#We assign our favorite's pokemon teams

[castalyne]

Stephen Holder's Pokemon team. Poison (mostly) type trainer. Float like a butterfly, sting like a beedrill, now with mega evolution. Galarian lung beast because smoking and silly facial hair. Poison weed toad. Friendship Cave Dweller. A little party rocking racoon. Silly walking poison croaking thing.

He's had that Beedrill since his early days in the tall grass and that Crobat since his first cave and they are two of his favorites and he refuses the shelf them.

[rosalind-hawkins]

Ryo for the meme?

So sorry for the delay on this one! I kept having issues with my draft not saving and needing to start over.

I sincerely think Ryou was my first favorite character from Yugioh, even before Kaiba, if you can believe it.

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

When I was first introduced to Yugioh, what struck me about him and made me latch onto him was the obvious emotional pain. At the time I was just starting to figure out my own depression and anxiety that my family was oblivious to, and I think I just related to that lack of support. I guess this is the answer for Question 25.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

How excited her gets about food, actually. He and Joey are probably almost equally enthusiastic about it, and it's adorable.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

How they changed his dad in DSOD. I preferred it when the dad was an oblivious nerd just trying to give his son a cool gift instead of being a power-hungry weirdo.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

This probably sounds silly, but I want him living his best life in a Pokemon game with a team that he's bonded to, getting to live an RPG adventure just like Monster World, but a little bit safer. I want him taking a nap leaning on his Altaria with an Absol curled up at his feet, looking like it's asleep but keep watching. And don't forget his floaty little Shuppets hovering about.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Friend of Foe by t.A.T.u. because I watched so many AMVs at the time that I was introduced to Yugioh. The song captures his poignant and desperate confusion with his own life and identity.

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Honestly, aside from Question 1, nothing specific comes to mind aside from general nerdiness. I used to have a bad sweet tooth, like I imagine he does, but not so much anymore.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Making him a sweet spooky boi with 27 tarot card decks at home that dresses like he's going to bible study. Also, a big one is giving him visible scars from all the stuff Y B has put him through: the arm, the left hand, the chest.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I wouldn't say despise. Not sure I'd say I dislike anything the fandom does with him too much

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

I imagine he's a night owl, so as long as he keeps things quiet at night, we wouldn't have a problem.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

Definitely! We could probably introvert in the room together, doing our own things, or chat about art.

11. Would you date this character?

Again, I'm married, but if I had the chance and Y B was gone for good, absolutely.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

I've actually always headcanoned that Ryou had a Catholic mom and she tried to pass on her faith to him, but it didn't fully stick, necessarily. This isn't from nowhere, I swear. In the church scene in season five, in the English dub, Ryou goes into the church saying "I should be safe in here" after running from a disembodied voice. I think that means that he must have some small level of faith if he thinks the church itself will ward off the evil.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

🥰👀🙏🤷‍♀️🤔

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

Galaxy Goth - Give him star earrings and glittery platform boots. Give him galaxy print leggings and an illusion neckline shirt with sheer/lacy sleeves. 👌👌👌👌👌✨✨✨✨✨✨ Hell, make it femboy too, he could rock that so hard. Make it pastel galaxy goth, it works just as well. Dress this boy up.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

You know I can't ever just pick one ship. I'm a multishipper. It's never just one.

Euroshipping, Minorshipping, and Puffshipping are my top three.

Mumbleshipping, Rollshipping, and Teaseshipping are my top poly ships for him.

Honorable mention to Graceshipping, cause I think he and Ishizu could be so damn sweet together, and that's my #1 straight ship for him.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Tendershipping, actually. I don't hate on it or people who like it, and I have a soft spot for some of his ships, but I just can't see Yami Bakura the way a lot of the fandom sees him, and that's where it comes from. I don't wanna get into it because this isn't a Y B post. I'll just leave it at that. No hate here, just a different perspective.

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

Deathshipping. I can appreciate some of the art and some of the sillier conceptions of this ship, but I'm not personally into it.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

I haven't read the manga, but I've seen enough moments from it of Ryou and Joey together (included what looked like stealing a camel together), and their bond in DSOD was too adorable. It made me so happy to finally see somebody standing up for Ryou.

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

Obviously I wish he didn't get so roughed up by Y B.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Normally I'd leave ship characters out of it, but I can't help it: Ishizu, Joey, and Duke are my top picks here.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I play around with different versions of what's Ryou's mentality can be like after Bakura is gone and what the lasting impact is. There's a lot of options there, which is why I don't write just one version of Ryou.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like?

There's a lot of things that people do with him. I love when people flesh out his relationship with his family and

23. Favorite picture of this character?

EVERY PICTURE HE IS PRECIOUS

But him with the banana.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Okay, gonna try to stick to canon personality with this.

From Touken Ranbu, Nikkari Aoe. He seems sweet and normal on the surface, and then he'll suddenly say the weirdest occult crap to you with the most normal smile and you just want to back away slowly. And then you realize, oh dear this man's a weirdo. An absolute weirdo. (He's the one that can see ghosts after all, there's a real connection over that.) (He gets two gifs because you need to understand what a weirdo he is.)

From UtaPri, we've got Shion from Heavens. He's a quiet shy boy on the surface with soulful eyes, but still waters run deep. I feel like they're both easy to underestimate.

And from Nanbaka, I can't really explain why, I always associated him with Seitarou Tanabata. Maybe because they share the spiky Christmas tree hair, idk. Maybe I just think they'd be good friends.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

See Question 1.

26. FREEBIE QUESTION!!

This boy is helpless in the kitchen. He's gonna have to count on his partner to either cook for him or teach him how to cookl

[soursherbat]

for the ask game: 4, 10, 14, 23, for springtrap, hawk and/or monty (:

frothing at the mouth at this one i think i'll just do all that apply- also putting under a read more because hoo boy. many thoughts

for hawk, i've put him in literally everything at this point- he's a very versatile character but my favorite setting to put him in is definitely as a security guard for the pizzaplex. he'd just fit so well imo.

for springtrap and monty- i actually keep imagining them in the pokemon universe? they would not fit at all, but i just love assigning pokemon teams for my favorite characters. my main thing i keep crossing them over into is my oc universe with lore so deep i'd genuinely need several hours just to explain it-

for hawk? yes. we'd both be incredibly anxious and weird around each other but we could bond easily over our love of rabbits and insane ramblings. though knowing me we'd probably end up sitting in silence together for an hour or making out tbh

springtrap? my interpretation of him- yes. absolutely, i would take him home in an instant. he'd have to get used to my autism flaring up constantly around him because he's so cute but i feel like he'd be endeared by it, personally-

monty? honestly uh, it depends! i don't do well around prickly people because of my anxiety and due to my interpretation of him being prickly with a soft interior... depends on exactly what he says, really. man's absolutely a big softy though so i feel like we could be friends.

ooohohooho. hawk's fashion aesthetic is definitely mid-2000s emo boy, 100%, unapologetically. but i also imagine him liking soft pastels and dresses, so really he's a huge mixed bag. get you a man who can do both (and everything in between)

for springtrap- i imagine him wearing anything hawk makes for him, but he's incredibly attached to cute little vests. i imagine him being emotionally attached to spring bonnie- and with hawk repairing him to look more like him, he'd lean more into the fashion he dressed them in. vests, ties, little hats- though i feel like he would prefer wearing loose, flowing clothing such as dresses or skirts. imagining springtrap wearing a cute purple sparkling vest that hangs open with a soft yellow skirt is living rent free in my mind-

monty definitely loves wearing anything with scales on it. i imagine him wearing incredibly flamboyant glamrock clothing (though that seems a bit obvious-) but also having a HUGE soft spot for punk rock fashion. he definitely wears a black denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and patches all over it, belts and chains- the works. he would look so good in a spiked collar

very very self indulgent because this is my art but- for hawk and springtrap, definitely this sketch that i made:

they're just so happy together!! so fulfilled, they deserve this. for monty, literally any drawing from @/balloonboyismyson- i dont feel comfortable reposting their art as im not sure how they feel about that but ouuughh go look at their art for amazing monty content fr.

thank you for this this was super fun!!!

[pierswife]

*points* You. You get it.

I still remember where we got my copy of Conquest, too!! My local target, as an end of the (school) year gift from my parents!!

My sister and I got Nintendo Power magazines back in the day, and let me tell you ... those things got us HYPED for Conquest. I still have every copy that ever mentioned the game--it's history, now. /hj

Anyway, my sister and I were super excited for the game and were out shopping with them, and we happened to see it at the check out aisle--a whole stinking display. We ended up each getting a copy.

My sister actually lost hers at one point in our old tent trailer, but it turned up again right before my parents sold the trailer--

I ended up getting super obsessed with it again once I stumbled upon Orochi Warriors 3 Ultimate and rediscovering the characters through their original source--legit got that game because of Hanbei (my beloved sleepy boy ... my ORIGINAL sleepy boy).

Then it spiraled into me discovering Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Greenleaf is my favorite kingdom (battle theme is soothing but also nostalgic as heck to me), followed by Chrysalia, Fontaine, and Avia.

Also my favorite Warlords were Motonari, Masamune, and Hanbei--

Sorry, this is just ... one of those special games to me. Wrote fanfic for it that will never see the light of day (it was a high school AU since I was in high school at the time, and I assigned all the DW9 characters their own Perfect Links ... even made lore for an entirely separate region that they lived in).

You think I'm bad about Project Moon? When I was a teen it was Conquest. /lh

~ librarian-lover 📖

YOU GET MEEEEE!!!

There was just a certain magic to Conquest! Especially waiting the months leading up to it. I remember every time I had a chance to be on the computer I was scavenging for any information I could get about it before release.

I'm so glad someone else got to have the Being Excited With Your Sibling experience about it because it's just so... specific is all I can think of to describe it. My older sister and I legit would not stop talking about it the days leading up to getting it and then while we played the game. I remember getting stuck on Ignis of all places and getting way too excited when I finally kicked Hideyoshi's ass.

Agreed Greenleaf and Fontaine are absolutely beautiful, but my other favorites have to be Spectra and Nixtorm! And for characters... Masamune, Oichi, and Motochika hands down.

Honestly whenever I hear about people getting into the Warriors games via Conquest, it just makes me so giddy!!! The Warriors games (specifically Dynasty Warriors) has had such a special place in my heart since I was a kid. You with Conquest as a teen was me with Warriors games from like age 6 to age 16 kfhqkdhwkwjs. If I wasn't playing pokemon or Etrian Odyssey it was usually a Warriors game.

And listen!!! There's nothing to apologize for!!! I LOVE hearing about everyone's interests current, new, and old!!! And also just... Love hearing the opinions of other Conquest fans as well!!!

