#i think of them as team rocket tbh

[aliciarose-art]

A trio of vampires I designed! They often work as a team and are…… not exactly the good guys 🫣

Names and designs are not final-

[aro-aizawa]

I think Mirabel & Izuku would be besties tbh. This is prompted by anything but I thought you might agree

mirabel from encanto? oh ye i can get behind that ahah

[deadsh33p]

saying this cause I just saw somebody I follow talking abt something similar like 2 secs ago... But like, I enjoy thinking that Jessie, James, Meowth and Wobbufett will leave Team Rocket, have a happy life *together* and be friends with Ash.

Like they would stop being enemies but it’s still a bit awkward so they simply avoid each other but no matter where one goes they’ll always find one-another so eventually they’ll become closer

also the trio is coming back for mimikyuu like idc

[sayruq]

There has been major developments in the region in the past few days that indicates regional war is imminent. Again the tweets and articles will be in chronological order.

American war ships are in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Russia responded to that by sending planes to the Black Sea and China by sending warships to Kuwait.

We got our usual back and forth on the ground operation in Gaza

The American media is not really reporting these recent attacks on their military bases. In fact, the military is downplaying the strength of the responses by Yemeni and Syrian groups to the Gaza genocide. This is either because they want to avoid regional war or because they want to be better prepared for regional war.

This statement below seems to indicate that Iran is coming to the conclusion that open warfare is the only thing that will deter America and Israel

As for Yemen, they've declared Israeli ships will be targeted if the attack on Gaza continues (you'll see later that this is no empty threat)

By the way, Israel bombed an Egyptian military site along the border and claimed it was an accident. The Egyptian people have been calling for their government to intervene militarily and I don't think this will ease the pressure.

On the 22nd, Israel sent a small team to infiltrate Gaza. They didn't get very far

They're also struggling against Hezbollah

This meeting by the Russian foreign minister is a big deal as you'll see later

America responds to the escalating tension by deploying 'defensive systems' all over West Asia. It risks stretching itself too thin as multiple countries are already involved in the Palestian resistance with countries like Egypt and Jordan facing internal pressure to do something about the Gazan genocide

Republican Mitch McConnell has recently called Iran, Russia and China 'the new axis of evil'. It seems this is the new angle that the West has chosen because Rishi Sunak has also been comparing Hamas to Russia. This can only lead to Russia getting close to Iran which would ultimately help Hamas.

The situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate as America evacuates its embassy and warns its citizens not to use the Baghdad International Airport due to attacks by Iraqi military groups.

Here we have an Israeli commander admitting that Israel is largely on the defensive against Hezbollah and their soldiers are both traumatised and disheartened. Remember, Hezbollah has yet to officially enter the war

Blinken said that the US 'will be prepared' if Iran escalates its attacks which gives weight to that idea that the US is only trying to deescalate because its not ready yet.

A few hours ago, American bases in Syria were targeted. It's becoming clear that a major goal in the plan to defeat Israel is removing America from the picture in the region

The White House then blames Iran for the attack

More military bases targeted in Iraq

Meanwhile IDF is trying to infiltrate Gaza again. Reminder that a ground operation means that Hezbollah will officially enter the war and begun using its vast numbers of missiles and rockets. They're also attacking the West Bank, the resistance fighters have ambushed them

Yemen follows through on the threats it made by attacking a US warship with drones

Ansarullah claims there was a direct hit but the US Navy says that all drones were intercepted (using days old pictures).

So what now? First, do not expect a ceasefire. Tbh the Palestinian resistance hasn't even called for ceasefire, just an exchange of hostages.

Second of all, America itself does not believe that Israel can win this war so let's all stop acting like Palestine has already lost

Thirdly, regional war is looking more and more like reality

[yamujiburo]

It feels really unfair to treat you as a Team Rocket info repository when Bulbapedia articles and the like are available, so here's a different kind of question that isn't addressed by those and can also be personalized: Do you happen to know if any of Jessie's (and James', I guess) aliases and guises in either Japanese or English references to real idols/performers/comedians/figures, and if so, which do you like and which do you dislike out of them (i.e.- which do you think are fitting, which do you feel are just pop-culture references without much more thought put into them)?

