I've always known my whole life I wanted to be an actor or comedian. Never tried. I made it out of manual labor / skilled trade just before it started being profitable.
Made my way into I.T. and have made it into an 80k a year job just in time for it to not be shit. Corporate America really does suck your life out and I'm miserable 8hrs a day. My personal time is spent studying for certifications and dredding the return to mediocrity the next day.
I've been writing for a while but it just stays on the page.
I just want to be happy at this point. Should I stop studying and diving further into dogshit, make short films, podcasts, and do open mics or is that a total pipe dream? Is it possible for a normal person to make a living at this? For reference, there is 1 club with an open mic in Kansas City Tuesday's and Thursdays.
I'm thinking about starting to do these and just looking forward to two days a week.
I just don't want to hate most of my life anymore.

The book of Ether in the book of Mormon gives the history of a people called the jaredites.
The population was nearly "two million" (Ether 15:2). They were an agricultural society with fruits and grains, cattle, sheep, goats, swine, horses and asses, elephants and "cureloms and cumoms" (Ether 9:18-19). They were skilled at metal work, including gold, silver, iron, copper and brass, making tools for agriculture including reaping, sowing and thrashing (Ether 10:25) and creating "mighty heaps of earth to get ore" (Ether 10:23). They made swords out of steel (7:9)
They built many cities (10:4), and inhabited "the whole have of the land northward" (10:21). They paid tax (10:5), suggesting complex economic systems of trade and record keeping. They had a robust writing system, which could record detailed sequence of events, in narratives. The lived somewhere in the Americas for about 1000 years.
So, where did the jaredites live? It seems like we should be able to match that detailed description to artefacts and evidence in the archeological record.
If God wants me to believe, he should throw me a bone. Many bones. Horses, asses, goats, elephants together. Across a large geographic area, people by a literate agrarian people. With swords.
Why would God make it so hard to believe?

