#need to go back to the location in game to double check xd

[elvenbeard]

🏳️‍🌈 Vince (& Kerry) at Night City Pride (7/10) 🏳️‍⚧️

Would you even still *need* to celebrate Pride in 2077? In a perfect world maybe not, at least not in the sense we need it now. But even if bigots wouldn't exist, it would still be a celebration of love and authenticity, embracing yourself and others, and remembering the fight past generations have fought to get there.

Vince spent a large part of his life hiding, then fighting and standing up for himself, then trying to find his place and acceptance - from others and from within. You can bet your ass he's gonna be there and celebrating, making up for all the years he couldn't, for a variety of reaaons... and finally with his new found family, too.

[redorich]

(Hermit Canyon AU)

Eventually, the Hermit seems to get attached to Puffy. It makes sense- it's been trading gifts with her for months now, and has even shown itself to her a few times, albeit while invisible.

The other SMPers don't think much of it at first. The more curious members ask Puffy questions about The Hermit sometimes, but she knows little, so they quickly give up. Occasionally someone will try to explore the ridiculously trapped town, but they give up once it's obvious they're not getting in.

The trades grow more and more valuable, and one day Puffy opens her barrel to find a beacon, and enough iron to fully power it. She's stunned, naturally. To think the Hermit is so capable it can kill a Wither just to give a beacon away- she can barely believe it.

(In actuality, they cheesed it on the Nether roof, but she doesn't know that)

She does try to hide it, but word gets around, and after another few failed raids on the town (and some rumours that the Hermit can teleport), things settle down again, as much as they can on the SMP.

Then someone steals Puffy's beacon. {You decide who, because I. don't actually watch DSMP, admittedly.}

Puffy, naturally, is devestated- she can't imagine the work the Hermit put into getting it for her in the first place (the most time-consuming thing was getting the Wither skulls, and it wasn't even that bad). But there's not really much she can do, so she carries on.

Except, the next day, the thief wakes up to find their house full of chickens, Puffy's beacon missing, and every single empty space in their chests filled with strategically renamed light grey stained glass panes.

They go outside to find the entire contents of a cave spider spawner on their front lawn. Alongside a ravager. With speed potions. Renamed Pamela's Revenge.

(Cue half the SMP trying to find out who Pamela is)

Puffy, meanwhile, wakes to find her beacon back in its rightful place, and a beautifully terraformed garden outside her house (Scar accidentally detonated a creeper and naturally had to fix the hole...and then went a little overboard. But it's fine.)

op i want you to know that i considered just posting your ask, because it’s already So Good and practically a fic on its own, but i really wanted even more content so i wrote it myself. ANYWAY here’s sapnap’s terrible horrible no good very bad day xD

It’s risky, doing anything on the wide open Nether roof where anyone can see. Hell, using a beacon at all is risky for the Hermits. Still, they’ve got all sorts of farms and copious amounts of materials at their fingertips. They’re past early game, stuck in mid-game while they wait for Etho to scope out more locations, while they build the second Upside Down (which Grian has named the Upside-ier Down), while they build their joint bases miles out from civilization. 

Having a beacon would make the process faster, they reason to themselves. They certainly aren’t risking being discovered just because they’re bored and getting a beacon is an excuse to do something. And hell, Tango made that giant, super-efficient wither skeleton skull farm right next to his double blaze spawner farm, so they might as well mass-produce Nether stars by killing multiple Withers. It’s not that difficult.

On another note, it’s after they gift Puffy one of their many beacons, in addition to a kit of iron blocks for powering the beacon that the Hermits realize that while their gifts are increasing in expense, Puffy’s are... not. So, if Puffy’s around average in the Dream SMP economy, they’ve figured out where most players meet their limit. She hasn’t stopped dropping by, though, which is nice. Her gifts become increasingly handmade, in lieu of upping the ante on material wealth. The Hermits suppose that hand-crafted items have a value that extends past money. Each and every one of them has something that she’s made for them, whether it be a shawl, a blanket, a set of earrings, a bracelet, or a pair of socks.

Apparently the beacon is more of a Big Deal than the Hermits thought. After all, the rainbow castle has several. However, the Hermits realize that they’ve been shortsighted. While it is true that the rainbow castle has several beacons, the castle is the only place that they’ve seen any beacons.

Sapnap steals the beacon. He doesn’t particularly need it, but he wants it, and stealing is fun. Maybe if he’s lucky, he’ll even start another minor war over it. He hasn’t fought Puffy very much. He wonders if she can put up a good fight.

Puffy’s-- not distraught, but she’s upset. That was a gift from the Hermit, a friend who she’s been pulling out of its shell. She doesn’t have much use for a beacon, but then again, neither does Sapnap; he’s just a dick. Just in case, Puffy leaves a note with the rest of the items she leaves in her barrel:

Dear Hermit,

I’m very sorry for losing the beacon you gave me. I made the mistake of keeping it in a normal chest instead of an Ender chest, so Sapnap stole it. I should have seen that coming. I’ll try to get it back, but if I don’t, please know that I didn’t throw it away.

Thank you,

Puffy.

Sapnap wakes up in the middle of a lake. His mattress is floating, and when he tries to paddle back to shore (once he’s done screaming), the mattress tips over and he receives an unpleasant fishy wakeup call. He trudges into his house for a shower, and finds that the showerhead, as well as all his faucets, have been stuffed with ramen noodle seasoning. 

He looks in his chests for a bucket of water. The first chest he checks is not only full of light gray glass, but also trapped. When he opens it, pufferfish fall out of the ceiling and bounce around. He dies to their poison twice before they finally die. The next chest he opens also has light gray glass, no water buckets, and a trap. This one, though, only releases a metric fuckton of chickens into his house. It’s fine. This is fine.

As he looks through his chests, he realizes something. They’ve got glass in them, sure, and they’ve been raided of water buckets, but... the beacon is gone. None of his other items, like enchanted netherite tools or literal diamond blocks, have been stolen. Just Puffy’s beacon.

Whoever pranked him missed a bucket, so he promptly dumps it over his head in an effort to smell less like pond scum and spicy chicken noodles. It takes the whole day to get his base back in order: he’s got to clean out all the faucets, empty all the glass from his chests, throw out all the dead pufferfish, and slaughter chickens by the dozens.

He can’t sleep. Are you fucking kidding. He can’t sleep. A soft hiss catches his attention, only audible now that the quiet of night has fallen. Is there somehow an unlit cave under his base?

Nope. As he steps outside onto his front lawn, he sees a daylight detector near the door that he missed when he came inside this morning. The daylight detector seems to have released approximately fifteen bajillion cave spiders onto his lawn, and they’re all angry, so he shuts the front door in their faces and goes back inside. That’s a problem for tomorrow’s him.

Horns spear the wall right next to where Sapnap was standing five seconds ago. He yelps. What the fuck is a ravager doing on his front porch? And why the FUCK does it have speed potion particles?!

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Sapnap hit the ground too hard whilst trying to escape Pamela’s Revenge>

<Sapnap was slain by Cave Spider>

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Georgenotfound> who is pamela’s revenge

<Sapnap> ;RVAER

<Sapnap> HELP

<Sapnap> RAVEAGER

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Georgenotfound> good night sapnap :)

<Sapnap> GEORGE OYU BITCH HLEP ME

<Sapnap was slain by Pamela’s Revenge>

<Georgenotfound> zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

-------

Puffy sees a whole lot of nonsense in the chat when she wakes up in the morning, and promptly decides to ignore it. She goes about her morning as usual, heading out to her front porch to sip a cup of coffee in peace. 

She... has a garden now. Hm. That wasn’t there before. And come to think of it, neither was the beacon she lost.

“Thanks, Hermit,” she says with a smile.

-------

Stress sips a cup of tea, having breakfast in Grian’s rustic sitting room with a few of her fellow Hermits.

“D’ya think we went overboard?” she says.

“...Nah,” Cub says.

[sunnysviolin]

Sometimes, when sunny visits kels house for a sleepover, (or just anyones house except for basils) the host would always wake up to:

A missing sunny (who is most likely in some weird ass place like the roof)

A sunny that it staring at you from the foot of the bed or beside it

A sunny that stares from the doorway (he stares alot)

Or

A sunny that is playing bo en my time at an unreasonable hour but at a reasonable volume (or vise versa)

Alright so a different nonnie also sent me “How many times do you think sunny scares people by staring at them from the foot of the bed / beside them when they wake up?” So I’m....combining these two XD Also if you guys like....resend things can you say they’re a resend LOL bc if I have another Cho double take situation I’m going to backflip into the sun. Also don’t resend more than twice (i’m gonna be putting that in my bio bc....yeah don’t do it makes me anxious D:)

Okay mini housekeeping thing aside! This got long it’s under a read more because it’s long, but it’s full of shenanigans, sleepovers, and our local fave cryptid Sunny

I’m going to focus this in on post-canon, because I think that Sunny’s ultimate cryptid energy flows forth in his teen years. Also I really want to include the hooligans in on this (I’m...love them)

So pre-canon Sunny and Mari’s house was the go to location for their group of six. They were almost always there, but there was some unspoken rules.

You called before you came over (Only Kel didn’t follow this rule, but he always knocked and waited patiently at the door) and you had to be invited to stay for dinner. If not you went home when Sunny’s mom called a fifteen minute warning before dinner. There was also no arguing within the house. If there was an issue that needed to be addressed, Mari and Sunny’s parents would immediately send everyone home.

Post-canon Mari is gone and the house has been sold. Hero and Kel’s house becomes the go to hang out house after that. Their house is nearly night and day to Mari and Sunny’s

Mari and Sunny’s house was always neat and tidy and very quiet. Their parents generally left the TV off and didn’t use the radio, so unless one of the two children were making noise, everything would be silent. Kel and Hero’s house is in constant motion and activity. Sally is usually either babbling or screaming, music is always playing on the radio, and their main form of communication is friendly yelling at one another. Kel and Hero’s house also has an open door policy- anyone can walk in at anytime and they all know where the spare keys are hidden.

Post-canon I see a quick friendship building between Aubrey’s gang and Basil Sunny and Kel. Hero enjoys them all, but it’s not really his scene now that he’s spent a year or so at college. He will get brought along for some adventures, and he’s always up for hanging around the house with them, but when it gets to be a bigger group he prefers to just let them have fun.

When it’s just his four kids, Hero is always a part of the group though.

OKAY ALL OF THAT BUILDUP ASIDE LETS GET TO THE ACTUAL POINT OF THIS ASK

So this is when school is in session and Hero is back at college. Kel tells Aubrey that Sunny is coming up for the long weekend, and they should all do a sleepover at his house like old times. She agrees and they arrange it with Basil. Kim overhears their plans and she has FOMO so she arranges herself to be there when they tell Basil

Normally Kel makes it a point to try and include Aubrey’s friends (who are slowly just becoming friends) but this time he just pretends she isn’t there and tells Basil to come right after school and they can drive together to get Sunny.

