#'mt favourite version of you is the version that is the complete opposite of you'

[aphantimes]

i really really really really want sonic prime to just be confirmed to be its own thing bc i can't help but constantly think "wtf this makes no sense this is not how sonic acts this is not game sonic what"

pls just let it be its own thing i would enjoy it way more like that. i don't mind this sonic he's fun but no he definitely is not game sonic he's a different character

[adrianalvas]

Podcast 188: Figure Section [aufnahme + wiedergabe] [ +Interview]

Figure Section arose from the meeting of Austrian-French musician and actress Olivia Carrère - aka Olive - and Belgian artist and producer Yannick Franck (RAUM, Orphan Swords, Mt Gemini), who first crossed paths on a theatre stage in Brussels.

Although founded on an acknowledgement of these styles, their execution is experimental, idiosyncratic and entirely modern in spirit, guided by an intent to revise their influences and an approach shaped by romanticism and a surreal, Dadaistic sense of humour. The recurrent themes of the project address friendship, love, loss, existential angst, survival, irony, degeneration, queer culture, non-conformity and ‘the expiation of tensions through modern day rituals’.

The duo’s first single ‘Teutonic Knights’ was hailed by The Brvtalist as an illustration of ”infectious wave [music] with an eerie atmosphere and frigid vocals”, a track that subsequently generated widespread acclaim. In October their debut EP was released on the cult Berlin based label run by Phillip Strobel, aufnahme + wiedergabe.

TF: What motivates you to create Figure Section?

O: My collaboration with Yannick is an intersection between a strong friendship and similar interests and tastes in music. What’s more, the collaboration between us is really complementary in the creative process and allows us to explore new musical playgrounds which neither of us would probably reach if we were working separately.

Y: There are certain musical realms I wanted to explore for a long time whilst doing very different projects (Orphan Swords, RAUM, Y.E.R.M.O.), and since we met and started to experiment together, we dreamed of having a proper duo. It took time but here we are, I am very glad the project exists and I couldn’t dream of a better companion to do it with.

TF: Tell us something about you. What’s your background? Where did you studied and who influenced you to explore musical processes?

O: My background is rather diverse, and it took me a long time to discover how intimate I was with music as a listener, but also as a composer. I come from a theatrical background. I trained as an actress, though I started my studies with a degree in communication – specifically in socio-cultural animation - knowing that I would change path after obtaining it. It’s quite funny to see how tortuous life can be before finding your way through and beyond all these experiences. When I started as an actress ten years ago, something was missing in my professional contribution. I was desperately looking for some creative language that I could develop on my own. I was already familiar with singing since my childhood, so I started learning the basics of music theory online, and quickly I realized that I wanted to compose songs, and to find the easiest way of recording them without any external help. I got my hands on a keyboard and software and started composing, singing and producing at home. It was more a secret process for a few years, until I created a solo piece in the National Theatre of Belgium, which involved performing some of my compositions. This was a fundamental step where I learned that, with the music, I could be really free in the writing and performing process.

Y: I studied painting, but it quickly became clear that music was a territory worth exploring and one that I had to invest my time and energy into. Since I was pretty disgusted by the blatant materialism and the general mindset of the art world; the galleries, and a lot of the attitudes adopted by other artists (competitiveness, individualism, tendency to follow an art world, scale version of the Star System), I found there would be more freedom making music. People attend a concert to have an experience. Anyhow I love art, all sorts of art and my friends are usually creative people. Also, there have never been any boundaries for me, you can build sonic sculptures or paint rhythms, you can conceive a concert as a performance, you can do whatever you want. I recently moderated a panel at BOZAR about the underground art scene in New York in the 80’s, in East Village in particular. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dany Johnson (she was a resident DJ at Club 57 and later at Paradise Garage), Leonard Abrams (he ran the fabulous magazine The East Village Eye) and Gil Vasquez (DJ and president of the Keith Haring Foundation) and what struck me was the fact that at that particular moment in that scene you had zero boundaries between visual art, music, dance, performance… Klaus Nomi shared the bill with Ann Magnuson and John Sex and Haring curated shows and painted almost 24/7 while listening to music. It was all about energy. It’s academicism and speculation (art as a luxury product) that kills such energies (and eventually did in that case) Two different problems, both normative and alien to any creative essence. I stumbled upon a Serge Daney quote lately: ‘Academicism is the aesthetics of nihilism.’ And I agree with that, once you “do things because that’s the way they’re done”, reproduce them in blind fidelity and separate, classify, and annihilate boundary breaking forces, you start producing numb, meaningless objects. In this case a painting has to go from a gallery to a living room or a collection where it belongs. Is it a nice base material for speculation or a good way to seem educated and exhibit your taste as a buyer, to impress others? Hell no…a painting is rather an expression of life itself, a celebration, an exhibition of the worlds revolting features, its horrors, its injustice, its sadness, qualities and themes such as these…in every case it is an essential, vital gesture. Otherwise why even take a look at it? Music should be just the same.

