#nice job on recreating the style :D

[stellar-snz]

OC: Asami

I posted this here before but deleted it for some reason I can't remember, but here's one of my OCs. All of my friends say that she acts and looks like a dommy mommy but in reality, she's a huge girlfailure

Name: Asami Nickname: She can be called Asa, Mimi, Sami, or Ami, but special people can call her “Salami”, “Pastrami” or “Nori” Age: 23 Eye color: Red Hair color: Silvery Blonde Pronouns: She/Her Sexual and Romantic orientation: Graysexual Demiromantic Relationships: Asami is in a polyamorous relationship with both RD and Ruolan

(snz stuff) ✦ Asami has a pollen intolerance. ✦ She hides, holds back or stifles her sneezes because she thinks it's one of her many glitches. ✦ RD and Ruolan scold her for stifling or holding back because in all honesty, it just makes her sneeze more. ✦ Speaking of glitches, one of her glitches is her faulty battery. It could appear to be at a high percentage, but she'd end up suddenly shutting down at a random place. ✦ Her sneezes, as described by Ruolan are high pitched" and "girly" ✦ Her sneezes end in "-iew!" sounds (example: hiH'schIEW!!) ✦ Since she sees most patrons in the library do it, it's always been a habit of hers to cover whenever she sneezes. ✦ She always brings around a handkerchief to sneeze into. She prefers them anyways since they feel much softer than tissues.

(Backstory) Asami was a prototype made by a company named Obscura. She was originally designed to be a robomaid for those of the elite class, having no purpose other than to just be shown off, pick up after, and fetch items for their master. However, due to her disposition, she was scrapped and abandoned after the scientists deemed her to be a failure.

She was out of comission for quite some time, but was rescued by a girl named Ruolan and a fellow bot named RD when they accidentally discovered her despite their initial plan to practice their craft by spray painting the walls. Because of looters, she had to be brought into parts-and-services to get replacements for the parts she was missing.

After getting back up on her feet again, Asami found a job at a local library and assists the sweet old woman there with returning books to their shelves, helping people find books, cataloguing the library's resources, and brewing tea for the old lady

(Appearance) Asami is a robot that stands at 5 feet and 4 inches. She has a pale complexion but enhances it with red-colored cosmetics. Most notably overly dramatic eye-shadow that reaches up and spreads towards her temples. She also has a little heart shaped mole on her right breast.

(Personality) Since she lacks friends and is unwilling to go to places outside of Ruolan's apartment and the library she works at, she's socially inept and comes across as someone who is uptight, cold, and aloof. She also retains her original quick-tempered personality from her creation and is rather opinionated, unable to hold her tongue when someone makes rude or lewd remarks towards her or her loved ones.

However, Asami also has an insecure side to her, herself, believing that her worth is based on how much people like her. She also believes that her mismatched and "scary" appearance is unsightly and gets reasonably upset and refuses to talk when someone points out a flaw or makes fun of her. When it comes to relationships, Asami instantly latches onto the first person to treat her nicely, hence why she is very protective of Ruolan and RD. She doesn't have too much friends either, so she gets upset if the two blow off her invitations to go out, giving into jealousy and paranoiac thoughts easily.

When it comes to her likes, Asami is very much into fashion and make up, often spending her free time watching tutorials and practicing on either herself or Ruolan. She also likes to recreate outfits she sees online by looking for and purchasing clothing with similar styles and colors at the thrift store. Due to her love of this stuff, RD has dubbed her the "fashionista" of the their group.

In terms of dislikes, she doesn't like crowds, tight spaces, rain, loud sounds, and the goose in the park that keeps trying to bite her or steal her leg.

(heehee pics of my lil robot daughter) FRONT, BACK, SIDES

CLOSEUP ON THE FRONT AND BACK

HAIRSTYLES (She usually wears her hair down, but ties it up into a ponytail or bun if she really wants to)

BATTERY (Blue means "optimal" (100%-60%), yellow means "satisfactory" (59% to 16%) and red means "low battery" (15% and lower)

Credits HERE because I still can't draw for shit and I ain't using AI

[alljamesbondgames]

The World Is Not Enough (N64)

Original Release: 2000

Developer: Eurocom

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platform: Nintendo 64

While Tomorrow Never Dies skipped out on the Nintendo 64, The World Is Not Enough made a return, developed completely separately from the PlayStation version of the game. The N64 version of TWINE is heavily inspired by GoldenEye, following the same style of missions and level structure, but also tries to make the game more cinematic.

Eurocom managed to fit a lot onto the N64 controller. Jumping is now an option, and crouch is just one button. Through button combinations, you can switch between items and gadgets separately, as well as activate alternative fire modes for the guns. Looking up and down is a bit awkward as you either have to hold down the aim button, or use the D-pad (which is a little bit out of the way on an N64 controller) – but this means that it’s quite easy to reconfigure the game to fit a dual analogue controller.

Starting off with a nice simple tutorial level in a bank, this serves as a good introduction of the game’s mechanics, using gadgets and (on harder difficulties) erasing camera footage – this had a few extra objectives for harder difficulties, just like GoldenEye.

The cutscenes in this have voice overs (but not the actors from the films) and are recreated in the game engine, with the story being rewritten so that the game itself makes sense without having to have seen the film. I much prefer this way of doing things, as it helps keep the game’s identity throughout the whole thing.

Back at MI6 headquarters, not only does a bomb go off, but it gets invaded by goons, you have to fight them off, as well as putting out fires, protecting staff and enabling the security systems. It’s a really fun level, and is a great example of how the game expands upon scenes of the film.

After the boat chase (which you don’t get to play), you chase the assassin through docks along the Themes, a straightforward level that introduces the grapple function of the watch, which can be used in certain spaces to climb upwards, adding some verticality to some levels.

Taking advantage of the London setting, the assassin then proceeds into the Underground, having her goons take hostages and setting up a Bomb to try to slow Bond down. The trains are a bit crazy as you have to dodge them, but it’s very enjoyable, and you have to reach the assassin’s hot air balloon before she escapes.

The levels in The World Is Not Enough to a good job of feeling alive and like real locations. I would have liked a few that are less linear, but they’re still enjoyable.

Next up is a skiing mission, which is done in quite a simple way, feeling a bit like a light gun shooter. You can move left/right a bit and can speed up and slow down. There are a few targets that you need to hit, which can be a bit difficult and require restating the mission, which can be a bit annoying.

Next up is the main stealth mission – in most other missions, stealth is optional, but works quite well. Your watch has a “stun” function which, really, is utterly useless – it just makes enemies wiggle and it stops right after you stop firing it at them. Luckily, your watch has a dart which does knock enemies out – or you can punch them to sleep.

Here, you sneak around the grounds of Elektra’s house (and a little bit inside), tapping phones and taking photos of evidence. There are are few villains you need to avoid completely. I remember as a kid taking ages on this level, but once you have the guard patterns down, it isn’t too difficult.

The following two levels are probably the weakest, but still not bad. One has you chasing after a henchman to replace him, you can be stealthy or as loud as you want (just be prepared for a lot of enemies). Then you try to stop Renard from stealing a bomb, meeting up with Christmas Jones and escaping from an explosion.

The “cities of walkways” mission is split into two levels. The first is a fairly typical level as you fight some enemies to reach a computer containing evidence, while the second has you dodging helicopters with buzzsaws and is a great level, as you jump around on platforms that are being sliced then grab a fancy rocket launcher and guide missiles into an attacking chopper.

A few more decent levels follow as you chase a traitor though Istanbul, then you get captured and have to rescue M and kill Elektra, then it’s on to infiltrating Renard’s submarine. You start off on the docks and have to kill the guards efficiently enough to avoid them setting off the alarm. Then you climb into the submarine – with no loading screen, which I thought was impressive when the game came out in order to rescue Dr. Jones and disable the submarine controls.

The final level has a lot of swimming as you navigate the damaged submarine. The controls take some time to get used to, but it’s not so bad once you do – although as you had limited time in this mission, I think the game could have done with some swimming in an earlier mission.

You need to navigate through the submarine, kill Renard (which is similar to the film, they don’t force a boss encounter) and then escape, finishing the game.

The N64 version also has a multiplayer mode which is a lot of fun, complete with bots (although, strangely, you can’t play against bots on your own without cheats). Beating the main game on higher difficulties will unlock more characters to play as.

While it doesn’t reach the heights of GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough is an extremely solid game and is a ton of fun.

[iwaisa]

class 1-a boys kissing their crush for a tiktok

pairings: kirishima, sero, and todoroki x gender neutral reader

warnings: mild swearing, a lil suggestive, tooth-rotting fluff

a/n: this wasn’t a request, but it just happened to pop into my head and i got really excited :D

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

► now shuffling...

he has tiktok but he never posts anything

he likes watching art and cooking videos

it soothes him and it inspires him to be productive

one day he’s laying in his bed scrolling through the endless stream of videos

there’s a little break in the cooking videos and he sees one person standing alone in a room

he’s about to scroll until he reads the text at the top

“kissing my best friend”

he’s about to scroll x2 but he decides to watch where this is going

he just wants to know how to kiss you because he’s been thinking about it since the beginning

the door opens and another person comes in

they’re nearly tackled as the other person throws themself on them and kisses them

the one person mouths something and another text box pops up saying

“i love you”

and he’s like…. damn…. oh to have that be him and you

you definitely don't think kirishima likes you back since he’s so protective of you that you kinda just have to see him as that big brother figure

which he would probably die right on the spot if he heard that

but you only think that because you assume he thinks of himself as a big brother figure

but you two are basically inseparable

always doing homework together

you sit next to each other in class

and you always help him whenever he gets in a really bad mood

it's the last day of class before summer break and the class is going on a trip to the beach

you’re sitting in the way back of the car with him and since the trip takes 2 hours you fall asleep on his shoulder

he’s so not ready for what he’s about to do

the class finally gets there and everyone begins to take off their clothes to go to the ocean

you slip off your clothes to reveal a pastel red swimsuit

good job. you killed him.

look, he’s dead now. you’re so hot that you killed him and he’s foaming at the mouth.

you catch him staring with his jaw hanging open and you laugh waving your hand in front of his face

he decides its now or never

but he’s also sweating bullets because this could go two ways

1. you return the kiss and both have the times of your lives

or 2. you don't like him like that and then the rest of the day is awful and your relationship is ruined forever

he shakes his head and tries not to think too much into it as he goes to prop his phone up

you’re waiting to see which dance he’s doing

he starts the video and jogs back to you and tells you to hop into his arms bridal style

you do, and now he’s spinning you

you hop out of his arms and both of you throw up peace signs

he takes a deep breath before slipping his hand into yours

you turn to face him and he pulls you close so your bodies are pressing together

he mumbles a quick “i really like you,” before pecking your lips

he sprints to post the video and you’re just stunned

he’s holding his phone as he turns around and sees you staring at him

uh oh, time for negative thoughts 😀👍👍

he slowly comes towards you asking if that was okay

you squeal and run towards him planting a giant smooch on his cheek

“s-so you like me back?”

“isn’t it obvious?”

“hah. right. so,,, will you please be my s/o?”

he can't ask anything without adding please because he thinks its manly

you nod while grinning and he pecks your lips again before taking your hand and running to the ocean

it wasn’t until the class got back to the dorms when he noticed his video got thousands of likes with people calling you two cute in the comments

ANOTHER BABIE 🥺🥺

on your first day at U.A., sero was the one to help you get accustomed

he showed you around the school, helped you with homework (if it was something he could understand because if not then you needed bakugou there too)

he helped you find your dorm

he even helped you move furniture into your dorm

he always complimented you and your quirk and you did the same

you noticed that he tended to shy away from talking about his quirk

until you asked him about it

“i just… don't like my elbows”

“what?? i think they’re awesome! honestly they’re kind of cute”

did he? hear you right?? did you just call his elbows cute?

damn. he straight up just fell in love with you.

for someone to compliment the part of him he was most self conscious about is HUGE for him

from that point on he trusts you with his life

he's also basically like a puppy trailing you everywhere

he's in puppy love 🥺🥺

him and kaminari are hanging out in sero’s dorm

sero’s on his hammock using the foot he has sticking out to push him back and forth

kaminari is on sero’s bed leaning against the wall until he jumps up and excitedly talks about this tiktok he just found

sero isn't all that familiar with tiktok, and he's just like ‘if y/n has it then i'll get it!’

kaminari gives sero his phone so he can see exactly what he got so excited by

he watches as two people run around in a field of tall grass while smiling and laughing

at first, he's like, kaminari… are you trying to make me jealous of two people i don't even know?

but then he continues watching as one person tackles the other

and now they’re both laying on the ground, one person on top of another

said person on the top leans down and captures the other in a kiss

sero feels his face getting hot when his mind goes to you

“uh… what are you trying to tell me?”

“what i’m saying is, you need to confess to y/n. like right now.”

sero just nods, but wonders if he could do a video like that

the next day sero asks if he can meet you at a certain address and you accept because just like sero, you would do anything for him

you plug the address into your maps app and realize that it’s a hill with a cherry blossom tree atop

you feel the pink tint in your cheeks and ears continuing to grow as you visualize sero confessing to you on top of that hill

as you make your way up the hill, you can see sero clad in nice dress pants and a half sleeved button up, showing off his elbows

you blush as you notice how formal he is, before looking down at yourself

he notices you and waves you over with his signature grin

you two stare at each other for a while before he pulls his phone out of his pocket

“i want to do something with you”

you nod as you watch him set up his camera

the countdown starts and sero waves to the camera awkwardly

he asks you to stand back, and as you do, sero shoots his tape into the tree and begins to climb up

it takes a few seconds for him to get into an upside down spider-man position, and when he does he asks you to come forward

you take a tiny step towards sero, who’s hair is now falling due to gravity

he looks like such a dork 🥺🥺

hes giving you a giant goofy grin as he says “i’m getting kinda light-headed, so can you please let me kiss you?”

you nod and bend forward as you take his face in your hands

due to your position, it's an awkward first kiss

both your eyes are staring directly at each others’ necks, and you aren’t exactly able to coordinate when to move your lips against each others’

he pulls away a few seconds after the video ends

but before he can say anything, the branch snaps and he comes falling down

you yelped as he landed on his back, rubbing his head

he smiles up at you sheepishly

“sorry for the failed first kiss…”

you shake your head, sitting next to him

“i wouldn't have wanted it any other way”

you grab his face and connect your lips with his, this time more desperate

“did i tell you that i’ve been in love with you since day one?”

you plopped your head on his shoulder and he laughs

“will you please be my s/o, f/n l/n?”

you accept and you two lay down on the grass interlocking hands and watching the clouds

your video went viral because everyone was astounded that someone was able to recreate one of the most iconic scenes in movie history

this man…. has no chill

he also doesn’t have tiktok

“what is a ‘tiktok’”

oh todoroki you beautiful beautiful idiot

you describe tiktok and how you once saw a video of someone clowning endeavor

he never got an app so fast

his first and only video is him flipping off a green screen photo of his dad and nothing else

lmao

uraraka is the one to tell him about the trend

she shows a video to midoriya, iida, and todoroki that shows two people sitting on a couch and it seems that they’re watching a movie together

todoroki and iida assume that they’re dating since they look really close

they don’t even notice the caption that clearly says ‘kissing my best friend challenge’

they’re just kinda bored of it until one person turns to face the other

when they’re both facing each other they just… start making out

like its mutual

and iida and todoroki are still like “why are they posting their make out session on tiktok???”

uraraka has to explain and midoriya is just kinda indifferent about it

a few hours later and the whole class is hanging in the common area

bakugou, sero, kirishima, and sato are in the kitchen making snacks for the movie everyone is about to watch

everyone else is littered around the room - some people on couches, some on the floor, and some just standing around talking

you and todoroki are awkwardly talking and you’re laughing at something that wasn’t really that funny but that’s okay!1!

