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crystalmaeson · 4 years ago

Text

Official Readme by Maeson

Pokemon Crystal Maeson - Public Version 1.0 - Internal Version 15.0.3

IT IS RECOMMENDED TO READ THIS WITH NOTEPAD++, BUT YOU DO YOU.

o--------o |Sections| o--------o

[1] Installation [2] Introduction [3] General List of Changes [4] Patch Differences [5] Pokémon Changes [6] Type Changes [7] Move Changes [8] Stat Experience, Vitamins and Fruits [9] Mechanic & Gameplay Changes [10] New Kurt Balls, new ways to obtain Apricorns [11] The New and Improved Battle Tower and Trainer House [12] Visual Changes [13] Credits

o-----------------o |[1] Installation| o-----------------o

Patching a game is usually a very easy process, specially with IPS Patches.

There's a variety of programs that work with IPS files, but the most famous one is named Lunar IPS, also called LIPS.

This hack is to be patched on a Pokémon Crystal 1.1 ROM file.

More specifically, this rom: Pokemon - Crystal Version (UE) (V1.1) [C][!].gbc CRC-32 : 3358E30A

You open your patcher, and then point to it to the IPS patch and the original, unmodded ROM. It will apply it and inform you when it's finished, it should be quick.

Now, there's two versions of this hack, and each one has also two varieties.

CHOOSE ONLY ONE. To know which version you want, check the details at the not-surprisingly-named "Patch Differences" section.

And yes, the patch weights almost 75% of the original game.

o-----------------o |[2] Introduction| o-----------------o

Hola, welcome to another ridiculously long readme of mine.

I go by the name Maeson and I made other hacks for a handful of other RPGs. For the most part what I usually aim for with these hacks is to create a different experience, tweaking what I can to give games that I've played time and time again a gameplay facelift to keep them fresh for me, sometimes also trying to improve aspects of a game that I think could make it more fun, varied, better paced or just more challenging after many playthroughs and knowing stuff by hand.

These hacks are made for me in first place, so they're shaped in a very personal manner and of course through my own tastes and ideas, but it should goewithout saying, I hope.

But anyway... What can I say about Pokémon?

My feelings toward the main series of Pokémon have changed a lot since its inception. Just like millions of other fans of video games, I lived the Pokémon craze back in the day, and I grew playing most of those games. I was there without fail up until the fifth Generation, then I started to get tired of the series gradually, and I sort of stop caring with time.

Thing is, I really didn't stop liking the Pokémon themselves, and I still enjoy spin-offs like the Trading Card Games or Mystery Dungeon games, and some like Pokémon Conquest and Pokken are quite cool crossovers, so there's still some appeal to me, even if it's waning with each day.

And hey, then you get things like Pokémon Snap, which it's one unique and very memorable game, one of the very, very few games about photography. it's a really chill, fun time overall.

...What it does not appeal to me all that much since a long time, though, is Game Freak and The Pokémon Company. The choices and "philosofies" they've been doing and following for several years now have been some of the most frustrating ones I've seen besides Square Enix, and their interviews equally leave some wonderfully baffling pearls of "wisdom".

They've done a remarkable job at making me wanting to distance myself more and more throughout this last decade, to the point that I lost pretty much all my appreciation for the franchise.

And it's not just with the main games, their choice of pushing aside console spin-offs for more and more mobile based Games As A Service (that usually failed and died quickly) also left us without many interesting games that could at least keep us somewhat happy.

And the less we talk about the lies, misinformation and the worrying use of younger audiences as a shield to deflect criticism from their business decisions, the better.

I... Just can't support or stand that anymore. I feel drained.

And I would have been completely away from this franchise, barring some old games, if not for one day finding that a collective of people were working on disassembly projects of older games.

I found them to be really interesting, and my mind kinda played with the idea of having a version of one of those old games with changes that I've been wanting and waiting to happen for many years. Who knows, I could even *attempt* to improve what was already there and even add more stuff to it.

Checking the available games with disassembly, I chose Pokémon Crystal, as it seemed the most complete and evolved project of all, in combination with also being one of the longer games thanks to the large post-game it originally had, plus being an earlier Generation game also gave me more room to do changes and improvements.

So little by little, with no idea of assembly, I kept hitting walls and messing around for a time, and what you downloaded is the result of spending the free time I had working in it... For quite some time. In fact it has been over 2 years of constant work, this started in 2018.

The aim of this hack is simple:

Create a new "balance", make the game more challenging, and iron out stuff I find could be improved, or I have the ability and knowledge to do while I add more value to certain aspects of the game. Make a version of Pokémon that I'd like to replay and have every monster be a fun addition to the team and a foe I just can't roll over with little to no thought, so I want to try all of them.

If you were expecting a new story, or a new region, or whatever pipe dream that most probably would end up incompleted and not stable, sorry to disappoint, but you won't find it here.

And no, I don't really care if this hack doesn't have an "epic" name. There's so many other more important things to care than that...

o----------------------------o |[3] General List of Changes| o----------------------------o

Here you have a quick list with some of the biggest changes all around, but there are sections for most of them to talk more in detail.

· Attempt to reach a new balance. This has been said above, but what it actually means is that elements as Types, Moves, Pokémon Stats and such have been changed deeply to move away from the conventions of the original games, making many species feel entirely different gameplay-wise.

Among other things, this means no more disappointing creatures with bad typing and many weaknesses, or low Base Stats filler. It also means parity between the Types, with each one having the same number of Weaknesses and Resistances. The intent is for every Fully Evolved Pokémon to feel useful or, at the very, very least, usable in a way where you don't feel handicapping yourself to the point you ask yourself if it is even worth doing it.

· Moves and TMS have been changed a lot in order to accomodate the Physical & Special Split, each Type now has both Physical and Special moves of different Power tiers.

Many old attacks have been removed and many others have been added. What moves each evolutionary line learns also has been changed, in order to make all Pokémon have decent movesets depending on what their archtype is.

· DVs (IVs on later generations) No longer matter on Stat Calculations. This means that every member of the same species will have the same potential. This also means you can have female Pokémon with good Attack, and Shiny Pokémon with good stats, what a novel concept.

This way any monster you come across will be equal, so you can focus on having fun, while still having to care of it by training, feeding him vitamins and fruits, choosing the best moves for it in a given situation, making a balanced team, and you know, the actual RPG bits instead of the RNG ones.

If you liked the eugenics experiment experience the original games give you, sorry but that's not here. I apologize for nothing.

· Trainers changed all around. Better AI than in the original game, more varied teams, their Pokémon have Stat Exp, meaning that the further you go, the better trained their Pokémon are, and better trained your own monsters should be. I also removed several limitations imposed on NPC trainers to make them factually inferior to you. This is made trying to make the game more challenging instead of the usual cake-walk.

There's no ridiculous stuff like giving Hyper Beam to everything or illegal moves for NPC trainer's Pokémon (although bear in mind, many Pokémon have changed types, and many have changed movesets so their moves are the new "legal" moves, but again, nothing impossible for you to have or to add fake difficulty).

If you're asking yourself this, no, in this hack NPCs do not change Pokémon constantly, that tends to drag the game too much. They still do it occasionally, but not at every time Type matchups that go against them.

· Quite a few changes related to Items, from how strong some Healing Items are, to changing Kurt Balls, changing the effect (or power of the effect) on several Held Items, new types of berries, and others.

Healing items are no longer useable in battle, neither for you or the NPC Trainers. Battles must be won only with your Pokémon, their held items, and strategy.

...Or well, over-levelling through mind-numbing grinding. We can't exactly get rid of that.

· Added a whole LOT of improvements here and there to make the game flow, feel and play better.

Things like changing how Item Storage works to have more space overall, much faster egg hatching speeds, making every monster available in this hack, having the Pokédex show you a bit of meaningful game information, as now it shows a species Base Stats and also the Shiny variations, make saving a faster process, making TMs infinite (but not abusable), improving the scrolling while moving around making the game feel and look much better, large improvements on the Battle Tower, expanding the Trainer House to be more interesting end-game stuff, adding Rematches, making PokeGear rematches better, a way to change PC Boxes remotely, move tutors and quite a few others.

There's many things more, but that's what the individual sections are for.

o-----------------------o |[4] Patch Differences | o-----------------------o

Now, there are four patches, so let's explain this quickly.

First, we have the Original versions, and the Alternative versions, these last ones offer a tweaked experience in case you want to play this hack again with some differences.

In which ways it is different?

Well, the Starters have been swapped, so when you begin a new game, you get to choose between Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle.

MUCH bigger difference, though, is that all the Gym trainers, the Leaders, other important NPCS and the Elite Four no longer have their teams limited to following the thematic "Type" standards.

Other trainers such as the Rival also have different teams, (and like the original patch, he develops a different team depending on the starter they steal).

Without that restriction each of those trainers have way more varied teams, making the game less predicable because you can no longer coast on the Type disadvantages most of the Pokémon of a Gym Leader share.

This of course changes how you make your teams. You no longer "have" to bring "this or that Type" because later on the road there's a Gym weak to it. It's more about making a team that you feel it can withstand anything it may come.

The order of certain Ingame Trades have also been changed.

There's other smaller changes to make the bigger ones sit well, such as small text edits or change the order of the Pokédex.

But Original and Alternative are divided in two too, one that I'll call "Intended Versions" and the other two are "Items in Battle" variations.

The "Intended Versions" disables healing Items in battle and it forces Set options, meaning you don't get free switches after knocking out a foe Pokémon. You can't change the option, because it's not even there anymore.

That's how I'd like people to play my hack, but knowing how some people can be, there's an extra patch, "Items in Battle", that gives you the possibility of using Items and to change the battle option, but there's a price to pay.

If you choose to play with enabled Items/Switch in battle, a few Items will be unavailable to you, the price of several Items will increase, and the HP they restore will be lowered. Also, NPC Trainers will also use Items.

That's simply because Items can be easily abused, and that is the opposite of what I wanted in this hack. If you choose the "right" to abuse Items during battle, then I have the right to make adjustments to annoy you with your choice.

It's not like Hyper Potions will heal 1 HP or anything crazy like that, but because in my hack you can't use Items in battles, they're more powerful than the usual vanilla items so you could recover better between battles.

The items you lose access to are all new, by the way. A set of consumable Held Items that raise a stat whenever the holder is attacked or under other circustances, similar to the berries in the Third Generation, albeit they're activated differently.

Another change is limited access to a team-healing item that I made, and restores all your Pokémon to perfect shape. Intended to be used in a pinch, like being lost in a cave, or between hard fights, but you can only have in small amounts. In the Original patch, you can carry 3 of them, but only 1 on the "Items in Battle" versions.

You're free to choose how to play. Of course, you only apply one patch.

If for some reason you started a game with one version, for example, with the patch for Items in Battle, and you later on want to go to the No Items in Battle version, you can actually use that save file and not start again.

But I recommend you to save first in a Pokémon Center before doing so. Once you did that, patch a clean ROM and rename the .SAV file into whatever the new patched rom is. Now you can continue with your game. Remember to always make backups before doing anything of this sort.

I do not recommend changing between the Original and Alternate versions.

Lastly, trading and battling with vanilla Pokémon Crystal is not going to work. Not only many of the fixes made already impossible to be compatible with Vanilla Pokémon Crystal, but the gigantic load of changes I made to the game would render any attempt become a glitchy mess.

But you can trade and battle with other copies of this hack, and the four versions of the patches should be compatible with each other for both trading and battling. I'd recommend using the No Items versions because it gives you access to those extra Held Items, though.

o--------------------o |[5] Pokémon Changes| o--------------------o

Probably the most obvious and central change, these creatures are the core of the franchise after all.

As you may imagine, there have been changes to most aspects of them. While some of those have their sections to talk about, Base Stats are probably the most important one here.

That is because for the most part there is parity in Base Stat Total for all evolutionary lines in this game.

Pokémon to me has become a rather painful series of games to look back, because there has never been that much of an interest to improve or balance out their creations to make a more varied, balanced and fun experience, and when they try to do something is more on the lines of "adding" to fix instead of improving what's there already.

And don't get me wrong, trying to get "perfect balance" is impossible with such a large amount of creatures, but at the same time, Game Freak has done very, very little in this regard, most other developers would at least try something, specially if they had the decades of game releases Game Freak has had.

But back on track. This is why in this hack, almost every non-Starter, non-Legendary fully evolved monster has a Base Stat Total of 650, making each all of them feel have the same potential overall.

This means there will be no "early useless Pokémon", nor so called "Filler".

And yes, this means your beloved Tyranitar, Dragonite, and such have the same potential as a Raticate or a Wigglytuff. On the other hand, this also means you don't need to train a Pupitar or Dragonair to ridiculous levels to have them evolve into their final forms.

If you ask yourself "why such high Base Stat Total", well, its simple: The higher the roof, the more space you have to scale stats. The more space you have to scale stats, the better you can "personalize" stats for the different species.

Besides, the Base Stat Total stops being important when everybody is at the same "level".

Now, that's for "normal Pokémon". The first two Generations had two trios of "pseudo-legendary" monsters, those being Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, and Raikou, Entei and Suicune. These critters have 660 Base Stat Total.

Starters also have a total of 660. This is mainly because starters are usually the back bone of most player's teams (although I usually roll without them), and I saw fitting for them to be slightly stronger. But fear not, because those extra points don't really make much difference, as they're used to make them more well rounded instead of just dumping them on their highest stats.

Finally, true Legendary Pokémon keep their 700 Base Stat Total of the original games. To this day I never used legendaries beyond wanting to see their back sprites, never cared about them, so they have the least number of changes, really.

Some other changes are:

·Many Pokémon had their overall archetypes changed besides their Stats improved. Furret is now a Fast Special Attacker, for example.

·Almost every Pokémon now has a 50% Male/Female Ratio, except for the Nidorans, Tauros and Miltank. Pokémon like Blissey, Chansey, or the Hitmon-family now can be both male and female. Magnemite, Voltorb and such are still genderless.

·The two Legendary Trios have genders and can in fact breed, thus they can be seen almost as normal Pokémon.

·The Pokédex had the entries for each Pokémon modified. This is because now it shows actually useful information instead of the continuously repeated "scientific" info that usually is full of lies and ridiculous stuff that could make an Indian Elephant have a headache, but hey, it may not be the Pokédex info, it may just be a bit too close to a Magcargo and it's experiencing how one feels being next to the Sun.

Happens to us all sometimes.

Now, the first page of each species shows its Weaknesses and Resistances while the second page of each one now points out the Base Stat spreads it has, which is a much, much more useful ingame data, specially when this hacks aims to change heavily most things related to battling and "the RPG elements".

Oh, and by the way, if you press Select while looking at a Pokémon's Data, you'll activate "Shiny Mode", and every Pokémon shown will be seen with their Shiny Colors!

·Talking about Shiny Pokémon, those are far more common. While I personally don't care too much about them, specially nowadays when they've become so... Uneventful and common, not to mention how much they've been related with hacking and cheating, Pokémon being shiny lost appeal to me, yet they're still a big thing for many players, so why not make them easier to obtain?

The means for finding a Shiny Pokémon in Generation II were rough. REALLY rough. With the way it works now, you should find quite a few of them throughout your adventure, and also finding female shiny Pokémon should also be a more common occurrence than before.

You're bound to find a fair share of them. This being a modded game, it doesn't really matter if they're not as rare or hard to find.

NPC trainers will have Shiny monsters here and there, so you should also have the chance!

·As you already know, wild Pokémon may be holding items. In the original game, many species had nothing with them. Now, most species have them, and the variety is much, much bigger. Not only that, the chances for finding Pokémon with items has increased.

Now there's a 50% of not having an item, 40% of having a "common" item, and 10% of holding a "rare" item. Better than the 2% on the original.

Lastly, I've made another improvement in held items. Now, whenever you battle with a wild monster that has an Item, an little icon (similar to the one in the party menu) will appear on the enemy's HUD. Specifically between the Pokeball icon that appears when you fight a monster that you already have in your Pokédex, and the Gender icon.

Again, only for WILD creatures. If monsters have items in trainer battles is a secret to everybody!

·A big one, already mentioned in the introduction: DVs (or IVs, if you rather call them that) NO LONGER FACTOR INTO STAT CALCULATIONS!!

This means that now only Base Stats and Stat Exp matter in each Pokémon statistics. Oh, and by the way, the formula to calculate stats has changed very slightly. Remember that +5 bonus at the end of the calculations? Now it's a 6. That means that a 100 Base stat (Not HP) of a fully trained monster is 300 and not 299.

This also means you can now have Female Pokémon with good Attack power, and Shiny Pokémon no longer are weak, two rather big things for me at least.

No more you will have to waste hours of your life breeding and abandoning dozens if not hundreds of Pokémon for good DVs (what a great lesson!). NPC Trainers also get good Pokémon too, making things better for everybody.

·Evolution has been streamlined and homogenized. This means that Pokémon that evolved by trades, special events, and such have simpler, more direct ways to do so now. But also, all Pokémon evolver on similar levels.

After all, if they are supposed on equal footing in Power, they should also be on the same level on this matter too.

Here's a few examples:

Pokémon with three stages evolve at levels 20 and 32.

Pidgey evolves to Pidgeotto at level 20, and to Pidgeot at level 32. Chikorita evolves to Bayleef at level 20, and to Meganium at level 32. Dratini evolves to Dragonair at level 20, and to Dragonite at level 32.

Pokémon with two stages evolve between levels 22 and 24.

Rattata evolves into Raticate at level 23. Venonat evolves into Venomoth at level 24. Rhyhorn evolves into Rhydon at level 24. Hoothoot evolves into Noctowl at level 22.

Of course, there are a couple of exceptions. Caterpie and Weedle are still the fastest evolving lines, and of course Pokémon that evolve through stones can do so anytime you want.

Oh, and by the way, in this hack, you WANT to evolve when Pokémon want to. You won't get much from stopping an evolution, and with Pokémon that evolve through stones and such, you should do it before too late.

This is because many species learn better techniques at the same level they evolve, and it would be a waste to not learn them.

You can find at which levels are recommended Pokémon to evolve through stones in the specific Pokémon Stat list txt. But if you want to make it easy:

If the Pokémon has two evolutionary stages > Use the stone at Level 22 or 23. If the Pokémon has three evolutionary stages > use the stone at level 30 or 32 (to reach the last stage).

That said, if you feel like not evolving for whatever reason, you've not lost everything. The game has a Move Reminder, and you'll be able to remember freely any move from a species learnset.

Oh, and the Time Capsule seems to work as long as you of course follow the rules. But a few notes:

Any Pokémon you bring from Generation 1 may have their moves changed upon arriving your game. The moves may turn into a very uncharacteristic one for the Pokémon, because I repurposed many moves into new ones.

The stats of the Pokémon will change from Gen 1 to Gen 2, and most notably, the HP of any Pokémon that reaches Gen 2 will not be fully healed, because of the change in stats, but there's no problem at all as far as functionality, just heal.

That said, have in mind there's NO NEED to use the Time Machine. You do so under your responsibility.

o-----------------o |[6] Type Changes| o-----------------o

Yet another big shake to the, in my personal point of view, rather badly balanced formula.

I'm not going to discuss or waste time with this. This is how it works here:

Defensive wise, each type now is weak to two other types, while resistant to three, one of them being itself. There are NO immunities. Every type is equal as far as weaknesses and resistances, except for Normal.

Normal has no weaknesses or resistances, period.

Offensive wise, each Type is effective against two Types, and is resisted by three, one it being itself. Normal does not hit for Super Effective damage nor does it get resisted.

So, among other things, Ghost will get hurt by Normal and Fighting moves, Normal will get hit by Ghost, Dragon is no longer weak to itself, and Ice is not such an awful and pathetic defensive Type that exists to be mocked.

Oh, the Fairy Type has been added too, but how it works doesn't exactly resemble the original game, just like the other Types.

Now, because I know how certain part of the community can act (and let's not kid ourselves pretending it doesn't happen), to make myself clear and blunt:

I don't care if you think Type X should be weak/resistant to type Y. I don't care if you don't want to learn new Type Matchups. I don't care what Game Freak does with types now or in the future.

I'm not Game Freak and I have made this wanting to break away from their norm, I don't have to follow any rules, not theirs, not yours.

Making a more even ground for all types, trying to make each monster good, so I could play with all of them and have fun was one of the important things for me, and to reach that goal I made as many changes as I saw fit.

You're free to stop reading and go look for another hack if this will bother you that much.

End of the "serious" moment. Good? Great, let's continue!

With this change, every Pokémon will always have more good points than bad points, not to mention that the maximum number of weaknesses a Pokémon can have is 4, and if it has 4 weaknesses, to compensate it will have 6 resistances.

