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ArdillaVerde93's Game Reviews #3: Tekken Tag Tournament 2
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By Temaelrin
When is a NAS no longer just a NAS?
Since Synology, apparently.
I remember when a NAS (Network Attached Storage) was just a NAS, and whilst I like the features ingrained in a Synology NAS sometimes for lower end NAS’s it’s a bit much even for it to handle and it drags the device down. Now before any fan boys start kicking off, hear me out. I don’t think this is a bad thing as such, at all. I see it as giving the user a choice as to what they want to use their NAS for, and the rest they have to decide on. If they have feature X; they can have feature Y and feature Z but it might choke on that. Unless they have a more higher-end NAS that can handle it. I am pro-choice in this regard (And no, that’s not a political statement).
I used to have a Netgear Stora MS2110 which was slow, loud and frankly the worst NAS I ever owned. It had a read (download) rate of around 1.5MBps, and a write (upload) rate of around 750KBps. It had a loud fan and the hard drives in it echoed around the machine and you could really hear the clicking of the heads flying across the disk and all around crunching of the hard drive that hard drives made back then.
@Manni introduced me to Synology though as a user, he was an administrator of a NAS and I had access via the web interface and it was the strangest thing I had ever seen. Eventually I went onto eBay and found that these NAS’s started at around £140 - £190 for the DS212j, at buy it now, although some started at £250.
So a premium brand then?
I then found one on eBay starting at 0.99p and was currently at £17.52 with a few days left and decided ‘why the fuck not?’ and put my opening max price at £30, with plans to go up to £40 and have an upper limit of £50. I didn’t really matter too much though; because on the 25th of October I won it for £28.00.
Item: Synology 212J 1 TB NAS Price I paid: £28.00 Shipping: £7.50 (Courier) Total Cost: £35.50 Came With: Network Cable, Power Supply, Two HDD’s (500GB) The package arrived on time, and it seemed to be extremely well packed wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. The first thing I did however was open it up (Of course!) and take a look inside, the hard drives in the unit came out, and I gave the machine a quick clean down and replaced the CMOS battery with a Kodak Button Cell 3V lithium battery. Taking the device apart was actually insanely easy, and this is the whole computer board:
That’s pretty much it. There is a board that goes off and acts as the LEDs and power button as well as a board that extends the SATA ports for the hard drives, but this is pretty much the hub of the NAS right there. I am hoping that I can somewhat overclock the processor, or something or add a heat sink on it with adhesive thermal pads but I am not currently sure how feasible this is.
Initial Specs:
Marvell Kirkwood 88F6281 (Sheeva 88SV131 CPU core) (Feroceon 88FR131) @ 1.2GHz - Single Core L1 Data cache = 16 KB. L1 Instruction cache = 16 KB. L2 cache = 256 KB. DDR SDRAM Controller DDR2 400 MHz, Dual channel, 16-bit, 3.2 GB/s. supports up to four DRAM banks (four DRAM chip selects). supports all DDR2 devices with densities up to 2 Gb. supports up to 32 open pages (page per bank). It supports DRAM bank interleaving, as well as open pages (up to eight pages per chip select). Up to 2 GB total address space. DDR:CPU Clock ratio of 1:N and 2:N support. support for 2T mode. supports up to a 128-byte burst per single transaction from the Mbus port. supports up to a 32-byte burst per single transaction from the Mbus-L port. contains a transaction queue, read and write buffers. It can absorb up to 4 transactions of 128 byte each, in its buffers. Transactions from the Mbus are pushed into the transaction queue. The SDRAM controller arbitrates between the transaction from the top of the queue and transactions received from the CPU Mbus-L path, always giving priority to the CPU. For a CPU read from the DRAM, read data is not pushed to the read buffer. It goes directly to the CPU bus interface unit via a 64-bit wide Mbus-L path. This minimizes read latency. Cache: 256MB RAM 1000Mbps Ethernet Connection Hardware wise; there isn’t really all that much to show you, the motherboard of the device is shown above, this is the the SATA Bridge:
Which I find absolutely interesting. The one towards the top of the picture (As the unit is upside down compared to the next image) is HDD Slot 2, where as the one on the bottom is HDD Slot 1. HDD Slot 1’s SATA connector looks very different to HDD Slot 2, noticeably the port between data and power. This is what I was talking about with the server hard drives in part 3 of my Shit I brought from eBay, the hard drives in that server will only fit into the HDD Slot 1, not HDD Slot 2, because of how the ports are made. They’re both as far as I can tell - SATA, except one seems to have a gap between the power and data where as the other has a stop bar that isolates the ports. I defined the difference as being SATA/SAS But who knows. I could be wrong. Please feel free to correct me in the comments below.
This is what the NAS looks like with the hard drives in:-
As you can see from the top screws, these are screws that I have replaced, they have rubber washers around them (As you can see in blue) this is what I put in to further reduce the vibrations caused by the hard drives (which translates as noise) by absorbing the shock of it. At least that was my theory. I have no idea how loud this was before this modification.
When I plugged it in and got it set up I learnt that there was an update for the device which I downloaded and installed… Immediately bricking my NAS. It wanted me to open the port forwarding on my router and contact Synology so they can access it and unbrick it.
“Get fucked” I thought. Then I tried to do it myself… Telnet was disabled, SSH was disabled, and nothing was working. The device was completely inaccessible and refused to boot. I had a similar problem with the Netgear Stora once, and I remembered what I needed to do.
I took the hard drives out, and decided to mount them as a RAID under a Linux Installation on my computer and scan them to see if they were properly formatted before I came to own them (They were! They had absolutely no data on them from the previous owner) and I wiped them clean with a binary zero write from the first sector to the last. Although I could have used Windows DiskPart to delete everything off of them, and clean the drives up. I put them both back into the device and used the Synology setup manager to restore DSM - and it worked!
