Y'know, I knew I had accepted my inevitable death by the uptick in smoking over the past four months, but it's different to actually acknowledge it.
Was nice having medicaid and housing assistance while it lasted, I guess.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAi'm back and i don't know why

Actually, I know why. It's because for all my nay-saying over the years, FA still exists. It sure beats places that'll just delete every single piece of art I uploaded, going back to things from before college that literally don't exist anymore. Tumblr. It also beats places that don't have any archival or sorting functions, but I'll give the evil blue bird site a pass on that since it was never in their scope to be an artist's portfolio platform.

I'm high right now, so don't mind my rambling. 'S my funny talking animal page anyway.

Anyway, I shoved all the old stuff -- high school junk, lazily-edited SecondLife screenshots, napkin sketches -- in Scraps a year or so ago, and a couple of days ago I figured I may as well start uploading all (or at least most of) the art I've done since...let's say 2016, or so. Kind of that point where things got really interesting in my life.
I'll move older stuff back into the gallery if I still feel like it holds up decently. The same goes for uploading things from college as I get ahold of the physical sketchbooks again; stand-out pieces aside, those silly doodle pages were a lot of fun and still bring me immense joy to pick through.*

As far as newer art goes, most of it is focused on a project called Fringeworlds. I'll go into detail on exactly what Fringeworlds is later, but here's the gist of it.

Fringeworlds, a semi-hard science fiction universe, began in 2016 as a fun community roleplaying thing on a random Discord server and then, as a core writing group formed and we all grew as people, transformed into a sort of collaborative outpouring of worldbuilding, thematic fascinations, philosophical and political musings, and spiritual discoveries. It's not really a project that has a defined endgoal, and its core audience is only itself, but it's been a great source of creativity, artistic growth, and frankly a place to work out major issues we have, personal or in wider society, in a constructive and safely detached way.

I wouldn't trade it or the people I've met through it for the world.

Anyway. That's what most of the stuff I'll be uploading going forward will be centered around. It won't be everything, because that'd be severely limiting myself as an artist, but it's what's inspired even my lazy ass to keep honing my crafts. There might also be uploads of things other members of the FW community have made, with their permission. I dunno, I might have to make a separate account for that because of the way copyrights are automatically generated, but I'll figure it out.

It's a setting we feel confident in calling realistic. It's not some droll Turbofuck Killshitter™ darkness, but one of its core themes is accepting all that life comes with, good or bad. In the grand scheme of things, those who care for one another survive and prosper, but wars and great catastrophes and unforgivable atrocities still happen. A major focus is, naturally, on the fighting men of various nation-states, and their triumphs and tribulations. Another major focus is on technological advancement and humanity's drive to conquer any challenge laid before it. Yet another focus is on the place spiritualism, religion, culture, art, and history have in the future of mankind as we rapidly approach our knowledge singularity.

Frankly, writing these journals on a regular basis is gonna have to serve as practice in not being such a long-winded tit.

My skill in art is still frustratingly inconsistent, admittedly. I'm just gonna say "fuck it" and upload stuff anyway. It's something I've had to push myself to improve on ever since I started my creative journey, and it took me a long time to understand that it's perfectly okay for things to be rough and to have wonky errors as long as I'm actively practicing. (i had a whole other tangent here about "being the storyboard person" but i cut that shit lmao)


Oh yeah, uh. If you play Insurgency: Sandstorm, I've been having a ton of fun playing that. I'd be down for adding other players on Steam or whatever.


*Even if you can't draw very well, don't hesitate to fill a decently-priced sketchbook or two with nothing but silly doodles and extremely rough sketches or storyboards. I honestly believe it's a good creative exercise and chicken soup for the soul, as it were.

I literally haven't checked FA beyond links people have sent me in over two years. I should probably start using it again.

Everyone here now knows about how much I hate jerks, so let's do something more positive-looking!

I really need to start putting my art here on FA again, but I've been a LOT more active on Tumblr, where I've got an art/personal rant blog.
I promise I'm not dead.

I've been progressing a fair bit in my personal skill recently, and while I'm probably never going to get very far past the type of quality seen here, I'm honestly kind of alright with that; my biggest issue has always been consistency. I just couldn't keep everything looking as good as my few really noteworthy pieces.

Anyway, you all can see the stuff I upload to Tumblel here. It's usually not as finished as stuff here, but whatever.