Another thing I want to point out is that the number of Normal Type Pokémon has been lowered. While there are still a bunch of them, it's a way lower number, making many of these previously Normal Pokémon have completely different Type Combinations. I mean, I'm sure you won't miss all the Normal/Flying types. I hope so at least.

If you think Normal Type not having weaknesses could be "broken", far from it, specially since, as I said, in this hack having *more good points* is a given for any non-Normal Pokémon. But of course that's just talking. They can make for great members, in one of my several test-playthroughs, a Furret was one of my best Pokémon all thoughout the game.

There is an image in the RAR file with a Type Table to show you how Types work now, but beyond that, in Violet City's Pokémon Academy, there are two books that teach you the differen Types and their strong and weak points.

And then, if you're so lazy to figure it out, the weaknesses and resistances for each individual species is listed on the Stats text file.

And theeen, if you're even lazier than that, you can also check the Pokedex Entry of a given *captured* Pokémon, as it gives you useful info such as this.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that you have a number of ways to find out how types work. Use them to your advantage.

Oh, lastly, in this hack there are NO Pokémon with double weaknesses. I've never liked them to be honest, and to me just show how unappealing some types were designed to be that they make such awful combinations.

I still remember how excited people were for Aurorus until they saw its typing, and then it all turned into either jokes at its weaknesses or pure disapppointment.

No fun.

o-----------------o |[7] Move Changes| o-----------------o

Alongside the previous two changes, the Moves have been changed A LOT too.

Instead of just "copying" what Game Freak has done in later generations, this hack had in mind to actually modify moves in ways to make them more interesting based on the limitations of the GBC games, and also another little thing:

There is a Physical/Special Split in this hack, so one of the big changes of this hack was to give each Type a number of both, Physical and Special moves to cover different Power levels so Pokémon can have good STAB moves that go along with their stats.

After all, that was probably the best thing Generation IV did for me. While it took some toys from some Pokémon (like Elemental Punches from Alakazam), it really was a big change for the better for most species.

So for example, we have Rock Slide for Rock Pokémon with high Attack, and Rock Launch for Rock Pokémon with high Special Attack. For this, many old moves were removed and reworked into new moves, mostly moves that were redundant and exactly the same as other moves (Like Whirlwind and Roar, or Wrap and Bind, they're the exact same thing).

While this gives every type and every Pokémon solid Stab moves, the limitation of 254 moves makes it so I can't add many "wild" and unique moves, but oh well, it's already much, much better than what it was originally on Generation II.

...No, really, I forgot how rough and unfair the move list was in old Generations, with some Types having almost no good moves at all, or moves that Pokémon couldn't take advantage of because their Stats and their Types didn't match. Hoo boy...

Another big change is that most attacks now have secondary effects, and very often, the lower the Power of a move, the higher is the chance to inflict those secondary effects.

For example, Fire Breath (New move) has a 15% Chance of causing Burn and 70 Power, but Flamethrower only has 10% chance of causing burn and 95 Power. This makes moves with lower Power a bit more useful.

As you may imagine, Pokémon Movesets have been changed tremendously, not only for those critters that had their Types and Stat distributions changed, but also to accomodate all the modifications related to Moves.

Movesets in this hack are in no way attempting to copy later generations of official games, specially since Generation 2 Movesets were incredibly sad to look back.

Instead, they're focused on attempting to give what that certain species needs. So no Pokémon will be let without good STAB moves, and you also won't see Pokémon that are obviously Physical attackers getting Special moves or viceversa.

A handful of moves also got their priority changed.

Safeguard, Haze, Mist, Transformation and Bide now go before other moves. This change actually shakes up battles a bit, it was fun to see the AI read my moves from time to time and prevent Status, and hey, with Transform having priority now Ditto is more usable too!

A list of the moves, what they do, and their other data is in its own TXT file, although with ingame descriptions, it is not necessary.

As far as TMs and HMs, things also have changed.

TMs no longer get consumed when used, so they have infinite uses. The Moves they teach have also changed for the majority of TMS, with most of them teaching both Physical and Special "end-game" moves. There's also a total of 55 TMS now.

None of them can be found in shops, you must find them by exploring or obtained from an NPC.

HMs have also changed a bit, making them more useful. Cut now is a 70 Power Normal move with a High Critical Ratio, and Fly is a strong move with 110 Power that causes Recoil damage. Flash causes damage and can lower Accuracy. Strength is now is Fighting type and causes Flinch. And Whirlpool is a bit more powerful and now takes more HP at the end of turns, so its a rather cool combo alongside Toxic on bulky Pokémon.

Also, HMs can be forgotten like normal attacks, so you can swap attacks easily in case you want, and unlike in Gen. 1, because you can't drop them, you can't get stuck.

Or rather, you wouldn't get stuck, because there's another change. These moves:

Headbutt Rock Smash Cut Surf Strength Waterfall Whirlpool

Don't need to be known by a Pokémon to be used in the overworld! You only need a Pokémon capable of learning such move, and the needed Medal in the case of the HMs.

That only leaves Flash and Fly out of that list, right?

About Flash:

I also added an item that will let you light dark caves so you don't need to have a Pokémon with Flash, but you get it quite a bit later than the HM. Just look around Mahogany after things calmed down.

It can be assigned to Select for quick use, too!

About Fly:

There's a small sidequest you can do later in the game that will net you a special object. This item will let you use a different version of Fly. Mechanically, it's the same, you can fly to places you've explored. Animation-wise is different, though.

Because all of this, you no longer need to have any HM on any Pokémon unless you want it (because most of them are actually respectable attacking moves), which gives much more freedom to parties and movesets!

o----------------------------------------o |[8] Stat Experience, Vitamins and Fruits| o----------------------------------------o

TLDR VERSION: Use Vitamins, use Fruits. They improve your Pokemon's stats, and you need to take care of your team to withstand other trainers which have properly trained monsters. Use them intelligently, don't waste them with Pokémon you don't want to have in your team, at least early on when you have limited resources.

Vitamins are no longer as limited in effect, or as expensive. Fruits are new, and are twice as good as Vitamins.

Pokémon games have a system in which, through adquiring certain points through different means, a creature can improve its Stats. In Generations 1 and 2, these are called Stat Experience. This is a system Game Freak has never informed the players about at all, and the games never came even close to mention it in any trully useful detail, so bare with me if this is your first time with this stuff, although I doubt you found this hack knowing nothing about it.

Stat Experience points can range from 0 (Empty) to 65535 (Maximized). Unlike later generations, In Gen. I and II, you can maximize the experience of all the stats.

Stat Experience points are divided and exclusive for each stat. HP, Attack, Defense and Speed have their own Stat Exp Table. Special Attack and Special Defense share the same Stat Exp Table. So reaching 65535 Stat Exp in each Stat will make your Pokémon perfect stat-wise. Even Pokémon at Level 100 can get Stat Experience, but to gain the effects, they need to be stored on the PC so their real Stats can get updated with the current Stat Exp. they have at that moment.

The ways you get Stat Exp are these:

By battling -Each time one of your Pokémon defeats another, the Base Stats of the enemy's species is added to your Stat Exp in each stat. This is the slowest way, but it's also free, and will raise your stats by just playing through the game.

If you defeat, let's say, a Caterpie, it has these Base Stats:

HP 75, Attack 60, Defense 70, Speed 95, Special Attack 90, Special Defense 70. As I said, Special Attack and Defense use the same Stat Exp Table. The game takes the Base Stat related to Special Attack, so in this case, your Pokémon will be awarded 90 Special Stat Exp Points, alongside the rest. Training only through battles is not only pointless when you have other means, but also incredibly tedious. While in my hack Pokémon have higher stats that make training this way faster, battling for Stat Exp should only be relied on when you've already fed your Pokémon Vitamin and Fruits, to get those last Stat Exp Points needed for a Perfect Stat.

But of course, any Stat Exp gained through battles is benefitial, just don't battle *only* for the Stat Exp unless, as I said it's to finish Stat Exp training! By the way, there's a special condition named Pokerús, which is a benefitial virus that will double the amount of Stat Exp you get from battles. This is very rare to get, and you will be noticed by a PKMN Center Nurse. The games don't tell you what it does exactly either...

It can be very useful, and it propagates through your Pokémon team, and disappears after some time. If you ever get Pokerús, try to keep a Pokémon with active Pokerús on your PC so you can pass it to other Pokémon. But as I said, it's very rare!

By Vitamins -Vitamins in the original game were pretty useless. They raised very little, and they could only be used up to some point, which is less than half way the Stat Exp total.

In this hack, though, they're much better, and even necessary, as the people living in Johto and Kanto have *actually* trained their Pokémon properly and they have Stat Exp, so they'll be stronger and more challenging, and after a certain point, all trainers you'll find will have maximized Pokémon, like any trainer worth their salt would be doing.

Each Vitamin gives 10.240 Stat Exp Points per use, and they can be used until the Stat Exp of the Stat that you want to raise reaches 51.456, at which point, the Pokémon wont get any benefit from it (it won't be wasted, so don't worry).

To make it easier to understand, let's put it this way:

An untrained (either just catched, or just hatched) Pokémon will have 0 Stat Exp on everything. If you feed it HP UPs, it will be able to eat 6:

10.240 1 HP Up 20.480 2 HP Up 30.720 3 HP Up 40.960 4 HP Up 51.200 5 HP Up > Doesn't go pass the limit so you can eat another one. 61.440 6 HP Up > Passed the limit, so you can't feed more, but it's almost Maximized! You can get the rest by battling.

If you're used to Effort Values from Gen 3 onwards, let's make it even easier:

The way it works, each modern EV means 256 Stat Exp, so if it's easier for you, just divide Stat Exp by 256:

Each Vitamin gives 10.240 Stat Exp, that means 40 EV. The limit of Stat Exp is 51.456, that means 201 EV.

So with a Pokémon without EVs, you can go from 0 to 240 EV through vitamins.

You can obviously give Vitamins to a Pokémon you've been battling with no problem, but an untrained Pokémon is better to use as an example.

Their price is much lower so you can keep up with enemy trainers, although they cost enough to make each purchase a bit of an investment early into the game.

By Fruits - Fruits are almost exactly the same as Vitamins, but they give twice the Stat Exp.

Each one gives 20.480 Stat Exp (Or 80 EV if you want it that way), and the limit is 41.216 Stat Points (or 161 EV). This means that your Pokémon can eat up to three Fruits in a stat to jump for 0 Stat Exp to 61.440 (or 0 to 240 EV) and almost maximize it. Let's again use an example of raising HP with Fruit now:

20.480 1 Salty Fruit 40.960 2 Salty Fruit > Doesn't go pass the limit so you can eat another one 61.440 3 Salty Fruit > Passed the limit, so you can't feed more, but it's almost Maximized!

Thus, fruits are much better overall than Vitamins, but they're scarce, and should be better used for Pokémon you know they have little to no training in a certain Stat.

You can combine Vitamins and Fruit without problem, but if you do, first use your Fruits, then the Vitamins so you don't waste Fruits unnecessarily.

Why the limit - If you're asking why the limit is 51.456, or 240 EV for Vitamins, and 41.216 or 161 EVs for Fruits, it is simple to answer: If you feed a Vitamin/Fruit to a Pokémon in a way that would go over 65535, a bug would happen and the Stat Exp of that Pokémon would roll back to 0. I think it's obvious why that would suck. So, by putting these limits you're safe from that to happen, but you also get very close to maximize a stat. It's the best balance I could achieve.

o--------------------------------o |[9] Mechanic & Gameplay Changes| o--------------------------------o

Already said that under the hood, there are many, many other changes. Some (not all of them, not by a long shot) changes are as follows:

· The Clock Reset function now has a much easier button combination to open it. The combination is like this:

1: Hold Select + Down 2: Release Down while holding Reset. 3: With Reset Held, now hold Up too. 4: Release Select. The Reset Clock menu will open.

It requires less buttons, making it easier to do, or able to do at all depending where you are playing. You still need to input the password, though, removing that would let you abuse certain things very easily.

· Prices for several things have been lowered on the "Intended" Versions of this hack. Because you no longer can abuse Items to progress, I saw no real reason to make you pay as much as usual. You're still going to need them, because the need for healing between battles is still a thing.

Another reason to do this is because you will also spend much more money than usual on Vitamins and other stuff to properly train and prepare your team.

· Catching Pokémon grants you Experience now! The Exp. is the same as if it was defeated, and every Pokémon that fought in said battle will get a share of it.

· The Odd Egg will always give you a Shiny Pokémon between 7 ramdonly selected species, and both genders. Each Species get a unique move, instead of all of them getting the same (now non-existing) move.

· Talking about Eggs, Pokémon now hatch much, much faster, so there's less walking up and down through Goldenrod. Not only that, but Egg Moves also changed all around. Pokémon also lay Eggs faster, and Nidorina & Nidoqueen can now breed, alongside both "legendary" trios.

Now each basic species has between 3 or 4 Egg Moves for the most part they are different from vanilla, and basic Starter Pokémon have 5 Egg Moves.

· Trainer AI has been much improved. Now they know much better what they do, and they can priorize stuff like Status Effects, they take better advantage of weaknesses and resistances.

They also carry Items with them, if you play with the patch that lets you items in Battle, of course.

Trainers also have properly trained monsters, with Stat Exp increasing throughout the game. Feeding your team vitamins and fruits is now important to stay on toes with them. Of course, there is more variety in species of monsters used by NPCs, their levels are higher, and team sizes have increased a bit.

Making each trainer a full 6 Pokémon team would drag the game, though, and probably couldn't fit, I already was suffering the lack of space with what I added, because when adding Stat Exp, custom Movesets, and such the space gets used way too fast.

Also, the game was very, very unfair to the NPC trainers. Not only were they hard-coded to fail more often, have mediocre AI, and Low-Level Pokémon, you also got your Stats and Types boosted as you got Badges, so they became completely inferior and disappointing... At least, if you want to have any challenge.

That's why any bonus that Badges give you was stripped down. No Stat Boost, no Type Boost. This will make the game far more fair and chalenging, in turn making it more enjoyable if you look for having to think and put a bit of effort, which is, you know, the point of this entire hack.

Another thing changed is the money that many types of trainers reward you by beating them. In this hack you have many more things to buy as mentioned above, from Vitamins, to Held Items, to Decorations, and more Healing Items because of the higher difficulty, so a better income was needed.

On the other hand, if you lose, which is much more plausible now, you won't get your money halved. Instead, you lose money depending on the number of badges you have, like more recent games. It's much more fair early on, specially in this hack since it is expected of you to buy vitamins and held items for your monsters as you go through the game, besides all the other items.

· Stat increase percentages have been changed.

Stat-improving moves like Accelerate or Meditate, and Stat-decreasing moves like Growl or Scary Face can go from Level 0 (normal stat), to Level +6 or -6, depending if it increases or decreases a stat.

Before o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o |Level -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 | |Perc. 25% 28% 35% 45% 50% 66% 100% 150% 200% 250% 300% 350% 400%| o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o Now o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o |Level -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 | |Perc. 25% 30% 35% 45% 60% 75% 100% 130% 160% 190% 220% 250% 300%| o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o

This has been changed for one main reason: to make better balance between critters, Stats are now higher. With stats being higher, stat-increasing would get too broken, specially with +1 bonus being a whole 50% increase. So bonuses are softer now, but so is stat-reducing -1 Level, so it's not too harsh.

· Item Storing Changes

For starters, there's two new pockets, one for Berries and Fruits in which 13 kinds of items go in it, the already known berries, plus the new Fruits used for powering up your monsters. Fits all of them.

The other new pocket is for Battle items, specifically Held Items. There are several dozen of them, and having such type of items be mixed with consumable and healing items was a bit of a mess, even more if you have an organization obsession and want everything neatly grouped.

Every item of this type fits in this pocket, that's over 50 different types of Items!

Apricorns are now stored in your Ball Pocket, and there's space to have every ball plus Apricorn, so they will never become a nuissance to you by filling your bag like before.

Item Pocket now can store 35 different objects instead of 20, and because Berries/Fruits, Apricorns, and Held Items do not take space in this pocket anymore you have much more freedom.

There's one catch, though, now you can only store 30 types of items in the PC, instead of 50. It won't be much of a problem because you don't need to store any Berry, Fruit, Apricorn, Ball, or Held Item, so I think it's a good compromise.

Another change is, as mentioned above, about wild Pokémon. Now, many different species will hold items. These range from Berries and Fruits, to sell-able Items, Apricorns and a few others.

This not only will make getting new monsters more interesting, but will also make way, way more useful the move Thief, and also the new Peck, which also has the effect of taking the item the foe holds.

· The Pokegear Map has seen a huge facelift. Not only is a bit prettier to look at, it's also more informative, with standout places or landmarks pointed out in the map. I even added different little icons to quickly see which poblated areas are Towns or Cities, just because why not.

· A new Building in Goldenrod has been opened. This place will sell to you all the Decoration items you previously would get through Mystery Gift or through your Mom.

Some of the dolls also have been changed, to offer something new, because the game now is not limited to the original Pokémon icons for the Party Menu. This is also true for the bigger dolls.

Talking about that, your Mom will no longer buy you Decoration items, and the items it buys are now much more useful and simply put, better than Super Potions and such.

· A Move Reminder has been added to the game, but unlike how Move Reminders work in vanilla games, here it will let you remember moves from a species, as many times as you want, for free.

This is because this hack, having higher difficulty than your usual Pokémon game, may require you to reshuffle your Movesets or try different strategies, and I WANT you to do so, punishing you with constant farming of Items to change Movesets so you can try different things sounds very counter-intuitive to me.

To make this even more useful, each fully evolved creature can remember a number of Moves from prior evolutionary forms too.

The types of Moves they'll retain from earlier forms are usually moves related to Stat changes, Status Effects, and Attacks that may have special traits or effects.

Basically, Pidgeot won't be able to remember Wing Attack, which is a simple, straightforward Attack move, but it will remember Quick Attack and Peck, the first one having Priority, and the second one having the new effect of stealing Items from other Pokémon.

You can find the Move Reminder in both Johto, and Kanto. In Johto, he lives with the other useful NPCs, Name Rater and Move Deleter in Goldenrod. In Kanto, you can find a similar group of NPCs in Lavender Town.

· Pokegear Rematches are now much stronger, they have more Pokémon and more varied, and often enough their Pokémon have nicknames.

To give you an idea, many Pokegear trainers will end up with teams of Lvl 80 Pokémon! So be very careful when fighting again these trainers, they may surprise you!

Also, a big change in how they work: Originally, if you didn't rematch a trainer and you kept playing, when you came back to it, it would challenge you with a very outdated team.

This is because they only get better if you fight them earlier each time. This is no how it works anymore. They upgrade their teams as you advance through the game, and you could very well meet them for the first time after battling them originally and find out they have a full team of very strong Pokémon.

This makes Pokegear rematches far, far more interesting and better paced.

Talking about rematches, I added end-game rematches to the game. Once you beat Red for the first time, a whole bunch of new battles gets unlocked: The Pokémon League levels get bumped, with some changes on their teams. Counting your Rival's rematch, levels range from 80 to 85.

All Gym Leaders end up their training, and they await you to fight in Lvl 100 Rematches. If they didn't have originally, every Leader will have a full team, and all of them have some changes to their teams.

The default trainer in the Trainer's House in Viridian City also goes from Lvl 70, to Lvl 100. And there's a few extra Lvl 100 battles that I'll let you discover, although they're not precissely hidden!

If you ask yourself why Lvl 100, well, that's to make sure you don't win by overlevelling them. Once you beat Red, you also unlock a way to Level Up your Pokémon much faster. Just check the Battle Tower once you do so, although be warned, it requires some effort!

· Buena's Password had its rewards changed, now it's more useful overall.

· Ingame Pokémon trades are different, and they ask for hard-to-get monsters, but give you very nice ones in exchange, I hope you like them.

· Bill's grandfather has seen some neat changes. His time killer of seeing Pokémon you bring to him stays, but not quite the same as it originally was. Now he'll tell you riddles that talk about a certain Pokémon, and if you guess them correctly by showing him the right species, he'll gift you some very neat Held Items for your pals! He put quite of effort in those riddles, they even rhyme!

· Fishing has been tweaked a bit.

Now the chances for Pokémon to bit are higher (who wants to press Select several times for nothing?) and the Pokémon available by fishing are much more varied, yes, even the Old Rod.

Levels are also higher. Old Rod ~10, Good Rod ~20, Super Rod ~40.

Talking about the Old Rod, now you can get it sooner, before even getting the first Medal. The Fishing Guru has moved to the gate that connectes Route 31 with Violet City. This expands which Pokémon you can get early on, and more options is better.

...Unless you're me, then it just makes it harder to choose which monsters you want to have.

· Fruit Trees now give 2 Berries/Fruits/Apricorns each day!

