#and then he asks if you want to evolve

[bigbuffelves]

hot take but The Emperor doesn't actually believe you need to "evolve" to win he's just lonely and thinks you'd look cute

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In the world of heavy metals, love is denser than hate!

[medi-bee]

isat pokemon au, my liege?

my rambling in tags

[scrapyardwings]

Feel like Church of the Glorious Evolved would gain a following just based on the principle that if someone asked, the Machine Herald would give a hysterectomy with zero questions.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

everybody stay with me im shifting back into speculation & analyzing mode, this time about everybody's favorite pair of besties. ill put this under the cut for everyone's sakes

and please, take all of this with a Hefty grain of salt.

so ive been... thinking about a thing. a maybe-possibility. which if this has some merit, the part of me that loves characters having a good time and feeling good feels is screaming in fear. but the louder part of me that loves angst and hurting characters is rubbing its little fly hands together.

short version: i think Barnaby is going to emotionally distance from Wally, if not outright grow to resent him. maybe temporarily, maybe not.

full version: *cracks knuckles* strap in folks. so.

first of all, an entire chunk of Barnaby's bio is dedicated to his character relation to Wally. everyone else only has one-off lines dedicated to their relationships to other neighbors - even Frank & Julie just have single sentences about each other (note that they're described as "partnered with" and "depicted with" respectively. more on that soon). even Wally's bio has his Barnaby mention tacked onto the end of his first paragraph instead of being its own dedicated section

and then there's their character designs - their bios explicitly point out that they share characteristics; color schemes, hearts on their soles, similar outfits.

they were made to be best friends. literally. this quote is what made me start turning this theory over in my mind (sourced from @ /theneighborhoodwatch's collected & absolutely fascinating livestream trivia)

it appears that Barnaby literally did not have a say in whether or not he and Wally are friends. their bios even say "illustrated pages note that they were best friends multiple times." they have to be best friends.

which brings us back to Frank & Julie. they briefly reference each other in their bios, but they aren't described as best friends. it's incredibly likely that they were meant to be a romantic couple - i briefly covered that theory in this post (dont read the first one i was going insane) but they managed to avoid that. Frank and Julie defied the script and chose to be best friends instead.

and then in the trivia document a few more character relationships are briefly touched on, like how Howdy considers Barnaby a close friend, and Sally considers either Barnaby or Poppy as her closest friend, etc.

everyone else seems to be choosing who they're close with. they're forming their own opinions and dynamics and relationships. & its interesting that Barnaby is stated for both of these - as if implying that he may return the friendship feelings, or at the very least he's developed enough of a relationship with them to earn their affection

Barnaby and Wally... i doubt they ever got that. they were best friends from the start, no development, no choice. it's written into them.

and then there's how their relationship has been portrayed so far. i believe i saw an ask where Clown stated that Barnaby is very polite to Wally, which struck me as odd. have you ever had a polite relationship to your best friend? have you ever seen best friends be polite? i'd be surprised!

best friends mess with each other! they tease and rib and roast! what is a best friend for if not mutual tomfuckery?! jesting around? playfully pushing boundaries? a Polite best friendship... that's a straight up oxymoron. no such thing. that sounds boring and exhausting.

not only that, but the fact that Barnaby is often used for Wally's painting segments, and is the go-to guy for teaching Wally something new, is kind of concerning. it gives me the vibe that a big part of Barnaby's literal reason for existing is to be Wally's friend & guide.

which would make the fact of him being described as polite to Wally make sense. of course he's not going to push their relationship or try to deepen it - he's forming his own dynamics with the other neighbors. with Wally... it's already established. that is how they are with each other. that is what they are to each other.

and it's not like Wally can be the one to introduce nuances. i don't mean that as a slight or anything - he's just the way he's been described and the things stated about him that make me think that he wouldn't really... know how to? it just wouldn't occur to him. he probably thinks his and Barnaby's relationship is what a best friendship is and is how it should be.

but they have to hang out. they have to refer to each other as best friends. and while i believe that Wally does wholeheartedly think that they're best friends, close as can be... i doubt Barnaby feels the same. like - yes, he probably does care about Wally. everybody likes Wally.

but it's gotta be frustrating for Barnaby, especially as time goes on and he becomes more himself as a person over just being a character playing a part. it probably stunts his relationship growth with others, since his ~best friend spot~ is already taken and who would want to encroach on that? especially since its taken by Wally mcfuckin Darling?

their friendship might become less of a role and more of a responsibility. Barnaby might grow to feel obligated to stick with Wally as his "best friend". someone invites Barnaby to hang out and/or help with something? sorry, he has to pose for Wally's painting. Barnaby is trying to do his own thing? sorry, Wally is knocking on the door and asking for help with something.