I have no fuggin' idea how I'll pull it off yet, but I have access to a third-edition .pdf, a bunch of character sheets and an overstimulated imagination and I really want to run a Shadowrun campaign (either as a GM or a player, I don't really care) and I need players/people who are interested in helping me come up with ideas. Anybody?

http://jaycemonde.tumblr.com/post/5.....l-my-followers

tl;dr, I want to know why you all are watching me here/on Tumblr, and I'd like to have as many people answer as possible. Sound off, I guess.

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT guess what's getting done! I am so fucking psyched about it. Watching the Livestream right now and Jardenon is such a fucking amazing artist and I'm just freaking out and oh my holy shit fuck tits wow

I need to calm down. It's going on for a while if anybody wants links!

In other news, I'm playing Planetside 2 now! Not the best at it, but I'm good at keeping a more or less equal K/D.

Here's another, tiny journal since the other one ran my ID and shouts off the page. Just ask me shit, I guess.
EDIT: Gonna go ahead and use this journal to point out that my new avatar is the House Marik symbol from MechWarrior Online. I'll probably change back sooner or later.
EDIT AGAIN: Well. That didn't last long.

Note: I'm going to add the corresponding URLs to each of these services (and games, where applicable) soon, but for now it's just text.

+=+Personal Correspondence+=+
==Gmail==
+ If I like you, I'll give you whichever email address is relevant. I'll also put up my commission address when it's all set up.

==Phone==
+ Chances are you'll never get my phone number. That's something for close friends.

+=+Services and Websites+=+
==DeviantART==
+ Jaycemonde
- Egh, DeviantART. I only made this account to access art marked Mature, mostly from war artists. I doubt I'll ever upload anything here.

==FurAffinity==
+ Vatz
- I don't think I need to add a link to my FA page. I have made several vows in the past never to leave FurAffinity, regardless of how many other assholes give up on art and delete their shit. Short of complete data loss or Castro and Stalin coming back from the dead and buying FA, there isn't anything that could convince me to leave.

==Imgur==
+ Vatz
- Mostly SL screenshots. In fact, almost entirely SL screenshots. Imgur is where I put them all, since the ToS is butthurt about them despite their being almost completely identical to photography, which is allowed. (Unless, of course, the object is something man-made, because it's not "unique.")

==Raptr==
+ Jaycemonde
- Don't really do much here. I'll log in and leave it running in the background.

==SecondLife==
+ Vatz Lexico
- Age-verified in the fires of Linden Purgatory itself. Don't even try reporting me for not giving you free money, because I've been unbanned and deghosted a dozen times on this account. This account has a lot of avatars, most of the [heavily armed, grungy, sometimes spunk-covered] foxy-fluff persuasion. I usually hang around huge urban sims--modern-day or sci-fi. I've also seen almost all the Grid in my time, thanks to the tendency for places I love to close down and people I like to quit playing, in turn forcing me to find new shit to do.

+ Jaycemonde Theseus
- Also age-verified, because this is the account I made to get my last one unbanned. (Who woulda thunk you could get accused of being thirteen for not giving someone money?) Now it's a full-time sister account, and I've got unique avatars on here that, aside from being floofy, deranged fox-monsters, are unique from my main avatars. I tend to hang out in roleplaying sims; a few sci-fi sims (since most of them kick me out for being a fox) but no fantasy sims (since all of them kick me out for being a fox). I also hang around combat sims, since those are remarkably fair (don't like someone? shoot the bastard!) and tolerant (everyone you want to troll has got a gun).

==Steam==
+ [LapFox] Moon Biter
- Pretty much all of my online communication is centered on my Steam profile. I chat with people and share screenshots just as often as I play the games on Steam. I'm also head of security (layman's terms: I kick trolls, delete malware links and police the comment wall) for the Official LapFox fan group, and one of the more-or-less official spokespersons (at least where Kitcaliber and The Queenstons are concerned). I hardly know a third of the people in my friends list, but the ones I do know are very close friends and people I could trust with my life. Usually, anyway.

==Tumblr==
+ Anthropo[morpho]logy - Art, Sociological shit, Rants
- I often post funny shit to this blog because I tend to use the Tumblr app for Android, and it doesn't let you choose where you repost things. Please, follow the other blog if you're only doing it for funny things. I move all of it over every month or so.
+ Misplaced#ash - Most reblogs, Funny shit
- The icon is from "Metro: The Gospel According to Artyom," before you ask.
+ Coonfox Alley - After-dark, NSFW shit
- The actual URL at time of writing is coonfoxsexdungeon, in reference to xkcd. I plan on changing it to match the blog's title, though.

