#i haven't really played them all

[gingericywolf]

One of my personal headcanons is that Rei is a big pokemon fan.

Mainly because it was one of the first things he met at the start of his journey when he left the village.

When he was not training or checking out the food, or during long hours of travelling, you would see him play on a gameboy he got thanks to daitenji. He probably started either with the first gen or the second (not sure yet but I'm really leaning in him starting with Gold/Silver because it's the gen Raikou is from and you know... electric tiger thing is kind of all Rei's deal). Anyway he did play all the games. If he started with Gold/Silver he would have gotten Red/Green/Blue/Yellow at some point not long after, and really gets into the glitches that the first games where. His copy of Red is probably broken beyond hope.

With the years he gets all the new games, maybe not always at launch but as soon as he can for sure. He always gets one of the pair and then the third title, collecting the second game of the pair after. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum is when he starts getting more into the world building of the games, replaying the older ones and trying to want to put together all the little bits (look pokemon lore is. Something. Someone in there really cares and wants to build something).

Ask him about black and white you will not be able to stop him from explaining everything. The whole ideals Vs truth thing of the games and how Reshiram and zekrom are some of the best looking legendaries since Ho-Oh and Lugia (and that is just cause those where his first games). And also not a third game but a Duo Of Sequels?? White 2 and Black 2 gave him too much hope.

XY where enjoyable. The topic of life and death, more lore, the AZ thing. Megaevolution? Dam yeah! mega kangaskan broken af, amazing. Didn't really like the starters tho and overall the game left a bit of a weird feeling, like something that didn't reach it's full potential. Something that was changed at last minute. The post game with looker was nice yet seemed a bit out of place and Team Flare felt like a joke to the previous evil teams. Also NO THIRD GAME? NO Pokemon Z? No Zygarde lore? Damn.

I haven't tackled the remakes yet but Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire in this gen where probably his favourites of them all other than the Heart Gold and Soul Silver. The ORAS post game was great. Really anything that adds to pokemon worldbuilng and delves into the past of world is like catnip to him.

His Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon experience was kinda ruined by the fact that basically all the important bits where spoiled by the trailers and leaks, being when he starts being more online and active in online spaces. But Also these games are like a bomb of lore, maybe not well approached but fucking multiverse being canon in pokemon is wild. Ultra wormholes sucking people in and trowing people around causing them amnesia? He hopes none pf his faves suffers this (oh dear if only you knew ) yet maybe a little bit he hopes they do just to see them again earlier. Also the fact that is the first game where the grunts of the team you fight aren't really the evil team and the villain is someone else? Nice change. He liked team skull. On the other hand Lusamine initially reminded him of Judy a bit on first impression, until Lusamine goes completely batshit insane(Really the anime made her too nice for the little I have seen and she is awful in the games). And Again a duo of sequels, but this time they don't work as well, not adding much until later in postgame.

Now we enter in switch territory which for me is harder to work with, not having it and not being able to first hand play but

He is a nostalgic so of course he liked the Let's go. Seeing the pokemon in the overworld and seeing shinys was great, also using the joycon to launch the balls

Sword and Shield Are good, too linear, but good. Also first games that get DLCs. The new pokemon where nice, but didn't like any of the starters, and he enjoyed trying them and making different combinations. Hell he even got more into the pokemon competitive scene and loved it, he made his own teams for each different season! The combination of having more free time by not being a blader full time anymore and the lockdown really made him go down the hole of making the perfect team for him. He wanted to run a Rain team so that thunder had 100% precision but he felt good runnign a Sun team near the end of the season. He was close to reach the world championship but at the end didn't have enought points for the smallest margin. His pokemon flame was burning more than ever in this period.

At the same time the Diamond and Pearl remakes felt like a slap in the face. After ORAS he was exited to see how the lore would have been expanded in a 4 gen remake. Instead Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are the exact same games as the original but with a style choice that.. works well in pixel and not that great like this. Anyway it was nice not having to wait 45 minutes for a chansey health bar to go down.

