#I'm not a fan of the evolutions designs but they have potential

[pichiicake]

[quartings]

Legends Z-A Thoughts and Theories!

Okay, I was pretty quiet on my opinions for Scarlet and Violet, but I'm confident enough to be very pleased and optimistic for this! Legends Arceus was the strongest Pokemon game we had in a decade, and to see them continue this, bring back Megas, and take an extra year to hopefully make it non-buggy? Makes me so so excited!

On Megas:

It's a bit of a surprise to see Megas back, but honestly? Not too much of a surprise. Even ignoring the inevitability of Kalos remakes, Megas are the only gimmick Pokemon kept around in their spinoffs. It was in Mystery Dungeon, Shuffle, Smash Bros, Pokemon Go, and probably more I'm forgetting! So it was always in the back of Gamefreak's mind and I'm glad it's truly back again!

With Gens 8 and 9 bringing back cross-gen evos, I think they'll focus on only giving Megas to three-stage lines, to not quash the potential of 2nd stage Pokemon getting regular evolutions. So starters and Pokemon like Flygon can get Megas since they can't evolve further, but Pokemon like Tropius and Chimecho probably won't, in case they get evolutions in Gen 10 (That then get Megas)

I also don't think we fully grasp how many more Pokemon can get Megas now, too. Barely any of Gen 5 and 6 had Megas (Seriously only 2 Pokemon between the 228 Pokemon in those gens) and we've had THREE more generations since then!!

Note: We went from wanting a Dunsparce evo, to wanting a Dunsparce Mega, to getting Dudunsparce with mixed fan reception. Now I'm going to be a selfish deluded clown bitch and get my hopes up for a Mega Dudunsparce.

Speaking of starters and Megas, do we think we'll get a mish-mash of older starters for this game that then get Megas (Say, Piplup, Snivy, and Scorbunny) or will we get Megas for the three Kalos starters?

Megas may mean Mega Stones return as held items, and held items weren't in Legends Arceus- new gameplay advancement?

Legends Arceus gave us 7 new Pokemon (most of them cross-gen evos) and a dozen new regional forms. Do you think we'll still get regionals this game, or will the design team be focused more on making new Megas instead?

On the world:

It's been confirmed the whole game is only in Lumiose City- how big is the map?? Hopefully we really do get lots of sidequests, biomes for wild Pokemon, and traversal options.

When is this? We're redeveloping Lumiose City, but are we in the past developing it into its current state, or are we in the present/future developing it into a new solarpunk city? Or neither, and this is a "Paradox" game set in a timeline which doesn't quite match ours?

This doesn't have to be an isekai (as in, we don't have to be time travellers again per se), just keep that in mind!

The "Z" in the logo represents Zygarde, with the black color and green hexagons. So who's the "A"? It's green with green scale/leaf patterns on it. What does it represent? The "Chaos" to Zygarde's "Order"? Is it a 5th Zygarde form or is it a whole new Pokemon?

Meta thoughts:

This further confirms my theory that Gen 9 will last until 2026, where they announce Gen 10 on that year's Pokemon Day for their 30th anniversary, and that's great! I'm glad they aren't overworking themselves too much compared to Gens 6-8.

On them "skipping" Unova remakes: I don't see this as skipping. We've been long overdue for a Z version since Kalos is literally the only Pokemon region to only appear in one release (no third version, no remakes, no sequels, no ultras, no DLC). So we're simply making up for the "deficit" of a third version here, and we can go back to focusing on Unova remakes for Gen 10.

Do you think we'll get any final updates to SV to tide us over until the next LegendZ trailer around August? Maybe a small DLC, mythical reveal, or free update?

Pokemon Adventures skipped the last Legends game, so they'll probably skip this one too? I'm fine either way- at least by skipping it, they won't be too rushed and stressed, and they'll actually have the time to flesh out SV and catch up with ORAS/SM/USUM/SwSh in the full volumes.

But on the off chance they do adapt Legends Z-A, do you think we'll get dexholders named Z and A??

Note for the future- the Yoasobi Pokemon song BiriBiri has a part where they namedrop all the game titles- one part has the lyrics "ABC to the XYZ". Long shot, but if Legends Z-A does indeed have an ABC theming, this could be a crazy bit of either coincidental or intentional foreshadowing!

[adobe-outdesign]

What do you think about Seaking? It’s probably the most mid pokemon of all time, but I wanna see your take.

Goldeen is one of those Pokemon that sure do Exist. There's nothing much wrong with it visually—the orange and white colors are very pretty, and the green eyes pop nicely—it just doesn't have anything in particular going for it to make it memorable. I mean, it's a tosakin goldfish with a horn (side note: slapping horns on everything is one of Gen 1's favorite things to do). There's nothing particularly clever or unique in the design to really make it stand out.

Seaking is a bit of a strange evo. It's not like it technically changes all that much from Goldeen—it's still a goldfish with a horn—but I've always had trouble seeing it as an evolution of Goldeen despite the obvious similarities.

I think the problem is the lack of advancement in the concept. Normally, evos will take the visual elements and themes of their pre-evos and expand upon them. Take Goldeen's horn, for example—you'd expect Seaking to have more horns, have a bigger horn with spirals on it, something like that. Instead, the horn is exactly the same.

Another issue is the body shape. It's a bit rounder than Goldeen, but it doesn't really come across as particularly bigger or stronger than its pre-evo. I could easily believe these two were the same size if I didn't already know better.

There is some attempt at progression in a few spots, at least—the palette has expanded to include black in it, the mouth now sports some small fangs, and it's arguably more of a koi fish (of the sanke variety) than a goldfish. It's just not quite enough to make it really feel like an "upgrade" to Goldeen.

All of that aside, the actual markings are quite pretty, and there's something appealing about those completely black no-thoughts-head-empty fish eyes that I like. I also think this 'dex entry has some neat lore, in that it explains why they have horns to begin with:

All that said, what could be done with this line in the future to help earn it some fans? One possibility would be to give it another evo, though I'm not sure what direction they could take it in. Another possibility could be regionals—perhaps a flying-type variety based on koinobori streamers or something, with the fins working as a sort of wings?

Another possibility, though I doubt they'd add something like this, would be to give them a bunch of different patterns and colors, Vivillon-style. Both goldfish and koi are known for being bred endlessly for different varieties and appearances, something even referenced in Goldeen's 'dex entries. A simple gimmick like that could easily help them stick out a bit more.

Anyway, overall: these fish are perfectly harmless, but also fairly bland and underwhelming. The line definitely has potential across the board, so hopefully this is one GameFreak will be wiling to revisit some day.

[raidante]

ok FR would ANYONE be interested if I decided to actually compile a doc that has like.... the Lore of my original work? I call it a fan SMT game because it's essentially using SMT as something to bounce off of muse wise and fill in the blanks for some things (like alignments, gameplay mechanics, demon encounters, and keywords and locations) but the story, characters, and overall themes of the work are wholly original and birth from the depths of my brain.... would you guys rlly be interested in that?

I'm talking details about story PREMISE, because there's things I actually do wanna keep secret even if I don't ever fully develop it into a game...maybe a mockup game thing or smth I just absolutely do not have the skillset to make games or game assets tbh.

details about CHARACTERS from their designs (including concept designs, evolution of designs, inspirations and themes) to their personalities and their own convinctions in their alignments.

to ENVIROMENTS including mockups of places and inspirations for certain mood pieces and potential dungeons, scripted encounters, boss figures, etc.

as well as potentially a list of assets that inspired me (music, movies, games, religious symbolism and social impact).

This is a MASSIVE PROJECT that has already been developing in ny brain for a year almost, and will probably take years of life and time in the future. Is this something you guys are really interested in? Not just as SMT fans either but like...genuine interest. Idk. I wanna know if its worth committing so much effort into it not just for my sake alone. I need motivation to sit down and develop things so...

[shadowonwater]

Pokemon Masters EX: my thoughts on Legendary Adventures [unfinished]

I'll go in order.

Also I have a general headcannon than the main reason so many legends are showing up is because they want to check out this man made island with all these powerful trainers. So unless the story proves otherwise, I'm just going to assume that.

