#I think Steven is actually pretty good at these type of games.

[screwpinecaprice]

Friday: Game Night

Victory over an overconfident opponent!

Personal connverse week for an anonymous Ko-fi tipper! Prompts, details, and polaroid border effect also by anon.

[ivystoryweaver]

im so interested in what u think the moon boys would be like as dads???

Ohhhhh, this is gonna hurt my heart. In a good way. I have a lot of feelings about Moon Dads and I've not yet written fics about it so yeah...

I'm gonna jump right in with Marc.

I think if Marc had a child, he would be all in: attentive, tender, affectionate.

I don't actually believe Marc would be afraid of parenting. I know that can be a popular hc/fic plot and I totally understand why, and love reading those.

But I think Marc would be one of those people that would try to do the opposite of what was done to him. Example: his parents were married and that went well... (sarcasm)

Yet Marc got married. He and Layla were together for years and, according to her, had "adventures together", meaning they worked as a (likely successful) team. Marc bailed on Layla once his mom passed and he could no longer control or hide his disassociations (plus Khonshu's threats for Layla to be his next avatar).

Point being: Marc did get married and seemed pretty successful at it, for the most part.

Marc is in charge of bath time. This includes little toy boats, fish that squirt water, bubbles. He's going to wash their hair, or whatever hair needs they have, depending on race and hair types. If it is a hair type he isn't as familiar with, he is going to be talking to his partner, looking up vids, whatever it takes. Touch is going to be so important to him. He is the dad who will know how to do french braids or styles for textured hair.

He's never going to react in anger. If he is angry, he's going to hand the reins to Steven or sometimes Jake (if he is able, it's obviously not a parlor trick), or he will just say to his little one, "Daddy is going to take a time out. I'll be back in a minute and we can have a talk." The idea of putting himself in time out is so endearing to his child that they end up calming from whatever misbehavior they were attempting, wanting to join him in the corner for time out, touching a plushie or reading a book in his lap.

They learn very young that their father's expressions can be stern but his hands are safe. They will not want to disappoint him.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Steven can converse naturally with children, this we see in the first episode. Steven's open, engaging nature is great for children. His own childlike wonder will shine in fatherhood. He was also able to quickly redirect the behavior of the girl who was littering at the museum. So a spunky child in a doctor's office waiting room will be easily wrangled by a distracting toy, quick game or wonderful story.

Steven is your go-to guy for bedtime stories. With a young child, Steven will share how wondrous the world around them is. He'll always have a anecdote or a fun fact for tweens or teens.

He will offer choices. "Do you want to put on 'jammies now or after a story?" "Do you want to help Dad set the table or feed the cat?" Steven has lacked agency in his life, so he is going to give it to his child. He will teach them to speak up for their needs.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Jake is going to be such a little shit as a dad. I'm sorry but there is no nicer way to say it lol. Jake's used to operating in the background and he's a night owl. He's the fun dad. He's the "don't tell mom" dad (or don't tell dad, dad). Kid wants stay up 15 extra minutes? It's Jake that's gonna sneak them some of the popcorn he popped after they were supposed to be asleep. As a partner, you'd find your little one on Jake's knee in the most comfy chair, watching the Yankees play baseball.

You give them The Look™ and they know they are busted. They exchange guilty glances and then Jake starts repeating words in Spanish. Baseball, Popcorn, very good! If you are already all Spanish speakers then Jake pretends to be practicing in both Spanish and English.

Either way, he and his little twin, with their adorable curls, give you shit eating grins.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Moon Knight Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Askbox

[oddballwriter]

The Second

Summary: After going on an unplanned adventure with your best friend and crush, his host, and his host's wife to stop the end of the world, and ending up in an accidental love triangle... square...whatever shape it is, you go back to your hometown to clear your mind. It's a great success for you, helping you reconnect with your childhood friend and even bring him back to continue the fun and show him your life in London. But unbeknownst to you, it seems like it might just cause a rift that is born on one side of the triangle.

Warnings: Love triangle and unrequited feelings. The reader is referred to using she/her. Angst, it's soft but it's there. Third-wheeling. I can't think of anything else but I feel like there's more, if there is just tell me. 

Author’s Snip: This is sort of a pilot for a series idea that I have that involves all kinds of love shape situations, rivalry, and dragging friends into all kinds of avatar shenanigans on accident. So if you guys like this, let me know so that I can prep and have it ready for writing and planning.

Notes: This is not proofread before posting, if there are errors blame Grammarly for not catching it. I might fix them later.  

I’ll shut up now. Enjoy! And don’t be afraid to request.

Word Count: 2,892

Tag List: @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

What an adventure you just went on. It all feels so unreal when you even try and think about it. Even as you stare up at the ceiling above your bed you find it hard to really digest fully.

Your good friend Steven turned out to be an alter for a person with DID who's named Marc Spector, whom you had not met, ever, throughout you and Steven's close friendship. In which Marc is the avatar and fist of justice for the Egyptian god Khonshu and was living his life while Steven was not fronting, unbeknownst to Steven, and has been playing a game of keep-away with a cult and their leader for a scarab. And you ended up finding all that out when some members of the cult kidnapped you to intimidate Steven and Marc. By the way, Marc is married and has been married, to a woman named Layla. And so you had to go on this whole adventure with all three of them to stop the end of the world, or something, nearly dying on several occasions, and now it's done apparently. Crisis averted. Also, there is a fucking third one.

You're sure that if you told someone outside of your journal and your new group of friends about this, then you would be thrown into a psychiatric hospital in record time.

And that isn't even mentioning all the complicated feelings you're having right now about the love triangle, that only you are aware of. Because of course, you're in a love triangle that the two other people have no idea exists. It's complicated. It was a little complicated at the start, and now it's so much more complicated because now there's another person involved.

Scratch that, four people involved. This is a love square.

Fuck it, now that Jake's here it might actually be a love pentagon now!

Either way, it all has to do with your feelings towards Steven. You had developed them pretty early on in your friendship with Steven because you just so happened to fall into your type. Dork, sweet, funny, and polite guys were your weakness. You tried to fight them off, not wanting to ruin the friendship that you honestly valued with Steven. But he just had this aura and energy that had your heart like a moth to a flame. Some might call it a slow burn. You'd say that it all was fast. But the warmth went to heat that got painful when you found out about Marc and Layla, and thus Steven and Layla.

You're not mad at Layla. Of course not! Why would you? She was there first, technically. It feels bad to say that. Both because you'd have to try and snuff out the feelings that you have, but also because it sounds wrong. It sounds like Steven's an object to be won instead of a person with his own thoughts and feelings. And you never once saw him like that. He was Steven. Nice, sweet, funny Steven.

You knew you needed to move on, even if it hurt. You know you don't have the guts and nerve to be 'the other person' even if you got the chance to be. It would be disrespectful to Layla, and Layla's a great woman. You settle on going back home, to your hometown, to see family and friends in hopes that it'll distract you, maybe even help you get over it if you're lucky. You call up your family who gladly accept the idea and will set up the room that you'll stay in by the time you get there. With that, you pack your bags, get ready for the trip, and head off.

You don't tell Steven that you're leaving to anywhere at first until you're just about to leave, figuring that if he tries to visit you and you're not there he'll assume someone else has kidnapped you and panic. You just send him a simple "As a heads up I'll be out of town for a while. I need a break.", at some point in your trip heading towards your hometown he texts you back with a single "Okay. Sounds nice.".

As it turns out, going around old loved ones really does help your blues. Matter of fact it seems like everyone from your life here heard the news that you'd be spending a few weeks in town and all got together to see you. Your uncle and dad actually threw a little family cookout so that everyone can come say hi to you.

Everyone had questions for you. What's London like? What have you been doing? How's life going over there?

Of course, you can't tell them about all the recent events and you also don't want to ruin your good mood by talking about Steven like you probably would have if this were a trip not spawned from him, in a sense. Overall, everyone's just happy you're back regardless.

You meet a really old face amidst the crowd of family and friends who've assembled. Samson. Sammy. God, you'd know his face anywhere and you know he'd know yours too. You and Sammy have been best friends since diapers. Your moms were friends. Apparently, the story goes that your mom and dad were at the courthouse waiting in line to sign the marriage papers and so were Sammy's mom and dad. Your mothers started talking and it turns out they have a lot in common. By the time both parties left the courthouse, they were in each other's weddings, to which they then found out that they both would be moving into the same area to settle down. Your moms swear that you and Sammy being close in age was just a coincidence but you always joked that it wasn't.

Sammy is hard to put into words. How do you describe the person who's been your best friend since both of you were coloring with crayons and all the way to high school graduations and beyond? The number one person you would talk to about things outside of your parents and through all of the other friends you've both had throughout your lives, the one that has always been the same. Sammy is just Sammy to you, in the most sincere way possible.

After seeing each other at the cookout you catch up on just about everything. What you've been up to, any life milestones you've gotten to while apart. You tell him about London and he tells you about his life here in town. Sammy's gotten up to a few things, had a few girlfriends, and apparently, he's developed his own business. Turns out he's a handyman and locksmith now and makes great money. Gets to make his own hours, so he says. Sammy teases you a bit and asks if you've been collecting British boyfriends. You know it's just a tease but it plucks at the still tender parts of your heart a little. You brush it off and say no.

"No?" Sammy questions, "Come on. Someone like you over there? You're kidding me. You've got to have some guys waiting like a dog for you to come back." he says. You decide to play along in the banter.

"Maybe I do. What of it, Sam-I-Am." you shrug, pretending like he's trying to compete and also pulling out old childhood nicknames. Sammy cringes and the nickname, "Oof, not the Sam-I-Am from kindergarten. You know only my dad called me that until you said it in class. Then everyone started calling me that till fifth grade." Sammy laughs. "Not you doing your shitty British accents when I said I had a thing for British boys back in seventh grade." you reference and make a call back of your own. "It made you laugh and that was my goal." Sammy playfully defended.

For a good half of your stay, Sammy was there, like always, and you would be talking about the old days. Referencing various moments and laughing or cringing together. It felt so nostalgic and good to just feel that bond again, have someone who knows all your little inside jokes and references because they were there when it was formed, and you both didn't want it to stop.