Once it had installed, as I was only going to go around and test it, because the HDDs were going to get used in my Part 4 project (My IBM Server), I decided to play arounnd with the interface and settings and I did some file transfer tests. So during my test, with the Synology version of RAID enabled, I installed an anti-virus scanner because I figured that this thing is going to be connected to the network, it’d be good to have a layer of protection on there, and I didn’t think anything of it.
So I went to test the transfer speeds and… Oh my.
The speeds were not very encouraging; as what I was seeing was zero bytes per second, that would occasionally jump to to several megabytes per second before crashing back down to zero bytes. After logging into the Web Panel I could see why.
The CPU spikes up to 100% and the transfer crashes. When the CPU calms down the transfer goes back up and causes the CPU to spike up to 100% which crashes the speed of the transfer back down to zero again. Repeatedly. Whilst this is objectively better than my Netgear Stora, it still wasn’t good.
So I did some research and put it off for a few weeks whilst I started writing up Part 1, 2, 3 and 4 of this miniseries. During part 4 I decided to move a 4TB HDD from my PC which had been previously acting up in my computer. But it was only going to serve the purpose as a backup drive in the NAS because after repeated hammering tests on the drive I cannot make the failure appear again and it seems to be otherwise fine. The NAS will serve the purpose as a backup drive, to back up data from the local network.
So let's now talk about DSM, specifically DSM 6.2:
When you go to the location that the NAS is installed on (as a website address) you’re presented with a login screen (That can actually customise and change to some degree) like you can see above. Once you’re logged in you’re then presented with a desktop environment essentially:
From here you can pretty much set up the rest of the device and how it sits on your Network, as well as set up user accounts and install features on your NAS.
So let's take a look at the control panel:
In here you have several options as you can see above that has own tree of sub menus and sub options you can look at although I won’t be putting the screenshots of which into this document.
The first item “Shared Folder” which allows you to create root(ish) level directories when viewing the NAS through the Windows Networking Explorer for the NAS. These can be locked to different permissions so if you want a folder that only user 1 can see, and not user 2, you can indeed set that up, or if you want it so that user 2 only has read access - this again is possible. I kept mine to just one; as it allowed me to easily mount it as one drive (Via Map Network Drives) under Windows:
Which allows me easy access to the NAS.
The Shared Folder setting also lets you control encryption of the folder, although I haven’t used it. I don’t think the CPU can handle it (And I will explain why in a moment).
In the “File Services” page you can set up the following:
SMB/AFP/NFS FTP/SFTP TFTP Rsync Bonjour SSDP WS-Discovery The only services I have enabled here is SMB (Samba) and SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) which allows my device to be detectable under the Windows Network, but also locks it down from being accessed from the outside, which is a layer of protection under the NAT on the router to prevent outside access to the NAS. But you can set it up so you can access your NAS from the internet - which means you can access for files anywhere. But in my opinion you’re opening yourself up to some trouble.
Consider this: You can already find Synology NAS’s that are open online merely by searching Google for it (I’m not going to give the key phrase here) but I have done it, and I can confirm you can do it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you’re broadcasting at that point to the internet that your NAS exists and it’s there. Things have already hit NAS’s that effectively take them and the data that they hold to ransom - just look at SynoLocker. By advertising your NAS on your IP address this is what you’re opening yourself up for. A dedicated hacker who wants access to NAS’s will eventually get in. And everything you store on it can be exposed.
So for me; I have it set to network access only; no internet. I have a private web server set up elsewhere for files I want to share with myself when I’m away from home. Something that is set up, designed and locked down to serve this purpose, which requires specific PGP Keys. It has no domain name, and doesn’t appear on any searches, not am I hosting it here at home. I won’t say what other security features I have with it, but I will say that It’s not perfect, and it can be a pain in the arse sometimes so… and it probably isn’t for everyone.
The next is “User” and this is self explanatory. This is where you set up users and their permissions to the NAS, such as what apps they can use, what folders they have access to and so on. The next on the list “Group” is very much so apart of the users setting I think its you create default group permissions.
The next setting, I assume is for advanced users because it’s the “Domain/LDAP” setting which is probably good if you have a Windows Server with a Windows Domain on it. I don’t use either of these so I’m afraid I can’t tell you what exactly it does.
Under Connectivity you have a setting called “QuickConnect” which is the Synology QuickConnect feature that allows your NAS to be accessed from anywhere (As long as you have an internet connection) I quite obviously have this disabled, and it requires a synology account. You get given a quick connect ID which will allow people to access the NAS without the need to give out your IP Address, and the next setting “External Access” with DDNS and router configuration is keyed into that. Again - I don’t connect externally, nor can my NAS be connected from outside the Local Area Network. My guess is, is that you can set up your custom domain here, instead of xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Where ‘xxx’ is a number between 0 - 255), you can connect via a domain name like ‘www.domain.tld’. So this doesn’t apply to my use case.
The next setting is ‘Network’ and this was quite important to me. In here you can set up what the server name is, where the default gateway is connected to (In my case, my router), if there is a proxy server in the way, and what it’s configuration is, the network interface, traffic control restrictions, static routes as well as the DSM settings. The DSM settings allow you to control what ports you can access your NAS on (Which I have changed from the default), whether or not you want them to be automatically redirected from HTTP to HTTPS (Which I recommend, especially if you’re accessing it externally), enable HTTP/2 and edit your own Server Header. You can also enable HSTS but if I recall correctly for enabling it on EcchiDreams - you *need* a domain name, and a valid certificate.