Kyoshi book 1 is the epitome of ‘a meeting that could have been an email’. Its book that should have been a graphic novel. A story that should have been a wikipedia page.
SPOILERS, though I am saving you the read.
TLDR: The story telling is mediocre, and the story would have been just as compelling as a bullet pointed list of story facts. It flubs, glosses over and skips all portions of story that would have required any amount of clever writing or skill. The story is comprised of cringey tropes. This book will not sit among the original series in the annals of history. It sits below Korra and just above M Knight’s film adaption and the disgraceful Netflix reboot.
First, the idea of there being immense trouble identifying the Avatar is a good plot point. Having Kuruk’s team find and teach the next Avatar and have opposing ideals is also a good plot point. Yee also describes the martial arts okay enough, but this is an inherent obstacle when turning highly visual source material into text. This concludes my praise.
Yee tells, but doesnt show. Show more teambuilding and friendship between Kyoshi, Rangi and Yun. They only come together once in the same room to hang out before the main conflict happens, and its a superficial scene straight out of an 80s slasher movie. They come together solely to ‘show’ them being a team as they hang out and exchange banter. This is the first of Yee’s pseudo-“show, don’t tell”. It appears like the story is showing us something, but it is still telling us. It is characterized by vapid, juvenile writing in a scene that is largely inconsequential to the story.
Make the misidentification of the Avatar weigh on each of them and test friendship. Show her being found by Kelsang. The jump forward 9 years is jarring and leaves logic way behind. If she was raised by Kelsang, why didnt he finish testing her as the Avatar? Why did he take pity and raise her after traveling the world and seeing other homeless children? Why didnt she give back the clay turtle relic? Kyoshi is abandoned when she is old enough to remember being abandon, but doesn’t remember where she got the turtle. This line is another example of pseudo-show. Why don’t we dont get any insight into the moment she is abandon? We do not know any of these things. Including these scenes in the book would have made it longer, but its the juiciest piece of the character development. The length of a book is largely forgivable if it is captivating. This is like if you order a burger and they only bring you a bun and a slice of bib lettuce. Its missing the most crucile part.
Show Yun being incorrectly identified as the Avatar. This scene has to be so interesting. There is nothing in the book about this at all. This seems like another artful dodge around having to write something clever, and that tends to be difficult.
Show Kyoshi’s Avatar state. ‘Blacking out’ is not a mysterious way to tell stories. Its a cop out of writing something the author finds difficult. Also, a character can black out and not remember doing something AND the author can still describe it as it happens to the reader. Choosing to ommit more juicey story speaks more to the writers lack of confidence in their writing.
The fans and helmet of her parents are forced clumsily into the story at the height of the inciting incident. They could have been introduced any time. For example, when Kyoshi connects with her parent’s old crime ring and they could be presented to Kyoshi as relics of the group’s deceased leaders. Instead they are introduced to the reader by Kyoshi dropping her luggage and they fall out in the rain and mud. It reads like a scene that is meant to be a story board for a cartoon or comic.
We dont get any insight into Kyoshi’s parents being dead or alive. Kyoshi doesnt seem to ask anyone either. Why? Seems like a reasonable question.
Kelsang realizes Kyoshi is the Avatar when she does some improv poetry that happens to be Avatar Kuruk’s favorite poem? That was the best idea you got?
Kyoshi has a sky bison named PengPeng? Find a new method of transportation, the flying bison had been done before. Pengpeng is also only used as transportation. She doesnt have any personality like Momo and Appa. Total strikeout.
When something new develops that is supposed to surprise the reader, like Kyoshi’s mother being a disgraced airbender, Yee doesnt show this. This is explained away in a moment of dialogue like “once upon a time, this happened.” Then the plot moves on. And what motivation did she have for keeping this from Kelsang? Maybe they knew each other? They are both airbenders who have killed before, which is significant in the fiction. This could have been an opportunity to connect characters and create intrigue. But we only learn this at the end of the book for no reason.
Love between ATLA characters is subtle in the show. Katara and Aang will end up together and we know this implicitly. Sokka loves his friends, particularly Toph, because of the actions we see him take to help her. Rewatch the show, you will see what I mean. However this is not a major plot point that is touched on each episode. Zuko and Mei are together but they are pulled apart temporarily by character motivations. It skips the filler and gets right to the interesting part. However in Kyoshi book 1, love between Rangi and Kyoshi is vapid and foreshadowed from the first pages. Lets set lesbianism aside, its not the issue. The issue is that this love story is not compelling chiefly because we are told they care for each other but are only shown this in the back half of the book on a surface level. Even when we are shown these things, its not believable. The characters act like teenagers do in 2024 America, not like how teenagers would act in a world coming off the heels of a 100 year war. The characters are young, but they have roles, careers, and the responsibilities of adults. This stems from the same problem Yun has with Kyoshi and Rangi. We don’t see them becoming or being friends. We are told they are friends. Thats it.
This connects to Rangi’s character being ambivalent and emotionally indistinct. Rangi is played as a tough, no nonsense soldier that is hired as Yun’s personal bodyguard, the most important job next to being the avatar yourself. But her expressions of love are juvenile and childish. In one scene she is scolding Kyoshi on her duty toward being Avatar then in the next she acts playfully excited like an American weeb teenager when Kyoshi bends water for the first time. Rangi is poorly written and has poor motivation to her Avatar duty. She contributes nothing practical or technical to the story but love interest. If she is a child prodigy badass that earned the job of protecting the Avatar, she should act like it.
Hei Ran, Rangi’s mother, does nothing consequential to the plot. Why have this character? It is stated she knew Avatar Kuruk. The least she can do is bring it up more.
AND FINALLY, Kyoshis character is very opposite from who we see in ATLA. Obviously this is to show growth, but the timid Kyoshi inexplicably switches to confident and intimidating Kyoshi without any growth, then switches back to timid again. We know kyoshi as a tall, confident, matter of fact, powerful bender who sees no difference between murdering Chin the Conquerer and letting him fall to his death. But here we see a still tall, but petulant teen. She is afraid of her bending. She is inconsistently overconfident. She is squemish about murder. Perhaps the growth occurs in book two, but then again change is gradual. We should see some examples of change now. She grew up a homeless street urchin. She needs to act like it.
Yun struggles with his bending but also keeps smiling and acting like everything is ok. This trope is exhausted to death by anime. We do not see a human side of Yun. He is not tortured by the training or the fatique of not being able to bend fire or the pressure and expectation of being Avatar. He just smiles and flirts with Kyoshi. He also asks her to go with him to a peace treaty signing with pirates all because he wants to have her there so he feels loved. But this thinly disguises the fact the author needed a reason to have her at the signing so she can earthbend and save everyone. Take Rangi, your apointed body guard.
Yun returns at the end of the novel as a deus ex machina and kills Jianzhu in an admittedly badass way. 10/10. However, Yun is dead, reappears as a ghost, then earth bends. The possibility of this within the fiction is near zero UNLESS FC Yee is trying add to the lore of spirit magic and bending. To that I say “Learn to be a better writer first.”
Kirima is an okay character. We traditionally see water benders as good guys, but she is a tough leader of a gang of criminals. Again we are told that, not shown. 5/10. Mid teir.
Wong is a worse comedic relief than Sokka. Where Sokka learns to become a leader from a close minded sceptic and redeem this quality, Wong is indistinct from any other background earth bender. He eventually becomes Kyoshis earthbending teacher and he starts to fill out a teacher role but is still indistinct. Up until this time, he carrys no air of educator at all. Remember, he’s a pirate criminal. This turn of character seems to come from the team learning that Kyoshi is the Avatar, something she kept secret. But Wong is the only one who changes their behavior based on this. Meeting the most important person in the world doesn’t effect them, I guess. Doesn’t seem reasonable.
Lek is a kid that idolizes Kyoshi’s parents, but acts out like a toddler when she speaks poorly of them. I am left feeling disatisfied by a criminal outlaw that throws tantrums when someone speaks ill of their pseudo mommy and daddy. Lek is poorly written as a rival to Kyoshi, if if fact that was Yee’s intention. You see it in their banter and interactions. Lek is killed by a poison that only incapacitates all others effected. It was like the author needed him to die real quick and didnt know how to do it, but also didn’t want to rewrite the chapter.
Now is a good time to mention that characters can be annoying to other characters, but they should not be annoying to the reader. Doing this is a form of self sabotage. Its like serving up raw eggs for breakfast on purpose and calling it art. You just wouldn’t do it.
Lao Ge is poorly written too, despite being an interesting character idea. Lao is meant to be Kyoshi’s spiritual leader in this story. He leads her to the ancient technique of prolonging ones life with spirit magic. But this man reads like an embarassing drunk uncle that no one responds to when he speaks. He acts like he’s cool, wanders off constantly and returns covered in blood to a group thats asks no questions. Criminals still ask questions. In fact, they are more paranoid on account of being criminals. For example, there is a scene where they leave without him and realize they forgot him and have to go back. This scene amounts to nothing. Why was it in the book? Whoops, he’s also a master assassin. We are told this over and over but never see it in action. Boo. Don’t suggest violence. Show us violence.
Why is this group of criminals still together anyway? They lost their leaders, Kyoshi’s parents. Wouldn’t the find new jobs? Thin the herd. Theres too many characters.
Jianzhu acts more suspicious after he is identified as the villain which is a trope found in childrens television to remind children he is bad now. The fact it is here insults the readers intellegence. His villain motivations are not explained well. Does he care more about identifying the Avatar than his lifelong friend Kelsang or the life of the innocent? Also, a villain doesnt need to kill someone to be identified as the villain but youll find that trope here too. Clever writing can remedy this all the same. He does do cool evil guy things, but they are explained after the fact instead of showing him coniving these schemes and putting them into action. His death is awesome, but his final confrontation with Kyoshi is not spectacular. There is no final battle like one might expect. He the one that ghost Yun kills.
It is unclear if this book is meant for a YA reader audience or the adult audience that watched ATLA as kids. The story is grittier, bloodier and violent with explicit deaths and torture. All the while bearing a sheen of squeeky clean Nickelodean dialogue and unfunny humor that has an obvious limit. The book says they swear, but the exact words do not show up in dialogue. Characters are impaled and gored, but the 3rd person narration takes breaks from descriptions of this for quippy commentary on the things happening. Who says these things? Kyoshi? But its in third person. This clashes with the perspective and shows indecision on the part of the author.
The perspective is stuck between 1st and 3rd. 1st serves better for the YA audience where Kyoshi might think these quippy things to herself or have thoughts that help the reader understand context better. 3rd person would serve the adult audience better with a matter of fact telling of the story. Maybe even change between characters in some chapters and fill in some of these gaps. Instead the book strattles the line between these two perspectives and suffers greatly. You have humorous commentary and scene descriptions coming from the same source. It breaks immersion when the reader is stuck wondering who is telling the story.
YA is an oversaturatedand flawed genre anyway. Its almost designed to trick teens into thinking they are reading adult books.
Yee includes too many comparisons, similies and analogies. Each one is meant to create world building, where the text compares a creature in the ATLA world to a situation at hand. But they start coming up too often in the back half of the book. This also seems to rise in frequency as descriptions get vaguer. It felt like Yee lacked the proper lexicon to describe what was happening as the story approached the end. Analogies should be used to explain difficult things, not just thrown in recklessly.
One moment sticks out from this book that reminds me of ATLA. While Yun and Kyoshi are silently trying to meditate before Jianzhu summons a spirit to finally identify the correct Avatar, the two teens speak for a second. Eyes closed, Kyoshi whispers “You know what would be funny? If neither of us were the Avatar.” This captures elements of friendship between the two kids, character humor, and SHOWS these two still care for each other no matter what happens next. Yun’s response isn’t even remotely appropriate, memorable or clever. The opportunity is a total loss.
Another moment of total loss and tonal dissonance is when Kyoshi, Rangi and the convicts go to a hidden secret criminal town that is described as being so cut throat, you don’t even look at people in the eye. Just then the group sees two men collide after turning a blind corner and drop their stuff. Page 224. They exchange appologies, act very polite, and depart. (This is told to the reader, not shown with appropriatly funny dialogue). Lek then explains the two men will meet tonight on the challenge grounds and fight to the death. However, that night at the challenge grounds, you don’t see those characters; a total whiff on Yee’s part. Instead you read about one man bludgeoning another man to death with barehands in pure gladitorial bloodsport. This scene shows the whimsy of ATLA, the gorey violence that Yee wanted and his befuddled attempt at writing something that blends the two.
All of this leads me to conclude the book is for a YA audience, which is unfortunate because ATLA was for everyone; YA, adult and children. It is a children’s show that adults can find a surprising amount of depth and humor in. Yee’s doesn’t hold a candle to the writing of Aaron Ehasz.
The argument that this books is allowed to be bad because its for kids falls apart for the same reason. The expert writing of Aaron Ehazs in ATLA is what imortalizes it to this day; the dialogue, the characters, and the story. ATLA is a kids cartoon by which all cinema and television are compared. This is simply not on that level.
When this level of integrity is left to be followed up by an author with one previously published work, underdelivery should be expected. Kyoshi book 1 is FC Yee’s second published work and it shows. I would be interested in learning more about FC Yee’s past unpublished experiences in writing and qualifications.
So again, this book is like a meeting that should have been an email. The story is not “worth the read”. The historical facts are more valuable. For example, telling someone that Kyoshi’s dad is a pirate earthbender and her mother is a disgraced criminal airbender is a total surprise and sparks good speculative conversation. But the way the novel presents this information is clumsy and ignorant of how rare these circumstances are within the fiction. These historical facts are just as compelling when read on the Avatar wiki page, negating the necessity for a book in the first place. I think this is symptomatic of writing a prequal too. We know enough about Kyoshi to be interested in her character, so the facts about her should be presented interestingly with art and showmanship.
This book leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that most of what FC Yee knows about writing was learned from anime, a genre so polluted its not worth even sifting through to find quality content. Hot take, I know.
His other books on Genie Lo (2017, 2020) are teen dramas with ‘the chosen one’ trope, as the summaries suggest. That must be why that shows in this book. Maybe FC Yee can only write one type of book.
Yee is also not an author by trade. He said in an interview that he works in mobile gaming as the guy who makes “everything less fun by adding stuff to the game you have to pay for.” He went to college for Economics, or so I read on his wiki page.
His book publisher proposed the two book series idea to Nickelodeon, it was not a matter of the creators carefully hand picking a writer. He also only worked with Mike DiMartino. In his interview, he says he did not work with Bryan Konietzko and never even mentions Aaron Ehasz. I believe this is to the great detrement of the story.
I’ve heard that people really liked this book. However, I wonder if that is genuine affection or the same kind of denial Star Wars fans had when the Phantom Menace came out. I draw this parallel because my father was that person. He recomended this book to me and gave it high praise in the same way he did when Phantom Menace released.
The fans, my father and myself included, are starved for any canon ATLA material. Feeding the fans undercooked meals is no way to make a fanbase grow. The ATLA fanbase already got food poisoning from M Knight’s movie. It recovered, but at a cost. I hate to think what might happen after the Netflix show and the animated movie of adult Aang.
I understand that Yee was a fan of the material. In fact, he and I share the same favorite character. So know that this is not an attack on a fellow fan of ATLA, I simply believe Yee is not the man for this job. Avatar deserves better than to be relegated to a YA novel lost in a sea of overproduced assembly line YA content. Avatar deserves a better writer. Save your fine cutlery for fine dining, don’t use polished silver to eat fast food.
To end, I leave you with this: if you want more Avatar content, gather some friends and play the Avatar rpg by Magpie Games. It is the most fun I’ve had in the ATLA world since I was a kid. If you play it right, you get that same sense of magic you got back in 2005 when Book Water came out.
Below is a link to an interview with Yee.
https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2019/07/15/from-fan-to-avatar-writer-f-c-yee-on-developing-the-story-of-avatar-kyoshi/amp/