cuz todoroki wants to see you laugh all the time 🥺

ever since he first saw you he’s always harbored some crush towards you but his childhood trauma and scars keep him back from saying anything

but he’s really so touch starved

he WANTS to be with you and he REALLY wants to kiss you

uraraka catches everyone’s attention and asks todoroki if she can borrow his phone

he questions it before handing it to her

she opens tiktok and tells everyone to just start dancing

she whispers something into todoroki’s ear and he just goes stiff

literally will not move even when the video is going

suddenly he remembers what he’s supposed to do and he very quickly grabs your face and kisses you

remember when i said he has no chill? yeah, cuz he doesn’t.

he just kissed you in front of your whole class

even the four in the kitchen who came out just in time to see you two ‘eating each others’ faces’ as bakugou yelled out

you look at the ground and todoroki just assumes the worst

he asks if he can talk to you and you say yes

so he pulls you to the kitchen and asks if that was okay

you can very faintly hear the concern and worry in his voice and you look into his eyes

“i just didn't know that you liked me back”

he processes this for a moment before giving you a soft smile

“of course i like you, how could i not fall for you?”

with this, you two wrap your arms around each other and stay there for a few moments

then you two kiss again. this time, todoroki is fully aware of the intimate action you two are doing so he accidentally freezes and burns you at the same time

he apologizes and you assure him that it's alright and that the pain will subside

once you two go back to the others everyone starts cheering as they see your interlocked hands

you’re holding his left hand and he's super hot and sweaty

uraraka congratulates you two and hands todoroki his phone

you two watch the video and you convince him to post it

he finally does and that's when you see the endeavor video

you two laugh it off and sit down on the couch to cuddle as the movie begins

the video went viral since he was viral from his last video but most of the comments are saying how pretty he is (which made you jealous but he never goes on tiktok so he assures you it's alright)

[milktyama]

karasuno boys on first dates pt.2

part 1

a/n: idk about yall but this pandemic making me feel extra lonely </3 LIKE I CAN’T EVEN HUG MY OWN FRIENDS FFFFFF. sucks being a physical person during this time. i’m also procrastinating from math homework, words make more sense than numbers

genre: fluff, lighthearted, g!n s/o, kinda?? cliche??

includes: tanaka, sugawara, asahi, daichi

wc: 1489

tanaka ryunosuke

he is the type to bring you to a movie date

classic and simple

he wants to recreate that oh so romantic moment of casually laying his arm over your shoulder and bring you slightly closer together

maybe if he wants to get a little spicy have you lay your head on his shoulder

but let’s move a few steps back to the asking out part

oh dear god

this man, although he is a mad gentleman, cannot handle feelings for the life of him

and in all honesty, probably took him a little far too long to ask you out

he had this whole scenario out of a movie in his head, all the vibes of a protagonist; boy meets girls moment

and the second he musters his courage and walk up to you during the end of the day, he freezes up

needed ennoshita to give you that sweet insight so you made the first move yourself or it would’ve taken a solid month or two before he could manage to greet you and start some small talk

he does not deal with feelings too well

fast forward to the date

he suggests a a rather romantic movie since he is kinda that type of guy

but you were feeling rather active today and suggests an action movie

and honestly he couldn’t thank you more because although he’s a hopeless romantic, probably could not stand a 2 hour romance movie

he doesn’t like to be called out by a movie </3

anyways, remember that movie scenario in his head? yea that’s out of the question

for one, you two were too hype during the movie; something about superheroes kicking ass is just oh so exciting

secondly, he was wimping out a little

at the end of the movie, you just, shine the brightest smile he has ever seen on you

and oh baby does he feel so HONOURED to be the cause of that smile

but the next thing you do absolutely makes his heart swell

you ask him for a second date

we did it gamers

quite ironically you guys go on a arcade game for your second date, and this mans does not give you an easy time, but you just love that competitiveness in him

sugawara koushi

starting at the beginning, he asks you out

he keeps it simple and straightforward

calls you out right before you exit school buildings, and asks you if you wanna watch practice because he’s obviously trying to woo you a little before his nerve wrecking question

and you gladly agree

i mean who can say no to mr. refreshing sugawara koushi

when he walks through the gym doors and the members seeing you walk right behind him, they would totally kinda misread the situation

i mean no questions asked when it comes to the boys having some insight to the setter’s feelings, however they were just a few steps too forward

saddest part it was DAICHI himself who went “woahh suga you already asked her out? good job man!”

his soul never left his body as fast as that time

like his boys really ruined that one time he wanted to go perfect

but it’s fine

because although you two were in a little of a blushing mess, you lightly grip his sleeve and murmured the cutest “i’m free on saturday afternoon”

saying that he short circuited is honestly an understatement

saturday rolls around and you two unanimously agreed to baking class date

it’s just a really fun and interactive date idea and suga is so in for activity dates

even though you two knew it was gonna get a little messy, yall SIMPS still put on some of your fav outfits

it was so worth it though ‘cause suga’s reaction to your outfit was just all you needed in the world

the date is really fun and playful

totally not at you two flouring each other haha nooo....

he walks you home just before you two part ways, his bold little butt places his hand on top of your head, pecks your forehead and gives you the widest smile

“pottery painting next?”

azumane asahi

asahi is a simple and shy man

i’m pretty sure that’s the obvious

and he would def opt for a simple, at home date

of course only if the other party is comfortable enough for that

don’t get me started at how he asked you

asahi is such a baby and probably has so much trouble with expressing his emotions on the whim/real time

he’ll probably go for a love letter (damn cheesey) just in case he messes up his wording and turns into a blabbering mess trying to make up for the previous mistake

i can imagine his love lever being just the most aesthetically pleasing

like homeboy pulled one of those scrapbooking, journaling people on instagram

plus points he did a wax seal thing (so fancy oml)

most likely put in your locker and then just RAN out of the place like usain bolt

and for the cherry on top, you would return a letter with the same amount of effort (probably not as pretty as his tho LMFAO) accepting his little date uwu

when the date comes, he would set up and clean his house to the tip top utmost cleanliness it could be

at his house, you two would probably watch some movies, play some board games, bake a little and so on

but the highlight of the date is when while watching your like 3rd movie, you doze off into asahi’s shoulder and boy you should’ve seen his FACE

so read and so cute

*insert pleading eyes emoji x2000*

he would gently stroke your hair, careful trying not to wake you up

but unfortunately for him you are a light sleeper

so you would wake up but allow him to run his fingers through your hair

and then when you decide to wake wake up, you tell him that when he strokes your head feels so nice and makes you feel safe AIJFSOLDKRG

and you ask him if you can do the same to him or try styling his hair

and how could he say no to you?

you two spend hours playing with each other’s hair (or only his if you have short hair)

oh and you took so any adorable pictures of him

he got so flustered but it was fine if it was you

sawamura daichi

as a man with the biggest appetite in the series, no surprise that daichi would bring you to a local restaurant for a little date

daichi is also a confident man

so he would puff his chest and put the effort to approach you

though as confident as i make him out to be, there’s still light pink dusted on the apples of his cheeks and hand awkwardly scratching the back of his neck as he makes eye contact with you

he’ll have you watch their practice and right after you two would make your to his favorite local restaurant for dinner

also during practice the third and second years would NOT give their captain a break while the first years are probably either too confused or don’t care (COUGH COUGH TSUKISHIMA)

anyways after practice and walking to the place is literally so perfect because sun in setting and the atmosphere is so romantic

you two probably walk right beside each other and making small talk when daichi is hinting that he wants to hold you hand by brushes that back of your hands together often

BUT YOU’RE PROBABLY SO SHY THAT EVERYTIME IS HAPPENS YOU JUST BLUSH AND APOLOGIZE AND EVENTUALLY U PUT YOUR HAND INSIDE YOUR BLAZER POCKET?????

HONEY YOU CAN ONLY BE SO  D E N S E

n e ways

knowing daichi, he probably goes to this restaurant very often and knows the menu like the back of his hand

so he would ask you for your preferences and then give you his recommendations based on that

he just wants to make sure you will enjoy your meal to the fullest

as a regular, he is also well acquainted with the restaurant owner

so like when mr. restaurant owner sees daichi walk in with another person while sporting a very clear blush on his face, he KNOWS something is up

while serving your orders, he was being sNEAKY by giving yall a freebie

and it turns out to be like the couple special

like those very pretty sparkly milkshakes with one of those straws that has two sides to it branching out

and like he refuse to serve yall other drinks FAGKFHJADH so you two had to with the milkshake and like oopsie moment when you two decide to go for it at the same time

the restaurant owner DEF took a pick of that exact moment and gave it to daichi as a gift AHAHAH

[indigo-wendigo]

Cornibus Saga: Chapter 5

Vespertine

           The next day he had scarcely just finished breakfast before one of the nurses announced that he had a visitor in the recreation room. When he arrived there, he found Sam talking to that kid, Brian. He was talking around whatever he had left to chew of his fingernails, gesturing to her purse. She grinned and patted her bag. He must have been complimenting her on its style. William approached casually.

           “You remind me of my mom. But you seem like you’re a lot nicer than her,” said Brian.

           Sam chuckled politely. “Thank you, dear. You are very sweet!” She looked to William and beamed. “Hey!”

           “Hey.” He closed in and wrapped his arms around her. When he felt Brian watching, he looked at him. The teen realized this was his cue to leave them be and shuffled away to see what board game the group was getting out to play.

           “I am so sorry I couldn’t make it to see you yesterday,” Sam immediately gushed. “Gabby called and said she only needed me to help her with one thing, then it turned into ten things and I hadn’t seen her in months so I would have felt guilty if I refused—”

           He gripped her shoulders. “It’s fine. I have missed you, but I am fine.”

           She looked around. “It’s very clean. And modern.”

           William nodded. “They’re good here. For the most part. I pretty much get to do whatever I want all day.” He stared somewhere behind her. “The time off work is… nice.” He nodded again for reinforcement.

           But still she asked. “Really?”

           “Really.”

           She sighed. “I wish… that you could have just taken a vacation without having to be sent here. Heck, I could… lock you out of your email.”

           He grinned softly. “I know. But don’t worry.” William bit back his potent desire to be rescued. Not that he was being dishonest, but he didn’t belong here. However, he couldn’t bear the thought of her being more worried or feeling worse.

           But he supposed there was an elephant in the room. William was still convinced that the incident that caused him to be suspended was not a hallucination. And so far, Sam had yet to vouch for him or verbalize that she believed him. Somehow, they had talked very little about the event.

           When they had a seat on the sofa, William spotted Mallory entering the recreation room. She smiled at him, glancing at Sam, but did not approach. She went toward the plants in the windows with a pitcher of water. And as if Sam were reading his mind, like she (and Mallory so far) had so often seemed to do, she turned to him. “I need to communicate something that… I’ve been afraid of saying out loud to you until I knew you were ready to hear it.”

           William looked at his lap. “It’s okay if you don’t believe me,” he sort of mumbled. “I’m starting to have my own doubts.”

           Her hands grasped one of his. “It’s not that. Regarding what happened… I think either is just as likely to be true. Scarlet is capable of imposing images on you even while you’re awake and even while she is super far away. It could have been… a hallucination she manifested. It could have been a hallucination your illness manifested. Or—she could have really been there in the flesh for just a moment. I think… all of those possibilities are equally plausible.” She took a breath. “But I stopped trying to care about which one it was because… they all still told me the same thing.”

           He turned his gaze on her.

           “You’re overwhelmed.” Her eyes were as soft as ever and perhaps on the cusp of tears. “D-do you remember when you first went to therapy? And you explained the kinds of paranoid delusions you have and the real things that actually happen to you? Remember how your therapist was so… dumbfounded that they were identical that she had to consult the best psychologists she knew?”

           Yeah, he remembered. He didn’t care to, but he did. William had a sneaking suspicion prior to being treated for his illness that he was a special case. But that day was a rather… vehement lingering reminder. He could still hear one of the voices in his head from that day. You’re so fucked up that the person whose job it is to help you doesn’t even know what to do. Some days he could still hear it.

           “Maybe here you can get the treatment you’ve always needed,” Sam closed.

           And there it was. He looked back at his lap. She did think he belonged here.

           When he looked down, she squeezed his hand again. “I don’t mean that you need all of this. Just the doctors.”

           He couldn’t stop himself from speaking it this time. He’d bit his tongue on this for so long. No more. “It’s unfair to be lumped in with everyone else here. It’s asinine that I have to be here and have someone watch me shave and—have my fucking shoes taken away because they have laces just so I can get a better doctor.”

           Her lips tightened in pity. She sighed through her nose and her thumb rubbed his knuckles. “Odette is pulling some strings. Has been. Since the official decision. She’ll be seeing you soon, probably in a day or so.”

           That was a relief to know. He hoped she was doing something but didn’t want to assume. Half of him honestly expected Odette to believe he was better off here.

           “Is there anything I can bring you? Maybe an edible treat?” Her shoulders came up a little.

           “The food is good here. But I’ll let you know.” He briefly grinned and planted a soft kiss on her lips.

           At dinner that evening, it was nice outside, so he took his food on the patio where he spotted Mallory at one of the stone picnic tables. Her plate had been pushed aside with almost all the food gone and now she was writing in a journal. “Hey,” he said.

           She looked up. “Hey!” Mallory smiled. “Have a seat.”

           He sat across from her and picked up his fork. “What are you writing?”

           “Some therapy homework.” Before he could apologize and excuse himself, she closed the book. “Was that your lady this morning?”

           He nodded as he processed a bite of chicken fried rice.

           “She’s beautiful,” she grinned. “Don’t know who I’m more jealous of: you or her.”

           He chuckled at his plate with a tinge of bashfulness. “Be jealous of me; she’s beautiful on the inside too.” This time he didn’t let her reply and changed the subject. “Do you realize that you never told me what your Special Ability was?” He took another bite.

           Her face went blank momentarily. “You’re right! I guess we never did get there.”

           “You don’t have to say. You’re just always assessing me. Thought we might do you for a change of pace.” He smirked.

           Mallory chuckled. “It’s a little complicated.”

           He shrugged. “So is mine. Just explain it the best you can.”

           She glanced at the orderly on supervision outside. “What do you know about cryptids?”

           William replied around a cheek full of rice. “Cryptids?”

           “Yeah. Like… urban legend beasts.”

           He chewed slowly. “You mean like Bigfoot?”

           She chuckled again. “Yes. Like Bigfoot.”

           He pondered a moment. “Well, I know that a few of them have been confirmed to be Deviants with Special Abilities.”

           “Which ones,” she retorted in a quizzical manner.

           William licked his teeth inside his lips. “Well… I know the wolf man was found to be a Deviant in nineteen seventy-six. And I think a while back they captured the, uh… the one specific to New Jersey—the Jersey Devil and she changed back into a little girl. Can’t remember when that was though.” He cocked his head. “You a cryptid?”

           A hint of a smile touched her lips. Or… wait. Maybe it wasn’t a smile. She spoke slowly and quietly. “There is a legend that originated from the Native Americans… about people who resorted to cannibalism in times of starvation changing into monsters. Which is partially true, at least about where it began.” She clicked the pen in her hand twice. “What they didn’t know at the time was that it is what we now refer to as a Special Ability. Like all Special Ability—er—capability, it’s inherited. And it doesn’t always manifest the same way. But this particular gene is quite… selective in who it chooses.” She shrugged. “It’s never been studied how it is recessive in most and dominant in just a handful through generations. But current Native Americans have a theory for that too.” She met his eyes. “My ancestors were Cherokee.”

