#and the pokémon hate it or something?? as their excuse for why they removed it. i have no idea if that's true or not i think it's something

[front-facing-pokemon]

[ask-the-royal-absol]

*Destino noticed Felix rushing over to them.*

Destino: You see what I mean about all of these Pokémon being weird? What did I do wrong?

*Felix was angry. Angry with himself. Angry that he didn’t stop Destino when he could see that they were going to insult the large Pokémon. Angry that he tried to make excuses for them. Also angry at Destino for not taking this situation with the seriousness it deserved*

Felix: Destino. I ain’t laughin’ at this.

*Destino could see their friend was trying to be serious with them. Oh great. Destino hated when Felix tried this. Hopefully the ghost type didn’t go full therapy mode on them.*

Destino: Of course not. I wouldn’t laugh either if I were dead. Then again, I wouldn’t be able to make a sound at all. You know, with the whole being dead thing.

*Before Felix could speak, Destino put their claw over the ghost type’s mouth.*

Destino: Shhh, I’m not done yet. You know it’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re about to speak. I just don’t see why you’re so worried, buddy. I’m not dead. Everything is fine. I’m sure I would have been able to charm that large Pokémon some more to get her to release me. This isn’t the first time I’ve-

Destino: Of course it’s not my first time. The first time was with this other weird-looking Pokémon. Ky-something-or-other. I almost drowned but I survived. I’m fine. Came out of it wet but it dried fairly quickly. Though, I don’t know how I’m gonna get this gunk out of my fur. Nasty saliva stuff.

*Felix sighed. Why didn’t Destino tell him about the first time? He knew Destino didn’t tell him about every little detail in their life but they told him most things. Felix knew he needed to make things clear with Destino. Put it into words Destino would respond to.*

Felix: I guarantee they ain’t filthier than what’s currently on ya face. *Felix takes his hands away and Destino glances at their fur again, disgusted look on their face.*

Destino: Perhaps I’ll need to be excused for an hour or so to remove this slime. Could you go and check on the prisoner downstairs? Interrogate her or something. Find out more about her before I go up there with her.

Felix: Of course. Take ya time. Perhaps don’t sing too loudly this time. I doubt you’d want everyone else ta hear ya.

Destino: Felix, you know everyone would want to hear my gorgeous voice. It would fill their ears with delight. I’m gonna sing extra loud just for them.

Felix: Alright pal. Good luck with that.

*Destino leaves to give their fur a good wash. You can definitely hear a voice singing through the stony walls and it’s actually surprisingly good. Destino can definitely hit those notes. Looks like that’s the only thing Destino seems to be good at. Felix heads down towards the dungeons to see Hope.*

*Destino is currently unavailable for asks.*

[peskygirl13]

TWST Pokemon AU Part 3: Octavinelle

This post was probably my favorite to write.

Part 2 can be found here.

And other posts can be found here

Azul: 

“How can something so tiny have so much energy?!”

Azul didn’t hate your partner, per say, but he didn’t exactly like it either.

Your Totodile was constantly on your head. Azul assumed it was because it just liked to be carried or something like that.

He wasn’t wrong, but there was more to it.

When you started working at the Mostro Lounge, your uniform included a fedora like the tweels’ and Azul’s.

You told Azul that you couldn’t wear it.

“But it’s mandatory.” He responded.

You said it was because Totodile was on your head.

“Just take it off!” He responded, getting a bit fed up with your ‘excuses.’

You looked him straight in the eye.

“If you can get him off me, you don’t have to pay me for a week.”

Azul was taken aback by your sudden seriousness, but an opportunity to keep money was an opportunity he couldn’t miss.

Grabbing Totodile with both hands, he started to pull.

Nothing.

He pulled harder.

Still nothing.

Getting annoyed, he pulled with all his strength.

He quickly learned why your Totodile was nicknamed ‘Jaws.’

Totodile was removed from your head, but it quickly locked its jaw around Azul’s hand instead.

Jade and Floyd entered his office when they heard Azul’s scream, but they didn’t expect to see their friend flailing his arm around like a person drowning, a tiny blue alligator at the end of it instead of his hand, and you leaning against Azul’s desk with a seemingly indifferent look on your face.

After some hysterical laughter and some threats from the octomer, Floyd grabbed Totodile while Jade grabbed Azul and both twins pulled, trying to separate the two.

Even Floyd was having a hard time against Totodile’s grip. Azul was letting out endless ‘ows’ as he and Jade pulled.

Totodile then released Azul’s hand, making both parties fall back.

He then waddled over to you.

Azul watched, stunned, as Totodile climbed up your leg and torso before resting back on your head.

It gathered a tuft of hair together before clamping its jaws down on it.

So that’s why you couldn’t get Totodile off your head. You try to pull it off, you risk your hair getting pulled out.

Floyd, annoyed and moody that he had lost against Totodile, decided to try his luck and pull Totodile off your head.

Big fat zero.

Jade tried next.

Goose egg.

All three tried at the same time.

Impressive, but nothing.

You sat there with a straight face the whole time, clearly showing that this was nothing new to you.

Eventually, they had to give up because the lounge had been open for an hour and the employees really needed their bosses helping them instead of trying to pull a tiny blue alligator off of someone’s head.

Azul caved and allowed Totodile to stay on your head for the shift.

Floyd, however, still sees this as a challenge and swears that he will one day get Totodile off your head, even it he has to rip out your hair.

Jade:

“Oya~ Oya~ Aren’t you a cute little coral.”

Your poor Corsola was terrified of the tweels.

You don’t really know why, but you think that they remind her of a Mareanie.

Maybe it was the sharp teeth?

Whatever the reason, your poor Pokémon refused to be anywhere near the tweels unless you were present.

Which was a bit of a problem considering her best source of water was the Octavinelle dorm.

Eventually Corsola relaxed enough to be in the Octavinelle dorm while you worked there part time.

She was actually a popular attraction.

Several people came to the lounge just to catch a glimpse of her swimming around.

(Azul obviously capitalized on this.)

Unfortunately, she was still scared of Jade and Floyd.

Which caused some slight problems for you since you happened to have a small crush on the former twin.

But, your Pokémon’s comfort came first.

One day, while you were working at the Mostro Lounge, Corsola got bored and left the water without anyone noticing and decided to wander around the dorm.

While wandering down the halls, she found a door cracked open just a smidge. Curiosity getting the better of her, she pushed it open and walked in.

She was met with two beds, one extremely messy and the other clean and pristine. 

Completely ignoring the destroyed bed, Corsola made her way to the neat one.

Climbing on without too much trouble, Corsola focused on the shelves beside the bed, Or, rather, what was on them.

The shelves held intricately decorated terrariums that reminded of the oceans that it used to swim in back in Alola.

She was so focused on the terrariums, what she didn’t notice someone else enter.

“Oya~ oya~ What do we have here?~”

Letting out a small shriek, Corsola turned around to see Jade standing at the doorway.

“Do you like my terrariums?” 

Jade walked towards her, but stopped short when Corsola assumed a defensive stance, making him frown.

Though he never really showed it, it bothered him that your Corsola was scared of him, especially since he knew that if Corsola was uncomfortable then you were uncomfortable.

Jade watched Corsola’s stance. It reminded him of prey he used to corner back in the ocean. Is that how Corsola felt around him? Like prey?

He remembered you telling him that you believed he and his brother reminded Corsola of a Pokémon that hunted them, so how does he seem less like that Pokémon?

He then took into consideration his earring. 

The earrings that he and his brother wore were made from the scales of a sturgeon that they defeated before entering middle school. Maybe that intimidated Corsola.

Jade slowly took off his earring, as to not startle Corsola, and placed it on his desk before bringing out an empty glass jar and beginning to decorate the inside of it.

After a bit, Corsola relaxed. She didn’t move from her spot on the bed, but did watch Jade as he worked on his new terrarium until your shift was finished. 

Eventually this became routine. Every time you worked at the Mostro Lounge, Corsola was hang out in Jade’s room, admiring his terrariums, or watch him make a new one.

This continued on until one day, Jade entered his room and found one of Corsola’s branches inside one of his terrariums.

He recalled you telling him that Corsola’s branches broke off naturally and a Corsola giving you one of its broken branches was a sign of trust.

Jade smiled as he admired the pink and blue branch, knowing that he was making excellent progress.

Floyd:

“Nee~ Shrimpy has two seals~”

Truthfully, your Popplio didn’t like Floyd all that much in the beginning.

Their first interaction was him saying how much he wanted to squeeze the ‘cute little seal,’ scaring your poor baby half to death.

It wasn’t until you made the deal with Azul to get the picture from the Atlantica Museum that Popplio started to warm up to him.

You were under the ocean with the idiot trio (Ace, Deuce, and Grim) and Jack when you ran into Jade and Floyd in their eel forms, and they started to attack you.

Quick to defend you, using its aqua jet attack on the closest twin, which happened to be Floyd.

“Nee~ Shrimpy’s little seal is strong~ I wanna play with it~”

After that, most of the fight consisted of Floyd chasing Popplio around the ocean up until you retreated.

After Azul’s overblot, he allowed you to let Popplio swim in the water that surrounded the dorm since the poor thing was getting sick of just swimming around in the school’s fountain.

Once Floyd found out, he joined Popplio in his eel form.

At first, Popplio was disturbed by this, still slightly scared of the eel, but as time moved one, it started to enjoy playing with Floyd in the water.

The two race often, Floyd wanting to find out whose fastest. It usually ends up in a draw.

Once he finds out that Popplio can make a balloon big enough for you to get in walk around in, he pesters you to join them.

Once you start dating, most of your dates consist with you walking around the ocean floor in a balloon with Popplio and Floyd swimming around you.

[samsonet]

Power Trip

In which Piers is an actual bad guy and does actual bad guy-things.

*

Obstruct is a dark-type move. It’s unique among dark-type moves in that it is a straightforward block. In fact, it works remarkably like the move King’s Shield. But while Aegislash is the partner of kings, Obstagoon have traditionally been seen with traitors and outcasts.

Piers made his peace long ago with being the outcast of the league. They get a heel, and he gets a nice paycheck and a region-wide audience. He’s always been more comfortable as an outsider anyway. After all, he’s from Spikemuth.

The crowd roars when Leon’s Aegislash protects itself. They jeer when Obstagoon does the same.

Not like it matters, anyway. Of course Leon wins.

The champion grins as they shake hands, praising Piers on training his Pokémon so well. There’s no use returning the compliment. He gives a strained smile and waves dismissively to the cameras as he walks off the pitch.

“Leader Piers! Why didn’t you Dynamax when Leon did?”

“Do you think your unusual battle style caused your defeat today?”

“Can you tell us about the album you’re currently working on?”

