#but having a special bonus for if you get the perfect fire over grass bonus means you get rewarded for Doing The Elements Good

[dravidious]

You're quite neat

General idea for a turn-based combat system that I thought about like 3 years ago and never wrote down: There's an "element clock" that has like 3-6 slots on it that store elements. When you use an elemental skill, the element in the currently active slot affects it; if you use a fire skill, then having fire in the slot boosts it, water weakens it, and grass also boosts it probably more than fire idk. Then the active element turns into fire, then the clock rotates to the next slot, so the fire element that you put in will come back around in like 3-6 turns. The clock may or may not rotate when a non-elemental skill is used, or maybe there are no non-elemental skills, idk. Anyway the idea is for it to encourage you to plan ahead and improvise and consider the enemy's abilities and attack patterns.

[quartings]

How Pokemon could double the length of the games’ story without changing their writing style!

This will be quite a long post, so a lot of it will be under the cut!

Even though many Pokemon postgames can be really fun and fulfilling, it’s really only thanks to the battle facilities that some of them are blessed with. The postgame areas/story themselves usually feel very rushed and/or hollow. Meanwhile, Mystery Dungeon games have 20+ hour main stories that are followed up with even longer postgames adding up to over 50 hours of story! So how do the Mystery Dungeon games do it (Besides having a far superior programming and writing team)?

This is because among the three pillars of content in mainline Pokemon games, (Gym Leaders- aka distinct minibosses, new areas to explore with new Pokemon, and a b-plot) one or two of them always disappear in the postgame.

For example:

Johto: Has new gym leaders, but barely any b-plot to provide pacing, and the many new areas have barely any usable new Pokemon.

Sinnoh: Has a few new areas and a small b-plot, but no minibosses, explaining why the b-plot feels so small.

BW Unova: Has many new areas and new pokemon, but no minibosses and the Sage-finding b-plot barely counts

B2W2 Unova: The new areas are less new, the new Pokemon are less new, and none of the minibosses are mandatory. Outside of finding N again, there’s really not any b-plot.

Kalos/ORAS Hoenn/Alola/Galar: Barely any new areas, barely any new Pokemon, mostly a lot of backtracking in a condensed plot. Having more of a concrete story is nice but the lack of challenging fights makes it feel even shorter and less significant.

 IMPORTANT NOTE: This is only re-crafting the story based on using plot devices that Pokemon have already used to improve and lengthen the playthrough. If we were allowed to use plot points or creative ideas that Gamefreak hasn’t used before, then we might as well turn the story into a 200 hour Mystery Dungeon-style epic saga, haha.

So-! Let’s take a look at this reworked story, where the main and postgame both have all three pillars of storytelling!

 Main Game:

The main game will be based off Gen 5 (Stopping an evil team) and Gen 7 (Setting up a league)

Set in a region where the evil team has already won (not really post-apocalyptic and edgy, just roughed-up like anime Kanto) and is a gang that constantly terrorises the residents. Gyms have been dismantled by this evil team, and the now-jobless gym leaders are trying to protect their towns from the villains.

You get your starter from the professor to save them from a grunt.

Instead of gym leaders, you fight the evil team admins in their hideouts across the region. There’s still puzzles and the admins are type specialists, so these simulate gyms to teach type matchups.

I guess to prove that it’s still to teach type matchups, some townsfolk will say stuff like “Admin X scorched my poor Grass and Bug-types with his Fire-type Pokemon!” and “If only I still had my Water-type Pokemon with me- then I’d teach them a lesson!”

Reasons to stop individual admins can be very different to make fighting them not feel stale- Rescuing Pokemon, the Professor, unblocking routes, re-securing an important facility, protecting cargo/a VIP, obtaining an artifact, etc. One of the reasons the grunts challenge you is because they want your Pokedex. For some reason, even though it’s been a plot point in the manga and the anime, saving your mom from the evil team has never happened in the games, which I think is a big missed opportunity for creating an intense high-stakes conflict!

You learn history in this region from former gym leaders/elite four/champion maybe? Sometimes gym leaders may make you take on their old gyms to see if you’re good enough to help them stop the evil team.

Rivals:

You have two rivals. One is a happy and friendly rival who becomes morally swayed as the evil team affects them personally (They become evil for like one fight because Pokemon would never allow more than that) until you help redeem them. And the other starts out edgy and driven to stop the evil team, like a Silver or Gladion, but learns compassion and overcomes most of their trauma by the end of the main game.

Villainous Team Boss:

There’s a scripted unwinnable battle with the evil team boss (like with Zacian and Zamazenta) early on in the game. This’ll help you feel like the boss is real threat and a scummy person you want to beat later!

And since the best evil team bosses are shitty parents, let’s make them the parent of the edgy rival!

This villain would probably be using the box legendary you have to save in the final battle against them?

We’ve somehow never had a villain who HATES Pokemon as their motive, just ones who see them as tools, so maybe this villain or their family member was injured by Pokemon before and now they hate Pokemon and want them subjugated? And as the first trainer in a while who openly loves their Pokemon, you specifically pose a threat to this villain?

This idea mostly came from realising that you’re pretty much always a reactionary protagonist and not a proactive one. You’re not really out to change the status quo on most Pokemon games, but in this one, the status quo starts out as villainous and it’s up to you to change it! This also comes from the critique from SwSh and Borderlands 3 where your character has no personal reason to do anything and just gets dragged around by some arrogant adult giving you orders.

Postgame:

The postgame will then be what the main games are usually like (Beating the league, completing the dex, dealing with legendaries)

It’s been several weeks since you beat the villain, and many towns have been repaired. A proper league has been set up, and you, as the hero of the region, are invited to test it.

A handful of new Pokemon are now in old routes, and several new routes are unlocked too.

Most gyms are in towns you’ve been to before, but some are in all-new towns that were blocked off by the evil team before!

Some gym leaders are former gym leaders who have reclaimed their titles, some of them are all-new characters, and at least one of them is a redeemed evil team admin. All of them have teams of six, plus gimmicks like Raihan or many NPCs in prior games like triple battles, held items, special moves, etc, in addition to the type matchup stuff.

You get a third new rival who’s a champion from another region, wanting to try this league out. They’re friendly but really cocky like Leon- maybe they’re actually Leon, who knows?

Instead of just using the shiny charm to incentivize Dex completion, there are many NPCs who give sidequests wanting to see specific rare Pokemon, offering hints to their location, items, TMs, etc in exchange. Some of them are even mandatory mini-arcs to help space out the gyms. Think the Solaceon news people or the Unova Hip Waders. All the NPCs have names to distinguish them more.

Like in SwSh, the Elite Four is a rivals tournament with 1) Recurring Fan like SwSh’s Orbeetle Girl, 2) Edgy Rival, 3) Cocky rival, 4) Former Champion. And like in USUM, the champion challenger is your very first rival, as cliché as it may be.

Bonus Postgame:

The third bonus postgame thing mostly features what modern Pokemon postgames and DLCs are like (Short story arcs with new characters and Legendary Pokemon showcases)

You travel to a new island area where the remnants of the evil team have freed their boss and they’re trying to use Space Dragon Legendary #4 to eradicate everyone, and you and edgy rival have to stop them, with many other characters all playing a part. Maybe even Looker too!

Overall Rival Character Development:

Nice rival: Starts out nice, becomes conflicted, turns kinda evil for one fight, becomes good again and regrets it, gets closure at the Champion fight, becomes a gym leader or something.

Edgy rival: Starts out edgy, wants the sole responsibility to stopping the villains, but gets pummelled by the villains, gives up for a while, gets motivated by you, helps you stop themain villain, tries to understand how to be a normal trainer kid, tries out the league challenge, gets closure from fully helping stop the main villain in the bonus postgame.

Cocky rival: Starts out seeing you as a stepping stone, sees you as a challenge after a few defeats, sees you as a bully after a few more defeats, and becomes depressed after losing the league, finally recognizes you as a better person than them after you save the world again in the bonus postgame, and gets downgraded to both a rematch character and helpful postgame NPC in the end.

In a perfect world, there would be PMD Sky-style bonus stories to develop the rivals and other characters, but I’m trying to make a slightly plausible story so I’m not including it in the main pitch here.

[jaybug-jabbers]

All-Glitch Pokemon Blue Run Pt16: Approaching Destiny

The following is a series of texts exchanged between the devices of Professor Gingko and his assistant, June, dated 8/15/97. This document is for the personal information and use of the designated recipiet only (i.e., “for your eyes only”). It is not to be shared. 

P Gingko 3:34 pm

June? Are you still out working with D4 in the Mansion? You've been gone quite a long time now. I was hoping for a status report.

Junebug  3:46 pm

ya got sidetracked sorry

P Gingko 3:47 pm

Side-tracked doing what?

Junebug  3:49 pm

um

Junebug  3:49 pm

I'll tell you but promise you won't be mad, ok?

P Gingko 3:50 pm

I won't be mad as long as you don't give me a reason to be mad.

Junebug  3:52 pm

I'm sort of in Viridian City right now

Junebug  3:52 pm

and, uh, I just finished fighting the gym leader. did yoy know the Viridian Gym leader was Giovani?

P Gingko 3:53 pm

What on Earth possessed you to do this, June? Did I not *specifically* instruct you no more gym battles or trainer fights? You know we're trying to keep a low profile!

Junebug  3:53 pm

ok see you're getting mad

Junebug  3:53 pm

look, I had a reason

Junebug  3:54 pm

I heard on the news that the Viridian Gym was accepting challengers again, and somebody was speculating the leader of the gym was actually this giovani guy

Junebug  3:54 pm

and like it was acting as his sort of cover. you know, the dude who is in charge of team rocket? those losers who keep smuggling pokemon and stuff? and they were RIGHT, it totally was giovani

P Gingko 3:56 pm

I fail to see why this is relevent. What does it matter if the Gym leader is Giovani? You still shouldn't have challenged him, especially in front of so many witnesses.

Junebug  3:58 pm

because I stopped him! I stomped him flat with my glitch pokes and he was so confused and humiliated that he swore he couldnt even face team rccket anymore. he said he's disbanding the whole organization! look i knew somebody had to take the guy down a few pegs, and I was right, it worked.

P Gingko 4:00 pm

As commendable as that is, June, this sort of thing still is best left to the authorities to deal with. Let the police and investigators handle Team Rocket. It's not the job of a busy young lady who's assisting a glitch pokemon professor on very delicate research.

Junebug  4:02 pm

Isn't it, though?

P Gingko 4:02 pm

Isn't it what?

Junebug  4:05 pm

Look, Professor. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. We've been spending months now researching these glitch pokemon. And you've spent YEARS doing it. All in super secrecy. Ever since they were discovered, its been in secret. youve been slaving away in the shadows, and all your colleagues just think youre some qwuak, some lunatic.

P Gingko 4:05 pm

The reminder is, in fact, not necessary. I'm well aware of how the academic community perceives me.

