#End-to-End Tech Support

[albywritesfiction]

ATE Devlog #5

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the radio silence, I've been really drained from academics and orchestra these past few weeks 😅 But now that our February production is over and I just finished some major quizzes, I should have some more time to squeeze in some writing in the next few days, at least until the next round of quizzes 🥲

Speaking of writing, here's a quick update on how progress on Chapter 1 Part 2 is going:

Total no. of passages: 18

No. of completed passages: 13

Chapter 1 Part 2 word count: 3,145

With Part 1 at 5,089 words, the total word count for Chapter 1 is currently at 8,234 words, which is definitely a lot more than I was expecting it to be 😅

As of now, the next update for the game will include:

Chapter 1 Part 2

Option to switch timed text to click-to-load text

Some more character customization options that were suggested in Tumblr

So, yeah, that's it for now! Thanks everyone and I hope you all have a good day/night!

[nixcraft]

Tech support

via https://www.instagram.com/p/CsmuBmjxXIp/

[vashti-lives]

I am very self conscious and insecure about my voice and I will not lie: it is very pleasing to be told by the guy I’m on the phone with for tech support that I have a great voice and could be in voice acting. It’s possible he says this to everyone who is having problems with their voicemail because nobody likes how their own voice sounds when played back to them, but I don’t care. I’ll take it.

Also very fun to find out your old tech support guy at this company, who you’ve talked to several times, has been promoted! Congratulations my guy! You were for sure the most competent of the guys I talked to when I was having phone tree problems!

[abronzeagegod]

22 and/or 40 with your nerd techs pretty please

Kiss Number 22. ...in a rush of adrenaline

No one was more surprised than Lyta when Aeth suggested that not only they go to the local fall carnival. The cheap fried food, overpriced sugar candy, and thrill rides never would have occurred to Lyta that Aeth would enjoy that kind of thing.

And yet. Here they are. At the carnival.

A temporary thing set up only a few hundred yards from the bay. The sun had set and the water was entirely empty, except for the few ships that could afford the very expensive and powerful wards.

They spent several hours having a lot of fun. They went on rides. They ate terrible but amazing food. They played games.

They held hands.

Lyta suggested that they do the haunted house, as it was the one attraction that they hadn't done yet. But Aeth was a little reticent. Not that Lyta could blame them.

"Maybe we should just head home then," Lyta said.

"I'm not ready to head back just yet," Aeth responded. "I'm having too much fun with you."

Then Aeth suggested something infinitely scarier than a haunted house staffed by weird teenaged theater kids.

"Let's go dip our toes in the water."

"What? Are you kidding me?" Lyta said, stopping dead in her tracks. "The Deep Ones have eaten people for way less!"

"I'm not suggesting we go skinny dipping," they said, as if that was some kind of defense. "We can just go and sit with our feet in the water and watch the city lights. Maybe even the boats. Come on. We're both powerful people, we can handle making a couple of wards that'll last a few minutes."

Aeth spoke quietly, holding Lyta's hands, holding her close. It was a private thing, just for the two of them.

And of course, she couldn't say no.

Luckily, for Lyta, she had a bunch of extra magic because the notorious carnival games were making people very mad.

The two left the bright lights and noise of the carnival behind them to the beach where they quickly discarded their socks and shoes, rolled up their pant legs, and went to the edge of the water.

They sat with magic and water encircling their feet as they held hands and watched the distant lights of the other side of Reckonfall that surrounded the bay that connected them to the rest of the world.

It was nice. It was peaceful. They weren't eaten alive by the Deep Ones or their children.

"Let's go for a swim," Aeth whispered, like it was a secret.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Lyta said. "Absolutely not! I swear that's how people piss off the Deep Ones and that's how we get eaten!"

But then Aeth was taking off their shirt and starting to work on the button of their pants and Lyta lost all ability to reason. So she followed suit.

Skinny dipping with Aeth. In the bay.

She couldn't not make a triple layered ward though. For both of them. Even though she saw Aeth make their own ward, Lyta was definitely afraid for both of them.

But with Aeth, naked, in the cold water of the bay, just the two of them, gentle lights and sounds from Reckonfall and the carnival nearby made it all so exciting.

Until she felt something move, something brush against her shin. Her naked shin.

To say Lyta screamed was an understatement. It was something of a shriek of terror as she threw herself at Aeth.

"Don't worry! It was some seaweed!" Aeth said as their own magic highlighted the culprit underwater.

With her heart racing and her naked body pressed up against Aeth's Lyta kissed her partner hard. It was teeth and crushing and in desperation with the timing of her thunder heart.

It likely would have continued if not for a call from the edge of the water.

"Hey! You two making out!" yelled the voice. "I'd get out of the water if I were you."

Lyta's face felt hot with embarrassment. Her and Aeth sank lower in the water, trying hard to not be noticed.

