#i mean. you can theoretically make any pokemon good too but it takes a lot more effort than in yo-kai watch

[oh-meow-swirls]

one thing i think yo-kai watch excels at more than pokemon is that like. any yo-kai can be good really. in pokemon there's some pokemon that are just unfortunately not that great (like hoppip. i love hoppip but god it sucks) but like i said, you can really make any yo-kai good with the right attitude, equipment and strategizing.

,,, and yet every post-game team in yo-kai watch still ends up looking the exact same-

[legendsobsessions]

What legendary do you think you could stand the best chance against in a fist fight?

Okay, so the answer to this is going to depend on whether you're counting specifically pokemon classified as legendary, or (as a lot of people do) those classified as mythical as well.

That said: any legendary pokemon or mythical pokemon that doesn't have fists, I'd win by default.

Jokes aside, though, and limiting myself to specifically legendaries, let's start out by going with pokemon I would not fistfight (though I would still happily take them on in a pokemon battle.)

Articuno/Moltres/Zapdos: Too hard to reach for a fistfight.

Mewtwo: I'd feel bad, they've been through enough with Team Rocket without me showing up to physically throw hands. Psychically, they'd probably win.

Raikou: Doesn't have fists, but can reportedly fly anyway? Another issue of reach.

Ho-oh/Lugia: Again, too hard to reach for a fistfight. I can't fly.

Regice/Regirock/Registeel: I don't want to punch solid ice/rock/steel. That feels like a really good way to break my hands.

Latios/Latias: I still can't fly.

Rayquaza: I still can't fly.

Mesprit: "Dare not touch the pokemon's body. In but three short days, all emotions will drain away." No thank you, I will not be fistfighting Mesprit, I happen like my emotions.

Azelf: "Above all, above all, harm not the pokemon. In a scant five days, the offender will grow immobile in entirety." I also like being able to move! Various sources differ on exactly what this part of the "horrific myth" means, but I don't really feel like tempting fate.

Dialga: Steel-type. I don't want to break my hands.

Giratina: Ghost-type. It's inconclusive if just trying to punch a ghost-type would be any more effective than, say, using an actual fighting-type move on it, but I'm still inclined to believe that wouldn't work very well.

Heatran: Literally the embodiment of molten lava. I'm not sure I'd have hands after trying to punch that, but if I did they'd be very badly burned and probably broken because, again, steel-type.

Cobalion: Steel-type. I still don't want to break my hands.

Tornadus/Thundurus/Landorus/Enamorus: Can fly. I can't.

Yveltal: Can fly.

Solgaleo: Steel-type.

Lunala: Once again—this is an issue far more often than I anticipated it would be—I still can't fly. Sure, I could if I had my pokemon helping me, but I don't think I'm allowed to have my pokemon helping me in a fistfight.

Zacian/Zamazenta: Steel-type in their more powerful forms. I'd be more willing to take my chances otherwise.

Eternatus: No.

Galarian Articuno/Moltres/Zapdos: Can fly. Apparently Galarian Moltres can't fly particularly well, but any amount of flight is more than I'm capable of.

ANYWAY! Now that we've got all that out of the way... there really are a lot more legendaries ruled out by virtue of "I would have a very hard time fistfighting them at all" than I thought...

Actually thinking about this, though, and getting back to the topic at hand (I'm so sorry, anon, I got off on a slight tangent) I think I would probably stand the best chance against Uxie or Regigigas. As long as I don't make direct eye contact with Uxie—I'll have you know I'm very good at avoiding direct eye contact—then I could win fairly easily, and while Regigigas is massive and strong, Regigigas is also very slow and I could use that to my advantage.

This is all purely theoretical, of course. I wouldn't fistfight any legendary or mythical pokemon unless I had a very good reason to, and if I did have a very good reason to I'd probably find some way around the various issues I brought up—but also I'd fight with my pokemon first, in most cases.

Thanks for the question, anon! This was a fascinating thought experiment.

[epicspheal]

Heya! I hope your doing well!

Ever since swsh gave the rivals something to do after the fact( something that I believe only happened to Blue), I can't help but think of the rivals prior who haven't. What do you think they end up doing? I know that Blue ends up becoming a gym leader, but would still be interesting what you plan for him too! :3

Hi there @ihopethisendswell! So actually, it's the norm typically for the rivals to have something to do, even if it's just continuing being a roaming trainers. Being a roaming trainer is still just as valid of a career path as other routes given the way the Pokemon world works, it's just not as solid of a career path as say gym leader or research assistant. Pokemon Sword and Shield is one of the only main games that really puts emphasis on the rivals' alternate careers paths as part of the plot outside of the gen 5 games. So like you have Blue who becomes gym leader and also helps his grandpa with his research by still be a roaming trainer (much to the frustration of anyone trying to challenge his gym). By the time of Sun and Moon/USUM he has ditched the gym to become battle facility which ultimately given his status as a former champion ends up being a much more fitting role. Granted he needed that time as a gym leader as long standing humbling exercise so it wasn't a bad call at all. Then we have Silver, who remains a roaming trainer, though he kind of mainly sticks around the Dragon's Den because he really wants to avenge that loss to Lance and show how much he has changed. Then we have Brendan/May (when not the protagonist) who end up going back to being full time assistants professor Birch. Wally on the other hand, is much like Silver in that he continue to be a roaming trainer, with him staying around the Battle Resort in ORAS with him eventually going to the Battle Tree by the time the SM/USUM events occur.

Barry also follows the roaming trainer route with him staying Stark Mountain in Diamond/Pearl and with Platinum he hangs around the Survival area.

Gen 5 is where the rival's future goals get the most attention, and was the best well done (SwSh in my opinion failed hard on the rival's goals bar Klara and Avery's). Bianca is still my favorite "how to do a future career path" ending in the entirety of series which is she really doesn't know. She ends up taking up a position as Professor's Juniper's assistant. However it's this linefrom Bianca in Pokemon Black 2/White 2 that I really enjoyed:

"Actually, I'm not sure being a professor's assistant is really what I want to do... But when I do the work, I have lots and lots of fun!" I really appreciated that they allowed Bianca to have doubts that this is her final career path. She's still a child and I can remember when I was her age (God, I sound so old) how many career paths I thought about in that time frame...and only one of those comes even remotely close to what I'm attempting to go back to school for. I liked how she's just trying to things and aiming for experiences while not trying to commit herself to one specific path. Now obviously this could theoretically be true for any number of the rivals as with the exception of Blue (and Wally although for some odd reason they didn't give him an aged up model considering he'd be just as old as Red and Blue are) we don't see them as adults and their ambitions could very well have indeed changed over the years. Then you have Cheren who after that scolding from Alder really begins to question his pursuit of strength and what he really wants to do. Cue 2 years later in BW2 where we see him as the Aspertia City gym leader as well a lecturer at the trainer's school. Fitting as it shows his desire and capabilities as a trainer but also allowing a more concrete goal than just pursuing strength but actually overseeing the future generations. And Hugh, another one of my favorite characters, concludes his story arc on forgiveness (since he had absolutely none for Team Plasma at the beginning of the story) ends up a roaming trainer but also helping the good side Team Plasma in Driftveil City reunite Pokemon that were stolen during the events of Black/White to their original trainers. So he has a goal and really touching one I might add, one of the few that doesn't revolve around battling or researching.

Then there's the XY rivals who were admittedly the most shafted. They all pretty much end up as roaming trainers except for Trevor who already had the aim of completing the Pokedex for Professor Sycamore and he continues to do so.

The no specific aim works the best, in my opinion, for Shauna as she really didn't have much of a goal to begin with outside of travelling/making memories, and much like I said with Bianca, it's okay for characters to not have a specific end game (although I personally see Bianca's route as better as although she isn't quite sure what she wants to do, she does take initiative and actively pursue a goal to gain experience and see if it's for her).

Serena/Calem (again when not the protag) having no set aim also works because they were most competitive of the group and continuing to be a trainer makes sense, but since they get hardly any development it just feels hollow and not satisfying. At least with characters like Wally, Silver and Barry who are roaming they all went through some major development. Lack of major development plus no end game just makes Serena and Calem unfortunately just not stand out.

Then Tierno...poor Tierno. He's my favorite XY character and I hate that screwed over so poorly. He actually a goal but the game doesn't allow us to see how a dance team would work. Kalos really could've benefitted from a Pokemon Contest/Musical like sidequest where Tierno shines in. So him being a roaming trainer is just...meh.

Now moving on to Gen 7 and best boy Hau (Hau's up there with Blue and Leon as one of my favorite Pokemon characters PERIOD). In both Sun and Moon and USUM he's a roaming trainer but I argue that Sun and Moon actually wrapped up his character better, despite USUM giving him much more in the way of development. By that I mean he explicitly mentions to the player that he wants become strong enough to find his father who fled Alola because the pressure of being the Kahuna's son was too much. So yeah he is still just a regular trainer, but he does have an explicit goal that goes beyond just trying to continue to measure up to the player. He also helps to train the reforming Team Skull grunts in the art of Alolan SuMo. In USUM this is erased for a more generic roaming trainer scenario unfortunately. Gladion's fate also changes depending on what version of the Gen 7 games you play. With Sun and Moon he ends up taking over as Aether's president but also still trains on the side as he is one of the challengers that can come for your title in the post game. In Ultra Sun and Moon he actually takes the "I'm going to Kanto" route instead of Lillie although he actually back and is essentially a roaming trainer since Lusamine's villainy was nerfed and therefore allowed to stay as Aether's president

Then there's Trace who ends up champion then loses it, but keeps on going in this endless circle of trying to reclaim it from the player. And then finally the Gen 8 rivals where we have Bede, Marnie, Klara and Avery all become gym leaders and Hop is a professor. Despite this cast having the most focus on their future paths since the gen 5 rivals I don't think they were done that well. Like Klara and Avery's worked, really well and they're probably the only rivals bar Trace and Blue who actually their goals (with them actually maintaining there dream status because their goal didn't involve becoming champion).

I've talked about Hop's on this post before but the lack of genuine foreshadowing just made his sudden declaration of wanting to be a Pokemon Professor just come out of nowhere. And honestly considering the fact that he had just come out of a depressive stage and still hadn't quite addressed his idolization issues I think he would've been served better with the Bianca route where yes he becomes Sonia's assistant, but it's clear that he's still trying to find his new path and that he's just open to trying out research rather than making a rather bold claim that this was his new career path. Either that or do better in the foreshadowing where he shows he has a much clearer interest in academia but feels like he needs to be a champion like his brother.

Then there's Marnie who I've also stated was kind of screwed over. Because she made it rather clear to Piers she didn't want to be gym leader (which makes sense given that she saw how that position screwed over older brother that she admires). She's pretty much doing this because she still has the motivation to save her hometown which is extremely admirable and mature. But also it's sad, like if she didn't have to do this, would she honestly still be gym leader. I think not, at least not immediately. Considering that gym challengers can still compete on the big stage with the champion's cup rematches and some even can be invited to the Galarian Stars Tournament, I think if I had of written that I would've focused on how with Leon as the head of MC he's going to actually work with Spikemuth to revitalize without shouldering the responsibility on one single person, especially a minor. And let her be a roaming trainer and live for herself and not continue to be Spikemuth's martyr.

Then there's Bede who quite vocally states when crashing the Champion's Cup that he was ready to retire. Like poor boy goes from being used as Rose's wishing star collector and fall boy to Opal's reirement plan. Like yes it's great that Opal actually remembers his name and gives him a support system and teaches him some discipline. But still it's kind of sad as he was very much okay with retiring but more or less gets goaded into staying because of the stadium audience.

So this post got way longer than I what it was going to be but hey that happens. But yeah too long don't read, all of the rivals do have a goal, even if a lot of them end up as roaming trainers. If I'm honest in most cases (bar the gen 6 rivals because they lacked developent) the roaming trainer thing works. Because they're kids and they still have their whole lives ahead of them and they don't need to have concrete job just yet. Especially because in some cases the concrete plan just doesn't always fit the character. It works best when it feels like an organic part of the story and not just trying to wrap things up for the sake of wrapping things up.

Finally, to answer your question about how I deal with Blue. Well in my Pokeverse (dubbed cactusverse in case you see me refer to my AU as this), I tend to be fairly canon compliant to the games. So after he loses his champion title to Red he becomes Viridian gym leader, slightly patches things up with grandfather by helping with the research and eventuallya head of the Battle Tree as an adult once he gains the Battle Legend Status (which is an actual legitimate title in cactusverse held currently only by him, Red and Leaf, although one of my OCs gets this designation as well). So nothing that really deviates from canon except for some offscreen events. Basically the battle legend status is bestowed if a major event happens that is taken care of by an already established powerful trainer. So there's a rather major plot thing the Kanto Trio gets involved in that once they take care of gives them their status.

Also for cactusverse there's the whole issue of the Viridian City gym. So it eventually it gets passed down to Trace as Blue has shown that he's become a bit too powerful to be a gym leader. He was honestly when he first got it probably still a bit overkill for an 8th gym leader, but he also really needed an attitude adjustment. And with Lance being a far better father figure to him than Oak could ever dream of, with the help of Agatha tried to rein in his egotistical and self important ways by giving him the position. Which worked very well. Still in cactusverse there's rules on the win percentage a gym can have and that's determined by position. Win too many for your rank and you get moved, vice versa if you lose too many, and sometimes you might even lose your position. The first and last gym leaders are always the most at risk of losing their status. This actually happens to Wallace, Iris and eventually Raihan because they just end up exceeding the strength of most challengers who try to challenge them. Hence why all three of them end up champions at some point cactusverse (Raihan does not become Galar's champion, but Johto's champion since I really like the idea of him spreading his wings beyong Galar).

