#I remember the very first time I played bw

[spotted-owl-sketches]

Ch8: [first][prev][next]

[jadeazora]

Kinda disappointed we didn't get a character bio for these guys from the leaks. (Or ANY of the Plasma characters from what I've seen, like I really want to know further into N's, Colress's, and Ghetsis's backgrounds. Ghetsis coming across N and the Shadow Triad when they needed his help just always felt so suspicious to me knowing how manipulative Ghetsis is.)

But I remember being very big into the theory that the Shadow Triad were the Striaton Bros, especially since there's a bit of resemblance in the early concept art with the hairstyles (one having hair over the same eye as Cress, one having swept-back bangs like Cilan, and one having messier hair, like Chili), and in the manga, they were hard-baiting us with the Triad's masks resembling the elemental monkeys and sharing type specialties with the Trio.

Mostly for the potential in the anime. For some reason, Cilan kinda gave me shady vibes and could low-key be a bit of a jerk sometimes (recent example, but bruh, this was unwarranted lmao), but I just find the resulting inner conflict that would occur very fun to play with, between working for someone you KNOW doesn't really give a damn about you beyond how useful you can be to them but still being loyal to them vs. actually finding friends, and feeling like a person for the first time in your life and actually enjoying yourself, despite knowing you'll have to betray them later and beginning to dread that coming moment more and more.

(Obviously, it's been debunked again and again, but I was really hoping for it to be true when BW was still ongoing. I even had a bit of an AU going where Ash had won an early battle with N--who had overheard Ash having a discussion with Iris about having seen Zekrom--, and Ghetsis sent Cilan to keep tabs on Ash after hearing about this and his strong connection with Pokemon, with the other two brothers keeping tabs on the other Unovan Gym Leaders in the meantime. I lost all my art that I drew for it tho 😅 I was so excited for Plasma coming to the anime, but then plans understandably changed with the earthquake and we didn't see Plasma for, like, two years after that. B2W2 had shown a flashback of the Triad and the Triplets together, people were calling bullshit and believing they were lying, but then the manga had the two trios fighting each other, and then they were just never adapted into the anime. Neat fact tho, in the dub B2W2 animated trailer, the Triad member that speaks shares the same VA as Cilan, Jason Griffith.)

[ridiculoustrainsofthought]

So I came up with this a while back and wasn't sure if anyone else had brought it up. But I recently checked out The Mountains of Madness from the library, and remembered bringing this up with my friends a few years back and just felt like "preserving" it. This is going to sound crazy, but it's fun to think about, so hear me out:

Have you heard of a story called The King in Yellow?

I got to looking at the source material and I'm stunned to think it may have been quite an influence on the plot of Pokemon Black and White. But I can't confirm anything since I haven't seen it mentioned as a reference anywhere in B&W. 

More specifically The King in Yellow is a series of short stories where only the first four seem to be connected to the title. But there's some clear potential parallels with the first story The Repairer of Reputations, which is what I'll focus on.

So first off, the story's main character is a man named Hildred which likely has the same basis as Hilda and Hilbert would derive their names from.

Except plot wise he'd actually be more like N

Hildred Castaigne is an unreliable narrator living in a “futuristic New York City” of 1920 who explains at the beginning that he used to be carefree and aimless but there was an accident where he got attacked and fell off his horse which gave him a blow to the head. After that he was taken into an asylum where he underwent a complete personality change, pouring over old documents and literature, basically a recluse, but he gained a strong sense of ambition as he never had before! (Sounds a bit familiar of another extreme recluse who came out somewhat brainwashed in his conviction, right?) This is potentially brought on after reading a play called The King in Yellow which the book we read gets its name from.

We don't get much info about the play itself except "references" to it about Carcosa, an otherworldly kingdom that fell into decay and mentions several places connected by lakes. (I'm not sure if they're all cities within the kingdom or neighboring kingdoms.) Supposedly the first act starts as a simple medieval drama but the second act is left very vague except that it "reveals irresistible truths" which drive the reader into madness.

With that out of the way, here's where things get... Interesting?

Out of the asylum, Hildred, at some point before the story takes place, has ended up in the snares of a "Mr. Wilde"; an "eccentric" deformed man with a mutilated arm and face (the story makes note of this at several points) who has an equally twisted delight in abusing his cat until she attacks him and we get the foreshadow that she’s going to kill him at this rate. (I'm sure some of Ghetsis' would love the chance.)

Mr. Wilde may be crazy but he's said to be very smart. As the title "Repairer of Reputation" he gained wealth and power through blackmailing many powerful men and subtly raising an army of over ten thousand under a cult following by use of The King in Yellow and "The Yellow Sign" the king wears. Together they plan to overthrow the US government and begin The Imperial Dynasty of America under their new king Hildred! (Whether Wilde has an army or not is still debatable. Heck even how much influence he has is debatable since we only have Hildred's word to go by. Obviously in Pokemon the answer is yes)

Which is curious since I know a lot of people joked about with BW like... What's this whole deal with kings and the castle ruins? America never had a king.

Ah, but then the parallels come up when Hildred is oh so ready to earn his crown but Wilde tells him there's a problem. His cousin, Louis, is also in line for the throne as they're both descendents from the ancient kingdom of Hyades. And while Hildred thinks himself to be the rightful heir of The Last King, Wilde tells him that he needs to do something about his cousin first and is given a long knife.

But Hildred doesn't want to fight Louis, and the two meet several times through the story over the course of several weeks (months?). 

Now up to this point Louis had kinda been in Hilda / Hilbert’s position. At first they seem friendly with each other with Louis being concerned but not intervening with Hildred's ties to Wilde. But over time we see Hildred growing more irritated by Louis' sweet and sometimes boyish nature as he tries to humor him in his delusions even after learning about the whole kingship thing. 

Eventually Hildred finally snaps. But instead of killing Louis, he confronts his cousin where he does finally reveal to him about being the King and shows him all the pages of The Imperial Dynasty records to reveal to him what's going on and demand instead that his cousin should abdicate his right to the throne and go into exile! Hildred then ends up running back to Wilde's place and taking his crown and cloak in victory as he thinks he'll finally be king! ...Except Wilde ends up dying on him (finally pushed the cat too far and she murdered him.) Hildred realizes that without Wilde and his conspiracy, he personally doesn't have the means to take over. He has no connection to this “army”, he cannot read the ledger of "powerful men" to manipulate. Without Wilde, he is NOTHING. This fact suddenly has him spiralling into a full on mental breakdown before the police show up with Louis and end up taking Hildred away and we learn later he ended up back in the asylum. (Which is kind of what happens with Ghetsis in the end, he lost the one person holding his plot together, goes into a fit of madness, and albeit much later is one of the few Evil Leaders to actually get arrested.)

-Cough- 

So BW doesn't really follow the plot but the point is, I think there’s actually several elements that could be derived from this specific story. The young man brainwashed and convinced he’s going to become king of a perfect society that was lost ages ago, led on by an even more deranged man who appears to have been mangled by the creatures he tortures with delight and who has been making all of the preparations for a full scale government takeover by amassing an army in the shadows. There’s a fight for the throne when it turns out the prophecy speaks of two heirs that need to fight each other, note the second “heir” is completely oblivious to this and just gets dragged into the lunacy more and more as they try to foil the plans of this takeover. And while it doesn’t induce madness automatically, Plasma believes that in order to get people to fall in line, the king merely needs to show the public that they’ve obtained the sacred Dragon which gives them authority, while in this case it’s said that all those who see The Yellow Sign have no choice but to bow down to them. 

