#pretty much every generation that comes out there's just that One pokémon that makes me go ouoouhruhhghuoHRUOgHOURGHO

[front-facing-pokemon]

#yyyYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH #WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I LOVE THIIIIIIIIIIS THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII #IIIIIIIIIIIIIIING #wooloo #MY FUNNY LITTLE FUCKIGN CCREATURE. jSJFLKHALFASJHFSALJ:DAb. #okay hi. this thing was my icon on tumblr for a while after it was revealed before gen 8 came out #pretty much every generation that comes out there's just that One pokémon that makes me go ouoouhruhhghuoHRUOgHOURGHO #and this was that one for swsh. for hisui it was growlithe. and for sv it was fidough #but this thing. oooooooohohohohohoho this thing #i liked this thing through some. strange identity parts of my life where i was still figuring out who i even Was #and it's gonna stick with me because of that #if only it was like. good. to use. in-game. and also. was in sv. i think it was only ever in swsh and never anything else #yeah it was only ever in swsh. which is sad! for me‚ specifically. and the other wooloo fans out there who may or may not exist #but it's fine if you don't because i have enough love for wooloo to go around for all of us

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

The Top Pets of 2023!

Hey everybody! I hope you’re all doing well, and I thank you for bearing with me with the last few weeks of hiatus. We may be a little over a week into 2024, but let’s take a step back and celebrate the top ten pet contenders of the year according to score!

Well, okay, top ten is a little bit of a stretch. As it turns out, there’s quite a few ties in the top ten scores, and we’re covering them all. This is gonna be a BIG post, so let’s get right into it!

TENTH PLACE

Our tenth place slot is shared by not one but four pokémon! In no particular order:

One of only two Mythical pokémon in our top ten(ish), Mesprit is a pokémon that comes with some caveats due to their lowercase-“l” legendary status. But hey, numbers are numbers!

Next up is another psychic-type, fan-favorite natu! Look at them! They’re looking at you!

Living, breathing keyring coming right up! If you’re adopting a klefki, you’re gonna want quite the supply of keys to keep em happy, but that’s nothing to a dedicated pet owner!

Finally, we’ve got eevee! Reliable, adorable, harmless, cuddly: eevees have it all. Be careful though, this species is one of the easiest pokémon to evolve by accident!

NINTH PLACE

We have two pokémon tied for ninth place! First,

Hey, it’s a recent one! Delibirds are great pet candidates! They’re known not just for looking a bit like a certain holiday icon, but for being exceptionally generous!

Another small Mythical pokémon, another A-tank pet with some pretty big caveats. The chances of any of us even running into Celebi are pretty low. But, if you happened to meet them, I’m sure they’d be delighted to be your houseguest… for a time, anyways. “Pet”? Ehhh…

EIGHTH PLACE

In eighth place, we’ve got a four-way tie again!

First up: silcoon! Uh… Well, silcoons get a “A?” Score for a reason. This pokémon would be the definition of a pet that doesn’t do much. But hey, that’s what some people might want!

I was very excited about this score. C’mon, it’s abra! These little teleporters are adorable! And very sleepy! So far, eighth place seems to be the “doesn’t do much” category…

Except for ditto! What can’t dittos do? Well, they can’t do much to harm anyone, but we can transform into any person, pokémon, or object they want! Dittos are great! You can’t go wrong with a ditto! Look how cute we are! Adopt a ditto today!

Wooloo! Eighth place ends with another normal-type pokémon, and another one that I personally was excited to see score so high. Wooloos might have my very favorite cry out of all thousand-or-so pokémon discovered thus far!

SEVENTH PLACE

Just two pokémon this time around…

What do you know, a “just-a-cat” pokémon made it into the top ten! Listen, as a real-world cat owner, I’m very biased towards any pokémon that resembles mine in either looks or behavior. Skitties are a great pet option. If I had one, I would name them Skittles.

Wow, it’s been a long while since we covered fidoughs, and yet they’ve held strong in the rankings all this time! Special shoutout to my sister, who requested this pokémon!

SIXTH PLACE

There are three pokémon tied for sixth place, so let’s keep it moving!

Speaking of pokémon we covered a long time ago, it’s squirtle! The only starter pokémon in the 2023 top ten, squirtles would make great pets for anyone who likes to play in the water and/or doesn’t mind getting splashed with water every once in a while. I also hear that they look pretty rad in sunglasses…

Spiky baby! Spiky baby! Spiky baby! (Enough said, honestly.)

Would you look at that, it’s a “just-a-bird” contender! Do you like birds? Do you want a pet bird? Do you want a really smart pet bird? Then a chatot may be just right for you!

FIFTH PLACE

Just one pokémon holds the fifth place crown this year and… hold on…aw man…

It’s…uh… it’s another cocoon pokémon. Don’t get me wrong, I think pokémon like metapod and silcoon are charming in their own ways, but I recognize that they’re not the most exciting species to end up in the top ten-ish of the year. To the metapod lovers: congratulations! To the metapod haters: sorry?

FOURTH PLACE

Almost there! The fourth place slot is taken up by a single pokémon as well:

Cherrims are the one and only plant-like pokémon in the 2023 top ten! If you’re looking for a sweet-smelling, low-maintenance pet, them cherrims might be just right for you!

THIRD PLACE

Third place is the last category with multiple pokémon! We’re almost there!

Look at that little celery bowl-cut! Ralts are a great option for pet owners looking to adopt a psychic or fairy-type pokémon! They may be in tune with your emotions, but be warned: your mood will affect a ralts’. Don’t look to a ralts for a emotional support pet!

Wow, psychic-type really seems to be holding strong in the 2023 top ten-ish! So long as you don’t have an aversion to a lot of noise, a chimecho would make a great pet!

SECOND PLACE

In second place, we have another pokémon that we covered pretty recently: alcremie! I personally would still hesitate a little bit, just because I don’t have a great grasp of how a pet made out of a substance that’s at the very least similar to whipped cream, which is so easily dissolved by just water. But hey, alcremies are great! Very few alcremies are the exact same with so many possible variations of appearance, which is an added bonus.

FIRST PLACE

Without further ado, the best pokémon pet candidate of 2023 is…

Chansey! This one caught me by surprise, especially given how large they are! Who’d have thought that a three-and-a-half foot creature would get the highest score? It really all comes down to their friendly disposition and healing abilities. This is a pokémon that isn’t only receptive to living alongside humans, they actively enjoy caring for humans and other pokémon! That being said, they’re surely not common pets: this is a remarkably illusive pokémon that is rarely caught by trainers, so adopting one might not be as easy as popping over to the shelter. Thankfully, they can be found in many regions of the world.

So there you have it, the top ten twenty-one pet candidates of 2023! I’ve said it again and again, but thank you so much for following along with this silly blog! I’m hoping that the blog continues to grow and be enjoyed in the coming year. How far will we get in the pokédex? Who knows! Who can even say how many new species will be discovered this year? We’ll have to just wait and see.

#pokémon #pokemon #pkmn irl #mesprit #natu #klefki #eevee #delibird #celebi #silcoon #abra #ditto #wooloo #skitty #fidough #squirtle #zigzagoon #chatot #metapod #ralts #cherrim #chimecho #alcremie #chansey

[aether-bun]

Hey, not sure if you’re doing the whole ‘Emoji Anons’ thing, but if ya are, I’d like to claim 🐉 Anon. Anyways, on with the request.

Could I get a platonic comfort for Pokémon Kieran with a reader who is like a really strong Pokémon Trainer and like his older sibling? Like, the reader is Champion level strong. Maybe the Champion of the Alola region? They recently heard from Carmine (since Kieran canonically doesn’t have a phone.) about what happened at Kitakami and how Kieran is extremely upset, so the reader goes to visit Kieran at Blueberry Academy to try and cheer him up. Because honestly, this kid needs a hug, badly.

You can ignore if ya want, but this is just a thought.

-🐉 Anon

The Boy Who Felt He Couldn't

Shadow (noun):

"A shaded or darker portion; an imperfect and faint representation."

❗: Reader is not referred to with any gendered terms, but is the eldest sibling of Carmine and Kieran. This fic is purely platonic and takes place after the Teal Mask DLC for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.

[author's note at the end!]

Alola was a temperate, calm, and quite scenic region. It held diverse pokemon, beautiful agriculture, and best of all, it had one of the strongest champions in the world.

That was you. Quite modestly, you never really used that knowledge for your own gain, but on Alola you didn't need to. Mind, you lived there, so eventually over time the people grew to treat you normally again. This settlement meant you weren't forced to be a beacon - You could just be you.

Paldea did not offer this luxury.

Home to ancient ruins and terrifying legends, Paldea was a region of freedom, to an extent. It had every landscape a student could dream of, it had deserts adjacent to snowy hills with springs and forestry between. It was beautiful.

This beauty was very hard to see over the heads of the giant bustling crowd that had apparently come to see you. You didn't know how they knew you'd be there, but oh boy, apparently word got around.

You shook hands, signed pokeballs, and went over the usual speech of how great it was to see your supporters, before managing to shimmy your way out of the hustle and bustle of the aspiring trainers, reporters, and fans.

Unfortunately, you weren't there for any sightseeing or meetups, though you did make a mental note to at least book a tour of the region later. Right now, you were here for family.

Specifically, a little boy named Kieran. Your younger brother. According to your sister Carmine, he'd been incredibly upset, and if her story was true, you could honestly understand why.

It wasn't every day that the ancient pokemon that travelled with your bloodline for generations rejected you for some new star student. You figured you'd be pretty upset too, if you were him.

Kieran was unfortunately cursed with misfortune. Every time he tried to help himself to his goals, it always somehow managed to backfire. His Pokemon journey was not unlike the start of your own, but it was much worse than yours.

You knocked cautiously on his door. It was quiet. A small note on the door had the words 'KEEP OUT', but the writing had smudged, and there were blots of tears causing the ink to bleed. You could make it out, though. It hurt your heart.

"Kieran? C'mon, buddy, it's me.." You tried, cautious.

Immediately you heard rapid footsteps. The lock fidgeted wildly, until finally the door snapped open, revealing the disbelieving face of your brother. He looked at you for a long moment, eyes wide in disbelief.

"...[Y/N]?"

"Hey kid. I'm so sor–"

Kieran's arms were around you instantly, and he was squeezing you as tight as he could. You could hear his breaths stuttering, you could feel him trying not to stain your shirt with tears, so you simply readjusted, kneeling down and swallowing his shaking body in a warm embrace.