This is the list of what bracelets I’m going to make. How many colored beads would I need approximately? I’m going to color code each album to its color.
Taylor Swift 1. Tim McGraw 2. Picture To Burn 3. Teardrops On My Guitar 4. A Place In This World 5. Cold As You 6. The Outside 7. Tied Together With A Smile 8. Stay Beautiful 9. Should’ve Said No 10. Mary’s Song 11. Our Song 12. I’m Only Me When I’m With You 13. Invisible 14. A Perfectly Good Heart
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) 15. Fearless 16. Fifteen 17. Love Story 18. Hey Stephen 19. White Horse 20. You Belong With Me 21. Breathe 22. Tell Me Why 23. You’re Not Sorry 24. The Way I Loved You 25. Forever & Always 26. Come In With The Rain 27. Superstar 28. The Other Side Of The Door 29. Today Was A Fairytale 30. You All Over Me 31. Mr Perfectly Fine 32. We Were Happy 33. That’s When 34. Don’t You 35. Bye Bye Baby 36. If This Was A Movie 37. Change
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) 38. Mine 39. Sparks Fly 40. Back To December 41. Speak Now 42. Dear John 43. Mean 44. The Story Of Us 45. Never Grow Up 46. Enchanted 47. Better Than Revenge 48. Innocent 49. Haunted 50. Last Kiss 51. Long Live 52. Ours 53. Superman 54. Electric Touch 55. When Emma Falls In Love 56. I Can See You 57. Castles Crumbling 58. Foolish One 59. Timeless
Red (Taylor’s Version) 60. State Of Grace 61. Red 62. Treacherous 63. I Knew You Were Trouble 64. All Too Well 65. 22 66. I Almost Do 67. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together 68. Stay Stay Stay 69. The Last Time 70. Holy Beautiful 71. Sad Beautiful Tragic 72. The Lucky One 73. Everything Has Changed 74. Starlight 75. Begin Again 76. The Moment I Knew 77. Come Back…Be Here 78. Girl At Home 79. Ronan 80. Better Man 81. Nothing New 82. Babe 83. Message In A Bottle 84. I Bet You Think About Me 85. Forever Winter 86. Run 87. The Very First Night 88. All Too Well (10 Minute Version) 89. Eyes Open 90. Safe & Sound
1989 (Taylor’s Version) 91. Welcome To New York 92. Blank Space 93. Style 94. Out Of The Woods 95. All You Had To Do Was Stay 96. Shake It Off 97. I Wish You Would 98. Bad Blood 99. Wildest Dreams 100. How You Get The Girl 101. This Love 102. I Know Places 103. Clean 104. Wonderland 105. You Are In Love 106. New Romantics 107. Slut 108. Say Don’t Go 109. Now That We Don’t Talk 110. Suburban Legends 111. Is It Over Now
Reputation 112. Ready For It 113. Endgame 114. I Did Something Bad 115. Don’t Blame Me 116. Delicate 117. Look What You Made Me Do 118. So It Goes 119. Gorgeous 120. Getaway Car 121. King Of My Heart 122. Dancing With Our Hands Tied 123. Dress 124. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things 125. Call It What You Want 126. New Year’s Day
Lover 127. I Forgot That You Existed 128. Cruel Summer 129. Lover 130. The Man 131. The Archer 132. I Think He Knows 133. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince 134. Paper Rings 135. Cornelia Street 136. Death By A Thousand Cuts 137. London Boy 138. Soon You’ll Get Better 139. False God 140. You Need To Calm Down 141. Afterglow 142. Me 143. It’s Nice To Have A Friend 144. Daylight 145. All Of The Girls You Loved Before
Folklore 146. The 1 147. Cardigan 148. The Last Great American Dynasty 149. Exile 150. My Tears Ricochet 151. Mirrorball 152. Seven 153. August 154. This Is Me Trying 155. Illicit Affairs 156. Invisible String 157. Mad Woman 158. Epiphany 159. Betty 160. Peace 161. Hoax 162. The Lakes
Evermore 163. Willow 164. Champagne Problems 165. Gold Rush 166. Tis The Damn Season 167. Tolerate It 168. No Body No Crime 169. Happiness 170. Dorothea 171. Coney Island 172. Ivy 173. Cowboy Like Me 174. Long Story Short 175. Marjorie 176. Closure 177. Evermore 178. Right Where You Left Me 179. It’s Time To Go
Midnights 180. Lavender Haze 181. Maroon 182. Anti Hero 183. Snow On The Beach 184. You’re On Your Own Kid 185. Midnight Rain 186. Question 187. Vigilante Shit 188. Bejeweled 189. Labyrinth 190. Karma 191. Sweet Nothing 192. Mastermind 193. The Great War 194. Bigger Than The Whole Sky 195. Paris 196. High Infidelity 197. Glitch 198. Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve 199. Dear Reader 200. Hits Different
The Tortured Poets Department 201. Fortnight 202. The Tortured Poets Department 203. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys 204. Down Bad 205. So Long London 206. But Daddy I Love Him 207. Fresh Out The Slammer 208. Florida 209. Guilty As Sin 210. Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me 211. I Can Fix Him No Really I Can 212. LOML 213. I Can Do It With A Broken Heart 214. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived 215. The Alchemy 216. Clara Bow 217. The Black Dog 218. I’mGonnaGetYouBack 219. The Albatross 220. Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus 221. How Did It End 222. So High School 223. I Hate It Here 224. Thank You Aimee 225. I Look In People’s Windows 226. The Prophecy 227. Cassandra 228. Peter 229. The Bolter 230. Robin 231. The Manuscript
Other 232. Taylor Swift 233. Debut 234. Fearless TV 235. Speak Now TV 236. Red TV 237. 1989 TV 238. Reputation 239. Folklore 240. Evermore 241. Midnights 242. TTPD 243. Eras Tour 244. 123 LGB 245. Fuck The Patriarchy 246. Ur Gay 247. Taylor’s Version 248. 13 249. Junior Jewels 250. You’ll Be The Prince 251. I’ll Be The Princess 252. Wonderstruck 253. Loving Him Was Red 254. Losing Him Was Blue 255. Missing Him Was Dark Grey 256. Sad Girl Autumn 257. Who’s Taylor Swift Anyway 258. ATWTMVFTVSGAVRALPS (All Too Well Ten Minute Version From The Vault Sad Girl Autumn Version Recorded At Long Pond Studios) 259. Ratatata 260. I ❤️ TS 261. Me Hee Hee 262. Karma Is The Guy On The Chiefs 263. Screaming Crying Throwing Up 264. Jan Ravnik 265. I’m Having A Menty B Hee Hee 266. Benjamin Button 267. Meredith Grey 268. Olivia Benson 269. Errors Tour 270. Died Dead 271. TSwizzle 272. YFYFBYNLIT (you forgive you grifter but you never let it go) 273. Take us to church 274. Swiftie 275. I’ll Be 87 You’ll Be 89 276. LVIII Super Bowl Champions 277. Tayvis 278. Folkmore 279. Everlore 280. It’s Been a Long Time Coming 281. What If I Told You I’m Back 282. It’s Fearless 283. Big Reputation 284. And They Said Speak Now 285. Into Folklore 286. My Name Is Taylor And I Was Born In 1989 287. Meet Me At Midnight 288. This Isn’t The One I Wanted 289. Ever Needy Ever Lovely Jewel 290. Alls Well It Ends Well 291. I Hate All Kanyes 292. El Travador 293. My Brain Is Alive 294. Who’s Taylor Swift Anyway 295. Not A Lot Going On At The Moment 296. A Lot Going On At The Moment 297. Blue Jays 298. Toronto N6 299. I’m The Problem 300. Welcome To The Eras Tour

Demographics: Male, Asian, Public School
Intended Major(s): Biology
ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1570
UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.6, no rank
Coursework: 8 APS/3 DE/2 Honors (All 5s)
Awards:

• 1st in HOSA States (1/40) -> sent to internationals
• 2nd in HOSA internationals (2/150), (2/1800 overall)
• AP Scholar w/ Distinction
• National Merit Semifinalist
• Honor Roll
• NHS
• School Award for 5s on both AP Econ Tests

Extracurriculars:
Biotechnology and Research Sequencing at the University of Michigan (501c3 research organization) - Explored Nucleotide Hybridization, and led group research linking it to a real-world disease. Analyzed related Thermodynamics, PCR, Advanced Linux, and mapping genomes. Presented a business plan on Biotechnology and Next Generation Sequencing Technology (showing how genetic variation could lead to disease).
11th and 12th grade, 12hrs/wk, 4wk/yr
Medical Student Shadowing and Cardiac Medicine Exploration at the University of Brown Alpert Medical School - Completed a Medical Interview, a Cardiopulmonary Physical Exam with a patient, reviewed different medical careers, learned about the pathophysiology of the heart, and completed an ethics course on heart transplants.
11th and 12th grade, 10hrs/wk, 4wk/yr
Shadowed Primary Care Physician - Pediatrician has experience for 20+ years and ranked the #1 Care Physician out of 45 in my city. Worked in the Biomedical Lab analyzing samples and results for patients (in real-time). I shadowed the actual checkups as well
11th and 12th grade, 10hrs/wk, 3wk/yr
HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) Competitor (all 50 states + 11 countries competed) (2yrs) - State Champion (1st out of 40 teams) in my 1st year, Only three teams are sent to ILC from Michigan, Qualified for ILC (International Leadership Conference), and placed Top 3 at ILC. Posted on 10+ nationwide news sites, as well as covered by the media. 260,000 members nationwide.
11th and 12th grade, 10hrs/wk, 30wk/yr
Co-Founder of Biomed Club (Only Student-Made Medical Club @ School) (4yrs) - Led in-school Biomedical-Based Medical Club focused on healthcare careers, connecting with licensed doctors and current medical students to inspire youth and teach them about the experience through the medical process. Expanded membership from 4 to 150 in 4 years by organizing talks for younger classmen about life as a doctor.
9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade, 8hrs/wk, 35wk/yr
Joined SAT/Tutoring Help - Helps students increase their chances for college applications, as well as earn significant amounts of scholarship money. Was able to empower high school students through hackathons, college seminars, and a Cranbrook HUB Program which helped struggling students increase their SAT scores.
10th, 11th, 12th grade, 6hrs/wk, 10wk/yr
Swim Instructor (paid) - Worked for ~1 year, over 400 hours of work, about 8-10 hours weekly on school weeks, and closer to 15 hours during summer, CPR and Lifeguard Certified. Had several classes, weekly, with kids with disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, Autism, and ADHD.
11th, 12th grade, 8-10hrs/wk, 40wk/yr
Swim Instructor Summer Volunteer connected w/Hospital's Children’s Care Center (most vulnerable kids) - Instructed and taught children who have been impaired with neurological, social, and developmental challenges, as well as kids that have dealt with major trauma at a very young age to swim. Participated in a 3-week long program teaching them the basics of swimming.
11th, 12th grade, 8-10hrs/wk, 4wk/yr
Michigan Ref Certified - Participated in overall 50+ hours of ref-related activities, played soccer for 13 years and competed in competitive/travel soccer for 10 years.
9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade, 2hrs/wk, 13wk/yr (for reffing)
9th, 10th grade, 8hrs/wk, 50wk/yr (for soccer)
VolunteeTutor Work - Volunteer Monthly at an Indian Cultural Program (10hrs/month), Math Tutor for struggling students (3hrs/week), Volunteer Monthly for Key Club (3hrs/month)
Essays/LORs/Other:
APES (7/10)
STEM Teacher (9/10)
Schools (in state for MSU/UMich):
MSU
UMich (EA)
Rice
JHU
BU
Brown
Cornell
Columbia (ED + Legacy)