TF: Do you spend all your time for your musical activity or do you have another job?

O: Yes, I do now. The musical activity has taken the vast majority of my time even though I’m still performing as a theatre actress, but that part of my professional activity is becoming more and more scarce. I’ve been recently offered to create music for theatre. So, my work today is divided between Figure Section, and other emerging projects for which I compose and produce for other artists, and my work as a music composer for the theatre. Maybe one day I will come back to the stage with a performance in which I’ll be the actress as well as the musician. I do keep an eye on that prospect even though it’s not the priority for the moment.

Y: I teach sound in cinema. We analyze movies and their soundtracks most of the time. It is a very interesting way to make a living next to music making.

TF: How is your live set up going to be? Any particular equipment? What’s your favourite track to play live and why?

O: We are working on the simplest and most efficient way of touring. So, our set is based on live keyboard playing, voice mixing, and equalizing the tracks live. So, there’s no particular equipment at the moment.

Spectral Dance, is one of my favourites to play live. It’s a more nostalgic synthpop song that offers a vast sense of space for the vocals and the keyboard parts. I just love its simplicity, almost naïveté, contrasted by lyrics about pernicious ghosts from the past that try to keep us from moving forward.

Y: There is a lot of different processes and ideas colliding and merging in Figure Section. It is always quite challenging for us to write a new song and perform it on stage. I think my favourite live song is currently Disfigured Section. We both sing on that one and I love that. Lyrics and vibe wise it’s sort of a Neo Dada track, maybe a tad surrealistic too, from apparent nonsense a lot of sense can emerge from the lyrics. Also, it is nervous, rough, noisy, kind of pissed off. At the same time desperate and full of energy. A union of opposites.

TF: What new hardwares did you apply to make 'Spectre' LP? Do you have a particular method while working in the studio?

O: There’s no new hardware utilized, but we have a more precise choice of instruments these days as well as a particular approach in the production process. Yannick and I work just as well separately as together in the studio. It just helps us to be more efficient because of our very different schedules. We both share online a musical file filled with musical ideas, loops, drums and lyrics. We are both the composers and mixers of the songs, but Yannick is more the writer and the producer and I’m more the arranger and singer. I think that we have now reached the perfect balance in the creative process, which is almost symbiotic.

Y: Yes, it is super interesting because I never know where Olive is going to take a song to when she starts working on it with her great skills and sensibility. What I know is that great stuff will eventually happen, leading to things that will stimulate us and give us even more ideas.

TF: How do you compose this tracks? Do you treat them like musical narratives or more like sound sculptures or images?

O: It really depends on the material. Sometimes Yannick comes with a very complete composition and I add the keyboard and voice arrangements, sometimes I come with a proposition and he completes it. Our strongest asset as a duo is that we started music completely differently, Yannick as an electronic experimentalist and performer, and I as a pop songwriter and singer. So, what we do is bring these assets together in our songs. I think the first track of the Spectre release is the perfect example of that symbiosis. This is what we aim for.

Y: Yes, it is a creative adventure, we have no such thing as a clearly established routine, it’s more laboratory like. It is not “experimental music” but the way it is done is not conventional either.

TF: Any movie, documentary, album (not electronic music) that you would like to share with our readers?

