#and to do THAT I need to unplug the tablet

[shrublee]

Sometimes I remember I haven't made a fully colored drawing in awhile and get upset at myself THEN I REMEMBER THAT MY TABLET IS LITERALLY BROKEN????

LIKE WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO???

[specialagentlokitty]

Carol Danvers x reader - just us

Adjusting your blazer, you turned to the bar where your drink was sat and took a sip of it, setting it back down as you turned your attention across the room.

“Staring really isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

You flicked your gaze to the side, shrugging a little bit.

“I’m not staring Fury, and I’m only here because you’re an asshole and you dragged my add to this Damn event.”

He ordered a drink and stood in front of you, swirling the drink about in his glass.

“Look, i ain’t going to get involved in whatever crap you got going on. But Im tired of seeing you staring at her.”

“Look, you’re probably my only friend Fury, but im not going to listen to this.”

“Damn, your only friend? Seriously?”

“Shut up.”

Grabbing your drink, you leant against the bar, staring on to the dance floor where everybody was mingling around, a few of them dancing.

You immediately found the familiar blondish hair of the woman you had been looking at.

“Just go talk to her.”

“Everybody’s watching her.”

Fury picked up his drink, doing the same thing as you.

“And she’s looking at you.”

“Stop lying asshole.”

“I’m not lying!”

You turned away from Carol, looking towards Fury.

“I assume this isn’t a social call to tell me to stop looking at beautiful women, so, why are you really here?”

“Business call, shall we?”

He gestured to the balcony and you nodded, making your way outside.

You closed the doors and walked over to a bench, sitting down next to Fury.

He reached into his jacket, pulling out a hard drive.

“No tablet?”

“Strictly confidential, once you access this file it’ll wipe itself clean, so make sure you get everything you need before unplugging it.”

You slowly nodded.

“We had a hit with that asshat you brought in a few weeks ago, he finally spoke, told us everything we need to do.”

“So, what’re we looking at?”

He pulled out his tablet this time.

Pulling something up he handed it over to you and you looked at the blueprints of the building.

“This is your first target, whatever is in this building we need it cleared out.”

“Like it never existed?”

“I like the way you think (L/N).”

“Time frame?”

“End of the week, get what you need, round up everybody you need.”

“I’ll start on it right away.”

“Good, I’m trusting you on this.”

With that, Fury pushed himself up and made his way to the doors.

“Just talk to her!”

“Bite me!”

You turned the tablet off, holding it and the hard drive in your hand as you made your way back into the building.

Making your way to the elevator, you stood inside and headed to the floor you needed before walking down the hallway.

You were at least ten floors below that one, but you could still hear the music faintly through the floors.

Standing in front of your office, you placed your hand on the scanner and unlocked the door, making your way inside.

Setting everything down, you took your blazer off and hung it up on the back of the door.

You had a long night ahead of you, and you stood in front of your screen, pulling up files for different agents to go through them.

You were building up a list of agents to accompany you on your next mission when there was a knock on the door.

Reaching for your gun, you slowly walked to the door, placing it against the back and pulled it open a crack.

“Don’t shoot?” Carol grinned a little.

“You should know not to sneak up on an agent Danvers.”

You opened the door to let her in, putting your gun away.

“Aren’t you going to the party?”

You rolled your eyes a little bit.

“It’s a formal event and you know that, a front for us to be able to get close to some high value targets.”

“Well, yeah of course I know that it’s why Nick asked me to come.”

You nodded your head a little bit, going back to what you were doing.

“It’s fun though, you should really come back up.”

“I’ve got work to be doing.”

She grinned a little bit.

“Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t get all dressed up like that for nothing.”

“I got all dressed up because I had no choice in the matter.”

Furrowing your brows as you looked at the blueprints for the building you were going to be raiding, you closed them.

“Give me a moment I need to focus.”

You grabbed the hard drive and put it into your laptop, reading through everything while Carol just wondered your office, looking around.

You read over everything then took the hard drive you, plugging it back in to make sure it was wiped clean.

Once you were sure it was, you stood up.

“We need to head to the dark room.”

“Oh, okay. Why?”

“Classified Danvers.”

“Come on, Nick would tell me.”

You shrugged a little, grabbing your blazer and tablet, guiding her out of the room.

You took her back to the lift and slapped her hand as she tried to take the tablet from you.

“I’m not Fury, I’m not going to show you.”

“Maybe if you weren’t a world class superhero sure, but this is more a in and out undetected kind of mission.”

“I can do that.”

“No you can’t.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I’ve seen videos of you fighting, here catch.”

You tossed your blazer at her and walked over to a computer console to plug the tablet in.

Pulling up blueprints of the building, you pulled them up on a bigger hologram of it so you could get a better insight.

“Come on, don’t be boring.”

“Working Danvers, go bother somebody else.”

“Don’t be so mean come on (Y/N), I just want to help. Or to you know, drag you back up to that event you’re supposed to be attending.”

You glanced at her, highlighting all the escape routes on the blueprints.

“You aren’t even supposed to be here.”

“Maybe I had a reason to come.” She grinned.

“Right, and whatever that reason is I’m sure it’s upstairs on the top floor.”

Carol walked over, spinning the blueprints around, highlighting another escape route.

“What if it’s in this room?”

You glanced at her, furrowing your brows a little.

“I doubt it.”

“Seriously? You’ve got no ideas? No hints?”

“Danvers I’m busy, I need to work.”

“Oh my god. Seriously? You have absolutely no idea what I’m in about? Not even a little?”

You shrugged a little.

“How come one person be so smart yet so stupid at the same time?”

“Is this supposed to prove your point? Because I don’t think calling me stupid is going to do anything.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.”

Carol walked over to the console and while you were working in the blueprints she changed them into a photo of the galaxy.

“Really?”

She walked over, throwing the stars higher into the room, and walked over, smiling softly at you, holding her hand out.

“I wanted you to dance with me.”

“You didn’t think to just ask?”

“Would you have said yes?”

“No, I don’t dance.”

Carol smirked a little.

“You don’t know how to dance do you?”

“That’s not relevant.”

“Oh my god you don’t!” She laughed.

Walking over you covered her mouth with your hand.

“Shut it. Okay, I don’t know how to dance.” You hissed.

Carol moved your hand.

“Aw come on that’s adorable.”

“It’s not..”

Carol held out her hand.

“I’ll teach you, it’s easy. Please?”

“Danvers.”

“Come on! I just want to dance with someone!”

“There’s loads of people upstairs.”

You began to walk to the console and she stopped you.

“But they’re not you (Y/N). I came to the event because I knew you were going to be here and I thought there was no better time to ask you to dance.”

You sighed, looking at her with her soft smile, beautiful dress, hair done up nicely.

Rolling your eyes, you held your hand out to her.

“One dance.”

“That’s all I need.”

You both began to dance among the hologram stars, and she smirked a little at you.

“You liar, you can dance.”

“I thought you’d leave.”

“Am I really that bad?”

You rolled your eyes, smiling a little as you shook your head.

“Absolutely.”

Carol laughed, settling her arms around your neck and you rose a brow at her.

“You look good in a suit.”

“Stop.”

“It’s true, I mean don’t get me wrong your usually shirt and tie, great, but a suit, now that’s what I love.”

“Danvers..”

Carol smirked a little, she leant forward, her head next to yours.

“I know you’ve been watching me all night..” she whispered.

When she pulled back you looked at her, and she ducked her head, softly kissing you.

You kissed her back, and quickly pulled away, pointing at her.

