#it’s gonna be over 40° in other regions

[puntointerrogativo]

Forecast says 37° tomorrow, we’re starting to feel it even in our hobbit hole of a house 🥵

[boulevardk]

Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy (preview)

Pairing: Gojo x reader (afab)

Genre: cowboy!gojo x bandit!reader + smut

Word count: uhh like 1.7k (haven't finished the full fic yet lmao we'll see what the wc gets to)

Summary: how does the strongest fare in the wild, wild West as the newest sheriff? we're about to find out!!

a/n: shout out to whoever made this fanart bc jesus fucking christ. i have more written for this fic so I'll post it in the next day or so I just wanted to give a preview lol this isn't proofread my apologies

xx Jay

---

You were fucked. And, fuck, did you know it. 

“You idiot!” you cursed, “Do you wanna die? How could you be so stupid?”

Your partner in crime (literally) turned to you with a crazed grin on his face, high on the rush. “What? Don’t tell me you’re scared of some little sheriff.”

The sheriff, in question, is none other than Gojo Satoru. Not only was he the youngest sheriff in the region, but he was an incredible shot and phenomenal horseback rider. The man was known all throughout the west for his strength, wit, and impeccable skill as a marksman. And he just so happened to be the man hunting you down as you speak.  

“Am I scared? Am I scared?” you yell in disbelief, “Hell fucking yeah I’m scared! You just had to rob that bank, didn’t you? Toji, this is insane. We’re going to die, and it’s all because you wanted a little extra cash to blow at some saloon since you’re shit at cards and are always too drunk to make a reasonable gamble!”

His eyes widened at your statement, “I’m just down on my luck that’s all!” 

You roll your eyes and continue pacing around the small room, almost internally counting down the minutes until you're inevitably caught and thrown in a cell to rot. Maybe Toji could tough it out in jail (assuming he wasn’t hanged for his crimes), but you knew you weren’t cut out for that kind of life. It’s not like you meant to get caught up in this life, after all. A few bad decisions led to this nightmare of a reality, and now you were about to ride this sinking ship with the buffoon in front of you who was pushing 40 and still thought it was a good idea to devote the little cash he had on reckless gambling instead of caring for the adorable, perpetually scowling son he left behind to pursue a life of crime. 

“Don’t give me that look, doll,” his tone is sickly sweet but showing no real affection or warmth. “Don’t forget that you’re an accomplice in this crime too. Who was in the carriage waiting for me when I ran out of the bank with the cash, huh? Oh, that’s right! It was you!”

Running your fingers through your hair, you sit down and rest your head in your hands. “Don’t remind me, asshole,” you spit out, tone equally as harsh. “You think I wanted this? I didn’t know you were gonna do that shit! I owed you a favor- one favor, Toji! What, you think because I owed you one, I wanted to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for the most feared sheriff in the west? Believe it or not, but I don’t want to live this way!”

He huffs and sticks a cigar in his mouth, lighting it and letting out a puff of smoke before meeting your eyes again, “Well, tough shit, doll. This is the hand you were dealt, and now you’ve gotta decide whether or not you’re gonna fold.”

You roll your eyes, sensing a migraine coming on. “Shut the fuck up with your poker references, Toji. You’re not good enough at any card game to warrant that kind of talk.”

“Bitch,” he mutters under his breath.

You turn around and are about to rip into him when you hear the sound of incoming horses and a voice call out, “They’re just up ahead!”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Toji curses as he puts out his cigar and stands up hastily. He looks around the room frantically and meets your eyes before darting out of the shared space.

“Fuck! Toji, come back!” you shout as you rush after him. You’re not all that well-versed on running from the police given you’ve literally never had a reason to do so. To say you’re relying on Toji to get you two out of this predicament is an understatement. After all, that man has committed more crimes than interacted with his own son. 

Running out of the room and following his footsteps, you exit out the backdoor. Your jaw drops to the ground at the sight in front of you. Toji’s sat on top of your very own horse, grabbing her by the reins and turning to you with a devilish smirk on his face. “Sorry, doll, I gotta cut ties here. ‘Can’t afford to get caught, you know? I’m sure you understand. Let me borrow your horse, yeah? I owe ya one.” 

You can’t even fully process his words, you’re seeing red with the amount of rage consuming you. Frozen in place, you watch Toji ride away on your horse, effectively abandoning the house that was about to be raided by police. 

Toji gets a fair distance away from the house before you hear the same voice yell, “There he is! You lot track him down. I’ll stay back and search the rest of the house. He had an accomplice. I’m sure they’re hiding out here somewhere.”

As soon as the man is done speaking, you hear multiple horses run off in Toji’s direction. You’re scared shitless of what’s to come. You just know the man about to search the house is the famous sheriff you had just been professing your fear of to that backstabbing bum who stole your fucking horse. Even though you know you’re thoroughly, laughably, undeniably fucked, you can’t help but laugh internally at the thought of Toji being captured by the sheriff’s men. You hope they don’t hurt your horse, although you doubt she’ll be yours much longer since you’re about to be sent off to jail. 

Cutting your losses and acknowledging defeat, you walk back into the house, ready to face the renowned sheriff. Walking back into the kitchen, your footsteps alert the man of your location, and he makes his way into the room. 

If you weren’t scared out of your mind at what’s to come, you might have started drooling, honestly. If this man weren’t known for his near superhuman abilities, he would have been known for his looks alone. You had never seen or even heard about a man that looked like him. He had bright white hair that peaked out from his hat. His skin was so fair and beautiful you swore he was made of porcelain. His lips were a pretty pink that somehow had a glimmering shine to them. He wore black denim with a black button up, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his large hands and delectable arm veins. For a reason unknown to you, he wore a blindfold over his eyes. You could only wonder what his eyes looked like, although you imagined they were as beautiful as the rest of him. 

He looked unreal. This whole situation felt unreal. You still hadn’t wrapped your head around the fact that you were about to be arrested let alone the fact that you were standing in a room with a man that looked like that.

“Well, well,” Gojo chuckles, “Here I was thinking Toji’s accomplice had to be some ugly brute with a tobacco addiction. But here you are instead.”

You rocked on the balls of your feet out of nerves, “I- I’m sorry to disappoint.”

He laughs fully this time. “And a sense of humor, too? What did Toji do to get you roped into this in the first place, huh?”

Your eyes widen slightly at this. It’s like he could see right through you. Was it that obvious that you didn’t live a life of crime? You suppose it’s times like this where your naturally expressive face and body language actually benefited you, as Gojo must have known about the true nature of your involvement just by the way you reacted to his presence. 

“I, um…” you tried to pick your words in a way that made you look the least guilty of committing a crime. “I only agreed to help him since I owed him a favor…”

This seemed to pique Gojo’s interest. “Oh? And what did the lying, deceitful, manipulative, gambling addict do to earn a favor from a pretty girl like you?”

Your face flushes when you process his words. Warranted and accurate insults about Toji aside, the human embodiment of perfection called you pretty. 

You must have been frozen in place for a second or two because when you blink again, Gojo is standing closer to you and leaning inward, “Are you with me, sweetheart?”

Eyes widening, you nod your head vigorously and elicit another chuckle from the man. 

“Well,” you sigh after being able to mentally calm yourself, “he helped my family in a tough situation. My mother was very sick, and Toji just so happened to have the proper remedies to heal her…”

Although you can’t see his eyes, you can tell that Gojo raises his eyebrows in curiosity, and his silence prompts you to continue.

“Believe me, I never wanted to help him out. Or, at least, when I agreed to help him, I had no idea he was gonna drag me into this mess. But I couldn’t just walk around my house and pass by my mother without thinking that, if it weren’t for that lunatic, she wouldn’t be with us anymore.”

Gojo hums and brings his hand to his chin as if in thought. “I bet your family would be pretty disappointed to see you now though, right? Doing all this for your mother is admirable, but you still committed a crime… What kind of sheriff would I be if I just let you off the hook because you told me some sob story and batted your eyelashes at me, hm?”

You didn’t know how to react to his words. Sure, he’s right, your family would be disappointed to see you in this position. You’d never gotten into any sort of trouble before- certainly never done anything illegal. 

“You thought you owed a simple favor, sure… But last time I checked, the pathway to heaven wasn’t paved with good intentions.” he tuts. “But jail time seems a little harsh, no? What do you think we can do to solve this little problem?”

Your heart is beating so hard that you wonder if Gojo could hear it from where he stood. “Please, I’ll do anything. I’ve never broken the law before, and I can’t afford to leave my family and go to jail.”

“Anything, huh?” Gojo smirked and pulled down his blindfold to reveal the most striking, beautiful eyes you have ever seen in all your life. “Well, how could I turn down an offer like that?”

---

i want him on me and in me I need him carnally I want him in my guts, so deep in me that I feel him in my throat okay bye I'll release the full fic soon lmao <3

[onekindredspirit]

This photo is the last remaining evidence that I once stood before the mystic portal of the O.K. Corral. Everything else except memory has been taken with time, and so I deposit this remnant here in salt and light and code. The O.K. Corral was a crumbling, condemned 5 bedroom Victorian villa that featured in my life when I was young. I rented it with a friend for, initially, $40 per week. That price was later negotiated down to 'rent free'. Mr. Fox, our landlord, was seen only once more, and on that occasion he tried to sell the place to us for $10,000. The current market value is around $1.5 million ... but money isn't everything. The O.K. Corral was a 'Dude Ranch' and the definition of that is "... an all-inclusive immersive vacation that includes lodgings, meals, horseback riding, fishing and hiking and more." Okay, there was no horseback riding, fishing or hiking but there were other things going on ... and more. Interestingly, the word 'dude' has changed meaning over the last 140 years. Today 'dude' means something like 'bro' but back in the 1880's, when 'Dude Ranches' first began, it was slang for an urbanite. As I write, things continue to fall into place.

I had known my friend since I was 6 years old. I don't think I liked him much back then. He was an extrovert and pushy when getting the painting resources at school. I didn't sit with him anyway because I was a 'foreigner' and I had to sit next to the only other foreigner in the class, Elizabeth Federinko, a Ukrainian girl who couldn't speak English and drew horses all day. I think it was the horse drawing that eventually drove me crazy or maybe it was something else ... possibly bad blood. Anyway, I'll call my friend 'Bukowski'. By the time we were 20 years old I quite liked the guy. Sure there were other arenas of male competition but I found myself better equipped to deal with those. The cool thing about pushy people is that they make thing happen and 'Bukowski' was no exception. For example, he could cook. We had a litany of weirdos and 'freaks' pass through the O.K. Corral. A note to the sensitive - to be called a freak back then was the highest form of compliment in our subculture. It was all a little crazy and you would be disappointed in me if I told you about life at the O.K. Corral, so I won't. Let's talk about something else. One day 'Bukowski' decided to move to another region of New Zealand, some place warmer that would better suit a boho gentleman with alcohol thinned blood. I have rarely lived alone but for a week I did until one morning I was woken at 1am by someone sitting on the end of my bed and talking to me. I wasn't clear as to what she was saying but I wasn't at all concerned as this was probably 'normal' when you don't lock your doors. Realising I was now awake she turned on the light.

I didn't know her but I knew who she was. I'd seen her riding around the city on a Norton Commando motorcycle which had impressed me because of her small size and once she had smiled at me as we passed each other on a city street. I remember that smile, it was powerful enough to stop and turn me around. It was a beautiful smile. The following morning she returned with her possessions and we shared my bed. I feel I had been looking for this person most of my life but when you dream someone into your life there's a danger that the results may be "... reductive and diminutive and I think basically misogynistic ..." as the writer Zoe Kazan once said in an interview when discussing the 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' trope. Clementine, in the movie 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' warns Joel - "Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours". One thing though, I was never quite sure if she was my projection or if I was, in fact, the projection of her own desires. But I'm comfortable with that. We lived together. She taught me a lot. I gave her love in return. 'Clementine' eventually moved to Australia, a place better suited to her large personality. Years later I was sitting having an espresso at Fidel's Cafe on Cuba Street when 'Clementine' walked past the large plate-glass window. I had only a glimpse of her face but from that brief moment I sensed that she was not happy and that her health was not good. I didn't get up and rush out to catch up with her. I didn't run after her seeking some meaningful reunion. I let her go ... and watched as she disappeared into the crowd. Sometime in the not too distant past I had discovered that the person I had been looking for all through my youth and into later life was myself. I let 'Clementine' go. But the night I wrote this I dreamed of 'Clementine' and it was a beautiful dream.

- One Kindred Spirit

[spar-kie]

Do You Have The Time?

A Thorough Dissection of What Past Aevium Means For You

So I've been reading through @/jazz-kitty's rejuv playthrough (not actually tagging them bc this will contain spoilers for shit they've not gotten to but if you're reading this Jazz, keep up the good work! It's super fun to read through your playthrough :>), and I've realized we got some concrete dates (in a fashion), meaning that, we might be able to figure out when Storm 9 happens, within a couple months! As well as some other details.