Blue between the time of BW2 and SM had ended up getting to a point that no one had gotten a gym badge off of him in a couple of years which is unacceptable by league standards and he would've gotten booted out sooner had Lance not personally asked my OC Terra to come kick his butt and get a badge off of him. And cue possibly the most iconic and brutal gym battles to have ever gone down in a region of outside of Galar because two heartbroken champion tier trainers, who broke each other's heart is a recipe for a frightening battle. Lance happened to referree that match and might be a little traumatized. Terra won and he was able to give out his last badge before Red came back from his latest global trip and said let's go to Alola.

[askkrenko]

Krenko’s Guide to Pokemon: Rattata Line

It’s rats. It’s always rats.

DESIGN: I have no respect for rattata’s design. It’s a purple rat. It has no distinguishing features, it doesn’t do anything special, it’s just a freaking rat. Yes, I’m fine with the idea of having a basic rat pokemon, but give it something. Almost no other pokemon is so ‘it’s just the real animal’ as Rattata. Further, the Rattata-> Raticate evolution doesn’t really flow. Sure, you can see how they have the same huge tooth and plenty of similarities, but it goes from this bipedal normal rat to this big fluffy monster of a rat (that admittedly I like a lot better.)  And it goes from a striking purple to a more normal rat color... Though Raticate’s fat body makes it stand out.

The Alolan versions are better, but not by much. Alolan Rattata has a moustache instead of whiskers, which is cool, and sort of spikey fluff, which I’m entirely apathetic to.  More importantly, Alolan Raticate shares a color scheme with it, and the sheer FATNESS to it makes it stand out against other cartoon rats. And there are so many other cartoon rats out there. Alolan Raticate feels like a unique pokemon design here in ways I’m unimpressed by the others.

EVOLUTIONS:  Rattata is a weak, 253 stat total pokemon with a 413 stat total evolution, and that’s it. Sure, it has an alternate form, but that doesn’t really do anything to interact with it, it just makes for more variety in the horrid Rattata builds. For normal gameplay, this is pretty alright. Rattata’s acceptable in the early game when you’re fighting bugs in the forest, and then relatively early on it turns into something on par with a second form starter. The problem is... that’s where it ends. For a fully evolved pokemon, that means it gets shoved into the box and forgotten forever, like Butterfree.  This is another pokemon that suffers from the ‘single player’ experience, because it’s honestly a valuable lesson to teach that some pokemon are just not going to be worth it long-term, and Rattata is very likely the first pokemon a lot of people catch, so it’s fair. Hell, even Blue has a raticate, uses it, and then discards it.  But what this does mean is that Raticate can’t progress competitively.

Balance-wise, Raticate doesn’t even need a Mega. It needs a third form. Rattata’s stat totals are such that it could reasonably evolve into something with a stat total of about 500 and still probably not even be ‘good.’ And it’s not as though adding new evolutions is something unusual in Pokemon. 

STATS, MOVES, AND ABILITIES:  Raticate’s stats are bad.  Its got decent speed, but other than that its highest stat is its 81 attack, which is what many competitive pokemon have as their lowest relevant stat. Alolan Raticate is even worse, its stats more balanced toward defense at the expense of attack and speed, but still without enough defense to stand up to any heavy attacks. 

Raticate’s moveset... Exists.  It has a reasonable lineup of physical normal and dark moves, which is what it wants, and with moves like Double-Edge and Sucker Punch, as well as Swords Dance, it could theoretically be a very powerful attacker. It can learn U-Turn, Zen Headbutt, and Stomping Trantrum for coverage, but we’re still talking about relatively weak moves there.

Raticate has two signature attacks; Super Fang and Hyper Fang. Super Fang just straight up deals damage equal to an opponent equal to half their current HP, which is honestly pretty cool but if you’re taking this thing into a serious battle you should be expecting to just physically attack an enemy for half its HP or more anyway.  Hyper Fang is a decent physical attack with a small chance to flinch, but still not the best normal-type attack Raticate can learn, so it doesn’t matter.  And then Gumshoos came along and was all ‘hey, I’m gonna learn your signature attack and have an ability that makes it do 50% more damage.’ So now Raticate is sad.

Where Raticate should be able to shine is its abilities, as it actually has a few good ones.  Both forms of Raticate can get Hustle, which increases physical damage by 50% at the expense if 20% accuracy. It’s a risk, sure, but 50% is a lot of bonus damage.  Guts, available to Kantonian Raticate, increases its damage output by 50% when afflicted with a status condition, and doesn’t suffer an attack reduction do to Burn. This of course requires a status condition, but Flame Orb exists if you just want to set your own rat on fire for bonus damage.  Alolan Raticate can also have Thick Fat which gives it resistance to Fire and Ice attacks.  It doesn’t really help with any specific strategy, but it’s always a nice option to have, especially when you’re talking about a pokemon who’s already immune to Ghost and Psychic attacks from its Normal/Dark typing and resistant to Dark. 

This is the part where I suggest a moveset, but frankly, a Raticate moveset will always be bad for competetive battles.

Take Double Edge with Hustle or Facade with Guts. Grab Sucker Punch as a Dark Type move.  Grab Swords Dance because you’ll need it to do enough damage to matter. Then take U-Turn so you can switch Raticate out for a pokemon that matters. Your goal with Raticate is to suicidally charge full tilt into the enemy and hope you do enough damage to make it sad. STAB Double Edge or Facade+Flame Orb is going to hurt you, but it’s the only way to make Raticate do anything.

...One thing Raticate does have going for it, though? Doesn’t really have many weaknesses. Sure it’s going to crumple to a straight punch to the face, but you don’t have to worry too much about super-effective attacks.

Okay, I’m in full ramble mode here, so, to sum up: Raticate has solid abilities, but a lackluster moveset and overall low stats keep it from being competitive. Considering it’s a gen 1 pokemon, it’s surprising it hasn’t gotten a new evolution yet.

[whats-ahead]

The most difficult fankid: Len Birch

Happy birthday to Len! In the past week we work shopped Len again and I don’t even think I made a post about the last time we did because I forgot so here’s current Len and some of the process of how it’s come to these changes. Things hopefully won’t change but it’s Len so it might 

Fun fact, did you know Axel and Len used to be the same character? Years ago (before we started this blog) we had a single chess kid. For reasons we decided to split them into two different characters. One stayed a chess kid (Axel) and we weren’t quiet sure on what to do with the other.

We eventually decided we liked the idea of Brendan as his dad. But that counteracted the fact we really wanted Len to live in Castelia. Mainly due to the fact he was a city kid when him and Axel used to be the same person. It was also due to the fact he was close to Hilda and needed to be somewhere for him to meet. 

So for a while we were just ‘okay his mom is going to be someone from Unova we’ll decide later’. It took long enough for us decide that I named a tomodachi life character in 2013 ‘Unova’ as the placeholder (yes I made all of the adults and forced them together for our kids in tomodachi life). 

Shortly after the ORAS contest designs we thought ‘oh this is perfect we can have Brendan do this for a short while, meet yancy, and have a kid with her’. It’s a crackship it doesn’t need much for it work. We specifically choose Yancy because she was an idol from Unova and fit. If we wanted it to make sense we would’ve chosen Lisia, a contest idol from his region.

Now why is this all relevant? Because we’re scrapping Len (and Larentia as a result) living in Unova all together now. Living in Castelia only made sense for Yancy out of the 4 of them so there wasn’t any point of keeping it? At this point we only kept it so Len would be forced to meet Axel and Lloyd (before was before Axel and Len were a ship if you’ve been following us long enough you’ll remember originally we had Len and Charlotte and scrapped that years ago) but they meet other ways so we really didn’t need to force that. Logically we should change ships to Brendan and Lisia but we like our crackship too much and our Lisia specifically goes out of her way to not have kids so it doesn’t work.

Now the Birch’s live on route 104. Specifically Mr. Briney’s old house. Which is right outside of Petalburg (where 3 other kids in hoenn live). Which of course changes a few things.

Larentia and Gale have always been good friends (another thing that used to be a ship that we scrapped simply because it just was not vibing with us). If anything they’re just closer now. Larentia originally only became a ranger because she knew Gale was there and hated living in Unova (they moved when she was 9 originally so she was never there long). Now she just goes because she misses her buddy.

The biggest change this cases is Adele and Len are now childhood friends. Which is something that logically should’ve always been a thing but we kept avoiding it for whatever reason. The ketchem’s move there when Adele’s 5 and the two become friends quickly. And of course Adele and Brendan are still BFFs (best fucking friends).

We also changed Len’s team. Len now only has a poochyena and we’re scrapping the rockruff/dog team. He befriended said poochyena when with his grandfather and it was scaring his grandfather and his thought was ‘oh this is a friend I’m going to keep it’. 

Because Len only have one mon now that makes contests (for when he does them) more difficult. It cases some issues in his first year but eventually he gets the hang of it. The bigger hung up is grand festivals require 3 or more pokemon so for those he’ll borrow (with permission) his dad’’s, mom’s, and sister’s pokemon. This also means we’re changing his design. We haven’t decided to what yet though. 

Other changes we’ve made that I don’t think I put on here (from the last rehaul not this one). Len only does contests for 4 years he’s traveling, he decides while he likes it theoretically he’s more of a supporter then someone who wants to do it. Then while he’s taking a year off for his sister he ends up joining (and quitting) the poke idol stars reboot while it’s still in development phases. Decides he doesn’t like doing that either and settles on becoming a connoisseur by suggestion of his sister.

Also he Axel Llloyd and 2 npcs have a online dnd group. Len dms while everyone else is a party memeber. Axel and Lloyd obviously know each other but everyone else sees each other as online friends. Axel figures out Len is their online friends right away but Len and Lloyd don’t figure it out till a couple of years. 

For how this changes the timeline it goes the following it

2034-2035 

Len and Adele do (regular) contests in Hoenn together. Len struggles a lot because he’s stubborn and refuses to change the way he wants to do things. Only Adele makes it to the grand festival so the two decided they’re going to try to do their own thing for a year.

2035-2036

Len goes to Galar to try out contest spectacular. There he meets Lloyd and Axel for the first time (in person). Because Axel can tell Len is the DM (through things he mentioned online that related to Len as well as his voice) right away and asks him to join him and Lloyd. Len agrees

Adele, not wanting to travel alone after traveling with her buddy convinces Autumn to travel in Johto with her when she learns she’s also in Johto. The two do super contests together. As for Autumn’s crush on Adele this is when it hits it’s highest and lowest point. At the start Autumn’s all ‘this is great we get to spend so much time together’ and the more time she spends with Adele the more she realizes she prefers her as a friend and grows out of her crush

Also during this time Adele and Harley become texting buddies because it’s a thing Adele always gets along with at least 1 of her traveling companions dad’s and May and Drew’s reaction to them being friends is too funny to pass up

2036-2037

After splitting up Adele and Len decided to go back to traveling with each other in Sinnoh for super contests. This is when they originally meet so much (if anything) changes minus the fact they don’t meet for the first time

2037-2038

(regular) contests in Kanto. Again this doesn’t change much from how it was before

2038-2039

This is when Adele and Len take a year off. Adele to mourn for Gale and Len because he’s worried about his sister who just got in an accident. 

Adele stays for around half a year and ends up traveling (without doing contests) with Jean and Bridge for the second half. 

Len gets offered a job through his mom to be part of the poke idol stars (often referred to as just pokestars) reboot. He takes it and is the center of Treaty for a short while with Noel and Kitty

His pokemon is a shiny poochyena (so sadly cannot use his own pokemon for the role)

He quits right before the reboot game releases which causes a lot of issues. He needed a replacement but fans didn’t want the exact character replaced so they made a new member for treaty

It’s scout he was pulled in by Marina for the role (yes this pisses Penny off) last minute and his character is a shiny pancham (gotta replace the only shiny with another shiny

Because of this his character didn’t get content at the release and was added a bit later. This made fans feels bad for him (as the voice not the character) and he quickly became the most popular voice actor of those introduced in the reboot. He lets the fame get to his head, stops talking to penny and then that plot line

2039-2040

Len’s done with contests and doesn’t want to be an idol. His sister suggests he becomes a connoisseur and he takes to that quickly. Like contests he’s doing his own thing and not following the exact root for that but he still manages to do his own thing well (eventually takes the root of becoming a teacher/guidance counselor)

Still wants to go back to traveling so he joins Adele who’s doing contest spectacular. Charlotte and Elise are here too.

I think that is everything. If anyone has any specific questions about how this changes things/relationships between characters feel free to ask! If anything it’ll make us develop this further and hopefully stick to this 

[catflowerqueen]

How did Paula Evolve?

I’ve been thinking more about Hidden in Plain Sight and my post on why Paula’s evolution made the guild think she was older than she actually was, and I’ve realized that, given the way pichu usually evolve, coupled with all the barriers to evolution that pokemon would be facing at this point in the story… this might actually be a contributing factor to why Wigglytuff and Chatot are initially so worried about what Paula’s home life was like before she tells them about the lesser-known aspects of the Torterra Guild. 

