Both Screenshooting Guides from Shadow' and Divine Avenger, along with Other Useful Tips and Tricks with contributions from Floydian1, trollf, Badmagic, Gadar, Spike, and an ever-growing list of others, have been moved to a separate thread:

Click Here for Screenshooting Guides and Other Useful Tips and Tricks

Click Here for Generating Faces in Oblivion: A Compilation of Guides, Tips and Tricks from the Community

Click Here for a List of Popular Animation Mods
Note: For any broken TESsource links, try replacing 'TESsource.net' with 'TESnexus.com' for the new links.

P.S. Winner of the most frequently given tip to new screenshooters, and deserving to be mentioned in the op:
To get rid of the HUD (Menu), use the console command "~", then "TM" to Toggle Menu Off/On.

And the runner up may be:
How to add a caption and get rid of ImageShack Ads/the Golden Frog, etc. Also, may be applicable for ridding other sites' ads.
One more: A short summary post of how to do an action screenshot.

Screenshots of your beloved Characters - thread #1 HERE

Thank you for all these useful links! Ha..maybe even I dare to give it a go!

Good work Chig!

Amidala

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Download:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21441

Happy New Year everyone!!

@ minque - Much thanks, though I cannot take credit for the contents. The starting post I used here is just a slightly smaller version of the ones over at SHS and Bethesda forums on their screenshooter's threads. Just figured the contents would work well here too and did a cut and paste.

@ Daedroth - Seems you;ve found one of the Christmas mods Lovely character btw. What does she have in THIS pic? Looks like a sack of some sort.

@ Chimera - Good to see you here! Excellent work as always

@ Jac - Nicely done Mprrowind pics! And a very lovely character too.

Thanks Chiglet

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Thanks, Chig. She's actually a companion I released recently.

That bear with the santa-hat was too good for words.

It's crazy. With all those mods out there, you could mod Morrowind to the point where there is not a single bit of original stuff left! Same thing with Oblivion.

Speaking of which. Meet Luper Alkad, Redguard with issues.





Hey! Where did my bigass sword go? What happened to the number 34 next to my level? And why is my hair all shiney???!!!!! Oh, it's a new game. That explains it. (Yeah, I was really surprised at how shiney the hair is. Seriously, the cell is all dirty, the starting clothes are falling apart at the seems. But that hair...walked right out of a shampoo commercial)


Also, I just couldn't resist the opportunity. I had to try and make Jagar Tharn, working by memory. (No alt-tabbing to check a picture while playing the game, it ain't healthy.) While there is a distinct lack of wrinkleness and the eyebrows aren't quite as sharp as I wanted, I still think it's pretty good for a noob at facegen. See for yourself.



Checklist for my perfect birthday.

1: A black robe made of the finest satin. (hood optional)
2: A gnarled staff with an evil green orb of glowy doom at the end.
3: The ability to cause multi-megaton nuclear explosions by frowning. Note: Very high priority. Must have.

Char: Codename 5D
Action: Uppercut



"Simple action move, the char is using the uppercut on a person."

I guess his stay at the prison made him a bit cranky. Anyway, could you perhaps show a shot of his face? Unfortunately, his arm obscures about half of it right now.

And for the uppercut, did you use an animation mod for that? I don't remember uppercuts being in vanilla Oblivion.

Speaking of mods, I browsed Tesnexus and found one that made combat a bit more 'anime-like'. Now being a big fan of anime and finding the original animations damn clunky looking, I put it on. So far, I like the standard attacks while standing still a lot more, but the power attacks came as a bit of a surprise. Just look at the pics.



It's a bit hard to see, but yes...Luper leaps five metres up into the air, pulls of a somersault, then drives his sword down on the victim. It's so unrealistic (especially in a full suit of heavy armour), it's just funny. Then again, this is Luper so it's not that unrealistic.

Then again, everyone else does that as well. It was kinda humorous to see Uriel Septim pull off crazy acrobatics. Who knew that an 87-years old dude could move like that?

I used, some commands.

Like: tai, tcl, tm , tfc etc.

My pet fox protecting me.

It gives a mournful howl after killing anything...