It’s just… I’m probably grasping at straws, but the parallels I see just have me fascinated.

At least in the end of BW, Ghetsis is the one to have the full out melt down upon realizing without his key to controlling the masses he's nothing instead of N like Hildred did. Not to say N doesn’t have his own lingering issues from all this, but unfortunately Hildred ended up dying in the asylum where I’m sure Louis wished (after offering several times) he could have helped him. At least Hilbert / Hilda may stand a chance.

[happy-tori-friends]

TWITTER MUSINGS - AGAIN

trying to cut back on twt and maybe move musings to here and to bsky... this features one stupid post from bsky too

i need to start posting notices when i update like ppl wanted kjfdjkdfjkf this happened with bw too, i did it and then i started to forget.

some of these may have been confessed to treetownconfessions at the same time. hi i'm nemmy.

Winter

lifty and shifty push their beds together and huddle for warmth during the nights when the heat in their apartment doesnt work. it doesnt help much. when they move in with splendont, they learn that he has a lot of body heat and with the house being heated and them sleeping with one of them on each side of him, their heads on his chest and cuddled close, they have their first comfortable winter night in years. warm. safe. secure. happy.

Sanguine Thoughts

thinking about vampire oneshot 4 halloween and how lifty and shifty eat a lot of meat and makes their blood rich in iron... waht if that makes it extra yummy for splendont + blood drinking seen as an act of intimacy...

i really like vampires.

+ woozy lifty and/or shifty leaning up against splendont after being drinken from, him making them eat afterwards... i have a lot of thoughts...

:)

i wanna write lifty getting comforted and loved by splendont despite all his insecurities and issues.

i would also like to write all that but [REDACTED]

Warrior Cats

my version of lifty and shifty shouldnt have been forced to steal to survive at 11 years old they should have been reading warrior cats like the rest of us autistic kids

lifty and shifty arguing over who gets to be firestar in their warrior cats larping session. shady, watching them, thinks 'who tf is firestar'

they make him read warrior cats to them before bed and one day he says 'yknow boys *i* should be firestar. i'm your dad' and shifty says 'no way, youre too old you can be purdy!' shady, at most 31 (he and jewel had them between 18-20, pretty young): THE OLD GUY?!

in bed that night 'jewel... i'm not as young as i used to be... i'm an elder now...' jewel pats him and says 'its olay honey theyre kids. their perception of being old is different bc theyre young' 'MY BONES ARE ACHING JEWEL... I NEED THE YOUNGINS TO TAKE CARE OF ME AND BRING FOOD AND GET RID OF THE TICKS'

jewel laughs. 'shady, you're taking this larping business to seriously. go to bed.'

they would assign jewel ferncloud btw

Game

had an idea in my head for the htf chatfic involving a video game but then i pivoted to a different video game (cuphead) but i think the original video game was also hard but IDR WHAT IT WAS AND IM ANGRY ABOUT IT unless it was always cuphead and there was no first game

(i still dont remember)

Donut Earirngs

nutty would go wild for those donut earrings in the new moogle event. notoyo matoyo the 27 year old lalafell will be wearing them whether he likes it or not

i have no idea what notoyo looks like but he probably looks silly. nutty created him with love.

Disorganized

shifty has the energy of that kid taht just shoved all their school shit into their backpack. no folders. so naturally he did the same with his very important tranaformation trinket and has to spend forever digging the watch and crystal out while a monster causes mayhem.

Lifty :D

i love you lifty! yay! your my favorite :D *projects onto him and hos brother and gives him A Lot of Issues.*

Animal Crossing

splendont buys the twins animal crissing new horizons alongsuse switches. he asks them about it. lifty has played the game normally. shifty has not paid the first nook miles debt and has focused entirely on making money.

"you know theres more game if you pay the debt, right?" asks splendont

"there's what" shifty replies, astonished

"you didnt notice me doing more with my game?" lifty asks.

shifty did not for he was too focused on making bells

they co op and splendont and lifty try to give each other tours of their islands but shifty keeps hitting them and the villagers with nets or axes.

Back At The BBQ Musings

lifty who hopes to make a good impression at the very first group gathering he's ever really been into vs food gremlin shifty who eats so much meat he passes the fuck out

YouTuber Shifty

*unregistered hypercam 2, the most laggy and low quality footage ever. the Worst mic quality.*

shifty: hey guys welcome back to my channel today i will be playing minecraft.

*five seconds of footage*

shifty: thanks for watching, part 2 if we get 10 ppl in the $500,000 tier on my patreon

when this doesnt work he starts a content farm or a malicious prank channel

Mother 3

i had this thought when i first concepted their backstory bc i had a very brief earthbound + mother 3 phase but splendont and the twins finish earthbound and he tells them that he hasn't played mother 3 but hes heard good things about and they play the fan translation.

'oh huh they're twins. haha lets name the characters after our family!" says lifty, naming lucas after himself, klaus after shifty, hinawa after their dead mom, and flint after their father who was very much impacted by the death of their mother

35 or so hours of gameplay later, the emotional damage levels are out of this fucking world.

The Worst Sims 4 Save (cq for. vague nsfw mentions)

the other day i made splendont and the twins (and splendid) in the sims 4 with wicked whims installed and also plopped down an old shizaya household i made and had shifty go visit them. he stole 3 things, did not not hit it off great with izaya (but found them both attractive) and then proceeded to mess around on their tablet while they got freaky. shizuo THEN proceeded to start a fire on the grill only for shifty to put it out. then he went home.

shifty also liked to kick the trash can when he got angry (i gave him the hot headed trait) and bc lifty and splendont kept getting playful (listen i ran out of ideas - i gave lifty a custom traits that gave him a constant sad moodlet and another negative one so i replaced that with playful and i gave splendont one that made him playful around his loved ones) so they kept fucking playing in the trash. they were also insatiable (to be fair i had it turned on high a while for the hell of it and was constantly running romantic actions to try and fix relationship satisfaction) but god damn. it was basically either flirty, playful (for lifty and splendont), angry (for shifty), or sad (for lifty, though he sometimes got a fine or tense moodlet). i ended up stopping playing the save file bc it was too hard trying to balance two romantic satisfaction bars and making them stop getting freaky to go to work (shifty was unemployed but dont and lifty had jobs) even tho i was using cheats

getting freaky doesnt really help the satisfaction btw and it just interrupted a lot of my flirting actions so having it on high didnt really work the way i was hoping

Shifty's Hobby

splendont: yknow your brother likes to bowl and do mechanical stuff, or just... make things. like cooking or using his hands or being creative. he plays video games too but do you have hobbies? dont say stealing things. shifty: of course i have fucking hobbies! i... play games +

too sometimes! splendont, snorting: anything else? shifty: of course! what do you take me for? i... i... *cut to shifty with his head in his hands and splendont patting his back* splendont: we'll find you something you like doing, i'm sure.

his hobbies are hating splendid, being annoying (especially towards lifty bc. siblings), and causing problems /j

Surgery (from BSKY!!!)

stupid idea that makes like no sense but popped into my head: fliqpy holding a knife with the text caption of 'giving my boyfriend the surgery he needs! (i dont have a medical license ^_^)' in the background, splendid is laying in a bed with a terrified expression

the ^_^ is super necessary bc it makes it feel so much funnier

FFXIV AU Starting Guilds

whats arguably funny about the twins quitting their starting guilds is that

1. the lvl 15 archer quest is when silvaire stops trying to get the wol expelled from the guild and just doesnt want to really show he accepts their skill. shifty still throws a tantrum n breaks the bow and quits.