i wonder if Barnaby ever hopes that Wally will go to someone else, or feels relief when he does. and then does he feel irritation/guilt over that denied hope or that granted relief? then does he get angry at himself for those emotions?

how would this effect how he treats Wally and acts around him? this confusing muddle of emotions and this strange growing resentment for his painfully earnest friend who only ever means well, if he means at all.

it makes me curious whether or not this theory has merit. and how this could come to a head. what would Barnaby, in this situation, do if/when he discovers that they're puppets on a set, and he's literally written to be Wally's bestie while everyone else changed their scripts and chose their own relationships.

personally, i don't think he'd be happy, and i doubt he'd handle it well.

[lungfuls]

Maybe I'm projecting and being hopeful but I mentioned to M that I don't even get to shit by myself in peace lmao and I feel like something clicked for him. Bc I was like hey, at least you get private bathroom breaks at work (noncombative). And since then he's been a lot more acquiescent when I ask if I can nap and stuff

[gingermintpepper]

What’s the significance of each color in Ancient Greece? So green is the only neutral color and it represents mostly natural and earthy things, thank you for telling me that part !! Anyway, as for my Hyacinthus design’s hair being brown, it’s due to the combination of it being a fairly common interpretation of his appearance and also because I find I like how it looks with his skin tone and the purple of his eyes.

Okay, firstly; thank you so much for answering my question too!

Admittedly you can't beat out good, old fashioned colour theory so that's completely fair haha! I still think it's very interesting that brown became the common interpretation of his features so I'm always glad to hear other people's view on it <3

With respect to what colours meant or symbolised in Ancient Greece, it's a super fascinating topic because the Ancient Greeks had a very different perception of colour than how a lot of people - and in this case I'll generalise and say english-speaking people - perceive colour. In a lot of languages, especially older ones, colour wasn't just a way to describe the physical perceptional reality of an observable object (that is, the light reflecting off the object that gives it its perceived hue - the way we perceive colour now) but colour was also used to describe the way in which the people experienced the world. A really good way to think about it is now, if you wanted to distinguish between two types of blue, you would instinctively make a distinction between their shades ("This blue is darker/lighter!") whereas these older people would distinguish based on things in their present, shared world that best matched what they were being asked to describe ("This blue is like the sky/the sea!")

That's an important concept to keep in mind because ancient greek was very unique in that, in addition to this concept of colour being completely intertwined with physical objects (and therefore also acquiring the properties of these objects in the minds of the people), the ancient greeks also did not particularly care about distinguishing between different colour hues (that is, differences in specific individual colour) but rather they were entirely focused on a colour's value - that is, whether it was considered light or dark.

Taking all of this into consideration, the question 'what is the significance of the different colours in Ancient Greece' is a bit of a tricky one to answer because unlike say, Ancient Egyptian which has very clear colours (red, white, green), very clear physical objects that give those colours their property (the desert sand, the sun, people's skin) and very clear symbolic meanings that arose from the natures ascribed to those physical objects due to their influence on the people's lives (hostility, power, new life), Ancient Greece's colours and the perception of those colours was much more abstract and poetic, contingent on their understandings and perceptions of things like light and dark, the sense of touch or taste (sweet and bitter/wet and dry) and what quality was ascribed to the object whose colour is being perceived. Colour was a matter of cosmology, of philosophy and there were many different schools of thought on it from Empedocles' physicalist theories to Anaxagoras' realist theories.

All of this is to say, take the meanings I outlined in this handy-dandy table with a tablespoon of salt! These are based on my understanding of the language used to describe things in classical writings that have survived and my own bias towards Empedocles' physicalist theory of colour and the nature of colour which I also think is very useful for people into greek mythology as a whole due to it making clear links between various gods creating things from mixtures of the four basic elements of nature and the colours that are the result of these mixtures.

I hope this helps even a little and I very much encourage you to do some research into different Greek schools of thought when it comes to colour and the perception of colour as well as how colour affects/reflects the innate nature of all things!

(Also, slight extra note, I left out Kokkinos (scarlet/blood-red) from the table because I didn't really think it was relevant for this outline despite it definitely being an ancient colour. It's a bit difficult to find examples of it with the kind of descriptors Empedocles outlines and I don't want to make assumptions based on third hand knowledge on the greek concept of the nature of things. I'd like to believe it was addressed in more detail in Empedocles' original document - only a fragment of the original some two thousand lines have survived after all - it is confirmed that Empedocles spoke on the recipe for blood and flesh, an equal mixture of all four elements as opposed to bones' four parts fire, two parts earth and two parts water (which is why bones shine white, there's more fire than earth or water) - and I don't want to conject or make assumptions.