Hahaha I don’t mind much!! I like sharing Team Rocket knowledge

As far as I know, none of their disguises reference real people but they sometimes reference other animes and different types of Japanese theatre!

I don’t dislike any tbh! Most of the disguises are just for fun and pop culture references which I think is fine and good. My favorites are when they parody “Aim for the Ace” and “Bakuso Kyodai Let’s & Go”!

I WISH they did a Time Skeletons disguise at some point tho 😭 at least we got a little nod to them in Sun and Moon

[doberbutts]

just a random guy w no stake in this but yr guy also fully regurgitated israel’s/zionist lies abt the “””misfired rocket””” hitting the hospital as if there isn’t documented evidence of israel admitting to - wanting to do that - doing that - expressing joy at the fact that they did that. the israeli govt spent days saying they were gonna bomb a hospital, bombed a hospital, /said they bombed the hospital/, and then changed their story to “misfired rocket” among other things (not a single hamas rocket is capable of that kind of destruction…) when they got flack for it. and Avi has yet to retract that statement despite it being another blatant lie from the israeli govt.

& obv this is much smaller but when pointed out that what ngaiman said that was zionist (“israel has the right to exist”, which he reconfirmed was still his stance), avi doubled down on that…not being zionism. and said ppl only call gaiman a zionist bc he’s jewish (which.. sure some ppl do, but the claim that a settler colonial state (or any state, tbh) has an inherent “right” to exist, and specifically that Israel has a “right” to exist, is literally zionism. which avi seems to think is not.)

i don’t think he’s a zionist himself but he certainly repeating a lot of zionist bs uncritically

I literally just got an article this morning talking about the forensics going on regarding the hospital bombing, from CNN, citing multiple sources saying the same thing; that it was a misfired rocket originating from somewhere in Gaza and probably not intentional, with all parties with munitions denying that it was theirs despite the firing of rockets nearby from all of said parties. No shrapnel or casings have yet been recovered and until that is recovered there is no way to know for sure where the device was made or where it came from.

So unless you are leaning on the antisemitic claim that Jews control the media, either all of CNN's sources are wrong including the Palestinian ones, or he's literally just repeating what multiple sources have been saying as of this morning.

Also conveniently you're leaving out that he's also stated that it doesn't matter where the device came from, the targetting of hospitals and other civilian centers is abhorrent and an immediate ceasefire needed to be called the moment it happened. Weird how he's not praising it, he's stating what the forensic team on site is reporting, and he's stating that no matter who is at fault they shouldn't be involving peaceful civilians.

As for whether or not Israel should exist... where exactly do you want the Israelis to go? A significant number of them were born there, with ancestors that originated there, as Arabic people living alongside Palestinians. They do have just as much right to be there as Palestinians because they have common ancestry with Palestinians. Those that came from elsewhere largely were forcibly expelled as an act of genocide- "going back where (they) came from" means going back to somewhere that's made it plain they are not welcome and they'll be killed on sight. They went to Israel because they were told that was the only correct choice for them.

Also I think it is incredibly dicey to be wielding "Jews are inherent outsiders that need to go back where they came from" because that is an antisemitic statement that has echoed across history ANDDDDD I think it's uhhhh incredibly hilarious as afronative to hear fucking Americans saying this when we're on stolen land ourselves with a government that is still trying to wipe out the few indigenous people we have left and sweep its continued atrocities under the rug.

What's that saying about glass houses and stones? If you're on American soil and you're not indigenous, how about you go back where you came from? Oh? You were born here? You have a family history here? You have deep ties to the area and can't just uproot your entire life? It's a little more complicated than just getting on a plane back to Europe or Asia or Africa? Hmm. Interesting. Don't you know that makes you complicit in genocide? No no no, it doesn't matter that your family was fleeing genocide yourselves, or that your ancestors were forced to come here, or that you personally took no part in the ongoing political war being waged against the dwindling number of Natives we have left. You don't belong here. You need to be forcibly detained and expelled. Maybe even kept in a cage for a while until we figure out what to do with you.

Whoop. But that's the silent part you're not saying. You can call it Zionist if you want. But I think people need to think a little more critically about the actual logistics of what caused this problem in the first place, before firing off about it. Especially not when a lot of these talking points are at their heart incredibly antisemitic.