And that fic concept sounds amazing and I'm honestly holding out on a small shred of hope the Koei and Gamefreak will team up again for a Dynasty Warriors version of the game.

[halloffamezine]

✨Questions from our Interest Check✨

Q: What are the guidelines on how artistic contributors are allowed to draw the Champions? (Ex: ORAS vs RSE Steven, a completely original Iris design?)

A: Contributors are allowed to use whatever designs they want for the Champions, whether picking their favorite in-game look for a Champion that has had redesigns or taking artistic liberties with the character. We simply ask that if you decide to use your own interpretation of a Champion, the design isn’t harmful in any way.

Q: Are contributors allowed to showcase Pokemon Masters EX outfits, or is the focus on the core series games?

A: We love the alts the Champions get in Masters as much as DeNA! You’ll absolutely be allowed to showcase their alternative costumes should you wish.

Q: Will the anime be included? What about the manga?

A: As of now, we’ve elected to keep the focus of the zine on the games. The portrayal of the Champions can vary quite widely between sources, so focusing on the game is a way to keep the zine more consistent in content.

Q: Blue is my blorbo and I love that stupidhead very much <3

A: me but with steven honestly -mod cirrus

Q: What exactly are the shipping restrictions?

A: Shipping content is not allowed, period. Even if it’s a very minor background element of your creation, it’s still prohibited. This is to ensure everyone, regardless of shipping preferences or lack thereof, can enjoy the hard work our team produces. This is a zine dedicated to showing our love for the Champions, and not a debate on who Cynthia should hook up with.

Q: Where is the zine shipping from?

A: We’re going to be shipping from the United States! Some countries may not be accepting packages from the United States due to current world events, so be mindful of any potential shipping restrictions.

Q: Will there be merchandise stretch goals?

A: Yes! We’re also committing to featuring ALL of our merch artists: if a piece of merchandise they make does not meet the required sales goal, we will still produce the contribution in a different way so their piece still gets to be featured in a physical capacity.

Q: Will Ash be featured?

A: Due to the zine’s focus on the games and other Pokemon anime zines running at a similar time frame to Hall of Fame, Ash will not be featured in the zine.

Q: Will there be intern mod positions?

A: We may include intern mod positions!

Q: What is a spot artist?

A: A Spot Artist works with a writer and makes small illustrations to go alongside written works in the zine! For example, a spot artist for a Diantha fic would collaborate with the writer and create a small piece of art of her that accompanies the fic. Spot Artists will not be assigned in this zine, but rather be a volunteer-basis extra an artist (whether Page Artist or Merch Artist!) can take on alongside their main assignment.

Q: Drink water fam

A: don’t worry we recruited a water type champion for this exact reason

[goldentemplariumcrow]

🐶🎥📺💛⭕️🐋

🐶- Favorite animal?

I can't choose only one, but I find dogs, cats, otters and foxes extremely cute in a general way.

🎥- Favorite movie?

I don't have one, but I'm more inclined to like animation over live action.

📺- Favorite TV show?

Again, don't have.

💛- How do other people describe you?

No clue, but a lot of people tells me I'm intimidating until they get to know me.

⭕️- Favorite Pokemon?

Oshawott, mudkip, eevee and eevolutions, rowlet.

🐋- share a Weird/funny story?

Most of my coworkers were the stereotypical image people have of young gamers, animators, artsy people in general, very youtube-y/tiktok-y with colorful hair, piercings, flashy clothes, all that jazz... but I didn't look like them. Like... at all.

I don't dye my hair, don't have piercings, don't have tattoos, don't wear flashy or trendy clothes, barely any make-up when I feel like I needed something to hide the ever growing black circles around my eyes. In a way, I do everything to don't stick out or show my interests (thank you trauma for making me feel ashamed of almost everything I like, I'm getting over it with time).

I, however, rose quite fast in my old job and was assigned leader of one of the teams in the creative department, which meant everyone who was new had to work with me and my group of weirdos for some time when they walked in the office for the first time. And not a single time in all my eight years there any newcomer assumed I was part of the group.

It was almost a joke by the time the office doors closed for good: every other three or four months we'd receive a new intern or freelancer and they would walk in, see me there and ask the others if I was a secretary or from the HR department, maybe an assistant of sort to our boss, and everyone would just laugh and tell the new person to just get to my desk and see what I was working on, only for them to see a bunch of sketches of gay guys kissing and being super naughty (morning warm-ups were quite fun). We all could see and feel how our new gremlin reacted to it with silence for long seconds and them bursted laughing.

No one expects naked smut in front of their faces at 8:00AM. NO. ONE. And that's what we all always provided. It was funny and weird at the same time.

[echotovalley]

so because I’m taking a writing break but still super needy

I figured I would post this outline for a pokemon au that I’m never going to write. it’s basically notes from a conversation I had back in early 2018? Imagine my surprise going back now and realizing this might read much like Detective Pikachu - cubone is just my favorite pokemon

***before we get into anything please know that while I play pgo and I’ve learned LOTS of new pokemon, I’m still the most familiar and attached to the og 150 + 1. I also probably get a lot of canon pokemon rules and history wrong but my heart is in the right place

reblogs appreciated! | come talk at me about your thoughts or literally anything

premise: keith might not be a pokemon person

but pokemon are definitely a keith person

- for unknown reasons keith docks in cuba, he's kind of just been getting work and moving moving always moving because one place never works out for long. pokemon are everywhere but it's not his thing.

it never happened for him besides why would he make an animal be saddled with him? there's no stability there. and again, he's always moving. through so many different regions.

he doesn't have the heart to yank a sandshrew onto a barge across the atlantic or a charmander up the northeast coast of the US. he can barely take care of himself. and it's weird by now. to not have a pokemon by now. they were everywhere and so normalized.

they were part of everyday school curriculum and even in hospitals and rescue stations. which is another reason why he never stayed in one place very long because not having a pokemon didn't incite people to trust you.

bc even team rocket (team rocket still sounds so much better than team galra but team rocket is the galra) had pokemon that bonded and trusted them.

he gets a room and some horrible job on the coast and basically just gets by. tries not to cause trouble or get caught or encourage rattatas or a caterpie to follow him home because they could still smell half the lunch he didn't eat tucked in his bag

- i'm plotting by the seat of my pants but what really kick-started all of this was the thought of Keith finding a wounded cubone in the middle of the night.

it's too dark and raining to tell what animal or pokemon attacked it or if it was a person that fractured the skull he wore enough for a piece to break off along the jaw

the cubone sustained a mean looking scrape to its face and this is not what keith needs right now but he can tell the cubone's crying and kind of just accepted what's happened and it keeps pawing at the missing piece in the skull and keith may not actively interact with pokemon but he doesn't hate them and he still has a heart.

he's docked in cuba and his spanish just gets him by to get food and money and not anger anyone

he didn't think the barge's docking region through all of the way so he's got a cubone to help with rudimentary spanish that sucks on the best day but he's going to try and get the cubone help

he starts rushing through streets and people's yards because he could have swore the town had a gym he passed but in the dark and rain it takes him a full hour to find the gym.

- duh it's closed but he's at least going to bang on the doors and hopefully it's going to set off an alarm or something

the police will show up or someone will be able to take the cubone where it needs to go. his hand is numb from knocking as hard as he could before the door is whooshed open and someone is spitting rapid fire spanish like venom and he thinks he manages to get out that he can really only speak english and shoves the cunbone into their hands.

before he knows it, he's being yanked by his collar into the gym and down hallways and finally into the blinding lights of the pokemon center on sight.

there's more spanish and faces that look so similar that its clear it's a family that runs the gym.

- beep beep guess who's family owns and runs the gym

the pokecenter is actually a rehabilitation center founded and run by the McClain family for several generations

he gets questioned after the cubone is taken back behind the doors and it takes someone repeatedly snapping their fingers in front of his face to get him to come back to the conversation.

his name's keith, he's from the US, he just found the cubone - no he doesn't know if it has an owner, doesn't even know if it’s wild or if it has a nearby pack or how it got hurt or how long it’s been hurt.

but keith,

keith is his name and he can at least answer that.

he stays there over night and finds out that Marco is the one that answered the door. Veronica is the one to actually examine him because he looks like he's about to pass out.

their mother is the one to assure him the cubone would be fine - her daughter Rachel attends to injured pokemon and gets another son Luis to show Keith to a room in their house and keith passes out the second he stumbles to a bed.

- in the morning, when he goes to the bathroom and is in the middle of washing his hands, another son is banging on the door for Marco to get out of the bathroom and that's the first time he meets lance

when Keith yanks the door open he tells him to freaking stop because he's clearly not marco.

an older man, probably come to break up a fight, stops and blinks at keith before shouting over his shoulder about not remembering having or getting another kid (arthur "and who are you???" weasley style)

(our boy Lance has a minor panic about the cute random guy is his bathroom at 8 a.m.)

Keith gets shoved down at a table covered in food for breakfast and can't keep up he definitely has a headache and is ready to throw himself through a window when he's asked about his pokemon and if they need help too

he doesn't have pokeman and never has had one and isn't really interested and this family has centered their entire lives around it

- he sees the cubone again, in recovery and it paws a little at his hands in thanks

over the next few days, he stays with them and somehow gets roped into doing chores around the facility and given an assigned seat at their table for meals and he's just T H R O W N

they literally have an arbok taking a nap in a hammock in their backyard and a pod of seadras in an olympic pool in the gym just hanging out (doing little races between each other or chasing each other)

a vulpix he learns belongs to one of the McClain siblings (Rachel) sunbathes and sniffs at his feet while he’s working in the yard

and there's a persian destroying blinds in the living room window and a charizard in the kitchen

and some random small children he learns are marco's are throwing or shooting across the floor fridge magnets as a game with a magnemite

- begrudgingly on McClain’s part, keith’s assigned to Lance for being shown around the rehab center

lance takes him to the beach and out into the middle of the ocean on a boat

Keith: "this is where you feed me to a gryados"

Lance: "close"

and a freaking L A P RA S pops up out of the water and clicks at lance and makes little waves in his direction and they do a damn forehead touch he's crazy this is crazy

Keith: "YOU HAVE A LAPRAS???!!!!" - because even keith who doesn’t do pokemon knows what the heck a lapras is

Lance "I don't have a lapras. Nobody owns her. We just give her her room and protect or heal her when she needs it"

- the next few weeks see lance having to admit keith isn’t so bad and that just because he doesn’t have a pokemon, it doesn’t mean he actively dislikes them

the cubone is attached to keith - despite his bad attitude, lance says

this is the initial thought that kicked this off: keith asks if they have a 3D printer and once the cubone's injury is fully healed, he makes a mold for the missing piece and fits it in place

lance denies crying

"you've done one (1) good thing, kogane"

- then the real plot kicks in when the lapras is captured and taken from the beach by team rocket

lance blames keith because of the timing, because of keith's vague answers on where he's from, why he has no friends or family, no pokemon

insert painful, raw, yelled, "I TRUSTED YOU"

keith convinces him he's not part of team rocket and the main story starts where lance and keith leave to go after the lapras and return her to cuba.