I also left out Erythros or basic/primary red according to Plato's list of basic colours because that seemed to have specifically been preferred by Egyptian Greeks according to linguistic data. If I opened up that can of worms with respect to the shared Egyptian-Greek colour language including the way the Greeks like many early peoples did not culturally perceive blue until the invention of Egypt's blue dyes then I would be writing forever and you would never get an actual clear answer about Greek colour symbolism separate and apart from Egyptian cultural influence lmfao. )

A few of the documents that helped me consolidate this information include Sassi's 2022 Philosophical Theories of Colour in Ancient Greek Thought and Ierodiakonou's Empedocles on Colour and Colour Vision. There are also a fair few translations and discussions of the fragments of Empedocles' On Nature still floating about - my copy is a somewhat archaic volume of Leonard's 1908 translation but I never went out searching for updated interpretations and translations of the text since its constantly referenced in perceptional philosophy papers LOL

Anyway, yeah, hope this helps! :D

[minophus]

in all seriousness though. correct me if im wrong but it's never really Said that sisyphus like ever perceived gabriel as someone more special within heaven itself ? like he's just an enemy general / that one guy that happened to kill him in the war that sisyphus knew he was doomed to lose from the start. sisyphus would want a rematch i think ("hey remember that time you killed me?") but it's not as personal as with minos i think

YEPP no youve got it exactly right!

[waywardstation]

A rather random question that's been plaguing me for the past 15 minutes and I wondered about your thoughts: do you think before he left, Volo left any of his pokemon behind? Some he wouldn't get rid of, like his egg daughter Togekiss, but I can't see him taking Arcanine with him out of Hisui. For one, it likely has a Growlithe partner we never see (due to the pokemon's lore) and probably leaves them with Tuli and Ginter. A full team would attach unnecessary attention for someone on the run.

Very interest thought OP!!! I haven’t thought about it before.

I couldn’t see Volo getting rid of his egg daughter Togekiss, or Garchomp, because these are Pokémon he’s had early on in the game. Our first fight with him, he only had his sweet togepi, and on our second fight, it’s togepi and gible.

And then the third time, when he fights us at the end, suddenly it’s a full team of Togekiss, Garchomp, Arcanine, Spiritomb, Roserade, and Lucario. How did that happen??

These are my first thoughts, so it could change over time, but I feel like this could narratively be explained by Volo realizing that our MC has what he wants, and that’s when he actively decides he’s going to take them down. So he gets a full team together, some of which can speedrun evolution with stones (roserade and arcanine).

I feel like the only Pokémon he has a genuine connection to would be his Togekiss and Garchomp. The others might have been pulled together just for this fight in an effort to overwhelm the MC. So when it’s all done, and Volo decides to leave, he might feel conflicted with these Pokémon that he possibly railroaded just for his own benefit. They did not need to be roped into this.

I could see him leaving some of his Pokémon with Ginter and Tuli, to help assist with ginkgo guild work when he leaves, and the only two he would keep would be his Togekiss, and his Garchomp.

Love this concept OP!! My thoughts on this might change over time from these initial ones; I’ll keep thinking on it!

[statementlou]

OH I really need your opinion about Louis being so emotionally intelligent, I think it's barely even talked about it here

ARE people not talking about it? What a funny thought! As a post-hiatus fan, I'm accustomed to thinking of myself as something of a newcomer, even though it's been years now, so it's weird to realize I've been here long enough to see patterns and trends come and go and come again. It's even weirder the way trends in fandom can be completely forgotten and erased when the boys, in contrast, eternally exist in all times at once, everything they've ever said considered to be equally valid to their current lives whether they said it 12 years ago as teens or just yesterday as whole ass adult men! Anyway my point is, there was certainly a time when Louis' emotional intelligence was discussed a lot, AS IT SHOULD BE. For sure so much when Walls came out it was... those LYRICS!! Yes, without that gift he's still gorgeous and smart and embodies a unique and bewitching gender presentation and has a beautiful and captivating singing voice… I guess there are a lot of other reasons people might like him. But to me the thought of that not being the top of anyone's "why Louis" list is bananas, it feels so absolutely central and necessary to understanding what makes him special!

It's certainly a lot of what makes his songs resonate with people- he's a skillful lyricist, he could craft clever little twists of phrase and metaphors regardless, but it's his emotional intelligence that sets him apart imo. He describes it as honesty, and yes- the willingness to be vulnerable and reveal your feelings is special, but what I don't know if he even really realizes is that for so many people it's not just an unwillingness to open up honestly like he does, it's that they are genuinely unable to identify and understand and name what's happening inside them like that. I think it comes so naturally to him that maybe it can be hard for him to recognize that that experience isn't universal.