[emma-is-swaggy-and-epic]

A collection of some of my OCs as pokemon trainers :3

CHEAT SHEET/ EXPLANATION FOR EACH CHARACTERS' TEAMS UNDER THE CUT

Let's start with yuriko, her team consists of a gallade, a combee, a bisharp, a rookidee, a gothitelle and her beloved furfrou. Since chess is a BIG theme to yuriko's character, i wanted each pokemon to sorta reflect each piece in a game of chess (minus the king bc i ran out of room). Combee is the pawn because in chess: pawns are the weakest piece and are kinda there to protect the queen in a way, similarly to how worker bees in a beehive tend to do stuff for the queen (not to mention that pawns actually CAN become queens in a game of chess, similarly to how normal bee larvae can grow up to become a queen if fed enough). Bisharp and rookidee are the bishop and the rook for obvious reasons, gallade is the knight and gothitelle is the queen (though tbh i also partially chose those two bc in yuriko's usual form, she is a danganronpa fan character, specifically a celesgami fankid and i kinda associate those two characters with those pokemon...albeit with celeste it's more or less the gothitelle line IN GENERAL) lastly i chose a furfrou bc that's the closest i can get to yuriko's goofy ass dog, gambit.....there are no borzoi pokemon i'm afraid

Also ngl whenever i hear gothitelle's name, my mind immediantly goes to cottonelle and i can't help but think of emo toilet paper...

Next with makeighlyn: her team consists of a sylveon, a galarian ponyta, an indeedee, a porygon, a spiritomb and an absol. I imagine that since makeighlyn's whole lore is that she's a flash game mascot turned demon slayer, she was probably given a sylveon, ponyta and indeedee by her creators (the sylveon representing her pet cat, angie) but ended up finding and catching a porygon after she gained sentience; when she became a demon slayer, the souls of all the demons she killed formed into a spiritomb and she caught that too and lastly she caught an absol to sorta let the demons know she's coming since y'know.....absol is said to be a bad omen....also yes, makeighlyn IS wearing may's contest outfit, it was easier than just thinking up an original pokemon universe design for her

For myrtle: her team consists of a zorua, a cubone, a banette, jirachi, a duskull and a zubat. Tbh i didn't really put that much thought into her team, i just picked the edgiest pokemon i could find....though with cubone and banette i just picked them bc they're infamous for having really dark pokedex entries and are a common sight in the more horror-oriented side of the fandom, and also i picked zubat bc it's the first pokemon i think of when i think of team rocket (aside from meowth, obviously) typically i prefer not to include legendary/mythical pokemon whenever i give a character a pokemon team for the sake of believablity though i just couldn't resist giving myrtle jirachi considering how much it fits with her backstory (normally, myrtle's story is that she randomly discovered she had reality-bending powers one day and abused her power so much it caused a dimensional merge; though since this is pokemon and humans don't have powers, i feel it makes more sense if she caught jirachi and abused it's wish granting powers)

Lastly for renée: her team consists of an altaria, a castform, a smeargle, a snom, a munchlax and a bruxish. Tbh i only really gave her an altaria and a castform as a sort of callback to the fact that renée is a bird (though i had to make her human for the sake of this challenge), specifically a pigeon-cloud nymph hybrid; so i gave her a cloud bird and a weather creature! Since renée is more or less a 2014 tumblr-esque hipster (a bit millenialcore i daresay), i gave her a bruxish bc i've literally never seen a single person who likes bruxish (i personally don't really care for it either way but like....LOOK AT THIS THING!!! IT LOOKS LIKE IT SHOULD BE HANGING OUT WITH THE BEATLES IN PEPPERLAND OR SOME SHIT)

Anyway, i also gave renée a munchlax bc tbh that pokemon SCREAMS millenials in 2014 tbh (like....fr you'd be hard-pressed NOT to find a millenial on the internet from that era making jokes about how much pizza and avocado toast they eat) i also gave her a smeargle to reference renée's love for painting and a snom bc....tbh i think snom is kinda overrated and i feel like renée would be the type of person to make that damn thing her entire personality so yea (also renée likes bugs so i had in incorporate that SOMEHOW)

[where-them-kinomiya-at]

what really went wrong with v force villains imo:

I really think the villains were the major issue in the season I mean like, it could’ve definitely worked out with a little better writing.

