#I can only remember my height in terms of pokemon
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Sometimes I forget that I'm tall until someone goes like "furrets are so tall" and I remember they're generally shorter than me.
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Tagged by the campfire buddy themself @artificialpawsertives
Name: Schnecke 🐌 or Blue!
Star sign: I'm a (Libra-rising apparently?) Sagittarius but technically if you believe in the new one I'm an Ophiuchus? I'm not really into zodiac signs but I have a friend who is so I know a fair amount
Height: Anywhere from 5 1 to 5 3, it varies
Birthday: That knowledge can only be found in the tags on posts or if you've hung around long enough
Favorite Band/Artist: Stan Bush or that lemon dude everyone has been into recently, im a sucker for his view monster album <3
Last Movie: The Sea Beast
Last Show: Total Island Drama or Beast Wars, both are very easy to watch at work
When Did I Create This Blog: Mmmmmm, 2019 maybe???
What Do I Post: My little robotic fellas, ladies, and what doesn't fall under those labels <33 Funny stuff, pretty art, and whatever catches my eye. Oh and snails <33 Absolutely CANNOT forget my buddies in slime <3
Last Thing I Googled: "s*nic sign go piss" 😔 Debating the origin of the term me and my buddy cannot stop saying at work
Other blogs: I have one private blog but other than that this is where the party is🥳
Do I get asks: Occasionally for ask games!
Following: 160 and unlikely to drastically increase that number. Fucked in the head enough that I *have* to scroll to where I was the previous night to make sure I didn't miss anything 😔 Chronically online headass↖️
Average Hours of Sleep: On good days it's as many as I can manage: 10 but want more, but most of the time it's four ;-;
Instruments: I have a singing bowl that is very nice for making my ear drums vibrate, weird but nice?
Dream Job: Not feasible but I'd love to be a costume designer? Not like picking out shirts and bottoms but the type of thing that requires huge amounts of makeup and prosthetics. Making beasties and the like
What I Am Wearing: Just got off work so a sleepy time big shirt <3 Took a photo to figure out how to spell the tournament name but this works instead ( ◜‿◝ )♡
Dream Trip: All the buddies on a house boat/ big regular boat with a jetski or two. Basically water + friends
Nationality: American
Fav Songs: Ask for nothing(lemon), Pillow Talking(lil dicky), Hunger (spectre general), Dare (Stan Bush), woah woah woah (watsky), pumpkin pie (lemon), Dr Worm (they might be Giants), the devil and Mr Jones ( Aurelio Voltaire)
Last Book I Read: If comics count it was tf mtmte dark energon series and if they don't Scythe bc I remembered I got the newest book in the seriesa while back (read it in hs and I wanted to finish the series, got distracted)
Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in: Transformers<333 (Not the live action movies that would be atrocious, preferably gen1 if I got a choice 😁) Pokemon (the little critterworld would be 🥺), legend of Zelda skyward sword. Big birds! I would get to fly around and it is sooooo pretty <3
Tagging: Anybody who wants to do it 😁
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Way back when, I posted an image of an OC, who fairly recently got a full name (she only had a surname back then.) So, with Eliza’s name finally figured out, I realised I hadn’t actually given my overview of the game that spawned her; Champions of Vestroia.
Time to lose my mind, I guess.
Some fore-knowledge before we get into this.
I am, by all means, a legacy bakugan fan, not a reboot fan. I’ve only seen one double episode (the become-smaller-child episode, which was cute, and Outer Demons, which has a super good premise, but the execution is. something.)
By all accounts, CoV is essentially my introduction to the world of the reboot, and I’ll come to this later.
I played both the first game (Bakugan Battle Brawlers, specifically the Wii edition), and the... third game (Defenders of the Core, shortened to DOTC, also for the Wii. The second game, for anyone curious, is Battle Trainer, a DS exclusive.)
This will come up later, of course, but I want to point out these two as they’re basically my control group for the quality here (not for the battles though; different battle system and all.)
I am incredibly stay-at-home. A lot of people I know irl I don’t have contact with, and most of them don’t live in my city. This is only important when it comes to the protagonist and literally no one else in the game, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
So the game begins with the character creator. This is pretty standard stuff, honestly. My one issue with it is just-- this is probably my fashion sense speaking, but the fashion in the game is very... for lack of a better term, naff. There aren’t many options that look good, personally speaking.
This is ignoring the issues where the protagonist loses their name, mid conversation, or is referred to as if I chose the male option instead of the female option. These issues are likely just oversights, by all accounts, but talk about jarring.
The first time you see your character is where 3. comes in. The protagonist, no matter what you chose (I have two save files, in case there was a difference. There isn’t), will always be a football/soccer player. Are you one of many, many people who isn’t sporty, who is trying to play as themselves? Sorry, your character is sporty, and you can’t do anything about it.
In the legacy games, this was never really a problem; your character was never seen doing anything other than brawling and interacting with other characters. Whether they played sports, or stayed indoors and wrote fanfic, the game let you decide on that for your character, by not having them do either of those things: your character only battled, or snuck around in DOTC’s case.
Once you stop playing football, you get to run to your best friends, and I guarantee you, you won’t immediately guess who they are unless you somehow already knew.
I mentioned BBB and DOTC being my control group on quality. Bringing the character creator back into this, the NPCs are laughable in quality. Any character who has the same model as you (older child. There are only two other model types: adult, and younger child) will look like a remixed version of your character. Had it not been for some characters having special eye shapes, you could practically cosplay any character in the game, because they were made the same way you made your character.
This includes your two best friends.
You could easily make the same character (minus clothes) as one of your best friend characters, without knowing it until you saw them.
While, yes, BBB and DOTC had the characters from the legacy anime in them, the fact that your best friends are nigh indistinguishable from any other character in the area, because you could easily make any of them in the character creator, isn’t... great.
Speaking of that. Characterisation is questionable, to say the least. Whatever bakugan you have in your first slot will answer to you the same as any other bakugan you have in your first slot. If you started off with Howlkor in the front of your party, and you replaced him with, say, Barbetra, Barbetra will act the exact same as Howlkor did, and it’s really something.
There’s only (?) Armoured Alliance bakugan in the game, other than Dragonoid, Pegatrix, Trox, Hydorous, Nillious, and the afforementioned Howlkor. That’s a small roster, by all accounts, so having varied dialogue depending on the bakugan would make sense.
The characterisation of the other characters is also a little funky in places. Your best friends don’t brawl, and I honestly forgot about them for a portion of the game. The tournament brawlers are practically as faceless as the villain minions, and the villains- oh the villains...
Preston. I don’t like Preston, at all. He’s a villain from the moment you see him, and the whole “try to find Preston” section in Helena Heights makes me want to punch someone.
When you fight him in the Parasol HQ, his dad being the CEO, it’s fairly clear that Preston is little more than a tool for him. Sometime later, you fight Preston again, this time as the final tournament’s final battle, and he’s laughably weak compared to the other challengers. Remember, this kid fights you with Leonidas.
You’d think Leo would be good, but I’ll get into the butchering that happened to my death dragon later.
Anyhow, he fights you, assuming his dad will enjoy him defeating you. With the power of you’re the player character, you beat him, he hands all of his bakugan to you, and gives up on brawling for good. Kinda.
The next time you see him... hoo boy. In Old Town, on the way to defeat dear detestable dad, you come across Preston. He offers you help, and when player character is understandably suspicious, Preston complains that... one of his toys was taken away because you beat him, and now he wants Revenge On Dad.
I wish I was joking. His revenge, by helping you defeat his dad, isn’t because he’s obviously neglected by his dad (company taking priority over him, the CEO’s son), and then is used as a minion to try and get rid of you. It’s not out of bitter feelings because his dad doesn’t care about him, no, it’s because his dad took his ball away.
What’s worse is how player character reacts: “Oh! :) You’ve learned that bakugan aren’t just tools! :) Yes you can help me, despite the fact that you learning this sounds less than genuine and definitely not last minute! :)”
This is a level of stupidity I’ve only seen in DOTC Mira when Spectra tricks her into giving him Drago. He’s literally sulking and moping about over his ball, and then he sees the player character, immediately being manipulative so that player character can take down his dad for him.
Leonidas also forgives him, and has the same reaction as the player character.
Speaking of Leonidas! I think everyone’s been excited for Leonidas in general - we all love a shark headed death dragon, and we wanted one in the reboot for ages.
I refuse to call reboot Leonidas Leonidas. This is like the Shun Kazami debacle, but one I’m substantially more angry about.
Leonidas, in BBB, was untrusting of everything, wanted to throw down with everything in sight, had no fear of anything because “I don’t fear weak [humans]”, and literally came from hell. He eventually grew to trust you and others, to calm down and enjoy himself at his own pace, and was willing to have help from others, showing anyone around him that his origins aren’t the be all and end all about him.
Leonidas, in CoV, is immediately trusting of the first human who showed a hint of kindness, has a weakness to all attacks in the game, comes from Vestroia (not the Doom Dimension), and forgives the human who threw him away when he didn’t win the battle against you for him.
Ignoring the fact that Leonidas just doesn’t look good in CoV, I’d say he got bastardised. That’s not Leonidas, it’s just a dragon with the same name.
The main villain is the CEO of Parasol, an energy company that, assumedly, used to use solar power. Upon finding out that bakugan battles give off incredible levels of power, they turned to using bakugan, forced to battle, to generate power. These guys literally dug into someone’s house to try and get Leonidas. They’re evil.
On the topic of the battling for power generation; this has a decay effect on Vestroia, as it happens, as battling energy would usually go back into Vestroia, which would be recycled and reused.
The CEO doesn’t bend the knee to you until you break him, which is undoubtedly nice for a villain; I was honestly expecting him to give up, but he doesn’t. You beat him into a corner.
But as my introduction to the world of BP, through CoV, is lackluster at best. Obviously the game is meant for those who have seen the reboot, and don’t mind being completely disconnected from the story, because CoV is self contained, and Dan only shows up to be the tutorial giver (as a jpg, no less).
From what the game tells me about the setting; bakugan are often exploited by adults, bakugan do not like adults because of this, but can’t tell when a human child is manipulating them, unless another child removes them from that situation (the lack of agency here is somehow worse than in the legacy series, who knew).
Despite bakugan being around for 18 years in the setting, no one seems to be aware that they’re living beings, other than the main charcter, as if BP humans are equivalent to Legacy’s Vestals. I was already aware of Vestroia and Earth sharing a location in space, but the fact that drilling deep enough causes bakugan to appear on Earth seems... really weird? Schrödinger’s Bakugan Summoning Pit, but they exist on every digging site possible. Bonus points to all bakugan being able to speak, and they do speak a lot, but only to the player and whoever is around the player in a cutscene.
I’m missing a lot of things, such as battle items being the worst sometimes, I’m aware, but at this point I’m tired of rambling, so let me end off in a comparison.
CoV has, in my opinion, the same replayability levels as Pokemon Shield; I couldn’t replay either game to the end, and I wouldn’t recommend either to anyone unless they were desperate for a new game to play, and had nothing else to chose.
#Bakugan#CoV#Bakugan Champions of vestroia#I had Feelings today#I give CoV a 4/10. personally#I think me being a legacy fan doesn't help it. but I don't think any of those biases actually held the game back?#Shoutout to the one kid in Oldtown who says something about the state of the economy. and makes the player character enter a mild panic#the kid is like. 6. the player character is maybe twice their age#The kid says it with a smug face too I wish I was making this up#I think his name is Rusty? I could be wrong#Bonus: I don't think Player Character has a house#There isn't a single house you can enter. not even one labelled as yours. all you have is your hideout. which has a clothes rack??#I'm almost convinced that's exactly where they live and that's it#Extra bonus to the ventus centipod you find when picking a flower. a flower that gets a guy to quit his job on the spot without a care.#sir. sir where is your sense of responsibility. sir--#Also it's like. half one in the morning--
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Tagged by @errorpaige
Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you want to know better whoever you like!