Junebug  4:06 pm

Don't you think it's about time we do something about that? We've learned so much and we have PLENTY of proof by now! We can go public about glitch pokemon and show the world what they've been missing. or misunderstanding.

P Gingko 4:08 pm

June, that's not for you to decide. The nature of our research is very important but also very sensitive. We're working with incredibly powerful forces. In the wrong hands, or if mishandled, glitch pokemon and glitch phenomenon can be devastating

Junebug  4:11 pm

Yeah but isn't that all the more reason to go forward with the truth? Sooner or later, some random person will stumble across glitches, just like I did. And who knows what will happen to them. But if we go forward and educate people, then, laws can be made, and people can learn about them, and we can all know how to deal with glitches properly.

Junebug  4:11 pm

and also people will realize we're not crazy!! you wont have to work in obscurity anymore. you can be a hero! recognized for your genius.

P Gingko 4:12 pm

Appealing to my sense of vanity won't work, you know.

Junebug  4:12 pm

its not really about the glory though, thats just a nice added bonus.

P Gingko 4:15 pm

June . . . it's not as though I have not considered these facts. I've thought about them for years. About when to go public, and how, and with what information. It is of course my ultimate goal to reveal what we've learned to the world. So that everyone can live safely and co-exist with these amazing creatures.

P Gingko 4:15 pm

But it's not as simple as just holding a press conference and proclaiming things to the world. There are so many factors to consider.

Junebug  4:17 pm

Maybe you'r over-complicating it, though. like, I had this great idea yesterday about how we can do it.

P Gingko 4:17 pm

I mean this with no offense, but I very much doubt that you've settled on a solution more sophisticated then my years of consideration has generated.

Junebug  4:19 pm

wait til you hear it before dismissing it, man

Junebug  4:19 pm

you're gonna love it

Junebug  4:19 pm

you ready to hear it?

P Gingko 4:20 pm

June.

Junebug  4:20 pm

ok so . . . .

Junebug  4:20 pm

I take my team of glitch pokemon and I beat the Elite 4 and become Pokemon Champion of the entire region.

Junebug  4:24 pm

Professor?

Junebug  4:26 pm

Professor, u still there?

Junebug  4:27 pm

c'mon man its a brilliant idea

P Gingko 4:30 pm

Get back to the lab. We're not discussing this.

Junebug  4:30 pm

Aw, cmon. What better way to prove to the whole world the power and reality of glitch pokemon? Nobody can call it phony after that, and nobody can deny them. Plus with the prestige of Championship we'll be in a position to put forth our important research and ideas on handling glitch pokes safely.

Junebug  4:40 pm

Professor, are you there?

P Gingko 4:48 pm

Get back to the lab.

P Gingko 4:48 pm

We can discuss it there.

—

(E-mail from one week later)

Professor,

This is the update you wanted about my journey through Victory Road. I know you’re still feeling hestitant even after all our long discussions about the plan. I hope this report can reassure you that this is going to go off without a hitch.

My first hurdle on the journey began before I could even take a single step on Victory Road. Professor Oak’s grandson had once again managed to track me down. It’s like that kid has a sixth sense for honing in on me and being annoying, I swear. He demanded a battle, so I complied.

Things were a cakewalk, but then, uhh. He sent out his Alakazam and it was . . . a lot stronger then before. By like, a lot.

He wiped my entire team. It was almost in an instant. 

But that didn’t matter, because I’m no pushover trainer! Maybe I used to be, but these days I’ve learned an awful lot. So I dug into my supplies of TMs and found the perfect one. I taught Giago Thunder Wave.

During our rematch, Gia survived a hit and paralyzed the Alakazam. I knew the Zam had paltry Defense, so I sent out Fractal, who has amazing physical Attack. The Zam crumpled before us!

Things were a little tight with the final foe, a level 53 Blastoise, but my team chipped him down enough that Wobbles could easily finish the job. Not bad for a team sitting at around level 35.

With that annoying kid cleared out of the way, we headed to the caves known as Victory Road.

The journey wasn’t exactly a quick one, I’ll be honest. It took a lot of tromping around, getting lost, pushing rubble out of the way, and battling trainers that had alarmingly high-levelled pokemon. I eventually decided it would probably be best if we did a little extra training. It would make the trip a bit smoother.

So we trained, and we trained hard. Our goal was for everyone to reach level 40. Not too ambitious, just around 5 levels or so. For some, it was pretty easy. Wobbles had no problems, and Gia was packing Surf. Sure, Gia’s Special isn’t great, but it was still enough to take out the local Rock/Ground types in the cave. Jasper took slightly longer to work with, but with Earthquake and Hydro Pump, he still didn’t have much trouble. 

Dusty was a bit harder to train. As you know, her stats have never been incredible . . . besides her speed, that is. But she had Bubblebeam, Ice Beam and Hydro Pump, so it actually wasn’t too bad; just a little more time-consuming.

Then there was Fractal. I’ve noted before that Fractal’s defenses (both of them) are the worst of the team’s, and frankly abysmal. So training him was certainly a challenge. I opted to wander the grasses just outside of the cave, beating on Dittos and Fearows and healing a TON. It took a while, but eventually, even Fractal rose through the ranks.

After Fractal, there was just Charmed left to train. It wasn’t too bad, considering how balanced Charm’s stats are. The only extra thing I needed to do was duplicate some Elixirs for Charmed. She still doesn’t trust Pokecenter nurses, so she’ll only accept heals from me. I even bought Charmed a little treat and taught her Fire Blast.

Of course, if I’d wanted to, I could have duplicated a crapton of Rare Candies and just fed them to my pokemon. But I wasn’t going to do that. After all, you told me eating too much candy isn’t healthy for pokemon, and besides, I knew they could prove themselves in battle.

And that they did. We finally cleared Victory Road’s twisted, confusing tunnels and made it outside to face the large, dominating building that housed the Elite Four.

It was time.

—

Click For the Next Part of the Series!

[imagine-that-one-thing]

Dripping In Diamonds. || 4

Author's Note: Hey everyone! This is part four to ‘Dripping in Diamonds,’ it is something new I am currently playing around with and I hope you guys enjoy reading it. Thank you if you decide to read!

Previous Chapters, Dripping In Diamonds.

Harry Masterlist found HERE

If you’d like to send me feedback feel free to send me an Ask. It sometimes helps to see what the reader feels and thinks. :) xx

                                    || Message In A Bottle.|| 

The warm breeze of the August air whisks through my hair and graces my bare legs as I relax in the back terrace, surrounded by blooming roses and a soothing fountain with a novel in my hand. It is fascinating to observe seasons shift in the garden. When spring finally comes, arci-pluvian flowers blossom and last until winter begins to hit, withering away what was once a brilliant masterpiece...

The grass eternally appears to whisper in the time between spring and summer. The verdant grass stems whisper nonchalantly like a church overflowing with people humming together the most beautiful verse you can think of. I love watching when the snow commences to melt and become a coat of dewy dust for the garden to thrive off of for daisies to peep through the pea-green grass.

The sun touches the garden with a golden luminosity— a garden that will soon be covered with a beautiful blanket of winter snow—  I fade in and out of appreciating the garden while involving myself with my book.

The well-known voice of Harry’s travels through my ears and distracts me from my book.  “Mrs Archibald, what are you doing out here?” He asks while he cruises with sure-footed purpose towards me.

I look up and give him a delicate smile, taking note of the way his eyes gleam in the radiant shafts of the sun. They are a-sparkle with mirth over a warm smile. There is something about his eyes, they are entrancing, bewitching, tourmaline eyes. They shine as brilliant as the evening stars when they are a-light with delight. I have observed it for myself, I have witnessed his eyes sparkle under the chandelier of a thousand stars and have seen them illuminate a-fire with passion. His Jade green eyes are orb round and dart constantly, they never miss a beat in the most effortless way possible. They gleam with pleasure and the vigour of youth.  

“Mr Styles, I am reading. What are you doing?” I raise a brow, strangely curious about what he is doing in my garden, although, I am not complaining— his presence is invariably welcoming and gracious— his appearances are just a bonus. He is brawny with this roguish smile that is darling and incredibly hard to resist.

“What are you reading, Mrs—”

“Eleanor,” I correct him, giving him a scanty nod to confirm nobody is around.

He clears his throat, “Eleanor, what are you reading?” He challenges while keeping his attention undividedly on me, almost as if he is holding onto every word that is about to descend from my lips.

I hold my book up to reveal to him the title, “Message in a Bottle, by Nicholas Sparks.”

“What’s it about?”

I think for a moment, abruptly coming to a realisation about the context and the characters of the book… “This lady is pulled by emotions she doesn’t thoroughly understand when she first finds a message in a bottle.. She begins a search for this man that I think will change her life... I haven’t finished reading it.”

How fascinating it is to interpret the words of a book that holds more personal meaning between the lines than anyone could possibly imagine. Theresa stumbles across a note in a bottle, dedicated to a man's late wife Catherine. Immediately, Theresa becomes cognizant of a love that is felt by the man who wrote it, wary of romance since her husband shattered her trust, the message raises questions that intrigue her.  It appears to be a story that resonates with my profound hopes for discovering that special someone and everlasting love.

Ironic, how I am perching here lost in my own garden while reading a book about a lost love that one day may or may not be ascertained… To get my answers— I will have to keep reading—until then.. Everlasting love is just something people read about in novels and settle into the trap of nonexistence.

“Hm. ‘If you like her, if she makes you happy, and if you feel like you know her—then don’t let her go’.” Harry recites a section of the book I remember specifically, mainly because in the moment I was sat up in my bed reading the book, my heart fluttered slightly at the words and the idea of being someone's anchor, being the person that someone doesn’t want to or let go of.

I glance up at him and I cock my head to the side, rather intrigued that he reads — and romance novels at that— he’s a mystery of a man, and a man of very few words. Intriguing, delightful and seems to be a puzzle that is wanting to be put together but missing a few pieces... a bit like myself.

There are numerous questions I want to ask the man in front of me, mysteries that’ll show me a side of him that I don’t believe he has bestowed to many people, but that’s the problem... I don’t want to overpower him to show me himself... I want him to show me on his own. Although it is already driving me insane, I think the wait will be well worth it, in the end, intriguing men like Harry are hard to come by.

I want to dance through his thoughts and hold onto every lining of words that leaves his lips.

“Harold, do you not have work to do?” I challenge, unaware of his obligations for the day.

He shakes his head, “No, ma’am, I came to ask if you needed me.”

Well, of course, I require him, his presence alone is worth a thousand words; he has a dashing personality and a cosmic smile— how could I not need that around me?

“I do,” I nod, “would you like to take a walk with me?” I offer while I mark my page and stand on my feet, his eyes once again catching my attention. How flawlessly they gleam today.

