Stuff and Things

He is, after 210 years, still the Vault Tec Rep. He has no name, and still wears the same exact clothes. He mentions struggling to loose that identity despite holding a lot of (very valid) ahtred for Vault Tec.

I think there should have been a more in depth quest then that non-quest conversation you can have. Like you happen across him in the Rexford, then you can send him to Sanctuary, and then if you see him in Sanctuary again you can offer him a job and get the option to... send him to another settlement?

They could have had a quest where you bring him to some Vault Tec office, or you go by yourself, and have to find his desk. Maybe fighting some ferals and some emotional flavor text about knowing them but not being able to tell who they are or him saying he thinks he recognizes someone based on their clothes.

Find his desk with a spare ID card in it that has his name and face. Maybe an old photo of him with his spouse/kids/family/friends to jog his memory. Either he can take these or if he's not there you bring them back to him.

Only then can you send him back to Sanctuary (or maybe the Slog so he can learn to love himself as a ghoul). When you see him again he's changed his name and his clothes. He tells you about how he feels like a person again, and it's so good to hear the other settlers call him by his real name. Talk about how he has friends now and finds his job there fulfilling and rewarding, either farming to provide food or guarding to protect his new friends.

Or if you are the General of the Minutemen, and he really wants a job similar to his old one he could instead rep for the minutemen. Be a traveler with a little caravan like the provisioners and you can spot him in the environment. He will tell you small stories about the people he's run into or tell you he's sent [insert number] of settlers your way since he last saw you. (The number doesn't even have to be consistent with the actual settlers you've gotten cause they don't always make it to settlements.)

And if we wanted to get crazy he could have been a companion, and all of this could have been instead his affinity quest, where he slowly decides he wants to be more than just Vault Tec Rep. And it ends with him having learned to embrace his new life in the wasteland, more confident in fighting, traveling outside of 'safe' cities, and navigating the post war world as a whole thanks to the experience he gained traveling with you. This could not only be linked to your affinity to him but also the number of new locations you travel with him to add a little extra pizzazz.

Maybe even the quest to the Vault Tec building 'fails' and he has to pick a new name and form a whole new identity instead of going back to his prewar one.

As Pride Month comes to an end, I just want to remind you that July is Disability Pride Month and there's a flag and everything!

Charcoal Grey: Mourning for people who have died due to ableist violence, abuse, suicide, and illness

Red Stripe: Physical disabilities

Gold Stripe: Neurodiversity

Blue Stripe: Emotional and psychiatric disabilities

Green Stripe: Sensory disabilities

In just the past two months, Sony has:

Said the PS6 will be more than $1000 at launch

Announced the end of all physical PS game releases

While simultaneously announcing the end of two of their console game stores — ensuring multiple games will die forever

Declared that they are wholly dedicated to (A) leveraging A.I. when making games and (B) creating live-service games above all other game types

Announced that if you bought any movies through their PlayStation Store, over 550 of them will soon be deleted from all users' libraries — with no restitution offered of any kind

Gamers, it is time — to paraphrase Robert Vann — to turn Sony's picture to the wall. Any one of these insults would be bad, and taken alone? Maybe it could be swallowed. But this is an ongoing campaign of disdain towards customers, with each declaration worse than the last.

So, in case anyone wants to do them, feel free. Just tag me so I can read:

• In HY #4, Venka is one of the people who goes to the Sun Village. This is the first time she's been there since she was an infant. How does she react to the place her father grew up in? Does she try to learn more about her heritage? Does Zhantee or Rayek show her around?

• Aurek was saved from death at Blue Mountain by Two-Edge. How did that go? Did they have conversations? Did they become friends? (Is it weird that Two-Edge exists because his father was sent to go kidnap and enslave a rock shaper, and Two-Edge always seems to befriend them? Ekuar, Aurek, Ahdri.)

• How do you think Windkin would have turned out if he had been raised with the Wolfriders in the new land instead of with the Sun Folk?