1. Name/Nickname: Antego its a personal name and i get it sounds weird so most folks just call me Ant or Anty and i love it!
3. Star sign: Leo
4. Height: 6′
5. Time: 8:11pm (local time)
6. Birthday: right at the end of summer
7. Favorite Band: oof favorites are a hard thing for me bc my interests and obsessions are always changing and im seriously blanking on any band that i could call a favorite?? sorryy
8. Favorite Solo Artist: easier pick this time im going with Jacob Collier. That dude is on another level in terms of how advanced he is in music theory
9. Song Stuck in My Head: My Life is Better With You by Montaigne its so catchy and full of love
10. Last Movie: i did an annual rewatch of lord of the rings and the hobbit
11. Last Show: just watched the new episodes of dc super hero girls its such a cute show and doesn’t require a lot of emotional investment so was perfect to have on while doing chores
12. When I Created This Blog: emmm 6? 7? 8 years ago? i wasn’t blogging much in the beginning so i really do not remember
13. What I Post: shitposts, aesthetics, cat, dogs and activist stuff
14. Last Thing I Googled: “MisFire” she is this suuuuper awesome beatboxer with a really hypnotic rhythm - if you’re into that sort of thing lol
15. Other Blogs: this is my only tumblr blog but i do have an amateur photography blog thing on insta
16. Do I get asks: mmm pretty rarely idk if im all that interesting to get asked stuff tbh
17. Why I Chose My URL: idk it sounded kind of cute and my last url was self deprecating and i am trying to do that less
18. Following: 252
19. Followers: 563 but pretty sure there are lots of porn bots in there that i am too lazy to do anything about
20. Average Hours of Sleep: i’ve had chronic insomnia since puberty but i manage it with sleep aides and get usually 8 hours of light sleep :/
21. Lucky Number: the number 3 has never done me dirty
22. Instruments: piano, ukulele, electric guitar, acoustic guitar i am all extremely mediocre at playing and i also have a couple violins that stare at me in the corner that im sooo intimidated by to start playing
23. What I Am Wearing: a long hoody and these baggy harem pants over these cool leggings
24. Dream Job: full time music producer maybe? ttrpg actual play story telling? one or both of those
25. Dream Trip: i want to travel literally everywhere but top 3 would probably be ireland, tokyo and titan, one of saturns moons (you can basically FLY there)
26. Favourite Food: killing me with this faves... lol ill go Asian in general but im very white so you can tempt me with basically all cheese
27. Nationality: USA
28. Favourite Song: None currently...
29. Last Book I Read: currently reading Stone Butch Blues (highly recommended) and Homer translated by Emily Wilson (also recommend)
30. Top 3 fictional universes I would love to live in: (assuming i get to participate in the cool stuff in these universes) sense8, the owl house and pokemon. oh to grow old on my poke ranch with my mons. just vibing...
Thank you for asking! I will tag @join-me-in-the=bog @adobabe @wellwrittenword @kattherippa @redwoodfox @cleverbabygh0ul @chloe-the-fool @anna-da-gamer @shit-man-imreally-gay @mightybeaujester @dyslexicorn
If I haven’t tagged you feel free to pick this up on your own! And if I did tag you then no pressure!
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Pokemon Found Family: Chapter 2 (Registered)
This is the second chapter of Pokemon Found Family, my pokemon fanfic! The raw text is below the cut!
I’m always up for questions!
Previous --- Next
Jane finds herself in an odd space. It’s the temple she fell into the night before, but the fences scattered around the back door of sorts are gone. Jane walks into the passageway and down a flight of stairs before entering the room at the end of the corridor. An odd feeling sweeps over her as she notices the coffin in the center of the room, causing Jane’s fur to stand on end. As Jane looks around for any sign of where the feeling had come from, she jumps at the sight of a ghostly outline of another pokemon in the room with her. The other pokemon she sees is certainly larger than Jane, but they’re on four legs like she is, and is calmly gazing at her. After the fight or flight response begins to ebb from her system, Jane looks more closely at the ghostly pokemon in the room. She recognizes them as a male pyroar, and can’t suss out any other details thanks to the pale blue coloring of the pyroar’s ghostly physique.
“Excuse me, you are Jane Eevee, correct?” the ghostly pyroar asks.
“Yes, I am…” Jane answers.
“Oh good. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.” The pyroar puts a paw forward. “I’m Cyrus Pyroar, champion of Mischief Valley. You’ve been sent here by Jirachi, correct?”
“Oh um… Yes. Jirachi got me out of danger by sending me here.”
“Did they give you a mission, Jane?”
“Not really. They just told me to make a new life here.”
“Oh. On a related note, has Geist told you about his duties as curator of my temple?”
“No, not yet…”
“Alright then… Hmm?” Cyrus looks up the flight of stairs, and notices the time. “Oh goodness, it’s already almost morning.” Cyrus refocuses on Jane as he adds “Jane, I can talk more later. For now, the registration process will begin for you today. See you when I can.”
Jane wakes up to the sound of Geist’s voice. “Hey Jane, we’ve got places to be!”
Jane gets up, and turns in Geist’s direction.
“Erm, can I pick you up again?” Geist asks in an uneasy tone.
Jane nods and says “Sure! Go ahead!”
Geist hastily picks up Jane in his arms and goes out his front doorway. Jane had forgotten that Geist lives high on the valley’s wall the night before, and upon remembering this fact, she closes her eyes and stuffs her head into Geist’s arm. Geist notices this and remembers her mentioning that she doesn’t like heights, so he initiates a phantom force to get them where they need to go, the valley’s citizenship office. Jane keeps her head snuggled in Geist’s arm until she feels the sensation of the sun’s rays return, on the destination side of Geist’s phantom force. Geist lowers Jane close to the ground, and Jane, after looking around for a moment, hops out with no issue.
“Where are we now?” Jane asks as she looks up at Geist.
“We’re at the citizenship office, also known as where you get registered.” Geist answers.
“Oh.” Jane turns toward the entryway to her right. “So here?”
“Yeah. They close at eleven, so let’s be quick.” Geist had taken note that it was ten fifteen when they left his house.
Both Geist and Jane walk into the citizenship office, and the sound of their entry makes the receptionist perk up. Despite still being new at the whole being a receptionist deal, the teenage drizzile at the desk has been practicing being more formal to those to pass by, but when they recognize the gengar that comes in, their veneer of professionalism dissolves on account of the recent distance between them two.
“Oh my gosh Geist!” the drizzile excitedly says with shining eyes. “Er, w-what brings you here today?!”
Without missing a beat, Geist smoothly replies “Hey mister Jazzadile.” Geist sets an arm on the desk and adds “Looks like mom has let you be at the receptionist desk?”
“Yeah yeah! Ever since I had my sixteenth birthday, mom’s letting me do all kinds of stuff!”
“Like what little man?” Geist continues.
“I can go outside the valley now with an adult at my side, I can go to my friends’ places when I’m not busy, and I get to run this when she’s busy!”
“Nice, Jazz!” Geist replies. “Wait, is your mom out right now?”
“No, she isn’t. She’s working with the governor right now.”
“In your house…?”
“Yeah yeah. Do you need her right now?”
“Yeah, I do.” Geist looks to Jane and adds “I’ve got someone new here with me.”
Thanks to the stone countertop blocking Jazz’s view of Jane, he asks “Are they under two feet and or point six meters? If they are, they are supposed to jump onto the counter.”
Geist looks back at Jane and quickly crunches some numbers in his head. He figures since Jane doesn’t go past half of his height, she’s short enough to get on the counter. Geist locks eyes with Jane, then gestures for her to hop up. Jane sees the gesture, then hops onto the counter without tripping up.
“Oh!” Jazz says, “So where did you come from, eevee?”
“Oh yeah, a friend of mine sent me here to make a new life for myself.” Jane answers.
Jazz’s mind stalls looking for a good response. “Um… Okay then, but where did you come from? P-Please include the city as well as the nation.”
“Oh, I’m from Furton, Pawland. It’s a long story…” Jane says.
“Oh. You’ve come a ways from here!” Jazz excitedly replies. Geist raises an eyebrow as he looks at Jane. Jazz then adds “Could you tell me about Pawland???”
Before Jane can respond, the door from behind opens, and a krookodile about Geist’s size comes out of it, followed by a sableye. Geist instantly recognizes both of them, whereas Jane is a little put off by at least the krookodile. The krookodile notices Geist, and walks over as she greets him.
“Hey Geist! Long time no see! Did ya bring someone new here?”
“Greetings Sophie! I see that Jazzadile is able to handle the desk, seeing as he’s helping this eevee get registered!” Geist replies.
Sophie’s eyes widen. “Oh? What have you filled out so far for this eevee, Jazz?”
Jazz sheepishly smiles. “Uh, well, they said they come from Furton, Pawland so far…”
“You haven’t asked their name or pronouns yet? That’s the first thing you ask someone sweetpea!” Sophie says.
Jazz’s embarrassment begins to show on his face. “Oops… Sorry mom....”
Sophie crouches down to Jazz’s level. “Jazzadile, that’s fine for now, thanks to this being Geist’s friend, but you need to remember alright?”
“Okay mom…” Jazz says, blushing.
Sophie gets back up. “I can take it from here Jazzie. Feel free to go hangout with a friend or so.”
Jazz shuffles out from behind the counter, then past the sableye (who has stayed remarkably quiet thus far), to the door that Sophie had come out of a moment ago. The door quietly closes behind him as Sophie redirects her attention to the now silent eevee standing on the counter.
“Anyway sweetpea, what’s your name and pronouns?” Sophie asks.
“I’m… Jane. I go by female pronouns.”
“Alrighty then, How old are ya?” Sophie asks with her trademark grin.
“I’m seventeen, Lady Sophie.”
“Huh, that’s interesting. How ya got here is none of my business, but you’ll have to select an adult thanks to being a minor. You know who?”
Jane looks to Geist as she says “I’m staying with Geist.”
Sophie’s eyes widen just like before. “Oh?” She turns to Geist. “What made that happen Gei-”
The sableye in the room decides he can’t stay quiet any longer, and jumps up onto a different part of the counter to be better heard. “What in the world are you thinking Geist?!”
Geist raises an eyebrow, just as Sophie does the same. Jane remains silent as she examines the sableye through his tirade.
“Did you just wake up one day and thought ‘I want an extra distraction in my life’?! That’s exactly what you’ve done by adopting this forsaken eevee!!! Even worse, this will make the other nations even more paranoid if they find-”
Jane puts on the most commanding tone she can as she says “Excuse me, I’M the one who wanted to live with him. He got me to the hospital and was the second person in my life to show me kindness. I don’t freaking care what those ‘other nations’ think because the only thing that other nations have given me has been SUFFERING. Know your place, sir sableye. This is NOT your decision.”
The whole room goes quiet. Sophie then cracks a nervous smile, worrying what the governor will think of what Jane just said. Geist’s worry is eclipsed by his surprise on account of Jane’s bold words. Despite being essentially the leader of Mischief Valley, Moshe remains silent as his emotions rage a battle within.
Sophie decides she should say something. “Should I tell you who this sableye is?”
“I mean, you can if you want.” Jane plainly answers.
“This is Moshe Sableye, our governor here in the valley.” Sophie explains.
Geist adds “Yeah… He’s my boss, Jane.”
“Oh. Should I mention that’s one of my more tame corrections?” Jane admits.
Moshe regains his bearing as Geist and Sophie exchange looks. “No, this eevee is right. My duty as governor is to make sure the valley’s citizens have their needs met. I’m deeply sorry that other nations have treated you that way, and I wish Mischief Valley will be different for you. Excuse my vitriol from earlier.”