Then Legend Arceus came around and OH BOY YES. It felt like everything he ever wanted. Semi open world, able to see and catch pokemon on sight, playing in the past of a region he already knows, the region that started his lore obsession and it is not disappointing! The story, the characters, oh is that the train man for 5 gen? Cool! OH no wait, SAD!! why couldn't it be the other one. Sure maybe the graphics could have had some more work and there are some minor bugs but in the overall the game WORKS

He was working in his competitive team for the last tournaments before the worlds, so he played these last games slowly and mostly after the worlds. He enjoyed them even while the 9 gen talk was full on and leaks where booming everywhere. He had to block the pokemon tag to not get spoiled and the little he heard and saw made him worry

And when the games came out his worries where confirmed. Scarlet and Violet. When he sees the first experience shared He is disappointed. More than that. He feels cheated on. If he felt that XY where unfinished with these games it's an objective fact. Sure he is a nostalgic but there was no need to have a game so buggy and glitchy at times. Some are fun sure and he knows he abused the shit out of glitches in the first games but this has a different taste. And he is angry because he realizes he has been part of the problem for the longest time. That these games where pushed too fast. There was already a pokemon game out this year, what need was there to push another one. What bad could have done to delay it a little bit more. He knows it is not possible with the cards and everything else around it but is stills does not feel right. And he is sad. Because once again he sees potential. He sees improvment in certain aspects, He sees the work someone has put into these games, in the stories they want to tell, but the shell all around is just not working playing it. His friends watching him play can feel the duality of the feelings inside of him. Yes he got the games, he got them because he wants to compete again. Build a team early and test it. He is not fond of the estetic of the new mechanic but he already has found it interesting on how it challenges his knowledge of typings. There are not many new pokemon that he likes, he will still try them. Sometimes you just have to run with one to find a surprise bond with them. Still there are so many old gen pokemon that he likes that it is hard sticking to the new ones. Of course his starter is sprigatito. I mean he is a cat. He probably would change starter only if playing with a special someone that really wants the grass cat.

He is such a pokemon nerd that he even considered and then got the eeveelutions rings for him and his partner.

Anyway yeah this was supposed to be short but Rei said no you listen to me now I have things to say and feelings about this whole ordeal so here this is sorry for the long post

[cryptid-condor]

the deer prince and the golden doe

from chapter 34 of Salt00's fic Chick Magnet

please click for HD tumblr is killing this one

[front-facing-pokemon]

[svtskneecaps]

dude how the fuck is it that everyone on this server has insane chemistry with each other. my brain just fuckin bounces between dynamics like wow foolish and bad, wow baghera and forever, wow baghera and bagi, wow philza and etoiles, wow fit and pac, wow pac e mike, wow favela five AND six (bagi screeching "DON'T MESS WITH FAVELA" paraphrased had my mental hamster wheel hitting unprecedented rpms), wow the french and the french + bebou, wow antoine and mouse, wow bagi and tina, wow tina and forever, wow morning crew, wow slime and mariana WHO I'VE SEEN INTERACT LIVE O N E TIME, wow rivers and roier wow, wow rivers + the vaca crew, wow girl town, wow jaiden and roier, wow baghera bad and forever, wow forever and cellbit, wow cellbit and tazercraft, wow cellbit and roier, wow quackity and etoiles, wow phil and forever, wow bad and etoiles, wow tina and etoiles (fucking love them), wow aypierre and maximus (what the fuck, love it), wow foolish and jaiden (and also bad), wow missa and phil, holy shit jaiden and cellbit, jesus christ antoine and maximus and SEE

I AM MISSING A MILLION INTERACTIONS THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY GONE INTO MY SIBLING'S TEXTS TO SAY "GOD I LOVE THEM" AND I GUARANTEE I WILL ADD TO AND UPDATE THIS LIST WITH MORE (bc wit of the staircase) there is so much enrichment in my enclosure my brain literally doesn't know what to do with it. i've stalled out. i'm so happy. how the fuck did they do this.

additionally, bc i KNEW i'd forget something: foolish and vegetta (HOW), cellbit and baghera, baghera and fit, mouse and cellbit

[honestlyvan]

I do kind of wonder if the implicit assumption that Door is mad at Alan for involving Saga should be re-examined a little bit.