He sniffled into your shoulder, and you gently rubbed his back. "I'm sorry everything went so badly for you, Kieran." You said, soft, hoping to introduce the subject in a way that wouldn't antagonise him (something your sister was not very good at), and judging by the way he leaned into you further, you figured it was working.

-•-•-•-

Eventually, after many minutes of angry exclamations and scrambled words, Kieran calmed down. It was a process, getting him to breathe and recenter, but he always felt calmer with you, so the process wasn't too long. Not that you minded.

Kieran retold his story; His struggles with his own frustration, his exasperation towards Ogerpon's continuous dismissal, and he even admitted his own faults with his lashing out and sabotage attempts.

It felt easier to talk about these things with you. You never sighed and waved him off, never chalked any of his problems up to being a fault of his own. You listened. You spoke when he wanted you to, and you eased him into some advice that he tried to then take on for himself. This time was no different.

"Why did you feel the need to fight them, Kieran?" Your voice was still calm.

"I just...I tried everything to make Ogerpon feel welcomed! I catered to her needs, I did what ever I could to make her like me and nothing worked! I was so...so..."

"...Jealous?"

Kieran's silence meant he knew the answer was yes. You pursed your lips and sighed.

"Did you apologise?"

Again, he was silent. You were almost about to lecture him on the importance of admitting his faults, but then he managed to force out a small admission.

"I did." His tone was off, but you tried not to think too much of it.

You smiled sadly at him, bringing him close to lean on your shoulder. "I'm glad you said something, at least." You felt him tense a little, which unnerved you.

Then, in an effort to relax him, you noticed the way his hair looked.

"What's with this, huh? You never have your hair up..."

Kieran huffed. He didn't even appear to hear you through his own mental train of thought.

"I need to show that Trainer I can do more than just lose."

This made you stop and look at him. What?

"Kieran..."

"I need to show them I'm capable of winning. That I can be the star, too."

You frowned. This wasn't good.

"Kieran."

"You don't get it!" He snapped, shoulders tense as you fell quiet. "Ever since you started your journey, you've had good pokemon, good people! You're one of the strongest trainers in the world! No one treats you like a kid!

I need to show everyone that I'm able to be strong. Stronger than them. Stronger than anyone they've ever seen! Stronger than you!"

His voice cracked and broke. He looked so...angry. You couldn't let this go on.

"Kieran." You put a hand on his, and he seemed to come back to reality. He looked at you with wide, remorseful eyes. You furrowed your eyebrows, concerned.

"I-I'm...I'm sorry." Kieran mumbled, looking back down at his lap.

You knew where an attitude like that often lead people. It lead some of your friends down windy, dangerous roads. It created villains out of pure, innocent people. It created evil.

You very quickly decided you wouldn't let that happen to your baby brother.

Taking his hand again, you squeezed it. He looked up at you and met your worried eyes with poorly hidden fear.

"[Y/N]...?"

"Kieran...Your resolve is very important. Your will to do the right thing has always been one of my favourite parts about you. Your love for pokemon, your justice, it's all so important to me," You said. He looked away again, so you gently nudged him, and he very barely met your gaze again.

"I will not stand by and watch you tear yourself up. I don't want you going down a path you can't come back from."

"[Y/N]...I-"

"It's okay. I'm not going to make it a big deal. But...I am taking you to therapy." You chuckled, though you weren't joking. Kieran seemed to immediately deflate.

"It's not because you're messed up, or wrong, so don't you dare think that," You said, catching onto his thought process. "It's to help you regulate your emotions. I can be there with you, if you want me to, but I want you to try it out at least."

There was a long pause between you. You were still holding his hand, though your grip had eased enough for him to let go if he wanted to. He didn't.

After an eternity of silence, he slowly nodded. You mentally breathed a sigh of relief and smiled a little at him. "Thank you, Kieran." You said, watching him try to smile back a little. He was so tired. You stayed with him the rest of the afternoon, and at some point, he'd fallen asleep. The bags under his eyes suggested he hadn't slept enough recently, so you managed to get yourself comfortable and let him rest.

The process of undoing all of his emotional issues would take a very long time. It would be strenuous and taxing and he'd reach times where he felt it wasn't worth it.

But every Thursday, after he'd finished his sessions with a lovely therapist you happened to know in the region, you'd give him a signature bear hug, and you'd talk about whatever was on your minds.

Eventually, you did have to go back home to Alola, but when you left, you made sure he was in good hands. You made sure Carmine was aware of how to go about talking to him. You made sure he had people he could fall back on.

Even when you weren't there, you made sure he knew you were still around if he needed you. You gave him a Rotom Phone of his own, one that he positively beamed at from the patterns on the case, and made sure he knew to call you whenever he felt like it.

Every Thursday, he was reminded that you were there.

Every Monday, you called him and checked in.

And after a while, he realised something very elating: That with you and Carmine and his new friends he'd managed to make, it was going to be okay for him now.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Full disclosure, I never actually got around to playing the new DLCs, but as an older brother myself, watching a playthrough of it made me so sad for this little kid man :(

🐉Anon thank you SO MUCH for this request!!!! This is officially the first request I've done and I'd like to think I did a fairly good job on it! I'd like to think the endgame for this fic would be that we don't have to worry about the threat of Kieran entering a Syndrome arc sobs

Leave your requests in my inbox!! Thank you for reading, and ciao for now ♡

#pokemon #my fic #platonic x reader #pokemon kieran #pokemon the teal mask #teal mask

[remimibanana]

Thank you, Pomu!

By the time I post this, Pomu has graduated (╥﹏╥)

I want to take this time to thank her. THANK YOU POMU FOR EVERYTHING!!! YOU ARE AMAZING!!! I ALWAYS HAD FUN WATCHING YOU!!! (*´▽`*)

I tried writing this twice elsewhere but it didn’t save both times much to my dismay so I’m doing it here because it’ll save and I can add pictures.

All my sappy rambling below the cut!

I didn’t watch Pomu as much, in all honesty. Just like I don’t watch many of the vtubers I like since I don’t have time to watch streams in general. Woes of being a uni student.

But from the ones I did catch, and the clips I’ve watched, Pomu never failed to make me laugh or smile. Not once.

My favourite clip is where Pomu is reacting to a Nintendo Direct with Elira and they laugh their butts off at the casting for the Mario Movie. I’ll never forget Pomu going “CHRIS PRATT?????” and then subsequently laughing insanely alongside Elira.

I’ll also never forget when she said that the Mario Movie will be good upon seeing Jack Black lol

Another one of my favourites is where Selen is totally drunk and is playing Minecraft. Pomu is in the server and when Selen tells her that she’s stuck in Seffyna’s wool shearing farm thing machine, she just straight up leaves LMAO

When Selen says she'll have to kill the sheep she's stuck with, Pomu comes back going all NO NO. Pomu gets stuck in an attempt to help Selen, Selen kills the sheep anyway and then they break the farm in an attempt to get out and then they try to fix it.

They fix it and then Seffyna comes in and Selen snitches when Pomu ditched LOL

I love drunk Selen and I love how Pomu was practically a babysitter lmao

I love this clip so much.

I was watching Pomu’s Totsumachi, and at the end of it she mentioned that she wanted to wipe ass at Pokémon Black since she was doing a challenge where she would beat the game with six Chandelure.

I wrote YESSSSSSSSSSS into the chat, and pretty much after I did, Pomu said “YESSSSSSSSSSSSS”! It happened twice! It felt so cool, you know?

I’m not sure if it was my comment exactly but I’m going to pretend it was. Delulu is the Solulu, my friends.

Speaking of the Totsumachi, I was there for when Pomu talked to Vivi! I honestly didn't know too much about Vivi, I saw a few clips here and there but I really like her now after this!

They talked about Gaia Online at the very end, and Pomu mentioned how she wanted to try and log back into her old account. I heard of Gaia Online but I never played it. I played Moshi Monsters, Poptropica and Secret Builders as a kid. I'm old, I know lol

My interest was piqued and I made myself a Gaia Online account. It’s so early 2000’s, I love it. Reminds me of the old internet, it was much more happier and fun.

Feel free to friend me if you have an account.

I actually watched the entirety of the stream where she played Pokémon Black, and I’m so glad I was able to be there to see her complete the challenge! She beat the Elite 4, N and Ghetsis with six Chandelure! It was so entertaining and honestly nerve wracking to watch!

The RNG at one point was so bad, Stone Edge never missed and Flame Body never hit lol

It was a lot of fun.

As you can see, I sent Pomu a super chat! I have this tradition where I send one to those who are graduating as a final goodbye and to show my support for one last time.

I did it with Pikamee, Mysta, Mika and now…Pomu. The list keeps growing...

Why does every person I like leave ;;

I also became a member! I wasn’t going to initially, but I wanted to show my support and use emotes for the first and last time. I joined the lowest tier at first, but decided I wanted the Member Wallpapers, so I upgraded.

I managed to get them all, which I’m really happy I did! Pomu’s membership got paused after her graduation so there’s no way to access any of the perks anymore.

For Pomu's graduation stream, I caught all of the Crab Game with Niji EN and the final part. One of the reasons I sent the super chat in the Pokemon Black stream was because I wasn't sure if I would be able to catch the graduation stream at all.

It started at 3:30am for me and I had no idea how long it would go for. I'm a bit surprised it went for 10 hours, but I'm glad it did because I was able to watch a bit of it at the very end!

I think it's better I sent the super chat in the Pokémon Black stream, since I love Pokémon and Pomu! It feels more special to me.

I think graduations only prove how fast time flies and how one day, the people I like to watch will go too. I know its bound to happen and it is a part of life but still...it hurts to see those who you like to watch go.

I remember waking up one morning and seeing the notice of Pomu graduating, I went "WHATTTTTT??? POMU???? NOOOOOOOOO". I really didn't think she would graduate, but it was right there. People were sad, and I didn't know how to feel.

I felt like I didn't watch Pomu enough or support her enough as I could have. I still feel the same way. I did show my support at the very end, but it shouldn't take a graduation. I should have showed my support from the start, or watched her more. You never know what you'll miss until its gone, I suppose.

But I can't change the past. I'm happy I was able to watch her at the very end, and that's what matters! I'm glad I could say goodbye, watch a full stream from her and have fun until the very end!

Once again, thank you Pomu! I wish you all the best in life! We're all Pomu at the very end, aren't we?

I'm going to take the PP Energy Pomu gave us and be more confident this year! I won't let you down, Pomu! I'm going to work hard to be the best person I can be.

If I could be anything like Pomu at the end, then I think I would be happy. Someone who is so kind and is like a beacon of light people go to.

Pomu was a pioneer, and I hope she knows just how much she was loved by all. We will never forget you!

