It's been about 9 years since I've heard this story and I am in not a very skilled story writer so bear with me. I also may not get all of the details exactly right.
I honestly don't even know if this story actually existed and was just made up by the kids I went to school with, but a lot of my classmates used to recite this story an awful lot so I figure it may have come from the internet. All I know is that it used to creep me out. Keep in mind there were a few alternate versions of this story but I'm going to stick to the one I heard the most.
So anyway, it went something along the lines of this:
There is this family of three, a mother, father and daughter. The daughters name was Sally and I don't think the parents were named originally but for the sake of this retelling I will call them Mary and John. I cannot for the life of me remember accurately the reason why, but there comes a point where Mary and John decide to get rid of their daughter. I may be wrong, but I believe it could have been because of her bad behavioral issues and the fact that she was just a really horrible kid. So anyway, by get rid of I mean they literally take sally to a random location in the middle of nowhere and just leave her there. Again, I'm a little foggy on the details but I'm pretty sure the parents decide to murder her and dump the body somewhere that it won't be found. a bit extreme but to each their own I suppose. So once the body is delt with John and Mary return home and go to bed.
fast forward about a couple of weeks and the parents are in bed trying to sleep when John is awoken by the faint sound of a voice. Concerned and scared, he gets up to go and check it out. He searches the house but finds nothing and assumes it was just a dream. The following night the same thing occurs but this time the voice is heard by both parents. John explains his experience from the night prior and both him and his wife become increasingly worried that someone may be in their house. Both sit quietly for a moment until they hear the voice again. They begin to realize that the voice is repeating itself every few seconds, though they can't seem to make out what it is saying as it is too quiet. Suddenly the voice stops. John hesitantly scouts the house once again but finds nothing.
The next night Mary is unable to sleep due to her paranoia about what had happened previously. In an attempt to ease her mind, she checks that all the doors and windows in the house are locked. After getting back into bed and hoping to fall asleep she suddenly hears the voice again. terrified, she quickly wakes her husband. Like before, the voice seems to repeat itself with an interval of a few seconds, though this time it's different. This time the voice has become slightly louder and clearer. John and Mary are petrified when they recognize the voice as none other than Sally's. They sit in fear as Sally's voice softly and repeatedly chants the words "Sally is 70 miles away". After speaking these lines for several minutes, the voice stops once again. John and Mary consider calling the police but ultimately come to the conclusion that this would be a risk as it could get them caught.
From that night onward John and Mary would try their best to ignore the horrifying voice of what seemed to be their own daughter chanting each night. Since the police were not an option, there was really nothing they could do but hope that it was some kind of prank or something. They really didn't know what to believe, there was no way that this could be possible, hearing their own deceased daughter's voice. They had noticed that a family with seemingly troublesome children had moved in next door not long after Sally's death. Mary had witnessed these kids messing around with other people's property before, like damaging mailbox's and such. With this in mind Mary and John hoped that they were just being messed with; however, as time went by and the chanting continued, things only got more unsettling. Each night the voice would get louder and seem closer and would say the same thing but with one small difference every time; it would claim to be closer each night. When the voice first became audible to John and Mary it spoke the words "Sally is 70 miles away" and the night after that "Sally is 60 miles away", and then 50, 40, 30 and so on. By this point both parents would refuse to sleep, staying up all night scared and disturbed as to what they were hearing until one night, it stopped.
Finally, after a week of listening in horror and being deprived of sleep, Mary and John were able to get some sleep. Things returned to normal and though their experience had left them terrified, the couple tried their best to forget both what had happened and what they had done to their daughter. They had moved on and were living their lives normally.
This was until one night, after several weeks, they heard the voice again. This time it was the loudest and closest it had ever been. John and Mary were in complete disbelief as to what they were hearing. Mary on the verge of tears, yelling out for the voice to stop while John sat silent, too scared to talk. Again, the voice would say it's chant but this time it was different, this time it began with "Sally is at your front door". A few moments later the voice would speak again and say, "Sally is in the kitchen". By this time John and Mary were the most scared they had ever been in their lives, with the covers pulled up to their mouths they sat unable to move looking straight ahead waiting and hoping it would go away. After almost a minute of waiting, the voice spoke again, "Sally is at your bedroom door".
A few weeks later the parents were found dead in their bed covered in blood.
​
well, that was longer than I thought it was going to be. As I said at the beginning there were a few different versions of this story going around and this one might be pretty modified from the original, but this is the one I was told. Whether this is the actual story or not, it followed the basic premise of this.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/X6rfnKZ
Posting this here, before I post of knife_swap.
Looking to sell a set of green thorns, asking $200
Some wear on the handles, all have that stonewash handle so it's hard for me to tell, centered, comes with the pouches and tools that came with them.
Set comes with:
Ti Overkill in VG10
Ti Quantum in VG10
Lee Kickstop in D2
In addition have two Kevin Johns up for sale, both have scratches on the finish for the handle, wear from carry, centered, comes with the pouches. Really like both of these, so which ever sells first I'll withdraw the other.
Venom 2 - has a scratch on the blade so $150
Nightmare - ano is rubbing off so $200
Will do a bundle deal if one of these is purchased with the Green Thorn Set, would prefer PPFF, but will do G&S, shipping is included

Figured I'd get some of these details down in case anyone else was wondering like I was. I've been looking at categories and there's a few things that I found interesting that others might too:

• Series does not equal tags and this applies to restrictions. For example, Songstress Yuna is from the X-2 series. However, she has the "FFX" tag. Yet when taken to the Sin Chronicle Battle, you'll get a message saying there's an invalid party member like if you had someone from FFBE or any other series when attempting the quest. This is how it used to work before Leader Skills but just goes to show that even if something's got a tag with the same name as a series, it doesn't count.
  
• There's individual categories for each FFBE season. Just interesting since iirc we get an S4 Leader Skill (or at least I think we do). This is also separate from the FFBE category so anyone with a season category has both.
  
• The "Blessing of the Crystals" Category. This by far is the most interesting because it is our most unique. It's a blanket category for any unit who has a backstory tied to crystals. This includes normal FFBE characters Sol, Fina, Dark Fina, KoG, and Return Akstar. However, then V, III, and Type-0 units are included. But most interesting is the GLEX inclusion of Yoshikiri, Elena, Louise, and Wylk, our "Fundamental Forces" units. One can assume therefore that we most likely will be getting a Leader Skill this anniversary that covers this category specifically as I'm pretty sure JP hasn't had anything like that (assuming this even exists in JP).
  
• The "Another World" Category exists for all Collab units in lieu of an individual category for each series. This existed in JP I think, and the NieR units have it so they'll benefit from that, CoW, or Light (Squall).
  
• The "Dark Lineage" tag is notable, but only because it includes NV Base Physalis, Sacred Shield Charlotte (but not NV Base Charlotte) the NVA Sworn Six, Vlad, Yego, and for some reason 7* Sol. Plus Dioxus and assumedly any future Dark Lineage units.
  
• Evocation is its own category despite not technically being its own role anymore. Just interesting because it used to exist as a role back when Citra originally existed according to my research, but doesn't exist as a role anymore.
  
• NV Base Lasswell is considered S4 even though he's not in S4 yet. Of course, Insignias for Lasswell have been like this already.
  
• Mana Series is its own Category, separate from Another World. However, Mana units also have "Another World."
  
• The "Bestowed Power" tag is for Reno, Fran, Sonon, and Kelger. This means that future free NVs will have the category as well. However, Rizer is excluded from this (more on Rizer later).
  
• Speaking of, Golden Rizer lacks both the "Bestowed Power" and "Anniversary (JP)" categories despite fitting into both (free NV given out during the Return events).
  
• Any unit with Morale abilities seems to have the CoW tag (I don't have Cloud Strife though). Starlight Elena has it, for example. This includes OG Ibara who only gets Morale scaling in her LB with EX awakenings. However, Grim Lord Sakura, Lucius, Christine, Kryla, Bradley, Rubicante, and Barbariccia don't have this as they don't have CoW abilities. Though strangely, Melia is included in this category yet has no Morale abilities as far as I can tell.
  

Those are the things I've noticed. Did I miss anything? I think the highlight of this is it's very possible that we get a Fundamental Forces unit with a Blessing of the Crystals Leader Skill for our anniversary. Odds are it'll be Elena since all colors of crystal have characters attached to them, however, I would also bet on a Morgana NV this anniversary (Dark Katana Morgana that's a DPS with some support, and also SLB?). I'd already bet on this being the finale to the FF arc anyways. Other than that I can't help but think that Ibara intentionally only covered one category and not CoW so that we're motivated to pull for JP units as until we get a CoW-specific Leader Skill those still have value.

Hello, friends. I've got a bunch of pedals I'm not using that perhaps you would enjoy using. Here they are.
Photos

• Alexander Wavelength $120
  
• AllPedal Macrodose LNIB $250
  
• Animals Pedal Rain (Push & Pull alternate art) $90
  
• Catalinbread Fuzzrite $100
  
• Catalinbread Talisman $140
  
• CopilotFX Autodialer $110
  
• Diezel Herbert w/power supply $170
  
• Digitech Trio $105
  
• Keeley Filaments $100
  
• Mojo Hand Extra Special $110
  
• Moog MuRF MF-105 w/power supply $500
  
• Mr. Black Thunderclaw $120
  
• Solar Chug LNIB $150
  
• Subdecay M3 $150
  
• Subdecay Octave Theory $150
  
• Subdecay Vector $110
  
• Suhr Buffer $100
  

Interested in trading for:
Cash (listed prices are Paypal F&F but I'm happy to take G&S plus 3%, shipping is on me)
Toneczar Powerglide
Skreddy Hybrid Fuzz Driver
Empress Heavy
Supro Flanger
Catalinbread Callisto MkII
Surfy SurfyTrem Deluxe
Not looking for any dirt besides the Skreddy/Empress, thanks.