-the villains shouldn’t be team rocket villains (aka Gideon) they genuinely need to scare the heck out of you like Boris did

-the redeeming factor however about Gideon and his people was Wyatt’s arc. Dub or Sub, both the consequences showed us how much of a fucked up world those teenagers were living in and kai’s actions during his match with Goki showed us how much it affected him.

-also about Kane and Salima: Tyson vs Kane was good because 1) Kane was genuinely losing his shit and it was scary 2) Tyson was literally about to die (could have been executed better) 3) salima was screaming for Kane while Jim was laughing like a psychotic bitch and Goki was literally crying. So you know, it was psychotic as hell and I liked it tbh.

But the rest??? Like the island arc was??? It could have been executed so much better.

-also like ep 4 they were legit trying to kill Kenny and Hilary like…make that more serious buddy because it was no joke+why do they always cover up how anxious Tyson was? His battle stats were like 0 at that point and he was barely able to summon dragoon + he was humiliated in front of his hometown……he was obviously at his worst and for him to be the one saving both of them….why is that not serious?

-Overall saint shields and dr. Zagart and Zeo were good. The end-of-the-season tension remained. A little more angst overall and I think I could take Gideon a lil more seriously lol. And dr. K I forgot about her.

-king and queen were good for the amount of screen time they got

Still takes me sometime to realise that ep 4 was no joke but the writing made it look like one at some points.

It could have definitely been better if they showed us the consequences like we saw with Boris and all(they only showed Wyatt). You saw children getting thrown into fucking cells and going through some psychotic hanging above snakes training. The dub never showed us the cell part so as a kid I genuinely thought that Alexander (dunno his original name) was executed. Thanks dub. Oh yeah let’s not forget about Bryan killing people.

[princess-of-the-corner]

the villain competency thing was something I was thinking about recently like. at least with Gabriel we have the whole kids vs adults, new generation vs old generation type thing and we didn't know much about him other than he was bad. additionally, since he was Adrien's dad, he had a control over him even without the sentinonsense. he posed a threat on both sides of the fight.

With Chloe and Lila, we were given them as civilians except they've made one so stupid that she's become an illiterate puppet scapegoat and the other can't even lie well without making other actually established smart people stupid enough to fall for it. And yeah they tossed in that bs with her fooling three separate adult women but like, idk i feel like that says more about them being incredibly negligent parents than it does about her cause is she just doing it for fun? what's that got to do with our heroes at this point in time? what's it show besides the fact that rather than making Lila actually great at manipulation you decide to show her manipulation by giving us scenes of something more "horrible" than her lying about knowing celebrities to a bunch of high school kids.

so if they decide to make this dumb blonde and plot armor liar our Big Villains from this point forward, they've got their work cut out for them. Like they're gonna keep retconning shit so it doesn't actually matter but if they cared at all about continuity then they can't make Lila the main lead villain without making her or the miraculous team look useless. If they're going with the callback to whatever scared her at the end of season 5 and have that help her be the main villain then damn she couldn't even do the evil shit herself huh? and if it's mainly just her and the akumas then high chance they'll toss in the heroes and have them be just as dumb as when they were around her at school. but then it'd be "why did Marinette give miraculouses to such pathetic heroes?" in the same vein of "wow the class was stupid enough to believe Lila's shitty lies" and it wouldn't even be their fault, it would be because they keep giving Lila plot armor. at the very least, the fact that Gabriel just kept doing the same thing over and over and kept losing was because that was established before they decided to be more story driven.

Chloe can't be smart. Austruc would absolutely refuse. so then you run into the same problem again except this villain is easy to beat and if you're all going against her at once then you're all the bullies at that point tbh. but also like, 18 vs 1?? gross. And she wouldn't even be a fun villain if she was stupid either. nowhere near Team Rocket levels of amusing cause at least they were their own characters. if they decide to make her a senti, it'll be bad either way cause they're def not gonna add any nuance to that. if they decide to make her good (highly highly highly doubt), it's going to be like those fics where Chloé has to go through so much shit as "punishment" that she's basically going deeper than the rock bottom of being literally abandoned by her dad and being abused by her mom that it's still a salt fic no matter how you spin what side she's on.

it's just like, the worst of characterizations of these characters and you picked every single bad story thread/end of each story arc of the past few seasons and it's a mess i don't have confidence in their writing to fix. but considering the writers' (specifically Austruc tbh) tendency to "we do what we want when we feel like we need to" attitudes to plot (side eyes that tweet about timeline) then highly doubt they'll even touch on old shit cause, as said by a different tweet, the Agreste Family Arc is over. they're def just gonna move on.