The next setting is ‘DHCP Server’ which on the large part - I don’t need. Because my router is my DHCP server. But… If you wanted to, you could also enable PXE (Pre-boot Execution Environment) from here too, which some computers/servers are compatible with, which is pretty much used in Enterprise environments. It essentially allows you to boot and install a computer from a central location - might not be worth it for one or two computers. But for tens or hundreds, thousands or more computers on the same network - then it’s perhaps worth it. Trip down memory lane in spoiler:
The next setting is ‘Wireless’ which, if you connect a WiFi adapter to the NAS (By USB) you can have the NAS connected via WiFi. It seems to be able to support three modes; Wireless AP, Wireless Router and to join a Wireless network. In this setting you can also set up Bluetooth, with the correct adapter. I have mine connected via Ethernet port so this isn’t applicable to me.
The next setting is ‘Security’ which allows you to set up the security of the NAS. Such as an automatic logout timer, cross-site request forgery protection, CSP headers in the HTTP content security policy, allowing or disallowing the DSM to be embedded in an iFrame, and so on. It also has a built in firewall which you can control, DoS (Denial of Service) protection, login protections (Such as get a password wrong 3 times in 10 minutes and the NAS locks your IP out), SSL Certificate storage, HTTP compression and TLS/SSL profile levels, which I recommend “Modern Compatibility”, to get the best level of protection.
The next setting section is ‘System’ and under this at the top is “Info Center”:
Which is the hub of information about the NAS itself; the General Information tab which as you can see displays the status of the NAS. The Network tab shows the information pertaining to the network setup. The storage tab shows the information on the hard drive, such as size, free space, how much data is on it, what RAID format it’s in (In my case SHR), the model, temperature, location in the drive bay and whether or not it’s operating normally or malfunctioning. The next tab - Service, shows what services are enabled on the NAS and allows you to manually enable/disable them and allows you to test the connection. The next tab is device analytics which is data sent back to Synology on how you use your NAS. I’ve obviously disabled this because frankly it’s none of their business. The last tab here is for you to connect your Synology account to the NAS - which I don’t have one, nor will I ever get one.
The next setting is the theme setting:
This is where you can control the look of both the login screen via the “Login Style” and the general theme of the device via “Theme” although you can only seem to select light or dark. The login screen lets you put in your own pictures as a background which is pretty nice, and allows you to put in your own logo, which I have used the EcchiDreams information and logo to demonstrate for this write up.
The next setting is “Regional Options” or perhaps better known as Localisation. This allows you to control the timezone, and time settings as well as update your NAS to automatically synchronise the time with an NTP server. The next tab language is self explanatory it lets you set the default languages of the NAS, it’s notifications and codepage. Then of course you have an NTP Service which allows you to set up the NAS as an NTP Server (To syncronise time across devices attached to the network), the problem is though, most modern OS’s have this built in like Windows 10.
“Notifications” setting, in a nutshell lets you control how it sends notifications to you. It can do so via email, SMS or push service. With email it has a built in Google connect like interface that allows you to hook up a Gmail Account, Yahoo, Outlook, QQ or your own SMTP server to it; and it’ll send off email notifications automatically, including any welcome emails to new users. With SMS, you pretty much have a choice of ClickaTel, ClickaTel-2017 and Sendinblue-v3 all of which I do not use. With the push notifications you can use a Synology email server you download an app to your smartphone (Apple/Android) and pair your device with that. As seen with the mobile phone screenshot.
Not only can you receive notifications from this app, but you can actually pretty much control the device with an administrator control panel if you have the right privileges. It’s a pretty handy app to have, and I’ve not yet experienced problems with it. Under the advanced tab, like with EcchiDreams, you can select what notifications you get, and how you get them, like by push, SMS or email. So all in all pretty good.
Then there’s the ‘Task Scheduler’ setting that allows you to set automatic tasks that the NAS performs, such as DSM Auto Update and S.M.A.R.T Tests on the Hard Drives. It’s pretty simple. You can select how often these tasks run, or if they run at all.
Next you have ‘Hardware & Power’ which is interesting, and I’m going to go through this one by starting with a screenshot.
This has some handy little features that really put you in control over your own NAS. Much needed, especially after my Netgear Stora. Specifically the Fan Speed Mode. I have it set to quiet, because the current max temperature the hard drive gets to in the device is around 37oC - 40oC. Which is within tolerance. But then again it’s one hard drive. But I have to say that even on Full-Speed mode, the system is impressively quiet, although I am still considering on switching it to Low-power mode. Which completely stops the fan when it’s cool. In this menu is a power schedule that will allow you to have the NAS on at certain times of the day and off at others. HDD Hibernation allows you to power down the hard drive to minimise power consumption which I do (After 20 minutes), and further reduces noise when the system isn’t in use. This is something that if memory serves me right - existed on the Netgear Stora, but when it booted back up - my goodness it was loud. Then of course you have UPS which allows you to connect the NAS to an uninterruptible power supply. Seems like more of a server than a NAS, and I will get to that.
In the External Devices settings you can pretty much set up USB External HDD’s, Flash Drives and printers. I have tested this feature and it seems to work nicely with my flash drive. But I don’t use it.
‘Update & Restore’ is next. This is basically for DSM (Disk Station Manager) to make sure that the Operating System of the unit is up-to-date and so on. It also lets you configure backups as well as reset the NAS and restore it to factory defaults. But that said, I’d advise caution against the resetting feature. It seems that every time I’ve used it, I’ve needed to take the hard drives out to completely clean them under Windows using Diskpart to delete the volumes, partitions and then clean the disk… Because it bricks the NAS… Completely.
‘Privileges’ seems totally pointless to me, it’s to setup features enabled on a user/user group level which is already available in the User and Usergroup settings.
‘Application Portal’ is something I’ve not used. Nor do I really know what it really is. The help file says “Application Portal allows you to configure the connection settings of various applications so that you can directly access and run these applications (e.g. File Station) in independent browser tabs or windows.” However there’s a problem with this - that as I have said I will get to. Because you can’t enable too many features on this NAS.
