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wirewitchviolet · 1 year ago

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How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

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wszczebrzyszynie · 1 year ago

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i’ve been reading through the space miner au posts and the rancher essay just sent me over the moon (haha). i MUST know more about imp and skizz when you have the time thank you <3

Unseparable since childhood, they know each other better than anyone. Both went into space mining (which is how they met Tango) very early in their life, probably as teenagers, which would make them basically veterans now, and therefore very experienced in all things mining related. After their last mine and base collapsed, leaving Impulse without an arm, they both left and settled for something different; not entirely sure what they do now, other than harboring a wanted terrorist every now and then, but its something radio and communication related. Quite a jump from their last job, but after the collapse space mining left them with less than positive feelings

(More more or less related things to explain some things below, so that it wont be a giant wall of text on the dash. Fixed because tumblr ruined formatting)

i feel like this is a good moment to mention a bit more about what space mining even is, other than being just... mining in space. there are a few different layers to space mining as a profession, depending on the ore and place (its stability, temperature and everything else needed to be taken into account with human workers); it doesnt really target asteroids (which is why i dont call it asteroid mining), only planets and moons. Despite being assumed to be a more presigious job, it really isnt, at least most of the time; Jimmys experience, for example, is very much comparable to mining on earth, and payed as such. Impulse and Skizz, on the other hand, got to do the cool sci fi idea of space mining, much more dangerous (in places that arent in any way friendly to humans that the miners cant really leave easily before the end of their work season, i guess. not sure how to call it), but also more fun, as it includes the use of mobile suits. This is how sculk is mined, as it tends to exist in places humans shouldve never been in.

(Jimmy also has a mobile suit license, as it just... comes with doing that job, but never had to use one on any of the mining sites. When i talk mobile suits think less Eva and more... chunky and grey. something like the demi series from gwitch. I wanted to include mechs because i like mechs 👍 and i think using giant robots for mining is really cool)

the idea itself is not based on any real-ish possibilities or whatever of asteroid mining; i would much rather it be read in a way youd read a space sci fi from the space race era. specifically from the side of the eastern bloc... its where the retro part of retrofuturistic comes in this au. If i had to introduce the world more, id say that space colonisation started more than century and a half ago (for the time of the au, that is) and durning space race itself. Even though the cold war has been over way before all characters were even born, there still is a clear space divide influenced by it; not all places are avilable for everyone with a spaceship, but it slowly starts opening up and mixing with itself. It very much goes into alternative history but its not the focus of the au so ill just leave it at that. Bit of a worldbuilding thing. I say all that because i find the idea of what esentially is space juma (travelling to germany from poland specifically to steal and traffic small high value items and also cars durning the 80s and 90s and still today sometimes) and all things similar stupidly fun. Thats why Tango has to hotwire his spaceship. Theres a chance im the only person who likes this kind of story atmosphere and its ok its my au. Sorry for going off topic from the ask it just kind of happened. Bless

#artwork #space mining au #ask :)#impulsesv #skizzleman

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goat-guy-tm · 11 days ago

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I was talking about deep analysis of Curly and Jimmy's dynamic in my discord server (which you should join), and I thought "Hey! Maybe tumblr would like this!" So, here this is! It's a rough copy paste of what I said, edited slightly to fit better in a post format:

Also long post warning.

I feel like because a lot of ppl haven't experience people like Jimmy irl they have a hard time understanding why Curly acts the way he does, and by no means is it still 100% okay, but when you know someone that's been mentally manipulating you for years if can become easy to be tunnel visioned to they pain they cause others. I think a big example of that is when Anya shows concern over Jimmy's last psych evaluation but when Curly does it Jimmy (from the little text we get about it) tells him it was just all jokes, which could have been, but when it's just Jimmy and Curly it's much lighter in perspective, because Curly believes him, and Curly sees no reason for Jimmy to lie to him about his mental state (which he obviously was doing as he has quite the psychotic break a few days later)

Not to mention, Jimmy gets quite aggressive at Curly when he notices that Curly is rethinking his career. He activly calls him horrible things for 'not appreciating his position and wanting something new' (<not direct words but overview), when if Jimmy was a good friend he would have been talking about it with Curly. Instead he shames Curly for it, that in Jimmy's mind it's unfair for Curly to not be happy cause Curly has a better seat than him, but he'll frame it as them, the whole crew, to make Curly feel bad about it.

Like, when the rest of the crew learned they were going to be let go after that haul, none of them were really mad at Curly for him being the only one to be given a recommendation and compensation. Yeah Anya and Swansea are upset about it, but only Jimmy is the one to call out Curly for being the only one to relieve special treatment, when it's pretty established Curly is/was one of Pony Expresses' best pilots. But Jimmy doesn't talk about himself during the party. Swansea mentions how unfair it is that PE is throwing them to the side after all these years, Anya almost has a panic attack over not having any money in savings, Daisuke isn't really phased since he's only an intern, but Jimmy gets mad at CURLY, not Pony Express. He even full on calls it Curly running away, as if Pone Express closing them down is Curly's fault for wanting something different for his life

I mean what's wild to me is I'm p sure Curly even has a conversation with Jimmy in the game about how he hasn't been handed anything and has been working hard for where he is. Curly never out right really says it, but he does make mention of both of them working hard. Then again Curly doesn't talk about himself a lot even in conversation (minus the "on the edge of a bridge with your feet in the cememnt" one cause Jimmy made it about him)

When going back through the playthrough, I realized Jimmy is such a well written villian because he convinces even Curly that Curly is the villian here, the one in the wrong. Curly isn't perfect, he is quite literally the imperfect victim, but Jimmy is such a big manipulator that he convinces Curly it's HIS fault all this is happening, that Curly needs JIMMY so that he can fix all this, only for Curly to realizes what Jimmy's been doing when he finds Jimmy curled up outside the cockpit with a ship wide system failure blaring.

Buddy Corl: "Hey, just an idea, would Jimmy keep Anya alive so that Curly can stay alive? He berates her medical expertise but never elects to care for Curly beyond feeding him pills."

I'd say 50/50. A big thing is Jimmy quite obviously doesn't view Anya as a person, or at the very least views her as bottom of the barrel useless, but after the crash and with Curly how he was, there was no way he'd be able to do it and survive, because the entire time Swansea has the axe and Jimmy even recognizes that if he steps out of line too far within the lines of "I'm captian so I say so", then Swansea would basically usurp him. His own personal caring for Curly was most likely to keep him suffering. He voted on keeping Curly alive, and unless he was just trying to blend in with the others, then he did it because he wanted to keep Curly suffering.

Friend Corl again: "There was a Tumblr post that claimed the hands of the others were missing (the overview angle of Curly on the table was used as evidence) but this could just be the angle of the scene itself as he was going to die shortly after."

Hm, it could have been either the angle, a rendering choice from the devs or Jimmy could have cut their hands off. Idk why he would only go for the hands though, since he seems to show full intrest in cannablism. But you could chalk it up to a concept of keeping them from being able to do anything. Yes they are dead but Jimmy is far gone enough to believe that cutting their hands off could still make him better because they can't do anything to change what he's done.

Anyways that's it! For some context on why this is so important to me, from elementary school to the end of middle school I had a 'friend' that I was extremely close with. She was a horrible person who mentally, emotionally and physically tortured me for years, but since I was a child I never saw anything wrong with it. I would even rush to her defense when people would point out to me that what she was doing was bad. Now a days I hate her, and I love to talk shit about her, but I think a lot of people don't fully take in Curly's actions because they haven't gone through that (and they shouldn't, mind you).

I feel for Curly a lot, because I see myself in him in how he tries so desperately to protect someone he didn't even realize was killing him. Curly isn't perfect, and believe me I wasn't perfect when I was friends with her. She made me act out against people to gain her approval, she made me bitter and mean to others, do things I would never do. Very few people acknowledge what an over powering manipulator that has been controlling you for years can do to a person.

#curly mouthwashing #mouthwashing game #mouthwashing #copilot jimmy #jimmy mouthwashing #captain curly #mouthwashing analysis #cw long post #long post #cw child abuse #tw manipulation #tw child abuse #cw manipulation #swansea mouthwashing #anya mouthwashing #daisuke mouthwashing

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skaboycowboy · 2 months ago

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THROAM PRINT GUIDE!

This ones for the 20 people who liked my last post🫵lots of love☝️🙏🙏🙏🙏

I printed these using LULU , the quality of the print is pretty nice, and the site was SO easy to use. Like. Seriously. The books need to be flattened a bit more, but that’s presumably because of shipping? Nothing i cant fix though.