So when the day that you were to go back to London you threw out the idea that Sammy come back with you and continue the fun there. Show him what you've been doing and show him the little life you've created there.

Even though you live in a one-bedroom apartment you managed to accommodate your guest pretty well. You always knew that the pull-out bed extension of your couch that you bought second-hand would have a use someday. You two settled on rules and bases, along with where various things are in case they're needed.

After that, it was just more talking that made the time go by so fast and other things seem so minuscule. You hadn't really paid attention to the fact that you had a brief text conversation with Steven when you got back basically just telling him that you were back and what you're up to right now. It wasn't until he texted you something that sort of snapped you out of it.

You: I'm not really doing anything but my friend came back with me and will be here for a bit.

Steven: Oh that's nice

Steven: Can I meet them maybe?

You weren't sure how long you spent looking at that message, but it was long enough that Sammy noticed. "Something wrong?" he asks. "No," you reply, "Just one of my friends. He says he wants to meet you... if you're okay with that," you explain but hesitate slightly at the end, not really liking the sound of having Steven over right now after being able to get him off your mind. "Sure! I'd love to meet one of your friends here." Sammy responds, "If that's alright with you of course." he adds.

You take a second to weigh it out in your mind. On one hand, having the guy that you have feelings for over after you went on a whole vacation partially because he doesn't feel that way towards you doesn't sound like the best idea. But maybe having Sammy here will reduce that feeling of awkwardness since it can just be having your friends meet each other.

Taking the gamble, you tell Steven that he's good to come over.

The next few minutes are spent continuing to talk to Sammy, making jokes and having banter. When you hear the knock at your door you and a text from Steven that announces that he's arrived. You get up from the couch and make your way to the door, unlocking it and opening it up. And there he is, smiling at you and giving you his usual polite little "hello". You greet him back before stepping out of the way so that he can come in.

Sammy gets up from his seat on the couch and comes to shake Steven's hand. You see Steven hesitate briefly and sort of freeze up before taking the hand shake. You step in between them.

"Steven, this is my childhood friend, Samson. Samson, this is my friend Steven." you introduce them to each other and gesture to them respectively. "Nice to meet you!" Sammy comments. "Likewise," Steven responds.

You all take a seat, you and Sammy back on the couch while Steven takes a chair from your little dining table set. Sammy and Steven have some good small talk back and forth, talking the usual stuff when you meet new people. You can see Steven being a little fidgety, picking at his sweater sleeve, nodding along but having a small crease between his brows. All things that he does when he's nervous or concerned with something, you take it as Steven being shy about meeting and talking to new people like he usually is. You take it upon yourself to sort of help him by bringing up subjects that you know he's good at talking about.

"Steven loves Ancient Egypt and mythos. He knows pretty much everything," you mention. Sammy raises his brows in interest, "Really?" he questions. "Oh yeah," Steven confirms, "I would have made a bloody good tour guide if my superior wasn't out to get me." Steven remarks. You see Sammy hold back a laugh in the corner of your vision, you turn to him and light-heartedly scold him with a "Stop it.". Sammy looks towards you, his smile growing to a shit-eating grin. "Stop it," you repeat, "Behave. I told you not to laugh," you say as you struggle to keep your own laughter in. "He said the thing." Sammy squeaks out before letting a few laughs leave him. You lean in and bap him on the shoulder playfully, "Stop," you warn as you give him a few baps.

Steven lets out a small laugh that only you can tell is his fake trying-to-pretend-I-get-it laugh. "I'm sorry, Steven." you apologize, "Not even 24 hours in and he doesn't know how to act," you say as you look back to Sammy and give him a playful shake. "I'm sorry." Sammy says to Steven, "There's an inside joke to it I swear." he says.

"What's the joke?" Steven inquires. Your face drops, knowing what Sammy is going to say. "Don't you dare," you warn Sammy as you try to cover his mouth, but Sammy already knew that you are going to stop him and is ready to block your hand. You both spend a few seconds lightly wrestling as you try to cover his mouth and he blocks you in some way. "It has something to do with her-" Sammy says before you interrupt him with a "No!" in objection, "British boyfriend!" Sammy announces. "I don't have a British boyfriend!" you object through laughs as you hit him with a couch pillow. You both spend a few moments laughing. When you finally calm down you find Steven looking at the two of you like you've grown and extra head.

You sigh and look to Sammy, "Why don't you explain 'British boyfriend' to him since you want to talk about it so much?". "Okay, okay," Sammy submits. "This one," Sammy says pointing at you, "Had a thing for this one kid who was visiting family for the summer in our home neighborhood back in seventh grade, or seventh year, whatever it's called here. And so we have this joke that he was her British boyfriend. And I used to do a really bad accent to make her laugh and get all embarrassed.", Sammy looks at you and reassures, "I'm not going to do it, don't worry.".

The conversation goes on but you and Sammy can't help but say more jokes that you then need to explain to Steven, which leads to other stories and laughing fits between the two of you. You try to do the same with Steven in case he references something between the two of you, but you find that Steven just seems to sit there and listen, nodding along. You want to try and prompt something but at some point, you're able to sense this weird tension in the air whenever you do.

You aren't too sure what to do. You don't want to shoo Steven out since you've always said that Steven was always welcomed at your place, but the atmosphere is strange between the two of you for some reason. It isn't until Sammy gives something that would get the job done.

"You know, it's really nice to meet you, Steven. But I think the traveling is starting to catch up with me." Sammy says as he stretches his arms out. "Oh, no worry. I was actually thinking of getting out of your hair. You know..." Steven responds, "Since you guys probably had to get out early to get back here." he clarifies. Steven was already getting up to leave by the time he even started talking.

Sammy and you get up also, and you go in for the usual goodbye hug that you and Steven do when parting ways, Sammy shakes Steven's hand again and says his goodbyes.

Once Steven leaves, you and Sammy set up the couch so that Sammy can nap for a bit. You head to your room so that you can take one for yourself and reflect on the meeting. You still have a bit of that feeling of weird tension but figure that maybe Steven wasn't prepared for all the energy that you and Sammy created and all the inside jokes. Maybe a second get-together could help with that. After all, it might be great to have two best friends also be best friends with each other.

Meanwhile, Steven walks back, sitting in his thoughts quietly as he walks until Marc appears in a reflection along the walk. "What's with the long face?" Marc asks. Steven glances at Marc for a moment, "Nothing, it's just that..." Steven opens up with, "I felt like a bit of a third wheel over there." he admits. Marc shrugs, "Well it is her friend from her hometown, isn't it? I'm sure they'd be all chatty with each other.".

"Yeah, I suppose so." Steven replies, "It just felt a bit... off." Steven remarks.

[dorkynerd23]

NOT ALL CARTOONS NEED TO HAVE LORE AND BE STORY-DRIVEN

I just gotta say this real quick because it's honestly been on my mind lately and I think more people need to see this because this issue is kinda an ongoing problem with cartoons these days, especially with cartoons with high expectations from some people out there, and with the recent TCS hate that's been happening around lately on Twitter, I'd figure I make a post and give my thoughts and also give my thoughts on people who expect every cartoon now to be story-driven and have lore.

Not all cartoons need to be deep and serialized, have shipping, ect to be good and watchable, not every cartoon needs that and it isn't always necessary. I'm saying this because people still whine and complain about the reasons TCS and shows like it, (like BCG, TGAMM, and more) are just bad because it doesn't have deep storytelling and isn't dark, (Hell, some haven't even watched the show and given it a chance, and still call it shit) but it isn't really relying on that and besides, cartoons are supposed to be fun and give you a good and fun time, it shouldn't matter what the story is just as long as you're enjoying watching them. Now let me just say this, there's absolutely nothing wrong with liking shows that have lore, the issue is setting up high expectations for other shows and being upset because it doesn't have lore, not every show needs to be like Steven Universe, The Owl House, Amphibia, and so on, not all shows need that, AT ALL. Sometimes it's good and fine to watch characters going on wacky adventures and just be episodic and fun, not everything needs to be serialized to be good.

And also, let's not forget before shows like Avatar The Last Airbender came around, we always mostly had shows that were episodic and didn't take themselves all that seriously and we're just there to make you laugh and have fun. :) Trust me, I enjoy and love serialized shows (even though they aren't always my cup of tea, it depends sometimes) as much as others do, and I do get interested in what'll happen next and things to theorized in lore type of shows and enjoy seeing the world-building and strong storytelling. But, at the same time, sometimes I just wanna step away from serialized shows and just laugh and turn my brain off and a thing I love and enjoy about slice of life/episodic shows is rewatchability. And while yeah, overarching narratives can be rewatched, but it's kinda hard to pick out an episode in a serialized show because some episodes might include some important details that you might've missed and such and have to go back, if that makes sense. So most of the time I usually wait until a show ends to really catch up and watch them, since it's kinda difficult to watch a show that's still ongoing.

Now, even though I absolutely love and adore Cuphead and the show, I'm not gonna act like everything in the show works because it doesn't, there are some issues. TCS isn't perfect at all and is pretty flawed and there's things I hope they approve on if they get renewed hopefully, but I just wish some would appreciate the series more, because most criticisms I've seen of the show is that it's not like the game and doesn't have lore, which is criticisms I'm honestly sick of when it comes to shows like TCS. It's understandable if you don't like the show and just aren't a fan, but at least understand and see that not every cartoon needs to be grand and epic to be good and give actual reasons for not liking it! To conclude, I just think episodic shows should be more appreciated and deserve so much better, and it isn't fair for how people treat slice of life shows, it's okay to like and enjoy both serialized and episodic shows, they're both good and great in their own way.

Sometimes, all a cartoon needs is a blend of fun, comedy and along with heart, you don't always need a deep, grand epic story for cartoons. There's no need to fight and harass others over which one is better and more superior, just let people love and like what they love, let people enjoy their cartoons!

I'd totally recommend watching these videos by Alpha Jay Show + KashCash when it comes to my post, because I think they do a better explanation and talking about this ongoing issue in the cartoon community and the high expectations people seem to get when it comes to certain shows. Again, this isn't me trying to start a fight and harass anybody, I just wanted to give my opinion on this issue because it's really starting to be talked about on Twitter, so many people are really just tearing down The Cuphead Show for simply not being serialized. Even though as I've mentioned, not all cartoons need to be that and besides, shouldn't we remember that TCS is clearly trying to be based off 1930's cartoons, especially shows like Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse + Disney cartoons, and Tom & Jerry. Which didn't take themselves seriously and we're just very simple and there to make you laugh and smile! They're also still very loved and appreciated by so many today and they didn't rely on anything big and epic, and give anything complex to be entertaining and enjoyable.