"You guys may not know Ziln, so I'll lay a rundown on who he is."
The camera moves to face a full-blooded Zonai, around 5'2" in height. He looks to be 20. He's snoring on a couch, a cat on his head.
"This is Ziln. We found him after he fell out of a tear in space-time during the beach party. He's 1,733 years old today. And we're hosting a birthday party for him. He wrote the ancient texts that made us know about the Lanternbearer in the first place, and he seems to be some sort of timeline hopper, and unable to age. He was the former sage of Clairvoyance. He's also apparently related to James by blood. Everyone is invited to the party!"
A party-popper goes off, and Ziln is startled awake.
Ziln: "H-Huh!? What's happening?!"
Raine: "Happy birthday, Ziln!"
Ziln: "O-oh! Yippie!"

I am a 23yro f who has recently got my first gf of 5 months after coming to terms that I am most likely solely attracted to women. I had a girl’s night with my 2 best friends and we cleared about 4 bottles of margs and wine between the 3 of us.
One of my best friends (let’s call her cece) got so drunk she ended up projectile vomiting. Me, a lightweight trying to keep up with my two friends after not drinking for a couple months, also got so drunk I could barely even crawl. This is where things take a huge turn. Cece and I ended up in the bathroom because she needed help getting into the shower while my other friend (let’s call her Bri) went to get some towels and clean up the vomit after my drunk self made a sorry attempt at trying to help her clean.
Cece invited me in the shower which I thought nothing of bc i naively thought it was to help me sober up too (we also don’t care about being naked in a general sense bc this is just the kind of culture I grew up with.. nudity does not equal sexualization). This is because I always see my friends end up in the shower to sober up, but i actually have no clue what it does. Well, the shower most certainly didn’t help… because what we did next is most definitely unforgivable… to me at least.
I should mention I had recently come out to Cece as being queer and sexually active with my current gf who I actually love so much to the point where I never stop thinking about her. To the point where I could possibly be obsessed with her! But like in a lovey way not a creepy way. Anyway, because she is so nonchalant and not very attentive (she loves me and I know this, this is just how she is) AND we live far apart with only me having a car, I felt extremely lonely for a while. I should have talked to her about this, but I didn’t want to trigger her abusive past and make her think I was attacking her for being a bad girlfriend or something (one of my OCD traits of constantly obsessing and worrying that I’m being abusive to people and traumatizing them in some way without knowing).
Back to the story though, Cece has been in a committed relationship with who I think is the perfect bf for her for 6+ yrs since high school and they’re relationship is so good, they are considering marriage. Cece has alluded to the fact that a part of her wishes she had more sexual experiences and chances to explore and she would’ve done that if she wasn’t in a relationship, but at the same time she loves her bf and does not regret dating him.
SO. Back to the shower. There we were face to face, drunk out our minds, both in relationships with people we were madly in love with, naked in the shower. Like I said, I was drunk (practically browned out), so I can’t remember all the details, but I know the gist. Somewhere along the lines she ended up touching me. I hadn’t been touched in so long it felt good and I didn’t stop her. She started asking if her actions were okay as she continued taking things farther. I consented knowing we were wrong for this. She moved in closer and asked if my gf would be ok with that and I told her probably not. I asked her the same thing back and she answered the same. We ended up kissing for a while until we kind of just let our actions take over. Idk what she was thinking, but as I touched her, I thought about how I wanted to touch my gf in this way. The reason I don’t touch my gf in certain ways is bc she is hypersexual to her partners, but a touch-me-not when it comes to herself. I respect this, but I wish I could know how to please her sometimes. I also, like I said, felt very lonely bc she had not been sexual to me in maybe months.
Anyways, we kept taking things farther and ended up having sex in my friend Bri’s guest shower. Bri eventually came to find us with the towels and tried to ignore what we were doing and get our drunk asses dried off. Once it was time for bed, we ended up both in the same guest bed (horrible idea) while Bri obviously slept in hers. We somehow CONTINUED what we did in the shower (I can’t for the life of me remember how that started up again but it did. I know it did). I surprised my self as a stereotypical bottom, somehow taking charge and being more dominant. Almost like I was living out a fantasy of the connection I wanted to share with my gf as I know I was still thinking about her. Eventually we passed out and woke up with killer hangovers and went home.
I let a few days of extreme guilt and shame pass before I texted her to call me, but she responded to my txt saying she wanted to keep it between us and that she didn’t regret any of it. Sadly, idk if I regret the experience of what it felt like, but I do still regret the whole thing bc I feel like I’ve broken what my gf and I had even though there’s no way she could find out about it. It’s been almost two months and I still don’t know how to move on. Idk what I’m looking for in a response, but as someone who has always been loyal, and could never see myself doing this to someone I love, I’m having trouble moving on past this and focusing on my relationship.
My loneliness is in no way an excuse and I take full responsibility for what did. I just want to know how to move on and how I could’ve done something so out of my usual character. I am known to being too nice to a fault and extremely naive and I was told I was probably taken advantage of to some extent, but even though I was so drunk, I still knew right from wrong and I should not have done what I did.
I don’t have thick skin whatsoever BUT feel free to speak your minds in the comments or give me any advice.

I'm completely heartbroken and I need some perspective because I don't know if I'm overreacting or if I have a right to be this upset.
I’m a 17 year old guy, and two years ago, my parents got me Henry for my birthday, and it was like a dream come true. Henry was the most beautiful cat—he had soft gray fur, sparkling green eyes, and the sweetest personality. From the moment I held him, I knew he was the love of my life. I would do anything to make sure he was happy and healthy.
I brushed Henry's fur multiple times a day, sometimes for over an hour, to keep it silky and smooth. I used special brushes designed for sensitive cats and had a collection of grooming products to keep him looking perfect. I'd also give him weekly sponge baths with premium cat shampoo, massaging his fur to help him relax. Afterward, I'd blow-dry him on a low setting, making sure he stayed warm and fluffy. I even bought a heated towel to wrap him in after the bath to keep him cozy.
I set up a special corner in my room just for Henry, complete with a massive cat bed, plush cushions, and soft blankets. It was like his own little paradise. I put up fairy lights around the area to give it a magical feel and added a humidifier to keep the air moist. Henry had every kind of toy you could imagine, from feather wands to squeaky mice. I even got him a custom-built cat tree with multiple levels, tunnels, and a hammock. I wanted him to have the best of everything.
I'd give Henry massages every night after his sponge bath. I even bought a book on cat massage therapy to learn the best techniques for my handsome baby. I'd gently rub his shoulders, back, and legs, paying attention to his reactions to make sure he was comfortable. Sometimes I'd kiss him on the head, and yes, even on the lips because he was just so adorable. I'd whisper to him that he was the love of my life and my best friend.
Henry was more than just a pet to me—he was family. I spent more time with him than with my friends because he made me feel safe and loved. He had this way of looking at me that made everything okay. I called him "my sweet prince" because he deserved to be treated like royalty.
Then one day, I came home from school, and Henry was gone. I searched every inch of the house, called his name, and checked outside, but he wasn't there. My dad then told me that he rehomed Henry to a family friend because he thought I was too obsessed with the cat and it wasn't healthy. I was shocked and devastated. How could he do this without even talking to me first? I felt like a part of my heart had been ripped out.
My mom said maybe my dad went too far, but now it's too late. I cried for hours, and I can't even look at my dad without feeling betrayed. He says I can visit Henry, but it's not the same. It's like I've lost the love of my life, and I don't know how to move on.

