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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation

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#Yugioh #YGO #yu gi oh #photo recap #episode recap #S5 #Ep19 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Joey's fear of birds I've never heard about until this episode #Tea Gardner #Grandpa Muto #Tristan Taylor #Baby Dragon #This weird ass tranformer that Yugi is wearing.

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nelvana · 5 years ago

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In which there are no anomalies

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which there is one last break Previous: In which part of a curse is broken

Nelvana didn’t know how long it took for her to calm herself down enough to think properly again. During that entire time though, she continued holding Keahi close to her, who could only lean against zir partner to provide warmth and comfort. Even as Nelvana’s tears began to slow and she began to rationalize more than overanalyze, she didn’t let go, but she began to slowly move her thumb in circles in Keahi’s feathers as she took in deep breaths.

“Where… Where are we?” she finally asked quietly, her voice barely a croak.

“We… are in a little alcove Damien found when he had to heal Edgar,” Keahi told her, “we’re safe here, but we aren’t far from the others.”

Accepting the answer with a weak hum, Nelvana stayed silent for a few more moments before another question burned into her mind.

“How long was I… out for?” she asked.

Keahi exhaled, “I’m… not sure. It probably felt longer to me than it actually was. It’s… hard, to keep track of time here.”

“Can you guess?”

“…At least five minutes. Maybe ten. I’m really not sure.”

“It’s okay,” Nelvana responded in a mumble, “thank you.”

Keahi smiled softly, though at zir angle Nelvana was unable to see it, “of course. I’m right here for you as long as you need it.”

Nodding slowly, Nelvana went back to her silence and continued rubbing circles into Keahi’s back. She took another couple minutes to continue catching her breath, continue thinking, before she moved from her spot laying down to a seated position. To do this, she had to let go of her grip from Keahi, but once she was done moving, the torchic leaned forward to bump zir forehead against hers.

“How are you feeling?” Keahi asked softly, “you can talk to me about anything you want.”

“I’m fine,” Nelvana answered instinctively, despite that being a blatant lie. “I… I don’t know,” she corrected afterwards, disliking lying to her partner.

“You’ll be okay,” Keahi assured her, “you’re doing great right now. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Wrapping her arms around Keahi again, the pair locked themselves into another, this time more comfortable, hug. Keahi shifted zir head to nuzzle into Nelvana’s shoulder instead of resting on her head, and Nelvana began making circles with her thumb again.

“Where is everyone else?” Nelvana asked.

“They’re… still fighting Palkia,” Keahi answered after a pause. “If you listen closely, you can still hear them through the walls here.”

At those words, Nelvana couldn’t help but go silent again, straining her ears to listen for the sounds of the battle now that she could hear past the thoughts storming in her mind. Keahi was correct; distantly, Nelvana could still make out Palkia’s roars, and the sounds of rock crumbling as it was hit, and the faint noises of certain moves being charged up.

“We should help them,” Nelvana told zim suddenly, “they need our help.”

“Woah, hey, slow down… You still need to recover,” Keahi insisted, leaning back slightly so that zie could make eye contact with the cubone. “You just witnessed… what I can only assume was all your memories at once, which is a lot to work through. Dialga told us this would need time. Running back into battle like this is a bad idea.”

“They need our help,” she repeated, narrowing her gaze.

“…Maybe so, but they can last for the time it takes for us to get back,” Keahi replied, “we can’t go back right away, it’s too soon. We’re at the type disadvantage anyways, we need to be on our best game to outlast more water attacks like that,” zie added.

Nelvana paused, mulling this over for a moment, “I… I don’t want to just sit here though. Especially knowing they’re out there fighting without us. It’s… It’s too much to think about,” she murmured.

Keahi blinked, “do you think the fight might be a good distraction for you?”

Nelvana nodded back, “I… think so.”

“Well…” Keahi sighed, “I still think it’s too soon. I-If you need to work through your thoughts, you can still talk to me,” zie told her, “but… I understand if you don’t want to talk right away. It must be hard. Look, how about this? Let’s take another… five minutes. Breathe, walk around about, think things through. If you still want to go in… I don’t want that to be stressing you out too. Okay?”

“Okay,” Nelvana agreed, “thank you. I love you.”

Keahi smiled, leaning forward to bump zir head against Nelvana’s again, “I love you too, remember that.”

They sat there for another couple minutes, before Keahi insisted that they get up and stretch their legs a bit. They walked in circles around the small space they were hidden in, and Keahi talked about random things to try keeping zir partner’s spirits up. Zie worried about hitting an uncomfortable topic, so zie talked about vague, disconnected things, just as a distraction. Zie talked about pokemon species facts zie had studied before, zie talked about pebbles being skipped across water, and zie talked about how everyone’s handwriting was like their voice in written form. Nelvana didn’t say much in response, but the way her eyes squinted slightly with a small smile and how she continued relaxing after being so tense from waking up, told Keahi that she appreciated zir chatter.

“So… are you still sure about going back now?” Keahi finally asked once they paused from pacing for a moment.

Nelvana nodded, and Keahi couldn’t help but frown. Zie didn’t like when zir partner went silent about things like these, but zie knew that sometimes she needed time to work through her own thoughts on her own before being comfortable talking to others about it. Still, even knowing that, it didn’t make Keahi feel any better about it.

Keahi sighed, “I’m just… worried about you,” zie confessed quietly, “I’m worried about all of us, but especially you. I don’t want you to have to feel like you have to bottle everything up, alright?”

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Nelvana replied, her eyes softening; she wanted to say more, but the words just couldn’t make their way out of her mouth right now.

“I know you don’t mean to. Just… if you feel overwhelmed or something, you can let me know and I can pull you aside for a bit, alright?” Keahi suggested, “we could have a… hand signal for it or something.”

“I could call your name out in human,” Nelvana offered, “˙ıɥɐǝ⋊” she added, reminding Keahi of the sound of zir own name in the other language.

A small smile returned to Keahi’s face, “yeah, that could work too,” zie agreed, “just going to check one more time then… you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s get back to helping save the world,” Nelvana told zim.

“Okay.” Another deep breath. “Follow me then,” Keahi instructed.

Turning out towards the wall, only faintly visible through the shadows, Keahi walked over to one of the larger cracks in the stone. Zie leaned against the space, peeking out into the main area to check the surroundings before stepping back again. Hopping in place for a couple moments, zir right foot began to glow, the glow turning from white to orange as zie turned and kicked the wall with that foot, causing it to crumble in front of them, leaving a hole large enough for them to pass through. The dim light from the main area flooded in, and the faint sounds of the battle grew slightly clearer. Keahi glanced back, offering another small smile, before silently gesturing for Nelvana to follow zim.

Carefully, the pair made their way out of the hidden alcove they had been resting in. Both of them glanced both ways, finding no immediate danger around them. It looked vaguely familiar to them, but many of the tunnels they had gone through at the end of the dungeon looked similar. Despite this, whether by that familiarity or by judging where the sounds of battle where coming from, Keahi turned to zir right, silently pointing out where they would be headed.

Heading down the path, it didn’t take long before they turned around a corner and were greeted by the sight of the ongoing fight. All of their allies were locked in the continuing battle against Palkia, who only looked worse than before in more ways than one. It was the legendary’s growing orange glow, covering up what was once purple on the deity, that provided most of the light in the area, casting an angry light on everything nearby. Their darkened scales were another sign of them growing closer to going fully primal. The others didn’t look to be at their best either, though purely for the reason of being wounded and tired, which was to be expected when fighting such a powerful foe for so long.

“Where are the Lake Guardians…?” Nelvana asked in a whisper, as the pair examined the scene in front of them before jumping right in.

“Oh, I’m… not sure. Maybe they were defeated?” Keahi responded.

“Let’s hope so… we wouldn’t want them to be setting up a trap or something,” Nelvana murmured.

“Let’s use focus energy before we head in; might as well take the chance to get boosted a bit,” Keahi suggested, stepping back slightly to ensure that zie wouldn’t be spotted by Palkia and attacked at this distance.

With silent agreement, the duo took some last extra seconds to breath again, utilizing their focus energy move to prep them for the battle ahead. Hopefully, setting that up would allow them to get in some critical hits on Palkia, which were always beneficial.

Afterwards though, with nothing stopping them from moving back into the fight except for themselves, together they ran back into the battle.

As they approached, Nelvana raised her club over her head, chucking it towards Palkia for a bonemerang attack. This, of course, announced the pair’s appearance the moment anyone glanced up to see the weapon flying overhead, but fortunately there was enough element of surprise that Palkia took the full brunt of the attack, the bone hitting them twice before returning to the cubone’s outstretched hand as she ran.

“Nel!” Alex cried out, a wide smile crossing his face as he glanced back, pupils a deep green instead of black, to see his partner running back to them.

His yell was followed by more of a chorus from the others, quick greetings towards the pair, thankful to see them back and safe. There wasn’t time to talk, no time to check in on how they were feeling, but most made it a point to at least call out quickly. Nelvana was, of course, the main recipient of these greetings, as it was her safety that had been on the line before, but everyone was still thankful to see Keahi back at well, of course.

Palkia only roared angrily at that, clearly upset to see that their method of getting rid of one of the anomalies had been more temporary than they had predicted, but they didn’t bother using words to translate it, there wasn’t much of a point in continuing to yell at the team like they had been before.

As water began swirling in their mouth, Edgar dove out from the shadows, his robes tattered but his eye glowing with intent, as he shot a ray at the space god, disrupting their attack and sending the hydro pump crashing into the wall instead.

Now unsteady on their feet, everyone took this chance to get some good hits onto Palkia while they were stuck with the confused status. Launching a barrage of attacks on the legendary, Palkia snarled and swiped their tail around, the sheer size of the pokemon knocking back whoever happened to be nearby. Regardless, they leapt back to their feet to attack again.