Kim weedles it out of Aubrey later that day when they’re alone in gym class. The reason that they didn’t immediately invite her and the others? Sunny is apparently weird at night

Kim fires back that Sunny is always a little weird, but Aubrey is being fully serious. Unfortunately all that does is make Kim more curious. She goes to find Kel afterward and half asks/half demands an invitation to the sleepover. Kel seems a little awkward about her involving herself, but he agrees that she and the others can join in if they like.

Aubrey and the others arrive

Kim soon finds out that Aubrey was 100% right. Sunny is...weird at night.

At around 10:00 pm, Sunny disappears. Basila nd Aubrey went into the kitchen to make popcorn, and Kel was busy fiddling with the TV to get the movie to start. When he turns back to the couch, he asks where Sunny is. They realize Sunny has vanished.

Aubrey and Basil come in with the bowls of snacks, and Kel asks them if they’ve seen Sunny. Basil says to check the roof.

The roof. The hooligans all laugh (Basil is a sweet kid when you get to know him, but his nerves make even his jokes strange) The other three don’t laugh. In fact Kel gets up and goes to the door.

The hooligans follow out bewildered, and Sunny is o n t h e r o o f. CASUALLY. JUST THERE PETTING AN ORANGE CAT WHO IS LOUNGING PURRING NEXT TO HIM. AND KEL AND AUBREY AND BASIL DONT REACT??? Kel just waves?? and Sunny waves back???

“We’re gonna watch Insidious now, I know you haven’t seen that one before. Wanna come in?” “Kay” “Do you want to bring your cat in with you? I’ll put Hector on his leash” “Yes please”

Then the three just walk back and tell the hooligans to follow them in. Sunny got himself up so Sunny can get himself down.

It’s only the beginning of the madness. Sunny walks in holding the still purring orange cat and settles himself down in his specific corner of the couch (They were prewarned not to sit in Sunny’s spot) Aubrey cuts Kim off before she can ask about the roof, and starts the movie. Kim looks over at the cat, and it locks eyes on her, hissing.

The movie begins and Sunny will randomly speak but only to say when a character is going to die/be scared. Right before it happens. Every single time. Didn’t Kel say before that he hadn’t seen this movie?? It doesn’t matter Sunny keeps going

A ghost. A ghost. Lost in an alternate dimension by shamanic journey. It’s bizarre. The cat continues to purr a rusty old engine noise in Sunny’s lap, periodically looking at one of the hooligans and hissing, choosing a different one every time. Who’s cat is that????

They finish the movie and start to play board games. They pick monopoly and decide to divvy up into teams. Kim immediately claims Aubrey, Vance decides to go with Kel and Kel grabs Mikhael to create a trio. Charlie and Sunny silently sit beside each other, and everyone assumes that makes them a team. Angel pulls Basil to his side and they’re prepped to play the game.

Kim likes to consider herself a pretty good monopoly player, and Aubrey is a whiz with money and numbers, so she assumes they have this in the bag.

She did not account for the Sunny factor.

Sunny stares her down through the entire time. Kim is sure he doesn’t blink. She forgets to bid on auctions for properties and gives him extra rent money. They go bankrupt first, and Sunny turns his eye onto Kel who just laughs and gives Sunny finger guns. Sunny finger guns back (his face still a blank slate) and proceeds to also take all of Kel’s money.

They go to bed shortly after, and Kim is relieved. Nothing also weird can happen. Now she just has to sleep.

She wakes up in the middle of the night and adjust her position, turning over to face the other side of teh room. Four shining eyes stare back at her, catching the dim light from the kitchen. Kim shakily grabs her phone and turns on the flashlight, whirling around to see Sunny staring at her, his orange cat on top of his head.

She wakes all the rest of them with her shriek of terror. The group of four quickly settle to sleep once more, even Sunny crashing down next to Aubrey and Basil. hissing cat caught firmly in his arms.

She and the other hooligans stay up for a bit, frantically whispering about the oddness of the situation. They resolve to leave early in the morning, and to distance themselves as much as they can from...whatever Sunny is. They’re certainly glad he doesn’t go to their school anymore.

The next morning, the group of four wake up before the hooligans and cook a big breakfast. They put the phone on speaker and chat with Hero as they do so, catching up on his latest college stories. Bo en is playing from the cd player in the corner of the kitchen, kept low so as not to wake the others.

The hooligans creep downstairs and peer inside. The scene is shockingly...normal.

Sunny is still carrying his cat, but now Kel is feeding it tiny bits of bacon and it is stretching out of Sunny’s arms to reach the next delicious morsel. He’s chatting with Hero over the phone, speaking in full long sentences which is a rarity for Sunny. He even laughs quietly at a joke Hero tells.

Kim tries to translate the horror she felt last night into this morning, but it’s not there. Sunny doesn’t seem like an eldritch horror during the day. Just another teenager happy to be with people he enjoys.

Hero hangs up shortly after, and the group of four settle back into a placid silence. Aubrey breaks it by turning to the others

“I know it was weird, but I’m glad that they came for last night.” the three boys agree, and Sunny leans against the counter near Aubrey so she can scratch one hand under his cat’s neck while still flipping pancakes. When he speaks, his voice is near silent, but they all hear it anyway.

“They’re nice. They didn’t treat me different.”

The hooligans share a look and simultaneously agree to stay for breakfast.

[universe-in-the-void-in-the-cube]

Mishuckula

Mishuckula

Small Plant (Augmented Vermin)

Hit Dice: 1d8+4 (6 hp)

Initiative: +1

Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 10 ft. (2 squares)

AC: 15 (+1 Size +1 Dex, +3 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 15

Base Attack/Grapple: +2/-2

Attack: Bite +1 melee (1d4+21plus poison)

Full Attack: Bite +1 melee (1d4+1 plus poison), Passive Mantrap +1 melee (1d6+1)

Space/Reach: 5ft. /2ft. by 5ft.

Special Attacks: Poison, Web, Improve Grab, Unfortunate Loss, Create Spawn, Poison Spore Cloud, Fungal Spores, Poisonous Blood, Fungal Blood or Flesh

Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., Tremorsense 60 ft., Immune to disease, Fungal Metabolism, Rejuvenation, Plant Traits, Vermin Traits

Saves: Fort +6, Ref +1, Will -2

Abilities: Str 12 (+1), Dex 13 (+1), Con 19 (+4), Int 8 (-1), Wis 7 (-2), Cha 6 (-2)

Skills: Climb +10, Hide +9, Jump +10, Listen +1, Spot +6

Feats: Alertness, Weapon Finesse

Climate/Terrain: Temperate forests

Organization: Colony (2-5) or swarm (6-11)

Challenge Rating: 1

Treasure: Double

Alignment: Neutral

Combat

Poison (Ex): A Mishuckula has a poisonous bite. The save DC is Construction-based. The indicated damage is initial and secondary damage. Fort DC 10, 1d3 Str.

Web (Ex): Mishuckula often wait in their webs or in trees, then lower themselves silently on silk strands and leap onto prey passing beneath. A single strand is strong enough to support the mishuckula and one creature of the same size. Mishuckula can throw a web eight times per day. This is similar to an attack with a net but has a maximum range of 50 feet, with a range increment of 10 feet, and is effective against targets up to one size category larger than the mishuckula. An entangled creature can escape with a successful Escape Artist check 10 or break it with a Strength check 14. The check DCs are Constitution-based, and the Strength check DC includes a +4 racial bonus with a HD of 6 for the web. Mishuckula often create sheets of sticky webbing from 5 to 60 feet square, depending on the size of the mishuckula. They usually position these sheets to snare flying creatures but can also try to trap prey on the ground. Approaching creatures must succeed on a DC 20 Spot check to notice a web; otherwise they stumble into it and become trapped as though by a successful web attack. Attempts to escape or break the webbing gain a +5 bonus if the trapped creature has something to walk on or grab while pulling free. Each 5-foot section has the hit points given on the table, and sheet webs have damage reduction 5/—. A mishuckula can move across its own web at its climb speed and can pinpoint the location of any creature touching its web.

Tremorsense (Ex): A mishuckula can detect and pinpoint any creature or object within 60 feet in contact with the ground, or within any range in contact with the mishuckula’s webs.

Improved Grab (Ex): If the Mishuckula is successful in its first attack it clamps hold of the victims leg and does automatic damage each round for five rounds, whereupon it releases their prey, unable to digest it or is killed.

Unfortunate Loss (Ex): Once the Mishuckula has hold of their prey the violent thrashing of their prey as they try to dislodge it causes them to drop 1d6 random items of their equipment or 1d20 coins every turn.

Create Spawn (Ex): A creature killed by Constitution damage from a mishuckula’s poison spore cloud transforms into a fungal spawn over a period of 24 hours. A plant growth spell halves the transformation time, and a diminish plants spell doubles it. A blight spell destroys the fungal spores and prevents the corpse's transformation, but spells that remove disease are ineffective against the growing spores. Once a creature fully transforms into a fungal spawn, the corpse from which it grew is destroyed. A fungal spawn of a mishuckula gains the fungal creature template, but it loses all class levels and memories of the base creature from which it was spawned. If the base creature has l or fewer racial Hit Dice and normally has class levels, use a 1st-level warrior version of it as the base creature. The fungal spawn awakens as a free-willed being that knows all it needs to know (including language) in order to use its abilities and survive. Although it bears no allegiance to the mishuckula that created it, the new fungal spawn immediately recognizes other mishuckula and other fungal spawn made by other mishuckula as its own kind.

Poison Spore Cloud (Ex): Once per day, a mishuckula can release a choking cloud of spores in a is-foot-radius spread that lingers in the air for 10 rounds. This cloud functions as an inhaled poison. Any breathing creature in the cloud must succeed at a Fortitude save or inhale the spores. A creature that remains in the area of the spore cloud must continue to attempt Fortitude saves against its effects. Multiple spore clouds from multiple mishuckula require multiple saves from any creature in where the clouds overlap.

Fungal Spores: Poison inhaled; save Fort DC 10 + 1/2 the fungal creature's racial Hit Dice + the fungal creature's Con modifier; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Con damage and fatigued for minute; cure 2 saves.

Poisonous Blood (Ex): A mishuckula’s blood and flesh are ingested poisons. Any creature that makes a bite attack against a mishuckula, swallows one whole, or otherwise ingests part of one must succeed at a Fortitude save or be afflicted by the poison. A mishuckula can drain its own blood to procure an ingested poison that functions as described above. However, its blood has a distinctive and largely unwelcome smell and taste, so most intelligent creatures would refuse to eat food tainted with it unless the taste was thoroughly disguised (which requires a successful DC is Profession [cook] check). The mishuckula must deal at least I point of damage to itself to get a full dose of poison, and the drawn blood (or amputated flesh) retains its poisonous nature for only 24 hours unless additional living fungal blood is mixed into it.