Outside of the Mystery Dungeon games, pichu only evolve with high friendship. Given this restriction, one would assume that it would take a while for such friendships to form—possibly even years—so you wouldn’t really see pikachu as young as Paula is—or, at the very least, she would be right on the edge of it as far as relative ages go. This is even more true in my stories, where pokemon age at around the same rate as humans. The thing is, that’s not the method that pichu use in the Mystery Dungeon games—instead, it relies on IQ, which can be increased via eating gummis. While that makes sense as a game mechanic, it’s a little weird to rely solely on that for story purposes. So, in this case, it’s probably some mix of the two—knowledge and experience mixed with relationships. The thing is… normally it takes a pichu a lot longer to gain those things naturally—because while they would be getting the relationship boost from their parents since day one, retention of knowledge and memories doesn’t really happen until toddlerhood, and gaining the experience that evolution takes into account wouldn’t really start until the kid was old enough/big enough to fight or to start attending school/otherwise getting lessons. Paula, then, would be right on the outskirts of that—old enough to theoretically have some schooling, but young enough that no one would think that she’s ”graduated” to the minimal levels that one would normally see in a pikachu—especially one who is alone, considering that, due to the necessity of close relationships to evolve in the first place, most newly-evolved pikachu would still be around the family and friends who helped them reach evolution in the first place.

And as close as she is to Laura, they know that she can’t be the one whose relationship helped Paula reach evolution, since not only did they both admit that they met each other basically hours before joining the guild (not to mention that the rest of the guild had already figured this out for themselves, given that Paula had made it up to the grate and then run away due to fear/nervousness many times before she actually joined), but places like Luminous Spring had stopped working a while before any of the other negative effects of time stopping showed up. Now, we don’t know exactly how long that was, but it was definitely long enough that people noticed—meaning that Paula would have been even younger when she evolved, and definitely longer than the bare minimum age for the normal occurrence that she is now. Especially when you consider Paula’s personality and general confidence issues before meeting Laura. The only time you would see it happening younger… is if something had gone really, really wrong.

Now, if the requirement was just general knowledge, or even fighting skills, that would be one thing. Considering everything the two managed to do, it wouldn’t be wrong to consider them prodigies—and we already know from the Igglybuff special episode that baby pokemon can be incredibly strong. So even though Laura and Paula are obviously not at the level Wigglytuff was back then, it would be easy to assume something similar was going on, and that Paula had just managed to find an evolution location earlier than Wigglytuff did (although we don’t actually know how long he stayed an igglybuff or jigglypuff). And they already know that Paula is smart and well-studied, considering that she knows how to read footprint runes. The issue, then, becomes the relationship aspect. For a pichu to reach that point that young, and then to (at least seemingly, since it is entirely possible that Paula was writing letters or something without their knowledge… event though I’ve already established that she wasn’t, since her parents and brother didn’t know she’d graduated before Ricky came to get her for the reunion and she hadn’t heard anything about Felix since right before leaving home, as she was eager to swap stories with him) not be around the person whose relationship helped her… then either something traumatic happened to make her lose them (with the implication being that it was the process of losing them which strengthened the bonds enough to the point that counted despite the shortened timespan), or the relationship involved… let’s just say, the sort of thing that Igglybuff’s parents thought was going on when they heard about their son hanging out with an outlaw, or the sort of thing that Drowzee was doing before being reformed, only to a greater and even more sinister degree. The sort of thing that creates a very false/wrong sort of bond that only counts because the pichu in question is too young to know any better/different.

Now, this isn’t to say that it’s impossible for a good sort of relationship bond to form in a short period of time—something like, say, an intense summer camp experience could do the same thing. It’s just a lot rarer, and typically still involves something extremely intense happening to cement the bond, which can still cause its own scars. (Or such as finding an amnesiac, former human on the beach, fighting through a cave with them in order to get back a sentimental object, and then agreeing to form a team with them both to help them out and to fulfill your own dreams). The point being, while it is, technically, possible for a pichu to attain evolution at a young age using the usual, healthy methods… its still really rare, and throws up a bunch of red flags that Wigglytuff and Chatot would definitely notice upon getting the chance to sit down and breathe after hearing Paula’s true age—such as during their journey back to the guild.

And the thing is… while they’re definitely on the wrong track as far as Paula having any sort of tragic past goes… they’re not wrong in thinking that she’s way too young to have attained the necessary condition for a normal pichu evolution considering that she didn’t actually evolve in the normal way. Her method of evolution was actually closer to what happened with Dusknoir and Grovyle—although she doesn’t quite realize it yet, and may not for some time. It’s actually part of why she was so confused about the fact that you could evolve at Luminous Spring. Considering that she is a pikachu, let’s all just agree that her—and other pikachu Partners of other Players—confusion and lack of knowledge about evolution even being a thing was just an in-game thing as a way to explain the mechanic. Her actual confusion in my stories just came from the fact that she was unaware of the usual method of evolution, since what happened to her was outside the norm.

See… given the normal progression of evolution in the raichu-line, parents don’t typically tell their kids about evolution until they’re a little older, likely after they’ve made a few close friends, or seen others evolve when they couldn’t, due to their specific requirements. Even then, many just stop at the pikachu stage, since you need an item to go further and those can often be expensive/hard to find unless you know an explorer. But given the age gap between Paula and Ricky, she probably wasn’t as curious or concerned about his evolution into a pikachu as she might have been otherwise, simply assuming that it was just something that happened to older kids. And since she seemed to struggle a little bit making friends outside of her cousin Felix (though, that was partially due to her being far more serious about her interest in exploring that most other kids, and, therefore, spending a lot more time studying than they wanted to put up with), her parents knew—or, rather, thought—that she would be a late bloomer.

But then… she had a little adventure of her own, and by her own… and found the Relic Fragment. And part of the reason she considers it her treasure—the main reason, really—is because right after she found it… she evolved into the pikachu she is today. (Given that, though… I suppose, in a sense, she did meet the typical requirements after all. She was already well on her way in terms of general knowledge, and the Relic Fragment is the cause of an extremely close bond… it’s just that it happened a bit out of chronological order. Though, given what the fragment is a key to… I guess it’s not really all that surprising that it wouldn’t take the typical progression of time into account.)

Now, considering that she was, in fact, close to her cousin Felix, and often went on little explorations, her sudden evolution may have been a surprise to her parents/the other adults around her, but it wouldn’t have been too shocking—they would have just figured that she was closer to her cousin than the initially thought and that she’d accidentally stumbled upon the usual location people from their area used when evolving. She may have gotten a light scolding about wandering too far away, but that’s about it. They may or may not have even bothered to explain what usually happens when pichu evolve—and I’m leaning towards a no, considering her confusion at Luminous Spring and the way I can use her lack of knowledge to mildly baffle Wigglytuff and Chatot after they clear up the misconceptions about any unpleasantness in her past—and the only explanation she got about how to attain the raichu stage was that it required an item in addition to the “usual method”—which they assumed she knew, since they assumed she had evolved normally. But really, she didn’t/wouldn’t/won’t figure it out until after her graduation, when a certain hushed conversation between her parents about” how glad they were that they had saved up and given Ricky that evolution item when they did, and that—despite their initial worries about him rushing into the decision—he had used it to evolve immediately afterwards considering that another cousin had tried to evolve yesterday but could not, despite definitely meeting the requirements, and that hopefully the issue would be fixed by the time they had saved up again to buy another one or one of their kids found one during an exploration for Paula to use,” will suddenly make a lot more sense.

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)

[cynthiaandsamus]

Game Blondes Crystal Clear Nuzlocke Part 2: A Shining Chance!

“Hey I’m blonde!”

“…I’m also blonde.”

“AND WE’RE THE GAME BLONDES!!”

(Game Blondes Logo by @game-overture)

“Welcome back! So last time on Game Blondes we started our freeroam Crystal Clear Nuzlocke, our rat died in our first battle but we got a lot of other pokemon to replace it, fought a dude with a Shiny Ponyta and made our way halfway across Johto to fuck around. Now we’re gonna go check out Goldenrod since the dude with the Ponyta mentioned it and see if we can start nailing down some badges.”

“Okay so just a note about this game, seems like the trainer battles scale to your badges but the wild pokemon stay around the level they would be… considering the Hoothoot and Psyduck you caught last episode were in the early teens and you still have zero badges.” Cynthia pondered.

“So technically I could just run into a field way down the line and catch something super powerful and ram through the whole game?”

“Well theoretically, as long as you could manage to catch it and manage to live with yourself for cheesing the game that represents my life’s work and career.”

“…fine, fine. Spoilsport…” Samus huffed. “Anyway, I’m making my way down from Ecruteak to Goldenrod, getting a few levels on Danny that Gastly from this guy with four Voltorbs that can’t even touch him. Gonna see if we can find that restaurant the DOOM guy mentioned and if not I’ll see if I can get a gym badge or something. Got a few levels on everyone from all the trainers on this route and got the TM for Rollout, that’s a fun move.”

“You won’t think so later…” Cynthia snickered.

“Well we’re in Goldenrod… shit this is Whitney’s town!?”

“Yup, welcome to Rolloutville, population you.”

“Should we save this gym for last for the memes? I mean that’d be an epic final battle.”

“I’m game, anything to put off going against that crazy cow lady…” Samus grumbled as she searched the town. “Well the train’s here so I can get to Saffron and Kanto, it’d be funny if I got Sabrina for my first badge, bet it’d piss her off to get beaten by a level 10 Gastly.” She chuckled.

“I wouldn’t tease Sabrina too much, she can beat you up without touching you…”

“I’ll hold off on it for now if only because I already have a lot to explore that I’m skipping over and Saffron is ridiculously big. At least I got a bike to travel it a bit faster. Oh and an Eevee sitting on a table, lemme take that…”

“Hang on, lemme see that Eevee real quick…” Cynthia took the controls with a grin.

-10 Minutes Later-

“HOLY SHIT IT’S SHINY! How’d you do that!?” Samus gasped.

“Weren’t you paying attention to the tutorial? Shockslayer said Gift pokemon have a higher shiny rate and the game saves before you pick them up for soft resetting, so if you get a good rhymn down you can reset a lot real quick and get a shiny.”

“That is so cool! I love you Cynthia! I got a White Eevee!”

“This counts as part of your birthday present, I’m not helping you any further.”

“Fine fine.” Samus grinned, absolutely giddy with the white fluffball. “I’m gonna name you… Norman. Cause you’re Normal-type and a smart little white fluffball and we’ve been watching The Promised Neverland lately.”

“Hopefully that’s not an omen for this Nuzlocke…”

“Ah shit is this accidentally in bad taste?” Samus winced. “Well time to go Underground and explore some more of the shops and punch some of these trainers in the throat.”

“…no wonder the Pokemon League denied your application to become a trainer.”

“Well I got a coin case and it looks like this guy is blocking the path to the other hallway so I’ll leave him alone for now, I’ve been warned that some of these guys have huge teams that can wipe me out…”

“Yeah, I read there’s a level 100 Magikarp somewhere in Kanto’s early game, so be on the lookout for steamrollers…”

“Well since I got the Coin Case might as well check out the game corner…”

“Holy crap you can just buy a Master Ball if you have enough coins! And a Lucky Egg too! I definitely don’t have enough time for that but that’s really cool!”

“And you can get some pretty cool pokemon too… too bad you already have Eevee so you can’t get any more pokemon for this town…”

“That’s fine, I’m very content with my Shiny Eevee, lemme get some coins though…”

(Mun Note: Due to Standards and Practices we are not allowed to show Samus gambling in case you’re in a country that hates it)

-One Gambling Montage Later-

 “Well I doubled my coins and officially hate gambling, so  let’s go check out the Department store, I’m sure there’s some cool stuff there, only got that, the Radio Tower and the gym left so almost time to be on our way.”

“Yay! Shopping spree!”

“Oh sweet, here’s the Tradeback NPC, he can evolve my guys, I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get an Upgrade for Porygon.”

“Well there it is, you just need more money…”

“Well I’ll save up and come back, I’ll let Polly stay as she is for now, can’t have my baby growing up too fast. We don’t even have a single badge yet.”

“Damn that’s right, we’ve just been derping around for an episode and a half…”

“Well we found a bunch of TMs at the shop here, keep those in mind, damn I really am broke…  Just gonna stock up on balls, check the radio tower and get out of here before Whitney crushes me for dawdling in her town…”

“Oh wow, an Event Move Tutor, you can learn all those weird moves they give out at events, give it a try and get your pokemon some broken moves~” Cynthia giggled.

“Well Polly learned Barrier, Norman learned Growth and Hooters learned Night Shade, so that’s all cool.” Samus grinned. “Got me some custom pokemon~ Making my way up the tower got a point for the Password radio game thing,  got a Sunny Day TM and a Pink Bow, that’s perfect for Polly, now she can feel even more like a girl and power up her Normal-type moves.”

“Your Trans Porygon is really cute.”

“Give the Amulet Coin Polly was holding to Norman now and at the top of the tower is this CHAOS guy who says he’s the new director of the station and wants to battle… here goes nothing I guess.”

“He… just has a level four Delibird… that’s not very intimidating for a custom trainer for this mod.”

“You have literally no badges and have been picking up pokemon left and right, feel like you’re a bit OP for this early in the game…” Cynthia sighed.

“Well he has a Cleffa too and I got some good money from it, guess that was worth it.  And I got a Nugget, so guess that was just a money pitstop. Well that’s it for Goldenrod, couldn’t find the restaurant but time to go to the next route and catch a new pokemon…”

-A bunch of pokemon Samus has already caught later-

“Oh wow a Ditto! And right next to the Daycare too! Guess I know what this guy was there for…” Cynthia chuckled.

“FUCK it took like all my balls but I got it… why did I want this thing again?”

“Breeding?”

