#counterstrike source

[xaviergalatis]

[dizzyluc]

... when I showed the original on Youtube to my mom like a year ago because she came out of a dressing room while I waited for her, anxious because she told me "the door was stuck and didn't want to yell for you" and this video literally popped into my head and I had to show her lmao She cracked up and said "oh my god that was literally me, going on in my head" xD

[forestlingincorporated]

I’m pretty new to Megaman, so I haven’t gone through all of the canon media yet but I am enjoying your comics so… what’s NOVAS, what’s up with, and why is it bad?

Aaah, Novas Aventuras de Megaman....

Novas was a licensed Brazilian Mega Man comic book developed by Estúdio PPA and published by Editora Magnum in the 90s. It's well-known for being... bad. The kindest words I can use to describe Novas is "edgy" and "unprofessional."

I'm interpreting this quesion to be not just "what is Novas" but also "WHY is Novas" so I did a little bit of research to get you a full answer, and not just my horrified reaction to it.

The book was published not long after the Ruby Spears cartoon. Apparently the book's early writer and editor, José Roberto Pereira and Sérgio Peixoto had been in touch with Character Toy Trade, who licensed Capcom products to Brazil. Upon hearing of the Ruby Spears release, Pereira and Peixoto pitched a comic to Editora Magnum.

Apparently, they wanted to do this so badly that, to convince Magnum's execs to enter a publishing deal, they offered to work... for free, earning nothing for the first ten or twelve issues.

While it's not unusual for a comic run to use multiple artists and contain varying art styles throughout, most of THIS title was drawn using unpaid labor from fans solicited through the magazigne it was published in, Animax, and it shows. Readers were prompted to submit their art tests to the publishers, and out of those the best of the lot was selected. To participate, the candidate had to send 6 pages of comics, 2 in pencil, two finished art and two colored. Contributing artists were compensated with a copy of the published issue to use in their portfolio. Quite literally working on spec for exposure.

Most of it is, simply put, not the quality you expect from a publisher. Fair is fair, though, and I would be remiss not to aknowledge that some of these artists went on to be very well-respected comic artists, such as Daniel HDR (who did MM2 and 16, and has now worked for Marvel, DC, Dynamite Ent. and Image Comics, was the winner of DRAGON AWARDS 2020 - BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL for Battlestar Galactica: Counterstrike, and is the CEO of Dínamo Estúdio art School in Brazil) and Érica Awano (who got her start with MM4, and now known for her works related to the Tormenta universe and has recieved the Troféu HQ Mix).

The art... is the least of their issues, though. I've read plenty of webcomics where the art began, let's say, amaturish, but the story and writing more than made up for it. I can't say the same is true for Novas.

It's baffling that Pereira and Peixoto fought to have this book, given neither of them appeared to give a single shit about the source material. My understanding is manga and anime was very popular in Brazil at the time. I'd call it a cashgrab, but they weren't paid for most of it. Editor-in-chief Sérgio Peixoto admitted neither he nor Pereira had ever played a Mega Man game before and all they knew about the story was some information they got from someone who played the games. Further more, despite the first two issues including promotional art from Ruby Spears and official art from the games, including a large centerfold poster that remained for two additional issues, Pereira believed Ruby Spears was "very bad." He didn't think much of the games' plot either, what little he knew of it.

Pereira's distaste for American media and adaptations is painfully obvious within the text of Novas, which takes the time to address the audiance to soapbox about imported media. This is, in part, done in a self-depricating sort of way, but seems to be the driving force behind the decision to even make Novas. Peixoto admits Character offered them "the original Megaman manga" (the Shigeto Ikehara "Rockman" manga, I believe) but he turned it down to do a Brazilian-made book. They wanted Megaman to be drawn by Brazilians and in the manga style - very fixated on being a "manga" rather than a "comic." Despite apparently knowing the product is low-quality, Peixoto appears to be proud to have "made 16 editions of the first manga magazine created entirely in Brazil, using a world-famous character."

I suppose that's the tipping point - "a world-famous character." No care for Megaman, no, but care that he's famous. Pereira apparently had every intention to have his own OCs take over the book after Megaman got readers in the door - apparently intending to kill off the megaman characters in graphic ways - but he left the project after #5, citing that he couldn't actually write his "own" story and... well, lack of payment. Peixoto wrote number 6, and Orlando Tosetto Jr. was brought on to do 7-16.

The desire to provide opportunities for local writers and artists is admirable... in theory... but... hardly anyone got paid and it's not exactly a book I would be proud to have my name on.

But enough about Novas' unpaid labor, quesionable motivations, and poor research. The writing is just... bad.