Anyways even if you don't want to hear my rambling about dates, there's gonna be something I really want to share underneath the cut, I'll put some big bold header text so you know where to scroll to.

Now, it all starts here, with Melia's Mimikyu, which we are there to see caught, giving us a concrete date, October 10th, 198X.

Now you may be asking yourself, but Sparkie, the screenshot says 1984? That's because my buddy Nym, who is on the dev team, stated that to its memory, the year is calculated based off your system date. Meaning that the year will change depending on the year you play Rejuv in. However, Jazz's post that I got this from does mention in the tags how the rest of Melia's pokemon are caught from 1981-1983. I had an old save file kicking around that was near Blacksteeple, and checking "Emma's" Pokemon in that I can also say that these dates are variable based off system time. Being 198X-3 through 198X-1. For simplicity's sake we're going to be based off of System Time being the year 2024, mostly because shit like 198X-1 is hard to read. But just keep in mind that as Rejuv is set in 202X these dates have about a 10 year range they can vary by, this will come back later, take note of this.

I want to establish before we go forward, you can also see how this works for yourself rather easily, if you go into the past and catch a pokemon, the date it's caught at will be your system time, minus 40 years. This, combined with some plot elements such as Melia's birthday being after she catches this Mimikyu confirms that the past segments take place exactly 40 years before present day, with the Time Crystals not sending you back or forth to a specific time and date, but rather a set amount of time forward and back (in this case 40 years).

Anyways, this also lets us know that Storm-9 happened a little over 39 years ago as of the game's start, and at some point during the game's time span we will hit the 40 year anniversary. I always thought it was 50 years before the game's start, I don't remember if I got that from somewhere in game or it's just one of them things I got in my head, but between the wiki and a reply from Zumi on one of my tweets it's actually 40. If anyone has the same misconception I had, I hope that clears it up.

But through what we can gleam in game, we can actually tell (roughly) when Storm-9 happens! Judging by the fact we can still visit the past at the end of the .karma files, Storm-9 has not hit the past yet. It's going to happen very soon, but it's not there yet. Thankfully, we have a very concrete date on when that would be, December 25th, 2024, as the Xen Raid is just one day later. Meaning, that as of December 25th, 1984, the Aevium region is still fine. This combined with the fact that there is a note on the door of the house occupied by the A-Gang near Hyoshi City that says they'll be out until the Summer means that they are going to be at school until late May, early June, assuming it runs at similar time frames to a school in the U.S.. Meaning that, at some point, most likely in Early 1985, but possibly for about a week in Late 1984, is when Storm 9 hits. You could extrapolate more (i.e. no teachers/other students in the academy during the Interceptor's Nightmare Realm means people might've been on break, meaning it was Late 1984 and the gang was just hanging out at the academy) but as that's explicitly stated to be not entirely accurate to how that day actually was, I'm not going to do that.

HI IF YOU JUST WANT THE FUNNY INFORMATION SCROLL HERE

Anyways, now that you've heard me ramble about dates like your history teacher, we get to the fun part! That being I get to tell you about the A gang! That being we know the protag choices are 17-18 years old, and given that we know Storm 9 happened in either very Late 1984 or Early 1985, we can assume that the A-Gang were those ages during Storm-9. Meaning their birth years could range between 1966-1968, placing them firmly in Gen X, meaning they are chronologically old enough to be some of the people reading this's parents!

But that's not all, do you remember how I stated that Rejuv took place in 202X, meaning it could be any year of the 2020s? And thus, the past segments take place in any year 40 years before that, in the 1980s? If we were to say, put the year Rejuv takes place in in 2020, then that would mean the A Gang would be born in the years 1962-1964.

The general consensus on baby boomers is that they were born between 1946-1964.

The A Gang could, conceivably, be baby boomers.

Have a nice night everyone.

[orange-demons-deactivated2024]

Nayshall's clothing (pt. 1)

I'm gonna be 100% honest with ya'll. I was writing a Bosch smut and for the life of me, I didn't know the names of the clothes he was wearing. But I didn't want to put "Robes" and move on, so I did a deep dive into Nayshall's clothes.

Nayshall is a blend of multiple cultures in one, but the general consensus of forums on Reddit and other forums was that Nayshall was inspired by Bhutan, Nepal, Indian, and Tibet cultures.

This is going to be split into multiple of parts because Nayshall has a lot of different types of clothes so I won't be able to cover it in one sitting. I barely even scratched the surface here.

If anyone is more knowledgeable than me and sees that I got something wrong please tell me in the comments. But I'm posting this because I want people to see the hard work the street-fighting devs put into this and the world of Nayshall.

Chuba 

The chuba is a floor-length, left-crossing loose garment that is adjusted at the waist with a wide, usually red cloth belt, and pulled up to different degrees according to sex, rank or region. It is an extraordinarily adaptable garment worn by town dwellers, farmers, nomads, men and women alike, and is equally wearable on horse or motorcycle.

Chubas are pocket-less and held together with a waistband, with room in the front that serves as an “inside pocket” or inner pouch to store necessities such as food items, money belts, amulets, personal things, and even an infant in the bosom.

The chuba can be worn in different lengths, and the shorter the chuba, the more voluminous the pouch resulting from the overhanging material used to hold small items. Women wear their chuba ankle length, while men mostly pull them up the mid-calf or above the knee. Tibetan weather is fickle and temperatures can rise and fall within minutes.

Half-chupas: Just the skirt

Full chupas: Can be worn with a shirt

One-piece chupas: A one-piece dress

Town women: Wear their chubas floor length with pumps or high heel boots

Farmers and nomads: Double them over trousers 

Ex: Rewancha, Yua, and Bosch all wore a form of chuba as their gown.  The Chuba had 2 sleeves, but the locals usually only wear one sleeve and leave the other hanging loose. This is a way of adjusting the body temperature. When it gets hot, they take off one sleeve to cool down a bit. But if the temperature keeps rising they remove another sleeve too. We can actually see in Bosch's picture that the other sleeve is tucked in the back.

They often have soft fur, pulu, or colorful cloth on the collar, front, cuff, and lower hem of the gown.

5 types of robes could be made out of, Pulu woven fabrics, lambskin robes, sheepskin robes, woolen robes, and light robes.

Woolen robes are made with inner layers of sheep fur, so they are light and warm, making them popular in warmer, agricultural areas like Nayshall.

Pulu, the traditional Tibetan wool fabric, is made by fluffing and combing the wool into a thread by fingers, then weaving it with a wooden shuttle loom. Pulu robes are a favorite in pastoral areas as well as farmland.

Lambskin is ranked by degree, according to the length of lamb hair, curliness, and quality of the skin. 40+ lambskin is necessary to make a medium-class lambskin robe.

Shirts

pants

Modern and traditional

A growing trend among young Tibetans is blending traditional and modern casual clothing. Young Tibetans often try to find a balance between modern styles and their cultural heritage. It is not uncommon to see some Western-style clothing like jeans and t-shirts

The classic chuba robe is still everywhere, but Tibetan youth will make stylish adaptations. The cut of the fabric or the embroidered designs will be changed to something more contemporary. These changes show the desire to keep old traditions alive while making innovations to express personal style.

Ex. Same with the people in Nayshall they blend traditional and modern together. Shopkeeper Tsanpa wears jeans with his gho (Bhutan) tucked in. Yua wears modern shoes that resemble Tibetan boots, and Kina wears a beanie on top of her head.

note that Kina may also be wearing a Kora Yushu hat.

The Kora Yushu hat is made from a blend of yak and merino wool, and its fabric originates from Tibet and China. Kora sources the wool directly from Tibetan communities to ensure its quality and origin. The hat is lightweight, warm, and thin enough to fit beneath a hood or helmet, making it suitable for winter and mountain use.

Hairbeads

Tibetan hair jewelry, including braids and hair beads, is used to mark life milestones like birth, marriage, adulthood, and death. The jewelry often reflects the colors of nature.

Tibetan hair beads can be used by both men and women. In Tibet, long hair was recommended for both men and women, except for monks and nuns. Tibetan braids can signal a woman's marital status, social rank, and tribal affiliation. Tibetan men wear hair beads but there is no male equivalent. 

Headdress

Tibetan headdresses vary by region, age, and marital status. For example, unmarried girls wear a single braid with a red hair string, called Xia Jiu in Tibetan. 

Tibetan women wear headdresses on special occasions, such as festivals and their comings-of-age. Headdresses can be colorful and made of coral, turquoise, or other materials. For example, a "Bazhu" is a deluxe headdress made of coral or turquoise with gold or silver earrings. Tibetan women also wear silver bracelets on their left hand and white conch bracelets on their right. 

Jewelry

Tibetans traditionally wear jewelry, which is often made from gold, silver, and precious stones. The most common gems used are turquoise, coral, and pearls, which are used in necklaces, earrings, hair ornaments, and to decorate ritual objects. Tibetan jewelry can also be made from cow bone, amber, shell, and agate.

Tibetans wear a variety of jewelry, including ornaments made of gold and silver, as well as jewelry made of amber, agate, jadeite, pearl, and ivory. Tibetan jewelry traditionally features materials from across South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, and the symbols on Tibetan jewelry are usually from Himalayan Buddhism. Tibetans like to wear many ornaments and jewelry, such as Buddha beads, hair bands, hair accessories, belts, prayer beads, and necklaces.

Jewelry is a symbol of status and wealth in Tibetan culture, and each design has a specific meaning. For example, ornaments with symbols of animals, flowers, and stones are often given to commemorate special occasions. Some also believe that wearing gold enhances spiritual power over evil spirits. Offering jewelry to holy statues is thought to generate positive virtue for the donor. 

This article also goes into the types of ornaments they use in their jewelry

Jewelry can also serve as a talisman, with different amulets protecting against disease and harm. For example, coral and turquoise are said to ward off evil spirits and illness. 

Many Tibetan jewelry pieces are passed down from generation to generation. For example, some Tibetan-style pendants are used in Buddhism as ritual instruments to subdue demons, which are believed to dispel sins and bring people power, intelligence, and courage. Many of these pendants also have Sanskrit inscriptions of a religious symbolic nature.

Braids

Braids are also a symbol of strength, wisdom, and identity for some indigenous men and boys. They can also represent a connection to the earth, ancestors, and the creator. For example, in Native American tradition, hair is a signifier of spiritual practice, and braiding demonstrates strength in unity

boots

sumba shoes

Tibetans typically wear boots, which are more cultural representations than practical clothing. However, due to the prevalence of mass-produced shoes, traditional Tibetan boots are no longer the daily footwear for ordinary Tibetans. Instead, they are now usually part of ceremonial attire.

Tibetan boots are a significant part of the Tibetan way of life. They are more cultural than practical, and are worn to represent different regions and environments. For example, boots with a pointed toe are suitable for different types of terrain, and can be worn with a garter in cold weather. Boots from different regions of Tibet have different styles and qualities. For example, boots from Chamdo and northern Tibet are simple, while boots from Shannan and Xigaze are more delicate.

Tibetan boots are commonly made from cowhide, pigskin, corduroy, and pulu, a traditional woolen fabric. Other materials used include cloth, canvas, velvet, leather, and felt. The original boots were made from yak hide, and the soles were embroidered with patterns like dragons and snakes, and the shoes were decorated with red and green woolen cloth.

Tibetan boots come in two general types: short leg and long leg. Most Tibetan boots are lined or padded, though some may be unlined. The heads of corduroy boots are made of cowhide, and many kinds of pulu boots have cowhide soles.

[clatterbane]

My first real appointment through orthopedics to finally try and get set up with an aftermarket leg is coming up on Monday.

The previous referral last year just didn't work out, for multiple reasons, and I was a bit bummed over that. I think part of the problem was it falling through the cracks because nobody really seems to be sure what to do with somebody showing up from completely outside their system already minus a leg.

But, we thought to ask that new endo for a fresh referral. So, I did get an intake appointment set up through ortho, with no schedule collisions this time.

In one way, I'm excited to hopefully get moving toward with the process of getting set up with a prosthetic. I would really like to be able to get around better again! And, you know, be able to take my sorry ass off paved surfaces and up steps and stuff again!

OTOH, due to the person I am? I am trying not to borrow too much trouble and drive myself crazy worrying in the meantime. Especially the closer that draws.

Frankly, not least that somebody is gonna just say, "Oops, it's been so long and this entire situation does not fit into any familiar procedures. We just can't/won't help you!”

Yeah, I know there is going to be an awful lot of PT ahead, likely before I even get to the point of any fitting. I have some other concerns about that, after some sufficiently unpleasant experiences as a troublesome-bendy individual, with rehab-focused PT after injuries/knee surgeries (directly coming from the probably-EDS) in the past. My knees are also pretty damned terrible, and also kinda further destabilized by said surgical tinkering.

But, I am much older and more confident now--and not nearly as eager to take any "no pain, no gain!" bullshit seriously. Much less push in ill-advised ways until I do my bendy self an injury.