Yeah it's a mess

[icarusdash]

unsolicited tips for winning gambit that destiny doesn’t really tell you, from someone who has gilded the dredgen title six godforsaken times in solo queue:

at the start, getting the first invasion is more important than getting big blockers. yes, even if you have 14 motes, you should deposit with the rest of your team. on most maps, a team can get to 40 motes deposited after the second wave of hostiles

scavenger mods work with the heavy brick that high value targets drop. sometimes you’ll get two heavy drops from one HVT

for the love of god. hydras explode when you kill them. i know it’s tempting to grab the motes before that happens, but ALWAYS WAIT. JUST WAIT FOR THEM TO EXPLODE BEFORE YOU PICK UP THE MOTES

if your team is still collecting motes and the enemy team is on the primeval, you will still drain motes when you have two or more blockers alive on their side. if you have a primeval and your enemy doesn’t and there’s blockers on the field, you should kill them before doing damage, especially goblins

primeval health locks once you’ve done 30% of the health it has when you start doing damage (...i think. it’s a little vague at times). you do more damage the more stacks of the primeval slayer buff you have. if you’re ahead of the enemy team, consider saving your heavy ammo for higher stacks of primeval slayer

i like to save my damage supers for the second damage phase, ideally right after an invasion from the enemy team, so i can quickly skip past the second phase and dump all the ammo i have left into the primeval’s last bit of health

there is no shame in using tracking rockets

there is no shame in hiding from the invader

there is no shame in depositing early to avoid getting killed by the invader

there is no shame in using your super to not lose all your motes

distracting the enemy team with an invasion can be just as effective as killing guardians sometimes. even if your nova bomb chases them halfway across the map and doesn’t kill anyone, that’s still a good chunk of time they’re not collecting motes or melting the boss

this is not a guarantee, but most of the time, you can manipulate where the invader spawns. each map only has 2-3 places where they can appear, and it’s usually the spawn furthest from your team. if you stand in a spawn spot during damage phases, the invader will almost always spawn in one of the other spots on the map.

emerald coast is the worst map to try this on, as its so small that sometimes an invader will spawn directly behind you if you’re on the beach waiting for them. this is a possibility on every map, but much, much worse on emerald coast

exotic weapons i recommend:

outbreak perfected is good for add-clear AND boss damage, and its range isn’t too shabby for invading/taking down invaders either

gjallarhorn, trust, jotunn, deathbringer, and two-tailed fox are all very good, for reasons you can imagine. i personally love the latter for invading, especially with a void hunter

trinity ghoul is absolutely disgusting with arc 3.0. i can clear hostiles waves in seconds with the catalyst. nearly every single massacre medal i’ve gotten was from trinity ghoul.

tbh? people sleep on thunderlord, which is good for nearly everything in gambit. xenophage is also incredible for invading still, and not too bad for boss damage

if you’re running with a fireteam, swapping to divinity after you summon a primeval will make you everyone’s favorite fireteam member

and above all: if you just play gambit for the bounties or the pinnacle gear or even for fun, that’s fine too!!! there’s no competitive gambit playlist, we’re all in this together. just know that some players may be doing odd things on purpose, and you too can help us sweaty dredgens get our dubs if you keep these things in mind :)

[nanayuz]

satogou, sigh .

i think goh fell in love with ash as early as jn003, the moment ash protected the ivysaur from team rocket with his own body. it was very similar to how ash earned pikachu’s trust back in ep001, he wanted to protect both people and pokémon he could trust, even ones he just met. 

goh noticed it right as ash protected the ivysaur. even though he’d thought ash’s idea of connecting with pokémon was stupid only minutes before, he now knew why ash thought the way he did. goh didn’t just learn a lot about ash, he learned a lot from him.  ash was his ‘first true friend’, at least in chloe’s words. and in the 10 second clip of goh staring at ash in jn003, goh seemed to want even more than that.

