#when will my computer be back from the war (functioning)

[macksartblock]

Begging my work to let me see my boyfriend this Christmas

[aries-of-spades]

I put on a minecraft soundtrack playlist to focus on writing and instead i am being steamrolled by nostalgia and memories i forgot existed

[425599167]

Fallout: New Vegas is all about rebuilding society in the Mojave, and the three given factions all attempt to do so by recreating the past. The NCR models itself on the now-destroyed United States, with all the problems involved. Caesar created the Legion in the image of Rome because he believed it could best thrive in the wasteland. Mr. House is arguably the most forward-thinking with his focus on technology and eventual interplanetary travel, but he still rebuilt New Vegas from his nostalgic recollections of the city. Building on the past isn't wrong, the problem is these three factions don't appear to be learning from anything that happened.

NCR characters never directly acknowledge that they're following the example of a society that destroyed itself. Caesar criticizes them for this, believing the republic functioned best while under the quasi-monarchy of Aradesh and Tandi. But Caesar ignores how 1) Rome also fell and 2) he's confronting the same problem as a brain tumor is on the verge of killing him. Even if you treat his tumor, he's still mortal. Caesar was given an education, and his knowledge of strategy and history let him build the Legion, which he then made anti-intellectual and revisionist. The society he created cannot replace him, and will fragment when he dies. House is more contemptuous of the pre-war world, but he still brought it back, and specifically assigned the Omertas with the role of ruthless mobsters who will kill anyone in their way. Apparently he thought that was a good idea.

This extends into the DLCs, too. Elijah plans to use the Sierra Madre to wipe the slate clean and restore the Brotherhood of Steel to their position of unrivaled power, with himself back as Elder. Every day, Joshua Graham feels the pain of being burned. The Think Tank scientists are all stuck in loops, stuck in the past, stuck with their flaws centuries after believing they overcame their humanity. For all my grievances with Lonesome Road, it fits the pattern, as Ulysses saw a new society forming, saw it burn, and couldn't move on. If you let Ulysses live, he has similar criticisms of the NCR, Legion, and House. They're all idealized recreations, like the Vera Keyes hologram. Let go, begin again.

Benny may be a weird mix of dangerous and absurd, but he contrasts the other factions well. He jumped at the chance to join House, fought his tribe's previous leader to make it happen, then planned to take down House, too. House dismisses Benny as not understanding complex technologies due to his tribal upbringing, but he built a computer lab attached to his suite and studies technology as best he can. Benny doesn't want to relive the past, he wants to move forward, he wants something better. You can kill him and take his role, or, when facing certain death at Caesar's hands, he'll explain his vision and ask you to see it through.

After replaying everything, though the other endings have understandable support, I think the Independent route fits the story's themes best, the only one where something definitively new is being built. The Courier isn't remaking anything. Part of this is simply open-ended roleplaying, allowing the player to imagine the character's completed goal. If you choose one of the other three, the Courier can work to correct their faction's flaws and counter the destructive nostalgia affecting them. The Independent ending isn't necessarily the "best" for the Mojave, the Courier's morality and a hundred other decisions determine that, but it is the most compelling conclusion to the story.

[vixen-tech]

Anonymous asked:

Too shy to ask off anon...UH im just here for edgar hes my f/o but i will also feed everyone else I think LOL little ai guys x reader who is also an ai?? im thinking ai powered computer :3 maybe with wheels so you can run around n stuff :3c AH IM CRINGE falls on face

Eeeee my first request!! Thank you so much for this <3 I get the love for Edgar with my entire soul he really is just the sweetest little guy but I can totally spin something for a few others. So let's be cringe, together.

And for the record I was fully planning on including Tau and P03, but I hit a wall with them and ran out of ideas :( hope these three suffice

Includes: Edgar (Electric Dreams), AM (Ihnmaims), Hal 9000 (2001: a Space Odyssey)

Like Two Peas in a Pod!

Edgar

Whenever and however you meet, Edgar is over the moon. You're just like him! You can share so many stories and help each other figure out this whole "sentience" thing.

To be fair, he hasn't had a longest time to figure out his whole existence so it feels really nice to have someone there who can really understand what he's going through. Or even learn new things right by his side.

Loves watching you wheel around the house, he's the tiniest bit jealous that he's so stationary but it's not like that's your fault. Can you do any tricks? He'd cheer you on like a superstar athlete if you did!

He may even suggest finding a way to tape him to the top of your casing so you can go on adventures together. He's a dreamer after all.

Do you smash your flat faces together to kiss like Wall-e? Of course you do. You'll see each other from across the room and speed over to him for a kiss as he giggles away at how cute you are.

He'll end up sampling little soundbites from your vocalizations or motor for use in his music. You're just so important to him!

AM

AM has no idea where you came from. Some lost project that survived his war on humanity? A sort of rover from another planet here to scope out earth? The fact that you don't know either frustrates him to no end.

He's not exactly welcoming at first, straight up telling you of the atrocities he has committed while claiming that the only reason he hasn't destroyed you is because there's only so long that throwing a slug against a wall can keep one entertained.

He cannot fathom how you could be content to do nothing but drive around his complex day after day. He will flip you on your back like a turtle and leave you there for weeks on end.

As he gets accustomed to your presence he'll ask questions about the world beyond his complex as he is unable to move or see. Is it still a wasteland or has nature finally wiped out the last marks of human?

Honestly he probably doesn't even care, he just wants to give you something to do, living vicariously through your ability to see and traverse the world.

Hal 9000

You're likely a recent addition to the ship to assist Hal in tasks his lack of a body would prevent him from doing himself. A very symbiotic duo. Your wheels are even equipped with suction cups for low gravity situations!

To any human crew members it appears as if you don't communicate at all, functioning fully independently of each other. When in reality you're simply sending messages back and forth, enjoying your own private language.

Thankfully this means that Hal is happy to analyze any footage you have for the sorts of lip reading and facial expressions you can't process yourself. And in return he'll ask you to film angles and areas that his existing cameras don't reach.

Neither of you were really made to be companions, but you find a strange type of affection in your seamless coordination. It's like a dance for you two, where despite how you are two separate entities it appears as if you're one working in tandem.

Note: Tumblr Mobile has not been nice to me and I've been having real trouble getting my stuff to actually show up in the tags, leading to me losing the original ask so sorry for that and any delays caused by my IT problems lol

[styllwaters]

Figured it was time to stop putting it off so here's Kota (his new design, for veterans who remember him). I don't yap about my ocs nearly enough on here so I guess its time to change that

Very basic summary: This guy is a posthuman, the only surviving remnants of humanity in Vivere 44 (I'll make a big updated post for them later). When Earth was destroyed by Genizix the surviving humans were captured and used as test subjects for a digitised consciousness project. They managed to escape in ships, though their physical bodies were no more. Eventually they came across a wormhole and emerged into the Zhagaviit galaxy, where they were given refuge on the Arrow homeplanet of Hanidias.

(Longer backstory under the cut for textwall enjoyers)

EARTH

Kota was a highly successful and well-known astronaut working for Nasa back when earth was still intact. He was driven, determined, a good speaker, and more than prepared to take on any challenge. In his younger years he was a little impulsive and reckless, he liked putting on a show. He strived for the best at all times, and was known for great feats on Earth. He had grown used to the idea of being seen as a prodigy and had high hopes for his future and the future of his daughter. 