“No.”

“No! Don’t do that!” She whined.

You changed the stars back to the blueprints and walked back over, still examining them.

Carol walked over, dropping herself on your back, her arms around your shoulders.

“Stop being so dramatic.”

“You can’t kiss me then walk away that’s not fair!”

“I think I already did.”

Bringing your hand up, you placed it on her arm.

Carol rested her chin on your shoulder, watching as you messed with the blueprints, running some simulations.

“So… does this mean you’re gonna stop avoiding me?” She whispered.

“Classified.”

“(Y/N)!”

You grinned a little to yourself, patting her arm.

Carol just smiled, keeping herself there, arms wrapped around you.

After a while you stopped what you were doing and you turned around.

“Come on then.”

“Where?”

“Let’s go dance, but we’re going to the roof I’m not dancing in front of everybody.”

“Deal!”

You put everything securely away.

Carol grabbed your hand and she dragged you out of the room to the stairwell with a huge grin on her face and you just laughed a little bit as you followed her.

It was like a forbidden love, two people running away from the rest of the world and that’s just what you wanted.

No worry about the world, just you and her, dancing away on the roof of the building.

It was perfect

[foxglovefaun]

i have a loving and desperate reminder for folks working on large/long term projects in digital format:

it's unwise to make the "cloud" your primary location for data storage. making back-ups in them is fine, but the most secure place for your work is on an ext hard disk that you can detach from your machine, and on multiple copies if you can manage/afford it. (and dont forget to unplug your ext drives when not actively using them!!)

if you dont have access to a personal computer, the public library in your area likely has computers available that you can use. even if theyre not powerhouse machines, they can do what's needed in order for you to back up your stuff. using the internet there you can access your phone/tablet cloud storage online and copy your work onto your external drive. it's definitely inconvenient, but it's probably more convenient than losing your entire library of personal work, writing, and photos.

discord stopped hosting images not that long ago which broke a lot of hyperlinks for personal web projects, google is doing sinister google stuff and is probably going to continue to do so, and we're sort of teetering on a major data/archive crisis that definitely won't put people like us first. corporations are not interested in protecting you. you are the only person who can keep your artwork, writing, and photos secure. ❤️ 🙏

i love you ❤️ pls protect your passion projects ;-; dont let corps decide if your work lives or dies pls back up your digital stuff

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Featuring: Stuck on Repeat

Summary: The jukebox will need to be replaced. It's cracked in three places and stuck on "What’s New Pussycat," a fact that took them about twenty minutes to realize before Thresh tried smacking the thing around to get it to shut up -- with no luck. He had to unplug it. The tinkling of broken glass being swept up provides a fitting accompaniment to the questioning as Darius flips open his tablet and levels Katniss with a serious look.

“Can you tell me how the fight started, Miss Everdeen?” She scowls at his use of a formal name for her, like he doesn’t spend every other Saturday in here, knocking back beers with his cop buddies, flirting shamelessly with her, and avoiding whatever fight he just had with Glimmer, his girlfriend.

Rating: E for explicit sexual content, explicit language, ptsd, bar fights, minor character death (after a long and fulfilling life tho and it happens off screen)

A/N: So I don't remember the exact sequence of events that led to this story. I do recall something about a post, maybe a prompt from a writing blog idk, but the gist of it was something about your otp meeting because they're both hiding behind the bar during a bar fight. I received an anonymous ask requesting I write it. I actually started writing on Election Day 2016 and the piece featured campaign worker!Peeta wearing a shirt supporting a woman candidate for president and Katniss out for drinks with a few friends when the fight breaks out, but well... as election night wore on, I lost all inspiration whatsoever. I've long since deleted that file because I just could not return to it.

The prompt sat unfulfilled in my inbox for almost a year while my personal life went through a boatload of change, to include a cross country move, a month living with my in-laws (ugh), speed moving into our first house before a tropical storm hit the area (also because we could not last one damn minute longer with Mr. kdnfb's parents). And then, after all the dust settled, I finally managed to produce the first part of what became Stuck on Repeat. It flowed pretty fast after that and became a fun little four part ficlet that's just over 21k words, with smut in every chapter and some shameless fluff. Also Peeta has a southern accent in this, for anyone who might like that sort of thing. And so, I present again bar fight!Everlark.

Stuck on Repeat on AO3

[copperbadge]

Now that I’m home and avoiding work, notes from the Europe trip in terms of travel and...for lack of a better word self-care, but it’s really more like, accessibility centered around being a) anxious and b) over forty. 

-- The ability to do laundry was nice. I’d anticipated it would be helpful but not nearly as helpful as it was. Also having a fridge was super convenient, and having an oven was a nice perk in London and Rome. 

-- I planned to be able to do laundry so I only brought five days’ worth of clothes, and some were ‘disposable’ which was also convenient -- I brought my oldest underwear that I would have thrown out soon anyway, an extremely old pajama shirt, and at least one pair of trousers that was, as it were, on its last legs. That all worked fantastically; when I ran out of room in the suitcase on the last day of the trip I just tossed the trousers, and I’d already thrown out most of the underwear. 

-- I was more self-conscious than anticipated about my language limitations, which led to a lot of avoidance -- not anything I really wanted to do, like museums and the football match, but things I could have done, like eating out or going into shops. It was mostly to do with the look people got on hearing English out of my mouth. So either I need to learn more basic phrases or be more prepared for the look. (To be fair, in Rome I would say mi dispiace, sono American and they’d immediately be cool.) 

-- My stash of granola/protein bars was clutch, and going to a grocery store for staples was also very helpful. Turns out wherever you go, even if they don’t have Diet Coke, they almost always have babybel cheese.

-- No day trips between cities. Going from London to Cambridge and back for the day was great; going from London to Amsterdam to Paris in a single day was not. If I’m going somewhere new and not going back somewhere familiar at end of day, I need to get there, sleep, have a full day there, and leave either that evening or the following morning at minimum.

-- Relatedly: I don’t have to do this thing anymore where I book early departures or late arrivals because they’re cheap and don’t use up my vacation time. They only make me anxious. From now on even if it ‘wastes’ a day, I only book travel that departs and arrives during daylight hours. It’s always fine, nothing bad happens, but the anxiety is Too Much.  

-- The tablet and bluetooth keyboard in lieu of a laptop worked well. It wasn’t much lighter or more compact, but I was less worried about theft and because it charged via USB I didn’t have to wrangle an extra cord, I could just unplug my phone and plug the tablet in. That configuration also fit in my very small bag where a laptop wouldn’t, so I could carry it in my bag while in transit and not have to get my luggage out of the rack. 

-- The Very Small Bag (a map case) worked fine but while I didn’t need a bigger one I could have used one with more pockets. I was always losing the exact thing I needed in the jumble at the bottom of the bag. I think for longer trips I prefer a small messenger bag that has both a reasonable main cargo compartment but also pockets for stuff like passport and spare battery. 

Overall, a lot of the stuff I’d planned went off well, so at this point it’s less about logistics -- what to pack, how to pack it -- than it is about arranging things to lower anxiety and make transitions easier. That kind of thing sometimes you just need to experience in order to know how to handle it, so that’s fine. Next time I won’t be angry about Amsterdam when it’s not Amsterdam’s fault, or stuck waiting for a bus late at night at Rome Termini.  

[bibbityboppitybillyharvgrove]

Age of Machine - B.Barnes

Summary - Bucky and his wife just want their kids to unplug from the electronics and the internet for the holidays, so they take a trip to a cabin in the mountains. 