The plot is all over the place. There are so many dropped plot threads, tone shifts, continuity issues, and retcons in only 16 issues, it'll make your head spin. It reads like a 15-year-old boy made a megaman comic because he thought there should be more swearing and naked girls.

The least of the writing's issues stem from the fact that they barely knew the plot, so character backstories, personalities, relationships, etc. are all over the place. Forte/Bass is named "Slasher" and he takes on a Protoman-type role as a Light bot and sibling, while Protoman is implied to be this mysterious mastermind-type character pulling strings behind the scene, Roll used to be human and is super special for some reason, Rock's an asshole, and X is a horny whiney pissbaby asshole...

It's crude.

It's bloody.

It's horny.

Sometimes downright disgusting.

And one can't ignore the incest.

There are... MUCH more egregious panels, I'm trying to keep it tame. There's a LOT of pointless nudity, including a scene near the end where they're kidnapped and tied up but only the women are stripped naked... for no discernable reason, I can't even say it's because their kidnappers are being disgusting, because they're not, even X is behaving himself for once.

I'd love to say the incest was an accident, but it's not, they actively call each other brother and sister.

Occationally the comic veers into dark topics, but the ever shifting tone and oversexualization makes it hard to tell how I - the reader - am supposed to feel about it. While I'm busy being horrified, I can't help worrying someone's getting off on child abuse and murder.

Maybe this kind of misogynistic gross-out shock-value was funny at the time. I've seen a few people remark on this comic's run fondly, saying they liked it when it came out. I can't imagine ever thinking it was good.

If anyone would like to know more about Novas without subjecting themselves to reading it, Mechanical Maniacs does their best to summarize.

[cosmicnyan]

this cat did not mount counterstrike source

[mariacallous]

When the arsenal in Toropets detonated, the blast was so large it registered as a small earthquake and some eyewitnesses likened it to a small nuclear explosion. On the night of Sept. 17, the 107th Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, a military facility about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border in the region of Tver, was struck by around 100 Ukrainian drones, destroying some of Russia’s most advanced rockets and air defense interceptors, and possibly newly arrived North Korean ballistic missiles. Three days later, another large-scale Ukrainian drone strike hit the Tikhoretsk Munitions Storage Facility in the southern Krasnodar region, a main distribution depot of Russian munitions sourced from North Korea. Well over 200 miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the attack resulted in another huge fireball. That same night, more drones sailed into the directorate’s 23rd Arsenal, again in Tver, igniting the facility.

In a matter of days, munitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars had been destroyed. Estonian military intelligence estimates that the bombing of the 107th Arsenal destroyed two to three months’ worth of munitions alone.

These were the latest sorties of Kyiv’s fleet of homemade unmanned aerial bombs, which over the past few months have immolated air bases, fuel depots, oil refineries and ammunition stockpiles, all of them well inside Russian territory.

Ukraine is now giving as good as it gets, hitting Russia on its own turf by land, sea and air, and prompting a new debate in Western capitals as to whether NATO allies should assist it in these deep strikes or can afford to do so without triggering nuclear war.

In August, Ukraine made a well-coordinated incursion into Kursk, the first time a foreign army had invaded sovereign Russia since World War II. Despite early Western forecasts that this operation would be swiftly and severely reversed by a Russian counterstrike, Ukrainian forces continue to hold an expanse of territory roughly the size of Los Angeles and have so far deflected from Russian efforts to dislodge them by invading from other axes. In square mileage, this surprise tactical victory eclipsed in the space of two weeks Russia’s yearlong advance in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, where Moscow has committed enormous resources in manpower and artillery. According to members of the Ukrainian military interviewed by New Lines, at least some of these resources have now been redeployed to Kursk, partially fulfilling one of the stated aims of the offensive.

Though military cartographers and statisticians may assess these gains and losses as a decidedly mixed result after Kyiv’s third summer of fighting, Ukraine has also been making gains elsewhere, namely in the field of arms development. It is now manufacturing a fleet of combat and reconnaissance drones, both airborne and naval, as well as its own long-range missiles. Kyiv is using these weapons to do what Washington still refuses to allow it to do with Western equivalents: strike at Russian air bases, command-and-control hubs, logistics centers and energy infrastructure, all deep in Russia’s interior.

If the Kremlin entered the war under the “rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them,” to borrow a phrase from Sir Arthur Harris, the commander in chief of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force Bomber Command during World War II, Ukraine has spent the last months of 2024 bringing the war home to Russia and to Russians, with devastating effect. Ukrainian drone attacks have become so common that some enterprising Russian insurance companies have even started providing dedicated home insurance against drone attacks.