‘Indexing Service’ or ‘Media Indexing’, pretty much just scans for multimedia files automatically such as photos, music, videos stored on the NAS. It also lets you control what kind of quality you want thumbnails to be in and enable video compression for mobile devices. You know that problem I mentioned in the previous paragraph- yes. I will get to that in a moment. It even warns you as a hint here “Note: Enabling this option will take more time and CPU resources.” The idea is to compress it, and I assume Transcode it for lower end Mobile Devices.
The next setting is ‘Shared Folder Sync’ which requires me to use RSync, which I don’t. I assume it lets you sync multiple NAS’s together. I only have one, so I don’t use it.
‘Terminal & SNMP’ Setting is the last setting in the control panel and this is something I will not use, nor leave open. The Terminal is basically Telnet/SSH which allows for command line access to the NAS, I have tested it and it is basically a Linux server. I see no need to enable it at this time. As for SNMP, if I recall correctly is some kind of Simple Network Management Protocol which I do not need to enable on my NAS.
And that’s it for the settings. The next thing you might have noticed in all of the screenshots is the ‘Package Center’ this is where you go to install new software features on the NAS… And we’re drawing near to my problem with this device that I have said repeatedly “I will bring up later.”
Just look at all these additional features… It’s… Well, it’s a lot.
One has to ask: How often are these applications - especially by third parties, updated? Because the MediaWiki app is version 1.30.0 which is out of date, there is 1.30.1 and even 1.31.1 which are both security updates. To make matters worse; Apache HTTP Server 2.4 is version 2.4.29-0011… The latest is 2.4.37 which I am pretty sure that between .29 and .37 there are a number of security updates as well as bug fixes. I wouldn’t consider this secure, especially if you’re hosting a website on that has access to the internet. Node.js only seems to go upto 0.10; the version now is 11.3.0, with security fixes released just a few months ago.
Same things with:
phpBB, what you get on the NAS is 3.2.1 (July 2017). Current Version is 3.2.4 which was a security fix. WordPress, what you get on the NAS is 4.9.7. Current Version is 5.0. Python3, what you get on the NAS is 3.5.1 (2015). The Current Version is 3.7.1. Drupal8, what you get on the NAS is 8.4.8. The current version is 8.6.3. Ruby, is the most egregious of the lot that I found. On the NAS: 2.4.3… Latest version: 2.5.3, with tonnes of security fixes and patches. So when is a NAS, no longer just a NAS? Since Synology apparently… In this day in age we need to keep things updated and this NAS has all the features of a web server, it lets you even make on… But you can’t keep it up-to-date and in my opinion this is not ideal to say the least. Now some of these - maybe no problem. Sure. But some of them are missing critical security fixes and are severely flawed. Control has to fall with the user, and if Synology insists on making it easier for the user then Synology has to update the software, or have the NAS download the latest version of the software.
I would not recommend using any of this, personally.
Don’t get me wrong - this is hands down the best NAS I have ever owned and it’s a low end model. I love it. But come on. I have to be critical here, and some of these might open pandora’s box of security holes, exploits and bugs that could run the NAS into the digital ground.
But the temptation - and this is where my problem comes in, is to start enabling all of the features willy nilly. But the problem is… Just loading this screen, this package centre takes about ten seconds at full CPU usage, and if it does that just loading up the screen then how can it run any of these things? Certainly at the same time as you’re trying to use it as a NAS… It’s going to choke.
Even with just the Anti-Virus scanner enabled; the system was unable to maintain good read/write speeds, constantly breaching 100% CPU usage, and holding up the upload/download, until it went down again, and even then the web interface freezes up repeatedly whilst 1 person is transfering files to and from the NAS… I’m sorry but to ask it to do more than one of these things in addition to being a NAS is simply not going to be as responsive and the more you install the worse it will get.
But maybe it’s not a problem if you’re going to say - use the NAS as a mini-web server instead, with Apache, PHP, PHPMyAdmin and MariaDB. But there are several problems here too, the complexity of the web application you want to use will pretty much be your limiting factor. Installing and running something like IPS (The Forum Software we use) might not be feasible, or quick and responsive at all, and may even require modifications that you cannot make such as installing additional PHP Extensions like GD2 extension or the mbstring extension.
That tiny 1.2GHz Processor doesn’t even have a heat sink, it’s passively cooled so I don’t know what kind of power people expect to really get out of it. As I said I couldn’t browse the web interface with ease when someone was using the NAS and that was just one person transferring files to the NAS. So I have no idea how it’s going to handle transcoding video to one device let alone several, or how you can really enable any of these features if multiple users, use the device.
Maybe with a more powerful NAS you can run these features side by side, I don’t know. But with the DS212j… I really wouldn’t recommend that if you want advanced features.
As for transfer speeds with barebones - no extra features:-
Download from the NAS:
Upload to the NAS:
It’s certainly better than 1.5MB/s download and around 750KB/s upload. So I am happy about that. I have been able to download on some occasions at around 50-100MB/s which is amazing. But these are far and few between. I spent £35.50 on it second hand, and it works. Do I really have a right to complain at all? ... Probably not.
I might include one final topic, either this year or next year as a bonus. It’s not something I bought on eBay but it might be fun to look at.
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By Neptune
Warning: This Side Story will contain scenes of a graphic nature. This includes, but is not limited to, extreme violence and gore. If you find either of these themes distasteful, then please do not read. This thread will not contain any sex; it is an adventure thread.