He doesn’t answer any of them. He doesn’t have to; his contract is very clear that he is only obligated to talk to reporters at press events, and only if he’s been given twenty-four hours’ notice that there will be a press event. Besides, the questions they’re asking now will just have the same answers he’s given before. He hates repeating himself.

*

Aura Wheel is a dark-type move. Or it is half the time, anyway. It’s funny. While the dark type is mostly defined by pragmatic actions, it is also associated with, well, darkness. There’s no “light” type, but if there was one, it would be electric.

Piers congratulates himself again on choosing the perfect partner for his sister.

He wants Marnie to shine. He may be biased, but he thinks she's the most amazing person on earth. She’s a good person, better than he is, and she’s a good battler, better than he is. If anyone deserves to be champion, it’s her.

But success in the league takes more than talent. It takes a willingness to follow the league’s standards, it takes well-faked enthusiasm, it takes marketability.

So Piers is more than willing to use his influence to give her an edge.

He starts with his gym trainers’ admiration of Marnie, encouraging them to cheer for her at her matches. He gives them a name: Team Yell. Soon there are others joining the fan club. Nobody complains about his directions.

Fandom is part of the spectacle of the league. Piers is the leader of Team Yell, but officially, he’s not responsible for any mild mischief a fan gets up to. He doesn’t even direct them to do much. At least, he doesn’t direct the grunts. His gym trainers, yeah, they do the important stuff.

Rose is up to something. It’s big — Piers knows this because every project the chairman takes on is. It’s shady — Piers knows this because it’s not like the man to keep his projects quiet.

He sends Team Yell around the region and does some investigating himself. Nobody questions why Piers is suddenly showing up to league meetings; they’re just happy that he is. He comes to Rose Tower when he’s invited, and he stays even after the meetings are over. He walks through the lesser-used stairways, down the closed-to-the-public halls.

That’s when he hears the name Eternatus.

Luckily for him, Macro Cosmos’ grunts don’t seem to realize the importance of secrets. From scattered conversations he figures out that there’s a great big something in Hammerlocke, under the energy plant. It’s not league-approved, but then Rose is perhaps the only man in Galar more powerful than the league.

If Piers is smart, he can find a way to use this.

So he starts spending more time in Hammerlocke. It’s fun, actually; he and Raihan are friends, and they’ve managed to make a lot of progress on their DnD campaign. They even train together sometimes, making use of Raihan’s 24/7 access to the stadium.

Being a specialist means knowing when to taunt and when to flatter.

* He’s hanging out with Raihan when the latter says, “Wanna see something?”

Of course.

Raihan slides his key card by the elevator and takes him to the bottom floor.

The basement smells of gasoline. There’s a large orb in the center of the room; this, Raihan tells him, is Eternatus. See the tubes here? That’s where Rose is going to store the energy of the Pokemon. See this gadget here, only a couple inches bigger than Raihan’s hand? It’s Rose’s plan B, meant to control the beast if it gets out of hand.

Raihan starts his explanation calmly, but as he goes into detail, a touch of hysteria enters his voice.

“All this… It’s scary, right? This thing is so powerful and we’re depending on a piece of metal to control it. Literally nobody else seems to have a problem with it. That’s weird, isn’t it? Or is it weird that I’m terrified?”

“Not weird at all, mate. I’ll admit it’s giving me the creeps, too,” he says. But his eyes are drawn to that blinking piece of metal on the table.

The control switch. Something that would reverse the power of the wishing stars and calm the monster down.

It’s not that he thinks his little sister can’t beat Leon legitimately. She definitely can. But he taught her to use dark-types, and dark-types don’t play fair if they can help it.

When Raihan’s back is turned, Piers snatches up the switch and slides it in his sleeve. It fits comfortably between his wrist and elbow. If he curls his fingers just so, he can hold it in place without being obvious.

Sorry, Leon, he thinks. It’s nothing personal.

Thief is a dark-type move, too.

*

Piers meets Leon’s brother soon after. The kid is bright, and he definitely has talent of his own. He does tend to overthink things, but Piers has seen worse flaws. The Yell grunts say that this kid made Marnie smile within five minutes of meeting her. Anyone who can do that has earned some respect in Spikemuth.

“Good job, kid. You’ve got style.”

Hop beams. “Thanks! See you later!”

Leon’s other endorsee? Well, she exists. She arrives, she wins, she leaves. Real quiet, that one.

He doesn’t see them again until the night of the semifinals, when Marnie comes to him in her version of a panic. Her friends (friends!) Gloria and Hop were waiting for Leon to meet with them, but he never showed. They’re worried. Marnie’s worried. Piers is not. He suspects he knows where Leon is, and why.

(Rose loves his speeches.)

He sends the kids on a fool’s errand with the excuse of distracting the Macro Cosmos trainers. While they’re gone, he heads up the tower himself. All it takes is a few psychic commands from Malamar to get a lift key and remove distractions.

On the top floor, Piers makes his presence known. “Hey.”

That gets Rose to shut up. Hard to monologue when there are witnesses, hm?

“Yer brother’s waitin’ for ya. You’d better go get him that dinner you promised.” He gives Rose a steady glare. “Unless I’m interruptin’ somethin’?”

The chairman smiles. “It’s alright. Leon, think about what I said.”

For most of the elevator ride down, Leon is quiet. Then he says, “Thanks for rescuing me. You’re a good friend, Piers.”

“Don’t say that. I’ve got a reputation t’ uphold.”

*

As expected, Rose’s plan goes horribly wrong. The safeguards fail; Leon is called to Hammerlocke; all of Galar gets to see just what kind of men their chairman and champion are.

Marnie’s friends try to leave the stadium. Hop is determined to help Lee, apparently, even though Leon is the unbeatable champion and Hop has nowhere near the experience or raw strength his brother does.

Piers knows he’s a bastard, but he isn’t going to let Marnie’s friends get themselves killed on a hopeless mission.

“You can’t just run off to Leon an’ leave me all alone. I’m bored. Do me a favor an’ keep me company here, yeah?”

“No!” Hop cries. “Lee needs us! We won’t let you stand in our way!”

It’s heartwarming that Hop wants to rescue his brother. Piers is sympathetic, even.

But he will not allow these kids to interfere.

“Then I think I’ll invite Team Yell along, and we'll have ourselves a bit of fun, shall we?”

[sage-nebula]

Scrawlers you’re not gonna leave the fandom are you? I know a lot of people who are dropping Pokemon altogether because of this National Dex fiasco, which is really upsetting. Personally even though Pokemon’s main games have been in a slump lately I always stick with this franchise in the hopes that things will turn around but I know not everyone is that optimistic. I’d hate to see you leave because your passion for these games something I’ve always loved but it’s your choice in the end.

Your timing for this ask is spot-on because I was just about to make a post about it, haha.

Short Answer: No, I’m not going to leave the fandom.

Longer Answer:

Pokémon is not just a fandom for me. I usually express this through two separate jokes (“Pokémon is a way of life” and “Pokémon is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter”), but I honestly mean it in all seriousness. I have loved Pokémon for 21 years. Pokémon helped me overcome bullying (though my fists also did that) and make my first friends (my fists weren’t involved here) in elementary school. Pokémon was my go-to escapist fantasy during the hellish life I had in my childhood and adolescence due to parental abuse at home. I bred my arcanine so that my platonic soulmate would have a way to still be with me even after her death. Of course the arcanine is not the same as having the real, breathing dog, but it’s the best I can do with what I have. The original Pokémon overture brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. It’s the one fictional world I would want to live in, without hesitation.

That isn’t something I can let go of, or leave behind. Pokémon is way too special to me for that. It’s not something that I could replace with another monster series (hence why things like Yo-Kai Watch hold no appeal to me), or another game series. The idea of dropping the Pokémon games forever from here on out is painful to me. I pass on lesser Zelda titles all the time if they don’t look like they’ll be fun or interesting. I do the same thing with lesser Sonic titles. But Pokémon? The fact that the Let’s Go games were main series games that were such trash and that threatened in ruining the main series forever (which it seems they’ve succeeded in doing since no one listened and everyone bought them new anyway) upset me deeply. For the first time since 1998 I didn’t buy a main series Pokémon game. Sure, I saved $60, but it really, really hurt and upset me that I couldn’t be excited at the launch of a new main series Pokémon title. To be fair, I wasn’t excited for Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon either, but I still bought and completed Ultra Sun because at least it didn’t carry the threat that if it sold well the rest of the franchise would be negatively impacted. Let’s Go Pikachu / Let’s Go Eevee did carry that threat, and have now made good on that threat, and so I skipped them to do my part to try to save the franchise that I have loved with all my heart since I was eight years old.

But I alone wasn’t enough.

Masuda Junichi has given several different reasons why the National Dex won’t be in Sword / Shield, but every single one of them is nonsense. 

“We don’t have time,” he says, but not only would no one mind if the games were delayed if it meant making them better, but they could always patch in non-Galar pokémon later, and everyone would be fine with that since Home won’t be released until some time in 2020 anyway. 

“We’re making all the models unique and over 800 is too many,” he says, but:

Scorbunny’s kicking animation is the exact same as Buneary’s (pretty sure it was Buneary; maybe it was Bunnelby, but still)

The models they created for X / Y were future-proofed, meaning that they were already fully rendered 3D models that just weren’t being shown in the highest possible resolution on 3DS. They don’t have to remake models for all the old ‘mon, just the new ones.

They have walking / running animations for every single pokémon through Alola that they just haven’t used, meaning that so much of the work is already completed.

They could just upscale pokémon for Gigamaxing, and could have done the same for the Totem Pokémon in Sun / Moon, but apparently they don’t know how to do what is honestly a rather simple thing to code because they chose instead to make brand new models for the Totem Pokémon and likely the Gigamax one, and also created brand new models for NPCs for completely unnecessary reasons (e.g. they made a brand new Lillie model for every area she appeared in, which bloated the amount of models in the game for no goddamn reason), something which was found in the Sun / Moon datamine. If there is a lot of work to be done, it’s because Game Freak is purposefully choosing to work harder, rather than smarter. All this, despite the fact that they hired a programmer specifically for consoles about two years ago.

“We care about game balancing,” he says, but not only has Masuda in particular been adamant about killing off the competitive scene (removing things like the Battle Frontier because he thinks players will find it to be “too hard,” removing EV training from Let’s Go, and so on), but the only reason why having certain old pokémon in the game would throw off game balancing worse than in previous gens is because the Galar pokémon have stats that are just that bad, which spells bad things for competitive play in these games anyway. These games which, mind you, were supposed to be for us, the core players.

“We want to stick to a regional theme and will pick pokémon that apply to the widest base of players,” he says, meaning that only popular ‘mon and Pikachu are likely to make the cut.

