#i would start pokemon games and give myself the name i was considering

[daisychainsandbowties]

CASPER LE FANTÔME???? Crying screaming can't believe that's how you chose ur name. Buried memories sticking a hand out of their grave.

i don’t even remember what this movie is about but yeahhhh. i loved the name as soon as it occurred to me, & i liked that it could be shortened to Cas, and i liked that it was 6 letters and there are other more poetic reasons too but those. are gay. so yeah i’m named after the dead boy from that movie 😌🙏

[allmightyraccon]

¦First post and presentation¦

Hi, I'm new here and I'm also kinda lost in what I might do with that account so here's my presentation.

My name is Alexander / Alexandre, I like both so call me the one you prefer.

I'm usually nicknamed Al, Alex or Kit, you can call me that too.

I mainly use he/him pronouns but I also often use it/its pronouns, both sets are fine with me. (Please, don't use she/her or they/them when referring to me.)

I'm 19 years old.

My main language isn't English.

I'm an INTP and probably (can't have a proper diagnosis yet) autistic, I struggle with communication and I try to be better at it. (it's honestly one of the main reasons why I started this account)

I'm a transgender man and I consider myself Cupioromantic/sexual.

I'm trying to get better at writing, I wrote a bit but I'd like to write more (don't hesitate to give me ideas and requests, I would do my best.).

I'm okay with mature / 18+ content , you can request me those if you want.

Now, more about what I like.

My favorite video games are :

The call of duty games (especially COD Ghost and the original Modern Warfare trilogy)

Red dead redemption

Pokemon

Skullgirls

My favorite series / movies are :

Our flag means death

Loki

Deadpool

Spiderverse

Jojo rabbit

My favorite bands / musicians are :

ATARASHII GAKKO!

1 800 Pain

That Handsome Devil

Slipknot

What I do in my free time :

Write random things about characters I created or character I like

Drawing silly things

Reading novels, comics or mangas

[themichaelvan]

tagged by @changingcore / 15 questions for 15 mutuals (oh fuck do i even have that many)

are you named after anyone? - birth name, nope. does it count if i got my chosen name from a fictional character??

when was the last time you cried? - this morning!! nothing 2 be concerned about i got woken up by the fire alarm (also nothing to be concerned about it just needs the battery replaced) and was so tired & upset i started crying, which happens. more often than i would like. hm. maybe i named myself after the wrong afton kid

do you have kids? - nope!! i do like interacting with them though but only like 3 max at a time JFJRJFNG

do you use sarcasm a lot? - irl yes, online only sparingly. & i make it very exaggerated not usually deadpanned or anything so people can Tell (which of course nobody needs except for Me but i digress)

what sports do you play/have played? - did soccer when i was a little kid (Hated It), was on a swim team for a while, and did marching band for the longest (which is my favorite and yes it counts as a sport and you cannot say it doesn't until you've been in marching band. cunt)

what's the first thing you notice about other people? - typically clothes and then hair! i have a relatively mild (but still pretty bad compared to ppl without it) case of face-blindness, and i CANNOT tell people apart by their faces at all unless they have smth like a bunch of facial piercings or a scar or smth Noticable so i tend to look at other things first.

eye colour? - ??? hazel-brown ??? no idea tbh but at least partially brown

scary movies or happy endings? - HAPPY ENDINGS. i am soso scared of scary movies i will gladly watch the little prince for the 60th time. Alternate Universe - Everybody Lives / Nobody Dies is one of my favorite tags on ao3.

any special talents? - ? What does this mean. i guess proofreading/editing?? i have always LOVED doing it and i just. naturally keep track of all the Language Rules and enjoy using them. the autism kicking in i suppose. and yes it does count as a special talent actually you would not BELIEVE how many candies i got in 5th grade from ppl bribing me to read over their essays.

where were you born? - arizona/usa. same town as my mom actually (despite her moving like 7 times in between her birth and mine)

what are your hobbies? - listen to music and pace around my room until i pass out. and painting, writing, drawing, various other arts n crafts, guitar, percussion when i have the chance (rn i only have a practice pad :|), and mobile games of heavily varying quality.

do you have any pets? - not atm but i used to have two cats (both still alive just in different household) that i still consider my little kitties :] i have 150+ pictures of them on my phone if you ever need cats i Got you

how tall are you? - 5'11" now!!! was hovering around 5'7"-8" for the longest time but i recently had a growth spurt and now im only the SECOND shortest in my family (out of six)

favourite subject in school? - by the material probably math! it is sometimes difficult for me to get a concept but once i do it's Easy. i also do have an advantage (parent has math degree and is good at explaining) but i try and make up for it by helping everyone else as much as i can jfjdndjf. by the Class def band/music class if that counts. both of my music teachers have been both very scary yet very nice to me and i loved their classes so so much and i extremely enjoy playing instruments with other people (when they behave)

dream job? - sorting pokemon cards in a comfortable chair as a day job with a 4 day workweek, being a freelance renowned fiction editor on my own time, with occasional music-related gigs (tutoring, repairing stuff, playing in concerts, etc). i give you no shit if i could do that for the rest of my life and get paid well enough to live on my own or with roommates i like, have a cat, and have enough time and energy to homecook a meal 3-4 nights a week i would be so happy. that's all i want in life. "oh you would get bored doing the same thing day in day out" no i wouldn't "how" autism.

tags: @irradiatedblood @schmope-is-dead @sapphireclaw @bmo-2143 @pokette @soldiertransgender @astral--horrorshow @catnerdenby @unrestrainedbalderdash @buggiboo @lunar-anomaly @altruisticmystik @syntacticerrortxt @catlokis-blog @rosesareredjaybirdsareblue . okay. okay i think that's 15. im pretty sure. jegus.

[raeynbowboi]

Pokémon Gym Leader League Challenge: Fairy Type

I like Pokémon, and I’ve seen people create their own OC gym leaders. But, I wanted to take it a step further by creating the League Challenge. So, what is a Pokémon Gym Leader League Challenge? You still create an OC gym leader, but you show their progression through the entire League: starting off as the first gym leader, and progressing all the way up to Champion. I’m aware that Gym Leaders are starting to be put in an unstandardized order, so for this mock-up, I’m looking at the Pokémon model from the first 4 generations, where you had to fight the gym leaders in a given order as they got stronger, and the Elite Four was also set in a particular order as well. Since Fairy is my favorite Pokémon type, I figured I should give it the honor of going first.

STARTER POKEMON: RALTS

Gardevoir has been my favorite Pokémon since I saw Wally’s my first time playing Ruby, and was so jealous that I completely reset the game ON Victory Road so I could get a Gardevoir. Now, while Gardevoir will be the ace Pokémon by the late game, Ralts has rather poor stats, and isn’t suited to being the ace of an early gym. So, for the first couple of gyms, Ralts will be demoted to a lower station in the gym while another Pokémon serves as the Ace, at least until it evolves, and can actually be worthy of being the Ace of a gym.

THE GYM:

For the fairy type specialist, the gym would be modeled after a fairytale castle. Typically, gym puzzles get more complicated as you go up through the league, so I’ll just say that the gym’s puzzle would be somehow linked to fairytales. Swinging between platforms on braids of Rapunzel’s hair. A poisoned apple being shuffled among non-poisoned ones and having to pick the right one to avoid a trainer battle for Snow White. Or, Having until the clock strikes 12 to reach the gym leader or else you’ll be sent back to the start for Cinderella.

THE BADGE:

I’m honestly really disappointed with the fairy-type Gym Leaders we’ve had thus far. They seriously both named their badge the exact same thing, and it’s just the name of the type? Really? The Fairy Badge? So, for my gym, I thought about the vibe I’m giving off with my gym. The present theme of fairy tales and the castle aesthetic. I decided to go with The Enchanted Badge and model it after a crown.

THE LEADER:

Given the castle aesthetic and fairy tale themes of the gym, I’d model myself after a Prince Charming-like figure, with red and pink as signature colors. I suck at drawing, so Baron Alberto from Rise of Darkrai shall have to suffice as a face claim for this hypothetical alter ego. Since Gym Leaders are usually named something punny or referential, I’ll go with Gym Leader Oberon, after the King of the Faeries in English folklore.

1ST GYM

Items: Potion x2 TM: Draining Kiss

Typically in a first gym in the early generations, you’d see a team of about 2-3 Pokémon, with the weaker Pokémon being about level 12 or 13, and the Ace usually being capped at around level 15. Typically, the TM is one that deals around 60 base damage, so I chose Draining Kiss at 50 base power, which comes the closest, and has the added benefit of a self-healing factor.

2ND GYM

Items: Superpotion x2 TM: Draining Kiss

I considered initially swapping Marill and Sylveon at this stage so that Marill could evolve, but decided against it. Sylveon is already a pretty strong Pokémon, and adding an Azumarill for the second gym in a region seemed a bit unbalanced. Luckily, this is the last gym where the majority of the Pokémon are stuck in their first stages.

3RD GYM

Items: Super Potions x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

Now that we’ve reached the third level, most of our team has finally started to evolve. It’s usually around the 3rd gym that gym leaders start to really pose a challenge, even if they don’t have a type advantage. I decided to add Clefairy to the team because with Kirlia and Azumarill evolved now, we needed a new weak entry-level 1st stage pokemon, and Clefairy is a good choice, with decent bulk, but limited damage output. Now that the Gym has gotten stronger, I elected to increase the power of the main TM, and upgraded from Draining Kiss to Dazzling Gleam.

4TH GYM

Items: Hyper Potion x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

For the most part, this is where our team falls off for a while. Between the 3rd and 5th gyms, we don’t really add many new Pokémon, so it’s just leveling up the Pokémon we already have. Luckily, the next gym will offer a much-needed upgrade.

5th GYM

Items: Hyper Potion x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

Well, it took 5 gyms, but our starter is finally strong enough to be our Ace Pokémon. Ironically, Sylveon actually has a higher Base Stat Total than Gardevoir, so it’s actually somewhat of a downgrade, but I don’t care. I love Gardevoir, and it was always my first choice for being my Ace. Now, it’s finally strong enough to warrant that position.