Finally finished picking all the parts for my new PC, anything I'm missing about why I wouldn't want some of these? Planning on pulling the trigger tomorrow
Debated between the 13700K and the 7700X but my understanding is that my GPU would be somewhat bottle necked by this processor, and the Intel had better temps
As for GPU, I'd really have liked to pick up one of the new 7900 XTs but the temperatures are just waaaaay too high, and the 4070 Ti had similar performance for the price, albeit less VRAM
PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i7-13700K 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor	$399.99 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler	Corsair iCUE H100i ELITE CAPELLIX 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$149.99 @ Amazon
Thermal Compound	Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5 g Thermal Paste	$7.65 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard	$225.99 @ Amazon
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory	$139.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	Purchased For $0.00
Storage	Samsung 870 Evo 4 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	Purchased For $0.00
Video Card	MSI VENTUS 3X OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card	$829.99 @ Newegg
Case	Corsair Crystal Series 460X RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	Purchased For $0.00
Power Supply	Corsair RM1000x (2021) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$189.95 @ Amazon
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 11 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit	Purchased For $0.00
Monitor	Dell S2716DG 27.0" 2560 x 1440 144 Hz Monitor	Purchased For $0.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1943.55
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-03-24 00:29 EDT-0400

I have good feedback on /letstradepedals, prices are with Paypal F&F but I'm happy to use G&S if you add 3%. Free shipping in the continental USA.
Photos here
Alexander Wavelength $120
AllPedal Macrodose LNIB $250
Animals Pedal Rain (Push & Pull alternate art) $90
Catalinbread Fuzzrite $100
Catalinbread Talisman $140
CopilotFX Autodialer $110
Diezel Herbert w/power supply $170
Digitech Trio $105
Keeley Filaments $100
Mojo Hand Extra Special $110
Moog MuRF MF-105 w/power supply $500
Mr. Black Thunderclaw $120
Solar Chug LNIB $150
Subdecay M3 $150
Subdecay Octave Theory $150
Subdecay Vector $110
Suhr Buffer $100

Talking to my dispatcher this morning about violations, and I was curious as to what exactly I was catching violations for.
He pulled up my most recent violation, which was "hard acceleration", and the video showed me coming to a full stop, and then smoothly and gently turning right while never going above 20 mph.
He looks at me and all we can do is laugh at the stupidity of Mentor.
He was also surprised by my "hard braking" violation that happened when a deer jumped in front of the van. I guess I'm supposed to hit the deer and wreck the van.
Here is hoping that this leads to my dispatch team disputing more violations, and fuck Mentor.

