#i hate how the wiki is set up based on what occurs in series as opposed to a CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

[auranovabloggers]

Aura's Darkstalkers Tier List

A tier list based on my personal feelings of each character. Looking at their designs and my thoughts on them with a combination of the canon games and OVA and discussions I have had with friends over the years. Note I only hate the character in F tier. With that said, I'd like to give my reasons for each in descending order:

The Shao Siaster, Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling: Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling are my favorite characters of all time. They are the reason I even care about this franchise to begin with. When I first did my curious search on the Darkstalkers Wiki about Hsien-Ko in January of 2020, I was hooked on both of them. Their lore, their characteristics, their designs: something just clicked. But not just clicked, something connected to a soul like level. No other fictional characters have I ever obsessed over, made so much art of, thought about straight for years, or spent literally hundreds if not close to thousands on art commissions and merchandise. Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling mean literally everything to me. They are why I learned about this series, why I met some of the amazing friends I have now, and the inspiration for my drive with art. Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling are truly the greatest. Equal in my eyes and in my heart.

Felicia: In general, I feel Felicia is a great character. The idea of her backstory, who she is, her goals, and personality are generally winners in my book. Despite likely being hated for purely being what she is, she still preservers and believes that peaceful coexistence can occur with Darkstalkers and humans. Noble are her goals and kind is her soul. Her design is kind of a mixed bag as it definitely has some horn to it, I feel, but I like the overall color scheme to her. Plus, who she is, and her lore heavily carries her.

Lilith: Honestly, she is carried by what I think of in my head. She has a hell of a lot of potential as a character. Design wise, nice juxtaposition from Morrigan. I dunno... I think she is cool the more as time has gone on and the more, I have talked with friends.

Jedah: He is a fascinating individual to think about when you think about the world he grew up in. Makai is a fucked-up realm, and the dude showed some semblance of actually giving a damn about the future of his home. But then he got fucked over by his confidant. All that stuff twisted his mindset and set him on the path for what he believed was the right path for all once he came back from death. Interesting individual indeed and a much more compelling antagonist compared to Pyron.

Jon Talbain: His backstory is fine. His personality is alright. I just really love the idea of a martial artist werewolf. And honestly, the idea of an individual trying to conquer his 'inner demons' is a cool set up. It has potential to be really cool in my head. I do like some of his sprite animations do show a bit of snark to him despite his generally stoic if not angry demeanor. Also the idea he looks after some kids and potentially teaches them martial arts is cute.

Victor: His family dynamic with his big sister Emily is so bloody precious. And Victor himself is a generally nice dude. He just wants to make his creator proud and have a good life with his big sister. Lovable dude.

Zabel: My friends have tainted me, the bastards. But yeah, Zabel has a lot of class and style for being the zany, metalhead that he is. Great animations, lots of energy, and honest to god I love his tongue. Just how he swings it around in a lot of official art. He is a cool dude. Also, his general design has a great unique flair to zombies/ghouls.

Morrigan: Looking into her personality and backstory, she is interesting. Just too bad people only focus on the surface and porn. But for what she is, a hedonistic thrill seeker who is confident in herself, she is neat.

Donovan: The idea behind is backstory is compelling: due to having no control over his vampiric nature, he killed everyone he knew and loved, including his own mother. Traumatized and with a dash of self-hatred, he wants to find a way to right the wrong he did. Cool idea. And then he watches over this child with incredible potential in supernatural powers and has this wacky sword at his disposal. Nice, nice. One thing about his design is that I bloody hate how his top clothing is skintight compared to his clothing down below. It is honestly bad. But he is carried by his backstory.

Huitzil: Robots are cool. He can do cool stuff and one of them looks after this child. I think he is neat.

Anita: The mystery of her backstory and powers are cool and worth thinking about an exploring. But beyond that, not much else her. Sucks what Capcom did to her and ole Donny boi with VSAV.

Sasquatch: Lovable dude. I wanna give him a hug and take him out to get some smoothies and food.

Q-Bee: I have some personal gripes with the character: all petty things. Design wise... why is she the way she is? Considering that Soul Bees reside in Makai, I doubt their disguise would work well when there are not a lot in the way of humans. I mean...unless there are Makains who see them as weak cause they have human like looks to them. I dunno. The 'breasts' on their bodies kinda look dumb. If they really went in with the whole insectoid look, I think they would be cool looking. As is, they have some neat ideas: the fake eyes and face being able to open to a real mouth.

Pyron: He reads to me as a Saiyan. Prideful warrior who wants to be riled up in the heat of battle. Will start slow as he tests his foes. That is neat. But honestly, not much else.

Rikuo, Anakaris, Bishamon: Honestly, they all fall into the category of having some cool things, but not being interesting enough for me. But I like them more than those below them. Rikuo is a goddamn handsome merman with a wife and son, Anakaris has commandments and kingdom, and Bishamon has his dog and wife. Cool dudes.

Bulletta: I mean the idea of her looking innocent but deep down being this psychotic monster is good. But that is it. Not much else going for her. But it is good, just not enough compared to everyone above her.

Demitri: He is a general sore loser and pathetic individual who thinks he is hot shit but has picked fights with people far stronger than him. Dude lost to the literal strongest individual in Makai and held a grudge long enough that when it turns out the dude passed away, he directed his rage at Belial's daughter and heir. And she did nothing to Demitri other than exist and be the heir to the Aensland house. Sure, he gave Pyron a good suck, but he potentially still lost to Jedah if we take into a possible account that one recording where it implies, he was killed by Jedah. Also, I feel his clothing design, while fine, looks fucking stupid with being skintight. Dude is trying to have this sense of class and high society, but he looks ridiculous. He is dumb and terrible and in all that, it makes him fun to absolutely shit on. He is funny and that makes him likeable.

Marionette: The idea of her mirror match thing is interesting and the design if fine. But not much else to go with

Shadow: A tad less than Marionette, but same general premise. Except dude is a body snatcher.

Dee: The concept is sound. The idea of Donovan losing to his inner demons and becoming nothing more but a shell of what he was. Brilliant idea considering the other side of Darkstalkers: Darkstalkers is silly, but it is also grim. But this idea is all completely ruined by an absolutely godawful design. If this guy is a barely functioning shell of an individual, only continuing due to the idea of finding something, why does he try even dress up in the attire he wears? He should be in tatters, his hair unkempt, just overall look like someone who has not taken the time to look after themselves. But no, just take make him look like Demitri, but even worse.

[caninekakashi]

if the naruto timeline has a million haters, then i am one of them. if it has ten haters, then i am one of them. if it has only one hater then that is me. if the naruto timeline has no haters, then that means i am no longer on earth. if the world loves the naruto timeline, then i am against the world.

[scgdoeswhat]

Unpacking The Elementalists Finale

I’d like to dedicate this to my dear Kane anon (and other TE anons) who have been hitting my ask box up for the last several months. I’m sorry this took forever to get out and I know it doesn’t ease the fact that they ixnayed Kane, but hopefully this makes a little more sense of TE’s abrupt ending.

Without further ado...