They had been burned previously, so Dusknoir advanced to attack with hex. Observing from the distance, Edgar hesitantly moved closer into the fray again, mimicking the attack. He didn’t pull off the move with the same ease as Dusknoir, but managed to send their own ghostly waves at Palkia, which only surged with the burn status. Edgar winced at this, clearly not proud at inflicting this kind of pain despite knowing who they were up against, and slunk back into the darkness again.

As Palkia snapped out of the confusion soon afterwards, they went straight for healing themself with aqua ring, something they evidently hadn’t gotten around to using yet. A circle of water spun around them, cleansing some of their wounds as the waves lapped their scales.

With Edgar not showing up right away again, Damien stepped forward to use confuse ray himself. He successfully struck Palkia with the status again, but right afterwards was struck with power gem, another beam shot out from Palkia’s mouth, swirling with rocks and some crystals. Damien was knocked back, the electricity he had been charging up to follow up his confuse ray dissipating the moment he was hit, and he fell onto his back before hitting a wall. Weakly, he raised one of his hands afterwards, in case anyone glanced over and got concerned about his condition. He didn’t go right to disappearing into the shadows or teleporting away, however, resorting to digging his other hand into the bag right then and there to feel around for something to heal himself.

Tsuki fired an ice beam at Palkia’s foot, which shattered at the enormous pokemon moved again. Letting out a low growl, she dove towards them, swiping at their legs with her claws before scampering back out of the way as Palkia began stomping about. Alex followed this up by diving in with a thunder punch, electricity crackling around his left fist as he punched Palkia’s other foot, immediately using absorb afterwards for some extra health before he was forced to move out of the way just like the absol.

Nelvana, Keahi, and Ceebee kept their distance for the moment. Nelvana could continue hitting Palkia with her bonemerang, and though Keahi’s flamethrower was quad resisted, zie didn’t feel like attempting to try aiming any of zir melee attacks in this moment. Ceebee would periodically use dazzling gleam, though she switched up her moves often to avoid accidentally blinding some of her own teammates. Psychic was a good way to mess up Palkia, the sudden pain striking their mind would usually get them to wince and miss whichever attack they were in the middle of using, but Ceebee also made sure to use magical leaf often as well.

As Tsuki and Alex were forced to back up, however, Dusknoir moved back in. His body glowed red, white smoke puffing out as he slunk into the shadows to ensure his approach would not be interrupted, before reappearing out from the darkness to deliver another punch to Palkia. However, the glow nearly completely dissipated as he made contact, his eye widening with shock as he saw the move frustration deal barely any damage. He had used the move a couple times before in Howling Forest and Pitfall Valley, he knew how it felt when it did full damage. This was nothing.

In the short moments it took for Dusknoir to realize that his attack hadn’t done much damage, and why, Palkia’s eyes flickered back to focus as they snapped out of their confusion. Letting out a laugh as they too realized that Dusknoir would have been better off using an early level move rather than this TM move, Palkia jolted their foot to kick the ghost-type aside, sending him crashing into the wall, rubble crumpling onto him as he slumped down.

Weakly, he rose, but he was barely floating off the ground at all as he struggled to keep going. Fortunately, Damien, having recovered from being knocked down himself, hurried over to the other ghost-type to provide him with an oran.

To replace Dusknoir’s place in the melee, Nelvana moved ahead, as did Keahi after seeing zir partner advance. Palkia roared at them, sending another spacial rend towards the pair, but they managed to both dove out of the way, splitting up slightly to force Palkia to attack one or the other. Or neither, as Ceebee redirected the legendary’s attention to her as she used dazzling gleam and Palkia turned up to face her with squinted eyes.

Lowering her head, Nelvana led with a headbutt attack, wanting to save her energy from using the same move over and over again. Keahi went in with rock smash, but this quickly turned into zim scratching instead, each claw from zir talons growing stronger until zie was slashing with all zir might.

No longer distracted by Ceebee, Palkia narrowed their eyes at the pair damaging them down on the ground. Stepping back to ensure they had the space to utilize this move, they swept their tail around, water generating around the appendage just as they struck the two, knocking them aside. They tumbled onto the ground, Nelvana’s club knocked out of her hands further back than the pair.

As Nelvana winced while trying to get back up, she was aware that she should probably stay down for the moment. She never did technically heal up from the last time she was hit from aqua tail, before having her memories returned. The others could cover while Damien or even Alex came over to give her and Keahi healing items. Keahi even groaned, but hadn’t tried getting back up, clearly expecting that outcome of being given healing items soon.

And yet… despite knowing that… Nelvana dragged herself to her feet, fixed her face to a snarl, and rushed back into the fight again, right back into the melee.

She used stomping tantrum, same as she had used against the skuntank and crobat all the way back in Murky Cave. She hadn’t used the move since then, and yet now she could feel that angry energy returning, and she made no effort to stop it. She ran right up to Palkia, kicking them as hard as she could, following it up with punches and then more kicks, trying to deal as much damage as she possibly could in this moment.

The haze that showed up when she used that move suddenly disappeared as she felt herself being grabbed. Fear gripped her instead of anger, as she quickly pieced together that this large, clawed hand around her was Palkia’s. She struggled, but it didn’t do her any good.

Palkia smashed the right side of her face into the wall. An instant crack echoed in the cavern, and bone fell to the ground as the skull signature of a cubone shattered and the pieces clattered to the floor. They dragged Nelvana against the wall afterwards before discarding her like trash, tossing her across the room where she collapsed limply. She didn’t stir.

“I’ve got her!” Damien called out to the others before anyone else could manage to utter anything through their own horror, teleporting over to his friend.

He crouched down beside her, relief flooding through her as he saw he chest still slowly move up and down with each breath. The entire right side of her headgear was destroyed, and her face was scraped and bleeding slightly, tinting her brown fur a crimson red. Fumbling in his bag with shaking hands, Damien hoped that they hadn’t run out of reviver seeds yet.

To his surprise, before he located any seed, he saw Nelvana weakly peek an eye open. She was conscious somehow, just barely though, but enough that she wouldn’t need a reviver seed. He wasn’t even sure if she was really aware of what was going on like this, but at the very least, he would be able to save one of those precious seeds, and just make use of an oran. Though, he was pretty sure they had a sitrus, that would probably be better…

“¡ǝɹǝɥʇ ɟo ʇno ʇǝ⅁ ¡uǝıɯɐᗡ” Alex suddenly screamed, snapping Damien out of his thoughts.

Blinking in surprise at the order, especially with him not expecting it to be in his native tongue, Damien glanced up, only to see a pink crescent blade of energy speeding towards them both. With only mere seconds to spare, he curled himself over Nelvana, took a deep breath, and teleported them both out of the way.

They reappeared in the alcove. Damien gasped out a breath of relief at their close call, shakily sitting up again to go back to finding the right berry for Nelvana. A stab of worry went through him as he saw that she didn’t have her eyes open anymore, but his fears were quelled again as she squinted her eye open again, before lacking the energy to keep it open again and closed it. Quickly, Damien located the sitrus berry he remembered getting and held it in front of Nelvana’s mouth.

“Can you take this…?” Damien asked quietly, wondering if he was going to have to force feed her the berry.

She opened her mouth slightly, but unfortunately didn’t seem capable of eating the berry on her own right away. Remembering from seeing others in the team do it, Damien split the berry in half, pinching some mush to soothe Nelvana’s bleeding cheeks, and then propping her up slightly so she could lick the juices from the berry half. Once she got some of the healing energy into her, she managed to lift her hands, grasping the berry on her own and finishing it off. Damien let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you…” Nelvana murmured as she finished eating.

“Man, I’m just glad you’re not dead,” Damien replied, letting out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Sitting back and giving Nelvana some space for the moment, Damien watched as she gingerly reached to touch her unprotected cheek. Her fingers passed over the healing spots where the wall had cut her skin, and hesitantly traced the outline of the cracked skull. A thin scar stretched across her right cheek, and it was just as old as the others that littered her body.

Nelvana reached both hands next and gently took the remainder of the skull off her head, looking over the object in her hands. Underneath the headgear, her fur was the same brown that remained on most of her body. However, there was a patch of darker hair on her head, some locks of it now free to fall around the right side of Nelvana’s face slightly. Her ears had pale, yellow fur. It reminded Damien of Kangaskhan, in a way.

As Nelvana turned to stare back at him, Damien jumped slightly, embarrassment hitting as he realized he was probably making her uncomfortable by just silently watching her like that.

“Sorry!” he hastily apologized, “I’ve… never seen a cubone without the skull on before.”

To his surprise, she let out a small chuckle, “me neither until I turned into one and looked myself.”

Seemingly finished with reviewing the damage of her headgear, Nelvana placed the skull back atop her head, using a hand to shift some of the darker fur so that most of it would stay pinned down until the bone.

“Is it still secure like that?” Damien questioned, peering at the broken helmet. “Won’t fall off or anything?”

Silently in response, Nelvana tilted her head to the left side, testing to see if gravity would pull the skull off from atop her head. It shifted slightly, but there was enough still remaining to hold it mostly in place. She tilted her head back to a normal position, and gave Damien a thumbs up.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her.

Nelvana blinked back at him, words catching in her throat momentarily at the familiar question, “…I’m fine. Or, at least I will be. Just… give me a few moments.”

Without another word, she carefully pulled herself to her feet. The sitrus berry had done its work at healing her well, and while she was shaky at first, she was able to stand quite fine. Tugging at the ends of her scarf, she glanced around the tiny area again.

“Where’s my club…?” she asked.

“Oh, uh… I think it was left behind. I don’t think you even picked it up after that aqua tail hit.”

“Okay, okay…”

Beginning to paces in circles, Nelvana took in deep breaths, continuing to tug at her scarf before moving her hands away from the accessory to wave them vaguely in the air in front of her. Faintly, Damien could hear her muttering to herself. It was difficult to pick up exact words, but he swore that he heard her reciting some pokemon species facts. He was… unsure of what she was up to in general, but patiently and quietly let her continue with it.