- before they leave, rachel throws a pokeball at keith "i think your cubone might like this one"

and lance's eyes get huge because he knows what it is and then a pokemon is coming out of the pokeball

and it's a marowak

the cubone very carefully and slowly approaches her and the marowak just watches and waits. the cubone brushes its bone across the marowak's foot and then approaches and okay keith's eyes definitely water as he watches this marowak kind of take in the cubone.

(THE CRITICAL HIT COMES WHEN THE CUBONE EVENTUALLY EVOLVES. I like to think maybe through poke-magic the skull fixes itself when he evolves and the cubone hands the 3d mold back to keith and gets keith to put it on a chain safe for his skin to wear the 3d mold piece still)

- obv they get the lapras back,

they find out keith's mom was a double agent ofc for the team rocket faction that took the lapras

they meet hunk and pidge and allura and coran and romelle and others along the way to take down team rocket because what’s a pokemon au without the power of friendship

- keith and lance wait at the airport in cuba

it's for shiro, he had let keith travel because he saw that keith needed to find room to grow and find who he was

obviously keith is not 10. he and lance are 17.

anyways he rushes keith and pulls him into a big hug and tells keith how proud of him he is

the first thing lance tells shiro is about the time keith almost stepped on an exeggcute and how they chased him

or the time he almost sustained a skull fracture from a taurus and the time a seel thought keith was its mom

there was also that time with a magby-

keith: “OKAY LANCE WE GET IT THANK YOU”

BONUS:

keith being mildly terrified of the pokemon hanging around the McClain properties

Lance: "if you want to lay in the hammock just move him"

Keith: "just move him?! it's an arbok not a lap dog"

a nest of torchicks gets laid in the backyard and follows keith for two days after they hatch and lance laughs so hard he cries because keith can't shake them and he winds up tripping and they all jump on top of him

keith might not have been a pokemon person

but pokemon are definitely a keith person

[theotherteamrocket]

Silver Linings - Chapter 1

Posting the first chapter of my fanfic, Silver Linings.

A Team Rocket grunt crosses Domino in a training exercise and sets off a chain of events that will change her life forever. She finds herself going to extreme lengths to keep her partner pokemon, becoming intertwined with her eccentric coworkers along the way.

Silver Linings 

Chapter 1

The cafeteria was busy as usual. A tired looking, brown haired Team Rocket grunt squeezed through two other people and searched the room, finally laying her eyes on a vacant table. Her food was already cold, but she didn’t care. She sat her tray down at the end of the table. At the very same time, two other trays came down at the opposite end.

“Well, well, well.” It was a familiar voice. She knew who it was before she even looked up. It was the unmistakable rasp of Butch. He and Cassidy sat down at the other end of the table.

“If it isn’t the flavor of the week.” He laughed. “We were just talking about you.”

“Along with everyone else on the team.” Cassidy flipped one of her long, blonde pigtails over her shoulder and slid down beside the other girl as she lowered herself onto the bench. “Butch, take my picture with her and post it on our page.”

She flashed a peace sign and smiled wide. Ria smiled, too, but it felt as fake as her interest in talking to them right then. Still, as friendly as she was with Butch and Cassidy from having worked with them numerous times, they both outranked her and she wasn’t about to blow them off.

“I guess you saw the video.”

“Saw it?” Cassidy asked. “Butch was the one who filmed it!”

Ria blinked as she processed what Cassidy as said, before standing and pointing an accusatory finger at her green haired colleague.

“That was you!?”

“Calm down, calm down.” She glowered at him from beneath the brim of her cap and sat back down as he continued. “I made you famous. You should thank me. You should see how many likes this thing has on Rocketbook.”

Ria sat back down. He slid his phone over to her and she looked at it warily. Since members of Team Rocket were barred from posting any of their information or photos online due to it being a security concern, Giovanni’s recent initiative to provide a social networking platform exclusively for Team Rocket members had been a hugely popular success. In light of recent events, however, Ria couldn’t say that she was a fan. She wasn’t particularly interested in re-living the battle, but the two of them were already standing on either side of her watching the replay of her earlier training exercise with Domino.

“Heh heh. Check out that excellent camera work.”

“Be quiet Butch, this is my favorite part.”

The three of them looked on as Houndour started to glow and change shape, becoming a Houndoom. Butch and Cassidy laughed as Domino’s Roserade fell almost immediately to its attack.

“Look at her face!” Butch cackled. “It’s like you didn’t even care that the flamethrower would be overkill.”

“I didn’t ask Houndoom to use Flamethrower.” Ria said quietly. “ It just…happened.”

She rubbed the back of her head. She was still in shock from its evolution when it all happened, and it happened so quickly. Had it been up to her, she probably would have stopped the battle altogether. It had just been a training exercise, after all, and although she had been volun-told to do it, had she known how things were going to turn out she would have surely found a way to get out of it.

“Well, either way, it was hilarious.” Butch said around a mouthful of French fries.

“I don’t think Domino felt the same way.”

“Oh, please.” Cassidy rolled her eyes. “She got cocky, she wanted to humiliate someone that had a type advantage over her to make herself look like a better trainer. She picks on spineless grunts like you all the time, no offense, knowing that you don’t have the backbone to actually defeat her even if you wanted to.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Guess she wasn’t counting on that mutt of yours having a mind of its own.” Her partner chuckled. Ria sighed as Cassidy continued. She’d never had a problem with Houndour listening to her before it evolved.

“If you ask me, that little witch had it coming. That bleach job alone should be a felony.”

Behind Cassidy, almost as if she’d been summoned from Hell by the mention of her name, Ria saw Domino approaching the table. She had a sly smirk on her face and it was apparent she was up to something. 

“Uh, Cassidy-“ Ria tried to interject when she saw the other blonde heading in their direction. Although Domino was technically the same rank as Cassidy and Butch, her relationship with Giovanni carried a lot of extra weight outside of the usual chain of command. Butch and Cassidy liked to tell anyone who would listen that they were the Boss’s favorites, but it was no secret that the title actually belonged to Domino.

“ -if only Houndoom had missed Roserade entirely.”

“Cassidy,” Butch also tried to intervene, but there was no stopping her at this point.

“HQ has been a much better place now that that spoiled brat has been taken down a peg.”

“Oh, and what spoiled brat are we talking about, exactly?”

Cassidy froze and, finally, turned to see Domino standing behind her.

“Domino!” She stammered. “Oh, you know…eh…”

“Actually, it’s no one that you would know at all!” Butch stepped in for the save. “Most definitely not anyone at this table or in the immediate vicinity of it.”

“Absolutely not!” Cassidy added.

“Well, feel free to carry on,” the blonde said, looking down at the lowest ranking member at the table. “I’m just here to see my good friend Ria on some urgent work business.”

“Work business?” Ria asked, suspiciously. She had expected some kind of retaliation, sure, but in the form of extra work detail or being sent on a field assignment in an undesirable location. The possibility of a face to face confrontation hadn’t even crossed her mind. Domino pulled a brown envelope from behind her back and handed it to her. She started to open it and Butch and Cassidy again leaned over her shoulder.

“Do you mind?” She muttered. Neither of them budged. She continued to open it carefully. Domino tapped her finger impatiently until she could no longer contain herself.

“You’re being audited!” She exclaimed, in a sing-song voice.

“What?!” Ria stood up in her chair, clutching the piece of paper so hard the edges wrinkled. Her eyes darted over the wording again and again, trying to make sure what she was reading was correct. It was an official order, and it had been signed by the Boss himself.

“Had to do it, Ria.” Domino’s remorse sounded more like sarcasm and Ria bristled at the sound of her voice. “It’s my duty as an officer to make sure everyone follows the rules, so I really had no choice. We both know that a grunt like yourself shouldn’t be able to defeat an officer like me in battle. The Boss would just be so disappointed if any officer witnessed something like that and didn’t report it.” 

She glared at Butch and Cassidy who looked at each other sheepishly.

“You didn’t have to do it.”

“Now, now, you know as well as I do Rockets are only allowed to keep pokemon up to a certain level, depending on their rank of course. This may be a criminal organization, but we have rules for a reason and those rules apply to everyone, even me. But listen,” Domino leaned in, “I’ll tell you what. I’m in a really good mood. I know you’re about to leave on an assignment, so we can wait to do this until you get back. That’ll give you time to say your goodbyes to Houndoom. Don’t worry…once we retrain it, I’ll take really good care of it.”

Domino walked away seeming satisfied with herself. 

“Thanks a lot.” Ria said, fighting the urge to smack Butch across the face with the lunch tray. “ She wouldn’t be half as mad at me if everyone hadn’t seen what happened on video.”

“Hey, there were plenty of people at that training who saw it first hand. That would have put her on a warpath with you anyway.” Butch defended himself.

“You guys are officers.” Ria pleaded. “You have to tell me, is there anything I can possibly do to get out of this?”

“There’s no way.” Cassidy was blunt in her reply. “Team Rocket is and always has been very strict about adhering to these audits, ever since…you know.”

“The incident.” Butch said with air quotes.

“What even happened, anyway? I was just a kid. My father was a part of Team Rocket at the time, and I remember hearing about it, but I didn’t really pay much attention. I…had a lot going on then.”

Ria ran her finger around the edge of her drink can. She was aware of ‘the incident’, as Butch called it, but it had occurred right around the same time her father had passed away, so she hadn’t paid it any mind. 

“We weren’t there either, but the story goes an Elite agent decided he wanted out of Team Rocket.” Butch explained.

“Obviously they told him no.” Cassidy added.

“Right.” He continued. “So the guy just skips out one night. Makes a run for it. When the Boss finally finds out, he’s furious. Puts a BOLO on this guy, pretty much has the whole team after him.”

“A manhunt.” His partner echoed.

“When they finally tracked him down, I hear it was a bloodbath. This guy was a real hotshot trainer, there was talk he coulda made it into the Elite Four if he wasn’t a Rocket. His pokemon were really powerful and your typical Team Rocket issued field trash was no match for it.”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes at him when he said this. It was a well-known fact that Raticate was her favorite pokemon, and Ria assumed this was why she seemed to resent that remark.