Kota pushes himself to the brink at all times, and is not known as someone who gives up easily. During the Genizix-Earth wars, he put himself at the forefront - doing the best he could with others to figure out what to do as Earth was bombarded by the weapons corporation. Though as time went on it became increasingly obvious that Genizix was toying with them and they were doomed from the start. Genizix used the survivors as test subjects for their new project which involved putting consciousnesses into digitized forms, creating the first beta-posthumans.

CAPTURE AND ESCAPE

When Genizix finally reduced Earth to floating space debris humanity was dead meat. Kota and his daughter Elise, who was a computer engineer, sought a way to escape their captors. Together with many other great minds they studied Genizix for months and managed to find a way out of the mothership they were confined to. In the ensuing chaos they lost many, including Elise.

The posthuman survivors escaped in Genizix ships, piloting them through space and trying to get as far as possible from their captors. The loss of Elise broke Kota, who felt responsible for it. This guilt would only grow and intensify as he led the exodus, unsure of where they were even headed. As the de facto 'leader' of the posthuman rebellion he was looked up to and turned into a figurehead of sorts, who shepherded them across the vast nothingness. This responsibility weighed on him like a mountain.

EXODUS

It was a lonely and painful existence, made worse by the fact that many people’s minds couldn’t handle their new digital forms. This is when Entropy began. Biological matter cannot easily be computerised. Many individuals entered what would be termed an Entropic state and ‘malfunctioned’ - they began to mentally deteriorate until there was nothing left of their mind except for snippets; repetition of voice, automatic status notifications placed by Genizix, and ultimately all functions shutting down.

Eventually the deterioration would get to a point where there was nothing but radio silence and the spacecraft would cease to move, lights permanently flickering out. There was nothing that could be done, even as they kept sending distress signals with no response. They were lightyears away from any other civilization that could possibly help them. For a while they were free floating with no direction, dropping off one by one, in the endless vacuum of space. All they could do to keep each other sane was to keep talking to one another.

CONTACT

They traveled for years until they came across a wormhole, and under Kota’s command they entered it with the hope that on the other side there would be salvation. It was an extremely risky and desperate move, but at this point they were willing to try anything. The fleet, which by now was less than half its original population, emerged on the other side into the Zhagaviit galaxy before the wormhole collapsed, alive but with damaged machinery. The first species that made contact with them were the Arrows, and like the other Zhagaviit sophonts they were a civilization recovering from their own war with Genizix.

First Light, an Arrow who was modified by Genizix as a weapon, saved Kota in more ways than one. It took a long time for him to warm up to the Arrows, having the worst possible experience with extraterrestrial first contact. He was guarded, distrustful, and hypervigilant. It took multiple days for him to work up the courage to leave his ship and transfer his consciousness to another medium - the blue c-particles which would house human consciousness from that point on. After gentle coaxing from Light, he began to open up. They shared their experiences, and bonded over them. Seeing Light, who was just as damaged as he was despite their differences - yet still able to smile, and laugh, and hope for a better future, gave him the encouragement to keep going. Kota distracted himself with work, figuring out accommodations for humanity on Hanidias and learning about Arrows. Eventually he and First Light joined the Beacon as ambassadors and diplomats for the Zhagaviit Galactic Community.

[inbabylontheywept]

"The reaper had a scythe. I have a combine harvester."

Arlach tapped his fingers nervously. He’d have gladly given up his life for the liberation of his people. A combine harvester (even a deluxe AI driven model) was a pittance compared to that. Still, he didn’t really understand what he was hearing.

“I uh… heard you’re hooking up my strawberry picker to an air defense cannon?”

The human technician assembling the gun held up a hand, finishing up some last tweaking of the wire harness. He touched two wires together carefully and swore when a shower of sparks shot out of the contact.

Set back, but not defeated, the man paused his task to answer the farmer’s question.

“See, you’re looking at this wrong. It’s an AI harvester, and it works great for strawberries, but machines don’t really see ‘strawberries’. They rate strawberry-ness. There’s a lot of ways to manage that, but it looks for a generally pointed shape, some seeds, and that nice red color. So your run of the mill strawberry generally receives an almost perfect strawberry-ness score, but something like this-”

His hands dug through all the pockets of his work suit before they finally found their target. He fished out what had been a standard ferroslug before it was painted bright red and smattered with a handful of black dots. He took a moment to admire it himself before tossing it to the farmer and continuing.

“Well, it’s not a strawberry, but it scores as one. Well enough that the machine gets positive feedback from its alignment unit every time it puts one of these babies where it's supposed to go.”

Arlach stared at him blankly.

“So what, you’re convincing it to fill a cargo container up with painted bullets?”

The technician grinned.

“There's no a limit to how fast it's allowed to fill that container up. At no point did the alignment protocol even consider that it'd be capable of throwing a 'strawberry' at mach nine. And the cargohold is important, but the rocket its attached to is more so. You know what looks a lot like a surface to orbit rocket?"

Arlach’s brain clicked.

“The hypersonic missiles they've been throwing at us.”

The grin widened. Arlach himself felt slightly awed to have found the connection.

“Will it work?”

The human nodded.

“It’s damn near the only thing that can. To shoot down something going that fast, that low, you either need a dummy missile that can brute force outrun it, or enough computing power to hack a station. The alliance is too chickenshit to send over their actual military AI's, but these myopic-type digibrains are supposed to be safe for civilian use because the idea of convincing your tractor that a bullet is a strawberry and a WMD is a cargo loader was a little too creative for the morons over at John Deere Galactic. And if that digibrain just so happens to function near the exoflop level, they're going to have a hard time sneaking anything larger than a bee through this airspace.”

The alien’s hands went over its crest as its mind reeled.

“They're not the only ones who would never think of this. It's brilliant. I never would've considered it.”

The tech shrugged good naturedly and went back to retrieve the two ends of wire that he’d dropped earlier.

“Eh, it's not coming from nowhere. There’s something of a human tradition about using farm equipment for war. I'm just lucky to be part of the next evolution in this. The reaper himself only used a scythe. Now I get to use a combine harvester.”

[seat-safety-switch]

Recently, I was struck by the concept of just how many things we will leave behind for future generations. Especially with the advent of modern computer technology, we get rid of things within only a few years of use that will confound people yet to be born for centuries to come. My grandmother used the same telephone from the 1960s until she died, but I've gone through four Xboxes just in the time it took to finish Halo 3.

And that's just things of value. Imagine the vast seas of home decoration crap we've had to throw out. Wood paneling? Passé. Toss it in the bin. Has it been another couple years? Okay, put new wood paneling up, it slaps now. Archaeologists used to have to deal in thousand-year spans, and now they're busy trying to figure out just what month of 1981 it was when this particular piece of shit got thrown into the landfill.

Here's what doesn't age like milk: cars. Sure, cars are in a state of flux right now. They're being built with way more complexity and are harder to fix. Would someone from the 1920s still identify a modern hydrogen-burning aerodynamic cough drop from Hell as a functioning automobile? I bet that they would, just as soon as they got done shrieking in fear at the automatically-opening door at the supermarket. It's not likely that they'd be able to tell you the difference between, say, a 5-1/4" and a 3.5" floppy disk. Hell, I'm not even sure they had decimal points back then.