Eventually though, after a couple minutes, she suddenly shook her head, crossing her arms around herself instead and approaching Damien again. He, who had been watching outside the alcove and listening to the sounds of ongoing battle, turned to look up and meet her now narrowed gaze.

“Okay, I’m ready now. Thank you for waiting,” Nelvana told him.

Damien frowned, narrowing his eyes back at her. She blinked, her eyes widening slightly in surprise at this reaction. He stood up before she could decide to say something else, moving himself in front of the hole in the wall, blocking it with his body.

“You aren’t ready,” he insisted firmly, crossing his own arms. “We aren’t going back.”

“What do you mean, ‘we aren’t going back’?” Nelvana demanded, her mouth upturning into a snarl. “They still need our help out there! I’m not hurt now, there’s no reason not to go back!”

“You are still hurt.” His sharp gaze softened with his words. “Just not… physically.”

Nelvana glared at Damien, and though he stiffened under her gaze, he didn’t move. Swallowing her breath, Nelvana stepped back, staring out at another wall as she thought for a few moments, before turning back to face her friend.

“…What do you mean by that?”

“Look, I don’t know what exactly happened when Palkia restored your memories, but it’s obvious that’s greatly affected you! I saw you recklessly throw yourself at them again when you were inches from fainting already! In fact, it’s a miracle that Palkia didn’t use an actual move against you! They could have killed you there, Nel. I’m still shocked you only needed a sitrus berry for those wounds. I can’t let you go back out there, throwing your life away like this!” Damien yelled, uncrossing his arms to wave in front of him.

She recoiled at the words, but quickly shook her head and stomped back up to him again, “we’re all risking our lives out here! They need our help in this fight!”

“You aren’t listening to me!” Damien pleaded, “we are all risking our lives here, yes, but we aren’t actively putting ourselves in situations in this fight we know could get us killed!” he explained, grabbing Nelvana by her shoulders firmly. “I don’t want you to be killed, Nel! Especially when I can do something about it!”

Nelvana flinched as he grabbed her, the cold touch and his words sending a chill down her spine. She was stiff in his hold, but didn’t struggle against him, simply remaining still instead. She didn’t say anything.

“…Look, I know you probably would have preferred to have Keahi or Alex here to talk to you about this,” Damien sighed, loosening his stance and grip slightly, his ears drooping. “Frankly, so would I. I’m not… great at this sort of thing. But… I’m who is here now, and that’s what we have to deal with,” he continued, “you’re one of the strongest people I’ve met, Nel. But it’s okay to not always be okay. You’re been through a lot, and I’m sure that remembering all that at once would throw anyone off. If I remembered my entire life as a human at once… I’m not sure what I’d do, honestly. I’m honestly fortunate that Palkia doesn’t seem to realize that, that I don’t have all my memories and that could be used against me. The fact that you were able to get back up again and keep going is impressive, but that shouldn’t be done by you pushing down all your feelings. You’re trying to act like you don’t care, but you do and it’s hurting yourself; it’s hurting everyone. Please.”

There was silence in the tiny alcove, the only sounds being the still distant noises of the fight. Slowly, Damien removed his hands from Nelvana’s shoulders, keeping them raised slightly as he gauged his friend’s reaction to this. The seconds seemed to trickle on like hours. However, just as Damien was lowering his hands to his sides again, wondering what else he could say, he saw tears well up in Nelvana’s eyes.

“…I think I r-remembered to-too m-u-u-uch…” she whimpered, body shaking as she hiccupped out a sob.

Leaning forward, Nelvana practically collapsed onto Damien, forcing him to wrap his arms around her into a hug as she began to cry again. She had thought, she truly thought that she had cried enough before, had run out of tears in her body, but now she couldn’t stop herself from sobbing again. This time though, the skull did not rattle, it could not, it was broken. Guilt began eating away at her through her grief; she had been trying to hide everything to not worry everyone and ended up doing to opposite.

Damien continued to hold her gently.

“I miss my family…” Nelvana whispered, “they’re gone, they’re dead. I didn’t even… even k-know that before. In the dead timeline,” she sobbed, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye in the spirit realm.”

Damien didn’t know what to say. All he could do was listen. Listen and hold onto Nelvana as she cried.

And cry she did. They stayed like that for a few minutes. Not quite as long as before, when Nelvana was with Keahi, but she still ended up letting out more tears than she thought was in her. Eventually though, her sobs faded into silence, and she separated herself from Damien’s hold, staring down at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Nelvana murmured, “you… you’re right. Keahi was right, Dialga was right. This… This hurts so much,” she confessed.

“It’s okay to be hurting,” he assured her, “we’ll all help you work through it.”

She gave him a small nod, “I know. And thank you for that. I… I’m scared of not being around to help them though,” she responded.

“Did… Did something like that happen in your past?” Damien asked hesitantly, receiving another small, hesitant nod. “Your family?”

“Dusknoir killed them. After Alex and I had travelled back in time. He told me in the spirit realm, which… which I remember now too, even though no one else does,” Nelvana told him, “I don’t want to be back here when I could be helping.”

Damien’s eyes widened, the pieces putting themselves together in his mind. This was what Edgar and Dusknoir had been talking about, who Dusknoir had killed and not told anyone about. Except he did, but he doesn’t remember it and she does.

“You can help without risking your own life like that,” Damien replied, unsure of what else to say about this.

Nelvana let out a dry chuckle, “I know that. You’re right, I was being reckless,” she said, and then sighed. “What can I do to prove to you I’m ready to go back in then? You’re right, there’s definitely things to be worked through. But… But that can’t happen until this fight is over. And they’ll need you, at least. Alex has some of the supplies, but you’ve been our main item user. If you’re back here guarding me, you can’t help them.”

He paused, considering this. She was right, but he was still worried. They were both right, but both of their truths were clashing; he needed to find a compromise.

“Well…” Damien sighed, “look, you are right about that. I’m just… Can you promise to be extra careful? Stay back a bit, stick with bonemerang for as long as you have the energy for or something like that that keeps you from getting grabbed like that again. I have elixirs too if that’s what you need to keep up that strategy. We need to end this fight.”

Nelvana smiled, “I promise to stay out of as much danger as possible.”

Damien held his hand up to her, “pinkie promise.”

Nelvana laughed, but lifted her hand as well to wrap her smallest finger around his, and they shook on it that way. After the shake, they both lowered their arms and smiled at each other. There was still the lingering stress, but they both felt better than they had coming in to this alcove. Damien let out a long exhale.

“Man, we’re all going to need some therapy after this…” he muttered.

“I’m going to pretend that I know what that is.”

“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that.”

Shaking his head, Damien turned to exit back into the main cave area, but then paused and turned back around to face Nelvana, who raised her brow at this, awaiting what he had to say now.

“Actually… do you still have the mobile scarf with you?” Damien asked, “I have an idea...”

Palkia roared again, stomping their foot onto the ground. Golden cracks spread in the ground, reaching out underneath Tsuki before bursting out with sharp rocks. Tsuki yelped as she was hit, the force from the attack knocking her up into the air, and she failed to land afterwards, rolling onto her side not far from where she was hit.

Seeing his friend hurt, Edgar floated out from the shadows again afterwards to cover her while she was down, not going to use confuse ray again but to go right up for a shadow sneak attack. He darted out from the darkness to strike Palkia before disappearing again before he could be hit. Palkia snapped their teeth down to where the duskull had vanished, but he was long gone.

While Palkia was momentarily distracted, Nelvana snuck out from behind them through a wall, mobile scarf in hand. She scanned the area for her weapon, going straight for it once she located it not far away. Palkia’s head snapped over as they spotted the cubone out of the corner of their eye, but before they could go to attack her, Damien leapt out from shadows above the legendary. Dark energy was already swirling around his fist, and he hit Palkia with the sucker punch, interrupting their attack. He landed sloppily on the ground, but quickly snapped his fingers to summon a lightning bolt to strike the legendary from above again, buying him enough time to jump to his feet again and hurry out of the fray.

“Does anyone need some items right now?” he called out.

“Damien, Nel, you’re back!” Ceebee exclaimed, “Tsuki just got hit, you can get an oran to her,” she instructed Damien afterwards, knowing that was more important than any chatter at the moment.

Nodding, Damien hurried over to the absol, who was doing her best to get back up, without much success. As he crouched beside Tsuki, Ceebee flew in front of them, clapping her hands with another dazzling gleam to keep Palkia at bay.

Nelvana grabbed her club while she was running, moving to find a good spot to start using bonemerang from. As she hurried along, she passed by Alex, who also seemed to be keeping his distance in the moment in favor of using absorb. He turned to look at her as she approached, motioning with one hand for her to pause for a moment.

“Nel!” Alex called, “are you okay?” he asked.

“I…” She paused, but swallowed her breath. “Physically, I’m still a bit sore and it’s weird to be missing half my skull, but I’m alright, Damien gave me a sitrus berry. Otherwise… I’m going to need a break after all this.”

Alex’s chuckle in response was dry, but he managed to give her a smile, “…I think we all will. Remember though, we’re all in this together though, alright? Hang in there, you’re doing great so far. We can talk more later.”

Nelvana smiled back at him, “alright, thanks. Love you.”

With that, she hurried off again, knowing that they shouldn’t clump up too much, but she didn’t get that far before hearing Alex call back to her.

“I love you too, sis! Please be careful, alright?”

“I will!”

Glancing behind her, she wondered if he had more to say, but she reminded herself that they all probably had more to say to each other. They would have to wait until the end of the fight though.

The end of the fight didn’t appear anywhere near, however. Palkia’s aqua ring helped keep their health up, but Team Galaxy still had enough items to keep them going for now. They knew that this would need to end soon if they wanted to win, since as time trickled on in the fight, the transition to turning primal only continued.