+=+Standalone Games+=+
==APB: Reloaded==
+ Dogbitch - Enforcer (Colby)
- Usually use Nekrova. Makeup vaguely reminiscent of a jack-o-lantern. Clothes consist of harnesses, combat pants/boots and either turtlenecks or tank-tops. Has bloody handpaw prints all over her body and a Rainbow Dash tattoo on her ass (don't judge me).
+ Laughing Hyena - Criminal (Colby)
- Makes all the money for both herself and Dogbitch because Criminals are OP as shit and can make money doing just about anything. Wears post-Soviet militia stuff themed after Vladof (from Borderlands) and uses machineguns. I make the Vladof clothes myself, so hit me up if you want some.

==Blacklight: Retribution==
+ "Dog of War" Jaycemonde
- I don't have a "build." I wear a light helmet, either a light or medium vest (it depends) and light boots/pants. I have a light machinegun, assault rifle, tactical submachinegun, bolt-action rifle and heavy pistol, but I've only got two loadout slots and I switch them out all the time.

==Minecraft==
+ Moon_Biter
- I do not know how to use Redstone beyond rudimentary light circuits, and I do not know how to Survival beyond peaceful mode. I am, however, a fairly good builder. I specialize in underground and semi-underground cities.

==Tribes: Ascend==
+ Specialist 2nd Class Jaycemonde, [nurs]
- I tend to play Juggernaut. (MIRV launcher + X1 LMG)

==Everquest II==
+ Dragoon Jshav Redscale - Iksar Guardian, Clan Kellock (Guk)
+ Parser Kuurif Ska'roul - Sarnak Wizard, Clan Kellock (Guk)

==MechWarrior Online==
+ Jaycemonde - House Marik / Free Worlds League
- I currently personally own two Battlemechs. The first is a Raven-4X with two medium lasers, an AC/2 and AMS. The second is a Jagermech 6-S armed with two AC/2 and two AC/5, AMS and extended ammo reserves.

==Warframe==
+ Jaycemonde - Trinity
- Good with semi-auto weapons. Mods are geared mostly toward anti-Grineer.

+=+Steam Games+=+
(All games I play on Steam use my current display name unless otherwise noted)
==ArmA 2: Operation Arrowhead==
- I DON'T PLAY DAYZ SHUT UP

==Borderlands 2==
- I have all released mission DLC, the levelcap expansion and Gaige. I do not have Kreig.

==Team Fortress 2==
- I usually play Pyro, Sniper and Heavy. I'm also good at Medic.

Playing it. Guk server. "Good" Iksar Guardian and "Evil" Sarnak Wizard. You should all swing by.

Comment, and I'll...

1) Tell you something I learned about you by looking at your FA page for 10 seconds.
2) Tell you a color you remind me of.
3) Tell you my first memory of you.
4) Ask you a question.
5) Tell you something I like about you.
6) Tell you the object that is in front of me.
7) Dare you to do this yourself in your own journal!

Dared by both  twilight-goddess and  williamca, so here goes.

Apparently it's easier to claim you're a part of whatever group you've (probably unintentionally) said something offensive about and then delete all the comments instead of taking thirty seconds to change a few tags, even if the people who call you out are being perfectly reasonable (and actually are in the group in question).

Hey, I'm not one to tell people how to think. Just remember that it's the need for "convenience" that poisoned all that food, caused a gigantic dust storm and caught workers in meat grinders in New York in the twenties and thirties. There's a reason people are expected to do things the right way in the workplace--and even outside a professional setting, you're supposed to take pride in your work. Half-assing things and refusing to be accountable for offending someone only causes problems. You can delete all the comments you like, but eventually your modus operandi will catch up with you.



I'm just sayin'.

Is it just me or is every single couple that had been together for more than a year randomly breaking up without telling anybody right before one or the other leaves FA without so much as a good-bye rant?


Fleki and Wolfy-Nail, Adjot and Williamca...these are people who seem perfect for each other, and because of how universally liked they are and how long they've been together you just don't notice when one of them stops posting anything. Then a few months later, you go to their page and find that they're just...gone. They're not registered as deceased, they haven't been banned. They just stopped posting one day. The partner who they'd loved so much has moved on to some completely random person and has gotten rid of any trace of having ever been with them in the first place.