“Having 800+ ‘mon is very intimidating to players,” he says, which is what ties the blame back to Let’s Go and its sales. Let’s Go only had the Kanto ‘dex (+Meltan) because they didn’t want Go players to be intimidated by the large amount of pokémon typically available in a new game. Of course, we all knew this logic was flawed back when that was announced: If Go players would be intimidated by the national ‘dex in Let’s Go, how was limiting it there supposed to help them get used to it in Sword / Shield? Well, now we have our answer: Masuda never intended to give it back to us. He always wanted to limit it, because he doesn’t want the core players to play the games anymore. He only wants the Go fans to play.

Here’s the thing: The majority of my One True Team™ is already confirmed to be in the Galar ‘dex. Charizard, Arcanine, Espeon, Umbreon, Mimikyu, Kanto Raichu, and most likely Lapras are all going to be in. (I say most likely, because a Lapras regional evolution was in the leak that has been spot-on about things such as Nessa and Gigamaxing so far, so I would be very surprised if Lapras wasn’t in.) The only ones who are still up in the air for me are Furret and Midday Lycanroc. So the issue here is not what I personally am able to bring over. The issue is the principle of the matter.

See, here’s the thing: I’m lucky because most of my One True Team™ are pokémon that most everyone likes. Everyone loves Charizard. Everyone loves the eeveelutions. Mimikyu was a surprise hit. Arcanine, while less loved than Ninetales, is tied to some cool east Asian mythology and so is unlikely to be cut, and so on. But not everyone is in the same position I’m in. My best friend’s favorite pokémon is Scolipede. Her second favorite pokémon is Kabutops. How likely do you think it is those two will make it in? And if they don’t make it in Gen VIII, how likely it is do you think they’ll return for Gen IX? 

Every pokémon is someone’s favorite. For everyone that hates Trubbish or Vannilluxe, someone out there loves them. And to say that those people shouldn’t be able to bring the ‘mon they’ve raised for generations over to this new region, even eventually—and to double down and say that every single new generation will be like this from now on—is unacceptable. During the press conference that aired the week before the Pokémon Direct, they said when announcing Home that the purpose was to allow us to stay connected to the ‘mon that we’ve bonded with over generations. They know that there are those of us out there who have brought pokémon up ever since the Game Boy generations, and they want us to continue journeying with them. They made it sound as if we could use Home to transfer our pokémon to Sword / Shield, and now they’ve yanked that away from us. They’ve gone back on their word. They lied not only to their fans, but to their stakeholders, during that press conference, and if you were watching Nintendo’s stock around the time the Treehouse video was airing live, their stocks took a dive as a direct result.

And while this is the thing I’m most angry about, it isn’t even the only thing. They also announced during the Treehouse that they’re not only removing the National Dex, but that they’re also removing Mega Evolution in favor of Gigamaxing. This one actually does impact me directly, because I bred and raised my Charizard around the fact that I would Mega Evolve her into Mega Charizard X. I painstakingly hatched hundreds of Adamant Charmander. I EV trained her so that her stats would be perfect. I gave her a moveset built around ‘Zard X. And now, even if I can bring her over to Galar, I won’t be able to Mega Evolve her because the Key Stone and Charizardite simply won’t be available in the game. This, despite the fact that they have the assets for it thanks to Let’s Go. There is absolutely no reason to remove Mega Evolution when Mega Evolution’s assets are already available in a game on this system. There is no excuse. They’re just doing it anyway, because they want everyone to focus on their shiny new mechanic, and demonizing Mega Evolution apparently didn’t do a good enough job of that in Gen VII. (That said, they’re also removing Z-Moves, so apparently they weren’t too attached to those either.)

I just … I can’t support this. I cannot support any of this. It kills me. I feel incredibly conflicted, because there is a lot in Sword / Shield that I still am excited for. I love a lot of the new pokémon, such as Corviknight, Zacian, and Yamper. I like several of the new trainers we’ve seen. I think the region looks gorgeous. But I don’t want to give Game Freak and Nintendo money for any of this, because that will make them think that what they’re doing is a good idea. Just like with Let’s Go, where Masuda said that if those games sold well they would shape the next twenty years of the franchise (which they did, and they are), I don’t want to reward them for poor decision making.

So I’ve decided to buy Sword used. 

When you buy a game used through Game Stop or a similar store, the store gets every single cent. Nintendo and Game Freak see none of it. I still want to play these games for the features I like. But I do not, and will not, support Game Freak and their asinine decision making. So while I might not be able to get Sword on launch day (though we’ll see; I’ve seen used games in Game Stop on launch day before), I’ll be able to get it soon enough and play it in a way that just doesn’t support Game Freak or what they’re doing. I’m only one person, and as we saw with Let’s Go, my lack of sale isn’t going to be enough to stop the train wreck. But if the severe backlash they’re facing now isn’t enough to do it (last I checked, the Treehouse video had 13k Likes in contrast to 24k dislikes, and angry hashtags about this are trending in both the west and Japan on Twitter), then I want to contribute in any way that I can. I love this series too much to just passively support every bad decision Game Freak makes that lessens not only my enjoyment, but also the enjoyment of so many others.

So no, I’m not leaving. I will always love Pokémon. And if Game Freak and / or Nintendo decide to listen to the backlash and backtrack this decision—say, make a statement saying they’ll patch in all the rest of the pokémon later, and hopefully even give us Mega Evolution back—then I’ll happily go back to buying a new copy of the game on Day 1. But until then, I’m buying used from now on. They don’t deserve my money if they’re going to act like this. And again, I alone won’t make a difference, but if there’s one thing that Pokémon has taught me over the years, it’s that that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

[evajellion]

Jelli’s problems with ORAS

@subbydations said: Which decisions?

Hohohohohohohooooo… *rubs hands together* where do I begin with ORAS?

Firstly, let’s get the obvious out of the way which is removing the Battle Frontier and just copypasting the extremely boring Battle Maison from X/Y, lacking in any sort of interesting challenges that gens 3 and 4 presented. 

GameFreak never patched it in either in spite of having the technology to do so now. Insult to injury is the fact that Anabel made it into Sun/Moon, which makes me theorize they planned designs for BF leaders but just didn’t put them in ORAS.

But that’s just one small thing, I mean, I could let it go if not for all of the other flaws ORAS presents (especially when put next to HG/SS or Emerald)

The Gym Leaders

When ORAS was announced, I figured “oh cool, the gym leaders might all get a buff by using mega evolutions”… and they did not. No, they all have their parties from the original Ruby and Sapphire, some of which, well, let’s face it, are pathetic compared to Emerald.

Wattson just has his Magnetson, no Manectric or Mega Manectric-- y’know, the signature Electric-type of Gen 3? Something that would have been cool and challenging?

Winona doesn’t have a Mega Altaria either, again, stuck with the mediocre party she had in the original R/S, no Tropius in sight. Giving her a Mega Altaria would have been a good challenge because people who come into the gym with electric types would have no idea how to deal with Dragon/Fairy.

And oh boy, how can we forget Tate and Liza? You would think ORAS would have changed something to make them a bit more challenging, but no. You just double battle their Solrock and Lunatone, probably wiping them before they get a chance.

Also, unlike in Emerald or HG/SS… you can’t even rematch the Gym leaders (except for Wallace in the Delta Episode). You just fight them once with their pathetically weak teams, then that’s it, no more from them ever again.

The Elite Four members got the better end of it mostly, but their initial teams are still weak. I also hate Steven’s rematch team. Why does he have Carbink and Aerodactyl? There are plenty of Steel-types, one of which is a fossil Pokémon! Carbink is weak to Steel anyway!

Wally’s party also made me sad. GameFreak didn’t like the idea of a boy trainer having a male Gardevoir I guess, so they forced a Gallade on him prior to getting National Dex or whatever. :\

Legendaries

While I already hated the roaming legendaries (seriously GameFreak, remove these), simply handing over Latios and Latias with their Mega Evolution and zero effort to obtain them was… pretty awful. It makes the entire game pathetically easy from there on out if you do speedrunning. I dunno about you, but I like getting my legendaries through a challenge.

Remember in gens 3, 4, and 5 when certain legendaries, when found, would give you a cool event? Well, ORAS just hands everything to you by flying around on Latios/Latias to certain areas, and you go to dimensional rips and rings created by Hoopa.

I have a feeling Hoopa was just made to create the excuse of randomly dropping Pokémon… I don’t know why they didn’t make a small, new area for each legendary available. FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald did that for Lugia, Ho-Oh, Mew, and Deoxys. Simply recycling assets from the already existing mystery lands from soaring would have worked just fine.

Of course, this is a minor nitpick compared to actual issues I have. I’m glad that Pokémon like Zekrom are in the game at all, but I wish a little more effort was put in.

The Audio

I don’t like the soundtrack ORAS introduced compared to the original gen 3 games. The Champion theme against Steven, in particular, feels neutered of its GBA trumpets.

Honestly, I would be fine with it-- if they programmed in the GB Sounds, an item that was available in HG/SS! Gee, imagine that, an item that lets you play classic sounds if you prefer some of the original, classic soundtracks!

“Jelli they can’t program in old music!” Is what you’re going to say, and I’m going to prove you wrong, because somehow GameFreak managed to copypaste the themes of Lugia, Ho-Oh, Giratina, etc into ORAS… from their original DS sound fonts.

Wanna know what’s even funnier about this? In ORAS, Ho-Oh and Lugia have their themes from HG/SS, but the legendary beasts all have their Pokémon Crystal theme as opposed to the separate ones given in HG/SS. Sure, it’s nostalgic, but it clashes horribly given the others themes being from DS games.

I think if they cropped out all that legendary music (and simply made one song for all of them), they could have fit the GB (or rather GBA) Sounds into ORAS.

“But Jelli, that sounds like it would be too much for the 3DS.”

Definitely not, but if it was, here’s my last point.

The Delta Episode

I hated this, lol. I was fine with the remake up until this point. This was a poor excuse of post-game, it’s basically one big, handheld cutscene where you go from place to place and put up with the most annoying character in the world; Zinnia. (who is an even more obnoxious jerk in the manga if one can believe that)

Honestly, they should have cut this entirely and allowed the players to find Mega Rayquaza on their own so they could use the remaining data to put in the Battle Frontier, GB Sounds, and Gym leader rematches. I don’t play Pokémon to watch a short movie with poor story-telling, sorry.

I know it sounds like I’m being harsh for the sake of shitting on GameFreak but… that’s not true. I’m saying this because I absolutely love Gen 3! It’s my favorite Pokémon generation next to 5 and Hoenn is probably my favorite region. I still go back to Pokémon Emerald sometimes (I recently transferred my shinies to SoulSilver) and just embrace everything.

ORAS… I have not gone back to. It made me feel empty from how unfinished this was. This game didn’t have the love put into it like HG/SS or FR/LG did, and as someone who did want Hoenn remakes, that makes me extremely depressed.

