Friday is for Technology Failures

[squidgiepdx]

Hello, everyone. I'm squidgiepdx and today's theme is "When Technology Fails". Prompts should all take advantage of older ways of doing things, in the failure of newer technology. Like maybe Danny has to infiltrate an Amish community, tickling Steve to no end. Or maybe Rodney's newly designed tech for taking out the Wraith fails, so Ronon just shoots them instead. Whatever it is, embrace the old ways!

Just a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and fandom's full name for ease adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
If your prompt or fill contains anything that can be a trigger for the reader, please add a warning for that to give the reader the chance to decide if they want to read or not.
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing. Use the spoiler cut option found here.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the above mentioned spoiler cut.

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...
+ Torchwood, Captain Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Jack makes pillowtalk about how previous iterations of Torchwood relied on old fashioned methods to capture Weevils.
+ Hawaii Five-0, Danny Williams/Steve McGarrett, Steve jumps in the water after a suspect, with Danny's phone in his pocket.
+ Grimm, Nick Burkhardt/Monroe, Monroe has to explain why an old fashioned watch is so much more reliable than Nick's new flashy timepiece.

We are now using AO3 to bookmark filled prompts. If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3 please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2015 collection. See further notes on this new option here.

Not feeling any of today’s prompts? Check out the just created Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet. For more recent prompts to write, you can also use LJ’s advanced search options to limit keyword results to only comments in this community.

While the Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet and LJ's advanced search options are available, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching for in the future.


tag=whentechnologyfails

Comments

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch, Peter Grant/Thomas Nightingale, another phone gone

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

Star Trek: TNG, Data/Geordi La Forge, the replicators break and Data decides to cook for Geordi instead

No fill, but

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

I see that going one of two ways. Either really, really well or really, really badly. Like, food poisoning badly :P

Re: No fill, but

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

"But, Data, how did you end up poisoning half of the ship?!"

Re: No fill, but

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

"It was so tasty, how were we to know he'd used the toxic part of the blowfish?"

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

The Flash (TV), Leonard Snart/Barry Allen, blackout

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

DCU, Dick Grayson/Adult!Damian Wayne, the Batmobile breaks down in the middle of nowhere

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

Batman: TAS, Bruce Wayne/Harley Quinn, "how did you break the computer?"

[katleept.livejournal.com]

Once Upon A Time, Regina Mills + Henry Mills the Second, trying to live without magic for Henry's sake

[katleept.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow Rosenberg + any, She doesn't function well when her computer is down.

[katleept.livejournal.com]

Charmed, Piper Halliwell + Prue Halliwell + any, A spell is enacted that suddenly makes ALL technology in San Francisco stop working.

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

any. any.

"Are you sure this computer isn't just demon-possessed?"

"Not this time."

FILL: The Laundry Files (Charles Stross) \ No warnings apply \ PG

[mtxref-fic.livejournal.com]

"Bob, you got a minute?" the voice of Fred from Accounting asks from the doorway.

I look up from reading my email, quickly minimizing the window before his unauthorized gaze happened to catch things it didn't have access to seeing, not that he'd understand a tenth of the text he might manage to read. "I might," I said, giving him as non-committal an answer as I could muster, hoping it would put him off and he'd go dun the requested minute off someone else.

"Don't think it'll take more than a minute: my screen is frozen again," he said.

At least once a day, Fred comes out from his lair and asks me some basic question, everything short of how to press the keys to get the text onto the screen or how to move the mouse, though the buttons have been known to confuse him.

I decide not to be That Guy and I get up, pausing to put my desktop on hibernate. "Let's have a look," I say, letting him lead me to his office, which is a third larger than mine and actually has a window.

(The rest can be read Here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3690141))

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Dresden series. any. The best way yo tell a wizard is near.

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. any. They've learned not to rely on technology because...

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spike. The chip didn't work.

[katleept.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow Rosenberg + any, The Demon destroys her computer after she finished fixing it -- for the third time today.

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

any. any. When your Kindle shuts down in the middle of a long, boring trip.

[katleept.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rupert Giles + any, A book, unlike a computer, can not crash.

[jaune-chat.livejournal.com]

MCU, Tony Stark + any, "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" "Right..."

[falkner]

DCU, Wally West +/ Hunter Zolomon, nothing happens with the Cosmic Treadmill and Hunter has to learn how to cope with being wheelchair-bound

[falkner]

DCU, any, Cosmic Treadmill misadventures

[ivotedforsaxon.livejournal.com]

Revolution, Duncan Page, When the Blackout first hit.

[ivotedforsaxon.livejournal.com]

Any, any(/any), NBC Revolution!AU.