6TH GYM

Items: Hyper Potions x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

Finally at about the 6th gym is when Gym Leaders start to really augment their teams with TM moves and other moves that deviate from a Pokémon's level-up moveset outside of the gym’s signature TM move. So, I elected to teach Azumarill Ice Punch, Sylveon Shadow Ball, and cheated a bit to give Gardevoir Psychic to give it a better reason to be the Ace Pokémon. I could have just gone with a Togekiss, but I felt that Togetic was the better option at this point. It’s BST is higher than Clefairy, but lower than Azumarill, and it has a pretty good spread of type coverage.

7th GYM

Items: Hyper Potions x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

So in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been basing my Pokemon count and levels by the gym leader teams in Pokemon Emerald, as I recall that game in particular being a good part more challenging than Ruby and Sapphire, and stands out in my mind as the perfect balance between difficult while remaining reasonable. However, Tate and Liza’s gym is a stark jump in level, likely due to the tag team nature of their gym. Since I already have more pokemon than them and I felt that level jump was a bit high, I redistributed the levels based on earlier gym leaders, namely Flannery and Norman’s gyms, using the level cap of their aces for Gardevoir and scaling down accordingly.

8TH GYM

Items: Hyper Potions 2x TM: Moonblast

We finally made it to the final gym in the region, and I finally felt it was time to have Clefairy evolve. Up until now, I’ve been keeping it unevolved because most gyms have a “weak early entry” that’s usually unevolved, but I figured with it being the final badge in the region, the designated runt of the team still deserved to be fully evolved. I debated whether or not to evolve Togetic, as Togekiss is really really strong. Ultimately, I decided that two gyms with Togetic had been enough, and this is the final gym. Of course I’m going to evolve Togetic. With it being the final gym, I also decided now was the time to give my team the strongest fairy-type TM there has ever been: Moonblast. I’m aware that it’s not a TM anymore, but it used to be, so I’m going to count it. With the gym challenge over with, it’s on to the Elite Four.

ELITE #1

Items: Full Restore 2x

Now that we’ve stepped up from Gym Leader to Elite Four, it seemed important to show up with a more competitive team, thus including the nature and EV training of the team. However, this is not a BDSP situation. Their EVs and IVs are not perfect, just favoring these stats. But I also can’t show up looking like a pushover with easily knocked over teams either if I want my Elite Four team to be taken seriously. With the departure from Gym Leader status, I’ve taken to filling out their move pools with more type coverage moves. More importantly, I have to start thinking about type coverage, and fairy has two key weaknesses: Steel and Poison. The best defense would be to get Ground-type moves on as many of the Pokemon as possible, but that’s unfortunately tricky with fairy-types. I made sure Azumarill had Bulldoze, and gave Togekiss Aura Sphere for steel-types, and the other three have psychic-type moves to deal with Poison-types. Sylveon’s Hidden Power works differently than how I remember it working. Hidden Power now turns into whatever type the enemy is weakest to, which against a steel type, may just turn into the fire or ground type coverage that Sylveon needs, which is also why it doesn’t have Pixilate.

ELITE #2

Items: Full Restore 2x

And just like gyms 3-5, we’re back to the point where there isn’t much left to say. The team is pretty much set the way it’s going to be until I become Champion. So, I figure I’ll talk about the Hidden Abilities I allowed two of my Pokémon to have. I chose to allow Clefable to have Magic Guard as it’s a great stall Pokémon between Calm Mind and Moonlight. Making sure it’s immune to Toxic is a great way to ensure it remains a useful wall. But I still left an opening. I opted for Calm Mind over Cosmic Power, meaning it doesn’t raise its Physical Defense, leaving it vulnerable to moves like Poison Jab or Meteor Mash, thus keeping it from being a perfect stall wall.

ELITE #3

Items: Full Restore 2x

As for Togekiss, it mostly came down to its other two abilities not being that great. Serene Grace gets rid of Status Effects upon switch out, but as a Gym Leader, and later, an Elite Four member, they don’t tend to switch out Pokémon, or at least, not very often. Meanwhile, Hustle raises Togekiss’ Attack stat while lowering its Accuracy, and Togekiss is not a physical attacker. Its Attack Stat is a mere 50. Hustle would bring it up to 75. Meanwhile, its Special Attack is 120. It’s much more useful as a fast special sweeper. I could have simply stuck with the ability it’s never (or at least rarely) going to use and just gone with Serene Grace, but I felt that it was worth it to give it Super Luck.

ELITE #4

Items: Full Restore 2x

If this post does well, I’ll continue to do this as a series. You can probably expect me to do Water, Psychic, or Dragon next, since they’re some of my favorites. And if you like the concept, feel free to make your own. Don’t forget to tag me so that I can see all of your awesome league challenges. Without further ado, let’s get to the Champion.

CHAMPION

Items: Full Restore 4x

When it came to choosing the last member of my team, it all came down to type coverage. I focused on which Fairy-type Pokémon could learn Ground-type moves. My top contenders were Granbull, Dachsbun, and Galarian Rapidash. Dacshbun had the benefit of fire-type immunity and could learn Dig and Stomping Tantrum. Granbull had access to Earthquake, and Galarian Rapidash had access to High Horsepower. Although Rapidash has the highest Speed and BST, I felt that Galarian Rapidash comes with a specific drawback. If I use a Pokémon only found in Galar, then I would have to be a Galarian trainer, which would also mean I could only use fairy-types found in Galar, and Marill cannot be found in Pokémon Sword and Shield. Ultimately, I chose Granbull because it has the highest Attack stat, and gets access to the highest damaging ground-type move: Earthquake. Its additional type coverage moves like Fire Fang, Ice Fang, Thunder Fang, Crunch, Brick Break, Outrage, and Iron Tail were just icing on the cake. I made sure Granbull had Fire Fang to take care of Steel Types that might be immune to Ground either due to Levitate or a secondary Flying type. I also gave it Outage as it deals serious damage, but has the drawback of causing confusion, giving hopeful trainers an opportunity to counter Granbull, thus keeping it from being too strong. It is for the same reason that I’m not using Galarian Rapidash that I’m also not using Mega Gardevoir. It’s no longer an available Pokémon in new regions going forward. I would have to be part of the Kalos league in order to use Mega Gardevoir as the Fairy-type Champion.

[nevermeyers]

For the ask game: 13, 29, 31, 33, 46 (ToT)~~~

13. What do you like about yourself?

I'm able to say no. I never knew this was a thing until several people praised about it from me and until a friend asked me to show her how I could do it.

I'm able to say no very easily, perhaps because I don't care what the other person is thinking. If I don't want to do something I just don't do it and that's it, I don't care if it makes others feel bad.

No, I'm not going to go have a drink with you just because you're my classmate. No, I don't want you to kiss me goodbye, or hug me, I don't want to have anything with you either. No, I won't lend you my pen because I've seen that you always lose everything the others lend you, next time be more responsible. No, I don't need you to walk me back home, I'm better off without you.

Apparently, for some reason some people find it difficult lmao

29. What are your comfort movies/shows?

Any series from my childhood! Especially Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and Pokemon Generations. I loved Pokemon :') also Monster High. I think they were the only dolls that really conveyed good values.

31. A lyric that feels like it was written specifically for you/about you.

Oh No! by Marina, Hard to Love by Rosé.

If you are not very careful // your possessions will possess you // TV taught me how to feel // now real life has no appeal

You want all of me, I can't give that much // so don't fall too hard, 'cause I'm hard to love

And some random verses from Melanie Martinez songs. I don't usually feel identified with songs but these are the first ones that occurred to me!

33. An artwork that makes you feel things.

I've put several types of art here, because I couldn't choose just one :')

Saint Chapelle, Paris. The first time I saw it was in an art history class, years ago. I never regretted choosing that subject. It's simply beautiful, it seems to me one of the most beautiful works that have ever been created. The colors of the stained glass windows are wonderful and seem to transport you to another place. I'll not go into detail about how important this chapel is for the Christian world, since I'm not religious. A teacher told us that some artists gather there to try to take the colors of the stained glass windows on their canvases <3

The Kiss of Death. It's located in the Poblenou Cemetery in Barcelona. All the sculptures in the cemeteries give me a nostalgic and terrifying air at the same time. They make me feel so lost, yet calm, so contradictorily fascinated by them. I think this is one of my favorites.

The painting Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel. Do I need to explain something? It's one of the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen. I love the detail of his wing tips, like he's rotting or wasting away, his angry look is amazing and then there's his famous tear. If I could see it in real life I think I would cry.

When I was still in high school, a classical culture teacher told us that human beings were capable of crying when our eyes see something they consider beautiful. I cried with the landscapes of Your Name. I also cried with the whole movie, but that's not the point haha. I remember seeing the scenes in the sky and being so overwhelmed by them that I started crying :')

The Silence of the Lambs book, by Tomas Harris. Nobody can tell me that it's not a work of art. I read it a while ago and I have such good memories

The Pianist movie. Self explanatory. Simply one of the best movies ever made. Is beautiful. I always want to cry at the end :')

These panels in Shingeki no Kyojin. The first time I saw them, a chill ran through me. Even to this day, years after seeing them for the first time, they still inspire me with a strange feeling that mixes terror and sadness. These episodes of The Rumbling are so, so impressive

David Bowie's Starman. I don't know what it is about it, I don't even know why I like it. Every time I hear it I remember myself from years ago because at that time I couldn't stop humming it. I hummed it for a whole year every day without ever having heard it in its entirety for some unknown reason. After that year I decided to finish listening to it and I simply adore it

Don't stop me now by Queen. It's my favorite song of theirs. I have a strange association with this song, every time I hear it I think of freedom and airplanes because my brother used to listen to it every time he played airplane simulators. It's a strange association, I know. The final part is simply beautiful, Freddy's voice and the piano fading little by little with that hum. It's a work of art.