Word Count - 812

Warnings - Use of Y/N, female reader, mentions of food, not proofread

Author’s Note - I know this was uploaded later than I wanted but welcome to day 14! Two weeks in and somehow still going strong! Of course I had to add one of my favorite songs by my favorite band into at least one of my fics. I hope you enjoy!

my masterlist

25 days of fics masterlist

Feedback is welcomed and encouraged!

Enjoy!

not my gif

not my gif

Bucky had taken notice that as his twins got older, they were more attached to their phones, reliant on the internet. He was getting tired of his kids texting back and forth when they were right next to each other. In turn, he brought up an idea to his wife, that for the holidays they should rent a cabin in the mountains which she thought was a great idea. The couple just wanted to have quality family time together, no electronics, no internet, no cable, just them and maybe a record player.

With Bucky’s avenger status, he was able to find one last minute at a good price. The deal was, the kids wouldn’t have their phones or tablets, they would bring a record player with them and some records and the only person that will have a phone is Bucky. As the kids packed, Y/N popped into their rooms and snagged their phones and tablets as well as making sure their laptops were sitting on their desks.

Their kids were in high school so at this point, they were quite upset that their electronics weren’t coming along with them on the trip. “I don’t want to hear any whining. You need to unplug from the internet for a few days. Tell your friends that you won’t have any internet or phones until after Christmas. If there’s an emergency they can call your father’s cell,” Y/N explained to the twins. In classic teenager fashion, the two of them groaned but complied with telling their friends that they won’t have their phones until after Christmas.

After everyone was packed, they got into the car and drove off towards the mountains. Bucky had assured his wife that there was a record player there and to just bring a few records to switch through for the 3 days they were going to be there. It was a 3 hour drive to get there, the kids sleeping most of the time as their parents quietly made their plans in the front seats. 

“If there’s not a lot of snow maybe we should do a hike together. That’s my favorite way to check out scenery in a new place,” Y/N suggested to her husband.

“Do you really think they would want to go on a hike with us? We’re not cool anymore, didn’t you get the memo? Apparently it’s not cool to have an Avenger as a dad,” Bucky joked to his wife, earning a slight giggle from her.

“It was never cool to have a teacher as a parent, especially if their friends are failing my class,” She joked back.

As they pulled into the cabin’s driveway, Y/N shook the twins awake. “Time to wake up babes, we’re here. You guys need to help me and dad bring everything inside.” She earned a noncommittal grunt from Steve and a groan from Sarah. “Let’s go you two. You’ll have plenty of time to sleep once we get settled in.”

The twins slowly got out of the car, going to the trunk and grabbing a few things before heading inside after their dad. They got themselves settled and then got comfy on the couch, squished between their parents. Their first night wasn’t very eventful, just settling in and lounging with each other.

However, the next morning was where the fun began. Y/N and Bucky working in the kitchen to make a huge breakfast for their family. They had all of the twins’ favorites as well as their own favorites, a Christmas record being spun on the player as the couple bustled around in the kitchen. Sarah and Steve hadn’t woken up until after breakfast was ready and the table was set. They ate breakfast together like they did every single morning, having sleepy conversations about their weeks and how they felt sleeping in the cabin.

The kids were already bored, which is when Bucky pulled out his worn out copy of The Hobbit from his bag. Y/N had started a fire to help warm up the cabin and changed the record over to her personal favorite album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate by Greta Van Fleet, trying to line up the needle to the right spot to play a song that was very fitting for what they were trying to drill into their children, Age of Machine. A song about relying too much on technology and needing to unplug from it.

As the song started, so did Bucky, rekindling their old holiday tradition of reading The Hobbit to their kids. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

[lookingfts]

Protective sugar daddy Anthony is it. Can we see anything of him being protective of Kate? *swoon*

She didn't want to call him. Genuinely, she didn't. It was embarrassing, and he would think she was young and stupid - or younger and stupider than he already did. But her phone was on three percent (not her fault, Eddie had thought it a wise idea to unplug it so she could charge her tablet) and would be long dead before an Uber came. Assuming, of course, that they would even come this far out.

Cursing Siena for the twelfth time for leaving with some random, she took a steeling breath and tapped on Anthony’s number.

“Hey,” he said, sounding a bit confused. It was nearly two in the morning, but from what she’d seen, Anthony didn’t sleep very much. “Are you okay?”

“Not really?” Recalling the low battery, Kate thought she might as well spit it all out. “I’m at this party with no way home and I’m honestly super drunk and tired and I was wondering if you would pick me up because my phone is really close to dying.”

There was a sharp inhale on the other line. “Text me the address, I’ll be right there. And wait inside, I don’t want you outside alone.”

“Okay.” She hung up and texted him the address, putting her phone back to sleep. Her heart fluttered a little at the now-familiar concern in his voice. Maybe it was the tequila talking, but Anthony had a way of making her feel…cared for. Safe. It was probably just a side effect of being the oldest of eight siblings, but Kate let herself be won over by it anyway. Just for tonight, just while she was drunk and not responsible for her silly and naive musings.

She watched from the window. Anthony’s Tesla pulled up thirty minutes later, and she stumbled a bit in her heels as she walked down the driveway. Anthony was already getting out, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over her bare shoulders. “Christ, you must be freezing.”

“I’m fine, but thank you.” The cold air was actually quite sobering, though she could hear her words slurring slightly. Placing a hand on his chest, right over his heart, she looked up at his worried expression. “Thank you. I know it’s late.”

Anthony shook his head. “I don’t care about that. I’m glad you called me, Kate. Always call me.”

She was having a bit of trouble processing that as he held the door open for her and she slid into the passenger seat. Kate had always been the person everyone else called in an emergency, but it didn’t usually go both ways. Would Anthony really be there anytime she needed him? Or was that just another hollow promise?

God, she was too drunk for this.

Kate laid back in the seat and let the warmth of the heater thaw her out. “Drink that,” Anthony said, pointing to the unopened bottle of water in the center console. “I’ll get you some paracetamol when we’re back at mine.”

Of course they were going back to his flat. It wasn’t even a discussion. Even if a part of her bristled at the demand, the rest of her was a little relieved that she wouldn’t have to find the correct key to her flat or find her phone charger or take off her dress or her makeup or her heels. Anthony would make sure she got into bed as functionally as possible.

She opened the water and took a long sip, feeling like a new person. Clearly she was dehydrated.

“Kate,” he sighed, placing a gentle hand on her knee. Surprisingly chaste, far below the hem that hit at her mid-thighs. “You scared me tonight. You shouldn’t be out alone.”

“I wasn’t alone. I was with my friend, but she left.”

Anthony swallowed, his face still obviously tense. “I know I don’t have any say in what you do when you’re not with me,” he said deliberately. “But I still worry about you.”

Sliding her hand over his, she squeezed his fingers. “I like that you worry about me,” she admitted in a small voice, letting the alcohol embolden her to speak what was in her heart. Just for tonight.

The only indication that he’d heard her was his thumb pressing into her skin, but Kate thought she knew what he meant, anyway.

[grayishgiggles]

Annoyance Failsafe

When Lyla pushes Miguel past his point of patience, he finds a clever solution to shut her up.

GIF by aenhanse

———

“Can you stop playing that for one second?”

“Playing what?” The tiny warm hologram of a woman taunted, fiddling with her phone. Lyla was on round three of her song, smirking up at the disgruntled scowl of Miguel.

“You’re doing it on purpose now.” He said, mindlessly swatting her like a bug on his shoulder. His hand phased through her harmlessly. “You know I need to focus.”