ash, on the other hand, took quite a bit longer. and, tbh, i don’t think he even realized he was in love until the last two episodes of jn. but there were quite a few times throughout the entire journeys series, where it felt like he might’ve been ‘starting’ to know, starting to feel.

like in jn015, where he went out of his way just to give goh the gift for his parents he’d dropped before getting on the bus. the first major time ash has done something for goh, just because he felt like it.

there are so many other moments, throughout the entire series. they’re always so in sync, always so knowing of each other. but, tbh, i don’t think ash fell in love until as late as jn135, when goh “broke up with him”.

throughout the entire episode, both ash and goh are deciding whether they should go on new journeys or not. neither of them talk to the other about it, which makes goh feel betrayed the instant ash just tells him out of nowhere. goh spent so long thinking about his future, not knowing what ash would say if he decided to go on a journey without him. well, he knew ash would tell him to go for it, but did he want that?

and the fact ash decided all by himself, seeming as if he didn’t even think of how goh would feel, the latter just . . felt betrayed. which was why he declared their friendship over and ran off, and the exact same feeling goh had in jn003 happened to ash. the same shocked look, not knowing if he was confused or not confused at all. 

chloe told ash about how goh wanted to go on a journey as well, and how he was afraid of all the things he felt ash wasn’t afraid of in those moments. how ash was goh’s first true friend, how he didn’t feel emotions he felt with ash before he came into his life. 

and at that moment, i think ash knew. i think he realized, realized how much he loved goh. from their 2nd episode together to their 2nd last, how much their feelings had changed. the small amount of hate they had for each other at the beginning now not even being recognized, because they became so close.

from their 1st episode together to their last, with the lugia they rid on being a reminder of their growth together. lugia, the master of the legendary birds, the birds who now left their nest after growing so much.

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

these lowkey canon limited events are so good for characterization tbh, it’s such a shame they’re limited??? like if someone drops in next patch they’re not going to see Kira’s responsible side or Misteln’s silly team rocket shenanigans

there’s always youtube but i don’t think there’s a written archive for them..?

[yamujiburo]

Hey there, Kiana, the name’s Logan and I am quite a fan of your art, as well as the animation done in Pokémon: Path to The Peak. I just have some questions that I hope you don’t mind answering. PS, Sorry about the amount and/or what questions I have.

1)What got you into Pokémon? Was it the games, the anime, or something else?

2)As of now, have you met any of the anime’s VAs(Voice Actors)? If so, who?

3)I am a FanFiction writer and plan on doing a rewrite of Pokémon Live. Looking back at it now, what needs to be changed/improved and why?

4)When making sensitive/dark moments in stories/episodes, such as break-ups, arguments, etc., what’s the process?

Hiya! Glad you enjoyed Path to the Peak! It was so fun to work on and I'm so honored to have worked on anything Pokémon hahaha

I was always more intrigued by the anime but I wasn't allowed to watch it as a kid. It wasn't until my brother and I found a copy of Pokémon Diamond on the ground that our parents finally caved and let us get into the franchise. So I guess it was technically the games!

I'm not a convention goer so I haven't met a tooooon. But I'm buds with Zeno Robinson (who I met bc he's the voice of Remy on the show that I work on, Big City Greens), I haven't met Michele Knotz in person yet but we message each other a lot and I've been a guest on her streams several times, and I've very recently been able to meet Sarah Natochenny who invited me to one of her parties a few months ago! I met a lot of the VAs, who I've been twitter mutuals with for a while, at said party (Alejandro Saab, Jenny Yokobori, Ray Chase, Cherami Leigh, etc.) They were all delightful!

Honestly the musical is gold. There's not much I'd change tbh. I don't consider it canon but that doesn't mean it's not fun hahaha. I'm just a Madame Boss truther and the Pokémon Live implies Giovanni founded Team Rocket when it was really her

I think it's just important to get in the head of the characters you're writing and also combine that with any of your personal experiences. Taking those feelings and then imagining how a specific character would handle said feelings will really help inform how you write them

[hamliet]

I feel there's still more to the kurta massacre than we think, i mean why did the spiders kill them in such a brutal way? It seemed personal tbh and what if tserriednich was involved in all of this?