Geist and Sophie both sigh in relief.
Moshe looks to Geist. “Anyways, Geist, could you fix that hole in the temple’s ceiling? We will be having a procession of nobles coming to inspect it later this week.”
“Could you call in the restoration force in that case? Psychic doesn’t quite cut it in terms of long term stability.” Geist says.
“Got it, Geist. Follow me if you will.”
Moshe jumps off the counter and begins to walk toward the entryway, and Geist obeys, following close behind the sableye. Geist briefly stops when he realizes one thing that almost slipped his mind.
Geist turns and eyes Sophie. “Sophie, could you hang onto Jane for now? I’ve got a task to do.”
“No problem Geist! A friend of yours is always welcome here!”
Geist catches up with Moshe, then says a quick “Thank you!” before shuffling out of the entryway.
Sophie’s gaze shifts to Jane once Geist is out of sight. “So miss Jane, would ya like to hang out behind the counter while I close up shop?”
“Oh um… Sure. Could I speak with you while you do that?” Jane says.
“Sure sweetpea! What do ya want to talk about?” Sophie says as she walks over to the boulder in the corner of the room.
“May I ask how you and Jazz know Geist?”
Sophie picks up the boulder and begins to walk it over to the entryway as she answers “Oh yeah, like you, Geist’s not native to here, so he had to go through me to live here. Geist knows Jazz because he helped bring the little sobble to me as a birthday surprise. That was about four years ago, and his nearly unprecedented kindness is why we’re still friends.”
“Oh. Do you know why he came here, or…?”
Sophie sets the boulder down in the entryway, then turns back to Jane as she says “He’s usually up tight about his past. He don’t talk about it much. I’m not sure if he’d be okay with me tellin’ ya that stuff, sweetpea. You’d have to ask him.”
“Okay then.” Jane then notices the placement of the boulder and asks “May I ask how we get out of here?”
Sophie points to the door behind the counter and says “We go through that door into my house, then through the tunnel to the bottom of the valley.”
“Okay then. Show me the way!”
Sophie gets back behind the counter before saying “Alrighty sweetpea, follow me!”
Sophie opens the door, and they both walk into Sophie’s home, then close the door behind themselves.
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eye's on the sparrow
He just stares at her, like he’d been wishing for his mom but she appeared instead. This belief - in wishing, in divine intervention, in fate - is probably the reason why he chooses to believe in her.
BLEACH / AU / ICHIRUKI • [PART 1/?]
A/N: It figures my first official attempt at fanfic is gonna be for this old ship in the wildest year 2020. Apologies in advance because I am no writer, but like a kid messing around in a kitchen, I hope you enjoy it anyway. Bone apple teeths, my dudes.
——————
I.
The first time she meets him, he’s by himself on the side of the road. He isn’t doing much of anything, just a lot of crying, same as that day his mother died. Rukia wasn’t there to see it happen, but she saw the officers and the cars all hovered around the scene in the aftermath, a pop of bright yellow about her height wailing like a siren.
For all of her seven years of living, she is precocious enough to understand death and loss, but when she greets him weeks later, she has no kid gloves to treat him with, just her bare-knuckled fists knocking into his shoulders. He loses his balance among other things, face no longer crunched together in tears but spread wide with shock.
“What’s wrong?” says she, without any hint of sympathy. The boy offers her nothing in response. His hand is on the pavement, catching himself.
He just stares at her, like he’d been wishing for his mom but she appeared instead. This belief - in wishing, in divine intervention, in fate - is probably the reason why he chooses to believe in her. He swallows his tears long enough to tell her “I lost my mom here,” with a glint of hope in his eyes as if she could find her for him.
“Was she pretty?” Is all Rukia asks, trying to imagine her, and the boy cracks a smile.
“The prettiest. She made the best blueberry pancakes for breakfast and held my hand while we walked. I was supposed to protect her… but,” The boy chokes, big drops forming on the sides of his eyes.
“Just… don’t forget her.”
The boy gulps at this, not really understanding but nodding anyway. Maybe it’s Rukia’s imagination of his mother now in her mind, as pretty and warm as the sunshine, smelling like pancakes and blueberries, that causes her to reflect. She squats down next to him with a frown on her face.
“You’re lucky, I don’t have a mother to remember.” Rukia says, “So whatever you do, don’t forget her.”
He looks up at her then, eyes as big as saucers, and she helps him up to his feet. They say nothing else in the exchange, but he keeps looking at her, so she ruffles his hair to make him stop. She likes that she’s a little taller than him that she can do that; the other boys she knows are older and too tall for her fingers and fists to reach.
When she sees him the next day, he isn’t crying anymore but he talks. About little things, at first. A lot of stories about his mom, so he won’t forget. How she warmed the room with her presence, could peel apple skins in one long strip and loved reading books about funny English plays. As the days go on, it mixes with stories of things he’s learned in school, or his classmate in karate who he can never seem to beat. Rukia listens. They walk together down the road on his way home.
“Where do you live?” he asks one day, between showing her this new Pokemon card he’d traded Mizuiro during recess. It’s another rainy afternoon, but he’s okay, and they’re sharing his umbrella on the road home.
“Up that hill over there,” she says, pointing past the street they’re on.
“That’s pretty far. You can take my umbrella with you; I live right here.” The boy exclaims, stopping right in front of a family clinic. There’s a chipper smile on his face as he hands her the umbrella to hold.
She doesn’t really know what to think, the gesture unusual to her, but she takes it with a small thanks before parting ways.
-
II.
Ichigo is six the first time he invites a girl over to his house. He doesn’t really know her name, nor does he know much of anything about her, now that he thinks about it, but they somehow walk home together every day and he’s happy for the company of his new friend.
She doesn’t accept at first, but once she manages to sneak up to his window by climbing the adjacent tree, it’s as if she’s always been there. He shares his manga and his favorite snacks and teaches her how to play Pokemon among his growing collection of cards. She’ll stay over an hour after sunset, the pair of them reading and laughing until he has to head down for dinner, and she’ll leave the way she came. If his dad is wise to the situation, Ichigo doesn’t really know, but the man is all too happy to give him extra snacks to carry into his room whenever he asks.
On one weekend Ichigo finds himself packed in with his sisters in the car, dad behind the wheel with a list of things to buy and the promise of candy and ice cream at the end of the day if they behave. When they pass the hill, all he sees are lush forest greens and the Torii that pokes its head among the body of stairs. There are no houses, so he asks where they are.
“There are no houses there, son. Just the orphanage near the Shinto shrine.” His dad answers with unexpected gravity.
Ichigo says nothing in response to this, but he looks up what an orphanage is later in the dictionary once they get home, remembers the girl with no mother and cries.
He notices it, seeing her again on his way home from karate. She usually comes up to meet him from the river, playing by herself. Her clothes are a little too big on her, waiting to grow into them like the hand-me-downs his sisters complain about.
He can’t really bring himself to say anything to her, though he really wants to. It’s on the tip of his tongue, to tell her that he knows, but he never gets the chance to because they’re home before he realizes it and the door bursts open just as soon as he gathers the courage to speak.
“Welcome home, Ichigo!” His dad surprises him outside their doors just as they’ve arrived. There’s a sly look on his eye that Ichigo is too young to decipher, but he feels as if some secret’s been found out when his dad turns to the person frozen in place next to him.
“And who is this young lady accompanying my son home today?”
Ichigo’s mind is racing to respond but he can’t find a simple answer. Static bubbles out of him instead in stammers and incoherent half-words that only stop when she says her name.
“Rukia,” his dad repeats with gentlemanly charm. “Thank you for keeping an eye out for my son. Come in and stay for dinner.”
His dad figures out everything but he’s surprisingly lenient about it. She’s allowed to stay as she wishes, for snacks, for games, as long as she heads back before nightfall. The terms are fair, especially with the long summer days ahead of them, and sometimes his dad will leave work ahead of schedule so they can have earlier dinners with her as their guest.
It’s how most of Ichigo’s summer unfolds: him, his sisters, and Rukia eating dinners together, watching tv and playing video games. Her drawings of bears and rabbits mix with Yuzu and Karin’s on the refrigerator. The newness of having her over gives the family something to talk about, and they welcome her openly. The rest of the days are a haze of laughs and pixelated dungeons where they save princesses.
“Why do you always play by the river?” Ichigo asks her one afternoon. The question stops her in her tracks, thrown off by the question. They’re on the way home, the usual babble of the river filling her sudden silence. She’d been talking to him about her strategy to defeat the boss at the Fire Temple. He’s a little guilty he wasn’t paying attention.
“My friend Renji was adopted a week before I met you,” she tells him. “We used to sneak out and play by the river all the time before he went away.”
“Will you go away too when you get adopted?”
“I don’t know. Probably.” She shrugs, but her fingers are tightly wound like the first day they met.
Later that night after she leaves, Ichigo tugs on the bottom of his dads shirt as he’s putting away the last of the clean dishes and stares up at him.
“Can’t we adopt her?” He chokes out, vision wet and blurry as he says it because he already knows the answer.
His dad sighs, picking him up by his armpits, and suddenly he’s four years old again, crying on the kitchen counter. Ichigo is surprised to find himself tightly wound in his dads arms, a hug so warm and sincere he thinks he could choke if he doesn’t remember to breathe.
“Sorry, kiddo.” His dad ruffles his hair when they pull apart, and looking up at him, his eyes look wet too.
The last of his summer is a countdown till it finally happens. It’s a normal sunny afternoon walking back from karate. He lingers over the view of the river before walking home alone for the first time in months. There’s a pit in his stomach that he ignores and he mostly sulks in his room the rest of the evening.
She shows up two days later with a big smile on her face that he’s never seen. He knows before she even says it.
Her smile is so big it eclipses the frown that threatens to show on his face because the more he listens to her, the happier he genuinely feels for her. A young couple from Tokyo, and the woman is warm and sunny just like any mother should be, she says.
“The man isn’t as goofy as your dad, but he seems nice… I’m moving with them to Tokyo this week once the papers are signed.”
The mention of the move makes her nervous, the only other emotion she’s expressed in her retelling of the past two days. They spend the rest of the afternoon on his father’s computer looking up pictures of Tokyo, then find a map in the garage to see how far it is from Karakura.
On her last day, Ichigo and his dad go out to buy a small bouquet of flowers in congratulations, and they snap a photo together along with his sisters, who are hugging her in a fond embrace.
“Write to me,” he says with a grin, hand stuffed in his pockets, suddenly feeling too cool for goodbyes. She ignores it completely and gives him a fierce hug.
“Of course.” She laughs at him, then punches him fondly on the shoulder for good measure. “Thanks, Ichigo.”
The words throw him off, the first time she’s ever called him by name, and he tries hers in kind.
“See ya later, Rukia.”
They write to each other the way pen pals do, in a pattern of energetic bursts of conversation between the pauses of closing signatures that grow wider until their lives fill with classes, exams, friends and families. The letters stop coming at the end of the year.