I can not make Harry open up to me and tell me what it is I seem to have a hankering for, but I can I subtly dig until my heart's content. There’s something about him that is alluring and possess me to want more– to know more. I want to understand what lies behind the gorgeous grey eyes that glisten a darker shade of emerald when they’re deep in thought. I want to grasp what dances through his thoughts when he’s all alone at three in the morning. I want to acknowledge what lines the edges of this perfect looking man that I know has a few rigged edges somewhere down the line. I want to know his obscurest thoughts, his precious desires and more importantly, I want to grasp what laces the love that harbours inside him.

With eyes as intense and spellbinding as lodestars, that bewitch all those who surrender under his steady gaze, he agrees with my proposal. Harry eases beside me with a leonine poise while I take the lead down the small path, taking us further from the house but deeper into the Eden-green garden of heavenly desires that drips with thorns.

The further we wander along the cobbled path, the further distant the weeping chorus of the waterfall becomes. I inhale the sweetness of cherry blossoms and the caramel soft scent of flowers in the breeze while we walk side by side each other— the two of us not needing to say a word to allow the blood in our veins to hum loudly.

“May I ask a question?” Harry breaks the silence that was lingering between us and I hum my response while nodding my head. “Of all the things you could do, you’re sitting alone reading, why?”

“Of all the things you could do, you’re walking with me, why?”

“Eleanor,” he chuckles, “as much as I love your sarcastic demeanour, I asked you first.”

I give him a simplistic shrug. “Sometimes I’d rather sit solely and read about a love, than to sit in a house where love is common only on paper. I read in the garden because it evens out the tragedies.”

He raises a sly brow with complexity intertwined between his lips. “Tragedies?”

“All great love stories have a tragedy at some point— just as all gardens have roses with thorns– it’s the beautiful things in life that can hurt the most, Harold.” … “Just like when summer falls to Autumn most of the autumn leaves are hellhound-red in colour; although, breathtakingly beautiful— they’re still dying.”

"Is that how you see your love story?" Harry's interrogation immediately etches its way onto my skin and burns me to my core. "Although breathtakingly beautiful, still dying?" his voice is sweet sounding despite his question cutting me to the core and stripping me of everything I conceal.

I wouldn't say my love is breathtakingly beautiful, but that thing is dying and descending like autumn leaves on their route to a burning hell.

"Perhaps," I shrug, "I don't know how my love story ends, I have to take it chapter by chapter. What about you, what is your story with love?"

"Couldn't tell ye' what love truly is... well, I could, but I have never felt it."

"Tell me," I instruct as we reach another point in the garden that is designed for relaxing with a small book. I take a seat on the stone bench and he takes the seat beside me.

I'd love to know Harry's thoughts on love. We all have different thoughts, meanings and understandings of this thing called love.

Harry clears his throat for a moment before commencing to converse, "Love is knowing that you aren't perfect for them but they're perfect for you, it is like opening a fresh jar of strawberry jam and inhaling the sweet scent that feels all too familiar. Love is finding a home in someone that fills you and speaks to your soul. Love is presenting yourself to someone, giving them your insecurities, your flaws and trusting them to hold them with care. Love is finding your purpose in someone and loving them more than life itself. Love is that giddy feeling inside that can't be described." ... "It's like that first breath of the morning air the second you step outside on a winter morning, refreshing, calming and filling.

I am surprised by his intent detail of love and the way he attempts to describe it, for a man that is of few words, he has a fair bit to say about something he assumes he has yet to feel.

To me, love is similar to a waterfall that radiates an artistic Atlantis-blue. It pours aloft the foundations and at its widest point, it surges and dives down toward an elegant serenity-pool at the bottom. It is veneer clear- even the depths are vodka clear.

*** ***

“Hmmph, what would you know about loans and debts,” Harry mutters in an afflicted tone, grumpiness being something that semi-suits him.

I raise a brow, somewhat taken back by the fact he doesn’t think I’m aware of the hardship people face. “Harry, don’t you think you’re just assuming?”

He scoffs, “Doesn’t seem like you are in debt, Eleanor. You’re swimming in more money than I could imagine, all I’m swimming in is a debt from uni.”

“Oh, how little you know. I didn’t always have this lifestyle, Harry.”

"Tell me then."

"No." I shake my head standing to my feet, a little disheartened by his outlook on me, I thought he of all people would think differently of me.

Perhaps, he is just like the others, an outsider who believes they see in, when really, they only observe what they aspire to recognize.

I step away without a word and I am astounded when the supple touch of his fingertips grasp my wrist ever so affectionately. "Eleanor, I shouldn't have assumed."

"No, you shouldn't have," I shake my head, "But, I should have known better than to think any different of you. I should have known better than to think you weren't like everyone else who assumed I was someone I wasn't."

"Eleanor, I am not like everyone else."

"Mhm, whatever you say, Harold."

"I'm not," his voice increases and his pitch heightens imperceptibly, something about it making me wonder whether me labelling him like the others has scarred his heart insignificantly.

I raise a brow and gawk at him for a moment while I mildly take my wrist away from the tender grip of his hand, "prove it," I cock my head to the side, gazing into his ridescent, malachite-green eyes.

Taciturnity grows between us and quivers abruptly tremor through my spine the moment his hand brushes the edge of my cheeks and I feel the world sweep away from me along with my breath. His lips caress to mine.  

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi. Five Mississippi.

And he’s kissing me. Once, twice, and I can't help but savour the taste he is conceding, a taste that I'll  nevermore have enough of. I can't get enough of the soft edges of his lips caressed against my own. Abruptly, he’s everywhere, my mouth, my thoughts, my throbbing veins and my soul. He's kissing me sweetly, gradually and with an urgent necessity, one I’ve never grasped before.

Every square inch of my body dissolves into his, melting like radiant waves, crumbling in the most beautiful way conceivable.

I never knew I was competent of this impromptu persuasion, raging fire-breathing within my soul....

If this is what being alive feels like, I never want to stop.

[crystalelemental]

I've gone on record stating that Gen 3 is not my favorite, and I stand by that.  I think Team Aqua/Magma had a lot to do with that, being far less interesting than they should have been.  As much as we mock IGN for it, the fact that the latter third of the game is a bunch of surf routes with the same Pokemon over and over is also frustrating.   Also, since I'm in the middle of playing the remakes of ORAS, I find it really frustrating the things that they changed, with my biggest gripe being that I wish my rival would go away forever.  That said, the Pokedex itself has always been something I appreciated.  A lot of my favorites came from Gen 3, so I tended to remember the Pokemon in the region fondly, even if the region wasn't my favorite.

TOP 15: 15) Mightyena line - There was so much competition for this slot, it's ridiculous. Ultimately though, I have to give it to Mightyena and its pre-evolution, Poochyena.  Both have great designs, but the thing that stood out to me most was that, in the early game, we were given a Dark type.  That's really atypical! Usually you go through the normal types, the Flying types, and the bugs, until after the first gym.  But Gen 3? You got things like Mightyena right away; it wasn't even rare!   Combined with things like Seedot/Lotad and Ralts, you had some interesting types going into the first gym.  Mightyena is a great starting point for introducing how unique Gen 3 and its Pokedex are, and I think it stands out a lot because of it.

14) Nosepass - Imagine being a kid who had faced Brock back in gen 1.   Imagine again that you started with Red and Blue, and didn't pick Charmander. Odds are, you blasted through him without a second thought.  Literally no issue. Now, imagine going to Roxanne, blasting through her Geodude like they're nothing, and then encountering Nosepass, who can tank those Grass and Water hits just fine, and hits pretty hard for early game.  Nosepass is awesome.  It's a fantastic tank, who can take all sorts of hits in that early game.  While it doesn't hit particularly hard later on, its main draw is as a wall among walls, with great support options.  The concept of basically being a walking easter island head statue is also comical.  It looks funny, but it's adorable too, making for a fantastic overall Pokemon.

13) Absol - This is a Pokemon that gets a lot of favoritism based on aesthetics. It's a sleek and pretty Pokemon, but also has a great role.  It tells of impending disasters, and is a fun but short-lived character in Red Rescue Team as well.  I really like Absol, and just wish it could be a bit faster so it could have a solid competitive niche.

12) Aggron line - We've had big bipedal rock monsters before, like Rhydon and Tyranitar.  But Aggron is just a different kind of cool.  Its sleek metal plating and terrifying design are fantastic.  The fact that it starts out as the cute little Aron only helps add to its charms.  Best of all, you get it super early game.  Rhydon was surprisingly late-game, and Tyranitar was literally only attainable when you had nothing left to do.  But Aggron? You can run one the whole game.  I love the ability to do that.

11) Metagross - YEAH!  Metagross is a beast, and a strong contender for my favorite pseudo-legend.  It's literally a walking tank, with the glorious Steel/Psychic typing.  It had one of the few Steel moves in the game that was actually useful, and back before the nerf, Steel covered all of Psychic type's weaknesses, making it a defensive and offensive nightmare.  I love the entire concept behind this behemoth, too.  It's a walking robot monster, whose evolution is basically just it gaining more legs until it becomes Omega Weapon. 

10) Breloom - I'll get to a similar case later, but Breloom is a favorite based on typing.  Grass/Fighting was unreal at the time, and it did super well for itself. Plus it's just cute.  A tiny little punching mushroom child, with stubby little arms that apparently shoot out to hit really hard.  It's a quirky concept with a fun design, and I adore it. Plus, Spore with the abilities it would later get made it a surprisingly brutal enemy to face.

9) Roselia - IT'S SO PRETTY!  Such a gorgeous Pokemon.  Grass/Poison was pretty overdone, even at this point, but I just loved the appearance of it.

8) Swampert line - Dual-type starters, at this point, were still relatively rare. Venusaur had Grass/Poison, but so did every Grass type in gen 1 barring Tangela.  Charizard had Fire/Flying, but the fact it wasn't Dragon is stupid.  Gen 3 introduced new dual-types for starters, and one great one is Water/Ground with Swampert.  While the combination had been done before with Quagsire, Swampert offered far better overall bulk and damage output, on top of its excellent typing.  It's also goofy-looking, but in a really charming way.  It's just so loveable, and every evolution retains that cute look.

7) Flygon - Flygon is just cute to me.  It looks like such a friend.   Being a Pokemon that exists in the sandstorm-focused desert area was also cool.  I really liked that there was an entire region dedicated just to the new weather effect.  Shame that Sandstorm was such a pain in the ass, but it's a really cool area!

6) Altaria - Altaria is so pretty.  Just a fluffy cotton ball bird...dragon.  It's apparently more of a songbird, too, which is just heavenly.  It also got a great mega evolution, receiving Dragon/Fairy typing, which is hilarious and excellent.