I really appreciate that you used the words emotional intelligence specifically, I love that phrase; I think framing it as a form of intelligence is correct and important. It's a skill set that is dismissed as "feminine" and so less important or easier to access than intellectual intelligence, but it's none of those things. And it's a minority of people who, like Louis, are both intellectually and emotionally very very sharp. I'd say it's a reason he was been able to stay such a good person in the face of things that can easily ruin people (being rich and famous from a young age, trauma and loss), and it's certainly what enables him to be so good at his job. It elevates his songwriting above the ordinary, but also it gives him the tools to do the dance of giving the public something to connect with and making it feel like he's completely open and present without actually giving away too much, which would be absolutely impossible without emotional intelligence- if you don't know your own boundaries or can't intuit on the fly what people respond to, it simply falls flat and seems forced. We've been seeing him exercise those skills close up and in person over the last few days in the signings, making everyone feel special and held and like they got a personal special moment without actually telling anyone anything much or going overtime or getting sucked in to any weird interactions! Again, something that would be nearly impossible without those kind of people skills.

It's actually really funny the way the discourse recently (speaking of changing tides in fandom) has been focused on the idea of Louis presenting himself as masculine (is there a relationship between that and the lack of chat about his EI? hm), when I feel like in the past he was the most feminized by fandom, and not because of his mannerisms or look, but because of his willingness to embrace his emotional intelligence- to cry/ talk about crying openly, to share readily about his feelings and be vulnerable, all these things coded as feminine. He himself has said that he doesn't think he's anything special in this regard (or especially feminine, I think is part of the subtext to that) because Northern Brit men are just like that. I'm from the US so I'm not the one to really respond to that, but it seems to me that does contain some truth- I have seen a willingness to cry openly, to talk about vulnerabilities, etc, in other men with public personas from up there- but I think that again, what we're saying is that's he's showing more than just that, that we're talking about his emotional intelligence quotient being unusually high, which is not a regional characteristic, but a personal one.

[tinogiehd]

are you seeing op on twitter

anon I am losing my MIND over op on twitter like why are you dying on this hill

[danidoesathing]

😪😡📝 for the art ask game!

😪 a piece that was meant to be short but took on a life of its own

ive got one that im writing now that was originally based on a silly short premise but like. its no longer short and no longer silly. its now two chapters, absorbed another half baked wip i was writing and no one is having a fun time

😡 a paragraph/section that gave me a lot of trouble

the entirety of frankie's 2nd section in the love like ghosts fic. i love her but dear god she is SO hard to write. i had to redo that section like four separate times and had to entirely rewrite the premise twice. it killed me

📝 a line or paragraph i’m really happy with

He ain’t sure how he came across it. He didn’t have any plans on leaving the city tonight. There was a song back home and a girl without a dancing partner he let slip by, for no other reason than his own restlessness. He ain’t sure what he wanted to accomplish from wandering out in the dark, though he rarely has a plan for nights like these. He never sets out to discover something. Just got the urge to get lost on some old road that hasn’t been driven in years. It’s something that takes hold of him sometimes, and only tends to be remedied by indulging the habit. So, yeah, the body is a surprise.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

about that one lan qiren & jin guangshan art: .....does that mean wen ruohan has both or is he as flat as a board on the opposite? XD

Mans so flat they rotated him 90 degrees and he disappeared from the narrative.

[mikecrewsteacup]

For the OC ask game- I'd love to hear abt Daniel!! 15 and/or 12? 👀

Ahhh thank you for asking about my baby boy, I appreciate it so much ;3; (these are for the OC ask game over here)

12: What is one of the most primary things your OC feels that is missing from their life? In a regular setting, if asked this personally, Daniel would insist he wants to craft The Perfect Spell and hasn't mastered enough magic to do so yet... In reality, the thing he's missing most is romantic companionship, because he's a big sap for romance and just got his heart thoroughly broken recently :') Luckily for him he's in an action/horror/romance original work, then... 15: Does your OC consider themselves a good person?

Daniel is a good enough person that he tries to avoid thinking too hard about that question...because he knows isn't, really. It's just that he thinks he isn't the worst, either, so he keeps on with what he's up to.

[antihibikase-archive]

Now what do cheren's pokemon think of him and how do they treat/address him :)

I have the draft of Unvoan Clownerism halloween chapter sitting and rotting in my google docs, and it had a part where Stoutland and Cincci referred to Cheren as Cheri, but since the lore has changed + the way he received them is different..

