#mod note: i’ve been working on a bunch of things as of late

[brainiacmaniac]

How is your most definitely willing partner you didn't force into making this blog a.k.a Lani doin?

I don’t have any partners, don’t be ridiculous! The thing I even have remotely like that is Mr. Stubbins. Who the blazes are you talking about, anyways?

[fallout-drabbles-n-stuff]

Lately, everything has been terrible and stressful can I please get some fluff between sole and a married romanced companion doing married couple stuff?

(Heyy, I recognize you from my Skyrim blog! Hope everything starts getting better, whatever is going on)

(This is one of those things where if ya'll want a little drabble with a specific character..just ask! This may be more of a romantic fluff thing because i don't really know how to specifically make it about them being married //although I am thinking of writing wedding Headcanons// but you get the gist.))

Cait:

•She never thought she would ever find herself here. Surely, she thought, she would've been beaten to death or overdosed before love ever would've been in the cards. So, it would be a vast understatement to say she's sometimes at a loss for words when she looks at you. Her wife/husband..damn that felt good.

•Often times you are privileged to the more tender side of Cait, the side of her that allows her to be completely at ease. During these times, she'll allow you to kiss some of her scars- her face flushing a furious red similar to one of her hair. She usually isn't the sappy type, but if you tell her that you love them as much as you love her..cue the waterworks.

•It's maybe not the romantic gesture, but she finds herself consistently sharpening your knives when you aren't around- placing them back in your knapsack before you get home. Partially accredited to her want for your safety and otherwise well being.

•If you have long enough hair, she sometimes will braid it in one of those fancy four strand braids..you know..to keep it out of your face for combat.

•Bunch of nights spent on the roof of red rocket sipping crappy warm beer but neither of you caring, much too invested in each other's presence to be picky.

Curie:

•She keeps a very strict journaling of her research records...she also keeps one detailing every little aspect of you that she loves. She isn't exactly sure why she started doing this, but..it quickly becomes a post-war like scrapbook of the two of you. The biggest picture with tons of little hearts around it is the one of the two of you on your wedding day.

•You can sometimes find her uncontrollably grinning whenever she takes off her lab gloves and sees her wedding ring. She doesn't dare ever take it off.

•The second you get sick she is there by your side, the whole "in sickness" part of her vows surely weren't just for tradition.

Danse:

•Just as you wear his, Danse never parts with your dog tags. Between them and his ring, they may as well be a part of him. Danse also has your initials engraved on the gauntlets of his power armour.

•Danse is surprisingly physically affectionate. As such, there are many instances where your ever so serious husband will stop you, running his thumb over your cheek before randomly giving you a chaste kiss. Afterwards he almost always follows the action up with something along the lines of "I'll never understand how I've became lucky enough to be able to call you mine."

•Enjoys you keeping him company when he works on power armour or weapons. Even if you have no skill in blacksmithing, he will insist that you join him. Just imagine it- a warm wasteland afternoon, Dogmeat laying out in the sun, some tune playing over the radio while a sweaty, tank top wearing Danse getting you to mod weapons with him.

Deacon:

•Deacon easily becomes very protective over you, who can blame him? His luck with marriage hasn't been the best...but then again..neither has your's. The more serious side of your relationship will always be the lingering fear of losing each other..it's good enough to make you hold each other closer at night.

•Late night snack breaks while the radio plays and the two of you dance around together is a must have for each night.

•You two are now formally known as the only married couple of the Railroad. Congrats.

Gage:

•Totally has gotten a tattoo of your name. Let's face it, you probably have one of his as well.

•Loves spoiling you as much as he possibly can without crossing the line as your "right-hand" man. Gangs can't know too much. Well, they already know you're married..but you know..

•Doesn't drink very often, matter of fact he used to despise it. However, he soon sees the merriment in it via drunken antics with just you in your own privacy. Oh, expanding upon this..it's sort of a morning ritual for the two of you to watch the sunrise and drink some nuka-quantum to get the day going.

Hancock:

•The people of Goodneighbor view the two of you like some cool political power couple. It's neat. With that reputation also comes your husband seeking your counsel in political matters, let's just face it, he sometimes needs some guidance on how to be more strict without breaking his "code".

•Serves as a wonderful listener. I know, bare minimum- but seriously, he is incredibly wise when it comes to everyday strife. Plus, there isn't anyone else he'd rather listen to than his sweet sunshine.

•Often presents you with lavish gifts that you probably don't want to know where he got the funds for. Doesn't matter.

Macready:

•He probably will have warned you a thousand times over before marriage but by marrying you, Duncan has to come into the big picture. So, marrying Mac means adopting yourself another little one and becoming your own perfect family.

•As such, a lot of the fluffier times have to do with all of you bonding. Be it making some strange wasteland alternative to pancakes in the morning or going out together to go shoot cans off the fence- life is pretty good.

•Mac becomes at ease whenever he feels completely secure. This will bleed over into every aspect of him, meaning you'll often times find him being less awkward with flirting with you and he also isn't as guarded.

Maxson:

•Although the two of you both uphold your duties to a tee, you always make sure to have time dedicated to the two of you. Regarding this, Arthur is completely in awe during the first few months of your marriage. He knew he wanted you, he just didn't ever imagine it would happen like this, plus being such a young newlywed surely puts an extra pep in his step.

•On some of the off days where he can just have you all to himself: he likes to play chess, take walks, and simply cuddle the hours away.

•I also believe it's worth mentioning that Arthur occasionally leaves you heartfelt love letters around where you'll get them. So even in the days he can't spend devoted to you, at least you'll have that.

Nick:

•Slow dancing? Oh hell yes. Slow dances in the agency to songs like "Easy Living" are a common occurrence for the two of you.

•You'll never doubt how much he loves you, I can guarantee that much. Nick is nothing if not a romantic.

Piper:

•Date nights spent enjoying some power noodles as she screws with the robot vendor.

•Also a repeat offender of leaving love notes for you to find. Only she gets embarrassed if you bring them up. She's happy you like them, but..don't say anything.

•Nat is also a part of the family. Just so you know!

Preston:

•Regularly finds himself admiring you, not in the strictly surface way either. He just can't get over how wonderful you've made his life from the moment you entered it.

•Garvey loves taking you for some safe wasteland foraging, maybe not the most splendid married couple outing but, eh, it works!

X6-88:

��If given the opportunity, he'll sometimes play some songs for you if you happen to find a piano that still functions.

•The whole "married" thing sometimes confuses him. He loves you, but is he supposed to treat you any differently? Probably not- but he still wonders every once in a while

[nexility-sims]

Storytelling asks 12, 13 and 14 ❤️

𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐒  /   accepting !

these were fantastic questions !! thank you !! ❤️❤️❤️

12. do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium?

lately, it’s been 100% storytelling, but i am so eager to actually play the game soon. i’ve been working on my historical legacy for ........ geez, like five years or so? i guess it began as my bastard version of the decades challenge, lmao. anyway, long story short, i haven’t finished it, and i need to so i can replay the parts i miss. additionally, my plan is to finally get the cottage one when i finish part ii of the story !!!!!!! and do some legacy gameplay (haven’t decided if it’ll be canon yet but it will, as i’ve said, be jered circa 2007). 

13. from basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you?

OOF. it varies? here are the steps u didn’t ask for

get an idea, scribble some notes in my journal or on scraps of paper i then stuff into the journal. draw diagrams as needed.

scour the internet for poses (detour to make my own sometimes)

build a set (this is what i do 65% of the time. sometimes it takes half an hour, sometimes it takes a few hours. depends on if i need to download cc, build an exterior, spend 45 minutes arranging deco items NO ONE WILL SEE ssdjflksgfs)

occasionally, a detour to recolor / convert objects (not often but often enough that i know how to do these things now djfshgkjsg) 

dress up my sims !!! make sure they have different versions with accessories as needed, etc. (ex. for the bachelor party, alf & his friends each had six outfits. nightmare.)

take screenshots !!!!! i do this... based on the mental script in my head. so 60% “i know what happens,” and 40% “vibes only.” takes longer if i have to mess around with lighting (using reshade and/or by ... breaking everyone’s poses to adjust the light fixtures. usually for night scenes.)

pick max of 10 screenshots from the 1287398494 i took. i just upload them to photoshop & click around until i’ve got the best of the bunch. sometimes i post the rejects as previews or outtakes.

upload screenshots to tumblr drafts & let them marinate.....

add captions !!!! i’ve started writing them in photoshop, aka the most cursed approach. i just revise & rearrange until it reads well & hits all the marks i had in mind for the scene. i’m WORDY so seeing the text on the image helps them ... not be giving a monologue in every episode. just most. then, replace drafted shots w/ captions screenshots.

potentially, after marinating, i decided i hate the screenshots & redo them !!!!!!!!! not all the time, but maybe 3-4/10 times.

write the scene. this varies wildly bc sometimes i slap two sentences & call it a day, but other times i pull out my writing laptop & pour over it for ... anywhere from a week to twenty minutes. 

ideally, the draft marinates again, then i queue it at least 10 minutes before midnight

SO ........ overall, i would say this process can take anywhere between 2-3 hours to a few days. the longest i’ll have an average draft waiting is a week ?? 

14. do you have any regrets about your story so far? if you could go back in time, how would you fix these?

my number one regret is ... not realizing how invested in this hobby i would be, so therefore not bothering to properly plan things !!! winging it was fun and easy, but now i’ve learned so much—from both trial and error & the amazing storytellers i’ve met. still, rather than going back in time, i’m excited to apply all of this to the upcoming parts. hopefully the story will be much tighter, richer, and visually pleasing as a result !!!! also. wish i’d known about the tool mod sooner ......... sigh. lastly, i wish i’d learned how to make my own cc any of the previous times over the years i’ve attempted it. sure would come in handy, what with all the period specific fashion i want >:^( maybe next time.

[inkabelledesigns]

Sam and Jan’s Apartment - Nightmares are Reality Sims

So as of late, I’ve had a LOT of ideas brewing for yet another Bendy fic, and in some of my planning for it, I’ve built one of the locations in the Sims 4 to use as reference. It’s been busy at home, and I needed this to relax, so I’m glad I took the time to do that briefly. You may have seen my previous post about Nightmares are Reality, but if you haven’t, here’s the short version: Samantha Lorenzo from 2021 and Sammy Lawrence from 1946 wake up one morning with their bodies switched, and now both have to embrace the other’s friend group to not only find a way to get back, but also stop the inevitable fate of the studio staff as shown in the novel Dreams Come to Life. There’s angst, there’s fluff, and it get pretty rough, but there’s so much to play with for this story. 

Come with me, and let’s dive into Sam and Jan’s apartment!

So first, we gotta talk about Sam and Jan themselves. Samantha is the curly haired one, and Janet is the one in the hat (she wouldn’t be caught dead without one). Unfortunately the Sims does not allow me to change heights (and I don’t have a mod for it), but imagine for me if you will that Jan is significantly shorter than Sam. I did not have a ton in mind in the way of colors for them, but together their wardrobes have a LOT of red and black, with a little white and tan thrown in. I have Sam with the lifetime goal of being a successful author, which falls in line with her love of storytelling in modern media. Jan on the other hand is a songwriter and musician that’s still trying to find her path. The two met in college and graduated not too long ago, and now they’re both hunting for work (which Janet has part time when the fic begins). 

In addition to them, we have their cat, Figaro (named after the cat from Disney’s Pinnochio, Sam is a nerd like that).

Now, we move onto their apartment!

I chose the 1020 Alto Apartments lot for this, which came with the condition of the Romantic Fireplace that I can’t remove. But I added on Home Studio and Great Acoustics so they could bump up their skills a little easier. This is my first time playing with a lot challenge, and that is Spooky, which makes it so ghosts will come over now and again, which scares the crap out of both of them. And uh, funny story...

The ghost of Joey Drew was the third one to come, and he was VERY angry when Sam met him. X’’’D I did not see that coming, but now I kinda want to make more Bendy ghosts just to see if they pop in. Would you guys be into that? I mean Depths Henry is a ghost, so I probably SHOULD make him. 

At any rate, let’s look at the layout. Bear in mind, I am not phenomenal at building houses, much less apartments, but I think this worked out. 

It opens up into the kitchen, which is filled with all the essentials (these ladies are big on their caffeine). Currently I headcanon that Sam cooks while Jan cleans, but Jan is the better baker out of the two of them. Sam also likes to have fresh ingredients, and while I can’t do a window box on this lot, I can have some indoor vertical plants.

There isn’t much of a separation between living room and kitchen, but this is the living room! Some stuff is for playing with (since I actually play with my households now and then), like the dancefloor, but others are for actual use. They use a record player to listen to jazz and other music, and the furniture would be all mismatched like that (they were broke college kids, gotta sit on something, right? probably got it from a bunch of garage sales). The photo setup is something they use, but it belongs to their friend Vincent, which brings me to the first bedroom.