Speaking of, that shit was QUICK! Books took 3 days to print and only one to ship because they came from somewhere about 3 hours from my house.

Price wise— these were the price of typical books, individually cheaper actually. In total they were $60 CAD, shipping being the worst at $15, but in all honesty, $60 is the amount you would pay for books at a bookstore over here.

(Ignore the fact that I MISSPELLED THROAM??? These names don’t mean shit, it really doesn’t matter…)

As for the books: they’re bigger then i like personally, but they were pre-formatted to be 6 x 9in (US trade,) and as i took the files directly from Anna Green’s blog, they should be the same size as the OG books.

A kind soul on reddit gave me scans of the covers, as far as im aware there aren’t ANY HD copies of them anywhere online? So i had to reformat these bad boys by myself.

I tried to keep them as close to the original books as possible, this was my first time using lulu and i had really no idea how they were gonna turn out— so PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME AND REFORMAT THEM!!

The print would look wayy better if the resolution was higher, theres nothing i can do about the actual drawings, as those are straight from the scan, but the text is a tad blurred and would look a ton crisper if you upped the size.

(Okay so my cameras pretty shitty, but hopefully you can tell that it’s far from perfect. I have no idea what to do about that aside from redrawing the art, so you’re on your own for that one.)

Another problem is the size of the back cover, it just looks big and not even at all. So just size it down, It’ll look SOOO much nicer.

The last problem you should fix is the side bleeding onto the front. I put the cover together on lulu’s site on my ipad, so i couldn’t really tell, but it should be pretty easy to fix up.

This is where i leave you!

THESE are the files

and can do the rest….this wasn’t like. A complete guide. But. Um. This is my contribution to the fandom. I love these books so bad and im absolutely psyched about having physical copies. So spread your yaoi wings and FLY LITTLE BIRD!! FLY!!!!!!!

If you do end up reforming the covers, please send them my way to add to the drive! Also, dm me if anythings off or u need help! ^_^

#ignore that the pics wer taken on my bed whoops #throam #the heart rate of a mouse #ryden #bandom

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harrywavycurly · 4 months ago

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Southern Comfort Part 20.2: Saddle Up

Masterlist: Here

CW: Language

Tag List: @wedontknowherorhimorthem @blckburd @daphnesutton @fangirl509east

A/N: Harry calls Niall because he needs to hear the honest truth and who better to give that to him than his Irish bestie, this is also dialogue formate not a text, enjoy✨

“Wait a bloody minute here Harry…you told Jeff what now?” “I told him how I’ve been seeing her so much and how I like her and just…how I want to spend my free time with her.” “Okay and he took that as she’s obsessed with you?….why?” “I mean…because I…I didn’t correct him when he assumed?” “So you let Jeff your manager because let’s not get it fucking twisted here Harry he’s your manger first most of the time and your friend second…you let him think this poor girl that you’ve been seeing has been the one obsessed with spending all her time with you ever since she bumped into you in the grocery store?” “Uh…yeah.” “What the fuck is wrong with you? Of course he’s going to come in there ready to get her to sign a damn restraining order Harry you made her sound like a top notch psycho when in reality it’s you! You’re the one who’s gone fully off his fucking rocker obsessed with her.” “I know! I know Niall! I don’t know why I let him think it was her I was an idiot and now…now she said she needs like space or something and she’ll call me when she’s ready to talk and…what if this is it? What if I lost her before I even really had her?” “Then you’d be getting exactly what your gangly ass deserves for making her deal with that ambush you call a fucking friendly meeting…seriously Harry…you just sat there? Didn’t even try to get him to back the fuck off?” “I didn’t want to interfere…I know she can handle herself.” “Well no shit she can handle herself but doesn’t mean she should have to….especially when it’s defending herself to your wanker ass friends Harry.” “What do I do Niall? I’m…I don’t know what to do.” “You give her all the time she needs and respect her boundaries…don’t be fucking weird Harry and creep on her house like I know you want to…and with the time she’s giving you maybe learn how to be the fucking man she deserves yeah? Because let me tell you…based on what you’ve told me about her….how you’re acting right now isn’t it…she can handle her own and she can handle being with you it seems but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to be protected or at the very least know you’re willing to step the fuck up if needed…but above all she deserves to be respected…and Harry you let your friend disrespect her and that’s not okay.” “You’re right I…I have to be who she deserves and needs and I’ve been…going at this all wrong it’s just…fuck Niall she makes me so nervous…she doesn’t even have to do anything but smile at me and I’m fumbling over myself and can barley get my words out and I just…I lost myself for a moment and let things get all fucked but I’m going to fix it.” “I know you care about her Harry….what’s that saying they say in those old fucking western movies? It’s time for you to saddle up and get your head outta your ass?” “I don’t…think that’s a saying at all Niall…but I get what you’re trying to say…oh and just so you can have a laugh at my expense…I thought she was my girlfriend this whole time.” “Shut the fuck up…Harry what the hell? Why…why the hell would you think that?” “Because I’ve never actually had to ask anyone to be my girlfriend before? They just always…said I was their boyfriend.” “Jesus….listen I know you’re like Harry fucking Styles and you’re used to things just being like handed to you but this girl of yours…yeah she’s not like that okay? You gotta put in the work….meaning if you want her to be your fucking girlfriend you have to ask her…god you’re such an idiot sometimes…we really should’ve stayed in school a bit longer.” “We really should’ve…would’ve done us a world of good…you think after all this she’d even say yes?” “She didn’t tell you she’d never talk to you again so yeah…I’d say give her the time she needs and maybe hang out a few times after to see how it feels and prove that you’re not the same bloody fucking twat you were beforehand and yeah…I think she’ll say yes.” “You’re always so motivational Niall it’s amazing.” “I know I should really go into public speaking huh?….but I gotta go…good luck Harry I’m rooting for ya.” “Thanks Niall…means a lot.”

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leonenjoyer69 · 6 months ago

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Goopy and non goopy version bc idk which I like more, BUT!!!! THEY GUY!!! HARRY!! HE GOT CONTROL :3 also the "I am me" is a Chonny Jash reference (from the soul eclectic, bc as I've mentioned I draw a good few things from Soul for him)

Ngl I kinda,,, don't really like coloring, especially shading, least favorite part of the art process, but I kinda ate this up, especially once I started throwing in the gradients 🗣️🗣️ still took me forever tho lmao, I hate color theory.

(Also, tysm @lesbianturrets for hyping me up about the pose, you're so cool, ily 🫵🫵🫵)

Anyways!! Other version below the cut, along with a bit of lore drop

So yeah, he gains control while barricaded in his office, after Jekyll mixes the wrong salts into a single vial he was able to find. Harry freaks tf out upon gaining control, though he doesn't have much time to as Lanyon breaks into the office and such. Of course the first thing Lanyon questions is the HUGE mess and the fact that Jekyll looks different, to which Harry says it was from a potion falling on him, which is quite believable in this situation. They talk and Harry eventually leaves the office to go fix everything, giving Frankenstein a sort of "I'll explain later" look. Well, he does seem to successfully fix everything, albeit a bit suspiciously, but he does it!

Anyways, I need to lore dump more on him on an actual text post later, bc I've got a lot of things I've cooked up while talking with @dustmint >:3 that'll come later tho bc I've gotta figure out how I wanna format/write all that

(Edit, very sick of my tumblr screwing up the composition of my posts 😍😍 why do you keep getting rid of my cuts and scattering my images I'm gonna lose it)

#oc: “whole” jekyll #the glass scientists #tgs #jekyll and hyde #i hope yall aint getting sick of the OC art and lore bc I'm not gonna stop lmao #shout out to that one comment “like the art. hate the idea” bc i think about that a lot and it really fuels me to keep making oc stuff #that comment is /gen so funny #i create bc of autistic hyperfixations - the people that like my stuff - and out of spite <3 i cannot be stopped #my art #henry jekyll #chonny jash

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siilvan · 1 year ago

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bloodsport – IV

prologue | one | two | three | next

characters: vladimir makarov

summary: your first time back in the field is a whirlwind of emotions, especially after being forced to rely on yet another enemy. new information is revealed, and you realize that a drastic action may be the only way to fix this mess.

genre: angst, slowburn, enemies to ?, fem!reader (callsign: petra)

warnings: semi-proofread, cursing, canon-typical violence, descriptions of blood/injuries, poorly written spec-ops, allusions to trauma and stress, reader has a bit of a breakdown, graves lol

word count: 6k

note: giving a quick PSA here— please be mindful about what y'all write. i know this fic is about a very controversial and problematic character, but i try to be mindful about how i portray him and his actions. don't romanticize things that should not be romanticized, and be respectful to people. COD as a whole is problematic, but that doesn't mean we need to be a shitty community. support real victims, don't spread hate. easy peasy.

also, yes, i changed my formatting. the little text is too hard to read without my glasses, so... yeah. hope it's not ugly now :)

you spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, trying but failing to will yourself to fall asleep. soap texts you shortly before the sun comes up - a picture of himself and the rest of the team, posing for the camera. they're covered in dirt and ash, exhaustion apparent in their eyes, but the image is enough to make you crack a smile.

you give them a few hours, pulling yourself out of bed after sunrise and occupying yourself with mundane tasks around the house, before picking up the phone and calling price.