“They say it took almost 50 men to finally take him out, and he didn’t survive.”

“Giovanni never wanted to have to deal with that again, which is why he put this policy into place where Rockets are only allowed to have pokemon up to a certain level. When any pokemon exceeds the level cap for their trainer’s rank, that pokemon becomes the property of Team Rocket. They’re sent off to the breeding center to be re-trained, and they’re either assigned to an officer or put into the reserves if they’re needed later.”

“Wait! I have an idea! You guys can have higher leveled pokemon than I can. Cassidy, what if you take Houndoom for a while?” 

“Are you insane? That thing is public enemy number one right now.” She scoffed. “I’m not about to put a target on my back for Domino.”

Ria sighed. She pulled out Houndoom’s poke ball and looked at it. 

“It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“Well, them’s the rules.” Butch said, matter-of-factly. He and Cassidy stood to collect their trays. “ It’s all in your employment contract, so there’s really nothing you can do.”

“My recommendation would be to just use the Team Rocket issued pokemon from now on. It’s what Butch and I do. They’ll send you a new one every few months. Even if you’re out in the field, Delibird brings it to you.”

“It’s kinda like a subscription service.” Butch added. “They’re tailored to the kind of work you’ll be doing, too. It’s neat.”

“Catching your own pokemon is allowed, sure, but you get attached and eventually you have to either hand them over to Team Rocket or set them free. The only other people I know of who actually do that are those losers Jessie and James. This is a really good example of why it’s just not a good idea.” 

“Sorry kid.” Butch offered before he and Cassidy headed toward the exit. “That’s a real tough break. Here! You can have the rest of my fries.”

“…thanks.”

“French fries? Really?” She heard Cassidy hiss at him as they walked away.

“Well they always make me feel better after a bad day.”

Ria sighed as their voices trailed off and stared sadly at her lunch tray, which now overflowed with the addition of Butch’s leftovers. The fries actually were good here. Unfortunately, she had completely lost her appetite.

[bouwrites]

OC Spotlight: The Cardinal Virtues

This isn’t so much a spotlight on each of these four individual characters so much as an elaboration on how they came about and why they’re so closely related in my mind despite no more than two of them appearing in a single universe at at time thus far. Honestly, I felt this elaboration is necessary just to save space for if/when I do individual spotlights for them.

The Cardinal Virtues are some of my very favorite OCs that I have, and I’ve been calling them that because each one roughly corresponds to one of the four cardinal virtues. In truth, all four are very similar in a lot of ways, for reasons I’ll explain soon, but to prevent this from getting too long...

Hunter Stone - Justice Valerian Isolde - Strength Arno Buenaventura - Temperance Carter Wroden - Prudence

The first thing to know about them, is that Hunter and Valerian (Vale) were originally meant to be the same character. Likewise, Arno, though not created with Vale in mind, was put into my personal cast of OCs with the intention of him “replacing” Vale for stories where Vale isn’t really appropriate. Likewise, Carter was created as a “replacement” of sorts for Arno.

All of them grew in their own ways and developed into distinct characters, but it’s important to note that the framework of their characters, esp. Hunter/Vale and Arno/Carter are essentially the same, and based around my original concept for Hunter, who is actually my very first OC.

Now, I didn’t design them to fit so nicely into the four cardinal virtues. In fact, the reference to the virtues is something that only arose very recently, as I was looking into adding Carter and Arno into my Persona daydream story and stumbled across references to the virtues by chance as I was trying to assign arcana to them.

But this isn’t a spotlight of the characters themselves, but rather how they’re related, and for that we’ll have to go all the way back to my very first OC ever, Hunter Stone.

Hunter is, for all intents and purposes, retired as a character. I haven’t seriously worked with him in many, many years, yet he’s almost constantly on my mind because Arno and Carter, both characters I work extensively with today, are so closely connected with him.

He was my favorite OC for a long time, and my primary best friend and sometimes love interest character in my daydream stories at the time (yes, I romance my OCs in those daydream stories and yes, I’m only admitting to that because that is one of the threads tying these characters together.) until the time I decided to make an original story.

That story was a fantasy novel, and ultimately a tragedy. It’s pretty much abandoned now, though I’d like to use that world for a story at some point, but the creation of that fantasy world is where things got... slightly out of hand.

Now, I should note that a large portion of the magic system used in that fantasy world actually comes directly from my development of how psychic powers work in the Pokemon world (where Hunter is from - kindly don’t remind me that middle-school me thought making an OC child of Steven Stone and Wallace for my cringy grimdark Pokemon story was a good idea. He’s keeping the name, though.) and thus a lot of the framework for how certain things work came from that world as well. Including some characters.

That said, there’s a bit more background we need before getting into that original story. And that, my friends, is Wizard101. I promise you I am completely honest when I say this, and you can trust me because if it wasn’t true there is no way in hell I’d ever admit to this, but “Valerian” is actually the name of my Wizard101 main. I once made a half-baked attempt at a Wizard101 fanfic, and my love for Hunter meant I wanted him in the story, but I decided to use “Valerian” as his name instead to nod to my actual in-game character. For both our sakes, I won’t elaborate any more than that and continue into the original story.

The original story started, at first, in media res with Hunter and some other OCs and their problem, and helping them out is this team of adventurers who were, in hindsight, basically there to babysit the main cast. I actually wrote a lot for that story - most of it, in fact - but eventually decided to change it entirely and set the story two years prior, focusing on that previously mentioned band of babysitters and how they came to be.

But I love Hunter, and couldn’t stand to let him go, so Valerian Isolde comes in to take his place. Vale is probably the single character of mine that has changed the most throughout his development - he actually was in the original script of the story as one of the babysitters, not to mention the other changes from when he was a copy of Hunter as a Wizard101 OC - and that would be much more appropriate for a spotlight of his own, but suffice it to say I ended up with a story with Vale and Hunter both, and them different enough that it honestly doesn’t feel weird even today.

(Needless to say, with my mind so much in that original universe, Vale occupied a lot of my daydreams. He was my primary companion character, often bringing him into fandom universes, though it always felt off to try to romance him, and to an extent even have him around, because of his canon romance and other ties in his native story.)

Enter Arno. Arno Malik Buenaventura is a character I created in tandem with one of my friends as we were traveling to and from university. Long car-rides and shared fandoms, two writers stuck in the car together, there’s only one logical conclusion.

He and his twin sister, Elizabeth, were created for a shared story we worked on. It never developed into anything, really, and to be honest I never really felt right for a while after that using either of them, as they aren’t technically “mine” so I used Arno as a background character for a while. If I needed a name in a fic, just some random schoolgoer who’s mentioned, that kind of thing, I’d use Arno.

I ended up getting more comfortable with him and using him more freely - he’s one of the featured OCs in my ML Twin AU, actually - though I still don’t use Elizabeth much if at all. That’s the reason she doesn’t appear in that story despite being mentioned several times, and being his literal twin - I just kind of feel like she’s more my friend’s OC than my own.

Anyway, I fell in love with Arno, and since, for a while, I was nervous to use him as a character proper due to his origin, he ended up becoming a character that appeared often in my daydream stories - the ones I don’t write, which are usually self-insert just for my own entertainment.

But I ran into another snag like with Vale. Arno didn’t have a love interest at the time, but I was getting older and it started to feel weird to me to play out imaginary romances with imaginary boyfriends in my daydream stories only to turn around and have him as a perfectly ordinary character in my actual written ones.

The solution was simple: make an OC cast reserved for self-insert daydream stories. “Their” stories, their native stories, would include me, or rather my self-insert character based on me. So, I did. Thus, Carter was born. To this day, Carter is my “imaginary boyfriend” and because of that is probably one of the most heavily featured OCs I have in terms of number of universes they appear in - he’s just in my daydream versions of those universes rather than the ones I use for actual stories.

The rest of his crew, some of which are mentioned in the one fic I’ve written that includes him, including his “love interest” Avery Graham who is, in truth, my self-insert character (though not, technically, meant to be me), are also part of my “Daydream Cast” which follow me around and appear as-needed in my daydream stories so I can avoid awkward situations with characters who are supposed to have very clearly defined stories not ruined by me running around in their backyards, so to speak. I don’t always care about that, but sometimes it doesn’t feel right.

Anyway, that’s  the summary of the four who were supposed to be one but somehow separated into four completely distinct characters. I know I didn’t really describe what makes them similar and different in this spotlight, but their character analyses are much more appropriate for individual spotlights and this one has already gone on long enough, I think.

Interestingly, though, despite the fact that you can roughly categorize them as old (Hunter/Valerian) and modern (Arno/Carter) they actually match up in personality more closely in the pairs of Hunter/Carter and Vale/Arno, though in the first case that’s somewhat by design and in the latter is because that’s one of my favorite archetypes of characters. Hunter/Carter are also the most similar in design of them all with Vale being a huge outlier design-wise.

That’s enough for now, though. I’ve leave this here before I add on another whole essay about these four.

[hayesit]

matt’s 2019 year in review

here it is! and it’s late because i had other/better things to do (and procrastinating), was recovering from hangovers (also procrastinating), and recovering from being sick (procrastinating).

i’ve been doing these year in review posts since 2016, so here is my fourth installment. every year i look back through my google calendar, my camera roll, and my bullet journal as a gratitude exercise and to chart my own development as an adult. 

here is my spotify wrapped 2019!

the beginning of this year was off to a good start: i met two friends that i know through the internet! i met my friend riley when she visited boston (i met her through a mutual friend and through overwatch league twitter) and my friend jimmy that i’ve known for…. 6 or 7 years (?!) through tumblr and designed the logo for me and alex’s late podcast, hardly tea, may she rest in peace. 

i moved dorm rooms in between the fall and spring semester, and once again i was not happy with where i lived. i lived with 4 rando’s that i was placed with and the 5 of us barely even talked with each other. my direct roommate i saw for only two weeks, and for the nights he slept over in the bed (that he was paying room and board for) and had the worst snoring humanly possible that not even earplugs could kill (video below). i hardly slept while he was there and roamed the halls of riverview suites like a ghost due to the anxiety i felt about my lack of sleep (we love a vicious circle)! he disappeared after those two weeks without notice and i lived in fear of him returning for the rest of the semester (which he didn’t), but returned to my normal sleep schedule. 

that semester was my first semester of full-time grad school. i got a poor grade on an assignment that had a note from the professor that said she knew i could do better and it hit me how much different grad school is from undergrad and how much more effort and dedication it requires. after crying in my professor’s office, my work ethic has improved since then, but it’s not anywhere near where i’d like it to be (more on that later). 