· On Violet, Azalea and Goldenrod cities you can find the new Berry Scouts. These green-cladded folks will sell you the basic Status-Healing Berries, in order to help accomodate you a bit on the higher difficulty of this hack compared to the usual stuff.

The price on the "Items in battle available" patches are a bit higher.

· While there's absolutely zero intention of creating a new "story" or "region", there are new maps here and there. For Example, there's an actual Viridian Forest again, with trainers, Items and such, even!

Other maps got extended a bit here and there, maybe to hide something...! Some areas also have changes made to look or feel better to explore. Others have been extended to feel more like a full place.

The Gyms also had changes. It's interesting how... "small", and simple most of them where. I expanded most, give some light puzzles to most of the ones that didn't have anything going on (I even rescued unused map movement for one of them!) to make them slightly more interesting.

Of course, please don't expect Zelda-level dungeons or anything like that. ...Although that could be a pretty cool thing as its own game!

· Because I made quite a few changes in the Types of the Pokémon, I reformatted Bill's PC a bit. Now when browsing around your monsters, you can see their types on the upper left side of the screen.

· I changed a few textbox frames, some to fix them up a bit, and two of them are entirely new. I like Frame 5 myself.

· The order of the Pockets in your Bag differs when youre outside Battle and when you're in middle of one.

This is to make the Poké Ball pocket right next to the default Item pocket, instead of being 3 pushes away to the right.

· Status Effects no longer are shown with 3 letter "words". Now they have their own little Icons, which make things cleaner both in Battle and specially on the Party menu.

· Of course, I decapitalized all the text I found. What a tedious thing...

· Smashable Rocks now can give stone-type Items alongside being a way to find certain Pokémon.

· Once you heal Moo Moo, one of the twins opens up a little shop!

She'll be able to make Berry Juice for you, and you have two ways of doing it, for convenience.

Talking about Held-healing Items, RageCandyBar have been also reworked to be eaten during battle.

They're more powerful than Gold Berries, but less than Berry Juice.

· Many things have been fixed. For example:

Daisy's Haircut was buggy and could in fact reduce Happiness, has been fixed. Magikarps in Lake of Rage were in fact smaller than normal and not bigger, and other Magikarp related bugs also existed all around. Fixed. A bug where Defense could be lowered by attacking a Substitute with a -Def move existed, now is fixed. A bug where Mirror Coat and Counter would damage foe after they used an item existed, now is fixed. A bug that made supposedly fleeing Pokémon not able to flee is fixed. Now Fast Balls are more useful. A bug that made a foe under Nightmare's effect still be hurt if it was healed with items is fixed. A bug where the HP Bar would deplete way slower than intended existed. Yes, you're reading right. The speed at which the HP Bar emptied, specially at higher levels, was not intentional, making high level battles way, way slower. This has been fixed and is much better, albeit not Gen. 3 "fast".

Other bugs and stuff has been fixed too.

There's more things I could put here, but when you spend so long doing something you start to forget each individual thing...

o-------------------------------------------------o |[10] New Kurt Balls, new ways to obtain Apricorns| o-------------------------------------------------o

Yes, every Kurt Ball has been replaced. Why?

Well, actually, for the first year and a half of "development" of this hack, Kurt Balls were pretty much as they were originally, with exception of changing one for more utility, improving their effects to make them overall better and fixing the quite-a-few glitches related to them.

But during the many tests I (and a few friends) did, all the feedback I got is that they did not use them much, if at all, because how situational they are, and because you can only get them in limited amounts.

So I decided to create a new set of Balls with very simple yet very effective effects. Each of these new Poké Balls offer a x3 Catch Multiplier if used on a certain Type of Pokémon, with each new Ball being useful for 3 different Types each.

For example, the Poké Ball made with Red Apricorns (named Red Ball to simplify things), will work best while trying to catch Fire, Fighting or Ground Pokémon! Other example would be the Pink Ball will do so with Poison, Psychic, or Fairy ones.

There's no tricks, nor complexities. If the types match, you get a stronger effect than an Ultra Ball. This makes each one way more versatile, every Apricorn as useful as the rest.

Descriptions of each new Ball points to which types are most effective.

Now, because I want people to use these Balls more often, there are a few more ways to obtain these Items. The first and most simple is getting Apricorns from Trees, from which you get two for every one each day.

Pokémon themselves also carry Apricorns, as many species hold them randomly.

But I also added a new face to Johto, a traveling monk! He's easily recognizable thanks to his sandogasa (a traditional traveling hat). Because he travels around Johto, each day you'll find him in a different spot, and each day will offer to trade 5 Apricorn of a certain color for one specific Item. The Items he ask for can be obtained from wild Pokémon, and sometimes found somewhere lying on the floor.

For Red or Green Apricorns, he asks for a Tiny Mushroom. for Blue, Yellow or Pink Apricorns, he asks for a Pearl. For White or Black Apricorns, he asks for a Stardust.

Tiny Mushrooms can be held by Pokémon such as Paras, Ledyba, Oddish, Vulpix and others. Pearls can be held by Pokémon such as Shellder, Horsea, Seadra, Octillery and Corsola. Stardust can be held by Pokémon such as Geodude, Jigglypuff, Phanpy, Staryu and Tentacool.

Of course those are just a few examples, there are more. I hope with all this, Kurt's custom Poké Balls are more useful all around.

o--------------------------------------------------------o |[11] The New and Improved Battle Tower and Trainer House| o--------------------------------------------------------o

The Battle Tower was the first time Game Freak offered anything sort of similar to a Challenge Mode inside the main games. We got Pokémon Stadium 1 and 2, which were great little things, designed to be a battle simulator, with different rules and difficulties, among other things like mini-games.

But the Battle Tower was a bit... Lacking. And HARD.

This is because, for one, the trainers you met here had a quite low variety of Pokémon, so it kinda became a bit boring (I guess Game Freak knew most Pokémon had middling stats!).

On the other hand, the monsters here sported pretty much PERFECT stats, and with strong moves along with them.

This last sentence is worth noting because in older generations, training your Pokémon to their fullest potential, A.K.A. giving them the max Stat Exp. was a total pain and a ludicriously slow process. And trying to get good DVs (old IVs) was a much, much, much worse process than that.

You couldn't make use of ANY mechanic to get Pokémon with good DVs, they were random, and unlike more recent Generations, you could not improve a Pokémon DVs by using items or such. You had no control besides soft resetting ad nauseam. If it sounds bad it's because it is.

So to have a chance not only you needed High DV monsters (pretty much impossible by normal rules), but also fully trained and with the best moves possible. And you only got ONE SINGLE TM for many moves, and Pokémon learnsets were for the most party pretty lacking if looking at them from a competitive point of view, so you were screwed there, as you may imagine.

All in all, it was often seen as unfair and just not very fun. And if you wanted to try it anyway, add to that that the rewards were laughable. Vitamins that you could buy, and didn't help you at all because they became useless quickly, they only helped for less than half of the Stat. Exp total!

But here's the thing: I love the concept! The idea of having 3 monsters each, with the same level, where only your strategy, knowdlege and adaptibility can take you out of trouble, sounds great!

Even more, maybe if you got something worth your time as a reward it could be even more fun!

That's why a good chunk of the effort of this hack was about trying to balance types, moves, Pokémon and such. And also why the Battle Tower got so many changes!

So let's list the changes:

For starters, each of the ten Levels of the Tower got their Pokémon changed, both to update the new stats, but also to give much, much needed variety to the types of monsters you would see, as originally the game sported just a small number of different species.

Instead of 7 battles per round, now you have quicker rounds of 3. This makes for a much more brisk pace, a far less frustrating event if you lose, and easier to pick up and play.

About difficulty, it should still be a good challenge, although this time, there is some balance, as now you can properly train your monsters through vitamins and fruits, TMs hold a good selection of high-Power moves and they're infinite and of course DVs/IVs are the same for everybody.

Oh, and you can remember old moves, too!

There's also two Shops available for players, in which you can buy a selection of Held Items so you can prepare yourself to challenge the Tower, or to progress through the game, as trainers will start using Held Items more and more once you reach this point in the game.

Up to that point is the basic stuff... But the Battle Tower has also opened several shops and services, and there's even a bit of a progression system built into it, too!

Whenever you participate in the Battle Tower and come out victorious, you'll be rewarded a new type of Item: Battle Medals!

You get three for each victiorous round (so each three battles).

These objects are, basically, the coin of exchange for almost any service inside the Battle Tower. They are stored in your Item Pocket and can be used in a variety of ways.

For one, they're pricey objects, each one sells for 12.000P, thus they can cover costs for training Pokémon. Selling all 3 you win nets you 36.000P, which is pretty good if you realize you can buy enough Vitamins to fully feed a Pokémon in three different Stats (or four if you use Special Atk/Def Vitamins!).

So two good rounds of Battle Tower lets you set up the Stat Exp. of a Pokémon really, really quickly! Or you can buy other stuff with it, too. But that's just a bonus compared to their real use!

In the Main Hall of the Battle Tower, a new Receptionist hangs out close to the Battle Tower's usual lady that takes you to the battles themselves. This new NPC can reward you with a Silver or Gold Trophy in exchange for a number of Battle Medals. They're shiny decorations for your room... And hold some use.

The Battle Tower has been expanded and now there are new rooms that host several services. One of them, and one I'm rather excited to manage to put in the game is a Reward Shop that exchanges Battle Medals for Special Eggs!

Do you remember the event Pokémon from the Stadium games?

They were gifted to you after accomplishing something, and in Stadium 2, they had moves they couldn't learn normally. It was a nice little thing, and always made me feel curious about Pokémon with Moves that couldn't learn normally. You know, what new strategies could I come up with and such.

This service is located in a room behind the Main Hall. There, a Receptionist will take one of your Battle Medals and will gift you an Egg with a special Pokémon that knows a unique move!

There's a total of 50 different species you can get through these Eggs, and the one you get for each medal is selected at random. And every species has the same chances, no dishonest stuff like 0.0001% to get a certain Pokémon, like a Gatcha game.

Oh, and if you're one of those, don't waste your time resetting trying to get Shiny Pokémon from these Eggs... Believe me, it won't work.

Another service is the inclusion of Move Tutors!

There are two Tutors and each one can teach 4 Moves each. Seven of those are unique to Tutors, with an Eighth Move being Toxic, a TM you get veeery late, so I added it for earlier access, as some Pokémon (like defensive ones) do benefit from it or need it to work well.

Tutor Moves can only be learnt by Fully Evolved Pokémon, and you can do so only in exchange for one Battle Medal.

The move selection is composed of Non-Damaging moves to give more utility and so they can be applied to all Pokémon in one way or another, unlike damaging moves, and I would have liked to have more, but I hit the limit before the entire game gets corrupt, so these will have to do!

Both of these features not only offer much, much better rewards for your victories in the Battle Tower, ones that not only can be enjoyed throughout the rest of the game making it more entertaining, but also give you a chance to get a few monsters earlier and gives new possibilites to make teams to challenge the Battle Tower too.

...And that's not all you can do here now!

Besides normal Move Tutors, the Battle Tower has also hired a very special NPC: The Egg Elder... Or in other words, an Egg Move Tutor!

Basically, in exchange for 3 Battle Medals, this old man can teach a Pokémon an Egg Move that its evolution line can learn through breeding with other Pokémon!

And yes, any member. Pidgeot and Pidgeotto can learn moves that a bred Pidgey could hinerit, so no worries on that front!

This way you won't longer feel like your early-game teammates (or any Pokémon for that matter) feel gimped or "lesser" because don't have this or that move only available through breeding.

In a way it's like every species has its own specific Tutor Moves!

But let's continue.

The receptionist in the main hall (the one who gives trophies) also offers a new Key Item: The Box Changer. It does what it says, it gives you the ability to switch the Box on Bill's PC anywhere you want. Just remember that you still save your game when changing boxes this way.

Once you reach the "endgame", meaning, after defeating Red, two other Receptionists will open up new services. And are neat ones!

The first one is a Rare Candy shop! You will be able to exchange one Battle Medal for 5 Rare Candies. This will let you manage the Levels of your Pokémon faster, either to battle the new Lvl 100 Rematches, or to Level up your monsters to reach the Levels required for Battle Tower Rooms.

The other, it's quite different but way more interesting too.

You see, a new group of candies capable of changing the Level of a Pokémon to a fixed one now exist! There's Candies for Levels 10, 30, 50 and 80!

No matter what Level the monster is, it will change into the Level of the Candy!

If you give a Level 30 Candy to a Level 4 Pokémon, it will become Level 30. And If you give a Level 30 Candy to a Level 82 Pokémon, it will also become Level 30!

This is mostly for a reason: To be able to use your favourite pals in any Level of the Battle Tower!

Once a Pokémon Level goes up, it no longer can access the Battle Rooms of lower Levels, and if you wanted to use a monster of a specific species you already raised, you were forced to train another one. But no longer you will need to do that!

Now any Pokémon can battle in any Battle Room by using these new Candies in combination with Rare Candies, and you can perfectly control the level of your team for this challenge while also needing a bit of a resource (Battle Medals) to make use of it.

Not to mention, Level 80 Candies can make HUGE time savers for training Pokémon for those Level 100 Rematches, specially if we're talking about bred Pokémon, or Pokémon from Battle Tower's Special Eggs!

Now, be warned, you CAN NOT make use of all these features from the beginning!

Remember those Trophies I talked about? Yeah, they do more than look nice in your room. Each one unlocks features of the Tower!

Once you win the Silver Trophy, you unlock: Move Tutors (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Rare Candy Shop (You need to beat Red too). Level 30 Candies (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Level 50 Candies (You need beat the Elite Four too).

Once you win the Gold Trophy, you unlock: Egg Move Tutor (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Level 80 Candy (You need to beat Red too).

So yeah, you must prove yourself and get the Trophies to use all the Battle Tower has to offer.

But don't fret! There's not really much grinding to do. You'll see that the number of Medals needed to obtain each is pretty reasonable for what they unlock.

The game does not ask for hundreds of them for each, not even close! I know how tedious is to collect Battle Points for an Item or one-time use TM back in Generation IV.

And hey, if for some reason you still need a bit of a push, you can win Battle Medals by participating on Buena's Password.

They cost 2 points, you can get one Medal every two days. It's a much slower pace than actually fighting, but it certainly adds up if you play often.

And you also get a handful of them in Kanto, a certain NPC will gift you a bunch if you manage to do something, and some Gym Leaders will gift you one too.

Lastly, also in Kanto, there's the Trainer House.

Originally it was a cool little feature in which you could battle the Pokémon Team that a friend had when you two did a Mistery Gift.

Because I don't expect people going around doing IR connections with a Romhack, the Trainer House has been changed around.

I really don't want to say much, but here's this:

Normally, you can battle a special Trainer daily in this building. But once you've beaten the strongest trainer in all the land, levels are raised, and you can take Lvl 100 battles... With the difference that the Pokémon used in these new battles change depending on the day of the week!

And if you win, you also obtain Battle Medals!

It's a little extra end-game thing alongside the other end-game additions.

o-------------------o |[12] Visual Changes| o-------------------o

Many, many visual changes have been made throughout the game to make the world a bit more cohesive, to make Pokémon look better, or to simple improve stuff here and there.

Pretty much every Pokémon not named Unown got their colors changed, for ones that look better, closer to the original colors of a particular species, and also got their sprites touched up and cleaned up.

Because the games were originally designed to be displayed on the tiny screen of a GB, the graphic artists would try and take advantage to use the 4 colors available to a Pokémon sprite to give it more details. With the advent of the GBC, now they could use colors too, and because the screen wasn't backlighted, they needed to use stronger, more saturated and often darker colors.

The issue is that nowadays these games are pretty much always played on backlighted screens that are also much, much bigger than the original Game Boy's screen, so these graphics that originally looked fine now I don't find they've aged as well with the ways we play them today.

Now, let's be fair here. This is not a criticism for the sprites or the artists. These sprites were made to be seen under a specific hardware, and they worked with what they had, and the gigantic jump in design quality from Generation 1 to Generation 2 is to be applauded.

But at the same time, I think it's fair to say that there's nothing that says they can not be revised and/or improved. That's why I took the horridly tedious job of cleaning up every single sprite (and each of their animated frames) to make them look more clean when played on bigger screens.

I also took the liberty to tweak many of the colors used for Shiny Pokémon. This is something I've seen many people point out throughout the years, and it's true that the use of color for Shiny palettes leaves quite a bit to be desired, with many Pokémon being painted with what I saw called "Puke Green", and others having really dark and simply not appealing combinations of colors that sometimes would make the sprites look worse.

Several of those examples could be Blastoise, Raichu, Aipom or Golbat, and this last one even gets its shading screwed up. Or something like Rhydon, that looks exactly like the official art, while its normal color is much darker; with Pokémon like Phanpy, Sunkern, Xatu, Scyther and others looking very similar to their default colors.

Just have in mind I'm working with the limitations of the GBC and 4 Colors per sprite, so I do what I can do, although it's surprising what nice colors the GBC can display compared to the ones they used, but of course, I'm not doing this to be seen on real hardware, so I do not have that limitation.

You can check a couple of examples in the pictures inside the RAR file for both, sprite improvements and Shiny changes.

I also improved all the Back Sprites too, to keep consistency. And some Pokémon got entirely different sprites, such as Mr. Mime, or Wigglytuff, as there was better designs elsewhere, like Mr. Mime's Silver sprite. It's so much better in my eyes. And yes, they have animations.

Oh, and a handful of Pokémon got redesigns here and there. Don't panic, the changes where made only to humanoid Pokémon to remove incoherent stuff like Machoke and Machamps' underwear or the boxing gear of Hitmonchan.

This is because as time has passed it "snowballed" into a gigantic ball of nonsense. Now, it's not that I hate Pokémon with human-made things on them, for example we could make logical arguments on why they have them in the first place.

Very early Pokémon (back when it was Capsule Monsters) had a lot of very... morally dubious stuff in it. Trainers had whips, the monsters were sold in cages and there was a pretty clear aura of animal abuse in it all. The artwork was intriguing... And a bit worrying.

When you find out about that stuff it can make sense that humans would put things to restrict their Pokémon like the "strength-reducing" underwear for the Machop tree. Who knows, maybe that's why Pokémon such as Primeape have what looks like shackles on their limbs too.

And back in generation 1, there was only ONE Hitmonchan, given to you by a human. We can simply think the objects it wears are given to it by that person, and it would make sense. Jynx is also another Pokémon which can only be received once, also given by a human and looks like one, maybe there's something going on too.

And all those examples would be fine but then they're turned into nonsense when you can find these Pokémon living in nature with all that stuff on them, or they magically appear when evolving. It just feels... dumb to me, it is something that I could see other developers adress in different ways, but here they just where completely forgotten.

Because this thing is tailored-made for me, I decided to change it.

And talking about Jynx, when the beta sprite leaked from Red & Green leaks among others, it was pretty exciting to see that this Pokémon once upon a time was very different, with more of a yeti-like design, which can be traced to japanese Kaiju tv shows, like many early Pokémon designs such as Nidoking (look up Baragon). It apparently had a name that was a very easy to see nudge at Ultraman.

You can read about it here (and also see a bit of the darker Capsule Monsters stuff I mentioned above, but you can also search for early concept art):

https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/

During the development of the hack I went so far as to create sprites to change Jynx into this Yeti-thing, but as time went on I did not feel very satisfied, it felt like a random addition that felt out of place.

I thought of going back to the original Jynx, but I ended sending the entire evolutionary line away and substituting it with another Ice Pokémon from the third Generation.

...Anyway, moving on from that, each species has its own unique icon on the menu and the overworld too, which is a great thing to give flavour to the game, and seems like a new standard for Pokémon Crystal hacks (with good reason).

The overworld also got some big changes to improve visually, and sometimes, gameplay wise. Besides visuals, some places also changed in design a bit, for a number of different reasons.

For example some Kanto cities had their design changed to look more on par with Johto, as if you compare maps between places, and Gen. 1 and 2, you'll see they kinda look off and weird, as if it didn't have the same time and effort put into it compared to Johto (they didn't).

Places like Celadon and Fuchsia City for example look rather different, although they keep their overall structure, they just got a bit more going for them.

Also there's a few improvements on sprites. For example, I drew new sprites for when you're surfing, similar to those in Gen 3 with your character over a undefined Pokémon. And yes, they're different for both the male and female player characters.

There's also HUGE CHANGES in how information is displayed in several points, with the biggest improvement being the Pokémon's Stats Page. It took me quite some time to get it to look nicer and more organized / easier to read, and I even expanded it by adding a fourth Stat Screen to show some extra "for fun" info.

The font was also changed for a thin yet wider one, to make it less empty between letters, and also more consistent with the different characters, like numbers.