I haven’t made these two as Sims yet, but Sam and Jan have another duo living with them, Jess and Vincent, who are a couple. Jess is a makeup artist who often experiments on her friends, and she hopes to get into the makeup and wardrobe side of the cinematography scene. Vince on the other hand is a photography and film guy who’s an absolute sweetheart. Those two share this bedroom (Jess had more of a say in the decorating, Vince is pretty easygoing about the aesthetic). 

I had to make sure there was a special corner for Jess’ makeup stuff, she’d want space to move around. The mirror is also something she loves, and they all borrow it a lot. Why?

Because of this creepy room nextdoor! X’’’D So I just learned mannequins are a thing, and I can dress them however I want, so I put some in this pretty much functionless closet. (Though the two masculine ones have been glitching in a way that turns their heads a little at certain angles, and it creeps me out a LOT) This is the cosplay closet, which mostly Jess and Sam use, but all four of them have some numbers in here. These four are a cosplay group, mostly for Bendy, but for other fandoms too. Jess likes going as Twisted Alice (heavy special effects makeup, go figure), Vincent likes Henry and Joey (he likes scruffy nerds and suits), Janet dresses as Jack Fain (though she’s also done some gender bends of other characters), and Samantha (as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now) is right there as the Sammy for their group. If I can ever learn how to work with custom content, I would love to have a cosplay for each of them on these mannequins, but we’ll save that for later. These nerds are absolutely the types to play around with cosplay photos and tiktok videos, I’m sure they duet often. XD

We have some bathrooms, which are pretty self explanatory, but then we have Janet’s room. She is big on the posters and loves having her instruments right there and ready to play. She plays guitar and piano, but I may have her pick up violin down the line. Both of them have the geek trait and are prone to playing videogames more often than not, but Jan is mostly found playing her music. 

We have a small corner of the hallway for the cat. And then last but not least: Sam’s room.

This is Samantha’s creative space. Much like my space, when she’s working, it gets messy. She loves turning on some jazz while she writes, and while she’s crafting. I gave her and Jan the knitting supplies, since I don’t really know how else to simulate sewing for these characters, and they also have some clutter. Sam has one additional mannequin in her room, and she’s into figures, so there’s one of those on the desk. Her closet and bathroom are pretty simple, but that closet is gonna be really important when we get into the story, you’ll see why later.

As always, I have their Sims up on the gallery, along with the apartment, in case you want to play with them for yourself. Just note: because of how apartments work in this game, it’s uploaded as a room, so you’re going to have to fill some walls in and add doors if you want it to work like an apartment would (and you can totally turn it into a house if you want to, you don’t need to have 1020 Alto if you wanna use this). Just search for KatAlystDesigns in the Sims 4 gallery! I’ve also uploaded a few other houses recently, including the DCTL cast for my BATIM mermaid collection, and Buddy’s mother and grandpa. 

I had a LOT of fun putting this together last night, and it’s given me a much better idea of how I want to work with things for this narrative. Bear in mind, Sammy’s the one who’s gonna have to live here and put up with it, so having these details established is gonna help me to make the fic go smoother. I may tweak some things, like actually using upper cabinets in the kitchen (which I always seem to forget about), but we’ll see. XD Either way, this was a good exercise.

I hope you’re all looking forward to exploring these two and their story as much as I am! As a quick final note, I actually have a blog set up for Nightmares are Reality to mimic the one Sam has in the fic, and I’m thinking of using it as a somewhat RP, somewhat fic and content delivery system for the story, so if you’ve got thoughts on that, or stuff you’d like to see, do let me know! Here’s wishing you are all wonderful day!

[fandom-sheep]

Fundy Dream SMP Chaos 01 APR 21

Delayed Liveblogging Part 1/1

I’m late cause I was on Wills stream.

He was laughing and complaining about not being able to burn things.

He’s happy he made a thing.

Oh no. Why is he tnting the castle and arsoning?

Why is Fundy causing problems on purpose?

Fundy honey please don’t break the holy land.

Oh it’s supposedly a fake server.

I need to read chat more to learn what is happening.

I guess I trust chat with fake smp?

OH WAIT! It’s April first!

I expected Fundy to prank us but I’m honestly too stupid for my own good sometimes.

Alright install hacks. Let’s go.

Chat has been burned before today.

Just casually looking at the reach mods.

The reason I don’t trust this is be a fake server is because he was on the real server earlier.

Fundy honestly might just be trying problems on purpose and it wouldn’t surprise me.

Sneaking under the half door! Oh wait never mind.

Oh no. Not memory dream stuff. Please your chat will cry.

Arson the Tommy house.

Arson the trees.

Oh an awesome old house.

Ah yes more tnt.

Fox boy has had quite the explosion obsession lately.

Upwards MLG. So talented.

I still don’t trust this not to be real. Because Fundy very well might explode things.

My dog is laying on my foot.

Lots of explosions.

Making more tnt nice.

Fundy gets banned arc! Let’s goooo.

Ok I want to see Fundy make this shot.

Explosion hour!

You can do it!

Chat is so divided between encouraging chaos and desperately hoping this is an April fools prank.

It’s still April first over there isn’t it?

1000% cannon

I love how Fundy understands that people do what they are told not to. So he tells them not to prime.

So close.

Come on! Explosion!

FOR THE PRIMES!

Yesssss!!!

MLG Fire. All the talent of this man.

I was so excited for Pokémon cards. But no face cam.

Wait don’t do Pokémon cards. We can’t see. 😢

Ah yes, Pokémon card asmr...

I wish I could see the cards. I love Pokémon cards.

I don’t know what some of these Pokémon he is vaguely describing are.

Oh wait! What was the last one???

Oooo what is it? What is it?

Rainbow glitter doesn’t limit it.

I could not understand that name. I can’t tell if it’s good.

Also Fundy. Time to look at this card.

Quit retaking the picture and just post it.

I swear he is enjoying toying with us.

We’re being shot while he’s trying to take a picture.

Ok time to check the bird site.

I have replied to the tweet with the requested phrase.

I don’t believe it’s worth a lot but it’s pretty.

Finally we’re done being stabbed by the skeleton.

Skeleton coming into close shot range.

Please don’t drown sir.

He’s comin’

Anyway back to causing problems.

Or you know back on memory lane...

Oh wait nevermind. Problems on purpose.

Really cool idea?

Another lovely ranged shot.

Aww. Didn’t quite make it.

Again didn’t quite make it.

Lazy way now.

“Eek” -Fundy

That’s one way to get revenge.

Chat keeping on calling for the death of Michael.

Casually sneaking into creative cause he’s out of tnt.

Tnt balloon launcher!

Oh Fundy planning on causing trouble at the other prison.

Tnt launcher let’s go.

Oh a being donated 100 lovely.

They deserve to have a tnt launcher named after them.

The chests being full has me suspicious but I still doubt the boy is truly causing problems on purpose.

Tnt launcher did not work.

L the streamer.

Oh Niki is going live on the smp. I suppose that’s one way we can find out if it’s the true smp.

Off they went. But it’s not accurate.

We’re just working with Fundy to cause trouble.

Nope. He just can’t do it.

Wow he’s flying like magic! (And covering that with tnt)

Making homemaker a bigger target isn’t going to work.

He’s gathering so many arrows.

Not a single one hit. Awesome looking but a lovely failure.

I tried to check on Nikis stream but the only thing that happened is I had to watch an ad to get back to Fundy.

Also Niki was hosting Minx. I missed her.

Awesome explosion Fundy.

Ah. Auto build.

Oh we auto built a bunch of signs. And none of them have the message.

Fungi grave. With diamonds. Lovely.

I am enjoying this even if I know better.

Ah. A lovely pile of tnt.

Poof!

Someone should have let Fundy have tnt sooner.

Casual flight.

I always love the music on Fundy’s streams. Just That lovely nostalgia.

Just piles of tnt by the hotel.

Chat is so panicked.

I don’t think most of them know it’s April first.

Oooo are we gambling?

Nope not gambling. But it did work gorgeously.

I’m not a griefing kind of person, but this does my heart good.

Enjoying problems.

“Oh what’s this place” adds tnt “gone” -Fundy

Come on chat people. Just encourage him. Quit saying check the date and that it’s a fake server. Just role with it.

Oh that was a very pretty explosion.

Exploded early but it worked (stupid egg bits)

A gorgeous sideways explosion.

We still aren’t destroying... oh wait. We are exploding. No sign.

No escape. But he survived. And the prime bell is still safe.

Castle explosion time.

I’m kinda sad about the castle I’ll admit. But I’ll still up for a good explosion.

Made the lil house and now he explodes things.

Chat blowing up the rainbow castle isn’t homophobic. Hush.

Oooo shaders. That’ll look pretty.

Cant wait to see the pretty screenshots the artists use.

Probably a back up. We’ll see.

Oh I’m also a bit sad about the museum. But you know. If we gotta explode things we gotta explode things.

I can’t wait to see the shaders with this.

Struggling to explosions.

Oh pretty. And the hotdog survives!!!

Cinematic. Beautiful.

Donos playing along saying he’ll be banned. Or donos just confused.

This boy truly pretending he hacked his way into creative on the smp.

Ok that was a pretty cinematic shot.

Holo mellons

Sniff raid! Lovely!

Also the person telling them to check out foolish’s stream. Hush. Let us worry people.

Oh did Fundy build the funky cube thing? I doubt but still.

Prison time.

Oh got to get the skeppy and bad house

And whatever that pit building is.

Everyone still talking about how it ain’t real. Quit it y’all. Come on. Join the joke.

Our dearest mods trying to keep everyone from spoiling it.

The prison is a really pretty build. And it does look explodable.

Explode the prison. Yes and 5up is hot is what are winning.

The no’s can’t catch up. It’s fire time.

You can tell the prank has failed, but it’s still good for the heart to see it explode. It is still a game after all as emotionally attached as we have gotten to it.

A small thing. A small explosive thing.

Everyone changing lag already.

Everyone already ready to fight Fundy if he were to blow up Michael.

Button time.

Oh we even have the cool undertake music.

And the cannon didn’t reach.

Auto build plus lots of tnt.

This is the grand finale of the prank I believe.

I might to go foolish after this. Get some chaotic building man.

Prime bell!!!

Poof and pop.

Oh that was pretty.

Wait... inner wall...

Well. Lore people take your notes on prison construction.

This knowledge will help you on your quest later.

Prison couldn’t even be broken by a fox with a tnt canon.

Phil Raid! Hooray!

Please be a real raid. I want the extra half hour of chaos.

Even though the fox should be yelled at to go to sleep.

Oh. Was it a real Phil raid? I half expected it not to be.

The chat is both confused and chilling.

You get that hype train rich people.

Walking around trying to pretend we haven’t been blowing everything up.

Casually walking around showing off his destruction.

It’s not even April first over theee anymore is it?

Ah. Yeah it is April fools joke.

Ah. Is Fundy actually coming clean about his stuff.

Ah no. He’s continuing to pretend nothing is happening.

Lots of tnt.

Gorgeous. Magnificent. Fantastic.

I love tnt particles for whatever reason. They always look so good.

That actually did a lot.

Yes join the fox discord! Yes follow the fox Twitter! I’ve already done both. I don’t really check either but still.

Showing off his explosions.

Oh we’re doing a reenactment.

Let’s gooo.

L’manhole v. 3 (4?)

Lots of tnt. Always good.

Oh. Oh no. It’s lagging bad.

The tnt. Isn’t going.

Ah now the true lag.

“Cool guys don’t have the frames to look at explosions” -Fundy

That was a good explosion. How deep did it go? No very probably.

TNT parkour! We love it!

That didn’t work but that was a nice explosion. Plenty of bedrock.

Good job with the hype train rich people.

We enjoy our streamer causing problems.

And the sign has changed again. You know the one. “You heart...”

Trying to fill the orb thing with tnt.

That was a very contained explosion.

Good explosion time.

Ok. We’re talking concrete replacement.

Blood vines exploding this early again.

Casually exploding the tiny Eret.

Everyone convincing him not to blow up the tiny Eret.

I love how those who watch one watch the other.

L’manburg yeah explode it. Eret? No.

Oh wait don’t look at the spoilers.

Secret Base Here.

Ahh. Blowing up his tower as well.

Nevermind. We like the tower.

Reasons. Mhm. Didn’t plan on that when he set this up. (In relation to snowchester)

Boy’s tnt penmanship is like that of a toddler.

Great explosions.

Oh we’re poofing the Targay next.

I love the two types of people. People like me, playing along, and the people who are panicking and praying it’s a copy.

Love the mods telling everyone it’s real.

Aww he died.

It’s ok. We respawned.