"hey, captain. sorry for calling so early." you chuckle, leaning against the arm of the couch.

"don't worry about it," price clears his throat, hoarse from fatigue, and you wonder for a second if he was asleep before you called. "was just finishing some paperwork. what d'you need?"

a low sigh escapes from you. "i know it's only been a day, but... can i come back? i really want to get back to work."

you can hear papers shuffling from his end. "i know you want to work, but we just can't take the risk—"

"there isn't going to be any risk," you assert, raising your voice slightly and interrupting him. you pause and wet your lips, speaking in a softer tone again. "please, captain, i know i can handle it. i just want to get back to normal already."

the line is quiet for a long moment, with price silently deliberating over your request. you shift nervously, gripping the phone tighter as you wait impatiently for a response.

finally, after you shift for the umpteenth time, he exhales deeply.

"i'll see if i can convince laswell, okay?" he concedes. you can hear his chair creaking as he leans back - you're assuming, at least. "pack your bags. i'll send a transport helicopter in an hour."

⋆⋆⋆

that's how you ended up at base again, with the team welcoming you back with open arms. laswell initially rejected the idea, stating the same concerns as before, but price managed to sway her after some discussion.

so, now you're in a meeting room, gathered around a table with lists, blueprints, names, pictures— any and all of the intel that the task force has gotten their hands on, scattered across the surface. you blink when price raps his knuckles against the tabletop, drawing your attention.

it's laswell who talks, shooting a glance around the table to address the group. "as you're all aware, shadow company has been a target of the konni group in recent times," she starts, sending you a cursory look, asking you for confirmation. you nod, and she continues. "not only have they been fighting the group head-on in al-mazrah, but there's been several incidents with undercover konni operatives in their ranks."

"good, let 'em fuckin' deal with it." soap remarks, earning noises of agreement from gaz, ghost, and yourself. price and laswell aren't as entertained by it.

"general shepherd, commander graves, and their men betrayed us." laswell pauses before letting out a heavy sigh. "i know none of you were happy about the ceasefire, and i know that you were furious when graves resurfaced. but, besides farah's forces, shadow company is our strongest ally."

"—and the only one capable of making any strong moves without risking an all-out war." price adds, shaking his head. everyone's displeased with the situation, that much is obvious.

"where are you goin' with this?" ghost asks. a tense silence fills the room for a long moment, making you shift awkwardly.

laswell motions towards the door on the far side of the room with her head. you cast your gaze in the same direction, watching as the door is pushed open.

as if on cue, the very man that should've been buried in flames in las almas walks into the room. the shadow himself. philip graves.

"oh, fuck off." soap growls at the man, looking ready to lunge at him from across the table. ghost steps forward and, if you didn't know any better, you'd think he was reaching for his sidearm. gaz and price are eerily quiet while glaring daggers at him, and you immediately feel the blood rush to your ears as every nerve commands you to shoot him yourself.

"i know this isn't ideal," laswell attempts to placate all of you, though the cold stare she regards him with betrays her calm demeanor. "but, for now, we're allies. we have a bigger threat to worry about."

"yeah, those konni guys are, uh..." graves perks up, languidly sauntering up to the table. he purses his lips for a second, thinking, before clicking his tongue. "real troublesome. i've lost a lot of good men thanks to them."

"good." ghost mutters, straightening himself next to soap.

price cuts through the tension with a wave of his hand. "alright, none of us want this, but we've got no other options." he grumbles. "konni's moving towards urzikstan. if we want to stop 'em, then we need to cooperate."

you eye graves from your peripherals, recalling the information that makarov gave you a couple weeks ago. graves isn't in on shepherd's plan, but he's likely the only person who knows the general's whereabouts. you need to say something while you still can. how will he take the news, though? he's betrayed you before, he'll do it again if it benefits him.

"petra, you listening?" laswell's voice abruptly interrupts your thoughts. you divert your attention back to her and notice that everyone's focus is on you.

"i have something i need to say," you blurt out. you need to bring up the general before he potentially ropes graves in.

you receive a collection of interested stares, urging you to go on.

"when i was captured, i managed to get some information," you drop your gaze, narrowing your eyes at the documents laid out. "we're not just fighting konni and al-qatala. some of the forces occupying al-mazrah are under shepherd's command."

the silence that falls over the room is almost deafening. the group balks at you with shock and confusion written on their expressions, until graves huffs out a laugh.

"general shepherd's 'forces' are my men. i can assure you, petra, that none of my shadows are workin' with konni." he says with a lopsided smile, confident as ever.

you turn to face graves fully, grimacing. "i'm not talking about your shadows. shepherd has another group under his command."

"what group?" price asks.

"cia operatives. ex-soldiers, specifically." you turn back, eyes flitting between price and laswell. "he's sending men undercover. the unmarked mercenaries that we keep encountering? that's them."

laswell shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest. "where did you get this information?"

you freeze. your mouth opens to say makarov's name, but for some reason, you hesitate. with a deep inhale, you blink away the odd feeling and force the words past your lips.

"makarov. i'm not sure why, but he told me about it."

yet another unbearable tension befalls the group; you're getting close to ripping your hair out over it. as if reading your thoughts, gaz speaks up.

"you know about this?" he says, directed at graves. he's tight-lipped, glowering at him.

graves doesn't respond, letting the question hang in the air. he looks just as surprised as the rest of you - makarov was telling the truth, then. shadow company isn't in on the plan. shepherd has effectively betrayed his strongest ally, to your knowledge.

"i'm sure there's an explanation," graves utters, chuckling to himself. "war's a dirty business. there's good reason to send men undercover."

"he's got part of the special activities division in his pocket." laswell says.

"isn't that where you pulled alex from?" price hums, earning a nod in reply. it's a bad situation, to say the least.

you regain everyone's attention and continue. "i don't know the full plan, but makarov suspected that shepherd's doing this to put himself back on top. start a war, get himself marked as a hero, reap the rewards."

graves raises a brow at you, amusement written on his face. "and, we should trust the judgement of a terrorist?" he says while searching the room for support.

price keeps his gaze on you, though the distant look in his eye tells you that his mind is elsewhere. "i'd trust this one's judgement." he mutters, jaw clenching.

"well, there's no point in standin' around, is there?" graves seems to bounce back quickly, shrugging off the news. "we've got a job to do and a terrorist to catch. let's focus on that."

"i'll contact farah and see if alex knows anything about the men under shepherd's command." laswell says as you all break away from the table and start to file out of the room.

"keep us updated," price nods to her before turning to the rest of you. "wheels up in thirty. we'll debrief on the way."

you breathe out a relieved sigh once everyone breaks off, heading off to finish any last minute preparations before takeoff. you linger in the corridor, running a hand down your face and groaning into the palm of your hand. of course, you have no choice but to work with an enemy whilst relying on intel from yet another. at least you can be open with your team about this one.

shepherd and makarov are your targets. graves comes after. take down all three, and your headaches are gone. no more doubting yourself, no more questions, no more nights spent looking at lists of crimes that make you feel sick. you can resume your not-so-peaceful life with the rest of the task force and celebrate the world being a somewhat safer place.

your phone buzzes in your pocket, distracting you from your pondering and pulling you back to the present. you frown at the name on the caller id.

it's a single letter: 'v.'

after your conversation - if you can even call it that - with makarov last night, you saved his number. putting his name in your phone is basically shooting yourself in the foot, so you saved it under a name that gives you deniability in the event someone sees it.

you duck into an empty rec room nearby and accept the call, keeping an eye on the door as you lift the phone to your ear.

"you actually picked up the phone this time." makarov remarks upon you answering. your frown deepens, brows furrowing.

"if you don't have anything important to say, i'm hanging up."

he chuckles, far too casual for your liking. "i have an update. something that i'm sure you'll be interested in."

you shift, leaning against the back of one of the couches. "what is it?"