5) Latias - I'm guessing this run of Dragons is proving I really like the soft, friendly dragons over the big intimidating ones that actually do well, huh? Dragon/Psychic was, at this point, the coolest typing I had ever heard of.  But what's cooler than that?  How about a super adorable Dragon/Psychic type.  Oh, what's this?  It gets a hold item that boosts special attack and special defense 50%?  That's ridiculous, I love it. Latias is the more defensive option of the two, which I always felt was better if you factor in hold item.  The added defensive bulk is going to matter more than slightly more physical offense from their perspective.  Of course, Latios having much better special attack is ultimately better in competitive, but Latias still has her use, and is super cute.

4) Blaziken line - Remember when Fire/Fighting was a novel type?  Remember when its introduction was a kick-boxing chicken creature?  Those were the days. Torchic is one of the cutest starters, and its final evolution is surprisingly still an elegant design.  It was such a cool idea, and I love that Hidden Abilities brought it back to the top.

3) Mawile - It's such a cute little creature.  Cute and terrifying, and excellent combination for sure.  It's a shame that Mawile ultimately was a forgettable Steel type in terms of competitive use, but the acquisition of Fairy type and the best mega really helped it out on that front, too.  So I guess it's basically perfect? Sounds about right.

2) Milotic - I never caught one in gen 3.  Not fairly, anyway.  I could never figure out how to get Feebas to show up.  In fact, I don't think I've ever captured a Feebas.  I've always traded for it.  It's just so hard to find.  But man, is the final form ever beautiful.  It's such a gorgeous Pokemon, and an excellent tank to boot.  Everything about Milotic is wonderful.

1) Gardevoir line - Don't you judge me.  We all knew this would happen.  If you read anything in this post or the ones before it, you know elegant and cute are the biggest draws for me.  Gardevoir is both. It's also a Psychic type, so bonus points there.  Also, as mentioned in the Mightyena entry, it's super early-game. Rare, sure, but you can have a Psychic type from nearly the very start of the game.  I love Gardevoir so much, it's definitely an all-time favorite, and it should come as no surprise that it winds up being the favorite from this generation.

BOTTOM 10: 10) Pelipper - I like Pelipper.  Its reason for being here is that so many Gen 3 Pokemon are great, it just doesn't stand out as much as the others.  I have literally no complaints, I just locked myself into "it has to be 10" and here we are.

9) Huntail - Same as above, it just doesn't hold as much aesthetic appeal.

8) Seviper - If there's anything I actually dislike here, it's just that it's pure-Poison type.  We had a Poison snake already.  I would've liked to see a different typing added in.  Poison/Dark at this phase of the game would've been amazing.

7) Zangoose - Still good, but it loses points based on my frustrations with Pokemon Coliseum.

6) Glalie - Getting closer to legitimate frustrations, Glalie is here because its design doesn't captivate.  Snorunt is cute, but it evolves into an angry face in a block of ice.  Not exactly all that interesting.

5) Volbeat - Did nothing legitimately wrong, but I am upset that Volbeat gets a lot of nice and unique tools that Illumise does not.  I like Illumise.  I think its color scheme is a lot better.  But Volbeat gets the nice tools, so whatever I guess.

4) Ninjask - Please stop speed boosting, I am begging you.  You do nothing else but Swords Dance, Speed Boost and Baton Pass, please do something else.

3) Slaking - Okay, actual legitimate complaints.  Slaking's problem is it goes backwards.  Vigoroth was a nightmare to face, and I have a friend who stated that facing Norman's was the reason he started to respect Normal types as something other than early-game fodder.  But Slaking?   It re-acquires Truant, which is an awful ability by any standard, and requires very specific team support, on Doubles only, to mitigate.   Anyone who sees Slaking knows exactly what will happen, and is probably more than prepared to shut it down.  It's a nice design, and a nice concept, but it's been so ruined by the ability it is burdened with that it's virtually unusable.

2) Plusle/Minun - Possibly less legitimate complaint, but I feel more strongly about it. Plusle and Minun are cute and have solid designs, but their great sin is being Pikachu clones for the new area, kicking off the trend of needing an electric rodent in every area.  Worse, they do not evolve, offer little in the way of any competitive value, and existed to show off the introduction to Double Battles with their unique abilities and access to Helping Hand.  Beyond this, they offer very little, and are the reason we have to always have a new electric rodent that ultimately winds up having no competitive niche.

1) Grumpig - Literally the only one on this list I dislike.  Spoink is cute, and Grumpig is...not.  It just looks irritable and not all that friendly by comparison.  It's also nothing too impressive competitively, and offers little in the way of uniqueness, losing the quirk of constantly bouncing around like Spoink did to...just be grumpy.  It's a Pokemon I might like more on its own, but as an evolution of Spoink it doesn't seem as interesting.

[v3-killing-harmony-imagines]

‘Can you write the guys with an autistic s/o? Bonus if their special interest is the guys talent!’

Can you write the guys with an autistic s/o? Bonus if their special interest is the guys talent!

Of course! Once again I hope this doesn’t seem offensive ;w;

Saihara Shuichi:

He always tries his best to make you feel comfortable when talking to him. He knows firsthand that social interactions aren’t the greatest thing in the world.

He’ll offer to do all the talking in public if you’d like him too, he’s willing to do anything really.

You have to tell him that it’s ok, and that you’ll never get better at it unless you do talk to people. So he hesitantly, lets you.

The boy acts like a father more than a boyfriend half the time, which you tease him for sometimes (“Daddy~”)

While you can do really well in one subject, any other may not interest you. This proves to be a problem in school, Saihara tries his best to help you out whenever you need it.

You told him one day that you really were interested in the detective work he does, and you wanted to learn more about the subject.

You can see his tail practically wagging- like a puppy- so excited to show you how he does things.

Yet he’s also a bit timid to tell you about the more…brutal and violent parts about it…so he does his best to omit that.

He’s still happy that his talent interests you! He’s always happy to help you learn something new!

Amami Rantarou:

The first thing he notices is that you fidget.

Twirling your hands, rocking ever so slightly in your seat, starring.

Others may find it strange, he just found it interesting.

You usually have specific tastes for foods, he’s memorized which ones you like best and which ones you don’t like at all.

He makes sure to always stock up, to make you happy.

He’s a bit of a picky person himself- he likes things a certain way. It’s just more easier that way.

New schedules, whether it’s for school or not, can be a challenge to get used to. For both him and yourself.

It just makes life more complicated and if you haven’t noticed, Amami really just wants a peaceful and calm life.

You told him you were interested in his talent.

He laughed, “Yeah I’m interested in seeing what it is too.”

“No no, that’s not the point, your talent- it’s a mystery.”

“Yeah, and?”

“All that’s left is you. Your person.”

He thought for a second, the pieces not quite coming together.

You put them in place for him, “Even if you aren’t given a talent, there’s still you. That you won’t change their personality or likes of dislikes.” You pause a second. “Basically I’m interested in Amami Rantaro. I’m interested in how he thinks, feels, acts, sees….does that make sense?”

He blinked, face slowly pulling into a smile as he pulled you closer.

“You’re really the cutest at times you know that?” He plants a kiss on your forehead. “S/o, if you’re so intrigued by me then feel free to study me as much as you’d like. If I make you happy that much, I’m a pretty lucky man right?”

You nuzzled closer, “Right.”

Ouma Kokichi:

“Ohhh, you have autism? Wow, that’s interesting.” He says it with such a monotone voice you think he’s actually being honest- he finds it interesting that the person he likes so much is so unique!

He’s constantly asking questions now, whether out of the blue or not.

“Hey hey, do you like cotton or linen pants better?”

“What about fruits? Do you like cherries or not?”

Ouma, it’s not as if they’re some alien from another race. They’re still human.

“*Gasp* what if my dear s/o is actually the real human?? And everyone else are the aliens??” He clung to your leg, “WAAAAAAAAA S/O IM SORRYYYY!!!”

Drama queen.

In a way, you two are similar. You both like a specific taste for food, subjects, and you’re both not grade A students in the social category.

“Hey Ouma, I wanna learn more about your talent.”

He stopped drinking his bottle of soda, fizzy bubbles dribbling down his scarf.

“S/o wants to know about my role as a supreme leader? Aha, I have to warn you, once you know these secrets I have to make sure you’ll never tell anyone else…”

In the end it lead to a 2 hour lecture about Ouma’s overly dramatic retell of his daily life.

“Seee? Now that you know about it, and are utterly and hopelessly in love with me, you’ll never go tell anyone else!” He smiled, arms hanging behind his head. “Nishishi~ isn’t that right?”

You grinned, matching his own persona “That isn’t a lie.”

He blushed so hardly that he actually needed to sit down for a minute.

Aw, what a precious boy.

Kaito Momota:

The fact that you have autism doesn’t make a difference to him at all!

Your little quirks, the passion you held for the topics you loved, the way you had a fire for the things you wanted to do.

He didn’t find it difficult or a burden in the slightest, if anything, he thought that it was the best thing.

He was spending a Friday night lazing on the couch, eating Doritos in his pj’s.

Then you came in the room, sitting down beside him.

“Kaito, can you teach me about space?”

He’s jumps up, grabbing you and dragging you out the door- insisting that you two are going stargazing right now.

He doesn’t even bother to wipe the crumbs from his fingers nor change out of his pajamas.

He sets up a blanket on the ground, patting the space beside him and insisting that you lay down.

Kaito points out all the main stars and constellations that he knows, the air gets cold, and he gives you his jacket to keep warm in (He does some sit-ups when he gets cold.)

Time passes, he goes onto explaining facts about meteors, space, gravity, the orbit, the axis….

He goes on for so long that you end up falling asleep, under the stars.

When he notices, he stops talking mid sentence, just starring at you for a while under the dim light.

He carries you inside, carefully, (He nearly drops you) and sets you down on the bed.

He places a kiss on your temple before pulling the covers over you, returning back to his half-finished Doritos.

Kiibo(K1-b0!!11111!!11):

He’s definitely always looking out for you.

Although he knows how it effects your mind and actions….he can’t help but wondering….what would it be like if he had something similar?

Would his circuits be dysfunctional? Would parts of his code unsuccessfully travel to his motherboard?

It just makes him wonder at times….

A human with a mental disease is helped, and treated with care.

If Kiibo were like that….not normal, not a perfect robot. He would be terminated. What good is a defective Robot?

He found out you had a passion for computer and technology the first day he met you- in a computer lab the two of you had together.

It’s… nice. To be able to talk to someone as important as you about something important to him that it literally is what his life revolves around.

He’ll talk to you about different parts of his system and circuit board, how he ‘feels’ things, or how he views the world.

It’s very therapeutic for him, after getting teased by Ouma or getting down because other’s don’t view him as equal, he can sit down and talk about his system and how he’s as much of a human as everyone else is.

Cough, of course there’s also anatomy lessons cough if you know what I mean.

Korekiyo Shinguji:

He’s met a lot of humans, a lot of humans that are different in many ways more than one.

He believes people should all be treated just the same, based on their personalities rather than mental capabilities.