(Links To The Videos I've Mentioned!)

[Alpha Jay Show - https://youtu.be/0jSXat7kEa4]

(A Deep Dive Into The Awful Criticisms Of Cuphead)

[KashCash - https://youtu.be/UcB3ZtziXvg]

(Not All Cartoons Need To Have Lore)

[kob131]

I plan on making an expansive version sometime in the future but here's a rough shot placement of how I rank the generations-

9- Gen 6. Pokemon is at its best when it goes for both story and gameplay as one complete package than two seperate things. X and Y doesn't push either one with pretty bland gameplay (with the exception of Super Training) and a bland to bad story (I cannot name a single thing about the rivals, the team is as bland as Gen 1 Rocket with nonsensical motivations without the Gen 1 excuse and the Champion exists). Aegislash is rad as hell though. Megas are a mixed bag- why does Mega Garchomp exist?

8- Gen 1. Obvious stuff: the glitches in gameplay, really slow pace, starting some of the worst practices in Pokemon like Mythicals, trade evolutions, version exclusives ect. Blue, Lance and Giovanni are interesting characters...outside the Gen 1 games. But the sprites are pretty cool...even if Machop still looks like a gingerbread man to me.

7- Gen 3. Yeah the starters are pretty damn good, they have nice dungeon puzzles and the introduction of abilities was great. But to be real- I can't name a single interesting thing about any of the characters aside from Norman being the ONE dad in Pokemon and Steven being kind of cool. I can't name a thing about Roxanne, Brawly, Watson, Flannery, Winona, Lisa/Tate, Wallace (even though he became a CHAMPION) or any of the Elite Four. I also really don't like Team Aqua and Magma for how shallow they are. Again, they're roughly equal to Gen 1 Team Rocket which could have been fine...if Gen 2 Rocket didn't prove GF was capable of making simple but effective villain teams. Flannery's White Herb Torkoal would have given the games some credit...if not for Juan's stupid ass Double Team-Rest-Chesto Berry Kingdra canceling it out through Evasion hacks.

6- Gen 2. This isn't a condemnation of Gen 2 rather than how old it is. It brought in the Dark and Steel types which have helped make great type matchups and interesting new Pokemon. It made Team Rocket actually pretty interesting since they help embolden the theme of 'times are changing' with them clinging to power and relevancy with Giovanni refusing to show to showcase how their time has come and gone. Lance reinforces this theme by taking over from Blue and Red before teaching Silver, who starts the trend of more dynamic rivals. The sprites are actually really good because it's right before RSE started having blurrier sprites with clear and colorful sprites. It's just other gens adapted what makes it good.

5- Gen 7. The original stuttery Gen, though Pokemon like Vikavolt being a bettle-railcannon, Incineroar being a heel wrestler, Mimikyu's...everything and Lycanroc being a good fast Rock type making some standout Pokemon. It also introduced regional variants with solid additions like Alolan Muk and Alolan Ninetails. It's UI is also a great integration of the region's colorful aesthetic with paint brush splashes. Hau, Lillie, Gladion, Guzma and Lusamine are real standout examples of more in depth Pokemon characters and I think Team Skull is a pretty fun team to feed into the innocent tropical feel of the region. The Totem Pokemon also make for more unique boss battles. The Ultra Beasts are insane from a conceptual and gameplay perspective. I also really love Zygarde's Complete form.

4- Gen 8. A real tossup between this and Gen 7. This is a lot cleaner in terms of visuals but trades off a lot of the color and mix of tropical relaxation/insanity with a clean and flat sports aesthetic that I think is less memorable. Cinderace has an amazing signature move animation but the other two's aren't very interesting in either design or moves. I really like Sir Fetch'd and Obstagoon as new evolutions alongside Orbettle and Toxitricity as great new additions but the clean and simple presentation does make it less memorable. The gyms are also less memorable though the likes of Nessa's design and Raihan's design AND battle are very memorable. Also Leon's battle is really cool...even as he has a nostalgia baiting Charizard. (and I STARTED the series with Charizard). And then we have Hop, the first rival to actually challenge N's spot as the best rival in the games. What really pushes it over the edge is Legends Arceus for being a pinnacle of gameplay, atmosphere and story integration in the series.

3- Gen 4. This might be a little biased considering my clearer memories of Sinnoh. I think with Platnium has one of the best experiences in the games with a well-paced story, great balanced gameplay with the physical and special split allowing for more diverse Pokemon. The starters take advantage of this with the likes of Inferape being a mixed attacker, Empoleon being a special Water/Steel type and Torterra being a physical Grass/Ground tank. We get a great backstory for the Pokemon world in the form of it's creation myth and I think the best Gym Leader rematches in the 2D games. It also helps that this Gen remakes the Gen 2 games, improving the Gen 2 games and gives them the advantage of the more refined Gen 4 sprites and animations and fixing it's leveling issues in Kanto.

... Never forget the issues with the DP's speed and locking several postgame hook resolutions (Shaymin, Darkrai and fucking ARCEUS) behind LIMITED TIME DISTRIBUTIONS.

2- Gen 9. To try and make this quick- the best cast of the games with Arven, Nemona being one of the best rival and Penny being the best friendly team leader alongside the great authority figure in Principal Clavell, memorable Gym Leaders like Larry, Iono, Katie and Rhyme and the sad story of the Professors and how they ended up. They also made the first Legendary Pokemon that's an actual character in Koraidon/Miraidon. The open world allows for more expression of Pokemon's personalities (like how Tauros charge at you to show their aggression, weak and timid Pokemon run from you, Slakoth and Slowpoke lines not reacting to your presence, friendly Pokemon like Hoppip floating towards you, Tyrogue eating berries ect. The updated model textures make the Pokemon look more like actual animals that exist which helps make them appear more like pets. And this is without going into the DLCs which contain either the second best or the best rival in the series in Kieran. However the performance does in fact have issues and there should be more puzzles like in the 2D games. Also if the Pecharunt event is limited time- I'm having words with the developers.

1- Gen 5. Probably the most unique generation since it was the last 2D Gen with sequel games rather than remakes or third versions. This aspect changes a lot since it basically doubles the story of the generation which helps with things like Cherran and Bianca's character arcs with Cherran's use of held items foreshadowing his intelligence and thus his capacity for teaching or Bianca's weaker team reflecting how ill-suited she is for battling to justify her becoming Juniper's assistant. The locations are stunning in their visuals due to the combination of 3D environments and 2D sprites. The Gym Leaders have some great standouts like the Straiton City brothers, Lenora, Elesa, Skyla and Drayton. We also have Team Plasma and how they tackle a concept that Pokemon has long since tiptoed around (Pokemon abuse) being led by their leader N, who stood uncontested as the best rival for a long time.

... It's not perfect. Many of the changes in the sequel are justified by Memory Link events that you can't get normally, the Legendaries are a bit too busy and N probably came in a little early since he's a very verbose and grand rival with big talks of ideals and truth...in the generation right BEFORE we got more in depth dialogue choices. Which kind of makes the writing deflate a bit. Still, probably the best generation we have.

[crystalelemental]

Pokemon Team Analysis - Geeta

Alright, time for something that’s stupid and ill-advised.  I’m gonna talk about Geeta’s team.  Because general consensus is “It’s a bad fight,” and while I don’t disagree, I think that, like usual, it’s kind of just a blanket statement of “Too easy” rather than something discussed and dissected as to why it’s not working.

Also I think there are legitimately great aspects of her team that deserve some recognition as fairly solid game design for a challenge, that maybe people miss because overleveling is basically the norm.

I’ll start with the big thing: “Geeta should’ve led with Glimmora” is a bad take.  “But the Toxic Spikes!”  Are borderline irrelevant.  Players have no significant issues getting around them.  And to make matters substantially worse.  Glimmora is setup fodder.  It’s slow.  While it’s strong statistically, it’s weak with offensive types (Rock and Poison is a bad combo).  It would be exactly like Cynthia’s fight: super weak to setup.  Seriously, if you replay Platinum, try a Calm Mind sweeper with decent speed, and see how much of her team just drops.  Cynthia’s fight is not especially challenging when you can set up, it’s why they locked the boosting TMs to Battle Frontier in post-game.  To prevent you from doing that.

In the situation where Geeta leads Glimmora, Geeta is now significantly easier to beat.  Because Glimmora cannot threaten a good booster.  But you know what threatens a good booster?  Opportunist Espathra.

This is my favorite aspect of her fight.  Espathra is a fantastic lead for the game.  Because this isn’t competitive, it’s main game, where the AI won’t switch ever.  Where the goal of the AI now is to stop your tactics from just running train on them.  Opportunist copies your boosts, which means anything short of Swords Dance benefits her as well, and Espathra is notably fast.  And, most significantly, has Lumina Crash.  Anything not Dark-type gets hit with -2 special defense.  So if you’re boosting but you’re slower, you are guaranteed to be dead.  That’s...actually a good lead.  That’s a smart tactic for the main game.  It’s very Emerald-esque.  In Emerald, where boosting moves started to take off, nearly every major fight has something in their lead slot that can obliterate yours, be it paralysis, accuracy drops, Perish Song, or outright Toxic in Steven’s cast.  Espathra feels reminiscent of that, and is, in fact, a pretty strong lead because of it.  I just think maybe they could’ve done more than Reflect to bypass Sucker Punch strats, you know?  Like maybe ditch Quick Attack for Hypnosis or Confuse Ray.  Otherwise, great pick.

Glimmora’s the other I like, but more for thematic reasons.  I think it’s really interesting how much conversation has been generated around the simple fact that Geeta even has this thing.  For the story, I think it’s a great inclusion as her ace...I just also think Glimmora should’ve had a better speed stat, or Tera shifted into a completely different type.  Personally, I’d say Grass, because you know what blows up four of Grass-types weaknesses?  Rock.  Though admittedly, I think Glimmora needs to go Fire.  It’s got a solid defensive profile, and notably means Tera Blast can cut through Steel that otherwise hard walls its STAB combo.  I think the big problem is that it’s just a bit too slow to ever be threatening with its offenses, but its typing, including Tera, is just too defensively poor.  Poison would’ve been more valuable as a Tera type, with only two weaknesses, than Rock with like five.