Defiantly cannon.

We don’t want it to be? That’s worrying for future lore.

But we’re not talking future lore. We’re doing therapy explosions.

Oh an ad. I didn’t get it. I won’t complain.

All the levels gone so sad. Not like they can spontaneously appear.

No. We aren’t going to snowchester. Too far away.

Where is the next level?

Random fire arrows???

Yes we are question marking.

Coder boy? Minecraft commands?

Run command?

Execute command?

He’s typing. I understand none of it.

Oh it’s peaceful.

There it goes.

Withers our favorite thing

Withers and chickens.

Oh. We stuck. We lagging bad.

Let me join the L group really fast.

The game crashed and now he’s trying again.

Wait all the damage reset?

Oh wait no we’re on the real smp now aren’t we!

Maybe not... we’ll see.

It never saved?

And here is the April Fools reveal.

Oh hooray sub goal and piano tunes!

Oh American roadtrip by Fundy!

That’ll be fun! It’ll be fun to see the vlogs and the like!

Raise that sub goal! Get that fun adventure!

It’ll be a month but it’ll be fun!

Ah he is telling them it was a real April fools steam.

But this is a cool idea! I hope the boy gets to come here on an adventure.

Why do many New York and New Jersey people? Also hooray 5up!

I hit the text block limit. Good song time! Banger tune time! Oh that’s neat! FundyJam! Another? I could make a part 2 to this instead of cramming, but that’s too much work. GOOD SONG GOOD STREAM! I love Fundy streams so much. Very therapeutic explosions. And the raid went through. 15TH FOR MAIN CHANNEL VIDEO!!!!

[freshlybakedspiderbread]

I brought up hanyang type 88 here and i said i’d explain, so here I am!!

okay so first off here’s a bunch of likely useful context about girls frontline. There is this feature in the game called digimind upgrade, or mod 3, where certain t-dolls can be upgraded past the normal maximum levels and stats, and at the same time gaining whole new abilities and also a new design. Basically a reinvention. There are like hundreds of playable characters in the game, and only a fraction will get mod 3s, typically the ‘main characters’ who are relevant to the major ongoing plot.

two things about getting a doll who has the ability to do digimind upgrade, to actually do that. One, is that it can be very costly in terms of in-game materials. like, maybe i just played the game wrong but I would have to grind for weeks in order to amass the materials to upgrade just one doll to mod 3. So even though by now there are dozens upon dozens of dolls who are capable of this feature, i’ve only actually done so with like, less than one dozen. A normal player probably has to be picky.

secondly, and this is the big one, every t-doll’s mod 3 comes with story cutscenes that become available for you to view upon upgrading them. Personally, i think most of the only worthwhile mod 3 stories are the ones that are associated with the actual major characters of the main story, especially since their upgrades actually happen in-canon and their mod 3 stories fill in blanks or otherwise expand upon the regular story chapters.

for the t-dolls who aren’t major characters that get digimind upgrades, their associated stories tend to follow a very basic pattern. They’re feeling like they are falling behind other T-Dolls in abilities or are otherwise experiencing a drop in confidence in their abilities, but then find the resolve in them to either change themselves or stand by an aspect of themselves, and this leads them to heading to the lab to get upgraded. obviously theres some nuances here and there depending on the character, but a lot of them, from what i saw, follow this basic pattern.

hanyang type 88 has a mod 3 but i certainly never wanted to see it. Firstly, using the feature at all takes up resources are kinda precious so i wasn’t just gonna use it on anyone. Secondly, she is just one of many one-off t-dolls that basically dont ever show up in any actual main story cutscenes or even funny events. Thirdly... you saw what she looked like in the linked post, i was in no rush to make use of her.

That being said, even if you don’t ever upgrade a t-doll, simply having them in your possession allows you to at least view the first of four parts of their mod 3 story, which nets you a small amount of those materials needed to see the rest (its a pretty fiendish system, huh o_O). I was lacking in some materials to upgrade a doll i cared about, so i just mucked around, eventually happened upon type88 again and decided that instead of just immediately feeding her to the furnace, I’d watch the first chapter of her mod 3 story. I watched it, it made me just curious enough to look further, and well. ...I got into it. Exactly what I got into, i shall now just elaborate and summarise the whole thing in my own way! Warning, it’s long!

(disclosure: my summary will bias towards my own preferred interpretation whenever any aspect is somewhat vague.)

The story starts with type 88, or as she is called by others in griffin base, Ai, working her shift in the base’s cafe, because what else would she be doing.

i hate looking at her! Anyway, its just a pleasant peaceful day and Ai is taking the logistic person, kalina’s order when suddenly in the middle of a conversation, Ai freezes in place and starts making worrying sounds.

kalina here and the t-dolls present in the cafe are concerned, and talk about how Type88 has actually been crashing like this more and more frequently lately, yet has not reported any of this to the maintenance crew despite the advice of her friends. They try rebooting her on the spot, but it has an even more concerning effect, because she starts erratically acting like she doesn’t recognise the others, and talks about how she is a maid in “Jiangcheng Cafe”. Afraid that her neural cloud (her mind) has been scrambled, they put her to sleep and bring her to the repair bay.

Its in the repair bay where they explain exactly what is wrong with type88. She is a fairly old doll, and her processing capacity has been severally clogged up for a long time. Her internal memory is overflowing because many large sections of her mind is filled with very large encrypted files (memories that she stored away). she is likely to keep crashing and possibly even cease functioning entirely one day if those encrypted files are not deleted, but nobody is really keen on just deleting parts of her mind without her consent. For now, kalina just opts to try and decrypt the files and see what they are.

And from here, we watch type88 memories from her perspective. Sort of. Kind of. It gets complicated later but for now, we view the first memory of her life, not as a combat t-doll type88, but...

...as 59898, a doll designed to be what is basically a ‘crash test dummy’ for testing artillery technology in a research station. With a purpose like this, 59898 has an (ostensibly) rudimentary AI. Her learning ability is intended to be used to better aid the results of their testing, but she also knows how to understand and even imitate specific human gestures in order to better respond to instructions or conversation, even though she herself has no voice module to speak with. She is assigned to assist one specific person.

first off, i was pretty shocked right off the bat that this story above so many others actually has unique assets to it. The above two sprites don’t show up anywhere else in the game, i don’t think. Secondly, this woman’s name is only ever spelled with those white squares, so I’m stuck with having to just calling her ‘the pilot’, as dry as that sounds... I just don’t want to type out weird characters every time, or call her ‘triple cube’...

Anyway, so 59898 is assigned to help this woman in testing artillery tech (stuff like mechs and tanks). I should mention really quick that in the game’s story, during this point of time is when world war iii is happening, but that’s just a backdrop for robots to eventually gain more prominence. Anyway, we move on to the second memory, where some time has already passed. At the beginning of this memory, the pilot is visibly depressed, which 59898 takes note of.

Her ‘comfort mode’ consists of patting the pilot on the head, who while surprised, actually is grateful. She feels comfortable enough to talk about her worries aloud to the doll, mentioning how she is a war refugee and has to make a living in the research base because she can’t go back to her home in china, at least not before making enough money for a very expensive and exclusive train ticket. She continues to talk at length to the doll...

...not that the test doll is capable of responding to anything she says. The pilot insists that she’s happy just to have someone listen to her though, since she feels like she can’t really express her feelings to any other person on the base. Despite that-

That aside, the pilot says that referring to 59898 by her serial number all the time feels a bit weird, so she decides to give the doll a name. (I sure wish the story would give this woman a name too, other than ‘three white squares’ but oh well...)

She talks more with Jiangcheng Ai, or just Ai, after that, asking her if she’d like a change of clothes sometime, like some casual clothes, or an old maid outfit from an old cafe job she used to have (I guess they had to throw in any explanation for that outfit somehow) Point is, more and more time passes.

As time passes though, and we go into the third memory, the pilot brings up complaints to her superiors about how the more recent testings, becoming more increasingly intense and frequent, are putting a great strain on Ai, and even repairs can only help maintain her chassis so much. She insists on wanting to take Ai’s place in the testing, but they refuse because, well, Ai’s entire purpose is to take the strain of these tests so that the human pilot doesn’t have to, and the doll is just a tool there to pave the way for the pilot to eventually take over the mech in action

The next time Ai wakes up from her most recent repairs, the pilot is there to greet her, and Ai can tell straight away that she’s unhappy and tries to comfort her again. The pilot is not surprised at this and talks about how this is how Ai has been since they first met. She goes on to say how all the other people on the base don’t know her half as well as Ai does. Ai tries to understand and determine what the pilot’s intentions with saying all this is, but she cannot do so and can only listen while offering ‘executing - affirmative nod’.

The pilot talks about how once the war is over, she’d like to take Ai back home with her, where they could go to all sorts of gatherings, and the pilot would introduce Ai to her friends.

Ai reviews her personal data, confirming that she has no owners or obligations other than the pilot, so she executes another affirmative nod, and the pilot says this:

As Ai tries and fails to further determine this, something bad happens! if you’ve read this far, i’m sure you’ve already guess what happens next...

At that exact moment, a warning goes out and the research base is being attacked by nebulous enemy forces. With no time to talk anymore, both the pilot and Ai head out into their first real fight.

They spend a good long while repelling enemy forces, working well together and apparently using all sorts of wacky anime weaponry like beam blades and whatever ‘retrograde evasion��� is!

obviously though, you already know this isn’t going to end well for them... When the pilot takes a breather, Ai moves to protect her, but at a critical moment, a sudden high-speed projectile comes her way. In the next instance there’s a crash, and we move onto another memory. Where its all fire and debris, and Ai can’t move.

^ this text box actually repeats several times, indicating that she is repeating her scan for life signs over and over. She gets an internal warning from her systems (differentiated with red text) that she has insufficient power and it warns her to immediately cease ineffective operations. [Unable to detect owner life signs] repeats again.

At this point, uuuuh, its a little stupid actually? because two humans show up, reusing generic ‘bad guy’ sprites from other events that don’t match the current environment and situation at all (one is in a suit and the other is in casual clothes). but the reason they’re here is to provide exposition out loud about what happened. It looked like the human’s mech took a hit for the doll and was blown to bits, though they talk about how that doesn’t make any sense.

Ai at this point tries to execute a bunch of different actions like hugging [target not found] and screaming [no relevant module] but they all fail, and her internal systems tell her that her power is running out and she will cease to function in 30 seconds.

So in those last 30 seconds, Ai decides to quickly review her internal files. the damage she took has corrupted her memories and she doesn’t have the time to properly go through them, so she executes a ‘simulated processed records’, which basically mean she’s just filling the blanks of those memories herself with simulations.

And I have to say. I was decently into and enjoying this little story so far, but its this part that’s the reason i became forced to make this stupid giant post. the first ‘memory’ loads up, and we see the pilot.

Different ‘memories’ of the days spent with the pilot are loaded back to back, each are very short and only last a few lines. Across these files, the two of them talk comfortably with each other, Ai is invited to go get coffee with her, the pilot talks about how going alone is boring and would rather spend time with Ai, Ai saying back with her own words that she always likes spending time with her, etc etc etc.

And then finally, she loads one last ‘memory’, from earlier that same day, before the explosion and the fighting.

and she shuts down.

i passed by this scene the first time all calm, but an hour or so later when I was in the bathroom replacing shampoo bottles, i started thinking about it and I literally started sobbing. And then again later that night when i was in bed. I hate this game!!

so that’s the ‘end’ of that, and the next scene opens, once again in griffin base’s cafe, except...

Ai is sporting a brand new (ugly) look. She says she’d like to take kalina’s order but she was just leaving on other business, as she likes keeping herself busy with all sorts of work around the base ever since she got upgraded into a gundam gajinka. and after she leaves, kalina talks with the other dolls about how Ai used to have some cache issues because her neutral cloud was too full, but upgrading into this new chassis easily fixed that and even allowed her to make use of her old locked away abilities.

Because of the way this scene in the cafe opens up exactly like the very first one at the beginning, it makes me believe that this final scene is also a simulated ‘memory’, that is, Ai filling in the blanks of her corrupted memories with what she wishes to be reality. And i feel confident in believing that because after the scene fades to black, we see more of her internal system monologue.

She (the system) says that the priority execution is to preserve those encrypted memory logs. She does so, and the neural cloud upgrade is complete with confirmation of no loss files. With no risk of deletion in this new form, she executes the command to unlock the encrypted memories. And finally...

[spiderbread dies]

i still wouldn’t use her in gameplay because i can’t stand looking at her design but  i told you all i eat up robot with feelings stuff and this is like prime example of exactly that... and if i didn’t make this post, i think my own neutral cloud’s cache would be at risk of overflowing x_X!