Also, HUGE, HUGE thanks to HyperDriveGuy's amazing work and effort, a way of improving the scrolling and movement on the overworld to make it much more smooth and, to be blunt, less disgustingly choppy if you're used to smooth scrolls.

This change to me is like magic, it makes the game feel so much better! To be fair, finding this improvement refueled my interest in continuing this hack, so thanks again HyperDriveGuy, your work is not just great, it also really did drive this guy forward, pun no intended... Or maybe a bit.

That said, coding this introduced some bugs, some of them harmless, and others being progress-halting or even game-breaking. But fret not, as I managed to fix them all with a bit of work, some trial and error, an a lot of luck, but it was all worth it because the result is a much more fluid experience that translates into a more fun game.

Overall, the game uses much less aggressive colors too, because 99% of the people that may play this (which that would make a total of 4 to 5 individuals, probably) will do it on a lighted screen. Also there's little touches here and there.

Another tiny change that makes a bit of a difference in the long run is battle effects. Most of them on Gen 2 used the same palette: Gray tones! Well, that's not that way anymore.

Most of the effects now have color added to them, and make battles look a bit more fun. A few effects were changed visually, even. For example, Pokémon no longer see "chickens" when confused. Now Pidgeys fly around their poor heads!

The Trainer's card also got a bit prettier, specially the Badges section. Oh, I also added a third page to your Trainer's Card, showing your progress through Kanto's Gyms. You only need to press Right while on Johto's Badge screen when you get at least one Badge from Kanto!

Asymmetrical Badges also spin correctly. Funny enough, the game has coded that function in, but it is only assigned to a medal that was symetrical (Clair's badge). Sounds silly, but once you start seeing Game Freaks coding it's... Actually par for the course, in a way.

o-----------------------o |[13] Tips and Questions| o-----------------------o

Tips: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What type of beginning you want? Each starter is going to change your early hours.

Taking in mind how things work in the Original version of this hack, Cyndaquil would make your first steps more easy than the other two, as his Fire/Rock typing would make him effective against the first two Gyms, while Chikorita's Grass/Ground typing would make it a bit harder than normal. Totodile, with its Water/Ice typing would be a medium difficulty.

But of course, the point of the game is to make more friends and balance your team! You could also ignore the starters and make your team without them. That's how I usually roll.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can get an Exp. Share very early on.

Once you brought the Egg to Prof. Elm, and you're ready to go away on your adventure, go back home and leave 2.000P with your mother. Once you battle once (With Youngster Joey on Route 30), she will call you, telling you she bought something for you. It can come in handy this early!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talking about saving with your mother, she will buy many useful items, so it's in your best interest to send her money from the beginning!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ During your first few Gyms, look for people in green clothes near the towns and cities' main Sign. These people will sell to you Berries to heal Status Effects!

They will come in handy to prepare against the trainers and leaders there!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't waste your Fruits and Vitamins without having in mind what team you want! This becomes more important the further you go, because NPC trainers will have trained Pokémon either you've raised your own properly or not.

As you get more money, or get more fruits you'll be able to quickly prepare Pokémon, but early on you need to think ahead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talking about team, while I tried to make all Pokémon good and be on the same Level, that doesn't change the fact that having a balanced team can make things smoother.

Making a team of only slow, defensive Pokémon, or only quick but frail monsters can make things harder for you at certain points. Although, of course, you could just play with your favourites and tough it up. That's what I usually do.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Take advantage of Pokémon such as Meowth or Spearow, capable of learning stealing moves! They will help you to get ahold of many items, that you can either use or sell to make a profit.

Also, be aware of said Pokémon, as they may steal something you have!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Experiment! Because TMs are infinite, HM moves can be forgotten easily, and you have access to the Move Reminder freely, you're given the chance to try all sorts of combinations for a given species. Not to mention, the further you advance through the Battle Tower, the more options you'll have through Move Tutors and the Egg Elder to teach new moves, thus increasing the number of strategies for each species!

You'll only need to watch out for "Event" moves, such as the Odd Egg Pokémon, or the Special Eggs gifted in the Battle Tower, as each have a unique move and you cannot remind it if forgotten.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check the Game Corner on Goldenrod when you arrive!

They've expanded the number of prices you can get. For one, you can get HP restoring Berries there, with Golden Berries being really useful early on, and they're not that expensive.

Even more, new species of Pokémon have been added, and they're Pokémon hard to come by during the early parts of the adventure! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can you get every single Pokémon in the game? How can I get Mew?

Yes, of course, what would be the point of a Pokémon Hack if you couldn't get every monster available in it by yourself?

There's a lot more variety early on, both so you can get your team-making juices boil sooner, and because different people like different monsters, and having a bigger variety helps with making more people happy.

Although for Mew, you'll have to buy my exclusive and new Park Ball Plus and send it to your game through my exclusive Park Ball Plus-To-GBC Link Cable(tm), or upload it to my exclusive service PokéMaeson Hostage Holdings, previous payment of course, and then you can connect your game magically to it through Infrared connection.

Really, it just works. Wait, are you going to play this on an emulator? Tough luck then, no Mew for you.

...Nah, it's somewhere in the game, you just have to find it, like the rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are you going to do more Pokémon Hacks?

Niet. Nee. Ahneo. Tidak. Nej. Nope.

...What I mean is, don't count on that. The amount of time I put into this is so big that I could have made several other things, the testing has been killing me the most. I have reached the point of burnout, I've been working on this almost on a daily basis for years. You can't imagine how many times this thing has been reworked and changed over time. Beyond that, my love for the franchise has pretty much being forced to disappear.

And even if I wanted to do more, I wouldn't be able to use any other disassembly project thanks to current DevkitPro versions being incompatible with 32 Bit systems; I'm not going to get a new computer only to do more of this, and going back to the older "Hacking Tools" is not a very welcoming idea, mostly because they're so much more limited and risky to use.

So, sorry but no, I have no intention, I have no energy, I have no passion for it anymore. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

o------------o |[13] Credits| o------------o This wouldn't exist without a lot of people involved with the Pokémon Rom hacking community.

Thanks and Credits to every single person on PRET, a community dealing with disassembly for many Pokémon games. These projects look like THE WAY going forward, how awesome they are.

Check it Here: https://github.com/pret -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to Rangi42, and all people on places like the Skeetendo and Pokecommunity forums, and many others that shared their findings and information about ASM, going so far to make great tutorials to teach stupid people like me how to do do a whole lot of things, fix several of the bugs in the game, and many other things.

Check it here: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal https://hax.iimarckus.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, and of course, credits and thanks to Rangi42 again for Polished Map, an amazing utility for map editing, very complete and absolutely essential.

Check it here: https://github.com/Rangi42/polished-map -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to the TPP Anniversary Crystal 251 Project to create the code for the Move Reminder, which I adapted to my hack. I couldn't even have known where to start with it, and my hack is only better thanks to it. Also for giving me an idea of how to make Caught Data be shown in the Stats Page. My approach to how the information is displayed is different, but again, without TPP I couldn't have know where to start.

Check it Here: https://github.com/TwitchPlaysPokemon/tppcrystal251pub -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to HyperDriveGuy for its example and implementation of "60 Frames per second" project, which created a new way of programming a Run Button, but even more incredible, it made the scrolling of the game as you walk, run, and ride so, so much more smooth. It's amazing.

Check it here: https://github.com/hyperdriveguy/pokecrystal-60fps-example -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Chamber, Soloo993, Blue Emerald, Lake, Neslug and Pikachu25 for their Pokemon Icons. While I did a number of them myself, I also used a good amount made by them, and also remade some of them from their initial work, so they deserve the credits!

You can see their work here: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal/wiki/screenshots/minidex.gif https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/pret/pokecrystal/screenshots/minidex.png

Also, if you play my hack and find any of the icons or tweaked sprites I made good enough to use it yourself, go right ahead. Just give credit and you're good to go, don't even ask. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits and Special thanks to Vice04 for helping me test my hack over the years. May you never be assaulted by Level 168 Slowbros ever again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music Credits:

Credits to FroggestSpirit for "Hoenn Wild Battle" and "Hoenn Trainer Battle" themes.

You can find FroggestSpirit music in this Soundcloud link, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/froggestspirit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits to Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for "Hoenn Rival Battle", "Route 101", "Cipher Peon Battle", "X/Y Rival", "Hoenn Champion Battle" and "Shoal Cave" themes.

You can find Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm music in this Soundcloud link, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits to TriteHexagon for his Night Theme music for cities and his tutorial on how to implement them in the game. His ASM files and his Soundcloud can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/u/TriteHexagon https://soundcloud.com/user-930339535 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone, it's way too much people hacking around the world!

#Pokemon #Crystal Maeson #ROM hack #Maeson #RPG

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that-fannerd-with-the-glasses · 4 years ago

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Huhh so, here’s some general characterization/fun fact things for Incredibles AU!! I usually don’t post this kinda stuff but since I’m still working on chapter three, figured I might as well!

Phoenix (36), Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr counterpart

Superpower is super strength

Superhero name is Captain Indestructible.

Didn’t really start to realize his powers until late in high school, though he didn’t actually begin superhero work until he was in college. Mia was one of his professors and she ended up eventually catching on to his abilities and offered to be his mentor (as she’s also a super). They worked as a team together up until the point Mia was killed in a severe incident, from that point on Phoenix ended up working alone. He did end up taking Maya under his wing since she was supposed to train with Mia before she died, though she eventually branched out on her own as well.

Was an art major, and had plans of mainly working from home as a freelance artist.

He really does try to be a good dad, okay, and he fucking loves his kids. It’s not his fault that every job the government’s placed him sucks the life and willpower out of him. He studied art dammit, being stuck at a desk job selling insurance was his worst nightmare come true.

Was in peak shape during his hero days, but years of being hunched over at a desk and little to no exercise--not to mention poor eating habits ended up developing into a soft dad bod that he’s a tad insecure about.

Meets up with Maya once or twice during the week, they usually end up getting burgers and reminiscing about the old days together.

Tried so hard to forget about hero work and live a normal steady life with his family, but that’s easier said than done. His entire den at home is decorated with all sorts of posters and articles and lately, he’s been spending just a bit too much time in it.

He’s already blown cover on their family twice, and he’s so torn between wanting to stay put and wanting to resume hero work.

Miles (36), Elastigirl/Helen Parr counterpart

Superpower is elasticity.

Superhero name is Flexuous.

Has been dealing with his powers pretty much since childhood. After his parents died, he was taken in by Manfred Von Karma and trained to be his prodigy.

He ended up breaking away from Von Karma’s teachings sometime later and tried to do hero work on his own, his first instance of this being when he and Phoenix met for the first time. For a while they actually were rivals, before becoming friends and eventually dating, and were far too amused by the media’s obsession with their supposed rivalry.

Was studying to obtain a law degree and had hopes of becoming a lawyer, but when the lawsuits started happening and superheros were all uprooted, he ended up having to abandon any hopes of having any sort of high profile career.

Sometimes works as a legal mediator just to make a bit of extra money/put his law knowledge to good use.

He is the true backbone of the Edgeworth-Wright household. It would be in shambles if he weren’t in charge of it, as hair pulling as such a task is. For some years he and Phoenix co-parented without a problem, but with middle age starting to settle and Phoenix delving into a midlife crisis, he’s more or less been having to manage things on his own.

Phoenix and Miles -

They formally met through a foreign language course they were both taking, though officially had actually met several times under their super personas. It didn’t take long for either of them to figure each other’s identities out, however.

By the media’s standards, Captain Indestructible and Flexuous were rivals to one another, which up until a point was true. When they started dating, however, the rivalry all became a pretense just for the public’s entertainment. Though that wasn’t to say their butting heads and bickering outside of their super suits wasn’t all real, because it very much was.

They dated for about two years before they were engaged, but their wedding had to be put on hold due to all the lawsuits and Super-related scandals going on.

Miles pretty much planned his and Phoenix’s wedding up to a T, which didn’t matter in the end since they couldn’t afford the venue they’d wanted. They tried to wait a while, so they could save up enough money but that didn’t work out, and thus they decided to just go ahead and have a small private ceremony at the local courthouse.

Phoenix knows Miles will never admit it, but he’s heartbroken that they didn’t get to have the wedding they wanted, especially after all the effort he put into it. That and the venue they’d booked was where his parents had gotten married, it’d meant so much to him to have their wedding there and they didn’t get to do that.

They made the promise to each other that someday, when they were more financially stable, that they’d renew their vows and have the ceremony they’d always wanted, however that’s easier said than done when you’re trying to pay off bills and raise three kids.

Adopted Apollo two years into their marriage, then Athena a few years after that, and just recently have adopted Trucy.

Apollo (14), Violet Parr counterpart

Superpower is invisibility/force fields.

The oldest child of the Edgeworth-Wright family.

Has a crush on Klavier, who’s one of the more popular students in school because of course he is.

Struggles with having to keep his powers a secret, which in-turn causes a great deal of self doubt.

Enjoys classic literature and music.

Is stressed 24/7. His family is weird and he just wants to be normal, please help him.

Athena (10), Dash Parr counterpart

Superpower is super speed.

The middle child of the Edgeworth-Wright family.

Her biological mother was also a super, who was killed by an ex-villain. Something similar happened to Miles when he was young, so of course he was all for adopting her.

She has way too much energy for her own good, and has trouble focusing on one thing at a time. Her parents have tried time and time again to find a proper outlet for her to take her energy out on, but nothing’s worked so far and has only resulted in multiple visits to the principal’s office.

She wants so badly to play sports and has begged her parents time and time again to let her try out for one of the teams, though this usually ends in disagreement. Miles will put his foot down over the fear of her having an unfair advantage due to her powers, while Phoenix wants nothing more than to let her go ahead and do it.

She very much loves and cares for her siblings, even if she does tend to pick on Apollo sometimes.

Trucy (11 months old), Jack Jack Parr counterpart

Superpower is transformation, but the rest of her family doesn’t know this yet shhhh.

The youngest child of the Edgeworth-Wright family.

She was an urgent emergency adoption, as well as being a closed one, so not much is known about her birth family.

Maya (30), Frozone/Lucius Best counterpart

Superpower is telepathy/telekinesis.

Every woman in her family ended up developing these sorts of powers one way or another, so when hers started to get out of control she confided in Mia and was promised help in the matter. When she did finally arrive in the city though, Mia was dead so Phoenix took over the whole mentor thing, even if admittedly he wasn’t very good at it.

Despite everything, with Phoenix knowing next to nothing about Maya’s sort of power, he really tried his best to be of help to her and they ended up becoming close friends, even when she went off to do hero work on her own.

After the superhero relocation program went into effect, she started work as a medium as a low key means of using her powers without giving herself away. She now owns her own small “mystic elements” type of shop where she does palm readings and the like, though nothing too drastic since a full display of her powers would give her away and have her relocated.

Has never once been relocated come to think of it, and Phoenix is kind of jealous. It helps that she can be more subdued about her powers, while he doesn’t really have that option.

Pearl lives with her and works in the shop as well. She ran away from home several years ago after a fight with her mother and Maya’s been looking after her ever since.

Is the cool, eccentric aunt to Phoenix and Miles’ kids. She or Pearl are their go-to whenever they need a babysitter (since they can’t actually afford one lmao).

Franziska (33), Edna Mode counterpart

Has no superpowers.

Works in the fashion industry, used to be responsible for a lot of super’s suits before the whole lawsuits and relocation shit went down.

The adoptive sister of Miles, who at one point was incredibly resentful towards him due to their father paying him more attention than her due to his having powers. They’ve both made peace since then, on the account that their father sucks.

Before Phoenix had met her, he was wearing his own homemade suit which she absolutely tore to shreds upon seeing. Ever since that day, he’s been low key terrified of her.

Is essentially that wealthy lesbian aunt who likes to show off around Christmas and dump expensive presents on her nieces and nephew.

Travels around a lot due to her job, so she’s not around often.

Dick Gumshoe (45), Rick Dicker counterpart

Has no superpowers.

Works with the whole Agency that regulates supers and what not, personally made sure that he’d be both Phoenix and Miles’ assigned case worker since he’d already known them a while.

Is doing his best in a crappy situation. Personally if you asked him, he’d be fine with supers coming out of their forced retirement but he’s not able to do much about it in his position. Regardless, he’s still a valued family friend and the kids love it when he visits.

Is married to Maggey Byrde because its what he deserves.

Dahlia Hawthorne (32), Syndrome counterpart

Has no superpowers so to speak, but instead relies on technology invented by her family’s company.

She and Phoenix crossed paths during a supers convention, where she tried to convince him to train her as well, going on and on about how she wanted to be a hero too. But seeing as she didn’t actually have powers and wasn’t a hero herself, he turned her down.

The first attempt wasn’t the last, as she tried time and time again to get his attention and get her to train him, and each time he would refuse. He admired her efforts but the fact was, she was a civilian and even with her technology, she could be seriously hurt.

Inadvertently foiled his attempts to sabotage a villain that ended up causing a railway explosion. She was arrested afterwards for interference with hero work, and Phoenix didn’t see her again for a long time.

Took Phoenix’s rejection very personally, and holds her public humiliation towards her arrest as his fault.

Moved away to the island after she got out of jail and spent the next several years building up a brand new company from the ground up as part of her revenge plot.

Iris Hawthorne (32), Mirage counterpart

Has no superpowers.

Is the twin sister of Dahlia.

She took on many of the company responsibilities until Dahlia was released from jail, then was forced into being her assistant for the new company.

#a lot of this stuff may be subject to change since #y'know #this fic IS a wip and all #but uhhhh #yeah idk #ace attorney #incredibles au

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morgannalefey · 4 years ago

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Homes, relationships, realtors

These are a series of anonymous questions I was asked and I'm endeavoring to answer them. I am not a concise writer. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

Step 1: Start Your Research Early. Step 2: Determine How Much House You Can Afford. Step 3: Get Prequalified and Preapproved for credit for Your Mortgage. Step 4: Find the Right Real Estate Agent. Step 5: Shop for Your Home and Make an Offer. Step 6: Get a Home Inspection. Step 7: Work on home loan with bank lender Step 8: Get home appraised Step 9: Complete paperwork and close the deal ?

How were you able to learn what the homeownership steps entailed and how did you vet the realtor, home inspector, home appraiser, and lender, if you used them? How did you ensure the people whose help you enlisted were legit and were going to do right by you?

How did you find out what the paperwork/legal aspect of marriage was going to entail (research so far has given me a few different answers)? There was a lot I either didn’t know or didn’t understand - you need to get your ring appraised and added to your insurance (what kind of insurance), for example? You need to change how your tax filings and paperwork in general, especially if you choose to change your last name, etc. I’m scared of missing an item and running into some obstacle😫

How do you also ensure that your name and/or your spouse’s name is on the deed and stays there? I’ve come across TOO many stories about one party thinking their name was on the deed only to find out it either wasn’t or it was removed. Or one party dying and the remaining party finding out the place wasn’t on their name or was removed. Or, one party kicking the other out and not being able to advocate for themselves because their name, come to find out, isn’t on the deed😳😞 How do you avoid all that (besides vetting your potential SO properly lol)

------------------------

The first thing I want to say is I am NOT a financial advisor or a counselor/therapist. I am not a lawyer. I am a 55 year old database developer (in 2020) and have bought several houses and been with/married to the same person for 32 years. Prior to this person, I played a very large field of folks, and was in a lot of short-term relationships. The longest relationship I'd been in by the time we met was 10 months and it ended very badly. I'm not an expert, I'm just old and experienced. Another thing I am is frugal. While I'm being detailed, I'm also bi, cis, childless-by-choice, mostly-abled, and white. I can't speak directly to the experiences that marginalized folks (especially those with multiple marginalizations) have had.

I'll talk about the relationship stuff first 'cos that'll be the shorter answer. I met my spouse in an online space for roleplaying gamers back in 1988 (before the internet existed there were dialup networks, I was on those basically from 1983 on). The beginning of our relationship was a shared interest in roleplaying games. We also found similar tastes in books. Over time we discovered other shared interests, or got each other interested in the things we cared about. We both love being in the woods, and the natural world. We care deeply about the environment. We have always been in agreement politically. At first we were on opposite ends of religious matters, and neither of us tried to change the other in that regard. Eventually we grew together on that. We both knew from the outset that we wanted to travel the world together.

There have been stumbles. Bad ones. We are able to hurt each other more than any other human on the planet, and we're aware of that. We try not to, but sometimes we just, do. Then we talk about it. We've been in therapy to work things out several times, and have learned techniques for working through our problems. The thread running through all of this is we were committed to making it work, to working through, to not giving up.