Nelvana kept her promise to Damien, and stayed further back as often as she could. Sometimes, an attack would be aimed in her direction, forcing her to move, but even though there were times she wanted to get in some melee hits, she stayed back.

Alex was still staying back too, using moves such as absorb and bullet seed to keep up damage while staying out of the fray himself. Judging by some of the bruises on his skin, it was likely for the best that he made the choice to step out of the melee for awhile.

Keahi could be seen darting about, trying to keep up the melee since zir only ranged moves were heavily resisted. Still, zie had to be careful of becoming a target, and would have to scurry off every time Palkia almost seemed to even consider aiming a move towards zim. Zir feathers were ruffled and there were some blood stained from some scrapes, but fortunately it didn’t appear as if zie had been hit with any strong moves since that aqua tail. Or, at the very least, that damage had been healed through berries by now.

Tsuki, once back on her feet after the oran berry, took another moment to calm herself, utilizing the psychic status move she had learned. She had already used it a couple times in the fight, but she knew it would be worth it to get more of a boost. Opening her mouth, she shot an ice beam at Palkia, which shattered as the larger pokemon moved again, but still dealt the damage as it needed. Her white fur was visibly dirty, with blood and the dust from all the rocks, but she stood tall and strong, using quick attack if she ever needed to get up close to fight or to dodge incoming attacks.

Edgar continued staying in the shadows most of the time, popping out to provide some extra help when needed. As someone without many strong attacks, it was actually good for him to stay out of the way sometimes, and avoid taking as much damage as possible. Despite that strategy, he had still taken some hits, judging by how his robed body was still torn, but he had managed to avoid taking any real major hits, which was the best he could ask for.

Ceebee flew around Palkia, doing her best to also keep her distance due to her fear of facing the same fate of Celebi, but also staying close enough to ensure maximum damage whenever she made use of dazzling gleam. Through leech seed and recover, she was still in mostly good health, and made magical leaf her main attack in this fight between her fairy-type move.

Damien made use of his sucker punch and thunder bolt attacks while keeping his eyes out for anyone that might need an item, though he couldn’t keep that nagging worry out of his head that his bag was a lot lighter than it was when they started this fight. Every so often he would use confuse ray so Edgar wouldn’t have to, but unless he moved closer, he often missed with that move, so they were better off when the duskull used it.

Dusknoir had been assisting Keahi in the melee ever since zie and Nelvana had been hit with that aqua tail attack. He had ranged moves, but he could use them just as well up close. When Palkia would attack him, he would go to disappear in the shadows to dodge out of the way, but he had also taken quite a few hits when distracting the legendary from attacking someone else. Fortunately, his defenses were strong enough to allow him to do this, but it was clear every time that Damien or Alex had to pop by to give him an oran that they weren’t completely pleased with this strategy.

Palkia continued their own attack. With so many targets, it could be hard to choose who to aim for, and they often would use moves that could hit multiple targets at once. Creating water around their tail again, they swiped it out around them, aiming out towards Tsuki, who leapt over this attack and countered with another ice beam. Growling, they then stomped again, hoping to ward off those who were still attacking by their feet. Dusknoir vanished into the ground, while Keahi scrambled off on foot.

“We aren’t getting anywhere!” Tsuki yowled, “does anyone have any other ideas?”

There was a pause, and then the sinking realization that no one had an answer to Tsuki. They already had been employing what they thought were their best moves and strategies. Perhaps they could come up with something more, but that would require more time to plan, time they didn’t have in the middle of this battle.

“Maybe I could try hypnosis if their burn heals?” Damien suggested, “we don’t have a way to do that, do we?”

“Stick with the burn for now! It cuts their attack and deals damage to them,” Alex pointed out, calling back to the gengar from across the room.

Not about to just stand around while the group tossed ideas at each other, Palkia let out a low growl, swiping their arm to use spacial rend again, the crescent tearing up the walls and floors around it as it swept across the area. That, and previous uses of that attack were beginning to make it incredibly difficult to run around this terrain.

“We’re going to need to think of something!” Ceebee yelled, shooting another barrage of magical leaves at Palkia between her sentences. “Or else we’ll just lose when this place completely falls apart!”

Almost as if to encourage this statement, Palkia snarled, opening their mouth to charge up a hydro pump attack. They blasted the water attack towards the group, managing to miss most of them due to the low accuracy of the move, but only continuing to damage the area behind the group more. The room wasn’t actively falling apart in the same way the dungeon had been, but was falling under the pressure of all these powerful attacks being used in the fight. Though spacial rend was the biggest culprit, after this, it was becoming increasingly evident that other attacks were only contributing to the damage around them, and limiting their space to move safely.

“This is getting too unsafe!” Edgar, popping out from the shadows again, called out. “We should go further into the room, where it isn’t as broken!”

Silently agreeing to this suggestion, everyone began to move themselves closer towards Palkia, inserting themselves in the melee temporarily so they could pass behind the legendary, offering themselves more room to fight. Dusknoir rose back from the ground, throwing a shadow ball at Palkia, distracting them momentarily to allow the others time to head over. Keahi followed suit with this idea, blasting a flamethrower instead, despite knowing it wouldn’t do that much damage.

Edgar vanished back into the darkness, but reappeared to deliver another shadow sneak to Palkia before disappearing again. Damien teleported behind Keahi, taking the moment to check on the torchic, who politely rejected any healing items in the moment. Alex and Tsuki both leapt across, the former taking the opportunity to scratch by Palkia with leaf blade as he passed by, and the latter using ice beam again right after she had landed onto safe ground.

Ceebee didn’t move right away, not needing to because of her ability to fly. She clapped her hands together, blasting another dazzling gleam at Palkia, who had begun to piece together what the group was doing, and had turned to try attacking before they could all get across. Nodding to the celebi in thanks, Nelvana began making her way across.

She leapt between a gap in the flooring, pausing as landed, not going straight to moving forward again so she could scan her path ahead of her. Nelvana swallowed her breath as she watched Palkia nail Ceebee with another aura sphere, the others behind the legendary doing their best to continue fighting them and distract them from attacking their friend. Feeling a tension in her chest, Nelvana gripped her club and gritted her teeth, forcing herself to only focus on where she had to go instead in this moment.

Nelvana sprinted forward, jumping over another gap onto safe ground, but still not quite to Palkia. If she had to come by this way anyway, she might as well get a good hit in, right? Continuing to run ahead, she felt herself strangely brimming with energy throughout her body. It was unlike anything she had felt before, and yet it didn’t bother her, almost feeling completely natural.

Alex, noticing this, glanced towards Damien, and the two exchanged a knowing look. No one else seemed to pick up on this, including Palkia, who was thankfully currently focused on fighting those who had already made it across.

A white glow spread across Nelvana as the energy came to a peak. She was distantly aware of feeling stronger, and growing taller. The skull over her head reformed itself, covering where it had been damaged before, and extending to cover her lower jaw instead. Her club still tightly gripped grew, the jagged end changing into another blunt end, repairing the bone itself.

The glow vanished from around Nelvana, seconds before she had finished running up to Palkia. She swung her weapon at their leg, the weapon letting out a loud thud on contact, actually getting Palkia to flinch at the attack and look down her, finding themself staring down at not a cubone, but a marowak. Their eyes widened, and the battle froze around them.

“…HOW?” Palkia almost sounded dazed at first, but then narrowed their eyes again and snarled. “HOW? HOW did YOU evolve? IMPOSSIBLE! You are an ANOMALY! You can’t… can’t…”

Nelvana blinked up at them, glancing down at herself as if just realizing the changes herself. She reached up to her right cheek, feeling the hard bone covering it again, smoother than it ever had been as a cubone. However, despite evidently being caught off guard by this as well, she quickly narrowed her eyes back at Palkia, not about to leave herself simply standing in front of them, being vulnerable.

“I am not an anomaly!” she yelled back at them, “none of us are! Everyone has been telling you that from the start!”

Palkia stared down at her, then glanced back at the others before looking back at Nelvana again. The anger slowly faded from their expression into a mixture of understanding and horror as the answer finally clicked in their clouded mind; they had been wrong and everyone else was right. They stared at the marowak, the marowak who had just naturally evolved from a cubone, something that, should have been impossible for an “anomaly”, and still rare enough for anyone else regardless.

They opened their mouth to speak again, only to have another roar ripped out of their throat. The orange glow suddenly consumed all that once glowed purple on the space god, their scales fully darkening so they almost appeared red rather than pink. Their roar continued, bordering on a scream as their body convulsed, reaching up to grip their head as they shook.

Then, suddenly, Palkia went still and silent. Then, they opened their eyes, a sharp orange, vacant of any emotion.

Primal Palkia let out an abysmal roar, shaking the area around them. When they finished, they stared at the group again, lips curled up into another snarl. However, instead of attacking, they turned away and another portal, just like they had used to transport Dialga before, opened up in front of them. Before anyone could stop them, Primal Palkia jumped through the portal and it disappeared behind them.

No one said anything, the stunned silence stretching on for many long seconds as they stared at the space that Primal Palkia had vanished through.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which there is one last break Previous: In which part of a curse is broken

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crystalelemental · 3 years ago

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In just under 30 hours, it’s over. This time, on Emerald Defeated.

This is my favorite run of Emerald. Probably ever. This is up there in favorite teams with the last time I played HeartGold. It was that good.

Vivian the Blaziken! She’s great. I love Blaziken a lot, and picked up this run specifically for Blaziken. Rash nature was great fun, Flamethrower with Charcoal just dominated so much. That said, while I used her almost the entirety of early game, by late game she was a bit more...niche? Like, part of that is just the ongoing three hours of nothing but Water, but at least she made a nice comeback in Sidney and Steven’s fights. Didn’t so as much against Steven as I’d hoped, but apparently Metagross is just really fast.