“Breeding!? This is a children’s game I’m not gonna make my monsters have sex, what kind of sick fucks are you trainers?”

“Well you have it now so that’s good.”

“I’ll name it “Brothel” …for obvious reasons. I really need to get some badges so these trainers stop having level like six pokemon.”

“Then pick a gym already.”

“Fine, next town we go to I’ll fight the gym there. Just getting through this forest and catching this Oddish (nicknamed Oddball).  Got the Headbutt TM so I can punch trees like this is Minecraft.”

“Ahhh a Dark Souls reference last time and Minecraft now, soon we’ll be a regular mainstream Let’s Play streamer.”

“Awww man, Bulbasaur pops up here! We could’ve caught the mun if they showed up first!”

(Sad Bulbamun noises)

“This girl says Kurt knows about the Forest Guardian, so better head into town to see what that’s about… oh neat, I don’t have to wait to get Apricorn balls, this guy in Kurt’s house sells them for money.”

“And Kurt passed you off onto Professor Oak about the Forest Guardian thing… sounds like a fetch quest to me…” Cynthia sighed.

“Might as well squash some bugs for my first gym, I mean Bugs seem like a fitting start to me.”

“I mean Bug-types aren’t the most powerful but Bugsy does the best with what he can…”

“Alright Hooters, you’re a bird, you’re in charge of the bug squishing duty.”

“Well he’s got a Scyther at least, that’s cool, but he’s still no match for Hooters!”

“Wow that was quick, you and your boob-themed owl are unstoppable.”

“Well he did poison Hooters and get her down a bit, so if I’m not careful she could faint on the way back to the gym, but I did get my first badge so hopefully stuff gets more challenging from here~ One badge down, seven to go.”

“Fifteen.”

“…what?”

“Crystal Clear has both Kanto and Johto gyms in it, there are sixteen badges, you have fifteen left.”

“…well shit, I better get cracking…”

“Looks like you got a call from the Pokemon League too, they say if you’re in Johto to visit Sprout Tower to get something cool, a “FLASHy” reward… subtle and to go pay your respects in Ilex Forest, that’s probably to do with the sidequest we stumbled on earlier.”

“Well I’m starting to move up in the world, they gotta start recognizing me! Well might as well go down to this Slowpoke Well and catch something. Ooooh there’s breakable rocks here, I’ll teach Dudette Rock Smash and break one to see if I find something cool~

“OH FUCKLE, A SHUCKLE!”

“CRAP! I killed it, it gave me an Encore so I couldn’t get out of the loop… ugh, oh well, guess there’s no use crying over spilled Shuckle. Guess that’s all I can do in the Well without Strength for now… Might as well work my way back up to Violet Town and go to Sprout Tower like the League said, even if I don’t want to go in order, getting that reward would probably be good and get me some more pokemon along the way.”

“Well you killed that Zubat too, so no new pokemon on this route either.”

“WHY DOES EVERYTHING I TOUCH DIE!?”

“At least you caught that Whooper (named Whoop) in Union Cave.”

“Well Whoop de doo. A few battles later and I’m back in Violet City. I didn’t wanna do these gyms in order but I guess doing Flying-types second would be fine since I’m here anyway and have the pokemon for it…I need to get more badges to increase trainer levels so I’m not too OP right away.”

“Dudette, you’re in charge, kill these birds with one stone.”

“Well you’re the same level so I guess you’re not too overleveled, you just have a serious type advantage.” Cynthia sighed.

“Well took down his Pidgey but damn, wasn’t expecting Pidgeotto to have Mud Slap, Dudette’s in the red and her accuracy has gone to shit, better switch out. Do your best Poly! Alright! Two Psybeams and Pidgeotto is down~”

“Another badge and another call from the Pokemon League.”

“This time a warning about not watering wiggling trees, so you can probably get the watering can from that girl we saw in Goldenrod, plus a message about getting Cut from the Charcoal guy in Azalea Town and a note that Professor Elm is very generous so we should probably go back to him too.”

“Okay so we’re doing pretty good for this little neck of Johto, lemme make a list real quick of our goals.

1.       Go up Sprout Tower and get the reward

2.       Go back to Professor Elm and get a reward

3.       Get Cut from the Charcoal dude

4.       Squirt Trees

5.       Talk to Professor Oak about Ilex Forest shit

6.       ???

7.       Profit

“Sounds about right to me, looks like we have a lot to do… NEXT TIME ON GAME BLONDES!”

Samus’s Journey So Far:

(Color-coding the path by episode for now, may or may not continue to do this depending on if it’s a pain in the ass when it starts getting bigger)

Samus’s Current Team:

[punkbakugo]

Does Bakugou actually say fuck? Does he swear at all? If so how much?

this is kind of a tricky question and one i get somewhat often so i’m gonna try to explain this the best that i can.

first off i’m gonna quote a really good article about localization and japanese to english translation i’ve read recently:

Basically, Japanese doesn’t use “swearing” as we do. Instead, Japanese consists of multiple politeness levels, and depending on your social standing between you and the speaker, your intent, and such stuff, you pick from the appropriate politeness level. You talk up to your teachers for example, while a department head at a company will talk down to his subordinates. There are different levels, and one of the lowest levels to talk to someone is the closest equivalent to our swearing.

A quick example of “eat”. Here are a bunch of different levels of telling someone to eat.

Omeshiagari kudasaimase

Omeshiagatte kudasai

Tabete kudasai

Tabete kure

Tabete

Tabero

Kue

The proper word to use depends on who’s talking, who’s being spoken to, what their relationship is, what the intent is, and other context things. By going against what’s proper, you can talk rudely, which is what swearing accomplishes in our language (and other similar languages).

Even words like “kuso” have multiple translations, you could call it the “shit” in one case, while in other case it could be as harmless as “dang it!”. You’d even hear “kuso” in Pokemon anime I’m sure, for example. I know I heard it in Beyblade often enough.

Because all of this is so subjective, swearing in translation can vary pretty crazily depending on the translator. Generally, the more experience, the better the swearing turns out. That’s why with fan translations (particularly anime and manga) you tend to see tons of swearing in what would seem to be kids’ shows or what have you.

Also, because of all this, I really doubt the Japanese rating system takes this politeness level stuff into account, since it occurs everywhere in Japanese entertainment. It’s also not taboo. You don’t want to talk in everyday situations the way they do in entertainment, but you’re not going to go to hell or get your mouth soaped if you use the wrong level.

(and if you have any interest in this kind of thing i’d really recommend reading the whole article sometime. it’s on the localization process of the fan translation of the game Mother 3 and the guy clearly put a lot of thought and care into it which i really appreciate. also i can empathize w/ the level of nitpicking lol. spoiler warning for the first chapter of Mother 3 tho)

so to answer your questions in order: not in a literal sense since there’s no real direct japanese equivalent (other than the actual english word fuck which, no, he doesn’t use lol) so it depends on the translator, he does but i have an issue with how much some translators have him swear, and it once again depends on the translator

to elaborate: bakugou uses ‘kuso’ pretty liberally in ways that i would definitely consider swearing (tho the intensity of it greatly varies) but a lot of what has been translated as swearing isn’t actually that, it’s the way he talks. honestly speaking, i think defaulting to swearing is a lazy way to get across coarse speech patterns but on a theoretical level i don’t have issue with some of bakugou’s coarser speech patterns being translated as him swearing and in fact there are times i myself would translate lines as him swearing if i were localizing instead of directly translating. but it has to be done thoughtfully. so what i have an issue with is how liberal and careless fan translators tend to be about it.

and what i mean by that is they don’t look at the context of what he’s saying, who he’s saying it to, his tone, and how it compares to how he speaks at “baseline”. he’s got different levels. and bakugou’s baseline is impolite, yes, but you also have to keep in mind that that’s kind of the default for a lot of guys in shounen manga (and i’ve said this before but characters in japanese entertainment don’t talk like real people). my friend @tobjo made a post about this the other day that i wholeheartedly agree w/ and like she said, todoroki also speaks pretty impolitely but he’s never translated as saying fuck every two words.

an example of something that sometimes gets translated as swearing is the use of ‘てめェ/temee’ which is literally just a rude way to say ‘you.’ the thing is, bakugou uses it pretty casually so whether or not i find it a valid translation choice to have him swear in the sentence is entirely based on context

this translation, for instance, i think is perfect. it shows that he’s speaking gruffly without being explicit. (well, if i were the one localizing it i would’ve gone with “Hey, kid. You too, go participate.” but y’know. details.) now, this is mangastream which is pretty hit or miss w/ the bakugou localization and there are definitelyparts where i think they overdo it but nothing is as bad as FA which added so much unnecessary bs that i feel like they were just actively trying to be edgy (let’s not forget the time they had shigaraki call magne a transphobic slur for no fucking reason! real cool!)

classy. another casual use of temee where i wouldn’t even put light swearing.

left is FA, right is viz. the original is “てめェらの’個性’知らねぇ 何だ!?” which, if you were to ask me to localize rather than just directly translate, i would translate to something like “I don’t even know what your quirks are! The hell!?” because that’s what feels organic to me here. (and the goal of any good localization should be to a) get the feeling of the original text across accurately and b) make sure dialogue feels organic)

but go through FA translations and you’ll see 394843985 instances of ott swearing and nastiness where bakugou’s not even using coarser language in the original text like the panel where “fuckwipe” came from in the above mentioned ch.117 title where bakugou literally just said “oi” lmao

and some translations like the one mentioned in the above linked post still carry on this tradition of excessive swearing bc FA ingrained it so deeply into the fandom

basically my point is you can absolutely choose to translate bakugou as casually swearing and to what extent is dependent on the person’s taste (and skill level) but translations that are too liberal and excessive with it tend to push an image of him being overly volatile and juvenile rather than just a teen w/ a sailor’s mouth or something of that ilk. it warps his character. no thought or care is put into it and i get the feeling they don’t realize that there are ways to be gruff or even abrasive other than swearing and insults and ways to swear other than saying ‘fuck’ all the time lol (and some people really just do not know what a person that swears a lot actually sounds like)

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon Black 2 Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 5]

Half the badges means halfway finished, right?

No. No, it never means that.

The squad:

Caspet (Haunter)

Puff (Dratini)

Nessy (Milotic)

Boruto (Ninjask)

Omchomp (Eelektrik)

I’m rooting for you, team.

Hello Pirate Plasma.

One of them has a Watchdog.

Caspet, kill.

Good Caspet.

And so the day is saved! Thanks to... Me and Russell!

Oh, wait, hold off on the exclamation points. Russell is giving the sad backstory talk about how his little sister was given a Purrloin as a gift, then Team Plasma stole it. Cue Russell feeling so sad and helpless, and now he wants to be strong and not helpless, and believes in the power of friendship backing him up.

It’s like Nintendo took every single villain code it could get its hands on and threw it on a good big bro who depends on his buddies.

Aw heck I think I need to have a Rotation Battle with Hearbreaker Charles before the bridge opens up. Also known as that battle type that takes three pokemon. Hoo boy. Okay. Let’s. Let’s try this.

It could and has been worse.

Hey, success. Nice work, Caspet. Sorry Puff gets all the exp from it. He’s smol. He needs it.

Bridge opened up, so that means... new friend time!

Duuuuuuude!

Want.

Hey hey hey hey I caught him!

Now what’re we naming you... Vertex!

Say what you will, Pokemon mook villains are charming as heck with some of their dialogue. You kids would have so much fun larping. Stop bringing real theft into it and have a grand ol’ time.

The Knight Plasma promises to tell me a story about the conflict if I visit their house. I shall do that momentarily. For now, the Pokemon Center calleth.

Okay it’s been a lot of weeks since that last sentence, so I really need to read up a bit and see where I’m at.

Hm.

I’m gonna wander around training stuff. Boruto needs a move that isn’t Leech Life.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT’S WINTER! THE GAME SAYS IT’S WINTER!

SNOW!

SNOW.

Oh, and I guess I should check that I have Poke Balls.

Yeah, okay, good.

Exploring time.

There’s this hotel on this block that I have zero memory of.

Exploration indicates that’s because there’s nothing of value in it.

We ended up fighting Charles again and now Caspet knows Shadow Ball. I might cry. Thank you, Caspet. Thank you for being alive.

Hope. It beckons.

But that means it’s time for Boruto to have the Exp. Share.

Cool, I don’t care.

Oh, in a battle.

Hoo boy. Fingers crossed.

Sure, let’s do this.

Level 27 Herdier. Not too bad, then.

...It knows Crunch.

That takes Caspet down to almost half, so Vertex can start earning his keep against the Swoobat. Good boy, Vertex, you didn’t die. Yay.

Russell appears and sad talks about former Team Plasma folks trying to do right happen. They are sad and Russell is sad and it’s all very sad.

Aw dang it. Rood offers us a Zorua. We don’t get to take it because it isn’t randomized. So much sadness all in this one building. In a weird way I’m sort of happy to see more of Knight Team Plasma. Some of them really were on N’s side, and some of them really did realize that pokemon could be their friends. It’s an oversimplification, but it’s really sweet.

I can’t go south until I have the town badge, which I can’t get because Clay’s off doing Clay things somewhere.

Gimme something that won’t die, game.

My team is going to be nothing but Electric types by the end. Also lol I forgot to heal I am suddenly much happier that this is a Pikachu.

Pikachu’s new name is Rynalds. Bye forever, Rynalds.

Cofagrigus was also an option.

Welp.

There’s also Exploud. And Alakazam.

Cool, I have a Moon Stone now.