But yeah, even right now? I would place good money if I had it on the likelihood that I am currently in better shape than 75% of the new patients they see much sooner than this after surgery. Who are statistically much older and otherwise in pretty damned bad health. Probably I've been staying more physically active over the past few years than a lot of that demographic have been able to, even under the current circumstances

Mean age at the time of the first registered amputation in our sample was 74 years (SD 14); women were older (78, SD 14, CI 77–79) than men (72, SD 14, CI 72–73). 43% of the patients were 80 years or older by the time of the primary amputation (Figure 3). The mortality rate of the registered patients was 19% within 6 months and 24% within the 1st year after the last registered amputation. The 1-year mortality rate after TFA was 40%, after KD 38%, and after TTA 24%.

("Lucky" transtibial/TTA here. Those figures are from the Swedish national database, BTW. Because there is one. You see dire mortality rates after this sort of surgery come up? That's a lot of why. Those demographics and the occasional nasty accident requiring amputation seriously skew things.)

There were reasons they kept going on about how young and healthy my middle-aged ass that had just barely cheated death was when I was stuck in the hospital in Romford. And therefore considered a candidate for prosthetics at all under that system. Not going off on that rant right now.

Still, the majority of those elderly patients in otherwise not great shape DO get successfully set up on replacement legs here. Which is encouraging, that they are likely not looking hard for excuses to avoid spending the money. (We're talking the equivalent of a new not-cheap car, back in the US. Region Skåne is still set to lay out a fair chunk of change here. We are thankfully not directly.)

I do rationally doubt that I would get turned away just because I have been off that leg for several years now, and my knees were terrible even before that. And I fucking suck at trying to use forearm crutches, which I am not at all used to and have a very different feel than the type I do have too much experience on.

But yeah, my brain just won't leave things alone as usual. That's just one of the crappiest possibilities it's seized onto right now.

[ryuichirou]

Replies

It’s July! Couldn’t write any shorter replies over the weekends, let’s catch up a little bit.

Most of them are related to things that we posted lately, but not all of them.

Starting with the Lilidia comic from yesterday.

Anonymous asked:

I feel disappointed in myself for thinking ilia and idia pic was going to be nsfw and doing all sort of stuff so I can see it with out anyone else.seeing what I'm looking at (in public)

Don’t be disappointed in yourself, Anon, this is the exact reaction that I wanted to get from this comic… Sometimes their gaming sessions get very heated and intense~

It’s been a while since we posted anything spicy with these two though, that’s true 🤔

Anonymous asked:

Istg, even when Idia’s DRUNK he sounds adorable.

(related to this hc post)

He is just way too much of a babygirl, isn’t he, Anon? Maybe it’s because I just can’t stop woobifying him lol But he really would be absolutely helpless against alcohol… Someone should record his drunk mumbling…

Anonymous asked:

lol is this comic a "what if" of book 4 where Riddle accepts Floyd's offer to stay with Octavinelle during winter break? Have fun goldfishie!

(this is related to this comiс)

YES!!! I’m glad you noticed! I couldn’t stop thinking about this scenario. Poor fishies are bored out of their minds celebrating the new years together, adding Riddle would make the dynamic so fun and fresh! At least for Floyd, I guess…

I drew this sketch in March, and now it’s July… winter break never ends 😎 happy new year!

Anonymous asked:

1. I just have this very strong feeling that Floyd got Riddle drunk for that exact reason.

2. I also have a strong feeling that Riddle's gonna come to in the morning and not know what just happened or what to do next besides blow his top and start screaming or something.

You are absolutely right, Anon, especially when it comes to the second thing lol Riddle is going to have an amazing beginning of the year. He experienced so many new things the night before…! And he remembers none of them. He does feel hangover + some other interesting sensations in his other regions though…

Anonymous asked:

Crewel would be my fave teacher, doesn't matter how mean he is. He just seems like someone interesting to be around.

Do y'all like Crewel in a way like that? Or any other teacher?

(this is related to this pic)

I agree, Anon! Crewel does seem like a scary but very cool teacher, who is young enough to feel somewhat relatable but also old enough to have this feel of “I’ve seen things, you all are just pups” lol

The comic was actually inspired by the thing my English teacher at the uni said to us instead of his introduction. He was about Crewel’s age, liked to dress up and bullied the boys a little bit lol I don’t know, he was professional but also a bit unprofessional at the same time because teaching us wasn’t his main source of income, so he basically just wanted us to know English and was an asshole about it all the time. But in a motivational way, I guess. He was also that one teacher that told me that I should draw for a living instead of being a sociologist.

Personal stories aside, I think my favourite teacher would be Trein LOL I used to fall asleep during classes all the time, so it would be difficult for me to stay awake during his lectures, and he is also hella strict, but I love winning over this type of teachers. It’s fun when they are mad at everyone except for you.

And Katsu finds teachers like Crewel to be scary and is a bit intimidated (literally said “terrified”) by him… Katsu would also be very distracted by his whole BDSM thing lol

Anonymous asked:

He just needs to sleep with Deuce that'll wake him up

Sleeping with Deuce is better than drinking coffee…! It could also distract Crewel from the lesson and give the rest of the class 40 minutes of free time lol I think Deuce should take this “bullet” for the boys.

Anonymous asked:

(¿spolier chapter 7?)  I saw Kalim's new clothing and thought about your Sultan looking for heir-Jamil please rethink your lifechoices-AU (I need to see how Jamil's plan ends up biting him in the butt in that AU.. Jami mama). By the way, what do you think Kalim's dream will be like? I think he already inherited his family's wealth (what!?), that dream Jamil remains a mystery tho.... whatsoever, It's going to be distressing, juicy and long-suffering Kalijami! (the best Kalijami imo!)

The attire really is similar! Well, no surprises here, since I based Kalim’s and Jamil’s clothing on the Sultan’s and Jafar’s, but still, it’s cool to see Kalim dressed like that. I am also happy to hear that you like this AU! Jamil’s plan is inevitably going to bite him in the butt, this is how things always are with Jamil lol

Since we haven’t read any of ch7 yet, I really can’t answer your question. While it’s inevitable to see snippets here and there, we don’t know anything about how the dreams work yet (no spoilers please). But you’ll find it out soon enough anyway!

Anonymous asked:

It's no secret you guys enjoy horror and gore! Somehow you draw it so beautiful *chef kiss*

I was wondering, have you guys ever seen/played Boyfriend to Death(+2) and The Price of Flesh?

It has a bunch of horror and gore in it dark all over and ofc it being an 18+ game there is 👀 you know 👀. But the characters are what's so great about it !

I really like Ren of out of all of them <3

If you do check it out, I highly recommend you check out their warning charts for the characters routes just in case because it does get VERY dark ( maybe I am over dramatic here but I don't know how else to put it without spoiling certain parts of the characters)

But also reading the about info on the carrd I don't think the warnings would be an issue ✨ but I thought I'd mention it just in case you two wanted to look it over!

I recently got into it and your account was the first thing that popped into mind when I finished playing the first two games ✨

Anon!! <3 I’m happy you like our horror stuff! And I am also very happy that you think of our account when you get into some creepy and messed-up stuff, this is super flattering to be honest lol

So thank you for the recommendations! We haven’t played/seen anything that you’ve mentioned, but it does sound promising with how you’re describing it. We’ll look into it, even though I can’t promise anything… still, it’s very appreciated!

Thank you again for your ask and for thinking about us.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 17/08/2024 (Chase & Status/Stormzy)

It’s a new #1 the second week in a row, as Chase & Status of all acts launch their hit “BACKBONE” with Stormzy to the top of the UK Singles Chart, it being the first for the drum and bass duo and the fourth for the MC. Perhaps unexpected but an ultimately exciting shake-up, it does not reflect the rest of this dull week. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: celebrities complaining

Rundown

As always in this series, we start with our notable dropouts, those being songs that exit the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid adieu to “you look like you love me” by Ella Langley featuring Riley Green and “Pour Me a Drink” by Post Malone featuring Blake Shelton which may rebound given the album’s release, as well as some bigger hits like “LUNCH” by Billie Eilish and “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas which lasted longer than it ever should have.

As for our returns, other than Noah Kahan’s “You’re Gonna Go Far” re-entering at #74 after peaking at #63 earlier this year - it often just bubbles under like this - we have a big resurgence at #27, as Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” gets a boost from being featured in the Deadpool & Wolverine soundtrack. It was the pop icon’s sixth #1 and stayed at the top for three weeks back in 1989, thanks to firstly being a fantastic song as well as having a controversial, larger than life music video that angered the Vatican… like all great artists have at least once. Whilst a classic, it’s not exactly my ultimate favourite of Madonna’s hit but with a catalogue like hers, that’s inevitable, and naturally, the track has seen success in several cover versions. Trbute act Who’s That Girl! released a version alongside “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” that reached #88 in 1997 and Miley Cyrus reached #79 with it in 2022, though between those were the biggest versions in the UK, the first being from Eurodance outfit MadHouse who took their “Like a Prayer” all the way to #3 in 2002, when Darius’ “Colourblind” occupied the #1. In 2010, the cast to the musical sitcom Glee created a Madonna tribute episode that obvioussly had to contain “Like a Prayer”. It reached #16 in 2010 on its debut week, the same week that Roll Deep debuted at #1 with “Good Times”.

And now that history lesson’s over, we also have a few notable gains, those being “Double Life” by Pharrell Williams at #56, “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren at #51, “Black Friday (pretty like the sun)” by Lost Frequencies and Tom Odell at #50, “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez at #43, “I Love You, I’m Sorry” by Gracie Abrams at #38, “Big Dawgs” by Hanumankind and Kalmi at #21, “Somedays” by Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and D.O.D at #19, “Move” by Adam Port, Stryv and Malachiii at #11 and finally, “Angel of My Dreams” by JADE at #10 thanks to a new version. I honestly can’t complain about much of that batch.

As for our top five, well, “BACKBONE” is at #1, we know that, but otherwise we see “Stargazing” by Myles Smith at #5, “Guess” by Charli xcx featuring Billie Eilish slip off the top to #4, “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #3 and just pipped at the post once again is, also Billie Eilish, with “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” at #2. Now we have a small batch of new songs, but it seems we’ll actually be starting where we started and will be ending. If that wasn’t too convoluted.

New Entries

#72 - “Gunfinger (Salute)” - IRAH featuring Chase & Status

Produced by Chase & Status

So Chase & Status have naturally gotten an algorithmic push they didn’t really get before the massive success of “BACKBONE”, which has not only boosted their back catalogue but also this bubbling track they just produced with a feature credit for IRAH, an MC who hass worked with the two before, most notably on last year’s #5 hit “Baddadan”. I generally like the jump-up intensity of Chase & Status production, and “Gunfinger” feels pretty traditional with IRAH’s deep-voiced intimidation and the reggae sample starting off the song, later warping into a rolicking drum and bass clatter decorated with a sparse, windy atmosphere, stray vocal samples and an array of alarming synths. Whilst I appreciate the details in the drum fills and sound design here, there is a certain emptiness to this that really is evident from IRAH’s general incapability to make much of an impression, sticking to a pretty basic, unmoving delivery that could really do with being more energetic when the production is going to try and rally for minimal intensity over anything. It’s fine, I just wish there was something more to it.

#59 - “Why Why Why” - Shawn Mendes

Produced by Mike Sabath, Shawn Mendes, Eddie Benjamin and Scott Harris

The in-demand Mike Sabath seems to be the go-to for pop singer-songwriters who wish to go for a more serious and ambitious direction, since it worked so well with RAYE, and I can’t blame Shawn Mendes wanting that same level of control and detail given how much of his earlier output was nearly insufferably manufactured. A song like “Stitches” plays out much more like a Disney star’s song than the maturer side Mendes has been wanting to show since at least “In My Blood”, and whilst he has been hit-and-miss in that like he has his entire career, he at least has the dignity to not flail out into failed hyperpop experiments like the ex-partner who I have no doubts he’s still writing about because I know she is too. In this new comeback single, Mendes is constantly thinking of his ex-partner, waking up in a sweat having visions of her naked, and just asking… “why”.