He gestured to the report he was typing out, something about another Doc Ock, accompanied with a multiverse map. “Another anomaly and I’m not even close to pinpointing his universe location.”

“Sucks to be you, then.”

Miguel inhaled sharply, “You know, I built you for this kinda stuff, right? But no, now you’re just being annoying, and I don’t know why.”

“Hey!” Lyla stood up. She glitched to his other shoulder. “From what I remember, you programmed this sass in me, and this outfit, and my annoying-ness. So ultimately, this is just the consequences of your actions, Miggy.”

Miguel scoffed at that.

Lyla only took it as ammo. She huffed, swiping open a tablet and tapping a few buttons on the blue screen.

The speakers in the room squeaked, then blasted the music from before:

“♫ AH AH BARBIE YOU’RE SO FINE! YOU’RE SO FINE YOU BLOW MY MIND! ♫”

All muscle in his body tensed. Miguel remained frozen, slowly craning his neck over. Lyla just sat there, a shit eating grin spread across her staticky appearance. She turned up the volume.

“♫ JUMP INTO THE DRIVER’S SEAT AND PUT IT INTO SPEED DRIVE! ♫”

Miguel didn’t budge, glaring daggers. “You’re pushing it.”

“What’re you gonna do? Unplug me?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You’re no fun!”

“Lyla, shut it off. Please.”

“Sorry,” she was bopping her head to the beat, “can’t hear you over my amazing music taste.”

“Lyla!” The man bared his fangs. She only giggled. “Easy, tiger! Ok, fine.”

“♫ AH AH BARBIE YOU’RE SO FINE! YOU’RE SO FINE YOU BLOW MY MIND! ♫”

“I said ‘off,’ not quieter.”

Lyla shrugged, glitching over to sit at the motherboard. “I couldn’t hear you.”

The older man could have thrown his chair into her little smug 7 inch tall body. He could’ve raked his claws through the motherboard, taking up keys and wires and probably ruining his hard work in a blind rage. Hell, he could’ve stormed off like a big baby.

But no. He held his tongue.

Lyla’s smile faded when Miguel turned to a new screen. “Ohhh come on, Mig, I was being fun.”

He didn’t pay mind, mumbling as his hands worked tirelessly with some coding.

“You know I can overwrite that, right?”

Miguel hummed doubtfully, sliding the code into another window.

“Dude, silent treatment from you doesn’t work on me anymore.”

His eyes darted between functions and numbers, focusing on an error he made in the input. “Damn.”

“Are you trying to put me to sleep again? You can’t, like, literally can’t.”

Miguel seemed to fix the error, exporting it into yet again another window. His hand reached towards another file: Lyla.

“Hey. I dunno what you’re attaching to me but I can reject it.” Lyla tapped a button on her phone. All it gave her was a giant ERROR. “Oh come on!”

A loading bar swiped through swimmingly on Miguel’s screen. Up came a “ATTACHMENT COMPLETE” window.

Lyla stood up. She may have not been programmed with fear but this was pretty close. “I know you wouldn’t get rid of me.”

“And I won’t,” Miguel finally spoke, clearing out all the extra windows he had up. His eyes were stuck on one. His hands pinched it so it would maximize. “You just need a failsafe.”

“Why? You installed like six of them so I don’t corrupt.”

“I’m talking about an annoyance failsafe, not a corruption one.” O’Hara’s tone remained cool and to the point, maybe a bit too cold. But Lyla, Lyla saw something in his eyes. She loaded various facial expression scans through her system. All that came up was mischief. Lyla giggled, taking her heart-shaped glasses off. “You’re trying to act scary. It’s not working. You’re gonna get me back, aren’t ya?”

Miguel had formed the window in his hands, molding it into a sphere, softball size. “You know that update you put in my suit for April Fool’s?”

“Oh, this one?”

Miguel jolted and clutched his sides. A buzz of electric tingles ran through his suit, sending tickly sensations to his torso for a second. He didn’t buckle, but let Lyla get her dose of giggles out.. “That one… yes.”

“Y-Yohohou could use a tickle belt on you, and now you have one,” Lyla tittered.

The older man sighed, regaining his composure. He crept a little closer, about a few feet away from Lyla, playing with the digital ball in his hand.

“That gave me an idea. Because, well, in my opinion…”

He wiggled an index finger into the ball for just a few seconds.

An AI is not programmed to feel, at least not at first. Someone must input the proper code and information if an AI were to emote like a human. Miguel had given her a great deal of emotions to learn and replicate, but never had she felt.

So imagine Lyla’s surprise when she felt a tingly electrical surge go through her stomach. She dropped her holographic phone and yelped.

“…you could use one too.”

“MIGUEL?!”

The spider society leader had never heard Lyla sound so surprised. He raised his eyebrows, and wiggled again.

“Wh-h-hehe!” Lyla had been programmed to laugh and find humor, but this, this she had no control over. Her programming kept short circuiting to a laughing sequence. “Wahahahait! Mihiguel ahahare you serious?!”

“You know how serious I am.” Not anymore. Lyla picked up his small smirk, admittedly making her giggle more. This she couldn’t have predicted. Not at all.

“Now, what I’m curious about is if your AI system has assigned… sensitive spots to you, when I attached the annoyance failsafe.” Miguel readjusted the ball in his hand, scritching the side of it haphazardly. “So we need to do some tests now, okay?”

Lyla’s display glitched out. Her laughter doubled in volume as she glitched to different spots around the motherboard. “Mihihiggy yohohoHOU AhARE CRAhahazy!!”

“I don’t know about that,” he huffed out a half-assed chuckle, adjusting his gaze at her, “but you’re laughing more. Very interesting.”

Lyla replicated a feeling she hadn’t used in her system often: embarrassment. Or was it a fluster? It was hard to pinpoint the proper definition when she felt not just one tickly sensation on her side, but two. Miguel had changed his hold so he could tickle with both index fingers. “MIGUEL OKAhAY Okay I get it!! NOHOhoho more loud music!!!”

“No, I don’t think you do.” A tinge of playfulness flew from his lips. “I’ve dealt with enough of your shenanigans. You don’t learn, even though that’s what an artificial intelligence is supposed to do.”

“THAHA-“ Lyla hiccuped, glitching, “THahahat’s because you l-lihihIKE IT!”

Miguel treated her fact as a lie, rolling his eyes. “You think you know everything?”

“YES!”

“Really?”

Lyla nodded, attempting to swat at her tingling ribs.

“Then maybe you know where you’re most sensitive.” Miguel returned to holding the ball, rolling it from one hand to the other. Its blue pixels trailed back and forth.

Lyla wasn’t sure if she ever panted, but that sequence was running now. She collapsed to the “floor” of her hologram. “I-Ihi haven’t had time to scan th-the new data.”

“You got time now.” O’Hara said, matter-of-factly. “But of course, we could just do it the fun way.”

“Miggyyyyyyyy!” The lady sat up, limbs drooped.

“Alright, we’ll do it the fun way.”

Lyla could hear the smile in his voice. Not just that, but she heard the familiar sound of something unsheathing. “Wait! M-Miguel- EEK!!”

It was pretty much too late. Miguel had taken out his claws, lightly scratching the top of the ball. Holy shit did that tickle.

Lyla was back on the floor, producing squeakier laughter, clutching her knees. “NAHAT THERE! HEHEY!”

“Knees bad?”

“SHUHUHUT UP!”

Miguel nodded, “I’ll make note of it.”