[tigriswolf]

any fandom with hackers, any hacker, for whatever reason [character] can't hack in and so has to physically break in

[tigriswolf]

Highlander, Methos (+ author's choice), when the apocalypse happens, immortals of a certain age fare better than all others

Fill - Sadhana 1/2 (Methos & Cassandra)

[icarus-chained.livejournal.com]

Not sure how you feel about Cassandra, and this went a little philosopical on me, but here you go?

Sadhana

The thing about humanity's development, Methos noted dully, was that their capacity for destruction progressed in step with everything else. And, indeed, in advance in of many things.

Once upon a time, it would have taken a deity to cause this kind of annihilation. Once upon a time, a man-made apocalypse would have been as small and as simple as four men on horseback laying waste to a settlement. For real damage, for an ending to span empires, a man would have needed time, or an army, or a god. All of the above. But time and armies and gods were exactly what progress, technology, had stripped away. Man had reduced himself, and exalted himself, and made annihilation so infinitely simpler. Now, all it had taken to induce the End of Days was three days, a great many missiles, and the god-in-the-machine.

Progress had its downside, the great and terrible shadow always at its heels. He should know. He'd been that shadow often enough.

Immortal fiefdoms were emerging now. They'd been the first to crawl from the ashes, the ones that hadn't been incinerated in any of the myriad ground zeroes. Radiation sickness did sod all to stop a quickening, and there were only so many times an immortal body could die to the same degradation before the quickening started compensating faster than the body could dissolve. With mortal populations so devastated, technology and infrastructure laid to ruin, it was the older monsters that crawled forth to stand, bright and shiny and terrible, over the wasteland.

It only made sense, after all. When progress was stripped away in its turn, when the bright new future was laid to waste, it was those who had predated it that emerged to rule once again. Old monsters, who remembered how the world had worked once before, and now would have to work again.

When Olympus fell, it was the Titans that rode forth once more. Just as Kronos had once predicted. Just as he'd once tried to bring about.

"And so the age of warlords comes again," the woman at his side said softly. Bitterly, but he of all people could hardly begrudge her that. "Does it please you then, Death?"

Methos turned to look at her. Cassandra, standing over a city's ruin with her sword in her hands and an expression on her face that he had not seen in three thousand years. He met her eyes, the ancient, weary hatred there, the calm expectation of brutality that belonged to an earlier time, and found himself suddenly too tired to give its ancient answer. Three thousand years. Five thousand. More. Forward, ever forward, and then suddenly back to the beginning. He was too tired. He was too old. He had not the patience to play this Game once more.

And yet, he'd not the patience to die, either. The endless irony of his existence. When it came down to it, he never dared lay down and die. Through all the many endings of the world, he damn well never planned to.

But then, perhaps he didn't have to. Might was only the law when you let it be, and Methos was too damn old at this stage not to cheat that law with every wile he still possessed. There were more answers than just the sword. There were more ways to win than just brute strength. Even when the world had fallen into ruin, even when everything had been destroyed, there was still more to life than just this endless, infinite, interminable Game. He'd spent five thousand years learning that. He'd had five thousand years of progress between that time and this. It had to have taught him something.

This wasn't the Bronze Age anymore, nor any age since. When Rome fell, the world didn't just go back to what it had been before. This fallen empire might have been the biggest yet, might have invited so much greater an annihilation, but it was still only the latest in a line of endings. Another apocalypse among thousands, only differing in its size, and Methos had seen them all. The cycle grew bigger, every time, but it grew shorter too. When you were old enough to remember past cycles, when you paid attention, maybe you learned enough to be able to kick this one in the pants and skip the painful parts. Well. The recurring ones, at least.

Fill - Sadhana 2/2 (Methos & Cassandra)

[icarus-chained.livejournal.com]

You go enough times around the cycle of reincarnation, you had to hit enlightenment at some point. Maybe he wasn't there quite yet, but at the very least he could open this cycle at the point where diplomacy, human rights and indoor plumbing were still on the table. Five thousand years on, he had wiles enough for that. Death might be eternal, but the Horsemen were long gone now, and maybe they ought to stay that way.

So no, he decided. No, the age of warlords didn't please him. That was a game for younger monsters, and he was too damned old to bother putting up with it. This titan wasn't playing by those rules anymore. Maybe it was time to stop letting everyone else.

"... No," he said at last. Meeting her eyes, seeing something startled and wary dawning there. "No, it doesn't please me, Cassandra. Any more, I think, than it does you." He paused, looking at her thoughtfully, and then he smiled. Slowly. Darkly. A very, very ancient grin. "What do you think, Oracle? Would you like to stop it this time? Would you like to kill it before it starts?"

Because she was a titan too, wasn't she. She was ancient too, as battered and more than he, as understanding of the darkness of this game of swords they all played. She'd seen the cycle close almost as often as he had. She'd stood in its path a damn sight more. Cassandra. Priestess, Oracle, Chooser of Champions. The witch, wary and weary, who'd fought for a future from the start, when even he'd been content with only endings.