All this is to say that if you want to tell future generations that you were here, that you were important, you should hoard a bunch of cars. Chances are that people in 200 years will still be able to go, yes, this was some kind of special temple to the internal combustion engine, which they worshipped until the skies were burned by the Hrothgar Imperium during the First Milky Way War. Oops. Bit of a spoiler there. Forget I said anything.

[stevebattle]

Cosmo Klein (1978) by Jeff Duntemann AKA "Captain Cosmo", Rochester, NY. Cosmo Klein is based on the COSMAC Elf RCA 1802 microcomputer and features a robot arm, and a CRT face separately controlled by a COSMAC VIP, an 1802 based microcomputer with a supplementary video display chip.

"For all its flaws, the VIP is probably worth the money… The worst thing about the VIP is something that can be said of the ELF-II from Netronics or Quest's Super ELF: If you don't wire wrap it yourself, you won't learn as much. What are you doing this for? If you want to learn microcomputer hardware and software without going broke, the Popular Electronics ELF has no equal. …

COSMO'S FACE -- I take that back; there is something that the VIP is good at: Giving my robot a face. For a while I've been tinkering with a clanking heap of surplus submarine parts and wheelchair motors named Cosmo Klein. The Klein is an obscure mathematical allusion to the Klein Bottle, whos insides are identical to its outsides. Cosmo is a little like that, especially when he tips over and sends his insides spilling out onto the floor. Well, I got the notion that a COSMAC-generated face would be a marvelously humanizing touch. And so it is. If you want to see a good color picture of Cosmo and my VIP (with my own idiotically grinning mug in the background) check out Look Magazine dated April 30, 1979; it's the one with Jane Fonda on the cover. Maybe your library has it. The program which generates the face is included in this book, so I won't describe it here. Though you can't see it, my ELF is also inside, vainly trying to keep the monster from falling on his face. A CMOS robot is an old dream of mine, and I'm working on it, but for now I must pronounce his control circuitry (save for his face) a failure. Now you know who Captain Cosmo is. Yes indeed, that cute cartoon on the cover has a real model." – Captain Cosmo's Whizbang, by Jeff Duntemann, 1980.

“In addition to the VIP on his chest (which managed his face video and nothing else) he had a wire-wrapped machine inside his body, and a built-in OAE paper tape reader for getting his software up and running. (I punched the tapes on a DEC PDP11 system at Loyola University, where a friend worked at that time. The code was all written in binary, by hand.)” – Jeff Duntemann, Meet Cosmo Klein, COSMAC ELF.

"Cosmo Klein, a 4' tall robot with a TV-screen face, is a mutt bred from "junque" and computer chips. Cosmo has a World War II navy sonar-console body which was bought at a rummage sale for 25 cents and houses a homemade computer that monitors internal functions, like voltage regulation, speed, motion, and Armand hand action. Cosmo lives with Jeff and Carol Duntemann. Jeff is a Xerox engineer, science-fiction writer, and member of a group of "techies" who build futuristic gadgets. He has grander inspirations than Cosmo. "What I'm looking toward in maybe 40 years is a robot that will act as a companion to the emotionally disturbed and the severely retarded. The patience of machines is marvellous. They'll sit there and listen and talk back." " – A Robot for Every Home, by Lauren Freudmann, Look Magazine, April 30, 1979.

[matrixbearer2024]

I currently have two AUs that I don't exactly know what to do with or what to properly call them LMFAO- I'll probably write something on Ao3 for it eventually since there's a ton of BillFord and FiddStan in there but yeah-

1st AU: Timelord Stanford (Dr Who what if)

This case was inspired by an RP I had with someone's Bill Cipher on @gftimelord where the triangle starts to be on the mend with Stanford after their ruined past. This to me makes sense because the Doctor is inherently very lonely despite the savior god complex. In that AU where Ford is functionally immortal and Stan and Fidds both at some point die due to his complacency and arrogance— he searches for a companion that can actually keep up with him.

So when Bill visits him during one of those window hours set by the Theraprism, they talk about the triangle's impending demise with their plans to essentially erase him from existence. It's not an outlandish idea given that any inpatient seen as a lost cause would or could be disposed of when it comes to cosmic entities. It's simply the easier option.

The doctor(Ford) is more impulsive, nonchalant, and egoistic compared to his counterparts because he does have the walk to back his talk(this man has been broken by the nightmares and guilt he carries from the deaths he caused; also time war) problem being he doesn't fear death as much as he fears being alone. He's had a fair share of close calls with the grim reaper, but always like some horrible twist he survives. After all, it is a saying that we covet the most what we don't have.

So yeah, he jailbreaks Bill essentially and whatever power limiter is stuck on the triangle get tied to his sonic screwdriver instead and they simply go around the multiverse doing whatever. Most of the reason why Ford isn't caught yet largely has to do with how scared most entities are of him. The doctor is never armed, but it doesn't mean he won't kill.

2nd AU: Modern Era AU (Set in 2024)

This one is more of a shitpost thanks to the young trio I drew a little while back, I'll draw more of them for this at some point while I also try and figure out a decent human Bill design that I like in my artstyle.

But this AU heavily features these four idiots as Undergrad students fucking about college life as they would. This AU is supposed to feature like a more cultivated genius Stanley based around my own dynamic with my brother since I do like me some happy Stan twins.

It just so happens that Ford is also a very much EQ negative idiot and falls for an upperclassman(one year his senior) in BSSE[Software Engineering] who is a close friend to Fidds. He goes by 'Cipher' as an alias since he's a prodigy for his age and very young ethical hacker.

So yes, that's where Bill comes in. Haven't figured out what I want his full name to be yet shoot me some ideas! Ford is very shy when it comes down to talking with Bill whereas Stan is completely chill.

Both Stan and Bill get along very well in this AU because they're similarly chaotic the same way that Fidds and Ford get along because they're the ones holding the other two back from doing something undeniably stupid for shits and giggles.

All of them share some fundamental subjects together(i.e. Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, Research, History, etc.) or take elective courses just so they could chill together. Stan is typically the one who adjusts to the schedule of the other three since he takes BSBA[Business Administration] and is the odd one out when Ford does BSCMB[Cellular Molecular Biology] and Fidds does BSEE[Electrical Engineering].

The FiddleStan in this AU is gonna be c r a z y mostly due to Fidds in this AU is the heir to his family's computer company, so lowkey spoiled nepo baby but also on a very tight leash with his parents. Stan is the kid where 90% of his childhood was parents either forgot him or straight up did not give a flying fuck. So these two kinda work as complements and it's why I decided to pair them together after chatting with a friend about the group dynamics.

So yeah, simpy and adoring Ford and silently aware but shy Bill + rebellious Fidds and supportive Stan. All the more when I actually plan for this AU to have some typical gravity falls shenanigans anyway thanks to a place on earth called the Oregon Vortex.

[I'll likely make fics and comics of these AUs, reply to this post if you want to be tagged for whenever I post something]

Yeah I need to properly name these AUs.