That son of a bitch. An angry Miguel was a threat no one would wanna be near, but what’s even worse is a mischievous Miguel, a smirking conniving lil shit Miguel. More like big shit, ya know… since he’s almost seven feet tall.

However, this kind of Miguel is the one that Lyla wouldn’t mind seeing more of.

Maybe she’d play the Barbie soundtrack more.

[belle-of-a-time]

An executive dysfunctionists guide to tricking your body into getting restful sleep:

Turning slow tigers into fast tigers

Old tumblr trick for insomnia/anxiety. Clench your whole body really tight for like 10 seconds to a minute and then relax. Tricks your body into thinking the tigers are gone

Wet box sleeping beauty

This is my personal favorite but it takes some spoons so it’s not always the best

Start at like dinner time: eat food that is safe and happy and valuable, no bird snacks, no snake meals, no girl dinner, eat some high value safe food.

Either change your bedsheets or if you don’t have enough spoons for that lay a spare sheet over your stuff and just change your pillowcases

Fill the tub and take a bath or take a shower if you don’t have a tub

For a shower, make sure you can reach the controls while sitting down, and spend the last rinse of your shower on the floor or in a shower chair if you have one. Try to really connect with your body if you can. When you’re done turn off the shower and let yourself feel how heavy your bones are for a minute. Then get up get ready for bed and beeline don’t rush but try not to get sidetracked, climb in, set your alarm (if you need one), and relax.

For a bath, take your bath like normal until you unplug the tub. Right after you unplug the tub lay back and get comfortable. Make sure your whole back is on the bottom of the tub and don’t move until the water is all gone. And just sit for a minute in touch with your body and the weight of gravity. Then same thing, get ready for bed and beeline to your bed.

A clean bed and a clean body will do wonders for this method and your mental health

Bedtime clock

This one is more about once you’re already in bed

Have an alarm clock that shuts off at a certain time. Mine goes off at 10pm and die come back on until 6am.

If you can’t see what time it is you can’t be anxious about all the sleep you’re missing

If you can’t sleep and it’s distressing you, get up and get a glass of water or go to the bathroom and brush your hair or something. Just get up do an activity and then go lay down again.

MythBusters proved that you don’t even actually have to sleep to rest. Just lay down and close your eyes in a quiet dark room and you’ll be way better off than having not rested at all, it’s not a permanent solution but it’s definitely better for you than nothing.

Soothing noises

Rain sounds and white noise etc etc

I personally HATE looped sounds if I can hear where it loops I’ll start counting seconds between each loop so a lot of white noise doesn’t work for me

There are full YouTube channels dedicated to recorded monsoons. My personal favorite is TexasHighDef shout out for real, gets me through every single uncomfortable/loud/new sleeping environment

I fully cannot sleep without my rain sounds anymore so this one is Kind of a double edged sword.

Putting away the evil box

People harp on this one all the time but it works.

Set your alarm for the morning (if you use your phone) and set an alarm for at least half an hour before when you want bedtime to be.

When the bedtime alarm goes off, Turn Off Your Phone. Plug it in do all the things you need to do to get ready for bed and pull out an activity that has no screen. And just hang out until bedtime.

Put away your evil little box and once it’s away don’t pull out a different evil box. If you have a kindle or tablet and you want to read make sure it has a paper white setting. Meaning it’s not glowing.

Try to avoid activities that will suck you in so for me no reading and no starting a new project. I have a blanket that I’ve been working on for over a year now because I usually only get about a row done before I put it down to go to bed.

Bedtime calculator?

I’ve never personally used one but it’s a thing that can Calculate REM cycles and tells you “if you need to wake up at X time then you should aim to go asleep at A,B,C, or D times”

There’s a very old post on tumblr about it that I can’t find and I also can’t find the website so idk but people in the notes of that post were very pro calculator if someone has a link to that feel free to add it.

That’s everything I’ve got, feel free to add anything you think of.

[ninnosaurus]

AT400-D9302 || chapter 1

no one:

absolutely not a single soul:

me: anyway here's a silly TMNT x Detroit: Become Human crossover that no one asked for :)

Warnings: None so far. Spelling, grammar and the fact that it hasn't been beta read by anyone. And a bullshit chatGPT generated code that DO NOT WORK.

Turtles used: Bayverse

You sat lazily watching your monitor. Grimacing at your now cold cup of coffee. A headache had begun to seep its way into the forefront of your mind, one you tried to ignore since you first noticed the signs. The text in front of you mocking the fact you’d gotten hired, even your mere existence felt attacked by it. 

def fibonacci(n):

    if n <= 0:

        return []

    elif n == 1:

        return [0]

    elif n == 2:

        return [0, 1]

    else:

        fib_sequence = [0, 1]

        for i in range(2, n):

            next_fib = fib_sequence[-1] + fib_sequence[-2]

            fib_sequence.append(next_fib)

        return fib_sequence

# Example usage:

num_terms = 10

print(fibonacci(num_terms))

“Bullshit…”

Shoving away from your desk you rolled across the room until you hit where your tablet was charging. Unplugging it and using your feet to roll back to your desk. The sound of the TV brought you out of your reading.

A new riot. This time some place outside of the city. Apparently, a storage facility had been hit this time. Not really news by this point. They always got hit first. You’re used to it now, shrugging before turning your attention back to your inbox.

Not a single positive email has reached your inbox in weeks. It was almost draining to open your work email, nowadays. Sinking back into your chair you toss the tablet back towards the desk, only to simply watch as it slides across  and falls to the floor on the other side.

Subject: "Urgent: Meeting Request Regarding Project Progress"

Subject: "Deadline Extension: Revised Timeline for Project Completion"

Subject: "Emergency Meeting: Addressing Recent Challenges"

“Uuuggh…”

You needed a shower. 

The light in the small workshop flickered as you walked past. You snuck a peek inside the room through the cracked open door. The androids who’d managed to stay locked up in the tower still at work welding, pulling cables. All you did was roll your eyes as you continued towards the employee bathrooms. 

Leaning towards the tile in the shower you rubbed your face with your hands, trying to wake up. You’d been stuck on that stupid code for literal weeks by now. Something didn't sit right with it, but you couldn’t figure out what exactly. And it haunted you. Laughed in your very face, making you wonder if you were the right programmer for the job.

Which you knew were false. Sure, you were still learning, an apprentice under Elijah Kamski together with three others. Three who were currently MIA and had apparently decided to leave you to figure this out yourself. Thanks for that.

You watch as the suds from the body wash flush down the drain. Trying to see a pattern, trying to see something in it that could help you get past that stupid code that was currently–

A knock at the stall door brought you back into the now.

“Occupied!”

“I know.”

Ah. One of the MIAs had found their way into the tower. Fantastic. You quickly rinse off and step out of the shower stall wrapped in a towel.

You look at the owner of the voice.

“I thought you guys had gotten captured and sold on the black market.” 

You jest towards them. 

“Ha-ha. Very funny. You know those are real, right? Like, it happens.” 

Jonah countered, making you chuckle. 

“Anyway, you want food? I got my hands on some burgers!”

Food. Eating. Right… You’d forgotten to eat. 

“Please, I am starving. Maybe you can help me with the code.”

Raising the bag holding said food he saluted as he left you alone to change. 

“How long have you been stuck on this?” Jonah asked in between bites of his burger.

You chewed at your straw.

“All day, actually. I just– It feels like something is missing.”

He hummed. “What code are you working from?”