So the song has a general focus on a hopeless state of mental health, but plants ideas without ever expanding on them: the anxiety he feels on tour, the over-dramatic relationship drama and feeling writer’s block all coalesce into that one hook of “I don’t know why”, over a more organic, reverb-drenched folk instrumental that feels very blatantly a trend-chase, even if it does make sense for the acoustic-focused Shawn Mendes to hop on the sound. The bridge makes the childlike confusion Mr. Mendes even more transparent: as soon as he thinks he can be a father, he getss the grounding realisation that he is still a child inside and sometimes even pleads with his mother for help, though does not seem to really do anything to help or prevent any of this? In fact, the only problem resolved is that he “chose himself” instead of his ex-partner, which may be telling that the only recurring problem in his life he can entirely dismiss is those close to him, as everything else described in the track is either cyclical or unresolved entirely, hence his clueless wandering through those underwritten choruses and wow, this is insufferable. For once, I think he knows, and that restless whining about problems is undoubtedly intended to be further frustrated by his refusal to, or maybe even no awareness to how he can, fix those issues. It’s just also not something I really care to hear from, well, anyone. It doesn’t display any temptation to fix his problems, the lyrics aren’t poetic in expressing such, and half of them are informed by his accessibility to experiences I simply cannot access. A self-obessed wobble or spiralling down through the woes that come with “more money, more problems” would be interesting if there was actually any clear progression or detail, but Mendes and co. seem much happier in just leaving the song as is: an unneeded yet unspecific venting session from a wildly successful musician wherein you’re left in the dust to core elements that could actually resonate, and justify the frankly dumb writing. This new lead single ultimately just shows a disconnect that isn’t particularly worth caring about, and I’m not even sure Shawn wants us to, given this sonically has “fulfilling my contract album” kind of written all over it. I’m sure this will be nice for the diehard fans, but to me, this is just useless.

#58 - “Active” - Asake and Travis Scott

Produced by Sarz and MIKE DEAN

Nigerian singer Asake, best known on the UK charts for “Lonely at the Top” and its recent single “Wave” with Central Cee, has released his newest record, Lungu Boy, which has landed on the UK albums chart at #15. I have yet to listen to that full album yet but Asake has impressed me before with their bright, melodious take on Afrobeats, and this new track is actually very interesting, using a sample of fellow NIgerian Jazzman Olofin’s “Raise da Roof” and cutting the vocal off into a stuttered riff against the almost 90s house groove that quickly tumbles into a tighter, minimal bass that feels so full in the mix, to the point where the cowbells and vocal loop end up kind of extraneous to just how good that bassline is. Asake’s melody seems somewhat out of place in his verse given how percussive the production is, but it plays off really interestingly off the busier drums in its second half, and that chorus is so simple yet worms its way into my head, especially when surrounded by the pitch-shifted vocal loop that is just as sticky. If I have a problem, it’s Travis Scott, who once again confuses laziness for being interesting, cutting off elements of his vocal take for no functioning reason other than sounding awkward and “different” for a few bars before quickly dipping into typical flows he has always used to flex vapidly and take me out of just how fun the song should be, though he quickly disappears after. Frankly, both artists do end up disappointing in the core part of the song, even if I have no expectations for Travis other than substanceless garbage nowadays (“fetish for the money”? Seriously?), as both fail to truly make the best use of the instrumental possible, I think becaue Travis is useless and Asake just needs more space to go for the melodic approach, and is given so in the outro, where that rushed vocal loop is placed against smooth, spacey keys that Asake can croon and riff off of. I wouldn’t be surprised if that beautiful section is what MIKE DEAN contributed to the beat, but even with that, it feels like it was tacked on to grant the song more depth than it needs, and I end up pretty much torn damn near 50-50 on it despite a great instrumental. Maybe this would just be better-served by other artists, and not even because of talent dsparity, just because the limitations of the production would fit more frenetic artists than two Auto-Tune crooners. Overall, I do think I’m teetering positively on it, but I wanted to enjoy it way more given what Sarz and DEAN cooked up.

#1 - “BACKBONE” - Chase & Status and Stormzy

Produced by Chase & Status

Now this is how to go for pure intensity: there’s a screeching lead synth, a heavily elevated build that relies not on the instrumental to gather its swell, as Stormzy is much more of a unique presence than IRAH, mostly due to his switches in flow and cadence that convince you on his smug flexes and macho posturing which is honestly mostly just dedicated to defying “you” - not the listener, but an imagined sense of authority to rebel against and insult. That kind of relentless energy in the content may not translate perfectly when he’s still flexing materialistically, but it’s easier than ever to ignore the less populist elements of Stormzy’s bars when the intensity is just this high. The spiralling synth in the build wires down into a canvas of thumping bass tones in the drop, with the drums jumping off of pitch-shifted vocal fragments and stretched backing strings propelling from the back of the mix. The song refuses to commit to a copy-paste structure, with Chase & Status adding great, small details like the break fill before the second verse, the brief but absolutely cavernous, industrial-sounding drums behind Stormzy prior to the final drop, and those horns bursting with not just bombast but a real sinister tone by the end that helps bring back some of the immersion. This is honestly a really simple song structurally, especially lyrically, but the execution is so powerful it trumps the need for anything all too complex, and that probably would have ruined its chances at #1 anyway. It’s exactly the kind of straightforward banger you’d expect the trio to make and whilst like “Guess”, the other likeably obnoxious, arguably garish EDM collaboration to debut unexpectedly at #1, I don’t see ths lasting too long at the very top, I’m sure it can find its space below, and whatever run it has doesn’t take away from that initial spark that gave the production duo a long-overdue reign on the singles chart they’ve called home for over a decade now.

Conclusion

This should be the easiest episode ever for you to figure out who gets what. Shawn Mendes takes the Worst of the Week for “Why Why Why”, “BACKBONE” by Chase & Status and Stormzy gets the Best of the Week, we’ll probably see the new Bruno and Gaga collab shake things up next week alongside Hozier and Post, but we’ll see. For now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy and I’ll see you next week!

[shinysamurott9]

2024 Games: Pokemon Scarlet

This is certainly a weird game for me to look at. This wasn't a game I went into with much of any negative bias, unlike Sword, where I skipped it due to the negativity surrounding the game at the time, I did actually buy Scarlet on day 1. But I didn't get too far into it before falling off because of other stuff. So I ended up sitting on it for over a year until now as I needed to complete the game to get the ribbons and marks needed to complete my Ribbon Master Quest. And what I got from it was one of the strangest games I've played yet one I've enjoyed a lot. This is gonna be another really long read so keep that in mind.

So when I initially picked up the game I didn't so that much in terms of Game progression. What I did do however, beyond the basic intro stuff leading up to the school, was at the very start of the game when I saw a Riolu at the edge of a cliff and was like "hey I wanna catch that" but I couldn't get over because I didn't have Korraidon yet. But my experience with Legends Arceus kicked in and came the thought of trying to throw a ball to initiate a battle from the other side of the cliff. Turns out this idea got me way more than I bargained for because doing this warped me to the other side of the gap, letting me break out of the area I was supposed to be and explore the whole region before ever entering the school. I shit you not by the time I was done I had almost half the pokedex and a lvl 40 Skeledirge. It was incredibly funny ngl.

But after that when I eventually got back on track I basically just did the remaining intro stuff until you were set free to explore. At which point I wasn't really feeling it, so I put the game down. DLC flew by, stuff happened and it all led up to a couple weeks ago when I had to pick it up again to complete my Ribbon Masters. I initially didn't really vibe with the game. My first day back playing it was basically just me wandering aimlessly, avoiding the main objectives because I wanted to put together a more substantial team beyond Skeledirge and Tinkatuff and I also just wasn't really feeling any of the mons I had in the box. I also do tend to make a conscious effort to use team members I haven’t used before, but a lot of more interesting stuff available in Paldea were mons I had used before. I think it's a combination of this, almost the entire dex being available to you from the outset if you really want it and me being slightly overwhelmed by that that led to this feeling.

This train of thought hilariously led me to awakening and actually catching Chien fucking Pao with no badges, though I never actually ended up using it due to not beating all the gyms first so it was disobedient til near the end of the game.

This first session ultimately ended when I went to take on Great Tusk and subsequently capturing it. I opted to do the Teal Mask DLC from here, this is where the game started to pick up for me. It was a whole new area to explore, tons of new mons to find and use and a nice little side story to get invested in. By the time I was done I was way happier with the team I was using, including a random full odds shiny, so that was awesome.

The Teal Mask was also where the story really started to click with me I think. SV story is very much a character focused one, with the plots mainly being centered around how the player character helps and interacts with the other characters around them. And to complement that, SV probably has one of the best main casts of human characters in the series. Teal Mask brings in Carmine and Kieran who I both really like. Kieran needs Indigo Disk to be fully discussed but most of Carmine's character is here.

I really like her, she has a really good character design and her character arc, while short, is compelling. She goes from someone who is, almost xenophobic for lack of a better term to someone who grows far more accepting as she helps you recover the masks from the Lousy Three. She's hard on Kieran, in a way that I feel like she regrets as they drifted apart on Indigo Disk, but she does care about him. She does also have a bit of smug bastard energy that I do enjoy when it's done right.

Teal Mask also has... H e r

I'm gonna be real here, I think Ogerpon is genuinely the best legendary we've gotten in general, which is saying a lot in a generation that knocks it out of the park in that regard. Her design is simple but adorable, she has one of my favourite stories of any legendary, not just her backstory but also how she bonds with you and how that plays into Kieran's arc, and her gimmick with the masks is incredibly fun to use in a playthrough. Especially so if you play like me with a rotating team of more than 6, Ogerpon can slot in anywhere with how you can change her type to fill any holes you might have in terms of types.

I think Kitakami was really what I needed to get myself in gear and get back into the game. When I got back to the main game, the path I was inclined to follow most was the Titan path with Arven. This was partially for practical reasons as that's how you upgrade Koraidon, but also because of Arven.

I think Arven's story is amazing. He starts out as kind of a dick, pawning Koraidon off on you and wanting nothing to do with it. But you come to learn this is more from frustration towards his mom, feeling like she cared more about it and her research in Area Zero than him growing up. And also because she's given him basically no help with his current goal, healing his partner Mabosstiff. In a series that focuses on all these grand adventures, which this game definitely still has mind you, Arven is incredibly down to earth. At the end of the day he's just a guy who wants to help his sick dog, which is incredibly relatable.

To get a little personal here, I've basically spent my whole life around dogs. We've had plenty across my family growing up. Of course, most of them passed away as I grew up. They were treated well, it's just how it goes. But it does suck, seeing them grow old as their health deteriorates. So I completely understand Arven going so far to help Mabosstiff doing literally everything he can to help save him. And at the very end, when you get the last Herba Mystica, Arven takes a breather. He seems almost resigned, with motions that feel like he's saying he's done all he can do, and now he can only wait and let whatever happens happen.

There are very few things in anything that make me very emotional, but seeing Mabosstiff get up and bring his pokeball to Arven, and Arven being so overjoyed seeing him healthy again, genuinely gets me a little teary eyed. It's genuinely one of the sweetest scenes in all of pokemon. I think the titans path is also helped overall by having the most ties to the final story, it leading into the reason we go down to Area Zero to begin with, thereby giving it an edge in importance over the other two paths.

Speaking of the other two paths, I think they're also pretty solid.

I actually ended up liking Team Star a bit more than I expected. I like that ultimately they just boil diwn to friend group who found solidarity in each other. But they went too far and were too stubborn to back down, because they don't feel like the school did anything to fix their issues. So Penny has to have you step in to dismantle the whole thing so they don't seriously harm their futures. It's a neat story honestly. Not sure how I feel about their postgame side story. It's neat helping them get back on track with things, I think my main issue is that some of them are hard to recognise. Like Mela and especially Eri look like completely different people. One thing I do really like about Team Star though is all their music is canon and composed by Giacomo. It's genuinely really cool. Especially imagining him just going off when he made Penny's one.

The gym path was probably my least favourite of the three paths. It's not bad by any means, it's just the typical song and dance we've come to expect from pokemon at this point. I do enjoy most of the gym leaders, they're fun with plenty of personality. Iono and Larry were personal highlights for me. My issue is that I think the gym path highlights a notable issue with how the game doesn’t really lean into it's open world structure very well. Despite a major selling point being you can do the badges in any order, there still is a set order to do them with the levels they're at. While I think it's a good idea for the start of the game, with some badges being objectively easier than others, I feel like this structure would benefit a lot by having weaker gyms scale up to match where you are if you beat a later badge first. Say you beat Larry first. You could then have Katy, Brassius, Iono, and Kofu scale up in levels to match whoever would be fighting next, so you don't just steamroll everything below the gym you beat.

The real highlightof the gym path is unquestionably Nemona. I think she's a really interesting take on the typical rival in pokemon. Instead of going on the same journey as you, she's already become a champion. She is a savant in terms of battling and she worked hard to get to that point, it's like a hyperfixation for her. But she's reached a point where she's far beyond any of her peers and it leaves her almost alienated from them cause no one else is as into battling as her. It's an interesting way to take the phrase "It's lonely at the top".

That's of course where you come in. She follows you on your journey, starting fresh with a new team, even intentionally picking the starter weak to yours for an extra challenge, I love how they actually have a reason for it this time. All the while along the way she helps you to get stronger offering advice in the gyms and helping you keep sharp in battles. All so that you can become a worthy challenge for her. And when you do beat her at the end when she's not holding back, she's ecstatic because she finally has a true equal, or potentially even a new level of strength for her to work towards. It's a genuinely really cool way to handle the rival here. My one gripe is that I don't think we ever see what Nemona's original team was. Maybe she used Orthworm and Dudunsparce as she only uses them in her final fight when she isn't holding back, but everything else is from the team she trained along the way.

