#also in case you didn’t know yet i like pokemon too

[sixoclocker]

oh brother is this REALLY what happens when you do fuck ass experiments.😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓

[enden-agolor]

im assuming this is the case but were jesse / lukas / petra’s admin designs having similar palettes / overall color schemes to the original three on purpose ??? i remember you doing admin jesse art before so im not 100% sure but i think its a really cool detail unintentional or not :)

actually no not at all. i didn’t even realize that until now 👀

i kinda wanted their color pallets to all stay similar to the colors that really make each character stand out like jesse’s green suspenders, lukas’ magenta shirt, and petra’s red hair.

jesse’s design is based off your classic hero look with the onesie and the cape. the straps around his suit are supposed to represent the suspenders, and they, along with his eyes, are the only parts of him that glow. his colors are supposed to be calm and comfortable, yet dark and intimidating to look at because his admin self is honestly pretty sad. he’s eternally grumpy and wearing a smile is rare for him, so the colors also represent his gloomy mood. (he’s absolutely in no way evil though he’s still the same happy little jesse we know and love, it’s just very hard for him to take on positive feelings while in this form)

lukas’ design is supposed to look like someone of high authority. he’s a leader after all, and i wanted his design to be so anyone who takes a look at him knows he must be a person of high caliber. kind of imagine a pokemon antagonist and how they’re always decked out in attire that kinda makes you think like oh yeah that must be the boss, meanwhile look at all the grunts and they wear something similar, just not as ✨extra✨. yeah like that’s kind of what i had in mind for lukas, but instead of his magenta, i gave him purple because i personally really feel like purple is a powerful color. he’s the most like his original self compared to petra and jesse and he’s far more capable of staying calm and collected. also a good boy. looks intimidating but has the sweetest smile and the softest distorted laugh.

petra is… far more unhinged. her design is not entirely based off of her original appearance, but more around the energy and emotion she gives off. i kinda had a volcano in mind for her because it’s easy to spark a fuse in her and she can erupt and explode at any time really. she’s the most chaotic of the three, and if you read the details of jesse and lukas’ admin experience, petra’s is far less happy. she absolutely had to deal with becoming an admin all alone, and while that does sound sad for her, it’s honestly for the better. she would have been too worried about her appearance being so similar to romeo’s if she were around anyone else, and she gets to cope with that realization by herself and in a way that is honestly much better for her. like she goes down into a massive cave and destroys everything lol. uses her powers to destroy so much and take out all of her anger and aggression on mobs and her surroundings. she’s actively exploding, and once she gets it all out, she feels much better and theeen gets to really sit down and think it all over and cope with this newfound identity crisis

but yeah no the similar themes/pallets to the original admins was a complete accident 💀

[championleonsslut]

How about sweet and tender "Thank God You're Alive" comfort sex with Leon? Like, during the Darkest Day, Y/N got attacked by Eternatus trying to help Leon/save Hop and almost died (Leon actually got told by the doctors she was going to die) but survived. Now that they're home and together again, Leon absolutely needs to make love to her to not only show that he loves her but to know that she is THERE, alive and well, with him. And he cries. So much ;w; Pretty please? I'll make you your favorite pastry!

I’ve seen this ask on a few other blogs and would LOVE to try my hand at it (also sorry to disappoint you but I don’t eat sugar or sweet treats… I do love savory foods though 👀)

Sweet and tender nsfw, almost death, angst, marriage proposal

“Squeal as loud as you can, Love.”

Eternatus was horrifying.

It was massive, and loud, and more powerful than any Pokemon you’d ever seen.

Leon had told you not to follow him to take it on, but you didn’t listen. You needed to help him, so you raced after him.

He had already weakened it with Aegislash, Dragapult, and now Charizard… But it wasn’t enough. He told you to get somewhere safe, because he was terrified of losing you. The girl he had a ring box stored away in his closet for with a beautiful band inside.

But Eternatus had other ideas, it blasted you instead, despite Charizard’s attempts to cover you. You were flung across the top of Hammerlocke Stadium, and smashed your head right into the wall.

Leon had never seen so much blood, let alone how weakly you were breathing. Hop and Gloria were able to come in to help with Zacian and Zazamenta, so he could rush you to the hospital.

You were knocked out beyond belief, and stayed that way for many days. Leon hardly left your side. He barely ate, or slept. Just sat beside you and waited for you to wake up.

Oh how badly he wanted to propose after the match was over… But now you might be dead for all he knows. It could be all over.

But then.

Then you woke up.

Leon was overjoyed, and while being excited still tried to be as gentle with you as possible. You were able to go back to your shared apartment a few days later.

You had your arms wrapped around one another.

Leon was snuggled into your neck, “I missed you.”

You smiled, “I know. I missed you too… You big dork.”

He snorted, and left a soft kiss on your neck.

“Can I show you how much I missed you?” You felt him smirk against your neck.

“Horny already?”

Leon groaned at your response.

You pulled back from him, and batted your eyelashes up at him.

“Make love to me, Leon.”

He chuckled and scooped you up.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The next few minutes were a whirlwind of movement. Leon gently lead you to the bedroom, locking the door just in case. The next thing you knew, you were on the bed with him on top of you, smothering your neck, and lips in kisses.

His tongue wove its way into your mouth as he gently began removing your clothes, and you fiddled with his belt.

You could already feel his dick straining his pants, and were quite excited to have him inside you again. But first you’d have to wait, as once you were undressed, Leon first stretched you out with his fingers as he left hickies all over your neck and shoulders.

He started with one, then it was two, then it was three. You were already dripping wet, and his lips all over your body only made you more sensitive. Your moans were soft and breathy, as Leon gently yet firmly tried to prepare you for him.

“Leon…” You mumbled, as he stroked against that sensitive spot inside you.

“I know, I know. You want the main event already… Are you sure, darling?” He smiled down at you.

You rapidly nodded, and he chuckled as he licked your juices off his fingers, and began getting rid of his boxers.

Leon gently and tenderly slid inside you, and his thrusts were calculated and slow. The room was filled with moans, groans, cries and whimpers for the other as you kissed one another.

Leon gazed down at you as he bottomed out inside you again.

“Fuck… Babe, I need you to marry me.”

You let out a soft moan and blinked up at him.

“Leon… Are you, mmfph… Are you proposing? With your dick inside me?”

He nodded, “Uh-huh. Couldn’t wait any longer.”

You chuckled, and brought him down for another kiss as your cunt clenched around him.

“Yes.”

He grinned down at you, and as a thank-you, you got to cum a total of eleven times that night. What can I say? Leon’s good with his tongue.

[four-loose-screws]

Since rating boards was mentioned here not that long ago, one example I know in how they have a major impact on video games is PEGI’s hatred for simulated gambling. I think Pokemon was the first example of this noticed in how later games move away from the Game Center, (at first it was just the EU versions but later it became the standard for every version) and re-releases of the older games on Virtual Consoles were much higher than their original releases. The Mario RPG remakes as of late have even had these aspects replaced with more skill based games. So at the very least we know that accommodating with multiple rating boards is more of an industry standard, for better and for worse. I do agree that generally speaking, it’s generally a case by case basis and this is one incident where I feel it’s overall much more limiting than the devs.

Anyway apologies this didn’t have much to do with Fire Emblem, I just wanted to share that tidbit regarding PEGI in case you weren’t aware of that.

More gaming fun facts!

I've known the Pokemon story for a long time, at least! I'm much fuzzier on other details, though.

In retrospect I'm a little amazed the game corners lasted as long as they did in Pokemon. They're set up exactly like Japanese gambling parlors. They even tend to have shady yakuza-adjacent characters hanging around them and everything. But I also know it was a simpler time, when electronic/online gambling for real money wasn't a very big market, so there wasn't much to think about regulating yet.

It's a shame Pokemon didn't continue to have skill-based game corners like Voltorb Flip, but coming up with a new minigame for each generation probably would have gotten difficult over time. And there's other ways Pokemon has worked in different types of minigames anyway.

From a legal perspective, while video games do not necessarily have to remove features from region A just because of region B's laws; with online connectivity the way it is now and such, sometimes video games cannot have wildly different versions in different regions any more. Or it would cost too much time and effort to be worth the work to create very different versions. Leading to many global ripple effects on what content exactly video games can have in them. For better or worse depending on the exact situation, as always.

[ecargmura]

Pokemon Horizons Episode 57 Review - History Is Exciting

After two consecutive battle-focused episodes, Pokemon Horizons dives into a world building episode. Trust me when I say that there’s a LOT of world building. Though, it is mainly set up for possible future events. It’s also the first time the kids are eating a meal with the Rising Volt Tacklers at a restaurant and not at the dining table in the airship. Why did I point this out? I just wanted to…

The world building is mainly speculations on what Rakua could be and there are also details about what Paldea was like in the past. It was a lot of information and I know for a fact that it’ll come into play in future arcs. I do like that they talk about how Paldea used to be an empire back in the day and had an Emperor. Regarding Rakua, they reveal that it was once an ancient land in a place far from Paldea, meaning that it used to be a different region. Like how Sinnoh used to be called Hisui, I wonder if Rakua was what Kalos used to be called back in the day. Regardless, Rakua also has a connection to Terestal, hence why Terapagos wants to go there. According to Clavell and Geeta, there was an accident at Area Zero recently, hence why they closed it off. I wonder if this is related to Sada and if Koraidon and Arven will play a part in this later on since he’s the only one of the main three important characters to have yet to make an appearance in the anime. Speaking of which, Clavell and Geeta also seem to be aware of Terapagos’s existence. I wonder if this hints at their involvement for future events. Also, it seems that the stuff with Lucius happened a hundred years ago, but I do wonder if that’s a translation error because a hundred years seems a little too…short? Like Hisui was Sinnoh like around 200 years ago, so for Rakua and Paldea to have very ancient buildings that are only hundred years old feels a little too weird?

Raifort makes her debut here! She was absolutely wonderful with her passion for history and having a Zoroark like how she does in the games. However, she is a little less sinister in the anime. It makes sense since she’s not forcing the kids to go out and pull out stakes and seek out the Treasures of Ruin or wanting to use a young male for experiment purposes. What’s hilarious is that her voice actress is Takako Honda. If you weren’t aware, Honda voiced Pokemon Hunter J back in the DP era. If you played the DLC, Raifort used to be a thief before becoming a teacher, so it’s rather amusing to learn about this. Her purpose in the episode is to dump additional lore about possible past events and to help the kids appreciate the past and to give them insight just in case stuff relating to the past is brought up. I like how her Zoroark keeps playing pranks.

There were theories that Liko and Roy were going to catch Charcadet and Gimmighoul, but they do not do it in this episode. I feel like anime watchers jump to conclusions too quickly. They didn’t even bond with these two Pokemon in this episode. Maybe it could be a potential candidate in the future, but with the way that each of the kids’ second Pokemon doesn’t have a lot of screen time or battling experience does show that they’re not going to catch a third Pokemon anytime soon.

At the end of the episode, they start the Implementation Test, the second part of the Terestal Course. In this stage, they have to use two Pokemon and switching is allowed. They have to be smart on who to use and who to Terastalize. I hope that the kids can use Terastal on their second Pokemon because I’d like to see what their Tera type is. The matchups are Dot vs Larry, Roy vs Ryme and Liko vs Grusha—why is Liko always the unlucky one in these matchups?? Speaking of which, if two Pokemon is required for this stage, that means Coral has a second Pokemon! Don’t tell me she has another exploding Pokemon…

The kids dancing in the ending credits was so cute! Other than that, I can’t wait for all of these past events to play a part in the present timeline. I honestly love learning about history about a fictional world! The writer and storyteller in me loves these sort of lore building! I can’t wait to see the day all of the answers to Rakua, Lucius, Terapagos and Gibeon will finally be answered! What are your thoughts on this episode?

[coulombury-conservatory]

Felt like the big Joltik release announcement needed its own post but we did get another intake today!

Tw for Pokemon hunters and talk about dehydrated/malnourished Pokemon.

Also a long post 😅

It’s always alarming when we get reports that Pokemon who are not native to the area have been spotted in the wild. This is usually a result of a trainer releasing a Pokemon they caught in a different region, or in some cases… Pokemon who escaped from a Pokemon hunter.

That was the case today. We got a report from a local that they’d spotted a pack of FIVE Wimpods running around in the forest, far away from any beaches. Wimpod are another big target for hunters, mainly due to how difficult they can be to find and catch.

But the little guys tend to get extremely overwhelmed in stressful situations. So even after they escaped the hunter, the environment around them was unfamiliar so they didn’t know where to go. They will get so stressed out that they don’t eat or drink.

There’s also the risk non-native species pose to the local ecosystem. They can horribly throw a delicate balance into complete disarray, so we always intervene and relocate when we can.