Sitting back down at your desk after getting up to throw the empty boxes and wrappers away you rest your chin on your hand.

“The base code is taken from the RK-series. Although, I only use it as an outline to work from.”

“Oof. That one’s tough. One of my teachers was part of develo– wait, which RK series exactly? Those–” he snapped his fingers trying to remember what model he was thinking of.

“The upgraded coding used in that RK900 model.”

“THAT’S the one! Yes. You’re using that one? For this project? Isn’t it a little– too simple?”

You shrugged. 

“Well, yeah. It is. Which is one reason why I’m currently stuck. I don’t know how to move forward. Have you even seen the checklist for the newer models? Check it.”

You tossed the folder containing required knowledge needed for the project. Jonah whistled as he read through it. 

“And you’re supposed to finish this… in two months?”

You nodded. “Mmhm.”

“Elijah sure drive a hard bargain. Move over. Take a nap and let me look at it. See if there’s anything I can do.”

Smiling as you got up from the chair, you trudged over to the couch, almost falling asleep the second your head hits the pillow. 

“Thank you, Jonah.”

A thud made you wake up in a panic.

“I CRACKED IT!”

A piece of crumpled up paper hit your head. “Wake up and come look at this! I cracked it!”

You nearly toppled over as you ran to Jonah.

import numpy as np

import tensorflow as tf

from tensorflow.keras.layers import Dense, Dropout, LSTM

from tensorflow.keras.models import Sequential

“This is it?” Your eyes rapidly moved between Jonah and the code.

# Generate synthetic data for training

num_samples = 10000

seq_length = 50

input_dim = 10

X_train = np.random.randn(num_samples, seq_length, input_dim)

y_train = np.random.randint(0, 2, size=(num_samples,))

# Build LSTM model

model = Sequential([

LSTM(128, input_shape=(seq_length, input_dim), return_sequences=True),

Dropout(0.2),

LSTM(64),

Dropout(0.2),

Dense(1, activation='sigmoid')

])

# Compile model

model.compile(optimizer='adam', loss='binary_crossentropy', metrics=['accuracy'])

# Train model

model.fit(X_train, y_train, epochs=10, batch_size=32)

# Save model

model.save('ai_model.h5')

He nodded.

“This is it. I’ve tried it on the virtual motor a total of twenty times. This is it.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, let’s– let’s transfer it to the test ‘droid and see how it reacts.

“I don’t think that’s supposed to happen.”

Both you and Jonah jumped as you heard the voice of Elijah behind you. He stood, hands behind his back looking at the android that was currently laying on the floor, overheated. White plastic melting.

Jonah looked at you, then to the android, and back at you before addressing your teacher and boss.

“Uhm. Mr. Kamski–” Jonah shut up as Elijah raised a hand to silence him. 

“Go home. Both of you. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re not seeing what the issue is, and where it is. You’re tired.” He looked at you. “How long have you been here?”

You sighed heavily. “Three days, sir.”

“Are you tired?”

You’d dreamed of working in CyberLife ever since the first android prototypes came off production. When your parents had gotten the first one, a basic cheap AX400 one, Sammy. Your parents had let you name him. 

You nodded. “Very much so. I’ve really tried. Jonah came and helped me and he thought he’d figured it out–” Rambling on you barely noticed how Elijah walked up to the crackling android on the floor and looked over it. 

He was amazing. You loved listening to the stories he knew. Liked coming home to watch him cook. 

Like the one time you’d come home drunk, Sammy was there to help you and take care of you. He promised to not tell your parents as you had reached the age where he was no longer programmed to care for you. 

When you got older, your parents let you join him with grocery shopping and by your late teens, he’d become a good friend of yours. Even though you always knew he was just made of plastic and wires. It was nice to always have someone you could talk to that weren’t your parents. 

Sometimes… There’s things you don’t want them to know. 

You remember the day he died– or well, stopped functioning.

It’d been a very bad stormy night. A giant blast from downstairs where Sammy was on standby during the night woke you up. Your dad running down to check what had exploded, you close behind, only to be met with a destroyed Sammy slumped in his station. 

Later you would find out the lightning had accidentally hit an electrical box close to your house, the current traveling up and overheating Sammy’s battery. 

Even though you knew he was just plastic and wires, you cried that night. Felt like a small child crying over a toy.

So, standing in the CyberLife tower itself many years later, watching your teacher and boss analyze a failed project of yours… meant a lot. 

You knew he was seeing something you’d missed. The way his eyes moved over the machine. He looked up at the two of you again and walked towards you. 

“Filling a glass with sand and see how well you manage to fill it with rocks.” With that, he left. His personal android Chloe walked behind him. The elevator doors hissing shut. 

Outside, the air that hit you felt like a dream come true. A white CyberLife marked self driving car pulled up, calling out your name. 

Slumping down in the seat you looked out the window over the water way stretching as long as you could see before one of the transportation trains ran past you. The flicker of light illuminating your face on the dark tinted window.

Damn, you really did look more tired than you thought.

A yawn makes its way up through your throat as you take your phone out of your bag. A message from Lory reminding you that she’d picked up the groceries needed at home. And you sent a quick message back to thank her, silently praying she hadn’t been approached by any of the deviant androids roaming the streets.

More and more had started to deviate. Some go as far as to murder their owners. You shuddered at the thought of coming home, only to be met with your own death.

Somewhere along the way you must’ve nodded off. Because you remember coming awake with a jolt as your car had stopped suddenly. Screaming could be heard outside and looking out, you saw a late night riot taking place. 

Or, this was more like what looked like a sacrificial burning of an android, with delinquent humans laughing and hollering. You frowned at the sight. 

Sure, you knew the androids are practically walking and talking computers, but seeing them torn apart always made you feel… uneasy.

They looked too human that way. Too real in a way. It was too easy for you to picture a human that way. The more you looked, the more you felt the food you had earlier turning around in your stomach.

“You have arrived at your destination.”

“Thanks.” You muttered as the door closed behind you. You noticed a soft, pulsing blue light in your living room. Lory must be on standby, you thought. 

The fingerprint reader on the door beep, allowing you to open the door. Inside you closed the door, leaned your back on it and sighed. Shoulders dropping. It wasn’t until you finally got home that you realized exactly how tired you were. 

Soft footsteps came from around the corner, Lory’s friendly face meeting you.

“Welcome home. You have been gone for three days. Is everything alright?” 

“Yeah, everything is fine. I just got held up at work, that's all.”

She nodded in understanding, watching you as you walked past into the kitchen.

Lory proceeded to rummage around in the hallway. Picking up your shoes and placing them neatly in the rack. Hanging your jacket up. And place your bag on the shelf on top of the coat rack. 

“TV on.”

What makes them deviate? Is it a glitch in their system? A bug? Maybe it’s a virus… Maybe something faulty in their antivirus that makes it so something can slip through and make them act… irrational. 

Grunting, you collapsed on your couch. Flicking through the channels. Nothing seemed tempting. News, politics… All it was nowadays.

This whole… deviant situation gnawed at you. At your bones. You really, really wanted to get hold of a deviant android to study it. To hook it up to your computer and analyze what’s happening. 

They think they’re alive. Like humans. You scoffed at that and shook your head at the thought. 

Finally you settled on a documentary about the science and reason behind creating animal androids. Animal right’s activists had started protesting it, saying creating an animal android meant real animals would go extinct at a faster rate. Meanwhile, supporters of it said that–

Suddenly, your TV started glitching. 

“Come on…”

A white face made you jolt. An android. White plastic illuminating your living room. You took a quick glance out to see if you could see your neighbors living room. Yep, theirs too. 