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My new character Elvira above is shown below with and without her removable white wig.


I found her some nice earring styles. She is not yet available for download though.

Another pic of Jasmine:



She's featured in my Journal of Torlin fan fic that I stopped working on, but may take up again.

Hey Cloudy, when did you get Oblivion and what do you think of it.

I bought it...back in may? So I've actually had it for a while but I only got the hardware needed to play it like a week and a half ago. And then there's the time I've spent studying, playing Spore or performing the necessitities of life so with Oblivion I've played...ten hours in total at most?

Beware, ridiculously long rant coming through. (in the wrong thread as well. I should make some more pics later to make up for this.)

Anyway, the first thought I had is that it is a lot less flashy than it looked in the trailers. Now part of that is obviously because I shut down stuff like grass, bloom, hdr and all that other crap. But still, the only thing that really makes it stand out from Morrowind is the visual range outside and the lip movements in dialogue. It doesn't really bother me too much, but the walls often end up looking as if they're made out of sculpted clay or something which somewhat ruins immersion.

The second thing I noticed is that facegen is fricking hard! You can't move a single slider without having five others move, and unless you like balloony round faces, it's practically impossible to make a more 'thin' face without having him turn into a skin-covered skeleton. And I never managed to get the eyebrows the way I wanted them. That said, I managed quite a bit with Luper. Which also led to a rather amusing fact my sister's boyfriend pointed out when they visited. Luper's body (especially in armour) is ridicilously wide and musclebound compared to his face.

Moving onto my thoughts of the first level. I'm not sure what to think of the tutorial. Unlike Morrowind, it helps ease you into how to play, but it seems about as blunt as a sledgehammer to the face while doing it. (Go, shoot the bucket for no good reason! Quick, the goblin hasn't seen you, snipe him! Grab the lockpicks, and the key!) The rats breaking down that wall was a bit of a stupid aproach to introducing the alternate escape-route in my opinion. It would have been better if the player were allowed to climb onto the ledge where the Mythic Dawn had come from and find a tunnel there, which would have led to using the assassin's path instead of the utterly random goblin-cave.

Also, the Emperor's dialogue is far too strict. I know that Patrick Steward is an expensive guy to hire, but the dialogue options you get have none to zero effect on his answers and often you have to use them all. Is it really that hard to believe that your character might just recognize the face on every coin in the world, especially when he is wearing the famous gem of plot-advancement? And why hire mister Picard anyway? Just for the name? I've got the feeling that Bethesda could have expanded the role of the Emperor and his dialogue if they hired a lesser known (and cheaper) voice, while still using the same budget.

And I would have appreciated it if someone set Uriel's fight-or-flee script to flee. As it is, over half the time he valiantly runs up to the assassins and starts smacking them with his sword before his bodyguards got a chance to close in. Makes you wonder why they're 'escaping' in the first place. Oh and the whole 'freeze the player so he won't interupt the assassination' was annoying me to hell. They should have just made it so that Uriel's last words were something along the lines of "And now I face my appointed fate.", then make him keel over the instant dialogue ended. The implication then would have been that you didn't notice the assassin coming in because you were busy listening to the old man. (oh, and have the assassin spawn of-screen just to make sure instead of using the opening tunnel. You could always say he made it passed the Blades fighting in the other room)

So anyway, I think Bethesda used Uriel in a way that didn't meet my expectations. Then again, the hype over 'Meeting the Emperor himself, finally!' probably would have caused a disapointment no matter what.

Now what the tutorial did do well was class selection and race selection. When you start a new game, it dumps you straight into facegen. Not very subtle, true, but at least you don't get a guard who's bloody blind and asks you "Are you a man, or a woman, oh and are you a lizard or something more humanoid?"
Class selection is pretty much seemless. Socius Ergalla wasn't bad himself, but it made no sense to tell him that "yes I kill people by smashing their face in with a big axe, please put it down on paper so I can show it to the captain." The more combat-orientated tutorial, plus having Baurus make his own guess based on what he's seen just flows better in my opinion. (Though one wonders how he could have seen that you were sneaking all throughout the goblin-cave yet went for heavy warhammer action when in his presence. But let's not bother with insignificant details.)