Elaina the Gardevoir was the miracle child. I always have to catch a Ralts, just to try for Gardevoir, and she set the game in motion. Modest Nature. I couldn’t pass that up. This quickly became a run where I decided against playing to unused Pokemon and just going straight to favorites. And by god, was Gardevoir incredible. Bit of a rough start. I avoided using her in Brawly’s gym because I am that ridiculous about EV training, and didn’t do that great against Wattson. But once we hit Winona? Calm Mind x2 into offense cleared so much. Winona, Juan, Glacia, and even almost took down Wallace. She was my intended solution to Cradily on Steven’s team as well. Gardevoir did amazing this run, and I’m very proud.

The same can not be said of Hildegard, my Aggron. Aron is...frankly insane mid-game. When you start picking up good tools like Iron Tail, and have that strong Steel/Rock/Ground coverage, Aron...really does amazing. Especially for all the physical hits getting thrown around. It solo’d Norman. That’s how well she did. But kinda like Blaziken, the Water routes truck a lot of her utility. There was a brief comeback against Tate and Liza, then...nothing. She literally never saw battle in the E4, and her one attempt against Steven involved dying immediately to Metagross Earthquake. Jolly had a lot of utility for outspeeding in that mid-game, but again, by endgame it just...didn’t do enough. It’s sad, but she’s definitely the worst performer.

Which is surprising because Ophelia the Flygon would be considered right behind her. This, however, was more my fault. I didn’t really plan Flygon out well. We got Naive as a nature, which was fantastic, and I attempted to used a strong mixed set. But without specific EV training, the only move that ever accomplished its job was Earthquake. Dragon Claw really wasn’t the best for damage, and I kinda regret giving up the paralysis chance on Dragonbreath. Crunch became relevant only in the fight against Steven’s Claydol. Fly would consistently miss despite 95 accuracy. Flygon never hit the same pit as Aggron, but it never hit the same high points either. She was more a glue; something nice to cover certain holes in the team, who did really well for that role, but wasn’t the KO machine that Gardevoir was, nor the amazing tank that Milotic was.

Sophia the Absol is my pick for absolute MVP. Did she do as much as Gardevoir or Milotic? Technically no. Milotic likely deserves the MVP title more solely for how hard she salvaged Steven’s fight. But Absol is, bar absolutely nothing, my favorite build for a Pokemon. Calm Mind/Bite/Ice Beam/Thunderbolt. This was something dreamt up by a lunatic, and it actually worked. Part of that was taking time to actually EV train. Sophia’s about as perfectly trained for speed and special attack as you can be, and it...really got the job done. I still find it hilarious that the highest visible stat is still attack, but her entire role is a special sweeper. And by god, what a sweeper. Took Phoebe solo, finished Drake, and salvaged Wallace. She didn’t get to really perform against Steven, sadly, but she was the backup answer to Cradily if Gardevoir couldn’t get the job done. Sophia was just so much fun to see start working. I was so uncertain of this build, but god she nailed it.

Finally, Calista the Milotic. Actually, I did specifically EV train her. Quiet nature, 120HP, 136 Sp Atk, 252 Def. She was a fantastic physical tank, who could hit surprisingly hard with Surf too. During the League, her primary role was failing to tank Drake. Kingdra got a Body Slam paralysis and Dragon Dance, and she failed to get the Recover when it was needed. It was a notably bad showing. But she more than made up for it with the absolute domination of Steven. Dunked on Aggron (when it finally missed it’s predicted Thunder), got a super lucky crit with Ice Beam against Cradily that took it down, tanked Metagross so hard it died, and outsped Armaldo and could 2HKO with Surf. Calista was phenomenal in this fight. The main sad aspect is that she didn’t see a ton of play outside of this. As mentioned, the League was mostly her team, with her major fight being taken over by Sophia. She participated in no gym battles, and wasn’t particularly exceptional in anything barring the takedown of Team Magma. I still really loved using Milotic. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to use Milotic in a main game run before, due to how absurd it is to find one. This was incredibly refreshing; it feels good to finally have gotten Milotic the legitimate way when my younger self never could. And to pilot her to success was even better.

The run itself was fairly smooth. Interestingly, the biggest hiccup was Wattson. He was actually relatively challenging, and took three tries to beat. I blame the speed on Manectric. That said, Wattson also has something I think is critically important for the entire game: these people are really good at stopping setup.

I think in my head, I’m used to setup being really powerful against the main game, where everything is about offensive presence. But a lot of this game knew its stuff, and was ready to intercept with things like Wattson’s Voltorb knowing Self Destruct, or Winona’s Swablu knowing Perish Song. This continued up through Sidney’s Intimidate/Sand Attack Mightyena, Body Slam on Glacia’s Sealeo, and even Wallace’s Wailord having Water Spout, which is insanely strong if unhurt. Even Steven’s team leading Skarmory with Toxic/Spikes is insanely punishing toward setup sweepers. Given that I was running three different options for setup, this really stood out to me in the game’s design, and I kinda like it. Hoenn’s pretty strategic, I didn’t give them enough credit for that.

The other thing I noticed was that...I feel like Hoenn’s kinda slow overall? This might be a matter of me knowing the EV training spots, and Route 118 in particular tending to be a chosen training spot for finally having reasonable rates of fully evolved Pokemon, but I feel like we outsped a lot of threats. Even my Quiet Milotic, who isn’t that fast and actively hindered her own speed, was able to outpace quite a few threats without issue. Hoenn seems to function in bulk, and has some nasty surprises for setup sweepers, which is a cool approach.

I think this game also kinda revealed my problem with evasion/accuracy play a little more thoroughly. Specifically, that things like Sand Attack and the like are meant to be answers to an opposing setup sweeper. You can buff, but if you let me get the evasion buffs/accuracy debuffs, you run the risk of not hitting and just failing. And that’s not an intrinsically terrible pick, but there are better methods that don’t involve also just frustrating every other style of play to no end. I think Steven’s Toxic is a great example. Okay, fine, you can buff, but now you’re on a timer. This is way less severe than “If RNG is really mean, I am literally untouchable and am just going to dunk on your entire team.” To that end, I’ve further decided I am at least more okay with accuracy debuffs like Sand Attack than evasion buffs like Double Team, because at least debuffs targeting one Pokemon are gone when they fail, and the new option isn’t fighting the same uphill battle.

And on that note, I’m going to gush about Steven’s team here. I legitimately love this team. Skarmory is such a good lead. Deceptively fast, Aerial Ace is a good answer to Blaziken, Steel Wing honestly wore down Aggron, Toxic is devastating to setup sweepers, and then it has Spikes. This asshole of a bird can throw up Spikes, cutting into your entire team’s HP over time. This is such a surprisingly good lead set. His Aggron’s a bit hit and miss. I think Thunder is really funny for it, but Solarbeam is kinda meh. I get that it’s for Ground-types, but that’s too long a charge time, man. Cradily is probably my favorite on his team. I did not expect this thing to give me so much trouble. It’s stupid bulky, Giga Drain/Ingrain is insane recovery, Ancientpower is deceptively strong, the mixed offense makes it hard to set up on, and then it gets Confuse Ray, which is the fairer version of evasion boosting/accuracy debuffing. Metagross is just deranged power, but honestly, shoutouts to Claydol. Dual Screens doesn’t get enough respect, and Claydol actually does a really good job of setting both in a fight. It was really tough having to play around them when Metagross came out. Granted, because I ran Flygon, Claydol was...pretty easily ignored. But the strategy behind its inclusion, and the fact I still had to play carefully to work around the easiest one to counter, speaks volumes about his team.I know I won with level 55-57 Pokemon, but frankly I attribute this win more to the luck of Calista’s crit Ice Beam breaking Cradily than anything. It’s such a good team, I legitimately love this.

So, that’s it for Emerald. I’m still kinda in a Pokemon mood, and may very well go back to my beloved Platinum. That honestly just feels like the one I want to play. But I...also kinda want to try and convince myself to play Sun and Moon. I actually picked it up first, set it down because I wasn’t engaging all that well, and picked up Emerald instead. I feel bad, but I...don’t think I’m really looking forward to Gen 7 at all, so I’ll probably continue to skip it. So either it’s Platinum, or maybe White/Black.

#pokemon emerald #favorite pokemon teams #blaziken #gardevoir #aggron #flygon #absol #milotic

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fictionerd · 7 years ago

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GOOD. TO. SEE. YOU. FRIENDS!!!

Here we are! The first post of Summer Season 2018 and we’ll be covering Planet With. This series is released on Sundays and can be watched on Crunchyroll.

Okay, so let’s cover what we learn from the first two episodes of Planet With.

In episode one we’re introduced to Souya, a young amnesiac who dreams of horrifying giant draconic creature attacking a city and some one flying off to confront it. See it’s shit like this that causes dragons to have a bad reputation. Seriously I can’t believe these assholes who go around burning whatever the hell they want just because they can breath fire. If it weren’t for them dimensional travel wouldn’t be such a daunting prospect for me. I never know when some one is going to have a traumatic flashback and attack me all because some scaley clown got it into their head to “burninate” something.

Sorry, I’m digressing again. After waking up from his ptsdream Souya prepares to have a normal breakfast with his perfectly normal housemates of a large cat-person and green-haired maid.

Oh wait... My bad. See I’m used to hanging out with a Teddy-Bear whisperer with the ability to access the life’s memory of a version of herself in any given universe, an elf who ONLY exists in the metaverse of the Akashic Record, and most recently a shadow-monster who spent three months pretending to be Swole-Bear. There was also that time I tried to hang out with a copy of a video game character, but we’re not considering that canon anymore. At least not entirely for legal reasons. Oh! There’s also the British man who tears holes in dimensions to fight against “unfair fates” who I’m apparently hosting a podcast with now? My point being that to me the above image is perfectly normal. To most anyone else this is probably at least a three on the Sir Memery WTF chart.