[polyninja-future]

Food fight

C: Hello. I’m Cole. Uh, there isn’t much to say. -Chuckling- Well, I’m a married man to three of the most amazing men I’ve ever met. And we have little saplings. And I mean babies. I just call them saplings.

C: So, one thing I can say about family life is that it’s great. And we all know, like all family and couples, we do have fights. Now when you think of family or couple fights, you mostly think of “You came home late, where have you been!” or “You said you would do this but you didn’t!”

C: We don’t have that kind of fight a lot. I have noticed that the one thing we fight a lot about is when it comes to food. Like, back before we were married, before we were dating, we fought about food. We either fight about who is gonna cook tonight, what is gonna get cooked, should we eat out, or stealing each other’s food. It’s like the kitchen is the warzone, and we are a bunch of kids fighting over who gets to play with an amazing toy that no one could afford more of.

C: I remember a few instances, and they all involve my husbands. I’m gonna call them Snowflake, Starpatch, and Sparky.

C: So this back in our dating days. Snowflake and I were arguing about what we should have for lunch. I suggested my famous chili and hotdogs, and Snowflake wanted to make a fruit salad and tuna sandwich.

C: We argued for a couple of minutes until Sparky came in. Snowflake looked at Sparky and asked, “Do you want Cole’s chili and hotdogs or my fruit salad and tuna sandwich?”

C: Sparky face turned into “Oh god, I walked into another food fight.”

C: Sparky said that he didn’t really mind because he likes both. Then Starpatch comes in saying, “Cole, no offense, but your chili involves things that aren’t supposed to be in a chili.”

C: I asked him to name three things that I put in my chili that I shouldn’t put in chili. He named ten things.

C: We ended up going to Chen’s noodles on that day.

C: Another instance I remember was last summer. We all were discussing what to cook and Starpatch got hangry. After a few minutes, he said, “This sht is taking too long, can’t we just eat out?”

C: Snowflake said, “Starpatch, what fast food place is vegetarian friendly?”

C: “Who said I was thinking about fast food?”

C: “Your face.”

C: “Well maybe I was thinking of a restaurant.”

C: “Your face clearly read ‘I want fast food.’”

C: “If you like my face so much, why don’t you marry it.”

C: “I’m married to you, you fcking idiot!”

C: I said, “I wouldn’t mind eating Starpatch’s face.”

C: “Cole, kissing faces don’t count as eating.”

C: I said, “Well it should! I wanna be full of love!”

C: “We might not get love tonight because someone is being indecisive for the past fcking hour.”

C: “At least I’m giving out ideas!”

C: Sparky came into the conversation saying “Look, we all are getting hangry. So let’s just go to Lilypad and ask for some food.”

C: Lilypad is Sparky’s sister by the way.

C: Snowflake said, “We aren’t gonna resort to your sister, we are gonna resolve this like grown adults.”

C: Sparky responded, “Well, we aren’t doing a great job acting like adults because we keep acting like children!”

C: “Well. if we are acting like children, then at least I’m the mature child.”

C: Starpatch said, “Oh, how very mature of you ‘mature child.’”

C: I yelled, “I just want love and food!”

C: Sparky says he’s gonna call Lilypad and Snowflake said, “You are not gonna call your sister because we are settling this like fcking adults!”

C: We continued to fight until Lilypad showed up at our door with her two wives. Before we all could say a word, Lilypad told us, “Sparky butt-dialed me and had the speaker on. While it was entertaining to hear you all get crazy over food, just take the food and eat.”

C: So we ate the food Lilypad sent us and ended up cuddling each other after apologizing to each other.

C: Here’s the thing. Those fights are nothing like the pudding fights. You may be wondering, “You guys get worked up by pudding?”

C: Well, yes, kind of. But only two of us. Starpatch has pudding, and I end up eating it sometimes. We get into a fight then it turns into a wrestling match. It’s like watching bears fight in the woods or watching kids fight at a playground.

C: Starpatch and I recently had a pudding fight, and Snowflake had to separate us. I was angry, Starpatch was angry, and we didn’t talk to each other for the rest of the day. Until I woke up in the middle of the night to two of our saplings crying. I went over, picked them up, and brought them to the tv. After a while, they calmed down. I turned the tv off. I was on my way to drop the babies off in their room until I saw Starpatch. I went over to him and said, “Hey.”

C: He said hey back, and we stood there in silence. I said, “Look, I’m sorry for eating your pudding. I promised I would stop, and I didn’t.”

C: He responded with, “I’m sorry for getting angry at you. I’m trying to tone it down.”

C: I responded with a joke, and he laughed. We spent a few minutes talking until our saplings started to babble. I thought they were asleep.

C: After a small bit, Starpatch said, “Hey, Cole.”

C: I said, “Yeah?”

C: “I love you.”

C: “I love you too.”

C: We then kissed, and the saplings got jealous. So we spend a few minutes talking until Starpatch got sleepy.

C: In short, we fight about food, but we end up making up later.

C: Thanks for coming, I will see you all next week.

Mod note: This is a Cole comedy talk. I’m not very good at humor, but I hope I did good

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

so i’d really like to finish my guardian takedown lore analysis, but honestly the game isn’t really fun to play at the moment anymore (even with the health debuffs they added) so I think im going to be taking a break for now because I’m just not having fun anymore.

this game has a lotta mechanical problems i think need to be addressed so im gonna summarize it as bullet points below. I’ll play the new dlc when it drops, but idk if i’ll be on more than that (grinding, end-game stuff) until they make some serious changes. I’ve been playing (near) daily since launch, followed the patch/hotfix notes every single week, and my patience has finally, FINALLY run dry, especially with that really disappointing Phase 1 Patch and then the hotfix this week not adding anything else. What is the balancing team doing??? 😩

tl;dr: FIX THE VAULT HUNTERS!!!!

anyway. That’s all I needed to get outta my system. I might log on to this blog every now and again to post some random shit that pops into my head (probably with regards to my AU), but I’m not going to be actively playing and posting for the time being. Goodbye (for now), and here’s hoping the new DLC is good!! 

guardian takedown only problems:

there’s a lot of waiting around, and sometimes it’s not explicitly stated that you’re waiting for something, so you’ll be lost on what to do next (not sure if that’s a dialogue glitch or not)

the crystal charge insta-death is bull. just. what the hell. at least make it so you just have to start over. killing ur players for failing a “puzzle” that they then have to fight all the way back to is so infuriating.

dying because you fell off a platforming puzzle is also bull. 

i remember playing the first DMC on my playstation in middle school and having a conniption over the part in the observatory(? it’s been a hot minute since I played DMC 1) with the disappearing/invisible platforms. I h a t e jumping puzzles. why are they in a section of the game where death is semi-permanent and a detriment to your teammates. i tried the takedown 2x with friends and both times one friend didn’t make the first big jump to the temple and had to wait for our inevitable deaths. that’s so unfair to them.

there’s absolutely no reason for a boss to have 12 fuckin immunity phases. 4 per health bar with 3 health bars? Who the fuck designed this? *pumps shotgun* i just wanna talk. 

i appreciate a tasteful immunity phase every now and again (the ones in the Valkyrie fight are actually p reasonable), but christ. that is overkill. I don’t mind the main boss fight, since u can end those early through certain actions, but jesus. the mid-boss fight is annoying as hell. you spend more time running from the immunity phases and finding the damn boss than u do actually shooting it.

drop rates are crap, which I guess should be expected given what happened with the Maliwan Takedown and the handful of months it took for them to fix that, but also you think they’d have learned.

in the maliwan takedown there’s a sense of progression thru the facility after you kill each area’s batch of enemies, but in this one it’s... dampened by the crystal charging sequences. you kill all the enemies in an area, press a button, and now you have to kill 3x that number of enemies in the same area, expect you’re just standing there motionless. It’s not fun.

the crystal charging stuff is just not fun in general. standing in a square is not entertaining. it’s worse that it was clearly designed for 3+ players when a majority of people play/grind solo

i gotta admit the boss fights just aren’t as fun as the Maliwan Takedown fights overall. I felt like a real badass fighting Wotan for the first time, but the main boss for this Takedown is kind of a bitch. Wotan’s fight is chaos, there’s so much shit happening at once and you don’t really have time to process everything and I love it. This one is p meh...

This would be fine and I’d 100% not care that much if there weren’t all these OTHER problems

General Issues with the Game

There’s no endgame stuff to play outside of the takedowns. 

I assume they’re working on the first raid given some stuff I found in the Guardian Takedown files, but I really wish they’d keep the seasonal events/areas. They give us the option to disable/enable them while they’re ‘active’, just give us the ability to do it whenever we want.

when i hop on i either run through Athenas (my favorite map), or farm a boss or two. I have all the loot i really need from the maliwan takedown/elsewhere, and the guardian takedown just... isn’t fun atm, so i have nothing to do.

I’ve reset my playthru multiple times to play the main story at m10, but u can only play it (and the dlc) so many times

Mayhem levels and modifiers are a hot m e s s

a majority of the modifiers just aren’t fun to play with

they incorporated like 2-3 fun modifiers (from the community), then added a bunch that straight-up aren’t. I’m fine with the game being more difficult, but at least give us modifiers that make it more entertaining to play at a higher level instead of more annoying. I like the ones that have trade-offs or add new ‘enemies’, but I hate the ones that just straight up reduce your damage output.

a majority of the weapons with the mayhem 10 anointment (scaling) do not work on mayhem 10 (we’ll go more in-depth with this later)

Player Characters (Vault Hunters!!!) are also a hot mess and a lot of problems plaguing them haven’t been fixed SINCE LAUNCH

theyre literally the basis of the game and its balance. why havent you guys fixed them yet. stop adding new content until they’re fixed. no new skill trees until the base 3 trees work ON EVERY CHARACTER.

seriously. Why is amara p much limited to using Phasegrasp. Why does Iron Bear not matter to Moze except to proc anointments. MAKE ALL ACTION SKILLS EQUAL AND HAVE HEFT.

i wrote an essay here about it bc i feel that strongly about this

SERIOUSLY FIXING UR VAULT HUNTERS WILL MAKE BALANCING SO MUCH EASIER PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU THEY ARE THE BASE OF UR BALANCING WOES

ZANE IS STILL UNUSABLE WITHOUT THE SEEIN’ DEAD CLASS MOD!!!!!!!!!!!

MOZE IS SCREWED BC HER DAMAGE IS TOO RELIANT ON ASE ANOINTMENTS!!

AMARA DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING MELEE BUILD AS THE ADVERTISED MELEE CHARACTER???

FL4K’S HEADCOUNT SKILL IS S T I L L BROKEN EVER SINCE THE RELEASE OF THE MALIWAN TAKEDOWN

ARE YOU GUYS LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY *PLEASEEEEEEE*

BUFF AND FIX THE GODDAMN VAULT HUNTERS

Anointments were a mistake. Damage end-game is wayyyy too reliant on them

anoints should have a maximum of, like, a 20% damage bonus. the damage necessary to kill enemies *should be coming from the VHs themselves*. i don’t care if you have to revamp every single Vault Hunter’s skill trees and buff them all by 9000%. THEY DESERVE IT AT THIS POINT

at the moment in m10 there really isn’t much build diversity *even between Vault Hunters*. We’re all using the same 5 guns (OPQ System. Kaoson. idk. fuckin brainstormer? is that still a thing? jesus fuck) with the same 3 anointments (100% on ASE, cryo while SNTL, and 300% while 90%).

you want to diversify builds like you said during the gameplay reveal???? you want our choice in Vault Hunter to actually fuckin matter???? FIX THEM!!!! THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEAL DAMAGE WITHOUT STUPID POWERFUL LEGENDARIES AND ANOINTMENTS!!!