"Look, I don't give a shit what you're doing right now. You've got pretty powerful wards, or you're very stupid, but either way I'm having a meeting with someone in the Bay and they're a magic eater, so yeah... probably a good time to get out of the water and put your clothes back on."

Lyta covered her face with her hands and used her shame and magic to conjure a small ice wall to shield them from the stranger on the beach.

They quickly changed, sharing secret looks and smiles, before taking off.

They turned back when there was a flash of green as person on the beach they tried to avoid eye contact with put their own clothes in a pile and walked towards the beach. This woman in her underwear was approached by a something walking out of the water.

"Holy shit," Lyta whispered.

Aeth grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the beach. "This isn't something we should spy on."

[boogiewoogieweeb]

it's all fun and games typing up a silly, rickety little au idea in the tags of someone else's post and then suddenly you find yourself expanding on the world-building and plotting out interconnected stories for characters you swore would only make background appearances and your brain is On Fire with the need to write even when you know you can't commit to yet another doomed wip

[ntaras]

i know many people want bi-han to live and not become noob saibot but i truly feel like bi-han’s death is such an important tragedy to the story and to his own character. his inability to escape his own doom is the best part about him. any desire he had to try and be good would be thwarted by his death and he would re-emerge as noob saibot and have no desire for goodness left in him- only selfish gain and bitterness for having his life taken away from him, akin to how scorpion came back after being murdered by bi-han.

that’s not to say i don’t want a plot line focused on trying to get bi-han back in some way. his armageddon ending will always be my favorite: bi-han fighting noob saibot for control over his own body once again is at least something to tell us that there is some of his soul lingering about. it’s not a canon ending, but still. it’d be nice to see noob saibot and bi-han fleshed out more

[neryscrossoverparty]

Would You Like to Sign My Petition? It could save the world!

[starbuck]

so this old man did a little outdoor patio garden concert at my park today and it was a really nice day so he kept reiterating how fun and happy he had made his set to match the weather. at a certain point he said “i’m gonna do some joni now :)” and i’m like “all right, sure” mentally running through all the songs he might potentially pull out and, i kid you not, this man starts singing fucking A CASE OF YOU.

[femmegina]

watched a fine video analyzing emesis blue bc i hadnt seen it in years and was going thru his videos anyway, very informative about a lot of more obscure references and inspirations, but he decides to undercut it with a grating joke complaining about how it didnt pass the bechdel test doing a stupid voice. sorry but the real misogyny in emesis blue is jules archibald taking the administrator's place as the shadowy instigator of the forever war

[glacialdeath]

;Rukia is not a tech-y person. If she has to be around someone in tech for more than a few minutes of waiting, watching them mess with hardware or something, she loses 30% energy and 30% of any good mood she has. And it's 100% your fault.

[senatortedcruz]

Singing Cornelia Street to my beloved new software I had to work so so hard to get

[albywritesfiction]

OP, the zoom is FUCKED on Firefox when you open After the End. It returns to normal when you click 'New Game' and start the story but I literally had the Settings tab cover 3/4th of the page when I clicked on it and you can't scroll either.

I mean the page with 'New Game' 'Load Game' 'Settings' 'Credits', by the way. When you click 'New Game' to create your character, everything returns to normal.

Hello Anon!

Ough, apologies for the inconvenience to everyone who experienced the same issue 😭 will try to fix this problem soon, hopefully I can upload a new version of the game that addresses this problem, and also implements the other feedback (adding hair color & eye shape options, click to load next line option) soon! Will definitely work on this after our orch prod in Feb 😅

[stainlesssteellocust]

US diplomat: "Okay, so you bought some of Alaska's land from Russia, okay, okay. But...your people live on the other side of the world, and, let's be real here, we're too racist to respect you as equals. Why should we honour your deal with the Russian Empire when we can just...waltz in and annex your little home away from home?"

Tsalal Alaskan colonist leader: "Good question! Do you see this missile, this one right here, bigger than a train? Its warhead is filled with several tons of fuel-air explosives. Now, I'm not saying that we have a dozen of these things stocked on ships ready to fire at any given moment and a bunch of fanatical suicide pilots ready to fly them ludicrous distances into your nearest population centers...

"But I'm not not saying that."

[selamat-linting]

born to be a silly guy doing cutting-edge technological advancement, forced to meticulously explain the difference between gmail and protonmail at 3 am to a guy who is supposed to have five years experience of working in an office job.

[abronzeagegod]

ETS WIP Chapter 16: End Script

[first]|[more]

As the last of the worms was killed and banished into their home plane, the last person that Lyta wanted to see was Ji.

"I was surprised you chose me of all people," the thin, but stupidly hot, Exterminator said.

"Yeah, well," Lyta said without thinking, she felt like she had to response and the filler words were the first thing she spoke into existence. She was still trying to reign back her anger, to keep it under control and not say something stupid or mean or callous. Now was not the time. She took a breath. "You're an asshole but you're still one of the best Exterminators we have so it wasn't really even a question. Besides I still know your employee ID number so it was easier for me to look you up."