O: We are big fans of horror, thrillers and sci-fi. The last movie that left me fascinated as well as horrified is Midsommar by Ari Aster. I loved that movie because its director knows how to subtly inject weird elements of comedy that make you feel uncomfortable, as well as conveying an ice-cold intrigue about ancient pagan practices and rituals. Loved it.

Y: +1 for Midsommar. I loved that the movie never seems to bring any judgment about the neo-pagan community it depicts, it is just utterly different from what we know but it seems to make sense no matter how shocking it can be. It gives us a break from the ethnocentric attitude of many North Americans and from the extreme arrogance of modern western civilizations, which seem to be absolutely convinced of their superiority to any previous or different civilizations. Also, the visual effects are amazing. Der Goldener Handschuh (The Golden Glove) was quite a great movie too. Being utterly disgusted by this ugly, messy, desperate serial killer’s gruesome murders without being able to restrain myself from laughing was for sure a wild experience. And it really triggers thoughts afterwards. Moral thoughts especially. I found it pretty strong. A non-electronic album: Lux perpetua by Ensemble Organum, which is a very particular version of the Requiem by Anthonius de Divitis. It is such a beautiful requiem and such an incredible interpretation; it even features throat singing which is very unusual in the context of European polyphonic reinterpretations. 15th century art tends to focus a lot on death and mortality. And as Regis Debray said in his 1992 book The Life and Death of Images: “Where there is death there’s hope, aesthetically speaking.”

TF: What are the forthcoming projects?

O: Wrapping up our debut LP.

Y: We are also planning tours, confirmed dates are in Israel and the US so far but more will be announced later on. It would be fabulous to come play in Mexico too!

source https://www.tforgotten.org/single-post/Podcast-188-Figure-Section-aufnahme-wiedergabe-Interview

[parttimestorier]

Some Thoughts on Muv-Luv Alternative

I recently finished reading Muv-Luv Alternative, the highest rated visual novel on VNDB and one I’d been awaiting the official release of for quite some time. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and it was a mostly satisfying conclusion to a unique and fun trilogy. However, there were a few elements that held it back from becoming an all-time favourite for me, such as some characters I wished had played a more important role in the plot. I’d be really interested to know if anyone else felt the same way as I did, so feel free to comment or message me with your opinions, and I hope you enjoy my review. (And sorry to those who haven’t read it, but it’s pretty much all huge spoilers.)

The Spoiler Police have their eye on you.

One of the great things about Muv-Luv Alternative is how much it builds on the plot of the previous two parts. After the end of Muv-Luv Unlimited, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the third installment, but it was a pleasant surprise to see Takeru sent back in time to deal with some of the events of Unlimited again, using the skills and knowledge he gained the first time around. I also really enjoyed seeing him return to the universe of Muv-Luv Extra, and seeing the inclusion of multiple difference romance routes in Extra and Unlimited become relevant to the plot. I always appreciate it when VNs take a convention of the genre the readers probably haven’t thought twice about, and then subvert your expectations by actually providing an explanation for it and making it an important part of the story.

So it’s Sumika’s fault I had to skip through Unlimited a bunch of times and read through several very slightly different endings to unlock all the CGs, is it?

I also really liked the characterization of Yuuko. Hearing about some of the political conflicts behind the war against the BETA added an extra layer of meaning to everything going on, and the moral complexity of a lot of her actions makes her a fascinating character. As I was reading the later parts of the story, I thought a lot about her choice to release some BETA during a training exercise, leading to the death of Marimo and several other soldiers. I wondered if she was really right that Takeru and his friends needed to be unexpectedly thrust into combat like that in order to toughen up before the real battles, and if the tragedy it caused was still worth it for the greater good. And whether she was right about that or not, would I be able to forgive her if I was in Takeru’s position? One of the most emotional moments of the story for me was when after thinking about that so much, I saw her holding a picture of Marimo while the soldiers were leaving for the Kashgar hive. I was really touched by that brief moment of evidence that at least part of her cold and detached personality was only an act, and that she probably was just as sad as everyone else about the loss of her friend, even if she also believed the sacrifice was necessary.

She even went to the trouble of finding the last surviving Kinko’s in the war-torn world to get the picture printed out and framed.