OtsuPP!

#pomu #pomu rainpuff #we are pomu #thank you pomu #me just rambling #otsuPP

[k8aclysm]

I'm mad about Jynx again (The Pokémon)

Okay so most people who have even been residually exposed to the Pokémon franchise are familiar with Jynx, the Psychic/Ice type Pokémon introduced in the first generation. Either for the controversies early on, or just because it's a good example of a strange looking design. Due to the reasons I just stated, and/or due to the fact that it's an ice type - a type typically seldom seen until very late game in most entries - I'm willing to bet most of you have never bothered to use one, either. To be fair to it, It's no as awful as it looks! It's got paper-thin physical defense, but decent speed and pretty good special attack that pair perfectly with it's typing! It's an interesting pick if you're looking for a run with mons you've never used before... But this isn't a post about convincing you to use Jynx, I'm here to rant about an aspect of it's design that has driven me completely fucking nuts for the past decade or more.

Looking at the sprites for Jynx in the first three generations, everything looks as you'd expect. Exactly how it looks in the anime, as well as in the manga and other spinoff media.

The problem begins to show itself when we reach the sprites from generation 4.

You see that? You see those strange.... tendrils coming off the dress? Just below the arms? If you wanted to argue in good faith, you could say that this is simply a sprite that poorly communicates depth in the skirt... But then we arrive at generation 5 - where the sprites now have animations and more inherent depth. Generation 5 is where many believe gamefreak had mastered the spriting game and are considered the final sendoff for the sprite style in the franchise.

It's those GOD DAMN TENDRILS. This time, it's very clear that they're not just miscommunicated depth on the skirt and are now actual, un-questionably, tendrils of some sort that jut out of the skirt or create some sort of odd "spike". This sprite is what I consider to be the beginning of what I like to call the "Jynx miscommunication", where -someone, somewhere down the production line - completely misunderstood the sprite and somehow managed to canonize one of the most bizarre design choices I've ever seen. Yeah, I said "Canonize", and I'm not joking. Because it actually happened. Every appearance of Jynx in the 3d games have featured this interpretation of Jynx's dress. ALL OF THEM. Here's an example; pictured below is the model rip from generation 6 and 7; the 3DS games.

Somehow it's become even MORE spikey; as if it's body underneath the skirt has MASSIVE spikes jutting out on each side; the dress isn't draped over it like something implied to be cloth-like in behavior should; it almost reminds me of what the barbs on Corsola look like.

Anyway, my point is mostly made now, but just to drive it home once more... To really just illustrate how deeply ingrained this design "choice" is... I need to explain that every Pokemon in existence was given brand new artwork for the Pokemon transfer service - Pokemon Home. In pretty much every medium outside of the games, Jynx was never depicted to have these weird spikes, so surely they'd refer to previous artwork of Jynx when making the illustration for it in pokemon home, right...? RIGHT...?

WRONG. Jynx officially has the spikes in it's most recent artwork, it's models, AND it's Gen 4 remake menu "sprite". The most infuriating part about this for me, though is that the Sword/Shield menu sprite Doesn't include the spikes at all. Like holy shit it's model in sword and shield even HAVE the spikes like all the others do! RAAAAAHGHGHGnfjnv....

This situation is just so uniquely fascinating to me because Pokemon is a franchise that - at least contemporarily - is known for it's extremely particular design guidelines and squeaky clean, on-model consistency when it comes to the Pokémon designs. I refuse to believe this was ever an intended design choice for Jynx and that gamefreak just don't think anyone gives enough of a fuck about Jynx to ever notice this. Hell, maybe they didn't notice it themselves. Why this happened is likely never going to be brought to light, but at the very least, Jynx isn't in gen 9 so I don't have to look at it at all! ... for now...

Anyway, I hope this post has enlightened you and made you privy to something that makes an already unpopular Pokémon even more unpopular. I'm usually never one to make elaborate posts like this but this piece of bizarre trivia pisses me off so much I just HAD to make a post about it. Send all of your complaints to gamefreak, thanks.

#pokemon #jynx #my posts

[pokemonislanderprincess]

“...so, you wanna be my Valentine?”

Misty slowly looked up from her sandwich and shot Ash an unimpressed look. “Seriously?”

“What?!” Ash cried, straightening up. “I asked, didn’t I?!”

“Yeah, like Pikachu was about to thunderbolt you if you didn’t,” Misty scoffed. “I’ve heard you have more enthusiasm over a commercial you like coming on the TV in the Pokémon Center!”

Ash scowled. “Any other complaints?”

“You asking me while I’m in the middle of eating lunch is also pretty lame.”

Rolling his eyes, Ash got off the bench and began stomping away from his girlfriend. “Fine! I’ll do it over!”

Misty watched him go in silence, her own eyes ever so slightly narrowed. From the tree behind her, Brock poked his head out, shaking it with clear disappointment. “I told him not to do that.”

“Well, you know Ash: he doesn’t listen,” Misty sighed, putting her sandwich down. Raising an eyebrow, Misty looked over her shoulder and asked, “how long have you been hiding back there, anyway?”

“Long enough,” Brock vaguely replied, fully stepping out into the sunlight. 

Huffing, Misty placed her head in her hand. “What if he never grows up?”

“It’s highly likely,” Brock answered far too quickly for Misty’s liking. Before she could snap at him, however, Brock continued, “but he does love you. That’s not even a question. So, you might just have to live with him making a few mistakes along the way.”

“I guess,” Misty grumbled. “Although, I think calling it a ‘few’ mistakes is pretty generous.”

Brock chuckled, and when he saw Ash returning with a far more mellow expression, his smirk managed to widen. “Ah, look who’s back!”

Ignoring the Pokémon doctor, Ash approached Misty, avoiding plopping himself down on the wooden bench this time around. Holding his hand out towards her, Ash politely asked, “will you please follow me?”

Misty hesitantly looked over at Brock, but he was busy pretending to stare up at something in the sky. Groaning, she turned her attention back onto Ash, who was still waiting quite patiently on her. Unable to fight the little smile that was playing on her lips, Misty giggled and placed her hand in Ash’s. “Sure.”

Excitement managed to break through Ash’s gentlemanly demeanor, and he grinned almost wildly as soon as Misty intertwined her fingers with his. With his newly increased fervor, Ash pulled Misty up from her seat, causing her to yelp in surprise as he tugged her away from the picnic table. As Ash’s laughter and Misty’s pleas for him to slow down grew more distant, Brock finally lowered his head, watching in amusement as his two younger friends flitted further and further away.

“She’ll learn. Not today, but eventually.”

Ash didn’t have to drag Misty much further before he reached their destination. Misty still wasn’t pleased about being dragged along like a toy on a string, and she had every intention of letting Ash know that. The comment died in her throat, however, once she saw where Ash had pulled her to.

In front of a large, crystal clear lake were both his and her Pokémon, with Pikachu front and center, gathered around a very impressive bouquet of flowers. Psyduck was even sporting a crown of them around his head, looking very confused about the whole situation and causing Misty to giggle.

“Is this better?” Ash asked. 

Misty snorted. His question seemed genuine, like he really wasn’t sure if it was or not, but he still had that big, dorky grin on his face. Misty could never be fully sure when he was being wholly naïve or playing dense on purpose.

For whatever reason, she found that to be one of his most endearing features.

“Yes, this is better,” Misty confirmed, deciding it wasn’t worth it to test him on it. “Actually, it’s perfect! Where’d you manage to get these flowers from? I know you didn’t just manage to gather all these up in the last 10 minutes.”

Ash sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Nah, I’ve been putting them together for a little while. I kind of knew this was what I was gonna surprise you with the whole time, to be honest.”

Misty furrowed her brow. “Hold on. If this was the plan, then what was with the weird ‘wanna be my Valentine’ question before?”

“I thought you’d be more mad if I interrupted your lunch, so I tried something simpler,” Ash reluctantly admitted. “Brock told me not to do that, but...”

“You didn’t listen,” Misty concluded when Ash trailed off, guiltily poking his fingers together. “That’s what he meant!”

“Guess I was better off just starting with this, huh?” Ash muttered.

Misty smirked and strode forward, grabbing onto Ash’s hands. “Yeah, you were. But that’s okay! You’re learning.”

“Heh, I guess so,” Ash laughed nervously. “Really, really slowly, but - “

“Still learning,” Misty cut him off, leaning in to give him an innocent kiss before pulling away to smile at his delicate blush. “And I really appreciate it.”

#A little Valentine's Day drabble for you all since I wasn't able to finish my usual one shot! #Pokeshipping #Pokeshipping Fanfiction #AAML #AAML Fanfiction #Ash #Misty #Writing #Brock #Pikachu #Psyduck #Pokemon Fanfiction #Pokemon Fanfic #Pokeshipping Fanfic

[chibishortdeath]

Fuck it, Simon Belmont, because why not you basically themed your blog after him

You don’t have any specific numbers, so I’m just answering every question >:3c mwahahaha—

1. “Why do you like this character”:

A lot of reasons!!! First off, most of his games are super fun and some of my favorite platformers just in general. I replay CV1, Simon’s Quest, and SCV4 most often cause they’re a real joy to play! I also absolutely LOVE Simon’s story, I’ve considered making comics about it if I could ever get out of recent art block whoops, even though I’ve seen many people say he doesn’t have one (´TωT｀). His designs are really cool, he’s got great music in his games, there’s just a lot to love and I’ll explain more in detail in other questions.

2. “Favorite canon thing?”

I really like the concept that he looks up to Christopher as this legendary hero and then ends up considered the same kind of legendary hero by Juste and others after him. It’s pretty ironic, kinda bittersweet, especially after being hated for so long. Castlevania loves its cycles like that. Also just Simon’s Quest in general, I love that game.

3. “Least favorite canon thing?”

Ooo that’s very hard. There’s kinda a lot of things about him that aren’t explained or confirmed, especially personality wise, but I kinda like that in a way cause it leaves room for interpretation and whatnot. Idk hmmm. I’m gonna go with Grimoire of Souls in general. I had some hopes for it, but it ended up being kinda lame. A lot of the characterization was weird and don’t even start me on things like the Cursed Whip theory being in there 💀. So I just choose to ignore it and not consider it canon.

4. “If you could put this character in another media, what would it be?”

I have thought about drawing him as if he was a character in other series for ages lol. I’ve already drawn him as a Pokémon trainer, I’ve thought about drawing Castlevania and Soul Eater crossovers before, and I tried drawing him in the style of Resident Evil 1 but could not get the art style down. Idk put him in Fortnite or something that’d be funny we already got Solid Snake so Konami has been in talks with them I guess X,,,,,,,,,,D

5. “What’s the first song that comes to mind when you think of them?”