Anoints also shouldn’t be common. At all. They should be, like, Pearl rarity. To let that happen, their damage needs to be tuned way the fuck down (again, 20ish % bonus MAX) and ALL ANOINTS NEED TO BE USEFUL IN SOME WAY

NOBODY IS GOING TO USE THE AIRBORNE OR SLIDING ANOINTMENTS JUST REMOVE THEM ALREADY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

obviously these changes can’t happen because they fucked up and buckled down with everything being anointed in m10, but still

imagine a world where the VHs actually did damage on their own without anointments and the damage buff from them was just an incentive to grind for the 100% perfect weapon and NOT A REQUIREMENT TO DEAL DAMAGE

>:(

A majority of gear is borderline worthless at M10

I’m fine with the difficulty of M10, i should let it be known. The enemy health isn’t really the problem IF ALL GUNS ACTED THE SAME AS THE OPQ SYSTEM

ffs.

you know, if you fixed ur vault hunters so they all did damage with just purple weapons (abt the same damage as legendaries w/o special effects) and removed the anointment requirement from late-game play, balancing your guns would be sooo much easier. you know. just saying.

right now only 10% (im being generous) of guns in the game are viable. 90% are worthless. We need AT LEAST 60-70% viable at M10. WHERE IS MY BUILD DIVERSITY. WHY ARE ALL LEGENDARIES NOW JUST “HEY THIS GUN IS STRONGER THAN THE LAST 4 WE RELEASED. HAVE FUN”

how to fix this problem? do as above: BUFF YOUR PLAYER CHARACTERS. MAKE ANOINTMENTS LESS STRONG.

then, at least the 10% already strong weapons would be stupid strong and OP as fuck, BUT AT LEAST WE COULD HAVE BUILD VARIETY!!! I don’t care if other people are dummy strong one-shotting everything in sight. I don’t! so long as they don’t play with me, I couldn’t care less!!! I want to be able to play with the unique, interesting legendaries. instead of the OPQ System. which, by the way, I dislike compared to the normal Q-System. let me use the frozen heart shield and the infiltrator mod. I don’t wanna be chained to the Seein’ Dead anymore :(

honestly at this point im starting to think removing slag was a mistake bc then at least we could use guns that aren’t solely damage-based guns. you know how fucked up you’ve got me that im thinking maybe slag wouldn’t be so bad this time around??? YOU GOT ME FUCKED UP B A D.

FIX THE GAME

IM TAKING A BREAK

MAYBE I’LL BE LESS UPSET WHEN I COME BACK FOR THE DLC BUT HOT. DIGGITY. SHIT.

[ablockforwritersblock]

A Note on Asks

So, I’ve been working through a bunch of old asks lately and clearing my inbox. BUT tumblr makes things difficult. It looks like new asks popped up randomly interspersed with old asks. I’m going to answer what I think are the new ones this weekend, but if you’ve sent an ask recently and don’t see an answer, feel free to send it again. Now that I’ve removed what I know is old, it’ll stand out a-okay. Thank you all for being so patient with me getting this running again!

-Mystery mod name that I still don’t have

[nardacci-does-art]

WIP dump, inventory as follows:

- An entire month’s very late Mermay set based on fruits - More Cubes - Some Ghibli-related doodles & draws - I took a ton of screenshots while watching all of the Ghibli movies & I wanna choose 2 shots from each movie & do screenie redraws - Remember that KK Slider album cover art challenge? Yeah I started one & then my laptop screen broke & I had to order a new one & I forgot about the KK Slider album art challenge until I found it in my WIPS while taking these photos today OTL - A somewhat ambitious doll mod that I started while waiting for some glue to dry on the project listed below this. Just realized I also have another doll mod to finish but I already uploaded the max amount of pics so uuhh off-camera there’s a half-finished Hornet from Hollow Knight doll mod pffb - A 2-sided wall that I’m making to take pics of my dolls in front of, with a bunch of plants on one side & a personal library with cozy fireplace on the other - Some amateur embroidering using the wrong kind of thread & the wrong kind of base fabric - Furby face molds made from one of those little furby keychains from mcdonalds in the 90′s that I got off ebay, which I will use to make a Furberos - A Trish Una cosplay that I’ve been severely slacking on since the convention I was gonna finish it for got postponed indefinitely due to the Backstreet Boys’ reunion tour - Scripts for 2 more haunted doll comics that I thought of forever ago & just haven’t been able to draw yet, thx brain - Notes for a silly dressup photoset idea where I see how many styles I can put together using my existing wardrobe

I’ve been all stressed lately & when I’m stress’t’d I can’t like, focus on one thing to completion. I have been cursed to bounce around between projects for a while so I just gotta ride it out. I decided to put together this WIP dump to remind myself that just because I haven’t finished any of these doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on them.

[indi-indigo-loves-barley]

The Beginning - Chapter 1

[Mod Arts: A little fanfic about how Barley and Indi met/got together. Complete fluff with a side of mild family issues. Rating: PG-13  Word Count: 1631]

“Barley’s chill,” Monica assured as she clicked a few times on her computer. Watching her as she did this, Indi bit her lip. She had been playing Quests of Yore with her online friends for years, bringing someone new into the bunch made her feel slightly queasy. What if he judged her? What if he made fun of her?

Indi didn’t have another moment to worry because suddenly the boy was there in a loud flurry. His one liner (that she had missed) managed to make both Kyle and Liam laugh; Monica gave him a pity chuckle. “Tough crowd,” the boy tsk-ed before acknowledging Indi, “so you don’t have a funny bone Indigo Girl?”

Indigo Girl. 

There was no malice behind the words –no intent to hurt or belittle– he was simply interacting with her like he would any other person. Her chest unconstricted and she smiled slightly. “Naw, I do, I just have a little more class,” she joked back and he chuckled in return. In fact, everyone had laughed at her joke, including Monica.

“So why have I never met m’lady before,” Barley asked, raising a dramatic eyebrow and Indi’s mood fell. The light, fluttery feeling dropped from her stomach. This was always the elephant in the room.

“I-Im sick… can’t go out…” Indi stuttered out quietly. Barley’s face immediately fell with hers and he sat back, his mood significantly changed.

“Oh… how sick?” He looked like a lost puppy. Indi chewed on her bottom lip before speaking. Why was he so torn up about this?

“Just Anemia… but it can get really bad some days. I get dizzy spells, bouts of random tiredness, random upset stomachs, and exercise is a bitch. My moms have decided it’s easier to keep me inside.” His face seemed to lighten a degree, but not back to its original state.

“Forever,” Kyle snorted out. The word hung in the air and Indi sucked on her bottom lip harder, she could see the cogs working in Barley’s head. She could see the moment he realized she had pretty much never seen the outside world.

“Well I get out for doctors appointments…” she finally spoke up.

“Enough of the chatter,” Monica finally chimed in looking bored. Indi knew it was an act, Monica was like an older sister to her, they would always look out for each other. “I wanna play some Quests of Yore.”

“Oh, of course,” Indi piped up, grateful for the distraction, “this new campaign is gonna put y’all through it!” She started pulling out her Quests of Yore journal and flipping through it, till she landed on her newest writing. “Sabotage, spies, amnesia, Civil Wars!” Liam and Kyle groaned, they never liked the complicated stuff. 

As Indi started to DM the session she got a private message from Barley. Accepting the friend request sent along with it, she opened it. I’m sorry. She stared at the text as rehearsed words poured from her mouth. She stared until she couldn’t any longer because she needed to look at her notes for prompting.

~ ~ ~

The text was left unreplied to for three whole days. Barley had begun to wonder if he had said the wrong thing, if maybe she now hated him. It was late on the third day when he had opened the chat again to check –he always worried that his notifications might glitch and he’d never know she even replied– upon opening the chat he found she was typing. Suddenly she stopped, after a long pause she started again, only to stop. Sighing he turned off his phone and flung it on the bed, covering his eyes with his arm. Five minutes later the phone went off. 

Snatching up it he turned on the lock screen to look, it was probably Kyle or Liam wanting to play online. He nearly dropped the phone when he realized it was a text from Indi. Immediately, he unlocked his phone to read it. What had she said?

I don’t know how to reply to this… I’ve tried for a bit, but I just can’t. Originally I had typed up this great message about how it was okay, and how it was for the better. But to be honest, I hate it. I feel like Rapunzel locked up in here. I don’t know what it’s like to be a normal… and that sucks. IDK why I’m telling you all this… but you seemed like you sincerely cared, so I thought you should sincerely know.

Barley drank in the text, he read it over and over until the words were burnt into his brain. How was he supposed to reply to this? He couldn’t just give her a throw away answer like ‘that sucks’, he wasn’t that type of guy. He genuinely cared. She had spilt her guts to him because she thought he genuinely cared.

And he was going to prove it.

Like what? He sent back.

Huh? She replied.

What normal things have you missed? There was a long pause as she typed up a list, but this time she typed furiously.

Stargazing, driving, going to playgrounds, hanging upside down in a tree, going to ice cream shops, just walking down the sidewalks.

Twisting up his mouth Barley stared at the text and honestly tried not to cry. This girl hadn’t had basic childhood experiences. She was a prisoner in her own house, not a child. Finally he texted back: What are you doing later tonight?

Why??? She answered back.

Just wondering.

That’s not weird.

Just answer me.

Nothing.

He smirked, this was it, he was going to help her tick off her list one thing at a time, starting with stargazing. Video call at 8pm-ish?

Sure?

Good, was all he replied before setting down his phone with a grin. Everything was in place for a perfect plan.

When 8 o’clock finally rolled around Barley started a call and Indi immediately picked up. “Which way does your room window face,” he asked.

“This is getting really creepy, are you gonna come kidnap me,” she joked back.

“No.”

“North.”

“Coolio.” Barley threw open his window and managed to scramble out of it, before Indi realized something was happening.

“What are you doing,” she was half laughing and half terrified.

“Climbing to the roof,” Barley grunted as he hoisted himself up. “There.” Refocusing the phone on his face he smiled and Indi gave him a real laugh.

“Barley, you are the strangest boy I’ve ever met.”

“Say what you must,” he joked back before settling on the northern hemisphere. “Are you looking out your window?” He watched as she shuffled around, and then he caught a glimpse of her room.

It seems lonelier than he imagined; white walls, neat bookshelf, the bed crisp and made, nothing on the floor (from what he saw). He stared a little too long, lost in thought and missed her words. She repeated them and he finally focused on the moment, but his stomach rolled.

“I’m at my window.” He caught her words this time around and plastered a grin on for her.

“Okay. See those five stars just to the right? They make a zig-zag line?”

“Yeah,” Indi breathed out looking up on her end.

“That’s Cassiopeia. And the right next to it, those four stars on the right, that’s Andromeda's legs. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are out too, off to the left there.”

“I cannot believe you,” Indi suddenly laughed. Her voice held no tension, only great humor. “You’re trying to take me stargazing.”

“Well, yeah. I-I thought I could help you live out your dreams you know? Tomorrow we can hang upside down from a tree, and once I get Guinevere up and running we can go driving too!” Barley was blushing slightly, he didn’t know why, but he felt anxious voicing his plan.

“Oh,” Indi’s cheeks flushed and he noted how he liked that, it brought some color to her face. “I-I’d like that.” They sat in silence for a short time before Indi bit her lip and spoke.

“So, Guinevere?”

“Yeah,” Barley piped up. “Sweet van, automatic, roomie in the back. She needs a lot of work though; new breaks, the back lights are shot, a spark plug needs replacing too. Oh and I totally have to repaint her, tan is not her color.”

“Sounds like a real junk heap,” Indi giggled, “why did you even bother to buy it?”

“Her,” Barley corrected and they laughed together for a bit. Once the laughter died down he said, “I thought it’d be a nice summer project, you know. Make my own car, then it’ll really be mine. And so Guinevere was born.”

“No yet,” Indi corrected, “once you fix her up she’ll be born. And we will have cake, and party hats. It’ll be a grand birthday.” They chuckled together and suddenly Indi let out a big yawn. “Whelp, that’s my cue for sleep, I have to make sure I get what I can. It helps to be rested.”

“Of course,” Barley nodded.

“Thanks. See you tomorrow after school?”

“Yeah! We have a tree to climb.” Smiling at each other they hung up. Climbing back down and into his room Barley grinned to himself. He was saving Rapunzel from her tower.

~ ~ ~

As Indi went through her night time ritual to get ready for sleep, she thought about Barley. Why was he being so nice to her? She had originally thought pity, but tonight he proved her wrong. There was no pity in his eyes, there was only a caring glow. If it wasn’t pity, then what was it? What made this boy care so much about her?

Lying down in her bed Indi stared at the ceiling for a while before falling into sleep.

[arocharacteradvice]

A minor plot point of my story involves the mc getting in a qpr with his aroace friend. I’ve thought a lot about making sure not to break the aroace chara’s boundaries, but I’m slightly worried I might be overlooking the mc’s desires? If the aroace chara doesn’t want to do things like have sex/kiss but those are things the mc would want from him, would it be wrong to put them together? The aroace chara encourages the mc pursuing other people for those things. Is that good enough?

So, I’m not going to make a definitive statement as to whether putting these two characters into a qpr would be ‘wrong’ or not. I also can’t give much specific guidance as I haven’t read your story and this is a very nuanced topic. (Which isn’t your fault, I’m just explaining why my answers might seem vague) What I can do is give some pointers, and poise some questions of you that might help you figure out if this is a healthy dynamic.

I’ll be addressing the aro side of things obviously as this is an aro character advice blog, but you can go to ace blogs for more info on that, and to be honest most of the advice I’ll be giving can likely apply to both areas.

Ok so first off: You sound like you want to respect the aro character, and not have the mc pressure them, which is a very good start! But I feel like you may still be viewing the dynamic as one where mc wants something, the qp can’t give it, and his boundaries are a problem that need to be solved, just with another relationship in this case rather than ‘curing’ the aro or having them give in.To be honest this is probably on some level because the mc is the main character. As a writer, you tend to think in terms of your protagonist’s goals.