And that's not even starting on the people who actually are registered as deceased when you go to check on them.


It really makes me scared for the future, especially because the very last pictures are always really gentle, loving ones and not rough, hardcore sex or some crap. It makes me wonder how something beautiful like that can just stop existing one day, and it makes me cringe to myself.

If this can happen to people who have been together for four years, and with no explanation at all, what does that say about the world around us? What does that say about our own personal relationships, about our dreams? Were these people and what they'd shared just dreams to begin with, something dredged up from our own memories and superimposed over shared reality in an attempt to hide the bleak truth of our temporary lives within the current thread? Or is it something more, the sudden tenderness prior to disappearing a final goodbye?

I get caught up thinking about all the people who've contributed lasting legacies to the world and died without warning shortly after, and how an artist--whatever their medium--who ceases to exist dies not just for themselves, but for all of us, wrenching our spirits into knots and pulling us down into an abyss that we're left to pull ourselves out of. Artists who had become beloved for their talent and their personality who then destroy their futures...they leave us with a feeling of eternal hunger, a deepening sadness when we realize that we're never going to see an update from them again, never have another chance to admire their latest works even as their old ones gather dust in the electronic catacombs that make up our databases and storage media. They leave behind nothing but a pale imprint, a broken ghost and an aging legacy.


Every time an artist terminates or a loving couple ends, we all die a bit inside. It's entropy born of love.

I've been awake too long. I need to sleep and try to get my mind off of this.

As the title states. It's faster and easier for me, especially since I have to take pictures with my phone due to the absence of any kind of scanner. I'll still upload really big/important pictures to FA, but all my sketches and WIP shit is going to Tumblr. I don't reblog things very often unless they're either REALLY USEFUL or REALLY HILARIOUS, so you don't need to worry about me clogging your Dashboard with a bunch of random crap.

This is my Tumblr.

This is my Tumblr.

This is my Tumblr.

This is my Tumblr.

Okay? Okay. Feel free to follow me if you want. I probably won't follow you back unless I either know you or you've got some really nice and original stuff yourself, because I similarly don't like having my Dashboard overrun with random memes.


Cheers.

09.17.2022 UPDATE: i'm deleting most of these old journals because i was a really crungo piece of shit and i don't need to be reminded of that era but this one aged beautifully given the latest journal

Who's getting it? I know I'm getting it. Y'all guys getting it?

I'm getting it.

The OST came out yesterday or the day before or something like that. It's hauntingly beautiful to listen to, and it manages to evoke all the things that Half-Life did without being a carbon copy of the original soundtrack.
For those of you who don't know, Black Mesa is a fan-made (100% fan-made, by the way) remake of the original Half-Life that helped make Valve famous before Counter-Strike and Team Fortress and all that. It's been in development for four or five years now, having undergone countless revisions and complete overhauls, and it feels like an actual big-budget game from what I've seen of the media (trailers, screenshots, the aforementioned soundtrack) rather than a mod. Even the voice-acting is breathtaking--bad voice-acting plagues thousands of user-created modifications, but here it sounds like a masterful production.
Oh, and the zombies are finally scary again. That bugged the hell out of me in Half-Life 2. Anyway, this is all expectations and hopeful speculation on my part, but from what I know of the developers and the project it'll live up to even the most finnicky fan's desires. I'll post a full review after I've gotten to play it through. If you want more information on it, go to www.blackmesasource.com. The OST is free to download, but I would suggest using the optional Buy button and supporting the composer. It's great.


EDIT: STILL listening to the soundtrack. Any OST that sticks with me for more than a few hours (not to mention more than a whole day) is definitely something I would recommend to others.

Is an amazing game. But after the Xbox I was using carved a nice, long trench in the disk around level 22 (yes, I was using Broken Steel, but I hadn't even finished the main questline for the original game--god damn there are so many sidequests!) I tried in vain to replace the disk, then the Xbox got dismantled by somebody else before I could get my save data, and when I got it on Steam I found out that it can't run on Windows 7.