The game is very careful to not frame any of Saga's relationships as paternalistic. Like, repeatedly, with emphasis, especially among the relationships with people who are close to her and have reasons to act protective over her. Having Door primarily be motivated by a sense of righteousness over someone messing with his protectorate goes against theme with her, and would single him out as the only male character whose help Saga does need.

Furthermore, we know Freya didn't seem to think that highly of Door, never telling Saga anything about him and being firm in not wanting to discuss the topic. Her considering Door a potential danger to Saga just like her powers and choosing to hide the truth to protect her wouldn't make sense if she, too, could use her seer powers to confirm that Door did have Saga's best interest at heart, and with Door existing outside of time, I don't think there's adequate signalling that this would be something he would have had a change of heart about.

Furthermore, while Door is very likeable and definitely not a villain or even an antagonist... he is very trickster-like, and seems very cavalier with how he chooses to interfere and when. From his interactions with the Old Gods, spending fourty years on kill-on-sight terms with them only to happily fanboy over having them on his show and collaborate with them to mess with Alan, to the way he almost deigned to let Alan create a hint for Saga about how to use her powers rather than letting Saga and Tim just work it out amongst themselves, he's playing the long game in every situation and seems to enjoy making the story take twists and turns because of his involvement.

So Door is in a weird superposition of meddlesome/hands-off largely because I almost got a sense that with Saga, he's keeping his distance on purpose. Keeping himself concealed and out of the conversation, despite much of her story being discovering her origins and discovering her own supernatural influence. Outside of letting Alan create a single manuscript page about him, he doesn't even hint at his own existence while Saga is in the Dark Place, theoretically right there for him to reach out to.

And if Door does ultimately think that surely any daughter of his can handle herself, there is one another innocent that has been involved in this all by Wake I could see him getting worked up over instead.

[sciderman]

(Idk if someone asked this already) since we’re on the topic of gender

sci what is gender to you and how do you see it in you and how you express it in your art?? (Just a young queer artist who wants some light shined upon them 🥺)

i 'unno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Daisy & Mavis?

Or maybe Sir Handel & Peter Sam?

Ooooh, Sir Handel and Peter Sam have a fascinating dynamic. However, I don't really have much to say that others haven't already said, and probably said better. To the degree that I'm tempted to talk about their Trauma Responses, I have another ask about Sir Handel & Skarloey, so I think I'll fold these thoughts into that post.

So, Daisy and Mavis — love 'em — only wish they got more screen time!

("Screen" time. Do they ever have a significant interaction in the television series? I really want to be told if they do.)

Actually they only have one page in RWS where they exchange a word. But it's such a good page. Posting it here for the uninitiated:

Look at this mess. Look at this absolutely perfect bitchfest. There are a total of zero brain cells in this conversation. Venting to your work bestie and and letting loose your inner mean girl. A classic RWS dynamic! It's just the diesel (& the female) version of the Thomas and Percy relationship: They make each other worse.

But, they need each other.

But, they make each other worse...!

Despite their lack of screentime following this, you cannot convince me that these two don't remain peas in a pod, just like 1 and 6 after 6 is transferred to the branch line.

I do think it's rather sad that Mavis is holed up in the quarry. :( There's a real bummer of a line when she appears in a later Christopher story...

"Besides, she sometimes finds it dull up at the Quarry with no one to talk to but trucks." I know it's realistic, but I want better for her. LET 👏 HER 👏 OUT 👏

Once smartphones became a thing, I like to imagine that they videocalled from the quarry to the carriage shed every night. (Annie, Clarabel, and Henrietta are very understanding about this when the call lasts half an hour. If ever the workers try to indulge Daisy and Mavis with a longer call, however, the coaches start murmuring...)