(also, as a note, if you were at all thinking about having the qp giving in and kissing the mc anyway, unless this is portrayed as very very negative, Don’t Do That for the love of positive representation)

Anyway! Please, please be clear in your writing that one person looking for a certain thing out of their relationship, and another person not looking for it, doesn’t mean the first person is hard done by and suffering horribly by compromising. It’s simply a matter of incompatibility in that area.

Especially when the situation with your characters is that one wants romance, and the relationship is queerplatonic. It’s an explicitly purely platonic relationship style! This isn’t a case of person A ‘overlooking’ their desires because of person B, this is a case of person A entering a relationship they know full well will Not be romantic, still feeling unsatisfied because it’s not romantic, and person B having to suggest solutions to something that isn’t technically a problem. Imagine getting frustrated with a waitress because they wouldn’t kiss you. Why would you expect them to? A qpr isn’t a romantic relationship with one ‘faulty’ partner. Don’t treat it as such.

(It’s a bit of a different situation with sex, as qprs can be sexual, but that’s not my area)

Sure, some qprs have more romantic coded elements, but they’re not an expectation. If you’re going to write a qpr, please understand that actions within them are on an equal playing field. kissing and having sex have no more inherent value than holding hands or watching a movie. It’s about what individuals want. 

I’m also not trying to say that your mc doesn’t matter. Just that your bias could possibly be tipped towards him. He is compromising by not being able to kiss his qp, and the qp is probably compromising in a bunch of ways too. Maybe the qp wants to live together or get a dog or matching tattoos or go to heavy metal concerts together, and the mc doesn’t. There’s Stuff like that in all relationships, you just need to start also viewing romantic coded activities as Stuff, only with more cultural baggage.

On the topic of the mc having another partner: that sounds to me exactly like a compromise on the qp’s part. Did he go into this relationship wanting it to be polyamorous? Because it sounds like this is something he’s doing for the mc, especially as you say this is about the mc specifically having other partners, not the two of them as a couple becoming open. Even if the qp is enthusiastic about it, doesn’t mean it’s something he particularly wanted out of the relationship, just like the mc didn’t particularity want a non-romantic relationship. 

I would also question you as to why the qp is enthusiastic, and whether that’s a character choice or something you’ve done to benefit the mc. Maybe examine whether you have a negative gut reaction to the mc not seeing someone else for kissing/sex, and if so, work on unlearning that. I’m not saying that in your specific situation, the qp must feel pressured or not good enough, but it does happen and it’s worth thinking about how aros would feel seeing a character they’re meant to identify with happily telling their partner to see other people for desires the aro can’t fulfill. I know I personally would feel uncomfortable with it unless it was really well written, as I’ve been in a similar situation myself. 

Again, some people are fine with letting their partner do that kind of thing, or are polyamorous in the first place, but I would be very very careful about how you present it, (other aro blogs, and the qpr tag, may help) and consider whether it makes sense for the qp to feel this way based on context and their characterization. 

I hope this hasn’t sounded too harsh. I’m very aware that you could have considered all this already, but I feel like I need to cover a lot of ground because I don’t know specifics about your characters and this is a stupidly complicated topic.

A few things to consider adding in or developing further: 

Both partners entering or being allowed to enter other relationships. This might change the tone from ‘aros aren’t enough so my mc needs someone else to make up for it’ to ‘no one person has to fulfill either character’s desires!’. 

Having the mc realise that he doesn’t actually don’t need to date someone else. Not in a way that reinforces toxic monogamy or the idea of soulmates, but presented as him just working through amatonormativity and decided he’s cool without kissing anyone.

Showing what both characters get out of the relationship, rather than just what the mc doesn’t get. For instance maybe there’s a show just the two of them are into, or the qp buys the coolest presents, or if one is home late the other always waits for them to start eating dinner. Just small things that present them as good for/happy with each other rather than focusing on the one area of incompatibility. 

Showing why the qp wants to be in this relationship. I think this would help aro readers feel comfortable, as it’s kind of opt in for aros to date as opposed to alloromantics assuming they will, if that makes sense. We also, as a community, tend not to value our own goals and wants. Does he want that partner label to be able to easily explain what the mc means to him? Making that explicit would probably make him more relatable, and help stop aro readers projecting discomfort onto him. Explaining what makes the relationship fulfilling for him would also show that he doesn’t have to lower his expectations just because he’s not willing to be in a romantic relationship.

You don’t have to employ all or any of these ideas to make the relationship work, I just wanted you to have some options if you read my earlier advice on what not to do and though ‘heck, I did do that though’. You might also want to get some aro sensitivity readers to go through some later drafts of the story, though do be aware that some aros would be uncomfortable seeing an aro character in any kind of relationship. Not every aro will want to read what you write, but that’s ok so long as you consider those who will.

tl;dr: Don’t show the aro character’s boundaries as a hurdle, just a different relationship expectation than his partner. Consider why you’re writing the aro character the way you are, and take into consideration what they both enjoy about their relationship.

Good luck! And I’m so sorry for the long post!

- Mod Kaladin

[bubonickitten]

Hey, I saw an old post of yours about you finding a ton of dogs and bringing them home in Minecraft, and you mentioned that you were playing with mods. I was wondering if you'd be willing to recommend some good mods to me? Been playing with them for awhile but it's hard to find more good ones

I’m sorry it’s taken over a month for me to answer this – I’ve been using the mobile app way more than the browser lately and I always forget to check my inbox on mobile.

Anyway, I made a mod rec post before but it was almost two years ago and I’ve changed up my mod lineup a lot since, so here’s an updated list.

Right now I’m using Minecraft 1.12.2 and Minecraft Forge 1.12.2-14.23.5.2814. (Looks like there’s a newer edition of Forge, I just haven’t updated it yet.) Also some mods are dependent on other mods or require you to download additional resource packs/libraries/etc., so just make sure you check the requirements before downloading (probably goes without saying, but just in case).

I’m putting the list under a cut because otherwise this post will be an absolute wall of text. 

PERFORMANCE MODS

OptiFine: This one’s a performance mod that aims to boost FPS and improve the graphics.

NotEnoughIDs:This expands Minecraft’s ID limit for blocks and items, which is necessary if you’re using a ton of mods that add a lot of new content. 

CONVENIENCE MODS

Just Enough Items (JEI):This one is an item/block/recipe viewing tool with a search feature. There’s also a cheat mode that lets you just drop whatever item you want into your inventory.

Inventory Tweaks:This adds new options for managing/sorting your inventory (on your person or in storage chests) and some convenience features, like automatically replacing tools or item stacks when broken/depleted as long as you have more in your inventory (which also includes your backpacks, if you use the Backpacks mod listed below).

Multi-Hotbar:Just gives you 2-3 additional hotbars, so you aren’t just limited to nine slots and don’t have to constantly go into your inventory screen to move things around if there are more than nine tools/stacks you use regularly. 

JourneyMap: This one automatically maps your Minecraft world as you explore – there’s a minimap in the upper right corner of the screen, and it can be expanded to view the whole map if you want. It also lets you set waypoints (which you can teleport to), with an option to mark them with visible beacons that can be seen from the overworld. It also automatically creates waypoints when you die, so you can easily teleport back to where you died once you respawn.

Nature’s Compass:In-game biome finder, with teleport feature. Also works with biomes added by mods (e.g. Biomes O’ Plenty).

Find Your Way:Adds some new compasses to point you in the direction of various overworld structures (strongholds, mansions, villages, etc.). 

Backpacks: Adds recipes for backpacks. By default they’re 3x9 but by crafting and adding backpack pouches, they can be expanded. They start out brown but can be dyed. They can also be nested, so if you want a backpack within a backpack within a backpack, you can do that. Which I do. Excessively. My inventory situation is… hellishly recursive. But at least I can collect stuff forever before I have to go back home and stash it all.

Fence Jumper: A very simple convenience mod that lets players jump over fences. Doesn’t apply to mobs.

Survival Flight:This just lets you use Creative Mode’s flight mechanic in Survival Mode. Is it cheating? Probably, but it’s your Minecraft world and you can fly if you want to. 

WORLDGEN/ITEM ADDITIONS MODS 

Quark: This one adds a lot of new features – blocks, decoration, mobs, automation options, underground biomes, recipes, convenience tweaks, etc. etc. etc. Main website with descriptions of all the added features can be found here.

Roguelike Dungeons: As the description says, “a mod that generates large underground dungeon structures which have a procedurally generated layout and loot.”

Actually Additions:Adds a lot of random stuff, check the manual to see the full list.

Chisel:More decorative blocks, including many new texture variations of vanilla Minecraft blocks. 

Biomes O’ Plenty: Adds over 60 new biomes to the world, with new trees, blocks, plants, etc. Works best with the creation of a new world, but you can make it work with an existing world with some extra steps (see the installation section here). It’s pretty simple, but you need to download an NBT Editor to do it (last time I had to do it, I used NBT Explorer). 

Terraqueous:New fruit trees, flowers, mineable cloud blocks, tools, etc. 

Natura:More new worldgen stuff. 

Ferdinand’s Flowers:Literally just adds A Lot of new kinds of flowers to the overworld and makes things very, very colorful.

Pam’s HarvestCraft:More crops, food recipes, etc. 

Fairy Lights: Adds recipes for creating hanging lights, string lights, etc. for decoration and lighting options.

MrCrayfish’s Furniture Mod: Adds recipes for furniture. Mostly good for decoration, but some are also functional (e.g. cabinets and refrigerators that provide storage).

MOBS/CREATURES MODS

Mo’ Creatures: Adds a bunch of new mobs to the game (passive, neutral, hostile, and tamable).Many of the tamable mobs can be used as mounts, such as big cats, wyverns, manticores, giant scorpions, elephants, komodo dragons, dolphins, manta rays, bears, and several different kinds of horse (including unicorns, winged horses, ghost horses, and fairy horses). The config files are straightforward and easy to edit if you want to tweak the spawn rates of different mobs. Note: The Forge page says that DrZhark’s Custom Mob Spawner is required, but when I was having trouble with another mod’s custom mobs not spawning properly, Custom Mob Spawner turned out to be the culprit. I removed it, and it seems like Mo’ Creatures is still working even without Custom Mob Spawner, and it takes far less time to load a world than it did before. 

Dragon Mounts 2:Tameable dragon mounts. I love them.

Ice and Fire:Adds new mythical mobs – dragons, sirens, cockatrices, sea serpents, etc. 

Doggy Talents:Your tamed wolves can Do More Stuff.

Wolf Armor and Storage: What it says on the tin. Wolf armor is very similar to horse armor, and chests can be added to wolves like they can be added to llamas.

DIMENSIONS MODS

Twilight Forest: Adds a new dimension, the Twilight Forest. The list of added features can be found on the Wiki here. Each new biome has its own boss (usually with a corresponding dungeon) to defeat (bosses can be defeated more than once since there’s at least one per biome and, like in the overworld, there’s more than one of each kind of biome in the world). It follows a progression system, meaning certain areas (and therefore boss fights) are locked until you defeat other bosses (e.g. certain biomes having a weather effect that renders it virtually impossible to traverse until defeating the boss and getting the item that will allow you to pass through the area). It can be a bit laggy but it’s still fun.

Advent of Ascension:Adds several new dimensions with their own biomes, mobs, items, bosses, etc. It’s fun but I don’t recommend it if you hate clowns because there is an entire clown dimension and even though you can avoid that, there’s also this one clown mob that spawns in the overworld underground, you’ll just be minding your business mining and suddenly BOOM creepy murder clown in the shadows. Also, if you’re using Mo’ Creatures, don’t use the Custom Mob Spawner because it’ll prevent Ascension’s mobs from spawning properly. 

Cavern II:Adds new cavern dimensions to explore, new blocks and ores, and a miner stats/progression system. It’s the successor to the original Cavern mod. One of my favorite things is the randomite ore, which drops a random item when it’s mined (which can include items added by other mods). 

The Betweenlands:This one adds a dark, swampy dimension with its own lore and survival challenges (e.g. you can only eat what you can gather in the Betweenlands and any food from the overworld rots when entering the dimension; there are new mechanics like food sickness, player decay, and tool corrosion that occur when spending long periods of time in the Betweenlands; etc.). 

Erebus:Erebus is the “dimension of the arthropods” and is exactly what it says on the tin.

Better Nether:Some tweaks to the Nether that make it more fun to explore – new biomes, new mobs, new structures, etc. 

AbyssalCraft:New eldritch dimensions, mobs, biomes, items/blocks, etc. You do some inadvisable rituals, read some questionable tomes, collect some dubious artifacts, encounter things with lots of eyes and tentacles… oh and one time, when I was playing one of the earlier versions of the mod, Shoggoths invaded my home and killed all my horses and left a residue all over everything and I had to restore an old backup save, so. I recommend reading the wiki before you do any summoning rituals.

