Dealing With Change
Oct. 31st, 2021 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerHope you had a happy Halloween! Mine was, uh...interesting. Put under a cut because it'll be easy to skip if you're not interested.
So, we were playing ESO. Not my favorite game in the universe, if you've read my other posts about it. Though "Cat Majima" can now summon a single shadow doppelganger, so that's awesome. So, it did the thing it sometimes does when playing with a controller (which, I have to, I'll give myself a big ol' headache otherwise) and the attack buttons just stopped working while the movement and camera thumbsticks still worked. Okay. Whatever. I'll unplug, replug...no, okay, reboot...okay, didn't work.
I've read controller problems are sometimes fixed if you try Big Picture, attempt to start game, it says it's doing it but it doesn't pop up and I have never used it before, so I try to back out, and the first time that doesn't even work. Unplug controller, huh. ESO launcher no longer pops up, even if it says it's running. Okay, use task manager. Try again. Not showing up. Task manager. Start again. At this point, task manager is no longer working.
Am reminded that maybe the external hard drive is failing (because ESO is a giant game and also not worth clogging up my internal hard drive). That's a bit fast, but oh no. Open windows explorer. Windows explorer fails to open. Try again. Nothing. Try clicking on taskbar. No dice. Suddenly error pops up. Research error on other computer. Error usually only occurs if the user account is corrupted. malware/virus? Tons of instances of windows explorer pop up, + 2 instances of task manager, + dire warning from Avast saying 'you must restart to quarantine'. I hit okay. Restart, log in. Avast warning again. I hit okay again.
Next time I get in, it pops back up again, so I look closer. It's the main Webroot file. You know, the antivirus that they say plays nicely with other antivirus. It's in the right spot, looks legit, false positive has happened before, I upload to Virus Total, it's registered from one source as bad but there's also mention of downloading it from the internet, which is definitely??? not what I did??? Since everything I'm seeing says it looks legit, I say 'allow it for now' and everything starts mostly acting normally again.
Go into steam. Try to play game. "Download fresh", they say. I'm like, what the blank do you mean, I'm not having it take up twice the space, check windows explorer, it's still in there. Fine, I'll try to download it to the same place, and while it goes through the motions of a fresh install, the only thing it says it downloads?? is the uninstaller??? So, uh, it starts back up fine, it works fine, but. Legit. What was that circus?
Main Points:
Buffy/Babylon 5 AU (same as The Ushari): Agents of Chaos AU
Chapter Summary: Unfortunately, breaking the spell didn't go exactly as intended.
Word Count: 1102
Rating: Teen
Except, hey, she can still feel the implants. More importantly, she still knows the exact movements she needs to take in her head to call up a fireball. Which she does.
“I feel like barbeque,” she states out loud, mentally congratulating herself because that’s a pretty good line, and the second time his face has that oh crap expression is even sweeter than the first time. He takes off, and she starts to give chase when a scream comes through an electron incantation, and she immediately gives up, because she can flambé the undead later. Right now, there are only two people who could be screaming, and either one of them is more important to her than a rematch.
And Xander’s still where he was kneeling. And he’s not moving.
“Xander!” she yells, running over, and Willow’s kneeling next to him, hand on his back.
He glances back up, and—oh. Yeah. That’s a problem. Because that’s still dark fur that matches his original hair color, with some more black mixed in, and yellow-orange slitted eyes, and he’s still practically transmitting the anguish he’s feeling. He’s miserable, and it’s not something ridiculous like being protected from bullies for once.
How are they going to deal with this one?
“Um. This could be good?” Willow begins, shyly, only to have a loud, hysterical laugh drown her out.
“Good? How is this of the good? I’m not human anymore!” He curls in on himself after his outburst, making quiet little whining noises that he tries to swallow.
Buffy tries to remember what she knows about cats. It might not make that much difference, given, y’know, alien, but for all she knows it’s an alien based on Xander’s imagination, so it might help. One thing she vaguely remembers is that towering over them can be seen as threatening, so she crouches down, and while he still seems panicked, his posture gets just a little less defensive. Interesting. “You’re still Xander. You’re still my friend. Even if nothing else changes, that’s enough for me.”
“And me!” Willow chimes in, and Xander manages a smile. He’s still hyperventilating, though, ears flat to the sides and pupils dilated.
“Look, we apparently still have ridiculous powers, even if everyone else has changed back.” He probably hears the groans as people wake back up around them as well as or better than Slayer hearing. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Not everyone changed back,” a voice corrects grimly. Angel? “Sorry, Xander. Are you…okay?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve been house trained and everything so I won’t go biting the friendly neighborhood vamp,” he responds bitterly before clenching his fists—hey, fists!
“At least you still have opposable thumbs,” Buffy points out, and while the smile is mostly fangs, it is a smile.
Shockingly, he actually apologizes. “Yeah, uh, sorry. Can it just be taken for granted that I am really, really not dealing with this well and don’t mean the things I say?”