...How the heck am I supposed to train my party. Exp. Share and letting the big kids handle it is the surest path to insanity I can come up with, but I seriously need my team to be useful beyond its top two.

Boruto still doesn’t know anything useful.

You know what he does know now?

Swords Dance.

You are a disappointment to Boruto’s Dad, Boruto. Which I guess is me, in this universe.

I’ve reached the dark grass, so let’s see if there are easier training opportunities here.

Dusknoir! Hey, I had one of you! Flaffy, Bastiodon, Tirtouga, Volcarona

Puff’s going to take the lead and Dragon Rage things to death while I’m next to a healing house. He’s going to need a ton of exp anyway, he might as well contribute to the cause of his friends.

None of you have good moves. Caspet better not die.

...Okay, five minutes into this, do I have any good TMs...?

No. I do not.

We enter the cave for hope of a change in fortune.

!

And it’s a male Ralts!

...Wait. Do I have a Dawn Stone?

I see this theoretically ending very sadly for me.

Caught, though. His new name is Diego and he will be very loved.

. . . . . . . .

-stumbles through the door several months later-

Ultra Sun possessed all my interest and my Nuzlocke ways got put on hold for flying through wormholes. So it’s been way too long, but since this is done over text that’s not too obvious, right?

Oh, and during my off-time, it wasn’t something I looked up thanks to that being against the rules, but I remembered that it’s Caspet’s Poison typing that’s a problem against Psychic. Yay for that brief mystery concluding.

Now where the heck am I.

Right. Grinding and caves and not quite ready to talk to Bianca.

And it’s Summer now, according to the game’s clock. I wish that were true in the outside world as well. It’s cold.

If I had a Dawn Stone, I think I would add Diego to the squad. Omchomp is beloved and etc., but I won’t claim to be horribly attached, and Ralts’ every evolution has a spot in my heart that Pokemon Go can’t fill because I’m not wasting 100 candy on anything less than 93% perfection.

Only as much as I love Gardevoir, Gallade is so cool and I only get to pick one, aaaand... Yeah, okay, nothing’s being swapped out yet. Back to grinding. Back to hoping that Boruto learns literally any STAB attack.

Why does this keep happening. Ah, and this is not something Puff should be anywhere near. Arguably nothing on my team should be anywhere near it. #grinding_problems.

You know, I’m beginning to remember why I wasn’t in a hurry to pick this run back up.

Boruto learns Slash.

Heck, I’ll take it.

Uh oh.

Oooooooh I am become error.

The logic behind this was that Puff’s been in front against Kyurem constantly before Nessy gets switched in, and all it ever uses is Ancient Power. If it had anti-Dragon stuff, it’d be using it, right?

Hoo boy.

Sorry, Puff.

Like. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember much of you, and I’m kind of relieved I’m not stuck with something that takes so long to gain levels anymore, but ow.

K, Vertex goes in and we are running now.

All the way back to a Pokemon Center.

Really, really sorry, Puff.

What am I going to do without Dragon Rage... the one true grind power.

Rynalds, Frill, or Diego. Those are my choices.

In you go, Diego. I would prefer a Gallade, but that doesn’t much matter at this point.

It could be much, much worse. This run started with way worse. This is fine. It’s fine. Absolutely fine. Does not make me dream of Exp. Share that affects the entire team at all.

These are my happy tears. Obviously.

...

See. I thought to myself, “It probably knows Fire Blast.” Then I thought to myself, “Sure it can learn it, but it’s a low level legendary. Speaking from experience, those things have jack for moves. Boruto will be fine.”

Then Boruto was not fine.

Lava Plume.

Oh, and a critical hit for good measure.

I have nothing to say.

But Omchomp is going in the designated survivor box, and I’m not replacing anyone in the current lineup. I’m just. I’m gonna train these four. And. Make that work somehow. It’s too early to get caught up in everything dying during grinding.

Neat, Diego’s cave has Charizard. And Seviper. Bayleef. Probopass.

Vertex could maybe handle being Diego’s training partner... let’s give that a try instead of bloating Nessy’s level even further.

And the first thing a Charizard does is Dragon Rage the 84 health thing.

This continues to be a very long trial.

Back to Autumn.

My son. You shall be the most beautiful ballerina.

Okay, things starting to feel a bit more positive? A bit more like it might all be okay? Yeah! Let’s go! Grind them feet into the field!

Did I know there was Alakazam in the normal grass outside Chargestone? Because there is. And I have a Gardevoir in need of tutelage. Well great, at least now I know where I’m grinding.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I DID THE RANDOMIZER SETTINGS RIGHT!

GENGAR GET!

No more Eviolite for Caspet, which. Well, sure, it stresses me out to only have as much Defense as Caspet really has, but maybe I’ll pick something up along the line that helps with that. You never know.

Back to the grind.

...With the stray thought that this is much less necessary with the four I have. I’d like Vertex over 30, but realistically, Caspet and Nessy are enough to deal with a lot, and Diego’s getting there.

I’ll get Vertex over 30 and hit go on the plot button.

Oh wait. Diego’s only offensive move is Magical Leaf.

Aaaaah, ghosts of Boruto’s past...

Eh, let’s just talk to Bianca.

She says nothing of interest to those who already know you can push Chargestone Cave’s rocks around.

So, I’ve just realized that I can fight Clay now, probably, and because I’m largely making myself sad doing non-plot activities, I’m going to give that a go. Nessy is overleveled and suited for it. I’ll give her a Mystic Water. Vertex can carry the Exp. Share for a bit.

And down we go.

I have no memory of this place. It is dark.

Better, but I think I like the previous games’ setup of this gym more. Aesthetically. I hated moving around it, but it was all very pretty. This has too much dark to roll with the pretty much.

Okay, first fight! Let’s see if I should actually be trying this.

First and only pokemon is a level 31 Baltoy. I think we’re good.

Geez. There are too many platforms here. Gym, I am disappoint.

Nessy.

Carry.

First out is a level 31 Krokorok. One Water Pulse downs it. Following that up is a level 31 Sandslash, and in the spirit of optimism and needing exp, Diego’s going to try to Magical Leaf it into submission. One isn’t enough, and Clay uses a Hyper Potion on his next turn. Next Magical Leaf after undoing that does the trick, and I think we’re bringing out Nessy next to contend with the Excadrill.

The level 33 Excadrill.

Nessy’s 38, if I haven’t mentioned it this post.

...Wow. One Water Pulse later, and we’re done with Clay.

Yaaaaay.

[frogsandfries]

Let's talk projects

I don't really talk about my work much anymore/lately. I just don't have much to say lately. I'm not up to anything big; I don't have a studio, so I can't do much sculpting. I fill my time with embroidery, and pin design and bead pattern-making on my tablet. I get paid Thursday, and while getting a set of wheels is my big priority, I'm really desperately crossing my fingers that I have something left over to start working on this bead pattern:

Feel free to try it out, if it strikes your fancy. I really put a lot of time and effort into it, but literally all I'm asking is that you give me a mention. I would also love to know how it went for you. I designed it for 15/0 beads, and theoretically, it should weave up to about the size of a credit card or playing card. I have no idea what I intended for a finished weaving; I'm not even certain that it will look good finished, but you can keep an eye out on my art Tumblr, Stosphia.

If this works, I was thinking about using it to illustrate at least a couple hundred frames of my graphic novel. I know, I know: What graphic novel? I don't even really write anymore, and my life has been such chaos and disorder for the last three years, my project reflects that. What in the ever-hecking heck was I imagining I would do with the weavings themselves? Also, it's an awful lot of work for a graphic novel.

This is a very grungy, grimey tarot card patch that is slightly, weirdly, just a tiny little bit warped and stretched. Noob mistake.

It's in a six-inch hoop, and it got stretched the slightest bit from the original four-and-three-quarter inches. Apart from being grimey, which I should be able to Oxy back in order, I've been making incredible progress here in Arizona. I started this in January, and back in Wisconsin, I had been working full time as well as trying to work on a conversion van. Embroidery just wasn't a priority. Most of my time in Oregon, I was too depressed to function because of the guy we were stuck with. Here in Arizona, I walk most of the day and it's rarely gloomy or cloudy. I also only work part-time, so I have plenty of time on my hands.

The reason I like the tarot and ATC formats is that obviously, there's not so much space to fill, so even if it's a silly and weird idea to embroider tarot or ATCs, they're small enough to work up (relatively) quickly, as well as small enough to wear. I definitely love the wearability factor.

I wonder if it might not be a good idea to take a break between this and my first graphic novel ATC to stitch something more random, more for fun. Something simple that I might be able to show off in public, maybe even at work.

Which reminds me.

At about four-by-three inches, I wouldn't call this small, but I designed this before I saw a Single Pale Rose. And I've been thinking about it maybe kind of a lot lately. It was supposed to be kind of a memorial-style piece. Now I'm not sure.

Regardless, this is not an inbetweeny piece. This patch, if I did stitch it, would be its own piece. For my inbetween/stretching/warmup/fun patch, I have a handful of small little doodles that I might try. Or, I was going to experiment with flair-style hand-stitched pokemon. Even at the rate I've been charging along, my first tarot card still probably has a couple weeks left on it, which means I have some time to decide.

I know a while back I was complaining about not being crazy about the Print-Stitch-Dissolve paper. Unfortunately, before I got to give it a second shot, my pack was ruined in rainy Oregon, so even if I don't have money for beads, I definitely want to order a new pack of Print-Stitch-Dissolve paper. I'm so disappointed and annoyed because it's expensive for paper and I'm not sure I'll change my mind even after this experiment I have planned. Before I throw away the damaged pack, I'm going to see if I can salvage any bit of it.

That's pretty much it. There are certainly projects that I want to be working on, but between my friend's fines, my bill, only working part-time, and not having our own transportation, I'm just making it work with what I have. I have a tablet; I have massive amounts of embroidery thread; and I have time.

[things2mustdo]

The video game industry and culture changed substantially when women started to get involved. Whenever a successful male industry is created, a biological urge to change it comes from those with two X chromosomes. Here are e three ways that women have ruined gaming culture:

1. Inclusiveness

The videogame culture of the 70’s – 00’s was about making fun games to sell to consumers. This could mean controlling Bill and Lance from “Contra” to Duke in “Duke Nukem.” You bought video games that appealed to you and didn’t support the ones you didn’t like. Women don’t understand this basic formula. They would rather screech about a game not including a strong female role model than actually make a video game with a strong female role model.

A female Youtuber named Anita Sarkeesian used this premise to rally for more feminist narratives. A normal alpha would use Kickstarter to make a high budget game that appeals to them. Anita instead spent time begging on Kickstarter and used it to raise over $150,000 dollars to make snarky videos on an iMac. Females always want to be inclusive without putting in the work themselves. One example is this fat lady named Heidi.

This is an example of a woman who wants to write a poly-amorous love triangle  in video games instead of working on a new physics engine. It’s also not surprising that she’s a fat single mother with a useless degree. If we had this chick developing games instead of Shigeru Miyamato, Mario would be a transgender Eskimo amputee and he would beat up racist men instead of saving the princess. It would also mean that video game companies would go out of business. Since the type of feminists the “social justice” games would be marketed to rarely support businesses that aren’t clothing, decadent food and media publications.  In the big scheme of things, video-game companies need talented men to produce content that would be used to subsidize feminist outreach programs made by the same companies. Every time you see a conference or panel at a convention hosted by a video-game company about getting more women into the industry, you know that these wouldn’t even be possible without Joe Nerd spending 16 hours a day, 7 days a week unknowingly subsidizing it. Women want to be involved in things but don’t want to do the actual work to do so.

2. Video Game Journalism

Women and beta males have made video game journalism an entry point for dilettantes with humanity majors. Most major publications like Kotaku, Gawker, IGN, and Gamespot rather complain about how “sexist” GTA is than write actual meaningful game content. Video game publications have turned into tabloids with female writers at the helm. Most people can’t name a female game journalist because they coast on their male colleagues who do the actual work.

You’ll never have a Louis Theroux in the video game industry because women who work in the industry would bitch about inquisitive questions. They would rather write about some dumb ass model dressed up as a video-game character than something substantive.

3. Gamer Girls

The last part of this trifecta of regression is the culture of gaming brought in by women. The beta males of video gaming culture are the thirstiest betas in existence. When a former porn star can make more money by streaming video games for donations instead taking a fat dick, you know there has to be betas behind that.

You go to any Youtube channel about gaming and it will have a useless pretty chick talking about her experiences with Pokemon as a child. These women are not actual gamers but women riding a fad. They’re called “Gamer Gurls” for the reason to mock the gurl phrase that feminists like to use. These semi-attractive chicks have learned that they can get the princess treatment by pretending to be a video game enthusiast. Also another type of chick started to pop up. These women though don’t have the facade of being attractive. Instead they use videogames to up their social status. The land whales realized that if they could fake their enthusiasm for games, some video game beta would find them attractive as well. The betas fight over these chicks and since they’re all manginas of the highest degree. This is one of the reasons that betaness and even omeganess are the norms in video game culture.

Because of these reasons, video games have declined since their great rise in the 70’s-00’s. Girl gamers and their beta male hangers-on rather buy Call of Duty than support quality products. Don’t let women in to your sub-culture unless you want it permanently disfigured. Too bad they already did it to my favorite sub-culture.

https://www.returnofkings.com/12615/5-things-i-learned-from-call-of-duty

5 THINGS I LEARNED FROM CALL OF DUTY

WESTERN CANCER

I played a lot of video games growing up; not as much as those weird neck-bearded kids who play WoW, but enough to learn just how much time one can waste playing them. After I got home from school I’d grab a snack and sit my ass on the couch and start playing until dinner. I’d go to friends houses on weekends and play games and when a new game came out I’d play it tirelessly until I beat it. Fifteen hours a week isn’t all that much when you’re a teenager; school is easy and you have no reason to be doing anything else, but the older I get the more I realize how much of a time-sink it was. However, there are a few important lessons I learned from playing all those hours.