Then there's the final story, and the true ending of the game. Where as the other stories were focused on your friends, The Way Home is Koraidon's story. It's in the name, as the story has you delving into Area Zero, the place Koraidon came from in the first place.

Area Zero is easily a standout location in the game. It has an absolutely perfect vibe. It has this pure, untouched feel, not just as if no one has been there in a long time, it feels like somewhere people are outright not supposed to be. And the music conveys this feeling absolutely perfectly. It's especially great because it's motif is heard in other places like Tera Raid dens, and later it's subtle part of the Terrarium themes in Blueberry Academy and the Crystal Pool in Kitakami.

The vibe of the track, especially the vocal parts, give it a similar feel to stuff from the Xeno series. It's so perfect.

I think it's really interesting to me how Sada, basically the closest thing to a main antagonist this game has, is already dead when you arrive, and has been for some time. But you need to fight through to her machine to shut it down and prevent more Paradox pokemon from coming to the present. It's a pretty simple plot held up by how the characters experience Area Zero itself. All of this culminates in the final fight against Sada's AI. It's a really neat fight that is genuinely difficult. In no small part because she uses exclusively Paradoxes, many of which you could literally have never encountered at this point, giving you an unknown element to contend with. The battle concludes with you taking down her Koraidon with the pokemon you've bonded with throughout the entire game, the one pokemon not affected by Sada's pokeball lock due to technically being owned by her, your own Koraidon, who got you this far to begin with. It's a genuinely great moment as Koraidon overcomes it's fear and takes down it's counterpart who drove it from Area Zero to begin with.

This concludes the main plot, with an Ed Sheeran Jumpscare for some reason, but the story does continue in the Indigo Disk where you become a transfer student for Blueberry Academy. Blueberry is an absolutely fantastic location. The Terrarium is really cool area to mess around in, with tons of new pokemon to find and use, the blueberry Quests are a great addition too. On paper they seem like busy work, but they're so easy to passively complete with solid rewards that they make for a good thing to do in between objectives in the Terrarium. Which really helps for the other main draw of Indigo Disk, the League Club.

I think the League Club is a super underrated part of the DLC. There's a bunch of stuff to do with it by customising the room itself, developing the Item Printer, a great addition in itself, and upgrading the biomes in the Terrarium, letting you get all the starters from Gen 1 - 8, genuinely really cool. The best part of the League Club though is all the character interactions. Initially you'll only meet the BB League E4 in there. But as you play through you'll get the ability to invite basically every notable character in the game there and eventually Carmine and Kieran will appear there too. It's great for fleshing out their characters, and also facilitates special interactions between characters who wouldn't get the chance to meet otherwise.

I love all the little Easter Eggs and references in this DLC too. There's the League Club rooms, specifically monochrome and futuristic, being massive call backs to Unova, each of the biomes being references to old locations like The cliff biome referencing the Nature Preserve, The Savannah Biome references the Kanto Safari Zone, and the Coastal Biome explicitly references Alola. Idk if the Polar Biome references anything, maybe Mt Lanakila? And the Meloetta event? Which requires you to open the camera app with the sepia filter? An amazing call back to the guy from Castelia who remembered Meloetta's Relic Song in Sepia Colored Memories.

And now I get to the story of Indigo Disk. Just as the main game did with Nemona, the DLC went a really interesting direction with the rival trope. You first meet Kieran in Kitakami and while things start out well, your encounter with Ogerpon puts a rift between you and him. He always had an affinity with the Ogre and wanted to meet it for so long, and when he finally meets her, Ogerpon doesn't trust him, despite hearing about her story and admiring it his whole life, she favors you. All the while everyone around him seeks to exclude him by hiding the truth about Ogerpon's story. Even when he goes the extra mile and reveals the true story to the village, leading them to finally accept her after decades, potentially centuries of them rejecting her and her former partner, she still favors you, leading you to fight him for who gets Ogerpon, which you do eventually win.

This kind of breaks Kieran, feeling like you took his place in his story. And in the time between then and Indigo Disk, he kind of goes off the wall a little. dedicating everything to becoming stronger all just to beat you, even becoming Champion of the BB League in the process. But in turn he starts lording over the other members, kicking out anyone he deems too weak despite how arbitrary that might be. This man is literally going insane, twitching about and smiling like a maniac. Part of it is just an act but it's hard to say how in his own head he is.

And when you do eventually fight him, he has an absolutely busted team even including competitive monsters like Incineroar and Grimmsnarl. Yet despite that it's a team that fits him so perfectly. I love when they delve into characters with the details behind their teams, like N using new pokemon from the surrounding area each time you fight him or Ghetsis Hydreigon knowing Frustration and actively hurting itself with every attack. Kieran's team is absolutely perfect in this regard. Every one of his pokemon says something about him all the while putting up one hell of a fight. That's another thing, I genuinely love that that this DLC actually puts up a challenge. BB Academy is called this elite battle school and the trainers sell that idea very well. Every trainer actually uses held items and have actual strats for the most part. The bosses actually have full teams of 6 which is shockingly rare when you're not looking at Champions for some reason.

Once you take down Kieran he and Carmine accompany you to the deepest depths of Area Zero to help Briar search for Terapagos. The under depths are also a fantastic location atmosphere wise and probably the best visual treat the game has to offer. Kieran's encounter with Terapagos is genuinely great, how it's just this tiny little guy that goes up to you because it's the first thing it sees. But Kieran's in such a bad headspace as it is, and after what happened with Ogerpon the very notion that he'd lose another legendary to you causes him to freak out so hard that he immediately Master Ball's Terapagos, which was genuinely fantastically foreshadowed by a Master Ball being the prize for champions in the BB League.

The Terapagos fight is neat enough, very funny that it can outright cheat to kill Carmine's Sinistcha and Kieran finally jumping in to help is great. Terapagos as a legendary is interesting in it's inspiration. It's possibly based on Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise of the galapagos islands. Much like George, Terapagos is seemingly the last of it's kind and despite internally having a 50/50 gender ratio, the Terapagos in the underdepths is always male. Honestly it's wild that a pokemon that can just casually manipulate time and become the source of terastalization used to be a regular species of pokemon.

That being said it's also very vague about what it and the terastal phenonmenon are supposed to be. It can time travel to some extent which is definitively shown with the secret scene at the crystal pool, but also there's all the weirdness with the paradox mons. Some seem to be genuine ancestors to present mons like Roaring Moon but also stuff like Brute Bonnet which just make no sense to have existed millions of years ago. I also find it strange this same phenomenon allows for pokemon to channel different types which is a kind of random pair of traits for terastalization tbh.

Speaking of, the Stellar Type. It's weird. Defensively you basically don't change at all bar gaining a weakness to Stellar Type moves, all three of them. Offensively however, you gain a power boost for every move type, 2x for the users' regular types and 1.2x for everything else, but unless the user is in a Tera Raid or is Terapagos, it only gets that boost once per type per battle. It's kind of underwhelming for something that is supposed to be using every type at once, and feels weirdly outclassed by normal terastalization in most situations.

Once you beat Terapagos, there are two major things available to do afterward. The first is the aforementioned Crystal Pool event, which has Terapagos bring Sada back in time.As a result of her conversation with you, you become inadvertently responsible for Koraidon's name, giving her the white book that led her to the underdepths in the first place and with the right dialogue options, you give her the idea for the AI, effectively making the entire game one giant bootstrap paradox. I think it is actually a pretty neat idea honestly. And it fits pretty well with all the paradoxes in the game already.

Then of course there's the secret third dlc chapter, Mochi Mayhem.

Mochi Mayem is pretty interesting though I have mixed feelings on it. It's a special third DLC focusing on Pecharunt who is the Mythical Pokemon for Gen 9. What I like is that it seems to be a return to form for mythical pokemon in game. After three whole generations of mythicals just being handed to you by a pokemon center guy, Pecharunt actually has a proper event in game that has you catch it yourself. Mochi Madness is also far more elaborate than any of the previous mythical events having a whole extra story that nicely ties up the main game, Ogerpon and Kieran storylines. It's a fun little story that gives us some great interactions between the characters. On that front it's especially nice to see Kieran and to a lesser extent Carmine interact with the main game trio after the two groups being cleanly seperate for the game before now. While I do enjoy all of this, I do have two notable issues with it.

1: Pecharunt

Now I like Pecharunt. It's essentially the trio master for the loyal three, their equivalent of Arceus or Regigigas for comparison. I think it has a neat design and story but here's the issue with that. None of it's story was in the game. Instead Pecharunt's backstory was revealed in a short animation uploaded to pokemon's YouTube. This video revealed Pecharunt was under the care of an old couple who loved it dearly, but, wanting more of their affection, it fed them it's binding Mochi to secure that for itself. But in turn, Pecharunt's possessive nature turned the couple into the worst versions of themselves, making them greedy and seemingly only having Pecharunt around because it would bring them what they wanted. Turning what seemed like genuine care into something far more superficial. This is what sent Pecharunt to Kitakami to take Ogerpon's masks, and we know how that turned out.

It's not that this is a bad story, quite the opposite honestly it's a pretty good one that explores how despite Pecharunt having a lot going for it, with a loving family and comfortable home, it's own toxic traits ended up leaving all that a shadow of what it was. But it all comes back to that one issue that it isn't in the game itself. Now look, I'm a Mega Man fan, I'm more than familiar with important or beneficial information or stories being tucked away in external sources, many of which are far more obscure and inaccessible than a YouTube video. But I do wish they included at least part of this somewhere in the game itself. As it is Pecharunt basically has no story presence beyond being the present threat for the story at hand and being the master of the Loyal Three, a logical assumption with its music and use of the toxic chains.

The other issue however is not actually to do with the the story itself but rather how it's accessed.

2: Mystery Gift

The most common and understandable criticism of mythical pokemon is that they are limited by design. In the past they have always been available exclusively through limited time events available through Mystery Gift. On the surface Pecharunt actually seems to be an improvement in this area. It's distributed the same way but at this point in time, there is no definitive end date for the distribution and that is good. But I'm not sure how long that is going to last, while that isn't an issue right now, eventually the servers it uses will almost definitely go offline. Maybe that's just because that's something I'm thinking about more with the recent closure of 3ds and Wii U online servers, but idk, that eventual but pretty realistic possibility rubs me the wrong way. In this case I think it's especially egregious due to the fact that unlike other mythical events, there is more content than just the mythical event locked behind the Mythical Pecha Berry. Once you beat Mochi Mayhem, Carmine and Kieran will start appearing in the League Club and you gain the ability to invite Arven, Penny and Nemona as special instructors. So without access to the berry, you lose access to all of their interactions in the club room, their true final rematches and their special trade mons, something you definitely want to be aware of if you want a Paldean Tauros, Sinistcha or anything from the Skwovet, Eevee or Applin families with the partner ribbon. To be fair, this logic could well be applied to the DLC as a whole but that at least could still be accessed via cartridges that have it built in.

Before going into the final conclusions on the game as a whole here's some miscellaneous stuff I couldn't really mention before now.

The Partner Ribbon: A massive part of the League Club that I glossed over was that it is the gateway to postgame rematches with every character that can be in the room. That alone is fantastic but if you interact with a charater in the clubroom enough times They'll trade you a pokemon with the newly added partner ribbon, which when it's assigned as the mon's title, they'll be sent out as "Drayton's Duraludon", "Kieran's Applin", "Nemona's Tauros" etc. It's really neat for ribbon collectors honestly. I hope this becomes a staple for future titles, it'd be really cool for stuff like N's pokemon if we ever get BW2 Remakes that properly reimplement them.

I appreciate the new evolutions in this game. Some are kind of odd and arguably unnecessary, like Kingambit or Archaludon, but I still like them. A lot were definitely well deserved like Dudunsparce and Farigiraf.

Continuing Gen 8's train of thought, it is incredibly easy to properly optimize a pokemon for competitive play, it's certainly worked, I'm more interested in competitive than ever. The changes to Ability Patches letting you change between normal and Hidden Abilities freely, Hyper Training now only requiring a pokemon to be level 50, and the easy availability of however many bottle caps and vitamins you need letting you train a pokemon however you want in the span of like 10 minutes tops all help with this. The mirror herb in particular is a fantastic addition here too, letting you essentially copy egg moves from one pokemon onto another meaning you can even get otherwise unavailable moves onto a pokemon. I've already made extensive use of it to get stuff like Sacred Sword on my Samurott or Fake Out on my shiny Incineroar from Wonder Trade (Thanks Evil Cal Zone). Effectively any pokemon can be made optimal for competitive use at this point, and relatively quickly too. Really the only thing you don't have control over is getting lower IVs, which realistically you'd only want for speed if you plan to run a Trick Room team, which to be fair is a somewhat valid critique as I can say from experiencing it on both sides that Trick Room is a very powerful strategy. Everything else though? You're good. If a pokemon you're attached to from your playthrough is good for the team you want to run, you are completely able to build it almost however you want and that is fantastic.