If he could have anyone on his side, in this new and savage world, he could do a lot worse than the woman he'd once destroyed, and the woman who'd spared him in her turn. He wasn't so blind as not to realise that. She hadn't killed him yet. They'd crawled from the rubble together, by necessity more than choice, but still she hadn't killed him. Alone with an ancient enemy, justified in her grudge, she hadn't struck him down.

If there was any better argument against the law of the sword, he hadn't heard it yet. Though he'd be happy to, if one should chance to happen by.

"What did you have in mind, oh Death?" she asked him softly. With teeth in it, and challenge, but something bright and wary, too. Something new, something for a dawning age and not the endless echoing of ones long dead. She looked at him, her sword resting idly on her shoulder, and for the first time he saw in her the future and not the past. He saw it, and it was good.

"... I thought I'd try rebuilding a world instead of ending it, for once," he answered honestly. "I thought I might try being the hero for a change. I mean, five thousand years on, how hard could it be?"

She laughed at him for that, of course. Well, fair enough. She had a right to, and he'd have laughed at him too, had he been on the other side of it. But she didn't say no, he noticed. She didn't tell him not to try. From Cassandra, from the Witch of the World-As-Was-And-Will-Be, that was probably as close to an endorsement as he was likely to get.

So. Alright then. One new round of progress, courtesy of the oldest monster still standing, coming right up. One more cycle, with its shadow now at its head instead of its heels.

Let's see how quick and how great this one would be.


A/N: The title is referring to the concept of Sadhana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C4%81dhan%C4%81), which I only have bare knowledge of, but seemed to fit?

Re: Fill - Sadhana 2/2 (Methos & Cassandra)

[tigriswolf]

Ooh, nice. Thank you!

Re: Fill - Sadhana 2/2 (Methos & Cassandra)

[icarus-chained.livejournal.com]

Welcome. Glad you enjoyed!

[tigriswolf]

author's choice, author's choice, cavemen vs astronauts (and the astronauts do not have weapons)

[tigriswolf]

Harry Potter, any muggleborn born after 1990, going to Hogwarts and having to leave all their technological devices behind

[tigriswolf]

Lord of the Rings (Jackson films), author's choice, why was there no technological advancement in the 3000 years between Isildur's battle with Sauron and the War of the Ring?

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric+/Winry Rockbell, "What did you do to my automail this time, Ed?"

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

The Big Bang Theory, Leonard+Any, "The ice cream machine isn't working!"

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

The Flash, Barry Allen/Harrison Wells, cell towers go down for some reason while Barry's out doing his hero thing, and when he gets back to the lab Harrison looks like he's been pulling his hair out worrying about him.

[guardiancastiel.livejournal.com]

Attack on Titan, Levi Ackerman/+Hanji Zoe, Hanji invents a new weapon, it explodes in Levi's apartment and dirties everything.

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

DCU, Jason Todd/Roy Harper, the air circulation system thingie stops working on the ship and they're running out of oxygen. Or: the things Roy chooses to say to him with his last few breaths. (Kori saves them in the end.)

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

DCU, Tim Drake+/any, Tim forgets/loses his phone and the anxiety and general anguish of not having it that follows.

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

DCU, Tim Drake/Jason Todd, blackout in Gotham

[healyg.livejournal.com]

Steven Universe, any, malfunctioning Gem tech

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

DCU, any Batfam, sending texts to the wrong person

fill - haha i have a sickness

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

roy i need you to come pick me up right now before I accidentally fall on his dick again or something. can u do that?

and who's dick would that be? PS this isn't Roy.

haha no one's. just an inside joke. should't you be working

shouldn't you be helping Bruce with the...nevermind.

score one for the replacement. you get a cookie.

Jason's phone vibrates in his hand just as Bruce comes back into the room.

You about ready for that pick-up jaybird?

Jason looks up from his phone and bites his lip. Bruce's white tank top is pretty much soaked through from working outside all afternoon and the thin cotton is clinging to his muscles like a second skin. He tilts his head back and pours a bottle of water over his head, drenching his hair, and Jason watches the beads of water disappear down the back of his shirt, down his spine.

change of plans. i'll call you later

but it's my favorite kind :*

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

Jason looks up from his phone and bites his lip. Bruce's white tank top is pretty much soaked through from working outside all afternoon and the thin cotton is clinging to his muscles like a second skin. He tilts his head back and pours a bottle of water over his head, drenching his hair, and Jason watches the beads of water disappear down the back of his shirt, down his spine.

THAT'S NOT EVEN FUCKING FAIR. hnnnnnnnnnnnnnng jesus I will get you back for this. or you know, THANK YOU. whichever phrase I'm trying to say here. <3333