1. There are complainers…

Most guys who play CoD either talk shit about how they fucked your mother or they just keep silent. The rest are those who bitch and moan about every little detail. They’re the guys who complain you’re ‘hacking,’ playing unfairly, or using a loadout that gives you an advantage. They’re the sore losers and you encounter them in the real world all the time. In the real world those same guys whine about following the rules because they are scared of stepping out of line, they are the people who believe everyone needs to be brought to the same level lest one be left out. The best way I’ve found to deal with them is just ignore them. Ignore those who complain about perceived problems the same way you would ignore some 13 year old kid whining how using RPGs aren’t fair.

2. …and then there are those who find patterns.

On the more extreme end of things there are those who learn patterns and exploit them. They’re the guys who learn spawning patterns, optimized loadouts, good sniping positions and so on. They put in serious time to get good at the game, they also know they have to do more than learn the game to get good at the game. In the time it takes them to master the theoretical or detail oriented parts of the game their motor skills have increased as well. These guys are like us. We improve our social skills, appearance, and confidence as well as exploiting the current system in order to get better at the game of life.

3. The importance of competition

Competition is at the core of our masculinity, without it we are just participating in existence. Call of Duty is the most immediate form of competition I have come across and I never realized its importance until the first powerlifting meet I competed in. At the meet adrenaline coursed through my veins between attempts and although I cheered others on I felt a burning desire to lift as much as I damn could to prove myself better than the rest. While you may only be competing against half-literate, drugged out teenagers playing Call of Duty, you still get that same rush when trying to annihilate the other team. Even while relaxing with friends, having a few beers and playing CoD you want to beat their score. You want to be the best.

4. The average man sucks

The last CoD game I played regularly was the first Black Ops game. There was an option to look at another player’s scorecard. This scorecard showed their kill/death ratio, win/loss ratio, and every other imaginable metric of success. In this data was hours played. Between matches I’d always look at the opposition’s scorecard and 9 times out of 10 the dude had fucking terrible stats. I would regularly see players who played hundreds of hours yet still died more than they killed. Even though most guys play CoD to relax they’re still fucking terrible and aren’t any better than when they started. Same goes in the real world. Most men you meet will be extremely average, and as we all know average never got anyone anywhere. You reconnect with a friend 5 years down the line and his accomplishments include: having a mortgage, being in debt, becoming overweight, and maybe driving a new car.

5. People will do anything if given the right rewards

Video game developers are crafty sons of bitches, like social media mavens they sell instant gratification. When you think about it a game like Call of Duty is extremely boring and repetitive. Each game is 10-15 minutes long and you do the exact same thing each time, something has to keep you coming back. While much of the draw can be attributed to the thrill of competition and success there is another factor: the instant gratification of rewards. The first few hours you play Call of Duty you’re assaulted with various medals, ribbons, unlocks and upgrades. You get a medal for 5 kills, then 50, then 500. You get sucked in from the start and desire the hardest to get rewards. As in the real world people will perform the same mindless action day in, day out given enough monetary or emotional compensation.

I still play from time to time. Its nice to do nothing but move your thumbs for an hour, but no man should spend the majority of his precious free time doing something so unproductive as playing video games. One of my biggest regrets from being a teenager was spending much of my time alone playing games when I could have been out doing something interesting, or in the very least reading books. However I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned. I know now to ignore those who complain and instead of complaining myself I seek out ways to overcome obstacles and get better. I know now how easily average people can be manipulated into doing mindless things if they are sufficiently compensated. Most importantly I know the importance of competition in masculine development.

[quarantineculture]

quarantine day 3

Quarantine day 3

Friday, March 20, 2020.

It’s technically 2:08 AM on Saturday now, but since I haven’t gone to bed yet, again, still technically Friday night to me. I’ve been staying up later.

I think it’s starting to hit me a little more now.

It was kinda fun the first day or two. After I got past the no senior year and no graduation, I adjusted pretty fast to my new cellar dweller life. It isn’t all bad. My family is upstairs and I can hear them walking around and talking and they yell at me and FaceTime me throughout the day, so it’s not as lonely as it is for my friend who’s in a summer house all by herself. I’m glad I’m here and not in an apartment all alone because then I think I’d really go crazy.

At noon (I think?) Governor Cuomo was doing a live press conference. He announced they’re shutting down all non-essential businesses in New York State. I wasn’t surprised, but I was still kinda sad, just in terms of the ramifications for people directly and indirectly affected. This is shit for the economy in general, but I can’t even imagine what it’s like for people that work in “non-essential” businesses – that are essential for their own survival. I know Trump says he’s gonna send checks and stuff, but I don’t know how that’ll work. I really know very little about money and economy stuff (I took AP Macroeconomics and I think I pulled a 5 while knowing… jack shit), but based on my (VERY) limited knowledge, couldn’t that cause inflation? Like, where’s all this money coming from? Wouldn’t it start to lose money if we just print a bunch of new cash? I have no clue. This is why I don’t work in politics or business or economics.

I also found out Connecticut is also closing all non-essential businesses. For some reason, liquor stores and mega defense companies like Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney (I don’t remember which is which, but I know some make helicopters and others manufacture guns/weapons) are considered essential. I kinda get the alcohol – what else are people gonna do for fun or to relax in their homes when we’re kinda-not-really being put on lockdown – but the weapons companies? I don’t really get how that’s considered essential, other than essential for the economy since they employ so many people.

Today I went to the park, but this time I wanted to go with my sisters. I ended up going ahead because it was so nice out and they were taking F O R E V E R finishing homework. Hannah looked at my location and they eventually found me but thought I was Mom at first. I looked at Mom’s location to try to avoid running into her so she and Dad wouldn’t know that I’d met up with Hannah and Mandi. It backfired because by the time I realized my parents were getting close they’d already spotted us and were running toward us. We spent the next 10 minutes running around trying to lose my parents. I felt like Pac-Man, and my parents were the ghosts. It was ridiculous. Every time I turned around, there they were! Still following us!

It just kinda sucked because I just wanted to talk to my sisters in person but my parents apparently (clearly) didn’t trust us to stay 6 feet apart. I never touched them or went too close. We kept a distance away. I’m completely asymptomatic. I have no coughing, sneezing, rhinorrhea, fever, shortness of breath, or any other symptoms. I just get cold in the basement because it’s cold down here. That’s it. I just don’t like being treated like I’m dirty or contagious, although I guess theoretically I could be highly contagious. I mean. I know that I could be contagious despite being asymptomatic. I just don’t see how I could spread it to someone if I don’t touch them and don’t have any body fluids going anywhere near them and I’m not coughing or sneezing or dripping mucus. I’m just a sad boi and want to hang out with my siblings.

On the bright side – it was absolutely GORGEOUS out today! It’s been kinda cold and windy and grey for the past two days but I was enjoying just getting out of the house and seeing the wildlife and other human beings in person even if I don’t know who they are. But today – WOW! It was so nice. Here’s a pic. I was just thinking about how ugly the city can be sometimes but turns out it’s just the grey weather that made it look ugly! A little sunshine and blue skies can do absolute wonders for how it looks.

I think it looks extra nice here because the blue skies kinda match the blue of that house in the middle. It’s just very satisfying to me. Even with the bare trees! Lovely! You really have to appreciate the little things. Sometimes, it’s all we really have. Especially in times like these.

Anyways. I found out some darker news tonight. [content warning for mentions of hospitalization & death] I don’t know them personally, but my mom knows someone whose family member got diagnosed with covid a few days ago. He has not been in good condition, unconscious within a day of being admitted to the hospital, and today he passed away. My mom says he was pretty young – only 51, her age – and healthy too. He jogged every day. (I felt bad because I don’t even jog every day, or every month, and I’m 21.) But somehow he died within a couple days of getting diagnosed. It kinda fucked with my head because it goes against the whole “it’s only really risky for seniors and people who are immunocompromised” narrative. I mean, I don’t know if he was immunocompromised or not; it’s certainly possible. But from what I’ve been told he was generally healthy and still fairly young.

So I guess I’m just re-thinking the risks and what this all means. His kids are teenagers. He’s the exact same age as my mom. Obviously not everyone (and most people) who get the virus are going to die, but it doesn’t negate the fact that a good number of people will.

I will be honest – I really didn’t take it seriously at first, particularly when it was mostly located in China. I mean, I didn’t really expect that what has happened would happen. I don’t think anyone did. I work(/ed) in an emergency department, and most of the doctors there brushed off the coronavirus buzz as hysteria. They compared it to the flu and pointed out that tens of thousands of people die of flu every year and no one shuts everything down or hoards toilet paper. Hell, lots of people don’t even get flu shots (which you should, by the way, PLEASE GET YOUR FLU SHOT, they’re still available and still helpful and pretty cheap if not free!) But this is different, I guess, because the death rate is apparently several times higher than that of flu, and we just don’t have a vaccine or enough beds to treat people if the cases skyrocket, which is very possible given how quickly it’s spreading and how many people are carriers without realizing it.

I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this, other than I’m a little more scared now. Especially with what’s happening in Italy. Doctors should not have to be choosing which patients get ventilators and which ones die. A lot of Italian people are warning us Americans that we’re next. Even my mom says the US is just not prepared for this.

I can’t predict the future. All I can say is, please wash your hands, cover your mouth, stay inside and practice social distancing – not just for yourself, but for other people. This situation sucks. It really does suck and we don’t know when it’s going to end. But people have gone through so much worse and survived and thrived because of how resilient humans are by nature. We can all save lives just by staying at home for this period of time. We’re going to get through this. Keep your chin up and be kind. Remind the people you love that you love them. It’ll be okay.

THINGS I AM GRATEFUL FOR:

Warmer weather! Sun and blue skies! Not having to wear gloves or a jacket to go out! People playing tennis. Watching my sisters dance and do Chinese yoyo tricks that I wish I could do. The weird rice krispy/graham cracker marshmallow chocolate concoction they made for me. Peanut butter. Cute dogs. FaceTiming my friends from school. Texting people that I haven’t talked to in a long time.

QUARANTINE BY THE NUMBERS:

Time outside basement: approx. 1 – 1.5 hours

Pokemon Shield: approx. 1.5 hours

Breath of the Wild: approx. 2 – 2.5 hours

Toggl-logged time working on endocrinology lectures: 1 hour 15 minutes

Toggl-logged time working on day 2 blog: 53 minutes

Lying in bed absentmindedly with no real productivity: unable to obtain accurate data but subjectively noted to be considerably more than previous days

Shower time: 9 minutes

Screen time on phone: 8 hours 12 minutes (to be fair, probably 4 of those hours were FaceTime.)

Frustration about crocheting: approx. 2 minutes

Actual crocheting: 0 minutes (I just thought about it briefly and was sad.)

Turtles spotted: none because as soon as we reached the lake I saw dad and started running the opposite way

[kirishwima]

Get to know me tag!

Tagged by @teakoii​

1. What is your full name? Don’t really want to give out my full name on tumblr lol, but I’m Sophia (and if we’re going for embarrassing details, I got a middle name, Marina lol)

2. What is your nickname? A lot of people call me babushka? Or just shortened versions of my name like Soph and stuff 

3. What is your zodiac sign?   Cancer 

4. What is your favorite book series?  Hmmm this is hard lol. The only series I can honestly admit to have read entirely is the Hunger Games :p

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts?

Aliens are 10010% real and probably want nothing to do with earth, LOL. Ghosts...it’d be so cool if they’re real. Highly doubt it though

6. Who is your favorite author? Neil Gaiman!! He’s amazing!

7. What is your favorite radio station?  Mix fm...any cypriot reading this will know lol

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything?  Of anything...probably coffee taste lol. Or mint? One of the two

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? Hmm, amazing? Awesome? idk lol

10. What is your current favorite song?  Current favourite is probably Andromeda by the Gorillaz :p 

11. What is your favorite word?  in english?? no clue hahah :p 

12. What was the last song you listened to?  Despacito ;u; 

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch?  Voltron obviously hahah, um, maybe American Horror story? But only season 2 lol, or Black Mirror bc it’s amAZING

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down?  Ghibli films! Especially Howl’s moving castle or Spirited Away! c:

15. Do you play video games?  I do but not as much lately bc of uni

16. What is your biggest fear?  Uhhh if we’re going for deep dark fears, probably the entire concept of eternity? Like the thought of something having no real start or end just freaks me out lol

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion?  I honestly can’t think of one hahah, i’ve been thinking for a couple of minutes and can’t think of anything :p maybe that i’m an easy person to get along with

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion?  I can make a list tbh lol, absolute worst would probably be that i’m way too sensitive & care too much about what other people think

19. Do you like cats or dogs better?  NO DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE I LOVE THEM BOTH I LOVE ALL ANIMALS ;-;

20. What is your favorite season?  Summer!! :D 

21. Are you in a relationship?  Nope

22. What is something you miss from your childhood?  I don’t miss much. Maybe not having this much of a workload if anything lol

23. Who is your best friend?  Why have one when you can have 3? :D @faded-r0ses @now-this-is-wtf @ibreathestucky <3 <3

24. What is your eye color?  Brow

25. What is your hair color?  I change it every few months lol, it’s currently black!

26. Who is someone you love?  So many people :p Friends, family, a lot of people! c:

27. Who is someone you trust?  The squad obviously, but p. much all of my friends?? Like if we’re buddies then that’s it, i trust u lol

28. Who is someone you think about often?  Like i think about my dog a lot bc i haven’t seen his fluffiness in like four moths now but i think about a lot of people often? not one set person 

29. Are you currently excited about/for something?  I’m excited for an eternal slumber tbh, or like, vacation. I need a break TuT

30. What is your biggest obsession?  Voltron probably, and also random but history?? i love. history lol

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child?  POKEMON! It was a Sunday morning ritual to watch pokemon :D

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone?  Anything? Probably no one :p

33. Are you superstitious?  Not really? 

34. Do you have any unusual phobias?  Like, I’m afraid of small white rooms with no windows. Random? Yes. Unusual? Idk?? :p 

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? I’m insecure af but like photography so behind it lol

36. What is your favorite hobby?  Writing! :D 

37. What was the last book you read?  I mean i read a shitton of anatomy and physiology books throughout this year, do those count? Ah and The anatomy of being by Shinj Moon, though it’s a poetry book

38. What was the last movie you watched? Avengers Age of Ultron probably

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? Nothing, sadly TuT

40. What is your favorite animal? 

I can’t. ChoOOSEE I LOVE SO MANY. If i can have like a top 3?? It’d probably be dogs & cats (in one place bc i can’t choose), foxes, and lizards? or i think they’re called newts in english? ya. 