now to more positive things for the spring semester: i met some friends that semester both ~on and offline~ that made the semester far more bearable AND i did however truly pop off in every last one of my powerpoint presentations for class. i looooove making powerpoints and just fuckin telling jokes about my research topic and have ppl tell me that they are looking forward to my presentation & that i should teach college classes :)!

me and 4 friends had a social group in which we’d drink and play board games and forget about the board game and drunkenly talk shit called cabam after all our first initials! i always looked forward to that and dug the group chemistry a lot.

during this semester i grew a   “ beard “, otherwise known as i chose not to shave just to  “ see what would happen “ (praythatitfilledin). sorry about that!

the overwatch league was something that i had to look forward to watch every week and i had my experience enhanced through sideshow and avast’s unofficial companion streams, which guaranteed lots of laughs. i have bought tickets to two boston home games in 2020 which i am very excited about! analysts have predicted boston to be in 20th place this year (there are 20 teams) but i’m still excited for the 2020 season anyway!!

i can’t have a year-in-review of 2019 without mentioning game of thrones. due to the show’s final season being undeniably weak, i enjoyed the camaraderie with the other people that watched thrones during those six weeks. i haven’t thought about the show or its universe for quite a while, unfortunately. i truly was quite into the world of westeros, but the weakness of the end of the story cheapened the journey of each of the characters, in a way. such a shame.

while i got my diploma in december 2018, i walked across the stage of umass lowell’s tsongas arena with my bachelor of arts in psychology (and minor in theatre arts). it wasn’t as emotional or triumphant of an experience and just felt weird, considering i had already gotten my diploma and was going to remain in the clutches of rowdy the riverhawk as i am staying for my masters degree in applied behavior analysis/autism studies. i brought a ceramic monkey to graduation. it didn’t have any symbolism, but i just wanted to see if they’d stop me (which they didn’t)

 this summer was better than most summers of mine go, i hung out with alex nearly every weekend, got my very first iphone, and got a data plan. the combination of these three things got me back into playing pokemon go, an unexpectedly fun pastime! went on lots of walks!

my favorite day of summer was going to a lake with alex and our friend gianna, who i grew closer to after meeting her during macbeth last year. fond 2019 memories with gianna include: doing simulation patients with her, watching movies with her and alex, and the halloween party. what a great gd person and a great gd friend! big fan and eternally rooting for her. 

fire emblem: three houses came out on the switch in august and is, without a doubt, my game of the year. there’s truly so much to love about the game: the world, the characters, new changes made to the series, things that were gone but returned, interesting micromanaging, and best of all, how huge my brain feels when playing it. 

i got a 6-week summer job as a paraprofessional at an extended-school-year program for children with developmental disabilities at a preschool in haverhill which taught me a lot of lessons, such as: i hate cleaning shit off of children.

then i had feelings that didn’t make much sense for about a month! whoops!

my full-time job i currently have is working at my old high school as a behavior specialist. i provide consultation and work on programs to lead to more appropriate behavior in students, primarily ones with developmental disabilities. so far it’s been fairly rewarding, some days are more challenging than others, some days are a lot of sitting in meetings, and some days are a lot of running around. some days there is not much to do at all, which has its obvious upsides and downsides. working at the high school isn’t something that i want to do forever, but it’s a good place to start with. i’m definitely learning a lot and there are a lot of benefits to working here. sometimes i can work on my grad school work (which is all online until the 2020 summer semester) which is definitely huge. and my commute is either a 15 minute walk or 3 minutes if my mom drives me! 

a ~complex~ thing about working in my hometown is that it makes the most financial sense to live at home because it’s so close to work. this is my first time living at home full-time since high school and i’m not enjoying that part too much. most weekends i visit alex in lowell, but being stuck at home with no car (going to retake the license test in the spring when the ice melts!) and having to go to bed so early definitely hurts. sure, i have what is likely the lowest amount of expenses i’ll ever have in my life (no car-related payments, no rent, no groceries), but i feel landlocked. i feel like a teenager with minimal freedom, which is in part because my mom doesn’t quite understand yet that i’m a 22 year-old that should have a lot more freedom than i do now. the most i really do on weekdays after work gets out (2:30p) is go to savers with my mom if it’s tuesday (senior citizen day), maybe go for a walk if it’s nice out (which for most of the school year, it isn’t), or be on the computer watching bon appetit videos and playing overwatch, fire emblem, or pokemon, eat a bland dinner at 6, go to bed at around 9:30. sad! truly not a situation that i want to be trapped in that much that much longer!

i think the best and most important part of this year was becoming closer with alex. as i mentioned before, we see each other most weekends, to our great benefit. our living situations have flip-flopped, with me living at home and alex living in an apartment near campus, which in both similar and different ways have taken their respective tolls on us. having each other while going through changes and stagnations in our lives has been immeasurably important. thank you alex for providing a place to be myself other than my own head. thank you for being my best friend. 

now i come to the thing that i’m most excited about for 2020. not 2 suck my own horn but i have cobbled together a fuckin dream team of five friends (me, alex, chris, kelly, and molly). the two times we have all gotten together it has been so satisfying in such a wonderful and otherworldly way that i am filled to the brim of happiness being around them. the craziest thing is that i met chris and kelly through twitter! TWITTER. and they’re real-ass people and my real-ass friends! i haven’t been so pleased with something in my life like this for so long and it feels so good to have adult friends that i have chosen rather than friends by circumstance. it’s truly a crime that we can’t see each other more often, but we already have a day picked out for the next time we all do something together. feeling emotional writing this paragraph bc i love me gd friends so much!

there is a lot of uncertainty about this new year for me. i sure as fuck don’t want to live at home more than i have to but don’t know where to go, my practicum class starts for me this summer which means i’ll most likely have to change jobs (fine by me, but will be exhausting), i recently began my search for therapists and hope to find one soon to help me ~unpack things~, my thesis begins in the fall semester and i don’t know what to do for it, and i’m not 100% dead-set on working in special education. it’s been hard transitioning from living on campus and going to school full-time to the life i have now. 

[rpgmgames]

November’s Featured Game: Shooty and the Catfish

DEVELOPER(S): Daniel ENGINE: RPGMaker MV GENRE: Adventure, RPG WARNINGS: Course Language, Gore SUMMARY: Shooty and the Zaat are a dynamic duo solving monstrous mysteries!

Play the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Sure! So my name is Daniel, I guess technically I am an animator. I started out making flash cartoons around 2000 just for fun and became a professional animator in the advertising space around 2007. I have been working in media ever since, both in studios and as a contractor working under the Visitors From Dreams label which is also the label I use for my game development. I started dabbling with RPG Maker in around 2002 but I never got very far. Once I got into the media industry I wanted to pick it up again but with Mac being what almost all my work was done on, at home and in studio I didnt get the chance to actually get into it properly again until MV released, infact I was so excited that I purchased MV the day it dropped and immediately begun development on my first title Flatwoods. Ironically Shooty and the Catfish was developed on a PC, but I digress.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Daniel: Shooty and the Catfish is set up pretty simply. The 2 lead characters, Shooty and Zaat run a sort of monster investigation unit out of their home. They get calls to different desitinations to deal with different monster problems. I really wanted it to feel like it was set up in a similar way to a lot of cartoons from the 80s, where every episode had a pretty similar but still managed to feel like a little self contained adventure. I have thrown in some little elements of an larger narrative but they are light until the final episode. Originally the series was pitched to Frederator for Cartoon Hangover, it got a little ways into early development but then Youtube changed its algorythm and animation on the platform became a struggle and the project was dropped. I didnt want to waste all the work I had done on the concepts and so I eventually tried to find a way to work them into a game, its taken me quite a few years to get as far as I have with development, but I would be even further back if I had tried to animate it all alone. I created Flatwoods to try and get a small project out, you know, to get some experience with the engine, little did I know how much more I had to learn!

How long have you been working on your project? *Daniel: I pitched Shooty and the Catfish back in 2013 from memory, but it didn't start to take shape as the project you currently see until the last 12 months. In that sense I am incredibly happy with how quickly the game has come together.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Daniel: So many things have influenced my work its not funny... Where do I even start? Shooty and Zaat have a bit of a Finn and Jake thing going since when the project was originally pitched to Frederator and thats what they were looking for at the time. Resident Evil 4 (the closest any game has ever come to perfection imo) was the inspiration for the games ammo based combat system. Demons Souls originally derailed the project when I tried to emulate its non linear hub based design (you will notice the demo takes place on a single island instead), that created all kinds of balancing issues though so thats all been stripped back and is what lead to the decision to make the game episodic instead. One element from Demons Souls that remains in the game is a diverse mix of linear and looping level designs when it comes to mapping. The game also features towns that have layouts based on unused maps from the Pokemon GS 97 Spaceworld demo since they never made it into any of the actual games in the series. Pokemon GS also influenced the games visuals. I'm not a big RPG guy, but I played a hell of a lot of Pokemon growing up and Gen 2 is still my favorite. Trying to get MV to emulate the limitations of the Game Boy Color was quite the hurdle, I still cant believe I got it working as well as it is. I also have a lot of cameos from other peoples RPGM games, so there's that. Its a big ol' mixing pot of ideas and inspirations.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Daniel: Countless, the biggest challenge is always scope though. I originally wanted the game to be like 3 hours long tops, now its well in excess of that and that's before I have even put in meaningful NPC interactions. That's why I have decided to break the game up into episodes, each one should be around an hour which is much more my jam. I don't have a lot of free time so I tend to gravitate towards games that are tight and short, I think that's why I am so determined to keep this game in nice manageable chunks. Now that the game is shorter I don't need levelling so I am starting to tone down the RPG elements. One change always leads to another, but episode one is getting damn close to completion. I say this before I have even had the chance to announce the game's going to be episode on my own blog, ha ha. Episode 1 January, The Great Spore Chore! Keep your eyes out for it!

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Daniel: As mentioned above a lot has changed, I feel the biggest change was when I tried to move the game from being episodic into one adventure after playing through a bunch of other RPGM games for ideas, it all started to feel a bit aimless and the storytelling techniques I had planned when it was episodic weren't translating well as the game progressed. So I guess now the game is episodic again we have come full circle! So many ideas seemed good on paper but ended up not really being fun or adding anything in practice. Oh yeah, and the transition from Game Boy green to color was a big one based on feedback from the demo. Some people were finding it hard to tell what elements were interactable, doors in particular, I hope that color has helped minimize that issue. Key items will also have an animation on them so they are hard to miss. I'm not a fan of hunting for items in big maps, it's certainly not something I want to subject people too in my own projects.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Daniel: This project has had a few key people involved. Outside of myself I have worked with 2 musicians. One is an old school friend who did music for my animations back in the early 2000's. He has contributed a bunch of really cool EDM which makes up most of the games OST. On top of that there is also a number of optional bosses (one per episode) that have music composed by Secret Agent Ape who worked on Soma Spirits and a bunch of other upcoming games. I have been really lucky to get to work with such rad dudes.