So when I got the report not long after the Joltiks were released, we went straight to work.

I am not the biggest fan of using (humane) traps, so I avoid it when I can- it can start you off on the wrong foot with the Pokemon you’re trying to help. But this time, the Wimpods were far too terrified for us to get anywhere near them, so we just set up some Pokemon carriers with some scent diffusers that smell like the ocean in them (that are safe for Pokemon, and that we removed immediately after catching them through a small opening in the back).

Usually we’d do the typical method of food, but as previously mentioned… these lil guys haven’t been super thrilled about the idea of food lately.

You’d think that’s a crazy idea, but it worked great- the reason they’re so worked up is because they’re trying to find a familiar place. (Believe me, I feel terrible that we lured them in with that but can’t actually provide that familiar environment yet, but we didn’t have any other options.) So it did not take very long before all five were caught.

We are keeping them in a dark, safe room where I set up another scent diffuser (out of their reach) to help calm them down, and I put food and water in there (along with a little kiddie pool as well). To my surprise, I actually found that the food was mostly gone and the floor was a bit wet when I went to check on them a little bit ago- they must have been reaaallly hungry once they were able to calm down a bit.

I sat in there for a bit and read so they could start to get used to me, and one even started inching its way out of the little makeshift cardboard ‘cave’ I set up for them (with some blankets).

I don’t intend to fully gain their trust while they’re here- in fact, we very quickly got in touch with the Aether Foundation in Alola and they’ll be transported over there in five days!

(Also, yes, I am aware of The Incident that happened several years ago, but the Aether Foundation has bounced back and truly proven that they can be better since then. I don’t send Pokemon to them very often, but every time I’ve been impressed. They send frequent updates and even will video call me when they release the Pokemon.

They have truly dedicated themselves to turning the organization around and actually making caring for Pokemon their #1 objective. I also wouldn’t have started sending Pokemon there if I hadn’t heard from multiple other trustworthy rescues that they were reputable now.)

The Aether foundation will nurse them back to full health and then release them in their natural environment, where they will be much happier! As much as I am not the biggest fan of the methods we used to get them into our custody, as perfectly humane as they are, it is all so they can be returned to where they belong and where they will be so much happier in the long run.

And please note- it’s important to me that I emphasize that even if nothing else worked I would NEVER use any inhumane methods of trapping or otherwise getting ahold of a Pokemon. We would figure SOMETHING out, but we will never, ever resort to putting a Pokemon in harm’s way.

And please- this is irrelevant to the situation with the Wimpods but I want to address it anyway. If you are looking to release a Pokemon that’s not native to the area you’re in, consider bringing them to a local rescue instead. There will be no judgement, and the rescue will ensure the Pokemon gets returned to somewhere it will prosper.

We would much rather you bring them to us than release them somewhere that could be harmful to them or the ecosystem around them!

[mewintheflesh-2]

3 for the character ask thing with the Sky Mikeys

“What’s your least favorite canon things about this character?”

Mikey! - He’s an idiot, which isn’t exactly the problem, that’s great, I love it, but I think it’s just the way that he’s played as an idiot sometimes. It’s the way he’s sometimes treated like the smartest person in the world (and it’s not treated as a “oh he just thinks that he is“ kind of thing but in a “these are facts and the truth. Everyone else is a fucking idiot” kind of way), but then he turns around and says shit like “Sometimes I forget how to read.” His cadence in his voice, his outfit. Why do you have a black shirt and black pants with no good distinction between them. Get yourself a snazzy belt or something! Or change the color of your pants. Like girlie you could make the buckle be shaped like your fucking logo.

Nightsky! - This is more just an observation I find very strange. I know this was because Pokemon Home wasn’t available yet. But there was no fucking way he didn’t bring his rayquaza with him to the Time Machine. “Maybe he didn’t think it was that important too? It was just supposed to be a quick trip.” LIES. Girliepop was going to be there for MONTHS if not YEARS to properly guide his new underling. And he just wasn’t going to bring his rayquaza???????? Not even just in case he needs to give a good beat down?? Or some dangerous threats?? (See: Nightsky threatening to hyper beam him to dust.).

I will say my view on him as a person had grown outside my initial appreciation, as I can now appreciate him for how he actually is deep down, and appreciate him in scenarios where he’s a sick fucking bastard similar to the likes of Fuse. (While still appreciating his more sensitive aspects.) (But also not anywhere NEAR Fuse.) (Listen I’ve been thinking a lot about that whump post that Scarred posted about AWHILE ago for a long time.)

Also something very opinionated of me but that’s the entire point of this, is some people’s attitudes towards this man. A lot of people I’ve seen (at least awhile ago so this is perfectly susceptible to change and possible that it had already changed. But then again we’re talking about human minds here, so it’s likely there are a lot of people who still think this.) Just. Fucking. Hate. His. Guts. And REFUSE to look deeper into him or apply ANY of their minuscule amounts of media literacy just because “Oh he was mean!!!! >:(((((((((( Mean to glorious Team Sky Leader Mikey!!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 HoW dArE hE” LIKE GIRLIE DID WE NOT FUCKING WATCH THE SAME VIDEO. Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee for your own sake learn media literacy. (<- My ego the size of the fucking sun speaking)

[pokeexehasstoppedworking]

Diamond In The Rough Ch2 Applying

(In case anyone needs to know what pokemon reader has in the story here they are. Silver Veil: Shiny Drizzlie and boy. Zen: Zangoose and boy. Sparky: Rotomi and boy. Also apologies if this chapter is short. This serves as more of a time filler and explanation of what happens between ch1 and 3.)

Another day. Another beautiful day. Now that all the danger's past, so much has happened. You finally got the chance to relax from traveling around so much happened in these last five months. Leon won the Champion Cup and retained his Champion title, Victor and Gloria were starting their apprenticeships under the gym leaders, Hop was starting his own apprenticeship with Sonia, Sonia became the new residential professor, the world's safe from power hungry dunderheads, and you didn't have to travel for anymore hair brained reasons....

So what now?

You had continued your small part time job working for Mr. Frederick and renting out the basement room at Mrs. L's house. It was a peaceful life taking care of Silver and Zen and working in the nice summer weather and being around people who liked you enough for you to consider friends and family. It was nice to live in a small town like Postwick where everyone knew one another and life was laid back here where most of the people around here were farmers or pokemon Shepards for herds of wooloo or other similar pokemon. But you still had to wonder. The question had been on your mind ever since you realized you wouldn't be able to go back home after all. What were you going to do now? Your mind had pondered on that question for a good while even during your trip to stop the weird hair twins. You guessed you could travel around to your heart's content, but you were tired of traveling and you liked Galar with your friends here, so going to other regions was out of the question for now. Now what about now? You were content for now just working and living peacefully in Postwick but it was never a long term thing. You just-...Weren't sure what you wanted to do yet is all. Maybe get a house somewhere and settle down? That sounded nice. Just you and your two pokemon living a peaceful life how you wanted. Ironically this same question was brought up in a conversation with both Sonia and Leon during one of the famous Champion's rare visits to his small home in Postwick. He had shown up coincidentally while you were working along with Sonia and met up with the both of you surprisingly without getting lost. Joining the convo you and Sonia were already having. The subject coming around to Sonia's recent work and Leon's Champion duties and then Sonia had asked you the question that'd been on your mind lately.

"So what are you planning on doing, Y/n?"

That made you pause from behind the counter and stare at her for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Well you mentioned you weren't planning on leaving Galar. Have you thought about what you want to do here?"

And you went quiet as you blankly stared at the both of them for a second...before shaking your head. "To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. I mean I obviously don't plan on staying with this job forever or living in Leon's mom's basement, but I'm not too sure what I'll do or where I'll go. Haven't had a lot of time to really think about that part of my life with everything that's happened over the last year and a half. Now that thing's have slowed down, I haven't really thought of anything yet."

"Oh really?," Sonia aske genuinely surprised, "Nothing at all? Like there isn't any hobbies or careers you'd really like to pursue?"

Now THAT was a question you had an answer for! You perked up with a sudden smile. "Oh! I do actually...But it's kinda silly-"

"No it's not. Tell us."

"Well...I've always had an interest in baking but I couldn't ever really practice it since I never had enough time to myself to pursue it." You sighed. "And it's not like I could here."

Postwick was a nice small town and all, but there wasn't any need for any bakeries or such considering everyone here was used to growing and cooking their own foods, and it wasn't like you could take any cooking classes. The only thing around here was the local school Hop currently attended on top of being taught by Sonia. Poor Hop was putting in a lot of work but he seemed perfectly happy with how his tutoring was going so far. But again Postwick being a small farming community in the middle of no where didn't have any colleges or anywhere you could take lessons, and you doubted Galar did have anywhere you could-

"No...But you could send an online application to C.U. and see if they accept you." Both you and Sonia turned to Leon after he finally decided to give his two cents and you were confused.

"C.U. what?"

"Circhestor University," he explained further holding up a finger, "My grandparents were there! In fact that's where they met! It's a pretty fantastic place with plenty of courses to chose from including everything from languages to cooking classes!"

"Oh right. I forgot about that," Sonia added holding her head in one hand, "C.U. was closed down last year due to the gym challenge but the year's starting up again in August two months from now."

"Uh. I hate to interrupt-," you butted in making the two look at you, "-but there's no way I could afford that. Plus I'm not sure if I want to spend anymore time traveling or sitting in a class room for another few years-"

"Oh. The standard graduating course only takes two years to complete."

A record scratch went off in your head. "....Say WHAT?"

Leon nodded. "Oh yeah. It was so easy even I could do it...Of course it was hard since I often got lost around campus, and had to take a lot of extra credit and make up classes because of my Champion duties and sometimes I had to take online classes and had to have Sonia tutor me-"

"The point is", Sonia spoke up raising a hand interrupting Leon's rambles. "-the Standard Course is something everyone can take for a degree and get it. There's three courses you can take. The Standard Course is the most taken one and covers most of the basics of any career and everything you need to know, and it takes just two years to complete. The Advanced Courses are for more difficult jobs or if you want to know more about certain subjects that takes longer to learn. Those Courses usually take anywhere from four to six years depending on the subjects and courses you chose. And then there's the Ultra Courses which is usually taken by people who want careers like a Professor or nurse or doctor or even a lawyer or something along those lines. They usually take the longest and is the one I personally took right after my gym challenge. Anything Granny didn't teach me I learnt by myself or at C.U."

"Why didn't I hear of this when we were in Circhestor last year?"

Sonia shrugged. "Well to be honest we were all a bit focused on different things, and the college always closes when the gym challenge comes along to make sure classes aren't disturbed by the ground shaking caused by dynamaxed battles."

Ah. That made sense. You suppose it would be very annoying to try to take or teach a class when anything can suddenly shake at any moment of the day.

"That does sound nice....But there's no way I could afford it-"

"Actually it's not as expensive as you think. It's sort of like renting," Sonia explained motioning with her hands. "You have to pay twenty dollars per book along with all the pencils, notebooks, and other supplies you need, and you just have to pay five hundred dollars a month for classes, as well as two hundred dollars a month for the dorm room you stay in."

You stared at her for a long moment before your draw dropped. REALLY!? THAT MUCH!? I mean-..It still wasn't cheap by any means but that was still WAY cheaper than the college back in your world!!

"That sounds incredible!....But...there's still no way I could afford it even if I worked three full time jobs a day-"

"Actually-" Both of you looked to Leon who smiled again widely at you. "That's one of the reasons why I'm here! I nearly forgot when we got caught up talking." he turned to you with that wide smile. "I came here with an official statement from Chairwoman Dahlia! She wants to repay you officially for saving me back in Hammerlocke as well for helping to stop Galar from doom!...Twice! I'm sure if you ask she'll give you a full scholarship for everything! I mean it is the least we could do for all the trouble you went through."

"Wha- Lee, I can't just accept a full ride through two years worth of college no matter how much trouble I might've went through. Besides doesn't she have other concerning matters to deal with?"

"It's ok to accept others help, Y/n, but I'll respect your choice. Just think it over, I think it'd be a good opportunity for you! Sonia can contact me if you ever change your mind and I can run it to the Chairwoman."

Well it certainly seemed like an enticing idea! After all that's what you were planning to do anyways back in your home world, except you were going for a business degree because that's what your mother found 'acceptable and right', which would take anyone usually four years to complete. But You could graduate from a typical college here for a course of two years? It sounded really nice and to be honest the thought of getting a college degree here was enticing a lot. You didn't have anything else going on for you right now and maybe getting a degree now and getting that bakery you've always wanted would be a good idea! The more you thought about it the more and MORE you liked it until you finally agreed to let Sonia help you fill out an online application two weeks later. You ran into a problem first hand when part of the requirements of filling out said application was a poke-mail and a phone number. You had neither until Sonia, being the life savior she was, took time to grab a spare rotomi from a rotomi box for the phone you won at the Xmas fair last year, and helped guide you through the process of making said pok-e-mail and number. Then it was finally time to fill out the form including your Birth Region, current address, name, which course you were applying for (Standard Course-), etc. Except you ran into a small problem fairly quickly.