VoidCraft:This is an older mod no longer in development, but if you’re like me and get bored easily and download every new dimension mod you can find, have at it. 

The Aether II:This is the sequel to the old Aether mod (which also has a reboot for Minecraft 1.12, here). It’s still in development and I actually haven’t had a chance to explore the new dimension much yet myself, but it looks interesting. 

[cynthiaandsamus]

Game Blondes Crystal Clear Nuzlocke Part 2: A Shining Chance!

“Hey I’m blonde!”

“…I’m also blonde.”

“AND WE’RE THE GAME BLONDES!!”

(Game Blondes Logo by @game-overture)

“Welcome back! So last time on Game Blondes we started our freeroam Crystal Clear Nuzlocke, our rat died in our first battle but we got a lot of other pokemon to replace it, fought a dude with a Shiny Ponyta and made our way halfway across Johto to fuck around. Now we’re gonna go check out Goldenrod since the dude with the Ponyta mentioned it and see if we can start nailing down some badges.”

“Okay so just a note about this game, seems like the trainer battles scale to your badges but the wild pokemon stay around the level they would be… considering the Hoothoot and Psyduck you caught last episode were in the early teens and you still have zero badges.” Cynthia pondered.

“So technically I could just run into a field way down the line and catch something super powerful and ram through the whole game?”

“Well theoretically, as long as you could manage to catch it and manage to live with yourself for cheesing the game that represents my life’s work and career.”

“…fine, fine. Spoilsport…” Samus huffed. “Anyway, I’m making my way down from Ecruteak to Goldenrod, getting a few levels on Danny that Gastly from this guy with four Voltorbs that can’t even touch him. Gonna see if we can find that restaurant the DOOM guy mentioned and if not I’ll see if I can get a gym badge or something. Got a few levels on everyone from all the trainers on this route and got the TM for Rollout, that’s a fun move.”

“You won’t think so later…” Cynthia snickered.

“Well we’re in Goldenrod… shit this is Whitney’s town!?”

“Yup, welcome to Rolloutville, population you.”

“Should we save this gym for last for the memes? I mean that’d be an epic final battle.”

“I’m game, anything to put off going against that crazy cow lady…” Samus grumbled as she searched the town. “Well the train’s here so I can get to Saffron and Kanto, it’d be funny if I got Sabrina for my first badge, bet it’d piss her off to get beaten by a level 10 Gastly.” She chuckled.

“I wouldn’t tease Sabrina too much, she can beat you up without touching you…”

“I’ll hold off on it for now if only because I already have a lot to explore that I’m skipping over and Saffron is ridiculously big. At least I got a bike to travel it a bit faster. Oh and an Eevee sitting on a table, lemme take that…”

“Hang on, lemme see that Eevee real quick…” Cynthia took the controls with a grin.

-10 Minutes Later-

“HOLY SHIT IT’S SHINY! How’d you do that!?” Samus gasped.

“Weren’t you paying attention to the tutorial? Shockslayer said Gift pokemon have a higher shiny rate and the game saves before you pick them up for soft resetting, so if you get a good rhymn down you can reset a lot real quick and get a shiny.”

“That is so cool! I love you Cynthia! I got a White Eevee!”

“This counts as part of your birthday present, I’m not helping you any further.”

“Fine fine.” Samus grinned, absolutely giddy with the white fluffball. “I’m gonna name you… Norman. Cause you’re Normal-type and a smart little white fluffball and we’ve been watching The Promised Neverland lately.”

“Hopefully that’s not an omen for this Nuzlocke…”

“Ah shit is this accidentally in bad taste?” Samus winced. “Well time to go Underground and explore some more of the shops and punch some of these trainers in the throat.”

“…no wonder the Pokemon League denied your application to become a trainer.”

“Well I got a coin case and it looks like this guy is blocking the path to the other hallway so I’ll leave him alone for now, I’ve been warned that some of these guys have huge teams that can wipe me out…”

“Yeah, I read there’s a level 100 Magikarp somewhere in Kanto’s early game, so be on the lookout for steamrollers…”

“Well since I got the Coin Case might as well check out the game corner…”

“Holy crap you can just buy a Master Ball if you have enough coins! And a Lucky Egg too! I definitely don’t have enough time for that but that’s really cool!”

“And you can get some pretty cool pokemon too… too bad you already have Eevee so you can’t get any more pokemon for this town…”

“That’s fine, I’m very content with my Shiny Eevee, lemme get some coins though…”

(Mun Note: Due to Standards and Practices we are not allowed to show Samus gambling in case you’re in a country that hates it)

-One Gambling Montage Later-

 “Well I doubled my coins and officially hate gambling, so  let’s go check out the Department store, I’m sure there’s some cool stuff there, only got that, the Radio Tower and the gym left so almost time to be on our way.”

“Yay! Shopping spree!”

“Oh sweet, here’s the Tradeback NPC, he can evolve my guys, I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get an Upgrade for Porygon.”

“Well there it is, you just need more money…”

“Well I’ll save up and come back, I’ll let Polly stay as she is for now, can’t have my baby growing up too fast. We don’t even have a single badge yet.”

“Damn that’s right, we’ve just been derping around for an episode and a half…”

“Well we found a bunch of TMs at the shop here, keep those in mind, damn I really am broke…  Just gonna stock up on balls, check the radio tower and get out of here before Whitney crushes me for dawdling in her town…”

“Oh wow, an Event Move Tutor, you can learn all those weird moves they give out at events, give it a try and get your pokemon some broken moves~” Cynthia giggled.

“Well Polly learned Barrier, Norman learned Growth and Hooters learned Night Shade, so that’s all cool.” Samus grinned. “Got me some custom pokemon~ Making my way up the tower got a point for the Password radio game thing,  got a Sunny Day TM and a Pink Bow, that’s perfect for Polly, now she can feel even more like a girl and power up her Normal-type moves.”

“Your Trans Porygon is really cute.”

“Give the Amulet Coin Polly was holding to Norman now and at the top of the tower is this CHAOS guy who says he’s the new director of the station and wants to battle… here goes nothing I guess.”

“He… just has a level four Delibird… that’s not very intimidating for a custom trainer for this mod.”

“You have literally no badges and have been picking up pokemon left and right, feel like you’re a bit OP for this early in the game…” Cynthia sighed.

“Well he has a Cleffa too and I got some good money from it, guess that was worth it.  And I got a Nugget, so guess that was just a money pitstop. Well that’s it for Goldenrod, couldn’t find the restaurant but time to go to the next route and catch a new pokemon…”

-A bunch of pokemon Samus has already caught later-

“Oh wow a Ditto! And right next to the Daycare too! Guess I know what this guy was there for…” Cynthia chuckled.

“FUCK it took like all my balls but I got it… why did I want this thing again?”

“Breeding?”

“Breeding!? This is a children’s game I’m not gonna make my monsters have sex, what kind of sick fucks are you trainers?”

“Well you have it now so that’s good.”

“I’ll name it “Brothel” …for obvious reasons. I really need to get some badges so these trainers stop having level like six pokemon.”

“Then pick a gym already.”

“Fine, next town we go to I’ll fight the gym there. Just getting through this forest and catching this Oddish (nicknamed Oddball).  Got the Headbutt TM so I can punch trees like this is Minecraft.”

“Ahhh a Dark Souls reference last time and Minecraft now, soon we’ll be a regular mainstream Let’s Play streamer.”

“Awww man, Bulbasaur pops up here! We could’ve caught the mun if they showed up first!”

(Sad Bulbamun noises)

“This girl says Kurt knows about the Forest Guardian, so better head into town to see what that’s about… oh neat, I don’t have to wait to get Apricorn balls, this guy in Kurt’s house sells them for money.”

“And Kurt passed you off onto Professor Oak about the Forest Guardian thing… sounds like a fetch quest to me…” Cynthia sighed.

“Might as well squash some bugs for my first gym, I mean Bugs seem like a fitting start to me.”

“I mean Bug-types aren’t the most powerful but Bugsy does the best with what he can…”

“Alright Hooters, you’re a bird, you’re in charge of the bug squishing duty.”

“Well he’s got a Scyther at least, that’s cool, but he’s still no match for Hooters!”

“Wow that was quick, you and your boob-themed owl are unstoppable.”

“Well he did poison Hooters and get her down a bit, so if I’m not careful she could faint on the way back to the gym, but I did get my first badge so hopefully stuff gets more challenging from here~ One badge down, seven to go.”

“Fifteen.”

“…what?”

“Crystal Clear has both Kanto and Johto gyms in it, there are sixteen badges, you have fifteen left.”

“…well shit, I better get cracking…”

“Looks like you got a call from the Pokemon League too, they say if you’re in Johto to visit Sprout Tower to get something cool, a “FLASHy” reward… subtle and to go pay your respects in Ilex Forest, that’s probably to do with the sidequest we stumbled on earlier.”

“Well I’m starting to move up in the world, they gotta start recognizing me! Well might as well go down to this Slowpoke Well and catch something. Ooooh there’s breakable rocks here, I’ll teach Dudette Rock Smash and break one to see if I find something cool~

“OH FUCKLE, A SHUCKLE!”

“CRAP! I killed it, it gave me an Encore so I couldn’t get out of the loop… ugh, oh well, guess there’s no use crying over spilled Shuckle. Guess that’s all I can do in the Well without Strength for now… Might as well work my way back up to Violet Town and go to Sprout Tower like the League said, even if I don’t want to go in order, getting that reward would probably be good and get me some more pokemon along the way.”

“Well you killed that Zubat too, so no new pokemon on this route either.”

“WHY DOES EVERYTHING I TOUCH DIE!?”

“At least you caught that Whooper (named Whoop) in Union Cave.”

“Well Whoop de doo. A few battles later and I’m back in Violet City. I didn’t wanna do these gyms in order but I guess doing Flying-types second would be fine since I’m here anyway and have the pokemon for it…I need to get more badges to increase trainer levels so I’m not too OP right away.”

“Dudette, you’re in charge, kill these birds with one stone.”

“Well you’re the same level so I guess you’re not too overleveled, you just have a serious type advantage.” Cynthia sighed.

“Well took down his Pidgey but damn, wasn’t expecting Pidgeotto to have Mud Slap, Dudette’s in the red and her accuracy has gone to shit, better switch out. Do your best Poly! Alright! Two Psybeams and Pidgeotto is down~”

“Another badge and another call from the Pokemon League.”

“This time a warning about not watering wiggling trees, so you can probably get the watering can from that girl we saw in Goldenrod, plus a message about getting Cut from the Charcoal guy in Azalea Town and a note that Professor Elm is very generous so we should probably go back to him too.”

“Okay so we’re doing pretty good for this little neck of Johto, lemme make a list real quick of our goals.

1.       Go up Sprout Tower and get the reward

2.       Go back to Professor Elm and get a reward

3.       Get Cut from the Charcoal dude

4.       Squirt Trees

5.       Talk to Professor Oak about Ilex Forest shit

6.       ???

7.       Profit

“Sounds about right to me, looks like we have a lot to do… NEXT TIME ON GAME BLONDES!”

Samus’s Journey So Far:

(Color-coding the path by episode for now, may or may not continue to do this depending on if it’s a pain in the ass when it starts getting bigger)

Samus’s Current Team:

[punkpuns]

Answering Asks Again

Hi there, I’ve built up a bit of a backlog on asks so here are a whole bunch of them answered.

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Friend I’m sorry I got to you late - but maybe that’ll help, at school you should have a selection of thrift shops around where other students have been donating stuff as they’ve moved off campus and that’s a goldmine. I’d say hit the thrift shops, find some stuff you think looks good and is comfortable, and shop only on half-off days. If there’s nothing that quite looks like you want it to, mod it.

And look, tossing out everything you’ve got and starting fresh is pretty wasteful - maybe see if there’s someone in your dorm who would be down to trade? Maybe you could set up a facebook clothing swap event for people on campus? Use it as an excuse to get to know people. Or mod the clothes you’ve got - khakis and a polo can be turned into cutoffs and a tanktop pretty easily, and a stencil plus some acrylic paint from the art supply section of the campus bookstore can make you some pretty awesome custom stuff, you can dye even the most pastel of sundresses black.

Experiment, figure out what you like. Start slow and add one piece at a time - maybe stovepipe jeans aren’t your thing so buying four pairs would be a mistake. Maybe you only want to wear yoga pants and I salute you, but that’s up to you to figure out.

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This feels a little bit trollish because I’m having trouble envisioning an adult who works in a law office and in local politics but hasn’t figured out how to dress in a way they want to or hasn’t figured out whether or not they should.