The only surprise is that this comes as any surprise.

During the Soviet era, Ukraine was a military-industrial powerhouse, home to the largest cargo aircraft ever built, the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the Russians destroyed it at start of the full-scale invasion), not to mention the entire line of T-64 main battle tanks and R-36M ballistic missiles, the introduction of which caused sleepless nights among Western military planners at the height of the Cold War — which is partly why NATO codenamed them “Satan.” Contemporary Ukraine has tapped into this heritage, and its engineers have gone to work again, this time to fight their former metropole and to make up for the American restriction on the use of Western artillery rockets and cruise missiles to target Russia.

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, Kyiv’s defense industrial base now commands 300,000 employees spread across 500 enterprises — four-fifths of them privately owned. Major Ukrainian public figures and charitable organizations have supported the effort by raising money and supporting the manufacture of drones.

Other Ukrainian civil society actors and volunteers have also turned hobbyist racing drones into remotely piloted, precision-guided munitions. FPV (first-person view) drones have become one of the most lethal weapons of the war — and one that Russia has copied to equal effect. Piloted by technicians stationed miles away wearing a virtual reality-style headset that captures the flight path as though they were on board, FPVs chase down soldiers on foot, on motorbikes or in armored vehicles and pound into command centers and military-occupied buildings. Recordings show everything until the moment of impact when the screen ominously turns to white noise.

So terrifying are FPVs — and so difficult to evade owing to their small size, speed and maneuverability — that Russian troops have committed suicide rather than face a grisly death from above. They’re also incredibly cheap and easy to mass produce, costing on average $300 to $500 depending on the components used. As such, these drones account for the majority of casualties on both sides, according to Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces.

For all the domestic innovation, Ukraine insists it still needs to use foreign weapons systems to go after strategic targets in Russia. The U.K., which was the first country to supply long-range munitions to Ukraine and has been one of Kyiv’s more bullish allies in the war, has been in favor of lifting such restrictions. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has even been lobbying European allies, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to support a proposal to allow Ukraine to use European-provided long-range weapons inside Russia without U.S. approval, Bloomberg recently reported. Other British officials were reported to be holding similar talks with their French and German counterparts.

There are growing indications that Washington is also coming around to this point of view. According to sources in the Biden administration, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is “fully in favor” of letting Ukraine strike back but faces resistance among those fearful of escalation with Russia, including at the National Security Council and the Pentagon. During a recent trip to Kyiv, Blinken stated that since the start of the war, the U.S. has been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield evolves. “From day one, we have adjusted and adapted,” Blinken said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Needs have changed as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we will continue to do this.”

These adaptations, while welcome, often come too late to save Ukrainian lives. After the Russian incursion into the northeastern region of Kharkiv in 2024, U.S. restrictions preventing Ukraine from striking targets on the Russian side of the border were lifted. Had they been lifted before the incursion, a member of Ukraine’s Kraken special forces unit told New Lines during a visit to the front in May, the Russian invasion could have been prevented entirely. An unknown number of Ukrainian casualties could have been prevented, and the city of Vovchansk would not have been razed to the ground.

Telegraphing to Washington that Russia can absorb losses on its own territory without starting World War III may be why the guns of August have been firing overtime.

Apart from the Kursk operation, the end of summer has seen the successful use of Ukraine’s long-range drone program. On the night of Aug. 2, these flying bombs struck the Morozovsk air base in Rostov, approximately 165 miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory. The base’s ammunition dump housed hundreds of glide bombs, deadly air-dropped munitions that can destroy entire buildings and fighting positions in a single hit. The dump was obliterated in the Ukrainian strike, which also destroyed at least one Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber and almost certainly damaged two more, plus airfield infrastructure.

Days later, on Aug. 8, another Ukrainian drone strike targeted Lipetsk air base (250 miles from the border), a major training center for the Russian air force. The ammunition dump at the base was likewise also completely destroyed, with the other buildings at the facility suffering damage as well. Then, on Aug. 22, Ukraine’s drones bombed Marinovka air base in what was possibly the most successful strike to date, destroying at least one more Su-34 and likely destroying or heavily damaging four more aircraft. The base’s facilities suffered extreme damage, with hangars, ammunition stores and emergency vehicles all taking hits.

“No individual strike tells us that much, but it’s the growing number and mass of systems involved that are most important,” Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, told New Lines. “If Ukraine can wage a comprehensive ranged campaign against the Russian military, it will allow it to degrade Russian production, logistics, command and control. The types of targets which usually determine the outcome of wars.”