Fungal Blood or Flesh: Poison-ingested; save Fort D C 10 + 1/2 the mishuckula's racial Hit Dice + the fungal creature's Con modifier; frequency 1/minute for 6 minutes; effect 1 Str damage, 1 Dex damage, and nauseated for 1 minute; cure 2 saves.

Fungal Metabolism (Ex): Mishuckulas breathe, but they do not eat or sleep in the typical manner.

Rejuvenation (Ex): A mishuckula gains all the sustenance it requires from contact with moist natural earth, but it must rejuvenate itself as often and for as long as humans need sleep. As long as it is in contact with moist natural earth, a resting mishuckula regains hit points as though it were undergoing complete bed rest and long term care (4 hit points per Hit Die for each day of rest). The mishuckula can engage in light activity during rejuvenation, but any strenuous activity (like fighting, running, or casting a spell) prevents it from regaining hit points for that day. Complete bed rest doesn't increase the amount of healing a mishuckula gains from rejuvenation.

Skills: Mishuckulas have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Spot checks and a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks. A mishuckula can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened. Mishuckulas use either their Strength or Dexterity modifier for Climb checks, whichever is higher. Mishuckulas have a +10 racial bonus on Jump checks and a +8 racial bonus on Spot checks and have a +8 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks when using their webs.

________________________________________________________________ Now lets get to brass tacks here. This is a D&D 3.5/Pathfinder monster I made based on a nickname my dad gave my nephew Mathias aka @pnw-destruction​. He use to call him Mishuckula so I thought about the name for a bit and I kept getting a tarantula with a clam on its back with mushrooms growing on it. So I made the monster and just made the pic. But imagine if you will this monstrosity in the woods which is a size of a large dog. Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhh. I know what you guys might be thinking what the fuck is wrong with this woman. XD I own the Mishuckula. So please don't copy and take credit. But if you want to use the monster in your Pathfinder or D&D game go for it.

@pnw-destruction​ Yo bud, I saw this in my D&D stash and had to share with you. Your grandpa would be proud of you. *Loves and Hugs* 

[strigital]

Hey! So I love your Miraak and it kind of inspired me to make my own. Only problem is that I can’t freaking figure out how to mod him. I’d be super grateful if you could give me some tips!

hello there! sorry it took me like a million years to reply. my life’s been heckin’ wild these past few days. anyways, let’s talk about modding the miraakulous ass.

first of all i am in no way a modder, this small little .esp that affects the face and body of a follower from another mod is the first and only working mod i’ve ever made. second - my main sources of info were these two vids (i followed the first one to the T in order to make my miraak fully standalone, i. e. not dependant on any cosmetic mods that, if suddenly removed, would mess up my boi’s face):

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this second one mostly helped me to understand NifSkope and NifMerge.

so uhhh... yeah. i basically just followed these two tutorials in order to make my miraak have a unique face and body meshes and textures. anyways, i made this mod mostly by just trial and error, lots of loading and reloading, redoing stuff, changing stuff. so imma just tell you the short version of my process (which hopefully i still remember correctly, it’s been a while).

first thing first - get yourself some tools:

creation kit (how else ya gonna make miraak’s face, ya dummy?)

nifskope if you need to know each and every texture your man is using on his face

nifmerge in order to slap your desired textures onto a ck generated miraak’s facegen

install racemenu in your skyrim. just do it

cosmetic mods of your desire, such as mods for custom hair, brows, beard, eyes, skin, scars, warpaints and tattoos

and now... LET US BEGIN THE MAGIC!!1

step one: launch skyrim and create a miraak of your dreams.

i just loaded my latest Nim’s save, created another save, typed showracemenu 14 in the console and went to town with sliders. i race changed my gorl into a Nord (another race may cause some unseen bugs so better choose Nord), sex changed her into a dude and just... made myself a miraak.

once done i used Racemenu to save his face as a preset for future use and then exported it using a name like MIR_FACE_NEW or something like that (refer to the second video to know where the exported face file is kept). 

then i pressed done, confirmed his name as Test Miraak, opened console again and typed savenpcface miraakface.

now, with these two files, we’re ready to go into the ck and do some magic.

step two: open ck and make your .esp file and do some modding magic

if ya wanna make your miraak standalone, refer to the videos i linked to learn how to do that. i followed the first video and was able to succesfully make my miraak have his own body and face textures (gotta love that dragon tattoo on the back!).

remember to save often and to have multiple copies of your .esp file! ck crashes like a motherfucker, just as todd howard intended.

when you’re ready to edit miraak follower, load your mod as an active file with miraakfollower.esp also enabled, go to the actors tab, search for miraak. note: all things added by the miraak follower mod will have letters MF in their names. find miraak follower, you’ll know it’s him by the potentialfollowerfaction faction addedd to him as well as some 30+ users in the users tab. now, listen up. idk what’s the matter with ck or what the hell are users, but by the love of talos make sure the number of users for miraak remains the same! if you see that users are now 0, exit ck without saving, reload your .esp and check if number of users is back to being something over 30. if not, reload an older .esp version, even if it means redoing a lot of stuff. why you should care about users? i don’t know, but i noticed that if users are 0, then the mod won’t work, your miraak will be pure vanilla and won’t use any of your modifications. complicated stuff, i know, just keep those pesky users above 0 and miraak shall work as intended.

now, double click ya boi and with the help of the videos i linked edit his face meshes and textures. if you also created custom body textures (how to do that - refer to the beginning of first video where you’re shown how to create them) you should apply them at the very first tab, the same tab that also gives you the ability to edit his scale and weight. me being hellbent on the fact that atmorans were huge folk, i edited his scale to be something like 1.2, just a tad bigger that an average Nord (note: if you edit his scale you’ll notice a lot of shrinking and expanding whenever he’ll be using various animation markers around the world, such as a smelter, a stool, a wall to lean against... that’s normal, just a bit silly).

anyways, when you’re done editing his face in that window, save the changes (or apply, i forgot what the button says) and press ctrl+f4, twice for good measure. why? it’ll export your new miraak’s facegen, don’t know what it is but it’s hella important! check again if users are above 0, if yes then save your .esp and close ck. refer to the second video to learn how to use nifmerge in order to make your miraak use custom make up and warpaint textures.

once all that is done, place your .esp file after miraakfollower.esp, disable any other miraak face mods to avoid conflicts and load your game. now... at this moment many things may go wrong or refuse to work, idk why. :\

if you have the ability, load a save before the game spawns miraak follower in if you edited his weight. if not, load any save with him at your side. why? that’s because npc’s weight is baked onto a save and it will not change to match your mod’s. however, the neck of the npc will morph to match the weight you set in the ck and thus miraak may have a permanent gap between his body and neck. loading a save before the miraak follower mod’s quest sends you to get some sleep at raven rock and then check his temple is best in such case, because then the game will spawn miraak in with body weight modded and thus no neck gap!

once loaded, locate your miraak follower, click him in the console, use the unequipall command to get him naked, maybe even toggleai to keep him still. take a look at your homeboi. no grey face? body textures loaded as intended? he looks like you expected? good. dress him up again and go kill some bandits. or use some Other Type of mod to enjoy that new face and body. but if no, click him in the console again and type disable then enable a few times. eventually he should pop into his new textures. it took me quite a few resurrect commands before his grey face bug disappeared.

and... that’s it. really. i dind’t explain much, because these two vids is all you need to know how to make a custom face and body for miraak. they do a really amazing job at explaining, plus the first vid has a doc file in the describtion that you can download and use in the future. it’s very easy to follow step by step.

all i can add from myself is that don’t despair if shit doesn’t work for quite some time. it took me like a dozen attempts before my miraak .esp began working as intended and even to this moment i worry that something might break. just try again, make a fresh clean .esp, reinstall miraak follower mod if something got overwritten. look for more tutorials online. if you feel like making him standalone is way too hard, make him dependant on cosmetic mods, you won’t have to create custom texture files, but in case any of these mods get deleted, your miraak might end up bald or without eyes XD

TL;DR

i just used these two vids for the entire process, exept i didn’t create a follower, i edited an existing one from miraak follower mod.

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki Drama: Shinsengumi Oni-tan Track 1 Translation

Well im more or less back so I’ll start by asking you to please support me if you can either on ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/V7V2W0HO), or through paypal (paypal.me/KumoriYami ) …. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list since i don’t have the audio for those…..

I’ve also gotten around to getting my patreon account in order (https://www.patreon.com/KumoriYami) while deleting all blog post tls here. My patreon will really only for blog post tls, of which I will be putting out at least 3 each month, and for early access to my next planned post. Right now, I can only do early access for one post since I have nothing stockpiled and since Chinese New Year is this month....I’ll be busy with stuff so I probably won’t be getting around to doing a lot for the foreseeable future.... though I intend to bump that up to 2 posts when I’m no longer as busy....

I hope everyone had a good new year’s day.... cuz im feeling exhausted and my mind feels all waaaaaugh rn cuz of beating Psychedelia of the Ashen Hawk which i keep spelling as Hawke because of Dragon Age.... especially with those endings (i surprisingly couldn’t find anything for it in Chinese but oh well)..... 

Anyway, since this drama is roughly an hour and eight minutes long... it is going to take an extended amount of time to be completely translated since this translation was taken off not exactly great quality/sized images (though i’ll be aided by JP mtl since it’s available for me) which has been a real pain given how condensed some of the Chinese words are... and because im probably going to look at doing this on an on-off basis cuz my mind doesn’t work well focusing on one thing to translate for long periods of time (you have to pay me to do that since i equate that to mental torture lol xD).

enjoy this tl~

Hakuoki Shinsengumi Oni-tan Track 1 “A certain male oni and the Shinsengumi”

Translation by KumoriYami

Kazama: Oni. In this country of Japan, since ancient times, there have been a race known as the oni living here. Holding power that transcended that of ordinary people, no, it should be said that because of this power which transcends that of ordinary humans, they are depicted as evil creatures/beings in folklore and legends.

Sometimes, they are killed, and other times they are used by humans. (the translation of 驱逐 is "expelled" which doesn't seem right so i changed to "killed"]

For this reason we oni have chosen to sever our ties with humans and live in secluded/ hidden villages. However due to the scarcity of oni, marriage with humans has increased, and some oni have chosen to live like/as humans.

And then, there are oni who live unaware of their heritage because of their weak bloodlines.

Yes, for example, the day I met that man.

(intro music)

Flower petals scatter and leaves wither as they fall. The season has already changed to winter. The city was loud despite how cold it was [Despite how cold it was, the city was bustling with activity/ was loud].

When nightfall arrived, it became quite cold. Alright, it's done. Leave/head back before it gets any darker. If [I] return too late, Amagiri will begin preaching again, which will indeed be unbearable. [rephrase later...?]

(sound of running footsteps) But, what's that sound? It sounded like there was a disturbance from a back-alley.

Roshi: che, damn it, the shinsengumi is here!

???: Ronin, there's no escape! Stay where you are!