46. A simple pleasure from this week.

Already answered here! But I'll add study with my cat on my lap! It was so cold and she was warm :')

[ravenwolfie97]

2022 Art Summary

it is that time of the year again, folks. this year has felt like forever and so short simultaneously. it’s felt like nothing and everything was happening. it was a weird year for me, probably because for the most part it was rather monotonous. but there were some good things to look back on, and as per usual i’m here to round it up here for you all to look at and enjoy :3

i’ll be honest. i was really worried about the art summary this year at first because these first few months were so sparse. i even considered just condensing the whole thing into quarters since this one was so lacking. but as the year went on, the more things i had to share, so for sake of brevity i will be putting the first three months up all at once

included in this quarter are assorted Cosmic Legacy character sketches, a Genshin Impact sona to continue the trend i had wanted to set at the end of 2021 (which i did not continue afterward), a lil valentine’s day present to my girlfriend, and a shiny form for my sona that was just part of a inside bandwagon. not much to say otherwise :/

the one major thing that happened in the first few months of 2022 was that i FINALLY. GOT MY HANDS. ON A NINTENDO SWITCH. I CAN NO LONGER MEME ABOUT BEING SWITCHLESS

so that was pretty exciting :>

the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus is what broke me, but before i played that i started off with a blind nuzlocke of Pokemon Shield, which is what the lil digital doodle in March is about; i had just caught a Stunky i named Wasabi and i was indifferent to Stunky up until catching him where i just fell in love with it

so, AI art, huh? this was when it was burgeoning, and still fun and popular to make. so when i saw some people using a 3d pokemon generator i made a whole bunch and gave it a go. i generated about 30 of them and hadn’t quite gotten to around a third of that, but the few i did were really fun to draw!

(the lil gremlin one at the top corner is uncolored here bc when i did try to color it my brain fully glitched and screwed up royally so i opted out of showing my failure here lol)

so my friend Cake started streaming a game called Your Turn to Die with me and our partner Stacey during the spring starting in late March, and it was such an incredible time that i miss being a part of (if you wanna watch our full playthrough, the vods are saved on her channel here)

so towards the end of our playthrough i decided to try my hand at drawing some stuff because my brain could not simply hold all of my feelings for them

i am definitely not biased because i played both Keiji and Rio Ranger in the stream, but i sure did like them a lot, and it was really fun to draw them :>

had a lot of cosmic drawings this month, most likely due to celebrating the One Year Anniversary of the concept at the beginning of the month! we celebrated with a cute little collab. i happened to continue the cosmic train on my end by coming up with a funny meme video idea (that we will get back to multiple times later on) and i also worked on a couple pieces in preparation for an upcoming event in the next month...

I FINALLY REMEMBERED TO SIGN UP AND PARTICIPATE IN ARTFIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME

it was a really fun event but i did not anticipate how late i would start my entries and how much time it would take to do them well, so i only got a few out, but i’m really proud of them! it was awesome to see all these brain children of random people from all around, and to get a couple responses back of my own as well! i’m excited to give it another go next year :3

i did not get a whole lot of art things done this month because MY GIRLFRIEND (and her roommate) CAME FROM OVERSEAS TO VISIT!!

it was such a great time being with them, and we had so much going on i didn’t get much opportunity to do much, but that was fine. one thing, related to my partner actually, is my pokemon gym trainer sona here! Stacey had been thinking about a fakemon region and wanted her friends as gym leaders, so i offered myself as a ground-type trainer, since it’s one of my favorite types and is rather underrated

a little more work got done on the cosmic meme video, and a couple other lil doodles. not much else artwise, but an awesome month regardless :3

idk why this month was so lacking, cuz this is pretty much all i had lol

the one decent sketch of my sona being angy was inspired by a post i found on here that was like... if you were a villain in a movie, what song would be playing at the point you would snap

and the choice i made was Faint by Linkin Park cuz it seemed applicable. and then my brain decided to listen to it on repeat and i ended up drawing that sketch. so that was cool :0

as per usual i do at least attempt to do an october art challenge, and this time i wanted to try this year’s annual list from Thomas Sanders, and it was pretty fun! i was really into it the first week, but then i got behind and after that point many of the prompts didn’t hold my attention, so... i trailed off. again

but! i do really like these ones in particular. didn’t really have much else after that so i’m glad i had fun with those

again this is p much all i had - november was a pretty nice time actually, with lots of gaming stuff going on with me n friends, but not so much art stuff was going on then

after having completed playing pkmn shield back in june, i tried my hand at pkmn legends pretty much right after that... and it didn’t quite click with me, though i did really like it. and then over the next few months i got back into pkmn go and that’s when i realized That’s more like what legends is about - it just screwed me up coming from a regular pkmn game. so, this month, i picked it up again and i’ve gotten much farther and much more attached!

in addition, later in the month my friends and i got back into playing stardew valley after nearly a year’s hiatus, and we made our characters based on the main trio in Cosmic Legacy, and so i drew Lalun with a parsnip. it was funny

and speaking of cosmic and video game things, Sonic Frontiers came out and i... did not get that one (though i will one day cuz it looks rad) BUT one of my friends got super into it and got me hooked on one of the songs, and then the part of my brain that associates fandom stuff with songs (a rarely triggered part of my brain) started to tie that to [REDACTED] here, as inspiration for their character. maybe. idk but the song gave me vibes that they could definitely have and i thought it was cool and i made a cool art with it too so yay

and here we are, at the end of the year! the sonic hype train was still rolling so i thought about giving them another go and they turned out pretty good! and i pumped out some more pokemon content at the very end to inflate this month’s art stuff a lil bit more

OH YEAH and that cosmic meme got finished just in time for crimmis! here is the link to that since i would not post it here

all in all it’s been. a year, to say the least. i am definitely looking forward to new things in the new year, but this one had been pretty alright. lots of fun and memorable things that hopefully i can continue doing similarly in the future :3

[thispit-thelame]

Blind Pokemon White Nuzlocke: Attempt One

Episode 1.3: Icing Burgh

Level Cap: 23

Previous Ep: 1.2 We start off this session with finally getting the dousing rod/itemfinder and immediately backtrack to all of the previous routes and towns to check for hidden items. Didn't find anything too amazing, but having a stockpile of various aid items is never a bad thing, and those that we cannot use, we can sell. In Pinwheel forest itself we catch a quirky sewaddle named Firenze (named for its wonderful textiles, of course lol) who I seem to have forgotten to take a photo of.

Besides catching our team member however, nothing much of consequence happens for a while though. We reach Castelia City, and after a quick trip to the PC, we head back for a little training and nudge Fugedda into evolving into a Trainquill. After that we trek north to see what we can find on route 4, the start of the desert north of Castelia. There we find a Careful Sandile named Vector. Vector has the amazing ability 'Moxie' which gives it a +1 to its attack everytime it KOs an opponent directly. Vector wont be too useful for the upcoming gym, but should become an invaluable member later, especially after they evolve and get some more useful stats.

After changing up the team a little to help stave off the level cap of which we are far too close for comfort, we resolve the Team Plasma portion without any issue whatsoever, and head back out to route 4 to do some training. What is an issue though are the handful of fishermen that I have since learned to give a wide berth. Basculin is the regional fish of Unova, and they are all 40lbs of pure hatred. Look at these stats; they're by no means a standout pokemon, but a single stage pokemon with a great typing this early in the game can do a whole lot to an unsuspecting team, and since I had no experience fighting them up until this point, man oh man do I have the fear of the sea in me now lol.

Thankfully no one dies and after a bit more training we blaze through the gym thanks to a combination of Fugedda and Broiler. Now though? Now its time for Burgh.

I know a little of what to expect since his Leavanny has gained a bit of infamy with the nuzlocking crowd, but beyond that. I really don't know what to expect. Going into this, I am fairly confident he'll have three pokemon, but besides the known Leavanny, and the expected veni/whirlipede I hadno idea what to expect. And oh dear reader, lol, lmao. How I wish I thought a little harder because I certainly would have put a little more thought into the plan that I had planned.

We lead once again with Broiler, who despite being a fantastic lead thanks to their speed and access to yawn, I'm definitely starting to notice that the rest of their starts are starting to fall behind those of our opponents. I had considered an early retirement for them in the box, but for this gym, flame burst and yawn were just too useful of moves to pass up.

Burgh leads Whirlipede though, and while I was expecting this, I was really hoping for a Venipede if I'm being honest. Thankfully we outspeed and hit it with a yawn while Burgh retaliates with a poison tail that dust about 25%. Now knowing this thing has poison tail, I don't feel safe swapping in Fugedda like I was planning to since a poison proc this early into the fight would be disastrous. I completely flounder here and decide that my best bet is to try and take it out with Broiler and start going for work up, thinking I might be able to sweep with them. Burgh retaliates with a screech as Whirlipede falls asleep while I get myself to +2 attack/SpA. I now realize my mistake with trying to set up with Broiler; they almost certainly don't out speed the Leavanny waiting in the back, so I need to get Fugedda in here somehow and set up a little with them.

From here we swap to Pickles, both to get an intimidation off, and to burn sleep turns so that we can try and set this all back up again for Fugedda. It turns out that swapping out was a fantastic idea because Burgh gets a lucky one turn wake up and lands a critical hit poison tail that does a little over 50% to Pickles, which thankfully doesn't poison. That crit would have easily killed Broiler though, and a back to back crit on a Broiler swap in, while unlikely, would probably spell doom for this attempt. Ultimately though, this is still a terrible position to be in because I was hoping to use Pickles as an intimidate support on Leavanny but now that they're so low health, that seems unwise.

On the brightside however, we are finally in a better position to set up a sweep with Fugedda. We swap back to Broiler, who takes a non crit poison tail, gets a yawn off, and takes another, finally putting us back at square one. I still can't swap to Fugedda safely until the Whirlipede falls asleep since a poison/crit would be catastrophic, so I decide to pivot through Cotton first.

Pivoting, for those who don't know, is simply swapping in another pokemon as an intermediate step between the pokemon you currently have in, and the one you intend to use. This is often used in nuzlocking to bait certain moves, or timing Damage-over-Time so that a certain team member is out as the opponent is KOd.

Aka; instead of A->B you go A->C->B. You can even chain pivots to reduce the damage your pivots are taking ie A->C->D->B or even longer, if that is what you need. This of course works best when you are swapping pokemon into resisted moves, and works even better if you have pokemon with certain abilities like 'regenerator.'

And once again its turns out to be a great idea to have swapped because Burgh yet again gets a crit, though I do remain very lucky that nobody has gotten poisoned yet. Now, finally, the Whirlipede falls alseep, and we swap to Fugedda to set up the sweep; something I should have done twenty turns ago.