July, 2020.
Ever since my colleagues and I became unwilling test subjects in my psychotic professor’s experiments into awakening the supernatural, we have had multiple people trying to hunt us down. Whether they were renowned scientists desperate for the serum for themselves or random people obsessed with cutting us open and seeing how we ticked, these assholes didn’t care that we were human beings, that we were ex researchers ourselves.
They wanted us dead or alive, in pieces, or splattered across concrete. As long as they got that precious serum dripping from our frontal lobe, they didn’t give a fuck. There were varieties of hunters. Some of them tried to play nice with their own nefarious agenda, while others were completely fucking insane. Like the ones who saw us as a mistake; a curse sent from god to end humanity as we know it.
Yeah. They thought we were the next coming of the Antichrist.
Have you ever been stripped completely naked and forced to bathe in salt water for three days without food and water?
That is when I lost my will to fight.
I still remember the sensation of flames licking at my feet, rope wrapped around my wrists pinning me to a tree. They wanted me to admit I was a monster. That I was a curse from the devil and belonged in hellfire. I’ll spend this post elaborating on what exactly our professor did to us, and the burden forced onto our backs—but I will say it saved us at points. For example, the freaks who tried to cleanse us in salt water (and then burn us under a full moon) got their comeuppance. 2020 is probably a year in your lives which didn’t feel real.
You were locked inside and you probably compared what was happening to a movie. We had a similar problem. But while you were struggling through lockdown, trying to fight a wave spreading globally, we found ourselves with bounty’s on our heads. Because we were no longer human to these bastards, and to them? Anything went. Which was bad news for our professor who had fought to keep his research as private as possible, choosing to show only a select group with shiny money bags for eyes. It turns out, no matter how much you think you’re hiding something, it will always be leaked. And people will find out.
Bad people.
The kinds of people in all of my favorite movies as a kid. You know, the evil trigger-happy British guy obsessed with finding buried treasure? Him. But tenfold. I might have felt special about the multi-billion price-tag on me, but knowing all they wanted me for was to dissect and slice me apart like meat to the slaughter—yeah. I can’t say I was thrilled to have so many people after our little group. 2020 was the year when people stopped being human. Stopped trying to be human. All morality down the drain.
Of these certain groups trying to capture us, there was a specific one which I will always remember. Seth’s gang. I’ll remember them because it was the first time I realised my colleagues and I weren’t human anymore, and maybe the freaks trying to label us as The Devil’s Children were right. There were a lot of people after us, as I said. But Seth and his gang, however, just wanted us for the sake of gloating. After hearing of our professor’s experiments, these guys decided they didn’t want the serum, or the research.
They just wanted us. For what, I still don’t know. They weren’t scientists, or in the medical field. They definitely weren’t at the auction, I would have seen them. I’m pretty sure these were just ordinary guys seeing us as nothing but trophies to parade around. I don’t think they knew the significance of the serum, or the danger of it. They saw something shiny and thought to hell with it. Which, I guess looking back, was why we were always two steps ahead despite having 9mm Glock’s shoved in our faces. The hotel room we were being held in was a step up from the cage I had been trapped inside in the lab for the last several months.
It actually had air-con.
Sitting blindfolded on the edge of a queen sized bed wearing the same clothes which were practically glued to my flesh, the graze of cool air brushing the back of my neck and relieving blistering skin was euphoric. I hadn’t had a proper shower in weeks. Maybe months.
It was the first time in a long while I actually felt human. Even when my wrists were pinned behind my back, a slab of ductape suffocating my mouth and nose. Now, I wasn’t completely sure, but I wondered if there was a duct tape shortage on the island. After being kidnapped and held in multiple places, I had never been gagged with duct tape. It was always filthy clothing fashioned into a makeshift gag, or ties and shoelaces. I will never forget some asshole stuffing a pair of panties in my mouth.
Seth’s gang were the first to actually have duct tape and proper blindfolds. I sensed the front-man’s footsteps as he paced in front of us. Despite being blindfolded, I knew he had a gun tucked into his belt, a dagger strapped to his ankle, and a grenade for emergencies. I wasn’t sure what emergencies would justify blowing up a fancy hotel room. Next to me, Riss was practically vibrating with fury. She knew not to act on her fear, because when we did, bad shit happened.
But Riss was a different breed. She didn’t listen to me when we were human, and definitely didn’t listen to me when we were freakish experiments contorted into something resembling a human. No matter how many times I nudged her with reassurance, she inched away from me like I had the plague. “Project Mildew, huh?” The front-man had one hell of an aussie accent. Without my sight, the rest of my senses were expanding, igniting.
Smell. I could smell the stink of myself, body odour and filth caked into my skin. Taste. There was copper in my throat and coating my teeth and tongue. Every step the man made, I felt it prickling in my bones. I sensed him crouching in front of Kaian, who thankfully didn’t move. I was waiting for him to. If I concentrated, I could feel the air crackling with electricity, the hairs on the back of my neck and arms standing up. Just being shoulder to shoulder with my colleague allowed me to feel exactly what he was feeling.
And like Riss, the guy was dangerously close to blowing a fuse. Kaian wasn’t stupid though. If we did something, he knew the consequences of that something. And none of us wanted that. So, staying quiet and submissive it was.
“Alex Quincy’s diamonds!” The front-man flicked me in the forehead, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to avoid going into sensory overload. He continued in a sing-song voice, his steps becoming playful, like he was dancing. Every so often I sensed his fingers wrapping around his 9mm. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as I initially thought. “Project Mildew.” He repeated. “You looked better on camera.”
Riss scoffed under her gag. I don’t think this asshole understood that on camera we were still human. It’s not like I was planning on going to a fashion show, but the shorts and t-shirt combo I had been wearing for weeks were comfortable.
Another step. Holding my breath, I gripped the ropes entangling my wrists and prayed they were physical enough to be an anchor.
“The testers who became the tested!” He continued. “Ohhh, man. I’ve heard about you. You’re famous here. Professor Quincy’s human lab rats! And successful ones too! You’ve got a lot of eyes on ya, ain’t cha? Too bad we gotcha first. Yeah, that’s right. We got here first.”
The guy laughed, and I felt both Riss and Kaian start to tremble. Fuck. Not now. I had to keep them at bay, even when my methods weren’t exactly stellar. I had to keep them from plunging. The rope around my wrists wasn’t too tight, and I knew I’d be able to get out of it easily. But that would require strength and energy which was for sure a trigger. There were a lot of triggers. Anger and pain. Sometimes even happiness.
It turned out basic human emotions was what this thing thrived off, so to avoid us going nuclear I had to stay stoic. No matter how much I wanted to tear off this asshole’s face, I had to keep myself together. It only took one slip up before things got really fucking brutal, really fucking fast. I wasn’t surprised my colleagues were losing control. Seth was quite the character, almost like a cartoon villain.
“Damn. I’ve been looking for guard dogs, but I think we’ve found something better, aye.” His palmy fingers wandered where they shouldn’t have, grazing over my left breast and delving under my shirt, causing my body to seize up, and then relaxing slightly when he pulled off my blindfold.
Blinking rapidly, I found myself eye-to-eye with the guy who had snatched us from the lab and thrown us into the back of his truck. I only got glimpses of him during our kidnapping, thanks to the ski-mask covering his face. Now I was looking at a man who was maybe in his early thirties with a balding head and a vicious cartoon smile twisted with mania. His eyes glinted when I found myself shuffling back, my gaze flashing to the Glock strapped to his side. Seth pulled off the other’s blindfolds.
“Now, I don’t want any funny business, alright? I watched that conference, and I know what you can do.” He stuck the barrel of his 9mm into my right temple, and next to me, Kaian ducked his head. “I’m watching you sweetheart.” Seth’s smile widened into a sickening grin. “If you start any weird shit, I’ll blow your brains out.”
I did my best to nod, and he ripped the tape off of our mouths too.
“Alright!” Seth straightened up, eyeing us like we were hunks of meat. “Nice to meet cha! I’ll be looking after you guys from now on.”
“Looking after us?” I spoke up, my voice gravelly. “You mean you’ll be cutting into us and selling our brains on the black market.”
Seth laughed like a fucking hyena. “What?” He scratched the back of his head with his gun. “Nah, that’s fucked up. We just want dogs.”
The man’s smile dampened, however, when his gaze settled on Kaian. Gesturing to my colleague with his gun, he scowled. “What’s wrong with him? Did Quincy rip out the guy’s tongue?” Before I could answer, Seth crouched in front of Kaian with narrowed eyes. “You all spoke at the conference,” he murmured. “Sure, your professor forced you, but you introduced yourselves. All of you did, even your fourth."
His smile curled. "All except him."
Fuck.
A shiver ripped its way down my spine when Seth shot out a finger and pointed at my colleague, and my mouth started to dry up.
Kaian was perfectly reading his lips, every word curled under his tongue, his eyes flicking back and forth to drink in each one, and each word brought more heat, brought more goosebumps pricking on my arms and legs. Kaian’s body pressed against mine was overheating.
I could feel the sensation coming over my body, like a wave of pressure. Riss made a squeaking noise, and I concentrated on Seth—who didn’t seem to notice it. I’ve come to realise, whether you are a human, an animal, or a badly fucked up experiment created in a lab, it doesn’t matter what you are capable of. If you initially appear weak and powerless, the stronger will single you out. Seth was enjoying himself so much he didn’t realise the skin in his cheeks start to crack from all the moisture being sucked from the air. Kaian didn’t move or speak, and that seemed to thrill him even more.
“Speak.” Seth snarled, leaning closer until he was inches from my colleagues face.
“Speak!”
“He’s deaf.” I gritted out.
Seth’s eyes darkened. “Deaf, huh? He better be worth it.” Kaian didn’t flinch when the man grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back. He was completely stoic, like a puppet severed from his strings, allowing the asshole to stick his Glock between his eyes. I noticed the air move slightly around us, blurring and then coming together. It was a blink and you’ll miss it moment, and I had spent months being taught how to notice it. “Three and a half million dollars each, hmm?” Seth said in a breath, dragging the butt of his gun down my colleagues face, grazing it across the flesh of his neck. “I don’t remember paying for a fucking mute. You can learn to talk, kid."
Again, Kaian didn’t even acknowledge the man, and that infuriated him even more. “Hey!” Seth grabbed his jaw, forcing Kaian to look at him. “Are you fucking listening to me? Open your mouth. You either speak or you die. Like I said, I didn’t pay half a million each for a mute.”
Riss must have noticed the significant change in the air and temperature. Between the two of us, it was our job to stop Kaian from plunging.
“You didn’t spend shit on us.” She spoke up with a hiss. Riss was already panicked, and that wasn’t good. “You took us from the lab while everyone else was at the auction because you couldn’t afford us. Which makes me wonder how you afforded this fancy five star hotel."
I had to swallow a yell. I wanted her to stall, not give the guy a reason to start going trigger-happy.
Seth’s narrowed eyes found Riss’s. “Your professor and I had an agreement, sweetheart,” he said. "How 'bout I blow your brains out, huh? Since you like speaking out of turn. And I don’t like my doggies speaking out of turn.”