Unreal Tournament 2004, a game four years older than Fallout 3, can run on Windows 7.
Oblivion, the game that uses the same engine as Fallout 3, can run on Windows 7.
Skyrim, the game that uses all the same features and graphics introduced in Fallout 3, can run on Windows 7.
But Fallout 3 can't run on Windows 7. I tried all the fixes, I set all the affinities and disabled all the Net 3.1 options and all that jazz, and I still couldn't get the game to work. I got the cracked version and that didn't work (by this point I own TWO copies of the game that don't work, so don't bitch at me about using a cracked version).

So I have three copies of Fallout 3: GOTY that don't work at all. One is physical, one is on Steam, and the other is just a couple of big iso files. But there is NO REASON for Fallout 3 to NOT work on Windows 7, ESPECIALLY when every other game I've EVER OWNED works just fine on Windows 7 (including games built for Windows 95, like Half-Life).
So what the fuck? Of course, Bugthesda won't release a patch for the millions of people who bought their damn game and can't play it. So that's out of the question. I may just install a Windows XP partition on the hard drive, but it's going to be a pain in the ass to restart my computer every single time I just want to play one stupid game.

Does ANYBODY have any ideas?

With the release of Dust: An Elysian Tail, and Destructoid's firm reassurances that just because by an unfortunate accident it happens to be a "furry game" it is still good, I have to wonder if it'll still be this unbearably stupid and bad in ten years. Any time a new game or a movie comes out that has any hints of being "furry", everyone who doesn't avoid it completely for just that reason claims it's good or bad as normal--but make it absolutely clear that if it's good, it's independent of any potentially offensive furry material, and if it's bad, it's probably because of that same material. As the "public awareness" of the subculture goes up, it only ever goes up in stupid and trite ways--fat guys in bear suits wearing lingerie in Jack-In-The-Box commercials, mostly. Even the supposedly "loving and tolerant" Brony subculture thinks about furries, it's in a negative way. Given, most bronies are just trolls, but even the nice ones are less tolerant than they think. Then you've got the stupid "Fandom" thing that's still going on. How, in any sense of the word, is this a Fandom? Blotch, Strype, Kishniev, iPoke, Adam Wan, Adjot, Trancy Mick, Immelmann--all have different, unique universes with different, unique personalities. Different politics, different races, different levels of technological advancement and visual styles. Those are just the people I can list off the top of my head. There is only ONE thing in common with their stories and artwork: The people in those stories have fur. That's one similarity. The reasons for that are different. Genetic engineering, lab experiments, alien encounters, magic, "Just Because". This isn't a couple of Freewebs sites filled with Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction and Robin Hood porn. Those things are found in an unfortunately ample supply inside the culture's realm of influence, but compared to the level of unique and original content we create, they hardly rate a fifth of the total artistic output. There are American, Canadian, Mexican, Brazilian, Argentinian, German, Filipino, Armenian, Russian, Austrian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese (RoC and PRC), Ukranian and twenty other nationalities' worth of artists in this culture. We are apolitical, we are anarchists, we are Republicans and Democrats, we are Liberals and Conservatives, we are religious and sacrilegious. We are more than just a Fandom for one thing, one stupid Disney movie. We are a self-contained culture. There are assholes in here who piss others off. There are arbiters who help make amends. There are celebrations, there are times of mourning, there are enraged periods of drama and there are serene periods of creativity and productivity. This is not a Fandom. It is not a Fandom. It is an entire subculture. Entire relationships have been started and ended here. Entire musical industries and game development projects started. We will not fall apart in two weeks if the Internet disappears, because the bonds of professionalism and friendship forged here are too strong for such a trivial obstacle. This is a completely functioning, self-sustaining new world.

I realize that I was horribly redundant just now, and that I went on and on, but this is the truth. It's all going to stay. This will all stay for as long as sentient life exists. It has come too far and has grown too large to die on its own.

DECADE ANNIVERSARY UPDATE: Lol. lmao. I actually still agree with the thing about it being a subculture and not a fandom, but I think I was being too hard on mainstream culture and its ability to accept and normalize fringe things. We've got muuuuuch bigger problems now than whether or not someone likes furries, anyway, like the rapid resurgence of open ethno-fascism and the looming collapse of our planet's complex systems for the sake of capitalist greed. Egg on the bronies' face, though, because they turned out to be a bunch of Actual Nazis and furries have largely divested themselves of all the loudest right-wing personalities. Good job, furries.

Got Skyrim for Steam from Evol <3
Check my Steam page out, i upload some pretty cool screenshots of finishing moves and different mod combinations. I play the role of a not-heroic (i avoid as much of the Dovahkiin stuff as possible) Argonian warrior-poet/mercenary. Lute IS included.