One great thing about this convo is that it's the first time I feel like I'm really, genuinely looking at lasting steam/diesel coexistence on Sodor's 'big railway.' Coz this is a target Awdry has been trying to hit for at least a dozen books now, yeah? Due mostly to his publishers' pressures, he's been trying to have beloved diesel characters while keeping his 1920-cosplay steam railway too, and this is where I think he finally hits the target. Daisy's first appearance was hamstrung because the turning point where she changes her haughty new-engine attitude and where the others accept her despite all the shit she's already pulled is off-screen, we're just told "they're friends now" and have to be all "right. sure." Probably because he got negative feedback on his Daisy hash, Awdry played it suuuuper safe with BoCo and Bear — less so Bear, but that's another post; for now I will just say that in contrast to Daisy they are presented as very clean-as-a-whistle, and their acceptance by the railway is made so much of that it doesn't feel natural, they both feel like one-offs. But then, ahhh. Now we've got Mavis, and Awdry has the bright idea to let her talk to Daisy, and BANG. Now we're here. This doesn't feel Informed, or starch-and-stiff, or tokenistic. You read this and you're like oh, yeah. Even the sleepiest branch line on this railway is now part dieselised. They're acting like characters! Everybody is acting like squabbling coworkers! It's like sinking at last into a warm relaxing soak. Ahhhhh. Here's the good stuff.

Because they don't need to be Representatives of dieselkind? They can just kinda suck for a moment, without being villains? When TVS subs out Daisy for Diesel, it automatically gives this conversation a sinister air. He's the devil on Mavis's shoulder. But in the original, there's nothing sinister here; it's homey. They're just venting to each other. Their behavior is kinda crappy, but also very normal and recognisable. New work besties fr. They are both three drinks in.

Daisy: He said what to you? Omg babe. I cannot believe that old garden shed said that to youuu.

Mavis: Right?????

Daisy: raising a glass Anything steam engines do, we diesels can do BETTER!

Mavis: hauling herself a bit unsteadily to her feet so that her gesticulation can be its most dramatic and sweeping You are RIGHT and you should SAY IT!

(Narrator: mildly ... Daisy was not right and, being probably the most specialised and least versatile engine then on her railway, she definitely should not have been saying it.)

(Above: The quintessential moment. Mavis & Daisy are commiserating/carping, and Annie & Clarabel are trying so hard to not hear their shit.)

Now, I've always had a question here...

Did Toby really say that only steam engines can shunt trucks?

The text indicates only that he was annoyed that she kept re-arranging things, they had a tiff, she rejected his input and left.

Then again, the text doesn't reveal that Percy calls Mavis's shunting "a ---- ------ ------ mess!", so, y'know. We get the minimum detail necessary in these stories. ;)

We never see Toby express any such sentiment about diesel engines. I'm inclined to think he never said this — and I suspect we're not supposed to believe he said this, only that Mavis is in stroppy teen mode and exaggerating and embellishing her grievances to the point where she's straight-up making shit up.

Still, I'm not sure. Usually in the RWS if a character is lying they are slyly or explicitly called out for it in the nearby text and this time the claim is just... sitting here.

Ultimately, I don't think he ever said that to her, but (considering how salty everyone on the Ffarquhar line can get: some have quicker fuses than others but they're all so provoke-able) I don't think Mavis just made this up completely. If she were making up stories from whole cloth, that would be... well, that would be 'Devious' Diesel behavior! I suspect, however, that Toby and Percy (comparing notes on her shunting) are at least thinking it, or have said it to each other, and Mavis has picked up on these vibes. All of which would be incredibly realistic.