Zamazenta

Pretty good! Of course I'm a big fan of the giant freaky skeleton dragon, so seeing it appear is cool. It feels a bit off though that the story in which I get Zamazenta is more focused on a different legend.

Also Sigma suit Leon at the end looks cool af and I wish I had him because he and Eternatus make such a cool pair. I wish I got them from this story rather than Hop and Zamazenta. Or at least I would prefer Zacian to Zamazenta. But getting another steel type is nice at least, I could really use some.

Anyway the idea of Eternatus showing up and being weak without an energy source and needing help is neat. And I think it's cool that Leon decides to help it and formed a sync pair with it.

World building wise it's interesting seeing the professor's bring up the fact that the sync stones and mega stones must have something in common because they can both cause mega evolution. And that they could potentially also cause dynamaxing. Suggesting that all these things may have some sort of common energy to them.

I wonder if Z-Moves and the new Terastlization could be included in that at all. It would be neat if the gimmicks were all kinda connected.

Solgaleo

For sure the weakest story. It wasn't really much of a story at all. Main Character and 2 friends walk up a mountain because people are talking about loud roaring coming from the top, and also to see the sunrise.

Anyway the roaring was Solgaleo. A bunch of other trainers are at the top of the mountain as well. Solgaleo is really jiving for a good battle so it's just battling everyone there like nonstop, including Main and Friends.

Eventually Solgaleo has had enough so Main and Friends leave but it follows them and befriends Main.

I think it's interesting that it bonds w/ the player character rather than someone else. Because all these other legendary sync pairs are characters from various already existing stories. So I'm like, why this legend? Why bond it w/ Main and not some other character?

Anyway I wish it was Lunala. I don't really care about getting Solgaleo outside the fact that I could really use more steel types.

Xerneas

This was actually the 1st one I did, in part because I really love Xerneas's design, but also because I could really use more fairy Pokemon. Also I like Sycamore, so it's cool to have him on the team.

So Xerneas shows up on the island, Sycamore is like: Let's go check it out. At the same time apparently he's aware that Lysandre is on the island and he has some guys who are disableing some bomb he made. We don't find this out until the end though.

We know he was talking on the phone about something serious. And it's like a Chekov's gun because it comes back at the end to foil Lysandre's plans. I liked that, it was simple but done well I think.

Lysandre is just as Thano's like as ever. He's still got his whole "We need to kill people for population control" Which is pretty fucked up, but at the same his wording always comes off as kind of goofy to me. His whole "Let's keep the world beautiful" has always been such a strange way to say "Let's do some genocide"

Anyway Xerneas was nice what with counteracting Yveltol's whole... death aura(?). So people would stop choking. And I guess it thought Sycamore was a chill dude so it was like "imma stick with you"

anyway, good time I enjoyed it.

Kyurem

Oh boy, I gotta say this one was more favorite! I love Silver, and I love N. And woof, these poor boys have some daddy issues. 1st loseing a match to a father-son duo and then later having their dads show up and be asses.

N was hopeful and Ghetsis is an ass for playing with his feelings. Really goes to show how much of an ass Ghetsis is. And what he says to N at the end of the story, wow. Poor N. It was pretty jarring that right afterward the story ended and I recruited Ghetsis. An example of story and gameplay not matching up.

Y'know I never really thought about pairing Silver and N together before, but honestly it makes so much sense. They have the similar issue of having a villain as a parent, and they were both antagonists in their own right from the games they came from.

N really took some high ground when defending Kyrem, and by extension Ghetsis, from Giovanni.

And I like it when the game locks me in to using certain characters, wish it would do that more, I like the challenge.

Anyway though, that part w/ the 2nd Kyurem? WTF Already I'm having a hard time with why there are both normal ledgendaries and some shiny legendaries around. This one isn't even shiny! I had the same reaction as Ghetsis here of "what the hell, that shouldn't be possible" and the game kind of acknowledges that but not really. Nate (or was it Hilbert?) just says "yeah I thought that was weird too, the Pokemon world sure is strange" and just kinda shrugs it off. Not a good enough explanation for me, I'll say.

One more thing, did they forget Reshiram? I mean after Nate's Kyurem fused with Zekrom, Ghetsis acted like "that's it, my plan's are foiled!" While there's an entire fuseable dragon just sitting in storage, you could have grabbed that one Ghetsis. And none of the main characters mention Reshiram at all afterward. I can only assume that N grabbed Reshiram while leaving but there was truly no mention of it whatsoever.

[the rest of these are unfinished, I wrote all this stuff like half a year ago and I just want to get this out of my draft]

Palkia

Gotta say, the opening was kind of funny, the Kyurem story also had a funny opening in a similar vain. In both cases the villains just kind of shows up on Pasio and are like "where the fuck am I".

And Team Break see this guy with a fucking legendary, and are like "yeah we can take him". No you can't Team Break! You never do.

Rayquaza

Ho-oh

Probably my 2nd favorite story. I really love Silver!

Mewtwo

[doubleddenden]

Rather than sleep, I'm gonna talk about a Pokémon fan game I recently beat:

Realidea System

Like Opalo, it's another Spanish fan game, this one focusing more on aesthetics and mechanics with a little less under the hood in terms of new Pokémon, but still having a lot to offer story wise and game wise.

Spoiler, 8/10 for the good stuff, but a point docked off for incomplete translations and just a tad too many mini game issues.

More under the cut

So Realidea System came out around September I think, and the main you'll see right away is a gorgeous art style with bright colors and very intricate tiles. Every location looks cozy af or scary where appropriate, and it has a ton of different aesthetics that it works very well with for each.

Also, unlike most fan games, there's talk portraits for the story that help convey who is talking and the emotion conveyed- this is actually very pleasant tbh, and there's a lot of good designs you can better appreciate due to it. Tbh I have issues reading, and sometimes it's hard to tell who is talking via text alone. This actually helped me a lot more than the creator probably intended, but it's something I'm still thankful for.

The sprite work, what's made for the game anyway, also looks very good and has a unique but simplistic style with eye catching shading and colors. I'm actually pretty jealous of it and sort of taking notes from it, because there's not a lot of the same style of shading as the gen 5 or 4 sprites, but the style still works in its own way. I'd almost compare it to a 2d cell shading style, but idk if that's accurate? I like it, I'll say that. Not to mention that there's a lot of fun Overworld sprites that convey just as much if not a tad more emotion than the portraits.

The sprite work also extends to fakemon. Now I am a little bit disappointed that there were so little new Pokémon to experiment with, I'm not gonna lie. There's the starters, a legendary, and... about 5 or 6 variants. That's it. However, obviously they went with Quality over Quantity, which I can respect. Each of these are really well designed and excellently sprited, and most importantly fun to use! I chose the water starter, and it's ability and 2 signature moves are really fun in a fight and can potentially let it sweep.

Continuing off of this, to make up for the lack of new Pokémon, there's obviously a huge variety of old Pokémon to choose from, including lots of starters such as Chikorita and Rowlett. Megas also make a return, and some regional variants appear too.

Now on the technical aspect, there's a lot of cool shit under the hood, mainly the Realidea System that is the heart of the game's story. What this does is replace the HM mechanics (hallelujah), such as the Fly mechanic, which is now Teleport (although it functions exactly like Fly), and Surf, which now just happens as soon as you touch the water without any prompt needed.

The RS also comes with a couple extras that require certain points attained from using items on your pokemon or just generally bonding with them. Some of these include a repel system that repels as many steps as you use, a heal system that basically functions as a Pokémon Center, and an automatic level up feature that functions as a Rare Candy. The last two were actually very helpful for my journey and filling out the dex.

Outside of the RS there's codes you can put in at the Pokémon Center to sort of help with grinding, which can exist if you want or just completely bypass it by changing the levels of any Pokémon in your party up to the highest level in your team (be mindful that this will not trigger evolution, the Level Up feature will tho). Honestly, it feels dirty, but I actually do like this feature just so I can keep everyone around the same level. The EXP all works in conjunction with this btw, about like the Switch games function without making the game too easy. Basically all of this is to ensure you can just catch a new little guy and bam, he's already caught up, and grinding just isn't a thing anymore, so you can just be on your happy little way.