Probably either Simon’s Theme (of course lol) or Bloody Tears, but I do wanna mention that I have a YouTube playlist of songs I wanna make Simon animations with eventually (alas animation is HARD).

6. “What’s something you have in common with the character?”

Mostly negative things unfortunately d(;w; ). Like self comparison, doubt in my own abilities, trouble making and keeping friends, etc etc. Although a lot of these are based on assumptions and interpretations, as a lot of him usually is. Simon does have a really similar hair color to me on the NES box art tho so that’s cool.

7. “What’s something the fandom does with this character that you like?”

There’s a lot of really nice art of him!!! Usually portraits, but sometimes there’s other doodles and whatnot too :3. Cool fan redesigns too! I also have seen a lot of neat headcanons, a lot of which I’ve adopted. I also appreciate the Captain N reunion stuff for the most part, it’s pretty wholesome.

8. “What’s something the fandom does with this character that you don’t like?”

I’ve seen a lot of comics, especially around when Smash Bros Ultimate came out, that were really… weird. I think all of them could kinda be boiled down to “old = bad” in the way that the artists probably just found out he was from the 1600s and then decided to make him the Boomer to Richter’s Gen Z for whatever reason (ya know despite Richter being from the 1700s but anyway). Simon would either be the jerk in the situation and/or the butt of the joke. I don’t think that Simon would have any issue with any of the female characters’ outfits let alone start harassing them for it. I saw some comics that made fun of him for not speaking very much in some genuinely disgusting ways too. Like making him not able to read or practically just the generic caveman stereotype. Especially in cases where the artist would depict other silent NES protagonists really nicely after making Simon out to be a complete idiot and asshole. There was also the trend of making him generally be all “oh no witchcraft!!!!!!!!!! What sin!!!!!!! The horror!!!!!!!!” about like anything and everything. I guess a lot of this comes from Smash Bros fans not usually being fans of Castlevania, but I’ve seen it in the Castlevania fandom too just less frequently. There’s also the “Simon has no story” thing oof. I’ve seen people tell people to skip his games or play fan games instead before :(

9. “Could you be roommates with this character?”

Realistically, no, my room is too small for another person :(. If that wasn’t an issue, then yeah probably :).

10. “Could you be best friends with this character?”

I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO—

11. “Would you date this character?”

No, he’s probably married, generally feels more like a bestie, and I’m aroace lol

12. “What headcanon do you have for this character?”

Too many oh my god. I think he probably makes things. That’s a very vague sentence lol, but think like armor, knives, general woodworking, all his necklaces and headbands and stuff, etc. He generally seems like he keeps to himself and lives mostly alone, so I can see him doing all that by himself. He keeps some bones and teeth of things he hunts most of the time. A lot of people have him as the most super Christian of the family, but I see him as like Christian but really not organized or strict about it, if that makes sense? I’ve seen someone else describe the Belmonts as like “Christopagan” before and yeah I think that fits. Idk why but I have consistently drawn him with his cross necklace in his mouth sometimes. I headcanon him as semiverbal (I think that’s the correct term for it, basically like inbetween speaking and nonspeaking). I like to think he’s like really average height for the 1600s cause he’s about as tall as other townspeople and skeletons and stuff. Which is funny cause that’d make him like 5’5-5’7 ish and that’s kinda short in modern day lol. And I guess that makes his 8bit sprite being used all the time make more sense XD. I have way more, I didn’t even get into Simon’s Quest related ones, but I don’t wanna make this too long aaaaaaaaaaaa

13. “What’s an emoticon that reminds you of the character or you think they’d use a lot?”

Ok this is funny cause I actually do have one for this and it’s got context. It’s the “:3”. So I was watching a bunch of people’s playthroughs one night cause I was bored and ran into a channel with a toooooon of speedruns of maps from Harmony of Despair. Whenever they’d get to a boss battle they’d use the typing feature just to go “hi” with a different cutesy emoticon every time, but when they got to Dracula they specifically went for the “hi :3” and then went “oh no :(“ when Dracula started attacking and now that’s the way I think he’d text I guess.

14. “Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character”

How does one properly explain how much this guy slays in one aesthetic term—

15. “What’s your favorite ship for this character?”

Oooooo, in canon probably like his wife (Selena) and/or the Mysterious Woman (who could be the same character depending on what theories you go by), but outside of that Simon Belmont x Getsu Fuma and I can’t even explain exactly why, but it’s pretty cute.

16. “What’s your least favorite ship for this character?”

Any BelmontXBelmont shipping ugh, it’s unfortunately really common on some places… also the whole Lucas or Pit or whatever other child character thing the smash bros fandom had ugh. I guess I also just don’t see the appeal of shipping any of the Belmonts with Dracula.

17. “What’s a ship you don’t hate but it’s not your favorite?”

I’ve also seen people ship him with Solid Snake, Palutena, or Bayonetta before. Ummm he doesn’t really have a lot of other characters he’s shipped with tbh. Idk I saw someone ship him with one of the priests from Simon’s Quest once.

18. “Relationship in canon you admire?”

Unfortunately he doesn’t really talk to people enough in game to form canon relationships 😔

19. “Relationship in canon you don’t like?”

I don’t even know if I can answer this one for the same reasons as the above 💀💀💀. I guess the townspeople hating the hell out of him, but I don’t hate that cause it’s kinda integral to the plot???? Yeah idk lol

20. “What character is the ideal best friend for this character?”

Simon and Shanoa would get along a lot I think. Sara too. Hmmmm… I think he and Alucard would probably also be good friends. Christopher too for many reasons. Simon just really needs friends my poor dude is out here in Dracula’s Castle and the Romanian countryside after being cursed alone like this poor guy :’(

21. “If you’re a fic writer, what’s your favorite thing to do when writing this character? What’s something you don’t like?”

I have not written much at all, however what small comics I have done I looooove to make sure to sprinkle in whatever symbols he has in the games into it. He has a lot of cool things ranging from like rose thorns to The Hanged Man card and a lot of them end up meaning things like martyrdom and whatnot idk I made a post about it a while ago :3. I also like specifically Simon’s Quest speculation stuff, like what if scenarios for the vague, left open spots of it. If it’s not something super angsty or lore heavy, it’s usually just wholesome character interactions or doodling him being comforted by Christopher or Trevor cause I was sad or something lol. As far as things I don’t like writing uh idk that’s hard, maybe just any kind of filler scenes cause I’m not very good at those oof. Dialogue is hard too 💀💀💀

22. “If you’re a fic reader, what’s something you like/don’t like to see in fics?”

I’ve mentioned a lot of things I don’t like seeing in uh question 8, but things I do like is when people really try to go full horror with him. I’ve seen some Simon’s Quest fics (sadly there’s very few :’3) that really try to get that same feeling of anxiousness and dread the game does and I love that honestly. It’s a really dark story in the series! I also saw one that went psychological horror with it with him kinda losing himself a little at night it’s just ough it’s cool :D! Simon is a horror protagonist! Make him afraid!!!

23. “Favorite picture of this character?”

Again, too many!!! X3

24. “What other character from another fandom reminds you of them?”

Not from fandoms I am in (yet, hopefully I’ll get into these), but Ragnvaldr from Fear and Hunger I’ve heard is just directly inspired by him and Alfred from Bloodborne also, to me, seems heavily inspired by him. The whole Vilebloods section seems very Castlevania inspired tbh. From other fandoms I’m in, that’s hard to say, there’s not really any I don’t think.

25. “What was your first impression of this character, is it the same as now?”

Well I got into Castlevania through Smash Bros and at first was completely indifferent about him, he was just kinda fun to play as. Then Richter got me to play SotN and actually get into the series more. I had no idea I had SotN on XBOX360 for a long time, but that made it pretty easy to start playing. And now I am absolutely hooked and Simon is my favorite character so uh yeah X3.

26. “Freebie!”

I guess I just say anything? Ok, I am currently half trying to cosplay Simon’s Simon’s Quest design rn! I have like everything but the armor, but I’ll have to wait a while to be able to get materials for it oof. But yeah :). Hopefully that works out. 

Ok yeah that’s pretty dang long wow, but yeah, thanks for the ask!!!! I am happy to rant about Simon anytime :3

#castlevania #castlevania games #text post #simon belmont #asks #ask game #yay! Simon :3 #I feel like I could probably go on even longer with other questions but uh yeah #more reason to do more of these ask things they’re fun :) #incoherent rambling #idk if I should put a cut somewhere in this cause WOW that is LONG jesus #hmmmmmmmmmmmmm idk #I should post some of the Simon and Fuma art I have sometime when I’m not feeling weirdly self conscious about it—

[mewintheflesh-2]

How would you go about designing fusions?

Like, I think my design for Razor looks more silly than scary (mainly the beak face why are beaks so hard) and I don't know if it fits with the rest of them.

Im honestly not 100% sure about the process of how I do it! 😭 I guess I just do?????? But I’ll try my best to explain my thought process even if it might be what you were already thinking/doing

I think mostly what I do is look for very prominent features on the Pokémon first, like for example, the legs of a Zoroark, its claws, and its face markings. That, and its ears. I also take notice of how on some parts of the body there’s longer fur jutting out of places like the elbows or the hips. With Mutt, who to be honest I haven’t made art of in a long time but I don’t feel the need to change him that much, I just compiled all of the features I thought defined the Pokémon and found ways to incorporate them into/onto the human body.

With Alexandra (Dragonite girl) I took the antenna, wings, and big tail as main points of the design I wanted to incorporate into her and found ways I liked it. I used them in pretty basic ways, but I did replace her ears with miniature Dragonite wings as well, as I was inspired by some art (of which I don’t know the fandom of) where there were bird-people with wings for ears.

If a Pokémon has distinct legs I will incorporate those by replacing the human legs entirely, and if the Pokémon has claws I’ll replace their fingernails with those instead. Pretty basic stuff though

I think almost all of the fusions that I’ve posted about so far aside from Parasect Girl have tails too, so that’s a little funny to me.

Also, I don’t always make every Pokémon part completely proportionate to the human body, with a certain fusion that will go unnamed, instead of shrinking fhe Pokémon’s “tail” to be how a normal sized tail would be for a human, I made the tail big and thick, which would no doubt get in the way of normal living, but that’s one thing that’s consistent with most all of the fusions. It disturbs their ability to live “like a normal human would” even if they tried their hardest.