[PART 2 → ]
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30 questions meme thingie... tagged by @autumnalserenade sort of ehehehe
(1.) name / nickname:
kester / kes
(2.) gender:
oh haha no thank you :)
sometimes i think about how im both a transgender bisexual and a bigender transsexual and how thats so epic of me
(3.) star sign:
aries but i think astrology is stoopid i don’t like it. watch as that turns out to be an aries stereotype or something though
(4.) height:
5′9
(5.) time:
6:37 am EST
(6.) birthday:
04/17
(7.) favorite bands/groups:
oh fuck i’m definitely going to forget something important but
mother mother, metric, the decemberists, alt-j, echo & the bunnymen, x, pixies, hole, nirvana, clipping., my chemical romance, blondie, mindless self indulgence, studio killers
(8.) favorite solo artist:
again i’m definitely gonna forget someone important here
emilie autumn, amanda palmer, fiona apple, patti smith, marina & the diamonds, yungblud, poppy, slayyyter, hozier, mika
(9.) song stuck in my head:
i’m so sorry to have to say this but. dr3 despair arc ending theme
(10.) last movie:
genuinely no idea. i try not to watch movies if i can help it
(11.) last show:
it was either hannibal or better call saul, i don’t remember which of those i watched most recently
(12.) when did i create this blog:
sometime in late 2019, i think? don’t remember exactly. i know i announced i remade in early 2020, but i’d been active on this blog for maybe about six months beforehand
(13.) what do i post:
all kinds of stupid and gay shit
(14.) last thing googled:
“in a world where clowns are real” (i was trying to find a particular tumblr post)
(15.) other blogs:
@catboyebooks (liveblogging; we’re playing dr1 right now)
@sexytesting (portal sideblog)
also. i did hoard a url the other day to use as like, a danganronpa sideblog maybe? so i don’t have to be unhinged on main maybe? so i can turn search engine indexing off and hide from the fandom at large maybe? it will probably be like some percentage shitposting some percentage sloppily written meta posts i don’t really know. might drop the url if i do anything with it
(16.) do i get asks:
not often, but from time to time! i think most of my followers are mutuals so when we talk it’s mostly through DMs or something rather than asks
(17.) why did i choose this url:
no deep reasons, it’s just nya + adversary although my lovely mutual litzo junkheaded did point out it could be read as “NY adversary” which also fits, i like that too
(18.) following:
92. i’ve never been one to follow a lot of blogs, as long as my dash isn’t super slow i prefer to keep my following count low — i think most of the blogs i follow are mutuals actually
(19.) followers:
116. again i think the majority of these i’m in mutuals with
(20.) average hours of sleep:
i have bipolar disorder so no
(21.) lucky number:
1, 4, 9, 11, 17, 55, 69 (nice), 93, 95, 101, 417, 420 (nice), 428, 666 (nice), 4673
(22.) instruments:
i’m mainly a singer but i used to play fiddle (would like to pick it up again sometime), i know some very rudimentary piano/keyboard (i can do basic chords), i’m trying to learn ukulele and i’d also like to try learning guitar
also my school did force us to play the recorder but we got sort of hardcore with it, broke out the alto/tenor/bass recorders and all that. i used to play alto and tenor mainly but i’ve played like every type of recorder probably lmao
(23.) what am i wearing:
shrieking shack t-shirt with a really deep fried image of harry holding dead dobby on it
black and white checkered pants
boxered shorts
(24.) dream job:
i don’t dream about having jobs simply <3
but no ideally i wind up being some sort of author i guess?
(25.) dream trip:
anywhere. ahaha. let me out <3
(26.) favorite food:
some favorites no order: soft pretzels, like all pasta but my fave is tortellini, virtually all seafood honestly but especially crab, mussels, salmon, and anchovies, udon, ramen but not instant ramen i’ve had enough of that for one lifetime probably but will continue to eat it bc money, cheesecake, pizza but specifically like really good italian style pizza (new york style is also pretty good), garlic bread, really anything with garlic, salty foods in general
(27.) nationality:
american 😔
in terms of more specific cultural background, just for funsies: mom’s side is irish catholic mainly, her dad’s family is from county tipperary, i’m 3rd gen. she grew up on staten island and most of her family lives (or did live) in the tristate area. dad’s side is scots-irish with left welsh and has been here a while, since i think the mid or late 1600s? my paternal grandparents ended up settling and raising their family in socal (san diego) but both their families are from the southern appalachian region (grandfather on that side grew up in rural northern alabama, F to pay respects, and i don’t remember specifically about my grandmother)
(28.) favorite song:
i cannot pick. uh. the most played song in my itunes library is infinitesimal by mother mother, so, whatever that says about me
(29.) last book read:
does... does the komaeda manga count
(30.) three fictional universes you’d like to live in:
Three??? most of the fictional universes i like / am invested in are horrible nightmare realms. the only one i can think of that seems like an overall good time is pokemon and i don’t think i need to explain why that would whip ass
i tag: the girl reading this <3 or, like, whoever, you can do this if you want and say i tagged you, no obligation
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Misty asking Ash "Am I better with the tail or the loose hair?"
“Y’know, I’d kinda like to grow it out,” she muses aloud as she tightens her side-ponytail, staring at her reflection in the mirror hanging from the dining room wall.
Ash isn’t paying much attention, busying himself with scarfing down a second serving of the breakfast banquet his mom had prepared for their group upon their return from the Indigo League. Brock has decided to sleep in some, deciding he’s on an unofficial vacation from being the group’s caretaker now that Mrs. Ketchum is around to help and more than up for the task.
Misty scowls at the reflection of her traveling companion (and tentative friend), obviously upset that he’s ignoring her apparently uninteresting attempt at making conversation, twirling to face him and hands on her hips.
“Ash, did you hear me? I was talking to you, y’know?” she pushes further, taking a step forward towards the end in time with the enunciation of her second-to-last word.
The aforementioned trainer releases a bored sigh, busying himself with tearing in half an apple slice and giving one piece to Pikachu, taking the other one for himself.
“Wha’d’ya say, Misty?” he asks, giving in to her agitation. It’s still far too early in the morning for a squabble after all.
“I was saying maybe I should grow my hair out!”
The two of them stare each other down, Pikachu’s nibbling slowing until the apple slice is merely sitting wedged in his teeth, probably preparing himself to get forcibly involved if things escalate.
“Well, why’re ya tellin’ me? What do I care about your hair?”
Misty’s upper lip puckers in a pout though she doesn’t respond. It’s not really like she expects any enthusiastic input, she supposes… She was just trying to have a nice conversation for once. And maybe… some small part of her wondered what Ash thought about her.
A memory of him standing stock-still and slack-jawed comes to mind, taking place many months previous during a summer holiday festival. They hold hands, smile, and dance side-by-side for the rest of the night.
Presently, the redhead fervently shakes the affectionate recollection from her head.
“Yeah, I guess it’s dumb to talk to you about things like fashion. After all, the last thing you are is fashionable, Mr. Pokemon Master,” she finally tells him, snobbily turning up her nose with a hmph! of indignation.
“Hey, I’m plenty fashionable! My mom only buys me the coolest stuff to wear!”
“Your mom?” she replies now with a quirked brow, internally apologizing to the Ketchum matriarch who happens to be outside watering her garden at the moment.
“I - I mean…” Ash stammers, clearly at a loss after their first round and trying to rearm himself for the second one. “I mean, why would ya wanna grow out your hair? Just… fashion?” he asks with arms wide in gesture.
“Well, it’d be cute. I could do a lot more with it then, even if I still kept it up all the time,” she shrugs, dancing on the inside now that they’re having an earnest conversation. And she’d barely had to trick him into it! “Remember during the Princess Festival and my sisters’ underwater mermaid play? Accessories always look better with longer hair!”
There’s some more staring, blinking, a faint humming as the preteen boy thinks it over, his fingers absentmindedly flexing against the back of his dining chair.
Finally, somewhat insightfully, he tells her, “I dunno about excessabries or whatever you said… but wouldn’t longer hair mean more time and work too? With all our traveling around and being on the road most of the time, it seems like a bad idea to do something that’s gonna make your, uh, daily rituals as my mom calls ‘em take any longer, y’know?”
“Wow, Ash, that’s… actually a fair point. I’m impressed,” Misty replies with a hint of a smile, stepping one or two paces closer. “Well then, never mind that for now. I’ll keep it short. Maybe instead I’ll just think about wearing it down more often.”
“Huh…?” Drats, and just when he’d thought they’d finally dropped this dumb boring subject and more on to something more interesting!
“I’m still talking about my hair, you dork. Here…”
She pauses a mere foot or two away from him, reaching up and grasping the blue hair-tie she always uses, softly tugging it loose until her short red tresses fall flat around her face, just barely reaching halfway down her neck.
“Am I better with the tail or the loose hair?”
There’s a sudden, distinct wrenching in Ash’s gut that he knows better than to associate with his mom’s flawless cooking… But that of course means it must have something to do with the situation playing out before him right now… right?
He feels pleasantly sick looking at the even cut and color framing her cheeks and forehead like sunlight on a sandy beach, a perfect comparison likening her to her affinity. His tummy continues flip-flopping for the entire minute or so that she stands there, gazing at his jumbled emotions combating to see which one will show strongest on his face.
Pikachu releases an affectionate pikaa! from beside him though it’s unclear if this is in response to their tranquil moment or his independent reaction to Misty’s appearance.
The not-entirely-unfamiliar feeling of his electrical static nerves and the swarm of Butterfree fluttering to life in his stomach keep him so occupied that he can’t think of a verbal response… something Misty eventually notices.
“Pfft, Ash…” she giggles, breaking eye contact with soft rosy cheeks clashing against the red halo falling from her scalp. “Sheesh, you okay? I was just kidding…” She’s back at full height, hair-tie wrapped around the fingers on one hand while she gathers her red hair to the left side of her head and proceeds to secure it like usual.
The spell is mostly instantaneously broken, the invisible Pokemon in his abdomen bursting out and away from him, his racing pulse slowing, the buzzing of his nerves softening to a thrum.
And yet he still can’t find the words.
“I’ll only be letting my hair down on very special occasions. Y’know, like the festival at Maiden’s Peak,” she reminds him somewhat softly, perhaps intrigued by his continued enamored silence.
That’s a shame, isn’t it? a small echoing voice whispers from the back of his mind, and his eyes widen, lips clamping shut tight so such a thing can’t mistakenly be said aloud.
“Or, y’know, when I’m sleeping,” she adds in afterthought, reaching over him, grabbing an apple slice, and walking away with a shrug.
Ash finds his gaze trailing after her as he’s abandoned at the dining table, trying to come to terms with the delicate scenario he’s just escaped and the information he’s been given.
A halfhearted twist pierces his gut again, running through and up his spine as he considers the image of his redheaded friend with her lopsided grin, faintly flushed cheeks, and her soft, thin hair fanning around her face… For lack of a better definition, the unpleasant pleasantness fills him up briefly once more.
Then he sharply stamps out his thought process, unsure of why it seems so intimate and strange and knowing that he can’t possibly keep going down this road. In ten or so minutes, his world has completely shifted to a different axis, and it’s all he can do to grasp it and force it to stay the course.
Still, that soft, encouraging whisper goes on from the back of his mind, it might not be so bad to watch Misty sleep once in awhile.
If it made his insides feel good after all, sneaking the occasional peak wouldn’t hurt anyone… right?
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Medea Rambles - Parents in the Pokemon Anime
If you watched Pokemon the way I have for the last 20 years, you start to notice things along the way and start to get a little curious.
Take the second episode of the original series for example. A simple line that might have come and gone. When Ash reaches Viridian City and his mother mentions that it took Ash’s father four days to reach that town. You probably won’t give it a second thought especially if you just started the series.
Fast-forward another year or so and you start to question about Ash’s father a little more. You only see Delia. And at times you’ll see Delia being accompanied by Professor Oak. Go a little further and you watch the third Pokemon movie. Sure this guy Professor Hale has a wife and child, but what kind of past does he share with Delia? More years pass by and you start keeping this question in the back of your mind. Who is Ash’s father? And along the way, you’ve compiled several theories on that question. And for added drama, you might have added Giovanni from Team Rocket to this paternity suit.
And then you meet some of Ash’s other companions and notice that some of them are also without another parent...or just flat out DON’T have any parents (to our knowledge).
Don’t get me wrong, I love how Pokemon has given us different families to look at throughout the years. From Ash’s small family with Delia, to May’s family, to Clemont and Bonnie’s father, and despite it being dysfunctional as fuck, Brock’s family, we see different things.