Due to this he can get very protective, especially if people use slurs about it.

Death glare in their direction.

He’s glad that he can share his love of anthropology with you, especially since he knows that you have a special interest for very few things.

Sometimes you two will have a discussion about theories on why humans act the way they do, or how their minds work.

Other times its more of a vent session, both of you describing how you feel and why…

For you it’s more focused on your frustration, your frustration with your illness and how you can’t do this or you can’t say this or that….

Both of you help each other out, promising to be there for each other, sharing soft kisses in the late hours of the night.

Gonta Gokuhara:

“While it’s difficult for Gonta to understand about Autism at times… Gonta thinks you’re an amazing person, no matter what! Gonta loves you very much!!”

While you treated your condition like nothing, Gonta treated it as life or death.

Does S/o need help?  Is S/o struggling with this? Does S/o need Gonta to read it for them?

After a while (and some talking with him in private) he eventually learns that you won’t die because of it, and that you can handle yourself on your own.

But, it is nice to have the support of someone.

So Gonta makes sure he’s the best gentleman he can be for S/o!

Because you have a special interest for bugs, Gonta makes sure that every day he shows you a new bug!

Explaining what they eat, how they live, different part of their body.

He’s overjoyed that you have such a fascination for bugs! Gonta will make sure to show S/o all the bugs he can!

Every time you two go on walks, he’s pointing out different bugs, in the grass or on trees.

(You get a lot of stares by others in public but Gonta doesn’t care that much)

Ryoma Hoshi:

Well, everyone has something different with them right? He definitely has his.

Yours just happens to be autism.

It really must suck to be stuck with your mind, he thinks.

But you still manage, and he admires that about you.

He definitely wants to help you out with what you’re dealing with but….he doesn’t know if he necessarily could… He might end up making things worse…

But he still tells you if there’s anything troubling you, he’s always open to listen. He might not be able to help but he can provide advice, maybe.

He was texting you one day and the topic of tennis came up, he doesn’t really play much anymore but…he’s still got the muscle memory, some of it at least.

Then you brought up how you wanted to play a match of tennis, and he asked you if you wanted to go for a match? He could teach you?

And then the winded up at the public court an hour later, lowkey regretting initiating this.

He teaches you the basics, how to serve and toss and hit back the balls and different techniques that he’s learned over the years.

The sun moves, and by the time you two call it a day he’s soaked with sweat, his muscles are stinging and he the water tastes so good as he gulps it up.

It reminds him of his younger years, bouncing from side to side, the cheering fans, the adrenaline.

He won’t admit it, but he misses the sport.

He waves goodbye to you, looking forward to the next time he can go back and play with you.

[miamibeerscene]

Historical Style Catches Modern Fire: 9 Smoke Beers to Try

Alaskan Brewing uses direct heat from local alder wood to malt its barley. (Credit: Alaskan Brewing)

January 3, 2018

Resurrecting historical beer styles and merging them with modern brewing ingenuity is a hallmark of American craft brewers. And smoke beers are a perfect example of this creative spark.

In the smoke-beer genre, most point to the traditional Rauchbier style, which emerged in Bamberg, Germany, in the 1500s. In fact, “rauch” is the German word for “smoke.” By drying the malts over an open fire — typically beechwood — and incorporating them into the brewing process, it leaves a moderate level of smoky flavor and aroma that compliments the base beer, usually similar to a Bock or Märzen (or Oktoberfest).

However, today’s craft brewers experiment with different wood, malts, beer styles and levels of smokiness. The confluence of tradition and innovation has sparked a diverse collection of crafted smoke beers throughout the U.S.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com Style Finder)

Nine Smoke Beers to Try

Smoked Porter | Alaskan Brewing | Juneau, AK

Relying on techniques derived from Alaskans who brewed more than a century ago, Alaskan Brewing uses direct heat from local alder wood to malt its barley (a process also recognizable to those who love smoked salmon). And the water for the beer comes from a nearby glacier. “When you brew in Juneau, it’s necessary for us to maximize our resources, which I think we do well,” said co-founder and brewmaster Geoff Larson. “But, it also allows us to use those resources to create unique beer, and that’s what it’s all about.”

So, when one drinks Smoked Porter, like all Alaskan Brewing beers, one truly drinks local … local to Alaska.

Manzanita Smoked Altbier with Charred Manzanita | Fort Point Beer Co. | San Francisco

The light-bodied beer presents assertive, multi-layered smokiness, as well as nutty and herbal note. (Credit: Fort Point Beer)

In 2013, Fort Point and Sebastian Sauer, a renowned and accomplished German brewer, embarked on an experimental collaboration. The result was a new interpretation on the traditional Rauchbier that celebrates both Germany and California.

“Manzanita is our seasonal beer for fall,” said Fort Point Brewing’s Sarah Chorey. “Each of Fort Point’s cans are designed to tell a story utilizing angular illustrations. The latest can, Manzanita, is the story of a crisp, fall night, showcasing close-ups of manzanita leaves and camping tents along the Northern California coast where manzanita is a native plant,” she said.

The use of beechwood and charred manzanita branches provides this Rauchbier with its unique blend of German and California flavors. The light-bodied beer presents assertive, multi-layered smokiness. It also hits nutty and herbal notes and provides both a sweet and savory character.

(READ: Coolships in American Craft Brewing)

Fore Smoked Stout | Dark Horse Brewing Co. | Marshall, MI

Dark Horse chooses to use cherrywood instead of the traditional beechwood, and keeps the smoke levels at bay, which allows the stout to remain the star of the show. The light smokiness simply enhances the overall flavor, including its perceived flavors similar to roasted coffee and chocolate.

While robust and sophisticated, the flavors meld together in such a fashion that makes Fore Smoked exceptionally easy to drink.

Smoked Red Ale | West O Beer | Milford, IA

Smoked Red Ale is one of the West O’s top-selling beers. (Credit: West O)

From hog roasts to breakfast bacon, Midwesterners have an affinity for smoked meat. So, it’s no surprise that West O Beer might offer its northwestern Iowa customers a bit of smoke in its beer.

“It’s still our best seller out in the market in northwest Iowa … We’re actually planning to release a few more different smoked beers over the next year or two,” said owner Matthew R. Matthiesen.

Barbecue aficionados understand that smoke is intended complement and enhance the main ingredient. “We add cherrywood smoked malt in the mash. It’s smoked prior to us adding it into the mash tun with different grains. The main reason our smoke flavor is subtle is we only use about 2 percent smoked malt per batch, versus 25 percent or 50 percent. It gives us subtle flavor but the beer remains balanced,” Matthiesen said.

Drinkers will enjoy the beer’s nutty flavors mixed with fruit emanating from the dark caramel malts and spice from the Perle hops.

Smoked Märzen | 49th State Brewing Co. | Anchorage & Denali, AK

Part of its Hibernation Series, the hickory aroma and flavor found in this 49th State Smoked Märzen transports the drinker to a campfire in the middle of the woods. For those who love an abundance of smoke flavor, this is the beer for you.

The sweet malt of the traditional German beer with notes of fruit compliment a brew that isn’t afraid to showcase smoke. This is not a one-note beer.

Smoke: Oak-Aged Smoked Baltic Porter | Surly Brewing | Minneapolis

Surly’s Oak-Aged Baltic Porter is aged in the fermenter four weeks. (Credit: Surly)

Never afraid to do something bold, Surly not only went with a different type of lager (Baltic Porter), but also aged this beer.

Tiffany Jackson, Surly communications manager, explained the technique. “Smoke is aged in the fermenter for four-plus weeks with red oak honeycomb barrel alternative from Black Swan Cooperage in northern Minnesota. The red oak adds notes of light grass, baked bread and toasted marshmallow,” she said.

“The taste is sweet but balanced by the smoke notes and oak tannins,” she said. “These are a nod towards the natural smoky character of pre-industrial wood-kilned malts used in past eras. Compared to standard porters, Baltic Porters typically have higher ABVs, a neutral lager yeast character and rich, sweet malt notes.”

Though it’s not widely available, various rating sites show that people can get their hands on a few bottles. Most importantly, it demonstrates just how creative brewers can be when it comes to employing smoke.

Smoking Wood Rye Barrel Aged | The Bruery | Placentia, CA

The Bruery has released a bevy of “Smoking Wood” beers, aged in various types of whiskey barrels including rye. A good beer hunter and bottle trader could obtain the makings of a terrific vertical or wonderfully diverse smoke-beer collection.

The Rye Variant finds inspiration from all aspects of brewing history, from smoking to barrel-aging to malt experimentation. The rye adds spiciness to the smoke, while the presence of oak, caramel and vanilla, and a richness from the whiskey, provide a multi-dimensional taste.

(READ: What is the Independent Craft Brewer Seal)

Smoke From The Oak (Apple Brandy Barrel) 2017 | Captain Lawrence Brewing | Elmsford, NY

Captain Lawrence reminds us of tradition on its website: “Before the introduction of indirect-fired malt kilns, all beers had a smoky flavor.” So, it stands to reason that smoke and beer go hand-in-hand, and that’s probably why so many people enjoy the genre.

But, in true modern craft fashion, Captain Lawrence has taken it to a new level with its Smoke from the Oak Imperial Smoked Porter that is aged in apple brandy barrels for 10 months. Aroma and flavors remind one of brandy, oak, vanilla and a touch of honey. The bonus of a healthy dose of carbonation provides for a wonderful extra element.

Rauchbier & XO1 Oak-Aged Smoked Red Flanders | Dovetail Brewery | Chicago

When it comes to merging tradition with modern craft creativity, few do it better than Hagen Dost and Bill Wesselink at Dovetail Brewing in Chicago. They rely on the time-tested technique of coolship brewing to create classic European-style beers.

On coolship, Dost explained, “Not only does the beer cool down much faster, because of the large surface area, but I think the beer ends up being much more flavorful with this method, really clean and pure.”

That’s evident in the Rauchbier, which provides a pleasantly smoky aroma on the nose, but the taste is subtle. The smoke almost seems to kiss the palate with each sip but never once overpowering it.

That’s not all.

Dovetail took the Rauchbier, placed it in oak barrels and soured it. The result is an experimental Oak-Aged Smoked Red Flanders, called X01. It has all the charm of a Red Flanders with a pleasant addition of smoke and oak that results in a breathtaking beer.

(TRAVEL: Plan Your Next Beercation)

Where There’s Smoke

Smoke beers tend to be seasonal and special releases, but that also allows for enhanced creativity. Considering this list, the smoke beers emerging from the minds of brewers are increasingly diverse and experimental.

For instance, in the recent past, Smuttynose (Smuttlabs) has produced Smoked Cherry and Smoked Peach Berliner Weisse beers, while Stone Brewing has offered several Smoked Porter variants including vanilla bean, chipotle pepper and one with chocolate and orange peel. Many local breweries play with smoke, too.