Fusions can also take away senses and disable you to some degree. Like for example, Parasect Girl has extremely low vision and relies mostly on hearing to tell where things are/what’s happening. As a result her hearing has gotten very very good.

I think my main thing when designing fusions is that I’m not afraid/hesitant to make their bodies impractical/take away vital limbs for living/adding limbs that actively inhibit them. If you got your legs replaced with a dogs or a birds, wouldn’t you feel disoriented too?

One fusion I made also has a beak, a tentacruel fusion, but for that one I ended up making the squid beak act as weird lips. The actual “beak” design parts on the tentacruel ended up going other places, like jutting out of her arms.

ALSO another thing I like to do is spare no expense when it comes to adding details. Fuck “over designing” do what you want forever. Though that doesn’t mean that designs can’t get incomprehensible, it’s a somewhat delicate process (I guess??? It comes easy to me so I’m not sure.) ANYWAYS if you see an empty spot on the body and you’re not sure if you want it to stay empty or not, go ham and try out as many things as you want until you’re happy with it!! It might take a bit but what doesn’t when it comes to character design?

For a clearer example that might show my line of thinking more, I’ll generate a random Pokémon and brainstorm what a human fusion of it might look like.

Okay so I generated a Pokémon and I swear to god

SLUGMA BA- [gets shot]

This one is a little difficult since it doesn’t have too many distinct details if you just look at it at a glance.

let’s list off some features of it first!

Okay, so: Yellow pointed eyes, antenna like features coming from the head, very goopy, and also RED.

Also taking into account how hot the temperatures slugma gives off.

So. Let’s take a human, and try to fuse them together. More often than not when I get a pre-evolution fusion, I make them a child/just generally a younger person. However I think that for this we’ll just go with no age in particular.

So! First, I think the extreme temperatures wouldn’t fuse well with the human body, it would make them very melty/goopy. I would likely add little drips of their skin at their lips, and maybe even take away their legs in their entirety. Maybe they could just be a torso and melty pile of searing hot goop/flesh/magma beneath them? I think i would make it magma just to keep more of the Pokémon incorporated into the design. I would make the whites of the eyes yellow, make their eyes a more almond/pointed shape, and their irises either black or piercing bright red.

I think their hands would be a little goopy as well. Perhaps their hair would be melting/dripping over their head/face or maybe even acting similar to those visual heatwaves you see when it’s super hot outside! Now for someone who is literally searing hot and melting, I don’t think they would have any resemblance of clothes, but since their body is so melty, I don’t think it’d matter to be covered up too much. I think at some point as the flesh melts and drips off, it turns into magma. It’ll never be anything but complete magma when it falls off of the fusions body unless you actively take it off. (Looking at you FUSE. He’d probably be very curious how they’d taste.).

I think they’d have fire jutting out of their forehead in the shape of the fire antenna, or maybe it’d be their hair instead standing up and waving like flames in a strange way. I think they’d leave a constant burn/melting trail behind them, melting the floors as they slug around, and melting anything if they get too close. They’d likely have to be fed/given water similar to water tribe prisoners in ATLA (That one girl who taught Katara blood bending). Speaking of water, I don’t think they’d be able to get anywhere near it, it would hurt them severely, but that would mean they couldn’t drink water whatsoever. Maybe they don’t need water to live? Would they even have blood anymore? Or would it have all been boiled out of their body? Questions like these, questioning how Pokémon anatomy/natures would pair with humans/human behaviours is also important to designing fusions for me. I’m not sure exactly how important it is for it, but it’s definitely a part of what I think about when designing fusions.

Let’s try another shall we?

Wartortle! This is a nice design.

Something I immediately take notice of is the feathery ear like projections out of its head, along with its feathery tail. Boom, replace their ears with the feathery protrusions, and give them their feathery tail. I think their hair would also look similar to their ear protrusions, a wavy ocean look. Their arm hair, if they have any, would probably look the same, same for their leg hair. Wartortle’s also got white claws coming out of its hands, so those go onto the humans hands as well.

Then of course there’s the shell. You could make it look like a weird backpack, but that’s not something I would do personally. Especially since I’d want them to have the ability to hide in their shell. I would make the shell larger than their body, which would probably limit their movement quite significantly. Now about the front of the shell, I’m not sure how that would work out. If it’s proportionate to the back of the shell, then that would limit their movement even more. But if we strike a good balance of size, they can still move around decently while still being able to hide away in their shell. Now I like that a lot better. Their mouth would likely be wider than normal human mouths, and they would have decently sharp canines poking out of their lips. Their eyes would also be decently slanted and red, or atleast instead of slanted, would be in a permanent “im pissed off” look.

Okay so I actually really like the Wartortle concept a lot so I think I’ll keep them. TEEHEE >:3c

Oh yeah! Also another thing, specifically with Momo, is that Furfrou’s ears are pretty large/long compared to their head, so I exaggerated that to an extreme for her, making them go down to her middle-upper leg.

ALSO when it comes to clothes, pretty much all of the fusions have clothes that they wear, even if it’s just a shirt (See Mutt and Momo.). Unless it’s a Slugma fusion situation, they will pretty much always have atleast one article of clothing. I don’t put distinguishable human nudity in any of the fusions, the closest you’d get to that is Mutt if he didn’t have a shirt on, or like I mentioned, the Slugma Fusion.

I hope this helped literally at all!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I’m not even sure if this made sense in any way at all aside from the impromptu fusion design brainstorming

#Mandjtv #Dr. Fuse #Fuchsia Orion #Mutt (DTDF) #Momo (DTDF) #Alexandra (DTDF) #Unnamed Wartortle Fusion (DTDF) #Unnamed Slugma Fusion (DTDF) #I’m not sure if i’ll keep the Slugma Fusion canon though. #Don’t Trust Dr. Fuse #DTDF #The Fusion Lab #The Fusion Subjects #Fusion Science

[tiny-cloud-of-flowers]

Tell me a little (or a lot) about one of your newest OCs, and one of your oldest! ^w^ (dragonsmooch)

Oh!! I can certainly do that for you, dear Dragon!! Thank you so much for this!!

(source: this post (technically?))

Alright, so, for one of my newest OCs I'm going to pick Tsutsuji. She is an OC I created for the world of Final Fantasy XIV, and I've recently managed to figure out some more story I can give her, so now is as good a time as ever to talk about her, hopefully!

First of all, here are some screenshots I took to show you what she looks like. And from there, I can give you some facts about her!

Tsutsuji is approximately in her late twenties, and is exceptionally tall for a female Au Ra - though this may not be saying too much considering said exceptional height is only 158.5cm. For context, that's about 5'2.4", which makes her shorter than Lorenza. The fact she wears raised sandals does very little to actually help her in this regard.

Her pale-coloured scales and cranial projections identify her as a Raen Au Ra, and she is originally from somewhere in the Yanxian kingdom of Doma. However, she came to Eorzea some years ago, ostensibly on a whim in pursuit of further magical discoveries; the impending umbral calamity about to hit the region at the time, in the form of the moon turning red and falling out of the sky, did little to dissuade her.

On the note of story, Tsutsuji currently fits into it by being a potential Warrior of Light; she wouldn't really fit that mantle if there were other (more archetypal) adventurers in the vicinity, but she does at least have the Echo, which would probably make her a Scion (or at least quite associated with them). Given that she fights as a summoner, the fact she has faced down primals directly without much risk makes summoning egi forms of them a lot easier for her. She's also generally very magically capable, so she's definitely not someone you want to be up against in battle, lest you get ruined by three different types of elemental attacks in rapid succession.

More concretely, Tsutsuji is part of the alliances that raid the Crystal Tower, having joined NOAH's expedition in search of the Allagan knowledge within it. She uses some of the information she reads about on the way up, plus the convenient monumentally-enormous voidgate at the top of the tower, to successfully summon a certain voidsent to the Source in her entirety - this of course being Lorenza. The two of them do make a pact - Lorenza's knowledge in return for Tsutsuji's aether - but Tsutsuji is fairly happy with the information she gets from Lorenza, and basically just.. lets her go and do her own thing in the Source pretty quickly. It's a very unconventional dynamic for a voidsent and the mage that summoned them, and Lorenza is very baffled by it.

In terms of personality, Tsutsuji is.. chaotic, to sum it up succinctly. As you may have gathered from how I've described her thus far. Incredibly spontaneous and theatrical in her ideas, appearing and disappearing on any given scene quite without warning, never seeming to take a bad situation seriously or let it affect her emotions in the slightest.. this one-of-a-kind demeanour would be remarkable enough in its own right, but it's compounded by her incredible arcane knowledge and magical capabilities, so she manages to strike fear into just about every villainous soul you could come across. I'm trying to think of a good comparison, but I'm falling short. Maybe like.. Elena from Pokémon Reborn but with extra "super chaotic/energetic nerdy scientist" vibes.

The name "Tsutsuji" is actually an alias of sorts - it's the Doman word for azalea flowers, which she is always seen wearing in her hair (I know that's a chrysanthemum in the screenshots but it was as close as i could get in-game okay), so over time people started referring to her by them. She'll never introduce herself by this name (or any name at all, honestly), but she does answer to it if you call her by it.

While she doesn't tend to speak much of her family (or any of her past, really), Tsutsuji does have a younger sister called Ajisai (which translates to "hydrangea"). She has also made the arduous journey to Eorzea, but much later in the story, arriving by boat alongside Yugiri and many other Doman refugees during the main story. She wants to find her sister, but the way Tsutsuji conducts herself doesn't exactly make that very easy for her (the fact she isn't using her actual name, for example).

My current voice claim for Tsutsuji is Xingchen (Stardust), the Synth V vocal. Which technically doesn't quite fit, considering that Xingchen is a Mandarin Chinese vocal whereas Tsutsuji (being Doman) is supposed to be Japanese, but it's more about tone of voice than accent. It's specifically how she sounds in this song, particularly the higher parts in the choruses. However, if she ever sounds as low and subdued as the song's verses sound, You Have Done Something Very Wrong. Her voice is usually a lot more light-hearted and all-over-the-place in terms of its tone! ..The song still does kind of fit as like a boss fight theme of sorts for her, though, honestly.