But when I see single parents like Delia, Johanna, Grace, Meyer, and Abe (and if you’re not keeping up that’s Ash, Dawn, Serena, Clemont, and Mallow’s parents), I often wonder what happened to their partner. I don’t find anything wrong with this. Single parents rule! I was raised by a single parent and have the highest respect for them. I just get curious is all. I’m sure everyone else does too.
I know I spent just about 20 years speculating who was behind Ash’s creation. And I know we will never know Ash’s father’s true identity. Though thanks to a certain light novel, we can officially squash any chances of it being Professor Oak, Professor Hale, or Giovanni.
I know it seems wasteful to bring up the parents of this show. I mean, they send their child out at the ripe-old age of 10 to catch wild monsters in a ball and get caught up in butt-loads of trouble. Meanwhile, they stay at home or do their routine day-to-day jobs like proper adults. But we have to remember this one thing.
THEY BROUGHT THESE CHARACTERS INTO THIS WORLD! Delia didn’t spend God-knows-how-long to squeeze Ash out of her lady clown-car to not get a mention or appearance every now and then. So yes, mention these parents! In most cases, they’re great, offer great comedic relief, a home-cooked meal every now and then, and there to wipe away the tears.
Well...those are the good ones. Brock and James had some interesting families. And I use the term ‘interesting’ loosely. I will mention Jessie’s train-wreck of a life later.
And then there are those characters whose parents are never mentioned. While Misty has three older sisters, her parents are never mentioned or seen. Iris’s parents are never mentioned and all we know about her is that she was probably taken care of by the village elder (not even a grandparent). Cilan has his brothers Cress and Chili, and once again, no mention of parents. And then there’s Tracey...Okay, here she goes again!
*sighs dreamily* TRACEY! No mention of parents. Not a damn thing. We’re not even sure if Tangelo Island (the island where Ash and Misty first met him on) is where he’s originally from.
Yes, I’m guilty of writing fanfics of Pokemon and decided to add backstories to characters like Tracey, yes especially Tracey because he’s worth it and deserves it. I’ve written fics where his mother dies when he was younger, fics where she’s just sickly, and other ones where she’s perfectly fine and she’s actually there. And while I was at it, I had Misty’s parents be on constant business trips, Ash’s real father died in a car accident, and Dawn’s father did bad things (that’s the cleaned-up spoiler-free version of it)
That’s the fun of writing fanfics. It’s fun to imagine your favorite characters with things the show would never think of doing or bother throwing a bone to. It’s been 13 years Pokemon. Are you gonna show my anime husbando or not? Tick-tock.
Needless to say, the Pokemon anime has been rather lax about the identity of these missing parents. And people without a trusty search engine or are not fluent in Japanese are shit-outta-luck. Because some of these characters have some interesting, sad, and down-right fucked up family back-stories.
On the anime’s surface, there are only a few standard families shown. May and Max have their parents Norman and Caroline. And despite having one almost fall-out episode in mid-AG season, they’re quite the happy family. Sophocles’s parents are quite the cute-lovey type and because they look too much like each other, I’m starting to have other theories. Like are Sophocles’s parents brother and sister...like Milhouse’s parents? (don’t be silly Medea, they’re not). And the same happiness can be said about Kiawe and Lana’s families.
And then you have the single-parent household as seen with Dawn, Serena, Clemont, Bonnie, and Mallow. I’ll get to Mallow later.
Brock... *sighs* Yeah, fun times with this one. As we all remember from episode 5 (and in the dub), his mother died and his father ran off, leaving Brock alone to take care of the 10 brothers and sisters. In actuality, Lola left the kids in Brock’s care, she didn’t die. Imagine my shock in 2004 when I learned that Pokemon Chronicles was a thing and that the bitch was alive and well this entire time. Thanks a lot 4Kids.
Even when Lola and Flint are around, they often leave and do erratic actions. And usually it’s up to the eldest siblings (Brock and Forrest) to take charge. Trust me, their doofy behaviors have lead to the Pewter Gym to almost be shutdown several times. So, they’re not the best of parents.
Lillie and Gladion gets a little complicated. In the games, we all saw that Lusamine wasn’t a very caring mother and would put her work ahead of her children. She even downright verbally disowned them at one point. Harsh. The anime decided to be nicer to Lusamine. Yes, she’s dedicated to her work, but also cares for her children Lillie and Gladion (though Lillie had her own reservations about her mother early on). Lusamine even sacrificed herself to the Ultra Beast in order to save Lillie. That’s a mother for you! Where does it get complicated? The father, Mohn. In the games he disappeared while researching the Ultra Beasts. And in the anime, Gladion and Lillie have assumed that he has passed away. But thanks to revelations in SM108, there’s hope for both as Mohn could still be alive. I just fear that his memories will be gone like in the games.
James of Team Rocket had one of the best backstories in the entire anime with the one episode Holy Matrimony back in season one. I’m actually surprised they kept a lot of things in tact in the English dub. Yes, both of his parents are alive and they are horrible people. Faking their deaths to try and drag James back home and force him to marry a dominatrix. Yeah, Pokemon has some fucked-up backstories. Time for it to get more fuckier!
Again, if you’re not fluent in Japanese or haven’t lived in Japan during the height of the Pokemon fandom, you probably didn’t know these existed. RADIO DRAMAS! Yes, Pokemon had them! And with that, Jessie’s backstory time!
In the dub, we were pretty sure that Jessie was either very poor or in an orphanage and very poor. In actuality, Jessie’s mother was a high-ranking member of Team Rocket and left her daughter at a young age in order to search for Mew. And because Miyamoto was never heard from again, Jessie was sent into foster care. Wonder why the anime never wanted to cover that little detail about Jessie! Kinda shines a light on how sad it was that she used to eat snow for dinner.
And then between 1997-1999, Takeshi Shudo (creator of the Pokemon anime) came out with the light novel, Pocket Monsters The Animation. And that’s where we learn a little more about several original characters. Ash’s mother Delia was indeed a young mother. She met a man, got married, and had Ash when she was around 18-19 years. And in a flash, Ash’s father left on a journey and hasn’t been back since.
Brock’s mother Lola married and divorced SEVERAL men after Flint left the family. Most of Brock’s siblings are just half-siblings, if not all of them. Do you know why Brock keeps hitting on older women? He wants to bring one home to be a mother to the young siblings. DAMN.
And as for Misty, her parents left Misty and her sisters. Yeah, you’re gym leaders now. Laters!
Okay, I can see why the Pokemon anime decided to be a little laxer when it comes to some of these stories. Abandonment is not a happy story to write for an age-appropriate anime like Pokemon. And maybe because of the rate of women having babies at younger ages, they probably didn’t want to show that Delia was one of them. And then Brock’s story...Yikes, man!
Yeah, stories like Delia, Lola, Misty’s parents, and even Jessie’s mother might be a little much for little children to absorb. Or so people thought in the 90s when Pokemon first debuted. Nowadays, there’s so much in western media and even anime that has advanced from just 20 years ago. Look at how parents are portrayed in western animation like The Loud House and Steven Universe. Who knows, Gen8 of Pokemon could possibly give us a same-sex family (one can only hope).
In the latest episode of Pokemon (Sun & Moon episode 108), we get an unanswered question of a character’s parent. All we knew about Mallow was that she has a father and a brother. This being the 20th year watching Pokemon and have gotten so used to seeing characters in single family homes, I decided not to give it a second thought and write fics later down the line. That was until a couple of weeks ago when we learn about an upcoming episode involving a pokemon and communicating with the dead. And we get a screenshot of Mallow crying.
Holy shit.
Is Pokemon really going to do this? Or is this going to be a bait and switch?
Guess what, they gave us a story about Mallow’s mother. They even went the extra mile to show us that she was actually sick in the hospital and mention how Mallow’s anger-induced words were her final words to her mother. In this episode, we see Mallow reunited with her deceased mother even for just a moment. I’m glad we got an episode like this. There are children who have lost a parent at a young age and sometimes don’t know how to deal with the feelings that come up pre, during, or post-death. And many of us wish we could say one last unresolved feeling to that loved one again. Mallow definitely wanted to see her mother again and she got to say what she wanted to and even hug her before she disappeared.
DAMN POKEMON. Mother/daughter moments are like my absolute weakness. And while I didn’t cry, I still felt the feels deep in my soul. That also means Misty and Togetic’s goodbye is still my #1 for saddest Pokemon moments. However THIS is now #2.
I honestly think Pokemon is evolving when it comes to stories about the character’s parents. And other heavy subjects including death. Writers are seeing that children are more mature than they originally thought. In the last two years, Pokemon has talked about death 4 times (three of those were pokemon deaths). God only knows what the English dub will do to this episode. We’re getting more heart-wrenching stories from this series. I’m glad I kept with watching Pokemon well into my adult years. Cut through a lot of the crap and sometimes, you get little gems like this.
I can’t wait to see if Pokemon has it in them to continue giving us stories like Sun & Moon episode 108 (and others) or even on the same level as the radio dramas and Pocket Monsters light novel. Maybe not the Brock story.
Okay, I think that’s all I wanted to talk about here.
#pokemon#Ash Ketchum#Misty#brock#tracey#delia ketchum#professor oak#May#MAX#mallow#LANA#Sophocles#Dawn#Jessie#james#lillie#lusamine
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RULES: TAG 10 MUTUALS YOU WANT TO KNOW BETTER!
Tagged by @sevdawn thank you so much!! I’ve been wanting to do something like this or an ask game thing for a while now; you’ve got good timing!
Name: Aly
Star Sign: Virgo
Height: Haven’t really formally measured since like the beginning of high school, but about 5′3 (160 cm) ish? Short as fuck around most other people lol.
Put your music on shuffle. What are the first 4 songs that pop up?
Quick warning again about my all over the place music taste, so this could be...interesting.
1. The Blinding--Babyshambles
2. We Both Go Down Together--The Decemberists
3. Gallows Strung--Snow Ghosts
4. Never Land (A Fragment)--The Sisters of Mercy
Ever had a song/poem written about you? Only a few that I know of--a close friend and I were always sorta/kinda crushing on each other thru middle and high school and were big time into wanting to start a band at the time (in addition to being in creative writing classes together) so we wrote lyrics and poems and stories that we occasionally would admit were about each other, or would avoid admitting it was about the other in the awkward way kids do lol.
Last time you played the guitar: Oh god, not recently enough! I should be practicing way more than I am, but work has kept me kind of exhausted lately--so about two weekends ago, if you count a very quick solo jam session to work on the soundtrack for the TV series I’m writing.
Celebrity crush: Y’all are evil. I kid, most of you who follow me can probably guess these already--the guys of Avatar (Tim and Kungen in particular tbh, not that they aren’t all gorgeous and talented of course!), Teemu and Jari of Wintersun, Janelle Monae, Tessa Thompson, Ville Valo, Jessica Chastain, Richard Ayoade, Daniel Dae Kim, and A$ap Rocky are the crushes I either A: never outgrew from my teens or B: acquired as a young adult and let myself daydream about because real life is crushing as fuck--may as well let daydream version of me have all their romantic dreams come true lol.
A sound you hate + a sound you love?
Hate: Oh god my ASD comes into play here, there are so many I could list, but one of the absolute worst for me is the sound of someone scratching their nails along silk. I recently tried listening to a new band who had a sound like that incorporated into one of their songs and my ears basically died until I turned the song off.
Love: I could easily list music here, but I wanted to go with a different sound instead--the caw of a crow. The sound is really soothing to me, and there’s usually always a ton near our building, so their cawing even wakes me up on the few mornings I can sleep in, and it is really nice calming sound to wake up to. The one thing that is probably really silly but that I haven’t looked up is if Gothenburg or Sweden in general are home to any sort of crows (or ravens, I love listening to them too.) If it isn’t, then that might be one of the few things I’ll miss from the US.