Hey!
So recently in America there was a news story of Kristel Candelario. The woman who left her infant daughter alone for 4 days to go on vacation
The storyjas messed with my mind so badly. I have an 8mo old baby girl and I keep getting palpitations every time I think of her being hurt like that.
I'm gonna describe the intrusive thoughts that have been plaguing me since hearing the story so trigger warning infant abuse/neglect.
The news story amd court documents described how the baby girl was left to starve in her crib for 4 or more days. Sje was severely malnourished,covered in feces and diaper rash so severe the decomp was accelerated in her diaper area. There was feces found under her nails and in her mouth and she ultimately dies of dehydration. The mom cleaned her up and changed her clothes before taking her to the hospital but the baby already had pooled blood bruising her in spots. The neighbors reported hearing intermittent crying for about 3 days. I keep imagining, dreaming of and getting intrusive thoughts of my daughter in that position. Dead, bloated and covered in feces, 10+lbs lighter than any other child her age. I keep thinking how that baby had to scream from hunger and thirst and how sje just wanted comfort and warmth.
How sje laid down and didn't wake back up. The slow torture that dehydrating, alone and scared in a dark empty room must have been. Eating her own feces to try to fill her screaming belly.
>! When my daughter wakes up in the morning and does her hungry cry I panic, thinking how baby Jalen must have screamed and screamed only to be ignored by even the neighbors. !<
When I have to change a full diaper I just imaging Jalen so uncomfortable and badly chapped that her skin was burned by her mom's neglect
It has been very distressing and I keep trying to put it out of my mind but during feedings, diaper changes, even play time I'm being brought to the brink of panic, as these thoughts flash into my mind. It is like hyper realistic flashing images of my daughter in that state and I start to sweat, shake and feel nauseous.
I feel so dumb for being so affected by it. I didn't know these people and stories similar to this never affected me this much. I feel like I'll be made fun of if I try to express this to my IRL's How can someone get ptsd from a story? I feel dumb but I genuinely think it has affected to that point.

When I clocked in for my shift my OPs Manager did mention something to me that she had made a dummy reservation holding a double room for a guest that was in house and asked to be changed room type from a king room to a double room. The guest comes back at like 7pm and since I saw we had availability for the double rooms I move her to a double room. When I tell my OPs manager she said I shouldn't have done that since the guest has already stayed in the room and it was 7pm there were no housekeepers to service her old room. She told me I had to make the room OOO bc we could not sell it and that when the higher ups see that one room is OOO they were going to scowl me. I told her I didn't think it would be a big deal we had plenty of rooms to sell but you know that hotel owners are money hungry and they just want to sell the room even if theres something wrong with it. She tells the GM and the Gm gives me two options either **I** service the room myself or I get a write up. A write up is a big no-no but I could not help but feel like having ME service the room was so humiliating. That's not my job. I asked if maybe the houseman could do it but she said that wasn't their job and I didn't want to get written up so I just took the L and asked the houseman to give me towels and blankets cause i was going to try to service the room to best of my ability. I contemplated quitting my job for a second on the elevator going up to the room lol. I guess the universe was on my side that day bc when I stepped into the guest's old room it looked like no one had been in the room. Looks like the HK serviced it and all the guest had to do was packher bags and move to the new room. I was so relieved. I learned my lesson. Do not move a guest thats already been In House's room if there are no housekeepers on the property. I told the OPs manager to just lie and tell the GM i serviced the room thinking it would look good on my part. I realized that wouldn't have been the case because the next day my GM kept making jokes because since she thought **I** serviced the room I didn't do a good job she said to not sell the room until HK serviced it. Whatever lol we all make mistakes.

Back in the golden era(in our context), people –who don't know us—used to call Somalis, "The nation of poem or the people of poems" now, we're the only people who don't accept their African ethnicity, and make the other black people feel guilty for being African. We're so racist. And we feel the racism when we landed another country. Remember Boyah J Farah when he wrote his autobiography book called "America Made me a black MAN" marka hore maxaad ahayd?
Two days ago, I think, Sola—I call him kaligii aqoonyahan—said: dadka miyiga jooga sun cream ha la baro, or we will look like African-ka MADOW! Blud is Ogaadeen(you can correct me if I'm wrong) and thinks he's BOSNIAN OR Irish. We hate the black colour, and we're racist as fuck. Do you watched what the reer Mudug guy said about the George Floyd: Xariifkii Madowga ahaa meeshii lagu cunay ayaan joogaa!💀😭

So I just watched the last for eps and I have some thoughts. Feel free to share your own thoughts as well if you like :)
I personally loved the drama, although I am sad of it being over seeing as nothing was resolved and it was only “the beginning”. Even when it came to the mysteries of the season I thought we would at least resolve some but it looks like not…. We never got answers/explanations on the fire incident.. only that time travelling hwan is the man in the cap. The parents past was only hinted a little bit we basically know nothing there too. The story is just left way to open for it to be a satisfying ending.. I fully expected this but it is still disappointing. I knew of the bad things to come but even knowing didn’t prepare me for how depressing and sad those last eps have been… I cried a lot especially in the last two eps. The show just fully delivers when it comes to the emotions.
And all the characters are just so good!!!
-Jooan. I can’t stop praising his actor… He did such a great job with the character and his scenes always hit hard especially in the last episode when he stabs his father. The fact that in difference to the bu storyline he cares and does the most he can to help his father makes everything much more sad. He was holding on to the happy memories of their family and wanted to desperately bring it back. It truly shows how pure and innocent he is underneath all that anger (which makes sense how he developed in this abusive environment). The unfortunate truth is that he must let his father go. Bringing him to his mother,sister was a very wrong decision and he payed the price for it. Side note I would like to know how did the father end up like this?? Him being one of the parents involved in the time travel makes things more complicated.
-Cein. Even knowing what will happen couldn’t prepare me for how sad his death was. The last scene of ep11 hit me so hard. Like he just wants to be understood for who he really is but people won’t give him that chance because of his reputation…even tho he is such a nice person… It is so sad… I don’t dislike the father his problem imo is that he not an empathetic person that can emotionally connect with others. He tries to be but he is not that type of person. He has also been through a lot because of Cein. Him doubting Cein about the death of his mother was a heartbreaking moment for me… He should have had more faith in his son, unfortunately he didn’t even if it was only for a moment. And for Cein who at that point had only been pushing through for the sake of his father it was the nail in the coffin. I know a lot of people love the yoonkook duo but personally my favourite pair was Cein/hwan. And seeing how it was his death that brought hwan to start the time loop was very impactful. Also #justiceforcein He needs to put that slimey principal behind bars for whatever he did to his mom (which was most likely sa) and clear his reputation.
-Haru’s situation is just so tragic….. the boy is just broken. And it is the fault of those failures of parents. Their way of protecting him was so wrong they only worsened his condition, they were more worried about their reputation to the outside world than the emotional wellbeing of their child, they made him ashamed of himself, complicit and full of guilt in their cover up solutions, and emotionally neglected by focusing more on their own feelings, I am fuming!!! The fact that he attempted s*de just to escape them is a depressing situation all around. Him rebelling against them makes sense though being purposely stuck in that hospital is very sad. I just feel so bad for him and wish for him the best. When it comes to the kidnapper guy I have some issues…. I just don’t understand him or his motivations. Like yea he is psycho he kidnaped a boy to torture for fun. But then he decided to instead secretly watch haru for him to find him for years?? And when he did find him he had enough and decided to turn himself in?? why?? And the parents payed him to stay away? Very stupid of them to make a psycho keep any form of promises but ok.
-hwan is an interesting case… Passive as he is in a very toxic environment he lets himself get swayed by the principal and the father. It was frustrating to watch him doing what they tell him, defending the principal and all that but I can understand that it is hard to go against the authority basically in his life, especially as a young teenager. And all of it led to him saying “I’m afraid I’m gonna become like my father” and leaving for America was a development I liked. His father is also such a mystery!!!! His relationship with Cein’s mom, his time travel attempts that he forgot all about… He is a very bad person now to his son and a dirty politician with the most outrageous thing he did being trying to kill dogeon with the principal?!? But from my knowledge of the bu I can guess that he wasn’t always like that. So the question is what led him to become the way he is???
-Dogeon is actually such a nice person. Mature and forgiving who wouldn’t want him as a friend??? The amount of responsibilities he gets on his shoulders with all those jobs to provide for his family where others should have bailed. Working until exhaustion to low grade underpaid jobs when he is capable for so much more is so sad and unfair to watch. Him breaking down to his mom asking her to save him was heartbreaking. And that moment he let all his frustrations out to jooan was very understandable you can only take so much as one person and some times you have to put yourself first. It is not selfish but a necessary step for self preservation. Of course my heart broke for jooan having to hear that he is burden to the one person he thought he could rely on. The rift that was created after that between them was unfortunate but it also shows how much jooan cares about his friend that he decided to distance himself for his sake.
-Hosu: Despite all his trauma and his problems being able to maintain a positive attitude and be cheery is such an admirable trait!! Even when it comes to his mother he holds no ill towards her but just wants her to be happy?? He is just too kind! I mean it is no wonder why haru would rely to such a person so much!! And he never tells anyone of his troubles like with those bullies in the last ep (that dogeon brothers is with). I feel like he doesn’t want to worry other people nor burden them with his problems… But boy it’s ok to rely on others from time to time and ask for help!! He also feels guilty for what happened to haru…. How much can one silently take on?
-jeha it’s very interesting how he is the one that found the book… and baby it is not your fault the group split up! He is so worried of people disliking him he assumes it immediately.. And all the guilt both him and Cein have after the incident is too much… I still wonder when he started tracking Cein? When and how did they meet? And how come jeha became so attached to him? I feel like we need some clarification on that cause why would someone be in a group with older people without some circumstance being involved. Unpopular opinion maybe I but I don’t dislike Jeha’s mom as much as the others.Yes she is letting him get abused by the stepfather to prevent them from getting kicked out and yea she did want to put the blame on Cein for their own benefit… but I do feel that she genuinely cares about her son and that is her way of doing “what is best for them” and I can’t hate that sentiment.