           He raised his eyebrows with interest. “So, you’re not registered.”

           “Don’t tell on me,” she leaned back a little. “I was gonna get around to it. But…” Mallory trailed off. It seemed she either couldn’t remember what she was going to say or had never really intended on finishing her statement.

           “But,” William leaned forward. “Cryptids are usually like beasts. Do you change appearance?”

           Her lips stayed closed for a moment. “I’m not entirely clear on how it happens. I just know what people see.” She took a breath and hung on it. “… I haven’t figured out how to control it completely. And I’ve only really narrowed down that it… is typically triggered by…” Mallory shrugged. “Intrusive thoughts. High emotions.”

           “That’s okay. All Abilities are influenced by—”

           “Not—like this.” She leaned forward again, meeting him in the middle of the table. “Don’t ever tell me… your greatest fears. I don’t mean to. But…” She pursed her lips. “… I make them happen.”

           William narrowed his eyes. He took a breath and opened his mouth.

           “Sorry, Mallory,” said the orderly as he approached. “If you’re not actively writing, we have to put the pen away.”

           She handed it over without looking at him. He took it and walked back inside.

           William picked at his food a little. “Well… don’t worry about that. My greatest fear is already a reality.” He gestured around them.

           Mallory gave him a soft look. “… Mine is being stuck in an elevator with Smashing Pumpkins playing nonstop.”

           He laughed with a wheeze.

[enddaysengine]

Building Mario (L5R)

Between working from home, freelancing, and well… everything, I’m feeling a bit burnt out, so I want to try something different today. I love building characters, and an exercise I particularly enjoy is recreating characters from media as RPG PCs. I contemplated doing this for Pathfinder or Starfinder in the past, only to discover that Tulok the Barbarian was already doing precisely that on Youtube for 5e, so I shelved the idea. (Tulok’s Building Character series is great though, check it out!) 

While social distancing, I’ve been digging into the latest Legend of the Five Ring RPG properly for the first time. I never played the L5R card game, but Rokugan has a special place in my heart since I started playing D&D right at the same time L5R did their d20 experiment with WotC’s support. In fact, that was one of my first books! Plus, a couple of my freelance colleagues and developers work on L5R, and I try to go out of my way to read my peers’ work. 

So today, I’m going to give you my take on building Mario in L5R! And while Mario may seem like an odd fit for a samurai drama, allow me to present my counter-argument: 

(Also, it’s my series, and I find this fun, so I’ll convert who I like!) 

I’m not going to dive deep on all of L5R’s Twenty Questions, but I will cover enough to give all the mechanics and a basic background, as well as some suggestions for advancement. I’m also going to try to restrict myself to only using schools from within the character’s clan, although as I make more characters, I’m sure I’ll break that rule a couple times. Here are my goals with this build: 

Mario’s a plumber, which means he’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty and doing some manual labour. 

Mario’s got some magic on his side, allowing him to shoot fireballs at his enemies. 

Mario’s athletic, allowing him to stomp on his enemies or pound him into submission with his hammer. 

First off, we need Mario’s clan. The plumber doesn’t translate smoothly into a samurai fantasy, but since Super Mario Maker is a thing, I’m going to interpret that as him being a proficient engineer. We know he is a supremely dependable warrior who defends the Mushroom Kingdom, both of which point me toward the Crab and their Earth Ring. For a bonus, this gives us a rank in Fitness for more jumping action and sets our Status to 30. 

Moving on to Family, we see the other reason I wanted Mario to be a Crab (that sentence is weird if you take it out of context). If we are talking about a Crab engineer, we must be talking about the Kaiu family. Boost your Fire Ring, Mario’s a passionate guy and knows how to do about a billion jobs, so he’s got to be a quick learner. This also nets the Smithing and Labor ranks we need to be an engineer and sets our Glory to 40. 

Moving over to school, I’m making Mario a Hida Defender. This maxes out our Earth Ring at character creation and bumps up our Water Ring. Take Fitness for more jumping action, as well as Martial Arts (Melee), Martial Arts (Unarmed), Meditation, and Tactics. Take Striking as Earth as your optional Kata, as you get Lord Hida’s Grip, perfect for downing Bowser and his oversized Bosses once you boost your Void Ring. Finally, we’ll get Mario his hammer by taking the ōtsuchi as part of his starting outfit. Within the school, Mario’s Void Ring distinguished him. Boos, walking skeletons, giant dragons, Mario faces them all down without losing his nerve. 

95% of the time, Mario has to go out and rescue Princess Peach, which gives us a nice, clear giri. Mario is out to rescue a noble captive, likely a courtier (I will leave details up to you). Picking a ninjō is tougher given Mario’s lack of character development, but he is the most famous working-class hero in video games. I’m using it to suggest that Mario wants to be known for his hard work. Thus, since he is an engineer, I’ll say his ninjō is to build a world-famous castle (again, see Mario Maker). 

Many distinctions work for Mario, but I’m trying to preserve that working-class everyman feel, I’m going to give him Ebisu’s Blessing instead. In a similar vein, we can also give him the Adopted Peasant adversity to reflect his humble origins. Although it is easy to miss in the games, if you listen carefully, Mario is clearly enjoying all of the ridiculous worlds he has to explore to save Peach, which gives him the Daredevil passion. There’s also not much in the way of mercy in these worlds, Mario pretty much has to beat up his enemies until they are toast, so we can give him the Ferocity anxiety. 

Mario’s relationship with the rest of the Crab Clan is good, he certainly upholds the Courage virtue, so we’ll take the boost to Glory. Likewise, there aren’t any tenants of Bushidō Mario would disagree with, so we’ll take the increase to Honor too. 

For a mentor, I’m choosing Yoshi since he literally saved Baby Mario’s butt time and again. That’s a positive relationship (sacrificial jump memes aside), so we’ll take the advantage and choose Support of the Dragon Clan. Yes, I’m being exactly that literal. Your Game Master may want you to make that more specific, but it works as long as it’s Dragon related. 

For relationships, we’re going to say that Mario took the axe that destroyed the floor of Bowser’s castle back in the NES games, so we’ll give him an ono as well. It doesn’t reflect the mechanics of any Mario game, but it is a nice continuity nod. 

We don’t really know anything firm about Mario’s parents, although double-checking what we do know did give me a new headcanon. 

Art by Marcus Williams

What I do know is that we want Mario to have at least one rank in Medicine, courtesy of Dr. Mario. Smash may make them into different characters, but I’m not. Finally, that leaves us with Mario’s Heritage. If your Gamemaster lets you pick your Heritage, take Stolen Knowledge, then use it to pick up the Flame Fist kihō for Mario’s fireballs. We could also take The Fires from Within invocation, and I had that down for a long time since it has range. Ultimately, I decided on Flame Fist since it fits this build a bit better mechanically. 

And that’s a-me a-Mario! 

Clan: Crab

Family: Kaiu

School: Hida Defender (Void)

Ancestor: Stolen Knowledge

Rings: Air 1, Earth 3, Fire 2, Water 2, Void 2

Skills: Fitness 2, Labor 1, Martial Arts (Melee) 1, Martial Arts (Unarmed), Medicine 1, Meditation 1, Smithing 1, Tactics 1

Honor: 45

Glory: 45

Status: 30 

Composure: 10

Endurance: 10

Focus: 3

Vigilance: 2

Void Points: 1 

Kata: Lord Hida’s Grip, Striking as Earth

Kihō: Flame Fist

Abilities: Way of the Crab

Giri: Rescue a captive from the lord’s court

Ninjo: Build a famous castle

Distinction: Ebisu’s Blessing, Support of the Dragon Clan

Adversity: Adopted Peasant

Passion: Daredevil

Anxiety: Ferocity

Wealth: 5 koku

Items: Lacquered armor, traveling clothes, daishō, ono, ōtsuchi, club, knife, traveling pack.

For advancement, we’ll want to keep raising the Earth, Fire, and Void Rings (remember Lord Hida’s Grip keys off Void).  Water would also be appropriate since Mario is friendly and flexible. Fitness, Labour, Martial Arts, and Medicine will be the essential Skills to increase, and we’ll want to put some ranks into Games for Mario Party as well. If you’re a Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle fan, put some in Command and Tactics too. Mario’s been in more than a few RPGs, so Honest Assessment and Touchstone of Courage represent his ability to help members of his party. At the same time, Iron in the Mountains Style and Rushing Avalanche Style makes your hammer even more brutal, and the various Striking as [Ring] katas can represent different jump attacks for unarmed combat. 

[jungkookiebus]

δαίμων Pt. 1 | myg & jhs

Genre: demon!au, supernatural!au, eventual smut Pairing: demon!yoongi x demon!hobi x reader Word count: 2.4k Warnings: none yet, foul language Summary: You’ve thought your house has been haunted for awhile and you want your friend, Haneul, to help you figure it out. Yoongi and Hobi are on assignment at your house to find out why other demons that have inhabited your house have either gone insane or went missing entirely. A ouija board session goes wrong that sends Yoongi reeling back to his old ways and it’s up to Hobi to get him under control. 

One week earlier

“I swear my house is haunted.”

Haneul stared at you as if you had grown a third eye. “Did you just say what I thought you just said?”

“Hear me out.” Haneul rolled his eyes. “Weird things have been happening! I’ll lose something for a few days and then it’ll just show up in the middle of my bed.” Haneul continued to give you a dead pan stare. “One day, I came home and all of my books on my bookcase were rearranged by color.”

“Someone broke into your house?”

“And rearranged my books? I don’t think so.”

“Listen, you’re probably sleep walking. Remember when we were kids? You used to do all kinds of weird shit.”

“This is different, and you know it.”

Present day

“Are you serious? A Ouija board?” Haneul had seen it all, but now he thought you were reaching.

“I have to find out what’s in my house, Haneul.”

“I’ll entertain you this one time, _____.”

On another plane of existence all together

Hobi dusted the imaginary dirt off his lapels as he stepped up on the sidewalk. Yoongi took his place beside him, sticking a sucker in his mouth as he squinted in the sunlight. The weather was hot, annoyingly so. The neighborhood around them reeked of old money and the house in front of them was an old Victorian style home that stood dark against the blue sky. Birds chirped in the trees above them and the sound of locusts buzzed in the distance.

“Did you get the job done?” Hobi asked looking sideways at the dark haired man beside him.

Yoongi looked at him lazily while slowly rotating the sucker in his mouth before he pulled it out with a slow ‘pop’.

“What? Didn’t think I could do it?”

“We’re on probation, we can’t be getting into trouble again or the big man downstairs is gonna be pissed.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes as he stuck the sucker back in his mouth. He spoke around it this time. “It’s not like we killed some big wig.”

“We killed the wrong person, Yoongi.”

Yoongi shrugged nonchalantly.

A woman walking her dog walked passed them, unknowing that they were there, but the dog looked straight at Yoongi. Yoongi pulled the sucker from his mouth and stuck his tongue out at the dog who growled in turn.

“Come on, Rex,” the woman said without so much as a glance behind her.

“I want a dog,” Yoongi stated.

“Can you stop playing around? We have work to do.”

“What are we doing here?” he asked gesturing to the house in front of him.

“Guy assigned to this house had a mental breakdown and they pulled him off the case.”

“Seriously?” Yoongi huffed out a laugh. “Guy couldn’t handle a ‘haunting’?” He held up his fingers in air quotes. “Why are we doing so much grunt work?”

“We’re in trouble, remember? Or did you already forget?”

Yoongi shrugged again.

“Why are you so lax about this? This could mean our lives, Yoongi.”

“How long have you been around, Hobi?” he asked pointing the sucker at him.

Hobi’s head shifted to the side quickly in thought. “Few thousand, give or take.”

“Exactly. If I go, I go.”

Yoongi thrust both arms out in front of him so that his sleeves came off his wrists. He reached down to roll them up to his elbows before he stuck his hand in his pocket.

“Let’s get this party started.”

“When do you want to do this?” Haneul asked.

“Tonight, of course. If we do it during the day it won’t have a good effect.”

“So…they only work at night?”

“No, I just think it’ll be better.”

Haneul sighed as he fell back on the couch and put his phone in front of his face. You walked to the kitchen to finish washing the dishes from the night before and that’s when you felt the shift in the atmosphere.

“Haneul?” you called. You heard no response. You quickly turned around and frantically looked around the kitchen for the source of the feeling. This was different from all the other times you felt like you were being watched. The air around you was thick and your tongue felt swollen in your mouth. The bulb above you dimmed slightly and you began to panic as your heart beat hard in your chest.

“This her?” Yoongi asked gesturing towards the girl in front of him. She seemed panicked as she looked around the room.

“Quit doing that,” Hobi said.

Yoongi snickered as the bulb went back to full brightness.

“_______. 26 years old, no immediate family still alive, believes in the occult, once dabbled in it at 16, only known close relationship is with her friend, Haneul, which was that guy in the living room you knocked out.” Hobi was reading from a paper he had pulled from his pocket.

“She’s cute,” Yoongi said walking up closer to her.

“Yoongi.” Hobi’s tone was low in warning. “Lest I need to remind you of 1692?”

“It was one time. Plus, new age, new rules.”

“The rules have never changed.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Fine. That girl got what she deserved anyway.”

“She was burned at the stake.”

“Hobi, we’re into those things. Lest I need to remind you of who we are?”

“I wish I could kill you.”

A large smile graced Yoongi’s face as he turned back to the girl. He casually leaned on the counter next to her and examined her face. “So, what’s the job?”

The girl turned in the general direction of Yoongi before she spoke. “Who’s there?” Her voice shook with fear as her grip tightened on the hand towel she held.

“She’s observant.”

“The job is to find out what’s going on with this house. The last guy had a mental breakdown and the one before that disappeared from this plane all together.”

Yoongi’s eyebrows shot up as he turned to Hobi.

“So, we were sent here for sacrifice? Typical.”

“No. They think we’re capable of finding the root of the problem.”

Yoongi reached out and tapped the girl on the nose. She went reeling back against the counter, breathing heavily.

“Yoongi, fuck off.”

He laughed as he sauntered back over to Hobi and sat cross legged on the floor.

“Where do we start?”

“First of all, cut the shit.”

All the sudden, the atmosphere in the kitchen turned back to normal.

“Haneul!!!”

Haneul came running into the kitchen looking around frantically. “What?!” he asked breathlessly.

“Did you feel that?”

He straightened from his “fighting” stance to look at you.

“I thought something bad had happened.” He turned to leave the kitchen once more.

“No, wait! I’m serious! The air felt…felt crushing; it was almost like I couldn’t breath Haneul. A-and then the lights dimmed, and I felt something touch me.”

“You need a nap.”

“Why don’t you believe me!?” You were close to tears now, the frustration coursed through your veins like fire.

“Look, I’m gonna tickle your fancy later and play with that Ouija board, but for now you need to chill. You’re getting yourself worked up over this.” Haneul had placed his hands on your shoulders and looked you square in the face. “Okay?”

You sighed heavily as you shook your head in agreement. “Okay.”

“Good. Now let’s go watch some stupid tv show.”

Later that night

Haneul walked into your spacious bedroom shortly after eleven that night and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked.

You sat in the middle of your bedroom, board on the floor, and surrounded by several lit candles.

“It’s for the atmosphere.”

“Is it absolutely necessary to recreate some scene from The Craft?”

“Just fucking humor me.”

“This is nice,” Yoongi said appreciatively as he walked into the room. “Candles and everything.” He said this with a wag of his eyebrows as he looked at Hobi. Hobi rolled his eyes as he walked the perimeter of the room.

“I met this woman downstairs,” Hobi said matter-of-factly.

“And?”