As Seth moved closer to her, I sensed Riss freaking out. It was too early for her to start the plunge, but she was the most unpredictable out of the four of us. Just like when she was human, her emotions were all over the place. Still though, she maintained a scowl and refused to move when Seth was practically eye to eye with her, hot breath grazing her cheeks. The man prodded her in her right temple. “I bet you’re filled to the brim with all that fancy ass Quincy serum." He dragged his filthy finger down her cheek, and she squeaked. “I’m pretty sure I can just crack you open and take it for myself.”
“Then…” Riss swallowed, choking on her words. I nudged her again, this time enough to shake the bed. But she wasn’t looking at me, her eyes starting to lose vacancy. Next to me, I knew the same thing was happening to Kaian.
But I wouldn’t look at him yet. If I did, I would lose it myself. “Then you’ll be losing valuable cargo.” I was surprised when her lips broke out into an equally psychotic grin. I had no doubt the plunge was taking hold of her. She leaned back almost casually, and the air seemed to move around her, seeping into her skin and taking an unyielding hold. "Considering the crazy lengths you took to capture all of us, I doubt you want that. You're all bark with no bite, asshole."
“Riss.” I said through my teeth, at the exact same time as the air-con behind us blew a fuse and crashed to the ground. “Shut up.”
The plunge started slow, but even when it was barely a prickle in the air it was already beginning its slow purging of every particle.
I watched a mosquito that had been in mid-flight towards the fancy looking lamp on the nightstand bleed into invisible folds of energy which were becoming progressively more visible to the naked eye the more my friends plunged. I could see it perfectly. Like the world around us was beginning to splinter apart. Ignoring Riss, who could stand up for herself, Seth’s attention went back to Kaian, who couldn’t. Or at least that was his façade. Kaian had been labelled the most dangerous out of all of Quincy’s experiments. But it wasn’t just because of the plunge.
“I’m talking to you!” Seth prodded my colleague’s chest, and a wave of heat slammed into me, stealing my breath away. I watched, knowing it was all going to be over in matter of seconds. The front-man grabbed my colleague by the collar of his shirt and yanked him violently to his feet. “You’ve got two seconds to speak,” He spat, before slamming the butt of his gun into Kaian’s head. “Speak, or I give you a frontal lobotomy.” Seth continued in seething breaths, and got closer and closer, failing to notice he was already losing. But so were we.
His lips split into a grin. “Speak, or I start asking questions. Like why I bought four of you— and there are three of you.” He poked the metal prongs sticking from Kaian’s head. I liked to call them horns to make them sound cooler. But in reality, they were agonising when I was human—two pieces of metal drilled directly into the top of my skull. They had been a part of me for a while, but I wasn’t going to forget how they had been forcefully inserted into my skull. While I screamed. “Three. Little. Freaks.” Seth’s lips were practically kissing my colleague's temple.
He prodded the metal horns, and Kaian’s lip twitched. “Without their fourth.”
That struck a chord in both of them—and I knew if I didn’t do something, like right then, a fate worse than death awaited all of us.
"Leave him alone.” I found my voice tangled in my throat. But I could barely bring myself to speak. I felt like I was being fucking suffocated by two separate energy’s around me slowly but surely ripping atoms apart. In the corner of my eye, things were starting to melt into the ground, disappearing completely. The carpet in the room was suddenly singed black, and the wave continued, slicing off the tips of my hair I had only just managed to grow back. “He can’t hear you, asshole.” I said through lingering breaths. “Professor Quincy said he was deaf.”
"Deaf?” Seth let out a belly laugh. “He's my new guard dog and he's expected to fucking bark.” His lip curled,” Now. Speak.”
A second went by.
Then another.
Absent-mindedly, I licked the taste of rusty coins from the corner of my lip.
“I said speak!” Seth slammed the butt of his gun into my colleagues face again, but this time his words broke apart in his throat. I sensed every individual letter shattering into pieces when his body was flung back by an invisible force. I knew that invisible force. I knew the phantom fingers wrapping around his throat and slamming the man into the wall until he was screaming, begging, his feet hovering several feet from the ground. Kaian didn’t even have to pull apart his restraints.
Riss was already screaming, turning to my colleague. Her hands were free, and she was signing desperately. Don’t. Her eyes were wide, lips twisted. Because she knew exactly what would follow. Seth, somehow, managed a spluttered laugh between broken teeth like tiny yellow chicklets sticking from his mouth. “Oh, you don’t like that do you?” More brilliant red spurted like a fountain, and yet the asshole kept laughing. “Look at you! Quincy didn’t hold back on you did he?”
I’m not saying my colleague enjoyed crushing Seth’s windpipe without even lifting a finger—but that is exactly what I am saying.
With a simple incline of Kaian’s head, the front-man was rupturing from the inside, choking on organs erupting into his throat.
And like it thrilled him, the idea of death, the idea of dying at the hands of a supernatural force, Seth continued to roar with laughter.
My colleague was pressing pressure points which shouldn’t be pressed. Especially pressure points in a genetically fucked up man whose trauma had turned him into the wildcard of our group. The amount of shit we had all gone through inside Quincy’s lab was enough to send us into insanity. Except my colleague, according to Quincy, hadn’t responded correctly at the beginning. And being a researcher myself with rabbits before I became a lab rat, I knew the only way to get results was to cause pain.
I never initiated that pain in the rabbits, but I was an enabler. I watched my professor torture these subjects to make sure they were prepped and ready for the serum. Maybe our karma was that the exact same happened to us. But to Kaian, it was on a much larger scale. I was never briefed on what exactly happened to him during the months from March to June. Though it was obvious he had had it the worst. I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand why his brain was different, or maybe he was more resilient. He had been better at fighting it.
Kaian hated two things. Being kidnapped and said kidnappers mentioning our fourth member. And it was those things which made him plunge. Which made him lose all sense of humanity and morality and emotion, essentially turning him into a mindless beast. That was one half of the plunge. “Do you want me to say his name?” Seth coughed up spattered scarlet, and I could already see what was happening to him. Kaian had done enough damage externally. Internally, however? That was another story.
Internally, I sensed every organ starting to peel apart and splinter, bursting into nothing. It started with pressure on his heart which was slow and dragged so he felt everything. Then the brain began to expand. When blood ran in sharp rivulets from every orifice, and Seth screamed, howling like an animal, I looked away, just in time for the rest of the man’s body to pop like a balloon, and a chunk of his skull to land right in front of me. Riss started screaming, and I was half aware of a slight taint of warm blood like paint splattering the side of my face.
When I twisted back to look at him, his body was still hovering without a head, a skeletal hand lifting and waving at us.
Riss dropped to her knees, her head in her hands, trembling, and I followed her, trying to get some semblance of control.
“It’s been a week.” Riss whispered, sobbing, swiping at her eyes with bloody hands, making them worse. “Oh god, what if… what if I was right? What if we’re too late? I knew this was… this was a bad idea. But nobody listens to Riss. I knew he wouldn’t come. Fuck. I knew it.”
“Calm down.” I said. “Concentrate on happy birthday, okay? Do you want me to sing it with you?”
Riss spluttered. “We’re going to dieeee,” she sang. “Can you feel it? I’m plunging, Wren. God, it feels so fucking good.”
She knocked her head into the wall with crazy eyes.
It took exactly half a second for our brains to decide whether we were going to fight it or give in to it.
“Hey. Riss.” I spoke in reassuring hisses, grasping her shoulders and forcing her to look at me. “Happy birthday.” I choked out. “Three times. It has to be three times.” When she didn’t respond, I shook her until her cloudy found mine. Riss was plunging. Like Kaian. The blood vessels in her eyes had popped, her lips cracking apart. If I concentrated, I could see her bare knees starting to melt into air, wisps of her hair starting to disintegrate. “Do it, now!”
I shrieked when Kaian finally let go of the man’s body, and it hit the ground in front of us like a bad joke. “Happy birthday.” I said the mantra over and over again, shaking my colleague until she was responding. “Three times, Riss. Right now.” When she shook her head, screeching, I grabbed her hands and entangled her fingers with mine. “I’ll start, okay? And you follow me.”
To my surprise, Riss nodded—and for the fraction of a second, my colleague, or what was left of her, stopped bleeding into visible particles which were now around us, like a glistening wave of ocean water enveloping us. “Happy birthday to you…” I whispered, squeezing her hands tighter, relieved when she repeated the verse. When I was sure Riss was anchoring herself, I turned to Kaian who was sitting cross legged in front of the mutilated body.
My gaze went to the door. It would only be matter of time before Seth’s goons figured out something was wrong, and the last thing I wanted was them to walk in mid-plunge. “Happy birthday to…” I continued, allowing Riss to fill in a name—before focusing on my other colleague. I’m not exaggerating when I say Kaian was covered head to toe in blood, like it was his canvas, like he belonged in it. It was too late for him. I could already see that in his vacant and foggy eyes and playful smile that he had accepted the plunge.
Willingly.
“Gross.” Kaian signed, pulling a face. He turned his nose up at mutilated flesh and bone, and I had a hard time looking him in the eye.
I exhaled out a breath.
“Kaian.” I spoke and signed calmly, but my skin was prickling and scalding. I could feel the flesh on the backs of my hands peeling off. “Happy birthday.” I made sure to emphasize every word clearly, even when I knew he could read every word from my mouth without even trying.
He started to shake his head, and I glimpsed that panic, the trauma of the last several months starting to bloom behind his eyes.
“No, you have to do it.” I hissed out. “Look around you.” I signed. “If you don’t do it, we’re going to plunge.”
I was practically slamming my hands together with frustration, but he shook his head, his gaze going elsewhere.
“What if I…” He paused signing, his lip curling, “Like it?”
Do you know when you know something is wrong but you keep shoving it to the back of your head until you can’t ignore it anymore?
Yeah, this was one of those moments.
I loved Kaian. I loved him like a brother. But there was something about his face, the way he delved his fingers into startling red pooling on the carpet, that made me want to get as far away from him as possible. Swallowing hard, I shook away the thought and grabbed hold of his hand.
Once I did, the air around us wavered, and flesh on his cheeks started to flake. “Happy birthday…” Riss, who was sitting with what was left of her knees pressed to her chest, choked out a sob, “This isn’t working… Wren. This isn’t fucking working. I can’t.. I can’t fucking do this.” When she beat the floor with crumbling fists, the whole room jolted. The ground beneath us shook, and Kaian shot me a panicked look. Even plunging, he was still scared.
And I didn’t blame him.
After telling Riss to continue, I managed a smile and signed, “Earthquake.”
My colleague’s lips split into an unusual grin, and he mouthed the words, “Yeah right.”
With steely eyes, Kaian’s smile faded and for once he actually looked serious. “Jem.” He signed. “I don’t think he’s coming for us.”
Ignoring a conversation I really didn’t want to have, I focused on the body. “Check his pockets,” I signed back. “We don’t have much time.”
I pulled out a passport, some Indonesian currency, and an old plane ticket.
Checking his phone didn’t help. I was just reminded the boarders were still shut, and this asshole had a whole group chat gloating about his so-called guard dogs.
“Wren!”
When I lifted my head, Riss’s wild eyes were flickering around the room, drinking in parts of reality being sucked away.
Her mouth became lopsided, lips drooping like my colleague was having a stroke from the pressure building around her.