2. the level 15 pugilist quest is when hamom reveals he isnt as good as he used to be bc hes old and chuchuto asks the wol to help him regain his passion. and then lifty has to awkwardly tell her that this is Not for him.

FFXIV AU: The Office

splendont looking off to the side like theres a camera and he's on the office after having his first echo vision: i miss my boyfriends chat. i miss them a lot.

y'shtola: *thinking* who the hell is he talking to?

*A FEW EXPANSIONS LATER*

splendont, doing the same thing while also dying of light poisoning: i miss my boyfriends chat

(said boyfriends are mad at him for getting light poisoning and off trying to find a cure)

ardbert: ...do you perhaps mean... me?

FFXIV AU: Gravity

ffxiv au lifty tries to calm down his nerves after getting to mare lamentorum by doing a little jump and then spends a good 5 minutes having a crisis bc it does not have low gravity.

FFXIV AU: Balmung

prequel tweet: i have a really stupid ffxiv au joke to make but it hinges specifically on knowledge that balmung is the sex rp world/server and also me making a random excuse for game mechanics via the aetheryte to be plausible in the isekai setting

*ul'dah aetheryte plaza*

lifty: huh... i think you can travel to different worlds with this thing. ...balmung? i'm gonna go there.

*five minutes later, he teleports back in*

lifty, horrified: Do Not Go To Balmung

shifty: lmao loser it can't be that bad.

*another 5 minutes later*

shifty: Do Not Go To Balmung

splendont: i'm sure it's fine. *another five minutes later*

splendont: ah. nope. Do Not Go To Balmung.

bright volcano: ...huh?

shifty: wait. wait hear me out lets go to balmung... Together.

*an hour passes before they return, disheveled*

splendont: balmung's pretty neat actually

lifty: agreed shifty: fr

bright lava: What The Hell Happened In Balmung

splendont: for us to know and you to not.

im from balmung btw im allowed to make this joke.

Bad HTF x FFXIV Tweets Based On Focus Expansions

got accused of assassinating the sultana bc i picked up a cool bottle and then got dragged into fighting dragons and defeating some old ruler guy! hashtag just lifty things!!!

decided to help free this nation from the empire's rule but we fucked up and now we went to free another country from the same empire and somehow a failef assassination attempt on the empire's prince turned into him being obsessed with fighting me! hashtag just shifty things!!!

got called to another dimension in the world im isekai'd into to stop eternal day by killing light monsters and absorbing the light but it was too much for my body and i almost became a giant world destroying light monster and terrified my bfs! hashtag just splendont things!!!

(the realest thing was after it i just tweeted'this is stupid as a reply. bc it is')

FFXIV AU: WORQOR ZORMOR - The Healer Conundrum

OG THREAD + A BONUS: bad ffxiv au: shifty says something snarky and then gets tankbusted (he is Not a tank)

badder idea: shifty says hell no to healer alisae and instead gives lifty a book and a soul crystal and says 'here you heal'

'how tf did you get this' asks everyone. 'stole it how else,' he responds.

cut to lifty panicking bc he doesn't know how to do SHIT.

lifty staring at the fairy 'please help me we are dying'. the fairy is also confused.

pov: your name is shifty. you, your twin brother, and your shared boyfriend have all been isekai'd into the critically acclaimed mmorpg final fantasy xiv. youve been through a lot of shit and now youre on a journey to help someone claim the throne. you need to climb a mountain which is a dungeon. but the only healer in your group is staying behind. his sister, a red mage, offers to heal for you. she has a healing spell and a revival spell in her kit. you get along well, you even consider her a friend, but she always takes the limit break when it's available and you dont really trust her as a healer. you also stole a soul crystal and weapon for a healing class at some point just because, but you think being healer would be lame and your boyfriend is way too cool to be a healer. all things considered your group technically isnt playing by the games rules considering you have two tanks and normally 4 dps and one healer, but youre down a healer. krile is happy as a pictomancer, and you think having two tanks is really funny so wuk lamat is off the hook. that leaves alisae, aka the red mage who offered to heal, and your brother lifty, a machinist. he has never been a healer, let alone a disciple of magic. do you trust alisae or do you force your brother who has really never casted a spell in his life and has no idea how to be a scholar?

FFXIV AU: Bee My Honey

honey b lovely: what? why isn't your heart pounding! why aren't you charmed by me?

lifty, a homosexual: Men

FFXIV AU: G'raha Tia

bad ffxiv au idea. g'raha thinks he has a chance w one of the twins bc he knows splendont is dating one of them but he doesn't know which. what he doesn't know is that its both. its a v poly. hes dating them both. what he ALSO doesnt know is that he has a cute lizard gf in an alternative universe. and in many other universes, other partners. he is beloved.

krile: what's wrong raha?

g'raha: i thought one of the warriors of light was single bc two of them are twins but it turns out theyre both dating the other warrior of light and he's a hinge apparently.

krile: ...you didnt know?

g'raha: .

(THIS IS TOTALLY PROBABLY OOC BY THE WAY DONT TAKE THIS SERIOISLY)

FFXIV AU: Shaaloni

5 seconds after entering shaaloani

shifty: alright pinhead, your time is up!

lifty: im not fucking doing the bit.

erenville: ???

splendont, with all the love and adoration he feels for the two in his eyes: dont question it man, he's just screwing around.

[cosmeww]

Okay so..

I present my addams! Rottmnt au oc

Hides my face in my hoodie anxiously and shakes

waves at @lackablazeical

Okok info dump time

I proofread this multiple times and had both donnie and finn proof read it but we're all super tired so im sorry if theres spelling mistakes or bad wording m(_ _;)m

Im super anxious and embarrased to post this but fuck it we ball!!! B)

BASIC INFO

8/Eight

He + any

17-18

Bi ftm

Turantula mutant

Autism, adhd, and bpd haver

APEARENCE

Eight is a primarily black fluffy spider. He has 6 arms along his torso, at the very begging of each joint theres dark orange fur, this is also applied at the top of his thighs where they connect to his hips. Despite him eating well, he's quite thin and lean, ribs and other bones being very visible under his fur.

He has bright yellow eyes that stand out in the dark, as well as eight of them.

What he wears

In the beggining:

He can be seen wearing absolutely nothing

After Donnie finds him:

A cream colored (why does that sound so weird to say..?????? Cream?? Cream?? Cream????) straight jacket and grey shorts. His arms are broken and cuffed behind his back, as well as a bit roughed up from him clawing at himself, though you can't see this unless his straight jacket was taken off.

ATRIBUTES

Despite his many eyes 8 has less than par eyesight. He is permanently seeing through the equivalent of a foggy mirror. Due to this he relies mainly on his hearing and other senses. He can sense movement and sound and relies on that more than what he actually see's.

Yes he can make webs. Yes he does it frequently. Yes he traps food in them.

Eight is carnivorous and eats small animals ranging from mice, rabbits, rats, squirrels, cats, and more.

He is very flexible, horrifically so, it's quite scary.

Stims a lot, physically and verbally ranging from flapping his arms to nawing on himself or anything around him.

Eight can also climb on walls and ceilings with ease.

His memory is messy and confusing, sometimes coming back to him in random bursts.

No he is not related to Bw at all he has never even heard of her.