"Ok. It also says we need to add your hometown along with your birth region?," Sonia said before smiling up at you from her keyboard. "Which town did you say you were from again?"

You froze again. Uh oh....OH NO!! ALL THE 'UH OH's IN THE WORLD COULDN'T COMPARE TO THIS NOW!! You had completely forgotten about this! What were you supposed to say!? You couldn't even remember much about the Kalos Region much less a town smack dab in the middle of it- But then...The most unusual thing happened. It was like your mouth wasn't yours for a moment because before you said something your brain hadn't even commanded it to say. It was like someone possessed your voice for a moment because before you knew it, your mouth said something you didn't even know.

"Vaniville Town."

You stopped and stood there shocked but Sonia only smiled and typed the name of the town into her computer. "Ok. And we're done with the application part. Now we only have to fill in which course you're looking for and what classes you want to attend. Have you decided what you wanted to do?" You still stood there shocked until Sonia looked at you confused. "Uh..Y/n?"

You jumped. "Ah! Wha- OH! Right! Uh- Standard Course. Yeah. T-That's what I want!"

"Ok. And which classes did you want to take? The Standard Course has all your standard classes hence the name 'Standard' Course. How it works is that you can pick as many classes as you want, but in order to apply you need to at least pick up to five or six of the listed options total. Here. Let me show you your option!" She scrolled down under the listed courses after choosing the Standard Course option of the courses, and showed you the many listed classes you could chose. All she had to do was click the blue checkmarks by the ones you wanted to take before sending the filled out application to be approved by the college officials. "There's ten classes available so the most you'd have to pick out of them are just five or six. If you don't like any of the ones you initially pick first year, you can pick entirely new classes your second year with your second year application."

You blinked at her. "SECOND year application?"

She nodded. "There's usually a lot of students to take into account so say you wanted to take one of the Advance Courses that's four years long. You'd have to send in an application you'll be taking your second year of that course you applied for, then for your third year, and then again for your last year. It let's them know you're going to keep attending so they can keep you in the database until you graduate or decide to drop out. If you fail to send in an application for the start of any year they'll take it as your dropping out and remove you from the program entirely. Despite being a small college they take attendance very seriously. You also have to receive a new student ID card for each year as well or else you won't be able to have access to a few things like being able to borrow library books or the student discounts on food in the cafeteria. So don't forget your Pok-E-mail address or phone number. You'll need them again to fill out your application for your second year."

You nodded mentally taking notes and keeping track of all of what Sonia told you. It was a lot to remember but so far it was quite easy to follow. A lot easier than your world's version of college requirements. Sonia scooched her chair aside and allowed you to lean over to take a look at all of the listed classes available for your first year of your two year course. All of them were listed one after another: Science and Culture, History, Languages and Writing, Arts, Home Ec, Math, P.E., Battle Studies, Health and Medical, and Pokemon Care. Ten classes and you only had to pick five or six of them at the very least in order to apply but you could pick more-

You pointed at the screen with a smile- "Mark all of them!"

Sonia blinked to you wildly. "Wait. What!? Y/n you realize that's ten classes PER DAY you'd have to take then if you pick every single one of them right? That's a lot for your first year of college. Maybe even a little too much. Don't you think?"

You shook your head. You were so used to juggling school and jobs from your old world anyways. You could handle ten classes a day. "Nope! You said I could pick as many classes as I want right?"

"I- Well yes but-"

"Then I want to take all of them! I want to learn as much as I can and that includes all of these. I'm confident that I want to take all of these for sure!"

Sonia continued to stare at you for a moment before sighing and turning back to her computer. "Alright. It's your call, but don't say I didn't worn you if it becomes too much."

"Sonia, I've literally had to juggle odd jobs and school throughout most of my childhood, and taking classes sound a lot easier than trying to save the world."

"Hm. Fair enough point, but I'm just saying don't expect things to be a cake walk."

"Trust me. I'm not expecting it to be."

With all the classes selected and the application filled out Sonia went ahead and hit the send button, sending off the application. Whelp. No going back now. But there was still one problem. This didn't guarantee your application would be accepted, not by a longshot. There was going to be a chance you'd be denied and if that was the case then you'd figure something else out or apply again next year. On the bright side you got a cute lil rotom out of the situation you named Sparky! He was certainly energetic and loved to chatter. It was nice talking to him when you had nothing else to do between working and helping Mrs. L out around the house while waiting for Sonia to give you any updates to that pok-e-mail you sent off. She promised to inform both you and Leon so you can get that scholarship offered to you if and when you got accepted but what you hadn't expect was for her to literally bust in while you were restocking some shelves. The door practically flew off it's hinges with how hard the door was thrown open by Hop with a beaming smile on his face.

"Y/N!!," he shouted at the top of his lungs making you squeal and drop the box of thankfully unbreakable bottles of water to the floor as he ran up to you excitedly. "I CAME OVER HERE AS FAST AS I COULD!! YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS!!"

"Hop! What are you-"

"YOUR POKE-MAIL GOT A RESPONSE FROM THE DIRECTOR OF C.U.!!"

You stopped shocked. "WHAT!?"

"Leon personally sent them a letter of recommendation as well as the Chairwoman granting you your scholarship for your services to Galar! And that's not all! The Director heard all about how you helped Mr. Gordie stop those rampaging dynamax pokemon months ago. YOU'VE BEEN PERSONALLY ACCPETED BY HIM TO ATTEND C.U. OUT OF GRATITUDE!!"

[malachitezmeyka]

Since I’m visiting back home I have stolen borrowed my sister’s switch to play Pokemon and animal crossing, and that, of course, got me thinking about if Pokemon existed in the avatar universe, which ones would my OCs have

(Up front, I don’t see either of them going into competitive championships, too much shit going on in their lives to even consider it. Oh, and also, my knowledge of Pokemon comes entirely from my sister infodumping, me watching the entire first season of the anime twice, getting a bit too invested in Hanamusa fanart and playing Y, Moon and Shield (never getting to the end of a single one rip) so keep that in mind)

For Midori I feel like she’d have the ones that she could naturally find in the backyard while doing gardening or other work – oddish and bellsprout and budew and the like. Maybe a sandshrew or caterpie or rattata. I’m completely obsessed with eeveelutions so if she had an eevee, it’d evolve into a sylveon bc of how much love Midori has to give. Starter-wise, if she had one despite not doing competitive battling, definitely a bulbasaur, but since she doesn’t use it for anything but help around the garden it probably wouldn’t ever evolve, though they’re both okay with that. And I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t shoehorn some angst in, so before the RL left for the South Pole, Ghazan gave Midori his camerupt for safe keeping, saying it would protect her in case she needed it. She hides the pokeball with it from Haya and only lets it out of she knows no one will see her, terrified Haya would do something to such a blatant reminder of her brother

Suiren’s a bit harder since she has enough to worry about without getting a bunch of animals involved, but theoretically, I’m thinking squirtle for a starter that she has managed to evolve into a wartortle but not further yet. Eeveelution wise vaporeon would be the obvious choice but with her cold nature I think she’d invest in an ice stone instead and get a glaceon. I like to imagine that while she was travelling for a mission one day she ran across an absol in the mountains and took it home despite knowing the rumours it was a bringer of disasters and a bad omen (she relates to it, but you couldn’t waterboard that out of her). Maybe she found a yanma in the swamp at some point and kept it once she found out how cool its evolution looks. Likewise, she found a phantump and, remembering how phantumps come to be, couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it (and, well, its evolution and how it controls trees through roots reminds her of the swamp). Back with the angst, she inherited her mom’s milotic (Ming-Hua was a kid when she found the ugliest fucking fish she’d ever seen in a swamp lake and snuck it food. It warmed up to her and eventually she stole a pokeball and caught it. Fast forward a few years and it suddenly became the most gorgeous pokemon in existence. Shit happens). She hides it too but once she learned how to navigate the swamp she takes it to that very lake.

Suiren leaves her pokemon with Midori when she goes on missions, not wanting to endanger them, and every time Midori is scared that those pokemon will end up being the last things she has left of her sister, just like the camerupt and milotic are the last things left of her parents

[herooffire101]

Okay, so this was for a writing event on a Pokemon forum (it's a small Pokemon forum) and the inspiration was a video I found years ago. Basically, it's based in the forum's fan region, and you had to write a journal entry based on doing something...I used my human names for Bombalurina, Tugger, and Munkustrap for it. I based the Pokemon they use on my Magic Cats post, so there we have it. Also, I used different fonts for each character, so it may not translate well. Anyway, enjoy!

May 15th

I don’t know how to start this, but somehow Travis decided to explore this cave near the Navirou River and drag all of us along. Me and Marcus have to keep track of him, all while dragging my sister and Marcus’s girlfriend Demeter all over the place. The cave was damp, and damper as we got deeper in, making me miserable, and Tarlavra was miserable too. Demeter was miserable too, with Voltaire refusing to come out of his ball. Both Travis and Marcus, on the other hand, were fine, happy in Travis’s case. I love him, but sometimes he doesn’t think ahead. Travis wanted to see where this cave would go, and he was hoping that maybe we could find the source of the river, seeing how it wasn’t documented yet. Why did our parents allow us to explore this region this summer again? To give us (Mainly me and Travis) an opportunity to gain enough credit to skip a grade. Just because Travis is the Ground type expert between us doesn’t mean that he should go into a cave willy nilly! Crap, I’m going off topic again. My Typhlosion wouldn’t let us go deeper in the cave without her protecting me (I love her so much) and providing us light (after the one time Trav decided to run into a cave dragging me along and ending up in complete darkness when we were ten and Tarlavra was a Cyndaquil).With her flames lighting up the cavern, Travis decided to talk about how the walls were made up a combination of what looked like a combination of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, which was unusual for caves around here (how does he know that? I’m the one who took the forging and survival courses offered, because one of us has to make sure that my idiot boyfriend survives long enough to marry graduate with me), and this was such a find. Demeter, bless her, basically clung onto Marcus as we shared a look of exasperation at my boyfriend and Marcus’s younger brother.

I question every time I have to write this because I know that my weakness is writing while Travis is the better writer than me, but it was placed onto me because, and I quote, “You are the most straightforward between the four of you, and you can make sure that his thoughts on this expedition are clarified.” Jokes on you, I go onto tangents! Marc and Dem are the ones who should have asked! Of course, they each gave us roles according to our strengths. I’m the strategist, and occasional tailor for our little quartet, while Demeter is our photographer (which is amazing because this adventure goes into her photography credentials) and one of our solid voices of reason. Marcus is our general leader (who need Demeter to listen to him when I admit me and Travis get on his nerves, which is a lot of the time), and Travis is our resident Ground, Rock, and Steel enthusiast as well being my handsome rockstar boyfriend who helps me cook our meals while on this expedition. He loves messing with other people’s expectations for him, but the rest of us see him how he really is.

Shit, I did it again! Anyway, we went deeper into the cavern, and Travis finally cut off his rambling and shushed us. He asked me (because honestly my ears definitely are more sensitive than his) if his ears weren’t playing tricks on him and he heard rushing water. I’m glad he did ask me because I could hear it, so I followed my ears, with Travis making sure I didn’t run into anything because I’ve done this before and may have given myself a sprained wrist and plenty of cuts and bruises due to not looking where I was going. It took us a little while longer to get to the source but when we got to the source, all of us were surprised. It wasn’t just the source of the Navirou river, but a hot spring, surrounded by many crystallite structures littering the walls and ceiling. And, somehow, there was some kind of light glow coming from the crystals. Once we got to a good place to set up our little camp far enough away from the spring on a nearby rock shelf (with Travis’s approval even though both me and him are fifteen), we did some check like how we were taught. Marcus set up his water testing module while me and Demeter scouted so really good photo shots, some including our set up. While miserable in the cave system, Voltaire the Jolteon was out and pawing at the water, which I sneakily took a video of (both me and Dem found it so cute). Tarlavra sat herself the farest away from the water, and it looked to me that she was fighting herself from take a nap. Marc did his water testing, and declared it safe to drink and swim. He has his Vaporeon, River, scout underwater for any local Pokémon colonies (This is a reminder to me and anyone reading this account, a goal in this expedition was to identify what Pokémon lived here and if it completely necessary for the League to make certain areas in Meroi Protected Preservation Areas) while the rest of us make sure that the area was secure for us.