41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? 

Definitely @teakoii they’re they’re the literal cutest & amazing artist, definitely 2/3 the squad: @ibreathestucky (she’s a fandom goddess ok <3), @faded-r0ses (aesthetic ho right there), (((our remaining 1/3 @now-this-is-wtf not included bc she nEVER LOGS IN)) Also @wipengineer <-the queen of angst 

and @maristine :D Quality voltron content right there~ 

and also a LOT of other blogs, some that i interact with and some not but i’m too shy to mention/tag  >.< 

42. What superpower do you wish you had? 

Being able to breathe/survive underwater. Bye bye humans. I’m a fish now. You’ll never catch me. Also shapeshifting would b awesome bc. Cmon. You could become a dragon. Take that responsibilities. 

43. When and where do you feel most at peace?

The beach, definitely. Or anywhere near large bodies of water? Give me a lake or river any day and I’ll probably never leave lol

44. What makes you smile? 

A good ol’ meme never failed me so far, also good music? And coffee, and cuddly animals or just hugs in general i love hugs

45. What sports do you play, if any? 

I do some swimming and begrudgingly go to the gym when my roommate drags me along but that’s pretty much it lol

46. What is your favorite drink?

CoFFEE. I swear my blood has been replaced with caffeine by now

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody?

I wrote a post-it note to my roommate to let her know i’m out does that count? 

48. Are you afraid of heights? 

Nope! I love looking down when standing somewhere v high or in a plane and stuff lol

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? 

I had to google what a pet peeve is TuT

Hm, i can’t really think of anything? Not a lot of things bug me tbh, except for big things like you know, like rudeness or belittling someone else e.t.c

50. Have you ever been to a concert? 

Yup!

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? 

Vegetarian!^^

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

Define how little. I had a big phase of wanting to become a Power Ranger so.

According to my family i was always between vet or doctor though lol

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? 

Ohh boy, i can’t just choose one!! :p Something magic-related definitely

54. What is something you worry about? 

Something? Something? More like everything. TuT

55. Are you scared of the dark? 

Nope!

56. Do you like to sing? 

No unless I'm either drunk enough or blasting the radio loud enough for no one to hear me hahah

57. Have you ever skipped school? 

I was way too much of an ‘example student’ in high school so no lol. As for lectures in uni though..well. ;u;

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? 

The bEACH. ANY BEACH. IS THERE WATER AND SAND? THEN I LIKE IT. :D

59. Where would you like to live? 

Italy! My dream is to move to Italy after i graduate! 

60. Do you have any pets? 

Yes, a cute lil’ bean of a doggo~ (or as my friends very...politely say, the chubbiest, clingiest chihuahua they’ve ever met lol)

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl?

Both? It depends lol

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better?

BOTH I CAN’T CHOOSE TuT

63. Do you know how to drive? 

Yup! Although parking is an entire different story LOL

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? 

Headphones, earbuds are annoying ;-;

65. Have you ever had braces? 

Yes. I pretend that that time period never happened ;u;

66. What is your favorite genre of music? 

Hmmmmmm. Hmmm??? I can’t choose? Probably either indie/chill music or punk rock but i listen to so so many genres

67. Who is your hero? 

I can’t really think of any celebrities, but if we’re talking people, probably my grandma? She was a badass woman that was raising two kids in her twenties whilst studying & graduating med school, then moved on to become the first woman gynaecologist in her country. Hats off to her really.

68. Do you read comic books?

A bit! 

69. What makes you the most angry? 

Honestly people that just. Can’t. Respect. Others.

So racist/homophobic/transphobic/sexist people, people who can’t respect someone else, people that think they’re superior to anyone, and also people that hurt/abuse animals- it’s like hey buddy. Find the nearest trash can and shove yourself in it, it’s not nice to litter.

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? 

Real books. I understand that electronics are more convenient but there’s nothing better than actually holding a book in your hands and flipping the pages ;u;

71. What is your favorite subject in school? 

History and english lit! And greek literature! All theoretical subjects really, lol

If we’re talking currently, then it’s embryology, definitely. I love it!!

72. Do you have any siblings? 

An older sister and two older brothers 

73. What was the last thing you bought? 

Bananas and vegetables, lol

74. How tall are you?

165cm. I think it’s 5′5″

75. Can you cook? 

I mean i nearly burn the kitchen down every time but i try

76. What are three things that you love? 

Animals, good books, coffee

77. What are three things that you hate? 

Rude/mean people (aka every single person with a Trump-like mindset, the dude himself included ofc), that’s pretty much it? it takes a lot for me to hate something 

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? 

Female

79. What is your sexual orientation? 

Pan! Still figuring out if that’s Panromantic or Pansexual :p 

80. Where do you currently live? 

Czech Republic

81. Who was the last person you texted? 

My roommate

82. When was the last time you cried? 

Like, 2 days ago i think? I was stressed, tired and sick lol

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? 

Markiplier! Also a lot of creepy pasta narrators, Lazy Masquerade being my fave probably :p

84. Do you like to take selfies? 

Sometimes? it really really depends on my mood lol

85. What is your favorite app? 

Instagram probably

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like?

Ehh. I get along great with my dad although we don’t talk much, and i get along as well with my mom, just wish she’d realise i’m not a kid still lol. 

The older i get the better we get along i guess, although there’s some things we’ll never agree on

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? 

I like Spanish accents a lot? I have a lot of Spanish & Portuguese friends and love their accent when they speak english :p Also Russian accents?? Don’t ask me why. I just really like them lol

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? 

Japan! I really want to go to Japan. And USA? And Canada? Like, big-city places because I’ve never been to one ;u;

89. What is your favorite number? 

2

90. Can you juggle? 

I got the balance of a tomato on an acid trip, so that’s a no hahah

91. Are you religious? 

Not...really? I was raised in a very religious house and the more i learned about church the more i disliked it. I still like some aspects of it though so...I’m figuring it out still

92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? 

I CAN’T CHOOSE THEY’RE BOTH SO FASCINATING I WANNA FLING MYSELF INTO SPACE AND DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE OCEAN IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? 

With enough alcohol in my system and good friends, ya. As it is? Nope, I'm that one friend in horror movies that says ‘hey guys, this is probably a bad idea’ and promptly dies lol

94. Are you allergic to anything? 

A bit allergic to dust but that’s pretty much it i think

95. Can you curl your tongue? 

No ;-;

96. Can you wiggle your ears? 

How do people dO THAT no i can’t

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something?

If i know I'm in the wrong i always admit it & apologise, or so i hope :p

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach?

The forest is fun too but...the beach. Definitely. ((Plus there’s no bugs at the beach! ;u;))

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? 

If you try your best and work hard, the result won't matter because you gave it your all and that’s what counts.

100. Are you a good liar?

Not at all, you can immediately tell if I’m lying because I start to giggle lol

101. What is your Hogwarts House? 

Hufflepuff! 

102. Do you talk to yourself? 

Yes. It’s actually funny bc i keep switching between languages when i do

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?  

Introvert ;;

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? 

Not exactly. I try to keep a journal but it usually ends up with doodles and scribbles from class lol

105. Do you believe in second chances? 

Most of the time, yes.

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? 

Honestly? I’d probably leave it, OR if there’s any shops nearby, I’d take it to a store clerk, since the person that lost it is more likely to go into a nearby shop and ask if they’ve seen their wallet than to a police department, I think? idk

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? 

Yes, definitely!

108. Are you ticklish? 

Ridiculously ticklish. @now-this-is-wtf  and @faded-r0ses have a field trip with this fact T-T

109. Have you ever been on a plane? 

Yup!

110. Do you have any piercings? 

I got a lot of piercings on my ears and had nose ring but I think it’s healed now? Will be getting a septum piercing in July though~

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? 

Lance. Lanceeeeeee. How could i not want my fave ever to be real lol

112. Do you have any tattoos? Not...yet. Soon though!

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? 

It wasn’t exactly my decision, but switching schools back in middle school. Would have never met my tiny best friend otherwise, or met some other amazing people & teachers

114. Do you believe in karma?

Not really

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? 

Glasses, can’t put on contacts to save my life

116. Do you want children? 

I don’t really like kids so. Ehh.

117. Who is the smartest person you know? 

Hmm, people are smart in different ways and aspects. So I don’t know one person who’s the absolute smartest!

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? 

Probably that one time at Comic con when i had a skirt-too-short problem (bless my backpack and the random leggings i had shoved in there for some reason lol), or that one time i got asked for an ID when i tried to buy a beer. At a supermarket. And they still wouldn’t believe me until I showed them my university card as well. (Sad thing is it wasn’t even for me lol)

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? 

yup, way too often lol

120. What color are most of you clothes? 

Black. So many black clothes lol. At least that makes laundry much easier :D

121. Do you like adventures? 

Yes! 

122. Have you ever been on TV? 

Only for some small interview clips when I was in high school lol

123. How old are you? 

19

124. What is your favorite quote? 

“Sometimes, I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living” 

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? 

I don’t like sweet stuff much so savoury! OK, NOW, WHO TO TAG~

Squad, do it if you’re up for it @ibreathestucky @faded-r0ses @now-this-is-wtf (esp. you Guac I know you’re a free potato now with exams over~), and my tumblr buddies @maristine, @wipengineer (and yes i know u got the google doc but hey! :D), @the-blood-in-your-bruise and honestly, whoever else wants to do it, that’s it, you’re tagged by me hahah ^^

[rkpcy]

NAME  sebastian park / park chanyeol NICKNAME  seb, bas, yeol, yeollie, that idiot over there REASON FOR NAME english: named after his father---he doesn’t know this, though BIRTHDAY  november 27, 1995 AGE  21 GENDER  male PLACE OF BIRTH  los angeles, california, usa PLACES LIVED SINCE  from birth to 18: los angeles, california, usa / present: seoul, south korea PARENTS’ NAMES, BACKGROUNDS, OCCUPATIONS

birth father: sebastian kim, location and profession unknown. he fled town when ella became pregnant---she was 16 and he was 21.

stepfather: dean johnson, deceased. he met ella at a grocery store and is the father of the twins, michael and matthew. he’d been five years sober when he was involved in a hit and run in 2010.

mother: ella park, 40, masseuse. she moved to the united states with her parents when she was 6 and was kicked out by her father after becoming pregnant at 16. she was then taken in by her friend’s family for a year until her mother left her father and came to take care of her. she then got a job at her mother’s friend’s spa.

NUMBER OF SIBLINGS ( 2 )

michael park, 11. he’s the spitting image of chanyeol in both personality and ear size. a class clown and constantly getting notes sent home for talking too much during class. last year, he asked chanyeol for an xbox for christmas but got a 3ds and pokemon sun and moon instead. he loves it.

matthew park, 11. a little quieter than his two siblings, taking after his mother in that sense, but enjoys the same type of humor that chanyeol and michael enjoy. studious and smart, wears glasses. for christmas, he asked chanyeol to make a donation in his name, and chanyeol did just that, donating $500 usd to dogs without borders.

OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES

grandmother: eunice lee, deceased. was put into an arranged marriage and moved to los angeles with her husband. she finally got up the courage to leave him after years of emotional abuse due to an argument regarding their daughter. when chanyeol was fourteen, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. two years after a successful mastectomy, she went into remission and eventually passed away from it.