Jumping on dragons is fun :x

Since they still haven't allowed uploading of screenshots to FA (unfortunately) I opened up an imgur account to put all the crap on, as there are a whole bunch of screenshots I would still love to share and it's a pain in the ass to email them to three dozen friends individually. There is no rule against posting a link, and the rule against screenshots up there is mostly for bandwidth-saving reasons anyway.







AS A DISCLAIMER, I TAKE NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER FOR ANY BASE AVATARS, ITEMS, TEXTURES OR EQUIPMENT IN THE SCREENSHOTS UNLESS I SPECIFICALLY STATE OTHERWISE. In the case of my avatars in-game, I take pride in my skill at putting disparate items together to create a unique look, but I did not create any of the individual items used in that creation process. I'm like a musician who samples songs and turns them into something completely new and original, if you need a more socially known comparison.

SecondLife Screenshots

i am going to use this journal as a list of maps i've created for the game FarCry 2. i'm gonna just go ahead and start with the first one i mentioned above called Tributary, but i wanna do it in a more Unreal-esque way. i don't know. i can't just leave something alone as it is. i have to create all these extra things like reasons behind objects in the map or descriptions of the areas objectives or whatever. it'll be updated as time goes on.

---

FINISHED MAPS

Tributary
PS3, small map (4-6 players)
Validated for: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond, Uprising
Vehicles: No
Description: A small fishing village on the outskirts of the Congo, this nameless community is quickly developing into an industrial center and mercenary camp with the rise of The Jackal's civil war. While it's out of the way of the brunt of the fighting, both the APR and the UFLL have taken interest in the village due to the abundance of natural resources in the region and the rumors of ancient diamond deposits (hint hint, Michael Crichton reference) hidden away in the deep jungle. During the cease-fire, both sides had managed to set up headquarters within the town--the African Popular Resistance sits in a couple of well-appointed (by local standards) shanties while the United Front for Liberation and Labor quickly took over the factory opposite town.
Tactics: Ammo caches are distributed equally along the inside perimeter of the village, although none are in the center of town. The three distinguishing factors of the village (as well as the points players must control in Uprising) are a rigged radio tower near the APR headquarters, the main entrance to the village (next to the factory) and a set of mobiles and cranes an equal distance from both starting areas--the three points form a roughly equilateral triangle, and while there are direct paths from each point to the other they are all covered by M249s, making circumspective routes more desirable. Two M2 machineguns (one on the balcony of the UFLL factory and the other in a watchtower conjoined with APR HQ) overlook the town and can hit nearly any part of the map, although there is plenty cover to prevent them being overpowered.

---

UNFINISHED MAPS

2-Fort Afrika (less than 20% complete)
PS3, medium-large map (est. 12-14 players)
Validated for: None
Vehicles: Swamp Boats
Description: None yet.
Tactics: Nothing concrete yet. Due to the size of the map in comparison to most other forms of the 2-Fort formula and the limited submerged swim time players have in Far Cry, the underwater tunnels have been replaced with docks, and the only safe way across the water is via swamp boat. Both docks will be fortified with sandbags and mounted weapons (probably Mk. 19s), and swamp boats will have marginal cover.

Convoy (approximately 70% complete)
PS3, large map (est. 14-16 players)
Validated for: Team Deathmatch, Uprising; Capture the Diamond is planned but Deathmatch is NOT
Vehicles: None yet, probably Jeep Wranglers/Liberties or Assault Trucks
Description: Currently being written.
Tactics: In order to take complete control of the valley, the UFLL or APR need to control the UFLL checkpoint leading into the valley (A), the crashed Hind in the swamp which acts as a midway barricade (B) and the immobilized convoy itself on the other end of the valley (C ). Heavy foilage prevents a direct route from A to C in vehicles, requiring the Hind to be controlled if either team wants easy access to the main objectives. M2 machineguns are trained on the roadways at both the checkpoint and the convoy to offset the advantage given to whoever controls the Hind, and M249s are present at all three control points to counter foot-mobile attackers. The checkpoint has been cleared of foilage and is not an easy target for immolation, but hard and soft cover is minimal and defenders are easy to pick off. The Hind and its attending barricades are submerged in a swamp that makes both defense and attack impractical (defenders must expose themselves in order to fire their weapons due to water height and attackers will have trouble seeing their targets, and both sides will be largely unable to use fire-based weapons). The convoy itself is in a heavily covered area and while soft and hard cover are plentiful, the area is very susceptible to fire attacks. Shooting lanes have been cleared in front of all the mounted weapons which may allow attackers to know which areas to avoid, although careful gunners will be able to hit nearly anything that approaches the camp. This is by far the hardest point to mount a hard assault on, but definitely the most rewarding to officially capture.