You can also remember moves on your own from the party menu, which honestly is just very helpful and makes it so you don't miss any by using the level up trick. If you're so inclined, you can also change the nature's of your pokemon via 3 heart scales from the party menu.

Basically a lot of tedious bs is completely ironed out, letting the game be fun without too many hold ups beyond a puzzle.

But speaking of puzzles... good lord there's a lot of mini games. Mind you they're doable, but a lot are kind of trial and error, especially the ones that require the ability to read and understand Spanish. You may think "oh just Google translate," and you'd be correct in assuming that does help with a good portion. But I'm not lying when I say that there's a section dedicated entirely to PUNS. It was fucking hilarious just trying to guess what's going on, but also frustrating. Even without the Spanish though, the rhythm games kill me.

The translation is also just not complete. I'd say 70% complete, because you still get bits of Spanish in normal gameplay and a good many puzzles are only instructed in Spanish. Not to mention the journals are ALL Spanish, so i had to have some friends help me read it. What is finished is about 95% decent though, with only a small handfuls of grammatical errors or odd translations, so kudos for that.

Now, characters and story. The story is about standard fair for a normal Pokémon game, but there are some interesting twists here and there. In cooperation with gorgeous visuals and art, the story is told pretty well and is really immersive. The characters too are also very entertaining and hilarious, and also have a fair bit of depth. I have to say I found myself attached to Elliot, Owen, and Alba, which is very strange since I'm usually not one for rivals or Lilly type characters. There are some groan worthy moments, cliche bits, or some not so ideal things done, but I do think it's a passion project someone put a lot of heart and soul put in.

Oh, and this game is hilarious. Check everything that looks interactive and you'll see what I mean.

Oh oh, there's also a very well managed side quest system. Tons of side Quests pop up and are easily found in the overworld, so that's a bonus if you're like me and hate having to hunt a specific NPC.

Lastly, the music: i believe the music is mostly original, which is amazing because every town and route sound magical in some way, and the original trainer themes are very, very good. When I say prepare yourself for the champion, I mean that in so many ways but ESPECIALLY the music. My one grief is yet again the reuse of the BW gym theme. I think it's okay, but I was really hoping for something original. But what is here is awesome.

Overall it's a fun time and a lot of effort went into this. There's a lot of fun poked at the series (especially towards Kanto) and the entire game feels like a fun adventure. I hope to see another project by this dev, maybe with more fakemon? Please? That's my favorite part of playing fan games.

Anyway, 8/10

[mars--madness]

Hello Mars! how’s your day going? (mine’s pretty well) but anywhoo, i have like 4 questions to ask, but it here it goes!

1. When did you became a Mucha Lucha! fan? (mine’s been like 4 years and yet i have the dvd and the comics)

2. How long have you been drawing? (like an evolution of artwork through the years)

3. Who’s your Favorite ML! character and why?

4. Any future concepts or ideas on a possible artwork?

that’s all the questions that i have for now :P

hope you’re having a very great lucha day!

No problem, I'd be happy to answer them! 😊 this will be a WALL OF TEXT so prepare yourself!

1. I've been estimating this question with even myself as to exactly HOW LONG I've been into this show! And it all chocked up to a random memory I had in passing: I remember watching the opening with my baby cousins back in '03 when they were being babysitted! So way way back then 💀 ancient times

2. As for drawing: I've mostly started with random stick figure doodles in printer paper flipbooks, in which evolved into crude/traced attempts-at-art in one of my 'how to' guidebooks that I get at my local craft store! (This was in the span of times of '03-'06 if I can give an estimate)✨️then I decided one day I wanted to be more serious w the craft and started ACTUALLY free handing pics from magazines/Google images/and said tutorial books from before--even if they still seemed very crude ('07-'09)✨️THEN I tried searching for a specific style (before I figured out it didn't rly matter pfft) and drew from my mind/conjured up design features from varied media I was into at the time! ('10-'13)✨️ And after that, I went full digital and had YEARS of practicing with plethoras of tutorials along with attending art classes which REALLY helped out a whole bunch.. ('14-'17) ✨️ and now that I'm out of school basically, I'm just here practicing and drawing at my leisure! But I hope to use my knowledge in art with the degree I have + years of (self taught) practice 🎉🎉

You can find some of my favorite works on ARTFOL here: https://artfol.me/masa_ne

And no worries! I'll find a way to eventually print out some old (and cringe worthy) works and update it on this question in the future!

3. Oh GOSH,, I can say with confidence that my faves have fluctuated over the YEARS, and have been all over the place, so I'll break it into two categories: children/adults

Children- basically LOVED the elementals such as Zk and Pierre (the obvious pick), but some others include megawatt, electricity, and non-elements like La Pinata and ( in more recent years) French Twist!

Adults- Basically love the adults NOW more than I do the students, and I would consider them to be underrated characters that TOO can be rich with potential backstory development 💕

Some include Perro Salvaje, La Pared, and Rey Dinamico (I understand he's based on mysterio BUT-- he definitely has potential!!) Some MORE obscure pics would be a great handful of the parents, Hot Chocolate/Marshmallow, Hula Hattie, and the adult insectos!

4. I have a FEW in the works currently! (Most of which I'm holding off until after I move at the end of this month👍) But the one (or TWO) anniversary pics I'm aiming for will most likely be uploaded in September :"] a little inconvenient but it is what it is I suppose!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your questions! 🙏✨️

You have a Lucha day YOURSELF!

[shaaaaaaar]

the evolution of fnaf and, by extension, it’s evolution on the internet, is such a wild case study on how a piece of media can affect culture.

fnaf on release, and for a few years after that, was primarily an indie horror game. it a game that exploded first due to its gameplay (largely due to lets players) and then because of its storytelling. fnaf nowadays is reminiscent of a comedy, a piece of media that has become more of a parody than a game.

i’m not saying that’s a bad thing (even though I'm personally not a fan of where the series went), besides that’s what the internet does a large percentage of the time. but it’s so interesting to look at this shift retrospectively, to compare fnaf today to how it was a few years ago and to watch how the series' changes led to what we have today.

let’s look at fnaf 1, my personal favorite. the most important note about this game, and why it made every choice it made, was that it was intended to be a one-off game. it didn't care about story, about being something massive, only on being a horror game. this led to fnaf 1 being the rawest form of fnaf's horror, and these distinctions led to fnaf 1 feeling very different from the rest of the series. its design is insanely fine-tuned in order to capture feelings of anxiety and unease, scruffy’s video on audio in fnaf illustrates this really well.

there’s a lot to say on the horror in fnaf 1 because it doesn’t hold itself back. from the near universal experiences like phone guy’s death and seeing your body stuffed into a suit to the rare events people may never encounter like the death screens and rare events in the game itself (whether small like posters changing or big like the illusions or golden freddy), the only rest the player will have from fear is the release of the 6 am alarm. the design choice that resonates with me the most is how as you progress into the week, the camera shots you’ll see will sometimes be different, as if the animatronics want you to know how disturbed they are.

everything changed when various lets players noticed this small indie game. markiplier, jacksepticeye, pewdiepie, and a ton of others introduced this small one-off game to a massive audience. they praised the game, got scared by the horror, grinded for 4/20 mode, infused it with their own culture (such as markiplier being the king of fnaf), and it all led to people paying attention to scott cawthon and fnaf.

fnaf 1 didn’t have plans to be anything greater than an indie horror game. fnaf 1 was a game with a lore that doesn’t go deeper than 5 dead kids who were stuffed into suits they’d go on to haunt. fnaf 1 was meant to be a fuck you to those who critiqued scott’s character designs before he'd disappeared from the game design sphere. fnaf 1 wasn't focused on much else because it wasn't meant to be much else. fnaf 1 was, to the surprise of scott, a massive success, opening the option for a potential series. fnaf 1 was an opportunity for scott to continue this life he planned on abandoning.

because of its predecessor's success, fnaf 2 had a much different development than 1 did. while 1 was meant to be a one-off and a final shot at making it big as a game creator, fnaf 2 was trying to capitalize off of fnaf 1's success and to make this series stay around. this manifested into creating the story which 1 lacked. its where the beginning of fnaf’s infamous storytelling method of making itself into a puzzle began.