Participants: Daedrin and Izanagi
Description: After Izanagi found a mysterious sword in the forest, he approached Deadrin to have it repaired however lacked the funds required to repair the sword. So the two came to an agreement that if Izanagi went into the Rosayia Forest and got his hands on Kraerhil, a rare exotic metal used in sword making, Daedrin would pay him for however much he retrieved. After some discussion, Daedrin agreed to accompany him on this quest as well to be a guide through the forest as well as to get their hands on more.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Once Izanagi joined him, Daedrin gave him a nod to show his approval before he turned back towards the forest. It seemed a little too quiet for his tastes, and he already had a gut feeling that they were going to encounter something very soon. But then he had inherited his Fathers tendency to get into trouble. He snorted a little in amusement at that though, the sound soft enough not to be overheard by Izanagi. Daegrin stirred a little restlessly, and Daedrin stroked his neck gently,
“Daegrin senses that there’s something nearby. Let’s move, and keep an eye out.” Daedrin said in warning as he kicked Daegrin’s flanks lightly causing the Aelda to move forwards slightly, heading along the river. Daedrin pulled out his sword, not wanting to be caught completely off guard. He could cut their travel time down by cutting through the forest, but it was rather dangerous due to the fact that the more dangerous monsters lived deeper inside the forest. He didn’t fear being lost, as his sense of direction was as good as any Eldyrannth, allowing him to navigate the forest with ease without being caught in never-ending circles. Daedrin cast an eye up at the sun, seeing that it was the mid-afternoon so they had at least a few hours of travelling time left in the day before they even considered settling down for the night. His eyes returned to the forest, watching it carefully as he strained his ears for anything.
In the end, he wasn’t able to see or hear anything. But he could smell something with his sharp nose. He opened his mouth slightly, inhaling sharply before snapping his mouth shut as he resisted the urge to evacuate the contents of his stomach. The stench of rotting flesh pervaded the air, getting stronger by the moment. Daegrin stirred again, snorting in a challenging manner. Daedrin looked over at Izanagi, “We have company. There are ghouls nearby…” He said, before casting his mind out around them, careful to avoid going close to Izanagi’s just in case the man could sense the touch of telepathy. He could sense at least five of the bastards that were homing in on their direction. He pulled his mind back, shifting the grip on his sword to be more comfortable.
There was a sudden growl from the bushes as something leapt out towards Daedrin. The figure was completely naked, and was so emaciated that it would have been mistaken for a reanimated skeleton if it wasn’t for the rotting pieces of flesh that clung to its body. Its hands, although human-like, looked like claws with filthy black fingernails. Its cheeks were gaunt, as its eye sockets were sunken into its face as the eyes gave them a gormless look that was filled with an insatiable hunger. Its jaw was hanging low, only attached by a few thin threads of flesh, as its tongue dangled from its mouth. As it flew through the air, Daegrin jumped to the side as Daedrin swung his blade in an arch. The silver blade easily sunk through the flesh of its neck, chopping its head off. The body tumbled to the ground as the head sailed further through the air before rolling into some bushes.
The remaining four ghouls appeared, snarling at the two of them. Daedrin glanced at Izanagi before returning his gaze to the rotting creatures. Two of them completely ignored him and leapt towards Izanagi, leaving Daedrin dealing with the remaining two. One of them leapt forwards, but Daegrin danced out of the way before twisting around and kicking out with his powerful hint-quarters. Daedrin could hear the snapping of bones as the ghoul was kicked back at its companion, knocking them both to the ground. Daegrin turned around just as the two scrambled to their feet and lunged again. Daedrin brought down his sword, the sharp blade slicing down through its skull and into what remained on its brain causing it to become limp and drop to the floor, dead. Unfortunately, his blade seemed content to remain lodged within its skull despite how hard he tugged it. The third creature leapt up towards him, intending on pushing him out of his saddle. Daedrin tugged at his sword more, but it refused to move. He turned his head towards the creature, intending on using telekinesis to deflect it however Daegrin reared up with an angry whinny. He lashed out with his front legs, knocking the ghoul down onto the floor. Before it could even get up, Daegrin brought his polished hooves down and began to stamp the monster into the ground until it lay lifeless beneath him, as if the Aelda took the danger it posed as a personal affront. This gave Daedrin enough time to pull his foot from his stirrup and use the strength of his leg to push the ghoul off of his sword. He then turned in his saddle to see how Izanagi was fairing.
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By ArdillaVerde93
Once a month, a local comic book store holds Yu-Gi-Oh championship tournaments, with prizes and fierce competition. Back when Toys R Us was still big, I was in the Duelist League. Of course, that was long ago. But I wanted to get back into the game. Of course, I had some studying to do, since my prior knowledge stopped after Synchro Summoning. But I learned quickly, and all I needed to do was put together a deck. After some debating, I decided on using the Kuriboh archetype. What follows is the Kuriboh deck I took to tournaments.
Monsters:
X2 Winged Kuriboh X1 Winged Kuriboh LV10 X3 Kuriboh X1 Sphere Kuriboh X1 Kuribon X1 Kuribandit X1 Scapeghost X2 Sangan X1 Witch Of The Black Forest X1 Terrifying Toddler Of Torment X1 Chaos Necromancer X1 Dark Necrofear X1 Darkness Neosphere X1 Archlord Kristya X1 Slate Warrior X1 Relinquished Spells:
X2 Transcendent Wings X2 Multiply X1 Detonate X1 The Flute Of Summoning Kuriboh X2 Scapegoat X1 The Fang Of Critias X1 Black Illusion Ritual X1 Pot Of Duality X1 Monster Reborn X2 United We Stand Traps:
X1 Crush Card Virus X1 Jar Of Avarice X1 Mirror Force X1 Needle Ceiling X1 Storming Mirror Force X2 Waking The Dragon Extra Deck:
X1 Link Spider X1 Proxy Dragon X1 Decode Talker X1 Knightmare Cerberus X1 Downerd Magician X1 Baby Tiragon X1 Number 13: Embodiment Of Crime X1 Number 31: Embodiment Of Punishment X1 Doom Virus Dragon Side Deck:
X1 Black Luster Soldier X1 Black Luster Ritual X1 Mystical Space Typhoon X1 United We Stand X1 Where Arf Thou? X1 Waking The Dragon Of course, Kuriboh and Winged Kuriboh are the main focus. The entire archetype plays defensively, save for Kuribandit. Their effects tend to negate damage, or stop attacks.