Hey, I stole this report journal from Beatrice, and I can clearly say that these crystalline structures already ring out to me that they should be a limited access area due to the natural beauty and the harmonic resonance-

Travis do NOT take the journal out of my hands or I will tape them together while you sleep.

But Bea…

If either of you continue fighting about this, I will tell Mum and Jenny.

(There are some unreadable scribbles)

Now, since I can continue this entry, I accidentally started singing what I thought was under my breath, when in reality the soundwaves amplified the acoustics and made Travis, then Marcus and Demeter join into my song. It was then we discovered that somehow, the crystals reflected the sound waves off of the hot spring. Once we hit the last chord (which sounded so beautiful like we were on the stage singing, only without using microphones to amplify our voices), Marc made the decision to recommend the restriction of this environment because once the song ended, a bunch of Pokémon popped their heads out from under the water. There was some more deep water Pokémon, like Relicanth, which I didn’t think would at least feel the soundwaves of our voices from under the water. Demeter did get the best shots of this, so they were included with our report, along side a video Travis did of me singing and the Pokémon living in the water watching like an audience of children, fascinated with my mini performance. As a music nerd, this cave just fascinates me because I want to bring my bassoon down here and record it, just for the reverb. As this expedition is a four-person effort, I will pass this journal expert to Marcus.

As the Team Leader, I highly recommend that this hot spring, which we have designated as the potential source of the Navirou River, as a restricted access, possibly for trainers who are cleared by the region professor, Professor Hemlock, and or fulfilled the Pokémon League requirements as a member of the Hall of Fame and cleared by the League Champion.

Marcus, that’s really dry. You have to have the respect of the Prof and Head Trainer of the League, simple as that.

Beatrice, distract my brother, please.

With Pleasure.

Signed,

Beatrice R. Ford

Demeter A. Ford

Travis J. Jellicle

Marcus M. Jellicle

Yea if it's harder to read, then I completely understand. Also Tumblr did not like what I was trying to do.

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 39: Silver Rathalos, the Silver Sun

I got Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin for Christmas, and that was the spark I needed to start working on these again. With how long it’s been and with how much more experience I have with the games (I hadn’t even played Rise outside the demo when writing the previous ratings, and since then I’ve beaten Magnamalo in Rise), don’t expect my opinions to necessarily stay consistent with the reviews I’ve posted thus far. Other than that, though, these’ll be more of the same reviews you saw before, so I hope you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you didn’t think Rathalos would get a second subspecies after Rathian did, then I don’t even know what to say. I mean, that might have been a possibility if Rathalos wasn’t basically the series mascot, but we don’t live in that timeline. I’m getting off track, so let’s just move on to talking about Silver Rathalos!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Freedom 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak)

Appearance: The problem with silver as a color is that unless you deliberately make it look metallic, it just looks like grey, and what should be flashy then becomes boring. From what I’ve seen, whether this is the case with Silver Rathalos or not depends on the game. Unfortunately, not only does it compete with Gold Rathian’s impressive appearance, it also competes with Azure Rathalos, which, in my opinion, beats it without even trying. Even the regular variety of Rathalos looks better than the silver kind unless the latter is shiny enough, so I’m going to give this a 7/10.

Behavior/Lore: Much like Gold Rathian, Silver Rathalos are the apex predators of any habitat that doesn’t have Elder Dragons in it, and even then, they’ll fight such godlike beasts without fear, and sometimes even to a draw--and that’s just when they’re fighting on their own! Silver Rathalos can call their golden mates to their side with a single roar, and the two together can send an Elder Dragon running for its life--if it hasn’t lost it, that is.

It’s not surprising that Silver Rathalos are such a threat--they’re not only stronger and more aggressive than other Rath subspecies, they’re smarter, too; they kinda have to be, considering the monsters they compete with for living space. Yet, for some reason, the Hunter’s Guild (of which region, I don’t know) looked at such a dominant beast and decided “hey, we can make a killing by making people fight these things in special events,” so they go out and capture Silver Rathalos to make Hunters fight them in an Arena. Now, all this is coming from a single sentence on the Silver Rathalos’ wiki page, so its credibility is dubious, but if it’s true. then the people who decided on this course of action are either dumb as dirt or very, very prepared for a dragonic tantrum.

Normally I wouldn’t be a big fan of a subspecies just being “the monster you know but stronger and meaner,” but the fact that Silver Rathalos can hold off Elder Dragons, the legendary Pokemon of the MH world, leaves an impression that earns it some points. The guild’s potential dragon-napping is also interesting, though I still have some doubts about it. I’m giving this category a 7/10.

Abilities: Like the Azure Rathalos, Silver Rathalos have stronger versions of the normal variety’s attacks, but their attack patterns are unique; they prefer to use their tail for grounded attacks rather than bites or tackles, but prefer to attack from the air with agility that their red and blue versions can’t match. This allows them to corner their prey/opponents very quickly before unleashing a triad of fireballs. Interestingly, they can also use an ability once thought unique to Rathans: fiery explosions--though obviously the ones created by Silver Rathalos’ are much more powerful.

Thought they are intelligent, their aggressive temperament leads them to enter a rage more often than the other varieties, but they can also go even further and enter a mode called the “incandescent state,” which is marked by even more heightened aggression in their attacks. While this should leave them more open to attacks from smart opponents, the scales on a Silver Rathalos are incredibly tough--perhaps even metallic--so they can afford to get a bit sloppy. As durable as these scales are, they ironically may be responsible for the Silver Rathalos’ one shortcoming compared to the other subspecies (at least in the earlier titles): a heightened weakness to Thunder-element attacks, especially on their wings. God help this thing if it ticks off a Rajang (which is unfortunately very easy to do, to my knowledge).

As I said with the Azure Rathalos in this department, I appreciate how Silver Rathalos’ attacks aren’t so similar to regular Rathalos’ as to be identical. Their better understanding of tactics allows them to more effectively use the tools at their disposal, and said tools were already impressive; their specialized rage state and superior defense doesn’t hurt either. 7/10.

Equipment: As you’d expect, many of the weapons made from Silver Rathalos parts also have some Gold Rathian in them. Since I’m biased, we’ll start with the Insect Glaive from MHG/U--the Blossomajesty:

This makes good use of the gold and silver parts. I like how the “blunt” end of the glaive looks like a Gold Rathian’s tail, and the fact that the blade has little silver dragon wings is a cute touch to a weapon made from some of the most dangerous monsters in the series. The description reads “A legendary Fire Wyvern Insect Glaive. Fly through the air on golden wings of fire,” and with how the Insect Glaive plays, I think that tracks. Next up is another example of a gold and silver weapon, the Expert Hammer, also from MHG/U:

Okay, so there’s more Gold Rathian than Silver Rathalos in this, but still. I question why the chains are there, considering the halves of the hammer are screwed into the handle and the chains don’t look like they do anything stability-wise, but the weapon overall still looks cool. Finally, it’s about time I show off a weapon made from only Silver Rathalos parts, but since I like to have at least one really weird weapon in these things, you get the Hunting Horn from Frontier. The Rathians had bells on a flute, while the Rathalos’ have:

A saxophone. A freakin’ saxophone made out of the scales of the MH mascot’s ultimate incarnation (to my knowledge, anyway). It even has parts of it that are directly modeled after Silver Rathalos just to hammer that fact in. God, I love this series sometimes. Onto the armor, let’s start with the Blademaster set from Freedom Unite:

It’s okay to make comparisons to Shredder, we all thought it too. These are both cool, and really let the wearer give off the powerful vibe you’d expect from someone who killed a massively powerful dragon to make them. I guess I also can’t complain about the chestpiece the woman’s wearing, since it doesn’t stick out much farther than the one the man’s wearing, so overall, these are a success. As for the Gunner set:

It’s... alright, I guess. It just doesn’t look as imposing as the Blademaster set. I actually can’t think of much more to say than that. The colors remind me too much of the standard knight armor to really help here.

Admittedly, rating these all is hard. The standard and azure equipment all look cool in their own ways, and to be fair, so do these! But the colors just don’t work for me as well as the others do. I feel like I’m supposed to like the equipment more than at least the ones for normal Rathalos, but I just...don’t. It’s not bad, it’s just not as good. It still gets a 7/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: For something that’s so much more powerful than the garden-variety Rathalos, my feelings on the Silver kind aren’t very different. I guess that’s to be expected from something so similar, but I feel like I’m wrong to not be more awed by these guys. Guess that’s an ish-me and not an issue, though; there’s nothing wrong with being a different flavor of the same cool. 7/10.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

NPC!!! boytoy on npc status is crazy LMAOOO Im assuming the horses’ names are announced during competitions I think it’d be hilarious to hear them announcing boytoy during an official event LOL

Kaneshiro drop the opp deets gotta do some enemy recon work LMAO imagine we actually get profiles or at least appearances of their family members omg…

LMFAO Otoya’s “I can’t be seen with this” is killing me but CRYING imagine karasus reaction to otoya rizzing up yayoi “get yer ass away from my sisters she dgaf”

CHRIS PRINCE ONLINE SUBSCRIPTION LMAOOO I’m crying at the sylveon origins too that had to have been the worst reveal of them all like he preps all that only to end up with a pretty pink pokemon instead of his “shadowy sneaky pokemon that mirrors his own coolness”

THANK YOU I’m bookmarking this link LMAOO

I’m crying Karasu villain era pokemon au yukis off the hook now it’s Karasu’s turn LMAO

OMFG THE AUDIO??? BRO it’s fr Barou and reader (I also dgaf abt satosugu whoopsies guess we’re in the hot take club together) but im CRYING if there’s a way to post audios here you should fr link that song in the final chapter and be like “ok listen to this while you read”

LMAOA I remember being so confused when the four move rule was broken in the anime the jolly gyarados fr scaring the shit out of other trainers and pokemon LMAO (bonus points if it’s so happy it closes its mouth and smiles therefore looking even more cursed) gyarados being able to learn electric moves while being water flying is actually crazy LMAOO

The pokemon au world building team arranging grind is insane it’s so funny though like im literally pulling up bulbapedia to get a list of all the pokemon from a specific type

Choosing scrafty was just meant to be I didn’t even think about the typing LMAO

Ok but now that you mention it why does it fr feel like there’s less pokemon than I remember LOLL like on top of the fire electric dilemma I was trying to come up with another steel type just to see if I could think of one and indeed I could not ok but the teams you made fr go hard

Ok but also pause any people you think would have any shiny pokemon? Lowk kinda just curious I remember it coming up occasionally in the anime too where some people had shinies but I wanna hear if anyone screams “I have a shiny” to you LMAO

- Karasu anon

HAHA yes they usually do announce horse’s show names at hunter shows (i do dressage now but when i was younger i did hunters) and races!! boytoy was a mini so he never showed unfortunately…most horses have different show names and barn names actually and some of the show names are INSANE (especially with racehorses) i think my fav racehorse name is this really famous (in the horse world) stallion named fusaichi pegasus who passed last year…idk why but that’s just a crazy name to me DRJKSKS racehorse names can’t be repeated if another horse is still alive with the name (or if the name gets retired in the case of super famous racehorses) so people get VERY creative with them…and then 99% of racehorses get retired and it’s considered bad luck to change a racehorse’s jockey club name so people will show them under their goofy ass race names (i once saw one named richard cranium which was basically just dick head but fancy DKFHSJSJ)

nah because i need to know more about nagi’s parents what are they even up to that requires them to be away from their kid for that long??? it’s not even like they’re that rich either nagi was a scholarship student at hakuho 😭😭😭 maybe they just don’t like nagi or smth because genuinely i don’t see what the point is like how is MR MIKAGE the literal CEO of a BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY more present in reo’s life than nagi’s parents are in his??? ceos literally have 0 free time and yet he somehow manages (not that reo rlly wants him to but yk)

otoya is def soooo reluctant to capture the mareep but tullia and reader are like “noooo it’s so cute stop you can’t break its heart” and the mareep is just staring at him like 🥺🥺🥺🥺 and karasu’s just like bro you gotta do it LMAOAOA omg imagine they walk into yayoi’s gym and otoya’s like DAMN WHO IS THAT FINE BABE and karasu’s like that is my SISTER shut the FUCK UP (bro got reverse bfb’d…otoya in his yukimiya era fr) omg wait bonus points tullia is definitely like “yo she just looks like a female karasu 🧐 otoya do you have something to tell us…” and reader’s just like “GAY 😱🫵🏻🏳️‍🌈⁉️” HAHA deadbeat dad otoya x single mother karasu is so real and canon tbh (reader and tullia are their “kids” who have 0 interest in being parented or taking advice from a couple of dumbasses who are barely two or three years older than them)

no because you CANNOT tell me chris prince wouldn’t have one of those online courses you can buy that like shows his journey to being an e4 member + his training regimen + product placements (he’s definitely sponsored by ness’s poffin company) and he gives gifts to his top subscribers (otoya is one until the vulpix incident + yukimiya overhears the ness poffin commercial chris is doing and he’s like lmao those suck nobody actually good uses them which changes otoya’s life as he comes to the harsh conclusion that celebrities can lie)