The other aspect I do like is that Geeta’s team is representative of the region.  Espathra from the west, Gogoat from the east, Veluza from the lake, Avalugg from the mountain, Kingambit from the north, and Glimmora from the crater.  It’s a cool idea!  But also, when you know that?  You can...probably build a better team yourself.  And you may also notice, Geeta has a battle focus.  She’s bulky offense.  All of these options, barring Espathra, are fairly slow but also reasonably bulky.

AND BULK DOESN’T WORK

The player has natural advantage, thanks to EVs, and Pokemon is a game that works entirely on hitting each other with supereffective hits.  As coverage has expanded to insane degrees, virtually every offensive threat packs ideal coverage.  It is not had to clean sweep someone with one Pokemon when you have four fantastic coverage moves and a solid offense and speed stat.  Because of this, bulky offense cannot work in favor of the AI, which doesn’t switch out to avoid supereffective hits or leverage resistances.  Moreover, it especially doesn’t work when your heavy defenders are (1) Grass type, (2) Ice type, and (3) quad-weak to Fighting, one of the most common coverage options.

Geeta’s team is poorly balanced for the type of playstyle she’s trying to run, and we’re going to talk about better options from around the region to keep that focus, while also playing a lot better.

Espathra stays.  It’s a good lead.  I also keep Glimmora.  It’s a very cool ace.

From the east, instead of Gogoat, I would recommend Cyclizar.  How is this not considered an integral aspect of the region?  Cyclizar is such a hugely important thing.  Also, for bulky offense, the substitute is ideal.  While you could argue the idea of leading with Cyclizar, and I don’t strictly disagree, I think you’d want to program the AI to cheat a little.  If the foe boosts, switch to Espathra.  If they attack, switch to a resist.  It’s a pretty clean solution.

The lake is the most obvious solution.  Dondozo.  Curse setup, Liquidation, Earthquake, Avalanche.  Dondozo fits perfectly in bulky offense, but unlike Avalugg and Gogoat, Dondozo is blessed with a wonderful defensive typing in Water.  Dondozo would be perfect.

For the mountain, I’m going to say all of them are bad.  Most of what could fit is already a staple on someone else’s team, and I assume they were avoiding a lot of overlap.  So instead?  Gholdengo.  We need to talk about this: how in god’s name does she not have Gholdengo?  I don’t even like the thing, but a bulky offensive Pokemon with fantastic defensive typing and absurd offensive capabilities, backed by potential for either Nasty Plot or Recover?  That feels like the most obvious pick.  I feel like this has to happen.

Which means dropping Kingambit.  I don’t dislike Kingambit specifically, but I also feel like it’s pretty easy to take advantage of, especially when she doesn’t let it learn Sucker Punch.  It’s just so slow as to be laughable, and its typing isn’t super weakness-laden, but it’s not as powerful as Gholdengo’s.  If you wanted to keep Kingambit, then I’d probably say take Drifblim as the mountain Pokemon.  Make it more utility-focused, maybe taking Tailwind or something to buff the speed of Glimmora or something.  But instead, I’d say give her Lurantis with Contrary.  It has Leech Life, an ideal recovery tool.  Also give it Close Combat, since you think it’s so funny to take away Superpower as like the only useful thing it could have.  Bastards.

I think these shifts would largely improve on what she’s got going on.  But also, I think it doesn’t matter.  Again, bulky offense on AI doesn’t strictly work.  Especially without items.  It’s probably worth noting that the easiest BDSP fight, despite how hard that game cheats, is Bertha.  Because it is not hard to beat bulky offense.  I just...think a major problem is that Geeta’s approach effectively stands no chance of being particularly tough for a player.  Especially not in the era of forced EXP All and infinite coverage.  It’s just...not going to be difficult to stop her.  At all.  And I think we have to acknowledge that, with the way Pokemon is...that’s going to be the case forever.  They literally cannot design a challenging fight.  The system doesn’t allow it.  The reason older games felt harder is because it was super hard to keep on pace with the opponent’s level, so you were statistically under-prepared.  There’s a reason the only modern game to be considered difficult was Gen 7, which comprised entirely garbage mechanics to massively inflate enemy stats and force stupid 1v2 matchups.  It’s because they can’t design a fair fight that’s fun.  Because your solution is to just set levels way higher, and when you do that, the only solution is grinding, but they’ve spent four generations changing the gameplay flow to no longer require grinding, so they’re out of options.  At this point, only a major overhaul to the battle system would be successful.  And I’m...not sure they’ll know what to do with it.

[sukratyaropia24]

I have three Wips in the drafts and a shit-ton of ideas as well as a lot to ramble with many Fandoms/communities, so lemme tell some of them.

Spoiler on most of these and some swearing.

Genshin x Moonknight

Yall know where I'm going with this? No? Alright lemme explain.

Childe as like, the moon boys, Childe(Normal/playable one) as Steven Grant, Tartaglia(Electro one) as Marc Spector and Foul Legacy as Jake Lockey.

Yall understand where I'm going??? Like, please, I can't get this out of my head since they, to me, are so alike.

Imma bout to go feral with this I swear, like all Childe have their own conscious, like moon knight.

Unlike the moon boys tho, they have some difference with each other when they're on front. Childe has those deep blue eyes and the element in his vision is Hydro while Tartaglia has purple-ish eyes and the element in his vision is electro and I don't need to explain Foul Legacy's.

Loki series w/ Quantumania(Spoilers)

I think alot of people already know this, that the movie is like after the series or like the aftermath.

Fnaf movie & it's trailer poster(?)

Ain't no way yall and making a fuss just because of some fucking eyes, I believe it's intentional they did this because come on, this isn't the first goddamn time we saw amatronics(?) having red eyes.

Now we know that those black and white eyes means they're possessed and in security breach I believe, the amatronics have red eyes because THEY ARE BEING CONTROLLED.

So what we seeing in the trailer is that they are being controlled first. It makes sense because if I'm correct, it'll be a 3 game in 1 movie type thing and not 3 movies. We also saw in the trailer Foxy chasing a girl in a ball pit.

So to conclude, the black and white eyes will be shown maybe around the mid or first-half of the movie. After all trailers are just a heads up on what's going to be seen but that doesn't mean it'll show everything, it's not a summary but as I said, a heads up.

HI3, GI & HSR

Listen to me, so we all know how in Herta's space station, in one of the rooms(?) we could see stuff they got throughout the galaxies/planets and we saw the wind glider there, right?

So, I believe they may or may not have met some genshin impact characters, more specifically, Amber or the kngiths of Favonius.

Now, in another area, they may or may not have stolen it from someone, but isn't that just a no? I think they actually met Amber, the wind glider also looks new/in decent and pretty good shape so ain't no way they took from someone, also the another way to get the glider with by Amber and you need a license for it.

So you cannot tell me other wise that these mfs did not meet at one point.

Some facts that I believe that will prolly or maybe will make a bit of people mad

Simping for Overhaul is like simping for Dottore(Surprise, surprise, I have a hate-hate-love with Dottore but it's less with Overhaul)

Some Herrschers could kill fucking Aeons please, Doesn't mean they could ko archons doesn't mean they could on Herrschers, I mean look at them.

This will prolly contrast with the previous one but the toxicity of the comparisons of all three games.

Welp that's all I have for now, I'll let yall know if I have more shit ass rambles.

[steverogers-against-disney]

this is a moon knight post BUT

quick context here before i explain the rest of this headcanon, basically i have an ongoing and ever expanding alternate captain america universe (that i just call redux!verse) where… a lot of stuff happens but one thing that happens is that bucky barnes’s little sister rebecca (mildly) edits and compiles some of his war letters into a book to act as a sort of memoir in his own words type thing (i’ll probably end up putting details from redux! in this, which i’ll mark with an asterisk)

ok now that that’s out of the way, as i said, this is a moon knight post

i think, for a very long time, steven grant had no clue who captain america was. he got lots of jokes, of course, from apparent captain america fans about his name. it usually went like this:

steven: hi~ i’m steven grant. that’s, uh, steven with a v :)

them: ha! steven grant! like captain america!

steven: erm, haha, yeah

eventually, though, his curiosity gets to be too much, and steven finds himself checking out a biography on captain america from the library (which, in the moon knight show, he really has in his apartment). it’s a pretty good biography, if you’re into urban legends and conjecture. it describes a morally upright man, willing to do the right thing above all else. the author seems to be very interested in how good and moral and tenacious this other steven grant is, rather than who he is.

the author notes that steve rogers went to art school, but not what he studied specifically. he notes that steve rogers became a school teacher*, but not what he taught or if his students liked him.

steven found himself more interested in what the author never said. who did steve rogers love?

(more under the break)

steven gets quite hung up on all this, the missing pieces. it feels real to him. there’s so much missing, and his heart aches for the idea of this man. he finds himself re reading this biography, trying to read between the lines, trying to piece together what he’s missing from what he knows.

after he renews his copy the third time, he decides he ought to just buy it.

there’s a very nice person at the bookshop, who suggests several other books to him. they also tell him there’s a whole collection of comic books about captain america. he decides to get a bunch of it. he ends up with the entire original series of comics, a different biography than the one he went for, the biography he went for, and a book called Yours, B, which, while not about steve rogers, apparently revealed more of him, according to the person at the shop.

the comics were rather disinteresting (except the few with a writing credit to one R. Barnes*), and the new biography as lacking in detail as the first one. but the third book is actually a collection of letters sent by one bucky barnes. according to the forward, barnes’s sister was the one who got the whole thing together, though she admits to “slight edits” to preserve some semblance of anonymity for the people he wrote to.

it’s pretty clear to steven when bucky barnes is writing to steve rogers.

he ends up talking to his mom about it a lot, or, well talking at his mom. she’s such a busy lady, and they’re always playing an extended game of phone tag. it goes something like this:

“hi, mum~! sorry i missed you again, but it’s hard with the time zones, haha. hey, i got your card from egypt! i’m really jealous, you had better send me a load of photos. anyway, i’m feeding gus right now, he says hi, don’t you, gus?