We have woven our lives together into a fabric that works for us. This takes trial and error. It takes being willing to make mistakes and, more importantly, forgive those mistakes. It requires you to learn from your mistakes and to do personal work. You have to be willing to change the things about yourself that need changing. Certainly some things are deeply embedded. Those things you need to learn work arounds for. It's especially difficult to figure out which things are too deeply embedded to be changed, and which are mostly habits you can retrain. Ideally they'll be supporting you through this work, and doing their own work along similar lines. If things work out, you're both growing as more emotionally mature individuals who bring things to the relationship that help sustain it through the hard times.

It helps that I am good at things he's not, and vice versa. We have a decent division of labor (both emotional and household). We give each other space to enjoy our different interests, too. I love movies of all sorts, but he's mostly fond of SF and action movies. We will watch those things together, and I watch my romcoms and historical dramas on my own while he's doing his stuff.

Sometimes it's a choice you have to make every day, to stay together. Sometimes it is effortless. Still, it always takes time to build shared experiences. To build traditions. To figure out how you fit together. This is time well-spent, even if you discover that you just don't fit together and you can't make it work. This prepares you for your next opportunity to explore with another person.

Now on to home ownership.

tl;dr is we did research into mortgages and closing costs and everything to do with buying a house before we bought one using various resources (mostly at libraries, this was in the dark ages when we bought our first house)

We were living in Juneau, AK when we got to the point that we had enough stable income to start talking about owning a home. This got us talking about the future, and our plans. Specifically we talked about what it would be like when we were finally able to travel like we wanted. We realized that if we were still in Juneau, all of our travel plans would be doubled in cost because just getting out of Juneau is a trip in itself. We decided (not just for that reason, but a lot of other ones, as well) that we wanted to move and we would buy a house somewhere else.

For a lot of people the answer of "where" is obvious but it wasn't for us. We made a list of qualities for where we wanted to live.

Inside the US

Low population growth

Not on the west coast

Not in the south

Within a day's easy drive to the ocean

At least four distinct seasons

There were other criteria we had on the list, but those were the ones that narrowed our search down to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Then we spoke with work friends who had lived in all three states. They heartily recommended Vermont over the other two for a few good reasons. We both wanted to work for the state so we researched where most of the state jobs were located. That placed us in central Vermont.

Deciding where you want to own a home isn't just about what you can afford, but where you want to live. There's a lot you can change about a home once you buy it, but you can't change the location. When you buy a home you're putting yourself into a place that it's not going to be a simple matter to leave if you decide you want to later. It's not impossible, but depending on where you buy, it can be very difficult to sell again. Deciding where you are going to focus your home search is part of the research you want to do.

Figuring out how much house you can afford is a complicated thing. The financial institutions will encourage you to buy the maximum amount of house you can afford based on your income, a snapshot of your debt load, and your credit rating. That's all well and good, but you also need to take into account your actual lifestyle. If you never were interested in cooking, then it's a waste of money to buy a home with a big ole "professional" kitchen because it's all shiney and cool. You could buy a less expensive home with a smaller, more functional kitchen suitable for the lunchables you "prepare" on the daily, and put that extra money into something else.

Figure out what things you must have, that if a house doesn't have it, you're not going to buy it. For some people that's X bathrooms. For others it's lots of inside storage. Make actual lists of these things that you keep handy so you can just check for them when you're doing your search. Divide the list up into "must have" vs "nice to have" vs "I wouldn't pay more for this but if it's there it could be a tie breaker". The list may change as you start looking over listings, and that's fine. It helps you figure out what is really important to you.

Financial institutions. I... hate... banks. I haven't done my financial transactions with a bank (generally speaking) for over thirty years. Credit unions are the financial institution to work with. Of course, that is something to take with a grain of salt because there are some horrific credit unions with shitty customer service and nasty fees all over, too. If you can get into a state credit union (in Vermont anyone who lives in Vermont or works for the state can join the Vermont State Employees Credit Union) do it. There's typically a minimum deposit required in one account (for my credit union I have to keep $25 in a savings account). When you're looking at financial institutions to finance through, do your research of course, but include credit unions in your research. Look for first time home buyer programs (there are federal programs for this, as well). Look for low interest rates. The blog you should be looking into is Bitches Get Riches for more specifics on this. Their information is way more up to date and helpful regarding interest and mortgages and stuff.

You're going to need money to pay the closing costs. That is money that you pay over and above the mortgage. You will need money to put a deposit down on whatever house you want to buy. The deposit tells the seller you're really interested. If they decide to accept the offer from someone else, you will get the desposit back. If they accept your offer, the deposit goes towards purchase/closing costs. You will need money for the appraisal, an inspection (do not buy a home without an inspection, if they won't let you do an inspection, run), and a title search. These are all over and above closing costs. How much you can expect to pay is variable and something else to research. You will also need a down payment. If you can't put 20% of the purchase price in as a down payment, you will also need to buy private mortgage insurance. That cost typically gets rolled into your monthly mortgage payment. You will also need homeowners insurance.

Once you've worked these things out, you're ready to really dig into the listings. This used to be a whole lot more complicated than it is now. The MLS used to only be available to realtors, but that has changed. Most realtors will list houses online in a searchable place (the best places to do searches varies by region, in New England, I would look on the NNEREN website (Northern New England Real Estate Network). In other areas Zillow might be the best place to look. It really depends on what the standard for local realtors is where you want to buy.

The great thing about online searching is you can plug things in, make notes, save favorites, and build lists of features, or things you care about. There's typically photos of the property that get you started, as well. Because of these online tools, you don't really need a realtor to represent you in the sale. You can contact the realtor representing the seller if you want to see a property.

It can be tiring, looking at houses. Doing research. It takes time. If you can't, or don't want to do this, then you can get yourself a buyer's realtor. Their job will be to take the criteria for what you're looking for and find houses that might work for you. They present you with the options, and will arrange for a viewing if you like any that you're seeing. This has the benefit of reducing how much research you have to do personally, but it does mean that they get a cut of the final sale (but it also means you have a realtor on -your- side in the negotiations, though they're not allowed to influence you on certain things like what price to offer). Because they get a cut, some sellers won't work with buyer realtors.

The snarky answer about how you find a realtor you can trust is "you really don't". Realtors are all about closing house sales with the least amount of effort on their part possible. That is their job. That is how they earn their money. Every time they have to do something for you, it reduces the value of the commission they make off the sale. Some realtors resent this, others don't care and just see it as part of doing business. Some of them are really friendly, and love their job and love helping people find homes. Others are snotty nozzles. But they are all trying to sell you the most expensive house they can get you to fall in love with. They will regularly try to go $10-20K over your stated "highest cost" on the assumption that you won't really mind having to pay "just a LITTLE bit more" on your mortgage payment to have whatever feature they're trying to convince you that you really want.

Don't fall for this. Stand fast on your financial limits. Remember that increased purchase price means increased closing costs. Find a realtor that doesn't make you want to shower after you talk to them, and who will take your calls or answer your emails. If they won't communicate the way that works best for you, find another one. There is always another one who has a different style. It's OK to shop for realtors.

Different regions have different rules about real estate. Spend some time looking into your state's rules. Like in Vermont, you have to get a radon test. Some things are national, but a lot are regional. There are SO many guides online these days it should be possible for you to find one fairly local to help you be sure you're doing everything you need to. Your state might even have an agency for helping first time buyers.

Ensuring folks are legit: Find out what licensing requirements there are in your state. Realtors have to take tests and get licensed to sell within their area. This is something they should be proud to display in their office because it's not a simple test they have to take. Appraisers typically need a license, too. To get a title search done you need an attorney, they also have professional oversight. An attorney might ask for an initial low deposit (they have to pay for copies in town offices) but most of these professionals won't ask for payment in advance. If they do, be wary. Ask around to see if that's usual in your area. They usually bill for their services after they've provided their report here. Try talking to a variety of people about what realtor they have used, or what appraiser. Ask for referrals from folks you know (coworkers, friends, family of coworkers, etc). You can also search online for reviews of services and see the bad experiences folks have had (most folks only complain about bad service, so take those with a grain of salt).

In the end, you're buying a service, and the person performing the service should be doing their job. If you find out that they didn't, because they are licensed (and possibly insured), you will probably have recourse. Obviously it's better to avoid that because it's a painful thing. But sometimes that's just how things shake out.

I have to say that I've never considered a situation where my name might have been removed from my deed without my knowledge. I suppose if I were worried, I'd set up a reminder to check on it occasionally, like checking on my credit rating from time to time. I mean, to remove you without your knowledge requires forging documents. I know that this sort of thing happens, but... there's only so much you can do to protect yourself if someone is intent on breaking the law in some way. So, I guess, really pay attention to red flags when you're starting a relationship. Don't assume they will change if they're engaging in concerning behaviors.

Phew, the tax stuff is a whole other thing. It's usually worth working with a tax preparer the first year you're filing after buying a house. They can go over all the paperwork with you, so you understand it. Property taxes are so local that you really need to research it based on where you’re buying.

We have a specific amount on our homeowner's insurance that covers "household item loss" up to a certain amount of money, and we specify how much. We have a LOT of computer equipment, so ours is fairly high. If I were to lose a ring, it'd be covered under that. My engagement ring was a $50 cubic zirconia. Our wedding rings were a few hundred. Our computer stuff is way more valuable monetarily.

About all the things relating to marriage and how it entwines lives legally: that's like a dissertation for another day. :) There are huge articles out there talking about all the things that getting married means from a legal stand point. It varies by state and even city. It matters if it's a same-sex marriage or not, as well (it shouldn't but some places have "civil unions" which aren't always the same legal thing as hetero marriages).

If you're still here, wow. I'm impressed. I'm happy to answer questions. Maybe consider me like an elderly queer aunt who doesn't mind talking a lot. I hope this helps you.

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tanadrin · 5 years ago

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via @sophia-epistemia’s recommendation (emphasis added):

This is a pattern of introducing middle-men that has proliferated throughout the finance side of health care: “Hmm, this part of our enterprise sure is expensive! Why don’t we spin it off as an independent business or outsource it? Surely some enterprising entrepreneur can figure out a way to do it more cheaply than we can, so we’ll just black box the problem and pick the lowest bidder to solve it for us.”

Here’s another example of that pattern. Medicare, the Federal health insurance for the elderly, insures people directly. But the Federal program for the poor, Medicaid, does not. Instead the Feds give the money to the state to run a Medicaid program. Here in Massachusetts, ours is called MassHealth. The federal government has outsourced the actual insuring of poor people to the state.

So the state insures poor people? Not exactly, here in Massachusetts. MassHealth is (mostly) not an insurance program. MassHealth funds insurance. It’s an insurance subsidy program. The actual providers of insurance are commercial insurers who offer MassHealth-approved plans.

This, by the way, is the big crucial concession of first Romneycare and then Obamacare to the health insurance industry: the state wouldn't take over insuring people directly, thereby putting the insurance companies out of business. The state would pay the insurance companies that already existed to do the job for the state. And the citizenry would have a choice of insurance products from a market place of multiple insurance companies. That is what made these plans the conservative answer to the liberal preference to single-payer. Back when they were considered conservative.

So when you get on MassHealth you get a choice of providers/plans. There are, last I checked, five. So your MassHealth-approved and –funded insurance company provides you health insurance?

Mostly.

If you choose Neighborhood Health Plan, and you require mental health care (one of several types of health care for which something similar is true) you will quickly discover that Neighborhood Health Plan (which, btw, is the name of the insurance company not the insurance plan) doesn’t have a network of psychiatrists and psychotherapists. They have outsourced the mental health component of their insurance product to another company, named Beacon Health Strategies.

I mean Beacon Health Options. They were just acquired by/merged with Value Options, and that’s the new name.

I assume all this divisioning is saving someone money, over what they think they’d be spending otherwise. But I can’t help but note that some share of the wages for at least one Medicaid employee, one MassHealth employee, one Neighborhood Health Plan employee and one Beacon Health Whatevers employee – minimum – have to come out of the premium for that patient, regardless of whoever is paying it.

Because it has to. There is no other money input into the insurance side of the system, besides the premiums. But I get ahead of myself.

The proposition that multiplying the number of parties and institutions that have to get a cut of every premium somehow reduces expenses is... eyebrow-raising. I’m not saying it’s not true, I’m saying that if it is, it says something pretty appalling about the comparison case.

...

But what I want to discuss is not the most charitable description, because I think these things weren’t just ineffective at keeping costs down. They were more like boring holes in the hull.

Here's a thing you need to know about The Beer Game: the reliably produced behaviors in the game are the product of humans being reliably human. The chaotic results are not required or enforced by the game. Rather the players in the game respond to the game's stimuli in a counterproductive way. There is an alternative way to behave (the theoretical maximal condition of losing only $200) that is vastly better. But people reliably don't do that because they have certain beliefs, intuitions, guesses, assumptions, and biases.

The whole point of the exercise is to bring to conscious attention these unconscious beliefs, intuitions, guesses, assumptions, and biases, so that they can be unlearned.

Allow me a digression from the whole of health care into that special mess with which I am most familiar: mental health care.

The DSM-III came out in 1980. This was Spitzer's DSM, the New! Impoved! Scientific! DSM for a new rational age. Insurers promptly adopted it – and promptly went through it and decreed certain diagnoses to be things they would and, more importantly, wouldn't pay for.

The following will be Sanskrit to many of you, but: DSM-III introduced the multiaxial diagnosis system. The payers took one look at Axis II and said, "Heeeeeeey, you can't actually treat that stuff can you?" and psychiatry said, "No, that's the stuff that's permanent," and payers said, "Oh, cool. Thanks!" and promptly made the presence of an Axis II disorder diagnosis grounds for terminating (paying for) mental health care, because, hey, Axis II disorders "aren't curable", so money spent of them – or on someone who had one – was "wasted".

This is how a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder – introduced with DSM-III – became so deeply prejudicial and stigmatizing: putting it on someone's paperwork could basically terminate their insurance. (Also, I have a hunch this is one of the things behind the idea that mentally retarded people can't be benefited by psychotherapy; mental retardation is also an Axis II disorder and I wonder if the Axis II == “no mental health treatment allowed” thing played out there, as well, but that's outside my orbit.)

This failed to rein in costs. (Actually, I'm confident the Axis II thing bit them in the ass really hard: people with untreated BPD/o generally consume emergency room resources like whoa.) So they examined the problem and they noticed something that I posted about: that you can't tell how well someone is functioning just from a diagnosis. Ah, okay, we’ve had been asking for the wrong information! Screw diagnosis! If Susie is stable on her meds and getting along fine, why should we pay for her to get psychotherapy just because she "Has Major Depressive Disorder"? Sammy's depression isn't so well controlled, so, sure, we'll pay for psychotherapy for Sammy, but, clearly, we need to know how impaired the patient is.

What happened next is that the insurance industry moved to what is known as the "impairment model". It wasn't enough for a treater to tell the payer what the patient's diagnosis is, the treater was expected to indicate the present impairments. Apparently, payers came up with their own lists of what impairments they would pay for mental health services to treat.

I say, "apparently", because they didn't tell the treaters. However, clinicians surmised these lists existed and some enterprising folks reverse engineered the lists.

Now, on one hand, this impairment model approach sounds very enlightened: diagnoses are deprecated, and understanding the presentation of a person's actual mental health condition is centralized. The problem is, however, that the other hand is trying to pick your pocket. We're still talking about payers (insurers) trying to figure out reasons they shouldn't have to pay for medical care. And their justification here isn't just that if you're doing fine with your Major Depressive Disorder, you don't need therapy, it's that if you are getting out of bed in the morning, getting to work, doing a job, earning a living, and meeting most of your obligations, and managing to eat and sleep and bathe, then that is the definition of "fine" and you are doing fine, no matter what you feel like. The impairment model is concerned with, duh, impairments: about what you can do, or more properly what you can't. It is unconcerned with suffering. It is unconcerned with subjective experiences. Feel worthless, numb, miserable, can't stop thinking of all the people you loved who have died? They don't pay for that to be treated if you're still keeping it together.

...

Now, note that in the diagnosis model, the treater can just write "major depressive d/o, recurrent, moderate" on the bill and be done with it. But that's not how the impairment model works. They didn't say, "Here's the list of things we'll pay for you to treat"; they were all cagey. Instead, they said, "Give us a little report on the patient, explaining why the patient needs treating." So now, clinicians are doing substantially more documenting just out of the gate and because they're then subsequently playing "20 Questions" with the payer to get payed, there's more back-and-forth.

Well, gee, that didn't get costs under control, either.

“Okay, look,” said some insurance companies. “This isn’t working. You guys keep explaining how all these patients are being so impaired by their conditions, and that can’t be right. Surely there can’t be that many behaviorally impaired people among our customers! [Clinicians everywhere: “BWAHAHAHA”] So from now on, we want you to explain not just what the problem is, but what you propose to do about it, and how its been going so far. No, we know you wrote a treatment plan, yeah, we required you to do that, no, we want a new thing on a different form. In addition.”

And on it goes. When I started at psyjob five years ago, we had to do treatment plans with both the diagnosis and impairment models, but then also fill out the insurance company's form ("unit requests") every so often to justify further treatment. Just as I showed up, I was informed that the new thing is that we needed to add a symptom checklist to the treatment plan. Okay. We were told that some of our payers are now demanding that we also track patient status with a standardized outcomes measure (think: a one page questionnaire the patient fills out), so we've added that, too. Okay. We were told that one of our insurers now requires that we fill out a two-party form for coordinating care with the patient's PCP: we fill out the mental health half, send it to the PCP, who is supposed to fill it out and send it back to us. We already requested an annual physical report, but we have to do this, too, now.

Seeing children on MassHealth? You now have to fill out a CANS assessment every 3 months. In addition to all the other paperwork already required by the state.

Who knows what new documentation tomorrow will bring? Nobody knows what it will be, but we all know it will be something, because the people trying to control costs are certain that if they just get enough information out of treaters, they will be able to figure out how to pay less for treatment.

As attentive readers will have long been noticing, I’m talking about coordinative communication.

This was, in fact, the place that the previously published Massless Ropes, Frictionless Pulleys: Coordinative Communication originally was going to go, before I factored it out. If you haven’t read it, you might want to go do that before proceeding. If you have read it, you might want to re-read it here.

What I’m describing in the two histories I’ve just shared – one about healthcare over all, and one about mental health specifically – are examples of how the demands for coordinative communication in the healthcare sector in the US absolutely exploded over the course of the last 40 years. The first also illustrates payers, both insurers and the state, recoursing to organ-ization in an attempt to manage the proliferating costs of coordinative communication, and, apparently, it failing to do so.

My hypothesis is this: that two things happened.

The first thing is that the expenditures on health care began to escalate exponentially as a function of the increased health care available to buy, and this process, which had been slowly gathering steam through the 19th century and into the 20th started rounding the curve of the hockey stick in the 1960s and 1970s.

Which brings us to the second thing that happened: the response. Just like in The Beer Game, players in the game reacted to the surge in demand, by attempting to do things to reduce costs. Wrong things. Precisely the wrong things.

There is a quote, famous among system dynamicists, from Jay Forrester, father of the field:

“People know intuitively where leverage points are. Time after time I’ve done an analysis of a company, and I’ve figured out a leverage point — in inventory policy, maybe, or in the relationship between sales force and productive force, or in personnel policy. Then I’ve gone to the company and discovered that there’s already a lot of attention to that point. Everyone is trying very hard to push it IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!”

It is my contention that in the US, the naïve response to the phenomenon of rising health care costs due to medical innovation was to increase coordinative communication, which counterintuitively caused costs to increase even more, and because that cost increase was not attributed properly to the increased coordinative communication, the answer to the problem of rising costs was seen to be ever more coordinative communications.

This was an economic death-spiral.

(source)

#on healthcare and cost disease #my problems with privatizing government services let me show you them #go read the whole thing it's really good

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mattkenzie · 5 years ago

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So this year I was listening to some music the other day (I bought some CDs as I like to have something that I can physically hold) so I’m usually the guy who listens to rock and metal... But recently I’ve been listening to something that I don’t usually listen to “Dun dun DUN!” Musicals! So anyway I was listening to Say My Name (from Beetlejuice) on YouTube it does seem different from the old musical I disliked as a kid.