“She lived here about seventy years ago, but she doesn’t seem to be all here. I think she’s half in, half out. When I try to talk to her, she just looks at me confused and calls me Jaeho.”

“Well, fuck that lead then. Maybe she’ll conjure up some weird shit with this board.” Yoongi was pointing at the Ouija board in the center of the room.

“Like what? Something like us?” Hobi rolled his eyes.

“Can I mess with them?”

“Please don’t screw this up for us.”

“Just a little bit.”

You sat down in front of the board and placed your fingers on the planchette looking down at it pointedly so that Hanuel would get the idea. He sounded exasperated as he sat down in front of you and did the same. You moved the planchette around in a circle on the board.

“What are you doing?”

“Warming it up.”

“Oh yea, Ouija board, you feel that? This is demon foreplay.”

“Be serious, Haneul.”

He stifled his giggle as he let you move the planchette a few more times.

“Okay,” you began. “Now we ask it a question.”

“Fire away, séance master.”

You stared Haneul down as he smiled back at you.

“Is there anyone here with us?”

Yoongi looked expectantly at Hobi.

“Don’t get weird,” Hobi said.

Yoongi sat down on one side of the board, _____ on his right and Haneul to his left. He reached out and placed a single finger on the planchette as he slid it to ‘yes’.

______’s eyes opened wide as her gaze shot up to Haneul.

“You moved that,” Haneul said.

“I did not! Did you?!”

“Wasn’t me,” he shrugged.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

Yoongi snickered as he started to move again.

“D,” she said.

“I.”

“C.”

Yoongi was almost in full giggles at this point.

“K.”

“Oh my god, you’re a child,” Hobi said as he stood outside the circle of candles with his arms crossed.

“Haneul,” she said pointedly. “You’re an idiot.”

“I didn’t do it, ____! I swear!”

“You love dick jokes.” She was pissed now.

“Just ask another question.”

“Why are you here?”

Yoongi put his finger to his mouth in thought as he looked around the room objectively.

“Careful,” Hobi warned.

“Secret,” he spelled out.

“Secret?” she asked. “Are you a good ghost?”

Yoongi quickly spelled out demon.

“Fuck that,” Hanuel’s hands shot off the planchette. “I’m not fucking with this anymore.”

Hobi quickly passed through the circle of candles to pull Yoongi to his feet by his collar.

“Are you fucking kidding me you, asshole!”

The flames of the candles grew higher as Hobi’s anger rose and the room darkened to an eerie shade of black save for the flame of the candles that continued to grow higher and higher.

Yoongi was now equally as pissed as he shoved Hobi off him.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Hobi.” His dark hair was now covering his eyes, but Hobi could see the faint glow of fire there.

“Reign yourself in, Yoongi. Remember what happened last time.”

Yoongi’s anger didn’t subside as his hands fisted at his sides. The whole house started to groan and protest under the weight of him. The distant sound of wood cracking in the attic caused ______ to shoot up from her spot on the floor.

“We gotta get out of here!” she yelled while grabbing Haneul’s hand and pulling him from the room and down the stairs.

“Yoongi,” Hobi said taking a tentative step towards him. His eyes were full aglow now and the Yoongi he knew was far from this room. “You need to calm down.”

Yoongi breathed heavily as the veins on his neck became prominent against his skin. “Don’t tell me what to do.” His voice was deep, unnaturally so. “I’m sick and tired of you telling me what to do.”

Yoongi lashed out and picked up a desk chair next to him and hurtled it towards Hobi. Hobi held up his arm and let it crash against it, scattering into several pieces around him.

“Yoongi, stop it!” he yelled. As Hobi’s anger rose with Yoongi’s, the more the foundations of the house protested under the weight. The house groaned on its bearings and glass shattered somewhere downstairs. “You’re going to ruin this before we even start it!”

Yoongi was looking less human by the second as a shade of dark gray shifted and rippled across his skin, fingernails growing yellow as he challenged Hobi to come any closer. Hobi had dealt with an angry Yoongi in the past and this was no different; this was why Yoongi was no longer allowed to work alone.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Haneul yelled as a vase shattered beside him. The house groaned as if the very wood in the walls was going to explode at any second and the roof was going to come crashing down on them. The lights in every room flickered on and off sporadically as pictures fell off their nails and onto the floor.

“I told you something was in here!” you yelled as you rushed towards the front door.

You both ran down the front steps, tripping into the grass on the front lawn as you turned to look back at the house. The windows were now opening and closing so quickly that the glass in a few shattered. The lights continued to flash on and off along with the sounds of a deep growl and then a piercing scream and then, suddenly, it all stopped. You were both sitting on the lawn breathing heavily and staring up at the house as if you were expecting it to start up again.

“What. The. Fuck,” Haneul whispered beside you.

You both looked at one another trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

Hobi held a now limp Yoongi in his arms. The charm Hobi had pulled from his pocket was now around Yoongi’s neck, having rent his powers from him. Hobi sighed heavily as he gently laid Yoongi’s body on the floor. He was breathing evenly now, his skin turned back to its normal pale shade, and Hobi knew if he opened his eyes, they would be back to their normal chocolate brown. Hobi fell back on his ass as he let out a long sigh.

“This is going to be fun.”

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Dusk Diver

I finished playing Dusk Diver, a small beat-em-up by JFI Games. I originally played it because it was on sale, I’ve had my eye on it for a few months now, and I needed a break from DMC5 for a bit. And boy do I have some thoughts about it now that I’m done with the game. Namely a bunch of nitpicks, but... we’ll get there in time. 

But as always, let’s start with that Synopsis.

Dusk Diver takes place in the Ximending district of Taipei, Taiwan. The story focuses on Yumo Yang, a Taiwanese high school senior that got caught up in a spiritual adventure over her summer vacation. While out with her friend she was randomly pulled into the alternate dimension of phantoms and demons. Before she was about to get killed by one a local loin god protects Yumo by (accidentally) transferring his powers to her. After she fends off the phantoms she decides to help clean her city of phantoms over summer break with the god’s help, along with the help of his eccentric and frugal boss... Boss. 

The plot takes off from there as Yumo pummels phantoms, gains allies, brightens up her town, and learns more about why the phantom and human realms are colliding. I gotta’ say, it’s nice to actually write the synopsis without having to either look at wiki article or outright copy it. This game is very simple for both good and ill. 

So... what do I think of this game? 

Well, unlike Assassins Pride I’ll be going over the bad first and then try to end on a high note, since for all my issues and nitpicks I did enjoy this game very much.

With that said, let’s start with...

The Bad

The Localization

So the localization is very similar to Under Night In-Birth Late[st] in that it feels very unfinished. When I talked about Under Night’s localization I was a little too harsh on it for my current liking and I’ll use Dusk Diver to explain myself a bit better.

Dusk Diver’s localization isn’t bad. I played this game listening to the Taiwanese dub and nothing sounded too off, but the script, the actual words on the screen, were rife with spelling and grammar errors, inconsistent terminology, and even moments where you could read the actual code of the game in the text. This the translation was either rushed, or it didn’t have enough time to really finish it, which makes it feel really sloppy. The said thing is that this game does have a rather charming script despite this, but reading all those errors and trying to correct them in your head can be... annoying.

The RPG Elements

So... this game is a beat-em-up that revolves around doing large combos and keeping up a hit counter to get higher drops of health, SP, TP, and other resources. The main goal of combat is to get combos going, collect SP and TP, and use those to do more damage to the enemies. 

So why is there an RPG level up system in this game?

I still have a lot of DMC5′s mechanics ingrained in me, so forgive me if this sounds pushy, but in most hack-and-slash/beat-em-up style games tacking on an RPG-style upgrade system only slows down the overall gameplay. 

Let me explain. Every time you complete a level for the first time you gain skill points. You use those points to improve your HP, SP, attack, etc.. This doesn’t feel good to do for this style of gameplay. In most beat-em-ups/hack-and-slash games skill points and similar currency are typically used for new moves or special abilities. DMC5′s red orbs are for new moves, Nero’s devil arms, and a limited amount of health and devil trigger increases. Senran Kagura uses its currency for costumes, accessories, and music, with the mere act of leveling up giving you higher bases automatically and more moves when you reach a certain level that proves you’re familiar enough with your current moveset to expand it. Solely making the numbers of damage and health go up doesn’t make you feel more powerful, it makes you feel like you can just handle the enemies that have gotten a lot more health and do a lot more damage for no reason other than slowing down the gameplay. I’ll save my recommendations for later, but the quick version is that the skill points should be used for more moves, more SP, and Drive duration only, as health and attack feel really arbitrary points to tack on for this style of gameplay.

The Platform/Alternate Gameplay Modes

Not often and namely during side missions for the Boss, but sometimes you have to do platforming segments and reach a certain point on the map and defeat some enemies.

They’re terrible.

Much like Devil May Cry, movement, jumping, and generally getting around feels fine save for me wishing Yumo’s run speed a bit faster. However, precise jumping and general platforming just don’t work. I don’t believe there’s a drop shadow in this game, the jumping itself has much different momentum when trying to maneuver in the air, making some moving platforms a pain to reach, and while the platforms themselves are rather large, the moving platforms go too slow compared to a lot of the fast-paced combat, making it a painstaking wait to get to the next fight.

Again, like DMC, this most platform this game should have is fighting on rooftops. In fact, I believe in the second or third mission you did have to traverse rooftops and it was actually pretty fun. Like I said, the platforms are usually wide enough that even with the wonky jumping it’s not a pain and getting to a higher point on the map and seeing the overall scenery is... nice. 

It’s just when you want me to pull off jumps like this is a Mario game is when things get dicey.

But those are all the big issues down, or at least my top three so...

Smaller Issues that Bug Allen

Like I said, I have more nitpicks than actual problems with this game. The game itself is a fine 10-15 hour experience, but there are several smaller issues that just pile up as you play it. It shouldn’t take you out of the game, but they did frustrate me a little. With that said though:

The minimap needs an ability to mark sidequests, it’ll make for a lot less backtracking and random pausing to look at the map and see where I need to go. I understand that this game is a more or less faithful for recreation of the Ximending district, but for non-locals playing this game like me finding locations is rather difficult. 

Since this game has visual novel styled cutscenes it’d be nice to have a log button to backtrack conversations just in case you skim over some important dialogue.

On that note, an option to control the speed of the text would be great as well, as I didn’t see one in there initially.

Cutscene Skip Button. It’s annoying to do the hard mode of these stages and having replay cutscenes I’ve already seen. Especially when I’m just hunting for Dragon Vein Shards.

Dragon Vein Shards should be tied solely to upgrades, as using them for plot advancement only adds to the grind... or so I would say if not for me have twice as many of the shards needed for progression every time. Again, I’ll go more in depth when I talk about my desires in a sequel, but for now I’ll just say these items should either be for leveling up or as a sort of collectible.

I’d like the rank system to be more like DMC, tying clear time, damage taken, max combo, and things like all together so that the end goal isn’t just to speedrun a stage for the S-rank.

Can the menu option be mapped to the triangle button like every other game? It kept throwing me off when I tried to pull up the map.

There doesn’t need to be a small cinematic when you do certain guardian attacks. It locks Yumo in place and has a real high chance to miss its target save for bosses.

It’d be best to map items to the buttons instead of the d-pad, as it kept tripping me up when I was trying to heal. 

I think that’s it for the major nitpicks, so let’s move onto the the good stuff.

The Good

Story and Theme

The story of Dusk Diver is simple, but effective. You go around saving the district by fighting monsters, you see how those monsters effect the district in each arc, and you solve the problem, usually getting an ally along the way. The few people that are aware of your secret job as a magical martial arts girl, usually the elderly or spiritually attuned, are very supportive toward Yumo. 

The game has an overall light, encouraging tone. It wants you to love the city as much as Yumo and Leo do, and it works. All of your side missions have you help out the locals in some way and you gain increased power for the super mode. You work at a convenience store, you partner with the local gods and guardians. Everything you do reinforces the idea of protect, preserving, and understand the town you live in. Yumo gets bonus dragon shard veins by frequently eating at local restaurants and becoming a regular. You help tourists out finding places to visit. You help an elderly man by taking photos of his old stomping grounds and he reminisces on what those old buildings were originally for. You help a coffee shop for free drinks. The list goes on, but a lot of the game reinforces this theme of community and loving the town do so much in. This is a very comfy game despite all the action of bashing demons and phantoms.

Characters

While simple, Yumo as a character is a very cheery girl that just wants to help others. She’s a bit annoyed at being forced to help at first, but she is someone that’s helpful at heart. And seeing her want to protect her friends and town is genuinely heartwarming. 

Plus, I really like her design. I’ve always been a fan of simple street clothes, and black with yellow highlights will always sell me on a character. 

Your guardians are pretty fun too. Leo’s knowledge of the city and desire to help others really gives him a cool grandpa vibe. Bahet’s a quiet and encouraging guy with a noble background despite his punk fashion. Le Viada is a model with a complex around her age and big sister mentality, the list goes on. Again, these characters are simple, but effective.

Gameplay

While I did have my nitpicks, the gameplay is solid beat-em-up action. Light and heavy attacks with the occasional use of the the guardians. And each guardian has a special ability with their damage. Leo can do massive damage to enemy shields, getting rid of them in one or two shots with his more powerful moves. Bahet can slowly chip away at an enemy with his scythe’s poison effect. Le Viada’s guns can outright ignore enemy armor and punch through it, as well as lay down traps, and... there’s a fourth guardian for when you beat the game. I won’t spoil it, but they’re basically a turret that stays in one place while you summor your other guardians, making her unique as you can’t usually summon two guardians at a time. And like I said before, aiming and lining up certain attacks can be a bit unwieldy since some moves playcinematics that lock you in place, but it’s overall fun. Racking up combos, using big AoE moves, it all feels great.

And with all of that out of the way.

Wishes for the Future

Much like in my Fire Emblem rambling I don’t like the idea of correcting a story or game that’s already been finished, but I find no issue with discussing what I want for the future. And I really thing this game can have a sequel. The game states that Yumo isn’t the first person in recent time with latent spiritual powers, or that this is the first time that the phantom and human realms became loose. And hell, Yumo is still someone that wants to protect her town, so it’d be easy to make a game in another area of Taipei that’s gone out of whack, or even give the reins to someone else. And I do want a sequel. 

Like I said, my main issue with this game are some nitpicks that could honestly be fixed with a patch or a two-month delay. If this game sold well enough to get a sequel I’d buy it. 

That said, here are a few things I’d like to see in that hypothetical sequel. Such as...

Rankings

A lot of these are going to be taking a page from DMC since I was taking a break from DMC5 to play this, but the ranks shouldn’t be tied solely to clear time. That just makes people speedrun the stage and miss Dragon Veins. Having rank linked to time, combos, hits taken, and so on would give you some breathing room when you try and explore a stage, as you wouldn’t be punished for being curious. You’d still need to be quick, but you won’t be completely screwed either.

Leveling Up

Leveling up give you skill points that you can stick into your health, SP, attack, super mode duration, just dodge duration, luck, and moves. This game shouldn’t give attack or health for skill points. This is just my belief with design, but beat-em-ups shouldn’t just jack up the health of normal enemies as you get stronger, instead just giving us tougher enemies with different patterns of attack. The game already does this with some success, so those slots that increase health and attack seem pointless. You get skill points when you complete a stage for the first time, or find dragon vein shards. This... really puts a lot of pressure on the kinds of skills you upgrade, and while I’m not against that it does make this very light-hearted oddly restricting as you debate what to upgrade. I’d recommend using those dragon vein shards solely to level up instead of for story progression as well. With each upgrade costing more and more dragon veins as you increase your stats. In this first game you can collect over 150 dragon veins. You only need 50 to complete the story mode, and I had about 75 by the time I reached the final mission. 