“Oh, they’re your friends. They’re probably even more used to ignoring what comes out of your mouth than the rest of the school,” Cordy joins in, and if Buffy’s not actually seeing things, she actually looks a little bit concerned, even if she’s trying to hide it. “So, can I get a walk home?”
Willow glares. It’d be strangely unthreatening if she didn’t suddenly have Technomage powers to back it up. “You can walk yourself home, Miss Useless.”
“Well, sorry I can’t throw fireballs. Just because the spell,” she gestures at the mostly-empty street, “…went away doesn’t mean the person who cast it went away, and I am so not ready to join Xander here in the land of the furry.”
Fortunately, the promise of a verbal catfight is slowly drawing Xander out of his panic, and at Cordy’s last comment he smirks.
“No, Xander, bad kitty. No figuring out how it worked just to cast it on Cordy, even if she is asking for it. We promised to use our powers for good, remember?” Even if Buffy half wants to see her as a cat, too. It’d even be pretty fitting. “Besides, she’d have a tail.” She’s not sure why that’s so important, exactly, but from the way Xander had looked jealously at the goofy floppy piece of fabric when they’d first seen her, it mattered to him for some reason.
“Crap, you make good points.” He pauses. “Can I at least figure out how it worked so we can see if we can undo it?”
“That’s a reason I can get behind,” Buffy agrees with a smile and helps him to his feet.
Cordy clears her throat. “And after that walk home, I have a lead for you sad saps. It looked like Giles recognized the name of the shop owner, so he might have a clue of what’s going on.”
“Plus, maybe we can get some clues from the place! And if there really was a similarity in casting style to the Technomages, I might be able to read the code and I might even be able to reverse engineer it—” Willow falls silent at the fond look Xander gives her as he helps her up, too.
“If the sorceror’s still around, there’s no Psi Corps to tell me I’m breaking rules reading his mind, either,” Angel points out, and that’s something else interesting.
Xander’s got a lot more nonverbal ‘tells’ now, ones he hasn’t learned to control yet, and he still has a bit of that instinctual Angel! bad! reaction going on, but he catches it. Not even just that, he cares enough to stop himself. He really is making more of an effort. And maybe the fact that Tsandar actually liked the guy well enough helps. “Sounds like a plan,” he states with forced cheer, and there’s a bit of hysteria bubbling up again under the surface, but it sounds like he’s at least got it under control for now.
So, we were playing ESO. Not my favorite game in the universe, if you've read my other posts about it. Though "Cat Majima" can now summon a single shadow doppelganger, so that's awesome. So, it did the thing it sometimes does when playing with a controller (which, I have to, I'll give myself a big ol' headache otherwise) and the attack buttons just stopped working while the movement and camera thumbsticks still worked. Okay. Whatever. I'll unplug, replug...no, okay, reboot...okay, didn't work.
I've read controller problems are sometimes fixed if you try Big Picture, attempt to start game, it says it's doing it but it doesn't pop up and I have never used it before, so I try to back out, and the first time that doesn't even work. Unplug controller, huh. ESO launcher no longer pops up, even if it says it's running. Okay, use task manager. Try again. Not showing up. Task manager. Start again. At this point, task manager is no longer working.
Am reminded that maybe the external hard drive is failing (because ESO is a giant game and also not worth clogging up my internal hard drive). That's a bit fast, but oh no. Open windows explorer. Windows explorer fails to open. Try again. Nothing. Try clicking on taskbar. No dice. Suddenly error pops up. Research error on other computer. Error usually only occurs if the user account is corrupted. malware/virus? Tons of instances of windows explorer pop up, + 2 instances of task manager, + dire warning from Avast saying 'you must restart to quarantine'. I hit okay. Restart, log in. Avast warning again. I hit okay again.
Next time I get in, it pops back up again, so I look closer. It's the main Webroot file. You know, the antivirus that they say plays nicely with other antivirus. It's in the right spot, looks legit, false positive has happened before, I upload to Virus Total, it's registered from one source as bad but there's also mention of downloading it from the internet, which is definitely??? not what I did??? Since everything I'm seeing says it looks legit, I say 'allow it for now' and everything starts mostly acting normally again.
Go into steam. Try to play game. "Download fresh", they say. I'm like, what the blank do you mean, I'm not having it take up twice the space, check windows explorer, it's still in there. Fine, I'll try to download it to the same place, and while it goes through the motions of a fresh install, the only thing it says it downloads?? is the uninstaller??? So, uh, it starts back up fine, it works fine, but. Legit. What was that circus?
Main Points:
Buffy/Babylon 5 AU (same as The Ushari): Agents of Chaos AU
Chapter Summary: Unfortunately, breaking the spell didn't go exactly as intended.
Word Count: 1102
Rating: Teen
Buffy is in the middle of cheering, because it’s rare one of their plans work out exactly as planned and it’s hilarious, really. Godzilla had decided they were friendly shortly before some blond vampire came calling for her like she’d be helpless, or something. The look on his face as he realized neither he nor his army had much chance against a twenty-foot Kaiju and three Technomages, even if they’re only apprentices, was absolutely priceless. He’s running down the street when the spell hits, and she can feel it, just like before. The Kaiju is suddenly a three year old in a onesie, and the blond—Spike—turns around with a grin on his face.