..Oh, crumbs, this is long. Sorry. Let me make another, separate, post for the older OC (I'll tag you in it when I'm done with it)

Thank you very much for this opportunity, friend ;w;

#heart of the void #friend: thorned azalea (tsutsuji) #platonic F/Os #OC F/Os #though not in the romantic sense #she's just a very fun character and that is why I enjoy talking about her so much #even if I don't actually have very much proper story laid out for her yet #she's just having a fun time! doing her own thing! saving the world if she feels like it! who knows!! #of shards and crystal (FFXIV) #self‑insert: wings of the void (lorenza) #I did mention her a little bit so I suppose it counts #so yes TLDR tsutsuji is the reason lorenza comes to the source in what I call the ''solo lorenza'' version of events #(as opposed to my friend simon's crystal verse which is what I think of as lorenza's ''default version of events'') #out of the inbox #dragon tag! #info posts #oh crumbs how is it two o'clock in the morning

[doubleddenden]

I genuinely am so excited for Sonic p-06. I have a lot of thoughts about taking a massacre and making it fun and my unironic love for the original 06.

Basically Sonic 06 was going to be this huge revolutionary game in the franchise, Basically the fabled "Sonic Adventure 3," and it had potential. Amazing music as usual, a pretty amazing concept for story, one of the darkest and most diabolical villains of the franchise ever- Lots of heart and soul was crammed into it.

Then... the assholes up top interfered. There's a few conflicting theories- Microsoft wanting it to be a 360 launch title, SEGA wanting it out BY CHRISTMAS- bottom line, corporate greed got in the way of artistic vision, and it was rushed before it could be completed to the detriment of EVERYONE.

What resulted is- as fans of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will know- a buggy mess of a game thats pretty much mostly known for it. Unlike SV though- even though you could tell they were really trying with the story- it still needed some revising to iron out plot holes. Unlike SV as well, it didn't reuse the same mechanics and models from previous games verbatim, and was coming during the time when everyone hated the franchise and thought it was cool to shit on it for every little thing, so the gameplay was definitely lacking and the reception was definitely not up for debate: it was an utter failure that still chars gaming history. Because it failed, we pretty entered a timeline where we weren't allowed serious games anymore, and that's actually the last time in a 3d game that someone other than Sonic or basically a Sonic Clone would be playable.

But the thing is, as shit as the original 06 is, it was one of my favorite games because I sort of identified with it on a meta level, even if I didn't realize why at the time. I could see the potential of this humongous plot that to this day still has the highest stakes out of Sonic's history. I mean, Generations is a close second for similar reasons, but 06 basically had time erasure, world ending, the whole Iblis Trigger bit, AND you had to fight a literal bonafide god.

Also confession, I liked how they looked in this game vs everyone being squished down in following games. I know stylistically speaking the newer models are probably more on brand and I'm not a fan of the 06 mouths, but I like that they're a little taller and... realistic? I guess?

The stories, while maybe not being completely in character, and a little confusing considering other games (Blaze still confuses me), still had some really charming and amazing moments. Shadow's interactions with Omega and Rouge are some peak Team Dark bonding, Mephiles is downright diabolical and is really fun (and Dan Green basically being an evil Yami Yugi but unhinged and turned to 11? Good lord, brilliant shit), and his brief team up with Silver was actually pretty cool. Silver is such a fun design and concept, and I really felt for him considering the predicaments he was forced to live through- I especially hated that such a cool character came from a bad game, pretty much ruining any chance to play as him again in something other than the psp exclusive Rivals games or as a side character in spinoffs. Not to mention, the moment Blaze sacrificed herself for Silver and allowed him to see the bright blue sky in his own future? Heart jerking. And Sonic and Elise?... okay, the kiss was a little much, but their interactions really brought the best out of each other, and while Sonic doesn't really change, you can see him influence her for the better- and their last goodbye? Heart breaking.

All of this to say that 06 was Potential incarnate and I always knew it. P-06 just proves it from a mechanical angle, from speed being tweaked to all characters to Shadow being an even bigger combat driven badass, to Silver's MASSIVE improvement to his speed and psychokinetic powers and just straight up amazing visual improvements, and even just reworking characters like Amy, Knuckles, Tails, and Rouge to actually be fun to play as.

And the thing is, they didn't stop there. They added small little cut scenes too, added lip flaps and small animations in certain spots- this really intrigues me and just really makes me want to see the team try their hand at attempting to fix the story as well. By fix, I mean just fill in some plot holes, maybe write in some character interactions, and- the biggest thing for me personally- making Blaze's inclusion and non interaction/willing hunting of Sonic WAY LESS confusing. Another big plot hole: right at the beginning, where Elise sees Silver in a flaming battle field as she sees Sonic, only for this to never really happen or for her to be conscious to meet him as a child.

They don't have to do that. Lord knows DBZ has way more plot holes and is still enjoyed to this day. But maybe, just maybe, if they could? Oh the potential to take the worst game and turn it into the best game is ridiculously high. Hell, they could even make a plot about the original 06 being an alternative timeline and give a completely new ending here.

Even if they don't though, what the team has accomplished is still amazing. I reckon they're still going to be ironing out bugs and making tweaks- maybe even sprucing up the Last Episode and all the boss fights. If they make new content, maybe some levels for Knuckles and Omega would be fun.

I hope to be able to play some day.

#sonic 06 #sonic p 06 #sonic p-06 #sonic p06

[hwaksimpokemon]

give us your honest opinions on all of rainbow rocket, then. if you have time

Ooh, boy. Okay. Someone's going to show up at my house-

I do want to preface this by saying I don't agree with any of their actions relating to legendary pokémon. I'm talking about the person I interact with out of necessity at the meetings.

Maxie: Maxie's a bit... sharp around the edges. But he's not bad at all, really, once he trusts you a little bit. We've had our disagreements, sure. He really did not like me when we first met. We can talk, now. And it's nice.

Archie: Archie and I get along well! We have a similar outlook on a lot of things, especially on Giovanni's trapping methods. And he realizes now that his plans with Kyogre were a little... well, his intentions were good. Same as Maxie. The methods weren't. Archie is one of the few people at those meetings that does look out for me where he can, and I appreciate that.

Giovanni: Oh, Giovanni... I punched his lights out pretty recently. And it felt amazing. And I hated it. I hate being angry, I hate being violent when I don't need to be, but he just would not. Stop. Talking. And I needed him to shut up. I am so sick of the way he makes me feel, the way he makes me look to people around us- I hate that he makes me look stupid, makes me look weak. I despise the hold he has over me, and I hate that he won't tell me what he keeps me around more. ... I hate him.

Chairman Rose: Rose and I don't speak often. I barely even know what he does- he's not been at the meetings since I started attending, dealing with some 'personal issues' back in Galar. I really don't have a strong opinion either way on him.

Piers: I admire how he looks after N. I also admire his honesty. We don't talk much, but I think he's a good kid.

Ghetsis: I despise him. The way he treats both people and pokémon makes me sick. I healed his Hydreigon once after a battle, and it showed up at my house that night, that's how shit he is to it. He's a vile human being, and I don't know how Colress deals with him. He was almost nice to me once, when he made me a cup of tea, before promptly criticizing my husband for marrying a man. He also tried to kill my brother, and nearly killed me. Giovanni had to stop him.

N: Honestly, I don't really know what N is doing in our meetings. He's uncomfortable around Ghetsis, which is completely fair, and I don't think he even really wants to be there. I sit next to him. We have nice conversations. I gave him a fidget cube once when he was anxious, and he returned the favor at the next meeting. He's a good kid.

Colress: Colress is lovely. Redirecting his efforts to something beneficial now that he's not fully tied to Ghetsis is amazing, and he's genuinely just a lovely person. We've battled on occasion, and I've normally lost, but it's always a fun time. We play Scrabble together, and have a rule where you can spell words however you want. We are both dyslexic.

Lysandre: I have... mixed feelings on Lysandre. For reasons I can't really delve into. It would be unprofessional of me. I do want to say, though, that he never did anything to me directly. Of Rainbow Rocket, he is nowhere near the worst.

Lusamine: She was awful to her children, and I resent her for that. I'm also from Alola, and was visiting when she opened up the wormholes. She put my family in danger, and I resent that too. I know of nothing good she's ever done.

Cyrus: Cyrus is... complicated. One the one hand, he's friends with Kamiya (who I will get to, don't you fucking worry), but on the other, he's... decently pleasant when he visits. He comes over to my house every now and then, and we talk. I worry about him wandering the island so often. I hope he's alright.

Kamiya Sakoda: Where to fucking start with you, Kamiya? He helped me through my second divorce. Namely, he helped me realize the way my husband was treating me and my son. Let me stay at his house while I was figuring things out, and was generally helpful to me. Even set me up with my new husband. Then he got upset that my attention wasn't fully on him anymore. And he started being a dick. I had been hiding from my father, at the time- meeting with him and my brother occasionally, but not letting them know where I was staying. For my own safety. But they found out eventually, and dragged me out of my home to beat me. Twelve hours in, they called our family doctor (who just so happens to be Kamiya's fucking wife) so of course, he showed up. Carried me back to his house, insisted I stay for my own safety. Generally 'caring', when he wasn't hitting my injuries. Turns out, he was the one that told my father where I was. I was furious when I found out. Angry at him for doing such a thing, angry at myself for not seeing it coming- it was horrible. I'll never forgive him. For any of it.

Haruka: My ex-husband. The one Kamiya helped me get away from. I don't want to think about him.

Zero: Zero freaks me the fuck out. I'm sure that's probably his whole thing, but it works, and I don't like it. He's horrifying to look at, boring to talk to, and overall just not my cup of tea.

Lucio: Lucio is just plain unpleasant. He thinks he's better than he is, and it shows pathetically. His business is shady at best, and at worst, plain predatory. He also has an annoying habit of hurting people that work for me.

#jung hwaksim #pkmn irl #hwaksim pokemon #pokemon #pokemon rp #rotomblr #pokemon irl #pkmn rp #ask hwaksim #pokemon oc #this took so fucking long you have no idea.

[living-in-the-pokemon-world]

Here it is, the mighty team request! So I'm looking for a team match-up, with at least 3 and up to 6 Pokémon.

I am deadly afraid of most bug types, especially fast ones. Also, I have hay fever, so any Pokémon that has to do with pollen is… not going to be for me. Oh, and I'm super sensitive to the sun and heat in general! I live in a relatively big house on the edge of a village, with lots of garden-space. The house has three floors, with the lowest being underground, which is also where the bedrooms are located. The climate is very basic, honestly. The winters don't get super cold and the summers don't get super hot.

I'd say I have a decent amount of experience with Pokémon? I grew up around orchards and small bodies of water, so you can imagine the amount of wild Pokémon I interacted with. I've grown up around dog-like Pokémon too! My Pokémon would be companions slash performers, like in contests. They should definitely not shy away from the spotlight, but I also crave cuddling sessions from time to time. One that's big enough to make me feel protected would definitely be cool!

