors yard.

“Here,” Nat says, pulling you to a motorcycle that’s waiting there.

“I am not riding on that,” you say.

“Then you’ll be dead within minutes. Come on, y/n,” Nat says. She puts the helmet on your head involuntarily.

You have no choice but to listen to her. Hopping onto the bike, you hold on tight to her middle as she drives through the streets. At some point, a van is tailing the two of you. Natasha turns down every alleyway and street she can to get you away from the tail.

“When I say jump, you’ve got to jump!” Nat says over the roar of the engine.

“What?”

You’re quickly approaching a road that you can see has no end. She drives full speed ahead before letting go of the handlebars.

“Jump!” Nat shouts.

You cling onto her as you both jump. You have no idea how far the drop is but somehow you land in water. Natasha pulls you to the surface quickly.

You get to shore and try to gather yourself some. You’re so confused about all of this.

“Are you okay?” She asks.

“Am I okay?” You ask her. “Seriously, you’re asking me that? I don’t know who you are or what’s happening. We just got chased by a van through town and jumped off a motorcycle into a fucking lake. Do you think I’m okay?”

The woman has the audacity to smile at your words.

“I’m sorry, do you think this is funny?” You ask her, feeling fury seethe inside you.

“No,” Natasha says too quickly. “No, it’s just- nevermind. We have to get to the Avenger’s compound.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” you tell her matter of factly.

“Y/n-“

“Don’t!” You interrupt her. “Just leave me alone.”

Nat raises her hands in surrender and watches as you walk away. She lets you get ten steps ahead before she follows after you.

“I told you to let me be.”

“You’re up there all alone. I just happen to be walking in the same direction,” Natasha reasons. “Although, the compound is the other way.”

Despite the fact that you were just doing insanely dangerous tasks with her, you feel a certain safety in her presence.

“Why should I go with you?” You pose a question.

You notice her hesitation in answering. Like she wants to tell you something but she just can’t.

“If you just come with me, I’ll explain everything there. Okay? Please give me a chance,” Nat says. “I won’t be responsible for them finding you and finishing the job.”

“What job? I’m just a waitress. Who could I possibly have wronged?”

“I promise I’ll explain later,” Nat says. “Please follow me.”

You relent and follow her. There’s no reason for you to trust her but somehow you do. It doesn’t take long to get to the compound once Nat hot wires a car.

“Y/n?” A girl asks when you are inside. You look at her despondently and she frowns. Natasha gives he’s her a look.

You follow Natasha to what seems to be a laboratory. There’s a large screen on the wall.

“Ah welcome,” a man says. You recognize him as Iron Man. “You’re just in time.”

“For?” You ask.

“The truth,” another man answers. You’re pretty sure he’s Captain America.

Before you can speak again, photos of you litter the screen. There are some of just you and some of you and the other Avengers.

“What the hell?” You wonder aloud.

“Y/n, we wanted you to remember on your own but it’s taking too long,” Tony Stark explains. “Natasha tried to jog your memory just by being in your presence, but that didn’t work.”

“So I do know you?” You ask the woman.

“You know all of us, y/n. You’re an Avenger.”

“But I’m- no. I’m a waitress,” you say. Your head feels like it’s spinning.

“That’s what they made you think, but you’re not. You’re a special agent,” Steve says. “And one of the best.”

“I don’t believe you. This is all a joke, right?”

“It’s not a joke, y/n. Why do you think we knew those people were after you? Or that I knew about the floor in your house?” Natasha asks.

“That’s easy. You’ve been spying on me.”

“No,” she says simply.

“Then how?” No response. “This is just insane. I’m leaving.”

You start to walk away. You hear Natasha’s footsteps behind you.

“Natasha,” a warning voice comes from Tony. “Don’t.”

“You know what, you go ahead. Take a car of ours, y/n,” she says.

She holds up a pair of keys. You reach for them, but instead of giving them to you she throws a punch your way.

You surprisingly dodge it with ease. Natasha smirks at the way you look at your arms in confusion.

“How did I do that?”

“Come on, throw one,” she taunts you.

You do your best to punch her, but of course she dodges it. You spar back and forth until you’ve both had enough.

“Great, now that that’s over. Do you believe us?” Tony asks.

“I’m not sure,” you say. “How could I not know I’m an agent?”

“Brainwashing,” Natasha answers. “Very effective brainwashing.”

“But why?”

“Because you were going to uncover a huge invasion of Hydra in the government,” Steve explains. “We still can’t find the data that you had before they took it from you and erased all of your memories.”

“So the memory loss, that was a real feeling I was having?”

“It was,” Nat says. “The reason why wasn’t a car accident as they told you though. They captured you and essentially knocked you senseless.”

You rub your hands over your face as you try to take all of this in. Just a few hours ago you thought you knew who you were, but they’re telling you something completely different.

“We wanted you to remember on your own, so it might not be so overwhelming,” Nat says.

“So, we’re all what? Coworkers? Friends? I don’t remember any of you, or anything you’re describing,” you say.

“We’re friends,” Steve says. “You’re friends with all of us and with Nat-“

“Steve,” Nat interrupts. “She doesn’t need to hear that right now.”

“I don’t need to hear what?”

There are shouts down the hallway that interrupt your conversation. Tony suits up and Steve grabs his shield.

“Get her to safety,” he tells Nat.

She grabs your hand and takes you down the hallway to a door and down a ton of stairs. Nat locks a door behind her once you’ve reached the lowest level.

“They’ll handle them,” Nat says. “But the further you are from the fight the better.”

“What was Steve going to say?”

“Hm?”

“About you and me,” you prompt her.

Natasha tears her eyes from yours much the same way she did when you questioned if you knew her earlier.

“Natasha, please just tell me. Clearly, everything I thought I knew was a lie. What’s one more thing?”

“Okay,” she agrees. “We were- you and I were together.”

“Together?”

She nods.

“Define together. Like dating?”

“Kind of yeah,” she says. You look at her for more details. The silence prompts her to continue. “We were married. We are technically married.”

“Oh,” you say.

“Yeah. I didn’t think you were ready to learn that,” Nat says.

“So that’s why you knew your way around my place?”

“Our place,” she says. “But they moved all of my stuff out before you went back there.”

“Natasha, I don’t- I can’t remember anything,” you say.

“I know,” Nat says sadly. “We kept our distance once we realized what they did to you, but we’ve never stopped making sure you were safe.”

You hear the sound of the fight getting closer. Natasha reaches for your hand. She places a loaded gun in your palm.

“I want to remember.”

“You will,” Nat says. “But right now, you’ve got to fight.”

To be continued…

[lesbianbarbaragordon]

Still thinking about last night

”No, no, but seriously,” you start, adjusting on your seat, “it wasn’t that bad. At least not by the end. I felt like we had-“ a connection, that you managed to see him as he was for at least the brittlest of moments. But the sentence dies at the tip of your tongue. You prefer to keep that to yourself. pairing: tim drake x reader tags: stalking, average tim behavior, college student reader word count: 1.7k part 2 of Unraveling the World read part 1 here

“Do you look up all your girlfriends?”

Tim doesn’t like the insinuation, but he shoulders on because Barbara’s network is far more extensive than his, far more even than the Batcave’s, and this is a favour, after all.

Your face is on full display, a shot from your ID, taking up the main screen on Oracle’s setup. You don’t look very happy.

Your hair is longer than when he met you the other night, and he sees the fading of some sort of dye on the tips of your hair. 20 years old, born and raised in Gotham, there is nothing outstanding about you.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he replies as an afterthought, his eyes on the screens. You enrolled in GU last year, took up journalism as a major. Why would a college student live in a warehouse? 

Because it has to be a warehouse, why else would it have been called like that in the files?

The incident that led him to your apartment is still something that embarrasses him. A mistake on his part, something that shouldn’t have happened.

He keeps going over the details, trying to understand; it was just the criminal of the week, a robbery gone wrong at a jewelry shop, hostages that shouldn’t have been there. He had been sneaky, gotten inside before anyone noticed, and released the hostages in record time (which was good, because when they started shooting, Tim was the only one inside). But one of the rogues got on the defensive when they saw he was one of the bats, had gotten a hit on Tim’s ear, and broken his comms. Then a shot in the darkness and a sharp pain took over his senses.

Which one was the lesser evil, running away to seek shelter while he was still lucid? Or detaining the rogues but risking further injury?

The final matter came down to “what would Bruce do?”

So Tim had pushed through, managed to knock them out, cuffed them somewhere the police would find them, and left before anyone else could see him.

The sky was raging, as expected of Gotham, when he stepped foot on the rooftops outside. His breathing was ragged, the pain was excruciating and he had left the Red Bird at the cave.

It only crashed down on Tim as the thunder and lightning erupted around him, shivering and in pain. Once the adrenaline left, it hit all at once-

He was alone.

It only took a second for the gears to kick in. He couldn’t access the Batcomputer, or call anyone who could help. He could take care of it without them, but where would he go? Leslie’s clinic was on the other side of the city, and after retiring it had fallen under new management, would whoever was i charge still treat vigilantes? There were no warehouses around the area either, not ones he remembered anyway, and the longer he thought, the more he started to fear bleeding out in the streets.

What other things did he have access to offline? His suit had prior saves of data, backup files from years prior. Tim accessed them with shaky hands. 

As he thought, not many places to go to in the area, but there was somewhere marked as a safe place. Somewhere that wasn’t Bruce’s but that was listed as Bat equipped. He headed there with desperation clawing at his throat, pain drilling at the back of his eyelids.