He is very good at sewing :)

PERSONALITY

Eight is just a silly goofy little guy. He talks a lot about everything on his mind all the time. If he thinks it he'll say it. Due to his "talk first think later" mentality, he often snaps back with snarky comments unintentionally or is just plain rude without noticing because he's literally just speaking his mind. He's working on it. Despite this he is genuinely very caring and nice and just wants friends to talk to for hours even if all they'll do is just sit and listen.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Likes:

Small spaces

Other bugs!! Both to eat and play with :)

The dark

Ishida & mona!!!

Sweaters

Climbing, running, just moving around in general

Talking

Making friends :D

Eating

Dislikes:

Wolves cats and coyotes (steal his food)

Quite people

Being hungry

Rain

Being restrained or in any situation where he can't move around

BACKSTORY

Eight remembers nothing from before he was turned or even how he was turned. He woke up in a forest as a spider mutant and just kind of rolled with it, living in the forest for a while before getting bored and lonely, so he decided to explore. In his exploration he came across the turtles massive fucking mansion and was like "OMG SO MANY HIDING SPACES!!!" and pretty much just crawled in through somewhere (maybe an open window or a vent) he wandered around only intending to stay for a bit then head back to where he called "home" until he heard ishida and was in aw "COOL PERSON!!!!! :DDD" so he stuck around to see him again and became the houses unknown pest control, in return for consuming all rodents and other small animals he covered every possible hiding place in webs.

On another day of saying hi to an unknowing ishida (I mean he literally just. Sat in the shadows and waved at ishida or to him a green and white blurry thing. It's like waving at a character on a tv lol) he got distracted and slipped up, not noticing donnie and pretty much unable to see where he was freaked out and got his ass caught.. Oh no... :( BOZO sorry anyways and then starts a new era of being restrained and the looming threat of losing his arms and eyes ^^

It's unsure why he has such an interest in Ishida, maybe it's admiration? Maybe he thinks he's pretty?? Or maybe he's just really fucking hungry and wants to eat him, he does eat rabbits after all.... :/// idc what you interpret it as or whatever!! I'll literally just go with whatever people would want more ><

Haha okay thats all uh yea twirls hair and makes myself sick of anxiety 😞

To whoever see's this i hope u like and don't think im weird :3

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Can I ask for Ingo and Emmet for that newest ask game? :3

you most certainly can!! (send me a character ask game)

First impression: i actually had skipped the battle subway in bw so when i played pla, my first impression on meeting ingo was "this guy is coded like a cameo from another game. not sure which one tho. anyway he looks like a stuffed animal that went through the washing machine by accident and i just know there is a certain sect of lesbians on tumblr who are going to want to put him in a bug jar." and i was right on all counts. i'm ngl my first emmet impression was probably largely based on fan content before i actually went back to see the canon stuff so it was mostly "damn, giratina (arceus?) should Not have separated these two"

Impression now: DAMN, THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE SEPARATED THESE TWO. ingo is my special lil guy who is duty oriented until it kills him and very competent and unreasonably polite which are all character traits that do in fact make me, personally, wanna put a dude in a bug jar. emmet is. my guy my man he's me he's my everything i'm incapable of talking coherently about him.

Favorite moment: gotta be the only time i have ever bothered to go through the hassle of exporting a whole video clip from my switch when ingo loses to the protag in your first battle. he is so happy about it... when else does he smile that genuinely... waaaahh...

Idea for a story: uh hmm the problem here is all my story ideas are in my pinned or my pitches tag lmfao. i guess one thing i've been rotating is it would be fun to do something else with the oop-canon thing where neither of them fully remember each other but also don't have a ton of spare time to interrogate the situation, bc i think it's a fun take. some other scenario where emmet doesn't even remember that they're twins, they're just both like, "alright, you look exactly like me, that's goddamn weird, but fuck it, we've got bigger problems so let's just work together for now." i like how quickly they fall into lockstep without knowing why. i think it's fun

Unpopular opinion: i know i've said it before but LET THEM KICK ASS! for real! they are hypercompetent pokemon trainers who also manage the cat herding business that is a subway system that doubles as legal wrestling tournaments. they're probably stronger than most gym leaders, if not the elite 4, just by virtue of how much battling they're constantly doing against such a variety of opponents. they're clever and capable of very quick thinking in a wide range of situations and very capable of both reading/understanding and guiding/managing others. they should not be losing to FUCKING WILD POKEMON in basically any scenario. they should be so hard for anyone in hisui to rattle bc none of this is NEW to them. they're just built different. also let emmet specifically be a competent adult i am on my knees begging you

Favorite relationship: can i say each other, is that cheating. i feel like that's a given. it's just good. they are on the same wavelength and ready to back each other up basically all the time and not even getting smote by god itself can change that. OTHER than that i'm a big fan of them w/ the surveyfam. lav and cyllene specifically i think they would all make a fun squad together. fuck, this is what i shoulda said for the story idea section. i want to expand on that like, 5 sentence thing from a while back where they were both in jubilife together along with the protag in a similar situation, bc i think that's a fun idea. kamado's headache is never going away ever again

Favorite headcanon: hmmmmm shit i have too many to choose. does asj qualify as a single headcanon or is that too expansive. oh, this is a random thing, but i still really like the idea that they're like, roxie's uncles or cousins once removed or something, through their birth family that they largely avoid interacting with other than a few people who are mostly chill. they're VERY different wrt personality but roxie's got this unexpected responsible streak when she's arguing with her dad, i think it makes for a fun connection.

[aouboomseries]

i saw a comment from somebody on facebook who said that gemini norawit said on his instagram that my love mix-up is going to be the last series he's going to do a ship with fourth nattawat because he wants to focus on doing a straight ship with, who we're all assuming is, prim chanikarn, since they're starring in the dark dice together. but the whole issue with this is that i can't find anywhere on his instagram that he said this so i can't say how credible the factoid actually is.

buuut~ looking back on it, how gemini portrays his characters when shipped with fourth, i feel like... fourth carries the weight of the majority of their on screen chemistry. gemini mostly looks really awkward showing romantic feelings for fourth's characters. even when doing fan service, he seems to be a bit more on the awkward side and pulls away or dodges fourth's advances. he could totally just be playing into this shy persona but i still feel like gemini doesn't feel entirely comfortable in his ship or maybe portraying queer characters - now that's not to say he isn't queer in some form or at least an ally, he is what he is and that's nobody's business but his own.

i guess i just hope that gemini doesn't feel awkward portraying a character in a queer relationship and that's just his style of acting. time will tell when this new series comes out and we see how he acts paired with a girl in comparison.

hi anon! hmm this is interesting.

first of all, i’ve never seen gem say that mlmu is his last project ever with fourth so if you ever find the source of that info pls lmk!! i do remember him saying in an interview that he would like to do a series with a straight ship because he had already acted with a boy, so now he wants to act with a girl (what an incredibly bisexual statement LOL) but i didn’t take that as him saying he didn’t want to do bl anymore.

it has honestly never crossed my mind that geminifourth might divorce soon. to me, their gmmtv’s latest It Boys yaknow. it makes sense to me that they would lead other series separately so gmmtv can take advantage of their massive fandom and individual popularity but i still expect them to work together in the future. also. gemfourth are besties, they have a lot of fun working and playing together, and they flirt all the time whether they’re promoting a series or not hahaha. like yes their dynamic is definitely We Are Best Friends I Love You My Bro but that's typical of gmmtv pairs, and they're still having fun being an established pairing.

i believe we're in an era where actors in branded couples can do separate projects and then come back and do bl. i know with past divorced gmmtv couples like BW or ON, that's not the case, but those are specific circumstances. i mean...we're getting a kristsingto bl in the next year, honestly anything is possible.