HE WAS SOOO PREPARED FOR THAT UMBREON TOO he was so hype to finally have another greninja-esque pokémon and then his poor eevee evolves into a sylveon and he wants to be upset but like. he CAN’T be because a) he should’ve expected it atp and b) it means his eevee loved him so much that it had no choice but to evolve into a sylveon (maybe he’s battling reader’s houndoom too because he wants his eevee to get into the dark-type mindset but then it evolves into sylveon and he’s about to crash out but then sylveon ohko’s houndoom because it’s a fairy type and he’s like 😮☝🏻 wait a minute…) LMAOO wait but another otoya slander moment is karasu’s garchomp FJSKJSSJ basically while reader and co are out and about they happen upon a gible which ofc makes both reader (who doesn’t have dragalge or gyarados yet so she still rlly wants a dragon type + garchomp is widely considered to be one of the best pokémon) and otoya get into a huge argument over who gets to capture it and while they’re fighting there’s the sound of a pokéball and they turn and fucking KARASU is standing there with his dumbass smirk like “you snooze you lose 😜😏” because they just assumed he’d only want to capture flying types like his sister (this is pre-lucario obv) so they didn’t even consider that he’d try to capture the gible LMAOAOAO so yet another moment where otoya misses out 😭 it’s funny because reader and co all have their one or two signature pokémon that are super super intimidating (reader’s houndoom and gyarados, karasu’s honchkrow and garchomp, and tullia’s infernape) meanwhile otoya’s signature pokémon was SUPPOSED to be his greninja but in practicality is his sylveon because she’s a fairy type so he’s alwayssss throwing her out since she has so many advantages especially against the evil team

side note but i think i’m going to name the evil team “team x” as a call back to barou’s team in first selection HAHAHA i think it’s funny + i’m setting the au in kalos because that was my first pokémon game + we’re basing it on xy/oras lore but kalos fits the vibes of the au better than hoenn for some reason (def changing the order of gyms and whatnot though…like for example i came up with nicknames/taglines for all of the gym leaders based on their canon nicknames so like luna’s the “scion of santalune” the way he’s the scion of real madrid in the show which means santalune is where the seventh gym is for reader and co even though it’s the first gym in the story)

THE AUDIO FITS SO WELL IT’S SICKENING reader and barou are like satosugu on crack because they’re literally FAMILY like that final battle is the culmination of three generations of brothers and sisters loving one another i fear i am sososo obsessed with them…can’t watch barou edits without crying and NOT just because of how hot he is…also thinking that after her houndoom kills barou reader just passes out and she has a dream of when she and barou were kids and had sleepovers and it’s the next morning and he’s waking her up and she tells him she doesn’t want to wake up because she’ll have to leave him once she does and he’s like “yeah but eventually you’ll have to” and then she DOES wake up and for a second she still thinks it’s barou shaking her and asking her to wake up but it turns out its KARASU because he pulled up with his garchomp after nagi told him to check on reader (he’s the only one left with healthy enough pokémon that he can go back and doesn’t need to be escorted to the pokémon center) and apparently her houndoom dragged her over so that she could be next to barou’s corpse because it’s houndoom culture (??? wtf is it called when animals do something…anyways ykwim) to stand vigil over a corpse (hence why her houndoom is standing over barou’s houndoom’s body and howling as well as why houndoom are associated with death) and it knew how much she loved barou so it thought she’d want to do the same for him even though she was knocked out 😞 unfortunately karasu thought she was dead because she was just lying next to the actually dead barou so he was freaking out and that’s when reader realizes what she did and starts crying but this time she’s not alone (unlike when she was fighting barou) because karasu’s there and she realizes that through her search for barou she managed to find a new family and she kinda wonders to herself if barou is the one who sent karasu (i’m imaging karasu and reader specifically have a very ridiculous meeting…like tullia and otoya join the gang in a normal way but karasu and reader have a dumbass coincidental meeting that had a 0.01% chance of occurring) to look after her when he couldn’t anymore 😩

THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING like to reader gyarados is just serving “😄🥳🥰🕺🏻” energy but to literally everyone else it’s giving “🤬😤👹🌪️” HAHAHA tbh all of the gen1 pokémon have such weird moves that they can learn like rhyhorn can learn surf fsr?? so odd

HELPP me on serebii.net with my magnifying glass like 🧐 who can fit on this random team…the way i still have to come up with mr mikage’s team too 😭 and at least a signature pokémon for the rest of the e4 candidates (kunigami kaiser and bachira)…okay i’ll do that in between our asks and let you know in the next one what i’m thinking for those!! at least they’re not limited by type KDDJSJSJ because isagi is an e4 candidate w a mixed team so we’ll follow that logic and say the other candidates are like that too and ofc the champion always has a random team

no literally how are there like 700 something pokémon in gen 6 but yet none of the types we need?? ig there’s a lot of random useless types and not as many of types such as steel and electric as well as all legendaries and mythical pokémon were excluded but still it’s crazy

okay so there’s definitely a few that scream shiny now that you’ve brought it up and one that i’m actually going to say IS shiny in the story because it makes things funnier and yk that’s my brand

so firstly out of everyone tullia as a breeder definitely would have a shiny since her whole thing is desirable pokémon!! maybe shiny pokémon have like a rare gene that causes the mutation so people are biased towards breeding to shinies since they think it’ll give them a chance at having shinies of their own even though it’s still a very low chance…i can see her lanturn being a shiny!!

now hear me out w this one: hiori + shiny metagross…no particular reason other than shiny metagross is SOOO gorgeous like the white and gold 🤩🤤 maybe his parents splurged and went all out and bought him a shiny beldum for mikage-levels of money 🤔

if this were animated i could see barou having a shiny houndoom just to differentiate between his houndoom and reader’s in their final battle (although it wouldn’t be a big deal because only reader is able to mega evolve her houndoom…barou was able to when he was alive but now that he’s dead the ghost pokémon possessing him doesn’t have the bond required w houndoom to get it to mega evolve)

nagi and shiny goodra just because shiny goodra’s yellow and pink theme is so pretty and so nagi somehow??? actually shiny whimsicott lowkey screams nagi too LOL i could see him with either!!

yukimiya + shiny steelix…come on it’s literally all gold…would go CRAZY in contests!!

shiny aegislash is cool as hell so i can def see reader having that!! it kind of fits the whole isekai magic sword theme like the black sword and all…regular aegislash is cool too with the purple but shiny aegislash fucks severely

HOWEVER the one that i would actually make canon (does it count as canon if this is a fic?? pokémon-au canon anyways) is reader’s gyarados!! mostly because shiny magikarp is all gold so imagine the fisherman tricks her into trading with him by being like “yeah this is a completely new species never been discovered super rare probably powerful” and she’s like yooooo and she trades for it but then tullia and karasu are like WTF 😭 because yes it’s a shiny but it’s still just a magikarp…they try to convince her to sell it to a fancier who would use it as a pond decoration or something (which is what the fisherman should’ve done but maybe the town is in the middle of nowhere and he’s not that smart so he didn’t realize that he could’ve gotten way more than just a pikachu from the magikarp) but reader’s like HELL no this is MY pokémon and i love it even if it’s useless 🤬 galvantula already carries it doesn’t matter if the rest of my team can’t do anything 😩 LMAOAOA okay probably not that part but the sentiment is the same so tullia and karasu just give up (otoya’s just glad he’s not the one who got duped/stuck with a bs pokémon for once) and then ofc her magikarp eventually evolves and she’s like HAHAH told you so 😜 (now otoya’s jealous because how come all of HIS pokémon evolve into cuddly cute things that couldn’t intimidate a child but reader’s useless golden fish that she got scammed into taking is now this massive monster of a sea serpent????) i think her gyarados being red further adds to the intimidation of it being special for being happy…like holy shit not only is her gyarados “insanely angry” it’s also RED people probably surrender as soon as they see it enter the battlefield 😰 also that makes houndoom and gyarados kind of match which is cutesy!! but tbh idec abt shiny gyarados i just think the shiny aspect to magikarp makes the scam sm funnier and also more believable

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Pokemon Gen 1 Semi-Playthrough (Part 1)

Overview.

So this post is going to be different from my usual layout for the site, the reason is because I felt given just how many Pokemon there are and how they make up almost their own category when it comes to items, it’d be best to do a big post going over each generation. The reason I’ve skipped ahead to now when it comes to this rather than carrying on with the Fighter posts is because with the upcoming shutdown of the Wii U and 3DS online I wanted to make sure I got all the Pokemon I need sorted out in advance, there’s no other series that will particularly suffer from the shutdown on my list so I felt it was best to get this one done now. I would like to preface this thing by saying I am a casual Pokemon fan, I’ve never been into the competitive scene although I’m more aware of things like EV training etc than I was in the past, but I am just going over my opinions in this and various memories I have of each Pokemon etc, this isn’t a walkthrough or guide of any kind. This post has ended up being a lot longer than I expected and for Gen 1 specifically I realise it will have the largest amount of Pokemon, so due to this I will be splitting this post into multiple parts as mentioned in the title.

For what Pokemon will appear in these posts, it will be a mixture of every Pokemon to get represented in the Smash Bros series except the Fighters who will continue to get their own posts when I reach them. (This goes for cases where a Pokeball Pokemon became a fighter later in the series also.) In this post there will be Pokemon who appear from the Pokeball Item in various entries in the series, Pokemon who physically appear in the background of stages, Pokemon who are represented by Spirits, Pokemon who are represented by Trophies and even Pokemon who only appeared in the intro movie for Super Smash Bros Melee or as a background in Pokefloats. I’ve drawn the line finally at Pokemon who are simply mentioned, when looking through Trophy descriptions throughout the series many Pokemon will get evolutions mentioned such as Totodile’s Trophy mentioning Croconaw. I have gotten screenshots of every Pokemon I have ingame, but for pictures from Smash Bros I haven't managed to get pictures of every Pokemon ingame yet. When it comes to certain ones (for example ones from Smash 64) I am going to see if later I can either get a screenshot somehow (Smash 64 on Switch would be handy...) or if not look into getting the original sprites just to have an image of some kind. I credit the sources of the images as usual at the end of this post.

I have two things I have attempted to do with this, the first is to make the Pokemon as close to their Smash Bros appearances as possible, which means teaching them moves used in Smash, catching them in regular Pokeballs (with the occasional Masterball) and making sure they have the same appearance. The second is because of the feature in Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon to take photos of Pokemon with unique backgrounds depending on the region they’re from, I’ve attempted to catch every Pokemon in its native region. This took a very long time and I was not entirely successful. At the time of writing this, I am still trying to get the final 6 Pokemon I’m missing with friends help and I’ve been doing this since October 2023 now. I won’t talk about the games themselves too much in these posts as I want to save them for my Fighter posts or later stage posts etc, however I will go over my thoughts and experience catching each Pokemon in their entries below. I will admit, there’s a few times I struggled to find stuff to say so I don’t know how entertaining this will all be, still it’s something I wanted to do so yeah, hope you enjoy. One final note, when it comes to a Pokemon’s “Role in Smash Bros” I am only mentioning things I have taken into account in what moves I’ve given them etc, so for example if a Pokeball Pokemon appeared as a trophy but it didn’t really add anything new I’ll just stick to its role being ‘Pokeball Pokemon’ whereas if the trophy description added a new move or something I’ll mention Trophy as part of it, same as for Spirit Battles.

Pokemon 1st Generation.

Pokemon: Blastoise.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Background Pokemon, Trophy (Mega Blastoise)

Moves: Hydro Pump.

My feelings on it: So to start off is the final evolution of Squirtle, one of the three starters of Kanto and a Pokemon who would become a fighter itself later in the Smash series. The Squirtle line as a whole is probably my second favourite of the three, although I haven’t used it as often in playthroughs as the other two. Despite my like for it I find it hard to really say much more on it. I suppose one thing that comes to mind with it was when I was young, me and my cousins each were lucky enough when the cardgame was big to get a shiny card of each starter and one of my cousins got Blastoise. Despite it not being my one I feel like I remember how Blastoise’s card looked the clearest from memory compared to the other two. Beyond that, I was glad it became playable in Pokken Tournament, but now I’m really grasping for things to say I guess.