Kolobok (approximately 75% complete)
PS3, medium-large map (est. 12-16 players)
Validated for: None yet, all game modes planned
Description: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-inspired map. A twisted, winding junkyard on the outskirts of Clear Sky's new African holding, "Kolobok" is one of the few areas of the planet Earth not yet contaminated by the ever-expanding Zone--although as it is being used as a dumping ground for radioactive waste and weapons by-products, the chances it'll remain "pure" for much longer are slim to say the least. Despite the large size and moderately open nature of the basin, the sheer amount of rusting train hulks and shanty town-like recycling centers clogging the canyons manage to keep the sunlight out until nearly noon, creating a perpetual half-night for Kolobok's inhabitants.
None yet.

just finished reading Ender's Game. it's one of the most important things i've ever read, no question about it. right next to Element Zero/State of Decay, and Starship Troopers. and no, the bible is not in my list of important books. i think these beat the shit out of the bible. these books are my holy writ. i sincerely hope one day i can reach the level of talent and wisdom that Orson Scott Card, James Knapp, and Robert A. Heinlein possess. they're as close to living legends (although i'm not actually sure of the health status of Card and Heinlein) as Renard is, and those of you who know me understand what kind of statement that is. although to me it feels fake since i only have one example to back my statement up with. i would also mention Metallica and Bush, but i have no idea who the singers/songwriters are of those bands.


Full list of books and albums i consider my "holy writ": Element Zero, Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, Jarhead, The Black Album, Figurehead, Fallen Angels, Discworld (to a healthily askance degree given its satirical nature), The Revenge of Doctor Q, The Grand Cross, The Sea of Memories, and Golden State. in no particular order. i may have forgotten a few things.

fell asleep playing "The Memory of the Signs", which contains some lovely distorted power chords and deep lyrics typical of Bush as well as a strange post-modern underwater vibe, then woke up during "All-Night Doctors". there is nothing more beautiful than waking up to a warm sunset with your favorite hat on and grunge rock whispering into your ears. anyway, for those of you who happen to be grunge aficionados as well as people who've never heard of grunge rock, i strongly suggest picking this album up. most people will probably recognize "The Sound of Winter" from the radio, since it's the only damn Bush song radios ever seem to play. just take my advice and skip the album version of "The Afterlife"--the single version (actually released in 2009) is so much richer and deeper, and the message actually comes through much more clearly. also, if anyone's got the Target/British Release only tracks, i'd appreciate it if you could email those to me. fucking record labels trying to keep culture out of the hands of the consumers. anyway, Bush is literally my favorite band. like, my all-time favorite. hell, i actually enjoyed "The Science of Things" and "Golden State", and Golden State went way over most peoples' heads.

First of all, I'm just gonna pretend that Slavic girl didn't get eaten alive in one of the tunnel systems running under the unnamed hellhole of a city pulled from the story. I think that part pissed me off more than anything else, because she was my favorite character. Alas, Vika, you will be remembered. Especially your apt summary of the Stillwell base: "Yr dfnces r trshed. U gys r fckd." (She uses an outdated JZI that doesn't connect to the language center of her brain, so she needs to use a virtual keypad that floats in the corner of her vision.) Coolest teen delinquent ever.

ANYWAY. I'm not going to spoil a lot, even though I know nobody here will ever read it, but the books go in this order:

State of Decay
The Silent Army
Element Zero

They involve mind control, zombies, nuclear missles, gunfights, cyberpunk themes, the Ouroborus (I'm as confused as you are, but it's not for a religious reason), unnamed jungles in Asia, robotics, theoretical rebirth, and free will. Very dark, very scary, very entertaining. Also very well-written, which is a hard thing to come across these days. The trilogy is right up there on my bookshelf next to Ghost Soldiers (a WWII Japanse POW documentary), Fallen Angels (Vietnam book by Walter Dean Myers), Apache (a first-person recounting of a daring rescue and assault operation from the point of view of a British Apache pilot), and In The Company of Heroes (the true story, also first person, of the pilot of that other helicopter you may remember crashing from Black Hawk Down), and anybody who knows even a tiny bit about me should know how fucking good that makes these books.