See, I describe this in a lot of detail like this lasted around five to minutes long. But no, all of this happened in the space of around two minutes. When footsteps sounded outside, and Kaian’s head snapped to the door, his eyes darkening, a sour paste crept up my throat.
Professor Quincy didn’t just take away our humanity. He twisted us into something resembling an animal inside a human body.
We spoke and acted and felt like humans. But once a stranger was nearby, or footsteps on territory we had unknowingly snatched as our own, we turned feral. I already knew Kaian was a whole new level of unpredictable and unhinged after what the experiments had done to his brain—but seeing what he was capable of even before the plunge, I froze.
The world was coming apart around me and I was plunging, but I couldn’t move. I watched him get to his feet, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. The footsteps were closing in on us getting louder and louder, and Kaian could sense every vibration. I could tell with the way his lips twitched, a whole new darkness clouding his eyes and stripping away what was left of his humanity. I had seconds.
There was no use in happy birthday
I remember jumping to my feet and diving on my colleagues back, bringing him to the floor like a lion would a deer. When the two of us hit the ground, I watched Riss rupture in front of me, her face glitching, becoming moving static, before her body followed. “Seth?” The voice caused Kaian to attempt to wrench out of my grasp, but I had a firm hold of him. The first three weeks of being inhuman, I was taught how to kill people. Kill my fellow subjects.
Apologising profusely into hair which smelled of blood and dirt and Quincy’s lab, I struggled to keep myself from plunging, knowing the room was already half gone, and I was going to get caught in it anyway. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I’ll make it up to you, okay? You should have sang happy fucking birthday, but you are so goddamn stubborn,” I sobbed with what I hoped was reassurance. I knew he and Riss and Jem would do exactly the same to me.
“So fucking stubborn.” I couldn’t help myself, nestling my face into his hair and heaving in breaths while my skin started to peel away.
“Just take a deep breath and close your eyes, okay?” I whispered into his flushed skin. “We’ll find him, Kaian. I promise you.”
He stopped struggling, and for a moment I thought my colleague was actually listening to me before the ceiling began to crack apart.
The ground rumbled again, and I lost my grip on the guy before forcing him onto his back and straddling his legs. Just when his free arm was flying out with intention to send me crashing into the back wall and ending all reality in that room, encompassing us, I snapped Kaian’s neck.
And with the last of my energy, I fucking screamed while my own flesh melted from my face while the plunge enveloped us both.
…
…
…
March 2020.
It was on the 17th day of captivity inside a cell made of glass panes meant to keep in rabbits, when I met an unlikely visitor. There comes a time when giving up is better than screaming until you have lost all of the breath in your lungs, and your throat feels like sandpaper. I hadn’t eaten in days, and what was left of my meals, curry and mash potatoes, painted my cell walls—a real work of art if I concentrated and imagined carving shapes inside congealing potato and day-old curry.
So far, I had tests. I had tests which were an invasion of privacy which I will not expand upon. I had tests where my professor’s gloved fingers ran over my scalp and marked places where he was going to insert the same headset on the rabbits. He didn’t listen to my cries.
He didn’t tell me where my colleagues were. I was nothing to him. I was a subject stripped of my rights. So, I was doing the little I could to protest. Even if it was small, I was refusing to eat. I knew subjects had to eat to stay healthy—to get results. The piece of shit wasn’t going to get much further if I died of starvation after days of no eating. How sad. I was on my second day of refusing to eat, and my gut felt like it was folding in on itself. To combat this, I sat against clinical white walls with my knees pressed to my chest, and my head buried in my lap. I ignored the rumbling of my stomach and my aching joints, the weird squiggly lines in my vision when I bothered lifting my head.
It’s weird. In that cage, I was the coldest I’ve ever felt on an Indonesian island. I didn’t remember the temperature affecting the outcome of the rabbit subjects, but maybe it was different for humans. Still though, I had my solace. I imagined standing in glittering water, bioluminescent plankton washing over my bare toes. I imagined the full moon bathing the sky in warm light, and it was enough to make me feel safe— even so far from home. Far from normality. If I squeezed my eyes shut, and envisioned wading deeper into the shallows, until the water was lapping my thighs, I could calm myself and tell myself to breathe.
Then the water was at my waist, the panic subsiding. Neck deep, ice cold water filling my mouth and suffocating my nose. But if I thought past it, if I plunged myself into the deep, I could trick my brain into imagining that I was escaping, swimming across the wide expanse of ocean. All the way back home to my family.
I was brought out of my imagination when a scratching noise pulled me back to my senses, and I was back inside my cage.
Lifting my head, I searched for someone. But there was nobody there.
“Over here, genius.”
The voice startled me. It wasn’t quite a voice, more of an attempt. Though I could definitely make out the language bursting out. When my eyes swivelled, I found myself staring at a blur of white. I squinted.
No, not just a blur of white. It was Subject Fifteen. The rabbit which had stolen Jem’s heart, and possibly taken control of his mind.
For a moment I tried to blink myself awake, but no matter how many times I pinched myself, the rabbit was still there, pressing its tiny face against glass, and I can see blood staining its fur. Initially, I thought he was a hallucination until I blinked, and he was still very much there.
He was part of reality, lightly smushing its bloody mouth against glass panes. The sight of dark red tainting its fur twisted my gut, and I had a thought which suddenly wouldn’t leave me alone. If the serum did that to the rabbits, what exactly would it do to us? “Well.” Fifteen’s beady eyes found mine, and I swore its rabbit mouth twisted into a grin. It's voice mimicked both me and my colleagues, the perfect imitation of us. I could hear all of us, even the professor, in every curl of its words.
It wasn’t just intelligent, it was something else—something fucking monstrous. Which should have been put down.
No. It never should have been a subject at all.
I slowly crawled towards it and held my breath. I must have looked pretty fucking funny to Fifteen. I was the tester who had become the tested. The one who wore the lab-coat, to the rat forced into light blue scrub like clothes sticking to me. I can’t say I wasn’t curious, though. Baffled.
I was inches from a fucking talking rabbit, and the last time I checked rabbits weren't supposed to talk. Their mouths haven't evolved to form words. But somehow it was figuring out speech. Fifteen was learning fast. That terrified me. After several attempts at speech, it had almost fully mimicked a human’s expression. It cocked its head, and in Jem’s voice, asked,
“Well? How does it feel to be the one in the cage?"
“You’re not real.” I told the rabbit which sounded like Jem.
To my shock, it laughed, and its bloody mouth almost formed a snarl. “Are you sure about that?”
I crawled over to the screen, pressing my hands against glass. “How does…” I licked my lips. “How does what feel?”
The rabbit’s eyes followed me and I shuffled back, a sour paste creeping its way up my throat. “You were always my least favorite,” it murmured. Its nose twitched. “I think you humans call it karma—- and whether you believe in it or not, every action must have an equal reaction.” It moved closer, pressing its face against the glass. I noticed the fur around it’s mouth was stained red. “You drilled into my head, Wren. You hurt me day after day and hid behind a sense of morality that you were a good person because it was for the good of the human race.” Fifteen edged closer. “I wish I could feel sorry for you. I wish I could feel the sympathy you humans use as a pathetic fucking barrier. But aren’t you just… the cutest?”
The thing was mimicking my own words from the start of the experiments. I had pressed my face against the plastic cage, peering at Subject Fifteen, who was hiding in the corner. Quincy told me to turn off my humanity, but that didn’t stop me as seeing them as cute little fury bunnies. It never crossed my mind that Fifteen could hear exactly what we had been saying.
I thought back to a few months back when I had picked it up from its cage and nuzzled its fur. “Aww! Isn’t he just the cutest?”
Fifteen knew the exact moment I gave up, my hands slipping from the glass. It gestured to the band aid uncomfortably sticking to my scalp.
“Nice horns.”
“You have intelligence.” I whispered through a sob. I leaned closer. “Quincy. You need to tell me what he’s doing to the others.”
“You already know what he’s planning to do, Wren.” The rabbit chuckled, lifting a paw in a mocking wave. “Why are you asking me, hmm? What if I am in fact an illusion? You’re not eating. Your mind has been played with. Are you sure you are really speaking to a talking rabbit?”
It cocked its head. “How do you know I’m not Jem?”
“Or Riss.” It’s voice twisted into hers, and then the professor’s.
“I’m losing my mind.” I whispered, pinching the flesh on my bare thighs. “I’m losing my fucking mind.”
“Maybe.” It said, “or you’re witnessing the consequences of your actions. You did this to me if you remember. I told you to stop hurting me, but you didn’t hear me, Wren. You never heard me. Only him. And when I was strong enough, I made him force you to finally listen to me.”
Jem, I thought hysterically.
“You little—“ I slammed my hands into the glass, unable to resist a snarl when it turned to hop away. “Hey! Wait! What did you do to Jem?”
“I didn’t do anything,” the rabbit responded in a scoff. “Your professor, however… have you ever heard of teleportation?”
I stared at it blinking rapidly, until it laughed. “No, not that kind! I mean the new kind. I’m talking about what Quincy is trying to perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it.” The rabbit’s nose twitched, “What you have been working on and researching—what if it was possible in humans?”
I shook my head. There was no way. If professor Quincy wanted to test on us, it would likely be psychokinesis which was possible in rabbits.
“That’s impossible.” I managed to grit out. “With rabbits it’s one thing, and it’s barely even stable! With humans… it’s...”
It’s barbaric.
The rabbits which went through that procedure and survived… their brains were drastically altered. They were never the same.
That’s what I wanted to say.
I trailed off at the thought of forcing a living and breathing human to shatter apart into atoms and forcefully moved from one place to another. I remembered Subject 12. The tiny little thing coming apart slowly, piece by piece, a mixture of fur, blood and bones filling its cage.
No way.
There was no way my psycho professor would attempt it in humans.
The rabbit hopped away. “Huh. Well, you’re dumber than I thought. I guess I’ll be going if you’re just going to look at me like that.”
When I thought it was going to leave me, the furry little shit twisted its head. “Do you want to know a secret?”
It hopped right over to the glass. “Come closer, and I’ll tell you. I want you to get really close so I can see how adorable you are.”
Too desperate to feel humiliated, I swallowed a shriek and pressed my ear to the glass.
“Jem was the first.” The rabbit started to say but was cut off by the speaker above me crackling, a familiar voice slicing into my ears.
“Good morning. I will be with you shortly. I would like you to raise your hands above your head. I will be administering a gas.”
At the corner of my eye, Fifteen was disappearing behind the corner, and I let out a frustrated hiss. “Professor Quincy.” I managed to force my voice into professional, despite the rabbits voice in my mind. Jem was the first to what? I hadn’t seen either of my colleagues in weeks— or heard from them. I swallowed hard. “Professor Quincy, Subject Fifteen is on the premises and is showing signs of heightened intelligence!”
The rabbit tskked. “And to think I was going to help you. Good luck with the experiments. I will have a front row seat.”
Before it left me in puddling static however, the rabbit didn’t hesitate to drop a bombshell which sent me crumpling to my knees.
“Oh, yeah! I forgot to say.” Subject Fifteen’s words slammed into me as I was choked once again with gas filling my mouth and nose.
“Jem was the first to die.” It said in a sing-song symphony of all of our voices, “And you don’t even know the best part!”