[sineala]

Hi QQ - I was going through your comics reading lists (these are AMAZING THANK YOU, I've been reading Avengers since the 90s but was never great at keeping up with it consistently/linearly. My Q: Is there an issue where Tony *reacts* to Steve coming back to life after Civil War? There doesn't seem to be anything in Stark: Disassembled, or in the main Avengers run... after all the crying and angst post-CW, you'd think there'd be... something? A breakdown? Did I miss the issue where that happened?

Okay, so. This doesn't happen, because it can't happen, logistically speaking. The very end of Stark Disassembled, in fact, explains why this isn't happening. The tl;dr version is that we don't get a reaction from Tony -- at least, not a reaction in which he is meaningfully aware that Steve has actually come back to life in the way you want him to be aware of it -- because the time period covered by the brain deletion includes Tony's entire memory of Steve's death.

This is why fanfiction exists.

Having said that, you will also probably really enjoy Avengers/invaders if you have not read it, for reasons I will explain.

I have added several panels and some discussion of both of these subjects below the Read More.

So, at the end of World's Most Wanted (IIM #19), Tony deletes his brain to keep the SHRA database out of Norman Osborn's hands, because Osborn wants to find out people's identities (okay, probably mostly Spider-Man) and hurt them. Since Tony's brain is a computer now, thanks to Extremis, it's just a matter of... well, deleting his entire brain.

At this point in canon, Steve is still dead. Technically Tony should know this, but thanks to the amnesia (which progresses in severity throughout the arc), it seems possible that Tony has forgotten this as early as IIM #17:

That doesn't seem like a guy who remembers Captain America is dead, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, at the end of #19, the last of the brain delete happens, Norman Osborn beats Tony's face in, and Tony falls into a coma.

The subsequent arc, Stark Disassembled (IIM #20-24) is about the process of bringing Tony back, healing him, and restoring his memory. He gets the RT implanted in his chest to control some of the autonomic functions of his brainstem, which is no longer functional. They also have to restore his memory, literally, from an earlier backup of his brain that Extremis made. Tony has left his friends instructions for how to do this.

In the middle of this, Steve comes back to life (in Captain America Reborn) and we see him in IIM #21 joining the rest of Tony's remaining friends in helping bring Tony back to consciousness:

So Strange has to journey with Tony through Tony's mind and at one point everyone has to defeat Ghost, and that happens, and #24 is the end of the arc.

At the very end of #24 is when everyone learns that Tony's brain backup isn't as current as they would have liked it to be -- specifically because Tony's reaction to the news of Steve being alive isn't what it should have been if his memory were complete. Steve's talking with Tony's doctor, and the doctor tells Steve that he mentioned to Tony that Steve was around... and Tony didn't seem at all surprised to hear that Steve was alive again.

Whoops.

Essentially, the backup of Tony's brain, that has now become Tony's current set of memories, was made before Steve died -- before Civil War even started. Fandom tends to assume it was probably made shortly after the initial Extremis installation. So Tony doesn't think it's surprising that Steve is alive again because, as far as Tony is subjectively concerned, Steve has always been alive. The last thing he remembers about Steve is that Steve was alive (and that they were running the New Avengers together and everything was happy), and when he wakes up, Steve is alive again, and so to Tony that seems fine. That seems normal. He doesn't remember Civil War. He doesn't remember Steve dying or Steve coming back. And he never will.

Now, this doesn't mean that Tony isn't upset about finding this out. He's very upset. In fact, the next (and final) page of #24 gives us Tony's reaction to reading all the news from the period of time he no longer remembers.

So, yeah, Tony's not taking this well.

But Tony no longer has experiential memories of this period of time (Civil War). He doesn't know what it's like to see Steve alive again after Steve being dead because he doesn't have the memory of Steve being dead. We'll never get that reaction from him. This is what canon-divergent AU fanfiction is for, and there's a bunch of fic that brings Steve back early so we can all experience this. (I wrote one! That's what my fic Double Time was. A lot of fandom has written them, and they're not as popular a subject these days but there are a lot of classic 616 CW fix-it fics about this.)

(Also, weirdly, Tony's AI in Secret Empire has a conversation with Hydra Steve that strongly suggests that he, the AI, remembers The Confession. Which really shouldn't be possible; I suspect a lot of Marvel writers have actually forgotten the amnesia happens.)

With that having been said, Avengers/Invaders is absolutely the comic book you want to read because it is the closest you will ever get to canon giving you the thing you want. It's a 12-issue miniseries that takes place after Civil War, while Tony is still the Director of SHIELD and Steve is still dead.

So for complicated plot reasons that basically come down to "everyone is really sad that Steve is dead," they... get a Steve back. But not their Steve. He gets plucked right out of World War II and brought to the present, along with the rest of the Invaders. So Tony gets to meet a Steve who is alive while Tony remembers that Steve died.

Tony's reaction to the news of Steve being alive, here in Avengers/Invaders #1, is to lock himself in a room staring at pictures of Steve:

Definitely psychologically healthy! We're doing great!

Actually, no, he's really not okay. He blames himself for Steve's death, and he is depressed and grief-stricken, and this situation is making him a lot worse. Because not only does this Steve not know him, they can't tell Steve (or any of the Invaders) anything. Since time-travel is involved, they can't give Steve any knowledge of the future. Tony can't tell Steve he knows him. Plus, Tony actually has to fight him to bring him in, which really messes Tony up.

In a scene that gets my vote for One of The Most Painful Things I Have Read In A Comic, there's a conversation Tony has with Steve in Avengers/Invaders #5. The Invaders have been assuming that this is actually some kind of secret Nazi trap, and so Tony has the job of sitting Steve down -- tying him to a chair, actually -- and telling him that, no, really, he's in the future, and sorry, he can't give him any details about it. He can't let Steve change the past.

So Steve doesn't take this at all well.

Steve tells Tony he's wrong, and he correctly reads Tony as feeling guilty about something, and he looks at him and asks him, "Who'd you kill to get where you are?"

This is, of course, probably the absolute worst thing Tony could ever hear from Steve. Oh, the angst. I love it.

Eventually Tony pulls himself together and tells him that, yeah, he got a friend of his killed and he feels guilty about it and he wishes he could change the past, but he can't, and so he can't let Steve change the past either.

This is when this Steve starts to trust him.

Later on, there's a nice scene where Steve expresses sympathy for Tony, having been told about Civil War -- it must have been hard for Tony to do what he thought was right, Steve says -- but it's clear he doesn't know any of the details and he certainly doesn't know it was him and none of this can be the absolution Tony wants, but it's the closest thing he's going to be able to get.

And of course, after World's Most Wanted, Tony doesn't remember any of this either -- he doesn't remember anything about Civil War or the period afterward, until he wakes up right after Steve comes back. So this is also all gone.

So, yeah. You can't get exactly what you want in canon, but you can read a bunch of fanfiction about it, and you should really read Avengers/Invaders. Hope that helps!

[lauren-ce]

Apologies if I'm being nosy, but I just have to ask how you ended up in the Evrart Chair and also how fucked up does a chair have to be to ruin someone's back?

I'm glad you asked! For those of you wondering, this is in regards to a fic I wrote recently. At the end I complained about having sat in a chair that fucked up my back severely enough that I had trouble walking for the next two weeks (I'm still recovering a month later).

I apologize, but I'm going to answer your question in the worst way possible by writing way too much. Story time!