personally, i’ve never felt that gemini was uncomfortable acting as queer characters or being in romantic scenes with fourth. in general, fourth is more experienced and more comfortable as an actor than gemini is. we know that fourth was probably gemini's first kiss ever and that gemini was really shy during msp because he has never been in a relationship before, i think some of his "discomfort" can be explained by that. i also just think gem has only ever played awkward/inexperienced characters, like his awkwardness or nervousness makes sense to me as heart or as tinn.

there are actors out there who have been ashamed of or uncomfortable working in bl, and obviously there's a lot of nuance within that topic, but to me, gemini doesn't align at all with those attitudes. i agree that at times, gem can be shy doing fanservice, but like you said, he's playing into that shy personality to match fourth's boldness and to be fair, fourth is VERY affectionate and likes to tease and surprise gemini. there are lots of times where we can see gem being affectionate with fourth (and with other male actors), and it seems like he really enjoys and values working with fourth and being in bl series.

at the end of the day, gemini is still so young and it's very early in his career. we haven't seen him acting at all outside of his bl roles and he overall doesn't have much experience as an actor yet—i think he's very much still finding his feet, so it's not really fair to make generalizations about his acting style. i personally think gem is a lovely actor, his portrayals of tinn and heart mean a lot to me, and his chemistry with fourth is great. i would be interested in hearing back about your thoughts during/post-mlmu and when gem's future projects are released ^__^

[lollitree]

Your tags under the pokemon poll are SO TRUEE and it hurts how many people dont understand that

I grew up in the change from pixel art to 3D and have nostalgia for bw, xy AND sm. So i think because of that, I can see the good and bad in all the games but don't feel like any of them 'peaked''. They're all different games, so they are really hard to compare.

On a related note tho, its so sad to see so many fans praise one of my childhood games and not the others. And like, I get it because gen 5 is more similar to what they grew up with.....but every time I say I love xy, sm and even swsh i get told they are terrible and usually imply that I shouldnt like them :/

That only happens online, though......irl all the fans ive met, no matter their ages, just say something like 'i didnt like it, but i'm glad you did!'. Growing up in irl fan spaces and having to move online during corona was AN EXPERIENCE omg

Yeah! It's super interesting how much we are affected by nostaglia.

There's usually a pattern you can notice with this stuff too. There are two lines that go up as time goes on. The one everyone talks about as being great and the newer one people hate on, usually to do with nostalgia of the now older original audience of the game.

My full reply got long so putting it under a read more skfjsh

My first Pokemon game was Colosseum, so gen 2/3 pokemon and gen 3 sound effects are pretty nostalgic to me.

Then I grew up mostly playing Diamond/Platinum/PMD2/Ranger2. I LOVED Team Galactic. I restarted the games so many times just so I could play through the story again with Cyrus and the Galactic Grunt theme. (I have also played through pmd2 many many times). I remember in my early teens seeing people on the internet hating on DPPt a lot and it making me sad. I recall someone saying that the gen 4 Pokemon sucked and I remember thinking "aw I guess they're right, some of these pokemon are really boring or annoying" and then I learned later that the pokemon I was thinking of were all gen 1 pokemon sdfkjsh

Gen 5 was hated when it first came out because it wasn't very fun for new players. I bet it also didn't help that the advertising for B2W2 was pretty poor and also came out after the 3DS did. I didn't even know it was a sequel until years later. That's why they went in the complete opposite direction for gen 6, and added gimmicks!

I have heard multiple people call the designs from gen 5 horrible over the years (And they're all wrong). Those comments are nowhere NEAR as frequent now, but they almost always come from people with nostalgia for the ones they grew up with.

I was 13 when BW first came out. I think I've only beaten it once, MAYBE twice. I'm not entirely sure why, because I was still replaying DPPt a lot. I would guess it's because the game is super linear in terms of gameplay and every playthrough will start exactly the same. You don't really get to make decisions on your team and how you play until later. Kid me loved the beginning of the main pokemon games the most because they were the most fun bits to play usually. So I suppose when you've already played it once, the beginning becomes quite boring.

And to compare. I did not like XY when it first came out. I was 16 and very against change and also my fav types at the time were dark and dragon so fairy type was the worst thing ever. I said previously that I really liked Team Galactic, so Team Flare was just a bootleg version of them to me. BUT I did immediately replay the game when I finished it. The character customisation plus the huge dex gives the game a lot of replayability. Because while I didn't like a lot about the game it was still fun to play, and it was the first time online was really accessible to me. I went back to 2013/2014 on my blog and there's SO much positivity about the game it's amazing! Over time people only remembered the bad parts and started hating it. I bet there'll be an influx of nostalgia for it before long. We can even see it in the hope people have for SV having Kalos DLC.

I need to replay sun/moon or play USUM because in my brain currently it sucks. But I'm very aware that that's because I only played it once, it's been years, and I played it when I started to grow out of Pokemon. So I'm excited to play it again now that I can appreciate it better. (Also the Sun/Moon anime is my fav so I have a lot of love for the characters now)

And finally, I loved SWSH! I didn't finish it the first time I tried to play it. Mostly because I spent HOURS trying to get a shiny hatenna before doing the fire gym skdfjhs. But then I SPED through the game with a bug type only run before Legends came out and I really enjoyed the story! One of those things that's more enjoyable if you're only focused on enjoying the story (and playing the game through with a joltik as the lead and trying to make sure they stay strong enough to beat the game with pfft) Also Leon was the first ever Champion I actually thought was cool and enjoyed seeing while playing the game (as ridiculous as his outfit is)

If I were to logically plot out the best for me based on how nostalgia works and taking into consideration that public opinion ABSOLUTELY influences me. I would have said BW was the best and XY(or SM) was the downfall, even though I had way more fun playing XY than BW as a kid

[seariii]

Fkn Kasumin made me cry bruh

This song doesn't have the right to hit me like that dude wth

.... But.... Sigh....

I wanna be able to shine that brightly too.... There must be some apps that can help.... But the buzzing is annoying and I'd have to work around that....

What were the first steps again...? Um.... Right The banner and the watermark.... Which don't have to be too difficult....

I think my earbuds aren't up for the job tho.... I could check the mic again now that I know it's not itself but the area I live at...

In any case maybe directly my phone could work too...

.... I wonder what would've happened if I had continued all those years ago... I was too scared heh.... But... It's okay, maybe not ideal and maybe much more difficult but.... A girl can dream and can try...

Heh this is gonna be silly, and I've talked about it without much specifications but... I wanna open a YouTube channel and upload covers. My dream... Maybe silly, maybe dumb, but I want my voice to be heard and to reach people's hearts... I love music, I love happy songs, sad songs, songs that don't fit my person jajajaja... Songs are a way to experience the world around you, and sometimes experience stuff from someone else's pov, experience stuff and thoughts you wouldn't normally have... It's beautiful... And... I dream with being able to convey many feelings through my voice and make people resonate with them...

I think it's silly, I compare it with wanting to be an idol heh but... It's important to me... I can't be too mad at the little me that stopped this journey tho. She was young, didn't have any aspirations, goals nor dreams.... I remember when she played pokemon BW, and N asked if we had a dream... It was such a heavy moment for me. We stared at the screen for more than 10 minutes, crying, noticing I couldn't see anything, I didn't hope for anything... And when I pressed No, N said something like "how could someone without dreams even understand me?" And it made me feel even worse.... But... At the end, when N says goodbye... When I've grown even more attaches to him, when I don't want to see him go.... He told me to find that dream and make it reality... Actually heh i looked up the quote "Dream your dream! Then, pursue the ideals to make that dream a reality, and someday you will achieve all that you dreamed of! [...]"