It makes me worry for the people who want Sinnoh remakes, they’re going to be stuck with the Gym leaders having terrible parties like in the original Diamond/Pearl rather than Platinum, with no post-game content.

Sorry if this was a long read and if people don’t agree, again, I’m just super passionate about Gen 3.

[pokenerdart]

I'm tired of Nintendo

I had enough for the last pokemon games and I'm so fucking angry that I bought a switch for this game that I might just not buy it. You know what ? Fuck you Nintendo. Having to pay for everything on a pokemon game is shitty and you're just looking for money. And you just won't admit it.

Before, we could transfer pokemons to a game of the next generation just by finishing the game. Easy. They kept that up until the 5th gen and after that, because ( I quote ) "tHerE Is NO PosSibLE WaY tO TranSFeR PokEmOns frOm Ds To tHe 3dS"

Okay, fine, whatever. So you have to pay to get your parteners through the new games x and y. But sorry, that excuse ISN'T VALID ANYMORE for the 7th gen. If the problem was to pass to the 3DS it's not the case anymore, so already fucked up on that point. But still, with wondertrade and GTS we had a way to get our favourite pokemons.

Now, we have so much bullshit that I can't even be more furious.

The console was super SUPER expensive compared to the other portable consoles from Nintendo ? Ok. I managed to work a hell lot to get enough money to finally buy it. No, not all the parents can afford something like that and especially not the children themselves BUT pokemon is a game mainly made for young people. That's already super dumb but I got through it. It was x1,5 the price of a 3DS when it came out, I mean COME ON.

The games are 20$, which is ALSO x1,5 the last generation's price. And it's a LOT. Pokemon let's go wasn't even that good already, seriously. It was made for pokemon go players, hadn't the same feeling for catching pokemons AT ALL ( you have to catch a lot rather than just catching your own team and that's all, and it's the same for shinies. I don't want to catch 30 vulpix ?! ) and it was more of a pokemon game to scam people who liked go. I refused that my dad bought it just because of that. Also, fuck all this gen 1 propaganda. GenOners are sometimes really annoying but Nintendo keeps encouraging them like hello ?? Other gen exists too ?? We have like a whole crowd of people waiting for a DP remake and that's the 2nd remake of this gen ! Not counting pokemon go that only featured the 1st gen when it was popular.

Pokemons from the 1st generation have a pretty easy to reproduce design and that's why they made pokemon let's go. Between Rayquaza and Mewtwo, guess who's the easiest to make ?

That's why I also HATE the idea of the galar dex. Cuz you know what ? Pokemon will be deleted. And I bet my fucking phone that there will be more gen one than any other gen because it's the favourite. And also, say goodbye to gen 5. The fandom clearly didn't like that gen and pokemons from it will suffer from the galar dex. It was great but since, you know, you couldn't use pokemons from other gens ( like in let's go btw ) people hated it and said everything from it was trash ?? Like oh no, a goofy ice cream with a funny face ! Pokemons weren't trash in my time when I had a purple jelly pokemon that evolved into a bigger purple jelly pokemon. They were creative. So yeah, some gens will suffer more than others

After that we have the lack of animations. I mean COME ON.

"Animation is hard". I make animations, mostly on 2D yes but I studied 3D models. Once you created it you can make animations pretty fast because you just have to move the body, not to redraw anything. That's why there are so many 3D models animations on YouTube made by beginners, once you mastered it you can do pretty much anything.

"It's good for strategy" Well ... Yes and No actually. I studied a bit strategy and the fact that they deleted some pokemons is a good thing for it but not for us, normal players. The fact that they removed animations from pokemon attacking is just ripping us off the battle, they had better animations in gen 4, come on. And the fact that the attacks must be fast for strategy is because official battles now last 20 minutes instead of one hour which is ... Stupid ?? They used this as an argument for a wall they created ???

"creating models is hard". Yes it is. BUT THEY'RE USING GEN 6-7 MODELS. Well, at least they had to redo them but it's just copying and pasting like wtf ??? The animations are the same. Models are just redone. It's basically like tracing someone's art. Yeah it takes time. But you still have a base, it takes a lot less time than the original one and when you're done I don't think you should show it as "extremely hard work". But you know what actually ? THEY DID OTHER MODELS FOR DYNAMAXED POKEMONS. Yes, they used that "precious time you know it's hard and blahblahblah" to have to do TWICE the exact same ponemons. I'm not talking about gigantamax huh, normal dynamax pokemon. So they're whining about the time but did everything twice. Wonderful.

"animating takes time" again you're talking to an artist and an animator. So before you try to give your "knowledge" because you read an article on BuzzFeed, go and try to do it yourself and then we can talk. I'm not saying that I know everything and that I'm a genius or anything but sometimes trying is easier to understand. Are we good ? Alright. I'm used to get hate comments all the time when I talk shit about this and most of the persons telling me wrong hadn't even tried to draw Pikachu before. Now, I just want to ask you, have you ever thought about the time needed for a pokemon game ? Yeah it takes a lot of time, about a few years. But think of it this way : we got the first trailer of the game 3-4 months ago ? Not sure anymore. But the game will be released the same year the first trailer went out and I'm pretty sure it was the same last year with Eevee and Pikachu. I'll take another exemple from the switch : Zelda botw. That game is a masterpiece. First trailer, 2011. Release date, 2017. Do you know what I mean by that ? TAKE YOUR FUCKING TIME. Stop rushing like idiots we won't die if we don't have a pokemon game per year !!

One last thing : the online subscription. You know that you pay WiFi every month ? Now you gotta pay it again for it to work. I get it, maybe people won't use it and all but COME ON. You deleted the 4th and 5th gen GTS. You deleted the dream world. And you're afraid that your online thingy will be not used enough to make money so you make us pay even more ?? Duck you.

Pokémon is the 2nd most money-making licence that ever existed. They stopped making series because they wasn't worth it in terms of money, like pokemon rangers. You're just some lazy People that wants money more and more. And I don't think I can accept that.

[aliloverthetop]

I Just Don’t

Pairings: sorta Logicality and Prinxiety

Based on the drawings by @sanderstribute

Before ceramic came crashing down, Logan was sitting. Which was the action of placing your buttocks on a surface while resting your legs. He was eating a slice of white bread with a thin layer of Crofters on top. Sitting right on a kitchen stool next to the emotional personality trait, Patton. Who was eating a specialty from Australia called Fairy Bread. Why it was called Fairy Bread was an absolute and utter mystery to Logan. But Patton seemed to enjoy it, which was confusing to Logan for it was simply butter spread onto bread with a collection of sprinkles. Patton shoved it down his throat anyway.

Logan took a sip of his bitter coffee as he turned off his tablet and tucked it into his computer bag. Noticing that Patton was getting his sprinkles all over the place and also the arrival of Virgil and Roman. Those two were not showing any form of altruism or intimacy despite being a couple. Bickering like two children, screeching back and forth. Logan looked down at his coffee mug and noticed the letters of the mug vibrating due to the strong increase in sound vibrations.

He placed it down and sighed. Ever since the two were found pressing their lips to each other’s in the bathtub when Patton was trying to remove mud from a kid who hated him for winning a game of hide and seek, Virgil on the bottom and Roman on top of the angsty trait. And ever since, the sound of frequent and rather irritating bickering had been ringing in Logan’s ears like a telephone that couldn’t be turned off.

Logan could only hear brief snippets of the conversation. Which involved them screeching about Virgil not being willing to do something. Logan was actually going to burst into the rules of human right that when Virgil snapped at Roman.

“I don’t dance Roman. I just don’t. Get over it.” Virgil was practically snarling at Roman at this point.

Dancing? This was what their thunderous and deafening back and forth bickering is about? With the volume and the high pitched frequency, it sounded like they were arguing about something more… important. Like bills or the increase in taxes, or even better, Donald Trump. But then dancing? It seemed adequate, a measly reason to be fighting over.

Roman threw his hands up, “Oh come on Virgil! Don’t you ever just want to dance in the middle of the room when no one is watching? Do the elegant art of the flamenco? Or maybe the cha-cha or the tango?”

Virgil facepalmed, “Ro, first things first, I have absolutely no idea what the flamingo is. And second, I’m internally dead and internally dead people do not do the freaking furry-fest. Last, not everyone likes the same dances as you do Disney Reject.”

“Oh excuse me!” Roman said with a whole lot of dramatic flair, the dramatic hand over heart stance, “it. Is. The. Flamenco. And don’t call me that Little Miss Sunshine!” Logan could see his fingers itching to grab ahold of his katana.

Logan rubbed his temple, “Excuse me, but may you two stop blabbering gobbledygook? It is an untimely time to talk about this.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, “Sorry Lo, not-so-sorry Roman. Hey, can you pass me the cereal?”

Logan handed the cereal to Virgil. The angsty trait checked the expiry date and poured a fair amount of cereal in. Patton finally shoved the last piece of fairy bread down his throat. Roman, was getting a mug out of the cabinet by the handle with his katana. It wasn’t strange in this house, for when Roman gets frustrated he uses his katana for everything. Even eating and writing.

Patton made this little cute voice, “Awh… you shadowy bundle of darkness!”

The youngest trait slowly turned around at Patton, “Um.. yeah?”

“Verge, do you know how to dance your Pollywag off?”

Logan looked at Patton, “Pollywag is not a word found in the dictionary.”

“It’s a Pokémon LoLo,” Patton patted Logan’s hair, “anyway, do you know how to dance?”

“Pssh. Of course. Edgily and freaking unsteady like I am.” Virgil poured the milk into his cereal.

“DON’T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT YOURSELF LIKE THAT I-”

Logan slammed a hand over Patton’s mouth, “’-will physically fight you’.”

Patton did the ‘I’m-watching-you’ sign with one of his serious faces. The one with the peace sign pointing to the person’s eyes then the person they were aiming the sign at.

Roman was cutting a piece of toast (with a katana), “If you can dance Virgil, then why don’t you show me?” He let out a sigh.

Virgil spooned the cereal to his mouth. “I just don’t wanna. I have rights as a person.”

“Pardon me, but was exhibiting the art of movement to each other was this bout’s topic?” Logan asked.

“Oh yes. Virgil refuses to show me what he dances like. I already showed my awesome dance moves of-” Roman struck a dramatic pose, “the tango.”

Logan blinked. He was sort of surprised from the random pose that Roman just assumed though he shouldn’t be. He cleared his throat, “Virgil, why did you decide it was your utmost need to commit to a relationship with this vivid man?”

Virgil started laughing, “You spoke my words for me.”

“Hey!” Roman’s face slowly turned red.

“Kiddos, don’t insult Roman like that!” Patton pouts.

Virgil rolls his eyes, “Fine.. hey Pat, can you even dance?”