Katie Harris is photographed with her Appaloosa. Harris made most of the horse trappings as well as her own traditional outfits herself, including the bead work. Some of the trappings are passed down from older generations but the girls like to make their own to continue the tradition.

Donald Trump gets attacked by an eagle.

The Reflecting Pool is filled with algae.

Mount Rushmore sent sodding 1" hailstones when he gave a speech there yesterday.

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May I present to you, nationalclothing.org?

context: grew up in an abusive, controlling home, escaped to uni, had a prolonged mental breakdown, became a teacher and worked in a dysfunctional school with amazing kids and nightmare management for years. I did not realise I have adhd and autism for a long time. (You might even be able to scroll back through this blog to find the time around which I did realise lol.)

ANYWAY, things that have helped me because my body can no longer handle any kind of stress without flaring up:

If you’re doing anything that requires you to do a lot of prep before you begin the actual thing (e.g. cooking, deep cleaning a room, moving house), mise en place. That’s a fancy french way of saying get everything ready before you begin. So if I’m cooking idk spaghetti carbonara, that means fry and chop the bacon, separate the egg yolks from the whites, put water in the kettle, put dry spaghetti into a pan. Once everything’s ready, it reduces the mental load and means I can focus on the actual cooking and any clean up that I can do along the way. H/t to @ms-demeanor for this, you changed my life!

the Might As Well rule. This one works really well for me but you gotta be careful otherwise you’ll get sucked into the Vortex. Basically, let’s imagine you’re in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. You notice that the extra roll of toilet paper has been used. instead of thinking, “I’ll get to that later”, and then forgetting about it until you sit down on the bog (no judgement, we’ve all been there), you think “Might As Well put an extra roll while I’m here!” This tends to help with the little tasks that build up over time. This Does Not Work for big tasks.

Leading on from no.2, Do It Immediately/ASAP really helps me too. My current boss will email me on a Friday and say, ‘don’t reply to this now! Leave it til monday!’ But she and i both know that if i leave it til monday, I will forget and get stressed and this will make me Very Ill. So, instead, the moment i receive the email, I’ll either schedule in replying to it as soon as I’m done with my current thing, OR I’ll reply to it immediately.

Anything that can’t be actioned immediately, i mark as Unread. Anything Unread in my inbox is a future action, and i check those Unread emails/texts/whatevers Every. Day. To make sure whether today is the day i have the info to action it. (This also means i have to stay on top of my inbox. I read all my emails and then mark them accordingly. I’m also brutal with unsubscribing)

The House Always Wins. Both in a literal sense, because i am in a constant battle with keeping my house clean, and i know now that I’ll never get it as clean as i want it. It’s impossible, i no longer have the energy or stamina to vacuum and scrub everything. But also just in a life sense. I’m never going to achieve things to perfection, and perfect is the opposite of done. And getting things done is that much more important when you have limited energy and strength. Accept that you often have to half-arse life in order to Full-Arse the few things that really matter to you.

Have multiples of everything, everywhere. I wear support gloves, so i need to have handcream at every sink and everywhere i sit down in the house. I try to keep it unobtrusive, but it means i don’t have to trek upstairs just to moisturise my hands. Gum, phone chargers, pens and pencils, water bottles, hand sanitizer, whatever you need.

Work with people, even if it’s online. Body doubling actually works. Also I’ve found that if I’m working on assignments, taking myself to a library or study area that isn’t my bedroom helps so much.

Show off! Tell people on here or elsewhere in your life about the fact that you’ve just written 100 words! Or that you’ve cleaned the fridge and that’s a really big deal for you. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.

Basically, you’re aiming to reduce the mental load as much as possible. Wear the same types of clothes all the time to minimise the amount of laundry. Eat the same three lunches so decision fatigue doesn’t take over.

For anybody looking for resources from someone dealing with actual ADHD, I have an incomplete but ever growing list of ADHD tips, tools, and suggestions on my website.

A lot of the pages on that site are adapted from my tumblr posts, for instance I'm adapting this post about car repair projects with ADHD into a guide on project management and completion with ADHD.