One thing I had somewhat mixed feelings about was the way the story handled the secondary characters in Takeru’s squad. I got pretty attached to some of them as they trained together and discussed their histories and motivations for fighting, and at first I thought I’d be writing in this review that Alternative did a great job of bringing new and interesting characters into the story. But I was pretty disappointed that they all either died or suffered serious injury before the final battle. It made me feel like they had just been glorified redshirts, there to demonstrate how much danger the protagonists were theoretically in, while saving the higher impact deaths for the end. I guess there is a bit of an in-universe explanation about the main characters living longer because they have “better causality” or something, but I think that’s still mostly an excuse to have the dramatic but slightly cheesy ending of Takeru and the main love interest girls on the final mission together without anyone less important getting in the way. I think I would have preferred to see some other characters, like Munakata, accompany them on that journey as well.

And tragically, Isumi’s Valkyries never became a yuritopia.

I also wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the sexual content. I do actually think the all-ages version handled the rape scene really well. I gather that it was pretty much just pornographic in the original, but with those explicit images replaced, what’s left is an effectively disturbing explanation for Sumika’s trauma, and a demonstration of exactly what a terrible threat the BETA are to humanity. But the subsequent consensual sex scene between Sumika and Takeru was pretty uncomfortable for me. I know that Sumika loved Takeru, and that she had been working on overcoming the trauma for a while by that point, and also there’s some other excuse about how sex is somehow important for how her robot brain works, but there’s still something about the quick transition from “Here’s a vision of how I was horrifically raped” to “Anyway, let’s have sex now” that’s just really unpleasant. It might have been better if the all-ages version made some slight changes to the plot to allow for cutting that scene completely, as it really feels like it’s just thrown in because of the expectation that VNs will have h-scenes rather than for any other reason.

And I really don’t need to hear any more about those details, thanks.

There were also a couple other weakness of the plot which brought down my overall opinion of it. For one thing, Takeru’s character development starts to get extremely heavy-handed. At some points, I felt like the whole plot was just a cycle of Takeru doing something wrong, then having several flashbacks to times when people said inspiring things to him, and then vowing to never do that bad thing again and going around telling all his friends what he learned and what a better person he is now. The flashbacks especially just got excessive. Some of them might have been an accurate representation of Takeru’s PTSD, and others were relevant to the whole plot about him gradually regaining memories from previous timelines, but I swear at least 75% of them were just making me reread some dialogue I already read an hour ago for no real reason. By the end I was ready to hurl my laptop across the room if I heard Marimo’s dying speech or anything about that old woman on Mt. Tengen one more time.

When you just want the plot to progress, but your friend won’t stop having flashbacks to the conversation you had yesterday.

Finally, there was the issue of Yoroi Mikoto. Ever since the female version of Mikoto was introduced in Unlimited, I wondered what her deal was. Why did she have a different gender in different worlds when no one else did? I came up with all kinds of half-baked theories about how one or the other version of Mikoto had some reason to be disguised as the opposite gender, or about how Mikoto was actually transgender but hadn’t come out yet in one of the worlds. Her father showing up in Alternative and saying something like, “Take care of my son—I mean, daughter,” just cemented my conviction that this was all important to the plot and would eventually be explained. But it just . . . isn’t. Even after finishing my first playthrough of the game I was convinced I must have missed something. I went back to make different choices and skip through—which took forever since some of the videos are unskippable—just to unlock Mikoto’s farewell letter and find out that it’s the same as the others, with none of the revelations I was desperately hoping it might include. I guess maybe her father’s slip-up had something to do with the whole causality conductor thing also giving other people around Takeru memories of other worlds. And I guess Mikoto is a girl in the BETA universe when she was a boy in Takeru’s original world, and is the only person we ever see change genders between worlds, because . . . she just is? It was just to set up some jokes in Unlimited about Takeru being uncomfortable with his bro turning into a hot chick, maybe? I think the writers could have actually done something really interesting with Mikoto, but instead there’s this complete lack of closure that was the most disappointing thing about the series for me personally.