Patton grins, “Yes! Of course, I can! Gee, but I can’t remember the last time I danced! That was fun!”

“The last time recorded in which you danced was located in the living room, you decided it was the best time to perform when Genius was the program exhibiting on the TV,” Logan responded, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Oh, thanks Lo! I can do the Charleston and the Swing!” Patton grins again. When will this guy’s smile go away? Not ever it seemed.

“Last night, you attempted to do the dance declared as the Backpack Boy dance and it failed miserably like an unfair science experiment.” The logical trait added.

Virgil snorted, “Dang Pat. Didn’t know that.”

Patton laughed it off, “Ah kids these days. You guys don’t even know the Charleston!”

Roman gasped, brandishing his katana in the air. “THAT IS PREPOSTEROUS! I DO KNOW WHAT THE CHARLESTON IS!”

“Alright kiddo. What is it?”

“T-that… OVERWATCH CHARACTER DANCE THING!” Roman yelled again, waving his sword again.

“I think he’s talking about Tracer’s dance emote for the Overwatch Anniversary Event,” Virgil said, nearly done with his cereal.

“I have absolutely no idea who that is!” Patton states excitedly. “But it’s a really energetic dance that I like!”

“It’s also extremely old and danced in the 1920’s, people called ‘flappers’ usually danced it,” Logan said, standing up with his coffee mug in his hand.

“Yay! Logan knows about it!” Patton smiles again, the sentence made Logan blush a bit. “I would definitely show you kiddos, except full belly and if I dance too much my stomach is going to hurt.”

Roman grinned, “Okay, it’s alright. We don’t want you to hurt yourself Padré.”

Virgil chuckled and snorted, “Hey Lo, get the camera. Ro is being sincere for once.”

The royal trait gasped, “Oh excuse me you foul yet kissable changeling! That comment makes me want to chase you around with Mulan in my hands!”

“Oh man…” Virgil was smiling, one of those rare smiles that all of Thomas’s viewers adored. Logan could see him trying (and failing) to stifle his laughter. “You named your katana? Mulan? I never would have imagined that. What’s next Ro-Ro? Your sash?”

“D-Don’t you dare insult Percival you baloney witch!”

“You named your sash too?”

“ARGH! By Medusa’s Gorgons, do I need to cut you down with the mighty powers of Mulan?” Roman growled, raising Mulan into the air.

Patton threw a bunch of sprinkles into the couples’ faces. “Now shut your pollywog! Kiddos, stop fighting!”

Logan rubbed his temple again, “I agree with Patton.”

Roman pouted, “Fine. Hey, Logan may I ask a question?”

“Of course,” Logan replied, in the middle of filling his cup with coffee.

“If I do the magnificent art of the tango, Patton does the Charleston and Virgil does the emo edge lord-”

Virgil threw a plate at Roman, who deflected it with Mulan. The plate landed into the sink with a satisfying 'plunk’.

“-then what dance do you do?”

Logan ’s grip on his coffee mug tightened, his hand shaking in the process. He looked at the faces of the other sides, Virgil had his 'what the hell?’ face directed at his significant other, Patton looked excited and Roman was looking expectantly at Logan with one eyebrow raised. Logan could see the knuckles on his hand turn white. No, no, no. Not now, not ever. The words seemed to stick to his throat.

“As much as I would like some fruitin’-tootin’ answers, you don’t need to tell us, Logan.” Patton said, his face looked concerned.

The words that came out of his throat were pathetic and dumb. He seemed to echo Virgil.

“I do not dance. I just do not. I just don’t.”

In a panic, and in absolute fear, he gripped the handle of the mug even tighter. He did not notice the cracks throughout the ceramic.

“Awh.. sorry to hear that Lo.”

Roman frowned, “What is up with dancing and the sides on the right side of the room? Is there something we don’t know of?”

And with that, the handle of the coffee mug exploded. The ceramic shrapnel went everywhere. This left the rest of the mug in gravity’s hands, where it fell to the floor and shattered in all directions. Logan looked at his hand and noticed quite a large amount of blood on his hand, he touched his face and cursed as he realized there was blood there too. Now the floor was stained with coffee and blood. He took quick notice of the other sides’ faces. Virgil had just pushed the prince off his chair and was stomping on him angrily, cursing his boyfriend while Patton stared at him, shocked. His eyes were wide and his hands were put over his mouth.

He cleared his throat as grabbed his computer bag, “Excuse me, I have matters to attend to.”

With that, Patton watched as Logan faded out of sight.

(Man I love cliffhangers. Lemme tell you a small verse first:

Oh, the puppies are cute,

Jumping around oh so merrily,

Them we can’t loot!

Frick, that escalated quickly.

Make sure to check out the artist above. You guys wanna part two? You’ll probably get one. Love you all! -Heath)

[antialiasis]

Okay, so apparently there’s a whole extra QftL revision I didn’t know about?? I am bamboozled.

Basically, remember how here, I talked about how at some point I’d edited the version of chapter two on the QftL minipage to remove the infodump about Molzapart, and I should really just put it back in? Well, by the time I sighed and decided to go do that, I was going to look on Serebii to copy the original ending of the ILCOE version of the chapter... only to find that the ending was significantly different, not just in that one paragraph. I briefly looked at the YAR (the previous revision) on the QftL site; the paragraphs I was looking at on Serebii appeared to match that. I figured somehow I’d misremembered, the actual ILCOE had removed Molzapart, and I just hadn’t actually updated the chapter in the Serebii thread for some reason.

Except now I was looking at it again and realizing no, that post explicitly references the ILCOE, and was edited at the correct time for the ILCOE. So I actually copy-pasted the chapter to compare it with the YAR, and nope, that wasn’t what it was at all.

So then I went and compared the Serebii version to the version on the site, expecting to find maybe I’d just changed a few more paragraphs at the end while I was at it, and it... actually changed a bunch of things? Not only are there minor wording tweaks throughout, there are some significant changes? Like, this is apparently the actual ILCOE version of how Mark goes and finds the book:

The search computers along with a few shelves of paperbacks with huge titles greeted him, along with the familiar smell of books that Mark had always loved. But he walked right to the elevators, as this book would be on the second floor.

A chubby middle-aged woman wearing what looked disturbingly much like a Sentret fur coat came through the metallic door, eyed Mark like some kind of a big disgusting insect and then walked away with her nose in the air. Mark decided she was a grumpy old snob as he stepped into the lift.

An endless row of Marks stared back at him from the mirrors on the sides. All of them turned to the buttons at the same time and all of them managed to slip their fingers between buttons two and three, accidentally highlighting both as the elevator started ascending.

It stopped on the second floor and a tall, thin man with a suitcase stepped in, but Mark suddenly felt a weird longing to go up to the third floor. First floor was novels, second was Pokémon training and third was Pokémon. He usually did go to the third floor, after all; he was always looking for books he hadn’t read before.

He didn’t want to keep Charmander waiting for too long, but of course he would just go and have a look around and see if there were any new books. It wouldn’t take long.

He went out on the third floor and looked curiously around. He could go left or right; a voice in his head told him to go right.

For whatever reason, Mark saw one particular shelf and walked firmly towards it, seeing nothing else. On it there was a book that looked older than most of the others, one that he had certainly never seen before:

But this is the version on the site:

The search computers along with a few shelves of paperbacks with huge titles greeted him, along with the familiar smell of books that Mark had always loved. But he ignored them and walked right to the elevators, as this book would be on the second floor, which was devoted to Pokémon training. As he entered the lift, an endless row of Marks stared back at him from the mirrors on the sides. All of them turned to the buttons at the same time, and all of them managed to slip their fingers between buttons two and three, accidentally highlighting both as the elevator started ascending.

It stopped on the second floor and a tall, thin young man with a suitcase stepped in, holding a book. Curious as to why such a man would be reading something on Pokémon training, Mark took a peek at the title. It was something stupid about Pokémon battles being a bad influence on kids; however, Mark completely forgot to get out of the lift until he discovered that the door had closed and they were starting to go up again. The elevator came to a halt and the door opened. Mark looked uncomfortably up at the man, who looked out of the book and seemed to wonder why Mark hadn’t exited yet. He hated to be stared at by strangers; that feeling pushed him out through the door to enter the floor about Pokémon in general.

This was the floor he usually stopped at when he went to the library. Every so often, he would return his books and take new ones, most of which were always about Legendary Pokémon. The shelf containing those books was located… right in front of him.

He had automatically walked straight up to that shelf when he exited the elevator. And as he had so often seen that shelf, he immediately noticed a new book that made his heart pound faster. On the black spine, golden, curly letters formed the title:

So it went from Mark being guided by random impulses to decide to go to the third floor to see if there are any new books there (~destiny~ at work, I guess) to him just getting off at the wrong floor out of pure social awkwardness.

Then the descriptions of the legendaries are different, and while the book in actual ILCOE describes the Color Dragons more or less like the site version does, the sections on Waraider and Chaletwo were clearly originally very similar to the YAR but changed significantly in the site version. Most brainbreakingly, the original ILCOE’s bit on the Waraider herd (which is more or less the same as the HMMRCIG/YAR) is completely incompatible with what Waraider’s deal actually turns out to be (it says there were originally eight Waraider and then seven of them evolved), and while you could excuse it as the legend just being wrong, Mark’s summary of the legend in chapter 66 is based on the site version. So wow, anyone reading the Serebii version would definitely have had the right to call me out on that, but presumably no one remembered.

Then I looked at chapter one, and that also had a number of changes from the Serebii version (actual ILCOE) to the site version. What.

Now I have no idea when the site revision was made (archive.org doesn’t have anything older than 2010, by which time it was the site version), and since it wasn’t just me removing the Molzapart paragraph but making a full revision of the text, I’m baffled by why I didn’t note this down on the Revision History page. God damn it, now this is going to be bothering me.

EDIT: A recovered copy of the Word document from October 2006 that I dug up has the site version.

EDIT 2: The old revision history page, updated in November 2004, has the original ILCOE.

[embershx]

Tagged by @epselion

Because tag memes are an addiction for them XD

1. Post the rules 2. Answer the questions given to you by the tagger 3. Write 11 questions of your own 4. And tag 11 people

1. If you could only eat one more thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

How broad are we being? Because a part of me is flat-out ready to say ‘Food’ XD Probably pizza? It covers quite a variety of potential meals without being as broad-to-the-point-of-cheating as, like, pasta or something. 

2. You can change one thing about the world/universe, what is it you would add or remove?

Oooooh, this is tough. A big part of me wants to add magic. Like, give everyone magic powers - everyone gets a power. I dunno what but they’ll get one... But honesty, as much as I’d love magic... I’m probably gonna remove the concept of unkindness/cruelty or something like that. There’s so much about humanity I hate man. Racism, sexism, assholes, incels...