I’ve been wanting to make this post since Book 2 Chapter 10, but life has been hectic. TE’s finale finally forced my hand and so here I am, with a bunch of theories, points, and thoughts I've had noted since the book came back from its hiatus. First off, now that TE is officially over (😭) we now know that the hiatus was primarily used to tie up all the loose story lines and to give us a tidy ending. The writing in the second half of the book was more solid, concise, and had a clear cut vision of what the writers wanted and where the plot was headed. As much as I hate to say it, the first half of the book may have been overly ambitious. They introduced the Moral Compass, potentially two villains in Kane and Alma, and a plethora of different storylines. I had a number of people tell me through the first five/six chapters of Book 2 that they were confused with the plot because it became too convoluted and hard to follow along. I think they introduced too many elements into the story, which dragged down the arc. Let’s break down some of these individually: The Moral Compass was something we were all excited to see implemented, because it gave us the potential to be an evil MC. In the end, we know it didn’t make much of a difference, save for dialogue and/or violent options. I think this was originally something intended to be greater than what it amounted to, and part of it is the limitations of the medium that the app is and simply, resources. This also ties into…. The plot involving Kane and Alma. I don’t believe having Kane as the Big Bad was supposed to be as defined as it ended up being. The two Sources were written far more ambiguous in the beginning, with the chance that depending on your choices, you could side with either one by the end of the book and/or series. The hiatus streamlined the plot, discarding elements that were difficult to pull off, including multiple MC point of views that may have held the possibility of being evil or choosing Kane, therefore placing Alma as the antagonist. In a narrative story app such as Choices (as opposed to Lovestruck, where the routes have the same players but different stories altogether), I just don’t think this advanced storytelling would have been doable. These plots are primarily linear, and MC being evil/with Kane/etc, it would present a different set of problems, including the fact that this becomes an entirely different story while there is supposed to be one solid ending. (For what it's worth, I enjoy the MC customizability of Choices more.) Looking at the group of friends, obviously Beckett was incredibly fleshed out while the others were not as much. I wanted to delve further into our friends’ backgrounds a bit more, and I think at the beginning of the book, we were on that path. Aster and her wood nymph family was a perfect example of table setting. We had two or three scenes before the hiatus to go to the forest, and I thought the Wand Wars and their involvement against Kane was slated to be more prominent. I think the writers had something bigger planned, but how would it all tie in if players started choosing the evil choices? Again, having too many choices causes a domino effect that makes it nearly impossible to navigate when the story is supposed to end with a particular goal in mind. The chapter where we can receive the wand was a symptom of ending the book early and I think the execution of the actual Wand Wars scene was lacking the emotional punch the initial introduction of it warranted. This is unfortunate because the setup they had in Book 1 made it seem much more violent, disastrous, and full of hate compared to what was shown (i.e. Attuned just being greedy bastards). We were introduced to Shreya's Serene & Sublime business and the potential of family disapproval and lack of support in the beginning, but everything was tied up with the gala chapter. Looking back, I was curious why it was so easy to get so many financial backers this early into the series, but knowing that TE only went for two books makes much more sense why we knew whether S&S succeeded or failed. (Tangent - for anyone who didn't secure backing, is S&S successful at the end of the book?) I think Griffin, his scholarship, and his decision between Natural Sciences and Thief was also slated to be a bigger subplot. We never met his parents, despite them being brought up very early in Book 1. If TE had gone the originally planned three or four books, I have no doubt his family would've been introduced and MC would have needed to help sway his parents (and the committee for the scholarship) whether Griffin continued on the NS or professional Thief path. Doing the Griffin scenes (even as platonic friends) influenced his standing for the scholarship and not doing them made him lose out to Amy, if I'm not mistaken. Question for everyone regarding Zeph and the Thief captaincy: Does he get it in everyone's playthrough? I wonder if the writers always planned for Zeph to get the captaincy or if Griff would have kept it depending on your playthrough if they had all four books to use. Another big plot point that resolved itself out of nowhere was Atlas and MC butting heads over their Sun Source mother. I was not a fan of this storyline at all. I felt like the disagreements between the siblings was unnecessary drama that came off as forced. They tried to explain Atlas' position, and I understood where they were coming from, but Atlas was very unreasonable with their constant “who cares about mom” shtick.

I think this was something that could have been more impactful if there weren't so many plotlines happening and more focus could have been given to it instead of a few screens of Atlas saying they were pissed off before storming away from MC. This was also a plotline that was directly influenced by the Kane/Alma decisions. If MC sides with Kane, it makes much more sense for MC and Atlas to be against each other as opposed to MC being good/siding with Alma.

Five major subplots were opened, but how do you seamlessly weave these elements into a 17-19 chapter book? In my opinion, you can't. Each time something new was introduced, I felt things were glossed over, despite big chunks of chapters being focused on whichever subplot the chapter was about. Throw in the romance and I think it is nearly impossible to resolve each aspect in a complete manner.

What also hurt was the pacing of the series. This was also seen in Book 1, where sometimes a chapter would span one or two days, only for a huge time jump to occur in the next chapter.

So many ideas could have been explored through the course of four books (which is what I believe they had planned), but all the different elements should have been introduced at different times. Instead, Book 2 was an amalgamation of so many ideas but not enough time, space, or resources to thoroughly hash out and have a satisfactory resolution. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was having too much Beckett that hurt the series. He obviously kept the series afloat and was one of PB's biggest moneymakers in recent history. Despite the constant complaints on tumblr, people fail to realize that the ENTIRE online fandom (FB, IG, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Wiki) comprises maybe 0.5% - 2% of the ENTIRE player fan base. It only made sense that PB capitalized on him because their numbers dictated that the resources should be spent in that manner. The fallout from this was that Beckett was the only one who had his storyline relatively complete, and that was due to the spending power of everyone who romanced him. I think what hurt them the most was the multiple storylines and the indecision of which direction they wanted to go. They had a grand idea of the direction through Book 2 (and Book 3, let’s not lie here) but in-game mechanics and the type of game Choices is made it difficult to pull off. The app wasn’t the correct medium for what they envisioned. In my opinion, the overall story arc had the potential to be brilliant, but again, the app wasn't designed for the type of story the writers wanted to tell.

I also think the timing and having a very short turnaround hurt, as well. Players had high expectations and when you factor in the hype around the other books that were also released on Fridays, TE lost some of its sparkle. Most players didn’t get a chance to miss it for the regular 2-3 months we’ve been trained to wait for sequels. (I recognize that I’m an anomaly and the previous three sentences do not apply to me at all.)

Even with all this, I applaud the writing team for wanting to deliver a story that was worthy of a magical world. I love all the Pend Pals (‘Motley Crue’ for me), the familiars, the side characters, loved to hate the villains, and from someone who is not into Harry Potter lore at all, I was absolutely sucked into the magick universe that the writers built. (Metal Att for life ⚙!)

If TE does return in the future (and I REALLY hope it does), I think it will be even stronger than the first two books because the world building is complete. We know almost everything we need to know now. Instead of using a Book 3 to search for Sun Mama, the family is complete, MC and Atlas are attuned to all the elements, and there are so many open-ended questions that Book 2 left us.

If they implement a time jump where MC and the Pend Pals are all post grad/mid 20s, it also gives the writers a chance to move the story from the Young Adult genre to a more mature setting. We saw this in the later diamond scenes, where the writing appeared similar in their vividness (and coding in the final scene - THANK YOU, glorious writing team) to Open Heart, Bloodbound, and A Courtesan of Rome. This removes the restrictions placed on the group of being college kids, and therefore are almost fully developed with their magick, giving the possibility of moving the story out of a university setting.