"in case you're planning to return to al-mazrah, just know that shepherd's men have been given strict orders to target and eliminate members of the one-four-one."

a chill creeps up the back of your spine. it's an unsurprising order, but you still rack your brain as to why he gave it. does shepherd somehow know that you know about his plans? it shouldn't be possible— until the meeting that finished just minutes ago, the only people privy to the knowledge were makarov and yourself.

of course, shepherd's allies are aware of it, but the only ally of his that you've contacted is graves. you doubt that he's talked to the general in the short amount of time since, which eliminates graves as a possibility just as quickly as you suspected him.

there has to be another source. someone feeding him information, keeping the one-four-one under watch.

"shepherd's got a mole in our group." you reply, pinching the bridge of your nose. "fucking hell. he knows that we're onto him."

"'we,' lieutenant?" he comments with an amused lilt in his tone.

"my team, asshole. he's got men undercover in your group and in my squad. he's watching all of his enemies."

makarov hums, voice dropping a little. "you have a keen eye, petra. have you asked the shadow about shepherd's whereabouts, yet?" he asks, brushing past your frustration.

"haven't had the chance," you mutter. "based on his reaction to the news, i doubt he'll give it away, though. we might have to get the location ourselves."

he exhales, audible through the phone. "it would be more convenient if you could convince him to tell you."

you roll your eyes. "yeah, of course it would. just don't expect any miracles. aren't you the one with all the mysterious ways of gathering information, anyway?" you grumble sarcastically and move away from the couch, starting to pace around the room while keeping your gaze on the door.

"i can get his location if necessary, but that would eliminate your usefulness in this operation, wouldn't it?"

he's right, and you hate him for it. "you still need me to kill him." you counter bluntly.

"i can do that, too. your team wants revenge for his betrayal. this is me being charitable - don't disappoint."

makarov ends the call before you have the chance to argue, leaving you to huff to yourself in the empty room. a moment later, a head pokes around the doorway, startling you and nearly making you drop your phone when you jump.

gaz is regarding you with a sly grin as he fully reveals himself and steps into the room. your palms immediately moisten with sweat as worry floods your mind - how much did he just hear?

"so, who you talkin' to?" gaz cocks his head to the side, teasing. he's relaxed, standing in front of you with his hands shoved in his pockets.

you pocket your phone and flash a calm smile. "that depends. you have any guesses?"

he chuckles, lifting one of his hands to playfully stroke at his chin as he thinks. "let's see... i know you weren't home for long, but—" his grin morphs into a lopsided smirk as he eyes you suspiciously. "y'got a boyfriend?"

dear god, no.

you resist the urge to gag at the thought and shake your head. "nope, it's just a... friend of mine."

gaz leans forward, an inquisitive 'ah' tumbling from his lips. "a friend, eh? they got a name?" he asks.

"he, uh... just goes by 'v.'"

"'v?' like the letter?"

you answer with an affirmative "mhm," patting gaz on the shoulder as you brush past him. "it's a nickname i gave him. don't worry about it."

gaz groans in exasperation as you stroll towards the door, trying to ignore the way your heart races. lying is a normal part of the job, but lying to your team? generally not recommended.

"most 'just friends' don't have exclusive nicknames, you know!" gaz calls out from behind as you round the corner and start down the hall, leaving him alone.

a sick part of you finds the sentiment - makarov, being anything more than an enemy - entertaining, but your better judgement steers you back on track. you've got a mission to prepare for, and the likelihood of something going wrong is as high as ever. you need to focus on the mission and getting graves to give up shepherd.

⋆⋆⋆

shadow company's gunship is a familiar sight as you climb aboard, slipping past the groups of shadows and finding your teammates gathered around what you can only describe as the command center. graves is standing close by, though the tension is palpable as you approach.

after the aircraft lifts off is when graves talks, addressing the soldiers lining the seats of the craft.

"alright, now i know we've had our problems in the past," he starts, briefly acknowledging your group before turning back to his men. "however, none of that matters right now. the one-four-one is our ally on this mission; treat 'em like your own. copy that, shadows?"

johnny snorts from next to you. "where have we heard this before?" he mumbles.

there's a resounding "yep-yep" from his men, accompanied by several nods and looks in your direction. graves pats one of the soldiers on the shoulder and looks to price.

"think you can lay out the rest, captain."

price starts down the middle row, his voice booming even over the sounds of people checking their weapons, gear, and anxiously shifting in their seats. he moves slowly, practically stalking down the length of the gunship.

"the mission is simple: konni and al-qatala have set up bases across the city. they're using gas, heavy artillery, and stolen weapons to protect themselves." price stops for a moment and lets his gaze drag over the soldiers staring back at him. "i don't think i need to remind you shadows of what konni's done to your brothers in arms. we're going to break off into strike teams - eight men - and destroy these bases. alpha team will take the nerve center in the heart of the city. you already know your assignments."

graves speaks again once price goes quiet. "the commanders are not likely going to be in any of these field bases. but, if they are, then each and every single one of you has execute authority." he announces. "first man to bag an HVT gets a reward." he adds with a smirk, earning light laughter from several of his men.

when the speeches conclude, you settle back in your seat.

alpha team includes yourself, price, graves, and five of the shadows that graves handpicked. ghost, soap, and gaz are leading the bravo team, charged with the largest and best-guarded of the field bases. the commanding chain within shadow company are leading the other groups tasked with the bases scattered around the city.

you fish your phone out of one of your vest pockets when it buzzes, reading the notification on the screen.

there's an agent in your group 11:06 am

not a shadow. special forces. 11:06 am

you frown, angling the screen back and quickly scanning the group. everyone seems to be engrossed in conversation, giving you a chance to respond.

do you have a name? 11:07 am

not yet. he's a rookie. 11:07 am

he's stationed at the base you're staying at 11:07 am

check the files. should have transferred recently. 11:08 am

thank you. 11:08 am

don't mention it. 11:09 am

you're quick to tuck your phone away again, jolting when gaz suddenly addresses you.

"texting your boyfriend, eh?" he laughs, catching everyone's attention.

soap snorts and turns to you. "since when did you start dating?"

you wave them off, sitting up again as all eyes fall on you - even ghost, who is usually horribly uninterested in gossip.

"what are you two, schoolchildren?" you ask, earning playful noises of offense. "he's just a friend. not even a close one."

you're getting yourself caught up in a lie. a shitty one, at that. all it's doing is making people more interested in who you're talking to. at this rate, you'll get caught by the end of the day.

"bullshit— no one in this job talks to a person this much if they're not special." gaz counters, pointing an accusatory finger at you.

price chuckles. "c'mon, gaz. come off it," he lightly scolds the sergeant before looking at you. "just make sure he treats you nice, yeah?" he adds, both teasing and sincere at the same time.

"he's not my— yeah, okay. i'll remember that." you concede, slumping back in your seat.

the topic is dropped not long after, leaving you to relax as people talk around you. after a couple minutes, you can feel your eyelids start to droop, reminding you of how restless last night was. the trip's going to take a while, you might as well get some sleep while you still can.

⋆⋆⋆

everything is so hot. the sun, the ground, your clothes, the air— you.

you don't have any protective gear on, your sidearm secured in your loose grip as you stumble through the ruins where a city once stood.

that's right, you think. the city was destroyed in all the fighting. reduced to nothing more than rubble. you remember when there used to be buildings here; half-toppled and abandoned, but they stood as evidence of life nonetheless.

you falter, landing on your knee and hissing as it hits the solid ground below you. your vision starts to blur as your eyes water, forcing you to rub at them with your free hand in a desperate attempt to clear them.

when you blink rapidly, trying to force back the disorientation and bleariness, you notice a figure directly ahead of you.

an ally. a friend. someone that can help.

you force yourself to your feet and stagger towards them, sucking in a hopeful breath when they start to rush to meet you. the harsh sun— fuck, it's so hot— makes you squint, preventing you from making out a face until they're already pulling you into their embrace, strong arms holding you close to their chest.