Roshi: Damn it---  since it's like this let's break this jar, give me some good entertainment! [take a break and get ready? check later.]

(sound of sword being drawn)

Kazama:  hn, that's the light blue haori of the shinsengumi. the bakufu's dog is fighting a wild/stray dog, really what a horrible showing/senseless game/trick.

(blades crossing)

Roshi: Heh heh.... it seems like you're out of tricks. what's wrong shinsengumi, (you're?) all talk! /you seem to be all talk!

???: Che.... Don't... get too... cocky bastard!

Kazama: Nn?

Roshi: Why, why has this guy's eye colour changed....!

(sounds of blades hitting each other again)

Roshi: Uoaaaaah!

???: (heavy breaths) finally caught, caught, caught [my] breath, i just need to wait for the captains to come over.

Kazama: Oi. you. For someone of an oni clan, what are you doing in a place like this?

???: Hm? who are you?

Kazama: Leader of the western clans, the Kazama family head, Chikage.

???: For this first meeting, I am called Sasanami Kurō. Although you speak as though you know me, however(/perhaps) you have the wrong person. [rephrase later]

kazama: it turned out to be the case. i do not recognize that name. However, as a member of an oni clan, why are you wearing the the haori(/uniform) of the shogun[ate's?]'s dog?

Sasanami: Oni clan?

Kazama: Exactly. in my eyes, there is no doubt that you are my compatriot/kin/clansman, that is to say---

heisuke: hey new guy - really , where did you [assuming *he?*] go?

Harada: I can understand how people want to show off a bit because of the team's examination, but to go off chasing someone alone is dangerous/puts one in a really dangerous situation [im assuming its to join the Shinsengumi based on the summary on the drama info page].

Heisuke: although having enthusiasm/being enthusiastic is a good thing, those guys tend to die faster.

Harada: Anyway, pray/hope that he wasn't killed due to his carelessness. Heisuke, check over there, I'll look over here.

(more footsteps)

Sasanami:  oh, Captain Toudou, Captain Harada! I'm [over] here! The roshi has already been captured/arrested.

Harada: oh, over there. It looks like there's nothing wrong...

heisuke: although being popular/recognition is good, it can cause problems...

Kazama: Che, those troublesome guys are around/nearby. No choice then, it's time to go/retreat. The reason for your position, I will listen to it in two days.

Sasanami: Wait, At the end [who are] you----- [rephrase later?]

(sound of Kazama walking away)

Kazama: That/this person, although his lineage is quite weak, there is no doubt of his bloodline. But/However why is there there an oni aside from my wife in the Shinsengumi?

----

final edits will be done when video is posted since im feeling lazy rn.... also i decided that i’d post this drama track by track for text. not sure bout videos yet since i wanna double check the context for what i think is the recruitment examination vs team examination. once that’s done... i think i’ll start making the videos to publish though im going to leave everything unlisted on youtube all 9 tracks of this drama are done.

on a side note, is there something about a location guide in the Hakuoki 3ds game or the ds yuugiroku english patch game (never tried it so iuno how well that worked or if that was even finished but that was one of my first google search bar suggestions)? Asking because I found a Chinese translation/summary of the Zuisouroku ds travel guide (commentary/exchange of certain locations. ex - saito’s room, hanaguri gate, fushimi magistrate)... and well, i just wanna make sure im not looking at game content that was already translated since I know Hakuoki tends to recycle a lot of their stuff before considering to translate it....

also.... this is the only drama where i might translate the interview with the cast (its 4 qs to the VAs sans roshi in text format)... though that would be after i finish this.... whenever the hell that is.

[timelock97]

Out of Order Love

Chapter Six: Jealousy and House Hunting

tomhollandxreader

Summary: It was meant to be a fun time in Vegas. Spending time with the best friend and celebrate getting done with college to turn the page to a new chapter in life. If only (Y/N) realized she would be turning a few extra pages by accidentally marrying her favorite actor.

Word Count: 2625

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5 

(Y/F/P) - Your Favorite Pasta

-

"Can I be honest with you?" I peek at Tom who is wringing his hands as I pull out of the last condo we looked at, "I didn't like either of those we looked at today."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that." I groan, "Why is this so hard?" I turn the corner and drive into town. "I think we need food, then we can just, I don't know, Google any open houses that are going on today and hope for the best?"

"That would be fine," Tom pulls out his phone and starts looking for somewhere for the two of us to eat. He sighs, "What do you want, (Y/N)?"

"I'm up for whatever, you pick."

"Italian?" He looks up from his phone and makes a funny face of uncertainty.

"I'm cool with that, I could go for pasta."

He types in his phone and eventually points me in the right direction of the restaurant. It's small, but cozy. We walk in and he places a hand on the small of my back while he scrolls through his phone.

I sigh and peek at him, Tom is dressed in a plain burgundy t-shirt with a gray pocket, blue jeans, and black sneakers. His hair isn't styled in any sort of way, the way he had put it this morning was that he just didn't feel like trying other than what he needed to.

The waitress walks over and her eyes perk up as she spots us. "Welcome, welcome, welcome! Just the two of you?" She smiles at us but I can see her giving Tom a once over.

"Yup, just us." I smile. She glances at me and gestures us to follow her. She shows us a table by the window and tells us, "Your waitress will be right with you!" She practically skips away and grabs a girl that was already heading our way.

"How much do you wanna bet they will want your picture?" I ask from behind my menu.

"(Y/N)!" Tom laughs quietly, "You'd probably win, so I am not going to bet against you."

"No friendly competition, love?" I smile at him with my eyes over the menu.

He smiles back at me, "Alright, darling, if I win what would I get?" Before I can give him a witty comment, our waitress comes around the corner.

"Hi, you two! I'm Jackie, have you eaten with us before?"

"No, this would be our first time." Tom says with a smile.

I see her smile twitch and grow slightly bigger. "Well, you are in for a treat! We are famous for our pastas! Can I get you two anything to drink?" She keeps looking at Tom, but he gestures toward me. Her eyes fall on me and I can see her annoyance cross her features.

"Uh, strawberry lemonade?" She scribbles it on her pad before looking at Tom basically with heart eyes.

"That sounds wonderful, I'll have that as well." She smiles and walks away. I make a face and go back to looking at the menu. "Find anything that looks good, darling?"

"I think I'll go with (Y/F/P)." I close the menu and lay it back down on the table, "What about you?"

"I'm thinking of the ravioli, just sounds good." He closes his also and sets it on top. When the waitress comes back I notice she unbuttoned her blouse two extra buttons, her bra poking out slightly. I almost laugh, but instead I place my hand on top of Tom's who smiles at me when I do.

"Here you two go!" She leans slightly closer to the table and I notice Tom leans slightly away when she does. I smile slightly and she looks almost hurt. "Do you know what you want or do you need more time."

"No, we are ready." Tom says and when she looks at him expectantly he gestures toward me again. She almost looks like she wants to explode when she meets my eyes.

"I'll have the (Y/F/P)."

She scribbles it down and looks at Tom happily. "And you, hon?" She bats her eyelashes and I roll my eyes.

"The ravioli, please."

"Of course!" She scoops up the menus before giving us a little wave and "I'll be back!" She walks away with a swish of her hips.

I scoff and pull my hand from Tom's to pull out my phone and see if there are any other open houses in the neighborhood.

"You alright, love?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just-" I cut myself off and notice her looking down the row at us. I give him a look and pull my phone into my lap.

The Wife

She literally keeps staring daggers into me and I swear she unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse on purpose.

Tom chuckles and glances at me before texting back.

Current Husband

I thought something was off, it's kind of unprofessional isn't it ;)

I roll my eyes at him.

The Wife

You're bad. She also looked like she tried to shove them in your face.

Current Husband

She did not xD

The Wife

Did too! You even moved away!

Current Husband

Well, it doesn't matter

Cuz I have you ;)

"That was cheesy," I giggle at him.

He smiles at me before reaching his hand across the table. I sigh and handed him my left hand and he squeezes it. "Yes, but also." He lifts our hands and leans forward toward them. "She doesn't have this." He brushes his lips to the ring before pressing a kiss to my knuckles. I blush at the action and avert my eyes. "You're blushing, love." He sings and I stick my tongue out at him causing him to chuckle. He continues to look at me lovingly, until Jackie interrupts us with our food.

"Here are your meals!" She sets down my meal first, then Tom's, "Enjoy." She has almost a sultry tone and as soon as her back is turned I make a face at Tom who laughs loudly. He places his finger to his lips telling me to shush. The two of us eat in silence for a few minutes before he pulls something up on his phone and sends it to me. It's a link to website showing an open house about fifteen minutes from the restaurant.

"Want to just go look, I mean what else can we lose?" He inquires with a raised brow.

"Yeah," I smile looking at the description. When I look up, Tom has his fork in my pasta. "Tom!" I try to fight him with my fork, but he has already scooped some on his fork and has shoved it in his mouth, grinning.

"That's good, love."

"That's why I ordered it, you twat." I laugh, he motioned to his plate and I take the opportunity to take a bit of his. I chew and shrug, "It's okay, but I like mine better." He makes an offended face, placing his hand over his heart in mock-hurt. I giggle and we go back to eating discussing the game plan if this last condo doesn't work out before I excuse myself to run to the restroom. On the way back, I overhear a conversation.

"How can a guy like that like her?"

"They are married, Jac."

"Yeah, but didn't you hear what he said in the interview? They were a bit tipsy, it could easily be a mistake."

"What are you going to do?"

I walk around the corner and walk back to my seat seeing Tom has slipped money into the bill folder. He sees my face and goes to ask me a question but is cut off by Jackie coming and grabbing the bill.

"Need change?" She flutters her eyes at him.

"Yes, please." Tom nods while she smiles and walks away. "(Y/N), are you alright?"

"I'll tell you in the car." I interject, leaning back in my chair running a hand over my face. Tom raises an eyebrow, but doesn't push me.

Jackie comes back and hands him the folder, she turns on her heel before she gets too far. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but I was wondering if I could get a picture with you?" she bites her lip and I want to puke. Tom gives her a small smile and nods. He hands me the folder and stands to take a picture with her.

I open it and take out the change and leave the tip on the table, but not before noticing the 'call me if she doesn't work out' note on his receipt. I take the blank receipt from behind it and leave the other one inside.

Tom says a few things to her as I stand and wrap an arm around his torso. "Ready to go, love?" He muses, smiling at me as he places an arm around my shoulder. I nod, double checking the table to make sure we have everything before the two of us leave. Tom sighs, "Did you decide on what I owe you since she did ask for a picture?"

"Ice cream of my choice?" I say with a laugh.

"That'll work, oh, can I have my change?" I hand over the money and receipt before getting in the driver's side. After starting the car I notice Tom staring at me, I lock eyes with Tom and his damn puppy eyes. "What was bothering you in there, please tell me." He sticks out his lower lip in a pout.