But he didn’t find what he was expecting. Instead, there was you and a mundane house. Somewhere that looked lived in, rather than a closet stuffed with expensive tech and medical equipment.

He realized too late, that the information was outdated, that he was going to die from a mistake.

Except he didn’t. Except you were there.

And he wants to figure it out, what kind of sane person could possibly do what you had done? He wants to figure you out.

“She isn’t shady,” Barbara supplies unhelpfully. She starts looking over your school records, your extracurriculars, you studied at the same school he did, nothing out of the ordinary; A book club, perfectly good grades, no problems with teachers or classmates. There’s an internship registered under your name at one of Gotham’s local newspapers, and there, a few articles on topics like battok trends or the latest celebrity scandal. The few lines he skims read uninspired.

The only thing Tim finds unusual is paperwork from the year before, for a cat you had adopted.

“I didn’t see any pets.” At least not when he was there. His allergies would have started making him sneeze like a madman otherwise. But what could he possibly get from that?

You’re perfectly ordinary, so ordinary Tim can’t possibly figure out why you’d be living full-time in a Batman safehouse.

And it’s driving him crazy.

Barbara hums, saying your name, and then, she says your second surname, your mother’s maiden name, “Thompkins?”

“Thought it was common,” Tim shrugs because he hadn’t taken notice of the detail during his first research. Barbara sends him a pointed look.

“Who was the safehouse registered under?” It’s a simple question, Tim realizes his slip-up on the next beat.

“Is she related to Leslie Thompkins?” 

“Grandniece looks more like,” Barbara supplies, pulling up your mother’s birth certificate. She digs up an old picture, a younger Leslie posing next to a smiling blonde woman, who holding up a med school diploma. Seems like your mother followed in her footsteps.

“The warehouse is registered under her name,” Barbara supplies, pulling up a scan of the apartment’s deed. Leslie Thompkins is clearly written as the owner. It must have been a safehouse for her, and subsequently for Batman, a long time ago. All before you took over. “You satisfied now?”

Tim says nothing at that, gnawing at his lip.

From the screen, your picture stares back.

…

“It was freaking scary.” You complain over your instant noodles. But they’re too hot and they scald, making you hiss. Your friend stares at you from across the table.

”Right.”

None of your high school peers stuck with you after graduation, so your list of friends remains painfully empty. And it would be a name shorter, had Claudia not appeared into your life.

You met during your internship, where she was interning too, at the literature department of the magazine. You’re both close in age and enjoy reading classics, so you spend lunch breaks together and bond over trash-talking your coworkers. She’s one of the few people you talk to in an otherwise silent existence. And she’s quite funny, too.

”It feels like one of those trashy romance novels, right?” She gestures openly, a sandwich in her hand. You’ve been telling her about your encounter with Red Robin for a lack of anything else. It’s the only interesting thing that’s happened to you in a while. “‘The superhero crashed at my place! And oh no, he’s naked!’.”

You snort, slapping her arm, “he was not naked! And it wasn’t romantic at all! I was so scared I’d throw up all over him from the stress!”

She chokes on a piece of ham, then starts to laugh. You start laughing too. 

It’s a relief having Claudia to make it all sound less scary.

Her laughing stops when her phone beeps and she pulls it out. Meanwhile, you choose to entertain yourself with your food.

”Is it that twitter account?” You ask half curiously. She hums in response, not looking up from the screen.

”Seems like bird boy hasn’t been seen in a while,” Claudia scrolls down her feed as she talks, quickly liking posts or replying to comments. She runs a popular fan account in her spare time that revolves around Gotham vigilantes, which is not a niche topic.  Most of the accounts themed around the bats, much like Claudia herself, are not native to Gotham. Rather, they’re from Metropolis or San Francisco, where the public regularly sees Superman or the Titans. Gothamites don’t have that kind of relationship with their heroes. “Red Robin’s been out of the streets since last Friday.”

”I guess that means you’re not lying,” she says teasing, which makes you blow a raspberry, “how did you do it, though? I would have messed up so bad.”

”Eh,” you start halfheartedly, “I took pre-med classes all through high school. I’ve forgotten most of it, though, but what little I knew came in handy,” you shrug, leaning back against your chair, “he had some pretty useful stuff, too. Super fancy equipment. That definitely helped.”

“Anyone else would have tried seeing under his mask, and you’re telling me what stuck out to you was his equipment?” Claudia laughs. “Maybe your next article will be about the bats’ tools. Does Batman carry around bat-bandaids? What about bat-snacks?”

You choke on your food, pushing down a laugh. It would be better than the stuff you’ve been writing about for these past few months, anyway. There are only so many influencers you can interview without going crazy.

”No, no, but seriously,” you start,  adjusting on your seat, “it wasn’t that bad. At least not by the end. I felt like we had-“ a connection, that you managed to see him as he was for at least the brittlest of moments. But the sentence dies at the tip of your tongue. You prefer to keep that to yourself.

“He was your favorite, you said, no?” Claudia catches on and continues, “I’d be just like you if Nightwing crashed into my apartment too.”

You’re about to retaliate, because-

Because what happened was not without meaning. You had realized he was more than an ephemeral figure or a distant idol, something as tangible as you, and that had made you stop fearing, for better or for worse.

But your boss peeks his head around the corner and takes sight of you both. “Your break is over,” he says and stands in the doorway as he watches you tidy up and throw empty containers and coffee cups into the bin.

Just as you’re leaving you catch something by the corner of your eye. On the TV is a fuzzy image of something humanoid, vaguely red and black. 

Wherever you go, the shadow of Red Robin follows.

[vergess]

Please, please explain how to install and use linux like I'm 5 years old. I'm so sick of windows adding AI and other bullshit to my already struggling elderly laptop but I'm really not good with computers at all so I have no idea where to start with Linux.

Okay, so, I'm going to break this down into steps I would give the average tumblr user first, and then if any of them are confusing or use words you don't understand, ask me and I'll explain that step in greater detail.

Step 0) BACK. UP. YOUR. SHIT.

NEVER EVER EVER CHANGE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM WITHOUT A COMPLETE BACKUP OF ALL YOUR FILES.

Step 1) Learn your machine. You need to know:

How much RAM you have

If your processor is 32 or 64 bit

How big your hard drive is

On windows, you can find out all of this by going to the start menu, typing "about" and opening the first result on your system instead of the internet.

For additional instructions, visit this page.

Step 2) Pick your Linux.

There's like 10,000 kinds of Linux, each tailored to particular functions that the end-user (that is you!) might want to have. The sheer amount is very daunting, so first I'm going to give my suggestions, then I'll explain how to pick for yourself.

For Mac users, I suggest Kubuntu. For windows users, I suggest Mint Cinnamon. If your laptop is really REALLY old, I recommend Sparky Stable, which is the lightest weight Linux I would ever suggest for a new user. In every case, download the version suited to your processor (32 bit can be labelled "x86" or "32 bit"; 64 bit is always labelled "64 bit").

If you want to try a different type of linux, you'll need to make sure your laptop meets the "minimum specs" or "system requirements." These numbers tell you how much RAM, processor and hard drive space the linux will use. (That's why you needed those numbers at the beginning.)

Step 3) Collect your supplies. You're going to need:

An ISO burning program compatible with your current system, like Balena Etcher.

A copy of the ISO file for the Linux you want to use.

Your laptop.

An 8gb or larger USB flash drive.

Step 3) Make a bootable USB drive

Install Balena Etcher, hitting "okay" and "next" when prompted. Last I checked, Etcher doesn't have adware attached, so you can just hit next every time.

Plug your USB drive into the laptop.

Open Etcher.

Click "flash from file" and open the ISO file with your Linux on it.

Click "Select target" and open the USB drive location. Hit the "flash" button. This will start writing all the linux installer data to your flash drive. Depending on the speed of your machine, this could take as long as 10 minutes, but shouldn't be much longer.

Step 4) Boot to the USB drive

This is, in my opinion, the trickiest step for a lot of people who don't do "computer stuff." Fortunately, in a rare act of good will, Windows 10 made this process a lot easier.

All you'll need to do is go to settings, then recovery, then advanced startup and pick the button labelled "use a device."

This tutorial has images showing where each of those is located. It's considered an "advanced setting" so you may get a spooky popup warning you that you could "harm your system by making changes" but we're not doing anything potentially harmful so you can ignore that if you get it.

Step 5) Try out linux on the flash drive first.

Linux installs using a cool little test version of itself that you can play around in. You won't be able to make changes or save settings, but you can explore a bit and see if the interface is to your liking. If it's hideous or hard to navigate, simply pick a new linux version to download, and repeat the "make a bootable USB" step for it.

Step 6) Actually install that sucker

This step varies from version to version, but the first part should be the same across the board: on the desktop, there should be a shortcut that says something like "install now." Double click it.

Follow the instructions your specific linux version gives you. When in doubt, pick the default, with one exception:

If it asks you to encrypt your drive say no. That's a more advanced feature that can really fuck your shit up down the road if you don't know how to handle it.

At some point you're going to get a scary looking warning that says 1 of 2 things. Either:

Install Linux alongside Windows, or

Format harddrive to delete all data

That first option will let you do what is called "dual booting." From then on, your computer will ask every time you turn it on whether you want Windows or Linux.

The second option will nuke Windows from orbit, leaving only linux behind.

The install process is slower the larger your chosen version is, but I've never seen it take more than half an hour. During that time, most linux versions will have a little slideshow of the features and layout of common settings that you can read or ignore as you prefer.

Step 7) Boot to your sexy new Linux device.