Except, hey, she can still feel the implants. More importantly, she still knows the exact movements she needs to take in her head to call up a fireball. Which she does.
“I feel like barbeque,” she states out loud, mentally congratulating herself because that’s a pretty good line, and the second time his face has that oh crap expression is even sweeter than the first time. He takes off, and she starts to give chase when a scream comes through an electron incantation, and she immediately gives up, because she can flambé the undead later. Right now, there are only two people who could be screaming, and either one of them is more important to her than a rematch.
And Xander’s still where he was kneeling. And he’s not moving.
“Xander!” she yells, running over, and Willow’s kneeling next to him, hand on his back.
He glances back up, and—oh. Yeah. That’s a problem. Because that’s still dark fur that matches his original hair color, with some more black mixed in, and yellow-orange slitted eyes, and he’s still practically transmitting the anguish he’s feeling. He’s miserable, and it’s not something ridiculous like being protected from bullies for once.
How are they going to deal with this one?
“Um. This could be good?” Willow begins, shyly, only to have a loud, hysterical laugh drown her out.
“Good? How is this of the good? I’m not human anymore!” He curls in on himself after his outburst, making quiet little whining noises that he tries to swallow.
Buffy tries to remember what she knows about cats. It might not make that much difference, given, y’know, alien, but for all she knows it’s an alien based on Xander’s imagination, so it might help. One thing she vaguely remembers is that towering over them can be seen as threatening, so she crouches down, and while he still seems panicked, his posture gets just a little less defensive. Interesting. “You’re still Xander. You’re still my friend. Even if nothing else changes, that’s enough for me.”
“And me!” Willow chimes in, and Xander manages a smile. He’s still hyperventilating, though, ears flat to the sides and pupils dilated.
“Look, we apparently still have ridiculous powers, even if everyone else has changed back.” He probably hears the groans as people wake back up around them as well as or better than Slayer hearing. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Not everyone changed back,” a voice corrects grimly. Angel? “Sorry, Xander. Are you…okay?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve been house trained and everything so I won’t go biting the friendly neighborhood vamp,” he responds bitterly before clenching his fists—hey, fists!
“At least you still have opposable thumbs,” Buffy points out, and while the smile is mostly fangs, it is a smile.
Shockingly, he actually apologizes. “Yeah, uh, sorry. Can it just be taken for granted that I am really, really not dealing with this well and don’t mean the things I say?”
“Oh, they’re your friends. They’re probably even more used to ignoring what comes out of your mouth than the rest of the school,” Cordy joins in, and if Buffy’s not actually seeing things, she actually looks a little bit concerned, even if she’s trying to hide it. “So, can I get a walk home?”
Willow glares. It’d be strangely unthreatening if she didn’t suddenly have Technomage powers to back it up. “You can walk yourself home, Miss Useless.”
“Well, sorry I can’t throw fireballs. Just because the spell,” she gestures at the mostly-empty street, “…went away doesn’t mean the person who cast it went away, and I am so not ready to join Xander here in the land of the furry.”
Fortunately, the promise of a verbal catfight is slowly drawing Xander out of his panic, and at Cordy’s last comment he smirks.
“No, Xander, bad kitty. No figuring out how it worked just to cast it on Cordy, even if she is asking for it. We promised to use our powers for good, remember?” Even if Buffy half wants to see her as a cat, too. It’d even be pretty fitting. “Besides, she’d have a tail.” She’s not sure why that’s so important, exactly, but from the way Xander had looked jealously at the goofy floppy piece of fabric when they’d first seen her, it mattered to him for some reason.
“Crap, you make good points.” He pauses. “Can I at least figure out how it worked so we can see if we can undo it?”
“That’s a reason I can get behind,” Buffy agrees with a smile and helps him to his feet.
Cordy clears her throat. “And after that walk home, I have a lead for you sad saps. It looked like Giles recognized the name of the shop owner, so he might have a clue of what’s going on.”
“Plus, maybe we can get some clues from the place! And if there really was a similarity in casting style to the Technomages, I might be able to read the code and I might even be able to reverse engineer it—” Willow falls silent at the fond look Xander gives her as he helps her up, too.
“If the sorceror’s still around, there’s no Psi Corps to tell me I’m breaking rules reading his mind, either,” Angel points out, and that’s something else interesting.
Xander’s got a lot more nonverbal ‘tells’ now, ones he hasn’t learned to control yet, and he still has a bit of that instinctual Angel! bad! reaction going on, but he catches it. Not even just that, he cares enough to stop himself. He really is making more of an effort. And maybe the fact that Tsandar actually liked the guy well enough helps. “Sounds like a plan,” he states with forced cheer, and there’s a bit of hysteria bubbling up again under the surface, but it sounds like he’s at least got it under control for now.