Hello everyone,
I was going to write a life story thing about why I did this, but it would take too long and this post is already going to be pretty hefty. So I'll cut to the chase, over the last few months, I did an Ace Combat Marathon which also includes all the games I consider to be "Ace Combat Like". I did omit a few here and there, but it was either because they were too hard to obtain, too far from what I consider to be the Ace Combat formula or just not interesting enough. Now that it is over, I would like to tell you about my experience with all of these games, so, if you are interested, have a good read !
​

DISCLAIMERS :

- English is not my native language and I am brain dead so if me no write good me sory.
- These entries are not reviews but simply a summary of how I felt about each game.
- Spoilers
​
Here are the games, in the order that I played them in :
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Games that, in my opinion, constitute the main continuity :

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Air Combat / Ace Combat 1 :
- Gameplay : Dated, but still very usable by modern players.
- Graphics : I mean... it's a 1995 game. But the emulator gave it a good coat of paint.
- Story : Just enough to justify the game happening, it's no big deal, we all know where the series goes later on. I just love the idea of an island-nation sized terror group having a giant air force, aircraft carriers, a supersized stronghold and a flying fortress (the first of the ace combat series).
- Music : Pure 90's juice, get ready to rock and synth.
​
Ace Combat 2 :
- Gameplay : Great for the time, it's completely servicable to this day.
- Graphics : A noticable improvement from the first AC, specially good with the right emulator settings.
- Story : Literally the same as the first AC but on a bigger scale, gets expanded upon in the remake.
- Music : In my opinion, the best from the PS1 series, Lode Stone is still stuck in my head.
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Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere (Japanese version with english text patch, necessary since, for those who don't know, the international version got most of its content cut out.) :
- Gameplay : The best of the PS1 series, feels much more like flying a plane than in the previous ACs. Plus the special missions where you fly a stratospheric bomber, a parasite fighter or a hecking starfighter are something else.
- Graphics : Again, an improvement on the previous entry, although less drastic, the art style is the most noticable feature.
- Story : Who put planes in my metal gear solid story line ? My man went from zero story to a five branches storyline about revenge, corporatism and transhumanism in a cyberpunk universe with unique missions and 2d animated cutscenes.
- Music : Extremely... unique and hard to describe, it wouldn't be out of place in a horror game or a creepypasta about some haunted retroware.
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Ace Combat 4 Shattered skies :
- Gameplay : Wierdly it's not too different from AC3 in my opinion, but hey, if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
- Graphics : The transition to the PS2 is truly impressive, it's just great to look at. Although, beware, it has some graphical issues with emulation.
- Story : Far less complex than AC3, but perhaps told with more style, it's more heartfelt and relatable. And of course, this is kind of where the strangereal universe is starting to become more established.
- Music : The first game in the series where the sky starts speaking latin, it establishes what the Ace Combat music style is going to be from then on.
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Ac Combat 5 The unsung war :
- Gameplay : More or less the same as in AC4, perhaps a little bit more arcadey ? Great plane diversity though.
- Graphics : Maybe it was because of emulation and the UI but I felt like it was a slight downgrade from AC4, probably not the case though.
- Story : Kind of a balance between the war story theme of AC4 and the over the top sci-fi conspiracy vibe of AC3, most of the series will adopt this dynamic from then on.
- Music : Same vibe as AC4, with more latin singing for us to enjoy.
​
Ace Combat Zero The Belkan war :
- Gameplay : Similar to the two previous entries, although with more bossfights.
- Graphics : Also similar to the rest of the PS2 trilogy, it's not like there was much room to improve within the limits of the console's hardware.
- Story : Something something borders bad, buddy, funni country nukes itself, V2, it's time, bottom text. A good story that establishes a solid fundation for the strangereal lore.
- Music : The sky speaks latin, flamenco edition.
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Ace Combat X Skies of deception :
- Gameplay : The engine was recycled from AC4 so it's similar, which is good, although everything is slowed down to help with the PSP controls.
- Graphics : About as much as you could squeeze out of the PSP for a flight sim, which is pretty neat.
- Story : A step back from previous entries, but more than enough to get all those good ace combat tropes in there, superweapons galore, conspiracy, zealous characters, the whole nine yards.
- Music : A suprising return to the PS1 trilogy vibe, probably to go easy on those poor little PSP speakers. Though it's not at the same level of quality; most of the ost would make Minasha Please, your freestyle dance teacher, go crazy.
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Ace Combat 6 Fires of liberation :
- Gameplay : The first big improvement since AC3, with the notable introduction of post stall maneuvers. Also the scale of the missions are unprecedented thanks to the transition to the xbox360, with loads of units on both sides.
- Graphics : New platform, new graphics, and boy is it gorgeous ! Still very much holds its own to this day, although they had to pay for it with the diversity of planes, which is the lowest in the series.
- Story : Very similar to AC4, down to the presentation, but more clumsy. It's not bad by any means, just kind of average.
- Music : Back to the AC classic formula, although the most memorable ost isn't the final latin one this time, but the aptly named "Liberation of Gracemeria".
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Ace Combat X² Joint Assault (The most based Ace Combat in my opinion) :
- Gameplay : Similar to the previous PSP entry, but even slower. (That's not to say easier, some bossfights are downright bullshit.) Also you can pilot WW2 planes and a 747 so 10/10.
- Graphics : A bit of an improvement on Skies of Deception, but yeah... still PSP graphics.
- Story : Set in the real world, but whith all the over the top absurdity of strangereal and somehow even more. How about a story where Jeff Bezos hires the entire Romanian army to become terrorists in order to mount the biggest insurance scam ever, supplying them with usual ace combat tier superweapons, but the Romanians betray him and try to found Romania 2 electric boogaloo in Khazakstan; but you stop them and now have to face your rival who breaks down in tears about his parents mid boss fight before you shoot him down in his guitar looking ass superfighter, ending the story by personally flying your jet under amazon HQ in San Francisco to explode Jeff Bezos with a Maverick missile to the face ?
- Music : About as bonkers as the story, a mix of usual Ace Combat epic score, throwbacks to the PS1 trilogy ost, stereotypical middle eastern music, and some sort of hard rock ? Seriously listen to "In the Zone", it's pretty representative.
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Ace Combat Assault Horizon :
- Gameplay : The game feels like it's been developped by a 12 years old high on sugar and aderall, the first mission almost gave me an epilepsy attack and I'm not even epileptic. It's obviously a huge departure from the traditionnal ace combat gameplay, and there are cool aspects like the attack helicopter missions, but the rest of the game feels like it's on rails, which for a plane game is kind of an oxymoron. The "dogfight mode" is basically a roller coaster simulator, some missions like the AC-130 and the Blackhawk door gunner ones are ripped straight from call of duty; and the one strategic bomber mission is literally on rails most of the time.
- Graphics : More or less average for the time ? I had a hard time seeing behind the Michael Bay level of explosions and particles going off everywhere, everytime all at once. Although the plane destruction animations are kinda cool, they just get old fast.
- Story : Basically Call of Duty or a Tom Clancy novel but with planes, I suppose they were trying to one up HAWX which came out a year earlier ? Some funny elements are the main big friendly general being french and dubbed by someone poorly imitating a french accent; also the main baddies, the Russian rebels, use the litteral waffen SS division symbols for their units, what's up with that ?
- Music : Strangely pretty cool ? Lots of competent rock and epic scores, very intense, in keeping with the theme, but not bad by any means.
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Ace Combat 7 Skies Unknown :
- Gameplay : Same basis as AC6 but improved, pretty much the best it's been so far.
- Graphics : Well, as the most modern AC, it's also naturally the best looking. Planes, effects, maps, art style, it's all great stuff.
- Story : Belka did it again, skynet edition. Also air force penal batallion sent on suicide missions with half the members convicted of relatively light offences and/or with investigations still pending, thanks OSEA, you truly are one of the democracies of all time. Overall the story is regular Ace Combat stuff, its highlights being, as often, the bonkers strangereal elements.
- Story (DLC) : Hunt for the red october, but lots of planes and also the characters are insane. 10/10
- Music : Back to good ol' latin choirs, latiner choirer, plus the usual cool epic scores, great as always.
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Games that are outside the main continuity but I still consider to be Ace Combat games :

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Ace Combat Assault Horizon Legacy+ (Despite the title, it's a remake of AC2) :
- Gameplay : Surprisingly great for a DS/3DS title, better than the PSP entries in my opinion. There are post stall maneuvers and a watered down, more digest version of Assault Horizon's dogfight mode.
- Graphics : Pretty good for 3DS hardware, it's obviously a huge improvement on the original AC2. Also there are some nintendo themed planes, it's pretty neat, now I know that if Luigi was a jet, he would be an F-35.
- Story : There is a story where there was almost none in AC2, so it's an improvement in my book. They gave your wingmen voice lines, and I love the fact that they made the original "Edge" Kei Nagase kind of a Tsundere. The best new feature is the added ACZero style special squadron bossfights, each being more absurd than the last, there's : Medieval LARPers in F-14s, Furry with anger issues, E-girl and her tier 3 simp squadron, Man who plays chess in his plane ; and finally, three fleshed out ZOE bossfights, where in the original AC2, ZOE was just kinda flying around, being an optionnal ennemy with more HP.
- Music : Most of the tracks were changed for a more modern aces combat feel, but there are some bangers in there nontheless.
PS : In the original release, mission 2, easy money, was mistranslated as easy monkey which made me die laughing because I have internet brain rot.
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The Sky Crawlers Innocent Aces :
- Gameplay : As close as we'll get from a WW2 themed Ace Combat, and frankly, it's pretty good. The final boss is annoying and there is kind of a dogfight mode light similar to assault horizon legacy because of Wii controls, but other than that, they handeled a gameplay without missiles and with slow prop planes amazingly, while retaining the unmistakable Ace Combat flavor.
- Graphics : I'd say average for Wii hardware, the strong point being the designs and art style which is arguably more thanks to the original novel and animated movie, but the game renders is very well.
- Story : Set in the dieselpunk universe of the Sky Crawler, based on the novel series, the game's story still is more or less original as a prequel to the animated movie adaptation. The lore aside it's very much an Ace Combat story, with conspiracies, betrayals, sacrifices, superweapons, giant fortresses, ace duels etc. As for your main "rival", she's an unhinged tsundere immortal child soldier clone, make of that what you will.
- Music : It's mostly bangers, although not similar to any other Ace Combat game.
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Ace Combat likes, either competition or hommage to the franchise (mostly competition though) :