I tend to have a bit of a temper, which is something I've been trying to work on. Emotions just tend to be a lot, both in positive and negative ways, which is also why performing and cuddles are so important to me. On a more positive note, I tend to be good in leading positions and will not hesitate to help my Pokémon out with anything they need! I would definitely call myself ambitious, and I'd like it if my team could keep up with that, but also to calm me back down if I'm about to ask too much of myself once again. I'm not huge on sports, but I'm trying to get better about that, just… any Pokémon that needs a lot of intense physical activity might not be in the right place on my team.

Again, thank you so much for your time, it's awesome that you're willing to do this!

Alright, this request has been waiting for nearly a month (sorry ‘bout that), let’s do this.

So you don’t want any Bug-types, and I’m gonna go ahead and say no Grass or Fire-types either based on what you’ve told me. Space doesn’t sound like it’ll be an issue. Same goes for climate and experience as well. The Pokémon shouldn’t be too high-energy, but also not complete couch potatoes. Sound right so far?

Okay, I’ve thought about it, and I think you should consider adding a Stoutland, a Lycanroc (Dusk Form if you can as they tend to be a pretty happy medium in terms of energy), a Goodra, a Vaporeon, and a Togekiss.

Realistically, any of these Pokémon can do quite well in contests, though there’s no denying that Vaporeon and Togekiss are the most “traditional” contest choices of the bunch. And companionship? Well, that’s not even a question: every single one of these species have been shown to make first-rate companions time and time again (Goodra and Togekiss are especially popular pals for people who have difficulty controlling their emotions.) As for protection, let me ask you this: if you were a burglar, would you go into a house that had a Stoutland and a Lycanroc in it? I know I wouldn’t.

Grooming needs are as follows:

Stoutland: Probably the most high-maintenance of the bunch due to the sheer amount of fur, though they still shouldn’t need to be brushed any more than two or three times a week. Fair warning though, they shed quite a bit during spring and autumn

Vaporeon and Lycanroc: Usually only need weekly or twice-weekly grooming sessions, though you do need to be careful about which products you use if there ever comes a time where you need to bathe them (make sure to use products formulated for Water-types on Vaporeon, and products formulated for Rock-types on Lycanroc)

Togekiss: These guys tend to keep themselves pretty clean, though it’s a good idea to give them a weekly once-over just to be sure. Keep an eye out for overgrooming, as that can be a sign that there’s an issue of some sort

Goodra: Don’t really require any grooming, though make sure they stay hydrated somehow, whether that’s through the occasional spritz from a water bottle, or providing them with their own pool

None of these Pokémon are known to be particularly dangerous though, like all Pokémon, that doesn’t mean they won’t defend themselves if they feel threatened. Lycanroc and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Vaporeon can have noticeable prey drives if caught from the wild, so be sure to keep a close eye on them whenever they’re around smaller Pokémon. Other than that, I can’t think of any major issues.

Hope you enjoy your team! Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I think I’m going to go take a nap.

#I DID IT!!!!!!!!! #pokemon headcanons #pokemon ask blog #pokemon askblog #pokemon #stoutland #lycanroc #goodra #vaporeon #togekiss #pokemon matchup #pokemon match up #match up monday

[bearpillowmonster]

Pokémon Colosseum Review

A common complaint about Pokémon is that most of the games seem the same, that it needs a breath of fresh air while also retaining all the past Pokémon. Legends started to remedy that but for me, it was this.

This was my first Pokémon game so it's nice to come back to my roots, a good bit of nostalgia.

You get Umbreon and Espeon at the beginning so I just figured that you buy more Pokémon at the store, I mean the Pokéballs are right there. And since they came in a lot, I expected them to be a surprise. My child mind came up with the gacha system.

Or I guess maybe the capsules…

But those aren't even Pokéballs, I just thought they were. There's a lore reason as to why they don't have any Pokéballs there though…ITS THE DESERT. Apparently there just aren't any Pokémon to catch around there so there's only one place in the game that actually sells them.

The plot revolves around the Snagems, which have the power to steal Pokémon. One of those…is you. So yes, instead of random encounters, you choose to fight trainers and you can steal their Pokemon. You automatically turn Pokéballs into Snagballs.

They used things like FF7 as inspo to create a more edgy protagonist (that doesn't talk) and shake the game since players were getting older (and they weren't experts on Pokemon in general). There's even a Sephiroth looking fellow.

And is that Johnny Test?

But the Snatchers can lock away a Pokémon's heart so they can't feel and are just a fighting machine. These are the ones that you can catch but you can also just choose to take them out the old fashioned way. But I felt the catch rate was absurdly lower than any normal Pokémon game. But the story is really good, better than your average "Team whatever is at it again in the quest to be the best" it has some break aways from the formula.

There's no normal build up like gyms, there are stadiums and colosseums, one is fixed fights that you can gain exp from, you can choose to do those one at a time. And the other is a gauntlet of battles between different trainers, (everything is double battles in this game BTW). You also raid bases though too like your average Team Rocket. This makes it seem like battles more or less happen one right after the other in a straight line, leaving me wanting a little more variety but that may just be Pokémon in general and just be more noticeable here.

I'd mainly play the straight battle mode as a kid because I understood that a little more with both teams getting random Pokémon. Pretty sure the back of the box said 2 players, so I just assumed you plug in another controller and the other player plays as the opposing trainer so I tricked my cousins into thinking they were actually doing something but in reality, it was the AI making all the decisions. I mean they didn't play Pokémon either, they knew what it was but they were Playstation kids. I remember one of them particularly hated Sentret because of how easy he was to beat.

For a 2004 game, it has some pretty good and unique animations like Duskull's light being snuffed out and just the grey sheet falling to the floor. Or Spoink getting all spiral eyed and fainting as the orb rolls from its head. Even some of the trainers. I think that's part of why having Umbreon and Espeon as the main party members was so enjoyable. As a kid, you want to catch them all and don't really get to appreciate it as much but I really felt for Espeon every time she got hit because in my head, these two have personality. Espeon barely got hit but when she did, it just seems to make Umbreon want to hit back more "You can't do that to my girl!" And the way Umbreon's lights flicker, when he gets thrown back, you wonder if his light will come back. It makes you feel for them which I suppose is the lesson here. Also, there's a manga based on it and it uses the exact same idea so I imagine it was deliberate.

Also Espy and Umbry (who I named Noctis and Lunafreya) are both in their 20s level wise at the start so there's no real need to start from scratch but when you catch more Pokémon, they're more or less good until that level cap is surpassed because they don't level up until they're purified. You can stick them in daycare but that's one at a time. Purifying them isn't that bad, I actually find the experience to be enjoyable because you have to get them to listen to you so it's not an immediate trainer and pet relationship so you'll have to rely on Espy and Umbry more than anything. But there are a good variety of ways to get the shadow meter down. Also, the battles more or less always aimed for Espeon over Umbreon which I thought was the level difference but then I got Espeon to surpass Umbreon so I have no clue what the AI was thinking.

There are certain things that slow the game down like walk speed and the time it takes for the animations, especially throwing your Pokémon out to begin but I'm going to chalk that up to age. Also, there's no reason Rui couldn't be the one to carry the second Pokémon in team battles, it'd give her a little more to do than just follow you around but again, an all around great story for a Pokémon game, would really like to see it represented in the anime similar to Chronicles and Origins.

Would you believe me if I said this was the Pokémon Center?

And because of the no random encounters, you don't have to trek from place to place, you just choose on the map as if you had fly, but instead you ride a bike. You don't actually get to control the bike (it had a short development schedule or I'm sure you could have).

#pokemon #colosseum #pokemon colosseum #game #review

[pjbombardier]

I just rolled credits on God of War (2018).

I skipped it initially because it came out the week I sold my PS4 to pay some bills, and when I got a new one later on, I just wasn’t interested. At the time, my relationship with my father was awful and I was incredibly resentful of him, so I was staying out late, smoking too much weed, and just in general making decisions that were harmful for myself. I was in a bad place, but I had a couple good things keeping me going.

Today, I’m in such a healthier situation. I’m sober, I’ve put about 3,000 miles between myself and my father, and I’ve surrounded myself with a partner and friends that genuinely support me. I’m taking care of myself, and I feel great.

I’m so grateful that I didn’t play God of War until now. The journey that Kratos and Atreus undertake together is epic, and full of some surprisingly emotional moments that hit me pretty heavily. In the last few years, my father hasn’t become any better of a dad, but I’ve healed so much on my own, that I’ve found peace, and seeing Kratos struggle with being a father in many of the same ways my own father does made me feel so deeply about Atreus being raised in a similar situation. I was brought to tears watching him learn how to communicate and to understand that trust and respect cannot just be assumed, even from children. He grows and comes to a place where he can look at his son, seeing the worst of himself in him, and correct his own behaviors, striving to be better so that his son can grow and be better in tow. They develop such a strong bond on this odyssey that by the end of it, you can’t help but be proud of them both.

Atreus, meanwhile, resonated with my right off the bat, as a young boy who just wanted to know more about his dad, but was met with silence or scolding at every turn. Naturally, he comes to recognize this sternness; this disdain for openness; as a sign of strength and manliness. He comes to imitate it, and after learning the truth about his fathers background as a god and that he himself is a god, leans full tilt into the supremacy that he reads from his father’s refusal to relate to him. After their trip to Helheim forces both of them to relive their darkest moments together, and they witness just how broken they are, Atreus finally sees what he’s becoming, and understands a little bit of why his father would hide his past.

Watching both of them come to this reckoning together and how they grow from it nearly broke me. My father and I haven’t shared this moment, and I doubt we ever will, but when my grandmother died, it did shake a sense of mortality into me. It’s helped me come to peace with why my father doesn’t know how to communicate; why he has consistently remained closed off to me and my sisters. I don’t know that we’ll ever repair our relationship, but watching Atreus and Kratos repair theirs has left me with a sense of readiness in case he ever decides to try, and acceptance if he doesn’t.

Beyond that, it was just an incredibly tight, well paced game. The side characters were funny when they had time to be, helpful where they needed to be, and the enemies were challenging, yet (mostly) not broken. Fuck the guys who blind you for like a minute, but otherwise, it’s a blast to romp through Midgard, and I can’t wait to begin Ragnarok after Christmas.

Onwards to Pokémon Scarlet!

[theimpalingpen]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎-𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 — 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐩𝐞𝐧

(Disclaimer. I’m not saying one is better, but I will be using comparisons to highlight differences! I also mostly mention more popular video games in this post but I highly recommend checking out indie games as well.)