.... After all this years, I finally dreamt that dream like he told me to.... I will... I want to shine and I want to pursue that dream! Even if nothing will come out of it, even if it only reaches 1 person... I still want to try...

I've been saying that for a while now hah but my executive dysfunction and my depression get the worst of me hehe... But... With how I'll be forced to move forward soon, I have to start taking this steps ... I can do this

As a little side note, N's words were so important to me, because they came in a crucial moment in my life, but also N was my very first fictional crush, so he held even more importance I'm many layers.... I think if he saw me now, he'd be proud of me.... And if I saw him now, I'd be really proud of him too... We both made so much progress towards becoming who we wanted to be... I still have a long way to go... but yes... Heh I might have to make some Ferriswheelshipping fanart! Hehe <3 yep I projected into Hilda before I knew what self shipping was, I basically made her my persona/oc for a long time

[quackitytheduck]

Ok I am fascinated by this but also how does the darksaber from the Mandalorian fit into the lightsaber lore? I haven’t seen the third season but I know the saber has significance to the Mandalorian people. Does it mean anything to the Jedi or is that color in any way connected to the dark side? Also there are 8 diff color options for lightsabers in Fallen Order: all the ones you mentioned plus cyan, magenta, and indigo. Very interesting but I’m sure it’s more for aesthetics than story building

yeah i only watched charlie (of the slimecicle variety) play it for a couple of highlights vids so idk the full extent but apparently its really good so thanks for lmk that's cool

the darksaber was created by the first mandalorian ever inducted into the jedi order about 1000 years bby i cant quite remember, and it was kept there until this whole thing bw the mandos and the jedi so that first jedi mando's clan took it back after the fall of the old republic, then maul killed that guy and he had it for a really long time, then it got lost and sabine wren the mandalorian found it in the nightsisters lair during the events of rebels and she trained w it under kanan jarrus another ex jedi, and she became the official wielder after killing some empire guy icr, and then found bo katan kryze the mandalorian who she thought worthy to lead the mandalorians so she gave it to her. then im p sure that's around where the mandalorian show starts

not a lot is known ab the mando-jedi war it's shown in a few flashbacks in rebels but i never finished rebels. so. uh. anyways. it was never established why the darksaber is that color but it def has a kyber crystal, so my theory is that there's something about the mando way and faith that makes it like that, like how yellow was most often for jedi temple guards n stuff. the jedi took custody of the darksaber bc they were under the impression that since the first jedi mando (his name was pre viszla btw i just looked it up) the jedi deserved to keep it under their protection and their protection only which is a very old republic thing to do if u ask me

tldr:

1. the jedi thought they had authority over the darksaber bc a dual mando-jedi created it, but during the fall of the old republic the mandos took it back. and when sabine wren had it she trained under kanan jarrus the ex jedi during rebels

2. the darksaber is unique bc it's not exclusively wielded by force users, it's a mandalorian cultural thing. it's got it's own story and really isn't alike anything else despite having a kyber crystal.

3. the color is not a dark side thing, no

[amelikos]

Some character notes and episode notes for HZ036, writing them down for future reference.

Liko got asked by Dot to help one of her fans who struggled with her Pokemon. The first time Dot actually asks Liko for help too, which is special because it shows Dot is more willing to rely on others. Liko still gets a bit embarassed around Gurumin, even though she knows it's Dot. She was happy to be seen as Gurumin's friend by Yuno too.

Terapagos was left behind on the ship for this episode. Since Liko and Roy were going to a town by themselves, I wonder if Friede advised Liko not to take Terapagos with her to be safe (since Terapagos is targeted by the Explorers too).

Yuno wants to participate in a tournament but her Perfuton doesn't seem to be doing well. Liko shares her own experiences and talks about how she also couldn't understand Nyahoja at first, and she learned that she had to let her Pokemon how she feels in order to understand them. I really like that they keep emphasizing Liko and her sensitivity to both humans and Pokemon's feelings even in these kinds of episodes, and that she manages to share her experiences to help others with the same issue. Liko manages to put her thoughts into words way more now.

Very specific thought but when Yuno told Perfuton that she wanted to enter the tournament with her but won't do it if it's just going to make her sad, I was reminded me of Iris in BW (when she told Doryuzu that he didn't have to battle anymore if he didn't want to after understanding his issue). I kind of want to remember that I remembered this specific moment.

Yuno's Pokemon happens to like Renta's Perfuton. And both Yuno and Renta seem to like each other too, they are chidlhood friends (Renta is a jerk though). Liko saw through Yuno quite quickly, and Dot also seemed to realize that her Pokemon was smitten. I was a bit surprised to see Dot talk about this and give advice, etc. (Liko already showed she is aware of romance to some degree. Back in HZ005, she misinterpreted Roy for a second at first when he said that he wanted to see someone on the ship, only for it to be about Hogator. For a second there, she thought he was talking about her and was all "wait, what's happening-")

Liko and Roy both helped Yuno bathing her Perfuton. Roy played a bit with the dryer with Hogator (which is such a thing to do for someone like him, liked this detail). Nyahoja kept jumping to play with the soap bubbles, it was cute! I generally like seeing what Nyahoja is up to in the background because she is often sleepy, or playing and things like that... She was practicing how to walk with Perfuton later on in the episode, too.

Renta's Perfuton still acted haughty despite everything, so Kuwassu showed off his dance in front of everyone. It's kind of fun how Kuwassu is more confident compared to Dot, their personalities are really different (though Dot is more confident as Gurumin too). Prince attacked Kuwassu (out of jealousy that he was the center of attention) so Yuno's Perfuton stood up for her friend and just attacked him. Deserved, tbh. It's cool that they showed her standing up and not tolerating bullshit, at least.

Either way, Renta and Yuno managed to reach an agreement (and be more honest) and decide to team up for the tournament so they asked Liko and Roy to practice with them. Roy immediately agreed. I like those small moments where Roy tends to be the first one to take initiative and Liko follows his enthusiasm too. It happened last week when Roy was the first to ask Friede if they could tag along with him to find the lost Pokemon, and Liko followed suit. It shows Liko's shy and reserved nature well (she just needs a little push to try out things, or be more daring in asking for something, etc).

The battle was fun! Liko and Roy rarely have opportunities to battle against opponents around their age, so it was cool to see them learn new things and casually have fun. Yuno and Renta also went on and won the tournament because they actually work well together when they don't argue. Yuno thanked Gurumin, Liko (but used her username and not her real name when Gurumin interviewed her) and everyone for their help. Dot got lots of interactions on her video too which was one of her goals, since she eventually wants to surpass Nanjamo on this aspect (though, her fans now think she is taking requests to help with love issues). I wonder if Yuno will come up again but either way, it was nice to see another Gurumin fan in the flesh (the other one we know of besides Liko is Zir, and I wonder if he was watching Dot's videos this episode).

VA notes but both Yuno and Renta's VAs voice characters in Shadowverse Flame, so it was nice to hear them in Horizons.

[spikemuthtoothfairy]

Pokémon Favourites!

repost, don’t reblog! 💕

FIRST GAME: Red, Blue or Yellow. It was the height of the Pokemania craze in the late 90′s so I don’t actually remember which I got first, only that I ended up with all three over time! I’m almost positive it was Red or Blue though.

FAVOURITE SPINOFF GAME: Stadium or Snap, having played both around my friends house when I was young. Very fond memories! I never had a N64 myself so I didn’t otherwise get to play them.