Believe in ghosts? Kind of? Like, I want to think that there’s some way all of our minds and souls can keep communicating after death, floating around each other, getting to meet people we’d always wanted to in life, meeting up again with people we lost touch with while alive, etc. But then part of me knows how science plays into some of it (like certain vibrations and sound waves making it feel like we’re being watched, even if we aren’t) so I sometimes wonder if I’m not just being silly in wanting to believe. But then I also remember that someday I’ll be dead no matter what, so if I want to believe and it isn’t hurting anyone, then why not believe? Life is short and painful, take your joys where you can.
Do you drive? Nope. Anxiety and what my doctor calls ‘PTSD-like symptoms’ from past driving accidents with family behind the wheel keeps me from it. I’ve tried, over the years, to get my permit and license, but it never happens, and I’ve really lost any urge to ever want to try again. I was once at a point where even being a passenger made me terrified--I’m past that now, but idk if I’ll ever drive. I’d rather, at this point, rely on public transit and learn to bike ride so I can use a bike once I move to a more bike-friendly locale.
Last book you read? A random collection of poetry that I had to buy for a poetry class when I was in college. It is the huge tome, and I’ve been working my way through it to find all of my favorites.
Do you like the smell of gasoline? Shouldn’t, but yup lol. I associate the smell of it with good things--my grandfather’s garage, going out on errands with him and getting treats at the gas station, going to car shows with him. In case it isn’t obvious, my grandfather is a ‘car guy’ in that he loves vintage cars and loves taking really good care of any cars he has, so all of my best memories with him revolve around times where we were around cars, and usually surrounded by the smell of gasoline.
Worst injury you’ve ever had: I’ve got a few; would probably be my left leg being broken as a kid, and all the damage I did to my ankles--I have flat feet that as an adult I found out I should have probably gotten physical therapy for when I was young, but I never did so they were constantly spraining really badly, to the point that I nearly broke both within a month of each other when I was about sixteen. Now they hurt if I wear shoes they don’t like, wear good shoes but for too many hours, walk for too long, don’t walk enough, or if the weather changes, and maybe just whenever the fuck they feel like bothering me tbh. If I could just have my feet float and be magically connected to the rest of my leg, I probably would lol.
Do you have any obsessions right now? I have a hard time calling anything an obsession now--work ( both my day job and my writing and music work on the side) keeps me so busy that I don’t have time to ‘obsess’ as I did when I was a teen. But I guess you could toss Avatar and Ghost in as a kind of obsession, in that they’re two of the few bands I’m really following in terms of news and tour info right now. I’ve gotten really into Pokemon again, while trying to do my own version of a Nuzlocke run on Pokemon Y, so I guess that might count. I consume a shit ton of McElroy and Polygon content whenever I’m feeling terrible, so that could probably count too. Idk, having an ‘obsession’ as an adult doesn’t really feel like an obsession--it feels more like the only subjects/things you can escape to when the rest of life is busy sucking major ass.
Do you tend to hold grudges towards people? I try my best not to, but there are a few I still hold. The biggest one is with my father, and my various issues with him, but I recently found out he told a family friend he’d disowned me (whoops, he never told me lol) so I don’t feel bad holding that one at all. Fuck him, and I know he has a tumblr and might well see this, so if you do, J (not gonna put his full name here of course, I’m only partially petty as fuck haha) , then guess what? I disown you too. My grandfather, for all his faults, was a better father figure even on his worst days, and the male celebrities I looked up to as father figures were better too--and they don’t even know I exist!!
In a relationship? ...no. But I talk to someone who I have some sort of feelings for, but we aren’t in anything other than a friendship (or if the other person considers it to be something more, than they haven’t said and we haven’t discussed it.) But still, that’s not technically a relationship, so no, still single.
I tag: @plupluru, @calliopinot, @apineappleheart, @feathers-andflesh, @starmoonchildfromthebeamsabove, @silversatori, @fuckdensen, @skulldr0p, @vvitchimage, and @rammchickk
#text post#ask box things#thank you this was so much fun!#and really relaxing after a very shitty day at work#to just have something else to do and think about instead of going over everything I feel like I fucked up at work
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Man, god, im just suddenly thinking about "ak/ur/oku" and like.. How the fuck did that even become such a huge thing in early 2000s fandom? Dear god so much early gay shipping in fandom was super unhealthy "sinful" bullshit made by straight people for fetishy purposes rather than genuine representation. But a/kurok/u was such a weird one because it was like.. Just globally accepted and never aknowledged to be problematic?? Man i still remember how lil 13 year old me didnt know there was anything wrong with it, like seriously when stuff like this becomes popularized it ends up sending bad messages to actual queer youth. Learning about your sexuality via the internet cos there's no sex ed irl for you, abd you end up stumbling into toxic fandoms before you have the critical thinking skills necessary to know that this stuff is bad and shouldnt be imitated. Like seriously one of the things i worry about EVERY NIGHT AT 2AM THAT KEEPS ME FROM SLEEPING is that stupid lil 15 year old me made a post on deviantart going like "are pedophiles really all bad? I mean it sounds like an illness. I mean maybe theyre just scared and they want help." Like im terrified constantly that someone will find that old thing and judge me as if i still believe that apologist crap, or as if it was actually an opinion i formed from a fully developed mind, rather than from a kid who (as far as i knew) had never met a pedophile, thinking about pedophiles in the abstract, while being influenced by fuckin pedophile-dominated fandoms and having NO IDEA. and of cooooourse i wanted to believe that i was mature for my age, i thought that was a compliment.. Uuuuugh...
Sorry, going a little offtopic there.
But anyway isnt it kinda weird how akur/oku was just.. Not even regarded as pedophilia? And when i was a kid it wasnt just me not understanding the gross parts of the fandom, i legit never thought axel was that much older than roxas. And it was one of the more popular gay ships cos at that point as far as we knew it was the only person axel had any sort of backstory with, and he cared so much about this guy that he was willing to sacrifice his life to help sora even when he knew roxas would never come back. At the time without further context it seemed like a reasonable assumption to make? And it wasnt until Days that i realized axel was intended to be an adult rather than a teenager, and even worse A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO MADE THAT SHIPPING ART KNEW THAT. Uuugh it was so gross in retrospect to go back and see all the clues i missed that these people were fetishizing roxas's inexperience and veey much writing him as underage. AAAAAAA!
Anyway im glad that shit is now recognized as shit and now we have canon evidence of this dude being old as balls. And honestly i love the relationship of him as a big brother/dad to roxas and xion a lot more, even though as a kid i was desperate for any kind of queer representation in kh. Like.. I never really actually liked the ship that much or felt any chemistry? I just latched onto a few bad writing flubs that could potentially be interpreted as Gay Evidence because i was SO damn desperate! Like i felt like i had to support all these gross abusive ships in fandom cos if i wasnt then i was being 'homophobic', i mean they were THE ONLY AVAILABLE OPTIONS, right? :( Its only now ive grown up i can see how wrong that was, and how people just used it as an excuse to make gross shit and get away with it. Like how in Black Butler all these 'yaoi fangirls' kept erasing the rarest of rare things, a canon trans woman, because 'its sexier if its gay'. Ughhhh. And seriously that discourse still exists for poor Grell, and there's still a lot of these shitty bigoted people pretending to be allies, but like seriously this was EVERYWHERE in 2005! And lgbt rights and even lgbt communities at all were way smaller and less available to the poor teenagers who really needed that positive influence while they were figuring out who they are. So man the abusive side of yaoi fandom was WAY more powerful, and wya more.mainstream, with barely any criticism. And the whole content of this fandom was creepy fuckin adults making pedo porn, and kids who just discovered they were queer and tried to headcanon their favourote characters as being like them. Fucking predator heaven! So yeh that ruined KH for me and definately made me scared of returning to Black Butler for almost a decade. And then i found out that the manga itself has none of that pedo shit and that one of the fandom's biggest abusive gay man archetypes was actually a trans woman this entire time, and just gahhhhh....
Also like seriously this is a tad offtopic but can we kill the anime trope of either everyone looking young or everyone looking old? Or creepy things where just one character looks the wrong age in order to fetishize pedophilia? I dont think kingdom hearts was one of those intentional ones, like i mean there's super bad shit where its like 'this 5 year old looking person is really 9000 years old/actually 18 and just hasnt had their growth spurt yet' (somehow its even more insulting when theres not even a magical excuse) Or the other way around and we have a character thats canonically underage but drawn looking sexually mature with big ol knockers so its somehow okay. The existence of those horrible things is why i end up feeling uncomfortable even seeing ambiguous ages as just a trope in completely innocent anime, yknow? Like in pokemon and digimon all the 10 year old protagonists are exactly the same height as all the adults, and all the female love interests for ash have to be early bloomers in terms of chest and hips, while notably Iris is the only one who actually looks her age and also the first non love interest. Its another reason why i prefer the new art style for the latest season, they make everyone look like kids and Lillie continues to look like a kid even though she's the main girl and has all the cute scenes with Ash. The girls even got very normal looking kiddy swimsuits in the beach episode! Why is that so uncommon, to find the bare minimum thing of underage kids not being sexualized at the beach??
Soooooo yeah, thats at least part of why kid me thought axel and roxas were within a similar age range. Like i thought roxas was maybe 16 and axel was 18?? Somehow?? I dont even know, kingdom hearts isnt even SUPER bad with the 'kids look like older teens,all adults look like age 20 at the most' anime syndrome. Its probably more because id been raised on games and anime that followed that trope, before i played kh. And as a kid you just dont really know the exact differences between 'old', like i mean i knew teenagers were tall and boys get a growth spurt, so somehow it made sense to me that axel could be the same age as roxas?? And man even if i knew he wasnt, i was barely educated at all about pedophilia and i didnt know the nuances of it. I just knew 'its bad for adults to marry kids' like man i was really behind the curve in general learning due to my undiagnosed autism and abusive parenting so like HERE'S 12 YEAR OLD ME NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT THE SEX ASPECT. And i didnt know that adults in relationships with teenagers was bad too, or like 16/17 year old teens dating kids... I was so fuckin dumb... I really cant believe that not only did i believe stupid adults saying 'pedophilia isnt bad if you're non offending, its okay to make cartoon child porn as long as you dont physically abuse real kids' but also i somehow just DID NOT EVER REALIZE that axel was an adult and roxas wasnt even a goddamn older teen...
So yeh im making a lot of excuses for why my stupid younger self was blindly parroting bullshit, but im not trying to excuse how goddamn wrong and bad it was. I still wake up ashamed in the middle of the night for crapoy decisions i made as a dumb kid, and in terrified that some shreds of it might still exist out there on the internet and maybe someone else could read it?! Gahhhh! Seriously could i have accidentally helped spread that bullshit brainwashing to other kids? And seriously when people say this shit is harmless they just need to look at this, look at how being into problematic yaoi is such a common 'phase' for ACTUAL CHILDREN. Like its not fuckin NATURAL for kids to fall into this stuff, they do it because they dont know any better but the people making the goddamn founding blocks of the fandom are fuckin grown women fetishizing gay men or grown men fetishing lesbians. There's people who do know better who actually conciously decide that a/kurok/u is a good ship while knowing all the goddamn details of what it actually is and exactly what theyre supporting by shipping it. Ughhhhh!
So yeh fuckin Please Stay Safe In Fandom, Kids
And pedophiles have absolutely none of my sympathy, please ignore that goddamn shit i wrote as a little kid being fuckin groomed by a fandom without even knowing it.
This also applies a lot to the rest of LGBT+ aside from just gay shipping, like seriously it took me til age 18 to find any positive representation of trans people or even a proper explanation of what being trans is, yet before i was even 8 years old i'd seen a million 'lol gross man in a dress who gets sexual gratification from wearing women's underwear' jokes in kids shows. And when i was 12 i'd already been exposed to the fuckin hell of m/pre/g thanks to its prevelance of untagged n/sf/w shit in the kh fandom. And by age 15 i'd been exposed to pedophile apologists arguing whether child porn was okay if they only got off to that and didnt personally abuse that kid with their own hands. All of that shit but actually learning about homosexuality and gender in sex ed would have been 'too much' for someone my age...