Union Circle is one of the single best multiplayer mechanics ever implemented in a pokemon game. It's already a lot of fun to mess around with your friends in the world itself, but it is also fantastic on a functional level as with the exception of the Box Legends and the DLC Paradoxes, a Scarlet player can naturally catch every violet version exclusive and vice versa. It reminds me a lot of BW2's key system that let players access select version exclusive content like the Regis or White Forest/Black City. For better or worse, version exclusives probably aren't going away any time soon, so if they are to stick around, Union Circle is a fantastic way to handle it.

There are also some miscellaneous negatives as well unfortunately.

The technical issues. It cannot be denied when discussing SV that on a technical level, it is a trainwreck. To be fair to it, it is nowhere near as bad as it was at launch, I never encountered anything too crazy, but it's still not great. Graphical bugs are everywhere, it is very common for pokemon to go into their low detail models and low frame rate animations despite being very close, there's a lot of pop in and the game lags a lot in areas where it really shouldn't, like menus. I distinctly remember going to the Peachy's shop in Kitakami and the game just straight up freezing for a solid minute as it tried to load the menu. A lot of people attribute this to the game being rushed as a result of the strict dev schedules pokemon games are subject to, and that is part of it no question. One thing I will always be firm on is that there was absolutely no need for this game to come out the same year as Legends Arceus. That game could have easily carried pokemon's holiday release with SV coming out the November after. Both games definitely would have benefitted from the extra time. That being said I think attributing these issues just to the tight schedule is oversimplifying it somewhat. I feel like these issues are a result of a perfect storm of variables in tandem with this. To Gamefreak's credit this was a pretty ambitious game for what they've typically done and something they've clearly been building to with SwSh and LA, but that also means that they are likely inexperienced with this kind of game. Combine that with the fact that this game would have started development in 2020, smack in the middle of a major pandemic, which undeniably affected the output of almost all game development studios? It does make sense that it turned out this way when all of these variables are considered. I'll be clear that I have no idea on the specifics that go on internally with Gamefreak during development, I'm only making the best assumptions I can with what I already know and very surface level research. I do hope that with future releases something like this can be avoided. Pokemon Z seems like it could be a step in the right direction being slated for 2025 and I do recall an article discussing how even the CE of the Pokemon Company acknowledged they may be going way too fast with their output and that changes could be considered. Granted being the head of a massive company like that, his word should rightfully be taken with a grain of salt. But still, it I think there is room for a little optimism at this point.

I think Shiny Pokemon were handled pretty poorly this go around. Shiny Hunting is one of my favourite things to do in pokemon so this aspect is particularly important for me. For the third time now shinies appear in the overworld which I have no problem with. But unlike previous instances like Let's Go or LA, shinies are not accompanied by any special particle effect or sound effect on spawn, instead they are just there and it is up to you to notice. On paper this honestly does not sound that bad but as many hunters know there are a disgusting amount of shinies that have barely any change or the changes are very subtle. This is awful for hunting in this game and requires you to be very aware of everything that spawns if the shiny you're looking for doesn't change much.

On the note of subtle shinies, it is an especially big issue for Gen 9. There are so many shinies that barely change for no good reason and it feels like there are far more than any game before now. For example:

Tatsugiri on paper is ok, but the Yellow form's shiny is orange which creates confusion between it and the normal orange form.

All of the future Paradoxes have a chrome color palette which is a mixed bag. It would be a fine color on paper, if not a little boring because they're all the same, but several future paradoxes already have chrome in their color palette leading to the shiny not changing much. Iron Treads is the worst offender but others like Iron Moth or Iron Boulder are pretty bad for this too.

There are of course the several shinies who just barely change for no good reason, making them incredibly difficult to notice in game, either from the lighting or just because the pokemon is so small to begin with. But none of that compares to:

Like come on what the fuck is this? I don't even know what to say about this like, someone saw Gholdengo, changed the color of it's grooves and just called it a day? I really don't like using this word in regard to game development or design but this is just lazy. It's less than that really because this honestly feels like they went out of their way to make a bad shiny. Like you could have just made it like silver or copper or literally any noticeable change to the gold and that would have been way better. But no, just the barely visible grooves. What is even the point of giving it a shiny at that stage?

Though honestly you could argue Gholdengo's doesn't matter that much because:

Shiny Locks! They are arguably the worst they've ever been. I have and always will, despise this mechanic. There is almost never a good reason for preventing a pokemon from being shiny if it is catchable. Recent games have been very bad for shiny locks. This list includes the starters, which is a god awful decision, arguably the worst mons to shiny lock, the various titans, all wild Gimmighoul for some reason, all gift pokemon except for Salvatore's Meowth, and all legendaries, including the ones brought back in the DLC. That last one in particular is awful as a large batch of returning legendaries has become standard implementation mid generation since ORAS, and we've always been allowed to hunt them, so seeing that changed is a really bad precedent for future games. The Pokemon Company know full well that a significant portion of their playerbase enjoy shiny hunting. It's a side of the fandom that is more acknowledged than ever with the official Twitter even recently putting out a very comprehensive guide on all the ways to boost shiny odds. So I really don't understand what they have to lose by not letting us hunt this stuff, it's not like they're doing anything with those unavailable shinies anyway. Literally none of the Gen 9 legendaries have received shiny distributions yet, hell we're still waiting for most of the Gen 8 ones. Imagine how cool it would be to hunt a shiny Koraidon and ride it during your playthrough, or hunting the gift Sinnoh egg and getting a random shiny Sinnoh Starter or even hunting the Meloetta event. So many cool hunts that we just aren't allowed to do because GameFreak said no. This is absolutely not a dealbreaker but it is a really annoying practice that I wish they would just stop doing.

All that being said, I think that about covers my thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet by extension. There may be more to say, such as how one could criticize how important the DLC could be to having a fully experience with how the game is lacking in some areas, namely post game content without it, effectively making an already expensive €60 game into an over €90 game, the lack of a battle facilty or the general quality of the pokemon roster this time around but I think I've said my piece.

I think overall this game gets a bad rep. One that isn't entirely undeserved. It has many issues which exist for a number of reasons, be they technical, structural or narrative, and those should be critiqued. But that also means a lot of the good parts of this game get overlooked or underappreciated. It's strong enough that I honestly think that if you just fixed even just the technical issues, this would be one of the best pokemon games. But even as it is I can't say I hate this game. I still enjoyed it quite a lot actually. I think given the way recent releases have been experimenting with open area type gameplay, this style of pokemon is likely going to be the new norm. If so I hope they do take a proper look at what SV did both right and wrong to properly refine it. We can only wait and see on that front, with how much cynicism has taken root in the pokemon community, I hope I can be right on that front.

As for where this game ranks on my ongoing tier list of games, I think smack in the middle of B is a good place to put it with how much I enjoyed the game.

[umichenginabroad]

Madrid Week 2: Taking Time

Hola a todxs! Niko here again, back for week 2 of studying abroad in Madrid. This week felt nearly as long as my first one in the city. Class started on Monday. Thankfully, schoolwork has been pretty light thus far, so I’ve had the spare energy and time to focus on adjusting to the new schedule, commute, and teaching/class style at UC3M, all while attempting to make new friends with Spanish, American, and International students from across Europe (and Oceania!). Also, I took a weekend trip to Granada in the southern region of Andalucía — more on that later.

SCHOOL STUFF (ACADEMICS?!)

With the first week now under my belt, I wanted to quickly touch on my academic experience so far in Spain. This semester, I’m taking a Spanish language class for international students, and three classes in English for a both national and international students: “Social groups and their cultural imaginaries” (a mix between philosophy and culture, INTERHUM 300 equivalent), “Materials Science and Engineering” (MATSCI 220 Equivalent), and “Databases and Structures” (EECS 400 Level Equivalent). Given that I pass 🙏, all of these classes should count towards my degrees (aerospace engineering major, international minor for engineers, computer science minor).

School at UC3M is quite different than it is in the states. Most notably, the grading system is unfamiliar. At Michigan, a big emphasis is put on required assignments that are due throughout the semester — homeworks, problem sets, mini projects, etc.. These required assignments force students to continuously engage with the content, which I feel improves focus and learning (if the assignments are completed with the right intention). At Carlos III, the final exam constitutes 60% of the final grade for the vast majority of classes, with the remaining 40% of “continuous assessment” depending on things like in-class quizzes and one-off assignments.

With no homework to keep me on track, I’m gonna have to pay close attention to make sure my classes don’t fall to the wayside with all of the 1,000,000 other distractions in Madrid (and Europe) vying for my attention. I’ve already decided to switch one class (Neural Networks) because I thought it would require a level of effort that I simply wasn’t prepared to put in while I’m abroad with bigger priorities than school (namely, exploration, self growth, meeting people, etc.).

This is a shift in itself that I’m going to have to get used to — for my entire life, performing well in school has been at the top of my list. However, while in Spain, all I need to do is pass (get a 5/10, 50% overall) for my credits to transfer with no effect on my GPA, so that’s what I’m shooting for now. I’m certain that this will cause some internal conflict (e.g.: a 60% on [x] quiz?! Oh no!!! tbh math 216 already got me over those bad grades tho lol) when things start to pick up, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. 

ON RELATIONSHIPS

Going into my study abroad experience, my biggest goal was to understand the culture of Madrid & Spain from a local point of view. I knew from studying in Buenos Aires that living in a different city can be a much more enriching experience than touring it for vacation, so long as I put in the effort. A big part of that goal was to make friends with people local to Madrid, along with other Americans*/ International students who shared that same mindset. I think that in explicitly setting this goal, I inadvertently put a lot of pressure on myself to make all these friends really quickly, in an environment and language I’m unfamiliar with, all while trying to adjust to and internalize a major lifestyle shift.

As a result, I think that — up until this week — this self-imposed pressure gave me unnecessary anxiety that inhibited me from being my true self. I spent time worrying about whether the Spanish students in my class would like me, if my Spanish was good enough to communicate with them, if they would judge me for being an American, how soon I should message the new person I met in the cafeteria so I wouldn’t appear too clingy… the list goes on. I was stressing and strategizing to make friends, when the best strategy is always to just be myself.

This is a lesson I’ve learned during my transition to Michigan, but being implanted into a new environment and University gave me a bit of a factory reset. I had to remind myself that I’ve only been here for 2.5 weeks. Directing my attention inwards instead of outwards will enable me to be fully present (and able to overcome the initial discomfort of making new relationships [see week 1 for discussion on discomfort]) when people that I can click with inevitably come along. Through this process, I’ll undoubtedly develop a stronger relationship with myself and increased comfort being alone, which is another personal goal of mine.

Funnily enough, that’s how things started to turn out in the second half of the first week. When I caught myself overthinking and was able to redirect my focus, I slowly started to reach out and become more friendly with some of the Spanish students in my culture class, and I met a group of Spaniards by chance that I really vibe with at the club on a Wednesday (oops, sorry it’s syllabus week :P ). Simultaneously, I’ve begun to get closer to some fellow American study abroad students. By no means have I found the perfect group of friend-soulmates that I’ll proceed to travel and experience Europe with for the rest of my 17 weeks in Spain, but that wasn’t something that I was ever expecting, anyways. Moving forward, I’m going to do my best to avoid resisting flow, always assuming positive intent to keep myself open to new interactions (check out what I mean by this by watching this video clip from a speech Mark Rober gave at the MIT graduation, I highly recommend the whole video), all the while prioritizing my own peace and happiness.

This weekend, I also visited Granada, a small town in the south of Spain famous for its Moorish influence and the incredible La Alhambra palace nestled in its hills. I might cover the trip in more detail next week, I guess we’ll see… but it was a beautiful weekend filled with beautiful architecture, beautiful sunsets, and great company. Per usual, check out the photo captions for some more context.

Until next week :) 

Niko Economos

Aerospace Engineering

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Madrid, Spain

*A LONG ASIDE ON THE WORD “AMERICAN”, for context & completeness

I would like to be clear about my use of the word "American". In English, there is no succinct way to say “Person from the United States of America”, unlike other nationalities (Spaniard, Argentinian, Norwegian, etc). American is the best word that we have. However, in conversations about US culture with people from other countries, I’ve been met with a similar critique in multiple instances (both with Europeans and South Americans). The Americas include the entire continent of North America and South America, which encompasses a huge variety of countries, cultures, and nationalities. When saying the word “American” while describing a person from the United States, we are inadvertently reinforcing the narrative that the United States is the most significant country across both continents and thus more righteously deserves the blanket term “American” over any other country in the region.

This conclusion is obviously more nuanced than what I’ve stated. The United States of America uses the word “America” in its name, which is likely where this blanket term came from. Also, I don’t think that the perpetuation of this US-centric language is due to intentional individual action, but rather a result of complicated cultural and etymological phenomena which I don’t have a comprehensive understanding of.