Kuriboh: Discard from your hand to negate damage from a single attack.
Winged Kuriboh: When destroyed, you take no damage from battles for 1 turn.
Sphere Kuriboh: Discard from your hand to switch an attacker into Defence Position. While in the Graveyard, can be used as material in a Ritual Summon.
Kuribon: When attacked, negate damage from the attack. The opponent gains Life Points equal to the Attack Points of the attacker, and Kuribon returns to your hand.
As for Kuribandit, he tributes himself at the end of the turn I summoned him. In exchange, I take 5 cards from the top of my deck. From those cards, I can keep 1 Spell Card OR Trap Card, but the other 4 cards go to the Graveyard. The cost seems steep, especially since I can't use the card I get right away, since Kuribandit's ability doesn't activate at the end of the turn. But a few of my big plays depend on Spells or Traps to work. And that's a great way to search them. As for the others, that's where Archlord Kristya, Dark Necrofear, Jar Of Avarice, and Chaos Necromancer come in. Kristya can be Special Summoned without any tributes - 2 are normally required - if I have exactly 4 Fairy monsters in my Graveyard. Then I can return one of those monsters to my hand. Winged Kuriboh, Winged Kuriboh Lv. 10, Kuribon, and Kristya are Fairy monsters. Dark Necrofear can only be summoned by banishing 3 Fiend monsters in my Graveyard. Jar Of Avarice shuffles 5 cards from my Graveyard back into my deck, then allows me to draw a card. Great as a panic button if I send away something I need. Chaos Necromancer starts with 0 in both stats, but gains 300 Attack Points for every monster in my Graveyard. That adds up fast, and I destroyed a Blue-Eyes White Dragon with it.
Kuriboh have the defensive abilities they have to make up for their hideous stats. These fluffballs need protection of their own if you want them staying around. Enter the Mirror Force cards. Mirror Force destroys all opposing Attack Position monsters if one attacks, while Storming Mirror Force sends them back to the hand. Storming can be even better than destruction in some cases. Anything summoned from the Extra Deck returns there if an effect tries to send them to the hand. This means the opponent can't revive them with Monster Reborn, etc, and must fulfill their summoning conditions all over again.
Scapegoat summons 4 statless Tokens to the field. This works as a last-second ass saver, since being a Quick-Play Spell means I can use it on my opponent's turn. Plus, United We Stand adores it! UWS is an Equip Spell that gives a monster 800 Attack Points AND Defence Points for every monster you control. The sheer damage that card can do is a nightmare! Even with just 1 monster, a boost of 800 ATK is no small matter. Scapeghost is a monster version of Scapegoat. Multiply, which turns a Kuriboh into a field full of Kuriboh Tokens, is also a lovely compliment to UWS. Strength in numbers is a lesson your opponent will learn the hard way. But, if I had a gun to my head and was ordered to name my trump cards, I'd say that they're Winged Kuriboh Lv. 10, and the "Embodiment Of..." cards. Darkness Neosphere, able to be summoned during my opponent's turn as a 4,000 ATK "fuck you," is a close second.
Winged Kuriboh Lv. 10 can only be brought out with Transcendent Wings, at the cost of a Winged Kuriboh on the field and 2 cards from the hand. But damn if it isn't worth it. During the opponent's Battle Phase, Lv. 10 can take itself out, going out with a bang that not only sends all opposing Attack Position monsters to the Graveyard, but takes their combined ATK out of the opponent's Life Points! It requires some setup, sure. But, when it goes off, it fucks the opponent's day up big time. But what's more satisfying than wiping out your opponent's monsters AND LP at once? Forcing them to finish themself off! Embodiment Of Crime and Embodiment Of Punishment do exactly that. When they're both on the field at once, it's game over. At the cost of 1 Xyz Material, the following things happen.
EOC and EOP become immune to destruction for 1 turn. All opposing monsters, for 1 turn, are forced into Attack Position. Those monsters MUST attack whichever Embodiment you discarded Material from. The opponent takes all damage from these attacks, instead of you. Most likely, you win. This is a play that's difficult to pull off. But, as you can see, it RUINS the opponent. Since they're both Xyz Monsters, you need a Link Monster, like Decode Talker, to have them both out at once. Decode Talker only requires 3 Effect Monsters for its summon, so it isn't too hard to bring out.
Aside from Archlord Kristya, every single monster in this deck is searchable with Witch Of The Black Forest and/or Sangan. WOTBF searches a monster from the deck with 1,500 or less Defence Points on death, and adds it to the hand. Sangan is the same, but searches for 1,500 ATK instead of DEF. Monsters should be at your disposal when you need them, and those 2 cards help with that. Relinquished especially likes this, since it's otherwise difficult to have Relinquished and Black Illusion Ritual in your hand at once.
The rest of this deck is mostly full of either Fiend support(Slate Warrior, Flute Of Summoning Kuriboh), low level monster support(Baby Tiragon, Terrifying Toddler Of Torment, Link Spider), destruction(Needle Ceiling, Doom Virus Dragon), or easier summons(Proxy Dragon, Knightmare Cerberus, Waking The Dragon). And, of course, the deck staples of Monster Reborn and Pot Of Duality. But Detonate is worthy of an explanation. Multiply, like I said, turns Kuriboh into a bunch of Tokens. Detonate destroys Kuriboh and Kuriboh Tokens, and lets you destroy as many of your opponent's cards as Kuriboh/Tokens you lost. Phenomenal field clearing power.