Just the fact that Ukraine can routinely and successfully target such air bases will have an impact on Russian air force operations, according to Lt. Col. Jahara Matisek⁩, a U.S. Air Force pilot and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, who spoke in a personal capacity. “The biggest benefit is that it is forcing the Russian air force farther away from Ukraine, which decreases Russian ability to lob missiles and bombs into Ukraine.” He explained that it would also provide Ukraine with an opportunity to establish localized air superiority, giving Ukrainian ground offensives a greater ability to mass forces and maneuver in the open without fear of being attacked from the air.

Russia will continue to struggle to defend itself against Ukrainian drones, Matisek⁩ believes, because its air defense networks were designed to fend off a large-scale NATO and U.S. attack, rather than smaller, slower drones flying from Ukraine. “Cold War assumptions about how the U.S. and NATO would attack the USSR meant that Russian air defenses are oriented in that fashion. Hence, Russia likely never designed an air defense network to defend against Ukrainian incursions.”

To ward off Ukraine’s drones, Russia has instead opted for ad hoc measures such as painting the outlines of fake aircraft on the concrete hard stands and covering real ones under dozens of old tires — not the best form of camouflage against weapons that don’t rely on visual sensors to find their targets. The most effective way Russia defends against current Ukrainian attacks, however, is to simply fly all airworthy planes away from incoming drones, something that would be entirely ineffective should supersonic long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, be allowed to target them.

Ukraine isn’t just pounding planes on the tarmac. Deep strikes have been directed at Russia’s strategic oil infrastructure, such as refineries, depots and even export ports. For instance, on Aug. 17 Ukrainian drones targeted the Kavkaz oil depot, a large storage facility in Proletarsk, in Rostov, causing a catastrophic fire that continued to burn for over two weeks. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fuel was destroyed in one night, and the Proletarsk facility will be functionally useless for the foreseeable future. (Russian authorities eventually drafted in a number of Orthodox priests in an attempt to invoke divine intervention to put out the fire — a further sign of Moscow’s fecklessness in the face of these attacks.) Less than two weeks later, on Aug. 28, Ukraine hit the Atlas oil depot, another large storage facility, also in Rostov, precipitating yet another multiday fire but not before 40% of the facility’s fuel tanks had burned to the ground. Then, on Sept. 1, a wave of Ukrainian drones struck the Moscow Refinery, located just outside the Russian capital.

An assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that Kyiv has so far disrupted 14% of Russia’s oil refining capacity and driven up domestic fuel prices by 20%-30% as of mid-March. This might have gone down well in Washington, given the attention paid to hobbling Russia’s war-oriented economy through sanctions, but such was not the case. The Biden administration responded to Ukraine’s targeting of Russia’s energy infrastructure by expressing its displeasure, citing the risk of rising global oil prices (the implication being that this would hurt the Democrats in November’s election). Self-deterrence has been a constant in U.S. security assistance, but Ukrainians and oil industry analysts alike greeted this American grumble with bemusement. Russia’s hydrocarbons industry keeps its tanks and personnel carriers moving and is thus a viable strategic target.

As with the incursion into Kursk, the impact of these strikes is not just physical but also psychological: They make a population largely indifferent to a foreign conflict acutely aware of its domestic costs. Ukraine’s incursion into Russia has seen the largest occupation of Russian territory since World War II, and like its deep strike weaponry, has shown Russia and the world that Ukraine retains the ability to inflict significant pain on its adversary.

The arrival of even more sophisticated Ukrainian drones will likely compound the pain for the Russians. On Aug. 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day — the third such celebration since the start of the full-scale invasion that was meant to take all of three days to be decided — Zelenskyy announced the successful employment of the new Ukrainian Palyanytsia. Named for a type of bread, the Ukrainian word for which is notoriously difficult for native Russian speakers to pronounce and is thus a convenient way of ferreting out Russian spies and collaborators, the drone will produce “unpronounceable results,” according to Zelenskyy. The Palyanytsia is powered by a rocket engine, meaning it will fly far faster than Ukraine’s current, mostly propellor-driven suicide drones, giving Russian aircraft less time to scramble out of the impact zone when used against their air bases. Days later, Zelenskyy also announced the successful test of an as yet unnamed Ukrainian ballistic missile. While he did not specify the exact type, it is likely the Hrim-2, a short-range ballistic missile that has been in development for over a decade, funding for which was supposedly earmarked by Ukraine’s then-defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, in 2023.