three pillars for fnaf's success begin to be observable. the gameplay and, by extension, horror, the lets players, and the developing lore. fnaf 2’s goal was to establish a balance.

the difference in goals can be seen with how juxtaposed the gameplay of 2 was compared to 1. you’re no longer in a small, claustrophobic office but a large, exposed, vulnerable room. the lore was explicitly intertwined with the gameplay through the minigames and phone guy while 1’s lore was barely present beyond some posters and, as it was in 2, phone guy. the balance aspect of the game’s design even got into the gameplay thanks to the puppet. it worked incredibly well as a follow-up to 1. and though the horror was less present compared to the first game, it wasn’t like fnaf 2 wasn’t scary. 2 still felt like a horror game, just a DIFFERENT horror game.

fnaf 3 marked when the story began to take center focus. again, it’s not like the other categories were forgotten about or nullified, in fact i think springtrap and fazbear frights as a setting do their horror better than all of 2 did, but the story took more of a center stage due to how prominent it was.

if fnaf 1 was designed as a final shot and fnaf 2 was designed to capitalize off of the sudden success of 1, fnaf 3 was to hook people into the blossoming story of the series. springtrap being the sole animatronic demonstrates the meaningfulness of the game's story excellently. the setting being in an attraction based on fnaf also is emblematic of this focus. and, most obviously to me, the existence of a good and bad ending which gave conclusion to the story (even if it'd be retconned) showed that more than the prior installments, this game wanted to be a story. scott was trying to strengthen that lore pillar, to draw in matpat and theorists to stand alongside markiplier and the lets players as faces of fnaf

and then, fnaf 4. if fnaf 1 was the prologue to the lore takeover, fnaf 4 was the entire first half of the story.

while fnaf 3 asked more questions than the prior installments, 1-3 were still clear in what they were saying. 4 is where this stopped. fnaf 4 had the problem of being too unclear to the extent that matpat stated 4 was the game with the most questions unanswered several installments after its release. but even if messy the story was massive for this game's identity, something scott egged on. a couple of theorists, matpat included, did a several hour livestream where scott interacted with them to help them solve the mystery that fnaf’s gameplay is now most remembered for.

it’s telling of how much of a focus it took with how the lets play and gameplay pillars suffered. pewdiepie dropped fnaf because it was all the same to him. what’s equally telling is how big a deal this was in the gaming sphere. the horror felt a little lost outside of animatronic designs (which fell flat for me) and jumpscares (which shouldn’t need to carry the horror of a horror game). the horror now was in the story that the players were asked to solve.

this change in identity really shines in sister location, where the strength of the gameplay and horror were completely lost. there are several moments in sister location where the horror genuinely stuck with me, which hadn’t happened since fnaf 1. but sl is only remembered for the lore. what people remember are the moments that build on the lore, that bring more questions and give more answers. in fact, the game’s story couldn’t be fully appreciated without prior knowledge, which includes the BOOK SERIES, which a lot of fans won’t read or know details about unless they care about the lore. while the same need for context goes for the preceding games (except fnaf 1), needing to read a non-game source to appreciate the story in the games is a big ask for a lot of people.

this is also where the non-seriousness that fnaf is remembered for today was born, thanks to the daily elevator trips which, among other quips, brought about the exotic butters joke. though it didn't distract from the game's theme due to its brevity and non-intrusiveness, so it wasn't much of a problem at the time.

fnaf 6 takes what fnaf sl did with story, de-emphasizes the horror, and makes the lore pillar the most important. the ending of fnaf 6 is impossible to truly understand without knowing each character’s story, including the book and fnaf world exclusive henry emily. the pizzaria simulator gameplay loop is the exotic butters tone shift if it took up half of the game. ignoring the last cutscene, the horror is lacking (scraptrap is the definition of pathetic), the night half barely stands out, for god’s sake the method to get one of the endings was unclear for several years. in exchange, the lore was sweet and satisfying; the final speech henry gave is incredibly resonant and powerful. fnaf 6 made a choice with its direction and captures the change the entire series had gone through up to it better than any other game before it.

the gameplay and horror pillars became like the hips of a whale. they still exist, they’re just hidden within the rest of the skeleton.

ultimate custom night and help wanted are big exceptions, being focused on their gameplay and with the storytelling being a secondary focus in between moments (as ucn didn't have much story to tell and help wanted was only trying to start a new story). but in my opinion, the horror is still lost in ucn. there’s too much going on, a lot of it being super goofy, for the game to feel scary to me. especially notable is everyone's favorite animatronic, mr. hippo, who manages to be the fnaf 4 to exotic butter’s fnaf 3 for the games' lack of seriousness. help wanted meanwhile, largely due to being in vr, still holds onto the fear and seriousness that fnaf can create.

while help wanted was more scary than ucn is to me, following its release was the new book series. they were a collection of short stories which lore enthusiasts had to suffer through for even more details about the game story. they were when the comedy invaded into the lore as well, with faz-goo and time traveling ball pits not only bloating the lore but making it into a complete joke to many.

the horror barely felt like a focus to the franchise anymore, the gameplay had its great moments but became unmemorable, the lore got infamously messy, unclear, and hard to navigate, and with the game's newfound whimsical nature (as well as funko’s merchandise), the series began accumulating a large child audience and lost the themes and tone it maintained in its earlier releases.

fnaf lost its identity as a horror game and only somewhat held onto its identity as a story.

security breach’s rushed state put the final nail in the coffin. it barely felt like a horror game thanks to the pizzaplex's brightness and the very silly designs. people only cared about the gameplay for the glitches, lets players got attention because people wanted to see the game break, people's care for the lore fell apart when afton returned again, and the game's popularity was the equivalent of the attention a car crash on the side of the road gets from passerbys.

whatever serious identity fnaf still had to the general public had been lost. the past was absorbed by this new perspective. fnaf had transcended past an indie horror game to become a cultural phenomenon, a title that meant a specific flavor of jokes and parody. its origins are a footnote to this holy bible of comedy. every leg it once stood on had merged and mutated into a structure of memes.

if it wasn’t obvious, i miss the horror that was a deep part of the series in its earlier days. but fnaf’s position has changed now, and while there is a lot to critique with what led to this, what first made fnaf special isn’t lost. the journey of how we got here is largely encapsulated in the jokes we make, making history into a satirized time capsule.

and god, that time capsule is a fucking trip to reflect on.

[pochapal]

Wack Anon here! Big fan of Pokespe Gen 5, so some gen 5 questions. Favorite Starter, and pokemon in general? Favorite and least favorite characters? Any thoughts on how Pokespe will likely adapt the story, or things you hope they change?

best gen 5 starter is oshawott. his evolution line may be the most mid when it comes to gameplay experience but oshawott is literally just a little guy how can you not love him.

my fave gen 5 pokemon is kind of a hard pick since there are so many good designs but i've always been a big fan of mincinno and reuniclus! in my years replaying the games i've also massively warmed up to scrafty and audino as really versatile and useful team members to have.

best bw character has to go to my girlie bianca. she's the most overlooked pokemon rival with parental trauma of the whole bunch given she debuted in the same generation as N but i really do care her. and in terms of least fave i wouldn't say i hate them but i do think anthea and concordia are absolutely missed potential given that they have this whole presence in the opening cinematic but in game are reduced to five lines of dialogue between them in N's castle at the end of the game in an optional room. i feel like they could have been massively interesting figures to run into at several times during the game's story but it is what it is.

as for pokespe i am curious as to what role white will play as a character since b/w's whole thing revolves around the nuvema trio and black'll be filling that role if the bw arc is going to closely shadow the plot of the games. bw are the first pokemon games since gen 2 where the opposite gender protag character doesn't play any kind of role to adapt into the pokespe plot so i'm interesting to see what they'll do with white. one thing i'd like to see changed/altered is a more keyed-in focus of the philosophical manipulation imposed on unova by team plasma - the games gesture at it but i'd like to see the ramifications of a regionwide "release your pokemon" activism campaign on the general populace with soms substantial details.