“That’s . . . that’s it? That’s adorable, but that’s it?” - me realizing there’s no post-credits scene

I’m still really glad I read Muv-Luv Alternative—it was a solid conclusion to the trilogy, and I really enjoyed it overall. But after hearing it hyped up so much as one of the best VNs  ever, it was a little bit anticlimactic. I think Mikoto and some of the secondary characters had a lot of unfulfilled potential, and I could have done without all the flashbacks and the robot sex scene. I’d still definitely recommend the trilogy for its interesting twists, fun take on alternate universes, and moments of emotional resonance, but there are other VNs I would personally give a higher rating. Now, a VN entirely about Yuuko and her adventures in apocalyptic politics and inter-dimensional travel—that’s something I would read the hell out of.

[queer-cosette]

My Production exam was more than a year ago so time to remember my favourite bits of it

Basically we created a 45 minute showcase with different scenes, songs and dances from various musicals and since Musical Theatre students (different to Musical Theatre Kids) are the goddamn funniest people on the planet I’ve decided to make a list

Our opening number was ‘Babes In Arms’ from the musical of the same name. Tol Goblin Friend was playing Val and method acted as the director until our actual dance captain Alyssa threatened to box-step his nuts out of existence.

During the dress rehearsal his opposite in Babes In Arms actually did accidentally kick him in the nuts. His girlfriend nearly pissed herself laughing watching.

Nah for real props to Tol Goblin Friend he was a main character in 4 different scenes. Everyone else was only in one scene.

our actual director told me my Southern accent sounded like I was doing an impression of a warbler through a fuzzy guitar amp the first time he heard it in the rehearsal space

my opposite, Abby, is the most amazing comedy actor I’ve ever met. She has dwarfism and is currently the only dwarf in the UK with an MT qualification. Anyway her version of Let Me Entertain You is the only valid version. Also when she sang the line ‘And I’ll happily give you away!’ she fucking WAVED and everyone completely lost it.

I learned how to do a heel click without actually making noise specifically for ‘If Momma Was Married’. I also learned the Gypsy Strip routine and slut-dropped to ‘You Gotta Get A Gimmick’ at the afterparty but that was less for the production and more for laughs.

But for real I am a pro-procrastinator. I had the whole of Christmas Break to research the plot of Gypsy and wound up researching it five minutes before I was meant to present my research. The director commended me for my ‘excellent understanding of the themes’.

‘I Want It All’ from Baby was incredible. ‘Pam’ was hilarious. ‘Lizzie’ can fucking belt like mad. ‘Arlene’ as a joke put one foot up on a chair while singing ‘I’ll be a mother who is also a mutha’ and we liked it so much she ended up including it in the actual performance. Absolute highlight.

Sixteen Going On Seventeen? Brilliant. TGF’s second performance. He got slagged for various things in rehearsal, such as a questionable German accent and miming turning a light on (to which the director told him ‘never do that again’). Ironically, he was the one who was sixteen going on seventeen while his opposite Alyssa was seventeen going on eighteen.

Hairspray was the nightmare routine of the show. Ankles were broken. Shoulders were dislocated. Friendships were lost over that goddamn routine.

The next scene was from Guys And Dolls and resulted in probably the most memes, based entirely on ‘Adelaide’s Janice Hosenstein accent. And also her claw fingers while singing ‘Marry The Man Today’. If you’re not nice to your classmates in MT school, be prepared for everyone to make fun of everything you do.

But for real it was a very comedic piece aside from Oh-My-God-Chandler-Bing-Claw-Fingers McGinty. “Have a baby!” “Have two!” “Six! “Nine!” “STOP!” Comedy gold.

Me And My Girl was adorable. TGF’s third piece involved tap-dancing, cockney accents, and a very cute kiss at the end. But while rehearsing the cockney accents TGF yelled ‘it’s alright Sal, you can come in now!’ but ended up sounding like a geezer who smoked 50 a day. He also did an unintentionally grand jeté across the stage at one point. This, understandably, was cut from the production.

WITCHES TIME. Oh my god I LOVE The Witches Of Eastwick SO much. Eastwick Knows was wicked. ‘Felicia’ was hilarious. But when the Witches sang those few bars of ‘Look At Me’ in the middle of the number? I actually wanted to cry. But I couldn’t because I was frozen in a tableau.