All in all, the tutorial gets points for generation purposes and helping a new player, but loses on random goblins and poor use of Uriel Septim the man. Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if more roleplaying-orientated people like Minque were really annoyed with the pure combat nature of the tutorial, but that's just the kind of game TES has always been so I wasn't expecting anything different in that regard. Really, Morrowind was the exception with just dropping you off in a peaceful town after some paperwork.

Ok, afterwards I just ignored the main quest so I can't quite comment on it. I've heard that it is a combat-heavy fetch-quest for the most part and too short. Now I can tell you that shorter does not mean worse. After a while, Morrowind's main quest really starts to drag on, especially when it's one huge fetch quest. I've been focussing on the Knights of the Nine (obviously) and while it too is a fetch quest, it gives you more variation.

Now I'll just wrap this up quick by moving onto gameplay. Game-balance is iffy, even with OOO. On normal difficulty, I get killed by Crazed Imps all over the place, unless I unload high-powered fireballs. On slightly lowered difficulty, I kill pretty much anything in one to two hits, barely getting scratched in return and without using the somersault-deathblow. It seems there is no middle-ground there.

The combat system itself has both improvements and downsides. The loss of an unarmoured skill really hurts because active dodging just won't work in melee. The split second you get is just enough to block, but not enough to move out of the way. (or maybe my reflexes are just crap) That said, the active blocking itself plus the inclusion of mixing magic into melee is a vast improvement and streamlining over Morrowind. The Magicka regeneration is awesome, as it finally gives you an excuse to take a sign that's not the Atronach. And it's slow enough that you can't spam 'nuke-2000' forever.

Also, escort quests are a lot less painful now though your escortee will still run into every single fight with suicidal eagerness. Remember how in Morrowind every NPC appeared to have a speed stat of 10, near max encumbrance and real bad pathfinding? Ironically, the situation has reversed. I've played a character with speed stat 83 for a while (damn fast), and I still didn't keep up with those two dudes that want to see the gatekeeper fight at the start of Shivering Isles. Crazy.

I've really got to wrap this up, don't I? In short, while there are plenty of flaws, I find Oblivion to be entertaining enough to be a good game. Perhaps it loses out on atmosphere and strange wastelands, but it wins out on gameplay and fast-travel. Yes, I said it. Fast-travel is good. Admit it, at the end of the Morrowind main quest where you had to go to all the Ashlanders and all the Houses, you wished they had Silt-strider ports going to every location you had to visit. In Oblivion, you finally can, if you've been there before.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take some photos (hopefully). I'm right in front of Garlas Malatar, which should provide some sightseeing opportunities.

Well, that didn't take too long. But all-together, it was a fun experience. Especially because I only reactivated the menu to select spells. I had absolutely no clue regarding my health all the time.
Now I thought about editing my previous post, but that would only make it even longer. So I'm going to break rules and double-post. Yeah, I'm evil incarnate.

Warning, there will be spoilers.


"Hear me, knights! This is the moment you've all waited for. All your training, all your prayers, all your hopes, and all your sorrows. They have led you here, to this place, and this moment. Today, we face destiny!"

"I will not lie to you. Umaril and his minions shall not lay down and reveal their necks to our blades. No, they will fight with their foul strength till the bitter end. I say, let it be their bitter end. Fight with the same determination of your enemy. Cross blades till your arms can no longer hold your sword. If that time comes to pass, fight on still. With tooth and nail if needed. Tamriel depends on us, the Nine depend on us. This is for Anvil, for Bravil, and all those who have been wronged by Umaril's evil!"


"The time has come! KNIGHTS OF THE NINE, FOLLOW ME..........FOR THE NINE!!!!!"


We fought, valiantly and empowered by our faith in the Nine. And Umaril's minions fell. Yes, they fell to our blades, like wheat cut by the farmer's sickle. But, by some foul art, they rose from their graves, to fight once more! As the battle dragged on, our faith faltered. We began to feel, the unthinkable...despair. How could we possibly hope to win, if not even death itself could stop our foe? It was at this point, that I truely understood Pelinal Whitestrake's tragedy. Oh, how he must have suffered upon learning that his enemy yet lived! How his strong arm was powerless!