RELATIONSHIP WITH FAMILY  chanyeol is extremely close with family, and values the bond, holding it with utmost importance. the reason he held two jobs was to help his mother out with finances, especially after his grandmother passed away. he knows that the only reason he is the person he is today is because he had family to take care of him and show him the right path, so he is eternally grateful. everything he does is for them, and any major decisions he has to make, he makes with his family in mind. HAPPIEST MEMORY ( 2007 )  his twin little brothers are born / ( 2011 ) enrolled in inner-city arts / ( 2015 ) gets a job at a recording company / ( 2017 ) signed to trc entertainment CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ( 1995 ) father abandons him and his mother / ( 2010 ) his stepfather dies in a car accident / ( 2010 ) arrested for posession and intent to sell / ( 2012 ) grandmother passes away

〈 PHYSICAL 〉 +

HEIGHT  186 cm / 6′1 WEIGHT  78 kg / 172 lbs BUILD athletic; toned and defined muscles, strong shoulders, slim waist, 9.4% body fat NATIONALITY  american ETHNICITY  korean DISABILITIES mild dyslexia COMPLEXION  clear; two tattoos along his right forearm: suaviter in modo, fortiter in re meaning “gently in manner, strongly in deed; solum omnium lumen meaning “the sun shines everywhere” ( x ) ( x ); done on the day he left la for seoul FACE SHAPE long DISTINGUISHING FACIAL FEATURES  dimple on left cheek, big smile, huge ears HAIR COLOR  black USUAL HAIR STYLE  depends on his mood, can range anywhere from the “i woke up like this” tousled hair style to a proper “clark kent” 3/4 split EYE COLOR  brown GLASSES? CONTACTS? he wears fake glasses sometimes, even though he has 20/20 vision STYLE OF DRESS/TYPICAL OUTFIT(S)  street style; hoodies & jeans, snapbacks, letterman jackets, sneakers TYPICAL STYLE OF SHOES running shoes, converse high tops, nikes, canvas shoes HEALTH  excellent; treats his body like a temple GROOMING  five minute showers, face washing and brushing teeth in the morning and at night ACCENT? none; bilingual since he could speak UNIQUE MANNERISMS/PHYSICAL HABITS laughs in all situations, smiles and looks around when he’s confused, leans back into chairs and extends his legs, doesn’t wear pants at home ATHLETIC? very; exercises every day at the trc and seocho buildings, enjoys most sports

〈 INTELLECT 〉 +

LEVEL OF EDUCATION  graduated high school in 2013, currently attending online lessons at sungkyungkwan university LEVEL OF SELF ESTEEM outwardly: 11/10; inwardly: varies GIFTS/TALENTS composing/producing, writing, rapping, guitar, piano SHORTCOMINGS  finds it hard to comprehend theoretical/ambiguous ideas and has a short attention span, also sucks at math STYLE OF SPEECH  speaks simply in normal, everyday conversations, but is very eloquent when he writes, can also be very persuasive LANGUAGES fluent in korean and english, can curse in many others “LEFT BRAIN” OR “RIGHT BRAIN” THINKER?  right brain ARTISTIC? completely MATHEMATICAL? not at all MAKES DECISIONS BASED MOSTLY ON EMOTIONS, OR ON LOGIC?  it depends on what he’s making a decision about; mostly emotionally based on day to day decisions, for decisions that affect him long term, still mostly emotional, but also largely logical NEUROSES  none LIFE PHILOSOPHY  "do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” RELIGIOUS STANCE  atheist CAUTIOUS OR DARING?  daring MOST SENSITIVE ABOUT/VULNERABLE TO  loneliness, his family OPTIMIST OR PESSIMIST?  optimist EXTROVERT OR INTROVERT?  extrovert LEVEL OF COMFORT WITH TECHNOLOGY  always up to date with the latest technology, follows many tech blogs

〈 RELATIONSHIPS 〉 +

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS  currently dating kim jisoo SEXUAL ORIENTATION  heterosexual PAST RELATIONSHIPS

( 10 ) an innocent “puppy love” type of scenario where holding hands was the pinnacle of the relationship and mostly consisted of eating ice cream together after school

( 14-17 ) various “relationships” that lasted anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months---none of them serious

( 17 ) his “first love.” they started dating in junior year and chanyeol would have been glad to start a long-term relationship. unfortunately for him, she didn’t feel the same.

( 19 ) his first and only girlfriend after moving to seoul. she helped him assimilate and get over some level of culture shock. it was casual, too casual---she broke up with him because she felt he didn’t care enough about their relationship.

LEVEL OF SEXUAL EXPERIENCE  fairly experienced STORY OF FIRST KISS  he’s six years old and playing soccer with a few of his friends in his class. he attempts a game-winning goal, only to have the ball end up in the hands of the girl who would always follow him around. it was a short exchange: a kiss for the soccer ball, and once it was done, he never looked back. STORY OF LOSS OF VIRGINITY  it’s a typical prom night teenage rom com story in which he’d rented a hotel room for after the dance where they both lost their virignities. it was awkward and strange and a definite learning experience. A SOCIAL PERSON? extremely. will talk to/at anyone within earshot MOST COMFORTABLE AROUND (PERSON)  minseok, jennie, jisoo OLDEST FRIEND  minseok, since childhood HOW DOES HE/SHE THINK OTHERS PERCEIVE HIM/HER?  he’s fairly certain he’s annoying and obnoxious in other people’s eyes HOW DO OTHERS ACTUALLY PERCEIVE HIM/HER?  probably as some goof who never shuts up

〈 VOCATION 〉 +

PROFESSION   assistant at a recording studio, waiter, student, trc trainee PAST OCCUPATIONS  various entry level, minimum wage jobs PASSIONS  rapping, writing lyrics, composing, producing, performing ATTITUDE TOWARDS CURRENT JOB  always excited and full of energy, though does sometimes lament the rigid and repetitive schedule ATTITUDE TOWARDS CURRENT COWORKERS, BOSSES, EMPLOYEES  always friendly to his fellow trainees, and always bothering the staff. the staff seem to be used to his antics by now. was once recognized by tiger jk for a performance and is now dedicated to being recognized again. SALARY  a trainee’s sad salary

〈 SECRETS 〉 +

PHOBIAS  raccoons LIFE GOALS  to become a household name and give back DREAMS  to become a world-recognized musician and to use his fame to help the oppressed and less fortunate have a voice GREATEST FEARS  losing his family, disappointing his family MOST ASHAMED OF  his past run-ins with the law MOST EMBARRASSING THING EVER TO HAPPEN TO HIM/HER  chanyeol goes through a lot of “embarrassing” moments everyday, but he’s never fazed. in short: he’s shameless COMPULSIONS  talking, always / teasing people he cares about / toying with things in his pocket / incessant cursing when playing video games OBSESSIONS  music, pokemon, cooking, sports, his car SECRET HOBBIES  he has many hobbies, none of them secret (again, he’s shameless) SECRET SKILLS does a mean impression of enrique iglesias, really good at tongue twisters, a certified auctioneer, actually pretty good at boxing PAST SEXUAL TRANSGRESSIONS sex before marriage i guess??? CRIMES COMMITTED   possession of a controlled substance, possession for sale of narcotics, sale or transportation of a controlled substance, though he was never formally charged and, thus, they don’t show up on his record WHAT HE/SHE MOST WANTS TO CHANGE ABOUT HIS/HER CURRENT LIFE  being so far away from his family WHAT HE/SHE MOST WANTS TO CHANGE ABOUT HIS/HER PHYSICAL APPEARANCE  he honestly wouldn’t change a thing about his physical appearance, despite his insecurity about his big ears

〈 DETAILS &. QUIRKS 〉 +

DAILY ROUTINE ( AS OF JULY 2020 )

training from monday through friday, from the wee morning until midnight

more training on saturday and sunday, from the wee morning until 5pm

saturday and sunday nights may or may not include the following activities:

hanging out with his girlfriend

hanging out with his friends

visiting the youth center

visiting his old boxing gym

visiting his old jobs

staying home to work on songs

NIGHT OWL OR EARLY BIRD?  #TeamNoSleep LIGHT OR HEAVY SLEEPER?  light sleeper FAVORITE FOOD  his mom’s cooking LEAST FAVORITE FOOD  bell peppers FAVORITE BOOK   battle royale LEAST FAVORITE BOOK  text books lol FAVORITE MOVIE  deadpool LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE  ??? FAVORITE SONG  rap god by eminem LEAST FAVORITE SONG  ??? COFFEE OR TEA?  tea CRUNCHY OR SMOOTH PEANUT BUTTER?  crunchy TYPE OF CAR HE/SHE DRIVES 2002 hyundai sonata, black, pre-owned LEFTY OR RIGHTY? right-handed FAVORITE COLOR  yellow CUSSER?  yes, but not excessively unless he’s a) drunk, or b) gaming SMOKER? DRINKER? DRUG USER?  a social drinker BIGGEST REGRET  selling drugs and getting caught PETS?  none, but he wants a dog someday VOTED mister congeniality, best entertainer, class clown

[overflowchute]

made this af 4 am weeks ago an dstuck it in my drafts but you know what im never finishing it soy ou get it as it is hve fun

Some of you probably have already heard of the fact that Psychic types were extremely overcentralizing and powerful in Generation 1. But actually understanding just why and how that power manifested involves doing a little bit of analysis. Pokemon has been a complex game from the beginning, and the dominance of the Psychic type in Generation 1 is due to a wide variety of factors. I wanted to cover this topic just because it's something I find fun. So without further ado, let's go.

Psychic, as a type, has always been kind of strange. It lies outside of the standard element types, as well as the specific entity types like Dragon and Bug. Psychic's main advantage has never lain in its ability to hit lots of pokemon super effectively, but rather in its superior neutral coverage. Nowadays, Psychic is a relatively weak offensive type even with its good neutral coverage due to the popularity of the Dark and Steel typings, with Dark types being completely immune to Psychic types and also being able to threaten them with a variety of dangerous moves. However, both Dark and Steel were types introduced in Generation 2, purposefully to counter the dominance of the Psychic type. Once you remember this, you soon realize that there is NO type in Generation 1 that resists Psychic... except for Psychic itself.

This, on its own, gives Psychic a unique position. The only other type in Generation 1 with such significant neutral coverage is Dragon, which would be a strong type except for the fact that there are no standard damage dealing Dragon type moves in Generation 1, making its offensive capacity completely irrelevant. Naturally, the power of Psychic as an offensive type means that you're pressured to run a Psychic just to counter a Psychic, and things quickly snowball from there. Curiously, the extreme viability of Psychics as a type actually means that few Psychic types run Psychic type moves in competitive Generation 1. Because running into other Psychics is so common, running another typed move like Thunderbolt or Ice Beam is going to do more damage in general. You'll still see Psychic occasionally, especially since it has useful side effects and is the only STAB move available to pokemon like Alakazam, but it's not the move you're going to see the most of.

But wait - you may say - why do we have to run Psychic types to absorb Psychic moves? Why play the game defensively? Can't we just scare them out using their weaknesses? Game Freak clearly intended to balance Psychic types the same way it balanced other types, through assigning them a variety of weaknesses. Even if Psychic types could hit any pokemon with devastating blows, that wouldn't matter if a faster pokemon with a super effective move came in to scare it, right?

Psychic was meant to be weak to Bug and Ghost type moves, representing stereotypical fears that presumably could prevent a Psychic from focusing their formidable powers. Unfortunately, there are several problems with this idea. Much like Dragon, Ghost is an extremely rare type in Generation 1, being limited to a single family and having very few effective moves. There are only three Ghost type moves, one being the damageless Confuse Ray, another the set damage dealing Night Shade, and finally, Lick. Lick is very weak, but it is a Ghost type move that calculates damage normally, meaning it could theoretically be used to hit Psychic types. Lick is even physical, meaning it'd probably hit Psychic's weaker defense, even if Gengar's also using its weaker attack stat.

The problem is, first of all, that Game Freak actually made a legitimate mistake when making Generation 1. Due to a bug, Ghost type moves aren't super effective on Psychic types - they're actually completely ineffective, just like Normal moves on a Ghost. Worse yet, the Gengar line is part Poison, meaning that many a child probably caught a Haunter and went to fight Sabrina, like Ash did in the anime, only to see Lick fail completely followed by their pokemon taking a Confusion to the face and fainting instantly.

Even if this wasn't a problem, Lick is a really really weak move. Having less base power than even Tackle, a super effective Lick from Gengar would be worse than Thunderbolt (30 BP + 15 BP for same type = 45 *2 for super effective = 90 Power, vs 95 Base power TBolt off Gengar's special stat). And it's this problem of weak moves that negates the other attempt to balance Psychic types - the general weakness of the Bug type.

Bug types in Generation 1 got the short end of the stick. The obvious beginner bugs are pretty weak by the time you get halfway through the game, and even the bugs that show up later have serious difficulty dealing damage. Compared to the anemic Ghost and Dragon types, Bug has an astounding 3 total damage dealing moves - but they have terrible distributions and generally low power. The most effective Bug type move in general is Twinneedle, which has an essential power of 50 BP (equivalent to modern day Tackle), but Twinneedle is the signature move of Beedrill, a pokemon with low stats and an unfortunate Poison typing rendering its chances at stopping Psychics. Leech Life, the second bug move, has better overall distribution but is utterly, pathetically weak, to the point where you're really better off just using Normal moves unless you have to. Pin Missile, the last Bug type move, is actually the most usable. Although it's very unreliable, with an average power of 42, it can theoretically deal 70 BP of damage. Pin Missile is really the only bug type move you'll ever see used in Gen 1. But make no mistake - you're not going to see Bugs using it. In fact, the only pokemon to learn Pin Missile in generation one are Beedrill... and Jolteon, who doesn't get STAB but runs it to fight Exeggutor anyway. This also highlights another problem - the only Bugs with Bug moves are the mediocre and bad ones. Gen 1 put some powerful bugs later in the pokedex for people who wanted to use them late game, but Pinsir and Scyther have the dubious distinctions of not learning a single Bug type move until Generation 2 gave them Fury Cutter.

So Psychic types weren't just offensively powerful, but they effectively had no weaknesses either. The

<i was also gonna mention that therewas only one special stat that did both special attack and defense in gen 1 and all spychics had a good special stat by necessity so that let em win too>