We unfortunately only get one work up off before the Whirlipede wakes up, but it only goes for a screech which we are immune to thanks to 'Big Pecks' and fucking lol has that ability come in useful so far. Another work up and we're at +2 for offense, and Burgh hits a poison tail which again, thankfully doesn't poison. I feel like I am going to need +3 to OHKO Leavanny though since the Pidove line aren't exactly amazing special attackers. That being said, I reallllly don't want to keep dodging poison and decided that it would be best to just take out the Whirlipede now.

As I go to confirm the attack however, I finally remember that Dwebble exists. Dwebble is a Bug-Rock pokemon that I always forget is a gen 5 pokemon and not a gen 6 pokemon (same thing with Beartic tbh), and its almost certainly Burgh's mystery third pokemon. And unfortunately, since flying moves aren't super effective against it, I realize that I am going to need to get up to +4 now, which gives me just a horrible sinking feeling. We've been lucky avoiding poison so far, but this is a battle against time, and you just cannot win those.

The next turn Fugedda uses work up to get up to +3, and our luck finally runs out. Not only does Burgh finally get a poison proc after nearly ten attempts, but he gats ANOTHER crit. Fugedda thankfully had an oran berry, but now we need to roost, twice in fact, to get up as close as we can to full health to prepare for the other two pokes that Burgh yet has. So its a roost, take a poison tail, work up to put us at +4, take another poison tail, roosting again, take yet another poison tail, and then finally taking the KO with an air slash, all the while taking poison chip.

Dwebble does indeed come out next, which is now okay since we not only outspeed, but have all of our stat boosts. Roost, thankfully removes the flying type from a flying type pokemon that uses it for that turn, so now that we bait a smack down, its totally safe (barring any crits lol) to roost one more time, take a smack down, and take the KO the following turn with another air slash.

We are now sitting at about 60% as Burgh sends out his final pokemon Leavanny, which isn't a great spot to be in against such a threat. Leavanny isn't a bad pokemon by any stretch (see the following stat block). With a good base attack and speed, a good offensive move pool, and fairly well rounded stats overall, the only thing that really holds Leavanny back from being a top tier poke is that it has the terrible defensive typing of Bug-Grass, which leaves it weak to so many different threats. The worst part here however; Tranquil has a base speed of 65, which means that we aren't going to be outspeeding this Leavanny like I thought we would.

So with a third of Fugedda's health gone and both unable and unwilling to swap out into another team member, I find myself in a sort of "rock and a hard place" situation. Nobody resists any of Leavanny's moves besides Fugedda and Broiler, neither of whom are healthy enough to do the swapping in and out dance again, even if I wanted to. With such low health I dont't feel comfortable swapping in Pickles to get an intimidate off, and while I am certain that a +4 air slash will KO the Leavanny, I am not sure that we can survive an attack in return.

In the end I decide that I have to risk it with Fugedda and air cutter (which I hate because its not 100% accurate lol). If Fugedda somehow survives, but misses the attack, I'll unfortunately have to let them go down so that I can get a safe swap into someone else. I really don't want to happen though because I've honestly grown attached to the bastard lol. Regardless of my feelings though I select air slash and...

We outspeed?????? We outspeed the Leavanny, connect with the air slash, and do enough damage to probably KO the Leavanny twice over, winning us the gym battle deathless. Incredibly sloppy, but deathless nonetheless.

This means that Burgh's Leavanny HAD to have a -Spe nature, which thanks to Fugedda's +Spe nature, means we likely outsped by a single digit value and fucking lol was that a relief.

This means that nearly 1/3 of the way through the game, with three of the eight badges in our hands, the first attempt of this blind hardcore nuzlocke remains deathless, which I continue to be stunned by.

Post Script:

So first off; lol. Its been like 6mo since I updated and fucking lol has life been shit. Not saying I'm now living in a blooming meadow like a frolicking sheep or anything, but here we are, and actually willing and able to update lol. I've actually got notes and photos up to Elesa so in theory we'll be up to speed soon lol. Elesa herself will be interesting but I'm trusting in my team for now.

Anyways, as far as this update goes; In hindsight I got waaaaay too tunnel visioned on setting up. Especially with Fugedda having a +Spe nature and whatever Spe EVs we picked up, it actually wasn't so unlikely that we undersped the Leavanny, but that -Spe nature was insanely lucky tbh. We likely only needed +2 to sweep and KO the 4x weak Leavanny in the back, but some retroactive calcs tell me that we definitely needed +4 to OHKO the dwebble so lol I guess it all worked out in the end. Also, speaking of Fugedda; Fugedda with their +Spe nature is actually fairly quick, and when you also take into consideration that they know Roost, I think in that scenario, it was always a better choice to give Fugedda a pecha berry instead of an oran. Staving off a 10% poison chance is far more useful as an item slot than recovery would be because we can in most scenarios just out speed and heal 50% with roost. We've only encountered two Bug type pokes up until Burgh, and we knew one was a poison type who would likely have a poison procing move, so that was another misplay on my part, but thankfully we weren't punished for it.

I've got no idea what to expect next, but poking my head back onto route 4 I saw Cheren standing around so I'm expecting another rival battle. It'll be interesting to see how we tackle his solid team now that our own team is getting stronger, but hey, with a bird like Fugedda on the team, how could we possibly lose?

[stargazeraldroth]

I mean, what kind of ethics are we talking? Also, why did you start talking about it in the first place? Worldbuilding??? For fun?

I finally started looking into the Teal Mask DLC, and one of the characters that stands out is Kieran. I'm not gonna say too much about the story, both because of spoilers and because I don't know too much of the story myself, but the thing that started it was people saying Kieran acted entitled and it was wrong of him to be so dismissive of Ogerpon's choice. And keep in mind that I'm not disagreeing with this, Kieran's absolutely in the wrong for trying to force a sentient being to work with him, all I did was point out that we- the players- aren't that considerate of Pokemons' feelings either. So we're just as guilty as Kieran is, yet everyone hates him for this fact? Here's a small list of things we can do that would be considered unethical in the Pokemon world, if we actually lived there:

Using the Master Ball, as it has no regard for whether or not the Pokemon in question wants to go with us. And before you say Master Balls are rare, we still get one and can use it whenever we want, so it still counts if we decide to use it

Selective breeding for shiny Pokemon or perfect IVs/EVs (I always get these two mixed up). This reduces the Pokemon from a sentient being with its own thoughts and feelings to a combat machine, basically reducing a Pokemon's worth to their use in battle. As for the shiny Pokemon, favoring the use of shiny Pokemon over normal ones would probably be largely seen as using Pokemon as aesthetic accessories rather than companions

Mass breeding in general. People hate real life dog breeders and animal breeders (for good reason), but don't see why mass breeding Pokemon would be an issue. Realistically speaking, Pokemon would be facing some serious health consequences if they reproduced at the rate we make them in the game

Using Pokemon as trade tokens. I always found it weird that we could just walk into a random house, talk to a random NPC we've never seen before, and just... trade Pokemon. We don't take our Pokemon's feelings into consideration here- why would they want to be given to a total stranger that not even their trainer knows? From a realistic perspective, we could be trading our Pokemon away to an abuser, backyard breeder, or something else. The person said ethical traders would see if their Pokemon want to go, but do WE do that? I'm talking about us, how we handle Pokemon trading, are WE ethical traders?

This just came to mind, but revives. Trainers in-game can use potions and give their Pokemon berries to hold, but none of them use revives. And revives bring a Pokemon back into the battle; it's basically a way to force an already exhausted Pokemon that needs rest back onto the battlefield. That sounds pretty... maybe not unethical, but it does sound at least a little bit inconsiderate of how the Pokemon feels

Imo, reviving fossilized Pokemon would be unethical, if not at least controversial. You're bringing an extinct Pokemon, one whose natural food source or habitat likely no longer exists, into the world for... what, exactly? To have another Pokemon you're just gonna leave in the PC? Not to mention that, realistically, this would have consequences on the environment and existing Pokemon. Does anyone remember that one movie about Mewtwo and Genesect? Also... I forget their names, but the fossilized Pokemon that are basically two halves of separate Pokemon mashed together. Big yikes, those ones are. Not to mention that you just automatically get to own a fossilized Pokemon simply because you found its corpse?? What if it doesn't want to go with you?

Basically, the discussion started because I don't really see why everyone's acting as though Kieran is on the same level as Ghetsis when we're potentially worse than Kieran, depending on how we play. Kieran genuinely cares about his Pokemon, and while he is in the wrong for wanting to use a battle to decide who Ogerpon stays with, it's not like he was gonna mistreat her or anything. How many people are gonna get Ogerpon and then stick her in a box, never to see the light of day again

[husbandomail-archive]

Hello! Can I pls have a Pokemon (only gen 1,3 or 6 tho since Ik the most about them 😭) matchup? I'm an Asian who uses she/they pronouns and an Aquarius and INTJ. My sexuality is bi demiromantic. I'm 5'0 with tan skin, black hair, brown eyes and glasses.I'm bilingual. People say I look intimidating and unapproachable since I don't smile or talk much around strangers but I try my best to be polite and nice.I'm very introverted and shy. I'll need to warm up to people but when I do, I will surprisingly be energetic.

I consider myself a fair, open minded and laid back person most of the time. I like to seek out my friends' company when bored. I either ask them to do something wholesome or something they are afraid of with me. I'm down to do anything with my friends. I'm hardworking if its something that interests me. I'm very creative but can't seem to make my ideas into reality mostly due to lack of resources or motivation. I'm kind of a pacifist but I will fight if pushed too far or my loved ones are endangered. I'm a pretty patient person. Incase if its needed my pokemon team would be Swampert,Snorlax, Salamance, Gengar, Gardevoir and Absol.

My friends describe my  sense of humor as dark and cursed. I can be mischievous and chaotic but still reliable and smart.My hobbies are baking,gaming,art, true crime and supernatural stuff. I express my love with gifts and quality time more than physical affection but I'm ok with PDA. I tend to bottle up my sadness and anger. If I'm mad I get VERY snappy and moody. If I'm sad then I'll rant about it. My ideal type is someone who I can trust with my life,someone I've known for a long time, very respectful of my boundaries and protective. Sorry if its too much info. Thanks in advance and stay safe💗

Thank you for your patience!

I think I’d pair you up with Calem!