These new weapon systems come a year after the introduction into Ukraine’s arsenal of a land-attack version of its Neptune anti-ship missile, a munition Kyiv famously used to sink the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship cruiser, the Moskva, in the first year of the war. On Aug. 22, a Neptune cruise missile destroyed a Russian ferry loaded with fuel tanks in the Kerch Strait. “While Palyanytsias and Neptunes can achieve many objectives, there are tasks that only ATACMS, Storm Shadows and other weapons from our partners can fulfill,” Zelenskyy said.

From a logical and legal perspective, there is no reason to prohibit Ukraine from using Western weaponry to strike any legal Russian military target. American artillery and cluster munitions are already killing tens of thousands of Russians inside Ukraine, and the British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missile conspicuously powdered the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, claimed by Moscow to be an integral part of “Russia” since 2014.

There has also been a consistent pattern of the Kremlin making exaggerated threats when a Western capability has been on the table for delivery to Ukraine, only for it to later claim, once those weapons have been delivered, that they’re insignificant or that Russian forces have already destroyed all of them. This happened with HIMARS, Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets.

The West needs to stop allowing the Kremlin to set the rules of the game, Timothy Snyder, a European historian and professor at Yale University, told New Lines on a recent visit to Kyiv. “It’s the same psychological mistake where you’re playing by the rules that the other side has set for you as opposed to the rules of international law, which allow for an invaded country to defend itself.”

Washington’s escalations have routinely been met by Moscow’s anticlimactic responses. Nor does Russia stand to gain anything by resorting to nuclear weapons just because the munitions destroying its air bases, command centers and logistics hubs are made in the U.S. (or the U.K. or France) instead of in Ukraine. On the contrary, even the use of a tactical nuke in Ukrainian territory would yield no advantage on the battlefield. It would, however, transform Russia into even more of a pariah state overnight, alienate its critical ally China and likely lead to nuclear proliferation in places where neither Moscow nor Beijing would desire to see it, such as Kazakhstan, Finland, Turkey, Taiwan, Japan and Australia. As has no doubt been communicated, such an escalation would be met by a NATO conventional military response that would do even greater damage to Russia than anything currently on offer from Ukrainian ATACMS or Storm Shadows. Sergei Markov, someone often used as a hard-line voice of the Russian government in the Western press, told The Washington Post recently that the White House’s eventual rescission of the deep strike restriction has already been factored in by Russia’s war planners, who consider the decision a fait accompli — this in an article about Ukraine’s serial violation of Russia’s supposed “red lines.” Tellingly, Markov made no reference to weapons of mass destruction.

[workersolidarity]

🇺🇸🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚨

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TRADES WITH ISRAELI OCCUPATION- NO RETALIATION AGAINST IRAN FOR INVASION OF RAFAH

A report published in the Hebrew media says the American Biden administration has made a deal with the Netanyahu regime to exchange a potential retaliation on Iran for the their strikes against "Israel," for the Israeli invasion of the city of Rafah, the last bastion for displaced Palestinian civilians.

A report about the deal was originally published by the The New Arab, and has since been republished in the Zionist media, detailing a deal in which the United States has approved an Israeli ground operation into Rafah, the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, in exchange for restraint with regards to Iran following a large-scale choreographed missile and drone strike launched over the weekend targeting Israeli military sites.

The Iranian strike was in retaliation for an Israeli attack on the consulate section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, killing several Iranian military and diplomatic officials, including two high-ranking IRGC commanders.

No Israelis were killed in the Iranian counterstrike.

To avoid an all-out uncontrolled escalation in the region, officials in the Biden administration have reportedly made a deal with the Israeli regime, avoiding a retaliatory strike on Iran in exchange for a planned Israeli invasion of Rafah.

According to a Senior official speaking with The New Arab, "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to obtain American approval for a military operation in Rafah, in exchange for [Israel] refraining from carrying out a wide military operation against Iran in response to its recent attack."

The official claimed that "discourse of an Israeli response to Iran contradicts the desires of the American administration, and is not realistic, given the Israeli claims that the United States played the major role in repelling the Iranian attack and preventing its success."

The source also noted that "the IDF carried out airstrikes [overnight on Thursday] on several areas adjacent to the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt," adding that "the relevant officials in Egypt were notified before the execution of some of these strikes, which came in the Philadelphi axis at a space adjacent to the border with Egypt."

For its part, Egyptian authorities told The New Arab that Egypt is at "full readiness and preparedness of [its] forces stationed in northern Sinai, along the 14-kilometer border strip with the Gaza Strip, as part of a plan to deal with the scenario of a ground invasion in Rafah."