"it's okay." their voice— his voice, reassures you softly, one of his hands coming to rest on the back of your head, cradling you impossibly closer. "i took care of it, my dear. you're safe now."

hot tears streak down your cheeks, dirty with sand, dust, and ash, as you wrap your arms around his middle. you try to speak, but all that comes out is a hiccup and a pathetic sob, so you resolve to burying your face in his shoulder to muffle your cries.

you're tired. exhausted, actually. for once in this career, you want to be selfish. you want to be the protected one. fighting, losing allies, killing— it never ends.

he shushes you, but even in your state, you can tell the action is unnatural. gentleness, empathy, tender care... it isn't who he is.

you manage to lift your head enough to look at him, eyes glassy with tears.

makarov stares back at you, his callous gaze betraying the way he holds you. it makes you pause, confused, as you slowly recall why you're even here.

you were fighting konni operatives. there was a missile— no, something bigger. something that decimated the city and would have taken you along with it, had you not ducked into a shelter at the very last second. when you emerged, shaken and dazed in the aftershock, you encountered al-qatala and konni mercenaries alike.

bodies scattered in the streets, men wheezing for air despite blood displacing the oxygen in their lungs and leaking from every orifice, some still trying to fight even as they collapse in heaps of pure agony, writhing on the ground alongside their brothers in arms.

you wince when his fingers trace along the edge of your jaw, his forefinger hooking under your chin and forcing you to look into his eyes after your gaze drifts away.

"their lives mean nothing," makarov whispers, barely audible over the sound of your heart pounding against your ribcage. "not compared to you. you're better, stronger, than them. you will serve me well. you will help me usher in a new age."

he runs the pad of his thumb across your bottom lip, slightly chapped from the dry heat. on instinct, you part your lips, and he moves his hand to cup your face before leaning in to capture your lips in a searing kiss.

it's wrong. this is wrong.

you shouldn't be here. you shouldn't be doing this.

the kiss is a distraction, keeping you occupied as his other hand falls from its spot on your hip. you don't even notice the change until a gunshot rings out, and pain equally as burning as the kiss courses through your veins.

you can't even muster a proper cry as you pull back, one of your own hands flying to the epicenter of the pain, right in the middle of your stomach. your fingers brush against the spot, and you whimper when you lift them back up to your face. dark red stains your skin, dripping down your wrist.

"i just need to fix you first. under my guidance... you will be perfect, my dear." makarov mutters, catching you and holding you up when you crumple against him. he coos at you, sympathetic yet mocking, as he scoops you up in his arms, the world around you going dark.

⋆⋆⋆

you wake up with a start, shifting to the edge of your seat as you frantically rub at your eyes. there's an ache deep in the pit of your stomach, making you press your palm against the same spot as your dream.

this time, when you look down at your hand, you see nothing. a shaky sigh escapes from you at the sight - or, rather, the lack thereof.

"y'all right?" ghost asks, eyeing you from the seat across from you.

"yeah, yeah—" you respond, shaking off the lingering effects of the dream. "we almost there?"

price comes over, having been talking with graves some feet away, and pats your shoulder in acknowledgement. "about to touch down, actually. let's go."

you disembark alongside the rest of alpha team, taking up formation with price and graves, with the few shadow company operatives behind the three of you. reaching the building isn't a difficult task despite the many mercenaries standing between it and your team; as much as you hate to admit it, the shadows are skilled in the field, even with their misgivings.

the building is another high rise, like the one you infiltrated weeks ago, half-crumpled from the effects of the fighting in the city. price leads the group as you all enter it through a sizeable hole in the wall, clearing out the first floor with trained precision.

the group of shadows form a perimeter just outside as you investigate the interior with price and graves, finding it... empty?

"thought you said this was the nerve center," you mutter, turning to the men as they search around, equally as perplexed as you. "there's nothing here."

price shakes his head, standing up from where he was crouched over some rubble. "there was something here. they must've moved."

"they knew we were comin'." graves says with a frustrated huff. "probably just protecting it to keep up the charade. the real control center could be anywhere in the city."

the two start for the exit with you in tow. "could be outside of it for all we know. we need to contact the other squads." price replies before pausing at the threshold and angling his head upwards. you stop several feet back and send him a confused look, before a low rumbling echoes throughout the building, sending dust and small debris falling from the floors above.

the rumbling stops for a second, until a louder, harsher one follows. larger pieces of wreckage start to loosen and threaten to fall, small bits clattering against the ground.

"shit, the building's too unstable— it's gonna collapse—!" price shouts as a metal beam crashes into the ground less than twenty feet away from you.

while price and graves are able to duck out amidst the falling debris, you're forced to dive backwards after a piece of the floor above falls right into your path. you search for a way around it, but as the violent shaking increases and sends more collapsing down all around you, you realize that cover might be your only option.

you scan the room quickly and dive under a pile of slabs and beams, sturdy enough to not collapse under the weight of falling wreckage, but with just enough room for you to squeeze in underneath.

it's only seconds after you find cover that the thundering sounds of heavy rubble crashing down all around you fills your ears, forcing you to cover them with your hands as each crash makes you flinch.

the worst of the destruction is short-lived. a couple minutes pass by before you're willing to move, the occasional piece of the upper floors still collapsing around you every now and then. you let out a trembling breath once you emerge, pure adrenaline coursing through your veins.

the exit. you hastily search for it, but all hope drains from you when you find it and see that it's completely blocked by the wreckage.

"petra? can you hear me?" price's voice crackles through your radio.

you go to respond, coughing harshly due to all the dirt and dust floating in the air. "i hear you— i'm all right," you tear your eyes from the exit and look for another path. it's a big building, surely you can find something. "just stuck in here." you grumble into the radio.

"we're gonna try to find another way in, see if you can meet us somewhere." he says. you can hear graves barking orders at his men in the background. "be careful." price adds in a rushed tone.

you drop your hand from your radio and clutch your gun close as you carefully traverse the field of debris, mentally thanking whatever higher power that the building only partially collapsed on top of you, instead of crushing you completely.

every movement out the corner of your eyes makes you stop and aim your weapon at it; it's highly unlikely - but not impossible - that you're not alone. anyone could've snuck in after the collapse, or hidden themselves like you did. al-qatala, konni, shepherd's men— you have a lot of enemies and very few allies in the area.

you spin around at the sound of something shifting, but only see a few pieces of wood hitting the ground. you're getting too paranoid. you try to steel yourself, breathing deeply, before a smooth voice makes you choke on the air that gets caught in your throat.

"you are very unlucky, aren't you?"

you turn again, gun drawn and finger on the trigger, but stop short upon seeing a friendly...

well, you see makarov standing across the room. it's an enemy that doesn't seem all-too interested in killing you - for now, at least.

"how did you..." you trail off, lowering your weapon.

apparently understanding your question, he vaguely motions behind himself. "there's a breach." he says, glancing over the destruction as he approaches you.

you squint at him as he draws closer, briefly tightening your grip on your gun. he stops several feet away, though, so you allow yourself to relax just a bit, lowering your weapon.

"i figured you'd be staying far away from al-mazrah, it's an active war zone after all." you comment, earning a dismissive look.

"i don't mind getting my hands dirty," makarov utters with a lofty grin tugging at his lips. "besides, we need to talk."

you cock your head to the side, curious. "and, you couldn't call or text me about this? that's been working out so far." you chuckle softly.

he steps closer again, standing a little over an arm's length away. "i happened to be close by." he responds. "this is also something better discussed in person."

you nod, hesitantly slinging your gun over your shoulder to cross your arms over your chest.

"after our last exchange, i managed to gather more information from my... source." he punctuates the last word with a half-assed attempt at a conciliatory smile. "the mole planted within your group reported to shepherd recently; he's aware of our communication." he continues, before you interrupt him.

"wait, no one knows about this, not even my squad." you assert, taking another step closer to him. you're just under an arm's length away, now.

"there was an agent within the group assigned to your care when you were captured. one of the two men that accompanied us on the first day - he listened in on our conversation and delivered the details to the general." makarov speaks in a hushed tone, one you can just barely hear over rubble crumbling somewhere nearby. "the agent on your end tracked you after you reunited with your squad. something of yours was bugged, they heard us that night."

how could he... most of your belongings were clothes, which you know for certain weren't bugged. the only other item that traveled home with you is your cellphone—

"shit," you mumble, practically tearing your vest pocket open and grabbing your phone. there's nothing obviously wrong with it at first glance, but once you pop the case off and check inside, your suspicions are confirmed.

there's a small tracking device flashing red at you, mocking you, and you rip it out before tossing it on the ground and stomping on it.