I cover his face with my hand and let out a soft, "No, not the puppy eyes and pouty lip!" He smiles underneath my hand and I pull away to place my hands back onto the wheel, "So I overheard our waitress talking to another waitress and she basically said she was going to give you her number in case we 'didn't work out,' I honestly hate those types of people. Like," I pull out on the main road and let my phone tell me where the next open house is at. "It doesn't matter if that person is in a bad relationship or a good, if the person is good looking or not, you shouldn't do that! It's so rude and self-centered and," I let out an annoyed noise. "I may have taken the other receipt and left the one with the note in the folder." Tom is quiet for a minute, I suddenly feel like I did something wrong, after our three months are up he could have gone back to her he could-

"I don't like people like that either. She also said the same thing to me while we took the picture."

"She did?" My voice goes up slightly and I go wide eyed in anger.

"She did, I told her that I was happy being married to you and that she should respect that." I glance at him and see him staring straight ahead. I put my hand over his that are cupped in his lap and he laces his fingers with mine.

"We have one strange relationship, Holland." He laughs next to me and nods. The GPS tells us that we are at our location and I see a condo that looks like a house split down the middle to make two condos. There is a man sitting on the front step when we pull up, his head raising as we pull into the driveway. He jumps to his feet and I roll down my window. "I hope we aren't too late to look at the place."

"No, no, no, not at all ma'am. Please," he gestures to the condo, "come in." He opens the door for me, and I turn off the car so Tom and I can get out. "I'm Jasper Kings, and I apologize ahead of time, but this is my first time doing this, so if I ramble it's just because I'm nervous and, oh gosh I'm doing it now." He looks like he is going to pass out so I put my hand out to shake his hand.

"I'm (Y/N) Holland, and this is my husband Tom." Tom moves to my side and shakes Jasper's hand as well.

"Well, let me show you in!" Jasper leads the two of us inside, my eyes catch the small flowers in front of the house and the turquoise front door. "It's a blank canvas, Mr. and Mrs. Holland!" As we walk in I can see that the condo is unstaged, showing the size of the place. Across from the front door are two staircases, one going up and the other going down. Left of the door is a hall closet. "Now, down this way we come to the living room, dining room, and kitchen. It's open concept which is nice for parties or family gatherings." Jasper jogs into the kitchen, it's simple, with white cabinets and gray blue countertops with a similar backsplash. The appliances are stainless steel.

I nod as I turn and look from there to the living/dining room. Wood runs across the entire space, making it look clean. On the back wall is a sliding glass door that leads out to a small deck. I walk about midway to where the living room would be and see a small hallway that has three doors.

"Oh, that is where the powder room, small closet, and master bedroom are! The master is on the left and also has a full bathroom in it. It's quite lovely. I can show you the upstairs too." Jasper walks backwards toward the stair cases. Upstairs is a small bonus room that overlooks the living room, as well as two bedrooms and a bathroom between them. It's nice and cozy. After, Jasper leads us back down stairs and to the basement to see that it is partially done with a completed, full laundry room. Another sliding glass door is set almost below the one on the main floor, through the glass we can see a fence.

"I like this," Tom whispers to me as he wraps his arms around my waist.

"I hope the fence isn't too much trouble, the last tenants had a larger dog and caused the neighbors to worry about their children."

"It's perfect, we have a dog so that's just one thing we don't have to worry about." I turn and look at Jasper.

He is excited, and he almost dances in his place. He motions for us to follow him, we end up back on the main floor and he smiles folding his hands in front of him, swaying to and fro. "I'm going to step out so you two can talk." He walks outside, shutting the door behind him.

Tom sighs next to me, and drags me back into the main room. "What do you think, (Y/N)? Did we just happen to stumble onto the perfect place or what?"

"You did find the perfect place," I agree, he looks at me with bright eyes. I smile back at him, "So are you ready to do this, it'll be a lot of work. Lots of furniture to buy, and lots of other things."

"We can worry about it as we go, but as long as we are in this together I think we'll be fine."

"Did we just buy a condo?" I ask, smiling.

Tom hugs me. "I think we did. Now, let's tell Jasper, I want to see how happy he gets."

"So happy," I giggle. Tom squeezing me slightly before letting me go and walking to the door.

Our first home together, a part of me wants it to really be that and not just part of this charade

Part 7 

[knightofbalance-13]

I’ve decided to switch focus for a moment from RWDE to this, a sort of hyperbolic series of videos criticizing Video Games. I will might also cover his Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword too but I wanna hit this because I am very well versed in Pokemon and I have been a fan of the series since I picked up an old Red Version back in the early 2000′s so yeah, I have been a long term fan having played the games from Red to X and the only reason I don’t play Sun or Moon is because I haven’t gotten the games. I have done quite a bit of research on them though so I feel confident that I can debate this. So let’s begin:

0:25

Actually yes, they have. A lot. Like the Steel Type which WASN’T a part of Generation 1, Berries, alternate Pokeballs with differing catch rates based on conditions, Natures, Physical/Special Split, Double Battles, Held items, Evs and Ivs, Abilities, Breeding, EV training, Poke-amie, Mega Evolution which completely changed the game, Roaming Legendaries, the Fairy Type and re typing of previous Pokemon, the Alolan forms, Poekpolaga, Z-Moves and many others because I don’t do competitive battles. And this is all coming without delving into how THESE aspects are changed and built upon, such as the Triple battle, Rotation battle and Inverse Battle being built off of the Double Battles along with the various new Pokeballs, The change with the Physical Special Spilit, the sheer variety of the held items and the Abilities that are rare like Hidden Abilities or Mega Abilities. And then we have spin off games, such as the Mystery Dungeon Series, the Ranger series, the Rumble series, Pokemon COnquest, Pokemon Snap, Poke Collseum, Pokemon XD, Pokken and such. This is simply not true.

1:50

This Mario analogy really bites him in the ass because if Pokemon is nothing but these turn based battles, then Mario would be, by his logic, nothing but jumping around. And once again, this only applies to the Pokemon main series, not the spin offs which have dungeon crawling, adventure games, beat em ups, stradegy games, photo shooting and fighting games. So this compliant still doesn’t hold up and with  the Mario analogy kind of gives an air of willful ignorance.

2:08

“Copy and Paste”? Really? So the fact that there are new characters, new locations, new cities, new types of battles, new items and so are completely disregarded? If so, then no wonder you have a problem: you aren’t taking things into account. And then there’s the fact that not every Pokemon fan watches trailers so that flaw doesn’t apply to them and is thus not a universal criticism.

3:22

*Groans and growls* A. That doesn’t even make sense considering wild Pokemon cannot stall the game like that, they would have no concept of such a thing being WILD Pokemon, another Pokemon means more experience points without having to look for more Pokemon, grinding is inherently slow so “quickly” doesn’t even make sense, you are pretty much guaranteed to be stronger than any none Legendary Wild pokemon in the game so a second pokemon would pose no threat and this could have just been avoided if you mentioned how in generation 5 when you are faced by two wild pokemon you could send out two. I know this is a joke but the joke is so poorly written and so badly enacted that there’s no humor for me to suspend my disbelief for him.

3:43

Gee, i dunno. Because that’s over 800 POKEMON that you would need to program into the game which is located on a hand held console meaning it has less space and less processing power than a console. Also, Pokemon following you around is your suggestion? Dude, that is the definition of a novelty: as cheap throwaway gimmick that in fact would be just like that “new coat of paint” you were complaining about. All the stuff I mentioned but you refuse to acknowledge actually impacts the gameplay.

4:22

...Would you believe it if I said that this exact analogy is why I decided to do all of this? Yeah, this is a TERRIBLE analogy. First off, you’d HAVE to order the Cheesecake, just like how you’d BUY a pokemon game. If you complain about getting the same basic formula as before, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Secondly, stuff like Abilities, Fairy Types and Mega Evolution would change the game entirely so it would be exactly the same as before. But you know what IS essentially chocolate shaving? Having your Pokemon follow you around. The one specific compliant so far and it spits in the face of everything else.

Third: The part about not putting chocolate shaving on strawberry would be disgusting if it actually happened, just like how adding in Pokemon following you everywhere would clash with the gimmicks of some of the gyms.

Fourth: The part about being more expensive is just blatantly false: Teh starting price of Pokémon games, at least since Diamond and Pearl, has always been 50 dollars. Are older games cheaper now? Yes but that’s how prices go: The newest games are more expensive because they expanded more than the older games.

Fifth: You can stop ordering cheesecake at many time and look for another dessert, just like you can stop playing the main series of games and look at the spin-offs or just different games. Nobody is forcing you but yourself.

4:32

Hehehehe...

Remember this.

4:37

But if you change the battles, that would be a complete OVERHAUL of the game, that thing you said Pokemon didn’t need to do 5 SECONDS ago!

4:43 And Abilities, and new types, and Mega Evolution, and held items, and Double+ battles...

Also, no unique Z-Moves? Well, sorry Catasrropika, 10 000 000 Volt Thunderbolt, Stoked Sparksurfer, Extremem Evoboost, Pulververizing Pancake, Genesis Supernova Sinister Arrow Raid, Mailcious Moonsault, Oceanic Operetta, Guardian of Alola, Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike and Clangorous Soulblaze: None of you are unique enough!

4:52 Then don’t USE the Z-Moves: You have a choice to not use them. Even so, you cannot speak for everyone and if this is YOUR issue, that’s YOUR problem, not Gamefreak’s/

5:13 A. The opinionh about Totem Pokemon is personal opinion and without any proof is irrelevant.

And B. What about Kiawe’s trial which is about spotting the difference in the dancing, or Mallow’s trial where you have to find four ingredients or Sophocies’s trial where you have to answer several questions? A bit more expansive than most Pokemon Gyms.

5:30 Because if they did do that: Then the Gym Leaders (oir Captains here) would just feel like a generic trainer. It works for the rivals because you see their teams grow but with Gym Leaders? One battle and that’s it. The types give them more personality and more vibrancy.

5:39

Why are the rivals dumb? What makes them dumb? ... No answer? Well then, they aren’t the dumb ones here.

And if we talk about rivals as a whole: What about Gladion? He’s a call back to older rivals, specifically Silver with his personalty and parental troubles.

6:33

A. YOU DID NOT FINISH THE GAME. This explains why you have made so many mistakes here: You are talking out of your ass and pretending you know this stuff without seeing it for yourself or, lie me, doing any research on them. If you don’t even confirm what you are saying is true, why should anyone believe you?

And B. Exp. Share is OPTIONAL: You have no one to blame for that but yourself if you let your team get that overleveled.

.7:12

A. Pikachu’s voice is literally it saying “pik-a-chu” That’s it. Nothing else. You are directly lying here.

B. That skit is as unfunny as one form modren Family Guy

And C. Pikachu’s only appear in SOS battles and only in two places so they DON’T appear that often. And even if Hau has a Pikachu, he uses it three times and evolves it into a Raichu.