Anyway, you can find these books at Barnes & Noble, or probably on Amazon. I dunno. They're softcover, have pretty snappy artwork (for the covers, anyway--the actual descriptions of things in the book are so vivid you could probably paint a friggin' mural based off of the Revivor and JZI descriptions alone), and JESUS FUCK CHRIST do they leave an impression. I promise, you will never think the same way about dreams (or pathogens) again after you've seen the effects of the Vaggot Deformation. Creepy stuff. Regardless of what you walk away from this with, I can tell you right now that you'll find it hard (in the good, suspensful way) to keep track of who really is fighting for the right cause and who's totally deranged.


Anyway (again), I'm gonna try and make this setting and its characters (particularly Calliope Flax, Nico Wachalowski, Faye Dasalia and Samuel Fawkes, as well as Vika because I fucking love her and she's more awesome than everybody else combined my next series of art projects. I can't wait to try and draw the JZI's with their soft orange (or green) light reflecting from inside the persons' eyes and tiny displays just barely visible inside the retinas.

...crashed my stalker.
i just got it to work again, too. it went from FATAL ENGINE ERROR YOU BASTARD when loading to "delete gamedata folder and reinstall the bitch" to "oh man i am a super badass stalker now! check me out and my veteran status within a week of my sudden and inexplicable appearance in that fat bastard's bunker! i'm a goddamn Duty soldier now and ain't nothin' you can do about it!" to "oh shit i'm in x18 AND THIS FUCKING POLTERGEIST WON'T STOP THROWING GAS CANS AT ME AND IT FUCKING HURTS" to "9524--cool the door to the lab openedYOU FUCKING BASTARD POLTERGEIST, STOP THROWING--" FATAL ENGINE ERROR YOU BASTARD.
fffffffu-
well, hopefully it's just a one-time thing. those stupid flying boxes and stuff probably took up all the memory in the laggiest portion of the x18 labs. if it IS another fatal engine bug then i don't think i can handle having to restart Stalker AGAIN and AGAIN.
honestly though, the only thing i absolutely HATE (besides pseudodogs) is the poltergeist.

and, on a related note, the only thing that actually scares mein Stalker--seriously emotionally traumatizingly scares me--is the Controller. that thing is...fucked up. really just fucked up. the fact it can damage your psych and rip your brain to shreds from the inside out FROM FIFTY FEET AWAY is just too much to handle, especially as it's pretty much bulletproof. appearing only in dark anomaly-filled horribly-lit half-flooded tunnels boring underneath the fucking Chernobyl Zone doesn't help much, either.


and as you can probably tell from this journal, i am a serious Stalker addict. hell, i even like Clear Sky. who still likes Clear Sky?


just for the fucking sake of it, i'm gonna put down my loadout and play style as well as stats as of the crash. if anyone feels so inclined, drop yours in a comment so i can see.

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Armour: PSZ-9d Duty Armour (Burn 50|Elec 50|Imp 50|Rupt 50|Rad 50|Chem 50|Expl 40|Bprf 40) (i prefer the Duty Armour over heavier and otherwise "better" armors such as the Monolith armor for one reason: Duty Armour has the green nightvision. it is a fucking LIFESAVER whenever you're out at night or underground, and you don't need to use your flashlight (which makes you an easy target))
Sidearm: Walther P99 (usually loaded with 9x19mm PB1s--if i get into a situation where i'm screwed enough to need to use my fucking PISTOL, i want it to have something with a bit of stopping power)
Primary Weapon: AK-94 Akaban (loaded with 5.45x39 FMJ) w/ GP-25 grenade launcher and PSO-1 scope (i use it as a sniper's weapon, hence the scope--the grenade launcher is mostly for show since i suck ass with grenades)
Artifacts: Slime (-166% bleeding, -10% burn/chem. burn), Fireball (-20 rad, -18 Endurance), Droplets (-10 rad, -18 Endurance), Sparkler (+36 Endurance, -10% elec. shock), Urchin (-30 rad, +100% bleeding)

Rank: Veteran (205/500)
Faction: Duty (yeah yeah, quit yer bitchin')
Reputation: Very Good

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