From bacon to barbecue to beer, there’s a renewed love affair with incorporating smoke into our food and drinks. And craft-beer revolution has given brewers an opportunity to reprise traditional techniques and combine them with modern craft approaches.

Mathew Powers

After spending most of his life chasing tornadoes, Mathew decided to chase beer as writer, historian and drinker. He possesses a Master’s in Written Communication and History and he’s published regularly in print and digitally on various beer and spirits publications. When he’s not writing (or drinking beer), he’s spending time with family, watching sports, reading history books and dreaming of classic cars he can’t afford.

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The post Historical Style Catches Modern Fire: 9 Smoke Beers to Try appeared first on Miami Beer Scene.

from Historical Style Catches Modern Fire: 9 Smoke Beers to Try

[hentaihunblog-blog]

Pokemon Go New Secret Update Before Generation 3 – OtakuKart

New Post has been published on https://hentaihun.com/blog/2017/12/03/pokemon-go-new-secret-update-before-generation-3-otakukart/

Pokemon Go New Secret Update Before Generation 3 – OtakuKart

Pokemon Go is forcing an update to its player base and is intended to bring some amazing cool feature.Pokemon Go forced update are seen to bring major changes in the game.Recently Pokemon GO iOS players were forced to update PokemonGO to keep playing the game. As the history of Pokemon GO suggests force update always brings big events and new things. Whenever players are forced to update PokemonGO it’s usually a big change coming.

Pokemon GO has received a few updates to the game this week, prompting some fans to believe some rather significant changes are on the way.Firstly, in-game maps appear to have changed in some regions. Previously, Niantic had relied on Google Map data to build its in-game world.

That appears to be shifting, however, as more and more users report the game now using OpenStreetMap data instead.The Pokemon GO Reddit page over at r/TheSilphRoad has noted that more and more regions are using OpenStreetMap data instead of Google Maps.

The reason behind this change is unclear, but it seems the OSM data is easier for Niantic to extrapolate data.The good news for players is that OSM data is also pretty open, meaning tools for locating nests and finding rare Pokemon will be more widely available if the company does fully migrate to the service over Google Maps.

However, with it now being December and the Travel Event over, fans are rightfully wondering when (and not if) Niantic will drop their next big winter event.Earlier this year Niantic brought back their Halloween event for a second year but with the addition of some new Hoenn region Gen 3 Ghost Pokemon.

During that event, Niantic confirmed that the rest of the Pokémon first seen in the Pokemon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire games would start arriving in December.So understandably, Trainers are now preparing for the launch of new Gen 3 Pokemon along with the next event.

For those who don’t recall, last December, Niantic had TWO special events and updates. The first consisted of new baby Pokemon who could be hatched alongside a new Santa Hat Pikachu. This was then followed by a more standard 2x XP/Stardust bonus towards the back end of December.Realistically what can players expect from Niantic in December?

Well, if they only added baby Pokemon, there’s only two from Gen 3, that’s Azurill (Marill > Azumarill) and Wynaut who evolves into Wobbuffet. Which as additions go, is pretty paltry.So could we get more? If anything you’d have to bet on Ice Pokemon. We doubt Water types will be involved, as there’s simply too many. But Ice, well that’s a smaller number, befitting the slow rollout Niantic seem to be going for.

In addition, they could (and this is wild speculation) add a new Gen 3 Legendary, in the form of Regice, one of the Hoenn region’s three Legendary Golems.With the games Gen 2 Legendary Beasts having left the game and new Legendary addition Ho-Oh only available until December 12, it could be the perfect time to introduce the start of some new Legendary Raid Pokemon.

For those interested, the two further Legendary Gen 3 Golems from the game were Registeel and Regirock.As previously mentioned, these possible Gen 3 additions could arrive on the back of Niantic’s surprise Ho-Oh reveal earlier this week.As an extra reward for the players who caught over 3 billion Pokemon during the Global Catch Challenge, Ho-Oh is now appearing in Raid Battles at Gyms.

The CP for the Ho-Oh raid boss is 48276 and as you might expect it’s not possible to solo the Legendary bird and we’d advise you take it on with at least 6-7 fellow trainers in order to take it down.Once captured it can have a maximum capture CP of 2222, at Level 20, with a perfect IV score.To make your newest raid challenge that little bit easier we’ve put together a guide to battling Ho-Oh, with details about his respective weaknesses and the best counters to use in battle.

In addition, we’ve run through Ho-Oh’s best movesets and some additional counters if you don’t have one of the recommended six.Ho-Oh Raid CountersRaikou is a Fire and Flying-type Pokemon and as such it’s best countered with a number of Ground, Water and Electric Pokmon.As trainers might well know from the above weaknesses listed, Rock types are your best bet against Ho-Oh as they are twice as effective.

Omastar and Golem stand out as the two best Pokemon, but short of using those two, its also worth considering Tyranitar with Stone Edge, Raikou, Zapdos, and Vaporeon. Obviously always opting for those with ground moves first.As mentioned, Ho-Oh is a pure Fire and Flying-type Pokemon and this is also reflected in the move sets, the best of which are marked in bold and italicised below:

• Steel Wing (Quick Attack) – STEEL • Extrasensory (Quick Attack) – PSYCHIC • Brave Bird (Charge Attack) – FLYING • Fire Blast (Charge Attack) – FIRE • Solar Beam (Charge Attack) – GRASS

As we can clearly see Niantic is actively expanding the Pokemon GO development team to build many more amazing updates in 2018.“Stay tuned for news next week about upcoming improvements to certain features.” and as a trainer, I hope we get something much better than a global event.What are your thoughts?Lemme hear you guys out in the comments or you can get connected with me on Snapchat-Vibsz16 and Instagram. Stay tuned.

Here is the list of Top 10 Gen 3 Pokemon That Are As Strong As Legendary Pokemon, and can help any player to capture and attack gyms.

Number 10 – Milotic

MAX CP- 2542 ATTACK – 60 DEFENSE – 79 STAMINA – 190

Milotic is an aquatic, serpentine Pokémon with a primarily cream-colored body. It has red eyes with long, pinkish antennae above them. Additionally, there are long, hair-like fins above its eyes, which begin thin and thicken towards the tips. These eyebrows extend to almost half of Milotic’s body length and will be longer on the female than the male. On top of its relatively small head is a straight spike. The tail consists of four large, blue fins with pink ovals in their centers. Each of the tail fins overlaps the next slightly, causing it to resemble a fan. While it has not been depicted, Milotic’s scales are said to change color depending on the viewing angle.

Number 9 – Flygon

MAX CP- 2458 ATTACK – 100 DEFENSE – 80 STAMINA – 160

Flygon resembles a slightly insectoid, bipedal dragon. It is primarily light green and has a pair of large rhombus-shaped wings with a red trim, toeless hind legs, and skinny arms with three-clawed hands. Its tail has several dark green stripes and three small green rhombus shapes with red trims at the end. It has large eyes and a pair of green antennae that point back. The eyes have red covers that prevent sand from getting into its eyes. With its wings, it kicks up sandstorms to hide. Its wings make a “singing” sound when they are flapped, earning Flygon the name “The Desert Spirit”. It lives in the desert.

Number 8 – Gardevoir

MAX CP- 2341 ATTACK – 65 DEFENSE – 65 STAMINA – 136

Beginning its life as Ralts (the Pokemon that kinda looks like male genitalia), it’s a little surprising it turns into Gardevoir – who looks a lot like some kind of elegant dancer (and a lot of other things, if you dare to venture into Google Image Search – which reminds us: NEVER GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH ANY POKEMON EVER BUT ESPECIALLY NOT GARDEVOIR). Apart from its traumatic internet legacy, it’s a pretty solid Pokemon (now one of the added Fairy-types), and its Pokedex entries indicate that it would do anything to protect its trainer. Always nice to know your Pokemon has Stockholm’s Syndrome.

Number 7 –….

CONT READING….

[jaybug-jabbers]

Bug Run 6(66): Very Vivacious Vivillons

Originally, I had planned on skipping gen 6 for my bug runs. After all, my runs involved using only the new bug pokemon of that generation, and there’s only a single evolution family in gen 6: the Vivillon line. I mean, it’s not like I could beat the game with a team of 6 Vivillon or something, haha.

Right?

Rules of a Bug Run

If we were going to do this, it had to be legit. Same rules as always:

1.) The team must be bug types only.

-HM slaves required for progression are the exception but will never be used in battle (even just to switch in to faint).

-All the bug pokemon on the team must come from this generation.

2.) No healing items used during battle (unless the foe uses them first, and then you may only match the items one-for-one).

-Held items are allowed.

3.) No over-levelling. Pokemon should be at roughly normal levels for a given area and not be at a higher level than the maximum-levelled pokemon in a gym leader’s team.

Was this possible with a team of only Vivillon, though? Let’s take a close look at this species before we dive in. After all, why try something if it’s doomed from the start? Quickly, to Bulbapedia!

A Close Look at Pokemon #666

Vivillon is a special attacker with modestly decent speed. While a base stat total of 411 is not the highest in the world, compared to its other fellow bug types, it’s not bottom-teir, either. Well … not rock-bottom, at least. I won’t lie, it’s among the lowest of the fully-evolved bugs, but it DOES outclass the other butterflies: Butterfree, Dustox, and Beautifly, and almost matches Masquerain. So that’s something, at least.

Being Bug/Flying, Vivillon sports a glaring 4x weakness to Rock type, as well as collecting other Flying weaknesses to Electric and Ice, adding to Bug’s Fire and Flying weaknesss. Five weaknesses and one 4x is quite a heavy burden for a whole team to carry, especially when you consider the low defense stats in general. With Rock and Flying moves being especially common coverage moves in-game, it would definitely make for quite the challenge.

What about that movepool, though? As far as I was concerned, that was what would really make or break this kind of run. If I had access to certain key moves I could possibly scrape by despite the odds.

Fortunately, Vivillon does have some solid options. In terms of moves for level-up, Bug Buzz is its best Bug STAB, which it picks up nice and early at level 35. It also gets the amazing Hurricane and Quiver Dance, letting it buff up, make up for its lackluster stats, and truly weild some power. While Hurricane does have pretty terrible accuracy, one of Vivillon’s Abilities is Compound Eyes, quite the boon for this situation.

Egg moves also offer some crucial Status moves: Poison Powder, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, and Light Screen. This is incredibly good news.

TM/HM compatibility doesn’t offer an incredibly wide range of coverage moves, but it does offer a couple powerful options: Psychic, Energy Ball/Solar Beam and Hyper Beam. While this is a disappointingly short list, there’s one more important TM to point out: Hidden Power. With the right IVs, that could be an enormous help, filling in the huge coverage gaps. Provided we got lucky with IVs.

So, was this run possible? The answer seemed to be a resounding “maybe.” It would depend on a lot of factors. A major one was when I had access to certain key TMs or HMs during gameplay. Another major factor was the kinds of gyms I’d face.