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HAWX :
- Gameplay : It's competent, the game is fun to play overall, although the flight mechanics are far more basic than in AC6; its contemporary AC title, even though it was two years old at this point. They tried to compensate with gimmicks like some sort of flight assist tunnel thingy to reach your target, which is pretty useless except when the game makes it mendatory. Also there is the "flight assit mode off" which allows your plane to perform post stall maneuvers at the cost of stability, which would have been great if it didn't force your camera into a disorienting and immersion breaking far away third person view, which doesn't even track your targets half the time. That's bad considering you need it to beat some adversaries like ennemy aces. The plane diversity is huge but they all handle mostly the same. As for the missions, most of them are escort which is pretty frustrating, also some borrow pretty shamelessly from AC with their objectives and sometimes even their plots.
- Graphics : It's not amazing to be honest. The planes and cockpit models are basic, the maps are below the quality seen in AC6, same for the effects and particles. Some model look downright like they were made for the PS2. The artstyle kind of reminds me of G.I Joe, especially the fictionnal units like the baddie's tanks and their super warship, it's got this "toy" aesthetics. They even have a fictionnal superfighter to unlock at the end of the campaign, but it looks like an F-22 drawn by an eight years old.
- Story : It's exactly what it says on the tin, what if Tom Clancy had to write an Ace Combat story. So yeah it's big non descript bad guy attacks and you need to save murica' and thu prasidunt. Also the ghost recons appears so often the game might as well be an ad : "look at this other, better series I've made".
- Music : So unremarkable I didn't even pay attention to it, it's a generic action movie score, nothing more to say.
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HAWX2 :
Unfortunately, I was unable to get HAWX2 to work due to server shutdown, thanks ubisoft, forcing games to be played online even in singleplayer was a great idea. Apparently the latest patch was supposed to make it playable offline but this somehow stil doesn't work. There was apparently a workaround using a crack which I was unfortunately unable to find despite giving my PC probably ten viruses, seven trojans and a dozen crypto miners trying to find it. Meh, not that big of a loss according to what I've seen on youtube and read online. The graphics even look like a downgrade from the previous entry somehow.
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Air force Delta :
- Gameplay : Very similar to AC2 with slightly better stall physics, a shame when you know it came out the same year as AC3. The missions are what you'd expect from an actual ace combat titles with fortresses, fleets, aces and giant planes bossfights sprinkled in. It's noticably harder than Ace Combat but not for good reasons in my opinion. Your missiles have somehow even worst tracking than in AC, but ennemy missiles seem guided by god. The ennemy AI has absurd turn radius and is seemingly unable to stall. Mission timers are also very short, which results in a situation where actual air to air fights are better avoided unless mandatory to have a chance to finish the missions. Fun fact, I'm pretty sure the final mission of AC5 was inspired by one of this game's missions where you also have to save a city from a falling giant satellite by shooting its "wings" off.
- Graphics : I'm not exactly familiar with the graphics capabilities of the dreamcast, but it looked pretty good in my opinion, I liked how the plane textures were stylised rather than completely realistic.
- Story : You get a big star-wars like lore dump at the beginning and then a few elements dropped in during briefings. The execution is pretty sloppy, for example, you learn who the big bad is right before the final mission where you face him in a duel, whithout even knowing there was a big bad to begin with. The entire story is like this, with things dumped in front of you right before the relevant mission, it feels made up along the way.
- Music : Very arcadey, I kinda liked it. Though it wasn't as good as AC2's ost.
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Air force Delta Storm :
- Gameplay : It's not bad overall, but the controls are cluncky, you feel like flying an airliner rather than a fighter jet most of the time. It alleviates some of the first entry's issues like bad missile tracking and overmaneuverable ennemies but barely. It's still much harder than any AC title. It also has this sort of "campaign map" with minor missions to play if you want to reach you main missions, with a grand total of two(2) copy pasted mini missions in slightly different maps at every minor checkpoints. Though some main missions have interesting level design, the final mission for example is literally the Star Wars six's attack on the Death Star two's reactor but with jets.
- Graphics : I'd say average for the OG Xbox, the game lacks a proper cockpit view but the incredible plane diversity makes up for it. Speaking of which, there are a lot of fictionnal fighter designs, some of them pretty goofy, but most are extremely cool looking and competently made. It's a shame there isn't a proper model viewer or display mode to admire them, the best you get is the replay mode which has a wierd striped filter making it hard to see clearly what's going on.
- Story : It's the apocalypse, two factions are at war over basic necessities and you're fighting for one of them, you win at the end. That's it. There are no characters, no story elements, nothing, you just fight and win the war. It's okay, I don't always need intricate conspiracies, character dramas and reflections about the nature of war and the human condition in my plane game. It just makes some missions extremely funny like one where you need to sink an ennemy fleet in a port while being careful about not hitting cruise ships. No world ending woe will slow down the cruise industry apparently.
- Music : Very unremarkable, even a bit obnoxious sometimes. You can rapidly get tired of hearing a generic electric guitar riff when epicly completing minor_mission_02 for the 65451th time in order to get where you need to go.
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Air force Delta Strike :
- Gameplay : At this point, it's literally just ace combat gameplay, maybe a bit more nervous and responsive, which honestly I'm not complaining about. The plane diversity is incredible inkeeping with the serie's tradition, ww2 prop planes, cold war relics, modern jets, (many) prototypes (some of them so obscure I didn't even know about their existence), vtols, space fighters etc. As for the missions... where do I start ? How about fighting VTOLs and railway tanks in a giant cyberpunk metro network with a P-51 Mustang ? How about dogfighting gundams during a huge star-wars like space battle onboard a Mig-29 with a mini spaceship duck taped under it ? Or maybe a canyon mission where an evil scientist tries to kill you with an array of comically large fans ? I could go on and on, there are so many wild and wacky missions in between more tame and generic stuff to give you some room to breathe. Side note, there is a space elevator arc so uhh... take that AC7 ? The game's difficulty has reached a managable balance, but it's still overall harder than ace combat. Inbetween missions the game functions almost like a visual novel, it's pretty confusing and you can even get a game over for not knowing what to do, so I highly recommend following a guide to avoid needless frustration.
- Graphics : It's quite a bit below it's contemporary, AC5, in overall quality, but the level designs are often great. The general aesthetics is : generic gundam anime, with designs ranging from hilariously goofy to suprisingly cool. The entire non-mission part of the game is a 2D visual novel format with character designs that are pretty high quality and diverse. Although many designs are uh... cultured. More on that in the character section. There is finally a cockpit view in this entry of the series, for which they went pretty hard, with all of the many aircrat having detailed interiors. The plane's liveries are many and all cool looking in my opinion so that's also a plus.
- Story : This entry finally has a story, and oh boy what a story. The Earth democracy "not the USA" people are at war with the dictatorial evil space people who are secretly controlled by an alien god on Mars. The plot mainly revolves around the characters, with varying level of interest from the narration, but who's concept and behavior makes them wierdly unique and memorable. The story has a few different endings and branching storyline depending on what character you play, how often you play them and also some missison requirements, again, I advise following a guide. It's nothing mindblowing or complex but it certainly is striking, bold and memorable.
- Characters : Yes, I'm adding a section for characters because I can't not talk about them. There are the good guys you play as, delta squadron, composed of : Shredded pixy tomboy Ruth Valentine, Generic MC with sad backstory™ Ken Thomas, Cringe edgelord furry John Rundal (With the most hilarious dialogues in the game), Geriatric ww2 larper Jamie Jones, Funny anime fat man Rick Campbell, Double cheeked up fantASStic dumptruck owner Alex Levine, Divorced dad Holst Prendre, Rejected Jojo character Pedro Glankert, litteral child soldier Brian Douglas, incompetent but rich trust fund kid David Smith and his bimbo gold digger twin wingwomen Collette and Constance Le Clerc. Delta's officiers are : Captain clueless boomer Robert Williams, Staff Officer loli but she's a genius lab experiment kid so it's not creepy I swear Lilia Mihajlovna and operator wholesome overworked MILF office lady Amelia Johnson. There's also the chainsmoking alcoolic mechanic Bob Takayanagi and the totally legit and thrustworthy plane seller Harry Garrett. Finally there are the bad guys, early antagonist and supposedly invincible ace pilot who you just bully in every mission he appears in "Emperor" Sergei Kinski, Giuseppe Ferretti... thats it, Slimy starscream backstabber ugly bastard Leon Kleiser, iamverysmart escapee Donald Chan, Generic rival of the MC Albert Ungar, the MC's brainwashed waifu Ellen McNichol (Who you can turn back to your side if you shoot her down enough while playing as Ken. Make of that what you will.), big tiddy tanned gyaru tomboy noblewoman Francine Davout and her boytoy butler Jake Emerson, bratty femboy supersoldier Pierre Gallo and alien with a god complex "Navigator".
- Music : Unremarkable but servicable, not bad by any means but I doubt any will get stuck in your head... not for good reasons at least.
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Project Wingman :
- Gameplay : It's pretty much Ace Combat but I mean... that's kind of the point. Also it's not a straight out copy, there are cool innovations and most important of all, it's very well done and fun to play. I should also mention, I have finished the entire campaign in VR and by the dust mother is it intense. The cockpits are extremely well done and immersive, being at the heart of such overwhelming action in VR is just something else. As for the missions, they're all fun, diverse and with good level design. Finally, the plane diversity is very good for such a small team working on detailed models with cockpits and multiple liveries, not counting the innumerable non graphic aspects.
- Graphics : I had to remind myself that this was an indie game, because appart for a few minor gliches here and there it's honestly incredible what they did whith what they had to work with. The fictional designs all look cool and very inkeeping with the Ace Combat theme. The effetcs were the most impressive, although they did go a bit wild with the whole orange magic energy near the end of the game, my retinas are still recovering.
- Story : Again, very faithful to what an Ace Combat story would be. Mercenaries, superweapons, conspiracies, war bad, and of course, insane characters (Special mention for Prez and Crimson 1). Also the lore is prettry expensive, the AC hommage did go as far as writing an entire alternate universe for your plane game. Overall it's well told, I like it.
- Music : Music is hard to make, music is expensive to make, but again, for an indie game, they managed to pull off something good. It's not the grandiose earporn fest that most Ace Combat are, but it's the best they could do and it's pretty neat. Also the sound design was another impressive aspect, big attention to details and lots of quality effects that really suprised me, specially in VR.
(PS : There is conquest mode, how neat is that ? It does wonders for the replayability of the game.)
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This concludes my recorded journey through the skies, it was one hell of an experience and I hope I managed to convey some of it through this post. As for me, I will continue to play flight sims I haven't tried but outside of this marathon format. I have Star Wars Squadron, VTOL VR, Warplanes VR (ww1/2) and DCS lined up, I think I'll even give VR chat flight sim a shot, I've heard they've got some suprisingly great stuff over there. I'm not about to touch ground any times soon.
In the meantime, fly safe(ish) and see you in the skies !