I won’t stop saying American in these blogs — primarily because saying “person from the United States” each time would likely distract from the points I'm trying to make — but I felt that an acknowledgement of this common criticism was important. In Spanish, Estados Unidos = United States, and US citizens are more precisely described as “Estadounidenses” (although the word “Americano” is still commonly used). When introducing myself to people from other countries, I always do my best to use the most precise language possible when referring to my nationality, which is one of the many ways I practice cultural humility. Stay tuned for another blog sometime this semester about how I go about practicing cultural humility, something that I think is very important for Americans who come from one of the most — if not the most — influential countries on earth (something that has also become apparent through my conversations).

[aries-rp-corner]

Guess who’s done? ;w; Poor girl is not gonna enjoy her time, but she will tolerate it for now at least ;w;

I decided to give her the male vest, since she believes it will help a ton…Mostly for defense purposes. Let alone it kinda matches her pants lol

She is willing to wear half of the uniform, while wearing the other half of what she has left. She is aware what she signed up for, but she will sacrifice it all to protect the people she called her friends and the Legendary Ice Dragon from Cipher themselves. For now, she’s trying to adjust to her new surroundings and judgment.

She also doesn’t like the hats they give, so she kept her Fox Mask because it oddly matches a bit with her suit. And she loves her mask dearly because her family made it for her before she left.

•Her Items

Belt Pouch: Her usual belt pouch she held onto, not only containing her Pokémon team, but also her Spell Cards and Notes.

Moon Sickles: Made with unknown metals from the past, she held onto them upon learning their existence. Submerged in deep frigid water, Aries jumped in to retrieve them…it was a success but she now hates cold water. They are also equipped with a 40 Foot cable like rope, giving her the chance to swing all over the place or do long rage attacks.

Moonstone Blade/Knife: It was made by her family back at the Orre Region. Mostly from her father and grandfather, carving the stone to a sharp point and mixed with the toughest iron they have into the blade she has now. Although she did freaked out that her dad and granddad mailed her a knife in public. Now armed with a third blade she will funny enough grip in her mouth. Kinda like Zoro from OP, but smaller.

Spell Note Book: She uses her note book to practice or study a spell she created. The typical research book she has, only this one she can practice magic.

Spell Cards and Case: The case itself is a normal card case, it’s what it holds is something very cool. The cards are successful magic spells she can cast to the enemy or create something that can heal, light, or plant growth, and the people she trust can also use them. Unfortunately as she studied herself and her cards, as long the person is with her or close by her the spell can activate. She’s trying to figure that part out so people can use them freely without her presence, for now sadly, if people want to use the cards, she has to be with them or close by them.

•Bonus Fact: I had no idea what her number would be, until I read some of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books (or audio lol) especially one of the books I read called The Capture.

Soren (haha, also a Bonus there) the Barn Owl was given a number 12-1. Upon seeing that number I decided to give Aries the number, 121.

Look man I like that series to the point I named my Hisuian Braviary Soren, and Aries kinda adopting Number 121. ಠ_ಠ

“I am no weapon. I am only here to defend those who I care, everyone else, and Kyurem. Cipher took so much already, to the point I sadly have to be here in the coldness. Be lucky I can tolerate this because of the people I befriended here. I will do my work and duty, but I will not go after a innocent soul who doesn’t deserve to be in pain…”

-Aries speaking to Lord Ghetsis

[crystalelemental]

Unit Viability Speculation - December 2023

Unova finally gets some attention, Viola finally gets a super nice outfit, and all I care about is Lodge Jasmine. Okay that's not entirely true, Meloetta's here, but like. Jasmine.

Neo Champion Nate Good news: the "Even Nate" jokes are over. Bad news: Nate having the shiny Haxorus from completing the dex will 100% be used to say he was secretly the true protagonist on Reddit, because girls can't be protagonists.

Nate is an insanely powerful Dragon Striker, who acts more as a support. To cut to the chase, his Buddy move is his only real damage aside from sync, and it's 1MP with AoE penalty. It's not exactly breaking barriers here, given its only effects are "can't miss" and "-1 cooldown." Those are common effects. Scale Shot is also not great, giving some minor speed increase at the cost of defense. While he stacks PMUN like crazy, none of it matters when Scale Shot is as weak as it is. Punishing Strike is tremendous, 30% boost under his circle is great, and Haymaker is free money alongside Speedster Sync 5, which is easy to set up because only +1 speed is sufficient. Oh and he gets another 90% bonus while his Circle is up. Sure Nate. 240% sync damage. Oh, and his role is Zone. In case you were worried he didn't do enough.

But here's where we get to the argument that Nate is actually support. Unova Pride as a Master Passive is already fantastic, right? Okay. This Circle business? It's a field effect Master Passive, where the region requirement counts himself. 10% damage boost at base with +10% more for each Unova, and 5% damage reduction with 3% more for each Unova. Nate's default is 20% and 8%. Oh but wait. This one counts sync. So on a full Unova team, Nate has 280% sync damage, with Field effect benefits. Sure bro. Very normal. But the Circle applies to all allies. The field powers up all Dragons. His Circle move also gives the whole team PMUN. Nate does a surprising amount for physical Unova pairs just by existing.

Which means the detriment should be obvious. Like so, so many Techs in eras past, the downside of being the strongest thing your supportive tools can benefit is that no one else really gets to shine. Yes, this is a godsend for base Iris' damage. Show me a scenario where base Iris contributes while Nate's throwing around this much power. I'll wait. There's also the ongoing issue of off-type, which Nate can very much do, but how relevant is that for other physical pairs when Nate's doing all the heavy lifting? The Circle benefit is 40% sync damage to any physical ally, but no one comes close to Nate's level of sync damage. There's also the issue of Dragon Zone potentially overwriting other effects you wanted. I don't think this Nate is bad at all, but I think in my heart I wanted him and Iris to work together, rather than Iris being superficially attached to him.

Neo Champion Rosa Who is, apparently, not coming out until Christmas. Go figure. Ugh. Anyway. Meloetta's finally here. It tanked Lisia/Meloetta, but I can't complain too much. I will, however, complain about Psychic Support. Shoulda been Normal.

Rosa is...a choice. Imagine Winter Rosa but good. On the surface, her Buddy move seems reminiscent of Winter Rosa's trainer move. A random +2 to any of the seven stats, with +1 crit baked in. But, NC Rosa transforms, and through a passive, grants +1 PMUN/SMUN to all allies. Now we're on that NC Bede shit. Rosa also applies a Psychic and/or Fighting Rebuff to all opponents, given her Buddy move is AoE, and has a TM that gives +2 PMUN or SMUN to all allies, with 2MP. Rosa stacks, and stacks quickly. Zinfogel is gonna love this. Rosa also boosts her own Sp Def or Def by 1 every attack in either form, so steadily building up defenses. Potion with double MPR on grid is a nice defensive backbone. Sing in Aria is Gauntlet cheese, Teeter Dance with Stop Hitting Yourself 5 on grid from Pirouette is great. Team Sharp Entry feels alright. Team Stoic and Force Field are nice for boosting both defenses, allowing Rosa to consistently boost something for the team. Easy Pickings is really funny if you want to lean into Confusion, but is very slow acting. And most important of all? Support/Sprint role is real. Bless.

Now for the bad. Sing is borderline useless, as she does not receive tools to max its accuracy, and has no built-in Vigilance like Melony. Her specific buffing profile is fairly slow, so while the moves up next stacking is legendary, she relies on allies who are self-sufficient and does far less for the low tier strike pairs. But most of all? Her Buddy Move conditional is a god-forsaken nightmare. Don't get me wrong, the abilities it possesses are extremely good. But the tradeoff is, if she drops to "pinch" range, it turns off. Rosa is the support. She's taking all the damage. And her defensive profile is...okay but not great. The numbers are there, but she's not exactly maxing out bulk with ease, as boosting both defenses is a high investment that takes from other tools. Gauntlet will have no problem with this, but CS runs the risk of knocking her out of range in one shot, ruining her potential to so much as cap crit, much less anything else. And that makes her profile much worse off as a support, taking away any serious buffing potential, and her main source of value with moves up next each attack. Obviously Rosa is still fantastic, but my general point is, Rosa thrives off of not having to take significant hits, and CS gets stronger and stronger as points go up. Off-typing in particular may be hard for her as more is put into offensive pressure from the opponent.

Winter Viola OH MY GOD I LOVE HER OUTFIT, THIS IS SO CUTE

Okay, Viola is a Bug Field with Tech Role. Odd choice, but listen. We can move on from Ingo. OR SO YOU'D THINK. Viola's got some problems. Struggle Bug is fine but feels specifically aligned to Alder Strats. Her Buddy move being 1MP really hurts, as a -1 to all seven stats would be amazing if you could do it more than just the one time. Paralysis and Confusion are good, but Confusion wears off, and unfortunately, tends to wear off fast. TM is nice, giving +2 Sp Atk/crit to any ally, and Bug Zone as a callable effect is nice, because you need that Zone to use Buddy Move in the first place. The real fun is that her passives really mess with paralysis. A random -2 to any of the seven stats per attack, and a rank-5 boosted disruption to opponent action when paralyzed. That's pretty good. Grid boosts team damage against paralyzed opponents 20%, she gets Shocking Slowdown for speed debuffs which is a decent combo with Struggle Bug, Power Play and Static Shock 5 are free money, and Grand Entry 2 can complete her own setup by turn 2. All in all, pretty decent!

Unfortunately, Ingo. While I do think Viola is superior given her tremendous coverage and utilities and better Zone pressure, the problem is she came second. Ingo's been around, and does an okay job. What does Viola provide for you that makes her worth pulling as a Zone pair over Ingo? The shorthand is, she supports Alder better. And that's kinda it. High DPS Bug pairs are her best friends, and the Sp Atk drops fit Alder perfectly. There's an argument for her being the special focus to Ingo's physical, but she lacks Sp Def drops with any consistency so I'd hesitate to say that. If anything, she lacks much consistency at all, barring Sp Atk which is rarely need, and Spd which is often needed but seldom good. She feels more like a generalist who happens to have good Bug options available, if only for herself. I like her a lot, but if you've been making do with Ingo, I wouldn't consider this a necessary upgrade.

Winter Sycamore Oh wow, they actually did a Sycamore alt. And with Gogoat of all things. Gotta get us primed for the Grass High Score event, I suppose.

Support/Strike. Sure dude. Razor Leaf, Potion, Dire Hit All+, TM boosts both defenses +4 and Speed +2. Can...can we please just let Evelyn get an EX? My god. His passive is fascinating. Lowers the foe's Grass rebuff, but raises your team's. This is so, so specifically about Grass High Score it's kinda hilarious. It felt so unnecessary to constantly tease that next was Grass, but it was so we all looked at Sycamore shaking his ass at us and thought Lysandre thoughts about it. Unfortunately, they over-kit him for it. Group Grass Guard is definitely something, but I want you to ask yourself: how often is Grass damage relevant? Outside of Tapu Bulu, how many Grass-type stages are there in CS? You can count them on one hand. Because Grass is terrible in the main series so no Elite Four member relies on it. You have Blue's Exeggutor, Hau's Decidueye...and honest to god that might be it. When you make yourself this specific, you run the risk of locking yourself into a small niche. And that's kinda what happens. His grid isn't bad. Flabbergast 5 for a 60% confuse rate, Triage Tank (not the team kind), Revenge Boost and Dashing Team 4 for decent gauge management, Endurance, and Team Sync Regen are all nice, and it does promote Sycamore as a defensive support whose focus is on gauge management. A good overall call. But I can't help but feel his kit is fairly...standard? Barring the speed, nothing about this entices me. It's too heavy on "BUY ME FOR HIGH SCORE" and not enough on what could have been more dynamic traits. He's just "Better Evelyn." Which. God, that's still depressing.

Lodge Jasmine Alright, everyone shut up! It's Jasmine time! She even got Magnemite, which is the exactly thing I wanted! Support though, little bummed it wasn't an F2P Special Steel striker. Perrserker was limited availability, we need anti-Glacia tech, man.

Thundershock, Gyro Ball, fucking Screech on a support, and TM boosts Def/Sp Def/Acc +1. Oh no. Gladion strats. Endurance, Lithe, and Recuperation 1 are cute, at least. Endurance in particular being a nice saving grace. It's not the worst kit I've seen? But also, only +1 on defenses, and no crit rate. Uh oh, girl.

Grid provides HE4 (couldn't make the para 100%, huh?), Natural Remedy, Shocking Slowdown (too inconsistent given para rate), Team Sharp Entry (!), Interference Immunity (!!), Team Full Bracing Infliction if you're into that, Gyro Ball: Fleet Feet for gauge, First Aid 2 (ANGERY), and the coveted All Ramped Up. That last one saves it. Both defenses and Sp Atk with some accuracy is very nice. That's a mild gamechanger. With Team Sharp Entry in the mix, that's also saving a turn of setup for any Dire Hit+ options. I won't say Jasmine is anything exceptional. There are very clear faults here. Lacks crit rate for F2P pairs, lacks serious buffing in any category and instead spreading out, inconsistent secondary effects like paralysis limit her utilities. Screech is nice though. Like Screech. It's just. All Ramped Up. That's the opposite of Screech, girl.