If you've made it all the way here to the bottom, thank you for sticking with me and apologies for spelling/grammar since this has all been on my phone 😂 I think this comprises almost all my notes I've been keeping for the last 2 months. Feel free to agree or disagree; I just wanted to post my thoughts on this book and series that I love so much.

Now, I'm going to go back to my holiday (don't worry, I didn't write all of this while on vacay lol) and I'll try to answer asks when I have downtime.

[frostbite883-archive]

DBM Bra hating

These comments won’t be in order. With that said..let’s do it to it.

Tregrenos

So, is it Hyukhyuks turn to eat a Senzu in the middle of the match?

#GetGudBra

Me:...I doubt that would happen seeing as that hulking monster never did carried senzu beans after it’s ‘birth’.

A Poverty-Stricken Antelope

@Tregrenos

Now I understand another reason why I hate Bra: she heals mid-match like a little bi***. She wouldn't last 10 seconds in a Dark Souls duel.

Me: So you say.

Itsarge (gamergater or former GGer) and snowflake exchanging some words with each other.

snowflake:

My view on Bra: She's an awkward character. Literally. She's an entitled princess of a Deity-God-Warrior and Bulma, so she's a overpowered brat with a genius level IQ, and obsessed with strength and being better than everyone, which makes her relationships very one-sided and binary. She literally divides the world up into people stronger than her and not stronger than her, and only acknowledges one person as legitimately stronger than her. No, seriously. It's a problem. Try writing like a tomboy teenage girl would talk, who's obsessed with beating everyone she comes across. At best it would come out as parody. It is hard to find that voice, and harder still to make it resonate with a predominately male audience, and yet harder STILL to do it within the confines of traditional shonen story-telling, from which DBZ is inspired. So Salagir took cues from cocky, pre-redemption Vegeta (not a bad idea). But I believe it only jarred the readers more. The gender-swap seemed obvious and artificial and distracted the reader from the story. The same problem occurs in superhero comics. Iron Man? Everyone accepts that a white dude of indeterminate age can be of genius level intellect, have his own company, and be a superhero/playboy in his copious spare time. Riri Williams? A 15 year old black girl who reverse-engineered Iron Man's tech? Whom he then decided to fund and sponsor? UNBELIEVABLE, according to the backlash. Not a real Iron Man/War Machine, it was obvious that the writers simply "made her up." X-23, Laura Kinney? Not a true Wolverine. "Just created as fan-service." Dr. Jane Foster? Not a real Thor. "Just a writer gimmick." This begs the question, why not? What dissolves the suspension of disbelief with these characters, while the suspension of disbelief is limitless with traditional characters? People claim they want new and interesting stories and challenging plots and characters, the same way they claim they want to lose weight. But they really don't. They want the old chestnuts, the familiar, the predictable. The sugar and the salt. If a story is predictable, you don't have to think about it too much. It won't upset you. People dislike being upset. Shonen style stories are the most predictable on the planet. Good always wins. Evil is punished. Virtue is rewarded, and sins are rebuked and/or reprimanded. Good guys and bad guys are obvious and look the part. So Salagir set himself up with challenge in U16 Bra: an unsympathetic, one-dimensional character who happens to be a girl whose cockiness and obsession with strength is/was rewarded, not punished. Her morality is questionable. It's a deliberate inversion of the typical shonen character. But plot-wise, U16 is integral to the story. So she had to wear Plot Armor from the beginning, as well. Also DBM is moving along, plot-wise, at the pace of Freeza's kitchen timer. And there's also a peanut gallery of readers dissecting everything you do every page? Uh-oh...

ltsarge:

Regarding their statement people could buy iron man cause he is a white male... You know I take issue when people bring this line of thinking up. I think their iron heart girl, being a 15 year old black girl is a total cash grab gimmick appealing to their xtreme social left. In the same way that female Thor was a giant feminist spectacle that literally went around beating up misogynists. I don't think it's unreasonable to call out this type of pandering where it's seen. If marvel really wanted a black female heroine to take up the reigns of them iron man, they could have gone with this character. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_Knight It would be way more believable for an previously established in comics older black lady who has personally designed by tony stark tech, to take up the Ironman mantle than some 15 year old prodigy made up whole cloth. Same with female thor. If she - hulk or black widow went around welding his hammer (them latter which has occured), I would totally buy it. Having some super powered feminist be the new thor, and telling thor to check his privelege seems almost a parody of sjw influence in comics, yet it's played horribly straight. Sorry for the digression in this thread

snowflake:

But the entire superhero genre is pandering. Captain America punching Hitler? Meek and Mild-Mannered Clark Kent becoming Superman beating up anyone and anything with complete moral justification? Batman being the God-Damnned Batman? Itsarge - In the same way that female Thor was a giant feminist spectacle that literally went around beating up misogynists. That's a totally legitimate power-fantasy. It's just not aimed at you. At least you can console yourself it's likely to fail commercially. And just wait until the Enchantress gets her hands on her! As for Misty Knight, they were probably wanting to avoid anything smacking of blaxploitation. In fact, since Riri Williams looks like her exactly, she'll probably end up being a clone or something. Anyway, my point is that female superheroes are a challenge. They're a challenge to draw (how sexy is too sexy? how muscular is too muscular?). They're a challenge to write. They're challenging to present in an appealing light, and they're a challenge to plot for. And then there's the audience predisposed to hostility against such characters, and then there's the fact it's on the internet, which simply makes everything worse!

ltsarge:

1st up, female superheroes are not a challenge.  Just focus on making a good character, that happens to be female.  Black Widow, Ripley, Sarah Connor, Lara Croft, Rukia, Riza Hawkeye, Winry Rockbell, Bulma Fucking Briefs... (I can go on but you get my drift.) 2nd.  Anyone complaining about them being too sexy is either a prude or hypocrite, considering the over masculine features of male heroes which gives plenty of fanservice to people who like men.  And before anyone says any Anita Sarkeesian-esque excuse about how male superheros having amazing body appeal to the male power-fantasy, go do a cursory google image search on any male hero, ESPECIALLY if they anime, and take off your parental filters.  You will see endless fan art of male characters from Ichigo to wolverine to Raiden who are all in sexually explicit poses, if not flat out porn of them.  Probably the latter. Hell just look at fucking Twilight series if you want an entire series dedicated to the female gaze upon appealing strong masculine figures. The point is, if you're overly concerned about the sexual imagery of a female character, you're in either fear of the rabid feminist crow, or possibly the overly conservative crowd.  Considering their are female characters throughout comics and anime that are sexually appealing but renownly well written speaks volumes on how little an artist or writer should give a fuck about whether they are too muscular or sexy.   3rd.  Regarding superhero pandering like Captain America punching Hitler (or similar heroes punch insert political villain) in the face.  You may note that is something that is often mocked by comic book fans for how politically charged and nationalistic it was.  If that low bar is what we are setting as defense for female thor, than sure, well than I guess those examples of bad writing justifies absurd levels of feminist pandering.