3. Is there a song you have a deep association with?

Lots of Icon For Hire songs really resonate with me. Particuarly ‘The Grey’ at the moment. It’s about knowing that what you’re doing isn’t good for you but being held back from changing by fear. Under all your excuses of not knowing how really you’re stopping yourself.  In a similar vein there’s their song ‘Iodine’ which is a similar theme specifically about mental health and how it becomes so much a part of your identity that you don’t know how to let go. Also ‘Fight’, which seems to counter these and say ‘I can do this, and I will.)

4. If you had to use a Shakespearian quote to describe yourself, what would it be? Catch me googling Shakespeare quotes XD As an honerable mention I want to point out that  ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.’ is not a serious quote. It’s a dick joke. He’s talking about his penis. And thrusting it upon people. XD Please noone ever use this quote to describe yourself. XD (Unless you’re defined by dick thrusting or the reception thereof) ‘Lord what fools these mortals be’ is relatable AF but not quite the question. "Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting." is something I need to take on board more  I’d probably go with "Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt."

5. If you could take a trip to an imaginary destination from any book you read, where would you be going?

Honestly, if I’m going for a trip probably Narnia? I love forests that I can wander through. The problem I always face with questions like this is ‘What is my status there?’ Like Hogwarts? Great, you’re a muggle, have fun in the run down castle. (I will,, ruins are my jam, but that’s beside the point). Westeros? You’re a peasant, good luck. So as I am? It’s gotta be some place pretty with not a lot of city-scape.

6. Do you have any weird food combo that is ungodly but so good?

Honest to go this sounds gross but is so good. Chicken Korma sauce and chicken, on Chow Mein noodles, wrapped in one of those rice-pancakes for duck.  Oriental all-you-can-eat buffets are great for it XD

7. If you could learn one artisan skill, what would it be?

I’m not sure I’m using this phrase right but I looked it up and from what I saw I’d say making clothes. I think it’d be nice to just be able to put together what I want to wear instead of going shop-to-shop and finding something close enough but not quite right and settling for it. 

8. What is the ultimate forbidden snack?

Tide pods

9. Which D&D race would you probably be if you were a player character, and what alignment?

I’m assuming this is if I could choose. I’d probably go for an elf of some sort (probably a healer, not that you asked) and Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral depending on how we’re defining it. Based on standard morals Neutral, based on for-others/equal/for-yourself Good, because I’ll do shitty things for the benefit of people, 

10. What animal/creature would be your witch familiar?

I’m gonna be hella vanilla here and say a cat, though anything large enough to pet and hug is a yes from me. Even if it’s generally not huggable, like a crocodile or smth. It’s my familiar and I’m gon’ hug it. 

11. Do you look up to someone, either a character or a real person, and why?

I look up to a lot of people actually; My mum is the main one, she tries so hard to put the family before herself. (Not other people so much, but she was certainly my rolemodel growing up. And she’s still the standard I hold for what a parent SHOULD be and not many measure up.  Ummm... My friend Hawke is another one; They’s so on-point with social justice stuff and they always have the patience to deal with my ignorant ass and my constant ‘but why’s XD I aspire to that level of understanding, both knowledge-wise and compassion-wise. 

Ok, my questions are 1. What supernatural race/species/etc. would you like to be and why 2. Favorite book series and why 3. Favorite TV show and why 4. Top Pokémon, nickname (if you’d use them), why you like them, and contest or battle  5. Starwars Prequal Trilogy, Original Trilogy, or Sequal Trilogy? (If you don’t watch/care tell me about a hot celeb/character you’d like to rescue you waving a magic glowing sword. With full details.) 6. Harry Potter house and why 7. Best and worst trait 8. You got black out drunk at the party. When you wake up your friend tells you that you   a. Pet like 10 dogs and cried because they were so fluffy  b. Got into like 3 fights. 4 if you include the one with yourself  c. Threw up on someone  d. All of the above  e. All of the above, and kept partying 9. In a dream world, your ideal job would be 10. 3 wishes. (You can’t wish for world peace or any global goals. Personal wishes(can wish for friends/family)) 11. You can have the powers of ONE super hero/villian. Who and why I’m gonna taaaaag @themightyblim @theonlyrufus @oswobblepot @childofvanaheim @justaseasaltyselkie   ... I think that’s all my friends XD

[kalosstarters]

Ficlet: A November Morning

Summary: Just a normal morning in the Moreau household

Words: 1390

Rated: T for sexual implications

A/N: Yay, after a month long break I managed to make myself to write again! I have @modeststroke (our conversation about the “drastic measures” and the lockscreen photo quote you gave me inspired this) and also @11random-person11‘s fall related ask to thank for that; they gave me this idea. Just a fair warning (because I have a lot of new followers etc): this story will include married Alain and Mairin (I imagine Alain is 28 and Mairin 23 here) and a lot of fluffiness (and possibly a slightly OOC Alain because Alain is hard to write) so if that is not your piece of cake, do not read. 

It was a chilly November morning. Not cold enough to snow, but the wind was blowing harshly, and it was still dark outside even though it was closer to 8 am. That was exactly the kind of morning when Mairin absolutely hated getting up from the warmth of her bed. She knew she should raise soon, because the little bundle in the room next to hers would require her attention, but the bed felt so much more comfortable in that moment. She growled audibly when the dark haired man next to her moved in his sleep and pulled the huge cover on them in a way that Mairin’s right foot was left uncovered in the cool air. To annoy her even more, he removed his warm arm from her torso, leaving her even colder. 

This made the young woman exclaim: “Alain!” “Mm?” she could hear a mumble coming from under the covers. “It’s cold! Don’t do that!” “Do what?” “Steal my covers and… and take your arm off me.”

Alain just smiled at her, and she blushed slightly at her confession; despite being married for a couple of years now, sometimes she still found it hard to believe the man next to her really was her husband. Their relationship had had a rough start; getting involved with Team Flare’s awful plans, fighting against legendary Pokémon, and so on, but after that they had finally learned to communicate and share their feelings better while searching for key and mega stones together. After that Mairin had left to travel around the world on her own, and when she returned, they started another journey through their home region so Mairin could participate in the Kalos league. During that time their friendship grew even deeper, and it became hard to deny something was going on between them. Fast forward 7 years, and the two of them were married, sharing a house and… something, or someone else that was still sleeping in the other room. 

That someone, the few months old baby girl who had inherited her father’s hair and mother’s eyes, usually woke up at least a couple of times per night, but this morning she had been suspiciously quiet, and Mairin was thankful for that. It was rare the young mother got enough sleep at nights and that caused her to sometimes snap even at Chespie, who had been nothing but helpful towards her. Sometimes he had even voluntarily popped out of his Pokéball in the middle of the night to soothe the baby girl so his trainer would get some sleep, and the chesnaught had discovered that on those days she acted notably nicer towards everyone, and usually gave him his favorite foods and some extra grooming as a reward. 

Mairin wondered if Chespie had again woken up to take care of the baby, and made a mental note to tell her starter how wonderful he was when they’d train later that day. Then she yawned and pulled the covers properly back on her, realizing how cold her foot was, and her poor husband flinched when she touched his ankle with the said foot as she turned towards him. 

“Wow, woman, you are freezing cold. Do we need to get Charizard to melt you?” the man tried joking. 

“No, but I do know something else we could do to warm me up,” she answered suggestively and raised her eyebrow at Alain. 

“No, Mairin. She might wake up any moment now and we don’t want to be doing /that/ when it happens. Besides, I thought you were still tired.”

“I’m not tired when you’re right there,” she tried, but accepted the fact that she would have to be happy with simply cuddling that morning. 

They were like that for a moment, but suddenly Alain seemed to remember something, and he reached for Mairin’s phone that was resting on the small table on his side of the bed.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to have a breakfast meeting with Bonnie today? She wanted to discuss the current situation at your gym and I’m pretty sure she mentioned Saturday, 10 o’clock when we saw her…”

“Oh. I guess you’re right… But hey, it’s Bonnie, she will understand... Besides, it’s not like she’s super strict about the schedule anyway,” Mairin tried to make up an excuse to stay in the bed for a bit longer. She was lucky to have her friend as her boss, because as a gym leader and a mother of an infant things didn’t always go as smoothly as they could have.

While Mairin was still thinking about her friend, Alain pressed the button on the bottom of her phone to check the clock from the lockscreen. Suddenly his face got a surprised and also amused expression when he registered what exactly he was looking at. Mairin had never showed this picture to him. 

“I’m your… I’m your lock screen?!” he asked, amusement clear in his voice. Mairin’s lockscreen photo had been taken during their honeymoon visit to Cyllage City, and in the photo, Alain was lying on the beach with a slightly annoyed look on his face (“the weather is too hot for me!” he had complained), Charizard fanning him with her huge wings. It definitely wasn’t the best photo Mairin had of him, but maybe that’s why it was so amusing to Alain; the photo choice told him something about his wife’s sense of humor. 

“You weren’t supposed to see that!” Mairin yelled in shock and reached to take her phone from him. 

“Oh no, I will not just give it to you after what I just saw,” he said with a rare, playful tone, “you will have to take it!”

He stretched the hand in which he held the phone as far from the redhead as possible, and she had to raise from her warm spot to get it. Soon she was sitting on Alain’s lap, pinning him so he wouldn’t be able to get farther from her. That was a mistake, though; Alain was so much bigger than her that it wasn’t hard for him to push her (nicely) off him, and it was his turn to pin her. He lowered his head closer to hers, and she could feel his breath when he whispered: “I’m gonna give this back to you if you say that I’m the best husband ever… And also the best mega evolution guru you know. This is a revenge for the cold foot and the photo!”

“You dork, you /are/ the best mega evolution guru I know.” Mairin rolled her eyes.

“What about Professor Sycamore then?” Alain asked, but she barely heard it.

“And when it comes to being the best husband,” she continued like she hadn’t been interrupted at all, “’best’ is a difficult concept, but I wouldn’t want to be married with anyone else.” 

“Good answer,” Alain whispered, and his lips were now even closer to hers. Slowly he closed the rest of the space between them, but right when their lips touched, a small cry could be heard from the baby’s room. 

“Ohhh Mari, you picked the best possible time to wake up…” Mairin groaned, having really wished she could have this rare moment with her husband, but pushed him lightly off her and went to pick the little girl up. When she returned with her, she saw Alain was now sitting on his side of the bed, still under the warm covers, looking at his small family fondly. Mairin sat next to him, and let him give the baby a kiss on her forehead.

“Hey, little princess, did you sleep well?” he baby talked to the little girl, and that elicited a small laugh from Mairin. Since when had her husband been this soft? She lifted Mari on his lap, and got under the covers herself, one of her arms around her family. It wasn’t long before the young mother was contently sleeping against Alain’s shoulder, and Alain didn’t dare to wake her up, instead texting with his one free hand to Bonnie that she wouldn’t show up in time. The Kalos Champion would make fun of her when they’d meet, he knew that, but he thought Mairin deserved to have this moment. And finally, he accepted that he deserved it as well. They had truly gone a long way. 