I’m going to assume you’re young in which case I’m going to actually recommend that you don’t bring much of your style to work for one reason: optics are important.

If you’re involved in local government, work at a law office, and are a punk it stands to reason that you’re pretty politically active and motivated to make changes in the world, and it sounds like you’re uniquely positioned to do so! But here’s the thing: the last time I went to talk to the city council and a group of us showed up in black the local paper called us “kids” and “extras from a Depeche Mode video.” I now own a mousey brown skirt suit and a wig to go talk to the city council.

It’s great to express yourself, it’s less great if expressing yourself prevents you from achieving your goals or making the changes you want to see in the world. It’s really easy to pigeonhole punks as slacktivist poseurs who masturbate to Richard Spencer punching remixes and never vote and that’s because a lot of punks live up to that image.

So I guess what my real advice is is feel out your office, maybe you can get away with skull earrings or a grommeted wristband for your watch but keep your hair to neutral colors if it’s going to get you fired. Activists need attorneys and paralegals and local city councils on our side so there’s value in sucking it up and dealing with the system until you’ve got uplifted enough voices to change it.

Unless you work at, like, the Exxon law offices or with a prosecutor or something. In which case ? why? would you be here? of all places?

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Okay the true punk answer is wear whatever you’re comfortable in. Nobody should care what you’re wearing and if they do they’re an asshole.

That said I understand why it can be uncomfortable to stand out in a crowd - a dark pair of pants, a tee shirt, and a hoodie (if it’s cold enough for one) should be physically comfortable and won’t make you stand out like a sore thumb. Wear comfortable shoes that are thick enough to protect your feet in case you get stepped on, make sure your jeans have enough pockets that you don’t have to carry a purse.

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ALWAYS. If you want in on this donate $10 to the ACLU, RAICES, a local abortion fund, Planned Parenthood, or the United Way Flint Water Fund. Any of these groups will email you a receipt for your donation. Screenshot that receipt and send it to me through tumblr messenger along with a picture of whoever you want illustrated, if you want to see them as a punk, goth, or metalhead, and the names of their 3 favorite bands and I will get an illustration back to you (1 figure only, waist up, grays, no background).

If you donate more I’ll do a more detailed illustration. Here’s an example of one that I did for one of my college professors:

She donated $100. I’ve got limited time to draw so if you want a drawing like that one ^^^ message me first and make sure I’ve got my schedule clear enough for it.

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Boy howdy do I ever:

https://www.ocweekly.com/five-native-american-bands-to-give-thanks-for-6596916/

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/09/8-artists-exploding-the-concept-of-native-american.html

http://remezcla.com/lists/music/los-angeles-latinx-punk-bands/

http://tanyatagaq.com/

http://www.toiletovhell.com/here-are-some-indigenousnative-metal-bands-to-help-you-celebrate-columbus-day/

http://remezcla.com/features/music/the-ogs-goth-playlist/

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/38098/1/photos-from-la-s-latinx-metal-scene

https://www.mixcloud.com/LovelyMetalhead/lovely-talks-heavy-episode-25-black-and-metal/

http://lord-kitschener.tumblr.com/post/158978645618/so-goth-i-was-born-black

https://www.racked.com/2017/10/23/16492192/black-goth-girls

http://coilhouse.net/2012/09/i-am-so-goth-i-was-born-black/

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/28372/1/why-is-the-history-of-punk-music-so-white

http://diningwithdana.tumblr.com/post/115035345741/pocs-in-gothdarkindustrial-music-hey-fab-bats

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/28419/1/the-black-punk-pioneers-who-made-music-history

http://www.post-punk.com/goth-so-white-black-representation-in-the-post-punk-scene/

As to whether I’ve got any comics in particular about race in the goth/punk/metal scene, I’ve touched on it here and there and discussed why racism doesn’t belong in the scene but I’ve never gone in depth about the people of color who have been erased from the history, but I would very much like to and I have some notes that I’m collecting to do so.

[billvsamerica]

Sin City

We’ve all noticed the lingering stare of a pervert.

On the high street when you’re shopping for Christmas presents or in the cinema when you’re watching the late night showing of Toy Story on your own again. But imagine you’re in a city full of them. Tight polyester trousers with flared bottoms, beer bellys flowing over the top of cheap plastic belts, topped off with a nice scruffy pair of Reeboks from the late 90s. But enough about my dad, this is the story of our latest adventure west.

A savory couple in a far from savory place

I always thought Vegas was a debauched place. That’s where it gets the nickname - Naughty Little Town for Naughty People. Prostitution and weed are both legal, but somehow in a much less savoury way than Amsterdam. With all that being said, we could never have known that the most morally reprehensible act we would witness would take place on the connecting flight from Chicago to Vegas.

Some of the most exciting parts of a holiday go on in the walkway of the airplane. Thoughts flood your mind: ‘Where will we be sitting?’ ‘What are my chances of survival if this thing goes down?’ ‘Who will the “third” person be?’ ‘Hopefully, there isn’t a “third” person!’ ‘Oh God, this things coming down, I’ve had a premonition. I need to warn everybody else on board.’ ‘No, don’t ruin it. It’s fine. You’re being stupid.’ ‘Oh, Jesus Christ! I just signed our death warrant.’ ‘I wonder if they have a TV?!’ etc.

Shelby and I took our spots next to the "third" person in the window seat, who we immediately disliked just for existing in a space near us, and opened our books: Shelby was reading an interesting book about the Appalachian area of America and taking on a challenging Sudoku puzzle. I was reading a different kind of book, still just as challenging though, the instructions on how to work the TV.

After the internal struggle of whether it’s okay to ignore the air stewardesses safety announcements, the passengers settled into the flight. The aircraft was not quite Wright Brothers old, but it was missing the mod cons of a transatlantic flight, like being able to choose an individual movie. However, it did have DirectTV channels. Shelby and I stuck on the Oscar nominated Can You Ever Forgive Me?.

I glanced over at the "third" person's film choice. I couldn't recognise the show, but the vibrant colours and teenage actors led me to believe it was some sort of kid's show. I looked at the man. No, it wasn't a large child traveling alone. It was definitely a man - a man wearing a tight t shirt that accentuated his man breast. I poked Shelby, she grunted her usual response:

"What the fuck do you want, fuckwit?"

She said, in a loving way though.

“What show is that?”

She glanced across at his screen.

"i-Carly"

"No, you Shelby. Now, what show is that?"

"It's called i-Carly. Now will you shut the fuck up?"

Bit weird.  Maybe he just put it on by mistake. Probably not watching it.

Fast forward three hours, I-Carly is still on his TV. And the man is inches from the screen. I looked at him intently. Does he not know we can see him? He's not in some sort of invisible perv’ chamber, although I'm sure those exist somewhere in Vegas.

I looked down to make sure nothing dodgy is...  Unfortunately, the man was definitely touching himself. Now, I'll give him a bit of credit. His hand was outside the trousers, but that only made it slightly better. Suddenly, it dawned on me - Shelby was in the middle. I wasn’t worried about her, per say. He was clearly into much younger people, but she might accidentally be hit with his flailing elbow or something. She looked across at him then up and me and mouthed,

"What do we do?"

For the last thirty minutes I tried my hardest to put the man off. I gazed out the window and loudly said a range of off-putting phrases:

"Wow! Look at that skyline," "Can't believe we're flying in the sky right now!" "Do you know why they stopped serving peanuts on flights? What about the people allergic to pretzels? Nobody ever thought of them!"

If that lot didn’t put him off, nothing would.

As we walked from the airplane into Vegas airport, we discussed what we should do. I was going to confront him, and say what? Don't do that sort of thing, you sick freak. I was going to grab him by the scruff of the neck, shake him and say,

“That's digusting, you sweaty little cretin!”

I was going to be the hero and stop all bad things happening forever everywhere... I... I... I picked up our bags and we got in a cab to Caesar’s Palace.

The taxi from the airport into Vegas took us adjacent to the strip. Huge replica buildings designed to look like other things. It’s all smoke and mirrors, a mirage in the middle of the dessert like the magic shows that run every night of the week. After taking a detour we didn’t ask for and racking up a huge bill, we arrived at Caesar’s Palace.

Anybody fancy a crap? (That’s not my dad, but a man in a shirt)

We walked through the modern building designed to look like the Colosseum - a gaudy Rome rip off - and bumped into our own ancient relics in the form of my parents. We hugged. They were here again, but their bags weren’t.

That night, we had a quick go on the slot machines, or as cool locals call them, ‘the slotties’ (and lost a bit of money). My dad became slightly enamoured with the virtual blackjack game, and then we all headed to bed to recuperate for the next day. The city may never sleep, but we were certainly going to.

The next morning, we looked out through our curtains at the view of the famous Belagio Hotel’s dancing fountain show, the Eiffel Tower, and a giant poster of Donnie Osmond. We had a fat breakfast, then walked down the strip.

Along the way, we ducked into a casino for a cheeky lil dabble. Dad spotted the virtual blackjack, and I saw his eyes light up. He was straight on it. We watched eagerly with anticipation as he turned his $20 into $5 and then into $25 and then into $15 and then he cashed out. With his cashed out voucher, I jumped onto a huge slot machine that I had no idea as to the workings. I hit a few buttons, and it flashed on the screen “Extreme!”. The lights started strobing and the lines span like the slick tires on a Ford Escort. My cash started building along with my adrenalin..  15-20-25... It kept going up and up and stopped, eventually, at $85. I took the money out and left the casino $85 richer because I didn’t give my dad his investment back.

What a start! Maybe I was a natural. Next stop, World Poker Tournament, but first, the off license for a can of beer that I could legally drink on the high street. It was like being back in Worcester on a Tuesday morning, I mean Wednesday afternoon, I mean Saturday evening.

The strip was packed with hen-dos, lad’s holidays, and waddling families who wanted a change from Disney. Me and my dad walked passed a man selling his hip-hop CD. I declined.

“Forget you then in your Bill Cosby sweater,” he said and laughed.

This drove me to grab another beer from a CVS. Inside, the cashier said,

“What a lovely sweater!”

Me and dad-livin’ it large Vegas

As you can imagine, I had very mixed emotions on the jumper and have not worn it since.

Shelby and mom stormed ahead up the strip, leaving me and dad to be awkwardly approached by dancing girls requesting a photo with us. It’s as if we looked like a couple of creepy blokes or something. We walked next to a bar where a man was strapped to a wooden chair and being forced to drink a strange green liquid by a woman in her underwear. Normally, this might be cause for alerting the authorities, but not in Vegas.

A group on a stag do walked passed us and my dad turned to me,

“Did you see that shirt? I need to get one of those!”

I had to tell him that it said “VAGITARIAN” not “VEGETARIAN”.  He didn’t want one anymore.

After walking the equivalent of a half marathon up and down the strip, Shelby wanted us to recuperate at one of the West’s staple restaurants, In and Out Burger - a place known for juicy hamburgers. We’d heard that they also had veggie burgers for the three of us who don’t eat the carcasses of dead animals.

Our number came up and we sat down at a table that had just been vacated. The remnants of ravenous tub tubs lay around and an In and Out employee was kind enough to offer to clean it up for us. She picked up a tray with the remains of a sweaty burger on it. In slow motion, the burger, wrapper, and discarded sauce tumbled off the tray and down, down, down, onto my dad’s cream trousers, the only pair he had as his bag was currently somewhere in Uzbekistan.

Turned a corner in Nevada to see the New York Skyline (and a rollercoaster)

This hilarious event only slightly made up for the fact that the veggie burger was two pieces of lettuce and a tomato between a couple of soggy bits of bun. As the name suggests, we were in and out of there real quick.

The next day we went to Fremont Street, the second most famous street in Vegas after the strip. A biting wind whipped through the dimly lit passageway lined with souvenir stores, Irish bars and strip clubs. Grubby looking men stood along the street staring wildly at the tourists passing by. They held cardboard signs that read quite witty things like “I’ll look after your wife while you gamble” and some less witty - “Horny!”.

A woman danced on a huge stage with barely any clothes on while a bunch of homeless people rocked back and forwards in front of her, totally unaware, it seemed, that she was there. An abandoned car with red flashing lights moaned and groaned as a zombie popped out the top. In fairness, it was advertising a local Walking Dead Exhibit, but I wouldn’t have been that surprised if it was actually happening on this street.

Having survived Fremont Street, I decided another dabble was in order (I was continually having these dabbles the whole time, but I’m only going to tell you about the times I won). I selected my machine, one without a chair that looked very old, and put in my note. The machine started to freak out and I knew I was onto another winner - $160 coughed up this time. I was a genius. A genius I tell you and definitely did not spend all that money very quickly in other machines. Ahem.

Join me next time as I recount the next stage of the adventure, our journey to the grandest canyon of them all and beyond to the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.