Let me share my 3000h of modded wisdom with you, my fellow vanilla comrades. My attempt here is to provide you with as many as possible improvements to the base game while keeping the style, balance, and content as vanilla as possible. As they say, when it works the best is when you don't realize it is there. I guarantee you that after playing for a while with these, you will no longer be able to tell what's from the base game and what's not.
You don't know how to mod? Maybe this very basic guide will help. Please, note that many mods come with options to tune up your experience. It is recommended you give them a look.
You can find the steam collection here. Be aware that some of these mods require the DLCs. You don't have the DLCs? Just don't use the mod.
Dependencies:

• Harmony + Huglibs. Required by so many mods, you may as well be done with it and always have them.
• Vanilla Expanded Framework. While not as radically necessary as the previous ones, it's still a dependency fairly common. And this one actually does cool things on its own, like loading new modded factions without having to start a new game.
• XML Extensions. You won't be able to access the options of some mods without this.

Performance

• Dub performance analyzer. Enable the optimizations and override options, you can ignore everything else. If you want to disable alerts, use rocketman.
• Rocketman. By default, it should be good enough. This mod also allows to disable alerts you may don't care about, like, dunno, tattered apparel or unhappy nudity. It is recommended to run adaptive move occasionally (in stat cache settings).
• Performance Optimizer. More hacker magic. If you don't like the UI changes, you can disable them in the options. This mod does more performance stuff aside from that, so use it anyway!
• Performance Fish. You will have to install this mod manually, since it's not available in the workshop. You will also need to install its dependencies, Fishery and Prepatcher. Please, be aware that at the present there's an issue in which linking storages crashes the game. However, this can be prevented by disabling "TryFindBestBetterStoreCellFor" in the options.

Minor changes

• Optimization Meats. Unless you really want dozens of different meat types for some weird role-play reason, this mod will reduce the bloat on your kitchens.
• Better Animal Tab
• Better Info Card
• Conduit Deconstruct. A button to exclusively dismantle power conduits.
• Disable Automatically Select Travel Supplies
• Improved Need Indicator
• Map Preview. You can reroll as well!
• Prepare Landing. You can search world tiles matching your conditions. Goes great with Map Preview.
• Medical Tab. An easy way to overview your colony health.
• More Harvest Designators! e.g. harvest only fully growth plants.
• ModDiff. Great improvement of the mod mismatch screen.
• Pharmacist Temporary Update. Instead of always using the best medicine, now your pawns can use the appropriate medicine for the situation. No longer will they spent glitterworld meds on scratches!
• Smart Turret Covering. Fixes an issue with turret covers.
• PawnTargetFix. So that the autotarget prioritizes the closest enemy.
• Poisoned Food Stack Fix (Fix). Fixes an issue with meal stacks.
• Priority Treatment Ressurected. Doctors will finally prioritize keeping your pawns alive over taking a nap. Disable the option that prevents injured pawns from performing surgery, it has issues.
• QualityBuilder. You can set up a target level for furniture, and your pawns will reconstruct it until it's achieved. If I remember correctly, it's enabled by default for all new furniture? You can turn that off in options.
• RPG Style Inventory Revamped. Much better looking inventory.
• Replace Stuff. Allows to directly replace buildings, without having to deconstruct first.
• Research Tree. A better research tree.
• RimHUD. The best mod of the whole list, it will save you A TON of clicks.
• RimSaves. Overhaul of the save menu.
• Show Known Techprints on the trade screen.
• Show mechanoid weapons on the info screen.
• Smarter Construction. No more babysitting pawns when building walls.
• Stack gap. By default, pawns constantly refill storages. With this mod, you can configure it so that storages are refiled only when they're empty.
• Sun Lamp Honesty. Fixes an issue with sun lamps
• Just Put It Over There. Traders will deliver the merchandise, instead of dropping it on the ground.
• Trade Ships Drop Spot. Mark the spot in which orbital traders will deliver the merchandise, instead on whenever they feel like it. Doesn't work inside animal pens.
• Trading Options. Configure how frequent you want the traders to be.
• WVC. More work modes for the mechanitor.
• Save Settings. Allows you to save and load storage, production, and clothes settings. Works cross-save!
• No Max Bills. Removes the bill cap on workbenches.
• Better ground-penetrating scanner
• Colored deep resources
• Common Sense. Feel free to configure however you like it. I prefer it like this.
• Dubs Mint Menus. Improvements to a bunch of menus.
• Better Pawn Control. Improved management policies.
• Animals Logic. A lot of useful animal-related improvements. Disable the meat option if you're using Optimization Meats.
• Non uno Pinata. Pawns don't drop items when downed. Configurable.
• Bulk Smelting will save you precious time.
• Stonecutting Extended. The same as the previous mod, but for stones.
• Electric Stonecutting Table. To speed up the stonecutting even more.
• Faster Smoothing, a must for all mountain/underground out there.
• Do Your F****** Research. You can order pawns to research.
• Go the Fork to Sleep. You can order pawns to sleep.
• Meal Radius. Configure how far pawns will search for a table to eat.
• Home radius. Configure the size of the automatic home area.
• Smarter Visitors. Visitors will leave if things get dangerous.
• Custom Guilt Duration. Executions in vanilla are a pain because the guilty status goes away too fast. Now you can configure it.
• Dress Patients. Allows dressing of downed pawns.
• Way Better Romance
• Hunters Use Melee
• Injured Carry. Allows to rescue not downed pawns, no longer you have to wait for the bleeding to down them.
• Not My Fault. The player is no longer responsible for unrelated deaths on the map.
• Deep Storage + Simple Storage. Improves stockpile management.
• Pick Up And Haul. Improved hauling.
• While You're Up. Complement for the previous mod. Keep in mind that these two mods will trivialize part of the challenge by freeing a lot of time from your colonists. Just, dunno, turn up the difficulty a notch or something.
• Trading Spot. Marks where you want traders to stop on your map. It's a must if you use a desired path mod (I don't know if they have been updated to 1.5 yet).
• Vanilla Base Generation Expanded. Improved NPC base generation.
• Cut plants before building
• Psychic Harmonizer Lag Fix
• Fellow Ideology players, you're welcome.
  • Style Change Anytime
  • Persistent Precepts

Major changes

• Dubs Bad Hygiene. Plumbing!
• Vanilla Temperature Expanded. Lot of useful temperature-related buildings, as well as proxy heat, a very cool mechanic. Some buildings are redundant with the previous mod, just don't research the ones that you don't want.
• Death Rattle + Biosculpter Patch + Life Support. Changes the behavior of mortal wounds so they're not instakills.
• Dynamic Flooding. Inundations!
• Some Things Float. I recommend disabling the chance of pawns loosing their footing.
• Layered Wall Destruction. Walls aren't just destroyed, they become debris. Note that there's an issue in which the debris will spawn home areas.
• Yayo's Combat. Combat overhaul. You can disable the ammunition system if it's not your thing.
• Character Editor. Allows you to edit and save/load pawns.
• RunAndGun. Allows to use guns while moving, with penalties to accuracy. Don't enable the dual wield or search and destroy modules, they won't work.
• EPOE Forked. Fills in the gaps of surgery content in the base game. I recommend disabling the additional workstations and enabling direct crafting only. Less micromanagement, more fun.

Balance

• Beautiful Jade
• Almostthere1.5. Caravans no longer go to sleep two hours away from their destination.
• Stepping Stones. A more reasonable research path.
• Dubs Break Mod makes it so that severe mental breaks require severe negative thoughts.
• Fists Aren't Made of Steel. Reduces the unarmed melee damage, making prison breaks and tantrums much less frustrating.
• No Burn Metal. Sets the flammability of metal buildings, and others, to zero.
• Prisoners Fear Turrets
• Realistic Rooms Rewritten. Allows to tweak how pawns perceive room sizes.
• Ugh You Got Me. Social fights stop when pawns are sufficiently hurt or in pain. Doesn't affect masochists or psychopaths.
• Better Pyromania. Way less frustrating.
• Mortar Accuracy. Improves mortar mechanics.
• Graze up. Grazing rebalanced.
• Better Camp Loot
• Snap Out! Wardens can try to calm down pawns on mental breaks. "Try" is the keyword here.
• Peer Pressure. Opinions matter when converting someone.
• Better Gene Inheritance
• Vanilla Genes Rebalanced
• Gene Trader. Getting xenogenes it's hard, this should easy the burden a bit.