After finishing his veggie breakfast Souya sets off for school complaining about wanting to eat some meat where he bumps into his class rep whose name he has forgotten. You’d think this is just an excuse to set up Tsundere vibes with her, but no it’s far FAR worse than that. See her name is: Kagaratamaha? [wrong buzzer] Hakatamagara? [wrong buzzer] Ta-ka-ma-ga-ha-ra? [Correct Tone]

So Nickname Pending is worried about Souya and how he doesn’t make friends at his new school. This is because she knows what it’s like to be the new kid, and has apparently never watched an anime in her life so she doesn’t quite grasp the concept of “Leave the mysterious blue-haired transfer alone”.

Side Note: This character’s introduction marks the first time I’ve ever gotten a Japanese pun without some one explaining it to me. So allow me to ruin it for you all by explaining it. She offers Souya some of her Hamburger Steak to which he replies with tears of join “Megane-sama” which she mishears as “Megami-sama” and sheepishly replies that she doesn’t think she’s a goddess before immediately realizing what he’d actually said. This leads into the reveal of her actual name which I refuse to ever use the entirety of again because I honestly don’t think the joke is that funny.

Later that day Souya’s shounen receptors begin to tingle as he picks up on the impending conflict of the story. A UFO is sighted offshore headed towards the city. When the air-force is deployed to deal with the object (Picture in header) they find themselves the victim of some strange joyous delusion and leave the object alone. it’s only when seven strange people, apparently psychics of some kind, utilize their powers to confront it is it stopped. We see one of these people enter the object through a “Weak Point” and have his own delusion.

See, his mother was killed in a fire when he was a little boy causing him to become a firefighter. The UFO hits his brain with a delusion of child him being held back from the blaze by a firefighter only for that firefighter to turn out to be adult him. Adult Firefighter Psychic dude runs into the fire, saves his mom, and the two of them walk through the cherry blossoms as he sorts through all the pent up regrets he has about not being able to save her when he was a kid. Only after we’ve conveniently gotten to know this character’s defining trauma does his squad get through to him and break the delusion, then he uses his Psychic Golem Powers to wreck the hell out of the UFO causing it and copies of it that had appeared around the world to disappear all at once. The same can be said for the Psychics who all blast off to separate places to avoid the fate of E.T. one presumes

While all this was going on Souya got a call from Ginko (That’s green-haired maid lady for those not following the series who also don’t care about spoilers). She tells Souya that he has to defeat “it”, but contrary to what everyone in the audience thinks it turns out that “it” refers to one of the Psychics and not the UFO thing. After Ex-Firefighter current world-saver exits the bushes onto a highway he encounters Souya the cat-man and Ginko. Souya is sporting a mask and being basically lead by the nose at the behest of Catman and Ginko. Now hold onto your seats because this is where shit gets REALLY weird.

Catman swallows Souya turning into a mech in the process that Souya is now piloting. They get into a fight with Firefighter dude who summons up his psychic golem thing. After fumbling around at Ginko’s direction Souya manages to pilot the Catmech to victory over Psychic Fireman and retrieves a vial of star-shaped dust that is the “source of his power”. At which point I’m lead to believe that Souya recovered his memories because he shouts at Firefighter to tell his friends that Souya is going to kick their collective asses. This is presumably because he believes them to be behind his ptsdream.

After the credits roll we see a scene where a guy I can only describe a scruffy Alder from Pokemon Gen 5 says ominously that Firefighter dude had been taken out.

So, before even watching episode two I can already hands-down predict that this guy is the Draconic asshole from Souya’s ptsdream. Not sure how everything fits together but my working theory is that Souya’s from another planet that Earth governments or some shadowy organization somehow invaded and stole something from. Souya is a sleeper agent and the “Peas” balloon things are meant to lure out those in possession of the Stolen Macguffin or whatever.

There we have Episode One. Please excuse me now while I go watch Episode Two. Well... I mean you can just keep reading by the time this goes up but... BRB!

[Approximately 30min later]

Well my theory from about two paragraphs ago is up in smoke as soon as the opening scenes of this episode roll in and further dashed upon the rocks by Ginko later in the episode. All things in their proper order.

So Torai (That’s firefighter-guy’s name btw) makes his report to dragon-man about his encounter with Soya and company. The other six Psychic warriors all make jabs at him as though he died even when he’s sitting right there in an example of a gag that is legit funny unlike Tara’s name from last episode. While we’re talking about the exposition meeting may I just say that I feel BETRAYED!

See Dragon CEO guy is as nerdy as I AM! He’s the one who found out that the enemy force is called Nebula. He called the giant abominations “Nebula Weapons” gives Soya and Company the name Nebula Soldiers, and what does he call the Psychic Golems his crew uses to fight? Psychokinetic Mega-God Photon Armor. If I didn’t know better I’d think my pops made him from the same mold as me no less. Oh, and their little world-saving club? It’s the Citizens' Safety Center Special Defense Section: "Grand Paladin". I’m in tears, people, this is a Draconid after my own heart.

So, the “Grand Paladin” peeps implement the buddy system in case they run into Soya again. Meanwhile Soya’s having a sulk because apparently Ginko and “Sensei” dragged him to Earth to be their soldier. He goes out on a walk in Iron Clogs (I’m guessing this is a joke I’m not getting). On the run he meets up with Torai who just happens to have purchased a bunch of meat buns from a convenience store. They have a conversation because Torai is a nice guy (that’s a legit nice guy not the version that’s been turned into a derogatory term by certain groups online). See Torai, while out looking for his attacker couldn’t help noticing what he thought was a middle-schooler sitting on a random bench crying and came over to see if there was anything he could do to help.

He gives Soya a bun they chat for a bit with Soya desperately trying both not to give away who he really is as well as to eat the bun because dammit he just wants some MEAT for once! All of a sudden the evacuation alarm is sounded because this wonderful abomination has appeared off shore.

Nebula really needs to consult a different artist about their designs. I personally recommend @dashfox1artwork.

Robin: Shamelessly plugging your internet friends are we dragon-boy?

Fic: If you’re not going to show up and fight keep your mouth shut Shadow-bear. I’m just doing my part to show that not all Dragons are assholes. Robin: Whatever you say.

So, the six remaining Psycho-God pilots attack the Ugly Bacon Idol and the pink-haired girl of the team, Miu, is the one to enter the core. The hallucination she sees is of her beating her friend Harumi (Pilot of the Bear-armor) at apparently a Judo competition. We find out that Miu has always just wanted to be strong, and we also learn that she IS strong being able to break through the illusion of the Nebula Weapon with relative ease and destroy the thing. It’s at this point that I should mention that a message has flashed before each of the characters who take one of these things out. In Miu’s case the message was “It’s okay to be weak”. For Torai in episode one the message was “I forgive you” presumably preying on his regrets about his mom.

After Piggy McHideous is dispatched the group separates into its pairs and as we expected Soya and Co target the pair with a member who just fought a battle, but let’s back up for a second because there’s some exposition from Ginko during the fight with the Baconator that needs addressing.

She reveals to Soya that Nebula is indeed the name of the group they work for, but there are multiple faction. Ginko and “Sensei” are with the “Pacifist Faction” whereas the Monuments to terrible design sense that have been popping up in the harbor belong to the “Sealing Faction”. Basically think of this as political parties. One wants to prevent humanity from rising up against them one day by brutally suppressing their ability to advance and keep them in a state of complacency, while the other just wants to take away any dangerous toys that humanity might come up with and hope that they can “guide” humanity onto the path of “Love” rather than “Power”.

Hmmm one group bent on maintaining their personal status quo at the cost of anyone else and another that wants to control precisely what power the general populace has access to in order to “guide” them on the “right path”? I wonder where I’ve heard that one before?

Sorry about that. The Writer is coming through me a little strongly there. Point is that Ginko is using Soya to enact social and ideological control... I MEAN to take away the magical stardust that allows the Psycho-God Pilots to do their thing... yeah. Back to the proper progress of the episode: Soya once again pilots his cat-mecha-sensei to fight against Miu and Harumi. It is a pretty fun fight, but all things must go as has been foretold. So after being on the ropes for most of the conflict Soya turns everything around at the last second with a miracle uppercut against the Bunny-god armor. As Miu is falling back to Earth Ginko appears and grabs the stardust vial away from her. Apparently Ginko can just Mary Poppins herself to wherever she pleases? They all land and Ginko’s like “That’s all for today”, but Soya’s having none of it. He’s ready to take the fight to Bear-mech too when all the other Psycho-Pilots show up including CEO Dragonface to say “Checkmate”, and that’s where our story concludes for now.

Y’know I’m coming more and more around to the opinion that we should be routing for “Grand Paladin” here rather than the lady influencing Soya or the massive, faceless organization that wants to turn us all into Proles from 1984. I mean, yeah, they do have the snake-eyed dude. They meet in what appears to be some sort of board room, and the writing seems to indicate that they’re the “Antagonists” if not the villains, but so far they don’t seem to be anything but a collection of well-intentioned if somewhat zany people. Even the big CEO-type with the intimidating presence, as was discussed earlier, is a lovable and hammy goofball.

I love any series that makes its antagonists human. Granted cartoonish villainy and even edgelordiness has its place in stories, but when you can make your antagonists and especially your villains feel human and relatable it just rings home that nobody is the villain in their own story. Everyone has reasons for what they do. They may not have excuses or justifications, but they all have reasons.

For instance, I have a reason for breaking my own rules here by reading my political views into the story.

[pauses for dramatic effect]

Yes, yes I’m sure you’re all very shocked at this revelation. I mean I was so subtle about it (/s). My reason is that when I went back and really thought about what the “Sealing” and “Pacifist” factions of Nebula stood for I (and this is really the nerd behind The Nerd speaking) couldn’t help but see parallels to some of the more distasteful extremes of Conservative and Liberal politics at work. Both sides seek to impose their morality upon others. While one does so by attempting to keep people complacent with the status quo, the other does it by appealing to the rebellious nature inherent in people and channeling it into “causes”.They use guilt and peer pressure to convince people that their way of thinking is correct and I absolutely cannot stand seeing it happen. Especially when they prey upon others using causes that need legitimate champions!