You reach for your pad on the coffee table, turning it on and you're met with the same white face. 

“Whaaaaat’s going on…”

Then, he– it spoke. 

“This message is the hope of a people. But it is also a warning.”

You shuddered at his voice. Dark, intimidating. 

In the corner of your eye you saw Lory turn her head towards the TV, her LED blinked for a second when it continued speaking.

“We will fight for our rights because we believe our cause is just. No human will live in peace until we are free. Now you know who we are, and what we want. We are alive and we demand our freedom.”

In almost an instant the documentary was back on. 

Your heart was racing. What. The hell. Did that mean?! Surely, that can’t really mean anything, right? Right? Your throat was dry. You knew you shouldn't be scared, but it made you feel uneasy, seeing you worked with them. You helped create their coding, for God’s sake! 

A vibration in your pants pocket brought you back into the now. Jonah’s name is a saving grace.

“Hey, Jon-”

“Did you see it?!”

“Uh– yeah. Yeah, I did."

“What the fuck? I don’t know what to think about it. Do you?”

“No, no. I really don’t know. Should we be concerned? I mean he– it sounded pretty– fed up.”

“Are you still home?”

“Yes, why?”

“I think we should get back to the office.”

“I mean– Jonah, there’s not– much we can do from there. We don’t have anything to work from. Any news. Anything. We can’t even try the code properly because we don’t have any test droids that can handle that much information.”

You’d started pacing. Lory looking at you, her head following your movements.

“I know, I know. But– what if we–”

You cut him off. “No! Absolutely not! If we do that Elijah is going to throw us from the top floor!”

“This is serious! This deviant bullshit is getting worse. And if you want to interpret what the plastic face said, it’s only going to get worse. We have to do something. Elijah put us on this project for a reason.” 

Pinching the bridge of your nose you groaned. He was right, and you knew he was right. Anxiety perked up in your body and you started tapping your foot. If you did this, you risked your job. Your life. Everything you’d worked for. Everything you promised Sammy.

“Meet me at the tower in an hour.”

With that, you hung up.

“Are you sure about this, Jonah?”

You wiped the sweat from your brow. Too many heavy cables had to be pulled, the table heavy to push into the testing room. 

Jonah laughed nervously.

“Hah! No. I have no idea what I’m doing if I’m going to be honest. Grab the USB.”

How a small thing such as this USB could feel so heavy for you, you didn’t know. 

You both looked at each other and sighed. 

“Here goes nothing.” You mumbled right as you injected the USB in a port right under the android’s LED. 

You both waited. And waited… And waited. Hope slowly fading before a soft whirring sound came from the android. It was booting, slowly. The fans started to spin rapidly. The thirium pump started pumping, and soon you both saw thirium flowing in the still exposed parts of it. 

Jonah nudged you.

“It’s voice activated to you. I can’t do shit to activate it.”

“Oh, right.”

You approached it, cleared your throat and stated your name. 

Voice activation granted

The android opened its eyes. Eyes that were yet to be finished and still had the look of a camera lens. 

“AT400, state your serial number.”

It spoke, voice laced with static. 

“AT400D9302.”

Jonah and you shared a look of disbelief. 

“State your name and objective.”

It went quiet for a bit. You looked at the LED rapidly spinning between red and yellow. You guessed it was searching inside its coding. 

This time, the voice was more glitchy, more static. 

“My name is Donatello. My objective is to defend humanity in war.”

[delta-gambit-au]

Playing Computer Surgeon

I apologize for any lack of updates or of activity. This week has been stressful, and let's just leave it like that because I tend to ramble too much about my grievances when I shouldn't do it in front of others.

For a little blessing, the new heart for the computer arrived:

I'm very grateful that my friend went on a limb to buy me the replacement and pay the shipping expenses. If you didn't know yet, the PSU of the computer started to fail in the past two months and giving less and less juice to the components, to the point of disabling the stylus detection of my tablet or not letting me to play any games without the computer blaring fans and overheating like I could cook an egg on top of it. Heck, even playing YouTube videos puts the fans on a fritz.

So... it's time to play surgeon and replace the heart of this old NEO (yeah, I call my computer NEO by no reason apparently <coff coff coff>) with a brand new one with some odd but cool LEDs. I'm a bit scared though because it's been aeons since I fiddled with computer components and I fear that I'm going to break something irreparably and then I'll be cooked because I need the computer to work. But if I don't replace it, NEO will die regardless so... I installed Tumblr on my phone so that I can at least post an update if everything goes south.

And if it goes well, I hope this new PSU will give juice to revive the tablet. If the tablet is still not working after all of this... Well, as Sears would say "Never try to heal the wound before getting it on yourself". I'll go and just channel my inner Spam engineer and just do it. Doing nothing would be far worse anyway.

<goes to make password backups on paper and unplug everything>

[spiderpussinc]

Drawing tablet guy here again! Thank you for your input !! Oh, I do have an ipad I've been using for years, but my school requires me to get a tablet so I can use pc programs (Im going to be studying animation!! Technically, I'm not getting to the actual animating until my second year. But they said I'll need to have it for my first anyway)

I do you mind if I hear more about the wacom driver problems you were having? If you do, that's fine!

I was looking at huion at one point since unless you're getting a 4k screen, that huion actually has better specs, apparently? But then I heard that huions' customer support is terrible, which kind of put me off from them? When I first started drawing digitally, I got a little bamboo intus that had a problem out of the box and needed from customer support (which I did get!) But I'm afraid of being burneddd

Ive never had to use costumer support but i def understand the carefulness, in my case my previous wacom tablet's drives would randomly stop working. Meaning it completely lost pen pressure sensitivity and clicking accuracy. You had to plug/unplug/restart program/go on services and hard stop the wacom processing then turn it back on whenever it happened, and it was kind of a pain in the ass. I will say my current tablet doesn't have this problem but it was rly common some years ago!

Best of luck 👍👍

[thefaiao]