"he's heard everything," you say, twisting your boot to scatter the broken pieces. "fuck, if this gets out— i can explain this to my team and make do with the judgement, but if shepherd tells any of his friends in their cushy government positions, i'm dead."

makarov shifts, looking past you, but you don't even notice the action thanks to the adrenaline reflooding your system. "that would be an issue," he mutters, reaching for the holster at his hip. "i suppose i could protect you."

you snort, dragging your gaze from your boot to his face. "i'm not joining your side, even for this."

a thin string of red light shines from the darkness behind you, aimed at the back of your skull. makarov follows it to its source, all but ignoring your rejection, as his fingers wrap around the handle of his desert eagle.

a loud gunshot rings out, echoing against the walls. you instinctively reach for your stomach, preparing yourself for the pain you felt in that dream, body tensing up as it flies into survival mode.

the pain never comes. a heavy thump makes you turn, however, watching as a soldier collapses to the ground. unmarked uniform. one of the general’s men.

"shepherd has not earned your blood. if anyone is going to kill you, it will be me." makarov lowers his gun and meets your muddled gaze. "i suggest you reconsider my offer, petra, and give me a call when you make up your mind."

you’re left in that state as he sidesteps and saunters past you, seemingly disappearing into the darkness himself. you’re sure there’s another exit that you missed, one he’s taking to avoid running into your squad.

his offer. joining him for protection.

you'll never follow makarov or his ideals, much less join him for such a selfish reason. if you can kill shepherd, then you can destroy any evidence and get yourself out of this mess. with graves' cooperation and your team to help, that possibility is well within your reach. the only crime you'll have to answer for is severely disappointing your teammates, but they'll understand.

except, there's no guarantee that graves will help, and the rules of engagement prevent you from taking effective action against shepherd. he may be on the run, but he's an american general - killing him could land the one-four-one in hot water with the government.

that'll only lead to more restrictions, more eyes on you, more questions— there's nothing you can do to stop it.

you need someone without limits. someone the government doesn't have their hands on.

you need makarov.

a series of heavy footsteps alert you to a new presence, snapping you out of your trance. you lift your head in time to see price, graves, and the shadows appear from around a large pile of debris in the same direction that makarov originally approached you from.

"petra!" price calls out, jogging ahead of the group and stopping just in front of you. "you broken?" he asks, placing a firm hand on your shoulder and dragging his gaze across your form, searching for any injuries.

"no, i'm fine. nothing major." you mumble, struggling to find your voice all of a sudden. "just, uh..." you lose it again, your tongue darting out to nervously wet your dry lips.

"something wrong?" he murmurs, quiet enough that graves and his men can't hear from their positions farther away.

you can feel every beat of your heart, rapidly thumping against your ribs to the point of making your chest ache. only price can give you approval to do something so risky, so stupid. he'll understand. he knows the job isn't perfect, but you do what you have to do—

"i have something to confess, captain."

taglist: @sofasoap, @roosterr, @rohansregret, @lonesome-doves, @thorrsexual, @miss-nob0dy, @woodeelf, @fbs-fc-ur-mommy, @soap-mactavish, @itsyellow, @johfaam0, @cumbermovels, @chxe-zdechnac, @imagineswritersblog, @emorgz33, @sparda-ly, @ponyboys-sunsets, @frazie99, @chensipstea, @thriving-n-jiving, @preciouslittlecreature, @infinitewhore, @jade-jax

⋆ feel free to ask to be added to/removed from the taglist! (18+ only please <3)

#call of duty #cod #cod mw2 #mw2 #call of duty x reader #cod x reader #mw2 x reader #makarov x reader #vladimir makarov x reader #cod makarov #vladimir makarov #sylph.writes

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jalenay · 7 months ago

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Nothing's Wrong with Dale - Publishing Update May 4 2024

So my work work is starting to relax - it'll be 'normal' working hours after May 15, but i'm manifesting some early additional free time (by ignoring some of the things i still have left to do) and i thought i'd give an update on my current NWWD plan to fill you guys in (if anyone wants to know) and to motivate myself to, you know, do it.

let me know what you think and if you have any questions! or if there's anything else you want to know!

So the overall plan is as follows:

First Rough Edit - this is basically just changing the POV from 2nd POV to 3rd POV. This is very tedious and currently what I'm doing right now. I'm also making a list as I go for high level updates/changes i want to make. Just thinking about the story as a whole and what tweaks i want to make now that the whole thing is finally done (primarily moving exposition around, if there's anything extra i can remove, timing of when certain things are discussed, and so on).

My Main Edit - this will be more time consuming but probably more fun as i do my main revise and edit of the story as a whole. i'll likely print the entire story out, make edits on hard copy, and then type up all the edits. I will also probably be sending the updated chapters to my main beta, for her opinion. (this would be the person i first texted about Dale in Dec 2021, she deserves first look lol)

Editor - After I'm happy with what I've done, i'll send the entire thing over to my editors, the main ones who worked on DSM. This will likely take a good amount of time (DSM took one month) but in many ways involves less effort from me lol. Just nerves.

Cover, Self-publishing Details - while my editors have the manuscript, I'll be narrowing down what I want the cover to look like and hiring a cover artist. (i've got a short list of artists right now, but i'll probably continue to refine that). I'm bad a visualizing covers and so this will be hard for me, although i have some basic ideas. i'll need to gather reference photos too and then work with the artist. I also want to publish more widely than just Amazon and will hopefully get DSM out to other places as well as a test run before NWWD. Look into more marketing? This is the most miscellaneous of the steps.

Process Edits - actually go through all the edits and notes given to me by my editor. This takes a lot of time (and is mentally taxing - no one likes to read pages of people telling you what you need to fix about what you wrote even if its overall extremely helpful and necessary)

Finalizing - I'll send the edited version to my first beta and another ARC reader/friend. I'll work on the formatting for the book. Coordinating where it will be published and when.

Publishing!

This is a loose list of steps that I mostly defined right now, but are similar to what i did with DSM. As i said, I'm in step one, currently just finished Chapter 25 of 36 of that rough edit.

I'll try to provide some updates on the process at it moves along, if people are interested in hearing about that. I'll most likely keep those updates on this blog, along with any other publishing specific commentary. if any one has any questions or thoughts on the whole thing, please feel free to send them to this blog or comment on this post.

I'm very excited to really dig into publishing NWWD and looking forward to sharing it with you!

Thanks to everyone for all their support - I wouldn't even be considering this (i probably wouldn't have even had a finished draft) with you!

#self-publishing #nothing's wrong with dale #writblr #writing #NWWD status #so excited to be making progress again #long road ahead but its gonna end with me having a full book published #so i'm beyond thrilled #publishing

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steamberrystudio · 7 months ago

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05/05/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone! It seems like it's been a while since my last update here which is weird because I have an update from mid-April all typed out in google docs but apparently I never posted. 8D Oops!

Anyway, for those who are not following the weekly updates on Patreon or the monthly updates on Itch...I shall fill you in!

Writing:

I think in my last update, which was back in March, I was editing chapter 6. I am now at the end of chapter 9 and am about to embark upon chapter 10.

But Esh, you may ask. Why is taking so long to edit these chapters? Why, for example, chapter 7 is about 75,000 words (coded). These chapters are...huge.

Ch 6, 7, 8 and 9 together are about 200,000 words of content.

I've also been proofreading and then formatting each chapter into Renpy as I go so I can get a feel for how long each chapter actually is (by 'formatting into Renpy', I just mean that I'm dumping the writing into Renpy and formatting it properly so the game runs. I'm not coding any assets in. Just dumping the text in. So the word counts I give are the actual final word counts!)

So yeah, it's pretty time consuming! But I am making progress. I think I have about 70% of the script edited at the moment.

But Chapter 10 is...a really big chapter. So I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get through it.

😭 We'll be finding out though!

Art:

Since my last update, I've received several new BGs and sketches. The BGs are currently about 60% complete. The artists are making their way through them all slowly but surely.

Other Stuff:

Well...I did release another game as a collaboration with some of my developer friends.

We worked on the game over the course of a couple of months and just managed to get out for Amare Festival!

If you haven't checked A Faerie's Tale out over on Itch.io but are up for something cute, wholesome, funny, and pretty short...please do so!

We think it turned out quite well!

Upcoming Weeks:

Well in the upcoming weeks I'll be focusing on revising Chapter 10. And there's a lot to be done in Chapter 10.

Asher's path and the "common scenes" have had one edit. I'll have to re-read them to refresh myself on the content so I can properly edit the others. Hopefully I won't have to make too many revisions though.

The remaining character content will have to be fleshed out. This is a really important relationship chapter (which also has steamy scenes in it so there is a lot of smoothing, fixing, and fleshing out that has to happen.)

Additionally, there are some ending sequences that happen in this chapter and while they are functional right now, I really want to expand them and make the endings feel a little better situated into the story and less abrupt.

Sometimes haven't an abrupt game-over really works with the story but in this case, I feel the endings need a little more build up to feel properly earned and to really be satisfying for players. That means expanding the lead up to those scenes by a fair amount.