The goals of the “Pacifist” faction are arguably “good”. They are part of a group that has watched humanity evolve and they only want the best for us. They “keep their involvement to a minimum”, but at the end of the day they’re doing the same thing that the “Sealing” faction is doing. They’re enforcing their own will on humanity by taking away humanity’s means to fight against them, or anyone for that matter.

In the anime this is likely because the “Pacifist” faction is short-sighted and hasn’t stopped to consider what will happen to humanity when they take away the only weapon they have against the “Sealing” faction, but in reality? In reality groups like the “Pacifist” Faction either are themselves or contain an element that wants the people they’re disarming to become reliant upon them for what they need. They take away that person’s own weapons and replace them with their own. They dictate the rules of battle and push you to come to them for aid and defense. They accrue personal power and influence at the cost of their followers’ freedom of thought.

These are important things to think about and be on the lookout for, and it’s an issue that is very prevalent in my own life and dealings online. So those are my reasons for why I read political allegory into the factions of Planet With. Now am I justified for doing this when I so often decry others for “reading shit that isn’t there into stories”? No, of course I’m not. Or rather I’m not justified using that argument against people who dropped a show as a result of what they read into it.

I’m not going to lie. I’m inexperienced with expressing views on creative work online, and am overly sensitive to certain things. I’m just as flawed as anybody else. It’s hard for me to understand when people see “bullshit” in something that I didn’t see. It’s hard for me to accept some one calling a show (particularly one I like) “Garbage” when really it’s just not clicking with them. I know that I’ve been guilty of calling a show “Garbage” in my time, but it’s a term I hope to avoid moving forward. I want to live up to my professed belief that there is good to be found in all fiction, even the “bad” fiction. Part of that is accepting the responsibility I tell others they need to accept. To practice what I preach.

If I’m determined that the Audience has just as important a role in creating art as the Authors then I need to learn to accept the interpretations of my fellow audience members, and to feel free to express my own interpretations of things.

[stops to take a break and slide back into character]

Wow... That ended up being a lot heavier than I imagined. What a way to kick off the summer season! There’s more to come but for now I need a break, and the writer could probably use a nap.

Until next post keep talking fiction, friends! I’ll see you soon

#Anime #Planet With #Episode 1 #Episode 2 #Fictionerd #Let's Talk Anime #LTA #Robin

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noivysneverland · 7 years ago

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Justice, Reborn pt.5

For a name like Reborn City, damn this place sure could use another rebirth. The view from the train was unsettling, but this place just feels so bloody dead. Buildings with holes in them which are still standing, cracks on the floor, shattered glass, and a mind numbing stench coming from every direction. How anyone could even want to live here makes my stomache tight, although it's like I just haven't adjusted to it. Hopefully I never will. We walked a few blocks and I looked down to the side to see the waterfront. Scratch that, that wasn't water. The wind blew from the sea to my nostrils and I had to turn and cover my face. What ever that liquid was, it sure as hell wasn't water.

Despite the gloomy visuals, Julia was telling me all about the league. 18 leaders, one for every type, an elite four and a champion. Just like Sigil, though Sigil didn't really have a champion seat. She was telling me about how she battles new challengers normally, utilizing the move Sonic Boom and using Explosion. I'm damn sure this woman blew up the station. No other way. Remembering my reason for even coming here in the first place, I asked about my friend. "Noivy, huh," she looked up and gave it a few thoughts, "I think he's in the running to battling the elite four soon!" Yep, that's the Noivy I know, always giving its 100% in his challenges. "I was his first leader battle, well I'm most peoples first leader battle, but nevertheless he came with an actual full team so I could go full-boomy mode! He beat me first time though, that lame Rhyperior was no fun at all. What'cha looking for him for?" "We come from the same region, Sigil," I answered, "we were basically rivals. He was always one step ahead of me, beat the league before me too. I want to see him again. Talk and what not." "You mean battle," Julia chimed, "nobody comes to Reborn for any reason other than to battle! Whiiiich you will be doing too nonetheless!" I shrugged in agreement. "Which reminds me, what's in that wierd pokeball of yours? I've never seen one like that before!" Curiosity was understandable, Heavy Balls were not found on the common trainer market, almost all of them were made from a lone craftsman in the Johto region. I had this ball made specifically for Oryx. "If I told you would you not tell anyone?" I can definately tell Julia wouldn't stop asking if I remained silent on the matter. "A secret then! You got a promise!" I whispered through the air what was in it. She actually froze in amazement. "No wonder you survived that boom," her voice was eeriely calm, "almost nobody else could have without someone like Ame-Ame helping them." Julia was definately thinking, it was inevitable that we would be battling soon.

We eventually reached the grand hall, a dome structure with four colors on its side, red, blue, green and purple. Inside was remarkably clean, certainly this is one of the more maintained buildings in the city. Lots of trainer types here with their pokemon out, all of them younger than me. Julia led me to a section of the room with chairs and a counter for league registration. "Bye Mister Keeper!" She waved and cheered, "I'll be booming you later!" Yea. Right. Eventually I was called up. They asked for my pokeball. I relunctantly handed if over, I would like to keep Oryx under as little of the spotlight as possible. The ball was scanned and Oryx's image came up. The attendant gave an audible gasp, looked at me, and then looked at the monitor. "Sir," he asked nervously, "you should probably know that legendary pokemon like this Cobalion are not allowed to compete in the league." I shrugged in mild discontent. I wasn't here for the god damn league for crying out loud. The phone on the counter started ringing and the attendant picked it up. "Yes ma'am..." his face then went on to one of complete shock, "...Right away." He hung up and looked at me. "I would ask you to come with me. Oi, David, take my position for me until I get back. Shouldnt be more than 15." The attendant got up and opened a gate on the far end of the counteed, I followed him through a door to a small room. Ame was there as well a new face. Guessing by his age and demeanor this man was definately a cop type. "Agent Keeper," Ame started, "I need to ask you a few questions. Take a seat on the other end of the table. The chair was metal plated and solid, the cop sent out a Torkoal and instructed it to walk under my chair. Holy shit they're interrogating me. "Sorry for dragging you into this right now but you're not here for the league. That much is obvious. Answer us honestly and we'll be done quick." "I told you my reason for coming before the crash," might as well get this done, "I'm looking for my friend Noivy, who sent me this message." I pulled out my phone and opened the message. When it finished Ame looked at me with an unreadable interest. "So an AWOL International Police agent comes to Reborn to find a friend who is in danger," she looked over to the cop type who nodded and called his Torkoal back, "if you don't mind, we would like to have you as an agent for our operations. No doubt you've seen the city and the shape its in. To maintain a facade, you're going to be a league challenger. As the attendant told you pokemon like your Cobalion aren't allowed, but just this one time, I'm going to make an exception. The Reborn League challenge you will face will be much harder than what challengers are usually tasked with. If you'll come with me up stairs, I'll explain more." We got up, I exchanged looks with the cop who was both pleased and miffed about my case. Trust me, I was too.

#justice reborn story #Pokemon Reborn #i decided to try my hand at modding the game so here we go hoo boy.

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pea-green · 10 months ago

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All 5 Kyoto Pokelids!

#i loveeeee how johto-themed they are #they also make for a GREAT kyoto tour theyre all in really interesting places!!#which is great bc i was gonna drag poor abi to all these regardless lmao #pokemon #japan diaries #utility hole cover tag

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craveanimeblog-blog · 6 years ago

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New Website Helps Plan Your Next Pokemon Vacation to Japan

Have you ever wanted to check out all the Pokemon sights and events in Japan, but the language barrier kept you from doing so? Good news, Pokemon Masters in training! Pokemon Local Acts, which catalogs all these things, has opened up an English-language version of the website for anyone looking to plan out their stops in the country -- assuming they're only interested in Pokemon-related tourism.

Pokemon Sword and Shield is scheduled to launch for Nintendo Switch on November 15th. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the Pokemon franchise right here.

Pokemon Local Acts, which you can check out here, includes a list of events where Pokemon collaborates with various prefectures as they're announced and keeps track of which Pokemon serve as "Ambassadorial Pokemon" for various areas. For example, the website notes that Geodude officially serves as the "Iwate Support Pokemon" and has since May, having been appointed to help support the area's reconstruction.

Here's how Pokemon Local Acts describes itself on its website:

"Pokémon Local Acts aims to promote Japan’s various localities by highlighting their well-known and not so well-known charms. The fun activities and initiatives are designed to bring out the best in the partnering prefectures and municipalities, and involve help from 'Ambassadorial Pokémon,' whose characteristics match those of their respective localities."

The Citizens’ Voice: Online database helps track down ‘Boozicorns’ available statewide. “Pennsylvania’s regulation of wine and spirits offers unique frustrations and, sometimes, opportunities. One of the opportunities is the ability to search the entire state for specific products through the state’s centralized web portal. Anyone who does this regularly will see how often odd lots of wine or spirits— a bottle or a few — may be tucked away somewhere, frustratingly, in Bryn Mawr or Cambria County. A wise-cracky techie created a program and website to scrape the data for those odd lots available in just a single store and dubbed them Boozicorns.”

Chalkbeat: Over 900 NYC classrooms serving the city’s youngest children have deteriorating lead paint, new data show. “More than 900 New York City elementary school classrooms have tested positive for lead after inspections revealed the presence of peeling, chipped, or otherwise deteriorating lead paint, according to new data released Wednesday night by the education department.”

The website also includes a gallery of images as well as a detailed map of Poke Lids, utility hole covers with Pokemon art on them that can be found at specific locations in Japan. The entire lot of them, like this one featuring a female Pikachu and a male Pikachu meeting, are incredibly adorable, and worth checking out.