7:40 Then that would break the game, making attacks with low PP completely worthless and making super hard to defeat Pokemon like Shuckle a terror. You say, don’t do a big overhaul but this WOULD be a big overhaul.

8:04 THAT is the very definition of a complete overhaul. You just contradicted yourself AGAIN.

8:15 You mean like a dungeon crawler, or a beat em up or an adventure game or a fighting game? Like the ones that already exist? Yeah, kind of makes it look like you don’t do a lick of research.

8:27 Okay then, what’s your excuse for fans like me, ones who ARE older but still enjoy the new games? Nothing?

8:35 ... He says they should do a spin off game...and references a spin off game...

.. Do I even need to be here?

8:57

A. Teh E-Shop games cost about six bucks a piece: Not really a cash grab.

And B. That part ignores the legal side of things where, by using already existing Pokemon, the creators have every right to protect their intellectual property if they so choose. Not to mention this sin’t even exclusive to Pokemon, which around the time Uranium got hit a Metroid fangame was hit as well so this is clearly Nintendo’s doing.

9:39

...

You know...Nothing...and I mean nothing...pisses me off more than some whiny, entitled, arrogant, pissant pseudo-fan claiming that a creator is being lazy or some shit because all that says is that you understanding NOTHING about what they d Especially since this so called “artistic intergrity” was gone when you started not doing research, contradicting yourself and outright LYING just to push your narrative while insulting the real fans for paying attention to the changes that the creators have done over the years and teh chances tehy’ve taken.

And the most ironic thing is, you putting LESS effort into your videos would actually HELP. Because you already don’t do research or fact check anything you say, you already take footage from other places and the one thing you put effort into were the WORST parts of the video. Remove the original animations and you’d actually have a better product. Funny how stuff rebounds on you.

[reyintherain]

The Last Jedi: Vanity Fair covers reaction and breakdown

Because I’m too hyped not to let it out!

Waking up today to this felt like Christmas! (for the lack of better analogy of waking up to gifts and surprises.) I just went to check if a new episode of the Scavenger’s Hoard was up yet, and what I got was a double bonus of the new episode AND the coveted Vanity Fair spread!

I love that they made 4 different covers instead of just one with either a bunch of characters thrown in together (like the TFA poster which I don’t like much for that very reason tbh) or a select image of, probably, Rey and Luke on the Ireland location. That could be cool too, but would be a) too reminiscent of the teaser poster and b) would not feature other, no less important and wonderful characters. So here it goes, the four covers broken down one by one.

(I tried to keep it short, but it never happens.)

The Force

Luke looks more and more like a god figure, and not a happy one. Whatever he’s been through changed him and left him a pained old man.

I love the burlap sack draped over Mark dramatically. Skywalker drama queen, indeed! (I say that lovingly)

Regarding Rey, honestly, I don’t have much to say, other than they’re playing it safe, and keeping the news on her character to the minimum (yet). She’s got her staff, but not the saber (would it be reading in too much to say she hasn’t let go of Jakku and still waiting for her family to come back at that point in the film?)

I like that random strain of her hair, making a loop in the wind. It’s kinda cute 

Colour palette for Rey’s and Luke’s costumes is earthly, brown-grayish, with fabrics that look low-tech and reminiscent of traditionally woven materials. Compare and contrast with the First Order cover with Hux’s luxury silk shirt, Phasma’s ultra tech armor, and layers of dark and 3D printed belt buckle on Kylo.

The weather isn’t up for sunbathing and sipping a margarita on Ahch-To. Could be a coincidence as that was simply the weather on the day of the photoshoot, but I like to see this as a reflection of what’s going on on the island, as clouds gather in the sky.

On a side now, is this a composite image? Because Mark looks taller and larger than Daisy, in ways that suggest these are two separate photos of them combined together. I read somewhere that Annie Leibovitz is fond of stitching photos together (which is totally fine). It’s just that Mark’s seemingly huge hand and head and the way Daisy and Mark look like (or rather do not look like) standing next to each other kind of bother me, but, of course, that’s a minor thing, unimportant for the story and the characters.

The Dark Side

The Dark side? Not the First Order? Interesting choice. Whether one should look too much into this is a question, and the answer is probably not too look too much into that. It’s probably that ‘The Dark Side’ sounds cooler and more ominous than ‘The First Order’. (Still, Tarkin and Krennic weren’t referred to as the faces of The Dark side). Anyways, let’s move on to more exciting parts of this cover!

Phasma looks like she is about to kill someone, and I love it! I love seeing Gwendoline Christie being able to act with her face. Hopefully, that means we’ll get to see a more substantial story for her character this time, because to waste Gwendoline’s talent would be a bummer.

Also, they kept her blonde hair (probably, to avoid complicating things too much. It’s not even guaranteed we see Phasma unmasked in the film.) Anyways, I’m excited to see Phasma unmasked (masks do have an effect of making perceive someone less human), and as a fan of Gwendoline in Game of Thrones, hope we’ll see more of her in TLJ!

Hux. That silky, smooth shirt. I don’t know, I just love it haha! No really, I’m excited to see Hux as part of the promo, and while I’m not the biggest Hux fan out there, his dynamic with Kylo and Domhnall Gleeson’s acting, and  emperor!Hux and kylux fanart/tags made me somewhat fond of the character, at least the fandom one.

Kylo Ren. Oh. My. God. Adam Driver is so good at modelling.

Those legs, that pose, the hair, cape over one shoulder -> I’m dead

“Kylo Ren’s wounds go much deeper than the fearsome new scar on his face.” -> I’m dead

It’s so coded for mental health, I just can’t (deep down all I want for Kylo is to find some peace and to see and be in the light again, even for a small part of his being)

Kylo’s ruffled hair actually gives him a slightly mad look, obsessed and passionately disheveled. Compare and contrast with Hux’s new sleek look, down to the shirt and hair. Heck, even their tops reflect each other: Hux’s silk shirt (with no buttons or anything else on it) and Kylo’s textured top

It’s been pointed out many times already that Kylo’s being unmasked for the TLJ promotion could mean and actually supports the idea that TLJ will explore humanity of the character, as per Adam Driver. What’s a more human way than to ditch masks and show emotions on one’s face? Plus as a bonus, we’ll get more of Adam’s performance aside from what he already amazingly conveys though body language and use of the costume

I cannot stop unseeing Eric Maell’s reylo artwork from last year’s Celebration. That rock star pose (hello and thank you, Star Wars Connection)

All in all, the First Order Trio looks ready to kick some ass in The Last Jedi

Leather boots, armor, belts, silk, space denim. I’m loving that aesthetic.

The Resistance

Precious freedom fighters in one photo! They actually look like a fam, and I love it <3 (unlike the First Order trio that’s biz only where Hux is sneering down at everyone and Kylo in particular, Phasma’s just up for the company with her colleagues, and Kylo pursuing his own thing within the Order)

Poe looking fine! No surprise here if you have Oscar Isaac playing the character! Hopefully, this charming poster boy will also get some challenges and more substance to his character this time around

Rose! I’m excited to see Kelly Marie Tran in character! We now know her full name now too - Rose Tico, and that of the new characters, she’ll have the most screen time. What I also find exciting is that Rose is a mechanic, meaning she’s employed in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, for those who don’t know). Needless to say that we need more women represented in those fields on the big screen.

Finn/John Boyega. Looking gorgeous, determined, and more mature. No really, I love this! John Boyega’s got a great charisma, and it’s great to see him channeling that for Finn. Can’t wait to see more him in TLJ now that he’s a big deal in the Resistance.

Sadly, looks like we might not see much of Finn and Rey together in TLJ (based on these images and other info we know about them). Regardless of that, I’m glad for Finn finding a family, identity, and embarking on a journey of his own.

I wonder if Rey gets a new costume later in the film, will Finn get something of his own too? Recycling is great (perhaps, the Resistance is a bit short on cash too to make custom costumes for everyone), but I would love to see Finn wearing something that reflects him as his own person. He has a name and an identity. Why not give him a signature look too?

Overall, I really like the retro vibe of their looks. Kinda reminds of old movies, with movie stars rocking leather jackets, riding bikes or flying planes in WWII.

The Legacy

Carrie. Standing strong and beautiful. A true freedom fighter, a leader, a royalty. I really love how this image conveys all of that and more what Leia is, and doesn’t shy away from femininity and glamour the character always had.

This is a gorgeous touching tribute to the late Carrie Fisher, and, as many fans, I welcome it, and wholeheartedly celebrate Carrie’s legacy.

I want to say thank you to whoever put Leia’s looks in TLJ together for honouring the character through the costume, the leader and the princess that Leia has always been.

I want to talk more about the way the way Carrie carries herself in the image, that lip pout, and yet slight sadness in her eyes. Carrie does it so well. You can really see all the years and things she’s been through. She is probably mourning Han Solo (no, definitely mourning!), and perhaps Kylo’s fate is still tied to the First Order and Snoke, and whether she and Luke reunite is still up in the air, and it’s still a war after all these years in the Rebellion and now Resistance. She’s been part of the war, one or another, all her life. Darth Vader is her father. Her brother, more of a myth than a man now. Her son, her parents, Alderaan. That cannot not leave an imprint, and I’m glad to see that coming through.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I actually started tearing up when I first saw this image. It’s so beautiful! Carrie looks simply stunning. To realize that this is her last role, and that she is the legacy of the 40 years history of Star Wars, and that she’s been Leia for 40 freaking years, since she was a teen to her last days, and been through so much in her life, yet fought and forged a path of her own, helping spread the word about mental health and making the world a little better place, having no shame in being herself despite the stigma and celebrity status, bashing haters with incredible wit and humour (hey, George Lucas got some too! So did the baboon hair she wore in TFA. I’m still not over her roasting the gas station attendant look xD), all of that and more is the inspiring tale of Carrie Frances Fisher.

While costumes are great, and great costumes are freaking fantastic, I really hope Leia has more than 2 minutes of screen time in The Last Jedi. Because that would be a crime to devote more time to robots and space ships than to the heart of Star Wars that characters and their stories are. What Leia Organa and her legacy are.

[survivorinternational]

Episode 3 - "I wish you were BORN in 1920 so you wouldn't be in this org" - Emily

I was close to getting an idol without searching more than twice. Michael told me he had been gathering info and narrowed down to three locations, I had already searched one so thats two. Tyler was going to search one, micheal the other. So i thought: if i beat one of them to an idol search i will have it without then knowing. But idol was gone, rip. At least I have an alliance now, i like tyler idk about michael though. Anyone who can gather that much idol info must be shady to some degree. 

I am pretty good at Semantris but we are not winning this challenge.

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Oh yeah I guess maybe I shouldn't try too hard to not be a challenge target at merge. I guess I'll try to get the promised 6k ; my top 5 scores are 6k - 9k for comparison so it might not be the easiest thing. 

----------

So far Vilma, Richmond (Clash) and Ginger have said they will attend the watch-together. Hopefully we have a good time. 