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

So I'm gonna do something different and ask a Pokémon question, since I've been a longer fan of that series than Yu-Gi-Oh!. Do you think the current generations have gotten a bit too "innovative"? I ask this because after Gen 5, each of the generations had their own gimmick: Gen 6 has Mega Evolution, Gen 7 had the Z-Crystals and Z-Moves, Gen 8 has Gigantamax, and now Gen 9 has the Terastal Phenomenon. Personally, I don't really have a problem with this because I think they add a lot of variety-

and versatility to Pokémon and Pokémon Battles. Although I can understand why people would be apprehensive about it, mainly for two reasons: The idea itself not being any good debatably, or them automatically making a new gimmick while not expanding or bringing back a previous one (mainly Mega Evolution). What do you think?

No, I wouldn't say that they're too innovative. After the fourth or fifth generation, Game Freak arguably perfected the original Pokemon battle formula. Changes like abilities and altering the Special stat to Special Attack and Special Defense really made the battle system in those generations more effective. I could understand why after a few years the developers wanted to incorporate new battle mechanics. It gives both new and long time players something new to experience, it helps to make the new region/generation more marketable and it gives the developers something new to work on too. Admittedly, I don't think that the games necessarily need new battle gimmicks every generation mainly because just having new Pokemon is more than enough to get people to buy new Pokemon games. I was already sold on Scarlet/Violet just seeing the starters in the initial announcement trailer. But I think that there are plenty of pros with having these new mechanics.

I can understand why people get upset over how these new mechanics are only around for a generation. I remember fans wanting them to work more on perfecting Mega Evolution before Z-Moves were revealed for Sun/Moon. I can't really blame Game Freak for not wanting to include more than one mechanic. They are almost certainly overworked as it is, so I think bringing in multiple battle mechanics would be more of a hassle than worthwhile.

There is also the issue of the mechanic potentially not being good or interesting enough to keep players interested. They can't appeal to everyone, but I think it's at least worthwhile to experiment with the battles to give everyone something new to work with.

I really do think that the fanbase tends to put Mega Pokemon on a pedestal though. I can understand why when it was the first battle gimmick introduced, there were a lot of cool Mega Pokemon designs and it was their first attempt at making older Pokemon more marketing relevant again. The fact that it was focused just on older Pokemon was more of a problem in retrospect. You had to get specific Pokemon to use the new mechanic and the Kalos Pokemon were largely left out of the mechanic that represents their generation. I think that they recognized that since all of the other battle gimmicks thus far have been accessible for any Pokemon. They would have special Z-Moves or Gigatamax forms for certain Pokemon, but players can use any Pokemon in those games to try out the new mechanic and they had special moves/forms for new Pokemon too. Plus, I think regional variants are a much better way of making old Pokemon new again and I'm not surprised that they continued to keep that feature through multiple generations instead of Mega Pokemon.

Dynamax is currently my favorite battle mechanic thus far. I thought that it was a cool way to make battles in the game feel more intense, most of the Gigantamax forms are really cool and I love Max Raid Battles. Z-Moves were pretty cool finisher moves, but I wasn't really that into them by comparison. I think that the Terastal Phenomenon is potentially interesting. It could really throw some curve balls into battles if a Pokemon could change their type to protect themselves from attacks that they'd be weak against. I think that some of the reactions to it have been a bit harsh, although some of the jokes about the hats have been funny. I'm curious to see how it will play out in the games.

[cosmicfelines]

I swear y'all my brain makes the most out of the blue crossovers out of nothing, with the Bel'veth reveal and Miraculous ladybug season 4 ending my brain just said "hmmm 🤔 Hawkmoth and the void both use purple" and BAM! New crossover and plot

Disclaimer: Just so you know! I don't approve of Canon!Gabriel actions nor does his grief makes him justified in anything he does. I get what the writers where trying to do with his character (some kind sympathetic villain like Mr. Freeze but less successful) but as always the writing of this show leaves much to be desired, as always with most things I like the concept but not the execution and Gabriel is not the exception. I actually like Gabriel's character, I want him to have a redemption arc, but as always with this show and with Clownstruc in charge all good ideas and potential is thrown out the window. I'm always looking for fans rewrits and redesign of Miraculous ladybug specially Hawkmoth/Gabriel. So as with most fandoms I have decided to divorce canon and go with my headcanons

Of you don't know what is the League of Legends Void I recommend watching Necrit's video on Runeterra or the wiki, but to keep it short The Void is a parallel dimension that is the anti-thesis of reality. It's full of nothingness except for this eldritch god-like beings called The Watchers they were in eternal blissful sleep until a rip in reality allowed a window to the Universe where the planet of Runeterra resided woke them up, they suddenly where conscious of their own existence and all the noise and light of the universe, they didn't like it. So their whole plan is to destroy the Runeterran Universe so they can go back to sleep, send Voidborn and Voidspawn to the Universe as their scouts to collect information on this new reality, and open bigger Void rifts so they can pass through and destroy everything.

So the basic premise was (before the S5 episodes leaks, monarch design preview and the first episode evolution) that a void rift opened up in Paris, maybe it was just a random occurrence, an incursion of The Watchers, or maybe when Hawkmoth used all the Miraculous together during a battle he opened a Void rift, just like the Icathians did.

The Voidborn begin to come through and lay waste to everything and everyone. LB mad CN think this is Hawkmoth's Akumas but they're wrong and the three can feel the kwamis fear through the connection. The magic of the Miraculous can barely damage the Voidlings, people are dying and the Miraculous ladybug doesn't have a clear answer and it wouldn't be able to fix anything or bring anyone back since this is not an Akuma or a threat of this world, it's an otherness and the only thing protecting their minds and bodies form the world is the magic on the suits. They're getting desperate and I'm moment of clarity Hawkmoth understands what must be done...

Someone has to get close to the rift, lure as many Voidspawn as they can and make it implode on itself to close it, taking as much Voidlings as they can with it. Problems is that it's a one way trip, if the Voidborn or implosions don't take you then whatever is on the other side of the portal surely will.

Gabriel steels himself and tells Ladybug and Chat Noir his plan, but only the luring the Voidspawn to the portal and closing it part, they're getting desperate and it's the only plan they have so they agree, Hawkmoth lies to reassures them saying that the three of them will take out whatever Void creature remains after the implosions takes must of them, Hawkmoth flies to the portal (the Miraculous gives him wings in my headcanon) luring the hundreds of tiny Voidlings with light and the magic of the Miraculous, does a few circles to make sure all are following him.. and dives straight through the portal.

It works all the Voidlings follow him through the portal, there's light shining from it where previously there was only overwhelming darkness with tints of ominous purple light. Gabriel on the other side keeps flying in circles on the other side seeing millions of void creatures, every single one following him like moths to a flame trying to catch him instead of going through the portal. He prepares the necessary magic to close the rift from his side and in a fast dive with the Voidlings following closely behind he gets close to the rift and a explosion occurs.

The Voidlings recoil and burn in agony all being obliterated, the rift is closing, and Gabriel is badly hurt despite the protection of the suit, with one last thought he takes off the Miraculous and throws it through the rift just before it closes, leaving him in darkness and with nothing but the carcasses of the dead Voidspawn, and he passes out from his injuries.

That's the first part of everything but eventually after many years of wandering and surviving Gabriel, who is now a Void touched full with purple exoskeleton and butterfly wings (oh the irony), finds his way out of the dimension he is in (is not the void, no human would be able to survive there, it's a dimension between dimensions that touches closely with the void), he appears in Runeterra, underground closely to the giant void rift where Icathian once was, and from there he explores this new world he is in. maybe he encounters Viego he sees this reflection of himself and what he was becoming.

From this point I don't have a lot figured out, what I know is he will encounter Kassadin and helps him find his daughter (he misses Adrien terribly and there are not of other void touched around who are sane), they bond and fall in love, yes I'm shipping Gabriel with Kassadin in this possible fic. They find Kai'Sa after here encounter with Bel'veth and travel Runeterra looking for help against the void.

Much much later he will return to his world to warn and help them against the void, along with his new boyfriend and stepdaughter, but those are mostly vague ideas.

Tell me what you think and hey if you wanna write it tell me and I'll help you :D.

[antialiasis]

I saw a fan theory years ago about Gen I stating that Venomoth and Butterfree's designs got mixed up in development – i.e. Venomoth's design was supposed to be Caterpie's final form and Butterfree's design was supposed to be Venonat's final form. It's just a theory, but the physical similarities have honestly stuck out to me and it seems pretty plausible to me – have you heard anything like this before? Is there any truth to it?