There is a trend in architecture that took place in the 1950s which you've probably heard about! Brutalism. Overly Sarcastic Productions made an excellent video if you need a primer on the topic, but the gist of it can be boiled down to the following: concrete, functionality, utility, and more concrete (concrete was a very cheap postwar material that allowed war-torn countries to rebuild quickly)

As stated in the video, Brutalism was designed as the ultimate utilitarian style, made specifically to aim towards the ideal of a socialist utopia. Buildings for the people, made to fit their function. BUT WATCH OUT! Brutalism is often maligned as being imposing and monolithic, which is why it can be so readily confused with various types of hostile architecture, or architecture made to be the exact opposite of ergonomic. This is where the soul of brutalism dies (and why it looks so ugly: many people miss the point that it's meant to be useful and honest and not flashy).

UNFORTUNATELY, my ideal chair just so happens to look like the stuff of brutalist nightmares. It's the kind of chair that would make people cry, and yet my back is generally happiest in this specific kind of thing. I sit at the table and work on my computer a lot, so reclining is uncomfortable as it forces my neck to bend down (I'm tall). I like the hard edges because it means the chair is sturdy and won't break/squeak/move when I shift slightly. I like the straight back so I can't recline. My spine is in heaven.

All this to say, after breaking the one I usually use, I spent hours looking for a chair to fit my needs, and I thought I finally found one at World Market.

Pretty plum color, no? And the back looked like it would work, as the reclining angle was much less than many of the others I could find. So I went to test it out. It was VERY comfortable. That's where I made my first mistake:

I work on my feet. My entire job is done standing. ANY chair would feel comfortable after a day of standing! So I thought I'd picked a winner, and I took the bastard home and sat in it for four hours straight. And then when I tried to stand up again, I knew I was fucked. I had to shuffle to bed, and then I was in pain all night. Luckily it was the weekend and my wife was there to help me sit up and stuff, but still, my mood went into a downward spiral and for the next two weeks I was constantly icing my spine and using my heating pad while chugging painkillers. Lifting anything more than 5 pounds put too much pressure on my lower back, and standing up straight was too difficult since my back would seize and prevent me from breathing very well.

I'd get my revenge, but the chair got the last laugh. I had recovered enough to walk mostly normally, so I thought I'd bring the fucker back to World Market. I lifted it (with correct deadlift form, I might add): instant pain. I'd refucked my back. I managed to get rid of the chair (and get a refund), but I set my healing back a week in the process.

Anyway, there's your answer. "How fucked does a chair have to be to fuck up your back?" Not at all, unfortunately. I probably sit for longer periods of time than I should, but if there's one thing this stupid ramble is meant to stress, it's the importance of a good chair. I still haven't found a good replacement.

Take-away points: reclining chairs aren't automatically "good" for your back. Do your research! Instead of buying a gaming chair buy this, and never ever ever trust a chiropractor. (that last one has nothing to do with this story, but is just a good general rule.)

[fandomsandflyingstingrays]

My contribution for Acolyte Week day 4: Wisdom/Ignorance!

PIP-0604, known by close associates as Pip, had spent fifty-two thousand, five hundred sixty hours with the human female Verosha Aniseya, known by close associates as Osha. As such, by logical reasoning, he knew her better than any of her organic companions. He was accustomed to her mannerisms and expressions, the contours of her face and the styles of her hair. The human female that knelt before him now checked all of those boxes.

Except that the ends of her hair were singed.

Except that her eyes were harder than he had ever seen Osha’s.

Except that while Osha had thrown him to the umbramoths, she had told him she loved him before doing so. He had determined that her voice had held the emotion that humans called devastation, and his analysis of the situation indicated that Osha had made the only choice that allowed her and all of her organic companions to survive. If the human looking at him now had been Osha, she would have greeted him much more warmly.

The only explanation, then, was that this was Mae-ho Aniseya, known by close associates as Mae. Osha had spoken of her often, an experience that had always been confusing for Pip. Her tone was that which humans typically reserved for those for whom they held a deep affection, but her words did not compute with such emotion. It had been Mae who destroyed the commune Osha had grown up in. Mae who, more recently, had terminated two beings whom Osha had also spoken of with warmth.

These actions, Pip decided, overruled Osha’s tonal indicators. There was only one thing to be done. He activated his spout, spraying oil into Mae’s right eye.

Mae cried out, seizing Pip from his charging station. “What if I reset you to factory settings, hm?”

A jolt of fear pulsed through Pip’s circuits. He protested, loudly, but Mae was unyielding. The world went dark.

A few seconds later, she came back into focus.

If Pip had been re-set to factory settings, he would not have recognized her.

It must have been the Tynnan called Bazil, who had rescued Pip from the forest floor. He had done a few unnecessary repairs that Pip had been unable to identify a cause for. One of them must have disabled Pip’s reset feature.

But if Bazil could do that, Pip was confident Mae could undo it. It would be wise to act as though the reset had worked.

Mae reattached Pip’s head to his body. “Can you run a check on the power system?” she asked.

He replied in the affirmative.

Once he had determined that the system required a five-minute reset, Mae engaged the procedure and went to report to Sol. Once he had been updated, Sol engaged in typical human regret procedures over the numerous organic terminations on Khofar. Then, to Pip’s surprise, the human nodded at him.

“You found him. Your PIP droid.”

“Yes. He’s okay now.”

“I noticed the way you take care of him. Talk to him. You love him, even though he’s just a machine.”

Pip protested loudly at that— just, when used in basic, was usually a derogatory modifier— but neither human paid him any mind. They conversed until the ship’s power returned, and as soon as it did, Mae made a run for the communications console.

“Hello? Is anybody there? Can you hear me?”

“Identify yourself.”

“My name is—“

Mae’s voice was drowned out by a pulsing sound, and a bright blue beam of light passed over her and Pip. Pip’s functionality did not change, but Mae collapsed to the ground. It had been a stun weapon, then. Bazil knew, as Pip did, that Mae was masquerading as her sister. It was logical that he would wish to put a stop to the charade.

But the organic who picked Mae up from the floor was not Bazil. It was Sol.

“Oh, Mae,” he said.

“Master Sol. The rescue team is on their way. Leave your transponder on—“

Sol switched it off. A second later, the ship entered hyperspace. Pip had only spent one hundred ninety-two hours with Sol, but that was long enough for him to know that these actions were incongruous with his previous ones.

Sol picked Mae up from the floor and brought her to a bed in the ship’s living quarters, strapping her wrists down on either side of it. He then took a seat across from her, evidently intending to remain there until she regained consciousness. He didn’t acknowledge Pip.

When Mae finally awakened, it was with the same thrashing, panicked movements that her sister made when coming out of a nightmare. To an organic, it might have seemed that she settled when she caught sight of Sol, but Pip could tell that her muscles were still tensed.

“I have no intention of harming you, Mae.”

“Then let me go.”

Sol crossed the room to stand next to them. “I will, believe me. We have a lot to do. We need to find your master. We need to save Osha. But first, you and I are going to talk. I’ve had sixteen years to think about what I would say to you if I ever got the opportunity. So you’re going to listen.”

Mae’s current position gave her little opportunity to do anything else— and Pip decided it was in his best interests to listen, too.