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Day 5: God that music video is hilarious... basic... but funny Immunity win! YES! Still undefeated as a tribe. Continue to build social relations. Worked out most places that have been searched... Maybe i should do a spread sheet. Tomorrow Me and Tyler will search the last few places and hopefully find the idol. Day 6: GG Ruthie. Reward challenge, Word association, ok. Idol search has produced nothing... This is concerning... Someone must have it by now but no-one is saying. My guess is that its Stephen. Dean is more distant, this is also concerning. Dean is sitting out this challenge. Approached Tyler and Stephen about an alliance, Its going ahead, invited Jacob to be a 4th. If all goes to plan, I should know where all votes are going atm, It seems that most players trust me the most and are willing to work with me, but this is a double edge sword. Talk of a swap is happening... god i hope not yet.

So Laelaps comes up and tells me that there's an alliance of 4 forming with me not inside - Tyler, Stephen, Jacob and himself. Yes it does give me some comfort that he's told me and that we're still sticking together, but I don't like being possibly on the outside 4 to 2. I'm just trusting in my alliance of Jacob and Laelaps that even if they're playing both sides they'd rather take me, and I'm trying to appear less threatening to save myself here.

I hate to sound like that brawn comp beast girl but my tribe is full of inbreds and incapable of doing anything well. first of all, our music video was SHIT because only me and patrick actually tried and contributed something worth anything. second, this flash game is literally so easy..... and they're all like uWu I can't do it :/ like are y'all dumb dumb STUPID dumb? like what's up man? I've been doing this for like an hour at most and I've been getting 4400+ consistently and Patrick goes "my high score is 1920" bitch WHAT I wish you were BORN in 1920 so you wouldn't be in this org that was mean I'm kidding lol but im not I hate this tribe they're all so BORING I need some different timezones in my life. someone put vilma on my tribe. I don't know her and post season I really hope she doesn't think these confessionals are creepy. vilma I want to be your best friend everyone on my tribe sucks ): also last vote (sorry I didn't make a confession about it early) was okay - Ruthie wanted to go so we voted her out. ): rip her I love her so much. I was really looking forward to playing with her. but the good thing was it was easy and simple. if we go to tribal again idk if it'd be as simple lol. also im so bad at talking to these people???? they're so bland!!! maybe others are talking but im certainly not getting anywhere socially except with randy occasionally. I'd want to work with randy or Patrick. im not the biggest fan of liana or Daniel so if we went to tribal again that's who id want to go. I think I could make it happen too. maybe? who knows maybe they have it out for me fjdlkasjflas uhhhh okay bye bye

if the 24 hour challenge is word race i will flip 

I love European Michael, he is the best European. 

During the word making immunity challenge the Europeans were up at 4am kicking our butts and Tyler who isnt participating starts talking about a European girl on their tribe that seems to be good at everything so I go to check and I think it's Vilma and want to confirm with him. Then the next word we had to make was coincidentally V5, so guess what I wrote xD 

I think I'm coming off bossy in my tribe. Which I don't want to seem. But everything has got to be perfect and in order so there are no mistakes. We must win. 

You know what? im going to bed. If we lose the challenge so be it, itll be healthy to vote someone out. I am not slugging away through a 24hr challenge against a beast. I’m just not. And if Veni whats to make himself known as a challenge beast, he can do that, I’ll just be gunning for him come merge/swap. I know other people might do the same. But, you know, good for him.

So the w9 game is going on and my tribe has 3 and the others have 20 so it’s like for sure that we’re going to tribal tomorrow. And I have professed my love for randy and he returned it and I like Emily and we’re talking about our idol searches, so that’s 3 of 5 already. My tribe is just like a very quiet tribe nobody talks besides Emily. When I saw how good the other tribes music videos were I got very concerned about their amount of communication compared to ours. Idk who I want to vote out I think I like David a little more but I’ll see what the other two think. 

I am literally so happy I've got such devoted comp beasts like Vilma and Veni in my tribe ! And we're also close allies ;) It's cool, I don't need to slay comps to win this... I just need my social skills with me and they can continue to write words :) 

Patrick keeps calling Daniel David and if that doesn't tell you enough about my tribe idk what does. but who does it say more about? Patrick or Daniel? honestly who cares. Patrick, Randy, and I kind of banded together like "we're the only active ones lol let's vote together" so I think it's gonna be Daniel! sorry but the dude does NOT speak. and I know this is his first org over here and we're super boring... I feel bad. but yeah he's also boring! and he's sort of good at comps but not really dude. so I think it's gonna be him. after this tribal, im pretty sure that we are tribe swapping. yay final 14! I don't mind going to tribal honestly. I feel safe because I'm slightly more active than some of the other people. like it's sad to say im the most active member of my tribe but im constantly out with my friends or at work or neglecting my responsibilities. oopsie! yeah so im gonna hope and pray no one is planning a blindside on me but like if they were they'd be fucking stupid also there's no god damn way they're pulling something they don't care enough? like genuinely this tribe is so quiet. it's not that they're not talking to me. it's that they are not here. that makes the pre-merge easy for me because I can control what happens on my tribe for the time being... because it's easy? and everyone kind of thinks of me as a leader I think? because I TRY. that's IT. anyway lol yeah my plan is to vote out Daniel. and then swap onto a tribe with Vilma pls 

Our tribe results: *posted early in the afternoon that we lost* Tribe: *doesnt talk to me* Me, a few hours later: *messages everyone trying to start a conversation and no one responds for a while* Emily: *responds once and goes offline * Pat: *responds once* Emily: *gets back online and I see both her and Pat's green circles but neither has responded to me* Me: "are you bitches conspiring against me?" Whatever I will probably have to play my idol and I am thinking about playing it against pat or Emily.  Daniel is just new so that's a good excuse for him. 

If it wasn't a double tribal we'd all still be here but unfortunately we have to go to tribal tonight. Tonight for me could go very simply, keep my alliance of Michael and Jacob happy by voting out Dean who no one seems to have connections with, but I am getting a bit paranoid because besides Tyler, knowing seems to be talking to me or continuing my conversations which to me is a telltale sign that you're not included. The good thing is that I do have an idol and if I need to play it I will because better safe than sorry. 

All right, so we’ve got alliances out the wazoo rn. Along with a heavy handed dash of loose lips. So tyler tells me that sluggy made an alliance with everyone but me and dean, then sluggy tells me he had a super early alliance with michael and jacob. All this tells me that Micheal especially is playing the middle, being in two alliances with him already myself. It also tells me that sluggy cannot be trusted with info. But sureeee ill be in a 2man alliance with you sluggy -_- Right now I dont trust anyone, even tyler, but ill keep this info to myself, if sluggys playing me this might be a test to see if i tell tyler or anyone else. I just need to make sure I lay low and keep the target off my back. Fingers crossed I don’t get blindsided, but at least I know I am in no way in control of this tribe, keeps me on my toes. 

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So i think ive settled things enough to feel safe, i think everyones voting dean, deans voting jacob. The only wildcard is jacob who wants to split, but doesnt know who. Tbh if he does i dont want him to tell me who it is, ill only feel guilty if he does. As long as it aint me right? 

I guess to summarise the word race because I doubt I did confessionals during that. - Michael the helper was really cool and I really enjoyed our banter in tribe chat hopefully we cross paths again. We did add eachother on Snachat. - Me and Vilma once again were the most dedicated scoring 34/35 for our tribe together. She is absolutely my ride or die partner in this and I will do anything to get one of us to win the thing. - Survivor Africa watch was good, we watched the first 3 episodes though it was just me and Vilma (see the trend?). Sadly apparently that will become illegal if we swap and are not on the same tribe which is pretty sad. - Swap is incoming, everyone knows that. Question is, will it be entirely random? If so, I flipped a coin to test my luck and it failed me. My predictions have been on point this season so moral of the story: this swap won't work well for me. - ALSO I CALLED THAT IT'S WORD RACE I HATE YOU ALL BECAUSE I AM TOO DEDICATED FOR MY OWN GOOD GODDAMNIT peace out homedogs 

After that intense tribal council I am shaking so much, I did get to talk to Stephen and Tyler a bit alone afterwards in the call so it was nice to be able to get a feel for their true feelings without the disguise of text. At this point if Dean didn't have that idol, either Michael/Stephen have it, or it hasn't been found yet. The good news is that with it being final 14 i can expect a tribe swap into 2 tribes of 7, and that gives a lot of room for bonding, I'll continue to do what I've been doing with the friendliness and hopefully I'm not just swapped alone. I can always try to weasel my way into the cracks of a team if I am, but I'm not quite ready to play the victim card, I still have a long stretch of game left in me before I do that. 

Well what's cooking is that I really really think it's gonna be me this vote lol, no one has talked to me and well, yeha 

2 immunity wins in a row hell yeah! Ngl, I wasn't SUPER worried about this one because if we lost, I think it was almost certain that Ginger would go. Ginger didn't submit in the last immunity and barely helped in this one and has barely spoken to any of us. Clash and I had a call the other day which was good and gave us an opportunity to discuss a bit of game which was good. We talked about who we liked/disliked and I found out that he knows Ginger but doesn't like him. It's almost certain that next round is a tribe swap and I'm praying I get put with Clash. Right now, my ranking of who I'd want to go forward with is probably : Clash>Vilma>Veni>Ginger 

Oh bless at us winning but at the same time I don’t trust ginger so idk if that’s the best but let’s hope for the best and hope I am in a tribe with Vilma and randy next tribe swap hehe 

Where is this idol?? No one claims to have found it and I sure haven't either. Could use a clue right now. Too bad my tribe mates didn't agree, since THREE of them STRIKED at the reward challenge. I literally burst into laughter when I saw that. My I C O N I C fail of a tribe. Veni and I are the only ones who truly care about challenges. Well Allan cares a bit as well, but he also seems to have a life, so, I'm happy for him, although jealous! But I bet we would've lost every single pre merge challenge if Veni and I weren't overly enthusiastic about them. I just hate tribal, okay? Plus I guess I admit I'm somewhat competitive, because I don't think I could handle just throwing a challenge without trying at all. That would feel simply wrong. Veni and I went all out in the immunity challenge too, we napped in shifts and made sure one of us was around throughout the entire challenge so we had the possibility to score a point at all times. Plus we made a huge ass google sheet so we could just copy and paste answers whenever a new letter got posted. The first 15-17 hours or so I thought the Aussie tribe was for sure going to beat us (they were soooooo fast, but so was Veni thank god), but I guess they got sleepy by the end and we won!!!! YAYYYYY NO TRIBAL Veni almost posted a gif of himself as a chicken to the challenge chat I would've died if we got a warning for that He meant to post it on tribe chat https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/410716559632367616/599331778934603786/mmm_veni_2.gif I don't know who I'd vote if we went to tribal that's why I really would like to avoid it Plus I'm scared Veni and I's activity is pissing people off Don't wanna go home yet I'm having fun Ugh fuck I'm losing focus LOOK AT THAT FOUR AUSSIES GOING AGAINST ONE LITTLE ME HELP Ugh Veni will be busy in about 30 mins and then I'm gonna be in big trouble At least he let me shower I feel like a human again But it'll be tough If I was normal I'd just chill but I don't have it in me I don't know how to chill I love winning too much I gotta get that bag It's a thug life It's a thug life WE WON CHALLENGE WE GOT A BIG LEAD THEY CANT CATCH UP FUCK YEEE I CAN SLEEP EARLIER I am just glad we don't have to vote anyone out Would've sucked I feel like these past 24 hours brought closer together So I would've hated it if someone had to leave (Especially if it was me) But F14!! WOOP We're surely going to swap after the double tribal and I'm excited but scared!!! Excited because I'm ready to meet some new faces even though I've grown a liking to my flop tribe, and scared because I feel after the last challenge it's pretty apparent Veni and I were the more active members of our tribe and we could get targeted for that. My plan is to try to lay a bit low at swap, but still make sure I get to know everyone one on one to make solid new connections. I really hope I don't get swapfucked, hope to remain in the same tribe with as many og Faatasi as possible. Let's go!