According to authorities with the Egyptian military, the government is "ready for all scenarios," but that the Israeli occupation must properly evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah before any potential operations.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[carriershoukaku]

i love playing Source games when shit is happening in my life or there's a sudden transition it's like having your favorite food from your mother on a horrible day. fragging people on Counterstrike Source is the same level of comforting as soup.

[j0kb0x]

ASH I FORGOT TO DOWNLOAD COUNTERSTRIKE SOURCE

[lonephantom777]

Page 3 of "Sins of the Fathers"

As Carmelita finishes off the last wave of Penelope's attack drones and heads up the ramps towards the top floor of the building under construction, she reflects how busting a high-profile criminal like Penelope will help counter the rumors floating around the office at Interpol -- namely, that her integrity as a police officer is in question after the fallout of the whole "Sly Cooper Amnesia" debacle.

She's so caught up in said reflecting that she doesn't see the fuel drums ahead of her until she's almost staring at them. Skidding to a halt, she finds herself wondering why Penelope would arrange the gas barrels in such a pattern, and here of all places...

CREATOR'S NOTES:

Yeah, I know, this pic isn't quite as action-packed as the previous one, but I added a bit of world-building here. Namely, that after the events of Thieves in Time, Carmelita's reputation has taken a hit thanks to the fallout of the whole "Constable Cooper" arc. Maybe it's me, but it seems like 1) brainwashing a criminal who took a bullet for you, 2) taking that criminal on as your partner, and 3) having said criminal go back to thievery would be the kind of chain of events that would blow up in your face. After all, it could be easily inferred that said criminal got their memory back and took exception to your attempted brainwashing/gaslighting.

CREDITS:

1) Carmelita Fox is copyright of Sucker Punch, creators of the Sly Cooper series.

2) The models used for Carmelita and her Shock Pistol came from the Patreon page of Warfaremachine. ( https://www.furaffinity.net/user/mrwarfaremachine/ )

3) Penelope's attack drones are based on the ones from Wolfenstein: The New Order (though Penelope herself is NOT a Nazi), found on the Steam Workshop page of martianinferno98. ( https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi.....archtext=drone )

4) The crates and barrels...are either from Steam Workshop, or native to Source Film Maker. All I know for sure is I'm not the one who made them.

5) The explosives hooked up to the barrels are based on CounterStrike: GO's bombs. They were found on Steam Workshop, courtesy of jermacore enjoyer. ( https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi.....searchtext=ied )

6) The high-rise building that the action is unfolding in was found on the Steam Workshop, courtesy of Anomi. ( https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi.....htext=highrise )

[yikes-strikes-again]

i guess i forgot that as a childhood valve enjoyer, i actually knew a lot about Half Life just by Gamer's Osmosis... you simply could not be a Aperture yuri understander and not also know their yaoi rival Black Mesa... you could not play gmod without being haunted by the ghost of hl2.exe in windows task manager... you could not play tf2 or l4d or source at all without experiencing bang bang bang hit bang tink bang hit hit bang ting bang bang because of Uncle Crowbar's influence... and do i even have to mention The Forbidden Number. lol. cant believe i literally played every valve game as a kid except the most famous ones (well, and counterstrike. (the boring tf2)). and even then... freeman's mind still happened to me. Fuckinggggggggg

but then at some point i DID have to play Portal 1, so i got it on the famed personality-altering Oranged Box at age 11. After I beat it I stared at the game select screen for a long time, and decided to fire up hl2 out of curiosity, though i didnt like not having played hl1 (Child brain needed to Enjoy Media in Order). I apparently experienced something before getting yaoi'd by manhacks, failing to shoot moving things with an xbox controller, and saying No for another nine years. But those weird people I met in that dirty building did go somewhere inside my head forever.

now i am 20 years old in the year 3 P.H. (Post-HLVRAI) and i'm forced to admit that everyone was right all along for memeing That Number because your gamer girlfriend in hl2 is just that epic, as is that based cop impersonator who has too many crowbars for a bachelor and can apparently die if you're incompetent enough. And don't even get me started on the scientists. Gigachads. What i'm trying to say is the memes were right and not exaggerated at all. I'm listening. I'm learning. The gamers were fucking right

[homleypigeon]

Alright, Who's the silly who forgot to download Counterstrike Source!