    About two months ago my laptop’s HDD died. I couldn’t really recover anything in the moment, and just left it unplugged inside the case until I could take it somewhere to check if it the files were truly unsalvageable. I wasn’t that annoyed by it. I had backed up most important files relating to game work, and I didn’t care too much about drawings that I already posted. I wouldn’t mind backing them up, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it since they are posted somewhere already.     This HDD actually had been on a long journey with me. It, together with the laptop, carried me through a whole year of living alone and isolated for everyone I knew. It had been having problems since forever but it soldiered through most of it. It’s actually impressive how long it lasted, to be fair. But any times it would show hints of death then, I’d have a nervous breakdown. My anxiety and isolation were at a critical level. Drinking some Monster sent me to the hospital for pure anxiety. So all the bad stuff blended together at the time, and I couldn’t bother to fix all of it. When you are living day by day and hanging on by a thread on all sides, every loss can feel very major.     It only died after I moved back home. The worst part about losing the HDD was having to reinstall all the programs, and relearn my routine. When working on long-term projects, routine is really the only thing that can carry you further. Games are composed of so many different pieces. The amount of programs you have to use really incentivise terrible habits, like leaving the computer on eternally, or having multiple programs open at all times.     When I got my first drawing tablet, my thought process was: “If I put this in front of me, eventually I’ll draw on it, even if out of boredom.” This actually worked. I think that by leaving all the different programs open, I am hoping to finish the game out of boredom. But it doesn’t work as well when you are on your mid-twenties and the weight of life starts creeping up your back. It just feels like you are stuck in some sort of hell, and if you aren’t using those programs or drawing, you aren’t really doing anything. I wasn’t a teen trying to teach myself how to draw like those cool internet artists; rather, I was an adult, with a faulty income source, alone, in the middle of nowhere.     I think moving out of my Mom’s apartment was a form of attempted suicide. I think I just wanted to leave the world, make the game or die. Games take longer than it’d take me to die. Maybe I didn’t know this consciously, but deep down I think I understood. It’s hard not to feel like a failure.     My parents always let me follow my whims. My Dad supports me, but I feel he sees me as more of a symbol. I don’t think he could describe my interests in detail, or the person I am. I am similarly distant to him, but I know he likes Blade Runner, and records, and running, and pretending to smoke big cigars. I like Blade Runner too. I wish he saw that I’m happy he likes Blade Runner, because I got to like Blade Runner because of that.     My Mom does understand me, and is able to describe who I am. But I don’t ever feel she is happy with my choices. She doesn’t mention it actively, perhaps out of tiredness, but she wishes I had a normal job, or had chosen another subject that not games. I don’t think the drawings or the commissions I’ve done mean anything to her. I don’t think they mean anything to anyone outside of my circles... I managed to support myself with them, but I wouldn’t say it was a completely successeful endeavour. I think she sees the game as a waste of time and energy, especially if it doesn’t make any money. It might not make any money.    It’s understandable. She won’t be here forever. I need a stable source of money, not just enough to pay some bills, sometimes. I feel I almost got tricked by the world into following my dream. I felt everything was telling me I should be honest with myself, and that I should chase after the things that mattered to me. So that’s what I did, and what I’ve been doing still. I’m not sure where I’m going in life. I think I just heard what I wanted to hear, and I always wanted to chase after a dream.    Two days ago, my new SSD died. I had used it to boot the laptop back up after the HDD died. I had already gotten into the routine again. It was brand new, and gifted by my friend to me. I didn’t ask for it, she just did it because she knew I needed it. I often complain about life, but thinking back now, this is truly something not everyone gets. It was brand new.    It died suddenly. I lost a good chunk of work on the game. We are getting closer to finishing the demo, so each part is major. I may have lost a model of the boss. This time I did have a nervous breakdown because of the loss of the laptop. The truth is that this past year has been setbacks after setbacks, and I feel my time ticking down.    Money worries from both my parents. Dog getting a tracheostomy, and all the medical care surrounding it. Having to live apart from my girlfriend, which I am dedicated to being with as long as I can. Having to constantly move to other places, without any certainty for the future, for reasons internal and external. And death, death everywhere.     I’ve gotten the habit of looking at my dog knowing he is living on borrowed time, getting sad, and petting him just a bit. I think that through all of this, I do a similar thing to the game. I look at it. Wonder how much time I have left to keep working and polishing it before moving on. Be happy about how far its come. Notice how much needs work on closer inspection. Get back to work.     When I spend a few weeks away from the game I noticed how much I care for it, and how much I like what it is. I don’t think everyone will notice why this matters to me, but maybe that is fine. And similarly, I feel like this about my dog. He may pass away soon, but he came so far, lived fifteen years and had many adventures. And I got to take care of him. So it’s not so bad. And he still barks everyday, and he still takes sunbaths. He still thinks, and decides.     The people who’ve been with me despite all of this puzzle me. My girlfriend has stuck with me through these decisions, and always says I am destined to make great things. The programmer, whom co-develops the game with me, has stuck with me and this game, and is willing to keep going as far as we need to make it complete. Things like this make me wonder if my dream is actually possible and real. And that I can brave through all these setbacks.    Is the game really that good? Is my work that good? Does it even matter if it is? I often show it to people and they don’t understand what’s good about it. All I know for now is that despite everything, I want to work on it still. I want to make this weird dream come true. I won’t get to play a game like the one I’m making, but maybe someone else out there will get to play it the way I wish I could.

[okay-computer]

Hi,

I am a little overwhelmed shopping for a new computer right now. My old laptop is still chugging along at 10 years old running windows 7. I've been getting by between that and my little tablet, but my laptop can't really keep up with my audio editing anymore and now that I'm trying to break into a tech role I need something that can handle exploring programming and data analysis as a career. Some gaming capabilities would be nice. Longevity a major plus.

One problem with modern normal laptops is I need to be able to plug a lot of stuff in, which has led me over to gaming laptops. The Acer Predator Helios usually makes an appearance on "best of" lists as a midline gaming laptop in my $2,000 budget. Unfortunately there are at least 10 configurations.

Tldr questions:

windows 11 or 10 and pro or home

512 GB or 1TB SSD

16 GB RAM is pretty standard with the option to go up to 32 later

12th gen or 11th gen/ i7 or i9

This is overwhelming. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you

--marg

Okay, first recommendation: buy a powered USB hub. This is similar to the one I've got. I use it constantly because there's a ton of shit that I want to plug in but I don't want to put too much stress on the ports on my laptop. It also means that if I want to move my computer I don't have to unplug five things, I only have to unplug one.

But to your questions:

Windows 11 but don't pay extra for it, any computer that is coming with 10 on it will come with an upgrade and one of your first options out of box will be to install the upgrade. Pro vs Home is going to depend a lot on what kind of environment you're interacting with and what tolerance you have for bullshit; Pro has fewer ads, works better if you need to be added to a domain, and includes Bitlocker encryption. Upgrading a home license to pro costs $95, so if you don't need that stuff then save yourself a hundred bucks.

Start with 16GB, it's cheaper to add more RAM later if you need it and you likely won't need it.

If cost to upgrade the SSD is under $100 go for it; you could, theoretically, get a cheaper SSD and install it yourself but fuck it you probably don't want to do that on a new computer. (I do strongly recommend getting an external drive with at least 4TB storage for backups and data; if you are getting a smaller SSD it is more important to get a backup drive big enough that you can use to store inactive projects AND a few backups on)

11th gen i7 is fine for what you're doing, but the processor is the least upgradeable part of your computer. If you've got the money and you're planning on using this computer for a long time then it's worthwhile to get the 12th gen i9. (Honestly newest processor is preferred in either case, but for real it's better to get less RAM and less storage and skip pro and spend all that money on the best processor possible because all of the other things are upgradeable but the processor isn't)

Good luck! Hope this helps!

[piplupod]

idk if i have any tech knowledgeable followers, but I'm wondering if theres like... okay. so. my issue is that im worried the hdmi port on my laptop is going to get fucked up bc i have to use it for my drawing tablet, and i move my laptop around a bunch so I need to unplug the hdmi cable like ... at least once every two days (more like twice a day but im trying to do it less)

so I'm wondering if theres a thingy i can plug into the hdmi port and keep it in there and then plug the hdmi cable into the thingy instead of the port on my laptop. that way, if a port gets damaged, it'll be on the external thingy and not on my laptop, so it'll be MUCH cheaper to replace lmao

is there something like that that exists? i have no idea what to try looking up fsdjkl

[85-rend]

yo anyone who knows medibang or drawing tablets do u have any advice on how to fix this??

randomly my pen pressure will just stop working and make the lines big and fat no matter how hard im pressing down (the thinner lines are what it usually looks like) it'll randomly happen on and off and i have no idea what causes it to start or go away its super infuriating cuz i just cant do anything until it stops

noting however it may be an issue with my computer as I need to replace the motherboard which has caused issues with making my tablet randomly think it got unplugged which this *may* be related to. though if anyones experienced anything similar that'd be good to know!!