“hey, do you know who captain america is? i figure i would have known about him sooner if we were american. but, yeah, he’s a real myth of a guy. though it’s a bit sad reading about him. everyone seems caught up in all that mythology, they’ve forgotten he was just a guy. they always seem to skip over days, and months, and years he probably thought we important. i would like to know what he painted… if he even painted at all.

“oh! but i found one book- i guess it’s more a… i don’t know, collection. it’s letters this captain america fellow’s friend wrote. well, i think —now, don’t get shocked, mum— i think they might have been more than friends. not all the letters are to him, but i think that makes it a bit sadder. it’s like he’s just talking to himself. you don’t ever get to see what anyone says back, or… or if they replied at all. they must have, right?

“…well… anyway, it was good catching up, mum. love you loads. okay, laters gators~”

steven knows, of course, that someone is listening to his messages. he assumes it’s his mother, though he can’t recall the last time he heard her reply. but someone must be listening…

right?

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Pokemon Emerald Ralts Only Part 4: Fish and Magnets

So this one took a lot longer than I had expected it would and was a lot harder. Ultimately I'm a rather methodical player so sometimes when I have to reset I'll just jump back in and see whether it was just bad luck, or whether there's a different strategy I could be using, instead of just resigning myself to having to grind a little more. I really want to avoid just grinding and overleveling whenever possible, in part because I want to create strategies that are reasonably quick to execute and reproducible. But I'm not perfect, so expect the reset count to climb pretty high this update.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

At least the start isn't too bad. We're still in Dewford, so make sure to deliver the letter to Steven, which just involves some stumbling around in the dark. Thankfully Flash feels really optional in Generation III.

As an aside, a truly baffling number of TMs we get early on that Ralts just simply cannot use. It's a bit depressing but at minimum its a bit of extra cash in our pocket. There's a good reason we might want to have this extra cash on hand, but it won't come up for a while so I won't bring it up.

Moving on to Slateport, I elect not to fight too many additional trainers yet. We're reasonably overleveled now and I am starting to form a gameplan for Watson which I think will allow us to beat him at a lower level than you might think! We do the fights that get us the Soda Pop though, since its free healing items. After that we go to deliver the Devon Goods.

It's here we get our first actually usable Ralts TM: Thief. Thief is a 40 base power Dark-type move that also steals our opponent's item. It might be one of the most underutilized moves in a challenge run, but I don't want to teach it just yet. We only get one of these TMs, so I want to make sure we use it at the right time. So now we go upstairs to fight the Aqua Grunts.

Right. They start to have Carvanha here. Let's just quickly teach Thief since Carvanha are pretty frail and see how well it does.

Well that's not good, since it also triggers Rough Skin, but I wouldn't say its that poor damage. We even get to Trace Rough Skin for this fight, and besides, its Carvanha. This is a Pokemon literally no one remembers. You probably couldn't tell me what the Pokemon even does. It's base stats? You don't know them.

If you've caught onto this being a set-up for an ironic joke, how dare you.

Yeah so in my defense, I've literally never used Carvanha ever. It comes smack in the midgame of RSE and its showing in these games is pretty pathetic. I didn't know it had Bite at Level 1, and this changed Carvanha from incredibly annoying into a legitimate roadblock.

Let's discuss our options here: Option 1, we level up until we learn Calm Mind, and then we use Calm Mind and Thief to defeat the Carvanha. The problem with this strategy is that we definitely are going to need to grind on wild Pokemon in order to get the bulk we need to get past just this one Carvanha. Put a pin in that.

Option 2 is that we drain all of our PP and use Struggle. It's not pretty and takes a buttload of time but it does give us an unresisted damage dealing option. Route 110 even has some helpful Poochyena for us :)

Option 3 is...something I'm not sure many people remember about Pokemon Emerald, which is that Pokemon Emerald has Move Tutors scattered about. Most of the moves that don't require you to go to the Battle Frontier are pretty bad, but the tutor in Slateport has...

Swagger might seem like an odd choice for a strategy, but if we take a minute to look at Carvanha's stats:

Carvanha's sky high Attack stat and its absolutely ridiculously paper thin bulk make it a very prime Swagger target. Maybe if we're lucky we can even OHKO it. But Swagger by its nature is inconsistent: Swagger can miss, Confusion only has a 50% chance to work, and Carvanha does have a physical move (albeit: its Rage) to hit us with. We can use Double Team to try and shore up a bit of the luck, but it's a strategy that's prone to getting resets.

Reset Count: 9

Let's get the Thief reset out of the way quickly. It's not pretty, Carvanha pretty easily cleans our clock.

Next up is the Swagger strat and you might notice something: this Carvanha is a lower level. This is because this part of the game has two mandatory fights that come simultaneously with no time to heal in-between. We got past the first fight and the first Carvanha, easily OHKOd the Zubat with Confusion, and then lost to the second Carvanha. The Swagger strat has a lot of promise though.

One self-inflicted Confusion hit is enough to deal an incredible amount of damage to the Carvanha. I want you to keep this damage range in mind for later when I get past this.

Reset Count: 10

Next up is Struggle, and...

This is definitely not the play. Struggle at Level 20 is only a 2HKO to the Carvanha, and it triggers Rough Skin. If we could heal in-between the fights, this would maybe be an okay solution. But we likely won't OHKO the Zubat either, so this is a strategy that would require grinding.

Reset Count: 11

With these three on the table, I make the choice to go with a moveset of Confusion / Swagger / Double Team / Teleport.

Reset Count: 13

Ultimately its a very luck-based strategy. We take a couple of resets, but it doesn't take us that long until we push through and win the fight.

Now I have to come clean. I said there were three options, but that was only due to the fact that I hypertunneled on a reasoning mistake. I thought that these strategies were mutually exclusive. The best way to get this past, imo, is with a moveset of Confusion / Swagger / Double Team / Thief. If you remember when we tried Thief, it was a 5HKO unboosted, but the damage it did was more than enough to finish off a Carvanha that had hit itself in Confusion. Ultimately, using Thief to finish off weakened Carvanha could have prevented all of these resets had I considered it early on. But I only realized after I started looking through my screenshots again. That's an actual mistake I made in routing.

Getting past this fight opens up Route 110 to explore, and we have the next Rival battle, right? We even pick up Calm Mind at Level 21, which is an extremely powerful boosting move that we'll make a ton of use out of.

So I do win the fight, but I accidentally misjudged its trigger zone and went in without saving. That would have been pretty embarassing, just throwing more mistakes after each other. :V Calm Mind is just very good and the entire reason we do well.

Up the route however is two trainers who attempt to try and double battle you if you go to take the hidden Revive. One of them is the Pokemaniac who has a Lombre and a Nuzleaf, and unfortunately, while I do beat the Nuzleaf thanks to Swagger, I get paralyzed from Nature Power. I realized I was out of Paralyze Heals and I didn't want to use my Cheri Berries for that purpose since they're valuable as held items, so I go to make my way back to the Pokemon Center in Slateport. At this point I've replaced Teleport with Calm Mind, since I leveled up on the first Carvanha and needed Double Team for the second. So what happens?

I get stopped by a trainer that I had previously avoided, and my Ralts was both weakened and paralyzed, so the Aron really easily KOs it.

Reset Count: 14

This is a phenomenon I call "post-bottleneck play", where you get past a really tough obstacle and you're feeling good and off the hook, and as a result your play gets really sloppy. Big throwing good money after bad money here. We avoid making the same mistake in the future and arrive in Mauville City.

At this point I begin to think about what I want to do about Watson.

I was the most concerned about his Magneton, which is a Pokemon that has the potential to hard stonewall runs. It's bulky, incredibly strong, and loves to status you with Thunder Wave. It's one of those Speed control AI quirks, so while it's very predictable, it also makes Magneton extremely annoying.

I'm pretty confident that Confusion isn't a move that's going to be cutting it, so I decide to take the extra EXP in Watson's Gym and learn Psychic, replacing Double Team. This move has honestly really lived past its usefulness, and its extra bad against Watson since all of his Pokemon know Shock Wave.

The plan is simple. I'm going to set-up with Calm Mind, preferably once, and use Psychic to OHKO the Voltorb and the Electrike. The Magneton will likely be a 2HKO, and since it almost always uses Thunder Wave Turn 1, I can equip a Cheri Berry to recover from paralysis and get by scott free. Then I will hopefully also 2HKO the Manectric before it KOes me.

I run into a problem pretty quickly though.

Voltorb is actually faster than me at this level, so it can do a lot of damage with Spark and Shock Wave.

Reset Count: 15

An additional really frustrating complication is that it can damage me with Spark or Shock Wave, and then Turn 2 just decide to use Self-Destruct to KO Ralts. Out of all the Pokemon in the world I would ever expect to give me trouble, Voltorb was not it.

Reset Count: 16

I decide to do a little bit of optional trainer battles to the East to get up to Level 28 and try again. At this point it's a good time to bring up how the damage formula works briefly. Higher level Pokemon do more damage, but because of rounding errors thanks to Pokemon always truncating the decimal, the only levels you notice that level based damage boost are ones ending in 0, 3, 5, and 8, so when you're training to get past a powerful fight, these are the levels you want to aim for by default.

This time thanks to a lucky critical hit on the Magneton, we're able to get all the way to the Manectric, but it just KOes us with Quick Attack since we're at low HP.

Reset Count: 17

Unfortunately, as you can see from this earlier attempt, the Voltorb is just brutal. We need to set-up on it, but that allows it to do a ton of damage, and we're not getting past this fight on 25 HP. This is also ignoring that Static can paralyze you and eat your Cheri Berry, which is almost always another reset point.

With this in mind, it's time to train up to Level 30. If I was evolving my Ralts this playthrough, Gardevoir would easily handle this gym. Alas.

Also if you were worried about the lack of sloppy play, don't worry, we take a reset on Cycling Road to some really bad paralysis luck. 8)

Reset Count: 18

After getting to Level 30, we return to Watson. At this point I had high hopes because of Calm Mind, I was sure that the extra grinding would allow us to succeed.

So the game responds by handing me not one, but two resets caused by critical hit Sparks, which is really aggrevating. These type of resets suck because they don't really give you much information, they're just the game trolling you.