So anyway I was exposed to a musical Be More Chill (Two Rivers Theatre) and I loved how the music is so lively and upbeat. I enjoyed the humour (it’s pretty much my cup of Mountain Dew) but sadly due to this stupid law about distributing goods which contains a high amount of caffeine from the States we have to have our own “watered down” version of Mountain Dew without that crazy yellow colour and citrusy flavour that packs a punch (like explosive, but not sharp like 7up)... But I can make a mean UK variant of a “Mountain Dew Code Red” clone!). “Yes Squip... you love Lemon 🍋 but you hate Cherry 🍒”

My Fan Theory: So I thought I’d go straight to the plot point and talk about the plot device, the Super Quantum Unit Intel Prossessor (a.k.a S.Q.U.I.P) and why they originated from Japan. So I was watching this video from Gaijin Goomba a long time ago where he talked about his life living in Japanese society and since living there for a long time (as an english teacher). Gaijin Goomba was talking about this video MeMeMe (I won’t show as it’s NSFW) which has hit him home really hard with depression, so there were times he hid himself from his room where he is surrounded by his Manga and Anime. Now this is condition that is quite common in Japanese culture and the person who choose to live in recluse shutting themselves off from the world to become modern day hermits, known as a ‘Hikikomori’.

A Hikikomori is a person who shut themselves away from society by secluding themselves in their room and living off their parents and confine themselves to their rooms ignoring the world passing by them (this is considered shameful in Japanese society and the parents would keep their hikiomori son/daughter a secret from their friends, family and co-workers), so the hikikomori is surrounded by their love of video games, manga, anime, figurines, hentai... etc, all because that in their country Japan is a hyper competitive society. I know that in western society, we tend to joke about “the 40-something year olds who lives with their mother.”

Jeremy: You look like Keanu Reeves!

Sqiup: That is my default setting, I can be who you want to be, Jeremy. I can also be Sean Connery, Jack Nickleson or even a sexy anime female... tee hee hee.

Notice that the Squip quoted an ‘sexy anime female’ as one of it’s interface options so in my theory, I believe that Squips are pretty much aimed towards those who have high anxiety issues, little to no ambition or direction in their lives... Squips are aimed towards the hikikomori, so the Squip’s primary objective is to give the recluse subject an ‘incentive’ to leave their parents house or apartment by first becoming what they love the most... to become the subjects favourite fictional characters in a video game, tv show, cartoon or their favourite actors by becoming buddy-buddy with their subject by helping the hikikomori by not making the subject ‘cool’ but instead ‘independent’ by giving them basic life skills like cooking and go shopping. (Because in reality, their is a brother/sister program is the cheap and humane approach to get the hikikomori to come out of their rooms, get out of the house, get a stable job and become a reforming member of society.)

Starting with Be More Chill (Part 1) and pay attention to the lyrics.

youtube

Squip: (Song: Be More Chill, Verse 1) All your nerdiness is ugly.

Squip: (Part 1: Chorus) Oh everything about you is so terrible, whoa, everything about you makes me want to die.

We see that the Squip addressed Jeremy’s posture which is a start because posture is everything, next the Squip made an observation that Jeremy’s ‘nerdiness is ugly’ (like any typical Dad telling you stop being a kid, grow up, be an adult.) But put it in the perspective of a hikimomori, if the Squip did not once talked about the dangers of consumerism (though he should have) it wanted us to figure that one out on our own (as humans, we don’t) until later in the song in the second chorus and part 2.

In the first chorus the Squip is pleading to Jeremy that he needs ‘to live’ as a person (still no context) because the Squip wanted to say “I want to be your personal assistant, If you don’t live, I’ll have no purpose and I am giving you purpose in life, please don’t go down this path you’ll be no better than a hikikomori and I can’t live without you... I’m begging you!”

The second verse The Squip would request the subject to simply get a job (without using the words get a job) so it subtly told Jeremy to ‘buy a shirt’ because beyond school and college ‘the real world’ is competitive even in the Squip’s place of origin, Japan.

So in another chorus the Squip made a rebuttal that if Jeremy kept on living like a ‘nerd’ and a ‘slob’ the worst case scenario is that the childish things like anime and manga will become something more drastic... having hentai and porno magazines so the general public’s perception of you would be shameful and label you as a disgusting pervert ‘Everything about you [your lifestyle] sucks, you are such a slob’ (Yep, like the same traits Hikikomori that you didn’t gave us the heads up about the dangers of consumerism, Squip!) The Squip would go as far as literally going to the extremes of using ‘shock tactics’ to scare their hikikomori into looking at their lifestyle choices.

Now pay attention to the opening to Be More Chill (Part 2)

youtube

Squip: Now Repeat after me, oh everything about me is so terrible.

Jeremy: Everything about me is so terrible.

Squip: Good, Whoa, everything about you make me makes me want to die.

Jeremy: Everything about me makes me want to die.

Although the Squip didn’t mention (in detail) about the hikikomori lifestle, it went with the direct approach. “If you continue to like the life as a hikikomori, YOU WILL DIE ALONE because you are not living!”

But what happens if the subject chooses not comply with the Squip and rebel? Well the answer is simple, shocking the subject and gradually optic cloaking their parents to make the hikikomori think that their parents couldn’t put up with their anti-social behaviour anymore so the subject would believe that their folks gave up, packed up and moved. (Yep, the hikikomori could have the tendency to become violent so the Squip is protecting the subject’s parents so they won’t get hurt) and if the Squip fails to protect the subject’s parents, it would call the police.

My third case is controversial use for Squips and that is used on teenagers who have a cognitive behavioural disorder known as Chunnibyou this is known as Eigth-Grader Syndrome who consider themselves to be special (the chosen one, a hero, wizard, demon lord, angel, alien or a beast-kin) like symptoms and want these teenagers who refuse to let go of childish fantasies so the Squip tells the chouniibyou to grow up, stop believing that you are some sort of anomaly, you aren’t going to save or destroy the world because you know that deep down you are merely a human, you are a teenager who is slowly becoming an adult so act like one become members of society.

Final Synopsis:

It’s kind of a shame that a Squip doesn’t understand the concept of having a hobby but when you are an adult, society dictates that you have to let go of childish things because if you guys/gals and non-binary pals ever played Super Smash Bros. Brawl where you face Taboo in Subspace Emissary. You see, taboo is the final boss and in the dictionary it’s means:-

A social or religious custom that is prohibiting or restraining a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place or thing.

Because society tells us that “as adults we are too old to be watching cartoons, play with dolls/action figures... etc” so because the Squip originated from Japan maybe it’s mentality is similar to having a work/business ethnic. (They have a different language when at work so if you are not speaking “business formally” you could get fired!)

To me I am an adult and their is a fine line between responsibility and freedom because there are times where responsibility demands sacrifice (I am a former Magic The Gathering player, yes, I may suck at the game but I love the art) but Magic The Gathering cards aren’t going to put bread on the table, my graphic novels aren’t going to heat up my house and I also need electricity to play my video games. There are times when a brand NEW book will arrives in a month but deep down I can’t afford so I have to put a few books back on it’s shelf and buy them next time.

If a Squip was in the US (or in my case the UK) mental health is important so I would feel sorry for the Squip to not understand how great it is to have things to be passionate about. Yes, being organised is one thing I know I have bills to pay, clothing on my back and food in the fridge but it’s OK to let my hair down and let off some steam once in a while and be spontaneous have some fun.

#be more chill #squip #bmc squip

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hanybanani · 4 years ago

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𝑀𝓎 𝒹𝒶𝒾𝓁𝓎 𝒹𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓅𝒽𝒾𝓁𝑜𝓈𝑜𝓅𝒽𝓎

First of all, what is philosophy and how does it help us? Philosophy is the study of existence and reality, it helps us develop our critical thinking and makes our lives easier in terms of making better decisions and choices in life.

Have you ever wondered how to make good choices in life? Of course, you would want to keep heading into the direction you want and not fall into a spiral of stress and despair. Now, as teenagers, even adults, many of us wondered about our lives, like what is our purpose, some people think they don’t have a purpose. What is success and how will you achieve it, what is good and what is bad, or how should we treat one another, ect.

Philosophy gives us ethics. It involves “systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior". Growing up, we often face choices, there are times when we are indecisive in life and you realize you are responsible as you set an example.

Philosophy in Greek means “the love of wisdom” or “the pursuit of wisdom”, and I think making mistakes can be turned into a valuable lesson to a person. Why do I think this? Well, as Albert Einstein said, “ Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”. My philosophy in making mistakes is that it teaches us to clarify what we really want, it is a fundamental part for every understanding, advancement, and development. The correct exists because of the fault and this is what makes us human. Men is prone to error and develops, but that depends on how one responds to the error.

Philosophy has been around since the 6th century, without it, everything we have now wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t have freedom to have our own opinion, values, nor have equality. It helps us approach into making policies, make rational suggestions into shaping society to become better. Philosophy helps students acquire a knowledge of those ideas and its origins. Philosophy also influence teaching, and even leadership.

Science and philosophy are pretty similar when it comes to finding out what is reality. The difference is that science is all about the natural phenomena and philosophy is understanding the nature of man and our existence. I personally think that philosophy can lead to innovation, giving fantastical inspiration to create new ideas for creating innovative solutions.

The Noble Eight-fold Path

I’m not Buddhist but reading the Eight-fold Path helps to become calmer and be more at peace knowing what to do in times of distress, if you want to follow the Eight Fold Path It’s a good thing to remember that it’s important to be ethical in word and in deed, and thought. To be kind to others, and being positive as much as possible and be respectful and moral person. Remembering those will surely help you to be peaceful in your mind and to everyone around you and will not let you suffer as a bitter person. Having peace within oneself makes you have the right understanding, the right intent, the right speech, right mindfulness, concentration, following all of these creates a harmony in oneself. I have learned that when you’re compassionate towards others and treat them right, you get a reward too, and it also feels good to do something good to others and they will be kind to you as well.

Treating others the right way is good for the mental health and well being, it can reduce the stress and improve our mood and also self-esteem and of course, it makes us happy. Doing good deeds does not need much time or costs money like when listening to your friends without judgement and focus on what they need.

Ecocentric model and evaluate personal views and attitudes toward nature

The environment that God has given us is truly beautiful, the air we breathe, the land we walk on and the plants and animals that live among humans are made carefully. All lives are equal to existence and ecocentrism is a pathway to a sustainable living. Man is made to dominate the Earth and take care of it. Ecocentrism is the reason why we value the environment we live in. Life relies on geological processes and has been worldview and many countries speak about folklore. An ecocentric view holds the planet’s ecology and ecosystems, the the lives of humans, animals, the creatures the lives in the depths of the sea and all life forms. I think that we should continue to take care of our surroundings for the future generation, to look at the world with love of nature, will give the children of the future a wonderful Earth that they could still live on. With all the buidings that are being built, the trees that are being cut and the amount of garbage that is being thrown to the ocean should be reduced and think about the other living things that will suffer from the greediness of mankind.

We should reduce, reuse, recycle to save that dying animals and reduce the pollution in the air that we breathe for the sake of the children and the children of their children. We must protect and value the things that were made to sustain life even if they cannot be used by humans as resources.

Marcos Batas Militar

How can reason be translated into action?

An individual’s speech makes sense based on logic and facts and can be turned into action when the individual starts to act upon his visions logically and comfortably

If there were no intellect, there would be no will. Explain.

You cannot accomplish anything without intelligence or without any practical plan, thus there is no will if you do not know how to make ends meet.

What is a social contract and how is it reflected in the EDSA Revolution?

An agreement from the members of society. The law is reflected in the people by making an agreement.

Was freedom denied during the Martial Law? Was there free choice within the Filipino people?

People could not go outside their houses and speak about the government or they will get killed. There was no freedom for the people who denied the Martial Law and there was no free choice.

How do you think this is similar and/or different from the colonization of the Philippines from the hands of the Spanish, American, and Japanese?

The Spanish people colonized the Philippines under military and religious supremacy while the Philippines is an instrument for WWII for the Japanese. America desires for opportunities that will benefit their own country and to have power over the islands from other countries, it is somehow similar to the Marcos martial law where the authority or people with access to firearms disregards the safety and needs of the people for their own benefit.

How do you think this is similar and/or different from today’s events in the Philippines?

The events regarding for covid-19 are similar but different as people are required to stay home for their own health but similar to martial law as the media sensualize the virus to which it makes people afraid and scared, but according to a doctor in Europe, covid-19 is just like any other flu.

My mother likes listening to classic music and because of my mother, I know about Andrea Bocelli. His music is comforting and his voice is beautiful. Andrea Bocelli is a knows as a great music artist that inspires many people around the globe. When he was still in his mother’s womb, the doctor advised his parents to abort him because him might have a disability, his mother, however opposed the advice the doctor gave and gave birth to him and when he was born he did have many issues with his sight and was diagnosed with congenital glauoma. As a young boy, Bocelli had a passion for music even with his disability, it did not stop him from playing the piano and other instruments and to be a great singer and won countless awards. He is a good model for young kids with disabilities to never stop hoping and dream big.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ

25-year life plan.

Firsly, I want to develop my skills in arts and be able to try out and learn digital drawing since it looks super cool and fun to do and be able to do animations because I wanted to do that as a kid. When it comes to career, I want to get a good job in software technology and be able to create applications and games that would help many people in their daily lives and also have fun. But before I achieve all that, education is important.My plan is to get to graduate college, I want to expand my knowledge in computer programming.

I want to be able to contribute to my family, and support them with their needs, and show them love as much as possible so I guess having a decent stable job would allow me to be helpful to the family. My financial plan would be saving as much to start a business and also giving to charity. In life, you can’t always just be working and working, sometimes looking after yourself is more important as well, being healthy and to excercise more and eat healthy food in order to achieve your goals. Working hard and looking after yourself can take you to places and for pleasure, I would like to do my bucket list like to be able to travel and see places, to be part of an organization helping citizens and the environment, giving to charity and to meet new people and learn from them. I think this is most people’s common life plan, its a dream and a plan, but don’t call it a dream, call it a plan, make it a goal and thrive big.

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delicateheartstranger · 5 years ago

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March 16, 2020

Dear world,

This has been started actually on the 15th, but since it will take awhile to write out everything I will mark it the 16th.

So here begins my crappy 2000s movie start of a blog. Unlike the movies where at some point my blog will blow up and my life will take either a turn for the worse or better I have nothing to fear because that was barely realistic even back then. Since I wanna make sure though just in case any chance someone who knows me finds this I will not state my name. I’ll tell ya’ll this, I’m 19 years old and will be 20 in October, I like fandom shit, I’m trans, I’m pan, I wish I could go back and kill baby Hitler so I would never be born and no ww2, I’m in love with one my best friends, I have feelings for a guy I met online that lives in Norway while I’m stuck in the U.S., I suffer from ptsd/depression/anxiety/a fuck ton of just not being mentally stable, live at home with my parents right now, have no job, most of my close friends are toxic, and I have no privacy.

I was at college for a few month, but then a bunch of things happened and I had to drop out. When I came back home my parents I feel resented me a bit for not being stable enough to stay at that college (they loved it and want to send me back) so now my home life became a lot worse. I’m in a php program currently so even if it weren’t for the fact that my parents would rather roll over dead than have me work (earn money to get the fuck out) I can’t get one since most conflict with time. I’m 19 and only ever held one real job because my parents claim the house needs to be clean before I can work. I’m not the only one who lives here, but okay. Also I would make less messes if I wasn’t home. Top it off it’s like “we don’t want you working for other people before you do the work you owe us at home.” They have this whole family first idea, but the thing is I don’t feel a part of the family. They decided I had no say when I was younger when moving far from home, I wasn’t a part of it enough to get attention while my brother was sick, I wasn’t a part of it enough for them not to judge me to the point where I quit lots of things I loved just so they’d stop hurting me, I wasn’t enough a part of it that they would do things for me that would be what “family” does.

So yes I will put myself aka my mental health first because you guys never will. Because of the Corona outbreak my area has been quarantined. It means 2 weeks no school (wasn’t enrolls), no physical php, less people in public, and that good old shit. Thing is now my parents are trying to force my brother who’s off in college to come back home AND not let me see my friends physically while locking me up in our home. The most I can do if I wanna leave is go for a walk for like 30 minutes near our house. I hate walking as it just riles me up ever more and brings back bad memories of my parents forcing me to. They tried super hard when I was younger to walk the fat off me. Worked like a charm, said no one. If anything the many years of fat shaming made me gain weight as they didn’t get me a therapist, didn’t think I was depressed, didn’t let me take meds, and all I had was eating to comfort me. So yeah I’m basically trapped in my own house. I think I may fuck up. I’ve been around a month or two clean of self harm, but I know that will change in these coming weeks if I am forced to stay here alone with my folks and brother.

I usually have passive SI and SH thoughts, but within this weekend I’ve had so many that I was close to acting on them. They’ve gotten to the level of overwhelming that it’s like I’m back in 11th grade again. Which by the way, found out one my few friends from that time tried to MURDER my other friend (who is a bit newer, but still) is living in a house for people with murderous tendencies. So that’s just peachy. Oh another friend from high school has a brain tumor which probably will kill him and it makes me super sad even though we haven’t talked in years. I am currently upset about my life choices of who I made friends with.

My three best friends would be LM, DW, and LL.

LL is a friend I made in my third high school. He’s kinda going through lots of shit right now. He used to realize that he couldn’t drink and that he could only smoke in small amounts. Now he’s back on his bs. He’s also having unsafe sex with strangers he met on tinder. Now it’s find to fuck around. Go live your best life. But if you are having unsafe sex that’s a problem. He is constantly having pregnancy scares (he’s trans). All of this while on the fact that when he’s not too fucked up he’s like kinda self center. I told him like the other night when he was doing better that I was feeling really down given some shit I got for being fat, but I was fine talking. This man goes ahead and spends the whole time talking about all these stories about himself and doesn’t let me speak for like the whole time. And he was like on this thing about how I need to do something, but he never got there. Don’t tell me how to self improve when you’re in a worse state than me.

Then there is DW. I’ve been in love with him since middle school. We met at this outside of school after school activity. I fell hard. When I first confessed to him he didn’t really speak to me and avoided me for about a year. Then we became friends again due to weird grouping things at that after school activity. Irony was I was trying to get into the group he wasn’t in so I would lose my feelings. Then after we got close again I confessed my feelings, again. Some how that made us best friends? I mean I’m glad he didn’t cut me off again don’t get me wrong, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting. Now here’s some hard shit. About almost a year ago over the summer (2019) we were talking about my weird love life. You see I still tried to date outside of him. Can’t keep going after something that won’t happen. Then I asked about his love life as it’d been like months since I brought it up directly with him. Turns out he’d been dating a girl for almost a YEAR. He just “forgot” to tell me. I understand he could’ve been worried about my feelings, but I’m more hurt that he hid something that big away from me and lied about it too. We’re supposed to be best friends. Course I don’t wanna hear about how he fucks her or whatever. I just wanna be there for him. And so now I’m getting a taste of my own medicine. He is talking about her. How they go on dates, how they had a dear valentines day date, how he cares about her, how she even was in the same php program as me. I wanna fucking strangle her. She used to be my friend, but we grew apart. Then of course I find out that she’s dating the love of my life. Cool. Worst is when me and him are texting and she has the NERVE to try and talk to me. I don’t ever wanna speak to her again. I will if it makes DW happy, but for my sanity and her life I will avoid that. She’s a fine person, props forgot about me and my feelings for him, and doesn’t deserve the utter rage I hold for her. That don’t change it though. All of this on top the fact we’ve been distantly lately. I noticed about like 5 months ago how I was always the one texting DW and that started our convos. How I was the one putting in effort. So I started to text less. He only about 5 times started the conversations. It was over memes and reply to my general instagram stories. I’ve given up and realized if I want him in my life have to do the texting. I won’t let him go anymore. I’ve tried in the past, it don’t help anything. No matter what I try I need him and even if it’s bad for me it’s no worse than not having him.