Novelist, poet, playwright, copywriter, non-fiction— theres a lot of types of writers— and one I don’t see often mentioned is the narrative designer. It’s a role that can be applied in a lot of different ways, all of them valuable nonetheless.

I’ve been playing video games ever since I was very young, and a lot of games marketed toward children/younger audiences have their own sort of story. Pokémon, Mario and Zelda come to mind. I got older and got into more serious stories, Skyrim, Fallout, and now as an adult, I still play these games alongside more mature ones. The Witcher, the earlier God of War installments, etc.

Some people also seem to think video games can’t be serious (beyond being dark or edgy, anyways), or utilize actual storytelling devices to make a point. Which is simply wrong. One example would be the bioshock franchise, which is accepted as an allegory for different economical and social systems, specifically Objectivism.

The most memorable (and forgive me, I must be brief otherwise I’ll get too excited), would be Bloodborne. The story isn’t given to you flat out, and some of the lore is rather difficult to decipher. But when it comes together, it’s fucking beautiful. The game is an eldritch/cosmic horror which derives from the work of H.P Lovecraft, dealing with the themes of addiction, misanthropy, cosmic insignificance, the brutality and horror that can be within pregnancy/menstruation/childbirth, the consequence of knowledge, and the insanity. I love the story and lore of Bloodborne so much it truly makes me want to cry. (Plus, it’s a special interest of mine.)

I’ve played over a hundred video games in my time and will continue to play them. They are one of the things that enhances my skill as a writer!

Here’s the caveat. Video games take time and a lot of them, skill. My personal favorite video games with my favorite stories are some of the most difficult. That’s just not for everybody! For those people, I generally recommend play throughs or starting with heavily story based games. Or…easy mode, if the game has it. Just don’t start with Sekiro: Shadows’s Die Twice unless you’re a serious masochist.

— 𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐀 𝐃𝐈𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓, 𝐒𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐃?

“Oh, I thought you just shoot stuff and run around…”

I’m pretty sure most people who play video games have heard something similar. Because yes, some games, there isn’t a particular story!

Yet, in Call of Duty, a game known for running around and shooting people (definitely not known for having online lobbies with people who are incapable of saying slurs every .5 seconds...) actually has their own story campaigns which can be incredibly entertaining and well written.

Pretentiousness is a large factor in people overlooking video games, in my opinion. Some people stroke their soft, limp intellectual egos with literature, which has always confused me. It takes work and thought to understand a story in any format! Some games don’t give it to you at face value, and some force you to explore in order to learn more. Which leads me into my next point…

— 𝐄𝐍𝐕𝐈𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒

Even in games that are linear, there’s often secrets laying around. Straightforward games may have notes, letters, paintings with descriptions that add to the lore of the world. It allows you to connect dots without being told exactly what’s going on.

One of my favorite examples of this is Hollow Knight, which has a story that isn’t explained practically at all. Without spoiling the game for anyone who may want to play, I’ll say that there’s tablets and secret areas around the game which contain lore, but my favorite mechanic is achieved with “the Dream Nail”. This mechanic enables you to hear the contorted and melancholy thoughts of the creatures around you which adds a layer of sadness and further hopelessness to the overall tone of the game.

Video games have the liberty to tell stories with the very environment you walk in. Horror games placing terrible, mangled corpses and showing you “this is what happens to you” without saying it. Adventure games leaving old tombs with a warrior’s sword for you to collect and learn that there was someone here before you. Books don’t have the liberty to implement this in the same way because while we understand atmosphere, things being mentioned and detailed in the pages are generally meant to have a specific purpose and reminder. Environmental storytelling is something you stumble upon, and can be done without words.

— 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 ��𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄

The main story of Red Dead Redemption 2 is fifty hours long. You are responsible for Arthur Morgan as a player, but have no control over his inevitable fate. Assuming you do side quests, you may invest hundreds of hours into your play through. The Last of Us is 15hrs, God of War 4 is 25. That’s a lot of time to fall in love with a character and learn about this world. (Keep in mind this refers to actually playing the game, not just watching cutscenes.)

A lot of video games have shorter stories, but nonetheless, you’re taking the time to see story/character progression in a much longer format than a book. In my opinion, that is part of what makes it so powerful. Even in a game such as The Last of Us where you can’t change the outcome in any way, you feel as though you’re responsible for keeping your characters alive along the way. But in games like Detroit Become Human, Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls where you are the one choosing this character’s ending, you have the added pressure.

That’s still writing. Imagine not only having to write one well written ending, but multiple? And to have them make sense? That’s not done well in every video game, because it’s god damn difficult! A criticism that gets brought up in a few different games I’ve played is that certain available narrative choices as well as gameplay styles don’t suit the characters. Analyzing characters individually as a player and balancing what you want to do versus what your character would do— RPG or not— is a whole new layer of nuance.

The time you spend with a character, whether they be a set character or one created by the player, creates a bond. This goes for the characters around you as well!

When it comes to created characters in games, a lot of people get exposed to OC creation this way. Obviously, this goes for fandom as well, but combined with the point of “what would my character do” alongside the rest of the story brings people a lot of enjoyment. The imagination can run wild in that regard.

— 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒

There’s a few games where I’ve gotten more invested in the side plot narrative than the main story. Or, even with an amazing main story, the side quests not only tell you more about the world and character, but tie into the original plot. DLCs can achieve this too!

I’d say video game stories can actually get a bit overwhelming because there’s often so much. But a game with good subplot and side quests will make you want to seek them out.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now. I could make this post as long as a comedically large “sign here”, scroll— but I won’t! <3

THANKS FOR READING!

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[sweet-star-cookie]

3, 11, 21, 27, 30 for the weird art ask game!!

Eeeey these are great, thank you! :D I’ll put the answers under the cut to save a dash or two haha

3. What ideas come from when you were little?

I’m assuming this is asking “what ideas do you have now that started from when you were little”, so I’m going to answer it like that lol

I have a bunch of different story ideas and characters that are from varying eras of my life at this point, all of which I intend to reboot/finish eventually, but rather than getting into all of those at once, I’ll talk more about general subjects/inspirations that I’ve had since childhood. It's interesting to see what subject matter I was most interested in at different parts of my life though!

I was REALLY into animal fantasy growing up (Warriors, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, etc.) so a lot of my oldest ideas feature animals/fantasy creatures as the protagonists, something that absolutely did not change! My love for dragons in particular (thanks to Spyro the Dragon) is one of the first things that any new person I meet learns about me, though I also really love cats (especially big cats), birds (especially owls and raptors), dogs (especially foxes and wolves), and pretty much every cool mythical creature I can think of. I had friends who were horse girls, and I was the dragon girl (Spyro, Dragonology, Eragon, The Last Dragon Chronicles, Dragon-type Pokémon, you name it). Though I have done some much needed expansion of my skills and subject matter since, I still tend to favour animal characters and creature design to drawing regular humans, to the point that I didn’t actually start drawing humans until college! Even with humanoids or monster kids, I tend to give them a lot more animal traits where possible, as I usually find them most interesting to work with.

Runescape was an early inspiration for my love of knights and fantasy weapon/armour design, and that definitely hasn’t changed either! I’m glad that my ability to draw humans has increased enough that I can actually draw proper armour on them now lol

Despite how prominent my star aesthetic is now (primarily influenced by Kirby), that actually wasn’t something that would appear in my art as a significant motif/influence until later in life. Or rather, I’d use it a lot as a kid without really thinking about it, as a lot of general fantasy stuff uses that aesthetic too, but I wasn’t consciously aware of my love for it until much later, and thus I lean into it a lot more nowadays. The influence was there from the start, but I guess the sleeper agent in my brain took a bit to kick in lol

Honestly, I carry the vast majority of my interests from childhood into my current art, so this list is far from exhaustive! Not to get too philosophical here, but I think I primarily use my art to maintain the connection to those things, as they still bring me the same or similar joy as they did in the past, only now I have the proper skills to actually make those ideas real. I think child me would freak out if she saw what I can do now, so it’s a great feeling :)

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what?

The short answer is “almost anything”, as I usually just have my unorganized YouTube playlist going when I need to work for a while, which I’ve periodically added stuff to over the years whenever I stumble across a new track I like. My taste in music is so varied that it’s incredibly hard to explain, though generally I tend to favour upbeat/fast tracks while working, keeps that dopamine flowing, you know? Anything from EDM to 90s/00s pop to power metal to electroswing to VGM, whatever gets the gears turning in the moment!

That said though, I’m in the process of curating more specific playlists for specific moods or if I’m drawing a particular type of sequence or scene (like a battle music playlist when drawing two characters fighting, stuff like that). I do this for when I’m writing stuff too, as I’m currently in the process of refining my workflow for comics and such, so hopefully that’ll be helpful for getting into the mindset for each of those different scenes later on. I find that I can't usually focus on art with anything other than music playing in the background though, even stuff I've seen before. Not quite sure why, but especially in the case of cartoons/anime, even if I've seen it a million times, I still like looking at it too much lol

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

Answered here! :)

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with?

Honestly every time I remember that warmups are a thing, I ALWAYS forget to actually do them, almost like a weird object permanence type thing lmao

Maybe if I actually got into a routine I might find them useful, but generally I find just drawing circles and lines to be too boring as a warmup. Not by deliberate choice really, as I’m sure they’d actually be helpful with consistent use, but really I just kind of... start until something happens I guess? My methods are mine, sure, but I wouldn't call them efficient necessarily. Either I get into the groove with what I’m drawing or I don’t, and then I decide if I keep pushing through or I switch to something else, especially if I'm working a specific character design/concept. The way that I refine the art for my character sheets involves gradually erasing/redrawing the same sketch until it’s essentially cleaned into line art (I find it keeps more of the life of the drawing that way), so I’m used to this kind of approach when starting my art in general. If I have to doodle something first to start, it’ll usually be a head of some kind of dragon or other animal.

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated?

Oooh… that’s a tough one! It’s hard to determine if art you post gets what you feel to be the amount of attention it deserves, as so many factors like post time, subject matter, and luck can determine how many people see it and/or interact with it. I guess my logo design stuff in general is kind of underrated? In the sense that I don’t think there are a lot of people out there that specifically nerd out when they see it like I do. Or at least, I haven’t come across many people that do so far! I understand why of course, characters and such are always going to have a far more universal appeal, and character design will always be my main forte, I just really love logo designs too, as I feel they can have a certain “character” of their own when done right. [insert the "graphic design is my passion" meme here but like, unironically] Here’s one of my most recent logo designs that I’m especially proud of :)

It's posted here if you'd like to reblog it independent of this post :3c

#thank you for the asks! :D #twixremix #asks #long post