Also you didn't specify which team, so I'm going with Cheren Slater's BW2 team. :)c

Cinccino - Cincci was babied/doted on by both Hilbert and Cheren when she joined the team, but after she evolves and is left behind by Hilbert as he flies off on Reshiram, she starts to take more of a babysitter role towards Cheren! Always riding on his shoulder or following after him, being carried by him if it helps with his anxiety, attacking others on his behalf when they make him uncomfortable.. she continues being protective even after Hilbert returns. Since Hilbert affectionately called him Cheri, so does she!

Stoutland - as a little Lillipup in Floccesy, he used to refer to him as "Mister Cheren" in his head, up until he joins Cheren to help him in his gym leader training- then he only calls him by name. Stoutland has a lot of respect for Cheren due to his resilience and endurance of all that has happened to him, even if he's only heard of it from Cinccino and Liepard. He's incredibly loyal to Cheren, and willing to do anything he asks, as he's never seen him smile genuinely before ever since he met him. :(

Watchog - Lenora's Watchog, so he refers to Cheren formally as "Challenger Slater" before switching to "Gym Leader Slater"- though he also calls him young man at first, up until Liepard and Cinccino are both like "mmm yeah that's not right either gramps!". Watchog is very strict, but even he knows what Cheren went through in BW is understandably traumatic, and he needs a lot of help in finding his footing. Though he may appear standoffish as he doesn't dote on him like the others, he's incredibly protective, and is always the first to react when he feels Beheeyem's presence in the vicinity.

Liepard - his Liepard from his BW team, he brings her with him as a gym leader to soothe Grimsley's nerves. She used to be quite nervous and eager to please, sensitive to his change in moods and worried over how he wanted to become champion back then because he wanted a purpose, he wanted his family's love, etc. More confident and experienced as a Liepard, she and Cinccino hold the team together, and can act without being told to, though Watchog scolds them sometimes for their perceived recklessness. Like Stoutland, she used to call Cheren "Mister Cheren", until she becomes close enough with him to start calling him by only his name!

Gorebyss - she was actually caught all the way from Hoenn by Noland; he caught a pair of Clamperl upon Grimsley's request, who really, really wanted Cheren to have a Clamperl for his birthday. He thought it was just Grimsley wanting to dote on Cheren even more after he formally met him <- he does not know what's going on Anyway, she's a little bit of an oddball at first; like Cinccino, she's willing to attack those she considers a threat to Cheren's safety, but unlike her or even Watchog, she doesn't filter out who is friend or foe- which means she's the first of his Pokemon to immediately sense something is off with Nikolai back when they all trusted him, Watchog included. She's almost stoic and unpredictable, though the other Pokemon chuck it up to her spending most of her life in the deep sea, and traveling is all too new for her. She refers to Cheren as "master"!

Bunny - the first in his team to ever have a nickname! Bunny was timid and unconfident, but after traveling with Cheren's team and being encouraged by him and their friends, she evolves into a Lopunny in the Giant Chasm; after she witnesses him using his body to shield Nate from Kyurem's attack. As a Lopunny, she joins the rest of the girls of Cheren's team in being incredibly protective of him, though she spends the first few days post-BW2 not eating or being difficult for others, except for the Aspertia trio. She's shaken by what has happened to him and is horrified to find out he's went through this twice, and might die if the others' efforts to recover the relics fail. Though she doesn't necessarily lash out at others, she's in grief up until Calem comes in the picture and teaches both Nate and Hilbert how to help her through it, as well as bring up her potential in Mega Evolution.. She was the team baby for awhile, and she's still bubbly as ever after she evolves and is reassured of Cheren's safety. She's always by his side, carrying his things, helping him out with everyday tasks and chores, etc. She somewhat becomes his ace Pokemon post-BW2! She used to refer to him as "master Cheren", but starts not only calling him Cheri like Cinccino, but by different other nicknames! (Cheri Berry, Cheri Bunny, Cheery, etc.)

[mystikitten97]

Disclaimer: The post contains opinions, and I will admit I have some nostalgia bias.

I’m working on completing all the Pokemon Home pokedexes, and I feel like I might have developed a hot take:

BDSP is better than Let’s Go.

I hated the Pokemon GO mechanics in a console game, even though I’m completely fine with it on the initial mobile game.

The story was okay, if a little boring, as is all Kanto storylines for me.

The Catch Combo shiny hunting method was interesting (I caught my final team member, a shiny Drowzee, with this method), but I don’t think I’d do it again.

With BDSP, I’m going back to what I know and love.

I still have to trade for the trade evolutions as well as the version exclusives, but I’m almost done and I can’t wait for my time with Let’s Go to be over.