How I caught it: So no exciting story here, simply put I used my Virtual Console version of Pokemon Blue, picked Squirtle and got to Viridian City at a point where I could put it in the PC and then used Pokemon Bank to transfer it before starting a new game. In Ultra Moon after transferring the Squirtle I grinded a bit to evolve it and made sure to teach it the moves I needed. Since this is the very first Pokemon entry I’ve written and other starters will use the same method, I won’t keep repeating about using Pokemon Bank and I’ll only detail things I did in Ultra Moon if they were notable like evolving them.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So, for Blastoise despite its long history in the Smash Bros series, there was only one move I needed to teach it which was Hydro Pump, the same move it used in its appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon in Super Smash Bros and Melee. Starters are always in regular Pokeballs so that was fairly simple to keep it with the standard red Pokeball to match Smash Bros. The only element currently missing with my Blastoise is giving it Blastoisinite due to it having a Mega Evolution as a trophy. I will eventually get the Mega stones for the Pokemon I need it for, but they require a fair bit of BP so I thought it best to leave that for later, I believe I will do a post later down the line going over Mega evolutions for the Pokemon that have had them in the Smash series rather than show them here.

Pokemon: Clefairy.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Metronome, Sing.

My feelings on it: So I have a fair bit of history when it comes to Clefairy. The biggest thing relating to it is that I had an incident when I was younger regarding a Clefairy card where I was really happy to have gotten one. I was going on to my Mum about it and how rare it was etc and then sometime later at school I traded it with this older kid for a load of other cards. I can’t remember how I really felt about the trade but my Mum asked me later where it had gone and I told her I traded it for a load of them. I remember she thought it was silly for me to have given away something I’d been going on about being such a big deal and told me I should ask the kid to trade back for it. I went and asked him to do so which he refused so then I dumbly told him that my Mum had told me to do so which got him and his friends all to laugh and me calling me a Mummy’s boy etc. I don’t really remember clearly now what happened, if he ended up trading it back or it was the other thing that happened that caused it, which was eventually I ended up in a fight with him. The part of me that wants to sound sympathetic makes me think it was because since then him and his group would always point and laugh calling me Mummy’s boy whenever they saw me that made me end up getting into a fight with him whereas the less sympathetic more realist part of me says it was more likely I got into a fight after not much prodding from him over him not trading it back, it’s too long ago to really remember for sure now and it was a fairly miserable part of my life anyway where I ended up in a lot of fights and (to me) being bullied a lot back then. Either way I remember the ‘head of bullying’ at the school had us talk it over or something and maybe it was as a result of that he ended up having to trade the card back to me. It’s not a great memory either way but it’s definitely the biggest thing I associate Clefairy with now so I figured it was worth going over.

Anyway, regarding Clefairy itself, it’s a Pokemon I still like regardless of that memory. Somehow years later I lost that card, it might be hidden away somewhere in a cupboard of mine but it’s not with all the other old cards I had, I do have a Clefable one from a little after that so there’s that at least. In the games I’ve used Clefairy a few times, although I don’t think I’ve had it on my team since it became a Fairy type. One thing I always find interesting with it is it’s a Pokemon I know is rare but I feel like almost everytime I replay Kanto games I’ll end up running into one just during a regular journey through Mount Moon. I always think of it as Jigglypuff’s rival thanks to the anime episodes and of the two it’s definitely my favourite.

How I caught it: As I hinted at above, once again this time I found Clefairy simply during my trip through Mt Moon in Pokemon Yellow. I managed to catch it fairly easily in a Pokeball, I think thanks to Pikachu paralyzing it.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: The most obvious things to do when it came to Clefairy’s appearance in Smash Bros, besides catching it in a regular Pokeball was it learning Metronome. Another less obvious addition however and something I also have taken into account with Pokemon I’ve got for my list is any additional factors from spirit battles involving them. Blastoise’s spirit battle didn’t really give it any additional factors which is why I didn’t mention that one, but for Clefairy it’s represented by Jigglypuff in Magicant. Due to this I felt it was also fitting for my Clefairy to know Sing as well in reference to the Spirit Battle.

Pokemon: Hitmonlee.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Jump Kick.

My feelings on it: Honestly, when it comes to Hitmonlee, it’s one of those Pokemon I don’t think much about but the more I look at it now the more I think how odd it looks. Obviously it’s whole thing is kicking so the legs are the main thing that sticks out about it, but that very basic design the rest of it has helps make it feel a lot closer to a ‘Monster’ than a lot of the other more humanoid designs in the series. I will say I always liked how Tyrogue’s addition in Gen 2 linked it and Hitmonchan, to the best of my knowledge this was the only time in the series two Pokemon that weren’t connected became so due to a later addition, as well as adding a third form with Hitmontop. Since Hitmonlee is the only one featured in Smash Bros I figured this’d be the best place to really say anything about them, either way that’s all I can really think of for Hitmonlee, it’s an interesting Pokemon.

How I caught it: Since Hitmonlee’s in Smash Bros but Hitmonchan’s never been represented, when it came to the choice after defeating the Fighting Dojo in Saffron City of which of the two to choose it was a pretty obvious answer.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Ok, so this is the first time this has happened and I hope the last, when writing this post I actually realised that I’d been wrong in the notes I made. I had Hitmonlee’s move it uses in its appearance in Super Smash Bros (64) as Hi Jump Kick. I had no idea ‘Jump Kick’ was a whole separate move and explicitly the one used in Smash Bros. It seems it’s slightly more accurate than Hi Jump Kick but not as powerful. As soon as I realised this I just used one of my many spare heart scales to teach my Hitmonlee it. Beyond this that’s pretty much it with its Spirit Battle not really having any attribute I feel I need to represent, still I’m hoping this will be the last time I’ve made a mistake like this.

Pokemon: Onix.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Rock Throw.

My feelings on it: I think my feeling regarding Onix is similar to a lot of peoples in that for such a huge Pokemon it tends to feel very underwhelming. Under Brock’s command and depending on your team it definitely helps feel like the first real roadblock you meet in the game due to its defence and its resistances (not to mention in Pokemon Yellow Brock’s Onix having one of the most irritating moves of Gen 1 being Bind) It soon however becomes a very common Pokemon to see being used by other trainers and with its 4x weakness to Water and Grass honestly becomes a somewhat welcome sight for easy exp. It’s a shame as I really like its design and if Pokemon were actually real it’s one I’d probably love to have, but as one of the 151 in the game it’s just not worth training to me.

How I caught it: I came across it during my journey through Rock Tunnel, it wasn’t particularly difficult as it’s a fairly common Pokemon in there.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I was worried for a moment right after the last entry I’d just run into the exact same problem as for some reason I have on my notes that it uses Rock Slide in its appearance in Super Smash Bros. The actual move as it turns out is Rock Throw, however in this case that’s not an issue as I had the Onix I caught able to use both so there was no addition I needed to make. Since it’s a Pokeball Pokemon once again I used a regular Pokeball to catch it.

Pokemon: Starmie.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon

Moves: Swift.

My feelings on it: I’ve always loved this Pokemon, it’s one that’s so simple but still manages to feel cool to me, especially with its Psychic typing that helped differentiate it from other water Pokemon. Honestly to this day it’s still one of my favourite water types despite the many additions there have been over the years and I feel like it’s a Pokemon that’s managed to stand the test of time. I think when it comes to Starmie specifically, since I’m sure it appeared in Smash due to the anime it was a fairly odd case being an evolved form of a Pokemon one of the main protagonists also had, with Misty having both it and Staryu. Since Staryu was the Pokemon Misty used more often however Starmie didn’t get many appearances which is a shame, especially as in the actual games Starmie often was a fairly tough Pokemon in her gym battle.

How I caught it: It’s hard for me to remember really especially which was which so I’ll just say the same for Starmie as I will for Staryu, I fished them both up with a Super Rod, I believe doing so around the Seafoam Islands where they were a higher level. I believe also with Starmie specifically I evolved it in Pokemon Yellow before transferring it through Bank as I couldn’t remember how easy it was to get a Water Stone in Ultra Moon and didn’t want to make more work for myself later if it wasn’t needed, although I later realised, I’d made an error with this.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I thought this would be a fairly simple case, I caught it in a Pokeball, evolved it from Staryu to Starmie in Pokemon Yellow and transferred it, my mistake however was forgetting it wouldn’t learn Swift as a Starmie, luckily this was fairly easily remedied with a heart scale which would pay for the move reminder to help Starmie learn Swift, it’s attack in Smash Bros. Since 64 was the only appearance Starmie specifically made in the series there wasn’t anything else really needed.

Pokemon: Koffing.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Enemy in Smash Run, Event in Smash Run.

Moves: Smog, Poison Gas and Smokescreen.

My feelings on it: I love Koffing, firstly I’ve come to appreciate poison types more as the years have gone on but secondly it’s just such an odd interesting to design to me, it’s just a ball but all those er, funnels or craters or whatever you call them makes it look a bit more interesting. Add to that how cheerful it always seems and it helps make it one of my favourites. Despite this however, if anything it’s one of those cases where I don’t appreciate it being in the anime as much, mostly as due to it being James most famous Pokemon (even if it wasn’t with him for most of the anime’s run) it’s one of those that’s always associated with villains which is a shame, something I’ll get to with a couple of other Pokemon down the line. Still I suppose it’s thanks to the anime it appeared in Smash and is on my list so for that part I am thankful. The final thing I always think of with Koffing is one of my favourite real-life collectables, reversible Pokemon plushes. I’m not someone who has ever collected plushes really, however I was a huge fan of these reversible Pokemon plushes they used to do where you could unzip the Pokemon and turn it inside out to become a Pokeball plush. I have collected a few over the years and Koffing being a ball already is probably one of my favourites just because it’s so easy to reverse (unlike a couple of others that can be a pain) and doesn’t look as misshapen as some of the others tend to. I realise this is an odd thing to bring up but really Koffing’s the one that makes me always remember them the most.

How I caught it: This is the first Pokemon I’ve gone over in this post so far that was an absolute pain to find, the main reason for this being (and another reason I’m not that happy about it’s role in the anime) due to it being a prominent member of Team Rocket’s team, it wasn’t available in Pokemon Yellow, which I’d forgotten when playing so I spent ages looking for it in the Pokemon Mansion just to realise after looking it up it wasn’t in Yellow at all (just like the rest of Team Rocket’s Pokemon) Luckily I had a virtual console copy of Pokemon Blue also that I was at the end of the game on, so I was able to track down Koffing in that, but with that it still was a pain to find with its 5% appearance rate, especially as I needed to catch two so I could get Weezing as well (who I’ll detail later in this post). I did eventually catch both and I was done with Pokemon Mansion… at least I thought so until I realised a terrible mistake I’d made, but that’s for a later entry.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So here we go again, I’ve realised after double checking when writing this post that I’ve once again made a mistake, although this time it’s not having the wrong move as the move I had was right, Koffing uses Smog in its appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon, which I’ve taught it as well as having it in a regular Pokeball. My mistake is that I believed Koffing just used Smog in its appearance in Smash Run as well, but now I’ve come realise it also has Poison Gas attack and on top of that, something I haven’t even considered before that might mean I’ll have to have another look at every other Pokemon (and maybe even other characters on my overall list) is Smash Tour. Apparently in Smash Tour there’s an event where Koffing will use Smokescreen. I have now taught Koffing both these moves, still this has made me realise I should probably just stay saved by the move reminder for when I get to later entries as I’m fairly sure this won’t be the last time I’ll need to do this.

Pokemon:  Meowth.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy (Meowth’s Party)

Moves: Payday.

My feelings on it: Speaking of Pokemon whose anime appearances I have mixed feelings on... I love Meowth, I really like how it looks and I’ve had them on my team a couple of times. I’m not as fond of Persian but I’ve never held off evolving it either and I do like it still. I also really like Meowth in the anime with him having some great moments through the series. So why am I mixed on his appearance then? Well the reason is that Meowth in the anime is so prominent he sort of tends to be all anyone thinks of when it comes to the species. With that said, this has changed in later years, Sun and Moon seemed to be a renaissance of Meowth with not just the Alolan variant but the Kanto version also being an NPC who belongs to your Mum in the game. Also with Meowth getting a Galarian version who I actually really like despite how ridiculous it looks, Meowth has gotten a lot more attention in recent years even gaining a separate evolution in its Galarian form into Perrserker who’s more like a bigger tougher Meowth than Persian.