Black Luster Soldier goes in my Side Deck because an ex-boyfriend gave me Black Luster Ritual years ago. We since lost touch, but I kept the card. ❤️ Mystical Space Typhoon isn't commonly used, now that Twin Twisters is a thing, but you never know. And Where Arf Thou is more low level support. Waking The Dragon is there because... Well, again, you never know. XD
I'm planning more decks for upcoming tournaments, but I'll never forget the shock caused when a deck full of cute chocolate puffs ruined a mighty dragon. ^_^
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By ArdillaVerde93
There's a legend in the Hoenn region about a white rock. Apparently, if you write down wishes on pieces of paper, and attach them to the rock, your wishes will come true. I don't know much else about it; I've only been to Hoenn once, while passing through on a train. I haven't even seen the rock, let alone believing it can grant wishes. But I guess we have some weird legends here in Johto; who am I to judge? But I'm getting sidetracked. The point is, if that wish rock legend is true, I know exactly what I'd wish for. Not love; I already have that. I'm dating a beautiful Delcatty, who I've known since our childhood. And I don't want wealth. I mean, I guess everyone wants to be rich. Me, too. But money isn't all that important to me. I'm a feral Pikachu; what use would I have for it, anyway? So, what do I want? What would I wish for, if I could have anything in the world? I've had fame, friendship, unforgettable experiences,... just a fun-filled life in general. What do I want? To experience it all again.
My name is Pichu Little. Or, at least, I think it is. It's what my older brother calls me. We - my friends and I - call him Pichu Big. Those names have stuck with us since we actually were Pichu. Gun to our heads, in fact, neither one of us could tell you our real names, if we have them. I'll have to think about a name if I'm ever mated. Until that day, just call me Pichu Little. Or just Little; I don't mind. If that name sounds familiar, I'll explain why. Along with my brother, we used to be some of the greatest pranksters in the world: The Pichu Brothers.
Come to think of it, it could very well be the media that gave us our names; our faces were on TV in Johto more often than that narcoleptic Psyduck who used to host PNF. I was too young to have much of a memory of our earliest pranks, but Big claims we started small. Of course we did; everyone has to. I do remember a few of our older pranks. Toothpaste in cream-filled cookie sandwiches, taking each other's place when one of us got in trouble, making lights flicker,... We obviously stepped up our game since then, but we used to go back to those sometimes. Big told me that we didn't need to do something complicated and dangerous for it to be funny. Of course, we got into plenty of danger. But I didn't see Big complaining.
He was a Pichu at heart well into his Pikachu years. Even fully evolved, he still did some pranks with me. But the "real" world got to him eventually. If you had told me, back in my Pichu years, that Big was gonna end up as a stuffy adult, we probably would've both zapped you. But damned if it didn't happen. He has a job now, working at a hotel in Goldenrod City. I'm so proud of him, too! But it doesn't leave us much time to just screw around together. Back when we lived in Millennium Town - we had to move when Big landed that job - we used to spend lunchtime sprawled out on a rooftop, looking through the windows of TV stations while eating whatever we managed to pilfer. Usually berries we took from the Murkrow. But we did get lucky sometimes. Cookies, chips, donuts,... There was, and might still be, a bakery on Route 58, and we would help ourselves to the rejected pastries. When we could; they figured out what we were doing pretty quickly, and made their trash harder to get to. We still risked it, though. Usually on birthdays and Christmas. Anyway, their stuff was delicious! I'll have to make it a point to check out if that place is still there, next time I'm in the area.
Besides Big and I, we had a sort of gang. Let's see... There was a Teddiursa, a Smoochum, a Magby, and a Wooper. But that's not exactly a secret; the whole gang was involved in the pranks back in our heyday. As for what happened to them, I can only speak for Smoochum and Magby. They evolved, and married each other. Big and I went to the wedding. As far as I know, they're all still alive. If a member of the Pichu Posse died, it'd be in the news. Most of our activities were. Speaking of that, don't believe what these killjoys on the news say; the worst anyone ever got from one of our pranks was the sniffles. We didn't hurt anyone. Purposely, at least; occasionally someone got banged up. But, like I said, nothing too serious. Some close scrapes, though. I remember vividly - how could I forget - damn near falling off of the roof of a skyscraper. That was when we met that famous Pikachu. I was being a dick, as was my want back then, and karma gave me a little push. I know we met that Pikachu at least once after that. About 2 years later, if memory serves. He and his friends helped us catch a train. Yes; the train I mentioned earlier. See, we overslept that day.
Big says we're going back, to see the old clubhouse. We can't stay, for 2 reasons. The first is we won't be able to play around in it, now that we're bigger. I have to admit, though, I'd pay some damn good money to see Big get stuck in one of the tires we built the place with.~ Anyway, the second reason is we obviously can't stay, since Big has the job in Goldenrod City. Honestly, that's fine with me. I just wanna see if the place is still there. It should be, but humans see things differently than us; it was home to us, but it could just be a pile of junk to them. I wonder if we'll be recognised. Big told me he met a fan in Goldenrod who pretty much recognised him right away. But that Pikachu, from what I gathered, is still famous. I hope, if I am recognised, it isn't because they're mistaking me for the other Pikachu. Anyway, that fan was supposed to be at a party at the hotel, so I showed up, too. But I didn't meet him. Not that I'd know if I had, but, hearing Big talk, this kid must be a superfan. I'd think Big would've pointed him out. According to a Delphox, apparently the kid's friend, he was there. But he had to step out. Something about a Goodra and a locket; I dunno.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is, if I could have one wish, I'd wanna be a Pichu again. And not just devolving; I wanna actually be back in my prime. I know it'll never happen, but everyone has wishes. We're heading back to Millennium Town tomorrow. I guess I'll get to see for myself what became of the place since we left. I'm sure it's changed, but I hope the changes were for the better.