If you're dual booting, use the arrow keys and enter key to select your linux version from the new boot menu, called GRUB.

If you've only got linux, turn the computer on as normal and linux will boot up immediately.

Bonus Step: Copy Pasting some code

In your new start menu, look for an application called "terminal" or "terminal emulator." Open that up, and you will be presented with an intense looking (but actually very harmless) text command area.

Now, open up your web browser (firefox comes pre-installed on most!), and search the phrase "what to do after installing [linux version you picked]"

You're looking for a website called "It's FOSS." Here's a link to their page on Mint. This site has lots and lots of snippets of little text commands you can experiment with to learn how that functionality works!

Or, if you don't want to fuck with the terminal at all (fair enough!) then instead of "terminal" look for something called "software manager."

This is sort of like an app store for linux; you can install all kinds of programs directly from there without needing to go to the website of the program itself!

[screentones-webcomicresources]

There are many web hosting companies to choose from if you're taking the plunge into making your own website with a comic content management system (CMS) like ComicControl or Grawlix, a Wordpress comic theme like Toocheke or ComicPress, or a HTML template to cut/paste code like Rarebit. While these solutions are generally free, finding a home for them is... generally not. It can be hard to choose what's best for your webcomic AND your budget!

We took a look at a few of the top hosting services used by webcomics creators using webcomic CMSes, and we put out a poll to ask your feedback about your hosts!

This post may be updated as time goes on as new services enter the hosting arena, or other important updates come to light.

Questions:

💻 I can get a free account with Wix/Squarespace/Carrd, could I just use those for my comic? - Web hosts like this may have gallery functions that could be adapted to display a series of pages, but they are very basic and not intended for webcomics.

📚 Wait, I host on Webtoon, Tapas, Comic Fury, or some other comic website, why are they not here? - Those are comic platforms! We'll get into those in a future post!

🕵️‍♀️Why does it say "shared hosting"? Who am I sharing with? - "Shared hosting" refers to sharing the server space with other customers. They will not have access to your files or anything, so it is perfectly fine to use for most comic CMSes. You may experience slowing if there is too much activity on a server, so if you're planning to host large files or more than 10 comics, you may want to upgrade to a more robust plan in the future.

Web Host List

Neocities

Basic plan pricing: Free or $5/month. Free plan has more restrictions (1 GB space, no custom domain, and slower bandwidth, among other things)

Notes: Neocities does not have database support for paid or free accounts, and most comic CMS solutions require this (ComicCtrl, Grawlix, Wordpress). You will need to work with HTML/CSS files directly to make a website and post each page.

Hostinger

Basic plan pricing: $11.99/month or $7.99/month with four year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 4 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain for the 1st year. Free SSL Certifications. Weekly backups.

KnownHost

Basic plan pricing: $8.95/month or $7.99/month with four year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 4 year plans available).

Notes: Free DDOS protection. Free SSL Certifications.

InMotion Hosting

Basic plan pricing: $12.99/month or $9.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, and 3 year plans available).

Notes:  Free SSL Certifications, free domain names for 1 and 3 year plans. 24/7 live customer service and 90-day money-back guarantee. Inmotion also advertises eco-friendly policies: We are the first-ever Green Data Center in Los Angeles. We cut cooling costs by nearly 70 percent and reduce our carbon output by more than 2,000 tons per year.

Reviews:

👍“I can't remember it ever going down.”

👍“InMotion has a pretty extensive library full of various guides on setting up and managing websites, servers, domains, etc. Customer service is also fairly quick on responding to inquiries.” 👎“I wish it was a bit faster with loading pages.”

Ionos Hosting

Basic plan pricing: $8/month or $6/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 2 and 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain for the first year, free SSL Certification, Daily backup and recovery is included. Site Scan and Repair is free for the first 30 days and then is $6/month.

Reviews:

👍“Very fast and simple” 👎“Customer service is mediocre and I can't upload large files”

Bluehost

Basic plan pricing: $15.99/month or $4.95/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain and SSL certificates (for first year only). 24/7 Customer Service. Built to handle higher traffic websites. Although they specialize in Wordpress websites and provide updates automatically, that's almost a bad thing for webcomic plugins because they will often break your site. Their cloud hosting services are currently in early access with not much additional information available.

Reviews:

👎"The fees keep going up. Like I could drop $100 to cover a whole year, but now I'm paying nearly $100 for just three months. It's really upsetting."

👎"I have previously used Bluehost’s Wordpress hosting service and have had negative experiences with the service, so please consider with a grain of salt. I can confirm at least that their 24/7 customer service was great, although needed FAR too often."

Dreamhost

Basic plan pricing: $7.99/month or $5.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free SSL Certificates, 24/7 support with all plans, 97-day moneyback guarantee. Not recommended for ComicCtrl CMS

Reviews:

👍“They've automatically patched 2 security holes I created/allowed by mistake.” 👍“Prices are very reasonable” 👎 “back end kind of annoying to use” 👎 “wordpress has some issues” 👎 “it's not as customizable as some might want“

GoDaddy

Basic plan pricing: $11.99/month or $9.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free 24/7 Customer service with all plans, Free SSL Certificates for 1 year, free domain and site migration.

Reviews:

👍Reasonable intro prices for their Economy hosting, which has 25GB of storage 👍Migrated email hosting service from cPanel to Microsoft Office, which has greater support but may not be useful for most webcomic creators. 👎 Many site issues and then being upsold during customer service attempts. 👎 Server quality found lacking in reviews 👎 Marketing scandals in the past with a reputation for making ads in poor taste. Have been attempting to clean up that image in recent years. 👎 “GoDaddy is the McDonald's of web hosting. Maybe the Wal-Mart of hosting would be better. If your website was an object you would need a shelf to put it on. You go to Wal-Mart and buy a shelf. It's not great. It's not fancy. It can only hold that one thing. And if we're being honest - if the shelf broke and your website died it wouldn't be the end of the world.The issue comes when you don't realize GoDaddy is the Wal-Mart of hosting. You go and try to do things you could do with a quality shelf. Like, move it. Or add more things to it.” MyWorkAccountThisIs on Reddit*

Things to consider for any host:

💸 Introductory/promotional pricing - Many hosting companies offer free or inexpensive deals to get you in the door, and then raise the cost for these features after the first year or when you renew. The prices in this post are the base prices that you can expect to pay after the promotional prices end, but may get outdated, so you are encouraged to do your own research as well.

💻 Wordpress hosting - Many of the companies below will have a separate offering for Wordpress-optimized hosting that will keep you updated with the latest Wordpress releases. This is usually not necessary for webcomic creators, and can be the source of many site-breaking headaches when comic plugins have not caught up to the latest Wordpress releases.

Any basic hosting plan on this list will be fine with Wordpress, but expect to stop or revert Wordpress versions if you go with this as your CMS.

🤝 You don't have to go it alone - While free hosts may be more limited, paid hosting on a web server will generally allow you to create different subdomains, or attach additional purchased domains to any folders you make. If you have other comic-making friends you know and trust, you can share your server space and split the cost!

Want to share your experience?

Feel free to contribute your hosting pros, cons, and quirks on our survey! We will be updating our list periodically with your feedback!

[angelpuns]

“ Raph pleasssseee carry me?” Mikey whined, practically throwing himself onto Raph's shell. 

And who was Raph to deny his babyest brother? 

“ alright, but you're gonna have to carry me, later,” He chuckled, mostly teasing, “ Raph knows you can carry him easy” 

Mikey rolled his eyes and climbed further atop Raph's shell, being mindful of the chunk missing. He said it didn’t hurt anymore, but Mikey still avoided touching it if he could. 

“ You don't normally whine this much, Angelo, what happened to your ‘razzmatazz energy reserve’?” Donnie muttered, hovering a bit ahead of them. Eyes still glued to Leo's little blue dot. It was moving rapidly across the city st this point, and they were following it. 

Donnie wasn't sure how or why Leo was moving so quickly, but he was sure his twin had some kind of hare-brained plan he was cooking up. Sure, chasing him down was almost definitely playing into it, but Donnie just wanted to be sure. 

Maybe the amnesia spell had erased his ability to make good plans or something, they didn't have much data that proved otherwise.

“ Wellll, Leo usually portals us everywhere aaaaand I guess I got kinda used to it,” Mikey chuckled sheepishly, “plus I gotta save up that razzmatazz reserve for lovingly kicking his butt when we catch up!” 

“Uh-huh, right. The plan is simple, when we catch up you and Raph will immobilize Leo long enough for me to tranq him, then we’ll get him back to the lair and figure out a better long-term solution,” Donnie rambled, squinting at the dot. He was moving in such an irregular pattern, and far faster than Leo could normally move. 

Then again, he was the fastest out of all of them, and he could be portal-hopping across the city still. 

They were hardly close to catching up, though. Even with Donnie's hover-shell, he couldn't get close fast enough. Not to mention he couldn't carry both Mikey and Raph as backup. 

He sighed, rubbing his eyes and then resuming his staring at the dot. Until it suddenly turned and was heading straight for them. 

“ He's coming this way and quickly! Get ready to grab him,” Donnie warned, hurrying to ready his final tranquilizer dart and hide himself behind a trash can. Not the best hiding spot or best view of the street, but better than nothing. 

He watched as the dot blinked closer and closer, turning onto the street they were hiding on. Raph and Mikey were ready, weapons drawn, to capture Leo just long enough for Donnie to tranq him. It was all going to plan! 

Their amnesiac brother was toast! 