Content

• Sparkling Worlds. A bit of everything.
• Vanilla Traits Expanded. More traits.
• Vanilla Backstories Expanded. More backstories.
• Vanilla Chemfuel Expanded. Rimefeller but with less bloat.
• Vegetable Garden. More farmable plants.
• Vanilla Persona Weapons Expanded + More Persona Traits. More persona weapon variety.
• More Ideological Words + More Religious Origins. More ideology variety
• Events
  • Factional War
  • Raid Extension
  • Go Explore!
  • Vanilla Events Expanded
• Buildings
  • Blooming hedges
  • Panels & Frames
  • Simply More Bridges
  • Thrones plus
  • Tribal Crib
  • Utility Columns
  • Medieval deathrest coffin
  • Metallic Batteries. You can ignore the error, it'll work anyway.
  • Reinforced Walls
  • ReSplice: Core
• Gear
  • Crowns and Regalia
  • Fallout New Vegas - Elite Riot Gear
  • Maid Outfits :3
  • Wheelchairs

Atmospheric changes

• Interaction Bubbles + SpeakUp. Better social interactions.
• Enemy Self Preservation. Enemies severely hurt may try to flee.
• No One Left Behind. Fleeing enemies try to rescue their downed allies.
• Memorable Auroras. They now have a meaningful -if still small- impact.
• Sand Castles. The snowmen of the beaches. Or the deserts.
• Sandstorms
• Graying Hair. So that hair goes gray gradually with age.
• Childrens Drawings
• ReGrowth. Overhaul of biomes and much more!
• My Little Planet. If you're tired of supercontinents, but still want a smaller board, set planet coverage to 100%, and use the new planet size slider instead.
• Geological Landforms. New map shapes.
• Biome Transitions. More organic border biomes.
• Death Acidifiest. Vanilla death acidifier is lame, this is much cooler.
• Graphics
  • Yayo's Animation
  • Trait and Backstory Icons
  • Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Icons and Symbols
  • Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Relics and Artifacts
  • Vanilla Races Expanded - Custom Icons
  • Bionic icons
  • Spectacular Skullspike. They're rotable now!
  • Muzzle Flash
  • More Mini-Horns
  • Better Explosions
  • Better Vanilla Masking
  • Graphic Chair Overhaul 2
  • Not Overhead Meal
  • Graphics Settings+
  • Show Hair With Hats or Hide All Hats. This one takes a while to set up to your preferences, but oh it's so worth it.
  • Cuter Biotech Cat/Dog Ear Replacer. If you don't like the meat-colored animal ears from Biotech, this is for you!
  • Blood Animations
  • Gunplay. Trails can break some mods. If that happens, disable trails in options.
• Retextures
  • Parka Retexture
  • Retextured Apparel
  • Retextured Sculptures
  • Vanilla Beards Retextured
  • Vanilla Hair Retextured
  • Vanilla Pawns Retextured
  • Marbled Marble
  • Essentials: Stone (the stat changes won't work)
  • Vanilla Textures Expanded - Variations
  • Vanilla Textures Expanded
  • I Hate Daylilies
  • Biotech Mechanoid Retexture
  • Tastier Vanilla Clothes
  • Van's Steel
  • Glowing Healroot
  • More Vanilla Textures
• Audio
  • Ambient Rim
  • Realistic Human Sounds. Not very vanilla, but certainly very funny.
  • Actually Vanilla Music Expansion
  • P-Music
• Hairs
  • Erin's Hairstyles
  • Hard Times
  • Rimsenal Hair + Retextured
  • Roo's Hairstyles
  • Roo's Royalty Hairstyles
  • The Vanity Project
  • Won hair_men + Retextured
  • Won hair_women + Retextured

Bonus: comics! And the occasional animation. I noticed newbies aren't aware of these, so I linked the profiles of all the artists I could remember. Sorry if I missed someone. u/daleksdeservevictory, u/AzulCrescent, u/AetherealVanguard, u/ATTF , u/Aelanna , srgrafo, u/Fonzawa, u/Ivancmedia, u/zyll3, u/meto30, u/AeolysScribbles, u/cavalier753, u/GABESTFY, u/VectorData, u/arxian, u/Nguyenanh2132, u/sorrowful_dance, u/meto30, u/-desdinova-, u/truffli

Hello everyone and good afternoon, morning or night if you read this just know I’m glad you clicked on me and to read my idea and I hope you enjoy reading it!!
[F4A] Surviving on a deserted island
Originally, the plan for Nariko had been to spend a nice relaxing vacation, a week long vacation on a beach side resort, endless food and drinks, fancy dinners and entertainment, the whole package. Things had started off well too, the airline was handing out drinks and snacks, the flight started off smooth, and all the passengers seemed happy.
It wasn’t until a couple of hours into the flight where things had gotten a bit shaky. Turbulence is normal on almost any flight, it’s just a part of flying, but this amount was unsettling, and not only had the seatbelt light come on, but an announcement from the captain had gone through as well.
When the plane started to go down unexpectedly, panic broke out, screams of terror, it had all gotten so loud…and then just silence. Was she dead? Is this what death was? Just silence? Then, slowly, she could hear the sound of water. Waves, to be exact, coming and going, lapping against land.
As she slowly came to, she could feel cold wet sand under her. Her entire body felt sore and in pain, but she was alive, and miraculously uninjured. As Nariko sat up on the beach, she could see half of the plane on the beach, and the other half further into the water. At a quick glance, she was the only survivor, and it hadn’t really settled that she had washed up on a remote island. She was basically accepting defeat, until she heard something or someone move behind him.
And if you guys didn’t like that idea I got one more plot which I hope y’all like😁
Plot2: It has been 12 years since the collapse of humanity due to nuclear warfare all over the world, everyone hid in their underground bunkers and many unlucky people perished over he years due to radiation or other humans. The world has become chaotic and groups have been formed by various kinds of people, all trying to protect themselves and survive. In the fictional country that our characters reside in, their is a militaristic rule over the land with tons of raiders on the prowl outside in what's called "The Frontier". Our characters are people living in a community under the military, learning to be medics and fighters to be sent off outside the walls for scavenging for a year. A person is chosen from every block once they turn 21 to be sent into training in preparation for the outside world and (un)luckily both our characters have been chosen this year. (There more to it if your interested in this one let me know, and I’m sorry if I late reply)
And plot 3 is like the walking dead or we can do the one that is basically the same plot as the game the forest but without the kid
(If you made it this far I’m glad!! ^{^} please dm me and if I reply late please forgive me as Reddit notifications doesn’t pop up all the time)

Context: She grew up in south America with very religious and controlling parents. They had access to all her social media accounts and even had a camera in her room. They regularly checked all her conversations and emails. Also she was never allowed to go to any parties, not even our prom. She went to an only girls school and her parents didn't even allow her to talk to guys. After graduating she moved alone to Germany, following her dreams and beginning to study medicine. Her parents moved to Spain. In Germany her parents still tried to control her. They had her location, access to her bank account and email (not social media anymore). When they saw she left her place they face-timed her to ask where she was going and who she was with. Guys obviously weren't allowed to enter her apartment. Whenever she did something that upset her parents they immediately threatened her with cutting off the money she received.
In her second semester she started her first relationship. Her parents thought, in the three months they were dating, they had only kissed twice. (They are both 19, of course they were having sex). One day she sent intimate photos of them to her email. When she realised her parents had access to it she immediately deleted them, but forgot to remove them from the Deleted folder. Her parents found the images and called her. They told her she was "easy" and they couldn't believe she'd open her legs for somebody that quickly. (Her first time with her bf was after dating for three months, but it's still a premarital relation). They also told her she ruined the relationship they had with her and her relationship with her sisters. They then took away all of her savings. Her dad took a plane without telling her to stay with her in Germany. He had a talk with her and told her that virginity is a woman's most important asset. And that she had to drop out of med-school and go to live with them in Spain. She obviously didn't want to, so she made a deal with her dad that she would fly back to Spain with him, stay there for a few days to explain everything and convince her mom to let her stay in Germany. The second she got to Spain her dad told her that they weren’t going to let her go back. She left all of her stuff in Germany and won’t be able to pick it up, since her parents don’t trust that she won’t run away. She wasn’t able to say goodbye to any of her friends and doesn’t know if she’ll see them and her boyfriend again. Her parents also found out that she was planning on contacting the authorities in Germany to find out what she could do legally, and shamed her for it, asking how she could be able to do something like that to them. She recently decided to enrol in the university in Spain, changing her degree, and leaving behind the life and dreams she was building up in Germany, since she feels powerless to stand up against her parents.
That's where the situation is right now. We've tried to convince her to stand up to them but with no success. Thanks for reading all of this, what are your thoughts?

To sum the whole story up, Argentina was one of the first countries to end slavery in Latin America, with a partial ban of it in 1813 and a full on ban in 1853, a period in which we had about a 30% black population, but in the late 19th century and early 20th century, we had a boom in mostly italian immigrants (but generally a LOT of european immigrants) who came to the sparsely populated country and, to put it very bluntly, started screwing anything that moved, leaving us with a predominantly italian/spanish mix in the population, which made the percentage of black population drop like crazy without actually killing off people of african origins. I have seen a fairly noticeable surge of people complaining of Argentina being white as if we actively hunted dark skinned people to extintion instead of what actually happened, which is that we mixed a lot and then had a boom in white immigration.
What I want to know is: do people from your country have a problem with us being lighter-skinned than most countries outside of europe?