Reset Count: 20

This reset highlights what may be the actual most frustrating part of this fight though. If the Voltorb decides to start with Selfdestruct, and you try to use Calm Mind, Selfdestruct ends the turn after its used, and you lose your Calm Mind. It's really, really frustrating.

Reset Count: 21

Sometimes you get past the Voltorb with so little HP you know the fight can't be won anyways. This was a fight where I attempted a different strategy of using Psychic instead of trying to set-up on the Voltorb, and at Level 30, Psychic does not even OHKO. It's tragic.

Reset Count: 22

This was the farthest I got with Level 30: I found out that at +1, Psychic is not a 2HKO against the Magneton, and I'm not exactly finding the wiggle room for a second Calm Mind. It's time to take a minute and re-strategize, because this isn't working.

Reset Count: 23

No this strategy won't include you Imprison! Begone from my movepool!

Let's take a moment to actually learn what Voltorb's Speed stat is, shamelessly stolen from a Scott's Thoughts video (although this data exists elsewhere). 49 Speed would be a benchmark most reasonable Pokemon could easily hit with a Speed boosting nature, but Ralts is not most reasonable Pokemon. At level 30, we have 45 Speed, so we're going to need at least 2 levels I think to outspeed the Voltorb, and that's if we get a bit lucky with our Speed growth.

While there is maybe some discussion to be had about checking if the Voltorb is a roll with Psychic at Level 30, the simple matter is that Voltorb outspeeding us just introduces too much volatility. It can paralyze us with Spark or use Self-Destruct and do ridiculous amounts of damage, or it can even just crit us and do enough damage we won't have the HP to make it through the fight.

After absorbing the souls of every available trainer to this point, we hit level 32 and have 49 Speed. It's that blessed Slow growth rate coming back to haunt us yet again :D

We're going to need to grind up an additional level, a speed tie might work but I really want the damage rounding threshold that Level 33 provides just to make absolutely sure we don't miss OHKOing the Voltorb. Since we beat the Winstrate Family, we have access to the Macho Brace, so it's time to start thinking a little bit about of EVs.

....or well, it would be. But as a result of this project I've learned that tumblr posts have an image limit! So next time!

[i-only-came-here-for-my-fandoms]

All except 44 for Crimson for the ask game :)

*cracks knuckles* remember, you asked for this

1. She’s the type of person who that’ll happen to only when she’s in a bad mood, so it’ll just kinda make her mood worse (least till she cuddles with gold nehehe)

2. Hot chocolate chocolate with the mini marshmallows

3. Um, honestly anyplace quiet and with no/few people she trust deeply

4. Consistently going out of your way to severely harm her or her friends (lemons on a list at this point and on thin ice (not too seriously though shhh just between us) )

5. Umm, not made by themselves, gold sometimes calls her crimmy (thank you for the idea btw) and other friends sometimes call her crim for short (once again thank you)

6. Mainly books that have nothing bad w in them (so no death or the like, teeth rotting fluff baybeee) or books some would consider “for kids” (read whatever you want kids, cringe culture is dead <3)

7. Honestly kinda a mix? Like base is just introvert, however if it’s someone who’s trying to get to a friend for bad reasons, then she’s gonna stand up and make herself look bigger

8. They like to think of them self’s friendly (when they can actually talk to the new person on their own)

9. Again, harming/attempting to harm any of her close friends (or pokemon)

10. Hmmm… kinda depends on context or the situation I guess? Like don’t be insensitive or a jerk and she’ll probably laugh at least somewhat

11. They’ll enjoy the occasional prank every now and again, everything in moderation is good. They’ll definitely fall for one though if it isn’t blatant (like shock gum probably)

12. We’ll, since she is code, it’s at least very hard for her to get sick, thus actually never has to go to a doctor, though if she did, then she’d mainly be chill… unless there’s needles, she doesn’t like needles or anything really being injected in her

13. For a home day, just what she slept in lol, but, if she’s going out then just a t-shirt and jeans will do (sometimes she’ll go in her “game outfit” is she really want to but that’s usually reserved for some type of adventure)

14. It’s pretty easy honestly, ether be nice or give food, that’s all you really need to do

15. Ummm, her hair I guess? If she’s in her “outfit” then it’ll tend to be that, but if it’s an average outfit then ether the grey eyes or the long hair (if she doesn’t have it up)

16. Just general niceness and perhaps a similar social battery to them (so they do t feel bad when the other wants to do all these things but crimson just wants to stay home and eat goldfish) she never expected a love interest, so golds all we’re getting

17. Gold. Very easily gold. She can also be soft around glitchy or Steven, but it’s mainly gold who’s she’s softy around. It’s a bit hard to be soft at the beginning (*ahem* deletion of her world and thinking it was her that caused it till she learned a while later *ahem*) but she definitely gets around to it

18. Never seen it, sorry

19.umm, probably when she couldn’t get out of their gameboy and was stuck there, in the dark void, with only their main Pokémon who was also pretty much mangled, thinking everything was because she tried to talk to one of the developers

20. One of her many Pokémon dolls that she sleeps with

21. Again, one of her Pokémon dolls (or gold/her Pokémon)

22. Depends, sometimes she’ll eat the same bag of goldfish throughout the whole day, and sometimes she’ll forget to eat at all till gold reminds her and they eat together (he’ll also stop her from just eating all day if need be)

23. Cinnamon rolls, she honestly doesn’t really care who makes them if they’re the pillsbury thing, but if they’re homemade Steven has it down pat somehow

24. Kinda like glitchy, she has good control over technology, but unlike glitchy she can use gameboys as mini portals to ether specifically a Pokémon cartridge or just wherever the other gameboy is

25. Sometimes she’ll accidentally glitch minorly in public and have to make sure it didn’t get worse and stop it (tends to just resort to bathroom if in party or restaurant or something to calm down)

26. Yes absoulty

27. Entirely depends on the kid, though likes to think all of them are at least trying to be good (unlike glitchy)

28. They’d just have a tumblr and watch YouTube and twitch, nothing else incase someone who worked on her finds her

29. The only reason the house doesn’t look worse is because gold helps with the cleaning and maintaining as well, so crimson didn’t have to suffer alone as well

30. … depends. Mainly on mood I guess. Sometimes she’ll be totally ok with a plan going awry and just wings it, other times she’ll be in a near total panic if plans go even slightly bad

31. Goes to goodwill/thrift store and looks for a good mask they like and a somewhat nice dress, they know they aren’t the main even anyway so it’ll be fine

32. Again, nice dress but not princess like, if with gold, might even go In suit just because

33. Definitely shy, will stick by anyone she knows side till it’s time to leave

34. They do not have a license, do not let her drive/lh but actually, they just walk everywhere, sometimes uses her roller skates

35. If lovers, again gold just kinda happened (not that she’s complaining) but for friends? Look at 16

36. Honestly I don’t plan on making a “page” for them anytime soon, so everything I say about them is off page!

37. Probably not just Some Guy(Tm) but depending on the dude, it could range anywhere to gold himself, to Steven and glitchy, or bellze, or if it’s really bad, all

38. Cuddle with gold and just watching random videos on the tv

39. At most, maybe watching YouTubers others would find “cringe” but she considers cringe culture dead, so nothings really a “guilty” pleasure

40. Go after them in their dream dreams and give ‘em just a few bruises

41. Punch back and win the fight that was started

42. We’ll, they don’t really have a “birthday” besides whenever she was made or her kinda “coded” one she grew up with, but she’s uncomfy with both so she just picks a random day each year and eats cake

43. … maybe true neutral? Or lawful neutral? Honestly don’t fully know

44. Skip

45. Also unknown

46. Not really? At least not enough to consider herself religious and things like that, but she knows arceus is out there so.. that’s gotta at least count for something, right?

47. Typically gratitude, and if possible will try to do something nice in return

48. Again, depends on the day, some days she’s just happy, and others they are one mean comment to snapping and taking refuge in the bathroom (till gold or close friend comes to the rescue)

49. Mainly just being trapped again, with no way out or to contact anyone again…

50. They sleep like a rock, they would probably accidentally sleep through a tornado or something, unless it’s a nightmare, In Which case thankfully it’s fairly easy to wake her up

[ninemelodies]

idk sneak peek of a steddie fic i’m working on under the cut

turns out, actually, when you’re not popular, it is very easy to float through the halls of hawkins high relatively unnoticed. eddie has his friends, and steve makes sure to speak to them briefly. if they question why he’s quiet today, steve feeds them a half-truth about a bad dream and a lack of sleep. 

he doesn’t tell any of them the truth. except for henderson. 

out of the six little shitheads he’d gotten roped into babysitting, henderson has always been the most perceptive. eddie was never anything less than dramatic and alive, and steve simply hasn’t had that type of boundless self-assurance in several years. not since he ended up working a part-time job at the family video store with robin, hawkin’s resident lesbian. that job at the video store had taught him a lot - like the fact that high school popularity doesn’t matter for much outside of the brick walls of the school building and sometimes you need more than a pretty face and gravity defying hair to be able to charm the ladies. 

so yeah, henderson had noticed that something was wrong and had cornered steve in the bathroom before lunch. “what’s wrong with you eddie? you’re out of it today. do we need to cancel hellfire?”

ah, the infamous hellfire club. the satan worshiping dnd cult that eddie was the leader of. the idea of it made steve bite back a laugh. the kids in hellfire wouldn’t hurt a fly. “yeah, that would probably for the best.” 

henderson’s eyes narrow and steve is suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he must have just said something wrong. “who are you and what have you done with eddie?” 

“what do you mean?” steve laughs nervously, tries to play it off. “i’m just not feeling it today, i guess.” 

“no, nope, eddie would never.” henderson shakes his head, curls bouncing beneath his thinking cap. “eddie never cancels hellfire. one time, he ran the game for three hours with a trash can next to him so he could stop and vomit. eddie. would. never. cancel. hellfire.” henderson punctuates each word with a jab at steve’s chest. “so i’ll ask again, who are you, and where the fuck is eddie?”

actually, that was a good question. where was eddie? it was the law of conservation of mass or whatever right? it was something nancy drilled into him, in school, when they were studying together for that chemistry test. matter could neither be created nor destroyed. so if steve was here, then where was eddie? steve hopes that eddie is just..asleep, and isn’t galavanting around 1990 in steve’s body. he shudders at the thought. 

but first. steve put his hands on his hips and leans forward slightly. “language, henderson.”

henderson stares at him incredulously. “steve?” 

his voice echoes loudly in the empty bathroom and steven winces. “not so loud, man. but yes.” 