4th.  Most of the arguments brought forth in the discussions regarding all this since the comment about "people are more willing to allow for a white male Iron man, but not Insert minority character" that have emerged as defense of bra, seem to be desperate attempts of justifications for an overall badly done character.  You don't need testicles or white pigmentation and blue irises to recognize the Bra for the most part has not jived with the fan base.  I've made a hefty list in this thread of why her character has problems, and none of them are because she has a vagina.  In fact, I have criticized many of Salagir's Original Characters for the same reasons, but Bra has either more or all of the flaws of the others such as Gast or King Cold. Let's be real.  If Bra was not a female character, people who defend her would not have certain cards in their arsenal.  If this character was Vegeta, and I was defending her, you wouldn't see me saying "Oh you vegeta haters dislike Vegeta because he's a male.  You are all sexist!"  or "its difficult to right an arrogant MALE character from space" I don't give a fuck that Bra is a strong female character.  I give a fuck that her blatant mary sue traits are not addressed, and in story she's not criticized for being a bratty person. Just because there is a lack of "strong female" characters in DBZ cannon (not complete absence, as there are still many in DB/DBZ), is not a good excuse for building a shitty one.  We don't need affirmative action in comics or fan comics.  If people want to make a strong female character, that's good, that's fine!  But if there is one that's made that has HUGE FLAWS, we shouldn't say "Well, there are no other strong female characters, so thank god for BRA."

snowflake:

Well, on the flip side, if Bra was male, I doubt we'd get as much demands for PUNISHMENT!1!11 or "Punch me harder, Daddy" jokes. At this point, we'll just agree to disagree. We're talking past each other. I have faith that all of your complaints with U16 Bra will be addressed in the story eventually. U18 and U16 have had limited interaction since the beginning of the story. There's a reason for that.

ltsarge:

I'd be happy to argue at length over female portrayals vs male, so if u'd like to merge some of this over to a new thread that be fine with me.

Me: Hopefully, they don’t do that. Not because I think they’ll lose any argument or whatever you’d have with them, but out of the fact that whenever they DO point out flaws in your arguments and show you evidence you’ll just conveniently ignore them. You’re def. not someone worth conversing with.

Me: And seriously, why would you liked their last post to you?

prphd and ltsarge like this

Me: I mean with the way you went after them, I’d rather they didn’t get a like from you let alone anything else (although, this could be your way of respecting your opponent or whatever you would refer to them as, still, it doesn’t make it any less awkward seeing as how antagonistic you had been towards that person, a stranger no less...who you try to inject your thoughts and feelings towards while replying to their post when it wasn’t warranted).

Me: And some Anti-SJWs wonder, bitterly, on why some social justice advocates don’t take them seriously. Let alone obligate themselves to even talk things out with them.

[rumikothefox]

Favorite Monster Hunter Monsters, Elder Dragon Edition

Alright, so here is the list of my favorite Elder Dragons. Once again, this is in no particular order. 

Please keep in mind that Elder Dragons are usually hidden or story-based monsters. There are bound to be spoilers for these games due to the nature of these monsters. If that concerns you, best to skip this list.

Let’s get this show on the road!

Ceadeus

As far as Elder Dragons go, let’s start with my first love. Ceadeus was my first Elder Dragon, before I even really understood the classification in reference to the series. He was epicly huge, really powerful, and honestly didn’t give a crap about me until I started being more than a mild annoyance to him and broke his beard. Fighting him was surprisingly fun for an underwater fight, albeit a bit frustrating at times, but I think it was the story aspect that really sold me on him. The beautiful music, the lead up to his fight (including the Lagiacrus fakeout), and the fact that this village’s future is riding on you at least driving this Ceadeus off, if not slaying it outright. It just made it feel ridiculously grand. The Goldbeard Ceadeus was kind of awesome too, but it didn’t have the same impact as fighting Ceadeus in the village quests did.

Oroshi Kirin

When I try to figure out if I like a monster or not, it usually comes down to the fact that monsters both frustrate me and enthrall me. So in which ones does the second happen more than the first? Kirin and Oroshi Kirin ride that fine line where it was hard to say. Both are frustrating as all hell, but they are such amazing monsters that it’s hard to stay mad at them. Oroshi in particular has an awesome-looking coat and I’ve always been partial to ice elements in RPGs. 

Kirin and Oroshi are fast and have really tough hides. They were the type of fights that made me glad I was a gunner mostly in MH4U, because bouncing is never a fun time. I sat back and let loose the pew pew right on that horn of his. To be honest, I initially kind of thought of Kirin as a joke. What is this tiny little horse monster gonna do to me, right? Theeen the carting began and I realized this horse got the title Elder Dragon for a reason. Despite the frustration though, I just felt more compelled to take him down.

Plus... I mean... you know... the armor?

Yeah... >.>

Gogmazios

Gog was our hidden Elder in MH4U. There wasn’t really a lot to him lore-wise, just a balls-hard fight. This is a monster covered in a very sticky, very flammable oil. So sticky, in fact, that this monster starts with a portable dragonator stuck in its back. If you can manage to dislodge it, you can use it against him in addition to the dragonator already in the arena.

Gog is surprisingly mobile for his size. Some of his movements remind me a little of Fatalis and he shares that annoyingly long tail trait. Gog fires explosive fire beams from his mouth that will burn you if you’re too close to the initial fire and, if you hang around the contact point too long, it will explode and send you flying with a ton of damage. He is also capable of flight, despite his size, and he occasionally goes into an enrage phase that involves him flying around the area firing his beam of death indiscriminately in every direction. If you can’t use the binders to bring him to the ground, you generally have to leave the battleground until he’s done rampaging.

My favorite part of him was mounting. I spent half my time in MH4U gunning and the other half with an insect glaive in my hand. And this guy was super easy to mount. It wasn’t uncommon to get a multiplayer room with at least two glaive users in the fight because most people knew that was his weak point. Mount him, bring him down, everyone does damage. Rinse and repeat. It turned a monster that was almost too hard to consider farming despite his amazing-looking weapons into a monster that was tough but fun. 

Lunastra/Teostra

Okay, so, I’ve only fought a Teostra, but I just love how the Lunastra looks and I had to include her with her hubby at least for that and the fact that in their original game, they fought almost the same way.

I love this lion-like, chimera look to them. Lunastra’s coloration speaks to me more, but I do love Teostra’s firey appearance. They look very regal in how they hold themselves.

In fourth gen, they added blast to Teostra and it is both awesome and sucks. In combat, you can get blasted around a ton and you practically have to have an enrage timer handy in a browser to time when he’s going to do his supernova move, because if you’re in melee range when that goes off, it’s gonna hurt. His blast weapons are some of the best in the game though, so I got used to fighting him pretty quick since we farmed him for weapons a lot. They tend to have less top-end than, say, Brachy’s weapons, but they have such an obscene amount of blast on them that with a quick enough weapon and enough hunters, you can just kind of chain explode a monster and cause them to flinch their ass off.

Edit: As of Monster Hunter World, I have now fought a Lunastra. I still love her, but that first unlock quest... well... I could have gone without that entire experience. lol

Hallowed Jhen Mohran

Jhen is yet another Elder that I fought early on and got that special sort of place in my heart. Monsters had always, until that point, been a toe-to-toe fight with the monster in question. Toe-to-claw? Anyway, it hadn’t even occurred to me that a monster this large could exist in this game. So when the villagers were like, “Hey, we wanna take on this monster, but we need to ready a ship to fight it with, can you get us some mats?” I was kind of perplexed but went with it anyway. The result was a ridiculously epic fight that involved firing cannons and ballista at a giant sand whale, climbing on his back to break parts of his spines, and a showdown with the monster creeping ever closer to the boat with only me between them. Having the MH main theme kick in when you use the dragonator on him during the showdown was also an amazing touch. It makes you feel like “omg yes!! I can do this!! LET’S GO GENTS!!!” I didn’t always get all my carves, but it was a fun ride.