I have run the last 7 days , average 7 hours and I have not made 50 bucks in any day , thank God for Uber or I'd be broke. Doordash doesn't realize that when you are in a beach town , all the restaurants are lined up close to the beach so when you get a 6 dollar order and it's 25 miles away , that's a 50 mile round trip and you will not get any orders till you are back in your area

Chapter 3: Dynamic Exist
Memory transcript : Farusl Archivist Tyka Date: 2277 August 21st [human standard time]
Tyka yawned, he had been monitoring several of the predator cages for a while trying to gauge their reactions, these were new catches from another region which was vastly different to the other side of the continent which by comparison was stable, these more eastern humans were almost all completely feral, ascribing totemic tribal practices with lethal weaponry, it was saddening.
“Terrifying creatures these humams….even the Arxur wouldn't be able to survive a total atomic annihilation yet these humans, who by all accounts are physically weaker than the Arxur, seem to have survived remarkibly well”
The calculating tone of the elder Officer Netly said peering over into the security monitor watching the newest catches, most of whome seemed to be violent marauders of some kind,and if the toxicology reports were to be believed extremely intoxicated prior to capture
“Well HC-1380 was clean….it why we've placed HC-2251 with them, they both passed with a clean bloodstream and 1380 seemed….mildly more docile than the other recent arrivals”
Tyka said as Netly raised her muzzle in contempt
“A predator is a predator, docile is not in there nature no matter how docile it may seem”
She said as Tyka openly scoffed
“I will admit many new acquisitions may be more feral than expected but the fact that we HAVE found humans who are not as violent should be seen as a boon, infact the nuclear devastation could be a benefit, they may be more willing to partake in the cure if it means that they can live out of the Wasteland”
“And how exactly would we do that, most of there genomes Are irreparable damaged by atomic Fallout and residual radiation, it would take decades to repair there existing genome let alone provide an appropriate Cure for eating flesh. Let alone there awful gaze” Netly spat indignantly, clearly insulted at the notion of a feral species could ever be uplifted to a proper sentient species is laughable
“Ahh But that's where you are misinformed Netly, you see her?” Tyka said tapping a paw to the monitor, it was the two new arrivals he had discusted eariler
“The scavenger and the pale one? What significant are they?” She asked confused as Tyka let out a slight smirk
“There genetic code suggests limited to no genetic damage, HC-2251 for example has no significant radiological degradation, she's as close as clean as you can get, And according to the lab, her UV intake, the thiny that gives humans bare skin there pigments? Its limbited suggesting a sheltered lifestyle, possibly one with a stable, equally pure gene stock of other untouched humans!”
Netly was shocked to say the least, from virtually every other predator they had captured they had all shown signs of genetic damage or severe mutation due to radiological exposure, of Tyka was correct…there was a possibility that the Original cure that was designed for humanity could be distributed
“If that is true, where could they possibly be located? We have satellites pointing All over the continent and wed be able to see a large, functional human tribe, like those desert tribes to the east” Netly said as Tyka nodded
“If they were on the surface, i postulate that they may be subterranean and i believe the answer likes in 2251s arm mounted computer. We plan on removing it after another checkup but the lab has had troubles devising a method of removing it without killing her since the device Is somehow attached to her by some biometric seals were having difficulties cracking but by her next interview”
Tyka said, and before Netly could respond a security alarm blamed, forcing the two to shift their focus away from there Conversation to the monitors, it was HC-2251 and HC-1380, the two were fighting, Tyka could only imagine it was for dominance, predators were such a precious bunch but at least they lacked claws, that was the thought until a trial of blood was seen spilling from 2251's nose!
“Ancestors! Netly send a security team to break that up and isolate 2251 as soon as possible, if she dies then we loose any lead on finding more undamaged human stock!”
Memory transcript: Abigail Nelson, vault dweller and current show fighter
The hits were all staged but every so often to get across the idea they Were real every other hit randomly connected with enough force to show it, that was Somah’s plan, make them think They were fighting for some reason, Somah had said that fights like these were was drew in security to stun them and break up the fight, which was also Why they didn't want to actually hurt one another, because if one or both of them got hurt they'd not only be separated and isolated like Somah was after her first attempt, and after getting socked In the face and giving her a light bloody nose. It worked as the door opened and in poured…..cocker spaniels? Chest-tall, wall eyed, cocker spaniels in rubber suits welding cattle prods.
In a flash Somah kicked up the metal tray that the measly alien veggies were delivered on, using it to bash in the muzzle of one, drawing the other three's attention away letting Abigail slam her bawled fisted into the temple of one of the aliens, causing it to slam into another causing them both to frankly…..easily drop to the floor, the lot of them whining and whimpering, clutching their heads as Somah grabbed one of their weapons, tossing one to Abigail as Somah made for the exit, having to brush off the shock of alien dog men she followed her new companion close behind.
“Were those…..dogs?” Abigail asked in surprise running along side Somah as the two raced down the hall as alarms blared overhead
“Yeah, I kinda forgot to mention that, didn't I? They look like Pre-War dogs with weird Brahman eyes,” she shrugged nonchalantly to Abbies confusion. The two suddenly stopped in a side room with an air vent, somah watched the corners and seemingly satisfied pulled Abigail in, and motioned her to be quiet. Before she could question why she heard the squeaking of booted paws run past them and somah only spook once the sound seemed sufficiently distant.
“Alright …..we're in the clear, are you ok-” Before Somah could continue she was meet with a smack across her face from Abigail
“That was for hitting me in my nose!” She spat rubbing her once prestigious white jumpsuit with her red viscous fluid leaking from her nose.
“Okay…I deserve that,” Somah admitted, rubbing her cheek “Honestly, I expected something worse, but I deserved it,” She says as Abigial noticed exactly where they were exactly. “Wait….are we in a alien supply closet”
Somah looked around, noticing the abundant sealed boxes written in alien script, one slightly open revealing some kind of rag or cloth That Abigail readily swiped to help stem her nose’s red trickle.
“Okay so, back on track, we need to find a way off this ship, last time I checked were still over Earth” Somah said as Abigail looked back at her
“How would we know?” She asked pinching her nose*
“Because you can feel when the ship moves, and they have announcements in English” She says which just made Abigail’s eyes go wide.
“They speak english?!” Abby said shocked as Somah nodded, “Then why the FUCK would they lock us up without saying anything?!”
She spat as Somah tried to get her to calm down “Honesty, I don't know, the only thing I do know is what I've heard from some of the guards, something about us being Acquisitions and a cure…I think there trying to collect us a labor force for whatever reason”
That reason resonated with Abigail in a disturbing way, the way the cells were arranged reminded her uncomfortably of Paradise Falls
“But why us?” She asked as Somah began looking around the small storeroom
“It makes sense to me, humans survived a nuclear apocalypse and they want a slave force for there homeworld, it's not like humans can fight back in any way, swoop down, suck up a town into your hold and zip away. They're probably checking to see what diseases we have to make sure we don't bring back any plagues and to inoculate us to theirs.”
The logic tracked, Paradise Falls had a rigorous system for assessing new….cattle to ensure they weren't feeble or lame, Just thinking that alone made her sick to her stomach.
“Alright, but we should stop them, force them to capitulate, somehow, and free everyone onboard!” Abby declared as Somah scoffed.
“And how exactly do we do that, Vaulty? “Ask nicely and hold out a flag of peace and tranquility?” She asked sarcastically as Abigail tried to rack her brain. What would Dad do in a situation like this…. This wasn't like the vault….but that's when it hit her. This alien ship…. Maybe it was like a vault, if it's so big and would need alot of…. Well, everything, to move from planet to planet. Maybe, like a vault, if they crippled certain systems, maybe, they could stop them.

“As a matter a fact, I do have a plan” Abigail said with smirk, removing the now stained towel as Somah raised a brow to her as Abigail regained her plan to her scribe accomplice.

Chapter 3 is done and I feel pretty good about it but escape scenes Aren't my forte im afraid, as usual I adore everyone who reads and enjoys it, I'll have proper links set up to go back to previous chapters sometime later I hope yall enjoy!
First
Previous
Previous [mini chapter]

The "Hippie Trail" was an overland backpacking route that ran from Western Europe to India, Nepal and Thailand, travelled by thousands of people from North America and Western Europe from the mid-1950s until 1979, when the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Players would be in control of a party of travellers heading from the UK on this journey in a VW-type van, having to:

• Manage money - and exchange it!
• Make sure the members are fed, watered and healthy.
• Deal with the various requests from the party to go to various places or get certain souvenirs.
• Make sure there's enough petrol in the tank and the vehicle is in good condition, especially as garages get harder to come by going further east.
• Obtain visas and deal with bureaucrats, some of whom will want bribes.

The goal would be to get to Kathmandu with as many points as possible, based on:

• Souvenirs
• Money left
• Happiness of the party
• Other achievements.

You would travel between various cities along the way with multiple routes to choose. From example - do you do the direct and cheaper route through central Yugoslavia or the scenic route down the coast? Which way do you go through Türkiye?
Money could be made by:

• Working in bars or other places.
• Buying and selling goods across borders... including illegal ones. You run the risk of getting your vehicle searched at the border crossings.
• Completing various quests in the cities.
• Donating blood.

There would be dangers and challenges along the way like:

• Bandits, who you will have to deal with. Possibly in a minigame.
• Dangerous animals, like tigers and snakes.
• Road crashes,
• Someone having a bad reaction to some drugs,
• An argument with the locals that turns violent - and the police take their side!
• Someone insults the local dictator and gets arrested.
• A member ending up being wanted by the authorities. Do you hand them over or try to smuggle them out of the country?
• Being caught smuggling - can you get your party member out of prison?
• The weather - like being snowed in on an Afghan pass.
• Various diseases, including dysentery.
• A woman wants to you to help her escape an arranged marriage - what do you do?

You would also not have access to modern mobile phones - you'd need to find a telephone or post office to send telegrams.
Characters would not die, but they would be incapacitated enough for their adventure to end.
I am personally thinking this would look good in a pixel-art style, myself. I like the idea of a cute pixel youth hostel or Greek beach.