MAKE HIM MINE. The scene preceding it definitely got the most laughs. ‘No way. Look at her. Jennifer Gabriel is a virgin.’ ‘Yeah, I think her mother is too.’ ‘Gee, do you really think so?’ *cue FFS SUKIE looks*

But the actual song? we were all in tears. Three Part Harmonies for the win.

Sweet Charity was hilarious. I have since realised, however, that the reason ‘Nickie’ and ‘Helene’ were so good at ragging on ‘Charity’ was because the actresses actually hated each other. Still their dancing in ‘There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This’ was amazing - and entirely self-choreographed.

They actually did a strip routine into the start of Hot Honey Rag. Unfortunately, Charity’s skirt landed on her head when she whipped it over her shoulder. It was on film.

Hot Honey Rag, btw? best dance routine ever. So fun. Can be done in three different sets of shoes, so that’s how you know it’s awesome. I can remember every move in order, to the point where I am teaching it to my dance class.

We also wound up doing an impromptu version of ‘Cell Block Tango’ before the audience came in. I was Annie. TGF, as the only dude in the class, had to be the victim every single time. It was also during this pre-show that the Gypsy Strip (see above) happened.

But back to the show. We finish Hot Honey Rag. I snap my leotard back into place, desperately regretting foregoing a bra as I have built up kinetic energy in my tits from the absolute pendulum swinging they’ve got involved in. We blow kisses and run back offstage.

Then. Fuck.

Parade.

TGF’s fourth and final lead. He was an incredible Leo. His opposite, ‘Lucille’, was also amazing. Their scene was so utterly charged with emotion.

Then the second most emotional song of the show - ‘All The Wasted Time’. Fuck Me UP they’ve finally stopped taking each other for granted bUT THEY KNOW THEY’LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN

except TGF’s voice fucking cRACKED DURING THE CHORUS. THIS WAS THE VERSION WE GOT ON VIDEO, NATURALLY

but he recovered amazingly and their harmonising was gorgeous at the end

AND THEN HE BELTED THE LAST LINE

THEY HUG

AND LEO WALKS TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE, SLIPPING OUT OF HER ARMS AND STANDING MOTIONLESS

AND SHE SINGS THE FINALE AND WE ALL KNOW HE’S FUCKING DEAD

AND THEN THE LIGHTS COME UP AND THE ENTIRE CAST SINGS ‘THE OLD RED HILLS OF HOME’ BUT A CAPELLA

AND FUCK

WE WERE ALL CRYING EVERY TIME

AND FINALLY THERE’S A BLACKOUT

THE LIGHTS COME UP AND WE BOW IN SILENCE BEFORE APPLAUDING SIMON THE PIANIST

UGH I’M EMOTIONAL NOW

[ianmrid]

...And Find Your Destiny...

Pokémon Colosseum: Completed! (in Japanese, no less!)

Being the first of these games on the GameCube, the game is shorter than Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness - and playing it through in Japanese didn’t really encourage me to explore every nook and cranny or talk to every NPC. Instead I pretty much just played through the main story, following the helpful English version Let’s Play on Youtube and wrapped it up in 42 hours and 48 minutes.

This game also doesn’t really have a Pokédex, but I managed to catch and purify 48 out of 48 shadow pokémon. I also did a brief restart of Leaf Green to pick up a Bulbasaur and then transferred everyone I needed over to Emerald. A bit of leveling up later, and my Pokédex has been boosted to 384 / 386!

For some reason, Pokémon Colosseum focuses pretty much entirely on Johto pokémon, which gave me a chance to use several from that region who missed out on my Gold, Silver, and Crystal teams. Also, since I can’t read Japanese this team isn’t nicknamed, but instead retains the Japanese name for that pokémon.

フォレトス (Foretos) the Forretress: After the success of using a Claydol with Explosion on my XD team, I wanted to repeat the trick here and Forretress was a perfect candidate for this role. With a whopping 10 resistances and 1 immunity, I would always send her out first as a bulky support pokémon to try to get my screens up; Reflect and Light Screen which help increase the whole team’s resistance to physical and special attacks respectively. With any turns I had left I could then liberally spread Toxic to any tricky pokémon on the opponents team, before finally using Explosion to dish out a large amount of damage as my other ‘mon used the ever-present Protect. Simple but effective! This was only really stymied as a tactic when the opposition had a Fire-type attacks which Forrestress is quad-weak to. I could have run Protect myself in order to bait out any Fire-type attacks - but I decided screens plus poison were more useful to me. This makes Forretress one of my only doubles pokémon not to run Protect!