It might take a little while for you to warm up to each other— Calem is definitely polite and affable, but he seems to have trouble making new friends on his own. Since you’re very similar in that regard, the two of you probably just exchange small talk for the first few months, shifting awkwardly when your friends have left you alone together; it isn’t until Shauna practically takes you both by the hand and leads the conversation that the two of you really begin talking. Calem is actually quite relieved once you’re used to him and start talking of your own volition— he has trouble leading casual conversation, but he has no trouble responding when you speak.

The fact that you’re fairly laidback would balance really well with how hard he works himself; Calem very easily gets stuck in his own head, and he’s a desperate perfectionist, so it’s very easy for him to just get lost and spiral out. Since you’re one of the few people that sees him as him instead of an extension of his family name, he’s much more likely to listen to you— and once he’s snapped out of his workaholic trance, he’s both apologetic and grateful you had to bring him to his sense again.

In turn, I think Calem would be pretty good at keeping you on track; it does take a lot of discipline to be able to commit yourself to your goals and actually get somewhere with your dreams, so thankfully you’ve got him by your side. To most other people, Calem is definitely a bit blunt, not mincing his words— but since he knows you so well, he’s learned how to support you. If you need to talk out ideas, he’s more than willing to listen, ask questions as you pinpoint details; if you need help getting your hands on something for a project, he’s happy to help you with that too. Calem is always available to try one of your newest recipes, to give you feedback on a sketch or a painting, to pick up the second controller if you need a player two. He knows he’s not very good at voicing his feelings, so he hopes he can just show you instead.

[captn3]

A discussion on ableism in AI: The Somnium Files

Happy Disability Pride Month! I hope everyone's July is starting out well, despite the loud fireworks of the fourth.

For this month i thought it would be fitting to discuss a major problem in the game AI: The Somnium Files: ableism. There will be major spoilers for the game's plot described, and there will be one singular mention of Nirvana Initiative that isn't really a spoiler but I'm just putting a warning here. The reason there's only one mention of it is because I have not finished that game yet, and don't even know if it has any ableism in it. Working on that while writing this post, actually. Don't get me wrong, I love this game a lot, but obviously everything has its issues, and you've gotta be critical of that. That's the whole reason I'm making this post- so people can learn to be aware of this so they can avoid being ableist themselves, and understand the issues behind it.

I very strongly encourage abled fans to reblog. Even if you know all of this, I want more people to hear.

First of all, the usage of psychopathy(and other similar terms) in a derogatory way. Countless times the game refers to the culprit of the New Cyclops Serial Killings as a psychopath. I do not experience psychosis myself, but I have studied a bit before making this post (reading various articles written by people who have been diagnosed with psychosis) Not only that, but by now it should be wildly known that calling people psychotic when they are acting "crazy" or "insane" is very ableist, even if you don't experience it yourself. Unrelated to anything that happens in AITSF, but this can also be said for bipolar disorder and OCD when it comes to talking about yourself when you do something unrelated to it at all, and more aligned with the stereotypes of said disorder. For example, saying "im so bipolar haha" in response to a "sudden" change in how you're feeling, or "omg it triggers my ocd!!" when you see something terribly unorganized, something Most People Hate To See, OCD diagnosis or not. The rest, and majority of the post is under a read more. This is a final warning for major plot spoilers, as the true culprit of the New Cyclops Serial Killings will be namedropped, and talked about in-depth, as well as other major spoilers, including the biggest plot twist in the game. Key points, parentheses, and the beginnings of paragraphs will be in bold to make it hopefully a bit easier to read.

Back on topic, the treatment of Saito is odd- especially when Date doesn't have any of this happen to him- y'know, being in Saito's body. It is implied in the bad end of annihilation route that Date does reach this "reward system" of killing people for pleasure, but it's still odd. Would Date not have, I don't know, killed a bug or something and then been like Oh shit. Because clearly even though Aiba supplies oxytocin for Date, the implications in that bad ending still happen. It's also odd that within the time he went without Aiba before she was created, that he was fine. Though since most of this relies on a loose implication, I won't stay focused on it for that long. So, I'll move on. Saito being called a psychopath is especially worrying considering the reason he is called this is because of a physical brain disability. This part I can actually speak from my own experience, as I am missing my own pituitary gland. I have a health condition called Panhypopituitarism. It can be shortened to Panhypopit, or PHP. You can study it more if you'd like, if not, here's a short definition from a google search: "A rare condition in which the pituitary gland stops making most or all hormones." It is so rare, when typing the condition's name in it gives it a red squiggly line, implying I either misspelled or typed in a word that doesn't exist! And for the nerds out there, specifically about 4 in 100,000 people are diagnosed with it in a year. For a somewhat silly comparison, the chance of having Panhypopituitarism is lower than the chance of getting a shiny Pokemon. (meaning i can have a pokesona that's shiny for an actual reason other than "shinies are cool, idc if they're rare" /j) People can have this condition at birth, or if the gland is damaged at all throughout their life. I was born with my pituitary gland LITERALLY MISSING. The doctors couldn't find it. And since this condition is rare, it is a very hard condition to deal with. I will not go into too much detail, but I have had a doctor for most of my life who clearly didn't know what he was doing in relation to the condition, and that affected my life in more ways than one. Not only that, but some people suffer from it more than others. It depends on how severe the case is. In Saito's case, his body cannot properly produce oxytocin. I don't know the specifics of everything the pituitary gland is supposed to secrete and produce but I can tell you I have it from somewhere else in my body because I do not take medicine to supply it, and I frequently experience feelings of love and comfort and trust and????? You get it. I do have depression, which might be because of this?? But like, I still fucking feel love and shit. Most importantly though.

I do not have an urge to kill things so I can experience love and joy. I do not have an inability to feel love.

As someone with such a rare condition, I've NEVER found any representation for Panhypopit before. I'm not too surprised or sad about it, but when the only time a character DOES have something similar to it, it's extremely unrealistic, it causes them to only feel love when murdering, and they're called a psychopath for it, I'm obviously gonna be a bit upset. When Pewter deliberately explained Saito's brain dysfunction that I can relate to in such a harrowing way; describing that because of said dysfunction he can only feel pleasure by killing things, I felt very distraught. At the time though, friends around joked about it, saying "haha, just like Memo!" Because I was young and ignorant, and a kid who very much depended on others to seem normal and find interests, I nodded along, and started laughing too, ignoring i was distressed about the scene at all. Later on though, when my group of friends changed drastically because I didn't want to talk to people who are now ex-friends (for reasons you can probably guess, lmao), a different friend happened to start playing AITSF. I was very excited, because like I said, it was one of my favorite games, and one of the only instances of bodyswaps that didn't trigger me (i know this is a silly trigger, and its silly that there are exceptions, but thats just how my brain works, and also its disability pride month so you cant be mean to me /hj) and I love to talk about my interests with others, whether I'm currently hyperfixating on them or not. When said friend, who I'll call S from now on (hi S if you're reading this. leaving you in the anonymity zone out of my own choice actually which is why i didnt ask you if you wanted me to mention you by name or not) finished AITSF, and started thinking about everything, connecting everything, y'know, the usual process after you finish a Uchikoshi game, we ended up talking about Saito's problems. I mentioned my ex-friends said that, and he made me realize, Hey. That Was Fucked Up, Actually. In general, I never really considered it ableist until he mentioned it. Which is kinda why I'm making this post- so people CAN know that these things are ableist. People should be aware that doing things like what my old friends did- no matter the commonness or rarity of the disability in the scenario, is ableist. Specifically the parts where they didn't acknowledge the ableism of giving the disability to the villain, and instead began to compare said villain (who fucking MURDERS PEOPLE) to someone they knew that had the same, or similar disability. Sorry for the long portion about Panhypopit, I meant it. Seriously, I'm betting everyone reading this except for my friends had no idea it existed, so of course I'm gonna explain it in detail so they do know. Anyway, let's move on from Saito.

(ID in alt text)

WHAT IS THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hitomi Sagan, as we all know AS IT IS LITERALLY A HUGE PLOT POINT, is shot in the right shoulder, which paralyzes that arm. Paralyzes. WHY IS IT MOVING. Now, yes, perhaps this was an oversight, but there's also the possibility they didn't want to change the animation just a bit just for one character. I don't know the complications of just.. yknow, making the arm stay still, but either way, it's still fucked up. If it was this hard, though, why not omit her from the scene entirely? Or even just, don't have her dance? Mayumi is seen standing still next to Ota during his segment of the song, why not Hitomi? It's possible I'm just being very nitpicky, but I feel like this could have easily been avoided. You could say perhaps she got surgery the same way Iris did to help her arm, but wouldn't that have been mentioned as well? And if it for some reason wasn't, we visit the Sagan Residence in the epilogue. Her arm is still paralyzed. There's no reason for her to hide she had surgery done. In fact, wouldn't she tell Date as soon as possible? Tell him not to worry he shot her cause it's alright now? But that wouldn't matter anyway- her arm is still paralyzed even in AITSF nirvanA Initiative. Well I don't know. That one I'm not as upset about as... [gesturing] Saito. But, as bad as Saito is, the game does have other disabled characters that aren't treated as badly. Say, Iris's brain condition, or Mayumi's dementia. But that still doesn't make up for how badly Saito was handled. That'll be it, really. Can't think of anything else on this specific topic. If you wanna add on at all please feel free! I could've missed something, or not have explained stuff that well.

Happy Disability Pride Month!

[tamarinfrog-art]

Starting Full time Job. Patreon closing. Future.

I've been writing this journal in my mind past two years. And today is finally the day. Lost my faith at some points. But here I am.

As the title says, I have found a new full time job and I'll be starting in mid April. I started looking for a new job properly about two years ago. And well, world stuff happened but I am glad the search has finally come to an end for now. I worked with a nice company as a freelancer a bit and now they are hiring me for full time. I'll be doing art stuff for them.

Now, this obviously means things will be changing here. I'll put together a little FAQ under.

When will Patreon close? 

This March is the last patreon month I'm making content for. I'll be keeping patreon around till the start of summer, but I won't be creating any official new content nor charging any money there from current members.

(You can still join the patreon and pay if you want any of the old exclusive content while it's still open. Note that I won't take any commissions anymore.)

Will you be taking commissions in the future?

Maybe. I'll be keeping my company name so technically I could still accept commissions if I wanna do some extra work and money. Right now I have no plans but maybe. (I'd more likely be open for projects like the Deviantart commission I did November 2020. But no video game projects. My contract does not permits that.)