How I caught it: I don’t really remember much of note when it came to catching Meowth, it could be because I’ve done it plenty of times before, but I simply caught one from the Route north of Vermillion City as I usually do.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Fairly simple, I caught Meowth in a regular Pokeball and taught it Payday. There is one thing I suppose I should mention however, a Pokemon I don’t think I’ll be able to get even with a certain method I’ll detail in a later generation, but there was a trophy in Super Smash Bros Melee called Meowth’s Party based on a tech demo made to showoff what the Nintendo Gamecube could do. In this short Meowth sang a song for other Pokemon whilst playing a guitar. I believe this later was used as an ending theme for the anime in Japan and therefore this version of Meowth playing a guitar and singing is explicitly the Team Rocket Meowth. This version of Meowth has appeared in the games, specifically in Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Lets Go Eevee and Pikachu where Jessie and James of Team Rocket battle with a team based on the anime. There was actually an event where Team Rocket’s Meowth could be downloaded in Japan and a couple of other countries in Pokemon Black and White 2, however it seems even with a method I’ll detail later it’s not possible to get that Meowth now. What makes this even more ironic for me is that this Meowth knew the move sing, I believe more likely in reference to Team Rocket’s Meowth being able to talk but it would have been ideal as a reference to Meowth’s Party. Still, I can only get so much and I’d rather at least have a Meowth at all at any rate.

Pokemon: Weezing.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit.

Moves: Smog, Explosion.

My feelings on it: So similarly to Koffing I like Weezing, although of the two I definitely prefer the more happy looking Koffing. I will give Weezing credit though in how gross it is in how it’s sort of a tumour growing off of a Koffing in a sense. Not much more to add, similarly to Koffing and Meowth it has that same factor of often being seen as a villain Pokemon due to Team Rocket in the anime.

How I caught it: So as I explained in Koffing’s entry, I made a mistake and had to return to Pokemon Blue to find two Koffings which was difficult as they were a 5% encounter rate. I did eventually catch two (although if I remember right one of them when I finally found it used self-destruct which was pretty infuriating). All that was left then was to evolve Weezing which I did with a little grinding in Ultra Moon.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So, similarly to Koffing, Weezing uses Smog in its appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon, and of course coming from a Pokeball means I caught it in a regular Pokeball to match that. The only other factor of note is Weezing’s spirit in Ultimate which raises Fire and Explosion attacks, this is likely a reference to them being able to self-destruct as I said about regarding catching the Koffing, but with the name being Explosion I figured the move to teach would be Explosion.

Pokemon: Beedrill.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Take Down.

My feelings on it: Honestly the only thing of interest I find with Beedrill is that it starts off as Weedle who always reminded me of Wiggler from the Mario series. With that said it was one of the two bug type Pokemon you’d encounter at the very start of the Kanto games (before you reached the first gym) and like a lot of bug types evolves at a fairly low level meaning it’s useful if you want a fully evolved Pokemon early in the game. With that said I never really bother with early bug types now when I replay the games, but when I did I still always tended to pick Butterfree over Beedrill. Once again, the anime seems to have influenced its appearance in Smash Bros as Beedrill would often appear as a horde to chase characters which is similar to how it works in Smash 64.

How I caught it: From what I remember, in Pokemon Yellow of the two Weedle was less common than Caterpie, so whilst I was searching for a Pikachu (who was rare in Viridian Forest) and I came across a Weedle I realised it was best to catch that now as I’d rather not have to look for it later. There was one other notable aspect for Beedrill that I’ll detail in the next section.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So Beedrill should have been fairly simple, evolves at a low level and only has one move it needed to learn as well as being an easy Bug type from the early game with a low catch rate meaning using a regular Pokeball was simple for it. Where it caused a bit of a problem is it was the first Pokemon on this list so far who could only learn it’s one move from Smash in Gen 1. Luckily this wasn’t due to levelling up but using a TM and it was a TM that was purchasable in the Celedon Department Store so was fairly easy to get. The move being Take Down wasn’t really what I expected given Beedrill’s known for its poison sting or pin missile attack, but that’s part of why I enjoy doing this because it’s a unique weirdness I wouldn’t really have bothered with otherwise.

Pokemon: Articuno.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Icy Wind, Reflect, Ice Beam.

My feelings on it: Of the three Legendary Birds I suppose Articuno always felt a little more special to me, although I wouldn’t call it my favourite either, still it’s probably of the three the most ‘majestic’ and its location in the Seafoam Isles probably felt the most fitting of a ‘legendary creature’ of the three. Beyond that I don’t particularly have many more thoughts on it, it does have a nice design though.

How I caught it: Being the first legendary Pokemon entry I’ve written, it has a more specific way to catch it than just tracking it down through random encounters. Seafoam Isles was something I always remembered being really annoying but replaying it now makes me realise it’s far more simple than I used to think. Being able to save right before battling it also is somewhat of a series tradition when it comes to Legendaries which makes it honestly easier in some ways than regular Pokemon that are just difficult to find (as we’ll get to regarding a certain Safari Zone in a later entry). The only real irritating part of this battle is something unique to Gen 1 which is Pokeballs missing. This doesn’t happen too often in most of the game but is definitely apparent when battling the Legendary Birds or Mewtwo. With that said, honestly despite worrying it’s some additional mechanic in reality it’s just another way of the game demonstrating there’s a low catch rate and from what I’ve read (I’m definitely not a Pokemon expert) is just the equivalent in later games of the Pokeball not shaking at all, so it’s nothing to really be concerned about. Another thing I’ll add is of the two I far prefer this method of capturing Pokemon to the Roaming Legendaries, but I’ll get more into them when it comes to Gen 2. My final note to make is, for this whole challenge because the only Pokeballs that appear in Super Smash Bros are regular Pokeballs or Masterballs, I limited myself to only using them for this challenge. Due to this I believed I had to catch everything in Gen 1 in a regular Pokeball, which definitely is part of the reason why I saw so many ‘miss’ Articuno during the fight. What’s irritating is something I later learned after catching every Pokemon for my list in Gen 1 and 2, which really would have helped me a lot is actually in the Game Boy (or in my case Virtual Console) versions of the game don’t record what Pokeball you use as they’ll always appear in later games as a regular Pokeball. Of course I didn’t learn this through wasting my time with regular Pokeballs in these games, but in fact through spending a long time in Gen 2 trying to catch Pokemon with special Apricorn balls only to learn when transferring them from the Virtual Console version of Crystal they would only appear in Pokeballs, thus wasting all that time I spent getting them. Anyway, this is probably the longest ‘capture’ section I’ve done so far in an entry so I won’t repeat all this later I think.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I had to capture Articuno in a regular Pokeball due to it being a Pokeball Pokemon in Smash Bros which as I stated in the last section was irritating and actually not needed. Beyond this, in its appearance in Super Smash Bros Melee, Articuno uses the attack Icy Wind which was simple enough to teach it. In Articuno’s spirit battle, or more specifically the Spirit Battle it shares with Moltress and Zapdos, they are all represented by Lucas with a Franklin Badge. This reflects (haha) the Legendary Bird’s defensive moves they all learn at Level 10 which for Articuno is Reflect, therefore I taught Articuno that also. Now to add something since finishing this entry and coming back, I decided to go one extra step and look through the bios of every Pokemon trophy in the Smash Bros series, and I discovered in doing so a fair few moves mentioned in Pokemon’s bios they don’t use in the Smash series at all, so the loser that I am, I decided to teach as many Pokemon as I could these moves. Ice Beam is mentioned in Articuno’s trophy so I taught it, luckily this was a fairly simple TM move so didn’t take one of the many heart scales I’ve had to use for a lot of other Pokemon.

Pokemon: Electrode.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard, Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Explosion, Self-Destruct.

My feelings on it: Electrode is probably the biggest example of a functional but boring Pokemon to me. It along with its pre-evolved form Voltorb is known for being disguised as a Pokeball you find on the ground, then attacking you when you go to pick it up, using its very high speed to often use either Self-Destruct or use Explosion which takes it out and often can be very damaging to your Pokemon. I’ve always felt like it’s lacking beyond that but I also haven’t used it enough to really say much on it in regards to that, either way that’s my thoughts on it really, it definitely has an iconic role in the series but there’s not that much that appeals to me regarding it personally.

How I caught it: I believe I caught this Pokemon as a Voltorb in the Power Plant, possibly as one of the ones that was disguised as an item but it might have been a random encounter also. I believe I had one self-destruct on me for the first attempt which was annoying but caught it on the second.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Fairly simple here, it was caught in a regular Pokeball and I taught it explosion after it evolved.Of course, this turned out to be too simple as Electrode had to have a mention in its trophy entry of Self-Destruct, still it was simple enough to teach this also and I consider it now complete.

Pokemon: Moltres.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon, Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Fly, Safeguard, Ember, Sky Attack.

My feelings on it: Of the three Moltres is probably my favourite Legendary Bird. Simply put despite not being as ‘majestic’ as Articuno it just has such a cool look with its flaming wings. It was probably the most prominent of the three in the original series of the anime too being the only one that actually appeared during the Indigo League and its flame being used as a torch for the Pokemon League similar to the Olympic Flame. There’s also of course James in the anime dressing up as Moltres but I don’t want to go on about the anime too much here. Probably the worst aspect of Moltres in Gen 1 was of the three Legendary Birds it probably had the least interesting appearance being in a section of Victory Road. As a result it was entirely possible to just run into Moltress when trying to get to the Pokemon League rather than it being in a location that was more optional and out of the way. This was fixed later in Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green where instead it appears more fittingly at the top of Mt. Ember on one of the Sevii Islands.

How I caught it: As stated in the previous section I tracked Moltres down in Victory Road. I believe I actually ran into it before the Pokemon League but as I wanted to focus on beating the story at that point rather than catching the Legendaries I held off and came back for it later. When I did return to it later it was difficult but nothing majorly so to the point I can’t really remember much about it now.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So once again I caught Moltres in a Pokeball. Despite the variety of fire attacks at its disposal and the main danger element it had when coming out of a Pokeball in Smash Bros being the fire surrounding it, the actual attack it uses is simply fly with it damaging anyone who comes into contact with it. It’s the spirit battle that it shares with Articuno and Zapdos which really provides any other moves for it with one of them being Lucas who represents it having a Franklin Badge that reflects attacks. This references each bird’s defensive move which in Moltres’s case is Safeguard. The Lucas who represents Moltres also uses PK Fire often which just represents Moltres’s fire type really, but the closest I thought it was to a Pokemon move really is Ember therefore I also taught it that. That would have been the end of it… but of course I decided to read Moltres’s trophy descriptions, and to my surprise it seems like repeatedly Moltres would always have Sky Attack mentioned. Sky Attack’s always been an attack I forget was in the series ever since Gen 1, still it was simple enough with a Heart Scale to teach it to Moltres.

Pokemon: Staryu.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit Battle, Trophy.

Moves: Swift, Recover, Camouflage.

My feelings on it: Just like Starmie I like Staryu a lot. I went over most of my thoughts in Starmie’s entry so I guess the only other thing to add is it’s interesting how Starmie only appeared once in the Smash series and then Staryu replaced it, actually to the point Starmie gets no representation whatsoever beyond Smash 64. Staryu does lack the Psychic typing Starmie has so that definitely loses it a few points, but I must admit of the two Staryu’s easier to make look more expressive with its smaller form and fewer… limbs?

How I caught it: So as I stated in Starmie’s entry, I simply caught two Staryus (most likely at Seafoam Isles but I can’t remember for sure) and kept one as Staryu whilst evolving the second into Starmie.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Fairly simple, I caught it in a Pokeball and taught it Swift. The only other aspect related to it in Smash was that in its spirit battle it would gradually heal over time, this was definitely in reference to Staryu’s recover move which is something often associated with its evolutionary line specifically, so I simply taught it Recover also. This was not the end of things however because after reading Staryu’s trophy description I realised it mentioned its Camouflage move, so I also had to teach it that before it was complete.

Pokemon: Venusaur.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard, Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Earthquake, Razor Leaf, Poison Powder, Solar Beam.

My feelings on it: My favourite of the three Kanto starters, I often tend to gravitate towards the grass type starters and that all started with Bulbasaur. I do remember when I was younger however, of the three final evolutions of the starters I always tended to not like Venusaur too much, often feeling the other two were cooler and more interesting and how they fit more into things like Smash Bros. I eventually changed this opinion however when I realised just what a tank Venusaur was like (I’m talking just as a Pokemon not gameplay-wise) with it being almost like a swiss-army-knife of a Pokemon with vines, razor leaves, a massive laser and being able to cause earthquakes. Of course this is hardly something unique to it and the other two starters can learn various moves beyond just the obvious like breathing fire or shooting water, still it was something I just started to like Venusaur for specifically and helped improve my initial lower opinion of it.  Related to my earlier story for Blastoise, of the three of us I ended up getting the Venusaur card, although sadly I eventually lost it, or it’s been put away somewhere and I just haven’t found it to this day.