It is a pretty interesting theory! Venonat and Butterfree absolutely do share uncanny similarities, and more so than Butterfree looks like Caterpie or Metapod or Venonat like Venomoth. Furthermore, if you look at the original Red and Green sprites, Venonat's sprite and Butterfree's resemble each other even more closely - Venonat is facing forward with its hands together in a way that looks super similar to Butterfree. Butterfree practically looks like someone took Venonat, shrank it down and then pinched the sides in to separate the head and body, and just rotated the hands a tiny bit:

It is interesting to consider the actual evidence we have more closely, though! In the internal Pokémon ID sequence of R/B/Y, which is likely to be closely related to the order in which Pokémon were conceived of, Venonat appears relatively early (#65), before they really started in on the concept of evolution. Venomoth appears much later, at #119, after they've begun inserting evolutions or pre-evolutions for the earlier Pokémon - and the entire Caterpie-Metapod-Butterfree line appears in order shortly after it, at #123, #124 and #125. To me, this absolutely suggests that when Caterpie, Metapod and Butterfree were added to the game, they were definitely intended as an evolution line - Venomoth was added first, and then all of them together.

(Image courtesy of Helix Chamber)

On the other hand, I can definitely imagine that prior to the actual inserting them into the game part, someone designed Butterfree as a potential evolution for Venonat.

The narrative that I'm imagining is: they've come up with the evolution concept and are creating evolved forms for some of the Pokémon they created previously. They pick out Venonat as one that should have an evolution. And probably before they actually approve an evolution for being put into the game, people will come up with concepts and draw some sprites, right? At this point I imagine either...

...a couple of artists decide to give creating an evolution for Venonat a try; one of them comes up with Venomoth, the other Butterfree. Ultimately, Game Freak chooses Venomoth, but they like Butterfree too, so they tell Butterfree's artist to create a couple new Pokémon for Butterfree to evolve from instead. They do, and they're all put into the game...

...or the initial effort to create a Venonat evolution is Butterfree, but one way or another they end up not being happy with it as an evolution of Venonat and decide to make a different one, while liking the Pokémon itself enough to want to create new pre-evolved forms for it.

This is circumstantially supported by the fact Venomoth and the Caterpie line are so close together in the internal numbering - their creation likely happened around a similar time. It's also circumstantially interesting that the Caterpie line is the only evolution line created wholly within this period - other than that and standalones Snorlax and Mewtwo, they were seemingly fully preoccupied with making evolutions and pre-evolutions of previously conceived Pokémon at this stage.

So why would Game Freak decide they'd rather have Venonat evolve into Venomoth than Butterfree, despite how similar Venonat and Butterfree look? Well, if we just look at the real-life inspirations for the Pokémon, Butterfree is pretty obviously based on a black-veined white butterfly, with its highly distinctive wings. Venonat, on the other hand, far more closely resembles something like the fuzzy, venomous caterpillar of the flannel moth. Game Freak may just ultimately have felt that having Venonat evolve into Butterfree would just be a little bit of a biological stretch, and it would make more sense for Venonat to evolve into a moth - or they figured hey, they could do that, but maybe rather than fusing a moth and a butterfly together, why not have one moth evolution line and one butterfly?

Obviously this is all pure speculation, but that's where I think I'm at on this theory: Butterfree may very well have been originally designed as an evolution of Venonat, but either way Game Freak seems to have quickly decided they'd rather have Venonat become Venomoth and give Butterfree its own pre-evolutions, before it was actually added to the game.

(I really should write about this on TCoD at some point.)

[adobe-outdesign]

Oh, Wooloo. I am so conflicted over you. On the one hand, it’s adorable, and I love it’s little rectangle pupils and how round it is. The design is also easy to read and free of clutter.

On the other hand, however... it is just A Sheep. Not even in the sense that it’s mostly a sheep; it is, quite literally, a 1:1 cartoon sheep. I can’t help but feel like like a Pokemon design needs something to make it distinct. At least do the Gen 1 thing and slap a horn in the middle of the forehead or something.

(You could argue the way it rolls around is something, but I generally feel like if the most interesting part of the concept is something that's visible solely in the animation and not the flat design, something went wrong.)

Of course, while there are things you could do to visually spruce up Wooloo or ways you could add a theme to it, one could also argue it’s not Wooloo’s fault. Sometimes a Pokemon has to start off bland before it becomes interesting later on, and if Wooloo had a better evolution, it might be perfect as-is.

There were some really interesting ideas being tossed around during SWSH’s reveal, for example. One idea was a wolf in sheep’s clothing kind of thing, which I like--though granted, I’m not sure if that saying even exists in Japanese. Then there’s this design, which is my personal fav take on it:

Granted, you might need to make the line a three-stager for this design, but I love how it goes from a fearful prey animal to a fierce warrior, and it plays on the one thing Wooloo has that's somewhat unique--the braids--and integrates them both visually and thematically. If this was Wooloo's evolution, Wooloo would be perfect as-is. Unfortunately...

Yeah, I'm not huge on Dubwool.

I mean for starters, it's just a Jacob sheep, right down to the iconic pie-balding and the four horns:

And I want to make this clear: I am not saying a straightforward, sheep-like evolution is inherently (especially because the somewhat similar Mareep line ends up distinctly Not Really A Sheep at the end, and while I love Ampharos, I can get why people might want a more normal sheep). Rather, I'm saying that the lack of anything unique makes the entire line really underwhelming.

I've heard some argue it has a soccer (or football, seeing as we're in England in this game) theme, but if that's what they were going for it needed to be much more overt because honestly I'm not even sure if it was intentional or not.

But my other main problem with Dubwool that isn't related to the plain-ness is that it doesn't... really look great, visually. First, it isn't as cute as Wooloo, but it's not interesting visually either. It doesn't really have its own niche to make people appreciate it, you know?

But secondly, and more importantly, Dubwool is a weird mishmash of styles. The body is very similar to the cartoony, round body of Wooloo, but the head and legs are sudden much more realistic, in a way that clashes with the body. Make the torso more realistic or make the entire thing more cartoony, I don't care, but keep it consistent.

And there are just a few other things that bug me. Like, why give it the Jacob sheep-style four horns, which are very cool, and then bury half of them in wool? Why is the extra wool around the neck such a dark grey, and what's up with the random leaf-like points at the bottom of it? And what's up with that barely noticeable grey eyebrow above the eye?

I mean, it's not terrible--if you really like Wooloo, this at least preserves some of the elements from it (like the lovely ungulate-style eye), and it doesn't go off in weird directions that would alienate Wooloo fans. But at the end of the day, Dubwool just feels like a waste of potential, and not a terribly well-designed waste of potential at that.

So overall: Wooloo is adorable and the design is very simple and pleasant, but it's awfully plain. This is only amplified by Dubwool, which adds nothing thematically or visually while just looking worse overall than Wooloo. If you like sheep you'll like this line fine, but it's simply too underwhelming to really do much for me. I will still protect Wooloo with my life, however.

[inprogresspokemon]

Overall, I think they look cool! While I enjoyed the Sinnoh games a lot back in the day, they weren't anything particularly special to me (Gen 3 are my big nostalgia games), so I wasn't really part of the crowd who was hoping for Diamond and Pearl remakes. In general, the only Pokemon Games I'm excited for now are new Generations (or if they remade Pokemon Colosseum...). That said, it's awesome that we're getting two interpretations of Sinnoh.

Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl look like very faithful remakes (maybe to a fault). The chibi character miniatures aren't my favorite, but I get that they were trying to reproduce the smaller overworld sprites from the original games. I'm not expecting any surprises from this one, but I think it'll deliver exactly what it's promising.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is the more exciting on the two, and has the potential to break the Pokemon mold in a cool way. There's been a lot of demand for a Breath of the Wild style Pokemon game, so it's great to see they're giving it a try. I don’t understand why the protagonists look like Dawn and Lucas though? I would have preferred new character designs.