Hallowed Jhen was definitely tougher, but god he’s pretty. Jhen has just this sandy, rocky look to him that is cool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not all that fancy either. Then out struts Hallowed Jhen in G Rank, looking like some swaggering geode that says “Yeah, just try it.” I didn’t fight him often other than when I specifically needed mats, mostly due to his difficulty and also due to the fact that the epicness of the fight sort of starts to wear on you when you have to do it over and over for certain parts, but it was definitely amazing when we did fight him.

Akantor

Okay, first thing is first. Akantor is a Flying Wyvern. Yes, technically this monster isn’t an Elder Dragon. He USED to be classified as one, according to lore. You fight him alone in a volcano arena. He’s ridiculously powerful. His weapons are Elder Dragon levels of powerful. He’s an Elder Dragon, I don’t care what classifications say. :P

Akantor is like if you took a Tigrex and made him spiky and fire-based. He has most of Tigrex’s basic moveset when he moves and attacks. He has the added ability, though, to burrow into the ground and pop up elsewhere. Thankfully this is usually done rather slowly, so you aren’t likely to get too caught off guard unless you are just not paying attention. Which is bad news because if you’re not watching, you can end up with Akantor pulling himself out of the ground behind you and firing a beam that will absolutely devastate you. I guess I just have a thing sometimes for these big, slow, but intensely powerful monsters. He just looks like something you definitely don’t wanna mess with and, really, he isn’t. But he’s a fun fight. Certainly a lot more fun, imo, than his rival, Ukanlos. Shovelface can take a hike.

Alatreon

Ugh, okay, it pains me to break combo like this. I’ve been using the backgroundless renders of all the monsters so far, but I couldn’t do it this time.  I couldn’t find a proper render of him that didn’t either make him look much darker than he actually is, or make him look like he came straight out of a “brown game”. So you get this screenshot from the wiki instead.

Alatreon is a headache to fight. I hate fighting him. But he has some cool lore and his weapons look amazing. Sadly, I didn’t fight enough of him to be able to make his weapons in MH3U. They all have this theme of being black with glowy purple accents with some pretty cool shapes.

The idea behind this Elder is that he can use FOUR of the five elements. That’s Dragon, Ice, Thunder, and Fire. The only one missing is water. The problem is this makes him highly unstable. Monsters aren’t meant to have that many affinities, I guess. He uses all four against you in some capacity, though he can only use one at a time. The arena has a ballista binder, which is good because sometimes he will go into a flying phase where bringing him down is the better option to letting him fly around and have his way with you. In some ways he resembles the body shape of Kushala Daora and even has some of his moveset if I recall.

Chameleos

Okay, so you have that endgame set you really like, right? Got it all nice and gemmed up the way you like it with optimal dps skills? Yeah? Okay, cool. Now open five of those slots up, shove some anti-theft decorations in those slots, and suck it up. No, I said suck it up. Stop crying, you can have your skills back later.

Your enjoyment of Chameleos can be inversely proportional to how many of your items he’s stolen with that long tongue of his, as well as how rare those items are. The more he’s stolen, the more you want to cry and possibly throw something. You will not be getting those items back. R.I.P.

That being said, as a whole, I highly enjoy Cham. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I had to farm him excessively, both for my status blademaster set and for several of his top tier poison weapons. But I got pretty used to his antics. A dedicated anti-theft set specifically made for fighting him helped. I still had to contend with his poison stupidity, but it’s a small price to pay.

I think Cham may be one of the only goofy-looking Elder Dragons. He just has this expression that makes you wanna laugh. Like Kirin, he’s one of those monsters that if you don’t take him seriously from the outset, he will surprise you with the amount of ass kicking he gives you.

My favorite part of fighting him was his mist. He creates mist in the area that he can vanish into unless you’ve broken his horn (at which point he’s very visible when he THINKS he’s invisible). When the mist kicks in, it does this awesome effect where his battle music become muffled, like the mist is blocking your hearing somewhat.  I liked the effect a lot and it kind of added to that immersion, like you were surrounded rather than your hunter character. His music is also ridiculously awesome imo. 

Dalamadur

I’m not sure if I’d put Dally as my absolute favorite, but he’s very much up high on the list for me. Dalamadur is the largest monster in the series so far. As far as I’m aware, anyway. He sits at 44039.7cm (1444.8 feet) long and is fought with his body wrapped around a mountain. At any given time, you can only reach a couple of his claws, his tail, and his chest. You can hit his head if you’re ranged or an insect glaive user. He occasionally will move in such a way that you can hit his body for a minute or two.

This guy is so big and powerful that his movements can shape the landscape. When you find him, he’s covered in this layer of stone, just kind of sleeping wrapped around a mountain peak. He wakes up, cracks the layer off himself, and comes down after you. I love his roar in particular, it just adds to this whole idea of his monster so much bigger than you. It reverbs around the whole area.

Initially, I hated this guy.  There is a lot to remember when fighting him and if you’re unfamiliar with the fight, expect wipes. Our group watched videos about how to fight him before we took him on (WoW raiding habit) and we still got toasted a lot early on.  Once you learn his phases and tells, though, he becomes manageable and kind of fun.  You definitely want to be working on different things than other people. Have someone break his tail while someone else goes after a claw. A third person can be breaking his chest, while someone else could be trying to get on his head and set bombs up there. Learning to Superman dive through his beam of death helps as well.

He’s a difficult one to carve because his body takes a long time to settle during its death throes and you could end up somewhere where his body isn’t actually landing.  That takes practice as well.  Still, taking him out is extremely satisfying.

Honorable Mentions

There are some Elder Dragons that didn’t make it on this list, but I feel like deserve a special mention, or at least an explanation as to why they didn’t make my list.

Fatalis: Fatty just never appealed to me much. I mean, he’s a large dragon and kinda cool looking, but he doesn’t stand out to me. It might be partially because I never played the original game and don’t have that nostalgia for him. I also played MH3U first and so Fatalis feels more like a more plain clone of Dire Miralis, even though I know Fatalis is the one that came first. Crim and White are too frustrating to even consider.  I don’t really have fun fighting any of these three and only really fight them when one of my friends (or myself) needs his parts.

Dire Miralis: Speaking of this guy, he almost made the list, purely based off him being the first hidden Elder I ever came across, but... he was just too aggravating for me to actually like him. There were underwater parts for no real reason other than I guess he needed to cool off his body? He also seemed to home in on you with his projectiles, even when you were doing your best to avoid them. I don’t know, I guess he just leaned too heavily on the frustrating part of things for me to love him all that much. Still, he looks pretty awesome.