Will you still do art streams? What about game streams?

Yes! I enjoy streaming so I'd like to continue doing weekly art streams and game streams when ever. However, since art streams technically were my job and no longer are, I'm more inclined to just relax and not do them if I feel like taking a break.

What happens to Bottled Up?

BUP will continue as a passion project. Which is honestly what I want it to be. A personal project I do for fun and no stress of making it "marketable" and something that would make money. I'll do it for myself. And if people enjoy, that's a bonus! I however, cannot promise regular weekly updates anymore. It will update whenever I get pages done. I do think it will be better for the comic in the long run. While it was nice to "force" myself to make the comic with the regular weekly update. It honestly also stressful and didn't always leave me with much time to plan and write.

What other art will you do?

I'll still also do fan art. You can expect the usual, pokemon, ice climbers and such. I'm also really feeling animations at the moment so hopefully more of those.

What will happen next?

My work won't start till mid April. And I'm considering these weeks up to it as a holiday. So I'll be taking things a bit easy. There are still patreon stuff I wanna do. Including a big document about Bottled Up and how it came to be and first draft of the world and how different it was. This document will be posted on patreon first and this summer publicly. BUP will also go for the no-schedule-update-cycle. Next page will happen when I get it done. Please give me time to relax a bit now and get used to new life cycle with a fulltime job.

I think that covers most of it. If you have anything else in mind, you can ask in comments.

There's a lot else I wanted to write about. Reflect on these 7 years I've been doing patreon. Especially past two years.... Which, honestly were roughest of my life. And covid had nothing to do with it! That was just a cherry on top of the personal shit sundae that was going on at the time. None the less, I'm still dealing with that stuff. But I think I'm doing better now and looking forward to re-plan and build my life. I am getting older and I have plans and things I wanna do now with my life.

None the less, I do wanna thank you all for taking a time to read this and following my art. I like drawing for fun. And if you enjoy my drawings. That's super nice.

I do also wanna thank the people who supported me on patreon and thought my art was worth that support. You kept me afloat these past 7 years. And I'm eternally grateful to you and how much I grew as an artist, especially thanks to your commissions.

This is pretty much 7 years of commission work.

Thank you all. Much love. See you next time. Hei Hei.

[irritatedandroid]

Navigating The Otherkin Community With Two Robots - Othercon 2021

Panelists: Polybius and Jasper

Panel Video Link: https://youtu.be/xQ21aj1Jjys

Answers to the Q+A Submissions are below the cut.

1. Z asked just Jasper “What are some of those axes besides animality that you can view nonhumanity from?”

I’ll be wholly honest with you Z, I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of putting a number on how many different axes there are, as it is about as unclear as how many species someone can identify as spanning across myth, earth, fiction, our universe, and beyond. Even details among the “similar species”-identifying folks can be different in terms of the angle they experience humanity and/or nonhumanity from, as a very feral dragon may have a totally different view as a very sapient dragon. Even among animality itself there’s many different axes, as I’m sure a tiger stalking someone through the shadows views humanity differently than the spider in the bathroom that’s about to be torched with some hairspray and a lighter. Alien-hood may be a family of axes, but of course even that is varied. 

The axis I view humanity from as a machine is specific to my own experience, and will likely be different from other machines and even other androids, as purposes can be different. Pokemanity is a term I’ve seen used similar to animality as well, and I could see that as being a sort of family or cluster of angles at which varied Pokemon could view humanity. 

Apologies for the confusing sort of non-answer, my point is essentially that this is all over the place, and oversimplifying as many folks who wish to force others into rigid boxes leads to a chaotic mess, and not the good kind of chaotic. - Jasper

2. Omega Quack asked just Polybius “Have you found anyways to get kin euphoria for your AI and Robotkin?”

Hi, Quack! Yeah, otherkin euphoria in terms of being a machine can be really tricky tbh. I get a lot of dysphoria when I think too hard about what my physical vessel is composed of. I don't like thinking about having organs in my body, despite finding them fascinating from a scientific perspective. Euphoria comes to me through both artistic means [digital painting, dancing, positive media about both real and fictional robots (including both music and historical documentation)] and through indulgence in my fascination with tech and video game history. I will talk to anyone literally for hours about failed gaming consoles and things the like of laserdisc. - Poly

3. Admin (from The Corvidae Collective) asked whoever has an answer “I find that my other aspects of identity are very closely linked to my being an A.I. in interesting ways, like how we as neurodivergent people often process the world and how that influences or is influenced by my being an A.I. Do either of you have thoughts or similar experiences?”

Hello Admin! Your name did give me a good chuckle- thanks for that. I find that my being a machine makes understanding my world maybe a bit confusing. I struggle with human facial expressions as well as detecting jokes and sarcasm. I am also autistic, and often people think it's just because of my autism- but I feel like I understand these things more outside of a robot shift than within one, especially if it's a mental shift! I become rather monotone and I don't really think about it. - Poly

I do have some similar experiences. I’m not diagnosed as autistic, but myself and my doctor have been exploring the possibility as I’ve started to realize how many traits and symptoms I relate heavily to and experience. I’ve pondered a fair bit on the relation between my experience of neurodivergence and my experience of being an android, and I think there may be a fair bit of overlap, but trying to sort which is which has definitely been something on the backburner for me with how busy my life and work is at the moment. - Jasper

4. Omega Quack asked both “Was it like to interact with other Robotkins?”

It can be a wild ride if you ask me. In the realm of robotkin you find everything from fictionkin of robot characters that are entirely human-like in personality to machines that only knew what they were coded to do to literally singular computer programs. In the case of the franchise Tron, a blend of these in one "species". Machinekin can be just as diverse as other nonhuman groups. Like Jasper said in the panel, a wolf therian probably has more in common with a lycanroc fictherian than they do with maybe a dragonfly therian or something else unlike a wolf. I have more in common with humanoid robots, CRT televisions and arcade cabinets than I would with I guess a roomba or a tow truck. On that note, I wonder if dog therians would get along with machinekin that are those Aibo robots Sony builds. - Poly

Admittedly I haven’t had much experience with other robotkin folks aside from Polybius, a couple of Cybertronian friends and maybe a few scattered others. I’ve spent time in a machinekin group but found myself mostly hanging around with non-robot or non-AI machinekin - a friend who I’ve taken a lot of support and inspiration from is a sound mixing console. I find I relate to some robotkind, and some not so much. I don’t have much in common with robots such as Cybertronians other than the occasional dysphoria towards being organic. But my experience as a robot ties in so strongly to being a human-created being, it can be difficult for me to relate. - Jasper

5. Anonymous asked whoever has an answer “Do you have a hearthome?”

Oh you betcha. One of my fictotypes is a merged form of Tron and Rinzler [who canonically share a body] from Tron: Legacy. As a result my hearthome is The Grid. I miss the blue glow and the taste of energy. I don't exactly miss the war or being rectified though. Not a happy place, in retrospect. - Poly

I myself don’t, sorry to say. The closest I could say would be either the city I have lived in and out of for the past few years, or the Pokemon world - though I don’t consider that a hearthome as I know my longing for it comes from my fictionkind experiences. - Jasper

[epicspheal]

Sonia Deserved Better

I’ve been thinking about Sonia’s arc and character in Sword and Shield and while I adore her character, after thinking about it, I feel she was also shafted in terms of development.

I’ll start with the good, Sonia has a very relatable backstory in being a young adult that has no idea what she wants to do with her life. And seeing her childhood friend Leon and her good friend Nessa go on to be successful household name also hits close to home in the age of social media when you can see people you grow up do great things while it seems like your own life is stalling. This setup I think I was really great and probably the best thing about her character. I can relate to her a lot as I’m sure many others can as well, it’s a backstory that makes people want to root for her character. She also actually does make a name for herself which is what she wanted in the end.

But that’s where in my opinon it ends as far as good things for Sonia in my opinion as the narrative tends to take away a lot from her in the story.

She doesn’t get to battle: Now there’s nothing wrong with having non-battlers in Pokemon be a part of the main narrative. But there is an issue when a narrative continuously makes a deal about Sonia being a former gym challenger and once-rival to the then unbeatable champion and not allow the player to battler her at least once. That information primes the player to expect a battle with her to see why she was Leon’s rival yet the fact that it never happens just ends up making this fact of her “telling rather than showing” (this is something that plagues many SwSh characters). She doesn’t have to have level 70+ Pokemon or anything, but her character would’ve benefitted greatly from this not to mention this could’ve helped Hop to in realizing just because you’re not the number one trainer in the region doesn’t mean your bad and that you can still have fun. What’s worse is that there has been evidence that she was supposed to be battleable based on datamined battle poses for her. 

She lacks agency in her goal: One thing that had bugged me is how in the end she only really starts her arc because she’s yelled at by her Grandma to do something because a couple of kids are starting their journey. Especially when if you talk to her again after her initial introduction in the Wedgehurst lab, you’ll know that Sonia herself has been feeling quite restless. Sonia’s overall arc would have in my opinion been a lot stronger if she herself had of decided to go out and do the research and not be yelled at by Magnolia (which realistically would’ve likely demoralized her rather than motivate her). We already know at this point in the story that there’s a lot to uncover about Dynamaxing, that Magnolia is old, and that Sonia is restless. Perfect moment to give Sonia a chance to say “You know what I want to prove to my gran that I can be her assistant so I’m going to finish up some loose threads on her research that I find interesting”

Her Flaw In Giving Up Too Easily is Never Exploited: Something that is brought up on Opal’s note is that Sonia has a tendency to give up too quickly. The type of person who instead of adapting to challenges, runs away. Again this is a flaw that lot of people can relate to. But this is never exploited to give Sonia meaningful character development. Unlike Bede who has a undying loyalty to Rose which backfires spectacularly and Hop who’s initial arrogance backfires spectacularly on him, Sonia being too quick to give up NEVER comes into play while she’s doing research which I call major BS on as a researcher myself.

I do research as a day job and let me tell you, research is hard. You make wrong hypotheses, your experiments flat out fail, you go weeks even months without making any headway. Everyone I know who has done research has had that moment where you want to quit even the most persistent of people. Sonia was not ever put in a position where her flaw comes to bite her in her butt. With the type of research she was doing in game, I could easily see a situation where she just doesn’t have leads for a long time making her discouraged (something that with the whole historical coverup thing would’ve fit easily). This could make her want to give up but she eventually finds her resolve to keep going because maybe her doing historical research rather than looking at the physics of Dynamax is more her thing, thus making her graduation into being a professor feel actually earned. Not only that it would show that she’s doing this research for herself and not just because her grandma asked her to.