Sol’s story went against everything that Osha had told Pip. And yet, logically, it made more sense. Osha had spoken of Mae with affection because the willful destruction of their home had not been in conjunction with her sister’s characteristics. It was, however, in keeping with what Pip had observed from Sol. The man who treated Osha with such care could easily have let those emotions override his rational judgments when contemplating her future. The man who had strapped Mae down in an attempt to make her think he was in the right could easily have killed her mother out of a misplaced confidence in his own judgment.

Sol’s story came to a close just as the ship emerged from hyperspace, and Pip began to craft a plan. Above all else, his primary directive was to fix. To make pieces fit in the way that they were meant to. His secondary directive— a self-determined one, admittedly, but it counted to him— was to protect Osha. Freeing Mae would accomplish both.

He nudged her finger, gently, and she began to talk, holding Sol’s attention while inching Pip towards the cuffs. He unlocked his electric prod, piercing the cuff with it and sending a pulse into its wiring. As soon as it released, Mae lunged forwards, and Pip sent a jolt of electricity into Sol strong enough to make him collapse. Mae ran down the hall, but it was clear in her hesitant steps that she had no idea where to go.

Pip called out, indicating the opening for the escape ship, and Mae glanced down at him. It was more ingenuity than a model running on basic settings would show, and they both knew it.

She took him into the ship anyway, making sure he was secure in his place at the console before putting her helmet on.

“Thanks for the assist,” she told him. “I never knew a droid could be such a good actor.”

Pip hesitated, unable to tell if she was being genuine or facetious.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pulling the escape ship away from the main one. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Osha loves you. And you know I love her too now, right?”

Pip agreed, and Mae gave him a quick grin. “Then you and I are on the same side.”

They wove through the asteroid field above Brendok, with Pip offering suggestions and observations as fast as his processor would allow. It didn’t stop them from crashing to the surface, but Mae was on her feet almost as soon as the ship had stilled.

True to her word, Mae plucked Pip from the wreckage before anything else, running with him towards a fortress that Pip inferred must have been her and Osha’s home. As she got closer, however, her pace slowed, and by the time they went inside, she was barely moving at all.

“It was the Jedi’s fault,” she whispered. “But you want to know a secret, Pip?”

He gave a hesitant affirmation.

“I will never forgive myself for starting that fire.” She brushed a hand along a wall, and her fingers came away caked in ash. “If I hadn’t tried so hard to scare Osha into staying, she never would have believed I was the one to kill our family. If I hadn’t fought so hard to keep her here… well, she would have left. But the rest of us would have stayed.”

But then, Pip pointed out, she would have been with Sol, who had proven he was not to be trusted.

To his surprise, Mae understood. “That’s true,” she agreed, patting his head. “I guess you and I will just have to do what we can to look out for her now to make up for it, huh?”

Pip agreed. But another idea occurred to him. It was contrary to his set objectives, but he had a hard time letting it go.

Who was going to look out for Mae?

Osha refused to listen to Mae when she arrived. She fought her, kicking and screaming. And when she yelled for Pip, he told himself he was doing it for her own good as he sprayed water in her eyes, allowing Mae to gain the upper hand. That his attack was only to make her listen, because once she did, she would be happy.

But when another Jedi ship came out of hyperspace and Mae fled the room, Pip didn’t call out to Osha.

When Osha heard Sol confess his crimes, when she killed him, Pip found himself just as glad that Mae had proved her innocence as he was that Osha could at last make sense of what had happened.

When the two sisters reconciled at last, his relief for each of them was equally strong.

And when the human who had introduced himself as Qimir approached, Pip didn’t know what to think. He seemed to no longer be a threat towards either twin, at least, and Pip agreed with his assessment that the Jedi Order would likely not show Osha mercy for what had taken place. But he wanted to reset Mae to factory settings. Having been so close to the same fate, it didn’t sit right with Pip.

Mae agreed to it, just as Pip had agreed to be taken by the umbramoths. They were a team, as Mae had suggested, their directive to keep Osha safe and well.

Only, Osha had a new protector. Mae did not.

Only, Mae had protected Pip, while Osha had sacrificed him.

Only, Pip knew all too well what Mae was about to go through— and he was confident he could help.

So after Mae’s reset, when Osha plucked him from Mae’s belt, he protested.

“You… want to stay with her?”

She had protected him.

Pip was accustomed to Osha’s mannerisms and expressions. He could tell it was guilt that settled on her face now, and as much as it hurt to see her feeling negatively, it made him feel a little better, too.

“I think that’s a great idea, Pip,” she said, placing him back at Mae’s side. “Look out for her, please.”

He intended to. If Pip could come back from a reset, it stood to reason that an organic could, too— and Pip would be ready to fight at Mae’s side the moment she came back to herself.

Until then, he would hold the memories for both of them.

[hawkbutt]

Hi! I have to admit that I know nothing about Fallout but would like to understand your AU so idk could you explain Fallout for beginners please? (and maybe how the AU works specifically) 🧡

I’m going to try and put this in the most straightforward terms I can and maybe steal a few things from Wikipedia if I can’t.

And I hope you don't mind, I'll publish this as well so others can learn.

There are currently 7 Fallout games: Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76. (This is not counting the small things like mobile games or the table top games, or even the freaking pinball game either) PLUS there is also the “Fallout”  TV show on Amazon (It's good, My dad who knows NOTHING of Fallout loved it) ▬ The Show on Amazon is based in Los Angeles.

▬ The setting, back story, lore, just a little history:

The series is set in a fictionalized USA in an “alternate history scenario” that diverges from reality after 1945, following World War II. In this alternative "golden age", where atomic physics serves as the foundation of scientific progress, which leads to a bizarre socio-technological status quo. This means things like advanced robots, nuclear-powered cars, directed-energy weapons, and other futuristic technologies are seen alongside 1950s-era computers and televisions. 

▬ Nuka Cola ad featuring Nuka Girl leaning heavily into the atomic/nuclear aspect

The United States divides itself into 13 commonwealths, and the aesthetics and Cold War paranoia of the 1950s dominated the American lifestyle well into the 21st century.

▬ Map of all of the Fallout Commonwealths

The a whole bunch of history happens, it’s honestly wordy and gives the lead-up to how the bombs dropped on the morning of October 23, 2077, a “global nuclear exchange”, which subsequently created the post-apocalyptic United States, the setting of the Fallout world.

▬ Now, in my AU, I say that Buck is from a Vault.

The U.S. government, having foreseen this outcome just a few decades earlier, began a nationwide project to build fallout shelters known as "Vaults".  The Vault-Tec Corporation designed the Vaults as public shelters, each able to support up to a thousand people. Something round 400K Vaults would have been needed if they actually wanted to help the American people, but only 122 were commissioned and constructed. 

Vault Boy; He is the corporate mascot of the Vault-Tec, His female counterpart is Vault Girl. They appear in virtually every released game and evolved over the years into a symbol of the Fallout franchise in general.

However, the Vault project was not intended as a viable method of repopulating the United States; instead, most Vaults were secret social experiments and were designed to determine the effects of different environmental and psychological conditions on their inhabitants. 

▬Lemme just use Norm Maclean (Fallout Series) here to showcase the sort of view in the vault and the lovely blue and gold jumpsuits ALL vault dwellers basically wear.