Kushala Daora: This was an odd one. I juggled the idea of adding him to the list, especially with his rival Teostra making the list. But I guess rather than anything being bad about him, it was just that he didn’t stand out for me quite enough. I love Daora, don’t get me wrong, but he is a metallic, regular-ass dragon model. He uses ice and wind and his methods of using them are pretty awesome. I also like that he’s one of the Elders that has part of his mechanic crippled by poison. But in the end, I felt like I didn’t want this to be a mile-long list like the normal monsters were and in a lineup of standouts, he just didn’t stand out as much for me? Sorry Daora, I still love you. Rusted can go to hell though.

Amatsumagatsuchi: Amatsu looks fantastic and I love how his armor looks. But... while I’ve played Portable 3rd, I never actually finished it.  I never even got far enough to actually fight an Amatsu myself. So, as much as I would have liked to include him, the fact is that I haven’t fought him and also know very little about him as a monster.

Nergigante: Very similar to Amatsu.  I’ve tangled with Nergy a few times, but it’s only really been in the beta or in a few quests I don’t want to speak of where he invades for a short time and you drive him off. I have yet to get a quest to actually take him out, nor do I know anything about his lore. I feel like Nergy might become a monster I truly love once I get to know him, but for now, he’s just too much of an unknown factor to include on this list.

And that’s the end of my posts on my favorite monsters. If any of the Monster Hunter World monsters really stand out to me, I may make separate posts for them later to gush about them a bit. 

I am still considering a favorite music post, but there’s a lot I need to consider and re-listen to before I make a decision on that. Thanks for reading!

[survivorathena-allstars]

Episode #7: “Crud Crud Crud Crud FUDGE” ~ Ruthie

I hope we win the next challenge for Autumn, Kevin, and Ruthie’s sake.

Did y'all enjoy the show cause if ya did

I mean the blindside didn't go according to plan BUT it needed to happen. This whole Autumn-has-to-do-what-we-say and we-can-come-for-her-whenever shit? Yeah that ended tonight and rightfully so. Lily knows I almost ended her but then I saved her life so she better not ever come for me again cause if I so much as hear a whisper of my name 

I wish y'all could've seen my pm's but since you can't, let me just let y'all know: if you ever want to learn what's REALLY going on in your tribe? Have a tie vote between 2 people who both deserve to go. That's some scary shit and everyone now knows I'm wild so every single person was messaging me after that tie vote: - Lily sincerely apologizing this time, coming clean about Archipelago, and begging for her life - Emily sending the entire text of her alliance with JD and Zach to expose JD coming for me - JD telling me she was being selfish (once I confronted her) and she just wanted Duncan's loyalty; apparently I was in the way so that's why she spoke ill of me - Ruthie telling me she won't flip but having PTSD about rocks so she flipped - Kevin telling me don't flip but feeling petty about JD's vote so he flipped - Zach and Owen acting like they'll flip but then not Basically it didn't matter what I did, but in the moment everyone was scared shitless and the sky was falling and it was beautiful. Honestly I hate I made that promise to Amanda in my video interview about not being petty hahaha but it's fine. JD gave me her blessing to win; Ruthie has promised her loyalty; Owen swore he would vote Lily when the time came; and everyone learned I am just that cracked

Is it just me or is my tribe throwing this challenge to maybe vote me out?  This is NOT cute I hope I'm just paranoid but I'm going to surprise them and win this whole thing by myself even if they DON'T help this is not a cute look. I hope I'm just paranoid. ________________________________________________________________ I'm so stressed these people really aren't going to try on this challenge, are they?  crud crud crud crud FUDGE

lmaooooooooooooooooooooooo

So I'm on the bus right now and trying to think worst case scenario (i.e. we lose the next challenge). I am starting to think voting against Cameron/Dana/Will premerge is the wrong move. Not only do I love them all with my whole hort as people, but our alliance seems genuine. Additionally, I'm hoping that while that 5 is a scary group come merge, their separation since the swap will cause divisions. I think right now, I sorta want a F6 of me, Ashvika, Duncan (potentially the F3 I want right now) with Will, Dana and Cameron? I dont entirely know but that's sort of what I feel like could be good? I'd also like to see Kevin and Autumn go far, like they are super sweet and I feel like its unfair for the disconnected people to be targetted so quickly. I dont even know. Priority 1? Still winning the challenge

When it comes to challenges, something I have to say to myself is this... "What Would Jordan Pines Do?" We love loopholes. Loopholes win challenges. Let's see how we do.

Okay, someone else is helping with the challenge now, I feel like a complete bitch for thinking they were trying to set me up. 

Good thing literally three people have been working on this challenge (to my knowledge) and I've been busting my ass to find as many ridiculous connections between these players as I can. I do NOT wanna go to tribal it's just not in my plans, in my schedule.

So i'll just rehash the last tribal vote. Essentially, about two hours before I thought it was going to be 6-1, knowing Lily couldn't vote due to a task provided by the now-closed Archipelago. WOOH thank god it's shut btw. However, Owen messages me around 8:30pm saying that Autumn made a rumour that the votes were going to go 3-3-1. I instantly go shocked because i'm like... wow Owen's acting REALLY shady... i'm leaving. I was expecting it to be my time. I call Emily and while on call, after leaking the rumour of the vote, I found out by Autumn that apparently her/Ruthie/Kevin were going to flip and vote out Lily. I didn't think this could happen because Kevin was close with Lily (since he leaked to Lily in the first place about the vote) and that Ruthie wouldn't lie to me. I was naive whew. I refused to tell Emily anything and I act a little like... edgy and then Owen leaks it so I just go with it. I trust Emily the most but I didn't want to cause any chaos. It goes to about 9:30 - 30 minutes prior - and everything seems fine still. I check up again with Ruthie and Kevin - they both say they're voting JD. Everything is according to plan. Autumn tells me her whole plan and in hopes, wants me to flip at the revote. Despite me thinking Lily's a bigger overall threat and it would weaken Emily's connections (meaning she could potentially be more loyal to me), I figured enough that she may feel hurt by me and I couldn't do it smoothly without causing some friction. Tribal occurs. On the call it goes 3-2-1 and there's one vote left and I truly was like "adios JD!" then... it ties. I literally am IN SHOCK! I tell Emily straight up after calling her again saying that i'm flipping if they remain intact cause i'm not going to rocks. I'll explain my thought process. Despite Lily being a bigger threat (mentioned above), she ranks at a 0 with me. We don't talk; we aren't close. That's a poor score. But by keeping her after half the tribe has flipped on her, it'll go up to a 1. Wooh upgrade! Now for JD. She was at a 3 at the start, but based on HER past actions, she was at a -1. Keeping her would make it go to -2. Simple maths --> 1 > -2 - so I decided that Lily is in my best interest to keep around. I work on Ruthie so much to get her to flip. Emily works on Kevin. Lily works on both. We promised Ruthie she wouldn't be the next vote if she flips back. Is that true? Sure. She'll stay around. But I want to form a solid majority (for this tribe) with Owen, Lily, Emily and myself - and pick off Kevin and Autumn next respectively. Maybe flipped. Don't matter to me. They really put themselves on the bottom by doing this. In before I leave WOOH! Autumn flips because Ruthie/Kevin did, and in an unanimous revote, JD leaves 6-0. I feel bad but it's kind of like brought upon herself. I'm excited to see how the other tribe perceives this since it was such a crazy vote whew. I'm just so exhausted by last nights events that i'm literally not talking to many of them right now. I'll work on damage control briefly later, but right now it's like... whatever. Owen is making Autumn sketched - or she thinks I ratted the plan out which I KIND OF did but it was mainly Owen and without being direct I want her to lose that trust with Owen but feel more loyal to me. We'll see how things work. I really like Owen so I kind of don't want to throw him under the bus, hence why i'm being like passive about this.