[jewelwriter]

My Two Coins:  My argument on Defense

Disclaimer: "My Two Coins" are to be read as such, someone's two coins about the topic at hand. IF at any point you disagree with it or agree, remember they are just my coins about said topic and the value you have of it will differ from my own because of religion, upbringing, beliefs, and logic based on your own experiences. Do not assume my coins are the international equivalent for it may be considered of a lesser value in the bank of public exchange. Thank you.

“Why didn't you complain about the previous third versions/sequels/whatever that did the same thing? That shows you are biased against Gen VII.“

I’m saying it Once and I’m saying it again.... BIAS MY@$$!!!

Welcome ladies and gentlemen. You've found a wild Jewelwriter.

And I’ve been given this a lot lately with some of my more personal allies and I feel like I have got to defend myself once again.  Though it’ll be in response to each of the criticism that I’ve been sent my way along with extra notes to go with my replies.

=1=

"The removal could be to like you stated, the Framerate is poor. It also doesn't help that they weren't even popular in the first place. You queue for a triple or rotation battle in previous generations and you can be sitting there for maybe 30-40 minutes? Think about it, the game is all 3d, that is a LOT of space being used up and compressed for code and other information."

The patience some people have is sad when I look at it.  (Though makes me wish that my time would have been included for that)  I've considered that 3d animation takes time but at times the Pokemon have vanished when attacks are used...trainer included.  So it could have worked still to a degree.  This is the most bendable of points since the programming isn't easy.

-

And I mean it as the Programming that probably is going to be a problem when trying to get certain things into a certain space but then again they had managed to do it before to fit a number of details into the game so it isn’t as easy to do but it is possible if by working edges to smooth them out.

=2=

"Super Training was bullshit and I never used it. The change of pace for Island Trials was due to the face Alolan didn't follow the rest of the world in the system. The Gen I pandering is to be excepted as the region is neighbors with Kanto. The Ultra Beasts were an interesting twist on Pokémon Legendaries/Mythicals And really, the whole story. I'm sorry to say this, but it sounds like she is bitching over spilled milk, crying because she wanted another dull Pokémon Game.”

Super Training wasn't bs because it honestly will tell you what EVs you are giving which is a lot more than what the islands are doing.

Doesn't excuse how they aren't as filling as the trainer battles and Gym battles.  The fact would be one of the more filling battles that were given with the gyms was oddly a Gen 3 battle (the 7th one oddly...better known in Emerald for having 4 Pokemon to worry about.) so in a way I wasn't in as much a headache with the Gym system and more with the Trials.

I might as well see Mt Moon with how that seems to be that close to Kanto with all those Pokes.  I mean there are other generations that deserve some love and barely got any (Gen 5 especially...I mean Audino for the only mega poke?  And I could count nearly 19 of them before you get through half the islands.) so it would help to see more mon that isn't just restricted to Gen 1 remixes?

Cosmog was an interesting concept.  The Ultra Beast had some promise, but the story was about LILLY and her mostly needing your help to find answers while you randomly get the story pointed to you instead of the main goal of it being on you when the boring part of her quest kicks in.   Followed by Edgy the wannabe rival that tries to be the blue you wanted at the last minute when the Professor did a better job of that and he was more interested in seeing you grow out of anyone else.  And that's on top of the fact that I accepted that Hau wasn't going to be the strong battler rival of the game.  So excuse me for being factual on something that was done wrong and judged the game on its own before comparing it to the rest of the legacy which this is the weakest by far.

-

And how can one defend this one since they literally have you working around everyone else and barely have anyone really interested in you as a true trainer to watch grow sans the professor when you begin.  Hau is the friendly fighter who’s just trying to grow beyond his Grandpa, Edge Prince Gladion is a last-minute fighter using an apparent god fighting Pokemon that apparently got a type power up stronger than yours.  At least the professor fights you on your level of sorts.  Ultra Beasts storyline kind of is left to the aftergame and barely anything really revealed about them.  The only one that kind of gets development before you get it is Cosmog who kind of goes with you all over (though it tells you something when Lilly is able to carry Cosmoem) so it’s workable.

=3=

“Seriously, Sun and Moon got me back into series after the disappoint of X/Y. I liked the story, but at the same time, X/Y was just boring outside of it. Same old same old. I mean, I love it when you beat the champion and then the old King himself AZ appears and challenges you. It just seems she hates everything new they are trying to do."

I honestly felt more enlightened to Pokemon thanks to Black and White and X and Y felt like more the most completed revival of the series that people wanted out of the Black and White.  And sure I understand there are risk and reward for trying something new but when the new fails it is time to call it out on THAT and at least wait to see if it gets better or worst.  I'm kind of happy that you can hatch 19-24 eggs in one time, happy you can get rare items and stones to sell and use for your Pokemon to evolve, and I'm happy that they added more ways to battle with the Battle Royal and made it that you are the champion and are defending your belt against different trainers instead of just taking on the same foe again (Fun fact: for the mission of that sort I took it on and did it 5 times which I took on Hau, The Dragon Rocker, the Professor, Team Skull's former babysitter, and the kid on route 1. :P ) so excuse me for seeing the negatives outway the positives but when it is true... it is flipping true.

-

And I’m not kidding about it since I had to hunt for the reasons why I liked Gen 7 instead of finding it flowing out like a river of water.  If Orre was more memorable than alola then there’s a problem.

=4=

"Platinum and Emerald were done in literally half of a year. And B2W2 had worse footing then Sun and Moon. If that is not a paste job, I dunno what is anymore. I'm just going to stand on my ground of that, a majority of the Pokémon Community is spoiled. I mean, look at Kirby games. Most of them are nearly similar in gameplay and theme but always get extreme praise. There is very little hate towards it, so why on God's Green Earth is Pokémon getting it?"

-.- (GOD that is so incorrect.) Time for a bit of a time check...

Gen 1: September 28th, 1998 Yellow: October 19th, 1999 ({=Unexpected here.  Then again I was moving during this time.)

Gen 2: October 15th, 2000 Crystal: July 29th, 2001 ({= Here is under a year.)

Gen 3: March 17th, 2003 Emerald:  May 1st, 2005

Gen 4: April 22nd, 2007 Platinum: March 22nd, 2009

Gen 5:  March 6th, 2011 B2/W2:  October 7th, 2012

Gen 6: October 12th, 2013 ({= I had to flinch at how short this date was.) ORAS:  November 21st, 2014 ({= Only thing comparable for the time.)

Gen 7: November 18th, 2016 Ultra S/Ultra M: November 17th, 2017

They only did going under a year twice... and that's before the 3rd comes up.   I'm one of the few that try to make my own Pokemon from the ground up and the only thing I hate worst than this generation is what is flipping going with Smogon so think of it like this: I might hate Gen 7 (Which might not change my mind when the newest of it comes out and I got to work with it.) but I rather play with that than step anywhere near Smogon at all costs.  Sure competitive Pokemon is a mess but I would want that to grow and be more diverse than what I'm seeing from the worst of the community which is in that area of toddlers.

-

And I’m being truthful here.  I REALLY despise Smogon with such a fury that it makes My gen 7 hate I got to look like a cake compared to a Snorlax dinner that is the fury I have for Smogon.

=

And that’s EACH and every counterpoint and I will still defend my argument to the end since it is under a year...and in a way, I expected more in a way from Game Freak, The Pokemon Company, and the people that know their history and support them.  I might be one voice but after all the things that went wrong with this one I’ll be glad to get out of vacation mode in Pokemon.  Write to me if you feel like I’m write, right, wrong, or mixed in some way.  After all THIS is a text box.

As for me... this wild one runs away!

[anautisticdragon-blog]