Leo’s dot rounded the corner, and- 

Donnie aimed at the spot where Leo's shoulder would be, but instead there was nothing. The dot was right in front of him and yet- 

Donnie lowered his gun and grimaced. In Leo's place was a rat, the tracker tied loosely around it's neck. A tag hung there too, and when Donnie grabbed the rat to read it, all he could feel was a white hot rage. 

‘ Gotcha XP Better luck next time!’ 

----

Damn they got splinter'd :/

Donnie should have known that Leo would do smthn that ridiculous but cut him some slack, his goofy twin is on the loose :/

Anyway enjoy <3 this one isn't v good but eh

Part 1 | Part 6 | Part 8

[meowingcookie]

Too many carpool drivers? Turn them into townies!

I've had an overpopulation issue with carpool drivers from when I started with Life Stories as my base game. (I didn't have anti redundancy) 42 of them to be exact. And i've never known what was safe to do with them. Till April Blacks new video about npcs! Turns out carpool drivers have complete character data and if you change their interaction table id and npc type they will become a normal sim. No idea if a tutorial exists so I thought i'd share how to do so.

This tutorial will also work on mascots graduated long ago who refuse to take their smelly cow costume off and other npcs that can be turned playable with annoying behaviors. Just skip the part where you move them into the townie bin

Firstly, !!!! ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD IF YOU ARE EDITING IT IN SIMPE !!!!!

What you need: Simpe and a basic knowledge of it (I use version 0.77.69 in the light installer)

Firstly, load up your neighborhood, open up sim browser and find your carpool driver you want to change.

1. Change their npc type to normal sim and press the fix guid button 2. Commit then save.

3. Go to the resource tree and click family infomation 4. Find your Townies family

5. Select your sims name from the dropdown box. 6. Press add sim. 7. Commit and save.

Go back to your sim description and go to the more tab and open their character file.

6. Go to object data in the resource tree 7. Click on the sims object data file 8. Go to the raw data tab and change it to decimal. Scroll down till you see interaction table id. Change that number from -1 to 129, 9. commit and save.

Now your carpool driver is a townie and has escaped eternal life trapped in a car!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

THTH 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Ransom Drysdale

Summary: You have a secret, but what do you do when it threatens to come out.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

“Ugh, goddamn it,” you hiss as you reach your phone to the sky. The signal is shit around here. You watch the little circle, waiting for a check mark to appear; nothing.

Three days. The bandwidth has been in and out for three days and you haven’t been able to upload a single thing. Not even a message. This is dumb. You growl at your phone and toss it on your bed. It bounces and hits the wall.

You huff and cross your arms. It’s not fair. Those three days could’ve made you money. You can’t even leech off the library wifi because of the content filters. So ridiculous. You’re just trying to make a living.

A tap comes at the door and you flinch. You quickly scoop up your phone and go to the door. You tuck it in your back pocket and pull your shirt down to cover the top. You open the door and peek out at your mom.

“Everything okay?” She asks.

“Uh, yep, just dropped something.”

“Oh, nothing broke, I hope.”

“All good,” you smile. She chews her lip anxiously, as she often does. “I’ll be down for dinner soon. Smells good.”

“Alright,” she says, “it’s almost done. Your favourite; spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Mmm, awesome.”

You shut the door and roll your eyes. Spaghetti isn’t your favourite. It’s what she says is your favourite. Just like everything else, it has to fit within her rules. If she says you like yellow, well then, you like yellow. It isn’t worth the argument to have a personality.

You take out the phone again. You nearly squeal as the check mark turns green. It sent! Just a text post notifying your few followers of the unexpected technical difficulties. You’ll be fortunate if they don’t bleed off to the other girls. When there’s so much variety, you can’t expect horny men not to hop on the next page with a pretty girl in lacy underwear…or less.

You scroll down but the rest of the posts show the blank blocks, pulsing as they struggle to load. You check the menu. Signal’s gone again. Welp, at least that went through.

You go to your bed and hide your phone under the mattress. Your parents know about your laptop, that’s your alibi. You tell them you do transcription work online. That doesn’t pay enough so you have the secret phone for your real business; you.

It isn’t exactly a career but it’s a means to an end. You’ll save up enough and be out of Hammer Ford in no time. You’re almost twenty and running out of time. A gap year is expected, but two? That’s sad.

Besides, you’re done with this life. You need out of this house. You are an adult. Your parents can’t make you eat your peas or ban you from the romance section in the library. One day, hopefully soon, you’ll be free.

For now, you’re going to go downstairs and pretend your mother’s spaghetti and meatballs isn’t complete mush.

📱

Days pass as you stare helplessly at the flashing bars in the corner of your phone. Damn phone company. The data plan was supposed to be a backup, even if you could only afford the cheapest vendor on the market. You at least thought it would work!

You manage to get a decent signal up on Thunder Lane by the hotel. It might be worth it to just walk in and get their wifi. You don’t think they’d care much. There aren’t many guests passing through now, are there?

The only benefit of your forced break is how much time it gave you to create new content. You choose the set of photos you took with the bunny ears and the barely there white teddy. You quickly flick through the settings and set the paywall. At least you’ll have money coming in before…

Yep, no internet. You’re lucky even that went through. You roll your eyes and hop back in the family oldsmobile. Your mother doesn’t let you have it often but you told her you were going for coffee and would fill up the tank.

As you roll up to the sleepy main row of Hammer Ford, your phone vibes. You quickly put it back to silent and check the notification. Your data’s flickering as you see the first response to your post. That was quick. Turns out someone did miss you.

_ransom_ware commented: ‘welcome back, bunny’.

You tap on the bubble but the app won’t load. Damnit! At least you have automatic deposit enabled. His tip will hit your account in a couple days.

You get out of the car and cross the street to the bakery. You could butter your mom up with some tarts, maybe convince her to let you take the car into the city. That might be your best chance at catching up. You could schedule posts and not have to fight with the damn countryside desolation.

As you enter the bakery, it’s quiet. There’s one person at a table. You don’t recognise him. He has his back to you so you don’t think much of it. Probably just another lumber worker sating their repressed sweet tooth. Although, he is dressed a bit too nice for that. No plaid or denim? Huh.

You go up to the counter and order a half-dozen cherry tarts and a latte. You pay with the secret credit card you use for your online transactions and thank the girl behind the counter. As you turn, you find the man at the table turned in his seat. He glances at you as you carry out the tray of tarts and coffee.

You’re used to the stares. The men in Hammer Ford aren’t exactly subtle and your nights at The Horn have earned you a reputation, though those stories don’t make it past your front door. It’s just a little fun, you have a pint and tie your shirt above your belly button and dance. Nothing serious.

Your mom and dad are too chaste and pious to ever wander into the bar. It’s your escape, your safe space. Just for now. Just until you can get out of this hell hole.

[feyclowns]

a look at magic and the core system

the core system explanation and my loose idea of what magic is. this uh. this got long. this is a longass post.

my thoughts on magic

i have this idea that mother nature, while creating her earlier lifeforms, used magic as a sort of bind-all, something modeled after the overarching powers of time and creation, etc- giving them extra powers and extending their life (like a kid making their first ocs). most of her older creatures are on planes higher up and function on magic. as she got better with her craft she began to appreciate the complexity of making all those bits and pieces stuff on earth has, and the faster ebb and flow of life AND death. humans are one of her favorite creations.

magic is inherently chaotic. it exists in multiple forms, on multiple planes. it's something that touches things in a biological way and yet obeys physical laws set before it. it can be stored and used up. it can create more of itself. it can corrupt things. when mother nature realized it was a bad idea to give near-unlimited power to beings when she was creating ones of lower ability on the planes below, she changed magic and the creatures that used it- gave them weaknesses, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous, compulsions too. things to keep them in check.

i also like to think you can't entirely 1:1 seelie to humans on even a biological cell-scale. they just fundamentally are different.

magic's function

the more pure magic is, the more powerful it is- magic comes in all colors of the rainbow, but different colors have slightly different attributes. one can never truly filter one color out of magic entirely, as it needs all its components to function.

with the True Fey nearly extinct, the only beings that can use raw magic without the assistance of a device or sigil are genies, and i'd argue they got quite the short end of the stick considering their compulsion.

fairies, fey and their subspecies primarily function on purple magic. this stuff is filtered, diluted, as "neutral" as one can get. if you create magic rather than consume it, and your species functions on filtered magic, you cannot handle it raw. like, your body can't handle the extra energy. physically.

magical backup is when a fairy has so much magic in their system they cannot filter the chaotic energy that magic produces and explode.

filtered magic is also, simply, on paper, easiest to use. as a third party, non-seelie magic user- use raw magic while unprepared and get evaporated while changing the laws of physics. use overfiltered magic without the correct sigils and nothing happens except maybe a bitter taste in your mouth.

onto the core system.

the core system

the neural core is where magic flows freely up towards- the filter strains clean, purple magic from the magic produced by the central core. conscious wishes are also made from the brain connected to the core here.

the central core is where magic is generated. the central core takes calories and nutrients from ingested food (fairies have a stomach that is right next to their core) and converts it into magic. the core membrane acts as a storage for filtered magic in both areas.

the core pools are located at the base of the wrists of a fairy, which are where excess magic flows and stays in anticipation of use. when a fairy exhausts the magic from their pools, they must wait until they begin to refill from the reserves in the core membranes.

the inner cores are the most important part of the system; if this part of a fairy is damaged they will die. this part also holds the data for the rest of the body- if worse comes to worse, the inner cores will maintain the body parts left and rebuild the core system before completing the rest of the body. this is in part why fairies are so gd resilient. no inner core, no regeneration.