What is the best part of developing the game? *Daniel: I love designing enemy battlers, my process usually involves me drawing a weird shape, sticking some eyes and a big goofy nose on it and trying to come up with a stupid pun to use for a name while listening to bands like Yes or Klaatu. It's bliss. I have a lot of people ask me why I have limited myself in terms of resolution and color palette, and it comes down to one of the important things I told myself when I got into game making as a hobby was that I would stop if it ever started to feel like work. I spend my days doing heavy visual effects and compositing, sometimes doing complex character animation. I want to keep that stuff as far away from my game development as possible. Ironically working within the incredibly restrictive limitations of the Game Boy has ended up being incredibly liberating and keeps things feeling fun as opposed to feeling like more of what I do all day to pay the bills.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Daniel: I always enjoy checking out demo's of upcoming games. Both Heartbeat and Virgo and the Zodiac's demos blew me away from a technical standpoint on the MV front. I still find it hard to believe those demos were made with the same engine I'm using. I guess it really shows what can be done when the engine is in capable hands. I wish I had more time to play actual full releases, I mean Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass just came out and I have no idea when, if ever I will have the free time to play it because its such a commitment. I feel like I am missing out on some great stuff.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Daniel: I guess I relate to different characters in different ways. Slim Grim is the one who hands out assignments to Shooty and Zaat, he is pretty much done with life, over people and the world itself, I think thats something we all have a bit of inside of us. Shooty is a very positive individual, his solutions to most problems is a bullet with a smile, and I think theres a bit of that in all of us as well. Zaats a bit of a cheeky smart arse, so I guess in a lot of ways I am most like her as a person. One of the episodes also features Gerkinman who is and has been a sort of self insert in my work since 2001 so I guess technically I relate to him most... ha ha, but thats cheating!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Daniel: I wish I had done a better job keeping the project focused. I feel like a good few months were spent making the game bigger in ways it didnt need to be.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Daniel: All of my games are loosely connected, taking place in the same world. None of them tie directly into each other, im not big on the cinematic universe concept that seems so popular right now, but events in my previous 2 releases and the 5 planned episodes of Shooty and the Catfish are loosely connected in ways people who take the time to look can find. They are also tied into around 17 years worth of animated shorts I have released. I have no plans on stopping now!

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Daniel: Well, theres quite a few things... Mapping for all 5 episodes (outside of towns) is complete, so when Episode 1 is done I will be immediately rolling into Episode 2. I am aiming to have an episode out every 2 months which should be doable with so much of the game already finished. I also have a couple of short films I am looking forward to being able to invest some time into, things have slowed down in recent months due to freelance but I am eager to get to animate some of my own work again. I am also eager to see the comments sections on Lets Plays. Both Flatwoods and Hazmat got a bit of Lets Play action and a couple of those have some pretty substantial comment sections. The amount of theories people try to put together for these projects is staggering. I could never write something as entertaining as what the speculations in these comment sections contain in terms of what my games mean, it cracks me up and I find it quite flattering that random people have put more thought into elements of my stories then I have. Makes me want to keep things deliberately vague just to encourage more of it. Lastly I will be releasing all the build files for the project so if anyone wants to make fangames or whatever they have direct access to all of the core files used to build the games. Im a big fan of the concept of a mod community, and while RPGM doesnt exactly allow for that, id love to see people do similar things to my work as whats been done with a lot of LISA fan games.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Daniel: I don't know about being afraid exactly. I am curious about how my business model for the episodic releases will go over. I was planning on releasing them at $1 an episode and $4 for the bundle when it's all complete. I know some people think thats still charging too much, but some people have also told me im not charging enough and that it lowers price standards accross the board for RPGM content. The way I see it if I can cover the costs of Steam and the music I commissioned then I've done alright since this project was for fun, but that's just me.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Daniel: Just keep at it and set yourself small goals. If your working on a big project break it up into manageable sections. Take things one map at a time, ya know what I mean?

Question from last month's featured dev @overcast-rpg: If you could choose an RPG Maker gamedev to release another game; which one would you choose and why? *Daniel: Oh that's an easy one, The Catamites. I love Space Funeral, it's easily my favorite game made in the engine, and while The Catamites has developed countless games since its release, they have all been in other engines. It would be fun to see them return to the engine after all they have learned about game design since Space Funeral's release and to see what they would do.

We mods would like to thank Daniel for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Shooty and the Catfish if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke [Part 3]

Third segment of grindlocke.

We’re about to board some boat, where lies our only source of experience before Surge’s Gym. Also our rival. Aside from one Diglett that demanded murder, we’ve kept to not fainting anything outside of battles.

Things are probably about to get even harder. Current team, we salute you.

I really hope there’s lots of people in here.

Youngster Tyler counts as a people. He has a level 21 male Nidoran. I. Crud, I want to try out Ismail. The Poison just makes me twitchy each time, even though I’ve got a decent level advantage. Ismail manages it in one shot. Yay Magnitude.

Lass Ann is on the right ship, and she has a level 18 Pidgey. The female Nidoran can feed Ismail.

...This just isn’t fast enough. I have to re-decide to focus on Heero and Allenby. Even though um. This. Person in this other room has a level 19 male Nidoran. And I can’t. Ismail needs to get some hits in eventually. She’ll take the level 19 female one, too.

Oh, his name’s Gentleman Arthur.

Gentleman Thomas is next. All these rich people with cruise tickets. And level 18 Growlithe. Ismail, you want a stab?

No, because one Bite takes her down to almost half health. What the fuck. Allenby, save the day!

Horsea! Level 17, that’s a Noin target. Level 17 Shellder is as well. But I’m going to switch into Allenby because Noin’s eaten two Leers. Yeah, Icicle Spear could have hurt. Allenby stays in to manage the Tentacool.

Never mind, Allenby is confused and poisoned. Noin, get back in there. Good girl. You made it to level 20!

Sailor Leonard doesn’t care about your effort, and has no interest in letting Allenby back upstairs to heal. He has a level 21 Shellder. I am uncomfortable. Heero and Ember make it work, though. And she makes it to level 26!

Sailor Dylan with three more level 17 Horsea for Noin.

Level 18 Tentacool. It knows Supersonic. Heero. I’m begging you. Thank you.

Staryu’s up next, so Noin is back up. Level 21 get.

Rocking.

Sailor Phillip wants to go now. He has a level 20 Machop that looks to be wanting some smacks from Allenby.

Sailor Phillip shares a room with Fisherman Barny. Level 17 Tentacool. Heero can take it. Noin takes the Staryu, though. As is only proper. Noin takes the Shellder, too.

That’s the lower deck. We’re not looking too shabby. I’d prefer better, but that’s me reacting to my standards where I’m allowed to have a bit more control over the leveling process.

Up the stairs!

I like how annoyed all the fishermen look. I would also wear that hoodie. Level 17 Goldeen. I’m betting it knows Supersonic. Heero makes it to level 27! Allenby will fight the other Goldeen. Even though they probably know Peck. Oh, his last pokemon is a Tentacool.

Gentleman Brooks has a single Pikachu at level 23. Hi Pikachu.

Gentleman Lamar goes back to Growlithe. Allenby, because Fire is useless against it. Ponyta is next. I... will try Ismail out for a turn. She lives to see level 19.

Lass Dawn has a Rattata. Also a Pikachu.

Up another set of stairs. Hoping I don’t pick the side of the hall that leads to Turq, because no, I don’t think I am mentally prepared for that. Awesome, found the way that leads out to deck.

His level 17 Machop asks for death. So does his Tentacool.

Sailor Edmond has a level 18 Machop. Heero makes it to level 28. Noin will tackle the Shellder. ...Any time my pokemon want to stop hurting themselves in confusion, they can. Just saying.

...I think that might be it for trainers on the ship.

Except for Turq.

Rival extraordinaire.

Heero up front.

Why did I think this was a good idea?

Okay, let’s see the damage.

Oh?

His Pidgeotto is only level 19. That’s a good start. Heero takes it out, and Turq immediately goes over to Wartortle. ...Noin, let’s. let’s see if you’ll be okay against that. You should be, right?

Wartortle is level 20. Has Bite. Bite packs a bite.

Noin stop flinching. Yes, he’s poisoned, but stop flinching.

Spending a turn on a Potion and letting the poison finish him off.

Kadabra next. Heero time. Raticate follows, and Allenby is up.

Wow.

We’re all alive.

Access to the third Gym achieved!

We’re going to teach Quatre the Meowth Cut.

Hello darkness my old friend.

Trainers before trauma. Let’s go.

Sailor Dwayne has a Pikachu. It is level 21. For the second Pikachu, Ismail is going to be given a chance. Because Thunder Wave is a thing and I hate watching Heero freeze in place over and over.

...Never mind, Allenby, save the defenseless wonder.

I’m a little worried about that. Ismail’s Defense is awful. Ground is really useful to have, and Dugtrio doesn’t need something like trading to evolve, but Defense that bad needs a higher Attack stat, maybe. I really don’t want to spend time training anything I can’t use.

Level 21 Voltorb. Heero food. Level 21 Magnemite. More Heero food.

Heero is level 29 now.

For the last trainer in the Gym, Ismail gets to be out first. That damage she always takes from switching is just really sad. ...Ismail vs. level 23 Pikachu. Eek. One Quick Attack takes out more than half her health. Magnitude 6 brought the Pikachu to red, but still.

...Oh, that guy probably had a name. Whoops.

Switch games. I prefer mine to belong to a different console.

I hate this Gym.

Door open.

The question is if I want to give Ismail a chance to grow, or just let Heero handle it.

It isn’t a question. Heero is handling it.

Where is Surge’s hidden war lore?

Level 21 Voltorb out first. And it’s gone. Pikachu next.

...I want Ismail to try. I am the wrong personality for doing this right. Oh, it’s only level 18. Good job, Ismail.

Raichu is Heero’s all the way, though. Level 24 and soon to be (hopefully) out of our way.

I hate Thunder Wave. And Double Team. Uh, Ismail, under the theory that it’s going to go for another Electric move this turn, get in now. Because your big sister Heero is a paralyzed mess and in the orange. Yes, again.

Yay, that worked.

But Magnitude missed and Quick Attack does more than half.

...Allenby, need a favor.

The level isn’t the problem with the Raichu. It’s the Double Team and not being able to take risks that could faint anything. That is one nasty creature. I am so glad it’s gone. I’m so glad I currently don’t have to wonder about what next time will be like.