Anyway, I bring this up because the answer does color my read of this conversation a little. If Mavis is completely making up attitudes that Toby never dreamed of having, and Daisy just eats it up and eggs her on, that makes this conversation somehow even 10x messier (and somehow I'm still rooting for their friendship). If this is a sentiment that is real or implied when Mavis or Daisy annoy the other Ffarquhar engines (and they can both be annoying, no question) then the bond between these two characters, with their very different personalities, just becomes even more 'understandable.'

Anyway, about those differences. Mainly, Daisy is ultimately very conventional. (This reminds me I have a nearly-finished essay about Daisy lying around somewhere. For now...) Mavis is the original, creative one, the mover-and-shaker. All Daisy's initial behaviors, as Hazel observed recently, are things we've seen from proud new engines before! She wants lots of attention, she boasts, she tries her damnedest to get out of work that she thinks is beneath her. What Mavis wants is to improve things, to have more responsibility, to get to stretch her wheels. Furthermore, Daisy by nature is keen to avoid work that's too heavy (she's a railcar with limited pulling power, so, you know, understandable); Mavis doesn't mind work — she just doesn't like being told how to do it, and she doesn't like being bored!

A point where they can be contrasted is in how they accept Toby's help and friendship at the end of their initial... "arcs." (All right, Daisy's "arc" is ended so clumsily that you can barely call it that, but you get me.) I'm not saying Mavis is devious or calculating, but for her Toby's offer of friendship is just as important as a pathway to her getting out of the quarry sometimes as it is for his forgiveness. It is her ticket out. For Daisy, Toby's offer of friendship was important because she wants friends, now she's making a friend yay!! — and I think that was pretty much it. Daisy just wants positive attention; that's what all her 'modern and right-up-to-date' stuff was about, but that failed to get her the positive attention she wanted and it turned out that being a team player did, so she had little trouble re-orienting herself. She resisted the pressure of everyone on the platform for her first train because she clung to the memory of her friend the fitter, but I don't think she's one to resist peer pressure in general, and as time passed and the Ffarquhar line residents became her peers, it was completely inevitable that she start to conform to their ways.

So (although, again, annoyingly — we aren't shown) I reckon that Daisy panicked after Percy's accident when she realized that she would be in trouble too (all right, someone probably had to point it out to her). And so for the first time she pitches in and does some hard work. Toby can't help but own "you did well to get all your half cleared, Daisy" and Daisy's entire system lights up because compliment, baby!!! That's all she ever wanted. She's Toby's man now (so to speak).

I can also easily imagine that, in trying to get adjusted to Mavis, Toby remembered how thing went last time. He must have tried from the first to tell himself, through slightly gritted teeth, "Just find something to compliment the new engine on, just anything. Helps build trust." But he was stymied twice over. 1) She keeps re-arranging the trucks in some crazy-ass unapproved way and he can't find ANYTHING nice to say! 2) It wouldn't have worked, anyway. Mavis wouldn't have been satisfied with just some friendly attention. Mavis wants to do. shit.

Mavis is bright — possibly has little common sense, but she's bright. I do wonder sometimes if her shunting arrangements are actually bad, or if they're just different and Toby and Percy can't adjust. (The text does own that due to the siding arrangements it's inefficient to put the trucks where Toby expects them. She probably does optimize things — from her point of view, anyhow.) Either way, though, here is an active and creative mind at work. Plus, her ploy to slo-o-owly expand her pathway down the line in "Toby's Tightrope" shows long-term planning, which is hardly something we've ever seen any vehicle do! So yeah, she's well above-average bright for an engine.

Hilariously, in Their Own Scene she is easily impressed by Daisy's lofty confidence (another classic RWS dynamic — it's giving Duncan staring amazed at James's boasting), but she's also super young, hasn't been Toby-fied yet, and in short I expect that as the years go by Mavis is likely to see Daisy as less of a role model and more of a crony/partner-in-crime. Daisy might instigate things sometimes — but she needs Mavis and Mavis's bright ideas before she really makes much headway! And I expect Mavis is often the instigator anyway. In her literary-device role of Second Coming of Thomas (Dieselised Flavour), she probably continues to want all sorts of things that engines aren't supposed to pine for (silly stick-in-the-muds!) Daisy is quite content to grumble but put up. Mavis will find a way to make stuff happen.