I know some people struggled to grab them, but... I didn’t, so... maybe have the veins do something else than gate story progression.

Post Game Activities

If we are going to have a post game to finish up some side quests for 100%, then we might as well have some extra things to do too. 

Oh right, I never mentioned that yet.

Yeah, once you beat the game you’re essentially in a free-run mode to finish some leftover side quests and do a few extra things you might have missed, but... I finished all the side quests before the final story, so I was left with just finishing some hard-mode missions and finishing up my upgrade tree. That said, if there is going to be a post game here’s a few ideas:

Survival Mode where you fight waves of enemies. Some akin to a Bloody Palace Mode where you can compete for a high score among friends and online.

Post Game dungeons that are hard as hell, this could be DLC if you wanted as I wouldn’t mind paying for more content like this.

Extra moves/skills. Yumo’s moveset is rather small compared to DMC and Senran Kagura. If we’re going to have just one character to play as then I’d rather have a complex character that takes awhile to learn than an easy one where I’m spamming the same moves over and over... or give us more characters to play as with equally simple movesets.

That’s really it. The game overall is fun with it’s only real flaw being a rather short game for 35 bucks. Like I said, either some DLC or a sequel would make me feel better about recommend this one, but if you want a fun, short beat-em-up game then this is out on steam, PS4, and the Switch. Feel free to get... though I’d recommend waiting for a sale.

In any case, back to DMC5 for me.

[kusinka]

Reasons I love Shadowbringers

Well, I finally managed to put my thoughts into words - yes, after nearly half a year after the release of the Final Fantasy XIV “Shadowbringers” expansion! First of all, I have to admit, that after finishing the expansion (the 5.0 patch) I had “ withdrawal“ syndrome - I was so hooked by how well the story was told, that I constantly was thinking about lore/story days after. I had it a few times already with some books (like The Three-Body Problem or Xenocide) - I loved them so much and they impressed me so much, that after finishing them I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Shadowbringers gave me the same “obsession”, so it’s an  even bigger plus for me, that it was some impactful :)

The world concept:

The concept of the world flooded and almost destroyed by Light was very intriguing and I enjoy exploring it as things were similar enough yet not as same as on the Source. Who would guess, that Light, which normally we would associate with something good (as opposed to the Void) was such scary and destructive force and was able to create such monstrous abominations?

There was something terrifying in the constant daylight and I’ve got thrilled then we returned the night for the first time! Plus Crystarium is my new favourite main city!

The main story in each zone:

I liked the fact that zones were so different from each other and they offered us a different “main theme” - pixies, some ancient Indian/Aztec-like ancient civilization.

Every time I entered the zone and started its story, I was like “meh, ok let’s see how it will go”, but more we progressed, the more I liked each story and setup of the zone/environment! Also I think all zones were well matching the story/theme of each zone. :D

Not, to mention then we meet Alisaie and the whole thing with Tesleen happened - holy molly I wasn’t mentally prepared for THAT! Or at least not in this way... I haven’t expected that SE would drop such scene so early in the story, but it convinced me IT WILL BE GOOD later and I wasn’t disappointed one bit! :)

The character progression:

I think the time difference between the Source and First, served well for the character development. It gave the reason and background to change characters personality a bit - after all, they spend between 1-5 years on the First and time passed, they had their new experiences, problems, struggles and friendships. Also, they matured (omg I love Thancred and Twins even more! <3) a lot and I liked it then we meet them again and noticed some changes about them. PS. I still have love/hate feelings for the Thancred’s scene after his fight with Ran'jit - it had the perfect mood and setting, but I was screaming a big “no, no, no way, no, I will hate you forever if you...” (I cried ok? no judging!) all the time and my friends laughed at me as they knew me enough to know how I’ll react - after all Thancred is my husbando :D

Amaurot / Ascian lore bombs:

Do I have to explain it to anyone who finished Shadowbringers? xD

I never liked Ascians, never - I always found them annoying “the typical bad guys” and when I saw Emet-Selch I was like “oh no, yet another annoying Ascian”, but SE played it well… and I loved it.

We went to the final zone and bum, here you have it - their background story, their tragedy - seeing them in the phantom city (tho it was just recreation from Emet) start to “win us over”.

The more we learnt about the Ascians and Ancient Amaurotian civilization, the more intrigued I was (and probably like most of the players' xD). Finally, Ascians were not only faceless (but still masked!) villains, but they became villains with some “reasons” (tho still it didn’t change a bit they were a bunch of madman murderers).

And we had Emet-Selch - you can pity Ancient Amaurotians and their cruel fate, but not Ascians - nothing can excuse their actions and genocides. You pity them, you feel them, but you can’t forgive them nor forget. I was amazed by this story, especially since I looked at it with annoyance at the beginning of ShB. xD

I just loved the phantom city, it’s architectural style, the music and instance... the instance was just perfect and gave me gooseflesh - we had very nice instances in FF14, but never I saw the instance and trial which were so perfe4ctly matched with the corresponding story... it was just perfect continuation and ending. Every time I got Amaurot as an instance in Expert Rullete I’m thrilled every single time (also I’m amazed to see all these environmental interactions - falling walls and buildings, mass destruction and planet seem from above)! :D

Yes, I was crying and I truly belive Ishikawa-sensei deserves the Oskar xD I was so happy and touched to see she received the standing applause - she deserved it <3

Music:

I haven’t paid too big attention to the music in the game - usually, I had my music on Spotify playing, but this time it was different and I was enjoying ShB OST a lot. Probably, it’s because I immersed myself in the story so much, that the music was the perfect complement and helped to build the overall atmosphere of the world and story.

In Shadowbringers I like almost all BGM - the exception is general battle music... I had to turn it off XD

My favourite BGM is (spoilers in links!):

the final zone of final zone music <3

the final trial boss phase 2 music (tho first phase is nice too!)

boss fight music (in normal instances)

solo MSQ duty music

But Sokan-sama and Music Team made such an awesome job, that I enjoyed BGM so much that I can’t wait to get Shadowbringers OST.

The new classes:

Honestly, I wasn’t super interested in the Dancer - as I always preferred healers as main and magical DPS as my DPS alts - and both Bard and Mechanist didn’t catch my interest before. But I have to admit, now the more I play it and more I learn the encounters and class roration (tho I’m still far from being perfect and at full class potential level) - the more I love it!

Also, my only tank was Dark Knight, so I knew I wanted to try Gunbreaker (especially that now Thancred husbando is one <3) and I really like the style of Gunbreaker (”flashy-almost-like-DPS tank).My beloved Astrologian, was “kind of broken” after the expansion release, but after some changes it feels much better - still love it and it shall be my main! <3So currently my main is Astrologian, DPS alt is Dancer and tank (tho I rarely play tanks) Gunbreaker! :)

All in all:

I expected a good expansion, but it excided all my expectations - I enjoyed the story and the world a lot and can hardly wait to see more misteries and story of the First and the Amaurot to unfold in the upcoming patches! I hope SE will keep good storytelling! <3 

[xldsims]

It’s been a while, but I’m finally gonna try and catch up!

It’s been a while, so before I start, I’d just like to say:

And an incredibly belated Merry Christmas to everyone :P

So...on with the answers! :D

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@plummiesims asked:

I'm gonna be 100% honest I just found ur blog bc sssvitlans re-blogged ur Altus facial hair and I SCREAMED. I love Dorian Pavus So Much :") thank u im probably gonna add it to my game adhsbd;;;           

[R]: Ha, thanks :P Stuff like this makes my day XD

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Anonymous asked:

Will you be updating the male sims clothing override for the new expansions and dlc? The EA version is trash.            

[R]: I’ll try my best when I can :) They are trash but unfortunately, the method I’m using to override them just isn’t working as well on newer meshes :(

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Anonymous asked:

Would the drowned out skinblend be compatible with lumia's vanilla skin or are you planning on making another one?                    

[R]: It should work with it. I use it over his default replacement skins and they work very well!

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Anonymous asked:

Hi, can you do a female kinky tapered cut type style? both short and sorta high?                

[R]: It all really just depends on what I’m wanting to do really, unfortunately :P I’m more leaned to making male based cc, so it really just depends on what I’m feeling. I can never give anyone a straight answer [no pun intended XD], unless I was already thinking of doing it :o

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Anonymous asked:

Can you do a higher version of the vindicator?                        

[R]: It’s an easy enough ask. I could probably lump it in with some other hairs I’m thinking of giving variations ;)

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Anonymous asked:

Hii my brother loves your content sooo much :) thank youu                    

[R]: I’m glad he does! Thanks so much for the message! :DD

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Anonymous asked:

Where did you go?                

[R]: In to the deep and dark shadows of Real Life XD. I went through somethings, had a couple of jobs and am still looking for one tbh. Played a lot of other games and did some other things. Basically just trying to re-focus my life and sort things out. Other would say that I’m “trying to be an adult” XD

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Anonymous asked:

Wait, is your sims really a man or bear or are you a man (not to offend)          

[R]: They can be anything you want’em to be XD

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@rocknrollvampire asked:

Hello! I'm a SIMS 4 player (obviously) from France. First, thanx for your amazing CC. I would like to know what poses packages and overlays you use with the sims "modeling" for your CC. Thanx for your answer.                  

[R]: First of all, thank you! Second, most of them were from @vanderetro​ and a handful of others I can’t quite remember. A lot of the ones I use now tend to be my own custom made poses however.

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@jonysimmer​ asked:

Hello, first of all your CC is incredible. Question: Are you planning to do the roll-up version of Ryder's henley?  

[R]: I’ve been thinking about doing that, just never got around to it. It’s definitely something I’d plan on doing in the future :)

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Anonymous asked:

Your smooth as fuck v1 hair looks super weird when I zoom out from my sim. It flattens out on the sim's head and looks very strange.         

[R]: My earlier did’nt have the complete set of LODs that my newer hairs tend to have. Chances are, when you zoom out, you’re seeing the EA hair I used as an import base in S4Studio :P

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Anonymous asked:

hi! your sim derrick are amazing omg omg, can you share him please? thank you! keep going! 

[R]: Yeah, of course! I’m definitely gonna be sharing him at some point. :P

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Anonymous asked:

Is Just outta bed hair bgc?            

[R]: I’m probably a little late to respond, but yes, to re-affirm to everyone, it is BGC. In actual-fact, most, if not all the hairs that I’ve released are BGC ;)

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@aeonpixels​ asked:

Hey XLD ^-^ can you imagine to convert also may the long white gown from Mass Effect 3? "Liara Ashley, Liara and Miranda in Dress, from Mass Effect 3 Citadel DLC by nach77 who has an image on his deviantart. If I could I would try it myself but I dunno how to extract such stuff from other games as a bloody noob.. Just started... =) Since you are experienced in that, I thought I would ask... may there is hope for some female clothes from ME, LOL Thanks a bunch for your coversions and creation ;)          

[R]: Probs, at some point. Just depends on where I’m at and where my motivations lie! :)

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Anonymous asked:

Hi. Are you gonna possibly upload ME:A sims as well in the future? I cannot wait, because your work is so perfect. Thank you.                  

[R]: Yeap, this ask would’ve been from a while back, but I do have post showing the order they’ll be released (including some of my anticipated ME:OT character recreations ;))

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Anonymous asked:

Do you think that you could make a flattop haircut?                  

[R]: I’ve actually been trying to figure out how to execute this for a while. I feel like someone’s probably done it before though, but I’ll keep trying :P

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@catewithak asked:

Have you ever considered making more MM Dragon Age hairs? Either gender? I love your Altus, and I also hate alpha texture, but that seems to be the only Dragon Age hair CC I can find!                  

[R]: Yeah, any bioware-based hairs (*in maxis match*) are usually a rarity. I’ll definitely be trying to fill the void of MM DA hairs where and when I can :)

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@mqsnail asked:

Hi Xld, huge lover of all your cc (i can't tell you how grateful i am for male clothe and hair cc. I had a question about one of your hairs, i've been noticing that the procrastinator hair would make certain parts of my sim's head shine as if he had some specs. The shine is noticeable in game and when moving household.

[R]: It’s been a persistent issue for a while, and I’ve unfortunately never been able to pinpoint where it’s coming from. I’ve fixed the spec-maps before on my own files, but to no avail. Unfortunately I can’t provide a fix :( I usually don’t mind it too much at this point since it’s not always that visible.

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@puzzlebot​ asked:

I'm so sorry to bother you but i've been trying for ages to get a mesh into a full body costume like you did with garrus, but i just can't find any kind of resources that could help me out and even though i'm familiar with blender i'm running into so many hiccups! is there any chance you could point me in the right direction e.g a tutorial that you would personally recommend ?       

[R]: Unfortunately I don’t have any tutorials I use (most of my endeavors have been purely trial and error). Just look up some general stuff about blender features and get to know what they do. The main thing to do for getting a mesh into a full body ts4 costume is to append the model to the full body costume mesh file, delete the meshes in the LODs containing it and joining the mesh you want to said LODs --> then import to S4S and enjoy :D

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Anonymous asked:

ngl i check your blog weekly to see if you've posted liam kosta. i'm so eager to have him in my game lol                  

[R]: I’m still trying to sort out his hair which is a bit twitchy with the way I made it :P Until that’s done, there’s not going to be a Liam Kosta release :/

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@adamleeds1989​ asked:

I hope this question isn't disrespectful, but how do you usually create your male sims? Thank you very much and hope you have a nice day!                  

[R]: No disrepect at all! I look around...the internet. Sometimes I just make one until I like what I see. A lot of the time, I’m just messing with other male sims I’ve already made as bases. No formula, no rules, just kinda do what I want :P

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Anonymous asked:

Hey, I really really love your Garrus Sims version and I'd love to have him in my game, but unfortunately I don't own outdoor retreat. I was just wondering if you ever got around to making him base game friendly. Sorry if this has been asked before.     

[R]: My main issue is finding a full base-game costume to place him in to make him BGC. There probably are ones now, but I just haven’t had the time to sift through the files :o

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@oceanmangetsthisbread​ asked:

Will you link your tali suit soon?                    

[R]: Tali is a special, special mesh...that won’t cooperate. She still doesn’t have hands atm, so probably not for a while :(

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@applecat90 asked:

Hi! I just fell in love with your male sims. Love your work! I tried to recreate them in my TS4, but they look slightly different than your original sims. I checked the cc list, and even used Tray Importer to know which cc items I needed, but I couldn't make it. I couldn't find proper Upperbody cc(which is used in almost every sims you made, id is 892D886D8DC9550E) and skindetailcreasemouth cc(I think this one is replaced by your DrownedOut skin overlay for later sims) and default skin.

'cause I have complete cc list for one of your sims, Kenney, but still he looks slightly different in tones of face and body(I tried Luumia's smoothish 1,2 DR, vanilla), Hiroki's betterbody). Would you please share the information about which default skin replacement & upperbody did you use to make these sims? Thank you! and thank you for your amazing works.    

[R]: Doesn’t seem like they’re anything crucial? Usually the only things that really make my sims different is the skin overlay, and using Drowned Out usually makes the difference. I’d have to give this some thought. It’s possible that the upper body mods have to do with the muscle slider I used? Other than that, there wasn’t all that much else to them :/

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@jdowellc asked:

Hey, I'm not sure if you monitor or update anything still, but I'm a huge fan of the Major hair in particular. I was just wondering if you knew that the Major 2 isn't hat compatible? At least not in my game anyway - newest update. The whole back of the hair disappears when a hat is used which makes them look bald. Just a heads-up I guess (I'm not expecting anything) :)                

[R]: Honestly my bad! It’s probably something I forgot to add since I may have posted the file the way it was (’cause I never actually intended on releasing the Major 2 in the first place :P). I’ll try get that rectified when I can.