FAVOURITE EVIL TEAM: Probably Rocket? They’re easily the most grounded and realistic, which I suppose is why the had to up the ante from Gen 3 and on. Otherwise I’m fond of Flare as a result of playing Adam and digging into them.

FAVOURITE TEAM LEADER: Ghetsis or Giovanni, probably. Ghetsis because he’s an absolute bastard, Giovanni because, y’know, Giovanni.

FAVOURITE STARTER: Probably Charizard. I think I was one of Those Kids, honestly! But hey, dragons are cool and I was a kid.

FAVOURITE BOX LEGENDARY: Yveltal! I dunno, I really like Gen 6′s Life/Death thing. That being said, as a kid it was probably Lugia.

FAVOURITE POKEMON: For years it was Kirlia. Now I regularly float between Kirlia, Gardevoir, Weavile, Haunter and Misdreavus.

FAVOURITE PROFESSOR: Oak!

FAVOURITE RIVAL: Blue or Silver because they were dickheads. Nemona because she’s fun and wants you to get stronger.

FAVOURITE CHAMPION: Eh? I’ll be honest, I don’t really have one. I like Diantha though! And Lance.

FAVOURITE CHARACTER (if not already covered): Not sure honestly! That’s difficult. Shotout to Roughneck Kirby with his Cleffa though. Love the reference lmao.

FAVOURITE STORY: Tied between 1/2, BW, SwSh and ScVi. Probably ScVi though because of the way they pulled it off. Love it.

FAVOURITE MUSIC: ScVi’s final boss theme easy, that shot right up for me. Galar’s tourney theme slaps too.

FAVOURITE REGION OVERALL: Paldea in scale and scope, Galar because its PokeBritain and Johto/Kanto because nostalgia. 

[turboacek-blog]

I wonder when they knew journeys would be the last Ash series

Just something I thought about when I remember everyone arguing/going back and forth about if this was Ash’s last series

And since it is his last series I wonder if this was always the plan or was it a decision that came later?

As in, when journeys first started some saw the traveling to every region/world traveling aspect as a sign it was the last series for Ash

Some saw the PWC/WCS as a sign

Some saw it when Ash was seeing so many of his old companions

And others by the time it was the Masters 8 and most were sure Ash would win they felt there was nowhere else to go

Nothing has come out yet officially

But my thoughts are that they didn’t know when Journeys first started

Maybe they thought about it since it would be after SM and Ash won the league but they didn’t make journeys in mind that this would be Ash’s finale series

I don't know how legit you can take it

But I saw something that implied that as the games got more and more nonlinear the anime team had a harder time making the series

This could explain the school idea for Sun and Moon and the world journey for Journeys since the gen 7 games broke the badge formula and Galar put a different approach to it

So if they think it’s too hard to make a series with Ash as the games get less linear then maybe Gen9/ Scarlet and Violet was the straw

As SV is very open world and not linear

So when they started to brainstorm for Gen 9 maybe they truly got stuck on what to do with Ash

As for the other “signs” like companions

Maybe by the time of Serena's appearance we can perhaps think they thought about it

But Korinna was probably just a nice cameo from a gym leader people would have a connection to and does make it seem more like a world tournament as it went from mostly Kanto trainers to Kalos Gym leader

And then afterward with Iris, Dawn, etc it was mostly just ideas and other stuff and didn't play too much into a final series

Like Iris being champion probably wasn’t because Ash was leaving but maybe they just wanted her in the M8 over Alder as the we’re going to do all champions and take advantage of the character they actually developed already that became champion in the games over Alder who had the occasional episode in BW

Dawn was because of Gen 4 remakes clearly but maybe her final appearance to watch the finals was a finale thing

All in all I don't know and no one truly does unless they explain why

But just from how I perceived the process of Journeys from beginning to end

If anything they might have thought of passing the torch from Ash to Goh due to Goh being a co-lead but since Goh was a co-lead they still wanted Ash to be there which might say that even if no ideas they still wanted Ash there

Then as it went on, and maybe some of the complaints and critiques of how they were handling JN in the beginning really took a hold that

When they were doing the near complete rework of JN, that Goh got Project Mew, Chloe had her Eevee storyline, etc they maybe had a clearer vision for the series

So they had a clearer plan and was doing well for a good stretch of episodes, people were excited by Iris and Gary and that kept up for Sophocles, Clemont and Bonnie, Serena and etc

Then what happened?

I think it's a mix of things one of the more glaring ones is the animating problems they were having as with all the recaps and such they had

I think the first real hint in hindsight is the two kids calling him champion in Alola, as before it wouldn't have been mentioned as it wasn't brought up in the previous Alola episode with his classmates but it was brought up here and I think that was the writers saying ‘ok were not trying to minimize it anymore Ash had a major accomplishment and he's a champion and has battled champions (Iris) and will work his way up to be amongst the champions like Lance and Leon

But I do just generally think while doing the planning and etc for the Masters 8 they thought that this is a nice climax for Ash and to end it here

Not necessarily that they couldn't move past this point as SV has a set up to justify Ash’s strength and still have him lose and learn and etc

Him beating all the champions including the best in the world and then going back to gyms would be a little weird sure

Plus if you already kinda believed they thought about it for Gen 5 since it was soft reboot, and Gen 7 with the different formula then this is a better ending than if they ended him in Gen 4 or 6

And just other factors that probably had a small percentages in the grand scheme but could add up to a decent chunk, like Ash’s Japanese voice actress is getting older, the time window from game announcement to the anime having to “adapt” it, the general viewership not as high, older fans and younger fans wants clashing at times, series direction etx

I do just think this is a high to go out on

[flightlessribbons]

Well now that I've finished all the short character blurbs (with the exception of Paldea's crew) I just wanted to make a rambling little post about some of my reasons for certain headcanons in this AU. There's a lot of nonsense that I imagined and reached for as I played through the games!

- Starting off strong with a few about one of my favorite families with the BYG cousins first: why I made Elio, Gloria, Hilda, and Nate all related. It's all because of the player characters mom designs for each of them- especially the Alolan mom having such similar hair to Hilda and the Unovan mom- so I thought it would be fun to have them interconnect!

- Touya and Leaf being related to Bill- Bill canonically has a lot of siblings, so fitting Leaf into his family as his youngest sister was easy. And he has a sister in Fuchsia city with her son in game, so I liked to think that the little boy was Touya who eventually moved to Unova. Bonus points for being able to draw them all with the same bangs as Bill.

- Kris and Solana from pokemon rangers being related- purely aesthetic reasons and very self indulgent. The Ranger games are very dear to my heart and I wanna get around to them sometime!

- Hilda and Nate being forgettable: Hilda bc she's absent in the sequel so I felt like she would be more like an important presence with no real face to the name, and for Nate I feel like he's not as remembered for BW2 in comparison to Rosa (while that just may be my perception of it) so I gave him that same energy as well.

- Kris is in a similar, but different, predicament as them. Kris as a character only appeared in one game before Masters, so by the initial time of the Invitation Comics, she's sort of used to being overshadowed or forgotten in both her research and champ title. She's also been my FAVORITE PROTAG since I was a REALLY young kid, and her and Hilda are still tied for first in my favs!! So I really wanted to give her a personal arc about making her own name for herself.

- Jana's entire existence: I played pokemon Moon first, and when I played Ultra Moon after, the Selene from Moon, and the Selene from UM acted out like different characters in my head, so I made Jana to embody some of those points I imagined for that Moon protag.