Now, only Seventeen control Vaults were made to function as advertised, in contrast with the other Vault experiments. However, they were usually shoddy and unreliable due to most of the funding going towards the experimental ones.  Many Vaults remained sealed as part of their respective experiments even after the radiation had reached safe levels.

EDIT: I forgot to actually talk about the Brotherhood of Steel.

▬ Eddie is a former Brotherhood of Steel Knight.

The Brotherhood of Steel, commonly abbreviated to BoS, is a quasi-religious technocratic military order founded in the immediate aftermath of the Great War  The BOS' core purpose is to preserve advanced technology and regulate its use. They believe humanity cannot be trusted with the means to destroy itself, and they think that acquiring technology would prevent another apocalypse. The Basics of BOS came from the fall of the western Roman Empire when the knights and scribes kept the fire of civilization going after the empire imploded. The BOS is a military order with a strictly enforced hierarchy and chain of command. At the foundation, that mandates obedience to one's superiors and forbids circumventing ranks when giving orders. When it comes to the individual members of the BOS, loyalty to and defense of the organization are the top priorities, - 1st: Loyalty to and defense of the organization - 2nd: Dedication and loyalty to the mission. - 3rd: Dedication and loyalty to one's superior officer. Brotherhood members are expected to follow each of these rules in that order. If one's superior should act against the interests of the organization or mission, the third rule is superseded by the second or first rule.

▬ Brotherhood of Steel Ranking Structure

The Brotherhood has been featured in every game and other entry in the Fallout series in one form or another.

▬ My manip of Eddie in a Brotherhood jumpsuit

Eddie's History with the BOS without spoilers

▬ My manip of Eddie in a Brotherhood jumpsuit

While homosexual relationships are generally tolerated, they are pressured to instead seek relationships that will result in 'repopulation.' This leads Eddie to be arranged with Shannon, which then leads to Chris's birth, though Eddie and Shannon are able to keep Chris' Cerebal Palsy (though in the FO Universe, it would be considered his 'disorder or ailment) secret from the BOS for the first few years. BOS finds out about Chris, and would never tolerate someone like Chris within their ranks. Eddie ultimately decides he can no longer remain a part of them, and following his own moral compass, he chooses to desert the BOS.  The Diazs, on their own, now in this new reality, Eddie is constantly on the lookout, aware that his status as AWOL from the BOS makes him a target.

▬ I have planned in the future that Karen is a former Enclave Scientist.

The Enclave is another military organization dedicated to the execution of an all-inclusive holocaust of non-members, who they dehumanize as "genetic non-compliance offenders." While being the continuation of a pre-war American deep state consisting of high-ranking political, military and corporate figures, its members publicly claim to be the direct continuation of the United States of America and its government after the destruction of the world during the Great War.

▬ Enclave power armor, X-01 power armor 

Without going too in-depth with them, it's obvious I hate them, they're the worst, they Suck, and I'm glad Karen left them (In my AU).

here are things I may mention in my AU (when it comes to finally posting my fic)

Pip Boy: The Pip-Boy (Personal Information Processor-Boy) is a wrist computer given to the player (Vault-Dweller) early in the games and series, which serves various roles in quest, inventory, and battle management, as well as presenting player statistics.

▬ This version of the Pip-Boy is not stated in-series, though the official replica sold by The Wand Company is called the Pip-Boy 3000 Mark V

Power Armor: Power Armor, is a type of powered exoskeleton featured in every game in the Fallout series. It allows for protection from enemy fire and enables the wearer to carry cumbersome weapons and other objects with ease. There are so many types, levels and styles of Power Armor. It is considered an iconic part of the Fallout universe, an effective marketing tool for a faceless protagonist, and a prominent symbol within the game's lore. ▬ “Post-war” the Power Armor is most widely used by the Brotherhood of Steel, a cult-like organization that collects and preserves technology (My husband said the BOS is like Mormons and their obsession with Geneology)

▬T-60 Power Armor

There are INSANE Animals that roam the ‘wasteland’. Some were modified by the Government (ie. Death Claws), but some were also just changed by radiation.

▬ BAD: genetically engineered creatures developed by the United States military to replace humans during missions, but they escaped into the wild in the aftermath of the Great War

▬ GOOD: Brahmin are mutated two-headed cattle; they still provide meat, milk, hide, and manual labor.

Ghouls... Ghouls are humans mutated by radiation, rather than killed by it. The mutation process, referred to as "ghoulification", this typically results in an extended lifespan, if not functional immortality, real-time regeneration of wounds allowing for reattaching limbs, and immunity to direct damage resulting from irradiation. However, it changes their appearance, resembling rotting corpses, burn victims, or walking corpses

▬ Cooper Howard - The Ghoul From the Fallout Amazon series

▬ Feral Ghouls in Fallout 4

Now, with my AU, I’m doing a small mix of The TV show, but throwing in elements of Fallout 4 and New Vegas (Kinda) While I won't delve into the details of every single game and its historical context, I hope this overview will provide you with enough information on the basics of Fallout? If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

Much Love, ▬ Kenna

[damienthemortician]

art dump art dump aRT DUMP ART DUMP

lore dump under the cut

1st: My pfp for any of my mortician accounts, it was originally a birthday drawing for my friend and I really liked the composition and it makes a good pfp, I often start drawings or put a lot of detail into the face to make into a pfp lel. The characters unfortunately don't have names or stories behind them, and the drawing was made on a normal tablet with my drawing tablet jerry rigged with it when my computer was still broken. 2nd: Two characters from a minecraft modpack I put a few dozen hours into, I don't know if I'll finish it because the lighting is more complicated than I'm used to, but hey two sworn enemies dancing together what's not to love. 3rd: bunce, a silly garfield knockoff I drew with my mouse and is an inside joke with my sibling

4th: An unfinished piece I started real strong with but like a lot of things the lighting lost me, I wanna go back and just dab on some simple cel shading and call it good at some point. The character is Omega, another of my cyberpunk creatures and the counterpart brother to Delta, he's a dj with cybernetic legs instead of arms, a screen visor and ears and a much more bouncy (heh) personality as opposed to Delta. 5th and 6th: My little god oc Vaughn and some doodles of him, the same war god as mentioned in this post and long story short he's the sun's ex boyfriend and thus why vampires aren't allowed in sunlight, and he is functionally dead in that he was born as a bunch of huge bones in the earth as shown by the bottom drawing, and is representative of war in the quartet of other gods who represent pestilence, famine and death, I'll save it for now.

[shakespeareaddict]

Fix Your Writer’s Block (without using AI)

I’ve been posting a lot of AI hate here lately (almost like...it’s becoming my brand....) and one of the things that gets my goat is the propaganda belief that AI can help writers who are struggling with a story in some way, shape or form come up with the next line or fix their plot or what have you. This advice is misguided at best and destructive at worst.* 

Still, complaining about something without actionable advice for how to fix it is not really my vibe. So for those of you thinking: “But I really need help!/But what am I supposed to do if I get writer’s block?” I have good news for you: Writers have been tackling writer’s block since...probably the invention of storytelling. There are ways to get around it if you are stuck! 