magic threads are what magic travels along throughout the body. they are thick, wide tubes that extend through the torso and extremities. the central thread is also called a nervous thread. during pregnancy, the body creates a sixth thread (and sometimes seventh) to deliver magic to the developing child's core.

fairies produce raw magic in their central cores. they have two cores- a central and neural core, which are connected to each other through the nervous thread and extend to their magic pools and flow magic through the body by the four magic threads.

anti-fairies are where all that excess magic goes when fairies filter it out. anti fairies don't need to generate magic or filter it- they can handle it just fine. they have a simpler core layout- a thick core membrane to hold their magic and the excess chaotic magic swirling about in their inner core. this enables anti-fairies to grant powerful rule-free wishes. anti-fairies tend to have strange colored magic threads, generally aligning with the color of their counterparts' eyes.

pixies are quirky things. pixies have the same amount of cores as their fairy cousins but do not produce raw magic. they instead need to feed on magical creatures (or take their magic supplements, as provided by pixies INC) to keep their core systems afloat. another issue is that most pixies' core filters still work- which would be fine if they produced magic. pixies overfilter their magic, leading them to use a highly complicated wand (along with several binding contracts) to utilize the magic still delivered to their core pools. (it's also a phone. why not toss that in for free? Head Pixie was feeling really nice when he made that decision.)

pixies have a very large core filter and membrane in their neural core, with a small central core and large magic pools. their magic threads are thin.

[moons-of-dewclan]

HOW TO RESET YOUR CLAN TO EARLIER MOON

(another case of 'one person asked, i deliver) ok first, you sort of can't. YOU GOTTA RESTART with a 'new' clan and transfer! SECONDLY, this may be more complicated than it needs to be bc i don't know how to do things simply. i'm trying my best tho. THIS IS HOW I'VE DONE IT. i recommend watching videos or reading up on how to 'edit files' bc this isn't exhaustive. IT REALLY HELPS IF YOU KNOW HOW TO MESS WITH THE FILES. this is SUPPLEMENTAL KNOWLEDGE FIRST!! save a backup of your clan files (The JSON FILE, AND CLAN FOLDER) in case you make a whoopsie and destroy your code. READ THIS ALL BEFORE TRYING. i'll be noting some things that are MAKE OR BREAK. literally. make ur code or break your code IN THIS EXAMPLE, i'm going back to moon 15 for Dewclan from moon 50, and I'm going to pretend there are only 4 cats- Lyre, Vanilla, Nettle and Spark. I'll refer the clan you want to set back as the 'Canon' clan, and the one you're going to be rewinding to as the 'Rewound' clan! THEN HERE WE GOOOOO FIRST, NEW CLAN. pick the same mode as the clan you're trying to 'Rewind'.

NAME IT WHATEVER. you'll change it later..

Pick those cats. i like to pick the minimum necessary. but it doesn't really matter, as you're going to more or less be copypasting your old cats into this 'Rewound' clan.

START IN THE SAME PLACE. and in the same SEASON that your Canon clan started in. I started Dewclan in Leafbare. do not choose the season that's taking place on the moon you want to rewind to. the one you STaRted on. (you're going to choose what moon you're on later in settings. this keeps the progression consistent. if you started in leafbare, but choose greenleaf for the Rewound clan, 15 moons in, you'll be on a different season than your Canon clan would be bc your starting point was different. even if i'm not explaining that well just do it i promise LAKSNNDKS)

WOW THESE AREN'T MY BABIES. ok time to kill or delete three of these suckers bc i only need four cats. BYE GUYS

also go into your settings. MAKE EVERYTHING HOW YOU WANT IT. general, role, etc. AND THEN CLICK THAT 'OPEN DATA DIRECTORY'. this is where stuff gets GOING

click here.. saves

NOW, BELOW!! the folders, it'll have a JSON file with your Rewound clan name. THIS IS IMPORTANT. there are things in here that you need to change. some require you to peek at your cats, and some don't. We'll get to it later! FOR NOW, click the folder above this that says your Rewound clan name! mine is 'DewAGAIN'

THEN YOU GOT ALL THE JUICY STUFF

CLICK CLAN CATS. AND LOOK BELLLOOOW. we're gonna transfer our beloved babies over. i recommend you copy from "name_prefix" to "favourite": false in the Canon clan (keep their ID number from this Rewound clan the same. don't replace it with their ID number from the Canon clan), then select all that info in the Rewound clan and paste it to overwrite. and then adjust what you need to. AND YOU WILL NEED TO ADJUST I HIIIGHLY recommend leaving the ID numbers and pasting Canon leader info into Rewound leader info. med cat into med cat. deputy into deputy. Rewound clan leader is ID 20? paste your Canon clan leader info info 20. keep Canon clan's number as 20.

SOME OF THESE ARE VERY IMPORTANT. 1. ID NUMBER. if your cat has any relationships, like parents or mates, you need these numbers to match those cats. ALSO if your cat has a specific role, like medicine cat, leader, mediator or deputy, their number needs to match the number designated in the CLAN JSON info shown in the next image. FOR NOW I CONTINUE. 2. IMPORTANT NUMBERS. Sparkplug (her name isn't rly sparkplug btw)'s parent is Lyrestar. Lyre's ID number is 1. if that ID number doesn't match or doesn't exist in this game, you'll get an error! Same goes for mentors and mates. at moon 15, Spark wouldn't have these. But if i transferred her from moon 50 where she did, I'll have to replace the mate/mentor/whatever will 'null', etc, shown here. make sure everything here is relevant to moon 15, and not moon 50! 3. IF your cat was dead when you copypasted, change that! Dead?? FALSE. from dead 'true'.. ... where did 4 and 5 go..- ANYWAY 6. EXPERIENCE. make sure you drop this back to where it was at that moon. lest your kit graduate to warrior bc they have 3000 experience. 7. FALLS INTO 2. do they have an apprentice in the Canon clan that they wouldn't have in the rewound clan? gET RID OF EM. (you can copypaste that portion from a cat without an apprentice or just rewrite it as 'null', but sometimes i type things wrong and get errors so.. i copypaste. just make sure you're copying and pasting from the right start and end point.) IF YOUR CAT HAD AN APPRENTICE IN MOON 15, AND NOT 50.. you can either just set them as mentor and apprentice ingame manually, or write it into the code. i would do it manually tho bc i'm easily confused

NOW WE GET INTO WHERE THE CLAN JSON IS IMPORTANT.

ABOVE ARE MARKED, IMPORTANT THINGS. some will break the game if you don't do it right. SO 1. Name. You can change this later, to your Canon clan name. You need to also change the FOLDER name to match. The folder that you click to get to your 'Clan Cats' files and stuff. YOU WILL HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR CANON CLAN FOLDER NAME AND FILE NAME TO SOMETHING ELSE or it'll corrupt! 2. HERE you change to the moon you want to rewind to. I'd change mine, to 15! season changes along with the moon number automatically. 3. INSTRUCTOR. this is the cat that leads your cats to starclan. predead. dw about it, unless you've messed with the dead cat and want to change it to your old starclan guide. then change the number, to your guide's ID number. You'll see it in the Clan Cats folder! LEADER. you need to change this to your clan leader's number or the files get confused. this is why i recommend replacing Rewound leaders with leaders, deputies with deputies, etc, and not also pasting the old numbers. the numbers are already set. ALSO this is where the leader's lives are dictated! DEPUTY. same as above! MED CAT.... SAME. but also, if you have multiple, add multiple! 4. You can change these names to the Canon names. if you had more or less other clans, you can delete or add more. just make sure to have the same number of clans as 'relations' and 'temperaments'! four clans, for traits and temperaments. 5 clans, 5 traits and temperaments. FINAL PAIN IN THE ARSE is.. having to adjust relationships. bc your 'new' clan won't have established relationships. you gotta go in and adjust the values. it sucks big ass but i don't know a better way to do it snff..

QUICK TIP if you absolutely don't want romance between two unrelated cats bc it would be weird for story reasons, you can change their status in the relationships file change family: false, to family: true. the game thinks they're related and romance won't happen HAHAHAAAAA .. at least in my experience. if this is wrong i'll cry

[linkyu]

tell me about your defense contract pleage

Oh boy!

To be fair, it's nothing grandiose, like, it wasn't about "a new missile blueprint" or whatever, but, just thinking about what it could have become? yeesh.

So, let's go.

For context, this is taking place in the early 2010s, where I was working as a dev and manager for a company that mostly did space stuff, but they had some defence and security contracts too.

One day we got a new contract though, which was... a weird one. It was state-auctioned, meaning that this was basically a homeland contract, but the main sponsor was Philip Morris. Yeah. The American cigarette company.

Why? Because the contract was essentially a crackdown on "illegal cigarette sales", but it was sold as a more general "war on drugs" contract.

For those unaware (because chances are, like me, you are a non-smoker), cigarette contraband is very much a thing. At the time, ~15% of cigarettes were sold illegally here (read: they were smuggled in and sold on the street).

And Phillip Morris wanted to stop that. After all, they're only a small company worth uhhh... oh JFC. Just a paltry 150 billion dollars. They need those extra dollars, you understand?

Anyway. So they sponsored a contract to the state, promising that "the technology used for this can be used to stop drug deals too". Also that "the state would benefit from the cigarettes part as well because smaller black market means more official sales means a higher tax revenue" (that has actually been proven true during the 2020 quarantine).