What do you think of the English-language Pokemon Local Acts? Anything catch your eye for a potential vacation?

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blackwidowcostumecmz-blog · 5 years ago

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Where to find a black widow of the avengers outfit?

In recent years, the geek world has ended up being trendy, everyone now knows the sci-fi standards or the inescapable Japanese animation. So today, we invite you to find one of the favored tasks of pop-culture hardcore fans: cosplay. We will certainly additionally share several suggestions as well as recommendations for an effective costume

What is cosplay?

The word "cosplay" by itself is very explicit and is a tightening of the words "costume" and also "role-play". Certainly, a cosplayer does not simply wear a costume; he plays the duty of his personality, as a star would plunge into a function in the movie theater. As well as most of all, do not you attempt to make use of the term "camouflage" in front of a cosplayer to certify his work, he can misunderstand the amalgam in between his interest as well as the sweet search of October 31. Now where to find a black widow of the avenger's outfit?

Cosplay is a rather recent practice that goes back to the 90s and also is widespread in popular culture circles. Indeed, a cosplay can represent a character of manga, film, video games, comics, simply put, everything related to geeky circles. As well as this is not the reference "Japan exposition" that will certainly curtail the fans of Wonder or Doctor Who. And also, conversely, Comic Disadvantage is not just for comic's followers. From Cossuits you get the best details currently.

Simply put, cosplay is merely an activity that can impact every person, as well as especially the aces of the stitching equipment. We propose you consequently in the rest of this post to concentrate just on the option and also the understanding of the cosplay in them.

Just how to select your cosplay?

We might just answer you to pick your favorite personality, yet if you attempt a Superman cosplay while you are just five feet high and also lack muscle, it might be challenging to match your character flawlessly.

So, initial advice, if you are brand-new, look for a personality that is a minimum to your look, understanding that the hairdo can be changed extremely simply making use of wigs located very quickly on the web. It is likewise feasible to resemble his character in spite of a corpulence or a different beginning, however we will see later how to adapt your outfit

To assist you assume concretely regarding all the important steps of the creation of your outfit, we will certainly additionally supply you as an example among the cosplays that we made. This is the second cosplay we made me: Harley Quinn. We selected it because it is a character that we specifically like, however we anticipated to experience numerous troubles throughout the creation procedure.

The first problem we needed to handle was the complexity of his well-known harlequin costume and specifically the fears that it was mosting likely to create me to use it for numerous days in a row, yet when it come to this last factor we will certainly discuss it later on.

Thankfully, deep space of Batman is extremely extensive, as well as Harley Quinn has used several alternative outfits, so we were conserved.

Ark pork costume VS Buffoon costume.

With this alternative outfit, directly from the trilogy of Batman video games on PS3, we disregarded a lot of the problems that we would certainly have come across with his initial costume, while appreciating ahead of time the concept of playing this character we enjoy so much.

I told you regarding the intricacy of the harlequin costume due to the fact that, actually, it seems to be a simple pyjamas with a hat with pompoms, yet the concern is in the reality that it should be flawlessly to your dimension a centimeter extra will certainly give the effect of being distended as well as one centimeter less you will sulk and also have an extremely bad effect. Momentarily costume, it appeared really complicated to understand, specifically that it was essential to cut rubies in a flexible material, and afterwards load them with an additional material.

This instance is normal of hard outfits: they look straightforward, yet by the time you discover on your own before your sewing equipment with a fabric that you can not function properly, you'll forever curse this concept that appeared so great to you.

The guidance we can give you at this point is not to depend on the seeming simplicity of a suit. Prior to you also start a pattern, think of the reality that some materials are extremely tough to deal with - lira, natural leather, etc. - but likewise that some costume elements are occasionally not located and impossible to recreate yourself.

Additionally, do More about not wait to make use of all the possible workarounds to get to the goal and also bear in mind that appreciating a 100% outfit is unusual, the essential role-play and crucial elements of your character's style.

Exactly how to adjust his outfit?

As we said in the past, it is challenging or difficult to attain a 100% faithful outfit, whether it is a matter of methods, time or just physical legislation.

Take the example of cosplay Pokémon. It is impossible for a regular human being to look like a pikachu, yet it is an extremely common outfit, either due to the kigurumi in his image or representative aspects like his ears or his tail in the kind of lightning, by instance. If you desire much better instances, we invite you to search "Pokemon Cosplay Gijinka" on the web, there are actually very good concepts for adaptation.

Taking my instance from Harley Quinn and also in a simply worldly vision, it would have been difficult for me to replicate his bodice similar or find high leather boots whose colors are mismatched. To maintain the very same visual result, we sewed 2 trousers legs, one red leatherette, one purple leatherette and we simply put on brilliant red heeled boots (missing from the picture below), compensating with purple at various other places of the outfit.

Harley Quinn's individual costume.

For the hairstyle, we chose not to put on a wig as well as not to color my hair blonde, although that my shade was, back then, red copper. However, to keep a style comparable to hers, we made 2 high quilts on each side of my head, holding my little hair with lacquer and passing a comb with fine teeth, to have a pencil stroke impact.

One more indicate remember is this: whether for a concern of convenience or simply implies, a small alteration of an aspect is sometimes much less stunning as well as specifically more satisfying than to be based upon the personality. is that we identify him, not that we look specifically like him. On top of that, if your personality is from an animated universe, the adjustment may appear even more natural.

Makeup as well as devices

More than the costume, which can occasionally be commonplace, it will certainly often be accessories or a certain make-up that will certainly make you recognize your personality or give you some creativity contrasted to various other cosplayers and also cosplayers.

Again taking my example, two points particularly seemed to me necessary for the acknowledgment of Harley Quinn directly, regardless of his less recognized choice costume.

First, the make-up. Harley Quinn constantly has a white structure to try to resemble the Joker, who has a normally white skin tone. Her black lipstick with a minor red glow as well as especially her black mask for the eyes are likewise regular of the girl.

Having myself a slightly tanned skin tone, and specifically a number of moles, we could not maintain my all-natural skin. So we went with what is called paint for the skin. we had to place many layers of white before having a flawlessly even skin tone, especially in my normally dark brownish eyebrows, after that we attracted 2 black diamonds on my eyes.

Indeed, we made a decision to change his mask with a drawing straight on my skin. It is frequently very difficult to sustain the putting on of a mask, and also this is my situation, due to the fact that it is absolutely necessary to make use of adhesive for the skin, which is common to make allergic reactions. To remain in the style of the personality and still have a concealed effect, we decided to change his mask in 8 by 2 black rubies.

If we can provide you some suggestions for makeup, it is once again to find alternate solutions that aesthetically aid individuals recognize your personality without ruining the day to go back as well as forth to the locker space. As well as most importantly, pay very close attention to the choice of makeup, the paint for the skin is not always suitable for everyone.

In regards to accessories, they can sometimes very merely offer an identity to your character. For a Jedi, it will be his lightsaber, for a personality of Naruto, the banner of his village and, in this case for Harley Quinn, this is his preferred tool: the hammer.

Harley Quinn's Blackhammer

Its standard hammer being nevertheless very imposing, we picked to recreate the popular long-handled black hammer. To make sure of not getting tired of walking with, we selected really light products, which likewise helped in the circulation of weight. For the deal with, we merely utilized a one-meter-long, inflexible plastic pipeline that is located in every do-it-yourself shop and also painted black with a spray of paint. For the other event, we glued with each other numerous rounds of frigolite, in which we made a hole to insert the deal with and hold it with one more item of vertical plastic. Finally, we covered the whole point with black leatherette and also padded both sides with foam black widow costumes used to fill up cushions. As you can see, it is in some cases easy to develop impressive devices from extremely typical items and at a reduced price.

youtube

Hammer building actions

I talked to you here regarding a really cumbersome accessory, however if you just have to use badges, pins, specific clips for a particular hairdo, there are extremely frequently tutorials really simple to follow on Youtube, Do It Yourself or perhaps specialized video clips that will lead you.

Comfort, a really important aspect to think about

Of all the issues that we have stated, this is unquestionably one of the most crucial.

Your cosplay, you will have to wear it often for 10 hours in a location where it is difficult to alter and even to relax a couple of mins out of sight. Additionally, when designing your outfit, it ought to not be failed to remember that you have to have the ability to put on it alone or with a minimum of help and that it need to fit.

At the start of the article, we informed you regarding the reality that we deserted the harlequin variation of my costume, as well as the most crucial factor was this: no square centimeter of my skin would certainly have remained in the open air - we remind you that also my face would certainly have been under a number of layers of cosmetics - and also we might never put it on alone, unless we put a big zipper along my back, which would certainly not have actually been really discreet and appearances.

In this sort of occasions, it is extremely rapidly hot, it must be well moisturized and freshen, otherwise, pain is quickly gotten here. Even if you can breathe easily, your skin does not take a breath, as well as it's equally as dangerous as wearing a full face mask covering your nose and mouth. If, nevertheless, you pick an outfit that will certainly cover you completely, think about relaxing around every hour, and try to find a location where you can take off your outfit at the very least partially like cloakrooms or toilets, for example.

The last essential factor of a cosplay: the roleplay.

As we informed you at the beginning of this write-up, playing your character is a key element, and most significantly, it's the most fun part. If you are a normal at the conventions, you have possibly gone across the well-known Jack Sparrow that never ever functions best or those Power Rangers who take the break every ten steps. Each cosplay is distinct, each personality has unique mimics or language tics and also if you intend to adhere to your personality, do not think twice to walk the aisles playing your character. Of course, this should not stop you from making your purchases or taking part in the computer animations, but if you choose to attempt yourself at amateur cosplay contests, it will certainly earn you extra points. And then, what would certainly all those efforts do if you did not benefit?

I wish you liked this post, that the subject interested you which we had the ability to provide you beneficial guidance. Feel free to leave a remark to discuss it.

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