God what a fuckin mess. Fuck im really really fuckin worried that any of my ignorant comments at those ages could have been read by other ignorant kids and contributed to that disgusting fandom atmosphere. Fuck i think about this so damn often im so damn ashamed of how ignorant i used to be yet i know the adult fuckfaces making pedo shit never reel one lick of shame any damn day of their life. I used to excuse their shit as an actual kid cos i just ASSUMED they would be ashamed and want to seek help! Gahhhh..
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GET TO KNOW THE REAL ME
Tagged by both @hearingain and @chalie510 respectively.
Rule: Tag ten followers you want to get to know better
Name: Kimberly Mc
Gender: Woman? or is that sex? I always get the two terms mixed up.
Star sign: Aries baby
Height: 5′ 4″
Sexuality: Straight
What image do you have as a wallpaper: For home computer I have a rotating collection that Bing has. For work I have my alien crossing pic from around where I live
Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Planning bigger and better adventures with road trips while complaining about how Modest Mouse isn’t like they used to be and Hardcore will never be great again. Future hardcore obsessed boyfriend will roll his eyes as I rant while putting that Simon and Garfunkel greatest hits on to distract me with another rant. Also getting back into swimming.
If you could be anywhere else right now, where? Walking around and visiting every coffee shop in Tucson. Just to have one drink at each place while checking out the locals.
What was your coolest Halloween costume? I stopped dressing for Halloween years ago as a kid. Around teenagehood I realized I only use the day as an excuse to get drunk and threw away any pretense of costumes.
What’s your favorite ‘90s show? Rocko’s Modern Life. What a surreal experience that entire adventure was. I can’t even really remember a distinct episode, they all just blur into some one brightly colored animated experience. I’ve always liked cartoons and not in that “Oh animation can also be high brow and talk about important issues blah blah blah” nonsense people like to say. Fast, loud and obnoxious; the only way I took my television as a kid. GI Joe, Daria (okay that one is the polar opposite but deal with me please) and Pokemon were also good ones.
Side note: Daria and Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle music video where the reasons I initially watched MTV.
Who was your last kiss? I only knew his nickname
Have you ever been stood up? BY MY OWN MOTHER
Have you ever been to Las Vegas? No, which is weird cause I went to college in an area where Vegas was only an hour or two drive away.
Favorite pair of shoes: Brooks Launch running shoes. They upgraded to another series and I bought about 4 of the older models on sale.
Favorite fruit: Apple. I enjoy any food that requires a commitment to eat the entire thing lest it goes bad a few minutes later if left unattended.
Favorite book: Stealing @hearingain answer and saying Cormac. Also Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom.
Stupidest thing you’ve ever done: Thinking events in other people’s personal life life were caused by me. Cause it ain’t all about me.
Tagging: @emergentpattern @nostringsattachedguitar @awellrespectedcavetroll @turnsthepages @fista-phobia @bethiemae-llc @gyrf @lightonthebitters
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Tagged by @lumos-of-pi
Uh, if you want to do it, consider yourselves tagged. It’s not like I’m going to hold your feet to the fire. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Name: Mary; but on the internet I often default to my Middle name, Thanh.
Gender: Female
Star Sign: Sagittarius
Height: 5′2.5″
Sexuality: Bisexual seems to be the most accurate at the moment? I honestly have zero clue.
What image do you have as your lockscreen?
A drawing of Seiga I did. I kind of want to update it at some point since my style’s changed again.
Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?
Not a teacher, but I did have something resembling a crush to a Ph.D candidate at university. It’s hard for me to say whether or not it really was a crush since really all I wanted him to do was to pet me on the head when I made an major accomplishment in physics (by that I mean like, getting a degree or publishing a really big paper or something like that).
I don’t really have a good reason why I really wanted this, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He and I are occasionally in touch and we talk about the mathematics of origami. It’s great.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When I was fifteen I thought I would be working my way towards a Master’s/Ph.D
I’m still sitting here crawling my way to just get a B.S. while being barely functioning.
Ten years from now I’d like to at least finish school and working to pay off the debt through a job that lets me play with really cold magnets.
If you could be anywhere else right now, where would it be?
I’m always constantly salty about never getting a Linguistics degree from Stony Brook University. I felt like it was a missed opportunity.
What was your coolest Halloween costume?
I once cosplayed as Aya from the Touhou Project, with wings and all. Walked around like that all day. Kind of weird to carry the backpack though...
What’s your favorite 90s TV show?
I remember cartoons more distinctly, but Animaniacs and Time Squad. Cyberchase was early 2000′s I think, but I still remember liking that too.
Last kiss?
About four months ago now. Thinking about it kind of bogs me down so I tend to keep that memory shut away.
Have you ever been stood up?
I once stood outside my assigned Lab Classroom only to at the last minute get a memo that the classroom location was changed. Does that count?
Otherwise, not that I can remember at least in terms of a date...?
Have you ever been to Las Vegas?
No.
Favorite pair of shoes?
I have a very beloved pair of boots that I reserve for Autumn. I haven’t really worn them too much because I just want to walk in them when there’s a lot of autumn leaves. There hasn’t really been too much in my area in the past couple of years.
Favorite fruit: I don’t know why but I’m craving for the texture of Jackfruit. I also personally enjoy mangos from Southeast Asia too.
Favorite book: I don’t have a favorite book right now, but I am currently reading So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister by Anna Akana.
A friend bought it for himself to read and highly recommended me to read it. I have a feeling it’s because the book was a collection of pieces of advice I needed to hear, but this just my suspicion.
Stupidest thing you’ve ever done:
Story time!
So way back, c. 2005, Pope John Paul II was on his death bed and I was watching the breaking news from the Vatican about his decaying health.
At the time I was fidgeting with a rosary that was a hand-me-down from my mom. The area I specifically fidgeted with was a piece of metal clamped on the side of the rosary indicating the starting point. After bending it back and forth a bit part of the maker broke.
I didn’t really think much of it until the next day, when my dad was driving me to Gamestop to pick up my preorder of Pokemon Emerald when I heard on the radio the Pope passed away.
In that moment I thought Oh no, I killed the Pope.
For some reason I genuinely thought I killed the Pope for five long years.
This thought was so pervasive, during a Confirmation retreat my class was reading letters our parents wrote. In mine my parents wrote how they’d always loved me. I broke down crying thinking they’ve discovered by dreaded secret of how I killed the most important religious and political figure to them. I also couldn’t tell anyone there because I thought I’d be arrested on the spot for sure.
So I ended up crying in the bathroom and unable to explain what made me break down.
Sometime after I got oil slapped on my face, I started to realize how absurd the idea was.
Still makes a great story to tell just because it’s so bizarre.
Yes, I still have that rosary, no I don’t really use it much. I don’t really practice Catholicism (nor believe in it really).
I just go wherever life takes me.
Does that make me a taoist? I honestly have zero clue.
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“Judi” Amelia Lindburg
The girl from Kanto
Name: “Call me Judi...” Real name is Amelia Judi Lindburg, but she despises her first name due to her father.
Age: “I’m 21.” She tends to look in the younger side because of the way she dresses, acts, and interacts with people.
Gender: “I identify as a female.”
From: “...Kanto.”
Height/Weight: “I’m 5’6 and uh... I don’t remember how much I weigh.” [Depending on what version of her you get it can be a few things in terms of weight.]
Sexuality: “I don’t judge... love is love and I’ll love whoever my heart wants me to.” Pansexual
Looks: She has brown eyes the become a golden hazel closer to the pupil. Her hair is brown and reaches down to the middle of her back, the Alola heat makes it frizzy. Quite pale but has a bit of color to her skin from the Alola sun. Covering scars from her past, the most obvious one is a scar that cuts through her lip. Shes covered in freckles and its the one aspect of her body that she actually quite likes.
Personality: She is very meek, any sudden movements or change of tone will freak her out. It takes quite a bit to get her to talk about herself or to others comfortably, she cautious because of her past. She’s kind though and does her best to make sure others kindness doesn't go unnoticed.
Background: She ran away from home when she was twenty-one, her birth mother died after she was born. Judi doesn't know who her birth mother was, only that she apparently takes after her looks very much.
Her father never explicitly tried anything on her other than groping and drunken threats, and if he did she would always manage to escape and lock herself in the bathroom until he fell asleep.
When she stole her very first pokemon, a Kanto starter, Squirtle she made the plan of running away from home only to be caught by her father. This particularly nasty fight almost killed her if it weren't for her stepmother, giving her the funds to run away Judi decided to take a trip far, far away and go to Alola where her father wouldn't be able to get to her.
Pokemon Teams/Versions
-Healing Sound-
Tag: [ D r o p T h e B e a t ] x HealingSound
This is the normal AU I will be used by default unless specified that another AU wants to be used or touched on.
Judi ran away from home and joined team skull because of her terrible home life, and found team skull through the madness. Ended up going to one of her first beach rave parties in Alola and fell in love with the way music made people feel. The escape it gave some of them, so she's been very interested in hopping into the DJ scene.
Since she's not made of money she can be often found taking apart old appliances to mess with her own custom set, digging through junkyards, or going to old used electronics stores to make her own turntables.
Squirt Lv. 32
Vilobe Lv. 20
Dew Lv. 18
Diz Lv. 18
Rory Lv. 24
Swalla Lv. 20
-Once Upon A Time-
Tag: [ A written story ] x OnceUponATime
Currently, I'm writing a fic about Judi with a close friend of mine, this version acts and differently and has a slightly different backstory and will be one of the primary verses I use with her Muse! You're more than welcome to interact with her! Who knows maybe your muse will make an appearance in my fic!
But Judi is from Kanto still and Judi is her real name in this AU, and she is an ex-champion to Kanto! She never joins team skull here but knows lots about the notorious team!
*Judi doesn't battle despite her pokemon having levels
Find it here at Under her skin!
Blastoise Lv. 100
*Can mega evolve
Scolipede Lv. 75
*Shiny
Luxray Lv. 75
Swoobat Lv. 70
Zorua Lv. 50
Riolu Lv. 20
Tag: [ S h e D o s e n t E x i s t A n y m o r e ] x BrokenJudi
Warning: Explicit content pertaining to this universe; Discord exclusive
Judi is forced to join Team Skull against her will, has her pokemon taken from her until she proves herself time and time again. She is punished for any wrong moves she makes, when she does finally get back her pokemon she’s a changed person, cruel and pessimistic.
Drawn back she fills her team with dragon pokemon, these types are her preference because she sees them as scary and powerful when in reality they can be the weakest.
She will eventually go on to kill her father when he tries to take her home, team skull doesn't get disbanded in this universe after the Aether program situation. She is a mean machine and will do what it takes to survive, but under that hard shell, there is a girl who's scared of getting hurt again.
Pokemon:
Blastoise - Lv. 70
Kommo-o - Lv. 60
Noivern - Lv. 60
Tyrantrum - Lv. 60
Hydreigon - Lv. 50
Turtonator - Lv. 50
-Abandoned Judi-
Tag: [ G r o w i n g U p S t r o n g ] x AbandonedJudi
Judi never joined Team Skull but they did take an interest in her Kanto starter, pursuing her again and again in hopes of nabbing the pokemon. They do eventually give up because the effort is far too much for such a Pokemon, team skull doesn't disband in this universe.
She’s homeless in this universe and lives off the beach, she will eventually get a job at the daycare and help pokemon. In the process, she learns to catch a few of her own creating a lovey team.
Judi does eventually face her father again and with the support of her friends, they manage to send him away.