カポエラー (Kapoerer) the Hitmontop: Not for the last time in this list, you will see how the restricted number of pokémon in this game influenced my team. I have never been a huge fan of the Hitmon-family of pokémon, which Hitmontop probably being my least favourite. But I wanted a Fighting-type and with only four options available, Hitmontop was included as it was the only one I hadn’t already used on a previous team. As always, using one in a team meant that they grew on me and I like the Japanese name - Kapoerer - derived from the Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that involves acrobatic moves, including hands on the ground and inverted kicks. Unfortunately, Hitmontop has a pretty poor move-pool so I gave him a couple of Fighting-type STAB moves and then Protect as always. Where he really came in handy though, was his excellent ability: Intimidate. This lowers the Attack stat of your opponents when you bring Hitmontop into battle - and works on both pokémon in a double battle - so by cycling them in and out battle, I was able to drastically reduce the threat from some pretty powerful opponents.

グライガー (Gliger) the Gligar: Another pokémon that I would probably never have bothered with if it wasn’t for the restricted options in Colosseum, Gligar filled the role of Ground-type that can dish out STAB Earthquakes. I had already used the two other options available to me - but Gligar actually had a huge advantage anyway; it is also part Flying-type. This means it is immune to both the oppositions Earthquakes as well as all Electric-type attacks. Very handy! Gligar ended up being pretty fun to use and has some decent coverage moves with the guaranteed hit Dark-type Feint Attack and the Poison-type Sludge Bomb. It also synced well with Mantine - as Gligar could bait Ice-type attacks, which Mantine could switch into due it’s crazy special offence, and Mantine could bait Electric-type attacks which Gligar could switch in an be immune to. This was a great way to keep the enemies focused in one place while the on-field partner dealt out some damage of their own.

マンタイン (Mantain) the Mantine: I absolutely loved using Mantine on this team. As mentioned above he has a fantastic SpDef stat - which was boosted with a Sassy nature. This comes at the cost of speed, but with the ability Swift Swim, which doubles his speed in the rain - this was often not an issue. Aside from Protect which was great to mitigate the quad-weakness to Electric-types, I gave Mantine decent STABs in the Water-type Bubblebeam and the Flying-type Wing Attack. It would be nice to have some slightly more powerful STAB moves available, but they still got the job done. He also had Blizzard, which came in very handy on Mt. Battle. With half of Infin’s team being weak to Ice, Mantine was able to clean house as long as Starmie had already been taken care of. I really regret not giving Mantine more of a go in Gen2 - but I’m glad I finally got to use one, it definitely won’t be the last time!

エンテイ (Entei) the Entei: A couple of surprising entries make up the remainder of my team. I’m not the biggest fan of using Legendary pokémon in my teams but the structure of these games is different and although you encounter them later in the game, it is still a part of the main story when you do. Since Entei was one of the main pokémon I was seeking out in this game and with the some very restricted typing options, it seemed by far the best choice for a Fire-type. It didn’t have much nuance to it - using Sunny Day to boost its own powers and weaken Water-type attacks, then Fire Blast everything in sight - but when you are that good at something, you don’t need nuance! Of course it also had Protect against Earthquake, but Entei proved to be surprisingly resilient, even surviving the odd Earthquake where I couldn’t Protect and firing back. These very solid stats were incredibly useful during the Mt. Battle portion of the game - where it docks you rewards for using Legendaries, but since I just wanted to get to Ho-oh, I didn’t care!