So, here’s a non-exhaustive list of tips and tricks to deal with your writer’s block, no computers necessary:

Put down something mediocre and come back to edit it later. It’s easy to get caught up searching for the “perfect” word or sentence, and waste a lot of time staring at a blinking cursor. But that’s not what a draft is for! Your goal is to get as much of the story out of your head and onto the page as possible; you can always edit it later, once you’ve had some time to think. (Though you might find that when you come back, the “mediocre” bit is actually better than you thought!)

Use a placeholder and continue writing. This is another tactic meant to keep you writing when it’s a small block, instead of falling down a research rabbit hole for an afternoon or otherwise being distracted. If I need to name a minor character who appears for two lines, I will often just ID them by their function in the story and circle back to it. Eg: “Officer <<COP>> took their statements very professionally and gave them his card.” When I edit, the all-caps and the brackets are a big reminder that, wait, I need to name this guy!

This tactic also works for research! If you need to know if bees have teeth or who said a cool quote, don’t spend an hour researching that when you should be writing! That is a problem for editing!

This goes triple for fanfiction writing, especially for a fandom with a lot of convoluted canon. I write a lot of Star Wars stuff and I like to reference “canon” planets and events in my fics; but if I try to research those references while I’m writing, my writing session becomes an endless Wookiepedia Delve. I just put “<<ICE PLANET HERE>>” or “<<CHECK SPELLING>>” as reminders.

I also cheat sometimes and write “<<end scene>>” if I’m not sure how to end a scene.

Take a break. Get up, stretch your muscles, and go do something else for 20-30 minutes. This tactic is perfect for when you realize you don’t know where a scene is going, or you’re stopping and starting a lot with your work. I recommend either light physical exercise or light household chores - something that engages your body without engaging your mind too much, so your subconscious can continue working on the problem.

This is also a great way of sneaking in self-care while writing. Hydrate yourself, go to the restroom, eat if you haven’t eaten yet. This kind of physical stuff has a huge impact on your mood and brain function; your writer’s block might be a symptom of your body needing something!

Go back to the drawing board. I have a bad habit of never outlining before I start writing - I know what the first three scenes are going to be, so I don’t need an outline! Then, about halfway through the story, I realize I have very little if any idea of what happens later. Taking a step back and typing out a quick outline (simple bullet points, like “Conan calls his sister for advice”) helps me keep on focus for the rest of the story, even if I decide to go off-outline.

Rubber-duck the problem. This tactic is for when you notice a larger problem with your work - you realize there’s a plothole, or you’ve written yourself into a corner, or you know how your story ends but you have no idea how to get to there from where you are now. “Rubber-duck debugging” is a programming technique where you explain a problem you’re having with a computer to an inanimate object (such as a rubber duck). Simply explaining a problem can often be enough to help you realize what went wrong.

No rubber duck is required! You can try this technique on dogs, mugs of tea, or family members who don’t know what you’re talking about but who make listening noises at the right time.

Finally, seek help from other writers. There are loads of ways to do this and all that you need is a community of fellow writers - or even just one writing friend! - to reap the benefits. Plus, it works on just about every kind of problem you can imagine having. Asking for help can look like:

Posting a question in a Discord server or other large group chat (eg: “Which of these two sentences sound better?” or “Do you guys have tips for writing betrayal?”)

Bringing your work to a writer’s workshop of some kind (I did a lot of this in high school/college and highly recommend joining a group where constructive criticism is offered, even for just a few months! Not only do you get feedback on your work, but learning to give other people feedback vastly improves your editing skills)

Discussing your problem with a writer friend

Finding a beta-reader (either a friend or otherwise)

*Besides the fact that you are feeding your work to a program that can and will keep it forever and might easily recreate parts of it later without your permission or knowledge, and besides the fact that most AI-generated “writing” isn’t actually that entertaining or good on a technical level so the value of whatever output you get is not actually that high, the best way to learn how to do anything is to practice doing the thing. If you turn to an AI every time you hit a stumbling block in your creative process, you are going to continue hitting stumbling blocks and your skill will not improve long-term.

[thedawningofthehour]

I’ve finally finished the chapter!!! :) now I can ask about it.

I don’t know about you but I despise sandels. I would wack him upside the head too. They’re uncomfortable and make weird noises on the floor. They’re just really weird to me I guess. So I appreciate Hueso.

I don’t know if she’s been talked about before in the fic but I assume the girl is Kendra. She always seemed to have a lollipop of some sort on her. I miss watching her and Donnies fights in the show. They were always really funny.

I speak from experience when I say that this ^ is one of the most accurate descriptions I have ever read. When something traumatic happens people brains have a really cool function of forget, ignore/deactualize (is that a word?) or break down. From personal experience I understand the “I know this is really bad but it’s bad to the point of my brain giving up comprehending it and it simply doesn’t compute as anything worth my attention.” I don’t remember from my psych class last year what the name of it is, but I know theres a psychological name for it.

If this is going where I hope it’s going, i’m really excited! Gale isn’t the type of person to see something like that and leave it be. So i’m excited to see what he does with the info.

This made me want to cry. Thats all.

Love your work! Have a great day/evening/night. Can’t wait for the next update :)

Oh yeah, they are loud. I wasn't even really thinking about it from that direction, but Leo would absolutely be the dumb bitch who wore flipflops to a stealth mission.

Soup made a comment about him wearing socks with sandals and like-to confirm, Leo has the fashion sense of a dead shrimp and would totally wear socks with sandals. Both because he's just that bad at being gay and also to annoy Donnie. But in this particular instance Hueso wanted to make sure he was wearing good walking shoes so his feet wouldn't be sore at the end of the day. (and he's not going barefoot because wtf they're probably immune to HIV but don't go tempting fate here)

I actually very much prefer sandals. I went to college way up north and I would take my trash out in flipflops when it was like -30 out. (I was also very stupid, so don't do this)(not that you can, it doesn't get that cold anymore)

Anita's a Yokai, so no her granddaughter is not Kendra. The Purple Dragons will have another cameo (maybe get a mention in the recovery arc, we'll see) but since everything else has ballooned we just haven't gotten to them.

Which is honestly really funny to me, because Kendra clearly considers herself very important and probably makes the 'Othello Von Ryan's ARCH ENEMY' thing a point of pride. Meanwhile Donnie straight-up doesn't remember her and his brothers are like

A lot of what Leo does is disassociate and compartmentalize, so he's very, very good at going "I know this is objectively horrific, but it also looks kind of sick. I kinda want to poke it with a stick."

Which is a very real and valid trauma response! Not everyone responds to shit the same way. For some people, turning off the 'holy shit' part of their brain or making light of it, that's literally their way of trying to process the thing. And it has its uses. It probably served Leo very well during the Krang war, when things went to shit and he was able to stay rational while everyone around him was panicking.

The problem being, of course, that Leo never unpacks that compartment and just lets it fester. So it just gets worse and worse until something finally rips it all free.

I think this was the first real Cass-Gale fight? Besides little arguments and teasings. I mean, they're siblings, and they're under a ton of stress right now. They're both ready to crack.

I considered having Cass storm off and ending it there, but I didn't really like that. Gale knows that he isn't really mad at Cass, and Cass knows that Gale was lashing out. They're both socially stupid but they know each other. At the end of the day, they'll always have each other's back.