No, no, I told my companions. We would not give up. If death was no obstacle for them, then we would send them beyond it! We would sever the chains that shackled their souls to their evil flesh. Trusting in the might of those I'd travelled with, I fought my way passed the Auroran horde till finally, I found myself in front of an orb that dripped with malice. This was the source of the magic that revived our enemies, I knew it in my heart. A mage would have been awestruck at that horrible artefact, and studied it for decades. I was no mage...And how could I study this thing, while my friends were fighting for their lives?! No, I did what I had to, the only thing I could do. I struck it, with the power granted to me by the Nine. And the orb did shatter.


I was no mage...And how could I study this thing, while my friends were fighting for their lives?! No, I did what I had to, the only thing I could do. I struck it, with the power granted to me by the Nine. And the orb did shatter.

And behold, I felt as if a great wind passed through my very soul. Below me, I saw my companions battle and then, I saw nothing.


Where had they gone? Not only the knights, but also the Aurorans. For a moment I wondered, was I the only thing left alive in this world?


I looked upon the orb's remains. Even though it had been shattered, its shards floated motionlessly in the still air. I did not try to touch it, wary of its evil. Perhaps, I thought, everyone I knew yet lived. Perhaps, it was I who had died. Or, was I merely frozen in time?


I tried to return to the site of battle, but a barrier of some sorts kept me away and even the might of the nine, infused into the holy relics, could not penetrate it. I knew then, that my fate lay not there. It lay in the heart of Umaril's keep. With that knowledge, I pressed on.


It lay in the heart of Umaril's keep, beyond the door. With that knowledge, I pressed on. (OOC: But not before looting those Welkynd stones! )


And find him I did. Umaril the Unfeathered, my adversary. We battled, holy might against his unholy power.


As Pelinal Whitestrake had claimed victory, so did I. Umaril lay dead by my hand. But unlike Pelinal, I knew that the battle had not yet ended. Now, I would show Umaril, that nine Divines where more powerful than Eight. I called upon Talos' will. I prayed for his blessing. And I received it.

OOC: image limit reached, I think. So here's the triple-post.


I travelled to a place where no man had been before. To the very heavens, where Umaril's spirir had fled. Far below me, I saw glorious Cyrodiil. Or was it all an illusion? It did not matter for in the distance I spied my opponent. I could see it on his face. The disbelief of me being here, the rage and...fear. Yes, Umaril had learned what it meant to fear the Nine. And he would learn what it meant to oppose them.


Once more we battled, in a fight where our very souls lay at stake. Sword against sword, spell against spell, faith against faith.


And Umaril's sword slipped from his hand. Was this the end? Had I been victorious? Umaril fell, and so did I, but I did not fear. For by the grace of the Nine, I had vanquished their immortal enemy. If it was my fate to die, then my spirit would rest easy.


That was not to be my fate. By the Nine's will, new life was gifted to my corpse and I awoke in the undercroft, surrounded by the spirits of the original Order. My task had been done, and I had granted them their final rest for which they gave me great gratitude.


OOC: I swear I had more pictures, including some that were better in certain situations. (Like the first Umaril fight, I had one that actually showed the fight we had on the staircase, and not me trying to get on the staircase) But in the heat of battle, I guess I must have mispressed. Still, I think the second pic in this post is awesome. Yeah, so it looks like I missed. Big deal. Umaril's on fire man! Holy fire from the holy sword!

Excellent posts Jack! I really enjoyed the posts regarding how you feel about Oblivion as a game. Very pertinent opinions and some of them I also share.

I recommend you to get the Deadly Reflex mod, though. It may not be anime-ish but it adds cool stuff like beheading your opponents or cutting them in half or shield bashing them and other crazy moves. Imagine how cool it is to cleave a man wearing plate armour in half.

Anyway, I'm glad you finally upgraded your gear and got a proper taste of Oblivion.

Now I'm pretty sure that THIS is a mod. Anyway, the wall-run is fricking awesome.

Ah crap, now you've interested me in a monk character. Guess it's back to the tutorial. I really should learn to safe before the exit.