Damn work keeping me to busy to do confessionals. Reward Challenge: This appears easier as we go on. Quite enjoy this. Aim for over 5000. Got 7200 in one of my first tries... Aim is 10,000 Settled for 8200, sick of looking at my screen. Some of these word associations don't make sense. Who doesn't associate Video games with words like Play or fun... REWARD CHALLENGE WIN! AWWW YER!!! Comfort Items get! And in comfort items... A Vote Blocker!!! BOO YAH!!! Immunity Challenge: I called this 12 hours before the challenge began. I am a legend. Seems that most people are busy this weekend. I will do what I can but i will be busy for a good 6 hours of it as well Veni and Vilma are thorns in my side with this, they just type so quick VENI DOESNT SLEEP WTF!!! I cant keep up, I tried my hardest but cant keep going at 3am. We lost :( Tribe life: Current Alliances: The UHC Alliance, The Idol Hunters Alliance. Sluggy has suggested an Alliance between Tyler, Jacob, himself and me which I agree to. Vote is very straight forward, We are all voting Dean as he isn't very active unfortunately. I wanted to try and keep him around but I think I was the only one chatting to him. If Dean has an Idol then it will be Jacob going, which is also fine with me as I think Jacob will be a hindrance later in the game Dean is voted out 5-1 The idea of a swap is brought up, which we all agree is likely to happen. In the UHC chat, Sluggy brings up the point that Veni could spill the beans about knowing each other out of this survivor. Its a good point and I really didnt want to but I told my Idol Hunter Alliance about the fact I knew Jacob, Sluggy and Veni outside of the game but I play each survivor without using my relationships from outside the game effect it.

RIGHT so here we go again u crack heads. Hate u all, this is for round 3 btw so dont get it TWISTED, sorry I made a VIDEO confessional and forgot to post it OOPSIES. Anywho, like the who’s from whovillie here we are partying minding our own business, well me at least because while I went out clubbing everyone else had to do the challenge. Sorry about it. They all love me anyway so ALL good in the HOOD. Here we are thriving Michael is absolutely carrying the team. So while the challenge was popping off Sluggy approached me asking if I was in any alliance, I high key avoided the question and just said who im trying to trust, and HIGH KEY dropped hints that dean wasn’t one of those people. He start saying if we should make an alliance chat, I was elated by the idea and smiles were HAD. The alliance included Myself, Sluggy, Michael and Jacob which is everyone expect Dean and Stephan. This is the exact same as the other alliance chat but without Stephan and Sluggy in his place! I like Stephan tho, so I went and dibba dobbed on sludgy real quick, like a speed demon u could say. Sluggy was out here trying to make ME make the alliance chat, like no thank u that can be UR job I need to tell people I was DRAGGED into it so I CANT make it SORRY. Anywho he made it. So we accidentally LOST the challenge, and much to my SURPRISE due to my lovely CONNECTIONS with these lovely people! I wasn’t targeted at all even tho I sat out and went clubbing. Yee haw, I exclaimed out of excitement. My target is Dean going into this tribal. A.) he seemed really arrogant and annoying during the music video round. b.) his video submission gave me NIGHTMARES now I can’t even hug my pillow without feeling UNSAFE and C.) we dont talk. So ooop here come the kiddies lining up in formation asking what we should do for the vote. Ooo I want to vote Dean but I simply never say it because im not a GOOSE well I try not to be a GOOSE. I say how I feel good with … but never include dean, I then wait for them to say anything negative about dean and oops I agree real quick and keep the convo focused on dean. People were talking in a alliance chats but I was highkey ignoring them because I COULDNT BE BOTHERED I talked to everyone in pm’s tho, love that for me. So Michael is over here being everyones friend so I threw him just a BIT under the bus for a later date. Like I built the ramp and the final destination is under the bus but we aint gonna push him yet. ANYWAY Dean went home yay he will be missed just not by me. 

[signalacquired]

Hiroshima & Shimanami Kaido

This past Labor Day weekend, Serena & I decided to bike the Shimanami Kaido.  It is a series of islands connected by bridges linking Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, with Imabari, Ehime Prefecture over approximately 60 kilometers of connecting highway.  There are a total of 7 bridges, 6 of which are traversable by bicycle.  

To be completely honest, we started planning this trip about a week before it happened.  Originally we were planning to visit Fukuoka or Osaka but decided to go for the cycling instead.  

So first off, Hiroshima.  We walked from our home in Iwakuni to the JR train station which took about 40 min-ish.  

From there we spent about ¥500- ¥600 for a one way trip to Hiroshima, and about an hour or so later here we arrived!

Standing in the train station, looking at maps and our smartphones, a volunteer from the Hello Hiroshima Project walked up to see if we needed any assistance.  She was very nice and spoke English very well.  She made sure that we knew all about what to do and see in the city and to make sure we were walking in the right direction lol.  

Our first stop was to walk through the Hondori, a shopping/arcade located in the heart of Hiroshima.  

Once out of the Hondori we arrived at the A-bomb Dome & Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.  It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 and stands to this day as a representation of peace, to remember the past and to never repeat it.  

It was about time to eat some food, so being in Hiroshima the first thing to eat was Okonomiyaki.  Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake of sorts with all sorts of different ingredients in it.  Here’s a picture of us getting our first one:

It was really good, one was enough to keep Serena and I full for a bit.  I also ordered some gyoza because gyoza is awesome haha!  

We then walked around downtown a little more, stopping at various shops, Don Quijote, and Costco.  Our AirBnB was a little ways off so we had a nice walk experiencing all the sights, sounds, and smells of the city.  We also passed the Mazda Zoom-Zoom stadium where the Hiroshima Toyo Carp baseball team plays.  One day we hope to get some tickets and attend a game.  I hear it is quite the experience!  

Our AirBnB host, Yuya walked down to one of the JR train stations to meet us and show us the way to his residence.  It was a little apartment tucked back in the residential outskirt hills of Hiroshima.  Honestly we just needed somewhere to crash for the evening and this little room did the trick.  

The next morning we headed back to the train station to catch a ride further east toward Onomichi, where our cycling journey would begin.  

The ride was about 45min to an hour and when we got there, the information kiosk was very helpful in pointing us in the direction of the bike rentals.  There are several places to rent bicycles from, but we went with the bikes that you could return at any of the 13 or so drop off/pick up points along the route (this one), just in case my back acted up or something that would prevent us from riding further.  

oh and before beginning our journey, breakfast! XD

jk!  We had some tasty fresh buns from Lawson’s.  Curry bun > pork bbq bun

With our backpacks, helmets, and sunglasses, we began our cycling journey along the Shimanami Kaido!  

follow the blue line on Onomichi!

i think after this trip we both have a new love of bridges. families out on a Sunday BBQ

amazing views!  

each bridge was unique

so prettttyyyy

old school bus

biking under the bridge was such a treat!  We were biking along 125cc motorcycles too

dino time

starting to get a little hot 

yes, this is untouched.  Welcome to the sticks of Japan

Ice Cream Break!

The ice cream was good, but we wanted more lol

Happy Serena :)

Lemons, or some kind of citrus was popular.  Scattered through out the islands were little lemon statues, so of course, we had to get pictures with them.

attempted head shot

One of the rest stops is called Cyclists Sanctuary.  There was the usual free available water and rest stop amenities but here there were these interesting statue things that can double as bicycle stands.  Also a Stonehenge looking thingy.

Yep Serena had a lot of fun posing with them XD

At the end of the first day of cycling, we were heading to our AirBnB on Oshima Island when we realized that we needed to get something to eat and drink.  We ended up cycling all over the island looking for a Lawson’s.  About an hour or so later we finally found one along with some other smaller stores; we had a chance to get some food and snacks for our evening.  Hooray!

When we finally got to our Air BnB, the hosts were there waiting to welcome us.  Akira & Rie were very friendly and kind.  We were offered house slippers, warm towels to clean up and glasses of tea.  After a quick orientation around their amazing house, they actually left!  We had the whole house to ourselves!  This house is a guest house right on the water and they a little drive away.  Check out the pics below.

look at those nice Koozies!

Lil dinner thang.

The oven can fit a whole fish!

Bubbles!

Check out the room we slept in!

One Piece!

We spent about ¥6000 on the two bikes for two days.   ¥2000 of this was a deposit that was refundable upon the return of the bikes to the originating terminal, which means if we rode back we could get the money back.  Guess what we did.  Yep.  So the next morning we were again greeted by Akira and Rie.  We had some breakfast and talked with them a little, exchanging knowledge and culture.  We taught him that hallway is what we call the path between the rooms in English, and he taught us all about the surrounding area and about the history of the house we were staying in.  They both put a lot of work into restoring the old house along with a lot of artwork that Akira actually did himself.  They were probably the most hosptable Air BnB hosts that I have ever had.  Check out their facebook page here, and their Air BnB here.

checking out the backyard of our Air BnB

look at those snazzy slippers!

tiny hand-made tea set

one of the “American Gods”, Darth Vader XD

So we began our ride back to Onomichi.  We had one bridge left to complete the Shimanami Kaido, but we will save that for next time lol

Coolish, icecream in a pouch!  We enjoyed ours on the top of one of the bridges!

So Fancy!

Went in to one of the rest stops. Lemon everything!

Mad shout out to Matador for building some solid backpacks!

Victory Lunch!

Cycling all complete!  That was some kind of craziness!  Crazy awesome I mean :) 10/10 would do again and probably will! :)

Now for the JR train ride back to Iwakuni.

Yep, we were tired.

Also, along the Shimanami Kaido, we stumbled up on this beach.  Guess what this blog is gonna do with these pics?  We will show you, soon.  Thanks for reading!  Stay tuned for more posts as we continue our adventures here in Japan and beyond!