Now we are on my closest and most toxic best friend. LM. LM I also met in my third high school. She was kind and charismatic. Thing is she is unstable, manipulative, controlling, hurtful, and just really toxic to me. She’s the alpha of the friend group I’m in with her. She can hurt me so much. I’ve tried taking breaks from her in the past, but when that happens she gets angry. She tried in these times to ruin my reputation. She has so much dirt on me. Top it off she lies like crazy and people just like, believe her? The only ones who have been able to see through her shit would be: Me, LL, and MA. That’s it. Not even her own sister can, least she doesn’t show it. It’s shit like, let’s say I was embarrassed by something and felt bad. LM would say I sobbed over it and yeah. Or she also just full on lies about me doing or saying something. It’s too the point where she’s said things about me that could get me in legal trouble if she told some authority figure and they believed her. Like she claims one time that I was about to drug one my crushes if she wasn’t there to stop me and that I masturbated with his jacket when he left the room in his closet. Yes I’m not proud of it, but when I was in a bad head space I thought about the idea/fantasy of having him take horny pills that SHE showed me and offered me. I did also once smell up my crush’s jacket in the closet. Not proud of it at all. I wasn’t stable and wasn’t thinking in my right mind. Doesn’t make what I did okay, but I did not do anything that would be as fucked as she claimed. Sometimes with that old crush she’ll bring it up saying straight up lies like I went to his house. Never did. Did find my crush on white pages (again not okay, but I wasn’t healthy), but never went anywhere near him outside of our setting. So yeah if I cut her off or just take a break she could realllly ruin my life given everyone believes ever word she says. All of that and I’m still a bit bitter over her manipulating a situation where me, her, and a few friends had a crush on the same guy. She lied saying she didn’t have feelings for him. She told us to confess and when we were like ‘idk not to ready for that’ she went ahead and did it for us. He didn’t like us back which is valid. But then she got really handsy and did things that basically helped him fall for her. Now I don’t have feelings for him anymore. If I do imma just push em away given he wouldn’t be good for me. But they constantly do things now as a couple that feel like an invasion on my being. THEY HAD SEX WITH THE DOOR SLIGHTLY OPEN IN THE ROOM NEXT TO ME ONLY TO LIE STRAIGHT TO MY FACE. So they couldn’t see I’d woken up. I was facing the door and they were full on sex. Like I heard the moans. I heard it all. I knew they were fucking. So when they finished and went to wake me up I pretended to be asleep. Then later that day I brought it up to my friend CS (her boyfriend/ex crush) I thought they were having sex cause I could heard them in my dream, he lied to my face saying I was crazy. Straight up gas lighting tactics LM would use. This isn’t the first time they tried that. Even when I was with someone and we both were like yeah we heard ya’ll having sex they denied it and said we were crazy. Like please just don’t fuck when there are others around or at least have the decency to do it where we can’t hear/wake up from it.

All of this said about each one I love them all dearly. And it’s hard the idea of losing them. It’s just so shitty dealing with all their shit on top of my own.

Now the worse thing happening right now that I can’t even talk to a friend about it that I got my new name outed. So my parents are transphobic, but diet transphobic. Like they “support” trans rights yet do really transphobic things.I came out to them a few months ago and not a SINGLE time have they used the right pronouns. Then when bringing up trans things they have shot me down claiming xyz. I just wanna be me, but the same time I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment. At my php program I go by my chosen name. I told all the staff my situation at home yet the nurse managed to fuck up when emailing and wrote in an email that was attached to my parents my chosen name. So great my parents probably know something is up. I’m gonna fucking cry if they hurt me more. They already invalidate me on so many things I can’t stand the idea of them doing so on something so close and core to my identity. They do it with everything else and most things core to who I am. I had one safe space and the nurse had to fuck it up for me. I just can’t fucking deal with all this.

Top it off the one good person in my life, ESK hasn’t spoken to me in about 3 days now. ESK is someone I met online who lives in Europe. He’s genuinely the only good thing in my life. The only non toxic source of happiness. He brings me so much joy. I’m pretty sure he also has feelings for me or had them at one point. He’s 2 years younger than me and is turning 18 soon. I wanna get him a gift, but not only would that be weird, but he also hates celebrating his birthday. So I’ll just wish him a happy birthday when it comes around. Regardless I might not even be able to since he hasn’t responded in awhile. He has some serious health problems so I am worried he could be really sick. That or he’s angry at me/hates me/doesn’t wanna talk anymore. It could be just my anxiety, but the same time it could be true. I hate that I can’t tell. I can’t even talk to any of my bffs about it since they’ll all be super judgmental. Maybe DW, but even then it’d be hard. I just wanna make sure ESK is okay. He means the world to me. I don’t want to lose him. This is all happening after we both showed full face selfies of ourselves in our last convos. I hope he doesn’t think I’m ugly. It’d break my heart into toooooo many pieces if my looks scared him away or made him lose his romantic feelings for me. It’s not like we could date rn as not only are we an ocean away, but I’m far to emotionally unstable to. But hey that won’t matter if he drops off the face of the earth.

Lastly before I go I wanna talk about this girl in my php program who is legit making me crazy. We will call her LLL. She looks and acts just like my first crush, but if she’d grown up. The only difference is her eye color, age, and where she’s from. She isn’t her, but boy that doesn’t stop my lizard brain. I feel like a piece of trash whenever my eyes wander over her more revealing parts. It’s bad to objectify women and bad that I’m placing this role on her. Plus I’m like 90% sure she’s straight and like 60% she has a thing for a guy in our php group (who is much hotter than me). It’s just so hard since I lost my crush via my abusive grandma. It was her fault I didn’t wake up in time (I was 9) which meant I never got her number. I remember my heart sinking seeing her wave good bye to me from her car window as she drove off. I never really got over her as I just repressed any sense of being not cis het. I only really realized what I had for her was more than “wanting to be bffs” like a year or two ago. Still haven’t had the proper therapy to undo all my baggage. I really hope she hasn’t realized that my eyes linger on her just a little too long or that my feet are always pointing towards her. I want it to be a safe space for her.

SO yeah. That’s like 2% of my life rn plus 1% back story. You guys can tell I say like, so, and ya’ll a tad too much. I don’t know what to do and I have to wake up at 7. If anyone sees this I hope you can give me advice before it’s too late.

Yours cordially,

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halloweennut · 6 years ago

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Wonder (Part 2)

part two kids! featuring my other oc as well

Wonder gets an update.

Even without the threat of becoming an app, and with the generally increased freedom of being in McDuck Labs, Wonder still felt closed off. There was nothing she wanted more than to go and actually experience what she saw videos and pictures of, and her questions and curiosity only increased as the days and weeks went by. She had learned and had grown more, but there were so many variables that couldn’t be accounted for, how much she still hadn’t been able to experience for herself. Having her questions answered was nice, but there’s only so much she could ask.

“Dr. Gearloose?” Wonder asked quietly, not wanting to disturb him too much from his concentration, but it looked like he had spaced off in the middle of a schematic. She considered following up with asking him when he last slept, but he responded.

“Yes, Wonder? I’m a little busy right now,” he replied, tapping his pencil on the blue paper. Truthfully, he could use a distraction from the block he had.

“Oh, nevermind then. I can ask later,” she said, pulling up the queue of ocean videos she had. “Just another silly question, I guess.”

“Your questions are only occasionally silly,” Gyro turned to face her, tossing the pencil into a cup. “What do you want to know today?”

Wonder took down the queue, focusing her camera on Gyro. It was the only way she could establish eye contact. Well, not really. She activated her rudimentary hologram program. Wonder hadn’t used it since she was back at Waddle and desperate to move around. The avatar she had crafted herself was a greenfinch, but the light source made it blue and a little pixelated. She had told Gyro about the capabilities she had been programmed with, as well as ones she adopted from other Waddle programs and what she had developed herself, including the hologram application. But after weeks of only dealing with her as a computer, Gyro still looked a little taken aback to see her like that and almost physically there as the hologram settled in 3D space, sitting on a chair - not really sitting but projecting that they were.

“How would I...How would you - Do you know how to make a full, life-size body?” Wonder stuttered out. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful for the computing system and everything you’ve gone out of your way to do for me, but-”

“It’s starting to get small again, isn’t it?” Gyro interjected. The hologram nodded. “And you want to be able to actually learn things first hand so you don’t have to keep asking questions.”

The hologram nodded again. “I know it’s a selfish thing to ask. You have all your other projects for your job, only so much grant money, and I could always just get a RAM and processor upgrade instead - that might help.”

“You’ve been here for weeks now, and you underestimate me? I thought you knew better,” Gyro replied with a shrug. “We’ll start schematics for it soon. It’ll be a technological marvel, honestly, and if it works, who knows the other possibilities we’ll have with the tech that gets developed.”

“With what tech?” The hologram tilted its head. Gyro stared at her like it was the most obvious question in the world.

“That’s a silly question,” Gyro said, pulling out a blank sheet of blue panning paper from a drawer. “Your next upgrade, Wonder, obviously. A whole body with the specifications of your current computing system, but we’ll probably expand that too.”

“Really? You’ll do it?” Wonder exclaimed, the hologram leaping from the chair. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The hologram lunged forward, arms outstretched to wrap around Gyro’s legs, but phased halfway through before pulling back sheepishly. The thank you hug would have to wait until she was corporeal.

---

It had taken months of research, tests, midnights and cups of coffee, but Wonder’s body was finished. Based completely off her hologram and real-life proportions and other biometrics on greenfinches in her age group, if Gyro and Fenton hadn’t compiled her hardware and made her feathers themselves, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the android and a person. Well, the lack of breathing was a good sign, but it wasn’t on and Wonder hadn’t been uploaded to it. Everything had been taken into account to make her look as lifelike as possible, but now the only thing left was to start everything up.

“Okay, the last diagnostic has cleared, we’re all set you two,” Fenton said, looking over at Gyro and Wonder’s screen from his tablet. Gyro had just finished attaching the cables and wires between the body and computer and quickly made sure they were secure, as well as the old shirt they had put on the new body until they could get her proper clothing.

“Ready, Wonder?” Gyro asked. The response was a quickly chirped yes, and he nodded. “Initiate download and system start-up.”

“See you soon,” Fenton said and started the program to get the body running as Wonder’s screen went dim, her files leaving down and out through the cords. A few minutes later, there was a ping, and Wonder’s eyes fluttered open. She blinked a few times, calibrating her nervous system and senses, and then let her eyes focus on the lab, then on Gyro and Fenton, who stood apprehensively over her head.

“Hello,” she whispered, vocal cords not yet fully warmed up. Gyro grinned triumphantly that so far everything was working, masking relief that Fenton fully wore on his face. After she felt more confident in her limbs Wonder slowly sat up on the table. Gyro and Fenton quickly moved to support her, unsure of how stable she was just yet.

“Careful, Wonder,” Gyro warned. “Don’t move unless you’re completely sure. You took a while to make, so let’s not injure ourselves.”

Wonder nodded, and carefully swung her legs off the table, using the two as support as she dropped down to the cold floor of the lab. Her eyes went wide at the sensation - her first feeling of cold!

“The floor’s cold,” she said, excitement in her voice. Fenton laughed.

“Well, her nervous system is functioning,” he said. “Sorry the first thing you felt wasn’t the best.”

“She’ll have plenty of first things, Fenton,” Gyro said. Wonder held his forearm, taking a moment note the feeling of feathers, before trying her first step. She paused at the tug of cords at her neck, which Fenton quickly took care of. Once she was untethered, Wonder continued, latching onto Gyro’s arm as she slowly moved a few feet, stumbling once or twice before she felt confident enough to let go and walk on her own. Fenton excitedly tapped Gyro’s arm as they watched, grin wide as Gyro looked on in approval, monitoring her limb adaptation. Wonder turned to face them with a wide smile - a little goofy and ever so slightly lopsided - and ran to them, tripping at the new mode of movement as she launched into them in a hug.

“Oof!” was a conjoined sound of surprise as she either ran into stomach or knees, hands reaching to support and pat her back in return. Gyro let himself smile a little, knowing how long she’d wanted to do this.

“Well, how do you like it? Everything working well?” Gyro asked, kneeling down to check her ocular reflexes with a small light. She nodded - her pupils dilated normally, good - but shivered.

“Everything is great, still getting used to the cold though,” Wonder replied, wrapping her arms around her middle, but enjoying the feeling of old cotton and her very own feathers under her fingertips. “But it’s wonderful to feel real things!”

“It is a little chilly down here, isn’t it?” Fenton responded. “Let’s look into getting you a coat until you’re used to things.”

“And probably real clothes too,” Gyro said, looking around. He saw Manny enter the room, luckily. “Manny, give me your lab coat.”

Manny looked over - he had been aware of everything happening that day, and had been put in charge of other lab duties - and tapped out a reply of ‘why?’ Gyro stared at him.

“Just give me your coat, Manny. It’s for Wonder,” Gyro explained. With a shrug, Manny took it off and draped it over her shoulders. She tucked her arms into the sleeves and found it comically huge on her. The sleeve dangled below her hands and the coat dragged behind her by at least a foot. Gyro started to roll up the sleeves to the wrist. “Well, it’ll do for now.”

“I know we want to hold off on introducing her to everyone,” Fenton said, “but maybe we should get Penelope involved.”

“Why? We’re perfectly capable of taking care of Wonder,” Gyro replied, looking at him incredulously. Wonder had meandered over to Manny to properly thank him for the coat and to shake his hoof. “I don’t see why we have to involve that know-it-all.”

“I mean obviously we’re capable, but Penelope knows clothing better than we do,” he explained. “Also, we’d look a little creepy shopping in a misses section of a store with no one with us.”

“That’s actually a good point,” Gyro conceded with a sigh. “You go get her, explain everything, and I’ll finish up the tests on Wonder to make sure everything is going well.”

Fenton nodded, and with a quick wave to Wonder, headed upstairs.

---

“So, you’re telling me that you and Gyro essentially adopted an AI, gave it a body, and now you want me to buy them clothing?” Penelope asked during the elevator ride down. Fenton nodded.

“Well, we haven’t adopted her exactly, if anything she’s almost like another intern that Gyro took on,” Fenton said. “But I know he definitely cares more than he lets on. Like with Lil Bulb. Also, I just helped with her, and while yes, I am concerned with her welfare, this isn’t exactly a joint thing. Besides, saying it like that makes it sound like Gyro and I are in a relationship, which we’re not.”

“Right,” the hen replied. “Well, I’m willing and able to buy them clothes. But on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m their aunt and/or godmother. No exceptions,” she stipulated. “None of my other friends have kids for me to spoil yet, and I have the need to be someone’s cool lesbian aunt.”

“Deal. You’ll have to clear it with Gyro, but I think he’ll be resistant,” Fenton agreed, running a hand through his hair. She shrugged.

“I’ll buy them clothing anyway, but even if he doesn’t agree I’m going to assume the role.”

The lift stopped and the doors opened to the lab. Wonder was fiddling with a puzzle cube while Gyro monitored her motor functions and visual processing. The two looked up at them - Gyro with defeated disdain and Wonder with curiosity. Penelope paused a second before walking forward. “Hello, Gyro.”

“Penelope,” he greeted, deadpan, placing his clipboard down as he turned to face her. “I assume Fenton told you everything?”

“You assume correctly,” she replied, stopping in front of Wonder, and crouched down so she was eye to eye with her, and extended out a hand. “Hello there. I’m Penelope.”

Wonder took her hand and gave it a gentle shake. “I’m Wonder. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Wonder,” Penelope smiled. “Now, Fenton asked me to go and get you a wardrobe so you’re not running around in some old lab coat. Any preferences?”

“Not that I can think of. But I love the color blue!” Wonder answered. Penelope nodded, stepping back to get a better look at her in terms of sizing and what color range of blue would match her feathers best.

“I can work with that,” the hen said, very self-assured before turning back to Gyro and Fenton. “I’ll be back in two hours. Also, Gyro, whether you like it or not, I’m her aunt now. I was going to have you agree to that, but now you don’t have a choice. Sorry. Ta-ta now.”

While Gyro sputtered in frustration at her assumption of kinship, Penelope patted Wonder on the head and made her way back up.

---

Two hours later, Penelope arrived back in the lab. While Gyro and Fenton expected maybe two bags at most, she arrived with at least several, most of them being from Toulouse’s boutique. Fenton’s eyes went wide at the bags as she set them on a worktable, looking very triumphant.

“How much did you-”

“Well, I said I would get her a wardrobe and I did,” Penelope said. “She’s covered until next season, then we’ll look into fall and winter clothing.”

“Isn’t this excessive?” Gyro asked, Wonder grabbing a bag and peering into the contents. There was a mix of different clothing articles, in different shades of blue and just as many fabrics. Penelope looked at him confused.

“That sounds impossible. Like I wasn’t going to get her a whole closet worth of things. Besides, I don’t trust your or Fenton’s fashion sense,” Penelope replied. “But if it makes you feel better, one of the bags is a full outfit for today, plus accessories and pyjamas.”

She plucked a bag from the pile and handed it to Wonder, who gasped in excitement, grabbing it with a thank you and running to the bathroom to change.

“I hate to say it, but thank you, Penelope,” Gyro said. “I know Wonder appreciates it.”

“Not a problem.” Penelope picked up a folder she had slipped into one of the bags. “I also arranged for a birth certificate and adoption papers to be made for her. The paperwork is all here. Please fill it out and have it on my desk no later than Friday. I’d rather have her in the system sooner than later so we can get a paper trail of her existence going, albeit falsified.”

Gyro flipped open the folder - there was a blank birth certificate and other state-related paperwork concerning Wonder and her life. He decided he didn’t want to know how Penelope got a hand on these or how she planned on falsifying the records to prove Wonder’s existence.

“I’m a good secretary,” she said, unprompted but as though she read his thoughts, but before he could answer she turned towards the bathroom. “Wonder? You ready?”

A second later, Wonder came out, shirt and lab coat folded in her arms. Instead, she was wearing a robin’s egg blue pleated skirt and a light blue short-sleeved button-up, a necklace with a little strawberry charm, and a pair of dark blue high-top sneakers. Penelope cooed, gently clapping her hands together.

“Aw, Wonder you look great, kiddo!” Fenton encouraged, taking the coat and shirt from her. She smiled, ducking her head shyly. “Someone get a camera, we need to document Wonder’s first day!”

Manny tapped out a quick response, grabbing his phone from the counter and motioning for the two of them to pose. Penelope pushed Gyro over. “Go on, you’re her guardian too. You should be in there.”

“I was heading over, Glider,” he snipped, forcefully adjusting his vest as he made his way to Wonder’s side, Lil Bulb following close behind, hopping up onto her shoulder. Wonder looked at Gyro and Fenton and smiled. Gyro, strangely gentle, smiled back, and in a fatherly way ruffled the feathers on her head, just as Manny snapped the picture.

---

Meeting Scrooge happened earlier than either of them planned, only a few hours after Penelope had met Wonder. They hadn’t expected him to come down to the labs anytime soon, but apparently, he had been curious as to why Gyro hadn’t interrupted any board meetings with a new invention recently. Of course, Wonder was the first thing he noticed when he came down to the lab to question them.

“Gyro, Fenton, why is there a child in your very dangerous labs? And where are her parents?” Scrooge asked, flatly, immediately going to one of the few obvious solutions. “Gyro, I thought we agreed on no necromancy.”

“She’s not a reanimated corpse,” Gyro quickly explained. “While I certainly could reanimate reconnected tissue, this isn’t the case.”

“Technically she is animated though! But not how you think?” Fenton added, nervous.

“Can you two stop with the riddles, please? What does that even mean?” Scrooge ordered. The two looked at each other and then back at Wonder. She walked over to him.

“I’m Wonder,” she introduced herself, extending a hand. “I’m an Artificial Intelligence program that Dr. Gearloose and Mr. Crackshell-Cabrera gave a physical form to. It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. McDuck.”

It was a blunt explanation, and it still left Scrooge confused. Blankly, he shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you as well. Can I have a word with those two privately for a moment?”

Wonder nodded, grabbing Manny with a plea to come play chess in another section of the lab with her, and Scrooge turned to the two in confusion and irritation.

“Further explanation, now. And spare me the science talk - layman’s terms. I’m not even sure what an “artificial intelligence program” is.”

The explanation of what artificial intelligence was, then the full, nothing withheld explanation about Wonder took twenty minutes. Gyro and Fenton pulled up their research and her tests results:

“Wonder is essentially a 14-year-old finch in every way except she’s made of carbon steel and synthetic feathers.”

“See? She’s just like a human person, but smarter.”

“Mr. McDuck, imagine the biotechnical possibilities we have access to with the progress we made making her a body.”

“She’s so much safer here than at Waddle. Her program is far too advanced to be in that mess of a company.”

Pinching the bridge of his beak, Scrooge held up a hand to stop the two of them from continuing. Fenton’s worry was clear on his face, but Gyro was unreadable, save for a hard stare. “I get it, you two. Waddle doesn’t know she’s here?”

“No. We made sure of that and we monitor Waddle’s search attempts,” Gyro said. Waddle Tech had made a big to-do about the Wonder Assistant program going missing from their labs, with a full, large-scale search and questioning. But in the past month, it had died down since there had been no leads. Fenton had made sure that the company firewalls were at the highest level of protection to assure no probing attempts were made. Scrooge sighed.

“And where is Wonder going to live now? Do either of you have an idea about how to raise a child? She can’t stay here in the lab,” Scrooge asked. “And what about records with the state for her?”

“Penelope gave us paperwork to fill out. Birth certificate, adoption papers, everything,” Fenton replied, but then lowered his head, resting it on his hand. “Where is she going to stay? I don’t have any room in my house.”

“Obviously with me. I have the financial means and the spare room in my apartment,” Gyro said. Scrooge raised an eyebrow. “Besides, I’ve already filled out most of the adoption papers. And while, yes, my experience with children is...limited... it's not rocket science, and Fenton is good with kids. He can help if I need it.”

“Which I am more than capable of doing!”