curious to hear what teams do you all think have really good chemistry both on and off stage? on stage meaning they all have a similar performance style/all fit the song they were performing, and off-stage meaning they vibe with each other well in terms of personality and humor! they don't have to be the best team performance wise, but more like a team that you feel give off the feeling of having trained together for years instead of two weeks.
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for the first mission, i would have to say KTL g-team- ngl i'm being pretty biased here because most of my top picks are in this group, but hear me out.. all of them fit the song SO well, and they seemed really comfortable with each other in the waiting room content (honestly they kind of reminded me of an already debuted group just fooling around). i feel like they were able to resolve any conflicts they had in a civilized manner without allowing for mnet to squeeze some drama out of it (even though min wanted more parts, he wasn't evil-edited in the way that krystian was). and to add on, i think it's admirable they pulled off such an amazing performance because it's definitely harder for g-group teams to work well together since they all speak different languages which makes communication really hard (case in point being back door g-grp). although i have to admit this team got pretty lucky with a bunch of good korean speakers so they probably didn't face this problem as much.
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for the second mission, i think ggang team was my personal favorite in terms of the overall team synergy. tbh none of the members are my top picks, so i didn't really go out of the way to watch the content related to their team, but they pulled off the performance so well considering ggang was a song quite a few trainees wanted to avoid. i think seunghwan suited the song really well and he definitely deserved the center position, and the rest of the members also killed their respective parts. and the members seem to get along well outside of the stage based on the short clips i've seen on my twitter tl!
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for the third mission, i can't really predict which groups will mesh well together because i feel like we're seeing a lot of new and random pairings LOL, but while we wait for the next episode do drop your fave teams and explain why!

Hello everyone, i'm having a little trouble finding the rod i'm looking for. Water temps are cold, and most of the walleye I will be after soon, are going to be in the 3-15 ft. range. With that being said, i'm looking for a very sensitive, and super lightweight rod. I pitch mainly a 1/4 oz. jig with a minnow, and as it warms up and the fish get a little more active, I usually mix plastics in. Depending on the current and wind I will use a 1/8th oz. jig as well.
I have never really tuned in on a rod that fits these variables. I have tried many different rods brands, powers, and actions. A few that I found myself using more then others are 6'0 medium fast G. Loomis GLX, 6'0 medium fast G. Loomis GL3, 6'6 medium fast Fenwick HMX, and a 7'0 medium light fast St. Croix Eyecon. While most of these rods have landed me fish, I wouldn't swear by any of them other then the 6'0 medium fast GLX. With that being said, I feel that this rod is a bit more stiff then I would like.
Now that I gave a little insight to what I have been using, I would also like to make clear that i'm looking for a rod that is almost identical to the 6'0 medium fast GLX (it can be longer as well, up to 6'6). However, i'm looking for a rod that is just a tad bit less stiff. I don't want to sacrifice too much sensitivity and add too much weight to find a rod like this. Both of those factors play a huge part in me liking the 6'0 GLX.
Im going to briefly jump back to the list of rods that I have used to explain what I don't like about them, to help you guys better understand what i'm searching for.
6'0 Medium Fast G. Loomis GLX (GLX 722S SJR) - This rod is almost perfect to me, and I want to find a rod that has all of the same qualities (Sensitivity, Lightweight) but with a minor tweak. I find the rod a tad bit stiff. Im being very picky when I say this, but if it had just a tad bit more load to it, I wouldn't be typing this message right now. I would also add 1-3 inches in length if I could.
6'0 Medium Fast G. Loomis GL3 - This rod is older and some of you might not be familiar with it. It is a great rod, has good sensitivity, isn't heavy by any means, and is overall higher up on my list of favorite rods. If I could change anything I would make it have a tad less play, split grip handle, and add a few inches to the length.
6'6 Medium Fast Fenwick HMX - This is an all around fair rod. I like that it isn't too stiff, and has a good amount of load to it. However, it's on the heavier end, taking away a lot of the sensitivity. Walleye have to thump it with some force for you to pick up on it. This time of year, where I am fishing, that isn't always the case. (The medium light version of this same rod has too much play, and when you whip the rod, the tip vibrates around for a few seconds, which I do not like)
7'0 Medium Light Fast St. Croix Eyecon - This is another fair rod, but everything has to be just right for me to pull it out. It has too much play in it, and if the wind is blowing, I wont use it. If its calm out, it is one of the few rods I will be using. The length is a little long to my liking, but that doesn't bother me as much as the sensitivity and weight does. This rod doesn't have the best sensitivity until the rod is loaded up a bit.
Hopefully this list will help you guys figure out what i'm looking for. To make it even more simple, If G. Loomis had a 6'6 Medium Light Fast GLX, I have a feeling that would be what i'm looking for. But I could be wrong since I wasn't the biggest fan of the Fenwick and St. Croix Medium lights. Sensitivity is a huge variable or me.
Another thing that I want in a rod is a split grip handle. While this isn't always an option, I would prefer to have it.
I'm also not a huge fan of colored rod or even colored guides. But if the rod feels right, the color won't bother me.
Finally, the price. Price isn't as important to me when i'm looking for this specific of a rod. If I have to spend $400-$700 on a rod that fits my liking, I will. I have also found that when you get into expensive rods, you get into some very sensitive and high quality rods. Im ok with spending the money. To be brutally honest, if its below $140 I probably wont be a fan of it. That sounds stingy, but once again, being lightweight and sensitive are two huge factors and cheap rods don't seem to cover those.
This list might sound exhausting, but i'm just trying to give you guys as much information as I can to help get me even closer to what i'm looking for.
I am being extremely picky, and I could very well be searching for a rod that doesn't exist, but that is why i'm here making an effort to see if anyone can help me.
Please shoot me some suggestions and I look forward to seeing what you guys have to say!
I appreciate the help.

Can paper be anti-consumer? It sure as hell can!
With stamps.com, they don't allow you to print to any 4x6 printer unless it's one that they partner with.
How do I know this?
Well I bought a thermal printer, transitioning from printing shipping labels for my small business on a laser printer since my 10 year old $50 monochrome laser printer finally is dying.
"This will be great!" I think to myself. "Cheaper labels, no more messy toner, no more tripping my circuit breaker whenever my laser printer heats up!"
I go to print a label from the stamps.com desktop application. Weird, why is it showing me only 8.5x11 options? There are many options for 2 labels per page, 4 labels per page, even 30 labels per page, but no option to select your paper size. Printing a label on a format of 2 labels per page results in the label getting cut off since it assumes you're using 8.5x11 paper.
Surely, this must be a mistake. I call stamps.com support, and they have a dedicated printer support call queue. After poking around for a while, and not actually solving the root problem with their software application, the support agent proceeds to install a Zebra driver onto my non-Zebra printer. This is weird. I work in software, and this is NOT the right way to tackle the problem of just outputting a 4x6 sized print.
I'll play along.
Lo' and behold, after installing the Zebra driver, the 4x6 size magically shows up as a printable size on stamps.com's software. This print size was 100% not an option when selecting any other printer.
So of course the non-Zebra printer doesn't like the Zebra reference drivers that were installed and tries to print half of a page, then stops like it encountered an error. Nothing was printed, only half a label was fed through with no ink on the paper. After an hour of continually trying to get this driver to work with my printer, it just will not function correctly. Well duh, this isn't the correct driver for the printer!
So I'm thinking, why don't they just allow you to print in a 4x6 size? Then it came to me. They want you to buy THEIR 4x6 thermal printers from their store because those are the only ones that will work with their software! Don't have a supported printer? Too bad. I was suggested to buy a printer that their software is compatible with. This ISN'T a compatibility issue. This was a BUSINESS DECISION and INTENTIONAL SOFTWARE LIMITATION that someone at stamps.com made to disallow printing a single label on a 4x6 label unless it is a printer they partner with.
A 4x6 thermal printer is fundamentally no different from a 8.5x11 printer, but because letter paper is so ubiquitous, no one would use their service if they only allowed prints on letter paper from their supported and partnered printers.
The fact that their ONE SINGLE workaround involved having my printer identify as a Zebra printer to allow 4x6 printing to be enabled shows their true intentions. No other workaround were given except to buy a supported printer.
What's infuriating is that, not only has stamps.com wasted 2.5 hours of my valuable time, I am supposedly their target market that they're screwing: small business owners that need shipping services that integrate with many different eCommerce carts and marketplaces. So now, mildly infuriated, I spend another 45 minutes typing out my rage trying to share these anti-consumer behaviors with others.
If anyone has other places where such anti-consumer practices should be shared, please let me know.
This is along the same lines of:

• John Deere not allowing anyone to service their tractors but themselves
• BMWs not starting after replacing the battery yourself and must be towed to a dealer to be reset
• Apple refusing to use wireless standards to transfer data from an iOS device to a non iOS device
• BMW charging a monthly charge for a feature that is built into every car (heated seats, adaptive headlights, auto-high beam)
• Sony purposefully limiting cross-play
• Apple not allowing 3rd party app stores (although I think this is possible now)
• Tesla removing features on cars that the original owner paid for that must be paid for again with the second owner
• Apple disallowing self-repair or making it extremely difficult or cost prohibitive to do so