Jasmine's kinda messy, but this is my second favorite character. All in.

Kukui Oh good, Dingus McBingus gets a grid expansion. Unless it's Leer utility, get out. Trip Up only on Rock Tomb is ass, Trip Wire 2 is something for his Cakewalk set, Berserker 2 is good for self-setup I suppose, Critical Infliction is nice. Basically, three uses of Leer caps his offensive needs now, and he gets a free -2 Spd to all foes on entry. ...you know what, yeah. I'll say that's actually pretty good, man. You kinda nailed this one, color me impressed.

Lorelei *deepest sigh* Okay, look. I'll probably do it because Lorelei is very pretty and I like those colors. But like. Remember when Shauntal got her EX, and I was kinda harsh about "this is hilariously not worth your time?" Because Shauntal has a pretty bad sync? Okay, that was obviously a little harsh, right? I've used Shauntal EX and even without investment, it helps her with F2P clears. There was something for her. But Lorelei? There is nothing for Lorelei. God cannot save her, much less an EX. Her Tech conditional is "foe is frozen." This is impossible to achieve with any kind of consistency, barring Dickshit McFuckhead who we're not going to bother talking about, because fuck dude if you have him what the hell are you doing using Lorelei? As a result, Lorelei has...well, nothing. There is nothing Lorelei does well as far as sync goes. Her course in life was supposed to be Blizzard DPS and they fucked that up. So instead, take this character whose sync nuke is perpetually gimped to high hell because you can't get the most meaningful increase to damage at anything better than a 30% rate. And that's before factoring in how fast people thaw out. Which is hella fast. Lorelei cannot be relied on for nuking. This is a bad decision. Do not waste your resources in this manner. Do better.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-pokemon-fan]

I'm gonna be praising Pokémon SV a lot on this blog, and making fun of the game's jank as well. So I'll take this opportunity to give my honest thoughts about that jank and the state of the Pokémon games. It's a long one, so read below the cut.

Scarlet and Violet are embarrassingly rushed. That is the keyword. Rushed. I believe that in most if not all cases, game developers are not lazy. When a game looks like this, it is obvious that the upper management did not give their developers nearly enough time. It in management's fault, not the people making the game.

In my experience, whenever someone complains that a game’s devs were lazy, they are really disagreeing with how the devs prioritized that limited time they were allowed. The world geometry is strikingly blocky and not very well textured and the frame rate almost never runs at 60 fps (your profile's play clock consistently runs short of your actual playtime because of this).

On the other hand, there are 400 Pokémon in the Paldea Pokédex. 102 of them are brand new to Gen IX. Every mon had to be coded, textured, animated, etc. It's impressive how expansive the dex is considering it contains 40% of all Pokémon ever created. So while performance is bad, they did use some of their time to give us a really good regional dex. It's impossible to know how many compromises like this were made, but I know there were a hell of a lot of them.

It is depressing that SV shipped the way they did in the year 2022. Breath of the Wild was essentially a Wii U game ported to Switch in 2017 and runs almost flawlessly on the exact same hardware. And it looks much better while doing it. It’s astounding that the higher-ups at Gamefreak looked at the game that their undoubtedly stressed and overworked devs were producing, and said “Yeah, that can ship this year.”

The problem has only gotten worse with this company. Black 2 and White 2 were absolutely jam packed with content, but developing on modern consoles is much harder than on the DS. Ever since, you can tell that corners have been progressively getting cut. X and Y had no postgame. Sword and Shield had an underwhelming presentation and finally cut the ever-expanding dex. Legends: Arceus has bugs all over and is startlingly unpleasant to look at. BDSP was developed by ILCA and not Gamefreak, but you can tell at a glance that they didn't have enough time either.

So, what's up? Will it get better? I doubt it. For every adult fan who cares about the state of the franchise and quality of the games, there are leagues more children who can't tell the difference between a masterpiece and piece of shit. The games will sell as long as there are children (and their parents) to buy them. You and I are the minority and no amount of boycotting would work.

The only way I see this getting better is if the next games are so catastrophically rushed that they are literally (and I mean literally) unplayable. When parents start returning the games for refunds because their kid can't play the game, things might improve. Ain't that comforting?

It makes me sad to see one of my childhood favorite franchises go like this. I want the best for Pokémon. Not just for myself, no. For today's kids and tomorrow's kids. I'm able to look at the games I played growing up--Platinum, Heartgold, White--and see the abundance of care and polish put into them. They're genuinely good games and I'm happy I got to play such good games when I was young. I want kids today to be able to look back 10 years and say the same, because right now? They deserve better.

[wyrmwiind]

{{ Pokemon asks! 8, 9, 12, 24, 27, 32, 39, and 40? 80 If that's too many, just 40, 24, and 9! ~works-of-magic

@works-of-magic hi! it is a lot, but i think i can handle them ^^

8. Which do you prefer, competitive battling or battling for fun?

this is a funny question to me because competitive battling is fun a lot of the time! to answer the question more thoroughly though, we do casual battles frequently as it's a good way to get my team's energy out.

in terms of competitive, i actually took the indigo league challenge but i could never beat Red, and i've visited a few different battle facilities! my favorite was the battle frontier in hoenn

unfortunately we haven't done competitive battling in a while because one of my star pokemon, diamond the garchomp, had to retire and be rehomed. i don't like to feel like i'm replacing him

9. What type of battle strategy do you tend to use with your Pokémon? If you do contests or something else with your Pokémon, what is your preferred approach to that?

i'm a big fan of double battles, they allow for a huge depth and variety of strategies! my preferred approach is usually to have one mon defend while the other attacks, but you have to be really flexible in these kinds of things. if your strategy isn't working you have to switch to a different one, and if you see an opportunity you have to know when to take it

12. Give us a random celebrity (gym leader, tv personality, musician, etc.) you can’t stand and why.

diantha :/ i keep up with the leagues across the world and diantha is the only champion ive ever actively disliked. it felt like she never took the responsibilities of being the champion seriously and only used it to promote her acting career, a standing champion is supposed to be there to help protect the region y'know? im gonna be bold here and say she should have stepped down sooner.

on a nicer note serena, the current standing champion of kalos, is an absolute gem

24. Would you ever enter one of your Pokémon in a contest? Which one?

i actually did enter a contest once when visiting hoenn! it was just a basic-level beauty contest and we didn't really know what we were doing, but Nymph seemed to really enjoy it ^^

27. Who was your first Pokémon? How did you get them? How long have you had them?

Cari, my charizard! i was lucky enough to get her as part of a starter pokemon program, we've been together over ten years now ^^

32. Have you encountered any rare or unusual Pokémon?

no one is going to believe me but i've come face to face with moltres... it's incredibly beautiful and descriptions really don't do it justice. it's my dream to someday battle one of the legendary pokemon but we definitely weren't strong enough when we met it... one day we'll find our chance

39. Do you and your Pokémon have any badges or contest ribbons? Which one are you most proud of?

i'm absolutely proudest of the fact that we collected all 16 indigo league badges! blue and clair in particular were incredible opponents, i don't think i could have beat blue if he was fighting at full strength instead of in a gym context... maybe someday we'll see though :)

and we do still have nymph's contest ribbon on display, too! she's very proud of it and so am i

40. Favorite thing about your partner Pokémon?

you wouldn't know it from looking at them, but my whole team absolutely loves cuddles :)

[the-firebird69]

We have we have several things to report this afternoon is valuable. And the cars trouble in Georgia and that's Matt proper to take it over surreptitiously and to do work down below it's been going on for some time and it's kind of a war and it's silent and a lot of people are involved it's getting worse not better they're also getting very pushy and they want people out of the way and they want to get us on money and if they were having him use money when he was little that people were ordering hits on them some of it was the clan money not much because they pick up on it and they'd suffer no they just weren't doing that to our son that much they did it a few times and switched over to the Morlock who are going after them a lot more than the clans and they saw that the clans were slowing down on it and now these guys are going to go after their own money because Trump is just sitting on it and they see why and he he said it's it's really their plan to let it sit there they said you gotta be **** me and said no I'm not. And they're using certain money that you are so you pulled it out used it doesn't mean that they're sitting on it well don't be shutting off your **** bang bang bang bang bang don't touch the money it's curious no I don't sell those so here I don't go unions with you just take a bridge that looks funny watch the nights tea suck it's time to gable yeah probably should be home we also try to say anything to your business it's like this so you sell this priceless because of that you shouldn't say anything trouble you haven't today so I shot myself it's got nothing to do it's working I need to know what it started about and now I remember it I don't get in mind today yeah these aren't lines they're just automatic the orders people are sending out so they're allowed enough people can hear that's what's going on and that was trump saying he shot himself as he did yesterday and our son's voice was picked up in the bathroom which is not really normal. But people want to hear what's going on. This is it these things are happening and it is huge the money is found out people found out it's money that they're using to hit the max and then want to break it ohhout and bring it baohh I'll send a daughter say a bunch of them You'd have hit are still alive and they see the money and they freak out. I agree too it's like 40% of them and you hit a lot of Kernels no lieutenants and sergeants more so tons of corporals and you only hit a few generals and one or two regions and yeah that's how it was going the clans may have hit a few generals and a few regions and so they're they're in trouble but here it is you're in trouble from the bottom up and they see why. Now they're going after you and they want the money and it's gonna get broken out by you and you're gonna break each other up and that's what they said to do to each other. And it's today

Thor Freya

We knew about all this ok and that's not true they're using it against us I was using it and they're using it against us they are going after us big time and they knew about me taking it out and using it and just kept having me do it. I'm starting to get really beat up the other day was horrible and I am understanding something I didn't do the right thing let them have some money they really didn't want that much money and now I understand why they were saying it too. The money that's in those pretzel jar and the pickle jar he thinks jar as clans money and they hired people. And it's new bills in the $100 bills and we get that.

trump

shit

sherry we use it on macs now yes

sherrry

oh no not you lol

mac proper

and hhahaha he says mac proppaaa loudly ok and funny i thought i ehard soemthing oh not you hmmm

sherry

yuk a traitor

mac proper

yes you stop it

mac daddy

Olympus

[val-the-bun]

And here is our next big undead, the Silfwyrm Giant!

Next week there's gonna be a break in posting stat blocks to give room for a fun surprise for you all, I hope you'll like it. ^_^

As usual, the text statblock and lair actions will be available under the cut for those with screen readers.

Silfwyrm Giant

Huge Undead, Neutral Evil

Armor Class 12

Hit Points 45 (10d8)

Speed 40 ft.

STR 21 (+5)

DEX 15 (+2)

CON 10 (+0)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 12 (+1)

CHA 7 (-2)

Damage Resistances Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks

Damage Immunities Necrotic, Poison

Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained

Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 11

Languages Any languages it knew in life

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Proficiency Bonus +2

Relentless Undeath. While at 0 hit points, the giant can continue fighting as normal. The giant only dies if it takes radiant or cold damage while at 0 hit points.

Incorporeal Movement. The giant can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.

Actions

Multiattack. The giant makes two ice hammer attacks.

Ice Hammer. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage.

Storm Roar (Recharge 6). .  The giant strikes a point on the ground within ten feet of it, and a hail of ice follows it. Each creature within a 60 ft. radius of the hammer strike must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw, or take 4d6 cold damage and be restrained by ice until the next round. If the creature fails its save and is already restrained by ice, then it is encased in ice and becomes unconscious as well. These statuses remain until the creature is freed from the ice by another creature using a spell slot, or the creature is healed.

Lair and Lair Actions

The Frozen Sea Wreckage

According to myth, the warlord captain of the Silfwyrm was born of giantkin, and among all of her soldiers it was the giants that she held in highest regard. Now these ancient soldiers roam the frozen seas, with hammers of sculpted ice to rain down their fury on any who trespass. The wreckage of the Silfwyrm Fleet lies buried within the waves of snow and frozen sea water, but her army remains, fiercely protective of their once great ship...

Bound to the ship, and to the will of the warlord who led them in life, the undead patrol the regions of the frozen sea, protecting the once fearsome ship and the treasures she holds within.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), one of the undead of the Silfwyrm takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the undead can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:

Flotsam Shroud. All silfwyrm undead retreat into the cover of the storm and the wreckage, becoming hidden until initiative count 20 on the next round. All hidden undead are then able to move up to their movement speed.

Storm Surge. The storm over the frozen sea lets loose a howling wind, sending a surge of frost and snow in a fifteen foot cube originating from the undead. Each creature in the cube must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or take 8 (1d10+4) cold damage. The undead regenerates 1d10+4 hit points.

Frost Grasp. The undead makes a single Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, against a creature within reach. On a hit the target takes 8 (2d6) cold damage and must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, or be restrained by ice until the next round. If the creature fails its save and is already restrained by ice, then it is encased in ice and becomes unconscious as well. These statuses remain until the creature is freed from the ice by another creature using a spell slot, or the creature is healed.