*Author's Note*
Been a while; huh? I don't think I need to explain who The Pichu Brothers are; check the Pichu Brothers card I made in my gallery. But there are things I should explain.
"Big and Little:" Their actual canonical names are Pichu Big and Pichu Little. To tell them apart, look at their heads. Pichu Big has an extra tuft of fur.
"White rock:" In Ruby, Sapphire , Emerald, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire, there's a white rock in Mossdeep City, near the Space Station. Speaking to a nearby NPC reveals that people like to write down wishes on pieces of paper and stick them to the rock. The wishes come true. The rock does jack dick for the player, but there were rumours in RSE that the rock would trigger an encounter with Jirachi once certain conditions were met. It won't. The only way to get Jirachi is to have it given to you in person at an event, or using a GameCube disc that was given to people who preordered Pokémon Colosseum. I have the disc. ^_^
"Train," "helped us catch a train:" References to the 5th Pokémon short film, Camp Pikachu.
"...damn near falling off a skyscraper:" Reference to the 3rd Pokémon short film, Pikachu And Pichu.
"Clubhouse," "...one of the tires we built the place with:" The Pichu Posse lived in a clubhouse of likely their own making. The clubhouse is constructed from various bits of junk, including tires and pipes.
"Route 58:" That doesn't exist in the games. It's an inside joke. Alvin And The Chipmunks debuted in 1958.
Big's job, "superfan," "Goodra and a locket," "Delphox:" RP references. I can't explain the Goodra/locket/fanboy situation, because it involves kinks that put off many people. SMFoxy will know the specifics.
"Delcatty:" Team Rocket's Meowth has a niece. A Skitty living in Millennium Town. This is canon.
"...that narcoleptic Psyduck who used to host PNF:" In Pokémon Channel for GameCube, the objective is to watch Pokémon themed TV programmes. The news channel is called PNF, short for Pokémon News Flash. The host, a Psyduck, will occasionally fall asleep in the middle of a news report, leading to an abrupt commercial break. Narcolepsy is a disorder which causes victims to fall asleep randomly. Someone who has it is narcoleptic.
Would you like to see a part 2? I'd love to write one! Consider this a journal entry.
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By ArdillaVerde93
I mentioned in a status update that I've been a fan of Pokémon since I was 4. As such, I have been a fan for 20 years of its currently 21-year existance in the US. People say it's just a cartoon for little kids. You know what else is? My Little Pony. And look where that franchise is today. Tom And Jerry, Scooby Doo, and SpongeBob SquarePants are "just" cartoons. That doesn't mean they aren't popular. Pokémon has had a massive impact on my life. It taught me to read. My war veteran grandfather and I played together, and even traded Pokémon! I cried at Bye Bye Butterfree, and I still do. I cried for a half hour straight after Pokémon Ranger And The Temple Of The Sea. When my cousin moved back from Michigan, the first thing we talked about was Pokémon. When my dad caught me smuggling something, it wasn't drugs. It was a copy of Pokémon Silver from his house. So, obviously, I wasn't about to miss the 20th anniversary movie.
Only 2 theatres in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida, were showing it. Hollywood 20 and AMC. I chose the AMC, as a ticket was cheaper there. 2 of my 3 younger brothers accompanied me. One 17, the other 7. There was not at all any question that we would enjoy it. The 17-year-old ordered a large slushie, and the 7-year-old had a kid's meal. I ordered a cheeseburger slider combo meal. That, unfortunately, was a bad decision. It had to be cooked, and I missed the first 2 minutes. The 17-year-old assured me that all I missed was essentially Nidorino vs. Gengar, a la the Red and Blue intro. What I did see was nothing short of phenomenal, and those 2 minutes are no longer too big of a deal. About 10 minutes in, the opening credits start, accompanied by a heart-pounding rendition of the original Pokémon theme, which I lip-synced as fervently as if I was singing it at a rock concert.
I had assumed that the movie would be a retelling of the Indigo League arc of the Pokémon anime. It was, but only partially. You all know the story by now. A 10-year-old begins a journey through the Kanto region with a Pikachu. But SO much more happens! Brock and Misty are nowhere to be seen until the end credits. But Ash has 2 friends from Sinnoh who follow him. One of them happens to be the daughter of Cynthia, the Sinnoh League champion. All 3 have aspirations. Ash, of course, wants to be a Pokémon master. The girl wants her mother's acceptance. And the boy wants to become a Pokémon professor. The girl has a Piplup, and the boy has a Lucario.
So, the 3 go on a journey, as would be expected. But Ash is in possession of a Rainbow Wing. Basically, a feather from Ho-Oh. In the first episode, Ash saw Ho-Oh. The movie is basically about him chasing Ho-Oh, as well as friends and experience. He meets an abandoned Charmander, soon seen to belong to an absolute dick who kicks it when it tries to hug him. This is based on an episode, and becomes a big plot point. Ash wants to show him there are no worthless Pokémon. Along the way, Ash is followed by Marshadow, who eventually becomes the main antagonist. Ash breaks free from Marshadow's corruption, leaving Marshadow to look elsewhere for a host. Unfortunately, in the climax, Marshadow gets ahold of the Rainbow Wing, and gains massive power from it. I won't spoil the climax beyond that. It has to be seen to be believed. I spent the last half of the movie not just crying, but sobbing. Pretty much from their re-creation of Bye Bye Butterfree to the end. My 7-year-old brother repeatedly told me "it's okay."
Do I recommend this movie? Fuck. Yes. Do you love Pokémon? You'll be on the edge of your seat throughout the thrilling, theatre-shaking battles. Do you hate Pokémon? Then watch it, to see what you're missing. It's not just a cartoon. It's a heart-wrenching masterpiece that it should be criminal to miss.
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