He's a kickass soldier not a monk lol

Woops, my mistake. But in all fairness, when you say soldier in TES, I always picture the Legionnaire with broadsword and shield. Frankly, I imagine weapons and armour of some sort in any setting.

Heh, that just means he's so badass he doesn't need any.

Nah, he's just chilling out in the woods.

New computer

@ Chimera - LOL love the DeathStar in THIS pic

@ jack cloudy - Mods-R-Us. I sometimes wonder how people find the time to make all the mods. Amazing work though. It is rather amusing on the hair issue. Never gets dirty, never gets wet - unless youhave a mod. I find face-gen a bit easier with Chargen With Numbers You might want to give it a try. You can also go into the CS (if you have it) and set up a custom race. Can do some amazing things with characters doing that, and it's really not difficult. Great rundown of the tutorial dungeon too. After about the second time through, I just toggled god-mode on and now have fun with it. I do think my main complaint about the dialogue in general is the presumption that your character is fully good (or is a citizen of Tamriel at all - due to the availability of Daedric race mods). I do wish that could be updated. As for the ledge where the assassins come from, you can get up to it by jumping on the middle stair ledge, then up to the "assassin's ledge". Only problem is that the doors up there are ocked, and if you can get into them they're just little tiny rooms with no tunnels. Gives a nice vantage point for flameing the rats though. I tptally agree with you on Uriel's fight or flee script, and could continue that into the normal melee fighintg mode. My character is swinging his/her sword and some NPC darts in front and receives the blow I intended for the "bad guy", then complains. Hellooo?? swaord swing in progress here, don't step in front of me!! I think that prob is due partly to Bethesda's decision to "dumb-down" the AI in the game. On class selection, I like that it give you the option to make a custom class. Something that I don't remember being available in Morrowind.
I don't have much trouble with game balance, though some of the mods I use do tend to make some of the bandit areas a bit too hard without a companion. Instead of "unarmored" there is now "hand to hand" that you can use. Maybe not as good, but does the job decently. The Atronach sign is a good one to take if you really want to play a combat-only oriented character. Really makes you think twice about lobbinig off those spells.

@ Daedroth - Ha! Looks like you've found the pose mods. Those are some fun mods. Not sure just how many there are, but I can spend hours just posing my character (and usually laughing myself off my chair at the results). Which ones are you using?








[

I'm using Pose Thumbnails. I've been using it for a long time and I know that you use it aswell.

Maybe I should check the pose mods out myself someday. Also, Daedroth. What armor mod is that in the first pic? For a female armour/clothes mod it is surprisingly modest. It might be something my sister would enjoy. (I swear, my underwear provides more coverage+protection than the average female 'armour'. Now I'm a guy, but it still counts.)

Which brings me to my next point. If you're playing a guy, do not ever let your sister/anyone else who uses female characters convince you to "buy that outfit from a mod I just downloaded." Odds are pretty damn good that it has a female only mesh which leads to...embarassing results.

Anyway, the textures on that armour in your third pic are simply amazing. Just look at those gauntlets.

Chiglet, I share your pain over the 'AI'. Just this morning I was going to fireball the emperor's murderer while we were both in a tunnel, at the amazing distance of half a metre. I have already pressed the button so I'm in the process of forming the divine light of fiery inconvenience. Cue Baurus rushing in and getting up in my face right when the fireball is released.
"That was not smart." I hope you were commenting on your own actions, dude. Cause yeah, that was pretty stupid indeed. How the hell did he manage to squeeze passed me anyway?

As for custom character generation. It was there in Morrowind, and Daggerfall...I think. In Morrowind you could choose to 'fill out the forms yourself', which basically dumped you in the custom class generation. Although, it was a lot more viewerfriendly. But then again, I prefer Morrowinds interface over Oblivion's. Who the hell thought that going with a symbol-only interface was such a brilliant idea?

And to make this post legitimate, here are some pics again. This morning, I decided to play some more Oblivion again, send Luper into the Shivering Isles etc. Except I found out that all the savegames had been deleted. I guess I should have been warned about that when the game decided to check my hardware and autoconfigure the settings. Bummer. At least all the mods are still there and I've now made a backup folder where I manually copy over my savegames.