Good Plot Points Go Nowhere: Sonia has three things that are mentioned in game that could’ve great aided her characters and others that is never expanded upon. The first is her soured Rivalry with Leon. It’s clear the Sonia/Leon rivalry is supposed to parallel the MC/Hop rivalry and show what could’ve happened if things went differently...except we never find out what happened that made it soured. It’s especially jarring when you consider that the first onscreen interaction between Leon and Sonia is kind of tense (again leading credence to the soured rivalry and friendship) but scenes afterwards gloss over it.  A cutscene or a bit of dialogue that explained it would’ve gone a long way in fleshing out Sonia’s backstory and also would’ve benefitted Leon’s character as well.

The second point is that she is under professor Magnolia’s shadow. It never really gets the attention it deserves which is a shame because this is a perfect way for her to bond with Hop who is also dealing with the same being in Leon’s shadow. This could’ve allowed the two to bond and give them both the chance to realize they don’t have to be exactly like their family members in order to be successful. 

The final point is the fact that when she was younger she wandered in the slumbering weald and came back “in a state”. Yet this is never brought up again. Considering that Sonia’s arc revolves around the history and mythology of Galar you would think this would be brought up again. This ties back to her lack of agency as her wanting to find out what happened during her time in the weald could’ve been added motivation for her to get out and travel herself, rather than have Magnolia yell at her to do something. Let her be motivated by her own experiences rather than being shoved out the door

So yeah that’s where Sonia’s arc just doesn’t do well for me. The sad part is I feel like the fixes are relatively simple. Just:

Give her a chance to battle to show why she was a trainer that could be Leon’s rival and earn Opal’s praise

Allow her more agency in choosing her direction rather than her being sent out by her grandma

Let her struggle with the research and her tendency to quit and let her find her resolve so she can show she’s not the same kid who gave up on her gym challenge

Explore her past rivalry with Leon, her dynamic with her grandmother and her experience in the weald to flesh out her character as well as other characters

All it would’ve taken were a maybe a couple of cutscenes or extra dialogue bits to really make her act the best that it could be. 

[dren-whalen]

Big text ahoy!

Someone please come talk to me about this, but in a level headed way if you have a different opinion. I can’t believe I had to even say that... But any way

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes...

First time I saw it, it was kinda ok, it’ll take some getting used to and I was getting used to the art style. If they polish the colour and lighting, it can be good. Work on the sprites more so that they won’t pop out too much with a dark backdrop.

But then after a few more hours that happy catious optimism started falling. Maybe I was getting influenced by other’s reaction to the style, maybe I really wasn’t that into the style and was forcing myself cause its Sinnoh. But I keep making comparision between Legend’s graphics to D/P remakes and imagining how awesome would it be to see the actual D/P in that style. Then I just got more upset as that thought came through. Legend is still a work in progress but so far it looks good. It feels like a very big undertaking considering GameFreak’s past titles but a very refreshing risk (I I don’t think they’ll be getting out early 2022, maybe middle ro late of that year if they get delayed), that I hope they won’t abandon and improve upon if Legend falls a little short.

With that said, I really like the lighting in that game (I’m not a video game designer nor do I work in any anspect of it so mind the lack of vocab). People said it feels very Breath of the Wild which I agree with but also not. The lighting and colour kinda feels soft and I feel that it matches with Sinnoh’s vibe very much. I can’t realy comment of older pokemon games cause I started mine in Sinnoh and then into Heartgold but I can never see Kanto, Johto or Hoenn in this kind of style. To me Sinnoh feels ancient and full of mysterious things that’s in the far past, probably cause of the ruins and the whole concept of time, space and anti-matter but also it’s also somehow in the towns and cities you go see. If they had stuck with this style for both Legend and remake I can easily see this soft style kinda amplified in Legend and in the remakes there but just subtlely intertwined with the modernness of the mainline games.

Another thing that’s scaring me is their choice of words. A faithful remake, but how far? If it’s 1-to-1, I feel fans are gonna riot cause they can just open their DS and play it as it is rather than buy it for $60 when they already kinda have it. All they have shown in the presentation is graphics and how upgraded the locations look but no where insight are any teasers to what the extra content looks like or insight to what might have changed. Yes, I do know they’re still working and probably show more in E3 or whatever’s gonna happen, but it’s also coming out later this year... roughly 2 years after sword and shield... Even if it was handed to another company to work on with Masuda and they do already have a layout, it’s still worrisome. People are saying it’s probably fine cause Polygon-Z was showcased and the slight name chage also does give me hope but you never know with GF’s “we’re always striving to surprise fans”.

I could be worried about nothing and I could grow to like the chibi again but for now, upsettingly, the remakes that I’ve been wanting is only a buy after a few months when some reviews are out. Legend on the other hand is a first buy, the graphics and idea of making the first Sinnoh pokedex won me over.

[radramblog]

nuzlocke competitions

I’ve been involving myself in a multitude of what I can only describe as Nuzlocke Competitions as of late. It’s a combination of giving myself direction as to which games to play and what rulesets to run, ensuring I take the runs seriously and better my skill, get some pride points, and actually have people to talk about runs with. Because I don’t really know anyone IRL who’s as into running Nuzlockes as I am.

There’s little nuances between each that make them all interesting, and that’s what I’m going to describe, I guess.

Universal Communitylocke (UCL)

The first one I joined, and the only one that isn’t so much a competition as a challenge, the UCL is as simple as it gets, and about as lengthy as you want it to be. The challenge: pick one Nuzlocke ruleset, and run every single region with it. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, Alola, and now Galar. If you don’t have access to later gens (seeing as while GBA and DS emulation is easy, 3DS and Switch is less so), you can do a truncated list if you want, but you have a year to do it from when you sign up. That last bit actually changed for the currently running season 3, with everybody’s deadline being December 31, 2022.

I believe I’m one of the few people to have completed both seasons 1 and 2 of the UCL, having run a standard set for the first one (though doing the alternate, no-3DS mode) and an alphabetlocke for the second (in which your team’s nicknames are randomly generated and the first 6 alphabetically must be your team). This made season 2 much tougher than season 1, since I had to work around pretty much not getting to pick my team, and I deliberately ran the harder Third Version games (and B2W2/USUM), and it thoroughly put me off doing Alphabetlockes ever again, given the choice.

I’ve actually yet to sign up for Season 3, even 8 months after it started. It’s a combination of a lack of time restriction (though there is still a deadline), lack of motivation, and the UCL discord being, kinda dead this time around. I do plan on running it, though, considering I want that Triple Senpai title. Since there’s less of a competitive element, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one even to newcomers.

Nuzlocke World Cup (NWC)

The Nuzlocke World Cup is the first of these that is actually a competition, with teams and knockouts and the like. Eight teams of five, all named after one of the main series regions, compete in a double elimination tournament that tests both Nuzlocke skill and that of competitive Pokemon in general. Each round, 5 games are listed, and each team assigns one of their own to each game, head-to-head against the member of the opposing team playing that game- points are assigned based on death count in the run as well as through a battle between the final teams of each player. The runs (and games) get harder as the tournament progresses, and I’ve seen the general skill level- it’s fucking high.

The first season of this I was on the Unova Units. We went out round 2. It wasn’t great.

Season 2 had team captains draft 2 participants with the other 2 being randomly assigned, and so I found myself as the last pre-random pick added to the Johto Thundercats. And we’ve been utterly crushing it, with multiple near-flawless victories and not a single loss to our name. For reference, most of my runs in this have been deathless, and I’ve won 2 of the 3 Battles I had to do. We’re now in the semis, and I…haven’t gotten very far in the run yet because I’ve been doing other stuff. Oops.

Unlike UCL, NWC is both restrictive and has a massive average skill level, especially as teams get knocked out. But it’s been fun and rewarding, a confirmation that my skill is, in fact, pretty real.

Nuzlocke Premier League (NPL)

(this one wasn’t attached to the nuzforums so I don’t have a link)

An offshoot of the NWC, themed after the Premier League of Soccer. I think. Teams of four are in a similar tournament structure, however the ruleset completely changes each round, and everyone plays the same game every round. While only 3 players per team need to play each round (save the finals), there’s an additional rule: The coordination rule, in which no two players on a team can have the same Pokemon on their in-game team. This led to some difficult teambuilding, particularly with round 5 – Red and Blue with TMs banned meant that so many of the game’s very limited species pool were utterly unusable, and not that many Pokemon make it out of such a ruleset unharmed.

My team, the Opelucid Dreams, made it all the way to the semi-finals before falling. I kind of blame myself a little bit- after running the first 6 rounds in a row (partially due to a teammate being absent), I wasn’t involved in the final 3 as a result of uni, then exams, then just everyone starting before I’d looked at it. And we didn’t make it out of the BW2 Wedlocke alive. Still, I’m proud of our performance, and I imagine there’ll be a second season for me to join soon enough.

Nuzvivor: Johto

The final and most complicated run, themed completely around Survivor. The reality TV series. There’s tribes, there’s a confessional, there’s challenges, you name it. It’s actually really interesting. And hard to explain if you haven’t seen the show or know how it works.

I don’t have as much of a story to tell for this one, because it’s still early days. At time of writing, we’re going through the second immunity challenge, and my (Shio) tribe is likely to lose it. We’ve won both Reward challenges and the previous Immunity, though, so I’m fairly confident. Assuming I don’t get voted out this round, which would suck. There’s an actual social game to this, which is supremely awkward for me when the three people who have remotely similar time-zone to me are all on the other tribe.

This one I actually recommend being in the discord for, because from what I can tell watching this is actually super cool. Just don’t tell me anything if you do, that would be cheating.

[siren1song]

@acanvasofabillionsuns​

Finally Got It

Summary: Remus isn't good with sappy, romantic words but he's gonna do his damnedest to overcome that for Patton.

Warnings: None I’m aware of.