“Not to mention, I’m one of the few people who can take care of her machinery and knows how,” Gyro continued over Fenton. “It’s the only option that makes sense. She’d be safe in my care.”

“Gyro, it’s not that I don’t think you’re capable but -” Scrooge paused, looking at the hardset, determined gaze of Gyro and the half-pleading look on Fenton’s, and sighed. “Fine. But one of us who knows about Wonder will check in on her and you whenever we please. She’s a child, and needs to be treated and raised as such, understand?”

“Fair enough,” Gyro agreed with a nod.

“And Fenton, make sure he does that,” Scrooge said. Fenton nodded wholeheartedly. Scrooge smiled lightly. “Don’t let me down, you two. Now I think I should like a proper introduction to your ward.”

#ducktales oc #wonder #penelope glider #gyro gearloose #fenton crackshell-cabrera #scrooge mcduck #ducktales #ducktales ocs

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johnboothus · 3 years ago

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Next Round: F!ve Drinks Aims to Can the Craft Cocktail Bar

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter chats with Felipe Szpigel, founder of F!ve Drinks Co. Szpigel discusses the brand’s aim to can cocktails that are as delicious as freshly made drinks crafted by top bartenders. Then, Teeter and Szpigel discuss the canned cocktail industry at large and why RTDs may be the future of the beverage industry.

In addition, Szpigel details F!ve Drinks’ canned cocktail lineup, including a collaboration with Dante, which has resulted in the brand’s Summer Spritz, Americano, and Gin & Tonic. Then, Teeter and Szpigel talk about the lingering impact Covid has left on the beverage industry, and Szpigel shares his vision for the future of F!ve Drinks.

Tune in and visit https://www.buyfivedrinks.co/ to learn more about F!ve Drinks.

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Adam Teeter: From VinePair’s New York City headquarters, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a VinePair Next Round conversation. Today, we are speaking with Felipe Szpigel, co-founder and CEO of F!ve Drinks. Felipe, thank you so much for joining me.

Felipe Szpigel: Thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me.

A: So where are you right now?

F: I’m actually in São Paulo. I’ve been spending time here and in Miami for the last year.

A: Wow, so how’s the weather in São Paulo?

F: Well, it’s not that different from Miami, right? I guess after living too long in New York, I needed a little bit more of the sunshine.

A: I love it, so thanks so much for joining us. Can you tell us a bit about F!ve Drinks for those who are unaware of what F!ve Drinks is?

F: Yeah. To start, we make amazing craft cocktails in a can. We wanted to take the fine mixologist or the best of what you can enjoy in a bar to people any time, anywhere.

A: And how did this idea come about? Your background, for those who aren’t aware, is that you worked at AB InBev for quite a while running the craft beer program, correct?

F: Correct.

A: How did you move from craft beer to cocktails? Were you always a cocktail person? What gave you the idea to pursue this and how long has the business been around?

F: Like many of your listeners, I love drinking proper alcohol. Most of the time I would drink beer and actually, I always liked cocktails. Start with a cocktail, and then go with a chaser. Anyways, in terms of my background, I was at AB InBev for almost 20 years, and I did a bunch of different things in different parts of the world. I think the one that connected me into this world was leading the high-end, as you mentioned. We created a division to then find amazing craft partners, bring them on board, integrate them and help them expand their businesses. There were so many great entrepreneurs passionate about it. Let’s say my itch to do my own version of that was coming to fruition. On the spirit side, we had a couple of things in mind. One is, I think the right way of having a proper business is finding business partners that you like and that complement you. I am lucky to have four other partners that are amazing. Chris and Jeremy Cox are geniuses in product, Gus comes from a marketing background, and Roberto has more of a traditional finance background. Someone has to do the math for us. The second piece is that there is still a big evolution into the ready-to-drink space. To be candid, I like full-flavored drinks. I like real things. Even when consuming food and everything else I do, I’m one of those people who look into the labels. We saw this white space of just doing amazing cocktails using real ingredients and just offering convenience to consumers.

A: So when did this idea start to percolate? What year was this?

F: This was the end of 2018.

A: Did you leave AB InBev pretty quickly after or when do you depart and decide to start pursuing this full time?

F: Inside ABI, I was already working on some of these projects. For example, Devil’s Backbone in Virginia and also 10 Barrel in Oregon. I left at the end of 2018, and very quickly, we put the project up. We launched in Miami, July 2019.

A: Wow.

F: In six months, we were up and running.

A: How are you able to do that? Usually, R&D takes forever. Did you already have some formulations? Did you know what you wanted to put in the market that quickly? Was it just based on your experience in the business for so long that you knew how to get it done fast?

F: I think it’s a combination of all of the above. It is a delicate industry, right? The regulations are not simple. Being able to navigate regulations and potential business partners was helpful. We were bootstrapped, but we had cash to get up and running. That was an acceleration to the process. There was not a fundraising period. In terms of the product, I think that’s where Chris and Jeremy come together, right? We loved drinking cocktails even before that, as well as many of the craft folks I knew. We knew what we wanted so in terms of products, they did an amazing job on being able to replicate the flavors of great bars and putting them in shelf-stable cans.

A: I have some questions about that but before we get into the flavors and how you made the cocktails come to life in the can, I’m curious just about the business side a little bit. Did you ultimately raise any investment? Are there any investors in the business besides the five of you now? If you did, what was that process like? How did you go about convincing people that canned cocktails are going to be as big as they’ve now become?

F: I think people are still figuring out that this is going to be a huge, huge business. I was lucky enough to see the craft movement and how big the industry has gotten. It’s still developing with the number of players and I also was part of the beginning of the seltzer movement. AB InBev had partnered with Spiked Seltzer, the originator of the category even before White Claw and Truly came out. I think the insight here is that liquor is an $80 billion-plus industry that’s growing.

A: Yeah.

F: Most people drink the product mixed, so if you can offer something amazing and ready to drink, there’s no reason why people wouldn’t drink it. Especially with the many occasions where you need convenience right outside of the bar setting.

A: Right.

F: Again, most of us that partnered on the first rounds had lifelong work in the industry. We got all of our savings and put it behind the business. We wanted to have control and direction. I am still the majority shareholder of the company, and the ability to run my vision was critical. Now, our vision in fundraising is whenever you can get more cash, it will help you accelerate the growth of the business.

A: Totally.

F: We will likely come up with another round soon, but the way we’ve looked at it so far is looking at people that can contribute with cash but can also complement in a strategic sense. We did the rounds at the end of September last year. Companies at the beginning valued it at $10 million, so we sold 10 percent of the company. Back then, we looked at people in other industries. We looked to access capital in entertainment, so our idea was to have more expertise and discover things that we honestly didn’t know. People can help us in guiding the best direction for the company.

A: I know that ZX is an investor, correct?

F: Yeah.

A: And that’s when they invested?

F: They were part of the first investment rounds.

A: Very cool. That is very helpful in terms of getting to scale and people who know the industry, even though you do as well. That’s cool. Going back to the flavors, one of the biggest things that we’ve talked about a bunch is that flavors in canned cocktails are really hard to get right. That’s what other people who I’ve spoken to have said they think is ultimately holding the category back is that ability to replicate fresh citrus juice and keep it shelf-stable. Having had some of the cocktails you guys make, they are really on point with flavor. What are you doing? How do you think about flavor in terms of what you’re delivering to the consumer to ensure that it can be as delicious as that cocktail you’re getting at the cocktail bar?

F: Yeah, thanks for the compliment, first of all. I think the quality of the cocktails is what makes us stand out. For us, the philosophy was always to make something similar to what we would drink at the bar. Even today, most of the time when we go to venues, hotels, and golf courses, I generally come in and ask, “Can you make a Margarita, a Moscow Mule, and use top-shelf spirits?” Then, we taste it together with our drink, and we’re always at the same level. I think the discussion of our cocktail being at that level is something that blows people’s minds away. We took the same craft philosophy that we and our partners would use, which is no compromise to the flavor profile. Also, to go back and innovate on the process to be able to get the right product out there. Two things make a huge difference. One is the quality of the ingredients. We work with amazing craft spirits. For example, Oregon Spirits. In our collaboration, we use Mancino vermouth, which is one of the best vermouths in the world today and comes from Italy. There’s no compromise to what we put in. And it’s the same thing with the fresh juices. For example, in our Summer Spritz, because we need that fresh cucumber flavor coming out, we press the cucumbers right before we mix it and before we put in the Key lime.

A: Oh, wow.

F: It is the same thing when we use mint or hibiscus leaves. I mean, we steep it into the tank. It’s similar to doing a humongous batch of a great craft cocktail that you would have at your favorite bar. The other piece, for us, is we didn’t want to add anything. Citric acid is not lime, so you have to figure out a way of using lime and working with lime so it doesn’t oxidize, and then it maintains the flavor profile. I think the summary here is we focus on the no-compromise route, and it doesn’t matter that we pay higher taxes. It doesn’t matter that in New York, we can’t sell in grocery stores because it’s spirits-based and not malt-based or fermented sugar. We wanted an amazing product and we developed the innovation on the back end to be able to get there. We’ll get to the consumers in whatever way, shape, or form that legalities allow us to have access to consumers.

A: You rolled right into my next question, which was about that access. One of the reasons people are giving for these explosions of Truly and White Claw — besides the fact that the market was poised for a sessionable, full-flavored beverage that was low in calories — is the accessibility of it. I’m in New York and you used to live in New York, so we would call those convenience stores bodegas. You would go to any bodega or grocery store and buy them quickly. Whereas for the fastest-growing spirits-based seltzer, High Noon, the discussion has been surrounding it being held back a little bit based on the fact that in a lot of markets it has to be bought in liquor stores? How are you combating that? Saying you’ll meet the customer where they are is interesting, but what are you doing to make sure the customer knows you exist and can find you as easily as possible?

F: Yeah, and compound that with Covid.

A: Totally.

F: I mean, there’s no on-premise, no events, even the travel industry. I want to come back to the point where we thrive on the channels we are present at. For example, in our home market in Florida, customers like ABC Liquors or Total Wine, you can’t go into a store in Florida today and not see our product. It’s great to have support and perform as a top-five seltzer brand, including all the brands you even named. That includes longtime brands such as Mike’s Hard Lemonade, we’re just behind White Claw, Truly, High Noon, and sometimes Bud Light Seltzer. We’re right up there. I think there’s no escaping the fact that we made the selective choice of going for the product quality. Even if it’s less available, consumers will gravitate towards better-tasting products at some point. The second piece is on the marketing side. We try to punch above our weight by doing fun stuff, getting articles written about it, and even you giving us this opportunity with the importance of VinePair. It’s a great way for us to get the word out there and get people to try our products. Finally, the last one has been important because we had planned to have a distillery down in Miami with an experiential component as a way of innovating, getting consumer feedback, and also building the brand. We quickly pivoted to the online part of the business — right now, it’s currently around 10 percent of our sales.

A: OK.

F: It’s a great way of us getting early feedback, putting innovation out, playing with the packaging, and also learning feedback from new states. Unfortunately, due to the regulations and even the cost of doing business online with platforms like Facebook or Google charging you so much for ads, it’s not a profitable part of the business. But it’s a great marketing tool to be able to connect to consumers, though.

A: In terms of the ingredients, you mentioned some Italian vermouth. Are you making a lot of the ingredients for the cocktails? I’m talking about the spirit bases. Are you sourcing them from other well-known spirits producers? When you do source them, let’s say you use a well-known rum. I don’t know if you do, to be honest. I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but I am curious, how much do you then think about putting a particular brand on the side of the can or not? How much is that going into your thought process for the creation of all these different cocktails?

F: It’s a great question. We’re not producing spirits today. We’re sourcing them. All of them are recipes developed for us or with us because again we want those flavor notes at the end product.

A: Right.

F: There is a development process, so we have this combination of great spirits makers that are flexible to create a recipe for us. We developed the products and packaging, to your point about brand naming, and our whole idea was to collaborate with others. That’s why, for example, we collaborated with Dante.

A: Right. I was gonna ask you about that, too.

F: Yeah, so I’ll start with that Dante example and then bridge back to the discussion on the spirits. I was a huge fan of Dante. Actually, on the day I signed the formalization of the company, that’s where I went to celebrate and had a Negroni.

A: Oh, awesome.

F: Our partnership came up many months after that and I’ll tell you this story over a couple of drinks in New York soon, but it’s one of those synchronicities in the world, right? It’s a longer story, but it’s interesting. I knew the founders from doing business in the past but didn’t know they were founders of Dante. Anyway, I think the whole idea there is that our cans are so simple and minimalistic. They’re almost like a white canvas for you to paint on.

A: Yes.

F: It is this whole idea that if there is someone that has something to say or put out there, we’re more than happy to use our brand for that. I think the collaboration with Dante is that, well, they had just won the best bar in the world. I love the place, and they make amazing cocktails. Now, could we take our cocktails to the next level by sharing the same vision we had? Let’s say, making the mixology available to many more people and being able to do that on a larger scale and put it outside of the bar setting, right?

A: Right.

F: I think that philosophy is what we put on the brands. I think the Mancino is an example where they’re doing amazing work. They’re working with us on the recipes, our drinks, and how to take our drinks to the next level. We might as well put the name there, right? I’m not against putting a famous brand or a big brand on the label, but I think it’s less about that. It’s more about the philosophy of collaboration and doing something that we’re both passionate about.

A: Will the Dante collaboration be ongoing, or was that a one-time thing that I saw?

F: We never know the future, but we did it for the long term. I don’t think we even talked about this or most people know about this in the U.S., but we also launched F!ve Drinks in Brazil. Some of the founders are Brazilian. I have a daughter, so during the pandemic, I spent so much time here that I said we might as well launch F!ve Drinks before I go back to the U.S. But Dante is a well-known brand here. They did a bunch of pop-ups already in the last couple of years, so expanding it outside of the U.S. is a huge opportunity. For example, in Australia, this ready-to-drink market is huge. It’s even bigger than the rest of the bottle spirits industry.

A: Right.

F: There is an opportunity as well to get something out there. I think both sides hope it’s ongoing and a bigger opportunity, but I’m really proud of the three products that are already out there: the Summer Spritz, the Americano, and the Gin & Tonic.

A: You seem to do a lot of limited releases. You’ll release a really cool new cocktail and it seems like it’s limited, at least. Was that always part of the marketing strategy as well? Putting a cocktail out there, see if it hits, and then maybe do it more later?

F: That is a piece of the craft industry that I loved. I think it’s also a critical piece of this ready-to-drink space, where people want variety. If the Moscow Mule is your top seller, variety packs are something that’s important. Again, someone’s entry to the brands, whether they’re going to someone’s house or they’re bringing people over, they want more variety. Those are the two biggest selling units, but the way to innovate is, we will keep getting things out but cycle through the ones that our consumers did not get as excited about. I’ll give an example. I like Gin and Tonic, right? For me, it is a summer, outdoor, higher-volume drink — the one that I can keep going to because my palate doesn’t get tired. I was bullish when we launched the first three flavors because I wanted to launch my gin and tonic. A London dry gin, a good tonic, and a nice splash of lime. I loved our Gin and Tonic, but I was likely one of the few people that loved it. Then, we launched the Paloma and a Watermelon Vodka Soda, so we had all of our products. Now, I can kill the Gin and Tonic. We have an upgraded version from the collaboration with Dante. Yet, I think for us, the sweet spot is having half a dozen flavors out there at the given time but launching a few during the year and cycling through. I think that’s going to be the business and let the consumer taste it and decide for themselves which ones they like the most.

A: Very cool. That is interesting. Now that we’re coming out of the pandemic and people are in-person more, where do you see F!ve Drinks headed in the next year?

F: Great question. We still have so many people that haven’t tried our product yet. We have two big challenges. One is just getting people to sample and then decide for themselves if we’re worth the $10 for the 4-pack. In general, people think it’s worth it after they try the product. More than 80 percent of people think so, which is great. The second piece for us is category education. Not all cocktails are created equal. Even from my past life, before some of the good stuff that is out there today including our brands, I had a prejudice to the category. I thought it was going to be malt-based, sugary, or full of artificial flavors. It was not my thing. It was a thing for many people, but it was not my thing.

A: Right.

F: Together with the sampling and just distribution in general, I think the biggest opportunity we have is educating consumers that not all cocktails are created equal and that we and some other people are worth the shot. The other thing with the pandemic that we’re seeing is as things start opening up, there is a challenge with the limited service in hotels or bars and events. Even you and me, right? I mean, are you going to be OK if so many people touch your product? Where were the eyes? Suddenly, you have a really good product. For example, there’s a bunch of hotel chains in South Florida that already carry our product. The One Hotel, for example, is one of our top on-premise customers. We are on the beach service, the pool service, and on the minibar right now. We will never be a substitute for a great bartending program, but for that flexibility of the additional occasion or the speed-to-service. Now, you don’t need to compromise in terms of quality. I see that and ask, “Why would you have to be 30 minutes in line in a venue to have a decent cocktail while you can grab a cocktail right at the same speed you would get a can of beer? And it’s a very good cocktail, right? I mean, it doesn’t depend on the bartender. The best bartenders already pre-batched the huge batch back in our production places. I do believe that transit, travel, and then larger on-premise venues that need the speed-to-service are huge opportunities for us to get distribution, sampling, and then build back the brands.

A: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Someone was telling me in an anecdote recently about a canned spritz that they had created. They were being told this by a big on-premise bar of theirs that was saying, “When we’re packed, these are easy to sell to people who don’t want to wait.” If the bar is three people deep and you’re just looking for something quality without the pomp and circumstance, it helps the bars out a lot. I definitely hear you that I think this isn’t just an off-premise product. There’s a huge potential for these canned cocktails on-premise.

F: Yeah.

A: Felipe, thank you so much for taking the time. It’s been really interesting to learn more about F!ve Drinks and what you guys have been up to in your trajectory. I appreciate it.

F: Thank you, Adam. It’s great connecting, and thank you for the space. Also, thank you to everyone that’s listening. If you haven’t tried the F!ve Drinks cocktail yet, the Moscow Mule is a top seller but we also have this amazing collaboration with Dante, the best bar in the world. We would love to get your feedback, too.

A: Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time, and hopefully we’ll be in touch again sometime soon.

F: Same here. Thanks, Adam.

Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits, VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: F!ve Drinks Aims to Can the Craft Cocktail Bar appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-five-drinks-felipe-szpigel/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-fve-drinks-aims-to-can-the-craft-cocktail-bar

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wineanddinosaur · 3 years ago

Text

Next Round: F!ve Drinks Aims to Can the Craft Cocktail Bar

Tune in and visit https://www.buyfivedrinks.co/ to learn more about F!ve Drinks.

Listen Online

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Felipe Szpigel: Thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me.

A: So where are you right now?

F: I’m actually in São Paulo. I’ve been spending time here and in Miami for the last year.

A: Wow, so how’s the weather in São Paulo?

F: Well, it’s not that different from Miami, right? I guess after living too long in New York, I needed a little bit more of the sunshine.

A: I love it, so thanks so much for joining us. Can you tell us a bit about F!ve Drinks for those who are unaware of what F!ve Drinks is?

F: Yeah. To start, we make amazing craft cocktails in a can. We wanted to take the fine mixologist or the best of what you can enjoy in a bar to people any time, anywhere.

A: And how did this idea come about? Your background, for those who aren’t aware, is that you worked at AB InBev for quite a while running the craft beer program, correct?

F: Correct.

A: How did you move from craft beer to cocktails? Were you always a cocktail person? What gave you the idea to pursue this and how long has the business been around?

A: So when did this idea start to percolate? What year was this?

F: This was the end of 2018.

A: Did you leave AB InBev pretty quickly after or when do you depart and decide to start pursuing this full time?

A: Wow.

F: In six months, we were up and running.

A: Yeah.

A: Right.

A: Totally.

A: I know that ZX is an investor, correct?

F: Yeah.

A: And that’s when they invested?

F: They were part of the first investment rounds.

A: Oh, wow.

F: Yeah, and compound that with Covid.

A: Totally.

A: OK.

A: Right.

A: Right. I was gonna ask you about that, too.

A: Oh, awesome.

A: Yes.

A: Right.

A: Will the Dante collaboration be ongoing, or was that a one-time thing that I saw?

A: Right.

A: Very cool. That is interesting. Now that we’re coming out of the pandemic and people are in-person more, where do you see F!ve Drinks headed in the next year?

A: Right.

F: Yeah.

A: Felipe, thank you so much for taking the time. It’s been really interesting to learn more about F!ve Drinks and what you guys have been up to in your trajectory. I appreciate it.

A: Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time, and hopefully we’ll be in touch again sometime soon.

F: Same here. Thanks, Adam.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: F!ve Drinks Aims to Can the Craft Cocktail Bar appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-five-drinks-felipe-szpigel/

0 notes