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@prixetoilesims​ asked:

Thanks to you, I’ve added Garrus and my Shepard to the sims and now I’m looking for a way to make baby Asari and I blame you 100% for feeding my mass effect addiction SO THANKS  NO BUT SRSLY THANK YOU ♥️♥️      

[R]: Thanks ♥️♥️     ♥️♥️     XDD I’m feeding my own addiction too, probably worse on my end letting it consume me, but I’m glad other can feed their own addictions as well XD

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Anonymous asked:

Hey I love your content! I always come back to check to see if you upload anything new! XD Willing to donate :) I had a question on how to download your good looking sims? Do you download/install them just like Mods?     

[R]: You pretty much extra them for the zips and into your tray files :D That easy! And thanks so much! I’ll definitely try to make an effort when I have time to release some more content. Already got some hairs I could probably drop soon :)

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Anonymous asked:

Finally you resurrected.

[R]: Not quite, but you better believe I’m getting there.

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@eggysimblr asked:

Hi, I just Recently discovered Mass Effect (Finished 1 and soon finishing 2), And I was wondering, will you make some Quarian CC? You know, because Tali'Zorah is my girl...              

[R]: Tali’s if friggin’ amazing. I know @bmso85sims‘s been making a few bits of quarian and misc mass effect content as well so I’d check them out. I’ve been struggling myself with converting Quarian content, so it’d be a while before I release anything, let alone Tali unfortunately XD

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@theprodigalbanana asked:

Hi, I just wanted to thank you again for getting me into the series and for the ME sims , especially John and Kaidan. I'm going to play these two to fill the void that ME left in my heart. They are so sweet together and your short stories encapsulates that perfectly. I couldn't access some of them so I was wondering if they are a WIP. I was also wondering if sth bad would happen if I install John and Kaidan as it says that they are outdated. I love your work and thanks for getting me into ME :D            

[R]: Don’t worry, I’ve been filling that same void for years XD And no, nothing bad’ll happen, it’s just that I have newer edits of them these days (and I there’s always something about them that needs tweaking). I’m also secretly an advocate for Bioware [jk, but still XD].

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@metalfenix asked:

I'm glad you're fine, xalder. Take it easy and concentrate on your job quest. (Even though I would be a liar if I say I didn't wanted to ask you about the suspenders lol).                    

[R]: I know right, me and those goddamn suspenders? I might as well release them as is honestly. I’ve been okay with how they look for ages, but quite frankly, they’re a bit hit and miss -- but if you seem to be good with them, there’s no reason why I can’t release them :P

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Anonymous asked:

Hello I was wondering if I can have the tray files to two of your goodlooking Sims please? :)            

[R]: Any sims specifically being requested? ;P

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@shinyobservationhottub asked:

Im having a visual glitch with the Scimitar hair. It looks like light streaks peering through the head when zoomed out at a certain distance. The hair looks amazing so I still want to use it, but wanted to come drop this by.         

[R]: Those are some strange and rather elusive specularish[?] issues that don’t actually seem to be on the specular maps in the hairs. I still don’t have a clue how to fix it, and it personally hasn’t bothered me too much so I’ve kinda just grown to live and let live (y’know, until there’s some fix for it :P)

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Anonymous asked:

Hey, when will you upload tali's suit?                

[R]: May be, sometime...when her hands aren’t totally screwed up :P

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@volundrromu asked:

Hi!I really liked your character - Tali'zorah. Can I download it?              

[R]: Now this is honestly such a popular question! Please refer to the above ask. :P

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Anonymous asked:

Jump from 1k to 4k? Are you computer fine?                

[R]: I have a pretty high-end gaming PC, so it handles like smooth butter. :P

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Anonymous asked:

Hi there, I was just wondering if you were going to put the kaidan's email mod back up? thank you!              

[R]: I’m going to be bumping this up in priority to upload, don’t worry :P I haven’t actually released it at all yet, since the original files are on my laptop that I used to game on. Will be tweaking the files for both male and gender-neutral references in the message so no one gets left out :P

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Anonymous asked:

Can you make a female version of your loin cloth that you currently have for male sims?                        

[R]: An easy enough ask too :P Just depends on where my priorities lie, but it’s definitely something I could put on my to-do list. I think @quiddity-jones might have made a conversion of it -- I could probably get her to upload it :)

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Anonymous asked:

Can you reupload the male loincloth files?            

[R]: Yes! It’s a goddamn crime that tumblr removed it.

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@heyisfurwhoresez asked:

Please repost the oiled up skin overlay!              

[R]: I’m definitely making that a priority!

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Anonymous asked:

Does Garrus still require Outdoor Retreat?                

[R]: Unfortunately, at the moment, yes :(

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@limefiend asked:

Were your overlays wiped out with the nsfw ban? do you still have them up somewhere else, or are they like gone?  post/139654327414, post/149505614209, and post/155480567079 are mia now.                      

[R]: Looks like there’s a good 10-20% of my original posts (not just CC) that got wiped out in the stupid-ass nsfw ban. I’ll definitely get to reposting them soon and rewiring the download links. They’re still on simfileshare, I’ll just need to be making the necessary fixes for the links. :)

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@cejeubeu asked:

Hi there. I just came across your tumblr today and saw some of your uploaded sims. I've downloaded them, but I wanted to send some potential suggestions, primarily one: could you upload the CC in a ZIP containing the tray files for the sim? I've seen a few uploaders do this and it's not only convenient but it's much better than linking the sources, since often times the source can move to a different page or the link given simply may not work anymore, as if the case for some of your pages linked  

[R]: For my mass effect sims, the content is usually separated so users can dl the bits they want. Other sims I’ve uploaded usually don’t have a lot of CC associated with them, and are usually the same bits I use across the board, so you only need to download them once from any of the links of my releases. Plus breaking up the downloads into smaller files is easier on my near-dial-up-ass adsl internet speeds (I don’t get fiber where I am since our local district council isn’t looking to update our zone until the mid 2020s).

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@jonysimmer asked:

Hi, are you planning to do the pants that everybody uses in ME Andromeda? Because I converted it but... looks weird. BTW: I love your Tumblr!!

[R]: I’ve been trying to make the textures for it, so I’ll definitely be working on it on the side. It was one of the things setting me back from releasing my Andromeda sims. Also, thanks XDD

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Anonymous asked:

Hey there, I wanted to download the Dorian's moustache cc but it's removed, was wondering if you could reupload it or something. Please & Thank You                    

[R]: I don’t even know how that was explicit content, there was literally just a picture of his face XD Tumblr pls. I’ll get the links up as soon as I can :)

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Anonymous asked:

Can you please post an updated download for the all oiled up overlay? It disappeared from my game a few days ago and I truly miss it as I'm sure others do as well. <3                

[R]: My game’s not quite up-to-date so I don’t know what exactly the problem is so I’ll definitely have to look into it. Most updates shouldn’t be breaking something

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Anonymous asked:

The URL’s no longer work for the misc skin overlays ☹️                    

[R]: Thanks to tumblr’s tyrannical nsfw purge, I’m gonna have to repost, so they’ll be up soon again, dw :)

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Anonymous asked:

Hey I'd really love to use All Oiled Up if you could repost that <3                    

[R]: Definitely, it’s been asked quite frequently so it’ll be high up on my tumblr to-do-list :P

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[perispinel]

Adventure Time Finale Liveblog

Already this episode is off to a weird start, starting with a flashforward in the future with two random one-off characters and- OH MY GOSH THEY FOUND FINN’S ARM AND THEY LIVE IN MARCELINE’S HOUSE NOW!

Did Finn like die? THis has to be a fakeout about this.

King of Ooo is alive far int he future? he melted in the fire as wax remember writers? 

Oh my gosh this is why they showed the Enchiridion episode last, Mount Kragdor is back!

the king of Ooo is BMO! Wait why does he have PB’s crown... oh my god BMO outlived everybody. he is unfazed by death

BMO is kickin’ em out already, what a savage

That arm is giving BMO some flashbacks. Awww adorable!

Heh after so long BMO is having trouble remembering Finn’s name.

The plot description said NEPTR was telling the story, they faked us out totally!

Finally, more Betty! 

Finally, more Maja!

Looking at Finn is like “you die eventually. BMO has your arm now.”

Having BMO narrate the whole story makes it sound like a five year old trying to describe World War II. 

Finally Duke of Nuts, my favorite character!

Literally no one likes him, he wants to be MacGyver

Justin Roiland has work while R n M is off

Princess Bubblegum is going the Leia route of going from Princess to General

Oh no a little cake spy.

Huntress Wizard, played by Mona Lisa from Parks and Rec, did a good job getting rid of that sky

Come along with me, it is time for war you seeeee

Marceline and PB better makeout RIGHT NOW Marceline, yes, please reconsider PB Oh geez Marceline is just casually like “I saw people die PB.” Marceline be like “I felt worse” all over us

Finn is right.

W-what? Finn whatcha goin on about with nightmares? I thought he was gonna break the fourth wall

I love when a war begins with someone repeating “WAR” over and over

Yep yep there goes the banana guards. What a great plan

“You’re weird” isn’t what I’d say honestly

He doesn’t know what fruit is apparently

Lemongrab is totally piiiiiissed... Oh he’s just sad.

Gumbald literally is backing UP because of them being serious Finny boy

Hey Fern, remember when I accidentally killed ya? Good times boi

“You’re a toddler” is the cue for “I kill you or you give up”

What a great time for a commercial break. 

Okay, time for my thoughts in-between the show: this is giving me crazy feelings. Like, knowing BMO outlives everyone, regardless of the war’s outcome... wait, BMO said Finn was heroic til the end right? Oh my gosh will Finn sacrifice himself? Well either way BMO probably SAW him die, old age or not. BMO is literally the imbodement of a child who doesn’t understand the consequences of anything. Back to the show!

Nice job making me almost sad BMO.

Unconscious world? That’s crazy man.

So no war? Aiight.

Finn was all like “go to dreamworld and talk things out” and they be like “let’s have a war again”

Ooh cool, let’s get those songs for the album here

Jake is going back to his roots

Ooh let’s get Tom Sharpling up in this guys

Aww poor Fern. 

PB isn’t reluctant at all to kill someone even if they look like Finn, as long as they be an enemy. 

Oh sweet evolution Fern! 

Fern is going the toddler solution, that’s fine.

Okay Greg from Steven Universe, enjoy your appearance while it lasts.

Is John DiMaggio spending the episode in a dream state?

Pinching people in the dreamworld really wakes you up? That’s dope.

W-what? why’d they just vibrate

Fern does sound like a knockoff Finn sometimes honestly. Heh prove you’re tormented Finn! 

Oh geez this is really dark, PB had a messup life. Recreating that scene for some symbolism I suppose!

Ooh subconscious world!

Aww his girlfriend is here- I wish I spoke korean.

It’s nice his kids- oh nevermind. 

Is this symbolism for him being connected to his wife like by the sides?

Hahah we got a fart joke everyone, wrap it up! Just kiddin I don’t care either way

I bet Pb is learning what it was like living as a completely unintelligent being without any choice. Will this cause some empathy?

Yeah repressed memories must smell awful.

Obviously Fern and Finn share the same memories, but it’s cool to see them confront it Mindful Education-style

I missed Adventure Time’s art style honestly. 

Oh I get it, Fern originated from the Finnsword.

Oh wow, all of that took place in the span of one second!

PB and Gumbald are learning empathy now, are we not having a war or?

“No no no that happened next.” Good job faking out the fake out.

I love these breaks telling us small bits of lore and secrets about what’s going on that we’re not noticing. Anyway, I am excited to find out what this portal is exactly- I’m guessing Magic Man, Betty, and Maga’s weird cryptic chant is gonna cause some big bad event. Will Adventure Time end with the end of the world? I’d be mega shocked if Finn just died. Wait why isn’t Marceline in the future? Realistically she should be there UNLESS she got killed, soooo... back to the show!! :D

We saved the day! Big scary baby is definitely good!

Wait Fern is in the real world now???

Ice King was just gonna leave until he had that flashback

It is so cute seeing Betty and Simon’s past, I wwant fanart of them having a happy life.

Did I mention FP is super cute? I love Flame Princess

This is getting quite dark man. Even Marcy is scared.

PB don’t martyr yourself

Aww what a great leader, telling her army to flee in terror instead of dying without purpose!

Oooh Fern is on good side now!

Gumball Guardians are her real children

Is this even a kids episode? this should be rared PG-13 man

I hope all this rogue gallery characters still get lines. oh there they go

Heh Jake and Amethyst have some similarities don’t they

Wow what a dark end for someone, skull cracks open and innards bounce around and endanger people

Ice King is the savior! How cute

This is more epic than Reunited but that’s not fair to say exactly, one is finale and one is a special

Oh no poor bananas, so dumb

Let’s go Jake, doing what he does best and being helpful!

Did Jake explode and die?

Remember when LSP and Lemongrab dated?

Aww Lemongrab and LSP is a canon ship, only straight ship allowed for those two

Come on Ice King, remember who you and Betty are!

Ice King is reciting the song from the episode. Oh my gosh come on dude, replace at least ONE word in the song silly!

Betty is too crazy to not throw a tantrum I guess.

Maga the Sky Witch- Kill Count 1

No no no Flame Princesssss! Maybe she’s okay?

Fernnn! 

Did PB just die? Oh my glob

Oh Marcy’s going back to her roots

Okay PB is alive, it’s fine.

Marceline just had a PLanet Hulk moment right there.

Aww it’s canon now guys! Marceline X Bubblegum eternally and they kissssed! Guys they made up for so long of teasing!

Oh no I think they’re breaking them apart layer-by-layer

Ice King is Simon again, yeyyy!

I love that the moment PB and Marcy are confirmed gay for real they just have them holding each other close to prove it even more

Finally Jakei s confirmed not dead

Oh no is Jake dead, 2.0.?

Finally we have a reason BMO knows what happens. He nearly died.

Okay so... Flame Princess and Fern are taken out while Maga is definitely dead. I have a feeling Marceline might die,or else we’ll need a thorough explanation for why she’s not living in her house. Like I can tell that this character voiced by Willow Smith is Jake’s descendant but Marceline is potentially an immortal I assumed so they wouldn’t have her be gone without explanation. Then, here’s a question: is Jake about to sacrifice himself to save BMO?? Also, BMO straight-up says the world ended so I have a feeling that he wasn’t just being coy.

Oh my glob, what’s about to happen. Jake and Finnn’s home is destroyed. 

BMO is getting deep. Okay HE’S SINGING THE SONG :D

Is this about to have a Rogue One ending? How is this going to end happily?

This song is meant to be bittersweet, no way is this a happy ending song guys.

Is BMO secretly badass? CARTOON CONSPIRACY No it’s just the power of music.

Oh I get it! Discord, Harmony, Music, it all makes sense! 

Oh literally everyone sings this! along with screaming!

They got so many voice actors for this! 

Is he going to explode? Oh my glob?

Here lies Finn. he was a good man. I love him. 

“No one gets to choose how it happens. the most important thing is that we’re here together.” Nice way to make me sad twice

Is Simon going to become Simon forever? What’s going on here? Is Betty going to get her bones crushed???