So I had to start all over again and decided, quite on a whim, to make myself. Now the closest thing I have to a mirror is the shiny medicinal cabinet in the bathroom and I'm too lazy to run back and forth so I used a frying pan as a compromise.

Anyway, here I am. I don't have a camera or pictures of myself to use as comparison but it is close enough for me to be satisfied. And yes, my lips in real life really are that dark (a bit darker and more purplish actually, less shiney.) Seriously, sometimes I actually think it looks like I'm wearing lipstick even though I don't.



For Roleplaying, I've decided to use the following rules.

1: No heavy weapons. A dagger/shortsword is about as good as it gets. I'm pretty damn weak in real life, Oblivion's musclebound body be damned, so I'm not going to lug around a claymore or heavens forbid, a warhammer. The sword I'm wearing right now is just for decor really, I don't plan to use it. (except maybe for blocking.)
2: No heavy armour. Same reason. Gauntlets are excempt from this rule.
3: I'm a coward. No really, I'm probably the most pacifistic person I've ever met (in real life). So that's pretty much why the sword is purely aesthetic. I think I'll switch over from destruction to conjuration as soon as possible. Just because that is probably the most cowardly way of fighting possible.
4: When using a bow, Bound bows only. I'm assuming that the massive drawing strength of the Bound bow is actually part of the spell and not part of...me.
5: I'm a bard. That goes completely against the constant fireballing I did in the tutorial but Baurus said I looked like a bard so I'll roll with it.

Oh and before I forget.
6: I wear glasses. Since I wear them in real life, I might as well wear them in Cyrodiil.

Also, I'd like to point out that the hairdo is different than my own. I'm just using this one because it looks like something I'd actually have if I were in Tamriel. I mean, has anyone seen a barber?

The first armor is a vampire hunter armor which requires Roberts female body replacer or something like that. The other armor (in the third pic) is Aragorn's Royal Gear.

Now over to pictures:




I'm playing Morrowind sometimes too now. Only got like 2-3 mods installed though, "Emmas better Imperial Faces" and a Balmora mod.

Click to Enlarge

Kay:







Sia:







Chloe:



Eva:





Brin:

I hope you don´t wear such grandma glasses as your character has.
Btw the pictures of Kay, that Floydian1 posted, is pretty hawt.

Heh, I don't. My real glasses fit my face a lot better but it was either these, fricking huge round ones, shades, a monocle or something very embarassing and very pink.

Really pink? Sure you installed the mod correctly?

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A few more:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/1...-1220311193.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/HW4.jpg

Haha, Harry Potter with leather pants.

Okay, let me just say: Every picture i saw was completly and utterly awesomely amazing! I seriously loved EVERY one!

@ Jacl Cloudy, Daedroth, Chimera - Awesome shots!!

Haha, yeah, attack that wall! Beat it down!

I have begun making CM companions if anyone is interested.

Samuel Jackson

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24183

Adriana Lima:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/2...-1240064399.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23808

Natalie Portman:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/2...-1240676411.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24018

Sylar:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/2...-1241140381.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24127

More to come.

Is that Sylar from Heroes? He looks different than I thought, having never seen the show. (I always imagined a guy with greying hair and glasses.)

And I see that you've discovered the Slaughterfish mod.

Haha, Samuel Jackson funny!
I played a little of Morrowind lately.
And of course some Oblivion.

Ohhh a sweet hunk you got there...the second pic I mean... yummy

I love this armor.

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Where's the farber beans?


http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24488

I am the shade's deception, I am the silent demise, I am the boogeyman.

[/img]


I am not afraid of you Sethyas, oh no, on the contrary!

A view of the softer side of Sethyas, seen here in his Redoran Councilman garb, enjoying some hackle-lo on a pipe, carrying his 'Daisho' Akaviri Katana and Wakizashi set at his side.



A side view.



Sethyas ain't afraid of no Archmistresses either.....

"Ok Seth, time for a pipe of peace, right?

Oh noes! Sethyas is going to get cancer!