ライコウ (Raikou) the Raikou: Since I was already using its Legendary companion, I also included Raikou for very similar reasons; one of only two Electric-type options available to me, excellent stats for Mt. Battle, and a good opportunity to get one during the story, not in post-game as is more usual. No place for you though, Suicune! Along with Entei, Raikou spearheaded my attack, since the other pokémon on the team were all a little more defensive. Aside from Protect, I gave it both Thunder and Spark for Electric-type STAB. This was because although Thunder is great - and often 100% accurate since the opposition seemed to love setting up the rain - Spark gave me a more accurate option for when i really needed to make sure I would knock out one of the opponents pokémon. For coverage, it learned Crunch - very helpful for getting damage on to Psychic-types since I lacked any Dark-types in this team - and pretty much always went first due to Raikou’s huge Speed stat.

This was another team I loved using - it was fun playing with Legendaries and other pokémon that I normally don’t care for - but the real stars of the show were Forretress and Mantine, two ‘mons who I would definitely include in my Johto Top Ten if I was doing that over again:

The only pokémon I am missing now are the event pokémon, Deoxys and Mew, who are completely unobtainable...or are they? I just stumbled across an interesting video...

[persona-m4a]

Some random info of a few characters from bnha + creator’s insights!!! I cant find the English version of this so here’s the translation from yours truly, youre welcome. But can we just stop for a sec and appreciate bakugou in normal clothes, I can die happy now.

 Midoriya Izuku

Birthday: 7/15

Height: 166cm

Favourite things: Katsudon

Insights:

·      Originally wanted to reuse a character from another short, so the character design is the same. The plan was to make the main character look uninteresting so wanted to draw him with bangs that covered one of his eyes, but then decided not to so he’s back to the initial design. I still think he looks pretty plain.

 Uraraka Ochako

Birthday: 12/27

Height: 156cm

Favourite things: starry sky, Japanese food

Insights:

·       Because she and Izuku interacts a lot, so she has to have a talkative and preppy personality

·       Unexpectedly offensive. This is the proof of you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover

·       Originally Mt. Lady is the female protagonist, but cant think of a way to let her grow as a character plus Uraraka’s character slowly formed, so changes were made.

·       When naming her, first time in my life as a manga artist I thought I might be a genius. Because of the meaning of the words.

 Lida Tenya

Birthday: 8/22

Height: 179cm

Favourtie things: studying, beef stew

Insights:

·       The character was created near the end of the meetings. His growth as a character is completely opposite to what I imagined, even I was surprised. I might enjoy drawing him the most. Lida’s quirk was planned to be very “business like”, after some thought, his quirk became what it is today.

 Bakugou Katsuki

Birthday: 4/20

Height: 172cm

Favourite things: anything spicy, mountain climbing

Insights:

·       Originally designed to be a prodigy, but very ignorant/innocent in terms of his people skills, the kind of character that unintentionally offends others. But this makes the story line very uninteresting. After giving him an explosive, angry personality, he can now be easily hated.

         (speech bubble) “this is so easy, anyone can do it!!”

         Original design. Isn’t he annoying?

 All Might

Birthday: 6/20

Height: 220cm

Favourite things: Yakusugi (Japanese Cedar), movies

Insights:

·       It takes 1-2 pencils to draw him every time he goes into super mode, he is burning my money.

·       Although I thought his original design was already really cool! But editors in meetigns said “No one would look up to this kind of old man” “Why don’t you try making him more handsome”. Other artist friends also said “He looks like a happy old man”, so I tried to change his design. Thank you for all your comments, now I put more thoughts into my drawings.

Side note:

·       When he’s in normal mode, his eyes are black from the shadows of his sunken eyes because he’s too skinny, but his pupil still shine with the pride of being the “symbol of peace”.

             Wanted to show that while he is in super mode, you can still see the same person from his eyes.

             Not skilled enough to represent it well. Sorry.

 Aizawa Shyouta

Birthday: 11/8

Height: 183cm

Favourite things: cats

Insights:

·       calm and logical, but action-taking kind of person

This is what a person would look like when they constantly get bogged down by the facts and logics. But this is only a sketch of him in those occasions when you don’t have to mind how you look anyways.

Side note:

·       Apperently there’s nothing in his room

 Aaaaand that’s everything. Pls excuse some of my clunky wording, new to translating plus I’m bad at switching between languages. Hope you still get an idea of what’s going on. I find Bakugou’s section the funniest, and yes, it is canon that Aizawa sensei likes cat.