In the end, I wouldn’t know for sure unless I gave it a try.

Meet the Team

The big gimmick about Vivillon is its huge range of pattern variations, of course, so I wanted to use some of the many different patterns on my team. As such, I can’t actually name most of them myself in the game, but I named them in my head, at least!

(This run also meant starting out the game with a team of six right off the bat, but with their EXP bonus from being trades, it wasn’t too taxing to keep all six levelled.)

My Ocean pattern was Sunrise, my Icy Snow pattern was Snowflake, my Elegant pattern was Violet, my Savanna pattern was Sky, my Garden pattern was Clover, and my native High Plains pattern was Confetti.

Originally, I had planned a pretty even split on the two Abilities, but as it ended up, almost everyone had Shield Dust, with only Snowflake carrying Compound Eyes. That didn’t seem to be so bad, though. I’d just lean on Snowflake when I really needed to land my Hurricanes. Honestly, Shield Dust is pretty amazing, and I think in the end, it benefitted me a lot to have so much of it around.

The First Hurdles - Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

The game was pretty easy cruising until the second gym, the Rock gym. There were some upsides to the Rock gym coming so early in the game: at such an early point, the gyms were still comparatively easy, so it was best to get the biggest weakness out of the way so early on. However, it also meant I didn’t have too many moves to work with.

Ultimately, what ended up being the crucial factor was breeding Poison Powder onto Confetti as an egg move. Confetti could poison the Amaura. Lucky for me, every Vivillon picks up the move Protect when they evolve into Spewpa. So after poison, a Vivillon could Protect and get one move off before falling to Rock Tomb. After cleaning away Amaura, little Tyrunt’s low special defense made it fall to my bugs quickly enough. The first hurdle was cleared.

The next gym to give a bit of trouble was– hilariously– the Grass gym. I know, that sounds a bit sad for a team of Bug/Flying, but the issue was that the gym leader opens with Jumpluff. It easily outsped my whole team, and slowing it down with Stun Spore was obviously not an option. It was packing Acrobatics. I soon learned which of my team could survive one hit (Confetti, Sky and Sunrise), but our Struggle Bugs just weren’t doing enough. While I didn’t have a ton of options, I DID have the TM for Aerial Ace– and a Sky Plate. Sure, Aerial Ace was physical, but it was worth a try?

Fortunately, that choice (and Rocky Helmet on another poke) was enough damage to punch through, and then we could take care of the rest of the team easy.

It seemed our team had made it past the early challenges and had some hope of sticking around for the long game. But the difficulty was far from over. Looming on the horizon was something far more intimidating then rock-throwing baby dinosaurs or annoyingly quick dandelions.

The Electric Bugaloo

We previously mentioned that Vivillon has a rather large number of weaknesses, and that’s an undeniable fact. If you were to guess at which weakness would act as the largest challenge for Vivillon to overcome, you might easily guess Rock. After all, Vivillon is four times weak and has awful physical defense. But the thing is, Rock just wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle. The Rock and Ground types that tend to use rock moves are usually dirt-slow and weak on their special side, so Vivillon actually matches up quite well against them, able to knock them out before they have a chance to do serious damage. I actually spent a lot of time grinding in Glittering Cave at one point, and it was not a painful experience at all. Every once in a while you get pokemon with rock coverage moves, which is harder to cope with– Fighting types tend to carry Rock Throw, or the random poke will have Power Gem– but overall, rock was not the biggest bane of my run.

The biggest bane was, by far, electric.

Electric pokemon are incredibly dangerous because they are incredibly fast, cannot be slowed down with my usual tactic of Stun Spore, and they hit hard. One of the reasons Vivillon can best rock-type pokemon in the early game is because Vivillon gains high-basepower special attacks early on. However, Electric pokemon also gain their high-basepower moves relatively quickly. That unstoppable speed plus those (perfect-accuracy!) Thunderbolts made for a devastating combination. To add to my woes, one of the pokemon in the gym was a Magneton, and its part Steel typing made it impossible to use tox stall on or to hit with any move other then resisted hits. I was understandably terrified of the Electric gym.

I took some time to consider my options. The bulk of the TMs my team could use were still only accessible late game. Whatever strategy we came up with, it would have to make due with our limited resources. I had a number of cheap tricks I could use– I had Flash and Supersonic, for instance– but I really didn’t want to resort to those. Relying on hax alone just is never a satisfying way to win a fight.

After some research, I learned I could, with a little work, locate some Wacan berries. This is what I pinned all my hopes on. It takes a while to grind for the right berry (you need to use Air Slash on background trees that appear at random during battles on certain routes) and then plant and grow some more. It took patience, but we were investing in a sound strat! I hoped.

I’ll give a detailed description of the fight, because it was a pretty exciting one. It took a number of attempts to learn the right moves to make and combination of hold items.

The gym leader opens with Emolga and I found it consistently used Volt Switch as the opening move … unless my opening pokemon held a Wacan Berry. If so, it would Aerial Ace instead. I’m pretty sure that’s cheating, AI, as a real opponent wouldn’t know my hold item, but whatever. I put Violet up front and had her hold a Metronome. She could survive one Volt Switch. I had her use Bug Buzz, which hit the incoming Magneton. Then, fortunately, Violet could outspeed Magneton– the poke’s crappy speed stat was really the only advantage we had over it– and get a second, powered-up Bug Buzz off on it. She also got lucky and got special defense drops with her buzzes. This manages to get Magneton into red health as Violet goes down.

I know a Hyper Potion is imminent, and I send in Sky, my best special attacker at the time. A stock Bug Buzz gets Magneton back into the red. The gym leader potions again, I buzz once again, then twice, and Magneton is out without a scratch on Sky.

Keep in mind: letting Clemont burn his two Hyper Potions was absolutely essential.

Next out is the ace, Heliolisk. I Poison Powder with Confetti. I’m only able to get the powder off because Confetti is carrying that Wacan berry and can survive a Thunderbolt. We then get into our stalling shenanigans. Half of my team is armed with Wacan berries and Protect specifically for this task. We stall and do chip damage and just barely take down Heliolisk. But Clemont has one left. He sends out the Emolga from the start of the match, still in perfect health.

I first get a Bug Buzz off with Sky (who’s holding Silver Powder), which roughly halves Emolga’s health. I next send out Snowflake, but to my horror, he dies to a crit before he can even think about getting a move off. I’m down to two left, but it’s really only down to one, as Clover was at far too low health to survive anything Emolga could throw at it. It was all up to Sunrise.

Sunrise has a berry, Emolga thankfully decides to Volt Switch instead of Aerial Ace, and I Psybeam– which pushes Emolga into the red but doesn’t QUITE finish the job. This was going to shit entirely too fast. I try again, and Emolga’s next move is Aerial Ace– which is terrifying, because that move is so FAST and always depletes the HP in a heartbeat.

But Sunrise lived on 7 HP. And Emolga went down.

Our team had prevailed.

More Moves & More Flare

This far, we had been playing the game with some pretty darn restricted access to Vivillon’s best TM moves. Around the time we reached Anistar City, we finally could change that. We picked up Toxic, Energy Ball, Psychic, U-Turn, Roost, Hyper Beam, and maybe most exciting of all, Hidden Power. I checked in with the Hidden Power NPC and learned I had some darn lucky rolls for my Hidden Power elements: Ice, Dragon, Water, Fighting, and Electric. (The sixth was Bug, which … well. Obviously I wasn’t going to bother with that one.) I was thrilled. At this point I had been faithfully collecting elemental plates, so I had most of the ones to match with these elements, too. We also had access to moves via the Move Relearner, including the absolutely fantastic Light Screen. This also was the point in the game that my team had reached level 45, when everyone picked up the powerful Quiver Dance.

At long last, it felt like the world was our oyster! We didn’t have to be held back anymore from reaching our full potential! Which was good, because we were going to need it for the upcoming Lysandre fights.

The first battle wasn’t too terrible. Getting a Light Screen up on Meinfoo and equipping some of my pokes with Occa berries, we could use the ol’ tox stall on the Pyroar without losing too many of the team. Murkrow also wasn’t too hard to take out, but I forgot about the Gyarados. That was potentially pretty scary, but it missed its Aqua Tail and one of my remaining pokemon had HP Electric, so it was all good.

The second Lysandre fight ups the ante a little, with fully evolved pokemon and a Pyroar with the Unnerve ability. This ruined my Occa berry strategy. Pyroar had Fire Blast, so it’s more then a tad dicey to deal with. I had to make due with Protecting and dying (lol) to wear out the 5 PP of Fire Blast, and then used a combination of toxic and HP Fighting. The rest was fairly straightforward.

The third and final Lysandre fight throws Mega Gyarados into the mix. While the stats buff is scary, it adds Dark typing to Gyarados, making it weak to Bug. It went down surprisingly easily.

After Team Fashionwhatever’s rude intteruption, we returned to defeat the final gym– an Ice gym, which we were weak to, but at this point, we could take on anything. We had conqoured Xerneas, scary Fire Blasting lions and even Mega evolution. We had walked through rock, snow, thunderbolts and flame. The team had performed far better then I had expected and had persisted, even against overwhelming odds.

It was time to take the final trail through Victory Road and see if we could pass the ultimate test.

The Elites

Victory Road was a bit of a struggle, I’m not going to lie. The Ace Trainers had powerful, well-rounded teams composed of many pokes I had yet to even encounter before now. The Ace gaurding the very front of the Victory Road was especially irksome for me, with a Carbink that tended to always put down Stealth Rock and then a Raichu also on the team, perhaps our worst mortal enemy. Fun fact– my team is very, very, very weak to stealth rock. Still, we got by him eventually, and everyone else too, though there was a lot of fainting and healing along the way.

After clawing our way to the top, we reached the summit and home of the Elites. We’d made it by all the Gym leaders, but these were the Elite Four. Was this really going to work? I figured I should start with the Elite that was the biggest threat for the team: Malva and her Fire types.

Malva

The strategy I developed for this team had to be very carefully calibrated, so it took a number of attempts. Her opening act is a female Pyroar. Fortunately, this one didn’t have Unnerve. My tactic here was a long and painful tox-stall, using Occa berries and Clover & Confetti’s Protect and Roost. I did this because I wanted to burn both of Malva’s Full Restores during this phase. It was utterly crucial she had none for her ace pokemon. During my winning run, something went wrong and I killed the Pyroar early, but fortunately she used her second Full Restore on her Torkoal. This normally would not have happened– I usually used Hurricane on Torkoal, getting in in medium-yellow health which wasn’t enough to trigger a potion, but it got confused, hit itself, and pushed its health into red, triggering the potion use.

After Pyroar and Torkoal went down, Talonflame came out. The strategy here was to die lots. I’m not kidding– I kind of had no choice here. The bird was far too fast and far too powerful. I had figured out it took exactly three Vivillon at full health for Talonflame to die of Brave Bird recoil.