(Which is the only explanation we're going to get for how Mavis is at large on every quarry and some not-remotely-a-quarry sets on the island, come TVS!)

That was a light rap on the TVS there, but not a very hard knock; at least TVS insisted (in spite of all logic) on using her character for stuff. Christopher lets me down, personally, by finding so little for Mavis to do — and never having her and Daisy interact! I want more of this shit so badly.

However, in the Author's Note of Thomas Comes Home, Daisy apparently has a bee in her bonnet about fans who think the series has no female engines and is like 'me and Mavis tho!!!!!!' Which... I like seeing Daisy mention Mavis. That's all. It assures me that they’re still a duo (although I prefer Wilbert's interpretation that they bond over being The Two Diesels On This Line vs. Christopher's implication that their bond is being The Two Girls On This Line).

[citrlet]

is. leave. possible?

[vampthropologist]

You know he has to flip for it!

No text + flat under cut

I've been working on this for a bit, and it is done! Two of my f/o's interacting for a silly meme. Ichimatsu's getting held by the scruff like a cat because Harv can't be normal /j/lh

[sonicscrewed]

Public service announcement. If you cannot handle Major Character Death, do NOT play ANY Final Fantasy game. There's (almost?) always one. And they work very, very hard and are very, very good at making it Extremely Painful.

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizon forbidden west | erend 23/?

[raifuujin]

It's been more than 20 years and for some reason I feel that Gosho hasn't given Kaiao any development, how can more than 20 years pass and Aoko dynamics, relationship and feelings remain the same? At this point I feel like Gosho is just going to make them date because "they already liked each other" they remain in the same status quo

Hey, if we go by DC romance progress, they've been going too fast. We've already had suspicion of identity chapters, and that didn't happen until more than 400 chapters in DC. /j

Since heists have taken over any character development recently, I don't even know if Kaito and Aoko will even get any romantic progress. Maybe the actual identity confrontation will happen down the line, since that's thief drama, but atm, it really wouldn't surprise me if they only ask each other on a real date at the very end of the manga.

Like. I'm sure Gosho would love to make MK a love drama as well, but he writes MK so rarely, and usually as hype for something Kid related in other media. So the MK stories tend to be heavy on drama that can only take place at Kid heists. (To the point that the new chapters just. Use Kid as the plot device to show off a new character. Even Hakuba's never gotten so much 'look at this character being a detective' treatment in MK.)

-sighs- I just feel bad for MK as a series at this point. I like the characters, I like the general story idea, but. It's been going down a very steep hill with Gosho wanting things exciting, but not wanting any real progress in. Anything. But unlike old MK, the new stories aren't even nice standalone setpieces of story, they're... mundane. They could be high stakes, if you purely look at the scenarios on paper, but. We all know nothing's gonna happen to Kid. Nothing even happens to him when the actual bad guys show up, much less one-time antagonists.

We need actual character focus and development, not heist drama. Badly. Not even romance, though that'd be a nice change. Just any character expansion of our limited cast of characters. Gosho wants big, all the time, meaningless big stuff, when small would be so nice.

[vynnyal]

Ever since I learned that you had to actually teach your kids how to do stuff, it's been so much fun having them around. It's very cute to watch them play with something they've never seen before, or only do something after they see me do it first. Idk how much is code and how much is coincidence, but they're undoubtedly better at living now. And their personalities are so unique!

[weidli]

never want to come down

[on ao3]

[da-proti-toku-grem]

how do you know the difference between a huge anxiety attack and a panic attack?

[moe-broey]

I'm SO obsessed with them.

After this I believe they are both equally as unhinged as the other, just opposite ends of a spectrum about it HAHAHAHAHA

Also...

More micro organisms.............. (FAVE PANEL TBH LOOK AT THEM)