I definitely think it was personal and revenge motivated. Sheila’s association with them and her presumed demise really makes me believe what @aspoonofsugar theorized: that the Kurta clan killed Sheila to prevent her from telling anyone about them. It kinda fits pretty perfectly with the themes of both Chrollo and Kurapika’s arcs.

(I know volume 0 states that a female traveler found the Kurtas, and people assume it’s Sheila, but… what if it wasn’t)

Nothing is impossible, but I don’t personally think Tserriednich was involved. I think it’s a lot more thematically powerful without another, truer villain or without a misunderstanding. That forces Kurapika to choose between revenge and saving what is left, rather than like, teaming up with Chrollo to defeat the true final boss.

The true boss Kurapika has to overcome in his arc is himself—specifically, his survivor’s guilt that leaves him wishing to die. He has to learn to live.

See, HxH is a coming of age story like most shonens, coming of age stories usually have, as part of their narrative, a defeat/death of the parent or a moment where the child lets go/comes to terms with what they can’t change and learns to live as themselves, not just as their parent’s child. It’s why I think the true person to overcome in Gon, Killua, and Kurapika’s arcs are their parents/histories, not Hisoka, Illumi, and Chrollo. In fact, given those three’s status as the most classic Jungian shadows, I wouldn’t be surprised if all three have to work together to overcome their greatest challenge.

Gon has already learned about Ging. I don’t think Ging is a villain by any means, but I do think Gon needs to eventually decide not to become Ging even if he appreciates aspects of what he’s learned along the way. Plus there’s Gyro. Killua thinks his big issue is Illumi, but it’s really Silva.

Kurapika needs to accept the deaths of his family and stop trying to join them. To quote Rocket Raccoon: oh boohoo my [family] died! … everyone’s got dead people; it’s no excuse to get everyone else dead along the way!

[cyborb]

there have been some asks sitting unanswered in my inbox for an embarrassingly long time so I'm just going to go through and answer a bunch of them at once haha.

Sada and Turo / Paldea

now that the dlc is out I can play around with my own version of paldea's story and the professors (that I may or may not actually talk about), but they won't be in the rainbow rocket stuff with supersymmetry. "officially" at least. maybe I'll draw something for fun, but I don't intend them to actually be in rr like the rest. they're more interesting to me within the story of paldea, especially with the ai aspects and ... other things going on there.

but to the anons who sent me these: those ideas are cool and honestly you should pursue them yourself!

Lusamine

absolutely yes. in the base universe, her "unification" with nihilego kills her pretty quickly. iota lusamine is luckier since her nihilego seems to prefer keeping her around for longer. slow-acting vs fast-acting poisons, I suppose. by the time lusamine is picked up by rr, it's been about 6 months since she became jellyfish. who knows how much time she has left but her mental (and physical) state will continue to deteriorate along the way. an unsurprising consequence of willingly jumping into the mouth of a parasite

possibly? I haven't given that much thought tbh. considering lillie and guzma's proximity to lusamine when she goes motherbeast, they'd both be lucky to make it out alive hahaha. but I could see all three of them trying to help people and pokemon in the UB-overrun world too

honestly, no clue. I don't even think she knows, and she definitely doesn't care. who needs regular pokemon when she's got ultra beasts now! if lillie is still around she might have taken in a few of them herself though.

Other AU stuff

I've actually made a post about team galactic here!

one fun fact about each of them:

maria/mars is giovanni and ariana's first child, and she ran from her home in kanto when she was 16 to become a pokemon trainer and get away from her parents. sorry silver (she hasn't contacted him in a while).

juno/jupiter makes traditional (hisuian) style pokeballs as a hobby despite the fact that they absolutely are not practical to actually use anymore. but they look nice

sterling/saturn helps run the in-universe equivalent of pokemon showdown because he's a nerd. he enjoys simulated battles more than the real thing most of the time

great news: the rainbow rocket invasion all his fault!

by that I mean the choice of the base universe for invasion wasn't entirely arbitrary; rainbow rocket didn't just Show Up and hope this universe had what they wanted. beforehand, someone from rainbow rocket (either giovanni or archer, maybe even colress) scouted things out, and approached faba for information about the general state of the world and necrozma in particular. faba essentially sells out the universe (and aether's work with necrozma) in exchange for the promise of power and whatever tantalizing rewards the rr emissary offers haha. it's possible some of this involves planting a device to let rr come back to the right universe when ready too. what faba is up to when everything is going down in rr is not something that I've thought about, but he definitely gets found out for his actions leading up to it. oops!