I love the sound an open-world Pokemon game, but I also really like the turn-based battle system, so I’m interested in seeing more gameplay down the road. I think the concept of Pokemon games set in another time is a great one to explore, and I think it'll be a missed opportunity if they don't do different forms for some existing Pokemon (I'm at least expecting Primal forms of our legendaries), and I would really love if we got some Sinnoh regional variants in general.

I don't expect Gigantamaxing to return in these games, as they tied the concept solidly into the Galar region, but if they do, I think it would be a post-game thing. I'm not the biggest fan of Gigantamaxing, so I would be fine if this is the case. I've seen merchandising leaks that allude to Mega Evolution coming back, so new Mega Evolutions would be cool. I'm eager to hear more.

What do you guys think?

[notbecauseofvictories]

oh I'm interested in the tag novel on how fan spaces becoming more meat spacey benefits the producers!! also happy Halloween! 🖤🧡🖤🧡

It’s not a particularly academic argument---I don’t have sources to back this up, I haven’t done research. I’m also wary of painting a picture of “fandom” as anything more than a lot of weasels in a trenchcoat, because that word means a lot of things to a lot of different people, some of whom hate each other. But as long as everybody understands that this is the ethnographical equivalent of drunkenly throwing darts at a copy of the AJS...sure.

[under a cut because it’s long and baseless, and also I had a lot of thoughts and feelings. Sorry.]

My basic premise is that fandom occupies “fanspace.” Fanspace is not solely online, since fanzines and conventions are fanspace too, but since the 90s it has become increasingly and primarily internet based. While some websites are designated fanspace (e.g., AO3, ff.net, stand-alone fansites) fanspace is not necessarily contiguous with a hosting site (e.g., there is fanspace on tumblr, but tumblr is not a fanspace). Fanspace is really just those urls, message boards, threads, blogs, accounts, etc. designated for fandom and/or where fannish activity takes place.

Its deeply-rooted internet presence has allowed fanspace and what I call “meatspace” to operate on different rules. Meatspace has always informed fan spaces, of course---disclaimers on fic to ward off accusations of copyright infringement, for example, or asking readers to attest that they’re over 13 before reading an R-rated fic. But traditionally, fandom has accepted as norm things that don’t apply to meatspace: fake names and anonymous posts, pictures of someone else’s characters, lengthy self-published stories featuring violence, explicit sex, sometimes even gay people. Fanspace is in many ways an artificial carve out from meatspace, where fewer of its rules apply; fanspace supplements these with its own norms.

The division between fanspace and meatspace is not and has never been a clear, settled line, however. Debates on how much meatspace should inform fan spaces have been raging for as long as I’ve been on the internet, and to be fair to meatspace, it has made good points. (I’m not sure if “don’t be racist,” counts as a meatspace rule given...racism, but fandom frequently reacts to it like a meatspace intrusion so I think it should count.)

However, what used to be intra-fandom conversations have become increasingly more public, for a few reasons:

Part of this is just the natural development of the internet---it’s not like fanspace was ever hidden, but there just weren’t as many people online, and stuff was harder to find in a pre-google, pre-algorithmic promotion world.

Part of it is the changing architecture of fanspace---websites shutting down, Strikethrough, and the tumblr porn ban have all, in their own ways, served to alter fanspace and move towards more and more public-facing sites.

But part of it---and this is the biggest factor, I think---is that over the last two decades, we’ve seen content-producers** increasingly willing to engage with fandom. 

On its face, this sounds good! After all, fans like people who make things, people who make things want fans. What could possibly be wrong about both sides recognizing their mutualism?

I think this works when the most interaction you could expect with a creator was showing up a bookstore to ask Tamora Pierce a question, or writing fanmail to Paul Gross. But it falls apart when you consider just how public-facing fanspaces have become, and just how much interest content-producers have taken in cultivating the fannish audience. Content-producers engaging directly with fandom are a thumb on the scales of mutualism, and a heavy one. After all, one side of the relationship is a loosely collected anarchic cult, migrating along a series of websites they mostly don’t control, making do with nothing but ongoing wank and general obsessive tendencies. 

The other side has D*sney, Harper Collins, and Comcast.

That thumb on the scale has paid off, more than I think even the content-producers could have anticipated. Fandom is good at loving what it loves and talking loudly about it, but capitalism is way better at doing what it does---turning everything into profit. So now people pay $100 a pop to go to Harry Potter World. Conventions are well-produced extensions of their parent companies, raking in money and providing a blitz of publicity---directly to the source most likely to take your messaging and amplify it. Make a superhero movie and the minute the trailer drops you conjure up thousands of online fans will be your de facto, unpaid publicists---generating interest via fan art, fic, and controversy with minimal corporate effort.  Of course fic writers who have established online presence are the darlings of the publishing world---what publisher wouldn’t want a built-in hype machine for a new author? 

And, just coincidentally, of course, fanspace and meatspace are drawn closer together, that line further blurred by this new and very, very interested third party.

I’m not saying this is some big conspiracy. No tv exec is out there rubbing their hands together and cackling evilly about how they’re going ruin fandom. But in exchange for meatspace validation and an endless stream of new content, I think fandom has ceded important ground. And I think it’s changing fanspaces, even now:

One of the founding rules of fanspace is that it does not generate money---you risk real copyright infringement that way. (This isn’t to say that money hasn’t been involved in a few massive fandom scandals, but it’s not typical.) Increasingly, however, the grumblings about getting paid for fan art and fic have gotten louder, probably due to meatspace’s general emphasis on the side-hustle, and seeing content-producers churn out more and more fan-like things for a profit.

(It seems unimaginable now, but once upon a time the HP Lexicon was an invaluable resource, a rare unicorn in a pre-wikipedia age. Now, D*sney wouldn’t even think of releasing a tentpole movie without a novelization, a picture dictionary, and a tie-in novel.)

Also, those calls for fan art that “might be featured” by a content-producer are (rightfully) scorned for asking for work pro bono. But the takeaway seems to be “we deserve to be paid for our fan art!” rather than “how dare the content-producer intrude on our fanspace and its activities!”

Fanspaces have never expected or required legal ID, permitting anonymous or pseudonymous activity in order to protect individual privacy. And while there’s still no expectation you link your legal ID with your online/fan ID, the norm has shifted---it’s no longer considered gauche to go by your legal ID, even necessary when turning mutuals and followers into an “audience.” We’re not anonymous fans, engaged in our mutual hobby anymore---some people are doing that, and others are potential content-creators.

I’d argue that even purity wank if an example of this new blurring, classic “don’t like don’t read” arguments taking on new life now that meatspace is so nearby---we wouldn’t want to offend the neighbors!

Even these things benefit the content-producers: the more fan-like stuff they churn out, the less fanspaces will create on their own; the more fanspaces that emphasize linking legal ID to online ID, the less people will be able to engage in fan activities privately; the more meatspace rules assert themselves on fanspaces, the less fanspace we’ll have.

Now, maybe this is just...evolution. As I said before, there is a porous and shifting border between fanspace and meatspace. I remember angry threads about whether m/m fics should be rated higher than a het equivalent; I remember the tagging debates, the incredible resistance to accurately describing what happens in your fic. Maybe in a few years, my longing to return to a more separate fanspace will seem equally as embarrassing, incorrect, and unnecessary. 

But right now, it feels more like an erosion---one fandom is about as willing or able to resist as the tide.

.

** “Content maker” is a term that’s come to mean “anyone who makes something” which is sheer nonsense. There’s a difference between publishers/television producers/movie studios and someone recording a podcast in their bathroom. There’s even a difference between D*sney, a vast undead creative monopoly animated by copyright protections, and someone like James Patterson, who uses a stable of ghostwriters to churn out “his” works. We shouldn’t be scrutinizing all these things them the same way, it’s lazy, and intellectually dishonest.

[imthepunchlord]

For all the new things, I kinda wished they showed all of this before SwSh was released, now it's a bit more pricey and I feel like it's kinda rushed. Also for the Mystery Dungeon, I'm excited for that bit I really hope that include all the starters and non starters as well in the final.

I wish they went ahead and pushed back SaS so it’d be released 2020, with this expansion back already included, and the new places we go to can be unlocked during our adventure or as postgame. I would’ve fine waiting and would’ve preferred it, especially to give them a chance to do more with the main story which is pretty weak and made little sense, and Rose was a very forced in villain. Also made no sense in the story climax. Watching playthroughs and seeing the climax of SaS I’m just... 