“why are you eddie?”

steve throws his hands up. “i don’t know! i woke up like this. one minute i was…” what had he been doing? he had been with eleven, he remembered. she was telling him something about the upside down, about something that was bleeding people dry of memories and emotions, making them mindless puppets. she had looked at him sadly, like she knew something he didn’t before she had rested her hand on his forehead. blood dripped down her nose and then he was falling into darkness. “it was eleven! she did something and the next think i know i’m waking up in eddie’s trailer that was destroyed four years ago! i don’t know why, and i don’t -” 

“four years ago?” henderson interrupts. “you’re from the future?”

of course the little shit would catch onto that. “i’m not telling you anything! i don’t want to end up like that kid in that movie - he changed the future and the bully ended up owning the whole town.” 

“why did eleven send you back?” henderson looks lost. “there must be something about the past she wanted you to change, something that happens soon, but what? steve, you have to tell me everything.” 

the bell rang for lunch and other students began trickling into the hallways and the bathroom. “i’ll tell you everything later, ok henderson? i promise.” 

while he didn’t seem thrilled about it, henderson nodded his assent. “i’ll meet you out front after school. we can go back to eddie’s trailer and you can tell me everything.” henderson eyed the clock hanging above the door. “i’ve got to go. if i don’t hurry, the line for the vending machine will be long and i need a 3 musketeers after all this.” 

steve feels his face twitch into something resembling both amusement and disgust as he watches henderson leave the bathroom. he had forgotten the kid’s love for nougat (which, he wasn’t sure how, considering it was nougat that saved them from dart). he shakes his head and leaves the bathroom before heading towards the cafeteria. 

he runs into chrissy cunningham before he makes it. steve had known her in high school, sort of. she had been a freshman when steve was a junior. he had passed her in the hallways, but never really got the chance to talk to her. during steve’s senior year, she had started dating jason carver, one of steve’s teammates that he could never really bring himself to like. 

jason reminded steve too much of what he could’ve been, had he not fought a demogorgon in joyce’s living room in the winter of ‘83. 

[electrivolt]

poke.mon Favourites!

FIRST GAME: yellow, it was my first console as well getting the gameboy color! fun fact i had a pikachu limited edition one that for the life of me i haven’t been able to find anywhere, it had pikachu and pichu on the sides and one of pikachu’s cheeks was overlapping with the on/off light of the gameboy, and it was semi transparent. it was cool as fuck i miss that gameboy :(

FAVOURITE SPINOFF GAME: mystery dungeons and rangers, to be even more exact explorers of sky and shadows of almia/guardian signs. mystery dungeons was my silly childhood dream of getting to play exclusively as a ‘mon and when i first played rangers it blew my mind how different it was and yet how cool it all was, both gameplay, story and the setting itself because getting to be a ranger was one of the coolest things i could think of. i still think a lot about those games they were just so good. 

FAVOURITE EVIL TEAM: team galactic, always team galactic, they still seem like one of the best teams to me to this day. they feel like one of the most actually dangerous teams of the games i’ve played that actually shows it, the lake bombing still sticks in my mind with how memorable that was not to mention spear pillar!! great team 10/10 nothing will top it for me

FAVOURITE TEAM LEADER: painfully obvious but cyrus, i could go on a 1 hour yt video essay on why he’s in my humble opinion the best team leader out there. i just think he’s neat and his ideals are smth wild and yummy to explore

FAVOURITE STARTER: rowlet because i love decidueye and ghosts are some of my favorites all around, but like. i could pick one for most gens. i love totodile i love turtwig i love snivy. help.

FAVOURITE BOX LEGENDARY: giratina. that’s my favorite legendary all around it’s never gonna be topped really

FAVOURITE POKEMON: can’t pick just one and go but i can narrow it down to very few ones actually excluding legendaries- luxray for sure, the whole line really but like. i love lux isn’t that obvious. big electric cat my beloved. mimikyu is another BIG one, i love mimikyu to death it’s just a lil guy that wants to be loved just a cute lil ghost that did nothing wrong AND THEN there’s gengar i love that mf it was actually my fave ghost type before mimikyu came along. espeon particularly is also a big fave though i don’t? really know why somehow?? but it’s my favorite eevolution all around. AND hisuian form zoroark i love that bastard ( to volkner’s dismey :) ) it’s such a cool regional variant concept ok-

if i had to mention legendaries ( other than gira ) there’s the obvious zappy bird and i’ll admit the galarian version is also p cool, the dogs are also pretty cool and lugia is one of my big favorites as well. there’s probably a few more but between technicalities of legendary vs mythical and all i can’t just sit here naming everyone

FAVOURITE PROFESSOR: admittedly i don’t really pay too much attention to the professors usually, but i think it’s rowan, i’d like him to be my grandpa

FAVOURITE RIVAL: barry my dear adhd crackhead child. i do remember using to like hugh a whole lot too as a kid when i first played bw2 but i cannot for the life of me remember why. i have to replay those games

FAVOURITE CHAMPION: cynthia! she’s always been great and so memorable, i just can’t help but be attached to her especially as my first “real” elite 4 challenge. steven is pretty close too for being weird

FAVOURITE CHARACTER (if not already covered): for obvious reasons it’s volk here but roark is neat too :) ( also for obvious reasons ). grusha and allister too though i got attached to these weird lil guys and i rlly want to go back to writing them if the mental illness allows me

FAVOURITE STORY: MMMMH WELL. i love the original dppt a whole lot, bw is also something i’m attached to a lot for many reasons, so i’d say those two are tied. i do have to add legends though because that fucked so hard

FAVOURITE MUSIC: i don’t. really pay attention a lot to the music but i guess the gym leader theme in galar is neat. some other stuff like the poke.mas remix kinda count too honestly and i really like some of the stuff in the og gen4

FAVOURITE REGION OVERALL: sinnoh all around. by extention hisui as well, like sinnoh already held a special place for me because it felt so alive and special with that care put into what is its own culture and the dedication to legendaries, and i love to have gotten hisui and to get to see the origins of so much of current sinnoh. unova is also a big favorite nearly as close to sinnoh with how much character it has and i have a lot of good memories of those games

[princeofpasio]

Looking at the new pairs from the datamine :)

This is JUST looking at the kits, not necessarily stats or grids. Lots of techs this time around.

SS Hilda & Victini

She’s a physical fire striker again... Her moves seem pretty lackluster, but her self-buffing is where she shines. Max attack when entering battle, and then max crit rate and sp.atk after her Trainer Move. Recharging the move gauge after attacking is also nice to help off-set her 4-gauge move. I expect her grid will have nodes for increasing damage against burned and/or confused enemies.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of Downside Up on units that already max their stats; I feel like Downside Up is more interesting as a scaling mechanic to increase a pair’s power as they use moves that would otherwise debuff them. At least on SS Steven, not all of his forms maxed his stats; but on SS Hilda, it just seems like it’s functioning as a slightly better Impervious.

SS Hilbert & Genesect

This is an... interesting way to incorporate Genesect’s forms. Basically: his attack move is bug type, unless the target is weak to fire, water, electric, or ice, in which case his move becomes that type. I saw people predicting Genesect’s forms being similar to SS Steven’s, where you choose which type you want at the beginning, but I think this is actually a smart way to let Genesect keep its Bug strength alongside the other types; the rebuffs and Supereffective Up on the Trainer Move are also nice touches. The major drawback to this pair is gauge usage and set up time, but the right team can off-set that easily, and I suspect he’ll some grid nodes to help.

SS N & Black Kyurem

This took me a bit to parse, but I think it’s interesting overall. You essentially just want to cycle between Freeze Shock and B Noble Roar, with Freeze Shock being a slow but powerful move with a relatively high chance of paralysis and B Noble debuffing the opponents, buffing yourself, and enabling more Freeze Shocks with Free Move Next. And if you don’t feel like doing that, then Ice Beam is there to freeze as well. Lowering the sync countdown by 2 is a decent way to offset the loss from Freeze Shock being a two turn move. I definitely don’t think this pair is for everyone (definitely not for me), but I think he’ll find a niche for Legendary Gauntlet.

Colress & Klinklang

My first thought is that this is an upgraded BP Clemont. I think it’s interesting that he can set up the debuffs he needs on the opponents, but requires his teammates to buff most of the stats he himself needs; somewhat reminiscent of his character in the games. A pretty straightforward pair compared to the previous ones: debuff the opponents and then attack.

Hugh & Bouffalant

I think this matches his character tbh. A somewhat self-sufficient recoil striker with a chance to remove recoil damage overall, and who heals before fainting the first time. Pretty straight forward I think. I like it. Not much else to say.

Lyra & Vaporeon

Love this for her actually. A support-ish tech with infinite rain using her sync. She’s mostly focused on heavily debuffing the enemy and improving team gauge with speed and low gauge moves. Even if she isn’t great at taking hits, that team wide Vigilance at base is nice. The only downside to her rain after sync is that it’s hard to get her sync in during the rain itself (similar to Silver’s issue with Solarize), but that’s minor. The most unfortunate thing is that she doesn’t appear to have an EX, which kind of sucks for a tech that really likes to sync.

Kris & Jolteon

Very similar to Lyra in being a tech with infinite zone after sync and decent team support; I expect Flareon will have Solarize at base. Kris’s less focused on debuffs though, and is predictably built for paralyzing opponents. Tbh, I feel like this kit is nothing special for an electric pair; the best she brings is Team Electric Current, aka a teamwide Impervious during Electric Terrain. Paralysis pairs are always good for Legendary Gauntlet though, so she won’t be bad to have on hand for that.

Lucas & Flareon

Yep, here’s the Solarize. Parallels the previous two pairs, but with a focus on burns. His TM is almost the inverse of Kris’s, boosting his own crit rate and raising the sp. atk of the team. I think he’s somewhere between Lyra and Kris in terms of usefulness. Nothing too special, but I can see him at least having use in the Stadium.