Aww how cute of you Betty. not making my heart any calmer

Ooh yes he’s Simon again :DDD

Oh my gosh this is a crazy kind of ending

Oh no I’m scared now.

thanks for the reminder of The Tandem Elephant’s existence man. Okay, so... this is crazy. Simon is back, like for real, he’s not dying or anything... Betty is potentially dead... Finn didn’t die, which is dope... my eyes are watering, definitely not about to cry. I can’t believe it I’m emotional over cartoon show wow. Just knowing I have eight more minutes until it for real is all over. Maybe I’ll just like, watch it again so I can pretend it didn’t end yet? No that’d be fake. I normally don’t even cry in situations where it’d make sense so this is telling for me I guess. These commercials really make me appreciate how good the show I’m watching are. :’D Okay so, I don’t think Magi actually died, although it’s hard to tell really since I didn’t get a good look at her. I have no idea what is about to happen but I am freaking out. 

Ultimate Adventure continues now

Oh wow Betty fused with the crystal boi

Simon and Marcy, reunited for real

Imagine how much it must suck to wake up after so long of being stuck as someone else

I DON’T FEEL SO GOOD. is that a reference... Oooniverse?

Okay so Gunter is the future beard boy I guess.

Oh wow they grew a Fern. and found a new sword. 

YES HE SCREAMED. THE BOY SCREAMSSS!

Thanks for disobeying me Finn

Finn officially has the singular arm. Dope.

Future baby boy has a big beard

Finn and Jake can’t live forever, this is the past yes

Ooh the music hole is here again! Epic callback broos

Ooh the hole sings the End Credits Song oh geez

New Ice King is Gunter, old ICe King is Simon

Ooh nice glimpses of what might become of some of our friends in the future

Ooooh Lemongrab and Jake get along better. 

Aww cute his dad is going to space now

Flame Princess and NEPTR friends forever

Jiggler callback! 

Susan is here!

Normal Man is cool!

Huntress Wizard continues to be fun! 

PB and Marcy are still gay, Pep But is still edgyyyy

THE HUMANS ARE BAAAAAACCCCCKKKK

They found the sword oh glorb! 

OH WOW THEY JUST HINTED AT WHAT A FUTURE ADVENTURE TIME SPINOFF WOULD BE LIKE!

I LOVE THE FACT THAT THEY DIDN’T RESET BUTTON US BUT DIDN’T KILL EVERYBODY OR SOMETHING! 

Okay I have a lot of thoughts... that was a ffinale. It really was. It was not something I got disappointed in because they didn’t wrap up anything. It wasn’t like waiting 10 years for 10 more episodes of a cartoon. It was like epic man. I naerly teared up guys. It didn’t end with a Reset Button like some finales would- Everything Stays, but it still changed. Sorry, this post is too long for anyone to read all the way through, but I still hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the last Adventure Time episode. A zillion out of ten guys.

[booabug]

yeah can i get to uhh know me

Tagged by @nattikay like... a week ago... [nervous laughter]

Are you named after someone?

My mom learned of the name through a Catholic saint, and she’s very religious... but she just liked the sound of it  ┐(‘～`；)┌  so not really, no.

When was the last time you cried?

Like a week ago? A group thing I was doing ended and idk if you noticed... I get attached to people pretty strongly... other factors made it more distressful than it might have been otherwise too. Now that I’m reflecting on it, that’s a depressive episode I “nyeghhhhn”d & crawled out of faster than usual so good work me

Do you have kids?

Nope. Thinking adopt and/or foster unless future partner feels strongly otherwise too, I’ve grown up inner city and have an adopted cousin, so yeah. 

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

No, but I am so proud of my deadpan delivery irl.

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

A general feel. Posture and expression then, I guess? “Hahahaa hey buddy hey pal hhh chum how comfortable can I feel around you.......” ~Externally shake hands, internally make escape plans~

Eye color?

Really dark brown.

Scary Movie or Happy Ending?

Specifically riffing on bad ones with friends for horror movies, and even then I want a happy ending. HAPPY ENDINGS LIFE. 

Any Special Talents?

Hmm, nothing I could showcase. I’m low-key handy and knowledgeable in a ton of really niche ways, so people can generally come to me for whatever. I like that.

When were you born?

In lousy Smarch weather. Brrrr... (1991, but that’s as specific as I’ll get. I don’t want no fusses in case anyone remembers. No fusses, y’hear)

What are your hobbies?

Reading, cartoons, video games, tinkering/fixing general. Been getting into film, I’m in a great city for it but never paid attention before.

Do you have any pets?

Two cats. One is a big meanie but the others in the house are rly counter-productive to correcting her behaviour :\ the other is my sweet, sweet baby boi who I love and protect and wish would stop peeing everywhere, but that’ll happen when he’s stuck in a house with a big meanie, so I sigh and clean clean.

How tall are you?

4′10″ it’s made hugging tall people kinda awkward sometimes :\\\

What sports do you play/have you played?

Never been interested in any. I did aikido for a while and would be up for most any other martial art or things like boxing, though.

Favorite Subject?

Physics.

Dream Job?

Boy, this is honestly something I’m giving a lot of thought to. Dropped out of high school due to disorders (IB was prob a catalyst lol) so this is actually a practical question for me; I still have my entire education path ahead of me. That said, still have to consider prospects, education costs, work environment etc. but... I guess all that aside?

Community advocacy work. Where I’m from means a lot to me, and it’s also a very troubled place. Housing, mental health, addiction, food security, education & child care, library and recreation access, I- jeez, there’s of work to be done. ... ... . .. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t know.....

Unicorn wrangling sounds good.

lmfao I got myself messed up thinking about all this so I’ll default to (no pressure) tagging the others @ladyblargh chose to assemble in an ass akuma whoopin’ team... yes, those appointed by the creator of the most fun AUs! That all around riot! I shall do this with super sentai style introductions!

Whaaaat @miracu-less says you gotta look cute to fight akuma?! Oh! She proving it too! Dang at it again with fox suit~ nice~~ NO FEAR! NO BAD VIBES! THE ONE, THE ONLY @chameleongiant! Wait- who’s there? In the shadows! Is it the founder of the OTP fanclub? Could it be @lily-frog-the-sequel? Is she the rumoured Guardian?! Oh. Oh no, don’t answer that! ... She’s here. Don’t let aal the OTP sleeping on each other fool you, she’s dragging me back into homestuck hell... ! @ladybeug you fiend! Oh, who can I turn to now? Of course! @chatnoirsladyprincessbugaboo cry with me! YELL WITH ME IN TAGGGSSsssssuh ... if y’olks want, up 2 u all ok  👌

[thehallofgame]

Review: Far Cry 5

Release: 2018

My Rating: 7.5

              Far Cry 5 is a game that’s sold itself on its premise, and the controversy that premise has generated, more than anything else. In contrast to earlier entries in the series which always took place in far-flung locales, this game occurs in the fictional Hope County, Montana, USA. The antagonists in this game are all part of a Christianity-Inspired cult that takes over the aforementioned county. This notion was inflammatory to some segments of the American population. Personally, I found it brilliant. As far as I’m concerned, it’s about time Americans (and the rest of the world) enjoyed a story where American culture gets the same treatment as our media happily visits on other countries.

              That said, I found myself fairly disappointed with the way the game executed a surprisingly good story. The core members of the cult: their leader Jacob Seed, and his three siblings, are all fully realized antagonists and creepy as all get out. But the supporting cast just isn’t up to par. Most of the ‘characters’ are simply quest givers with a bit of backstory that the game then treats like the player should be emotionally invested in. Even the nine “guns for hire” the player can recruit are little more than their recruitment missions and a bit of party banter. Funnily enough, the three animal companions called ‘fangs for hire’ are usually far more personable than their human equivalents. There are some really funny, dark, poignant and all around powerful moments in the game but they’re often abrupt or intrusive. Ultimately, Far Cry 5’s open-world structure erodes the impact of its writing.

              The player takes the role of a voiceless, personality-less rookie sheriff’s deputy who was part of a team that tries and fails to arrest cult leader Jacob Seed. Instead, it is the law enforcement officers who are taken prisoner as the cult rises up and cuts the town off from the outside world. Only the deputy escapes. It then becomes the deputy’s mission to rescue their fellow deputies, oust the cult leadership, and build up a local militia to assist them with goals 1 and 2. The open world is divided into three major regions, each belonging to one of Jacob’s siblings. Story progression is measured separately in each region and is demarcated by filling up a ‘resistance level’ progress bar by completing quests or generally being destructive to cult membership and property. There are three levels of resistance level, and at each level an event occurs to symbolize the Deputy’s progress at eroding the cult’s hold on that region. These events feel rather intrusive against the otherwise completely unconstrained nature of the game. It doesn’t help that the first two events in each region are typically a kidnapping of the deputy that can’t be avoided, followed by a daring escape. It makes one wonder why after kidnapping fails the first couple times the cult that’s happy to execute non-believers by the side of the road just doesn’t pop a bullet in the deputy that’s making their holy war harder.

The final event, the final confrontation and boss battle, is a complete 180 from the other events. These multi-phase boss battles and story sequences are usually well structured and find ways to make encounters interesting and satisfying, which is something most first-person shooters struggle with. It helps that each of the four Seed siblings have their own non-combat hooks that get woven into the battle, as well the fact that each of them is horribly unlikable.

Combat, likewise, faces a lot of the same inconsistencies. When it works, it works, but when it has a hiccup the deputy dies. Or attempts to. Once the deputy’s HP is reduced to zero there is a period in which they can be revived. The player can extend or shorten this window by pressing buttons to ‘cling to life’ or ‘give up’. If a gun for hire can reach the deputy before the window runs down the deputy will be returned to the fight with minimal HP, even if the player was hoping to die and respawn at a checkpoint. Either way, the deputy is going to die a lot.

The game aims to hit that thin line of high mortality, fast-paced combat but ultimately wobbles back and forth over it like a drunk. Armored enemies can take full clips of ammunition to the head without blinking while the deputy dies in the space between realizing they’re being shot at and identifying where the bullets are coming from. In a game where the enemies have an arsenal of snipers, helicopters and fighter planes, this can quickly become an unending nightmare as the deputy respawns or revives in combat zones or on top of hostile wildlife.

To preserve their life against this assault, the deputy can carry up to four guns, two melee weapons and a grab bag of explosives on them at any one time. Switching between these is done by holding down the right shoulder button and selecting a slot containing the desired gun, or the slots that contain the melee weapons and explosives. Each melee and explosive slot has three item types in it, which must be further navigated to with the left and right d-pad buttons. This menu, and a fairly minor crafting sub-menu, don’t pause the game so it’s always best to estimate the necessary loadout before entering combat. The currently selected explosive is mapped to the right bumper, while two weapons (and sometimes the fishing pole if the player is sloppy) can be mapped and quick-swapped via a face button. Holding the left trigger causes the deputy to aim down the barrel (or scope) for distance shots, and right trigger is fire.

Generally, the combat flows well and feels good. Shots are quick to line up, heady shots are effective but not too easy to get, and if the player is using a weapon with a scope tapping a button will cause the deputy to hold their breath and reduce weapon sway for a short moment. Explosives usually go where they’re desired to go, and stealth kills usually go off without a hitch. The AI isn’t the best on the market, but it’s generally competent. Enemy combatants certainly feel like they know what they’re doing, and most of the time friendly units won’t be completely useless and/or stupid. I did have few AI and combat-related issues, including animal companions running in front of moving vehicles and getting killed, as well as NPCs. Other times the reticles that indicate whether or not a target is a friendly or a hostile wouldn’t pop up until an enemy was too close, had killed their hostage, or the player has already pulled the trigger on an NPC. Again, not the tightest gameplay experience but and occasionally frustrating, but not game breaking.

The game shines in the ways in which it’s balanced its combats and encounters so that the player is free to choose a desired play style and stick with it. Every weapon in the game, once purchased or unlocked via story, can be picked up for free at shops. Almost every one of these guns can be tailored with upgrades to increase accuracy, damage, number of bullets per clip, ect. The weapons run the gamut from shovels with smiley faces painted on them to handheld artillery, slingshots to LMGs.  More and more powerful weapons are unlocked throughout the game as the enemies become tougher.

Vehicles are similarly handled, though they must be purchased and spawned from specific garages. There are no horses, which I found disappointing for a game literally set out west in ranch country. But, there are ATVS and more cars than you can shake a stick at, as well as attack helicopters and fighter planes. The cars are convenient, especially those with mounted guns, but the aircraft are essential. Some targets are nearly impossible to take out on foot, but a well-placed bomb from a Spitfire will sort them out nicely. Flying and driving are a little sticky. Ground vehicles and each aircraft have a different control scheme, so good luck keeping the weapon buttons straight or remembering how to land. 90% of the time driving or flying is fun and relaxing, the other ten percent is having the auto-drive run over civilians, planes blowing up after coming within ten square feet of a tree, and getting cars stuck somewhere real stupid after spinning out for no discernible reason.

If that doesn’t work out, going on foot will take longer but is an enjoyable experience. Montana makes for a beautiful and unusual backdrop for a video game. Far Cry 5’s team did a great job recreating it in gorgeous detail… minus any bugs, extreme weather or unpleasant winds on the mountains. The series’ history of open world design also shows because there is far more to discover than the quests will take the player to, and it’s easy to get lost going hunting, fishing or base jumping. A minimal HUD and intrusion from quest markers is both blessing and curse as it keeps the player in the game, but requires some serious squinting when looking for something specific.

Far Cry 5 is a good game. It’s solid, it’s fun. But it’s also getting a lot more mileage out of its premise than anything else. Once the novelty of taking a gunslinging adventure through America’s cultural dark secrets wears off Far Cry 5 will probably fade into the mist of popular shooters to be lost to time, much like Hope County’s quiet, dusty roads.

[leblonde]

(septiplier anon steps into the askbox from a sinking spaceship, Jack Sparrow-style) Hy there! Hope your summer is going nice and smooth. I came for the ask thingy because i'm always curious, if anyone else asks the same, feel free to skip mine! B, E with the art thief au, (because i reread them the other day for the third time and they still make me cry), F and K? Have a wonderful day and good luck with your pbb! :)

Septiplier anon!! (always making an entrance, I love it)

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

Hmmm, only with certain things characters say, I suppose! Especially when writing Phil, I get him to react to a lot of things the same way that I would (though, of course, I am not an art thief. OR AM I). Dan’s entire post-uni crisis in don’t trust a song that’s flawless was me though. 

E: If you wrote a sequel to the art thief fic, what would it be about?

Ooooo, honestly if I ever did do a part three it would be to get the wedding done and also to get Modern Rome out of the ceiling. I still think about it sometimes. I imagine that the Phil of that story would, at some point, want to rescue it, so maybe trying to do that and then plan a wedding at the same time. But from Dan’s POV so I could do more flashbacks from his viewpoint. You’re making me want to write it now. I probably will :D

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Aaah, I love writing dialogue. I was always pretty fond of the second exchange they had in the art thief fic, which is:

“It’s my favourite too. The painting, that is,” Phil said. “I don’t even know why it’s here. We never get work like this.”

“It’s beautiful,” Dan agreed. “I like how lonely the boats look.”

“Oh. I mostly just like all the blue,” Phil said.

Mostly because I got to reference it SO MANY TIMES and they recreate it in full on the National job, and I just like it. I’m also pretty fond of “I didn’t tell anyone. Before. They asked me but I didn’t say anything. I lied. I thought you were coming back. I thought it was a test and I failed it” because, poor Phil, right. Gosh, my writing is so angsty omg.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Which leads on amazingly to this question! A confession, the angstiest idea I ever came up with was the original ending to the art thief fic and it was the complete opposite of the actual ending. I actually wrote it and everything, if anyone ever wants to read it and be in a bad mood for the rest of their day. I legit just thought, I can’t do this, and changed it. Thankfully. 

Hope your summer is going nicely and smoothly too, I always love getting your asks

(questions can be found here).