Its also frustrating that you get to hear about things happening and not actually witness or help. Like, its nice having adults acknowledge that you’re a kid, don’t worry about it we’ll handle it, but at the same time, that’s a chunk of story we have a right to see, and we’re kids in this game, we don’t always do what adults say we should follow and see what’s going on. That could’ve been something optional. Go to event to see what’s happening or skip it to go to the next gym. 

And this is turning into a rant so I’m going to put this below. For those that just want to read my comments on Mystery Dungeon, scroll down till you get to the Pikachu gif, I’ll talk about it below. 

Also there could’ve been improvements with the rivals. Marnie is suuuuper intriguing and I love her, Bede I also like though that’s more me missing mean rivals and man, he’s a brat and I say that with affection. But in the grand scheme of things, they felt pointless. More could’ve been done to include them. And Hop. God, Hop. I know people like him, but from what I’ve seen, he seems like the most annoying “friend rival” made to date. He does not know what personal space is. He waits for you in front of gyms. He waits for you on new routes. He has to comment on almost every move you make in your fights with him. 

I don’t even own the games but just from the playthroughs I’ve watched I’m just... go away. Leave the lead alone. Everywhere you turn, he’s there, waiting for you. It also feels like he only got endorsed because he’s Leon’s younger brother. There’s nothing about him that I like. And, I don’t know why he gets the other wolf legendary? What makes him worthy?What makes him want to be a Professor in the future? That’s out of nowhere. 

Something more could’ve been done with Hop, maybe an arc of him resenting you a little because every match you beat him, and he’s the Champion’s younger brother and you just seem to stay ahead. Maybe let us have more scene of him talking with Sonia since he’s going to be her future assistant. If he’s going to be constantly stalking us and waiting for us, then yeah, let’s at least better build up where his character will go. 

Then there’s the issue of pokemon. With it pretty much confirmed they just reused models from gen 7, yeah, there’s no reason to not include more pokemon. If not the National Dex, which wouldn’t bother me too much, then go ahead and add about half. At most, I’d love pokemon included that would make the most sense. Like, lion is a big symbol throughout all of Europe. There should be a lion in Galar, either Litleo or Shinx returning if not a new lion pokemon. And with the expansion packs, yeah, they’re already adding 200 each pack. 

And a lot of this dlc should already be in the game. If 400 pokemon are going to be added in, they should already be there. The new Giga forms should already be there and we should’ve seen the Giga Venusaur and Blastoise the same time as Charizard. 

I’m also salty that there’s no going to Kalos. Maybe it’ll be a future expansion, and that’s a dlc I wouldn’t mind, but those are two very linked countries they’re based on. And Galar truly isn’t a big region. The Wild Area isn’t as big as it could be. Like, it doesn’t have to be BotW big, but it could’ve been bigger than what we got. And if not expanding the Wild Area, we could’ve had Kalos as a new region to go to, and more gyms for us to do. 

ALSO.

I am not a fan of you refacing the gyms and having them act as your “Elite Four”. 

They’ve already been fought. Aside from the first two, you’ve already fought all the star Giga forms they have. Its a really lazy decision. At least, you can have the two first gym leaders come in since you didn’t fight their star Giga forms, and include the other two version exclusive gym leaders as the other two. Just for some freshness in this final challenge. 

I know they’re not big on voice acting, but, they should’ve put some form of VA into these games. Its a little awkward to get animated cutscenes and there’s no voices coming forth. And its at its worst when you get to Piers and you see him singing away, I presume loudly, into his mic and its just awkward cause there’s no voice and you can hear him tapping his foot to the music and its just so off putting to watch cause something is missing: a voice! And you know what’s the kicker? Pokemon has included voice acting before. 

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There is no reason to not do something similar, at least for Piers’ intro so its not so awkward to watch. 

And then post game... the official post game... I, I honestly can’t say what is even going on? Those two blonde bimbos, those designs, who agreed to pass them? For sword guy, I don’t know whether I should be laughing or uncomfortable. Its like, an in between especially when his hair flops around. Also, their reasoning, they’re causing chaos in Galar because they didn’t like a book Sonia wrote??? 

The villains in these games are just so dumb.

Like, Rose had a good motive but, he is still forced in. And he activates the climax for no reason. He was promised by Leon that he would help with Eternatus, all he had to do was wait through one match. One match that would’ve been 30 minutes at most, roughly. Yet he couldn’t wait for one match and went ahead and woke up Eternatus, does a video asking for help, and when you arrive, stops you for a battle that doesn’t make sense to have cause he asked for help why is he holding you up with a battle?? 

And Team Yell. Supposed to be like, a 2nd Team Skull and these guys could dream to live up to Team Skull. They can’t. They’re not funny or enjoyable at all. And my friend brought up a good point on the issue of having Team Yell based on punks when they’re supposed to be the “villainous” team. Punks, historically, were rebelling against an unfair system, they were progressive and revolutionary. They stood up for LBGT rights, they stood for having individual freedom, and just wanted to break the restrictions society wanted to place on people, let people express themselves and be who they want to be. 

If you want Team Yell to be a 2nd Skull and play around with punks as their theme, then they should’ve been set up to be red herrings as well. Be wary at first and then later find that they have hearts of gold, and mean well, even if they can be a tad extreme sometimes. And maybe they can help build up the danger of Rose, who in turn wants to paint them in with a bad image since they’re going against him and what’s normal in society. 

Anyway... Sword and Shield honestly should’ve been pushed back. They should’ve been saved for 2020, or even 2021, or however how much time they need. I would’ve been fine waiting. A lot of fans would be. But what we got wasn’t worth the $60 it was being sold at, and definitely not worth the $90 its being sold at with the expansion packs, and as far as I know, these are very, very small areas to explore. Cause as we’ve seen with SaS, they built it up to be big and grand and, well, the Wild Area was smaller than expected and the whole was far shorter than expected. You could beat it in 20 hours roughly. 

I even have mixed feelings on there being no enhanced version, cause these games do have potential, they just needed more time and polish, and then it could’ve worth the $60 price. But also thankful that there’s not another 2nd version and we may be getting a few expansion packs instead. 

Though I do think a lot they’re bringing in should already be in the game. 

Anyway, enough ranting about Sas, onto Mystery Dungeon!

Demo I think could’ve been a little longer, they stop you before you go on the Skarmory mission, I think it could’ve been a better placement to end after the Skarmory mission. 

Anyway, I like the changes so far. I love you can choose a different pokemon if you don’t like what you got from the test. I love that you have an updated move pool, though I feel kinda OP but you also kinda need it for these games cause I remember them being so hard and as a starter that can’t evolve till like, post game, yeah you’re going to need that help. I love that you get to wear a little scarf. Design wise, a little weird at first but it grew on me. Kinda reminds me of Okami. 

By trailer, for sure they’re adding more pokemon in. Lucario is seen in the team, when before, you only saw Lucario as a statue in Red Blue, I believe? Its been a long time. But they only had Gen 1-3 in RB, and Lucario is there so I would think they’d add in a lot more pokemon. 

For starters, I’m hopeful that beating the game, if you replay, you’ll get more options for the starters to play as and have as your partner. I’d loooove to have a chance to play as Popplio. Mega Evolution is confirmed, I wonder if regional forms would also be playable, like if we could evolve into Alolan Marowak or be one of the other two regional Meowths. Otherwise, everyone you could be in the old game is there, with no gender restriction! You can be a female Cubone! A male Eevee! A female Cyndaquil! I’m so happy about that since as a kid, I wanted to play Cyndaquil but never got it in the test and had to look it up and was bummed that it was male only and I wanted to be a girl. 

My biggest hope though is that with this, we’ll have a chance to play two player, since you have a team of two usually, and your friend or sibling or SO can play your partner. 

I am pleasantly surprised with it so far, though I will be holding off when its released in a few months, just going to listen to all reviews once they beat the game and if its very positive, cause SaS had a strong start and then went down hill with Gamefreak rushing it and cutting corners. I’m hopeful for this remake but cautious still.