Not entirely without anger, but sometimes it just is like that.

Ji shrugged. "Well, I never got to see you really fight like that so... if you ever want to transfer over to the Exterminators give me a call. We could go for a drink or something."

Lyta briefly caught Aeth's eye from across the hallowed field of servers and graveyard of worms and phones.

"I'm good where I'm at."

Aeth, meanwhile, was being interrogated, or rather very harshly questioned, by two members of the Catalog and Archive Bureau.

"You unleashed a god upon tech support," said the one that was not tall. "You stole an unrestrained small god that was supposed to be closely monitored and let it loose within one of the most complex systems in the world."

"Yes," Aeth said. "It was necessary."

"We will be the judges of that," said the one that was not short. "This is going to have ramifications."

Aeth nodded. "And letting the Abyss go unchecked would have been much worse. A thing that you were supposed to deal with, but were... indisposed."

Lyta had walked over by this point and cut off the agent that was about to speak, "Not to mention your Bureau is responsible for letting a sentient nightmare out that almost consumed my friend whole. So should you really be casting blame."

The one who was not tall sputtered a little bit before he answered. "We were not informed."

"Oh, funny that. You can go clean up the corpse of 3812-B in my friend's apartment. When you figured out how the thing that was supposed to be monitored 24/7 managed to get out, almost complete the goal for which it spawned, and you still didn't know about it, then we can discuss the ramifications of the thing that saved us all."

"You'll be hearing from us," the one that was not short said angrily.

"I'm sure we will," Lyta snapped back. "But until then fuck off back to the file cabinet."

Aeth heaved a sigh of relief as the agents stomped away. "Thanks. For everything."

Lyta smiled up at Aeth. A warm, but tired smile. "Any time. Can we get out of here? I need a shower, food, and probably a call to a repairman and my landlord to fix my apartment."

"Before you go," came a voice from one of the servers. Out of an unused port, came the representation of the new God of Tech Support.

"What can we do for you?" Aeth asked.

"I owe you two more than I can say," Sir Lance Corporal said. "I am now more than I ever was. I feel like I am myself and I have a purpose. I thank you humbly for your efforts in this event. I hope we shall work together again soon."

The pair just nodded.

Then, just in Aeth's mind, came the voice of the god, "Thank you for your faith, as well. It sustains me and gives me the strength to continue."

Aeth nodded and replied in prayer. "It was nothing. Easy to believe in something good. I'm sure Lyta feels the same."

There was a soft sound of a server next to Aeth that sounded almost like a chuckle.

"Lyta does not, and that is fine. She believes so much, in you. That is enough for me, I hope it is enough for you."

Aeth wasn't entirely sure how to respond.

"Go, get some rest you two. There will be work to be done when you return," the god of tech support said.

"Ok, thanks," Lyta said. She turned to Aeth. "I have an idea, it may be a dumb one, but it's all I've got right now. Let's get a hotel room, shower, give our clothes to the pros to clean, eat some room service while we hang out in fluffy robes, and then just... sleep."

"It sounds great."

"My apartment is probably covered in like three inches of snow melt."

"And I'm sure the Catalog people are combing over my place looking for 3812-B."

"Which will be easy to find, right?"

"I hope so."

As the pair walked off, somewhat hesitantly, Aeth put their arm around Lyta's shoulder. Lyta immediately warmed to the touch and moved closer to them.

Sir Lance Corporal made sure to tell the hotel to only offer them rooms with a single bed.

if you liked these maybe considering leaving me a tip on kofi

[sarayu-sunrays]

Alright so I recently (a few months ago) had a scary run-in with what could have been a dangerous virus on my pc so I just wanted to give y'all some tips on how to stay safe out there.

1. How do you know there's a threat to your system?

If the threats showing up as a pop up on your screen, take a photo on a different device (i.e. phone) and close the tab. Go to settings on your browser and block ALL permissions for that site - you know it's shady af now.

Then, go to your settings and go to security. On windows, you can do a quick scan of your device. Run that. See what the results are.

If they are negative, then run a full scan. This will take a while and I would recommend not using your device (it'll stress you out and make you worry needlessly) just leave it and go do something else. Make sure your camera is covered! (Just to be safe)

If the results are negative then congrats! You've played it safe and come out of the other side - next time, careful with suspicious sites. Just as a precaution, look up the pop up text to see if it's a known scam, and stay on the lookout for any issues with your device that may suggest infection.

If the results are positive then go to your nearest tech support ASAP.I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. your data can be stolen and used against you. Cybercrime is a NIGHTMARE, and while there are white-hat hackers out there they are few and far between. Most hackers are in it to steal something - whether money, data or something else.

If you are a minor then TELL YOUR PARENTS. yes, they will be mad. Yes they will tell you off. Yes they will be disappointed and there will be consequences, but they can help keep you safe.

Best wishes, and stay safe y'all!

-your local tech nerd :]

Also reblog with anything I might have missed - there's a lot to cover :)