I've been SO cracked trying to decipher the vote last time. My current assumption is that Lily didn't vote (I still don't know entirely why) and the vote was: JD: Emily, Zach + Kevin...? Lily: Ruthie,Owen & Autumn? Kevin: JD I am confident that JD voted Kevin and Lily didn't vote, and then in the revote: 'i’ve been rocked out once in this series and it was enough, i’m sorry!’ - Ruthie "I mean, you voted for me." - Kevin "the alternative is just not happening for me. i’m confused how we even got here in the first place because this made no sense." - Emily and then if I had to guess the other 3 "EVERYTHING THAT IS CREATED WILL AT SOME POINT BE RECREATED AS SOMETHING ELSE!!!!!" - Owen "orange juice" - Zach "I promised Amanda and my admin parents I wouldn’t be petty so :( Thank you for everything/ I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you!" - Autumn ANYWHOMST I AM CRACKED TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT

I'll be honest... i keep putting in the tribe chat that i've been trying pretty hard at this challenge, and it's not that I haven't given it a shot, it's that i'm too dumb and all my energy is going to cultivating my instagam aesthetic.  

Major sigh

AHHH, my sanity she's gone, but the survivor wiki isn't getting deleted like I threatened since we won

i made this before the immunity results were posted

I don’t,,,, trust Owen like at all lol but I think we can make it out of this vote alive. Also I love Zach with my WHOLE HEART if he betrays me in this game I’ll cry he’s literally my favorite person. He’s just sending me weird facetuned pictures right now and we’re just laughing and like this is WHOLESOME CONTENT is this what it’s like to have actual FRIENDS I love ORGS

Save me from the dentist please I hate this place I keep thinking they’ll call me back and they don’t ack hfgfgfghfggfghg I want this over with I have nothing to say about the game right now btw Why don’t they call me back AGHHH

Holey Moley, I'm so glad we won. As much as I talked about voting against Dana/Will/Cameron, I truly don't think I could've done it. I love them so much as people, and betraying them so nastily (Dana for the second time) is just.... not something I could've faced doing. Like, I feel like if we went to tribal (or indeed go to tribal next round if we don't merge), I probably would've played it safe and voted Charlotte? I just- ack the more I think about it, the more I'm like- I truly couldn't have betrayed those 3 like that, I love them all so much. On another note, I went HAM on that challenge, like truly any more time spent looking at those wiki pages and I was gonna *scream* if we lost. Side note, I am also incredibly annoying, like while I'm sure the tribe is grateful for my challenge contribution, I think I just annoyed everyone. And I put an ALMIGHTY target on my back by doing so much for the challenge, like I'm a challenge flop so that's so funny to me. Side note: I found it so funny that on call, Cameron said something about having the  idol, and Will & Dana both did like a *pretendstobeshocked.gif*. It was SO FUNNY, because they didn't know I knew, it was wildt. ________________________________________________________________ I have a bad feeling Ruthie or Zach is going home, and I'm truly not a fan of either of those options.... Lily is the person I'm least connected to on that tribe, but I assume since she was kept safe in a tie vote by the tribe and 3 people didn't vote for her in the original vote, that they are gonna be a majority of four.

Tribal council very clearly fucked me up and it's all Autumn's fault rn fskajfhkjd like..... I told her about Lily's power because I trusted her, and she took that and completely blew it up into something to use against Lily with other people, so now Lily and Emily obviously know that Autumn found out and if Lily honestly only told Emily and I then...it's not hard to figure out. I told Emily that I told Zach about it. And Emily said that maybe Lily told Kevin who told Autumn but???? If Lily says she didnt tell Kevin, I doubt Emily would believe that she's lying for some reason. And then in her tribal answer Emily said that stuff about how she's probably being manipulated by someones kindness and I'm sitting here like that picture of the rat.... fsdkajfhkjdsfkd :( it's not my fault im such a snake. I just can't help myself. it's in my BLOOD. So Emily suggested Kevin and then also Autumn suggested Kevin? And part of me thinks that makes sense bc if Autumn and Lily were both takin heat last round then they might expect one another to be idoled and want to target someone else. Kevin seems a good middle ground for that. but at the same time....it seems suspicious they'd tell me the same name. Like they have talked and agreed that they're telling me kevin but really voting me fsdkajhfkjds fuck my whole life. I don't think Zach would betray me? And I don't think that Emily would do something without telling him... But if she and Lily don't trust me anymore and I did something to make Autumn made, they could get the votes to send me out :'( and I don't like that. I considered playing my extra vote but the most that can do is making something 4-4 if I'm going home anyways? Like say I'm getting four votes and kevin gets three, I use my extra vote and it ties 4-4 me and kevin but I dont vote on the revotes so they could still send me out 3-2. and if it's like...five votes me, two votes kevin, I use the extra vote and i'm still out 5-3? so it literally doesnt help me at all unless somehow the votes are being split for an idol. Which....maybe I could make happen but I dont like the idea of split votes either bc then even three votes could flip and send me home. god dang it. I'm going to call with Emily and zach and hopefully I feel better about it. If they play me and I go home I'm really going to fucking cry.

Me after that last tribal: 

God. Owen leaked something that night about JD being messy in her original tribe. I played with her in Motunui and honestly her plans were #cracked so I should've expected that??? I think I repressed that memory. Oh and also she um voted for me which wasn't very nice :( I have no idea what to do this tribal. I told Owen before I flipped that I didn't feel safe so he promised to vote Lily with me but I don't want to vote Lily anymore but I don't want to seem wishy-washy to Owen and get voted out and I don't really have any solid allies so???? More at 10 pm I guess

Zach pronounces Mario like mare-ee-oh... I know who's getting my vote tonight

idk who the fuck zach thinks he is????????????? it's literally not "mare e Oh" what a MOFO THOT. im voting his ass out, it's pronounced mario like how it looks like mar ee oh god DAMN. woof woof grrrr (poke) ashvikanow that we won immunity and don't have to worry about safety this week, i need to start thinking of a plan for merge and how to break up a power alliance that will likely form between some of the bigger players 

I'm over here, winnin another immunity, just praying for the megre at this point honeys! I WANT LILY TO GO. TONIGHT. PLEASE GOD MAKE IT HAPPEN. 

I love how obvious Zach makes it that he, owen, emily and lily have an alliance that I'M NOT INCLUDED IN. 

It seems like everyone's uncertain and confused so either this is some elaborate scheme to fuck me up or the tribal really just did #that to everyone. It makes me feel really uneasy nonetheless nnnnn but I don't wanna be pushy or anything bc I'm not really in the position to do it? 