After Talonflame went down, Chandelure came out, and I was left with two pokemon: Clover in very low health (weak from toxic-stalling the Pyroar) and Sunrise in full health. I sent out Clover first. A quick word about Clover– she has pretty low stats when compared to the rest of the team. She was built to help with stall, with Toxic/Light Screen/Protect/Bug Buzz. I had to decide– Light Screen or Toxic? I decided to go with Toxic. After Clover went down, Sunrise was the only one left. I’d been in this situation before and lost at this point, simply because Chandelure used Confuse Ray and I died to confuse hax. So this was darned unnerving. However, I realized I had stuck Light Screen and Protect on Sunrise this time. Awesome! I Protected and then Light Screened, happy to let the thing die to stall.

Except, uhh, I forgot I didn’t have an Occa berry on this poke. I had a Mind Plate, because she had Psychic on her. Pooooop. I got hit with Flamethrower, bringing me into the low yellow. Protected again. And hoped it was enough, using Psychic. Thankfully, it was.

So that was Malva down. It had been messy, but it had worked.

Wikstrom

Next up, I went to the Steel Elite. I expected this fight to be pretty dang difficult. As such, I worked hard to try and think of a way to take out Klefki as cleanly as possible. I had nothing to hit it hard with. What I eventually tried out should not have really worked, but somehow it did. Of course, as a Steel type, it could not be tox-stalled. So I tried the next best thing. I taught Clover Infestation. I then proceeded to infect Klefki with Infestation and swap between Light Screen, Bug Buzz and Roost. Klefki resisted Bug x4, but Infestation’s residual damage was fixed, like a regular Poisoned status, and slowly drained its health. Klefki couldn’t do too much against me: he used Torment so I couldn’t Roost twice in a row, but otherwise, his hits under Light Screen could be roosted off easily enough. My goal was to burn the Elite’s Full Restores. After he potioned up, I would use the same number of potions as he did.

It worked well– until the very, very end, when Klefki scored two critical hits in a row, so I couldn’t Roost enough to save Clover. Clover went down, but she fought hard until the bitter end, and had done enough damage that the next Vivillon coming in could revenge kill. Somehow I had gotten a clean kill, only losing one Vivillon on Klefki.

Next in was Probopass. This thing had Power Gem and Discharge, so it was pretty worrying. Sunrise put a Light Screen up and got a little chip damage off before going down. Then Confetti came in with his Hidden Power Fighting. Thankfully that did great damage and was a 2HKO. Scizor was also pretty spooky, but ended up easier then I thought. Snowflake used Hurricane, scored a crit and got it into the red, and confused it to boot. It hit itself in confusion and fainted, making my life easier. Finally was the ace, Aegislash. Again, I thought this thing would really be tough, but I forgot how dang easy it’s to take out in Sword Forme. In the end, all my careful work to take Klefki out with only one poke may not have even been needed, but oh well!

Drasna & Siebold

The Dragon Elite had two pokemon that were potentially a handful for the team: Noivern and Altaria. However, recall one of my pokemon had Hidden Power Ice. With Icicle Plate and a Light Screen up, Sunrise could live an Air Slash and wipe Noivern out. Alteria turned out to just be a stalling set, rather than super offensive, so it was easy enough to handle.

Finally, the Water gym was the easiest to handle. I whipped a Power-Herb Solar Beam out for Barbaracle so I could crush it before a painful Stone Edge, and while the Gyarados had Dragon Dance, it only used Ice Fang on me and I could finish it off with HP Electric.

The Elites vanquished, we stepped up to the last door.

The Championship

In some ways, the last team was not so scary. Hawlucha had no Flying moves and I could take it out with one Hurricane. Gourgeist was also easy to handle, weak to flying and neutral to bug. The other four team members were a fair bit trickier. Goodra had Fire Blast. Gardevoir had Thunderbolt, dual STAB, and was a mega. And the rock dinosaurs that had given me grief at the start of the game were both back with some upgrades.

That said, I won on my second attempt. (The first one failed because I reached Gardevoir and forgot it had Thunderbolt.) Hawlucha went down to Hurricane, Tyrantrum took a heavy hit due to its low special defens and then died to Head Smash recoil. Aurorus came in and annoyingly put a Light Screen up while I tried to hit it with HP Fighting. It took some futzing about, but Aurorus eventually went down. I Protect and Light Screen-stalled out Goodra’s Fire Blasts and then decided to bring Violet in. While Diantha played around with Full Restores I got Quiver Dances off and finished off the Goodra.

Finally, Gardevoir came in.

I had a choice– try to get just some solid damage off with Violet, die, and bring Clover in for Toxic, or try to Stun Spore with Violet? I knew Mega Gardevoir outsped my whole team, but I also knew its special defense stat looked pretty scary.

I eventually decided to Stun Spore. It thankfully landed, and I even got a lucky paralysis. On the following turn, Violet took a Thunderbolt thanks to a Wacan berry and Bug Buzzed. One more Bug Buzz and Gardevoir was gone.

So if anyone ever asks you if it’s possible to beat Pokemon with just six Vivillon, you can tell them yes. Yes, it is.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Mar 24, 2019.

[scottkkruegerny]

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How to Use (and Enjoy) Your Outdoor Living Space in Fall and Winter

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Today more than ever before, people are choosing to stay at home. That has led to the rise in demand for outdoor living spaces that are comfortable, warm, and, most of all, enjoyable. Many people are taking the DIY route thanks to an assortment of kits that are both affordable and readily available.

Experts point out that one of the reasons for choosing to stay at home is the ease at which it is possible to build a self-enclosed so-called “cocoon” in your backyard (a phrase used by HGTV for this growing trend). The easy availability of things like fire pit kits makes it possible for anyone to build a fire pit themselves. Not to mention that there is a lot of flexibility in terms of design choices, so your outdoor living space does not have to look like every other one out there; it can be customized to your needs.

Winter in places like Lake of the Ozarks or Columbia, MO can offer some of the best times to enjoy your outdoor living space, albeit a bit differently. In this article, we will go over a couple of suggestions which you can use to create an outdoor living space that you will enjoy each fall and winter. Think of it as preparing your outdoor living space for a comfortable winter! And right now is the time to get started…

Spruce up your patio for the cooler months.

Okay, so you assumed that the first thing we would recommend is to buy outdoor fireplace kits. While that is important as mentioned above, you need to work on other important aspects of your outdoor space. One of those things is making it green with winter-friendly or cold-resistant plants, shrubs, etc. Bring in some small potted spruce trees or other evergreens. When you add a bit of winter foliage, it will make the outdoor space look warmer and more appealing.

You can also add splashes of color with plants like Red Osier and Purple coneflower. These can be used in addition to other plants like the dwarf globe, boxwood, arborvitae, yew, and juniper, etc.

You may also want to plant a few perennials depending on how much sunlight your backyard gets. Some worthy considerations are dwarf fountain grasses, lavender, and yucca. If you can find something native to where you live then that’s even better. And remember, you can always use potted versions if you don’t want them there all year round

Warm it up with a fireplace or firepit.

You will for sure, want to evoke a warm, cozy, and comfortable environment by installing a couple of fire features. You’ll want to install a fire pit and/or a fire table, both of which are available in many different designs. Most contractors should be able to put together an outdoor fireplace for you. However, if you are a DIYer, a fireplace kit may be more your thing.

Outdoor fireplace kits are convenient, and they offer recreational opportunities for the whole family. You can put one almost anywhere outdoors, and it provides a comfortable spot for family members and guests to sit around. The best thing about these fire features is the fact that there are available in hundreds of different designs, so there are obviously going to be a couple that suits your budget and patio the best. Some companies provide consultation so you can take their advice on which will work best for you too.

Other additions you may want to consider is an electric patio heater, hot tubs, etc. You’ll want to also add some wood patio furniture but just make sure that they are thickly padded so that you feel warm and comfortable sitting in them.

Not only does an outdoor fireplace add warmth, but it adds a great deal of rustic charm and beauty.

Consider building an enclosure.

Yet another feature you’ll want to consider is an enclosure. Structures like gazebos, pergolas, and pavilions offer protection from the elements, and they can be tailored to match the aesthetics of your space too. Adding an enclosure near your patio can add another level of luxury and beauty, not to mention make it a desirable area during winter.

A patio cover is a large project and something that will require that you spend more money on it compared to other possible features. However, not only does it work great during winter, but it also helps to keep the sun out during hot summer months. So, having a patio enclosure can be useful all year round.

You may also want to bring a few things from your indoor space outside. Like, hang a curtain, roll out a rug, or maybe even a canopy. Having a few blankets and pillows can make the space more comfortable during winter. An enclosure also makes your outdoor heater remarkably more efficient. If you have a fire pit that may also work well to keep everyone warm.

Get all the accessories you need.

Enjoying your outdoor living space does not have to be expensive. We always say that you should spend as much as you can afford without breaking the bank. A good way to ensure that you don’t go overboard (which is pretty easy to do) is to assemble all the accessories you need. The accessories should reflect your vision for the outdoor space.

A couple of examples of the accessories we are talking about are lighting, curtains, seats, all-weather furniture, roof covers, etc. You’ll also want to substitute metal furniture for wood, plastic or wicker so that your seats don’t get too cold when things freeze over. Also, the addition of an outdoor kitchen of sorts will help to turn the outdoor living space into a much-needed social hub.

Don’t forget the candles! Using candles brings an added sense of warmth and beauty, and scented candles in an outdoor enclosure can be delightful. Adding some low-voltage lighting is always a bonus for warming up the ambiance of a patio or any outdoor area, or especially using Christmas lights around the holidays. You might as well include holiday decorations to make your outdoor winter space complete.

We can outfit you with the products to build your backyard dream.

Southwest Stone Supply ships anywhere in the Lake of the Ozarks area, to Columbia, MO, and literally anywhere in the lower 48 states in the U.S.

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Create an outdoor living space everyone will enjoy.

We know from experience that if you just go out and begin to build an outdoor space to please everyone, your project may fail. You have to start with a vision, then plan according to your budget. Doing exactly what your neighbor or friend has done is pointless because you have to create something that’s comfortable for you and your family!

Thanks to literally hundreds of different types of outdoor fireplace kits, patio enclosures, fire pit kits, and fire tables, it certainly possible to design and build your own space. Sure, it will take a couple of weekends to finish the project, but if you start now, it will give you enough time to finish. Not to mention that your family and friends will thank you for building an outdoor living space that’s comfortable and fun!

Here are some similar articles you might enjoy:

Warm up with a Fire Pit: Why It’s the Perfect Winter Project

Fire Table, Fire Pit or Outdoor Fireplace: Which Is Best for You?​​

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The post How to Use (and Enjoy) Your Outdoor Living Space in Fall and Winter appeared first on Southwest Stone Supply.

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