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Best girl.

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Had a go at Classic Amy Rose in the IDW-style.

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The Shut-In. Whether it's canon or not we got some cute human designs out of it.

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What the cluck?

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Lily, Wylde Pak.

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The Doctor Who Wiki goes so hard.

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Been meaning to do this since the show aired.

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Back to the Pokégirls with Shauna from X/Y.

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I think it'd be hilarious if this guy becomes a Tumblr sexyman.

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Twilight Sparkle, Equestria Girls-style. Trying to teach myself shading and lighting after *counts* nineteen years of being a sort-of-artist.

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The Pokémon kick continues with Iris (G5) and May (G3).

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On Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

One of the things I loved about the early Pokémon games was the feeling of being lost; even on a tiny handheld screen, there was something about the worlds of Kanto, Johto and even Hoenn to an extent that made them seem huge. Clever game design and the imagination of a child (or young teen, at any rate) imbued these regions with a grandeur that belied their limited tilesets.

When you ran into Blue/Gary (he’ll always be Gary to me first thanks to the anime) or the other rivals it felt monumental; in this big, bad world filled with monsters (whether the creatures themselves or the evil gangs you battled) you somehow ran into someone that you knew. Besides checking in with Professor Oak now and then when you filled the PokéDex, there was almost no other communication with home. Even latterly once you picked up Fly, how often did we hurry back to Pallet Town to check in with our loved ones?

Pokémon’s design has always been about ushering you on; to that next town, to that next trainer, to that next gym, etc.

Perhaps that’s why I felt an initial surge of betrayal when more and more communication features were added as technology improved. Suddenly, you were getting ‘phone calls out in the middle of the nowhere from seemingly everyone demanding that you go to this place and battle them, bring them that object, catch that Pokémon for them, and so on and so forth. To me, it seemed to strike at the very heart of what these games were about:

you vs. the world.

I know now, of course, that I was wrong. Pokémon at its heart has always been about COMMUNICATION. The paired versions of games – while also a clever ploy to sell the same game twice – were about bringing people together in the spirit of common purpose. In order to catch ‘em all, as the saying goes, you had to talk to someone in real life. Fancy that? A video-game with a social conscience.

Anyway, in a roundabout manner, this brings me to my main point: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. The most recent (as of writing) paired versions in the franchise, released in 2022 (three years after Sword and Shield). As with their immediate predecessors they were widely mocked both before and after release for their various technical issues, artstyle, and countless small niggles people had when comparing them to the franchise’s high points.

I’m sorry to say that I was one of those who joined in the criticism; to me, the game was an unforgivable mess that I had to slog through to completion. The open-world was a disjointed, ugly-looking affair that was borderline impossible to navigate at times, the storyline frankly uninteresting and uninspired at times, and more than ever – in a game that promised you more freedom than was previously the case – it felt as if you were being pulled hither and thither by the whims of others rather than your own agency.

Nemona cajoles you into the gym circuit because she wants a rival.

Arven cajoles you into the Titan quest because he needs backup.

Cassiopeia/Penny forces you into Operation Starfall for seemingly no good reason.

Frankly, I was relieved when the credits rolled. I think I dropped the controller and let out a heartfelt sigh, glad that I wouldn’t have to put up with another minute of this atrocity upon my childhood.

THREE YEARS LATER

I can’t say what inspired it exactly; I have numerous friends who are also heavily involved in the Pokémon fandom, and their various posts, musings, jokes and memes over the years may have been what prompted me to finally give Pokémon Scarlet a second go. And you know what?

I liked it.

Dare I say … I loved it?

Would I even go so far as to contend that it’s my favourite entry in the franchise, beating out even the peerless OR/AS and US/UM?

Hard to say for sure, but what I do know is that ever since I wrapped up every major storyline and most of the minor ones I haven’t spent one minute not thinking about Paldea and everything it gave me.

Nemona is no longer a weird stalker girl who only cares about battling; she’s a prodigy born of hard work who finds it hard to relate to other people (and similarly others find it hard to relate to her), so when someone comes along who can really push her limits of course she’s excited about that and wants them to be the very best like no one ever was.

Arven is no longer some jerk who presses you into aiding him solely for his own benefit; he’s a deeply sensitive child who was abandoned by a ruthless parent (mother or father depends on which version of the game you play), and when there’s a chance for a connection with another human being who won’t push him away or let him down of course he’s gonna fight for that.

Penny is no longer a frustrating figure who shanghais you into doing her dirty work for her, but very clearly a girl struggling with HUGE guilt and anxiety over her actions in forming Team Star. The love she feels for her friends is palpable, even if she’s bad at expressing it at times, and when the opportunity arises for her to find a workaround for her problems and potentially save everyone of course she jumps at it.

Almost like the whole thing is about COMMUNICATION or something, huh?

With the main setting being a school it’s only natural that the subject of bullying comes up; in fact, this is the whole reason behind Team Star. They were formed as an anti-bullying league that got a bit out of hand, and once again the failure to properly communicate this between staff and students is what leads to the rift there. Operation Starfall eventually becomes less about taking down Team Star and more about making Director Clavell realise that there’s often huge, huge problems that teachers may not be aware of (or may not choose to be aware of).

Circling back to Arven for a moment, but his is the most deeply affecting storyline of the whole game and it’s often been mentioned as been up there with some of Game Freak’s best work. Throughout the narrative we get little hints that he’s estranged from his mother/father (again, depending on version) due to their work and hasn’t seen them in years. Come the final story we finally find out why.

His parent is dead.

They’ve been talking to a ghost.

More specifically, an AI replica of their deceased parent. An AI that turns out to be warmer and more human than the original, who only sees the senseless horror their progenitor’s work will cause if it continues unabated, and who only wishes that they/the original had been a better parent to Arven.

It’s heady stuff. Game Freak is so good at this kind of thing as a background event or subplot; there have been sneaky jokes, subplots, references, etc, in the past but this is a full-on whack to the head kind of thing and I applaud it.

The theme of communication/lack of even extends to the DLC: Teal Mask/Indigo Disk’s whole thing kicks off because Kieran feels lost, alone, isolated due to his sister’s relentless teasing and his belief that Ogerpon was actually a good Pokémon; when he finally finds a friend in you, the player character, circumstances conspire to make him feel even worse. It sucks that you’re railroaded into this storyline because you see almost instantly what’s going to happen when you catch Ogerpon, but there’s no way around it.

Kieran, lost and forgotten, and you steal Ogerpon from him to boot? In ID he becomes a broken husk of his former self, almost a robot who relentlessly self-improves at the cost of his humanity (a brilliant inverse from the main story, where the AI is more human than the original).

S/V are games with enormous thematic depth; the connections we forge, the costs involved in making bold new discoveries, the nature of humanity, etc. Is it frustrating that they don’t run very well and look terrible? Very much yes. Is it easy to overlook these flaws due to the startling array of content and the dizzying depth they provide? Also yes.

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SHE'S A WITCH!

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I made a Graven image.

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My girlfriend and I are like this all the time.

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Pliny, StuGo.

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The Spinny.