Pokemon:
Blastoise - Lv. 60
Alolan Raichu - Lv 50
Comfey - Lv. 40
Lycanrock (Midday) - Lv. 40
Mimikyu - Lv. 30
Ribombee - Lv. 30
- Mermaid AU -
Tag : [ S c a l e s A n d S o n g s ] x MerJudi
Random AU where Judi is a Mermaid and she was taken from her mother at a young age by the man she came to know as her “Father” who would rip her scales out to sell and put her on display for the world to see.
She managed to escape during a transport with the help of some protestors who considered what her father was doing to be “kidnapping” and “human abuse”. She now wanders the seas in search of her biological mother.
And in search of her people.
#Tag: [ D r o p T h e B e a t ] x HealingSound#Tag : [ S c a l e s A n d S o n g s ] x MerJudi#Tag: [ G r o w i n g U p S t r o n g ] x AbandonedJudi#Tag: [ S h e D o s e n t E x i s t A n y m o r e ] x BrokenJudi#[ A written story ] x OnceUponATime
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✨ Tag Game ✨
tagged by @trashcider
Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 people you are contractually obligated to know
Nicknames: I don’t really have any, just Alex (as a short form of my actual name) and for a few years it was Loki in my friend group but it’s been a while since anyone has used hat one...
Gender: I honestly don’t have the slightest idea but I’m probably leaning more towards non-binary than anything else (still keeping she/her pronouns though for simplicity’s sake and the fact that my family is mostly really conservative)
Star sign: Aquarius
Height: 1,69 m
Time: 10:11 AM
Birthday: feb 04th
Favourite bands: I don’t really have favourites in terms of music because it just really depends on my mood what I listen to but some I really like are Fall Out Boy, Florence & the Machine, Imagine Dragons, Icon for Hire, Marina and the Diamonds, Walking on Cars and Wir sind Helden but really there are so many more...
Favourite solo artist: SIA maybe? Idk, there’s so many artists I listen to but for a lot of them I only like a few songs...
Song that’s stuck in your head: Kaleo - Way Down We Go
Last movie: I think Stardust because I haven’t watched anything this year and that was the last movie I saw in 2017.
Last TV show: I think maybe Elementary? I really haven’t watched any series in weeks so I have no idea actually. I just remember watching the second episode of Elementary because I wanted to see if it was worth watching further but I never actually got around to that...
Why did you create this blog: art and personal stuff mosly but then I moved more personal things to different blog.
What do you post/reblog: art, other people’s art and some advice for art I think? Photography and inspirational suff too
Last thing you googled: a recipe for cinnamon rolls ( I had the sudden need to eat some yesterday)
Other blogs: One for all the cute Pokemon stuff I find so I don’t spam my main blog @cutepokeart, one for art tutorials @artrefstutorialsetc, one for personal stuff and literally everything that doesn’t fit my main blog @just-another-useless-turtle and a blog I made for purely my art @amaranthia-draws
Why the url: same as my deviantart account, I think I found out my favourite shade of red was called amaranth and then just used it for my account and also create a character with hair of that colour
I follow: 1 680 (don’t judge me I should probably clean up sometime but...that’s a lot of work... and my dash isn’t even very full so I guess most of those blogs don’t actually post much anymore...)
Followers: 194
Lucky number: I guess 7? I really like it but it’s not like I’m very lucky regardless
Instruments: I played the piano for years but I haven’t touched it in a while anymore. Also I can play the flute a little
What are you wearing: leggins and a shirt (also I’m wrapped in a fluffy blanket if that counts)
Dream job: being an illustrator would be kinda cool. Or the dream of being able to work on my original stories and not have to worry about money at all...
Dream trip: I’d love to just visit a bunch of cool landscapes across Europe or (if money and time are no concern at all) then all over the world...
Favourite food: pasta is gread and versatile, I guess? Pizza is good too though..
Favourite song rn: Congratulations from Hamilton
Last book you read: The Archived by Victoria Schwaab (it’s really good even though it’s middle grade. also obviously I loved the villain most because who would’ve seen that coming)
Top 3 Universes: I have no idea. Like in fandoms? I guess the Grishaverse, Avatar and Harry Potter? I’m bad at picking favourites...
Tagging: I guess @queen-of-potions and @captainspaceninja and whoever else would like to!
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Don’t Call It A Throwback
The “new old” is a phenomenon hardly unique to games, but a large corner of the medium can be identified as an intentional recreation of interactive entertainment's past. In film you have the 2011 silent film The Artist, in traditional art you naturally still see paintings in the style and approach of painters from centuries ago, and popular music is nothing if not big on recycling past sounds – just look at the turn-of-the-decade revival of 80s synth sounds in the UK. But it's in games where the past isn't so much referenced for new inspiration as it is recreated wholesale; brought out of the loft, dusted off and presented anew for a new generation of players.
Just look at the number of older games re-released in some form over the last 12 months. Off of the top of my head, I can think of Final Fantasy XII, the original PlayStation 1 Crash Bandicoot trilogy, Okami, Street Fighter 2, Pokemon Gold & Silver, PaRappa the Rapper, Yakuza (as Yakuza Kiwami), Mega Man 7 through 10, Full Throttle and the swathe of games released under the Arcade Archives and SEGA Forever banners. These releases include remasters (preserving the game with technical enchancements), remakes (building the game anew from the ground-up, often with new features) and more-or-less straight dumps of the original code running on emulation software. Whatever the format, publishers and developers are now fully committed to the notion that bringing old games to new platforms – and new players – is a winning strategy.
This is nothing new, of course, as anyone who remembers Super Mario All-Stars or the glut of Final Fantasy collections on PS1 can attest to. But classic titles working their way into the catalogues of new consoles does create an interesting juxtaposition in 2017 – as technology improves and games get more sophisticated, and new design trends emerge, what purpose does making old games readily available serve? Many new titles supplant or enhance their gameplay – of the above franchises mentioned, Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Street Fighter never slowed down, and games like Parappa and Full Throttle evolved into modern day titles like Rock Band and Telltale Game #353 Episode 1. So is it really the classic game feel that people are seeking? Or is the pull of an oldie simply born out of rose-tinted mythologising?
A handful of titles released in the last year make the argument that, actually, it's both. In 2017 SEGA released Sonic Mania; Terrible Toybox released Thimbleweed Park; and Playtonic released Yooka-Laylee. Each of these titles exists solely to recreate a particular style of game from history in the style you remember it, positing that, yeah, these games did play well, and still do. They occupy a fascinating space between ruthlessly chasing the cutting-edge, evoking classic gaming to explore more contemporary design like so many independent releases do, and bringing old titles to new platforms. In rebuilding a piece of the past that was left behind, each title ends up standing out as more interesting than they otherwise may have been in their heyday, or if they simply conformed to the modern-day standards of their genre playmates.
Let's start with Sonic Mania, a game that feels like it should have existed years ago in two ways. Firstly, it's a clear continuation of the original Sonic The Hedgehog platformers from the Mega Drive – a mission statement of the developers being to create the Sonic that the Sega Saturn never got to have. This results in a game that looks dazzling, and yet in line what with came before – this is Sonic The Hedgehog 2 with far more detail (and an extremely welcome 16:9 upgrade). This is a defining trait of the “new breed” of retro, in that it keeps what worked about the original games visually, and buffs it to a shine without it becoming unrecognisable. Sonic has always enjoyed rich sprite work and detailed backgrounds, and Mania feels as good on the eyes as players in the 90s maybe remember those original titles looking. You can imagine it being around circa 1996, blowing minds with new visual tricks like silhouettes, polygonal special stages and Sonic, Eggman and the gang's gorgeous animations – just looking a bit fuzzier on a CRT, of course.
Sonic Mania feels remarkably overdue in more recent terms, too – it has a slavish adherence to how Sonic span, rolled, bounced and launched in the Mega Drive/Mega CD quadrilogy, making the hedgehog feel better in the hands than he's felt in years. Dodgy physics and a wrong-headed speed emphasis in modern Sonic titles should have provoked a re-examination of the classic title's feel a good while ago. It's a cliché in Sonic conversations that the new is in the shadow of the old, but the idea that design progression does not necessarily mean a genre has objectively improved is a good one to keep in mind, despite it being otherwise scarcely considered. Mania doubles-down in proving the original Sonic feel needed a second outing; the physics and level design philosophy resurrected, developers Christian Whitehead, Headcannon and PagodaWest polish their levels with modern considerations including a dearth of cheap tricks, more inventive level gimmicks than those seen in the originals and an aural accompaniment that bridges poppy jazz, fidgety hip-hop and slowed-down mood music. It feels “old”, but almost only ever in ways that make the whole endeavour fun and surprising.
Thimbleweed Park mostly follows that same philosophy, and is largely as successful with it. Thimbleweed is an adventure game ripped straight out of the late 80s and mid-90s, complete with roughly a third of the screen lost to an ever-present inventory and list of possible actions. Akin to Maniac Mansion, you have a handful of characters to use at any time, and progression requires solving puzzles that tend to require an item being used in a particular way on a particular object or character. Like Mania, Thimbleweed takes that structure – one that used to too often be riddled with obtuse puzzles married to logic from the thirteenth dimension – and refines it, with puzzles following more earthbound ways of thinking and a handy hint system riffing on the old hint lines that no doubt rang up some hefty phone bills in the point'n'click heyday.
As someone who was born the year before Day Of The Tentacle released, I've had to experience classic point'n'click through reissues, which has occasionally been a frustrating experience. Thimbleweed felt like a more comfortable ride, a game I saw through to the finish with the right ratio of time being stumped and time making progress. The game has a lovely, corny sense of humour that always feels to follow Lucasarts' (and Double Fine's) games about, and the game's look is gorgeous sprite work – again, like Sonic, this is an old aesthetic as they truly imagined it. The game isn't necessarily a better time than, say, Day Of The Tentacle – it's not as funny or as clever at its heights, and the ending is maybe a little too self-indulgent – but its flaws never felt like they came from its inspirations. This type of adventure game, a remotely hands-off experience with plenty of opportunities for experimentation and getting stuck, felt relevant again.
Having not played Yooka-Laylee, I can't comment too much on its success, but based on commentary it sounds rather similar to something I have played – 2008's Mega Man 9, one of the earliest original titles to turn back the clock on gaming's progress. That game was brutal – its 8-bit style offered minimal improvements over what was capable on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and so did its gameplay, full of rock-solid boss encounters, pixel-perfect jumps and overwhelming enemy opposition. It felt like an old Mega Man game, but as someone who only played their first Mega Man game in 2007, it felt /exactly/ like a Mega Man game – my time with Mega Man 3 (that is, dying a lot) was more or less the same time as I had with MM9. It felt squarely for classic fans – a novelty, though undoubtedly a well-made one. As far as the commentary I've seen surrounding Yooka-Laylee, it sure sounds similar, stringent design authenticity taking the place of considered design. I don't want to write off a game I haven't played, but as exciting as the new breed of “original throwback” is, this is an important pitfall to signpost.
There are other examples of this kind of throwback, of course – 2014's Shovel Knight is a keenly-made mash-up of elements of Castlevania, Ducktales and Zelda 2, and like Sonic and Thimbleweed it beautifully maintains a era-appropriate look whilst working with more colours and on-screen objects than that hardware could manage. Its level design is tight, challenging whilst constantly incorporating new ideas to keep the whole thing fresh. It's a bizarre concept, a game on the surface unnecessarily slavish to the old school ending up feeling refreshing in the finer details and overall experience, but Shovel Knight, Sonic Mania and Thimbleweed Park all manage to pull this off with aplomb, and they set an exciting precedent for die-hard fans and embattled veterans to spruce up long forgotten gameplay styles. To answer the original question, is there an appetite for the way old games play? Sure – but a side of 2010s artistry sure helps it go down well.
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