So overall, this chapter is probably going to end up as the longest chapter in the game by a pretty significant margin.

And that means I may be at the revision for the better part of this month.

And then after Chapter 10, it's just the ending sequences for each character. I'm really looking forward to revising those and fleshing them out properly. 👀

I think I'm about to descend into the lowest depths of editing hell for a few weeks but I'm hoping after that I can slowly start to climb my way back out.

We'll see how it goes!

#when stars collide #amare game #indie otome game #updates #devlog

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coconox · 5 months ago

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my 2 cents on the state of whb

i've been contemplating about my thoughts on this game since i never really sat down and processed it, and a month of not playing the game and just keeping up with fandom content/official game news i think i can properly format my words (hopefully idk lol)

if you're looking for a specific section dw i'll properly format everything under the cut so you can just scroll till you find whatever you're looking for (also head's up it's insanely long i'm sorry but kinda not sorry i wanted to just put all my thoughts into one post rather than multiple)

SMALL INTRO

for some context on my experience, i have been playing this game everyday since launch/day 1, i was f2p up until i got juno's card, which i'll talk about later, but just know in advanced that juno was the only case where i've spent money. i uninstalled around the time the announcement was made in regards to no posting full stories of paid content, so almost month ago, and only reinstalled recently to grab certain items to add to the spreadsheet that i've been maintaining since november (aka a month after launch)

i've said it privately to a couple of close friends but i'll say it publicly here: imho, i think they released the game way too early even with the fact that they delayed launch 3 times.

i understand a handleful of bugs are from the fact that the public servers are significantly larger than test servers, but playing this game after the servers kinda stabilized feels like we are the test players, like we're constantly given rough drafts rather than the final copy.

the localization is rough to say the least, but i think i've been so used to it from other gachas that i've played that it didn't really ruin the experience for me,,, except when the text would switch to an entirely different language HJGFDHJGK

from visual bugs to gameplay bugs to voiceline bugs, there's been a lack of communication in terms of what has been fixed and what is still a wip. instead the players just have to "fuck around and find out" in terms of whether something has been fixed or not.

as i continue to state the issues with this game and its direction i'd like to put a disclaimer that i am by no means an expert in any of this stuff lol. i'm just a guy who nerds out over math, spreadsheets, and video games and everything i'll be saying is my personal opinion based on what i've seen/experienced.

THE ISSUE(S)

SOLOMON SEALS AND GACHA

i think the first mistake was them adding solomon seals in the first place. based on what packs in the past looked like, it looked like red keys were originally designed to be for debut characters, but instead they throw a curve ball and add ANOTHER gacha currency that was essentially p2w only up till some point early this year. this ultimately led to there being 2 standard banners, both of which essentially do the same thing except one doesn't have A/B/C-ranks. the fact that now even with realm of seraphim, in order for f2ps to have enough to guarantee with seals, they need to save for a year and a half. that is WAY too long for ONE character. this is of course worst case scenario of needing to hit pity, i'm aware you can get characters early but you should never always expect you'll get early in gacha games, i learned that the hard way during my idk how many years i've been playing gachas lol

i personally think that there's no winning across any of the gacha banners. there's no pity for either of the standards, and debut L/S-ranks have imo too high of a pity for what we're actually receiving per week. we essentially get more or less 1 pull per week in terms of red keys, yellow keys, and seals through dailies/weeklies alone, though of course that can vary cause of the rng key boxes, monthly login rewards, etc.

PANCAKES

there seems to be a general pattern that i've noticed of rather than confronting an issue directly they try to create something new in hoping that fixes the issue instead. an example of that would be the pancake shop.

the old pancake shop was fine as is, we could get a multi for relatively cheap price and get pie boxes everyday (albeit they're rng but pies are pies). what they could've done was add the L-ranks and skip tickets or whatever new thing they wanted to add into that old shop, adjusting the currency wherever necessary. yet instead they just remove the old system entirely and replace it for a new one that no one really asked for? while having the L-ranks in shop are nice, an entirely new system wasn't necessary to make that one relatively small addition. having A+-ranks and lower give gold and books was also not necessary, we have resource stages containing those 2 things and it's very accessible to everyone. what resources we are lacking in however are tears and pies, which are arguably more important than gold and books since those 2 currencies are the core to ascending/lvling characters and their skills.

PIES

i've emailed pb in the past in regards to if there will be other permanent methods for obtaining pies, and their response was holy coin portal and events. those two are NOT stable enough for pie income considering the prices of skills. if there's instances in unholy board where we need to level a character's skills, i'd expect there to be some sort of resource stage that would allow us to get pies so that we can easily obtain that skill level requirement.

"META" GAMEPLAY

i'll explain the quotes in a bit but i do want to put a disclaimer that whb was the first time i've experienced a full on tower defense style gameplay for gachas. i was already familiar with how it works kinda because of neural cloud even though the game as a whole is more like an auto-chess game of sorts, but some story gameplay had tower defense mechanisms and i learned a fair bit from playing that. personally i also haven't played arknights since i'm trying to cut down on the amount of gachas i play but i am aware of its playstyle through friends who like to attempt to drag me into playing it cause of certain characters that i might simp over (*cough flamebringer cough insider cough chongyue cough*)

disclaimer aside, trying to piece together what characters work and what don't genuinely hurts my brain. i put "meta" in quotes because realistically there's only 1: all L-rank light types, ideally at least 1 tank, maybe 1 healer (though a tank can act as both), rest be whatever dps you'd like really (preferably satan considering the fact he can be extremely reliable without his ultimate unlike a few characters). of course, everyone will have a different opinion on what they deem as meta, but that's the general idea i'd personally follow based on what kind of battles have been given to us, what characters are available, etc. the rest tbh are just "cope and seethe" for lack of a better term.

there's a huge type advantage with light and dark types, and i really wish they could buff the other elements more just show they have some spotlight too. i also wish there were more non-light L-ranks. as of making this post, out of the 23 L-rank characters there is currently only 1 non-light L-rank, and it's juno, an L-rank fire marksman.

the part that really "hurts" me the most (don't really know what other word to put here LOL) is the fact that this game is going in a very specific direction of just dps'ing through everything and hope you clear the stage before the enemies kill you.

this game has a huge and imbalanced ratio between dps characters and support characters regardless of element. the fact that we only have 5 healers (NOT including lucifer (victory) considering he's technically a marksman and the healing is from his artifact and not in his skills) and 8 tanks, whereas marksman and close-rangers have twice or thrice the amount is absurd. what pains me more is the fact that for tanks, if you don't have mammon, you're screwed. arguably the best non-mammon option players have that's accessible is bimet. valefor and eligos share the same kit with the fact that their downfall is the possibility that they could be instakilled the second they pop their ult. healers on the other hand are somewhat more lenient. if you don't have lucifer, marbas is your next best, then gamigin (marbas and gamigin can technically be placed interchangeably since their healing differs by 0.1%, it just depends on who you have), then morax, then maybe buer but he only heals 1 unit at a time rather than multiple but i digress. healers still have multiple and very reliable non-L-rank alternatives whilst tanks really only have 1. i really, really hope there's more support units in the future cause man this sucks.

NIGHTMARE PASS

spending $50-$70, on paper, is significantly better than spending ~$400 for a character, and that's really the only "good" thing about it 💀

$50-$70 may feel like nothing to some players, but to a majority, that is a portion of a cost towards food, groceries, rent, etc. basically, i'd assume a majority of people would prioritize surviving than watching pixels on a screen.

i understand at the end of the day pb is running a business, but for kings to be fully locked behind a paywall knowing for a fact that a majority of the player base are 1. casuals/f2ps and 2. are here for the kings is absurd. plus with the fact that typically nightmare pass characters aren't added to standard and aren't always 100% guaranteed to rerun in the future just puts the nail in the coffin for me.

i think it makes more sense for non-kings like juno to be in nightmare pass because it's just additional fun and silly content that arguably won't be tied to the main lore and whatnot, maybe referenced as a silly bit here or there but it'd be more of an easter egg than something important that you absolutely need to know.

personally i bought juno's pass because i love his design, kit, and voice. story was kinda meh for me personally but i really just cared more about the va and gameplay. gameplay-wise, he certainly does not disappoint as a gehenna support unit. but do i regret purchasing him? yes and no. oddly enough this was probably the first i've ever felt guilty in terms of buying something i wanted in a gacha game. yes i regret it in terms of i'm no longer really playing this game anymore, which is unfortunate considering i barely made it through half a year of this game's release. yet at the same time, no i don't regret it because he is a really fun unit. for example, when it's gabriel's rotation in realm of seraphim, juno's, leraye (nostalgia)'s, and leraye's ultimates absolutely DESTROY gabriel in a matter of like <10 or so seconds and it's so satisfying to see. i also just really like his va, scratches a very particular itch in my brain.