unfortunately probably not. the rr stuff is happening on the other side of the planet and I can't think of a situation which might result in them getting to meet up. I'm not enough of an expert on the two of them to say how such a meeting would play out either, but it would definitely be... interesting considering their own universe's version of the other person has been dead for several years.

rose would probably be the least upset about it but cyrus wins the award for most upset (he has control issues). lysandre absolutely would have the most violent response to it though

Compliments

while I'm not going to share the collection of complimentary messages I've gotten over time, I want everyone to know that I really appreciate hearing that you enjoy my ideas and art! it's encouraging and I'm glad people like my pokemon playground hahaha. and that applies to tags too! it's always great to see... I don't always get around to actually answering the stuff in my inbox (whether it's actual questions or otherwise) but rest assured I do see it!

[adamwarlock]

hi edith as the only other person on here that i follow that enjoys adam what did you think about him in Vol.3? i think in my head once i let myself enjoy movie adam and comic adam as not two separate beings but obvious differences that i really enjoyed will's performance and i would be excited to see him again :)

HIII :) I feel you he's definitely mcu flavored but I liked Poulter's performance, I think he desperately needed a little more screen time but I was actually pretty pleased with what we got characterization wise. I have no faith in the mcu so the fact that I do feel like it IS Adam on screen, in his infancy, even if he's a little goofier than usual, it made me smile and I'm happy with it. I can understand why some people think they completely butchered him though lol but I disagree, I think James Gunn laid decent groundwork from which he can grow into the more serious/independent/insane person that he becomes later. He hasn't quite earned the title "Warlock" yet.

Spoiler thoughts under the read more.

My biggest problem with it all really is that Adam's not woven into the narrative well enough, after Ayesha's death his role in the story feels pretty aimless. It bothers me that we don't even get a hint of how he feels about his Mother dying after trying to save her, we needed at least a single line to address that and I would've liked some sort of final confrontation between him and the High Evolutionary. Everything before Ayesha's death is fine imo, Adam just doesn't really get to do anything at the end of the movie besides saving Peter which is a huge shame because it only needs a small rewrite to make it work.

I feel like his "redemption" is otherwise alright though, I like that he grows attached to that little furry creature and he mentions wanting credit for Rocket's capture so H.E doesn't kill the Sovereign, which gives him a reason to keep hunting the guardians that's not really malicious just misguided. With how young he is he still needs guidance and is seeking purpose and his own moral compass so I think Groot giving him a second chance and Adam taking that to heart is maybe a little cheesy but good, actually.

It's the little things that win me over though; he's obviously arrogant even if he still listens to his mommy, the Pieta and the Creation of Adam references (with Adam in God's place!!!), I love that H.E mentions there's something WRONG with him even outside of being born prematurely & he got to have a classic "WHY?" moment. And Gunn didn't fuck up his speech mannerisms horrifically even though he's British, it makes me giggle when he calls the High Evolutionary a "extraordinary phallus"... the comedy works for me tbh. Also he's powerful!! Wiping the floor with everybody so he has to be stabbed through the chest and blown up twice just to slow him down. Feels good feels organic. :)

Ayesha being his mom is kinda whatever though but we just didn't get enough scenes with them + the High Evolutionary so. Shrug.

OH one minor nitpick but while I don't mind him joining the GOTG at the end because he's still in his baby Him era, Adam's ego is too big to stay on a team where he's not the leader so I'm gonna need to see him butt heads with Rocket next time like he did with Ayesha.

TL;DR I'm shocked the mcu actually kinda pulled through on this for me but I love him. I'm terrified to see where they're gonna take him after this though because a decent start doesn't mean much if they just fuck him up later lmao.

I think that's all the thoughts I have... Overall it was good I liked it :) Obviously they could've done SOOOOO much more with Adam/Ayesha/the High Evolutionary but without any major rewrites Gunn just fumbled the ending a little bit lol. The costume is hideous though and the GOTG uniform is just whatever, I'm still praying on my hands and knees that he gets to have a emotional breakdown that turns him goth later.