[visariga-blog]

Neighborhood #14: Beberbeķi

Name: Beberbeķi Meaning: Named after an old German manor Area: 1.2 km2 (55th) 2014 Population: 411 (50th) 2008 Population density: 321 people/km2 (43rd) Distance from Riga Central Station by public transit: 31 minutes (bus) Public transit lines: #32 and #43 busses Places of interest: Beberbeķu Nature Park, RĪGA sign Where to eat: Grilbārs "Šašliki" at Beberbeķu iela 58 Date of Visit: May 5, 2017

The last time you sped down Kārļa Ulmaņa gatve on your way to Jūrmala, Ventspils, Liepāja, or virtually any point west of Rīga, you briefly passed through Beberbeki just before exiting the city into Babītes novads. You might not have known this neighborhood by name, but you'll remember passing under a cool pedestrian bridge and seeing the “RĪGA” sign on the opposite side of the road. In fact, if you came back the same way and drove by the iconic sign, you passed through this small and sleepy neighborhood a second time. Heres the proof:

Of all the neighborhoods we've visited so far, Beberbeķi's boundaries most logically line up with geographic visual cues (aside from Rītabuļļi which is an island). The southern two thirds of the neighborhood are nearly completely surrounded by forest, while the northern third is bordered by forest to the northeast, the Rīga-Tukums railroad to the northwest, and K. Ulmaņa gatve to the south. I zoomed out a bit on this map to illustrate how close the neighborhood is to Rīga International Airport in nearby Mārupes novads; as you can imagine, planes were nearly constantly taking off or landing. You can also see two clover interchanges; the one on the top right connects the road to Jūrmala and Ventspils (Latvia's 5th and 6th largest cities respectively) with the road to Liepāja (the 3rd largest city), whereas the one in the bottom right corner connects K. Ulmaņa gatve with the road to the airport. It goes without saying that the stretch of road that snakes through the picture below is one of the busiest in all of Latvia.

We took the #32 bus from central station to the neighborhood's lone public transportation stop, “Beberbeķu iela.” The stop is named after the neighborhood's main street which runs along the entire northeast border of the neighborhood along the forest as you can see in the maps above. That cool-looking pedestrian bridge in the picture below was built by the city government after years of complains by residents who previously had to play real-life frogger in order to get across the highway after its completion in 1981. 

Unfortunately, this nice crossing isn't of much use to the wide majority of locals who seem to get around by car. While someone with a stronger arm than me could conceivably throw a baseball from one side of the highway to the other, it takes around five minutes to drive from the end of the northern section of Beberbeķu iela to the beginning of the southern section.

If you think that's bad, the way back is almost twice as long.

I had been excited to visit Beberbeķi for a while because I finally had an excuse to visit the two restaurants on the opposite sides of the bridge across the highway that I had passed by countless times on the way out of Rīga. We decided that we would visit one for lunch at the beginning of our visit and the other for dinner just before we went back. The first was called Grilbārs "Šašliki," named after the traditional style of skewered and grilled meat popular all throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia similar to what Americans know as shish kebab. According to Google street view from 2014, the restaurant has recently been painted yellow with a mural of a grilling man and cask of ale. On the day we went it was just a touch too cold to take advantage of the outdoor seating, although we were curious to see the inside anyway. 

The interior was designed like a pretty typical North American roadhouse, with wooden benches and wall siding. Although some of the wall decorations weren't quite “authentic,” I think they did a pretty nice job of emulating the feel of the real deal. Our hostess told me that the place has been around for roughly twenty-five years (virtually the entire time since Latvia regained independence), and in that time the place had gained a lot of personality.

I can't say that the food was very cheap, but compared to other destination restaurants located on the sides of major highways, the prices weren't THAT bad. €3.00 is on the higher side of what I would pay for soļanka (the traditional soup that I get when we go to most neighborhood restaurants and use as my baseline for food prices), but I wouldn't call it unreasonable. Līga elected for the soļanka, but I wanted to try their main advertised dish so I went for some chicken šašliks with a side of veggies and fries which cost a bit more than €8.00 if I remember correctly. My concerns about the price vanished the second the friendly waitress brought out the American-sized portions.

It's hard to appreciate from the picture just how much of a mountain of food was on my plate. I'm an absolute pig and will eat more than most when at dinner events, but even with considerable help from Līga I was only barely able to finish everything. The food was quite tasty, and the staff were delightful. Between the decor, massive portions, and warm atmosphere, I rate their recreation of the American roadhouse an “A.” If you want to know what it's like to eat out along the highways of the rural US or Canada without leaving the comfort of Rīga, I'd recommend giving this a place a try sometime. Do it on your next trip west!

Although I could barely move after that feast, we left the restaurant and began our brief walk through the northern section of Beberbeķi. The restaurant shares a building with a pyrotechnics company called “Svētku aģentūra” (Latvian for “festival agency”), and they are responsible for the fireworks at many of the country's major yearly festivals as well as outdoor concerts and other large events. Across the large parking lot was a nursery called “Liepas” (the Latvian word for “lime trees”), which specializes in fruit trees and rose bushes. Although they started out in the small southern city of Dobele, they now have locations all throughout the country.

Now we started down Beberbeķu iela proper. As we were walking down the road, I had the uncanny feeling that I had been here before. Everything looked so familiar: a hilly forest on the left side of the road and various styles of private houses on the right. After a few minutes, I realized that it reminded me of the last road we had walked down during our journey through Imanta... also called Beberbeķu iela. The reason it seemed so similar in terms of terrain and architecture was because it was the same road, although car traffic is cut off from the Imanta portion by the train tracks. 

If you thought it was bad getting driving between the two halves of the road in Beberbeķi itself, enjoy the 7.6 lm required of the fastest route to the Imanta section. The moral of all this is that if you're visiting a friend who lives on Beberbeķu iela, triple check the address number in order to avoid making your life miserable.

The forest on the right side of the road is part of the Beberbeķu dabas parks (nature park) which was established in 1977 a few years before it was sliced up by the highway just like the neighborhood itself. Despite its name, the park is almost entirely located in Babītes novads just outside the city limits, which meant that it was unfortunately off limits for this particular journey.

We continued along the train tracks via Čuguna iela (the Latvian word for cast iron). This road was the “other side” of the Rīga-Jūrmala bike path that we had walked down during our trip to Imanta, but the difference in weather was night and day. There wasn't a second when at least one cyclist wasn't in sight, probably thanks to the good weather and the fact that this was a free day for most people due to the peculiarities of the Latvian national holiday system. The houses here seemed mostly fairly recently built.

Right before the edge of neighborhood, we took a turn down a short road back to K. Ulmaņa gatve. We weren't sure if we were allowed to walk along such a big highway (this would be completely illegal in the states), but luckily no police passed by on either side to answer this question for us the hard way. Regardless of the legality, I wouldn't suggest trying it due to the cars and trucks that speed by and made this a somewhat terrifying experience. From where we started walking along the road you could see the tall Soviet-era buildings of Zolitude peeking above the just recently blossoming tree line. Spring was in full swing with flowers blooming everywhere the eye could see. We also got a good look at some of the houses that we hadn't been able to see earlier since they had been hidden by trees, although technically they have addresses on Beberbeķu or Čugana iela.

And after a few slightly terrifying minutes, we were back right where we had started at the restaurant. Here's the trapezoidal route that we had travelled so far:

Now it was time to cross the pedestrian bridge so that we could explore the southern part of the neighborhood. Although Latvia historically hasn't been a handicap-friendly country by any stretch of the imagination, it's nice to see the situation improving little by little with things like the wheelchair/bike ramp in addition to the stylistic spiral staircase. From halfway up the ramp we could see the border of Rīga and Babīte.

Although the highway passing under this footbridge might not inspire the same kind of romantic feelings that the Daugava or the canal normally do, the guardrails hadn't been spared from the wedding lock craze that's been sweeping the world throughout the last few years. In Latvian tradition the bride and groom are required to cross seven different bridges on the day of the wedding, and what this one lacks in vista is made up for in convenience of location, as driving to nearly all points west of Rīga requires passing under here. Plus, with all of the forest on both sides and the the back of the RĪGA sign visible, the view isn't that bad after all.

The world needs more spiral staircases.

One more view of this beautiful bridge:

We decided walk to the end of Beberbeķu iela and make a loop through the southern part of the neighborhood before getting dinner, although at this point I was still so stuffed from the place across the road that I wasn't sure I'd be able to eat at all for the rest of the day. The road passed right by the back side of the iconic RĪGA sign which can be found at all of the major entrances to the city. At this point the sun wasn't in the best place for taking obligatory cheesy pictures, so we decided to try on the way back instead. Just to the left of the sign was an awesome house on the top a hill overlooking the sign and the highway that seemed to be abandoned despite its fairly fresh coat of paint.

This section of Beberbeķu iela wasn't radically different from the others, with forest to the west and houses to the east. The majority of the houses were quite modern, and there were few traces of the Soviet Union to be found aside from a large fenced-off area that used to be one the city's largest greenhouse complexes and grew a wide variety of flowers. The area is currently for sale.

The forest on the other side of the road was gorgeous, and it was very tempting to continue through and abandon the neighborhood proper altogether. According to the city's forestry service's webpage about the park, there are nearly 2 1/2 km2 of land with a beautiful network of trails leading to an old mill pond at the southern end near the village of Brīvkalni. We couldn't help but cheat just a little bit and cross into the Babīte side and take some pictures of the wooded surroundings.

We continued on down Beberbeķu iela, passing more houses, a sign warning for ticks, and a sign for Beberbeķu 9. linija commissioned by a firm called “Mulkomolka” with an unusual “.ru” web address. We were quite curious to figure out what this firm did, but before we went down that road we decided to follow Beberbeķu iela all the way to its end which was also the city limits.

Just before the border, there was a sign indicating the turnoff towards a village called Dzērves (the Latvian word for “cranes”). I spend lots of time studying maps of greater Rīga, but I had never once heard of a place called Dzērves. I assumed that it was part of Babītes novads, although the border of Mārupes novads wasn't far from here so I wasn't quite sure.

Later on I did a bit of research and found out that Dzērves is indeed part of Babītes novads and has a grand total of 36 residents. At first glance the boundaries of this village seem completely inexplicable; not only is the tiny territory completely indistinguishable from Beberbeķi's, it's impossible to drive from the rest of Babīte to Dzērves without going through Beberbeķi to get there. If any of you know how this geographic situation arose, please let me know. 

In the meantime I have one wild theory; Most of the forests you see here (and many elsewhere in Latvia) were farmland before the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Latvia, and due to the Communist Party's agricultural policies, most of these independent family farms were abandoned and new wild forests grew in this land. Dzērves was at one time almost certainly connected with the rest of Babīte by farmland, as all of the territory down to the lake used to be part of the historic Beberbeķi manor dating all the way back to the 1200s. Although the village should by all conceivable logic now be the outer edge of Beberbeķi, it's possible that Babīte has held on to these 36 residents for their taxes. Again this is pure speculation, so if you have the true answer please let us know.

A few woodland scenes from the edge of the city:

I did say that there were a few traces of the Soviet Union to be found...

The walk down Beberbeķu 9. linija was sublime thanks to the nearly perfect weather. It would have been easy to imagine that we were far out in the countryside if it hadn't been for the steady hum of K. Ulmaņa gatve to the north. We found “Mukomolka” at 7a, and unfortunately the premises seemed to be gated off and not open to visitors despite the friendly and inviting sign. I have absolutely no Russian language ability to speak of, but from what I gather from their website they seem to be an internet-based store for wheat milling and baking supplies.

Spring was everywhere...

As I mentioned earlier, planes were almost incessantly taking off or landing, flying quite low over the neighborhood. Although we couldn't help but notice this every time it happened, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who live here have learned to tune it out the way I learned to tune out the sound of ambulances when I lived in Boston next to three major hospitals.

The reason that most of the houses look modern and newly built is that, as I previously mentioned, this entire area used to be farmland up until the beginning of Soviet times. These houses have been recently built on top of the former farmland just as many American suburbs have been built since the end of WWII on former famland, although I'm not sure why this specific area did not grow into forest like the rest of the former manor's territory as the Soviets did not seem to have a specific use for this area. Again, if you know more please fill us in.

The final traces of Soviet times were found at the end of Beberbeķu 6. linija just as we were turning back onto Beberbeķu iela.

As we were balking back to K. Ulmaņa gatve, I insisted on trying out a rope swing that I had seen some teenagers swing around on earlier (a lot more gracefully than I managed to do). I felt like Tarzan, but I'm sure I looked a lot more like George of the Jungle.

The light still wasn't perfect at the RĪGA sign when we returned to it, but that didn't stop me from forcing Līga to take a cheesy picture of me sitting on the white metal sign.

In 2014, Rīga declared itself “European Wi-Fi Capital” since by its own calculus there were 750 people per free wifi point in the city and three free wifi points per square kilometer, supposedly more than any other European city. Unsurprisingly, there was no free wifi way out where this sign was, since a majority of these wifi points are concentrated in the center and usually in or around major shopping centers. Still, I guess it was worth a mayoral photo-op.

We passed a large bike shop called ZZK and went into Vērdiņš kafe, named after an old fashioned type of money from Latvian folklore. This place was the polar opposite of the roadhouse on the opposite side of the highway: modern, ornate, and quite pricy. Although I was still completely stuffed from earlier, even if I had been hungry €4.90 for soļanka would have been hard to swallow. Instead, Līga and I chose to get some drinks to pass the time before the #43 bus came to take us home. I didn’t feel comfortable asking to take pictures of the interior since we weren’t really ordering much, but you can take a look at some pictures on their website. The food looked quite good and the place is highly rated on Google reviews, but tonight just wasn’t the night for us.

Although at face value Beberbeķi is just another mainly residential neighborhood on the edge of town, I thoroughly enjoyed my time here and the pleasant surprises we encountered such as Grilbars šašliki, the cool house on the hill, and the rope swing. While the neighborhood is full of mostly new houses, it has a certain personality of its own that has developed due to its unique history and location relative to the rest of the city. I would love to return to visit the nature park in earnest, especially since I hear that the lake at the other end is a popular swimming spot in the summer. Next time you're heading west out of the city, it might be worth your while to stop and visit.

Random Observations:

According to what I could find, the name for the neighborhood comes from the word or phrase “Beberbekke“ which apparently in an older form of German means “beavers below” and referred to the ridge of dunes at the bottom of which a river used to flow called the “beaver river.” I can't find much to back this explanation that comes from apkaimes.lv, but that's the nest I've got for you.

This is the last neighborhood in the first column on the “Neighborhoods” page! Although that doesn't mean that we're officially 1/4 done with all the neighborhoods (that will be after Bieriņi), this still feels kind of significant.

May 4th is a national holiday that observes the restoration of Latvian independence in 1990. When holidays such as these fall on a Thursday, the government usually officially declares that a. Friday will count as a holiday as well and b. the following Saturday will count as a “working day” with the same schedule as the lost Friday. While my students are invariably happy to enjoy the long weekend that part a. allows for, many seem to conveniently “forget” about part b.

Because Atgāzene is so small and rectangularly shaped (and because it's easy to visualize), it's become somewhat our unit of measurement to describe other neighborhoods. In case you're wondering, Beberbeķi is a bit less than two Atgāzenes.

Winter briefly returned with a vengeance just five days later. Winter's my second favorite season after fall and I hate hot weather, but that was too much even for me. What you want to see outside when you wake up on May 10th this ain't:

And that's it for now! Our post about Bieriņi is on the way, and we'll have posts about both Baznīcu nakts (Church night) and Rīga's city elections which are taking place at the end of the week. If you've got exams to take or correct this week I wish you the best of luck in hanging in there, and for the rest of you I hope you're enjoying the beginning of summer that seems to have finally come for real this time. 

Nākamā Pietura: Bieriņi!