anyways before i get sidetracked over appreciating juno, the fundamental flaws of nightmare pass are essentially

you shouldn't need to buy both tiers to get the character. you should realistically need to buy the highest tier and by default it unlocks all previous tiers below it

ui is a bit confusing. i still don't get why f2ps have to unlock parts of nightmare pass that they can't even access/obtain. there should be a clear separation between what f2ps get, what advanced tier gets, and what premium tier gets.

it's too expensive. most bp's i know are ~$10 at the highest tier, though that's considering the fact that bp's i'm familiar with only give cosmetics rather than actual units

from what i've heard through the grapevine, beel (bath) is basically in the same formatting as all the other currently existing bath cards, which are all currently obtainable through gacha. beel has no reason to be in nightmare pass. it genuinely makes no sense as to why pb put him there aside from getting money and that in-turn alienates a majority of the fan base since we can't even view the prologue of card stories if they're a nightmare pass character.

when nightmare pass was first released during christmas, everything was in chaos. the fact that a nightmare pass character needed the other two limited gacha characters gameplay-wise is absurd (mind you, this was before we were given the chance to earn seals through weeklies). everything was too expensive, and rather than an enjoyable christmas event it felt like a "merry christmas, now give us money" kind of situation. i think nightmare pass should not be happening as frequent as it is now. the gap between gabriel and juno was perfectly fine (4 month gap btw), but for a nightmare pass to happen back to back on top of gacha events is too much for both f2ps and p2ws.

the point of buying packs, bp, anything that costs real money in a gacha game is so it makes your gameplay experience easier, paying shouldn't be the main component of your game. personally based on what i've experienced through playing gacha games you should theoretically be able to pull for almost every character on debut just by playing dailies/weeklies/events, yet here we get a bit over a multi per patch (this includes playing realm of seraphim).

DICTATING FANDOM INTERACTIONS

i wholeheartedly believe a fandom is what keeps a game alive. a hindrance to the fan base is a hindrance to the game, which can be seen with the aftermath of pb announcing that legal action will be taken if full stories of paid content are shared publicly. while i understand from a business standpoint that pb would want to enforce the "no sharing full story" thing for paid content since they want players to yk, buy the card, like i mentioned in the previous section, the majority of the player base just cannot afford it.

the people who posted full stories wanted to share to those who cannot afford it, some people may not want only tidbits of the story but rather the whole context, especially those who enjoy dissecting character lore but don't have the irl funds to fully experience it themselves. some people may even want to archive it, cause honestly no one knows how long this game will stay up and we want to archive story so that it's something we can easily look back on. to essentially make players borderline terrified on trying to figure out whether or not it's ok to publicly post stuff in relation to any sort of story content is absurd.

there is also that loophole of what is defined as a paid story. when events end and get put behind a paywall, does that now count as paid story or is that still ok? what about debut L-ranks that are behind seals and there's a 3 month downtime till they're added to standard? or is it just referring to nightmare pass characters? paid stories in the context of the state of the game right now is insanely broad, it's practically at least 50% of this game (i'm exaggerating (or maybe not i wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case)).

i understand no datamining, while it technically speaking isn't illegal, it's disrespectful to the devs, but a lot of these call to action methods they're announcing are rather extreme imo.

with the most recent cards either being put to standard 3 months after their banner ends or flat out paywalled and not 100% guaranteed to have a rerun, story content as of late has been very sparse. what people want most is a main story update, which we were originally promised to be updated every 3 months and it is now month 6 and we still have nothing.

EVENTS AND EVENT STORIES

event stories being locked behind a paywall after the event ends is probably the first time i've ever seen a gacha game do this. most of the gachas i've played either don't archive event story at all and just rerun it every year, don't rerun or archive the event at all (i.e. if you miss it, cope and seethe), or they archive it for FREE. it feels insanely greedy how EVERY event story needs payment if you ever want to backread an old event.

what also concerns me is the fact like instances like gamigin's event or beleth's event carry so much lore for their respective region and that may never show up in main story, which then screws new players over in not knowing the full context behind every region. events like minhyeok's or bimet's are fine in the sense that it doesn't carry that much lore in comparison to the more recent events. the first few events were like silly banter and getting to know a bit more about the cast.

also changing the event shop from daily pies to a set limit per account was an awful choice it just emphasizes my point earlier of how unstable obtaining pies are in this game.

FULFILLING PROMISES

i think while it was a smart move to list what's gonna be implemented throughout the year, they shouldn't have stated deadlines on when they're doing so.

the following are the things that still aren't implemented yet as of making this post:

new daily chats (expected within february)

friends system (expected within march)

birthday system (more specifically celebrating your bday) (expected within april)

new main story chapter (new chapter expected every 3 months)

if pb were to just say "here's what to expect in 2024" and NOT give specific months, that's fine, but giving these specific months sets an expectation that they would complete it within that timeframe. main story for example is probably the one people have been anticipating the most. by now as of july, if we were to follow the expectation pb gave us, we would currently be on chapter 7, or at the very least chapter 7 would've been released some time this month. we have not even gotten chapter 6 yet. chapter 5 was released in january. it has been 6 months since the last main story update. failing to meet these timeframes will make people upset, because it was mentioned in the announcement that it's 1. a promise (i hope i'm not the only one that takes promises seriously) and 2. in bold yellow text, "what we can realistically expect to see in 2024." the only promises that were fulfilled on-time were the ones in january, the rest have been delayed by at least a month. if you're giving a timeline of what's happening, announce if there's any changes to that timeline, because not doing so will make players believe you were lying to them even though you probably aren't and are instead just falling behind schedule.

i think what hurts more to me is the fact that they aren't publicly communicating these delays. it shouldn't be our responsibility to find out why or when something isn't happening within the timeframe they promised (e.g. by emailing them), it should be up to the devs to communicate that publicly to us. i'm not saying they should overshare what's going on behind the scenes, it can simply just be a simple announcement of "hey, we're very sorry but we're having some technical difficulties with this certain feature and we need more time. here is some compensation in the meantime, thank you for your patience and again, we're very sorry." it's that simple.

FINAL THOUGHTS

i mentioned back in my intro that i feel like this game was released too early purely because the fundamentals of making a bare minimum decent gacha game are just not there. if every patch update has people complaining on what's just recently been added/removed, you're not fully listening to what the audience wants. while i understand pb is a small business, a business is still a business regardless of size and criticism/feedback is necessary especially in a game dev setting.

i've followed this game's news ever since it was teased, which was december of 2022, i've lurked/participated in the fandom (on here at least) ever since september of 2023. i've felt a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions of "omg this is so great" to "why is this even a feature," hoping that over time the game would get better, but the only thing that's improved was server stability (and even that's still a bit rocky 💀).

a huge part of my stay was just being a lurker in the fandom. i genuinely appreciate all the creatives who fulfill asked prompts of characters, make ocs, fanart, write theories, reactions + many more. i love seeing other people's works/opinions and having just a lively fandom made it all more fun.

but at this point this game is just not for me. i've really only stuck around to read mammon's lore but since main story hasn't been updated in 6 months i'll really only chime back in when there's finally an update. it still amazes me to this day that my patience lasted this long. i think i've covered everything i wanted to cover but my memory is swiss cheese so if i forgot something,,, woops 💀

as for the future of the spreadsheet for those who check back on it, it's still being managed by myself and windy, who has been a huge help since day 1 of creating the build lists and team comps and i honestly can't thank her enough for also enduring this pain of a game with me as we've worked on this spreadsheet together hgjdfgh (luv u bestie 🫶). though it's written in the narrative that both of us will eventually quit updating it entirely if this game persists on not having any signs of improvement. when that day comes i'll make sure to post an announcement about it.

as for myself i'm probably still gonna lurk in the fandom/keep an eye out on game news. i doubt i'll be making any fanart anymore unless if i really have the motivation/boredom for it, but currently i'm revamping the "aesthetics" of this account so nothing's really set in stone. maybe i'll make a few whb rambles here or there if some game news really irks me but for the most part i've already been in the process of moving on to other things.

if you've stuck around this long to read this mess of a post, thank you for sticking around and have a cookie, you deserve it 🫴🍪

#good grief this post was longer than i expected LOL #silly rambles #whb

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