Okay, so it looks like we are merging tonight which AHHHHHHHHHH! Anyway, I am so glad our tribe didn't go to tribal. I genuinely don't think I could've truly voted against Dana/Will/Cameron so it would've been a case of disappointing Duncan. For the time being anywhomst, the question becomes... who is gonna go at the Atalaia tribal tonight... Here is what I know: - Owen has an extra vote playable tonight or at F7 -  That Autumn/Owen and Lily/Emily are gonna be close So with that said, I am gonna try and add that information, to the assumptions I've made: - It looks like Lily didn't vote last time and here is why I think it must be her. Six people voted in the revote, which means Lily and JD didn't originally vote for one another. Additionally, the Kevin voting confessional of: "I feel like I do this everytime we are in a game together. Sorry babes" and the JD voting confessional of "I mean, you voted for me." seems like its JD voting for Kevin and then vice versa. THUS, Lily must not have voted, but whomst knows why is the real question.... That leads onto the next question, if JD voted Kevin and Lily didnt vote, who did the other three vote for? Well, I assume Autumn/Owen voted together and Emily voted for JD (especially since she threw her name out during the One World vote). From there, I'm trying to analyse the voting confessionals.... "‘I AM SORRY I’M SO CRACKEDT I CHANGED MY VOTE LAST MINUTE BECAUSE I HEARD TEA, I’M SORRY IF THE TEA WAS INCORRECT TEA!!" is I think Kevin Owen or Autumn? "You seem like a great person and all but this game we haven’t really connected and that’s why my vote is going towards you. I’m sorry!!" feels like Emily, Ruthie or Zach "Sorry, love ya." feels very Emily "Kim Kardashian it’s what she deserves gif" this one is tough because its quite shady? Like quoting gifs is a Duncan thing but he obviously wasn't at that tribal, so I'm gonna give up on voting confessional analysis because I'll learn what happened tonight anywho. But with that said, the revote confessionals are much clearer the one about rocked out is of course ruthie, the one about you voted for me is kevin, the one about the alternative not happening is emily(?) which leaves 3. The petty one directly addressing amanda makes me think its autumn since amanda helped host himalayas, orange juice is probably Zach, which leaves the last one as being Owen. WHEW

I really hope we merge tonight because I'm ready to start playing this game even harder, I'm ready to take out the big threats and the fan favorites and make it to FTC again - and win this time. I'm making sure my emotions are in check, which isn't something I can say about a lot of the other players. Playing with your emotions is always dangerous, especially on an All Stars season when we all know each other to a degree. You let someone like Lily or Emily make it too far into the merge (even just one or two rounds) and don't take them out when you have the chance, all because you like them too much? Looks like you won't be winning this game. All I know is that my ride or dies are Dana, Cameron, Ali, Owen, and Autumn and everyone else is expendable, I'm ready to cut them as soon as I get the chance. And anyone in that five immediately becomes expendable when it isn't good for my game anymore. Owen and Ali... I love them dearly but their love for Emily better not be blinding. I would love to sit with Dana and Cameron at the end, I just need to make sure I can actually get there first. If it isn't Lily or Emily tonight, it'll be interesting moving forward because that means someone's made a couple promises here and there to Lily... Hmm...

Alright I tried to break the silence by suggesting Autumn's name to Emily and Owen. Let's hope this doesn't backfire. Owen seemed chill with it, Emily hasn't responded yet. We could probably get Lily on board with t easily. I chose Autumn because she's shown her true colors last tribal: from what she told me her motivation to vote Lily was that she has voted against her, which was a bit individualistic of a motivation. We're all playing for ourselves, but compromise is a necessity. She's also shown she's not afraid to make big moves even when there's like 15 people in the game. So...I hope this works, or if it fails, I hope I'm not the one hurt by it. 

sooooooooooo I feel like they're gonna vote me still bc some sketch stuff is happening. Kevin suggested Autumn, Autumn suggested Kevin, ruthie I have no clue, and then Emily added us to an alliance with Lily (and Zach) so that's cool and Lily sfsdkahfj rolld a D20 and settled on Autumn. Voting one of my close friends off bc the dice that be told me to? inch resting. I do feel a little bit guilty voting her....because I love her and I want to get to know her better and she was part of my original group. I think she's someone who will tell me things. And also she's going to be more of a threat than Kevin is for sure. But....she really blew my shit up last round and I don't like that. At all. And she's always gonna wanna do her own plan... And honestly cutting her makes the group of five seem a little less scary and hopefully it proves to Zach/Emily that I'm with them over Dana/Cameron/Will. Am I? :~) prob not ! So I just have to get over my guilt and do the wrong thing I guess. I just have to be the person I have always been I guess fakdsj since Emathia. Before? Vote out my friends and show no mercy. Now? Still vote out my friends and show no mercy. The closer we get to tribal though the more I get worried. Although I did message Lily earlier and tell her how I've always wanted to work with her and apologized for being shady before and was like...i hope i proved I'm not ever gonna write ur name down fskhfdkdshfkjshfjkdsjkf oop!

I would like to thank not only but also Jesus for allowing me to make top 13 and what I expect to be the Merge. Ali and I know the whereabouts of 3 of the where (I presume to be) 4 idols are. With merge coming a fifth will be put into play and I’ll do anything to get it. I’m really glad that I’ve been having fun since the game has started. Like I’ve been having a blast! I came here to have fun and to win the game. I’ve had my fun and games already but when Merge hits? It’ll be another story. It’s the calm before the storm. Merge is going to be a blood bath and I’m ready to dive in face first. I’m kind of shook at myself because I haven’t promised anyone final 2 which may come back to bite me in the ass or it may free me. I wouldn’t mind sending home one of the great values home at the first vote but we’ll have to wait and see how everyone else feels I guess. As long as I come out on top I don’t really care how it happens. Now the odds of me succeeding are slim to none but hey! A bitch can dream right? 

CROSSROADS IS UGLY SORRY I'M LATE!!! I fought to keep both Ryan and Haley and it didn't work so yet another person I like/ trust is going home. You know it's bad when I join the majority out of safety. And that little group of Founding Fathers who think they run shit ever since they got rid of Chris? Yeah they can choke and I'm getting really tired of their mess ________________________________________________________________ Hi don't send that last one to the VL because it's meant for Crossroads lmao sorry I'm old and don't know how to read

please let the third time be the charm, let autumn go tonight khgkjshgjksd

Always out with a 5-2 blindside, Athena is so poetic. Know that I'm rooting for everyone on Lorohna plus Ruthie. Honestly this game has been very high school and varsity cheerleading-esque so I'm disappointed but not surprised. Lowkey this particular game was really bad for my mental health, constantly feeling targeted and marginalized so.... here I am feeling somewhat relieved and at peace

Highkey they're just bitter about the tie vote but seeing how Lily took three fucking shots at me in the course of the game, I was 1000% justified in that move. Also Owen and Zach are catering to the wrong HBIC and made 7 enemies on the other tribe by being ugly like this. Between that and being up Emily's ass/ worrying about her feelings, they've already lost know that. Kevin is really on thin ice as it is. Karma has all sorts of stuff for Emily and Lily- kisses, hugs, blowjobs, you name it. Also I'm living for how offended the 5 of them were by me saying I liked Lorohna better hahahahaha. Ummm y'all just murdered me remember? For not being your puppet?? And you still expected me of all people to kiss your asses and go gracefully???

Athena fun fact! The 5 people who voted Autumn out in Himalayas lost and the 1 person who didn’t vote Autumn went on to win the season! So congrats to the All Stars winner sitting among Lorohna and Ruthie; the admins and I look forward to seeing the rest of you in Season 14!!

Autumn becomes the 7th person voted out of Athena All Stars in a 5-2 vote. You can see Autumn’s preseason interview here.