Anyway, here was the plan:

Phase 1 was to train a neural network and plug it in directly to the city's video-surveillance system, in order to detect illegal transactions as soon as they occur. Big brother who?

Phase 2 was to then track the people involved in said transaction throughout the city, based on their appearance and gait. You ever seen the Plainsight sheep counting video? Imagine something like this but with people. That data would then be relayed to police officers in the area.

So yeah, an automated CCTV-based tracking system. Because that's not setting a scary precedent.

So what do you do when you're in that position? Let me tell you. If you're thrust unknowingly, or against your will, into a project like this,

Note. The following is not a legal advice. In fact it's not even good advice. Do not attempt any of this unless you know you can't get caught, or that even if you are caught, the consequences are acceptable. Above all else, always have a backup plan if and when it backfires. Also don't do anything that can get you sued. Be reasonable.

Let me introduce you to the world of Corporate Sabotage! It's a funny form of striking, very effective in office environments.

Here's what I did:

First of all was the training data. We had extensive footage, but it needed to be marked manually for the training. Basically, just cropping the clips around the "transaction" and drawing some boxes on top of the "criminals". I was in charge of several batches of those. It helped that I was fast at it since I had video editing experience already. Well, let's just say that a good deal of those markings were... not very accurate.

Also, did you know that some video encodings are very slow to process by OpenCV, to the point of sometimes crashing? I'm sure the software is better at it nowadays though. So I did that to another portion of the data.

Unfortunately the training model itself was handled by a different company, so I couldn't do more about this.

Or could I?

I was the main person communicating with them, after all.

Enter: Miscommunication Master

In short (because this is already way too long), I became the most rigid person in the project. Like insisting on sharing the training data only on our own secure shared drive, which they didn't have access to yet. Or tracking down every single bug in the program and making weekly reports on those, which bogged down progress. Or asking for things to be done but without pointing at anyone in particular, so that no one actually did the thing. You know, classic manager incompetence. Except I couldn't be faulted, because after all, I was just "really serious about the security aspect of this project. And you don't want the state to learn that we've mishandled the data security of the project, do you, Jeff?"

A thousand little jabs like this, to slow down and delay the project.

At the end of it, after a full year on this project, we had.... a neural network full of false positives and a semi-working visualizer.

They said the project needed to be wrapped up in the next three months.

I said "damn, good luck with that! By the way my contract is up next month and I'm not renewing."

Last I heard, that city still doesn't have anything installed on their CCTV.

tl;dr: I used corporate sabotage to prevent automated surveillance to be implemented in a city--

hey hold on

wait

what

HEY ACTUALLY I DID SOME EXTRA RESEARCH TO SEE IF PHILLIP MORRIS TRIED THIS SHIT WITH ANOTHER COMPANY SINCE THEN AND WHAT THE FUCK

HUH??????

well what the fuck was all that even about then if they already own most of the black market???

[wake-up-lieutenant]

mod tutorial: Connor's android hands

some info: the visibility of Connor's android hands is controlled by "invokes", which can affect textures and certain submeshes and when/if they appear. some other notable uses include Connor's open collar and lack of tie vs closed collar with tie, and bullet wounds and blood that appear dynamically.

Step 1: Accessing the Lua bytecode

you can do this by using the texture tool from deadray. in the tool, under "Catalog", search for Connor. you will see multiple entries, but "CONNOR_INT02" is the Connor's most frequently used game model, so i'll use that one as an example.

select CONNOR_INT02, and click "Enable Editing".

(explanation: the texture tool decompresses the model's data and appends the more easily edited data to one of the game files, .d26.)

once you've enabled editing on the model, open up the .d26 file from the Detroit: Become Human folder in a hex editor such as HxD or 010.

you will be greeted with something like this:

search for (Ctrl+F, case sensitive) the text "LuaQ". if you find this string near the text CONNOR_INT02, you're in the right place.

Step 2: Finding the invokes

once you scroll down a bit, you'll find a lot of strings that "HIDE" or "SHOW" things, or turn things "ON" or "OFF".

for Connor's android hands, we are looking for "Evt_RETRACT_SKINHAND_LEFT_OFF" and "Evt_RETRACT_SKINHAND_RIGHT_OFF". Change the bytes 46 46 (the FF in OFF) to 4E 00 (N and a null character, resulting in ON). Repeatedly turn all the instances of OFF to ON in each occurrence of the RETRACT_SKINHAND phrases until you reach the end (signaled by the text MESHDATA).

make sure you have a clean backup of .d26 and .idx for uninstallation. save the new .d26, and place it in the DBH folder after you've moved the old one to a different location like your desktop.

Step 3: Removing the synth skin

open the .idx file (located in the same folder as .d26) in your hex editor. search for the hex-values 00 00 08 B5 00 00 00 01 00 00 7B 88. change the following four bytes (which are 22 1A 40 00) to 99 99 99 99. save it and replace the unedited .idx, like with .d26.

Start up the game!

the method explained in steps 1 and 2 of opening a model catalog, editing OFF to ON or HIDE to SHOW can work with a lot of other stuff.

for example, you can make Connor's android hands glow:

or give him a lot of bullet wounds, like i did in this post.

you can also have Kara showing up in A New Home covered in blood. or have Markus be literally on fire during the entirety of Crossroads. the possibilities are endless.

happy modding!

[tiramisuucakeee]

1. BLACK MAMBA

IN WHICH: in a world where humans can synk with their æ, there is suddenly a huge synk out, and the real world can no longer communicate with the flat world for the longest time. what happens when you finally receive a synk message from æ-yn?

chapter one !

"l'existence précède l'essence" is a central motto of existentialism meaning that existence precedes essence. this means that man exists first, emerges in the world and then defines himself. this phrase inverts the traditional philosophical view that the essence of a thing is more fundamental than its existence.

æ is formed, based on all the data that you have uploaded and interacted everywhere, whether it’s pictures, music, websites, or videos. it is formed into something very much like yourself.

but just because it’s made of your data, doesn’t mean it’s you. though it comes incredibly close in your case. you have always thought about yourself as transparent. you are online how you are offline, hotheaded, to your own ideas.

though you had to admit that, you are never going to keep being that same y/n you are now, with time, people change. and what worried you, is that your æ wouldn’t.

“ningning?- ah!-” you tumbled to the ground, as she threw herself to you, a bit too excited, you had to say. she grabbed you by the shoulders, forcing you to sit correctly.

“are you crazy? bike race?!” she exclaimed.

your eyes widened when she pointed to the tv behind her, where the news of a girl racing police through the city on her motorcycle made the headlines, after escaping an illegal race.

“what, me? you think she looks like me?” you scoffed, pushing yourself off of the ground, helping your friend up.

ninging wore something that could describe her personality, artistic and expressive. the latter was something she did show off a lot.

“i do think so,” ningning crossed her arms, tapping her foot on the marble floor.

your arms dropped, as you dragged yourself next to the big screen, almost feeling proud about it. “see? her technique is all wrong, she looks too… rushed?”

“yes because you were escaping from the police, anyone would feel rushed,” she rose her brows at you, making it almost impossible to say something back.

“in my opinion,” you heard a voice behind you. completely forgetting your devices had familiarity with ningning electronics, from all the bluetooth connections in the past.

æ-yn floated on the screen, imitating your movements, as she got replaced on the video, and was now riding your bike. “she looks really cool, nothing like y/n,” she slid on your helmet.

“and you look really dumb now, just because you’re æ-yn, it doesn’t mean you can be as good as me with these things,” you replied back, pettily, making her gasp. ningning let out a laugh at your banter, finding funny how her relationship with æ-ninging was much different to yours.

“you two are a handful,” she sighed, and then remembered what she was doing. “oh! y/n, i need you to get some things for me to this one person who bought my art,” she ran off in some direction, her little boot-heels clicking on the floor.

you looked at your æ with a confused face, and she only shrugged. it was almost like you were the official errand girl, all because you had a quick ride.

“here, woah!” she came back with a handful of canvases, all of different sizes, almost tripping on air, but being able to catch herself.

“what if i say no,” you groaned, looking at your æ for some backup, but she only shrugged, and disappeared, leaving you with this problem.

“you can’t,” ningning poked her head from the side, her entire upper body being covered by paintings, “you already promised.” she sang.

“i did?” you scrunched your nose, “but what about the thing?”

“what thing?” ningning looked puzzled, blinking.

“the painting expo hacking thing,” you reminded her, as her face brightened up, “oh that thing! yeah i’m still doing it,” she smiled proudly, swaying from side to side.

“oh ningning,” you whined, finally understanding the misunderstanding, “i thought you invited me over to see that, not to help you deliver packages.” you dragged your words with laze.

“oh y/n,” she whined back, mocking you, “that’s too bad, you’re going to have to find out how it went on the news, just like i did with your bike race.” she winked, knowing she won the banter.

“but-” you were going to say, until she handed you all the canvases, making you stumble on your own footing, securing the paintings in your arms.

“now, æ-ningning will send the address to æ-yn for her to guide you, they’re all going to the same place,” ningning grabbed her phone, sending a synk message.

“okay…” you grumbled, “i’ll see you later, hopefully npt with another similar situation,” you started to head out of the studio, a bit disappointed for not getting to see ningning’s plan on the big screen.

she ran over, opening the door for you, and saying goodbye in a cheery tone, before letting you out.

going down the same stairs, you reached the lonely lobby, and stood outside in the street, thinking about how you were going to transport everything.

taking out a long rope from a compartment on your bike, you used it to tie all the canvases like a present tie, and then took two ends of the rope, tying it on your back. you made sure none would fall out or that the knots were lose before sitting down.

placing your helmet on, the sound of the system connecting ran through, a following voice. “are you sure that’s safe?”