[rabbivole]

also i think i've discovered the cause of dirty window disease and a bunch of other weird texture mishaps. those are Black Mesa assets. the devs have supposedly asked that the game not be supported by garrysmod as a mountable source game. (this is totally within their right; i mostly get it, even if it's mildly annoying. though i feel like the end result is worse in terms of IP rights tbh)

however, they're nice assets! and a lot of them are fairly unlike assets in portal, hl2, csgo, etc. so people want to use them in their maps. if the game were mountable they could just say 'you need to own and mount Black Mesa to see this map properly'. but it's not. so instead they rip all the models/textures out, dump them into their gmod installation, and include them with the map

except pouring the assets from 20 different games into the same namespace causes fucking problems. because the people who made one game had no reason to make sure they used different filenames from assets in a completely different game unless they were literally borrowing them. (l4d copy-pastes a bunch of counterstrike source assets, frex) so if you have multiple content files with the same name garrysmod just picks one, and im not entirely sure how it decides which, but experience suggests it's base hl2 content -> mounted games in load order -> workshop content, from lowest to highest priority. you'll actually have problems with this solely by mounting tf2. it shares a few texture names with hl2, so some maps will randomly have painterly tf2 textures in them

so anyway you sub to a map that used a bunch of black mesa content, it loads after all of your mounted content, and now your glass looks dirty, your doors look weirdly industrial, your explosive barrels are higher-res, you have this insane water closet door texture with the silhouette of a child on it, DR>BREENS PRIVATE RESERVE is now a purple 'Rutta Grape' machine, etc

and yes i did find this out by upending gigabytes of black mesa assets into my gmod directory without making a backup, turbofucking my entire life

[omniversentertwined]

@scumbag-the-hedgehog continued ask PT 2, Yako edition [ x ]

ㅤㅤThere had always been the potential that this would happen. Controlling one's creations through manipulation and fear only worked for so long as said creations did not gain sense or bravery. The fusion she'd crafted from multiple other mobians and the addition of an alien's DNA had so strangely repressed all prior memories of its experience with her -- in which she was a source of pain, and they merely her multiple captives. In place of those memories was an almost childlike attachment to her, as though she were their loving guardian.

ㅤㅤSurely, it would have continued that way, were it not for her creation stumbling across their project files -- reading notes and bearing witness to video logs. The truth was on painful display, for them, and their reality was brought crashing down around them. Memories that they'd buried for their own sanity are ripped to the forefront, and when she finally found them, their collective hatred for the one who had done this to them had resurfaced in full, as well.

ㅤㅤShe hadn't had enough time to properly react, barreled into and flung against the metal walls of her laboratory. Likely the only reason her head hadn't been crushed as the backside of a tentacle was roughly whipped against the wall she'd been flung into was because after the wind had been knocked out of her, she'd fallen instead to the floor. Though she'd attempted to desperately escape the next attack, however, the agonized scream as sharp stingers stabbed into the backs of her legs was sure to echo across the West Wing, alerting any who could hear it that something was very wrong.

ㅤㅤThis very scream was also likely what had drawn the speedster to her location, in the first place. Being slowly crushed within the grasp of her abomination, perhaps it was lucky that their focus had been solely on attempting to murder her. It gave him the opening he needed to launch his own attacks -- force them to let go of her, dropping her not far from her desk.

ㅤㅤFocusing on the immediate threat that kept them from their prey, they'd launched a counterstrike, and the altercation gave Yako the time she needed to drag herself with what bones and muscles were still in one piece towards a single drawer. A seemingly soon-to-be victory for the maddened creature, they suddenly lock up before ultimately collapsing -- the remote control Yako had grabbed activating the chip she'd planted near their spine long ago.

ㅤㅤIn no way could this be considered a victory for any side, however. There was no guarantee that her creation would recover, from this. The neural lock was meant to be a last resort -- saved only for situations like this, where she could no longer control them, and her life was at risk. The damaged she'd sustained, as well, was clear even to her. It was agonizing to breathe, and with a heaving of blood and bile, she could only assume her ribs had pierced her lungs, and other internal organs had been ruptured, as well.

ㅤㅤEven if she were taken to the medical ward, in this state, it was unlikely that she would survive. Perhaps the speedster had planned to attempt it, anyway, collecting her from the floor and telling her to just hold on as she cries out in pain. A singular feeling that she recognizes surfaces -- the pumping of adrenaline, the desperate desire to stay alive. Yes, she would always remember something as terrible as fear.

ㅤㅤ" N --- o o.. No, no n o--- I--- I do n ot--- want to di e.. N ot ye t--- p lease---please, not....nn ot ye t--- " Slowly ever-quieter, she repeats this. She pleads for help, choked whispers begging him not to let her die.

ㅤㅤBy the time they reach the medical ward, both her pleading and her heart have stopped.