Where Nationalism Lives, Intelligence Dies

I've always been baffled by the extreme fetishism of nationalism and how perverse it is in its drive to remove 'them' from the equation, 'they' being the outsiders who bein' talk different'n wot we do, like. I'm always left scratching my head, confused, troubled, and just a little sad over how tragic this is. The nationalist doesn't realise that they're eradicating all 'non-Us' cultures from their mind. The result? They live in a world that's smaller, more samey, homogeneous, and dull than the one I live in. I had an encounter with this recently when an acquaintance was upset that I voiced a video game character with a Welsh accent. This character was a drunk, red dragon who liked to mouth words like 'bloody' and 'cheeky. For those who might already be aware? Yes, I speak of Bryce! The amorous scaly fellah from Angels with Scaly Wings. I'd given a lot of the characters very different voices, from various nations across the world, steeped in the nuances of the cultures I felt were most relevant to them. Zhong, for example? Korean. Remy? French (upper class). Anna? Austrian. Lorem? Well, I gave him a Boston accent as I liked that for him as a wannabe hard-nosed journalist. I enjoy diversifying in this way whenever I'm doing voice acting. So, to the crux of the matter! Why did it bother my acquaintance that Bryce was being voiced as Welsh? He wasn't American, of course. Oh, everyone simply must be American or it's just not cricket! My rather immediate confusion was followed by mild frustration and a weary sigh. I'd met this creature before, and America was especially notorious for manufacturing it. The nationalist, the person who doesn't realise that there's actually other countries beyond their own, and they're not all living in the dark ages. It's not the first time this has happened. When Fantasy Life, a 3DS title, was localised it ended up being very different in its UK and US English versions Let's look at one character from it, the butterfly. Japan has an odd proclivity for naming animals with onomatopoeia that matches the most prominent sound they make. Does Pokémon suddenly make sense? That's why, yes! So in the Japanese version the butterfly character was named with a butterfly onomatopoeia. The UK localisation thought this nuance was important and named the character 'Flutter.' The US localisation team believed that this nuance would be tricky for Americans to understand, this whole thing about naming a creature with an onomatopoeia, so they simply named it what an American would call it. Yes, this character was just called 'Butterfly.' That wasn't the end of the problems, though. In the UK localisation, there was a lot of kindness and respect shown out of protocol, as is Japanese custom. Americans aren't accustomed to this, though, so... Well... How do I put this nicely? Every character in the US version of Fantasy Life was an abusive sociopath. No, really. My partner had a fit about it since she immigrated from the US and had a US 3DS. That was promptly replaced with a British 3DS. I felt really bad because she couldn't stand the sociopathic attitudes of all of the characters. Then again, my partner hasn't ever been very nationalist. Nor am I. This had us look into other areas to see if this was more widespread than we'd realised. We found that many Britishisms had been removed from the Layton games to make them more appealing to an American audience. It saddened both of us as the Layton games are set in Britain. She decided to replay the games to see what else had been removed. Apparently, a staggering amount. Including Welsh characters. What's this about? So... Yes, apparently American nationalists spontaneously combust whenever they hear the spoken word of a Welsh person. What did you do, Puck? I feel that the left could benefit from this and perhaps import some of us to be weaponised against the nationalist menace. Just get a few of us talking on American tellies and you'll probably have a very quick solution to your incredibly insidious nationalist problem. Still, more seriously, all of the Welsh characters were removed. We also found that Welsh characters and British humour had been removed from various films as well, just to make them more appealing to Americans as apparently Americans are poorly educated idiots with no awareness of any nation existing outside of America??? I don't believe that, but many corporate structures over there seem to, that's for sure. You're on the edge of your seat, angrily shaking your fist, and demanding another example? Alright! The movie Pirates by the Wallace & Gromit team had had its British humour and Welsh characters removed. No, really! Oh, and... It was also toned down because Americans explode into a cloud o foul-smelling confetti if they're shown even the slightest quantity of evidence of the mere possibility of men having somewhat sexist attitudes, even in a parodical sense. True story! You need a specific example? Okay! I don't remember the exact quotation, but it was something like this (speaking of an airship's benefits): UK: "[...] as it'll allow us to see down women's blouses." US: "[...] as it's a real babe magnet." You can't pretend you're not aware of this because everyone knows how much 4Kids hates rice cakes. If you're not familiar, just Google it. I'm far too depressed by that to even show you. To sum it up, though, all aspects of Japanese culture were removed from the Pokémon animated series. Then there's Phoenix Wright's American translation. Gordon Bennett... I'm not even going to bother. I'll just link this comic to show you precisely what's wrong with it. It's not like America is the only country responsible for this, either. This toxic nationalism is very silly. So silly that I'm hassled for voicing a dragon with an accent that's outside of a country someone happens to live in. Oh, the humanity. Won't somebody please think of the children? Nationalism. It's what's most likely to kill us all! So let's sit back, listen to the white supremacy muppets and enjoy the end of the world. It might be melodramatic, but I'm tired of it. Oh so tired. I mean, gosh people, there's a bloody world outside of your house. It's right there. It's humongous! I mean, blimey, you think it's a bit of a walk down the block to your favourite branded store but the world is so, so much bigger and it has so many intersting places in it! Why would you deny that? Only one word comes to mind: Idiocy. Idiocy is why you would deny that. You'd have to be someone remarkably challenged, very brain lazy, whose head hurts when you think about all of the different people out there. So you don't. You simplify it down to 'them towel-'eads wot gunna blow up me 'ouse if we let 'em!' because you're an idiot. Did I mention that nationalists are idiots, yet? They are. I'm sorry, but they are. There's just no excuse. Simplisms like nationalism are for idiots. Don't be an idiot. Okay? You'd make an old Welsh dragon so happy. No, you would. It'd be lovely. Your ability to acknowledge my existence without needing to erase anyone with my accent from your video games would be marvellous, a real boon, a stand up gesture, a right good attempt to make things kosher between us. That'd be so nice, wouldn't it? We could be friends. Eveyrone could be friends. We might need a better humanity for that, though. Is anyone working on an AI that'll help us brainwash the simplisms out of the human race, yet? Yes? Capital! Bully for you! Jolly good! Truly excellent! Do keep up the exemplary work! Just... perhaps do it a little faster so that you'll realise it before the world goes to shit, yes? Anyway, sorry if I singled out America too much on this particular jaunt. It's just that you have so many flippin' nationalists that you're an easy target. I couldn't use anywhere else in the world to prove my point more easily. I do offer my genuine, heartfelt condolences to those sorry sods who're living with this on a daily basis.

[evajellion]

You didn't like sun and moon?

There were things I did like about the game, such as some of the new Pokémon and the removal of HMs, but there are so many problems I have with the game, and when you look more into it… it’s almost comparable to Sonic 06 in some aspects.

Everyone’s gonna grab their torch and pitchforks, but it’s kinda true. They focused so much on the story, and rushed the game for not only for an anniversary release, but a Christmas one too. Even the kid who gave it to me (yes, it was given to me) said he thought it was boring compared to the previous titles.

Eh, might as well go on, and point out the things that are wrong in terms of programming, and writing…

Unfinished content. There are several unused assets in Sun/Moon, more than there were in Gen 2 and 3. There’s this golf course for one. Supposedly, /vp/ went into the code and found a ton of unused stuff. The player’s house was originally way bigger than it is in the game with a garage and other rooms. Fully modeled Pokémon that follow you are still in the game data. There’s also a bunch of unused caves, allegedly.

There’s a few buildings that you just… can’t enter, for whatever reason. The lighthouse, and the one building in Malie Garden. It’s kind of frustrating since there is a door there, but you can’t do anything with them. It doesn’t even give you the satisfaction of a “it’s locked” like past games did.

There’s quite a bit of lag in this game, even with the new 3DS. Supposedly, once again at /vp/, an anon went into the code and found out that the programming behind battles in SM constantly re-rendered the models over and over, which slows the game down tremendously. Why they did this? I have no clue.

The AI for some of the trainers happen to be extremely pathetic, especially the Elite Four. This isn’t even a case of the EXP Share being overpowered, the AI is just as stupid as it was in gen 1.

I might as well nitpick the Elite Four while I’m at it. Two of them you already fought, one you have met, and one is from the aforementioned unused golf area most likely. They couldn’t bother to come up with new people to insert, or use exclusively the ones you didn’t battle.

You may notice that the National Dex is not in the game at all. So when you get a Pokémon not in the dex, like say, Inkay, it will not show up. No entry, nothing. Your save file will never read more than "302" Pokemon even if you have all 802 of them.

On that note, a lot of the returning Pokémon are from gen 1. There’s only a couple of Pokémon from gens 2-6. Pandering much? Especially with that Nugget Bridge callback, even though the Nugget Bridge in my opinion, was one of the worst parts of gen 1.

Unlike most people, I love when new Pokémon are introduced, and I get really upset when they become practically hidden in comparison to the flood of Kanto Pokémon plus Alola forms. Seriously, it took far too long to find a Salandit, Rockruff I never ran into at all, Dhelmise I only saw in the Elite Four, and Dewpider? Didn’t even know it was in the game. Gen 2 had this problem as well, but that was years ago, and they should have learned.

Nitpicking again, but Alola forms… yeah, not a fan of them. I was okay with the Mega Evos, particularly when they were given to underpowered Pokémon. Geodude and Grimer didn’t need these things at all. Bellossom though, one of the few Pokémon that would work well in Alola? Maybe as a Fire/Grass type..? Uhhh, nope, it’s gen 2, not our precious gen 1!

The Zygarde stuff feels like it was leftover from the next part of gen 6, but rather than making “Z” like everyone initially expected, in hopes of fixing past problems X/Y did. Instead though, GameFreak came with Sun/Moon, and rushed it for the 20th anniversary.

And the Battle Tree. God, I remember everyone gushing over Red and Blue returning, but… they were literally just there, for another recycled Battle Maison thing. You think GameFreak would have learned from the backlash against ORAS for removing the Battle Frontier, but nope. It’s literally barebones fan-service.

Soooo… what of the story? Well, in the game is kind of a mess, then maybe the story is better? What about the characters?

And by characters, I mean just Lillie. Lillie is the only character that gets any development, that becomes likable-- heck, I’ve seen some people say they wish she was the protagonist instead of the blank-faced player avatar, because they absolutely hate the player avatar for standing there.

I would have liked Lillie even more, if she went from disliking fighting, to deciding to break through and actually try it herself, becoming a rival. She doesn’t though, so…

Hau doesn’t do anything for his character. He’s nice, but he’s no Bianca, who became a professor at least. Gladion is an edgelord who helped Team Skull (even though they were helping his awful mom anyway so.. did he even know about this?) who just suddenly turns around at the climax.

Guzma… well, there’s nothing negative to say about him, but I just… don’t understand him. Why is he helping the Aether Foundation? Was there something I missed? He’s funny, and I liked having a less serious antagonist after how tryhard Lysandre was, but then that ends up being ruined with Lusamine.

Lusamine, god, where do I begin? She is easily worse than Lysandre in terms of Pokémon antagonists. She lost her husband (who is on that island with the Pokébeans by the way, so he isn’t dead or anything to begin with) and just ends up being cold to her children, focusing only on the Ultra Beasts.

This would be okay, if she was maybe… actually depressed, and not absolutely psychotic for no reason, wanting to fuse herself with Nihilego and freezing Pokémon. And you’re supposed to feel sorry for her and Lillie, I’m sorry, what? No, I’m not forgiving her. These are explanations, but not excuses.

Cyrus wasn’t forgiven, even though out of all the antagonists, I find him to be the most sympathetic. Ghetsis certainly isn’t being forgiven, and for good reasons, he closed his son off from the rest of the world and used him for his own goals.

The game can’t figure out if they want Lusamine to be absolutely awful, or “no she’s not so bad, she just had it rough!” It ends up feeling like a bad fan-fic, and I honestly wished Lusamine kicked the bucket after you fought her, because that would have actually been a nice change for a Pokémon game.

When she fuses herself with Nihilego, nearly everyone would expect you to fight her, as the Nihilego… but no, she just sends out her usual Pokémon from before, and she’s pathetically easy. Why was it so hard to fight her, but with Nihilego’s moveset?

Lusamine is easily the worst character and the worst antagonist in a Pokémon game, ever. The entire Aether Foundation has little build-up too, you can figure out they’re the bad guys right from the opening cutscene. At least Cipher from the GameCube games had thought into their bigbads, y’know.

Finally, we have the Ultra Beasts. I was thinking this would be a game where you have to catch the legendaries, and use them against all the Ultra Beasts to chase them out, like how we saw Tapu Koko going against Buzzwole, but no. It’s only Lusamine fusing with Nihilego. You only have a proper fight against the Ultra Beasts in a ridiculous post-game sidequest that’s more annoying than fun.

Whew… okay, I think that’s it. Yeah. Sorry for the long-winded rant, but I’ve been wanting to get that off my chest for a while. Yeah, I just didn’t have much fun with the game, and could tell it was rushed out. I disliked it even more when I learned of all the unused content, and thought more about the story.

If you liked Sun/Moon, that’s fine, I’m honestly hoping Ultra fixes all the mistakes this game made, but… I kinda doubt that, GameFreak’s jump to 3D was kinda rocky. Doesn’t help when people hype these games for a couple of months, then completely drop and forget about them.

If I want a Pokémon game with more story, I think I’ll stick to Black/White, the GameCube games, and Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky, thank you.

I’ve said it before to friends but… y’know, it’s kinda sad when Pokémon Clover, an unfinished and very crude hack by 4chan, is far more polished than Sun/Moon is. (Heck, rather than removing the TMs, they buffed them, especially Cut!)