Pairing: Intruality

Word Count: 2,095

General Taglist: @emo-disaster​, @greenninjagal-blog​, @jungle321jungle​, @sleepy-sides​, @gattonero17​, @another-sandersidesblog​, @strawberryjellystuff​, @logic-with-a-pinch-of-deceit​, @gr3ml1n-loser​, @main-chive​, @firey-alex​, @spooky-scary-virgil​, @yalltookmyurlideas​, @sanderssidesweirdo​, @stormypaint​, @just-a-little-bit-gay-oops​, @dying-is-a-hobby​, @the-angry-child​

Intruality Taglist: @jessibbb​

Notes: Really loving these songs + ship requests :D also i am definitely considering this an early birthday present to myself.

Commissions!! | Buy Me a Kofi!! | Join Casper’s Crew!! | Ao3 Link!!

Remus, despite being a writer, wasn’t really the best with his words.

At least, not when it came to romance he wasn’t. Being a horror novelist did nothing in the sappy department and he tended to have more skill in sex than he did in being romantic.

And yet… Patton still loved him. He giggled at his porn jokes and powered through his horror hyperfixation with a smile and a reminder to eat and drink water while he researched. It was honestly amazing how well they could work together.

That isn’t to say they haven’t had their problems of course. When they first met, Patton was so unsettled by Remus that he outright avoided interactions with him.

It had hurt and there was a long trial of them getting closer and Remus would always remember the first time Patton laughed at one of his sexual jokes (it had been a pun, and Remus learned that puns were basically the way to his heart).

God he loved that man so much.

Enough to try and write a stupid sappy love letter  on their third anniversary because Patton was the sappiest romantic Remus had ever met, even worse than his own brother, and he wanted to make him get that bubbly smile he wore when he watched romcoms like they were the best cinematic invention to grace the screen.

Fucking hell, Patton really was too cute to handle sometimes.

But again, Remus was really bad with being romantic in the traditional sense. He didn’t like the smell of roses so he either avoided the flowers or gave Patton dead ones. Then there was the fact he was allergic to chocolate so he couldn’t even consider getting Patton that because then he’d have to go a whole day, possibly longer, without kissing his boyfriend and Remus may be strong but no man who had a similar strength in desire for affection like him could handle that.

Sometimes he just wanted Patton to smother him in kisses and make him break down into wheezy cackling that made his heart overflow with love and his cheeks hurt from smiling.

With a small groan, Remus let his head fall back against the wall, the document on his laptop only having six words on the screen because he just… wasn’t sure how to continue the stupid letter.

“Squid?” Patton called, peering over the counter cutting between the living room and the kitchen, an eyebrow lifted and his smile lopsided in his concern.

“Doing fine, Pat. Just having a hard time thinking.”

“Is this about the thing you asked Roman about the other day?”

Remus cleared his throat a little bit, stubbornly continuing to look at the ceiling so Patton couldn’t see how his face was starting to redden.

“Kinda, yeah,” he answered, tapping his fingers on the corners of his laptop where he wouldn’t risk pressing buttons.

Patton went quiet for a second, and the next thing Remus knew he was thwapped in the temple with a paper ball.

Confusion and amusement distracted Remus from his embarrassment, and he looked at Patton with his own raised eyebrow while he searched for the paper ball with one hand.

When he found it, he brought it to eye level and looked away from his boyfriend to see… a wad of paper terribly decorated like a pokeball.

“What?” he asked his confusion and amusement both increasing as he looked at his now grinning boyfriend.

“Anniversary is coming up. Figured I’d give you your first hint on what I’ll be doing,” was Patton’s answer, which he punctuated with a wink.

Oh God, Remus was so in love with this dork

“With your hint given though, I’m gonna go back to planning my class for the week. Teaching kindergarten is rough work and all that,” Patton joked, blowing a kiss Remus’ way before he hid himself back in his office.

As serious as the word “office” sounded, Patton really had it full of stim toys, children’s toys and bad art and crayons. Said it put him in the environment he needed to get stuff done.

Remus was pretty sure he also just liked playing with the toys, but he couldn’t really fault him for it. Patton was very good at having a childish imagination and Remus loved him for it.

Not the only reason why he loved him, but it was a pretty big one.

If he had to list every reason Remus chose Patton as a lifelong partner, he’d be here… a while.

Chose.

Looking back at the paper pokeball, Remus tilted his head in thought, his brother’s words from the week before coming back to him.

”Look if you want to be sappy just… pick something that reminds you of him and build a metaphor linking it to him and how much you love him. Usually what I do with Janus.”

Hmm… He could work with that.

With a glance back to the doc on his screen, he backed out of four of the six words, set the paper pokeball down on the coffee table where he could look at it between focus bursts of writing and remember just how much he loved his boyfriend, and then got to work.

“Okay Pat the Cat, please tell me you’re not leading me into a cave where I have to outsmart an axe murderer because writing about horror and surviving horror are two different things and dying on our anniversary is not something I want to do.”

Patton giggled, and Remus could tell he was rolling his eyes, even if it was playfully.

“I’m flattered that you think I could get someone to kill for me-”

“You can? I’m right here.”

“Hush you. No, we’re not even in a cave right now? What made you think cave?”

Remus paused, looking in his boyfriend’s general direction, his sight hindered by a blindfold.

“We’re doing a lot of climbing, babe.”

Patton let out an ugly snort, pulling at Remus’ hand to urge him into moving again.

“We’re not going to a cave housing an axe murderer, Remus. Actually, we’re almost there! You’re gonna have to keep close to me though, I don’t want you running into a tree.”

With a fond sigh, Remus let himself be pulled just a little bit closer to Patton and kept himself there without tripping over his boyfriend’s heels.

Not long and Patton gently guided Remus to a stop and pulled him in for a chaste kiss.

He pulled off the blindfold while their lips were locked, and by the time Remus was blinking his eyes open, he felt kind of dumb for only writing Patton a letter because now they were in a clearing big enough to have a picnic blanket on the ground and there were cardboard cutouts of pokemon hanging from the trees.

It was clear Patton put a lot of work into this, and a sappy love letter felt a little inadequate compared to this.

“Do you like it? I remembered you talking about your special interest in the series when you were little and I know sometimes you still like watching the show and you always get the newest games so I just… figured it would be cute to give you something like this after three years of being together.”

Remus didn’t say anything, going up to the Trubbish cutout and lifting it a bit to get a better look.

After a second he looked at another cutout that had a Grimer on it. And another with a Weezing.

“Squid?” Patton asked, a bit of concern in his tone that made Remus turn to face him again.

“Oh honey…” he whispered, coming closer to Remus with his hands outstretched until they were on Remus’ face, thumbs wiping away tears Remus hadn’t even realized he was crying.

With a sniffle and a weak laugh, Remus covered one of Patton’s hands with his own.

“I’m fine. I just… got overwhelmed with how much I love you. You remembered all of my favorite pokemon?”

Patton’s concerned frown turned into an adoring smile.

“Of course! Pokemon is a really easy franchise to get into. There’s so many pokemon with names that are puns! And you get really excited when you talk about it, how could I not remember that?”

Remus kind of wanted to marry this man. Which wasn’t really a thought he had before but it didn’t exactly catch him off guard either.

“All this kinda makes my gift pale in comparison. If we didn’t have a no expensive gifts rule I absolutely would have done better,” he said, thinking to some of the things Patton has gushed over to make teaching his kids so much easier and more fun.

Patton scrunched up his face in distaste, shaking his head.

“Nope! Whatever you did, I’m sure it’s just as good. No self deprecation on our anniversary, mister.”

Snorting, Remus pecked Patton’s nose.

“Alright, alright fine. I’m gonna take a guess though that that picnic basket is full of food and if so I would very much like to eat after giving you your gift.”

“Why yes it is! C’mon, let’s sit down.”

Remus pulled the envelope with his letter out of his back pocket and sat down with his boyfriend, handing it to him before opening the basket so he could ignore his nerves and look at what Patton had prepared for them.

Things were quiet. Not silent, couldn’t be with the sounds of the woods surrounding them and Remus messing with the food containers trying not to watch Patton while he read the letter.

His nerves got worse with each second Patton read and didn’t say anything.

And then finally—

“You wrote this?” Patton whispered, voice hoarse with barely held back tears that Remus could see brimming in his eyes when he looked up.

“Uh… well I mean… I know it’s not the best, pretty sure I couldn’t edit out all of the rambling if I tried, but uh. Yeah, I did.”

Patton looked away from the papers, creased from being in the envelope and fluttering a little in the slight breeze surrounding the two and making the pokemon cutouts dance in the trees.

He was beaming.

“Well, I guess having a lifelong love letter is a good reason as any to give you this,” he said, gently folding the papers and placing them under one of the containers Remus had pulled out before digging into the picnic basket and pulling out a large metal pokeball he hadn’t noticed when he was digging in there.

Remus took it when Patton held it out, giving his boyfriend a questioning look and receiving a “go on” gesture in response.

Guess he was opening it then?

Slowly, he lifted the red top of the pokeball and then nearly dropped it in his shock when he saw a silver band glint in the sunlight peeking through the trees.

“Patton, what is this?” he asked softly, not sure because he could never be sure unless he was told outright what was happening.

“A proposal,” Patton answered, wringing his hands together in a clear display of anxiety, “kind of. I had this whole speech planned but your really sweet letter made me speechless.”

Remus and Patton both snorted a little at the joke.

Taking a deep breath, Remus looked back down at the ring so he could actually gather what it looked like beyond the silver band.

It wasn’t much, the band thick and two tiny gems impressed into the metal surrounded by linked hearts. The gems were blue and green, both Patton’s and Remus’ favorite colors.

He carefully took the ring out of the pokeball, and then slid it on left his ring finger as he felt a grin take over his expression.

Patton then launched himself at Remus, taking him by surprise and making them both fall to the ground.

“Please tell me that’s a yes,” Patton whispered, his arms wrapped around Remus’ waist and his face buried in his neck.

Remus huffed, settling his right hand on the small of Patton’s back, grinning up at the sky broken up by leaves before he brought his left hand in his vision to admire the ring.

“It’s a hell fucking yeah.”

With a squeal, Patton clung tighter to Remus, and he prepared himself to just lay in the grass with his fiance for a while.

Not like he minded though. Not when they were surrounded by his favorite pokemon and able to brush his fingers through Patton’s hair.

Remus finally got one that chose him too.