“i’m alright,” you replied, placing your hands on your thighs, waiting for the map to connect.

“yeah i don’t care, i’m talking about the canvases,” æ-yn remarked, making you irk at her comment, “you know? sometimes you have to learn to keep your mouth shut, or your pixels, whatever,” you huffed, the helmet screen projecting a map.

“whatever you say,” she yawned, leaning on the edge of the screen, observing the road. “this is the fastest route, but be careful, it’s already very dark-”

“i can see that-”

“so, turn on your lights,” she smiled smugly, as you had forgotten to. “please.”

you did so, not without rolling your eyes, and went on your way to the place ningning had instructed you to.

it was a strangely secluded place out of the city, but it wasn’t far, you’ve heard about it. and now, visiting it at night, made you feel everything but safe.

the well-lit streets and nice buildings slowly turned into numerous alleys, and berated brick walls, a small rain had started, making the road a bit slippery too. you had to cover the canvases with your jacket to make sure they didn’t get ruined.

lamppost lights flickered over you, adding an eerie feel to the small voice in your head that told you to get out of here as soon as possible.

you were a few minutes away from your destination, no more than ten, when something strange happened, making you stop your bike.

the helmet got disconnected, the screen turning entirely black. you pressed the break on your motorcycle, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the lonely street.

“that’s strange,” you mumbled, taking off your helmet to inspect it, wanting for it to just be a small error, nothing grand.

your æ’s voice made the road seem less scary until now, that it shut off. for some reason it wouldn’t turn back on, so you had to restart the system.

the lights on your helmet soon slid through its accents, letting you know it was on. placing it over your head, you watched as the screen came to life, making you meet a white logo of the headwear company.

but then, it glitched, and then it glitched again, until the screen turned black, making you lose al hope in getting it back on.

“you’ve got to be kidding,” you sighed, looking down.

and in the middle of the screen, something else appeared. a logo similar to the æ, a snake slithering through the first letter.

that was the last you heard of your æ.

the news of a massive synk out soon were in everybody’s screens. people were all over the place, panicking, being scared. they didn’t know where their æ had gone, and nobody knew how it happened.

that night, the city had been blasting messages to the æ, and calling for anybody who had information about the synk out.

it felt incredibly alone. having someone by your side, that understood you, and had your back, and then not anymore, without a reason.

“-it has been five months since the phenomenon, called synk out. forcibly disconnected synk with æ’s across the city simultaneously-”

“move out of the way,” you interrupted the video playing on a girl’s phone in the audience. she jumped, turning quickly to face you, looking up at your face.

“i’m so sorry,” she apologized, recognizing your face.

five months. it was all it took you to become one of the best and fastest motorcycle racers. you had gone against countless of people, for now, no one had been able to beat you. and that’s how you wanted it to remain. you trusted your own instincts in these races, not looking for help from anyone.

“yeah, okay, so are you moving out of the way or?” you raised a brow at her, as she had been staring at you for a some seconds.

you pushed her out, and walked towards the road, seeing the bike parked at the starting line. getting on it, you were about to place your helmet on your head until a voice spoke.

“you know, you were just like that,” heeseung said, getting on his own bike, racing for the fun of it. he had already gone against you too many times to count, and even if it was hard always coming up in second place, the money of maintaining that place was worth it.

“what are you talking about?” you placed your helmet on your lap, looking at him with confusion on your face.

he rolled his eyes, pointing to your right. your eyes turned to look at the sight. the same girl which you had pushed out of the way, filming you, as she had a poster with your name on it.

your eyes slightly widened, and you sent a senseless nod, turning back to him, “what are you talking about?”

heeseung laughed at your words, as you had repeated the same question, but now with an entirely different tone and meaning. “i remember the day we met, a scaredy young girl, still in high school, who beamed away from home to come see her older brother race,” he started, making you feel a bit of nostalgia at the memory.

it was almost like it had been yesterday. when you snuck off to go cheer on your brother’s last race. he was leaving the city for university. you had always looked up to him, as he spent little time with you, making him that ‘cool mysterious older brother’.

you were so tiny in that small crowd of tall high schoolers and college students, looking for a familiar face. when you then bumped into a racer. he looked you in the eye, confused as to why a middle school girl was here, and in your point of view, he was going to beat you up, but you still admired how cool and awesome the rider looked, even attempting to take some pictures with him.

a boy and his friends ‘saved’ you, who now you know as heeseung, sunghoon and jake. the two last never raced, they only came to support heeseung, and occasionally you.

“i wasn’t obnoxious and annoying,” you retorted, sliding your helmet on, not wanting to hear more of it.

“were you not?” heeseung laughed, reaching over to punch you lightly, making you throw him a look he could feel, even if you had the visor covering your eyes.

your attention was back on the dim light street before you, as a familiar girl excitedly stood in the middle of it. ten motorcycles were standing in front of her menacingly, as they revved their engines.

she raced her hand in the air, and you leaned forward in anticipation, your chest almost touching the front of the bike. her hand fell, and quickly, all motorcycles zoomed past her at an incredibly fast pace, like ghosts.

you were behind two bikers, easily making your way past the others who were now behind you.

this was a familiar circuit, it was the last one you had used æ-yn’s help on, the last race she had completed with you. it almost felt like a duty to come first place on this race now. as if you owed it to her.

you were fast on the first two rounds, as you had come a few days ago to become more familiar with the streets and shortcuts. now, you were driving alongside heeseung, as he had the time to salute you mockingly, always having the time of his life on races.

it was a feeling hard to describe, you just had to experience it on your own, the rush on your muscles, your ragged breath, the heat of the engine near your legs, the vibrations of the motor under your fingertips, it was all human controlled.

this was all you.

at the last lap, you were head in head with another biker, as they tried to speed up past you, successfully doing so. you leaned forward once again, panting, as your bike cut through the air, taking up more velocity.

their bike clashed against your on the side, the adrenaline making it impossible to feel any pain, you couldn’t look anywhere but ahead of you now.

it was the closest call ever, but like always, you came in first.

you were in a bliss, it felt good winning, knowing nobody could be better at this than you. the crowd swarmed around you, some congratulating you and some others challenging you, thinking they would be the ones to beat you.

in the midst of it all, you looked to the side, seeing a familiar figure leaning on a wall, and when they noticed you, they immediately went to hide behind it.

you furrowed your brows, dismissing some people without paying attention to them, as you tried to cross the street with some difficultly, there was just so many people.

you managed to pry some of them off and get away, wanting to know what this was about. as you got to the alley, two hands grabbed your jacket, pulling you closer with great force.

your back collided with the wall, making you wince, and look up at the person. “ why are you here?! what is your problem karina?!” you said in anger.

karina wore her hair down, a big jacket over her, as she stepped back with an incredulous look, “what is my problem?! what is yours?! we haven’t heard from you in months, and now we find out you’re this hardcore illegal racer?”

“i don’t like the word hardcore,” you cringed, looking to the side, “and i don’t see why it has anything to do with you, the four of you know i’ve been doing this since forever,” you spoke back.

she shook her head, clearly distraught, “yeah, well, i didn’t think throwing your life away, ignoring your friends and family was that serious to you,” she pushed her finger with blame into your chest, “and i’ve told you, not to wear shorts while racing.”

you frowned and looked down at your legs, seeing a big portion of your skin bleeding, and scratched, bruised. probably from when you crashed with the other biker side to side.

“oh my god,” you swallowed, breathing heavily, feeling as if your legs were giving out. all the adrenaline and rush made you not feel the pain, but now it coursed through you incredibly hot, making your skin feel almost burning to the touch.

“karina i’m-”

“don’t say it,” she warned.

“i’m going to die,” you wailed. ever since you were a kid, you hated getting hurt, small scars from playing outside, cuts from cooking or bumping into someone. it made you feel sick.

you’ve never broken a bone, got stung by a bee nor stepped into glass. all the time you’ve been careful not to put yourself into small harms way, except for the fact that you quite literally sit in a bike and race and do crazy life-challenging stunts.

“okay, calm down,” karina sighed, going over to your side, and looping her arm around your shoulders, “my apartment is close, let’s get you fixed up,” she smiled.

inside, she was trying not to flinch at how much your wound must hurt, from the small look she took, karina could tell it was deep, and you were likely in extreme pain right now. so she wanted to act nice to make you feel a bit light headed, and not think about pain so much.

“no, wait-” you stopped on your tracks, “i’m not going to walk all the way over there,” you scoffed, feeling as if daggers were puncturing your leg repeatedly.

“i brought my car dumbass,” she laughed, helping you to walk.

“okay.” you breathed, “okay, okay. wait!” you stopped again, now making her groan in annoyance, “what now?”

“my motorcycle! call heeseung! tell him to take it with him,” you nodded, almost vulnerable, looking up at her with teary-red eyes.