So, what’s next?

I hate.

About those Repels, self...

Super, now I have five.

COULD YOU PLEASE FUCKING NOT.

Okay, good, running away worked. Uh. Heero, I know you’re the highest level, but we can’t have you in front while we’re down here, because if another level 29 Dugtrio spawns and has Arena Trap, you’re going to die.

Remember when Flash was an HM?

Meowth whose name I can’t remember, please tell me you learn it. Quatre! And you can! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?

Off to Cerulean again. By going the way I got there in the first place, because I just can’t go through the tunnel again. It has left me scarred. I would rather go through a tunnel full of Zubat that I can’t kill for exp. than go through that horrible place ever again.

For the sake of full context, I really love Diglett.

The first pokemon I ever trained legitimately to level 100 was a Dugtrio.

This run is testing that love.

We made it!

I don’t really know who I want in front at this point. Ismail needs levels to be anything close to helpful, but where those levels are earned is irrelevant, I personally want Noin to murder everything but that’s not the most useful, Heero could continue to kill all the things but maybe I could use less of that focus, and Allenby is always a favorite.

So I guess I’ll go by what trainer’s standing in front of me and whether or not I remember or care enough to switch who’s in front?

I sort of didn’t care, but also Picknickers have some variety to them so it matters less. Meh.

She has an Oddish. It is level 18 and I just. can’t. with Absorb wars. Heero time. For the level 18 Bellsprout as well. Noin and Heero can switch with the next Oddish again. With the next Bellsprout, Ismail’s getting some switch love.

And that gets Heero poisoned because of course it does.

Ah, Hiker Jeremy is next. Noin should have better fortune here. Unless he’s a Machop Hiker.

...Fucker.

The level 20 Machop hungers for blood with Seismic Toss. Which Allenby now wants to learn, and shall, because moves that automatically do some damage are a comfort in times of trouble. No more Low Kick.

Jeremy has an Onix. Ismail, go forth.

Ismail, don’t get Binded.

Sigh. Well, you killed it. Good job, kiddo. You and Allenby both get a Potion because we jumped a ledge that makes getting back to the Pokemon Center in Cerulean annoying.

Son, this is not how you say hi to strangers.

Camper Chris with the Growlithe. This is a job for Allenby! The Charmander that follows is a job for Ismail! Hey, that even works out!

Bug Catcher Brent is next, so Heero gets to be up front. Facing a level 19 Beedrill. Two of them, even.

Heero is level 30!

Grass reached on the way back to the Pokemon Center again. First thing that pops up is Ekans. Got that. Second is Spearow. Got that. Ekans. Rattata. Spearow. ...Yeah, fine, I’ll check if there’s even anything new this route.

Serebii says there isn’t. Sad face.

I am both glad and sad it’s not my job to comb through Pokemon games and assign every single character a new name. Level 20 Caterpie. Conner, why would you make your life this difficult?

Ismail, you can have the Weedle. Please don’t get poisoned. You didn’t! And you made it to level 21! ...Wow those stats make me worried. ...No, you are not learning Fury Swipes. That move is obnoxious.

Heero can step in and help with the level 20 Venonat.

He’s got a level 19 Rattata up front. Oh jolly gee. ...Should these maybe be Ismail food? The Sandshrew’s Noin’s, obviously, but he’s got two other things. Ekans. Ismail. Eat the poison creatures, my child. One more Sandshrew, and one more Noin fight.

Oh nice, does Quatre have pickup?

(I am an observant trainer raising my pets well.)

Persim Berry get!

Hiker Brice is our next contestant. In accordance, Noin’s up front for the level 20 Geodude. All two of them before Ismail goes up against the Machop. Fight won.

You people are allowed to say hi.

Oh, whoops.

Picknicker Caitlin with the level 23 Meowth! Ismail’s in front for this, and hopefully no one has to swoop in and help. What do you know, that worked. Good job, Ismail. Even if your HP and various Defenses make me want to cry.

Hiker Alan up now. Level 21 Geodude first. Another shot for Ismail.

This feels like it might be bad.

Aaaaand that would be why.

...

...

At the risk of sounding callous, I was starting to feel like this wasn’t going to work out, anyway. Better to know now, right?

Like I’m sad.

But not remotely surprised.

That 15 HP got lost to one Meowth Scratching her. I was dancing a fine line of providing chances and seeing if Ismail could even survive long enough to be of use.

Overly mean of me, perhaps. I think another day probably would have yielded different results.

Sigh. Noin to clean things up with the Geodude, and then the level 21 Onix that follows.

I’d kept everyone alive so far.

You tried.

Anyway. We made it to Route 10. We can catch a thing in the grass here. Not a Diglett. But. Well. I’m sure we’ll make do without.

Spearow. Spearow.

Voltorb!

Mood, my friend.

Your new name is Zaft.

You can be in the party instead of the box.

Good stopping point?

Good enough stopping point.

[wolf-n-bones]

Was Undertale your first fandom you wrote fanfiction for? Whether it was or wasn't, what got you to start writing?

I think my earliest fandom was pokemon. I guess I kinda crushed on Ash? (Looking back I cringe hard now) I think I liked the adventure and cute animals. Plus Team Rocket still are the best characters of whole pokemon xD they legit made me feel better.But the writing started with Dragonball Z I think, as a creative outlet. I had a lot of friends that were fans (mostly had guy friends) It started with just an insert. Like family of:, working for: The teachers of middle school gave us writing assignments to better our writing skills. And we happily took those opportunities to either write 'fanfiction' or our own fantasy adventures. The teachers encouraged it. In high school I had a little notebook me and my friends used to write small drabbles of fanfiction in. We were infected with a virus which made us unkillable and we cause havoc in our favorite games and series. We'd pick up where the other left off.After DBZ came Beyblade, Legend of Zelda, bits and pieces of Medabots, Devil May Cry and then there was Kingdom Hearts.... This is where it started to get NSFW. I still love the Lunatic Berserker but honestly... They took WAY too LONG with KHIII. (Still not out either) that I kind of fell out of love... And now I dunked into Undertale. It started with pictures on my news feed that perked my interest. My partner at the time HATED IT. (And forbid me to even look at it.... I didn't listen) And before I knew it I had a huge boner for Undertale. So here I am, it made me realise how much I like skeletons and bones.

[metalgearkong]

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom - Review (PS4)

Developed by Level-5 / Bandai Namco Entertainment

Throughout the generations in gaming, the traditional turn-based JRPG has either all but disappeared, or doesn’t see wide releases on consoles as big tent pole products. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (2013) was a diamond in the rough in terms of traditional JRPGs among a sea of the now more popular action-RPG, or outright action games with RPG elements tacked in. Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (released 3/23/18) is the long awaited sequel to that first game. While the charming cel-shaded aesthetics, incredible score by Joe Hashishni, and sprawling old school RPG feel and mechanics have returned for this sequel, Ni no Kuni II isn’t quite as good of a final product, suffering from story and balancing issues, but remains a commendable game that JRPG lovers should still play. 

Surprisingly, Ni no Kuni II has virtually nothing to do with the story of the first Ni no Kuni. The game claims to take place long after the events of Oliver & company rescuing the great sage to resurrect his mother, but nearly nothing ties this game to the last. Sure, Ding Dong Dell and other locations may be present, but no affects of the events prior affect anything here. We initially play as Roland, a president of an unspecified country who is whisked away to this other world just as an enormous explosion demolishes a city. Roland finds himself transported to a castle while a rebellion has been sparked, and the king has been killed. Roland teams up with the price named Evan, and the two escape and decide to establish a new kingdom of their own. Much of the game is about building your kingdom, constantly upgrading it, and uniting the surrounding nations under one banner.

On the plus side, Ni no Kuni II is absolutely packed with content and stuff to do--to the level of being overwhelming. This is a highly ambitious game that will take dozens upon dozens of hours to finish the story, and achieve all the optional material if desired. Every step of the way, the game is alive with a brilliant musical score and cartoon-like visuals everywhere you go. This game’s audio/visual presentation is absolutely off the charts, a feast for the eyes and ears throughout. Although I wish there was a lot more actual voice portrayal during dialog (especially during key or emotional moments), this is the only hazy aspect of an otherwise deliciously looking and sounding game.

The other best aspects of the game are its combat mechanics. Unlike the first Ni no Kuni, this game doesn’t emphasize the use of captured creatures, which we turn into loyal Familiars. I used to describe the first game as A Hayo Miyazaki game with Pokemon combat. Here, Familiars are totally done away with, and the characters do most of the fighting themselves. Combat plays out much like a hack n’ slash game, with a strong and quick attack button, as well as ranged abilities, magic, and special abilities. The game runs at 60fps which adds to the smoothness of any encounter. Hacking at enemies in free form live combat is as fun as a game from an action genre. Spells can be put in quick slots, and upgraded over time. As new equipment is found, it can be used, as some elemental attacks are better on different kinds of enemies.

I did find Ni no Kuni II overall to be easier than the first game. Ironic, as I found Ni no Kuni 1 to be a little too challenging, even for a life long gamer. It looks like Level-5 overcompensated a bit, and swung to far the other way. My party never died during combat, or big boss fights. Where the challenge does lye is in the optional “corrupted” enemies which can be approached on the world map and fought. These enemies are usually much higher level than your party, and have to be approached later down the road when you are much more powerful. Otherwise, the combat is flashy, but not as engaging as the first game. Aside from exploring other nations, fighting enemies, and collecting new items & weapons, a large portion of time is spent recruiting citizens to your kingdom, assigning them jobs, upgrading facilities, and juggling the well being of the entire kingdom. This is a big aspect of the game, but something I think bogs down the pacing and story, as if feels more like tedium rather than integral to the core story.

If the game didn’t have enough to do already, we also have to defend out kingdom from attacking tribes and clans by utilizing factions we’ve recruited. This leads to a simple RTS-style mode where we bash our forced through enemy forces. Certainly some strategy has to be used, but I felt it was more about what level you were, more so than battle tactics. This entire mode feels like the hay that tips the scale into being too much. These were my least favorite aspects of Ni no Kuni II and I dreaded having to level up my RTS factions and do rock-paper-scissors style battles. 

But this game’s biggest failing is its lack of attention on a good story and character development--something the RPG genre has been iconic for. We learn nothing special about Roland back in his real life, and he seems to have little concern for being in this fairy tale new world. No one is very developed outside of their initial personalities. No one is outright bad, but no one is developed beyond major archetypes. I can recall literally one significant moment where we get some insight into Roland’s character, and its found in an off the trail side quest which is entirely possible to miss. Ni no Kuni II is ambitious and beautiful, but it doesn’t have some core qualities key to this genre and franchise. If the auxillery tasks and game types were dropped in favor on focusing on the main story, that would have made for a better finished product. As it stands, I still enjoyed my journey with this game and do recommend it to those who enjoyed the first.