How I caught it: The same as I said in my entry for Blastoise, I simply transferred over a Bulbasaur before restarting the game to pick another starter.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Venusaur has had a fairly varied history in Smash Bros, and due to this it has had a few moves over the years. The first appearance was as a stage hazard in Saffron City in the original Smash Bros. For this appearance Venusaur would appear from a door on the rooftop and fire razor leaves, meaning this was the obvious attack to teach it. Venusaur’s appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon was different with it appearing and causing an earthquake, this would have been fairly simple but as it was, when I transferred and raised Venusaur in Ultra Moon I realised the TM to teach it Earthquake was in an area only accessible in the post-game. Due to this I held off for a long time until I was ready to play through the Rainbow Rocket storyline before finally being able to teach it Earthquake. Finally in the spirit battle with Venusaur one of the conditions is a poisoned floor. This is mostly a reference to Venusaur’s poison typing, however I decided it was simple enough to represent this with Poison Powder since it was something that would instantly poison an opponent and a fairly standard move the Bulbasaur line can learn. Being a starter Venusaur was already in a regular Pokeball. The only other thing which I forgot at first was that Mega Venusaur appears as a trophy in Smash, so due to this I need to get my Venusaur a Venusaurite Mega Stone similarly to Blastoise, however as I cannot take a screenshot of Mega Venusaur I thought similarly to Mega Blastoise there was no need to rush into getting that. Of course, after saying that there was one other thing I forgot which was if Venusaur’s Trophy Description mentioned any other moves and it did, Solar Beam. Luckily Venusaur already knew that so I didn’t need to teach it anything more.

Pokemon: Zapdos.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Background Pokemon, Spirit Battle, Trophy.

Moves: Thundershock, Light Screen, Thunder, Drill Peck.

My feelings on it: Zapdos is probably my second favourite of the legendary birds. Part of that is partially because I tend to like electric types and therefore prefer it to the other birds typings, however it’s also helped by its design which is odd but also stands out. Probably the most prominent thing I always think about with Zapdos, besides its spiky feathers is its beak. The beak always makes me think of Drill Peck, probably more than the actual electric attacks it can use, it just looks like something you really wouldn’t want to have swooping at you. It’s appearance in the Power Plant is definitely better than Moltres location, but I feel it’s not as ‘mysterious’ as Articuno’s location, if anything it makes me think more of looking in some old shed and having some old bird that’s been nesting there attack you than tracking down a legendary creature.

How I caught it: The same as the other two birds I caught it with a regular Pokeball which was annoying. I vaguely remember it being a bit more dangerous than the other two to face and with its electric typing it wouldn’t take as much damage from my Pikachu as those two would.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I caught it in a Pokeball and it knew Thundershock when caught which was fairly simple. Like with the other two Legendary Birds it shares a spirit battle with, it too has a defensive move represented with the Franklin Badge, in Zapdos’s case Light Screen which I therefore also taught it. I originally had Fly for its moveset due to its appearance in the background of Lumiose City flying around, however, when reading its Trophy descriptions I came to realise there were two attacks mentioned I had not taught Zapdos, the first was Thunder and the second was Drill Peck. Luckily Zapdos knew Drill Peck already and Thunder was a simple enough TM to use so it did not need too much more work.

Credits.

For information on this game I used to research relating to attributes such as movesets etc for Pokemon I must give credit to Bulbapedia, Serebii and SmashWiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Photo Club feature in Pokemon Ultra Moon, screenshots using Nintendo Switch in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Trophy Images taken from SmashWiki.

[benkipo]

12/22 Terrarium Plot Twist

Spent the first part of my day getting my newly caught Finizen to be battle ready. Which involves ev training and evolving it of course! Went around the terrarium catching and exploring while I was at it too. I gotta say the environment design for the terrarium is pretty cool. I don’t love block aesthetic but the tunnels are so windy and so cool! All the nature just has a really interesting and cool flow to it all. Finally got Finn all caught up and she looks great on the team!

I head over to Drayton’s arena to begin the challenge. Love my team and I’m so ready to finally kick some Elite 4 butt! Drayton comes over and welcomes us and even pays out entry fee. What a homie!

He walks me over to the arena to explain his elite trial. It seems like all I gotta do is beat these three trainers. Easy peasy! Oh but wait… a catch… I am to only use Pokemon caught in the terrarium by me… I have 0 Pokemon on my main team that are from this terrarium. So I pretty much had to assemble a new team for this trial… so tedious but actually kind of exciting!

I scour my pc to see all the Pokémon I’ve caught in the terrarium to get the strongest of the bunch. Well at least what I know to be strong. Since I’m not a competitive battler by any means. I end up choosing Whimsicott since I know it’s a tailwind setter which is nice since I want my Pokemon to be fast. I pick up Metagross since it’s the only psuedo I caught in here and psuedos are always strong. I pick up Duraladon since it’s also a decently strong Pokemon. Flygon because I just used one not too long ago in Omega Ruby. I also go with my recently caught shiny Milcery which I will be evolving into Alchremie. I had one more slot. But since I haven’t boosted the Pokémon diversity in the biomes yet, I wanted to do that in case it’d let me get a starter. I chose the Sahara biome since I wanted a fire starter and assumed that’s what it’d give me. And I was kinda right. When you unlock it, it says charmander available now in that biome. So I caught one and made it my final member. All to do now was to train everyone up!

As I trained I realized a few other starters were unlocked but none I’d like to use so it didn’t matter too much. It’s really cool to see them in the wild though! It’s really weird since they’re usually handed to you by the professor in a lab.

Took a hot minute but the team is trained up, natures adjusted, abilities modded, and fired up! It’s funny how it’s just 4 giant monsters and two little fairies! But I love it and hopefully we’re set up to do well against the three! I honestly think this team might be better than my actual team since there’s actually some strategy in my team composition. But we’ll see since like I said, I am no competitive battler.

Overall it is cool how they showed off some strategies you can use via trainer battles in the terrariums and how all the battles are doubles. It’s a great introduction to competitive and something they should keep up in the future!

Hopefully tomorrow I can finally take on Drayton!

[crystalelemental]

Alright, I beat the first boss...thing.  Pretty sure that fight is scripted.  The game is generally fun, though I feel like...let me organize this a bit.

When I heard about the game, it was of course referenced as sort of the Pokemon But Not style.  You collect your little beasties, level them up, teach them new moves, and do your whole whatever.  The approach, however, was described as being more tactical.  I am early, that could still be the case.  But.

I am not a huge fan of AP systems broadly.  I’m just not a huge fan of the concept of “save up the AP by doing nothing for a bit then fire off the big attacks.”  The “doing nothing” being a basic attack is at least something, but I feel like this decision just drags out encounters.  My Sirenade has an AoE attack that can pretty reliably clear opponents, but I can’t use it until a turn has passed because of the AP system.  Which is never great when you’re coming in feeling jaded about it after only half an hour playing.

That said, it does simplify opening turns as buff turns.  1AP buff actions perfectly set you up for the 3AP big attacks, which at least a nice even flow.  I imagine it grows more complex as you go, but it’s not too bad.

Where it gets a bit irritating is the recording process.  This was another aspect that sold me: yeah, if you’re recording, you can’t knock out the thing you’re catching by accident like in Pokemon!  Which is nice.  You know, except for the part where the only reliable means of achieving a guaranteed recording thus far has been knocking them to 0HP, and that I imagine harder enemy encounters will absolutely not have a 100% capture rate at 0HP.  And at 0HP, they will run from you.  Which, frankly, seems worse?  This is pre-emptive though, I haven’t directly run into this.  I thought I did with the fire dog, but it turned out to have a slight bit of HP left.

Type matchups are interesting.  I was able to identify one, in that Wind is strong against Fire.  Apparently, the result is that it lowers the offenses of the Fire type because it blows away the flames, in addition to the damage boost?  I had heard about the more complex interactive effects of type matchup, but so far this is the only one I know.  I’ve found Beast, Fire, Poison, Plastic, and Wind types, and so far only have one.  In part I think it’s because I’m hesitant to swap things around too much.  I don’t have a great reason for this, it shares EXP with your whole party, and damage is high enough that it’s honestly a good idea to switch around.  I’m just like this.

You have an extra human party member that controls a second beast at the same time, and I imagine there will be a big focus on combination attacks in the near future.  There’s also fusion.  Which is a neat angle, and seems hilariously overpowered at present.  I’ll have to mess with that one going forward.

Another thing I haven’t done yet is adjust stats.  Your human characters have stats that influence the effectiveness of your beast forms, and you can train your human character’s stats to augment the beast’s.  Which is a pretty neat idea.  I’m interested in where that goes.

The last big difference I can think of is limited healing items.  They only let you have five HP restoring items, and one revive at a time.  You can only have five of each type of status healing item.  But at the same time, you can only swap your party around while resting, which means you can’t just trade out a weakened party for one at full strength.  I kinda like the adjustments, I just wish it didn’t auto-send new recorded beasts to your storage and at least offered to swap them with something in the party first.

As for story and tone, it’s...fine.  I don’t have any particularly strong feelings about anything going on.  The only thing I don’t really like so far is the tendency for a lot of descriptions to be a little...I don’t know the word I want to use here.  They’ll often talk about things as seeming friend except for [circumstance], which is basically all the time.  Or how they’re cute until they decide to [inane action] at something, which is anything and everything.  Like just the repetitive use of certain phrases of tone that seem a bit...weird to me?  I’ll be honest, my gut wants to call it banter, but I’m not sure if that’s the right word.  Maybe the vibe will come to me later.

I’ll keep playing, but we have some friends coming in for the long weekend so progress may be slow.  I’ll update when things happen.

Oh, and I picked the sheep.  The candy devil’s not bad, but it’s not as cute as the sheep.

...actually I lied one more thing.  The monster designs are so far solidly fine.  I hate none of them, but I love none of them.  Nothing has solidly won me over yet on that front.

[saal-school-project]

Part 3

7th grade (2018-2019)

7th grade was the best. It probably wasn't that good, and I remember it with rose-tinted glasses, but I remember actually being happy and actually liking school. insane, I know. I had a really tight-knit friend group. I had a best friend who best friended me back. I loved math and I was good at it too (what a plot twist!). I worked out and ate healthy (well kinda, it was healthy compared to now). I had to get glasses because I messed up my eyesight just the summer before by playing so many video games and writing a lot, but I didn't mind. I still kept journals. My ramblings were still in Turkish but now sandwiched between lists of new English words I came across on the internet every day. I started using a pen some of the time instead of a pencil to write (That might seem like a really unnecessary detail, but over time I came to hate the feel of pencil on paper). My notebooks are much bigger now.

Oh, okay, I remember really wanting a Nintendo 3DS (handheld gaming console) to play Ocarina of Time (it's exclusive to the 3DS; well, thats the remaster version; the original is a N64 game). Now you don't have to own a 3DS to play Ocarina of Time; actually, just use an emulator. Tell that to my 7th grade self. I actually wanted to buy a Nintendo Switch and play Breath of the Wild, but that was too expensive in my mind, so I decided to go for a 3DS to satiate my longing. Gosh, I made a cardboard version of a 2DS, and I made it at school during the art lesson.

The thing is, Nintendo consoles really aren't popular in Turkey. PlayStation is, Xbox is, but Nintendo? Nope. That made things harder for me. First of all, there is no regional pricing; they sell the games dollarized, and the Turkish lira was losing its value against the dollar even back then. Well, to be honest, Playstation doesn't have regional pricing either, but since Playstation is widespread in Turkey, you can buy games secondhand for cheaper, which is not the case for Nintendo at all! Anyway, my mom had a friend living in the United States, so he bought one for me and sent it with international cargo. I had the intention to pay, so I picked one of the older models so it would be cheaper, but then he just gifted it to me. Not gonna lie, I wished I picked a better model.

Me playing pokemon x on my link edition 2ds. I put stikers on it.

Oh, remember how I mentioned that I wanted to make a game too? Well, during 7th grade, I designed some characters! It was very Hollow Knight and Undertale influenced. I want to make a platformer with 2D animation like Hollow Knight, but I also want it to be story-driven with fleshed-out characters like Undertale. It would be a weird combination. I haven't played that many different types of games yet, so I didn't know that there was a much better format for the game I was envisioning. I am sure I knew of visual novels back then, but I didn’t know of their potential yet.

I made quite a few designs, but I was only satisfied with three of them. I'm not going to show any of my designs here, but maybe one day.

Anyway, aside from me picking up a 2DS in 7th grade, the summer was uneventful. No wait, I also bought a drawing tablet for my laptop to make animations because I like animation!

Again this is a really cheap and small one, it’s kinda hard to draw on it.  I recently formatted my PC, so most of the animation is gone now. (ignore my dusty keyboard)

Overall the 7th grade’s summer wasn’t that bad; I got new games to play on Steam too, but it definitely wasn't a blast like the last summer. A bit disappointing, to be honest. and the summer eventually ended.