Elesa & Joltik

My hopes are dashed and my life is ruined.

Mostly kidding. Mostly. She doesn’t pair well with SC Ingo and Emmet at all. She’s mostly a self-sustaining support against and with Special Attack focused teams. Not super impressed with her kit honestly, but it seems in line with a lodge unit. Her team buffs aren’t super great, and it’s pretty unfortunate that she can’t buff her own self-healing, outside of maybe crit rate. Having Recuperation is kind of a wasted passive imo; there’s no real reason to sync with her otherwise. I would probably think better of her if she were a bug pair, but for an electric pair she’s pretty lackluster and can’t even paralysis. But who knows, maybe her grid saves her.

[grayintogreen]

yo for the fic writer ask game, 24 and 34!

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

[grits teeth] Modern, mundane AUs... There's occasions when REALLY GOOD writers can do it justice (and listen I wrote a damn college AU fic myself as a gift and I love that fic), but unless there's a really good gimmick... I can't do it. And I have been in fandoms (LOOKIN AT YOU STEVEN UNIVERSE) where 85% of the fanfic is modern mundane stuff which has irrevocably broken me as a human because all I wanted was some exploration of the details in canon that go ignored and unexplored and not 50k of coffee shop AU sixteen times.

No hate to anyone who loves that stuff- I understand the appeal, but I have a deep, deep obsession with exploration of canon lore and how characters react in canon settings that are pushed to their limits that canon didn't allow, and most genre swap AUs don't do it for me unless it has its own lore and deep, rich complex backgrounds.

34. How much of yourself and your life experiences do you put into your writing? What do you think your readers’ image of you is?

I try very hard not to?? Because I worry if I project too hard, I'll lose the crux of who the character is or start flanderizing. And given the types of things I write about, I would hope everyone doesn't see me as a deeply disturbed person. Aside from the neurodivergence and the bullying because of it, I had a pretty decent life and therefore there's... not a whole lot to draw from. I'm sure a therapist might tell me otherwise, but ahahaha. Yeah, no.

I absorb stuff from other media and incorporate it into my writing (and my personality...) more than I do my actual life and most of the characters I'm drawn to have NOTHING in common with me, so I'm just holding up tropes I like like paint swatches to characters I enjoy like "god I wish this one happened to you."

I will say that yes, I absolutely interpret half of Lucien's bullshit as some form of "Gifted Kid Burnout Gone Chernobyl," as someone with gifted kid burnout but that is the most you will ever see of me putting into a character except for the two characters EVER PERIOD I violently headcanon as asexual. I'm too much of a slave to what I can extrapolate from canon and then reverse engineer to put myself and my personal traits into characters more personally relatable to me. I don't necessarily have any interest in finding characters relatable, I guess. (Except for how I, as someone with abandonment issues because of BAD FRIENDS, will absolutely see a character with clear abandonment issues and go I WANT THAT ONE, but uh... They also absolutely SAY they have abandonment issues, so...)

This is a very long-winded way to say "no" to the first part of that question and "a character is a little fictional dude I'm obsessed with and want to put in situations what do I have to do with it- i just work here" to the second.

WRITER ASK GAME.

[crystalelemental]

Alright, back from visiting family, on to more important matters. Like playing video games.

Vs. Drake I really wanted to give this one a shot, in part so Anni Steven can contribute, but also to show off his specific contribution in Weather Wipe. It's not really talked about much, but in some of these more modern stages where the gimmick is auto-weather and high DPS, it's a good solution. Summer Liza is hilarious. I love the damage this kid dishes out. I will admit, there are some gauge issues with Steven even at +6 team speed. But not as many as you'd expect. Sincerely, I think his EX might solve it.

Vs. Glacia I initially tried a few others that were not getting the job done, then shifted to this. Look, base Liza was a super good support when I started the game, and I wanted to bring it back, this time with her brother Tate, who is...kinda ridiculous. More importantly, Darach. Darach's not a bad Tate partner, given the attack debuffing sets up innate Tech nuke, and the lowering of opponent evasion allows Thunder Wave to hit consistently. No weather combined with a free Crit Shield removal allows the team to take off enough offensive parameters that Liza isn't seriously threatened.

Vs. Phoebe At this point, I messed up using H!Caitlin entirely. I had wanted to do a bit more with her but it wasn't working out with Lodge Rosa/Colress, so I gave up and tried Anni Lillie, only to find out that right, using Ghost Zone powers up Phoebe, and Lillie's weak to Dark. So that didn't happen. Instead, we went with Irida strats. I like bringing Lorelei to an off-type match to clear. It feels like justice for her frankly atrocious grid.

Vs. Sidney You know who's not Dark weak? Caitlin. Okay, so maybe C!Bede is a little overkill, but I am in fact willing to kill on this one. Caitlin's final sync was like 20k. Which is pretty respectable for off-type, I think. DPS with the moves up next effect really chunks the stage too. Big fan of this, though sincerely Bede feels very overkill, he's so stupidly good.

Vs. Steven So then I thought hey, you know what'd be fun? Emma. Only to find out that aiming for denials prevents success entirely, because Emma's sync will not handle Steven's remaining HP. So you gotta spam. Okay, spam on him then. Oh that's still actually fairly difficult because their team is boosting defense a lot? Well then. Yeah, this one took a lot more consideration than usual. Anabel needed to do some flinch work for it to come together, but nothing too terrible. Still, it was frustrating enough that I legitimately considered Head Start on Looker or Emma to get a fast-ramp in and solve for this. Looker...gets the job done with Poison Sting, admittedly, but this is going to be a very sub-optimal team soon. Oleana's going to completely change what Emma works with optimally. I think if Looker can offer anything over Oleana, it's an easier justification to just drop CS2 for Head Start 1. Not like he does any damage off-type.

[rotationalsymmetry]

3 7 8 11 23

Long post! (fandom "choose violence" ask game.) (tolkien/avatar the last airbender/star trek deep space nine/steven universe (positive)/Discworld.)

3. Hmm. Thing is, there are so many different ways to be incredibly wrong. There's having the writer's intent completely whoosh by you -- right now I'm not thinking of a tumblr post, I'm thinking of the George RR Martin vs JRR Tolkien Epic Rap Battle of History with the "'everyone knows who's going to die by page and age 5" line, which is...really not accurate. In LOTR, the death fake-outs are pretty compelling and Gandalf actually does die, it's just that he also comes back. And that's the only story that this criticism comes even close to being accurate for. In the hobbit? I actually remembered this one wrong. I remembered it as all the dwarves living. Because that's how that kind of story is, right? All the good guys live. And they don't.

And that's not getting into the Silmarillion, where the answer to "who's going to die?" is "very nearly everyone, and justice and virtue have nothing to do with it." Or rather, characters who suck at virtue are perhaps more likely to die, but lots of characters who are pretty awesome and have done nothing wrong in their entire lives also die. Basically every take about Tolkien being all fluffy and "the good guys get rewarded and the bad guys get punished" is...not really based in what Tolkien wrote, and every depressing thing in Song of Ice and Fire is also in the Silm (often not spelled out quite as graphically) and just assigned different meaning.

And then there's bad ethical takes, eg basically every criticism against Steven Universe or interpreting Aang's refusal to kill Ozai as being about PC lives are more valuable than NPC lives/ the lives of the powerful are more valuable than the lives of ordinary people, in a show that does the best job ever of showing scenery characters from all walks of life as real people. And bad takes about what fiction is for, like anything connected to the idea that it's more virtuous to only read books (or watch shows) whose writers all have the same worldviews as you. (And the indirect fallout of this, that saying anything critical whatsoever about a book/show or connecting an attitude in a book/show with an attitude that causes harm IRL means you think people should not be reading or watching it.)

And then there's things like "clearly people who like talking about (fandom) only consume that book/show/type of show." Eg "people who only watch children's shows"... people can watch both children's shows and adult oriented shows, and I would guess that the vast majority of adults who watch some children's shows also watch adult shows. So why act as though talking about children's shows means a person doesn't watch shows meant for adults? It's because you're trying to insult people, yeah? Get people to shut up by publicly shaming them perhaps?

7. I haven't really, but I have a massive pet peeve around how people talk about Toph. And I hate hate hate how much of the fan art of her shows her dressed super feminine. Like OK she can if she wants to be. But the only time we see her dressed anything like that in the show is when she''s living with her parents. That's a Toph who's not being allowed to be herself.

Ahh this is reminding me of more bad takes. People are so weird about Ursa in the ATLA fandom, and often equally weird about Tenzin and sibs talking about their parents in Korra. It's like some people will allow children infinite forgiveness for any action whatsoever (even when, as with Azula, those children wield adult levels of power over other people's lives) but parents have to be 100% perfect or else they're abusive. No middle ground. No room for compassion or understanding their circumstances. Worst (Set of) Take(s) Ever.

Wait. No. I answered this wrong. Miles O'Brien. Specifically in Deep Space 9. Miles the character = fine character, reasonably likeable, goes through a very impressive amount of shit. Miles as the fandom see him...hoo boy. You get one white male on screen and suddenly every interaction he has, some fans can only see his perspective and not anyone else's. (Especially, apparently, if his conflicts tend to be with his wife, who has the audacity to not only be female, but also an Asian woman who doesn't conform to submissive sex-doll stereotypes. Clearly she must be in the wrong about everything (sarcasm).)

8. Uh, see above. Kids can do things that are morally wrong/harmful to others even though they are kids and it is more understandable when they do things wrong because they're learning and growing and it's harder for them to resist their family/culture/etc. Adults can do things that are morally wrong but in an understandable way too. There isn't a bright line where under 18 or w/e people have no moral culpability whatsoever and over 18 they'd better be perfect or else. The ability to become a parent in particular does not automatically grant adults the ability to not do things that harm their children in any way provided they're trying hard enough. Parents can be basically decent people who are trying their best and still leave their kids with eg a sense that one child was favored over the others, or a sense that their love was conditional, etc.

11. Three apparently? And those are for fandoms I'm not in. Generally if I've specifically chosen to follow someone for fandom reasons, I like what they have to say most of the time.

23. Vimes/Vetinari. Thanks A03.

Also...I don't particularly like Kataang in the show, it felt forced to me, but some of the fan content about them is really sweet.