[malt-beverage-enthusiast]

Counterstrike Source servers with bizarre custom maps, gimmick maps, surf maps, music commands anyone could use, a bunch of crazy assholes with almost no moderation, ridiculous spray paints, man what a fucking time that was.

[rtanjirr]

⚠️ Tensions Explode: U.S.–Iran Conflict Reaches Boiling Point After Israeli Strikes | June 24, 2025

posted by: @rtanjirr | tags: #Iran #USA #MiddleEast #WW3 #geopolitics #Israel #war

#iran

#usa

#israel

#middle east conflict

#operation midnight hammer

#geopolitics

#world war 3

#us iran conflict

#iran nuclear sites

#natanz

#fordow

#isfahan

#donald trump

#masoud pezeshkian

#ali khamenei

#b2 bombers

#international relations

#proxy war

#strikes and retaliation

#united nations

#iaea

#nuclear tension

#diplomacy vs war

#global crisis

#news

#tumblr politics

⸻

It’s official: the U.S. is now actively involved in a direct military confrontation with Iran, and the entire Middle East feels like it’s teetering on the edge of something far more catastrophic.

It all started on June 13, 2025, when Israel launched a surprise, unilateral military campaign against Iran, targeting nuclear facilities, missile development sites, and even high-ranking military officials. Iran’s response came quickly��drones, ballistic missiles, the works. While initially focused on defense, their retaliation signaled that this wasn’t going to be a short-lived tit-for-tat. Regional watchers have been sounding alarm bells ever since.

But things really escalated on June 21, when the United States formally entered the conflict. Under the codename Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. sent in B-2 stealth bombers to strike deep inside Iranian territory, hitting the nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan using bunker-busting bombs. President Donald Trump (yes, he’s back) claimed the facilities were “obliterated.” Iran responded almost immediately—not with a full-on counterstrike, but with strong denials and sharper warnings. According to Iranian sources, the nuclear sites had been evacuated prior to the strikes, minimizing casualties and potential radiation leaks.

Still, the tone from Tehran has shifted. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the U.S. strikes as an illegal act of war, warning that Iran reserves “all options.” That phrase alone has sent chills through diplomatic circles.

There are reports—unconfirmed but alarming—of Kheibar Shekan missiles being moved into launch positions, possibly aimed at Israel. There’s also growing tension with Iran’s regional allies: Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraqi militias—all of them hinting at readiness to act if the U.S. escalates further. One false move and the region could spiral into full-scale war.

The U.S. response? Mixed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insists that America still wants diplomacy, but warns Iran that any retaliation will be met with “swift and overwhelming force.” Meanwhile, critics at home are crying foul. Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer and Jim Himes, say Trump bypassed Congress and possibly violated the War Powers Act. Human rights groups and organizations like CAIR have condemned the strikes. But on the flip side, AIPAC and other pro-Israel voices are praising the U.S. move as a bold defense of global security.

Global reaction? Cautious and anxious. The UN Security Council is scrambling, and the IAEA is reportedly monitoring the struck nuclear sites for radiation, though so far, there’s no contamination. The UK, Germany, and France are urging all parties to return to talks, while Saudi Arabia and Turkey are emphasizing the need for regional stability (translation: don’t drag us into this).

Interestingly, Iran hasn’t played its full hand. Notably, they haven’t closed the Strait of Hormuz—a move that would send oil markets into chaos and provoke a stronger U.S. military response. This restraint suggests Iran is still trying to avoid a head-on collision, even if they’re preparing for the worst.

One especially eerie development: sources say Ayatollah Khamenei has relocated to a secure underground bunker and is already naming possible successors. That kind of move suggests the regime is deeply worried about internal stability—not just external threats.

As of now, the world watches and waits.

Both sides are posturing, probing, and preparing.

But one thing is crystal clear:

This is not a drill.

⸻

Reblog with thoughts | Stay informed | Stay critical

💬 comments are open

💥 #WW3 trending again

✊ solidarity with civilians on all sides

[thisistheworldofgays]

i may be biased but i think when it comes to people squabbling over console wars style shit regarding gaming nostalgia of the 2000s and 2010s, the sigma males are valve gamers which is why you never hear us brought up. are you seriously gonna argue with the gordon freeman guy? do you have any idea how much thinkgeek shit this guy has? this guys gonna pull up with the headcrab plush and the aperture tank top and longfall boots socks. go ahead. say halo was better than tf2. look him in the eyes and say it. hes not even listening. hes playing counterstrike. he's in tf2 queued for casual. he owns 70 source mod full games and he's content with it all. the source sigma has not wished for a new game outside of joking about half life three in decades. the source sigma has reached gamer nirvana where he desires nothing. total enlightenment.