“alright,” karina reassured you, holding you closer, “i’ll let him know once we get you to my car,” she continued saying warmly.

karina did in fact call him, and even turned on the speaker, letting heeseung call you very not-nice names because you got hurt on impulse.

the ride to her apartment was quick, not more than a couple of short minutes, but it was just enough for you to fall asleep, your body not wanting to be awake to feel the pain of the wound any longer, as your muscles had also grown tired from the race.

karina made the effort to carry you upstairs, trying not to get blood on her white jeans, and even almost waking you up and having you walk all the way up there by yourself, but she didn’t.

she much preferred having your blood on her white jeans.

months ago she would have woke you up, telling you how stupid and reckless you had acted, but now, she knew just how important these raced were for you, even if it was done in a non-normative way. she respected it, and was glad that something kept you going.

once she got to her apartment, she got the help of three others to clean you up, getting the dirty clothes off and fixing up your wound the best they could, reminding themselves to take you to the hospital as soon as they could tomorrow if you got bad.

your consciousness slowly started to get back later at night. your body was incredibly sore and tired, but too much preoccupations woke up your mind.

looking around, you noticed you were in karina’s living room, on her couch. trying to stand up, your leg instantly started burning, and you looked down to see it wrapped in a bandage, a bit of blood leaking through the white.

you had a big shirt on, with some rockets and spaceships printed on it, and a pair of cookie monster shorts on. aside from that, the tv was on, and you noticed four pair of shoes by the doorway.

“fuck no…” you whispered, knowing exactly who was in the apartment with you right now.

you had a feeling it was past midnight and they were asleep, as no noises coursed the apartment apart from your heavy breathing, so it was okay to assume you were safe to go get water.

slowly walking in your heels, you made your way to the kitchen, trying to feel around for the cups cabinet, and as if luck had completely vanished from your side, you dropped a handful of things that came tumbling down to the ground, making a loud continuous noise of metal clashing against each other.

“of course,” you grumbled, soon hearing a light turn on from a bedroom, as someone came out from it.

you dropped to the floor, hiding behind the kitchen isle, as winter came closer to the kitchen, looking around confusedly, not being able to spot what had made the noise.

cursing to yourself for the inconvenient hiding spot, your leg started to hurt even more. it was too much pain to tolerate. so you had to stand up abruptly, scaring the girl standing right on the other side of the kitchen isle.

“ahhhhh!” winter swung at you with her hand, but you stopped her, grabbing her wrist, “stop! it’s me!”

winter blinked, and stepped back, looking at the living room, where your previous resting spot was left alone, “oh, you’re up,” she spoke calmly, her heart beating quickly from the scare.

“yeah i’m up,” you turned around, now having enough illumination to be able to get a cup of water, and pick up everything you dropped.

“you’re not really quiet,” winter giggled, dragging out a chair from underneath the counter, jumping on it, “but again, you’ve always been rowdy.” she pouted.

“uh huh,” you replied back, not really interested, not wanting to face her, nor the rest any time soon.

you turned on the tap, watching as the water infuriatingly slowly filled the cup. your finger tapped against the side of it, as if to hurry it up.

“oh hey,” winter spoke, her voice tired, as you heard another pair of footsteps come into the kitchen.

“winter? y/n? why are you two up?” ningning yawned, and then remembered, “wait, y/n, what about your-”

“yes, it hurts,” you turned off the tap, and turned to them. both looked a bit different. ningning’s hair lighter, and winter had cute it shorter, also making it darker, like chocolate.

“then why are you up?” ningning shook her head, a few pieces of hair falling down to her face. you raised your water, that being your answer.

that was always your answer. absolutely nothing.

for months they have been trying to get closer to you. the day ningning sent you out to deliver the canvases, was the last they saw of that y/n. in essence you were still her, but you had changed, as people do with time.

with no æ around, you were just you. no y/n and æ-yn, anymore at least. and with all your winnings, you felt as if it was for the better, the synk out. it wasn’t that you had thought of getting rid of your æ. that though never even once crossed your mind, but it was nice not relying on her, but relying on the actual you.



MASTERLIST.

ALL CHAPTERS.

NEXT CHATER.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER.

[galaxywarp]

PLEASE give your thoughts on responsible data backing up because i don't know anything about it or computers beyond my google drive (which is full, and i hate google). or reblog your last post about it if it's back there!! I'm so poor and scared for my artwork :')

3-2-1 backup method never fails:

3 TOTAL copies of your file (at least): the original, and two duplicates

2 DIFFERENT storage methods for the file

1 OFFSITE backup

Simplest example:

You have a picture you want to back up. Let’s call it Picture.jpg. You make a copy of this picture and put it on a flash drive and store the flash drive somewhere safe. You also use a cloud service such as google drive or onedrive or icloud etc to make a copy

Now you have 3 total copies of your picture. The original, and two back ups that are in 2 different locations: one on a flash drive and one in a cloud.

The cloud exists OFFSITE. it’s not in your home. so in case there’s some sort of natural disaster or fire or robbery, your picture is safe. You can also fulfill this requirement by putting a flash drive somewhere safe, such as at a trusted friend or family’s home. But you want to make sure at least one backup is offsite. Because think about it, if your room flooded and ruined both your computer/phone and your flash drive, you would lose your picture unless a copy exists somewhere else.

There’s countless different ways to utilize this method and it all depends on what your own personal needs are. You may use CDs instead of flash drives if you’re backing up music. You may go as far as I did and make your own server for offsite file storage. But from beginner to advanced, the 3-2-1 method will keep your files safe.

[john-macnamara]

PEIP Incident Report Released by ███████ to Tumblr Blog "john-macnamara" 03/13/2024. Subject: General John MacNamara; Elimination of Enemies

Incident #1: December █, 20██. Persons Involved: Colonel Wilbur R. Cross; Major Johnathan S. MacNamara; Lt. Colonel Rosalind B. Schaffer; Agent Xander P. Lee. Location: █████████, NM

At approximately 20:35, a standard mission update was sent in by Col. Cross. Team was instructed to stay put and wait for further instructions. The next two mission updates were unreported. At 22:14, a transmission was sent to Col. Cross. Was picked up by Lt. Schaffer, quote: "Cross is in unstable condition, Lee providing medical assistance. MacNamara in a fire fight with ██████, ███████, and █████. Prepared for further instruction."

The team was left without further instruction. At approximately 1:00, a final transmission was sent. Quote: " ██████, ███████, and █████ incapacitated. MacNamara defied orders under extenuating circumstances, ████ ████████ has been eliminated. Cross has been stabilized. Prepared for extraction. We are sorry."

Post-Incident: Col. Cross was sent to the New Mexico center for emergency medical aid, recovered within one week. Lt. Schaffer given the chance to explain the circumstances, Maj. MacNamara unpunished. Maj. MacNamra also required to take a two-week leave of absence due to his mental state post mission. Viewed this as a punishment.

Incident #2: August ██, 20██. Persons Involved: Brigandine General Johnathan S. MacNamara; ████ ███████; ████ █████████; ███████ ████; █████ ██████; Major General Truman E. Youngerman; Colonel Rosalind B. Schaffer; Lieutenant Colonel Harriet Y. Smith. Location: ███████, ██.

On ████ ██, ████, Brig. Gen. MacNamara disappeared from his station in Point Pleasant, WV. Unresponsive, filed as MIA 48 hours later. On ██████ ██, ████, a message sent to Maj. Gen. Youngerman. Read: "A little birdie told me you were missing a general. Give us the information before he does. You have 72 hours before your general dies."

Maj. Gen. Youngerman provided Col. Schaffer with a hard drive filled with falsified and/or outdated information. She was instructed to swap it for Brig. Gen. MacNamara. Took Lt. Smith as backup. Backup was needed. ████ ███████, ████ █████████, █████ ██████ pulled weapons on the two agents, resulting in a short firefight with all three adversaries eliminated.

Brig. Gen. MacNamara found in a state of half-consciousness, showing signs of heavy torture. Dead body of ███████ ████ found in corner of room. Brig. Gen. MacNamara found clutching the knife. Was sedated and taken to the intensive care unit at MSHS.

Post-Incident: No more information could be found on kidnappers. Brig. Gen. MacNamara made a recovery within 54 days. Retains minor hand tremors, ensure he is still able to consistently aim. Promoted to Maj. Gen. upon his return.

Incident #3: June ██, 20██. Persons Involved: Major Chunhua N. Shào; Major General Johnathan S. MacNamara; Lieutenant Colonel Harriet Y. Smith; Major Ishaan D. Bhavsar; Private Reese G. Dobler. Location: Yellowstone National Park, WY.

Team instructed to remain in cabin and observe impacts of extraterrestrial substances on biological organisms. On May ██, 20██, the escape of a presumed non-sentient substance was reported by Maj. Gen. MacNamara. Previous data had proven a possession of both living and dead organisms. The substance would slowly replace the original matter with it's own. Only able to spread via fluid, however.

Maj. Gen. MacNamara prevented his team from becoming infected in quarantine for twenty days. On June ██, 20██, Maj. Shào reported feelings of dizziness. Throughout the next few days, Maj. Shào showed more signs of infection until it was undeniable. Maj. Shào was a host for the substance. Maj. Gen. MacNamara was given the order to eliminate her. After 17 hours of deliberation, a report was sent in. Quote: "I... I killed her. Chunhua's dead. It was quick, I shot her in the head when *sob* she was sleeping. We burnt her body. There's nothing- *sob* there's nothing left. The threat has been eliminated. Extraction is no longer a risk. *hic* Over."

Post-Incident Report: Maj. Gen. MacNamara and his remaining team members were extracted the next day and given proper medical treatment for minor malnutrition and dehydration. Maj. Shào promoted to Lt. Col. postmortem. Her stipend will be sent to her family, and a funeral will be held on June 24, 20██. For his skills in handling the situation, and following of orders, plans have been made to promote Maj. Gen, MacNamara to four-star general.

[thesophiades]

anyways its extremely telling that i did not listen to my misgivings and have wound up like this

in active withdrawal AND losing to thoughts of wanting to kill myself. cool