- Making Calem a contest coordinator is the randomest HC that may not fit at first with his character, but I imagine there being different types of contests. Ones that are flashier or musical ones that Shauna might participate in (EDIT: changing Calem's side hobbies to fencing in lieu of the contest participation)

- Another reason why I refer to Shauna as an idol as she does different kinds of shows professionally, and Calem as just a coordinator, is because he does limited shows for fun.

- Selene is based on the little girl in the house of Professor Rowan's assistant in game, who talks about pokemon trivia when talked to. I wanted to tie the faller story components to her personally, and an encounter with the distortion world was the perfect opportunity! SM and USUM was the first time I wrote my headcanons down when playing, so technically it's the first organized piece of the POKEVERSE I made back in 2016-17 👍

- It's been a default to ship the player characters together, and will most likely continue being the case- save for one brain rot exception to that rule: postwickshipping. Hop and Gloria were the first and only ship I've deviated from that just because of their interactions through the game. Florian x Juliana brings me back to the protag ships though, and I have some plans for how the Paldea timeline plays out differently in this world!

- The whole Interpol relation to Hilda's family comes solely from Looker's appearance in the BW postgame. I'll probably make a whole post about how Hilda's mom and dad are relevant in other things in Unova, so I won't talk about it too much here.

- Making Johanna be Akari: I wanted to take a present day character to be Akari that wasn't Dawn. No one else fit the bill other than Johanna, and I really enjoyed making it work in this AU!

That's all the ones I could think of today. If you did go through these, thanks for reading! This POKEVERSE is just a culmination of self indulgence of how I pictured the games as I played, and I do plan on replaying through the games to reconstruct what I keep and change through the stories! Until next post 👍

[gascon-en-exil]

Nemona has got to be my least favorite rival of all time. She lacks the depth Hop had, and the attitude is flanderized from Hau. People talk bad about the XY rivals. But that's due to lack of character, right? Nemona is the opposite with her obsession for battling! Believe me, even Barry and Hugh had their quirks being impatient and vengeful respectively. IDK, but I like to hear why she wants to be the best, when Arven and Penny put their stakes in their storylines. Least there be "some" depth.

People disliked the XY rivals because 1) there's four of them, 2) they show up constantly, 3) all of them are extremely one-note, and 4) while they weren't the first rivals to be less antagonistic toward the player (Brendan/May in Hoenn and Bianca in BW) the overall feeling of a big friend group out on a lighthearted adventure in games that were also derided as being far too easy even by Pokémon standards rubbed some people the wrong way.

Nemona's not a personal favorite for me - not that I can really say I have a personal favorite rival, or a favorite SV character at this point - but I do like that her obsession is sometimes played as a negative trait. She has to be told not to pull out her heavy hitters during your very first battle, and then during her second battle she terrastallizes her Pawmi (which feels especially unfair if you chose Quaxly) and doesn't even realize until afterwards that you couldn't do the same. She's a stock overachieving type who has already reached the standard Pokémon game end goal and has to remember to slow down and let other people catch up to her - or at least that's my take on her about halfway through.

[jdgo51]

Use Your Tongue to Help, Not Hurt

Today's inspiration comes from:

Don't Sink Your Own Ship

by Max Anders

"Don’t sink your own ship.

Use your tongue to help, not to hurt."

"If we control the tongue, we control the whole person. Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but if there is any good word for edification according to the need of the moment, say that, so that it will give grace to those who hear." — Ephesians 4:29

"'In high school, I thought I was a BMOC — Big Man On Campus. I was an athlete, played in several school bands, had the lead in the school play, and was invited to all the parties the cool kids had. I thought I was big stuff — on the outside. But inside I was insecure, uncertain, and easily intimidated. I was an overachiever simply because I had no confidence whatsoever in my inherent worth as a human being. So I had to rely on achievements to validate my worth as a member of the human race.

I would periodically do other things to validate my status, to remind myself and others that I was, in fact, a BMOC. However, these things were usually the actions of a JERK, which is often what I really was. But I didn’t realize it at the time. One of my most disheartening forays into JERK-dom happened when a new girl moved to our small town. She was quiet and shy, although I remember her being a nice young lady as I look back on everything many years after. She had a pleasant countenance and was polite, courteous, and a good student. There was nothing wrong with her.

But the ways of JERKs are difficult to fathom, and for some reason several of “the cool guys” singled this girl out for unwarranted attention. We used to talk about her within her hearing. We said nothing ugly, but just asked questions about where she came from, what she was like, and why she was so quiet. But it was especially rude because we did it within her hearing. However, she never said anything, never acknowledged our rudeness, and never lost the pleasant look on her face.

I remember that at one basketball game where the girl was sitting in front of us, we started blowing on the back of her head. We blew very slightly at first. We wanted her to feel her hand over the back of her head and wonder what was there. But she didn’t. So we blew harder. She still didn’t acknowledge our pestering. Finally, we blew so hard that we parted her hair down the back of her head.

Yet she did nothing. She never acknowledged our presence and never lost the pleasant look on her face.

We have, behind our lips, a tool that gives us the ability to encourage, exalt, and empower — or discourage, damage, and defeat.

To this day, I don’t fully understand why we did that. I was not a consciously mean kid. I think it had something to do with establishing my place over someone new so I could reassure myself of my standing in the flock, like chickens fighting for a position in the pecking order. When I think of this now, I reproach myself for my thoughtless actions. How we must have hurt her! And it was for no reason. Yet she was the picture of grace through it all.

In reality, she was a BW(oman)OC. I was just a big JERK! I don’t know where she is today, but I wish I could talk to her and ask her to forgive me. I wish I could tell her how much I regret my rudeness and how much I admire her for her graciousness.

I. The tongue is extremely powerful.

You’ve heard the saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Of course, this is not true. Words can hurt — and words can heal. Words can tear down —and words can build up. Words can destroy — and words can create.

We have, behind our lips, a tool that gives us the ability to encourage, exalt, and empower — or discourage, damage, and defeat.

If we had a physical weapon this powerful, it would have to be licensed and registered with the authorities. Some people would not be permitted to carry it. Yet, here we are — everyone armed with a weapon so powerful that lives hang in the balance when we use it. And many of us don’t know how to use it well.

II. The Bible commands us to use our tongues wisely.

The Bible teaches that the tongue is extremely powerful, and it commands us to use our tongues wisely. God knows the power of the tongue. He gave it to us, and He instructed us on how to use it. The central passage in the Bible on the tongue is found in James 3:2–6:

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to rein in the whole body as well. Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their whole body as well. Look at the ships too; though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are nevertheless directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot determines. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set among our body’s parts as that which defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.

Whew! Strong words. And that’s not the end of it. The Bible has more to say about our words:

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil person out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. — Luke 6:45

What comes out of our mouths originates in our hearts. The heart is the reservoir; our words are merely the stream flowing out of it. How embarrassing! Everyone knows! They know our hearts by listening to our words!

However, changing our speech is not an easy task because it isn’t merely our speech that needs change — it’s our heart. That’s why James wrote that if we could control the tongue, we could control the entire body. Therefore, we have to look honestly and accurately at our speech. Is it helpful speech or hurtful speech? No one speaks all of one and none of the other, but this must not keep us from being honest.

When we are honest about our speech, we can look at the characteristics of good speech and bad speech with the goal of improving our own. If we use our tongue wisely and well, it will honor God, improve our relationships with other people, and make our lives go better."'

Written for Devotionals Daily by Max Anders, author of Don’t Sink Your Own Ship.