7.5/10

[georggiacrump]

Deck Of Cards

1. INTERPRET THE BRIEF - What are the possible directions you could take this brief? What possible meanings could you give to the word 'card'? What are the underlying philosophies behind the constraints? Could you use your understanding of these underlying philosophies to 'unpack' the constraints and 'break' them? Interpreting this brief will require a certain amount or research of precedents. If you have a good idea, it has probably been done before... so then you can expand on that other project in a new way. There is a lot of content to get through in that brief. Readings, ideas, videos. You have plenty to analyze and interpret. Don't launch into prototyping too soon

We have formed our group pretty early on which could go either way. Ben visited us today and even though we have our group formed, after a few sessions of drafting we could possibly be moving in different directions. With James and Jacob added in our group I think we can come up with a fresh and innovative concept to pursue. We have been asked to interpret the brief and to be frankly honest I’m unsure of how to grasp it’s entirety since it’s such a broad brief we can take in any direction we want.

 We brainstormed a few ideas that we could expand on and we actually made a great start.

McDonalds Toy: 

A ViewMaster, to create cards (pictures) to place in a ViewMaster could be a fun project - we hadn’t decided what theme we wanted with this. 

Reflection Card:

A holographic card which shows you the original image at first by once you tilted it would show a different image. I thought we could incorporate a set of cards with the theme of the Anthropocene. Perhaps a serene image and then manipulated into a horrific image.

Digital:

This was a social interactive concept for a game that Erin came up with. A pack of 52 cards with a QR code on it, you would scan it and then it would show a task you need to complete. Such as, “go up to a stranger and tell them....”. This could be a great team building exercise to push past your comfort zones.

Another form of digital was taking this actually digital. Creating something like Pokemon Go, taking this to AR could be exciting but I personally have no idea where to start with this. 

Mood Ring Card:

I like the thought of the idea of a card where if you placed it in your hand it would change colour to the mood you were in. I then thought further than perhaps if pressure was placed on the card it would change colour. Such as, if you pressed lightly it would be yellow and if more pressure was placed it would turn into purples and blacks. I think this was a great start of an idea to follow with the theme of mental health awareness. 

Drinking Card Game:

This one is quite self-explanatory, coming up with a new drinking card game could be a lot of fun!

Expanding Cards:

Do you remember children's picture books and pops appear to add another element of surprise? We thought with cards you could add an exciting interactive dimension to stand out from the rest. 

Storage Device:

There are cards now which have a USB in them which are the size of an EFTPOS card to fit in your wallet. We were thinking of what else we could do to expand on this idea.

Study:

I thought since we were all in the same boat perhaps we could find an innovative and fun way to help us study. We would need to find some sort of algorithm in a set of cards which could aid this but I do like the idea.

Spotify Song:

When you were given a card and when you scanned the QR code on it you would be taken to Spotify. From there it would introduce you to new music you wouldn't normally listen to.

Dissolving/Expanding Card:

I really liked this idea but not sure what direction it could go in. Like that magic sand that once it was submerged in liquid it would turn into a solid. Perhaps it could turn into different colours and be a fun way for people with disabilities could interact with it? Or perhaps the card could grow into.....? I really don't know yet to be frank but it is a cool concept we came up with. 

Brail Card: 

We were told that people had already created the original playing cards with brail but it could be interesting to develop a card game for the blind. 

Scratch & Sniff:

We all got excited about this idea, the nostalgia was real and we all wanted to be apart of it! This would appeal to the kids with a fun interactive game which we need to develop this idea further. 

Rolling ball:

Miles came up with an idea for kids that you would place these cards on a board. The cards would magnetic and you could arrange them on the board as you pleased so the game was never the same. The ball would roll down the cards and board, not sure about the theme but this again I felt was a great idea! 

I think there are so many more directions we can take which will only keep coming up the more we work on this assignment. A few of us are going to research mental health card games and see what has been done and what’s the limits and restrictions for them. I need to go back and go over the readings and links Ben has set for us to help develop our research further which I will do in this Studio session. I think we will set our group to narrow down our favorites and to research them further and start prototyping. That way we can discard the impossibles and move on from them. I hope this answers the question from above, maybe I’ve gone right of topic but that's what Studio is all about! Fail, fail again and fail better. 

[detroittigermania]

Machado Out, Goodrum In

It’s never fun seeing a player for your favorite team get the boot. Well, okay. Scratch that. Sometimes that move is overdue. But this is a move that may fall somewhere in the middle of those two distinctions. Earlier this week, Detroit opted to designate second baseman Dixon Machado for assignment. For those that do not know what that phrase means, I’ll give you a bare bones description of it: Any player DFA’d means they are placed on waivers. Any other major league baseball team now has seven days to decide if they want to add him to their 40-man roster or not. If no other team claims the player, that player can be assigned to one of the teams minor league teams, or released outright. Basically, Machado has three courses: Either he goes back to our minor league system, another team’s system, or can be forced (or choose) to become a free agent. Got all that? Then let’s continue. It seems like a rough way to let go of our Opening Day second baseman, but there are more than offensive/defensive stats and spreadsheets to explain why the Tigers had to make a move. First off, Machado is 26 years old. He’s not old, but he’s not young either. He made his major league debut in 2015 and had only played in 105 games from 2015 to 2017 for Detroit. He did not impress much in that time, and considering Detroit had Jose Iglesias and Ian Kinsler manning the middle infield, there was just no real room for him unless someone was injured. After the trade that sent Kinsler to the Los Angeles Angels, a roster spot opened up. With no one in AAA really ready for major league action, he was the best option in a very thin lineup. Second, a man named Niko Goodrum appeared like a goddamn wild Pokemon or something. Battle music and all. He is by and large the biggest reason why Machado no longer had a spot on our roster. Originally meant to be a utility player, he wasn’t a real threat at second base. Or third base. Or...any position really. He was the new Don Kelly. Goodrum has played every fielding position, barring catcher and center field. Nowadays, we’re seeing him play second base for a single reason: he’s all-around better. His defense has been better, his offense has been better, and he has the ability to play multiple positions and do them well. He has played in every game since June 10th, and it has paid dividends as in the month of July he is batting .481/.500/.786. 6 of his 13 base hits have gone for extra bases. He struggled at the end of June, and Detroit continued to platoon Machado and Goodrum as a comparison type of move. It was clear Goodrum was performing better, plain and simple. Machado had been given many more chances to pick himself up, but hasn’t be able to do so. At that point, it just makes more sense to play the player that is playing at a higher level. To Machado’s credit, he does have something that is in fact enticing, but it’s also something Goodrum has as well. That would be... Team control. It’s true that Goodrum and Machado are almost the exact same age (Goodrum being 6 days younger), and they have the same level of team control. Both players have not spent the required 173 days on a major league team in any major league season to total one year of service in the major leagues. This means that they are on level playing field in the aspects that teams look at that aren’t always effected by statistics on the field: age and team control. The Tigers are in a rebuilding season, and the influx of young no-names running out by Rod Gardenhire isn’t a mistake. On top of trading for young prospects, our other goal is to get some of them some seasoning at the major league level to see how well they fare, and let’s be honest with ourselves here. Goodrum has, in all facets, performed better. Assuming this will be the first season that Goodrum stays on the 25-man roster for the required 173 days, he will have logged his first full year of MLB service. Also assuming he continues to be a regular in our lineup, or at least on our team moving forward, we will have control over him until after the 2023 season is over. That’s definitely enough time for Detroit to rebuild and get back into playoff contention. While that’s all good and all, there’s yet another reason why Goodrum could be getting this much attention... Trade-bait. Well, possibly. This is yet another assumption, but if you haven’t noticed, our middle infield is a bit...crowded. Jose Iglesias, Dixon Machado, Niko Goodrum, Dawel Lugo, and Ronny Rodriguez make up the middle infielders we’ve had on our team that are either mainstays or are prospects (no, Pete Kozma does not belong on this list). The last two are young and are considered prospects, and Iglesias is the veteran that will not be moving from shortstop. With all of these players taking up spaces either on our major league roster or bubbling under in the minors, it’s only natural to start weeding out the competition, choosing certain players over others. The pickings will also shorten up once we come to... Jose Iglesias’ free agency. This is why I said the trade-bait is an assumption. Because the Tigers are in a rebuilding, it’s also in itself assuming that Detroit does not sign Iglesias to a free-agent deal after this season. In fact, they’ll probably trade him at the deadline to a team that needs an upgrade at shortstop for a couple of prospects. So Goodrum himself may not be the tradebait. Keep in mind that Goodrum is a shortstop by trade, but he’s not going to be taking over Iglesias’ spot while he’s still in a Detroit uniform. Once Iglesias is no longer wearing the Ol’ English D and Goodrum continues to play well... Goodrum will become Detroit’s everyday shortstop in 2019. This is where this whole article was coming to. Looking at all the pieces, it only makes sense that Detroit would be tossing their chips into this guy:      1. He’s playing well now that he’s been promoted to everyday duty.      2. He has loads of team control available.      3. Their everyday shortstop (Iglesias) is expected not to be in Detroit past               2018.      4. He’s going to be cheap for Detroit to work with until after the 2020 season.      5. Detroit’s farm system does not have a lot of shortstop prospects nearing             major league status. (Parades not expected to be major league ready until           2020 at the earliest, and Alvaro Gonzalez until 2022)

Looking all of this information, from this arm-chair manager, it just makes sense. He’s not expected to be a super star. He might not ever be an All-Star during his career. But for what Detroit is working towards with their rebuild, he fits very well. More than likely this was not the plan running into the season, but with what he has done for Detroit this season thus far, it’s a direction I’m sure the front office has considered. Machado just doesn’t have the same direction with Ronny Rodriguez and Dawel Lugo being some higher prospects in that list that can take over second base and do it better than Machado. However, it is worth mentioning that Machado is also a shortstop by trade, but like Goodrum, he’s not taking over shortstop until Iglesias is no longer manning that spot. At this point it comes down to what are the upsides for both of these players, and which one is brighter? As of today, it’s Goodrum. No slight to Machado, but I can imagine Detroit sees it the same way. It hurts to watch young players get the opportunity to play everyday, and in three short months get demoted outright. But baseball is, after all, a business. Goodrum happens to be better for business. These are a lot of assumptions, as I do not work for the Detroit Tigers in any shape or form. I don’t know what they’re thinking. But if I were lucky enough to be a part of the thought process going into what makes our team the way it is, that would be my vote.